Criminal Intent (MIRA) (33 page)

She was right. Decrepit and wretched, the Twilight Motel was impossible to miss. Teddy drove by slowly so he could scope the place out. Six rental units that hadn’t been rented in at least a decade. The motel office, which had been converted into the aforementioned video store with its pathetic hand-stenciled sign. Overhead, an apartment, probably where Spinney and her daughter were staying. There were outside stairs leading to the apartment. He suspected there were probably interior ones as well. Two ways in, two ways out. He mentally filed the information for future reference.

Out front, a white Camry was parked next to a faded red pickup truck. Did this mean that Spinney wasn’t alone? Had Farley already caught up to her? Teddy had deliberately taken his time to allow Louis to catch up. He’d eaten his hot dogs and
slugged back his Dr Pepper and then spent a couple of hours driving around town, familiarizing himself with the place, just in case. He liked to be prepared for any and all eventualities. As he drove past the motel, he took a closer look at the Camry. There, on the rear bumper, was the sticker that identified it as a rental. Teddy smiled. Excellent. All the players were assembling, just as he’d planned it. Now that he knew what kind of rental car Farley was driving, he could follow Louis when he left the Twilight. Maybe drive him off the road, just for the fun of it. Put the fear of Ted into him before he pulled the trigger and put an end to the man’s pointless existence.

He continued on by, drove another half mile, and turned around in the driveway of a TV repair shop that didn’t look to be in much better condition than the Twilight. This time around, he took a closer look at the neighborhood. It was rural—surrounded by woods and fields—but the houses strung out along the highway like starlings on a telephone wire hugged each other shoulder to shoulder in a little settlement of sorts that seemed to have grown apart from the rest of Serenity. Spinney had neighbors directly across the street, another neighbor to one side, a thick stand of pines on the other side. In back, the river flowed peacefully past, just a couple dozen yards from the back wall of the motel.

It was a peaceful, bucolic setting, quiet at this time of day. Driveways were empty. Most of Spinney’s neighbors were probably at work. Window shades were drawn to keep out the July heat, and window air conditioners hummed quietly. Across the street and up three houses, an elderly woman climbed the steps to her front door with an armful of long-stemmed flowers she’d cut from her garden. Gladiolas, he thought. Red, the color of blood. Teddy smiled. At the top of the steps, the woman paused, screen door held open, and watched him drive past. Teddy gave her a neighborly wave, and
she waved back, looking vaguely puzzled, as if trying to figure out whether or not she knew him. With a shrug, she continued into the house, and the screen door slapped shut behind her.

Three houses down from the flower lady, directly across from the Twilight, he saw a basketball hoop over the garage. A trampoline on the front lawn. In the back, an in-ground pool. These people might not be affluent, but judging by what he’d seen during his little drive-around, in this neck of the woods they were practically royalty. He wondered how many kids they had. Even one kid was too many as far as Teddy was concerned. Kids asked too many questions and had a tendency to get in the way. Not that he’d hesitate to kill one of them if the little brat interfered in his work. But at this point, he was sticking to the plan. There were three names on his hit list. Spinney, her daughter, and Louis Farley. Those were the people he’d been hired to kill. As long as the local civilians stayed out of his way, they didn’t have a thing to worry about. But now that he knew there were kids in the neighborhood, he decided he’d be better off waiting until after dark, until the kids were in bed for the night and the adults were settled down in front of their televisions, watching
Law and Order
or the nightly news on CNN.

He was on his third pass-by when he saw her. The girl was a year or two older than she’d been in the picture Marcus Brogan had given him. Taller, and her hair was different. But he recognized her immediately. Sophie Spinney. She’d just come out of the neighbor’s house across the street, the one with the trampoline. A bath towel clutched in her hand, she was walking barefoot across the lawn.

Adrenaline shot through his veins as he realized that the opening gambit in this exercise had just been handed to him. This wasn’t how he’d planned it; he’d intended to take them together. But opportunity had just presented itself, and Teddy Constantine
wasn’t one to hesitate in the face of opportunity. He needed leverage to convince Spinney to give him that envelope. What better leverage than her own daughter?

The girl stopped at the end of the driveway and looked both ways. She started to cross the road, then changed her mind and turned back. As Teddy approached, already braking, she went to the cluster of mailboxes at the end of the driveway and opened one of them. With the towel draped over her arm, the kid pulled out the mail and shuffled through it. Teddy eased the car to a halt on the shoulder beside her, blocking an easy getaway. She turned around, looking surprised. Teddy quickly glanced around him. No traffic in either direction. No nosy flower lady gawking at him from her front doorstep. No faces glued to the windows of the motel or any of the neighboring houses. Not a single witness. This was good fortune beyond belief.

He pushed a button, and the passenger-side window rolled down. Sophie Spinney, who at fifteen—and considering her circumstances—should have known better, leaned down to peer in at him.

“Hi, there!” he said, and flashed her a smile he’d spent years perfecting. “I’m not sure what happened, but I seem to be lost. Think you could help me out?”

T
hey
sat at the scratched wooden table, Annie and the man Brogan had hired to track her down, and stared grimly at the screen of her laptop. SHERIFF SLAIN, the headline read. Beneath that, in smaller letters, it said,
Sheriff Luke Brogan Killed by Intruder in Own Home.

“Now do you believe me?” Louis Farley said.

“If I hadn’t believed you, you’d be in police custody right now.”

“Then you must understand that the intruder story is a bunch of hogwash. Whoever killed him made it look like the work of an intruder. But Brogan was killed deliberately. Why did he hire me, Mrs. Spinney? What is it you have in your possession that was so valuable to him?”

His eyes were a nice shade of brown, and there wasn’t an ounce of deceit in them. Still, he was a stranger, and she hesitated while he continued to regard her with that steady brown gaze.

“Evidence,” she said. “Evidence my husband gathered.”

“Evidence that could get Luke Brogan into a lot of trouble?”

“Evidence,” she said, “that could destroy his life.”

“Who
else? Who else besides Brogan does this evidence condemn? Brogan’s dead, and it looks like somebody else is very determined to get that envelope out of your hands and into his.”

She wet her lips. “Marcus Brogan,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“I can’t believe I was so stupid, but it didn’t occur to me until now. Mac never used his name. He only alluded to a powerful and influential person who’d helped Luke Brogan out. But if you read between the lines, it has to be Marcus.” Anxiety began to nibble at her stomach. “What are we going to do?”

“First you’re going to tell me the whole story. Then we’re going to figure out what to do about it.”

She still wasn’t a hundred percent sure she trusted him. “If I tell you the story,” she said, “what do I get out of it?”

“Maybe, if we’re lucky,” he said, “we’ll both get the chance to continue breathing for another day.”

This was quite possibly the most bizarre conversation she’d ever taken part in. But then, the entire last six months of her life had been bizarre, so why should this be any different? “Tell me something,” she said. “What were you supposed to do when you found me?”

“I was supposed to call Luke Brogan and tell him where you were, then wait for further instructions.”

“And why didn’t you do that?”

He considered her question somberly. “I’m not really sure,” he said. “You could call it bad vibes. Or intuition. Something just didn’t feel right, especially after Buick Man started following me. It occurred to me that Brogan’s motives for finding you might be—shall we say, unsavory? I didn’t intend to be a part of something like that. I’m not a violent man, Mrs. Spinney, and I had no intention of handing you over to him, like a lamb to the slaughter. Not without a damn good reason.”

She
studied his face, gauging his sincerity. Her instincts told her he was the real deal. She prayed to God they were right.

“Two and a half years ago,” she said, “a fourteen-year-old kid named Timmy Rivers was killed in a hit-and-run accident on a highway outside Atchawalla. It was late at night, and there were no lights on his bike, no reflectors. The driver who hit him probably never saw him until it was too late. There weren’t even any skid marks. But he was hit with enough force to send both him and the bicycle into a stand of trees a good fifty feet away from the point of impact.

“It was clearly an accident, but nobody ever came forward to claim responsibility. Timmy’s parents were devastated. The whole town was devastated. He was a nice kid, the kind of kid you can imagine will grow up and make a difference in the world. I know they always say that when anybody that young dies, but in Timmy’s case, it was the truth.

“There wasn’t much of an investigation. It ended up in the cold case file and sat there gathering dust. Mac—my husband—couldn’t seem to get over it. Maybe because he knew Timmy; maybe because his own instincts told him something wasn’t right. For whatever reason, the case wouldn’t leave him alone. He brought home the case file and started working on it, on his own time. He was obsessed. Night after night, he’d toss and turn, stewing over it. I’d wake up at three in the morning and the other side of the bed would be empty, and I’d find Mac pacing around the kitchen. He devoted all his spare time to digging. Poking and prodding and asking questions. Apparently he asked too many questions, of the wrong people.”

She combed the fingers of both hands through her hair, tugged it away from her face. “When he died, I honestly believed it was an accident. How could I have suspected anything else? I was thirty-four years old and I’d just been made a
widow. I had a thirteen-year-old daughter who’d just lost her daddy. I didn’t have time to cook up murder theories. I was too busy trying to hold things together.”

The kitchen clock ticked in the silence. “Six months ago,” she said, elbows resting on the tabletop, “I was cleaning out Mac’s desk so I could donate it to a charity auction. When I pulled out a drawer so I could vacuum away the cobwebs, I found a manila envelope taped to the back. Inside was the Rivers case file, with all Mac’s notes. Observations, interviews, evidence he’d gathered. All of which—” she paused and took a deep breath “—all of which pointed to Luke Brogan as the driver of the car that killed Timmy. I finally understood why Mac paced the floors at night instead of sleeping. He had a real ethical dilemma on his hands. There was nothing to indicate that Timmy’s death had been anything but a tragic accident. Still, Brogan was the sheriff of Atchawalla County, not to mention Mac’s boss, and he hadn’t come forward to admit his part in the boy’s death. Witnesses told him Brogan had been drinking that night—a lot—just before he got behind the wheel. And somebody with the power to sweep the dirt under the rug did just that. It’s all there. Names, dates, telephone numbers. Enough to put Brogan away for three lifetimes. Along with whoever helped him cover his tracks.”

“And your husband was killed because of this information.”

“Of course he was. You see, there was one more thing in that envelope. Mac was keeping a journal. He was afraid of them, you see. Brave and foolish and afraid. He was a good man. The best, and he died because he tried to get justice for a young boy. His last journal entry was on May tenth. Something must have happened, something he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want to frighten me. But the entry spoke for itself.
I fear for my life.
That was all. Just five words.” She paused, lost in a time and place far away from the here and now. “He was killed the next day.”

Louis
let out a hard breath. “Jesus.”

“When I found the envelope, when I read through his notes, I spent a few days thinking it over before I decided what to do. I was devastated to think that Mac had been murdered. I’d loved him so much.” Her voice broke a little, and she struggled to maintain control. “I called Boyd Northrup and asked him to come over. He and Mac had been best friends since childhood. They’d started working for the sheriff’s department the same year. Our kids were growing up together. He was the only person I trusted in that entire town. Boyd came over and I showed him what I’d found. He read it all through, and I could see him getting angrier and angrier with each page. When he was done, he told me to put it in a safe place where nobody could find it, and keep my mouth shut. Boyd said he’d take care of it.” She looked at Louis dolefully. “Twelve hours later, he was dead.”

“And that’s when you and your daughter pulled your disappearing act.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. Boyd was the only person I trusted, and because of me, he was dead. I had no idea who else knew about the envelope. I didn’t know who the Brogans had in their pockets. Especially Marcus. We’re talking old boys club here. Marcus Brogan was the county district attorney. He could have been drinking buddies with everybody from the local state police lieutenant to the governor. There was nobody I dared to turn to. So I ran.”

“Whew. So here we are.”

“So here we are.”

“I suppose you’ve heard about Marcus Brogan’s judicial appointment.”

“I heard. And I’d hoped that with Rachel Feldman sitting in the district attorney’s office, there might be one person in Atchawalla County government who isn’t corrupt.”

“It’s
possible. But if you turn over that evidence to Rachel Feldman and upset Marcus Brogan’s tidy little apple cart, I can guarantee there’ll be consequences.”

“Not if he’s sitting in jail.”

“There is that to hope for. Unfortunately, there’s one other thing you can bank on. If Brogan gets his hands on that envelope, you and I, and your daughter, will be history.”

Her heart lurched. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Sophie.”

“Where is she?”

“Across the street. Babysitting. Oh, my God.
Oh my god oh my god oh my god.
”

“Mrs. Spinney.” Louis took hold of her wrist and held it in his hand. “If you fall apart now, you won’t do any of us any good.”

He was right. She knew he was right. But this was her baby they were talking about. “I need to call her,” she said.

“I think that’s a good idea. But you don’t want to panic her. How many kids is she babysitting?”

“Twin boys. Nine years old.”

“We’ll take all three of them in my car and get out of here. By now, this man knows where you live. It isn’t safe to stay. I think it’s time we went to the police.”

Police,
she thought.
Davy.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, we’ll go to the police.”

With trembling hands, she picked up her cell phone and dialed Jo Crowley’s number. The voice that answered was young and female, but definitely not her daughter. “I need to speak to Sophie,” she said, trying to calm her racing heart. “This is her mother.”

“Hi, Mrs. Kendall. This is Jessie. She’s not back yet. So what did you think?”

Blankly, she said, “What did I think about what?”

“Sophie’s hair. The bleach job.”

Fear began to gnaw, like tiny razor-toothed rodents, at the edges
of her belly. “Jessie,” she said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“We dyed her hair back to blond. She came over to show it to you twenty minutes ago. I figured she was still over there with—”

“Sweet Jesus.” She cut Jessie off midsentence. Phone still in her hand, she raced for the stairs that led down to the shop. “Sophie!” she called, thundering down to the first floor. “Soph?”

The shop was deserted. There was no answer, no sound at all except her own labored breathing and the clatter of Louis Farley’s footsteps descending the stairs behind her. She burst through the front door of the video store, looked right, then left.

Across the street, Jessie and the boys came out of the house. Annie started toward them, stumbled on a piece of broken pavement and nearly fell. Louis Farley caught her. She yanked her arm away from him, skirted the vacancy sign, and began running across the road. Halfway across, she stopped dead when she saw the mail scattered in the dry dust on the roadside. “No,” she whispered, not ready to admit what her eyes were telling her.
“No!”

Louis took her by the elbow and dragged her the rest of the way across before they could both be mowed down by a pulp truck. Terror roiled around inside her as Louis bent and picked up the scattered mail. Wordlessly, he handed her the towel. Raising it to her face, she closed her eyes and inhaled the telltale odor of hair dye.

And began to shake uncontrollably.

“He’s got Sophie,” she said. “Jesus Christ, Louis, you have to help me. The son of a bitch has my daughter!”

Davy replaced the telephone receiver with a feeling of dread. Whatever Annie was mixed up in, it was serious. Three men
dead, including her husband. All of them cops, one within the last twenty-four hours. And now some stranger was prowling the streets of Serenity, looking for her. Damn the woman. He wanted to shake some sense into her. Wanted to take her over his knee and administer some good, old-fashioned common sense. Wanted to wrap her in his arms and insulate her from whatever evil was stalking her.

He’d picked up the phone to dial her number when Dixie rushed in, her cheeks bright red and her eyes filled with excitement. “That damn Eddie Tiner,” she said. “He’s been drinking all day, and he’s causing one hell of a commotion.”

“Christ Almighty, Dix. I already calmed him down once today and sent him off to bed to sleep it off.”

“Well, he didn’t sleep for long. He drove over to Eloise’s sister’s house and now he’s pacing back and forth on the front lawn with a bottle of Jim Beam in one hand and a BB gun in the other. He already shot out the sister’s kitchen window, and he’s demanding that Eloise come home with him or he’ll start pointing it at her. Half the town’s out there watching the show.”

“Where’s Pete, for Chrissake? Can’t he take care of it?”

“You sent him to Rumford to transfer the Cormier kid into their custody.”

He slowly replaced the telephone receiver. “Ah, shit. The kid I picked up on the arrest warrant this morning.”

“Shit indeed. I’m afraid you’re it for the time being.”

“A BB gun’s not lethal,” he said darkly. “Maybe I should just let him have at it. Eventually he’ll get either too tired or too drunk, and he’ll pass out.”

“Maybe so, but I wouldn’t want to get shot in the ass with one.”

He thought about it for a while. Sighed. “I suppose not. It would probably hurt like a son of a bitch. Besides, if he somehow got lucky, he could put somebody’s eye out with the thing. Have
I mentioned that I’m thinking about turning in my resignation?”

“Six weeks,” she said, grinning. “Just six more weeks. You can handle it.”

“Euthanasia,” he said as he rose from his chair. “That’s the answer. Why’d they have to put Kevorkian in prison?”

Dixie dimpled. “Who you planning to euthanize, Hunter? Yourself, or Eddie?”

“To tell you the truth, Dix, right now I don’t much care.”

After he took the girl out of his trunk, Teddy tied her up, hands and feet, with a piece of old rope he cut into two pieces, and he carried her into the house. She was so scared, she didn’t even put up a protest. He’d noticed the abandoned house earlier, while he was driving around, and after he snatched her and threw her in the trunk of his rental car, he thought of the place immediately. It was perfect for what he had in mind. Abandoned for years, it sat at the end of a long driveway that gave it a sweeping view of the surrounding area. What had once been a half acre of lawn had now turned to hay, and lilacs gone wild nearly obscured the windows. There were no near neighbors, and the orange-and-black NO TRESPASSING sign at the end of the driveway should discourage most people from coming near. That and the old barn, its roof half caved in and the rest of it ready to go any minute. Nobody would bother him here, and when he was gone, nobody would think to look here for the bodies. Not for a long, long time.