by Medora Sale
SHORT CUT TO SANTA FE
A John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries Mystery
Medora Sale
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Dedication
For Harry who was there
and Anne
Chapter 1
Tuesday May 4
Inspector John Sanders stood in front of the white-painted door and gave his tangled bunch of keys a dispirited examination. He was shivering with cold in the gray, windswept May afternoon, but he shied away from the doorway like a horse facing a burning stable. There was nothing sinister about it. Open that door and he knew he would face five days’ worth of garbage, unwashed coffee cups, dust, dirty shirts, and solitude. He had put Harriet and all her gear on a plane last Thursday and discovered that without her in it, their apartment had become unbearable.
He had sent her off with an air of martyred goodwill that she had treated with the contempt it deserved. “John,” she’d said as she moved along the endless passages of Toronto’s Pearson Airport, apparently unimpeded by at least forty pounds of photographic equipment, “if you don’t stop looking like a spaniel that’s just been kicked, I’ll throw something at you. You haven’t been home for more than six hours at a time for weeks now—you won’t even notice I’m not there.”
“The hell I won’t,” he’d said, matching his long stride to her slightly shorter one. “I always notice when you’re not there.”
“You promised when you moved in that you wouldn’t mess with my work. Remember? And this is work. I’ve wanted to do this Kansas project for more than a year and now is the perfect time. Days are getting long, shadows aren’t bad, and by the time I’ve finished you might have wrapped up your case.” She had stopped and turned to him, her face grave and her green eyes intense.
“But what if—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. I’ll be fine. I can look after myself. You’d think I was flying to Beirut, not Kansas City.” Then her stern voice had melted into husky laughter, she had grinned, put down her gear, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “But I sure as hell will miss those six hours you are at home,” she had murmured lasciviously and kissed him. “I’ll call you from Kansas City. Don’t forget to leave the machine on when you go out,” she had added, picking up her gear and preparing to do battle with the airport’s security equipment. “And eat something besides doughnuts and hamburgers.”
He pushed open the door and stooped to gather up the mail. Under the bills and the advertising flyers lay an envelope with Harriet’s cramped scrawl on it. He ran up the stairs to the living room, dropped the rest of the mail on her desk, and ripped open her letter.
Lawrence, Kansas
Thursday.
John darling,
I decided that I was never going to telephone at an hour when you were home (how is the case? Active, I assume, since I couldn’t reach you tonight), and so I’m attempting the old-world expedient of writing. I’d fax, except that I don’t want all those louts in your department snickering over my letter.
So far, the trip has been fine. I picked up the van in Kansas City—almost new, and at last, something big enough for my equipment—and set out westward ho. I didn’t get very far, as you could tell if you knew anything about this part of the world. I was planning to drive a hundred miles or so but was stopped by Lawrence—it’s a university town with some very tempting houses and streetscapes. I can’t help it. I promised myself I’d stick to industrial buildings this trip, but there is so much as I go along and who knows when I’ll get this way again.
Abilene, Kansas
Friday.
Very slow progress. I keep stopping to grab silos and such against the sky—which, by the way, is wonderful. Like an Irish sky, in the rapid shift of sun and cloud. Spring is here, and everything is green and growing. The world is defined by trees. A single tree standing in an empty field. A line of trees defining a river. I am in danger of becoming a landscape freak. All right—I’m becoming a landscape freak. So far, no tornadoes, no gray landscape. What was Dorothy talking about?
Saturday.
I’ve been in Abilene since yesterday afternoon. It’s an old railroad town, with a fabulous mill and grain elevator.
How goes the case? Have you nailed the husband yet? It must be the air out here, but all sorts of fresh ideas occur to me. Have you considered that you’re having trouble proving he did it because, just maybe, he didn’t? Hard as it is for me to admit it, women are killed by people other than their husbands or lovers.
Anyway, so much for today’s insight. I’m planning on leaving here tomorrow very early in the a.m., in time to catch several places on my list before the sun gets too high. I’ll spend tomorrow and the night after in Kansas wherever I can find cheap motels in interesting towns, and then into Denver to see Kate Grosvenor. I called her today, and managed to lock myself into spending two nights at her place. She’s in rougher shape than I realized. Apparently (although you probably know this) bullet wounds in the shoulder are nasty things, highly disruptive to bones, ligaments, cartilage, and all that, and it’s taking her a hell of a lot of time to recuperate from this one. She is beginning to feel that there are better ways of earning a living than photojournalism.
Anyway, my love, this dreary recital of my itinerary all has a point. I was thinking of leaving Denver on Thursday. Even if I just loafed down the highway, stopping whenever I felt like it, I could get to Santa Fe—or wherever the nearest airport is—on Friday, and pick you up. Get it? Then we head north again on Friday or Saturday or Sunday to Taos. I think we both need a few days off, and Kate says—I’m not sure why—that there are places near Taos that she thinks I might be able to photograph. Fax me in Denver? Or telephone? You’ll find the numbers on the Rolodex under Grosvenor.
I am assuming that when I left, you were at the darkest-before-dawn point and that I can’t reach you because you are wrapping up the case. If you’re still up to your ears, then let me know and I’ll rearrange my plans. But I won’t be happy about it. Life seems very curious without you turning up at least once a day. I’m startled at how used I have become to your toothbrush in my—or now our—bathroom. I thought that I had acclimatized myself so completely over the years to living alone that I would find a few days of solitary bliss a relief. It isn’t. I miss you, damn it, in more ways than I thought I would. Away from you for three days, and my treacherous body thinks you’ve been gone for a month. I keep storing up little things to tell you at dinner and then I dine alone. So come and meet me if you can.
All my love,
Her familiar signature, awkward and spiky, was scrawled across the bottom of the page. He sat down abruptly. It brought her voice, and her solemn mocking green-eyed look into startling proximity and juxtaposed it to the horror of the day.
Harriet had been right in her diagnosis of his case; it had not been her husband who had killed Mrs. Novak and their two daughters. John had been contacted that morning as soon as the body and the confession had been discovered, and he’d reached the pleasant house on its prosperous street before the scene had been tidied
up. The shattered head, the blood-soaked bedding, the heavy assault rifle made a fitting final chapter to a history steeped in so much blood. Only the main character seemed insanely out of place. Slumped on the bed lay a frail, skinny fifteen-year-old child, dead by his own hand.
The weapon on the floor would almost certainly turn out to be the one used on Gail Novak, Seana, thirteen, and Erin, eleven, on the night Roy Novak had been on a business trip to Edmonton. And from that moment, Sanders and his team had participated in turning Novak’s life into a living hell. They had searched every cranny of his existence, looking for a mistress, or a large insurance policy on his wife, anything that would motivate a prosperous, sober businessman to slaughter his family. Because who would have thought that the boy who had lived four houses away for less than a year, and had never—as far as anyone knew—spoken to either daughter, had owned a weapon like that and was crazy enough to use it to avenge a fancied slight and an imaginary broken heart.
That’s what he had said. He loved Seana Novak, his letter said, and she had refused to go out with him. But he had seen her talking to another boy and that was when he had decided to kill her. Now he couldn’t live without her. He was going to kill himself and wanted to be buried in the same grave with her, like Romeo and Juliet, he said.
His mother had sat in the living room, smiling politely, as if Sanders had come for morning coffee. “What is he talking about, do you know, Officer?” she had asked, with a puzzled frown. “He’s been studying Romeo and Juliet at school. Maybe his teacher knows.” She grasped nothing. Not his death, not the murders, not her loss.
“Where did your son get that rifle?” he asked.
“He must have bought it,” said his mother brightly. “He has a job after school three nights a week. And he still has his paper route. He’s had that since he was eleven. He saves every penny he earns to buy himself things he really wants.”
Like enough firepower to wipe out the neighbourhood, thought Sanders. Sweet, hard-working kid. “Did you ever worry that your son might be violent or disturbed?” he asked at last. “Did he get upset easily?”
“Oh no.” She shook her head in amazement. “He was always the quietest, nicest boy,” said his mother. Her voice was becoming thick and her eyes were drooping at the corners. She blinked him back in focus.
Coked to the gills. Some doctor’s been at her. Sanders smiled gently and got himself out of the room, abandoning her to the protective armor of shock and little white—or whatever colour they were—pills.
“Is there any doubt he did it?” asked Sergeant Ed Dubinsky, his partner. They had stood outside, on the lawn, removing themselves from everyone’s way.
Sanders shook his head. “Everything he says in the letter fits the physical evidence. No one else could have known. He did it, all right.”
And that was it. The case was over.
He put Harriet’s letter down on the desk and headed for the shower. He couldn’t talk to her before washing the blood off his soul.
John toweled himself as if he were trying to remove his skin along with the water, and then slipped into jeans and a sweatshirt. He looked in the refrigerator, shook his head, took out a beer, and headed for the telephone on the desk. He hated the flippant voice on the answering machine at Kate Grosvenor’s and slammed the receiver down.
There was a fax waiting for him as he approached his desk. It was demurely addressed to “Inspector John Sanders,” and had no doubt been read by everyone in the sprawling room by now. He spread it open.
Dear Inspector Sanders,
Arrived in Denver. All is well; trip uneventful, but please call me at Kate’s. It’s important.
Harriet.
“But not from here,” said John, and was rewarded with a suspicious look from someone rushing by with coffee and a sandwich. He shrugged and went over to fax his carefully worded reply to Harriet’s first letter.
“This one is for you,” said Kate Grosvenor, as she came out of the study. “A fax addressed to Dear Harriet with no cover page.”
“John,” muttered her friend, snatching the page out of her hand. “That was a superb lunch. Thank you. Do you mind if I—”
“Go ahead. Find a comfortable spot in the living room and I’ll get us coffee.”
Kate’s house was tall, and longer than it was wide, built of red brick and in the Victorian manner, and ornamented with stained glass. It had been divided into two apartments: Kate’s took up the first floor and part of the second; a silent tenant lived above. Harriet shivered as she walked into the living room. An air of uninhabited desolation seemed to hang over all the rooms except the little study just inside the door, where Kate’s battered oak desk and spring-backed chair occupied every inch of floor space. Ominous quantities of dust lay over every surface in the darkroom. Kate had stopped working some time ago.
Harriet resolutely curled up in a large chair to read John’s fax.
Dear Harriet,
Yes. I’m exhausted and I miss you and I don’t give a damn if all we do is meet in Chicago or Tulsa or Dallas and spend four days in an airport hotel, sending out for soggy pizza and hamburgers. Although Taos sounds good, too. It’s cold here and miserable but the good news is that as of a few hours ago I can get away. Thank God.
The case is solved, if you can call what happened a solution. Ended is maybe a better word. I’ll tell you about it later, except that you’re right. It wasn’t the husband. It was a neighbour.
Meet me at the airport in Santa Fe at five-thirty Friday. I’ll call you tomorrow at your friend’s place at five Toronto time to confirm.
Love, John.
“So—what’s up?” said Kate. She was standing in the doorway with two cups of coffee and no colour at all in her serenely classical face.
Harriet leaped to her feet and grabbed the coffee cups before they crashed to the floor. “Are you all right?” she asked, although the most stunned observer could have seen that she wasn’t.
“Jesus—who can tell?” said Kate, her voice rather hoarse. She walked carefully over to the sofa and lowered herself into it. “I’m fine and I feel great and then suddenly this pain grabs me in the shoulder, runs across my torso, and charges down to my wrist. It happens when I use the arm, usually, although sometimes it happens when I don’t.” She laughed, a nasty, short little laugh. “I hate whining about it, but I’m not used to being in pain. It unsettles me. Could you reach that bottle of Scotch over there?” she added. “Help yourself and pass it on.”
Harriet reflected on the bottle of wine they had split over lunch and shook her head, silently passing the bottle over to her friend. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yes—I’m damn well sure,” said Kate. “It’s about the only thing that helps.” She rummaged in her jacket pocket and came up with a small plastic container of pills, shook out two, tossed them in her mouth, poured a dollop of Scotch into her coffee, and washed down the pills with the mixture.
Harriet opened her mouth to object and closed it again.
Kate settled back and gave her a crooked smile. “So tell me about John whoever-he-is. Couldn’t you have found someone with a more original name? What does he do? What does he look like? Is he good in bed?”
She’s drunk, said Harriet to herself, and God only knows what’s in those pills. “None of your business, Kate Grosvenor. Besides, would I be messing around with anyone who wasn’t? Anyway, he’s a cop, believe it or not, and . . .” As her voice droned on, she studied the woman sitting across from her. She had met Kate four years ago at an advanced seminar on architectural photography in Rockport, Maine, and had been impressed, in spite of herself, by her energy and self-reliance. And cockiness. All packaged with long legs, a thick mane of wavy hair, and an oval face punctuated by sharply intelligent blue eyes.
Kate was the oddity in the group. Most of the participants worked in the field, and spent their time swapping info
rmation on subjects like the costs, benefits, and agonies of running your own colour lab, and whether the trouble and expense involved in changing format from four-by-five to five-by-seven was worth it. Kate was so typically the risk-taking, hard-driving, as-it-happens news photographer that Harriet would have dismissed her as a rank amateur who’d picked up the jargon from the movies, except that she worked for a major newsmagazine and her photo credits were everywhere. She had scooped Harriet into her circle, and one night over a late, late beer admitted that she had always wanted to do architectural work, to have the luxury of fiddling for hours over a single shot, instead of the snatch-and-grab stuff she was doing at the present. Harriet had laughed, thinking of Kate’s prestige and probable income compared with her own.
Then she had received a painfully scrawled postcard a few weeks ago. Kate had been sent to do a background piece on the current state of affairs in south Lebanon. As far as Harriet could make out, she had been wounded in crossfire. She was going home to Denver to recuperate, she said, and begged Harriet to come and visit.
Kate lived alone. By choice, surely, Harriet had long ago decided, considering how funny and lively and incredibly good-looking she was. The world couldn’t be that short of possible mates. The only man Kate had mentioned was a Dutch photographer with whom she had shared this house for a while after she had inherited it from her grandmother. “Anyway,” said Harriet, who had completely lost the thread of her narrative, if it ever had one, “that’s about all I can tell you about John. Oddly enough, we get on very well. And he’s tall, fairly thin, with dark hair going gray and a long, thin face. Quick-tempered, thoughtful, generous, and he likes me.”
“I should bloody well hope so,” said Kate.
“No—you don’t understand,” said Harriet, frowning in intensity. “Anybody can love someone, but John actually likes me as well.”