A Bad Day’s Work

by Nora McFarland

  “What if he’s not?” Mary turned from the window. “What if he’s never coming back? You have to find him.”

  Frank glared at me. I tried not to look too happy, but it was hard. We both knew if he left, I’d have her unlocking the cuffs in minutes.

  “Mrs. Sinclair.” He spoke slowly and calmly. “Do you think that’s what Mr. Warner would want me to do? Leave you alone at a time like this with a woman who’s blackmailing you?”

  Mary looked at me.

  “I’m not blackmailing anyone,” I said. “Your husband and I worked everything out.”

  Frank leaned over me and lowered his voice. “You want me to gag you? ’Cause I will.”

  “No.” My voice was the only weapon I had left. “Don’t do that.”

  “Are you going to behave?”

  I nodded.

  He stood back up and walked to the window. He put an arm around Mary Sinclair and guided her to a chair by the fire. “How about this? If Mr. Sinclair isn’t here in fifteen minutes, and your father says it’s okay, I’ll go look for him.”

  Her face shot up. “Really? You will?”

  “Of course I will.”

  She relaxed into the chair and wiped the tears from her face.

  Frank sat down next to me. “Nice try.”

  “Is that the kind of thing you do for Leland Warner? Pay off his son-in-law’s girlfriends?”

  “Technically I’m a senior adviser at Valsec Security. But it just so happens Valsec is owned by Mr. Warner and only services his properties.” Frank winked at me. “And I play Mr. Fix It from time to time. It’s not a nine-to-five job.”

  “Are you former law enforcement?”

  “Bakersfield PD.” He actually sounded proud. “It comes in handy. Sometimes I can offer freelance work to the right kind of officer.”

  “You mean like the cops you sent to my house this morning?”

  “Exactly like that. It also comes in handy when I need information.” He paused. “For instance, I know your uncle was taken into custody tonight.”

  I tried to sit up, but didn’t get far. “Is he okay?”

  “They haven’t charged him with anything yet, probably because they think he’s cooperating.”

  I stopped moving. Bud wouldn’t betray me. Or would he? “What do you mean, they think he’s cooperating?”

  “He told them he dropped you off in a cornfield on the south side of town. They’ve got a big manhunt going down there—which I like since we’re on the north side of town.”

  I remembered what Callum had said about Rod. “Do they have anybody else in custody?”

  “If you’re worried about your boyfriend, they released him two hours ago.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I said louder than I intended.

  “That’s a good thing because he sold you out to us and the Sheriff’s Department.”

  “If you know he’s dishonest, why are you making a deal with him?”

  “We haven’t yet.” Frank shrugged. “But I’ve got people making contact. Ideally, we’ll work out a combined arrangement with you and your boyfriend. Then we can finally put this whole thing to rest.”

  I paused. “You called him my boyfriend again just to annoy me, didn’t you?”

  He laughed. “You jump to the bait way too easy.”

  I tried to look outraged, but only managed to dislodge the pillow behind my head. “How do I know you won’t kill us both once you have the tape?”

  “Who do you think we are?” Frank picked up the pillow and replaced it. “No reason for us to take a chance like that. And I think Mr. Warner will be very generous. He doesn’t want any trouble.”

  “How long has it been, Frank?” Mary Sinclair sat on the edge of her chair looking at us with pulsing, almost manic eyes. She showed no evidence of understanding or caring about our conversation.

  Frank looked at his watch. “Only a couple minutes. Don’t worry. He’s on his way.”

  She got up and used a phone on the side table.

  Frank whispered, “Now she’s starting to get me worried. I want to go chase him out of some girl’s bed about as much as I want to chase you through the woods.”

  A high-pitched cry came from the other side of the room. We both looked at Mary as she slammed the phone down. “It’s still his voice mail. I can’t stand it.”

  Frank jumped to his feet. “It’s all right, Mrs. Sinclair. Why don’t you come sit by the fire again.”

  “Why is this happening? I don’t understand. Ever since last night. It won’t stop.”

  Her instability frightened me the same way Jason’s rage had. They were both unreasonable and unpredictable. But was she dangerous? “What happened in the orchard last night?”

  Frank shot me a threatening look, but kept his voice calm when he spoke to her. “Don’t distress yourself. Talking about it will only upset you.”

  “It’s that boy’s fault,” she said with venom. “Why did he call? Why couldn’t he leave us alone?”

  “It’s going to be okay, Mrs. Sinclair. I promise. Just come and sit down.” Frank took her arm and tried to guide her back to the fire, but she refused to move.

  “I didn’t want Tom to go,” she said. “I begged him not to. I knew something terrible would happen and it did and it’s still happening.”

  “Mrs. Sinclair, you shouldn’t talk about these things.”

  “I should have called Daddy, but Tom wouldn’t let me. When we got there …” Her whole body shook and she leaned on Frank for support. “When we found him it was so terrible. He was like a monster, lying there with no face.”

  She broke down crying and Frank was finally able to bring her back to the chair by the fire.

  I relaxed a little. Her statement, although somewhat hysterical, supported Sinclair’s story that Val was dead when they arrived. If I had to be held against my will, I preferred it not be by a murderer and his family.

  Mary’s tears ebbed and she patted Frank’s arm. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Frank. You saved me last night.”

  “Why were you there?” I asked him.

  He glanced from me to Mary. “I don’t think we should—”

  “I called Daddy on my cell phone.” Mary took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. “Then Daddy called Frank, who came to the rescue. We were driving away when the police stopped us.”

  Warner’s calling Frank to clean up the mess made sense. Of course the arrival of the police must have limited what Frank could do. “Who called 911?” I asked Mary.

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t me. When I saw their lights, I wanted to scream, but Frank gave me his jacket and let me sit in the car.”

  I looked at Frank for confirmation. He reluctantly smiled. “I told them she was my partner and we were on rounds.”

  “They believed that?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” He shrugged. “Arvin PD called Valsec when they got the 911 call. They expected us to be there. I told the police I needed to call headquarters and check in. What I really did was cancel the team on its way.”

  Mary’s face contorted as if she’d tasted something bitter. “But they wouldn’t let us leave. They made us sit in the car for hours and hours.”

  Frank chuckled softly. “It was five a.m. before we got out of there.”

  I kept my attention focused on Mary. “But where was your husband?”

  Frank made a noise, got a scathing look from Mary, and then tried to act as if he’d been coughing.

  “He drove you down there,” I said. “You both discovered the body. Where did he and the car go?”

  She looked down at her twisting hands. “The truth is …Tom is very sensitive and he had a kind of episode where he wasn’t himself. Kind of like temporary insanity.”

  In my mind I saw Sinclair’s Jaguar peeling away from Mrs. Boyle’s house. “Are you trying to tell me that he ran away and left you there with a dead body?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Let me get this s
traight—your husband drags you to a murder scene and then drives away without you?”

  Her hands flew to her neck. “He didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “What do you see in this guy?”

  “A question I’ve asked every day since she first brought him home from college.” The voice was deep and powerful. It came from behind me, and though I’d never heard it before, I knew to whom it belonged.

  TWENTY

  From my position on the couch I couldn’t see Leland Warner, but I heard him and saw his effect on the other two people in the room.

  Frank jumped up. His muscles were rigid where they’d previously been slack, and his face was blank where it had been friendly.

  “Daddy, how can you say such a thing?” Mary looked smaller and fatter, as though her flesh were pressed down and out. “You know Tom loves me.”

  “I don’t know any such thing.” I heard him take slow, deliberate steps and followed the sound of his voice as he came around the couch and faced Mary. “As a matter of fact I think something very different.”

  He wore a plaid shirt tucked into the kind of cheap, old-fashioned jeans they sell at discount stores. A thick leather belt at his waist encircled a painfully thin, stopped-over frame. What little weight he had was supported by a nicked and scarred cane.

  Mary jumped out of her seat. “Daddy, don’t say horrible things. I’m all on edge.”

  I got my first look at his face as he placed a hand on Mary’s head. His look of disinterest conflicted with the concern in his voice. “I’m sorry, kitten. I know you’ve had a bad time.” He glanced at me with the same bored expression, then slowly took the few steps to Mary’s vacated seat. Mary followed and hovered attentively as he carefully lowered himself into the chair. She took his cane and leaned it against the large stone hearth. The light from the fire flickered in the polished silver of the handle.

  Warner dismissed her with a simple “Thank you,” and she returned to the front window to look for Sinclair.

  “This young lady also looks like she’s had a bad time.” Warner had spoken without actually looking at me.

  “I had to hit her over the head to subdue her.” Frank shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “And Dick and Dale may have gotten a little carried away this morning.”

  I chuckled and Warner looked directly at me for the first time. “You think being beaten is funny?”

  “Dick and Dale? Please tell me that’s some kind of alias. Those can’t be their real names.”

  Warner turned his attention back to the fire. “Frank, did you arrive in time to prevent Tom from making a bigger ass of himself than usual?”

  Mary made a noise, but didn’t say anything.

  “Miss Hawkins was recording Mr. Sinclair with a small device hidden in her jacket.” Frank looked at me. “I destroyed it.”

  “Of course you did,” I said, and buried my last shred of hope with a sarcastic remark.

  “Good work.” Warner rubbed a long, thin finger along his forehead. “Hopefully we’re near the end of this disaster.”

  The old man lowered his hand and looked at me again. I met his gaze and openly studied him. His face was a maze of crevices, valleys, and canyons. Wrinkle trenches combined with folds of drooping skin and pocks like craters. Wild and overgrown eyebrows dominated his face. With a shock I realized his look of disinterest was the result of drooping eyelids that made him appear to be watching the world with barely opened eyes.

  “I understand you had an idea to blackmail us,” he said.

  “Whoever was the first idiot to say that and started this entire ridiculous nightmare going, please find me that person so I can wring their neck.”

  His thin lips flipped into a skeptical smile. “You weren’t after money?”

  With nothing to take to the police to prove my story, with my hands cuffed behind my back, with no hope of escape, and with nothing to leverage or bargain with, I had no options left but the truth. “The video Frank thinks I shot of your daughter doesn’t exist. Even if you get your hands on the tape, those images won’t be on it because there wasn’t enough light. I only took those shots because I was planning to sneak inside and didn’t want the police officer to get suspicious.” Warner continued to stare at me. His eyes, peeking out from behind those deceptive folds of skin, made me feel antsy and exposed. “I’m telling the truth. There’s nothing to blackmail you with.”

  “You could be lying and planning to sell the tape to one of my business rivals? My only daughter embroiled in a murder would distract me—something quite a few people could take advantage of.”

  “There’s nothing on the tape that implicates your daughter or anyone else,” I said as though the matter were closed. “It’s just the police processing the crime scene.”

  His eyes stayed fixed on me. “You’re either telling the truth or an excellent liar.”

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  “Probably not.” He looked at Frank. “Get her file for me, will you please? It’s on my desk.”

  Frank disappeared into the back of the house.

  “I’m not lying,” I repeated. “If you’d left me alone I wouldn’t even know your daughter had been there.”

  Frank returned and handed Warner a blue folder.

  “Thank you.” Warner took a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket and began casually flipping through the pages. Frank walked backward to one of the other chairs, as if he were afraid to show Warner his back.

  “Your whole life distilled into a few dozen pages,” Warner said.

  “What is that? Some kind of background check?” I leaned forward, but couldn’t see.

  “Basically, and it’s told me that you’re a bit of an outsider. You don’t talk to your family and you don’t have any friends. Why is that?”

  I straightened. “I’m very close to my uncle.” Of course that was a recent development, but I didn’t feel the need to share it.

  “Really? I’m glad.” The corners of his drooping mouth turned up as he enjoyed the moment. “You see, I was afraid your father’s suicide left you an emotionally crippled loner. It’s good to hear I was wrong.”

  For a few moments nobody spoke. The only sound came from the logs in the fireplace.

  I broke the silence by laughing. “That’s the best you can do—a stupid lie about how my father died? Was that supposed to be shocking? Am I supposed to start crying?”

  “I thought you knew he killed himself.” He cringed in mock dismay. “I would never have mentioned it if I thought you didn’t know.”

  “You can’t change facts. The police—”

  “You’re right.” Warner looked at the page in front of him and nodded. “The death certificate does indicate an accidental death. But the company’s investigation is much more interesting. Lots of interviews with coworkers, family members.” He held up several sheets of paper. “This report says deliberate operator error.”

  I rolled my eyes and relaxed back into the cushions. “The company made stuff up so they wouldn’t have to pay out on his insurance. Really, if this is the best you’ve got, it’s pathetic.”

  He returned the pages to the pile on his lap and continued to leaf through. “Could be the company was trying to cover themselves. That’s what I’d do in their place.” He paused and withdrew several more sheets from the pile. “Of course the interviews don’t paint a pretty picture. Withdrawn, even from his own family. Chronically depressed …and of course it wasn’t your father’s first suicide attempt. That does seem significant.”

  I looked up.

  “Oh, you didn’t know about that?” he said in the kindliest voice imaginable.

  “That’s because it’s not true.”

  He offered the papers to me. “Would you like to see?”

  I leaned forward like a fish chasing the worm. “You’re making—”

  “Then again, maybe I shouldn’t.” He quickly withdrew the papers. “Maybe the kind thing would be to let it drop.”


  “There’s nothing to show me because he never tried to kill himself, ever.”

  “That’s the spirit. It’s important you believe there’s nothing on these pages because I’d feel terrible if I’d inadvertently planted a seed of doubt in your mind.”

  “You haven’t made me doubt anything.”

  “Maybe you’ve always known.”

  I looked from his face to the folder in his lap. “You’re never going to show me those papers, are you? No matter what I say or do?”

  “It depends.” The sagging corners of his mouth tilted up again. “I always like a bargaining chip in my back pocket.”

  I smiled. “Go to hell.”

  He nodded as though he were taking it under advisement. “Do you think suicides go to hell?”

  I had a flash of sympathy for Sinclair and then, for the first time in my life, a strong desire to pound my fists into a frail, old man.

  Warner appeared to sense this and nodded as though a store clerk had handed him the socks he’d asked for. He closed the file in his lap. “I think you’re telling the truth about your video. You seem to be a straightforward sort of person and very easy to read. Of course I could be wrong.” He turned to Frank. “Why don’t you get her a whiskey?”

  Frank’s rubber soles squeaked on the wood floor as he walked behind me. Crystal tapped crystal with a melodic ping and then I heard liquid being poured.

  Mary broke the silence. “Daddy, I’m so worried about Tom. Can Frank go look for him?”

  Warner looked at Frank behind me. “Didn’t you bring him with you?”

  “He’s driving his own car.” Frank returned with a glass of brown liquid. “He had to lock up the ballpark.”

  Mary let the curtain fall at the window. “But, Daddy, he should be here by now and it’s foggy.”

  Frank’s cell phone rang on his hip. “He probably stopped at home.” He placed the whiskey on the coffee table and answered the call.

  I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of the line, but Frank looked happy.

  Frank covered the phone with his hand and turned to Warner. “They picked up the reporter we were looking for.”