She'll Never Know

by Hunter Morgan

  Claire glanced at the green digital clock on the cruiser's dashboard and ran her hand over her face. It was two-twenty in the morning, and she was getting dopey. Her contacts were dry in her eyes, and she had a kink in her neck. She stretched her head left, then right, trying to relieve some of the tension.

  She'd left the house just before eight this morning. Seventeen hours was too long a day. It was time to go home, and she knew it. She'd read the studies on police officers' work schedules. It didn't matter how good a cop she was. After this long at it, her reaction time was slowed, her judgment impaired. She needed to go home, get some sleep, and let the next shift do the job they were trained to do.

  But Kristen Addison had not been found and Claire felt responsible. She needed to find the girl, or her body. It was a morbid thought, but she knew from past experience that the worst thing for the family of victims was the waiting. The not knowing.

  Kristen Addison was just gone. Gone right off the face of the earth as if she'd been beamed up by aliens.

  As Marsh had guessed, the previous night, Kristen had been at Calloway's drinking at the bar. All day long, Claire had conducted interviews right in the bar that the manager had so graciously offered, probably hoping to keep from getting busted for serving alcohol to an underage college student. Claire spoke to every employee or customer she could track down who could possibly have come in contact with Kristen.

  She talked to the bartender who had served her. After swearing on his grandmother's grave that her fake driver's license looked authentic, he had been able to give the most details of Kristen's evening. He remembered she was wearing white shorts and a pink T-shirt and that her hair had been in a ponytail. He knew where she worked and the names of the girls she'd come with. Talking to Kristen's friends, Amy and Sarah, Claire learned that they had met some guys from Pennsylvania at the bar. No last names, of course, but they were certain that Kristen had left alone because the guy she had been with, Chase, passed on the message that she had gone home, and Chase had left with another coed an hour after Kristen was seen by the hostess leaving Calloway's.

  Claire also talked to Billy Trotter, who still worked at the bar in the restaurant. He, too, recalled seeing Kristen in the bar, confirming what the bartender said—that she had left alone sometime between eleven and eleven-thirty. He also confirmed that the guy he'd seen her with, this Chase, had left with another blonde just before the bar announced last call.

  While both the bartender and Billy's stories collaborated, Claire had made a mental note to look into Billy's story if Kristen turned up dead. He had, after all, known Patti, could well have known the other women, and he had a record. His index card sat toward the top of the stack on her desk right now.

  Claire signaled, turning onto a dark street. Something white blew across the road in front of her, startling her, and she hit her brakes. A cat?

  Just a paper napkin.

  She pressed the accelerator with her foot, feeling foolish for being so jumpy. It was time to give in, give up for the night and go home.

  But what if Kristen was out there somewhere alive?

  Kristen's two girlfriends had been very little help. They had been drinking heavily, and had invited their "dates" back to their places. Due to their consumption of alcohol, they were able to provide fewer details of the evening than the bar's employees.

  Claire signaled again and turned into a wide alley that ran behind a strip shopping center. The alley was dark with only a couple of security lamps at the rear delivery entrances to the stores. To her surprise, she saw red and white taillights light up ahead of her.

  She'd been cruising the garbage Dumpsters in town for hours and had seen very few cars since around one-thirty. The bars and restaurants were all closed by one; everyone was tucked in for the night by one-thirty.

  Curious, she sped up a little. To her left was a tall chain-link fence, to her right, the rear of the stores, each marked with plain signs. She spotted the row of Dumpsters and her heart gave a little trip.

  She gazed up. The car was still ahead of her, red tail-lights tiny beacons in the darkness. She hadn't caught any tag numbers; she wasn't even positive she had seen a license plate. Maybe the light was out. She considered catching up to the car, pulling the driver over just to be sure he or she hadn't been drinking and had just parked behind the strip mall to sleep it off.

  But if she pursued the taillights, then she would have to go around the block to get back to the Dumpsters. The alley only ran one way. Of course, she was the chief of police. Who was going to say anything about her driving the wrong way down a one-way street at two-thirty in the morning while looking for the body of a girl that she didn't even know was dead?

  With her luck, Mary Lou Joseph and Betty Friegle would be hiding behind the Dumpsters, just waiting to catch her. Claire would be the talk of the over-sixty gossip mill by morning.

  The car ahead of her reached the end of the alley and turned left. Claire tapped her brake in indecision, then pressed it down, bringing her police cruiser to a stop. Leaving the engine running, headlights on, she grabbed her police issue Maglight off the seat beside her and climbed out. She'd check these Dumpsters, then call in and head home. Ashley had ended up going to a girlfriend's to spend the night so the house would be empty, but at this point, Claire was too tired to care.

  The alley wasn't what she would call well lit, but between her headlights and a security lamp at the back door of Pat's Pets, she could see well enough. She flicked on the heavy flashlight in her hand and moved the beam of light back and forth in front of the Dumpsters. Nothing.

  She heaved a sigh of relief.

  Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Kristen was just hiding out at some guy's house. Or maybe she had taken a road trip with someone she had met at Calloway's. It sounded crazy, but sometimes college kids did crazy things. And maybe Ralph had killed those women; maybe the Sussex County Correctional Center that was holding Ralph until the extradition hearing did have Albany Beach's serial killer under lock and key.

  Claire drew the flashlight beam along the edge of the Dumpsters again. Nothing. Just the huge green metal containers and a couple of paper cups that hadn't made their way inside. There was nothing here. Nothing but...

  Something pale on the dark pavement passed through the beam of light. Claire reversed the path of the beam.

  Squinted. What was that? A crumpled piece of paper? Had that napkin that had blown across the street and startled her come back to haunt her?

  She held the flashlight on the object, taking a step closer. It seemed to be wedged between the two large green industrial-sized Dumpsters. The shape seemed familiar, but in the shadows that ranged from black to gray, she couldn't identify it. She was so tired that those synapses in her brain weren't firing too rapidly. She was five or six feet away when it registered in her mind what she was looking at.

  A hand.

  Claire halted for a moment, a death grip on her Maglight. "No," she whispered as tears filled her eyes.

  Then her cop instinct kicked in. With one hand, she unsnapped the leather strap that kept her Beretta secured in its holster. With the other, she held the flashlight beam steady on the hand.

  Looking one way, then the other down the alley and seeing no one, hearing nothing, Claire took a step forward and went down on one knee. She directed the flashlight beam between the two dumpsters to a body on the pavement. She couldn't see the face for the waves of long blond hair covering it, but she knew who it was. White shorts. Pink top.

  Claire picked up the slender, feminine hand. It was cool to the touch. There was no need to check for a pulse where the girl's wrist had been slashed repeatedly. She checked anyway.

  Kristen Addison was dead.

  Claire's tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. She took a breath, trying to stifle a sob, and rose, releasing Kristen's hand. As an afterthought, she realized she should have put on gloves before touching her.

  She took a moment to regain her composure and then
touched her chin to the radio fastened to the shoulder of her uniform. "Unit one-o-one," she managed.

  "Unit one-o-one, go ahead," came across the slightly static voice of the night dispatcher.

  "This is unit one-o-one," Claire said, enunciating carefully to keep the emotion out of her voice. "Requesting backup in the alley behind the Johnson Center on Poplar between Pine and Oak."

  "Ten-four, unit one-o-one. Copy that." Static. "What's the nature of this response?"

  Claire pressed her lips together. She knew the dispatch codes by heart; many were universal in the world of police lingo. But she couldn't recall the code for a dead body. A possible homicide. Like there was any possible to it. A lump rose in her throat and she swallowed against it, fearing for a moment she might throw up.

  "Unit one-o-one, I repeat, what's the nature of your request?"

  "Code thirty," she choked. Then, without regard to proper procedure, she spoke again. "I found her."

  "Ten-one, one-o-one."

  "I said I found her." Claire's voice cracked, but it was stronger when she spoke again. She had a job to do now. This was no place for emotions or tears. "Send all available units. That's an eleven-forty-four. Coroner requested."

  "ETA of first unit to assist, four minutes," the dispatcher said.

  "Ten-four." Claire released the transmitter on her radio and walked to her car to turn on the flashing blue lights so her officers could easily locate her. Then she turned off the Maglight and walked back to the Dumpsters. She didn't need the flashlight to find her way.

  As she crossed the narrow alley that now seemed a mile wide, she glanced in the direction the red taillights had gone only moments ago. Somehow, deep in the pit of her stomach, she knew it was him. She'd been a hundred yards from the killer, and he'd gotten away.

  Now she was pissed. She latched on to her anger and held it tightly in her fist. He thought he was clever, didn't he? With Ralph arrested for his crimes, he'd struck again. Gotten away with it again. What the bastard didn't realize was that she was going to catch him. She'd catch him if it killed her.

  Taking a deep breath, Claire tugged on her freshly dry-cleaned uniform pants and squatted down to wait in the darkness with Kristen.

  * * *

  Fearing she wouldn't be able to stand it another moment, Jillian scooped up the nearly empty ice bucket and hurried from the Addisons' family room for the relative sanctuary of the kitchen. This afternoon she had attended Kristen's funeral with Ty and his family, and now family and friends had gathered at the Addison home to share memories of Kristen, eat plates of cold ham and macaroni salad, and navigate the process of mourning.

  Ty had asked Jillian to attend the funeral with him and then come back to the house. She'd tried to get out of the wake. She knew she really wasn't all that welcome in the Addison home, and she hadn't known Kristen very well. But Ty had insisted he wanted Jillian there. He said he needed her, and there was no way she could deny him. He'd been there for her since the day she arrived in Albany Beach.

  But now that Jillian was here, the situation was worse than she even imagined. There were several camps in the house. A group of women on the couch in the family room surrounded Kristen's mother, crying together, taking turns hugging her.

  A group of older women stood together near the buffet table, heads down, whispering. They were making comments about where the young woman had been when she'd been kidnapped and how bad ends always came to girls like that. Then there were a group of men standing on the back deck drinking beer, talking about fishing, the weather, and how poorly the Baltimore Orioles baseball team was playing. The group that had really set Jillian's nerves on edge were the men and women in the front foyer right now hotly discussing the Albany Beach police force's failure to catch the serial killer before he struck again. Some were the same folks Jillian had overheard only days ago insisting that all along they had suspected the dishwasher, Ralph, had been the killer. They were the ones who had sent her retreating to the kitchen.

  Jillian pushed through the swinging louvered doors; Ty's mother was there, preparing more food to place on the buffet table already groaning with casseroles, lunchmeat, and various desserts. "I thought I'd refill the ice bucket," she told Alice, feeling a little uncomfortable to be alone in the room with her. Jillian knew the older woman didn't approve of her relationship with her son, and truthfully, Jillian couldn't really blame her.

  "Oh, thank you." Alice turned from the counter, slipping on the red hot mitts Jillian remembered from the Fourth of July picnic.

  It was hard to believe that had only been a month ago. It seemed like a lifetime.

  "I put another pan of macaroni and cheese and baked ziti in the oven to heat up," Alice continued, sounding a little befuddled. "People seem to like pasta."

  Jillian stood at the refrigerator, letting the ice bucket hang from her hand. She felt so sorry for Alice. For the entire Addison family. She had no way to express her sadness for them. She could only imagine how horrible it must be to lose a loved one so young, so full of life. No one in the family had really slept in days. It was beginning to show on Ty. It was definitely showing in Alice's face.

  "You're right, people do like pasta, "Jillian remarked, knowing that what she said wasn't really important right now. All Alice needed was a little kindness. "And you have so much. Everyone has been so generous. Kristen was so loved."

  "A small town is like that, you know." Alice went to the oven and rested one hand on the door, turning to Jillian. "You won't see that in a big city. That's why Connie and Ash decided to have her buried here in her father's hometown instead of in Harrisburg. Because everyone's so warm here. So welcoming. You should really consider settling down in a small town like Albany Beach."

  "I just may do that. I like it here. People have been very kind."

  "Well, these young kids, they say there's nothing here for them." Alice turned back to the oven, waving in dismissal with her hot mitt. "But what do they know? Ty needs to live away to find out just how nice home is. That's what I say." She opened the oven and reached in. "And I don't mean college. Everyone knows very well that's not the real world. But you can't tell these young men—ouch!" Alice jerked her hands out of the oven and one of the glass casserole dishes clattered loudly on the oven rack.

  "You all right?" Jillian dropped the ice bucket on the counter and hurried over to Alice.

  "Burned my hand somehow," Alice said, close to tears. She tried to pull off one hot mitt, fumbling with the other still on her hand.

  "Let me do that for you." Jillian eased both quilted mitts off the older woman's hands.

  "Must be getting thin," she muttered. "Need to pick up some new ones."

  Jillian turned Alice's hand in her own and found two raised red welts, one on her thumb and the other on the index finger of her right hand. "Why don't you sit down and let me get you some ice for this."

  "Oh, no. I'm fine," Alice protested, but she allowed Jillian to lead her to a kitchen stool.

  Jillian let go of Alice's hand and hurried to the ice bucket. She scooped a couple of half-melted ice cubes from the cold water and dropped them into a hand towel she grabbed off the counter. She twisted the towel into an ice pack and went back to Alice. "Try this."

  Jillian gently guided the lump of ice to Alice's burned fingers.

  "The ziti." Alice lifted her hands in the direction of the oven. "It'll burn."

  "I'll get it." Jillian didn't bother to try the faulty mitts. Instead, she grabbed a folded bath towel left on the counter by someone who had dropped off hot food. She opened the towel and used it to gingerly remove the trays of macaroni and cheese and the baked ziti.

  "Jillian," Alice said from behind her. "I haven't meant to be unkind to you."

  "You haven't been unkind." Jillian set the towel down and dug through the clean utensils in the dish rack to find two serving spoons.

  "I have. If not unkind, at the very least, rude. I know Ty really cares for you, it's only that—"

&nbs
p; "It's only that he's twenty-three. A kid. And I'm... I'm a bit older." She laughed and stuck a spoon into the ziti; steam rose from the pasta and sauce with a heavenly aroma. "And you don't want him to either be taken advantage of or hurt. I understand completely."

  Alice shifted the homemade ice pack in her hand. "Ty tells me he might have found some information on who you might be. He says you might be a physician."

  "Ty's mistaken. "Jillian turned around to lean against the counter. "But it's very sweet of him to be trying so hard to help me. I know he's leaving in a couple of days to go back to school to start his graduate program; he must have better ways to spend his last few days at home."

  "I think he's worried about you, dear. He wants to be sure you'll be all right when he goes."

  "I'll be fine." She said it so convincingly that she almost believed herself.

  "Right in here, Miss Ruth," Jillian heard Ty say loudly from the other side of the swinging kitchen door.

  The door swung in, and an elderly woman with an osteoporosis hump on her back hobbled in carrying a small casserole dish. She was wearing her Sunday best, a rose-colored dress with a smart patent white clutch purse on her elbow.

  "Ty, carry that to the counter for Miss Ruth." Alice rose from her chair as she slipped back into the role of hostess.

  "Tried to." Ty swung a beer bottle between his fingers. "She almost bit my head off. I think she thought I was going to steal it or something."

  "Tyler Addison," Alice snapped. "How rude of you to speak that way to Miss Ruth."

  Jillian turned to look at Ty and mouthed "Tyler?"

  He gave a playful shrug and glanced back at his mother. "It's not like she can hear anything I say."

  "What's that?" Ruth Williams demanded loudly.

  "Thank you so much, Ruth," Alice said, matching the old woman's volume. "You really didn't need to bring anything."

  "Blueberry buckle," Ruth shouted, her voice scratchy. "My older sister Elsie's recipe. Always did make a better buckle than I did, little witch."

  Jillian pressed her lips together to keep from laughing out loud.