Flashpoint (5 page)

“I'll say. You know what worries me?”

“I know three things that worry you. Car repairs, college tuition, and orthodontists.”

“Those terrify me, I'm talking worry. About the case. I'd like it if Mickey found some melted lump and said car keys.”

“He might.”

“She took the clothes, she'd probably take the keys. Which means Keaton Daniels's keys. Car keys. Probably house keys.”

“What can she tell from a key?”

“She could have grabbed the car registration.”

“You might let the brother know.”

“I might at that. While I'm at it, I can warn him to leave the tight jeans at home and keep his shirt buttoned up.”

“I'm trying to remember if you were this bitchy before the ulcer.”

6

They were halfway to Mount Adams when Sonora's cellular phone rang. “Bet Heather missed the bus,” she muttered. “Hello? Hi, Shelly. You, Sam, your wife.”

He held his hand out.

Sonora glanced out the window. Wondered why two teenagers were walking so close behind an old man with a briefcase, and not in school. The man turned, suddenly, and told the kids to catch up.

Sam tromped the accelerator jerkily, then hit the brakes, barely pausing at a stop sign. “No, Shelly, I wish I could, but we caught ourselves a hot one. Can you put her on?” His shoulders were tense, his voice tired. Someone honked; he didn't seem to notice. “I see. I'm sorry. Tell her I love her and do what you can. She'll get through it.”

Sam handed Sonora the phone, and she pressed the end button because he always forgot to.

“What is it?” Sonora said.

“Doctor wants Annie back in for some tests and she's having hysterics. Blood work, needles, et cetera.”

“Sorry, Sam.”

“Shoot, last week when we drove by the hospital on the way to take her to see a movie? Honest to God, she threw up in the truck, just from the bad associations.”

Sonora looked out the window. “You better go.”

“No chance.”

“I'll cover, Sam.”

“You've covered enough. We don't be careful, girl, we'll both be out of a job.”

Sonora chewed her lip. They'd been walking a fine line the last eighteen months.

“Look, Sam, I want to talk to the brother before I go to the bar anyway. Get a picture of Mark, get a line on the girlfriend. You go to the hospital with Annie and get her settled in. She calms down the minute you walk in the room, you know that. Even if you have to leave her later, you go with her through that door.”

“I don't know.”

He did know, and she resented, just a little, having to do the old familiar nurture talk, but only just a little.

“Come on, Sam, Mark Daniels is dead, he'll keep. I'll drop you off at the house, and you can meet me later at Cujo's.”

“Thanks, Sonora.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Keaton Daniels hadn't answered his door when Sonora tried the Mount Adams address, which was when she remembered he'd said something about his wife. She flipped through her notes. The other side of town, naturally.

She checked her machine on the way, got a message from Tim that Heather had gotten off to school okay and he was on his way. She worried about him, walking alone so early in the morning. Part of the daily ritual, that worry. In the afternoon, she would worry until the two of them made it home.

The mailbox said Mr. & Mrs. K. Daniels, and there was a For Sale sign out front. Getting serious about the divorce, Sonora thought, if their house was on the block. There was no swing set in the backyard, no toys on the porch, no Halloween decorations in the window. No children. Just as well, if things weren't working out.

The house was small, a tiny three-bedroom ranch on a postage-stamp yard, much like her own house and not without charm. A lush fern hung in a basket by the front door, and a white wicker rocker sat on the tiny concrete porch. Sonora figured the rocker and the fern had a pre–stolen/vandalized life span of about six weeks.

The living room curtains were a gossamer film of fine white lace—lovely, but giving no privacy at all. The blinds in the bedrooms were tightly closed, and the porch light was on.

Sonora rang the doorbell.

For a lonely moment nothing happened. She was debating ringing it again when she heard the snap of a deadbolt being released. The door made a cracking noise and swung open.

Sonora was surprised more often than not at how little outward change there was in people in trouble. You had to look carefully, sometimes, to see the signs. Keaton Daniels was showing the signs.

His shirttail was out, and he still wore the khakis—wrinkled now, like he'd slept in them. Thick white socks sagged and bunched around his ankles. He hadn't shaved. The slight childish fullness in his cheeks, which Sonora had found rather sweet, had somehow hollowed and sagged, making him seem older. All of thirty, perhaps.

He ran a hand through thick black hair, the kind of hair that looked good, even messy. Men were often lucky that way.

“I woke you up,” Sonora said.

“No, no.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Sonora did not envy him the months ahead. She'd been there herself, when Zack died, dealing with the grief of her children. Heather had been just a toddler, and Tim had turned very quiet, asking, from time to time, why she did not cry, and if she really missed his daddy.

Sonora touched Keaton Daniels's shoulder. “I'm sorry, sleep's the best thing for you right now, and I hate to disturb you. But it's pretty urgent that we talk.”

“Come in, please. Sit down.”

He moved a rumpled blanket to one side of the couch and sat while she took the rattan rocking chair. He clasped his hands, letting them hang heavily between his knees. He seemed dulled, somehow. Muted.

“Mr. Daniels, I'm very sorry about the death of your brother.” She always said the words, and they always seemed inadequate. People appreciated it more often than not.

Daniels nodded, and his eyes reddened. Sonora wondered what he was like in real life, regretting, more than usual, that she had to meet him under harsh circumstances. It was the way she always met people.

Once in a while someone kept in touch, cards and such. Usually the parents of murdered children, grateful if they'd been shown tact, more grateful if the killer had been caught.

Daniels rubbed his face. “Look, I bet you could use a cup of coffee.”

Sonora studied him. Not from Ohio, then, but somewhere farther south, though it didn't show up in his speech patterns. Otherwise he'd have said
I
need a cup of coffee. She had a sense of time slipping away, but knew from experience it was better not to hurry these interviews.

Daniels kicked over one of his shoes—tennis shoes, high-tops, white with a gray swoosh. It knocked into a pile of other shoes—one more with a gray swoosh, a pair with red, and an odd one out, solid white. Sonora was reminded that Heather's shoes were getting tight and that Tim would fight for Nikes, and promptly ruin them on the first muddy day. She saw Daniels watching her.

“Got enough tennies?” she, asked.

He stretched. “You have kids?”

“Two.”

“So you know that even in elementary school, they're very brand conscious. If Mr. Daniels wears Reeboks, everybody wants Reeboks, and the kid with Nikes feels bad. Last year I taught at a different school, one in the city. A lot of my kids didn't get breakfast in the morning, their moms couldn't go out and buy brand-name stuff. One kid in particular was catching hell from the others because his were from Kmart, so I went out and got a pair from Kmart. Next thing you know, half the class has shoes from Kmart. From then on, I started wearing about every brand there is. But I always start with Kmart.”

“I think you're very kind. And I wish you taught my son.”

Daniels smiled. “Let me get you that coffee.”

Sonora leaned back in the rocking chair and closed her eyes. The bubble of a coffeemaker starting up drifted comfortably in from the kitchen, the warm smell of coffee a comfort. Sonora let her head roll sideways, thinking how peaceful the Daniels household was—no ringing phones, no arguing children, no hair-pulling chorus of video-game theme songs playing over and over again.

She wondered if Tim had helped Heather get the tangles out of her hair, and if her daughter had felt bad about not having Mom there to plait her hair into braids.

She caught herself just before she drifted off to sleep and was properly wide-eyed and alert when Keaton Daniels came back in the room. The flowered porcelain coffee cups looked delicate in his large hands.

“You look tired, Detective.”

“Not at all,” she said. He surprised her. Crime victims rarely noticed much beyond their own pain. She took a sip from her cup and gave him a second look.

He had gathered himself together, there in the kitchen. She was aware of a physical self-confidence, a maleness that made her wish it wasn't a bad hair day. And he was looking back at her in a steady way that made her nervous. She had the sudden urge to go sit beside him on the couch. She knew certain male cops who would do exactly that if the witness was attractive and female.

Sonora scooted to the edge of the rocking chair. “Mr. Daniels—”

“Keaton.”

“Keaton. Let's get this over with.”

His voice went dull. “What do you want to know?”

“The last time you saw your brother. He dropped you off at your apartment and headed for Cujo's Café-Bar.”

“Right.”

“What time was that?”

“About eight-thirty. Quarter to nine.”

“You never saw Mark after he left for Cujo's? He didn't call or anything?”

“No. The phone rang once, but whoever it was hung up.”

Sonora frowned. “You hear any background noises?”

“Yeah, there was some noise. People talking, like at a mall or—”

“Or a bar?”

He frowned. “Could be. But if it had been Mark he would have said something. He wouldn't just call and listen.”

“You think he got cut off? Think back now, give me the whole thing. What were you doing?”

“I was on the floor in the living room, doing some cutouts and stuff. Catching the tail end of somebody or other on the comedy channel.” He squinted his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. “So the phone rang and I said hello. And got nothing. But there were background noises from the line, so I thought maybe I didn't hear what they said. I turned the television down and said hello again. Then whoever it was hung up. Not Mark, because he wouldn't just breathe at me. Besides, I've been getting calls like this awhile now, where they listen and hang up.”

“How often?”

“Every few days. Two or three times a month. Depends.”

“How long's this been going on?”

He glanced toward the bedrooms, where his wife was likely still asleep. “Last few months, mainly at the town house. I'm subletting it from a friend who's in Germany on business. I figured it was kids or something.”

“Any reason to think your brother might have gone somewhere else after Cujo's? Pub crawl kind of thing?”

“It's possible. Mark was restless and outgoing. He talked to people, made friends.”

“Girlfriends?”

Daniels narrowed his eyes. “You keep going back to that. You really think he picked up some girl?”

“His killer was a woman, Mr. Daniels. She had to come from somewhere.”

“That was why you asked me about prostitutes? Look, Mark wasn't some kind of sleazy jerk, Specialist Blair. He had a girlfriend in Lexington and they were committed. They were thinking about moving in together. Talking about getting married.”

“Were they engaged?”

“Nothing official. Mark talked about it, but he was only twenty-two. And her parents wanted her to wait till she was out of school.”

“Wise,” Sonora said absently. “Okay, look, I'm going to ask you a question that's going to seem a little offensive. Get over it fast, think hard, and be very honest.”

Daniels pulled his bottom lip and frowned at her.

“Was your brother into any kind of unusual sexual practices? He have a lot of bruises, you know, more often than would seem average?”

“You have a nasty turn of mind, don't you?”

“Hazard of the profession, and I do have to ask. Your brother is still the victim here, I haven't forgotten that.”

He leaned back on the couch. “It's not like I know everything about my brother's sex life. You have a brother, you know what I mean. But I never saw any sign of anything … anything like what you're saying. He didn't go to tough bars. He didn't date girls who wore lots of mascara and black leather and a leash around their neck. He read
Gentlemen's Quarterly
and
Playboy
.”

“For the articles.”

“For the foldouts. And he always bought the swimsuit issue of
Sports Illustrated
. I'd say my brother's reading material was pretty much normal, for a healthy American male.”

“American as apple pie.”

Daniels smiled at her, just a little one.

“What's as American as apple pie?”

Sonora hadn't heard the woman come in—the carpet had muted the sound of her high, spiky heels. She was the kind of female Sonora had always envied—naturally thin, brown eyes, thick, shiny auburn hair. The kind of woman for whom makeup was optional, who got the part in the school play.

Daniels stood up. “Ashley. This is Police Specialist Sonora Blair. She's investigating Mark's … Mark's death.”

Sonora stood up and offered a hand. Ashley Daniels was dressed up—soft rose business suit, white stockings, high heels that Sonora knew she herself wouldn't last in for more than an hour.

She shook Sonora's hand firmly, then bent close to Keaton, trailing perfume and kissing him gently on the cheek. “You all right, Keat?”