Det Annie Macpherson 01 - Primed By The Past

by Speake, Barbara Fagan

  ‘Let go of me!’ she screamed, pushing him so hard he fell back against the hallway table.

  ‘You bitch, where do you think you’re going now? I haven’t finished with you, I want answers!’

  Managing to get to the door, Jackie slammed it behind her. She scrambled into her car and started the engine just as Jim Moorcroft ran down the drive after her. Revving the engine fiercely, she reversed on to the road before he could reach her.

  ‘Don’t come back,’ was the last thing she heard him shout, as her heart thumped in her chest and tears ran down her cheeks. A neighbour three doors down opened his curtains at hearing the sound of her wheels screeching and she noticed him shaking his head as she looked in her rear view mirror. No one behaved like that on their street normally and she was surprised that no one else came out. There were so many windows open in the warm summer night.

  When she turned the next corner, Jackie Winters pulled her car over, checking to make sure that he wasn’t following her. She waited a few minutes, wondering what to do. Picking up her cellphone, she checked for messages, still keeping an eye on the rear view mirror. There were no missed calls from Jim, which made sense if he really had been following her. From Charlie, there were three text messages. As her hands stopped shaking, she scrolled down to read them. Each one asked if she was all right and to call him. Her fingers hovered over the phone momentarily before she shut it and dropped it back in her bag. She smiled as she pulled away from the kerb.

  46

  Gus’s in-laws were clearing away the supper dishes. Watching them, he began thinking how different this all was from when Carol was there. She didn’t like anyone else in her kitchen and the two of them always did the tidying up, while she would insist that her parents relax. Now he was letting them do it all.

  Gus kept picturing the jewellery that Detective Malin had shown him the previous day. Until then he had harboured hopes that Carol was still alive, maybe had lost her memory or something, anything, and that she would be coming back. The sight of the necklace, the rings and the watch had crushed all hope. Trying desperately to motivate himself, he stood up and walked over to the sink.

  ‘Here, let me do that. You two take a break. I know where everything goes: it’s easier for me.’

  ‘Gus, we’re nearly done,’ replied Gillian Tyler, but then sensing that her son-in-law needed to do this simple mundane task, she passed him the plate still in her hands.

  Her husband took the signal as well, and moved away from the sink where he had been putting the scraps down the waste disposal. Gus took over and they retreated into the den. As her husband put the TV on, Gillian heard the doorbell ring. At first she assumed that it was Gus’s mom, who had left the three of them an hour or so before to do some shopping in the mall. She realised that she hadn’t packed enough things when she’d flown up from Florida after Gus’s call.

  Gillian automatically started to get up but then sat back down. After all, this wasn’t her house. When they heard Gus address the caller as Detective Malin, they were unsure whether they should join them in the kitchen.

  A few seconds later, Gus popped his head around the door of the den.

  ‘Come in the kitchen. Detective Malin wants to update us on what’s been happening with the investigation.’

  Without a word, Gillian and Fred Tyler joined their son-in-law and he introduced them to Detective Malin.

  ‘I am sorry for your loss, Mr and Mrs Tyler. I know this must have come as a great shock to you. I thought it best if you all hear what I have to say. The three of them sat down on the stools at the breakfast bar while Gus stood by the sink.

  ‘Our forensics team has done some preliminary analyses of the road markings, and the damage to both cars. At this stage, it looks as if the two cars didn’t go over the ravine together which is what we thought at first.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I thought we were assuming that the other car hit Carol’s and they both went though the barrier.’ Fred Tyler appeared quite confused.

  ‘Yes, sir, that is exactly what we thought at first, but now we think that Carol’s car went over but the second car stopped. The second set of skid marks would indicate that. We are speculating that the car was then pushed over the edge, through the barrier, which had already been damaged by Carol’s car. There is paint from two cars on what is left of the barriers, but the amounts, thickness and so on would suggest that only one of them went through at speed.’

  Malin glanced at the three people, all in a state of shock. He knew that they would probably forget some of the detail, but he felt obliged to provide it. Questions would come later, in his experience. So he continued. ‘The trajectories would also indicate that this is a more likely scenario. Then there is the damage to each car, relative to the other and the points of impact.’ Malin hesitated for a few moments giving this last piece of information time to sink in, before he revealed the most distressing aspect of the investigation so far.

  ‘The other thing is that a second body hasn’t been found.’

  ‘You mean, not yet? Surely there has to be a second body.’ Gus was rubbing his forehead as if he couldn’t quite get what was being said. Over the last few days, he had wondered if another family was missing a loved one and not knowing where they were.

  ‘No. What I’m saying is that we don’t think there is a second body. We’ve done thermal imaging of the whole area. If there was a body in that vicinity we would have found it by now, or else the ground searches would have turned up something, but there is no trace of a second body.’

  Gillian and Fred looked at Detective Malin in disbelief and then at their son-in-law, who could barely get his words out.

  ‘It’s rough ground out there, lots of tree cover, and animals …’ Gus looked at Detective Malin before he even finished his sentence, realising that his arguments were pointless. The next words nearly choked him to get out. ‘So what are you saying exactly?’

  ‘Look, I know that this is hard to hear, but I want to be straight with you.’ Detective Malin glanced at the Tylers and then turned to face Gus directly. ‘We think that what happened to your wife wasn’t an accident. We believe that her car was deliberately rammed so that it went over the edge and that the driver of the second car then pushed his car over the edge to make it look like an accident.’ Malin hesitated for a second, before adding: ‘We are now treating the case as a murder inquiry.’

  Gillian Tyler’s hand went to her mouth to stifle a scream and her husband put his arm around her. Gus just stared at the Detective in disbelief.

  ‘But who, why? We’re just ordinary people. She was a bookshop manager, for God’s sake. What possible motive would anyone have to kill her? This can’t be right, it just can’t be.’ Gus’s distress filled the room.

  ‘Look, I will need to come back and talk to you again. In the meantime I want you to think about whether there is anything, anything at all that we should be looking at. We are going to need to know as much about Carol as we can, explore all the possibilities.’ Malin was seasoned enough to know that tonight wasn’t the time for this. The family needed to think through what he’d said.

  ‘I’ll come back in the morning and we’ll go through things again. I will also need a list of her close friends, now or in the past.’

  Gus showed the detective to the door, just as Mrs Wojinski pulled into the drive. Malin hesitated for a moment.

  ‘Thanks, Detective. I’ll explain to my mother what you’ve told us.’

  Detective Malin just nodded to Mrs Wojinski as she got out of the car.

  47

  Charlie had just drifted off to sleep when the phone in his motel room rang. Reaching across, he answered groggily.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Captain Hegarty?’

  His heart started pounding in his chest, sensing this was the call he had
been dreading. ‘What is it?’ He felt himself almost shouting, anxiety mounting, as he threw the sheet off and started to get out of bed.

  ‘There’s a woman at reception asking to speak to you urgently. Her name is Jackie Winters.’ The desk clerk hesitated for a moment, and then continued. ‘Do you want to speak to her on the phone or will you come down? The bar’s still open. I could ask her to wait for you in there.’

  Charlie reached for his watch, the dial illuminated in the darkened room. It was nearly midnight. ‘OK, tell her to get a drink and put it on my room tab. I’ll be down in ten minutes.’ Switching on the bedside lamp, he half debated whether to have a quick shower, but then decided that Jackie must want something urgently to come all the way down to the motel at this time of night. So he got dressed, grabbed his room key and headed for the bar.

  The bartender nodded to him as he entered the room, and then motioned towards the corner table, where Jackie was sitting with her back to the bar. That immediately seemed strange. Why wasn’t she keeping an eye out for him? But then he noticed that her shoulders were moving very slightly. When he took the leather corner seat opposite, he saw that she was crying. Not sobbing, more like a whimper.

  Reaching across, he took her hands in his. ‘What is it Jackie, what’s happened?’ As she looked at him through her teary eyes, he had a flashback of his mother: finding her downstairs, late at night, whimpering for her husband in the months after he died. The vision had the power to reduce him to that scared child again, wanting so much to comfort, but not really being able to help. He saw himself squeezing Jackie’s hands, just like he had his mother’s all those years ago, repeating the same motions.

  ‘Tell me,’ he coaxed, but it was a few minutes before she regained her composure. By then a fairly drunk couple had come into the bar and were giggling as they tried to order their drinks. The bartender was standing with his hands splayed on the bar as if he had all night for them to make up their minds. Charlie tried not to get distracted. Right now, he wanted some privacy for Jackie’s sake. ‘Listen, I guess you’re not going back home tonight.’

  Jackie nodded.

  ‘Why don’t I see if there is another room free in the motel? We’ll go up there and talk.’

  *****

  Over breakfast, Annie jotted down a few reminders. First on the list was to mention to Bronski that Jackie hadn’t been to see Angela, which had struck Charlie as odd when he’d mentioned it to her. As Annie made a note of that, she wondered if Jackie was trying to distance herself because of Jim Moorcroft. Her background was still bothering Annie as well. Charlie also thought it strange that there was nothing on file about her prior to five years ago. He had only known of her for a couple of years and until his last furlong, had never met her. It was Jim that Angela had been friendly with initially, and then the two of them as a couple. But in recent months, Angela and Jackie had become much closer. Maybe Jim Moorcroft had become jealous.

  Annie tapped her pen on the pad while she put a few question marks down on the page. Then she made a note to give Charlie the details of the specialist cleaning company, which Glen Heaviley had recommended. The firm had a reputation for doing a good job of decontamination and at a reasonable price. There was a lot of blood and other contaminants to clean up. The police still had a set of keys at the station and she had checked that these could be returned to Charlie. Annie knew how keen he was to get in there and redecorate for his sister. Last night he was so convinced that she was going to pull through, that Annie had started to believe it too. As she rinsed her cereal bowl, her cellphone rang.

  The caller ID was Bronski.

  ‘Morning Detective, I’m circling by to pick you up. I’ve had a message from dispatch. Guess who’s turned up at the hospital, demanding to see Angela Goodman?’

  Annie felt the adrenaline. ‘Jim Moorcroft?’

  ‘No, Dennis Cullen, the very man who couldn’t be disturbed yesterday because he was in New York on some big business trip.’

  ‘Interesting and surprising. Wonder what his secretary said to him.’

  ‘Who knows? But it saves us a trip to New York. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

  Annie nearly said, ‘But I wanted to see the Empire State Building,’ but then thought better of it.

  As Annie waited in front of her apartment house, she decided to text Charlie to see if he was at the hospital. Bronski hadn’t provided much detail. As soon as she closed her phone, Bronski pulled up in his car and leaned over to open the passenger door.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. What do we know?’

  Bronski signalled to get back into the lane. ‘Just that he turned up about a half hour ago. The cop on guard wouldn’t let him in to see her and called dispatch to alert us. Then he asked him to wait in the visitors’ room. He wasn’t too pleased. Said he’d been driving since the early hours to get there and why wasn’t he allowed in. He started ranting. Seems one of the nurses calmed him down.’

  ‘Hmm, and to our knowledge he hasn’t seen her since the divorce, throughout her second marriage?’

  ‘Who knows? Nothing would surprise me.’ The traffic was building up and the hospital route was busier than the usual one to the station. Bronski was impatient and resorted to his horn.

  Annie wondered if he would put his flashing lights on, but he resisted. She waited until there was more of a break in the traffic. ‘So how is our other friend? Did he have a comfortable night? I bet he has a sore head this morning.’

  Bronski laughed. ‘I spoke to Dave Ellison right after I called you. Says that George Goodman is waiting to see the doctor to clear that he’s OK to be interviewed. He’ll also have some breakfast so we’ve got some time. If we get delayed, I’ll get Ellison to start the process.’

  ‘Funny how all the exes are turning up at once, just like buses.’

  ‘I don’t get that.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s a saying back home. You wait ages for a bus and then two come at once.’

  Bronski nodded. ‘Let’s just hope this is the last of them – husbands I mean.’

  ‘Aye. The other thing is that I saw Charlie again last night.’

  ‘What do you mean, did you go down to the hospital?’ Bronski sounded curious.

  ‘No, he rang me and asked if he could pop round with a Chinese, said he was fed up eating on his own.’

  ‘He’s a real charmer.’

  ‘I hardly think that was his intention sir,’ Annie quipped back. ‘He’s exhausted spending so much time at the hospital. He was really looking forward to seeing his sister. The whole thing has been a shock to him.’

  ‘Hmm …’ Bronski signalled to turn into the underground parking lot. Annie decided to finish the conversation about last night later on. Now they had to concentrate on Dennis Cullen.

  The officer at Angela’s door was passing the time of day with one of the hospital staff, but stopped abruptly when he saw the two detectives. After he greeted them, he showed them to the visitors’ room. As soon as the door opened, a short man with prematurely grey hair closed his cellphone and got up from his seat.

  ‘Dennis Cullen?’

  ‘And you are?’

  *****

  Charlie drew up to Jackie Winter’s place, having followed her in his car. He’d insisted in case there was any more trouble with Jim. He parked and got out as she was locking her car door. ‘Want me to go in first?’

  Jackie placed her hand on his arm. ‘Thanks Charlie, but you’ve done enough. And thanks again for rescuing me last night. Jim’s car isn’t here so I expect he’s at work. I’ll check with one of my friends before I leave.’

  ‘I could come in, just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘No honestly, I’ll be fine. Shall I come down to the hospital after work?’

  ‘That would be a he
lp. But won’t that cause more of a problem with Jim?’

  ‘I’ll sort it. He’s OK with me going to the hospital.’

  ‘Good. Sometimes I think I’ll go crazy in there on my own. I’m hoping to get over to Angie’s house today. I want to get a specialist cleaning firm in to clean it up, so I can assess what I need to do, but I should be back by the time you get there. ’

  Jackie leaned across and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Thanks again,’ she said, turning to go up the front steps.

  Charlie waited for a few minutes, and then got back in his car. He would stop for breakfast before going up to the ward. Prior to driving off, he checked his cellphone for messages.

  48

  ‘The waiting room is fairly crowded and I expect you’ll want some privacy,’ said the nurse. ‘I’ll show you to an interview room and make sure you aren’t disturbed.’

  Bronski nodded. ‘Much appreciated.’

  Dennis Cullen took the seat by the window, leaving the two detectives to take the chairs with their backs to the door.

  ‘So when do I get to see Angie? I’m tired and I need to get some sleep before I head back to NY first thing in the morning. I need to get a motel room and have a shower, freshen up.’

  Annie started the interview. ‘What have you been told about Mrs Goodman?’

  ‘What do you mean? I only know that some bastard attacked her and that she’s not doing too well.’ The man was clearly agitated.

  ‘And that’s all you know?’

  ‘I don’t know what you think you’re implying, but yes, that’s all I know. I haven’t seen her for …’ Cullen hesitated, trying to remember, ‘five years. I saw her for the last time just before she married Goodman.’