Chain Reaction (17 page)

As Jake approached the next window, he could hear a voice that sounded like Connelly’s. ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your heathen babbling.’

Then Jake heard heavy feet stomping away. He froze in place as he listened, leaning toward the sound of a whispered voice.

‘… hamri kro hath dai rchcha … pooran hoeh chit ki eichcha … tav charnan mun rehai hmara … apna jan kro pritipara.’

To Jake’s relatively uneducated ear, it sounded like Hindi, but he knew that if he were listening to one of the Sikhs, it could just as easily have been Punjabi. He doubted he would know the difference. But something about the speech pattern told him that he was hearing words spoken in prayer.

He heard sounds of movement from another room and took the risk that Connelly was not in view of the window and eased up. He saw a slumped man in a turban handcuffed to an electric range. He saw another standing, still in his white lab coat, cuffed to the refrigerator: Dr Singh.

Dr Singh continued his whisper. ‘… mo rchcha nij kar dai kriye …’ He stopped abruptly, his eyes widening as he spotted Jake on the other side of the glass. Jake raised a finger to his mouth and the man jerked his head toward his erstwhile patient who was attached to the stove.

The doctor turned back to Jake with a question on his face. Jake dared not make a sound and could not hold up a note since he had no paper or pen, so he did the only thing he knew that could possibly indicate that help was on the way: he gave a thumbs-up.

Jake bent back down and scurried around to the porch, pulling himself up on the side as quietly as he could. He crawled toward the front door, pausing every few feet to listen for any indication of movement inside. Jake reached up to the knob and eased the door open just a crack.

‘No! Don’t!’ rang out from the kitchen.

Jake fell back, rolled and landed on the ground as a shotgun blast tore through the door. Jake stayed down low, raising his head just high enough to watch the entrance.

Connelly came running through it, waving his weapon around. ‘Come out, you chicken shit, and face me like a man.’ Then he spotted Jake and turned the shotgun in his direction.

Jake shifted to the side of the cabin and ran to the back where he took cover behind the SUV. He heard Connelly’s footsteps cross the porch and land on the ground where he once crouched. He raised up one arm with his badge in his hand and shouted, ‘Connelly, put down your weapon.’

‘Lovett?’ Connelly asked.

‘Yeah, Connelly. Put down your weapon and we can talk.’

‘No. This could be a trick. Come out with your hands up.’

‘Can’t do that, Connelly. I can make a call for back-up. We might have to wait a bit for them to arrive but things could get really ugly when they do.’

Connelly laughed. ‘You gotta be kidding me, Lovett. Have you looked at your cell recently? You won’t see a single bar. You’re in a dead spot. Throw down your weapon and put your hands on your head. Then ease your way out here. No sudden moves.’

‘Hey, Connelly, how are you going to explain to your brother about his front door?’

After a moment of silence, Connelly said, ‘Well, if I’m the only one who makes it out of here alive, I can tell it anyway I want it, can’t I?’

‘Connelly, I’d say this is not exactly in keeping with your oath of office.’

‘You know what I have to say to that, Lovett?’

‘No, sir, can’t say that I do.’

Connelly fired a shot into the windshield of his own vehicle, sending every dove for yards skyward in a loud flurry of agitated wings.

B
rittany Schaffer sashayed into the classroom like the second coming of Marilyn Monroe. One look at the dress she was wearing and Lucinda understood the principal’s concern. Dark red fabric swirled with black molded around her body like shrink wrap. The dipping neckline showed more cleavage than most women had.

The teacher’s blond hair was fine, wavy and lightly tousled. Her big cornflower-blue eyes and soft smile softened her sensuality with a glaze of innocence. Her childlike speaking voice added to that impression. ‘I understand you wanted to see me.’

‘Please have a seat,’ Lucinda said.

Brittany seemed to melt into the chair. She folded her hands primly on top of the table while crossing her legs to reveal a long stretch of thigh.

‘I understand you own a red pick-up, Ms Schaffer.’

‘Have you seen it? It’s wicked cool.’

‘Yes, I have. It seemed like a lot of truck for an English teacher.’

Brittany tittered. ‘Daddy was in construction. I worked for him in the summer all through high school and college. Wouldn’t have been much use to him if I couldn’t manage a beast of a pick-up. Kind of got to like it – and so …’

‘Where were you on Sunday morning?’

‘At home. I slept wicked late. I’d been out late Saturday night and didn’t think I’d ever recover.’

‘Are you saying you were hung over, Ms Schaffer?’ Lucinda asked.

‘Oh, c’mon now, that’s not a polite question to ask a lady,’ Brittany said with a giggle.

‘Did you drive your truck Saturday night?’

‘Oh no, officer! I would never, ever drink and drive. In fact, I was out with a new dude and he got so smashed that we had to call a cab to get home. You can verify that,’ she said, nodding her head up and down. ‘The cab company would have a record of it, wouldn’t they?’

‘So where was your truck Saturday night?’

‘In the driveway, of course.’

‘And where was it Sunday morning?’

‘Still there, officer. You’re not going to trip me up. I was drinking and I did not drive that night or the next morning. I did not break the law.’

‘I’m going to need the name and contact information for the man you were with Saturday night.’

Brittany’s jaw dropped open. ‘You’re kidding me. This is so embarrassing. It was our first date. If the police start asking questions, he’ll never ask me out again.’

‘And why not, Ms Schaffer? Is he an ex-convict? A drug dealer? What?’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake, officer. He is a fine, law-abiding man. But heavens, if you dated someone just once and the police came knocking on your door, what would you think?’

‘I guess it would depend on why,’ Lucinda said.

‘Oh, please! The reason doesn’t matter. You know that would be a problem. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. You know what I mean?’

‘I guess that makes me the smoke.’

‘Well, yes, you could look at it that way. You do understand, don’t you?’ Brittany said with a grin.

‘So, tell me, ma’am. What’s the fire?’

Brittany’s brow furrowed. ‘What?’

‘What are you trying to hide, Ms Schaffer?’

‘Really, officer, really? There is no fire. There is no smoke, either, except for you and that has nothing to do with me.’

‘So where was your truck again?’

‘In my driveway.’

‘You didn’t loan it to anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? You weren’t using it.’

‘That’s not a good reason to let someone else use my truck.’

‘No,’ Lucinda said, ‘but it would be a time that wouldn’t inconvenience you. After all, it was Saturday night. Maybe one of your students needed some wheels for a hot date. I know the administration might not look on that too kindly, but there’s no need to tell them – just between the two of us.’

‘If someone told you I loaned them my truck, they are lying,’ she said, rising to her feet.

‘Before you leave, the contact information for your date Saturday night, please.’

Brittany tossed her curls, blew out an exhalation of exasperation and pulled out her cell phone. She scrolled through her contacts, hit a name and turned the screen toward Lucinda. ‘There.’

Lucinda wrote down the name ‘Tom’ and his phone number and email address. ‘Tom’s last name, please.’

Brittany gritted her teeth and growled, ‘McCallister. Am I excused now?’

‘Yes, Ms Schaffer. But one thing: don’t leave town without clearing it with me first.’

‘I’m going to the coast this weekend,’ she said, her hands on her hips.

‘Check with me on Friday and we’ll see how things go.’ Lucinda held out her business card. ‘And, if you’ll notice, I’m Lieutenant Pierce, not officer. You might have a difficult time reaching me if you forget.’

Brittany snatched the card from Lucinda’s fingers. ‘Thank you, officer,’ she said in an edgy voice. She spun around and flounced out of the room and into the hall.

Lucinda sensed that Brittany was lying about something or hiding a secret. Was it relevant to the case? Probably not but she had to follow that suspicion until she ran it to ground.

C
harley and Amber holed up in Charley’s room listening to music and talking about all the boys – and some of the girls – in their classes. The ring of Amber’s cell phone interrupted their banter.

Amber answered the phone and stepped over to the side of the room with her back to Charley. Charley tried not to listen to Amber’s end of the conversation, inadvertently picking up only a word here and there, but it was obvious that the longer it lasted, the more agitation was present in Amber’s voice.

Amber disconnected, spun around, grabbed her backpack and said, ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Wait, Amber. Why?’ Charley asked. ‘Was that your mother?’

‘No. It was my brother, Andy, and he needs me.’

‘What happened?’

Amber said nothing for a moment and then began, ‘I hate talking about this but you know even worse about my family, so here goes. My mom is passed out drunk – again. And the boyfriend is there and he’s pretty drunk, too. He got mad at Andy for something – I couldn’t understand why ’cause Andy was crying too much. The boyfriend was drinking out of a glass and he threw it at Andy. Andy ducked and the glass shattered on the brick fireplace.’

‘You have to go home because of a broken glass?’

Amber sighed. ‘Yeah, sort of. But no, not really.’

‘Did the boyfriend hurt Andy?’

‘Not yet. That’s the problem. The boyfriend left and told Andy to clean up the glass and said if he found the tiniest speck anywhere he’d make Andy sorry he was ever born. And, Charley, I know he can do that. I gotta go help him clean it up before Eddie gets home.’

‘I’m going with you,’ Charley said, pulling on a hoodie and dropping her iPhone in her pocket.

‘You’ll just make him mad,’ Amber objected.

‘He won’t do anything with a stranger there.’

‘You don’t know him very well.’

‘He doesn’t scare me.’

‘He should,’ Amber insisted.

‘I’ve seen worse,’ Charley said. ‘C’mon, Andy needs us. And my iPhone has a cool app that’s the brightest flashlight you’ve ever seen. We’ll be able to find even the teensiest pieces of glass.’

‘I don’t want him to hurt you, too, Charley,’ Amber said.

‘Let him try,’ Charley said, bristling with a bravado designed to hide the fear that he might put her to the test. She knew herself well enough to know she’d never give in to anyone without a fight, but she also knew that, despite that, men were bigger and stronger – and no matter how dumb they were, she couldn’t always outsmart them.

A
s Lucinda turned out of the parking lot, she got a call from Sergeant Robin Colter. ‘Lieutenant, in every spare moment, I’ve been following up on the phone numbers on David’s bill—’

‘You know we’re off the case, right?’ Lucinda said. She couldn’t help but be pleased that Robin was pushing forward with the investigation but, although she didn’t mind putting her own career at risk, she didn’t want to encourage anyone else to do the same.

‘That isn’t stopping you, is it, Lieutenant?’ When Lucinda didn’t respond, Robin added, ‘Agent Lovett passed a copy of the document to me. He suggested that I might want to follow up on my personal curiosity since he was too preoccupied with Connelly to accomplish anything worthwhile.’

‘Oh, did he?’ Lucinda said, wondering why Jake had not mentioned that to her.

‘He told me to call you if I found anything significant.’

‘And did you?’

‘I think so. I think I’ve identified the girl who wrote the note to David Baynes,’ Robin said.

‘He told you about the note?’
What else is Jake doing behind my back?

‘I just happened to run into him when I stopped for coffee. He seemed very distracted. I thought he would have said something to you.’

‘Me, too,’ Lucinda said through gritted teeth.

‘Yes. He said you’d be OK with that.’

No sense in dragging Robin into a conflict between her and Jake, Lucinda thought. ‘Fine, fine, Colter, so who is she?’

‘I think “E” is Ellie Fitzpatrick.’

‘Funny, David’s parents mentioned the names of a few of their son’s friends as possibilities but never mentioned her.’

‘Probably because he was the friend of Ellie’s big brother, Paul, who went off to college last fall. According to Mrs Fitzpatrick, David promised Paul he’d look after Ellie and make sure no one messed with her at the high school.’

‘Sounds promising,’ Lucinda said, ‘When can you talk to her?’

‘Her mother said that she should be home any minute. I was hoping you could interview her.’

‘Really? Do you foresee a problem with the girl that you can’t handle?’ Lucinda asked.

‘Not with the girl, but the mother. See, she went on this rant about the principal, complaining about her inability to protect the children in her care. I can understand that frustration, and maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but it seemed as if there was an undertone of racial sentiment in her criticism of Principal Johnson. Maybe I’m imagining it and maybe when she takes a look at me, it won’t matter, but I’m worried it may impact her willingness to cooperate and—’

‘Say no more, Colter. Give me the address and I’ll meet you there.’ Lucinda muttered as she spun her car around and pointed it in the direction of the Fitzpatrick home. The childhood promise that, one day, people would not be judged by the color of their skin seemed to get further out of reach every year. It eroded her faith in her fellow man even more than any criminal act did. There will always be bad guys but why did otherwise decent people have to have such bad attitudes?