High Risk

by Rick R. Reed

  Kate sat at the table with her own piece of cake and pretended to be absorbed in eating it, as well as adding three teaspoonfuls of sugar to her coffee, along with a generous dollop of cream. She looked up at the detective watching her. What was he thinking? Probably how the old lady can really put it away.

  Stop. He’s just being polite, waiting for you to start.

  She had to do it now. To delay would only add to her already mounting anxiety. She looked down at the table. “I did something I shouldn’t have. I suppose I should tell you that first off.”

  “Okay.”

  He certainly didn’t seem aggressive. Wasn’t that how detectives were supposed to be? Probing and prying? Relentless? “I crossed the police line outside Beth’s house.”

  He sipped his coffee. “It happens more than you know. Especially by family members. I hope you didn’t disturb anything.”

  “Well, no, not really. I kept away from the…um…scene of the crime.” Why was this so hard? Why didn’t she just get the damn journal and show it to him? “You see, I thought maybe I could find something that might give me a clue as to what happened to Beth.”

  “Uh huh.”

  She clinked her fingernails against her coffee mug. “You know, you people are experts, but none of you are experts on my Beth, not like I am.” She thought of the irony of what she was saying in light of the news she was about to deliver. “I just thought there might be something your people overlooked, because they wouldn’t see the significance. Like I would.”

  “Like a missing article of clothing or something?

  “Exactly.” Kate knew she was leading him down the wrong path. “But I didn’t find anything like that.”

  “But you found something?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” She stood, bumping against the table and causing the coffee to slosh, then turned toward the counter and stared at the journal.

  “What is it, Kate?”

  She breathed in. “Before I show you this, I want you to promise it will be held in the strictest confidence.”

  His long pause told her she was making a mistake. But there was no turning back.

  “I don’t know if I can make a promise like that.” He cleared his throat. “I can promise, though, that whatever you’re about to tell me will be treated professionally and appropriately. And I’ll try my best to make sure it’s used for no other reason than to find your daughter and to apprehend your son-in-law’s killer.”

  Kate crossed the kitchen and picked up the journal. She turned it over in her hands, wondering where Beth had bought it, if the journal came first or the affairs. “I guess that will have to be good enough. I’ve come too far to turn back now.” She held the journal close to her chest for a moment, then quickly handed it to him. “What’s in there might shock you. It did me.” She sat down, almost collapsing into her chair. “Please. Please keep this to yourself if you can. I’m begging you, Mr. McGrew.”

  She watched as he opened the journal and began reading.

  * * * *

  Later that day, sitting across from June Comstock, McGrew rubbed his eyes.

  She asked, “Think you’ve got something significant here?”

  “I definitely do. Read it. You’ll see.” He wished he didn’t have to show anyone the journal, wished, in fact, he wasn’t even involved in this case. Not for the first time, it left him feeling soiled. If Beth Walsh wasn’t as she appeared, who else hid behind a façade of wholesomeness? Who else could you trust?

  June opened the diary. The snow outside had turned to sleet and the icy needles tapped against the window behind her. It was already getting dark.

  He recalled Kate Donner’s entreaties, the way her eyes brimmed with tears she didn’t want to show, the cake crumbs in the corners of her mouth. “Please, please, Mr. McGrew, use this information, but keep it confidential.” He knew she was well aware of how this information could be sensationalized, wonderful copy for the tabloids, in print, online, and on TV.

  After flipping through a few of the pages, June looked up. Her no-nonsense face revealed creases around her eyes. She was obviously disturbed. “You believe this?”

  “I don’t have much choice.”

  Comstock went back to reading. “The handkerchief trick? What’s that?”

  He shrugged. “Read on, you’ll see.”

  She did, then looked up and laughed. “Why would she want to do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Was this what he could expect? Laughter? “I don’t know why she would do a lot of that stuff. Who knows? People just aren’t what they seem.”

  She gave him an intense stare. Had he set something off in her? What was her secret?

  She scanned the other pages, turning them faster and faster, then closed the book. “Where did her mother find this?”

  “She slipped through the barrier and went into the apartment. She was hoping to discover something that would help us find her daughter.”

  June shook her head. “I take it she got more than she bargained for.”

  “Yeah.”

  “This Beth Walsh was a slut.”

  McGrew looked down at the floor. He supposed it was true, but something rankled him about all of this. He kept seeing Beth’s face and pity rose up in him, not scorn or suspicion.

  Why?

  “I guess so.” He blew out a big sigh. “What do you want to do with this?”

  “I think we need to get this out to the public. It might help.”

  McGrew went cold. He thought of Kate Donner. “You know, do we really have to drag Beth Walsh though the mud? The tabloids will have a field day with this. It could go national.”

  “Exactly. The more publicity, the better. We’re not here to protect this woman’s information, we’re here to solve a crime.”

  “This doesn’t mean she killed her husband.”

  “I never said that. But this could bring someone forward who could help us. I know you know that, Pete.”

  “And if she didn’t have anything to do with her husband’s murder, what’s the point?”

  “You already know that also. What’s wrong with you? This could help us find her, murder or no murder.”

  “What if it’s not even true?”

  “You believe that?” June smirked. “How can you say that when the last entry is all about Rich Jenkins? You talked to the man yourself. That’s corroboration enough for me.”

  McGrew sighed. She was right.

  “It’s more important we find this woman than protect her reputation. If she is a victim, then we need to do whatever we can to get her out of danger before it’s too late.” She met his gaze. “If it isn’t already.”

  “And it could just do a lot of harm and lead us nowhere.”

  “Since when did you need guarantees to follow up on leads? I’m sorry, but you know as well as I do there often isn’t much compassion in what we do.”

  “Yes, I do know that.”

  “Then get on this.” She shoved the journal back across her desk to him. “I know a certain Trib reporter who’ll be down here in minutes if you tell her you want to break a story on this one.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  He picked up the journal and trudged back to his office. Maybe police work just didn’t hold the appeal it once did. Maybe he was getting burned out. He was still young; there was plenty of time to do something else.

  He collapsed into his chair and saw the blinking voice-mail light. He knew there’d be a long queue of messages waiting for him, one from Melissa King, crime beat reporter for the Trib. She called him every morning, wanting whatever he had on the case, which, up until now, had been nothing.

  He picked up his phone and began punching in numbers.

  I’m so sorry, Kate. I just hope this will help bring Beth back.

  Chapter 16

  Marcia slid the dishtowel around the last of the Margarita glasses, then hung them on the rack above the bar. She folded the towel, placed it under the counter, straightened her bow tie
, and picked up her coffee mug. She blew a cloud of steam off the liquid’s black surface.

  7:30. Bennie’s was quiet; she could almost hear echoes of the dance music, glasses clinking, the murmur of conversation. But for now, none of the revelers had arrived and Marcia savored the quiet.

  She took a sip of coffee and let her elbows rest on the bar. She brought up that day’s Tribune from a shelf underneath the bar, then lit a Marlboro Light.

  The first thing that caught her eye was the story about Mark Walsh. Marcia scanned the report, eager to find out if anything new had happened with the case. But it was nothing more than old facts rehashed, quotes from people Walsh worked with, the fact that a week had passed since the killing, and the police still had no leads.

  Then she noticed the sidebar, and its intriguing headline—

  “Beth Walsh’s Secret Life?”

  Marcia smirked and took another sip of coffee; the line sounded too trashy for the Trib. What was wrong with them?

  But the picture of Beth Walsh once more captured her attention and made her wonder again how, and from where, she knew her. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.

  She began reading…

  All of us have secrets, skeletons in the closet, something we’ve done and never confessed to another soul. In that regard, Beth Walsh, missing wife of slain lawyer Mark Walsh, was no different. But what was different about Mrs. Walsh is that she had many secrets: a secret life, in fact. Talk to someone who volunteered at the Children’s Hospital on Fullerton Avenue and a picture of Walsh emerges. A picture of an almost saintly woman: sweet, caring, demure, and loving.

  Dorothy Poloski, a registered nurse at the hospital, said, “Beth was the kind of person who’d been down here putting in more hours than she actually volunteered for. It tore her up inside to see those kids in the terminal ward, but that’s where she’d usually end up. She’d stick with them, hold their hands, tell stories, just try to make them more comfortable.”

  Dominic Pucci, a private investigator who had worked for Mark Walsh, said, “She was a lady: old-fashioned, devoted to her husband and her home. Quiet. Refined.”

  So who was the Beth Walsh that rises up from a journal recently turned over to the Chicago Police Department, a journal purported to be in Beth Walsh’s own hand? The journal paints quite a different picture from the tireless volunteer and devoted wife, and it chronicles a life quite different than the image Beth Walsh projected to most of the world.

  The Beth Walsh in the journal was promiscuous, engaging in numerous affairs and sexual encounters, sometimes as often as twice a week.

  Pete McGrew, a detective with the Chicago Police Department, said that Beth Walsh is a mystery. “From just about every source we’ve interviewed, Mrs. Walsh seemed to have been a very quite and proper young woman. Never once did any of those sources hint at any of the activities described in her journal.”

  The dichotomy of Beth Walsh’s character has opened new questions for the police force. Was Walsh involved in her husband’s murder? Was she planning an escape with one of her daytime lovers? Or was it one of those lovers who came back, wanting more? More than Walsh was willing to give and decided to just take it? One of the last entries in Walsh’s journal mentions a man she did not want to see again: there are indications that this particular encounter did not work out. That man’s name was “Abbott.” Whether this is his first or last name is unknown. But the entry has the police wondering if “Abbott” might not know something about the case, something that could connect the Beth Walsh most people seem to know with the darker, promiscuous Beth Walsh.

  Marcia shoved away the paper. The name “Abbott” was just the trigger her memory needed. She could see Beth Walsh standing before her, right here in Bennie’s, a little over a week ago, looking hurt and desperate. A woman trapped. And Abbott screaming at her. Marcia had felt sorry for the woman. She didn’t know what the woman had done, but she remembered thinking she didn’t deserve the humiliation Abbott had laid on her, especially since everyone within earshot was listening—and getting a big kick out of it.

  How could she have forgotten?

  Marcia could see everything clearly now: Bennie’s was crowded that night and things had gone quiet when Abbott started in on the redhead who had come in to see him, calling her names, grabbing his crotch. Marcia had been nearby, waiting for change, and she still felt a twinge of guilt that she didn’t step in to protect the woman who stood open-mouthed, looking like she was about to cry. Beth had leaned forward and whispered something to Abbott, then they argued in low voices Marcia couldn’t hear, until Abbott reared back and called her a “fuckin’ slut.”

  Marcia knew she should have said something, but at that point, the woman had rushed from the bar. She had customers to wait on, so she held her tongue, put in her drink orders, and got the change she needed, all the while glaring at Abbott.

  And now, a man named Abbott had been tied to Beth Walsh’s disappearance.

  Marcia sipped her coffee and found it had gone cold. Between her fingers, her cigarette had burned down to the filter.

  It wasn’t so hard to believe Abbott could have been involved in killing someone. Marcia had always wondered why Robert had hired such a cold fish to work in the bar, had even asked him about it. Robert had brushed her off, mumbling something about Abbott’s looks and how it drew in the women.

  Just then, her boss arrived. Marcia glanced up with the draft of cold air he brought in.

  “How are you, Marcia?”

  “Okay. I’m glad you’re here.” She smiled. “I need to take a little break.”

  “What for?”

  Christ, no one is even here yet! What the fuck difference does it make? She smiled more broadly. “Just need to make a quick phone call. Something’s come up.” She glanced down at the newspaper story. “I have some news I need to get to someone right away.”

  Chapter 17

  Beth heard mice gnawing at the door, their tiny rodent feet scurrying behind the wall. Sleep came in fits of what seemed like only a few minutes. Exhaustion clung to her like something heavy and wet, but the oblivion of sleep stubbornly refused to come, refusing her any respite.

  A small gray shape hurried across the floor and Beth drew up her feet, shrinking into a corner. Earlier, something with a hard body and feathery legs had run up her leg, and she’d had to undo the cocoon into which she had wrapped herself to get the creature off of her.

  She pulled the damp, itchy blanket tighter around her. The storage room offered little protection against the cold and damp seeping in through its thin, uninsulated walls. Frigid air blew in almost continually through the chinks and cracks. She longed for the warmth of her eiderdown comforter at home, longed more for the warmth of Mark’s body pressed against her.

  But she mustn’t think of that. She needed to focus her energies on escape. She couldn’t let memories cloud her thoughts, so if even the smallest chance of escape presented itself again, she would be ready. The terror of what had happened—and the agony over her loss—loomed just beneath consciousness, waiting for release, waiting for a time when Beth could actually give in to it. She didn’t know what she would do with such a torrent, or if her fragile psyche could even endure it. Could she handle the guilt and pain at her own role in the tragedy?

  But he hadn’t fed her in more than a day and her stomach gurgled and growled. She peered through a crack in the wall; the snow had melted, leaving the ground brown with mud and dead grass. The pine boughs lifted themselves more easily to the sky, unburdened by snow.

  How could she get out there? Would she ever be out there again? She crossed the room and yanked once more at the firmly locked door. It didn’t budge. She wanted to ball her hands into fists and just beat on it and scream.

  But who would hear her?

  No one but Abbott, and her cries would enrage him.

  And then what would he do?

  What would work with him? To go along with his absurd plan—if it could be called that—
to teach her a lesson? She looked to her left, where Abbott had mounted a big mirror, and saw herself. She shuddered. Her hair was gone and her skin was ashen, tinged with yellow.

  Wasn’t this enough of a lesson? How much did the teacher expect his pupil to absorb before he was satisfied with her progress?

  The thought frightened her? What was next? To what lengths would he go to demonstrate that her youth and beauty were evil tools?

  What if she played along? What if she showed the proper amount of contrition and remorse? She imagined his disdain if she attempted to explain that she had learned her lesson—his anger if she shed a few tears. She didn’t think he would give her a second chance to make a new life, one of which he approved.

  All thought ceased when she heard him moving about in the other rooms. His footsteps filled her with terror. What was next? What torture? What would he cut off next?

  He was whistling. She heard the creak of the door opening and its slam behind him. Through the chink in the wall, she also heard him sloshing through the mud, the sound of him getting in his car, the engine’s bass as it roared to life.

  Where was he going? How long until he came back?

  Beth shrugged off the blanket and tried to ignore the bitter chill. A chance was a chance.

  What are you doing? The door is locked from the outside. What if you only manage to do some damage? Then what? These thoughts almost caused her to sink into despair again, wrap the blanket around herself, and wait for his return.

  But who knew when another opportunity would arise, if ever? This man was not afraid to kill. She had to try. What could possibly happen that would be worse than her current situation?

  As she took a run at the door, shoulder lowered for impact, she realized she didn’t want to know the answer.

  * * * *

  How long was this asshole going to talk to his friend?

  In the hardware store, Abbott shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking pointedly at the man behind the counter, a little bald guy with glasses and a potbelly. Talk about deer hunting had gone on for what seemed like five minutes or more. Abbott wanted to rip out the clerk’s throat. Didn’t he realize he had a customer?