by S W Vaughn
Bethy attended First Baptist almost every Sunday with her boyfriend and his family, but Preston had stopped her already infrequent visits to church — she had been raised Presbyterian, but stopped going when she was a teenager and only reluctantly attended the Methodist church with Paul — right around the time her husband had vanished. Not that she’d been particularly religious before then. Church had been more of a social gathering than anything else, a place to catch up with friends and acquaintances, maybe have a cup of coffee and a few interesting conversations.
She wasn’t keen on catching up with people these days.
Undaunted by her attempt at dismissal, the reverend pressed on. “I came to offer my services to the police department during this difficult time for our town,” he said, as if the murders of two women could be solved through prayer. “How are you holding up? Would you like to make an appointment to come to the church, perhaps for our group meeting on Thursday?”
Preston knew that he meant well, but there was just nothing for her in his brand of comfort. “Thank you, Reverend, but I’ll pass,” she said, and then realized she hadn’t introduced the shadow lurking behind her. She had no idea whether Detective North was religious, but he was new around here. Maybe he’d be interested in a group meeting. “By the way, this is Detective Donovan North,” she said, moving aside to gesture at him. “He just came into town last night. North, this is Reverend Anton Fehily.”
The reverend jerked slightly, and his normally open, friendly expression went guarded as he turned his attention to North. In fact, for a few seconds the man looked almost hostile. He didn’t offer a hand or say anything to the other detective.
“Nice to meet you,” North said politely enough, though he looked as confused at Reverend Fehily’s change in demeanor as Preston felt. “Everything okay there, Reverend?”
“You don’t—” the reverend began, and then closed his mouth abruptly. The semblance of a smile returned to his face, but it was a frosty, distant expression. “Everything is fine,” he said. “I’ll assume there’s no need to extend the group meeting invitation to you, Detective North.”
North cocked his head slightly. “Have we met?”
It was the same question he’d asked her when she first met him at the Whispering Pines. At the time, she’d thought he was making a bad joke. But now it sounded like he thought he should know someone in town but wasn’t sure exactly who. Like he was feeling out everyone he met, just in case they knew him.
Once again, she had the feeling that something wasn’t right about this man. He was hiding something.
“Everyone knew you were coming, Detective,” Reverend Fehily said — which didn’t exactly answer North’s question. “It’s a small town. People talk.”
Preston tried not to stare at the normally placid reverend as he issued what almost sounded like a threat.
If it was a threat, North didn’t seem to pick up on it. “Of course,” he said with a hint of confusion. “Well, like the lady said, we’d better get going.”
Reverend Fehily nodded and turned back to Preston, the warmth returning to his face as though he’d flipped a switch. “If you change your mind, Preston, you know where we are,” he said. “Please tell your sister that I said hello.”
“I will. See you later, Reverend.”
She couldn’t get herself and North out of there fast enough.
After they were in the car and pulling onto the road, she sent a quick glance at the detective. He stared straight ahead, his face almost blank in thought, the white foam cup from Dunkin he’d brought into the station held in both hands like a life preserver. Or a talisman to ward off inexplicably hostile reverends.
Before she could say anything to him, he blinked and turned toward her. “We’re going to the hospital, right?” he said. “To talk to the boyfriend.”
“Yes.” Apparently they weren’t going to discuss the strange encounter with Anton Fehily. She almost brought it up anyway, but then decided if he didn’t want to talk about it, she’d leave well enough alone for now. “Why don’t you go ahead and conduct the interview?” she said, although she’d prefer to do it herself. But she could always talk to Derrick Coleman later on her own, if she didn’t feel that North had asked the right questions, or enough questions.
Some instinct told her to observe his interviewing technique, to find out whether it was as … non-procedural as his briefing had been.
He looked uncomfortable with the suggestion, but he nodded. “If you’re sure,” he said. “Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like you want the lead on this case.” He faced her, and she could feel the scrutiny in his gaze. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that you resent me for being involved at all.”
It wasn’t so much the words, but the way he said them — not accusatory or condescending, but gently. Almost understanding. As if he wasn’t just pretty sure, but he knew that she resented him, knew why she resented him … and he didn’t blame her for it.
Now she wanted to hate him for being so damned perceptive. But she couldn’t bring herself to.
“You’re right.” She blew out a breath and forced herself to relax her hands, which had tightened on the steering wheel. “I mean, I don’t resent you, but like I said … I think we got off on the wrong foot. That was my fault.” She swallowed and focused on the road, so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “I’ve only been a detective for about a month.”
She didn’t elaborate, hoping he would pick up on the rest of what she was implying without having to say it. And he did. “So this is your first big case, and it feels like the chief decided you need a babysitter,” he said. “Does that about cover it?”
Relief brought an uncertain smile to her face. “Just about.”
“I get it. I really do.” He looked out the windshield again, silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “Listen, Clarke. I haven’t known you that long, but you seem pretty sharp to me. And I don’t think anyone’s blaming you for not being able to catch this guy.” He shot her a sidelong glance. “There’s a lot more guys — er, people in the NYPD, and they’ve been trying for three years without success. You’ve only been at it for a month.”
She grunted a sarcastic laugh. “Suggesting that it’s going to take years to find the killer does not make me feel better.”
“Sorry. Not what I meant.” His crooked smile was almost infectious. “I’m saying that I think you’re up for this job, and you should go ahead and do the interview at the hospital.”
“Thank you.” Some of the awful tightness that had lived in her since the call came in about the second victim — only this morning, though it felt much longer than that — eased up a bit, and she was glad they’d gotten all that out in the open. “But you know what? I still think you should do it,” she said. “No resentment this time. It’s just that you know more about the New York victims than I do, and … well, we’re on the same side, right?”
“Right,” he agreed after a slight hesitation, with enthusiasm that only sounded a little forced. “Okay, so I’ll do this interview, and you can catch the next one.”
“Sounds good.”
He still sounded like he didn’t want to be bothered doing the grunt work, but she’d let it slide. It didn’t have to mean that he was lazy or uncaring. After all, he’d just complimented her intelligence, bolstered her confidence, and offered to let her do what she’d wanted to do in the first place. And through it all, he’d been smooth as silk.
Or possibly snake oil.
Chapter Fifteen
Marco
Chelsea Mathers’ boyfriend looked like a man who’d just woken up to find the doctors had saved him from some kind of horrific accident, one he wished with all his heart that he hadn’t survived. There were no physical marks on him — rather, it was a kind of aura that hovered around him, suggesting he’d been beaten down and broken in ways that would never heal.
I supposed that wasn’t far from the truth. No doubt what he’d seen this morning would haunt him for the r
est of his life.
He watched us come into the room, me first, Detective Clarke right behind me, and his eyes were holes burned into his head, underlined with brutal smudges of skin so dark it looked bruised. Nothing flickered in those eyes. No questions, no recognition, no interest.
I approached the hospital bed slowly, still trying to consider what the hell I’d say to this man. For a second there, on the ride over, I thought I’d found a way to put Clarke at the front of this so I could continue to hang back and observe. I hadn’t been lying to her — she was sharp, and very determined. And she definitely knew more about doing a police interview than I did.
But instead of nudging her just enough to take the lead, I’d brought her past that point and straight into ‘we’re on the same side, you go ahead.’ At least that meant she’d hopefully be less angry and antagonistic toward me from now on.
Unfortunately, it also meant I had to be the one questioning this hollowed-out, devastated shell of a man about the last thing in the world he’d want to discuss.
I stopped next to the bed and realized I didn’t have a notebook or a pen on me. Didn’t the police always have those little notepads on hand, ready to scribble ominously while they grilled suspects? Except Derrick Coleman was not a suspect, as far as I knew, and I’d never seen an actual cop writing in a notebook. Only fictional cops did that.
But real cops recorded everything, or at least they were supposed to. And I did have a cell phone.
“Mr. Coleman,” I began slowly, partly so I wouldn’t startle him and partly to stall while I got the phone out and navigated to the list of apps. Donnie-boy hadn’t added any third-party apps to the phone, but he also hadn’t uninstalled the standards that came with it. I found Voice Recorder on the list, opened it and tapped Record, and then held the phone loosely in my hand. “My name is Detective North, and this is Detective Clarke,” I finally said, pleased that I hadn’t stumbled the introduction. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about … what happened to you.”
I glanced at Clarke, who’d come up next to me, hoping for some clue in her expression as to whether or not I’d already screwed up. She seemed attentive, concerned about Coleman but not about me.
So far, so good. Probably.
Coleman shifted in the bed and managed to sit up a little straighter. “Derrick,” he said in a rough, listless voice. “I can’t … it’s Derrick.”
“Okay, Derrick.” I wasn’t sure if I should treat him casually, man-to-man, or carefully, like a bomb that might go off if he was bumped the wrong way. I decided the short-fuse bomb was probably closer to his current state of mind, and that I would tread with care. “Can you tell me what happened when you went to Chelsea Mathers’ house this morning?”
“She was dead,” he replied instantly in that same listless tone. “Dead.”
I caught movement from Clarke and threw a quick look at her. She’d bowed her head and was rubbing her eyes, as though she was tired, but I was sure I’d seen a glimmer in them. Tears of sympathy — and probably fury, too, that the sick bastard was still out there and might kill again. Take someone else’s girlfriend or sister or daughter or wife from them, leave them as destroyed as this man was.
I knew this, because I felt exactly the same way she did.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Derrick,” I heard myself say, wincing inwardly as the stupid cliché left my mouth. No one wanted to hear that. Especially after they’d lost someone they loved to senseless violence. “If you can, I’d like you to please tell me everything you remember, starting from when you arrived at the house.”
I hoped that was the right question to ask.
Derrick’s head turned toward me in jerky, incremental motions. “Why?”
That was not the response I expected. “Because it might help,” I said quickly, without allowing myself to hesitate or think about it. “Anything you saw or heard or … smelled, might help us find the person who did this.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Detective Clarke staring at me. She mouthed smelled? and I just shrugged. Couldn’t take the question back now.
Derrick let out a long, reedy breath that seemed to deflate him even further. He closed his eyes. For a few seconds I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then his lips started moving, the words emerging slowly from between them like drifting fog.
“Everything seemed fine when I got there,” he said. “Everything looked normal. I heard birds. Smelled … flowers, and fresh-cut grass. I …” He paused, and his brow furrowed with his eyes still closed. “Grass shouldn’t have been cut,” he murmured. “Her lawn. I was going to mow it yesterday, borrow Dad’s rider, but it broke and we were waiting for a part. Chelsea didn’t … have a mower.”
Fresh-cut grass. I remembered noticing that when we pulled up to the house, though I didn’t think it had anything to do with her murder. I still didn’t, but maybe it was important somehow. “So, you’re saying Chelsea couldn’t have mowed her lawn?”
Derrick shook his head, but slowly, as if he wasn’t sure. “She didn’t have a mower,” he repeated. “But the grass was cut. So I went in, and she was supposed to be ready. We were going to the beach. I thought … in the shower, maybe. I went in the kitchen to make her coffee.” He opened his eyes and frowned. “There was a business card. On the counter by the back door. Her counters are always spotless, that’s why I saw it. I … didn’t really read it, though. I mean, I don’t remember.”
I nodded and thought back to the crime scene, everything I’d noticed and catalogued in my automatic hypervigilance. “Loomis Lawn Services,” I said once I’d pictured the kitchen, the counters, the small white rectangle lying on black tiles.
Detective Clarke gasped. “Oh my God. Scott Loomis,” she said.
When I heard the full name, my brain instantly made the same connection she must have. I’d just read that name a few hours ago — in the reports on the first victim. “Lynn Reynolds’ fiancé,” I said. “Do you think …?”
I left the question unfinished, because I could tell that she did think. And she wanted to act. But we couldn’t cut this interview short on the basis of a business card sitting out of place on a countertop — even I knew that — and Derrick Coleman was looking at us for the first time with some sort of emotion in his eyes.
Desperation. Hope. It was awful, the evidence that the only hope this man had left in the world was that we’d find his girlfriend’s killer and send him to prison.
Even though the twisted, psychotic monster who’d done this deserved far worse.
“Excuse me,” Clarke said abruptly, already pulling her phone out as she turned to leave the hospital room. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“All right,” I said to her retreating form. As if I could say anything else. I held back a sigh and addressed Derrick again. “Did Chelsea know Scott Loomis?”
A careful shrug, a pained swallow. “I don’t … not really. He goes to our church,” he rasped. “We’ve both talked to him a few times. There, and at … Lynn’s funeral.” He closed his eyes, and a sound escaped him that was somewhere between a hitch and a scream. “Oh, God. Chelsea…”
There was a pause like a gathering storm, and then he broke down all at once. Shouting, sobbing, screaming his girlfriend’s name. He thrashed in the bed, and all kinds of machines started beeping and wailing, adding to the cacophony that the room had suddenly become.
I heard running in the corridor, and two grim-faced nurses rushed in. One of them went straight to Derrick’s bedside and spoke to him in calming tones while she moved to adjust his IV and untangle the twisted bedclothes from his limbs. The other took me firmly by the arm. “I’m sorry, Detective, but you’ll have to leave the room,” she said. “We’ll probably need to sedate him again. Thank you.”
She all but shoved me outside and shut the door, leaving me no chance to protest.
Not that I would have. I didn’t want to be the cause of any more grief for Derrick Coleman.
“What happened?” D
etective Clarke’s concerned voice floated down the corridor. She was headed toward me briskly, almost at a run.
I shook my head and remembered that the voice recorder was still running on my phone. “He had a breakdown,” I said, lifting the phone so I could tap the recorder off. “The nurses are sedating him, so they told me to leave the room.”
Sympathy flashed across her face. “God, that poor man. But at least we have a lead now.” She released a short breath, as if she was preparing to say something she didn’t like. “That was good work, with the interview,” she told me, half-grudgingly. “And I see now why you asked him about what he smelled. I never would’ve … it was brilliant.”
Damn, now I felt bad. Asking the guy about smells hadn’t been some genius interview technique — it was just a happy accident, me running my mouth wherever it decided to go. But I couldn’t admit that, or I’d be right back to untrustworthy and suspicious in her eyes. So I just said, “Thanks. Maybe we got lucky.”
“And the business card,” she went on, as if I hadn’t said anything. “I can’t believe you remembered what it said. I would’ve had to go back and look at the crime scene photos. You remembered all the victims’ names too, even the New York ones, without any notes.” She actually smiled a little. “I’m impressed, Detective North.”
Once again, I couldn’t tell her the truth. None of that had been skilled detective work. Just hypervigilance stemming from being bounced around from abuse to abuse after my mother died. First my uncle, then juvie, then a foster home, back to juvie, back to my uncle, so on and so forth until that last time at New Heights when the system finally had to spit me out, and my old pal Jake introduced me to the wonderful world of mobsters and gentleman assassins.
None of that came out of my mouth, and Clarke must’ve taken my silence for humility or something. “I mean it,” she insisted. “That was really good work.”