Whisper of Warning

by Laura Griffin

He glanced at her. She wore workout gear, and she was soaking wet.

  “You been swimming?”

  She gave him an annoyed look. “Yoga. Can you step on it, please?”

  He stepped on it, but he didn’t see any black Escalades or Tahoes anywhere near her house.

  “I couldn’t get the license plate,” she said. “He was going too fast when he drove by.”

  “And you saw him from the doughnut shop?”

  She scanned the surrounding area. “I spotted him when I was walking home. He was parked near my house, and I remembered seeing that exact car on my street last night.”

  “Are you sure? A Tahoe looks nothing like an Escalade.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You get a look at the driver?”

  “No.”

  Will circled the block again. Then he wove through the neighborhood for ten more minutes, but saw nothing remarkable. He turned down Oak Trail again, pulled up to her house, and stopped.

  “Tell me about the noise on your porch.”

  She took a deep breath. “I was trying to sleep last night. And I heard this thud. Like a footstep.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  She shot him a “yeah, right” look, which pissed him off.

  “Did you call anybody?”

  “I got out of bed to check it out, but there was no one there.”

  Will shoved open his door and got out. “Stay here. And lock the door behind me.”

  He did a quick inspection of the premises as her neighbor’s dog barked its head off. When he returned to the Suburban, she leaned over to pull up his door lock.

  “No sign of any disturbance.” He slid into the driver’s seat but didn’t close the door. “We should check around inside, just to be sure.”

  She glanced up and down the street, and a little worry line appeared between her eyebrows. “I don’t want to go in yet.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t blame her for being spooked. “When do you want to go in?”

  “Later.”

  “Where’s Amy?”

  “Visiting relatives this week.” She met his gaze. “I’m starving. Are you?”

  “No.” Actually, he was famished.

  “Well, I’m hungry. Let’s go get a pizza.”

  “A pizza.”

  “Dough? Cheese? Assorted toppings?”

  He should leave now. Or he should take her inside to inspect her house, and then he should leave.

  Instead, he started the engine. “I think I saw a Home Slice up the street,” he said, pulling away from the curb.

  “I’m not sitting in a restaurant like this.”

  He flicked a glance at her. “Why not?”

  “I’m dripping with sweat. But we can do a to-go order and take it back to your place.”

  Will gritted his teeth. His apartment was the very last place he wanted Courtney Glass and her form-fitting yoga pants. “Not an option.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because you’re a cop?”

  “Yes.”

  She scoffed. “So you’re not allowed to have a woman over?”

  He didn’t answer. He spotted the sign for Home Slice and put on his turn signal.

  “You ate dinner at my house just the other night.”

  Will pulled into the pizza joint and parked the truck. “That was different.”

  She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Why?”

  The difference was intent. He hadn’t planned to have dinner at her house; it had just happened. But if he took her home now, it would be a different scenario and most likely a different outcome.

  “You’re smelling a little ripe, too,” she said, eyeing his shorts and T-shirt. “Looks like you came from the gym. I thought you said you were at work.”

  “I was at Zilker earlier, jogging.” He cut the engine and turned to look at her.

  She had her head tipped to the side, and he could practically see her wheels turning. “What time?”

  “About three-thirty.”

  “Interesting. And was this work or recreation?”

  “Work.”

  “And did you learn anything?”

  “Plenty.”

  She leaned forward, anxious now. “Is it good or bad?”

  It was both, but he didn’t plan to talk to her about it. At least, not yet.

  He pushed his door open, and the scent of pizza wafted inside, straining every bit of his resolve. “Come on. You said you wanted pizza.”

  “I also said I’m in no shape for a restaurant. Get us one to go.”

  “Courtney—”

  “I like thin crust.”

  “This is a bad idea.”

  She smiled. “And extra pepperoni.”

  Nathan pulled up to the sixties-era ranch house and took a good look around. This guy must be doing well. Last he’d checked, linguistics professors didn’t make enough bank to live in Tarrytown, but maybe he had other sources of income. Nathan got out of the Mustang, locked it, and walked up the sidewalk, scooping up a plastic newspaper bag as he went. He reached the front door and didn’t see a bell, so he gave a sharp knock.

  He waited. He leaned closer to the door and heard music inside, something familiar that he couldn’t quite place. He crossed some flagstones to the driveway. A white Mercedes was parked in front of the garage, which was closed. The car was old—mid-eighties, he guessed—but looked well maintained. A bluish light flickered against the shiny sedan, and Nathan saw that it was coming from a window just off the driveway. Someone had a TV on inside. Nathan walked past the car and found the back door. He peered through the glass into a laundry room, beyond which he could see into a well-lit kitchen. The music sounded like it was coming from a television in the family room. Finally, he placed it. The Godfather.

  Nathan rapped on the window and waited. He slipped the plastic bag off the paper and read today’s date just above the headline.

  He looked inside the house again, cupping his hand against the glare of the porch light but taking care now not to touch the glass.

  “Dr. Pembry?” he shouted, and knocked again.

  His gaze fell on the laundry room floor, where a pile of clothes had been dumped beside the dryer. He saw T-shirts and socks, wadded blue jeans, and bath towels.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, looking closely at the towels.

  One of them was smeared with something dark, and in a heartbeat he knew what it was.

  Blood.

  It took all Will’s self-discipline to hang a left on Oak Trail and deliver Courtney right back to her house. He watched her shoulders go rigid as he parked.

  “I don’t want to be here,” she said, holding the pizza box in her lap with white-knuckled hands.

  “You have to go in sometime. Now’s better than later. I’ll check everything out for you.”

  Without replying, she pushed open the door and jumped out. He followed her up the sidewalk, scanning the area for anything suspicious. When they reached the door, she shoved the box at him and bent down to untie a key from her shoelace. Then she unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  He entered first and immediately recognized the scent she’d had on at the hair salon—probably her perfume.

  She flipped on a light, and he deposited the pizza box on the coffee table.

  “Do a walk-through with me,” he said. “See if anything looks out of place.”

  He thought she’d object, but then she brushed past him and led him down the hallway to the back. He followed her into the bedroom and stood there as she glanced around.

  “Looks fine,” she said, apparently not surprised by the cosmetics blanketing the desk or the clothes strewn across the bed.

  She yanked open a few dresser drawers, and he averted his eyes, but not before learning that she had a very interesting collection of lingerie. He wandered to the open closet and saw a tightly packed rack of clothes. Beneath it was a neat row of shoes, some of which he’d seen before.

  �
��Everything’s okay,” she announced.

  He walked out of the room and found the bathroom. The shower curtain was pulled back, revealing a spotless bathtub and a small window made of privacy glass. He checked the lock and found it rusty, but secure.

  He turned and saw her standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. Without a word, she turned her back on him and walked into the kitchen. He followed and checked the windows and the back door, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Guess everything’s fine,” she said, but something in her voice told him nothing was fine.

  Will leaned back against the counter and watched her. She looked rattled. And tired, like she hadn’t had a good night’s rest in days. She looked like a woman trying very hard to hold it together.

  “I need to clean up.” She brushed past him and glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t eat all the pizza.”

  When she was gone, he stood there in her dimly lit kitchen and tried to figure out what he was doing here. He tried to tell himself he was here because of his case, but that was bullshit. He was here out of concern for her. His suspect. A suspect he knew was manipulating him to help get herself out of trouble. He didn’t believe she’d killed Alvin—especially not after what he’d learned today in the park—but he believed she was involved in something that had gotten Alvin killed. And he believed she knew way more than she was telling him.

  Will walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa. He heard the shower running and imagined Courtney all lathered up with soap or shower gel or whatever it was she used that smelled so good. He imagined her naked—which he’d been doing a lot lately—and had the urge to go join her in there and let her manipulate him all she wanted.

  To distract himself, he opened the pizza box. The sight and smell of thin-crust double pepperoni made his mouth water and made him almost forget the Courtney-smell that permeated her house. He reached for a slice, then checked himself and closed the lid. Instead, he picked up the remote and surfed around until he found a ball game.

  The Astros were taking on the Diamondbacks in Phoenix, and his team was up 4–0 in the fifth inning. He nestled back against the brightly colored throw pillows and watched the D-backs’ best pitcher throw it wide. He sat through an entire inning, ignoring his growling stomach.

  “You’re a ’Stros fan?”

  He glanced up. She stood behind the sofa now in a T-shirt and faded jeans.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “My grandfather brainwashed me,” she said, twisting her damp hair into a sloppy knot. “He’s been a rabid fan ever since Nolan Ryan.”

  She sank onto the sofa beside him and popped up the box lid. She helped herself to a piece of pizza. “So what happened in Zilker?”

  He scooted closer to her and reached for a slice. “Devereaux and I went out there about three-thirty. We were trying to drum up some regulars, maybe someone we missed when we canvassed the area last week.”

  He took a bite of pizza, which was no longer piping hot, but still good.

  “And?” Courtney had tomato sauce on the corner of her mouth, but he didn’t tell her.

  “Devereaux found someone. You remember seeing a man in running shorts go by about three-thirty? Says he had earphones on?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, he claims to have noticed you sitting in the Buick. Alone.”

  She arched her eyebrows.

  “He also claims to have seen a black Cadillac SUV parked at a meter about a quarter mile down the trail. He says the engine was idling.”

  “A Cadillac SUV?” She leaned forward. “You mean an Escalade? Did it have chrome running boards?”

  “We’re getting into those details.” He didn’t tell her that the witness was certain it had been an Escalade. Or that the witness also said he’d jogged past a man in a navy tracksuit heading the opposite direction farther up the trail. He claimed to remember the guy clearly because he’d thought his clothing was odd, given the weather.

  Courtney dropped her pizza on the coffee table and eased back against the pillows. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  She opened her eyes, and they looked shiny. “For being the first person to reassure me that I’m not crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  She sat forward. “Did the dog-walker lady see it, too? The Cadillac?”

  “Hard to say,” Will said. “We can’t seem to find her anywhere.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

  “Afraid not. Her name’s Beatrice Moore, supposedly. And she seems to have disappeared. The address she gave the patrol officer turned out to be bogus.”

  “Oh my God, I told you!” She leaned forward and gripped his arm. “It’s a setup! With my Beretta, and the messages, and David. It’s all connected. You believe me now, don’t you?”

  He couldn’t answer her. He looked down and focused on his pizza.

  “Will?”

  “We’re still checking out this new witness. Hoping to get more information. So far, he seems pretty credible.”

  She sank back against the cushions and stared into space. “They’re trying to kill me.” He heard the tremor in her voice. “Whoever killed David wants me dead, too. That’s what’s happening, isn’t it?”

  “You need to be careful.” He gave her a harsh look. “Any chance you could stay with a relative? Your grandfather or your sister, maybe?”

  “My grandfather’s in a nursing home,” she said. “And Fiona would be a last resort. She lives with her fiancé in this tiny little place. I’d be a total third wheel.”

  “Guy’s a cop, right?”

  “Ex-cop.”

  “Yeah, well that sounds like a good place for you right now.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  The D-backs hit a homer, and the stadium erupted into cheers. Will watched the batter round the bases and tie up the game. The pizza had lost its appeal, and Will closed the box. Courtney tucked her legs underneath her and rested her head on the sofa arm, and for a while they simply stared at the television.

  She was getting to him. Maybe it was her looks or her go-to-hell attitude or that vulnerability he kept glimpsing underneath it all. Whatever it was, it made him lose sight of all the reasons he needed to stay away from her.

  Houston brought in their star reliever, and two pitches later, the D-backs knocked another one over the wall. He glanced at Courtney, but her eyes were closed now.

  He should take off. He should go home and catch a few winks of sleep before oh-dark-hundred when his phone always seemed to ring. But he didn’t have the heart to leave her right now.

  His phone vibrated on the table where he’d put it with his car keys. He shot a glance at Courtney, but she didn’t move.

  He grabbed the phone. “Hodges.”

  “It’s Devereaux. I need you at 162 Tarry Trail, ASAP.”

  Will got up and stepped into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got a situation. Remember those letters I told you about?”

  “What about them?”

  “I tracked down the guy who was writing them. Some UT professor who lives in Tarrytown.”

  Will glanced into the living room at Courtney. She looked childlike curled up there on the sofa. Barely half an inning, and she was honest-to-God fast asleep.

  “What’s the situation, Devereaux? I’m tied up here.”

  “Well, get untied. I’m at the prof’s house, and it looks like a crime scene.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Will pulled up to the professor’s house and parked behind an unmarked crime-scene van. Someone was keeping a lid on whatever was going on here. Devereaux’s Mustang sat farther up the street, and there wasn’t a single marked vehicle in sight.

  Name no one man, Will thought, remembering a line from one of Devereaux’s letters. It didn’t make sense to him. Devereaux had shown him the notes, all scrawled in pen on yellow lega
l paper. Will had studied them carefully, but they all looked like disjointed ramblings. Devereaux was convinced they had to do with the Alvin case, though, because he’d started receiving them only a few days after the murder.

  He met Will at the gate leading to the yard, which had a swimming pool no one had cleaned in ages. “Over here,” he said, and Will followed him across the patio to an open back door.

  Cernak stood just inside talking to a neighborhood constable. The door frame was dusty with fingerprint powder. Will glanced around for a patrol officer, or whoever was keeping the crime-scene log, but didn’t see one.

  “What is this?” Will asked.

  Devereaux ushered him into the living room, where a DVD player was stuck on the opening menu of The Godfather.

  “I traced one of those letters to a P.O. box over at Mail N Such north of campus. Box belongs to this guy Pembry.”

  Will scanned the room, taking in details. High-quality furniture, but simple. Masculine. The place looked tidy except for a dirty ashtray and an open bottle of liquor sitting on the counter that divided the kitchen from the living area.

  “So where’s the professor?”

  “Great question,” Devereaux said. “I showed up here to talk to him, and no one’s home. The TV’s on, and the back door is wide open.”

  “So why is this a crime scene?”

  Devereaux nodded toward the kitchen, where two techs were labeling a paper evidence bag.

  “Dried blood. Lots of it. On a towel in the laundry room. I saw it through the windowpane at the back door.”

  “So maybe he cut himself shaving.”

  “Look around, Hodges. What else do you see?”

  Will looked around, annoyed at being treated like a rookie. He was new to homicide, but he wasn’t new to police work. Still, he played along. He noticed the half-finished drink on the end table beside the big leather armchair. He walked across the room and looked at the bottle on the counter. Dewar’s. Five Winston Reds filled the ashtray beside the phone. Four of them had been smoked down to the last quarter inch, and one had burned clear down to the filter, leaving a long cylinder of ash. People tended to be very consistent with their cigarette habits.

  “He’s on the phone, smoking,” Will ventured. “Someone comes to the back door, or maybe he hears something in the backyard. He goes to see about it, opens the door, someone enters the house.”