Night Sins (16 page)

“You're lucky to have someone to look after her,” Megan said. She tossed the empty can in the trash and bent to dig through a brown Coleman cooler on the floor next to the refrigerator.

“Yeah, I guess,” Mitch said, taking the bottle of Harp she handed out to him. “I'd rather be with her myself.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really,” he answered defensively, trying to decipher the expression in her eyes. Surprise? Vulnerability? Wariness? “Why wouldn't I? She's my daughter.”

She lifted a shoulder but dodged his eyes, dropping her gaze to her hands as she twisted the cap off her beer. “Raising a child alone is a burden a lot of men wouldn't want.”

“Then there are a lot of men who shouldn't be fathers.”

“Well . . . that's a fact.”

Mitch stood with the beer bottle dangling from his fingers, his attention sharp on Megan as she tossed the cap in the wastebasket and took a long drink. The offhand remark had a sting of truth in it, an old thread of experience.

“You said your dad was a cop.”

“Forty-two years in the blue.” She leaned back against the counter, crossing her ankles, crossing her arms. “Got his sergeant's stripes and never went any higher. Never wanted to. As he says to anyone who will listen, all the
real
cop work is done in the trenches.”

The touch of humor didn't quite cover the bitterness. She heard it, too. He saw the flash of caution in her eyes. Setting her beer aside, she turned to the window above the sink, opened it a crack, then stood back and stared out at nothing. Mitch moved to the end of the counter, just close enough to read her, just close enough to feel her tension.

“Got any brothers?”

“One.”

“He a cop, too?”

“Mick?” She laughed. “God, no. He's an investment broker in L.A.”

“So you followed in Dad's footsteps instead?”

He didn't know how true that was, Megan thought, staring out at the night as its cool breath whispered in through the open window. It had begun to snow lightly, fine, dry flakes sifting down from the clouds, shimmering like sequins under the streetlight. She had spent much of her life dogging her father like a shadow, unknown, unseen. What a sad, stupid cycle of life.

In the corner of her eye she could see Mitch standing there, tie loose around his neck, top two buttons of his shirt undone, sleeves rolled up neatly, exposing muscular forearms dusted with dark hair. The pose was nonchalant, but there was a certain tension in the broad shoulders. His expression was pensive, expectant, the dark, deep-set eyes locked on her, studying, waiting.

“I like the job,” she said flatly. “It suits me.”

It suited the image she presented the world, Mitch thought. Terrier-tough, tenacious, all business. It suited the image she was trying to present to him. He should have taken it at face value. God knew, she was trouble enough as the first female field agent the bureau had ever inflicted upon the unsuspecting county cops of rural Minnesota. He didn't need to look deeper. He didn't need to understand her.

Still, he caught himself moving toward her, close enough so he could feel the electrical field come to life between them, close enough that she narrowed her eyes in subtle warning. But she didn't back away. She wouldn't. He was probably a fool to let that please him, but he didn't seem to have any say in the matter. His response to her was elemental, instinctive. She was a challenge. He wanted to crack the tough-cookie façade. He wanted . . . and that surprised him. He hadn't wanted a woman since Allison. He had
needed
and he had succumbed to that need, but he hadn't
wanted
. It amazed him to want now, to want her.

“Yeah, the job suits you,” he murmured. “You're a tough cookie, O'Malley.”

Megan lifted her chin a proud notch, not taking her eyes off him. “Don't you forget it, Chief.”

He was standing too close. Again. Close enough that she could see the shadow of his evening beard on his hard jaw. Close enough that some reckless part of her wanted to lift a hand and touch it . . . and touch the scar that hooked across his chin . . . and touch the corner of his mouth, where it pulled into a frown of concentration. Close enough that she could see into the depths of the whiskey-brown eyes that looked as though they had seen far too much, none of it good.

Her heart beat a little harder.

“We have a case to discuss,” she reminded him. He raised a hand and pressed a finger against her lips.

“Ten minutes,” he whispered, lifting her chin with his thumb. “No case.” He leaned down and touched his lips to hers. “Just this.”

He parted her lips and slid his tongue between them, into her, as if he had every right; plunging deep and retreating slowly in a rhythm that was primal and unmistakable, blatantly carnal. She rose in his arms, into the kiss, answering with a hunger of her own.

His hands slid over her back and he pressed closer, trapping her between the cupboards and his body. For just this sliver of time there was nothing but need between them. Simple. Strong. Burning. His body was hot and hard, muscle and desire, undeniably male. And she was melting against him, on fire.

With his hands at her waist, Mitch lifted her easily and set her on the counter. She let her knees part, let her stocking feet hook around behind his thighs as he stepped in close. As he found her mouth again, she speared her fingers back through his thick hair and ran them down the muscles of his neck to his big, hard shoulders. He cradled her face in his hands as the kiss grew wilder, more urgent. Her barrette clattered into the sink and her hair spilled around her shoulders, mahogany silk he sifted through his fingers and combed back from her face.

Even as the cool night air streamed in through the window, the heat around them and between them intensified. The back of his shirt was damp with it. It burned the breath from her lungs. A bead of perspiration pooled in the hollow at the base of her throat and trickled down. He chased it with his lips. Her head fell back. Her eyes drifted shut. She could feel his knuckles against her chest as he thumbed the buttons of her shirt free. Then the flannel dropped back off her shoulders and his mouth was on her breast.

She gasped as he took her nipple between his lips and caressed it with his tongue. The need exploded. Tore through her. Shocked her back to sanity.

Mitch knew the instant it happened. He heard her sharp intake of breath, felt the muscles of her back go rigid beneath his hands. And he thanked God she had a better warning system than he did, or in another five minutes he would have taken her right there without benefit of a bed or any other consideration. He wanted her too badly and for reasons he couldn't quite fathom. Need pounded through his body, throbbing relentlessly in his groin.

Slowly he raised his head, raised his heavy-lidded gaze to meet hers. Just as slowly he pulled the halves of her shirt together over her small, plump breasts and held them there.

“You're sure you won't reconsider on the offer of the bed?” he asked, his voice a low, husky rasp.

“I'm sure,” she murmured.

He let her slide down from the counter but held her there, trapped her there with his legs on either side of hers. Leaning down, he feathered slow, soft kisses along her hairline and drew her up against him, pressing his erection against her belly, letting her know just what he wanted, just what she did to him.

Megan trembled at the feel of him hard against her, at the mental image of the two of them together, naked in the bed in the next room. She trembled at the ache of desire and at the consequences that desire could bring. He could ruin her, ruin the career she had worked so hard to build. And even knowing that, she wanted him. The wind blew in through the open window behind her and chilled the sweat on her skin.

“Not that it isn't tempting,” she admitted with as much cool as she could scrape together as a fist hammered against the apartment door and the smell of pizza crept in through the wood. “But our ten minutes are up.”

9:16
P.M.
         15°

P
aul sat in the leather executive's chair behind his desk. Beyond the puddle of light from the brass gooseneck lamp, his office was dark. The accounting firm of Christianson and Kirkwood rented a suite in the Omni Complex, an overnamed two-story brick building that also housed a real estate agency, an insurance agency, and a brace of small law firms. Every other office in the building was empty at this time of night. All the lawyers and agents and secretaries had gone home.

The idea cut into Paul like a dull blade.

His family was broken, torn. Even before last night it had been skewed, fractured. Because of Hannah. The great Dr. Garrison, savior of the unwashed masses. The town darling. The model of modern womanhood. Because she was selfish, because she valued her job more than her marriage, the whole structure of their family life had cracked and eroded. Because of her he didn't want to go home. Because of her he was having an affair. Because of her Josh was gone.

Hours after coming in from the search, his hands and feet were still cold. Adrenaline continued to race through him, pushing him up out of his chair to pace. Scenes ran through his mind on fast forward. The volunteers, hundreds of them, tramping through the knee-high snow; the air fogged with their breath, electric with their tension. The pounding of helicopter blades. The baying of bloodhounds and barks of police dogs. The motor drives of cameras and the whine of audio equipment. The glare of lights. The urgency of reporters' questions.

“Mr. Kirkwood, do you have a comment?”

“Mr. Kirkwood, would you like to make a statement?”

“I just want my son back. I'll do anything—I'll give anything to get my son back.”

It seemed unreal. As if life had fallen out of sync. As if this existence were the mirror image of reality, cast in shadows and sharp relief. It made him uneasy, uncomfortable, made him feel as if his skin didn't fit. He was a man who needed order, craved order. Order had gone out the window.

“Paul, sit down. You need to rest.”

The voice came from the shadows. He had almost forgotten her. She had followed him from the prayer vigil, careful not to come into the building right behind him. That was one of the things he liked most about her—her sense of discretion, her sensitivity to his needs. She did part-time secretarial work in the State Farm office. Not a career, just a small job for pin money. Her husband taught at Harris College. He had lost interest in her and in her desire for a family, totally immersing himself in his work in the psychology department. His work was important. His work was essential. Like Hannah's.

Paul lowered himself on the upholstered couch and sat leaning forward, elbows braced on his thighs. She was beside him instantly, her legs curled beneath her, her hands on his shoulders, kneading the knotted muscles through his L. L. Bean wool shirt.

“There were volunteers from all over in the command post,” she said softly. She always spoke softly, the way he believed a woman should. He closed his eyes and thought of how feminine she was, what a fool her husband was to turn his back on her. “Just at my table there was a woman from Pine City and two from Monticello. They came all that way just to help label fliers.”

“Can we not talk about it?” Paul said tersely.

Images whirled in his brain faster and faster. The volunteers, the cops, the reporters; fliers, bulletins, police reports; lights, camera, action. Faster and faster, out of control. He pressed his thumbs against his eyes until colors burst behind the lids.

He shrugged off her touch, standing once again. “Maybe you should just go. I need to be alone.”

“I only want to help, Paul.” She lay her head against his hip. Sliding her arms around his legs, she stroked her hands lightly up and down the fronts of his thighs. “I only want to give you some kind of comfort.” Her touch grew firmer, bolder, sliding upward. “Last night I wanted so badly to come to you, to lie down with you and just hold you.”

While he had been lying naked with Hannah . . . He closed his eyes again and pictured her coming to him, pictured himself making love to her in his own bed while Hannah watched from the corner. Shame and desire twisted inside him, a potent, bitter mix as he turned to face her and she undid his pants.

As he always did, he began the petition of excuses. He deserved this. He deserved comfort. He was entitled to a few moments' release. Closing his eyes, he gave himself over to it. He tangled his hands in her silken hair and moved his hips in rhythm with her. He lost himself in the pleasure for a few brief moments. Then the end came in a rush and it was over, and the feeling of vindication faded into something dirty.

He didn't see her to the door. He didn't tell her he loved her. He let her assume the grief had swamped him again and went to stand at the narrow window behind his desk, looking down on the parking lot. He listened to his office door close, then the door to the hall. Automatically, he checked his watch so he would know when ten minutes had passed and he would be free to go.

Free.

Somehow, he didn't think he would feel free tonight. In a dim corner of his mind, where primitive fears stirred, he wondered if he would ever feel free again. He watched Karen Wright get into her Honda two stories below, pull out onto Omni Parkway, and drive off into the dark, taillights glowing like a pair of demon-red eyes.

Slowly he turned and went back to his desk, staring down at the answering machine that took all calls to his personal line. A cold, clammy sweat broke over his body. The images of the day whirled and spun crazily in his head, making him dizzy. His stomach cramped and his finger shook as he reached down and punched the message button. His legs buckled. He sank down into his chair, cradling his head in his hands as the tape played.

“Dad, can you come and get me from hockey? Mom's late and I wanna go home.”

CHAPTER 12

D
AY
2
9:43
P.M.
         14°

T
hey paged through Josh's private thoughts with Phil Collins singing something melancholy in the background. Here were Josh's personal drawings and doodlings, not something meant for strangers to paw over and pick apart. Megan let that fact run off her like rain against glass, concentrating instead on anything that seemed to indicate unhappiness or fear or dislike for an adult.

There were careful drawings of race cars and notes bemoaning the tenacity of a little girl named Kate Murphy who had set her sights on making Josh her boyfriend. He had a crush on his teacher. Brian Hiatt and Matt Connor were his best buddies—Three Amigos. There was mention of hockey and one page with a cartoonish image of Olie Swain, recognizable by the dark smudge of his birthmark, doing a flip on skates. Beside the picture Josh had written
Kids tease Olie but that's mean. He can't help how he looks.

He knew his parents were having problems. There was a drawing of his mother facing one way, a stethoscope hanging around her neck, and his father facing the other way, his eyebrows dark, angry slashes of black. A big storm cloud hung over their heads, spitting down raindrops the size of bullets. At the bottom of the page he had printed:
Dad is mad. Mom is sad. I feel bad.

Megan turned the page over and rubbed her hands over her face.

Mitch stared at the note the kidnapper had slipped into the back of the book. It looked just like the one that had been left behind in the duffel bag. Laser print on cheap office paper.

i had a little sorrow, born of a little SIN
ignorance is not innocence but SIN

SIN.
This was the second reference to sin. Josh had been an altar boy at St. Elysius. He would have gone to religion class Wednesday night if he hadn't vanished. Someone had already interviewed his instructor, asking if there had been any call saying Josh would be late or absent, asking all the same questions that had been asked of all the adults who came into contact with Josh on a regular basis. But there were other people connected with the church, a few hundred parishioners, for instance. Or it could be that the kidnapper had nothing to do with St. Elysius at all; he could have been a member of any one of the eight churches in Deer Lake—or none of them.

Mitch's beeper went off. He dropped a half-eaten slice of pepperoni and mushroom back into the cardboard box as he rose from the table. Heedless of the grease on his fingers, he dug a hand into his coat pocket, fished out his portable phone, and punched out the number.

“Andy, what's up?” he asked, his eyes on Megan. She rose from her chair slowly, as if a sudden move might ruin their chances of good news.

“We've got a witness!” The excitement in the sergeant's voice sang over the airwaves. “She lives over by the ice arena. She thinks she saw Josh last night. Says she saw him get in a car.”

“Well, Christ, what took her so long to call?” Mitch barked. “Why didn't anyone talk to her last night?”

“I dunno, Chief. She's coming into the station. I figured you'd want to be there.”

“I'll be right in.” He snapped the phone shut, his eyes still on Megan. “If there's a God in heaven, we've got a break.”

9:54
P.M.
         14°

I
feel so terrible about this, Mitch.”

The fluorescent lights of the conference room washed down on Helen Black, giving her a haunted look that seemed appropriate to the circumstances. Helen was forty-three and divorced, preserved—in her own words—by treadmill torture, Elizabeth Arden, and SlimFast. In kinder lighting she was not unattractive, but tonight the lines of strain and time were too evident beside her eyes and mouth; the shade of blond she had chosen at the Rocco Altobelli Salon had taken on a brittle, brassy cast that only accentuated her pallor.

Helen ran her own portrait photography studio on the second floor of a renovated building downtown. She had taken the shot of Mitch and Jessie that sat on his desk in his office. She had a talent for capturing the personalities of her subjects that brought her business from miles around. Successful and single, Helen was one of the many women Mitch's friends had tried to steer him toward in the past two years. He had ducked the fixup, deflecting Helen's attention elsewhere.

“I was getting ready to leave for the Cities. Your friend from the wildlife art gallery in Burnsville, Wes Riker, asked me to
Miss Saigon
. I was rushing around the house like a chicken with its head cut off, and I just happened to look out the front window—”

“What time was this?” Megan asked, pen poised above a legal pad.

She sat across the imitation walnut table from Helen Black. Russ Steiger had pulled out the molded plastic chair to Megan's left and planted his heavy winter boot on it. Melting snow and dirt dripped out of the treads to pool in the deepest part of the seat. Mitch sat next to the witness, his chair turned to face her. He had a pad and pen as well, but they lay on the table untouched. Helen Black had his complete attention.

Helen made a helpless motion with her hands. “I couldn't say exactly. It had to be before seven, and it had to be later than when the boys usually get picked up or I wouldn't have thought anything of it at all. I
didn't
think anything of it. It just stuck in my mind because I thought, Here's someone running as late as I am.”

“Can you swear it was the Kirkwood kid?” Steiger asked.

She looked even more distressed, her brows tugging together, digging a deep furrow into her forehead. “No. I wasn't paying that much attention. I know he had on a light-colored stocking cap. I know he was the only boy on the sidewalk.” Tears welled up in her eyes. She gripped a tattered tissue in her fist but made no move to use it. “If I'd known— If I'd had any idea— God, that poor kid! And Hannah—she must be going crazy.”

She pressed her fist against her mouth and still the tears came. Mitch reached out and covered her other hand on the table.

“Helen, it wasn't your fault—”

“If I'd thought— If I'd paid closer attention— If I could have called someone then—”

Unmoved, Steiger chewed a toothpick. He shot a glance at Megan, but only to check for cleavage. She glared at him, resisting the urge to button her shirt up to her throat.

“It would have been nice to hear this twenty-some hours ago,” he muttered.

“I'm so sorry!” Helen cried, apologizing to Mitch. “I just didn't think. I went into Minneapolis for the play, and stayed over to shop. I spent the whole day at the Mall of America. I never heard a word about Josh until I got home tonight. My God, if I'd known!”

As she dropped her head down into her hand and sobbed, Mitch sent the sheriff a scathing glare. “Helen,” he said softly, patting her shoulder. “You had no reason to think anything was wrong. What do you remember about the car?”

She sniffed and swiped at her dripping nose with the disintegrating tissue. “It was a van. That's all. You know me—I don't know one end of a car from the other.”

“Well, was it full-size?” Steiger asked impatiently. He pulled his foot down off the chair and paced like a Doberman on a short leash. “Was it a panel van, a conversion van? What?”

Helen shook her head.

Megan bit down on a suggestion for the sheriff to go pass the time attempting the anatomically impossible and leave the interview to her and Mitch. She focused instead on the witness. “Let's try this another way, Ms. Black,” she said evenly. “Do you remember if the van was light-colored or dark?”

“Um—it was light. Tan or maybe light gray. It might have been dirty white. You know, the lighting around that parking lot has an amber cast to it. It distorts color.”

“All right,” Megan said, jotting
color: light
on her notepad. “Did it have windows—like a minivan or a shuttle-type van?”

“No. No big windows. There might have been small ones on the back doors. I'm not sure.”

“That's okay. A lot of people couldn't tell you if they had back windows on their own van, let alone the make and model of someone else's.”

Helen managed a wry smile. “My ex was a car nut,” she confessed with a woman-to-woman look. “He could remember the day the odometer in his four-by-four turned over on 100,000 miles. Couldn't remember our anniversary, but he knew to the minute how long it had been since his precious 'vette had its lube job. All I want to know is can it get me where I want to go.”

“And does it have a heater,” Megan said, winning another watery smile.

Helen brushed her bangs back out of her eyes, relaxing visibly. “It wasn't the kind of van I'd want to run around town in. It was more the kind of thing a plumber would drive.”

Steiger scowled. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Megan said, and noted
panel van
. “A scuzzy plumber or a good one?”

“Scuzzy. It looked older. Dirty or maybe rusty in spots.” She hesitated, considering. “Plumber,” she murmured. “You know, I wasn't sure why I said that, but now that I think about it, the shape of it was the same as Dean Eberheardt's van. He came to fix my shower and tracked mud all over the house. I remember watching him drive away, thinking, My God, I wonder what kind of pigsty that van is.”

“Are you saying Dean Eberheardt is the kidnapper?” Steiger said, incredulous.

“No!” Helen looked horrified at his conclusion.

Megan gritted her teeth and looked to Mitch.

“Ford Econoline, early eighties,” he said, ignoring the sheriff. “Dean snaked out my kitchen sink. It took a whole bottle of Mr. Clean to do the floor.”

“Relative of yours, Sheriff?” Megan muttered, rising with notepad in hand. She gave Steiger a pointed look and directed his gaze to the muddy puddle his boot had left in the chair.

“Did you notice anything else, Helen?” Mitch asked. “Anything that struck you as odd or stuck in your mind for any reason.”

“The license plate, for instance,” Steiger grumbled.

Helen gave him a narrow look. “I would have needed binoculars. I don't know about you, Sheriff, but I don't keep them handy in my living room.”

“I'll get this on the wire right away,” Megan told Mitch. “Thank you so much, Ms. Black. You've been an enormous help.”

Fresh tears glazed across Helen's eyes. “I just wish I could have helped sooner. I hope it's not too late.”

That was everyone's hope, Megan thought as she went out into the hall and headed toward her office. The bulletin had to go over the teletype to BCA headquarters. From headquarters the information would go out immediately to every agency in Minnesota and to surrounding states.

“What are you going to put in the bulletin?” Steiger asked, striding up alongside her. “Someone saw a kid get into a van a plumber might drive?”

“It's more than we had an hour ago.”

“It's shit.”

Megan bristled. “You think so? I've already got a printout of recent incidents involving possible and known child predators in a hundred-mile area. If one of them was driving a light-colored, older, full-size van, we've got a suspect. What have you got, Sheriff?”

Indigestion, if his expression was anything to go by. He scowled down at her, his face a weathered roadmap of lines, his nose so sharply aquiline, it was nearly a vertical blade protruding from his lean face. He caught hold of Megan's shoulder and stopped her. The overhead lighting gleamed against the oil slick in his dark hair.

“You think you're pretty smart, don't you?” he rasped.

“Is that a rhetorical question or would you care to see my diplomas?”

“You can get by on that smart mouth in the Cities, but it won't fly out here, honey. We have our own way of doing things—”

“Yes, I took note of your style in the conference room. Badgering a cooperative witness to tears. What do you do for an encore—take a rubber truncheon to Josh's playmates?”

Heat flared in Steiger's eyes, and he raised a finger in warning. “Now, listen—”

“No.
You
listen, Sheriff,” Megan said, stabbing him in the chest with a forefinger, backing him off a step. “We've all been working around the clock and tempers are wearing thin, but that's no excuse for the way you treated Helen Black. She gave us a lead, now you want to blow it off because it doesn't spell out the crook's name in big capital letters—”

“And you're going to crack the case with it,” he sneered.

“I'll damn well try, and you'd better, too. This investigation is a cooperative effort. I suggest you go look up
cooperative
in the dictionary, Sheriff. You don't seem to grasp the concept.”

“You'll be out of here inside a month,” he growled.

“Don't count on it. There are plenty of people who bet against me ever getting this job. I'm planning to feed them the crow myself. I'll be more than happy to add your name to the guest list.”

She turned to go, knowing she was making an enemy of Steiger, too angry to care. But she whirled back toward him for a parting shot. “One other thing, Steiger—I'm not your honey.”

10:58
P.M.
         14°

T
he image of Olie Swain's ugly pug face hovered at the back of Mitch's mind like a gremlin from a bad dream as he drove out of the parking lot. Olie Swain drove a beat-up, rusted-out 1983 Chevy van that had once been white. Olie, who was strange by anyone's standards. Olie, who had access to nearly every little boy in town. Olie, whom Mitch had sworn was harmless.

“This must be especially hard for you,” Helen said softly.

Mitch glanced at her sitting in the passenger seat of his truck, wrapped in a goofy-looking faux leopard jacket. The jacket suited her sense of humor, but there was no trace of that humor in her expression. There was pity, something Mitch had seen enough of to last him a lifetime.

“It's hard on everybody,” he said. “You might want to give Hannah a call. She's really hurting. She blames herself.”

“Poor kid.” Helen called anyone more than a month younger than her “kid,” a habit that made her seem world-weary. “Mothers aren't allowed to make mistakes anymore. A generation ago everyone just assumed they would screw up their kids. Now they've got to be Wonder Woman.” Her tone hardened and chilled as she said, “I don't suppose Paul is taking any of the burden of guilt.”