by Edie Claire
He narrowed his eyes at her and sat the box down by the door. "You may not care squat for my belongings, but I'm rather attached to them. Now, the door is locked, and nobody knows you're here. If you don't mind, I'm going back to bed. I have a horrific schedule tomorrow."
Leigh's eyes felt suddenly moist. She averted her gaze.
"Thanks, Warren," she said quietly.
"Thanks, nothing," he said with a smirk. "You're making breakfast."
***
Stirring milk into a powdered mix was just within the bounds of Leigh's culinary capabilities, and she proudly waved the warm blueberry muffins under Warren's nose.
"Excellent," he smiled. "I could get used to this. You have nightmares often?"
In the light of day Leigh's dream seemed quite surreal, and her fear inexcusable. But Warren was sick of hearing her apologize, so she made reparations by cleaning up both her dishes and his—a definite break in tradition. An impressed Warren headed off to work, and she returned to the specter of her apartment. Staying just long enough to resettle Mao Tse and get dressed, she headed back to the office of Katharine Bower, attorney at law. This time Maura was going to be there too, and Leigh was anxious to know if her volunteer investigator had learned anything new. She was also anxious to see Katharine Bower, who, she remembered with a smile, had not been at Warren's last night.
"Kristin Yates killed them both," she announced with a flourish as she plopped into one of Katharine's leather chairs. "I'm sure of it."
Katharine and Maura exchanged glances. "What makes you so sure?" Katharine asked. Leigh summarized her last, depressing meeting with Tanner, finishing with an impassioned editorial. "I don't believe Kristin killed Carmen over Tanner, though. I think there was something else going on that we don't know about."
"Quite possibly," Katharine agreed, and asked Maura to repeat the conversation she'd heard at the bird house.
"So," Leigh responded sullenly. "Tonya and Dena both saw Kristin at the zoo that night. A pregnant Kristin."
"We can't know that for sure," Maura cautioned. "Dena just said 'with the baby coming,' she didn't say whose baby, or where it was coming from."
Leigh was unconvinced, but didn't say so. If Kristin were pregnant, her unexpected return from DC made sense. And if "friend" Tanner was the father, so did her desire to confront Carmen. "So, Dena went out on a limb to protect Kristin," she mused. "I wonder if she knows Kristin was the killer. Do you think she's scared of her now?"
"She sounded scared all right," Maura retorted. "But not of Kristin. She's worried about perjury charges if all this goes to trial."
"It won't," Katharine interrupted. "I had a little talk with Frank last night."
Leigh's eyebrows rose. "After I threw him out?"
She nodded. "I'm not Frank's favorite person, as you know, so he wasn't exactly effusive. But I'm virtually certain that he's beginning to doubt your guilt. It appears that he's working with the State Police to get the pond by Tanner's cabin dragged."
"Dragged?" Leigh repeated. She knew what dragged meant, but she had no idea there was a pond near Tanner's cabin. He had talked about fishing, but she assumed he meant going to a lake.
"I believe the police are thinking that whoever killed Carmen was using Tanner's cabin as a hideout. They removed the rest of the body from the zoo—probably in a car trunk—and drove to the cabin to dispose of it. Of course, they could have disposed of it anywhere along the way, but the pond would be a relatively easy target. I also learned from Tanner's lawyer that the wheelbarrow in the shed behind the cabin was spanking clean—in great contrast to everything else there. That may indicate the killer used it to haul the body, then cleaned it out."
"Did Tanner have a boat?" Maura asked Leigh.
Leigh shrugged, finding the question an odd one. "I don't know. I know he fished and hunted, that's all. I hardly saw the cabin."
"There's no mention of a boat in the report I have," Katharine answered, flipping papers, "but that doesn't mean anything. Why?"
Maura sat back in her chair, brow furrowed. "It's probably not important. Leigh, you said Tanner was the outdoors type. What about Kristin?"
"I don't know anything about Kristin's hobbies," she answered. "But I know she grew up around West View, somewhere near Carmen. It's hard to picture either one of them pitching a tent or cleaning fish, if that's what you mean. They were definitely urban types."
Katharine, who seemed a little miffed at losing control of the conversation, broke in. She explained her plan to get the charges against Leigh dropped, which included pushing the police to locate and question Kristin Yates. There was no credible evidence to connect Kristin directly to Carmen's murder, and the link with Stacey's murder was tenuous at best. Furthermore, suspects had already been arrested in both cases. But looking at the whole picture, Kristin's rating as a suspect—or at least as an accomplice—wasn't too shabby. The police had known all along that Leigh couldn't possibly have removed Carmen's body from the zoo herself; somebody had driven away with it. And not in her car or Tanner's truck, either.
"If we can break down either Tonya or Dena," Katharine hypothesized, "we can place Kristin at the zoo the night of the murder. I think I can trip Dena up pretty easily—thanks to Officer Polanski's information gathering. With the prosecution's star witness debunked and another plausible suspect in the picture, I think we've got a shot here. A good shot."
Leigh smiled. Things weren't looking so bad, at least from the standpoint of her going to prison. Now if she could just stop her growing fear of a freely roaming homicidal Kristin, things would be perfect.
Maura excused herself from the meeting and left abruptly, before Leigh could ask her about her mother. The policewoman had been wearing plain clothes, which probably meant this was her "weekend." Perhaps they could get together with Warren for dinner. The subject of Mary Polanski had to be addressed sooner or later, preferably sooner.
The meeting adjourned fairly quickly, with Katharine heading off to another court appearance. Leigh started to drive to the North Side and Hook, Inc., but remembered that she had forgotten her files. She had thrown them in the car when she left Hook on Friday, planning to do a little extra work over the weekend. She had gotten arrested instead. They were now sitting in a neat stack on her desk in the bedroom, untouched. That's probably what Jeff Hulsey had called her about.
She pulled her car over to the right lane of the Fort Duquesne bridge, moving away from Three Rivers' Stadium and onto 279. After sitting through a few hundred stoplights on McKnight Road, she was home. Such as it was.
She ran into her apartment just long enough to grab her files and check on Mao Tse, who was sleeping peacefully on top of the refrigerator. She collected her mail from the box downstairs and returned to her car, flipping through bills and offers of credit cards she already had. The last letter in the pile stopped her.
It was a plain personal envelope, addressed in ink in a child's hand and postmarked from her own post office. Her brow furrowed. She had a few Morton relatives of elementary age running about, but why would any of them be writing her a letter? She tore open the seal and lifted out a crumpled piece of white copy paper, written on in bold block print.
To whom it may consern [sic],
I can't go on with what I've done—I killed two women to get my man but he doesn't want me. Its better if I end it now.
Leigh read the sloppy writing with confusion, skimming anxiously down to the signature. She looked at it with disbelief.
Sincerely,
Leigh Koslow
She stood frozen in the parking lot, her fingers turning white where they clutched the vile note. She crumpled it back into the envelope, hurried back to her car, and threw it on the passenger seat. Hands on the steering wheel, she sat.
Mind games. Somebody was playing mind games. At least the knife was planted for a concrete purpose—to frame her for Stacey's murder. This fake "suicide" note could only be meant to mess with her head. Kristin couldn't very well
expect her to kill herself and use it.
Could she?
Leigh started up the car, but realized she couldn't remember where she'd been going. So she sat instead with the engine idling, her fingers clenching the wheel.
It's better if I end it now. She was all for ending it, but not the way the author was hinting at. Somebody wanted her to take the rap for both murders. The implication was that she should just confess and go quietly. It would be ever so helpful for the real killer. Were they nuts?
Dumb question.
Leigh unclenched her fingers and began drumming them on the dashboard. The knife had been planted to frame her—but that same action had the effect of getting Tanner off. Was that the real plan?
Kristin. It always came back to her. If the murderer was anyone else, there would be no point in doing anything, because they stood an excellent shot of getting away with it. But for Kristin, the hounds were closing in. And Kristin might very well have her own reasons for wanting Tanner to go free—at Leigh's expense.
Making a decision, Leigh put the Cavalier into drive and headed to East Liberty, and the Central Detective's Bureau. The letter would soon be Frank's problem. She just hoped he wasn't so dim he'd think she mailed it to herself.
The bureau wasn't as busy as usual, but then, it was still morning. Leigh walked boldly up to the desk and asked for Detective Frank. "He's not here," the clerk snapped, looking at her as if she should know better. "He's out on a call."
Leigh sighed. "How can I get in touch with him?" she asked.
An officer who had just walked behind the desk looked up at her. "You Leigh Koslow?" he asked, incredulous.
Leigh thought he looked vaguely familiar, but she'd seen a lot of uniforms in the last week. "Yes," she answered gratefully. "I'm looking for Detective Frank. It's important."
The officer still looked at her as though she were crazy. Perhaps people out on bail didn't often seek the company of the detective who had locked them up. But then, most people were probably guilty.
"You want to tell me what this is about?" he asked skeptically.
Leigh sighed. Some people made it really hard to do the right thing. "I got a letter—a threatening letter. It may be important to the case."
The officer smiled a little. An unpleasant, sneering smile. "You think you're in danger, Ms. Koslow?"
Leigh's blood boiled. "Evidently not," she said hotly. "According to this letter, I'm already dead."
Chapter 20
Maura headed north on Route 8, her mind deep in thought. Something about Carmen's murder had always bothered her. Any way you looked at it, it was no run-of-the-mill homicide. Someone had not only killed Carmen, but dismembered her body and threw it in with the tigers. Leigh had interrupted the process, and the killer had dragged the remainder of the body out behind the shed. The killer was probably still there, waiting in the darkness, while Leigh investigated. When she freaked out and left, they dragged the body the rest of the way to the parking lot, loaded it in some vehicle, and took off.
Why bother? Someone had gone to an incredible amount of effort to accomplish no obvious purpose. Why not just leave the rest of the body, especially with the risk of discovery so high? And why throw the limbs in with tigers in the first place? A person from outside the zoo might believe that the tigers would dispose of the body, if it were cut up into enough pieces. But the zoo suspects, according to Leigh, would have known better. And only the zoo suspects would have known where to look for the bone saw.
Perhaps the killer was a true lunatic who wanted to keep the rest of the body for some twisted, unfathomable reason. But that M.O. hardly reckoned with the stab-and-run technique used on Stacey Tanner. Besides, Silence of the Lambs weirdness, though highly publicized, was rare. And Maura Polanski was not one to hear hoof beats and look for zebras.
A more mundane reasoning had to be at play, but she couldn't come up with any, which irked her. Short of locating Kristin Yates, there was only one sure way she knew of to get answers, and that was to find the rest of Carmen Koslow's body. And if the state police would cooperate, she just might.
***
Leigh sat in the waiting area of the bureau and fumed. The officer had contacted Detective Frank, who would presumably swing by in a few minutes. Could she hang around till he got there?
Sure. No problem. She loved hanging out in the place she'd been booked. Happy memories galore.
She took out the crumpled paper and read it over again. It didn't get any better. It was just as lame—just as sinister. Sincerely, Leigh Koslow. Right. Like anyone would believe that. She, for one, knew how to spell "concern." She also knew the difference between "it's" and "its." The question was, would Frank? Or would he think she'd created the letter herself in some pathetic attempt to make it look like she was being framed?
She sighed. Perhaps coming down had been a bad idea after all. Her arm was poised to drop the letter in the trash can when Frank's voice startled her from behind.
"Destroying evidence?"
She turned, her eyes menacing. "The statute of boredom had run out. I have better things to do with my time than hang around here waiting to help you solve your cases."
"Did I ask for help?" Frank said pleasantly. There was color in his cheeks; the cold was apparently defeated.
"No," Leigh retorted. "But you should. Any idiot could tell you you arrested the wrong person. Which has been highly entertaining for all concerned, but it doesn't stop the real killer from roaming around planting knives and sending me lame threats."
Frank lifted one eyebrow. "May I?" he asked, pointing to the letter still clutched in Leigh's hand.
She handed the letter over, and he took it in his omnipresent white handkerchief. She hoped it was clean this time. He carefully pulled out the letter and unfolded it on the front desk. His expression didn't change as he read it.
"When did you get this?"
"Just now. This morning. By regular mail."
"And what do you think it means, Ms. Koslow?"
"I think it means somebody wants me in jail," she said more civilly, then swallowed. "Or dead."
***
"Tanner's cabin? Some of the guys are out there right now. You should just go catch them—Smitty's a good guy." Sara Jean dropped her cigarette butt into her pop can, then jumped. "Aw, shoot!" she whined, "I thought I'd drunk it all already!"
"Sara Jean," Maura interrupted calmly, "Do you know if they're dragging the pond?"
"I think so," Sara Jean answered distractedly, trying to fish out the cigarette with a pen. "Well, crap. It's just breaking up in there." She flung the can into the trash and turned her attention back to Maura. "That Pittsburgh detective—Funk, I think—was pushing for it. Trying to find the rest of that body your friend kill—. I mean, well, you know what I mean." She smiled.
Maura smiled back, though not so broadly. So, Frank was pushing to find the body. It was a lot of money to spend, considering that the results weren't likely to add much to the case against Leigh. Perhaps Frank was coming around.
Her smile widened. She had known he would.
***
"So, I suppose you have a theory as to who wrote this?" Frank asked.
"Sure I do," Leigh answered. "It was Kristin Yates, the person who really killed Carmen. And Stacey Tanner. Now if you'll excuse me, I've done my civic duty—and I'm out of here." She brushed past him and headed for the door, but just as she reached it, his words made her stop.
"I don't think you killed her," he said matter-of-factly.
She turned. "You what?"
He folded his arms over his chest and looked her straight in the eye. "I said, I do not think you killed Carmen Koslow."
Her heart started to beat faster, but her brain stayed skeptical. "And why not?"
One corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "Instinct."
Leigh wasn't convinced. "Your instincts are slow on the uptake."
The other corner of Frank's mouth twitched, but he kept a straight face. "The i
nitial evidence was pretty damning, and you had an attitude. You're still a pain in the ass, but now the evidence is pointing another direction."
She stepped closer to him. "And what direction might that be?" The pain-in-the-ass comment she would let slide. It was, after all, a common accusation.
He shook his head. "I've said enough already. We're going to get the real killer. You keep your nose clean and stay out of it. Understand?"
Leigh didn't say anything. She just turned and left. Once out of the building, she allowed herself a little hop. He could be taught.
***
With Sara Jean's convoluted directions, Maura had to turn around six times before locating Tanner's hunting cabin. The exact building wasn't hard to pick out, given the number of official vehicles sprinkled on its lawn. Maura approached cautiously, following the voices to the rear of the cabin. She had to do this right. There would be no second chance.
The pond was a fair size—too small for power boating, but certainly big enough to host a body in its murky depths. Like most natural ponds, the edges were shallow and sloped gradually—you couldn't just throw a body in and expect it to disappear. It would have to be dumped in the middle. Knowing this, the half-dozen workers in attendance were laboriously casting and dragging their chains and hooks across the pond's center, hoping to snag any large object that might be resting on the soft floor.
One man stood alone on the near bank, and as Maura approached him, he turned around. "Trooper Smitty?" she asked respectfully, identifying him immediately by Sara Jean's description of a middle-aged, red-headed Santa Claus.
He looked at the huge woman before him in surprise. They were, after all, in the middle of nowhere. "Yes? Who might you be?"
"Officer Maura Polanski," she said, extending her hand for a firm shake. "I'm with the Avalon PD. I don't mean to intrude, but I have a personal interest in this case because a friend of mine has been falsely accused, and I'd like to keep tabs on it."
