by Lisa Jackson
He had an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh at the absurdity of what he was about to say. “She’s dead.”
“Dead?” she gasped. “No!”
“I’m sorry. I just came from Ocean Park. She was in surgery, but . . .” He trailed off.
“But they said she was hurt at the Carmichael house in Seaside. That she was hit by an overhead beam. What does that mean? Where was she? God, Hale. What . . . what . . . ?” Sylvie, his right-hand woman, the clearest head in the office whenever there was a crisis, was clearly overwhelmed.
“I don’t know. I don’t get it. Kristina let herself in through one of the windows that doesn’t stay shut.”
“But why?”
“It looks like she was meeting someone. Look, Sylvie, I’m beat. I was up all night, and, oh, my son was born last night.”
“He was?” She was distracted.
“He’s coming home tomorrow.”
“Oh . . . oh . . . good. Oh, my God. How’s Savannah? Does she know about Kristina?”
“She knows.”
“My God, Hale. I’m sorry. Who was Kristina meeting? Why at the Carmichaels’?”
“I wish I knew.”
The front bell suddenly began its long chiming peal. Kristina had insisted on the bell, and Hale had protested that he could rotate the tires in the time it took the chimes to finish.
“Sylvie, there’s someone at the door. Damn, I hope it’s not a reporter,” he said, realizing who might be dropping by unannounced today of all days.
“I’ll let you go.”
“Kristina selected a nanny,” he said as he headed for the door. “I’m going to need her number, and I think it’s at work. Kristina had it plugged in her phone, but—”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Victoria Phelan. She told me all about her.”
“Victoria Phelan. That’s right.”
“I’ll go to the office and get it.”
“I’m not sure where I wrote it down. . . .” If I wrote it down, he thought and then wondered briefly where Kristina’s cell phone was. And her purse, for that matter.
“I’ll go see what I can find,” Sylvie said.
“Thanks.” He hung up, walked to the front door, steeling himself to see the face of Pauline Kirby or someone of her ilk as he threw the door open.
Instead, he was greeted by two detectives from the Seaside Police Department, both of them wiping snow off their shoes as the taller one said, “Mr. St. Cloud, I’m Detective Hamett from the Seaside Police Department, and this is my partner, Detective Evinrud. May we come inside?”
Owen DeWitt woke up with a crashing headache and the dry heaves. Par for the course after a long stretch at the Rib-I. He hung his head over the bathroom sink of his dingy apartment for several minutes, debating about whether to have a cigarette. He’d given up the habit, oh, about a million times, but he’d given it up for good again six weeks ago . . . sort of. Drinking and smoking just went together, and if he ever gave up the booze, which he had no goddamn intention of doing, he might actually be able to give up smoking, too.
His jittery stomach holding firm for the moment, he searched through the kitchen drawers with no success, even the one that was off the track and got stuck halfway out. He’d tossed all the cigs out, like that was going to do the trick. All it did was piss him off now that he had to make a trip to the store.
He was going to have to get a job, he told himself morosely. He’d about run through his savings, and those investments he’d made back in the heyday of his career . . . they were all for shit already.
If it weren’t for fucking Declan Bancroft and Bancroft Development, he’d still be flying high.
He found two tens in his wallet and thought he might have to make a trip to the ATM. There’d been a lot of those lately, and it scared him to think what he was going to do next. God. He’d had a career. A good one! And now he was a goddamn joke.
He needed a drink. The thought made his stomach seize and then relax. What time was it? He’d paid for a cab, rather than take a ride with the lady cop, which was just drunken stupidness, except she’d kinda worried him. He’d been a little too loose-lipped about Charlie, and that dude was fuckin’ scary. Cold, dead eyes and a smile to chill the marrow of your bones whenever that mask of his slipped.
Yup. He needed a drink. Bad. It must be almost noon or so.... Could be in the afternoon . . . and . . .
“Holy shit.” He’d opened the crappy curtains on his bedroom window, and there was goddamn snow everywhere. His car was a smooth white mound. “Damn.”
Could he risk driving in this stuff? Take a chance on a fender bender with some other idiot on the road? Hell, no. He was going to have to walk to the store. What a pisser.
Opening the door, he gazed across the parking lot’s blinding white blanket, but before he could step out, someone jumped in front of him and pushed him back inside.
“Hey!” He stumbled back in, and the door shut softly. “Charlie,” he said, alarmed.
“Hey, Owen,” he greeted him with a smile. He wore a black ski mask and a ski jacket.
“What the fuck are—” DeWitt inhaled sharply at the sudden pain and looked down to see the knife’s hilt sticking out just below his chest. “You stabbed me! You stabbed me!”
Charlie pushed him down, and DeWitt stumbled and fell to the floor. The knife’s blade was just below his breastbone. Charlie grabbed the hilt and began slicing upward with all his strength, his mean blue eyes staring at him hard. DeWitt tried to scream, but Charlie hand-chopped him in the throat. Terrible pain radiated outward, and DeWitt gurgled and gazed up at Charlie in stupefied shock and fear.
“Bye, Dimwit,” Charlie said with a smile, watching as the engineer’s eyes bugged.
DeWitt struggled to talk, but he just moved his jaw in his last moments, and Charlie stared into his withered soul, feeling as powerful as a titan. The light slowly dimmed in DeWitt’s eyes, and the man went limp, his stare fixed. Gone.
Quickly, Charlie yanked the knife back, wiped DeWitt’s blood on the engineer’s shirt, then stuffed the knife up the sleeve of his jacket. He pulled his ski mask down and cracked open the door. It was bright and cold outside, and no one was about.
He was so filled with good feelings that he stopped a moment, gathering his power, thinking about the voice that had challenged him. But not yet. There were still two others to take care of first. He sent his sexual power to both of them, the Bancroft man and the pregnant detective. Let them make of that what they would.
“I’m coming for you,” he whispered, then slipped out the door and down to the truck.
CHAPTER 21
Savvy lay in the bed, trying to nap. She’d thought she would fall into a dead sleep after cradling and breast-feeding her little son—Hale’s little son—but her dreams were dark and disturbingly sexual again, and now she was awake again and unable to stay still. She redressed in Kristina’s clothes, and guilt lay on her heart like a lead weight. Survivor’s guilt, for sure. But also her feelings for little Declan were crazy deep. She loved him like he was her own, and it was really, really difficult to remember that she had no claim on him whatsoever.
Her mind touched again on the swirling sexual thoughts that seemed to be invading her sleep. Was that normal? The worst of it was they seemed to be centered around Hale St. Cloud, and in a very dark, distant corner of her mind she recognized that she’d always found him attractive, in a kind of taboo, “never for you” kind of way. She’d never been worried that she would poach on her sister’s husband while Kristina was alive. It never would have happened. Savvy wasn’t made that way. But with her sister gone and this baby needing a mother, she was consumed with sexual thoughts about him that were downright X-rated.
“Stop it,” she told herself sternly. The last thing she needed was to complicate things for herself.
With a need to keep her mind on other things, she searched through her messenger bag for her phone, relieved when her hand closed over it. In one of her few coherent moment
s while she’d been waiting for rescue, she’d tucked it safely inside the bag. Its battery was on its last legs, however, and the charger was in her overnight bag, which was probably still in the Escape, as she hadn’t screamed for it like she had the messenger bag. Luckily, she had a spare charger at home.
Home. She would have liked to make a run there, but without a car and with the roads still covered in snow, and the hospital wanting her to stay till tomorrow, she was kind of trapped for the moment. She tried to think of a friend to call to maybe pick some things up for her, but she hadn’t made any real friends in the community apart from her sister and Lang. Another pang of grief jabbed her as her thoughts touched on Kristina again. She was going to have to compartmentalize. The same way she did when investigating a case. It was the only way to manage her grief.
Exhaling, she placed a call to Lang’s cell, prepared to leave a message as it was Sunday and he didn’t answer calls from coworkers as a rule. If Savvy ever really needed to get hold of him on his days off, she had to call several times and/or text and/or drive over to the house that he shared with his fiancée.
“Savvy? Hello?”
She was surprised he picked up on the first ring, until she realized he must already know about last night somehow. “Hey, there,” she said, suddenly damn near tears again. Hormones mixed with grief. A lethal combination.
“How’s Kristina? Burghsmith said something went down at one of the Bancroft construction projects and she was injured. He met up with Bancroft at Ocean Park when your sister was in surgery.”
“St. Cloud,” Savvy corrected automatically, giving herself a moment to get her emotions under control.
“Right. St. Cloud. His mother was a Bancroft.”
“Kristina is . . . she didn’t . . .” Her inhaled breath was shaky.
When she couldn’t go on, he said, “Savannah,” in a strangled voice. He knew. “My God. Are you all right? Are you still in Portland? Do you want someone to come get you?”
He didn’t know about the baby. He didn’t know about last night. She had tried to call him but hadn’t gotten through.
“Lang, I’ve got a lot to tell you,” she said shakily.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I’m at Ocean Park Hospital. I had the baby last night. Everything’s fine. I’m just kind of overwhelmed, and I could use some things from my house, and I didn’t know who to call. My extra phone charger, some clothes. I don’t know.”
“I’ll get Claire to help me. Got a spare key?”
She told him where to find it, then said, heartfelt, “Thanks, Lang.”
“The TCSD is here to serve and protect,” he said gently. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. . . .”
The detectives from the Seaside PD had seated themselves on two of the dining chairs on one side of the table. Hale sat across from them. He wasn’t certain whether he was annoyed that they were here when he was so tired, or relieved that they were investigating Kristina’s death. A little of both, probably.
The taller detective with the mustache, Hamett, was the one who did the most talking. Evinrud, his partner, was shorter but held himself straight as an arrow, with his chest forward in that way that he’d seen in serious workout aficionados.
Hamett had started out asking a number of questions about the Carmichael job, and Hale had freely told him everything he knew about the site, Ian and Astrid, the construction schedule, the workers, where they were in the permit process with the City of Seaside, and much, much more. He couldn’t explain what had sent Kristina to the house or why she’d climbed inside, however, and he finished answering that question with, “She knew about the Carmichael project, but we didn’t talk about my work all that much. Kristina never showed much interest.”
“What did you and your wife generally talk about?” Hamett asked.
“Personal stuff. We were having a baby. . . .” He thought of his son at the hospital and Savannah and felt a growing anxiety.
“With a surrogate?” Hamett asked, prodding when he trailed off.
“Yes. Kristina’s sister, Savannah. She’s a detective with the TCSD.”
“Uh-huh,” Hamett said. He and Evinrud stared straight ahead at him, and Hale got the feeling they were trying hard not to look at each other.
“What?” Hale demanded. He was leaning toward being annoyed over relieved.
Evinrud finally spoke up. “Where were you last night, at the time of your wife’s death?”
“Since I don’t know the time, I can’t answer exactly,” Hale responded with an edge. “I was at my office till about five, and then I went to the Bridgeport Bistro for a drink before I went home.”
“You were working on Saturday.” This from Hamett.
“Construction isn’t always Monday through Friday.”
“Your wife didn’t have a job?” Evinrud asked. He’d eased himself back in his chair, but he was as alert as a watchdog.
“No.”
“Did you have plans together last night?” Hamett asked.
“No.”
“Did you expect your wife to be home when you returned?” Hamett quizzed, pressing.
“Well, ye-es.”
“You don’t sound certain, Mr. St. Cloud,” Evinrud noted, jumping in again. If theirs was a good cop–bad cop routine, he was definitely taking on the role of the bad one.
Hale explained, “When I got home Friday, Kristina had left me a note that said she needed some space.” He hesitated, then, because it was going to come out, anyway, added, “She didn’t come home that night.”
Now the two detectives did share a look, and Hale could feel his pulse start to beat harder. They were acting as if he had something to do with her death. He knew that was the first assumption: the husband did it. But still, he hadn’t seriously believed he would have to account for his actions.
“Was she here when you got home last night?” Hamett asked.
“No,” Hale admitted.
“What time did you find the note on Friday?” Evinrud asked.
“I don’t know. Around six, maybe.”
“When was the last time you saw your wife?” Hamett was looking down at the notes he’d been scribbling, but when Hale didn’t immediately answer, he glanced up.
“I saw her Friday afternoon, sometime after two. She came to the office.” He was growing less and less interested in talking to the two detectives. He wanted to scream at them to leave him alone and go find the real killer, but that would do more harm than good.
“Was there a particular reason she came to your office?” Hamett asked.
Make love to me, and let’s put some heat back in this marriage.
“She . . . thought we needed to work on our relationship,” Hale said, hating the diffident tone in his voice. “The baby was due anytime. In fact, the baby came last night.”
“Congratulations,” Evinrud said.
Hale ground his teeth together and didn’t respond.
“Do you still have that note?” Hamett regarded him seriously.
Hale nodded and went to retrieve it. He’d crumpled up the note and tossed it into the trash. Now, when he looked into the bedroom trash can, the note lay right on top.
Changed my mind. I’m not mad. I just need a little space. Kristina.
Hamett was again looking down at his notes when Hale handed him the one from Kristina. The detective studied it, then asked, “What had she changed her mind about?”
“She’d said she would be waiting for me. Like I said, she thought we needed to work on our relationship.”
For the first time, Hale had time to think about that and realized that maybe something happened that caused Kristina to change her plans.
“What was the extra ‘emergency’ that made you leave the hospital for several hours while your wife was in surgery?” Hamett asked, bringing Hale’s focus back with a bang.
He had to hang on to his escalating temper with an effort. “I went to find Savannah—Detective Dunbar—who was driving
back from Portland after she heard about her sister’s accident. She was stuck in the snow on the pass and couldn’t get through. And she was in labor. I helped bring her to Ocean Park. A Clatsop County deputy was with me, if you need corroboration.”
“I’m sure it’s just as you say. We’re not trying to put you on the spot, Mr. St. Cloud,” Evinrud said, but there was no conviction in his tone.
“Will anyone remember you at the bistro?” Hamett asked, apparently staying away from that hot potato.
“The bartender’s name is Minnie, and she called one of the customers Jimbo. They both talked to me.”
“Okay.” Hamett put his notebook away.
“I did not kill my wife,” Hale stated flatly.
“No one said you did. We’re just gathering evidence. Doing our job.” Evinrud tried on a smile, but it looked false.
“You’re certain it wasn’t just an accident?” Hale asked. He knew better. He knew. But he couldn’t help himself.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Hamett said. They got up from the table and Evinrud gathered up his notes. Hamett regarded Hale soberly and added, “Someone smashed your wife’s head with a chunk of a four-by-four beam. Could it have just fallen from the upstairs floor? Possibly. Unlikely. There are footprints in the construction dust. Maybe from the workmen. Maybe not. When we check your wife’s cell phone, we may have more answers.”
“You have Kristina’s cell phone?” Hale wished it were in his possession. He wanted to know whom she’d called.
“Her purse was on scene, and her cell phone was in her purse,” Hamett said. “That all right with you that we have it?”
If he objected, it would only make him seem more guilty, so Hale answered, “Whatever it takes to find out what happened.”
“Do you own a white truck?” Evinrud asked.
Hale frowned. “Not personally. The Bancroft Development trucks are white. Why?”
“A witness described a white truck parked down the street last night around seven p.m.,” Evinrud answered.
