Resort to Murder

by Glenys O'Connell

  “I had an early morning visitor,” Ellie said a few moments later, ignoring Reilly’s dark look. “Jack Darnley. He uses his birth name of Goodfellow - seems he was Susan Eckersly’s fiancé. He wanted to know if I thought Abbott really was the Slasher. “

  Reilly gave a low whistle. “How in hell didn’t that come up during the investigation? Goodfellow was the fiancé of the fourth Slasher victim? He must have taken off to the States after the trial. And now he’s back - and there’s another killing.”

  “We assumed he was Jack Darnley because he's Larry Darnley's brother - stepbrother, actually. But he kept his birthname, Goodfellow, which is how it slipped past..." Would he have come to cry on my shoulder if he’d killed Roberta Collins?” Ellie thought out loud.

  “He might, if he wanted to pump you for information. Why didn’t he tell the officer who interviewed him, up front?”

  “Who interviewed him?”

  Reilly muttered another low curse. “Richards was supposed to have done—want to bet the lazy bastard just phoned and had a casual chat?”

  As they drove, Reilly reached into the back seat and handed her a small box. “It’s a regulation-issue cell phone, already programmed to key police and departmental numbers, including mine and Jane’s. Why not acquaint yourself with it now?

  “You’ll need that phone if you’re coming back into police work as a detective. The force won’t pay bills on your private mobile. Lives have been saved due to ready access to a phone. It also means there’s absolutely no way of hiding from Harris, short of leaving the country and getting out of range.” Reilly managed a smile, but Ellie could see he was worried. Police officers didn’t generally go AWOL the way Richards appeared to have done, not without some sinister cause. Ellie fastened the zipper on her sweatshirt to stifle a cold shiver that passed over her like an omen.

  Reilly reached for the car radio, and called for a report on Jack Goodfellow to be on his desk before noon. He also asked for news of Richards. There was none.

  Resort to Murder

  Chapter ELEVEN

  They left a posse of uniformed officers searching the area around Richards’ house, prodding into foliage and poking their heads into garden sheds. They knew all their efforts might be too late. They’d seen the overturned furniture in the house, the obvious signs of struggle. And the drops and smears of blood on the gray kitchen floor tiles.

  Now back in Reilly’s office, Ellie clasped her arms across her breasts, her thoughts awhirl, as Reilly strode in and settled himself behind his desk. One look at his face told her the day could only get worse. Reilly ignored her as he scanned message slips, and Ellie was determined not to break the heavy silence. She jumped when Reilly finally spoke.

  “What kind of game are you playing, Ellie?” he asked softly, his narrowed eyes fixed on her like laser beams trying to read her soul.

  “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Ellie answered, the “sir” both an insult and a warning. Keep away from me, Reilly.

  “We’ve already discussed your …close…” His lip curled on the word. “Your close relationship with the number one suspect in this murder case. Do you need reminding that despite your ‘intuitive’ denials, Bradley Scott Anderson has not been cleared from the picture?” He waved away her attempt at protest. “Let me finish. The next thing is I find you more or less in flagrante delecto with Anderson. Might I remind you we’re dealing with murder here, that your activities could compromise the investigation?”

  “Don’t be so damned officious, Reilly. Nothing I’ve done is likely to compromise this investigation. It wasn’t how it looked.” Ellie’s pulse surged with anger as she found herself on the defensive yet again.

  “Oh, it never is, Ellie. It never is.” There was a weariness in his voice, but his next words sent chills skittering across her skin. “You do understand that I have to take you off this case, don’t you? I simply cannot have an officer investigating a case where there is such intimacy between her and the prime suspect.”

  She hugged her arms across her breasts. The color drained from her face and she had to lean back against the rough upholstery. His attitude couldn’t have hurt more if he had physically punched her.

  Moved by her reaction, Reilly stood and came around the desk to lay a comforting hand on her arm. Ellie didn’t miss the savage flare of wanting in his eyes that accompanied the simple tender gesture. But that gave her a weapon—if she was cruel enough, ambitious enough, to use it.

  Oh, yes, the stakes are too high to be squeamish.

  Taking a deep breath, she shrugged off his hand, straightening her spine as she stood to face him nose to nose. God, she wished she could ignore the heat that flared through her at his nearness. “It’s nothing to do with police policy, or appropriate behavior, or any of the rules and regulations, is it, Reilly?” she asked, enjoying a savage satisfaction as he flinched.

  “Oh, no. This is about you and me. You don’t want me involved in this case; you don’t want me anywhere near you, do you? Yet you want me, don’t you? You’ve never stopped wanting me—all that good sex we shared is still under your skin, isn’t it? Does it drive you crazy when you see me with another man? When I kiss the man who wants to marry me, does that make you want to pound the walls? Isn’t that why you’re trying to shut me out?”

  Her words whipped across the small space like knives, each one right on target. Reilly’s face went tight, and he lost color under his tan. He seemed to visibly pull back into himself on a sudden sharp intake of breath, then turned and walked across to the window where he stood, staring out at the busy street below. Ellie thought she’d gone too far, and his back silently accused her. But she stood her ground even though the pounding of her heart seemed audible above the traffic noises.

  “You’re right, Ellie, on that score at least.” Reilly turned to her with a bitter grin that mocked her hollow victory. “I do still have feelings for you—love, lust; I don’t know what they are anymore. There is so much past history between us, too much.” He paused for a moment, thoughtfully rubbing the bridge of his nose, a gesture Ellie remembered from the past. “But that doesn’t alter the fact that you are a threat to this entire case. Not only are you too close to Anderson, but you’re too involved in coming to terms with your own past. I just don’t think it is right, either for you personally or for this investigation, for you to continue.”

  His voice was quiet and reasonable, but her anger bubbled. “I want to be on this case, Reilly—and I will challenge any decision you make.”

  “You go right ahead. You’re not exactly Harris’ Golden Girl, you know,” he replied with a wry smile.

  “And you’re the Golden Boy?”

  “Harris knows I had reservations about you. He agreed with them. But Harris has his own agenda—namely, not to be the fall guy if someone comes up with a reasonable case to suggest that Abbott is not guilty. Has it ever crossed your mind that you’re being set up for that position?”

  She sucked in air. Julie had warned her about a similar scenario, and she hadn’t listened. Why should she listen to Reilly? “How do I know that this is not just your way of putting your own agenda in place?” she said coldly.

  “Because if you would just apply your brain instead of your emotions, you’d see that it has happened before.” His voice was soft but the words were hammer blows to her psyche.

  “What do you mean? I need to know.”

  “Ellie, over a year ago, you brought up legitimate fears about being stalked, about your flat being entered. Harris told me—ordered me—to keep an eye on you. Ironically, I was probably sometimes your stalker.”

  “You!”

  “Yes. I was watching you when you were out alone, trying to watch your flat to catch the intruder. Between that and my work, I was run ragged. And you bitched me out because you said I was never around!” Reilly gave a bitter laugh.

  Ellie paused, her mind ran back over half-forgotten arguments. She recalled herself screaming, “You’re never here; y
ou’re so damned ambitious you don’t have time for me.” And she recalled Reilly’s words, “You’re so wrapped up in yourself and your own ambitions, you don’t have a clue what’s going on in my life.”

  “I believed you, but I never found any hard evidence that you were being followed, never saw anyone go into your flat. I was sick with worry at the thought of you being alone with…whatever. Then—well, this whole thing with the Irish situation blew up, and I had to go away for a week. That’s all I thought it would be—a week. Then when I got back, we’d get everything sorted out between us.

  “Instead, I was wounded and out of commission in the hospital. Not allowed to contact anyone because of the threats the boyyos in the IRA splinter group were making. When I was finally able to challenge Harris, he dumped the whole load of evidence about you taking bribes on me. You did a runner without even waiting to speak to me, and I couldn’t help wondering if maybe it was true. If you were corrupt and devious enough to have thought the whole thing up to cover your tracks—and to have used me and my love for you.”

  “Damn you!” Ellie cried. Then the impact of what he’d said hit her and her heart ached.

  “Just try listening to me, for once.” Reilly snarled, “I discovered that Jay Richards was the one who tipped Harris off about the money in your bank account.”

  “Richards?” Ellie wished she could say that the revelation made sense of everything, but she couldn’t. And most confusing of all, towering above all the other thoughts demanding her attention was the knowledge that Reilly had been trying to protect her. And thought that she had betrayed him.

  But his voice, expressionless now, captured her attention. “Knowing Richards never did anything for philanthropic reasons set me thinking. I could never square the Ellie Fitzpatrick I knew with the dishonorable cheat and liar they said you were. But then you come back, and there’s another Slasher-type killing. Now Jay Richards has disappeared. One hell of a set of coincidences, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t know how that money came to be in my account, Reilly, and I wouldn’t betray those poor people like that. But I was terrified, I was being stalked. Someone was entering my flat. I thought at one point it was the Slasher. When Abbott confessed and was jailed, these things carried on. I actually thought I was going mad. I didn’t even know you knew about the problems I was having,” she said softly.

  “When Harris first told me about your complaint, I knew how worried you must be. I waited for you to come to me but you wouldn’t, would you? Ellie Fitzpatrick would never admit she was vulnerable.”

  “I tried to call you, over and over…”

  “And I wasn’t there for you!” He said the words softly, sadly, almost a caress. It sounded like a goodbye.

  Ellie’s heart sounded in her ears like hoof beats on dry ground. She longed to go to him, to seek the safety of his arms, to ask all those questions that had haunted her, to stoke the flare of wanting deep in her belly until she melted into him. But she had no right. Not now.

  ****

  Ellie blew out a deep breath, flipping the neat blonde fringe of her hair upward. The confrontation with Reilly had left her drained and edgy, and finding her desktop and drawers all in disarray tripled the feeling to the point where she felt her skin was stretched so tight it would burst if she didn’t find some action.

  She gulped down panic as she imagined unknown hands sifting through the papers and personal items she kept in her desk, and her mind whizzed back to the dark days when she would enter her flat and be assailed with the same feeling of violation.

  Not for the first time in the past year, Ellie felt the clammy fingers of a panic attack closing around her. Her heart thumped so hard it was painful, hot sweat trickled wetly between her breasts as the blood throbbed in her ears and the walls of her windowless office seemed to press in, suffocating her.

  Grabbing her briefcase, she fled down the corridors and stairs to the ground floor. She stopped guiltily when the uniformed sergeant on desk duty called her name. Ellie straightened her suit jacket and surreptitiously wiped the moisture from her sweating brow before she turned to him, her lips held in a small smile.

  But if the man could see any traces of incipient insanity in the young woman who stood before his desk, he gave no indication. He handed her a large buff-colored envelope and smiled. “This is from the girls up in personnel—contracts and stuff to be filled in, I guess.” Then reaching under the counter, he searched for a couple of moments and surfaced with a fat envelope that he slid toward her. “This is old stuff, left by Mrs. Stephens, who used to run the reception desk—you know she retired? She was sure you’d be back for it.”

  Ellie thanked him, grateful for this little oasis of normality. She’d reached the doors when he called after her again. “By the way, there’s a note here that Sergeant Richards was looking for you, about 6 am this morning. I know he’s gone missing—wondered if he’d found you?”

  She turned, puzzled. “Could you make sure Superintendent Reilly hears about this? It could be important.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” the officer said with alacrity.

  But as she got into her car, now free of the wheel clamp, Ellie wondered what Richards could possibly have wanted with her. Her mind flicked back to her ransacked desk, and to Reilly’s statement that Richards had been the one to accuse her of accepting bribes. A pinprick of fear lanced Ellie’s stomach, but she shrugged the thoughts away. Tossing the two fat envelopes down on the floor in the back seat, she started the engine and pulled out into the clogged city traffic.

  The tension slowly drained from her as her hands glided over the wheel, slipping the gears smoothly in sequence. But as she relaxed, her conscience began to prickle—she should have waited for Reilly to either give her an assignment or release her for the day. No doubt she’d pay for that, she thought, remembering the confrontation they’d just had, and its strangely tender revelations. She found herself grinning from ear to ear. Ah, Reilly, growling and snarling, but underneath it all just a big pussycat!

  Her mouth went dry and Ellie shifted in her seat, but this was no extension of the panic attack. Her skin remembered Reilly’s gentle touch, responding as if he were actually there in the car, his fingers playing her body. Her mind drew images of the leonine grace that marked his movements with such elegant economy. He was indeed a predatory cat—but how she had enjoyed taming him! Sexy, sultry flashbacks of their lovemaking went through her mind, then her fingers clenched more tightly on the wheel. Here was the simple reason she had not become lovers with Brad Scott Anderson—or anyone else!

  But it’s over Ellie, you and Reilly are old news, so get used to it. It’s time to look to the future. Could that future include Brad, after his incredible deception? Ellie’s mood was somber as she parked on a familiar street of terraced houses. The back-to-back houses looked much the same as they had in the sepia-tinted photographs Ellie had seen of Leeds as the 19th century turned into the 20th. One glaring difference gave a clue to the changes that had taken place in population. Many of the houses were painted in bright colors as their Asian immigrant occupants challenged the drab English surroundings and dull weather.

  A woman in an elegant sari smiled at Ellie as she pushed a baby carriage along the flagstone sidewalk. A group of mocha-skinned teenage girls dressed in the latest and most outrageous English fashions giggled among themselves, pushing past Ellie as if she were invisible.

  She locked the car and walked toward the corner shop, bright with displays of exotic fruit and vegetables. She hoped Mr. Patel was still the proprietor, although she did not expect a friendly welcome.

  “Yes, yes, Officer Fitzpatrick. I remember you very well. But I do not know what you are doing here. Please leave my shop at once.” The tall man behind the counter was curt.

  “Mr. Patel, I just wanted to ask you about the complaints you made when we last talked. I know it’s been more than six months ago, but you must remember the statements you made to me about the protection racket,
” Ellie urged, but his only answer was to stubbornly show her his back as he returned to stocking the shelves.

  Sighing, Ellie left the store and stood on the street, deep in thought. The other shopkeepers who had complained they’d been threatened by a gang demanding protection money had all refused to talk to police officers. Only Mr. Patel had been brave enough to seek help.

  “You mustn’t feel too badly about my father, Miss Fitzpatrick,” a soft voice said. Ellie whirled around to see a pretty dark-skinned girl at her elbow, dressed casually in a yellow t-shirt and dark blue cotton pants.

  “You startled me! It’s Sira, isn’t it?”

  “Siri, yes,” the girl said, emphasizing the last ‘i’.

  Ellie’s mind scrambled to find the best way to approach the Patels young daughter. But she needn’t have worried - Siri Patel had her own questions.

  “Why did you not help us? Do you know what happened to my father? They came into the store, and they beat him. They broke up the store, and they threatened to kill him. And still he came to you for help. He trusted you—after you came into the store, he said to me, ‘Siri, there is a person who will help us.’”

  Ellie gulped back her surprise. “Siri, your father promised to send me evidence, and to make a statement. He did neither of these things. Then I…I was taken off the case.”

  “How can you say that?” The girl turned to look at Ellie full in the face, her warm chocolate eyes wide. “I brought the videotape into your police station myself, with a written statement signed by my father. He did not want to come in to sign it in your presence, because he knew that those men were watching. But he thought perhaps no one would take notice of a young girl. He trusted you to protect us—but you did nothing!” The girl’s voice was low, but the pain and betrayal within it tore at Ellie’s heart. It was to help people like the Patels, people with little power, decent people who were victims of the unscrupulous, that Ellie had joined the police force in those distant days of idealism.