by Lee Driver
CHAPTER 33
Sara checked the rearview mirror before pulling out. She didn’t feel comfortable driving Dagger’s ‘64 Mustang convertible. He said it was worth a lot of money, a classic, and she didn’t feel that confident yet behind the wheel.
She pressed a button and the motorized convertible top folded down. Once it was secured, Sara pulled the Mustang out into traffic. The earlier storm had moved through leaving a humid wind which felt good rustling through her hair. Once she left the downtown lights the sky lit up with millions of stars.
She used her cellular phone to call Dagger but got the irritating busy signal when either the call was out of range or the cellular service lines were tied up. Next she tried calling Worm at home to see if he had been able to identify the girlfriend of Rachel’s who could pass for her twin sister.
Sara placed the phone back in her purse and checked her rearview mirror. Small pinpoints of light were growing a little too quickly. Maybe it was her imagination but she could swear a truck had followed her from the hotel.
She maneuvered the Mustang along a road that wound through the forest preserve. She picked up the phone and tried Dagger again. Finally, she got through.
Dagger said, “We hit the jackpot tonight.” He proceeded to tell her where he and Padre found Rachel.
She told him about her conversation with Nick. “I don’t think he had anything to do with Rachel’s disappearance but it has been tearing him up. You should have seen him tonight, Dagger.” Sara watched as the truck’s lights filled the rearview mirror. “Oh, my.”
“Sara?”
“I think someone followed me from the hotel.”
“Where are you at?”
Sara turned down a frontage road and slowed down. The truck turned, too.
“I just turned down the road that runs alongside the stone quarry. The truck followed.”
“I’m not too far away. Hang in there, Sara.”
Dagger never let his foot off the gas pedal as he exited the toll road. He had left Padre to wait for Sergeant Duranski and a couple of representatives of the Cedar Point Police Department. Padre had a plan, so Dagger left him to work it out and hitch a ride home with one of the detectives.
“Sara, talk to me. What’s happening?” He didn’t like the dead silence. He approached the forest preserve from the opposite direction and could see the fence surrounding the vast emptiness of the quarry. Dagger reached into the glove box and pulled out one of his spare pistols. This one was a Bersa Series 95 .380 automatic. Lightweight, pocket-size, with an overall length of only six-and-a-half inches.
Yellow eyes peered out from the underbrush and then scurried across the road. Dagger swerved to avoid hitting the raccoon.
“Sara?” Dagger tried again. He wasn’t getting a dial tone so he knew the phone line was still open. Now it wasn’t necessary. Up ahead he saw a blue truck with a cap pulling off the road. Dagger tossed the phone on the seat and gunned it. His truck fishtailed around the corner and skidded into the road behind the blue pickup.
He almost missed the turnoff the pickup had taken and had to backup, tires screeching. Racing down the unmarked path, Dagger pulled up alongside the pickup just as it rammed the Mustang through the fence. Dagger jumped out of his truck. He watched in horror as the Mustang with Sara inside soared off into the blackness, down into the quarry.
“SARA.” His scream echoed through the quarry. The driver of the truck fired a shot at Dagger, then backed the pickup out onto the road and disappeared in a cloud of dust and gravel.
Dagger dove toward the edge of the quarry and grabbed onto the mangled fence. Several hundred feet below he could see the light from the headlights of the Mustang and then an explosion as the car crashed onto the floor of the quarry.
Dagger yelled, “NO,” and buried his face in his hands. He rolled away from the carnage and lay on his back, the palms of his hands pressed against his eyes. “God, Sara. What have I done?” The smell of dirt and wet leaves filled his nostrils. The crackling fire sounded distant and then the smell of melting metal filled the air. And there was something else. A rippling, a sound like a huge flag flapping in the breeze. Dagger stared up at the sky and turned his head in time to see the gray hawk flying out of the quarry and landing on a huge branch overhead.
Dagger blinked quickly. Sara?
I’m sorry about your car, Dagger.
Dagger rolled onto his stomach. His quiet sigh of relief swelled to uproarious laughter. He could feel tears welling so he covered his face and laughed even harder. Damn, I envy you. He pushed himself to a kneeling position.
Dagger, I can’t shift back. I don’t have any clothes.
The detective stared at the hawk, it’s brilliant blue eyes that pierced the haze.
Well, Sweetheart. I think you have a problem.
“See, you still beat me back.” Dagger placed a cup of tea on the coffee table for Sara, who was drying her hair with a towel. She had already showered and changed into shorts and an oversized shirt. He was amazed. The entire ordeal didn’t appear to have even phased her. “Come here,” he whispered.
Sara dropped the towel on the bar stool and combed her hair with her fingers. She tentatively approached, only to have Dagger pull her toward him and wrap his arms around her. Her hair smelled of oranges and bananas and her body no longer shook when he touched her. He broke the embrace and held her at arm’s length. “You scared the hell out of me.”
She smiled timidly and repeated, “I’m really sorry about your car.”
“No problem. I’ll get another.”
She sat on the couch gathering her legs under her. And as she sipped her tea Dagger told her about the second earring. He lifted his shirt collar and used it to wipe the dirt from his face. The shirt smelled like smoke, and pieces of damp leaves still clung to the fabric.
“Padre had us lock everything back up and then he called Sergeant Duranski in on the case since we found the body in his town. And if he found me standing there with a dead body and a lock pick in my hand, what we found in the freezer would not be admissible in court. So Padre was going to tell him the back door was unlocked and we were suspicious of the locked freezer.”
“When are you going to tell Mr. Tyler?”
“Padre will tell him in the morning.”
CHAPTER 34
Robert Tyler was up early the next morning. After Padre had called about Rachel, Robert couldn’t take his eyes off Rachel’s portrait. He wanted to lash out at someone, wanted to line up the family members and find out what role everyone played in Rachel’s disappearance five years ago. But another part of him didn’t want to know, didn’t want to think that any member of his family could be that cold and vindictive.
Padre told him Dagger would be stopping by with news about the earring he had found at the murder scene. Robert couldn’t think of anything else after Padre hung up. It was bad enough someone in the family might be a prime suspect in Rachel’s murder. Now, he had to wrestle with the thought that his beloved Rachel was involved in a robbery.
Eric entered the dining room dressed for his usual weekend round of golf. “Coffee fresh, Dad?”
“Hmmm?” Robert, lost in thought, pulled his attention from the portrait hanging on the wall. “Oh, yes. They just brought the coffee out.” He watched his elder son load his plate with a sample of everything on the buffet table. Eric jammed a celery stick in his mouth and carefully maneuvered his overflowing plate to the table.
The wall of windows in the dining room displayed a sky of fast-moving clouds, residuals from last nights storm. Behind those clouds was a blue sky and a promise of clear skies for the remainder of the day.
Robert’s chest tighten as he studied the white stripe in Eric’s hair and how much his son resembled his mother, Theresa. Nicholas, on the other hand, took after Robert’s side of the family. But Eric had his business drive; Nick had his mother’s wanderlust.
Although Robert had promised Dagger he wouldn’t bring up the subject, he tho
ught a subtle mention couldn’t hurt. “With everything that has happened, I thought I would take a few days off, maybe go up to The Abbey.”
Eric’s coffee cup hovered, his eyes held Robert’s gaze.
“The Abbey?” Edie echoed from the doorway. She glanced at Eric as she walked to the buffet table, her white sandals clicking along the solid oak floor. “But that place is so dark, Robert. If you want to get away, there is no place like one of the islands.” Edie surveyed the buffet table and settled on a plate of fresh fruit and a blueberry scone. Sitting down, she glared across the table at her husband.
Nick arrived dressed in tennis whites and looking well-rested. “Well, it’s unusually quiet in here.” He poured himself a glass of orange juice, grabbed a bagel and cream cheese and sat down next to his brother.
“And where were you last night?” Edie tried to turn the subject to Nick.
Nick eyed her over his glass of juice. “I stayed up most of the night talking to a friend.”
Robert checked his watch and was relieved when Lily appeared with Dagger trailing behind.
Dagger waited for Lily to leave and smiled at the curious stares from the Tyler brood.
“Well, well.” Edie was the first to speak. “Don’t you usually hi-jack planes on Saturdays?”
Edie had once commented that Dagger’s appearance…his penchant for wearing black clothing combined with his long hair, dark eyes, and a deep summer tan that failed to fade in the winter, must make people want to change planes when they saw him boarding.
“That’s Tuesdays. Airports are too crowded on weekends.”
Robert rose and shook Dagger’s hand. “Coffee?”
Dagger declined. He noticed that the only person who seemed relaxed was Nick. Maybe his soul searching talk with Sara last night cleared the fuzziness in his memory even more. Dagger would be curious to get Nick in a one-on-one.
“Let me guess.” Eric dabbed a napkin to his mouth. “Someone spotted Rachel hitchhiking last night.”
Robert’s face turned ashen and Eric made an abrupt apology.
“Please have a seat,” Robert offered.
“I can’t stay. I just thought you might be interested to hear about the earring I found at the crime scene.” He dug into his pants pocket.
“Not that again.” Edie sank back in her chair.
Dagger set the earring on the table.
“Wait.” Edie sat up. “I thought the earring was black?”
Dagger said, “Cleaned up rather nicely, don’t you think?”
“My god,” Robert said as he picked up the earring. “What is it?”
“You are looking at a pink diamond.”
Edie’s face turned pasty white. Her fingers twitched and Dagger could sense she was itching to touch it. Typical female? Would Sheila’s reaction been the same? As if trying to distance herself, Edie pushed away from the table, stood, and gripped the back of the chair.
“Where on earth would Rachel get a pink diamond?” Edie turned to Robert.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t buy it for her.”
“It’s fake,” Eric said, picking up the diamond and holding it up to the light. His gaze shifted to Dagger. “Right?”
Dagger smiled. “No. Rachel went through a lot of trouble to camouflage these. And where there’s one, there should be another.” He let that statement hang in the air.
Nick grabbed for the earring and felt the weight. “Dad?” He turned toward his father. “Do you think this is why Rachel disappeared five years ago? Maybe she was hiding out from whomever she stole it from.”
Robert steepled his fingers in thought. “Rachel would never have done something like that.”
Dagger should have been busy watching to see whose imaginary wheels were churning, whose eyes resembled the proverbial deer in headlights. Instead, he found himself gazing at Rachel’s portrait and then Edie who was standing just in front of it, back up to Rachel’s picture. Then a sudden thought struck him.
Dagger picked up a picture of Edie lying on his desk and scanned it into the computer. Using computer graphics, he changed her short red hair to long blonde. The thought had struck him when he saw Edie standing next to Rachel’s picture. Except for the hair and eyes, there was some resemblance. They couldn’t pass for twins but they had the same nose, bone structure. It wasn’t unusual for close friends to dress alike, wear their hair the same.
The first call Dagger had made was to Worm. He asked the reporter to search Rachel’s yearbooks and pictures from college for a classmate by the name of Edie Winthrup.
Sara had mentioned that Edie wore contacts. Dagger changed the eye color of the image on the screen to blue. He printed out the color picture and held it next to the picture of Rachel.
“Damn.” Dagger picked up the phone and called Robert.
“Mr. Tyler, tell me again everything Rachel said to you when she called.”
“Not again.”
“You have to face the fact that the Williamsburg Collection was stolen and the last person who had it was your wife.”
“I just can’t…” Robert inhaled long and deep. “Damn, I can’t believe this is happening.”
Dagger gave Tyler a few moments. Finally, Tyler repeated what he remembered from the night Rachel called.
“Are you sure? Maybe there was something she said which you thought unimportant at the moment.”
“Wait. Yes, I remember now. She asked if I still had the kangaroo.”
“The kangaroo?”
“Yes, and I don’t for the life of me know what it means.”
Dagger told him it might be a clue as to where the necklace is and he should spend the time thinking back on everything Rachel had said, done, purchased, whatever might jog his memory. After he hung up, Dagger grabbed the picture of Rachel and composite of Edie and left.
The ivory elephants danced on the wall as the front door rattled.
“WORM, I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”
Worm cast a look of disgust at the door and mumbled, “Go away.” He hadn’t expected Sheila to actually camp out on his doorstep. He read his last entry on the monitor and added another sentence, his long fingers dancing across the keyboard.
Padre had kept him updated on the discovery of Rachel’s body and he wanted to get that portion of the story written while it was still fresh in his mind.
Sheila banged on his door again.
“I’LL BE RIGHT THERE,” Worm yelled. He gathered up all his notes littering the table, floor, couch, and shoved them in his briefcase. He added Rachel’s yearbook, which he had just started to check through for an Edie Winthrop, just as Dagger had requested.
“WORM!”
“All right, already.” Worm picked up his notes on Sara and tossed them generously around the living room. “Oops.” He closed out the document on the screen of his laptop.
Straightening the elephant wall hangings, Worm checked his flushed face in the mirror before opening the door.
“It’s about time.” Sheila charged past Worm.
“What’s the problem, Sheila?” He closed the door and watched with amusement as she surveyed his furnishings.
“Who do you think you are to just call and leave a message that you’ll be working at home, not one but two days in a row?” She tossed her purse on the couch and went immediately to the papers on the table. “You don’t answer the phone, don’t return phone calls.” She cast a cursory glance toward him. “Don’t keep me updated.”
“When I have something to report, you’ll be the first person I call.”
“Wonderful.” She jerked a chair out from the table, saw the threadbare seat and nicked wood and thought better of it. Her head swiveled from side to side, checking the ceiling, the floor, her feet, as if half-expecting something to crawl up her leg. “You know, we pay you a pretty good salary. Can’t you find a better apartment?”
Worm ignored her and sat down, shuffled some papers together, pulled out a notepad. He had no plans on offering her anything to
drink. After a few moments of silence he asked, “Don’t you have something better to do?”
Sheila spied Sara’s name on a document lying on the coffee table and smiled. She settled on the couch and started reading.
“That doesn’t reveal much.” Worm checked his watch. He had a meeting with the editor of the Porter County Tribune to show him the story he was developing.
“You’re right.” She tossed the document down with disgust. “Maybe I picked the wrong man for the job.”
Worm picked up the discarded report and added it to another pile. “If you think someone else can get faster results, then by all means.” The words caught in his throat. This was not the time to act cocky, especially since he didn’t have another job yet. He leaned forward, hands mapping out a story on their own, part of the genes from his mother’s Italian side of the family.
“You know, Sheila, I’m kinda between a rock and a hard place here. If I stay in the office, I get sidetracked. When I work at home, I’ve got this family thing going.” His hands swayed to the left, then the right, back and forth. “Part of the agreement of paying such low rent is I gotta help my uncle in the greenhouse on the weekends. If I try to work on this,” he pointed to the short pile of notes on Sara, “then I have my Mom calling asking why ‘donna you help Uncle Maggio’.” He forced a smile. Sheila wasn’t smiling. Now the hands splayed open, palms up. “What’s a guy to do?” He glanced at her white shorts and sleeveless top. “You look great. Going to the yacht club?” Compliments with Sheila always worked.
“Yes.” Sheila smiled, her fingers fidgeting with the neckline of her sailor collar. “Fashion show brunch.” She checked her watch and stood. “I’ll let you get back to your family duties.” She turned back when she reached the door. “And Worm, the telephone is a wonderful invention. Use it.”
CHAPTER 35