“You mean Cynthia?” The officer laughed. “I’m surprised he told you about her. I guess he probably had to. I don’t think my Rosaleigh would be as accommodating as you seem to be.” The officer extended his hand and introduced himself. “Freeland Vickers.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Lindsay replied. “I’m Lindsay Harding.” She was still stewing over Warren’s treatment of her and a bit flabbergasted at Officer Vickers’s casual acceptance of her (alleged) extramarital relationship with Warren. Still, she couldn’t help being won over by Freeland’s old-fashioned corniness. When she was growing up, Southern men issued compliments to women as a matter of course. Why you surely are looking lovely tonight, Miss Smith. Is that a new dress you’re wearing, Mrs. Jones? Your husband better not let you out of his sight looking as purty as you do, Mrs. Wilson! There was a playful flirtation in these interactions that was dying out, suffering a death of a thousand cuts: women’s lib, political correctness, or the plain old loss of neighborliness. It was a shame, Lindsay thought with an inward sigh, that, in order to progress, women had had to sacrifice being told that they looked nice.
Vickers tipped his cap to Lindsay. “Well, I best be on my way.” A few moments later, Warren and Fleet emerged from the reading room. Lindsay joined them, walking along beside them in stony silence. Directly in their path, with books and papers strewn across the table in front of him, was the last person in the world Lindsay wanted to see right then…Doyle Hargreaves.
He looked up at them and made eye contact. There was no way that she could blank him—she was just too polite, too Southern. “Hi,” she said, giving a nervous little wave as they approached.
“Well, hey, Lindsay,” Doyle said, rising to greet her. He stood between them and the door, blocking their path. There was no way to pass him without knocking him down and stepping over his body. Which Lindsay half considered doing. “I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve been feeling kinda sorry about dumping you like that. I’m dating someone else now. I thought that you might take it hard if you found out. I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“It’s all right, Doyle. I swear to god, it really is,” Lindsay said. Doyle was looking even younger than he’d looked on the day of the reenactment. He wore a Mount Moriah Falcons Baseball t-shirt and long shorts. A mild acne outbreak spread across his forehead. She tried to push past him as politely as she could, but he would not yield any ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fleet and Warren exchange curious glances.
“Good. I’m just here finishing off my homework. Remember I told you I had one more class to pass before I graduated?”
“Hi, I’m Warren Satterwhite,” Warren cut in, smiling broadly. He pointed to Doyle’s t-shirt. “I used to play for the Falcons. I’ve still got my old t-shirts and uniforms, too. So, you’re graduating? What college do you go to?”
“Oh, I don’t go to college. I’m finishing up Señora Smolinski’s Spanish class. Did you have her? She’s a real witch.”
Warren’s smile broadened. “So you’re in high school. That’s great. That’s real, real nice.”
“Honeybear? Shouldn’t we be going now?” Lindsay put her hand in Warren’s back pocket and pushed him forward.
“Yeah, I should probably get going to,” Doyle said. “Carla—that’s my new girlfriend—is gonna be done babysitting soon. I’ve gotta pick her up on account of how she’s only got her permit.”
When they finally got clear of Doyle, Lindsay practically ran to Warren’s car. She couldn’t even look at Fleet as he bid them goodnight.
“Well, I’m not sure whether to take you home or take you down to the station and book you for contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” Warren said, opening the car door for her.
Lindsay stepped past him and slammed her body into the seat. She yanked the door closed. Warren got in the other side and started the engine. “Look, Linds. I’m sorry about what happened back there with Fleet.” Lindsay remained silent, so he continued. “How was I going to tell him that I brought along a friend to help me work a murder investigation? How would that have looked?” Lindsay continued to stare silently out the passenger’s side window her cheeks aflame with anger and embarrassment. “You’re going to have to come in the station tomorrow and make a statement about the conversation you overheard between Silas and Morgan. We’ll need your evidence. Is that okay?” Warren said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take credit for that, too? Maybe you were the one who heard them while I was busy ironing your shirts?”
As they pulled into Lindsay’s driveway, Warren turned toward her and spoke earnestly. “Look, Lindsay. This is the biggest case of my career. Fleet already acts like we’re a bunch of no-account Barney Fifes down here. For you this is just a puzzle to solve. For me, it’s real.”
“Real?! You think that this is just another trigonometry problem for me?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Lindsay got out of the car, slamming the door, and walked toward her front porch. It had rained while they were inside the library and the night air hung around her like a thick, wet blanket. Breathing was like inhaling lungfuls of tropical Jell-O. All around, a fog of dense, steamy mist rose from the trees and the warm ground. Warren stayed parked in the driveway, waiting to see that she got into the house all right. It was the kind of overprotective thing that her dad would do, she thought, rolling her eyes. When she stepped onto the porch, she noted with surprise that, although the screen door was shut, the front door stood ajar. She paused a moment before grabbing the screen door handle and pulling it slowly open. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light given off by Warren’s headlights, she looked down the long central hallway and saw that the back door, too, was also standing open. She took a step forward and called out, “Hello?”
“Is everything okay?” Warren called, emerging from his car and walking toward the house.
“Yes.” Lindsay snapped back to him over her shoulder. “Fine.” Her voice sounded shrill and shaky, even to herself. “My friend slept over last night. She was still sleeping this morning when I went to work. She probably just…left both doors open when she left.” The explanation sounded no more plausible when said aloud than it had in her churning mind. Lindsay took a step into the house. A faint glow filtered into the hallway from one of the back rooms, revealing papers strewn around the living room and furniture in disarray. Out of the corner of her eye, Lindsay saw a shadow pass through the hallway. The back door slammed shut with a sharp crack. Warren took the porch stairs in one leap and tore past her into the house. He was down the hallway in a flash. He opened the back door and sprinted into the yard. In the distance, Lindsay heard the squeal of tires and the crunch of gravel under fast-moving wheels. Lindsay stood there blinking for a moment. There had been something disquietingly familiar about the shadowy form of the intruder.
She rendezvoused with Warren a few moments later as he emerged from the trees at the back of her yard. He was clutching his side and panting heavily. “Whoever it was, got away. I didn’t get a look at them or at the car.”
They walked back into the house and Lindsay began to turn on the lights. Each room had been ransacked—the intruder had rifled through drawers and overturned furniture.
“Is anything missing?”
“I doubt it. I don’t really have anything valuable—not valuable to anyone but me, anyway. No jewelry or cash or anything. And my car is still parked out front.”
“Maybe we got here before he had a chance to get anything. I’ll call it in,” he said, reaching for his phone. “They might be able to lift some prints.”
“No,” Lindsay said in a low voice.
“What?” Warren replied, incredulous.
She avoided his gaze. “Nothing was taken. It was probably just some kids messing around.”
“Kids?! Lindsay, it looks like a tornado came through here.”
“I said I’m not reporting it.”
Warren stared at her a long moment before lifting hi
s hands in surrender. “Do what you want.” He turned on his heel and began to stomp down the long central hallway toward the front door.
“I will.” She squatted down and righted a chair that had been overturned. As she stood, a jolt shot through her injured knee and she cried out in pain.
She felt a gentle hand under her arm, steadying her. “At least let me help you clean up,” Warren said. “To make up for tonight.”
Lindsay surveyed his face. He seemed sincere. She nodded and together they began sifting through the mess. A large potted plant lay on its side near the kitchen door. Lindsay swept the dirt into a dustpan and then walked outside to empty it over the back porch railing. As the dirt dropped to the ground, Lindsay let out a groan. The doors to the shed stood open, revealing the empty, cavernous interior. The motion-sensitive floodlight mounted to the shed illuminated two thin wheel ruts running through the damp grass in her yard. Lindsay could just make out the continuation of the track as it ran along the soft bed of pine needles at the back corner of her property, where the trees thinned out. She walked back into the house, shaking her head. “They took my jet ski. They must have dragged it on the trailer all the way to the main road.”
“Jet ski? I wouldn’t have guessed that you were a big water-sports person.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes I even surprise myself.”
Lindsay and Warren moved from room to room, gathering the discombobulated things into discombobulated piles.
“Whoever did this seems to have been looking for something on paper. Maybe they’re identity thieves. Or maybe they were looking for some kind of paper that could be valuable in itself. Do you have any stock certificates or anything like that?”
“Stock? Hardly. I’m still paying off my student loans. I do all my banking and stuff online. I don’t think I even own a checkbook anymore.” In the living room, Lindsay picked up a clock that had been knocked off the side table. A deep crack snaked down the center of the glass clock face, but the hands still ticked purposefully around the dial. “It’s nearly eleven. Shouldn’t you call your wife and tell her where you are?” she asked.
Warren looked at her quizzically. “I’m not married.”
“I just thought…your ring…”
Warren touched his left ring finger. “Oh, that. I never seem to find the time to have it cut off.” He blushed and began busily shuffling and reshuffling a stack of papers as he spoke. “I was in Vegas a few months back for my cousin’s wedding. It was a wild night. There was this girl there, one of the bridesmaids. We, um, we got married.”
“Wow! That is unbelievably…”
“Stupid?”
“I was going to say thrilling and romantic.” Lindsay burst out laughing. “But stupid, too. Definitely stupid.”
“Anyway, we’re having it annulled. We just need to clear up some red tape between Nevada and North Carolina and it’ll be over. This ring, though, is five carat gold or something and about two sizes too small for my finger. We bought them from the wedding chapel for twenty five dollars apiece.” He tugged at the ring to demonstrate. “Won’t budge.”
Lindsay left the room and came back a moment later with an ice pack, three large rubber bands, and a tub of Crisco. Warren let out a long whistle. “You’re a kinky lady, Lindsay Harding.”
“You wish. I wondered why Freeland Vickers didn’t seem to think it was strange that you had a girlfriend. I thought maybe you boys in blue all just keep girls on the side or something.”
“They always seem to on TV. But the reality doesn’t really match up. Maybe you need to live in a big city.”
Lindsay took Warren’s hand in hers and folded the ice pack around his fingers. She secured it with the rubber bands as she explained, “I had the same problem with my engagement ring. I was ready to gnaw off my finger rather than wear it another day, but luckily I hit on this solution instead. Put your hand on ice for five minutes and then we’ll move on to stage two.”
While Lindsay continued the clean-up, Warren walked around the perimeter of the house to try to determine how the burglar got in. He came back in a few minutes later, shaking his head. “Only two of your windows are locked. Most of the locks don’t even work. The deadbolt on your front door is so rusted that it won’t turn. Even if your friend locked up when she left, all that the thief had to do was reach through your living room window, which was open by the way, punch out the screen and unlock the door from the inside. I know you’re out in the country here, but you need to use a little common sense.”
Lindsay crossed her arms and snapped, “Says the man who got drunker than a coalminer on payday and married a total stranger in Las Vegas.”
“Lindsay, I’m serious. What might have happened to you if I wasn’t here? What if that was a rapist? Or some kind of a psychopath?”
“Or a drug addict, coked out on angel dust?” Lindsay erupted into hysterical peals of laughter. Warren glowered at her. She wiped tears from her eyes and covered her cheeks with her hands. “Sorry. You just reminded me of something funny.”
“Look, if you want to let thieves come into your home and rob you blind, that’s your business. But don’t expect the people who care about you to help you gratify your death wish.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, not meeting Warren’s stern gaze. Lindsay gently took his hand. She began to unwind the rubber bands that held the ice pack on his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “You’re right. You were right before, too. What you said in the car. What you said about this being a puzzle for me to solve.” Warren tried to interrupt her, but she carried on, keeping her eyes lowered and concentrating intensely on her task. “A good man has died and his poor wife was within a hair’s breadth of going to jail for it. And now we’re talking locking up a respected philanthropist and politician. I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself, but my first instinct was to be insulted that I didn’t get any respect for helping to crack the case.” She dipped her fingertips into the shortening and slathered the viscous white goo up and down his ring finger. She began to work the ring off his finger, twisting it as she applied a gentle upward pressure. A few seconds later, she was holding the ring in the palm of her hand. “There, now. You’re free,” she said, softly.
Chapter 32
Warren had spent the night on her couch; he absolutely refused to let her stay in the house alone. After putting up a mild protest, she gratefully accepted his offer, but only after he promised never to mention the encounter with Doyle Hargreaves again. When she woke up early the next morning, she tiptoed around the house for about 10 minutes before realizing that he had already gotten up and left. He left a note promising to swing by later and check that she was okay. With Warren’s help the night before, she had finished most of the major clearing up—furniture uprighted, broken glass swept up—but the house was still in disarray. The rest of the cleaning would have to wait. She was going to the Royals game with Drew straight after work and she still hadn’t had time to figure out how she was going to pass herself off as a baseball aficionado. She scarfed down a banana and some animal crackers, and rushed out the door.
As requested, she stopped by the police station on her way to work and gave her statement about the conversation between Morgan and Silas. She omitted any mention of her role in the library investigation. Although she was anxious to fill Kimberlee in on the latest developments, the officers she spoke to cautioned her not to discuss the details of the case with anyone, as it might compromise her testimony and endanger their investigation of Silas Richards.
The stop at the police station took far longer than she had planned, and Lindsay arrived at the hospital over an hour late for her shift. As she made her usual rounds, she was surprised at how calm and normal everything seemed. She’d half expected the chaos in her own mind to be reflected in the outside world. The patients and families that she visited were all doing well. No emergencies, no drama. She decided to go and see Kimberlee. Even if Lindsay couldn’t tell her everything, the police had given her per
mission to reassure her that the investigation was moving away from Kimberlee. As Lindsay turned a corner toward Buford Bullard’s ward, she saw the back of Geneva’s tiny salt-and-pepper head. Geneva was elevated on her toes, chatting with the duty nurse over the tall counter of the nurses’ station. Lindsay stayed to the far side of the hallway, hoping to sneak past unseen. Unfortunately for Lindsay, the duty nurse was Angel Bledsoe, the “angel” she’d used to communicate her message of peace and love to the tongue-speaking Peechums.
“Hey Lindsay,” Angel called cheerfully. “Where you off to in such a hurry? Gonna work some more miracles in my name?”
Lindsay returned the greeting, but hurried quickly along in the hope that she could outrun Geneva. Her injured leg, however, slowed her escape.
When Geneva caught up with her, she poked a skinny finger into Lindsay’s sternum. “Well?” she said expectantly.
“What?”
“Girl.” Geneva could infuse that one word with an almost inexhaustible variety of meanings. In this case—spoken in a clipped tone with a deeply creased brow—it served as both a chastisement and a demand.
Lindsay’s thin charade of ignorance collapsed. “Why did you tell him I love baseball?” she whined.
“Remember when Moses was trying to free the Israelites? If the midwives hadn’t lied to Pharaoh and hid the newborn Israelite babies, there’d have been a whole mess of dead Israelite babies all over that pyramid. Lesson? God helps those who help themselves. And He especially helps those that help others who can’t seem to help themselves find a nice husband.”
“I’m not sure that tricking Drew into taking me on a date is quite as justifiable as Moses freeing the Israelites.”
Geneva batted away the criticism with a flick of her small hands. She paused. “Why’re you limping? You ain’t even had your first date yet. Better not be any limping until after the wedding night.”
A Murder in Mount Moriah Page 16