Violet Dawn

by Collins, Brandilyn

  By evening Vince would know if Paige Williams’s prints matched any found at the crime scene or on the earring he’d already sent to the lab. And he would know if they matched any within AFIS. Since Frank West’s earlier check of Paige’s name had come up clean, Vince didn’t expect her print to be found in the existing arrest records, although he’d make sure that was checked. But if her print was determined a match to one in the unsolved crime database, the lies he believed she’d told about her past would take on new meaning.

  Paige Williams wasn’t in the clear yet.

  FORTY-TWO

  Paige’s hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

  Sarah had offered to let her go home early. The woman had emerged from the office, Chief Edwards in tow, her cheeks spotted red. As soon as he left, she started spouting to Paige and didn’t stop until a customer entered the store. “How could anybody have told the chief such a story!” She stuck her hands in her hair and paced. “As if you’d really stand there and threaten to kill Edna San in front of perfect strangers. The whole idea is insane. I know you’d never be capable of any kind of underhandedness, much less something like that! I’d sure like to get my hands on the person who made up that story. I might do a little strangling myself.”

  When she offered to let Paige off — with pay — for the rest of the day, Paige faltered. How she wanted to say yes. She longed to go home and sleep. Maybe when she woke up, she’d discover that the last twelve hours had been a bad dream. But despite her weariness, she couldn’t take the offer. What if Chief Edwards somehow heard she’d gone home early? Wouldn’t he view that as a sign of fear? She had to appear strong, nonchalant, as if she had nothing to be afraid of, nothing to hide.

  “Thanks, Sarah,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back, “but I’ll be fine. It’s Saturday. I can’t leave you all alone with customers.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.” Paige tried to smile.

  Sarah shook her head. “You sure are a brave gal, Paige Williams. If I were in your shoes, I’d be shaking like a leaf.”

  Paige gave a little shrug and looked away. If Sarah only knew.

  FORTY-THREE

  Black Mamba’s eyes flicked right and left, checking the street in Spirit Lake. He’d parked his car a block away and walked down, baseball hat pulled low over his brow. The pay phone sat outside and to the left of a small convenience store on the other side of the road. Two cars dotted the parking lot, a couple shoppers visible through the windows of the store. Other vehicles passed by, but it seemed unlikely that any drivers would pay attention to someone at the phone.

  His call was supposed to be anonymous. But in the likelihood the Kanner Lake Police Station had special caller ID, he didn’t want any possible witnesses as to who used the phone at the designated time. For the same reason he would use gloves when making the call. No need to leave fingerprints for snoopy police.

  He hurried across the street, head down, anticipating the call that would further link Paige Williams to the unfortunate demise of Edna San. From here things would happen quickly.

  The number for the police station was tucked away in his memory. He pulled on the thin cotton gloves, dropped the coins, punched the buttons. One ring.

  “Kanner Lake Police.” A male voice.

  “Hi.” He kept his tone low, feigning hesitancy. “I have some information about Edna San. But I don’t want to get involved, know what I mean?”

  “That’s fine; you’re welcome to leave an anonymous tip. What do you have?”

  “Okay. Well, it’s going to sound kind of weird. But I think you should check the backyard of the young woman who lives at thirty-six ninety-two Lakeshore. I — this is kind of embarrassing. I was camping in the woods and had binoculars. I couldn’t sleep and saw lights go on at some house around two in the morning. I looked through the binoculars and saw this woman — she looked young — tugging at something on her deck. Like a body. Well, I didn’t really think it was a body at the time, but now that this has happened . . . I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing. The light over the deck wasn’t real bright. But I think you should check it out.”

  “All right.” A pause. “You said thirty-six ninety-two Lakeshore. How do you know it’s this address?”

  “Uh, this morning I packed up and came out of the woods.When I heard the news about Ms. San, I drove around Lakeshore looking for the house I thought I’d seen. I think it’s thirty-six ninety-two Lakeshore. I walked through the woods near the house until I could see the backyard and deck. I’m pretty sure I recognized them.”

  “All right, thanks. Anything else?”

  “No, don’t think so. Except I hope you find Ms. San safe.”

  “We do too. Thanks again.”

  Black Mamba hung up the phone.

  A few minutes later he was back in his car, starting the engine. He pulled out onto the road, imagining the haunted look in Paige Williams’s eyes when she was arrested for the murder of Edna San.

  PART THREE: Trapped

  FORTY-FOUR

  On his way to the police station after picking up Paige’s Coke can, Vince’s thoughts bounced from her interview to Tim to tomorrow’s anniversary like Ping-Pong balls. With a sigh he glanced at his vehicle’s digital clock: 1:55.

  Edna San had been missing for seventeen hours.

  In law enforcement the first seventy-two hours after a crime were considered crucial. With each hour that passed, the trail of the perpetrator grew colder. Fifty-five hours remained within that key time frame. Would he find his answers before that time expired?

  Fifty-five hours. By then the anniversary of Tim’s death would be long over, ushering out the first numbing year of grief. Ushering in the second.

  Where would he and Nancy be a year from now?

  A keen, cruel image of his wife alone tomorrow, curled up and sobbing on their bed, cut through Vince. He had to be with her. If he was any kind of man at all, any kind of decent husband, he would be at her side.

  Vince pulled into the small parking area outside the station.

  Inside he handed Paige’s soda can, in its brown paper bag, over to a ready and waiting Frank West. The kid still looked as charged up as he had that morning. “Make sure this gets to the lab as soon as possible.” Vince gestured toward the bag. “And get right on AFIS, as we discussed. I want that information by tonight.”

  “Will do, Chief.” Frank’s words were clipped and serious, like some actor in an old cop film.

  Vince suppressed a smile and nodded. “Thanks.” He turned to leave. “I’m on my way back to the San estate. The techs should still be there and I want to see what they’ve got. I also want to question Francesca Galvin about — ”

  “Hey, Chief, glad you’re back.” Al Newman, one of the officers pulled in from his day off, stuck his head out of a nearby office. Al was in his late forties, with a chunky build and a round balding head that had earned him the nickname C. B., for Charlie Brown. “I just ran down a whale of a tip about fifteen minutes ago. Frank and I’ve been getting ’em by the dozens, but I think you oughtta hear this one.”

  His head disappeared. A moment later he returned, white piece of paper in hand. Briefly he told Vince about an anonymous male caller who claimed to have seen some odd behavior at a house in the wee hours of the morning. The station’s caller ID, which automatically logged the numbers from pay phones, told them the call had been made from one at the convenience store in Spirit Lake. “The man said he thinks the address of the house is thirty-six ninety-two Lakeshore.”

  Vince blinked. C. B. went on, explaining that he’d checked county records and found the owner to be Clinton Ryskie. Vince held up a hand to stop him. “I know — it’s rented to Paige Williams.”

  “Whoa.” Frank’s eyebrows rose.

  C. B. locked eyes with Vince. “The same gal you just questioned, right?”

  Two conflicting thoughts spun through Vince’s head. First, suspicion of the name that kept surfacing in this investigation. Sec
ond, a notion that this tip was just a little too tidy, particularly coming on the heels of a claimed threat that he believed never happened. And from a pay phone, no less.

  Was someone trying to set Paige Williams up?

  But if so, why her? Someone new to town, with no apparent connection — other than yesterday’s incident — to Edna San. Didn’t make sense.

  He pictured Paige in Lakeside diner — the way her eyes roved to her right as she talked about her reasons for leaving Kansas.

  Her overall nervousness, her rapid pulse. Had this girl gotten tied up with the wrong people back in the Midwest? Someone who wanted Edna San dead?

  Vince drew a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.” He thought a moment. “Guess the techs will just have to continue without me for a while. C. B., get somebody over to that pay phone pronto to dust for prints. I’ll drive over to this Lakeshore property and eyeball the backyard, see if anything catches my attention.”

  Frank buffed the top of his head with his hand, leaving a shock of hair standing up. “Want me to go with you?”

  Vince turned toward the door with a surge of energy. “No, you’re more needed by the phones for now. I’ll let you know if I notice anything out there.”

  Within sixty seconds he was driving out of the parking lot onto Main Street.

  Nine minutes later on Lakeshore Road he slowed, checking a mailbox. Rathum, read the name painted on the side in large white letters. The street number was 3374. Vince knew he was close. Addresses on Lakeshore followed country road logic — the numbers were spread far apart. A mile farther and two houses down, he found the address he was looking for. Number 3692 Lakeshore sat back from the road about fifty feet, connected by a gravel driveway. It was a small wooden house, painted beige with dark-green trim at the windows. A tiny front porch supported by square posts led back to a recessed front door. Fairly sizable one-car garage on the north side. On each side of the house was about twenty feet of patchy lawn, with woods beyond.

  Vince passed the driveway, pulled onto the shoulder of the road’s opposite side, and parked.

  As he clicked his car door shut, he heard the mournful cry of an osprey overhead. He slowed and searched the sky until he spotted it. The bird circled above him, then headed toward the water. He watched it disappear with the irrational sense that it was sent from Tim as some kind of message.

  He shook the thought away.

  His gaze returned to the house. Without a warrant he couldn’t simply walk upon the property and look around. But the “penumbra of privacy” rule didn’t keep him from checking out the place from a distance.

  Vince crossed the road and entered the forest on the north side of the house.

  The trees weren’t too thick, and he was able to pick his way over fallen branches and bushes, keeping the house in sight. By the time he drew even with the backyard, he could feel a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. Veering right, he skirted an area of young trees and denser undergrowth until he reached the clearing.

  Vince wiped the sweat from his face, gazing intently at the property. The house was built on a knoll, allowing a beautiful view down the wooded hill and to the lake. He could see why Paige enjoyed the place so much. But how could she afford it? According to Paige’s story, she was hardly rolling in money. This house was small, but lake views were worth bucks. Where she might pay five hundred dollars for a one-bedroom apartment in town, this house could fetch closer to eight or nine hundred. That was a huge difference in price for someone whose income couldn’t be much more than eight dollars an hour.

  Vince focused on the deck. It stretched half the length of the house, beginning just past the garage. Two side steps led to the lawn. In the corner of the deck closest to him was a large sunken hot tub, sticking up about a foot and covered with a brown vinyl top. Vince narrowed his eyes at the tub, wishing he could see underneath its cover. Next he stared at the deck, trying to discern anything unusual upon it. He saw no pattern of footprints. He shaded his eyes and squinted, looking for the slightest sign of a trail that could have been caused by something dragged across it. Nothing. In fact, the wood looked amazingly clean, almost as if it had been swept recently.

  Interesting.

  He perused the sliding door to the rear of the house. With the brightness of the day, he couldn’t see beyond the glass into the home. He checked the threshold for any possible signs of something — or someone — being pulled from the house onto the deck. Again nothing.

  Vince sighed and took another swipe at his forehead. What to think about that phone call? No way was it coincidence that Paige Williams lived here. Yet this house sat near the top west side of the lake, while Edna San’s estate lay about equal distance from town on the east side. If Paige or someone she was in league with had managed to force Edna San off her property, why bring her all the way over here? And one other thing. The bloodhound had traced Ms. San’s scent three miles farther down Lakeshore Road, headed away from town. If someone wanted to transport Ms. San from her place to here in the quickest time, they’d head back toward the north end of the lake and around, not south.

  Also, the anonymous caller had said nothing about seeing two people drag something on this deck — only one. Which meant Paige Williams would have accomplished all this by herself.

  Vince’s gaze traveled across the deck toward the steps and down to the lawn, then bounced up to a door leading to the rear of the garage.

  Wait.

  His eyes returned to the grass near the deck’s lower step. His chin came up and he leaned forward, frowning. The grass looked a little lighter in that spot, as if it had been slicked down. He stared at the surrounding area. The lightness narrowed into a trail perhaps a foot wide. Slowly his eyes followed that trail — right up to the rear garage door.

  Was he imagining things?

  He shifted on his feet, turned his head a slight angle and stared some more. Still he saw the subtle difference in color. Very subtle. Almost as if someone had tried to fluff up the grass to erase the trail . . .

  Vince looked at that area of grass a long time. Then raised his eyes again to stare at the clean deck.

  As he headed with renewed purpose back to his car, he was sure of one thing. Paige Williams would soon have a lot more explaining to do.

  FORTY-FIVE

  The tub is full of hot water. Rachel is about to undress and get into it when the phone rings.

  She hesitates. Should she answer? It’s ten o’clock on a Wednesday night and she is tired from the day’s work. Michael, a salesman at the office, has asked her out for the third time, and for the third time she has turned him down. Her stated reason is understandable enough — she doesn’t want to date anyone at work. But Michael doesn’t buy it. A darkness crossed his face, and he turned on his heel with a “Fine, then, Princess, if that’s the way you want to be” and stalked away. This scares Rachel. What exactly might Michael do to her come tomorrow? Will he tell lies on her, try to get her fired?

  Surely this isn’t him calling. Her number’s unlisted.

  The phone rings again.

  Rachel sighs. She tells herself to let it ring, but something compels her to walk into the bedroom and pick up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Rachel, it’s me.”

  Rosa.

  Rachel freezes. She hasn’t talked to her mother since that summer day over a year and a half ago. Now Rosa’s voice is clipped, tight. Instinctively Rachel knows the woman wants something. Or she would never bother to call.

  “Hey, are you there?”

  Rachel’s muscles harden. Mentally she slams the door on any wayward emotions. “What do you want, Rosa?”

  “I need you to come over here right now.”

  Oh, right.

  “Rachel?”

  “What for?”

  “Because I need you, that’s why. I can’t talk on the phone now. Just come. Please.”

  Please? Since when does Rosa ever plead with her for anything? Maybe she really does
need help.

  Fine, let Eddie help her, or Blake, or one of the cops she knows so well.

  “Rosa, seems to me the last time I was over there, you said you never wanted to see me again.”

  “I didn’t mean it, Rachel, you know that! I was just mad, and — okay, I believe everything you said that day, does that help? It’s all true, so will you please just come over, because I really need to see you right now and I promise you won’t be sorry.”

  Conflicting emotions battle within Rachel. This is the first time her mother has ever sounded so desperate for her. The ancient longing for the bond-that-never-was surfaces. If there really is something she can do, maybe . . .

  “I was about to go to bed.” Rachel forces coldness into her tone. “I’m not coming over there until you tell me what you need.Besides, where’s Eddie?”

  “Eddie’s here, but he can’t help. Just — there’s not much time;you gotta leave now. Some people I work with are trying to cut me off, and one of them’s coming over here, and he’s gonna steal from me, Rachel, so I want to just give you something to keep for me so he won’t take it, because I know you’re the only one I can trust with it, so please come right away!”One of them’s coming. Rachel grips the phone. “You mean Blake?

  You want me to come over there, knowing Blake is on his way?”

  “No, no, it’s not him!”

  Can she believe that? “Rosa, whoever’s coming, I’m not holding drugs for you.”

  “It isn’t drugs!” Rosa is crying now. “It’s my own property, so please, please come. I will make it up to you; I will make everything up to you, just . . . Rachel, please.”

  Rachel’s eyes close. Her chest grows heavy with empathy, even as her feet root to the floor. She so wants to trust Rosa. But she knows she shouldn’t go.

  “Look, Rachel, when you come, park around the corner, okay? All you have to do is walk to the door; I’ll give you the stuff and you can leave. In a few days I’ll take it back. Please come right now; I’m waiting.”