The phone ringing in the bullpen reminded Elizabeth it had been quiet for the last hour. "No calls?"
Hammer glanced back at her as he hurried out the door. "Guess everyone's in for the storm."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ELIZABETH HEADED TO THE Dollar General once Calderone said he hadn't gotten any fingerprint info and would follow up on the request. The older Crown Vic she drove while on duty would have been mothballed in a larger town, but it had fewer than 30,000 miles on it. With its large engine, the car did not do well on the ice. Or it slid well, if that was your perspective.
The store had few customers. Elizabeth stomped on the black mat to rid her boots of snow and ice melt pellets.
Blake Wessley greeted her politely, but with a sour expression. She judged he had lost several pounds, because his square-jawed face appeared thinner, giving him a haggard expression. Or maybe he slept less since he had to work. He still managed to look fastidious, in pressed blue jeans and a collared St. Louis Cardinals shirt.
Wessley stopped restocking the Christmas candy shelf. "My manager said you would stop by. I didn't know the woman who died. I mean, I read the story about her death."
"I know you didn't go to high school here. I'm more interested in regular goings-on in the laundromat. Did you ever see one customer act hostile to another? Anything like that?"
"No. I try to go in the daytime when I can. Mostly men who work at the meat-packing plant go in the evening. Few guys from Sweathog, but all the women and most of the students do laundry during the day."
Elizabeth nodded. "I've heard older folks go mostly in the daytime, too. Someone else implied it was a tougher crowd after dark."
Wessley shrugged. "I've talked to a few of them. Not bad guys, just...rough around the edges, maybe." He pulled a bunch of foil-wrapped marshmallow Santas from a box and began placing them on a lower shelf.
Elizabeth studied his profile, "How about Finn Clancy?"
Wessley half-turned. "He's a lazy grifter, but I've never seen him bother anyone."
"Did you hear someone stole his bike?"
Wessley's laugh was harsh. "Too bad he didn't seem the type to have insurance. He could use a new one."
"Rusty. I saw it once." She took a card from the pocket of her jacket. "You might overhear conversations in here. Don't get involved in anything, but if you learn something useful, call me."
Wessley accepted the card, slowly. "President Dodd said you recommended not expelling us."
"I know you faced some charges for the fireworks and a couple other things. Figured that could be enough punishment."
He pocketed the card. "My dad got me a good lawyer. I'm on probation for a year, and got a fine and other stuff." He bent down to the cardboard box of candy again. "If I hear anything, I'll call you."
As she left the store, Elizabeth pulled her collar up so the stiff breeze didn't waft down her neck. She felt as if she was spinning her wheels on more than ice.
ELIZABETH HADN'T EXPECTED to see any other former frat brothers, but Monty came in that afternoon as she stood at Hammer's desk signing time sheets. Unlike the pasty-skinned, active alcoholic who weaved when he walked, a healthy man of nineteen stood before her.
"Hello, Chief Friedman. Did you recognize me?" He extended a hand across the counter.
"She took it. You look terrific, Monty. I like the maroon sweater."
From his desk chair, Hammer said, "You do look good. Congratulations."
He sombered. "It's always one day at a time, but today I'm good. Thanks."
"Can we help you with anything?" Elizabeth asked.
He had held one hand at this side, and now used it to place a large box of Whitman Sampler candies on the counter. "Merry Christmas." He looked past Elizabeth to Hammer. "To all of you guys. You treated me decent, and I probably don't remember much of anything."
Elizabeth smiled. "I'm glad you're home for the holidays." She pulled the box of candy toward her and ran a finger along the protective cellophane to open the box.
"If I can make things work at home, I'll stay and go back to school in January."
Elizabeth remembered that Monty's parents had seemed very rigid. Rigid and unhappy that a third-generation Sweathog attendee had been a full-blown drunk. "They support you not drinking, though, right?"
"Oh, yeah." He waved a hand as Elizabeth pushed the now-open box of candy toward him. "Swore off chocolate, too."
"Jeez," Hammer said. "I'd never make it through Christmas without chocolate."
Sensing he wanted to leave, Elizabeth said, "Thanks for the candy, Monty."
He threw a dark green, long scarf around one shoulder, so it hugged his neck more. "Least I can do." He turned and went back to the biting cold and snow."
Elizabeth turned to Hammer. "Made my day."
Hammer nodded, but before he could comment, Calderone called from the hallway. “Chief, you got a call.”
Elizabeth walked back to her office, glanced at the blinking light on the station’s outdated phone, and pushed it. “Chief Friedman here.”
“Elizabeth? It’s Edna.”
Elizabeth sat up straighter. Her landlord had never called her at work. “Everything okay, Edna?”
“You need to come home to look for your cat.”
“Excuse me?”
“Someone threw a brick through your kitchen window. So hard it shattered. That cat of yours squeezed out the opening.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
ELIZABETH STOOD AS SHE spoke and walked to her locked file cabinet to retrieve her gun. “I’m on my way. I’ll bring someone with me to check around. Please lock yourself in your apartment.”
“Oh, I did as soon as I went outside and saw it. Your cat ran across the street, into the yard with all the lawn ornaments.”
Elizabeth hung up and yelled, “Calderone. You’re with me.”
She walked into the bullpen as Calderone stood to shrug into his jacket. “What’s up, Chief?”
“Somebody threw a brick through my apartment window and my cat got out.”
Simultaneously, Hammer said, “You should take Mahan, too,” and Mahan said, “You have a cat?”
“I’d rather have two of you here in case we get more calls. Don’t think the person hung around. Let the guys on patrol know.” She strode toward the door. “Calderone, you’re driving.”
He jiggled his keys as he followed her out. “Watch your step.”
Elizabeth almost skidded on a fresh sheen of ice on the sidewalk. “Jeez.” She turned toward the station’s large window and pointed down to the sidewalk as she walked.
Inside, Hammer nodded to her.
Elizabeth buckled her seatbelt and Calderone turned on his lights and siren. “I didn’t hear a 9-1-1 call come in.”
“My landlord, Edna, called me directly. I’ll remind her to use 9-1-1 in the future.”
They didn’t speak as Calderone drove the ten blocks to Elizabeth’s apartment in Edna Brown's large Victorian house. They were within a few yards of the house when a streak of brown tore across the street. Calderone braked and they skidded to a stop, but not before Elizabeth heard a shriek from her cat.
“Damn, Chief, I’m sorry if I…”
“Don’t worry about it. She kept running.” Her heart hammered as she pushed the cat from her mind and climbed out of the car, gun drawn. She surveyed the lawn as she walked across the grass toward the porch. Elizabeth had a private side entry, with external stairs leading up to it, but wanted to talk to Edna first.
The bolt on the front door slid open as Elizabeth and Calderone climbed the slippery front porch steps.
Edna, sporting a holiday-themed red sweatshirt with a small Christmas tree surrounded by tame wildlife, had her mouth in a wide O. “Goodness, you didn’t need to use the siren.”
Elizabeth forced a smile. “Thought we’d scare away any bad guys if they were still hanging around.”
“Can we get upstairs from the inside?” Calderone asked.
With her
eye on Elizabeth’s gun as she holstered it, Edna said, “Yes, Tony, but you wipe your boots really well.” She pointed toward her kitchen, in the back of the first floor.
“Steps are behind the fridge,” Elizabeth said. She focused on Edna. “Are you all right? Do you want to call your son?”
“No! He’d be all bent out of shape. I’m fine.”
Elizabeth gestured to Edna’s sofa and sat across from it in a pale blue, stuffed chair. “What else can you tell us?”
“Nothing, I don’t think. I didn’t go up there. I have a stiff broom you can use to sweep up the glass.
“Just a second.” Elizabeth walked to the foot of the steps that led upstairs. “Calderone. All clear up there?”
“Think so. I’ll check the other rooms if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” Good thing I made my bed and put yesterday's clothes in the hamper.
She walked back to Edna. “Okay, if you’re all right, I’m going outside to see if I can see my cat.” She walked onto the front porch and scanned the snowy yard.
Something brown and the size of a large ham crawled out from under an evergreen bush. “Oh, baby, you’re hurt.” She almost skidded down the steps, but when she bent over to pick up the cat, it meowed plaintively.
Edna called from the porch. “Let me get a box. Easier to carry her if she’s hurt.”
Calderone called from the top of the external staircase on the side of the house. “Looks okay except for the bricks…No! Did I hit it?”
Tears stung Elizabeth’s eyes, but she kept her voice steady. “She’s going to be okay. And no, you didn’t hit her. She ran in front of our car.”
“Tony, dear. Come get this box. It’s too cold for me out there.”
Calderone had been en route from the side staircase to where Elizabeth knelt, but he detoured and grabbed the low-sided box and brought it to Elizabeth.
The cat lay on its side, breathing more heavily than usual.
“How should we lift her?” Calderone asked.
As Elizabeth started to suggest that he hold the box and she try to slide the cat into it, Skelly’s green Camry pulled to the curb. He hurried to them, almost slipping on the thin sheen of ice on the sidewalk.
“Good God, Elizabeth.” He knelt next to the cat and touched her head lightly. “Someone hit her?”
“I did,” Calderone said.
“No,” Elizabeth insisted. “She dashed in front of the patrol car.”
Snow soaked his hospital scrubs as Skelly continued to kneel. He ran a hand down the cat’s coat, not pressing hard. “She doesn’t look misshapen. I bet she has a bruised pelvis not a broken one. Better that than being hit in the mid-section.”
Elizabeth felt her eyes start to tear again. “You think so?”
Skelly glanced at her and back to the cat. “Let me take her to the vet. If he gives her the okay I’ll take her back to the hospital with me so she can't get out again. I bet she’ll be fine.”
Elizabeth did her best to sound practical. “Okay, help me get her in this box.”
Calderone knelt to steady the box as Elizabeth put a hand under and just below the cat’s head, and Skelly did the same at her pelvis. The cat meowed in slight protest, but didn’t try to get away or bite.
The three stood together. Skelly held the box carefully and moved toward his car. “I’ll call you.”
Elizabeth looked back to Calderone. “I paid too much attention to my cat. Sorry. Tell me what you found.”
Calderone turned toward the external stairs and she followed him. “If itta been my dog, I’d be blubbering like a kid.”
“Didn’t know you had a dog.”
He grinned. “A mutt. My ex-wife and I share it.”
Now and then Elizabeth realized how little she knew about her officers’ lives. They’d had a welcome picnic for her when she arrived, and she’d gone to one wedding, but not anything less formal, like kids’ birthday parties. It was hard enough to be the only woman in a department, and she didn’t want to socialize a lot outside of work.
“Joint custody. Very amicable of you. What did you find besides the brick, or whatever it was, and a bunch of glass?”
“It’s two bricks tied together with some kind of heavy twine. Guess that’s why it made such a big hole. Paper under the twine, around the bricks, is probably some kind of note.”
They entered Elizabeth’s kitchen and looked at the smattering of glass all over the floor. The bricks rested next to the baseboard in front of the refrigerator. “Could be worse, I guess,” Elizabeth said.
Calderone’s radio buzzed and he clicked it. “Hey, we’re good over here.”
Hammer’s voice came through. “Seemed calm enough that Mahan’s bringing you the small crime scene kit. Then he’ll swing back.”
Calderone winked at Elizabeth. “I hit the chief’s cat.”
“What the f…?!”
Elizabeth raised her voice. “No, he didn’t. She ran in front of the car as we pulled up. Skelly came by and got her. He doesn’t think anything’s broken.”
Hammer picked up on her light tone. “Better hope not. That would be a hell of a demerit on your next performance report, Calderone.”
He grimaced, but his eyes crinkled. “I’m gonna sweep up the glass all over the place, check out the bricks. Some kind of note wrapped around them. Be back after that.”
Hammer signed off, and Elizabeth said, “Edna says she has a stiff broom. Mine's softer. I’ll go reassure her and come back with the broom.”
Elizabeth went down the inside staircase, got the broom, and came back as Mahan arrived with the forensic kit. “Sorry about your window, Chief. And the cat.”
“The person had to know I wouldn’t be home, so I guess this is as destructive as he plans to get.”
“Or she,” both men said.
Elizabeth glanced at her window. “I don’t mean to sound sexist, but that throw, from the ground up, took a lot more muscle than most women have.”
Mahan grinned. “I’m damn glad she said that.”
“All right, you two. I’ll clean up here if you want to ask a couple neighbors if they saw anything.”
Mahan nodded. “Calderone can do that. I’ll get a piece of Plexiglas at the hardware store. You got a tape measure?”
“That’s above and beyond,” Elizabeth said.
“Nah. I do it now and again. Better than a board until Edna gets a glass guy to fix it.”
Calderone looked up from where he’d been kneeling next to the bricks, and grinned. “He mostly does it for old people.”
“Two demerits,” Elizabeth said.
AFTER HAMMER CAREFULLY UNTIED the note, Elizabeth, he, and Calderone stood in the station's conference room to read it together. “Who spells that badly?” Elizabeth asked.
“I tole you to back off. Your place will be more than chile if you don’t leave Louella Bell’s murder alone.”
“Misspells Louella Belle’s name the same as the note a couple days ago. And chile instead of chilly,” Hammer said.
“Probably deliberate,” Elizabeth said, “so we think the person isn’t well-educated.”
Calderone snorted. “Could be well educated, but throwing a brick through the police chief’s window isn’t smart.”
“And no prints,” Elizabeth murmured. “We’re no further ahead than we were a couple of hours ago.”
“In some ways we are,” Calderone said. “We know someone, probably local, is paying attention to the investigation.”
Hammer turned toward the door, but stopped. “How’s your cat?”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at him. “Does Skelly pay you for tipoffs?”
Hammer sighed. “He buys lots of Girl Scout cookies from my oldest daughter. So when he asked me to let him know if you were hurt or anything…” His voice trailed off.
“Is that a bribe, Calderone?” she asked, careful not to smile.
“I think it’s gotta be money to be a bribe,” Calderone threw in.
�
��Technically, anything of value,” Hammer began. He stopped when Elizabeth pointed to the door to the hallway with her thumb.
“Go away.”
Calderone had brought in two large plastic bags, each with a sliding closure. “I’ll put these in evidence, even though they didn’t have prints.” He gloved each hand and reached for the first brick.
Elizabeth turned toward the hallway, planning to head to her office. “I doubt it’ll help, but show the note to the others to see if the penmanship looks familiar.”
Her phone rang and Elizabeth glanced at the caller ID. “Good, Skelly. Talk to you in a minute, Calderone.”
“After all you’ve put her through, you really should name your cat,” Skelly said.
“I’ll take it under advisement. How is she?”
“Only one vet at Happy Animal Care today, so they’re swamped. I x-rayed her here. Nothing broken. Vet’s office gave me a mild sedative for her and she’s sleeping.”
“I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’re staying in town. Have Christmas Eve dinner with me.”
Elizabeth hesitated for a second. He’d just more or less rescued her cat. She couldn’t say no. “Okay, come up with some names.”
“Lucky will be first on that list.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ELIZABETH'S CELL RANG AT three o'clock Wednesday afternoon. She groaned when she saw Wally Kermit's name. He would never take the hint to call the station.
"Chief, I think I found that bike."
Elizabeth closed her desk drawer and stood. She thought Wally sounded nervous. "Great. Where was it?"
"You know that dumpster behind Alice's bookstore?"
Exasperation flooded Elizabeth. "Kind of far from campus, Wally."
"Well, yeah, but like I told you, I had a couple days off." When Elizabeth said nothing for a second, he added, "Kinda cold out here."
"Sorry, didn't realize you were outside. Is the bookstore open?"
"I think she's open until six, seeing's how it's close to Christmas."
"Head inside. One of us will meet you there." Elizabeth hung up, frustrated. She doubted Wally had been able to keep his hands off the bicycle.
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