The Long Dark January: A Nadine Kelso Mystery

by A. S. Andrews

  “Sorry to interrupt your dinner,” Jen said. “I needed to discuss something with Gary, specifically his whereabouts on January 1st.”

  “Again,” Gary said, drawing out the word so they knew the subject was exhausting to him. He was leaning back in his chair, holding a can of Coke. As Nadine shut the door, he sat up and squared his posture.

  “I told you already. I worked, then got cleaned up and met Susan. We walked around until eight.”

  “You didn’t go anywhere near your brother’s home?”

  “No.” He shifted in his chair. “We may have come close while we were walking, but we didn’t go in.”

  “Susan was with you the entire time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No one saw you.”

  “It was dark. Most people don’t like walking in the snow.”

  “After you and Susan separated, she headed to her mother’s house.”

  “Right.”

  “And where did you go?”

  “I walked home. Had another drink.”

  “A few drinks?”

  “It’s not against the law.”

  “And then what?”

  “Drove around.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.” Again Gary shifted, this time sloshing his soda over his hand. “Why?”

  “No one can confirm where you were, Gary.”

  Nadine was quiet, observing. Jen tried another tack.

  “Did your brother ever talk to you about his will, Gary? Did you know you stand to inherit the garage?”

  Gary shrugged. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “It’s a significant amount of money. A step up in the world.”

  “Sure.”

  “How were you feeling after Susan rejected you?”

  “A little embarrassed.”

  “You weren’t angry, Gary?”

  “No,” he said. Then relented. “A little, yes. More disappointed.”

  “It was unfair. Susan was being unfair.”

  “No.”

  “You were angry and upset about being rejected.”

  “I already told you—“

  “And the more you walked, the more you drove, the more you realized how unfair she was being.”

  Gary pushed back from the table, sending his drink to the floor. He stood up. His chest was rising and receding beneath his jacket. He seemed to be measuring the distance to the door, whether he should try to bull past them.

  Eventually he sank back down.

  “It hurt, okay?” he said softly. “I loved her.”

  “And she rejected you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you felt she was unfair.”

  His voice soft, Gary muttered, “Yes.”

  “What were you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing. I guess I’m a coward.”

  “What did you do after you left Susan?”

  “I went home, like I said, and had a few drinks. Then I decided I couldn’t stay in my trailer. Got in my tow truck and just drove. Up and down the highway.” He leaned towards them. “I know how that sounds, okay? It’s what I do when I can’t think. Driving clears my head.”

  “How long were you out driving?”

  “Till two or three. I was late getting to work. That’s why I brought Andrew coffee and donuts. I spent almost two hundred bucks on fuel, and I knew he’d be upset.”

  “Were you worried Susan would tell Andrew about your confession?”

  He shook his head earnestly. “She said she wouldn’t.”

  “But it didn’t worry you, knowing your brother—your boss—might find out?”

  Nadine watched the brother of the murdered man twitch, slouch, express all the signs of agitation and anger. The chief’s rapid fire questions were getting to him. There was something else.

  “When you were out driving that night,” Nadine said, “what were you thinking of?”

  “A lot of things,” Gary said.

  “Maybe one of them was how your life might be different.”

  A nod.

  “Specifically, how it might be different if Andrew wasn’t around.”

  Gary said “No,” but there was no conviction behind it.

  “You’d have to step in. Provide for the family. Look after Susan. With the garage and the towing business all to yourself, you’d do all right. Better than him.”

  “No.”

  “She didn’t love him. Not really. You could show her how much better you’d be.”

  “Yes,” Gary said. He wiped his nose. “I admit I thought about it, okay? But those are just thoughts.”

  “On your way home,” Nadine said, “did you drive by their house?”

  “The back lane, yeah.” Gary closed his eyes. “I left the motor running for a minute. Just sat there.”

  “And thought of killing your brother.”

  “Not killing him. What it would be like it he wasn’t there.”

  “All right,” Nadine said. She looked to Jen to pick up the questioning.

  “We’re almost finished for now,” the chief said, patting Gary’s arm. “Let’s talk about the dinner on the 31st. Andrew left in the Jeep with Susan’s keys?”

  “I think so,” Gary said.

  “She also had an automatic starter and a garage door opener. She might have kept these in the Jeep.”

  “I guess.”

  “Did you see these at Ingrid’s house that evening?”

  “I don’t remember.” Gary’s voice was becoming feeble as he reached exhaustion.

  “You had Andrew’s keys, didn’t you?”

  “They’re still on the board in the garage.”

  “Gary, if there’s something you want to confess to us—“

  “I didn’t do anything,” Gary screamed, and collapsed forward, sobbing.

  Jen and Nadine looked at each other.

  “I didn’t…I swear…I just…” He muttered something too soft for Nadine to hear.

  “Could you repeat that?” she asked.

  “I just have violent thoughts sometimes,” Gary said.

  Chapter 45

  Susan used to tease her about the bareness of their cupboards. “You own the only coffee shop in town, Mother. And yet there’s never a drop in your own home.”

  Ingrid would reply that she had more than her fill of the stuff second hand. What was the old saying about the shoemaker’s kids going barefoot?

  Yet for the job Ingrid set herself this afternoon, she would need something warm to keep her spirits up. She added a half-cup of brandy to her husband’s old thermos, and stopped by her café long enough to brew a pot and make a sandwich. From there she climbed back into her station wagon and drove away from the town center, towards the river, and the address she’d found for Karl Roach.

  She wasn’t under the delusion that she was a surveillance expert, or that this would be an easy task. The fact was, if Roach was at all suspicious, he’d have no trouble spying her as she sat in her car near the end of the lane.

  But she had to attempt something, damnit. This was all she could think about.

  There were rumors about Peter Quayle being questioned. Ingrid hadn’t heard from him in a day now. Had he been wrong about Roach? Had Peter himself been the one to shoot at her and Kelly?

  She couldn’t believe that. For all his faults and obsessions, Peter wasn’t deranged enough to shoot at her in order to cast blame on the man he hated. At least she hoped that wasn’t true. One thing she was learning: people always had secrets. The ones closest to you most of all.

  For a few hours that evening the cloud cover had broken, and a pale orange sky had streaked over the snow-blanketed town. As it grew dark, the clouds swept back in, silver satin and gunmetal gray. The property nearest to Roach’s bore a half-melted snowman in the driveway. One of its stick arms had begun to droop downwards.

  After two hours she unscrewed the cap of the thermos and drank some coffee. The brandy soothed some of the bitterness. In
grid used a napkin to wipe off the steam from the windshield. Still no movement in Roach’s house. If he was home, maybe he’d stay there for good. And if he was out...

  A light was on in one of the rooms, which was the only sign of life Ingrid could see.

  She hadn’t been prepared for Roach that day when he’d appeared at her café. Up to that point he’d been a faceless demon, conjured through Peter Quayle’s stories and one brief conversation with her son-in-law.

  “The man has hurt people before, Ingrid,” Andrew had said. “The guy is a menace. We just want him out of town, that’s all.”

  Since then, she’d come to doubt whether that was really all that Peter Quayle wanted. This was a longstanding grudge, uglier and more complicated than she’d thought at first. Had Andrew known that? She believed Andrew acted to protect his family, though she could think of several more productive ways to ensure their safety. But Andrew wasn’t the most practical person. Maybe Peter’s madness had infected him.

  Movement. The front door of Roach’s house opened. The man paused in the doorway to zip up his beige windbreaker, placing something in the crook of his arm to free his hands to work the zipper. He placed his battered hat on his head, returned the object to his hand, and started up the street, towards where Ingrid was parked.

  She sat still and watched.

  Roach moved as if indifferent to the snow. His feet left deep impressions on the white crust atop the sidewalk. As he got closer, Ingrid held her breath. He passed a few feet in front of her, not looking in her direction.

  The object in his arms: it was wrapped in brown paper. The size of a book. She wondered if it could be a weapon. Then she remembered how Susan and Andrew had died, and realized the man could use anything to hurt others. Anything at all.

  She had to know.

  She waited four minutes after he passed, finished off the coffee, and stepped out of the car. She walked in the slushy gutter so as not to leave a path to his house. When she had to step on snow, she tried to fit her steps into the larger ones left by Roach.

  He’d locked the front door. Around the side, though, was a short set of steps leading down to a basement entrance. Covered by the overhang of the roof was a small pile of wood and a rusty hatchet. The door was unlocked.

  Ingrid entered the basement, seeing a dangling cord of metal beads below a bare lightbulb. She smelled earth and fish and must, saw rows of jars on homemade shelves. An oblong of light from the top of the stairs leading up to the main floor.

  She hadn’t brought a flashlight, or anything to defend herself. In truth, she didn’t really know what she was looking for. The rumor she’d heard was that Peter was in custody, which meant Roach had set him up. Unless of course Peter was guilty.

  She had to know.

  Up the stairs, into a mess of a kitchen and dining area. Table covered with newspapers and jars, plates and bowls on the floor. Fishing gear in every corner. She didn’t know how anyone could live like that.

  Ingrid flipped through the stacks of newspapers, looking for anything that would tell her that Peter had been right. They were just newspapers, mostly flyers and junk mail. She moved into the hallway, then to the bedroom. It was dark inside, and she hazarded to turn on a light.

  A mess—mattress on the floor, a stew of filthy blankets spilling out from either side. Pillow cases shiny with grease. Clothes piled on the floor, the scent of mildew coming from a hillock of towels.

  On the windowsill was a photo. It looked to have been clipped out of a newspaper by someone lacking fine motor skills. A small scrap of tape was stuck to the midpoint of the top border.

  The photo showed a man and woman and a bundled object with a small round face peaking out of it. The photo looked decades old. The man was Karl Roach. His hair was blond and shaggy, and he was dressed in slacks and a Hawaiian shirt. The woman and child Ingrid couldn’t recognize.

  She picked up the photo to look closer. When the light from the hall hit the paper, she saw writing on the opposite side. Turning it over, she read the blue block letters. Roach Aka Karlheinz Rasmussen with Family.

  Did the writing look familiar? She’d seen Peter Quayle jot in his notebook with a large blue pen. His handwriting was messy. Maybe that was why the block letters.

  She debated whether to take the picture or leave it, opted for the latter. Retracing her steps, she headed down the stairs to the basement before remembering—damn it—she hadn’t turned out the bedroom light.

  She paused for too long on the middle steps of the staircase. Decided she’d pressed her luck enough for one night. At the bottom of the stairs she stumbled, colliding with a shelf, hearing the jars clink together, praying nothing would fall.

  Outside, the cold wind slapped her in the face.

  She moved down the driveway, down the lane, and was at her car when she saw a figure walking towards her. Karl Roach passed by her, at first not making eye contact, then snapping his head around when he recognized who it was. She ducked into the driver’s seat of the station wagon and smacked the lock on the door.

  Roach lingered, looking at her, then hurried towards his house. She had to drive past him. Ingrid couldn’t make the engine turn over. She forced herself to take deep breaths, and tried the ignition again. The car started and she rolled out onto the road, glancing sideways as she passed the house.

  Roach was standing in the doorway, watching her.

  Chapter 46

  If Jen wasn’t entirely convinced of Gary’s guilt, neither was she persuaded that the story he’d told was true.

  “Access, time, and motive,” she said. “Plus the mechanical skill to tamper with the detector. You saw him in there, Nadine. Imagine how raw he’d be, right after Susan turned him down. His emotions running high, the drink in his system.”

  “It’s more than possible,” Nadine admitted.

  “Yet you don’t believe it.”

  They were sharing a meal of vending machine ramen in the chief’s office. Jen had her boots off, feet propped up on her desk.

  “No, I don’t,” Nadine said. “This was done by someone calculating. Enraged, yes, but logical. Someone who took steps to disguise their crime. Someone whose anger sustained itself at least through an entire night.”

  “And Gary’s couldn’t?”

  “Someone who builds up resentment, and drinks enough to lower their inhibitions, and then acts on it—in my experience, those types of crimes explode out of someone. You see red and then you wake up with blood on your hands. I can’t rule Gary out, but I don’t know he’s a more likely killer than anyone else we’ve talked with.”

  “And you won’t tell me who you suspect,” Jen said.

  “I don’t know anything more than you do. Call it a theory. The moment I can prove any of it, I’ll share it with you.”

  Nadine finished her noodles and knelt down on the floor. “My back,” she explained. She stared at the strands of dust clinging to the baseboards.

  “We’re still missing something,” Jen said. “And it’s my fault. If I’d known this was a murder from the start, I would have preserved the scene better.”

  “Hard under those circumstances,” Nadine said. “Most people would react the same way in your position.” That jolted something loose in her mind. “Above all this is a crime of opportunity, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have this opening from the time Andrew leaves to pick up his son, to when he returns. Roughly thirty minutes when the house is empty. The killer couldn’t have known that would be the case ahead of time. That means that either they took steps to arrange it, or had the place under surveillance.”

  Intrigued, Jen stood up and moved to where she could look through her office door at the timetable in the break room. “The killer created the circumstances,” she said.

  “Or happened upon them by watching the Gordons.”

  “Ingrid admitted to phoning Andrew, which is what made the house empty in the first place. Could she have worked with
someone?”

  “Certainly possible,” Nadine said, “There’s someone or something we haven’t accounted for.”

  Nadine’s phone chirped. She looked at the incoming number and returned it to her pocket.

  “That’s Teddy Fowler,” she said. “He wants me to come home tomorrow night.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Unless I want to be unemployed.” She sat up and made circular motions with her neck and shoulders. “What Teddy really wants is my brother in jail.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Partly because he deserves to be,” Nadine said. “Frank has done a great deal of bad things.”

  “And the other part?”

  “Because it looks bad if someone associated with the department turns a blind eye. Especially for a relative.”

  “Did you?” Jen asked. “Turn a blind eye, I mean.”

  “Not a blind eye so much as a blurry one.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  She explained the car crash and her brother’s role in it.

  “My boss must have known that Frank was coming back to Seattle, and he wants my help putting my brother in jail. And frankly, he’s right. In his position I’d want the same thing.”

  “Is your brother the kind of person who will hurt others if he’s left unchecked?” Jen asked.

  Nadine closed her eyes, nodded, and winced. “I think he will. But there’s also the fact that if I speak out, it hurts my mother, and she’s at a critical place. It could wreck her.”

  “That’s a tough situation to find yourself,” Jen said.

  “Not being a cop, I don’t have to arrest him. But just what my duties are as a consultant, well, that’s in Teddy’s hands. So far he hasn’t made me choose.”

  “But he will,” Jen said.

  For a moment they didn’t speak. Nadine stood and walked the length of the room. Jen picked up the phone and dialed Lee Miller’s number once again.

  A woman’s voice answered this time. “Hello, Miller residence?”