by Vicki Delany
“What did that mean?”
“Molly said they had no reason to arrest Desmond and ordered Ellie to go inside and let forensics do their work. Molly pointedly avoided looking at me.”
“Meaning…”
“Dave Evans and Molly answered the 911 call. When I got there Molly was alone at the scene, other than Ron Gavin, trying to calm Ellie down, trying to get the women to go inside, to get rid of Meredith, protect Desmond from any vigilantes who might arrive, and help Ron secure the scene. Dave was on the sidewalk out front, supposedly keeping curious passersby away. Although, at four a.m., there weren’t any.”
“Something must have happened. I’ll talk to Molly.”
“Unlikely she’ll tell you,” Lopez said.
If Evans had wanted to arrest Desmond, already suing the TCP in an extremely high-profile case, with no grounds, and Molly stopped it, Evans was darn lucky. Evans was a hothead. Everyone knew it. He was fonder of the authority that came with the gun and the uniform than Winters thought healthy. He always figured Dave Evans would screw up one day, and get himself kicked off the force. That would be his problem, but if he screwed up and the fallout landed on the TCP, that would be everyone’s problem. Winters made a note to have a word with the chief. Nothing they could do, unless Molly laid a complaint. And she wouldn’t. A police officer, more than almost any other job, had to be able to count on colleagues to be at their back. Lives depended on it. The police union wouldn’t let them fire Evans because John Winters had a suspicion he might have done something he shouldn’t.
Winters’ phone rang, cutting off all thoughts about his junior officers.
“Morning, John. Steve Barrington here. I got your message. What’s up?”
Yesterday Winters had put a call into the RCMP detachment that looked after the area closest to where the gas station receipt he’d found in Doug Kibbens’ effects had come from. They exchanged greetings and news for a couple of minutes and then Winters said, “I’m looking into a cold case, and came across something you might know about. I haven’t got much, but I’m trying to locate what is likely a deceased from 1991. A white male.”
“And…”
“Not much to go on, I know. I don’t have a picture, I don’t have a description. But I do know he was missing the first joint of an index finger. I have reason to suspect he was either killed or dumped after death in the forest near Winlaw. I don’t even know if his remains have been located.”
“Lots of forest around here, John.”
“This is a heck of a shot in the dark, I know.”
“Let me see what I can find. I’ll call you back.”
“Thanks.” Winters was about to say there was no hurry, but he bit the words back. As long as Walt Desmond insisted on hanging around Trafalgar, he’d treat this case as urgent.
It wasn’t long before Winters’ phone rang. “That was quick,” he said.
Steve Barrington chuckled. “Not hard to find. In 2001 human remains were discovered near a hiking trail not far from Winlaw. The doc estimated they’d been there for about ten years, maybe a few more, not much less. The skeleton was virtually complete. He guessed that the body had been well buried, but recent excessively heavy rains washed part of the mountainside away and uncovered it. Male, thirty to fifty years old, Caucasian. That’s about all he could determine. The few scraps of clothes found on him were mass-produced. The one distinguishing feature of the deceased was a neatly severed portion of the index finger on his left hand. Cut with a sharp object, not chewed by animals post-mortem. The body was never identified or claimed.”
“They able to determine the cause of death?”
“Marks consistent with passage of a bullet were found on the ribs and one bullet was still resting in the skull cavity. The round was from a single-shot hunting rifle. Not an uncommon weapon.”
“Could that have happened by accident? A hunter out on his own?”
“The autopsy report says foul play was suspected, and I’d say suspected is an understatement. One shot could possibly be an accident, unlikely two. But I doubt he stood up, dusted himself off, and decided to dig himself a grave.”
“That we can be sure of. I’m particularly interested in a piece of jewelry. A woman’s bracelet.”
Winters heard keys tapping. “Nothing found on or around the body,” Barrington said. “No wallet, papers, anything. Certainly no bracelet. I’m guessing the bracelet was a shiny thing, right?”
“Yes.”
“Even if he did have it on him when he was buried, when the remains were uncovered a bit of jewelry’s likely to be something the first passing bird would pick up. A nice pretty trophy for her nest.”
“I want to have this guy sent for another autopsy. Okay with you?”
“Have at it.”
“Thanks.” Winters hung up. A body had been discovered fifteen years ago and never claimed. Which means the deceased had no one who particularly cared about him or was searching for him. It had been buried for about ten years prior to being uncovered. That put it precisely in the time frame of the murder of Sophia D’Angelo, but that came as no surprise to Winters.
He called Barrington back. “One more question. The reason I’m asking is that it might have to do with a cold case the TCP handled. Is there any sign of TCP involvement?”
“Nope. We contacted you guys, of course. There seems to have been a sudden interest, thinking it might be the body of some guy who’d disappeared from Trafalgar, name of Nowak, but it turned out not to be him. Dental records were a total mismatch.”
“Thanks again.”
“Any time.”
Doug Kibbens had kept a picture of the hand of an apparently dead man with Sophia’s bracelet. Rather than report the discovery of the body and a piece of costume jewelry everyone was searching for, Kibbens had shoved the photo deep into his desk drawer.
Had Kibbens buried the body himself? Had he taken the bracelet with him, or left it to be picked up by scavengers?
Or had Kibbens found the photograph and for some reason not turned it in?
Why would an unidentified and unclaimed dead man have Sophia’s bracelet? Winters could think of only one reason. He’d killed her and taken the jewelry as a souvenir.
Why on Earth, if that was the case, would the investigating detective not have reported finding it?
Curiouser and curiouser.
He started the paperwork necessary to have the remains transferred to the morgue in Trail for Dr. Lee to have a look at. Probably not much she would find that the original autopsy hadn’t, but you never knew. His phone rang again. Jim Denton on the dispatch desk.
“I got a call from the Mountain View motel. A bunch of men have shown up and are demanding to speak to Walter Desmond. Desmond declined to speak with them, and they say they are not leaving. I’ve sent a patrol car.”
Winters groaned. What was this? The Wild West? “I’ll go.”
Chapter Thirty-four
“You don’t want to do this, Carolanne,” Walt said.
“I think I do.”
“I’m nothing but trouble. You saw what happened last night. That stupid cop was going to drag me off in handcuffs. He didn’t need evidence, he didn’t need proof. If that policewoman hadn’t been there, I would have had an accident in the back of the cruiser.”
“All the more reason,” she said, “that you need me around.”
He smiled at her. “To keep me safe?”
She smiled back. “Yes.”
He turned away. Poor Carolanne; she had no idea what she was getting into. This motel room was cheap and nasty, but it was the sort of place where a man could show up at four in the morning and be given a room with no questions asked. He couldn’t offer her a chair, so she perched awkwardly on the edge of the small, hard bed.
“How’s Darlene?” he asked.
“She’s
going to be fine. They want to keep her in another night, for observation. I said I’ll stay and help out. I called my office and told them I won’t be back tomorrow as planned.”
“Doesn’t she have family?”
Carolanne glanced away. “Her husband’s coming. But, well, I thought she might like to have a friend around.”
And they were back where they started. If nothing else, Walter thought with a smile, Carolanne was a loyal friend.
A knock sounded on the door. He groaned. The cops. More questions. More probing. More harassment.
Carolanne got up and went to the door.
He’d phoned Louise this morning to tell her what had happened last night. He could almost hear her rubbing her perfectly manicured hands together in glee. An associate of hers, she said, would be on the next plane out of Vancouver. If the TCP twitched in Walt’s direction, they’d sue the police and the town of Trafalgar for every penny they had.
Louise was not a friend. She was most definitely not loyal. Unless her loyalty was to justice, which she knew was not always the same thing as the law. If she so much as suspected Walter had put a toe over the line, she’d drop him and his suit in a second.
Still, he was darn glad she was on his side.
“Time we had another talk, Desmond,” Gino D’Angelo said from the open door. His son stood on one side of him, a hefty young man on the other. They were not brandishing weapons, not that Walt could see anyway, and there were no mysterious bulges beneath their summer-weight trousers and tee-shirts. But the unknown guy looked like he knew one end of a fight from another almost as well as Walt did, and whatever happened, Walt would not defend himself against a tired old man as wrapped in his grief today as he had been twenty-five years ago.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
Gino looked at Carolanne. “Get lost, woman.”
She slammed the door in his face and twisted the lock. She spun around to face Walt, her eyes wide and frightened. D’Angelo hammered on the door.
“Shall I phone the police?” Carolanne said, her voice low.
“That would be a good idea.” Walt sat on the bed next to her while she made the call. He took her hand. The pounding on the door continued. Someone, probably the desk clerk, arrived and asked what was going on. He said he was calling the cops. Tony D’Angelo yelled at him to go ahead.
It was time, Walter realized, for him to be on his way. Louise’s associate was due to get into town any minute. He’d leave with the lawyer. Go someplace where no one knew him, where they wouldn’t stare when he passed or try to get the police to arrest him because some bitter relative wanted to start a fight. Somewhere where he didn’t have to watch out that the cops themselves weren’t about to nudge him into an alley.
Sirens. Coming their way. Pulling up next to his door.
“What’s going on here?” a woman called.
“That man,” Gino D’Angelo said, “he killed my daughter. He’s out of jail and he’s assaulting women and you people don’t care.”
“We care very much,” the woman said. “But right now I care that you are disturbing the peace. Please, go home, sir.”
Walter let go of Carolanne’s hand and went to the window. He pulled back the curtain and took a peek outside. A policewoman, not the pretty blond who was Andy Smith’s daughter, but another one, shorter, squarer, stood between Gino and the motel room door, trying to reason with him. A sizeable crowd had gathered. He studied their faces, but could see nothing other than mild curiosity. That, he knew, could change in an instant.
A truck, more rust and dust than metal, pulled to the side of the road. The window rolled down. A light flared as the person inside lit a cigarette.
Walter’s gut tightened. Jack McMillan. He didn’t get out of the truck but he didn’t need to. Walt knew who it was. He could smell him; could feel him. McMillan had haunted his dreams for a long time. He lifted his arms, put them into position. Sighted down the length of his right arm. Took a beading on the fat head, the ugly face. If he had a rifle, he’d use it. If he could blow the bastard’s head off, he’d go back to jail a happy man.
Involuntarily he glanced toward his backpack, in which were all his worldly possessions. No. Not here. Not in front of Carolanne.
“Walt,” Carolanne said. “What’s happening?”
He lowered his arms, turned his back to the window, took a deep breath, and tried to smile at her. “Don’t worry. The police are here.”
When he checked outside again, a van was parking close to his door. The man who got out was in his fifties, face well-lined, hair mostly gray. He sported a neat although unfashionable salt-and-pepper mustache, and was dressed in jeans and a blue shirt under a light jacket. Nothing about him, not the way he looked or the way he walked or the way he held himself, said cop.
But Walter Desmond knew that was what he was.
“Go home, Gino,” the man said.
“I will not, Sergeant Winters. Not until you arrest that man.”
“You can’t tell us what to do, Winters,” Tony said. “It’s a free country.”
“It is that, but the owner of this private property has called us saying you’re making a disturbance. Looks like a disturbance to me. If the person in that room, whoever that might be, doesn’t want to talk to you, you can’t bash down the door.”
“The doctors are saying my mother will never recover. You don’t care about her. You don’t care about my sister. You don’t care….”
“This is getting tedious,” Winters said. “Go home. Constable Solway, please ask the onlookers to disperse. Anyone who refuses, arrest them.”
“Forget about my sister, then. Forget about the man who killed her. What about the women of this town today? What about the crimes he’s committing now?”
“Your own wife, for God’s sake man!” Gino shouted.
“The women at Ellie Carmine’s befriended him,” Tony said, his voice rising as he approached hysteria. “He thanked them by attacking one of them.”
“That’s right,” someone shouted. “I read it in the paper this morning.”
Constable Solway was having no luck getting people to move. The crowd was growing and Walter could hear whispers passing from person to person. The mood was getting ugly. Solway spoke into the radio at her shoulder, and threw a glance toward the motel room window.
“Walter Desmond did not commit the attack in Trafalgar on Wednesday, and not last night either,” Winters said. “An arrest is imminent.”
“Is that true, John?” a man shouted.
“I don’t believe you,” Tony D’Angelo said.
“Mr. Angelo, I am not going to stand here in the street and lay out my case in front of the public. I am telling you, all of you, that we have evidence we will be bringing before a judge in due course and that evidence has nothing to do with Mr. Walter Desmond.”
“Good enough for me,” the man in the crowd said. He headed for his car, and several people followed him. Another police car pulled up to the motel. A spotlessly clean yellow Ford Explorer pulled into the motel lot.
“Go home, Mr. D’Angelo,” Winters said in a low voice. “Please don’t cause any more trouble. Tony, leave. Now.”
“I don’t…”
“It’s all right, son,” the old man said. “We’ve tried. It’s between him and his God now.” Gino threw a look at the motel room window one last time, and then turned and shuffled away. His head was bent and his steps were heavy.
“Are you going to see your father safely home?” Winters said to Tony.
Tony hesitated. He glanced at the other man who’d come with them, who merely shrugged.
“Or are you going to make your dad walk all the way by himself?” Winters asked.
Without a word, Tony left. His friend followed.
Walt opened the door. “Thanks,” he said.
Winters stuck out his hand. “I’m Sergeant John Winters. Trafalgar City Police. I’m investigating the Sophia D’Angelo murder. I’ve been wanting to ask you some questions. Seems now’s as good a time as any. Can I come in?”
“I hope you’re not planning on ordering me not to leave town. That would be ironic, don’t you think?”
“You’re more than welcome to do as you please. But if you are referring to last night’s incident, I’m not investigating that.”
The Explorer pulled into a parking space next to the cruiser. Solway moved as if to tell him to keep on going, but Walt took a guess at who this might be and said, “He’s with me.” The pickup truck drove away with a puff of exhaust and rattling of the muffler.
Walt watched it go, and then he stepped back. “Come on in. My lawyer’s arrived. Good timing.” The man hurrying toward them clutching a briefcase to his chest was so young, Walt wondered if he shaved yet.
“Mark McMaster. What’s going on?”
Handshakes all around. Sergeant Winters nodded to Solway, indicating she could leave.
Carolanne stood beside the bed. She said nothing. All the time, while the crowd gathered outside and the tension built, Walt had been aware of her, standing at his side. In prison he’d learned to smell fear. He had smelled it on her, but she had made no move to leave him.
He didn’t much care what happened to him. He’d been through the worst the world could throw at him. He’d survived. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t. But responsibility for another person, that was different altogether.
“Leave us now, please, Carolanne,” he said.
“I’d like to stay.”
“I want you to go.”
Her eyes were wide, traces of fright still lingered. “I…” her voice broke. “I have to go home tomorrow. I have my job and…things to do.”
She picked up her purse and dug through the contents. She pulled out a pen and a scrap of paper. “If you need anything, Walt, here’s my number.” She scribbled quickly and placed the paper carefully on the nightstand. She walked out of the room. Sergeant Winters shut the door behind her.
