The Dark Heart

by Julie Cave

  “That is interesting,” mused Elise. “No hits in the system?”

  “No. Whoever he or she is, he’s been clean up till now.”

  Dinah thought for a moment. When they had enough evidence for a search warrant, it would include a warrant for a DNA swab.

  “Thanks, Doctor,” Elise said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “It’s no trouble,” said Dr. Walker.

  Dinah wrote everything the doctor had said in her notebook, and then glanced at her watch. Elise caught the gesture and nodded. “Time to go.”

  It was time to go to the Ten Mile Hollow First Baptist Church, where she had organized meetings with Angus’s colleagues to check his alibi.

  Angus had said he’d been at work all day the Monday Malia Shaw had been murdered. But Shaw’s neighbors reported seeing someone matching Angus’s description at the apartment. It would be interesting to see what the pastor’s colleagues said.

  Angus met them at the door. “Hello, detectives.” He looked like he hadn’t slept well for several days. “I’ve given you an office in which to conduct your interviews.” His tone was flat and tired.

  “Thank you, Mr. Whitehall,” said Elise. “How is Grace?”

  Dinah remembered that the pastor’s daughter and Elise’s daughter were friends. Whitehall seemed to flinch. “Oh, she’s doing well. How is Chloe?”

  “She’s fine. Thanks again. I’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

  Whitehall nodded and left. The office he’d given them was small and well-heated, equipped with several chairs arranged in a circle.

  Elise had arranged consecutive appointments with Whitehall’s secretary, associate pastor, and a church elder. She started with the secretary, a young, terrified woman by the name of Shana Woolcroft. Barely in her twenties, she crept into the office and stared fearfully at the detective.

  “Hello, Miss Woolcroft,” said Elise, gently. “Today, I want to ask you a few questions about Mr. Whitehall’s movements on last Monday. Please just be truthful, and nobody will get into any trouble. It’ll be very easy, just you and me having a chat, okay?”

  Shana Woolcroft murmured something.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Sure,” whispered Shana, still looking at the floor.

  Elise glanced at Dinah, suppressing a smile. “Now, were you at the office last Monday when he arrived at work?”

  “Yes,” whispered Shana.

  “Excellent. What time was that?”

  “About nine,” said Shana. “I arrive at eight-thirty to make coffee.”

  “You’re doing great, Shana,” said Elise. “What did he do once he arrived at work? Did he go to his office, or hang around talking?”

  “He said good morning to me, took some coffee, and went to his office,” said Shana. “There was nobody else here.”

  “Your desk is directly outside his office?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you know when he goes in or out of his office?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he come out of his office at all during the morning?”

  “Yes,” said Shana. “He came out for a meeting with John.”

  “John Rowland?”

  “Yes.”

  John Rowland was the associate pastor with whom Elise had set up a meeting right after Shana.

  “Where did they go for the meeting?”

  “Here,” said Shana. “Well, the boardroom. Across the hall.”

  “How long did the meeting last?”

  “About half an hour?” guessed Shana.

  “And they both came out together?”

  “Yes. Mr. Rowland left; Mr. Whitehall went back to his office.”

  “Did Mr. Whitehall come out of his office after the meeting?”

  “Yes, he went to early lunch.” Shana bit a nail.

  Dinah felt a stirring in her gut, a tingling sensation that meant something was off.

  “Did he go alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know if he was meeting anyone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How long was he away for?”

  “About an hour,” said Shana. “He came back. Went into his office.”

  “How long did he stay in his office?”

  “All afternoon,” said Shana. “On Mondays he spends the afternoon returning phone calls and emails from the weekend. I didn’t see him again until about five, when I told him I was going home, and he agreed and walked with me to the parking lot.”

  “How long have you known Mr. Whitehall?”

  Shana raised her eyebrows. “Uh . . . I’ve only been working here for like, six months.”

  “You only met him when you started working here?”

  “Yeah. I just moved here.”

  “Thank you, Shana. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Shana looked up, a frown on her face. “That’s it? We’re done?”

  “Yes. I told you it would be easy!” Elise smiled at the young woman. Shana didn’t smile back, but clutched her sweater around her and slunk out of the room.

  As if on cue, John Rowland marched into the room. According to the church website, he’d been in ministry his whole life and had helped to shape Ten Mile Hollow First Baptist Church for better and worse. In semi-retirement, he had taken the associate role to support Angus and to reduce the demands on his time. He was a tall man in his seventies with a sharply angled face and an austere gaze. As if to belie his severe countenance, he possessed a soft, gentle voice.

  “How can I help, Detective?” he asked.

  “I want to ask you about last Monday, Mr. Rowland,” said Elise. “Specifically, whether you saw Mr. Whitehall.”

  “I did,” said Rowland. “We had a nine o’clock meeting, which went for about half an hour or so.”

  “Here at the church?”

  “Yes, in the boardroom.”

  “What was the meeting about?”

  He leveled a gaze at her. “Church business, ministry and pastoral issues I can’t really talk about. Suffice to say that it was a meeting focused on the church.”

  “What happened at the end of the meeting? Did you have lunch together?”

  Rowland shook his head. “No, I went to another meeting. I’m not sure what Angus did.”

  “How long have you known Mr. Whitehall?”

  A flicker of uncertainty lanced across the man’s face. “Well,” he said. “He’s been here, in this church, about 12 years. First in an associate role to me, and then as the senior pastor. Prior to that, he was studying for his theology degree. I don’t know what he did before that.”

  Elise watched him intently. “So, 12 years?”

  “Yes,” said Rowland.

  “What sort of character would you describe him as having?”

  “He has always been a man of integrity. He has been very popular among the congregation and town, I’m sure you know. I’ve certainly never had a problem with him,” said Rowland, without hesitation. “Is there anything else?”

  “Thanks, Mr. Rowland,” Elise said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  The board member, a middle-aged man named Brad Bowen, entered the room next. He was perplexed; he had barely seen Angus Whitehall at all during last Monday. He’d been there briefly to check the financial reports in his role as treasurer.

  Dinah knew this and her questions were designed to catch out any lies told by Shana Woolcroft or John Rowland. But Bowen’s version of the day’s events meshed exactly with what she’d already been told.

  She hung on as Elise drove back to the office, her mind a tumult over Angus Whitehall — seemingly perfect life, lived without reproach since arriving in Ten Mile Hollow.

  She had a hunch that the key to the mystery of Malia’s death lay in events that had happened years ago.

  But she had no idea what.

  ****

  It was almost seven o’clock when Chloe heard her mom and Dinah arrive home. In her room, Chloe heard the front door close, then a bi
g sigh and a double thud as Mom’s shoes were tossed into the corner.

  “Chloe!” Mom called. “Are you there?”

  Chloe stared at her assignment, decided she’d done enough for now, and trotted downstairs. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Ms. Harris.”

  “Please, call me Dinah,” said Mom’s friend with a smile.

  Chloe looked carefully at her mom, who looked haggard. Her eyes were bloodshot, there were big puffy circles underneath her eyes, and her face seemed older.

  “What is for dinner?” she asked, after a moment

  “I think Dad is bringing some takeout food for dinner. How’s your homework going?”

  Chloe shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

  Moments later, the front door banged open again, accompanied by a gust a cold wind. “I’m home!” yelled Dad. He had several bags of food that smelled amazing. She shook herself. It might smell amazing, she told herself, but it’ll make you fat.

  Chloe followed her dad into the kitchen, trying to hide the disappointment she felt. Of course, neither of them had the energy to cook tonight, but takeout food was not going to help her get skinnier.

  The chicken and fries were doled out into four portions, and they ate together at the kitchen table.

  “So how was your week at school?” Mom asked.

  The worst week of my life, thought Chloe. “It’s been okay,” she said, instead.

  Mom looked at her sharply, seeming to sense the tone in her daughter’s voice. But thankfully, she misread it. “Are you still finding school boring?”

  Thankful for the diversion, she nodded. “Haven’t I always?”

  Mom smiled and shook her head. “Honey, it won’t always be this way. Once you get to college, it can be as hard as you want it to be. And you’ll find you won’t be the only smart kid.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Chloe was looking forward to college in an almost mythical fashion, the same way that kids were sure mermaids and unicorns were real. For now, it seemed so far away, so unattainable, so unlikely. She had two more years of high school to get through — two more years of Jessica Hunter and her minions — before she could escape.

  Chloe stared at the plate of fries and chicken, noticing the big pools of grease underneath the food. Though she was starving, the thought of not eating the takeout filled her with a pleasurable sense of control.

  She ate a few chunks of chicken, without the skin, and some fries. That took care of the stabbing hunger pangs, and she decided that would be enough. Sharp-eyed, her mother frowned. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you hungry?”

  “No . . . not really. I had a sandwich before you came home,” said Chloe.

  “A sandwich isn’t enough for dinner,” said Mom. “You need to eat some more.”

  Chloe picked at her food again, moving the food around on the plate and hiding some of the fries beneath the chicken breast. Thankfully, it seemed her mom didn’t have the energy to keep nagging at her, and Chloe was able to tip the rest of her dinner in the trash.

  “Do you remember when we were at Quantico,” began her mom, facing Dinah and leaning back in her chair.

  Oh no. Nostalgia. Save me, thought Chloe, rolling her eyes. “May I be excused?” she interrupted. Her mom stopped, shocked by Chloe’s uncharacteristic rudeness. “I still have some homework to do,” she added.

  Mom pressed her lips together, and for a moment Chloe was sure she was going to get told off. But she must have decided not to do it in front of Dinah. “All right. You may be excused.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” said Chloe.

  She went upstairs and closed the door in the bathroom. She stood on the scales, hoping to find that she’d lost some weight. After all, she’d done the jogging thing during the week; she’d been a bit more careful about how she ate. She stared at the numbers and felt all her hopes plummet like a balloon rapidly losing air. She hadn’t lost any weight. None at all. How is this possible? She wondered. She sat on the edge of the bathtub and mentally went through everything she’d eaten during the last week.

  It was clear she was still eating too much. Breakfast: normally a bowl of cereal. I can just skip breakfast, she thought. It would be the easiest meal to do without — her mother wouldn’t know and couldn’t nag her about it.

  Lunch: normally taken in the school cafeteria, and everyone knew the food wasn’t exactly healthy. Her favorite was macaroni and cheese. She decided she’d swap it for the watery looking chicken noodle soup. If she just ate the noodles and the broth, and left the chicken in the bowl, she could eliminate more calories.

  Dinner would be more problematic. Her mom would notice she wasn’t eating at much as usual. The good thing was that Mom insisted on serving vegetables the nights they didn’t have takeout. So she could eat all the vegetables, which were low in calories, and she could pretend somehow to eat the meat and carbs.

  Disheartened, she trudged to her room and logged onto her computer. She wondered if she Googled it, whether there would be some ways of hiding food from parents. The search engine came up with 2 million hits, much to Chloe’s surprise. She clicked on the first one and was shocked when the website loaded. It was dedicated to the pursuit of thin, to the point of anorexia.

  Chloe looked at the pictures posted by the members of the websites of themselves: impossibly thin, with angular hips and jutting collarbones. She scrolled through them with a mixture of jealousy and revulsion. I don’t want to take it that far, she thought. I don’t need to be that skinny. But I bet there are some good ideas on here for people to lose weight quickly.

  She wasn’t disappointed. The website was full of weight loss tips, some of them drastic.

  Chloe found some ideas for hiding food — cutting it into tiny pieces made it easier to dispose of in a napkin, so that parents would think the meal had been eaten. Chloe kept reading, thoroughly absorbed. Some girls ate their meals but made themselves vomit or used laxatives so that the food couldn’t be absorbed. Chloe wrinkled her nose in disgust. It would surely be easier not to eat at all, rather than having to vomit it back up.

  She spent a few hours on the site, reading and realizing that she wasn’t alone in her desire to be skinny. Fortified by this knowledge, she went to bed, vowing to herself that tomorrow, she would begin in earnest.

  I will be skinny, even if it kills me.

  ****

  A rarely glorious Saturday made Dinah feel sad for a moment that she would be working a homicide investigation instead of enjoying the day off. The sky was clear, a deep azure that promised a cold, sunny day.Who am I kidding? She chuckled. I love working homicide investigations.

  In the kitchen, Lewis had made pancakes. “Good morning!” he greeted her, brightly. He was a broad man, no taller than Dinah herself, with a closely cropped beard and shaggy eyebrows. “How did you sleep?”

  “Very well, thanks.” Dinah accepted a plate of pancakes. “These look delicious.”

  “These are my patented, cure-all, fix-em-up pancakes, right, Chlo-Bow?” he grinned.

  Chloe rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling. “Right, Dad.”

  “While you ladies are off chasing down murderers, terrorists, and other assorted criminals, Chloe and I will be quite happily hiking and gardening together today.”

  “Hiking and gardening?” Chloe grumbled, but without venom. “I’ve got homework, you know.”

  “Well, we’ll be hiking, gardening, and homeworking!” Lewis laughed. Chloe smiled.

  Elise sighed and turned to face Dinah. “Well, in the face of that hilarity and good cheer, we’d better do some work.”

  On the hair-raising ride to work, Elise’s phone rang. “Hello?” she answered through the hands-free, so that Dinah could hear.

  “Hi, is this the detective who’s investigating the murder of that woman?” a thin, nervous male voice asked.

  “Yes, this is Detective Elise Jones,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “Look, I don’t know . . . I wasn’t sure if I should call,” the man said. “I mean, I don’t know
if it’ll help. But . . . I thought . . .”

  “I’m happy to hear any information,” she said. “What is your name?”

  “Um, Blake Watson.”

  “Okay, Mr. Watson. Now, what did you want to tell me?”

  “Just that . . . there’s often a car — I mean, there was often a car outside the woman’s place,” said Watson.

  “How did you see this car, Mr. Watson?”

  “Oh, I run a shop across the street,” he said.

  “Are you there now?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I’m coming to visit you. Stay right where you are.”

  Elise broke several road rules in her hurry to meet Blake Watson. Dinah’s heart galloped throughout the journey. If I don’t die in a car wreck, I’ll die of a heart attack. She closed her eyes as Elise floored the accelerator through orange lights or pulled out abruptly to pass slow cars. She crossed over Main Street and headed back over to the crumbling neighborhood in which Malia Shaw’s life had ended, and pulled to a halt outside the apartment with a final, tortured screech of protest from the tires.

  Dinah let out a breath she had apparently been holding for the entire trip.

  Directly opposite Malia Shaw’s apartment were two businesses — a liquor store and a pawnbroker. A tall man with skin the shade of chocolate stood outside the pawnbroker shop, scanning the street. Elise and Dinah approached him. “Are you Blake Watson?”

  In a deep, rich baritone, Watson replied, “Yeah. You must be the detective. Come in.” He looked with curiosity at Dinah.

  “I’m Dinah Harris,” she told him. “I was an FBI agent and now I’m consulting on this case.”

  Watson’s small shop was crammed with items that had once had value to their owners — everything from jewelry to coin collections to antique firearms. The goods were catalogued neatly, and everything was clean and gleaming.

  “Please tell me what you saw,” Elise suggested. “From the beginning.”

  “Well, I just take notice of things,” Watson began. “In this neighborhood, it pays to keep your eyes open. So I took notice of a car that was always around outside the apartment where the dead woman lived.”

  “Why did it get your attention?” asked Elise.

  “It was a new car, and the man inside looked rich, at least to us,” said Watson. “A little unusual around here. He was here two times a week, on average. I didn’t think much of it until that lady turned up dead.”