by Dan Padavona
“Sounds delicious.”
The woman placed her forefinger against her lips. “But don’t tell Shana. It’s a surprise party.” Eleanor wore a conspiratorial grin. “She doesn’t have a clue.”
“I promise I won’t tell,” Georgia said, laughing. “Everything good?”
“Absolutely.”
As Georgia turned out of the doorway, Eleanor called to her. “You’re welcome to stop by. It’s just gonna be us girls. Eight o’clock?”
“I’ll be there.”
Georgia smiled as she moved to the next room. It was just as important for the women to talk about the fun times as it was to get the hardships off their chests. She found Tamika in her reading chair with a T.R. Ragan novel open in her lap. Tamika glanced up when Georgia poked her head inside, then she slapped the book shut and set it down with a huff. One thing Georgia had learned during Tamika’s month-long stay at the shelter: never interrupt the woman while she’s reading.
“How are you tonight, Tamika?”
“I’d be better if I could get some peace and quiet.”
Down the hall, Beverly’s six-year-old daughter played with a jump rope outside their apartment. Tamika raised an expectant eyebrow.
“I’ll talk to Beverly about Lorraine playing in the hall.”
“It’s not right, these kids raising a ruckus in the shelter. They should be out in the yard. That’s where kids belong. The way my mama raised us, we spent our energy outside with our friends. But when we came in.”
Tamika pantomimed a zipping motion across her lips.
“Maybe you should close your door.”
“I like it open,” Tamika said, folding her arms. “I’m allowed fresh air and quiet, am I not?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Georgia left Tamika to her book. When someone was having a bad day, Georgia knew better than to poke the bear. She passed the community room. The door stood closed, and someone had taped a handwritten do not enter sign to the outside. Which meant the women were setting up Shana’s party and didn’t want to spoil the birthday girl’s surprise. Georgia loved working at the shelter. Helping others gave her a sense of purpose. After college, she’d turned down a six-figure salary to work with abused women. Her income was a third of what she could have earned, but she didn’t care. She downsized her life, choosing a modest home in Treman Mills instead of a cottage along the lake. She rarely took vacations, and when she did, it was always somewhere affordable and within driving distance.
As she strode the halls, the memory of the break-in followed Georgia like a phantom. While she greeted the women, she paid close attention to stories about angry spouses. Chelsey, the private investigator, theorized someone’s husband had targeted Georgia. And though Georgia felt certain her stalker was someone from her past, she remained attentive to alternate possibilities.
Freda turned the corner with a clipboard tucked beneath her arm. She motioned for Georgia to join her in the staff break room, a tiny room with three chairs surrounding a table, a dorm-size refrigerator, and a sink.
“Micah is asking for you,” Freda said from the tops of her eyes.
Georgia sighed. “Okay, I’ll meet him in the lobby. Can you finish my rounds for me?”
“I’ve got you covered.”
Georgia brushed her fingers through her hair and retraced her steps to the lobby. Micah was the only man who visited the shelter for counseling. Statistics showed a quarter of abuse victims were male, sobering because no abuse shelters for men existed in Nightshade County. Though the shelter offered counseling to male victims of spousal violence, men weren’t allowed to stay here.
“Micah, I’m glad you came,” Georgia said, pushing through the double doors.
Micah spun on his heels, as if he hadn’t expected Georgia to arrive so quickly. The security guard eyed the slender man from the corner. A purple bruise grew on Micah’s temple. A hair taller than Georgia, the man looked like a scarecrow. His pallid skin never saw the sun, and the clothes drooped off his body like peeling wallpaper. When he spoke, he never made eye contact.
“Are you injured?”
Staring at the floor, he wiped a hand over his nose and shook his head.
Georgia waved him toward her office. “Come with me.”
Georgia closed the office door behind Micah and gestured for him to sit. He didn’t. The man stood with his back slumped over, his hands buried in his pockets and jangling his keys.
“How’s your head? Do you need a doctor?”
Photographs of water falls, ocean sunsets, and deep green meadows hung on the walls.
“It’s nothing,” he said as he studied the pictures.
Georgia sat on the edge of her desk with her hands clasped over one knee. “Would you like to talk about what happened?”
A half-hearted shrug.
“Who did this to you?”
Micah’s eyes glistened. He turned his head and swiped a forearm across his eyes.
“Did Ursa hit you again?”
He scuffed the carpet with the toe of his shoe. “It was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Georgia said, rising to face Micah. “There’s never justification for striking your spouse. What was it about this time?”
“The boss put me on overtime shifts this weekend. Ursa and I were supposed to visit her family in Schenectady. I should have said no.”
“Did work give you an option?”
“Not exactly.”
“So you didn’t have a choice. Regardless, nobody has the right to hurt another person.”
Micah’s voice cracked. “She didn’t mean to.”
The fresh bruise took on a reddish, angry tint. The lump had grown during their conversation. Georgia had a hard time believing a woman could do that much damage with her fists, but nothing surprised her anymore.
“You should get that bruise looked at.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
He fixed her with a glare. If Micah walked into an emergency room, the doctors would question how he received the injury.
“So you won’t go to the hospital?”
“It’s not that bad,” he said, gingerly prodding around the bruise. “Ursa is under a ton of stress between her job and taking care of Louisa.”
Louisa was Micah’s eight-year-old daughter. The last time Ursa struck Micah, he showed Georgia pictures.
“You’re justifying her behavior again.”
“If I didn’t have to work so much overtime—”
Then what? Abusers always found excuses to hurt their loved ones.
“You should press charges.”
“No.”
“That would teach Ursa not to hurt you when she’s angry.”
“I won’t press charges against my wife. We promised to love and protect each other, and I intend to keep my vows.”
“Ursa isn’t keeping hers.” When Micah set his jaw, Georgia returned to her desk and sifted through the drawer. She found the flyer and handed it to Micah. “If you won’t press charges or visit a doctor, I don’t want you going home tonight. The closest shelter for men is in Rochester. If you leave now, you’ll arrive before sunset.”
He handed the flyer back to her.
“I can’t go.”
“Yes, you can. You need a safe place, Micah, someplace where you can work this out in your head and make a rational decision.”
“If I leave town, work will fire me. What am I supposed to do, drive back and forth between Rochester and Kane Grove every day?”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
She held the flyer out again. He raised a hand.
“Micah, if you won’t take my advice, why do you keep asking me what you should do?”
His jaw clenched. The red around his eyes told Georgia he was struggling not to break down in front of her.
“No matter how she acts, I still love her.”
“Ursa needs help, Micah. If she won’t seek help, you need to walk awa
y. Think of yourself this time. And Louisa. Get her out of that house.”
“My wife would never raise a hand to her Louisa. Perhaps you could talk to Ursa. I could bring her with me.”
“I’m not qualified to treat an abusive spouse. She needs a psychiatrist.”
The keys rattled inside his pocket.
“Then I guess I shouldn’t have come.”
Micah opened the door and headed toward the lobby. Georgia followed Micah and pleaded with him to stay. Experience had taught her there was no convincing Micah once he made his mind up.
“Please don’t go home tonight.”
He turned and raised his palms. “What choice do I have?”
30
“No, no, no. Not today,” Chelsey said, covering her mouth. “This can’t be happening now.”
Sweaty from her morning run, she leaned in the kitchen entryway inside Wolf Lake Consulting and stared at the puddle on the floor. The steady plink-plink-plink of dripping water carried from beneath the sink. Walking on tiptoes, Chelsey skirted the flood and pulled the doors open. Just as she expected, the catch pipe had burst, spilling murky water through the kitchen. She bit off a curse. Bits of soggy vegetables and decayed food matter lay within the mess.
Chelsey used the flashlight app on her phone and studied the catch pipe. The bottom had rusted through, red and orange flecks dangling off the bottom. Reaching inside the cabinet, she shut off the water. Something green and viscous dripped on her forehead.
After retrieving the toolbox from the bedroom closet, she searched through the contents until she located a pipe wrench. The nut refused to budge. Clenching her teeth, she threw her muscles behind the wrench and strained until the veins stood out on her neck. No luck.
“Well, that’s wonderful.”
Chelsey tossed the wrench into the toolbox and leaned back on her heels. She needed to call a plumber, and that meant more money. Frustrated, she eyed the plumbing, determined to replace the pipe on her own. But the nut had rusted and congealed onto the tailpipe. No amount of elbow grease would fix this.
Chelsey searched the listings for a plumber and dialed the most reputable company in Wolf Lake. The woman from the answering service told her the plumber wouldn’t arrive at work for fifteen minutes. Chelsey left her number.
She stuffed the phone in her back pocket and studied the pipe again. Then she retrieved a mop from the closet and wiped up the mess. Before she finished, the phone rang. Had the plumber arrived early?
“Hello?”
Silence followed. Chelsey straightened her spine, remembering the dead silence of the previous calls.
“There’s a trace on this line, so it will be easy to find out who you are if you don’t stop calling.”
A laugh came through the receiver.
“You’re in over your head,” the caller said, using voice alteration software. It sounded disturbingly robotic. “You and your investigators need to back off.”
“Who is this?”
“I’ve let you live until now. But you’re testing my patience. Back off, or I’ll make you sorry you stuck your nose into my business.”
Click.
Chelsey stared at the phone. Because of the voice alteration, it was impossible to recognize the caller. She immediately punched a code into the phone and attempted to call the person back. A series of beeps announced the call had failed. Whoever this person was, he knew how to conceal his voice and hide his number.
Hurrying to the office, Chelsey spread the open case files across her desk. The caller had warned her to back off, suggesting this was someone they were investigating. Maybe Georgia Sims’s stalker. The revelation that Georgia Sims was high school friends with Tina Garraway and Harding Little sent shivers through Chelsey. Thomas had already declared that someone murdered Garraway, and Little’s fall into the gorge became more suspicious by the day. Was someone killing Treman Mills High graduates? Sifting through the names, she eliminated Albert Slater, who was still in jail for attacking his wife. Most of the investigations were in their early stages.
That left Osmond Bourn. The contractor had no connections to Treman Mills High, but Chelsey remembered LeVar’s close call inside Level 13. The man concealed a dark secret.
Last year, the firm investigated an infidelity case, which turned into an abduction investigation. Damian Ramos and Mark Benson kidnapped Ellie Fisher, intending to hold the woman for ransom. Raven followed Ramos, but Benson struck her from behind, kidnapped Raven, and held her inside a farmhouse outside Wolf Lake. Raven suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after her escape, fearing Ramos and Benson would break out of prison and target her again. That possibility came to fruition when Benson escaped jail and stalked Raven. While Chelsey and LeVar searched the abandoned farmhouse, Benson shot at them. The bullet grazed Chelsey’s forehead and came within an inch of killing her.
Now Chelsey wondered if Osmond Bourn was more dangerous than she believed. Was he another Mark Benson, an unhinged psychopath in the making? Until now, she’d assumed Bourn was a cheater. Nothing more. Yet an air of mystery surrounded Bourn. He left his house in the dead of night without explanation and hung out at a club which, if she believed LeVar, might be run by a Harmon gang called the 315 Royals. And though her investigators caught Bourn flirting with women, he hadn’t cheated on his wife.
LeVar and Raven were following Bourn to a job site in Wolf Lake this morning. Raven still intended to flirt with Bourn tonight and talk the contractor into sleeping with her. Originally, Chelsey had balked at the idea. Though rooms at the Flamingo Inn were dirt cheap, she couldn’t waste money, with the firm teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
A darker thought crept into Chelsey’s head. What if Bourn attacked Raven and murdered her in that dingy motel room?
Chelsey picked up the phone. Raven and LeVar needed to be careful with Bourn.
31
Seated at his desk, Thomas set the phone on the receiver. Five minutes ago, the lab confirmed his unsub had poisoned Georgia Sims’s fish tank. Then Detective Sandoval from Treman Mills PD called about a dead man discovered in his kitchen. Virgil and Claire were en route to the scene. According to Sandoval, the death appeared accidental. And that made Thomas’s skin crawl.
He snatched his keys and followed the hallway to Deputy Aguilar’s desk. Lambert was in the village, responding to a dispute between two feuding neighbors. Aguilar was typing a report on her computer terminal when Thomas stopped beside her desk.
“Got a call from Detective Sandoval over at Treman Mills PD.”
Aguilar narrowed her eyes. “The jerk who profiled LeVar Hopkins the other night? What does he want with us?”
“Courtesy call. Sandoval realizes the optics from the encounter look bad. My guess is he wants to get back on my good side. Sandoval discovered a dead guy in Treman Mills. The detective thinks the victim died of asphyxiation.”
“Unless somebody strangled the vic, I don’t see what this has to do with us.”
“To quote Sandoval, ‘the death appears accidental.’ That sound familiar to you?”
Aguilar straightened her cap. “Too familiar.”
During the drive to Treman Mills, Thomas filled Aguilar in on the details. The victim was an accountant named Wade Tenny. His neighbor knocked on the door to return a hedge trimmer and noticed Tenny’s legs extending over the kitchen threshold into the living room. Unable to unlock the door, the neighbor dialed 911. Tenny was already dead when Treman Mills PD arrived.
The two uniformed officers from Georgia Sims’s house stood inside Wade Tenny’s entryway when Thomas and Aguilar parked the cruiser in the driveway. Sandoval gave Thomas an all-too-friendly wave and crossed the lawn to greet them.
“Thanks for coming, Sheriff.” Sandoval repeated the story he’d told Thomas over the phone. The neighbor, Jerome Bernhardt, had spotted Tenny through the window and called 911. “Everything appears up and up, just a freak accident. But I thought you’d want to check things out, just in case.”
> “Any reason to believe Wade Tenny’s death is connected to the Tina Garraway murder?”
“No reason to assume that. Tenny’s death doesn’t appear suspicious. The medical examiner is inside.”
Inside the kitchen, Virgil and Claire examined Tenny’s corpse. The dead man was barefoot, with two flip-flops beside his legs. Grass clippings poked out from between his toes, green plant matter covered his shirtless chest, and dirt smudged his shorts.
“It appears our victim was working in the yard and collapsed after he came inside to cool down,” Virgil said, kneeling over the body.
Claire clicked her tongue. “He died from asphyxiation. We’ll know more once we get him to the morgue, but right now I have to agree with the detective’s assessment.”
Behind Thomas, Sandoval angled his gaze over the sheriff’s shoulder. “No signs of a struggle. We found crumbs on the table. Could be Tenny sat down to eat before he keeled over.”
Thomas glanced at Claire. “So it’s possible he choked on his food?”
Claire scrutinized the pallid victim. “There are multiple causes of asphyxiation. Food getting caught in the airways is one. Strangulation is another, though I don’t see ligature marks on the neck. Also drowning and chemical asphyxiation, with the most common cause being carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“I think we can rule out drowning,” Sandoval quipped.
The detective cleared his throat after nobody laughed.
Thomas searched the walls and spied a combination smoke and carbon monoxide detector in the living room. Pulling a chair out of the kitchen, he climbed up and pressed the test button. The shrill screech caused Virgil and Sandoval to cover their ears.
“The detector works,” Thomas said.
Aguilar moved in for a closer look. “What about an allergic reaction? The detective says the police discovered crumbs on the table.”
“No telling yet when Tenny ate, or if the food caused an allergic reaction,” said Claire. “But that’s a possibility. We’ll examine the stomach contents.”
