Witness to Murder

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  Vince laughed. “Just thought you should know you’ve got a protector.”

  “Oh, puh-leeease.” She needed to have a talk with Brody about this nonsense. People might begin to think the two of them had something going on when they’d barely started having conversations deeper than “hello” when passing in the hallway.

  “Okay. I’ve already checked in with the morgue once or twice on this subject and got vague replies. I’ll call again, as much for myself as you.”

  “Thanks!” Hallie tossed him a smile and returned to her desk.

  Her phone was ringing when she got there. She answered it and heard the voice of Detective Millette. Hallie eased into her chair. “What can I do for you today, Detective?”

  “Those clothes you were wearing when the dog bowled you over, what did you do with them?”

  “You don’t waste time on pleasantries do you?” She laughed.

  “Not in the job description.” But a small chuckle accompanied the deadpan words. “We hope you’ve done nothing with them except maybe put them with your dirty laundry.”

  “I’m sorry. It was a work outfit. I sent it off to the cleaners the very next morning.”

  Millette expelled a swear word. “Sorry about that, Ms. Berglund.”

  “Hallie, please. At that point, I had no idea the scarf-snatching was anything more than a freak incident. I didn’t realize the man I saw near the scene was anyone suspicious until the same guy left the note on Brody’s windshield that night.”

  “I understand, Hallie. We were just hoping…well, never mind.”

  “Did the note offer any useful leads?”

  “Other than to confirm that there’s an individual out there with an unhealthy interest in Alicia Drayton’s murder case, no.”

  “This person also seems to have an unhealthy interest in me, as well. Do you think it’s the person who sent the curtain tie? I’m still leaning toward Damon, but—”

  “Unless there really was someone else at the murder scene, which this unsubstantiated note claims, we have to lean in that direction as well.”

  “Ahh. Then the tie was a match to the one that killed Alicia.”

  “Yes. Letting you know this much and urging you to extreme caution until we catch this man was the other reason I called. I can’t answer any more questions.”

  “I respect that.”

  “Thank you, Ms.—Hallie.”

  They ended the call, and Hallie bowed her head, a dark feeling chilling her heart. Lord, I haven’t felt this scared since…You know when. Help me to discern the truth, and the police, and Brody, too. Truth may be the only thing that will keep any of us safe.

  Right now, she’d love to run to Brody for his input, but he wouldn’t be in until later this morning. She went in search of Stan to go over film in the editing room and then immersed herself in the work. A rap sounded on the doorjamb, and she jumped. Stan snickered. She scowled at him then swiveled her chair to find Vince entering the room.

  “Walk right into the morgue like you own the place, but no cameras inside.” He poked a finger at Stan, who sniffed. “Ask for Steve Ellis.” He nodded toward Hallie.

  “Aren’t you going to be there?”

  “That’s iffy. James Drayton told the folks at the morgue that he and his wife Cheryl would be there early this afternoon to view the body, but their hometown mortuary isn’t coming for it until Saturday. I guess Mr. Drayton has business in the city for another couple of days.” Vince wrinkled his nose. “I need to be at the courthouse this afternoon for a different story. I’ll hustle over to the morgue when that’s done, but I might miss the action.”

  Hallie pursed her lips. “I’ve got a live segment at noon about the new baby animal exhibit at the Como Zoo, but I’ll do my best to get to the morgue around one.”

  “Good enough for me.” The crime reporter flashed a thumb’s up and strode out.

  Hallie frowned at Stan. “That is so strange.”

  The cameraman puckered his brow. “I thought it worked out good for both you and Vince.”

  “No, I mean about Alicia’s parents. She’s been dead for three days, and they’re only arriving now?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, well, I think we already guessed she had some messed up stuff in her background.”

  “I wish I knew more about that background. I’ve accessed several sources and find out almost nothing. And, no, they’re not in the Witness Protection Program or anything juicy like that. They live in Thief River Falls where James has been a Pennington County probation officer for nineteen years. Before that, he worked for a big oil company in communications. Cheryl does in-home day care. They have no other children besides Alicia, and their telephone is an unlisted number. Oh, and they’ve both got alibis for the time of the murder. Cheryl was looking after half a dozen children, and James’s attendance is verified at a meeting in Moorhead. That’s about it. I’m not seeing anything more coming from other news services either.”

  Stan waggled bushy eyebrows. “I heard through the cameraman grapevine that the dad is a piece of work. He gave the Pioneer Press photographer the bum’s rush right off his porch and into a hedge. The bushes were hurt more than the newspaper guy, but I guess James Drayton is ferocious about his privacy. Must come from all those years of working with cons.”

  “Figures.” Hallie snorted. “Brody and I found out yesterday that Alicia was paranoid about her privacy, too. She must have come by that characteristic honestly. I don’t know if I’m eager or afraid to meet these parents of hers.”

  Two and a half hours later, Hallie pulled her car up to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, a nondescript building hunkered in the shadow of the Metrodome. A taxi idled in a parking spot nearby. She checked her watch and frowned. It was almost one-thirty. Were the Draytons already inside? Getting out of the zoo had been a trick with all of the elementary schools in the area participating in baby animal day. She’d raced off and left Stan to pack up his gear and follow in the station van.

  Hallie locked her car and hurried into the building. She sniffed the air. No stench of dead bodies, just a whiff of some kind of men’s aftershave. Must be wafting from Mr. Slick behind the counter. She approached the front desk, and the bald man lifted his gaze from a stack of paperwork. She looked into a pair of long-lashed eyes almost as brown as hers. His blue silk shirt, unbuttoned around the man’s bull neck, stretched across linebacker shoulders. The man stood, his gaze alight with a kind of interest that left her cold.

  “And what can I do for you today?” His smile flashed.

  “Vince Graham sent me to see Steve Ellis.”

  The grin widened. “Then you’ve found the right man, beautiful.” He leaned toward her with his knuckles resting on the high counter. “Hallie Berglund, WDJN news reporter, has never darkened the doorway of this establishment. I’ll have to thank old Vince for finally sending you my way.”

  Hallie stretched her lips into a polite smile. “Can you tell me if the Draytons have arrived to see their daughter?”

  “Just went back there.” He jerked a thumb toward a door to the side. “Ugly deal, what happened. Too bad your beautiful eyes had to see something like that.” He clucked then went back to grinning. “You have a seat, and we’ll visit until they’re done back there.”

  Hallie turned away, crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, then took a stuffed, vinyl-covered chair against the wall. When her face showed toward her host, it was once more composed. “How did they seem when they arrived?”

  He shook his head. “Like a pair of coiled springs. Best not be too close when they go off. But don’t worry, I’ll run interference for you.” He licked his lips. “Riding this desk is my day job. Pays the bills, you know. My passion is weight-lifting. This is going to be my year to win the regional title. Let me tell you…”

  The next ten minutes passed in a litany of outrageous physical feats, punctuated by the occasional phone call he needed to answer. Did the guy really think this level of narcissism
impressed any woman with more brains than a slug? At least he didn’t actually require Hallie to respond to his monologue. Her background information on Brody showed that he’d once been a real athlete compared to this bozo’s wannabe. Whether or not he’d been the cocky type back then, she couldn’t say, but now Brody possessed true class…and smarts.

  “Hey ya, Stevie!” The call announced a short, pudgy man in a sports shirt and khaki pants barging through the front door. Hallie recognized a freelance news stringer. “The Draytons make an appearance yet?”

  “Outside.” Ellis pointed toward the door. “I can’t have a bunch of reporters clogging up the reception area.”

  The stringer jerked his chin at Hallie. “You let someone from Channel Six in here.”

  Muscles in the morgue-worker’s neck tightened visibly. “She’s here on personal business.”

  “Yeah, right, and I’m a hyena.”

  “You said it first.”

  The stringer spat a foul word and charged out. Ellis winked at Hallie. She responded with a minimal flutter of the fingers. This guy had done her a huge favor. How soon could she expect him to offer her the grand opportunity of a date with him?

  A shush of air announced the inner door opening, and two people emerged from the viewing room. A medium-sized man had his arm around the shoulder of a slender woman who sobbed into a palm pressed against her eyes. The man’s pale face and cold expression surrounded a burning gaze that dared anyone to intrude on their grief.

  Hallie rose. Maybe she should have waited until another time, but when would that be? She stepped forward and intercepted them at the exit. “I’m Hallie Berglund. I wanted to introduce myself and tell you how sorry I am for your loss.”

  The woman lifted her head away from her hand, and Hallie looked into the reddened, puffy eyes of Alicia’s mother. Cheryl Drayton was lovely, even with tragedy emphasizing fine lines around her delicately sculptured mouth and eyes. Here was the source of Alicia’s looks. A whiff of something on her breath said that the woman had needed to imbibe a little fortification to face the viewing of her daughter’s body. “B-Berglund? You’re the one who found my daughter.”

  The hoarse rasp tugged at Hallie’s heartstrings. If she could get some kind of commitment that this pair would talk to her later, she could save her questions for another day. “That’s right. It’s only fair to warn you that there are reporters outside waiting to talk to you.”

  James drew himself up stiff. “You’re a reporter, too. Nice try at an exclusive interview, but we won’t be manipulated for public titillation.” He put himself between his wife and Hallie, opened the door, and shepherded Alicia’s mother through.

  Shouted questions and camera-flashes greeted their appearance. Hallie slipped out behind the couple who now faced video cameras and extended microphones from a half dozen news personnel, including Stan, who was busy filming.

  Cheryl turned and hid her face in her husband’s shoulder. James pressed forward, half dragging her and shouting “no comment,” among some colorful descriptions of what the reporters could do with themselves. They reached the curb amidst continued staccato-fire questions.

  “What happened to our cab?” James’s question came out a growl.

  Hallie took note of the smirk on the freelancer’s face. Dirty trick, sending it away. She scowled at him and touched James’s arm. He glared down at her. “My car is right there.” She pointed up the block. “No interview required.”

  Cheryl sent a beseeching gaze toward her husband. “Let’s take the ride.”

  Hallie led the way with Cheryl close behind and James following, still snarling angry words at the pursuing horde. Alicia’s parents both climbed into the backseat of the Honda Civic and shut their doors on questions. A few moments later, Hallie steered her car into traffic.

  She vented a small laugh. “I do love tweaking the noses of my fellow reporters.”

  “No interview. Remember?” The man’s harsh voice cracked enough to remind her that she was dealing with a grief-stricken parent.

  “No worries. I’m not here on behalf of WDJN.” Even though Vince no doubt thought she was, or he would never have made the arrangements with Steve “Muscleman” Ellis. Later, she’d have to apologize profusely to Vince for lack of scoop. But what would she say? “Sorry, Vince, I was too busy finding out who I am to bother about my job?” Sure, that would go over like a lead balloon.

  James gave a skeptical grunt. “Then why did you go to the trouble to accost us almost the instant we hit town?”

  Cheryl made a shushing sound. “She came to give her condolences.”

  “You’re too trusting, darling.”

  How did her husband make the endearment sound like an insult? Hallie glanced into the rearview mirror and caught Cheryl biting her lower lip.

  “You’re both right,” Hallie said. “I do have questions to ask, but not for any newscast, and I did come to tell you I can relate to your pain.”

  “Unless you’ve lost a child, you couldn’t possibly,” James fired back.

  “Try both parents in one day when I was still a child myself. Surely, there is some loss equivalent in that.”

  Quiet blanketed the car, and Hallie let it last for long seconds. “Where are we going, by the way, so I don’t keep zigzagging aimlessly?”

  “We’re at the Days Inn across from the Mall of America.” Cheryl’s answer came in soft, breathy tones, like she continued to battle tears.

  Hallie turned the car south toward I-494.

  “All right.” James grunted. “You’ve piqued my curiosity. What questions are you burning to ask?”

  “If you’d rather set up an appointment for another time, I’d—”

  “I don’t believe in putting things off.”

  “Very well.” She took the exit onto the freeway and merged with 75-mile-an-hour traffic. “Were you by any chance supporters of Iver and Yewande Berglund’s orphanage in Nigeria about twenty-odd years ago?”

  A hissed breath came from Cheryl. “Wh-why do you ask such a thing?”

  “Never heard of them.” James’s flat statement trampled Cheryl’s stutter.

  Hallie darted a glance at the rearview mirror. Alicia’s mother looked like someone had white-washed her face. Hallie swallowed. What kind of minefield was she charging into? “I’m trying to make sense of a mystery. When I came upon your daughter, she was wearing a two-inch wide, brass and copper bracelet etched with marching elephants. Yewande, my mother, made that bracelet.”

  Stone silence met the pronouncement.

  “Cheryl, someone told me you gave the armband to her. Is that true?” If Hallie hadn’t been checking in her rearview mirror, she would have missed the woman’s wordless nod. “I’d like to know where you got it. My mother never sold her work commercially. She gave it away to people she cared about. The armband had to originally belong to someone she knew and held dear. I’m trying to reconnect with my Nigerian half, and finding that person would help.”

  “I really don’t think I—”

  “My wife picks up baubles at estate sales all the time. Who knows where she got this African armband you’re talking about.”

  Hallie’s insides did a slow burn. The man had all the sensitivity of a billy goat. He’d equated her mother’s loving handiwork with a garage sale trinket. “Mr. Drayton, your wife is a grown woman. I’d appreciate it if you’d respect her enough to let her answer for herself.”

  “Oh, now, let’s not blow this out of proportion.” Cheryl’s words gushed forth like she was trying to dowse a flash-fire. “I must have gotten the bracelet at an estate sale. In that case, the original owner is dead. I’m sorry, dear.”

  “May I speak now?” The temperature of James’s words could freeze an Eskimo.

  “Of course,” Cheryl tittered.

  Hallie let him make what he would out of her lack of response.

  “I appreciate your search for roots, young lady. Youth today lack anything like appreciation for their ancestry, but we
can’t help you in this matter. We have a funeral to plan.”

  “The bracelet meant a lot to your daughter, sir. She wore it all the time, venerated it. That doesn’t happen with an item that has no roots, as you put it, in a person’s heart.”

  “If that’s what you’re basing this interrogation on, then you’re sniffing up a false trail. Alicia’s flights of fancy and attachments to odd things and people have always been beyond me to figure out. She’s had professional help for this sort of thing, medication, et cetera. She was doing well here in Minneapolis…until she decided to flaunt herself in front of cameras and take up with that white trash basketball player.” He let out a guttural sound.

  “You didn’t approve of Alicia’s part-time job or her boyfriend?” Hallie glanced over her shoulder.

  James was as red as the crimson on her stolen scarf. Whoa! He’d better not have a heart attack in her car.

  The man leaned toward her. “One degraded her, and the other one killed her.”

  Hallie focused on her driving just in time to take the exit toward the hotel. No one spoke another word as they drove past the Mall of America then turned on Killebrew Drive. She pulled up outside the hotel main entrance, fished around in her purse and turned toward the couple. “Let me give you my card. If you think of anything, please give me a call.”

  James snatched the rectangle of cardstock. “I’ll give you this—you’re tenacious.” He poked his wife, who was blinking at Hallie like a rabbit in a yard light. The woman jerked and escaped out her side of the car. He scooted across the seat and followed his wife onto the pavement. Then he turned and stuck his head inside the vehicle.

  “You’re going to be testifying against the man who killed our daughter. Correct?”

  “I believe so.”

  “I’d advise you to concentrate on doing your duty. We’ll be watching.”

  Was that a warning of retribution in those slate-gray eyes? He slammed the door and strode away, herding his wife ahead of him.

  Hallie shivered. Alicia’s father was a very creepy man.

  ELEVEN