Woman With a Gun_A Novel

by Phillip Margolin

  A young man in a short-sleeve shirt and chinos greeted Melendez when he walked in.

  “Hey, Chief.”

  “Hi, Ronnie.”

  “You here about Mr. Kilbride again?”

  “I am.”

  Melendez turned to Jack. “Ronnie is working the desk until school starts at Oregon State. He was our star tailback at Palisades Heights High.”

  Ronnie handed the chief of police the key to Kilbride’s room.

  “Thanks. And a heads-up. Mr. Kilbride is dead.”

  “No shit!”

  “So you can rent the room after my guys are through with it.”

  “How did . . . ?”

  “Sorry, but I can’t talk about the details. You understand.”

  “Yeah.” Ronnie paused. “I don’t know if this is important but he got a call from someone around midnight.”

  “Oh? Do you know who it was?”

  “No. The voice was muffled. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. They just asked to be connected to his room.”

  “Thanks. If you remember anything else about the call, let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Melendez told Jack as they walked to Kilbride’s room. “He’s walking on at OSU. I think he’s got a chance to make the team.”

  “He seems like a good kid. About the phone call. I’ll have my people check the phone records to find out who made it.”

  “I was going to suggest that. We found Kilbride’s cell phone and the tech guys are going to go through it. Maybe they’ll come up with something.”

  Kilbride’s room was neat and clean. His clothing was in the room’s chest of drawers or hung in the only closet. Kilbride had placed his toiletries next to the sink in the bathroom in orderly rows.

  A paperback novel sat on the night table next to a queen-size bed. The blankets had been thrown back, suggesting that Kilbride had been in the bed since the maids had cleaned his room. A large duffel bag sat on a luggage stand in a corner of the room. Melendez had a lab tech photograph it before he opened it. Then he pulled out two more paperbacks and a crumpled newspaper. He paid no attention to the novels but he showed great interest in the newspaper. He thumbed through it, then stopped to read something.

  “Well, well,” Melendez said. “This answers a question that’s been nagging at me since you told me that Kilbride was in town.”

  “What question is that?” Jack asked.

  “Haven’t you wondered how Kilbride knew Kathy was living in Palisades Heights?”

  “Huh, I never thought about that.”

  “Well, I have, and here’s the answer,” the police chief said as he held up the newspaper. It was an old issue of the Palisades Heights Gazette, the weekly newspaper.

  “Peter Fleischer is a reporter for the Gazette and he wrote an article about Raymond Cahill because Cahill was getting married at the country club.”

  “Kathy took the pictures for the article!” Jack said. “She told me about it.”

  “And the Gazette gave her a credit for them.”

  “Kilbride must have read the article and discovered that Kathy was living here.”

  Melendez frowned. “This article has a section about Cahill’s collection.”

  “Do you think . . . ?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Was Kilbride in town when Cahill was killed?” Jack asked.

  Melendez nodded. “He checked in the day before the wedding.”

  “Could he have been involved in the robbery and murder?”

  “I have no idea,” the police chief said. “But I’m definitely going to look into that possibility.”

  “Can I get a copy of the article?” Jack asked.

  “They have a copying machine in the motel office. I’ll have Ron run one off for you before we leave.”

  Jack frowned. “That newspaper tells us how Kilbride found out Kathy was living in Palisades Heights but it raises another question.”

  “Oh?”

  “How did Kilbride get the paper? The Palisades Heights Gazette doesn’t exactly have national distribution.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Melendez said.

  “Do you think someone sent Kilbride the paper?”

  “That’s an interesting possibility.”

  Jack stayed at the Sea View a little while longer before driving back to his motel. During the drive a thought nagged at him. Gary Kilbride was very smart. He had to know that everyone would focus on him if a burglar broke into Kathy’s house and killed her. Kathy had told him that her greatest fear was that Kilbride would wait for months or years to take his revenge. Jack had talked to people about Kilbride when he was prosecuting him. Kilbride knew how to be patient. So why would he try to kill Kathy now? The answer to that question was that he wouldn’t—he was too clever. And that thought caused Jack to pose several very unsettling questions. What if Kathy was the person who called Kilbride around midnight? What if she didn’t want to live in fear and decided to take matters into her own hands? What if Kathy lured Kilbride to her house, killed him, then faked the break-in?

  Jack decided that he didn’t want to know the answers to these questions. Kilbride was an animal and the world was better off without him. If someone else wanted to investigate Kathy he couldn’t stop him. But he’d be damned if he would help him. Kathy had gone through hell five years ago and she’d straightened out her life. Jack had been asked to help Teddy Winston with Raymond Cahill’s murder. The Kilbride shooting was none of his business.

  Jack was exhausted when he got back to his motel room but he was too wound up to sleep. He switched on the lamp next to an armchair and started reading the article in the Gazette. The headline was RAYMOND CAHILL’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH PALISADES HEIGHTS. Above the headline was a photograph of Cahill’s house and another of the man himself standing on the beach with his arm draped over Megan Cahill’s shoulder. The couple were smiling. Raymond’s black hair was windblown. His jaw was square, his nose was straight, and his eyes were sky blue. Cahill looked trim and fit and easily ten years younger than fifty-two, a sharp contrast to the way he appeared on a slab in the autopsy photo Jack had looked at earlier.

  Raymond Cahill is in love with his bride-to-be, Megan Crouse. The couple will tie the knot at the Palisades Heights Country Club on June 12. But Ray has also had a love affair with Palisades Heights since his first visit to his grandparents’ rustic, seaside cabin, which Jordan and Evelyn Cahill built on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Ray’s parents moved to California when Ray was a toddler, but summer vacation at the cabin was always a special time for the family and especially little Ray.

  “I have wonderful memories of playing on the beach, Grandma’s pies, fishing with my granddad, or just sitting with him while he told me stories. Naturally, when I made enough money to build my own second home, Palisades Heights was the first place I thought of.”

  Ray dropped out of college in his sophomore year and started investing in real estate with money he’d made in the stock market. Both ventures were so successful that he was a millionaire by the time most of his classmates were job hunting. He has lived his adult life on an estate in Arlington, an upscale, seaside community in California, but he still tried to spend at least a week a year at his grandparents’ cabin. When they passed away, Ray inherited their land and bought the lots on either side of the property. He had some regrets when he tore down the cabin, but the house that world-renowned architect Russell Salas designed blends seamlessly into the dunes and sky and is a showpiece in our community. Ray graciously gave us a tour, and the highlight was a peek at his collections, which he moves to Palisades Heights in the summer.

  “I’ve always been a serious collector,” Ray said as he showed us through his private museum. “I started with baseball cards, stamps, and coins when I was in elementary school and I was a fanatic about completing any collection I started. When I was old enough to buy guns I added historic firearms to my collection.
”

  The highlight of Ray’s stamp collection is an Inverted Jenny, a twenty-four-cent stamp that was issued in 1918 as the first stamp for air delivery. One sheet was printed with the Jenny plane upside down. There are only 100 of these stamps known to still exist.

  Ray’s rarest coin is a 1913 Liberty Head nickel. The mint stopped making the coin in 1912 but five of the nickels with the Liberty Head design were issued in 1913 and are considered to be among the world’s rarest coins.

  Ray positively beamed when he showed us the pride and joy of his historic firearm collection, a Schofield .44 Smith & Wesson six-shooter that Ray believes was wielded by Wyatt Earp in the Gunfight at the OK Corral. But I’ll bet his smile will be even broader when he kisses his lovely bride this summer.

  Photographs of the stamp, the coin, and the revolver illustrated the story. Jack noticed the photo credits for Kathy Moran.

  The next section of the article described a guided tour of the house. Jack’s eyes started to close and it took a real effort to finish. When the article ended, Jack shed his clothes and crawled into bed. There were only a couple of hours before sunrise and Jack hoped he could still the thoughts that were swirling around in his head and get some sleep before the new day dawned.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When Jack woke up a few hours later he felt like he had not slept at all. He took a cold shower, packed for the trip back to Salem, and drove to Ellen Devereaux’s house to say good-bye to Kathy Moran.

  The art gallery owner lived in a bungalow on a narrow lane a block from the beach. A low picket fence surrounded a sandy yard. Jack knocked and Devereaux opened the door. The gallery owner was in her early forties. She had curly brown hair and skin with the hard, tanned look of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors in the sun and wind, and she appraised Jack with sharp blue eyes.

  “I’m Jack Booth, an assistant attorney general working on the Cahill murder,” he told her. “I wanted to see how Kathy is doing.”

  “She just got up. I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  Devereaux ushered Jack into a living room cluttered with art. Every inch of wall space was covered by photographs and paintings. Sculptures in an array of mediums and handblown glass bowls and vases stood on bookshelves and end tables.

  Devereaux walked into the kitchen, which was close enough to the living room so Jack could hear her announce his presence. A minute later, Kathy appeared. Jack was holding several copies of the Oregonian featuring Kathy’s photograph of Megan Cahill on the front page. He held them out to her.

  “With all the excitement, I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten any of these.”

  Kathy smiled. “Thanks, Jack. This is really nice of you.”

  “I’m on my way back to Salem but I wanted to see how you’re doing before I left.”

  “Do you have time for a walk on the beach? I was just going to go outside and try to clear my head.”

  Kathy was wearing jeans and a sweater and she grabbed a windbreaker that was hanging on a hook next to the door. A cold wind was whipping inland from the Pacific, and Jack turned up the collar of his coat, hunched his shoulders, and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “Did you get any sleep?” Jack asked.

  “Not really.”

  “How are you feeling?” Jack asked.

  “Besides exhausted?”

  Jack nodded.

  Kathy stopped and looked directly at Jack. “I’ve read articles about policemen who suffer psychologically even when a shooting is justified, but I don’t feel the least bit guilty.” She paused. “I know this is going to sound cold but I feel great. Gary was a horrible person, and the world is better off with him out of it.”

  “Amen,” Jack said.

  Kathy expelled a deep breath. “Thank you for that, Jack. I was afraid you’d think less of me.”

  Jack put a hand on her shoulder. “When I heard that Kilbride was dead I felt euphoric.”

  “I’m so glad you understand,” Kathy said.

  Jack studied her for some sign that would tell him whether Kathy had lured Gary Kilbride to her house and executed him, but he didn’t see any evidence of guilt or dissembling.

  Kathy reached up and squeezed Jack’s hand. Then she started walking toward the water’s edge. Storm clouds were hanging off the coast but they were drifting south and the sun was starting to burn through.

  “Can I ask you something?” Jack said.

  Kathy nodded.

  “Now that you’ve had a few days to think about it, what’s your impression of Megan Cahill?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think she was faking when you found her?”

  “You think she killed her husband?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. She was holding the murder weapon and she’ll be a rich widow if we can’t prove she was involved in her husband’s death. The doctors say she was suffering from a concussion, but Parnell Crouse suffered from concussions so she’d know how to fake them. And now she’s claiming that her ex-husband robbed and murdered Mr. Cahill.”

  “She remembered what happened?”

  “Some of it. She claims that Parnell Crouse was waiting for them when they got back from the wedding reception and forced her and Mr. Cahill to go into the den. The next thing she remembers is seeing you on the beach.”

  “Have the police talked to Crouse?”

  “They’re looking for him.”

  “And you think Megan may be lying?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just trying to sort things out.”

  Kathy walked along the beach, head down, lost in thought. Jack walked alongside her.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Kathy answered after a while. “I didn’t think she was faking when I found her, but I’m not a doctor. She seemed dazed and very confused. Does that help?”

  “Yeah, thanks. One other thing. When we searched Kilbride’s motel room we found a copy of the Palisades Heights Gazette with the story about Raymond Cahill and your photos. We think that’s how Gary knew you were living here, but it raised another interesting question: How did Kilbride get the paper? That’s been bothering me and I can see two possible answers: someone who knew Kilbride and was traveling through Palisades Heights saw the story and sent it to him or someone who lives in Palisades Heights sent it to him.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Do you have any enemies in town who know about your past and your relationship with Kilbride?”

  Kathy looked worried. “Only a few people know about my problems in Portland. Grady and Ellen know, but I can’t think of any reason they’d sic Gary on me. It’s got to be a coincidence. Maybe one of Gary’s crime partners or someone he met in prison saw the article while they were vacationing here and told Gary where I was living.”

  “That’s probably it.”

  They walked side by side for a while without speaking. Then Kathy laughed.

  “What?” Jack asked.

  “You may be overthinking this newspaper thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “I sell my photographs in galleries on the Oregon coast, in Washington, and there’s a gallery in California. What if Gary did a Web search for my name when he got out? There could be a search result for my photography credit. He could have gotten in touch with the Gazette and asked for a back issue.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  “That’s why we photographers make the big bucks.”

  Jack laughed. “I’ll go online and check out your theory when I get back to Salem.” He glanced at his watch. “Which I really should be doing now.”

  They turned around and walked without speaking until they arrived at the beach access.

  “Thanks again for checking on me,” Kathy said.

  Jack stopped and looked down at the sand. Then he took a deep breath.

  “Actually, I just wanted to see you again before I left.” Jack hesitated. “Look, I probably shouldn’t be saying this, since yo
u’re a witness, but we got off on the wrong foot five years ago . . .”

  “Completely my fault.”

  “When the case is over, would you mind if I visited you?”

  “No, Jack. I think that would be nice.”

  “Okay, then. And I’ll probably see you anyway if Teddy decides he has the evidence to indict someone.”

  They walked side by side until they got to Jack’s car. He opened the door and looked at Kathy again.

  “I’m glad you’ve got your life back,” he said.

  Kathy smiled. “Me, too.”

  “So I’ll see you,” Jack said with a smile.

  “Definitely,” Kathy answered.

  Jack drove off but he checked his rearview mirror before he made the turn off Devereaux’s street. As he hoped, Kathy was standing in the road, watching him drive away.

  Jack was back in his office just after noon. The first thing he did was run a Web search for “Kathy Moran.” There were several hits. Most of the results were connected to galleries that sold her photographs. A few were old references to her cases. But there was a mention of her photo credit in the Palisades Heights Gazette story about Raymond Cahill.

  Jack organized his file for the Cahill case. Then he went through his mail and caught up on developments in some of his other cases. He quit at five and ate dinner at a restaurant near his apartment. While he ate, he thought about Megan Cahill, Gary Kilbride, Parnell Crouse, and, most of all, Kathy Moran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The beginning of the end of Jack’s involvement in the Cahill case started with a call from Teddy Winston four days after Jack left Palisades Heights.

  “They found Parnell Crouse,” the Siletz County DA said.

  “Where?” Jack asked.

  “In his car on a logging road twenty miles east of Palisades Heights. He’s dead. He’d been shot in the temple.”

  Jack remembered that Bernie Chartres had been found on a logging road.

  “And that’s not all. When the state police searched the trunk they found a gold coin from Cahill’s collection. When can you come down? We need to talk about the case.”