The Kate Nash Series Boxed Set

by Keene, Susan

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Oh, yes, we can.”

  I got back in the car and drove to her house. Amy got out and opened the door. Sasha didn’t move.

  I looked at her in the rear view mirror.

  “Do we have a deal? Oh, and by the way, I’ll be talking to your mom once a week. If you’re taking this out on her, our deal is off, got it?”

  I could feel the heat of her anger drifting toward me and see the tears streaming down her face. “Okay.”

  I reached back over my shoulder and handed her my card. “Okay.”

  She didn’t throw the card down. She held it in her hand as Amy walked her to the porch. Marsha Sloan opened the door as they reached the porch and ran to hug Sasha. It shocked me when Sasha hugged her back.

  It was more than I’d hoped for.

  CHAPTER 5

  M y apartment overlooked Forest Park. It was the nicest thing I had. When Michael and I were married, Ryan gave us a twenty-year lease on it as a wedding present. It was on the other side of the park from his house, only about a mile as the crow flew but about four miles if you had to go around.

  The apartment was huge. Ryan thought we would have kids so he made sure we had plenty of bedrooms. I used one for an office, another for a closet, slept in one, used one as a guest room, and one was empty. I rarely had guests. I had the entire top floor to myself.

  It was great because the only access was the elevator. It had three keys, my mother’s, Michael’s, and mine. Michael’s was still lying on the dresser in the bedroom where he left it to go fishing with his brother three years ago.

  In my line of work, people held grudges. A guy was late every night for a month and his wife hired our agency to follow him. We made a report with fifty pictures of him with his tongue down the throat of a buxom blonde, and he was mad at us. He completely forgot he had an affair. We became invasive for following him and ruining his marriage. He followed us home, slashed the tires on the cars, and threatened to do us bodily harm. Yes, the top floor of a building with limited access was right where I wanted to be.

  I took a shower, called my mom, and settled in to read O Magazine before I turned off the lights. If I tried to sleep with Lizzy on my mind, I would spend the next seven hours staring at the ceiling. A magazine and two glasses of wine were called for in this situation.

  Well, it didn’t work. Wine, reading, and Mom didn’t do a thing to change my focus. I got up, went into the kitchen, got the rest of the bottle of Moscato, and headed for the living room.

  Where to begin? First, her phone records, then some door-to-door around the gallery and her home. There were bank records, social media, and twitter accounts I could investigate. I made myself a promise to find Lizzy.

  Her message said to feed the cat. She knew we would all get the clue. Lizzy swelled up like a toad ready to croak if she stood within ten feet of a cat.

  I felt better after I finished my list, but I wasn’t sleepy. I went back in my room and took the picture of Michael off the dresser, and hugged it. It had been two years, nine months, and seventeen days since Michael was murdered. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

  He and his brother Matt were fishing off a small island near Alton, Illinois, in the Mississippi River. They had camped there for a few days and decided to take the boat downstream to Grafton to pick up supplies. Matt said right before they left, the fish began to bite so they drew straws to see who got to stay and fish while the other went to town. Michael won.

  It took Matt several hours to dock, walk to the nearest store, buy groceries, and return to the island. When he pulled up to dock the boat, he found Mike lying face down in the sand with a hole in the back of his head. Matt panicked and ran around the tiny island, trying to see what they took with them. Nothing. It seemed to be a senseless, ruthless execution.

  Matt called nine-one-one and then sat holding his dead brother in his arms, not giving any heed to the fact that it was a crime scene. I heard the call come in at work and went over to the island on the coast guard cutter with the other officers who were investigating. There were many small sand bars and islands in the Mississippi, and I had been praying the entire time it wasn’t one of the men I loved. Once we got there, it became clear the murder had taken place on the Illinois side of the river and I could do little more than watch. The coast guard and Illinois Highway Patrol were taking the case.

  I was devastated when I saw Matt holding my husband in his arms, rocking back and forth, stroking his hair. I screamed and, the next thing I knew, I had been carried back to the boat by my now ex-partner, Roger Simon. I didn’t go back to the island for almost a year. Then Matt and I finally took the boat over on a crisp fall afternoon so he could show me what happened.

  They never found Michael’s killer. It happened on a Tuesday afternoon. The island was too far away to be seen from the shore, and the few people on the river that day didn’t see anything. The only clue was a fortune from a fortune cookie neatly folded in his front pocket. It read, He who sees evil and walks away becomes a victim of the evil he ignored.

  Ryan, the Alton Police Department, the FBI, the coast guard, and everyone else involved knew it to be the clue leading to the killer. Problem was no one could figure it out.

  It was now a cold case, open, but not actively investigated. The lead cop said it would happen again with the same MO, and maybe they would leave more clues. Meanwhile, I had lost the love of my life, Matt would never be the same, and a brilliant young man no longer walked this earth.

  I put the picture back and went back to bed. I faced the wall away from the dresser and chanted my mantra repeatedly until I fell asleep, “I have the strength to do what is mine to do.”

  I so wanted to believe it.

  CHAPTER 6

  M y feet ached after hours of canvassing Lizzy’s neighborhood. No one had seen or heard anything. I got into my car and headed toward the office. Ryan and Amy were both there when I arrived. Amy had been holding down the fort while checking out Lizzy’s cell phone records that the police had couriered over earlier in the day. She found two calls from a track-phone. They came from the same number and were untraceable. One was at six-fifteen p.m. the day before yesterday and lasted seventeen minutes. The second one was at seven-fifteen yesterday morning and it lasted four minutes.

  Ryan said a woman vividly remembered Lizzy having a lively discussion with a man outside of Starbucks on the Loop. He tried to get her to sit down and talk with him, and Lizzy didn’t appear to want any part of it. The woman said he wasn’t anyone she had seen before. She described him as medium height, in his mid-fifties, perhaps oriental. He wore dark glasses and a jogging suit. After Lizzy made it clear she didn’t want to sit with him, the woman said the man walked off toward the back of the store.

  That was two days ago. She told Ryan she would sit with a police artist. I called Roger Simon and filled him in. He promised to get me a copy of the sketch as soon as it was ready. It paid to have friends at Central.

  They were discussing a mysterious fire at the Gallery during the night and how lucky it was Lizzy’s paintings were unharmed. An investigation by the fire marshal showed it was a short in a light switch. Some minor painting and cleaning and the gallery would be ready to open in a week or two, a month at the most. They looked at one another and smiled at their collective coup.

  Everything happened at once. Diane Fields called to say her husband Stephen didn’t come home last night and could Amy and I go fetch him?

  I’d swear she had us on speed dial. If I were married to Stephen...well, I wouldn’t be. Stephen meant well enough, but every time he went out for a drink with people after work, he ended up at Tillie’s Strip Bar.

  Problem with Stephen was he didn’t go to see the girls, he went to save them. Next thing you knew, he had followed one home, was buying food for her kids, and babysitting. Now none of that would seem like such a bad thing if Stephen didn’t have a wife and four kids under seven at home.

 
; I didn’t have time to put the phone back in my pocket before it rang again. It was Roger.

  “Don’t tell me you have a sketch already?”

  “No, Kate, but you need to come down here, now.” He didn’t sound like his old chipper self.

  “Why, what happened? Is it Lizzy?”

  Amy and Ryan stopped their conversation and gave their full attention to my phone call.

  “No, It’s about Andrew James, he’s a friend of yours, right?”

  “You know he is. Roger, what’s wrong with Andrew?”

  Ryan leapt to his feet, but I held up a hand for him to wait.

  “Nothing I want to discuss on the phone,” Roger said. “I need you to come to Central.”

  “Okay, we’re on our way.”

  Roger didn’t ask who we were, and Ryan didn’t ask any questions either. I had nothing to say, because I couldn’t catch my breath until we were about a block from the station.

  Amy chose to stay at the office. She did, however, expect a phone call as soon as we found out what was wrong with Andy. I had a sinking feeling it was bad.

  I turned to face Ryan “I don’t feel good about this.”

  His knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so hard. “Me neither, I haven’t felt right since Michael was killed and Roomy’s body was found in the river. Suicide, my ass. Now Lizzy’s missing, and something is wrong with Andy. Where is all of this going?”

  What Ryan said rang true. Michael was an unsolved murder, and Roomy’s death was ruled a suicide. He was the happiest man I knew, and now Andy. What had happened to Andy?

  I tried to smile. “Maybe Andy has a speeding ticket he needs help with.”

  We arrived at Central before I had control of my emotions. Ryan helped me out of the truck. The darn thing sat so high I had to slide out of the seat. He took my hand and didn’t let go until we reached the station entrance. His hand felt warm and safe. I didn’t put up a fight. It was quiet inside the police station. A grungy-looking vagrant type sat on the bench alone.

  Roger Simon stood leaning against the door to the squad room as if he had nothing to do but wait for us. “Hi, Kate. Ryan.” He reached for Ryan’s hand.

  Ryan nodded.

  If Roger thought it odd that Ryan was with me, he didn’t voice it. “Come into my office.”

  We followed quietly behind. He pulled out two wooden chairs from the corner and sat them in front of his desk.

  “What’s up, Roger? Where’s Andy?”

  “I’m sorry to say he’s in the morgue.”

  I must have looked as if I was going to faint because, the next thing I knew, both men were on their feet, standing over me.

  “I’m fine.” I didn’t feel fine, but I wanted to know what happened. Now.

  I tried to take a deep breath. I had forgotten to breathe. I was certain that was the problem.

  “Andrew James, age thirty-three, was found with a gunshot wound to the back of the head. A cook at Fountain Gardens found him when he took out the trash about six-fifteen this evening. The body rested against the dumpster. His watch, billfold with eighty-four dollars and three credit cards was still in his pocket along with this.” He laid a small piece of paper on the desk. I didn’t need to look at it. I knew exactly what it said. I recited it aloud as Ryan read it. He who sees evil and walks away becomes a victim of the evil he ignored.

  The room began to spin. I almost slid to the floor but Ryan caught me.

  “Can you get her a wet cloth and perhaps a glass of water?”

  Roger was already on his feet as Ryan asked.

  I didn’t know how much time passed, it could have been a minute, it could have been an hour. It was long enough that Michael’s entire murder passed through my mind. Roomy’s dead face stared up at me from the icy waters of the Mississippi, and I could picture Andy’s body on the impersonal table in the basement. The fog lifted slowly, and I looked from Ryan to Roger. They both wore looks of concern. Ryan was hovering.

  “I’m fine.” Again, I tried to smile. This wasn’t the behavior I usually displayed, and it certainly didn’t fit my image as a bad-ass detective.

  “Does Linda know about this?” Ryan looked up to watch Roger’s face as he answered.

  Linda was Andy’s wife of six years. They had three small children. I was godmother to one, Ryan, godfather to all three.

  “No. We thought it would be better coming from you. Of course, I know it isn’t your job anymore.”

  He was quick to add the last sentence.

  Ryan answered for us.

  “No, it’s fine. We’ll go to her as soon as we’re finished here. I had dinner with them at the house just last week. Nothing was wrong. Andy would have told me. He was excited about the new clinic and his new partner. It was nothing but smiles over there.”

  “Did Andrew have any enemies you know of?”

  Ryan answered no. I shook my head,

  “What did your friend do?”

  “Veterinarian.” Ryan shook his head. “Can’t imagine why someone would kill him. Considering the note at both murders, I wonder if there would have been a note on Roomy if he hadn’t been in the water.”

  Now I felt sorry for Ryan. He mothered us as if we were his children. He had dinner here, was godfather to this child and that one. He flitted between us, making sure we were thriving.

  It took several more hours at the station. We went over the crime scene photos with Roger. He let us see the taped interview with the cook who found the body. It all seemed on the up and up.

  Finally, before we left, we went downstairs and identified our friend Andrew James. It didn’t look anything like Andy, except for his hair. No one could mistake his red curly hair.

  A man goes to work in the morning and is killed execution style on his way home that night. He has a strange note in his pocket, the same one as in Michael’s. What did it all mean?

  By the time we drove out to St. Charles to tell Linda and then stayed with her until her mother arrived from Godfrey, Illinois, it was after two a.m.

  When we got in Ryan’s truck, I sat close to him and buried my head in his armpit. I was freezing and sweating at the same time. Exhaustion, grief, and desperation fogged my mind. Ryan drove me to my apartment.

  I hoped Amy had retrieved Stephen Fields. If not, tomorrow was another day. I didn’t take time to think about whether it was right that Ryan was with me. The year after Michael died, I slept with Ryan on two occasions. Both times, it was because I needed to be held and loved. My world had died on an island in the Mississippi river. I had given up my job as a St. Louis detective because my empathy for the survivors of the tragedies we saw everyday haunted me. I worried about children whose fathers were shot, strangled, or died of a drug overdose. I grieved with the widows and widowers of the slain to the point of spending all my money to try to ease their pain and suffering.

  I finally quit, flew to Florida, lived with my mother for six months, and tried to get my head back on straight. Ryan came down to see me on two occasions, but nothing happened. We talked about old times, and Michael.

  When I came home, I called Ryan to tell him I was back. The next week we went to the opera, had a fabulous dinner at Tony’s, and he stayed the night. I hadn’t planned on sleeping with him. But in his defense, it wasn’t his idea. He remained a perfect gentleman and asked more than once if I was sure this was what I wanted.

  It happened again about a year later. Again, I took full responsibility. He was my oldest and dearest friend, a beautiful man inside and out, and available to me. In the fourteen years I had known him, I couldn’t remember him ever dating. Lizzy and our friend Sara were on his arm until she got married, then Lizzy and he went to all of the weddings and such.

  So here we were again, another scenario much like the others where I wanted him and he wanted me back. We went into the bedroom, kicked off our shoes and jackets, and lay on the bed, exhausted. I turned toward the windows overlooking the river. Ryan lay lightly behind me. He snugg
led into all of my bends and we fell asleep.

  Ryan didn’t move. I couldn’t read him. As I drifted off, I heard his breath become even and soothing against my back. I slept the sleep of a person who uses it for an escape, to get away from thinking,

  CHAPTER 7

  I woke up stiff and startled. I heard Ryan in the kitchen, rolled over on my back, and listened to his movements. When you lived alone, the sounds of someone puttering around the house could be unsettling or calming, depending on the circumstances. In this case, I found it calming. I didn’t have time to dwell on it because he came through the bedroom door with a tray carrying two cups of coffee and two toasted bagels with cream cheese.

  He set the tray on the bedside table. “I raided your kitchen. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, not at all.”

  Sitting on the bed, he picked up the tray and put it between us. “We need to see if we can get the files of all three murders so we can review the details side by side. Do you think Roger will help us with that?”

  I reached for a half a bagel and the cream cheese. “Sure. He made it clear we had his cooperation.”

  Ryan handed me a knife. “Maybe someone put the note on Andy, because we didn’t find one when Roomy was killed.”

  “What do you think it means?” I asked. “Do you think Lizzy’s disappearance is another part of the puzzle?”

  He sighed. “I wish I had an answer for you.”

  I sighed too. “Do you remember any time when Michael, Roomy, Andy, and Lizzy were in the same place? Someplace where they saw something or did something we don’t know about.”

  “I can’t think of any one place since we were all in France together. I have a habit of writing on my calendar where everyone is and when he or she is coming home. And, I keep them year after year.”

  I tried not to give him a strange look but I couldn’t help it. I cocked my head toward him, like a cat trying to understand something. “Isn’t that a little odd?”