Siren Song

by Jo A. Hiestand

  Siren Song

  by Jo A. Hiestand

  Published by L&L Dreamspell

  Spring, Texas

  Visit us on the web at www.lldreamspell.com

  Copyright 2010 by Jo A. Hiestand

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in a review.

  This is a work of fiction, and is produced from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real people is a coincidence. Places and things mentioned in this novel are used in a fictional manner.

  ISBN- 978-1-60318-233-1

  Published by L & L Dreamspell

  Produced in the United States of America

  Visit us on the web at www.lldreamspell.com

  DEDICATION

  For David —There are not enough superlatives in the English language with which to laud you. I can never thank you enough for your untiring help in setting up McLaren and the core of this story. Or for your repeat reading while the postmistress got acquainted with the nick. Diolch!

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  Sincere thanks to my friend Paul Hornung, St. Louis-area police detective, who rewrote fight scenes and gave me good and bad news about the manuscript. A handshake also to Detective-Sergeant Robert Church and Detective-Superintendent David Doxey (ret.), Derbyshire Constabulary, for answering questions while preparing to attend the Cheltenham jumps. Heartfelt thanks are also due to Richard Brook, for his suggestion about the classic car, and to Dr. Ruth Anker for the medical information.

  Despite David’s tutelage, I have made one mistake: giving McLaren access to the case reports in the police station. This was a misunderstanding on my part; I apologize for the error.

  My deep gratitude goes to all my friends and readers of my Taylor & Graham mystery series for giving me the support and confidence to continue writing. I hope the McLaren series retains your readership and that you’ll love him as much as I do. Thank you for five wonderful years so far!

  Jo Hiestand

  St. Louis, March 2010

  CHARACTERS

  Michael McLaren: former police detective, Staffordshire Constabulary

  Jamie Kydd: friend and constable, Derbyshire Constabulary

  Dena Ellison: McLaren’s former girlfriend

  Gwen Hulme: McLaren’s sister

  Marta Hughes: murder victim

  Alan Hughes: Marta’s husband

  Chad Hughes: Marta’s and Alan’s teenaged son

  Neal Clark: Marta’s brother-in-law

  Verity Dwyer: coworker with Marta at Noah’s Ark animal shelter

  Emlyn Gregg: shelter’s resident veterinarian

  Derek Fraser: boss and owner of Noah’s Ark

  Karin Pedersen: hiker

  Linnet Isherwood: Marta’s friend

  Sean FitzSimmons: Linnet’s friend

  Tom Millington: the Hughes’ neighbor

  Rick Millington: Tom’s teenaged son

  Danny Mercer: Rick’s friend

  Lloyd Farmer: police sergeant, Derbyshire Constabulary–retired

  Ian Shard: police constable, Derbyshire Constabulary

  Charlie Harvester: former colleague of McLaren’s in the Staffordshire Constabulary

  Tyrone Wade Antony: convicted burglar

  ONE

  “I’d like you to solve a murder.”

  Of course, her statement had the desired effect. She had obviously rehearsed what to say during the drive to see him. Yet now, watching the amazement in his face, she didn’t smile. The subject was too serious.

  McLaren straightened up from the pile of rocks, cocked his right eyebrow, and eyed the woman with the accumulated years’ experience of a police detective sizing up a reliable witness. She was tall, with hair the color of new corn silk, and she seemed oblivious to the dampness encircling the hem of her long skirt. She had waded through a pasture of dew-drenched grass and carefully picked her way between the small mounds of sheep dung and clumps of thistle to reach him. Now, near the top of the hill, the wind whipped a stray strand of her long hair and for a moment McLaren thought how it mimicked a stalk of greater tussock sedge that danced under the light, breezy buffeting.

  He slowly wrapped his fingers around the stone he held, torn between getting back to work and satisfying his curiosity. His cop’s inquisitiveness won. He said rather reluctantly, “Whose murder?”

  “Marta Hughes.”

  “Who’s Marta Hughes—personally, professionally and otherwise, Miss…”

  “Oh, sorry.” She extended her hand and spoke in a remarkably steady voice for having legged it up this steep hill. “Bad habit of mine. I get tunnel vision at times.” She paused, as though debating how to proceed now that she had opened the subject. “I’m Linnet Isherwood. Marta’s a friend of mine. She’s married. Sorry. Was married.” She flushed slightly and McLaren thought fleetingly how attractive the pink of her cheeks accented her green eyes. Linnet glanced at the stonewall he was repairing before adding, “They’ve a son. She worked at an animal shelter. Everyone said it was the perfect—”

  McLaren held up his hand. “Is that where she was found, at work?”

  Linnet shook her head. “No. She’d gone missing several days before the police found her body outside Elton. She—” She pulled in the corners of her mouth, as though what she was about to say was distasteful. “She’d been dumped alongside the road. Like a sack of rubbish.”

  Watching Linnet fumble for a facial tissue in her skirt pocket, he said, “What’s the matter with the police?”

  Linnet blotted her eyes, then stared at him, the tissue crushed in her fingers. “Pardon?”

  “The police. The coppers, the PCs, the local constabulary. The bill. They investigated the case, I assume.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “So?” He said it with a hint of sarcasm, as though his suggestion was laughable, or he already knew the outcome of similar investigations. But something more laced his simple question: an underlying tone of fatigue. With the police, with people, with his life. He exhaled heavily, slowly, waiting for her answer, his arms crossed on his chest, and wondered how she had found him. Not ‘why,’ particularly. His home village was rife with the knowledge of his previous career. And the circumstances that had led to his return there.

  So he waited, eyeing the woman, and was forming the response he’d give her when she said, “They never found out who killed her.”

  The information had no more effect on him than a fly settling on a stonewall. He sighed, unfolded his arms, and said as though he’d recited it a thousand times, “I’m sorry, Miss Isherwood. I’m not in the job anymore. Plus, I’m too damned hot.” An understatement, he thought, as he tried to swallow; it was the hottest June he could remember. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Talk to a solicitor.” He turned from her and picked up his work gloves, silently dismissing her.

  “But the killer’s got away with murder!”

  “Tell me about it. We live in a world of injustice.” The words were muffled as he bent over the rock pile.

  “The person they suspected at first now has a blot on her name that will probably stay with her the rest of her life.”

  “Relative of yours, I take it.”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Friend, then.”

  “No. A coworker of Marta’s, actually. I don’t really know her.”

  “So why—”

  “Because she’s innocent. Because,” she added when the words had not moved him, “I heard that you fought against injustice.”

  TWO

  “Abhorred it, actually,” she said a
s McLaren slowly turned to face her. She eyed him, suddenly aware of his great height and muscular shoulders. From moving rocks about, she thought, her gaze shifting to the stonewall. He tilted his head slightly, waiting for her to continue, and a shaft of sunlight fell across his face. His skin had tanned to the golden hue of a fox or newly-born fawn, accenting the brightness of his hazel eyes. Holding his gaze, she added, “Abhorred it as only personal experience could produce.”

  His face went deathly white, as though he’d received a fatal medical diagnosis. He opened his mouth to reply, but Linnet rushed on, having gained the advantage and his attention. “Which is why I took the trouble to find you. I thought if you heard about Verity’s situation, you’d want to take on the case.” She paused, waiting for his repeated refusal to help her. Her words had hit his inner being; she had no doubt of that. The look in his eye—was it pain or a challenge?—underscored her statement. But if she had gone too far, had revealed more about his character than he was willing to acknowledge, she had just killed any chance at getting him to help. She dabbed her eyes again with the tissue. Speaking of Marta these days drew forth her tears as easily as turning a tap brought on water. If there were a possibility that McLaren would tackle the old case… She added unnecessarily, “The case has gone cold.”

  McLaren snorted again. “They sometimes do. It’s usual for a case to go cold, Miss Isherwood, if the police either can’t identify the victim or are unable to find out where the victim or a suspect went. If there’s no trail to follow, no locality or time in which to place the suspect, the case grows cold, as you said. They come to a stonewall.” He stopped abruptly, aware of the simile, feeling momentarily uncomfortable at having spoken harshly.

  Linnet thrust her chin out, looking resolute and hurt simultaneously. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your intelligence. Perhaps I’m intruding on your time after all.” She started to turn when McLaren said, “Verity…who?”

  She smiled tentatively and grasped the sides of her skirt. Pulling it up so that her calves were exposed to his sight and to the air, she shook the garment slightly so the damp hem would catch the breeze and dry more quickly. McLaren’s gaze never left her face. She waved the skirt a few more times before releasing it, then replied, “Verity Dwyer. Marta’s coworker at the shelter. They’re friends besides being coworkers. Verity gave Marta the money for her casino outing, stole it from the shelter, actually.” Linnet’s face flushed with embarrassment at the situation. “It was terrible. The police thought it motive for Marta’s death, you see, since Marta didn’t live to replace the money from the cash till. And when the money from Marta’s casino win wasn’t found…well, that’s when Verity was suspected. She lives in Youlgreave, but—”

  “When was this?”

  The question caught her off guard. She grasped the ring strung on a silver chain around her neck, her fingers sliding over the polished metal as though she was saying the rosary. Or feeling it as worry beads. Her eyelashes caught the sunlight as she blinked, and she asked what he meant.

  “I mean when did it all happen? When was the murder, when was the body found, how was the body found, by whom? You mentioned she was found near Elton…” His voice had turned from the earlier hint of sarcasm to take on a hard edge. As hard as the stones of his wall. As unyielding in its quest for facts.

  And interested. Despite having left the job a year ago, he was still intrigued with a good story, still a cop at heart. He crossed his arms on his chest again, as though mutely challenging her to persuade him, and said, “Let’s have the story first. You want to sit down?” He grabbed the bucket that had held his jacket, trowel, string, chisel and work gloves, and turned it upside down. “Or if you’d rather sit in my car…” His voice trailed off as he glanced downhill at his car, mentally seeing its interior. It was presentable, the rear hatchback section holding a few of his stonewall tools, the passenger seat free of work clothes or CDs or his guitar.

  “This is fine,” she said, perhaps more emphatically or quickly than she had meant.

  His right eyebrow shot up again.

  Wanting to smooth any choppy waters, she added, “I’m all right standing. Actually, I love the outdoors. I sit inside too much. I’m a secretary. I work in Chesterfield.” She smiled hoping he wouldn’t think her reluctance to sit closely confined with him in his car had prompted her decision to remain where they were.

  McLaren nodded, his eyes still on his Peugeot 207 as he asked again for the facts of the case. He concentrated on Linnet’s face as she began, on her emerald-green eyes that seemed bottomless and filled with pain.

  “Last June, Marta and I had a girls’ night out. Oh, nothing wild,” she added as McLaren frowned. “Just a few hours away from the dullness of our lives.”

  “Away from the husband and kids,” McLaren supplied. “You mentioned earlier that she was married and had a son. You?” He eyed her, trying to put her into a convenient Slot. Her left ring finger was bare, but that didn’t put her into the Unmarried category. He’d known many women who wore no wedding rings.

  “A boyfriend. Sean FitzSimmons. He’s a writer.”

  “He’s okay with your girls’ night out thing?”

  “Of course. I’m not chained to him.”

  “Marta isn’t to her husband either, I assume. Her child is also old enough that she can escape the confines of home, leaving dad to babysit.”

  “Yes. Chad—her son—is seventeen.”

  “Right. So you and Marta spent a few carefree hours doing…what?”

  Linnet took a breath, as though stealing herself for a long recital or a tale told one too many times. “We went to a casino. We don’t make a habit of playing—”

  “Which one?”

  “What? Oh.”

  McLaren nodded at the name of the Nottingham room. “When was this?”

  “Last year. Eleventh of June. We’d been playing the slot machines for an hour or so. Won enough to make a small profit, but really no great luck. Nothing like we hoped. So we both switched to roulette. We’d been playing for twenty minutes or so when Marta screams. I had just ordered a drink, so my back had been turned from her. I hadn’t seen what had happened. I thought maybe some berk had grabbed her handbag or spilled his drink down her back. But when I saw her standing up and yelling and waving her fists, I knew she was excited. I still remember the croupier pushing the stacks of chips toward her. I thought the table would tip over.” She paused, as though reliving the scene. “I’d never seen so much money. It was like a miniature skyline of skyscrapers, or the Pennine mountain chain. The croupier kept corralling the stacks of chips and scooting them toward her. People were clapping and slapping her on the back. A man in a dark suit near the entrance to the room glanced in our direction at first—I thought he was going to come over and say we’d done something wrong—but he stayed at his post. I helped Marta gather up the chips and we left the table.”

  “How much did she get? Do you know?”

  “Of course! We took it into the Ladies’ and counted it. Then took it to the cashier to cash it in. I’ll never forget the sum—it was huge. Two hundred fifty-three thousand, five hundred pounds. A fortune. We counted the chips over and over, making sure it was right before we cashed it in. Then, when we traded it in for the notes, we took it back to the Ladies’ and recounted it. We’d counted it at the window, of course, but we counted it again in private. I—neither of us had seen so much money at once. It was like a fairy tale.”

  Or a folk song, McLaren thought, the song “The Female Highwayman” running through his mind. “So, was Marta killed outside the casino, then? Someone noticed her big win and killed her?” He eyed Linnet, wondering how she had escaped injury if this were true.

  “No. Not at all. We weren’t so elated by the win that we forgot to be vigilant. I know that’s a common happening, some bloke following the winner and then robbing her. So we looked around us as we went into the Ladies’ and the cashier’s window and again as we left the casino. No one was overt
ly following us. I would stake my life on that.”

  McLaren didn’t comment on the inappropriateness of the phrase. Or that Marta had been the one to forfeit her life. He said, “So you made it outside without being mugged. What happened after that? How and when was Marta killed?” He had not been taking notes—he had nothing to use for that—but he was taking it all in with a cop’s mind for facts. He would remember everything.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I know how she was killed but not when. The pathologist gave all that at the inquest. She was shot. In—” Again she paused, not wanting to relive the nightmare of Marta’s death, as though merely recounting the events would thrust her into the middle of the players. “She was shot in the head. Nearly point blank range, if that means anything to you. I suppose it does,” she added, watching McLaren’s reaction.

  “Where on the head? Back, front, left side…”

  Linnet screwed up her face and mumbled, “Back.”

  “What about the ballistic findings? Caliber.”

  “Oh. A thirty-eight.”

  “Was it traced to a specific revolver or pistol? Did the police seize all thirty-eight caliber weapons around Elton and other relevant areas, and test fire them?” God, what a job of work that would have been, he thought, envisioning the house-to-house requests, the confiscating and testing of weapons, the cartridge cases compared via ballistics…

  She shook her head, glancing at her feet. “I don’t know.”

  The answer surprised him. “Why not? You were at the inquest, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why—”

  “I stepped out of the room around that time.” She looked at him, hoping he would not be angry, hoping he would not think her the stereotype of a dumb, frivolous blonde. “I felt ill, like I was going to faint. All that talk about Marta’s body and the bullet wound…” Her eyes silently asked him for understanding. “I heard something later that the bullet could not be tested, but I don’t know why.”