by Vicki Delany
“If you don’t mind, John, I’d like to stop at my friend Christa’s on the way. She’s the one being stalked by that guy we encountered earlier. She isn’t answering her phone, and it bothers me that he was close to her house. I can drop you first, if you want.”
“I’ll come with you. Then we can call on Robyn Goodhaugh, and I’d like to pay another visit to the not-grieving widow. I don’t see her as her husband’s killer, or even the instigator thereof. But I’ve been wrong before. I’m telling you that in the strictest of confidence, Smith. Don’t let it out around the station.”
He was a strange guy, Smith thought as she shifted the van into reverse. Best buddies one minute, rude and officious the next. When people blow hot and cold, she’d learned, best to avoid them altogether.
A green Neon blocked her exit, Meredith Morgenstern at the wheel. She couldn’t quite make out the man beside Meredith. Then the light changed and Meredith pulled away and Smith caught a glimpse of him. She’d last seen that head when it had leaned toward her mother, his low, seductive voice asking her to explain the purpose of the Trafalgar Commemorative Peace Gardens.
“Hell and damnation,” Smith said.
“What?”
“It’s that TV guy. Rich Ashcroft. Being squired around town by Meredith Morgenstern of the Daily Gazette. And I’d bet anything the fellow in the back was their cameraman. I was hoping they’d have scurried back into their rat hole after last night’s show.”
“Which car?”
“The Neon. Two ahead.”
“Turn that way. Let’s see where they’re going. But do it unobtrusively. I don’t want any police harassment accusations.”
The journalists went no further than a parking lot behind Front Street. Smith glided into a vacant spot on the side of the street and watched as Meredith, Ashcroft, and the unidentified man left their vehicle. The man put his equipment into the trunk, and they walked up the street. Meredith’s eyes flickered as she saw Smith and Winters sitting in the unmarked van, but otherwise she didn’t react.
“I don’t think Meredith’s too happy with her fellow journalists,” Smith said.
“Why so?”
“Her body language. She’s holding herself all stiff and tight. Look how much distance there is between her and Ashcroft.”
“Maybe that’s just her way.”
“I know Meredith. Her way is to get in the face of every influential person who arrives in town.”
“You don’t like her?”
“Ambitious small-town journalist. Dedicated cop. Both products of the hate-factory that is a district high school. What’s not to like?”
“Stay here. I don’t want them to spot that uniform.” Winters unfastened his seat belt and got out of the van.
Smith called Christa again. Voice mail again.
Molly Smith turned her phone off when she wasn’t working, but Christa lived by her cell.
Smith punched instructions into the van’s computer and pulled up the number for Christa’s dad. Maybe she’d gone to visit him, as unusual as that might be. Cell phone reception in the mountains was pretty much non-existent outside of the handful of towns nestled in the valleys and the highways connecting them.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mr. Thompson. This is Mol…uh…Moonlight Smith, Christa’s friend. Remember me?”
“I certainly do, young Moonlight. It’s been a long time. Are you as pretty as ever?”
Mr. Thompson always did think of himself as a charmer.
“Is Christa there?”
“No. Why do you ask, dear?”
“Nothing important. She isn’t answering her phone. She’s probably out of range, so I thought of calling you.”
“I’m pleased to hear from you, Moonlight, but I can’t say I’ve seen Christa in the last few weeks. Why don’t you come up and have lunch one day.”
“Hold that thought, Mr. Thompson. Sorry, I’ve gotta run.” She hung up. Perhaps Christa had found a beach somewhere. It was a perfect day for the beach, and after a month of sunshine and temperatures in the mid thirties, even the glacier-fed lakes would be inviting.
But Christa didn’t have a car. Hard to get to a beach out of town without a car. A ride with a friend? Christa didn’t have many friends. Just Molly Smith. She might have made new friends, which she hadn’t told Smith about. Nothing wrong with that.
“Nothing,” Winters said, getting back into the car. “They went to India Delight for lunch. I’m not happy to know that rabble-rousing TV scum is still hanging around. Speaking of lunch, I’m starving. I’d love Indian, but that might be considered police harassment. Chinese instead? My treat?”
“Chinese is always good in my books.”
The proprietor acted as if he were delighted beyond belief to have a uniformed police officer in his establishment. Smith gave him a tight smile: at least it was better than the people who metaphorically spat as she passed. Winters asked for whatever would be the fastest, and they were soon served plates piled high with hot, scented food. Winters used chopsticks, but Smith went for a fork.
“I like to eat,” he said. “But aside from that, I find that it gives me time to slow down and think. What do you make of all this?”
She was trapped with a snow pea halfway to her mouth. “Huh?”
“Montgomery. Are we any way toward solving this? The CC wants to call in the IHIT. I told him that I…we…can handle it. Was I wrong?”
He was asking her?
She lowered her fork. “You seem to have abandoned the dentist and the not-grieving widow.”
“Because I think they didn’t do it. I have an appointment with her at three. She graciously managed to fit me in between nail and hair appointments. I’ve never seen a woman so unimpressed by her husband’s death. But I have to believe that if she were in any way responsible, she’d be throwing up a smokescreen of inconsolable grief. Your dentist lied about where he was at the time in question. That’s a black mark against him. I’d like to find someone who saw him on the bluffs at the time Montgomery was dying. The business partner is in the clear, as are the business associates, unless they acted together, which I can’t see. Or hired out the killing. But it wasn’t a professional job—too up close and personal. Unless it was made to look unprofessional. So I’m left with….”
“The peace garden proponents or the resort opponents.”
More food arrived, serving platters overflowing.
“Do you think,” Winters said, “that we’re being provided with more than the standard fare? Perhaps we should pull them in for attempting to bribe an officer.”
She worried that one day she’d mistake one of his jokes for a serious suggestion, and really mess up. It was not a pleasant thought.
“Let’s not,” he said. “That would make it hard to find a good, cheap meal.”
They ate the rest of their meal in silence.
The bill arrived and Winters said, “Let’s get back to the station.”
Smith dialed Christa again as they left the restaurant. Four rings and then voice mail. “I’m sorry, John, but I’m worried about my friend. It’s probably nothing, but seeing him so near her place, and her not answering, has me concerned. I’d like to stop by, check everything’s okay.”
He looked at her over the roof of the van. The sun was high in the sky and it cast a shadow over his face. He put on sunglasses. “Let’s go,” he said.
□□□
Meredith was no longer the bubbly cub reporter Rich Ashcroft had met yesterday. This was a small town; she’d have friends and family on the other side. He didn’t care in the least if she was happy or not, but she was the only local contact he had, so he wanted to keep her sweet.
“That footage is going to be great,” he said. “What a story. We’ve got the solid, respectable business man, looking like Charles Manson, but I can’t do anything about that, talking softly about the death of his partner, and the loonies outside, ready to destroy his business, screaming abuse. And then Harris, a
ll wet eyes and honoring the father he never got the chance to know. I want to go to someplace with a good view and record my closing comments. I’ll run this segment at the top of the show tonight, and we’ll get major exposure on the East Coast tomorrow morning.”
Greg grinned and wiped his face on his napkin.
“But I need something more,” Rich said. “I need a local touch. It’s one thing me telling the viewers what I’ve found here in your pretty town, but I need help. Think you’re up to it, Meredith?”
“Up to what.” She leaned back to let the waitress remove her almost untouched plate.
“Reporting for CNC. A first step toward a regular job.”
Fire shot through her eyes. Gotcha, he thought. She sucked in her breath.
“Me?”
“You’ve got what it takes to report for TV, or I wouldn’t ask. I need local color. How about it?”
“I’d appreciate the opportunity.”
Greg tossed his company credit card onto the table.
“Can I go home and change?” Meredith said, as they left the cool of the restaurant for the sunbaked street.
Rich stood back and studied her body. She had a good figure: long legs, trim waist, and adequate-sized tits. She wore a short jeans skirt that showed a good portion of her long, bare, brown legs, a blue tank top, and sandals with thin straps. Her dark hair hung in loose curls around her shoulders. She put her sunglasses on. “No need,” he said. “That outfit’s perfect for a woman-in-the-street reporting style. I’d like to get an interview with that cop friend of yours, Smith’s daughter. When can you arrange it, Meredith?”
“Molly? I can’t see her agreeing to an interview.”
“There’s no real hurry. I’m going to stay on for another couple days. Get the town’s reaction after they see that once people have watched my show, there’s going to be a lot of controversy over this so-called peace park. The power of the press. You okay with two or three more days, Greg? Nothing on at home?” As if Greg had a life other than behind that camera. He probably jerked off against it every night.
“Not me. I’m good, boss.”
“We’ll get the lady cop later. Right now, I’d like a shot of you, Meredith, walking past that store, the one the Smiths own.”
“Why?”
Rich wasn’t used to underlings who asked why. He swallowed a sharp reply. Keep her sweet. “The store gives the feel of what this place is like. Small town, family-owned businesses. Footage of you in front of it will locate you, Meredith, in this place at this time.”
“The bridge is usually used as a backdrop for Trafalgar,” she said. “It’s quite distinctive.”
“Usually. That’s exactly the word, Meredith. I’m not here to do what’s usually done. But if you’re….”
“Hey,” she said, “let’s go.”
Chapter Nineteen
Winters waited in the car while Smith went to the door. Her friend’s apartment was in an old house divided into two apartments. In this town of transients, there were a lot of houses broken up to be rented out.
It was a nice street though. Some of the homes were well maintained, restored back to their heyday of Victorian gentility. Unlike the suburbs, the street was busy with people walking or gardening, and children played on neatly maintained front lawns in the shade of large and aged trees.
He missed Eliza. This case was proving to be more difficult than he’d expected, and the political angle was throwing him off. Eliza was an astute observer of human nature, and he’d sometimes done his best thinking while bouncing ideas off her. If she hadn’t been in Florida for six weeks last year, helping her parents out because her mother had broken her leg, he might not have screwed up the Blakely case so badly.
Someday he might come to trust Smith enough to throw his more outlandish ideas at her and see if they’d stick. But she had a lot of growing up to do first.
A brown bag lay on the front steps. Smith paused, touched it with her foot, picked it up, and looked inside. The frown on her face deepened. She knocked on the door a few times, before pulling out her truncheon and banging at it. A woman stuck her head out of a downstairs window, all ready to give her hell. But she stopped at the sight of the uniform, and Smith walked over to her. The woman shook her head. Smith took out her phone and dialed, listened for the length of time it took the phone to ring four times, and hung up with a grimace of disgust. Tonight, he’d phone Eliza in Toronto. They’d been married for twenty-five years, and he still couldn’t manage a couple of nights without hearing the purr of her voice.
Smith went back to the door and leaned up against it, standing on tiptoes and holding her hands in front of her face to peer in the high, dirty window at the top of the door. Her body jerked back with such shock that before she could turn and call for help, Winters was moving.
“What?”
“I see someone.” Her face was white, her blue eyes wide, breath short and choppy. “On the floor. She’s not moving. Chris!” Smith banged at the door. “Chris, it’s me. Open up.”
“Ask the lady next door if she has a key.”
Smith ran, yelling, and Winters took her place at the window, stuffing his sunglasses into the front of his shirt. He could see a woman’s legs, bare, the feet wrapped in sturdy sandals. The upper half of her body disappeared into darkness. He studied the door. It was old, made of thick, solid wood. It wouldn’t be easy to kick down.
“Got it.” Smith waved the key. The neighbor followed her, trailed by two sticky-faced children.
Smith moved to push him out of the way. He held out his hand. “I’ll take that.” For a moment he thought she was going to refuse. But she passed the key over.
“Call this in. Get an ambulance. Keep that woman and particularly those children out of the way. Half the street’ll be here in a minute. Constable Smith, I gave you an order. Do it!”
She blinked, took a deep breath, and he could almost see the cop flooding back into her, the way that in old horror movies you could see the demon taking possession of the body of the white-limbed maiden.
She straightened her shoulders and fingered the radio at her collar. “I need you to take your children inside the house ma’am,” she said. “There’s nothing to see here. Dispatch, this is Smith, I need….”
The hallway was very small and very dark. The woman on the floor took up most of the space. “Bring me a flashlight,” Winters yelled. The legs were curled across the floor, in a semi-fetal position, but her head and shoulders were draped across the stairs, face down. The step was wet. The small, enclosed space smelled of released bladder, blood, and fear.
Winters dropped to his haunches and touched the exposed neck. Warm skin moved. His fingers came away wet and he looked at them. Definitely blood.
He heard sirens, the squeal of brakes, doors opening, Smith’s strong voice telling them where to go.
“She’s alive,” he said to the paramedics. There wasn’t room for all of them in the landing. He walked outside and left them to do their job.
He blinked in the bright sunshine. “She’s alive,” he repeated to Smith. “Finished at the park or not, I want Ron Gavin here now. Call it in.”
People began to gather on the sidewalk across the street. Paramedics talked in low, professional tones. Another siren and a marked police car pulled up. Dave Evans parked half on the sidewalk.
“Keep those people back,” Winters told him. “Too many people with nothing better to do. You can sit in our van now that Dave’s here,” he said to Smith.
“Charlie fucking Bassing. When I get my hands on the goddamned bastard,” she said.
“You will escort him to the station with all due formality and have him questioned as per procedure. Do you hear me, Constable Smith?”
Her blue eyes looked like storm clouds moving in on a sunny day. Her mouth twitched.
“Otherwise you will be seriously compromising a legal case. Is that what you want?”
“No.” She buried her face in her hands. Her shoulde
rs shook.
“Go and sit in the van,” Winters repeated.
“I’m okay.” She looked up. Her eyes were dry. “Dave needs some help over there.” Evans was arguing with the downstairs neighbor, the one who had a key.
“I have to see if anything’s been stolen,” she shouted.
“Evans can handle it. Get in the van, Constable Smith.”
A dark blue uniform backed out of Christa’s doorway, holding the end of a stretcher. A second paramedic followed, holding a plastic bag and an IV line over a thin shape under a white sheet. Christa’s head was streaked with blood, and blood soaked the front of her shirt. The crowd fell silent while she was loaded into the ambulance.
“Have you room for my constable?” Winters asked the medic, his hand on the floor of the vehicle, ready to jump in the back with the patient.
“Yes.”
Smith was in the van, as ordered, watching. Winters gestured to her, and she leapt out. “Accompany the patient to the hospital,” he said. “You’re off duty for the rest of the day.” She clambered into the ambulance, rejecting a hand from the paramedic, and the doors slammed shut behind her. Evans forced onlookers aside to make a path for the retreating vehicle.
□□□
At the hospital, they wouldn’t tell her anything. Christa was rushed away, but a nurse stopped Smith at the reception desk. “You can wait here, Officer.”
“I’m not an officer. I mean, I’m not here as an officer. I’m her friend.”
“Then take a seat over there.” The nurse nodded toward the waiting area. The room smelled of disinfectant, floor polish, grief, and pain. A woman about Smith’s age wept silently into the shoulder of a much older man. He patted her back and his lips moved, but no sound came out. People flicked through dusty magazines. Some of them looked up to see what was going on. A TV was suspended from the wall, turned to a headline news channel. Either the sound was off or Smith couldn’t hear it over the screams of blame and recrimination bounding around the inside of her brain.
She pulled her phone out.
“No cell phones,” the nurse said.
