by Irene Hannon
“No priors.” Cole ended the call and slipped the phone back into its holder on his belt. “Okay. We’re going to do a walk-through. How long do you think you’ll need, Hank?”
“Unless I find something that raises a red flag, I should be out of here in a couple of hours.”
“We’ll be around. After we finish in here, we’ll talk to a few neighbors.”
“Don’t touch anything.”
Cole shot him a peeved look. “How long do I have to be on the force before you stop treating me like a rookie?”
“Another ten years. Minimum. I don’t want any slipups on my crime scenes.”
“I’ll try not to breathe too hard either.” Sarcasm dripped from Cole’s words.
“I appreciate that.”
As Hank went back to work, Cole retraced his route down the hall. “He knows his stuff, but what a grump.”
“You might be too if you had to do his job all day.”
“Maybe. Why don’t you take the bedroom and bathroom and I’ll cover the kitchen and living room?”
“Works for me.”
While Cole continued toward the main part of the house, Mitch detoured into the second bedroom. The furnishings were sparse—a double mattress and box spring on a frame, covered by a blanket. There was also a nicked chest of drawers. The indentation in one of the pillows and the open closet suggested recent occupancy and perhaps a hasty departure.
Mitch moved on to the bathroom. Some faint traces of white powder on the vanity caught his eye, as did a single strand of long blonde hair. He peeked around the edge of the shower curtain. Beads of water still clung to the chipped tile at the edge of the tub. Someone had used it in the past few hours.
And it hadn’t been Lon Samuels.
Exiting the bathroom, he stuck his head back into the room where Hank was working. “There’s a long blonde hair and some white powder on the vanity in the bathroom.”
The man was on his knees, peering at the carpet. He didn’t look up. “I’ll check it out when I’m finished in here.”
Heading down the hall, Mitch met Cole in the living room and shared his findings. “Did you come up with anything interesting?”
“There are traces of lipstick on a glass by the kitchen sink.”
“Looks like Lon had company.”
“Yeah. She might be our anonymous caller. The tip came from a phone booth not far from here, according to dispatch. Let’s see if any of the neighbors can give us a description—just in case this is a homicide. But I’m betting it’s not.” Cole started for the front door.
“I’m with you. Lon’s guest probably found him dead and freaked. Called 911 and took off rather than hang around and be linked to a drug incident.” Mitch followed Cole out and shut the door behind him.
“Or she has something to hide.”
“Also a possibility.” He gestured toward the house on the right as they ducked under the police tape. “You want to go that way?”
“Sure. But I have a feeling this isn’t going to lead anywhere.”
Mitch scanned the run-down neighborhood, quiet on this Wednesday afternoon. Eerily quiet. No one stood outside the police tape, gawking. No groups of neighbors clustered on nearby lawns, talking in hushed, shocked voices. No one approached them, asking what had happened. Not in this part of town. Here, people disappeared at the first sign of trouble. Melted into the shadows. Nobody wanted to catch a cop’s eyes. It was too risky.
Because a lot of them had something to hide.
But identifying Lon Samuels’s blonde friend might be a moot point, anyway. If the death wasn’t a homicide, he and Cole were off the hook. The drug unit might want to investigate further, but considering Missouri’s dubious distinction as the nation’s meth capital, one more dead druggie might not be worth adding to their caseload.
Thirty minutes later, as Mitch headed back toward his car, he was no closer to discovering the identity of the blonde than he had been when he’d started. Few doors had opened in response to his knock, and those that had been answered revealed stone-faced residents who claimed they’d seen nothing. No blonde, no unusual activity in the vicinity of the duplex, no visitors period.
Fortunately, Cole had fared better.
“An older woman two units down said she saw the blonde coming and going for the past few days,” he reported when they regrouped by Mitch’s car. “She couldn’t offer much of a description, though. Said her eyesight was too bad. Last time she saw the woman was about two hours ago.”
“Not long before the 911 call.”
“Right. She said the blonde appeared to be in a hurry to leave. Bolted through the door, jumped in her car, and took off.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance she saw the license plate.”
“Nope. Best I could get was that the car was midsize and a dark color.”
“That’s not going to help a whole lot.” Mitch surveyed the duplex again. “You see any reason for both of us to hang around?”
“No. You go ahead. I’ll stick close until Hank is finished. If anything interesting turns up, I’ll call you.” With a mock salute, Cole strolled back toward the rental unit.
As Mitch climbed into his car, he took one more look at the seedy dwelling Lon Samuels had called home. Not the sort of place a man would choose to end his life. Yet that’s what Samuels had done, indirectly. The choices he’d made in life had led him to this.
His choices.
Not God’s.
God hadn’t ordained his squalid end.
That unexpected conclusion furrowed Mitch’s brow as he pulled out of the parallel parking spot. It had been years since he’d thought about God in connection with his work. Even then, it had been a rare occurrence. Prompted only by senseless carnage or a meaningless death. And it had usually been confined to flinging an agonized “Why?” toward the heavens, never expecting an answer.
Nor had he ever gotten one.
Easing his car into the flow of traffic, he assumed his unusual digression was related to the conversation he’d had with Alison on this topic last week. She’d acknowledged the existence of injustice but believed God could bring good out of it, if people let him.
Mitch wasn’t certain he bought that. Not after all he’d seen during his SEAL missions and on the streets of New York. How did good come out of oppressive, totalitarian regimes and senseless killing of innocent people and brutal murders? Or out of a guy dying because he made bad choices and used drugs to escape his mistakes?
No answer suggested itself as he accelerated, blending into the traffic. But Alison had also said it could take time for a clear purpose to emerge. Or not. When it didn’t, you had to trust in God’s plan without understanding it.
That was a tough assignment. Tougher than a lot of the SEAL missions he’d been handed. Still, if Alison could do it, if his father could do it, maybe he could figure out how to do it too. If he didn’t, he knew he’d never get right with God—a task that had skyrocketed in importance since Alison had entered his life. Because as a believer, she’d accept no less in a man with serious intentions.
And his intentions were getting more serious by the day.
Maybe that wasn’t the most noble reason to seek God, but it was honest. And perhaps God didn’t care why people came to him initially . . . as long as they came.
Unfortunately, he had a long way to go on the trust front. Today was a perfect example. While he’d seen far worse things than a drug addict who’d died in a sleazebag rental unit, it was sad nonetheless. How could there be a greater purpose in that?
It was hard to fathom.
Yet as Mitch flipped his turn signal and moved into the entrance lane for I-270, he couldn’t help hoping there was.
10
At the sound of an approaching vehicle, Daryl froze, his hunger forgotten. Chuck had crashed on the couch an hour ago after prowling through the mobile home all night and all morning, and he was snoring up a storm, as oblivious to the heat that had been building stea
dily in the trailer as he was to their visitor.
Setting aside the jar of peanut butter he’d found wedged in the corner of one of the cabinets, Daryl backhanded the sweat off his brow and hurried to the front window. Through one of the broken slats in the blinds, he watched a dark blue car bounce up the driveway, moving far too fast across the rutted gravel. A blonde woman was behind the wheel. He didn’t see any other passengers.
His tension ebbed slightly. It wasn’t as daunting as a cop car showing up.
But for some reason the woman’s arrival still gave him bad vibes.
Without slowing down, she circled around to the back of the trailer, past the odd collection of rusting animal cages Chuck had amassed, and disappeared from view.
Adrenaline surging, Daryl strode over to the sofa and shook his host’s shoulder. “Chuck! Wake up. Somebody’s here.”
No response.
He shook harder. “Chuck. Come on, wake up!”
The other man muttered, opened his eyes, and squinted at him. “Whas wrong?”
“Someone just drove up. A blonde woman.”
“Later, man.” His eyelids drifted closed again.
A car door banged.
Daryl reached down and grabbed Chuck’s shoulders, jerking him into a sitting position. The man’s head lolled, and he spewed out a string of obscenities.
Someone jiggled the back door, then began banging on it. “Open up, Chuck. I know you’re in there. I see your truck. Open the door!”
The note of hysteria in the woman’s voice seemed to penetrate Chuck’s fog. Rising to his feet, he stumbled toward the back door, unlatched it, and pulled it open. The blonde collapsed into his arms, sobbing, and he staggered back.
A cold knot of fear formed in Daryl’s stomach, a reflex honed by years of living at the edge of danger, the fear of detection a constant companion. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to run. Far and fast.
But where would he go?
Chuck half dragged the woman to a kitchen chair and dumped her in it. She slumped, her shoulders heaving, as he barked out a question. “What’s going on, Bev?”
The name clicked in Daryl’s mind. Chuck had mentioned Bev several times. Some guy too. They were key members of his meth circle.
She turned a mascara-streaked face up to him, her puffy eyes distraught as she shoved back her tangled hair.
“Lon’s dead.”
As Alison pored over her notes for the Callahan protective custody hearing scheduled for nine o’clock the next morning, Bert trotted across the kitchen floor, stopped under the coat hook where his leash hung, and gave her an expectant look.
“Sorry, buddy. No can do. I’m still confined to quarters at night.”
His ears drooped, and he padded halfheartedly to the back door.
Standing, she balanced herself, fingertips grazing the edge of the table as she gave her leg a moment to loosen up after two hours of immobility. She wouldn’t mind the discomfort if she thought it was going to pay off. But while she’d give it her best shot tomorrow, she knew that without the testimony of Ellen’s neighbor, the judge would most likely put the children in protective custody for at least thirty days. The drug paraphernalia found at the scene wasn’t helping either, even though Ellen had disavowed any knowledge of it.
Bert gave an impatient yip, and she crossed to the door, checking the illuminated patio before unlatching the locks.
“Okay, big guy. Don’t be long.”
As he zipped through the door, a gust of hot, humid air slammed into her. If the calendar didn’t say May, she’d peg it as August. The meteorologists were attributing the early heat wave to a stalled high pressure system, but whatever the cause, it was hot enough to have St. Louis air conditioners cranked up to full blast weeks sooner than usual.
Before Alison could retake her seat, the phone rang and she detoured toward the counter, checking caller ID as she picked it up.
Cole. No surprise there. He and Jake had been tag-teaming their phone calls, alternating nights. She picked up the phone and pressed the talk button.
“Hi, Cole.”
“Hi. Am I catching you at a bad time?”
“Nope.” She leaned back against the counter. “I’m just going over some notes for the Callahan hearing tomorrow.”
“No trips to Ted Drewes tonight?”
“I’ll go if you invite me.” She knew that wasn’t what he meant, and her lips twitched. She loved putting him on the spot.
“Uh, I was going to catch a Cardinals game on TV. I just thought maybe . . . well, I know you’ve been going there with Mitch a lot.”
“Twice is not a lot.” She picked up her pencil and twirled it between her fingers.
Silence on the line. As if he was hoping she’d offer more.
Not a chance.
“You had lunch with him too.”
She waited him out.
This time her silence was met with an exasperated sigh. “You think I’m being nosy, don’t you?”
“Give the man a gold star. Besides, who are you to point fingers at me about a lackluster social life? When’s the last time you had a serious date?”
“No comment.”
“Ah . . . so when the shoe is on the other foot, it doesn’t fit very well.”
“Fine. I get the message. But for the record, I’m okay with you dating Mitch. He seems to have his head on straight.”
“I’m so glad you approve.”
Her sarcasm elicited another sigh. “Are all little sisters this difficult?”
“I guess it depends on how much their older brothers meddle.” At a scratching sound from the back door, she pushed off from the counter. “Gotta run, Cole. Bert wants back in already. A solitary frolic in the backyard doesn’t have the same appeal as our nightly walks.”
“Give it a little more time. Let’s make sure bingo man has lost interest.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She checked the back porch, flipped the lock, and pulled open the door. Bert brushed past her leg, intent on his water bowl.
“I’m serious, Alison.”
“I know. All kidding aside, I am being careful. I want to make sure the guy’s moved on too.”
“Glad to hear it. Good luck on the hearing tomorrow.”
“I’m going to need it.”
“Any sign of the neighbor?”
“No. I checked with the superintendent. It was hard to be civil, after what Ellen’s told me about him. Anyway, he hasn’t heard from her either. I assume she’ll show up eventually, if only to pick up her stuff. Some of your street cop buddies are swinging by there every hour. I’m hoping one of them catches sight of her. I was able to pass on a detailed description of her and her car, thanks to Ellen. And we have the plate number too.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up. If she left drug paraphernalia lying around, she has to know she’s going to be questioned about that. She might also be trying to stay clean for a few days so if she’s spotted and asked to do a urine drop, it’ll be negative. Then there’s the issue of leaving the kids alone. She might figure she’s in trouble for that too. I wouldn’t be surprised if she disappeared.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
“Just being a realist.”
She took a deep breath and combed her fingers through her hair. “I know, but I’m trying to stay positive.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed, okay?”
“A prayer or two wouldn’t hurt either.”
“I’ll leave those to you and Jake. I think they’d have a better chance of being heard. Let me know what happens with the case, okay?”
Alison had never understood why Cole’s faith had lapsed a few years ago. At one time, he’d been the most devout of the three siblings. She’d tried to ask a few discreet questions now and then, but whenever the conversation turned to God, he changed the subject. Like now.
She decided to let it go for tonight. “Sure.”
Bert stretched out on his rug, tucking his chin between his paws
as he looked up at her. Once he had her attention, he rolled over and waved one paw in her direction. As always, his antics brought a smile to her lips.
“I think Bert is angling for a belly rub. Thanks for checking in, Cole. And I mean that.”
“Hey, what are big brothers for? Let me know if you need anything, okay? Unless you’d rather call Mitch.”
“Good-bye, Cole.”
The rumble of his chuckle came over the line. “Bye.”
Replacing the phone in the holder, she smiled at Bert. He squirmed happily when she approached, then went limp while she scratched him.
“You are so easy to please, my friend.”
He looked up at her with his big brown eyes and gave her a doggy smile.
She smiled back. This house would be a lonely place without her loyal little buddy. He’d been a godsend over the past year, keeping her company without asking a lot of questions or giving her advice. If only all relationships could be this uncomplicated, the sole agenda being to love and be loved.
Instead, she had to deal with superintendents out for revenge, neighbors who turned out not to be very neighborly, and weirdos who got their jollies by sending dead roses and threatening bingo cards.
With a final pat, Alison returned to the table to finish outlining her comments for the judge. Superintendents and neighbors she could deal with. Weirdos with twisted agendas were another matter entirely.
But if she was lucky, whoever had targeted her for a practical joke had moved on to other things.
At least she could hope.
Daryl slouched in the shadow of a tree in the common ground behind Alison’s house, craving a cigarette. Not that he’d had one in years. The whole lung cancer thing scared him. But a shot of nicotine would help settle his nerves. And a line of meth would be even better. He wasn’t going there, though. Not after the story Bev Parisi had told earlier in the afternoon, once she’d calmed down enough to form a coherent sentence.
Leaning a shoulder against the rough bark, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and studied Alison’s house. She’d let her dog out a few minutes ago, and after a few sniffs, the little yipper had barreled straight toward the far corner of the yard, barking like crazy. Daryl had scuttled deeper into the underbrush, tempted to beat a hasty retreat and hightail it back to Chuck’s truck a block away. But the dog had lost interest when the wind shifted. Besides, Alison’s windows were closed, insulating her from outside noise.