by Leigh Hearon
“I’ll make sure Dan sees this as soon as he gets back.”
“But doesn’t it seem odd to you? I mean, why would Marcus say he was running late, then not show up?”
“Cold feet? A business emergency back home? I can think of a dozen different reasons, all perfectly innocent, and some not so innocent, as to why Marcus would break a date. Besides, Laurie’s Café isn’t exactly haute cuisine.”
“Be serious, Tony! Something happened to Marcus, and you know it.”
“Something happened to a lot of people around here in the last ten days. Marcus’s disappearance is troubling, but the facts are we’ve got two murders to solve, and they take priority. The best we can do on the second Colbert case is hope that someone finds him, dead or alive, in the next few days. He’s out of our jurisdiction.”
“Well, how about this? There’s nothing you can do for Wayne Johnston or Hilda Colbert right now, except find their killers. Marcus Colbert may still be alive. Maybe you should spend time on his case on the chance that you can still save a life.”
Annie knew she was being unreasonable and didn’t care.
“We could,” said Tony, “but Marcus still has three days to check in with his attorney. Yes, I know”—Tony raised a hand as Annie began to squawk her rebuttal—“his car at Sea-Tac does look suspicious. And if he doesn’t call in this Friday, and if he’s still alive, which I seriously doubt, he’ll be heading straight back to jail. There’s no way a judge would let him out on bail, even if we don’t have all the pieces from the crime lab in yet. And if he’s found alive by the time the digital voice expert’s report comes in and what we expect to find in his bank records, he can kiss his freedom good-bye.”
Clearly, Tony was still smarting from the humiliating court hearing a few days ago.
“What’s in the second envelope?” he asked.
Annie swallowed hard. This had been a tough call. By rights, Marcus should now be in possession of what was legally his property—the registration papers for the bay, aka Trooping the Colour. She wished, not for the first time, that she’d just left the paper in Hilda’s cold, dead hands and tossed the chewed-up one. But she hadn’t, and the thought of holding on to them now, even for one second longer, was anathema to her.
She reluctantly handed over the second envelope, saying nothing.
Tony looked inside, then inquisitively at Annie.
“Where did this come from? And why is it in two pieces?”
“I found them the day I found Hilda’s body.”
“Then why are you giving them to me now?”
“I thought . . . I realized . . . well, they’re evidence, aren’t they?”
“Undoubtedly,” Tony said drily. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Why are you handing over evidence in a murder case six days after they came into your possession?”
Annie had thought about how she would answer this question. She’d decided to try the first story she’d thought about telling Marcus, before opting to tell him the truth. Somehow, she didn’t think the truth would elicit the same slow grin on Tony’s face that she’d envisioned seeing on Marcus’s.
“They were in Hilda’s bedroom . . . or outside, I can’t remember which. I was in such a state, finding the body that I must have snatched them up without thinking. I forgot all about them until I did my laundry this morning. They were stuck in the jean jacket I was wearing that day. I thought they should go to you.”
Tony gazed at her for a full five seconds before answering.
“That is the lamest, most miserable explanation I’ve heard the entire ten years I’ve been with the Sheriff’s Office.”
She smiled weakly.
“However, I’m not going to ask you how you really got those papers, or where you really found them. I’ll leave that to others.” His tone was grim.
“Fine. I just came by to try to help. If this is what it gets me, I’ll take my sorry ass home.”
Tony sighed, rose to his feet, and stretched.
“Look, Annie, we’re all under the gun right now. Tempers are short, and whatever patience any of us had at the beginning is long gone. Dan’s got more to do than any man’s got a right to, plus he’s dealing with Dory’s running off on him. We appreciate your help, we really do, but you have to understand that any scrap of information you might have that will help us solve these cases we needed yesterday. So just get off your high horse for one second and look at things our way. Every day that goes by, the trail gets colder and we get more heat from the county commissioners. In fact, things really couldn’t get much worse.”
Annie felt slightly mollified as she left the Sheriff’s Office, but only slightly. Mostly she just felt relief that the registration papers were out of her hands. What she hadn’t told Tony was that before handing them over, she’d made a copy for herself. For some reason, it seemed important to her.
And Tony was wrong about things not getting worse. Annie returned home to find Lavender, sitting on the living room floor, her eyes once more glued to the television set. From the volume, Annie realized that the lead story centered on Marcus’s sudden disappearance.
“Sister! Why didn’t you tell me? I have to hear it on the news how you snuck out of the courtroom with Marcus and now you’re hiding him in the Cayman Islands? Honestly, Sister, isn’t that against the law?”
Annie strode over to her enthralled half sister, snatched the remote out of her hand, and turned the TV off. She flung her mail down on the couch and left the room.
“Twenty-five days, Lavender! That’s how long you have before you’re history here. Do you understand?”
She didn’t feel any better when she heard Lavender burst into tears and run to her bedroom.
Annie felt like crying herself.
CHAPTER 12
WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 2ND—THURSDAY, MARCH 3RD
From: Dan Stetson [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, March 2, 2016 6:00 P.M.
To: Annie Carson [email protected] and ten other undisclosed recipients.
Subject: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, THANKS TO YOU
Dear Suwana County Search and Rescue team:
Thank you for the long hours you spent today to help find little Peggy Laughton. Her parents are very relieved that their five-year-old was only lost and not abducted or worse. It’s the tremendous hard work of search and rescue members like yourself who are willing to drop everything to help us in emergencies that that make Suwana County a safer place to live.
On behalf of the entire Suwana County Sheriff’s Office, thank you for your great work today.
Best regards,
Sheriff Dan Stetson
Suwana County Sheriff’s Office
“Making Suwana County safe since 1943.”
From: Annie Carson [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, March 2, 2016 6:33 P.M.
To: Dan Stetson [email protected]
Subject: HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!
I left my house at 8:08 A.M. today to help find little Peggy Sue and came home to find the calling cards of two of your deputies on my dining room table, proof that they gained ILLEGAL access to MY HOME as if it were another crime scene. I find two TRAUMATIZED puppies who peed all over my good rug and my house in complete disarray.
What the hell, Dan? Since when is searching my house more important than finding a missing five-year-old? I gave you my statement. I have fully cooperated with you throughout this investigation. Yet you’re treating ME like a criminal. You also appear to be quashing my Constitutional rights like a June bug. Ever hear of the Fourth Amendment, Dan? I’m calling a lawyer.
Annie
P.S. I hope you found what you were looking for: NOTHING.
From: Dan Stetson [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, March 2, 2016 6:58 P.M.
To: Annie Carson [email protected]
Subject: Re: HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!
If you picked up your cell phon
e once in a while, we might have avoided all this. Tony showed me what you brought in yesterday, and frankly you’re lucky we didn’t bring a warrant for your arrest along with the search warrant. Which we didn’t need because your wacky sister voluntarily gave us permission to enter. Nice hair. Looks like something my soon-to-be-ex-wife would have done. If you’d looked at the inventory list we left, you’d realize we found squat. Happy now?
Dan
P.S. You don’t know any attorneys.
P.P.S. Thanks again for your help today.
From: Annie Carson [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, March 2, 2016 7:01 P.M.
To: Dan Stetson [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!
No, I am NOT happy, and I know how to pick up a phone book and look in “A.” Come to think of it, ACLU sounds like a winner.
Lavender had no right to let you in. THIS IS NOT HER HOME. Not that this little fact apparently would have stopped you. I resent like hell your unnecessary intrusion into my personal life. The bar is permanently closed to you. The next time I see you on my property, I will ask you politely to leave as I’m loading my Winchester.
Ms. Anne Marie Carson
P.S. My cell battery was dead.
The conversation between Annie and her half sister earlier on Wednesday evening had not been a pleasant one. After a grueling day of looking for the missing Peggy Sue, both Annie and Wolf were cold, tired, and hungry. For Wolf, none of these conditions seriously affected his outward demeanor—after all, Alpo was but a scoop away—but Annie’s threshold for tolerating any more bad news was dangerously low. After seeing the deputies’ cards on the table, her wrath reached a plateau Lavender had never seen before. Unfortunately, none of the ploys Annie’s half sister typically used to placate people she routinely upset seemed to work. Lavender had cried, sulked, and was on the verge of hysteria until Annie told her she’d smack her into the next county if she didn’t shut up.
“I thought they were coming to arrest me,” Lavender had whined to Annie in a voice muffled by several Kleenex.
“They should have,” Annie said darkly.
“But they seemed so nice,” Lavender wailed back. “That tall guy, Detective Tony, told me you’ve been friends for years and years, and he helped save that big horse you’ve got in your barn.”
“He’s not a detective,” Annie said through clenched teeth. “He’s a deputy. And he had no right to insinuate that any friendship he might have had with me was reason enough for you to let him inside.”
“You see, Sister?” Lavender tried to look her most pleading over red-rimmed eyes and a thoroughly dripping nose, without succeeding very well. Annie was sure that at age ten, that look had worked like a charm. Now, twenty-some years later, the charm had worn off. “It wasn’t my fault. They used me. They took advantage of me. How was I to know?”
“Oh, bite me,” Annie muttered and stomped off to her room, slamming her door behind her. She had come out once to retrieve her bottle of Glenlivet, only to belatedly remember that she had killed what little remained the night Dan had paid a visit. She slammed her door again, but not quite as loudly. It was hard to replicate the original sound with a large bag of Doritos in one hand and Oreos in the other.
Annie’s missives to Dan Stetson had been created with orange-stained hands and a mouth smeared with vanilla cream and chocolate crumbs. She had paced up and down her small bedroom for a half hour after her last riposte, unaware that Wolf was looking inquiringly at her with puzzled eyes. Anger, he had seen. But he’d never known his mistress to stay inside when she was upset. Usually, she whistled to him, and they went down to the horses, where soon everything was right again.
It was only when Wolf gently sighed and put his head between his paws that Annie looked down and saw that her pent-up fury had affected one of the things she loved most. Turning to Wolf, Annie gave him a nod and pulled on her worn, wool-lined jacket. It might be cold and dark, but it wasn’t snowing. It was time to give Geronimo a little training on how to navigate in the dark.
* * *
The next morning, Annie had arisen at her usual early hour, plugged in the coffee, and taken a long, hot shower, deliberately using up most of the small water tank as she did so. A cold stream of water was exactly what Lavender deserved. Of course, by the time her half sister actually got out of bed, the hot water undoubtedly would once again be up to full capacity. Damn.
She was still feeling residual resentment at her unasked-for guest, but refused to let it ruin her day. She cranked up the radio, poured herself a cup of coffee, and knocked on Lavender’s door to tell her she could come out now without fear of being bitten.
But there was no answer. The heck with this, Annie thought. It’s my own home. She opened the door. Lavender was gone. Her things were still there, in piles on the floor, dresser top, and everywhere except in their appointed places. But the woman had vanished.
Annie thought for a moment. Had she heard the sounds of anyone’s quietly walking through the house last night? A door softly close? No, but then she had spent a good two hours with Geronimo, her hand lightly on the halter rope, letting him feel his way around the round pen, then outside until he learned to trust Annie’s hand movements and not jump at the sound of an unseen noise. He really was coming along very nicely, Annie mused. And to think only a week ago all the little guy could do was run around in a circle. Too bad her training skills didn’t extend to humans.
Lavender must have left while Annie had been taking a shower. Well, she was technically a grown-up and could fend for herself. Annie peered outside and looked at the sky. It was definitely warming up. What little snow remained on the ground would be history by noon. It was time to start her day.
For the first time in a week, the phone did not ring. The media circus seemed to have folded up their tents and left town. The strain of having to avoid talking to the press had taken its toll on Annie, but she also realized that by focusing her attention on the events around her, she had neatly sidestepped the issue of worrying—and grieving, if that was the right word—for Marcus, of whom there was still no news. Now, with the phones silent, and even her chatterbox half sister gone, temporarily, at least, Annie felt lonely. She didn’t often feel lonely; she was comfortable in her own skin most of the time. And she was usually perfectly content to let her assorted four-legged friends provide all the conversation.
But at 1:00 P.M., when the phone shrilled for the first time that day, Annie leapt for it, not caring whether it was a wrong number or a time share marketer trying to sell her on a free weekend in Vegas.
It was neither. It was James Fenton, Marcus’s lawyer, who gave the impression that he wasn’t especially happy to talk to her but knew he had to make the professional call.
“Ms. Carson?” Fenton really couldn’t have sounded less uninterested in her name.
“Speaking.” Annie knew who it was but didn’t feel like giving him the satisfaction. She still remembered how Fenton had described her the day Marcus was sprung from jail.
“James Fenton here.” There was a slight cough. “Excuse me. Spring allergies.”
Annie made a small, sympathetic noise, while her heart pounded. Did Fenton know something that Dan Stetson didn’t?
Apparently not. At least, in the important sense, which was where on God’s green earth Marcus was. That, Fenton did not know. But he definitely had new information.
In the last days leading up to his disappearance, Marcus had directed his attorney to give Annie power of attorney to divest Hilda’s ranch of horses and equipment, which was to be done as her time permitted. When Annie had gasped, Fenton had rushed to assure her that this was a paying job, at least on paper. Marcus had authorized $50,000 out of his accounts to cover Annie’s immediate time and out-of-pocket costs. When this amount had been expended, Annie had only to let Fenton know, and more funds would be forthcoming.
Unfortunately, with Marcus’s disappearance, this
plan was no longer viable. At least, on Marcus’s part. Fenton informed her that sadly, all of Marcus’s funds had just been frozen. It was precisely one week from Marcus’s arrest and the court had made good on its threat. Annie had the distinct impression that Fenton was keenly aware that this meant his own invoices would go unpaid for the time being.
“It’s a mess,” he sighed into the phone. “Hilda’s estate won’t be probated for months, at the very least, and until there’s a certificate of death made out for Marcus, his estate is in limbo, as well.”
“What’s happening to Marcus’s company?” Annie asked. She wondered if his high-tech company was in a shambles, along with everything else.
“Ah. Well, there, we do have a glimmer of hope. Marcus structured his company so that there was always a successor, and, of course, there is a highly competent board of directors. So while Marcus’s disappearance isn’t exactly helping the stock price at the moment, it appears that the company is perfectly capable of continuing to do business.”
Marcus was such a planner, Annie thought. Quite the opposite of Hilda, who apparently couldn’t even pay her vet bills on time. No wonder Marcus had been so surprised and upset to find his wife’s business affairs in such disarray. So did Marcus’s well-honed organizational skills really mean, as Dan was certain, that Marcus had carefully planned his own escape?
As much as Annie loathed Fenton, she had to ask.
“So what do you think has happened to Marcus?” She tried to keep her voice objective and noncommittal.
“Frankly, I don’t want to think about it,” Fenton replied. He sounded weary. “I’ve known Marcus Colbert for twenty years. He’s one of the most scrupulously honest people I’ve ever done business with. Used to irritate me no end. I just can’t see Marcus fleeing his responsibilities like this. The evidence against him for Hilda’s death was weak, and he knew it. I think he was genuinely upset about her death and wanted to see her killer brought to justice. We’d even talked about setting up a reward fund. That’s impossible now, of course.”