FEEL THE BURN
In the name of love, eh?” Sean was all for fitness and exercise, but on the tail end of an intense workout, he really would have preferred sitting on his duff to hiking. Yet, here he was, following Sara through the winding trails of the Corning City Preserve. “How much farther?”
“It’s just around this next bend,” Sara said, seeming to move effortlessly along. Then again, her muscles probably weren’t screaming like his were.
They entered a section that was completely covered by trees to the right of the path. On the left was about six feet of greenspace with some bushes, then the top of the ravine.
“So much for the path hugging the edge of the ravine,” Sean said, pulling from Roland’s words.
“I agree. She’d have to have been blind to fall over here.” Sara had both hands on her hips, and her thin brows were scrunched up, as they often were when she was puzzled.
He didn’t suspect it was about how Katie came to be in the river, but rather who helped her get there.
Sean walked over to the edge and looked down. The Hudson River flowed below, but his attention went to the hillside that had been carved out by erosion over the years. He felt for the fear Katie must have had as she tumbled. The grade was rather steep but not impassable with careful footing. It was the distance between the path and the top of the hill that was bothering him.
Sara took up position beside him and fanned a hand over the top of the nearest bush. He could almost hear the gears in her mind turning and figured she was thinking that someone could have lain in wait for Katie, using the bush for cover.
Sara circled the plant, and he followed. She came to a standstill and thrust the tip of her shoe toward a pile of sunflower-seed husks that were to the side of the bush butting against the edge of the hill.
“An animal didn’t leave these here,” she said.
Technically an animal could have… “You’re not going to want to hear this, but a bunch of sunflower seed husks isn’t conclusive proof that someone was lying in wait here. And it’s possible someone just stood here having a snack while enjoying the view.” He turned and opened his arms to draw attention to the vista.
She gave him this look that she often pulled out when he was being far too cynical for her liking—a mild grimace and an angled head.
“You must admit given the amount of space on the backside of this bush, and the green space between the path and the edge of the hill, it wouldn’t be easy for someone to push Katie over,” he defended his reasoning. “Not here. There is another possibility…”
“I’m listening.”
“Say her killer did stand here, they—he or she—would have had to get her to stop running and join them closer to the edge. They could have shoved her then, but they’d risked going over themselves.”
Sara’s eyes darkened. “If that’s the case, we are looking for an animal—a very cold-hearted killer.”
“And someone who Katie likely knew, otherwise why would she step off the path.”
“That’s a chilly thought, and jealousy is one of the chilliest emotions I can think of.” She went reflective for a few beats. “While you were working out this morning, I reviewed the list Adam had sent over of people who regularly interacted with Katie on social media. It was just a small sampling of four, two of whom were men, and neither of the men was Levi.”
He bristled, thinking she was going to point at Levi, not even quite understanding himself why he was eager to defend someone he hadn’t even met.
Sara went on. “But when I was making my notes I wrote jealousy more than once.”
“It also came up in the meeting.” He loved his wife dearly, but sometimes she latched on to theories too quickly for his liking. “Tell me about the men,” he said, playing along for now.
“One was Mitch Yates.” She proceeded to fill him in about the tattoo-loving graphic artist. “It’s possible he had feelings for Katie, but she was with Levi.”
“You’re suggesting a case of I-can’t-have-you-so-no-one-can?”
“Could be.”
More conjecture. “And the other man?”
“Cat-Man David Lawson.”
“Cat-Man?
Her lips twitched.
“Now, now, Sara, I would never expect that sort of labeling from you.”
She smiled and batted a hand. “I am only human.”
But an angel in disguise…
“He loves cats and all things cat,” she explained.
“Well good for him. Someone needs to love cats.” He was smiling, not really a cat or dog person himself. They both shed hair, and it got all over.
“We should talk to him,” Sara said, “but we should start with Levi.”
“And there were women on this list. It’s possible one of them had motive to kill Katie.”
Sara told him about Nicki Player and Lucy Fletcher. Sean was reserving comment on possible motive until they actually spoke to these people. “You want to start with Levi?” Excitement fluttered in his chest—it was either at the prospect of meeting him or approaching him as a possible suspect. “Have we heard back from Helen?”
“Not yet.” A smirk lifted her lips. “Someone’s a gushing fanboy.”
He narrowed his eyes and grabbed her sides and started tickling her.
“Sean...Sean…Stop it!” She burst out amid laughter. “Someone’s…going to—” She stopped speaking and laughing.
He let her go. “What is it?”
“We’ve been here for a while now, and not one person has come by.”
“Maybe the time of day?” Sean consulted his watch, and it was going on eleven in the morning.
“The only way we’d know is to return tomorrow morning at six A.M. and hang around until seven.”
“That would make it tough to honor your training session,” he pointed out.
“Maybe Mirela could shift it an hour?”
“Just because you’re looking for any reason to beg off from your workout…” He smirked at her.
She shoved him playfully in the shoulder. “I love working out, and you know it.”
He groaned from where she’d hit him, and that made her giggle.
“Can’t handle it, Mr. McKinley?”
“Oh, I can handle it.” Though today his muscles were screaming at him to take a break for a session or two. But excuses marked the beginning of a downhill slide to inactivity and obesity. His thought made his gut clench. “Where…beginning of a downhill slide…”
“Sean?”
“Do we know for a fact this is the exact area where Katie started her descent down the side of the hill?”
Sara seemed to consider his question for a while. “Well, not exactly. I’m just going by how Roland explained the spot, but Forensics could have been off in their estimate.”
“Then it’s possible that she fell over either a bit ahead of here or behind?”
“I suppose it is.”
He looked ahead about ten feet to where there was a tree and the green space was much narrower. He headed there, Sara following.
“Do you see something?” she asked.
He pointed ahead. “There’s less space here between the path and the hilltop.”
She looked around that immediate area, then over a shoulder to where they had been. Facing forward again, she said, “There’s no place here for an assailant to hide.”
Sean was shaking his head.
“Don’t tell me you think she accidentally stumbled off the path now,” she said.
“Nope.”
“Then you’re going to say maybe she got a little too close to the edge and the ground gave way?”
Sean met her eyes. She must have been used to him fighting against her “feelings” about a case,
but he wasn’t trying to be difficult—they were just different people in some ways. He gestured to the top of the hill. “Nothing here would indicate that,” he said blankly. “Now, if Katie went over the hill back where we just were, someone could have lain in wait, lured her closer to the hill, and pushed her. Another possibility—and this is just one—is, let’s say, someone hid behind the bush back there, then snuck up on her and pushed her.”
“Oh. Katie would have already been in a forward momentum. That would make it easier to push her and have her tumble down the hill. And she wouldn’t have heard them if she was listening to music, as the earbuds would suggest.”
“Yep.” He was satisfied to have drawn at least one logical scenario. Sara’s gaze shot past him, and he followed it to where she was looking, and he saw it too: a splotch of color on the ground closer to the edge of the hill. Sean was the first to move toward and found it was just a piece of plastic from packaging of some sort. He picked it up. “It’s just someone’s garbage.”
Sara sighed. “I was hoping it was a clue.”
“I know,” he said, having been wishing the same thing. Maybe Sara’s lighthearted approach to life was rubbing off on him. He stuffed the plastic into one of his pants pockets where it would stay until he could get it to a garbage can.
“So, you and Jimmy will come back in the morning, see what the foot traffic’s like, so I can make my training session?”
“We can do that.” Sean noted again that, even though more time had passed, they hadn’t run into anyone else. It truly was isolated back here.
“And you’ll hike down the ravine too? Take a look around, see if you can find something the cops might have missed?”
“Since you ask so nicely.” He smiled at her and went to wrap an arm around her when her phone dinged.
“Oh, that’s probably Helen.” She pulled her phone and unlocked it. “Helen,” she confirmed.
He should know better than to ever question her intuition.
-
Chapter 13
TACKLING DUMMY
Jimmy had played Mr. Devin’s daughter, and he’d done it so skillfully he doubted she even suspected. She was smiling when he’d left and even thanked him for stopping by. But her polite demeanor did nothing to convince him of her innocence. He’d seen his share of crazy when he was working for the Albany PD—full moons aside. Not that he ever understood why crimes peaked on those nights or whenever Mercury was in retrograde.
If Brooke Mackland had killed her own father, he wouldn’t be surprised. Not that she stood to inherit, but that alone could have driven her to exact revenge. But they’d know the truth soon enough.
Jimmy had asked Brooke if she ever gave her father any of his medication, and she’d adamantly told him “never.” Well, if her prints showed on any of his prescription bottles, namely the oxycodone that Max Devin had overdosed on, then she’d have some mighty explaining to do. But none of that would do unless Jimmy had her prints—and he did. In very clever fashion, if he said so himself. He’d told her that the firm required another installment to continue the investigation. Now in his top left-hand shirt pocket, he was armed with a check written by Brooke Mackland. Her prints would be all over it.
Score one for the ol’ man.
Now all he needed to do was get his hand on Mr. Devin’s pill bottles. That was where his enthusiasm waned because it meant he’d have to go see Needham again. He tried to convince himself it could wait another day, but if Brooke was a murderer, she needed to pay sooner than later. Images of Mr. Devin lying six feet under while she enjoyed her freedom was enough to compel Jimmy: he knew what he had to do.
The clock on the car’s dash told him it was after eleven, and his heart sank. Sean and Sara told him to give Detective Langstaff until noon to send over the files on the Carpenter case. That meant he technically had an hour before he might need to follow up on that.
That still left Jimmy ample time to visit Albert Needham, but what would be his bribery treat today? It was too early for a sandwich; the medical examiner never took his lunch until noon.
Jimmy parked his car in a lot near the morgue building and was still empty-handed. It felt like he was empty-headed too—at least when it came to ideas for bribing the ME. Inside, he found Vicki at the front desk. Her eyes went to his empty hands, and she winced.
“I know,” Jimmy said.
“And coming here two days in a row. Life’s not treating you too well, Jimmy.”
He shook his head. “But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
“He’s in a rare mood today.”
“Oh, not good.”
“Actually.” Vicki smiled. “A rare mood for Needham means he’s half nice.”
“What?” His voice held out, but in his mind, it cracked like an adolescent boy’s.
“You should probably go in armed with something.”
“I couldn’t think of with what, though. It’s too early for lunch.”
“Here. Just a sec.” Vicki got up and poured a cup of coffee, added a dollop of cream and a packet of sugar. She extended the offering to Jimmy. “It’s just the way he likes it.”
Jimmy sniffed the brew, hesitant because he knew full well what the mud from the morgue was like—hardly palatable. Given the bitter edge to the aroma, he didn’t think that had changed over the years. “He likes this stuff?”
“Yep. Who do you think picked the brand for the office?”
“All right, then. Thanks.” Jimmy held the cup up in a toasting gesture. “Wish me luck, doll.” He winked at Vicki, and she smiled in return.
“Luck.”
Jimmy’s last few steps to the morgue were heavy, and they became heavier the closer he got. Needham in a good mood; he couldn’t even fathom that.
He could hear whistling when he was within five feet of the door and stopped. No way.
He crept forward a few more steps. More whistling.
All right, then…
Jimmy straightened his posture, pulled his shoulders back, held his head high, and entered the morgue. “Good—”
“What are you doing here?”
“Ah.” Jimmy cleared his throat. “Coffee?” He held the cup out to Needham, seeking security behind it.
“Have one.” Needham bobbed his head toward his desk where curls of steam wisped from a cup. He leveled a glare on Jimmy.
Jimmy’s throat was tight. “Just thought you might like one, but since you’re covered...” He made himself take a sip and regretted it the second the brew touched his taste buds. It had the flavor of burnt tar, the same smell associated with roadwork.
“If you’re going to keep coming around, we’ll need to get tighter security. Or maybe replace someone at the front desk.”
Bye-bye good mood.
“My being here has nothing to do with Vikki.”
“Ah, so that’s who let you in.”
“Don’t take out the fact you don’t like me on her.” Jimmy insides were heating up, but if he lost his temper, it wouldn’t do him any good. “Listen, I apologize for interrupting your day.”
“You should. Now get to the point of your intrusion.”
“Max Devin,” Jimmy spat.
“Yes, we talked about him yesterday.” Needham rolled his hands and arched his brows in a display of impatience.
“I need to get my hands on his prescription bottles that were brought in with him.”
“And why would I hand them over to you? You’re not a cop.”
Jimmy held back the urge to throw the hot tar in the man’s face, give him something to actually be grumpy about. Instead, he stuffed his hatred for this man deep inside and said, “The case is no longer of interest to the PD, and I’ve been hired to look into Devin’s death by the man’s daughter.” Jimmy laid it out prof
essionally and was darn proud of himself for not losing his composure. “That much you know from yesterday. And I appreciate your help, by the way.” Kindness and flattery worked on most people, but Needham stood there seemingly unmoved. Jimmy continued. “She just wants answers, to know exactly what happened to her father.”
“He was in chronic pain. It’s understandable if he had wanted to end his own misery. Why must every death be murder to you? Yet, I’m the one accused of being dark. Hardly seems fair.”
Needham actually cares what people think of him? Guess one was never too old to dish out surprises. Jimmy was smarter than to point out the ME’s vulnerability, but he’d try to fan the spark of empathy. “She just wants answers,” he repeated.
Needham stared at him, his lips pinching and twisting. “Fine, very well. I’ll get the bottles for you.”
Yes! Victory!
As Jimmy left the morgue, prescription bottles in hand, he whistled a tune. Behind him, the medical examiner was quiet, his mood likely soured again. Jimmy would view it another victory if it wasn’t for the brief glimpse he’d gotten behind Needham’s gruff exterior that had Jimmy feeling sorry for him.
-
Chapter 14
JUST WARMING UP
Sara was riding an adrenaline buzz, infused with renewed determination to find out what had happened to Katie. Sean was on his own trip and had been since they’d left the preserve. Helen’s call had been to tell them that Levi Bradley was good to meet with them at one o’clock.
Sean pulled into the underground garage that belonged to Levi’s condo building.
Apparently tossing a ball paid well…
Not that Sara would verbalize her thought to Sean, who would probably give her a speech about the skill necessary or some such thing, and on and on and on he’d go. She felt a word of advice wouldn’t hurt. “They say ‘don’t ever meet your heroes.’”
“I might be a fan of baseball and the guy, but he’s not my hero.”
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