by Gregg Olsen
Mitch stared out the window at the lot.
“You all right?” Darla asked, entering the room with the week’s sales reports, commissions, and payrolls. She set the file on his desk, but Mitch kept his gaze toward the window.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Do you need anything?”
He turned to look at her. His eyes had flooded. “I’m sorry, Darla.”
“Sorry?”
“Sorry for everything I did to you. I’m a lousy person, I know that. I guess everyone does.”
Darla didn’t want to argue. She knew what kind of man Mitch Crawford was. He was older. He was her boss. He’d taken advantage of her. She probably could sue for something. She recognized all of that on some level. But she didn’t want to do anything but forget her own foolishness.
“It’s OK,” she said. “We were both at fault.”
“I’ve really screwed up,” he said. “I’ve really made a mess of things.” He opened the file folder and glanced at the reports. “Maybe next month will be better.” He fanned out the payroll checks and started to sign each one. The last one was a check made out to himself. He looked at Darla as he tore it up.
“Maybe next month,” he said. “Can’t really afford to pay myself right now.”
Darla stayed mute. The owner of the dealership hadn’t drawn a salary for two months. If he had, she was sure that a couple of the car cleaners would have to be let go. He kept telling her that “those guys have kids” and “Mandy and I will get by. We have savings.”
But then Mandy was gone.
Darla wondered if financial problems had driven Mandy away, away and into the arms of another man. Sure, Mitch was a jerk and a cad, but there were times when it almost seemed as if he’d had a heart beating somewhere inside.
It looked like Mitch was about to cry.
“Mr. Crawford, what can I do?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I found Toby.”
“He came home?”
“No, the damn dog must have fallen into the pool and got caught under the plastic cover. He’s dead, Darla. I thought Mandy took him. But she didn’t. Toby’s dead.”
Darla looked like she was going to cry. She knew what that dog meant to her boss. “You need to tell the sheriff. This is important.”
Mitch lined up three pens in a faultless row and looked out his office window to toward the showroom.
“Why bother? They think I killed her. They’ll probably think I killed the dog, too.”
She wasn’t the jumping type, but Emily almost jumped for joy when Camille Hazelton finally secured a warrant to search Mitch Crawford’s home on Larkspur. It had taken some doing. Certainly there was probable cause within hours of the first report of Mandy missing, but the Crawford name still had a residual currency among the county judges. Camille kept saying she needed more. Finally, there had been enough. The car, the fact that none of Mandy’s credit cards had been used, and that her dependable nature at work had been compromised by her sudden absence all played a role. Techs came from Spokane to comb through the house, spray luminal, and procure the Crawfords’ laptop. Emily and Jason oversaw the small army of CSIs as they poked and prodded the contents of the massive home. No blood was found anywhere. In fact, there was no trace that Mandy had even been there—outside of clothes in her closet in the master suite. Even her hairbrush was devoid of any hairs.
The strobe of a camera flash swept over every space.
“Jesus, Sheriff,” Jason said as they stood in the kitchen and watched the swarm of techies wave their ultraviolet lights over every surface, “you’d think Mr. Clean lived here.”
Emily shuddered as a cold breeze blew in from the open front door.
“Even Mr. Clean can make a mistake,” she said. “Just takes one.”
Chapter Nine
As a waitress swooped around the bar, carrying beers and mounds of nachos with enough cheese to choke even a young person’s arteries, Cherrystone County Prosecutor Camille Hazelton zeroed in on Emily as she sipped a glass of hot spiced wine. Camille had asked—actually commanded, was more like it—to meet after work. With Chris waiting for her at the house, Emily agreed a little reluctantly.
“He did it,” Camille said. “You know it. I know it.”
The words came at Emily like the authoritative pounding of the keys of an old manual Underwood typewriter, the kind her mother used for writing letters to the editor each week until her death.
“He did it. You know it. I know it.”
Camille Hazelton never minced words. She probably didn’t even know how. She was, without question, the single most powerful woman in the county-city building. At fifty-five, she was lean-faced and not at all unattractive—at least when she smiled, which detractors insisted wasn’t nearly often enough.
Camille and Emily had been friends since arriving in Cherrystone about the same time—Emily coming from Seattle to start over and Camille to pick up where her father had left off. Dan Hazelton had been the prosecutor for an astonishing twenty-seven years.
When he died, his lawyer daughter moved back home from a successful law practice in Chicago and did what only the prodigal daughter could do. She ran against three men and was elected. Like Emily, Camille had deep roots in Cherrystone, but she’d also lived outside the insular community. She’d learned that there were dress shops with more to offer than Delano’s on Main Street. She knew what really good ahi was and the difference between Dom Pérignon champagne and André. And yet, like Emily, she found that nothing resonated deeper in a caring person’s heart than the place called home.
Emily sat across from the prosecutor with hot spiced wines in the cozy confines of TJ’s, a downtown bar that was frequented by law enforcement—pool tables on one side, a long battered bar that had a century of scuff marks and dents from cowboy boots, and later, steel-toed boots. It wasn’t fancy. But neither was Cherrystone.
Emily looked down at her wine, a curl of steam still rising from below the rim.
“Of course we know Crawford did it. Homicide stats. His unconcerned affect. Both point to him.”
Camille motioned to the cocktail waitress that she wanted another.
“You know it. I know it. All of Cherrystone suspects it. But suspicion, as you know, is not enough. We need evidence.”
The waitress deposited a basket of peanuts, and Camille lowered her voice. “I don’t know any other way to say this.” She stopped, clearly pained at the prospect of what she was about to say. “Look, I have to ask. Do you think we need more help on this?”
Emily didn’t pounce, though if it had been anyone other than Camille asking, she might have. Instead, she took a breath. Emily thought of telling Camille that Chris was in town and that she was going to run some things by him, informally. She didn’t volunteer it because she felt somewhat awkward about it. Chris was a seasoned pro, but he was also the man she loved. She could separate the two aspects of their relationship just fine, but she doubted everyone else could. Jason, for one, had made subtle remarks about sometimes feeling like an outsider in the sheriff’s office. Besides, he’d offered to help. She didn’t see her acceptance as a sign of weakness. Why should she?
“It isn’t that, Camille,” she said. “We’ve done everything. We don’t need to contract this out to Spokane PD. We’re just a little stuck.”
Camille let the warmth melt from her face. She set down her drink. “You need to get unstuck. My office is being crucified. You can’t believe the calls we’re getting. If the election were held today, I doubt I’d get enough votes to stay on the job.”
Emily, having had her own run-ins as a publicly elected official, understood. Working as a public servant felt meaningful most of the time, but there were occasions in which the public pushed hard. Too hard.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re doing our best.”
“Let’s do better.”
Emily wished she’d asked for a second drink. Just then, she could use one. She held her tongue, partly
out of friendship, but also because there was no arguing Camille’s point. Mandy Crawford had to be dead. Everyone figured her husband had done it, but nothing concrete had turned up.
“If you can’t get me something in the next week, I’ll have no choice but to call in a special investigator from Olympia.”
“Fair enough,” Emily finally said.
But it wasn’t, not really. She put on her coat, told Camille good-bye, and hurried home to Chris, who was spending the night before heading back to Seattle to meet with real estate agents about selling his condo—it was do-or-die time for their relationship. Marry or move on. She’d planned a quiet evening alone with him, but Camille’s obvious challenge put an end to a much-desired romantic interlude.
Murder always had a way of messing things up.
Chris met Emily at the door with a bear hug that would have snapped a frail woman in two. He kissed her, feeling the chill of her skin from the winter air. Judging by the wonderful smells emanating from the kitchen, she knew that his promise of a delicious meal had been genuine.
“Hope you’re hungry,” he said, taking her coat and leading her to the kitchen—replete with the savory smells of roast pork with the woodsy hint of rosemary.
“Why do you keep saying you don’t cook?” she asked.
“I don’t. But, I can. There’s a difference.” He poured her a sauvignon blanc that had been chilling in the refrigerator, instead of the cabernet he’d purchased at a wine shop in Seattle. “Seems like this will be just perfect with the dish.”
She took a glass and sipped. “Perfection.”
“Tell me about your day,” he said, filling his own glass.
“Look, don’t get me wrong,” she said, watching Chris slice off a medallion of pork. “I adore Camille. But, honestly, she can be a bit aggressive.”
“Like you can’t handle aggressive, Em.”
She swirled her wine in the glass. “I didn’t say I couldn’t handle it. Cammie is pushing because she thinks, she’s sure, that Mandy’s dead and Mitch is her killer. She doesn’t have a body, and as confident and forceful as she can be, she’s not about to prosecute without one.”
Chris shrugged. “I don’t blame her. It’s a tough call.”
Aware that she’d just dove into shop talk, Emily changed the subject. “How was your day?”
Chris put his hands upward and shook. A wry smile on his face. “Thanks for asking. I’ve been cooking and cleaning all day.”
She kissed him and whispered in his ear, “Oh you have, have you?”
“Cooking a little, but no cleaning,” he said. “Not my forte. Besides, I had a lot of reading to catch up on. A good day for Cherrystone.”
“The place where nothing happens,” they both said together.
Emily was thankful that she and Camille hadn’t succumbed to the charms of the mountain o’ nachos. Everything Chris prepared was perfection for a late evening winter meal. The roast was the star of its platter. But the green beans, pan-braised in brown butter, and the Yukon gold potatoes looked fabulous, too.
“I got the photos back from the techs,” she said, indicating a cream-colored envelope she’d brought inside and placed next to her purse. “Want to look at them after dinner?”
Chris brought the steaming platter to the dinning table and grinned.
“That’s why I’m here, babe. If spending time with you means going over case notes and photos, count me in. Now, eat. OK?”
“It isn’t as if you’re forcing me. This looks wonderful.” She pierced the meat with her fork and tasted.
Handsome, and he can cook, too.
Jenna Kenyon fixed her attention to the rolling LCD departure screen at the airport. Her flight was delayed because of severe weather in the Midwest. She didn’t mind the delay, however. As much as Jenna loved a good roller-coaster, she preferred such a ride with its tracks bolted to the ground, not in the confines of an airplane at 30,000 feet. She tried to get comfortable while she went wireless on her laptop, checking her e-mail, seeing if any new comments had been made on her BZ blog. Nothing. As a diversion, she went to the stat counter tool that tracked who’d been landing on her blog.
As was typical, there were a number of hits from young women at the chapters she’d just visited, with even more coming from those who were on the schedule. With or without the “detective’s gene” from her mother, it was easy to see who’d been coming to check on her. She saw the ISP of a girl who’d asked her lawyer father to defend her in a grievance over her having sex with a frat boy under the grand piano at her chapter. Her dad’s law offices were also logged. Another who left an electronic bread crumb was Tristan Wyler, her last serious boyfriend. She liked Tristan, but with law school next year, she didn’t really want to get deeply involved.
He, apparently, was still interested.
An anomaly got her attention, too. She noticed a flurry of hits coming from Southern California. The ISP for one was coming from Garden Grove; the provider was a local phone company. The other came from a company called Human Solutions, Inc., in nearby Anaheim.
Interesting, she thought, powering down as her flight was called. One of my chapter sisters must be living down there.
After dinner, Chris and Emily cleared the dishes from the old dining table and scooted aside the candles that were all about ambience, but offered no real illumination. At least not of the kind needed to review the photos she’d brought home from the office. She turned the dimmer switch on the chandelier to full power.
“Good shots,” Chris said, “if you’re making a brochure for your house. Maybe I should use your photography for my condo brochure.”
“Smart ass,” she said, fanning the images over the glossy tabletop. “Take a look.”
Emily could almost smell the bleach as she looked over the photos of the pristine environs of the Crawford home. Chris was right, of course. Everything was in perfect order. At once, the place with its twin oversize couches studded with artfully, but casually arranged throw pillows, reminded her, too, of one of those “staged” homes on TV real estate shows. Those were the shows in which the host intoned that sellers couldn’t live as they really did when trying to unload a house. Everything had to be ridiculously perfect.
“The Crawfords, apparently, lived every day like they were expecting company,” she said.
“Or maybe after Mitch killed Mandy he did a cleanup that would have made the cover of Better Housekeeping,” Chris said.
“Good Housekeeping or Better Homes and Garden, but you’re right. If he killed her. If he killed her there.”
No appliances littered the kitchen’s gleaming, expansive stone countertops. The towels in the master bath were rolled into cream and sage pinwheels of terry cloth, casually arranged in an antique breadbasket.
She flipped the photos to a scene that depicted the master bedroom. Gleaming. Immaculate. A duvet billowed without a wrinkle over top sheets that appeared to have been pressed by a steam iron: crisp and white. Everything was perfect. Not a thing out of place. On the highboy. On the dresser. All perfect.
The photograph of the largest of the other four bedrooms, a guest room, she figured, was in stark contrast. The bed was made, but hastily so. The nightstand had an empty dish that might have held a midnight snack. The dresser’s top had barely a patch of mahogany visible through all the clutter—an uncoiled belt, a paperback novel, a jewelry box.
Mitch had told Emily that he and Mandy had not had any guests. There’d been no one to their home in the past month—a cue that the only fingerprints the techs might find would be theirs and theirs alone.
Emily thought of the bleach once more. She remembered how incredibly ordered things had been in Mitch Crawford’s office at the dealership. Not a slip of paper was askew. Even the paperclips had been lined up in order—reds next to reds, blacks next to blacks. No jumble of unsorted paperclips for Mitch Crawford.
“He’s a neat freak,” Darla Montague had said. “That’s just the way it is around here.”
And, at home, too.
“So if Mitch was such a neat freak at home, how was it that the guest bedroom was such a lived-in mess?” Chris asked.
Emily mulled it over as she worked the tight muscles in her neck by rolling her head backward, then side to side. Then it came to her. She looked over at Chris.
“The guest in the guest bedroom had to be Mandy,” she said.
Chris swallowed the last of his wine. “Maybe she’d banished herself to the guest room because she wanted to get away from him?”
She looked at the photo again. “That’s right. She left the master bedroom on her own. Most women would send their husband to the sofa and keep the bedroom for themselves. I know I did that to David a time or two.”
She was sorry that she mentioned David’s name. But Chris didn’t seem to mind.
“Angry at him? Annoyed by him? Sickened by his touch?” he asked. “Seems strange.”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “It is curious, I’ll give you that. Why would a woman leave her husband’s bed, and camp out in the bedroom down the hall? Why didn’t she just leave him? Go to her mother’s in Spokane, for example?”
“You know women better than I do,” Chris said.
“She was waiting for something. She didn’t think she had to leave. And learning more about Mitch Crawford, I can bet he didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t want to look like a loser.”
“Waiting for what?” Chris asked.
Emily tilted her head slightly as she thought it through. She stared deeply into the photograph, like some miniscule text would give her the answer. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
It was late and there was only one thing more that had to be addressed, and it wasn’t the saga of the missing mother to be.