Partners in Crime

by Alicia Scott

  He stepped out of her office. She struggled to inhale long after the door had shut behind him.

  I’m not the killer, dammit. A Reynolds isn’t the killer.

  * * *

  At nine o’clock, she turned away the last person. She hated doing that, hated seeing the stress in each person’s eyes as she stood in the waiting room and softly promised to meet with them first thing in the morning. Four people were left. They’d waited six hours and now had to return tomorrow.

  Goaded by guilt, she spent another two hours trying to catch up with paperwork. By eleven, her stomach was growling too much to concentrate. She cleaned up her desk, updated her list of things to do for the morning and prepared to leave. Halfway out the door she remembered she’d forgotten to speak to FEMA for Gabe Chouder.

  “Damn,” she muttered. “Get it on the list.”

  Heading back out, she remembered she’d forgotten the report on strip mining for Hal Stuart. She went back to add that to the list. The third time, she recalled her promise to speak with Helen Hunter about the bingo prizes. The fourth time, she made it through the door, stomach growling, eyes tired.

  Her low-slung heels echoed in the vaulted hallways of City Hall. All the offices were dark, only the yellow ceiling lights guided her way. It was a strange, lonely feeling to be in a big marble building all alone at night. She nodded goodbye to the security guard stationed by the front doors and let herself out.

  The night was cold and clear. Her car was around back. These days she wondered how safe it was to walk to her car alone, but still had no choice. At least, she encountered no surprises tonight.

  She drove home on deserted roads and pulled up to a dark one-story rancher. She had no roommates, no pets, no people to help her, which meant she got to drag the garbage can to the curb even though she didn’t feel like doing it. Monday was garbage night, so out it went.

  Back inside, she snapped on the kitchen light and set her briefcase and jacket on the kitchen table. She was spending too much time at work, and her small house showed it. Plants drooped from lack of water. The simple, sparse furniture had gathered a thick layer of dust. Abruptly, the whole place depressed her. She had a house, but not a home. A home shouldn’t smell as alien and stale as her place did now.

  She stared at the brown kitchen cabinets and contemplated heating up a can of soup. Food might make her feel better. When a person burned the candle at both ends, food and nutrition became even more important, she reminded herself. But the act of taking out a saucepan and opening a can sounded like too much work. Did a man like Stryker come home to an empty house, as well? Did he contemplate heating up soup and realize he was too tired, or did a man as handsome as him have a new woman every night, happy to fill the void?

  She could still remember the tight feeling in her belly when Grand Springs’s most eligible bachelor had pinned her with his gaze. And she recalled the secret, nearly primal thrill of making “Straight Arrow Stryker” yell.

  Oh God, what was she thinking? She gave up on cooking, dropped her clothes on the floor, and climbed into bed.

  Her dreams brought her comfort. She was ten years old again. She knew because her blond hair was in the kind of beautiful French braid only her mother could do. She sat at the simple kitchen table. Her mom was making cookies and the kitchen smelled of nutmeg and vanilla.

  The back door opened as her father walked in, wearing a suit he’d donned first thing in the morning and now accessorized it with his hearty smile. Her mom looked up, her eyes immediately going soft. Rose’s gaze always went tender when she saw Stan.

  “I got me a job, Rose. Selling cars. I’m going straight, just like I promised.”

  “Oh, Stan. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  He wrapped her pretty mama in a big bear hug. In his suit, he looked big and handsome, all red hair and snapping blue eyes. In her spring dress, her mother was his perfect complement, all blond hair and delicately defined features.

  Her mother sat Stan at the table. He got his own plate with four oatmeal cookies, sneaking one to Josie when Rose turned for the milk. She palmed it effortlessly, the way he’d taught her, and he winked at her until she giggled.

  Josie was the luckiest girl in the world and she knew it. She was Stan’s little girl, and Stan was the only father on the block who knew how to make dreams come true. And when Rose smiled at Stan the way Rose was smiling at Stan now, there wasn’t anything Stan couldn’t do.

  Josie inhaled the scents of nutmeg and vanilla. She let the oatmeal cookie melt on her tongue.

  “I want to stay here always, Daddy,” she whispered in her sleep.

  “Of course you can,” he promised her in her dream. “Of course you can.”

  Her alarm clock went off at six. She awoke disoriented and groggy. She sat up with a scowl, impatiently pushing a cloud of tangled hair out of her face.

  “Liar,” she muttered. Her room, empty and still dark gray with morning, didn’t argue. She pattered into her bathroom and buried herself beneath the scouring spray of a hot shower.

  * * *

  “Well, I’m so happy you finally found time for your family!”

  Jack leaned over and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Nice to see you, too, Mom.”

  He shook his father’s hand as the older man apologized for Betty Stryker’s comment with his gaze. Jack understood. His mother was a high-strung, anxious woman. Sometimes she was on medication, but mostly she tried to manage it on her own. It wasn’t easy. Betty Stryker’s world was filled with demons and worry. And the death of her oldest son at the age of eighteen had only made the shadows darker.

  “We’re grilling steaks,” Betty announced. She stood in the middle of the simple living room, nicely attired in chocolate-colored slacks and an off-white turtleneck. She twisted each ring on her right hand in turn and then started over again.

  “Steak sounds great,” Jack told her.

  “Are you sure? I have chicken I could defrost. We still have some of that salmon in the freezer….”

  “Steak is perfect. Honest. Crazy as things have been lately, a nice thick steak sounds wonderful.”

  “Are you working too hard? How is Hal Stuart as acting mayor? I heard he’s a real tyrant. Is he too demanding? Are you getting enough sleep?”

  Ben took his wife’s arm and led her toward the kitchen. “Jack is doing just fine, dear. Policemen don’t expect regular hours, do they?”

  “Work’s not bad at all,” Jack agreed, when in fact both he and his father knew he hadn’t slept for more than six hours a night in months. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “No, no. Just sit right down at the table. I’ll get the salad. Ben, will you check the steaks on the grill?”

  His mother bustled around. Movement helped keep the restlessness down. Jack sat down at the table in the same seat he’d occupied since his parents had moved into the house when he was four. It was a simple three-bedroom rancher made of good, solid construction. His father had earned enough as an electrician to support the whole family. They’d been comfortable growing up, but never rich. Family vacations were generally camping in the mountains, not flying to Disneyland.

  Jack had been happy, though. Ben had taught him and Tom how to hunt and track. There had been weekends fishing together, then the Boy Scouts. Tom had ridiculed the Boy Scouts after the first three years. Jack had continued on to become an Eagle Scout, however, while his father became a troop leader. Right after Tom’s death, when emotions were still too high for words, Jack and his father had gone on the Scout trips together and let the hiking sweat the pain from their pores. By nightfall, they could sit together in front of the campfire, watching the flickering flames and finding comfort in just being there, side by side, father and son, bonded by the silence.

  Jack wondered if such things would’ve helped his mother. Instead, she always stayed home, shutting herself up in the house where Tom’s room became a museum to an eighteen-year-old rebel, each item still exactly where Tom had placed
it nearly twenty years ago. Even now, sitting at the table, the fourth chair carried a full weight of silent accusation and guilt.

  I am Tom’s chair. Don’t you remember him sitting here, throwing peas at you across the table and laughing the way only Tom could laugh? Don’t forget, don’t forget.

  Betty returned with the salad. Ben followed her with the steaks. Corn on the cob, freshly steamed and rich with butter, already sat in the middle. Betty poured two glasses of milk for Jack and his father, then a glass of water for herself. Her gaze darted briefly to Tom’s chair before she sat.

  They began the meal in silence, the way they always did.

  “Have either of you seen Paige Summers,” his mother said at last, her voice slightly high-pitched, as if she was seeking to fill all the silent voids in their lives. “I ran into her at the grocery store just the other day. I would swear she was pregnant.”

  “Haven’t seen her,” Jack confessed.

  “I didn’t think she had a boyfriend,” Betty pressed. “I haven’t heard of any boyfriend and she certainly isn’t married. Last I knew, she was just starting out as administrative assistant for Jared Montgomery’s real estate firm. Imagine. This town just isn’t what it used to be.”

  “It’s none of our business,” Jack said quietly. He’d met Paige Summers only once, but she seemed like a genuinely nice, sweet woman. If she was single and pregnant, then she had enough to deal with and didn’t need any undue gossip. He finished eating his salad. His father dished up the steaks. After a bit, Jack found himself asking, “Do either of you know Josie Reynolds?”

  “She’s the town treasurer,” Betty said promptly. She prided herself on knowing who was who in the community.

  “You ever met her?”

  “I saw her at the Jamesons’ Christmas party last year. Oh, that blond hair of hers. Just gorgeous. You wouldn’t know she was an accountant to look at her.”

  Jack agreed with that. He looked at his father, who was nodding.

  “She’s good,” Ben said. “A real hard worker.”

  Jack raised a brow. That was high praise coming from Ben, who’d worked sixty hours a week all his life to support his family, plus volunteered as a community fireman and Scout leader. “Why do you say that?”

  “I’ve been working with her.”

  “You have?”

  “Sure, I’ve been helping out with the fund-raisers. You know the community auction two weeks ago? Josie’s idea. She’s even the one who called the companies and got them to donate the computers and plane tickets. We raised fifteen thousand dollars that night.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “The big dinner and theater at the old mill? Josie’s idea. She got Grand Springs’s community theater to volunteer their play, and Touch of Class Catering to provide all the food at cost. Made two thousand off of that.”

  “Oh.”

  “Then this Friday we’ve got the Band, Bingo, Bake Sale coming up—”

  “That I know about. In fact, I bought four tickets.”

  “Good, good.” His father nodded approvingly. “Josie’s idea again. Sadie’s Sunshine called her up and said they’d like to do something to help out, and Josie set it all up. Smart woman. She really pitches in. People like her.”

  “Who are you taking to the bake sale, dear?” his mother asked. She wasn’t too interested in the fund-raisers. Organizing activities taxed her nerves.

  “Uh…I haven’t really thought about it.” Jack quickly turned back to his father. When his mother got on this topic, it took a hurricane to shake her off. “So you’ve talked to Josie a few times?”

  “Oh, yeah, I work with her a lot.” His father was very active in the community.

  “Has she ever mentioned where she’s from?”

  “No.”

  “What about her family? Does she talk about family?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to take Josie to the bake sale?”

  “No,” Jack said to his mother with probably more force than necessary. “I’m just…I’m just curious, that’s all.” He didn’t bring up her tie to the Olivia Stuart case. He made it a point never to talk about his job in front of his mother. He was still frowning, however. He couldn’t get the mystery of Josie Reynolds out of his mind. “Don’t you find it odd that she never talks about her personal life?” he persisted. “She’s hardly a quiet woman. She’s definitely not shy,” he muttered.

  His father chuckled. “She has spirit. You should hear her with the FEMA folks. That’s kinda fun.”

  “But Dad—”

  Ben shrugged. “She likes her privacy, Jack. She’s got a right.”

  “She’s very beautiful,” his mother said. “And unattached.”

  “I’m not interested in her that way, Mom. Really, I don’t have time right now to be interested in anyone. I like my life the way it is.”

  His parents exchanged a look he’d seen too many times before. He abruptly set down his silverware. “Is it true everyone’s afraid to mention Marjorie’s name when I’m around?”

  Betty’s eyes widened. She looked at Ben for help.

  “Well, Jack,” he began in a careful, placating tone.

  “Oh, God, it is true. It’s been five years, Dad. I can handle it.”

  “She wasn’t right for you,” his mother said immediately. “I told you from the beginning that she wasn’t right. Anyone could tell just by looking at her that she had the morals of an alley cat.”

  Jack winced and pushed away his plate. He’d lied, after all. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  His parents exchanged that look again. His ex-wife Marjorie had been a faithless bitch, there was no other word for it. She was the only mistake Jack had ever made, but boy, had it been a big one. He was the type of man who’d assumed he would marry only once. He would meet the perfect, kind, beautiful woman and be faithful forever. They’d raise two children, eat dinner together every night and hike on the weekends. Certainly, coming home early and finding his beautiful wife in bed with a muscle-bound rookie officer hadn’t been among his plans. Nor had he ever imagined the way she’d looked him right in the eye and said, “You deserved this Jack. You never could give me what I need.”

  The fancy town house, the luxury automobile, the role of the future mayor’s wife.

  Jack was good at many things, but he wasn’t good at forgiving, and he never quite forgot.

  “How about some after-dinner coffee?” his mother asked brightly. “Or would you like tea? I have jasmine, mint, English breakfast and chamomile. Or maybe you’d like some cognac, I think your father has cognac. Don’t you have cognac, Ben?”

  “Coffee would be perfect, Mom. Here, why don’t you sit for a change and let me help you.”

  “Oh, no, no. You just stay right there. I know where everything is, it will only be a minute. It’s not every day you come to see us. The least I can do is brew you some coffee.”

  Jack watched her bustle away, her movements nervous and jerky. When she pulled out the coffeepot it shook in her hands.

  “It’s all right,” Ben said softly beside him. “The blackout was tough for her, but she’s doing pretty well these days. Sleeping through the nights.”

  “That’s good.”

  “It has been five years since…since that woman,” Ben said abruptly. He always referred to Marjorie as simply “that woman.” “You made a mistake marrying her, Jack, but that’s all right. You were young and she was beautiful and had that effect on men. Now, Josie Reynolds… Mark my words, Jack, she’s special. Tough as nails, works harder than a dog and beautiful from the inside out. She’s who you need. A girl like that will really challenge you. Take her to the fund-raiser. Give dating a chance.”

  “Not you, too, Dad,” Jack groaned.

  “On some things, your mother is right.”

  Betty returned. She handed out the cups of coffee, then passed around the cream and sugar. They drank the coffee in silence, and as always, Betty’s gaze was on Tom’s c
hair.

  Chapter Three

  Jack spent the next three days getting back to basics. He’d gotten a degree in criminology because it appealed to his methodical mind. Police work wasn’t sexy and it wasn’t instinctive. It was science. First you studied the crime scene, looking at MO, weapon and trace evidence. Then you analyzed the area where the crime took place—what kind of economics and demographics? Were you looking at a high-crime area or low-crime area? Was it racially homogenous or mixed? Then you did a profile of the victim. Was it a low-risk victim or a high-risk victim? Known friends, known enemies, major events going on in her life? Finally, you boiled all that information down, and if all went well, you had a list of potential suspects to interrogate. You got to go hunting.

  The crime scene gave them nothing: no hair, no fiber, no prints, no weapon. The storm had obscured any footprints that may have been. Nothing had been stolen or disturbed. The area—upper class, white, suburban—told them only that their suspect was probably white and well-groomed, otherwise, someone would’ve noticed him or her. In Grand Springs, however, white, middle-class suburbanites were a dime a dozen. Olivia’s neighborhood was quiet and safe, not the kind of place where random murders just happened.

  In short, Olivia’s murder had not been about theft. It had not been gang-related nor drug-related. It had been personal. It had been planned by someone sophisticated enough to know about pure potassium and how to inject it into a strong, healthy woman.

  Jack pursued the only other option he had left—he focused on the victim, Olivia.

  In the course of three days, he retraced her last twenty-four hours and the people and events influenced along the way. It took a while. Olivia had been a very active woman.

  On June 5, her day began with an 8:00 a.m. meeting with her personal secretary, the school board, and a representative from D.A.R.E. talking about starting an anti-drug program in the high school. At nine, Olivia had left for a general meeting with the city council. The minutes revealed that they’d focused primarily on the issue of strip mining. That meeting had overrun half an hour due to heated debate. According to attendees, Olivia had remained steadfastly opposed to strip mining, tabling the initiative.