One Scream Away (5 page)

Neil pointed to her face. “So it isn’t jet lag that put those bags under your eyes.”

She pulled back. “Abby wasn’t feeling well; I was up last night with her. And I wasn’t aware that answering the phone in my own home was a criminal act. Do I need a lawyer?”

Neil’s patience slipped its leash. She was lying, plain and simple. He moved to the telephone on the counter. “Well, you just might. Should I call the public defender’s office for you?” He purposely fumbled with the phone, pushing a button. “Oh, sorry,” he said sweetly, and Rick cursed beneath his breath.

“You have… two… new messages
,” said the mechanical male voice.

Denison panicked. “You can’t do—”

Neil caught her wrist when she went for the phone. A caller’s voice spun out, female:
“Ms. Denison, this is Margaret Chadburne, in Boise. I was just checking again on the dolls I sent you. You should have received the first one this morning.”

Denison’s pulse galloped beneath Neil’s fingers. He loosened his grip fractionally.

Beeep.

“Hey, honey, it’s me. Hannah said you picked up
Waterford’s highboy from the gallery this afternoon. Call me as soon as you’ve looked it over.”

The ending beep sounded and he looked down at Denison. “Who was that?”

“Margaret Chadburne, in Boise. She was checking again on the dolls she sent—”

“The other call.”

“My boss. Evan Foster.”

“Honey,” he said, and she gaped at him. “He called you ‘honey.’ ”

“Evan Foster wasn’t in Seattle last night and didn’t call me. Leave him alone.”

Neil bit back a smile. “You’re very protective of your friends.” He turned her hand over and eyed the abrasions on her knuckles. “Is that how you got these?”

“I’m a kickboxer,” she said, yanking her hand away. It was the first thing she’d said that actually fit. Tough, controlled, combative. For a second, Neil let his mind wander, envisioning that lean body in spandex, releasing all the tension that seemed to tie her in knots…

Bad move. Neil shook it off. “Where’s your husband?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

He pointed to the foyer, where he’d seen a large photo on the wall beyond the kitchen door: Denison in a cream-colored dress, a sprig of flowers blossoming in her hair and a sandy-haired man at her side. “You’re wearing a ring,” Neil said, “but he doesn’t own this house with you. Where is he? Seattle, maybe?”

“Dead.”

The answer came as a jolt, but would be so easy to verify there was no reason to question it. “When?” Neil asked.

“Seven years ago, when I was pregnant with Abby.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Denison,” Rick said. “How did that happen?”

Her chin lifted a notch. “Adam was flying back to Chicago with my family after graduation, to look for a house. The plane crashed. My parents, my brother, my husband, and two hundred and three other people on board died. Anything else?”

Whoa, that wasn’t the type of story Neil expected. Love gone bad, an affair, a divorce. Not the tragic loss of someone—everyone—she loved, in the blink of an eye.

“Okay.” Rick handed her a card. “If you hear from this caller again, let me know, okay?”

She took it—planning to throw it in the trash the minute they were gone, no doubt—and Rick went back through the family room. Neil followed, trying to let it go, then thought,
Screw that
. He veered to the couch and knelt beside Abby. “I hope you feel better soon, sweet—”

“Mr. Sheridan!”

“I feel fine,” Abby said. She was confused.

Neil rose, cocking his head to Denison. “Amazing how kids bounce back like that, isn’t it?”

“Hey,” Abby said, “what happened to your face?”

The question came out of the blue and wasn’t from her arsenal of jokes. Neil touched his scar. “I had a really big boo-boo a few years ago. Kind of scary, huh?”

“No. Mommy has one, too. It just means you hurt once.”

Well, there was a perspective he’d never considered. Pretty insightful for a six-year-old, but honest, anyway, which was more than the girl’s mother had managed. A pang of worry thrummed in his chest: Abby had no choice about what her mother dragged her into; a child never does.

The thought haunted him as he strode down to the curb, and he fisted his right hand on the roof of Rick’s car. Spasms shot to his elbow. “She’s lying,” he said, forcing himself to flex his fingers.

Rick made his eyes big. “Ya think?”

“Damn it, she knows him. He murdered a woman and she’s lying for him.” His heart was beating double time. “Take her in, man, charge her with accessory. Work her over.”

“Sleep deprivation? Waterboarding, maybe?”

“Screw you.”

“Obscene phone calls, Neil. That’s her story and it fits. Maybe she’s really afraid.”

“Then why didn’t she say so? Jesus, Rick, you’re a police lieutenant and I’m—” He stopped. He wasn’t anything anymore. “If she was scared, she’d have said so.”

“She did.”

“Bullshit. The creepy phone call thing was a cover for that asshole and you know it.” He slid a hand into his pocket, found the broken barrette. “I have to know, Rick. Whether it was Russell or not, that fucker cost me everything.”

Rick looked at him over the roof of the car. “I loved her, too.”

Neil’s heart jerked. “Not the same.”

“No,” Rick agreed, “and God willing, I’ll go my whole life and never know how it feels. But you know I can’t do surveillance on a woman who’s under suspicion of answering her ph—”

“Look.”

Rick followed Neil’s gaze toward Denison’s house. Through the front picture window, she could be seen picking up her phone. She carried it to the window, saw Rick and Neil, and dropped the blinds. But her silhouette was still visible, and within seconds, she hung up.

“That was quick,” Neil said.

“Come on, Neil. We can’t spy on the woman like this. Watching her isn’t gonna tell us anything.”

“Then what is?”

“Looking at Gloria Michaels’s murder again, for one, and putting it up against Beckenridge. Maybe we’ll find enough to get your friends at the Bureau to reopen the case.”

“Friends?” Neil said and sank into the front seat. “Oh, shit.”

But it was the right thing to do. They headed back to the precinct and hashed through Lila Beckenridge’s murder—as much as anyone knew yet. Finally, Rick took Neil home and dumped him in the guest room. For the first time in recent memory, Neil slept sober.

He started Sunday on the phone, tracking down Ellen Jenkins at a country club, playing golf. He called for a rental car—upgraded to a 2009 Dodge Charger with a hemi when he got there—and decided he needed something more appropriate to wear to meet Ellen than desert gear or ripped jeans. He came out of a department store wearing pleated blue slacks and a cream shirt with an embroidered logo above the pocket. The country-club set liked embroidered logos, he decided, though he couldn’t quite make this one out. It looked vaguely like a penguin.

He rolled through Chester County, Pennsylvania, two hours later, Ellen’s neighborhood marked by turreted mansions with high stone walls, four-car garages, and gated pools and tennis courts. Her country club came into view like a landscape that might be pictured on a wine bottle, and at the front gate, Neil found his name on the magic list that granted entry. The manager of the golf course was expecting him, the logo on
his
pocket recognizable as cursive letters.

“Her party just got to hole seven,” the manager said and tossed Neil the keys to a cart. “I were you, I wouldn’t wanna interrupt her.”

“Aw,” Neil said, “Ellen’s a pussycat.”

The man scoffed. “And the rest of us are wounded mice.”

Ellen didn’t look up when he got there. “Sheridan, if you breathe one word before I sink this putt, I’ll use your balls on the next hole.”

Neil wasn’t stupid. He watched eastern Pennsylvania’s fiercest DA crouch down and line up her shot, take one practice swing, then sink the ball in the cup twelve yards away.

She took a bow, the men in her foursome applauding. A caddy took her club, and one of the men kissed her on the cheek. Neil decided it was Byron, the same husband she’d had nine years ago, though the poor bastard was showing his age.

“Man, you got old,” she said, coming over to Neil. “Is that a penguin on your chest?”

“You’ll be buying this brand for Byron come Christmas.”

“I told him I’d ride with you and meet them at the next hole. You know how to drive this thing?”

“Hang on.”

* * *

He got close to the eighth tee then tucked the cart between a sand trap and a wild area. He pulled off his sunglasses. “Smacking balls around agrees with you,” Neil said. “You look good.”

“And you look like a terrorist trying to sneak onto a golf course.”

“It’s the penguin.”

“It’s the scar,” she said, and angled his cheek toward her. “I heard about the shooting afterwards. I didn’t know… I mean, it must’ve been worse than I thought.”

“I was out of the game a little while, but now the scar helps me pick up women.”

“So, you and Heather…”

Neil swallowed. “We only made it a couple years after that.”

“Okay.”

And that was just about all the emotional chitchat Ellen Jenkins was capable of, not that Neil was very adept at it, either. “I need a favor,” he said.

“No shit.”

“I want to reexamine the Gloria Michaels murder. Anthony Russell may not have killed her.”

Ellen’s jaw didn’t drop; she was too poised for that. Still, there was a tightness in her throat Neil could see. “And you brought me boatloads of evidence, I presume?”

“A woman was killed in Seattle on Wednesday night. Too much like Gloria…”

He laid it out, and when he was done, Ellen said, “But can they show the bullet came from the same gun that shot Gloria?”

“Not that easy,” he admitted. “It’s a thirty-eight, but it’s a hollowpoint. Hollowpoints get pretty busted up when they hit something hard.”

“Like a skull,” Ellen said. She took a deep breath and got out of the golf cart, wandered a few steps toward the sand trap, and adjusted her visor. Neil followed a few steps behind, letting her think. “I always wondered if that ass-hole Russell was lying,” she said after a moment. “Why shouldn’t he? Make up a story about killing Gloria Michaels and snap, no more death penalty. Hell, his attorney was orgasmic over the deal.”

Neil knew it was true but bristled nonetheless. “Russell dated Gloria, and he had the right history. It’s not like he didn’t look good for her murder.”

“Bullshit. You Feds came in because it looked like a kidnapping, then you browbeat your way through the investigation, fingered the guy, and turned him over to us.”

“Hey, I’m not here to use you as a confessor, damn it. I’m here for some help.”

“So why don’t you call your Fed cronies?” Then she waved a hand. “Never mind. The Feds eating crow? They don’t know how.”

“I just want the paper, Ellen. I’ll find enough to get the FBI on board.”

“It’s a closed case. The paper is a matter of public record.”

“I don’t want just the parts that are a matter of public record. I want all of it. The narratives, the photos, the impressions. The notes to each other in the margins of the reports, the e-mails. That’s what I need, Ellen.”

“I’m the one who handled Russell’s indictment.”

“And your objections to doing it are all over the record.” Not only the record, but the newspaper and political gossip columns, too. Ellen wanted the death penalty, but the DA at the time, Wallace McMahan, ordered her to drop premeditated murder and go for manslaughter. Manslaughter was an easier win. And in this case, because Russell’s end of the bargain was to talk about Gloria’s murder, the deal came with an added bonus for McMahan: one more X in the win column.

“Wally McMahan is running for the Senate now,” she said. “This could throw egg all over his face.”

“You hate Wally McMahan.”

A tiny smile curled her lips. “I do, don’t I?” She looked at him sideways. “So give me what you’ve got on the Seattle woman. I’ll look at it after the ninth hole.
After.
And after a shower and a couple of stiff martinis. Come by the house at six o’clock. I’ll let you know.”

It was the best he could hope for. Neil spent the afternoon at a coffee shop hooked up to their WiFi and making phone calls to Seattle. Seattle wouldn’t tell him jack shit about Beckenridge: He wasn’t a cop, he wasn’t a Fed, and he wasn’t a lawyer. He wasn’t even a reporter. He was nothing.

He dropped by Ellen’s McMansion at ten ’til six.

“I’m not sure the unsub in Seattle is Gloria’s killer,” she said, handing him a cardboard box full of files. “But if there’s even a chance, I want you to get him.”

“Ellen, I could kiss you,” Neil said.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say.”

He was loading the box of files into the Charger when Rick called.

“I’ve got Lila Beckenridge’s autopsy,” he said. “And something else you won’t believe.”

“What is it?”

“Meet me at my office.”

“I’m two hours away.”

“So drive fast.”

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N
eil made it back to Arlington a little before nine o’clock. Rick leaned forward onto his desk. “Another one,” he said. “Maybe.”

Neil went still. “What?” Then, “What do you mean,
maybe
?”

“A car was found this afternoon outside Denver, wiped down. It belongs to a single mom named Thelma Jacobs. She’s missing.”

Neil’s heart rate kicked up, but he was afraid to let it run away with him. “Cars are found every day with their owners missing. Why do we care about one in Denver?”

“Guess who Thelma Jacobs called at seven-thirty last night.”

Neil stared. “No way.”

“Yup. But the call only lasted about ten seconds.”

“Son of a bitch.” Neil couldn’t believe it. “That’s the call Denison was picking up last night as we were leaving.” He stood up and started pacing. “Denver? He’s moving?”

“Could be.”

“But no body.”

“Not yet. Jacobs attended a support group for breast cancer survivors yesterday afternoon at three. That was the last place she was seen.”