Needled to Death

by Annelise Ryan

  P.J.’s eyes grow huge, and she bites back a laugh. After swallowing, she says, “When are you going to see the detective again?”

  “In about an hour. I need to shower and then I’m heading down to the police station.”

  “Are you stalking him?”

  “No, I’m not stalking him,” I say, giving her a look of exasperation. “I’m looking into a suspicious death for one of the people in my grief support group, and Detective Richmond is helping me. He’s going to let me ride along with him for a while.”

  “Sounds like fun. Can I come?”

  “Sorry, kiddo. Not this time.” P.J. pouts but accepts her fate with good humor. She’s a great kid: smart, funny, kind, and quick on her feet. I enjoy her company and I’m grateful to Roscoe for bringing her to me. I’m also glad her father is allergic to dogs, or so he says. I’m suspicious of his claim, however, given that I’ve seen P.J. go home with fur balls on her clothing and her father never seems bothered by the hair and dander. I suspect P.J.’s parents don’t want the work, dirt, and expense of having a dog, so they use this allergy story to give them an out.

  We finish our respective waffles and I excuse myself to go shower. By the time I come back downstairs I feel a little better, my tight, angry muscles loosened some by the hot water and ibuprofen. P.J. has left, but she has cleaned up our breakfast residue. After telling Roscoe to be a good boy, I leave for the police station.

  When I arrive, the dispatcher on duty tells me Bob isn’t there, and for a moment I’m afraid he’s gone on without me, ditching me the first chance he got. But then the dispatcher informs me she is expecting him any minute and has me wait in the front area. Eager but nervous, I pace for the duration of my five-minute wait, partly to calm my nerves, but also because I’m afraid that if I stop moving, I won’t be able to get started again. The effects of the shower have worn off and the ibuprofen hasn’t fully kicked in yet. When the dispatcher finally buzzes me in, I hurry through the door and down the hall toward Bob’s office, noting all the quiet, empty offices I pass along the way.

  Bob is seated at his desk, the folder I looked at last night in front of him. He is on his phone, listening or holding—I’m not sure which—and not talking. His small notebook is in front of him on the desk, and he has a pen in his right hand. While he isn’t writing anything, I see that he has scribbled down several things. He waves me into the room and gestures toward a chair that he must have dragged into the room. As I settle in, I try to read what he has written. I can’t make it out without being obvious, and for a second, I debate going for it and being blatantly nosy. But my relationship with Bob, both personally and professionally, is still too new. I decide I need to give it more time before I start pushing boundaries, so I sit and wait.

  I listen as Bob mutters some “uh-huhs” and “I sees.” When he finally says, “Thanks,” and disconnects the call, I lean forward, eager to hear what news there might be. But all he does is get up and crook a finger at me, indicating that I should follow him. He leads me back down the main hall toward the front of the building and in behind the dispatcher’s desk. She acknowledges him with a nod but says nothing, and I follow Bob to a door at the far end of her desk. He takes a key ring from his front pocket and holds a fob up to a scanning panel mounted beside the door. There is a buzz and a click, and then he opens the door. This leads us into another short hallway, more of a large foyer area.

  Bob nods to the left, where I see another door, this one with a mesh-lined window and another scanner on the wall beside it. “Our two holding cells are down there,” he says. “We don’t typically keep anyone here overnight. If that’s necessary, we have to drive them to Madison or Portage.”

  “Wow, that’s a long way.”

  “Kind of a pain, all right,” he agrees. “But we don’t have the staff to watch inmates overnight here. There have been some short-term, temporary exceptions, but as a rule, it doesn’t happen.”

  There is a second door to our right, and this is the one Bob goes through, once again using his fob. This time we end up at the top of a stairwell. I mentally groan at the sight of the stairs, hoping my legs will have enough strength left in them to carry me down and then, presumably and more concerningly, back up again. As we descend, I realize that this lower level is bigger than most. The stairs go down at least twenty feet, maybe more. The reason for this becomes apparent quickly. After we fob through another door, we enter a large open area with a high ceiling.

  “This is our garage,” Bob explains, nodding toward the empty room, which I guess to be about two stalls wide.

  “Really?” I say. “Who gets to park in here instead of the lot?”

  “It’s not for parking, at least not long-term. It’s for unloading and processing evidence.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Bob walks over to yet another door but doesn’t have to use his fob this time. We enter another large room, this one filled with counters, cabinets, tables, a desk, and a lot of expensive-looking machinery. Standing in front of a counter against the wall to my left is a man who looks to be in his early to mid-thirties. He’s a bit on the roly-poly side—not fat so much as well padded—and he looks to be only a few inches taller than me. His eyes are big and dark brown, and he has dirty-blond hair cut short on the sides with bangs in front. He’s attractive in a boyish sort of way, looking like a cross between Michael J. Fox and Davy Jones from the Monkees’ heyday.

  “Hey, Jonas,” Bob says.

  “Good morning,” Jonas counters with a smile, his gaze settling on me. “I see you’ve brought me a visitor.”

  “I have. This is Hildy Schneider. She’s a social worker, currently employed at the hospital.” Jonas arches his brows at this, and the two men exchange a look. “She’s doing a ride-along with me,” Bob explains.

  Jonas approaches me and extends a hand. “I’m Jonas Kriedeman,” he says, wrapping my hand in a grip that’s warm and firm. “I’m an evidence technician for the police department.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say, returning his smile. Our gazes linger for a few seconds and Jonas looks away first, though I note that he sneaks a peek at my left hand before turning his attention back to Bob.

  “I take it you’ve reopened the Toby Cochran case?” Jonas says.

  “Looks that way,” Bob says with a glance in my direction.

  “Well, Laura made some progress with that laptop last night.” Jonas looks at me again, his head cocked slightly to one side. “Are you the gal who figured out how to bypass the fingerprint scanner?”

  “Afraid so,” I admit with a mixture of sheepishness and pride.

  “Clever,” he says with a wink. “I take it you launched his email program once you got into the computer?”

  I shoot a guilty look toward Bob before answering. “I did, but I immediately closed it again without reading anything.”

  “Well, our victim had an email composed and ready to send sitting in his outbox, but it didn’t get sent before the program was shut down. There was a big thunderstorm the night Toby drafted the email and the power went out in several places around town, so that might be why it didn’t get sent originally. Toby had the laptop set up so that as soon as he booted it up it would search for a nearby open Wi-Fi system and automatically sign onto it. So when you opened the email program, the email got sent.”

  “Oh,” I say with a grimace. “Who did it go to?” I say a silent prayer that it wasn’t Toby’s mother. Getting an email from her dead son weeks after the fact would be disconcerting, to say the least.

  “It went to several people,” Jonas explains. “And it seems to have stirred things up.” He walks over to a counter and picks up several pieces of paper. Then he spreads them out on a table and motions for us to come look at them. They are printouts of emails.

  “This is what got sent,” Jonas says, tapping the first sheet of paper. The email is brief. All it says is: Sorry, I can’t stay silent about it any longer. I need to tell someone.

  I look at
the recipients and see that it went to three people, the same three boys who were involved in the email exchange Bob and I read last night.

  “And these are the replies,” Jonas says, waving a hand over the other sheets. “They are succinct and to the point. Mitchell Sawyer’s response is to Toby only and it’s a demand to know who sent the email and how they know about ‘it,’ though he doesn’t say what ‘it’ is.”

  “Liam Michaelson’s reply also goes to Toby only, and he wants to know if a ghost has sent the email, or if Toby’s death was faked. I imagine the first half of that query was somewhat tongue-in-cheek,” Jonas says, “though it can be hard to discern context from emails.”

  “Alex Parnell’s reply went to all three of the others and is the most laconic of them all, two simple words: ‘Shut up!’”

  “Do you know anything about these three fellows?” Bob asks.

  Jonas nods. “Laura did some digging. They all live at Alpha Theta Pi, a frat house on campus.” He walks over to a computer on a counter against the wall and starts typing. “I just sent the info Laura dug up to your cell phone.”

  Bob’s cell phone chimes a second later to acknowledge the receipt. “Thanks,” he says.

  “That’s the same frat house Toby lived in,” I say, feeling a little ignored and left out. Plus, I think I deserve some of the credit since I had earlier recognized the fact that the boys all had university email addresses and had suggested they might be members of Toby’s fraternity.

  Jonas smiles. “Yes, it is.”

  “We’re planning on visiting there,” I say. Bob frowns at this while Jonas looks at me with an amused expression.

  “Any luck on those coordinates I gave Laura?” Bob asks Jonas.

  “Some,” he says, his smile fading. “It’s on private property.” He walks over to the desk and picks up a piece of paper. “Here’s the contact info for the owner.”

  Jonas hands the sheet to Bob, who glances at it and says, “Oh,” in a disappointed tone. He then folds it up, and stuffs it in his shirt pocket.

  “Yeah,” Jonas says, sounding equally disillusioned.

  My curiosity is thoroughly piqued but I’ll be darned if I’ll beg this boys’ club to let me in on the deal. For now, I’m willing to bide my time and figure it out on my own. I have my ways. My years in the foster system may not have been the most nurturing, but they taught me some handy spy skills.

  “Thanks,” Bob says to Jonas. “Let me know if you come up with anything else.” He turns to leave, and I dutifully fall into step behind him. We don’t get far, however, before Jonas calls my name.

  “Hildy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Pardon me if I’m being too forward, but I wonder if you might be willing to have dinner with me sometime? Maybe take in a movie?”

  I’m stunned. And flattered. I think I see a frown flit across Bob’s face, but it’s there and gone so fast I can’t be sure. I debate my answer for a moment. Jonas is an attractive and apparently eligible fellow, which is reason enough to accept. But the fact that he also has insider access to police business pushes me over into hell, yeah territory. My good angel tells me this is not a fair or legitimate reason to want to date the man, but my bad angel shoves her off my shoulder and points out that I find Jonas genuinely attractive, and if his job happens to come in handy for investigating my mother’s death, that’s just a happy coincidence. And besides, Bad Angel reminds me, it’s not like I have an exclusive relationship with Bob. We’ve only had the one dinner together, and it was a mix of personal and business agendas.

  “Sure,” I say to Jonas. “That sounds like fun.”

  “How about tomorrow night?” Jonas says, surprising me even more. The man certainly knows how to get to the point, and I find this oddly attractive. I like decisive men, even if I do bristle if they ever try to decide for me. I never said I was a rational woman.

  “Okay,” I say after a nanosecond of thought. “Do you want to meet somewhere?”

  “Would it be okay if I pick you up?” He smiles nervously. “Of course, if you’re not comfortable with that for a first date, I understand. Though I think Richmond here can vouch for me.”

  Bob frowns, mutters something unintelligible, and looks at his feet.

  “You can pick me up,” I decide. “But I have to warn you, I have a vicious guard dog.”

  Bob snorts amusement at this, and the fleeting look of concern on Jonas’s face fades quickly when he realizes I’m joking.

  “How does six o’clock sound?” Jonas asks.

  “That sounds fine. I’m looking forward to it.”

  I give Jonas my address and we exchange phone numbers, entering them into our respective cells.

  We leave then, Bob scowling as he leads the way back upstairs. My leg muscles, as feared, complain loudly, but I find that the pain is easier to ignore due to my good mood. I hope the muscles will be better by tomorrow evening. It won’t be much of a first date if I’m in a state of rigor mortis.

  Once we reach the main hallway, Bob says, “Looks like we’re taking a trip to a fraternity house. Ready to go rushing?”

  “Ready and able. I hope the hazing isn’t too rough, though. My childhood was basically one big hazing, and I’ve had enough of that, thank you very much.”

  Bob cocks his head slightly and looks at me, a curious expression forming on his face. “You are an interesting woman, Hildy Schneider,” he says.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Your childhood couldn’t have been that bad,” Bob says as we head out to his car. “You passed the background check without any problems.”

  “Good to know my juvie record is still sealed,” I say, settling in the front seat and shutting the door. “I haven’t always been a goody two-shoes.”

  He shoots me a curious look. “What did you do?”

  I click my seat belt into place and tuck the shoulder strap under my arm, wincing as I feel the painful protest of muscles I never knew I had. He eyes me with a dubious expression, so I explain my actions before answering his question. “When you’re my height these shoulder straps hit you in the face instead of the shoulder. Cars aren’t made for short people.”

  He stares at my chest for a moment and then gives me a conciliatory shrug.

  “As for my corrupt childhood, don’t worry. Like I said before, I didn’t kill anyone, at least not that I know of. But I did shoplift a few times.” Bob narrows his eyes at me. It might have been the bright sunlight that made him do it, but I cave anyway. “Okay, a lot of times, but I only got caught a few times.” He keeps staring at me and I fess up to more. “And there may have been a battery charge.”

  “Battery?” Bob says, eyeing me with amused skepticism. “Who did you beat up, a dwarf?”

  I shoot him a wounded look. “Very funny,” I say without humor. Then I square my shoulders and straighten up as tall as I can, though it’s difficult since my feet barely touch the floor. “Actually, it was two kids,” I say with some pride. “Both of them boys and both of them quite a bit bigger than me.”

  Bob eyes me again, this time warily.

  “I was . . . shall we say . . . pushed over the edge,” I tell him.

  “The edge of what?” He starts the engine and shifts into gear.

  “Sanity, I think.” This earns me an arch of his brows as the gate rolls open and we get underway. “Let me explain. I was walking to a store a few blocks away, and I had to go past this alley that ran between the houses on the block. Down that alley I saw these two boys holding a squirming, whining dog. One of the boys was pouring liquid from a gas can onto the dog. That by itself was enough to light my fire, if you’ll excuse the expression, but when I saw the other boy take out a lighter, I guess I went a little berserk. To be honest, I don’t remember much of it, only that I was so filled with rage and anger at those boys that I could have killed them.”

  “But you didn’t,” Bob says.

  “No, someone pulled me off them at some point. Otherwise, who knows? The cops s
howed up about the same time.”

  “And the dog? The boy didn’t . . .” He lets the unspeakable act remain unspoken.

  “No, thank goodness. It ran off somewhere. I went back the next day and looked for it. In fact, I went back for the next two weeks to look for that dog, but I never could find it.”

  “What exactly did you do to the boys?” Bob’s voice is warier than before, as if he only now realizes he’s locked himself inside a small coupe with a raving lunatic.

  “As I said before, I don’t really remember it. It was as if my brain just exploded or something. But according to the record I bloodied both boys’ noses and knocked one of them to the ground, and he hit his head hard enough to knock him unconscious. That was the boy who had the lighter. The second boy I kicked, and it broke the smaller of the two bones in his lower leg. They told me I also broke three of his fingers. Oh, and he had a black eye, as well.”

  I glance over at Bob, who is staring straight ahead as he drives, his face oddly expressionless.

  “It was my word against theirs, and the dog couldn’t be found, but the boys had the gas can and the lighter, and one of them had been bitten.” I pause and shake my head. “I hope the little bastard had to undergo rabies shots.”

  This earns me a sidelong glance from Bob.

  “Anyway, the parents of the boys were going to press charges, but when the police told them what the boys had been doing, they decided to let it go in exchange for the boys not getting charged. Plus, there was the whole pride thing associated with a tiny girl beating the crap out of not one, but two boys single-handedly. I was slapped with a battery charge and spent some time in juvie as a result, but it was worth it.”

  “I gather the moral of that story is to not piss you off.”

  I smile. “I suppose so, yes.”

  “Did you beat up anyone else during your misspent youth?”

  “No, nothing beyond the typical self-defense, sibling rivalry kind of stuff, though that got intense at times. It wasn’t easy being a foster kid. Couple that with my size and you get what looks like an easy target. I had to learn to defend myself at a young age. I wasn’t always successful, and even then, I’d often be punished by my foster parents. Didn’t matter what the truth was most of the time. If it came down to my word against that of one of the bio kids in the household, I always came out the loser.”