by Leslie Wolfe
And they weren’t going to team up together anymore. It was written.
Before the end of the meeting, Elliot resigned. Outside, feeling cold in the mid-July heat, he hugged Charlene and left, responding to her wall of objections with a shake of his head and keeping his eyes hidden under the brim of his hat. He walked away without having told her how he felt, without having held her except for that last goodbye embrace.
A few months later, he took the detective job in Mount Chester, grateful for the frigid climate, because everything having to do with heat reminded him of Charlene. Her sleeveless white tops she wore at work. Tiny droplets of sweat forming above her upper lip. Her smile, the way she threw her hair back and looked at him over her shoulder, saying, “Hot dang, partner, are you coming? Can’t afford to keep those perps waiting in this heat, now can we?”
Mount Chester had been peaceful for him with its frozen winters, pristine white snow covering the mountains six months a year and crystal blue skies like he’d never seen anywhere else. He’d established himself, with a solid record and good case closure rates, and had earned the respect of his adoptive community.
Then Kay Sharp had appeared, with her letters, her profiling skills, and an unexpected vulnerability he perceived to exist disguised under her appearance of strength. And he could think of little else but her.
Last time he was so eager to start work each day it ended up in a raging ball of fire, burning him so badly he had to leave his beloved Texas behind and chill his heart in the frozen mountain winters to forget about Charlene. Getting work mixed with personal issues was a terrible idea, and he knew that better than anyone else.
This time, the sheriff had stepped in and had set a time limit to his collaboration with Dr. Kay Sharp, although he wasn’t kidding himself as to the real reason why he hadn’t given his boss the heads-up about bringing Kay in on the case.
“So, there, go shoot yourself in the foot again,” he mumbled to himself when he got behind the wheel of his SUV. “Let’s see where you move to this time. Alaska?”
Still, as he peeled off, heading out to meet Kay, he was smiling.
Ten
Broken
Elliot was quiet for most of the drive, and Kay wondered whether she had anything to do with his silence. He’d picked her up as planned, to visit with the Christensen family, but had hardly spoken a word since he’d said, “Howdy,” with a tip of the hat.
It was a mild October day, when the sun still showed it had the power to defeat the night’s cold shadows, and the drive over the mountain to the Christensens was an unexpected joy. She didn’t think she’d feel that way about any aspect of her life back in Mount Chester, but she had to admit there had been things she’d missed about her hometown. The scents filling the air when the sun hit the dew-covered grass on a fall morning. The chirping of the jays and warblers, interrupted at times by eagle cries that scared them all into silence for a while, fearing the predator circling above their heads. The snow-covered crests of the mountain, staying forever white, a postcard view against the California blue sky.
“They helped us identify Kendra, you know,” Elliot broke the silence as he turned onto the street where the family lived. “They saw the TV ad we were running, and called it in.”
“Uh-huh,” she replied, her mind piecing the puzzle together. A legal assistant from New York, who was about to visit a family in Mount Chester about an inheritance. Yet they recognized her from a TV ad? “Where had they seen her before? If they’d never met?”
“To recognize her, you mean? They didn’t.”
“You just said—”
“They called and said the person they were supposed to meet with never showed. We took it from there.”
Elliot pulled up at the curb in front of the modest ranch and cut the engine. She approached the front door, but didn’t get a chance to knock. A middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile opened the door, inviting them in.
“You must be the detectives,” she said, and Kay didn’t think she needed to clarify her status. “Please, come in. We were expecting you.”
Stepping inside the Christensens’ home was like visiting another chapter of her childhood. The quilt-covered sofa, clean but a little worn out, was a mainstay in every local living room. A fresh pot of coffee, ready to be served, waited for them on the dining room table, set on a silver tray and surrounded by simple white ceramic cups. Mrs. Christensen busied herself with the cups, then rushed to the kitchen to bring sugar and milk.
A man stood with visible difficulty, walking over to greet them with a bent back and an extended hand. He had the build of a day laborer, but kind eyes and a warm, baritone voice. Straightening his back, he smiled, the smile not touching his grim eyes. “Paul Christensen,” he said, shaking Kay’s hand, then Elliot’s. “Please, make yourselves at home.”
He looked at them with unguarded curiosity, rubbing his hand against his three-day stubble. “This is an unfortunate occasion, but if you don’t mind me saying, we like having people over.”
Kay smiled. “Thank you for having us, Mr. Christensen.”
“Please, call me Paul,” he replied simply.
It was hard not to like him. He was fifty-four years old, and had worked for the US Forest Service all his life. His wife, Madeline, was a nurse, and she was five years younger than him. That was the extent of the information police records were able to provide about the couple. That, and the fact that they had no criminal record and had always filed their taxes on time.
“And you can call me Maddie,” the woman said, offering Kay a cup of coffee.
She took it with a nod. There was something pleasant about the woman, almost motherly. Her hair was short, but that didn’t take away from her femininity; quite the opposite. And there was a warmth in her eyes, almost like a glow. Kay had only seen that in people who really loved what they did for a living. Instead of the harshness the years of labor can bring over one’s features, there’s a sense of accomplishment, of achievement, of having made a difference. Maddie’s interior warmth was a testimony to that, although nursing was never an easy job.
Intrigued, Kay asked, “Maddie, please call me Kay. And that’s Elliot, over there.”
She nodded, and her smile widened.
“What do you do for a living, if I may ask?”
“I’m a neonatal nurse,” she replied with pride in her voice. “I work in Redding. It’s a bit of a drive every day, tough to do in winter, but I get to work with babies, and that makes it all worthwhile.”
That explained it. Kay looked around the room and didn’t see photos of a large family; only Maddie and Paul in a couple of instances, but that was it. The couple probably didn’t have children of their own.
“We have a few questions about Kendra Marshall,” Elliot said, accepting a cup of coffee from Maddie’s hands. “Thank you, ma’am.”
The woman’s smile vanished. “What an unspeakable tragedy,” she whispered. “And right here, in the heart of our community, where we’ve always felt safe.”
“What do you need to know?” Paul asked.
“Anything you can tell us,” Kay replied. “How did you come to know Kendra?”
Maddie pulled out a chair and sat, then took a sip of coffee from her mug.
“We didn’t know her at all,” Maddie said. “She called us sometime mid-September. She worked at a law firm, um, what was it called?” She turned toward Paul with an inquisitive glance. “It was Abrams, DeSanto, and what?”
“Parsons, I think,” Paul replied. “Yes, Parsons.”
“Yes, them. Poor Kendra called to say Paul’s estranged father had recently passed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kay offered. “Please accept my condolences.”
“Thanks,” the man replied, his glance sideways for a moment. “I haven’t seen him since I was in high school. But I guess these lawyers tracked me down here, and sent Kendra.”
“Why was she coming to see you?”
“To review his es
tate documents with me,” Paul replied, “and those were her words, not mine. No idea what that really meant.”
“Was your father wealthy?” Elliot asked, evidently wondering if there could’ve been a financial connection to the murder. But even if old Mr. Christensen had died a rich man, the killer had taken the life of a legal assistant, not the heir of the Christensen estate.
“I don’t have a clue,” Paul replied with a shrug. “When he left my mother and me, I never expected to hear from him again, and, honestly, I never thought anything of worth would come out of that man, least of all an estate.”
So, no love lost there, with the passing of Mr. Christensen senior. But all that was probably irrelevant to the case, Kay determined.
“When was the last time you spoke with Kendra?” Elliot asked, looking at Paul first, then at Maddie.
“I spoke with her, I’d say about a week or ten days before she was supposed to get here,” Maddie replied. “She seemed like a nice person. She sounded helpful, willing to travel all this way just to meet us and walk us through what the probate process would entail.”
“When was she supposed to meet you?”
“On the thirtieth,” Maddie replied. “It was a Thursday. We waited, but she didn’t call us either way. We just assumed something had delayed her arrival, and didn’t worry about it.” She covered her eyes briefly as she spoke, running her hand across her forehead.
Shame, or maybe guilt, Kay observed. But for what?
“Either way?” Kay asked.
“Kendra told us she’d call us when she arrived and got a hotel room. She had tickets to fly in the day before. The appointment for the thirtieth was tentative; she was supposed to call to firm up the time.”
That had been three weeks ago. Apparently, she had arrived in the area on September 29, and Dr. Whitmore had estimated she died around October 10.
“Did you call the law firm to ask what was going on?”
Maddie stood and walked over to Paul’s armchair, then sat on the wide armrest, leaning slightly against her husband’s shoulder.
“No,” she eventually replied, lowering her gaze and clasping her hands together. When she looked at Kay, her eyes were filled with tears. “You have to understand, we didn’t think anything of it at the time. It wasn’t as if we were eager to deal with Paul’s father’s estate, you know.” She paused for a moment. “Now we blame ourselves. If we would’ve said something, or called the law firm to say she didn’t make it, maybe she would be alive today.”
Paul reached out and grabbed Maddie’s hand, squeezing it tightly. He stared at the floor, the grim expression on his face carving deep lines on his forehead. When he spoke, his voice was filled with bitterness.
“We live in the age of indifference,” Paul said, “where people don’t care about people anymore. We watch TV, and pretend we’re social on the internet. I thought we were different, Maddie and I, but seems that, when put to the test, we have proven we’re not. We are really sorry,” he added, squeezing his wife’s hand again and looking briefly at Kay, then at Elliot. “We are just as much to blame for her death as that sick bastard is.”
“That’s not true—” Kay started to say, but Maddie cut her off.
“I hope you catch him, before he does this to someone else.”
They left the Christensen residence and drove in silence for a while, Paul and Maddie’s guilt weighing heavily on Kay’s mind. Were they right? Had the age of indifference spread its shroud over humanity, darkening the very essence of society’s fabric? What else could explain that no one had reported Kendra missing with the local authorities, when she was supposed to arrive on the twenty-ninth, and at least her employer had to have known her destination? And, since she’d probably flown into San Francisco, how did she get to Mount Chester? Where did the killer set his sights on her?
“Something doesn’t add up,” she said, breaking the silence halfway to the town. “Why don’t we go back to my brother’s place? I need to make some calls and we might as well grab a bite to eat.”
“Uh-huh,” he replied, shooting her a quick glance. “What’s on your mind?”
“She’d been missing for seventeen days when her body was found, and yet no one had filed a missing person report with the county. Her employer should’ve tracked her down. I’m pretty sure the company paid for her travel expenses, most likely with a corporate card. We need to speak to someone there.”
He acknowledged her with a nod, then turned to her briefly and asked, “How about Jane Doe? She wasn’t reported missing in the area either. If she was like Kendra, a traveler from a different part of the country, it makes you wonder.”
“What?” she asked, not sure she followed his train of thought.
He pulled in front of her house, and she cringed, seeing the state of the lawn. If he was put off by the state of the property, he wasn’t letting on.
“All that stuff Paul Christensen was saying, about the age of indifference. How can these women disappear, without anyone looking for them? People just falling through the cracks like that, it’s not normal.”
She wondered if she should share the story of the man who had died at his desk, in the open office he shared with over twenty other people, and no one around him noticed for several days. She’d read his story in the New York Times, but the man’s sad demise was no surprise to her. It wasn’t the age of indifference, like Paul had stated; it was the age of self-absorption and of informational overload, driving people crazy with the stress of an excessively demanding life and corroding the core values of humanity.
“Right,” she replied instead, opening the front door, reluctant to take the first breath of air inside the house. It wasn’t as bad as she’d found it when she’d arrived from San Francisco, but she should’ve plugged in air fresheners anyway. “I’ll get some coffee started, then we’ll take it outside on the porch while I make some calls, all right?”
Elliot stood in the doorway, hat in hand, watching her move around the kitchen with a curious expression on his face. She smiled briefly and shot him an inquisitive glance, while pouring water into the coffee maker. “Penny for your thoughts?”
Running his hand through his wavy hair, he pushed it backward, away from his forehead. “Just wondering why you came back to live here, that’s all,” he replied, and she instantly regretted asking him. “No one in their right mind would leave what you had there to come here to this,” he added, underlining his words with a vague hand gesture.
“Huh,” she chuckled quietly, keeping her face turned away from him while loading the machine with a fresh filter and a few spoonfuls of ground coffee. “No offense taken,” she added, sprinkling a little humor in the tone of her voice.
Thankfully, he stopped with the questions, resigning himself to lean against the wall, hat still in hand, as if eager to get out of there as soon as possible. That part she could relate to.
She opened a cupboard and pulled out two mugs, but then froze. One of them had a broken handle, the remnants of the handle sharp and weathered like broken wisdom teeth, dark crack lines running across them like spiderwebs. Feeling the color draining from her face, she grabbed the mug and threw it in the trash, so forcefully it shattered into countless pieces, the loud noise startling her.
At least she won’t have to see that again.
Not ever.
Eleven
Shards
Her father was at it again, and, by the sound of it, it wasn’t going to end well.
Swallowing her tears, Katherine grabbed Jacob’s hand and dragged the little boy behind the sofa, where they both crouched down, waiting for the storm to be over.
Sometimes, that happened quickly. Other times, her father’s bellowing would rattle the windows for hours in a row.
“Goddammit, Pearl, what did I say to you, huh?” he shouted, every other word an oath. “How many more days do I have to come home to snotty brats and uncooked dinner?”
He threw himself on the sofa, and the old piece of
furniture groaned under his weight. Katherine and Jacob withdrew into the corner of the room, behind an armchair, putting more distance between them and their enraged father.
“Gavin, please,” their mother said, her voice loaded with unshed tears. “It’s not like I don’t go to work every day.”
“And do what?” the man replied with venom in his thunderous voice. “Sit on a comfy chair and shuffle papers all day long, while I break my back laying concrete to keep you and your brats fed?” He wiped his hands against the front of his sleeveless undershirt, leaving trails of sweat and grime against the worn fabric. Then he ran his hand against the surface of the coffee table and held it in the air for his wife to see. “How long has it been since you wiped this damn table, huh? Is it too much to ask to eat on a clean table?”
Pearl dropped what she was doing and rushed to clean the table with a wet rag. She cleared the table of all the items, the TV remote, a couple of wine glasses from the night before, and the dirty plate from that morning’s breakfast.
Watching, Katherine wondered why her dad didn’t put his plate and his wine glass in the sink, just like she and Jacob did with their own dishes.
Her mother started to wipe the table, when her father leaped and snatched the rag from her hand, then threw it in her face.
“You’re wiping my table with this? You’re cleaning the toilets with it! Are you trying to kill me, woman?”
Trembling, Pearl faltered back, a tear rolling down her cheek. “No, Gavin, I use the blue one for the bathroom, you know I do.”
“I know a liar when I hear one talkin’, that’s what I know,” he shouted, standing and taking two menacing steps toward her. The floor creaked under his heavy footfalls. “I know I’m forced to live in a pigsty, because you’re a lazy, good-for-nothing bitch, damned be the day I met you!”
“I’m sorry, Gavin,” she whimpered, wiping her tears with her sleeve. She’d walked backward until she hit the wall. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
