Vengeance Is Mine (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  Consequently, when their eyes met, both parties grimaced. Still, he was a man on a mission. So he marched up to the desk.

  Battle-Axe Shepherd offered a steely smile. “Mr. Walters. How nice to see you.”

  “Likewise,” he said, with as much sincerity.

  “Do you have a reservation?”

  “A what? No. I’m looking for someone.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Okay…”

  “A tall guy, calls himself Day. Owen Day. He was staying here. I need to know if he checked out.”

  She smiled again, the same steely smile. “I’m sorry, Mr. Walters. But our client’s information is confidential. I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of any of our guests.”

  “Relax, Wendy. I just need to talk to him.” Then, offering a smile of his own, he added, “He’s a friend.”

  “Well why don’t you call your friend then, and ask him if he checked out or not?”

  “I don’t have his number.”

  “How unfortunate.”

  Ted scowled at her. “Are you going to give me a damned answer or not?”

  “I already did. That information is –”

  “Confidential,” he finished.

  “Exactly. So if that’s all…”

  He shook his head. “You don’t exactly work for the state department here, you know.”

  “We take our client’s privacy very seriously, Mr. Walters. If, however, you’d like to leave a complaint, you can always talk to the manager.” Her smile came back, more triumphant now. “Oh wait: that’s me.”

  He didn’t waste his time trying to reason with her. You couldn’t reason with the unreasonable. He’d learned that years ago.

  So he headed back to the doors.

  Wendy called, “Have a great day, Ted,” after him.

  He offered a one-finger salute over his shoulder, and marched outside. Moses watched him approach the truck, tail wagging wildly.

  “No luck, bud,” he said as he climbed into the truck. “I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

  Halverson didn’t get Sean Abbot. He reached his voicemail and left a polite message: Thank you for your time this morning. I had an additional question. If you could give me a call back at such-and-such number, thank you very much and so on.

  Then he got back to work processing the Wynder arrests. Halverson wasn’t by nature a vindictive man. So right now, his cheek buzzing with pain and his temper still high, he figured he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to decide about recommending charges.

  He still had twenty-three hours, plus. And while Donna, Joshua and Elizabeth had all committed crimes…well, Halverson wasn’t a vindictive man. They were Rick’s kids and Rick’s ex. They’d just found out they lost just about everything they’d been counting on for years.

  A tough day for them. Not that it justified their behavior. Not that they’d been done wrong. Still, not an easy blow to handle. So maybe they’d been punished enough.

  Maybe he could refer them for a misdemeanor disturbing the peace charge, instead of going down the more serious route of assaulting an officer and threats of violent harm.

  In the meantime, he started on the preliminary paperwork.

  He waded through that until his stomach started to growl. He hadn’t, he realized, eaten since breakfast. There was a café not too far from the office that served good coffee and expensive sandwiches. He figured good coffee was what he needed – that, or a stiff drink. And he was still on duty.

  So he grabbed his coat and told Karen he was heading out for lunch. “Hold down the fort for me, will ya?”

  “You got it, Sheriff.”

  “You want anything? Food? Coffee?”

  “I already ate. But I could use a latte.”

  So he got her order – sugar-free mocha, small, skim milk, no whip. The saddest mocha latte he’d ever heard of, but he promised to get it anyway.

  The café was mostly empty at this time of day. He got his coffee right away, and his food shortly thereafter. He ate slowly, thinking about nothing in particular.

  It had been a long day – a series of long days. He needed sleep. A good, long sleep. He was going to be no good to anyone if he kept up this pace.

  And coffee can only do so much.

  Still, he couldn’t wrap it up immediately. He still had to figure out what to do with the Wynder’s. So he drank his coffee and ate his food. Then he ordered a small, sugar-free, mocha latte to go – skim milk, hold the whipped cream.

  The barista made it while he waited and handed it over with a smile. “Have a good day, Sheriff.”

  Then he headed back to the office. With a full belly and a clearer head, Halverson decided he’d keep the Wynder’s overnight. Then, tomorrow morning, he’d let them go with warnings.

  He didn’t think they’d reoffend. Not after a night in lockup. And he didn’t want to impact the kids’ careers or have to deal with Donna any more than necessary.

  And, hell, it would mean less paperwork. A bruised cheek was a small price to pay for less paperwork.

  Karen smiled and thanked him for the coffee. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh. You sure?”

  He nodded. “Yup.”

  “Oh,” she said again. “Well, maybe I could return the favor sometime. Maybe make you dinner or something?”

  The comment took Halverson by surprise. He stared wordlessly for a beat too long.

  Karen flushed and said, “Sorry, that’s probably inappropriate.”

  “No,” he said, “that would be great.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’d like that.”

  She smiled broadly. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  They stayed in place, a charged but awkward silence hanging between them.

  “Well,” he said.

  “Right,” she said.

  “I should probably get back to it.”

  “Me too.”

  “Well. Uh, you have a good day, Karen. And – let me know when you want to have dinner.”

  “I’m free tomorrow night,” she said.

  That was sooner than he expected. But it would work. “Me too,” he said.

  They spoke for a few minutes longer. She wanted to know what he liked to eat. A question he found surprisingly hard to answer in the moment. He liked – well, whatever.

  If it was on a plate and he didn’t have to cook it, he’d eat it, and probably like it.

  In the end, she decided the menu would be a surprise. He figured that was a good idea. “Cook whatever you like to eat, and I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Ted made three separate loops around town. He stopped at every bar. A few were closed, but most were open, and had patrons. But none of them were Owen Day.

  He checked the coffee shop. It had closed early. No Owen Day.

  He checked the grocery’s parking lot, and the café on the south side. Owen Day wasn’t there.

  He circled back to the diner and the hotel. Owen Day wasn’t there, either.

  He started to think Owen really had escaped. But then he passed the repair shop, and he saw an SUV with a smashed-up grill. The old guy’s. He’d hit a deer, hadn’t he? That was the reason he was supposed to be here, wasn’t it?

  So if his vehicle was here, he was here. And if Tanney was here? Then Owen was here. That’s how it worked, wasn’t it? They were a pair, a package deal, like venereal diseases and a whorehouse. Where one went, the other followed.

  So Owen Day was still in the area. Somewhere. Up to – something.

  Ted drove up and down Main Street again, focused less on searching for his prey and more on considering where to look.

  His mind went back to the hotel. Owen couldn’t be there. Not with his vehicle missing. But he’d come back. That seemed to be his home base. So he’d be back. Ted figured he could take that to the bank.

  Which probably explained why Battle-Ax
e Shepherd had been so stubborn. If Owen Day had already left, she wouldn’t have had to worry about protecting his privacy.

  So Owen was still checked in. Checked in, but out of his room. A problem, maybe. It meant he was up to something, and Ted had no way to know what.

  But an opportunity, too. Because whatever Owen Day might be doing at the moment, he wasn’t guarding his belongings. They were wide open.

  Wide open, aside from the battle-axe, anyway. But it was half past four now. She’d probably be getting off work in half an hour, and the night shift would take over. All he had to do was bide his time.

  So Ted drove back to the hotel, for the fourth or fifth time that day. He circled through the back of the lot, by the staff parking. He spotted an SUV with plates that read Gd Shprd. That would be her. It had to be.

  He shook his head and drove past, back into the main part of the lot. Then he found a spot that provided a good vantage of the SUV, but not a clear line of sight. He’d be able to see it leave, but the driver – Battle-Axe Shepherd – wouldn’t see him.

  He shut the engine off so as not to waste gas and waited. Ten minutes passed, and then twenty. The temperature in the cab dropped, and the windows started to fog up. The clock hit five.

  Battle-Axe still didn’t emerge. Ted had started to shake by now, and he could barely see out the windshield. He decided to turn the engine back on, even if it did rankle to do so.

  He let it run for five minutes, heat on full blast. The chill left his limbs, and he stopped shaking. The windows cleared up. He shut the truck off again and went on waiting.

  Ten minutes after five, the SUV’s lights sprang on, and it started to emit exhaust. “Here we go,” he told Moses.

  The dog was asleep now. It didn’t look up.

  Just as well, since it was another ten minutes before go-time. Battle-Axe Shepherd finally emerged though, all bundled up in a brown coat, like some kind of overtoasted marshmallow.

  She got into her warmed up SUV and drove out of the lot. She barely glanced his way and didn’t seem to recognize the truck.

  Ted waited in the cab until she was out of sight. Then he hopped out into the rapidly cooling air. It had been cold earlier, but by now the sun was mostly gone, and the temperature had dropped precipitously.

  He pulled his hood around his ears and trudged into the building. The doors opened before him, and he headed toward the hall that led to the first-floor rooms.

  There was a decent amount of vehicles in the lot, but he gambled that Owen would be on the first floor, since he’d arrived days ago. Either way, it was a pretty safe bet. The stairs diverged at the mouth of the hall.

  So he tried to act like he belonged – like he was just another guest heading back to his room. He nodded brusquely at the kid behind the counter – a pimply-faced young guy in his mid-twenties somewhere, with a complexion that hadn’t quite gotten over puberty. The kid nodded back.

  So far, so good.

  Ted put his hand into his coat pocket, like he was reaching for his key. Then, he paused. He pulled the hand out and patted the pocket of his jeans on the left side, then the right. He patted both coat pockets, with increasing haste. He made a regular production of it. Then he said, “Shit.”

  The kid with the pimples took the bait, answering right on cue, “Can I help you, sir?”

  Ted nodded and headed toward the counter. “My keycard: I don’t know what the hell I did with it, but I can’t find it.”

  Pimples nodded. “No problem at all. I can get you a replacement.”

  “Can you? I appreciate it.”

  “Absolutely. What room is it?”

  That, of course, Ted didn’t know. He pretended to think. “I don’t actually remember. I tell you, getting old sucks. But it’s under Day. Owen Day.”

  Pimples tapped at his keyboard and frowned. Then, the frown turned to a triumphant smile. “Room 113. Owen Day.”

  Ted let out a sigh. “That’s the one. You’d think that’d be easy enough to remember, right?”

  Pimples laughed politely. “No worries at all, Mr. Day. I’ll just get these ready…” He pulled out a set of blank cards, and tapped buttons and ran them through a machine. Then he slipped them into an envelope, wrote #113 on the envelope, and handed it to Ted. “There you are. Have a wonderful evening.”

  “You too,” he told Pimples. Then he headed toward the first-floor rooms.

  He found 113 easily enough, thirteen rooms down the hall – well out of sight of the desk. Ted glanced up and down the way, just in case one of Owen’s neighbors might have emerged. He didn’t want anyone to mention seeing a stranger duck into his room later on.

  But the hall remained empty. So he swiped the card. The reader beeped, and a little green light flashed. He pressed the handle, and the door swung open.

  Halverson’s stomach growled. It was about five-thirty – past the time he promised himself he’d be out – and the sandwich had clearly not been enough.

  So he decided to stick to his earlier resolve. He’d leave now. He’d go get something to eat, and he’d get to bed.

  Maybe he’d drive out to the big house before turning in, and just check on Brit and the Cassidy kids. They’d had a hell of a day, after all.

  But after that, he’d get home, and get to bed.

  Karen was just packing up when he left. She smiled broadly at him. “Have a good night, Trey.”

  “You too, Karen. And – I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Looking forward to it,” she said. And the smile told him she meant it.

  Which surprised him almost as much as it flattered him. His head was all full of that smile as he drove to the diner, and still full of it when he glanced over the menu.

  His first instinct was to order the country-fried steak dinner. But then he thought about his belt, and how he’d had to expand by a notch to close it. He thought about Karen, and their dinner the next night, and how, if things went well, one thing might lead to another, and – well, no sense making things look worse if they got that far. So he went with the baked chicken instead.

  Once his order was in, he glanced absently around the diner. There were more people out tonight than there had been in the morning. That was for sure.

  The place was far from full, but about half of the seats were taken. Nancy Krispen, the reporter who had been poking around ever since Rick died, sat in a corner booth. She looked a little despondent, and a lot distracted, like her thoughts were a million miles away.

  Maybe that meant she’d been called back. He hoped so. She hadn’t been much trouble lately, but reporters were in general trouble.

  He frowned at that thought, his mind going back to Covington. Covington had been trouble, alright – for someone. Trouble enough that they’d killed him.

  He considered calling Abbot again. Technically, he was off duty. But it wouldn’t hurt to call, would it? He didn’t have anything better to do while he waited for his chicken.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at it. It was getting close to six. Dinnertime.

  Then again, who was he kidding? Abbot was divorced now. A bachelor who apparently lived alone, if his preview of the house had been anything to go by.

  They might have existed in different economic spheres. But Halverson knew what dinner meant for a middle-aged bachelor: crap from a can, or a package, or a microwave meal. He was pretty sure that transcended income or class.

  He stared at the screen for a moment, making up his mind. But he never made that call.

  A hand clapped him on the back first, and he started so violently that he almost sent the phone flying. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he wheezed as Ted Walters slipped into the seat across from him. “What the hell, Ted? You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  Then, he frowned. The other man looked like he’d just seen a ghost. He was pale and flushed all at the same time, breathing hard with cherry-red splotches on otherwise snow white cheeks.

  “I warned you,” he said between gasps. �
�I warned you, Halverson.”

  Halverson stifled the groan. But not the, “Oh God. What now?”

  Ted slapped a manilla folder brimming with papers against the table. It made a loud thwack sound. Nearby diners jumped in their seats. A few turned annoyed glances their way.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s the proof.”

  “Proof of what?”

  Ted scowled at him. “Of what I’ve been telling you all along. Owen Day: he’s your killer.”

  This time, Halverson did groan. “Ted, how many times do I have to tell you –”

  “No.” Ted shook his head and flipped the folder open. “No. You listen to me, Sheriff: this guy is dangerous. He’s not just dangerous. He’s a serial killer.”

  “Ted…”

  “Look at the evidence, dammit. He’s got an entire dossier of all the people he’s killed – Rick included.”

  “They’re not –”

  “And you’re not going to let him walk this time. You’re going to arrest him, before he kills someone else. Him and that Tanney. He’s an accomplice. He’s got to be.”

  “For the love of God, Ted, will you shut up for once in your life and actually listen?”

  That did the trick. The other man scowled and seemed to be so absorbed by the transition from vigilante detective to aggrieved citizen that he actually shut up for all of five seconds.

  Which was long enough for Rick to say, “They’re not a kill list. Not his anyway. He’s investigating the deaths. He thinks they’re the work of some serial killer. At least, he thought so until this morning. But something about Marsha’s death showed him he was wrong.”

  “Bullshit,” Ted said.

  Halverson changed gears. “Now what I want to know is how you got your hands on this?”

  Ted’s expression changed to something like alarm. “What?”

  “You heard me. How’d you get your hands on this file. This, I assume, was the file Day was going to show me, until he figured he’d got it all wrong. So how did you end up with it?”

  “I found it.”

  “Found it where?”