Читать книгу Critical Impact - Linda Hall - Страница 10

“Your best guess—you guys think what happened at City Hall was an act of terrorism?” Stu poured himself a cup of coffee. He was pretty sure the coffee in the pot had been sitting on the counter in the Whisper Lake Crossing Sheriff’s Office for at least five hours. But since yesterday, Deputy Stu McCabe, Sheriff Alec Black and Deputy Liz Corcoran had been too busy to even rinse out the coffeepot after batches. To make it more palatable, Stu stirred in two spoonfuls of powdered creamer and three spoonfuls of sugar. He stood beside the window and stirred his coffee while he looked at the TV van parked outside.

“I do,” Liz answered, looking up at him. “Anybody who sets off a bomb is a terrorist. Plain and simple.” According to Liz, who had recently moved to Whisper Lake Crossing, all crimes had to do with terrorists, gangs or drugs. “It can’t be any of these weirdos on the anonymous tip line,” she said, holding up the phone. “I just talked to a guy. Says he’s the bomber. Says he’s also single-handedly responsible for assassinating JFK.”

“I hope you took down his name.” Alec looked up from his desk and over the tops of his skinny reading glasses. “Anybody who calls in is a potential suspect.”

“I know, I know…” She went back to the phone, holding up a yellow pad half-full of notes, numbers and details.

As any police officer knew, a tip line tended to bring out all the crazies from the woodwork, yet each tip had to be written down, analyzed and followed up on.

Alec and Stu and Liz had been at this for twenty-four hours and all they seemed to have succeeded in doing was getting the national media here in full force. Even now, a national news van, complete with a satellite dish, was parked out front. A well-dressed anchor-woman holding a microphone was being filmed, and the Whisper Lake Crossing Sheriff’s Department was the backdrop for this scene.

Most of the media action was centered ten miles south at Shawnigan, Maine, where forensics and bomb specialists were still sifting through the rubble. But since Anna Barker and Mayor Johnny Seeley were from Whisper Lake Crossing, this town was also prominently in the news.

The mock disaster was to have been for the entire county of Whisper Lake, which included the communities of Whisper Lake Crossing, Shawnigan at the southern tip and DeLorme in the north.

Of course, the disaster drill had been canceled due to the real disaster, something that the media was finding both ironic and newsworthy.

Stu decided that he’d had enough of a walking-around break. Time to get back to work. All morning he’d been trying to track down the elusive Peter Remington, former boyfriend of Anna Barker.

Anna had left California, “escaped,” she told him, from an ex-boyfriend who had “threatened” her. She’d given him Peter’s contact information, but the e-mails bounced. Stu had left countless messages to no avail.

Alec looked at Stu. “Any more on Anna Barker? You going to see her today?”

“Planning to. After I make a few more calls here.”

Because Stu had been the one who had found and rescued Anna, Alec had decided that he should be the one to keep in contact with her. This was fine with Stu. She was the pretty, dark-haired woman with the sad face who mostly kept to herself. She always looked so perfectly polished and therefore out of his league.

When the explosion happened and he’d seen a woman fall, he’d had no idea it was her. His adrenaline had kicked in and he ran to help. It had done something to his heart when he discovered it was her underneath that rubble.

But even with the scratches and gashes on her face, she looked beautiful to him. He had been saddened to learn that she’d been so hurt by a jerk in California. A jerk he was now having no luck tracking down.

He searched the guy’s name on the Internet and came up with accolades on his great special effects. The company he worked for had even been nominated for an Academy Award once. Stu had run the guy’s name through the police databases they had access to and come up with no information. He had no criminal record.

Stu sat down and called the studio in California where Peter worked.

“No,” a gruff female voice answered. “Peter Remington isn’t here. Who wants to know?”

Stu introduced himself.

“The police? Maine? He in some kind of trouble?”

“We need to talk with him about something.”

“All I can say is if you find him, you can tell him to get his sorry self back here. He’s the only one who knows the correct bomb sequence and we can’t pro duce this scene without him. He’s holding up editing. He’s holding up production.”

Stu straightened in his chair. “What do you mean by bomb sequence?”

“For the movie. He’s the one who’s putting it all together.”

“So Peter Remington knows a lot about bombs?”

“He’s the best.”

“And you don’t know where he is?” Stu was taking rapid notes.

“Nope. Not a clue.”

Stu thanked the woman and got her to promise to call him if Peter did show up.

Well, well, thought Stu.

He was finishing up his notes when a movement in the doorway caught his attention. A tall, hollow-cheeked young man with purple spiky hair and thick eyebrows stood there holding a black art portfolio. Since Stu’s desk was closest to the door, he got up. “Can I help you? Something you need?”

The man shifted from foot to foot, clearly nervous. He wore shiny black boots, which came clear to his knees.

“Maybe,” he said. “I found something. Don’t know if it’s important or not.”

“What is it pertaining to?” Stu asked him.

“It’s about the bombing at the Shawnigan City Hall yesterday.”

Stu invited him over to have a seat at his desk. The young man did and coiled his long legs around the front of the chair, leaning in toward Stu. His patent-leather boots squeaked.

“My name’s Rodney Malini. I’m a friend of Anna’s.”

Rodney laid the portfolio down on the desk and proceeded to pull out sheets of papers.

“Well, actually, I’m one of Anna’s students. I am…was…good friends with Hilary and Claire. Our class was pretty tight. Anna’s a great teacher. And last night…well, last night I was just so upset over everything that I couldn’t even think straight. Couldn’t sleep at all. So I got looking around the Internet. I started reading Hilary’s blog. Don’t know if it means anything but I thought the police should see it, maybe.”

Scanning the top of the sheets, Stu asked, “You live in Shawnigan?”

The young man nodded.

“You drove all the way up here instead of going to the police station down there?”

“Shawnigan’s a crazy place. TV cameras everywhere, man. I don’t like the limelight so much.”

Stu stared at him. He had certainly dressed oddly for someone who didn’t like the limelight so much. “There’s a television crew outside here now,” Stu said.

“I managed to avoid them. But this is what I wanted to show you.”

Stu picked up the top sheet. Rodney pointed. “It’s that line there I thought you should read.”

I know she wants to hurt me, and even get me out of the way.

“And here’s another one,”

She threatened me again today.

There were a couple more printed pages like this. With entries like, She’s stalking me. I can’t take it, all highlighted by Rodney’s yellow marker.

Stu looked at him and then back at the blog sheets. “You said you were good friends with Hilary. Do you know who she was writing about?”

Rodney shook his head. “We, all of us were tight, but Hilary—she was a little different. Quiet. Didn’t talk much. I don’t know. I have no idea, in fact. I talked with some of the others, and no one knows. She kept to herself a lot. Hilary also kept a poetry blog. She also wrote poetry. She’s one of those people who writes everything down.” His eyes swam with tears when he realized the verb tense mistake he had made. He corrected himself, “She wrote everything down. I’m going to see Anna,” he said suddenly. “Do you know if she can have visitors?”

“I’m pretty sure she can,” Stu said. “But check with the hospital.”

Before Rodney left, Stu wrote down the Web site address and took Rodney’s contact information. Stu handed him a business card and said, “Anything else you remember, please call me. I wrote my cell number on the back of the card.”

Rodney left.

So Hilary could have been the target?

Anna decided not to tell anyone about almost being smothered the previous night—not her mother, nor her aunt, nor Deputy McCabe. Sara and Daphne, the day nurse, had convinced her that the pain medication had made her feel smothered.

In the morning, Daphne gently removed the bandages on Anna’s face, washed the wounds, as well as the rest of her face, and re-bandaged them.

“It’s healing nicely,” Daphne said.

“That’s good. In some ways my face hurts more than my arm.”

“That sometimes happens.” The nurse paused. “I heard you had an episode last night.

” Anna nodded. An episode. “It felt so real,” she said.

“That’s morphine for you. It relieves serious pain, but we always have to watch the side effects.” Daphne gave her a rundown of the side effects, everything from nausea to a feeling of being smothered.

They were probably right, after all. Anna had never taken such powerful pills in her life. She had never even spent any time in the hospital—until now.

Daphne took her temperature, her blood pressure, checked on a few more things and gave her a tiny white paper cup of pills and a glass of water.

“What are these?”

“Antibiotics. We’re holding off on the pain pills until the doctor gets here. She’s just down the hall. She’ll be by in a minute. And then,” Daphne said, “you have someone waiting to see you.”

The handsome police officer? she wondered. She hoped.

When the doctor came in, all crisp and white and holding a chart, she said, “I hear morphine isn’t working so well for you, is it?”

“I guess not,” Anna said.

“We have a whole arsenal of pain medication at our disposal. If one doesn’t work, there are always others.”

“Good.”

When the doctor left and her visitor arrived, she was charmed to see that it was Rodney. She loved her oddball student, with his flashy clothes and dyed hair, who wanted to design for stage makeup. He was talented and dedicated, her only male student in her class of females.

He came over and pulled up the chair next to her bed.

“It’s nice of you to drive all the way up here to see me, Rodney,” she said.

“I had to come up to give something to the police,” he said.

Anna looked at him.

“It was about Hilary.” He told her that he’d found an online blog Hilary had written, indicating that she was being stalked.

This brought new tears to Anna’s eyes. She had never connected with the girl, although she had tried many times. On the morning of Hilary’s death, Anna had intended to have a private conference with the girl, who was in danger of failing the course. And then Johnny Seeley, who, as mayor of Whisper Lake Crossing, shouldn’t even have been in Shawnigan in the first place, slowed her down.

The delay saved her life. And yet Hilary and Claire were gone. None of it made sense.

She stifled a sob when she thought about that. Rodney put his hand on her left arm and wept like a baby. They both did.

“I can’t believe it,” he said over and over. “I was talking to Claire just yesterday morning. Oh, Anna,” he said. “What are we going to do? I don’t think I’ll be able to even go to their funerals. I’m afraid I would just turn into a puddle and melt right there in the church.”

“You’ll be okay, Rodney. We all will. I’ll be praying for you.”

“Oh, can you pray right now?”

Anna did.

When he left, Nurse Daphne came in with another pill for her to take, one eyebrow raised at the departing Rodney. “Who was that?” she asked.

“A good friend of mine.”

When Deputy McCabe came in a few minutes later he presented her with a bouquet of bright, saucer-size mums.

“Thank you,” she said. “They’re beautiful.”

He studied them. “They are kind of nice. They’re from Bette. She heard what happened and wanted you to have a couple of her prize mums.”

So they were from Bette and not from him. She didn’t know why she felt such a sudden disappointment. After all, why should she expect flowers from the police officer who was questioning her?

“I’m living at Bette’s resort now,” she said. “For the time being, until I find a place of my own. It’s beautiful there. Bette is such a fine gardener. I’ve been savoring the fall colors in her many gardens.”

“Actually, I think it’s her son, Ralph, who does most of the gardening.”

She nodded. “I’ve seen him out there. It’s been such a peaceful place for me to live. It’s been a good place for me to get some rest and get my act together.” Yesterday, during the questioning, she had told them so much about Peter. Her life was an open book as far as the police were concerned. It made her feel vulnerable in front of this man about whom she knew nothing. He could be engaged for all she knew. And why should she be thinking about him in this way?

Deputy McCabe sat in the chair recently vacated by Rodney. “How are you, Anna? How do you feel this morning?” It really seemed like he was concerned for her, the way he was looking at her. She felt herself blushing under his intense gaze. She looked over at her right arm in its awkward and heavy cast. “I’m going to run a marathon this afternoon, Deputy McCabe. You want to come?”

He grinned. “Why don’t you call me Stu.”

“Okay, Stu.”

“I also brought some of your things from the bomb site.”

Her eyes watered when she looked at the ash-covered handbag filled with stage makeup. The photograph book was charred and the cover was bent. She looked through the bag. “My wallet’s not here,” she said.

“That’s all we found at the site,” said Stu. “Are you up for any more questions?”

“Okay. But where’s my wallet?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “If they find it, I’ll let you know. They’re still working out there in the site. They haven’t recovered there yet. I’ll bring it to you when they find it.”

“Thank you. They just gave me another pain pill. So I may fall asleep at any moment, or say weird things. I’m just warning you.”

“Duly noted,” he said with a smile. “I would like you to go over again everything you saw.”

“Again?”

“Can you remember anything else? Any more details? Anything you saw or heard?”

She shook her head. “Since the blast momentarily muffled my hearing, no, I didn’t hear anything.”

He took out some sheets of paper from a folder. “One of your students, a young man named Rodney Malini, came to see me this morning.”

Anna nodded. “He was just in here. He told me about Hilary’s online blog.”

Stu laid the printouts from the blog on the tray table beside her and pushed it toward her. She picked the top one up with her left hand. Fortunately, she only needed her glasses for distance vision. She could read okay without them. And what she read disturbed her.

Stu asked, “Do you have any idea who she was writing about?”

Anna said she didn’t. She picked up another page and read. And then another and another. Finally, she looked up at Stu. “So you think the bombing was aimed at Hilary? That someone wanted to kill her?” She knew Hilary had seemed unhappy, but was it this serious?

“Did all of your students get along?” Stu asked.

“They seemed to. I’m not a part of their private lives, but I didn’t seem to notice any jealousy or any rivalries, other than the fact that Hilary seemed quieter than the rest, more moody somehow.”

“When did you first notice this?”

Anna thought about that. “Right from the beginning, I think. But I’ve only been with this group since I came home from California. Have you spoken to her family?”

“Not yet. Deputy Liz will be going there today.” He paused. “I’d like to talk to you about something else, too. About Peter.”

Hearing Peter’s name caused her to swallow and blink rapidly.

He pulled his chair even closer to her. “I’ve been trying to reach him and I can’t. He’s not answering any of his phones.”

“He never does. He monitors all his calls, and only calls back people he wants to talk to.”

“He hasn’t gone to work. I called the studio.”

The mention of the studio caused Anna to swallow. That’s the place where she had worked, too.

Stu said, “He seems to be gone and no one knows where he is. I was just wondering if you knew where he might be. He’s supposed to be working on a movie and he’s not there.”

She said, “It’s not unusual for him to take off and fly under the radar for a while. He was always pulling stunts like this….” Anna’s voice trailed off and she looked down at her left hand. It was pale, the same color as the sheet.

Stu said, “I’m sorry he hurt you so much.”

Anna nodded.

“We were only together for a couple of months. I met him at a party. When I told him I wanted to do movie makeup, he recommended me for a job and the next day I got a call. It went from there.” She shook her head, all these thoughts tumbling together in her memory. “I enjoyed what I did, but the life there…” She paused. “I never felt like I fit in.”

“What about his bomb-making?”

“Peter did special effects. In movies. Not for real.”

“He never made real bombs?”

“He worked with explosives, but it’s mostly smoke and mirrors in movies, Stu.”

Stu nodded and wrote something down. She closed her eyes and drifted off for a mere second. The pain medication and the antibiotic were beginning to take effect. She blinked, her eyes open. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I seem to be fading.”

He stood up. “If Peter gets in touch with you, or if you remember anything else, or if anything jumps into your mind, be sure to call me right away.” He left another business card on her tray.

“Stu?” she called.

He turned. “Yes?”

“Will you keep me in the loop, let me know what’s going on?”

He said he would and left.

And as she watched him go, it seemed to her that there was something that happened right before the blast, something that she should be remembering.

And that it had something to do with Peter. Or was she just thinking about Peter because Stu had brought him up?