Left for Dead (21 page)

Sheriff Klauser arrived before Harlan did. He said he hadn’t seen anyone suspicious in the area. Linda started to make a fresh pot of coffee while the sheriff got on the phone with his deputy.

Tim decided he didn’t need to stick around any more. He gathered up the hair dryer and the camera. Claire gave him a plastic bag for them, then walked him to the door.

“I’ll take these with me to Seattle,” he said. “I don’t know how useful those footprint photos will be,” he said. “But I’m sure someone on the task force will be able to tell if your hair dryer was tampered with or not.”

Claire stared at him. “You’re going to Seattle?”

Tim nodded. “Yes, I’m leaving this afternoon. They’ll be sending someone to replace me.”

“But why?”

He sighed. “It just didn’t work out. I rubbed too many people the wrong way, I guess. My partner says I lack finesse.” He managed a smile. “Anyway, you’ll probably be getting a detective with a lot more experience, Mrs. Shaw.”

“Claire,” she whispered.

Tim glanced past her—at Linda, leaning against the arched kitchen entryway. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Castle,” he said.

Linda nodded. “You too, officer.”

Claire gave him a wistful smile, and put out her hand. “Thank you for everything, Officer Sullivan,” she whispered.

He shook her hand. “I hope you find your son, and that he’s safe and healthy.” He held onto her hand for another moment. “Take care, Mrs. Shaw.”

As he drove away in Al’s car and headed up the cul de sac, Tim felt a pang in his gut. He didn’t want to leave her. Never mind that he was falling for her. She was a married woman. But she was also very much alone there. Someone was stalking her, maybe Rembrandt, maybe not. He didn’t want to say anything, but that business with the hair dryer didn’t seem like an accident. Someone was trying to kill her. The first person Claire suspected was her husband. Tim didn’t have the heart to tell her that perhaps her son might somehow be involved in the Rembrandt murders. He still hoped he was wrong about that.

He hoped he was wrong about another hunch. He had an awful feeling that once he left this island, Claire would die.

Tim turned the corner onto Main Street. Past the rain-beaded windshield and wipers, he noticed the emergency lights in the distance, two blocks away. An ambulance was in front of The Whale Watcher Inn.

Tim pressed harder on the accelerator, and didn’t slow down until he reached the hotel lot. He parked Al’s car, then jumped out and ran around the corner to the front of the Inn. Huddled under umbrellas, some on-lookers blocked the sidewalk. He brushed past them in time to see the paramedics loading Al into the back of the ambulance. The older cop was in this T-shirt, and a gray blanket covered him from the chest down. One of the medics had strapped an oxygen mask on Al’s face. His eyes were half-closed. He looked dead. Tim only caught a glimpse of him before they shoved the stretcher into the back of the ambulance and shut the door.

“Aren’t you his partner?” the inn keeper asked. He was the yuppie father of the twelve-year-old who had checked them in.

Dazed, Tim stared at him and nodded. The stocky, fortyish man huddled under an umbrella. Behind him, all the folksy pinwheel creations by the hotel entrance were whirling in the wind and rain.

“We didn’t know how to get a hold of you,” he said. “Your buddy’s real sick. He threw up all over the room. He called us. By the time the ambulance got here, he was having convulsions.”

“Where are they taking him?” Tim asked, a little out of breath.

“To San Juan Island by emergency charter boat. From there, they’ll probably airlift him to the hospital in Bellingham.” The inn keeper shrugged. “At least, that’s what the paramedics were saying.”

The rain soaking him, Tim stared at the ambulance as it pulled away. The siren started up. He slowly shook his head. “I just left him a little over an hour ago. I thought the worst that could happen was he might need a doctor to prescribe him something for diarrhea.”

“No, your buddy’s pretty sick,” the inn keeper said grimly.

Tim just kept shaking his head. He watched the ambulance head for the harbor, then disappear around a curve in the road.

Someone had forgotten to buy tortilla chips and margarita mix. So Kimberly’s roommates elected her to run down to the 7-Eleven at the last minute. The four Western Washington University juniors had been sharing an apartment off campus since the school year started, and this was their first party.

Kimberly Cronin didn’t mind walking the five blocks to the store. The rain had let up a little, and it wasn’t quite dark yet. She needed to get out of the apartment anyway. With the party starting in an hour, her roommates were all on edge, snapping at each other and fighting over bathroom time.

Kimberly still needed to change for the party and do something with her hair. At this moment, she wore jeans and her WWU sweatshirt. Her long blond hair was in a ponytail. Her head was getting damp from the rain, so she put up the hood to her sweatshirt.

Glancing around, she didn’t see anyone else on the street. The rain and the slight cold snap were probably keeping people inside.

The neighborhood wasn’t the best in Bellingham. But then, how else could college students afford apartments there? The houses were a bit run down. Lawns were neglected, and trash cans and recycling bins became permanent fixtures near the end of just about every driveway. The place was a borderline slum.

Still, Kimberly rarely worried about wandering alone there late at night. That was when the neighborhood, often called Sorority Row, was hopping. But not now. It was twilight, and most everyone was inside, getting ready to go out.

She was thinking about Larry Blades, a cute senior, who was supposed to come to the party. The tall, lanky business administration major had shown interest in her lately. So Kimberly had a mission tonight—besides picking up the extra chips and margarita mix. She was determined to ask Larry out.

About two blocks from the 7-Eleven, she heard a baby crying. The infant’s screams came from an alleyway just ahead. Kimberly pulled the hood away from the left side of her face so she could get a better look at a young dad outside his SUV, parked near the mouth of the alley. He was having a hell of a time, trying to open the back door, while holding an umbrella, a big tote bag, and keeping the infant—swaddled in a Care Bears blanket—close to his chest.

Kimberly smiled and took pity on him. The baby wouldn’t stop crying. “Oh, c’mon, kiddo,” the dad was saying. “Give your old man a break.”

Awkwardly, he reached for the door handle to the backseat, but the umbrella started tipping to one side. “Shit!” he hissed.

Kimberly stepped into the alley. “Do you need some help?”

He looked over at her. He was cute, with glasses and a crooked smile. “You’re a life-saver,” he said, readjusting the swaddled baby in his arms.

“You look like you could use an extra hand,” Kimberly said, grinning.

“Thanks a million.” He held out the tote bag. “If you could just open the car door, then put this on the floor back there, I can do the rest.”

“No sweat,” she said, taking the tote bag from him. It was a bit heavy. She turned and opened the back door. “So how old is he?” she asked, over the baby’s cries.

“Two months,” the man replied.

Kimberly bent over and set the bag on the floor. Then she noticed something very strange. There was no infant seat in the back. She didn’t see anything to hold a baby in the front passenger seat either.

She heard the baby fussing, the same cries over and over again.

“Can you take him?” she heard the young dad ask.

Still half-inside the SUV, Kimberly started to turn toward him.

He rested the swaddled infant on the backseat. Kimberly reached out for the baby, but hesitated. There was nothing in the Care Bear blanket but a lump of clothes and a small tape recorder. The infant cries reverberated inside the car.

Suddenly, she felt the man grab her arm and twist it. He swiveled her around so she was lying across the backseat—on top of that pile of clothes.

Kimberly struggled. She opened her mouth to scream.

He pulled back his hand, clenched in a fist.

It felt like a hammer-blow to the side of her face, Then she didn’t see anything, just blackness. As she slipped away from consciousness, the last thing Kimberly Cronin heard was a baby crying.

“I took photos of the footprints,” Tim said. He was using one of the pay phones in the corridor by the hospital’s emergency room. “They’re in a disposable camera. I have the hair dryer too.”

“Fine, fine,” Lieutenant Elmore said on the other end of the line. “Box everything up, and send it overnight mail. I’ll have our boys take a look-see.”

“I think Al has a brother in Boulder, Colorado,” Tim said. “Maybe somebody ought to notify him about Al’s condition.”

“Will do. I’ll get someone on it. Listen, Tim. Sounds like the doctors have it covered. There’s nothing you can do for him. So why don’t you head on back to Deception Island and hold down the fort, okay?”

“Well, I’ll need backup. Someone’s stalking Claire Shaw, and I—”

“Yeah, but it could be another one of those goddamn reporters. Just go back, and keep us posted on anything else that happens.” Then he added—almost as an afterthought, “You’re doing a great job, Tim.”

“Well, thanks, but I really could use some help. I don’t think this hair dryer short-circuiting was accident. And then what happened to Al—”

“Oh, c’mon,” Elmore interrupted. “You’ve seen the way Al eats, and
what
he eats. He’s like a human garbage disposal. Sooner or later, he was bound to chow down on something that didn’t agree with him.”

“For chrissakes, he was poisoned!” Tim argued. “He was having convulsions…”

Elmore didn’t say anything.

Tim rubbed his forehead and listened to the silence on the other end of the line. Earlier, he’d packed up Al’s clothes and belongings from his hotel room, which still reeked of vomit. Among Al’s things, Tim had found two
Penthouse
magazines, and another one called
Boobs, Boobs, Boobs.
He’d decided to hold onto Al’s cell phone and his gun, both of which belonged to the department.

He’d loaded Al’s suitcase in the trunk of his car, then caught the ferry to Anacortes. From there, he’d driven up to the hospital in Bellingham. Al didn’t have a room yet, but an orderly took his suitcase off Tim’s hands.

He’d figured out—long before the doctor said anything—that Al had salmonella or some other kind of food poisoning. Tim kept thinking back to this morning’s breakfast at the Fork In The Road Diner. He remembered the waitress with the limp black hair and the slightly flat nose.
“Something wrong with your pancakes?”
she’d asked. He’d given his breakfast to Al. Tim could still see the older cop, sitting across the table from him, popping blueberries in his mouth.

“I’m almost certain he was poisoned by someone at the restaurant where we had breakfast this morning,” Tim continued. “I think it was meant for me. Al ended up eating my breakfast.”

“So now you think there’s a conspiracy on the island, and someone’s trying to kill
you,”
Elmore said. “Do you know how paranoid you sound?”

Tim just sighed.

He’d already told Elmore about Rembrandt’s first victim, Nancy Hart, vacationing with her family on Deception fourteen months before her murder. Elmore’s response on the “coincidence” had been the same as Al’s:
“That was over a year before she was killed.”
Apparently, the force’s statute of limitations on killers obsessing over their victims was twelve months or less.

Tim knew they didn’t take him very seriously on the force. But he’d thought these new revelations—and what had happened to Al—would at least give his concerns some credence.

“Listen, Tim,” Elmore went on. “This is your first time in the field, and you’ve come across what might seem like a couple of hot leads. You’ve also had a bad shake up with Al getting sick. It’s natural for you to be a little overeager and extra cautious. But don’t bust my ass here. I have a lot on my plate right now. Go back to the island, maintain a low profile, and we’ll send you reinforcements in the morning. Are you clear on that?”

“Yessir,” Tim grunted.

After hanging up, he checked in with the nurse at the emergency room desk. She didn’t have any updates on Al’s condition. Yes, she had the police lieutenant’s number in Seattle and Tim’s cell phone number. And yes, someone would call them and keep them informed of Mr. Sparling’s status.

It was still raining when he stepped outside. Walking to Al’s Ford Taurus, Tim figured at least one good thing came of this. He was staying on Deception Island. There was a chance he could help Claire.

As he opened the car’s front door, Tim saw someone out of the corner of his eye. It was a man in coveralls, a few cars down the row across from him. He seemed to duck behind a minivan as soon as Tim turned in his direction.

Tim stood there for a moment. Finally, he climbed inside the car. He sat and stared at the minivan, waiting for the man to reappear. But there was no sign of him anywhere. Tim started up the car. Was Lieutenant Elmore right? Was he paranoid?

With each stop light on the way to the interstate, Tim felt something wasn’t quite right with Al’s car. Of course, he wasn’t used to driving it, and the roads were slick with rain. He checked all the gauges on the dashboard and didn’t see any problems. He told himself to take it easy, make concessions for the weather conditions, and enjoy the ride.

In fact, it was kind of pleasant driving alone, not having to listen to Al’s constant chatter. “I’m going straight to hell,” Tim muttered, thinking of Al in the hospital. He felt guilty, but went ahead and switched the radio from Al’s favorite, annoying Country Gospel station to an
FM
rock station.

Tim was listening to Bruce Springsteen as he turned onto the freeway entrance. He tapped the brake to slow down for the interstate’s curved on-ramp. Nothing happened. Tim felt every muscle in his body tighten. He pressed down harder on the brake, but it didn’t seem to make any difference.

White-knuckled, he maneuvered the steering wheel and veered around the curve, almost grazing the guard rail. The wheels let out a terrible screech. For a moment, he thought the car might tip over. “Jesus Christ!” he muttered. He kept pumping the brake—to no avail.

The on-ramp straightened as he came closer to merging on Interstate 5. Tim didn’t dare touch the accelerator. He couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t get off the road. In his rearview mirror, he saw another car barreling down on him. The driver honked his horn.

Shaking, Tim felt around the dashboard for the hazard flasher light switch. He finally found the button and pressed it. But the other car was still right on his tail.

Tim veered off the freeway, driving on the shoulder instead. He prayed Al’s car would slow down on its own. But this section of the interstate was a winding downhill run. He peered over the side of the low guard rail. It looked like a hundred-foot drop. He was glancing down at treetops. Cars in the right lane honked their horns, and swerved to get clear of him.

“God, please, please,” he whispered. He tried shifting to second gear, and heard something snap. Then there was an awful clanking sound as if he was dragging something under the chassis. After a few moments it was gone, and he heard the clanking in the distance behind him.

Al’s Taurus hadn’t slowed down at all. In fact, the hill only made the car go faster. Up ahead, Tim saw an abandoned vehicle on the shoulder. “Oh, shit!” he cried. He tried the parking brake. Nothing happened.

He checked the side mirror, and grimaced at the steady stream of cars in the right lane. They were still honking at him. “Goddamn it, somebody give me a break, please,” he whispered. He was charging toward the abandoned car, almost on top of it.

Tim jerked the wheel to the left. Another horn blared, and he heard tires screaming. He had to accelerate for a moment, the last thing he wanted to do. It was either that or possibly kill someone.

Passing the abandoned car, Tim veered back onto the shoulder. He took his foot off the accelerator, then wiggled the steering wheel—from side to side. He couldn’t tell if the maneuver was working—or if the road was on an incline, but the car started to slow down to thirty miles per hour.

Tim tried to ignore all the cars that wouldn’t stop honking at him. He still had no way of pulling off into a ditch on the other side of the shoulder. The drop was still too sheer.

He remembered that man in coveralls hiding behind a minivan in the hospital parking lot. He must have sabotaged the brakes in Al’s Taurus.

Hunched close to the steering wheel, Tim stayed on the freeway shoulder. He didn’t see any signs for an exit up ahead. If only there was a way he could drive off the freeway without killing himself or someone else.

Wide-eyed, he studied the road in front of him. The windshield wipers slashed back and forth, and Tim noticed something in the distance. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, Jesus, please, no…”

He was looking at the orange cones up ahead. They began on the shoulder, then lined up to block off the far right lane. He also saw a traffic jam. All those red taillights, the cars were at a standstill. Directly in his path stood a construction team, and a truck unloading tar.

Tim swerved into the right lane to avoid hitting an orange-colored construction-zone sign. A car horn blasted, and tires squealed. Despite his efforts, Tim hit the sign anyway. He winced as the big placard bounced off his front fender and flew over the guardrail into the treetops.

Stiff-armed, his back pressed against the driver’s seat, Tim saw the gridlock ahead, and the cones in the right lane. Cars were slowing down, but a few idiots were picking up speed in their attempts to get ahead of one or two other vehicles.

Suddenly, a pickup darted in front of Tim. Panic-stricken, he automatically leaned on the horn and slammed on the brake, forgetting for a second that it didn’t work. The pickup’s taillights went on. The son of a bitch was stopping.

Tim couldn’t avoid him. There were construction workers on the shoulder, and a station wagon on his left. He careened toward the back of the pickup.

For a second, he thought he’d stopped safely. He didn’t feel an impact. But then he heard a screeching noise, and the crunch of metal. All at once, it felt as if someone punched him in the face. Tim realized that the air bag had activated. That was why he didn’t feel anything. The horn had gone off too. The blaring noise pierced his eardrums.