“Of course not. Had to wake Mrs. Sapp, though. That’s about all the excitement Nancy had to report when I relieved her.”
He handed back the log. “Thanks, Bec—I mean, Rebecca.”
“Aw, Wil, I don’t mind if you call me Becky. Just not in front of the deputies, okay?”
Rebecca and Wil had known each other since middle school. Her husband, Otis, owned the county’s biggest real estate firm and managed the property leased to Cathleen Hodges. Which reminded Wil he needed to return the keys to the property before the family of the deceased arrived to collect her belongings.
“Sure, Becky.” He held up his empty Nite Owl cup. “Do you know if there’s fresh coffee?”
“Made it myself less than an hour ago.”
Wil saluted her with his cup. “Thank you, darlin’.”
He entered the locker room, where he found Geraldo fastening his holster. “Mornin’, Wil.”
“Heading back to the river?”
“Yes. The water’s low and clearer than normal. I think we could find something.”
Wil appreciated Geraldo’s positive attitude for what could be worse than a needle-in-a-haystack scenario. “That’d be great. Call if you do.”
“You bet.” Geraldo picked up his life vest and left.
Wil refilled his paper cup from the carafe, picked up a discarded copy of the Drake Springs Democrat he’d yet to read, then headed toward his office.
Rebecca stopped him at the locker room door. “Deputy Winston’s calling for you on the radio.”
“What’s up? Did he say?”
“They found the victim’s minivan. He’s securing the scene and sent me to find you.”
Wil started to ask why Devon hadn’t called and then realized his cell phone was recharging at home. Where was his mind this morning? Tomorrow, he’d have Zelda order him a backup cell phone to keep in the station.
“I’ll grab it in my office.” Wil dropped the newspaper where he’d found it and returned to his desk. He spoke into his radio. “Where is it, Devon?”
“In a pine tree farm between 471 and Sticky Swamp Road, just past your place.”
“Close to the river?”
“Very close, and not far off the road, either.”
Wil knew the area. The pine tree farm belonged to Drake Oaks, but he doubted Devon realized it. “Let me call FDLE. They’ll need to process it.”
He called the crime scene investigators. Just as he replaced the receiver, the telephone rang.
“Sheriff Drake.”
“Wilson, it’s me, Elizabeth.” Elizabeth’s voice, higher pitched than usual, quivered with emotion. “Maybe I’m overreacting, but I think something’s happened to Kris.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tension bunched the muscles at Wil’s neck. “Where are you now?”
“In her driveway.” Elizabeth’s voice shook. “I’m supposed to pick her up this morning to go to that craft show, but her car’s gone.”
“Stay put. I’ll meet you there.” He ended the call, then buzzed Rebecca in dispatch. “I don’t have my phone with me, but you can reach me on the radio.”
Slipping out his private entrance to his Jeep, he sped toward the duplex on Third Street where Kris Knight lived. He wanted to believe Kris had forgotten about her plans with Elizabeth and was running an errand, but a chilling sense of déjà vu settled over him. He’d thought the same about Cathleen Hodges’s disappearance. Two women, a week apart? Don’t jump to conclusions, pal.
He parked behind Elizabeth’s Chevy pickup and climbed out of the Jeep. She slid out of the truck, wearing her usual drab colored T-shirt and shorts, as if to make herself as unnoticeable as she could. Except for that one glimpse of polished red toenails, he’d never seen her wearing anything colorful.
She joined him in the driveway and seemed to hunch into herself, cringing. “I may have overreacted after all, Sheriff.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’d forgotten that Kris may have had a date last night. She mentioned inviting Adam Gillespie over to watch a movie. Maybe she did, or maybe he changed her plans.” She shrugged. “Do you know where he lives? We could just cruise past and see if maybe her car is parked nearby.”
“You’re giving me a lot of maybes.” Wil didn’t relish the thought of spying on Adam—or, more accurately, getting caught spying on Adam. “Did you try her cell phone?”
“First thing. It goes straight to her voice mail, which makes me think she turned the thing off—you know, to avoid interrupting something.” Elizabeth shrugged again, but it didn’t hide her nervousness. “I’ll just feel better if I know she’s all right.”
“Come on.” He escorted her to the passenger side of the Jeep. “She knew you were picking her up, right? Or could she be at your house?”
“No, we were very clear about our plans.”
He closed the door, then walked around to the driver’s side. Elizabeth hadn’t seemed this shaken when he’d told her about Cathleen’s murder. Maybe that murder had her thinking the worst. He backed into Third Street with a silent prayer that Adam didn’t see him checking up on him.
“I understood Kris to say Adam wasn’t her type.”
“That was before Cathleen’s death. She said she may have been too quick to write him off and wanted to see if he was still interested. I loaned her one of my DVDs and suggested she invite him over to watch a movie.”
As he’d invited Elizabeth. He followed Main Street west, then turned south onto Fifth, within half a block of Elizabeth’s house. “Speaking of which, can we try our movie date again Friday? You left your DVD.”
“Oh, I meant to. I thought you and your dad could go ahead and watch it.”
He pulled a face. “You’re turning me down?”
She frowned. “No, but can we talk about it later?”
“Whatever you say.” He turned east at the next street.
“This is my neighborhood. Where does Adam live?”
“Right here, darlin’, Third and Desoto.” He slowed at the curb in front of Adam’s small ranch-style house. “Driveway’s empty.”
“So Adam’s car is gone, too.” She exhaled a long breath as if she’d been holding it. Perhaps she had.
“Let’s check at city police headquarters.”
“What if he’s there? Should we ask him about Kris? I mean, we don’t know if she called him. I’m guessing she did, but … I’d hate to embarrass him or her, if it turns out—”
“Hey, if you’re really worried for her safety, you can’t sweat the small stuff.”
She nodded once. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
Wil traveled east down Desoto to First Street, then north toward City Hall and the police station. Everything in Drake Springs was within a minute’s drive at most. He could travel every street in town to look for Kris’s Mazda in less than half an hour. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
The parking lot at First and Main was empty. He pulled in and parked. “Let’s see if he’s here.”
The late morning sun turned the dead sod that landscaped the Drake Springs City Hall complex a bright gold. Water restrictions because of the summer’s drought had ruined much of the county’s horticultural efforts. Wil escorted Elizabeth past the fountain, which had been turned off to conserve the city’s spring-fed wells, and beyond the hardy shrubbery to the rear of City Hall, where the city police department had its offices.
At the front desk, Wil asked the officer on duty for Chief Gillespie.
“He’s at church, Sheriff Drake. The Presbyterian Church on Coronado.”
“Thanks.” Wil escorted Elizabeth back outside. “Would Kris have gone to church with Adam?”
“Kris never mentions going to church, although we don’t always see each other on Sundays. But this is the first time she’s made plans with me and not kept them. If anything, she’s punctual to a fault.”
“Let’s drive past the church and look.”
“It’d be just as fast to walk. It’s
only a couple blocks.”
“Okay,” he said, although frankly her suggestion surprised him. All but the most dedicated of athletes avoided exercise of any type in the hot, sticky weather, and Elizabeth hadn’t struck him as athletic. She must be very worried about her friend.
Wil led her to Coronado, which ran behind the police station. Drake Springs had neglected the upkeep of the sidewalks, and the cement buckled over tree roots. Other spots had disintegrated into gravel. Elizabeth followed him as he stepped into the street and walked on the asphalt. They traveled south on Coronado toward the church. Thanks to the ancient oaks that lined the street on the east, the same spreading trees that had damaged the sidewalks, Elizabeth and Wil enjoyed shade most of the distance.
When they reached First Presbyterian Church of Drake Springs, they found a number of vehicles—including the Police Chief’s Chevy Blazer—but no sign of Kris Knight’s Mazda.
Elizabeth stood, staring at the old frame church building. “I guess it was a long shot.”
“Let’s go back to her place. She’s probably there now wondering why you aren’t.”
“Yes.” Elizabeth sounded unconvinced. In fact, she looked damned worried.
He tugged her elbow. “Come on.”
She walked back to his Jeep without a word, tension radiating from her like the morning heat from the sidewalks. Two minutes later, they were back in Kris’s driveway, where they found Elizabeth’s pickup as they’d left it. And no sign of Kris’s vehicle.
After banging on the door and peeking in windows, Elizabeth turned to him and crossed her arms. “This isn’t right. She’s missing, Wilson, just like Cathleen.”
Wil hated leaving her, but he had a homicide case five days old and a meeting to prepare for in case the FDLE profiler arrived tomorrow. “We have no evidence of foul play or injury—”
“Don’t hand me that line of bull about waiting twenty-four hours. That’s for television.”
Wil’s television viewing rarely included cop shows. “We can take a missing person report anytime.”
“Then please take my report and consider Kris missing. Call it a woman’s intuition. I don’t care. Just look for her.” Elizabeth’s face reddened, and her voice quivered at a high pitch.
Sensible Elizabeth rarely lost her composure. He couldn’t ignore her request now, even if he considered it premature to file a report. But he couldn’t afford to spend too much energy on a possible missing person when he had work to do with his homicide case.
“All right.” He motioned her to her pickup. “You want to follow me to the station?”
Hours later, Elizabeth deadbolted herself inside her house and tried to sip a Coke. Her teeth chattered, but her chill wasn’t from the air conditioning. For the first time in more than a year, she couldn’t eat. No matter what Wil thought, she knew something had happened to Kris. Something awful.
Preoccupied with Kris’s disappearance, she’d forgotten to power off her computer. She perched on the edge of her chair and moved the mouse to wake up the monitor. The Shakespeare forum still showed her logged in, so she logged out and checked e-mail on the off chance Kris had sent her a message. Except for a couple of forwarded jokes, her inbox was empty. Her home page brought up headlines for the area but nothing that interested her.
Then she cleared her cache of temporary files. If she needed to vacate in a hurry, there’d be no easy trail of the Web sites she’d visited should someone make off with her computer. Since this morning when she’d realized Kris was missing, she’d been thinking more and more of the possibility of relocating.
Wilson thought she was overreacting. She saw it in his eyes, although he patiently took her missing person report. “Darlin’, you seem more than a little alarmed. Do you know more than you’re telling me?” he’d asked. Oh, yeah. Way more. If only she could explain to him, he’d be alarmed, too. First the new veterinarian in town, then the English teacher. It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to learn that Sofia Desalvo graduated with an English degree before attending veterinary school. If relocated, she’d want to work in one field or the other.
Yet the U.S. Marshals assured her that her location would be kept secret as long as she did nothing to arouse suspicion. She’d followed their instructions to the max, with the exception of last night’s lapse, and that had come a week after Cathleen’s death. She’d not brought murder to Drake Springs, at least not on her own. Could Sullivan’s hit man have found her location and now be killing anyone remotely close to her description? She wasn’t sure she could live with the knowledge that her relocation had cost her friends their lives.
Of course, if Sullivan’s killer found her, she wouldn’t have to.
Wil had the unpleasant task of questioning Adam Gillespie in the disappearance of Kris Knight. He had little choice since Elizabeth had filed an official report. Driving home later, he replayed the scene in his mind.
He’d called Adam after Elizabeth had left and asked him to drop by his office. An hour later, Adam stood in the doorway and tapped lightly at the door.
Wil invited him to sit, then told him about the missing person report. “Elizabeth said Kris planned to call you yesterday. Did you hear from her?”
“I did.” Adam glared at him, stiffening in his seat, literally getting his back up.
Wil mentally dug into his negotiation training, as well as his reserve of patience. “Would you be willing to tell me about it? You may be the last person to have talked to her before she disappeared.”
“Am I a suspect in her disappearance, Sheriff?”
“Oh, good God, Adam, you know I have to question you. Cut me some slack.”
“If our roles were reversed, would you cut me any slack?”
“I’d like to think I would. Regardless of our differences, we owe each other professional courtesy.”
Adam exhaled a loud breath. “Not much to tell. Kris called just as I was heading out the door. I’d planned to have dinner with Amy and Ben out at their place. I invited Kris to come along, but she declined. You can check it out. I was out at my sister’s house until eleven. Then I headed home and went to bed.”
“Were you surprised to hear from Kris?”
“Hell, yes. She’d made it clear after the second date that we had no future, so I didn’t expect a call.”
Wil nodded. “How do you feel about her?”
“She seems kind of unhappy to me.” He shrugged. “But what do I know about women?”
Wil smiled. At least now the conversation had relaxed. “Yeah. Who can figure ‘em?”
“Do you really believe something’s happened to her?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t ignore a pattern. First Cathleen Hodges disappears and turns up dead, then one of her friends is missing.”
“You are thinking the worst.”
“I don’t want to, but I’m trying to be proactive.” Thanks to Elizabeth.
“God, I hope you’re wrong. Let me know if I can help. Kris is a nice person and a good teacher, from what I hear. We don’t need anything more happening in our town.”
They’d ended their meeting on that note, both concerned about one of their citizens. Wil congratulated himself for not antagonizing the police chief further.
Reaching Drake Oaks, Wil parked the Jeep in front of the big house. He dragged himself up the stairs to the porch. When he stepped into the entry hall, he heard the happy sound of the tap-tap-tap-tap of Sophie’s nails on the hardwood floor. Stooping, he petted his dog, and his mood improved at once. “How’s my girl feeling?”
His dad called out from the next room. “Wilson, is that you?”
“Yeah, Dad.” He rose and turned toward the den. Sophie led him to his father’s wheelchair. “How’s it going?”
“Good, but you need to give Sophie her vitamin. Didn’t that vet tell you to give her four a day?”
“She’s not a vet.” Or at least she wasn’t owning up to it.
“Could’ve fooled me. She’s a cool one under pressure,
and she certainly knew what to do with Sophie. Might’ve saved her life.”
“Might have. I’ll give Sophie the capsules at the cabin. So did she seem all right today?”
“Right as rain. You sure that girl’s no vet?”
“She says she used to work for one.”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
That was the question, of course, and Wil answered honestly. “I’m working on it. But she’s not like other women, and the old Drake charm has failed to knock her off her feet.”
This brought a chuckle rumbling from his dad. “Then she must be a bright lady.”
“Does this mean you approve of her?”
His dad harrumphed. “Since when do you need my approval?”
I’ve always needed your approval, Dad. “Well, I’d like your opinion. She’s someone I’ve had my eye on a while.”
“I liked what I saw. The girl has some meat on her bones and some brains in her head. And she’s nice. There’s kindness in her you don’t find often in young people today.”
Wil started to tell him that she wasn’t that young, but in his dad’s mind Wil was young at forty. “Yes, she’s kind. I’ve invited her back for a movie night, so maybe you’ll have a chance to get better acquainted.”
He expected some word of protest about his wasting an evening keeping an old man company. The fact that his father didn’t object implied a lot about the man’s loneliness.
“So tell me what’s new on the case.” The light in his eyes gleamed, affirming Wil’s suspicion that his dad needed to feel a part of something.
“We found the victim’s minivan. FDLE towed it in, but it appears to have been wiped clean.”
“So we’re dealing with a killer who kept his head.”
“Yeah. The victim had an old boyfriend back in Arkansas who used to beat her up. He’s looking good as a suspect. Arkansas police are going to pick him up.”
“What did Adam Gillespie have to say about his involvement with the victim?”
“Adam’s not a suspect, Dad.” Wil didn’t elaborate. “But there’s something else that’s happened. Another woman’s gone missing.” Wil explained about the disappearance of Kris Knight.
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