Mounting Evidence

by Karis Walsh

  Abby didn’t add that Julie might still be in danger if Kira was, but she had no doubt Kira knew it. She wasn’t trying to threaten her, but to get her to look beyond her distaste for Abby and her family. Abby felt defeated. She’d let Kira have a glimpse into her private world, and she’d been judged and condemned along with the rest of the Hargroves. It was a familiar feeling, but this time it reached beyond her surface and cut deep.

  Kira seemed to battle her desire to run out of the room and away from Abby, but she slowly walked to the chair and sat down. She started looking through the pages in the folder while Abby got another armload of them from the cabinet. She carried them awkwardly under her left arm, and when she put them on the table, the pile skittered across the polished surface. She started to gather them again, but Kira put her hand on Abby’s arm and squeezed.

  “Let me,” she said. She gathered the files into a neat stack. “Abby, I’m not thinking you’re the bad person here. I’m disgusted by the way your relatives have handled their positions of power in the community, but what they’ve done is no reflection on you. You are the one who’s chosen to involve yourself in their crimes. And you’re the only one who can step away from them and start living your own life. You’ve known me a few days and you’ve been doing all this”—she gestured vaguely around the room—“for God knows how long. What I say won’t make a difference, but I hope you’ll at least consider letting them go.”

  Abby didn’t tell Kira how much she’d wanted to just walk away from her endless work here, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell her that even though they had just met, Kira was somehow the only person who had made Abby believe she actually could. Right now, she needed to stay focused. She had to keep open the channels she’d formed between herself and these cases because they possibly held the clues that would lead to Kira’s safety.

  “I appreciate your concern, but I’ve made my choice.” Abby cleared her throat and stood behind Kira’s chair. She rested her injured hand lightly on Kira’s shoulder while she pointed at the report with her left one.

  “See here, Rick claimed that he got a tip this guy Sal Hendrick was selling drugs. They found some coke at his house, but not enough for an intent to sell. When I first saw this report, I thought it seemed odd, so I brought a copy home. This guy didn’t have any priors, and he wasn’t living in a high-drug-traffic area. It just didn’t sit right. Meanwhile, I remember seeing this lone house in the middle of cleared land on Union, and then one day it was gone and they were building the medical center. I hadn’t connected it with this case until now, but it’s the same address, and this alleged drug bust took place about the same time as the demolition.”

  “So he had a house Milford needed, and he didn’t choose to sell until your brother happened to find drugs on his property. Yeah, there’s nothing suspicious here.” Kira pulled the rest of the files toward her. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Let’s just go through these cases and see if anything jumps out. I’ve been through them dozens of times, but now we need to look at the addresses and the dates. Rick might have been coercing people to sell somehow, if he and Milford would benefit from it.”

  “If we find enough evidence, your detectives will have to investigate further, won’t they? Then you can actually make him stop instead of just following behind and cleaning up after him.”

  Abby didn’t share Kira’s enthusiasm for that part of the plan. She got a folding chair from her bedroom and sat at the table with a pile of folders in front of her. She’d spent too much of her life cleaning up—as Kira put it—the Hargrove mess, and she didn’t relish the thought of being associated by name with a public scandal. But somehow, as they worked side by side, Abby felt the burden she’d carried alone so long ease just a little.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Here’s one,” Kira said. “An older couple thought they heard someone in their yard. The cops found footprints around the back window and a pry bar and splintered wood beneath it. The house was on a large corner lot on Ninth Avenue and it’s a Wendy’s restaurant now. Thanks to our friend Milford.”

  She added the file to the three other suspicious ones they’d found. “He could have been working this in a couple of ways,” Kira said. She mentally pictured herself in the couple’s situation. She knew how she had felt the past few days when she walked onto her porch, even in broad daylight. Her pulse quickened, her breath was strangled, and her fingers shook as she fumbled to get the key in the lock as quickly as she could. A normal reaction to what had happened to her, but a disheartening one. She wouldn’t be any safer on a different doorstep if someone was after her, but the thought of moving was tempting at times.

  “What do you mean?” Abby asked. She looked up from the report she was scanning and rubbed her right palm. The gesture seemed unconscious, since Kira didn’t believe Abby would admit to being in pain, and it pulled at Kira’s heart. Abby was staying strong for her, not just to gather evidence against her brother but to keep Kira safe.

  “Well, the drug charge from the first file was probably made up to get the last holdout to sell his property, like we thought, but maybe your brother also looked for unexpected opportunities. He takes a report from a couple who are frightened in their own home. The lot is in a prime location, so maybe he mentions how many break-ins there’ve been in the neighborhood lately—”

  “And a few days later, in swoops Tad Milford with a low but adequate offer on their house,” Abby finished the thought. “Chicken or egg. But either way, it’s an abuse of power. The first instance is criminal—planting evidence and blackmail—but the second is a hazier moral gray area. I hate those.”

  “You mean you avoid those, because the rest of your family seems comfortable living smack in the middle of them.” Kira was reading the reports and paying attention to the pertinent details, but her attention kept straying to Abby and the cocoon she’d built in this room. At first, Kira had been appalled by the degree of corruption in the Hargrove family and by the apparent lack of repercussions they’d faced. More and more now, her concern was for Abby. What she’d given up, and the terrible burden she’d nobly chosen to bear. Kira had made jokes about her being a superhero, but they weren’t far from the truth. Frustratingly, Abby seemed instead to identify with the shame her family had caused.

  “Whatever,” Abby said with a wave of her left hand. She read a little more before tossing the folder she was holding into the pile of those unassociated with Milford. Instead of picking up another one, she finished off her beer and watched Kira.

  “Tell me about Dale,” she said.

  Kira frowned. She rarely talked about Dale anymore. She had confessed everything about their relationship to Rick Hargrove, and her painful honesty had been disregarded. Since then, she hadn’t told anyone else. But she didn’t need to convince Abby of anything. Abby had believed her side of the story from the very first, even after reading the falsified report.

  “I get embarrassed when I even think about it, let alone talk about it,” she admitted. “I should have—”

  “No should-haves,” Abby said. “Who hasn’t been fooled into thinking the mask they see is the real person? I’m not asking you to justify your life, but I’d like to know more about it.”

  Kira wondered what masks had fooled Abby. She was sure there had been a time before Abby knew about the extent of this corruption. Somewhere along the line she’d gone from being a blissfully ignorant, adoring granddaughter, to being holed up in this room atoning for the world’s sins. Abby would understand Kira’s desire to believe the best, even when the worst was proven over and over again.

  “We met at an Earth Day celebration at Wright Park, about five years ago, after I’d moved back to Tacoma.” Kira remembered the sadness accompanying her that day. The skies had been blue and the music loud, but she’d been locked inside her own world until a woman with crazily blue eyes had bumped into her, and then gallantly apologized by buying her lunch. “My grandparents moved to Oregon to hel
p me take care of Julie while I got my degree, and they passed away within two years of each other. We needed to make a change and had just come back here, and I was lonely. Julie was making friends in school, but I didn’t know many people and I was grieving.”

  Abby reached across the table and laced just the tips of her fingers with Kira’s. The touch was tentative and noncommittal, but comforting in a cautious way.

  “Dale was great at first. Funny and charming. Always interested in my work and asking about my day. She made me the center of attention whenever I was in the room with her.”

  “But, then…?” Abby prompted when Kira got silent.

  “But then, as soon as we moved in together, she changed. Not all the time—there were days when she was the same woman I’d fallen in love with. Just part of the time, enough to make me feel insecure. She’d go from hot to cold in an instant. Loving and attentive one minute, but distant and angry the next. She was never wrong. Even if I had a legitimate complaint, she’d twist it around until I was the guilty one. I never knew what to expect, so I always felt unsettled and nervous about what I’d face when I got home from work.”

  Work that had been distracting and full of confrontation given its subject matter, but it had also been a source of friendships and pride. The more Kira had accomplished in her field, the more resentful Dale grew. Kira had only wanted peace in her home life—both for herself and for Julie. She’d always believed that if she could just say the right thing, do the right thing, she could restore the harmony that had defined the first days of their relationship. Control had been taken from her in increments. She didn’t like looking backward, because the past was hard to face.

  “She was good to Julie, like I’ve said. Financially, but not emotionally. She was distant and cold, but I didn’t realize it at first because she was so charming. I don’t know if it was an act or not, but even when she stopped being that way with me, she was charismatic and friendly to anyone we met outside the home. There were a couple of shoves along the way when we were alone—always followed by apologies and explanations and excuses—but nothing clearly abusive until that night.”

  Kira paused. She wanted to stop, but Abby had already read the report. Kira had already talked a little about her brush with the police. The hard part was over and she could talk to Abby.

  “I was out a little later than usual working on the final details for a proposal I was presenting to the city council the next day. She had been drinking while she waited for me to get home, and we got in a fight. She hit me, hard enough to cut my cheek with her ring. I called the cops, and you know what happened then. They separated us to get our stories, and then they left me with her. She was still angry and drunk, but I managed to keep things calm until she passed out. Then I left. Julie was staying at a friend’s house, so I went and got her and we never went back.”

  Abby gripped her hand more tightly. “I’m proud of you. I know how difficult it must have been to let go of hope and make the changes you needed to make. You’re very strong.”

  “Someone strong would have left right away,” Kira argued, but without much conviction. She loved hearing Abby’s words because they echoed the ones she’d whispered to herself at night. Outsiders might judge her differently, but she’d been the one in the situation. She alone knew what she’d faced, and she knew what it had taken to get out.

  “No,” Abby said with a firm shake of her head. “Someone strong leaves when it’s necessary. You did.”

  “Thank you,” Kira said. “Abby, what your brother did was wrong, but in an odd way it helped me. It forced me to make the decision to go on my own, without assistance or approval from anyone else. I was lucky I was safe until I was able to get out. In the end, I found my own strength.”

  “You can’t be making allowances for what he did to you—”

  “I’m not,” Kira said. She wasn’t even thinking about her own situation anymore. She was trying to find a way to use what had happened to her to help Abby. “I think I’m just saying things are more complex than they appear. Yes, your brother did a bad thing, but it also was a catalyst for me to take charge. And yes, Nirvana helped me and Julie through a time of change, but we would have survived on our own. I’ll always be grateful for her, and for what you did, but the retribution you’re seeking won’t ever balance everything back to zero. You’re caught in a never-ending battle between good and evil, and you don’t always know how far the scales have been tipped to either side. You’ll never find complete resolution so you can rest.”

  Rest. The word made Abby’s head hurt. She longed for the feeling, and she had experienced it a few times with Kira over the past week and a half. Playing with her at the fair, sleeping beside her next to the lake, and sharing this secret world with her. She’d even found some rest when she was riding with her team, even though her time on active duty as a mounted officer had been a record-breakingly short one.

  Still, Kira’s words wormed their way into her mind, and she’d need to give them more consideration after this case was settled. She’d read Kira’s file and had made assumptions about the truth behind Rick’s words, but she hadn’t known the full, human picture until now. She saw each situation, each case, as clearly right or wrong, but there were variations of which she wasn’t aware. How much of what she saw was factual and how much was colored by her perception? She knew her brother felt as much contempt for her as she felt for him. Goody-Goody Hargrove. Was she really the one who saw the clearest? She was too exhausted to get out of the shade and into the truth.

  She needed to get out of this room and away from these files. She went over to her desk and opened the laptop.

  “What are you doing?” Kira asked. She’d been silent while Abby mulled over her words, and now she twisted in her chair to watch Abby as she typed.

  “Looking up Sal Hendrick’s new address,” she said. “Ah, here he is. Living in an apartment on Jackson. Not exactly an upgrade from his old house.”

  “I’m sure Milford bought his old one for practically nothing, if the alternative was going to jail for selling drugs.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Abby said. She held out her hand and pulled Kira to her feet. “But I’m tired of reading and forming hypotheses. I want to hear his version of what actually happened.”

  “How are we going to find out?” Kira asked as she followed Abby down the stairs.

  Abby shrugged. “I’m going to ask him.”

  She locked the front door behind them. “I’ll take you back to your car at the nature center and—”

  “No way,” Kira said. She grabbed the keys from Abby’s hand. “I’ll drive us to his apartment, and then we’ll take me back to my car.”

  Abby wanted to protest, but Kira had as much at stake in this situation as she did. Maybe more. There was nothing official about this interview, so Kira might as well tag along. “If there’s any sign of danger, you have to listen to me and get the hell out of there, okay? I don’t care if you think I’m overbearing and protective. Unless you promise to trust my instincts in this situation, we’re not going.”

  Kira seemed to struggle with Abby’s words, but she eventually nodded. “Okay, but only because you’re the one with experience.”

  “Exactly,” Abby said. She got in the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt awkwardly with her left hand.

  “So, how do you shake the information out of him?” Kira asked. “Do you get out the thumb screws if he doesn’t want to talk?”

  She sounded like she was joking, but Abby saw a hint of concern on Kira’s face. She’d be sensitive to any use of coercion or manipulation, especially given her own experience with Dale and the cops. Abby wouldn’t have gotten physical with the guy anyway, but she’d need to be especially careful how she approached him with Kira along.

  “I’m not planning to toss him around the room until he confesses,” she said, matching Kira’s light tone. “We just need to get some confirmation of our suspicions before we go further along this a
venue of investigation. I’ll ask him what happened, and we’ll decide if we think his answer is truthful or not, whatever it is. Most likely, if he really was set up like we think, he’ll be eager to tell his side of the story to someone who is willing to listen.”

  Kira drove the short distance from her house to Hendrick’s, and she and Abby walked from the visitor’s parking area to the back unit of the apartment complex. The surrounding fence was painted a tan color, but there were multiple white patches where graffiti had been covered up. The landscaping was plain and unkempt, and the garbage bin overflowed into the parking lot. Some of the units had balconies, but they were mostly filled with toys and plastic storage containers so they looked like outdoor junk closets. Abby and Kira walked up a rickety staircase to the second floor.

  Abby knocked on the door, positioning herself so she’d be able to protect Kira if Sal was inclined to barge through it and into them, and she was surprised by the short, middle-aged man who answered the door. He resembled Mr. Rogers, complete with cardigan, more than some drug-selling kingpin.

  “Mr. Hendrick?” she asked.

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “I’m Lynn,” she said, using her middle name instead of the more recognizable Abby in case he contacted the department after she left. “I’d like to ask a few questions about the drug charges you faced before you sold your house.”

  “I don’t buy or sell drugs.”

  “I know,” Abby said. Her quiet words seemed to startle him out of his defiance. He had been prepared for disbelief or for an argument, and she’d deflated his belligerence with her immediate acceptance of his statement.