by E. R. FALLON
“We know about Dan’s gun,” Maple said.
“We found it at the scene,” the captain said. “It appeared to have been fired once?”
Sharon nodded. “Yes. Dan managed to get one shot before they killed him.”
Harry’s blood boiled when she thought about Joyce Fisher. One of the hardest things Harry had ever experienced was to see Maria’s body and then have to tell her kid brother his wife had been murdered. It was a brutal crime. The Fishers were brutal. No doubt about it. Even their neighbor who barely knew them had sensed that about them. It didn’t surprise her that Maria had fought back. From what Harry remembered, her sister-in-law always had a natural strength about her.
“We’ll keep you safe,” Captain Nolan tried to assure Sharon.
“But they might find out it was me, right?” She pointed at Agent Maple. “He said nothing would happen to me but it’s not like you can promise me that, right? She knows.” Sharon nodded at Harry. “I can tell she knows what I’m talking about.”
Harry could feel Maple and Nolan’s gazes on her and she knew she would have to once again reassure Sharon because that’s what her team expected her to do. Harry knew that as the new detective in town – the only detective in town – she had to win over this small group, which included Nolan, Carlow, and temporarily, Agent Maple.
Before Harry could say anything, Sharon spoke again.
“Can the person who gives me a ride home stay with me? I’m still afraid those two weirdos will find out I talked to you. I’m really still afraid. Like I said, I didn’t know them very well but they were my neighbors and they were strange. They just seemed like bad people. They gave off this bad vibe, you know? The woman more so than the man.”
Behind her, Maple sighed. Harry looked to the captain for an answer. He nodded.
Harry looked at Sharon again. “We’ll have a patrol officer stationed outside your house for tonight.”
Harry sensed that Sharon wanted to be promised more, but Harry knew she couldn’t promise they’d be able to have someone there with Sharon at her residence after that unless what she said checked out and the DA wanted to use her as a witness.
Harry started to ask Officer Carlow to go with Sharon McGuire and take her statement but Maple had already called in an older officer, Richards, he seemed friendly with, when Harry hadn’t noticed. After Sharon left with the officer to go to a private room to take her statement, Nolan pulled Maple aside and they spoke out of Harry’s earshot. Maple kept glancing at Harry and she wondered what more he possibly could have to say about her to the captain.
Chapter Ten
After the conversation with Maple, Captain Nolan motioned for Harry to step into his office again. What had Maple said to him? Harry was half way out the door, ready to find Joyce and Albert Fisher herself, no matter what it took. She glanced at Agent Maple’s face and it appeared like he admired her for being so devoted to the investigation, but she didn’t want his admiration. She went toward the captain’s office with him, past Carlow seated at her desk.
Every time Harry spotted Carlow with his feet up on her desk it irritated her to no avail; he clearly didn’t respect her even though she was his superior, and now Nolan expected her to respect Maple, like some little lap dog? Part of her wished she’d never left the city for a town filled with an all-male law enforcement crew. But she hadn’t known it would be that way. Part of her wished that she’d smoothed out the wrinkles in her life and stayed in the city. She hadn’t talked to a therapist like her former police captain had wanted her to. Her partner’s death had devastated her, even if he was a dog, and to have Maria killed on the coat-tails of that tragedy had almost been too much for her to bear.
This time the captain didn’t ask her to sit down. What was going on? Had Maple said something again?
“What’s going on?” Harry asked. “Is this about Maple again? Did he lodge another complaint about me? Because if that jerk—”
That actually got a rare smile out of Nolan. “No, it’s not about him this time. Before Sharon McGuire came in I had just gotten off the phone with a woman who works at a psychiatrist’s office.”
Harry wondered where this was going. “I was on my way to visit the Fisher residence.”
“Maple can handle that. I want you to check this other thing out first.”
“You’re taking me off the auction case? Did Maple really not say something else to you? Is he giving off some sort of vibe that I shouldn’t be doing this? Because if he—”
“No. Maple will be going to the Fisher residence in the meantime, but I want you to go to this woman named Emily Will’s house. She’s a psychiatric patient.”
Nolan briefed her on Emily Will’s background.
“A mentally unstable woman? Are you sure that’s a good idea. I’m not gentle. I’m not a hand-holder. I’m not the best person to do this. Why can’t Maple go there instead and I’ll go to the Fishers’? Maple seems like he would be more of the hand-holding type.”
“I want you to go to Ms. Will’s house.”
“Why, because she’s a woman?”
“No. Not exactly. Maple made it clear to me he has his heart set on going to the Fisher’s place, and you know I have no control over that. And I could send Carlow, but I just think that with your demeanor you’d be better dealing with someone with mental health issues than someone like Carlow.”
“You mean, because I’m not a crass bozo?” Harry smiled a little. “I guess I can take that as a compliment. Maple really does want to take this whole thing into his own hands, doesn’t he?”
The low level of respect he’d shown a fellow officer was shocking. Such behavior would never have flown even in the city where Harry used to work. But she guessed the FBI was different, where it must have been ‘every man for himself’, and to think, at one time she’d considered being a Fed!
“I’m sure from working in the big city, you know how the Feds work,” Nolan said.
“Sure do. Selfish bastards.”
Nolan chuckled.
“This Emily Will thing – is it just a welfare check?” Harry asked.
“Could be. Maybe more.” The captain put his eyeglasses on and began to sort through the stacks of what looked like memos from where Harry stood in front of his desk. He picked one up and read it. “The doctor’s name is Maxwell Tompkins. His assistant called us because she’s worried about him. She said he made a house call to a patient named Emily Will, who has a history of mental illness and owns a gun, and never returned to the office later in the day. Or for the next few days.”
Harry felt her eyes widen. “He’s been missing for days? And no one reported it until now? Does he have a family?”
“No family. Just the people who work in his office.”
“And they didn’t call sooner?”
“He’s an adult. They assumed he was taking some time off. The person who called, she mentioned he does that sometimes. Only now he’s been gone longer than usual so they started to get worried and called us.”
“It’s been days. He’s probably not even at her house. He could be anywhere.”
“I know, but that’s the last place he was known to have been.”
“They really should’ve reported it sooner.”
“I think they feel bad enough as it is.”
“Does this Emily Will have a history of being dangerous?”
“She doesn’t have a criminal record, and there’s never been a call to the police from her residence or about her until now.”
“Does his assistant have a reason to believe Ms Will might have harmed her doctor other than the fact she owns a gun? What’s with her owning a gun anyway?”
“The assistant wouldn’t tell us much about Emily Will. She’s a patient of theirs so it’s confidential. You’re from the city so you probably wouldn’t understand this but lots of folks around here own firearms. Besides, Emily Will has a military background. The doctor’s office mentioned that he works with the VA and that’s how he
met her. I believe she was a major in the Air Force.”
“How did you find that out? Did you look her up? I thought the doctor’s office wouldn’t tell you about her because it’s confidential information?”
“No. She’s semi-famous in these parts.”
“Why, because she’s a looney?”
Captain Nolan shook his head like Harry’s immature language baffled him. “Because she’s a war hero. She was one of a handful of women to fly bomb missions over Iraq. There were newspaper articles written about her locally.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that. She’s got PTSD?” Harry thought of how much her partner’s death had affected her. She imagined that Emily Will must have experienced similar things, only worse.
“I guess. The articles never really talked about that.”
“Is she from around here?”
“No, she moved here after completing numerous tours of duty to work at a local flight school.”
“Flight school? Kind of seems like a demotion. You would think she could’ve gotten a cushy job as a government contractor.”
“I gather she has problems.”
“Right, the mental health thing. You know all of this about her from a newspaper article? You actually remember that stuff?” Harry began to wonder if the captain knew Emily Will better than he led on.
“Newspaper articles, there was more than one. What can I say?” He shrugged. “I’ve always had good reading comprehension skills.”
“I wouldn’t know what that’s like,” Harry joked.
Nolan smiled. Then he said, “Carlow will go with you.”
Harry made a face. “What? No way.”
“He’s your deputy. He needs all the training he can get.”
“Yeah, he is kind of like a dog. A bad dog. No manners, stuff like that.”
“He’s … What can I say? He comes from a long line of law enforcement in these parts. His father worked for me for twenty years.”
“Was his father a detective?”
“Yeah. He had your job actually. You replaced him when he retired.”
Did Carlow resent her because he felt he would get promoted to his father’s job and then she came along and ruined his plan? “I hope he was better at his job than his son.”
Harry knew she’d taken a risk by insulting Carlow, a fellow officer, in front of their boss. If she had done something like that at her old job it might have been shaken off by both parties without becoming part of the rumor mill, but this place was small and Carlow could find out what she’d said if Nolan ever happened to mention it to someone else.
Nolan surprised her by saying, “He was. These kinds of appointments, the legacy ones – well, I think that sometimes it can make someone lazier than they’d normally be.”
“Of course, because they think they won’t get fired. I hope Officer Carlow knows that if he’s working under me I won’t tolerate laziness just because his father once held my job.” Harry thought of her own father having been a detective and felt a little guilty for being so tough on Carlow.
But she respected Carlow even less now that she knew about his father. Harry’s father had been a detective but not with the same police department as Harry. When she was beginning her career she hadn’t wanted others to think she’d got hired because of her father so she’d chosen to work at a station in a different part of the city. If Carlow had done the same then she would have respected him more. She hid the fact about her father from Nolan and Carlow.
“I think you’ve already made that clear to him.” Nolan gestured that it was fine for her to leave.
His comment bothered her a little. “Do you think I’ve been too harsh on him? Is it really that obvious?” Harry asked on her way out of the captain’s office.
“Is what obvious?” Carlow said from her desk.
She even disliked his voice. It was so … boyish. Too boyish for someone as tall and muscular as Officer Carlow.
Harry went over and pushed Carlow’s feet off her desk. “I’ve been waiting forever to do that.”
“Hey … What did you do that for?”
“My desk.” Harry pointed at herself. “I don’t want your feet on it ever again. Understood, officer?” Carlow worked under her and she’d make him learn that the hard way if she had to. “You sat on your behind the whole time that witness was here. I can’t believe I ended up with such a lazy person.”
“You guys were handling it fine.” Carlow reluctantly stood up from her chair. “I’m not lazy. We were here so late last night I didn’t get much sleep. Okay?”
“Neither did I, and you don’t see me sitting at a desk that doesn’t belong to me with my feet up on it. Come on, let’s go. The captain wants you to come with me to make a house call. Lucky me.”
“A house call? Sounds boring. Does it have anything to do with the auction thing?”
“I doubt it. This job isn’t always car chases and shootouts. A lot of it is paperwork and house calls.”
Harry looked around the station. Something, or rather someone, was missing. “Where’s Maple?”
“He left while you were in Nolan’s office. He went to the Fishers’ former house.”
“Case-stealing brown noser,” Harry mumbled.
“What did you say to me?”
“Nothing about you. Is Sharon McGuire still giving her statement?”
“Yep. And they’re bringing in a sketch artist,” Carlow said. “I’m driving.”
“No, I’m driving.”
“The boss never drives.”
“I’m still driving.”
“Control freak. You’re not even from this area, so how will you know where to go? What’s the address?”
“I’ll figure it out. I’m a fast learner.” Harry told him the address for Emily Will’s house that Nolan had given her.
Carlow let out a low whistle. “That’s in the middle of nowhere. You’re going to get lost if you drive. I’ll drive.”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
At this point it had become a competition of sorts, and there was no way Harry would let Carlow win. She plucked the keys from his desk, a small desk in the corner of the room that Carlow seemed to avoid sitting in although it had been assigned to him. He seemed to prefer Harry’s desk, and she got the feeling he’d been using her desk during the time between his father retiring and her being hired. From what she’d heard the elder Carlow was a decent cop, and it wasn’t his fault his son didn’t take the job seriously.
“Okay, but we’re going to get lost,” Carlow said.
Harry shook her head. “I’ll use the GPS.”
Carlow scoffed. “The GPS doesn’t work in that neck of the woods. Cell phone reception hardly works out there.”
“Seems an odd place for her to live.” Harry’s thought somehow came out loud.
“Who?”
“Emily Will, the person whose house we’re going to for a welfare check.”
“The crazy woman?”
“How did you know that? Nolan said there were newspaper articles about her but they didn’t say she had mental health issues.”
“A buddy of mine used to work with her at the flight school. She was a great pilot until she went nuts.”
“Did you serve your country?” Harry challenged Carlow even though she knew he hadn’t.
“No.”
“That’s what I thought. She has PTSD, she’s not nuts.”
“You didn’t serve either. Right?”
“That’s right, I didn’t. But my dad was in the Marines, and I appreciate those who did serve and do.”
“What a patriot you are,” Carlow said bitterly. He went and grabbed his gloves and hat from his own desk.
Harry didn’t like where this was going and headed out of the station gripping the keys, with Carlow far behind her.
Outside, the sun did little to warm the very cold day. Harry only wore the thin leather jacket she’d had since forever while Carlow was bundled up in his police-issued parka and hat, w
ith thick gloves. Harry didn’t think she could ever get used to the town’s long winters when she was from a city where it was always warm. Harry ignored the fact she shivered. She only had one thing on her mind: get the house call over with so she could return to the station and grill Maple about what he’d found at the Fishers and then get to work once again on the auction house case.
Mickey sent her a text asking if she had any news. When she didn’t answer right away, he texted again. ‘Did you find the bastard?’
There was more than one bastard, and one of them was a woman, but of course Harry couldn’t tell her baby brother any of those things yet.
‘Hang in there’, she texted.
“Who are you texting?” Carlow asked. He’d somehow caught up to her.
She looked at him over her shoulder. “My brother,” she said, though it wasn’t any of his business. She went to the black unmarked car she’d been issued to use, parked in the small lot next to the station.
Carlow’s tone seemed to change. “I’m sorry about that happened to his wife.”
“Thanks, but we don’t have to talk about it.”
Harry only became emotional – that’s what made Maple’s comment to the captain so ironic – with very few people, and Officer Carlow was definitely not one of them.
Harry walked around to the driver’s seat and opened the car doors. Carlow got into the passenger seat after her. Harry turned the heat on full blast.
“Isn’t that a bit much – the heat?” Carlow said.
Harry looked over his heavy jacket and the hat he still had on.
“I’m not wearing a parka like you are,” she said.
“I am, so, could you please turn down the heat? I’d like to not be drenched in sweat when we arrive.”
“Take off your parka, Carlow.”
Carlow chuckled and Harry gave him a dead serious look.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
She shook her head and he removed his jacket.
Harry pulled out of the parking lot into the heavily used road off the main street. A driver cut her off as she made a turn.
Harry beeped the horn. “Jackass,” she muttered.
