The Red Hot Fix (28 page)

Lydia crossed the library and settled into what had become “their” spot and pulled out her electronic tablet. The cottage she was renting didn’t have Internet access. What she was looking for didn’t require the security necessitating another trip to Olympia, so the library’s Wi-Fi was a convenient option. She entered the access password and began her search.

She keyed in
Maizie Dunfield
and waited. Langley’s library didn’t have the high-speed response of her own installation, but it wasn’t long before a few dozen options appeared on her screen. Lydia scrolled past several sites that were obviously not the little girl currently engrossed in a mystical tale of wizards and fairies. She found what she was looking for on the second page
and clicked to Maizie’s birth certificate, pleased that hospital regulations demanded Gary Dunfield comply with state laws and register the live birth of his daughter.

Maizie had been small, less than six pounds and only seventeen inches long. Lydia scrolled down the official document to information about Maizie’s mother.
Hannah Louise Dunfield. Maiden name, Roswell
. Lydia learned Hannah had been born twenty-two years before her daughter in Camden, Maine.

Lydia jotted down the information and keyed in another search.
Hannah Louise Dunfield, Langley, WA
. The computer didn’t keep her waiting long before it produced six items. One was a link back to Maizie’s birth certificate, another to Hannah’s marriage license. Lydia scanned the record attesting to the wedding of Gary and Hannah Dunfield and jotted down the names of the bride’s parents. The remaining four entries were links to police reports. Lydia read the official papers documenting three visits from Langley police officers spanning an eight-month period. She recalled librarian George’s description of Hannah explaining her bruises with tales of her own clumsiness. He said she’d come in one last time, her arm in a cast. The final police report was Dunfield’s filing of his wife’s disappearance.

Her next search centered on Hannah’s parents. Within minutes she learned both Maizie’s maternal grandparents were dead of natural causes. Hannah had a younger sister, Rebecca, who married Aaron Farraday at Saint Thomas’s Episcopal Church in Camden six years earlier. Four years ago they had a daughter they named Bella. Rebecca and Aaron had a family webpage filled with photos and news items. Maizie’s little cousin shared her blue eyes and tiny frame. Bella smiled in every photo. Lydia wondered if Maizie’s smile could ever be that broad and easy.

She ended her search of Hannah’s family and glanced over to the reading room. Velvet Robe had the children up and moving as she strummed what looked like a lute. Maizie held Paste Eater’s hand as they made their way through a courtly folk dance. Lydia was about to shut down her tablet when an impulse brought her to key in one more search.

Bane & Friends Olympia WA

Oliver’s official website was the first hit. Lydia clicked and saw photos of patrons enjoying their daily cup in the coffee shop’s warm interior. She scrolled past articles on the history of the shop, Oliver’s philosophy of roasting and brewing, and a description of the special blend of the day. She clicked on the tab marked
Staff
. A tug pulled at her gut when Oliver’s gentle, bespectacled face smiled out from the screen. She traced a finger along his jaw and rested it on his lips.

Lydia read the brief bios beneath the baristas who were so familiar to her. There was the pierced and tattooed Goth who’d been with Oliver from the beginning, the dreadlocked fellow with the easy grin, and the middle-aged blonde who called every customer “doll.” Two staff members were new to her: a gray-haired man with kind eyes and a grinning kid with impossibly
large ears who listed his greatest accomplishment as “graduating from Capital High this year.”

There was a photo of Callie in a sidebar on the staff page.

Callie Barker, a familiar face to Bane & Friends, leaves us to seek new adventures Down Under. We wish her all the best as she explores a new life in Australia. Somewhere in the great outback a coffee shop is about to get a little classier
.

Lydia read the brief article several times. She flipped through the tabs of Oliver’s website, but found no more information about Callie’s departure. She struggled not to read anything into it. She’d treated him poorly. She didn’t deserve to know what was happening in his life.

A clamor of children’s voices pulled her back. Story time was over and mothers were trying to corral charged-up kids. Maizie made a beeline toward Lydia as few vibrant ribbons trailed from a clip in her hair.

“Look at these!” Maizie pulled the rainbow strands forward. “It’s like I’m a human maypole. Wanna see the dance?” She didn’t wait for a response before she demonstrated a few steps. Lydia applauded and asked if she’d teach her.

“Let’s go.” Maizie pulled on Lydia’s arm. “I’ll tell you the story on our picnic.”

“Just a minute, okay?” Lydia looked down to close her screen. On impulse she clicked the
Contact Us
tab. She typed her first name, phone number, and hit Send before she could rethink her move.

Lydia tucked her tablet into her bag. “C’mon. I can’t wait to hear this story.”

Charlotte pulled a bottle of Scotch from her desk drawer. “You need something more than coffee.” She poured three fingers into two glasses and handed one to Mort. “This isn’t about Nancy, is it? My God. I still can’t believe she’s Trixie.”

He’d been heading home. Despite being weary to his bones after the day’s events, he drove two miles out of his way in order to go past CLIP headquarters. He saw her SUV and pulled in.

He savored the smooth burn of the Scotch. “Her name’s Connie White. I got at least four jurisdictions looking to tie her to killings.” He settled onto the sofa. Charlotte took a seat at the opposite end.

She took a small sip from her glass. “Tracking down a serial killer hasn’t got you this bent out of shape. What’s going on?”

Mort rested his left arm on the sofa’s back and wished Charlotte was four inches closer. A lock of hair teased her eyelashes. He wanted to brush it away.

“Long day’s all.” He stretched forward to put his glass on her desk. “While I appreciate the booze, I don’t think it’s going to help.”

Charlotte tucked her legs up under her. “I’m right here, Mort. Tell me.”

He pivoted for a better view. Her skin glowed in the soft light. Her blue eyes shone with an enthusiasm for life he remembered feeling once. Impulsively he reached for her hand and was grateful when she gave it. He rubbed his thumb over her smooth nails and smiled at their delicate shade of pink. He’d forgotten women take time for manicures.

“Is this about Robbie?” she asked.

Mort shook his head. It felt like a year since he’d put his son on a Paris-bound jet.
Einstein’s right
, he thought.
Time is an illusion
. He squeezed Charlotte’s hand, took a deep breath, and decided to trust.

“I have a daughter named Allie.” Charlotte’s quiet nod encouraged him. “I haven’t seen her in nearly three years.”

The words came easier than he had imagined. He began with tales of his exceptional girl. “To say she was the apple of our eyes is about as strong an understatement as you can make. Probably every father says that, right?”

“I’m not interested in what every father says. I want to hear more from you.”

“She wasn’t the easiest child. All that intelligence and bravado.” He rubbed a hand over
his head. “She worked hard to give me these gray hairs.”

“Salt and pepper looks good on you.” Charlotte traced a thumb over his hand. “I’ll have to send her a thank-you note.”

Mort felt the heaviness that always accompanied thoughts of Allie. “I’d love for you to meet her. My fear is I’ll never see her again.” He continued his story of adolescent Allie. Her never-ending appetite for stimulation. “It didn’t matter what it was. School, sports, boys. Edie and I tried every parenting tool we could muster. Grounding, warning, pleading, none of it worked. Neither did weekly appointments with psychologists. She was determined to experience everything all at once.” The familiar pain behind his eyes burned. “Almost like she was afraid she’d die young and had to take life while she could.”

“You and Edie must have been scared out of your wits.”

It had been too long since he had felt this safe. He knew Charlotte could absorb his deepest fears. Pull them from him. Bury them deep and promise him he’d survive.

“Tell me about the last time you saw her,” Charlotte whispered.

He allowed himself to give words to the image that never left his consciousness. The biggest dealer on the West Coast had just been arrested after a yearlong sting, and Mort had wanted in on the action. His voice choked as he described the moment his world shifted on its axis. Seeing Allie in handcuffs, hearing the undercovers describe her as the kingpin’s girlfriend, unaware she was his daughter.

“They told me they’d never seen her use. That it appeared she was just a thrill-seeker along for the ride with the baddest bad boy.” Mort bit his bottom lip. “She looked at me with such shame.” Several seconds passed. “And I let them take her away. I watched my own daughter get shoved into the back of a police cruiser and I did nothing.”

He reached for his Scotch and took a long, hard swallow. “It was almost the end for me and Edie. But I stood my ground against her pleading and insisted a night in the slammer might stop Allie’s race down a very dangerous road.” He looked at his glass and knew liquor wasn’t what he needed. “When I got to the station the next morning, ready with my lecture, she was gone. Two lawyers got there before me and bailed both Allie and the kingpin out. I haven’t seen her since.”

Charlotte took the glass from his hand, set it aside, and slid closer to him. “Does she know Edie’s passed?”

Mort shrugged. “I have no way of knowing. In fact, I knew nothing of her life after that moment until today.”

“You heard from her?” The hope in Charlotte’s question twisted the razor slicing behind his eyes.

“Heard about her.” He relayed the story LionEl told. His daughter was living a life
financed on human misery. “She’s my girl, Charlotte. The six-year-old who painted my toenails blue when I fell asleep on the sofa.” His breath grew shallow. His pulse pounded. “A drug whore who has some overpaid basketball wizard offering a million bucks to take her to bed.”

Charlotte pulled him into an embrace. She stroked the back of his neck as he leaned into her. Mort felt her strength battle his failings. The warmth of her body erased the chill he hadn’t been able to shake since he’d found Robbie in the trunk of that Toyota. He inhaled her scent and let it chase away his ache. He pulled away, looked into her blue eyes, and dove into the comfort women have provided wounded men since the dawn of time. He kissed her, and the tenderness of the ages greeted him in response.

His spine tightened. A vision of Edie ten days after their first meeting, laughing at his efforts on a freshman mixer dance floor, flashed behind his closed eyes. It was followed by another. Their tenth-anniversary trip to Portland. Edie tangled in sheets, hair tousled and cheeks flushed.

“I have to go.” He pulled himself from Charlotte’s arms and stood. “Thank you for listening. You’re good at it.”

She made no effort to hide her bewilderment.

He fumbled for his car keys. “Thanks for the drink. Finish it for me, will you?”

“There’s no hurry,” she said.

She was the loveliest thing he’d seen in three years. Every cell in his body cried out for him to stay and feel the energy that only comes from two people alone without a care for what comes next.

“I have to go.”

“Well, we all knew it couldn’t last.” Jimmy tossed a crust into the empty pizza box. “But it was sweet to dream.”

“Hey, there’s still a chance,” Micki protested. “I never took you for a fair-weather fan.”

“The Wings are toast.” Jimmy turned to Mort. “Think our little visit put the hex on them?”

Mort kept his eyes on the screen and wished he could will the camera to focus on the Wings’ bench. He wanted a close-up of Wilkerson and LionEl. “If it did, they spread it to the entire bench. Even Gardener’s missing easy lay-ups.”

Larry sat on the sofa with Bruiser’s sleeping head in his lap. “They’ve lost their leader. Reinhart Vogel’s death has cast a shadow. They’re mourning.”

They watched the last seconds of the game run out. It didn’t take Mort’s high-definition screen to show that the Seattle team, each uniform pinned with a black ribbon, was off its mark. When the buzzer sounded, the Wings lost on their home court 129–101. The first round of playoffs was tied at two games each.

Jimmy stood and stretched. “Well, there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back. C’mon, Bruiser.” The faithful dog snapped awake. “We’ll be in by seven, Mort. Unless you got something for me to do tonight.”

It was nearly eleven thirty. Their interviews hadn’t brought them closer to solving Vogel’s murder. “Seven’s fine.”

Mort, Micki, Jimmy, and Larry watched the television cameras follow Ingrid Stinson-Vogel and her son Pierce out of the arena. Larry shook his head.

“The dignity of duty,” he said. “Look at them. She’s just lost her husband in the most brutal way. From all I’ve read, her son’s lost the only father he’s ever known. Yet there they are, soldiering on.”

“They both look so somber,” Micki said. “But, damn, who knew widow’s weeds could look so fashionable?”

Mort remembered Ingrid’s all-black ensemble from the day before. While he preferred Botox-free women, he had to admit she knew how to wear a dress. He watched her cling to the arm of her grim-faced son. “The boy looks more scared than sad.”

“Big business.” Jimmy snapped a leash on Bruiser’s collar. “It’s just him and Mommy now. Four generations of wealth are his to lose.” He grabbed a half-eaten slice of pizza and
offered it to his dog. “My pop left me his watch and a nine-year-old Chevy. That estate I could handle.”

Micki followed Jimmy and Bruiser out the door with promises of doughnuts for their morning meeting. Larry grabbed his jacket.