Dangerous Secrets

by Lyn Cote

  He watched her slip her small feet back into her stylish black boots. “Rough.”

  Their eyes connected. And he sensed that everything that he wished to conceal from her about Ginger’s death and about everything else that lay between him and Sylvie, she read with ease. His jaw clenched. He tried to relax it. And failed.

  A tear trickled down Sylvie’s right cheek. She brushed it away and stood. “I take it I can go home now.”

  Ridge nodded, unable to speak. Images from the scene of Dan’s untimely death had slid in and out of his conscious thoughts during the night-long investigation. Bringing Sylvie along with them.

  She went to the coatrack and Ridge hurried forward to help her don her plum-colored down coat the second time tonight. In her evident fatigue, she wavered on her feet. He steadied her, a hand on her upper arm.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered.

  Her frailty belied her words. He admired her nerve. Nothing was fine tonight and nothing would be fine for quite a while. “My car’s out front.”

  He escorted her through turning off the foyer lights, locking up, and then out in the winter cold so dry the air almost crackled with static electricity. After helping her into his SUV, he got in and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. He tried again. Not even grinding. Sudden aggravation flamed through him. With his gloved palm, he slapped the steering wheel once. Nothing ever went right for him in Winfield.

  “You left your lights on,” Sylvie said, pointing to the dash where sure enough his lights had been switched on and left.

  He let out a slow breath. “I’m used to the automatic ones but I must have turned them on manually and forgot.”

  “And when you arrived, the street was still lit by shop lights along with the streetlamps. You wouldn’t have noticed you’d left them on. No one did.” She opened her door. “It’s only a few blocks for me. I always walk to work. And your parents’ house is within walking distance. Leave it till morning.”

  Not willing to let her out of his sight, he got out and joined her on the sidewalk. The icy temperature nearly took his breath away. It was probably quite safe for her to walk home, but after finding Ginger dead, he didn’t want to leave Sylvie alone at the dark early-morning hour. He would only leave her when she was in her own home safe with her father. “I’ll walk you home first.”

  “That’s not necessary. This is Winfield, remember?” She stopped speaking—abruptly.

  Her face was turned away from the streetlamp so he couldn’t see her expression, but her sudden silence and immobility told him that Ginger’s death had hit her afresh. Yes, this was Winfield, but Ginger had died, not in faraway Alaska, but here in her hometown of Winfield.

  Without mentioning this, he looped Sylvie’s arm around the crook of his and began leading her down the street he knew so well. He didn’t need to ask her where her house was. Walking beside Sylvie made him very sensitive to the stark white of the snow mounds left by the plows. It also made him aware that the cold, along with being in Winfield, was nibbling away at him bit by bit.

  After a couple of steps, he adjusted to accommodate her halting gait. This nipped his conscience. He’d been able to walk away from Dan’s accident unscathed. But did every limping step remind Sylvie of the past? If it did, how did she stand it?

  “What took the sheriff so long?” she asked. “I mean, why did they spend so much time up in her apartment?”

  Uneasiness twitched through him. He didn’t want to face this. No, he did not. They reached the end of the block and started up the next. How to avoid making this damaging revelation?

  “Ridge?” she prompted.

  “Sylvie, it’s late. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

  Sylvie halted. “You’re frightening me. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Come along.” He tugged her.

  She resisted. “I’m not moving until you tell me why they took so long up in Ginger’s apartment.”

  He’d had it. Why didn’t anything ever go the easy way? Why couldn’t she just accept what he said? “Ginger’s death has been deemed suspicious.”

  “Suspicious?”

  The low temp was numbing his bare ears. “It’s freezing out. Don’t you feel it?” He tugged her elbow. “Come on. I’ll tell you everything. Let’s just get out of this cold.” He drew her along.

  “Tell me,” she insisted, even though she began walking again.

  He walked faster, urging her along. “Ginger’s apartment had been ransacked.”

  “What? You mean someone broke in?” She slowed, pulling against him.

  He tugged her. “Someone tore Ginger’s apartment apart.” His voice turned savage. I wanted to leave in the morning. What’s the chance of that now? “We think the point of entry was a rear window on the back porch.”

  “What could they have been looking for?” she asked. “Ginger didn’t have anything worth stealing.”

  That only made it more suspicious. Didn’t Sylvie see that?

  “Maybe you’ve got it wrong,” Sylvie said. “Ginger might have been looking for something and had everything turned upside down and inside out. Ginger wasn’t always very neat.”

  Ridge didn’t want to respond to this excuse. Why not let her come up with ways to avoid the truth? He just slogged on, the relentless cold filtering through all his layers of clothing.

  “Don’t you think it could be that? Ginger might just have been unpacking and—”

  The sheriff’s words came back to Ridge: “It’s good you were with Sylvie when she found the body. She might have closed her cousin’s eyes without thinking or I might have assumed that she did. But we both know—” Suddenly Ridge had had it. He couldn’t take any more waffling, any more lame explanations. “Ginger’s eyes were closed,” he snapped.

  “What does that mean?” Sylvie halted again. “You’re not making sense.”

  He urged her along again. His face was stiff not just from the bitter temperature but now from irritation. “It means that someone closed her eyes.”

  “Someone…what?”

  His patience evaporated. “Sylvie, if a person falls to their death, their eyes will remain open. Someone was there after Ginger fell and shut her eyes.”

  Sylvie exhaled—deeply and loudly. And then began breathing very fast.

  In the scant light from the streetlamp, he glimpsed her eyes and mouth wide in shock. Then he realized she wasn’t getting her breath. “Sylvie.” He shook her arms. “Sylvie.”

  She was beginning to hyperventilate. If he didn’t get her breathing, she’d faint on him.

  He pulled her face close to his and, covering her mouth with his, blew into her open mouth. Once. Twice. He shook her again. On and on, he blew carbon dioxide into her mouth. “Breathe. Breathe.”

  She shuddered once and pulled away from his mouth. Then she leaned her head against him. She was gasping now, but was getting air. “This,” she whispered, “can’t be happening.”

  Not wanting to, but unable to stop himself, he put his arms around her delicate form. “It’s freezing. I’ve got to get you home.”

  She raised her pale face to him, visible now in the streetlamp glow. “What happens now?”

  TWO

  March 5, Saturday afternoon

  Sylvie’s insides were descending, spiraling as if she were going down a narrow funnel. For the hundredth time, she pulled herself up from the darkness that was trying to suck her under. Surviving Ginger’s funeral had devoured all her strength. But she was determined to be a support to her family.

  The bright fluorescent lighting in the church basement hurt her eyes. She hadn’t slept very much over the past three nights. But neither had anyone else in her family. Now, she sat at a long whitepaper-covered table near the end of the after-funeral luncheon. In the cement-block basement room, the men all wore dark suits. The women had dressed in sober dresses or dark pantsuits. The dark colors matched the mood in the room. Unexpressed grief revealed itself in the tight smiles and lowered voices. Rh
inestone brooches on collars glinted here and there in the bright light. Almost everyone in town had turned out for the funeral. Cousins and relations murmured to each other down the length of the family table. Subdued, guarded. This death was different. This was unnatural. Perhaps murder.

  Her father sat across from her next to his new brother-in-law, Tom Robson, while her aunt Shirley, Ginger’s mother, sat beside Sylvie. Neither of them spoke though occasionally her aunt forced a smile for her and patted her arm as if trying to make up for the horrible fact that Sylvie had been the one to find Ginger. Shirley’s sorrow appeared still too deep for tears.

  “I hope Chad didn’t have trouble finding it,” Ginger’s stepfather, Tom, fretted, glancing at the large wall clock.

  In the distracted haze they were all in today, Tom had forgotten to bring his wallet and he wanted to give Pastor Ray the check he’d already written him for doing the funeral service. Chad, Shirley’s teenage foster son, had gone to fetch it.

  The gathering was about to break up. The forced-air furnace was having trouble keeping away the encroaching chill that penetrated the basement room. Small children were starting to whimper and whine, rubbing their eyes as it neared time for their afternoon naps. And the church women who’d put on the luncheon were in the kitchen, chatting, clattering, washing casserole dishes and coffee cups. The homey sounds comforted Sylvie. Here she was surrounded by friends and family. It was at times like these that the ties of blood and faith meant the most.

  Sylvie surreptitiously massaged her sore hip. She’d played the organ for the funeral and then done a lot of walking through snow and standing at the interment. Her hip had no cartilage to keep bone from rubbing on bone. At home tonight she’d have to use an ice pack on her hip to bring down the swelling.

  Aunt Shirley lowered her voice and spoke into Sylvie’s ear, asking about another cousin. “Rae-Jean’s still coming home on Monday?”

  Sylvie nodded. Rae-Jean had just finished a term at the Chippewa Drug Treatment Facility and a few months in prison. “Dad’s going to drive down to get her.”

  “Her parents still haven’t forgiven her?” Aunt Shirley asked.

  Sylvie shook her head.

  Aunt Shirley lowered her chin, frowning. She didn’t have to say the words. Sylvie understood the unspoken message. Rae-Jean’s parents should be grateful that they still had their daughter alive and breathing. No matter what she’d done.

  Sylvie watched Tom fidget, glancing at the clock again. What was taking Chad so long to get back? Tom and Shirley’s house wasn’t that far away. Sylvie felt her patience dissolving, fizzing away like a cold tablet in water. Come on, Chad. We can’t leave till you bring the check.

  Once again, flashes, images from the evening when she’d found Ginger ricocheted in her mind. Ridge hadn’t come today. Nor his parents. Which had been the usual for them. And no one could blame them. Ridge had been busy most of every day working with the sheriff, sifting the evidence collected at Ginger’s apartment. Audra Harding had represented her husband, the sheriff, and was in the kitchen washing dishes.

  Sylvie couldn’t get Ridge out of her mind. They’d been so close the night he’d walked her home. For just those few dark moments, the past hadn’t weighed them down. She’d needed comfort and he’d offered it. She could still feel his warm breath reviving her, his strong chest under his woolen coat supporting her. For that instant, he’d let her come close, so close.

  Wild-eyed, Chad appeared at the bottom of the stairwell and stood gasping as if he’d run all the way.

  Sitting at his parents’ kitchen table, Ridge tried to get a word into the phone conversation. But his boss, Matt Block, in Madison hadn’t finished with him yet. “Harding has a good rep. He’s had a couple of tricky cases that he solved since he took over as sheriff.”

  Ridge was aware of this but he couldn’t butt in and say so. One didn’t do that with Block. Ridge heard himself grinding his molars to keep from interrupting his boss.

  “Don’t hurry back,” Block continued, “until Harding thinks he can handle it on his own. Let him decide.”

  While listening to Block fill him in on what was going on in Madison, Ridge moved the salt and pepper shakers closer together and glanced at his watch. The funeral luncheon should be winding up about now. His ward, Ben sat, staring at him from the opposite end of the table. Didn’t the kid ever blink?

  Block repeated that he wanted Ridge to stay in Winfield. Ridge forced himself to speak in an even tone. “That might take some time.”

  “Like I said, nothing pressing here now,” Block said, infuriating Ridge further. “And we want to keep our funding at the same level for the next fiscal year. Every time our people go out to work with local law enforcement, it’s good PR. This close to the state house we’ve got to think of politics, next year’s budget. Keep me posted.” And Block hung up.

  For a moment, Ridge wanted to toss the cordless receiver into the garbage disposal. And grind it to dust. I don’t want to stay here.

  “What did your boss say?” Ben asked.

  Ridge made himself look the kid in the eye. It wasn’t the kid’s fault that he had his mom’s blue eyes and his dad’s cowlicky hairline. “I’ll be staying for a while longer.”

  Ben’s pleased reaction was not obvious, but of course, the kid still made it clear he didn’t want to leave Winfield.

  From the next room, the musical theme from a soap opera his mother was watching blared louder, no doubt time for another string of commercials. And though practically every other year-round resident in Winfield was in the community church basement for Ginger’s funeral, his dad was at his grocery store as he was seven days a week every week. Didn’t his parents ever look beyond the caves they’d retreated into?

  I can’t take this all out on Ben. But on the way to Winfield just a few days ago, Ridge had felt so confident that everything was working out so well for his getting the kid settled. The opening at the military school, the camp registration. Now all this.

  The phone rang. Ridge picked up. What he heard made him rise to his feet.

  Ben rose, too, watchful.

  Ridge hung up and hurried to the row of wooden pegs by the back door where all the coats hung. Ben rushed up behind him and grabbed his jacket, too.

  Ridge stopped and faced Ben. “I’m going out on police business. Stay here.”

  Ben shoved ahead of Ridge to the back door. “I’m not staying here.” The kid burst outside and ran down the shoveled sidewalk to Ridge’s SUV. There he grabbed the door handle.

  “This is police business,” Ridge barked. “No place for a kid. You can’t come with me.”

  “Then drop me at the church where everybody is. I can hang with Milo or a friend. I’ll walk home for supper.”

  Ridge had thought Ben going to a funeral so soon after losing his parents would be bad for him. But he couldn’t blame the kid for wanting to get out of his parents’ house. After all, it was exactly what he wanted to do. “Okay. I’ll drop you at the church. Get in.” Ridge got into the car.

  “What happened?” Ben said inside, hooking his seat belt.

  “I can’t tell you until the sheriff wants it known.”

  After dropping Ben at the church, Ridge drove the few blocks to Tom and Shirley’s house. He still couldn’t believe what the sheriff’s dispatch had told him.

  Two sheriff’s vehicles were already parked outside the white Victorian. Ridge strode up the freshly shoveled walk to the front door. It opened before he could knock. Keir Harding waited for him just inside. He looked disgruntled and Ridge didn’t blame him. He was disgruntled, too.

  “Who notified you?” Ridge asked, looking around at the disarray inside the house.

  “Shirley’s foster son, Chad. He came alone to pick up Tom’s wallet. Tom had forgotten it this morning. Chad found the door open. He looked inside, couldn’t believe what he saw and froze up. Finally he ran back to the church and announced what had happened to the general public.”

 
; Great. Nothing like a little discretion. “What do you think? Just an opportunist taking advantage of the funeral?”

  “Here in Winfield?” Keir nearly snarled. “This isn’t Madison or Milwaukee. Most of the town is at the funeral. Tom and Shirley, not to mention Ginger, are very well liked. If someone from Winfield did this, I’ll swallow my badge.”

  Deputy Trish Lawson walked into the room. Wearing thin plastic gloves, she held up a man’s wallet.

  “Where did you find it?” Keir asked.

  “On the top of the bedroom dresser. In plain sight.” Trish’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “It hasn’t been touched.” She opened the wallet to show them the credit cards and greenbacks still inside.

  Ridge processed what had just been revealed. Someone had broken into Shirley’s Victorian. But they hadn’t bothered to swipe the wallet sitting out or even take the money out of it. He looked at the sheriff. They didn’t need to say it aloud. Both of them wanted to know—what’s going on here?

  Later that day, Ridge had tried to beg off from going to Milo’s place to fill in Ginger’s family about this latest development in the case. Neither Ridge nor Keir had even bothered to discuss the possibility that the two break-ins might not be related. Of course they were. And Keir wanted Ridge along. After all, this was what Ridge, a state homicide detective, was being paid to do by the state of Wisconsin.

  Now they entered the protected stairwell at the side of Milo’s Bait and Tackle on the waterfront and walked up the one steep flight of stairs to the apartment above the store. The door opened before the sheriff could knock.

  Still wearing her dark violet pantsuit, Sylvie stood at the door. Her white-gold hair shimmered in the light. “We heard your footsteps.” She stepped back, allowing the sheriff and Ridge into the kitchen, which opened onto the large front room. Around the crowded table sat Milo, Ginger’s parents, Chad and Ben, who avoided Ridge’s gaze. Ridge looked away, too. Ginger’s mother, Shirley, and her new husband, Tom, were in so much emotional pain that their faces actually looked pasty gray.