Lost in America

by A. S. French

  The Chief’s scowl and Newman’s grimace showed her flippancy hadn’t gone down too well. The Detective placed his hand on the table. ‘Plus, you were driving her car and, from what I know and see, you’re wearing some of her clothes.’

  ‘You think I stole her car and clothes.’ They stared at her without replying. ‘And then returned to the house.’

  Chief Colt’s eyes bulged. ‘Perhaps you had a tiff, got angry, drove off, and then went back.’

  His stupidity knew no bounds, and she guessed it might be a long night.

  ‘You know about the attack at the Campbell house yesterday?’

  A smile crept over the Chief’s face like a fat slug on a mission. ‘You mean the alleged assault on you?’

  ‘Alleged?’

  ‘Yes, alleged.’ Newman placed a file on the table. ‘Jim’s report has no evidence of an attack on you at the house.’ He flicked open the folder. ‘The building was in a state and there was blood in the pool, but you could have planted that. Nobody saw any assailants but you, which is pretty convenient.’

  ‘It is for somebody.’ She shook her head. ‘Why would I do any of this?’

  The two policemen glanced at each other. ‘That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out.’

  ‘And what fantasy have you settled for?’

  The Chief shifted his bulk up to the table. ‘You killed Caitlin Cruz and her kids, stuffing those bits of paper into their mouths.’ His stare cut into her. ‘It’s funny how you were the one who discovered their connection to a human trafficking website, isn’t it?’

  Astrid twisted her spine into the chair. ‘It’s hilarious I was the only one capable of any real detection work in this station.’ She knew that was unfair to Moore and Campbell, but couldn’t help herself. ‘What about the bodies in the cabin? Was that me too?’

  Newman smiled. ‘That was part of your misdirection. Kill two strangers and disfigure them as the Cruz killings. It was enough to delay things, and then the national cyber-attack distracted everyone.’

  Astrid’s laugh hurt her ribs. ‘Did I do that as well?’

  The look on the Chief’s face told her he was enjoying this. And he probably thought her suggestion wasn’t too wide of the mark.

  ‘Aren’t you a former British spy?’ He scowled at her. ‘Who knows what you’re capable of and what contacts you have in international espionage.’

  She turned to Newman. ‘You’re getting desperate. Detective Moore would be ashamed of you.’

  He slammed his hand onto the table. ‘Don’t you speak of him like that.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him. Why would I?’

  ‘Because he knew you murdered Caitlin Cruz and her children. You killed Moore and made it look like a twisted serial killer, just like with the Cruzes and the numbers stuffed into their mouths. Perhaps you did it to confuse us, or there’s some other perverse reason in your head.’ Both of his hands rested on the table now. ‘Your time as a British Intelligence operative might have scrambled your brains. Maybe even you don’t know what you’ve done here.’

  ‘Why would I lie about the attack at the house?’

  ‘To cover your tracks.’

  ‘Why would I kill the Cruzes?’

  ‘We’ll find out, eventually. First, we need you to tell us where Eleanor is.’

  Astrid wondered how much of this nonsense they believed. ‘Do you have evidence for any of this, Detective Newman?’

  His silence filled the room for a full minute.

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  She stood. ‘Then either get me a lawyer or let me out.’

  They didn’t stop her from leaving. As she stepped into the street, the image of Chief Colt’s slug-like grin wouldn’t leave her head.

  Where to go and what to do now?

  ‘Do you need a lift, Astrid?’

  She turned to see Rosie Sawyer leaning against her car.

  ‘As long as it’s to somewhere with a drink.’

  Sawyer drove them to a run-down apartment behind the Baptist church. It was on the third floor of a dilapidated building, and the elevator didn’t work. The graffiti on the walls was the usual obscenities and badly drawn penises, apart from a large slab of text, claiming the reader as an inspiration for idiots everywhere.

  She followed Rosie up the stairs and avoided the stray cats purring at her legs. She was glad to get inside and dodge the bouquet of cat piss. Rosie threw her coat onto a chair and went into the kitchen.

  ‘Beer, wine or spirits?’ she shouted.

  ‘Tequila if you have it.’

  Astrid searched for somewhere clean to sit, finding only a stained sofa since every other spot contained piles of Polaroids. It seemed as if someone had used the room to dump thousands of images everywhere, and she had to tread carefully to make sure she didn’t slip on any of them. Rosie returned and handed her a fat measure of alcohol. She held her drink out to Astrid, who clinked her glass against the other one.

  Sawyer grinned. ‘Cheers, Ms Snow. And welcome to my humble abode.’

  Astrid took a large gulp of tequila. ‘That’s putting it mildly. As the daughter of the man who owns the town, couldn’t you have found somewhere more salubrious to live?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘This is the best place for me. He won’t think to look for me here, and my brother wouldn’t be seen dead in this part of Bakerstown.’ She gazed at the mess everywhere. ‘This is my little spot of solitude and sanity.’

  Astrid bit through a piece of ice and wondered if she should tell her host about her recent encounter with Jimmy Sawyer. She thought better of it and asked a question instead.

  ‘How did you know I was at the police station?’

  Rosie sipped at her drink. ‘Rumours are like wildfire in this town. Once the news spread about Robbie Campbell and Detective Moore with someone being questioned for it, it wasn’t long before I guessed it was you they had in custody.’

  ‘They didn’t charge me with anything. All they did was throw baseless accusations at me.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘They think I killed Moore because he had evidence I murdered Caitlin Cruz.’

  ‘And Robbie Campbell?’

  Astrid finished her drink and shook the empty glass at Sawyer. ‘They didn’t say, but maybe they viewed him as an innocent bystander.’

  ‘But why would you and Moore be in Campbell’s house?’

  ‘Perhaps they thought we were having an orgy.’

  Rosie spat all over the photos at her feet. ‘What? How would they get such a crazy idea?’

  ‘Eleanor and I had a fling. Many blokes take something like that and extrapolate future behaviour based on their rabid imaginations.’

  ‘Wow.’ Rosie finished her booze. ‘I want another. How about you?’

  ‘Are you talking about the tequila or something else?’

  Rosie laughed. ‘Well, let’s go with the drink for now and see what follows.’ She took her empty glass. ‘Why don’t you take a seat?’

  Astrid glanced over the cluttered room. ‘Where would you suggest?’

  ‘Push the photos on the floor. I need to organise everything, anyway.’

  She went into the kitchen as Astrid did that with the Polaroids. They tumbled on to the carpet and spread out like the tide flowing into the sea.

  Astrid grabbed a handful of them as she waited for her tequila refill. There were images of parts of the town she’d already seen, the shops and the churches, the cinema and restaurants, plus others she hadn’t, places of great beauty like the bottom of the hills, groups of flowering trees in the spring, shots of kids at play, and one of the outside of the police station. She didn’t need to see that again in a hurry, so she dropped those photos back into the group and scooped up another selection.

  She was going through them as Rosie returned.

  ‘That’s a collection of spontaneous portraits I took this year.’

  ‘Spontaneous? You mean you snapped them without the subjects knowing.’ Astrid grabbed h
er glass and sipped at it.

  Rosie laughed through the booze. ‘Yeah, it was something like that.’

  Astrid nodded and looked through the photos. An African American woman sat on a bench reading a copy of The Hate U Give; a blonde teenage girl listened to her headphones with an enormous smile on her face. A priest stood behind an American flag; a grey-haired man fed the birds. There was a certain quality to the photos she hadn’t seen before, incandescence caught in the film, which meant they felt like more than images to her, as if they were living snapshots of the beauty of life.

  ‘These are great. You need to exhibit them.’

  Sawyer blushed and swept the rest of the sofa clean to sit near Astrid. ‘You’re too kind, Ms Snow, but not all of them are uplifting.’ She pointed at one lying next to Astrid’s leg. Astrid understood what she meant as she picked it up.

  ‘You look nothing like him, Rosie.’

  She put a hand to her chest. ‘Thank God for that.’ Her laugh was nervous. ‘Jimmy got all the old man’s good looks.’

  It was a recent photo of Benedict Sawyer, and his steely eyes appeared to gaze from the Polaroid straight into her face.

  ‘Why does your father hate me, Rosie?’

  Rosie blew out her cheeks. ‘I don’t think he hates you, Astrid. He admires you.’

  She stopped herself from choking on an ice cube. ‘He’s got a funny way of showing it.’

  ‘He offered you a job. That seemed sincere to me. I know Jimmy’s angry about that, so he believes it’s genuine.’

  ‘Do you know two thugs who hang around with your brother, cowboys with one in a black hat and the other in a white one? Neither of them is very bright.’

  Rosie’s laugh made Astrid’s heart flutter. ‘Yeah, that sounds like Chuck and Buck Jones. They went to school with Jimmy and have followed him like lapdogs ever since. I heard you had a run-in with them outside the Ranch House.’

  ‘That was the first time.’

  ‘There’s been more?’

  How much should I tell her? Do I trust her?

  ‘Have you visited the town of Sugar Hill?’ Rosie nodded. ‘They sprang a sneak attack on me there.’

  ‘I guess you dealt with them, but why were you there?’

  Was that a note of concern in her voice, or was she fishing for information?

  ‘I was searching for Caitlin Cruz’s killers.’

  She noted how Sawyer’s eyes narrowed as she spoke. ‘Why there?’

  ‘I tracked a link. But your brother’s friends were waiting for me.’

  She told Sawyer some of what had occurred, but not all of it, and definitely not about her brother’s involvement. And not what she’d done to him.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Someone murdered my lead using a knife I’d touched in Eleanor Campbell’s kitchen. Then the cowboy goons jumped me.’

  ‘Did you question the brothers?’

  ‘I did, but they were useless. Then I returned to Bakerstown and the carnage at the Campbell house.’

  Sawyer pulled up her legs and crossed them on the sofa, clutching the tequila to her chest.

  ‘None of it makes any sense.’

  Astrid peered into the prints scattered around her feet. ‘It does to someone.’ She scanned the images until she saw an interesting group. She grabbed them and took another taste of tequila. ‘You took a lot of photos of the brewery.’

  ‘I started a new project of recording every part of the town as it goes from January to December, but I paused it after what happened at the brewery. It was while the management shut it down after the accident. Bakerstown wouldn’t survive without it. And it’s our biggest tourist attraction. I wanted to get some shots inside after the accident and during the upgrade. It was the first significant internal change there since World War Two, and I thought I should document it, but it was a no go.’

  ‘Even with your father’s influence?’

  She laughed. ‘I think it was he who blocked me from getting in.’

  Astrid went through the brewery images, her interest in the place increasing as she got to the last half a dozen photos.

  ‘Do you have a laptop with internet access, Rosie?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry, no. But I have it on my cell.’

  Astrid finished her second drink and put the glass on to the floor, finding a spot between the Polaroids.

  ‘Can I borrow it while you get me another tequila?’

  ‘Sure, of course.’

  She handed the phone to Astrid and took the empty glass from the carpet. Rosie shot her a curious look as she retreated to the kitchen.

  Astrid smiled at her, and then opened the browser. It didn’t take long to find what she wanted, and she returned the phone to Rosie when she arrived with their next tipple. She’d left the web page on the screen, so Rosie saw it as she sat down.

  ‘Do you want to take a brewery tour?’

  ‘Yes, the first chance we get tomorrow.’

  Rosie furrowed her eyebrows. ‘How come?’

  Astrid slurped her drink and handed Rosie the photos which had attracted her attention. In each of them, Caitlin Cruz was striding through the brewery gates.

  ‘According to your writing on the back of these, they’re from consecutive days, all in the run-up to the accident where two people died.’ And a month after the last photo was taken, Cruz was also dead. ‘Did you know Caitlin, Rosie?’

  Sorrow danced across Sawyer’s face. ‘Hardly; we didn’t exactly move in the same social circles, but I knew her by reputation.’

  ‘What reputation?’

  Rosie Sawyer sucked in her cheeks. ‘From what I overheard of my father complaining about her, Cruz imagined herself as an online investigative journalist. I think it began with work she did in that church of hers, and then she started sticking her nose into places she shouldn’t.’

  There was resentment in her tone which Astrid hadn’t noticed before. Was it aimed at Cat Cruz or because her father seemed to take more notice of her than his daughter?

  ‘What did Caitlin discover, Rosie?’

  ‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but I think it was to do with the brewery.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘People died there and it nearly shut down. Bakerstown would have turned into a ghost town if that had happened.’

  ‘Wasn’t that an accident?’

  ‘That’s what the management claimed, but they’re not to be trusted.’

  ‘Because your father owns the place?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Rosie removed a vape from her pocket and was about to light it when Astrid shook her head.

  ‘So what happened if it wasn’t an accident?’

  Sawyer placed the vape on the arm of the sofa. ‘I don’t know, but people died, and not just in the brewery.’

  ‘There was a cover-up?’ Rosie nodded. ‘And they attributed the deaths to something else.’

  ‘You don’t understand how ruthless my father is. He’ll do anything to protect himself and his business.’

  Astrid glanced through the pictures again. ‘You were outside the building on four consecutive days to get these photos of Caitlin. Was that coincidence?’

  Rosie shrugged. ‘Probably. I’ve been taking a lot of pics of the town.’ She snatched another group from the floor. ‘Look, these are all the Baptist church on different days. If you go through everything I took, you’ll find groups of every inch of Bakerstown. It’s just the way I work.’

  Astrid processed all this additional information.

  ‘We need to get inside that brewery tomorrow to see what your father is covering up.’

  And why he’s killing people in the process.

  19 Drinking About My Baby

  It wasn’t inevitable she and Rosie would end up in bed, but once the American woman slipped Bowie’s Low album into the CD player, Astrid guessed which way it would go. That and devouring a bottle of tequila between them loosened any inhibitions there may have been.

  Saw
yer had furnished the bedroom on a meagre budget, but it was full of more warmth than Astrid expected for somewhere so run down. She peered at the far wall, staring at the collection of photos Rosie had placed there. She rose while Rosie slept and looked at every image, noticing a pattern in the layout similar to what she’d seen on the map that night in her cell. The Police Department’s photo led to one of the Well-Read bookstore, then came Tom’s Diner, the drugstore, the perfume shop and Siggy’s Used Cars. The row below that connected pictures of the movie theatre, the town hall, the United Methodist Church, the First Church of the Baptist, the Jesus Cheeses deli, and then a group of images that interested her the most: the Bakerstown Brewery.

  She crawled out of bed, a chill in the air making the hair on her naked body stand on end. She pushed her toes into the carpet and strode towards the photo collage. Last night, she’d grabbed those snaps of Caitlin Cruz outside the brewery, and she placed them with the others on the wall.

  What were you looking for in there, Cat?

  It had to be something to do with the accident. She gazed hard at the images, hoping the longer she looked, the more likely the solution would pop into her head. Only Rosie’s fingers on her shoulder dragged her mind from the question of Caitlin Cruz’s mission at the Bakerstown Brewery.

  ‘The tour isn’t for another three hours.’ She ran her hand over Astrid’s skin. ‘Shall we design a plan for what to do when we’re inside?’

  Astrid turned from the wall and put her hands on Rosie’s hips, the touch and scent of the American sending a shudder through her body.

  ‘We need to eat before that.’

  ‘Will breakfast do?’

  She pulled Rosie into her. ‘After.’

  Astrid stood outside the brewery just before twelve, with five minutes to go before the start of the tour. The dark glasses and wide hat Rosie had given her might not have been the most sophisticated disguise, but the fewer prying eyes she attracted, the better. About a dozen people waited there; tourists, she assumed. They gossiped amongst themselves, more interested in the upcoming presidential visit to Bakerstown than the tour they were about to take. Some of them spoke about the troops returning home and how that was a good thing. Nobody mentioned the cyber-attacks, seemingly unconcerned since they were over and hadn’t affected ordinary citizens. She peered at the gates and imagined the leader of the free world stopping there during his tour and sipping on that terrible beer she’d had the night she got drunk.