by N L Hinkens
“It might be easier than we thought. PI’s are masters of disguise,” Reagan said, arching an accusing brow. “Once a killer, always a killer. Isn’t that what the note said? What does that mean, Heather? Did you kill someone?”
22
Heather woke the following morning with a pounding headache. She had stormed out of The Sardinian at lunch the previous day leaving Reagan, Marco, and Josh with jaws agape after telling them in no uncertain terms that she would proceed with the investigation alone. Despite Marco and Josh advocating on Heather’s behalf, Reagan had refused to back down on her accusations. It was a complete turnaround from a couple of days earlier when Reagan had been convinced that Roy was behind everything. Something had changed in the intervening days. Had she spoken to him? And where was Roy? Aidy claimed she hadn’t seen him in over twenty-four hours. Was she covering for him?
With a reluctant groan, Heather flung back the covers and climbed out of bed. She needed to locate Roy and get to the bottom of his involvement in all of this, and she wasn’t going to find him by sleeping.
“Feeling better?” Violet asked when she joined her in the kitchen.
“Caffeine will help,” Heather said, as she padded over to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup. “I just can’t figure out what Reagan’s game is—why she’s trying to pin everything on me. She’s completely changed her tune from a few days ago.”
“It’s because of the latest message—that you’ve killed before and you’ll do it again,” Violet said. “You have to admit, it sounds pretty ominous.”
Heather sipped her coffee. “Josh and Marco aren’t taking it seriously.”
“What about Sydney?”
“Steve’s essentially cut off any communication with her,” Heather answered. “Reagan’s convinced him I’m not to be trusted. I can’t really blame him. He doesn’t know me from Adam—he’s only trying to protect his wife. Let’s face it, somebody poisoned her.”
Violet shivered, her hands instinctively hugging her belly.
Heather drained the rest of her coffee and got to her feet. “I need to jump in the shower. I’m going to visit Pam this morning.”
“I didn’t know she was back in town,” Violet remarked.
“Her sister and brother-in-law drove her down yesterday. She wants me to stop by to see her. I have a feeling I could be there a while—she might need help sorting through Lindsay’s things. It’s going to be very emotional for her.”
Violet threw her an anxious look. “Do you want me to come with you? It won’t be easy for you either, looking through old high school yearbook photos and the like.”
Heather gave a nod of acknowledgement. “I know, but I need to talk to Pam alone. I have to find out who Lindsay was hanging out with in the months before her death.”
“So you still think there’s a connection between her accident and the threats?” Violet asked.
“Let’s put it this way,” Heather replied. “I need to rule out that possibility.”
“I’ll make you some breakfast before you go,” Violet said, getting to her feet. “How about blueberry pancakes? I know they’re your favorite.”
Heather tweaked a smile. “Lindsay got me hooked. She made the best blueberry pancakes.”
“I can’t believe you never came back to see her all these years,” Violet said, readying her griddle and pancake batter. “Why did you let your relationship with her slide?”
Heather traced her finger around the rim of her coffee mug. “It’s complicated. Lindsay was the only person I ever told what I did that night. I think the secret became like a ball and chain for her. Instead of getting easier to bear over time, it only got harder. She wanted me to drive back out there that night to check on Damien, or at least place an anonymous call to the police. I think she was shocked at what I’d done. She still loved me as a friend, but she looked at me differently after that. She came out to see me in LA a couple of times, but she didn’t care for the place.”
Violet set a plate of blueberry pancakes in front of Heather. The tantalizing aroma of warm blueberries and syrup filled her nostrils bringing back memories of lazy Saturday mornings spent at Lindsay’s house. Heather set her lips in a determined line. She had failed her as a friend all these years. She owed it to her, and to Pam, to find out what had really happened, no matter how long it took. She couldn’t go through the rest of her life wondering if Lindsay’s death had been an accident, or something more insidious.
“I have to admit you make some pretty awesome pancakes, Vivi,” Heather said, lifting her plate when she was done and carrying it over to the sink. “You’ll be a great mom.”
Violet let out a snort of laughter. “I only know how to make pancakes and scrambled eggs. My kid’s destined to be malnourished.”
Heather rinsed her dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher. “I can’t cook to save my life either. Not that I ever practice. By the way, don’t include me in your dinner plans tonight. I’ll probably end up taking Pam out to eat, and I want to do a little more surveillance at Roy’s house afterward. Do you mind if I share your good news with Pam? I know she’ll be happy for you.”
Violet grinned. “Of course. Just ask her to keep it to herself for now.”
Shortly before 10:00 a.m., Heather pulled up outside Pam’s house. The place was smaller than she remembered, and it looked like it could use a coat of paint and some TLC. The lawn had been kept up, but the lush beds of roses that Heather recalled from bygone years had been replaced by more practical, low-maintenance shrubs. She rang the doorbell and stepped back to wait. Just as she was about to try knocking, she heard a faint voice, ”Coming, dear.”
When the door scraped open, Heather fought to hide her shock. The shrunken woman on the walker in front of her looked nothing like Lindsay’s sprightly mother from years ago. Pam had lost a lot of weight and her face had fallen with age—partly from grief, no doubt.
“Heather! How lovely to see you again. Come on in.” She turned awkwardly in the hallway and led the way at a painstakingly slow pace back to the kitchen. “My sister and brother-in-law left a couple of hours ago to drive back to Sioux City.”
“How was your time with them?” Heather asked.
“I suppose it did me some good to get away for a few weeks—change of scene and all that. But to tell you the truth, I was glad to get home again. I can’t run from reality forever,” Pam replied, maneuvering her walker through the door leading into the kitchen.
“It looks great in here,” Heather said. “When did you remodel the kitchen?”
“Five years ago. Lindsay kept bugging me to do it.” A momentary flicker of sadness crossed Pam’s face before she smiled at Heather. “You know how she was when she got a notion in her head about something.”
Heather gave a nod of agreement. “Only too well.” She eased Pam into a chair and then sat down next to her. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
Pam’s eyes glistened with the threat of tears. “Just this morning, I woke up and thought to myself, I’d better call Lindsay and let her know I got back safely from my sister’s.” She shook her head sadly. “I always told her she raced those bikes far too fast.”
“Is that what the police think?” Heather asked. “That she was racing?”
Pam raised her liver-spotted hands in a gesture of helplessness. “They don’t know, do they? It’s impossible to say how fast she was going. But you know how hard she pushed herself. She was always training for one race or another. Such a tragic accident.” Pam blinked earnestly at Heather.
“So … shocking,” Heather mumbled. Sowing seeds of doubt in Pam’s mind that it had been an accident would be cruel, without the evidence to back it up.
“It was such bad luck that she knocked herself out on that rock,” Pam went on, with a weary sigh. “She was completely vulnerable at that point. Animal control said there was probably a breeding pair of rattlesnakes nearby. She was bitten twice you know.”
Heather shook her head. �
��I can’t even imagine how horrific it must have been for her—and for you.”
“Identifying her body was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life,” Pam acknowledged. “The only comfort I have is believing she was unconscious when she was bitten and didn’t suffer.”
Heather reached for Pam’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Pam pulled a tissue from her sleeve and wiped her nose. “How about some coffee?”
“Let me make it,” Heather said, getting to her feet. “You’ll have to give me directions around this new kitchen of yours.”
She returned to the table a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of coffee.
“Would you like a muffin to go with that?” Pam asked. “I made my sour cream and cherry recipe.”
“I might take you up on that later. I had a big breakfast of blueberry pancakes at Violet’s house.”
Pam’s face brightened. “How is your sister?”
“She’s doing great—she’s pregnant. She just found out so keep it to yourself for now.”
Pam clapped her hands together. “Oh, that is wonderful news. I know she’s been trying for a long time. I’m so happy for her. When’s the baby due?”
Heather furrowed her brow. “Sometime in March. I forget the exact date.”
Pam reached for her coffee mug. “So, tell me about your life in LA. Lindsay said you’re a private investigator to the stars. That sounds exciting.”
Heather laughed. “It’s not like the movies. I’m mostly hired to surveil cheating spouses for divorce cases.”
“Do you have enough work to keep you busy?” Pam asked.
“More than I can handle,” Heather said, with a wry grin. “I won’t run out of work in LA.”
Pam rubbed her hip and glanced over at the kitchen counter. “Do you mind fetching me that Ibuprofen by the toaster please?”
Heather retrieved the bottle and handed it to her. “How long have you been using the walker?”
“Six months or so. I need a hip replacement but without Lindsay here to help me recover, it’s going to be a lot more difficult. I can’t even lift down the tubs in her old room that I want to go through.”
“I can help you with that,” Heather said. “I’m available today for whatever you need.”
“That’s kind of you, dear. It would be nice to look through some photos together.”
Stepping into Lindsay’s old room was more painful then Heather had anticipated. Unlike the kitchen, Lindsay’s bedroom was virtually unchanged from when they’d been in high school—the same bed and dresser, the furry beanbag chair they had shared so many conversations in, even the lava lamp they had picked out together at a local flea market. Heather swallowed the lump in her throat, a slew of memories stirring up the depths of her grief.
Steeling herself for the task at hand, she made her way over to the closet and began lifting down the plastic containers on the shelf above the clothing rod. She made several trips back-and-forth to the kitchen and then sat down with Pam to go through the tubs.
“Can you believe I kept all her artwork from Kindergarten?” Pam exclaimed. “This stick figure’s supposed to be me. She made this for Mother’s Day. Listen to this: my mom is six inches tall and her favorite food is mushrooms and chicken nuggets. When I go to school she likes to go shopping and collect shells.” Pam chuckled as she folded the sheet back up and set it aside. “That’s a keeper.”
“Here are her high school graduation photos,” Heather said, leafing through the pictures. “I can’t believe we thought we looked cool back then. Such goofy hairdos.” She passed the photos to Pam.
“I think you both look beautiful, so young and full of promise,” Pam gushed.
Heather reached for another envelope and slid the contents out. Her blood ran cold. It was a photo of Lindsay, leaning up to kiss the cheek of a much older man outside the car wash where she’d worked.
23
Heather hurriedly stuffed the incriminating photo back into the envelope and slipped it into her pocket while Pam was engrossed in the graduation pictures. She didn’t know anything about Lindsay’s affair—and Heather meant to keep it that way. The photo would only trigger some uncomfortable questions in the grieving woman’s mind.
Heather had never met Lindsay’s boss, Bill, or even seen a picture of him before. Lindsay had been very secretive about their relationship, insisting Bill didn’t want her friends knowing about him until he’d divorced his wife. But then he had upped and disappeared overnight, leaving Lindsay in the lurch. Heather couldn’t help wondering if he’d gotten in touch with Lindsay again.
She spent the rest of the day assisting Pam with various tasks around the house. The bulk of their time was dedicated to sifting through Lindsay’s personal possessions, an arduous process filled with tears and countless tea breaks—deciding what to keep, what to donate, and what to throw out. Pam insisted that Heather take Lindsay’s old jewelry box, along with a couple of photo albums from their high school days. By six o’clock that evening, Heather’s car was stacked full of clothes and miscellaneous items that she’d offered to drop off at one of the local thrift stores.
“How about I take you out to dinner, Pam,” she suggested. “I’m sure you don’t feel like cooking after working all day.”
“To tell you the truth, dear, I’m exhausted. Another time perhaps. Thank you so much for your help today. I honestly don’t know how I would have got it all done without you.”
“Don’t hesitate to call or text if you need anything else. I’ll be around for the next few weeks or so,” Heather said, as she gave her a hug in parting.
On the way back to Violet’s place, she stopped at a pizzeria to satisfy her growling stomach. She ordered a medium pepperoni and sat down at a table in the back with her laptop. If someone had found out what she’d done, then she needed to go back to the beginning to figure out who it could be. She would start by digging up the old newspaper articles on Damien’s accident. After opening up her browser, she ran multiple searches on the story. The reporting was all very cut and dried. No suggestion of foul play, no mention of another vehicle on the road that night. By all accounts, it had simply been another tragic DUI death. There had been no investigation beyond the autopsy and toxicology reports.
She pulled up the police report on the accident, but it contained no information other than what she already knew. Without witnesses to interview, there was little for the police to investigate. After scrolling through some additional search results, she happened upon a newspaper article that mentioned the funeral. She clicked on it and studied the photo of a beaming Damien with his family. All at once, her skin began to crawl with a foreboding feeling. She enlarged the black-and-white picture and stared at it in disbelief. Kitted out in his football uniform, with a football tucked beneath his arm, Damien stood proudly between a smartly dressed man and woman. The text below the photo read: William and Judy Kinney pictured with their son, Damien.
With shaking fingers, Heather pulled out the photo of Lindsay and Bill that was burning a hole in her pocket and compared it. There was no doubt that she was looking at the same man. William Kinney was Damien’s father. The pizza churned in her stomach. Her instincts had been right all along. This was the connection she had been searching for—the missing link between Damien, Lindsay’s death, the arson, the threatening messages, and everything else that had been happening since the reunion. Heather’s brain pounded against her skull as the shocking realization hit her like a thunderbolt. Lindsay must have told Bill that Heather had left Damien for dead. And now he was out for revenge.
Heather stared transfixed into the eyes of Damien Kinney’s father as he smiled back at her. He was coming for her, and anyone close to her. The thought that he might have orchestrated Lindsay’s death because she’d covered up what happened to his son chilled her soul. There wasn’t a minute to waste—she had to find him before he struck again.
With trembling fingers, she got to
work researching carwash operations in Davenport. She couldn’t remember the name of the one Lindsay had worked at, but it had been an upscale hand-wash-and-detail operation. With painstaking focus, she pulled up the details on every car wash business in existence in Davenport twenty years ago and drilled down to the information on the owners. She had just swallowed a bite of pizza when she got a hit. The food stuck in her throat. William Kinney, forty-one years old, owner and proprietor of Elite Finish. Heather quickly logged into one of the proprietary databases she subscribed to, added William Kinney’s details to the search form, and submitted it. Moments later, a photo popped up on her screen. A chill skittered down her spine. It was Lindsay’s Bill all right. A good-looking man in an arrogant sort of way—his expression not unlike his son’s.
Heather leaned back in her chair and dragged a hand through her hair. Finally a breakthrough. Now to nail down Bill’s current contact details. Lindsay had maintained she had no idea where he had gone after he bailed out on her. It was possible he was living out of state. If it took getting on an airplane to find him, then that’s what Heather would do. She pushed her plate aside and set about the task of finding out where William Kinney was living at present. Minutes later, her search came to an abrupt halt. She stared at the screen in disbelief, her fingers curling into a fist of frustration. William Kinney was deceased. He had passed away from pancreatic cancer six months earlier. Heather reread the information, dumbstruck. Bill Kinney had turned out to be a dead end. She had no choice but to go back to the drawing board.
She reached for another slice of pizza and munched on it mindlessly, washing it down with her Diet Coke as she tried to reassemble her fragmented thoughts. Bill Kinney had died before the class reunion took place. That still left the possibility that Bill’s ex-wife, Judy—Damien’s mother—was somehow involved. After all, it had been a woman who had placed the forget-me-not order and sent Sydney’s drink flying outside the coffee shop. Granted, Judy Kinney’s hair was short in the photo, but it had been taken twenty years earlier. She could have grown it out since, or she might have been wearing a wig with a braid. The more pressing question was why she had waited until now to avenge her son’s death. Perhaps Bill had only told her in the months before his death—wanting to get it off his chest as dying people do.