Dead Cold

by Claire Stibbe

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late. I wanted...”

  What did he want? A good home-cooked meal? Or to give her the bad news about her underage daughter?

  “You’re not bothering.” She pulled a string of gum from her mouth and curled it around one finger. “A man like you shouldn’t be out all alone.”

  Her eyes grazed his torso and settled on his chest. She wasn’t alone. Not with an animal print skirt hiked to mid-thigh and perfume that stuck to the hair follicles inside his nose. It was sensual in a repulsive way.

  “I hope they catch the bastard. What type of car was it? Probably one of those Corvettes,” she said, bracelets jangling. “Hot item. Course, you’re a hot item and all.”

  Flynn felt a flush of heat in the back of his neck and caught sight of his face in the silver rim of the microwave. Pale and sweaty, hair stuck to his cheeks.

  She pointed at a wall phone with a curly cord stretching at least eight feet, a throwback from the 1980s. Flynn mouthed a thank you and lifted the handset. He watched her slink barefoot towards the couch and squeeze herself between a grey-haired man and a young girl, the same ones he had seen in the wood. A TV murmured in the living room accompanied by the occasional cheers from a football game.

  He could have dialed three numbers and called the cops right there and then to arrest the old man. But Flynn was a witness and witnesses had to show up court. The conversation he ended up having with himself was loud enough to be heard over the dialing tone and plaintive enough for them to believe it.

  He wanted to leave the pink cell phone on the countertop while he had the chance, but something told him to leave it in his pocket for now. He’d never stolen anything before, well... not since eleventh grade when he took Jonah Saavedra’s tobacco tin which contained four freshly rolled joints. He’d smoked the lot with Dennis.

  “How’s it going?” said the woman, sauntering towards him with a frown.

  “They said I should go down and make a report at the station tomorrow morning,” Flynn said over the din. “There’s been three more car thefts tonight. They’ll let me know.”

  “How are they going to let you know if you don’t have a phone?” she asked, head aslant.

  Good question, he thought. How would they let him know? “I gave them my girlfriend’s number. She’ll know what to do.”

  Her eyes slid down to his fourth finger and then back up to his face. “How are you going to get home?”

  The man on the couch leaned forward and cursed loudly. “Leave the guy alone, Misty! Give him a damn beer.”

  Before Flynn could refuse, Misty staggered into the kitchen, tore the tab off a nearby can and thrust it under his nose. “Want something to eat?” she mouthed.

  “Oh, no, no. I’m fine,” he said.

  But he wasn’t. The look on her face was enough to tell him she knew his stomach was screaming for food. She probably knew he hadn’t called the cops and the longer he stayed, the longer her mind tallied the freckles on his arm likely assigning each a number. If he wasn’t careful she’d pull out a duty belt and shove a badge in his face.

  “It’s stew?” she said, taking the lid off a slow cooker, nostrils twitching in the steam.

  “I’d like to stay but—”

  “That’s settled then.”

  The curt response took him by surprise and he said thank you before he could stop it. He sat beside her, glancing briefly at a pair of white thighs sticking out from beneath her skirt like two Aspen twigs. She balled the gum into a wad and pressed it against the edge of her bowl.

  “My husband, Larry.” She nodded at the man who rubbed his neck and sauntered over to the table without his shirt on.

  Larry barely glanced at Flynn, spent too much time staring at the fifteen-year-old he’d already seen too much of in the wood. Introduced her as his stepdaughter, Paula, and snapped his fingers to wave her over.

  There was a strong odor of alcohol and Larry’s eyes were glazed and dull. Flynn didn’t know what to make of it. Felt like he’d been snagged by aliens and he was about to be splayed out on the kitchen table and used for some scientific experiment.

  “Thanks for dinner,” he said, wondering if they’d read the newspaper, whether his face was already on the front page.

  They might have known how Tarian died and they might have known he had run away like a coward. He kept Misty in the periphery of his vision because she was watching him as closely as he was watching her.

  “Too many cop cars in town tonight,” she said, pulling the sleeve of her sweater down to hide a scar. “They could be looking for a psycho runaway or a bunch of strippers.”

  “Takes one to know one,” Larry said, waving an empty bowl. She spooned out a large portion before he ambled back to the couch to eat it.

  The stew was tough and the carrots were barely cooked but Flynn ate it all the same. He studied a full mouth and a tongue wiping away a glossy trail of gravy. Misty was studying Larry. And then she stared at Flynn.

  “Are you honest?” she whispered.

  Flynn shifted in his seat. He noticed a thick smear of make-up beneath her right eye which appeared to cover a bruise. “Am I what?”

  “Honest.”

  “Yes, I’m honest.”

  “Does being away from home make you feel bad?”

  “Why should it?”

  “Being away from your wife?”

  “My wife?”

  “Something wrong with your hearing?”

  Flynn took a swallow and stared at icy-blue eyes. She was studying the wedding band on his hand again and giving it a sideways smile. It was an unusual design. “You do have one, don’t you?”

  “My wife’s dead.” The words sounded hollow in his head.

  “I’m sorry,” Misty murmured. Her eyes snapped towards the couch as an afterthought. “Did you hear that, Larry? He’s a widower.”

  “Damn lucky I should say. I’d pull the trigger on mine if I could find my damn gun.” Larry stabbed a chunk of meat with his fork.

  Misty resumed the whispering, cocking her head to one side. “When did she die?”

  “Recently.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Not long.”

  “The only reason I ask is fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. It’s the world we live in. And now you’ve got a girlfriend,” she persisted, taking a few more mouthfuls of stew.

  “She’s a friend who’s a girl,” Flynn corrected. He knew it sounded ridiculous, but it was the best he could offer.

  “So, what are you doing twenty-five miles from the border? Running away from the grief? Can’t be done. It’ll follow you all the way to Arizona.”

  “I’m not running away.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Misty tapped the cigarette box on the edge of the table, tilted her head toward him and said she was going out for a smoke.

  Flynn wiped his bowl clean with a wedge of bread and studied Paula. He asked her if she was OK, if she needed another spoonful of stew. The downturned chin made him realize she didn’t trust him, eyes grazing the blue and white tablecloth as if there was something odd in the pattern. She was full-lipped like her mother, freckly faced with long brown hair. You wouldn’t notice her in a crowd.

  Larry let out a throat-curdling belch and wiped a whiskery chin with the back of his hand. He reached over the coffee table and grabbed another can of beer. There was no telling if he was fully alert, whether he noticed Misty leave. But one thing was certain. He wouldn’t let her be gone for long.

  Flynn opened the front door and felt a rush of cool air and cigarette smoke against his face. She was sitting in a wicker rocker, staring straight ahead.

  “So, you’re on the run,” she said.

  Flynn almost threw up all the food he’d barely eaten. “Excuse me?”

  She took a deep hit into the pit of her lungs. “You’re almost as famous as Al Capone.”

  Perhaps it was the beer, perhaps it was the absurdity of the situation, b
ut he chuckled. “Do you have a newspaper?”

  She pushed a hand down the side of her chair and pulled out a copy of the Gallup Independent. It was the picture of a solemn groom and a radiant bride that bothered him. Nothing like he felt now.

  “If we’re going to do business, Mr. McCann,” she said, lips locked around a cigarette, “you gotta tell me something I don’t know.”

  “You mean like your husband’s doing your daughter?”

  She leaned forward on the rocker, cigarette poised between two fingers. “You got proof?”

  “As a matter of fact I do.” He pulled the pink phone from his pocket, pressed the home button and showed her the text Larry had sent. “Meets her same time, same place. He made her do it, if you must know. She was crying afterwards.”

  Misty glared at him and Flynn figured she was thinking of a way to rip her husband to shreds. “Where d’you get this?”

  “In the wood behind the school. Must have fallen out of her pocket.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Misty closed her eyes and shook her head. The phone blinked out. “I don’t...”

  “Is he violent?” Flynn asked.

  “Larry? He can be stubborn.”

  “He’s threatening her. Makes her delete the texts because he knows you check. There’s no lock screen.”

  Misty stared at the cigarette in her hand, watched the smoke curling from the tip and gave a grunt of annoyance.

  “He’ll text her again,” Flynn said. “And when he does you can take it to the cops.”

  “What are they gonna do? He’d be back out in three hours.”

  “For touching a minor? Call it what you want, but it’s child abuse.”

  Misty’s eyes were focused and from a pale shaft of light from the kitchen window he could see she was crying.

  “Take it to the cops,” he said. “While you’re there, you might want to show them the bruise you’ve got.”

  “Why are you limping?”

  “I’m glad you asked. Got anything for burns.”

  “You dumbass. Stay here.”

  She slipped back inside the house. He only had to wait a minute before she was back out with a roll of gauze and a tube of Neosporin. “Take it. That’s all I have.”

  “Thanks. You will go to the cops?”

  “I will if you will.”

  Flynn heard Larry shout, heard him thumping towards the door.

  “Keep your head down, McCann,” she said, flicking the cigarette on the ground. “If you’re smart, you’ll keep walking. And don’t ever come back.”

  Flynn was wide-eyed now and breathing rapidly. He stuck his hands in his pockets and began stumbling down an empty street.

  TEN

  Malin padded over to the window and gazed down at the rear parking lot. Temeke had pulled in. She watched him flick the remains of a lighted cigarette under Fowler’s car, lift a small suitcase from the passenger seat and head for the back door.

  It would be three minutes in the lobby with Sergeant Moran discussing the night shift, three seconds to filch the only newspaper the substation had, one minute learning how Hackett had been found in agony on the floor by his desk, and then Temeke would be powering up a flight of steps to their office.

  So... what? Five minutes, tops?

  She leaned casually against the table under the window and stared down at the blonde who was trying on her chair for size. Malin’s mind crawled from the gray haze of the office where it had been trapped for the last forty-five minutes.

  “He’s a damn fine man,” Detective Suzi Cornwell said, eyes refusing to budge from Malin’s. “Must feel good to be his gatekeeper. To have an in.”

  Malin chewed on her fingernail. “Right.”

  “A lone ranger. Well, it’s a free-for-all, isn’t it? He is divorced—”

  “Separated.” Malin was unable to keep the smile from her voice. She decided to return the favor. “I heard you were dating top brass.”

  Suzi seemed to consider this for a moment, then shook her head. “Nope. Not anymore.”

  The real answer was slapped on Suzi’s ravaged face. She was understandably jumpy, and of course tense. But there was something else, something almost furtive about her. The same furtiveness Malin had seen in the face of Captain Fowler every time he got near her.

  “Everyone knows you’re dating Fowler. Why the secrecy?” Malin said.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.” Again, that bland look.

  “I notice you don’t call him your boyfriend, by the way.”

  Suzi tensed. “I don’t, and I won’t. His kind of dating gives relationships a bad name.”

  It took Malin a split second to realize Suzi was sharing a confidence. “What kind of dating?”

  “I know what you’re thinking? Where’s the attraction? It’s good looks and a free ride to the top.”

  I bet it’s one hell of a ride, Malin thought, and asked, “Is rank that important?”

  “It is to me.” Suzi tensed. “We’re not so different you and I. Independent women working in a male dominated environment. You’re familiar with frauds, I’m sure. Fowler has the same magnetism. He takes pleasure in targeting vulnerable women, provoking them, stalking them ... I could go on.”

  “Sexual harassment, you mean?”

  “Yes. But he’s more of a tactician than a predator. Wants to hinder their progress rather than help it. And I was too stupid to see it coming.”

  “Too stupid?” Malin interrupted. “I don’t think for a minute you believe that. If he’s doing all the things you say he is, you’ve got the upper hand.”

  “Only if I can prove it.”

  Suzie jumped when the door of the office opened, revealing a crabby-assed detective with an axe to grind.

  “I hear Hackett’s gone home with backache.” Temeke slammed the suitcase on the table beneath the window and nodded at Malin. “Fowler’s downstairs screaming and yelling like a two-year-old. Someone’s leaked information on the poem we found in McCann’s mailbox. When’s it all going to end?”

  “Office gossip is such a bear.” Malin hiked her chin at Suzi.

  Temeke seemed to read the silent communication and switched his attention to the blonde in the corner. “Oh, I didn’t see you tucked away there, Ms. Cornwell. Nice chair, isn’t it? If you bounce up and down you can test the springs.”

  Suzi’s face went tight, probably from being referred to as a Ms. rather than Detective, but after a second she relaxed and forced a smile.

  “I was hoping to meet with you both before I left for Gallup,” she said. “Captain Fowler would like you to conduct interviews while I go out in the field. Santiago, I’d like you check phone records and make a list of suspects in similar cases—”

  “While I go through fugitives on the loose and missing persons just in case McCann isn’t our man,” Temeke pointed out.

  “Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.” Suzi ran a hand through blonde hair while taking a deep breath.

  She’s smart, Malin thought, trying not to stare at sharp features which were likely eastern European. Suzi wasn’t the doormat Malin thought she was. No, she was a stone’s throw from genius.

  “By the way,” Temeke said, “Captain Fowler wants to speak to you. Something about you using the spare office next to his.”

  Pushing herself up from the chair, Suzi’s face flamed a deep red. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Temeke dropped the newspaper on his desk and waited for the door to close. “Wake me up if I’m asleep, Marl, but wasn’t that strong whiff our new lead detective?”

  “Yes, sir.” Malin sat down in her chair and squelched out a mist of noxious perfume which had somehow stuck to the fabric. “She trotted in and planted herself on my chair with surprising ease. Looks like she’ll be handling this case like the host of her own radio talk show.”

  “What does she see in Fowler?” Temeke asked. “I mean, you can’t smell the rubber mats in the substation now. Not with her and Fowler playing a game
of colognes.”

  “I remember her at the academy,” Malin said. “No one could one-up her then. She was born tough, I guess. Even carried a thirty-eight in her pocketbook when she went out on a date. Used to have a forty-five but it gave her carpal tunnel from the weight.”

  “Bursitis, you mean.”

  “We were in the bathrooms after class and she told me how a neighbor tried to fondle her when she was kid. Twelve years old. I can’t imagine what that would be like. Her mother told her to stop wearing skimpy clothes and cover up. All because men can’t help themselves.” Malin huffed out a loud breath. “You can’t make a little girl cover up in ninety degree weather because of the false and hateful pretext men can’t help themselves.”

  “Did you like her back then?”

  “I felt bad for her,” Malin said. “Anyway, I saw her last week having dinner with Fowler. Can’t have been work related, not at night and with a tight glittery dress and spike heels.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Sipping a malt behind the dumpster in the alleyway between Carl’s Jr. and Chick-Fil-A. My question is how many other women does Fowler date?”

  “You want to go through the bloody phone book?”

  “That many?”

  “It cracks me up the way he plays the devoted boyfriend and all the while he’s porking everything in sight.”

  Temeke waved a hand, determined to get back on track. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and opened the suitcase. “This came from Linda Quinn’s house. Fill out a Chain of Custody Worksheet, will you, love?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Write this down. A small laptop, three USB ports and three chargers,” he said, laying each item out on the table. “Bloody hell... it says there’s seven grand in here.”

  Malin watched him open a brown envelope and check every inch of it. “Seven grand? Are you sure, sir?”

  Temeke began flicking through a crisp pile of greenbacks and when he’d finished his dark eyes seared into hers. “Seven thousand in one hundred dollar bills.”