Sinner or Saint

by Brenda Donelan

  “She can’t function without the drugs,” Hector said, confirming what Marlee suspected all along. Kelsey’s use was much greater than the recreational habit she purported it to be when Marlee first discovered it.

  “I’ll look into getting her into drug treatment tomorrow,” Marlee said.

  “You know as well as I do that they won’t accept her. She’s not a citizen, and she doesn’t have any means to pay. We can put her in jail for her own safety,” he suggested.

  “No, I’d hate to see her sit in jail because she’s a drug addict. I don’t know what to do.” Marlee was at the end of her rope. Not only did she need to hide the alcohol in the house, but she also needed to hide her money and all valuables. Plus, she needed to latch the windows in the guest room from the outside so that Kelsey couldn’t escape again. “I guess I’ll just have to stay with her 24/7 until we get this mess straightened out.”

  “Are you sure you want Kelsey here when she can’t get her hands on any drugs? She might become physically sick. Maybe even violent. It’s not pleasant to be around somebody who’s detoxing,” Hector said.

  Marlee nodded. “I’ll give it my best shot. If I absolutely can’t handle it, then we can talk about jail.”

  As Hector drove off, Marlee looked at her house. What in the hell am I going to do? She wondered as she trudged inside.

  Who says I can’t cook?

  Chapter 19

  Kelsey was asleep, fully clothed, when Marlee peeked in on her. In an effort to keep her houseguest from jumping out the window again, Marlee went to her garage and looked for things to secure the window. Not being handy in the least, she was reluctant to use the electric drill set she received for Christmas. Whatever she did would have to be a temporary fix since homes needed an emergency exit in case of fire. After looking around, she decided she would use the old bathroom door removed during a remodeling project.

  Marlee lugged the eggshell-colored door to the side of her house and propped it up over the west window in Kelsey’s room. Then she hauled over a cement block to hold the door in place. Finally, she attached some jingle bells to the door knowing they would make a loud noise if the door moved. She’d used the bells a couple months earlier in her holiday decorations and had left them in the garage, intending to, but not getting around to, store them with other Christmas items.

  It’s not much, but it’ll have to do for now, Marlee thought. Tomorrow, I’ll get someone to come over and think up a better solution.

  A loud ring from Marlee’s cell permeated the kitchen as she entered the house through the back door. Deciding not to take off her snow boots, she tracked across the kitchen linoleum until she reached her phone on the counter.

  It was Hector, and he was in a mood. “I’ve been calling for the past twenty minutes. What’s going on?”

  “I was outside making sure Kelsey couldn’t escape through the window again.” She reached down to pull off one snow boot and then the other, using the hand towel draped across the oven handle to mop up the melting snow.

  “How’s Kelsey doing?” His voice had lost its sharp edge and taken on a more compassionate tone.

  “She’s out like a light and snoring her head off,” Marlee reported. As soon as she said it, she started wondering if it was an act. Kelsey could’ve pretended she was asleep and when she heard Marlee outside her window, gotten up and left through the front door. Marlee ran to Kelsey’s door and looked in to hear her still snoring.

  “That’s good,” Hector replied. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. If you need me to come back, all you have to do is call. I can be there in a matter of minutes. Or if you want me to come over and stay, I can do that too. On the couch, I mean. I wasn’t trying to insinuate anything.”

  “If there’s a problem, I’ll let you know. I’m leaving both of our bedroom doors open, so I’ll know if she’s up in the night.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I really want to earn back your trust. I’ll do anything just to be in your life again, even if it’s just friendship,” Hector said, his voice filled with emotion.

  Marlee took a deep breath. It would be so easy to fall back into a relationship with him. He was smart, kind, and fun. But he had also proven himself to be a cheater and a liar, and those things were too hard to overcome. She couldn’t trust him as a boyfriend or as a friend. “The best we can hope for is working acquaintances, Hector. There’s too much water under the bridge.”

  “Just so you know, I’m not giving up.” The phone went dead.

  Now that Hector was on his own again, he was lonely. Marlee thought he was just nostalgic for the good times they had and wanted to rewind back to the time when they were together. That might be all well and good for him, but her trust in Hector was gone forever. He was a top-notch detective, and she trusted his judgment when it came to criminal investigation, but she couldn’t compromise her ideals or risk another heartbreak by getting involved with him again.

  Every few minutes, Marlee awoke, certain she’d heard Kelsey moving about the house. Sometimes, she waited for further noises to confirm her suspicion, and other times, she got out of bed and patrolled the house to make sure her guest was still in her bedroom. At 5:00 a.m., she got out of bed and chomped down a handful of Tums. The pizza, hamburgers, beer, and stress had led to a night of indigestion on top of her insomnia. Marlee made a full pot of coffee and sat with her laptop at the table, looking at news updates on the MSN website.

  After two cups of coffee, she closed her laptop and grabbed the file of papers from her research trip to Ireland. She’d been coding the information from the wardens and other employees at the prison and also the few inmates she’d been allowed to interview. Picking up where she left off, Marlee took her interview information and put it within the framework of her research, counting the number of responses which fell into a particular area. Her study of the Dublin prisons and those who worked or were incarcerated there fell into the category of qualitative analysis. She focused more on words and themes rather than numbers. It was slow going, but she’d set up the themes and frames before embarking on the study, so now it was just a matter of going through all the paperwork and encoding it.

  After a couple more hours of research work and drinking the remainder of the coffee, Marlee was ready for a break. She was still operating on Dublin time by getting up really early, but on U.S. time by staying up until midnight or after. The lack of sleep would catch up with her eventually. It always did. She stretched out on the couch and covered up with her kittycat blanket, waiting for Kelsey to wake up.

  Pippa jumped on top of Marlee and walked back and forth over her several times until finally settling in near her feet. Per usual, Marlee fell asleep within minutes. She had difficulty sleeping in her own bed but could snooze for hours on the couch when she’d intended on just a catnap.

  It was after 11:00 a.m. when she awoke to find Kelsey gone again. She looked through the guest room and noticed Kelsey’s backpack and suitcase were gone. The sofa sleeper was neatly made with the quilt pulled up to the head of the bed and tucked in at the foot. A note lay on the pillow.

  Marlee picked up the note and unfolded it. It read:

  Dear Marlee:

  I’m so sorry for the trouble I have caused you and Bridget. Please tell her, I’ll pay back the money I took from her purse. I’m leaving because I don’t want to be a bother to any of you anymore.

  Your friend,

  Kelsey

  “Dammit! She snuck out while I was asleep on the couch! Again!” Marlee threw the note on the sofa sleeper and paced through the room wondering what to do. Kelsey couldn’t have gotten far since she didn’t have any money. But she did have a cell phone and apparently connections for drugs. If she could find drugs in Elmwood, then she could find a place to stay.

  With reluctance, Marlee placed a call to Hector and updated him on Kelsey’s departure. “If only I’d stayed awake after I worked on my research. That’s when she left. She must have wal
ked right past me and left through the front door.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. You’re still exhausted from your trip. Besides, it’s not your job to keep track of Kelsey. You knew it was likely she’d run off,” Hector said in a kindly voice.

  “Yeah, I know, but I didn’t expect it would happen in the first few hours. She made contact with someone, and they picked her up. Or she called a cab.”

  “Who does she know here in town?”

  Marlee thought for a minute. “She knows you, me, and Bridget, and my friends from supper club. Kelsey also knows Conrad Thayer and Della Halter. I introduced her to a few of my students during our campus tour, but don’t think I mentioned their last names. She knows two drug dealers in Elmwood too. Besides that, I don’t think she knows anyone else.”

  “She didn’t contact me, and she wouldn’t reach out to Bridget or your friends, so I think Conrad’s house is the most logical place to start. I’ll be over to pick you up in half an hour.”

  Marlee wolfed down three pop tarts and a Diet Pepsi after skipping through the shower and pulling on a pair of well-worn jeans and a woolen sweater she bought in Ireland. She walked by the front door, peeking out the window to see if Hector had arrived yet. When she saw him pull up out front, she grabbed her coat and dashed out to meet him.

  “Why would she go to Conrad’s house?” Marlee asked, more to herself than Hector as she buckled herself into his Jeep.

  “He’s a crook, and she’s a desperate girl with a drug problem. She’ll try to play on his sympathy or try to swindle him,” Hector suggested.

  “That sounds about right. But why go there when I was going to help her?”

  “Because the addict part of her doesn’t want help. She wants a fix. And she thinks Conrad can help her with that, either directly or indirectly. If he can’t or won’t provide drugs for her, then she’ll steal his stuff and hock it for drug money.” Hector said.

  Marlee nodded knowingly. She’d dealt with many addicts in her previous line of work and knew all too well how their minds worked when they were desperate for more drugs. What she hadn’t experienced before was having the drug abuser live in her house. Marlee’s previous dealings with addicts had all been on a professional level, not a personal one. And as everyone knows, the rules of the game change when problems become personal.

  They arrived at the Thayer residence and, for once, didn’t have to worry about the guard dogs. Either the Dobermans were used to Marlee’s visits, or they were inside. When they knocked on the door, Conrad greeted them almost immediately. Today, he was wearing a red wig fashioned into a bouncy bob. A black silk kimono was cinched around his thick waist with a tuft of graying chest hair protruding at the top. Most likely, he wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing underneath the flimsy robe. Marlee averted her eyes, as she did much of the time when she was around Conrad Thayer. The two guard dogs rushed to their master’s side and one gave a low woof when he saw it was Marlee.

  “Let me guess,” said Conrad with a flourish as he moved inside the foyer. “You’re wondering if your Irish visitor is here.” He walked toward the sitting room, Marlee and Hector following even though they weren’t explicitly invited.

  “That’s right. She left my house sometime this morning, and you’re one of the few people she knows in Elmwood, so I suspected she came here.”

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Conrad asked, sidling up to the bar cart near a statue of David wearing a rainbow-colored tutu. He reached for a highball glass and poured himself his signature drink; a double scotch with one ice cube.

  “It’s not even noon,” Hector groused. Marlee dug her elbow into his ribs. They were there to get information from Conrad, and judging him for his alcoholism was no way to gain favor with the eccentric collector.

  Conrad took no offense. “Some of my best drinking is done before noon.” He sashayed over to a wing-backed chair and sat down, holding his drink on his bared knee.

  Marlee sat in the other wing-backed chair beside Conrad so she didn’t have to avert her eyes from his gaping kimono. “Is Kelsey here?”

  “Yes, she’s upstairs. Taking a nap, I think. She said you were impossible and needed a place to stay for the next few days, so I told her she could sleep in my sister’s old room,” Conrad said with a smile.

  “Did she ask you for money or drugs?” Marlee asked, moving to the edge of her seat.

  “I don’t do drugs except for alcohol and an occasional Cuban cigar. But only when I’m out of the United States,” he said quickly, looking at Hector. “So, if she was looking for drugs, she came to the wrong place. Kelsey did ask for a loan, and I told her I don’t loan money to people without some type of security. She didn’t have any, of course, so she agreed to work here doing some cooking and cleaning. I’ll pay her a small amount, and she gets free room and board. This is all just temporary, mind you.”

  “What does Della think of this arrangement?” Marlee knew her colleague would hit the roof when she found out the down-on-her-luck Irish lass was living at her boyfriend’s house.

  Conrad looked around the room, smoothing his bobbed wig with his fingers. “I haven’t exactly told her yet. It just happened, and Della has class this morning. When she comes by this evening, I’ll tell her.” He let out a long breath of air he’d been holding. “Maybe you two would like to come for dinner tonight?”

  “You need help keeping Della in check when she finds out about Kelsey?” Hector asked, not trying to conceal his bluntness or his amusement.

  “Della is a passionate woman,” Conrad began.

  If it were physically possible, Marlee’s brain would have thrown up as she paired Della with the term passionate. “Eww.”

  Conrad now took offense. “Della’s the love of my life, and I won’t have you laughing at her.” He glared at Marlee then Hector, who was still unsuccessfully trying to contain laughter.

  “Sorry, Conrad. We didn’t mean to make fun of you and Della. It’s just that I don’t think of my work colleagues in that way. And if the invitation still stands, yes, we’d love to come to dinner tonight. Can we bring anything?” Marlee glanced over at Conrad, hoping she appeared contrite.

  “Of course, the invitation still stands. You don’t need to bring anything, although I’m sure you could whip up a delicious tuna and noodle hot dish. Besides, I have a servant again, and she will be happy to cook our food and serve it.”

  “You mean Kelsey,” Marlee said, knowing he’d expect the Irish teen to cook, clean, and launder his outlandish costumes.

  He nodded with a smile and stood. “I will see you back here at 7:00 p.m. And do bring your delightful cousin, Bridget, with you.”

  They took their invitation to leave. Marlee scratched one of the Dobermans behind the ears and under the chin on her way out. At least she didn’t have to worry about the attack dogs anymore. No longer did she have to stop at the grocery store to pick up steaks to keep the guard dogs from biting her.

  Hours later, Marlee drove to Hector’s apartment with Bridget in tow. She chose to drive, afraid if Hector drove, he might try to overstay his welcome at her house when he dropped her off. This would alleviate that awkward scenario.

  Hector got into the back seat of Marlee’s SUV, grumbling about the lack of leg space as he buckled himself in. “We need to go in there with a plan,” he said.

  “We’ve already got a plan,” Bridget said, turning to look at Hector. Marlee had clued Bridget into Hector’s intentions, and she was on the defensive.

  “Oh, yeah?” Hector asked, miffed. “What is it?”

  “Divide and conquer,” said Marlee. “While two of us are distracting Conrad, one of us will be talking to Kelsey or searching the house.”

  “Searching the house? For what?” Hector furrowed his brow. As a detective, he needed to work within the law and snooping throughout someone’s house didn’t fit into that framework.

  “The emeralds, of course,” Marlee said. “Or anything else that seems out of place.”
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  As soon as she said it, Marlee knew she’d made a stupid statement. Bridget and Hector started laughing and Marlee joined in after a few seconds. “Okay, I know most of the crap there seems out of place, but I mean anything like valuable jewels. Something that normal people might value.”

  “And talking to Kelsey? What is it you want to talk to her about?” Hector asked.

  “First, I don’t know if she’ll even be there. It’s been nearly twenty-four hours since she had her last fix, so maybe she stole something and left already. Second, if she’s there, I want to know why she left my house and what she expects to gain by living with Conrad. And third, I want to know what her plan is. How long is she staying in Elmwood and what are her plans for making a living?”

  Bridget nodded along as Marlee spoke. “All good questions. I think she’ll answer them.”

  Hector harrumphed in the back seat. “Doubtful. We know she’s an addict and in need of more Oxy. She’s going to say and do whatever will get her closer to more drugs. I doubt she has a plan beyond getting her next fix.”

  “I know,” Marlee said, conceding that her plan had flaws. “She’s going to say what I want to hear, but maybe I’ll get some clues.”

  “About what?” Hector asked, moving forward in his seat and meeting Marlee’s eyes through the rear-view mirror.

  “About the emeralds, the antique pipe, Conrad Thayer, Ian O’Sullivan, and the whole reason she came here,” Marlee said. “Duh!”

  “She already told you about all that. Anything else she says may or may not be true, just like what she told you the previous times.”

  “Hector, why are you being such an ass?” Marlee asked. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on with Kelsey. I want to help her and end this whole thing. If you’re not going to help us, then I’m taking you home right now!”

  A quiet settled over the SUV as they drove toward Conrad Thayer’s enormous home. Hector’s lack of rebuttal told Marlee that he was willing to go along with the plan that she and Bridget established. They parked in the driveway, and the Dobermans ran up to greet them as they exited the vehicle.