Due or Die

by Jenn McKinlay

“I keep turning the key, but nothing happens,” Carrie said. She gestured at her tears with a mitten. “I’m not normally this much of a baby, but I think the stress of the day is getting to me. I was so stressed about the meeting tonight, frankly, my nerves are shot.”

  “It’s understandable,” Lindsey said. “Don’t feel bad. Sometimes you just have to let it out. I cried the other day when I realized I’d left my wash in the washing machine for two days and accidentally felted my favorite wool sweater.”

  “Bummer,” Carrie said with a big sniff.

  “Big one.”

  “Carrie, is everything all right?” Sully joined them beside her car.

  “Her car won’t start,” Lindsey said.

  “Mind if I have a look?” he asked.

  “No, please do,” Carrie said, and she moved aside so Sully could sit in the driver’s seat. Lindsey saw him turn the key. Nothing happened. He frowned.

  “I’m no expert, but I think it’s your starter,” he said. “It’ll probably need to be towed to Bruce’s garage over on Tyler Street.”

  Carrie closed her eyes and Lindsey was afraid she might cry again, so she said, “Do you want to call your husband?”

  “I already did,” Carrie said. She opened her eyes, and her face under the parking lot lights looked pale. “He’s not answering.”

  Lindsey wasn’t terribly surprised. If he was as lazy as he seemed, he’d probably tell his wife to walk home.

  “Don’t worry. We can give you a lift,” Sully said. “And Bruce can come and collect your car tomorrow.”

  “See? This will work out,” Lindsey said. “Now, is there anything you need to take with you?”

  “Well, I have two boxes of donated books that I don’t want to leave in the car,” Carrie said. “Warren said he’d take them out to Friends’ shed at the Drury Street storage facility this weekend.”

  She opened the trunk, and both Lindsey and Sully took a box and started carrying it to his truck. Carrie locked up her car and followed.

  “I really can’t thank you enough,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you two hadn’t happened along.”

  “You’d have managed, but I’m glad we’re here to help,” Lindsey said.

  Sully put his box of books into the back of his truck and then turned to take Lindsey’s.

  They all piled into the toasty-warm cab of the truck, and Carrie gave Sully directions to her house. She lived a few miles inland in a small development of raised ranch houses built in the seventies with the standard two-car garages and big bay windows.

  Carrie’s house was at the end of a short cul-de-sac; it was white with black trim and a bright red front door. It looked well kept and cozy, with an outside light on and a yellow glow shining from its main window above.

  Carrie hopped out of the truck and fished her keys out of her purse. Sully and Lindsey climbed out of the truck too and retrieved her boxes for her.

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to,” she protested. “I can carry them.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Lindsey said as they followed her up the walkway. “Just tell us where you want them.”

  Carrie unlocked her front door and held it open for them. From the foyer, a short staircase led up while another went down. Carrie pointed to the top of the stairs and said, “Would you mind just putting them in the closet up there? I’m going to check on Markus.”

  She went down the stairs to the lower half of the house while Sully started up. Lindsey watched him shoulder his box as if it were no heavier than a sack of groceries.

  Admirable but also very annoying as she tried not to grunt and groan under the weight of her own box.

  The closet door was on the right at the top of the stairs, and Sully put his box on the floor and then turned around to take hers. Lindsey was more than happy to relinquish it.

  He had just taken her box when a blood-curdling scream sounded from the basement.

  Lindsey met Sully’s startled look and then spun around and raced down the stairs. Behind her, she could hear Sully drop the box and pound down the stairs after her. At the bottom of the lower staircase, a hallway led to a couple of bedrooms and a bath in one direction and a large family room in the other. She went toward the family room.

  She stepped into the doorway and saw Carrie slumped against the far wall. Her eyes were wide and her face was etched with a look of horror. As Lindsey rushed to her side to see what was wrong, she noticed that Carrie’s hands were covered in blood.

  CHAPTER

  6

  BRIAR CREEK

  PUBLIC LIBRARY

  “Carrie, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” Lindsey asked as she knelt beside her.

  She glanced around the room. A sporting event was on the big-screen TV, and in one of the two recliners facing them was the limp form of Markus Rushton.

  At least, Lindsey assumed it was him. Given that she’d only met him once and he’d been bundled from head to toe, it was hard to say for sure, but the circumstances made it likely.

  “What happened?” Sully asked as he crossed the room to help Lindsey get Carrie to her feet.

  Carrie started to sob; her voice was choked with emotion as she said, “He’s dead. Markus…he’s been shot.”

  Carrie trembled and Lindsey put an arm around her shoulders, bracing her as Sully turned to examine Markus. He checked his wrist for a pulse and then moved his hand to the spot beneath his jaw. He dropped his hand and Lindsey knew he’d found no sign of a pulse.

  “It’s a ballistic trauma,” Carrie said in nurse speak. “One entry point right through his heart. I thought I could stop the blood loss but I…it…was too late.”

  Her knees gave out and Lindsey caught her before she slid to the floor.

  “Sully!” she cried, and he rushed forward to scoop Carrie up. She hadn’t fainted but she looked on the verge.

  “Let’s get her upstairs,” Lindsey said.

  Sully lifted Carrie up and led the way. Lindsey followed, pausing by the recliner. Whatever crazy hope she harbored that both Sully and Carrie had somehow misread the situation and that Markus was not dead quickly dissipated in light of the grim scene before her.

  It took her only a second to assess the situation. Markus Rushton had been shot in the heart. A large, dark stain saturated his flannel shirtfront, which covered the chest that no longer rose or fell with breath.

  Feeling queasy, Lindsey stumbled after Sully as he went up the stairs to the living room above.

  “Sit with her,” he said as he set Carrie down on the sofa in the front room. “I’ll call the police.”

  Lindsey went to hold Carrie’s hand, but it was icy cold and sticky with blood. She didn’t know if there was a protocol that said a person couldn’t clean up when they found a dead body, but she wasn’t going to let Carrie just sit there with her husband’s blood drying on her hands.

  She went into the kitchen and dampened a paper towel with warm water. Carrie paid her no mind as she gently wiped the blood off her hands. When she was finished, she left the paper towel on the counter by the sink. If anyone asked, she had no problem saying what she had done.

  Silent tears were running down Carrie’s face, and Lindsey suspected the shock was just beginning to wear off. She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and rocked her, trying to soothe her.

  She heard Sully’s footsteps on the stairs before he appeared. He looked grim. “The police should be here in a few minutes.”

  “I just—I don’t…” Carrie’s voice trailed off.

  “There’s a hole in the sliding glass door down there,” Sully said. “Was that there before?”

  Carrie’s eyebrows lowered in confusion. “No, why?”

  “Well, from what I know of bullets and their trajectory, I’m thinking the shot that got Markus in the chest came through the window.”

  Carrie turned a sickly shade of green and hunched forward as if she might be sick.

  Lindsey rubbed her back. Sully had been in the navy for fifte
en years. Lindsey was sure his assessment of the situation was probably right.

  But who would have shot Markus Rushton in his own home? And why?

  “Do you get any hunters out here in Briar Creek?” she asked, hoping it might all be just a tragic mistake.

  “No.” Sully shook his head. “It’s too residential.”

  A flashing strobe light sliced through the room in staccato bursts of blue, and Sully rose to let the police in. Lindsey wondered who was on duty tonight. She and Chief Daniels had gotten off to a rocky start the first time they’d met, and they’d never really put it behind them.

  Lindsey’s first night on the job locking up the library, Ms. Cole had neglected to tell her that the alarm would sound within fifteen seconds, bringing in the local police. Lindsey had stepped out the back door and found herselfnose to gun barrel, with the chief on the other end of the gun; it was hard to recover from an introduction like that.

  “Hi, Emma, come on in,” Sully said at the door.

  Lindsey breathed a sigh of relief. It was Officer Emma Plewicki who had answered the call. Lindsey felt certain she would have a better manner with Carrie than Chief Daniels, and she was grateful, given that Carrie was still trembling, the tears still damp on her face.

  The attractive brunette followed Sully upstairs into the room. She wore a fleece-lined, navy blue police-issued jacket over her uniform, which was the standard pale blue shirt over navy pants. She took in the sight of Lindsey and Carrie and raised her eyebrows.

  “Lindsey and I gave Carrie a ride home from the library because her car wouldn’t start,” Sully explained. “When we got here, we found Markus.”

  “Are you all right, Carrie, Mrs. Rushton?” Emma asked.

  Carrie nodded and then shook her head and then shrugged. Her distress was palpable.

  “Listen, I’m going to go check on your husband and I’ll be right back. Can you hang on until then?” Emma asked. Carrie nodded again and Emma turned to Sully and said, “Show me.”

  Lindsey watched as Emma pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and disappeared down the stairwell behind Sully.

  “They’re going to think I did it,” Carrie said. Her voice sounded odd and Lindsey realized her teeth were chattering. She wondered if Carrie was going into shock.

  “No, they won’t think that,” Lindsey said and she pulled a fluffy ecru afghan, crocheted in a pineapple pattern, off the back of the couch and wrapped it around Carrie’s shoulders. “You were in a meeting all evening. It couldn’t possibly have been you.”

  Carrie said nothing, but Lindsey noticed her shaking got worse.

  Emma must have called for backup, because before she came back upstairs with Sully, Chief Daniels arrived. An abrupt knock announced his presence, but before Lindsey could answer the door, he let himself in.

  He huffed and puffed his way up the stairs, hitching up his waistband as he climbed as if afraid his pants were going to make a break for his ankles. Lindsey wondered why he just didn’t give in and buy a pair of suspenders, maybe he wasn’t ready to admit that his gut now protruded past the point of no return.

  “Carrie,” he said as he stopped beside her. “Emma called me and told me about Markus. I’m so sorry.”

  Carrie reached out and he took her hand in his. They stood like that for just a moment, giving each other some unspoken support. Lindsey had never seen this side of the chief before, and she realized that he and Carrie must know one another very well.

  “Ms. Norris.” Chief Daniels acknowledged her presence with a curt nod. Nope, no warm fuzzies for her. Lindsey got the impression he wasn’t happy to find her here.

  “Chief, you’re going to want to come and take a look at this,” Emma said as she entered the room.

  Sully had followed her up the stairs, and Lindsey noticed he was frowning.

  “I’ll be right back,” Chief Daniels said to Carrie. “Emma, have you called the medical examiner’s office?”

  “Yes, they’re on their way,” she said.

  As he lumbered down the stairs after her, Lindsey heard him say, “We get any more dead bodies in this town and they’re going to have to open a branch office out here.”

  Emma said something in return, but Lindsey couldn’t make it out.

  “What’s going to happen now?” Carrie asked.

  “At a guess, a whole lot of waiting,” Sully said. “It’ll be a while before the crime scene personnel get here and then it’ll take them several hours to investigate the scene.”

  “I need to call my kids,” Carrie said. Her face crumpled and she sobbed into the corner of the afghan wrapped around her shoulders. “What am I going to say?”

  “Where are they now?” Lindsey asked.

  “They’re at university,” Carrie said. “Kyle is a senior at Dartmouth, and Kim is a sophomore at the Rhode Island School of Design.”

  “It’s late,” Lindsey said with a glance at the clock on the mantel. “Do you think you should wait until morning?”

  Carrie looked confused. “Maybe.”

  “Is there anyone else we can call for you?”

  “My sister is in Florida,” Carrie said. “But her husband is very sick. I don’t want to bother her.”

  If not now, when? Lindsey thought, but she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t her call to make.

  They heard Chief Daniels’s heavy tread on the stairs before he appeared. His face looked grim, and Lindsey had a feeling Carrie’s night was about to get worse, if that was even possible.

  “Carrie, I’m going to need you to come down to the station,” he said. “I’ve got some questions for you.”

  “All right.” She rose from her seat on the couch. She looked stoic with her blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her face pale but determined.

  “This is in an official capacity,” the chief said. “Would you like to call your attorney?”

  Lindsey didn’t think it was possible for Carrie to get any paler, but she did. Lindsey couldn’t stand it. The whole thing was preposterous.

  “She was at the library all evening,” Lindsey protested. “She’s the president of the Friends, and there are plenty of witnesses that can place her there.”

  Chief Daniels nodded, looking almost relieved to hear it. “Good. So, you were there from what time?”

  “Seven,” Carrie said. “No, wait, I was running late. I didn’t get there until seven fifteen.”

  An awkward silence filled the room and Carrie glanced around at each of them. “I was having car trouble.”

  “That’s true,” Sully said. “I gave her a ride home because her starter is dead.”

  The chief looked less happy as he glanced at his watch. “It’s nine thirty now. That only accounts for the past two hours. I don’t know enough about forensics to even hazard a guess at when this might have happened. For your own protection, Carrie, we need to do this by the book.”

  Lindsey would have laughed at the pun if she wasn’t so freaked out that Carrie might find herself in jail for a crime she could not possibly have committed.

  “Officer Plewicki is going to escort you to the station, Carrie. Sully, Ms. Norris, we’ll need statements about what occurred upon your arrival here. We can take them now or you can give them at the station, too.”

  “The station,” Lindsey said. She turned to Sully. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Just fine,” he said. He turned to Carrie. “We’ll follow you.”

  She gave them a ghost of a smile. She pulled the afghan off her shoulders and carefully folded it, placing it on the back of the couch. She smoothed it with her hand, as if by tidying up one corner of her shattered life, she might extend order to the rest of it.

  Emma appeared on the landing below, and they all trooped out the door with her. There was an awkward moment at the squad car when Emma opened the back door for Carrie. Carrie looked like she wanted to balk, but instead, she gave Emma a nod and climbed into the back.

  The small cul-de-sac was filling up with cars. As L
indsey and Sully followed Emma’s squad car, they saw the state coroner’s van pulling in. She did not envy them their night’s work.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” Carrie asked for the third time.

  “More than okay,” Lindsey said. “I called Nancy and she said she made up the bed for you.”

  Sully parked his truck in the short driveway in front of the house where Lindsey rented the third floor. When it had occurred to her that Carrie couldn’t go home, she had called Nancy from the police station and they agreed that while Charlie, Nancy’s nephew and tenant of the middle apartment, was gone on tour, Carrie could stay in his place.

  Nancy had gone through it before they arrived to make sure it didn’t reek too much of twenty-something musician man-child. She deemed it okay, and Carrie had gratefully accepted their offer to stay there until she could return home.

  After being questioned at the station, Carrie had been allowed to go home to pack some personal items, including a change of clothes and her toothbrush. Sully hauled her overnight bag and Lindsey’s bike out of the back of his truck while Lindsey led Carrie up the stairs of the old captain’s house.

  Sully followed and handed off Carrie’s bag in the foyer. “Will you two be all right?”

  They both nodded and he said, “Call me if you need anything, either of you.”

  “Thanks, Sully, for everything,” Carrie said.

  It was well past midnight now and she looked dead on her feet. Lindsey glanced over her head and she and Sully exchanged a concerned look. Their questioning at the station had been painless, but Carrie’s had taken hours and she was looking the worse for wear.

  “Go rest,” Sully said. “I’ll check in on you tomorrow. I’ll take care of your car situation.”

  “Thanks, Sully,” Lindsey said.

  They watched as he disappeared back into the night.

  “He’s a good man,” Carrie said.

  Lindsey had to agree. Parked in the hard plastic chairs at the station for hours, Sully had never once complained or begged off. He had just watched and waited, his solid presence giving the surreal situation an overlying sense of calm. No, there weren’t many like Mike Sullivan.