by Judy M. Kerr
“We have a will. I’m her beneficiary and her executor. I’m sure you want to know, if you don’t already. I’ll be the one making all the arrangements.”
“I’ll want a copy of the will.”
“Hang on. We keep a copy in the safe.”
Sharpe had his notebook out again and jotted a bunch of chicken scratch on a page before he flipped it closed and stowed it away.
She retrieved and handed him a sheaf of papers. “I have another in a safe deposit box at the bank and our attorney has the original.”
Sharpe accepted the packet. “Thank you. I’ll be in touch after I speak with the ME”
“I’ll be waiting for your call.” MC accompanied him to the front door. “Oh, Detective, one more question.”
Sharpe stopped halfway out the storm door.
“Barb’s parents.” MC took a deep breath. “They need to know.” She blinked. “And as much as I don’t want to do it, I need to be the one to tell them.”
Sharpe pushed his hat back slightly. “I understand. Family death notification is difficult. Good luck.”
“Thank you.” MC’s voice was so faint she wondered if she’d even spoken the words aloud.
“Call me if you think of anything else that could help.”
Sharpe appeared to be contemplating saying something further, but he went outside and let the door close.
MC pulled the storm door until it latched shut. She watched Sharpe amble to the street. He sat in his car for several minutes before he started it and drove off. Only then did MC notice her car parked across the street and covered in snow. She’d move it to the garage before she left, she thought, then locked the deadbolt on the inside door.
MC returned to the bedroom and dragged the two suitcases from the closet and quickly filled them with clothes, toiletries and other necessities. She carried them downstairs, grabbed the framed photo of her and Barb, and a few other things from the hallway closet and jammed them in, too.
She made a final run upstairs for her favorite pillow and took stock of the space where love had lived for so long. She felt her heart fracture a bit more.
Back in the front hallway she emptied the safe of all their important documents. She crammed all the papers into her messenger bag, which Sharpe had returned to her before they’d left SPPD.
She gazed around the shambles she and Barb had called home and felt a seed of anger squeezing through the anguish inside her.
In two trips, she loaded everything into Barb’s Subaru. Then she parked her own car in the garage and shifted over into the Subaru where she sat weeping in the driver’s seat.
In that crushing moment, she vowed to herself and to Barb that she’d find out who was responsible and hunt them down.
MC checked into the tired Best Western hotel on the outskirts of downtown a little before five-thirty. Her boots scraped over dull worn crap-colored hall carpet, one sole sticking to a blackened blob she hoped was gum.
The building was redolent with the thick, cloying scent of body odor mixed with mold and wet stale heat.
The building and the people in it needed a complete overhaul but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered. Barb was gone. Barb ripped from her—from life itself. Some faceless phantom—or multiple phantoms—slipped away afterwards, a snowy curtain covering the escape.
Jangling the well-used gold key attached to a green plastic four-leaf clover, MC unlocked the door to her temporary digs, feeling anything but lucky. Sad, moss-colored drapes covered the window overlooking the parking lot where hulking gray mounds of plowed snow moped in the corners.
MC hoisted her suitcases onto one bed and found the remote and switched on the TV. She shucked her jacket and tossed it over the suitcases.
On the edge of the second bed with her pillow squished in her lap, she channel surfed. She hoped for—dreaded—the six o’clock news. She landed on channel four and watched the CBS Evening News.
At six the local news came on. The anchor made mention of another homicide in Minneapolis the previous night and another in Saint Paul early this morning.
Video snippets of the Minneapolis incident flashed by. The MPD Public Information Officer repeated the usual song and dance about keeping the community safe and asking anyone with information to contact MPD.
Next came the SPPD Public Information Officer. He stood on the corner of Pinehurst and Howell, just down from her house. He talked about a suspected burglary and a victim who undoubtedly surprised whomever was inside. There were no further details of the incident or suspects. The name of the victim was being withheld pending notification of family.
She knew, with a part of her barely functioning cerebral cortex she needed to phone Barb’s parents who were still down in Mankato with Barb’s oldest brother, Father Tom, the priest. And she also had to phone Dara and Meg.
How the fuck could she survive this horror? A kaleidoscope of anger, fear, loss, and grief exploded. Her world slipped sideways and she fell over on the garish comforter-clad bed. She sobbed, battered and broken, as an advertisement for Black Friday sales blared from the TV.
Eventually, MC sat up and pushed her sodden pillow aside. She couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. Time to suck it up. She dug her phone from her jacket pocket with shaky fingers and stared at the dark screen.
Best to get it over with. MC pushed the round button at the bottom of the screen and brought the phone to life. Navigating to her contacts she found the entry for Francis and Peg Wheatley and selected Francis’s cell number. On the second ring he answered. MC sucked in a shaky breath and forged ahead before she lost her nerve.
“Hi, Francis, this is MC.” A frog took up residence in her throat and she coughed.
“MC? You sound terrible. Are you ill?”
“Um, no. I’m not ill. Hey, Francis, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.” MC gently conveyed the details, tears rolling down her cheeks.
MC listened as Francis broke the news to Peg.
“No. No. No. I don’t believe you.” Peg’s stunned voice filled MC’s ear.
They sounded heartbroken, understandably so. Their world had been thrown off its axis, just like MC’s.
MC swallowed and swiped her sleeve across her face. She got up and stumbled to the bathroom for tissues.
“I’m so sorry.” She assured Francis and Peg she had no details other than what she’d shared with them and also warned them a detective from SPPD would more than likely contact them and Barb’s two older brothers, Dave and Father Tom. MC asked Francis if he felt up to telling the brothers the news.
“Yes, I can.”
MC heard Peg’s steady sobbing in the background. “I have to wait to make any arrangements until the medical examiner releases her—body. She has specific instructions in her will. I’ll share all the details with you and the rest of the family as soon as I can.”
“I understand,” he said.
With nothing more to say on either side, MC ended the call and let the phone slip onto the bed. She needed a drink in the worst way.
Unfortunately, no mini-bar existed at this grand establishment. Still dressed in her tactical gear, she grabbed her wallet and keys and found her navy pea coat in one of the suitcases.
Ten minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of a ramshackle liquor store located a couple blocks west of the hotel on University Avenue. She purchased a bottle and drove back to the hotel.
The pearlescent blanket of snow offset the murky darkness of the night. She drove with extra caution wary of erratic drivers.
The TV greeted her as she unlocked the door. Wheel of Fortune was in full swing. The spinning wheel of gaudy colors and giddy contestants spewing noise didn’t distract from her mission. She found a black plastic ice bucket and flipped the security latch out to keep the door from closing as she hunted down the nearest ice machine.
A humming followed by the sound of dropping ice drew her attention to the far end of the hallway where she found the machine in an alcove. She pushed the
button and the machine groaned, but no ice spewed forth.
MC kicked the ice-maker and slammed her fist on the button. One cube clattered into the bucket. “Goddamit! C’mon, you fucker!” She kicked the machine again and this time it belched out a bucketful of ice.
Back in the room, she pulled a plastic cup from its cellophane wrapper, filled it with ice and vodka. Without stopping to think, she tipped her head back. The alcohol cascaded down her throat, the icy burn doing nothing to numb the pain that seared every inch of her.
She recognized that pain—the crushing, sinking sensation—the same feeling she’d had when she learned her parents had been killed in a car crash. And a black hole like after Cindy was gone.
MC served herself another round as the colored wheel spun on the television screen. Plastic cup in hand, she veered to the built-in desk across the room and pulled out the dilapidated black faux leather office chair.
She sank onto the cracked seat. Cup in one hand and phone in the other, she placed the next most difficult call of the evening, using the FaceTime app on her device. She slugged back a chilled mouthful of vodka as the call connected.
“Yo.” Dara’s voice echoed from the tiny iPhone speaker and her face flickered on the screen.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing? And where the hell are you? That’s a no-tell motel room if ever I’ve seen one. What happened? You and Barb have a fight and she kicked you out?” Dara laughed.
“I wish it were so simple.” MC swallowed. She set the plastic cup on the dark wood desk. Her tears blurred Dara’s face, and a sob escaped her lips.
Dara dropped the comic shtick. “What’s wrong?”
“Dara. It’s about Barb.”
“What’s about Barb?” Dara’s voice was low and serious. She strode to a door across the room, yanked it open and hollered for Meg to join her, pronto. “MC. You’re freaking me out.”
Meg came running into the room. “What’s happening? What are you yelling about?”
Dara motioned for her to close the door and pointed to the phone. “Something’s wrong with Barb is all I know. MC?”
Meg hit Dara on the shoulder. “Let her gather her thoughts. MC, hon. Tell us.”
“She’s gone. Barb. Gone. She’s—”
“What the hell do you mean she’s gone?” Dara’s deep voice rose.
“Dead is what I mean.” There she’d actually said the word. “Someone . . . oh, God help me . . . someone shot her this morning. Home invasion, the cops think. I came home . . . ” The waterworks made a grand reappearance, and she could no longer speak.
Meg grabbed the phone from Dara’s hand, and her face in the camera frame shook. “We’re packing up right now to drive back to the Cities. Dara’s parents will understand. We’ll be home in a couple of hours.”
Dara was busy in the background gathering clothes and opening suitcases.
“No.” MC’s voice was shaky. She wet her throat with a swallow from her cup and leaned her elbows on her knees. “Don’t come back now. The roads are terrible because of all the snow. Let the plows do their work. Come back tomorrow.”
“No way, buddy.” Dara’s head appeared over Meg’s shoulder. “The troops are rallying right now.”
“Tomorrow is soon enough. There’s nothing you can do tonight. I need you two to be safe. And I need to be alone—at least for tonight.”
“Alone is the last thing you need to be.” Dara’s face came closer, blocking out most of Meg’s concerned expression. “I can see how you’re handling alone. Whatchu drinkin’ there? Huh? A triple shot of the gotcha Goose?”
“Dara. Now’s not the time,” Meg said.
“The hell it isn’t,” Dara said. “The slope is slippery. I should know. Right, MC?”
MC knew Dara struggled every day to remain sober. She attended AA meetings when life became overwhelming, though those instances had become fewer and farther apart as the years rolled by. Dara had been sober for as long as MC and Barb had been together. She was pushing the twenty-year mark, and MC admired her perseverance. But tonight she couldn’t mirror her good friend’s behavior. She needed something to deaden the pain. The Goose fit the bill.
“I’ll be fine. I’m at a hotel. I couldn’t stay at the house.”
“I can imagine why you’d feel that way.” Meg’s voice was quiet, soothing, a salve on MC’s exposed wounds. Almost.
“You two stay there tonight. Promise me. Driving will be better in daylight. And I’ll be right here.”
Meg and Dara put her on mute. Finally, after about thirty seconds of hyperbolic gyrations and arguing MC couldn’t hear, Meg unmuted the phone. “We won’t run out tonight, but we’ll be on the road bright and early in the morning.”
“We’re coming home to take care of you, pal.” Dara’s husky voice filled the room and tears spilled from her eyes.
Meg’s voice broke and she bit off a sob. “You’ll come home with us.” Her tone left no room for argument.
Frankly, at this point, MC was out of energy to fight anybody. She thanked her two best friends, told them she loved them and ended the call.
She found her phone charger and plugged in her phone, flicked the ringer on, and cranked the volume up so she’d hear if it rang during the night. But who’d be calling her anyway, she wondered, as she drained the remaining liquid from her cup. No one.
She contemplated food as the Friday night lineup on CBS began.
On second thought, another glass, or two, of mother Goose would serve her purposes better. She flipped the deadbolt and secured the door with the chain, then kicked off her boots.
She dug around in the suitcases until she found her flannel pajama pants and her favorite Popeye sweatshirt. She also pulled on a pair of thick socks, leaving her discarded clothes in a heap on the floor. With more ice in her cup, she grabbed the Goose by the neck and crawled into bed.
Three pillows stacked behind her, she rested against the headboard and sucked down the vodka. Slow and steady. Liquid lava caressed her tongue and coated her insides.
Remote in hand, she toggled up the volume on the TV. The Amazing Race melted into Hawaii Five-O followed by Blue Bloods.
Unfocused.
Welcome numbness settled in, making itself at home.
Chapter Eleven
Saturday, November 29
An old-fashioned phone rang, the type they’d had when MC was growing up.
MC fought through the fog. She couldn’t move her arms and legs. What the hell? She opened her mouth to ask Barb to help her.
The incessant ringing blazed through the haze in her head. She struggled to open her eyes. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table.
The teal numbers blurred in and out of focus.
7:01 a.m.
Suddenly she felt like her body was dropping off a cliff. She grabbed to get hold of something, anything, as the ringing pinged around in her skull like pinballs in a machine.
Phone. Cell phone. She reached out and her fingers crabbed across the table, finally locating the demon device.
“’Lo?” Was that croak actually her voice?
Dara’s deep voice boomed in her ear. “How you doing?”
MC pulled the phone away from her face. “No need to yell. I can hear you fine.”
She kicked at the bedclothes snaked around her legs and rolled to a sitting position, which made instantly clear she was in need of about a gallon of water and a fistful of ibuprofen.
Dara said, “We’re about an hour away from the Cities. Meg’s driving, so don’t get your undies in a knot because I’m talking on the cell.”
“Good to know.” MC thought about standing, but her head thumped when she shifted so she remained still, perched on the edge of the bed. “I’m not sure what’s going on yet. I guess I’ll need to contact a cleaning service for the house. And wait to hear from Sharpe about when the ME will release—” Barb’s name caught in her throat.
“Ah, Jesus. Okay. One thing at a time. Should we pick yo
u up at the hotel? Or do you want to meet at our house?”
MC’s throat burned, a sourness roiling up from her gut. Lack of food? She glanced at the Grey Goose bottle, now only one-third full, next to the empty cup on the table and decided lack of food was the least contributor to her current physical state.
“Hello?” Dara yelled. “MC?”
“Dara. Please. Use your inside voice.” MC rubbed her temple with two fingers. “I need to grab a shower and some food. You or Meg call me when you’re home, and I’ll come to your place.”
“Hung over, aren’t ya?”
“I don’t need a lecture this morning.”
“No lecture—an observation.” Dara’s voice took on an unaccustomed softness. “Hopefully, it won’t snowball into—”
“Don’t worry.” Her phone vibrated. She pulled it away, another call with a 651 area code. “Dara, I gotta go. Incoming call and I should take it. Let me know when you get home.” She hit the accept icon without waiting for Dara’s acknowledgement.
“McCall.”
“Inspector McCall, it’s Detective Sharpe. Sorry to be calling so early. How are you this morning?”
“Considering the circumstances, I’m surviving. What can I do for you?” She closed her eyes and focused on keeping the bitterness at bay and her stomach contents inside her body.
“I spoke with the ME and they’ll release your partner’s body to the funeral home of your choice late this afternoon or early tomorrow morning.”
“Do you have the ME’s contact info?”
“Yes.” He rattled off the number.
“Thank you. I appreciate the call.”
“I’ll be in touch, as necessary.”
“Understood. Do you have any, uh, leads? I know it’s early.”
His tone softened. “You know I’m not at liberty to say, but between you, me, and the snowbank, we have shit so far.”
MC clenched her jaw and bit back the anger and disappointment. “Got it. Thanks for the call. Goodbye.” She disconnected and tossed the phone onto the wood table.
