Читать книгу The Detective's Dilemma - Karen McCullough - Страница 7

As she ate the sandwich and fries in the plain, lonely hotel room, Sarah studied the apartment listings in the classifieds section. After eliminating those she couldn’t afford and some in places too dangerous, three remained.

One had already been let, she learned when she called the number given in the ad. The other two were still available. She made appointments to look at them on Saturday, hoping she’d have her car back by then.

With nothing else to do, she settled in for an evening of watching television. At a few minutes past nine, Detective Christianson called.

“You can get your car back,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at eight-thirty tomorrow morning. Someone from evidence will put your books and stuff in the back seat. It’s the Accord, right?”

“Yes. Thank you!”

As promised, he showed up at the hotel just before eight-thirty the next morning and drove her to the house to get the car. Her backpack sat on the backseat and she got to her first class on time.

At lunchtime, Rob Helmond walked by with a tray, stopped, and asked if he could join her. Sarah nodded to the seat opposite.

She and Rob had shared a couple of classes the previous year. He was cute, pleasant, and personable. He’d tried to pursue her for more than friendship for a while but eventually got the message she wasn’t interested and backed off.

“I heard about your friend,” he said. “I’m sorry. It must have been terrible.”

“It was.”

“Are you all right?”

Sarah didn’t want to encourage him to start pursuing her again, but she couldn’t resist the temptation to talk with someone willing to listen. She told him what had happened and her fears that the police would arrest her.

He paid attention, offering words of encouragement, but did nothing more. When they finally parted to go to their separate classes, she felt better for having had that conversation.

That afternoon she found a free apartment rental guidebook and culled a few more possibilities.

On Saturday, she looked at apartments. The first two places she visited were hopelessly bad, one a damp basement with an unbearable odor problem. The second had broken windows, although the landlord promised they’d be repaired shortly, a refrigerator that didn’t work, and a stove she’d be afraid to turn on. The third one had dangerously outdated electrical wiring in poor repair.

On the fifth try she found a possibility. It was in a two-story block of eight apartments that all opened onto a central hallway. The one she looked at was on the first floor at the back. The cost came in right at the limit she could afford. It was small and in need of fresh paint. But the appliances worked, the water ran both hot and cold, and the drains drained. Even better, if she put down a deposit she could move in right away.

Mindful of her promise, she called Christianson. “I think I’ve found a place,” she said.

He didn’t recognize the address and asked for directions to get there.

He arrived fifteen minutes later, wearing jeans and a polo shirt topped by a battered leather jacket. The rough clothes looked good on his tall, lean frame. Little butterflies fluttering in her stomach couldn’t be attraction. Couldn’t be. Shouldn’t be.

“Are you off duty?” she asked, walking out to the hall to meet him. “I didn’t mean to disturb your off time.”

“I told you to call.” He still wore the reserved expression that gave no clue to his thoughts or emotions.

She’d assumed it was his ‘cop-face,’ but it might be something more basic to the man.

“I was out running errands anyway.” He looked around slowly. “Neighborhood’s not great, but not terrible either. Okay for a woman alone as long as you’re careful. Can I take a look at the apartment?”

“Sure, if you want to.”

He nodded and walked with her down the short hall to the flat. The leasing agent eyed Christianson warily as he went to a window and looked out.

“I thought it was just you alone,” the woman said.

“It is. I’m just checking the place out as a friend,” the detective said. “The windows need locks. They’re too close to the ground. You need a deadbolt on the door, too. And a peephole.” He went off to check out the small kitchen and returned a moment later. “Wiring looks okay. Got a smoke detector. Overall, not bad.”

“I’ll go ahead with it,” Sarah told the leasing agent.

“Let me go get the papers. I’ll be right back.”

When she’d left Christianson looked at her. “It’s not what you’re used to.”

“Actually, it’s not that different from before I met Vince. I can get used to it again.”

She followed his gaze as he scanned the room. Dingy off-white paint on walls and trim, dirty windows, and scuffed, stained hardwood floor gave it a run-down air, but a bit of work would brighten it up.

He didn’t comment on any of those things. “You don’t have any furniture.”

“I know. I figured I could get one of those blow-up beds for now. I’ll check some used furniture places for a table and chairs. After that I’ll take my time and see what I can come up with from yard sales and such.”

“You’re serious about this.”

“Of course I’m serious about it. What else am I going to do? I’ve got to have a place to live.”

He smiled, the first time she’d seen him do that, and those fluttering butterflies in her stomach began to dance. Not good. So not good.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “I’m betting most murder suspects don’t get this much help from the cops.”

The smile faded. She hated to see it go, but at least it lessened the danger to her.

He stiffened and retreated a step. “This isn’t exactly a normal investigation.”

“I figured.”

“And if you’re not the guilty party, you’re another victim of the crime.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. I try not to see myself that way. Too easy to slide into…places I don’t want to go.” Places she sometimes went anyway, often late at night, when she desperately missed the family she’d lost and wondered why fate had singled her out for so much cruelty.

He gave her a harder look, but it wasn’t so much condemning as searching. “How do you stay away from those places?”

“Sometimes it isn’t easy. I try to stay busy. Exercise so I’m tired enough to sleep at night. Keep my mind occupied with other things. Now I have a life to rebuild. I hope that will keep me distracted.”

His eyebrows rose for a moment and he turned to stare out the window. Since nothing was out there but a row of trees, she suspected he saw something else entirely. It gave her a minute to study him from the side. The lines of tension in his face and the shadows in eyes more gray than blue at the moment proclaimed he had places he didn’t want to go, also. Maybe all cops did, or all homicide detectives anyway. So why did she think it might be something more personal that haunted him?

“It’s a good strategy,” he said, dragging his attention back to the present. “I’d better get going. Call me if you need to. I expect I’ll be in touch.”

“Thank you for the help.”

He nodded. “Don’t forget to get those locks.”

The leasing agent returned shortly after Christianson left. Sarah completed and signed several forms, turned over her credit card information, and got a key to the place in exchange. She went back to the hotel to gather her things and load them in the trunk of her car. On the return trip to the apartment, she stopped at a big box superstore and got an air mattress, pots, pans, dishes, and enough canned goods to get by for a day or two.

As the evening went on, she thought of more things she needed and began a list. A lamp for studying. The overhead lights had low-wattage bulbs that made reading difficult. A couple of glasses for drinks. A place to hang her towels in the bathroom. Towels to hang, for that matter. The list grew rapidly.

She spent an uncomfortable night on her own in the apartment. She’d bought only one thin blanket. Since it was nearly the middle of October, the nights were chilly and apparently the heat in the place wasn’t running very high. She’d have to call and find out if that could be fixed. Traffic noise into and out of the complex remained steady until the early hours. When she did sleep, she relived the shooting in her dreams.

The next day she ran into one of her neighbors as she got home from another shopping trip and wrestled several bags down the hall to her apartment. The door to the front apartment on the opposite side opened and a woman emerged. She wore skin-tight leopard-skin leggings with high-heeled boots and a leather duster. Hair dyed flame red fell in cascades of curls around her face, which bore a heavy layer of makeup.

The woman locked the door and turned to Sarah who was in the process of undoing hers. “Hey, you the new neighbor?” She sounded friendly, if a shade too loud.

Sarah turned to greet her. “Yes, Sarah Martin. I just moved in yesterday.” She grimaced at the bags weighing her down. “Had to go get a few things. I’m pretty much starting from scratch.”

“Oh, man. Did he get everything? Been there, done that. Doll, get yourself one of those high-flying lawyers next time and make him eat it.”

It took her a minute to figure out what the woman was talking about. “No, I’m not divorced. It’s more complicated than that, but the bottom line is I’m out on my own for the first time.”

“Oh, well. I’ve probably got some extra stuff. Got more junk than I know what to do with, in truth. I’m Pam, by the way. On my way to the health club and then to work, but I’ll catch you later.”

Sarah settled in for an evening of trying to catch up on her work for class the next day.

Monday started pretty normally except that she had to readjust her mental schedule since her new location was farther from campus. Things started to get weirder after lunch break. A nagging prickle kept telling her someone followed her. Several times she turned to see who was behind her, but she never caught anyone watching or trailing.

On her way to the parking lot, someone called her name and she turned to find Rob just behind her. He looked flushed as though he’d been running and breathed heavily.

“Late for Econ,” he said, “but I saw you and wanted to say hi and see how you’re doing. You okay?”

“Hanging in,” she told him. “Thanks for checking. Don’t let me keep you.”

He nodded and took off again, jogging toward a classroom building.

Sarah sighed and shook her head. She liked Rob but hated to encourage him.

As she drove home from classes, she glanced in the rearview mirror and spotted a dark blue car. The next time she checked the mirror, that same car had dropped a couple of lengths back, but then it made several of the same turns she did. Half a mile or so from the apartment, it faded farther back, and she lost track of it. When she swung into the apartment complex parking lot, she watched for it, but no one turned in after her. She wanted to see if the car would go by, but the dip and curve at the entrance hid the traffic on the street from view.

She debated calling Detective Christianson, but she didn’t feel sure enough of the facts. And even if it had happened, what could he do about it?

She hadn’t cooked for herself in a while, but she hadn’t forgotten what little she knew, especially when supper involved opening a package and putting the tray and its contents into the oven. She needed to get a microwave, but that would have to wait. She wanted her television, too. How soon would they let her get her things from her old room?

The knock on the door came later, as she worked on homework again, lying on the air mattress, propped up against a pillow.

She needed to get a peephole. Most likely the neighbor she’d met earlier was bringing the things she’d mentioned.

Wrong. The figures in her doorway were familiar--sort of--but not people she’d ever wanted to see again.

The three men clustered in the hall wore jeans, jackets, and ski masks concealing their faces. Sarah’s heart skipped a beat, and then jolted into a higher gear. She pushed the door closed again, leaning into it, but one man put a foot in the opening, while another shot out an arm and caught the door, forcing it back toward her. It almost knocked her over when they shoved their way into the room. She scrambled to stay upright. The last one slammed the door behind him.

Sarah backed up to the far wall. Terror had her pulse racing. She couldn’t drag enough air into her lungs and barely got out the words, “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Where is it?” The man in the center asked. He had a deep, gravelly smoker’s voice. “Where’d he put it?”

“Where-- Where is what?”

“Insurance. Where’s the insurance?”

“What insurance? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The man with the smoker’s voice grabbed her arm and pulled her close. He reeked of tobacco and beer. “You know what we’re talking about. Capelli said you had the key to it.”

“I know he said so, but he forgot to tell me about it!” She tried to wrench herself free of his hold. “I don’t know where it is. I don’t even know what it is. I told the cops that, too.” Her vision misted and stars floated on the periphery.

Tobacco-breath released her and nodded to his cohorts. One of them went into her bedroom. The other rummaged through her purse and pulled out her keys.

“What are these?” her captor asked.

“The one with the dark casing is my car key. This one next to it is for the apartment. The rest of them go to the house. Vince’s.” This isn’t happening. It can’t be happening to her again.

The guy fumbled with them, taking all the house keys off the ring and dropping them in his pocket. The ring, with its now lonely pen fob and car and apartment keys, he tossed onto the floor before he pawed through her purse. He unpacked her book bag. The thug stared at the laptop for a couple of minutes before he set it aside and tackled the side pockets of the bag. He looked around but found nothing else in the room to search.

He went to the kitchen and opened each of the four cabinets. “Geez,” he said, after glancing in them and the two drawers. “She ain’t got much of nothing.”

The men returned to the living room shortly, shaking their heads.

“Okay, lady,” Tobacco-breath said. “Let’s get serious. We want that key.”

They crowded in on her. Sarah’s heart pounded so hard she feared it would burst right out of her chest. Pressure made her head feel like it might explode and her breath refused to work right. “What key? I don’t have it. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The man who’d searched her purse pushed her back against the wall. Her shoulder connected with a thud, and a flare of pain arced down her arm.

“You better think about it, girl, and come up with something.” Tobacco-breath gripped her wrist and twisted to make his point.

She gasped as abused muscles protested.

“You think hard. We’ll be back. You better have something for us.”

The three left as quickly as they’d arrived. Sarah’s head whirled with shock. Her knees wobbled, but she forced herself to go to the door and peek out. No one was in the hallway, so she crept along to the front of the building, hoping to get a glimpse of the license plate on their vehicle as they left. The men ran across the parking lot and jumped into a late model Chevy blazer, but the plate had some kind of reflective plastic over it. She couldn’t read the numbers.

She went back to the apartment and locked the door behind her. Her hands shook so badly it took three tries to push in Christianson’s number on her cell phone.