The Hunting Season

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  Lindsay took her hand and said firmly, “No, you won’t be going home unless and until we’re certain you’ll be safe there. I’ll call the police, and they and I both will talk to your mom, your sister and your stepfather. In the meantime, I’m placing both you and Kira in a foster home. She can’t stay at home, either.”

  “Really?” Those wet eyes held a glimmer of hope. “Mom says I’m lying. That’s what she’ll tell you, too.”

  “You know what?” Lindsay smiled. “I’ve heard that before. What you tell me is what counts the most.”

  Kaila cried afresh, but less with despair than relief, Lindsay thought.

  “Now, you’ll be staying here at least overnight,” she said. “I’m going to talk to your mother now. I’m also asking the nursing staff not to allow either your mother or stepfather in to see you. Okay?”

  She gave a big nod and started swiping at her face with her sheet.

  Lindsay squeezed Kaila’s hand and turned her mind to foster placement options.

  DANIEL TIPPED BACK his desk chair and brooded. Not surprisingly, he’d had little luck finding any of Martin or Austin Ramsey’s neighbors at home midday. He’d have to canvass the neighborhood in the early evening. So far, he hadn’t come up with names of friends, either. He supposed he’d have to start with clients who had hired Ramsey to work on their homes or businesses; the guy had kept records of his jobs and payments. Daniel wasn’t optimistic about learning much from them. The brutality of the beating shouted rage. This crime was personal. It had to be.

  Most murders weren’t mysteries. Wife shot husband after he hit her one time too many. Brawls got out of hand at bars. A creep holding up a convenience store panicked and shot the clerk.

  On the face of it, Shane was the likeliest—and best motivated—suspect, and Daniel couldn’t yet 100 percent rule him out. The fire in the trash can was typical for the budding arsonist. Nonetheless, Daniel thought the kid was sad more than angry, and the timing wasn’t right. After all, Daniel couldn’t be sure the fire was connected to the death, although setting a can in the middle of the kitchen floor to, say, burn papers didn’t strike him as logical.

  Anyway, now that the medical examiner had established time of death, Daniel didn’t see how the boy could have managed to knock off his uncle while also picking up his stuff from his former home and getting so far from Sadler. Suspicious by nature, however, Daniel reminded himself that Shane might have an older friend who helped by driving him around…and possibly even with murder.

  He couldn’t rule out Lindsay Engle, either, if only because he had to look twice at the person who’d found the body. He considered her unlikely, in part because, while CPS workers had a tough job and did burn out, what happened to Shane wasn’t extreme or anything new to her. He hadn’t read any undertones in what she’d said. In fact, he liked her determination to protect a boy who’d taken some hard knocks—literally and figuratively. He liked a lot more than that about her, but kept that kind of interest tamped down.

  “Hey.” Another Sadler detective, Melinda McIntosh, tapped her knuckles on his desk.

  He straightened with a jerk. Damn, he should have noticed her approach. Way to go.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just caught an investigation that involves a woman I hear you know. Lindsay Engle?”

  Unexpectedly jolted, he said, “Tell me about it.” Had he read the social worker wrong?

  Melinda grimaced. “The lieutenant likes to give me anything that involves female victims.”

  “That’s…sort of logical,” Daniel pointed out.

  “Yeah, but it’s also sexist.” She shook her head. “Forget I said that. This involves a girl who was apparently raped. She’s named her stepfather.”

  Daniel shook his head in disgust. He also relaxed, although he hoped not visibly. “And Ms. Engle was assigned to the case.” He was proud of himself for not calling her Lindsay, for keeping his distance.

  “You got it.”

  Midthirties, Melinda was divorced and attractive, with hazel eyes and dark hair kept in a severe bun. There was a time Daniel had considered asking her out, but her appeal hadn’t overruled the likely complications. Instead, they’d become friends who worked together well when partnered on investigations. That was happening more since Daniel’s previous partner had turned out to be corrupt, taking money to protect drug traffickers. Daniel never would have called John Risvold a friend, but he had trusted him. Being shot, twice, by his partner had been convincing evidence that the guy had betrayed not only Daniel, but everything else they were supposed to stand for.

  “Ms. Engle is good at her job,” he commented now. “Really good. Don’t get between her and the kid she’s protecting.”

  Melinda laughed. “You mean, if I don’t want to lose a hand?”

  He grinned. “Something like that.”

  Her smile faded. “With these kind of accusations, it isn’t easy hanging on to any objectivity.”

  “No, it isn’t.” He hesitated. “Yell if you need backup.”

  She waved off his offer. “No reason I should.”

  Didn’t that sound like famous last words? Unsettled, he watched her walk out of the cramped detective bull pen.

  AT FIRST MEETING, Doug Norris seemed a likeable man. Lindsay saw what Kaila had meant. He was medium height, his body soft without being fat, his smile friendly. His handshake was soft, too, and possibly a little damp. Nerves?

  Lindsay hadn’t expected him to admit to having a sexual relationship with one or both daughters, and she’d been right. Instead of outrage, he went with deep disappointment. He loved the girls, had done his best to fill in as their father, couldn’t understand what had set Kaila off.

  “You are aware of the reason she was hospitalized.”

  “Don’t some girls have heavy, er, cycles?”

  Cycles? He couldn’t possibly be that prudish, given that he was married and outnumbered in his home three to one by females.

  Lindsay repeated the doctor’s observations, with his conclusion: Kaila’s bleeding had denoted an injury from an act of nonconsensual sex described as brutal.

  “Brutal?” he repeated. Now he sounded outraged. “I can’t believe that. Her mother said Kaila looks fine. She couldn’t understand why that doctor wanted to keep her.”

  His reaction cemented Lindsay’s certainty. He didn’t think what he’d done was brutal; he’d probably convinced himself that his stepdaughter was happy to have greater intimacy with him. He wouldn’t consider himself a violent man.

  She asked further questions. Well, yes, he’d been home with Kaila when the alleged assault occurred, but all they’d done was watch TV. If it was true that she’d been hurt, she must have slipped out of the house later, met up with some friends. She was protecting one of them.

  Kira insisted her stepfather had never done anything like that to her—until she found out that she was being removed from her home along with her sister no matter what she said. Then she cried and admitted he’d been molesting her for several years. She hated him, but Mom wouldn’t listen and she didn’t know what to do.

  The phenomenon was all too familiar to Lindsay. Life was tough for a woman raising two children on her own, especially if she didn’t have the skills to make an adequate living. Once she’d found a nice guy who treated her well, she didn’t want to admit to his dark side. If she pretended even to herself that her daughter’s accusations weren’t true, that said daughter was acting out as she entered her teenage years, then everything was fine. Kira would be ashamed someday at the awful things she’d claimed. So would Kaila, who must have gotten the idea from her older sister.

  Lindsay had also encountered plenty of women who leaped immediately to their children’s defense and called the cops themselves. Unfortunately, Paige Norris wasn’t of that breed.

  By the end of the school day, the foster care
coordinator she liked best to work with had found a foster home that could take both girls. Keeping them together was important.

  She spoke several times to a Detective McIntosh. Honestly, Lindsay had been surprised that Sadler PD had any women on the force, never mind one promoted to detective. This was a traditional, conservative town, to put it mildly. Melinda McIntosh must be both tough and determined to have earned her place.

  They’d agreed to interview family members separately, since their goals and authority differed. Detective McIntosh strongly supported Lindsay’s decision to remove both girls from the home while the investigation progressed.

  Late in the day, Lindsay checked on Shane, learning that he was in the middle of a computer game designed by his new foster dad, and was in awe at how impossible it was to beat.

  She also spoke to Kira and Kaila’s foster mother, who said they were settling in well. Kira came on the phone to say, “Mrs. Simpson is really nice, except she says I have to go to school tomorrow even if Kaila doesn’t.”

  Laughing, Lindsay said, “Since Kaila spent last night in the hospital and you didn’t, that sounds fair to me.”

  The silence that followed sharpened her attention. Finally, voice small, the fourteen-year-old said, “I wish I’d told, ’cuz then this wouldn’t have happened to her.”

  “Kira, when the person you most rely on doesn’t believe you, you have to ask yourself why anyone else would. You also have to know that, if someone in authority actually does believe you, it’ll mean your family getting torn apart. That’s scary.”

  “How do you know? Did…did this happen to you, too?”

  “I had an abusive parent—” not something she often admitted “—but it wasn’t sexual.”

  “Oh.” Kira was quiet for a moment. “I guess it hurts either way.”

  “It does.”

  The conversation stayed with her when she returned to the office to do some online research and write reports. For a girl at such a tumultuous age, Kira Kelley was astonishingly insightful and mature.

  Lindsay felt confident that the two girls were telling the truth about their stepfather. His “poor me, I’m just trying to be a great dad” crap confirmed their stories. Mom’s emotions and responses were off, too. Still, there wasn’t any more Lindsay could do until results came back on the rape kit and Detective McIntosh tied up her investigation.

  A thought slithered into her head. Too bad Doug Norris hadn’t been murdered instead of Martin Ramsey. After this last beating, Shane would never have been sent back to stay with his uncle, but a judge might decide to return Kira and Kaila to their mother and stepfather if no proof was found to support their accusations.

  Guilt rushed through Lindsay. How could she even think something like that? Yes, she despised men like Doug Norris with every fiber of her being, but violent impulses were foreign to her. She had vowed long ago never to be anything like her mother.

  Besides, it was unlikely Martin’s abuse of his nephew had anything to do with his murder. He had to be involved in something shady, or he’d hurt someone who wanted revenge, or maybe he had been sleeping with a married woman. The timing would turn out to be coincidental. She refused to believe otherwise.

  Chances were good Detective Deperro was pursuing other avenues of inquiry—wasn’t that the right term?—and she wouldn’t hear from him again.

  And no, that wasn’t a twinge of regret she felt. It was probably her stomach reminding her she hadn’t stopped for lunch.

  THE ONLY UNEXPECTED finding once the medical examiner opened up Martin Ramsey was several tumors in his lungs.

  “Squamous cell carcinoma,” the M.E. remarked. “Those tumors can extend into the wall of the chest.”

  The blackened lung gave away the dead man’s lifetime of smoking. Daniel had seen the ashtrays in his house, smelled the tobacco smoke that had seeped into the walls.

  “Didn’t get a chance to kill him,” he said.

  The small fire set in the wastebasket hadn’t had anything to do with Martin’s smoking. No cigarettes had been found in his pockets, and Daniel hadn’t smelled even a hint of tobacco smoke in Austin’s house.

  Dr. Stamey had already expressed his belief that the weapon used to bash in Ramsey’s skull was an old pipe, perhaps two inches in diameter. He had plucked flakes of rust from the mess that was the victim’s head.

  In his first pass through Austin’s house, Daniel hadn’t seen anything like that, nor had the CSI crew.

  Now that he knew what to look for, he intended to return to the house. He had yet to search the several outbuildings, although he didn’t really expect to find the weapon. The killer had probably brought it with him, and taken it home when he or she was done. He or she would have worn gloves, too. His gut said this murder had been planned; it wasn’t an impulsive act. The rage was there, but it might have been boiling for a long time.

  What made Daniel uneasy was the fact that Martin had been beaten to death, as he had beaten Shane only the day before. Hard not to connect the dots. Coincidences didn’t sit well with him.

  He didn’t make a habit of jumping to conclusions, though, or accepting easy answers like a fish snapping up the fly. He had work to do, and plenty of it.

  An hour later, he was sitting in a conference room at the county jail questioning Austin Ramsey, who sat across the table from him. Austin was close to Daniel’s height and breadth, as his brother had been. His hair was barely stubble and he had a cauliflower nose. Either he’d been in a lot of fights or he’d boxed in his younger years.

  “Martin’s dead?”

  This was the third time Austin had said that, as if he kept hoping for a different answer. He was even shedding some tears, swiping angrily at them with the back of his hand. He could beat his own kid but cry over the death of his brother. Sentiment came in many guises.

  “He is.” Daniel hesitated, then told him about the cancer. “If you’re a smoker, too, you might want to see a doctor.”

  “Nah, I never started up.” He scowled. “You gonna find who killed my brother?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m hoping you can help.”

  “Any way I can,” Austin agreed.

  As the big brother started spilling everything he knew about Martin, Daniel reflected that sometimes you had to dance with the devil, like it or not.

  And then he wondered how Melinda’s investigation was going…which brought him to thinking about Lindsay Engle. He gave his head a hard shake to get her out of it, causing Martin to pause midsentence and gaze at him in surprise.

  “Sorry,” Daniel said. “Just…had a passing thought. You were saying that he hadn’t been seeing any woman steadily recently. Anything stand out about the women he did see?”

  “He didn’t say nothing about anyone. Maybe he was taking a rest.”

  A rest. That was one way to put it. Daniel had been taking a rest, too, no one catching his eye.

  Until Lindsay Engle had, at a highly inconvenient time.

  Chapter Four

  “I know it’s frustrating that the job was left unfinished,” Daniel said drily.

  Perched on the wingback chair facing him, Cathy Haugen showed her embarrassment with a flush. “I’m so sorry. Someone murdered him, and I’m complaining because he didn’t show up here the next morning and finish spackling the wall around my new window.”

  He was interviewing the homeowner because Martin Ramsey had been working for her the week before he was killed. So far, Daniel hadn’t learned much from her. As a detective, he wasted too much time talking to people who didn’t turn out to know a thing. Sooner or later, he had to remind himself, something useful would pop.

  Ms. Haugen agreed that she and Martin had chatted. He’d mentioned a nephew living with him, but she didn’t recall the boy’s name. No, Martin hadn’t seemed any different the last few days he’d worked here. Well, the last day, maybe. He
’d been quieter than usual.

  After thinking, she said, “Brooding.” And then he just hadn’t showed up the next day.

  Because he was dead. Daniel chose not to remind her of that cold, hard truth.

  Time to wind this down, he decided. He’d opened his mouth to thank her when his phone rang.

  “Excuse me,” he said, rising to his feet and walking toward the patio doors before answering the call from Detective McIntosh. “Deperro.”

  “Daniel, I told you I’m investigating the sexual molestation of a girl, Kaila Kelley.”

  His interest sharpened. Kaila Kelley, whose caseworker happened to be Lindsay Engle.

  “I had an interview scheduled with the stepfather,” she said tersely. “I found him dead. Murdered. I thought you’d be interested.”

  “I am. Are you still at the scene?”

  “CSI hasn’t even arrived. I called you right away. There might be a connection with that murder you’re already investigating.”

  Because of Lindsay’s involvement, or did this guy’s injuries resemble Ramsey’s? Daniel didn’t ask. He’d see soon enough.

  “Address?”

  After committing it to memory, he made his excuses to Ms. Haugen, gave her his card in case anything should occur to her and left.

  Ten minutes later, he pulled to the curb behind the crime scene unit’s van and a marked SPD car. The unmarked maroon sedan at the head of the line was Melinda’s. Curtains were probably twitching up and down the block.

  At this house, blinds were drawn on the front window. The minute a uniformed officer opened the door and handed him a clipboard to sign in, Daniel smelled smoke. Through an archway, he saw the body and two crime scene investigators he knew in the living room. One was taking photos. Although Melinda wasn’t in here, he detoured to take a look at the victim.

  He winced at what he saw. Doug Norris had been stripped naked and posed. The handle of a knife stuck out from his chest. From the quantity of blood, Daniel guessed the blade had torn right through Norris’s heart.