Cold Revenge

by Jo A. Hiestand

  McLaren recalled cases he had workedtestimonies at inquests, stuffy oak-paneled rooms, the warmth of too many people, the rumors and speculations and whispered fanciful accusations, the tiresome drone of legal and medical jargon…

  “I heard something later that the bullet couldn’t be tested, but I don’t know why.”

  “Was she in her careither when her body was found or when she was shot?”

  “They found her car at her house, in Chesterfield, and”

  “At her house! How’d it get there if her body was discovered outside Elton?”

  “The police surmise that either she drove home and met someone, then got in that person’s car where she was killed…” Linnet swallowed. “Or they drove to Elton, to the place where her body was found, and they got out and she was killed there.”

  “What’s the significance of Elton?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Elton. The village is very small. Did Marta know anyone there? There’s some reason why she went or was taken to Elton.”

  Linnet shrugged, her eyes downcast. “I’m sorry. I don’t know of anyone.”

  “So she ends up in Elton and her car is at her home in Chesterfield. Her car was examined thoroughly, I assume. What was the result?”

  “There was no blood in the car, nor any hair or fingerprints that weren’t hers, her husband’s or her son’s.”

  “Which eliminates her being shot in her car, then. Evidently her casino money wasn’t in the car, either.” He sighed as Linnet shook her head. “Was her handbag with her body?”

  “Yes. It held the usual things: latch key, car key, wallet, lipstick”

  “But not the £253,500.”

  “It disappeared.”

  McLaren refrained from saying “How surprising,” and instead asked, “So what about Marta’s body? Any defense wounds? Bruising on her hands or forearms, skin under her fingernails…” Probably not, he answered himself. Shot in the back of the head signified she never saw it coming, never had a chance to fight for her life.

  “No.”

  “And she was found…”

  “Ten days later. Twenty-first of June. She had been dumped along the B5057. Just off the road, actually, which was why no one found her body immediately.”

  “It’s a rather uninhabited place.” McLaren didn’t notice her discomfort. “It’d take a while to find her, or anyone, in that area. A lot of moorland to contend with.”

  “Yes.”

  “So the police had no idea where to search for her the night of your big adventure. And Elton’s a bit of a distance from the casino in Nottingham.”

  Located in Derbyshire, he would have added if the region’s geography weren’t so obvious. Nottingham was located in Nottinghamshire, the county east of Derbyshire. Another police force, another mode of life.

  As though privy to McLaren’s thoughts, Linnet said, “I know it’s odd, being so far from where we were that night. And from our homes.”

  “And yours is…where?”

  “We both live in Chesterfield.”

  McLaren did a quick mental calculation. Nottingham was perhaps twenty or thirty miles from Chesterfield, nearly on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border. And about the same distance from Elton, which put the village on the western side of this triangle. Why go to Elton to dispose of a body, he wondered again.

  “Who found her?”

  “Some rambler. I can’t recall his name.”

  “Someone above suspicion, evidently.”

  Linnet reddened but ignored the remark otherwise. “Neither Marta nor I know anyone who lives in Elton. She has a brother-in-law who lives in Matlock, but no one in that part of Derbyshire.”

  “When did you two separate? You didn’t drive down to Nottingham together?”

  “No, we were coming from different directions that evening. It was a Friday, which is Marta’s half-day at the shelter. She gets off at noon. And since it was her half-day, she drove to Matlock to have lunch with Neal. He takes Fridays off.” She paused, then explained. “His name is Neal Clark. Besides being her brother-in-law, he’s also her boss.”

  “Her boss!” The suspicion that it might’ve been a complicated relationship crept into McLaren’s voice. He rubbed his forehead, hoping to hide the astonishment in his eyes.

  “It was dreadful. It led to some strained working conditions at the animal shelter.”

  “Strained between them, you mean?”

  “No. They were completely professional. She called him Mr. Clark and he treated her as any other employee. But you know how some people get when they learn that one of their own is related to the boss.”

  “Makes for a tense atmosphere.”

  “That’s putting it mildly, Mr. McLaren. Rumors circulated, gossip spread. It was ridiculous.”

  “What type of thing?”

  “Oh, things like Marta getting a raise when everyone else didn’t, Marta getting a larger Christmas bonus, Marta getting her choice of the working schedule“

  “Were the rumors true?”

  “No.”

  “Did these rumors and gossip bother her?”

  Linnet murmured that they had never discussed the problem that deeply, but Marta didn’t quit her job, so things couldn’t have upset her too greatly. “She and Neal didn’t really see that much of each other at the shelter. He spent most of his time in his office, seeing to the running of the establishment. When he did venture outside, he’d chat up everyone and look to see that the place was clean and that the animals were well cared for. That was it.” Linnet sighed, shaking her head. “I suppose even if he merely said hello to Marta, moved on and talked for a half hour with everyone else, there’d still be some who would see that as favoritism.”

  “So, if Marta saw her brother-in-law every work day, why might she stop to see him after your trip? She couldn’t talk to him at the shelter, or ring him up at home?”

  “Maybe it was something that couldn’t wait until Monday, or maybe it was just her being cautious about adding to the office gossip if she went into his office. I didn’t ask because it was none of my business.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Anyway, we had arranged to meet at the blackjack tables at six. I get off work at five, so I easily got there on time. Marta was several minutes late. We played a few hands, then had dinner and tried the slot machines and the roulette table.”

  “And then you both separately drove to your homes. Did you follow her?”

  “What, like making certain she wasn’t followed?”

  “Not necessarily, though that would have been a laudable precaution. I just want to know if you drove home together, or where you separated. Helps me make sense of when her car appeared at her house.”

  “She had to have driven home. Otherwise the police”

  “Would’ve found a third party’s DNA in the car.”

  Linnet bit the end of her fingernail. The sound of sheep bleating carried downwind, reminding McLaren of the unfinished stone wall that stretched over the hill. But he made no move to resume his work; Linnet Isherwood’s narrative held his interest. The pause continued for another minute before she continued. “I think we split up on the other side of Ripley.”

  “Ripley?” Clearly, McLaren hadn’t expected the parting to be so near to Nottingham. Ripley lay approximately equidistance between the casino and Matlock, farther northwest.

  “I believe so. We’d driven up the A610 and then I turned north onto the A38. I’ve tried to recall exactly when we split up. The trouble is, one set of headlights in a rearview mirror looks remarkably like another.”

  “You weren’t following her, then.”

  “No. I had started out that way, riding shotgun, as you said.” She gave a slight smile, as though envisioning an old American western film. “But we’d changed places quite soon after leaving Nottingham. I passed a lorry a bit farther on, and when a car passed and fell in behind me, I assumed it was Marta. The car stayed with me all the way to
Ripley, as I said.”

  “And outside Ripley you turned right onto the A38, heading for Chesterfield.”

  “Yes. I don’t know when I realized that the car following me hadn’t turned where I had.”

  “You didn’t turn into a lay-by and ring her mobile? Weren’t you concerned with her driving home alone with that amount of money?”

  “She told me before we left the casino that she was thinking about going back to her brother-in-law’s. So when the car behind me disappeared, I figured she decided to do that and I continued on toward Matlock. I didn’t think much about it until her husband rang to say that Marta wasn’t home, and she wasn’t at Neal’s.”

  A lamb called to its mother somewhere higher up the hill. McLaren said, “Matlock isn’t really that far from Elton where her body was discovered. Certainly, it’s not next door and there are closer places, but it’s not ridiculously far away like Manchester, for instance.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “But Elton could be significant because it’s out of the way. Don’t forget, Elton is close to Matlock.”

  “You can’t think her brother-in-law”

  “I don’t think anything one way or the other right now, Miss Isherwood. Except that this friendly coworker of Marta’s, this Verity Dwyer, lives in Youlgreave. And Youlgreave is about three miles from Elton. As I said, suggest anything to you?”

  Chapter Three

  They had ended the talk unsatisfactorilyLinnet walking back down the hill, disappointed and angry, and McLaren having heard enough to convince him that the woman was on a fool’s errand. If the Derbyshire Constabulary hadn’t been able to find a murderer by now, who was he to open a can of worms one year later?

  But the case nagged him, whispered to him the rest of the afternoon as he worked on another section of the wall, murmured questions as he sat at his kitchen table over tea, rumbled over the dialogue of the television program he tried to watch. Finally giving up, he switched off the telly, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, and sat at the dining room table, a map of Derbyshire, a pen and a sheet of paper in front of him.

  Ten days Marta’s body had lain in the heather and grass alongside the road. Ten days for the insects and animals to work on her. He’d seen enough corpses to know what time, exposure and carrion produced. Sometimes you ended up with a body barely recognizable. Sometimes it was recognizable enough to be unbearably heartbreaking. And in the warm summer months, when a body goes off much more quickly, that ignoble end comes faster. He shook his head, wondered briefly how her husband and son had handled it, then forced himself once more to think as a detective.

  How long he worked, he didn’t know. Time ceased to flow as he jotted down questions and bits of information from the case. He stared at the map, trying to make sense of the site where Marta Hughes’ body had been found. Other than Elton being a fairly isolated village, did it offer another significant reason for its choice?

  Since the casino money wasn’t found on Marta’s person, it gave weight to the police theory of a robbery gone wrong. But if no one from the casino had trailed her, how did Verity Dwyer find out about the casino win? Had Marta rung up Verity on her way home to tell her the good news? Was their friendship that close?

  Without mobile phone records, McLaren had no answer to his first question. And without knowing Marta or Verity, he couldn’t answer the second. Her car had been parked at her house, locked, the car key in her bag. The car bore no damage, so Marta hadn’t been forced off the road. It appeared as if she’d merely left it in the driveway, and had been accosted as she walked into her house. No one heard her scream or fight off an abductor; nothing like broken twigs on bushes or shoe scuffs on pavement marked a kidnapping.

  The more he had thought of the case, the more he realized he had no resources to help with an investigation. He was no longer a cop. Wasn’t even a private detective. He was a laborer. A builder and repairer of dry stone walls. Even if he wanted to help, he was hesitant to do so. Even if his professional police life had been in Staffordshire and the Marta Hughes case was here in Derbyshire, news traveled. Traveled about cases and coppers who had been disciplined or who had mucked up. Traveled with the excited whispers of back-stairs gossip. Especially in police departments. Was there a cop in England who hadn’t heard what had happened to force him from the constabulary?

  He took a long drink of beer, trying to push the horror from his mind, trying to ignore the words that echoed in his head. But the map danced before his eyes, the faceimagined though it wasshimmered beneath his handwriting on the page. If Verity Dwyer hadn’t killed Marta but lost her job and friends due to it, and living with that residue, as Linnet had said…

  The glass slammed onto the beer mat as the familiar feeling of rage washed over him. Injustice. As Linnet had pointed out in the first minute of their meeting. She had known how it would affect him. She had learned, somehow, of his past. The word rattled in his brain, taunted him, dared him to uphold his values.

  He stood, shoved his chair into the table, and got out his guitar. A large, Martin Dreadnought model that laid a rich, full foundation for his voice and the voices of the members of his folk singing group. He launched into ‘Travel the Country Round,’ not bothering to tune the instrument, not thinking of the song’s lyrics.

  When up to London I wandered

  A deal of money I squandered,

  I masters tried a hundred,

  No work was to be found.

  And as I wandered up and down,

  Some called me “a fool,”

  some “country clown,”

  And bade me get out of their fine town

  To travel the country round!

  The third verse and chorus slid by before the significance hit him. He’d sung about squandering money. Was his subconscious whispering about Verity Dwyer? Cursing the song choice, he began the introduction to ‘Cold, Haily, Rainy Night,’ a favorite of his and one of his group’s most requested songs. But the words died on his lips before he finished the second verse. For the first time, music could not penetrate his black mood, could not lift his spirits. Perhaps Marta and Verity preyed too heavily on his mind. And heart.

  He returned the guitar to its case and got another beer from the fridge. There was more than one way to quell the maddening rush of words that persisted in his mind even beyond his singing. He wandered into the back room, sank onto the sofa, propped his feet on the coffee table, and downed half the bottle. He leaned back, feeling dazed and unsettled—the framed citation on the wall seemed to mock him. He didn’t bother reading the words he’d memorized years ago, yet knowing what it said.

  Chief Constable’s Commendation

  Detective Sergeant Michael Duncan McLaren

  Commended for the professionalism, commitment and determination you showed whilst carrying out your role of Family Liaison Officer during the investigation into the death of Hadley Davis. The sympathy and consideration you showed to the family undoubtedly helped them cope with not only the death of Hadley, but also with the distresses of the police investigations. Your effort helped secure the successful conviction of Larry Tomkins at Nottingham Crown Court on 3 December 2004.

  And here he was, a year after Marta Hughes had died, refusing sympathy and consideration to another murder victim’s friend. Was the Chief Constable’s commendation merely words? Had his role then been a sham? Maybe it was a sham now. Had he abandoned every principle he had ever believed in merely because he had suffered an injustice?

  The questions mocked him, echoed in his mind, as he sank against the back of the sofa and shut his eyes.

  He woke the next morning, the situation still needling him. The night on the sofa had been comfortable enough, he supposed, for he hadn’t remembered falling asleep. Frowning, he turned off the table lamp. The commendation still glared at him from behind its glass cover; the photos of familiar faces smiled at him from their wooden frames. One in particular silently chided him. Dena Ellison, his former fiancé
e. She had constantly commended him for his sense of right and integrity. Had he changed so much in the year since he left her?

  To block the memories, his gaze shifted to a photo of himself and another cop, his mate through police training. They’d had the good fortune to be appointed by the same Constabulary after leaving university, and had worked together for ten years. But he’d lost track of the man when they eventually drifted to different departments. Now McLaren stared at his one-time friend before looking at his younger self. They were incredibly happy back then, ignorant of what could happen to a career, unaware of backstabbing and lies. McLaren’s hazel eyes seemed alive with hope for the future, his smile bright and unforced. Sun lit his blond hair, giving him a healthy glow that hinted at a long, robust life.

  He snorted. What the hell was he doingplaying at fortune telling?

  He grabbed the bottle from the coffee table and downed the remaining beer in one long gulp. It was flat and tasteless. Seeing Dena’s photo smiling at him from over the top of the bottle, he set it back on the table. Nothing marred its smooth surface but the brown glass bottle and the television remote. In fact, nothing much occupied the roomor his house. Like the kitchen, the rooms were sparse in furniture and personal items. He had disposed of a quantity of things when his life turned upside down last June, ridding himself of painful memories by boxing up or throwing out his epaulette number pins, tie tacks and other uniform items. So why were these few photos and this particular commendation still on the wall—to taunt him?

  Dena’s mocking gaze pulled his eyes back to her but he quickly glanced at the adjoining wall, feeling strangely uncomfortable. Several nails protruded from the apple-green painted surface, mute reminders of the sequestered photos and certificates that had decorated the space. Why haven’t I removed those nails? Because I’m lazy? Because I never saw them? Because I haven’t had a chance to hang the new family photos? He shook his head, opening up to the truth that he had barricaded from his mind and heart. The admission hit him as hard as a stone. Because deep down in his soul he still loved the job; wanted to be part of it. The reason, once acknowledged, left him shaky yet feeling empty, as though his heart or brain was missing. He leaned forward but stopped as he reached for the bottle. What would his life be like now if it hadn’t been shot to hell last June? What would this room be like nowfull of Dena’s laughter and scent and the myriad things that make a house feminine, lived in, and loved?