by Terry Odell
She nodded but didn’t budge. He waited, giving her time to gather herself. In a move he would never have made months ago, he reached for her hand. She accepted. Hers felt as though it had come straight from the freezer.
She tilted her face to his. “Is it okay for everyone to get to work?”
“Solomon, you have everything you need?” Gordon asked.
His officer nodded. “Yep. I’ll get to the station and see if we can turn any of this into something useful.”
Gordon squeezed Angie’s hand. “Then, yes.”
She pried herself loose and faced her staff. “All right, what’s everyone waiting for? Let’s get this place cleaned up and ready to open for service by five.” She took off for the stairwell.
Gordon stopped her at the top of the stairs. “It’s going to look worse than it actually is. Whoever this guy is, he wasn’t into destruction. It’s a mess, but I’ll help you get everything back together. What we need to know is what, if anything, is missing. That could help lead us to him.”
“I get it.” She reached for the doorknob. “Let’s do it.”
He braced himself for her reaction when she took her first look at the mess. He remembered a similar situation at the Kretzers’ a while ago, and how different it had felt to look at a crime scene that involved people he cared for. It was the same now. Maybe more so. At least they’d caught the guy responsible for the Kretzers’ break in. His hands curled into fists. They’d catch whoever had done this to Angie, too.
After opening the door, head high, she stepped inside. Halting in her tiny entryway, she drew an audible breath, held it, then exhaled just as audibly. “Might as well start here.” She stepped into the chaos.
While Gordon dealt with the overturned furniture, Angie levered up the wooden coat rack and replaced the coats, jackets, hats, and scarves she kept there. She picked up framed pictures of her family and replaced them on the entertainment center shelves. “Guess my television set wasn’t good enough for him.”
“Too much trouble for one person to deal with, I’d say. Too heavy, too many wires. It helps rule out burglary as a motive.”
Unless he’d had an accomplice waiting out back. But since nothing appeared to be missing, Gordon ruled it out for now.
Angie scooped up a handful of CDs. Gordon righted the coffee table. “You can put them here for now.”
Angie spread them out, then added another batch. “If this guy took a few, I don’t think I’d notice. Not until I was in the mood for something and couldn’t find it.”
Gordon put the sofa cushions where they belonged. “If I find any money stuck in here, do I get to keep it?” His attempt to lighten the mood was greeted with a slight upward curve of Angie’s lips.
“Odds are it would be yours anyway,” she said. “I don’t carry loose change in my pockets.”
Returning the living room to its normal state didn’t take more than fifteen minutes. The bedroom took longer, since Angie insisted on reorganizing the contents of her dresser drawers, which Gordon put into their slots. Gordon remade the bed, and Angie stacked her clothing donations there, but she’d refused his help in putting anything away.
“I’ve been meaning to go through this and give stuff to charity. Might as well do it now and have someone benefit from this mess,” she said. She neatly folded a pink-and-white-striped turtleneck. “But it’s like the CDs. Not sure I can tell if something is missing.”
When she got to the bottom drawer, she looked at him, then around the room. She darted to the bathroom and dragged the laundry hamper into the bedroom. She dumped the contents onto the floor, dug through them, then shoved everything inside. “That’s nuts.”
“What?” Gordon asked.
“Your stuff,” she said. “All the clothes you keep here are gone.”
Chapter 37
“Maybe the guy moved them.” Gordon checked under the bed, then the vanity cabinet in the bathroom. He didn’t keep a lot of personal stuff at Angie’s—a few pairs of underwear, socks, three or four shirts, and some jeans. An old pair of sneakers. “That makes no sense. You’re sure nothing of yours is missing?”
Angie’s brow furrowed as she went through her clothes again. “Nothing I can see.” She popped into the bathroom. Drawers opened and closed. “Your travel kit’s gone, too.”
Gordon sank onto the bed, trying to put these new puzzle pieces together. Angie went into the living room and came back a moment later carrying three CD cases. “These are yours.”
Gordon pondered that one. “Okay, there’s nothing obvious about those that says they belong to me. You have anyone who’s been hitting on you? Or someone from your past? Jealousy’s always a prime motive.”
Angie plopped down next to him. “Well, Kyle Foster didn’t take it well when we broke up.”
“Kyle Foster?”
“Yeah. My first true love.” She crossed her palms over her heart. “Third grade.”
Gordon gave her biceps a playful swat. “A little more recent than that.”
“There’s the usual casual flirtation sometimes, but it’s all in fun.”
Gordon stiffened. “Who’s been flirting with you?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. You know, when you chat with customers, some are friendly, some make comments with little innuendos, but nothing I’d consider anything more than small talk. You know, someone says, ‘I really love your buns’ and he might mean my cinnamon rolls, or he might be teasing. A couple of guys have offered to take me to Finnegan’s for a drink after work, but I’ve never accepted. Sometimes a group of us go out and have some fun, but everyone knows I’m taken.” She cocked her head. “I am, aren’t I?”
He ignored the question. “I want to know who. A list.”
Her eyes popped. “You’re serious? You can’t be jealous.” She stabbed him with her gaze. “My God, you are jealous.”
Gordon couldn’t respond to that one. Not with the way his gut had clenched when Angie mentioned flirtatious customers or goofing around with friends, some of whom were male.
Angie went on. “I can’t believe anyone would do this because I was seeing someone else. Especially if they knew that particular someone else was the chief of police.”
“It could happen. So, if nobody recognized this guy, then maybe he’s a stranger and didn’t know I’m a cop.”
“But if he’s a stranger, how would he know to come up here, and why would he take your stuff?”
Gordon scratched his jaw. “I’m working on that one. Maybe Solomon will get some prints and we’ll have a direction to follow.”
“So, while we wait, how about I give you your Valentine’s Day present? Then I have to get downstairs.”
“I have one for you, too.” Gordon headed to the coat rack. “Shit.”
“What now?” Angie asked.
“My jacket. I know I hung it up here. Did you see it when you put everything away?”
“No,” Angie said. “I wasn’t even thinking at that point.”
“Your present was in the pocket,” Gordon said.
She made another quick pass through the living room. “Yours is gone, too.” She flopped onto the couch, bent over with elbows on her knees, and rested her head in her hands. “Damn.”
“Okay, because he took stuff, we’ve moved to a class four felony. Prosecutor might decide to go with misdemeanor theft, but I say we go all the way.”
She raised her head. “Whatever. That kind of stuff is your world, not mine. Right now, I’m mad that he spoiled our Valentine’s Day. I can get you another gift, but it might be a little late.”
“Same here,” Gordon said. “Are we going to keep them a secret until then?”
She thought for a moment. “Yeah. Why not? And that gives me the option to change my mind and get you something else. A woman’s prerogative, you know.”
“Until then, how’s this?” He cradled her face and kissed her. Long and slow.
She sighed, pulled away for a moment, and ran her finger along his
jaw. Gave him the impish grin he loved. Then moved in for another kiss, longer and slower. When it ended, she said, “And that was for being jealous.” She stood and finger-combed her hair. “Although there’s no reason to be. You can let yourself out. But lock up. You never know who might be lurking downstairs waiting for a chance to throw stuff around my apartment.”
Glad she was taking things so well, Gordon sat on the sofa and waited until things settled before calling Solomon.
“Just yours?” Solomon said, when Gordon filled him in. “Now, that’s weird.”
And Solomon had the decency not to mention the fact that Gordon was keeping some of his things at Angie’s.
“Not to mention it pisses me off. And he got the gift I was going to give Angie for Valentine’s Day.”
“Not the gift?” Solomon said. “The fourth finger, left hand variety?”
“Geez, no, nothing like that. Earrings. Not all that expensive.”
Solomon’s pause was a bit too long. As if he was deciding whether to push the topic.
Gordon went on to fill the void. “It’s—I don’t know what it is. I can get her another pair, but, even if I get her the same ones, it won’t be the same. And the creep took whatever she was going to give me.”
And why was he getting so put out about some clothes, a razor, and a couple of gifts? And why was he babbling all this to Solomon? “Never mind. I should get to the station and give you a hand with the investigation.”
“And do what?” Solomon said. “It’s all waiting. And a few computer searches, all of which I’m capable of, and if necessary, there’s the civilian patrol guys who eat this stuff up. You’re off duty until Monday, and as acting Chief of Police, I am ordering you to stay away.”
“You are, are you?”
“A little too heavy-handed, you think? Abusing my authority?” Solomon chuckled.
“No, you’re well within the scope of duty. But you’ll call as soon as you’ve got something.”
“Of course. It’s your stuff that’s missing and your girlfriend’s apartment that was ransacked, and as the victims of a crime, you have the right to know how the investigation is going.”
“But—”
“No buts, Chief. You don’t let victims investigate their own crimes. Police work 101.”
Reluctantly, Gordon hung up. Angie was busy, he had an accumulation of dirty laundry, and—the thought slammed into him like colliding with an elk. Remote a possibility as it seemed, if he was a target, then whoever broke into Angie’s place might have done the same at his.
He played with the new puzzle as he sped home, laying out the pieces in his mind.
Someone was jealous that Angie was seeing him and removed all traces of him from her apartment. As Angie had pointed out, anyone who knew he was a cop wouldn’t have been that stupid. So, a casual—very casual acquaintance? Someone who didn’t live in Mapleton? Someone out of Angie’s past? That had a few possibilities. He’d come to see her, found out she was unavailable, and trashed it, stealing Gordon’s things? But how would a relative stranger know where Angie lived, or how to get there?
Someone she’d been a lot closer to, then. Someone who might have left some of his things in her apartment once. Gordon’s gut clenched again, despite the fact that the logical side of his brain kept shouting that both he and Angie had past relationships, and they’d already talked about how what happened in the past didn’t matter in the now.
Angie’s right. You do get all manly-macho.
He stopped his SUV at the curb of the house next door to his and pulled his Beretta from its holster. Overly cautious, he told himself. He had a damn good security system and hadn’t had a call from the monitoring company.
The unblemished snow in his yard, the lack of tire tracks in the driveway said nobody had come by since the last snowfall, which was—when? Solomon had said the Mapleton weather was nothing like what he’d had in Tranquility Valley. Dog footprints patterning his neighbor’s yard said the snow wasn’t recent.
But if someone had parked around the block and come in through the back … Gordon’s brain churned through all the possibilities. One that refused to go away was that there was someone inside waiting for him. Light peeked from behind the living room curtains. He checked the dash clock. His lamps were on timers, so the glow at the window was normal.
Telling himself he was overreacting, but knowing he had to check, he drove around, to the other side of his block. No unfamiliar vehicles. Most of the people who lived here worked, so dark, empty houses, like the Bakers’, were the norm. Next door to that, Winston and Salem, the resident German shepherds that Gordon thought of as the “Bark Brothers,” bounded back and forth along the boundaries of the invisible fence, letting the entire block know someone was approaching. No, if his guy had come from the rear, it would have been via the vacant house on other side of the Bakers’. The “For Sale” sign in the yard and the lockbox on the front door made it the logical choice.
Gordon drove beyond the vacant house and parked. He grabbed his Beretta and the flashlight he kept in the glove box and opened the door. The frigid air rolled over him, and he cursed the creep who stole his jacket. From down the block, the Bark Brothers continued to announce Gordon’s presence as he stepped out of his SUV and played his light over the snow. Plenty of footprints, but none leading to his own house.
As satisfied as he could be that his house wasn’t a target—yet—Gordon hopped inside the SUV and cranked up the heat for the short return trip home.
He parked in his garage, and telling himself it still made sense to be cautious, he cleared his own house. No signs of anyone. He cranked up the thermostat, took his duffel to the laundry room, and dumped the contents, which was as close as he was getting to doing laundry tonight. Instead, he poured himself a stiff drink and powered up his computer. Because he wasn’t supposed to investigate a crime he was personally involved in didn’t mean he wasn’t going to—as Solomon put it—poke around.
And maybe he’d see what Kyle Foster was up to now.
Chapter 38
Gordon arrived at the station Monday morning, thirty minutes before change of shift. The bouquet he’d ordered for Laurie was displayed prominently on her desk. No sign of the chocolate, but that wasn’t surprising. She wasn’t stupid enough to leave them out where everyone passing by would take one.
He found a neatly typed schedule on his desk, along with a hand-written thank you note for his gifts. Before he started his day, he checked Paula’s blog, wondering if she’d posted anything about the Yardumians’ yet. No, today was Bowling Green, Kentucky and Mammoth Cave National Park. He hoped the Yardumians hadn’t given Paula a free ride expecting publicity. Then again, he remembered that Paula’s Places didn’t follow a logical sequence. She might have a post about Tranquility Valley scheduled for next week, next month, or months down the line. He skimmed the post. Vague and generic like the others. Nothing to indicate the date of her visit. Okay, time to get to work.
He went through the weekend reports, setting aside his curiosity about the break-in at Angie’s and skimming the routine ones first. Solomon hadn’t called him with any progress reports Saturday or Sunday, so Gordon had managed to busy himself with catching up on household chores and buying a new jacket for himself and another pair of earrings for Angie. Which he’d give her tonight over dinner.
Feeling up to speed on the normal operations of Mapleton, Gordon turned to the reports on the break-in. As expected, given Solomon’s silence, they hadn’t found much. Prints galore on the chair backs. No hits on any of them, though. Gordon didn’t think it would be feasible—or appropriate—to suggest the Daily Bread staff polish the chairs between each set of customers. Plenty of prints in the restroom as well, although only a few high on the wall where someone might have braced himself while holding a cigarette—or cigarettes—up near the smoke detector. No hits on those yet, either, although Solomon’s notes said they were trying to see if those prints matched any of the ones on the ch
air.
Solomon had pulled security footage from the parking lot at Finnegan’s and had assigned Nathan Romash of the civilian patrol the task of identifying the vehicles parked there the night of the break-in. Nathan’s list was attached. Almost all Mapleton residents, which Gordon set aside as being highly unlikely suspects. Three vehicles—a dark-colored Dodge Ram pickup, an equally unremarkable Subaru SUV, and a light-colored Ford Focus—were unidentified and their plates weren’t visible on the camera, although Nathan’s report gave a couple of partials. Solomon hadn’t run them yet. Gordon made a note of them and put that on his own to-do list. But first, he captured the frames from the video and printed a dozen copies of each. Too bad the new CCTV technology that could capture license plates wasn’t in Mapleton’s budget.
~~~
When it was time for roll call, Gordon stood at the rear of the briefing room. He didn’t come in often, leaving the routine to the officer-in-charge, so there was an undercurrent of anticipation in the room. When Sergeant Gaubatz turned things over to him, Gordon strode to the front of the room, shoving down his own unease at speaking in front of a routine change of shift. You’d think he’d be over it by now, but he still fought sweaty palms and a dry mouth whenever he had to stand in front of a group and talk. Didn’t matter if he knew them or not.
“First, thanks to everyone for their excellent service while I was away. I’m proud to know that the Mapleton PD runs smoothly in my absence.” He paused. Smiled. “Or maybe that means I’m not needed.”
A hesitant ripple of laughter followed his remark. So much for his feeble attempt at levity. “As Sergeant Gaubatz has reiterated, we still don’t have a suspect in the false alarm set at Daily Bread, nor the break-in and burglary at Angie Mead’s apartment. However, these three vehicles were parked at Finnegan’s on the day in question.” He paused and handed the printouts to one of the officers in the front row, who began distributing them.
