The Friday Edition (A Samantha Church Mystery)

by Ferrendelli, Betta

  She did not want to touch the cold hand of death.

  The dream woke Sam with a start early Tuesday morning.

  When she was fully awake, she called in sick.

  Thirty-eight

  Eight o’clock Wednesday morning Sam’s phone rang, dragging her unwillingly from a deep, dreamless sleep.

  She mumbled hello.

  “Sam, I’ll be there at ten to pick you up for Rey’s funeral,” the voice said, skipping a greeting.

  Despite her sleepy haze, she recognized Wilson’s voice. Tuesday had passed in a blur of pain and she didn’t remember much of the day, only that Wilson had not called.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Better,” she said, touching herself lightly about her midsection, carefully avoiding the areas that were tender.

  “Sorry about yesterday,” she said. “I couldn’t bring myself to come in.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Wilson said. “I understand. You needed a mental health day. I knew that when you left Monday.”

  “Thanks,” she said, smiling at his comment. “I’ll be ready at ten.”

  Sam was thinking of Robin’s funeral when they walked into St. Joseph’s Catholic Church a few hours later. She pointed to a place near where she sat for her sister’s mass and Wilson followed her to the pew. After they settled Sam glanced briefly around the church. It held more police officers than she had ever seen in one setting. They wore their best; their hands gloved in white and their shields partially covered by a single band of black. Their shoes and the bill of their hats were perfectly polished.

  Pallbearers carrying Rey’s casket, draped in a purple cloth, passed slowly beside their pew. Sam watched as Rey’s wife and two daughters walked solemnly down the aisle behind the coffin.

  Sam watched as they walked to the first pew and stopped. The woman, tall and slender, wore a black dress that made her look elegant and refined. The girls wore matching lavender dresses and ribbons in their hair. She knelt before the altar and crossed herself, then stepped to the side to let her children do the same. She ushered them gently into the pew.

  Before she entered the pew, she put her hand lightly on her husband’s coffin and let it linger for a moment. The young girls watched their mother and waited.

  Sam watched as their mother helped the girls settle and saw that their faces were long and sad. Her heart ached for them as she remembered what she told Rey the night at High Pointe Warehouse. “I have no intention of going back into a church for a long, long time.”

  She was here now, left with fleeting thoughts of their brief time together. It seemed ephemeral. A transitory moment of time that she wasn’t sure now she had lived. She felt overwhelmed by emotion. She thought of the kindness that radiated from Rey’s eyes when he looked at her. It made her smile. Rey had become her trellis, and she had clung to him.

  When the funeral mass was over, Wilson and Sam stood together at the grave and listened as the priest completed the rest of the service. Then it was time to go.

  “Do you want to go into work?” Wilson asked Sam when they were in his car.

  Sam sat motionless, staring out the car window. She could see Robin’s grave, just a few rows from Rey’s. She had walked by Robin’s grave when the service had ended, but only stayed a moment. Her sister’s grave was marked just as Rey’s was, with a simple marker bearing the name, age, date of birth and day of death. Is that all that’s left of them? An aluminum marker to remember their smile, the sound of their voice and the feeling of being next to them?

  She looked at Wilson and smiled slightly.

  “I need some time,” she said simply. “I need to be alone.”

  He took her home.

  “I’ll be in tomorrow,” she said and thanked him for taking her to the funeral.

  She walked up the stairs to her apartment feeling as though she had been raped repeatedly.

  She was at work by nine the following morning. Wilson was already in and a smile covered his entire face when she popped her head in his office.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  Wilson knew she came to work Thursday for two reasons: to get a quote from Jonathan to finish Robin’s story and to write Rey’s.

  Sam reread the notes from Rey’s accident that Jonathan had given to her on Monday. Her hands poised on the keyboard, she thought a moment before she wrote a headline for the editors to consider.

  Grandview Officer Killed by Car

  “A Grandview police officer was buried this week after being struck and killed last Saturday while directing traffic at a busy intersection after a traffic signal had malfunctioned.

  Officer Reynaldo Edward Estrada, 28, was being transported to Lutheran Medical Center, but died en route to the hospital, according to Grandview police spokesman Jonathan Church. Estrada was struck at Wadsworth Boulevard and Colfax Avenue. The intersection is reported to be one of the top 10 busiest roads in the Denver-metro area.

  Estrada was wearing a safety-orange vest but was struck by an oncoming car, Church said. Estrada died of massive internal injuries after being thrown nearly 60 feet following impact, he said.

  The driver, Dean Brown, 44, of Denver, apparently suffered a seizure while driving through the intersection, Church said. Charges are not expected to be filed against the driver, he said.

  Estrada’s death has been ruled an accident.

  Family and friends and numerous law enforcement officers from jurisdictions throughout the metro area attended Estrada’s funeral services, held Wednesday at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Burial followed at Golden Cemetery.

  Estrada, a five-year veteran of the Grandview Police Department, leaves behind a wife and two daughters …”

  Sam closed her eyes when she finished the story, feeling as though she were in a coma. On Friday, Robin’s story was published on the Perspective’s front page, along with a color shot from Rey’s funeral. The photograph showed a long procession of police cruisers with their headlights on, glistening as they moved along rain-soaked streets. The image made Sam think of a long pearl necklace.

  Rey’s story ended up on page three, the second front, along with two black and white photographs. One showed his daughters placing flowers over their father’s casket and the other, his wife holding a tissue to her eyes, her arms clutched tightly around her slender body.

  Rey’s story left Sam drained when she reread it in print late Friday afternoon. She could do nothing now except wait for the fallout. She was looking forward to seeing April, and then home to spend a quiet evening in front of the fire.

  ****

  That evening Captain entered Roy Roger’s office and threw the Grandview Perspective on his desk. It landed before him with a lifeless thud, the story of the reopening of Robin Marino’s investigation as a homicide stared him in the face.

  Roy Rogers scanned the headline. When he finished reading Robin’s story he looked at Captain.

  “She’s not getting the message,” Rogers said. “For a fat girl, she doesn’t sweat much.”

  Captain nodded. “Now what?”

  Roy stroked his chin a moment as he thought.

  “She doesn’t leave us much choice, does she?” he said looking from the bold headline to Captain.

  “You know what to do then,” Rogers said.

  Captain nodded slightly.

  Thirty-nine

  They had followed Sam from the time she left the Perspective Friday afternoon until she arrived at her apartment shortly before eight that evening.

  Before she left work, Wilson told her to relax. “You love to go to the movies,” he said.

  “But I really want to see April, if only she’d be willing to see me.”

  She sat heavily against the chair, trying to ignore the sticking pain in her right side.

  Wilson studied her over his reading glasses.

  “I’m going over after work, but she just doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. If something happens to her because of me, I might
as well die, too.”

  Wilson removed his glasses, folded them and slipped them in his shirt pocket. He folded his hands over a pile of papers on his desk. When he spoke his voice was quiet.

  “Sam, nothing’s going to happen to April,” he said.

  She glared at him.

  “Look at what happened to Robin and now Rey. They made my sister’s death look like a suicide and his like an accident.”

  “Do you want to stop now?” he asked.

  “No,” she said and her voice was glum.

  “I understand your predicament, Sam,” he said patiently. “You want to bring your sister’s killer to justice and expose this drug smuggling operation. But you want to protect the only true part of you that remains.”

  She stared silently at him, nodding her head slightly.

  “Go see your daughter. Then go home and get some sleep. Come back Monday and hit it hard. By Friday, it’ll be behind us.”

  She hoped it was that easy.

  Sam arrived just in time to put April to bed. And, to her surprise, Jonathan let her tuck April in. She was asleep before Sam left her bedroom. At the door she turned out the light. She stood for a moment watching April sleep from the light that fell into the bedroom from the hallway. Sam smiled softly. April looked like a breathing portrait of innocence. She didn’t say good-bye to Jonathan when she left the house a few minutes later, and she felt happier than she had in weeks.

  She went home and built a roaring fire. She fell asleep on the couch to the smell of wood and a crackling fire. When she woke at 3 a.m. the hearth was dark, but the lamp on the end table was still on. Five minutes later the house was dark and Sam was in bed with Morrison curled up at her feet.

  The men had waited in the parking lot all evening for her lights to go out. Finally, when the apartment went dark, they called Captain.

  He arrived within minutes. They spoke briefly. Captain stayed in the car and watched as they walked toward Sam’s Mustang. Within seconds they had popped the locks and were inside. Captain knew they had to work quickly. His eyes shifted often to Sam’s apartment. His mind worked overtime remembering the night he had driven to Robin’s place.

  He had stayed in the car and stared at her condo a long time before he finally knocked on the door. He remembered the look in her eyes when she opened it. She was happy to see him, thinking he was there to help.

  Robin’s eyes had come to him in a dream last night. He had awakened with beads of sweat on his brow, heart racing. The last he remembered of the dream was Robin screaming as she fell to earth. It had been with him all day.

  He turned his attention to the two men who were huddled inside Sam’s Mustang. He checked his watch; soon they would be finished.

  He tried not to think of what would happen to Sam after they completed their task.

  He did not want to be part of this plan, but he knew now there was no way to get out. He was in too deep and had too much at stake. Captain had been staring at Sam’s bedroom window when they tapped at his car window.

  “It’s done,” one said. “She won’t feel a thing.”

  Captain nodded silently and he watched as they drove from the parking lot. He stared a long time at the Mustang.

  The explosive they set was not rigged to the ignition, but connected to the headlights. At dusk tomorrow evening, or the next time she was in her car at nightfall, it would be as they said. She wouldn’t feel a thing.

  Captain drove away with some consolation in that her death would be quick and painless. He felt relieved that the last person who could expose their operation would be eliminated.

  Not really. But he knew it was too late to turn back.

  The rest of Sam’s weekend passed uneventfully. She left her apartment once Saturday afternoon for groceries, but was home well before dark. She was home the rest of the weekend. Her telephone rang only once, but it was a telemarketer, so she didn’t answer. She called to talk with April Sunday afternoon, but they weren’t home. She left a message, but the call was not returned by time she went to bed.

  She took a long, hot bath and went to bed at eleven. She felt tired but not enough to sleep. At one a.m., she was still staring wide-eyed into the darkness. Her thoughts worked overtime.

  Rey had been on her mind all day.

  She had gone over everything they had uncovered during their short time together. Thoughts of the evening she had found his business card in her purse after she had been beaten persisted. She could see them the evening they had gone to the records department to look at the reports. She could see herself watching Rey as he marked his place with his business card. They thought they had retrieved all the cards, but they were wrong.

  “How foolish,” she said into the darkness. “How could we have been so stupid and careless?”

  Then she remembered what Rey had said about the police reports.

  “The only pattern about these reports is that there is no pattern …”

  But there had to be some kind of example – a link that pulled each of the reports together.

  Come on, Sam, dammit, think.

  Then the thought came to her with such strength that she sat straight up in bed.

  “Of course. That’s it. Why didn’t I think of it then?”

  Her movement and the elevated sound of her voice woke Morrison and he snuggled closer. She stroked his chin.

  “That’s the answer, Morrison. Now the only question is how do I get back into the records room to confirm my suspicions?”

  She remembered Shari, the dispatcher who had been so helpful. Sam decided against seeking her help. She wasn’t certain she could trust her.

  Sam knew there was only one person she could trust enough to get her inside that room and would tell no one that she had been there.

  She would call him in the morning.

  Forty

  Sam woke Monday morning with a start. She showered and dressed quickly, fed Morrison and arrived at work shortly before nine.

  Nick Week’s office was still dark, but Wilson was in his talking on the phone.

  She poked her head inside. He motioned her to the chair.

  “Morning. How’s the bruises?” he said when he finished his telephone conversation.

  “Much better,” she said. “But I’m still a little sore.”

  “How are you doing otherwise?” he asked.

  Sam smiled slightly. Today she felt hopeful, elevated by what she hoped would be a revelation. She told Wilson her suspicions about the files in the records department.

  “You think the same authorizing signature is on all the drug-related records?” he asked.

  “I have a feeling it is,” she said. “But I won’t know until I have another look.”

  “You could be right, Sam, but how are you going to get in there?”

  She sighed deeply and shrugged her shoulders, wishing Rey were still alive. “I have one chance, Wilson, and …”

  Her voice fell away. Wilson’s eyebrows drifted above his reading glasses as he waited for her to continue. “And?” he said.

  “And … it’s through Brady Gilmore.”

  Sam waited for Wilson to show his surprise, but he registered no emotion, instead spoke in a steady voice. “Brady? Sam, are you sure?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been thinking about when he and Robin were together. They were still so close and they shared everything. I know they still spoke to each other in the strictest confidence. Robin never worried that Brady would reveal her secrets. She knew what she told him would stay with him.”

  “You think Brady knows more than he’s saying?”

  Sam pursed her lips and nodded.

  The room was still as they quietly visited their own thoughts. Sam kept her attention fixed to a pattern on the floor, but when she felt Wilson’s eyes on her, she looked at him.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “How am I going to get Brady to tell me what he knows? And how am I going to let him know he can trust me?”

  Wil
son leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over the top of his head.

  “You’re not one of his favorite people,” he said.

  “It’s been a long time since he’s wanted anything to do with me,” she said.

  “Until the airport exhibit.”

  “Yes, until then,” she said and stared at him across the desk.

  “You’re going to ask Brady to take you to the records department?” he asked.

  Sam nodded. “I have to try. I’m running out of time and options.”

  Wilson was stroking his chin with his index finger. “It’s worth a shot. When will you call him?” he asked.

  “I thought we might go for pizza after work, then to the police department.”

  “Keep me posted,” he said.

  Sam left Wilson’s office and phoned Brady. He returned her phone call quickly and, much to her surprise, agreed. She would tell him the rest at dinner.

  It was dusk when Sam headed to her Mustang. She unlocked the door, slid inside and gripped the steering wheel. It was cold and sent a chill racing up her spine.

  She slipped the key into the ignition. She turned it over to start the car, but nothing happened. She stopped a moment and stared at the key in the ignition, checking it, as if she had done something wrong. She turned the key again. Nothing. Sam looked around. Wilson’s Honda Accord was the only other car in the parking lot. She went inside the building and found him working at his computer.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He looked at her then checked his watch.

  “You still here? I thought you left to get Brady.”

  “My car won’t start. I think the battery’s dead. I have to call Brady and tell him I’ll be late.”

  “Take my car,” Wilson said.

  “How will you get home?”

  “I’ll call my sister or get a taxi. This is more important and I don’t want you to keep Brady waiting.”