“I’d like to go over the simulation you’re working on,” Anita said.
“It’s got two bad guys in it,” PJ said. “Bonnie and Clyde, I called them. I don’t even know if it’s relevant. I’m getting frustrated with this.”
Anita stared her down.
“Okay, I’ll start it up for you. Don’t expect much.”
PJ busied herself with her computer, bringing up the simulation. “Just press F1 to start it. F2 will give you a replay as many times as you want.” Then she got up from her desk, intent on getting out of the office and attacking the case physically.
Got to get my hands on something.
“I’ll be back,” she said.
“Doctor Penelope Jennifer Gray,” Dave said, “aka The Terminator.”
She aimed a kick at his shin as she went by, but he was surprisingly fast for a sleepy bear.
Out in the hallway, she was unsure of exactly what prompted her to make an exit. She wanted to take some kind of action, but what? She wound her way through the busy halls until she stood outside Lieutenant Wall’s office, waiting for inspiration. Others brushed by her with a greeting or a puzzled frown at her immobility.
She realized it wasn’t Wall she wanted to see. Having finally made up her mind, she left the building and drove over to Schultz’s house. She knew that officers had already been there, and even gone inside to make sure the fugitive wasn’t hiding, dead drunk, or just dead. A locksmith had opened the rear door and then replaced the lock. But her key would still work on the front. She fished it out of the bottom of her purse, remembering the time Schultz had insisted they exchange keys. For emergencies, he said. So far the only emergency seemed to be one of his own making.
Schultz’s mailbox was overflowing, so she emptied it. She’d have to remember to stop his mail so it wouldn’t be so obvious that no one was home.
She stepped inside, cutting off the heat and brightness of a St. Louis August afternoon that was bent on living up to its reputation for excess. By comparison, Schultz’s house was a dark cool cave. She stood in the front hallway for a minute, letting her eyes get adjusted to the dimness.
Only the front half of the house was actually darkened. Looking down the hallway, she could see that curtains and blinds were set to let in filtered sunlight in the rooms that looked onto the backyard. Drapes in the front living room were tightly pulled. Impulsively she climbed the stairs and checked the situation on the second floor. Same thing: front closed, rear open. Schultz’s bedroom overlooked the rear yard, and afternoon sun streamed cheerfully in. On the third floor, which was set up to be a separate apartment, the window coverings were arranged the same way, even though by all other signs the third floor was closed off and unused.
The house was split down the middle, light and dark. It puzzled her, but she couldn’t think what the significance could be. It wasn’t energy conservation—the sun was shining deeply into the interior of the house through the lightly shielded rear windows. She returned to the first floor and went into the living room. She pulled the cord to open the traverse drapes and looked out at Lafayette Avenue. Could Schultz be hiding from something outside?
A flash caught her eye across the street, a round shiny spot in the second-story window of a house across from Schultz’s. In a moment it was gone, and there was a slight movement of the curtains in that window. She replayed it in her mind, rechecking her impression. She was almost certain she had seen the end of a small telescope, like a bird-watcher’s scope, poking through the curtains. The lens had caught the sun, and then it vanished. Whoever was over there had seen the drapes in Schultz’s front room suddenly and unexpectedly yanked open, and retreated. It triggered a memory: her mother complaining that a neighbor always watched her when she went out in the yard to work in the garden or hang up laundry on a clothesline. Of course, where her mother lived, on the edge of the small town, it was assumed that neighbors casually watched out for each other. But one particular neighbor, Mrs. Dollins, apparently had taken it as her sworn duty.
PJ smiled. So a Mrs. Dollins lived across the street. Schultz was the kind of person who would hate to be spied upon, so the front of his house was tightly buttoned up.
Then it occurred to her that Mrs. Dollins, or whatever this individual’s name was, might have seen Schultz’s comings and goings. She might know if his car was stolen or if he had been behind the wheel at the time of the hit-and-run.
Excited, PJ headed for the nearest phone, in the kitchen. It was a real contribution to the hit-and-run case, she thought, and exactly why she had felt she needed to get out and do something instead of remaining cooped up in her office.
In the kitchen, she stacked Schultz’s mail on the counter. Then, just as she passed the sink, she stopped abruptly. She had picked up the faint smell of alcohol, and it disturbed her immensely. When she had brought Schultz sandwiches the night of the discovery of his son’s body—only two days ago, can that be?—there had been no alcohol smell, and she had rooted through his kitchen cabinets looking for clean glasses for the two-liter bottle of Coke she’d brought. She was sure there hadn’t been any liquor bottles in the cabinets then. Yet the smell, although old and fading, was undeniable. She forced herself to check the logical spot, the trash can under the sink.
She opened the cabinet door, and the odor got a little stronger. There were three bottles, each with a small amount of liquid residue in the bottom, stuffed hastily into the trash can. Her heart plummeted to her feet.
So he had stopped for booze after slipping away from her at the bar. The evidence couldn’t be ignored and she couldn’t think of any other explanation. Surely the officers who had been in the house had noticed the bottles also. There was only one conclusion: Schultz had gone on one of the drinking binges Wall had told her about.
Sloshed to the gills and angry at the world, he might very well have run down the little girl. Or just been blind drunk and not even aware of the collision with her small body until he’d seen the damage to. his car later. Then he’d run away, put distance between himself and the awful responsibility.
Everything he had told her could be a lie. Probably was a lie.
She sank down on one of the kitchen chairs and let the feeling of betrayal soak in. It was several minutes later that she remembered why she’d come into the kitchen in the first place. That had been way back when she was still looking for ways to prove Schultz innocent.
Should she tell anyone about the possible busybody across the street? If the person behind the telescope had seen anything, most likely it would be incriminating. That would just hasten the confirmation that Schultz had deprived a child of life and her family of seeing that child reach her potential. If PJ kept quiet about it, maybe no one would discover that source of information. If the person had already been interviewed, it was likely that he or she hadn’t revealed anything to the police. No one likes to be caught spying, especially if that spying is a pathologically important part of one’s life.
But keeping silent didn’t feel right for PJ either.
That man isn’t easy, she thought. I’d be better off doing shampoo market studies.
Finally she decided that she had, by not actively disagreeing to it on the phone, given Schultz a three-day grace period. That grace period wasn’t up yet. The moment it was, she would tell. Friday morning, she decided. She’d give him until Friday. Out of respect for the work they’d done together, and that’s all.
Not from love. No.
She stood up from the table, wondering if there were any more revelations to be found in the kitchen. Noticing a light on the answering machine blinking, she went over to check it. It wasn’t the message light. It was a warning to replace the missing tape or messages would be lost.
Her brow furrowed. She had left a message for him Monday night, after going home from the bar. It had been a thinly disguised attempt to check up on him, and at the time she thought he deliberately hadn’t picked up the phone or returned her call because her attempt was so t
ransparent. So the tape was in place Monday night—she had made use of it. What reason could he have to remove it? Or had the police taken it?
Doubt rose, like a balloon floating up through her emotions. The tape might be important. There could have been something on it, something more sinister or fascinating than her own lame message that had sent Schultz streaking away into the night.
PJ’s cell phone rang, and she pulled it out of her purse. It was Dave.
“Rick’s old girlfriend has been tracked down,” he said. “She’s moved twice in the last year, and doesn’t have a steady job, so it’s taken a little while. I’m on my way over to talk to her. Wanna tag along?”
“You bet. Drop by Schultz’s house and pick me up, would you?”
Dave cleared his throat. “So you know about the bottles.”
“Yeah. Nice of you guys to keep me informed.”
“You didn’t mess anything up, did you?” Dave said, ignoring her barb. “Wall didn’t want the house disturbed, in case Schultz comes back.”
“Why didn’t you seize the bottles?”
“There’s no arrest warrant issued. Officially we went into his house on the report of a neighbor that Schultz hasn’t been seen in some time and might be the victim of foul play inside. Once we verified that wasn’t true, we had to leave. Officially.”
“I see. And which of you planted the idea in the neighbor’s head?”
“Um, I did.”
“Well, come on by. I’ll be outside the front door.”
Fifteen minutes later, Dave picked her up. They drove in silence for a time, as Dave negotiated the streets, heading for the area north of downtown.
“We’re going across the river,” he said. “She lives in an apartment in Granite City.”
“Don’t we need to get the Granite City Police involved?”
“We’ve given them a heads up about it,” he said. “If we wanted her picked up and brought in for questioning, then the coordination would be more formal. But we’re just stopping by to ask her a few questions, which we hope she’ll answer without fuss, and we’ll be on our way.”
“How do we know she’s home? It’s a weekday afternoon. She could be at work.”
“Granite City PD cruised by and heard the TV on. There’s a good chance she’s there.”
“I thought you said she lived in an apartment. How exactly did they cruise by and hear the TV?”
Dave shrugged. “I guess they cruised on foot.”
The haze hanging over the city was worse at the riverfront. The Mississippi River flowing under the McKinley Bridge was a flat shade of gray that blended into the haze, so that in the distance it was hard to see where the river ended and the sky began.
Granite City was a maze of unfamiliar streets to PJ, but Dave drove confidently. She questioned him about it, and found that his parents had lived there for a few years before moving to the West Coast.
They pulled up in front of an apartment complex where the buildings were in a U-shape around common ground. Dave parked the car and they walked into the U. All of the upper apartments had identical balconies, and all the lower ones had small patios. A tiny swimming pool took up one end of the green space. A group of women, seated in folding chairs under umbrellas around a separate kiddie pool, looked up and stopped their chatter. The toddlers in the wading pool continued their antics. PJ thought it strange that there was no one at the main pool. It was summer vacation. It seemed as if every school kid in the complex should be in the pool. As they got closer, she noticed a lot of water splashed out on the pool surround. It looked as though a large boisterous group had just left. It restored her confidence that pools were still attractive enough to lure kids out of their air-conditioned rooms.
“First building on the right,” Dave said.
“And straight on ’til morning.”
When they got to the door, they could hear the TV playing loudly. Either the soundproofing was a farce or Kathee Kollins had poor hearing. PJ knocked politely, then pounded on the door when she got no response.
The door opened slightly, held in place by a security chain.
“Go away,” a voice said from the height of PJ’s waist. The words were a little slurred. The door slammed.
PJ and Dave looked at each other. “Is Kathee in a wheelchair, or very short?” PJ asked.
“Unknown.”
PJ stepped up to the door again and knocked loudly. After several minutes, the noise level of the TV went down, and the door opened again. PJ slid her foot into the narrow opening, wincing in advance. She thought it would be squashed.
“Go away.”
“Wait! We’re from the police department, here on official business. Is this the home of Kathee Kollins?”
“Who?”
PJ slipped her arm into the slot, dangling her civilian departmental ID from her hand. She squatted down and spoke loudly at doorknob level.
“I said, we’re police—” Her ID was snatched from her hand. Startled, she drew back her arm, and the door closed.
Dave laughed at the frown on her face. “It’s not funny,” she said. “And it’s your turn to knock.”
Before he could take his place at the door, it opened. A woman stood there, and hiding behind her was a young girl about seven years old.
“Come in, Dr. Gray. I’m Kathee Kollins. I wondered when someone would come to talk to me.”
PJ stepped into the apartment. Dave lingered, keeping the door open in case a quick exit was needed.
“Sorry about the confusion,” Kathee said. “That was my daughter Kyla. She doesn’t hear well, although she’s usually a lot better off than she is today. Her hearing aid happens to be in for repair. It’s kind of specialized, and she doesn’t have a spare.”
Kyla’s face appeared around her mother’s right hip. PJ signed “hello” to her. The girl’s eyes opened wider, and she stepped out from behind her mother. PJ saw that both sides of the girl’s face were scarred, the skin stretched tautly over her cheekbones. There wasn’t much of an external ear on either side. Kyla rapidly signed an apology for her cautious behavior to PJ, explaining that her mother had been asleep, and she was not allowed to let anyone in. PJ conveyed her acceptance, and told Kyla that she did the right thing.
As PJ and Dave followed the woman into the apartment, Dave tapped PJ on the shoulder.
“That was neat. When’d you learn to sign?”
“In the early part of my clinical practice, I had a couple of patients who taught me.”
“Well, you made a hit here,” Dave said. Kyla was shadowing PJ, her eyes attentive.
“Mrs. Kollins,” PJ said, “as you guessed, we’d like to ask you a few questions about Rick Schultz. Is there someplace we can talk alone?”
Kathee signed rapidly to her daughter, who went back and turned the sound on the TV up again. The three grown-ups went into the kitchen.
“Please have a seat,” Kathee said. “She can’t hear us in here, as long as we don’t shout.”
They sat around a small table. Dave took out a notebook and pen.
“It’s Ms. Kathee Kollins,” she said. “I’m not married. Haven’t ever been. So you can get it right. Two e’s, two k’s.”
Dave smiled as he wrote the name.
PJ, who was sitting opposite Kathee, searched the woman’s face. She was about twenty-five, with hair the color of candy apples and a smile that lifted her out of the average category in looks.
“Kyla mentioned that you were asleep,” PJ said. “Do you work nights?”
“Yes. I’m an admissions clerk at a hospital. I just landed the job a week ago, and I’m having trouble getting adjusted to the night shift. I’m a morning person. Can I get you something to drink, coffee maybe?”
“No, thanks. Ms. Kollins, when’s the last time you saw Rick?”
“About a month ago.”
PJ blinked and Dave sat up straighter. Neither of them had been expecting her answer to indicate such recent contact.
“I visited
him in prison. I wanted to make sure everything was really over for us. You see, I met somebody.”
PJ nodded. “And was it? Over for you?”
“Oh, yes,” Kathee said. “I thought I’d be sad about it, but I guess it was for the best.”
“I hate to bring this up,” Dave said, “but we checked the prison visitation log. You weren’t on it.”
“I used a fake name,” Kathee said, lowering her eyes. “I thought Rick would refuse to see me if I was announced as the real me.”
“So he was angry with you,” PJ said.
“He was, but he didn’t have any right to be. He was the one who broke it off.”
PJ thought she didn’t exactly sound full of grief about her ex-boyfriend’s death. It flashed into her mind that Kathee might have learned about Ginger during her prison visit, and become jealous. Maybe Rick had flaunted his sexy correspondent.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” PJ said cautiously. Dave had picked up the same train of thought, and was watching Kathee intently. “When and how did you meet Rick?”
Kathee folded her hands on the table. “I guess it was about three years ago. Yes, that’s about right. Kyla was only four then. I was taking classes at a community college. Rick was in one my classes.” She laughed. “Neither of us was very enthusiastic. I dropped out because my child care arrangements fell through, and Rick—well, he just fooled around too much to be a serious student.”
Dave asked the name of the college and the dates attended. He jotted them down.
“What attracted you to Rick?” PJ asked.
“He was handsome, well, nice-looking at least. I like big guys. He looked a lot like Kyla’s father. He was fun to be with, and helped me take my mind off my problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Kyla’s medical bills, mostly. She’s already had a couple of surgeries, and there are several more on the horizon. We’re both very hopeful.”
The hope and concern sounded genuine.
“Do you mind if I ask what happened to her?”
“Not at all. People ask all the time anyway, and most of them are a lot ruder than you. We were in a car accident. Kyla had a head injury and some bad burns. She’s lucky to be alive. My own injuries were minor.” Kathee pulled up her right pants leg to expose a terrible scar that started about mid-calf and climbed up beyond her knee. “It keeps on going up. All I have is the scar and a slight limp. And the memories, of course. Kyla lost her hearing and most of the skin on her face and neck.”
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