Siren Song

by Jo A. Hiestand

  It was brief. Danny swung at McLaren with his right fist but missed. His foot lashed out at McLaren’s legs and he succeeded in landing one blow with his heel before McLaren brought him to the ground. He kept his hand on Danny’s arm and placed his foot on Danny’s back, pressing him against the pavement as he regained his breath.

  “Are you all right, miss?” he asked from his bent over position.

  As the girl got to her feet, she slid her hands to the car’s boot in an effort to support herself. “Yes, thanks.” Her voice quivered slightly as she looked at Danny, then at McLaren. “He grabbed me. I was walking up to my car and he jumped out of the shadows and grabbed me. He made me walk with him, pretend I knew him. Who is he? Do you know him?”

  Ignoring her question, he said, “Get up.” He grabbed Danny’s shoulder and helped him to his feet. Eyeing the girl again, McLaren said, “You’re sure you’re all right? He didn’t hurt you?”

  “No, I’m fine. Just a bit scared.” She dusted her hands on her jeans. “I expect I’ll laugh about this tomorrow. Or at least be the envy of my friends. You know,” she said when McLaren smiled, “helping catch a burglar. Or whatever he’s done.” She tilted her head, trying to make out Danny’s features in the darkness. “He do something like that? Are you the police?”

  “I’m taking him to the police.” McLaren tightened his grip on Danny’s arm. “And yes, he did something like that.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m afraid, miss, I’ll have to send a police officer to your house to ask you a few questions about this, since it is a police matter.” His voice trailed off as he studied her face, assessing if she were emotionally stable for the interview.

  “Yes, certainly. You’ll need some kind of witness statement, I expect.” She pointed to the last house in the row. “I live just there. Will it be tonight?”

  “An officer will contact you to let you know. He’ll tell you he’s calling on behalf of Michael McLaren. That’s me, by the way. Michael McLaren.”

  “I’d like to help, if I can.” She glanced again at Danny, perhaps memorizing his features and clothing. “Whenever the officer comes is fine. Thank you for helping me.”

  “Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame tomorrow.” He left her on the pavement. It wasn’t until he had turned the corner that he could no longer make out her figure in the darkness.

  * * * *

  The rest of the story came out as McLaren walked Danny back to Linnet’s house. Though sullen and angry at first, Danny finally admitted he and Linnet had split the casino winnings when he killed Marta. He used some of the money to buy his car, some he still had, and some he used to buy drugs. Marta had got into his car that fateful night because he said he wanted her advice about a problem he had. “She was like that—trying to help me get back on my feet, so she never suspected a trap.” Marta had broken the heel off her shoe as she tried to run from Danny at the barn. “I never could find that heel,” he confessed after explaining that he’d kept the shoe as evidence in case he needed to blackmail Linnet at some future date. The broken poker chip at the body dump site had been Marta’s, kept as a souvenir of her big win and must have been broken as she fell after being shot. McLaren felt his stomach tighten as he imagined the small, thin woman trying to run through the wood, but he said nothing. He was neither judge nor jury. Nor God, he thought, wondering briefly what would become of Danny. The boy had begun his narrative by answering McLaren’s questions in short, thunderous snaps, but by the end the replies had subsided into muffled whimpers.

  Jamie cautioned Danny and handcuffed him as a second police car drove up. He nodded to the officer, opened the back door and settled Danny in the back seat. Linnet, in Jamie’s car, sat sullen and silent, and stared straight ahead. The village had grown quiet. A ribbon of ash gray clouds seemed pinned just above the horizon in the west. There was no moon or stars in the blackness that stretched above their heads. No fox barked, no owl called, no breath of wind stirred the tree branches. It was as if they were the only souls awake in the bleak landscape.

  McLaren tilted back his head, taking a deep breath of cool air, looking into the vastness of the somber sky. He felt small, as he always did when standing in the throat of the Winnats. Or when walking through Dove Dale. The enormity of nature welled up around him, threatened to engulf him in its wildness and beauty. The thud of the car door slamming pulled him from his reverie and Jamie walked up to him. “The Governor will want you to write up a few things,” Jamie said he closed his fist around his car key. “Can you fit it in between your stonewall work?”

  “I’ll have to, won’t I?” McLaren’s lips curled into a half smile. “Never ends, does it? I thought I left report writing behind when I left the job.”

  “You’re either optimistic or a fool. And I don’t think it’s the latter.” He slapped McLaren on the back. “Nice work, Mike. The Super will be in touch soon.”

  “Sounds like a threat. Thanks for the hand, Jamie.” He waved as he walked back to his car.

  On the drive home, McLaren thought about the case. He would get nothing more than the retainer Linnet had already given him, but he was strangely unaffected by the loss of the rest of his fee. Perhaps he did live to see injustices righted after all. Was it a remnant of his police training, the siren song of the job and what it stood for, or was it a quality deep within him?

  He wondered briefly how Danny had known when to kidnap Marta, when she would arrive home. Linnet had no way of knowing Marta would win at the casino that night. Perhaps it was as simple as Linnet ringing Danny, using her mobile phone from her car in the casino car park, to tell him this was The Night. McLaren squinted at an approaching car’s headlights as he imagined the short one-sentence message. Perhaps Linnet said something months before. “I’ll let you know when we go to the casino, so you be ready any time. She’s bound to win big one of these nights.” Danny would drive to Marta’s house when he got the word and wait for her in the shadows.

  McLaren exhaled loudly. His fingers curled around the steering wheel in anger. Of course he didn’t have to prove that. The police could search mobile phone records in preparation for the trail. It was enough right now that he had given Jamie the probable murder weapon and the missing shoe. Danny’s fingerprints would be on both. He smiled, for the first time in months feeling happy about the future.

  He turned the car around in the lonely stretch of The Winnats, the wind-swept mountain pass of the Pennines. Without thinking he headed back the way he had come, driving through Castleton and heading south toward Kirkfield. He had several miles of dark highway to cover and he settled back in the car seat, the B6061 rolling beneath the car wheels and his mind rolling through the week’s events. His fingers loosened their grip on the steering wheel and he turned on the car’s stereo. The cassette tape recording started up, the strains of the guitars and viola as familiar to him as Dena’s face, which hovered before his eyes. As his folk group’s rendition of “Near Woodstock Town” began in earnest he realized it was Wednesday. Unless things had drastically changed in the past year, Dena would be at her sister’s house in Hathersage tonight. He turned the car again and headed for Hathersage as he cranked up the tape’s volume and sang along.

  Several songs and several miles later he entered Hathersage. The village was a splash of light in the surrounding dark countryside, its restaurants and pubs open for the night crowd. McLaren passed the Hanoverian Hotel before turning onto the road housing the local police station.

  It was long past regular office work hours and the road was deserted. A few streetlamps shed orange-tinted light on the landscape but outside these pools the street was dark. The familiar blue police lantern shone above the police station door and McLaren parked his car opposite it and got out. He took his time assessing the area, wanting no wayward pub-crawler or village resident to spot him. So he sauntered up to the police station, pretending to window shop in the closed establishments nearby. He stopped short of the entrance to the station and picked
up a beer bottle lying at the curb. The brown glass caught the light from the police lamp and seemed to wink at McLaren. The irony was not lost on him, and his pent up rage and hurt broke from him in an unstoppable rush. He felt the weight of the bottle, its curve sitting snuggly in his hand rather like a rock for mending stonewalls. Taking a deep breath, he threw the bottle at the lamp. A satisfying shattering of glass rewarded his effort and he ran back to his car.

  He slumped against the car seat, imaginary newspaper headlines flashing through his mind. ‘Ex-Cop Caps Cold Case.’ ‘Ex-Cop Comes Thru When Chips Are Down.’ ‘Killer’s Second Mistake: Hiring Ex-Cop.’ He smiled at the reaction the story would undoubtedly cause, both in the media and throughout the Force. He’d again be the topic of conversation around police station water coolers and break rooms, but this time he wouldn’t mind. The talk would be about good police work, not the titillating gossip of a ruined career.

  Opening his mobile phone McLaren punched in Dena’s number. The police lamp’s blue glass was broken on two sides where the beer bottle caught it; the light bulb was shattered. The street lay dark and unpopulated. Police…beer bottles. His thought broke off as Dena’s voice came to him over the phone. Grinning, he said, “Dena, sweets. I’d like for us to try again. I’m learning to release my emotions.”

  ABOUT AUTHOR JO A. HIESTAND

  Books, the natural world and music have filled Jo Hiestand’s life since childhood. These passions and an intense love of Things English create the foundation of her writing. It is nowhere more evident than in her novels featuring ex-police detective Michael McLaren. a folk music enthusiast and reluctant solver of cold cases.

  Jo’s insistence for accuracy—from police methods and location layout to the general ‘feel’ of the area—has driven her innumerable times to Derbyshire, England, the setting for her books. These explorations and conferences with police friends provide the detail used for McLaren’s cases.

  In 1999 Jo returned to Webster University to major in English with an Emphasis in Writing as a Profession. She graduated in 2001 with a BA degree and departmental honors.

  She has combined her love of writing, board games and music by co-inventing P.I.R.A.T.E.S., the mystery-solving game that uses maps, graphics, song lyrics, and other clues to lead the players to the lost treasure.

  Jo founded the Greater St. Louis Chapter of Sisters in Crime, serving as its first president. She is also a member of Mystery Writers of America. When not writing, she likes to listen to early and bluegrass music, play guitar, take nature photographs, read, change ring and watch her backyard wildlife.

  Her three cats—Chaucer, Dickens and Tennyson—share her St. Louis home. For more information about Jo, please visit www.McLarenCases.com