Innocent Prey (A Brown and de Luca Novel)

by Maggie Shayne

  “You’ve got it, Chief.”

  The judge got up. Mason did, too, and this time the older man extended a hand. Mason shook, then watched Judge Mattheson turn and thread his way around the empty tables and out of the bar.

  Mason turned to look at the chief, who was still sitting. “I want to bring Rachel in on this.”

  “Sit down. I ordered a pair of burgers, and since Howard left, you might as well eat his.”

  Mason sat. As if on cue, the waitress returned with more coffee, and two plates piled high with burgers and fries. She had a much easier look on her face than before. Yeah, it had been tense. It was like a dark cloud left the bar when the judge walked out the door.

  “Tell me how you think Rachel can help,” Chief Sub said as he pounded the bottom of the ketchup bottle.

  “Well, to start with, she was blind for twenty years. She can give us some perspective on where this girl’s head is at, one we’re not gonna get from anyone else.”

  “Mmm.” The chief got the ketchup flowing and made several neat round dots of it along the edge of his plate. “Can she keep this quiet? She is a writer, after all.”

  “It’s not like she’s a freakin’ reporter.”

  “I know that. The question is, do you trust her?”

  “I trust her.” If the chief knew the enormity of the secrets Rachel had kept for him, Mason thought, he wouldn’t ask. “Actually, I can honestly say I trust her more than anyone I know.”

  “Is that so?” Chief Sub dipped a fry in ketchup, then ate it whole. “You and she, uh...been seeing a lot of each other, haven’t you.” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Some. Not...a lot. Really.”

  “Why not?”

  Mason looked up, surprised by the question. “She’s only had her eyesight back since last August, Chief. It’s a whole new world for her.”

  “For you, too, I imagine, with raising those two boys.”

  “Exactly.”

  The chief shrugged. “I trust your judgment, Mason. If you think she can help you and you trust her, use her. I want Stephanie Mattheson found. Hell, I’m her godfather. Since this is off-the-books work, de Luca’s an off-the-books consultant. Just don’t let Howard find out you told her. You got that?”

  “Yeah.” Mason picked up the gargantuan burger, took a huge bite and knew he would regret it later. After he chewed and swallowed, he said, “If I don’t turn anything up right away, you’re gonna have to convince him to make it official. You know that.”

  “You let me worry about Howard.”

  “All right, Chief.”

  “There’s a party at my house Friday night. My fiftieth wedding anniversary. You’ll be there.”

  Once again, it wasn’t really a question.

  “I will,” Mason said.

  “Good. Get a sitter for those boys of yours and bring de Luca.”

  * * *

  I had Myrtle on a leash, which was a joke, really. She was short and fat and slow, and about as likely to bolt away from me as I was from a glazed sour cream doughnut. We were doing our midday walk along the four-mile-long dirt track that passed for a road. It ran along the back side of the Whitney Point Reservoir, which really was more like a lake. There were a couple of houses at the other end of the road, near the village, but mine was the only one way out this way, just before the dead end. I loved the privacy. The quiet. And now that I had eyes, I loved the beauty of it, too. Trees and woods, all sporting their newborn pale green leaves now that spring had sprung in the Point, and the way the sun would sometimes shimmer on the water, making every ripple wink like bling on a rapper. Damn, I loved where I lived.

  I had my cell phone with me in case Mason called. But he didn’t. He interrupted our walk in person, instead, breaking into our solitude with the too loud motor in his “classic”—aka old—black Monte Carlo. He pulled it over, shut it off, locked it up and got out while we stood there. Myrtle was wiggling her backside in delight, knowing it was him and overjoyed about it. (She’d have wagged her tail, but bulldogs don’t really have tails. So they wag their entire asses, which I think is a much more accurate depiction of extreme enthusiasm. Myrtle agrees.)

  Mason approached her first, crouching down low to rub her head on either side of her face, and she closed her sightless eyes and basked in his attention. I do the same thing when he touches me like that.

  Then he stood up again, but instead of kissing me hello—which would’ve been hopelessly goofy anyway, so I don’t even know why I was hoping for it—he said, “I need your help.”

  I sighed my disappointment away. “Hi, Mason. I’ve been having a great day. Thanks for asking. Yes, I slept just fine after you left. Myrtle is a blanket hog, but not as bad as you are. And yes, as a matter of fact, we are enjoying our walk.”

  He lowered his head, raised it again, grabbed my shoulders and pulled me in for a long, slow kiss. I let go of Myrt’s leash and got all mushy inside, sliding my arms around his shoulders and really getting into it.

  Then he let me go, and when I straightened my knees tried to go jellyfish on me, but I snapped them straight again.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud, don’t be so emo.”

  But inside I was grinning like a kid.

  “So what was the lunch meeting about? Or should I ask what you need my help with first?” I picked up Myrtle’s leash, and we went off the road and down toward the shore. This was one of Myrt’s favorite things. The water was still cold, but she loved to put her paws in, and drink and sniff around.

  Mason came and stood beside me. “It’s the same answer to both questions. A judge’s twenty-year-old daughter is missing. He thinks she’s just throwing a tantrum and wants me to find her discreetly. Off the books. I want you to help me.”

  I nodded slowly. We’d had this whole “police consultant” conversation before. He thought I should work with the Binghamton PD officially. But I wasn’t about to put “uncanny sense of what other people are thinking and feeling” on the application. And I would rather be drawn and quartered than labeled some kind of psychic. Besides, I already had a career. A nice lucrative one, thank you very much.

  “It doesn’t sound like anything you can’t handle on your own.”

  “You can handle it better.”

  “Why?” I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it, because I knew that was exactly what he wanted. And now I’d opened the door. Shit.

  “Because she’s blind, Rache.”

  “Oh, for the love of—”

  “Drunk driver hit her car last fall. September. Doctors just told her in March that there was no hope of ever getting her sight back. She’s not dealing with it very well.”

  “No one deals with it very well.”

  “I just want you to come with me to where she was last seen. Walk through the moments before she vanished with me. How bad is that?”

  I heaved a sigh. “Myrtle needs her walk, you know. That evil lying vet of hers still insists she’s overweight.”

  “He has a death wish. I’m sure of it,” Mason said, and then he shrugged. “Actually, walking is exactly what we’ll be doing. We can bring her along. You’ve already got her leash.”

  “You know perfectly well she does not ride in a car without her designer goggles and matching scarf.”

  He jogged up to the road to his car, opened the door and leaned in. When he came to the edge of the road again, he held up his gift. “Doggy goggles.”

  They were hot pink with black peace signs all over them. I almost loved them. “Did you get those on the way over?” It took some doing, but I convinced Myrt to come back up the slope away from the water. Mason handed the goggles to me. Even the lenses were tinted pink. “And if so, where? ’Cause damn.”

  “Great, aren’t they? Josh bought them for her on eBay. Used his own money, too. He put ’em in my car yesterday, but I forgot to give them to you.”

  “They’re great.” I looked at him, at the g
oggles, at the car. I didn’t want to get involved in any sort of police work or investigation. And my reason was simple. So far, every time I had, I’d had brutally horrifying dreams about whatever was going on. Vivid, awful nightmares that were mostly true. Now, granted, I’d had weird connections to the killer and/or the victims the other times, due to our common organ donor. There was no reason to think that would continue with a case that had nothing to do with me or my corneas.

  Except that I’d had some kind of freaky knowledge happening last Thanksgiving when my right-hand Goth, Amy, had been kidnapped. No nightmares. Just that...

  Extra sense.

  Not that. It’s not that. I’m not fucking psychic.

  “Come on. All I want to do is take you two for a short walk near Otsiningo Park. How bad can that be?”

  We both knew how bad it could be, so I wasn’t going to bother answering that one. I crouched down in front of my bulldog. “Myrt. You wanna go for a ride in the car?”

  She cocked her head to one side, ears perking up, lower teeth coming out above her upper lip as she stared up at me, waiting for me to repeat her favorite words ever spoken, to confirm she had heard me correctly.

  “Ride? In the car?” I said again.

  “Snarf!” And the butt-wiggle dance began.

  I looked up at Mason and shrugged. “There’s your answer. I guess we’re going.” I adjusted the goggle straps and put them on my dog, told her how gorgeous she was, and promised to find her a matching scarf soon. She followed me to Mason’s car. I got in the front seat and slid to the middle, where newer cars would have a console instead of a supersized bench seat. I was lucky the old—sorry, classic—car even had seat belts. Mason lifted Myrtle to set her on the passenger side, so she could stick her head out the window. He knew the deal.

  He came around and got behind the wheel, then looked at me for a second. “Need to go lock up?”

  “Amy’s there. I’ll give her a call.”

  He nodded but didn’t put the car into motion, and he was still looking at me. So I braved the question. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I, uh... You were a little pissed at me last night. Are we good?”

  I blinked. He was checking in on the thing we both hated discussing most. Mucky, murky emotional vomit. The kind of stuff that ruined great relationships. “I’m good,” I said. “You?”

  “Mostly, yeah. Pretty good.”

  Which meant he could be better. Which was what I’d have said if I’d been honest. But because I was a big fat chicken, I said, “Good, then. We’re good.”

  “We’re good. Okay.”

  And then he turned the car around, and we were off and running. And I thought to myself that it wouldn’t be so bad to help him out with another case. It really wouldn’t. At least I’d get to spend some time with him in the upright and unlocked position.

  This could be fun.

  Right. Fun. Like, you know, jury duty. Or a smallpox outbreak. Or seeing murders in your sleep. Fun.

  2

  By 2:00 p.m. Mason and Myrtle and I were walking the sidewalk Stevie Mattheson had walked just before she’d vanished, which, I’d learned, had happened the day before yesterday. Apparently her devoted daddy had waited a day and a half before going to his pal the chief to not report her missing. Guy was a jerk.

  I know, snap judgment. That’s how I roll. Tough times turn people’s masks into windows. Believe what they show you. Yeah, it’s one of mine.

  “Nice leash, by the way,” Mason said.

  Hot pink, with black skulls and crossbones all over it. “And coincidentally it even matches the new goggles you bought her.”

  “Except I went with peace signs instead of the Jolly Roger.”

  “Yeah, I noticed,” I said.

  “Hope she doesn’t get confused about her own identity.”

  “What’s to be confused about? She’s a pacifist pirate.”

  He laughed. That was what I was going for, eliciting that laugh. I could tell more from Mason’s laugh than from anything he said or any vibe he emitted. He was too much a cop, played things too close to the vest, to let me read him the way I did other people. But I could still read him. It was just tougher. And his laugh was the easiest way I’d found so far.

  This one rang forced and tight.

  “You’re worried about this.”

  He nodded. “Something’s off about the whole thing.”

  “Spidey sense tingling?”

  “I wish to hell you’d been a fly on the wall at lunch so you could tell me if you sensed it, too.”

  “Is there some reason you’re doubting your eerily accurate cop instincts, Mason?”

  He looked at me, then at the sidewalk. “Yeah. A couple of them.” He didn’t elaborate, so I didn’t push it, figuring it was either something deep and emotional or something about us, and those topics were things we’d sort of agreed to avoid without really ever saying so out loud. He was no more into gooey emotional gunk than I was, thank goodness.

  It was beautiful outside. Warm in that springlike way that would seem chilly a month from now, but sunny and fresh. I’d always loved that about spring, that freshly washed newborn feeling it had to it. But I loved seeing it even more. The trees were taking on a pale green cast as their buds started to become leaves. Birds were flitting around singing like extras in a Disney flick. Tulips and daffodils everywhere you looked. And the apple blossoms were busting out all over. Out in the Point they were barely peeking out of their buds.

  Myrtle hurried from one spot to the next, sniffing everything thoroughly, excited by a new place and not even keeping her side pressed to my leg. She really was getting more confident. I loved that.

  “So she walked from this bench to that corner,” Mason said. “Bitching all the way, according to her coach.”

  “Her blindness coach. The person her father hired to teach her how to be blind.”

  “Yeah.” He chose to ignore the sarcasm in my tone.

  “But the coach is sighted, right?”

  “Uh-huh.” He said it like he knew what was coming next. Hell, he probably did.

  “And that makes sense because no one knows what it’s like to be blind better than a sighted person does, right?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So explain it to me, then, ’cause I’m not getting it.”

  He stopped. We’d walked about five steps. (Myrtle, twenty.) “I didn’t say I thought it was a great idea, I’m just telling you how it went down.”

  “I know.” I said it like it should’ve been obvious. “I’m just saying.”

  “Can we focus here? And stop looking at the damn birds, Rachel, we need to look at the ground.”

  I’d been watching a red-winged blackbird in a nearby tree. He was perched on the topmost branch, and he kept chirping this loud, long note and hunching up his shoulders at the same time, so the little red patches were more prominent. Showing off for the ladies, I bet. “You look for clues with your eyes. I look with my other senses, remember?”

  “So is that bird giving you anything to go on?”

  I shrugged. “It’s spring. Horniness thrives. I say we question the boyfriend. She does have a boyfriend, doesn’t she?”

  “Two that her father felt worth mentioning,” he said. “One former, one current.”

  “Let’s talk to them both. And the blindness coach.”

  He nodded. “Already on my list.”

  “I’ll be more helpful when we’re doing that.” I glanced ahead and saw a fat robin skipping along the sidewalk pecking at something too small for me to see. Myrtle sensed it or felt it or something, because she was focused in that direction, too, leaning forward like she was getting ready to lunge at the bird, even though she couldn’t see it. “If we do it indoors,” I added.

  He didn’t reply, so I lifted my head again, met his eyes. He was grinning at me, flashing the Dimple of Doom. My doom, at least. I made a face and started walking, scanning the sidewalk as I went, at least when I cou
ld take my eyes off my bulldog and her absolute enjoyment of the walk. Myrt really had living in the moment down, that was for sure. Can’t see? Oh well. I smell a squirrel! was her philosophy. Frankly, I thought it was a pretty good one.

  I used to have to coax and cajole and tug to get her to walk any distance at all. But today she was rushing me. She was definitely getting more fit. Mason caught me watching her, sent me a look that asked for my focus.

  I know, I know, but it was my first sighted springtime since age ten. So shoot me. “Come on, get with the program, Detective,” I said. Best defense is a good offense, right? “Daylight’s burning.”

  We completed our inspection of the sidewalk where Stevie had obeyed her coach’s orders, tapping her way from the bench to the corner, and didn’t find anything. Well, we didn’t, but Myrtle did. She’d peed on a clump of weeds, chomped the blossom off a stray daffodil and picked up a discarded Pepsi can, which she was still carrying like a prized treasure.

  Whatever had happened to Stephanie had happened after she’d gone around the corner. But we’d already known that. So we turned right, just like she had. And then I really slowed down. Mason walked near the inside edge, where sidewalk met park, so I took the curb, where sidewalk met road.

  And there in a drain was a cell phone. It had fallen onto the grate, and wedged itself most of the way through. I’d been hanging around cops—well, one cop—long enough to know not to touch it, so I pointed it out, then crouched low, pulled my long sweater over one hand and picked it up with the sleeve while Myrt dropped her soda can and tried to grab it before I could. “Got’cha!”

  I won and turned toward Mason, holding up the phone. And then I flashed back to Thanksgiving, when my personal assistant and best-Goth, Amy, had been snatched off the highway by two jerks in a white pickup truck. We’d found her phone at the scene, too.

  Weird.

  Mason came over with a plastic bag and I dropped the phone in. “Nice find,” he said.

  “Wish I still had that damn stylus in my purse so we could tap this thing without leaving a print. I lost it, need to buy another one.” I’d had one at the scene of Amy’s brief abduction. Ms. Smarty-pants had snapped a photo of the pickup, knowing it was trouble, and left it behind to lead us to her. “Mason, do you think this could be related to what happened to Amy?”