by A. S. French
She smiled at him. ‘That’s not true, though, is it?’
His grin was wide enough to swallow her whole. ‘Which part?’
‘The bit about my prints and DNA being all over the house. I never left the kitchen; apart from Caitlin’s car, it’s the only place you’ll find any evidence of me. And I told you more than once how and why I was there.’
Detective Moore continued. ‘But your passport was found inside Caitlin Cruz’s pocket, with both of your blood on it.’
He peered straight into her, a slightly unnerving gaze which she guessed meant the passport had convinced him of her guilt. But then he let his eyes linger on her for a second too long, and she thought she glimpsed something else behind his scrutiny; some little sliver of doubt.
Colt grasped his hands together like Scrooge in a bank vault, and she considered what her next move should be. She ignored him and spoke to Moore.
‘What motive would I have for killing them?’
‘Anger, frustration, too much alcohol in your veins.’
She shook her head. ‘They’re excuses, not motivation.’
‘Perhaps Cruz resisted your advances, Snow, and then you lashed out at her.’ She watched as Colt laid out his theory, something she guessed he’d been formulating before meeting her for the first time. ‘With your training and experience as a covert intelligence agent for the British government, you’d have been well prepared to overpower her. And the children, poor Cathy and Dale, saw the whole thing, so you couldn’t leave them alive.’ His self-satisfied smugness triggered the pain in her ribs again.
Astrid sneered at him. ‘A group of archaeologists could dig through your skull and still not find any evidence of intelligence, Colt. Why would I burn their faces with acid, and where did I get it? It was hardly inside my pockets when I went to that bar.’
Moore replied for him. ‘Officers discovered a dozen containers of sulphuric acid in the Cruz garage.’
Of course they did.
‘Where’s Mr Cruz?’ Astrid knew from experience that husbands or boyfriends were the main culprits in the deaths of wives, girlfriends and any family they had.
‘Bob Cruz died five years ago. There was no significant other in Caitlin’s life at the time of her death. We’ve checked all this, Ms Snow.’
She listened to Moore’s words, considering what her next move could be.
‘What about her work place? Plenty of murders are committed by disgruntled co-workers, and the use of the acid sounds like it was personal.’
‘Caitlin Cruz worked in a church.’
Moore said that as if her employment meant everyone she worked with was exempt from committing a crime.
Chief Colt stood. ‘That’s enough for now; we ask the questions here, not you.’ He nodded at Moore. ‘You can continue this later once she’s stewed long enough to think about her crimes.’
Moore turned to Astrid. ‘Do you want to make your phone call?’
She deliberated on his question while images of Caitlin rattled through her head. Cruz had been kind to her, and they’d talked a little, though she couldn’t remember what about, yet there were no memories of any children in that house when she was there.
But I didn’t know a killer was there either.
Astrid decided against a lawyer, reluctantly admitting the only way out of this mess was back in England, but she didn’t want to make the call to her former employers in the UK. There would be too many awkward silences and challenging questions: the silence from her, the probing from them. But she gave the number to Moore.
Let him sort it out.
‘You need to ring these people. They’ll straighten this out.’
He took the paper from her, and he and Colt left the room. The Officers dumped Astrid into the same cell, and she settled down and reached through her memories. She had a hyperactive deficiency disorder which messed up her brain if she didn’t keep her thoughts moving. In times like this, since it wasn’t her first incarceration, she grabbed at anything interesting she could remember.
She lay on the bed and searched her mind for some music. She selected the second Joy Division album from her internal jukebox and imagined she was in Manchester.
Moore returned later. Astrid had just finished some cardboard masquerading as meat and fruit juice squeezed from a dead donkey’s balls. He pulled a chair closer to the bars. The look on his face told her it wasn’t good news.
‘Nobody is picking up on the other end of the number you gave me. Maybe I’ll try again later, but I’ve got more questions first.’
Why not? She wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.
‘Fire away, Detective.’
He took out a notebook. ‘You strangled Caitlin Cruz with a cloth from the kitchen, then stamped on her until you smashed her rib cage and chest. Then you poured acid onto her face, so there’s nothing left to see.’ He tapped his pen on the page. The noise irritated Astrid’s ears.
‘That sounds like a crime of passion.’
‘You were angry because Starr beat you up with all those people watching. Then you lashed out at Cruz even though she helped you.’
‘I was drunk, but I wasn’t angry. And I didn’t kill anyone.’ This was a lot more personal than any anger she might have had. ‘What happened with the children?’
Moore removed two pictures from his book and handed them to her. They weren’t the images he’d shown her earlier, those innocent school photos of kids who’d never get the chance to grow up; these were carnage made real by an unhinged mind. Looking at dead bodies was nothing new to her, but this was different. Underneath the unrecognisable mess were humans whose faces had been burnt from their flesh, like their mother’s. She flinched at the sight, thinking about the niece she hadn’t spoken to in months. Then came the flash of memory, of the fight with the woman from the band. What else happened in Cruz’s house? She couldn’t remember, but something must have.
She rubbed at the top of her shoulder before handing the pictures back to Moore.
‘What’s the time of death for the kids compared to the mother?’
He scrutinised her. She wondered if he’d stopped giving her information. He was trying to manipulate her. That was obvious, but why if they had evidence and witnesses?
Of course, they don’t have evidence and witnesses. I killed no one. Some thugs at the bar might have seen me getting into Cruz’s car, but that meant nothing beyond she was helping me. And any decent defence attorney would rip the passport theory apart in seconds.
‘The medical examiner reckons they died about thirty minutes after her.’
Astrid gripped on to the bars of the cell. ‘You think they stood and watched while someone murdered their mother?’
‘They might have seen you attack her. Is that why you killed them, to get rid of the witnesses?’
‘Since we’re having such a pleasant conversation, Detective, why don’t you imagine for a second that I didn’t kill any of them and consider all the other options?’
Moore rolled the pen between his fingers. ‘Perhaps the kids were upstairs or out back and didn’t know what was happening.’
‘Were they deaf?’ Astrid said.
‘What?’
‘Did those children have problems with their hearing?’
He looked through his notes. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then why didn’t they hear the attack on their mother? Caitlin would have made a lot of noise when someone covered her face in acid.’ It was all in Astrid’s head now, the violence and the sounds outside the bar and Cruz taking her home. Had her kindness got her and her children slaughtered in such a terrible fashion? ‘I’m guessing the place was remote enough to have no neighbours, but those kids must’ve heard something.’
‘That’s not the only thing we can’t explain.’
Astrid sat on the bed, letting the words hang in the air. He either expected her to break down and confess, or he needed help.
‘You found something on the bodies.’ She knew
that made her sound like the killer.
‘What did we find?’ Moore got up.
She stared at the ceiling, her mind racing through crime scenes similar to the one they were accusing her of.
‘Someone could have placed my passport there after they knocked me out. My fingerprints were in the house because I was there, and I bet you won’t discover them on any of the bodies. Or anywhere apart from the kitchen. And certainly not upstairs, if that’s where you found the kids.’
‘What did we find?’ Moore repeated.
She felt his breath through the bars and smelt the burnt wood of his aftershave. He wasn’t wearing that earlier. Astrid swung around and faced the other wall.
‘Somebody might have been there, waiting for me to leave before they struck. Perhaps they followed me to the bar as well. So there was more than one of them, and they lifted my passport from me when I passed out.’ This wasn’t random; the killer or killers had planned the murders. Then she’d come along and they’d used the opportunity, with the fight and her blacking out, to frame her. She looked at him.
‘I don’t know, Moore; what did you find?’
He stared at her. She knew the Detective shouldn’t be speaking like this, understood he shouldn’t be sharing information with her. But the murders had stumped him; she saw it in his eyes. He was intelligent, professional, intuitive. What was he doing in a small town like this?
Moore peered right through her. ‘There was paper in each of their mouths.’
She didn’t ask what was on the paper, though guessed there must have been something to have him so rattled. ‘Maybe the frenzied attacks on the bodies weren’t overkill, but something else?’
‘Like what?’
‘Perhaps it was to cover something up. Were those kids’ arms covered in bruises?’
Moore stared at the photos again. ‘Violence was all over them.’
‘The excessive beating was a countermeasure, to hide the marks where somebody held them and forced them to watch while someone murdered their mother.’
Or maybe whoever did it enjoyed themselves too much.
‘There was someone else there?’ He didn’t sound convinced.
‘I’d guess at least two more people. The passport left behind is far too sloppy. Why would I be that sloppy?’
‘I don’t know.’ His gaze pierced her. ‘You were drunk, out of control; perhaps you didn’t realise what you were doing.’
She went to the bed, lay down and stared at the ceiling.
‘I think you better make that phone call again.’
Moore left Astrid on her own until an Officer brought her a sandwich and some coffee. It was the woman with the beautiful afro hair who’d taken her fingerprints earlier.
‘Do you have any tea?’
‘What?’ The Officer opened her mouth wide enough for Astrid to glimpse her perfect teeth. What was it with Americans and the need to whiten everything? The confusion on her face made her even prettier.
‘Can I have tea instead of coffee?’ Astrid flashed her widest smile. ‘It’s a little reminder of home.’
‘Sure,’ she said and went and fetched it. After Astrid had drunk it, the same woman took her from the cell; there were no handcuffs this time. She peered at the Officer’s badge as she left, not wanting to linger on her chest for too long.
‘Thanks for that, Officer Campbell.’ Campbell gave her a nod and led Astrid over to a chair at a large desk.
‘Jim will be over in a second.’
‘Jim?’
‘Detective Moore.’
He stood in the far corner of the room, speaking to the Chief and some bloke Astrid didn’t know. Even though they were inside, he wore sunglasses, like some rockstar trying to hang onto his fame. They finished talking, and turned to look at her. She sensed sympathy behind Moore’s gaze, but the other two glared at her like frogs waiting to devour a fly. Moore strode towards her and sat on his side of the desk. She stared at it, noticing the lack of anything personal there, the void of family photos of any kind.
‘Did you tell them it was likely at least three people killed Cruz and her kids?’
He avoided her gaze. ‘I said it was a possibility.’
‘You told them it was your idea, not mine?’ He didn’t reply. ‘Did you make the phone call?’
‘Not yet. If it was three killers, the Chief still thinks you were involved. Don’t forget your prints were inside the house.’
‘I told you what happened there.’
Moore placed his hands on the desk. ‘It seems a lot of trouble to go to, to frame an outsider for three murders.’
‘Killers will do anything to cover up their crimes; you should know that, Moore. I was unlucky enough to be the Oswald in the wrong place at the right time.’
He laughed at her. ‘You don’t think Oswald did it?’
‘Not on his own.’ She didn’t know why Lee Harvey Oswald’s name had sprung into her head at that precise moment, but it had.
Silence sat between them like a heavy stone.
‘We need to lock you up again until I can make that call.’ Moore didn’t sound happy about it.
She accepted the inevitable, convinced it would be over once they got the Agency on the other end of the phone. The Special Relationship between the British and American governments would help her for once.
‘That’s okay. That cell you had me in isn’t too uncomfortable, and if you can get Officer Campbell to keep bringing me food, I’m sure the time will fly by.’
He nodded at her as the phone on the desk rang. Moore picked it up and placed it into the side of his head like a mould. He said nothing apart from the occasional yes with a nod, as if whoever was on the other end could see him.
‘I understand,’ he said before putting the phone down. His expression was one of deep unhappiness.
‘Did you speak to my former employers?’ Astrid said.
‘No. I spoke to mine in Washington. They confirmed who you are after speaking to your former employers.’ He glanced down at a note he’d made during the call. ‘It’s not MI5 or MI6, but something called the Agency?’
She ignored his question. ‘You worked for the US Government?’ The information surprised her.
‘I still do,’ he said, pulling at the badge on his jacket.
Astrid stood. ‘Am I free to go?’
Moore’s shoulders shrank into his chest. He pushed the passport towards her.
‘We have witnesses putting you with Cruz not long before her murder; we have your fingerprints in the house, and we have that.’ He pointed towards the bloody passport. ‘Yet my instructions are to give it to you and let you go.’ He didn’t seem happy about it. ‘I think certain people want you out of the country.’
Astrid picked it up, her fingers brushing against the small amount of dried blood clinging to the front.
‘I’ve told you everything that happened, Detective. I’m innocent, and you know it.’ She slipped the passport into her pocket. ‘Can I have my phone back?’
‘We don’t have that, Ms Snow.’ She turned away from him. ‘Don’t you want to find out who framed you?’
‘That’s your job.’ Astrid strode towards the door.
‘Two kids died,’ he shouted as she left the building. She stepped outside, unsure where she was and how to get back to that dump of a hotel and her stuff. The quicker she got out of town and on the road to Rochester, the better. If the Agency had used their influence to get her out of this mess, they’d expect something in return.
She was considering turning back into the police station to ask one of them which direction her hotel was in until the growl in her guts told her she needed food. That’s when she remembered the map in the cell and how close Tom’s Diner was.
Astrid’s stomach led her from the cop shop and down the street to the diner. She was contemplating what American delicacies she’d have when the screaming came towards her.
4 Problem Child
Two giant tumbleweeds rolled towa
rds Astrid, kicking dirt and dust into the air. Only as she got closer to them did she realise it was teenagers fighting in the street. The noise they made was like a jet taking off. She didn’t intervene in the conflict, joining the few others on the sidewalk in watching the early afternoon attraction. Punches were thrown and scratches bit into cheeks as memories of her teenage battles flashed through her head.
There were a few scraps during her adolescent years, both with boys and girls, but there was never something like this exhibition from a cartoon. Her favourite was a full-on battle in the school canteen with an older girl. She couldn’t remember how it started, but would never forget how they fought over tables, scattering teachers and kids to the four corners, as they were covered in plates of beans and potatoes before an adult pulled them apart. The thought of it still had the power to resurrect the kitchen aromas in her nose.
As she relived more victories than defeats, the teenagers split apart like the atom and rolled in opposite directions. The smaller one with dirty blonde hair arrived at Astrid’s feet and scowled at her. The other one jumped up, the braces on her teeth glittering in the sun. For a frozen moment, the two antagonists glared at each other, and Astrid wondered if they were preparing to go again.
The one with the braces put an end to that thought.
‘I’ll see you later, Angie. There’ll be nobody to protect you then.’ She spat blood onto the ground and marched away, whistling some Taylor Swift tune Astrid knew Olivia liked. The constant image of her niece lingered in her head as she offered a hand to help Angie up. The grumpy girl refused and dusted herself down as she staggered to her feet. Astrid noted the cut on her nose and the clump of hair missing above her ear, thinking she made a good impersonation of a scarecrow at that moment.
Angie’s eyes smouldered through a chilled expression.
‘I don’t need anyone’s protection.’
There was something in the girl’s defiance which reminded Astrid of her teenage self. ‘I don’t doubt it, Angie.’
The kid scrutinised her like a bug under a microscope. ‘Do I know you, lady?’
