by Tess Rothery
“I’m sorry, I’m not inviting you in right now.” She squared her shoulders, ready to defend her stance.
“Not a problem. I was planning on taking her down to the station with me.”
Though Ingrid Quinn would have liked to lock Coco up and throw away the key for Coco's own sake, the idea of having the sheriff doing so didn't suit her at all. She merely shook her head no.
“Don't be obstructive or we'll have to bring you as well.” Sheriff Rousseau’s shoulders rose an eighth of an inch.
“Not without a warrant.”
“We’re not here to arrest anyone, Ingrid. Conversation. That’s all. A few simple questions.”
“If you take her away in your car you are technically arresting her. And you can't do that without a warrant. And I'm not inviting you inside, because if I do, you can find whatever you want, including her, without a warrant.”
He smiled at her in admiration. “Ingrid, we still miss you, you know that, right?”
“You can't miss me. You were still a schoolboy when I had that job.” She wished she was immune to flattery, but it couldn’t be helped. It felt remarkably good to imagine anyone in the sheriff’s office still remembered her years there.
“You are the stuff of legends, Ingrid. We all admire and respect you. But times have changed a little, and I need to have this conversation with Coco. If you don't invite me in and you don't let me take her in a friendly way down to the station, I'll have to get a warrant and arrest her.”
The warmth of the flattery quickly melted away. “What on Earth could you get a warrant for?”
“You remember that little necklace we found with the body? It had Coco's fingerprints on it.”
“Now I know you’re bluffing. How would Coco have fingerprints in your database?”
“Her parents participated in a fun little anti-kidnapping campaign the state ran back when she was a kid. Her fingerprints came up immediately when we ran the ones we found on the necklace. The match was clear as a bell.”
At least Ingrid understood his calm and confidence now.
“On that evidence we can bring her down as a material witness and keep her. Or you can bring her down. You can even drive if you want. We'll follow. What do you say?”
The fingerprints on the necklace did it for her. Also, the suggestion that law had changed since she had held her position at the sheriff’s office. “You wait in your car,” Ingrid Quinn said. “Coco and I will be down in a minute.”
Before she drove off, Ingrid sent her husband a text. “Coco’s going to jail. But pick her up at midnight for me. Not a minute sooner or a minute later. Call Frank. He’ll know what to do.” She included the number for their lawyer, Frank. Jail was easy. The sheriff could lock Coco in a cell to scare her a little, but they’d have her out fast enough. Prison, on the other hand, could be a real problem.
Chapter Twelve
As was to be expected, question and answer time with the sheriff and deputies was long and exhausting. Rousseau berated Taylor for getting a kid in trouble. Grandma Quinny was no kinder. And Coco was still being questioned.
“They can’t have arrested her,” Taylor murmured while she waited with her Grandma Quinny in the lobby.
“Not yet, anyway.” Grandma Quinny’s mouth was a slim line, and her regularly rosy cheeks were pale. Her eyes, however, were determined. She stood straight, where Taylor found herself leaning, and she seemed to have absolute control over her grandmotherly figure. As usual, Grandma Quinny was dressed as though lunching downtown, instead of running a farm in the country. Her satin blouse seemed to flow around her, and the shawl she wore—a pashmina really—was as light as a feather while still looking warm. She wore jeans, but everyone did in all situations in Oregon. It was just that Grandma Quinny’s jeans had been pressed, even the cuffs that revealed rather elegant little ankles above her leather driving shoes. The shoes were the one and only sign Grandma Quinny was rattled. Taylor had never seen her step outside the car in those. They were quite literally her driving shoes. Somewhere in the car were the heels she had planned on wearing. Not high or sharp heels, anymore, but still expensive.
But her grandmother didn’t reveal anything else. As always, she was planted firmly in control of the situation.
In another moment Graham was released. “Done and done. I only hope I got more from them then they got from me.”
Grandma Quinny might have rolled her eyes. The motion was so subtle and quick, Taylor was unsure. “You didn’t,” Grandma Quinny said. “These men and women know what they’re doing.”
“One of them sure had a lot to say about Asha Szkolaski.” Graham laid his hand gently on Taylor’s lower back.
A shiver of something wonderful ran both up and down her spine.
“Serge Saarinen.” Grandma Quinny nodded. “That makes sense. I believe they were in the same grade in school. He’s only been in the force a few years, but I’ve been impressed.” She wasn’t looking at Taylor as she spoke, but into the distance with those eagle eyes. After a brief moment of silence, she stepped to the desk to talk to the admin.
Graham leaned closer to Taylor so he could speak quietly. “This was rough. I don’t think they’re letting Coco out. Most of the questions I had to answer were about Coco’s business. And they didn’t mince words. Came right out and said she was fronting a prostitution ring. Only Serge had any questions about Asha.”
Taylor nodded. “I had Sheriff Rousseau all to myself. He seemed to take our situation as my personal moral failure. He never admitted Asha could be in danger, but he managed to make it sound like I had personally gotten her murdered.”
“They’ll find her. They’re well-staffed for it, and I don’t believe for a second they aren’t looking for her. But we’ll go crazy if we can’t find something pro-active to do.”
Taylor’s eye was on Grandma Quinny who was now bent over the desk having a hushed conversation. Grandma Quinny seemed comfortable in this sterile, unwelcoming environment. She even seemed to command it.
“I need to call Hudson.”
Graham didn’t respond.
“I think he can get us into Molly’s apartment. And I think today might be the day to ask.” Last night had washed any longing for that happy family picture Hudson and Kelly had created for her. Last night had been…She felt her cheeks blushing. If she was being honest, it had been a little awkward, a little clumsy, and yet spending the whole night in his arms had been everything. So, Graham wasn’t the gifted lover Hudson was. Big deal. Clay hadn’t been all that smooth in the early days of their relationship either.
But she turned her mind back to Hudson. Meeting his son had done something to him. Filled him with joy. Perhaps it had given him what he’d been looking for all these years—someone he was supposed to protect at all costs. But whatever the reason, he seemed to be in a brilliant mood, and she was sure she could ask him anything and get it. Anyone could, in fact.
She hesitated to call though. She didn’t want to interrupt whatever father son bonding he had at the moment. Instead, she texted. “I want to help. Can you introduce me to Kelly?”
The reply was immediate, if brief. A thumbs up.
“Today?” she replied.
This time the reply took a little longer. “Yes. Can you be at my place in half an hour? Bring Graham, if he’s here.”
She exhaled a sharp little breath. The command to bring Graham gave her that feeling of being called to the principal’s office. She sent a thumbs up.
“Kelly wants more media on this. Graham can help.”
Hudson’s answer washed Taylor in relief, so she sent a K and called it good.
Hudson’s A-Frame was warm as the slushy March rain fell outside. A fire burned in his tall, stone fireplace that only smoked a little, and vanilla candles glowed from the breakfast bar. Kelly Kay stood at the sink filling the coffee pot. “Give me just a moment,” she said as Hudson welcomed Graham and Taylor.
“Come on in.” Hudson opened the door and offer
ed his hand to the man who’d pulled Taylor from him.
They filed to the leather sofa in front of the fireplace and sat. Graham slung his arm across the back of the couch behind Taylor, positioning himself relationally.
“Kelly was just saying we need more press.” Hudson sat in his oversized leather armchair with the brass tacks and leaned forward. “Can you get us that? We’d do anything, offer any kind of help.”
“I’m here to write about it. I’ve been sending updates, but I’m trying to get to the heart of what happened. The more I can learn about Molly, the more I can reveal the real woman behind the crime, and the closer we can get to finding who did this to her.”
“Good. Kelly, you’ll talk to Graham, won’t you?” He turned to the pretty auburn-haired girl who did have dimples, it turned out. “He’s a good journalist.”
“Anything you want. It’s your life too.” The eyes she made at Hudson more rightfully belonged to a doe.
“I thought your mom was staying here.” Taylor frowned at Hudson. If he’d fallen in love with Kelly, it had sure been quick.
She paused.
About as fast as she had fallen for Graham.
“She is. But she’s off with Brenda. They took Larry to the beach.”
“I hope they don’t get snow coming back,” Kelly said, wistfully. The slushy late winter rain in Comfort usually meant snow on the Coast Range Mountains.
“I don’t know what I’d do if Larry was stuck away. I haven’t been away from him for even one night since he was born.”
“You haven’t?” Taylor couldn’t fathom an aunt with that kind of commitment.
“No. Not once. I worked days and Molly worked nights till she got the job at the school in Comfort. We were raising him together. Even if I had a date, I made sure I was home in time for Molly to leave.” Her lower lip trembled. “Consistency is so important for a baby.”
“It must have been rough when she moved here.”
Kelly pulled mugs from the cupboards and didn’t respond.
“It was hard.” Hudson spoke as though he had been there for the decision. “She told me all about it when we talked about Larry.” Though he was telling a sad story, his face glowed with pride. “He’s the cutest, right? You saw him at Reuben’s. Cutest little man ever.”
“He’s adorable,” Taylor agreed.
“Kelly,” Graham interjected, “would it be okay if we went to your sister’s apartment? We might be able to learn something about what she’d been up to lately. Something that has nothing to do with who she was dating.”
“But it has to have been those awful men, don’t you think?” Kelly’s voice had a childish quality that was putting Taylor on edge. So much vulnerability, youth, and beauty. It rankled.
“Men, plural?” Graham asked. Taylor had told him all about the second man Molly had met through Coco’s website, but confirmation was a good thing.
“Yes. She met someone right away when she moved here, her Main Man as she called him, but he was only her main man because, eventually, she’d picked up another one too.”
“Another sugar daddy?” Taylor asked.
Kelly shuddered. “That sounds so dirty, but I guess it’s true. Another older guy who wanted to buy her things. They hadn’t been out too often, but he wanted to do so much for her.”
“I thought she didn’t want anything more than a nice house,” Taylor countered.
“She didn’t, but she liked the way he talked. She said she could just float away on his dreams sometimes.”
“This new guy? Even though she was madly in love with the other one? How did her Main Man feel about this?”
“I have a feeling she didn’t tell him. She seemed to be really in love with him, but I guess if she’d started with Coco as a sort of job, she…” Kelly swallowed, and a tear spilled down her round, pink cheek.
Hudson was up in a heartbeat and in the kitchen with his arm around her. “Hush.” He kissed the top of her head.
Graham had the wisdom to not do anything. No comforting pats. No sign he’d even noticed.
“If she was a prostitute, then she had to make money, is what I’m saying. I don’t care what they call it online, that’s all it was, wasn’t it?” Kelly whispered.
“Molly was a good girl,” Hudson murmured.
Kelly let herself fall against his strong, broad shoulders.
Those shoulders were a safe refuge for women in trouble. Taylor knew them well.
“Please.” Kelly’s face was half-buried, but she spoke to Taylor and Graham. “Please come to the apartment and help me look. I haven’t been yet. I couldn’t take Larry and I was afraid to go alone.”
Chapter Thirteen
Molly Kay’s apartment was in the same building as Roxy's. Taylor couldn't bring herself to call it Roxy and Clay’s place. She didn't even think Roxy considered it that, though everyone knew he was there more often than he was in the little apartment above Flour Sax.
It wasn't a surprise that Molly lived there, too, as it was the only multi-unit apartment building in Comfort. Other renters had to settle for converted garages or spare rooms in a catch as catch can manner.
Taylor had always loved the grand three-story, pre-war, brick building, not so far from the elementary school. As a kid she'd secretly wished her family could live in the big mansion with her friends, instead of the tiny house by the fire station where they had lived while her dad was still alive.
She had been in Roxy's apartment more times than she could count, and Molly’s was the same. Two bedrooms, one bath, spacious kitchen compared to other buildings this age, and what had once been a woodburning fireplace but was now merely decorative. Like Roxy, Molly had a candle display in the hearth. But that's where the similarities to Roxy's apartment ended. Though Jonah was a millionaire and he and Belle had offered his mom carte blanche, she still had the comfortable lived-in furniture that was full of her life's memories.
Molly's apartment was a showpiece. Unlike most young, kindergarten teacher assistants, there were no build-it-yourself Swedish imports pieces, and no garage sale or big trash day finds. Taylor couldn't name a furniture designer if someone held a gun to her head, but she could tell from the clean lines and the quality leather that the furniture in Molly's apartment wasn't cheap. Neither was the art. Those were real oil paintings, not prints on canvas you could pick up at Target. Taylor stayed just to the side of the door staring. The place was pristine, so unlike other rooms she had searched.
“Somewhere in here,” Kelly said, pulling kitchen drawers open, “she has a little spiral notebook. You know, the ones that call themselves Little Fat Notebook. She always had one and kept notes to herself in it. Not a diary or journal, even, just lists and notes and ideas. Anything from stuff she might want to Google later to things she needed to pick up at the store. Ideas for Christmas presents or snippets of song lines that she didn't want to forget. You know, that kind of notebook. And she kept it in the kitchen when we were roommates.
“That sounds about ideal,” Graham approved. “If you can find it, we're golden.”
“That’s what I thought.” Kelly’s shoulders were high and her muscles twitching as she frantically searched. It wasn't the right way to get the job done. She was inefficiently jumping around, opening a cupboard by the fridge and then pulling open the drawer under the stove. But inefficient was better than frozen.
Graham had opened the coat closet and was rifling the pockets of everything hung there. Taylor took a deep breath and headed to the bedroom. If this was a love nest funded by a rich older man, that's where the secrets would be. The room was chic in a magazine kind of way that looked frigid, to Taylor. Cold, white, upholstery headboard. Cold, white, satin comforter. Only mirrors on the wall.
But she was immediately rewarded for her idea. The bedside table, a mirrored box in the Hollywood Regency style, had one drawer, and that drawer had a leather-bound diary held shut with an elastic band.
“Found something,” Taylor called out as
she slipped the black elastic band off. Several receipts from Starbucks fell out, as well as a couple of red raffle ticket stubs, the price tag from a Chanel something, maybe purse? Taylor glanced at the closet, but it was shut, so she didn’t know what might be in it, yet, and little bits of paper with notes on them, the kinds of things that Kelly was looking for in that little fat notebook she suspected, spilled from between the thick pages.
Molly seemed to have upgraded her journal.
Taylor flipped through the pages. The first was dated January 1st, 2020. So, though the book was fully stuffed, it covered a very short time range.
That entry was a simple note hoping that 2020 would prove to be a good year, full of successes and dreams come true, just as Christmas had been. The sort of note any young woman might write in her diary. Taylor flipped through several pages of doodles that might have been notes for her kindergarten class.
The next dated entry with a paragraph of text was January 11th. It started with, “5 days! 5 days alone with the greatest man I've ever met.” Taylor rested her finger on the words wondering if the greatest man was Jack Groening, and if this was perhaps their first full week away together. The rest of the paragraph didn't answer those questions, but it did include one more interesting bit, “Coco says to keep my private life to myself, at least in his early months. But I'm dying to tell him about little Laurie. What kind of life could any of us have in the long run if my main man never knows about my little man?”
The following several pages were a little more specifically about kindergarten: craft supplies listed, daily themes noted. Dates and times for special events.
Then came a list of restaurant ideas. Truie’s, the pig themed diner on the road out of town was not included.
Taylor flipped forward to Valentine's Day. The first item was a small sketch of a craft—the classic Scandinavian construction paper woven heart. That had to be for the kindergarten class. Then the initials JG, a dash, and Truie’s. That seemed an odd pick for a special night out, but perhaps it was sentimental.