Dead End

by Mariah Stewart

  “And no one missed her in all that time?”

  “From what I gathered, from the folks out front, she didn’t work. Went into town for food and supplies every two weeks or so. Stopped at the library to pick up a couple of books while she was there, maybe had lunch at Sullivan’s. Other than that, it seems like she kept to herself.”

  “Well, let’s see if the neighbors remember if she’s had any company lately…”

  The neighbors did.

  In particular, Mrs. Owens, a widow in her midseventies who lived half a mile up on the other side of the road, distinctly recalled having seen a tall, good-looking dark-haired man with the deceased on several occasions.

  “Recently?” Annie asked.

  “Last time, maybe a month ago. Maybe a little less.”

  “Within the last two weeks?”

  “Not him, but there was a car parked here week before last.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t him?”

  “He always came at the end of the week, stayed till Sunday or sometimes Monday morning. This was in the middle of the week, and the car was only here for the one day.”

  “Do you remember what day of the week it was?”

  “It was a Tuesday.”

  “Are you sure, Mrs. Owens?” Brody spoke up for the first time since Annie had engaged the woman in conversation.

  “I’m positive. I was on my way into town to the dentist. Dr. Jacobs. He’s only in West Priest on Tuesday’s. Rest of the week, he’s in Priest or over in Tall Trees.”

  “This tall, dark-haired man…” Annie began.

  “Good-looking. Don’t leave out the good-looking part.”

  “How often did you see him? Twice a month? Once? Every two months…?”

  “Maybe once a month, sometimes twice, close as I remember.”

  “Do you think you’d recognize him if you saw him again?”

  “Oh yes. He really was a looker.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Owens. If you remember anything else, you just give me a call, hear?”

  “Will do.” Mrs. Owens nodded but made no effort to leave. “What do you suppose happened to her? You got any suspects?”

  “Now, now, don’t go talking about suspects. We don’t even know what she died from. Could be natural causes. Let’s not go jumping to conclusions, Mrs. Owens. That’s how rumors get started.”

  “Well, you know I’m not one to gossip,” she said to the sheriff and to Annie.

  “That’s good, then. We don’t need any speculation going around town until we know for certain what happened here. And we might not know that for a few more days. Gotta give the medical examiner some time to do his thing.”

  Mrs. Owens nodded her understanding and turned to leave.

  “You don’t suppose someone killed her deliberately, do you, Sheriff?”

  “Mrs. Owens, I thought we just agreed we would not be speculating,” Brody said sternly.

  “Just wondering.” The older woman resumed her walk to her car. “She was such a lovely thing, so sweet. Always waved when you went past.”

  “Mrs. Owens,” Annie called to her. “Would you happen to know where Mariana worked? What she did for a living?”

  “Oh, she didn’t work. I think she had some sort of family money or something, some inheritance, maybe it was.” Mrs. Owens opened her car door. “But she sure didn’t work. Up all hours of the night; I used to see lights on down here all the time. I said something to her once, about her staying up late and was she reading or watching TV, and she said most nights she didn’t sleep well, that she slept better during the day. Which I thought was strange, you know. The way she said it, made me think that she was afraid to sleep at night, like she was safer sleeping during the day.”

  “Why do you say that?” Annie asked.

  “Just a feeling I had. She had that house lit up like a Christmas tree all night, every night, and the one night I stopped by to drop off some mail that got put in my box by mistake, it took her like a full minute to unlock all the locks.”

  Annie and the sheriff looked at each other.

  “Did you notice a lot of locks?” Annie asked the sheriff.

  “No, but let’s go take a look…”

  An inspection of the inside of the front door proved there to be a dead bolt, a slider, and a regular bolt.

  “The only lock that was on when we first got here was the slider,” Brody told Annie. “I unlocked that to open the door for you. I guess I missed the others because they were unlocked, and because I was so busy at the time covering my nose and mouth and dodging the swarming flies.”

  “Let’s check the back door,” Annie suggested.

  There were three locks on the back door as well. Locks on the windows. A dead bolt on the basement.

  “Sheriff, what’s the crime rate out here?”

  “Zilch. I can’t remember the last robbery. Murders? None in the three years I’ve been sheriff. We had a few hunting accidents, and last year an old man died of a heart attack up the road, a little higher up in the hills. But crime rate? I gotta say we don’t have one.”

  “Then why would she have all these locks?” Annie bent closer to inspect them. “Fairly new, too, all except the slider. The dead bolts were installed more recently. Certainly within the past year or so.”

  “Well, we’ve only got one place in town that sells locks. Larsen’s Hardware. They sell, they install.”

  “Maybe someone should drive down there and talk to them.”

  “Just as easy to call Hank Larsen on the phone, have him come on up here and identify the locks as his.”

  “Maybe he’ll remember chatting with her. Maybe she told him what she was trying to lock out.”

  “Maybe. It’s a good place to start,” Sheriff Brody agreed, but made no move toward the house.

  “Were you going to call him today?” Annie asked.

  “I thought I’d wait until the body was moved out, Dr. McCall. Not everyone can walk past a partially decomposed body and appear not to notice.”

  “I notice, Sheriff Brody.” Annie started back into the house.

  “Dr. McCall,” Brody called to her as she stepped over the threshold. “May I ask who you called earlier?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You went out the back a little while ago with that little phone book of the deceased’s. Looked to me like you called one of the numbers.”

  “I called a fellow agent who was an old friend of Ms. Lowery’s.”

  “That friend of a friend you mentioned earlier.”

  “Yes.”

  “That friend have a name?”

  “Grady Shields.” She hated having to give up his name, not knowing what Grady’s involvement with Melissa might have been, but she couldn’t lie, either. “Special Agent Grady Shields.”

  “And his relationship with Ms. Lowery-or Ms. Gray-was what, do you know?”

  “Former coworker. Friend.”

  “That number for Agent Shields, it’s in the address book?”

  “Yes. Was there something else, Sheriff?”

  “Not right now.”

  She closed the door and went back inside, hoping for a moment with the medical examiner. While she waited for him to finish preparing the body for transport, she stepped out onto the back porch to make one more phone call.

  “Evan, I’m afraid there’s been a change in plans…”

  16

  Connor leaned on the iron railing that enclosed the balcony overlooking the Atlantic coast of Morocco and watched the gulls circle overhead. An occasional protesting scream pierced the tranquillity of the morning as a coveted morsel of fish was snatched from one beak by another. The sky was as blue as he’d ever seen it, and the breeze as gentle as a caress. Coming on the heels of the past few weeks spent in a Middle Eastern desert, the peaceful morning was balm to his soul.

  There was a rap on the door, and he answered it without hesitation.

  “Your breakfast.” The dark-eyed woman carried a rectangular tray in both
hands and headed straight for the balcony. “You should eat here, in the sun. It will relax you.”

  “Magda, you’re more like my mother than my mother was.”

  “Someone has to watch out for you,” she said without smiling. “It might as well be me.”

  She placed the tray on the small glass table and removed the napkin to reveal a plate of warm croissants, figs, a thinly sliced pear, and a small mound of white cheese.

  “Sit and eat. I’ll be right back with your coffee.”

  “You’re way too good to me,” he said as he sat at the table.

  “I certainly am.” Magda went through the double doors into the room and disappeared into the hall. When she returned, she brought a second tray, upon which stood a tall carafe and two cups. She poured coffee into both cups, placed one before Connor, then sat opposite him at the table.

  “Nice of you to join me.” He offered her the croissants, but she waved him off.

  “I eat early, at dawn. You know that. I need an early start if I’m to take care of you and the rest of my guests in the manner in which I’ve made you accustomed.”

  “There is no finer hotel in Essaouira. It’s the reason I’ve come to love this city. The reason I spend any available free time right here.” He tilted his cup in her direction before taking a sip. “And besides, there’s no better coffee anywhere in Morocco.”

  Satisfied, Magda leaned back in the chair and raised her face to the sun, her eyes closed.

  “There’s a new guest who checked in two days ago. An American woman. She’s an archaeologist, she says, on holiday.”

  “So?”

  “So you should make her acquaintance. She’s very pretty. Blond. Soft-looking. She doesn’t go out much.”

  “So maybe she’s tired. Maybe she sleeps a lot.”

  “Maybe she’s lonely. Maybe she’d appreciate a little companionship from a fellow countryman.”

  “Why are you always trying to set me up?”

  “Because you live like a mercenary.”

  “I’m not a mercenary.”

  “I know what you are. But you still need a nice girl in your life.”

  “I have a nice girl in my life. I have you.”

  “I’m old enough to be your mother, and if you ever looked at me that way, Cyril would slit your throat.” She smiled, but her eyes remained closed.

  “Your husband should be jealous of you. You’re one in a million, Magda.”

  “I know.” She tucked an errant strand of graying hair into the bun at the back of her neck.

  “Magda, if I wanted to make a phone call”-he placed his cup on the table to refill it-“there would be a secure line?”

  “Of course. All of my lines are secure.” She lifted her head and opened her eyes. “I myself check them every day, just like you showed me. Do you think I forget such things?”

  “I was just wondering if you were still in the habit.”

  “You need not worry. This is a small hotel, most of our business is repeat. Same people, over and over. Many of them, like you, require that extra measure of security.” She drained the coffee from her cup and rose. “For you, there will always be security here. Whatever you need. We don’t forget, Cyril and I.”

  She patted Connor fondly on the arm and walked past him.

  “The American woman takes tea in the courtyard every afternoon at four,” she said without breaking stride. “Today she’ll be seated at one of the tables for two, in the corner near the palms.”

  Magda closed the door behind her.

  Two gulls were battling on the top of the courtyard wall, and Connor watched idly as he finished his meal and thought over the e-mail he’d gotten from Annie. It had been dated the previous week, but he’d only just received it last night, after checking in to his room and turning on his computer for the first time in days. He’d known there’d be no electricity where he’d been headed, so he’d left the laptop locked in a safe deep in the basement of the hotel. He’d had no qualms about leaving it there. Magda and Cyril would guard it with their lives.

  There was something to be said about having someone in this part of the world in your debt, he acknowledged, though that had never entered his mind the day he dove off the prow of a fast-moving pleasure boat to rescue a young boy who’d fallen over the side. Without a life jacket, the panicked child would have quickly drowned. The boy’s horrified parents had watched helplessly from the dock as the tall dark-haired stranger reached their son and carried him back to the boat, whose captain had circled back around and cut the engine, the other passengers calling encouragement. From that day, the best room in Villa André had always been available to Connor. He knew that he could always count on the most comfortable accommodations, the best food, the best service-and some motherly fussing-from Magda.

  He leaned back in the chair, his face to the sun much as Magda’s had been, and went back over Annie’s message in his mind. He hadn’t thought about Santa Estela in months.

  He moved the tray out of the way and set up the laptop in its place. He booted up and scanned his incoming mail before opening the saved e-mail from Annie.

  Connor, strange development on a case Evan is handling in PA. Tattoos on the vics found to be identical to those found on three vics in Chicago. Young girls, one of whom appears to have a connection traced back to Central America, possibly Santa Estela. Do I recall correctly that you had spent some time there? Any contacts remain? Am looking for source and/or significance of the tattoo.

  He drummed his fingers on the table, thinking back to that night in the alley in Santa Estela, of the truck filled with terrified children. Any connection between dead young girls in two cities and Santa Estela was way too coincidental. He’d thought that business had been shut down two years ago. His cousin had personally worked on that and had assured him the trafficking of children had been dealt with.

  He brought the phone from the room onto the balcony and plugged it in, then dialed the familiar number. When the answering machine picked up, he said, “Hey, it’s Connor. Hope all you guys are doing well. Just wanted to ask you a quick question. About Santa Estela and that report I asked you about a few years back, you remember? Do me a favor and take another look at that situation, would you? I’ll check back in with you in another day or two, hope you have something to tell me.”

  Connor started to hang up, then said, “And hey, if you see my brother, tell him I said hey, all right? Your brothers, too. Take care, cuz…”

  He disconnected the call and stood up to stretch. From the balcony he could see into the courtyard, where, right at that moment, a woman in a gauzy white dress had stopped to put a large hat atop her head. Before her hair had disappeared under the hat, he’d noticed it was blond, cut short in a choppy style, as if done without artistry or skill. She was tanned, almost as tanned as he was, and even from a distance, he could see she was very well put together.

  The American Magda had told him about?

  Tea in the courtyard at four might be interesting after all. He watched her disappear through the courtyard gates and hesitate, as if unsure of her direction. He was tempted to join her, to offer her a tour of the marketplace, but he had a meeting in twenty minutes with a man who had information Connor’s superiors were eager to obtain.

  He turned off the laptop, located his sunglasses, and locked the door behind him, the memory of the events of a dark night in Santa Estela and all thoughts of the pretty blond American put aside for a while.

  17

  Annie lay spooned beside Evan, her eyes open in the dark, watching the rain splat against the bedroom windows. She’d arrived late the night before and had deferred any discussion by climbing into bed next to him and keeping him otherwise engaged for nearly an hour.

  She knew him well enough to know that he knew she was not asleep. When she felt him pull the sheet up over her bare arm, she knew that sooner or later, the concerned questions would begin.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  “So
, you want to talk about it?” he asked softly.

  “I thought maybe you might want to tell me about Chicago.”

  “Ladies first.”

  “Melissa had a number in her phone book listed to a G.S. I called it. Grady answered.”

  “That was the only number in the book?”

  “No.”

  “Why’d you pick that one to call?”

  “Because of the obvious-the initials. I knew Grady had dated Melissa, but when I asked him about her, I got the feeling he wasn’t being truthful. Something told me it wasn’t as casual a relationship as he tried to pass it off. No matter how casual a relationship is, there are certain things you have a tendency to talk about when you first meet someone, and for him to claim to know nothing about her, nothing about her background, it just didn’t ring true. So when I saw those initials with a Virginia area code, I thought I’d dial it and just see what happened.”

  “Did you tell him Melissa was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “And…?”

  “And he hung up on me. He sounded genuinely stunned. Stunned, and upset.”

  “Which plays back to him having more of a relationship with Melissa than he’d wanted you to know.”

  “But why? Why would he lie about that?”

  “Why was she hiding in Montana?” he asked. “I think if you answer one of those questions, you’ll have the answer to both.”

  “I guess the only one who knows is Grady. And the only way to find out is to confront him.”

  “Have you heard yet from the M.E. in Montana as to cause of death?”

  “I’m still waiting. I expect they should know by today. God, I’m hoping it was natural causes.”

  “What difference would it make?”

  “The difference between her dying a natural death or one that I possibly led someone to-”

  “Whoa. Hold up there.” He sat up partially and turned her to face him. “Where is this coming from?”

  “It’s coming from the fact that Melissa seemed to be living quite happily in Montana until I started looking for her.”

  “Annie, please don’t tell me you think you are in any way responsible for her dying.”