by Terry Odell
“How was he driving? Any signs that he might be under the influence?”
“You mean weaving? A little. I figured he was looking at the scenery. Or not used to mountain driving. Especially if he was from Florida.” She thought some more. “Oh, and he was talking on his cell phone, or trying to. Which could explain why he was weaving. Unless he was drunk or on drugs. But can’t you tell that with medical tests nowadays?”
“Yes, but not as fast as they do on television.” He gave a wry grin. “Besides, it’s not our jurisdiction. State troopers handle accidents. We’re strictly local. Catch red light runners, write parking tickets.”
“And keep everyone safe,” she said. “I remember the things the police did when we were growing up. Talk to the kids at school about drugs. Sponsor after school sports. Show them that cops are the good guys.”
His grin widened. “You left out making sure no ghosts attack Mrs. Bedford.”
“What? Ghosts? Who’s Mrs. Bedford?”
“She’s the owner of Vintage Duds.”
“She sees ghosts?”
“Calls in no less than once a week. Says the clothes hold the spirits of their former owners, and she’s convinced they’re messing with her shop.”
“See. Your job is important. You’re protecting the citizenry from an entire other dimension.”
He chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind. But let’s focus on the accident.”
“If it’s not in your jurisdiction, why is it bothering you?”
“I’ve got some things at the office I’d like you to look at.”
“Now? I just got here. I want to make sure Rose and Sam are okay.” Should she mention Angie’s harebrained idea that Justin had some ulterior motive for his visit? No. Angie’d undoubtedly blown everything out of proportion. She’d get a feel for things herself first. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow? It doesn’t seem fair to Rose and Sam to show up and dash out.”
“It won’t take long. I have to turn everything over to the troopers, but I want to show you first.”
He was already standing.
Right. He was a cop. People did what he said. She quickened her pace to match his longer stride as they returned to the house.
“Let me tell Rose and Sam I’m going,” she said.
“Tell them you have to take care of something in town. Not that you’re coming with me.”
“What? Why?”
“I’ll meet you at my office. Ten minutes.”
###
Justin heard a car door close. From his second-story window, he watched the cop car drive away. Seconds later, he heard Oma saying, “Thanks, doll,” and Megan got into her car and drove off.
Justin pulled his cell phone from its case on his belt, pressed the voicemail button. Before the call went through, he mashed the button to cancel the transmission. Better not to know. He had no answers yet.
All Megan had said while they were eating was that she had some vacation and she wanted to visit. And she’d be staying here, of course.
His grandfather poked his head into the room, carrying Oma’s plastic caddy of cleaning supplies and an armload of towels. “Your grandmother wants we should fix up Megan’s bedroom.”
“Of course,” Justin said. As if the bedroom wasn’t always ready, in case anyone needed a place to stay.
“And these go into the bathroom.” Opa dropped the towels on Justin’s bed.
“I’d better do some cleaning if we’re going to share.” Justin took the caddy. “Why don’t you make sure Oma’s being sensible.”
“Rose has an extra mouth to feed. She’s in the kitchen. In heaven.”
“All the more reason to make sure she doesn’t overexert before she sees the doctor.” He pretended to examine the contents of the caddy. “So, where’s Megan off to?”
“She said she forgot something, had to pick it up in town. I figured it was one of those female items. And Rose needed some things from the market.”
Justin laughed. “As if she couldn’t feed half the town with what she has here.”
“I learned long, long ago never to contradict your grandmother when it comes to food.”
“Go. I’ve got it all under control.”
He waited until he heard his grandparents arguing about what Oma should and shouldn’t be doing.
All under control. Like hell.
He crossed into the bathroom that connected his bedroom to Megan’s. They’d never had issues sharing when he’d visited before, even in their teens. Somehow, now, sharing the bath felt disturbingly…intimate. But first, he needed to inspect Megan’s bedroom.
He hadn’t given Megan’s bedroom more than a cursory check since he’d arrived. It was a generic guestroom, with a few dolls and stuffed animals proclaiming Megan had lived here. He moved to the window, struggling with the sash before the swollen frame groaned and moved upward in the track. He stepped away, feeling the fresh breeze waft into the room. Chilly, but it would get rid of the stuffiness.
Birds scattered from the oak tree outside. Memories of Megan’s unsuccessful attempts to get him to climb out one night brought a rueful smile to his face. God, he’d been a mess. Fat, insecure. A coward.
And you’re still a coward.
He checked the bookcase. A dictionary, a thesaurus, and some basic reference books suitable for middle and high school were probably Megan’s. The rest were from Opa’s extensive collection.
The shelves of books reminded him of why he was here, and a quiver of fear snaked along his spine. This might be his only chance. He checked the time, trying to guess how long Megan would be gone. He figured an hour on the outside—better shoot for half that. Using Oma’s sprays and polishes to cover his snooping, he set to work.
Chapter Three
Each tick of the old schoolhouse clock on his office wall heightened Gordon’s anxiety. Megan should have been here by now. The Colorado State Patrol would investigate the accident, but he didn’t want to turn over what he’d found before he’d talked to her.
He buried the tingle of guilt. He wasn’t withholding evidence. Merely…rerouting it. Briefly. And, technically, it wasn’t evidence. Simply something…interesting…in an accident victim’s car.
When the accident call came in, Mapleton had been first responders. Dave Gilman and Tom Reynolds in the ambulance, and Ed Solomon in a cruiser. Technically the CSP was in charge of traffic accidents, but they were spread thin. Gordon liked to think of himself as a team player, and the troopers had never objected to the help. Gilman had inadvertently left an envelope belonging to the victim in the Mapleton ambulance and had turned it over to Gordon for safekeeping.
Tires crunched on gravel. He swiveled his chair toward the window and caught the silver gleam of Megan’s car pulling into the lot. It took conscious effort to even his breathing. He slid the envelope into his desk drawer and sorted through Solomon’s photos of the accident scene one more time.
“He’s expecting me.” Megan’s voice preceded her sneakered footfalls down the corridor. Laurie’s heads up call coincided with a tap on his office door.
“Thanks,” he said into the phone. He hung up, took a breath. “Come on in.”
“All right, Gordon, I’m here.” Megan rested her hands on the back of the wooden visitor chair across from Gordon’s desk. “What’s so important?”
“You know anyone named Karl Franklin?” He blurted it out, no preliminaries. No way for her to anticipate the question, prepare herself. Unless she expected it.
Her expression was guileless. Her body language agreed. “No. Where should I know him from?”
He pushed a photo across the desk. “This the guy you saw?”
Bracing her hands on the edge of the desk, she leaned forward. And jerked away with a gasp. She sank into the chair.
“You recognize him?” Gordon asked.
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t expect something quite so…graphic.”
She’d paled. Gordon rolled his chair back and hurried to her side
. “Shit, Megan. I should have prepared you first. I need to find out what you know before the troopers show up, and I blanked out the part where you’re not a cop and used to this. I didn’t think. You want some water?”
“No, I’m okay. It took me by surprise.” She closed her eyes, took a breath, and gathered her composure before opening them. “It’s not much worse than the crime scene shows. I think what got me is it’s real, not makeup. That I might have seen this guy alive. Is this Karl Franklin?”
“According to the troopers, yes.”
“Let me see it again.”
“You sure?” Had her reaction been to the bloody picture? The body was fresh, nothing grossly mangled. Blood covered the man’s face, and the eyes had the glassy stare of death, but as accident photos went, this one was on the tame side.
Or did she know the victim and was reacting on a more personal level?
She sucked in a noisy breath. “If it’s important, I can do it.”
“Keep thinking of it as a television show.” In school, she’d had a reputation for being open, saying what was on her mind. Now, he saw nothing shifty, nothing deceptive. No red flags. He ignored the twinge of remorse for upsetting her with the picture. But it brought her emotional responses closer to the surface, where he needed them.
“I never got a good look at his face.” She held the picture as if she were afraid to touch it.
“Look again, please,” he said. “See if any details about the man you saw come to mind.”
She nibbled at her lip. “All I saw was the back of his head. Bald on top. He got out of the car, looked my way, then went into the woods. He was wearing sunglasses. And I’m not sure I’d recognize him from this picture anyway. All the blood.”
“Don’t think about that for now. You said you’d followed him for some time. Close your eyes. Think about it. What did you notice? Was he alone in the car?”
She took a deep breath, as if she were preparing to jump into the swimming hole outside of town. With her eyes closed, she worried her lower lip again before speaking. “I’d say, yes, he was alone. He never seemed to be talking to someone else. I remember noticing the Florida plates, assumed he was a retiree. Maybe because he was bald, but that’s silly. Guys can go bald at almost any age.”
Gordon rubbed the top of his head, thankful he wasn’t one of them. “True enough. But those kinds of impressions might be based on more than lack of hair. The way he stood, walked, might have played a part.”
She picked up the picture, squinting at it as if she could see the living man under the corpse.
“I don’t know, Gordon.” Her eyes widened. “Please, don’t tell me I have to identify the body.”
“That won’t be necessary.” He smiled at the relief on her face. “But there is one more question.” Trying to read her, he set the real reason he’d insisted on seeing her on the desk. “Any idea why he had these?”
###
Megan cast a slow, scrutinizing look at Gordon. His features seemed rigid, almost expressionless. He was being a cop, she realized. A recently promoted police chief, no less. Not the old friend who had walked with her in the woods a short time ago. He caught her gaze. Held it. Pushed the papers a little closer. She picked up the first one. People. Mostly faces. Blurred and grainy. She looked more closely.
Her stomach churned. This wasn’t a gory crime scene picture, but she swallowed, concentrating on keeping Rose’s cookies and apple cake where they belonged.
“You found this on the dead man?” She dropped the page as if it were on fire.
“In an envelope in the car. That’s a copy.”
The faces belonged to her. All the pictures were of her.
She shoved the page aside and looked at the second sheet. No pictures on this one, but in neat, block letters—Rose and Sam’s address and phone number. And below that, some handwriting, barely legible. Gingerly, she picked up the paper and tried to decipher the faint scrawl.
Use the kid. They’ll talk.
Realizing her hands were shaking, she let the page float to the desk. “What does it mean?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Have you asked Rose and Sam? Maybe there’s a simple explanation.”
“I wanted to ask you first.”
“Well, you asked. I don’t know who the dead guy is, who Karl Franklin is, or why he would have these pictures.”
“Any idea where he got them?”
Reluctantly, she studied the pictures again, trying to ignore the creep factor. The quality was low, but recognition hit. “They’re from the company website. A quick trip through Google, click ‘Print’ and there they are.” She squinted. “It might be easier to tell on the original, but it looks like these were actually cut and pasted—with scissors and glue—onto a page, and then photocopied.”
Gordon raised his eyebrows. She caught a glimmer of surprise and appreciation in his eyes. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a large manila envelope. Propping it open, he peered inside, then extracted a clear plastic sleeve. He placed it on the desk. After repositioning his desk lamp, he dipped into another drawer and pulled out a large magnifying glass.
“You really use that? It’s not a Sherlock Holmes thing?”
Some of the friend showed through as he gave her an amused grin. “We’re a little more advanced here, but sometimes the basics work just fine.” Holding the glass to his eye, he scrutinized the pictures. “I think you’re right.”
“Which doesn’t answer the question of what the paper means.” She tried to think of some innocent reason, but failed. No matter how she tried to spin it, it read like a threat. And judging from the sweat trickling from her neck down her spine, her brain gave it the same interpretation. “You think the they in ‘They’ll talk’ is Rose and Sam. Someone wants to find out something they know.”
He nodded.
“And it’s not Rose’s apple cake recipe. I think she’d share that without being threatened.”
“Agreed.”
“So,” she said, “what are you doing to protect them?”
The expression on his face turned the sweat to ice. “I’ve already assigned increased patrol in their neighborhood. However, at the moment, I’m more concerned about you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Use the kid.” He pointed to the words.
“I’m the kid? You think that’s me?” Of course he did. But she hoped he’d have an alternative suggestion. One her brain couldn’t come up with now.
He lifted his eyebrows. “Who else?”
“Nobody, I guess, since there aren’t any other pictures. But what does it mean?”
“I see a couple of possibilities.” Gordon’s expression was all cop.
“What do you mean?”
Megan resisted the urge to squirm as Gordon leaned forward and fixed those not-blue, not-green, not-gray eyes on her. Was she a suspect? How could he possibly think she was involved?
“Let’s start with the basics.” He raised his thumb. “One. We have someone, ostensibly headed for Rose and Sam’s address.”
She couldn’t find fault with that logic. “Okay.”
“Two.” He lifted a forefinger. “He’s got pictures of you, and apparently has connected you to Rose and Sam.”
“Agreed.”
“So, the question is, why?”
Well, duh. “And the answer is?”
“He’s either already made contact with you—”
“Which he hasn’t.”
“I only have your word for that.”
“Gordon, you’re kidding. Why would I lie?”
“Megan, I’m thinking like a cop here, not someone who knows you. This is what any cop would do—will do, once they see these papers.” He paused, as if searching for the best way to continue. “Or, they might think he was on his way to meet you. That you’re working together. I was hoping you’d give me something I could use to point them in the right direction.”
The clouds in her brain parted, a
nd she understood the concern in Gordon’s expression. “You mean…you mean they might suspect me?” The words squeaked out. She took a breath. “I’ll tell them the truth. I never heard of this guy, nor has anyone tried to coerce me into getting Rose and Sam to say or do anything. I love Rose and Sam. They love me.”
“People will do a lot to protect loved ones. There’s also the possibility the guy was searching for you.”
“Here? How could he know I’d be coming here?”
“When did you plan the trip? Who knew you’d be here?”
Lord, he was dead serious about this. She tried to remember. “I bought my tickets five days ago. I gave my cell number to my boss and my team. And I told Angie.”
He jotted notes. “Thanks.”
“You can’t think one of them is involved.”
“I doubt it. If it was you he wanted, why not intercept you at the airport? Why drive from Florida?”
Megan leaned forward. “What if you hadn’t seen those papers? Would I be sitting here getting the third degree?”
He shook his head. “Without them, the whole thing looks like a simple, unfortunate traffic accident.”
“And you’re not going to…misplace…those pieces of paper, are you?” As soon as she spoke the words, she regretted the way they’d come out. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’d circumvent the law. I mean, I know you would never—”
He pulled his fingertips down the length of his nose. “I won’t say I didn’t think of it.” He put the originals in the envelope, then sealed it and wrote his name across the flap. “But I can’t pretend they don’t exist. The accident might not be in my jurisdiction, but Rose and Sam are. I’m going to check into it. As a matter of fact, maybe you could convince them to take a nice vacation with you until I get a handle on this.”
“They’d never agree. You know that. And it could be nothing. Meanwhile, I could help.”