the dead girl (BREAKDOWN Book 1)

by Debra Webb

  “It’s nothing, son.” Vernon was the first to recover. “Your mother and I simply disagree on how to renovate the kitchen.”

  Vinn looked to Connie and somehow she mustered a smile. “I told him we would ask you to cast the deciding vote.”

  Vinn looked from Connie to his father and back. “I’m with you, Mom. Whatever you decide about the kitchen is probably best.”

  “Of course.” Vernon covered the few steps between them and clapped Vinn on the back. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Connie silently prayed that her husband’s little disgusting pipe tobacco indulgence would give him lung cancer and that he would die an agonizing death. Very soon.

  She smiled. “You’re such a smart son, Vinn.”

  Chapter Five

  “I could drive myself home, you know.”

  Laney glanced at McCabe, gave him a fake smile. “That’s what all drunks say.”

  He slumped in the seat and laughed. “Yeah, I guess they do.”

  At the next traffic signal she braked to a stop for the red light and considered her boss. His eyes were closed. It wasn’t that late, only nine-thirty. That he was drifting off was another indication of his level of inebriation. He’d wanted to stay at The Rabbit Hole longer but she knew from experience where that would lead. He’d drink even more and if anyone said the wrong thing to him or simply said something he took the wrong way, he would make a fool of himself.

  This didn’t happen often, she told herself as the light turned green and she rolled forward. His drinking hadn’t really been an issue before. Nothing ever happened that required both her attention as well as his at the same time. If he wasn’t up to the task of being the cop in charge at night or early in the morning, she was always there. She hadn’t taken a vacation or gone beyond Sacramento since she moved to Shutter Lake. Peace and quiet was what she needed and that had been right here.

  Until today.

  Now the peace and quiet was shattered. Now both she and McCabe needed to be sober and in the moment.

  “We should talk about this.”

  As they left Main Street behind and headed to Salt Creek Road where McCabe lived, the dim glow from the dash was the only available light. His eyes remained closed in spite of her comment. She hoped he hadn’t passed out.

  He stirred in the seat and she shifted her attention back to the road. “Are you listening, Chief?”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” He sat up straighter. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I’ve never liked anyone getting into my business,” she admitted, “and I’ve never wanted to be one of those people who gets into other people’s business.”

  He grunted, maybe in agreement, maybe just so she would think he was paying attention.

  Laney tightened her fingers on the steering wheel and plunged on. “I enjoy our working relationship. God knows I appreciate how much you trust me to be in charge whenever you’re—”

  “What the hell, Laney?” He shifted in the seat to stare at her profile. “Have you been offered a position some place else? Sacramento, maybe? I thought you wanted small town. Laid back.”

  He wasn’t making this easy. “No, Chief. I haven’t been offered another job. Shutter Lake is exactly where I want to be.” She slowed for a turn. “Under normal circumstances I have no issue with your drinking, but I need your full focus on this case. This murder has changed everything, at least temporarily. If you could just slow down a little until we sort this one out I would be a lot happier.”

  Silence thickened between them all the way to the man’s driveway. Laney navigated the circular drive, pulling to a stop in front of his porch. She shifted into Park and cut the engine. McCabe’s ranch style house stood on a rise overlooking the valley. He had a sizeable chunk of land and a couple of horses. Inside the house was nice, not fancy, more country style. No fuss, no pretense. Like the owner.

  She really didn’t want any hard feelings between them.

  “Yeah, I know.” He sat up straighter in his seat. “I’ve taken advantage of your flexibility ever since you got here. Knowing you had things under control made it easier for me to slip out of control.”

  “I’m not saying you’re anything less than a good cop.” Laney leaned against the headrest, turned her face toward him. “I have no problem with the way we usually work together. It’s just that for now, I need—the department and the community need—your full attention whether I’m lead on the investigation or not. Whatever I do, people will be looking to you for assurances. You’re the one they trust, the one they look up to. Not me.”

  He blew out a big breath. “You’re right. I’ll get my shit together and see you in the morning.”

  She relaxed a little. “We’ll find the person who did this. If nothing else someone is going to want that million dollars.”

  McCabe shook his head. “Hell, I want it.”

  Laney laughed. “I’ll pick you up in the morning since your Bronco is at the office. Seven work for you?”

  He growled, ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, sure. Just bring the coffee.”

  “Will do.”

  Laney stayed until he was through the front door. Then she rolled down the drive and headed back to town. Beyers Lane, her street, was only a mile from Main Street but tonight it felt like it was a hundred miles. The trees, lots and lots of trees had drawn Laney to this house. A 1960’s split level, the house was still as stuck in the decade as when she bought it. Not in bad shape, just out of style. So far she’d done some painting and pulled up the disagreeable carpet added in the 80’s. The kitchen would need to be tackled eventually, but not anytime soon. Electrical and plumbing were above her pay grade.

  Her headlights flashed over the barn red house as she rolled to a stop. “Home sweet home.”

  If she ever got around to cleaning out her garage she wouldn’t have to park in the driveway and climb the front steps when she came home this late and this tired. How could a person still have unpacked boxes sitting around after two years?

  Maybe because the parts of her old life that were still in those boxes were no longer relevant.

  “Good point,” she muttered.

  Sliding the key into the front door lock she couldn’t help wondering if she should get a security system. Who would have thought she’d need one here? Inside, she flipped on the light, tossed her keys on the table next to the door and locked up. Pearl meowed and trotted over to greet her. She was the one good thing from L.A. she’d brought to Shutter Lake with her. The cat had followed her around a crime scene at an old abandoned warehouse. Gray and dirty, her fur had been ratty and it was obvious she didn’t get enough to eat.

  Laney reached down and stroked her now silky fur. “Hey, girl. You been holding the fort down for me?”

  Leaving her at that crime scene had been out of the question. Her partner had thought she was out of her mind to take home a stray cat. Maybe she had been but she just couldn’t leave the poor thing to starve to death. A visit to the vet and to the groomer and the cat turned out to be in reasonably good health and white instead of gray, thus the name Pearl.

  Pearl liked the new house. Loads of room to roam and lots of big windows for watching the birds.

  Laney put fresh water in her bowl and filled her food dish. She stretched and considered the time. She should shower and hit the sack, but her nerves were still jumping. She needed a run. A long one.

  She hurried up the stairs to her bedroom and shed the trappings of work. Placed her service weapon and her badge in the drawer of the bedside table. Peeled off her jacket and the shirt. Then she toed off the shoes and dispensed with the trousers. She chose the heavier running clothes since it was cold outside. October nights often dropped to the low forties, like tonight.

  Lastly she tucked her blond hair into a beanie, strapped the carrier for her cell phone and her pepper spray around her upper left arm and tucked her personal handgun into her waistband at the small of her back. Despite the murder sending shock w
aves through the community, she wasn’t actually concerned about her safety running in Shutter Lake, even at night. The wildlife was a different story. To them, she was the intruder, the safety concern. Everything from raccoons to mountain lions, and the latter wasn’t exactly put off by a badge.

  “I’ll be back, Pearl,” Laney called as she slipped out the front door. She locked it and placed the single key into its compartment in the armband carrier. A few minutes of warm up stretches and she was off.

  She drew the brisk night air deep into her lungs and allowed her mind to zero in on the investigation. Point by point she reviewed the findings at the crime scene. The perp who murdered Sylvia Cole was without doubt someone the victim knew. Whether or not it was the same person with whom she’d recently had sex was the most immediate question they needed to answer. No one seemed to know about a boyfriend. It wasn’t such a surprise that the parents weren’t up to speed on Sylvia’s love life but it was odd that Fernandez wasn’t. The two had been friends and colleagues for years.

  Then there was the cash. Laney and McCabe hadn’t yet dug into that development. Way more cash than anyone should have lying around, particularly if her only means of support was her business. Of course she could have gotten the money from her parents. They certainly had plenty. But why keep it in a safe, an unlocked one at that? Why wouldn’t she want her nest egg drawing interest?

  There were usually only two reasons for folks to keep large sums of money in a home safe: they wanted to have some amount of cash handy for emergencies or they were hiding it from the IRS. This was way more money than anyone would need to have on hand for an emergency, in Laney’s opinion.

  Since when was two hundred and sixty thousand dollars petty cash?

  Whatever Sylvia Cole was involved with, whether it was legal or not, her murder was likely somehow related to the cash.

  But why didn’t her killer take the money?

  The safe was unlocked. He could have bagged it and the cops would never have been the wiser. Fernandez certainly had the opportunity to take it. If the second in command at Sparkle didn’t know about the cash in her boss’s safe then it probably wasn’t related to the business.

  During the next interview of the parents, that question would be asked. For now, the banded bundles of cash were being checked for prints. The bed sheets had gone to the lab. The extra toothbrush found in a drawer in the bathroom was off to the lab, too. The hair in the brush, as well as dozens of other items were carefully collected. Tomorrow Laney would interview the employees again. The list of the victim’s friends Yolanda Cole was preparing would no doubt be long. Everyone in Shutter Lake knew everyone else. The lists would need to be prioritized by those closest to the victim and to her family. Ana Perez, the town’s only doctor, would be high on that list. She and Sylvia were close friends. At least, they appeared to be. Laney hadn’t talked to Ana yet but she’d seen the two out together on numerous occasions. Laney considered Ana a friend as well, but Ana was very private with her friendships just as she was with her patients. No matter that Ana, Julia, Laney and Dana Perkins, the school principal, were friends and enjoyed a regular girls’ night out fairly frequently, they all four kept their secrets. The bond between them was a solid one, but, Laney supposed, they all had their reasons for not going beyond a certain point. Each one of them had a history with pieces they apparently didn’t want to share. This aspect might have bugged Laney’s natural instinct to investigate, except she had secrets of her own as well.

  Some secrets were best left in the past.

  Dismissing the thought, the sound of her shoes on the pavement echoed in the darkness, bringing her attention back into focus on the here and now. Not too dark tonight. A big old full moon glowed mournfully. Her heart rate climbed, her respiration rate matching it. She ran almost every night. A little over a mile to town, around the center and a few select side streets, and then a mile back. About five miles. Not so much. There was a time when she’d run twice that much or more.

  But she’d been running from her demons back then.

  Still did, really. There wasn’t a night that passed that she didn’t see that young boy’s face at least once before she drifted off to sleep. She pushed forward. Running faster.

  Twelve years old, he’d taken the gun from his older brother’s bedroom. The older brother had been a straight up thug. Still, the kid looked up to him, wanted to be just like him. So he’d taken the gun, gotten on his bicycle and rode around until he found some trouble to get into. He hadn’t realized the cops were marking off a homicide scene just across the way. He’d parked his bike and thought he’d have a closer look. It was late, dusk had fallen. The time of night when the fading light and the encroaching gloom played tricks on your eyes.

  No one would ever know why he took that shot, hit her partner in the right shoulder. Laney had chased the shooter. Hadn’t realized he was a kid. He’d been tall for his age. When he rounded that corner and turned back to fire his weapon again, she had no option. It was him or her. He’d already shot her partner.

  She had taken the shot.

  The bullet hit its mark and he was dead.

  Twelve years old.

  That moment when she rolled him onto his back and realized she’d just shot and killed a child would haunt her for the rest of her life. No matter that Internal Affairs had cleared her of wrongdoing. No matter that the department had protected her when the press tried to make her the guilty party. All the counseling in the world would never enable her to forgive herself. She would never get over what she did that day.

  She never wanted to be in that position again.

  Never.

  But she was a cop. Being a cop was more than a job, it was who she was. So she did the only thing she could. She found the most sedate small town possible where she could live and still be a cop without the fear of ever killing someone else’s child.

  Shutter Lake was the epitome of small, tranquil, clean living. Farmers in the area had taken organic farming to the next level. Most of the pubs brewed their own beer. From the bakery to the coffee shop and everything in between, folks prided themselves on clean and healthy and just plain good. The school was a private entity, bestowed with a prestigious blue ribbon every year. Even the good doctor, Ana Perez, operated a wellness center three nights a week in the community gathering hall. Healthiness was a lifestyle for most residents.

  Then there was the chief. Laney had almost asked him on a couple of occasions why he felt the need to drink himself into oblivion most nights. He had been married once, she knew. She’d heard that his wife had left him. Whatever happened, he hadn’t married again. Not that forty was so old, but she got the distinct impression he wasn’t interested in long term.

  Something he had in common with the victim.

  According to everyone interviewed so far, Sylvia Cole liked her independence and maybe she had. Yet, based on all that cash in her home she certainly had at least one secret.

  There was always the possibility someone passing through had murdered her. Some transient who had hoped for a little help from a Good Samaritan. It’s possible she’d opened the door with the intention of giving him some cash. Maybe the situation turned confrontational and he felt compelled to kill her.

  Laney dismissed the theory. It just didn’t fit. Sylvia had opened the door to her killer. She’d been dressed in nothing but a nightshirt at the time. A woman at home alone dressed so scantily wouldn’t have opened the door to a stranger. Not a savvy businesswoman like Sylvia Cole. A woman who had traveled extensively. Though she had grown up in Shutter Lake she had been well aware of the world around her.

  Laney slowed as she reached the final stretch of Main Street. A lone figure huddled on the bench outside The Grind. Male, she decided as she grew closer. A paper sack molded to the shape of a bottle sat between his feet.

  She slowed to a walk, let her respiration even out. When she was nearly even with his position, she said, “Full moon tonight.”

  The m
an’s head shot up and Laney’s hand went instinctively to the small of her back.

  He shivered as if he’d only just realized how cold it was. He wasn’t wearing a coat. Only a black tee sporting The Grind logo and equally dark jeans.

  Nolan Ikard, the owner.

  “Yeah, it’s a bright one.” He cleared his throat and glanced up at the moon as if he hadn’t noticed until that moment.

  Whether it was the cold or whatever was in the bottle, his speech was a little slurred.

  “You okay?” She stopped next to the bench, stretched her back.

  “Sure. Just thinking.” He reached for the paper sack, downed a slug of whatever was in the bottle.

  She said, “everyone’s shook up over Sylvia’s murder.”

  His head jerked up again, his gaze met hers. “It’s…It’s hard to believe. She…”

  When he didn’t say more, she asked, “Did you know her well?”

  His sandy blond hair looked disheveled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it over and over. He shrugged. “Yeah. Pretty well. We were…we were friends.”

  Laney considered his age and asked, “Did you go to school with her?”

  He nodded, his fingers tightening around the sack, making it crinkle. “I used to pull her pigtails when we were kids. She pretended to hate it, but I think she liked it.”

  Laney doubted Dana was old enough to have been the principal there when Sylvia and Nolan attended.

  Curious, Laney sat down on the bench next to him. The scent of freshly ground coffee beans lingered on his clothes, probably on his skin, too. “Do you know if she was involved with anyone? Maybe a boyfriend she didn’t want her parents to know about?”

  He shook his head. “Sylvia didn’t have a boyfriend. She liked being free. You know.” He looked at Laney and smiled sadly. “She was just enjoying life and being herself.”

  Laney thought about that for a bit. “Everybody needs somebody sometime.”