Colder Than Death

by Linsey Lanier

  The source of the whiskey smell.

  “Mr. Cole,” she began. “I understand you were friends with Charles Singer?”

  “Yes. Yes, I was.” Slowly he turned his head to stare out the glass doors. “Good old Charlie.” He smiled wistfully. “He was always such fun. Always joking around, looking for a thrill. He lived a carefree life.”

  But not anymore. “You knew him well?”

  “We grew up together. But when we got older, we went our separate way.”

  Miranda drew in a slow breath. “His mother seemed to think you were best friends up until his death.”

  His eyes went wide as he turned back to look at her. “I meant we went our own ways professionally. Charlie started his own business and I went to college and got a job at an accounting firm. That’s what I do now. I work for Pace and Associates. It’s right here on Peachtree.” He gestured through the glass. “That’s why I took an apartment here. Easy commute.”

  But he wasn’t at work now. Either he’d left early to start boozing it up or he stayed home all day to do it. Maybe he’d gotten fired. Miranda made a mental note to check that out.

  Cole rubbed his hands on his knees as if his palms were sweaty and stared through the glass doors again. “I remember one time when we were kids, Charlie and I. We were in his room. I was staying overnight. His folks let me stay there a good bit. My parents weren’t home a lot and, well let’s just say neither of them were very good with children. Anyway, we were playing a game on the floor and Charlie said we should make a pact.”

  “What sort of a pact?”

  “That we’d always be friends. You know, always look out for each other. We spat on our hands and shook or some such ritual. You know, things boys do.” He let out a long sigh that was almost a soft moan. “I guess I didn’t fulfill my end of the bargain.”

  Now it was Miranda’s turn to blink. Her stomach was fluttering. That sounded an awfully lot like guilt. Did this guy know something he’d been covering up all these years?

  She leaned forward being careful that the chair didn’t squeak and forced her voice to match his softness. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  He blinked again. “Charlie? Oh, uh. Let me think.” He sat back in his recliner and tapped his fingers on its stuffed arms, like he had a nervous tick. “I think it was…it must have been about a week before the accident. That’s right. We went for drinks at Montgomery’s Tavern. Our old hang out. Used to go there all the time.”

  Remembered the childhood pact clearly, but had to think to recall the last time he saw his best friend? “Did Charlie seem…preoccupied? Like he was afraid of something? Or someone?”

  Cole jerked his head around and glared at Miranda open-mouthed. He began to blink again as he shook his head. “No, no. Everybody loved Charlie.” His voice had gone up a notch. “He was happy that night. Really happy. He was going to ask Abbey to marry him. We had a toast to celebrate….Oh, God!”

  Cole careened forward and thrust his head into his hands. Alarm bells went off inside Miranda’s brain. She waited.

  “Oh, God,” he moaned again. “Why did he have to tell me that? It was as if he was gloating about it that night.” He began to rock back and forth as if he had stomach cramps.

  “You mean about Abbey?”

  His hands jumped to his head and he fisted his hair as if he were about to tear it out by the roots. “I loved her so much. I’d always loved her. He had everything. Why did he have to take the one thing from me that I cherished more than my own life?” He raised his head and gasped. “I need air.”

  He shot to his feet, swung the glass doors open and stepped onto the balcony.

  Miranda got up and followed him. The sun was starting to set and the now cool air was laced with the faint scent of honeysuckle from the sidewalk landscaping below.

  She dared to take a step toward the distraught man. “Mr. Cole. What are you trying to tell me?”

  He spun around and glared at her, his eyes glazed, his chest heaving. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go on being such a coward. I have to tell the truth.”

  Again she waited.

  He paced around a little, put his hands in his pockets, took them out again. Then he began to talk. This time his voice was steady and dark.

  “It wasn’t a week before the accident that Charlie and I had that drink. It was the night before. Charlie told me where he’d be working the next day. He was worried that two of his workers were out sick and thought he’d have to do the job alone. I saw…an opportunity.”

  There were two mismatched wrought iron patio chairs out here with no table to go with them. Cole reached for one of them. Miranda thought he was going to sit down but he only shoved it against the edge of the balcony, its iron legs scraping against the concrete floor.

  He paced again. “I was doing temp work at the time to gain experience and I’d had a job in the Central Summit Building the month before. I still had an access card. I didn’t think it would work, but I decided to try it anyway. I took an early lunch, made my way over to the building. Sure enough, there was Charlie, working by himself. He was such a risk taker.”

  He moved to the railing, put his hands on it as if to steady himself and stared off into the clouds.

  Listening to the traffic sounds from below, Miranda forced herself to stand still, trying not to even breath, not daring to distract him.

  “My access card worked. It took a while but somehow I found my way to the roof. Once I got up there, I asked myself what in the hell I thought I was doing. I’d lost my mind. I was going to go back down. Then I spotted Charlie’s equipment. The pole, the tether that held him up. I watched it swing back and forth as he moved.” He made a gesture to illustrate. “I noticed the material and the metal looked old. Worn. But I saw where the clasp latched. It would be so easy just to press it open, let it go. I dug in my pockets and found some kitchen gloves. I didn’t even remember putting them there. I put them on and moved over to the post where the tether was attached. I reached out and held the ring in my hands. I was just about to open it.”

  Slowly Cole turned his head and stared at Miranda as if he were dreaming. “It broke. It broke in two right in my hands. I should have grabbed it. I should have tried to save him. Instead I just stood there and watched it go over the side.” He pressed both hands against his temples. “I can have her now, I thought. I can have Abbey. It was all I could think. But she didn’t want me. I saw her at the funeral and she never spoke to me again after that.”

  Miranda stood frozen to the balcony floor. This was the murderer?

  Evan Cole lifted his head to the sky and let out a heart wrenching howl. “I killed my best friend. The only person who really knew me. The one I’d promised to always look out for.” He began to sob. “I miss him so much. Every day I think of him. Every day I wake up hating myself more and more. I can’t live with myself anymore.” He was having a breakdown.

  Miranda took a step toward him. “Mr. Cole. Why don’t we…?”

  But before she could get the words out, he scrambled onto the chair. “I can’t go on with this pain. This loathing. This guilt. I’ve lived with it for ten years. I can’t live with it a second longer.”

  He swung a leg over the rail. He was going to jump.

  “No!” Miranda raced to the balcony’s edge and tried to grab him. She managed to wrap her arms around one leg and hold on.

  The rest of him went over.

  “Let me go,” he cried, his head dangling in the air. “I want to die.”

  He was heavy and struggling and insane. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold on. Part of her wanted to just let go of him. He had a point, after all. What did he have to live for? Years in prison?

  But her grip was unrelenting.

  “Let go,” he screeched.

  “No. I’m not going to let you do this.” She swung a leg around his and released one arm to reach for his belt.

  He kicked at her with his free leg and got her in
the ribs. Pain shot through her and she almost lost her grip on him. He sank a few more inches.

  She was standing on tiptoe now. Her arms were pulling from their sockets, getting tired.

  Again Cole jerked his body and one of her feet left the floor. She tried to give him a yank to pull him up but they only went down a few more inches. Both feet left the floor. Her toe anchored itself around the leg of the chair. That helped some but it wouldn’t last long.

  Any second now, they were both going over.

  There was a knock on the door and Miranda’s heart jumped in her chest. “Help!” she yelled as loudly as she could. “Help!”

  She turned her head. She could see the front door from here. Surely the visitor had heard her.

  “Help!” she yelled again and watched the knob turn.

  Thank God, Cole hadn’t locked it. The next thing she knew Becker was hustling into the room.

  “Steele, are you…? Steele!” He rushed across the floor, through the sliding glass doors and onto the balcony.

  He wasn’t big or tall but he was strong enough to grab hold of her and Cole and pull them both back over the rail and onto the floor.

  His eyes glazed and bewildered, Cole glared at Becker, then at her. Then he sank down into the corner and bawled like a baby.

  ###

  The police came and took Cole away.

  Back at the office, Wesson and Holloway were stunned when they heard the news. Judd was pleased the team had finally cracked the case, but his tone was grim when he reported the results to the class. There were questions. The same ones echoing in Miranda’s head.

  Would Cole do time for murdering his friend? Or would the case again be ruled an accident? That would be for a judge and jury to determine.

  The next day Miranda went to see Abigail Ward.

  She’d become an ER doctor and worked at Citadel General Hospital, south of the city. She was always busy, but she consented to give Miranda half an hour of her lunch time.

  They strolled around the grounds under the birch and maple trees in the warm afternoon sun with chirping birds and the sounds of city traffic in the background. The woman listened quietly as Miranda told her what had happened between her lover and his best friend.

  The doctor came to a stop at the end of the walkway and put a hand to her face. She was good-looking with a fair complexion, light red hair and a smattering of faint freckles across the nose. Except for her scrubs, white coat and name tag, she looked like she should be on a horse on a ranch in Montana.

  “I don’t know what to say, Ms. Steele. I don’t know how to take all of this in.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just thought you would want to know. And since Mr. Cole confessed to me, I thought I should be the one to tell you.”

  “I see.” She let out a long sigh and sank onto a bench.

  Miranda settled down beside her. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” She hated saying those empty words.

  “I thought all this was over ten years ago, but Charlie keeps coming back to me. In little tokens I still find from him around the house. In my memories. In my dreams.” She took an awkward breath as she struggled with her emotions. “I don’t know why Evan thought he loved me so much. I never gave him any reason to feel that way. At least not intentionally.”

  A woman as good-looking as Dr. Ward could give off vibes without meaning to, Miranda supposed. “I guess he didn’t understand that until it was too late. I’m sure that wasn’t your fault.”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to try and figure that out. Maybe….” She bit her lip and stared off at a row of willows across the green yard. “Maybe it was because I never could commit to Charlie.”

  “Oh? I thought you were in love.”

  She shook her head. “I was hurt in high school. A boy I was madly in love with dumped me for the prom queen.” She laughed sadly. “It was silly but I was too afraid after that to let myself get serious with anyone.”

  Tell me about it, Miranda thought. She’d sworn off men for thirteen years but it was a lot more than a high school break up that had made her do that. It was the reason she couldn’t say yes to Wade Parker when he talked about a future together.

  “I had no idea Charlie was going to propose. I wish I had known. The thing was…after a while, I did fall for Charlie. I was really in love with him. Deeply in love. He was so much fun. He always made me laugh. And I could talk to him. Like I never could with anyone else. I just couldn’t admit it to myself.”

  Miranda felt her throat going a little dry. She felt just that way about Parker.

  Dr. Ward put both hands to her face and let out an indistinguishable sound. Miranda knew she was fighting to control herself in front of this stranger. She should go.

  Before she could get to her feet the doctor reached for her hand. She stared at her with eyes moist with tears. “The thing was, I never told him. I never told Charlie I loved him. He went to his death without knowing what I felt for him.”

  Miranda sucked in air.

  She didn’t know what to say. She put her free hand on the woman’s and tried to think of something comforting to tell her. “People often sense things we don’t say. People who are close to us.” Like she knew anything about being close to people.

  The doctor nodded and released her. She straightened her hair, her shoulders. “I’ll never know for sure what Charlie sensed, will I? I suppose I’ll have to live with that, too.” She rose stoically. “Thank you for coming to see me, Ms. Steele. I appreciate everything you’ve done. And now, I apologize but I need to get back to my patients.”

  “Of course.”

  They walked back inside and the doctor shook her hand before she trotted off down the hall to the ER and her current life.

  Miranda wandered out of the building, her heart swollen inside her. They’d solved a ten-year-old cold case. Judd was proud of her and her team. It would earn her a good mark at the Agency. But as for her relationship with Parker? That was still as up in the air as a man suspended on a dangling cord.

  And with her luck, any day it could come crashing down and splatter on the sidewalk below. Would it end that way for them? Or did they have the future Parker insisted they did. Who knew?

  Maybe next week she could solve that mystery.

  THE END

  Thank you for reading Colder Than Death, a Miranda Steele Short Story. You can read more about Miranda and her budding relationship with Wade Parker—the Silver Fox—in the Miranda’s Rights Mysteries.

  Here is an excerpt from the first book, Someone Else’s Daughter (A Miranda’s Rights Mystery).

  Miranda’s Rights Mysteries—Book I, Excerpt

  Someone Else’s Daughter

  She could make it to the trees. She was too far away for him to catch up now. It started to rain. A soft rain. The kind, somebody had told her, that often came up in Georgia without warning. Beneath her, the ground sloped steeply as the grass grew wet. She slipped, tried to stifle a yelp, but it escaped her lips.

  The cop heard her. His light found her. “Stop,” he yelled.

  Man, she was having a bad night.

  But the rain slowed him down, too. She could hear him grunting and cussing behind her as he struggled down the slippery incline. She reached the bottom and the land became flat again. Almost there. She sprinted across a patch of grass to the first clump of trees. Hesitating, she stopped to catch her breath.

  The bright moon cast an eerie glow on the rocks and wild growth. She’d never liked wooded areas. She thought about murders in the forest preserves where she’d grown up. She thought of stories she’d heard about snakes in the Georgia woods. She glanced behind her.

  The cop’s light bobbed about halfway down the hill.

  No choice. Gritting her teeth, she braced herself and stepped into the tall grass. Her foot went down on a squishy surface of pine straw and matted grass, a twig snapped, but it held. She took another step, reached out and felt tree bark in front of her. She sidestepped
and moved around it. The ground was uneven and muddy. The drizzling rain fell against the leaves with a sound like soft cymbals. The air smelled cool and freshly washed. Brush tangled around her shins. Her hair and clothes were wet, but she couldn’t think about that now.

  She looked back again, could barely make out the cop. That meant he couldn’t see her either. She’d done it. She’d escaped. But he’d be hunting her in these woods soon. Probably call out the cavalry, too. Maybe she could make it to the other side. It was part of a subdivision, after all. She couldn’t remember the layout of the forest from her map.

  Better move faster. She took a quick step, then another. Found a spot where the trees opened up. She started to sprint. Wrong move. Something caught her foot. Down she went. She tried to catch herself on a tree, but her hand scrapped across its bark. Her palms skidded across the muddy ground.

  Damn. She didn’t need this now. What had she’d tripped over? She brushed her hair out of her eyes, hoping she hadn’t landed on a slithering snake.

  Then she froze.

  Inches away from her face, lay a shape. A familiar shape. She stared at it, her breath coming in snatches. Was she hallucinating? It looked like a kid’s sneaker. Peeking out from a pile of wet twigs and pine straw, like it had been lost there. Or buried. She reached out and whisked away some of the debris covering it.

  Her chest tightened. The sneaker had a foot in it.

  She got to her knees to sweep off more dirt. An ankle. A sock. A hem of denim. Oh, God. It was a leg. A human leg. She found the other sneaker. She was shaking all over by now.

  Her heart choking her throat, she crawled to the side of what she now realized was a mound. Desperately she shoved away the muck and grimy pine straw, the dreck someone had used to…she couldn’t even think it…to bury someone?

  Two legs appeared under her hands, clad in a pair of designer jeans. The type hip young girls liked to wear. She kept going and found the bottom hem of a fancy, girlish T-shirt. Then two young hands…tied with thick rope, clasped together as if in prayer. Oh, God. This couldn’t be happening. Tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t stop herself. Madly, she brushed away the rest of the dirt, and at last, the face appeared. Young. Pretty. More than pretty. Beautiful. And perfectly still.