“You have to go to the police,” he said.
“I could be wrong. That time he showed up in the hospital, security checked on him. He really did have a friend who was a patient. It really was a coincidence that he was in the building.” She hesitated. “The other thing is…my dad says someone is watching him through our windows.”
“Casey—”
“But, Adam, Dad says it’s Richard Nixon.” She gave a little laugh, then sat back in her chair. “Would you want to go to the police and tell them your father thinks Richard Nixon is looking in your windows, but you think it might be this slug of a guy who you think might have killed this woman you never really knew but who haunts your dreams at night?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. He was wearing a navy suit with subtle pinstriping. His dress shirt was pale blue, his tie a navy and red paisley. The man knew how to wear a suit. He was nearly the antithesis of Lincoln, in his khakis and corduroy jacket, yet she couldn’t decide who was better looking.
“Would you want to call the police and tell them about Nixon?” she asked again.
“Okay, good point,” he conceded.
“I’ll sound like a nut job, and I don’t want this to negatively affect the case against Gaitlin.” She sipped her coffee. “I just want him arrested. I want him off the street. I want him to pay for what he did to Linda, and I don’t want another woman to be endangered by him ever again.”
Adam checked his watch. “Oh, hell.” He opened his hands. “I’m sorry, Casey, but I—”
“No, it’s okay.” She rose from her chair, taking her coffee with her, her bag slung over her shoulder. “I really appreciate you seeing me. I know you’re too busy for this kind of nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense and I’m glad you called. I’ll see what I can do to speed things up with the case.” He had stood, leaving his coffee on the table. He was close enough that she could have reached out and smoothed his already impeccable tie.
What was wrong with her? She’d just had sex with Lincoln the other night for the first time. She wasn’t available. And she really liked Lincoln.
So how could she be attracted to Adam like this?
“Thank you,” she said, looking down, her cheeks growing warm.
“I guess I’d better go.” He grabbed his cup. The coffee shop had exits on two different streets. He had to go one way, she the other. “Thanks for the coffee. I still owe you that glass of wine.”
Maury lay on his back in his new bunk in one of the dormitory rooms in the work-release building. He’d been moved earlier in the week and already had a job lined up as a mechanic for one of the local chicken plants. Monday morning at six-thirty he’d be on his way in a prison van to his first day of work, and his first taste of freedom in more than a year.
He studied the envelope on his chest. Danni had known exactly what day Maury had been moved, and he had properly addressed the mail so that it would go to his new friend in a timely manner. How had he known? Who was he? One of the guards?
The latest envelope was thicker than the others had been. There was something more inside than just a single sheet of paper. Maury looked up at the ceiling over his head. Inmates fought over who had to take a top bunk. Everyone wanted the bottom bunk. They went to the infirmary and got notes saying their back was too bad to climb up. But Maury liked the upper bunk because of the ceiling tiles. They were a new pattern to study. The tiles were exciting. Life had suddenly become exciting again.
And not just due to the change in his surroundings or to the taste of freedom he’d soon experience. Danni had made life exciting for him. He had opened a door of possibilities, although where that door would lead, Maury still didn’t know.
He picked up the envelope, drew it under his nose and sniffed. If he was going to open it in privacy, he’d have to open it now. His roommates had gone to the mess hall to get snacks out of the machine. That was the routine here: the inmates lined up for mail call at about nine P.M., and then they were free to get candy and sodas out of the vending machines before they had to retire to their room for the night.
The envelope smelled of paper, of sticky adhesive. Maury even thought he could smell the staples the guards had used to reseal the envelope. But beneath all of that, he smelled the very faint scent of newspaper print.
Danni had sent him a newspaper article!
What would it be? He couldn’t guess.
Suddenly, Maury was too curious to wait a moment longer. He carefully pried the staples out one at a time and straightened them out, then placed them on the bed beside him. He slid the folded sheet of paper out of the top of the envelope.
Sure enough, inside was a small newspaper clipping. Poor Aunt Emma, Danni had handwritten in the margin.
Maury eagerly read the clipping.
At approximately 2:00 A.M. Saturday morning, an unidentified male broke into a private home in Dewey Beach. The suspect entered the home through an unlocked window and brutally beat homeowner Emma Truman (62). Robbery is believed to have been the motive. Approximately $10,000 worth of jewelry and electronics were removed, as well as an antique silver tea service. Anyone with information on the robbery and assault should contact the state police. Mrs. Truman is in guarded condition at Christiana Hospital.
Maury read the article a second time. A third. Then he read Danni’s message handwritten in the margin. Maury had no Aunt Emma. Did Danni?
No. Danni was sending a secret message.
Maury’s heart began to beat a little faster.
Danni was boasting. Danni had beaten the old woman half to death and he wanted Maury to know it.
Casey stood at her bedroom window, peered through the opening in the curtains, and studied the car parked across the street. This time, she had her glasses on and she hadn’t been to bed yet. She wasn’t sleep muddled. She was clear-headed and quite certain of what she was seeing. The car was blue. Not white. It did not belong to a ghost boyfriend. In the night shadows, she couldn’t tell for sure, but she was almost positive it was Charles Gaitlin in the front seat behind the wheel.
Casey glanced at the cordless phone in her hand. Adam told her if she saw Charles near the house again, she should call the police.
The question was, Why did she doubt herself? Why was she still standing here in the dark holding the phone?
She thought she had good instincts. She thought the years of therapy had taught her to trust herself and her feelings as much as her logic. Hadn’t her instinct been right about Billy all those years ago? Why did she question herself now?
Casey leaned her forehead against the window frame, taking care that she couldn’t be seen through the window. She was close to tears. What was wrong with her? Why was this so hard? Did she want to be a victim? Some people did, on some level.
No. She closed her fingers tightly over the phone. She did not want to be a victim. Not ever again.
Casey called 911 and was told a state police car would be sent immediately. She wanted to call Lincoln…or maybe Adam, since he knew she was worried about Gaitlin following her, but she refrained. She didn’t need a man to come to her rescue. That had been part of her mistake with Billy. She had expected her father to protect her.
Casey followed the police dispatcher’s directions exactly. She did not turn on her bedroom light or any other lights in the house. She did not walk out of the house in her bathrobe to confront Gaitlin. She waited at her window. Seven minutes after she placed the call, the blue car pulled away. Eleven minutes after the call, a trooper rang her doorbell. She knew from experience at the hospital that that was actually a good response time. Big county. Not enough police to patrol at night.
She had watched the police cruiser pull into her driveway. She met the trooper at the front door in sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and slippers. Frazier barked like crazy from her father’s bedroom; fortunately, she had thought to shut his door before the police arrived.
“Miss McDaniel?” the tall trooper in a tall hat that made him appear eve
n taller asked from under the front-porch light.
“Yes, I’m Casey McDaniel. Thank you for coming.”
“I’m Trooper Brown. I understand you saw a suspicious car.”
“I think I’m being watched. Followed. The car was over there.” She pointed across the street. “It was parked between those two cars. I couldn’t quite see the driver, but I know who it was. His name is Charles Gaitlin.”
Trooper Brown took out a note pad and pen. “Gaitlin. That’s spelled how?”
She spelled it for him.
“Old boyfriend?” he asked.
“No.” Instinctively she wrapped both arms around her waist. It was cold outside. She thought about inviting the officer in, but Frazier would really go nuts if he heard a strange man’s voice in the house. Besides, didn’t Trooper Brown need to be on his way? Obviously Gaitlin wasn’t here now. Wouldn’t he want to go looking for him?
“I’m a victims’ advocate at SCH. I was supposed to testify against Mr. Gaitlin in a trial. He was accused of murdering his girlfriend.”
“You think he’s trying to intimidate you so you won’t testify against him? When’s the trial?”
Casey exhaled. “The trial date’s not been set yet.” She brushed her hair off her forehead, trying not to get flustered. Now that Gaitlin was gone, it seemed a little silly to be standing at the front door in the middle of the night talking to a state policeman. “It’s complicated. He was released, but any day now the county prosecutor intends to have him arrested again. Gaitlin must know that.”
“You witness the alleged murder?”
“No.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes again. She was tired and she had a headache now. “I worked with the victim. She called me the night she died. She told me he was breaking into her home. I called 911 for her. By the time the police arrived, she was dead.”
He looked down at her. “You get the tag number of this car parked in front of your house?”
He didn’t believe her. Or wasn’t all that interested. She could hear it in his voice. “No. It was too dark. I couldn’t see it because of the way he was parked, facing out of the neighborhood, and when he pulled away, it was too fast.”
“But you say the car was blue?”
She thought about Billy’s white car that looked so similar. She wondered why that first night she could possibly have thought Gaitlin’s car was Billy’s. “Yes, blue. Older. Kind of big. And…and it had a taillight out on the passenger’s side.”
“Well, ma’am, I’ll get your information and take a drive around the neighborhood—”
“But there’s nothing you can really do,” she said, suddenly feeling deflated. Why hadn’t she listened to her own instincts and not called. Now she looked like an idiot.
“Not if I can’t find the car, ma’am, and you can’t identify it by the driver or the license plate.”
But I know it was Gaitlin, she wanted to shout. But she kept her mouth shut, told the officer what he wanted to know: her full name, where she worked, phone numbers where she could be contacted. As she recited the information, she contemplated what she would do the next time she saw Gaitlin. Her instincts told her there would be a next time.
Chapter 13
“You haven’t said much about work.” Jayne stood on the other side of the kitchen table from Casey and dried her hands on a towel.
Casey was peeling sweet potatoes to make their mother’s famous sweet potato soufflé, a staple in the McDaniel family every Thanksgiving and one of the few things her mother had ever baked. The kitchen was filled with the tantalizing aroma of a free-range turkey roasting in the oven. The sound of a football game seeped from under the closed door between the dining room and the kitchen.
She wondered how Lincoln was faring in the family room with her brother-in-law, niece, nephew, and father but assumed since she hadn’t seen his car back out of the driveway, he was surviving. Sometimes that’s all a person could ask for with family holidays—survival.
“You know, it’s work.” Casey made a noncommittal shrug.
“So, no more trouble from the dead woman’s boyfriend?” Jayne turned her back to Casey and emptied a gigantic bag of frozen green beans into a rectangular casserole dish. “See. I told you it was nothing to worry about. Some of these poor souls, they just can’t get a break.” She tossed the bag into the trash can under the sink and walked to the refrigerator. “They were born to uneducated parents. Poor. Their parents had to work so hard just to put food on the table that the children didn’t get the nurturing they needed. We see it repeated generation after generation.”
Jayne continued her diatribe. Casey continued to peel sweet potatoes, barely hearing what her sister was saying. She debated whether or not to mention the latest incidences with Gaitlin or her visit from the state police the other night. A part of her needed to talk it out with someone, but what would be the point in that someone being her sister? Jayne would tell her she was imagining things. She would explain to Casey, yet again, how men like Gaitlin were always being falsely accused. How society, how Big Brother, was holding back the poor, uneducated man. She wouldn’t believe Casey.
“You see it every day in the newspapers. In my office, in yours,” Jayne rattled on. “What’s it going to take? That’s what I want to know. When are people going to stop being so selfish and look at the plight—”
“He’s been following me,” Casey interrupted. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She just couldn’t stand her sister being on her soapbox another minute. “Gaitlin has been following me.” She carried the colander of potatoes to the sink and flipped on the faucet.
“You really think so?” Jayne dumped canned soup on top of the green beans. “You’re sure you’re not just—”
“He was in my office, Jayne. I had to call security.” She pulled the sprayer from the sink and squirted the potatoes viciously, angry that Jayne could never be more supportive. “He said he was in the hospital visiting a sick friend. He said he just got off on the wrong floor, saw my office, and stopped to ask directions, but he was lying.”
“You still see your therapist?” Jayne set the two soup cans in the sink to be rinsed before they were tossed into the recycling bin.
Casey shot the cans with the sprayer. “Yes,” she answered testily. It was so like her sister to bring up Casey’s years of therapy. “What’s that got to do with Gaitlin being in my office? With him sending me possibly threatening notes in the mail?”
“You’re getting notes in the mail?”
“It was just a picture this time. An eye. But I think he’s trying to warn me that he’s watching me. I think he might be following me in his car, too.”
“What’s your therapist say?”
“We haven’t really discussed it. It’s an open case. Linda’s. I probably shouldn’t even have told you.” Casey frowned, shutting off the water. She picked up the colander full of potatoes and shook off the excess water. “We’ve mostly been talking about my dating again.”
“Aha.” Jayne began to stir the green bean and soup mixture with a wooden spoon. As she added milk, she nodded in the direction of the family room. “He’s nice looking. Pretty relaxed for your taste.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Casey began to cut up the potatoes at the kitchen table and dropping them into a pot of water. “And yes, he is pretty cute. You don’t think a nice-looking guy would want to go out with me?”
The minute the words flew out of her mouth, she wished she could take them back. They were unfair. That wasn’t what Jayne said and she knew it. But Jayne made her crazy. She made Casey say things she didn’t mean to say.
“I said he was nice looking, that’s all,” Jayne defended.
“And you said he seemed pretty relaxed. You don’t think someone who’s relaxed might be interested in me?”
“No, I did not say that. But, honestly, he’s not the kind of man you usually go for.”
“Jayne! How many men in my life have I ever gone for?”
�
��You have to admit John was pretty uptight.” Jayne pointed the wooden spoon accusingly at her. “Talk about falling for a guy just like your father.”
Casey cut the potatoes faster. Harder, if that was possible. Jayne had never liked John, not from day one. But he had been good to Casey. Good for her—at least for a while. Before the lying. The cheating.
Casey paused in the middle of slicing a potato. She had to hand it to Jayne; she really had hit home that time, hadn’t she? John had been just like her father—distant, superior. Hadn’t he?
Casey stared into the pot. “I really like Lincoln,” she said quietly. “I wish you could be happy for me. I wish you could be just a little bit supportive.” She glanced up at her sister. “I’m lonely, Jayne. Even with Daddy in the house, I’m lonely.”
“I like him, Casey.” She opened her arms. “I never said I didn’t. I was just expressing my surprise that he’s the kind of guy you would date seriously. You like men more clean-cut, more…I don’t know…driven.”
Casey immediately thought of Adam. Had she made a mistake throwing herself completely into this relationship with Lincoln when Adam would have been a better bet? Would they be more compatible? Adam was certainly driven. Certainly more clean-cut than Lincoln. She doubted the assistant deputy attorney ever let his hair get too long, and she knew there was no way he owned a corduroy jacket.
But she liked Lincoln. And she liked the fact that he liked her. “Let’s talk about something else,” Casey said.
She grabbed another potato. She needed to get them on the stove and boiled if the soufflé was going to be out of the oven by four. It was a good thing Jayne’s kitchen had two ovens. Most of the year the second one was used to store cookie sheets, but it came in handy at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“How’s Annabelle’s art class going? You said you were afraid you weren’t going to like her teacher’s methods.”
Don't Turn Around Page 13
