Stone Cold

by Dean Crawford

  Kathryn looked down at the black and whites. ‘You found a potential suspect yet?’

  ‘Nope,’ Griffin said. ‘At least nobody that stands out as being out of place, or doing something they shouldn’t be, let alone shooting photos of our vic’. Looks like whoever did this shot the image from a moving vehicle and we can’t chase up every single person who drove down this through–fare since that wall was scrubbed.’

  ‘Which is probably why they chose it,’ Kathryn said. ‘They’d know you guys couldn’t isolate them.’

  Griffin looked up at her. ‘You think?’

  Maietta, sitting nearby at her desk, looked up at Griffin. ‘How could they know she would be there at any given time? They’d have to have been watching, right? Even taking the photograph would have to be planned to some extent.’

  ‘If they already knew Sheila McKenzie was likely to wander up and down that street from time to time, then they’re better off timing their shot here than on some dingy side–street or outside her art shop,’ Griffin confirmed. ‘If it’s in the top end of town then there would be other things, like reflections in windows that could be used to identify a driver shooting film if the security camera itself is near the vehicle. Here, where these black and whites were shot, there’s just a brick wall. Saira said that Sheila last wore this dress three days ago.’

  ‘Which also confirms,’ Maietta said, ‘that this abduction was planned over a period of time.’

  ‘There’s money then, in the family I mean, the ability to raise cash?’ Captain Olsen asked as he strode out of his office.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s another thing,’ Griffin said. ‘These two, Dale and Sheila, bring home about five hundred thousand between them each year, which sets them up real cosy at home but isn’t anything like what they’d need to pay off a ransom like this and that’s what I don’t get. You want ten million bucks out of somebody, you go abduct Paris Hilton on Oprah or something, not an airline pilot’s wife.’

  ‘Maybe they’re not the real target?’ Olsen hazarded. ‘Dale McKenzie’s a long–service pilot with Ventura, right? Maybe the idea is to get the airline to pay out?’

  ‘That’s what we figured,’ Maietta said. ‘Hit the employee and the employer steps up to the plate. Griffin isn’t having any of it, though.’

  ‘Why not?’ Olsen asked him.

  ‘Because it’s just plain dumb,’ Griffin replied. ‘Why take the risk that the company might just say no? You’re doubling your odds of failure.’

  ‘Or from a psychological point of view, doubling your odds of success,’ Kathryn said softly, not wanting to interrupt the conversation but equally unwilling to be ignored on the side–lines. ‘If you were to abduct somebody famous, somebody rich and powerful, then that person’s family would have sufficient resources to bring the whole world down upon you, maybe even hire hit–men or bounty hunters or whatever. With this guy’s wife and a small regional airline, they’re pretty much stuck with law enforcement.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Griffin smiled without warmth.

  ‘Just sayin’.’

  ‘I don’t know, it just doesn’t figure,’ Griffin said. ‘And why so much money? Why not a million bucks instead, something that the airline or even the husband could feasibly dig up?’

  ‘You’re projecting,’ Kathryn said.

  ‘I’m what?’

  ‘Projecting,’ Kathryn repeated, ‘putting your mind into the mind of the abductor. It doesn’t work. You’re assuming they’re intelligent when they could just be plain dumb.’

  ‘They were intelligent enough to plan this whole thing. I’ve got to assume they’ve approached everything else with the same diligence.’

  Kathryn tapped her watch. ‘Have you got a moment for me?’

  ‘Didn’t we do that already? I’m off duty anyway, time for me to go home.’

  ‘I thought home was over rated?’ Kathryn replied. ‘Besides, it’s two chats per day, remember?’

  Griffin glanced at Olsen. The Captain raised an expectant eyebrow, and as though finally accepting the inevitable Griffin nodded toward a nearby vacant office. Kathryn led the way and closed the door behind the detective. He sat down behind the bare desk as Kathryn took the seat opposite.

  ‘So, how are things?’

  ‘Same as this morning. Are we done?’

  ‘We’re just beginning. You never told me your wife’s name.’

  ‘Angela,’ Griffin replied. ‘She prefers the full name, not a shortening of it.’

  Kathryn made a show of writing the name down in her notebook. ‘Good, that’s a start.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘People have different ways of showing things,’ Kathryn explained. ‘You didn’t say your wife’s name despite me asking about her several times this morning. Often it’s not what people say that defines them, but what they don’t say.’

  ‘You think too much,’ Griffin said. ‘You analyse every tiny detail, every word no matter how insignificant, and draw conclusions when there’s nothing to be learned.’

  ‘Does a detective not analyse every aspect of a case because the smallest detail can lead to the biggest results?’

  Griffin glanced up at the ceiling. ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘It’s exactly the same,’ Kathryn insisted. ‘You’re no criminal, but you seek to conceal emotions and worries just as a criminal seeks to conceal a crime.’ She smiled. ‘You’re guilty as hell Scott, and you know it.’

  ‘I’m guilty of trying to do my job,’ Griffin replied and tapped his head with a finger. ‘I don’t think like you do. I don’t want to think like you do. I don’t want to analyse my dreams or censor every single word I say just because you’re here jotting them all down in your little book.’

  Kathryn smiled. ‘That’s why I’m here to do it for you, so you can get on with your job.’

  Griffin ran his hands through his hair and shook his head.

  ‘You’re a distraction, Kathryn, okay? I can’t think straight when you’re hovering around me here and second guessing my thoughts.’

  ‘I’m not here to second guess anybody,’ Kathryn said. ‘I make observations because I want to help.’

  ‘You’re not helping.’

  ‘Neither are you. This is something you just have to go through, Scott.’

  ‘It’s detective.’

  ‘Fine, detective. It’s something you just have to accept, that you’re not ready to return to full duty and have your firearm returned to you until I deem so. I don’t care if I have to sit in this room twice a day with you for the next ten years, I’ll do it until I see the real you come back out.’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean? You only met me this morning. How the hell could you know anything about me other than what you’ve got in those files of yours?’

  ‘What did you talk to Angela about last night?’

  ‘Talk about?’

  Kathryn leaned back in her chair and let the silence draw out. Griffin sat with his arms folded and stared back at her.

  ‘We ate dinner, then she went out to a friend’s house.’

  ‘Good, and did you speak when she came home?’

  ‘What difference does it make? You know we’re not talking much right now.’

  ‘Is that you not talking, or Angela?

  Griffin held Kathryn’s gaze for a long moment. ‘Both.’

  ‘Did she go out just to see a friend do you think, or did she just want to get out of the house for a bit?’

  ‘Away from me, you mean?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, but maybe you think so.’

  ‘You’re putting words into my mouth.’

  ‘You started it.’

  Griffin’s features cracked into a faint grin, and he looked briefly down at the table top. ‘She goes out a lot of evenings.’

  ‘Want some advice?’ Kathryn asked. Griffin looked at her but said nothing. ‘Tonight, on your way home, grab some flowers and a bottle of wine, whatever it is that you think you’ll both enjoy,
and start talking to Angela. If she sees you’re making an effort it might help to break the ice.’

  ‘Angela doesn’t do flowers.’

  ‘Angela doesn’t? Or you don’t?’ Griffin said nothing. ‘Tell me something, honestly. Does your wife also have some issues you might want to share with me or..?’

  ‘No,’ Griffin cut across her. ‘She’s fine, really.’

  Kathryn nodded. ‘Then it’s you who needs to do something, because it sounds to me like your wife has become either unable or unwilling to, and I’m guessing I don’t need to tell you where that will go if things are left unchanged.’

  Griffin sighed, his arms still folded.

  ‘Do it,’ Kathryn insisted. ‘Baby steps, show Angela you’re not blind to what’s happened to you and that the person she met all those years ago is still in there.’

  ‘Are we done?’

  ‘We’re done.’

  Griffin stood up and walked toward the office door. Kathryn called after him as he opened it.

  ‘Detective?’ Griffin halted, but did not look back at her. ‘We’re on the same side, remember? I’m not the enemy.’

  Griffin looked back at Kathryn.

  ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘You’re trying to help and I’m not receptive to that help. That’s because I deal with things in my own way, in my own time, and I’ll get there in the end.’

  Kathryn nodded.

  ‘I don’t doubt that you will, detective. My concern is how much of a life and a family you’ll have left by the time you achieve that on your own.’

  ***

  13

  ‘It’s not that complicated.’

  ‘It’s not that bloody easy, either!’

  Kathryn sat with her legs curled beneath her on the sofa as Ally sipped a glass of chilled wine and watched her from across the living room.

  With Stephen gone on one of his business trips the apartment felt somehow lighter and more airy to Kathryn, even though the blinds were drawn against the cold, dark night outside.

  ‘All I need you to do, Ally, is just say the right things at the right time,’ Kathryn soothed. ‘I mean, come on, you want to see this happen as much as I do, right?’

  Ally smiled over her glass.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed with a giggle. ‘Stephen is clearly an individual who needs a damned good seeing too, in every respect.’

  Kathryn frowned. ‘He’s an adulterous shite.’

  ‘He’s also your partner, and until this happened he was the best thing that’s ever happened to you. You never used to stop singing his praises.’

  ‘Should boyfriends routinely hurry off and sleep with other women?’ Kathryn challenged.

  ‘No,’ Ally said, ‘but as a matter of fact they do it regularly. I think that relationships are not our natural state of being. For the most part men are clearly happier sowing their seed with any trollop that they can find and never seem to grow out of it, so let them. They have used women for their own ends for millennia. I say, screw them: let’s use them to make babies and then let them spend the rest of their time fighting over whatever slappers are left.’

  ‘That’s a lovely image,’ Kathryn uttered. ‘You’re full of romance, Ally. Maybe you and Stephen should get together?’

  ‘Maybe we should,’ Ally shrugged. ‘Although there wouldn’t be much point I don’t think. Fifty per cent of all marriages fail and most of them fail due to unfaithful partners, most of whom turn out to be men. Don’t you read the glossies, Kathryn?’

  ‘I prefer real life to magazines.’

  ‘You’re the one with the wandering partner.’ Kathryn glared at Ally, who giggled and waved her hand airily. ‘You know I don’t mean it like that. Yes, he’s scum, but you’re the psychologist … haven’t you asked yourself why he’s done this?’

  Kathryn realised that she was somewhat caught off guard by the question. In the midst of conjuring up her dastardly plot she had forgotten the raw fury she had felt at Stephen’s lies, the catalyst for her vengeful crusade.

  Kathryn had never had lots of money, had never sought a stellar career in the city or thought that she could be anything more than what she really wanted to be: happy in her life and to share that happiness with a decent, faithful man. What woman ever needed anything more than that? Sure, many wanted fame and the adulation of their peers; others sought seclusion through isolation and rarely ventured into the dating game or foraged through the dung mound of men packed inside sweaty, pounding nightclubs. In some respects Ally was a bit like that: she occasionally “got lucky”, but generally kept men at arm’s length, considering them all to be, as she said, from the devil.

  In Stephen, though, Kathryn believed that she had finally discovered the gem that so many sought, the Holy Grail of Manhood resplendent before her as though she alone had emerged victorious from a lifelong quest to achieve the peace and happiness denied or eluded by so many others. The term whirlwind romance didn’t cover it. Stephen was handsome, kind, generous and focused entirely on Kathryn, and she had been swept along in his wake like a joyous dolphin playing behind a cruise liner, and she had made no attempt to conceal or deny it. The rational part of her mind had constantly both sought reassurance and searched for the chinks in her valiant knight’s shining armour, and had found none.

  Stephen, for all she could ascertain, had been literally perfect.

  She had imagined their future marriage. Surrounded by friends, which accounted for their families too as they were both orphans. Photographers and little children dressed in clothes that could not possibly survive the day unstained. The vows. The applause. The alcohol. The first dance. The last dance. The honeymoon.

  And then life came along.

  Bills. Rent. Jobs. Economic crash. Foreclosures. Jobs lost, once successful businesses floundering. Stephen struggling to earn his commission. Kathryn struggling to get through college a decade after she should have done instead of dropping out and getting the first job that had come along in a cheap Nevada diner. Run down cars and takeaways. And yet through all of it they had each other and Kathryn had drawn such comfort from that, knowing that no matter what happened they would have each other’s backs and could probably get through just about anything.

  Team Family.

  And then had come the revelations, one after the other, that Stephen was not all that he appeared to be. The months of worry, the ache of hope that somehow she was mistaken and that the truth would be a carnival of delight when she learned that Stephen was in fact secretly working double–shifts to earn more money or had another job as a fireman or was in fact a caped, underpants–on–the–outside Superhero saving kittens from burning buildings.

  But no. Stephen was a fraud, a liar. A thief. The wolf at the door.

  ‘He’s done this because he’s not a man,’ Kathryn replied finally. ‘Not the man I hoped he could be.’

  Ally saw the despair crouching in shame behind Kathryn’s words and she hurried over to Kathryn’s side. She hefted herself next to Kathryn on the sofa and hugged her.

  ‘Kathryn, maybe Stephen’s never going to be the person you want him to be no matter what you try. He was good for you, but if it was all a lie then what did you have in the first place?’

  Kathryn smiled a bitter little smile that tasted sour on her tongue, but she held her wine glass tight as she replied.

  ‘Would you walk away without trying?’

  Ally sighed.

  ‘No, of course not, but maybe you should just confront him with all that you’ve learned and get it all out in the open. I’ve seen this before, Kathy. People keep everything inside and it consumes them until they just can’t bear each other anymore.’

  ‘I think I’m already past that stage.’

  ‘And that’s what worries me,’ Ally said. ‘What you’ve got in mind could just as easily blow up in your own face as convince Stephen that he should be here and not wherever the hell else it is he goes.’

  Kathryn stared down at the glistening glass of wine
in her hand. Truth was, she could not be at all sure that her cunning plan would have any effect on a man who seemed to be a stranger to her. Yet he knew her, had known her now for years, and must somewhere in his heart hold a place for her? How the hell could any person achieve the kindness that he had when all the while being a cheat and a thief?

  ‘Some people are lost,’ Kathryn said, an image of detective Griffin appearing in her mind’s eye.

  ‘Some people are idiots,’ Ally shot back. ‘For all the good that Stephen was, you deserve better, Kathryn. Maybe I could have a word with him?’

  Kathryn smiled, her eyes brimming with tears that seemed reluctant to fall. ‘I don’t want you to say a word to Stephen.’

  ‘I won’t need to speak to him while I’m driving my knee into his family jewels. Come to think of it, he wouldn’t have much to say after that anyway.’

  Kathryn’s smile didn’t break but she shook her head. ‘I don’t think that will help my cause any.’

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ Ally grinned. ‘Men only tend to start using their brains when their dicks are out of service.’

  ‘And their dicks when their brains are out of service.’

  Ally grinned over her wine glass. ‘So, what exactly to you need me to do?’

  ‘There’s some stuff I need,’ Kathryn said, and wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve. ‘Just general shopping really. It’s better that I don’t buy it myself, as I don’t want any chance of Stephen figuring out what I’m up to.’

  ‘Hope you’re going to send me the cash,’ Ally said. ‘I’m up to my neck for eight thousand dollars right now, remember? It’s going to take me two years to get that paid off.’

  Ally had found herself on the wrong end of a foreclosure on her mortgage when she had been made redundant months before. Like so many, her comfortable life had been shattered in the economic collapse, and now she rented a tiny apartment just as Kathryn did, barely able to make ends meet and in debt to her mortgage provider.

  ‘Of course I will,’ Kathryn said. ‘I just need you to purchase them on my behalf.’