Kate hugged her parents and Travis goodbye, promising to go home for a weekend soon. After they had driven away, the house seemed very quiet.
“Want me to strip the beds for you?” Kate asked.
Adrienne shook her head. “Let’s leave it until tomorrow. But I’d love it if you could start the dishwasher for me.”
“I’ll help,” Neil offered. He started gathering dirty dishes and carrying them toward the counter. This simple act brought Kate’s memories crashing down on her, reminding her of how sweet and irresistible he’d seemed last summer and how hard she’d fallen for him.
Okay, he’s polite and not above helping with housework. That’s not enough to base a relationship on. Not even with a way-too-handsome man.
“I think I’ll call William Riley in Dover and make sure they got home all right,” Connor said. A few minutes later, he came into the kitchen. Kate was watching Neil awkwardly load the silverware into the dishwasher. She forced herself not to show him how to do it right.
“The Rileys are doing okay,” Connor said to Neil. “They plan to bring Gerald back up here in a couple of days. The funeral will be on Wednesday.”
“Did you ask about the keys?” Neil fitted a handful of forks into the rack.
“Put those in with the tines down,” Connor said. “Otherwise, whoever unloads them will get stabbed. Yes, William has one key, and Gerald said he has one on his key ring, and there should be another one on his wife’s. Yesterday, he gave me the spare that hung on a rack in the kitchen. Also, a neighbor has one. She came in to water plants if they went away. That’s all he could think of.”
“Five keys,” Neil said, reaching to flip the forks en masse. “Ouch.”
“Told ya. We’d better round those keys up tomorrow. William and Gerald have theirs with them in Dover. Edna’s should be in the house. Gerald thought it would be in her purse in the bedroom. We’ll have to visit the neighbor and see if she’s got hers. He gave me the name and address.”
Adrienne came in, leading Matthew by the hand. “Hey, guys! We’re going to go out and build a snowman. Want to help?”
They all bundled up and went into the front yard and began construction. Matthew and Connor took charge of making the biggest snowball, for the base. Neil came to help Kate, and soon they were working together, laughing, as they rolled a stomach for the snowman. Adrienne made a smaller ball for the head, then ran into the house to get a carrot and some big buttons for eyes. While she was gone, Connor and Matthew began a playful snowball fight.
“I don’t think I’ll get into that,” Kate said, eyeing her brother-in-law warily.
Neil’s eyes glittered as he stooped for a handful of snow and began shaping it. He packed it into a round, smooth ball.
“That had better not be for me,” Kate warned.
Neil grinned and took aim at Connor as he chased his son across the yard. Splat.
Connor turned and gaped at him. “You didn’t.”
“Kate did it.”
Kate opened her mouth in protest, then giggled when she saw the mischievous expression on Neil’s face. She sobered as their eyes locked on each other.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Neil asked, looking down at her with shining brown eyes.
Splat! A soft snowball hit Neil’s shoulder and exploded all over them, as Connor’s laughter came from behind them.
An hour later, Connor walked with Neil to his truck.
“So,” Connor said. “You and Kate are getting along well.”
Neil eyed him thoughtfully.
“She seems willing to forgive and forget.”
“Well, be careful.”
Neil sighed. “I think we’ve had this conversation.”
Connor raised one hand, as if in apology for saying it. “I’m only calling it like I see it. And I’d hate to see you and Kate pick up where you left off and self-destruct.”
That hit him hard. “I’d like to think I’m past that.”
“Yeah?” Connor’s eyes narrowed. “Old habits are hard to break. You know you used to be wild.”
“Not anymore.”
“No, and you told me that you’re staying away from relationships for now and concentrating on growing your faith. Don’t let my sister-in-law distract you.” He put his hand on Neil’s shoulder. “Also, next week, when Harry Fowler retires, you’ll be the senior detective in the Priority Unit. I’ll be putting a lot of responsibility on you.”
Neil looked across the street and inhaled the frosty air. Senior detective at age twenty-eight. He’d never expected that.
Connor was right. Kate could definitely be a distraction—from his faith and his work—that he just couldn’t afford right now.
Connor punched him playfully. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for supper?”
“I promised my mother I’d be over there tonight. The second day of Christmas is almost as important as the first one for us.”
Neil drove to his parents’ and prepared to be fussed over. His sisters and their families were there again, and the meal was noisy. His grandmother, “Oma,” pumped him for information about whether he had a “girl.” He thought of Kate, then pushed the thought aside and shook his head no.
Just then, his mother called them all to the table. As his father carved the meat, she asked, “How’s Captain Larson doing?”
“Fine, Mama.” His mother adored Connor.
“Did his wife have that baby yet?”
“Not yet.”
“The captain is a real gentleman,” his father said, as Anneke held up her plate.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” Neil’s mother said. “If I ever get arrested, I hope he’s the one to take me in.”
“Not me, Mama?”
Everyone laughed. Neil shook his head.
“So, what’s up with this murder case you’re so busy with?” Oma asked.
Neil outlined the investigation for them, giving only the bare bones. Oma loved to watch mystery movies, and she always wanted to hear about his latest police cases.
He ate a lot and turned down his father’s offer of beer. Dennis and Marc, his two brothers-in-law, and his sister Anneke had some. Marianne was pregnant for the third time, so she wasn’t drinking, but they all made no secret that they thought Neil was strange for not partaking anymore. He shrugged it off. He had tried to tell them that after he was saved he had no desire to drink anymore, but they refused to accept his explanations and kept offering him drinks every time he was home. He’d gotten to where he just said no, thanks.
He forced himself to keep his attention on the conversation, but his mind kept wandering to Kate Richards. She was probably doing something interesting that night. He wondered if she’d truly forgiven him. Could he do better in a relationship now? Could he relate to a woman in a way that would honor God?
“Come on, Neil, help me get the card table set up,” his father called.
Great. Games until midnight. Neil liked to play cards, but he knew he’d put in a long day tomorrow. Yet there was no way he could leave his family’s house early again.
“Sure, Papa.” He jumped up to help his father.
At the police station the next morning, Connor and Neil brought the other detectives of their unit up to speed on the case. Connor assigned Harry Fowler, the senior detective who would retire at the end of the week, to processing the fingerprint evidence, and asked him to supervise Lance and Jimmy, the two newest members of the unit. They’d recently passed the detective’s exam and were still new to the intense investigative work of the Priority Unit. Neil and fellow detective Tony Carlisle were tapped to return to the Rileys’ house with Connor.
Tony had held detective’s rank only a year. Neil was often paired with him and was expected to make sure Tony did everything by the book. That could be trying, as Tony was a bit of a hotshot and sometimes bordered on arrogant. His uncle was the current governor of Maine, which made some members of the police department resent him. Connor wouldn’t tolerate favoritism in the Prio
rity Unit. Tony received the same treatment as the other men, and Connor expected the same respect and precise work from him as he did from his other detectives.
When the three of them arrived at the brick house, Connor sent Tony and Neil to find the neighbor who had been entrusted with a house key while he went inside to look for Mrs. Riley’s purse.
The neighbor, Mrs. Endicott, was older than the Rileys. She puttered around for a while and finally came up with the key, but she didn’t want to give it to the men.
“How do I know you’re really policemen?” she asked.
Tony was impatient, but Neil showed her his badge and ID a second time. He asked her if she’d like to call the station and confirm their identity. She did. The two men waited. Finally, she gave Neil the key.
“Thanks, Mrs. Endicott. Did you happen to notice anyone walking in the neighborhood, or any strange cars parked in the area Christmas morning?”
“No. Sorry. I wish I could help you. It’s just terrible, what happened to Edna.”
Neil and Tony left with the key.
“Talk about an old fussbudget,” said Tony as they walked down the sidewalk toward the Rileys’ house.
“Old people need to be careful,” Neil replied. “She was right, we could have been anybody.”
Connor had found Edna Riley’s purse and the fifth key. “I just talked to Harry,” he said when Neil and Tony entered the living room of the brick house. “All the fingerprints we got yesterday were Mr. or Mrs. Riley’s.”
“So the perp wore gloves,” said Tony.
“Maybe. Tony, let’s say you want to kill a woman, and she lets you in the front door. You shoot her. How do you leave?”
“By the front door.”
“It was locked. All five keys are accounted for.”
“So. I have an extra key you don’t know about.”
Connor nodded. “Any number of people could have made one. The Rileys kept the spare hanging in the kitchen, where anyone could ‘borrow’ it. The neighbor had one. Who knows how many people had access to that one? You’re probably right. Somebody used one of these five or made a copy of his own.”
They went back to the office, and Neil called the medical examiner’s office. The autopsy wasn’t finished, but the doctor had recovered the .22-caliber bullet.
“Carlisle, go get it,” Connor said. “Run it on the IBIS system.”
Neil doubted it would do any good, but anything was possible. If the bullet had been fired by a gun that had been entered in the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, they would find out.
“I’ll be upstairs,” Connor said. That meant the chief’s office. Mike summoned Connor frequently, or came down one flight to confer with him in Priority.
Funny, during the three years Neil had been in the unit under Mike, he’d never been upstairs to the chief’s office. But since July, when Mike Crowley became chief and Connor took over the unit, Neil had been up there maybe a dozen times. It used to be really scary. When a man was called to the chief’s office, it was like being a schoolboy who was sent to the principal. Not anymore. When Connor went upstairs now, Neil figured either they were getting a new case to work on, or Connor and Mike were drinking coffee and catching up on the latest cases.
Mike actually joined them during their break most mornings and prayed with them, now that he was a Christian. The other guys in the unit knew that they’d better stay out of the break room between ten and ten-fifteen if they didn’t want to go to a prayer meeting. Mostly, they stayed away. Jimmy Cook came once in a while.
When Connor came back from Mike’s office, his face was grave. “Bring the men over here, Neil. We’ve got to pick up another case. There’s been another murder.”
FOUR
Kate was shocked to see a bouquet of roses on her desk when she walked into the newspaper office after lunch on Monday. Her pulse quickened as she hurried between the rows of workstations toward it.
“Hey, Kate, great job this weekend,” one of the copy editors called.
“Thanks.” She hurried to her desk and looked the flowers over. Very classy arrangement in a glass vase. She couldn’t think of anyone who would send her flowers…unless Neil…No, he wouldn’t. Would he? She found the card and opened it.
“Wow, roses,” said one of the clerks. “Is it your birthday?”
“No. It’s from Mr. Cleeves.” The letdown feeling annoyed her. That was irrational. Her new boss, whom she’d slaved all weekend to impress, had sent her a flamboyant symbol of his approval. Why should she be disappointed?
“Kate, great story on the murder.”
She looked up to find the senior reporter, Milton Henderson, standing by her desk. “Thank you.”
“You must have put in a lot of hours over Christmas.”
“I did, but it was worth it.”
Henderson nodded and went back to his own desk when Kate’s phone rang.
“Hello, Miss Richards. This is John Cleeves.”
She gulped. “Hello. Thank you so much for the flowers, Mr. Cleeves.”
“Well, you did an excellent job on your stories about the Riley murder.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Could you please step into my office for a minute?”
She walked across the room swiftly, trying to control her wobbly knees.
“Sit down, Kate,” Cleeves said, indicating a chair opposite his desk. “What do you have planned for this afternoon?”
“Uh…” She zipped mentally through her options. “I’ve started an update on the Riley murder. I interviewed several of the victim’s friends this morning. I intend to contact Captain Larson’s unit to see if they have a report from the medical examiner yet and find out how their investigation is going.”
“Good. But we just heard on the scanner that there’s another homicide in the city. Since you have such a good rapport with the detective squad now, I thought I’d have you do the initial write-up about it. I can put Milt Henderson on the Riley murder follow-up if that’s too much for you.”
She inhaled carefully. “I think I can handle it, sir.”
“Okay. Well, Milt is interviewing the mayor at one-thirty, but don’t hesitate to ask him for help later if you need it. I want you to know that I have complete confidence in you.”
“Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me.”
He nodded. “Get as much as you can on the new case, but leave yourself time to finish the Riley update. Oh, and I have you down for the Rotary auction tomorrow night. You’ll still be covering that, so pace yourself.”
Kate returned to her desk and stared down at the notes she had scrawled while Cleeves talked. She was amazed that he had handed her another major story. Was this some kind of a test? Until last weekend, she had produced one news story a day and several short local briefs. It seemed she had paid her dues and was now considered a full-fledged reporter; the schedule Cleeves had just handed her proved that. She’d be lucky to have time to do her laundry. The scent of the beautiful roses seemed to mock her. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?
Her cell phone rang, and she dug it out of her purse. She didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello, this is Kate.”
“Hi, Kate. Connor gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind.”
Neil. She felt a prickle of anticipation at the sound of his deep voice. “I don’t mind. Thanks for calling.”
“Connor asked me to tell you that our public liaison will hold a press conference at four this afternoon.”
“About the Riley case? I mean…I heard there was another murder.”
“Wow. Word travels fast. They’ll probably discuss both cases.”
“I’ll be there. The editor just told me I’m covering the new case, too.”
“Great,” Neil said. “Connor has put me in charge of the new case while he and some of the other detectives continue on the Riley murder. I’m headed for Deering now.”
“Will you be at the press conference?” she asked.
“I’ll probably be busy. But you can call me if you need anything. I can tell you that the medical examiner sent the bullet that killed Edna Riley over here for testing.”
“Thanks. That will give me a start for my update story. Can I call you later to see what the tests show, or will that come out in the press conference?”
“It depends on what we find out. Why don’t you give me a call?”
She hesitated. “I could come to the new crime scene.”
“I don’t know, Kate. Reporters kind of get in the way at a crime scene.”
“I’ll wait, like I did Saturday. I don’t want to miss anything, Neil.”
“Well…okay. I expect some other journalists have heard about it, too.”
He gave her the address, and she hung up feeling more confident. With hard work, she could get the basics of the new murder case this afternoon, and she could finish the Riley update on her laptop while she waited for Neil to brief her. And Neil was now her contact at the police department. A few days ago, that would have disturbed her, but now she smiled as she headed for her car.
Neil wasn’t used to supervising an entire team, but Connor assigned Tony Carlisle and Jimmy Cook to go to the new crime scene in the Deering neighborhood with him.
“You’ll also have four uniformed officers and a crime scene tech at your command,” Connor said.
“Okay.” Neil opened his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a necktie. “Tell me again why we got this case, not the detective squad?” He looped the tie around his neck and flipped his collar down over it.
“The chief saw similarities to the Riley case, so he called me upstairs. I agree with him—it looks like the same M.O. A neighbor found your victim dead in his home, and the first responders indicated the cause of death looked like a gunshot wound.”
“Got it.” Neil patted his pockets to make sure he had all his equipment. “Tony, Jimmy, let’s go.”
The three men left the Priority Unit office and headed for the scene. The next hour passed in a whirl. The first responders had secured the scene, but it was up to Neil and his men to find and process any evidence. Fifteen minutes after he arrived, Neil went to his truck for extra gloves and saw Kate Richards’s car parked at the curb beyond the lawn. She waved. He nodded and quickly went inside. Now he knew how Connor had felt on Saturday.
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