The Long Dark January: A Nadine Kelso Mystery

by A. S. Andrews

  A search of Roach’s apartment had found six similar umbrellas, all a similar pastel blue. He claimed he sold them as a side business to his maintenance work. No one could corroborate this. Or disprove it.

  Nadine found she’d overshot the address. Easy to see why. The bushes lining the front of the property were spills of dead tendrils, lopsided evergreens, and a gate rusted to a color that blended with the foliage. She executed a three-point turn and parked the Pilot on the shoulder of the road, near the entrance.

  It was a short walk to the gate, but the cold hit fiercely, made her shrug deeper into her coat. She could hear the water close by. The gate opened with a horror movie rasp, shaking snow onto her hands. Lines from the Bellocq poem resurged through her head.

  The undefeated enemy, the chill

  That shall benumb the voiceful earth at last.

  She blew onto her fingers before climbing onto the porch and knocked twice on the screen door.

  Nadine could see the flicker of a television screen through the thick curtains. The door had a peephole, and she felt herself scrutinized for a long moment. She heard the slap of the lock and then the door opened.

  Karl Roach peered out at her, wearing a grubby white T-shirt and striped boxers. Warm air scented with fish bloomed out from the crack in the door.

  “I wait for you to talk to me,” he said.

  Nadine showed him her ID card. “My name is Nadine Kelso and I consult with the Seattle PD.”

  Roach squinted. “You are not police?”

  “Not a cop, no. I’m a consultant, helping the Castle Rock PD with something.”

  “You work with that man Quayle.”

  “I realize your relationship with certain officers is a tad contentious, but all the same, I’d appreciate a few minutes of your time.”

  “I was having my dinner,” Roach said. “Please, come in, be as my guest.”

  Nadine shivered, shrugged, and followed the man inside.

  Chapter 32

  Dilapidated was the word that came to mind. The couches sagged, the walls had yellowed from indoor smoke, and only one of the three hallway bulbs still burnt. Magazines and clothing and fish tackle covered most surfaces.

  Karl Roach’s dining room contained a workbench stacked with plates, with an ancient portable television propped in the corner. A laptop had been hooked into the TV, so the screen broadcast some sort of fishing show.

  Roach closed the laptop and turned the volume on the TV off. From a cupboard beneath the sink he produced a bottle of vodka and filled two grubby jam jars. He drank to Nadine’s health, which, as Nadine returned the favor, she hoped the drink hadn’t imperiled.

  “All my life, since I move here, I am followed by this man.” Roach had a hard time with the name. “Quayle. He hates me. He thinks I did something I did not.”

  “Why does he suspect you?” Nadine asked.

  Roach pounded the table. “I don’t know! Maybe he spend so much time on me, he can’t find the real person. He’s not a good police.”

  “That’s possible,” Nadine agreed, to show she wasn’t taking sides. “Sometimes I think being a police officer is an impossible job. Investigating crimes, responding to complaints, quelling riots and public violence—most people couldn’t do two of those, and we expect a cop to do all three, and perfectly. I sympathize with you.”

  Roach nodded. Nadine wondered if the man was following her, but assumed he was.

  “Let’s leave the Cover Model Killings to the side for now,” Nadine said. She smiled. “Unless you’d like to confess now.”

  Roach didn’t smile. “I did nothing.”

  “Apologies. What do you know about Andrew and Susan Gordon?”

  “The dead husband and wife? I thought it was an accident with the—the electric.” He mimed working the ripcord of a small gasoline engine.

  “Generator,” Nadine supplied.

  “Yes, generator. Then I hear it’s a murder.”

  “A very clever one,” Nadine said. “Did you ever meet the Gordons?”

  “No. I didn’t know them.”

  “What about Ingrid Moody, who runs the café? Do you know her?”

  Roach scowled. “She hates me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The police, Quayle, he talks with her. Tells her lies.”

  “To make her hate you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you own a gun, Mr. Roach?”

  “A rifle.”

  “What kind?’

  “Three-zero-zero-six Springfield. I use for hunting.”

  “If I asked, would you show it to me?”

  Abruptly Roach pushed away from the table, stood, and tramped off into the back rooms of the house. Nadine waited. More jam jars lined the windowsill, along with a spindly, water-deprived cactus. The level of neglect it takes to kill a cactus, Nadine thought.

  Roach returned with an oiled leather gun case, which he thumped onto the table. Nadine unzipped it and removed a worn looking weapon. The action was clean and its five shot magazine empty. The .30-06 Springfield was similar in size to the 7.65 cartridge casing Jen had found at the scene. Similar, but not a match.

  “Any other firearms?” Nadine asked.

  “Only this. This is my rifle.”

  Nadine returned it to its case. She finished her drink. “If I were to come back with a warrant and search this house, I wouldn’t find any other weapons?”

  “You have no warrant,” Roach said.

  “No. I’m saying if.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Nadine tried another tack. “What do you do for a living?”

  “I am retired. I fish.”

  “This a good spot for fishing?”

  “Very good. Salmon in the summer, steelhead in the spring and winter.”

  “What did you retire from? Do you have a pension?”

  Roach’s eyes darted to his hands. “My father and brother leave me money.”

  “You’re a skilled electrician. Good with fixing things.”

  “Not computers, but other things, yes.”

  “Circuits. Batteries.”

  “I can fix, yes.”

  “Smoke alarms? CO detectors?”

  Roach shrugged.

  “Where were you on January 1st, Karl?”

  “I’m here. Alone.”

  “No friends, no family?”

  Again the hesitation. “I live alone.”

  Nadine could see why Roach would irk someone like Peter Quayle. Antisocial but up front in his denials, not hiding or apologizing for the aspects of his life which made him suspicious. Roach was either what he said he was, or doing a very poor job of pretending to be innocent. Or—and it was a small possibility—he was presenting himself in that way to hide something else. Like looking down into an endless abyss, Nadine thought.

  “Does the name Karlheinz Rasmussen mean anything to you?” she said.

  Roach’s jaw opened slightly, then snapped shut. “Of course,” he said. “I change my name. To stop being bothered by the police.”

  “By Quayle, you mean.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Your change of name occurred before you were a suspect, though. Wasn’t it over some child support?”

  “Is not mine,” he said. “That woman just looking for the money.”

  “No contact with your ex, or with your son or daughter?”

  Roach winced, looking away. “No. Now she remarry, she doesn’t want my son to know me.”

  “Thanks for your time.”

  Nadine stood and shook Roach’s hand. He gestured towards the front door but didn’t follow Nadine out, instead attending to a pot of fish soup that sat on the stove. Nice of him to postpone his dinner till after the chat, Nadine thought.

  On her way out she saw a bundle of umbrellas, shoved into the corner behind the door. A faded light blue that could have been called pastel. She thought of turning around and asking Roach more questions, but decided against i
t. She had a case of her own to puzzle over without diving into a twenty year-old-murder.

  Walking to the door, she passed under a green pinpoint eye and looked up. Near one of the burnt-out pot lights on the ceiling was a familiar light gray disk. Karl Roach employed the same model of CO detector as the Gordons.

  Chapter 33

  When she got back to the station she found Chief Eng and Peter Quayle waiting for her. Quayle’s face bore a legacy of anticipation. He expected—needed—Nadine to agree that Roach was the shooter. Nadine’s ambivalence caused him to kick his chair.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said.

  “His rifle didn’t match the caliber, and he says he didn’t know the Gordons. It’s circumstantial at best.”

  “You’re thinking like he wants you to. Playing his game. He’s laughing at you. Can’t you see that?”

  “Peter.” Jen cut off Quayle’s response. “Why don’t you finish your patrols and then spell Bill at Ingrid’s house. If anything breaks I’ll call you.”

  Quayle seemed to be teetering between disobeying and accepting his orders. He sighed, but picked his keys off the desk and left.

  Nadine related to the chief the details of her visit with Roach. Jen seemed to feel as she did: interesting, but not conclusive.

  “I’ve been thinking about the why of everything,” Jen said. “Why kill the Gordons? Why shoot at Ingrid? With something this terrible, can we even talk about motive?”

  “Always,” Nadine said. “Compulsion, publicity, a thrill-kill—there’s always a who and a why.”

  “Then who killed Andrew and Susan Gordon, and why?”

  Nadine took a seat and squared her shoulders. “Sex, anger, and money are the most common motivations,” she said. “Taking them in order, we have Gary Gordon’s confession to Susan and her rejection. We also have Andrew’s attempt to seduce Kelly Wells.”

  “The Gordon boys sure are unlucky in love,” Jen said.

  “As to anger, Gary felt resentment at his brother for treating him unfairly at the garage. Ingrid disliked how Andrew treated Susan. And the Gordons had quarreled with each other.”

  “That leaves money,” Jen said.

  “Who benefits? Gary, Ingrid, and Bobby all stand to inherit, depending on the will. There’s also Timothy, Susan’s first child. The Gordons weren’t rich, but between their assets and the business, it’s a significant windfall to whoever inherits.”

  “Gary’s name comes up in all three categories,” Jen said.

  “He’s on our list, for sure,” Nadine said. “As a mechanic he knows the most about engines and could easily sabotage the detector.”

  “What motive could someone like Karl Roach have?”

  “To cover up another crime, perhaps.”

  “Maybe Andrew found out something about him. Or Susan did.”

  “Or Roach thought they did.”

  Jen tipped back in her chair, put her feet up on the desk. She stared at the tiles on the ceiling. “As if that wasn’t enough, then there’s the shooting at Ingrid’s.”

  “Two possible targets,” Nadine said. “Ingrid is the more likely. To intimidate her, either to keep quiet about something, or the opposite.”

  “Or maybe to make her seem like a victim.”

  Nadine hadn’t considered that. She gave the chief a tight smile.

  “We know Ingrid is holding something back from us,” she said. “Whatever it is, it affects our timeline. Which in turn affects our ability to establish motive.”

  “How so?”

  “Three possibilities. One, the killer meant for both Susan and Andrew to be home. They were both equal targets. The second possibility is that only one of them was the target, and the killer was either unaware the other was home, or simply didn’t care. And three, the entire family was the target.”

  “Bleak options,” Jen said.

  She inclined her head towards the window. Snow was pasted to the glass like confetti in one’s hair after a nightlong party.

  “It’s been dark for months now,” she said. “Compared with the past few winters, it feels like there’s less light. Is that even possible?”

  “Pathetic fallacy,” Nadine said. “Our internal feelings color how we view the world. You’re missing your son.”

  “Every day,” Jen said. “But you know what’s worst of all? Since this mess with the Gordons started, I’ve actually been happy Wei doesn’t live here.”

  Nadine couldn’t think of a suitable reply.

  Kelly Wells was on a stepladder in the parlor, attaching or reattaching something to the ceiling. “Evening,” she called to Nadine from her perch. “One sec. I’m just checking our smoke alarms. What happened to Andrew and Susan got me thinking, and you can’t be too careful.”

  Nadine removed her coat and stomped snow from her shoes. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “The whole thing doesn’t seem real,” Kelly said. “I was a little scared, I guess, but it feels like it happened to somebody else. Like I watched it on TV as a kid. Does that make sense?”

  “That’s common after a shock,” Nadine said. “You might note you feel differently tomorrow.”

  “Hope so,” Kelly said.

  She lifted the hinged section of countertop and let herself behind the reception desk. She opened the door behind her. Nero sauntered out and made a circuit around Nadine’s legs, accepting a few head rubs before taking his seat on the pillow. “Had to lock him up so he wouldn’t topple the ladder,” Kelly said. “He’s nosy like that.”

  “Good quality for a dog.”

  “Do you want the same room as last night?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Nadine said. “Kelly, do you know a Karl Roach?”

  “Don’t think so, no.”

  Nadine described him. “You might have seen him around town.”

  “There’s a few old guys around who like to fish. I try not to walk Nero too close to the river.”

  Kelly focused on the paperwork and didn’t look up until she was ready for Nadine to sign in. She seemed to be struggling with something.

  “Have you thought of anything else about the afternoon of the 1st?” Nadine said.

  “Why?”

  “If you need to modify your statement, it’s not too late.”

  Kelly’s hands paused over the keyboard. “Is it a bad thing, not telling everything? I mean, even little things that aren’t related?”

  “We don’t know what will make the difference. That’s why it’s best to tell us what you know and leave the parsing of that information to us.”

  “I just don’t want my mom and dad finding out.”

  “That you were alone in Andrew’s house?”

  Kelly nodded. “I didn’t know right away that he was going to ask me to sleep with him. But maybe part of me did. He was cute, Andrew. Nice. I just don’t want you thinking I’m totally naïve.”

  “I don’t,” Nadine said.

  “Thank you.” Kelly smiled. “Mr. and Mrs. Wells in Portland can keep on thinking that I’m a virgin.”

  Nadine took her key and headed towards her room.

  “Oh,” Kelly said, “if you want your clothes cleaned, leave them outside your door in the blue bag from your closet. I’ll throw them in tonight, unless you need them dry cleaned.”

  “A wash would be fine, thanks.”

  “Also, if you feel like playing piano, go ahead. It doesn’t bother me.” Kelly smiled and said, “Next time I visit my folks I’ll have to bring back my drum set.”

  Chapter 34

  It was still snowing when Nadine woke up. The parking lot was an untrampled blanket of white, Nadine’s Pilot only visible as a hillock of snow that cast the slimmest of shadows.

  After hours of repositioning, Nadine had dumped the blankets and pillows on the floor and slept there. She awoke to seismic pain in her lower back. After wallowing in it for an undignified length of time, she rolled onto her hands and knees and began the exercises designed to ease the discomfort in her spi
ne.

  As promised, a bag of clean clothing sat outside her door. Nadine showered and dressed, thinking about where to start today. Her second to last day in Castle Rock, if Teddy Fowler was to be obeyed.

  Downstairs, there was no coffee or breakfast laid out—understandable, given the previous day’s events. Nadine set off for the station, this time keeping her key card.

  Ingrid’s was closed. In fact, the only business that seemed to be operating as usual was the gas station. Nadine observed a pair of teens clearing snow from the pump area with blue plastic shovels. She bought a gas station coffee that was lukewarm and wretched, and a sandwich that proved as hard to finish as a poorly translated Russian novel.

  She reached the station, found no one there other than the desk officer. In the break room she tossed away her purchases, wet a filter, placed it in the coffee machine, added four level scoops from the tin. She wondered where everyone was.

  Seated in the break room, with a fresh cup in front of her, she dialed the deputy commissioner’s office. When she was put through, she told Teddy she’d likely need additional time.

  “There is no additional time, Nadine. If you can’t crack it, don’t worry, it won’t reflect on you. But your talents are needed back here. The DeSalvo murder is about to break.”

  Nadine felt her stomach drop. Teddy sounded giddy about it.

  “Seems that our suspect had an accomplice. We have an eyewitness description of the second man.” Teddy recited it. “Sound like anyone you know?”

  Nadine knew what Teddy wanted her to say. “Sounds like a lot of people I know.”

  “The accomplice drove a Chrysler 300, beige and brown. Sound familiar?”

  “Common car,” Nadine said.

  “What make and model does your brother Frank drive?”

  The conversation had been heading there from the start. Teddy had suspected that Nadine knew who’d caused the crash, and had left it out of her statement. At first he’d seemed understanding. Family was family, after all. But as the case dragged on, and the likelihood increased that DeSalvo’s killer would escape justice, Teddy had begun to hammer the point, doing everything but threaten Nadine to give up her brother.