He looked at me like he thought I was crazy, but he followed me out, closing the door behind him. On the sidewalk in front of the building, I explained to him what Peterson had said on the phone.
“Oh my God,” he was saying, “do you think it’s safe for us to stand here? Maybe we should go to the office.”
Before I could answer, a dark-blue-and-putty-colored Fairfax County Police unit pulled in front of the building, its siren silent but its colored lights flashing furiously, and two uniformed cops got out.
“You Sutton McPhee?” the driver, a burly man in his late thirties, with an almost military haircut and florid cheeks, asked.
“Yes,” I told him. “It’s apartment seven, on the second floor.” I handed him the key Charlie had given me.
The policeman and his younger partner, a slimmer, less ruddy version of the driver, eyed the building behind us.
“Check the back,” the older partner said, motioning his arm in a circle to the right. The younger cop did as he was told, unsnapping the cover over the gun on his belt and going around the building, his right hand firmly on the gun’s grip. In a moment he came back out front through the open-air hallway that separated the apartments on one side from those on the other.
“Nothing,” he said.
“No sign of anyone in there since you came out?” the first cop asked me.
“No,” I told him.
“Let’s check it out,” he said to his partner, his hand going back to his own gun. They went up the stairs to Cara’s door, where they finally drew their guns before unlocking the door cautiously, taking a quick look inside and then stepping in rapidly and moving to either side of the door.
Charlie was almost beside himself at the excitement. A few curious souls had wandered over from neighboring buildings, wanting to know what was going on. Charlie was explaining manically; I fully expected him to start jumping up and down at any moment. I wondered how he ever coped with any real emergency at the complex and suspected that Gina must have her feet more firmly on the ground than her boss did.
“This is too wild,” Charlie was saying. “What if the guy was in there while we were there?”
If only he had been, I thought. Then, perhaps, I could have done a few of the things I’d been planning for him.
Yeah, right, my little voice spoke up. Like you could have done much with a gun staring you in the face!
True, I told it, but a girl can dream, can’t she?
The younger cop walked out into the breezeway of the apartment building’s upper floor.
“It’s all clear,” he called. “You can come up.”
Before Charlie and I could respond, Peterson pulled up in his gray unmarked police sedan.
It was pretty evident, once I had time to think about it, that it was Cara’s killer who had ransacked her apartment. There was no sign of the door having been forced, and the windows were intact. Cara’s keys had not been found with her body, so chances were the person who killed her had taken them. Just as clearly, whoever it was had been canny enough to wait until after the police had finished with the apartment before going through it. That way, they’d had all the time they needed, without worrying about a cop walking in on them. What, if anything, had been taken was anyone’s guess at the moment.
Peterson took me on a cursory walk-through to see if I noticed anything missing. The only thing that obviously was gone was some jewelry that had belonged to our mother, a sapphire-and-diamond necklace and matching earrings. Checking a sheet of paper on a clipboard he had taken from his car, he told me that the police had not taken the jewelry into evidence, having found no usable fingerprints on it. The jewelry should have been in Cara’s top dresser drawer, but I couldn’t find it anywhere in the apartment. I had told her more than once that she ought to keep the jewelry in a bank vault, but she had refused.
“They help me remember Mom,” she had said defensively. “I can take them out and see her so clearly, wearing them with that royal-blue dress.” The dress to which she had referred was the one Mom had worn the night Dad had taken her out for their wedding anniversary, the last one they celebrated. He had given Mom her gift—the necklace and earrings—before they left the house that evening. As Cara had talked I could see Mom again, too, as clear in my mind’s eye as when she was alive. I had understood Cara’s need to keep the jewelry easily accessible, even though I thought it was foolhardy. But now it meant that one more precious memory had been stolen from me, tainted by Cara’s killer.
“Chances are he’ll try to fence the stuff pretty quickly,” Peterson said, when I had finished describing the jewelry for him. “We’ll get the word out on the street that it’s part of a murder investigation. Most of the fences won’t want to touch it.”
Other than the jewelry, there was nothing whose absence caught my attention. Until I could go through everything, I wouldn’t know for sure what else might have been taken, and that would have to wait at least another day while the police processed the place a second time for fingerprints and any other evidence.
The shock of finding the chaos in Cara’s apartment was wearing off. As I stood in the deliberate wreckage of the artifacts of Cara’s life, the shock was replaced by the same anger that had overcome me at her grave, making me clench my fists in an effort not to strike something or someone. Detective Peterson was talking to me, but I turned and walked out of the apartment, onto the covered front walkway, where I tried to focus my runaway thoughts and emotions enough to talk sensibly.
I realized Peterson had followed me out.
“Just be grateful he wasn’t still in there when you walked in,” he said practically. I glared at him. I knew he was right, but it didn’t help much. The destruction in Cara’s apartment felt like the killer had attacked her all over again.
“You’d think killing her would have been enough,” I told him.
“The world is full of scumbags, who will do pretty much anything,” Peterson responded, wearily rubbing his forehead with the fingertips of his left hand. “Several times a year we get called by people whose houses were robbed while they were at the funeral of a family member. The funeral announcements in the newspaper tell anybody who’s interested the exact time the family won’t be home.”
Peterson told me to go on home. There was nothing more I could do at the moment, he said.
“Come back tomorrow and pack up,” he continued. “If you notice anything else missing, call me.”
I nodded, now dreading closing up Cara’s apartment even more than before. Anticipating it the first time had been hard enough. Now it would be doubly difficult, knowing that everything I picked up had been touched, handled, defiled by her killer.
Peterson went back inside the apartment. I went downstairs to my car, where I reassured an anxious Charlie that I didn’t hold him responsible for what had been done to Cara’s apartment. On the drive home, I called Rob Perry from my cellular phone and told him what had happened and that I would need one more day away from work.
“Take whatever you need,” he said. “I’ll have Rudy check with the cops for an official comment. Will you be around so he can get a quote from you?”
“Just have him call me at the apartment. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Good enough. We’ll make sure to mention the reward money again. And Sutton?”
“Yes?” I answered tiredly, the anger and disgust that had consumed me now ebbing and leaving me drained.
“I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Was I? I wondered. I sure didn’t feel okay. I wasn’t looking forward to the long night ahead.
Which promised to be even longer after the phone conversation I finally had late that afternoon with Chris.
I had not heard from him on Sunday either, and when I had called his apartment, all I got was his answering machine. I hadn’t bothered to leave another message. Perhaps, I thought, he was late getting back into town and was still on his way home, or he was out catching up on errands that had piled
up while he was gone all week.
At any rate, I fully expected him to call me from his office on Monday. But my answering machine at home had taken no messages while I was out all day, and he wasn’t on my voice mail at work either. I sat down on my bed and called his office.
“Chris Wiley,” he answered in his baritone voice.
“Hi,” I said, feeling no need to identify myself.
“Oh, Sutton, hello.”
“I didn’t hear from you yesterday, so I thought I should check in.”
“Yeah, uh, right,” he said. “Well, I was pretty tired from the long trip, so I turned off the phone and slept most of the day. How are you?”
I gave him a brief account of the funeral and reception and talked about my surprise—and gratitude—that so many people had shown up.
“But yesterday was really tough,” I added. “It was the first time I’ve been able to slow down since Cara was killed. There were just so many things to take care of. But sitting in my apartment alone, all I could do was think about her and what she must have gone through.”
“That sounds hard,” Chris agreed, an uncharacteristic awkward note in his voice. “Ah, look, Sutton, I really need to get back to work here. I’ve got a lot of catching up on paperwork to do. Can I call you later?”
I bit back the sarcastic reply that my mind automatically voiced, something along the lines of “Don’t knock yourself out.” Instead, I asked, “Would you like to come over after work?” I was lonely and depressed, and I thought that a night with Chris’s arms around me might go a long way toward turning off the violent kaleidoscope that kept going through my head.
“No, I don’t think I can tonight,” he responded after a second’s hesitation. I waited silently for him to continue. “Maybe we can get together this weekend and do something,” he added eventually as my silence dragged on. “Why don’t I give you a call later in the week?”
“Oh, okay,” I said. Even I could take a hint eventually. Chris was not comfortable with this conversation. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”
I hung up, completely perplexed. Something was going on with Chris, but I had no idea what. It wasn’t the sort of reaction I had come to expect from him. Belatedly, I realized that I had been so taken aback at his anxious desire to cut the conversation short that I had forgotten to tell him about the break-in at Cara’s apartment. I was still sitting in confusion, phone in my lap, when it rang under my hand. It was Ken Hale.
“I was checking to see if you could use a dinner out,” he explained when I answered. “I know it’s been a rough week. I thought you probably needed a break and a sympathetic ear.”
Those were exactly the things that I needed, I thought to myself, but I had expected the offer to come from Chris, and I couldn’t figure out why it hadn’t. Still, Ken was always good company, and the fact that he wasn’t my love interest didn’t change the reality that I did need precisely the sort of evening he was offering.
“You’re a mind reader,” I told him with a relieved sigh. “Where should I meet you and what time?”
“How about the Westend Raw Bar? Seven o’clock?” Ken asked. “It’s down the street from you, and it’ll be on my way home since I’m coming out from D.C.”
“Good choice,” I told him. The Westend Raw Bar was a popular local seafood restaurant on Duke Street that did tasty things with every kind of fish and shellfish. “I’ll see you there. And Ken?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for the thought.”
“Whatever I can do,” he replied.
Ken was relaxing on the restaurant’s front porch when I turned off Duke Street and pulled into a parking space that a dark green Camaro convertible had just vacated. He waved and stood up when he saw my car, which was known on sight by most of the News reporters and was looked upon fondly in the newsroom as some sort of retro-pet from the seventies. As I climbed out, Ken came down the steps to meet me and gave me a big hug.
“How’re you doing?” he asked, and held me out at arm’s length for an inspection.
“I’ve had better months,” I told him, smiling tiredly at his friendly concern. “They say it gets easier eventually, but all the things I still have to wrap up keep bringing it all back to me.”
“I know what you mean,” he said, still holding my arms. “My best friend in high school was killed in a car wreck the summer before our senior year, and it was like every time I walked down the hall at school that whole year, or drove past someplace we used to hang out, it hurt all over again.”
He dropped my right arm, but slipped his own through the crook of my left arm and steered me toward the restaurant’s front door.
“Now let’s go have something powerful to drink and a decent meal, and you can tell Uncle Ken all about it,” he said. I decided I was in good hands.
Too bad they’re the wrong guy’s hands.
I was too tired for an internal argument, especially one I would lose. I didn’t bother even to think a response.
It wasn’t until Ken and I were inside at our table, inhaling the aromas of fresh seafood being fried, baked, grilled, and blackened, that I realized how hungry I really was. Ravenous just about came close to describing it. And it was no wonder, I suppose. I had been able to eat next to nothing since Cara had been killed. I had been going nonstop for days, and the thought of my sister’s ordeal had wiped out any appetite I might have had when I had time to eat. But my body was a pretty healthy one, and self-preservation eventually kicks in. Suddenly I felt as if I could have eaten an entire boatload of fish.
“Oh my God,” I said, looking up at Ken from the menu, “I think I’m starving. Just bring me one of everything.”
Ken laughed.
“It’s my treat tonight,” he said. “Have whatever you want!”
I asked the waitress for iced tea, an appetizer of crab-stuffed mushrooms, and the grilled red snapper, with a salad and steamed vegetables.
Ken raised an amused eyebrow at me. “Make that two of everything,” he told our blond, college-aged waitress, grinning, “and I think we need the basket of hush puppies and corn bread on an emergency basis.”
“I’ll be right back with your bread and tea,” she promised, nodding an understanding smile. She was as good as her word, and I attacked the basket of bread as if I hadn’t even seen food in days.
I told Ken, much later after everything was over and I could think straight again, how much his dinner invitation that night meant to me, that it had been a lifeline of sanity and normalcy to grab onto for a short time in the middle of the madness of what had happened to Cara. At the time, however, I was too busy stuffing my face and talking to analyze it; all I knew then was that it was the first time I had felt at all relaxed and halfway normal in a week.
“I want to hear anything you want to talk about,” Ken said, after the waitress brought our mushrooms. “If you’d like to talk about everything with your sister, you can. And if you’d rather not, we can talk about something else.”
How on earth, I wondered, looking at him in gratitude and amazement, had Ken managed to stay single until now? I had heard him comment once that he just hadn’t found the right woman yet. But he had a busy social life, I knew, unlike some of the rest of us, and it was hard to imagine, when they understood the kind of man he was, that all sorts of women hadn’t done their level best to snag him. Or maybe they had and he really was waiting for some sort of romantic lightning to strike.
“I would like to talk about Cara, actually,” I replied. And that was what we did.
I told him about what I had been through since her body was found—the trip to the morgue, the details, the funeral. We talked about the police investigation and the ransacking of Cara’s apartment, a story Ken had missed even though he had been at the paper earlier.
“Thank God whoever it was was gone when you came in,” he said, his voice echoing my own outrage and sounding an even larger note of concern. “That may have been a much closer call than you know.”
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“That’s what Peterson said, too,” I agreed, around a mouthful of coleslaw. “I was too mad about what I saw to think straight at the time, but later it was pretty unnerving to realize what might have happened.”
Ken talked about Cara, too, whom he had met once when she came to the office to join me for a lunch in D.C., and then listened as I reminisced about our lives growing up as sisters. When I laughed about a funny memory, he laughed with me. When I teared up, he waited patiently. It was the best therapy I could have gotten. Until he brought up a sore subject.
“So did Chris make it down for the funeral?” he asked finally, over coffee. Ken had met Chris once at the paper’s annual softball game, in which the news staff took on the business side, usually resulting in lopsided victories that alternated back and forth in yearly grudge matches and that always seem to result in as many injuries—sprained ankles, pulled muscles, and scraped knees and elbows—as points on the scoreboard.
“No,” I said simply, not really wanting to go into it, “he didn’t get down.”
Ken looked appalled.
“Do you mean to tell me,” he asked incredulously, “that he let you go down there for your sister’s funeral all alone?”
“He was out of town on business and didn’t get back in time,” I offered lamely. Ken’s reaction had just reinforced my own mystification with Chris’s behavior.
“Not good enough,” Ken pronounced. “If I had known he wasn’t going to show, I’d have gone with you myself. Under the circumstances, you had absolutely no business being down there alone.”
“Could we talk about something else?” I asked.
Ken looked at me closely, then changed the subject and asked about the upcoming memorial service.
He had never voiced any opinion of Chris based on their limited exposure to each other, and I had never asked for one. It was just as well, because I suspected that whatever opinion of him Ken had held formerly, it had just gone down several large notches.
In the parking lot after dinner, I returned the hug he had given me in greeting.
“I really owe you one for this,” I told him. “I’ll figure out how to repay you later, but right now I think I have to go have my stomach pumped. That chocolate-mousse cake and coffee, on top of everything else I scarfed down, just about did me in.”
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