by Edie Claire
"Then I'll text your Aunt Cara and spare her the trip," Leigh answered. "You can come home with me."
Allison frowned, but didn't argue.
Leigh thanked her father for treating yet another shelter freebie, grabbed a tube of hairball preventative for Mao Tse, tore her daughter away from a litter of lab puppies due for their first shots, and climbed with her daughter into the van.
Female serial killers?
"Allison," Leigh began, as she pulled the van away from the curb and out onto the aging brick street. "You're not worried about... about that man being found in the woods, are you?"
Leigh stole a quick glance in the rearview mirror. Allison was gazing straight ahead, her face a mask of contemplation.
"Was Brandon Lyle a bad man, Mom?" she asked quietly.
Leigh tensed. She should have waited until Warren came home for this. "Nobody is all bad or all good, Allison," she answered. "But Mr. Lyle did have enemies. Most likely he was killed over money. In any event, it has nothing to do with us. We're all perfectly safe."
Allison paused in thought a moment. "Then why do you keep telling us to stay out of the woods?"
Good question. Leigh ground her teeth. "Well, because sometimes... not often, but sometimes... a criminal will return to the scene of a crime. It's only a very small chance, but until the police have arrested him, it's safer to stay away."
"Why do you say it's a him?"
Leigh resisted the urge to keep looking in the rearview. Not only was traffic terrible, but the Avalon pedestrians were out in force today. Why exactly had she started this conversation?
"I suppose it's possible it could be a woman," she confessed. "I really wish you wouldn't think about it so much, Allison."
"Why not?" The small voice piped up. "It's interesting."
Saints preserve us.
"Hey!" Allison squeaked suddenly, bending down out of Leigh's view. "What's this?"
Leigh checked quickly for vulnerable walkers, bikers, and dogs, then threw a glance over her shoulder to see what Allison was reaching for. "Oh, no!" she groaned, turning back around again. "How did that get in here?"
"What is it?" Allison asked again.
"It's some old rawhide thing that Chewie picked up at your Aunt Bess's," Leigh said with disgust. She thought the dog had dropped the treat long before his hosing off, but evidently he had found it again and slipped it into the van when she wasn't looking. Come to think of it, she had opened the side door a good while before she and Bess were finished talking.
Allison pulled the filthy thing into her lap. "It doesn't look like a rawhide to me," she said studiously.
"Just put it down, please," Leigh ordered. "God only knows where it's been. Or what dog's mouth it's been in. Please, Allison. Just leave it alone. When we get home, you can toss it in the trash. We don't want Chewie finding it again."
The girl sighed. But, holding the dirty bone carefully with her fingertips, she bent out of view to place it back down on the floor.
They rode along in silence for a few minutes.
"Mom?" Allison asked.
Leigh braced herself.
"You and Dad never said exactly where you found the body."
Leigh gulped. "No. No, we didn't."
"Why not?"
Leigh decided to attempt the truth. "Because we didn't want you to dwell on it. We want you to continue to enjoy playing in the woods."
"But you won't let us play in the woods."
"Not now, maybe. But later."
"We could play in part of the woods now, if you told us what part to avoid."
Damned lawyerball genes. "You should avoid it all. The shelter land, your Aunt Bess's yard, and the land behind the church."
"What about Mr. Clem's?"
"You're never allowed to play at Mr. Clem's!" Leigh reminded sharply.
"Oh, I know," Allison said matter of factly. "I was just seeing if you'd rule it out."
Leigh grit her teeth again. "Allison, please. I don't want you kids dwelling on this. It has nothing to do with you, and there's nothing for you to be afraid of. All right?"
Allison didn't answer for a moment. "I'm not afraid, Mom," she said finally, her tone serious. "But if it worries you, I'll quit talking about it."
Leigh opened her mouth to respond, but shut it again. There really was no help for it.
The girl was a Morton woman.
Chapter 19
"Well, Lord love a duck. He's been Francified!" Bess exclaimed.
Leigh ceased petting her aunt's Pekingese mix and looked up. Her mother and Aunt Lydie had at last arrived at the park, an unprecedented ten minutes late. Frances was still fussing with something in the car, but Lydie was walking toward them with Chewie on a lead.
"Oh, no," Leigh breathed.
The corgi was unrecognizable. The mud, burrs, and feathers were gone. So was every drop of natural oil his coat had ever possessed. The dog was so squeaky clean that his thick brindle fur stood fluffed up all over like he'd just put his paw in a light socket, and Frances had completed the transformation by sticking an oversized blue bow on the top of his head. The poor dog was half Beauty's Beast in the ballroom, half golden hamster.
"Oh my," Cara said with a chuckle.
The dog bounded up to Leigh looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
"Haven't passed a mirror lately, have you, boy?" Leigh greeted, glad that her mother's efforts had produced at least one positive result. Cara hadn't laughed in days.
"Frances is coming," Lydie said apologetically, handing over Chewie's lead and redistributing the photos and notebooks. "We got a little tied up collecting our newest conversation starter."
The other women cast a glance at the car, but they could see nothing, since Frances was on the other side of it.
Bess sighed heavily. "What sort of beast did she bring tonight? If this one's bigger than a bread box, Chester's going to need a valium."
Lydie merely smiled. "You'll see. Cara, why don't you and I start out? We don't want to waste any more time. Bess, you can go our way. Leigh, you go the opposite direction—I believe your mother wants to stay near the parking lot tonight."
The women agreed, and the others headed off along the lake trail while Leigh walked toward her mother. When she got around the back of the car, she stopped cold.
Her mother didn't have a dog. Frances was strapping a tow-headed infant into a stroller.
"Mom," Leigh began incredulously. "You borrowed a baby?"
Frances's lips pursed. She finished her fastening and straightened. "It's called sitting, dear. This is little Maddie Rogalla from down the street. Her mother needed a break, poor thing. Don't you remember what it was like to have little ones and need some time to yourself?"
Leigh considered. Actually, she did not. Her memories from the time between the twins' birth and their first day of preschool comprised a single amorphous blur of sippy cups, dirty diapers, purple dinosaurs, and the wallpaper in her pediatrician's office. Anything else that might have happened during those years had been deleted in real-time, courtesy of sleep deprivation.
"As I hope you recall," Frances continued, "Gil is certain now that when he was walking around the lake he passed a young blond woman pushing two babies in a stroller. That's who we're looking for."
"I remember," Leigh assured.
"It was a double stroller, side-by-side, just like the one you and Warren used to have. He said that's why it drew his attention. The babies were twins also, but both were girls."
Leigh was surprised, for a moment, that Gil would remember what her stroller had looked like. But she supposed she shouldn't be. Both Warren and Gil had been excellent hands-on fathers. The two had probably taken the Pack on many turns around this very lake while she and Cara lay unconscious on their respective couches.
"Now then," Frances ordered. "I'll take the parking lot area, so Maddie and I can stay near the changing facilities. You go the opposite way as the others."
"Will do," Leigh agre
ed.
The baby gurgled with glee and stretched out a hand toward the corgi. Chewie stuck his nose in her lap and sniffed at her diaper. Leigh winced and pulled the dog away, grateful, as she often was around strangers, that he wasn't any taller.
Pedestrian traffic was heavier this evening, as the weather was clear and less humid than it had been before the rain. Leigh spoke with every dog walker or baby-pusher she saw, but couldn't reach all of the many walkers. Few were certain they had been at the lake three days ago, and none remembered having seen Gil. As the minutes dragged on, her anxiety level rose. None of the Morton women had wanted to voice what they were sure Cara already knew: if the ballistics report proved that the gun found in Gil's bag was the murder weapon, he would almost certainly be arrested.
They had to find a witness to his alibi. They just had to.
From the small parking area to her left, Leigh heard a familiar voice laugh out loud. "Chewie! What in hell happened to you?"
Leigh whirled to see her policewoman friend leaning casually against the hood of her dilapidated Ford. "My mother had a little excess nervous energy," Leigh explained, walking closer. "Chewie here took one for the team."
Maura chuckled and scratched the dog's ears. "You're a brave, brave soul, my man."
Chewie licked his lips and sat down on her foot.
Maura was quiet for a moment, and Leigh's anxiety level rose another notch. The detective hadn't intercepted her out here for nothing. Either Maura had information, or she wanted it. And she had made an effort to catch Leigh without the kids around.
"Did something happen, Maura?" Leigh asked.
The policewoman fidgeted. Then she let out a sigh. "I can't tell you anything Peterson wouldn't tell you, Koslow," she explained. "You know that. But there is something I think all of you should know. Whatever else Diana Saxton may be guilty of, her alibi for Lyle's murder is rock solid."
Leigh's brow furrowed. Heat rose in her cheeks. "But she planted the gun! Who else could have? And why would she do that if she wasn't guilty herself?"
"An excellent question," Maura agreed. "Did Gil ever confide his... er... problems with Diana Saxton to anyone else before he fired her? Besides Cara, I mean? Did he talk to you about it?"
Leigh shook her head. "Cara didn't even talk to me about it. Gil told her not to. But Warren knew. Gil told him."
Maura's face brightened. "Did he? Excellent. I'll make sure Peterson has a chat with the Future Prez."
Leigh's head was buzzing with thoughts, none of them comfortable. She cast a glance down the trail, determined not to miss any likely witnesses, but the traffic had thinned. "Surely you can prove that Diana is doing a frame job! Wouldn't the security cameras at the gym have caught her going in and out?"
"All I can say, Koslow," Maura responded, "is that there's a big difference between its being possible for someone to plant evidence and proving that they actually did."
Leigh blew out a breath in frustration. "But if she didn't kill Brandon, how did she even get the gun? And more importantly, who did kill him?"
"Current evidence," Maura answered heavily, "says Gil March."
"But you know—"
Maura cut off Leigh's protest with a hand. "Of course I know. But instincts are one thing, and evidence is another." She softened her voice. "I put Peterson on this case for a reason, Koslow. He may not look like the touchy-feely type, but that doesn't mean he's blind to human nature. Peterson gets people. He knows what motivates them, he knows what they're capable of, and next to Gerry and me, he's got one the best bullcrap detectors I've ever seen. He'll get this case sorted out eventually. But what I want you—all of you—to know is this. My gut is telling me that this case isn't what it looks like. It's not linear; it's not clean. There's more than one thing happening here. Do you get what I'm saying?"
Leigh's stomach churned. What Maura was saying was that the police had no idea who had murdered Brandon Lyle. And until they did, everyone involved with him—and his nefarious development business—could be in danger.
"I see," she responded.
"If you could find a witness for Gil that would be great," Maura said, pulling her keys out of her pocket and gently dislodging the corgi from her foot. "But stay away from Diana Saxton. All of you." She opened the door of her car, then turned around again. "And, Leigh?"
"Yes?"
"Stay away from Courtney Lyle as well. If she tries to contact you or Cara, let me know right away."
The intensity in her friend's tone made Leigh's pulse rate climb. She nodded wordlessly. Maura started up her car and pulled away, and Leigh turned Chewie back onto the trail. The specter of a homicidal Diana Saxton was bad enough. But what else was going on? How well did Gil really know his old college pal Courtney? Or—worse yet—was Lyle's murder tied to the development deal by more than its location? Maybe Bess had been wrong to discount the entire church full of people Lyle had threatened that night. Given that building's karma, anything was possible. Who was to say that one of the devoted old guard hadn't popped their cork when Lyle started blathering about eminent domain? Or worse still, Lyle's murder could have been random: the act of some indiscriminate, still roaming lunatic...
She started. A woman had just come into view jogging around the bend ahead. A blond woman with two babies in a side-by-side stroller.
Leigh's steps quickened.
She tried to control her excitement as she confirmed that the babies, both less than a year old, were girls. They were dressed in identical yellow sundresses with matching sunflower hats; their mother sported a sleek running outfit and pony tail. Leigh allowed herself a brief surge of jealousy at the young mom's trim, athletic figure. Her own twins had been walking and talking before she'd looked a day under six months pregnant.
"How cute!" Leigh said genuinely, smiling at the little girls. "My twins are ten now, but I used to have a stroller just like this. Well, almost like this. Yours has bigger wheels."
The woman slowed her steps, then stopped. A smile lit up her face. "It's a running stroller," she explained. "Took us forever to find a side-by-side, but it's worth it. We had a tandem one, but—"
"The kid in the back gets bored," Leigh finished, amused at the capacity of any new mom to talk ceaselessly about baby gear. She did remember that much from the lost years. "Tell me about it. The side-by-sides get stuck in doorways, but at least you don't have to switch the kids around every ten minutes to stop the whining. And besides, the wider ones are better to mow other people down with."
The young mom laughed. "Are yours identical?"
Leigh shook her head. "Fraternal. A boy and a girl."
"That's nice."
The women exchanged a smile. Leigh pressed on. "I'm out here tonight for a reason, actually, and I was hoping you could help. My brother-in-law was out walking on this trail Monday night, right about this time. Our family is trying to locate someone who might have seen him here. It's very important."
The woman gave a sympathetic look. "Is he missing?"
"Oh, no. But he's been accused of being somewhere else, and we'd like to clear his name. Were you and the girls out Monday, by any chance?"
"I think so," the woman answered. "Unless... no, it was Tuesday that Ellie had the sniffles. And yesterday it rained. We were here Monday. Is that his picture?"
Leigh's heart thudded in her chest. She held out the picture of Gil that she had been carrying clamped under her arm.
Amazingly, the women's face lit up. An amused smile spread across her face. "Oh, yeah, I remember him! Hard not to notice a man like that, particularly when he takes the time to smile and wave at your babies."
Leigh beamed. It took a good deal of restraint for her not to jump up and down. The woman was telling the truth—she was sure of it. With adults Gil was stiff as granite, but he was surprisingly comfortable around babies. For him to interrupt the walking off of a temper tantrum to coo at two adorable baby girls would be entirely in character.
"You saw him? You're sure?"
The woman nodded. "Absolutely. That was him. I'd thought he'd stepped off a film set. What a hottie!" A sudden flush sprang up in her cheeks. "Oh, but don't tell his wife I said that. Or my husband either, for that matter!"
At this particular moment, Leigh would promise the woman almost anything. "If you're sure," she said carefully, "would be willing to give a statement to the police? I know it's a huge imposition, but it's really very important."
The woman's smiled faded. "The police? What is he accused of doing?"
Leigh steadied herself, then explained the situation as concisely as she could. She figured she might as well be honest; better the woman know what she was getting into now than dash all of their hopes down the road.
"I heard about that man being murdered," the woman remarked when Leigh was finished. "I hate to think of something like that happening so close to here." She cast a protective glance down at her babies, paused a moment, then raised her chin. "But your brother-in-law obviously wasn't involved, so if I come forward, it can only help the police catch the real killer, right?"
Leigh's heart leapt. Yes! She held out her pad and pen, her arm practically shaking as she did so. "Absolutely. If you just write down your name and contact information," she said, "someone from the county detective's squad will call you. Probably either a Detective Peterson or Polanski. I can't thank you enough!"
The woman took the pad and started to write. The baby girl on the left had started wailing. Her sister had a blue ribbon, and she wanted it. "Just a second, Zora," the mother crooned without looking up. "We'll get moving soon." She finished writing and handed the pad back to Leigh.
Leigh looked down, saw a legitimate-looking name, phone, and email, and let out her breath with a whoosh. "You have no idea how happy this will make my family," she said sincerely. "We all owe you so much."
The woman smiled. "I don't suppose your dog would consider parting with her bling?"
Leigh glanced over to see the babies engaged in full-blown sibling combat over Chewie's bow, which one of them had unclipped from his head. She laughed. "I really don't think he'll miss it." She gestured toward the corgi, who now lay placidly beside the stroller, licking his toenails.