Stiff Competition

by Annelise Ryan

  “Can I hold him?” Hurley says. “I’ve missed the little guy.”

  His request is as natural and normal as any could be and yet it fills me with a sense of dread. How will Emily react to seeing her father cooing over his other child? Not that Hurley actually coos, but any attention he gives Matthew right now might be perceived as rejection by Emily. Then Emily solves the problem for me.

  “I’ve had Dad’s attention all night long. It’s Matthew’s turn.”

  Relieved, I turn and hand Matthew off to Hurley. He holds his son cradled in the crook of one arm and Matthew immediately starts to cry. Hurley bounces him a little and tries to talk to him, but Matthew is having none of it. His face screws up into a tiny mask of discontent and he continues to bellow.

  “Is he hungry?” Hurley asks, looking worried.

  I shake my head. “I fed him right before we came here.”

  Hurley then lifts Matthew up toward his face and takes a big sniff of his butt. And that’s when I figure out what’s making my son irritable. “His diaper is clean,” Hurley says.

  “Yeah, but you’re not. Seriously, Hurley, you need to go home and take a shower.”

  He hands Matthew back to me and just like that the little guy stops crying. Emily seems amused by it all, but Hurley simply looks annoyed. “Fine, I’ll go home and get cleaned up. Will you stay here with Emily until I get back?”

  “Of course I will,” I say. “Now go before the staff starts breaking out the HazMat suits to come in here.”

  Hurley grabs his coat from the back of the chair, walks over to the bed, and gives Emily a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be back in about an hour, okay?”

  “Take your time,” Emily says in her happy state. “I’m not going anywhere.” Then she giggles at her own joke.

  I get a kiss on the forehead, too.

  With Hurley gone, Emily and I spend the next hour and a half getting to know one another a little better. We share openly and honestly about a lot of things: her relationship with Johnny, my relationship with Hurley, the sadness she feels over her mother’s death, and the fact that she’s also angry with her mother for lying to her all those years about Hurley. The topic of fathers and their influence in our lives takes up a good portion of our talk. I share with her how I felt like an outsider growing up because my father wasn’t a part of my life, and how I, too, harbor some anger toward my mother for her role in it all, even though I’m not sure yet just what that role was. When she asks me if she can hold Matthew in her lap, I agree without hesitation and watch how my son smiles and gurgles at her. Clearly he likes her and feels comfortable with her, and I’m heartened by the genuine warmth Emily displays toward him.

  At one point I went back to a niggling fact about her disappearance that was bothering me, one that made me think perhaps she really did intend to run away. “Why did you take your father’s stash of money with you?”

  Emily blushes and looks embarrassed. “I was going to try to pay it back,” she says. “Johnny’s father is in jail and his mom doesn’t have a lot of money, and I wanted him to have some cash so he could hire a decent lawyer and fight that school suspension thing. I knew how he felt about drugs and while I didn’t know where that pot came from, I knew it wasn’t his. I figured someone had slipped it into his pocket as a joke or something. I had no idea they did it to try to frame him.”

  “Actually it was you they were trying to frame. Olivia thought the jacket was yours because you were wearing it. She slipped it in the pocket while you had it on.”

  Hurley comes back a little after ten, looking—and smelling—refreshed. Around eleven I leave him and Emily alone for a while to nurse Matthew. The staff lets me use the break room for privacy.

  While I’m burping Matthew, Richmond calls me to follow up on the message I left him the night before. “You were right,” he tells me. “I had Jonas scan through the log of the files from Lars’s offices and that file wasn’t there. I also had another look at the financials and the phone records, and you were right about those, too. Plus the dirt we found in the wheels of Jeff Hunt’s ATV was definitely not a match. That ground where we found Lars’s body is covered with pine needles and there wasn’t a single one in that dirt sample. You were right about it all and given what we found, I managed to convince a judge to give me the search warrants. I’m assuming you want to be along when we execute them.”

  “I do,” I tell him. “But there’s something I think we should do first.” And then I tell him my plan. He agrees, and we arrange to meet around noon.

  I head back to Emily’s room and find her occupied with physical therapists that have gotten her out of bed and are teaching her how to use crutches. Emily’s face is pale and covered with sweat, and I can tell she’s in a lot of pain. But she soldiers through it like a trooper. Once Emily is back in bed looking exhausted and worn out, I fill Hurley in on where we are with the case. Then we start discussing plans for Thanksgiving, which is only a week away.

  “Desi is cooking this year,” I tell them. “We’re all invited and she wants me to bring some desserts.”

  “I can make a green bean casserole,” Emily says. “My mom taught me and it’s really good.”

  “You’re on,” I tell her, and I’m rewarded with a big smile.

  I give both Hurley and Emily a kiss good-bye—Hurley on the lips, Emily on her cheek—and promise to return later in the day. Then I head off to hopefully catch a killer.

  Chapter 31

  I take Matthew home and drop him off at Dom’s, then head to the police station to hook up with Richmond. I find him at his desk, typing away.

  “Are you ready?” I ask him.

  “I am, but there’s still one piece of this that bothers me, one we haven’t answered yet.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, we know that Lars was killed for his money, but we still don’t know where it came from. We know how he tried to hide it with the phony invoices, but how did he get it in the first place?”

  “I think I know the answer to that one, too,” I tell him. “It came to me when I was watching Emily struggle with her pain during her physical therapy this morning. I need to make a call to Izzy first, though, to check on something.”

  “Go for it,” Richmond says

  I take out my cell phone and dial Izzy’s number. He answers on the first ring.

  “Hey, Izzy, it’s Mattie. I have a question for you about Lars’s autopsy. Do you have any results on his tox screen yet?”

  “Not for the poisons and heavy metals, but I have results from the basic screening for the common drugs: narcotics, THC, cocaine, benzos, and acetaminophen. They all came back negative.”

  “That’s exactly what I needed,” I tell him. “Thanks.”

  I disconnect the call and tell Richmond what Izzy told me. “Once again it’s about what isn’t there rather than what is,” I conclude. “Do you remember the drugs we found in Lars’s bedroom? There was coke, pot, and an assortment of narcotic prescriptions from different providers. Their presence would imply that Lars had an abuse problem, but his blood came back negative for all of them.”

  I see the light bulb turn on in Richmond’s eyes. “You think he was selling the stuff,” he says.

  “I do. And I think he’s been doing it for a while . . . with a little help from one of his girlfriends.”

  “Bridget Rutherford,” Richmond says, hitting his desk with a fist. “Of course! She works as a pharmacy technician.”

  I nod. “I’m betting she’s been covering for him at the pharmacies she works for. Otherwise all those prescriptions would be raising some eyebrows. The pharmacies keep counts on their narcs so I’m not one hundred percent sure how she’s doing it, but I’d wager she’s altered some legit prescriptions and created a few phony ones that she then faxed or called to other pharmacies in neighboring towns so Lars could pick them up. If they take their time and don’t do too many at once, you can get away with something like that. I bet he accumulated a bunch o
f prescriptions and then sold them all at once. That would explain those large deposits he made. He probably did it when he had a project he was working on so he could fake the receipts in case anyone got suspicious and happened on to the fact that he had a lot of cash.”

  “It makes sense,” Richmond says. “Should we go chat with her first?”

  “Up to you,” I say with a shrug. “But I’m inclined to go for the big guns first.”

  “Big guns it is then,” Richmond says getting out of his chair and grabbing his coat. “I’ll get Charlie and make the call. Do you want to ride with us or take that heap of yours?”

  “I think I’ll take the heap,” I say. “I like its intimidation value.”

  We find Charlie and spend a few minutes discussing our strategy before we leave. Fifteen minutes later, we are pulling up in front of Reece Morton’s house.

  As we head for the front door, I remember Morton’s annoyance with Hurley and me when we were here before because we both knocked and rang the doorbell. I’m tempted to do it again, just for kicks, but I manage to suppress the urge. Richmond rings the bell and we wait. After a minute or so with no answer, he rings it again and knocks for good measure, thus giving me the satisfaction without the guilt. But it appears it will be for naught because no one is answering.

  Richmond steps off the porch, heads for the garage door, and peers in through the windows. “His car is gone,” he says. “I guess we’ll have to go with Plan B.”

  I’m a little disappointed, but there are bigger fish to fry so my mood doesn’t sink much. The three of us head around to the back of the house and Reece’s storage shed. Richmond has to cut off the lock on the door, but he does so with the bolt cutter he’s carrying. Once inside, he gets what we need and leaves a copy of his search warrant while Charlie films it all.

  With that done, we head back to our cars and drive on to our next stop, a house Richmond has seen before but I haven’t. It’s an Arts and Crafts home with a detached garage in one of the older neighborhoods in town. We park out front and as we get out of our cars, I look over at the garage.

  “Hold on, Richmond,” I say. “I want to check on something.” I walk over to the garage door, which, like Morton’s, has windows in it. I peer inside and see a car parked there. Richmond and Charlie have followed me, and Richmond misconstrues my reason for peeking.

  “Is she home?” he asks.

  “She is if she drives a Mercedes,” I say.

  “She does.”

  I give Richmond a questioning look. “If she has this garage, which clearly has plenty of room for her car, why was her car parked in her driveway the morning of Lars’s murder? With this cold weather, I would think she’d want to put the car in the garage overnight.”

  Richmond thinks for a moment and then rolls his eyes. “She wanted people to see the car,” he says, shaking his head. “I should have caught that when I was here talking to the neighbors.”

  “None of them saw her, right? They only saw the car?”

  Richmond nods. “I should have put that together sooner.”

  We turn and head for the front door, where once again Richmond rings the bell. This time we not only get an answer, we get a bonus, two of them in fact.

  Kirsten Donaldson opens the door and looks at me with a curious, tentative smile. A black cat comes up and starts rubbing around her feet. “Hello,” Kirsten says. She looks heavenward for a few seconds as if in thought and then adds, “I wasn’t expecting you, was I?”

  “Hardly,” I say. “May we come in?”

  I watch her debate the options and it almost makes me smile. Finally she opts for seemingly innocent politeness and waves us inside, where we find someone else sitting in the living room.

  “I believe you know Reece Morton,” Kirsten says to me. “But I’m afraid I’m at a disadvantage with regard to your entourage.”

  Richmond takes out his badge and shows it to them. “I’m Bob Richmond, a detective with the Sorenson Police Department.” He then gestures toward Charlie, who already has her camera rolling. “And this is our department videographer, Charlotte Finnegan.”

  “Videographer?” Kirsten says with a nervous laugh. “Are you shooting some sort of documentary or something?”

  “It’s for evidentiary purposes,” Richmond says.

  To get their focus off the camera, which I know from personal experience can be intimidating and stifling, I say, “We were just at your place, Reece, hoping to have a chat with you. How ironic to find you here.”

  “Ironic?” Kirsten questions. “How so? Reece and I meet all the time. Our professional paths cross constantly.”

  “Yes, I can see where the two of you share some common interests,” I say, my voice rife with innuendo.

  Kirsten gives me a bemused look, but Morton is sitting in his chair, just staring at us. He doesn’t look at all happy to see us.

  Richmond takes over at this point, directing his comment to Reece. “Mr. Morton, the reason we went to your house is that we need to have a chat. It seems that your missing archery equipment has turned up, or at least some of it has.”

  “It has?” Morton says, doing a decidedly poor job of concealing his surprise.

  “Yes, it has. In fact, it turns out that the murder weapon used on Lars Sanderson was one of your arrows. We know that because it has the right markings on the shaft and your distinctive neon purple and green fletching.”

  Kirsten shoots a nervous glance at Morton and lets out a tittering little laugh. “Surely you aren’t suggesting that Reece killed Lars?” she says.

  “It was his arrow,” Richmond says with a shrug. “He has them specially made and the person who made it identified it, so as far as evidence goes, it’s pretty darned good.”

  Morton shifts his gaze and glares at Kirsten.

  “But Reece told me his equipment was stolen,” Kirsten says quickly. “So the fact that it’s his arrow doesn’t mean anything.”

  I shake my head and say, “Not true. We have no proof that Reece’s equipment was stolen, just his say-so. And if he’s a killer, he’s clearly going to want to eliminate the equipment that would implicate him. Nobody’s going to believe some story about it being stolen.”

  “Nope, afraid not,” Richmond says. He takes his handcuffs out and approaches Reece.

  Morton’s eyes grow wide with fear. “No wait,” he says. But before he can say another word, Kirsten jumps in.

  “Reece, it’s always best in these situations to say nothing.”

  “Shut the hell up!” he snaps, glaring at her again. “How the hell did my arrow end up in Lars, huh? Tell me that. It was supposed to be Jeff’s arrow.”

  Kirsten looks at us and makes an air circle with her finger alongside her head. “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she says in a tone of disbelief.

  Morton points a finger at her. “She’s the one who did this,” he seethes. “I didn’t kill Lars. She did.”

  Kirsten scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. What possible reason would I have for wanting Lars dead?”

  “His cash stash, perhaps?” I say.

  Kirsten is momentarily caught off guard by this but she recovers quickly. “What cash stash?” she says in a mocking tone.

  “The one you learned about when you went snooping through his office files,” I say. “That’s the real reason you were in his house the day he was murdered, isn’t it? You still hadn’t found where he’d hidden the cash, and you didn’t think anyone had found his body yet. So you went back to his place to search.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.

  “I think you do,” I say. “You told us you were there that day to look for a proposal that you and Lars had discussed the night before. But you didn’t leave with anything and when we went through Lars’s office files, we found no such proposal. You also told us that you had called Lars before coming over that morning and left a message, but because he didn’t call you back you decided to drop by. Except we checked h
is phone records and you never called him. Why would you? You already knew he was dead.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “I don’t know what money you’re talking about but I have no need for it. I married a rich man, remember?”

  “Yes, you did. And you also divorced him. And while you did get a nice settlement in that divorce, you’ve managed to blow through that money already. We checked your financials, Kirsten. The housing market has been slow to recover, your daughters are both attending expensive colleges, and it seems you have some pricey tastes when it comes to cars.”

  “I have a reputation to maintain,” she says, looking indignant and folding her arms over her chest.

  “Yes, you do,” I say. “And no money to do it with. That’s unfortunate for you, but at least your daughters should be well cared for by their father, right? Except that’s no longer a guarantee either, is it? Because Brad Donaldson always wanted a son who would carry on with the business he built up. And when he discovered he had one, he didn’t waste any time buying him all kinds of expensive toys, and grooming him to take over the company. Suddenly your girls weren’t the sole recipients of his attention and money, were they?”

  “You’re very good at making up stories,” Kirsten says with a nervous laugh. “If you think I killed Lars, you’re crazy. I told you, I was home that morning. Surely you checked with my neighbors to verify that?”

  “We did,” Richmond says. “A couple of them verified that your car was in the driveway until about seven forty-five.”

  “Well, then, there you go,” she says smugly.

  “Not so fast,” I tell her. “We didn’t say they saw you that morning, just your car, which for some mysterious reason was parked in your driveway rather than your garage.”

  “If my car was here, how could I have been in the woods where Lars was killed?”

  “Lars drove you out there,” I say. “You lied when you told us that you left his place the night before. You never did leave. He picked you up the evening before for one of your dates and you spent the night at his place. Then the two of you drove out to Cooper’s Woods together the next morning.”