Bad things, p.32
Bad Things, page 32
“What do you mean, ‘if’?” Josie demanded. She was hanging on to her drink as if afraid it would sprout legs and run away, although it looked like she had yet to take a sip.
“I mean, Fogherty was bipolar. . . .” He held out his hands, palms up, clearly believing he’d made a major point.
“He didn’t commit suicide,” Sean said shortly.
“Shit, no. His head was smashed in,” Forrest said in a subdued voice.
Killian looked about to argue, but, maybe seeing there wasn’t much of a rebuttal to those facts, he subsided.
Josie shuddered and picked up her drink, taking a careful swallow.
After a few more questions that elicited nothing new, Cole left them to their own devices. He called Kerry, getting her voice mail once again. His final call was to the ME, de la Fuentes, for a full report.
* * *
Time had dragged all evening. Kerry’s eyes had traveled to Jerry’s wall clock every ten minutes or so. She’d been telling herself that Cole would call when he could and had forced herself not to stare at her phone, so she’d purposely left it in her purse. She’d watched several game shows and sitcoms and finally, when it was getting dark, she couldn’t stand it one second more. What had happened?
When she pulled her phone from her purse she realized it was totally dead this time ... and her charger was at the motel. Her battery, which had been slowly losing its ability to hold a charge, appeared to have given up the ghost. She just hoped the phone would still work enough to make it till the next day, when she could figure out what was going on with it.
“Jerry, I’m going to head back to The Sand Drift to pick up my phone charger and an overnight bag.” She’d meant to pack her bag earlier, but inside her heart of hearts she’d hoped to have some time with Cole alone at the motel. That looked like it probably wouldn’t happen now.
“Go on ahead.”
“I’ll be right back.”
When she was in her Mazda she tried to find her car charger, but she had a distant memory of taking it out of her console for some reason. She would have to wait till she got back to her apartment.
She was anxious to talk to Cole. She should have asked to use Jerry’s cell. She knew he had one, though it hadn’t been with him at the hospital and she hadn’t seen it in his catchall drawer with the checkbook and keys.
She started down the hill toward Edwards Bay proper, her mind on Cole. She turned onto the street that led to the motel, her mind flicking to a particular moment in bed when she’d felt his tongue rim her ear, which made her smile.
She turned the last corner and gasped in shock, standing on the brakes.
Every motel room was lit up, every light turned on, a spectacle of illumination bursting from every window.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A cold shiver slid down Kerry’s spine. She took her foot off the brake and carefully drove around to the back of the building, heart thudding. She pulled into her parking spot and saw a dark figure on the back-door steps.
She inhaled sharply and blasted on her brights to illuminate the intruder.
Vaughn.
“Jesus.”
Her galloping heart started to slow. She was instantly mad. She switched off the ignition and slammed out of her car. Vaughn, shading his eyes with his hand against the glare, came down the steps to meet her.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
“I just stopped by. You won’t take my calls, so what was I supposed to do?”
“My phone’s dead,” she said, her voice withering.
“Well, fine. I didn’t know.”
Her headlights automatically switched off and she and Vaughn would have been in the dark except for all the lights blasting from every room of the motel. Vaughn walked toward her, stepping through the lighted square from the window in her back door.
“Did you do this?” she demanded.
“What?”
She pointed to the rectangular blocks of light that marched down the backside of the motel from each of the windows built into the showers.
“No. How could I? What do you mean?”
“Somebody did it and it wasn’t me. You were here Saturday, when I thought someone had been in my place.”
“Well, it wasn’t me. I don’t have a key, remember? I didn’t break in. Looks to me like someone’s playing a prank on you.”
He sounded so disgruntled that Kerry, who’d been sure the culprit was Vaughn as soon as she’d seen him on her back porch, took a moment to reconsider. She still thought he was lying, but if he wasn’t . . .
“I’m going inside,” she said tersely.
“You want me to come with you?”
“No . . . but you can stand on the back porch while I enter.”
“You mean if somebody attacks you?”
“Yes, Vaughn. If somebody attacks me.”
Maybe it wasn’t his fault, but it felt like his fault. She unlocked her door and carefully went into the kitchen. She glanced around quickly. On one of the open shelves stood a thick glass vase that tapered down to about two inches in diameter near its base. Grabbing it, she held it in her right hand like a cudgel.
She then quickly searched through her apartment, as well as the office. A distant part of her mind recognized that Vaughn was perfectly happy letting her search for the intruder by herself. Fear for his own safety? Or the foreknowledge that no one would be there?
Returning to the kitchen, she saw he was still on the stoop, not a toe inside. Fear for himself, she decided.
“I’m going to get the keys and go through every unit. But first . . .” She fished out her cell phone from her purse, went into the bedroom, and plugged it into the charger on her nightstand. She next went back around the plywood wall into the office and opened the safe, pulling out the master key. With it in hand, she went to the plywood partition, barked at Vaughn to lock the back door and meet her around the front, to which he obeyed. She then peeked through the blinds that covered the window in the office door to the still brilliantly lit outside of the building, assured herself that no one was lurking there, and let herself into the dark evening. She’d lost any fear of Vaughn and just needed someone as backup.
As soon as Vaughn appeared, Kerry slipped the master key into the lock for unit one. She entered carefully, Vaughn behind her, his cowardice never more evident. She saw the main rooms were empty except for the tile saw and the shower door tilted against the wall, ready for installation. She stepped carefully toward the bathroom, again finding no one about. She switched off the bathroom lights, then retraced her steps to the door, dousing the rest of the apartment’s illumination as well. They went systematically through the same routine through each unit, the remodeling progression becoming more basic till they reached unit twelve, which was still at the Sheetrock phase. By the time Kerry had turned out the last light, Vaughn had regained his aplomb ... and attitude.
“One of those friends of yours playing a prank on you,” he said again, as if that settled it.
Though there was something in what he said, she felt argumentative. “Two people I know are dead. Somebody wanted to scare me.”
“A prank.”
They walked back to her rooms together, now the only unit illuminated.
“You should get security cameras,” he said.
“You got that right.”
“Look, I’m sorry for coming down on you like that last weekend,” he said as they circled to her back door. Kerry used the master key to unlock her place as well. It made her realize she should have separate locks to her place and the office.
She put the vase back on the shelf as Vaughn, who was again hanging by the back door, having not been invited in, added, “Kerry, I’m broke. I need help. The IRS is coming after me and I don’t know what to do.”
“At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious, your finances are not my problem anymore.”
“I know.” He held up his hands and hung his head. “Believe me, I know.”
“I’ve got other issues, as you can plainly see,” Kerry said.
“Are you going to make me beg? You’re going to make me beg. Okay. I’m begging. I just need a loan. Don’t tell me you don’t have any money. I know you don’t yet. But you will. Soon. You’re Nick’s beneficiary. All I want is fifty thousand to get me on my feet.”
“Fifty thousand! Who told you I’m Nick’s beneficiary? I didn’t even know till today!”
“Marcia said you were going to be. She didn’t believe that woman who said Nick was giving it all away to that shelter. And see?” He held out his hands to her. “You just said it’s true.”
“Vaughn, I’m not loaning you any money!”
“Thirty thousand.”
“Zero. Thank you for helping me out tonight, but I don’t owe you anything, no matter what you think. And we aren’t friends.” She tried to close the door, but he stuck out his toe to hold it open.
“Don’t make me call the police.”
“Five minutes. That’s all I ask. Please.”
“I’ve . . . got to check my phone.”
She left him and strode back to the bedroom, checking her cell phone.
Nine missed calls. Cole, Vaughn, and Josie.
She immediately called Cole. She heard Vaughn come inside and she whirled around to stare at her open bedroom door. When he appeared, he lifted his hands in surrender to her full-on glare.
“I really don’t want to have to take you to court,” he said, as if it were her fault.
“Then don’t. But if you have to, go ahead. Sue me. Do your worst.”
The call to Cole went to voice mail.
“Kerry . . .”
“Vaughn,” she warned right back.
He clearly wanted to argue some more, so she pretended Cole had answered. “Hi, there,” she said warmly, even though she’d cut the connection to his voice mail. “Sorry about the phone. Think I’m going to have to get a new charger. Hope it’s not the phone itself. Yeah, come on over. Vaughn’s here, but he’s just leaving.” She pretended to listen, then said, “Okay, see you soon.” She clicked off and said to Vaughn meaningfully, “He suggested you make yourself scarce.”
“He threatened me?”
Kerry didn’t disabuse him. “You can stay if you want. Meet him face-to-face.”
“Fine. I’m leaving. Just think about it, Kerry. I need a little help, that’s all. Let’s not make this messy.”
“Get a job, Vaughn.”
When he was gone, she locked the back door behind him, then rechecked the front door. The master key was on the counter and she put it back in the safe.
Keys ... Emilio had a set of twelve, one for each unit, and so did Jerry.... There was no evidence of a break-in, so how else had the intruder turned on all those motel room lights?
Kerry left her bedroom light switched on and turned off most in the kitchen, just leaving on the under-cabinet lights. It was creepy to think someone had come in to her place, seen her things, her lifestyle. Renewed fear raced through her veins. There was a killer out there. Cole had warned her to be careful.
But turning on all her lights?
She called Emilio, who was shocked about the lights and fell all over himself saying the keys had never been off his person. He kept them in a zippered pocket of his pants, so no one had had access to them.
The intruder was unlikely to have used the unit keys in the safe or the master key. They would have had to get inside the office to access the safe, so that didn’t wash. The only keys susceptible were Jerry’s and she’d seen them in his drawer this afternoon.
But not this morning . . .
Her pulse jumped as she thought back. The keys hadn’t been in the drawer when she took out the checkbook. She would have seen them. But later, when she put the checkbook back in, they’d been there, kind of tucked beneath other items. Now she wondered if they’d purposely been shoved down in the drawer to make it seem like they’d always been there. Whoever had taken them hadn’t counted on Jerry asking for his checkbook.
Marcia.
When Kerry had gone to the door to admit Gil Barnes, she’d left Marcia alone in the kitchen for several minutes, more than enough time to replace the keys. Marcia had taken them. Marcia, who was mad at her for being Nick’s beneficiary.
As Kerry thought about it, she grew certain Marcia was behind the prank.
And where did Marcia get off telling people she was going to be Nick’s beneficiary? What the hell was going on with her?
* * *
Josie stumbled out of the bar to her Prius, unlocking her door and flopping into the driver’s seat. She wasn’t drunk. She hadn’t even finished one drink. But she felt discombobulated to the extreme.
She stared straight ahead, hands on the wheel. Her cell phone suddenly buzzed in her back pocket and she scrambled around to grab it without accidentally turning it off.
Oh, shit. Chad. She’d put his number into her contacts list.
She didn’t have time for him today ... or ever. She let the phone ring until it finally stopped. A minute later she heard a bing that said she had a voice mail.
To hell with him.
She sat a moment longer, then realized with some surprise that Chad’s call had snapped her right out of her funk. Her spurt of fury had blown away the miasma of fear that had overtaken her. Was that right? Miasma. She thought it was.
Be an English teacher. Go to school. Get a degree. Become what you want to be.
She switched on the ignition and then stopped. She didn’t have anywhere to go. A moment later she turned the engine off again. The headlights stayed on a minute longer, then switched off as well. While she was sitting, Miami’s rust bucket of a Camry from several decades back drove into the lot. Josie felt a pang of regret that she’d never asked her friend anything about her finances. She’d married Kent and moved into another income bracket and never considered Miami’s circumstances. How selfish.
As Miami climbed from her driver’s seat, Josie got out of hers. Remote-locking the Prius, she hurried toward her friend. “Hey,” she called as Miami started up the back steps.
Miami glanced back and hesitated, though she looked as if she wished Josie hadn’t caught her.
“You heard about Egan?” Josie asked, her eyes traveling toward the taped-off alcove.
“Killian told me. I just got off work ... I just ... can’t believe it.”
“I know.”
“Josie . . .”
“Yeah?” The way she said her name, in that charged way, made Josie slightly nervous.
“I’m going to tell about the rating system, and other things. I’ve made a determination. I was going to do it last night, but I changed my mind. I chickened out.”
“What are you going to tell? That the guys had a chart?”
“Oh, you know it’s more than that,” she said bitterly. “I’m picking up Killian. He’s drunk. He’s been doing that a lot lately. He’s either drunk or he wants to run off to Mexico with me.”
Josie half-laughed. “Doesn’t sound like that bad of an idea.”
“Oh, I’d run away if I could, but I can’t. Too many responsibilities. And I would never go with Killian,” she stated darkly.
“Isn’t he your boyfriend?” Josie asked, but Miami had already opened the back door and let herself into the bar.
Josie stood on the porch, uninterested in returning to the A-Team. She wheeled back to her car, thought about it some more, then switched on the ignition again and aimed the Prius for The Sand Drift Motel.
* * *
Cole’s phone caught Kerry’s call when he was in the middle of an argument with Youngston, who hadn’t taken kindly to being reprimanded about not giving Kerry Nick’s belongings, so he couldn’t answer it.
“She never said anything,” Youngston declared. “What am I, a mind reader?”
“I told you she was coming in and we discussed it. And I told her to check with you on the way out.”
“Well, she never did.”
“I’ll take some of the blame. I should have followed through. Let’s just do better.”
No reason to flog a dead horse. Youngston was the kind of guy who wasn’t going to go out of his way to help anyone beyond what he was assigned to do. He let that argument go and went back to discussing the Fogherty homicide with the squad room. He’d ducked the newspeople outside, whose clamor had only risen with this newest development.
“We’ve got a serial killer,” Charlie said.
“Looks like it. But there’s a motive to these killings. It’s not just an urge by a sick predator,” Cole said. He wanted to phone Kerry back but needed to speak to his officers. They were all jumpy. Needing reassurance themselves. He did take the time to text her: will call soon.
“What motive?” Ben asked.
“We don’t know that yet. Charlie has a list of friends and acquaintances of Nick Radnor and also of Diana Conger. Egan Fogherty’s intersect with them. We’ve spoken to most of the people on the list at least once, but now I want some serious information. Where they were when each of these deaths occurred, I mean within minutes. Until I hear differently, all of these deaths are homicides. No accidents. No suicides. Something ties them together. Find out if there are any discrepancies in anyone’s story. I don’t care how small. A stranger didn’t pick out these three people at random. Somebody knows something. I want to find out what that something is.”
Charlie said, “Do you want to divide the list?”
“Yep. I’ll take the Keenans and the Borlands, Bart and Forrest. I’m also going to talk to the press.”
“Good luck with that,” Spano said, grooming his mustache with his fingers, a nervous habit.
“I’ll take Marcia Radnor,” Ben put in casually, at which Dave Hoffman, the quietest officer on the force, couldn’t hold back a snort.
“What?” Cole asked sharply. He was feeling tense.
Charlie’s tongue was at the roof of her mouth as she rolled her eyes toward Ben. Hoffman ducked his head, as if he wanted to disappear. Spano looked as lost as Cole.
“Somebody tell me,” Cole snapped out.
Charlie said, “Ben has been seeing Marcia Radnor.”
“Seeing?” Cole repeated.
