“Do you think she could have been depressed enough, or unstable enough, that she’d enter into an affair with a father figure?”
“Anything’s possible. Especially in the skating world where coaches control every waking moment of their students’ lives.”
“Did Erin Gallagher’s coach control every aspect of her life?”
“From what she told me about Fyodor Radikorsky, absolutely,” he said with conviction.
“Including the nighttime hours?”
“If you’re asking if the man was guilty of sexually harassing Erin, or even mol
esting her, I’m not certain, be
cause we’d just begun broaching the topic last week. But, from the way she’d become tense and distracted whenever his name came up, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
Damn. Just when they were getting somewhere, Will’s cell phone vibrated. He took it off his belt and shot an irritated glance at the caller ID screen.
“I’ve got to take this,” he said when he saw Sam’s name.
“Of course.” Drew Hayworth waved him to go ahead.
“Bridger.”
As always, Sam got straight to the point.
“We found the mother.”
“How?”
“She heard about her daughter on the news and called in.”
Shit. That was exactly what Will had been trying to avoid.
“How soon can she be here?”
“Well, that’s the thing. She’s already here.”
“What?”
“At the lodge. She checked in this morning. I offered to go over there and bring her in, but she insisted on using her own car and driver. She’s on her way.”
“I’ll be right there.” Will cut off the call. “I’ve got to get back to the office.”
“Of course.” The doctor stood up. “Have you gotten a break in the case?”
“I don’t know yet. But it turns out that Mrs. Gallagher’s a guest at the lodge.”
“Well.” Hayworth tapped his finger against his lips. “Susan Gallagher’s in Hazard?”
“Apparently she arrived a few hours ago.”
“That’s quite a coincidence.”
“Yeah.” Will had never trusted coincidence.
“She’s undoubtedly going to be in an emotional state.”
“I expect so, since it can’t be easy losing a child.” He’d only been a father—or at least known he was one—for three months, but Will certainly couldn’t imagine anything worse.
“No. Especially a child you’re estranged from.” Blue eyes shadowed. “She’ll undoubtedly go through life regretting that she didn’t make a greater effort to reconcile with her daughter.” He shook his head. “Perhaps I should go to the station with you.”
“Why?”
“I’ve done some work on survivor guilt,” he said, revealing what Will already knew. “In fact, I recently wrote a book on the impact it had on a Guatemalan village that was devastated by an earthquake. With everyone in the village being related to dozens of the dead, you can imagine the emotional aftermath was catastrophic.”
“Yeah. I imagine so.” Will figured, what with Faith insisting on being involved in the investigation, the last thing he needed was another civilian partner. “But I don’t know if it’s really necessary that you meet Mrs. Gallagher right now.”
“She may know things about Erin’s emotional state.”
“The fact that the Gallagher girl was telling people both her parents were dead doesn’t point at them having been real close lately.”
“True. But before their rift, they did spend seventeen years together in a symbiotic relationship much stronger than that of most mothers and daughters. She was obviously in Erin’s life when the girl cut her wrists. Knowing what triggered that emotional outburst could
;j
help your investigation. Take it down a new path.
“Listen to me.” Hayworth raked a hand through his hair. “I’m not suggesting I know anything about police investigations. I do, however, know a great deal about human behavior, Sheriff. And I’d like to do whatever I can to help you find the man who so cold-bloodedly snuffed out an innocent young life.”
Will’s first thought was to wonder why the hell Hayworth was so eager
to help out. In his experience,
most people tended to behave just the opposite when they found themselves involved—even peripherally—in any kind of crime.
Then again, maybe he’d just spent too many years in Savannah's dark crime underbelly. Cops tended to be suspicious of civilians, anyway, and vice cops were admittedly worse.
Besides, Hazard was nothing like the city. A Western version of a Norman Rockwell painting, it was a place where people still didn’t lock their doors, where kids were allowed to ride their bikes blocks from their homes to school or the park, where people attended the
Friday-night fish fry at the VWF and gathered in Pioneer Park for the annual Christmas-tree lighting ceremony.
On second thought, since time was running out and it was difficult, if not impossible, to get information from a hysterical person, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have an expert on grief counseling on standby, just in case Susan Gallagher fell apart on him.
“I’ll meet you there.”
The doctor readily agreed. “Oh, Sheriff,” he called out as Will was nearly out the office door.
Will glanced back over his shoulder. “Remember something?” he asked mildly as the back of his neck itched, a sign he’d learned to pay attention to.
“On the contrary. It’s something I’ll undoubtedly never forget.” Hayworth pinched the bridge of his nose. Looked pained. “I saw her last night.”
“Define last night.”
“Around nine. She came by my office just as I was leaving. Wanted to know if I had any work that needed doing.” His fingers moved from his nose to press against his eyes, as if, Will thought, trying to block an image. “I had papers to grade and I’m afraid I may have been a bit curt with her.”
“It happens.” Will wouldn’t want to count the times he’d been brusque with Josh over the past trying months.
“True. But I’m trained to notice things other people might not catch. I realize now that she seemed unset
t
led. Restless, at loose ends.”
Hayworth’s voice drifted off as he seemed to be lost in the memory. “If I’d only stopped to talk with her, she’d be alive now.”
“You can’t know that,” Will said.
“No.” Hayworth shook his head, harder this time, as if attempting to shed unpleasant thoughts. “But I can’t help thinking it’s ironic that while I’ve made an in-depth study of survivor guilt, here I am destined to suffer it myself.”
Ironic, Will agreed as he drove away from the college.
Physician heal thyself.
27
S
usan G
allagher arrived at the sta
tion on the arm of a hunk who looked like a ski bum turned professional escort-service gigolo. Will figured the black ski sweater and snug acid-washed black jeans were a casual take on the chauffeur’s uniform.
The woman’s hair had expertly been colored the pale shimmering hue of corn silk; her body, save for full, high breasts, was as slender and fit as it had undoubtedly been when she was a young teen skating competitively.
She was wearing a red sweater beneath a mink bomber jacket, a short, tartan-plaid, pleated skirt, black tights, and shiny black boots with high heels, which might look real snazzy at some Olympic Village club, but were highly impractical for Hazard’s ice and snow.
Desiree, who was the department’s internet expert, had downloaded several articles on Erin Gallagher as background. Having read that the girl’s mother had married a financial counselor after a career-ending in
j
ury,
Will did the math and realized that she had to be
th
irty-eight.
If he’d had to guess this woman’s age, without knowing she was the mother of a teenage girl, Will would’ve guessed she was in her late twenties, tops.
“Better living through plastic surgery,” Desiree Douchet murmured as he started to head out of his office to the reception area to meet her.
“What?”
“That woman’s a walking billboard for the Botox and implant industry.”
“That woman just lost a daughter.”
“Every mother's worst nightmare,” she agreed. “But I’ll bet you a dinner at the restaurant of your choice that we’re about to meet the exception.”
“No way am I betting on a dead girl. Or her grieving mother.”
Desiree shrugged. “And here I was looking forward to the buffalo prime rib at the Gun Barrel.”
Desiree Douchet had worked three years in Denver’s sex crimes unit before moving here to live with a ski instructor she’d met white-water rafting on the Snake River.
The two had broken up within six weeks of moving in together, but her romance with White Owl Mountain’s five-hundred-plus inches of white powder each winter had kept her in Hazard for three years.
Desiree was a damn good cop. And like almost every other cop Will had ever met—with the exception of boyishly eager Trace Honeycutt—she was unrelentingly cynical of everyone and everything.
“Where is she?” Susan cried out, grabbing the hands
of the first person she came to. Which, as luck would have it, was baby-faced Honeycutt. “Where’s my precious girl?”
“Mrs. Gallagher.” Will crossed the office. “I’m Sheriff Will Bridger. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Are you certain it’s my Erin?” Her eyes were moist and red-rimmed. “Who identified her body?”
“A friend,” Desiree said, jumping in to save Will from having to decide how much he needed to share with the victim’s mother at this stage of the investigation. “There was also a driver’s license and student ID at the scene. Plus, there was physical evidence—”
“Evidence?” Susan released the deputy and pressed her perfectly manicured fingers against her throat. “What evidence?”
“Why don’t we go into my office and I’ll fill you in,” Will suggested, deciding it’d be better to segue into those thin white scars.
“It must be a mistake,” she insisted. Will wondered how many times a day, in police stations all around the world, those words were spoken. “My daughter is young. Vital. She was about to make a comeback.” Her eyes brimmed over, tears trailing down alabaster-pale cheeks.
“Really?” Desiree asked. “I’m a huge ice-skating fan.” Which, Will knew, was only true if you were talking about guys on skates slamming a puck around the ice and occasionally high-stick
ing each other. “But I hadn’t
heard that news.”
Susan Gallagher paused. It was only an instant’s hesitation, but as Desiree flashed him a gotcha look, Will knew he hadn’t been the only person in the room to catch it.
“We didn’t want to take any of the spotlight away from the Olympic athletes,” Susan said with a delicate shrug. “She was planning to begin training again after the Torino closing ceremonies.”
Her voice caught in a little hitch that suggested she might just be on the verge of a crying jag.
“Why don’t we go into my office,” Will again suggested gently. “Can I get you some coffee? Or tea?”
She looked up at him from beneath her lashes in an oddly flirtatious way Will suspected was second nature. “I don’t suppose you have something stronger? Perhaps brandy? Or even Scotch?”
“Sorry.”
“That’s all right.” She managed a watery smile. Then looked over at Desiree. “I’ll take tea. English breakfast, if you have it. Earl Grey will also do. Black. No sugar.” Her tone was that a queen might have used with a servant whose name she’d never bothered to learn.
“I’m sorry,” Desiree said with a politeness Will knew cost her. “We’re flat out of the fancy stuff. Would Lipton do?”
“I suppose. If that’s all you have.” Her words were directed at Desiree, but Susan was looking up at Will as she drew in a deep, shuddering breath that caused her allegedly enhanced breasts to rise and fall. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Desiree said, rolling her eyes behind the older woman’s back.
“May Chad come with me?” Susan asked Will. “He’s
more than my driver. He’s my strength and my rock.”
This time the wet smile was directed up at the young man who did, indeed, appear to be holding her on her
feet.
“Perhaps the sheriff needs to speak with you alone.” Chad risked a sideways glance at Desiree that couldn’t quite conceal his interest. “Why don’t I show the deputy how you like your tea?” he suggested. “Then I’ll catch up with you.”
There was another of those little hesitations as the woman’s gaze flicked from Chad to Desiree and back again. Will suspected Susan Gallagher was calculating the risk of letting her paid-for hunk disappear with a woman who’d been known to have grown men walking into walls.
“We’ll be right inside,” Will said, gesturing Susan Gallagher into the office. “A friend of Erin’s has offered
to join us.”
“A friend?”
“Dr. Drew Hayworth,”
Drew said, rising from one of
the chairs on the visitor’s side of the desk. “It’s good to meet you, Mrs. Gallagher. I’m just sorry it has to be under such tragic circumstances.”
She made a little sound in her throat that could have been agreement. “You’re a doctor?”
“A psychologist.”
“Oh?” Vermilion lips pulled into a tight frown.
“Your daughter has told me a great deal about you, Mrs. Gallagher.”
“Did she now?” A blond brow quirked, just a bit, but her smooth-as-porcelain brow didn’t move, making Will suspect Desiree might have been right about the Botox.
“Absolutely. She spoke very highly of all your sacrifices.”
“Well, one does what one must,” Susan Gallagher said on a shimmering little sigh. “It’s gratifying to hear that my daughter actually appreciated all I'd done for her. Sometimes parents are the last to know what their children are thinking.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Will agreed.
“Was my daughter a patient, Doctor?”
“We’d recently begun sessions,” he allowed. “Which were unfortunately cut short by her untimely death. She also did some part-time work for me. Filing, typing, researching articles on the internet, that sort of thing. She was a wonderful help. And a very sweet girl.”
“Sweet.” Susan Gallagher tried the word out, as if the description were a new thought. “Of course she was.”
She reached into a small black bag and pulled out a tissue she used to dab at her eyes, which had begun to fill.
“I don’t know what we’ll all do without her.”
“All?”
“Her coach. All the people who’ve worked so hard to help her get to where she is. The skating community. She was much beloved, you know.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it away with a flick of a crimson fingertip.
“What about your former husband?” Will asked.
“Dennis?” She pursed her lips. Looked surprised. “What about him?”
“Was she close to her father?”
“No. My ex-husband is an egocentric, selfish individual, Sheriff.” Her voice was cold as ice, as sharp as barbed wire. “He was always jealous of Erin. Which, I suppose, is why he abandoned me. Us,” she corrected.
“So he hasn’t been involved in her life?”
“Not since she was eight. Erin and I only had each other. However,” she tacked on, “we were all either one of us needed.”
“What about boyfriends?”
“She had friends, of course. But no beaux. Now that she’s returning to skating, she won’t have any time for dating and boys.”
A stricken look crossed her face, as if the reality of her daughter’s death had hit home.
“Wouldn’t have had time for boys,” she corrected. She pushed her hai
r back from her face. “Oh, G-G-
God, if only I’d gotten here a day earlier. She wouldn't have been out skating on some frozen lake in the middle of the night.”
“You arrived today?” Will asked.
“Just this morning.” Her voice hitched. “We were planning to spend New Year’s together.” She drew in a
d
eep breath. Let it out on a soft, stuttering sigh. “I’m her mother.” She clasped her hands together against her breast. “I could have kept her safe.”
“That’s a perfectly normal emotion,” Drew Hayworth
volunteered. “Unfortunately, we can’t keep our children in cotton batting all their lives.”
“We’re parents.” Her eyes were brimming with tears. “It’s our responsibility to try. I’ll feel guilty for the rest of my life.”
“Survivor guilt is a common occurrence for anyone who’s suffered a traumatic life event,” Hayworth soothed. “But counseling can help you look at your situation more realistically, to better assess your role in what happened to your daughter.
And I believe you’ll find that the destructive aspect of your guilt will lessen over time and some of the energy currently bound up with your grief can become the source of a more vital and meaningful life.”
Her eyes cleared. Narrowed to slits. “Are you trolling for business, Doctor?”
“Of course not.” A tinge of red stained his cheekbones; his jaw tensed. “I was merely attempting to ease your pain, Mrs. Gallagher.”
“No offense, Doctor, but there’s only one thing that will begin to make my life worth living again.”
She leaned forward, giving Will an up close and personal view of cleavage that would put the Tetons to shame. “I want you to find the monster who did this, Sheriff.”
“I intend to.”
“Good. And when you do, I want to cut his fucking balls off with a rusty knife.”