Presumed Dead

by Mason Cross

  McGregor nodded. “Then I guess we all are. As well as ballistics results on whether the gun we found at his house is the same one that killed Roussel and Haycox and the others. Meantime, I’m heading back up to the house.”

  “I’ll come too,” Green said quickly.

  “Why don’t you go home, Isabella? I’ll need you in the morning.”

  “But …”

  “See you in the morning,” he said, fixing her with a look that quietened her. McGregor went outside and got in the car. Dentz took a seat in front of the door that led to the cell and the interrogation rooms.

  “Hey, if you really want, I’ll swap with you,” Dentz said.

  She ignored him and beckoned me outside.

  “What do you think?”

  I considered. “Right now, I’m thinking we should get something to eat.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Never been more serious. Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?”

  Green sighed in frustration. “I should be out there at the house.”

  “No point. The forensics guys will do their thing, you’ll get an update in the morning when you’re fresh and ready to get to work. I hate to say it, but McGregor’s right.”

  “What if they find something else? What if there are more bodies?”

  “Then they’ll call you.”

  She stopped and considered, that little line appearing between her eyebrows again. I pressed my advantage.

  “Come on, dinner’s on me this time.”

  We got into Green’s personal car, which was parked outside the station. We headed up the hill to her mother’s house so she could check in on her, as well as change out of her uniform. Green pulled into the driveway and parked under the big oak tree. She stayed in her seat when she had turned the engine off, looking ahead out of the windshield, as though she was staring right through the trunk of the oak.

  “I don’t think Connor killed Haycox and the others.”

  I looked over at her, surprised. Not that she had come to the same conclusion as me, but that she was ready to say it out loud. I waited for her to continue.

  “I’ve been thinking about the Roussel shooting. What struck you about the scene? The position of the car?”

  I thought back to earlier in the day. I had to concentrate. A lot had happened since then.

  “He was pulled over on the shoulder, slumped over the wheel.”

  “That’s right. Pulled over. He stopped the car before he was shot; it didn’t happen while he was driving.”

  I started to see where she was going, but let her get to it.

  “We think maybe Haycox could have been killed by someone he trusted. But old Roland? He didn’t trust anyone. You know what that means?”

  I said nothing, waited for her to go on.

  “It means he had a good reason to pull over. Just like Haycox had a good reason to go out on the mountain at night. Just like the hunters had a good reason to lay down their guns.” She turned to me. “I think you’re right, is what I’m saying. I think you’re right, goddammit. I think it could have been one of us.”

  “How well do you know them?” I asked. “The other cops?” I had only spoken to McGregor and Feldman, and I couldn’t honestly say my feelings on either would make me objective.

  “Most of them pretty well. Haycox was the newest. I can’t imagine any of them …”

  “I know,” I said. “All we can do is keep our eyes open, and our cards close to our chests, until we know more. Whoever it is wants us to think we have our man. Let’s not give him any reason to think different.”

  We got out and went into the house. Her mother was in her chair in the living room, watching an episode of Columbo. Kathleen Green showed no signs of remembering me from two nights ago, and told me it was very nice to meet me when I introduced myself again. As soon as she got past the pleasantries, she smiled and turned back to the television. It was the one with Robert Vaughn on board a cruise ship. It was weird to see Peter Falk in short sleeves and no raincoat.

  “He always gets his man, doesn’t he?” she said, without looking away from the screen.

  “He has an advantage,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “He always knows who did it.”

  “He certainly knows people,” she agreed.

  I thought again about the email I had received from Honorific just before Green had shown up. With all the excitement of the past few hours, Adeline Connor had seemed like a side issue. But the reply to my enquiry had confirmed a nagging suspicion. Either the woman calling herself Jane Graham had lied to me about her real name, or she had lied to the company when they hired her. What reason would she have to do either? If it involved a convincingly faked driver’s license, it had to be something important.

  Green appeared after a couple of minutes, but the transformation made it look like she had spent an hour in wardrobe with a retinue of staff. She had swapped the uniform for a blue dress with a subtle white polka dot pattern. Her blond hair had been unleashed from the tight bun and hung around her neck in a wavy style from the day’s compression. She looked five years younger, less uptight. She grabbed a leather jacket from a hook in the hall and looked at me.

  “You ready?”

  I got up and smiled at Mrs. Green, who reciprocated.

  “Lovely to meet your new gentleman, Isabella. He’s very charming.”

  Green gave me an embarrassed look and bent to kiss her mother on the forehead. “Mary is coming over at about seven o’clock. Don’t wait up.”

  59

  Carter Blake

  Jimmy’s Bar was busier than it had been the other night. Most of the tables were occupied, and there were small knots of people standing at the bar. There were a lot of cars in the lot. After a moment, I worked out why. The stage at the far end was set up with equipment. Green saw me looking in the direction of the stage.

  “Band night.”

  “Who’s the band?”

  She shrugged. “Whoever it is, it’ll be blues rock.”

  “Could be a lot worse,” I said.

  “That all depends on the band, doesn’t it?”

  We took a booth in the far corner, in the end of the bar farthest from the stage, and consequently less busy.

  Jason, the bartender from the other night approached with a couple of menus, smiling at Green and then widening his smile when he saw me and Green together.

  “You guys eating?”

  Green told him we were and he laid the menus down on the table.

  “Thanks again for the other night. You hear about what happened to those jerks?” He turned to Green. “Hear you got David Connor for it.”

  Green reached out and opened her menu pointedly. “Off-duty, Jason.”

  His face crumpled into embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Deputy. I mean Isabella. Get you some drinks?”

  I looked over at her, waiting for direction.

  “Oh, I don’t drink. But you go ahead. Lime and soda for me.”

  I remembered back at her mom’s house, how she had offered me a beer and gotten herself a bottle of water. At the time I assumed she was just conscientious about drink driving. I ordered a beer and Jason told us he would give us a second to have a look at the menu.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Alcohol and me don’t mix. It’s an impulse control thing.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. It’s not weird not to drink.”

  “You really aren’t from these parts, huh? I’m the only person in this town I know who doesn’t,” she said. “I don’t know. I feel like I need to keep a clear head. I’m not in AA or anything. It’s just, sometimes you know that if you start something you might not be able to stop.”

  We held each other’s eyes for a moment. Then we both looked down at our menus.

  When Jason
came back, we ordered two cheeseburgers. Green sipped her drink through her straw, her blue eyes studying me.

  “What did Connor tell you, really?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but stopped and closed her eyes as she was interrupted by a shriek of feedback from the stage. When it had abated, she opened them again.

  “What makes you think he didn’t kill Haycox and the others?”

  “You questioned him twice, and you can’t have missed it. There was a difference between the first and second times.”

  “You never know for sure in this job, Blake. But you do get to trust your instincts.”

  “And?”

  “And the first time I would have said he was innocent. Like you said. Circumstantial evidence, a vanishing anonymous tipper, and a history with the department that leads …” she paused and considered how to word it. “Some of my coworkers to approach things with preconceptions.”

  “McGregor or Feldman?”

  “Both. But mostly Feldman.” The line appeared between her eyebrows again. “Don’t give me that look. He’s a good cop, and a good guy.”

  I wasn’t convinced by either of those assertions. “What about the second time?”

  “Guilty. Or he has something to feel guilty about, anyway.”

  I nodded agreement. “Different body language, different tone, asking for a lawyer. Like night and day, like two different people.”

  She bit the corner of her bottom lip. “It’s not just that, though. It’s too convenient, finding the gun like that. And the anonymous caller, they couldn’t locate him. The number’s a burner.”

  Nothing surprising there. But I sensed there was more. “What?” I prompted.

  “The number it came from … it’s the same number we saw in Haycox’s private messages.”

  We stared at each other across the table, both knowing what this meant. The same person who had lured Haycox to his death had called in the tip on Connor. And perhaps the only reason he had felt safe to use the same phone, was because we had withheld that detail from anyone else. Which meant it could be someone close to the investigation.

  The band was taking the stage to a restrained cheer from the audience. I guessed things would get a little more raucous a few more rounds into the evening.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Green said after a minute, still looking at the band.

  “The killer?”

  “Yes. And he knows things. That part with the hunters, where the rifles and the wallets and the phones were positioned? That was never released to the public.”

  She looked away from the band and closed her eyes, and I wondered if she was visualizing the crime scenes, or the acts of murder themselves. “He’s cold, professional. Like you said, sending a message.” She opened her eyes again. “I mean, I still think it could have been David, but …”

  “But the crimes don’t fit with his personality at all.”

  She shook her head. “McGregor would say that’s irrelevant. He’d say look at the evidence. I know that’s not enough.”

  “You would make a good profiler,” I said. It had occurred to me before, watching her work, observing the quietly intuitive way she made her deductions.

  “People have told me that.” She shrugged and took a drink. “That, or I would make a good murderer.”

  I smiled.

  “You’re not a good influence,” Green continued.

  “How so?”

  “Encouraging shop talk when off-duty. We’re supposed to be taking a break.”

  “You’re right. You can’t be full-on all the time. You have to give your brain space to work everything through.”

  She nodded. “My mind gets stuck on a track sometimes. The counselor I went to after my dad was killed advised me to do just that, take breaks even when it feels like there’s no time. Maybe she was right.”

  The band struck up a tune that sounded familiar. They were a four-piece, mostly with lots of facial hair and denim. The singer had a mane of black hair and a mustache that would have looked at home in 1973. When he started singing, I recognized the lyrics. The singer was doing a passable Mick Jagger, singing about how he used to love her, but that it was all over now.

  Green sang along with the tail end of the chorus and smiled at me. “You’re a Stones fan?”

  “Big time.”

  “Beatles too?”

  “Sure. But any Stones album with Mick Taylor beats anything the Beatles put out.”

  She scowled and formed her lips into an “ooh” shape. “Beatles vs. Stones. That’s a real cats versus dogs question, isn’t it?”

  “How about you?”

  “Cats, and Beatles.”

  “Half right.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  The food arrived and we ate unhurriedly, in between long bouts of conversation. We were far enough from the band that we could talk. The band was pretty good. Mostly sixties and seventies rock and country covers, the occasional number they had written themselves, which the singer always introduced with an apologetic mumble. I switched to coffee after I had finished my beer.

  We were interrupted as we finished eating by a woman in her early twenties slamming her folded arms down on our table and bending down to examine the two of us. She had curly dark hair and red lip gloss, wore a black dress with a plunging neckline.

  “Y’all having a good night?” Her eyes shone with tipsiness, but she hadn’t had enough to slur her words or make her eyes lose focus. Friendly drunk, not wasted.

  “We are, thank you,” I said. Green caught my eye and smiled.

  She looked from me to Green and back. “Are you two on a date?”

  “No,” we both said quickly and as one.

  The band abruptly finished their number, underlining the awkward silence. A big college kid wearing jeans and a CBGB T-shirt approached, a long-suffering look on his face.

  “Cindy, don’t bother these people,” his tone said he was regretting being designated driver tonight.

  I waved a hand to show it was okay. “She’s fine, just making sure everyone’s having a good time.”

  The guitarist started up the opening chords of another song I half-recognized, an old White Stripes song I thought, and Cindy’s eyes widened in delight. “Oh my God, I love this!” Before Green could move her hand away, Cindy grabbed it in both hands and tugged her from her seat. “You have to come dance.”

  “I … that is …” Green began, looking more perturbed than at any time I had seen her in the last couple of days.

  “Come on, everybody else is,” she said, inclining her head toward the dance floor. She was right. Aside from the four of us and Jason the bartender, everyone was on the floor.

  “Cindy …” the boyfriend began.

  Green shot me an embarrassed look that suggested, Want to get this over with?

  “Why not?” I said.

  The song was almost over by the time we made it to the floor. They followed it up with a Free song, and then Cindy tugged her boyfriend away in the direction of the bar, winking at Green when she thought she was out of my line of sight.

  I watched them depart the dance floor, and then my breath caught in my throat when I saw them pass a brunette at the bar. The hair, the profile, looked just like Adeline Connor. Then she turned her face in my direction, and the spell was broken. Nothing like her.

  “You okay?” Green yelled over the music.

  I nodded. The Free song ended in feedback which segued into the gentle strumming of an acoustic as the lights went down. Another Stones song, one of the best. The dancers paired off and moved closer together. Green and I observed them, hesitantly, before she moved in closer with a wry smile. “‘Wild Horses’, they must know you’re a fan.”

  We moved clo
se to one another, swaying to the melody. They sounded a little more influenced by the Gram Parsons version. With a sense of irony, I remembered our conversation about the importance of a break, of loosening up to optimize one’s thought process. At that moment I could barely remember the name of my client. Green leaned close to my ear and spoke softly.

  “Tell the truth: is this what you thought you’d be doing tonight when you woke up this morning?”

  When the band finished, I settled the check and we went outside and got back into Green’s Chevy. We didn’t speak on the drive back to the cabins. The night was cold, but Green had the window wound down halfway. The air smelled of pine and wet leaves.

  When we pulled into the lot out front of the circle of cabins, I saw my own car was there, but no others. Joe Benson’s cold streak was continuing. His own cabin was in darkness, and I realized it was later than I thought. Green pulled to a stop in front of my cabin, the engine running. We looked at each other.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I think I needed that. To switch off for a while.”

  “Did it work? Your head feel clearer?”

  She considered and shook her head. “Not so much.”

  We both smiled and there was another silence. We had barely had a pause in conversation in the bar, but when we stepped outside, it had been like breaking a spell. She bit the edge of her bottom lip lightly, the way she always did when she was thinking about something.

  “So,” I said. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “The morning,” she agreed. “I’ll see you then.”

  I don’t know which of us moved first. Her, or me, or both of us simultaneously. There wasn’t time to dwell on it. Our lips met and suddenly my hand was in her hair, hers was on the back of my head, pulling me in.

  She turned the engine off and we got out on either side and circled around, meeting in front of the hood. We kissed again and she backed toward the door to the cabin, pulling me by the lapels of my jacket until her back was against the door. I fumbled my door key out and unlocked it on the third attempt. She let out a surprised yelp and grinned as the door suddenly gave way behind her.

  We stumbled into the hallway and crashed through the door into the bedroom. She pulled her jacket off and dropped it on the floor. Turning her attention to me, she ran both hands up the front of my chest, pulling my shirt out, and then started to unbutton it as we kissed again. We shed the rest of our clothes in short, efficient bursts, with long bouts of kissing in between, and then I lifted her up and laid her down on the bed.