The Lieutenant by Her Side

by Jean Thomas

  What’s with the toothpicks? Mark wondered. Could be they were substitutes for cigarettes if the guy was trying to quit smoking.

  “Detective Myers,” he introduced himself. “And you?”

  They gave him their names.

  “All right, let’s see what you’ve got for me.” Wasting no time on pleasantries, Myers led them across a bullpen where other plainclothesmen were busy in their cubicles.

  They ended up in an interview room. After shutting the door behind him, the detective pointed to a pair of chairs. Once Clare and Mark were seated in them, Myers settled his bulk on the other side of the table.

  “I’ll be recording our conversation,” he said, indicating the machine in front of him. “It’s standard practice in an investigation.”

  “Understood,” Clare said.

  She was smiling. Mark wasn’t. He had yet to decide whether Myers was going to be on their side or not. There was one thing he was sure about. He wasn’t impressed by this guy, even if he had finally gotten rid of the toothpick.

  * * *

  The detective started the recorder, stated his name and the purpose for the interview, paused for a second to consult the clock on the wall, told the recorder the time and went on to give Clare and Mark’s names.

  The essentials fed into the machine, Myers continued with a brisk “Now what is it you have to tell me?”

  “It’s complicated,” Clare warned him. “If I could start from the beginning...”

  Having already decided downstairs this was more Clare’s story than his, Mark was prepared to let her do all the talking.

  “I’m here to listen to you,” the detective said. “Take your time.”

  Clare nodded and plunged into her lengthy account, describing her involvement with Malcolm Boerner and her vital reason for it, the devil’s bargain she’d made with the shopkeeper to secure the amulet he wanted in exchange for the surveillance tape she needed to prove her sister’s innocence and how and why Lieutenant Griggs had allied himself with her.

  Mark watched Myers. At the onset of the interview, the guy hunched forward over the humming recorder, paying close attention, interrupting only occasionally to ask Clare for a clarification or to expand on a detail.

  Gradually, though, the detective’s mood changed. Mark could tell from the way he sat back, looking restless, that Myers regretted having invited Clare to take her time. Long before she finished her story with their visit to Professor Duval and the reason for it, Myers was nothing but impatient.

  “In other words,” he said curtly, “you have no factual information about the murder of Malcolm Boerner.”

  “Not exactly, no, but my sister and her husband’s murder—”

  The detective held up his hand. “That’s for the police up in St. Boniface to handle. And as far as I can see, it has no connection with Boerner’s death, other than your theory about it.”

  Which he considers verging on the crackpot, Mark thought. The man was a close-minded ass.

  “All I want to know,” Myers demanded, “is if either one or both of you were on the scene of Boerner’s murder either before or after it happened? Or whether you actually witnessed anything that could help us solve this case?”

  Mark could no longer contain his anger. “She told you earlier we didn’t.” That wasn’t true, of course. They had been in Boerner’s apartment, had discovered his body. But admitting that wouldn’t help the police when they’d seen nothing useful. It could only get them in trouble, maybe even charged, and right now they needed to remain free.

  “Look,” Myers said, leaning forward again and looking like he could use a fresh toothpick in his mouth, “this business about a lot of wedges and a phantom killer who’s after them...well, it’s pretty fantastic stuff. In fact, if you ask me, it’s downright farfetched. The reality is what we’re working on now. That Boerner was in the business of selling guns, and a trade like that can be a motive for murder.”

  He switched off the recorder, a signal that the interview had been concluded. But Clare wasn’t ready to let it rest there.

  “All right, so you don’t buy any of our solutions. But the surveillance tapes are a reality. You can at least tell me whether you found any of them either in the Boerner apartment or his shop.”

  “Yeah, we found them,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “And the one that will prove my sister was in his shop at the time her husband was murdered?”

  “The lab hasn’t had time to examine all of them. But I can tell you this. They’re not promising where results are concerned.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the two tapes they did test had been erased. Now if something should turn up where your sister is concerned, we’ll let the police in St. Boniface know.”

  Myers conducted them back to the elevator where, before parting from them, he issued a warning.

  “You folks need to stop playing detective. That’s strictly the business of the police. Understand? Oh, and thanks for coming in.”

  He might just as well have added: Now buzz off.

  Mark could feel the hands down at his sides curling into fists. It would have been so tempting to pop him one, except that would have landed him in a cell leaving Clare unprotected.

  She waited until they were outside the building before she expressed her own frustration with a disgusted, “He wasn’t willing to seriously consider any of it! Not a single, damn word!”

  “Yeah, it makes you wonder what the homicide division up there was thinking to put a guy like that in charge of the case. Any case.”

  “This was no better than the police in St. Boniface unwilling to be convinced that it might have been someone other than Terry who killed Joe.”

  Mark could see she was trembling with barely restrained outrage. She was in need of an antidote, and he was ready to provide it.

  “C’mere,” he said, holding out his arms. She went into them without hesitation.

  Folding his arms around her, Mark rocked her gently, murmuring some soothing sounds that didn’t make sense even to him. But they worked. After a moment she was quiet.

  Comfort, he knew, was rapidly morphing into something else. It would have been so easy to use this opportunity to kiss her. And so very satisfying, even out here in the open like this. But there was a definite risk in that. Not just because he needed to remain alert to any external danger. There was the internal danger of breaking his promise to himself not to get intimate with her again. Of hurting her when the time came for them to part.

  Oh, hell, this was all such a complicated mess. Not straightforward like the army, where he knew what was right and what wasn’t.

  Maybe Clare felt that same risk, and that’s why she left his arms and moved back a safe step. She looked up at him, discouragement written on her face.

  “We’re right back to where we started, aren’t we?”

  “Not true. We’ve collected a lot of information since then. Information we trust, even if that fool upstairs doesn’t.”

  “But none of it proves Terry’s innocence.”

  “Let’s get you back home where we can work on it.”

  * * *

  Mark isn’t ready to give up, whatever Detective Myers’s caution to us, Clare thought.

  And neither should you.

  Ashamed of her momentary weakness, she resolved she wasn’t going to surrender. She just wished she had some idea where they could possibly go from here.

  Nothing had occurred to her by the time they pulled up in front of her house. Mark had maintained a lookout all the way to the shotgun and now wanted to make certain the inside was still secure.

  “You wait here while I check the rooms,” he instructed her, leaving her just inside the front door.

  He was gone before she could argue with him ab
out it. In minutes he was back to report that everything was safe.

  She didn’t need to ask him why he suggested then they go out to the patio. She could already guess. He wanted to move her to a cheerful scene. It was scary how well she knew him after only a couple of days, she realized as she followed him to the back of the house. Even more scary was not just how much she had come to count on his being at her side but how much she relished his company.

  They were on the patio, Clare gazing at her flowers without really seeing them when Mark said an encouraging, “You know, Clare, there’s still the hope of that security tape turning up and not being erased like the others. Why would Boerner have erased it when he’d agreed to trade it for the pendant?”

  “Yes, that is still our best chance.”

  She was far from counting on it, though. Even so, she loved Mark for doing his best to raise her spirits like this.

  Loved?

  No, that wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t at all what she meant. Not in the literal sense. What she intended was—

  She got no further. The cell phone inside her purse began to chirp, announcing an incoming call.

  Chapter 14

  Maybe her school, Clare thought, digging the phone out of her purse. She had promised to let them know how much longer she would need to be gone. With everything that had been happening, it had completely slipped her mind.

  But the call wasn’t from her school.

  “Clare, it’s me.”

  Terry. It was Terry, and there was a tension in her sister’s voice that immediately alarmed her.

  “Terry, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I have something to tell you. It’s important, so I need you to listen because I’ve only got a couple of minutes to explain it. There’s just one line here prisoners are allowed to use, and there’s someone else waiting her turn.”

  Clare was aware of an alert Mark watching her. Silently mouthing her sister’s name, she beckoned him to her side. He joined her without hesitation. She transferred the phone to her other ear as a signal that she wanted him to listen in. Understanding, he lowered his head to her level, putting his ear close to the phone.

  “Clare, are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m listening. Go ahead.”

  “Do you remember when you visited me yesterday,” Terry went on hurriedly, “my telling you I had my lawyer bring in the stack of mail that had been piling up at home? That I needed to sort through it in order to learn what bills had to be paid?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I went through the stack this morning. There was a letter addressed to Joe that had gotten caught inside a sale catalog. Or maybe he tucked it there after he read it. I would have missed it if it hadn’t fallen out when the pile slipped off my lap. The police must have gone through that stack when they were at the house and overlooked the letter, because they certainly would have confiscated it otherwise.”

  “Terry, who was the letter from? What did it say?”

  “It’s too complicated to tell you over the phone. And too private.” Her voice had lowered to a whisper Clare strained to hear, making her guess the other prisoner was close by.

  “You’ll see for yourself. I gave the letter to my lawyer, and she promised to email the contents to you. It could be waiting on your laptop right now.”

  “But what—”

  “I thought after all you and your lieutenant told me,” Terry interrupted her, “you would know what to do with it. I suppose I rightly should have turned it over to the police here, but after the way they’ve been...”

  “You did right in giving it to us,” Clare assured her. It was a reckless thing for her to say when she had yet to learn what this letter contained. All she knew was it had to be somehow connected with the murder charge leveled against her sister, and that was enough.

  “Is he there with you?” Terry asked her.

  “Yes, he’s right here.”

  There was a pause at the other end. Clare sensed that Terry, worried about her relationship with Mark, would have liked to ask her more. In the end, all she said was a rapid “I have to go. I hope the letter helps. Take care of yourself.”

  She was gone before Clare could promise her anything.

  In the silence that followed, Clare and Mark stared at each other with anticipation. It was a silence that lasted only a few seconds before both of them simultaneously expressed the same call for action.

  “Your laptop.”

  “My laptop.”

  It was all they needed to send the two of them speeding toward the living room and Clare’s computer. Excited with the hope that this mysterious letter was waiting for her and that whatever it contained would help them to clear Terry, she seated herself in front of her laptop and opened her email program.

  “It’s here!” she announced to Mark, who stood close behind her.

  “I can’t read the damn thing from this angle,” he complained.

  “I’ll read it aloud for both of us.” She could tell even before scrolling down that the letter was not a brief one. “There’s a heading with a name and address. Someone called Hank Kolchek.”

  “You know the name?”

  “I don’t think so. No, I’m sure I don’t. It’s from Florida. A town called Muretta.”

  “Never heard of the place. It can’t be very big.”

  “The street address is 130 Coral Drive. There’s a phone number, too.”

  “Save that for later. Let’s get on with the content,” he urged.

  “He has a greeting. Dear Comrade. Comrade? Mark, do you suppose this Kolchek is one of the mercenaries Joe and Malcolm Boerner served with in Afghanistan all those years ago? If it is, then he must be the one who has that fifth pendant we haven’t accounted for—”

  “We’ll never know unless you move on.”

  “Right. This is what it says. ‘I’m sending this same letter to the three of you here in the States. Don’t know your email addresses or even if you have them. It’s been too many years since we’ve been in any regular contact. But I was able to verify by internet that your mailing addresses are current ones, which explains my writing to you by snail mail. That and because I trust this method over email that in my opinion isn’t always reliably safe or private.’”

  Clare paused again with another realization. “Three letters, Mark. One to Joe, one to Malcolm Boerner and the third...”

  “Yeah, had to be to our unknown stalker. Too bad Hank doesn’t name him. When do we get to the good stuff?”

  “Coming up next, I hope. Yes, here it is.” Clare resumed reading. “‘I don’t know how closely you boys have been following what’s been happening in Afghanistan, but in case you’ve missed it, the latest is that the Taliban have been cleared out of a certain mountain stronghold. I don’t need to name it. You all know what I’m talking about.’”

  “We don’t,” Mark said, “but I think it’s safe for us to say this has something to do with the five pendants. A lot of something.”

  Clare had no reason to argue with that. She was more than ready to agree with Mark as she read on. “‘None of us ever expected we would have to wait all these years to go back, but the waiting is over. We can safely return to that mountain. And because we chose our spot so well, there’s no reason for all of it not to still be there waiting for us.’”

  Clare broke off again. “The pendants, Mark! He’s coming up to the pendants now! We were right!”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “‘There’s one problem,’” she continued. “‘Our man in Kabul is no longer with us. When I tried to reach him by phone to let him know we’d be coming over, I learned he had died. I don’t need to tell you how vital his own pendant is to our recovery operation.’”

  “My pendant
now,” Mark said.

  “There’s more. He goes on to say, ‘But I was able to track it down. I found out he left the pendant to a cousin. Told him it was a valuable amulet and to keep it safe. The thing is, this illiterate cousin went and hung it around the neck of an army ranger, who was wounded protecting his son. I got his name. Lieutenant Mark Griggs.’”

  “And that,” Mark said, “is how Malcolm Boerner knew I had the phony amulet.”

  “Also that you’d been returned stateside. That comes—” she found her place on the screen “—here. ‘The lieutenant was sent home to recover. With a little digging we should be able to locate him. Whether we can persuade him to give up the pendant...well, that’s something else.’”

  “Yeah,” Mark said, “only Boerner went and beat him to it. The locating part, anyway.”

  “Along with his partner,” Clare added. “Assuming our killer was his partner, that is.”

  “Right. The nameless whoever in this whole business. What else does Kolchek have to say?”

  Clare went on with the rest of the letter. “‘I think at this point the four of us need to get together and make some plans. Let me know where and when you’d like to meet, and I’ll arrange something.’”

  “Is that all?” Mark asked.

  “No, there’s one paragraph left, and I wish I knew what it meant.”

  “What is it?”

  “Listen. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, my friends, but I’ve moved on with my life since we last saw one another. I’m not the man I once was. Which is why, before I end this, I’d like to tell you that I’m going to propose something. I won’t go into it here. It needs to wait until we meet. All I’ll say is that I hope you’ll agree to it. I think it’s the right thing for us to do. If you feel otherwise, I’ll understand. Either way, though, it’s what I intend to do myself.’”

  “And that’s it? No other explanation?”

  Clare shook her head. “It ends there with his...well, I suppose in the actual letter it would be his signature.”

  “That lack of an explanation has got to have confused the three of them on this end when they read it.”