He climbed the three wood stairs to the porch, opened the storm door, and knocked.
Not a sound from inside.
He walked along the porch. Hand above his brow, he peered through one window, then another. A single light cast a yellow glow through the door from the kitchen to the dining room.
He rapped on the window, and called, “Woody, Amy, you home?”
The hiss of the wind and rustling of tree branches was the only response.
Again on his motorcycle, Roger rode down Hyde Park Road to the police station. As if he’d run the entire way, he was out of breath when he arrived. Woody’s Buick Skylark wasn’t in the lot.
His helmet under his arm, he entered the precinct. “Seen Chief Woodward tonight?” he asked.
The desk sergeant, tall and gawky, raised one eye from the crossword puzzle in the newspaper folded on his desk. He yawned into his uniform jacket, licked the point of his pencil, and filled in a six letter word. After inspecting the puzzle grid, he said, “The Chief was here. Left about twenty minutes ago.”
Frustrated, Roger slapped the desk. As he turned to leave, the sergeant called to him, “The man smelled like he had a snootful and he looked pissed.”
Back in the lot behind the precinct, Roger climbed onto his bike, revved the engine, and roared down Pine Avenue to where it fed into Niagara Falls Boulevard. Racing along the almost deserted street, he headed for the Royal Apartments—the low-rent complex my ex moved into after our divorce. Having seen the way Harry Woodward reacted when I told him his wife and Kevin had both been at Main Street Books, Roger feared his boss had leapt to the conclusion they were having an affair. Earlier in the evening, I had wondered the same thing. So Roger figured Chief Woodward might go to Kevin’s place, expecting to catch them in flagrante delicto. More anxious each time a red light halted his progress, Roger muttered to himself. He wanted to get to Kevin before Chief Woodward made a mistake he could never undo.
He sped up the boulevard, onto Military Road, then down a side street. Overhead, a low-flying military transport dipped its wings and circled for a landing at the airbase near the apartment complex.
When he arrived, Roger skidded in a circle in front of Kevin’s unit. He saw no sign of Harry Woodward’s Skylark. No lights were on in the apartment.
Roger straddled his Harley and pounded the handlebars.
This is when Rebecca caused his cell phone to sing. He heard the worry in her voice and returned to my house, where I told him of the vision I’d had. Though he refused to believe I witnessed Amy’s murder, his recollection of the single light in the Woodward house on a frigid weekday night worried him. Had Chief Woodward killed his wife in a jealous rage then fled? Fed by my fear, he didn’t stop to consider whether Woody might be at a late meeting with the DEA, and Amy might have left the light on for him when she went to bed.
Now in his Trailblazer, and much the warmer for the exchange of vehicles, he sped back to the white and blue clapboard house.
When he pulled up, he saw his boss’s Buick in the driveway. The house was now lit. The front door was open.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Roger climbed from his car and started up the steps. As he reached to open the storm door, he heard a loud moan and a sobbed, “Amy! Why?”
Dreading his worst fear had been realized, he rushed inside.
“Why, Amy? Why?” Harry Woodward cried.
Roger nearly tripped on the dining room area rug as he rounded the corner and burst into the Woodwards’ kitchen. What he saw brought him to a skidding stop.
Harry Woodward sat on the tile floor, his back against the dishwasher. He was covered in blood. Amy’s head in his lap, one arm draped across her shoulders, he rocked back and forth. A red pool spread beneath his wife’s body.
“Why? Why?” Chief Woodward groaned.
Roger gasped. “Woody, what happened?”
“Why?” the Chief said again, as if he didn’t realize anyone else was there.
His eyes quickly scanning the scene, Roger noticed a sink full of soapy water. There were red splatters on the backboard and a broken plate on the floor. It appeared as though Amy had been washing dishes when a shot hit her in the back.
Two pots had fallen from the stove. Amy must have knocked them over when she fell.
A pane of glass just above the kitchen doorknob was shattered. Wooden dinette chairs were overturned. A purse lay on the floor, its contents scattered. Drawers were open. Knives, forks, and spoons were also strewn about.
Had this been the work of an intruder who entered through the back door, intending to rob the house? If so, why was Amy Woodward’s back turned? Surely she would have turned to the door when the glass pane broke. Surely she would have run from the kitchen. Roger concluded Amy knew the person who shot her and the signs of a break-in were a red herring.
He glanced down. A Glock .45 was loosely held in his boss’s hand. Same caliber as the pistol that killed Jim Osborn—he’d seen the ballistic report in Chief Woodward’s sparse file.
“Woody, what have you done?” he whispered.
The detective chief lifted his head. “It’s my fault,” he groaned and dropped his gaze to the pistol. Now his eyes turned up to Roger. “Tell Amy I’m sorry.”
“I’ll take the gun,” Roger said. He knelt. Gently, careful to touch only the trigger guard, he pulled the pistol from Woody’s fingers. He slipped it into his jacket pocket where it clinked against my athame. Exhausted, he sank down next to his boss and pulled out his cell phone.
“Sarge? Detective Frey,” he said when the desk sergeant answered. “I need a bus and a squad car at Chief Woodward’s house.” He glanced at Woody, who still sat unmoving. “Call the crime scene techs and the medical examiner. Oh, and you’d better wake up the deputy chief. Tell him we’ve got a problem.”
Within fifteen minutes, sirens whooped down Hyde Park Road.
Roger spent the rest of the night in a precinct interrogation room, where Chief Woodard sat, eyes clouded, while Deputy Chief Reynolds questioned him. Woody answered each question with a blank stare and a moan. It was as if his mind had fled to some warm, distant land.
At last, as the sun began to peek through low clouds, Chief Woodward was led to a holding cell.
***
“I can’t believe Woody would murder anyone, much less his wife,” Roger told us. He dropped his half-eaten cheese sandwich on his plate.
Stunned by the detailed description of the murder scene, Rebecca and I were as silent as Woody must have been during his interrogation.
“I just can’t believe it,” Roger said again. He pushed away the bowl of soup that had gone cold while he spoke. “I’ve known the man ever since I got my gold badge. Ten years. It isn’t in him to do something like this.”
He glanced at Rebecca, then at me. His eyes glistened with tears.
Elvira poked her head from under the table and looked up at Roger. She mewed, sprang onto his lap, and curled up.
I started to reach out to him, but stopped. I sat on my hands to keep them from doing what my heart wanted them to.
Rebecca peered at me and snorted.
I was about to tell her to mind her own business, when Roger groaned. Stroking the cat’s soft white fur, he muttered, “It can’t be.”
“If not Woody, who?” I asked. My eyes shifted to Elvira. I was certain she’d give us the answer.
The cat stood. Her paws on Roger’s chest, she stared at him.
He sniffed and drew his shirtsleeve across his eyes. “I’ll tell you something,” he said. “Jimmie’s death and Amy Woodward’s are tied together. And I’ll tell you something else. If I don’t find out how, no one will.”
“Is there, uh…something we can do to help?” Rebecca said. She glanced at me. “Maybe go to the library, do some research?”
She clearly didn’t want to come face-to-face with a killer, but knew I was too angry to stay out of it. The library would be a place both of us would be safe—well, safer than chasing someo
ne who had killed twice.
“I’ve got to do more than look through books and old newspapers,” I said.
Elvira mewed and crawled onto Roger’s shoulder. From that vantage, she seemed to look past the counter and posts separating my kitchen from my dining and living areas. Her eyes were fixed on the table we’d set up near the French doors.
Roger turned in his seat. When he saw the table, he said, “Not that I believe in the hoodoo you guys are doing, but…Emlyn, you didn’t happen to see the face of whoever shot Amy Woodward?
I shook my head.
“Recognize the voice?”
“Uh-uh.”
His eyes dropped to his cold soup and sandwich. “Could’ve been Woody, then.”
“No, it couldn’t be,” I said.
Rebecca and Roger snapped their attention to me.
“I just remembered. Woody’s six-six or so. The person I saw wearing the hoody—both times—was too short to be him.”
“Both times?” Roger asked.
I told him about the first divination spell I tried—the one where I saw the person put a pistol in a wall safe. The one in which Jimmy Osborn’s killer recognized me, and started the chain of events which led to my leg being sautéed like a chicken breast. “The face was hidden by shadows the first time, too,” I said. “But whoever it was, the killer’s only an inch or two taller than me.”
Roger thought for a minute. “About the same height as Kevin Reinhart?”
I caught my breath. I’d pulled Chief Woodward away from a speeding bus, only to shove my ex under it.
“At least we’re sure the two killings are somehow connected,” Rebecca said. “That’s a start.”
“Maybe also connected to the drug ring,” Roger added. “If it is, I’m willing to bet your ex-husband’s the connection.”
Elvira jumped from his shoulder, landed at his feet and growled, as if to say, What are you waiting for? Get the slimy bastard before he kills us all!
Yes, I admit I put my thought into the cat’s mouth.
Roger said, “Kevin’s the key.” He took a bite of his cheese sandwich. “He’s not at his apartment. Where else would he hole up?”
I closed my eyes and tried to think. “His parents used to own a place on Saunders Settlement Road. It’s a stone house on the north side, just before you get to the high school.”
“Could he be there?”
I rested my elbows on the table and my head in my hands. I disliked my ex to the point at which just the thought of him turned my stomach—you don’t throw a hex at someone you care about. But I’d gotten to know him in the three years we lived together. Kevin was sleazy, yes, and underhanded. But he was also a coward, afraid of guns. The first thing he did when he moved into my house was get rid of my father’s hunting rifles. So, while it didn’t strain my imagination to believe he might be peddling drugs, or that he’d try to blackmail Amy Woodward—though I had no idea for what—no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture him killing her.
Looking at Roger, I said, “It’s an old house, been around a century and a half. I once went inside. Most of what I remember is the dust and cobwebs.” I shuddered. “Broken walls, sagging floors. I used it as the setting for one of my stories.”
“Sounds like the perfect place for a man to hide out,” Rebecca said. She rose and began to clear the table.
“Maybe. But Kevin?” I shook my head. “When I went in to explore the stone house, get details for my story, he insisted on waiting outside. Said it creeped him out.”
“I’ll check the place,” Roger said. “Never know. Being afraid for his life might’ve given Reinhart the guts to crawl in there.”
I pushed myself up from the table and reached for my crutches. “All right, let’s do it.”
Elvira sat up at my feet, eager to come with us.
“Where are you going?” Roger asked.
“With you. It’ll make it easier on Kevin if I’m there.”
“Uh-uh. This is police business.”
I felt my spine stiffen. Stubbornness does that to me. I raised my arm and pointed a crutch at Roger. “Federal police business. You’re not supposed to get involved, either. Or have you forgotten that?”
I’d finally found someone whose back could get as stiff as mine. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m making it my case. And the last thing I need is to worry about whether you’re gonna fall through a hole in the floor.”
“I can’t sit here and do nothing,” I argued.
Elvira mewed. Obviously she agreed with me.
I glanced at the end table and the remnants of our divination rite. My lips bent into a small grin. “Maybe there is something I can do.”
“Oh, no! Uh-uh,” Roger said. “The last thing I need is to have your brain go haywire again.”
My grin widened enough to show the result of orthodontic work my parents paid a fortune for when I was fourteen. “You just said the last thing you need is for me to fall into a hole. How many last things do you have?”
He ignored my remark.
I hobbled to the closet for my coat.
“Stay!” he said, as if he were talking to Elvira.
While I stood, fuming, he snatched my coat and exchanged it for his.
The crutches under my arms, from inside the glass storm door I watched him stride down my driveway to the unmarked car. He knocked on the driver’s window and leaned down. A minute later he was in his Trailblazer. As he passed the DEA agents, they made a U-turn and followed him down River Road.
Now at my side, Rebecca said, “Well, that’s that.” She seemed relieved.
“I don’t think so.”
“But Roger said—”
“Yeah, I heard him. He doesn’t want us at the stone house. He didn’t say anything about looking for Kevin elsewhere.”
Elvira looked up at me.
Rebecca didn’t move. Her eyes flicked from my sofa to the door, and her lips turned down. “This isn’t a good idea.”
I leaned my crutches against the wall. Standing on my one good leg, I took my coat from the closet. “Where’d you put my bag?” I said. “I need my car keys.”
“How are you gonna drive, you can hardly walk?”
“You can ride along with me or not. Either way, I’m going.” I opened the storm door.
Rebecca rolled her eyes and muttered, “Did I say something about standing in the way of a freight train?”
She took a deep breath while trying to figure a way, I thought, to stop me from going after a man who wouldn’t hesitate to kill us both. After half a minute, she released her breath. It seemed as though she decided she couldn’t stop me. She grabbed her coat from the closet, and said, “I’m driving.”
While I swung my crutches down the front steps, I called back to her, “Take Elvira. She’s got a better handle on this than we do.”
Chapter Eighteen
What Kevin Was Up To
We passed beneath a sign announcing we had entered Little Italy. Set on concrete replicas of Roman pillars, and adorned with green and red iron grapes, the sign spanned Pine Avenue. This was the business district in downtown Niagara Falls. Up and down the street, strands of plastic holly and Christmas wreaths still hung from lampposts. In New York’s Snow Belt, we cling to the warmth of the holiday season and keep the remnants of it around as long as possible.
Rebecca was behind the wheel of my second-hand, brown Plymouth Valiant.
Elvira stood on my lap and gazed out the window. Her head swiveled from side-to-side. At times, she climbed up my chest and leaned over my shoulder with her neck stretched.
“You’re a real tourist,” I said to her.
She bent down and stared into my eyes, as if to say, One of us has to pay attention to what’s going on.
We passed restaurants, small clothing stores, and a furniture repair shop. When we neared Flannery’s Bar, the cat scampered onto Rebecca’s lap and pressed her face against the driver’s side window.
I grabbed her
. “Hey, you’re gonna get us into an accident.”
She twisted in my arms and opened her mouth.
I understood what she wanted to say. A man with a scarf wrapped around his face had just come out of Flannery’s door. I took a close look at him. In a minute, I settled back in the passenger seat, and shook my head. “Looks a little like Kevin—the right height, but that’s not the way he walks.” My ex shuffled his feet when he walked, as if he were weary from a long and laborious day.
Just before the Baptist church, we pulled to the curb in front of a building of Mediterranean design. It had ivory stucco walls, brown beams, and arched orange shingles on the overhangs and roof. The ground floor housed a bakery and an Italian deli. Between them was a small courtyard with a staircase on either side. Above the courtyard was an exposed walkway, along which were the heavy oak doors of a law firm and a political office. Where the walkway bent back toward the street, raised black letters on weathered wood marked the office of Ira Smith, Insurance Broker. It was there my ex used to work. It was there we were headed.
The crutches clutched in my right hand, I leaned heavily on the rail as I climbed the stairs. Rebecca followed me, carrying the cat.
I hesitated in front of the Insurance Broker sign, unsure whether I really wanted to go in. My uncertainty might have lasted more than a few seconds, if I hadn’t felt Elvira’s paw push on my back.
A tinny bell sounded when I opened the door. Without looking up from the folder on her desk, the blond receptionist asked, “May I help you?”
The walls were papered in black and white zebra stripes. The outer office was only large enough to hold one chair, a small two-seat sofa with silver metal arms and black Naugahyde upholstery, and a table on which a few issues of National Geographic and Sports Illustrated were scattered. Looking at the stained covers, I thought those same magazines might have been on the table when I was last here seven years ago. The same blond secretary was at the desk.
The Magic of Murder Page 16
