The Truth About Comfort Cove

by Tara Taylor Quinn

one from right here in Comfort Cove, twenty-five years before. And also cleared—thank God—due to recently obtained

  DNA evidence, from any connection to imprisoned child molester Peter Walters.

  But Claire wouldn’t let him go. He had to find her. Lucy

  Hayes’s voice mail on Monday had delivered yet another dead

  end. She’d come up empty after talking with Gladys Buckley. Again.

  “Dead body on East Main, male, nineteen to twenty-five,

  called in at five this morning. No ID. No wallet, tattoos, keys

  or cash on him. He was in the gutter, dirty, like he was homeless, torn clothes that didn’t fit, long hair, unshaven. Empty

  bottle about a foot away. Strange thing is, he didn’t smell, no

  body odor or alcohol. No needle marks. His teeth were white,

  straight. Buzz has him—I’m waiting on a tox screen, but I’m

  certain it’s going to come out clean.”

  Jacket on, and a bulging folder under his arm, Ramsey

  leaned his shoulder against the pillar on the right side of

  Mendholson’s partitioned space and said, “You’re thinking

  the homeless thing was a setup.”

  “Yeah. It was too perfectly staged.”

  “Did you check out his fingernails?”

  “Yeah. Pearly pink and manicured. No discoloration. No

  grime. No broken edges. No match for prints, either. And

  there’s nothing on missing persons.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Still waiting on the official determination, but he’d been

  stabbed.”

  “I’m assuming he bled out where you found him?” Because

  if not, Bill would have said so.

  “Yeah.”

  “So it wasn’t a dump.”

  “Nope.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “A shopkeeper. Older guy who owns a bakery around the

  corner. He was out walking around the block to get away from

  the hot ovens for a minute—”

  “You wouldn’t be talking about Chet Barber, would you?” “Yeah. You know him?”

  “Yeah, I do. When I first moved to town I rented a place

  two doors down from Chet’s place. He used to give me dayold bread in exchange for me keeping an eye on his place.

  He’s a good guy. The neighborhood watchdog and do-gooder.” “I thought I remembered that you’d lived down there. Any

  thoughts on what I’m looking at?”

  “Besides the obvious, a mediocre murder cover-up? A pisspoor attempt at losing a body?”

  “With the ocean ten miles away, why dump a body on a

  city street?”

  “Could be someone from the docks who wanted to point

  suspicion away from him. You know anytime something turns

  up in the water, the first place we look is the fishing docks.” Gomez and Anderson, two middle-aged detectives, walked

  past. “Night,” they called.

  “Night,” Ramsey and Mendholson said in unison. Ramsey

  straightened. “If your vic was in homeless garb as a coverup why was he on the street, dressed that way, before he was

  dead?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Any indication that he was from around here?” “If he is, he doesn’t spend much time on the water. His

  skin’s spa soft and white as a baby’s butt.”

  “You got a picture?”

  Bill handed it over.

  “I’ll head down there and see if I can get someone to talk

  to me.”

  “Thanks, man.” Bill was already studying notes in front

  of him, his glasses perched on his nose.

  “No problem.” Pulling his keys from his pocket, Ramsey

  held his file against his body with his elbow and made his

  way toward the elevator. Wednesday night and he’d already

  worked an almost forty-hour week.

  “Hey, Miller, I was just coming to see you. I’ve got the

  mock-up you wanted on that Jack Colton guy,” Kim Pershing

  said, getting off the elevator he’d been waiting for. Though Kim had been a cop for ten years, she’d just made

  detective over the summer. She’d been a great cop. And was

  going to make an even better detective.

  “Thanks,” Ramsey said, taking the folder she held out and

  tucking it under his arm with the other one, backing up to let

  the elevator go without him. Kim’s timing couldn’t have been

  better. He was on his way to pursue a lead on Jack Colton—the

  guy who just happened to have been driving a delivery truck

  in Claire Sanderson’s neighborhood the day she went missing. “Anything noteworthy?”

  With a sympathetic smile, Kim shook her head, her

  shoulder-length dark curls bouncing around her shoulders.

  “No rap sheet, which you already knew. His DMV record is

  clean. He’s lived between here and Boston his entire life with

  the exception of a semester at the University of Cincinnati on

  a baseball scholarship. He didn’t make the team, dropped out

  of school, moved back to Massachusetts and has been here

  ever since.”

  University of Cincinnati. Handy that the well-known institution of higher learning was less than an hour’s drive from Lucy Hayes. Something she could check out for him. An ex

  cuse to give her a ring.

  “What about family?” Focus, man. The case was all that

  mattered.

  Kim gave him another soft smile as she shook her head.

  “His folks moved to Florida ten years ago. Dad’s dead, heart

  attack. Mother’s in assisted living with early onset dementia.” “Siblings?”

  “Nope.” She looked like she was going to say more so he

  waited. And then she didn’t. She was looking at him, as though

  waiting for him to do something.

  He held up the folder. “Thanks,” he said, pushing the report against his side as he stepped back.

  “You want to have a drink or something?” Kim hadn’t

  moved. Her smile had changed, become more personal. She

  was looking fine in her dark slacks and white blouse and appeared far more fragile than he knew her to be.

  “Can I take a rain check? I’m on my way out to do a canvass for Bill.”

  “You ever get tired carrying around all that weight, Miller?” Pushing the elevator button he glanced back at her over his

  shoulder. “What weight?”

  “The million or so rain checks you’ve asked for and never

  cashed in.”

  Lucky for Ramsey the elevator door opened and sucked

  him in, forestalling his need to reply.

  R amsey showed pictures of Bill’s vic to half a dozen people before he got a hit. A wino he knew—an ageless and mostly toothless guy who’d hung out on Ramsey’s doorstep with him back when he’d been a beat cop nursing a broken marriage, a guy he knew only as Pops—admitted to Ramsey that he’d taken twenty dollars from the guy in exchange for his clothes.

  “Guy give me ’is suit, doo,” Pops said in the voice Ramsey knew well. He’d never been able to tell if Pops slurred because he was drunk, or because he was ancient and toothless. Over the years he’d talked to Pops at all times of the day and night and the old man always sounded the same.

  The mostly homeless loner always smelled the same, too. Rank. In spite of Ramsey’s repeated attempts to help the man.

  Two of his first real street lessons he’d learned from Pops. People are what they are because of the choices they make and sometimes they’re going to be homeless no matter what kind of help they get—because they continue to make those choices.

  “This guy was wearing a suit?” Ramsey asked
now, glad he’d pulled his coat out of the backseat of his sedan before he’d hiked his way to the not-so-nice end of Main Street. Darkness had lowered the temperature considerably.

  “Yep.” Pops’s intonation went down instead of up. “Give id do me, doo,” the old man said in a language Ramsey understood from years of communicating with the guy.

  “You still have it?”

  “’Pends.”

  Reaching into the pocket of the brown slacks that matched his brown tie, Ramsey pulled out a twenty. “On what?” he asked, slipping the bill far enough into Pops’s ripped shirt pocket that it didn’t immediately fall back out.

  “On if you wanna look innat bin.” Pops pointed to a halfsmashed cardboard box, about the size of a large microwave oven, that was crammed under a couple of broken cement steps outside an old Laundromat.

  A couple of minutes later, with the suit safely tucked in a shopping bag that he’d used his badge to procure from the convenience store on the corner, Ramsey was heading up the walk of an apartment complex that he’d passed countless times back when he’d lived in the area, but never had reason before to visit.

  The address he’d acquired earlier that day—a woman who might know delivery driver Jack Colton.

  He knocked. With his hands tucked into the deep pockets of his tan, calf-length overcoat, he pulled the edges of the outer garment together while he waited. And then knocked again.

  A shuffling noise sounded from the other side of the door. The porch light came on. And then a dead bolt turned. The door opened a crack and a wrinkled, pert-nosed face peered through the small opening.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “Are you Amelia Hardy?”

  “Yes. How can I help you?”

  The elderly woman’s forehead barely measured as high as Ramsey’s chest. She was plump and stooped. And sounded like sunshine.

  He smiled. Kept his voice easy as he introduced himself, stated his precinct and showed her his detective badge. “I’m looking for someone who lived in this building about twentyfive years ago,” he said. Reaching into the pocket of his sport coat, he pulled out a photo of a younger Jack Colton. “This man. Do you remember ever seeing him before?”

  “Hmm.” Amelia frowned and bent over his hand until her nose was almost touching his palm. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Can I take it inside to get a better look? I have my magnifiers there.”

  “Of course,” Ramsey said, his hands folded in front of him as he waited.

  And waited.

  Five minutes later he was pretty sure Amelia had forgotten him.

  And then there she was, back at the door. “I’m sorry, young man,” she said, smiling at him as she handed him a cup filled with what smelled like chocolate. Ironic after the day he’d spent researching choclatiers.

  Or fitting.

  The photo he’d given her was nowhere to be seen.

  “I made a phone call to make sure you are really a cop and then put on water for some of my homemade cocoa mix. Would you like to come in?”

  He had hours of work ahead of him, things to do before he was due back on shift in the morning.

  “I’d like that,” he said without hesitation, and with a short movement forward, he stepped back in time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  L ucy waited a day and a half before making another trip to the lockup without obtaining permission to be there. Amber Locken might not have agreed to let her at her perp if she’d asked. Amber had made no secret about the fact that she thought Lucy was too emotionally connected to the case to have any official involvement. Their captain had agreed.

  Amber and the captain didn’t know Lucy well enough. She let herself into the jail just after the dinner hour on Wednesday, swiped her detective badge, made it through the next set of doors, swiped her badge again and then requested a visit with prisoner 281.

  Two-eighty-one was housed on the long-term-stay, dangerous-crime block. He was a man who had not yet been sentenced to prison. But he would be.

  Sloan Wakerby agreed to her request to see him. And why not? He didn’t have anything to lose.

  Used to interrogating suspects—dangerous ones—Lucy nonetheless second-guessed the advisability of what she was doing when the guard left her alone in the room with Sloan Wakerby. But the armed officer was just on the other side of the glass, watching every move that was made. She was perfectly safe.

  She wanted Wakerby alone. The guy didn’t respect women. He’d had a smirk on his face every single time she’d asked him a question the one other time she’d had a go at him. An official go. Ramsey Miller had been present that time. He’d flown in specifically for the interview.

  She’d asked Ramsey to come. But that was before Lucy had had a full handle on Wakerby.

  Her new theory was that if there were no men around, Wakerby might get cocky enough to give her something.

  She wasn’t choosy. Any little thing she could work with would do.

  “You ever hear of a woman named Gladys Buckley?”

  “If you think you’re pinning something else on me, you’d better give it up, lady.”

  “Gladys wasn’t raped.”

  “I don’t give a…”

  Lucy tuned out the rest of the man’s colorful reply regarding his lack of caring.

  “She’s an older woman,” she said instead.

  “I don’t have to talk to you without my lawyer present.”

  “That’s right, you don’t. I’m here to talk. You just listen.”

  Wakerby’s stare was harsher than the string of words he’d just hurled her way.

  “You were made,” she said as she set down her portfolio and took the cold hard metal seat across the scarred conference table from the slime who’d ruined her mother’s life.

  Wakerby grinned—an expression that only engaged half of his mouth—and shrugged.

  “You’re going to prison for the rest of your life. At the very least.”

  “Because of that bitch who ID’d me? Her testimony won’t hold up in court.”

  “Oh, no? Why not?”

  His full smile showed a row of broken and rotting teeth. Remembering what her mother had told her this man had done to her, Lucy almost threw up.

  “Talk to my lawyer,” Wakerby said.

  “I’m talking to you.” She would find her sister. Period. “I heard your victim describe what you did to her.” Her voice was calm. Nonjudgmental. “I’ve been at this awhile. Heard a lot of testimony. But what you did—original…and smart. The perfect crime. If technology hadn’t caught up with you, you’d have gotten away with it forever. You’d have paid a ticket for that broken light on your car when you were brought in and you would have walked free. What you did to that woman was wrong, but I have to tell you, I’m impressed by your ability to pull it off.”

  There were days Lucy didn’t like how the job made her act. This was one of those days.

  Sitting low in his chair with his ankle across his knee, Wakerby watched her, the slimy smile on his face making her angry enough to cry.

  “Yeah, you were the man,” she continued. “You did what other men only dream of doing. Had yourself a beautiful young woman, did exactly what you wanted with her and then threw her to the curb.”

  Wakerby’s smile grew.

  “Except now there’s a snag,” she continued. “A DNA snag.”

  He was still smiling. But the smile had stopped growing. Lucy registered the hit. The interrogation score.

  “You’re with Judge Landly,” she continued. “He’s a good judge. Intelligent and fair. He listens to both sides and pays attention to mitigators.

  “You know what those are?” Lucy asked, her voice soft. Curious.

  “I know what they are, bitch.” Wakerby wasn’t smiling now.

  Lucy used every ounce of her strength to sit there, to keep her demeanor soft, feminine and calm. “Yeah, extenuating circumstances that will reduce your sentence. And that’s what you need to be thinking about right now. You need
to figure out how you’re going to spin this to make you look less like the fiend the jury is going to find you. You know, why you couldn’t help doing what you did.”

  She paused. Now was the time, while it was just the two of them, for Wakerby to start justifying what he’d done. If she was doing her job as well as she normally did.

  Judging by the twitch in his chin, she was pretty sure she was doing fine.

  Wakerby’s smile had faded to a grin. He still watched her, saying nothing.

  Once she’d unearthed the identity of a man—Sloan Wakerby—who’d fixed a broken awning at a bar down by the river twenty-five years before, Lucy had only needed perseverance to find him.

  She was going to get this piece of shit.

  “Here’s another little hint about Judge Landly,” Lucy added. “If you’re honest in his courtroom, you’ve earned yourself a mitigator.”

  The man across from her didn’t budge.

  “You know what the penalty is for child abduction and murder in this state, Mr. Wakerby? Child abduction and rape carry significant penalties. The minimum sentence for murder is forty-five years.”

  Wakerby’s grin grew tight.

  “Ok, Mr. Wakerby. I guess we’re done here, then.” Picking up her folder, Lucy stood. She motioned for the guard and moved to the door. Just before the uniformed man let her out, she turned back.

  “You’ll be hearing from your lawyer soon, Mr. Wakerby. You aren’t just up for rape. Your victim had a baby with her who hasn’t been seen since you kidnapped them from the grocery store that day. We’re going for murder.” The D.A. hadn’t made a decision yet on the murder charge. But Lucy was pretty sure he was going to. “Have a good day.”

  Amber Locken might have her ass for the visit. But she’d wiped the smile off Sloan Wakerby’s face.

  A melia Hardy was almost ninety, with steel-gray hair pinned in a tight bun on the back of her head. She’d been in the same apartment, about seven miles from the ocean and twelve from the Comfort Cove tourist district, for more than seventy years, she told him. Using the same furniture, Ramsey suspected. The small living room was clean, uncluttered and yet very full. Books lined the built-in shelves and figurines stood in front of them.

  The claw-footed cherry coffee table and matching end tables bore white doilies and live plants, clear-glass coasters and magazines.

  “Please, have a seat,” Amelia said in her slightly unsteady birdsong voice. Glancing between the claw-footed embroidered sofa and the claw-footed matching peach wingback chair, Ramsey chose the chair. Amelia put his hot chocolate on a coaster on the end table beside him.