A Cold White Sun: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Series)

by Delany, Vicki

  “Not so perfect. As you’re on your way to jail.”

  Westfield shrugged. He had almost no muscle tone in his arm. “Only because I decided to take out the second bitch. She thought she was my mother. Reason enough to off her right there. I congratulate you. You found me faster than I expected. When I decided to eliminate Margo, I knew I was exposing myself to discovery. But, as I said, it no longer matters.”

  “Get him out of here,” Winters spat.

  “You will be calling my doctor,” Westfield said. “And he will order you to release me.”

  They hustled Westfield out of the house. Winters snatched up the shotgun. He pulled off his jacket and wrapped the weapon in it.

  “You may not remember me, Miss Smith,” Westfield said, as they crossed the yard. “I saw you at your mother’s store recently. A nice woman, your mother. I’m sorry I won’t be able to drop in any more.” She did remember. That was scarcely two weeks ago, and Westfield looked like he’d aged about twenty years as well as being on a hunger strike.

  He seemed to be taking this all quite easily. Smith glanced at Winters. He shrugged. Was Westfield going to claim mental instability in his defense?

  Smith put her hand on the top of his head and shoved him into the back of the car.

  Winters took the front passenger seat, resting the shotgun across his lap. He pulled out his phone, flipped it open. “I’m bringing him in. I’ve got what’s almost certainly the shotgun we’re after. Ask Gavin or Townshend to meet me at the station immediately. I want an ID on this gun fast. If we can link it to the shooting, we can call our excess people off the search.” He snapped the phone shut.

  “I can assure you, that is the weapon used tonight. It’ll match with Cathy Lindsay.”

  Curiosity was eating Smith alive. Winters sat placidly in his seat, watching the dark streets pass.

  “Are you going to ask why I killed her?” Westfield said.

  “In due course.”

  They arrived at the police station. The garage doors rolled up, and Smith drove in. She and Winters got out of the car. Only when the bay was secure did she open the back door of the vehicle. She reached in and took Westfield’s arm. He started to slide toward her, but fell back with a sharp cry. Eyes closed tight, he groaned. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his entire face crunched up in pain. His skin was a sickly gray.

  “Don’t give me that act,” she said. “I barely touched you. Come on.”

  “A minute, please,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “Give me a moment.”

  She glanced at Winters who’d come to stand beside her, still holding the shotgun. He said, “Mr. Westfield, are you in need of medical assistance?”

  Westfield said nothing. He simply breathed, slow and deep. Time passed. Smith waited for orders. She didn’t want to have to wrestle the guy out of the car.

  “I told you I was,” he said at last. His voice wasn’t confident now, not mocking, not trying to be friendly. The words were clipped, the breathing behind them labored. “My doctor’s card is in my shirt pocket. The pain’s passed. I can move now.”

  He slid out of the car. “Thank you for your kindness.”

  She wanted to knee the playacting bastard in the nuts.

  Winters reached into Westfield’s pocket with his free hand and pulled out a business card. “Constable Smith, process Mr. Westfield. I’ll make the call and hand this weapon to forensics.”

  She led Westfield into the cell block.

  “I need to sit down,” he said.

  He did look pretty awful, she had to admit. Hard to act up a sheen of sweat out of nowhere. She nodded at a chair. He dropped into it.

  “You can take the cuffs off now. I’m in no condition to resist.”

  “I don’t think so.” She logged onto the computer. “Full name? Address? DOB?” He’d spend the night here, in the city jails, be brought before a judge in the morning. Winters would want to interview him, but if Westfield asked for a lawyer, he or she wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow at the earliest. She glanced at Westfield. His color was better, not exactly healthy looking but no longer deathly pale. His light-blue eyes were on her, fixed, unblinking.

  Weird.

  Winters came back. He did not look happy.

  “Doctor Singh is on his way.”

  “I told you he would be.”

  “He wants to take you now, tonight.”

  “He’s been after me for a couple of weeks to move, but I had one last job to do. Now, I’m ready.”

  “What the hell?” Smith said, forgetting herself. “Are you nuts? You’re not going anywhere but cell number two.”

  “Want to talk to me first?” Winters said, ignoring Smith.

  “Happy to. As I said, I intend to go down in the annals of criminal justice. No need to call a lawyer for me. I’ll never make it to court.”

  “Constable Smith, take the prisoner upstairs. Interview room one. I’ll be along shortly.”

  She took Westfield’s skinny arm once more and pulled him to his feet. Upstairs to the interview room. The walls were industrial beige, the table steel, bolted to the floor, the chairs uncushioned and uncomfortable. A camera was secured to a high corner. The black eye watched them enter.

  “Take a seat,” Smith said.

  He did so. She did not offer her guest anything to drink. She stood with her back against the wall, feet planted, and watched William Westfield. She studied his face, searching for evil. For some sign. For something she’d recognize if she saw it again.

  Nothing. His eyes were fixed on her. Her skin crawled, but she knew that was only because she knew what he’d done. If she met him on the street she wouldn’t have thought him anything out of the ordinary. Hell, she had seen him in her mother’s store, didn’t give him a second glance.

  The door opened. John Winters, followed by Ray Lopez and a man Smith had seen at the hospital, short, dark skinned, not smiling.

  “Evening Doctor,” Westfield said. “Sorry to drag you out at this time of night.”

  “I simply cannot credit what Sergeant Winters is telling me. Is this true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Unbelievable. William has been my patient for three months, and I had absolutely no idea.”

  “I’m allowing Doctor Singh to sit in on this interview,” Winters said.

  Smith’s head spun. He was what? Winters did not look at all happy. Ray Lopez’s face was a picture of displeasure. She wouldn’t exactly expect them to gloat in the presence of the killer, but she’d have expected them to look a little bit pleased with themselves.

  “Constable Smith,” Winters said, “Uncuff the prisoner. Stay in the room for the interview.”

  Smith walked behind Westfield. He stood so she could take off the handcuffs. He rubbed his wrists and sat back down. The men took seats. Lopez had brought an extra chair. Smith remained standing.

  Lopez switched on the recording equipment, and Winters began the interview by stating the time, the place, those present.

  “I’ve had a call from the hospital,” Winters said. “Margo Franklin came out of surgery well. She’s in critical condition, but is expected to recover. The slug missed all vital organs.”

  “A stab of pain came on me at the moment I pressed the trigger. I couldn’t help but flinch, which jerked the shotgun. Once she was down, a tree blocked my sight. By the time I got into position to fire again, people were in the way.”

  Doctor Singh moaned.

  “Why?” Winters asked.

  “Because she was an interfering bitch. She thought she was my mother. She wanted to be my mother. She was following me everywhere, even to my house, and that was the last straw. I want to pass my final days in peace, not haunted by some creepy old woman.”

  “Cathy Lindsay?”

  “She didn’t like my writing. She gave me a D on my short story, said it was hackneyed and repetitive. It wasn’t.”

  “What was your story about?” Winters asked.

  The edges of Westfiel
d’s mouth turned up. “A killer, far too clever for the dumb cops who’re looking for him. Obviously I wasn’t thinking of you, Sergeant.”

  “You killed her because she gave you a D?” Lopez couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice.

  “I killed her because she dared to judge me. I wanted to wait for Easter, hoping for a nickname. The Easter Bunny Killer has a nice ring, don’t you think? But I knew I was running out of time.”

  “If not Mrs. Lindsay…”

  “Then it would have been someone else. The perfect crime, Sergeant Winters. No motive, no evidence. The cigarette butt was a clever touch, wouldn’t you agree? I picked it up out of an ash tray by the bus stop.”

  Winters said nothing. Westfield continued, “No motive, no evidence, no linkage to any other crime. Most importantly, no bragging and no loud-mouthed accomplice. I’ve had that weapon for a long time. I stole it, of course. No paper trail.”

  “A game. You took a woman’s life for fun.”

  “Not entirely. I told you, she judged me. She mocked me. She said my story was excessively violent. Misogynist. But yes, I will confess, I did it because I could. Because I’m capable of the perfect crime, and I wanted everyone to know it. I’m aware that the truly perfect crime would go undetected. No one would even know a crime had been committed. What fun would there be in that?”

  “Tell me about Arizona.”

  Westfield smiled. “You are clever, Sergeant, to make that link. I killed a few women in Arizona when I lived there.”

  Doctor Singh buried his head in his hands.

  “Then nothing for fifteen years? Or were you doing your killing someplace else?” John Winters studied William Westfield. The man was smiling slightly, pleased with himself as he calmly described the destruction of a life, of many lives if you considered Cathy Lindsay’s husband and children. His eyes were an attractive and unusual shade of pale blue, but they glowed with such malicious pleasure that they brought to Winters’ mind a line from the saga of Beowulf, as the hero encounters the killer, Grendel: two dots of fire against a veil of blackness.

  “No more killing.” Westfield explained. “I retired, so to speak. My mother died, and I went to Florida to settle up her affairs. When I got back, somehow I didn’t feel like killing any more. I’m sure you want to know all about my mother, but I don’t want to talk about her. She wasn’t my mother anyway. I was adopted. My real mother, whoever she might be, was, my adoptive father never failed to remind me, a slut and a dirty whore who couldn’t keep her legs shut and threw me away like a discarded tissue.” Westfield’s mouth was open, ready to continue with his story, his self-justification, his self-pity, but no words came out. His jaw moved; he stared across the room without blinking, directly at Molly Smith.

  Her blood ran ice cold.

  Winters began to rise.

  “Give him a minute,” Doctor Singh said. “His brain is, in lay terms, not firing properly. The pathways are becoming blocked as the tumor grows and his brain is searching for another route to form the words.”

  “My adoptive father moved around a lot,” Westfield continued, as if there had been no interruption. “He had trouble keeping a job. He constantly fought with his co-workers or ran into trouble for smacking his wife. He knocked me around too, when the mood came on him. She could have stopped it. She could have stood up to him. But she didn’t. He died in a bar brawl in Flagstaff. Fellow followed him into the parking lot and shot him in the back. No tears from me. She wept buckets, of course. Such a good man, she told everyone at the funeral. Not that many people bothered to show up.”

  Smith’s fists were clenched. She tried to wiggle some blood back into her fingers without anyone noticing. Brutal father, passive mother. Why did that always turn out to be the woman’s fault?

  Why did other women have to die for it?

  Westfield let out a gasp of pure pain. He lifted his hands to his head. He rocked his body back and forth and moaned.

  Doctor Singh leapt to his feet. “I’m afraid this interview cannot continue.”

  “Very well,” Winters said. “I have all I need for now. About all I can stomach too.”

  Smith stepped forward, ready to take Westfield back downstairs. Lock him up for the night. The cells in the police station were not intended to be comfortable. A steel bed, no mattress, no blankets. A toilet in the corner, a camera overhead.

  “My situation has gotten a lot worse in the past two weeks.” Westfield lowered his hands and eyed them through narrowed eyes and spoke through teeth clenched against pain, his face slick with sweat. “I wouldn’t be able to maintain a stakeout or make that walk through the woods any longer. With Margo, I had to sit in my car until she came out of her house.”

  “What happens now?” Doctor Singh said.

  “Mr. Westfield will be taken to the hospital,” Winters said, biting off the words. “As you pointed out, we can’t care for him here.”

  Molly Smith almost swallowed her tongue.

  “No, not the hospital,” Westfield said, his voice stronger as the pain passed. “I’ve a room waiting for me at the hospice, right, Doctor? You’ll send someone around for my things? I don’t think we locked the door behind us. I’d like a few pieces of art. The new sketches in particular.”

  “You’re going to the hospital,” Winters said. “I won’t disrupt the patients—the deserving patients—at the hospice by putting you there. You’ll have a guard on you, round the clock. And be secured to your bed at all times.”

  “You can’t do that,” Westfield protested. “I’m dying. I deserve to be at the hospice.”

  “You deserve,” Winters said, his composure breaking, “to be in hell.”

  Westfield turned to his doctor, “Tell them,” he shouted. “Tell them what we arranged.”

  “I can give you the care you need at the hospital as well as anyplace else,” Singh said, his voice dripping with disgust. “And that only because my oath requires me to do so.”

  “Detective Lopez,” Winters said, “Escort Doctor Singh and his patient to the Trafalgar hospital. Westfield is to be restrained at all times. Tell Staff Sergeant Peterson to arrange a twenty-four hour guard on him. Constable Smith, cuff him.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  “You going to tell us what the hell’s going on, Sarge?”

  Smith and Winters, along with a good number of officers, stood at the windows watching as William Westfield, his doctor, Ray Lopez, and Dave Evans got into a patrol car and drove down the dark, abandoned street.

  Winters grimaced. “Can’t blame you for being mad, Ingrid.” He turned to face the group. “All of you. It’s a damned crying shame. Doctor Singh told me William Westfield has stage four glioblastoma. Meaning a brain tumour that’s eating him alive. He has, at the most, a couple of weeks to live. The tumor was detected three months ago and he refused treatment, claiming he’d rather die than drag on for at best another year. The doctor’s been trying to get him into the hospice. Westfield said he had a few matters to take care of first. I guess we know what that means.” Winters looked as if he wanted to spit on the floor.

  “It means he gets off scot-free,” Ingrid muttered.

  “Saves us the cost of a trial,” Ron Gavin said. “Saves us having to sit in court and listen while some expensive lawyer explains to the judge that his client’s misunderstood.”

  “Sick bastard,” Adam Tocek said. “In more ways than one.” He stood beside Molly Smith, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder, the closest they’d allow themselves to get while in uniform.

  Her face was pale, her mouth tight, and her eyes blazed with so much anger they reminded Winters of her mother. “He killed Cathy Lindsay for nothing at all.”

  “Pretty much. He’s right. We never would have caught him if he hadn’t gone after Margo. Whoever cleaned up his house after he died might have turned in the shotgun. Might not. He would have been remembered, by the police anyway, for a killing that remained unsolved.

  “Be that as it may, we
still have jobs to do. The Chief’s at the mayor’s office now, preparing a statement. Ron?”

  “I pulled in a few favors, got someone out of bed to run tests on that shotgun. To my eye, it’s the one that killed Mrs. Lindsay. We’ll get confirmation pretty soon. Alison’s still at the scene. Just because the guy confessed doesn’t mean we can pack up.”

  “Thanks for coming in everyone. If Ron doesn’t need you, and you’re not on duty, I guess you can go home now.”

  They began to move away, muttering and shaking heads.