“Well, that’s your bailiwick, Sheriff. I will tell you that Stan Vaughn’s parents are salt of the earth. I’ve known them for years.”
“Huxley said the parents come down for the summer.” Huxley was Lou’s head deputy, a veritable walking encyclopedia on the town and its inhabitants. Lou had been farther underwater than Huxley had been away from Wight’s Landing, but then, that was pretty much par for the course in this small Rockwellian town.
“Past few years that’s been true. Lately they’ve taken to traveling, now that Stan’s bought the business.”
“What business is Stan Vaughn in?” It was more than curiosity on her part. Now that this suicide was a murder, her gut instincts about the younger Vaughns were significant.
“Dick had an electronics store in Baltimore, but in the last few years Stan’s grown it to, oh, I don’t know, twenty stores or more, all up and down the coast from Virginia to New York. Anyway, the business has been so successful, Dick retired and he and Edna have been traveling the world. I just got a postcard from London, in fact.”
“John, did you get anything else from the autopsy that might help us identify the body?”
“Other than the bruising, the autopsy didn’t show anything else regarding his death. Cause of death was most certainly the shotgun blast. Mr. Doe was about twenty-five years old. His prints aren’t in the system and his mouth was destroyed by the blast, so dental records are out. If we can match him to a missing person, I can match DNA of course. But without something to compare to, I can’t help you with an ID.”
“I went through missing persons yesterday and again this morning. Nobody matches.”
“Well, if he was on vacation, he might not be missed until after he was supposed to return home.” The phone rang and he reached over his desk to pick it up. “Coroner’s office. Kehoe speaking . . . Yes, she’s here.” He handed Lou the phone. “It’s for you.”
“This is Sheriff Moore.”
“Good morning, Sheriff. My name is Detective Janson and I’m with the Homicide Division in Morgantown, West Virginia. I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
“I was meeting with our coroner, but we were almost done. How can I help you?”
“Well, I’m investigating a case and was hoping you could help.”
Lou sat on the arm of one of Kehoe’s chairs, the hairs on her neck stirring. “Of course.”
“We found the body of a young woman in some woods off our main highway Friday morning. Time of death was between midnight and six A.M. Thursday, the day before.”
“Cause of death?” Lou asked tersely.
“Nine millimeter to the head. Why?”
“Because I’ve got a John Doe of my own, shot about twenty-four hours before yours. Can I put you on speakerphone? It’s just me and our coroner, John Kehoe.”
“Sure.” Janson waited until she’d hit the speaker to continue. “My Jane Doe has a name now, Sheriff. That’s why I called you. We were able to match her prints to a Cheryl Rickman. Miss Rickman’s fingerprints were on file in the Baltimore school district. She’d been a speech therapist in an elementary school there. When we informed her parents they said she was supposed to have been on vacation in Wight’s Landing this week.”
Kehoe stiffened when Janson said “speech therapist.” “On vacation?” he asked.
“Yeah. She took a job as a private therapist and her employers asked her to join them at their beach house. She worked for a family named Vaughn. Can you help us find them?”
“Yeah, we can.” Lou turned to Kehoe who looked shaken. “Why would the Vaughns hire a speech therapist, John? Neither of them has a speech impediment.”
Kehoe drew a breath. “No, the therapist was for their son, Alec. He’s deaf.”
Lou narrowed her eyes. “There wasn’t any child in that house yesterday, John.”
“Maybe they left him back in Baltimore with friends or took a vacation just themselves.”
“Then why invite the speech therapist to come?”
Kehoe shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“We just found out our John Doe was murdered, Janson. Whoever did it set it up to look like a suicide. We found the body in a shed on the Vaughns’ property. I was just getting ready to go out there. Do you want me to talk to them about Cheryl Rickman?”
“Are they suspects in your John Doe?”
“They have alibis for both Wednesday and Thursday,” she said, “so not directly, no.”
Lou could hear paper rustling on Janson’s end. “We may be able to help each other, Sheriff. Cheryl Rickman’s parents said she had a fiancé. Name’s Paul McMillan. I’ve been trying to track him down to question him on Miss Rickman’s disappearance.”
“Let me guess,” Lou said. “White male, twenty-five, five-eleven, one-seventy-five?”
Janson sighed. “Meet John Doe. Yeah, talk to the Vaughns. Maybe they can shed some light on anything this couple was involved in that might have gotten them killed.”
“I’ll keep in touch.” Lou disconnected the line, then turned to Kehoe. “I’m sorry, John.”
Kehoe’s jaw clenched. “I’ve known Stan since he was a boy. He’s no murderer.”
Since Vaughn’s alibi was tight, she wouldn’t argue. For now.
Chicago, Monday, August 2, 9:45 A.M.
Ethan sank down into his car seat, yanking at his tie, his phone to his ear. “Dammit. I missed her by two hours. Might as well have been two days.”
“You saw her face this time?” Clay asked, his voice hard.
“No, same damn cap. Copy store clerk gave me a description, but he wasn’t looking at her face.” Ethan started the engine and cranked up the AC. “She sauntered in, wearing shorts and a tiny shirt. Made sure the poor geek behind the counter saw every little jiggle.”
“Blinded him with her headlights, huh?”
“Hell. She could have been wearing a rubber Nixon mask and the guy wouldn’t have noticed. He could only say she was under forty. The security video played like a porn flick.”
“I take it none of that exposed skin had any tattoos or any other identifying features.”
“Maybe. There was something on her shoulder. I almost didn’t notice it at first because she’d covered it with makeup, but when she leaned across the counter to put her cash in his hand the strap of her shirt slipped and I noticed it picked up a stain.”
Clay’s tone was approving. “Good eye.”
“Thanks.” Ethan grimaced. “My eyes feel like they’ve been scrubbed with sand.”
“Well, hold ’em open a little longer. Did this new e-mail come from Rickman’s laptop?”
“No, she opened a Yahoo! mail account. She didn’t have the laptop with her.”
“I wonder why. What about ID?”
“She used Alicia Samson’s again. The clerk said she didn’t want him to run the card, said she was too close to her limit. He just held it while she used the computer, then she paid cash. She did the same thing in Morgantown.”
“So if the card’s reported stolen, nobody will link it to her. Can we get fingerprints?”
“She wiped the keyboard before and after. Didn’t touch anything else.”
“Shit. So, what’s next?”
“I’m on my way to an electronics store to buy some video duping equipment. I slipped the kid a hundred bucks to loan me the tape long enough to make a copy. I’m going to try to enhance it, to see if what she was trying to hide pops out.”
“No pun intended.”
Ethan huffed a weary chuckle. “I’m too tired for your junior high jokes. I’m going to buy the damn equipment, copy the damn tape, return the original to the clerk who will probably replay it until he has hair on his palms, then I’m going back to my hotel and go to sleep.”
Clay was quiet for a minute. “That’s the best plan. Call me when you wake up.”
There was more. Dread settled over Ethan, thick and suffocating. “What, Clay?”
Clay sighed. “Cheryl Rickman is dead, Ethan.”
Regret sliced through him. The woman had given her life protecting Alec. “I knew it was coming. Still, I’d hoped . . . How do you know?”
“Right after you finished tracing this last e-mail, the new sheriff showed up. Sheriff Louisa J. Moore. She heard from the police up in Morgantown who found Cheryl’s body Friday. So now she knows the body she took from the shed is Paul McMillan.”
“You were there?”
“Yeah. She surprised us. I didn’t get a chance to leave. I said I was a friend but she didn’t buy it. She knew a cop. And she knows Stan and Randi are hiding something.”
“She said something?”
“No, but I could tell. She asked why Cheryl hadn’t been here, with Paul. Stan told her they’d given Cheryl the week off because they’d sent Alec to stay with his parents. The sheriff just got this look in her eye and said, ‘London is a great experience for a boy his age.’”
Ethan felt ill. “Stan’s parents are in England? Shit. Stan never told us that.”
Clay’s chuckle was entirely without humor. “Stan hasn’t told us a lot of things, E, but we’ll get to that later. Moore looked straight at me then. Said her coroner was good friends with the Vaughns, that he’d gotten a postcard just last week. She wanted me to know she knew Stan was lying. Which he did very well by the way. Never broke a sweat.”
Ethan pressed his thumbs into his eye sockets. “Wonderful.”
“It was quite a performance. Then Moore calmly said she had evidence McMillan was not a suicide. Stan acted astonished, but Randi went pale. And then Moore looked me right in the eye and asked if she could search the house.”
It was what they’d wanted when they insisted Stan report finding McMillan’s body. They’d wanted the local police to find something to lead them to the killer. And yet the thought of a flock of uniforms descending on the beach house itself made Ethan’s stomach churn. He could only imagine what it had done to Randi’s. “And you said?”
“I said I was a guest. That it was up to the home owners, the Vaughns. But then, Randi asked, very calmly I thought, if Moore had a warrant. Surprised the hell out of me. Moore just said no, but that she could get one. Randi graciously showed her to the door.”
Ethan wasn’t sure what to say. “I didn’t know Randi had that in her.”
“She didn’t for long. After Moore drove away, Randi ran for the bathroom and threw up. Stan ranted that by forcing him to report McMillan’s body I was going to get Alec killed.”
“God, I hope not,” Ethan murmured.
“I don’t think so, E. After Moore left I did a quick background search. She worked Special Victims in Boston before she came down here. It’s likely she’s worked at least a child abduction or two. I think it’s time we dealt her in.”
“Clay, this woman who has Alec knows we haven’t been to the police. She said so in the e-mail this morning. She could have somebody watching the house right now. We know she’s capable of killing. Two people are dead. I sure as hell couldn’t live with my conscience if she killed Alec, too.”
“She might have read the local paper online to know the police weren’t involved,” Clay challenged. “Or maybe it was just a good guess. Either way, we don’t know that she won’t kill him anyway.”
Ethan pondered the question, searched his soul. They should tell the police. They should. Then in his mind he saw Alec as the woman had dragged him off that bus. He’d been groggy, quite possibly drugged, but still alive. And today’s attachment showed that scrap of yesterday’s paper. As of yesterday he was still alive. The fact remained that Alec was still alive. Ethan needed to keep him that way. “Are you willing to risk Alec’s life?”
A long, long pause hung between them, then Clay sighed. “No.”
“If anybody tells, it has to be Randi and Stan. I don’t want any more dead Vaughns on my conscience.”
“Richard wasn’t your fault, Ethan,” Clay said harshly. “If the tables had been turned, it would be you that was dead.”
“I know that,” Ethan said bitterly, then thought of Dana’s words just a few hours before. Sometimes it’s hard to be the one that survives. “I know that,” he repeated wearily now.
“You’re tired. Go get your duping equipment, then sleep. Take a pill if you have to.”
Pills. A thought popped into Ethan’s mind. “Can you find out how many Phenobarbital pills it would take to drug Alec up? Without asking Randi. I don’t want to scare her.”
Ethan could almost hear Clay sit straighter. “Randi said the bottle had just a few more than he’d need for their vacation. If the Hooter’s girl’s been doping him up, she’ll need a refill soon.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I’ll canvass the pharmacies in the vicinity of the place she used this morning. Maybe she went in for a refill.”
“That sounds like the first proactive plan we’ve had since this whole nightmare started.”
“I agree. I’ll call you after I’ve had a chance to analyze this tape.”
“Wait. I’m not going to let you hang up. Breakfast, buddy. What was that all about?”
Ethan drew a breath, and his heart eased. Just the thought of Dana Dupinsky’s sincere brown eyes was enough to chase away his mood. “Eggs and bacon.”
“Don’t insult me. Are you going to tell me about her?”
“How do you know it’s a her?”
“Because I know you, Ethan. Well?” Clay’s voice had an unpleasant edge.
“Why are you so interested in my breakfast all of a sudden?”
“Because you’ve never allowed your breakfast to distract you from your priorities.”
“I know my priorities, Clay,” Ethan said sharply. “Alec is my priority.”
A frustrated huff. “It’s just been a long, long time since you had breakfast, pal.”
Ethan scowled. He knew exactly how long it had been since he’d had breakfast. To the damn minute. The knowledge had become especially acute when he’d found himself pressed up against the warmth of Dana Dupinsky’s ripe body mere hours before.
Ethan still said nothing and after a pained silence, Clay trudged on. “You had a pretty steady diet of women after Jill. Then you came home from the desert and . . . Became a hermit, I guess. You have to admit, Ethan, you go two years without a relationship and suddenly you meet someone at a time you most need to focus. It’s hard to understand.”
Ethan sucked in both cheeks. “My relationships are not your business to understand.”
“You’re my friend, Ethan. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“She wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Not intentionally. But if she distracted you from finding Alec, you’d hate yourself.”