Zachary looked up from his phone. “Bridget stuck her nose into it. She wouldn’t believe that Robin’s death was natural. She asked me to investigate. The Salters all knew I was there because of Bridget. Gloria needed me to stop asking questions and knew I was only asking questions because Bridget was pushing me.”
“But if Bridget disappeared, you wouldn’t have any reason to keep investigating.”
“Right.”
“Wouldn’t Gloria know that you would look into Bridget’s disappearance? You would still be investigating, just from the other end of the problem.”
“She must not have thought I would see the connection between Robin’s death and Bridget’s disappearance.”
Lashman gave a grim smile. “Well, she was wrong there, wasn’t she?”
Lashman returned and put a cup of coffee down on the table for Zachary.
“There’s no one home at the Salters’ house. Search team says it looks like they packed up and left in a hurry.”
Zachary had been holding out hope that they would still be at the house, that maybe they would be holding Bridget there tied up in the basement. All they would have to do was search the house, Bridget would be found, and that would be all the proof they needed that Gloria had been involved in Robin’s death and Bridget’s kidnapping.
“What happened the last time you were there?” Lashman asked.
“At the house?” Zachary frowned. “I went over there after I heard what the coroner had found. Yesterday.”
“To ask them about the iron in the medicine cabinet?”
“No. To tell them it had been a medical error. I didn’t realize then that it had been intentional. I didn’t know it was Gloria.”
“If they knew the coroner thought it was accidental, why would they run?”
“Gloria wasn’t there. She was at work. Rhys was at school. It was just Vera home alone. I don’t know if she really understood what I was trying to explain to her. She was a little… distant.”
“Do you think Gloria had already run?”
“No, they hadn’t run yet, Vera was still home.”
“There was a notice left at the house that Social Services was taking Vera into care. Dated yesterday.”
Zachary swallowed and nodded. “I asked for a welfare check. The officers who came by said they would talk to Social Services and get ahold of Gloria. They told me to hit the road. I just assumed they would call Gloria home from work to deal with it…”
“Apparently they weren’t able to contact Gloria. She hasn’t been home or answered any calls.”
“Then Gloria had already run when I went there. Monday or Tuesday. That would make sense… she knew an autopsy had been ordered, but didn’t know the results yet. She was still ahead of the game.” Zachary closed his eyes, concentrating on a mental image of the house that day. He reviewed the memory as if it were a photograph he had taken. “Rhys’s book bag was on the floor. I thought he was at school, but he couldn’t have been at school without his books. The house was a mess… like Vera might have been left alone to fend for herself for a couple of days…”
Lashman nodded. “Long enough to track Bridget down and to make a plan to take her. I’ll get an APB out on Gloria’s car.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
T
he door opened, and instead of Lashman, it was Kenzie. Zachary blinked at her.
“Kenzie…? What are you doing here?”
“A mutual friend asked me to check in on you.”
For just an instant, Zachary’s mind went to Bridget. It made perfect sense, in that split-second leap, that it had been Bridget who had called Kenzie. But of course, it hadn’t been. Bridget was gone and she had no way of even knowing where Zachary was, let alone that he could use a visitor.
“Bowman,” he guessed.
“Yeah. He didn’t want to make a second appearance in case there was trouble, so he asked if I would stop in.” Kenzie looked around the bare interview room, as if looking for something to talk about. But of course, there wasn’t anything. “Are you okay?”
Zachary gave a wide shrug. He didn’t know how much she already knew about what was going on and he didn’t know where to start
“Bridget is missing?” Kenzie said softly.
“You heard… yeah. I think she was kidnapped. I hope,” Zachary’s voice hitched on the word, “she was kidnapped.”
Because the alternative was just too awful. If Gloria had murdered her sister, would she hesitate to kill again to cover it up? Zachary shut this thought away, pushing it out of his mind and refusing to consider it.
“Do you know who? Where she is?”
“It was Gloria Salter.”
“Robin’s sister?”
“Yes. Because she’s the one who killed Robin.” Zachary raised his eyes to Kenzie’s. “It wasn’t a medical error. It was intentional.”
Kenzie’s mouth hung open. She didn’t argue and say that it wasn’t possible, as Zachary had expected. Finally, Kenzie shook her head and spoke. “Are you sure?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. And she’s missing. Gloria. Looks like she ran a few days ago. Then took Bridget… Tuesday night, Wednesday morning… It’s Thursday afternoon now.” He swallowed, but it didn’t get rid of the lump in his throat. “Bridget will think I don’t care. She’ll think I’m not coming.”
“She knows you care,” Kenzie assured him. “There can’t be any doubt of that. She knows you’ll be looking for her and you won’t give up until you find her.”
“How am I going to find her? I can’t even get out of here. I can’t do anything.” Zachary smacked his palm down on the table, frustrated.
“If they know it’s Gloria Salter who took Bridget, then they’ve got to release you.”
“Tell Lashman that. I wasn’t arrested as a suspect. He’s holding me as a material witness.”
“We both know that’s just semantics. I’ll go talk to him.”
Zachary hadn’t expected that Kenzie would actually talk to Lashman, but Kenzie ducked back out of the room and went to find him. Zachary watched the clock on his phone, getting more and more wound up, until he again couldn’t sit still and got up to pace.
Lashman returned with Kenzie. He scowled at Zachary. “I don’t want you getting in the way of this investigation.”
“I’m not going to get in your way.”
“What are you going to do? Because I don’t believe for a minute that you’re just going to drop it and leave finding Bridget Downy all up to us.”
Zachary chewed on his lip. “Vera, I guess. She’s the only one who might be able to tell us where Gloria would go.”
“I’ve already had officers talking to her. She’s too confused to be of any help.”
“With all due respect,” Kenzie said aggressively, “the odds that your officers will be able to drag information out of a senile old lady and the chances that Zachary can sit down with her and tease something useful out are not even in the same league.”
Lashman bristled at this. “We can’t have him contaminating a witness.”
“If she’s too confused for your officers to get the story out of her, then what’s the problem with me talking to her?” Zachary asked. “You can’t exactly get less than nothing out of her.”
Kenzie snorted and covered her mouth.
Lashman glared, but Zachary thought he saw a hint of a smile on Lashman’s lips as well. “I doubt she has any idea where Gloria went. Gloria wouldn’t have told her and then left her behind.”
“I’m not going to ask her where Gloria went.”
The police detective gave Zachary a look like he was crazy. A look Zachary had seen plenty of times before. “Then what are you going to ask her?”
“I’m just going to have a chat with her. I might not ask her anything at all.”
Kenzie laughed at Lashman’s perplexed expression. “You’ve got to trust the process, detective. Come on. What’s it going to hurt to let Zachary out of here? If he can fi
nd Gloria or Bridget, then that’s good for everyone, isn’t it?”
“What are people going to say if you don’t let me?” Zachary played on the weakness Lashman had already shown, his worry about being the stupid cop. The one who let something important just slip through his fingers. “They’ll say that you just let a resource go to waste. Someone who knew Bridget and was a skilled investigator. Someone who was more invested than anyone else in finding her. And instead of using me, you just kept me locked up.”
“I don’t know…” Lashman was softening. “If I screw this up by letting you go…”
“What if I stay with him?” Kenzie suggested. “I can keep an eye on him, make sure he’s not going to run or screw up your investigation…”
Zachary glanced over at Kenzie, surprised. Did she want to be with him? Or did she just want to give Bridget the best chance at survival? Did she care about her rival? She’d been pretty chilly toward Zachary since he had taken Bridget’s case on.
“Fine.” Lashman growled. “If you think you can crack this case before the police department, you’re welcome to it. But if I get word from my officers that you’re getting in the way, or you mess with any of my witnesses and end up screwing up the case, don’t think there won’t be consequences.”
Zachary was on his feet, nodding his agreement. “Yes, sir. I’m not going to screw anything up. Thank you!”
He didn’t wait for Lashman to tell him they had to fill out a bunch of paperwork to get released. He didn’t ask for the possessions he had turned over to the detective to be returned to him. He had his phone and nothing else was worth worrying about.
“Uh… I guess I need to know the facility they put Vera into, if you’re willing to give it to me. And I wonder if I could go by her house and get a few things…”
“I can’t have you touching things and contaminating evidence.”
“Someone can go in with me. I won’t touch anything important. I just want to get a few things that might help her to feel more at home. The more comfortable she is, the better the chances are that she’ll be able to tell me something helpful.”
“You’re a pain, you know that? This is why we don’t like private detectives.”
Kenzie opened her mouth to protest.
“Yes, sir,” Zachary agreed, motioning Kenzie to silence.
The detective looked sourly at the two of them. “Fine, then. She’s at the East Side Care Center and I’ll have someone meet you at the house. Are you going straight over there now?”
“Yes.”
“Someone will be waiting for you.”
Zachary took his leave before Lashman could think of anything else to delay them. “You can drive?” he asked Kenzie.
“You don’t want to take your car?”
He shook his head quickly. “It’s… unavailable right now.”
“Oh.” She paused, considering whether to get more details, then decided not. “Well, you know I love to drive, so that’s fine. And it’s been in the police parking garage, so I know it hasn’t been tampered with.”
Zachary was thinking about his spark plugs being pulled as he folded himself into Kenzie’s little red sports car.
“So, what are you picking up at the house?” Kenzie asked, after getting the address.
“Just some things to make her comfortable,” Zachary repeated.
Kenzie kept looking at him expectantly when the police officer let them into the Salters’ house. Like she was expecting him to suddenly find Bridget or an important clue, or maybe to do a back flip. She didn’t believe that he was just there to pick up items to make Vera more comfortable and at home.
Zachary didn’t want to take too long, but he didn’t want to rush it, either. It was probably his only opportunity to look through the house, so he didn’t want to miss anything important.
“Take pictures of each room,” he suggested to Kenzie, motioning to her phone. “Just in case we miss something.”
“What do you want me to take pictures of?”
“Everything you can.”
“Hey,” the policeman objected, when Kenzie started to do so. “You can’t do that.”
“We’re not tampering with anything,” Zachary said. “And we’re not sending them to anyone. They’re just for reference in the investigation.”
“You don’t have permission to do that.”
“I have permission to be here. No one said we couldn’t take pictures.”
The house was just as Zachary had left it on Wednesday when he talked to Vera and had the police check on her welfare. They had taken her out of the home, and no one had been there until the police arrived to execute their search warrant.
It was obvious that Gloria had left in a hurry. There was a lot of stuff thrown around the rooms in the whirlwind of packing in both Gloria’s and Rhys’s rooms. Vera’s and Robin’s did not appear to have been touched.
The police had processed the house. The iron supplement was gone from the bathroom and the mirror and other surfaces had been dusted for prints. They didn’t appear to have touched much else.
Kenzie studied each of the items Zachary picked up and showed to the police officer to get permission for their removal. A quilt. A sweater. A photo album.
“I don’t really understand this. Why are these things important?”
Zachary glanced at the policeman. “They’re not. They’re completely unimportant.” He looked through the living room and kitchen to find Vera’s favorite mug. She’d had it on the table beside her both times he had visited her. He found it in the kitchen and showed it to the officer.
“Can I take that? It’s dirty, I’ll need to wash it.”
The policeman inspected the mug, then shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“Why don’t you find the tea while I’m washing this?” Zachary suggested to Kenzie. “It smelled like peppermint.”
Kenzie didn’t move. Zachary cleared enough space in the sink to wash the mug, and while he scrubbed it, she finally did as he asked and looked through the drawers and the canisters on the counters until she came up with a tin of tea bags. The peppermint smell wafted over Zachary when she popped the lid to have a look inside.
“That’s it,” he confirmed.
“Okay. We’ve got her mug and her tea. And her blanket, sweater, and photo album.”
“That should do it.”
The police officer had one more look through everything before allowing Kenzie and Zachary to take them out of the house. Zachary packed everything but the photo album carefully into the small trunk of the sportster. He put the photo album in his lap and paged through it as Kenzie drove them to the care facility.
Chapter Twenty-Five
V
era sat in a bed in a hospital-like room at the care facility, looking anxious and confused. She didn’t remember who Zachary was and snapped at him about when she was going to be able to go home.
When Zachary brought out the quilt and spread it over the bed, she patted at it, making soothing sounds. She pulled it close and snuggled into it.
“You probably don’t need this,” Zachary displayed the sweater. “Not with the quilt on. But if you decide to get up and walk around, you might want something to put on.”
“No, I want it now,” Vera disagreed. “Help me put it on.”
She leaned forward away from the pillows and Zachary helped her to thread her arms into the sleeves and straightened it out. She lay back again, and he did the zipper up.
“There. That’s very pretty. It’s a nice color on you.”
Vera smiled and patted at her hair, making sure it was all neatly in place. Zachary reached back to take the mug of hot tea from Kenzie. One of the nurses had been kind enough to let him use the electric teakettle in the staff kitchen to prepare it.
“Here, it’s very hot, so you’ll have to be careful and let it cool down for a few minutes.”
Vera held the mug under her face and inhaled the peppermint scented steam. “Oh, this is my favorite,” she said
happily. “How did you know that?”
Zachary sat down on the visitor chair, which put him closer to her eye level. “There, that’s better, isn’t it?”
Vera nodded. She reached out for Zachary, and when he extended his hand, she patted it. “You’re such a nice boy. How did you know just what to do?”
Zachary shrugged. He’d been moved around enough times to understand how much a few precious possessions could mean. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”
“Oh, yes. I feel fine. I don’t know why they brought me here. I’m not sick.”
“I think they were just worried about you being alone, with Gloria being away.”
Vera thought about that for a minute. “But where did she go? This is all so sudden!”
“I know. She and Rhys had to go, didn’t they? It must have felt strange, being all alone in the house.”
“I’m used to being alone. During the day, anyway. The girls work, and Rhys goes to school. Clarence is long gone, so it’s just me there during the day. At night…” She frowned and shook her head. “I’m not used to that. It’s a little bit scary.”
“You must be glad that you were here last night, where you didn’t have to be alone.”
Vera brightened at that. “Yes. It was much better.”
Zachary didn’t look at Kenzie. They had both heard the staff talking about how Vera had whined and complained all night that she just wanted to go back home. It was better if Vera remembered being happy to be there at night, even if it wasn’t true.
“I brought some pictures.” Zachary pulled out the photo album and rested it across Vera’s lap. “I thought you could tell me about your family. About Clarence, and the girls when they were younger. And Rhys.”
Vera squealed in delight. She ran her hands over the ornate cover as if she hadn’t seen it in years, instead of having looked at it with Zachary only a few days earlier. “You brought my pictures! You are in for a real treat. Let me show you…” She opened the photo album reverently. Zachary scooted closer to look at it. It was the same album as he’d looked at with Vera before, but he knew more about the family this time. He wasn’t going into it blind like he had at the beginning. If he was right, Clarence had been murdered by his own daughter, not killed in a burglary. And the others had covered it up. Gloria, at least, knew what had happened. Maybe she knew at the time, and maybe she had learned since, but she hadn’t gone to the police and told them what she knew. Her son had suffered for years and the resentment between Robin and Gloria had grown.
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