by Debra Webb
“Investigations like this always move too slow,” Laney said without really answering the question. “What rumors are you hearing?”
Heidi leaned back and crossed her arms over her ample chest. She was a large woman in girth but not so tall. Her hair was gray with white streaks. She wore it down and was rarely seen without her baker’s hat. Her round face generally wore a friendly smile. Laney, as well as most of the residents of Shutter Lake, was well aware Heidi and Ikard despised each other. Heidi felt his bagels and pastries encroached on her sovereign territory as the town baker. She often threatened to start opening for breakfast and serving designer coffees and decadent sweets.
The war was a well-known one. The question was, did the baker know anything about the barista beyond their fierce competition.
“Oh my,” Heidi said, “the rumors are a bit crude.”
Laney laughed. “I’m from L.A. You couldn’t shock me if you tried.”
“Well, first I heard that all sorts of sex toys were found in her bedroom. And…” She leaned close to Laney. “I also heard that she was running a little escort service with all those pretty employees of hers.”
“Interesting,” Laney said before taking a sip of her latte.
“They are all so pretty.” Heidi made a not so polite harrumph. “I wouldn’t doubt it. And that Sylvia. Poor thing was a gold digger, that’s for sure.”
“A gold digger?” Laney wadded her bag and tossed it into the trash bin a yard or so away. Nailed it. She gave herself a mental fist pump. She turned back to the baker. “I don’t know what you mean?”
“I heard,” Heidi glanced around to make sure no one was near, “that she was out to cheat people out of every dollar she could by whatever means necessary.”
Laney frowned, an exaggerated expression. “Really?”
Heidi pressed her fingers to her lips for a moment. “No one else told you this?”
“No.” Laney shook her head. “Do you mean like stealing or blackmail? Something underhanded like that?”
“Oh my.” Her hand went to her chest then in mock horror. “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but that’s what I heard. Yes. I hope it’s just a nasty rumor. Sylvia seemed like a nice girl.”
“You were one of her clients, weren’t you?”
The baker’s face flushed just a little. “I was, yes. In fact I was one of her first clients. She was fresh out of high school and running around trying to drum up business. I saw a little of myself in her so I jumped on the bandwagon.” She smiled, her gaze distant as if she were remembering those days. “It’s hard to believe someone murdered her.” She leaned close again. “I heard she ate something that made her sick and the killer took advantage of her weakness.” Her face furrowed with worry. “Is that true? Are you allowed to say how she was murdered?”
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say at this time.”
“I’m sure these are just rumors. When people are afraid they tend to take the slightest little thing and make something out of it. Really all they want are answers.”
“We’re doing all we can,” Laney assured her. “Hopefully we’ll have some answers soon. But you shouldn’t believe the rumors you hear. Most of the time there’s no foundation for the gossip. As you say, just folks trying to figure this thing out.”
“You’re right, I guess. I didn’t really believe all that nonsense. Besides, Sylvia was very smart. She wouldn’t have been foolish enough to get in over her head. And if, for some reason, she had, she would have gone straight to her daddy to get it taken care of. Zion Cole would never allow his little girl to feel threatened. I’d sure hate to be whoever did this. Zion is not the kind of man you want to cross.”
Laney considered the other woman for a moment. “I imagine any father would be out for blood if someone murdered his child.”
Heidi shrugged. “I’m sure. But you’ve only been here for two years, Deputy Holt. You don’t know these people the way I do.” She exhaled a big breath. “In any event, Shutter Lake will never be the same now. Murder changes everything.”
~
Later, Laney simply couldn’t shake the baker’s comment.
In two years this was the first time Laney had been made to feel like an outsider. Maybe, as Udall said, she didn’t know the people in Shutter Lake as well as a lifetime resident. But surely McCabe would have told her if Zion Cole was the sort of man who put fear in other people. If that was the case, there could be a whole different scenario for Sylvia’s murder.
“Damn you, McCabe.”
It wasn’t that Laney accepted whatever the nosy baker said as gospel, but the possibility that there was some semblance of truth in the mix infuriated her. She pointed her vehicle in the direction of McCabe’s house. Chances were he was nursing a hangover. Something else she was about fed up with. She immediately felt contrite at the thought. She was angry, that was all.
Her cell vibrated on the console. She snatched it up, hoping maybe it would be McCabe and that for once she would be wrong about his condition. Not McCabe. A Sacramento number.
“Deputy Chief Holt.”
“Hey, Laney, this is Harry Morgan. I tried to reach Chief McCabe but I couldn’t. I knew you guys were waiting on these results.”
“Thank you for calling me.” Morgan was a senior analyst at the crime lab. He wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been able to reach the chief. “I’m headed to McCabe’s house now so I can pass along whatever you have for us.”
“Great. Okay, well you know these things usually take a good deal longer, but apparently Zion Cole has some powerful connections. The boss put a rush on all the testing. So, here we go. First, the easy stuff. The fingerprints McCabe passed along from the tabletop were found among those lifted from the victim’s home.”
Damn. Vinn Bradshaw had been in Sylvia’s house. Not a complete surprise, but not what Laney had wanted to hear.
“Next up, whoever left the semen on the sheets is the same person who used the toothbrush. He’s also the same person who had sex with the victim before she died. The specimens belong to a male but he is not in any database to which we have access.”
Laney had figured as much. Sylvia was too smart to get tangled up with a known criminal. Still, she was undeniably uber-independent but she had a lover—a buddy as Shonda Reed said.
Vinn Bradshaw had no criminal record so of course he wouldn’t be in a DNA database.
“What about the evidence I dropped off last night?”
“I’m working on it now.”
“Thanks, Harry. I really appreciate the update.”
“There’s one other thing.”
Laney made the turn onto McCabe’s road. “What’s that?”
“There was another semen specimen collected. The note says it came from the rug in the bedroom. This one is not in the database either and it’s not a match to the semen on the sheets.”
Well, well, Sylvia had herself two lovers.
“Thanks, Harry. I appreciate the call.”
Laney parked next to the chief’s Bronco, got out and went to the front door. As hard as she could she banged on it. If he was in there still piled up at this hour, she hoped he had a raging headache and that her pounding sounded like shotgun blasts in his brain.
Another round of pounding was required before he opened the door. He squinted at the daylight, his face a mask of agony. “Even a cop should get a break on Sunday.”
Her frustration escalating, Laney pushed past him and into the house. When he’d closed the door and turned around she let him have it. “Sylvia Cole is dead. You think her murderer gives one shit that it’s Sunday? You think her parents care that it’s Sunday? We have a job to do and it doesn’t get put on hold because of the day of the week. We talked about how badly I need you for this investigation. I need you at one hundred percent, McCabe.”
He stared at the floor, ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay. I had a bad night.”
“Well, join the crowd. Let me make you some coffee.
We have stuff to talk about.”
Properly humbled, he followed her into the kitchen. “I heard from Parker last night.”
“The coroner called you and you didn’t bother to tell me?” Now she was even more pissed. “Are we a team or what?”
“It’s not like he told me anything we didn’t already know. She was manually strangled—the whole town knows that part. She had been drinking. Blood alcohol level was a little higher than the legal limit for driving, but she wasn’t falling down drunk. No other drugs so far. He confirmed there was nothing under her nails so she didn’t scratch her attacker. There are still a few tests to come—as you know some take longer than others—but for now, we can assume there was nothing but the alcohol. No food in her stomach. She’d had sex just before she was murdered.” His gaze settled on Laney’s. “Looks like the son of a bitch killed her just a little while after.”
The idea made Laney sick to her stomach but it was the way these things worked far too often. “I went back to the house and had a look around.”
She brought him up to speed on the unlocked window and the new potential evidence she took to the lab.
“I guess I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.” He leaned a hip against the counter and stared at her with the accusation ringing between them.
“You got me there.” She exhaled a burst of frustrated air and punched the brew button on the drip machine. Another deep breath and she felt reasonably calm. “On the way here Harry Morgan called. Whoever had sex with her is the same person who used the extra toothbrush she kept in the bathroom.”
His eyebrows went up. “So he was a regular.”
She nodded. “But he wasn’t the only one. The semen found on the rug near the bed wasn’t the same as what was on the sheets.”
He scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his face. “And I’ll wager that neither one is in the database.”
“Bingo.”
McCabe shook his head. “This is going to get even uglier.”
“You should keep an eye on her father. I hear he pressed for speedy testing and I also heard that he isn’t a man you want to cross.”
McCabe looked away. “Whether he is or not, the bastard we’re trying to find killed his daughter. I’d have to be a fool not to recognize that Zion is going to want revenge as well as justice.”
“Good to know we’re on the same page.” Laney considered the clothes he wore, the same ones from yesterday. She passed him a cup of coffee. “You should change. We have doors to knock on.”
He accepted the coffee and disappeared to do as she’d ordered. Laney shook her head at the mound of dishes in the sink. While she waited she loaded the dishwasher and started it. She picked up the beer cans and pizza boxes in the living room and took them to the trash bin by the garage. She needed to work off some of this frustration. She’d lost it with him and she shouldn’t have.
But this case—the total lack of forward momentum—was making her crazy.
By the time McCabe showed his face again she had the place in reasonably good order. And he looked halfway human.
“You didn’t need to do all that.”
“I needed to stay busy.”
“So who’s cage do you want to rattle?”
“Nolan Ikard’s. I want a DNA sample. I think he’s the regular.”
“All right.” McCabe reached for his service revolver and his cell, both of which lay on the coffee table. “We’ll need something more to persuade him.”
“Or just a coffee mug he drank from. Maybe a water bottle.”
“Are you suggesting we bring him in for questioning and then give him refreshments?”
“Exactly.”
McCabe’s cell vibrated and he glanced at the screen then answered it. “McCabe.”
He listened for a minute then said, “We’ll be right there, sir.”
Laney braced for more bad news.
“That was Quentin Windermere. He says the girl, Kristina Sharapova, the Russian exchange student who’s been living with them since July, wants to talk to us.”
The Windermeres lived on the same street as Sylvia but all the way at the end on a grand estate.
“Dana Perkins said Sharapova and Vinn Bradshaw are close friends.”
“Let’s go.”
“I’ll drive,” Laney told him.
He grunted but didn’t argue.
When they’d loaded up and headed out, he stared out the window as if lost in thought but then he spoke. “This is Shutter Lake’s first murder but it’s not the first evil incident.”
Laney waited for him to go on but he didn’t say more.
“What evil incident?” She was aware of a few burglaries, the occasional bar room brawl.
“It was a long time ago.” He shook his head. “Not relevant.”
Funny thing was his tone made it sound entirely relevant.
Chapter Fifteen
The Windermere residence sat at the very end of Olive Tree Lane. The large gated property had its own lake and a massive Tahoe-style mansion. Laney parked in front of the grand house.
McCabe touched her arm as she shut off the engine. “Don’t try any of your slick L.A. questioning tactics on Mr. Windermere. He’s some sort of genius. A mathematician or something like that. He helped create the system for browsing the Deep Web. He’s not like us, Holt.”
Laney smiled. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. Why don’t you take the lead? They know you, maybe they’ll feel more comfortable talking to you. I’ll question the girl.”
He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
As soon as they were finished here Laney wanted to set her other plan in motion as well. She intended to call both Nolan Ikard and Vinn Bradshaw to City Hall for interviews. She didn’t care one way or the other if they both showed up with attorneys as long as she managed to get them to drink from a water bottle or coffee cup. Another of her L.A. tricks, as McCabe would say. She called it discreet evidence collection.
The front door opened as they walked up onto the porch. Quentin Windermere nodded to McCabe. “Thank you for coming so quickly. Kristina is inconsolable.”
Laney followed the older man beyond the entry hall and the music room, complete with a distinguished baby grand piano, to the great room that extended along the back of the house overlooking the private lake. Quentin Windermere was tall and broad shouldered. He carried himself well, dressed like a 1960’s hippie who had grown into his wealth. Top of the line designer jeans that were well worn, probably purchased that way, and a blue cotton classic Henley pullover. His feet were bare and his gray hair was styled in one of those spikey cuts.
Katherine Windermere sat on the sofa next to the young girl, Kristina Sharapova. Sharapova was the student Dana had mentioned. Vinn Bradshaw was close to her, the principal had said. Her head was bowed as if she were afraid, her long dark hair concealing her face. Katherine kept one arm around her shoulders. Like her husband, the older woman went for comfort in her attire. She wore a cotton tunic with her worn soft jeans. Slim bare feet were adorned with red toenails. Her long gray hair hung in a loose braid. These two appeared exactly like the quintessential retired California couple.
“Please,” Mr. Windermere said, “make yourselves comfortable. Would you like coffee or tea?”
Laney declined, as did McCabe. The only thing she wanted to do at the moment was dive into questions about Vinn. But she had to hold back, see what the girl offered first.
“This morning,” Katherine Windermere began, “Kristina broke down over breakfast. She cried for nearly an hour before we convinced her to share whatever was troubling her.”
“Kristina,” Mr. Windermere said, “you need to tell Chief McCabe and Deputy Holt what you told Katherine and me this morning. It’s very important and I assure you that you are not in any sort of trouble.”
The girl peeked at Laney beyond the curtain of long hair. Her fingers rolled and picked at the wad of tissues in her hand.
Laney took that as her cue. “Kristin
a, you shouldn’t be afraid to tell us anything. It’s our job to keep you safe.”
“She explained to us,“ Katherine said, “that in her village it was considered a very bad thing to speak to the police. You could be taken away from your family and never seen again.”
“That won’t happen here, Kristina,” Laney assured her. “We only want to help you.” When the girl still didn’t look up, Laney went on, “I understand you’re friends with Vinn.”
Sharapova’s head came up then, her face was red from crying, her dark eyes were round with fear.
Laney gave her a reassuring smile. “Vinn is a very nice young man. He’s very upset by Sylvia’s death. She was a friend of his, too.” She might be stretching things here so she left it at that.
“He was hurt by her,” Kristina said, her voice shaky but unyielding. “She was not as nice as you believe.”
“Did you hear or see something about Sylvia?” McCabe asked gently. “Whatever it is, you can tell us.”
The girl’s hair swung back and forth as she shook her head. “I only know that she hurt Vinn deeply. He trusted her.”
“How did she do that, Kristina?”
She shrugged. “He wouldn’t say. He only said not to trust her.”
Laney and McCabe exchanged a glance but waited for her to go on.
“The night she died,” Kristina hesitated, exhaled a big breath, “I was out walking.”
Anticipation seared through Laney. She clenched her jaw to prevent hurling questions at the girl.
“It was late.” She glanced at Mrs. Windermere. “I wasn’t supposed to be out of the house, but I needed some fresh air.”
When she fell silent, Laney asked, “Did you walk past Sylvia’s house?”
She nodded. “It was when I was coming back, past her house, that I saw someone.”
Laney held her breath.
“He came from around the back of her house and ran down the road.”
“Did you see who it was?” McCabe asked.
She shook her head. “It was too dark. But he was tall and fast. He ran really fast.”
