Cold Hearts

by Sharon Sala

  When she’d told him, the look on his face had been as panicked as she felt. But he’d immediately put his arms around her and told her that he loved her. It didn’t help that she’d felt him shaking even as he’d said the word marriage. He wasn’t the only one who was scared. Her future was changing, too.

  And then she’d had the miscarriage. The fight they’d had afterward was almost bizarre. She’d never understood his anger or why they hadn’t spoken since, and just thinking about it made her lose her appetite. Unwilling to go down that road again, she changed channels and tossed the cookie in the trash.

  Wind blew rain against the window in a rat-a-tat pattern that gave her the shivers, but the evening passed without incident. It appeared the inclement weather was serving as a deterrent to her stalker. Even creeps hated getting wet and cold. She went to bed, assuming when morning came that Paul Jackson would have her car back in order.

  * * *

  It was ten minutes after eleven—almost the witching hour. Paul had Lissa’s car on the hydraulic lift and was standing beneath it, finishing up the work. He’d replaced the faulty fuel pump but in the process had noticed an oil leak, and after a quick check he’d located a pinhole in the oil pan. After that he’d had to call Freddie Miller, the auto parts dealer, to open up so he could get a replacement and promise the dealer a mess of fresh catfish the next time he went fishing for his trouble. He hurried back to the garage so Lissa’s car would be ready for her as he’d promised.

  He was giving the bolts a last check to make sure they were tight when he heard the bell jingle on the front door. He frowned, thinking he’d locked it, then realized that when he’d come back from getting the oil pan, he’d probably left it undone. It was odd that anyone would come in, though, because all the lights were off except the one here in this bay, so he watched the doorway, a bit uneasy.

  But when he saw who was walking into the garage, his uneasiness disappeared.

  “You’re out pretty late, aren’t you?” Paul asked.

  “So are you,” the man said.

  Paul glanced back up at the oil pan.

  “Give me a second and I’ll be right with you.”

  “Don’t hurry on my account.” The moment Paul turned his back, the man hit the control switch to the lift and dropped Melissa Sherman’s car on top of Paul’s head.

  Paul was caught off guard by the initial blow and staggered a couple of steps back, unaware that the lift was still coming down. He didn’t realize what was happening until the next point of impact cracked his skull. His legs buckled as the car came down on him, crushing the rest of his body.

  The killer never flinched. The ease of the whole process reinforced his belief that this had had to be done to get where he needed to go.

  The silence afterward was as gripping as it had been the day he’d hanged Dick Phillips. He hadn’t planned on doing this tonight, but first driving by and seeing Jackson working late, then parking in the alley and finding the door unlocked, it had seemed as if fate had lent him a hand. The opportunity was too good to pass up. He was surprised by how easy this one turned out. He didn’t even have to get his hands dirty. No muss. No fuss. No noise. Only one thing left to do. He wiped his prints from the lift release and the doorknobs, and made a quick exit as the blood began to run out from beneath the car.

  * * *

  Lissa hitched a ride to the station to pick up her car with fellow teacher Margaret Lewis. They were bemoaning how muddy the playground would be as Margaret pulled up to the station to let her out.

  “Thanks for the lift, Margaret. I’ll see you at school.”

  “I’ll wait just to make sure Mr. Jackson is through. Otherwise you’ll still need a ride. Leave your things here until you know for sure,” Margaret said.

  “Okay, give me a minute,” Lissa said.

  Margaret grinned to herself as she watched Lissa hurry toward the station. That girl never walked when she could run. She saw Lissa enter the station, then move through the door leading into the garage. A couple of moments passed as she lost sight of her, and then she saw her running back.

  At first she thought Lissa was only coming back to get her things. It took a few moments for her to realize her friend was screaming. Margaret jumped out on the run.

  “What happened? What’s wrong?” she yelled, as Lissa came flying out of the station.

  “He’s dead! Mr. Jackson is dead. Oh, my God, my car fell on him! Call an ambulance! Call the police!”

  Margaret gasped and ducked back in her car to get her phone, while Lissa sank to her knees and covered her face, too shaken to stand.

  * * *

  Police Chief Trey Jakes was already on his way into Mystic when he got a call on his cell. When he saw it was from the dispatcher, he wondered why he hadn’t used the radio.

  “Hey, Avery. What’s up?” Trey said, as he topped the hill just outside town.

  “You need to go straight to Jackson’s gas station. A customer found him in the garage. Car fell on him. He’s dead.”

  Now he understood the need to keep this news off the radio and as quiet as possible for the time being.

  “Oh, hell. Who’s on duty?” Trey muttered.

  “Earl had just clocked out, but he’s there now.”

  “Tell him to secure the scene and not to touch anything until I get there. Did you call the coroner?”

  “Yes, sir. They said it will be a couple of hours.”

  Trey turned on the lights and siren. “I’ll be there in five, maybe less. Keep radio traffic vague.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trey disconnected and accelerated. This was going to be one hell of a hard day. Paul’s only son, Mack, was a friend. And with that thought came another that made the skin crawl on the back of his neck. Paul was his mother’s old boyfriend and one of the survivors of a bad car crash his mom had been in when they were teens. The investigation into the death of Dick Phillips, who’d been in that same wreck, was still ongoing. First Dick, now Paul. Trey had been a cop too long to be a big believer in coincidence.

  He hit the city limits of Mystic running hot. The early hour automatically ruled out excess traffic, but as he pulled up at the gas station, it appeared by the size of the gathering crowd that word was spreading anyway. He sighed. The joys of small-town living.

  He saw Melissa Sherman sitting on the curb as he got out. She was crying so hard she was shaking, and he wondered what part she had in this hell. Then he saw his officer putting up crime-scene tape around the area, blocking off access to the gas pumps and the station, and headed for him.

  “Earl?”

  Earl was tight-lipped, his expression grim.

  “Damn, Chief! It’s an ugly sight. Looks like the lift failed. Blood is already drying, so it must have happened some hours back. Miss Sherman found him. She said he’d offered to work late on her car so she could have it first thing this morning. I took her statement. She’s convinced it’s her fault he’s dead because it was her car that fell on him.”

  Trey felt sick. “Finish stringing up that tape and then disperse the crowd.”

  “Yes, sir,” Earl said. He then turned to look as officers Carl and Lonnie Doyle drove up in their cruisers. “Carl and Lonnie are here, Chief.”

  “Good. You’re clocked out, so as soon as you finish up, go home and get some sleep. I might need you again soon, and you need some rest.”

  Earl shuddered. “Oh, hell, Chief. I don’t wanna sleep. All I’ll see when I close my eyes is the body.”

  Trey sighed. “When you’re through, go write up your report and go home anyway. I’ll call if I need you.”

  Earl began tying off the crime-scene tape as Trey backtracked to where Lissa was sitting. When he touched her shoulder, she screamed, then leaped to her feet.

  Trey sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Lissa’s eyes were swollen from crying.

  “My car... It fell. He stayed...should have said no. Oh, my God, it’s my fault.”
/>   “No, it’s not,” Trey said. “Come sit in my car. I’ll take you home later.”

  The suggestion seemed to shake her out of her hysteria. She began pulling herself together, wiping tears off her cheeks and pushing wayward curls from her forehead.

  “No, no, I can’t go home. I need to get to school.”

  “I don’t think you’re in any shape to—”

  “I’ll be okay.” She shuddered, then drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to go home. I need to think of something besides what I saw,” she said, and dug a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose.

  “Then, for the time being, take a seat in my car.”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said, before gathering up her things and moving toward the police cruiser on shaky legs as Trey headed back to the gas station. He went straight into the garage and then stopped, shocked to the core.

  “Dear God,” he muttered. He gritted his teeth and began looking at everything but the body.

  At the outset, it seemed obvious the lift had failed. It happened. He would have to check on the whereabouts of the other mechanics who worked for Paul to see if they’d been with him earlier. After a quick survey of the garage, he was disappointed to find out there was no security camera on the premises. It would have helped to know if Paul had been alone. He would send his officers to check if any cameras from surrounding businesses had a view of the station. He met Carl and Lonnie on his way out.

  “Carl, is that department camera still in your cruiser?”

  “Yes, sir,” Carl said.

  “You know what to do. Get plenty of pictures from every angle, and dust the control to the hydraulic lift and the front door for prints. Lonnie, you make sure and keep this scene clear. The coroner will be showing up in a couple of hours.”

  Lonnie’s eyes widened. “Are you saying—”

  “I’m just covering all the bases,” Trey said.

  “Yes, sir,” Lonnie said, adding, “This just feels so weird. We don’t have stuff like this happen here in Mystic, and now two of our locals are dead within a month, although Dick Phillips’ death wasn’t an accident.”

  “Yes, and we need to make damn sure this was an accident before we close this case, understand?”

  Both officers nodded.

  “You and Carl stay on the premises until the coroner is finished, and make sure this place is locked before you leave. Since the lift failed, you may need to call in the fire department to help the coroner remove the body.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lonnie said.

  One issue dealt with, Trey thought. Now he needed to talk to Lissa.

  Two

  Trey’s phone rang as he was heading for his cruiser. He glanced at the caller ID and frowned as he answered.

  “Hello, Mom. What’s up?” he asked.

  Betsy Jakes’ voice was shaking. “Is it true Paul Jackson is dead?”

  He paused near the back of his cruiser.

  “Damn, bad news spreads fast in small towns. Yes, but I have yet to notify the next of kin, so I need to do that now before someone does it for me.”

  He heard his mother gasp, then begin moaning as if in great pain.

  Trey frowned. “Mom?”

  When the line went dead, he realized she’d hung up on him. His frown deepened. When Dick Phillips had died, she had scared him with her behavior, although he’d chalked up her reaction to being the one who’d found his body. Now she seemed on the verge of going down that road again. Damn it. He needed to be in three places at once. Then he thought of his fiancée, Dick Phillips’ daughter, Dallas. She could go check on his mother.

  He made a quick call home.

  Dallas answered on the second ring. “Hey, honey, did you forget something?”

  “No. Shit hit the fan early today. Paul Jackson is dead. Looks like the lift fell on him. Would you please go check on Mom, and if she’s acting weird, stay with her for a little while until I can get over there? I need to talk to her, but I can’t get over there for a while.”

  Dallas was horrified. With her father’s murder still fresh in her mind, she immediately empathized.

  “Yes, I’m on my way. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’ll stay with her until you can get there.”

  “Thanks,” he said, then pocketed his phone and got in the car with Lissa.

  It appeared she’d been doing a repair job on her makeup. Her eyes were still red and slightly swollen, but she had reapplied some makeup and seemed calmer.

  “Are you sure you want to go to work?” Trey asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “If I need to sign anything, just call the office and leave me a message. I can drop by the station after school.”

  “Earl said you already gave him your statement?” he said as he started the car and pulled away.

  She nodded. “There wasn’t much to tell. I went in to see if my car was ready and...” She swallowed around the lump in her throat, then took a deep breath. “I went in and saw what had happened. I ran back out crying. My friend Margaret Lewis called the police.”

  “Did she go inside?” Trey asked.

  Her voice was shaking again. “Oh, no, no one else did except your officer.”

  “I’ll ask you not to talk about the details, okay?”

  She shuddered. “Of course.”

  A few moments later he turned the corner and pulled up to the front walk of the school building.

  “So here you are. I still think you should have gone home.”

  She gave him a brief smile. “Thank you for the ride,” she said, jumping out and fumbling with her things as she walked away.

  Trey drove back to the station. He wanted the privacy of his office to call Paul’s son and was dreading this call almost as much as the one he’d made to Dallas when Dick Phillips’ body was discovered.

  Inside, he sat down behind his desk, searched online for Jackson Lumber in Summerton and said a quick prayer.

  * * *

  Mack Jackson was outside in the breezeway of his lumberyard, watching one of his employees loading up an order. He eyed the short line of trucks and pickups behind it, four of which were also being loaded. After satisfying himself that all his customers were being helped, he headed back into the main building and then down the hall toward his office.

  He was well liked by his employees and was one of Summerton’s most eligible bachelors. He had no interest in changing that. He stayed friendly but kept everything casual when it came to feminine companions. His bookkeeper, a middle-aged woman named Bella Garfield, had told him that he looked like a dark-haired Daniel Craig, which always made him grin. Being compared to the current James Bond wasn’t a bad thing.

  He paused in the hallway to get a can of Coke from the machine and had just popped the top when Bella stepped out into the hall and waved him down.

  “Mack! Phone call for you on line four.”

  “Thanks,” he said, lengthening his stride. He shut the door behind him and set the can on his desk as he picked up the call. “This is Mack. How can I help you?”

  “Mack, this is Trey Jakes.”

  Mack smiled as he plopped down in his chair. “Well, hello, stranger. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Are you alone?”

  Mack’s smile disappeared. “Yes, I’m alone. What’s happened?”

  “I’m so sorry to have to tell you, but your father was found dead in his shop this morning.”

  Trying to make sense of what he’d been told, Mack reeled as if he’d been slapped.

  “What? No! Oh, God, no! Was it a heart attack? Did—”

  “No, Mack. No heart attack.” Trey braced himself for the rest. “He was working on a car late last night, and it appears the lift failed and crushed him beneath it.”

  When Mack went silent, Trey didn’t know what to think. “Mack? Mack?”

  Mack’s voice was shaking, and his eyes were so full of tears he couldn’t see his desk. “I’m on my way.”

  “Look, Mack,
the coroner isn’t here yet and—”

  “Are you telling me he’s still there? Under the car?”

  “It’s procedure in an unattended death. The coroner has to see the scene intact.”

  “Are you implying it wasn’t an accident?” Mack asked.

  “No, I’m not implying anything, but it’s my job not to assume anything, either.”

  “I hear you—now you hear me. I’ll be there.”

  “No, man, you don’t want—”

  The line went dead in Trey’s ear. He sighed. This was the second time that morning someone had hung up on him. He left the police station through the back door and returned to the scene of the accident.

  * * *

  It took Mack less than thirty minutes to put the lumberyard into his sympathetic manager’s hands and go home and pack. He’d made the drive from Summerton to Mystic countless times, but never like this. This time he was scared to go home.

  Once, when he was six, he got mad because he couldn’t go to his grandparents’ house and ran away. He didn’t get far before he realized he didn’t know how to get there, so he stopped, then was scared to go home because he was afraid of the consequences. He felt like that now, afraid to go home because of the consequences awaiting him.

  He was also bothered by how his father had died. He had been such a stickler for safety in the garage that this scenario seemed improbable. Of course hydraulic lifts could fail, but he’d never imagined them dropping so fast a man couldn’t escape. The horror-filled image in his head kept getting worse with each passing mile. Had his dad cried out for help and no one had heard? Had he suffered?

  He didn’t know he was crying until his vision finally blurred to the point that he couldn’t see the road. He pulled over onto the shoulder, slammed his SUV into Park and then laid his head down on the steering wheel and sobbed. One image after another swept through his mind from when he was a child. All the nights when he was little and his dad had read him a story to put him to sleep. The countless holidays spent together with his parents. The year the front porch had collapsed from a heavy snow and they couldn’t use the front door for two months. Losing his mother when he was only ten. Mack and his father had become inseparable afterward. Now the thought of his father dying alone in excruciating pain was horrifying. His dad had been there for him when he’d needed him most, but in Paul’s darkest moment, he’d died alone.