by Linda Berry
“Oakland?” He whistled. “High murder rate.”
“Don’t I know it. I was lead investigator of a homicide unit.”
“Whew. Tough job. We’re lucky to have someone with your experience.” He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Garnerville is your home town, then?”
“Born and raised.”
“A true Oregonian.” His serious demeanor dropped away and his eyes became a warmer shade of brown, appraising her in a complimentary fashion. “Where are my manners? Can I offer you a cappuccino?”
“Sure.” She smiled. “I live for my next java jolt.”
“Come with me.” He led her into a back room equipped with an updated kitchen. Modern-style chairs were arranged around a rustic wood table, tasteful art crowded the original red brick walls, and the cement floor was stained wine red and polished.
David pulled two white porcelain cups from a cabinet and turned to a commercial-size coffee machine that took up half of one counter.
“That’s a serious coffee maker,” she said. “You’ve got your priorities straight.”
A flicker of amusement touched the corner of his mouth. “I think I was a Barista in a former life.”
“In this life, have you always been an artist?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t get serious until eight years ago. I was a real estate developer. When the market went soft, I took a break. Turned to what I really love. Painting. It took hold of me and didn’t let go. Seems I’m still taking that break.”
The smell of strong coffee filled the room. The machine hissed as he crowned each cup with a cloud of steamed milk. He sprinkled chocolate on top, set one cup in front of Sidney, and settled next to her.
She sipped and let out a sigh of satisfaction. “You make a mean cup of java.”
He grinned. “Life is short. I take joy in simple pleasures.”
“Good policy. Your studio is great for the community. Nice to be able to make a living doing what you love.”
He laughed. “I never said I was making a living. I don’t have to work. I’m secure financially. I do this for purely selfish reasons. I enjoy people. I enjoy teaching. Sharing my passion with others.” He cocked his head, a glint of interest in his eyes. “You like being a civil servant?”
“I do. My dad was police chief here for eighteen years. Guess it got passed in my DNA. Keeping our community safe is my way of helping people.”
“You like solving mysteries?”
“Yeah. I like the challenge.” She cleared her throat. “Which brings me to my purpose for being here.” Sidney pulled out her phone and swiped through her photos until she found the origami butterfly. “Can you identify this?”
David studied it with genuine interest. “It’s beautiful.” He glanced up at her. “I don’t know its source, but it’s by a very skilled artist. Those intricate folds were done with jeweler’s tools, under magnification.”
“Really?” Sidney looked at the butterfly with new appreciation. “So, this is valuable?”
“Relatively. No Van Gogh, but certainly a collector’s item.”
Sidney rubbed her chin. Why would her suspect leave a valuable piece of art with his victims? What did it symbolize to his psychopathic mind? She glanced back at David. “I was told there’s a paper sculptor who shows here at your studio. Could you give me his contact info?”
“Sloane Pickett. But this isn’t his work. Way too intricate.” He sipped his coffee. “Does this have something to do with Sammy’s death?”
“Possibly.”
“Hmmm. Tell you what. Text me a copy of that photo, and I’ll see if I can find the artist. I’m connected to artists internationally through social media.”
“That would be great.”
“Happy to help.” The words were sincere, and he held her gaze steadily. David recited his number and Sidney sent him the photo. It popped up on his screen seconds later.
“When was Samantha a student here?”
He squinted at the ceiling for a moment. “Most of July.”
“What was her specialty?”
“Pastels. Landscapes. She’d taken art classes in high school. Naturally gifted. She could have gone places.”
“Did she have any disputes with other students?”
“No. She was very friendly. A wicked sense of humor.”
“Any boyfriends?”
“Hmmm, I don’t know about boyfriends, but a guy walked in here one night and stood just inside the door.” David strummed the tabletop with his fingers. “Big. All muscle. Covered in tattoos. When Sammy saw him, she looked surprised, then upset. She turned back to her work and ignored him, and he split.” His brow furrowed. “Now that I think about it, right after, she packed up her gear and left. She looked really tense. That was the last time she came to class.”
Sidney brought up a picture of Noah on her phone. “This him?”
“Oh yeah, that’s him. Not someone you forget.”
“You’ve been very helpful, David.” Sidney drained her cup and rose to go. “Thanks for the great coffee, and for being my investigative assistant.”
“Anytime, Chief. I enjoyed your company.” He smiled clear to his brown eyes and held her gaze longer than necessary. Her face warmed. He placed a hand on the small of her back as they returned to the studio.
“We’re having an exhibition here tomorrow night,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to stop by. Meet some of the local artists. Have some Champagne.”
“Sounds like fun.” She meant it sincerely. She couldn’t remember the last time she spent an evening enjoying something cultural. She’d make a point of juggling her schedule to attend for a couple of hours. “If your Champagne is as good as your coffee, I’m in.”
“I’ll put a special bottle on reserve,” He said, a touch of flirtiness in his tone. “Just for you, Chief.”
“My friends call me Sidney.”
“Sidney,” David said, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.
His good humor was infectious, and she smiled back. “I better scoot.”
“Yeah, you better go take a bite out of crime. Be safe.” He opened the door, and she felt his gaze follow her as she crossed the sidewalk and slid into the driver’s seat of the Yukon. Her stomach did a little flutter as she revved up the engine and pulled out into the traffic lane. She still felt the warmth of David’s hand on her back. It had felt good to be touched by a charming, confident man.
Sidney caught her reflection in the mirror. She deliberately downplayed her looks while on the job, which meant no makeup or jewelry, and her crisply starched uniform hardly said sexy. Yet a lot of nonverbal communication had fired between her and David, and he’d made it crystal clear he was attracted to her. For a long while, she hadn’t put much thought into her appearance, other than being well-groomed and professional, but now she found herself wondering what dress she should wear to the art show. What jewelry? Should she wear her hair up or down?
Maybe her love life was about to come out of hibernation. Or not. Down girl. She warned herself not to invest too much hope in the evening. She’d been let down by romance too many times to place a Cinderella-filter on reality.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SIDNEY’S PHONE hummed as she drove away from the art studio and pulled to a halt at the traffic light. “What’s up, Darnell?”
“Two things. First, a deputy from county found Samantha’s car. It was parked at the Gas n’ Go on the highway. The manager said it had been parked off to the side for two days, and he was about to have it towed, but instead, he decided to call the sheriff. A deputy ran plates and got a hit on Samantha. He’s having it towed to Salem for processing.”
“Could be the point of her abduction. Lab probably won’t find anything. The perp would have avoided touching her car. Were her purse and phone there?”
“No. They’re missing.”
Sidney processed her thoughts out loud. “If the perp was trailing her, that location would be the perfect opportuni
ty to make his move. He could have pulled his truck, or van, beside her BMW, blocking the view of her car from the store. Then when she came out, he would have walked up behind her, jabbed her with the needle, and put her in his vehicle.
“Chief, the gas station is just a mile down the road from Matt Howard’s house. She probably just left his place after they had lunch at Katie’s. If he followed her, she wouldn’t have been alarmed to see him. He could have injected her easily.”
Darnell sounded like a prosecuting attorney building a case, pounding another nail into the coffin of Matt’s wobbly defense.
“Or it could be some random psycho who followed her from Matt’s house,” she said. “Think about it. Matt had time and opportunity to inject her at his house. Isolated. Private. Why would he risk abducting her in a public parking lot?”
“So it looked like she left his place alive,” Darnell said. “Got abducted by someone else.”
“You make a good point,” Sidney said. “But let’s see what the evidence shows before we rush to make an arrest. Anyone remember seeing her?”
“No. And there were no charges on her credit card. She paid cash.”
“Any video footage?”
“Nada. Machine’s been down for months. They just use the camera as a deterrent.”
Sidney hit the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. In a town with low crime, people got sloppy with their security. She was going to have a firm discussion with the gas station owner. “What’s the second thing you wanted to tell me?”
“I’ve got Jason Welsh waiting in the sweat box.”
“I’m two minutes away.” Sidney clicked off as the traffic signal changed. She drove down Main Street, pulled into the station lot, entered the building through the back entrance, and met Darnell outside the viewing room.
The young officer looked like a renewed version of the crumpled, depleted man slumped in his chair at the briefing the night before—clean-shaven, uniform crisp, exuding energy.
Sidney rarely saw Darnell, whose shift ended as hers began. She realized it had been a while since they had spoken about anything but police work, and it had been weeks since she’d had more than a passing conversation with his wife and kids. That social oversight needed to change. “How’s the family, Darnell?”
“All good,” he said, his dark eyes lively. “The little one slept through the night. Gave Mariah and me some needed rest.”
“Two kids are a handful. Into everything, I bet.”
“You have no idea. It’s a holiday to come to work.”
“And I thought you just loved your job.”
He flashed a smile, teeth white against his dark skin.
“After we put this murder case to rest, we’re going to throw an office picnic,” Sidney said. “Lots of barbecue. The works. All family members invited.”
“Great, Chief. Barbecue is a magic word around our house.” Darnell handed over Samantha’s file and nodded toward the interview room. “Jason’s ready to go.”
They entered a space barely larger than a broom closet that featured a two-way mirror and controls for the video and audio in the interview room.
Sidney studied Jason Welsh through the one-way glass. The bartender from Barney’s, who had been linked to Samantha as a romantic interest, wore a bored expression. He leaned back in his chair, legs outstretched beneath the scarred metal table, hands clasped behind his head, dressed in faded jeans, a long-sleeved blue shirt, and Converse sneakers.
“He have a record?”
“Nope. Clean.”
“He’s not what I expected.”
Darnell chuckled. “Ain’t playgirl material, that’s for sure.”
“Not even close.”
Jason appeared to be around thirty years older than Samantha, and he hadn’t aged well. His thin, weathered face had a long jutting chin, a slash for a mouth, and big ears protruding from limp gray hair. She thought he bore a strong resemblance to Laurel from the fifties comedy team, Laurel and Hardy.
Darnell thumbed a few buttons. “Audio and video are on.”
“Let’s go in. Take notes.”
Darnell pulled a notepad and pen from his breast pocket and followed her into the windowless room with a concrete floor and dull white cinderblock walls. They pulled out metal chairs and seated themselves. Sidney sat across from Jason under the glare of florescent lights. “Thanks for coming in, Jason.”
“No problem.” He sat straighter in his chair, hands folded on the table, expression wary.
“You’re not under suspicion. We just have a few questions about Samantha Ferguson. This conversation is being taped. That okay with you?”
“Sure.” His eyes darted across the ceiling and located the video camera.
“We know you were working the night Samantha was killed. We also know you two were tight.”
“Tight? You mean like a couple?”
“Yeah.”
He laughed.
“Why’s that funny?”
“Where do you people get your information? Sammy and I weren’t an item. Do I look like her type?” He proceeded to tick three points off his fingers. “I ain’t rich, young, or good-looking. She was all three. Drop-dead fucking gorgeous.”
“You two never dated?” Sidney asked, hearing Darnell click his pen and scribble.
“Dated? Nah. Samantha didn’t date.” He looked from Darnell to Sidney, giving each an equally assessing stare. “She thought of herself as a free spirit. Didn’t want to be tied down with one dude. Basically, she slept with anyone who could get her high.”
“Including you?”
He shrugged.
“Is that a yes?”
“On a rare occasion. I don’t have anywhere near the deep pockets she needed to feed her appetite.”
“Appetite?”
“For drugs, the high life.”
“What’s the high life?”
“Trips to the city. The coast. Concerts. Partying all night on blow. Expensive gifts.”
“Specifically, what gifts?”
“Clothes. Diamond earrings, a fancy watch. Shit like that.”
“Know the brand of the watch?”
He gave her the ghost of a grin, pushing his limp gray hair back from his forehead. “A Rolex. Gold and silver, with little diamonds around the face.”
Darnell scribbled.
“Who bought her those gifts, Jason?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“You can’t, or won’t?”
“Don’t know anything.”
Silence.
She let him relax a moment before dropping the bomb. “Want to tell us about the night Samantha OD’d at your house?”
His eyebrows arched, and he nervously wet his lips. “Nothing to tell.”
Sidney’s voice toughened. “You have drugs at your party?”
“No,” he said too quickly, glancing up at the camera and then leveling a direct stare at Sidney, challenging her to back off.
She held his gaze.
His eyes dropped to his hands and looked back up. Sweat gleamed on his upper lip. “Sammy was high when she got there. Slurring her words, staggering. She passed out within minutes. I called 9-1-1. The EMTs arrived right away and shot her up with naloxone.” Jason swiped the sweat with his index finger. “Brought her back from the brink. Literally. It’s in the police report.”
The report, which Sidney had read, disclosed little more than Jason stated. He lived out of town, so the incident had been written up by an officer on call from the Jackson station. She imagined the scenario. Cop gets the call at 3:00 a.m. Drags himself out of bed, arrives at Jason’s after the EMTs left with the patient. The partygoers, by that time, had removed all trace of drugs, and very likely planted evidence in Samantha’s car. The officer smelled pot in the house, did a superficial search, saw no evidence of drugs. He found drug paraphernalia in her BMW, determined she was responsible for her own OD, wrote up the report. He went home and tried to catch a few more winks before his wo
rkday started. Case closed.
Sidney tried a different tack. “You ever see Noah Matsui hanging around Samantha?”
A look of fear tightened Jason’s face for a split second and then was gone. He spoke slowly, as though pulling his words together as he thought of them. “Yeah, but that was years ago. He was her supplier. But he’s been out of the picture lately.”
She knew he was lying. “Now he’s back.”
Jason shrugged. “He’s keeping his nose clean, far as I know.”
“Who got Samantha high after Noah was out of the picture?”
“Don’t know.”
“You watch over the bar at Barney’s. You hear things. See things.” Her voice tightened. “You know who the suppliers are.”
“Don’t see nothing. Don’t know nothing.”
Sidney narrowed her eyes, gave him another piercing stare.
“Look Chief. I wanna keep my job. I get paid for minding my own business.”
She glanced at Darnell, his dark eyes hard, taking it all in.
“You see Noah around since he’s been out?” she asked.
“He comes in sometimes.”
“When was the last time?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
Sidney held his gaze, watched him squirm in his seat.
“You see how busy the place gets? Noah stays away from the bar. Sits in his sister’s section.”
“He ever have company at his table?”
Jason crossed his arms and clenched his jaw. “Don’t know. Ask Tracy.”
“You ever see him with Samantha since she got out of rehab?”
“Nope.”
“See her with anyone else?”
He shrugged.
“Samantha stayed clean the last two months of her life. She was starting college in two weeks. Trying hard to get her life on track. A ruthless killer robbed her of that chance.” Sidney softened her voice and leaned forward in her seat. “Samantha was your friend, Jason. She trusted you.” She opened the file and slipped a picture of the crime scene in front of him, taken far enough away that he couldn’t see her slit wrists. “You think she deserved to die like this?”
Jason’s face went white, and his mouth gaped as he stared at the picture. His eyes squeezed shut, and tears spilled out. He knuckled them away, and after a long silence, asked hoarsely, “How did she die?”
