Coop made a move for Nick and they squared off. He wagged his finger at Nick and his nostrils flared.
“Now you listen here––”
I wedged myself between them.
“Enough,” I said. “I want to talk to the chief.”
CHAPTER 45
“I want to talk to her alone, Calhoun,” the chief said.
Nick acknowledged him with a nod and then turned and went.
The chief shut the office door and then his blinds and went around to his side of the desk, but he didn’t sit down. He faced me and pulled on his moustache a few times. I rested my hands in my lap. One of my fingernails was broken. I stared at it like it was an engagement ring that had just been given to me. It beat eye contact.
“Alright Sloane, out with it,” he said.
“Is this my official statement?”
“Someone else can do that later. Right now I want to know what happened.”
I filled him in about my meeting with Kristin at the airport and the comment she made about Parker at the end of our conversation.
“But she didn’t actually say he intended to leave?” he said.
I shook my head.
“It was the way she said it, like she wanted me to know he wouldn’t be around anymore.”
“Then what happened?” he said.
“I went to his house and––”
“Stop right there,” he said. “I asked you to keep your distance. Does anything I say matter to you?”
“At the time it seemed like a good idea.”
“You broke into the guy’s house. I could hold you for that,” he said.
“But you won’t.”
He seized both sides of the desk with his hands and hunched over me like a pack of football players in a huddle, but one thing was different; I had the feeling I wouldn’t be in on the next play.
“A few nights in a cell might do you some good. Maybe you’d listen to me for a change.”
I crossed a line and he wanted me to know it.
“I thought you had a tail on him, but no one was around when I got there. Where were they?”
He mulled it over for a moment.
“Don’t try to change the subject,” he said.
“At least I’m trying to catch Charlotte’s killer. Isn’t that the point of all this?”
He shook his head.
“You think that’s what you’re doing, eh?”
“I don’t have the energy to go back and forth with you on this,” I said. “Not today.”
He backed off and folded his arms.
“Alright,” he said. “Continue.”
“When I got there the lights were off but his front door was cracked open.”
“And you went in.”
I nodded.
“I thought he wasn’t there and that if I could find some evidence that proved his involvement in what happened to Charlotte we could use it to arrest him.”
“You’re so foolish sometimes kiddo,” he said. “No matter I suppose. What’s done is done. You went into his house and found him. Then what happened?”
“When I realized he was dead, I called Nick.”
“And that’s it, that’s all of it?”
“Almost. I did find a note on his desk.”
He held his hand out and motioned toward himself with his fingers.
“Lemme take a look at it,” he said.
“I don’t have it with me. I dropped it.”
“You expect me to believe you found the note and just left it there? That doesn’t sound like you at all,” he said.
“It’s still there.”
“You read it then,” he said.
“Forgive me.”
“For what?” he said.
“That’s what the note said.”
He looked toward the ceiling and uttered the words to himself a few times.
“What do you make of it?” he said.
I tried not to show my surprise that he still considered my opinion after all that had happened.
“It looks like he buckled over the guilt, wrote the note, and then offed himself.”
“That would explain a lot,” he said.
“If that’s the truth.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I never thought Parker of all people would kill himself, it doesn’t make sense.”
“In what way?” he said.
“Parker slept with a lot of women. On the outside he was selfish and full of himself and proud. But on the inside he was an insecure coward who got his kicks when he bullied those around him. That’s not the type of person who shoots himself in the head.”
“What then?”
“Let’s say he really did want to die for what he’d done. Why not take a bunch of pills and do it the simple way?”
“You ever consider you might be over thinking it a bit,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“The gun was convenient and easy. I expect that’s why he did it.”
“Maybe.”
“I guess we better notify the father,” he said. “You can imagine what he’ll do when he finds out.”
CHAPTER 46
Three days had passed since Parker’s death, and I spent the majority of it at home. I wanted to avoid any run-ins with Coop and the chief who felt I interfered in their investigation. I received no thank you for discovering the body, no words of appreciation, nothing for my efforts.
My cell phone rang. It was Audrey.
“I got your message,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s all over.”
“That’s the general consensus.”
“Parker did himself and everyone else a huge favor.”
I didn’t see any point in debating with her.
“So, what’s next for you?”
“I’m out of here,” she said.
“For how long?”
“Maybe for good. It’s time to move on with my life. This town reminds me too much of Charlotte. It’s hard to drive around and see a real estate sign with her face plastered on the front of it in someone’s yard. I know they will all come down, but I feel like I can’t move forward if I stay here.”
I felt that way a few years back except Audrey was leaving for the same reason I stayed.
“Will you come back?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Any idea where you’ll go?”
“Do you want to know something interesting? A couple days ago I gathered Charlotte’s mail that had piled up since she passed away and I opened a letter from a woman in Haiti. She said she was looking forward to Charlotte and her sister arriving next month to assist with the reconstruction project they started there.”
“Wow.”
“Do you know what that means? Charlotte never planned to transfer to another agency, or maybe she did at first, but not at the end. She wanted to leave this place, and she was going to take me with her.”
“I’m sorry I never got the chance to meet your sister,” I said. “She was an amazing person.”
“If she talked to me about this when she was alive, I can’t say whether I would have gone with her. But now, I feel I owe it to her to go, and there’s nothing I’d rather do.”
“If there is anything you need––”
“There is,” she said. “I want to put Charlotte’s place on the market. I’ve sent some movers over to pack it all up for me, and in the meantime, I’ve listed it with Vicki.”
“What can I do?”
“I’m on my way to the airport and I didn’t have time to drop the key off to her before I left. Since I gave you a copy I hoped you could stop in and do it for me?”
“That won’t be a problem.”
“Thanks for everything. I know I wasn’t the easiest person to deal with.”
“Take care of yourself.”
I pressed the end button on my phone. The news of Parker’s death came as a sense of peace for Audrey. So why didn’t I feel a sense o
f resolve too?
Lord Berkeley’s ears perked up as Nick walked in with dog treats in one hand and daisies in the other. He opened the bag and placed a treat on Boo’s nose.
“For the Lord,” he said.
Boo wiggled his nose and snatched it up and looked at Nick for a second. Much to his dismay Nick turned toward me and extended the flowers.
“For the Lady,” he said.
“What’s the occasion?”
“Do I need one?” he said.
“I guess not.”
He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed.
“We’ve dropped the case. The ME’s report came back and it’s conclusive. Parker committed suicide.”
“What else did the report say?” I said.
“The latent prints we lifted from the gun matched Parker’s and no other prints were found on it. There is one caveat though.”
“What’s that?”
“Before the ME’s report came back, I checked out the gun and it wasn’t registered to Parker or anyone else for that matter. And Parker’s father said he didn’t own a gun.”
“So where did he get it?”
“Good question,” he said.
“What about the note?”
“We compared it to some handwritten papers we found in his desk and they were an exact match.”
I put the daisies in a vase and then walked over to the couch and sat down.
“I can’t believe it,” I said.
“Now you can put it behind you and move on.”
“I guess so.”
I wanted to feel a sense of relief, but there was something about it all that bothered me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to Parker’s death than what it seemed.
CHAPTER 47
An hour later I sat on a red velvet sofa shaped like a peanut eating a cup of chocolate gelato and tried to forget it was a mere nineteen degrees outside.
Maddie took a bite of wildberry and angled her plastic spoon at me.
“What’s your deal?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“No you’re not. You’ve got that look on your face.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Don’t make me pry it out of you.”
“All I wanted was to clear my mind and to spend the day without any thoughts about Charlotte or Parker or the case, but the harder I try not to think about it, the more I do.”
“Why think of Parker at all? He’s dead, and I don’t see too many people unhappy about it.”
She finished the last bite of gelato and set her plastic bowl on the table. It was yellow and reminded me of the set of colorful pastel Tupperware bowls my mother used in the eighties.
The remnants of Maddie’s melted gelato dripped off the side of the cup and onto the table. She didn’t notice. I let it go for a few seconds and then, when I couldn’t sit still and watch it drip any longer, I snatched a napkin and wiped it up.
“It’s just that I remembered something,” I said.
“Do tell.”
“I think Parker was left handed.”
She opened her eyes all the way.
“Fascinating.”
“Okay smart ass,” I said.
“What made you think of that––about him being a leftie?”
“The first time I met him in the lobby downtown he handed me a flower with his left hand. And then later in his apartment he held a glass in his left hand. When he pinned me up against the wall––”
“I get it, left hand.”
“I broke the fingers on his left hand,” I said.
“So what does that mean?”
“The evidence said Parker shot himself with his right hand.”
She slanted her head to the side.
“Maybe he’s ambidextrous. You ever think of that?”
“And maybe I’m the Princess of Wales,” I said.
“What did the coroner’s report say?”
“Nick said the ME results were conclusive, he shot himself. They found no other prints on the gun, and there’s no way I can get access to the report. The chief has me on some type of time-out while Parker’s daddy is in town.”
“What a prick.”
“He’s not such a bad guy, Maddie. He’s just doing what he needs to do. Besides, I don’t know what made him madder, the fact that I broke into Parker’s house, that my prints were all over the crime scene, or that I discovered Parker’s body before they did.”
Maddie walked over to the drinking fountain and slurped some water and then came back and plopped down next to me. She wiped the water that dripped from her face and stuck a piece of purple gum in her mouth and slouched down in her seat.
“Who’s the coroner?”
“Whitley,” I said.
“Stan Whitley?”
“Know him?”
She bobbed her head up and down a couple times and grinned.
“Do I ever.”
“Now it’s your turn to spill,” I said.
“He’s got the hots for me.”
“Who doesn’t?” I said.
“Don’t I know it.”
She twisted a finger around a piece of her hair.
“It’s hard being me.”
I took my cup and hers and threw them into the trash receptacle.
“I imagine so.”
“Oh give me a break,” she said. “You can have any guy you want.”
“And I do,” I said.
“The having isn’t the problem though, is it? It’s the holding.”
“It makes me feel––”
“Trapped.”
“Something like that,” I said.
“You’re just scared.”
“And you aren’t?”
“Hell no. I’m not the marrying kind. I don’t need a man to tie me down so that I can sit at home and pop out babies every other year for the next ten years of my life.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” I said.
“Oh no, what about Ben?”
I almost forgot about Ben whose fondest wish was for them to wed. And she almost did until he told her about his plan for her to stay at home and make a tribe of little Ben’s. He made it clear he wanted no less than six of them. Maddie, on the other hand, wanted a career so that was a deal breaker.
“I ran into him a few months ago.”
“How did that go over?” I said.
“He was with his pregnant wife and four or five other bundles of joy. They ran wild all over the place like the kids in Children of the Corn.”
“How long have they been married?” I said.
“About five years now I guess.”
Maddie swore off kids in college. After she helped her single mother raise seven younger brothers and sisters she had no intentions of being responsible for anybody but herself.
“Nick wants to move forward. He wants to make it official,” I said.
“He said that?”
“He wants us to move in together although I’m unclear whether he meant his place or mine,” I said.
“You can’t blame him for that sweetie.”
“Right now our life together is simple and uncomplicated. I have my space and he has his. Why can’t it remain like that?”
“Depends on how long you plan to stay that way. What are you on, your second year together?”
I nodded.
“We just hit the two year mark,” I said.
“No wonder he wants to settle. If you two were both in your twenties, it would be different.”
“I thought you of all people would understand,” I said.
“Just because I don’t plan to walk down the aisle doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Nick’s the first guy I’ve seen you with who makes you happy. I can’t imagine you with anyone else.”
“What if he moves in and it isn’t what he thought?” I said. “Then what?”
“You could get trampled by a herd of buffalo in some field tomorrow and end up dead anyway.”
“Nice,” I said.
“My point is you don’t know what’s going to happen in life. How do you know moving in together won’t make life even sweeter than it already is––did you ever think of it like that?”
She leaned over and gave me a hug and whispered in my ear.
“You get one shot at life, don’t waste it.”
The door swung open and a group of teenagers strolled in. They laughed and talked to one another at such a high decibel I thought for sure I would rupture an eardrum. Maddie looked at me and we both reached for our coats.
“Thanks for the gelato,” I said.
“Anytime.”
Maddie pushed the front door open and we walked out.
“Headed back to your office?” I said.
She shook her head.
“I’m off to play catch up with my old friend Whitley.”
CHAPTER 48
When I was a young girl I had a master plan, a vision board that I kept locked away in a safe place inside my head, and whenever I took out my key and visited I planned out my life. Grow up, get married, and raise kids––four of them to be exact. Two boys, two girls. At twelve I wanted their names to be Piper, Kelly, Rhys, and Peter. Problem was no one ever told me what to do when my master plan failed, and I was too headstrong to believe it could be anything less than what I imagined. I would have a perfect husband, raise four perfect children, and live a perfect life. But then I grew up. Marriage came and then divorce. And my dream of four kids––I wasn’t fortuitous enough to produce one. My body and its natural form of birth control made sure of that. Plan A didn’t work out, and I never thought I needed a Plan B.
Maybe Charlotte felt that way. On her vision board she aspired to greatness. She was a professional skier and then a real estate agent, and a good one at that. She met and fell in love with a man who she thought she could trust, and at some point along the way she became cognizant enough to see that he did not have her best interests at heart. I wondered if she was at a good place in her life when she died. She paid the ultimate price, and it didn’t seem fair.
By the time I reached Charlotte’s office the closed sign dangled from the front door. No key for Vicki tonight. I assumed she wouldn’t mind, but I gave her a call anyway. Much to my chagrin, she gave me her address and asked me to stop by. She had a client anxious to see the place and she wanted to do a walkthrough beforehand. So much had changed in so little time. One day Charlotte was alive in her condo, and the next it was up for sale to the highest bidder.
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