Exposé: First of the Sally Harrington Mysteries (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 5)

by Laura Van Wormer

  "I gave it back to the person who wrote it!" I say. I try to push his hand away; he smacks me on the side of my head and sud­denly my face is down on the ground next to Scotty's.

  I hear a weird thunk and suddenly the pressure lifts from the back of my head. The man's body crumples to the ground next to me. Another man is there, a stranger, standing over us, roll­ing the burglar over and yanking the stocking off his head. He uses it to secure the burglar's hands behind his back. Then he kneels down to try and help me sit up.

  It's not happening. I am in some kind of shock and the world is reeling. I close my eyes and he lowers me back to the ground. "I'll call 911," the man says, taking off for the house.

  I open my eyes and see Scotty. I pull myself closer to him, try­ing to touch him. He is barely breathing. The man comes running back. "He did something to my dog," I sob.

  "Probably drugged him. We have to get him moving." He picks Scotty up in his arms—no easy feat, for he is over seventy pounds—and I watch as the stranger carries him over to the outside faucet where the hose is hooked up. He turns the faucet on and tries to revive Scotty by dousing him with water.

  "Don't get it in his nose!" I call in broken sobs.

  "I won't," he promises, and he douses Scotty again with what, by this time, must be cold water from the well.

  "His eyes opened a little!" the man calls. After prodding and dousing and pushing, Scotty can sort of stand if the man holds him under the chest. His arms laced under Scotty's chest, the man straddles him and drags Scotty along. Scotty keeps going limp, but the man doesn't stop, forcing him to stumble along.

  The burglar makes a gurgling noise and I don't want to say anything to the stranger because I don't want him to stop walk­ing Scotty. I make myself sit up. When I do, I see that the bur­glar's head has a horrible gash in the back of it and that blood is streaming all over the place. This guy's not going anywhere.

  I hear the sirens in the distance and the man cries, "He hears it! His ears moved!" and he keeps walking and dragging Scotty and soon I see a police car, and then another, and an ambulance not far behind. Soon we are surrounded by people in uniform. One paramedic rushes to the burglar and one to me. Moments later an unmarked car comes bombing across the lawn, stop­ping just short of where I am. Buddy and another plainclothes man jump out.

  "Don't move," the paramedic says to me, "you've got a head wound."

  "I'm all right," I insist. "Please help my dog. The burglar poi­soned him or something." I lurch to sit up and push the para­medic. "Please."

  The paramedic looks up at the police officer who kneels beside me, touching me lightly on the back "You've got to stay still," he tells me.

  Buddy squats down on the other side of me, wanting to know what happened.

  I trip over my words, trying to explain that this has to do with something in New York. It's not about anything going on here in Castleford. "He was trying to get back some evidence I had for the story I was writing."

  "Oh, great," Buddy mutters, looking at but not touching the side of my head. "Nice people you hang out with in New York"

  "That man, the one with Scotty," I say, "he saved me, Buddy."

  Next to me, they have shifted the burglar onto a stretcher. They have bandages on his head and an IV hooked up to him. Another policeman is hanging over him, nearly shouting, "What did you give the dog?"

  A policewoman is now holding Scotty up while the paramedic is looking at him.

  "I don't know who that man is," I say to Buddy, "or where he came from. I don't know where the burglar came from, ei­ther. There weren't any cars, but he was in the house when I got here."

  Another police officer runs over to tell Buddy there is a dirt bike in the field on the other side of the woods. No plates.

  "Tell backup to swing over to Bafter's Lane," Buddy says. "See if this thug's car isn't over there somewhere."

  "What was it?" the cop hanging over the burglar is yelling, then bending closer to hear him better. The cop straightens up. "Valium!" he calls to the medic. "He says he gave the dog Val­ium."

  The medic already has a tube running down Scotty's throat to pump his stomach. I can't watch. The man who saved me comes walking over. He is in his thirties, late thirties, maybe, dark hair, dark eyes, nice build. He drops down next to Buddy and smiles at me. "Your dog's going to be okay."

  "Thank you," I whisper.

  Buddy's staring at the man. "Where the hell have you been?"

  "Well," the stranger says, standing up, "I'm here now. That's all that matters, isn't it?"

  I don't know what's going on; I am having a hard time think­ing straight.

  Buddy stands up, too. "Sally," he says, glancing down at me before looking back at the man, "meet Johnny Boy Meyers."

  Johnny is smiling down at me. "It's been a long time, but it's good to see you, Sally. You look a lot like your mom."

  There is a slight buzzing noise in my head and the light is starting to go yellow. In a moment, everything goes black.

  45

  They take the burglar and me to Midstate Medical Center and I have to have a CAT scan. The head is fine—I will only have a dreadful set of black eyes ("Why doesn't her hard head surprise me," Buddy says to the doctor)—but I have to wear a neck brace because the burglar yanked something out of whack.

  The burglar, it turns out, is a gentleman named Spiker Fetch from Waterbury, a small-time crook who once did time in the Chesh­ire prison. He has a very serious concussion, seeing as Johnny Boy hit him over the head with a shovel. We're all naturally very curious about the chain of command behind this at­tempted theft and assault (as if I don't know where it began), but Spiker's not talking. Yet.

  Mother, of course, is completely freaked out. My brother, Rob, she tells me while I'm still lying on a bed in emergency, is coming home from Colorado. Mack comes back in behind the curtain to say there is a young man from New York in the emer­gency waiting room who is having a nervous breakdown.

  This, I know, has to be Spencer. I ask Mack to bring him in.

  "Sally!" Spencer whispers, running across the room and kind of elbowing Mother out of the way. "I drove out—I wanted to surprise you—and I went to your house and there were all these police officers and all they would tell me was that you were here. God!" he cries, hesitating over his attempt to guess what part of me is least likely to hurt and then diving to hug me around the waist. "Thank God you're all right. I didn't know what to think."

  Over Spencer's shoulder, I can see that Buddy is listening with some interest. "I'm going to be fine," I say quietly, stroking the back of Spencer's head once. "But I want you to meet my mother."

  Spencer's head flies up. "Where?" He's got a hold on my hand but I don't have the heart to tell him he's holding it too tightly. He turns around. "But of course you're Mrs. Harring­ton! Look at you!" He lets go of my hand to take my mother's hand with both of his. "I'm Spencer Hawes, Mrs. Harrington, and I apologize for so rudely pushing my way in here—it's just I was so upset."

  "And perhaps you know something about it?" Mother asks him. "Sally says the man was looking for some kind of journal, something she was using for her Expectations article.

  Spencer's head whips around. "Does this have something to do with what Jessica was talking about?"

  "I'm sorry," the head nurse of the unit announces, coming in through the curtain, "but there are too many people and too much noise in here. One person can stay, the rest of you—out."

  I know Mother assumes this means everyone but her. "Mother, could you let me just speak to Spencer for a mo­ment?"

  "Yes, yes," she says, taking Mack's arm. "I could use some­thing to drink, anyway." She steps back. "I'll be right outside if you need me."

  After everyone leaves, I focus back on Spencer. "Verity gave me a journal that Cassy wrote."

  "Where did she get it?"

  "I think she might have had it stolen."

  He frowns. "No."

  "Well then, you tell me how she got
it. I took it back to Cassy last night. She didn't know it was missing, and she sure as hell didn't give it to anyone."

  "It just doesn't sound like Verity."

  "Does it sound like Corbett?"

  "Yes," he says without hesitation.

  "Then Verity's going to have her hands full trying to explain to him why the piece isn't running."

  "It's not going to run at all?"

  I shake my head. "I gave her everything back. Including a re­fund of the expenses I'd run up."

  He sighs, brushing my hand with his finger. "Was it very bad, what you found out?"

  "Not bad," I say. "Not at all, as a matter of fact. It was just private."

  "So what's to stop Verity from getting someone else to write it?"

  I narrow my eyes a little. "Take a wild guess, Romeo. I told her she might have a little exposé of her own to deal with."

  "Oh, God," he says, looking away. "Sally, you can't mess with someone like Verity—“

  "The mistake I made with Verity was to ask her if she wasn't a little nervous about being linked to stolen property," I tell him. "If only I had thought to mention that I'd already given the journal back to Cassy, then none of this would have hap­pened."

  "You really think she—"

  "Spencer—I know she did. And she won't be messing with me anymore, because you're going out there, right now, and call her and tell her what's happened. Tell her I already gave what she wanted back to Cassy, and that her thug screwed up and will be in the Castleford jail, and if she thought I was angry before, she should see me now. And then I want you to come back in here and tell me what she says."

  He doesn't want to do this, but I make him promise he will.

  Spencer leaves and Mother comes in with a box of orange juice, which she tries to get me to drink. We start arguing over whether or not I'm allowed to have anything and she goes off to find the doctor. Left alone, finally, and flying high on painkill­ers, I doze. When I open my eyes again, I see Doug.

  "Hi."

  "Hi," he whispers. "I heard at the office. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. As soon as they sign off on me, Mother's taking me home."

  He's looking down at my hand. "I hear he's here."

  "Yes, he is."

  "Nice crowd you run with in New York," he says, looking over my injuries.

  "Nice crowd I live with in Castleford."

  He lowers his voice. "So it's true, then? About an investiga­tion into your father's accident?"

  I would nod if I could, but I can't with this thing on. "I hope so. Talk to Buddy." My mind is clouding over. These drugs are making me feel loopy.

  "I was hoping you'd burst into tears when you saw me," Doug blurts out. "I wanted you to say, 'Thank God you're here. I love you and I need you.'" He lowers his eyes again. "Like you used to say."

  I lift one hand slightly. "I don't know what to say, Doug."

  "No." He jams his hands into his pants pockets and takes a step back. "Okay. I just wanted to make sure you're all right, that you're taken care of. Call me if you need anything." He's moving quickly now. "I'll see you in five months and two weeks."

  I close my eyes again, drifting.

  "Sally?"

  I open one eye. It's Spencer. "Verity says to send her the copy for the captions. She's running a photo essay. She says you'll know what that means."

  I smile and let myself fall asleep.

  46

  "What I need to know, Mrs. Harrington," Buddy says to my mother on Saturday morning, "is what you remember about the night your husband died."

  Mother is making green tomato relish while Buddy, another detective from the Castleford Police Department, and I are sip­ping coffee at her kitchen table.

  "You know about the flood," Mother begins. "The dam broke and the entire downtown was under three feet of water, and Dodge had been down there on and off for five, six days, sandbagging with the rest of the men."

  Buddy nods. His father had been there, too.

  Mother is holding a paring knife in one hand and a green to­mato in the other, and is staring out the window over the sink. "That's why everyone was caught by surprise when the water started to threaten the high school." She looks over at Buddy, her face lined in concentration. "The school wasn't on the flood­ plain, but when the run-off banks crumbled over on Juniper Av­enue the train trestle came down and dammed up Wooliston Creek—and then the main river started overflowing the banks up­stream.”

  We all nodded.

  “And the rain kept coming and coming, the sewer sys­tem backed up under the streets, and then finally the line burst up through the ground near the school, dumping water into Maple Brook, which had already risen over its banks. No one could have known it was going to happen."

  "How did Daddy hear about the school? The flooding?"

  "Everyone on the downtown line heard about the water ris­ing toward the school. I know Dodge was there because he came home later and told me he had been up to the school to look for himself. He said he had to go all the way around, al­most to Wallingford, to get there, that everything was going un­der in that part of town."

  "And that was the day of the accident?" Buddy asks.

  Mother nods. "I remember because that afternoon I fixed him a steak. Dodge loved steak and potatoes. His children are just like him," she adds as an aside to Buddy. "And that's what I gave him. Steak. Fried potatoes. Spinach."

  "And what happened next?"

  "Dodge tried to reach Phil—“

  "Phillip O'Hearn," Buddy supplies.

  "Yes. He built the gym with Dodge. And Dodge wanted to talk to him about it."

  "But he couldn't reach him."

  "No. I think he left a message with Gisela. Because we were all home with our children. Nobody could go anywhere."

  "And then?"

  "Well, Dodge ate his supper and slept for about two hours. I think it was about seven o'clock when Phil got his message and called him back. I woke Dodge up because he asked me to, if Phil called."

  "Do you remember what they talked about?"

  "Actually, I do. Phil said he had just been to the high school and was worried about the gym. He said he thought water was getting in under the foundation. Dodge was very surprised by this, I remember, because he kept saying to Phil, 'But we have the run-off under there, remember? I designed it because of what happened when the old pool cracked.' But Phil was obvi­ously panicked about it, anyway. He said he was afraid one wall was about to buckle."

  "So what happened then?"

  "So Dodge got off the phone," Mother says, "and he was be­side himself. He couldn't believe that within the last three hours, since he had visited the school, the gym was now in such trouble. He grabbed his gear and said he was going over there to check it out. I was worried and didn't want him to go—be­cause at that point, the power in that area was completely shut off, there were all kinds of trees and wires down and the idea of Dodge sloshing around up there in the dark scared me to death."

  To this day, a dark rainstorm gives me a chill. In my own way, I remember that night, too.

  "But he went," Buddy says.

  "He went," Mother echoes softly, eyes falling to the counter. She puts the knife and tomato down and then just stands there, looking at them, as if waiting for them to do some­thing.

  "Did he go alone?"

  "He left here alone," she says.

  "Was he going to pick up anyone?"

  "I don't know."

  "Wouldn't he have picked up Phillip O'Hearn? Since he was the builder?"

  She shakes her head. "I don't think so. Dodge wanted to check things out for himself."

  There is something in her tone that catches our attention.

  "He wanted to check things out for himself," Buddy says carefully. "Because he was having a hard time believing that what Phillip O'Hearn said was happening to the building, was really happening?"

  "Yes," she says. "Dodge said there was no way that wall should be buckling."

>   "And did you hear from your husband after that?"

  "No," she says quickly, as if trying not to think about this part. "At around eleven o'clock—the news was on TV—the po­lice chief and the fire marshal came to tell me what had hap­pened."

  I remember the wail that reverberated through the house when Mother was told the news; I remember sneaking out of my room to the staircase and hearing the chief say, "Let me call someone, Belle, to be here with the children," but I couldn't hear what Mother said.

  I didn't know Daddy was dead. I didn't know what was going on. I did get sleepy trying to figure it out, though, and I went back to bed. Mother didn't tell me about Daddy until the next morning, about a half hour after Rob and I had finished eating breakfast. Years later she said she had wanted to make sure we had eaten something that day.

  "Maybe you should sit down, Mrs. Harrington," Buddy says quietly.

  Mother comes over to sit, her face pale beneath her tan. "There's something more, isn't there, Buddy? And it has to do with that debris Sally brought here."

  "Yes, it does."

  "Mother," I say gently, reaching to touch her arm, "the state lab's run tests on it, and they've found evidence of an explo­sive—a kind that was commonly used in building demolition then. And the tests prove that the charge was used in the vicin­ity of the northeast buttress."

  "The wall that came down." She says this like a child reciting a lesson she doesn't understand but is dutifully trying to mem­orize.

  "Buddy thinks someone may have set the demolition charge off when Daddy was there that night." I swallow. "On pur­pose."

  She meets my eyes and her whole body slowly stiffens. She turns to Buddy. "Someone killed Dodge?"

  I command my throat not to close up. It is too important. The neck brace is not helping.

  "The lab also found," Buddy continues quietly, avoiding her question, "that the cable in the debris showed imperfections, Mrs. Harrington. At first they thought it was because of the blast, but now we know for sure that those imperfections were made in the manufacturing stage."

  Mother turns her head slightly, as if to hear better.