What Laurel Sees: a love story (A Redeeming Romance Mystery)

by Susan Rohrer

  “Personal,” Joe whispered.

  Belle drew her head back. Joe didn’t like being scrutinized, but that’s exactly what Belle was doing. Finally, her face softened. “All right, then. I’ll tell you this much. She should be here, but she’s not. Laurel is good people. Never been late to work a single day. Not without calling.”

  It turned out to be no secret where Detective McTier had been headed. Three squad cars passed Joe, sirens blaring. They were all speeding in the very same direction Joe was headed on foot—straight toward Laurel’s apartment.

  Something seized in Joe’s chest. What was going on? Whatever this was, it couldn’t possibly be good.

  Joe bolted past the squad car barricading Laurel’s block. Yellow tape was being stretched around Laurel’s building. Had something happened to her? There was no ambulance, at least not yet, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Joe blasted by Adele and Lou where they stood, talking with an officer. He was winded by the time he reached Laurel’s front walk.

  Debra was there, having a very animated discussion with McTier. “You are not bouncing us, Detective.”

  McTier threw a hand up toward Lou and Adele. “They’ve already contaminated the scene enough.”

  Debra paced, about to pop a cork. “They found your murder weapon!”

  Joe stopped in his tracks.

  “Yes, apparently they did.” McTier maintained a maddening calm. “Which is why I’m looking the other way on them being there illegally in the first place.”

  Incredulously, Debra extended her hands. “They were checking on her! Do you know how many people are discovered dead for days because nobody bothers to check?”

  “And do you know how much evidence gets kicked because reporters are deemed to have been operating as police?”

  Joe strode between them. “What evidence?”

  Debra snapped around. “Stay out of this, Joe.”

  He didn’t answer to her anymore. He turned to McTier. “Is she okay?”

  McTier picked at his teeth. “Wouldn’t exactly know. She skipped.”

  Joe looked toward Laurel’s windows, reeling. He felt Debra’s hand on his arm.

  “Joe, listen to me. Leave. Now.”

  McTier clamped a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Actually, Mr. Hardisty, I was thinking you should come with me.”

  Joe’s head pounded. How many different ways could he say it? It didn’t matter, he guessed, because McTier wasn’t listening. He was too busy at his office desk, two-finger typing a report into his computer. “Detective, you’re wasting your time.”

  McTier grunted. “Yeah. Same thing she said.”

  “I’m telling you, this is a mistake.” Joe rubbed his temples.

  McTier kept right on hunting and pecking. “Looks like you’re the one who made a mistake. She took off.”

  Joe paced. “That makes no sense. She wouldn’t just up and leave everything.”

  “Her purse was gone, her insulin kit. Seems that covers the essentials.”

  “None of this adds up, Detective. Not with the person I saw.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” McTier scratched behind his ear. “The murder weapon stowed in her kitchen drawer, a goodbye letter to her daughter that amounts to a confession...”

  Joe felt his jaw go slack. “What are you talking about?”

  “We pulled a copy off her computer.” McTier gave Joe a patronizing nod. “I’m sure your old cronies at Kickerton, they’ll tell you all about it. That, or you can read it in tomorrow’s edition.”

  Nothing about this made sense to Joe. Not unless every instinct he’d had about Laurel had been completely wrong. “I don’t believe this.”

  McTier continued to type. “She had you, didn’t she?”

  Everything in Joe froze. Was it possible? Could he have been so completely wrong about Laurel? He’d sworn he’d never be taken in by a subject. Not again. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Completely drained, he looked up at McTier. “I don’t know, Detective. Maybe she did.”

  McTier just shrugged. “Happens a lot. These people can be very convincing. She say anything to you about taking off, where she might be headed?”

  Joe searched his mind. A flash of conversation returned, that last remark Laurel had made to him. Maybe it was an innocent coincidence. Maybe it was a disturbing truth. What exactly had she said? Something about how taking to the open road was looking better and better to her. She hadn’t seemed serious about it at the time, but in light of her disappearance, it was hard to know. Maybe she’d headed back to her parents on the Oregon coast.

  Joe studied McTier. The man just kept tapping at his computer keyboard.

  McTier looked up. “So, anything?”

  Joe swallowed the memory whole. It stuck in his throat, refusing to go down. “No. Nothing.”

  The hardest part of emptying his desk at Kickerton Press was the prospect of facing up to Debra. They’d have to trade barbs. When she was wrong, Joe could let her smug taunts roll off. The problem was, this time, it looked like Debra might actually be right. Whatever. He didn’t have to let on that he knew that.

  It wasn’t long before she coasted through his door. There was what looked like a smile on her face. “Want your job back?”

  Darkly, he tossed what little was his into a box. “I heard it said I’m fresh out of objectivity.”

  Debra waltzed toward his desk. “I don’t know. I’m thinking maybe you were right.”

  He looked up at her, barely. “Why do you think you can come in here, cozy up to me and make everything that’s gone down evaporate?”

  She perched on the arm of his chair. “You’re doing it again.”

  “Excuse me?”

  That glib look she’d mastered was painted all over her face. “With me, with Laurel...it’s all the same,” Debra said. “First bit of struggle with a woman and you bolt. Know what my shrink calls it? Preemptive abandonment.”

  “She’s a fugitive on murder one.”

  Debra nonchalantly toyed with his pen set. “A reasonable excuse to walk.”

  Joe grabbed an award from his shelf, the one remaining vestige of his legit exploits at the Times. What was she talking about, anyway? She always did this to him. If he let her, she’d talk him right into another one of her traps. The only thing was, this time, she had something in her eyes he hadn’t seen in a while. Sincerity. “You saying I shouldn’t drop out of this story?”

  An uncharacteristic calm came over her. “What we had of a relationship aside, Joe—I think there’s more to it. More than Adele is getting at.”

  “I thought Adele was your go-to gal, now.”

  “She has promise. But she’s young. Tends to jump to conclusions. And the reason you have that award there...it’s because you usually don’t.

  Joe set his award down on his desk. It could be hard to tell what Debra was really after, especially given that thinly veiled appeal to his ego. “You just know that Laurel will only talk to me whenever she turns up.”

  “Believe what you want, Joe. But I was there on the scene before McTier. And, I mean, you don’t suffer fools well, so I’m guessing this woman is no fool. She was in the clear.”

  “Yeah...”

  Debra leaned on his desk. “What’s she doing, writing a letter that incriminates her? Why is she hiding a murder weapon they couldn’t have begun to connect to her, bagged in a kitchen drawer of all places? Why is she deserting the very daughter she supposedly killed her ex-husband to reclaim?”

  Joe took a hard look at Debra. She still had it in her to surprise him. “You don’t think she did this.”

  Debra looked at him, just as cool as an evening breeze. “No. I don’t.”

  “Stella! Dinner.”

  Joe slouched on a bar stool at his kitchen counter. There was so much to sort out in his mind. Over and over, conversations with Laurel tumbled through his memory. Where was she? He’d asked himself that question all afternoon. One thing was for sure. He wouldn’t get any farther on an empty stomac
h.

  Joe gazed across the kitchen island. Remnants of Clay’s makeup were still smeared here and there. He’d have to clean it up later. Scour it, actually. After he polished off the rest of his takeout Lo Mein. Joe sunk his chopsticks into the carton and fished out a shrimp. Still, no sign of the cat.

  “Stella. Baby, come.” He swallowed his food, then clicked his tongue against his cheek. What was it with the females in his life?

  Joe leaned over and peered down his hallway. He groaned at the sight. Shredded newspaper clippings were strewn through the hall. Stella’s doing, no doubt. No wonder she hadn’t come when he called. She had a tendency to avoid him whenever she did such things.

  Joe’s eyes fell on his answering machine across the room. The little red light blinked insistently. He had a message. Perhaps it was too much to hope that Clay had called to punch in with him.

  Joe dragged himself over toward the machine. In all likelihood, it was a telemarketer hawking carpet cleaning or some phishing expedition for his credit card number. Or Debra. Maybe she’d broken her moratorium on calling him all of a sudden. As if they were friendly again.

  He pressed the message button. A chill ran through him as a familiar voice reverberated through the speaker.

  Laurel.

  “Joe, hi,” she’d said. “It’s me. Off the record, I wanted to say I’m sorry and... I’m just hoping you can let this go. Maybe it’s classless for me to do this over the phone...I probably should have at least had you over, given you a beer from the fridge, but... What’s done is done, okay?”

  Joe’s brow knitted.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to say goodbye, Joe. And please...don’t look for me.”

  The message ended with an abrupt click. Absently, Joe shook his head. He turned the volume up and hit the play button once more. Again, he leaned into Laurel’s words. He wrapped his mind around everything she had said, all in the flow of what she hadn’t. Why had she bothered to say that thing about having him over? Everything else tracked with a standard kiss-off message.

  A chill ran through him as it hit him.

  There was a massive iceberg beneath the surface of those waters.

  fifteen

  As testy as McTier could be with Joe, the detective was all too eager to give Laurel’s message a listen. It wasn’t so often that Joe was allowed into the police precinct’s tech room. He reminded himself not to push it. Not if he wanted to hear Laurel’s message run through their high tech equipment.

  Joe held his breath as a tech played Laurel’s recording. With their sophisticated system, maybe there would be even more to glean than he could from his scratchy old answering machine speaker.

  McTier leaned over the tech’s shoulder, watching the blips and lines of the monitors.

  Laurel’s words were clear enough, but there was an uncharacteristic weakness to her voice. “I’m just hoping you can let this go...”

  McTier pointed to a monitor read-out. “You got anything you can isolate from that background?”

  “I probably should have at least had you over, given you a beer from the fridge, but... What’s done is done, okay?”

  “Traffic bleed,” the tech said. “A bus. Two buses, actually.”

  Joe stepped up. “Okay, what she just said about giving me a beer, that’s what I’m talking about.”

  McTier waved him off. “It’s as generic as saying you’ll meet somebody for coffee. You’re reaching to call that a signal.”

  Joe tamped down his temperature. “She doesn’t drink beer. There isn’t any in her fridge, and she knows I know that. She was trying to tell me something, without coming out and saying the actual words. Somebody’s got her.”

  The detective folded his arms over his chest. “Okay, if she’s so smart, how do you know she didn’t plant the signal, make it sound hinky, just to con you into thinking that she’s still the sweet little victim you bought?”

  “Did you even really look at anyone else for this? What about the administrative assistant? She had access to the office after hours.”

  McTier scowled. “Rene Cox? Soaking wet and pregnant, she’s barely a hundred pounds.”

  Joe flung out his hands. “Hey, this was a crime of passion. You never know. Maybe things weren’t going so well at the office. Maybe they were going too well. What if that baby she’s carrying is the councilman’s? What if her husband found out?”

  “Kevin Cox is a hothead, but he’s no killer.”

  “Maybe. All I’m saying is there were other people with means and opportunity. They could’ve grabbed Laurel and planted everything you found.”

  “Could have. Didn’t.” McTier pointed at Joe. “Face it. Laurel Fischer did this. She conned you.”

  “She’s not a con. And she didn’t kill her ex.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Hardisty. She took off when I specifically told her not to.”

  Joe bit his tongue. Losing his temper was no way to get through to this guy. “Detective, I’m telling you. She didn’t take off. Somebody’s got her.”

  McTier cut his eyes condescendingly. “I’ll tell you who’s got who. She’s got you, Pal. She’s got you.”

  Joe trudged down the stairs to his apartment. Why McTier and his partner had felt the need to tail him home, Joe couldn’t figure. They should have better things to do, like looking for Laurel for starters.

  Instead, they were wasting what could be precious time, camping out at his curb. Like he had anything to hide. Let them park it out there all night. Nothing to see at his place. Not unless they wanted to watch a washed up reporter pick up after his cat.

  Joe opened his door. Ah, no. There was Stella, all fours on the kitchen island, lapping at his toppled carton of leftover Shrimp Lo Mein. Why hadn’t he stuck it in the fridge? Sauce ran in rivulets across the counter. A dribble traced down the side of the cabinet below.

  Joe sighed. He’d already known a mess awaited him from the newspapers Stella had shredded in the hall. That would have been enough to top off a day like this. Now, she’d also pawed through what remained of his dinner. His appetite left. As long as that food had been out, it probably wasn’t safe anyway. Even if he did feel like eating after a cat.

  It didn’t seem right to be all that hard on Stella, at least when it came to her impromptu shrimp-fest. That had been his fault. What had he been thinking, leaving seafood out on the counter?

  He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. Laurel’s disappearance loomed so large. How could he think of anything else, yet what could he even begin to do? McTier was sure no help.

  He hardly scolded Stella as he cleaned up the kitchen. It didn’t matter, though. She had a way of reading his moods. As he stooped to pick up all the shredded paper outside the hall closet, she kept her distance. She eyed him warily from her perch on the arm of his chair as, bit by bit, he bagged it to toss.

  Joe looked up at the cat. “Sure know how to make a mess. You could help, you know.” It was Clay’s mess, really. Stella had a right, he supposed. She’d claimed that side of the closet as her territory, long before Clay’s stuff had been left to invade it.

  Joe glanced at article after yellowed article. Apparently, Clay had kept everything ever written about his exploits in the case against Tom Zoring. Being a key witness seemed a dubious claim to fame. But then again, Clay did crave the spotlight, in whatever manner it presented itself.

  Joe’s eyes fell on Clay’s boxes, the ones Stella had torn into to get to all that paper. “Great. That’s great, Stella. You realize Clay will blame me for this.”

  Stella leapt off the chair and skittered away.

  “Oh, don’t be so touchy.” He craned around after her. She never did take well to his grousing. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better I told him not to leave his junk here. I told him it was your bed.”

  Joe gathered a splayed bunch of articles. One by one, he set them back into their folder. The dates on this batch were much more recent. It chronicled the approaching parole of newly
released Tom Zoring. Maybe Clay had taken an interest in that miscarriage of justice after all.

  His eyes fell on another article. What was this? Something about Frank Fischer serving at a local soup kitchen, alongside the Cardinal from the archdiocese. Joe blanched.

  There was a photo of the smiling Cardinal, ladling stew with Frank Fischer.

  It wasn’t often that Joe trembled. But as quickly as he tried to rifle through the remaining articles, his fingers refused to cooperate.

  What exactly had he stumbled upon?

  There, underneath all those articles, was a business envelope. It was addressed to Clay. From Frank Fischer. Joe flipped the envelope over. The flap had been unsealed. Whatever the envelope had once contained had been removed.

  Just the sight of that empty envelope knocked the wind right out of him. He buckled, just as surely as he’d been socked in the stomach. “Oh, God... What now?”

  All over again, Joe rifled through the shredded newsprint. The old mingled in with the new. His hands shaking, he dumped every shred of what he’d already bagged back out on the floor. He pushed his tired eyes—scanning, racing across the text, column after column. Something was there. It had to be. He just couldn’t see it.

  Set everything aside for a moment.

  Joe straightened. Where that thought had come from, he didn’t know. It seemed so counterintuitive. But okay. Give it a try.

  He rested the papers down on the oak floor. Deliberately, he shut his eyes. Just breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Slowly. Again. And again.

  Finally, there.

  His throbbing pulse settled back to a normal rhythm. Once again, he opened his eyes.

  Piece by piece, Joe laid out what he had of the puzzle. Hours passed. Still, there seemed so many disconnects, so much left to find. And how could he even begin to put it all together, especially at this late hour, with McTier outside, nipping at his heels?

  Joe pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Debra wouldn’t like him calling at this hour, but this was an emergency. “Come on, Debra. Pick up.” Her line rang through to a full voicemail box. The only time Debra turned her phone off was when she went to sleep. She’d be conked out for hours.