Cold feet (9 page)

"I'm going to pretend you never said that and say what I called to tell you in the first place," she said in carefully measured tones, thinking she might as well get it over with. "You're expressing opinions and attitudes in Brianna's presence that aren't good for her to hear. It's as simple as that."

"What opinions?"

"You're criticizing me in front of her, and I'm her mother."

"I haven't told her anything that isn't true," he said, and laughed.

Rolling her eyes, Madison consciously tried to sidestep an argument. "Just...just be careful of what you say in future, okay?"

"I'll do what I damn well please."

Another glance at Caleb and Brianna told Madison that her daughter was still absorbed with the mantis, but Caleb was watching her intently enough to suggest he recognized that something was wrong.

"Listen, we'll have to talk about this later," she said. "I've got someone here."

"Someone? Don't tell me you're finally starting to date."

She moved farther away from Caleb and Brianna and lowered her voice. "Whether I'm dating or not is none of your business. Anyway, I'm not seeing this guy. I'm renting to him."

The tension between them turned palpable. "You leased the cottage house?" Danny said, all sign of levity gone.

"I told you I was going to."

"And I told you I didn't want you to. Do you even know this guy?"

Madison curled the nails of her free hand into her palm. He thought he could walk out on her and still have a say in her choices; his presumption tested her patience, but she was determined not to lose her temper. "I'm getting to know him," she said calmly.

"So he's basically a stranger."

"A lot of people live in homes that are built closer together than my house is to the carriage house, Danny," she said. "If it helps, think of us as having a new neighbor."

"I'm taking you back to court," he snapped. "You'll be sorry you didn't listen to me when I cut my child support in half."

Disgusted that he'd threaten her with something that would hurt Brianna, Madison let her true opinion of him ooze into her voice. "You're pathetic, you know that?"

"Be careful. You really don't want to piss me off," he said, and hung up.

Madison was shaking by the time she hit the End button. Caleb was talking about the praying mantis again, but Brianna had finally clued in to the drama unfolding on the phone, despite his efforts to distract her.

"Was that Daddy?" she asked, watching her mother with wide, uncertain eyes.

Madison shoved her cell into her purse. "Yes, but don't worry, honey, everything's okay."

Brianna shaded her eyes against the sun. "Your face gets all red when you talk to Daddy."

Madison started moving toward the house. "It's a little hot in this suit. I'd better go change."

"I'll bet some ice cream would cool you down," Caleb said before she could get very far.

Brianna immediately jumped to her feet and clapped and danced. "I want some ice cream! Elizabeth wants ice cream, too!"

"I've got a yes from Brianna," he said. "What about you?"

Madison didn't want to go out for ice cream. After her conversation with Danny, she didn't want to go anywhere. Especially with her handsome renter. Letting another man into her life was like embracing a tornado. But she knew Caleb was trying to help her, so she made a conscious effort to let him. "Ice cream sounds good," she said.

T
HREE HOURS LATER
,
Caleb sat at a table at a McDonald's not far from Holly's house in Alderwood Manor, a suburb between Whidbey Island and Seattle. He tapped his pen on his leg, waiting impatiently for Detective Gibbons to answer his call as Holly inched forward in line. He'd spent most of the afternoon with Madison and Brianna, but he hadn't been able to get anything new out of Madison about her father or the murders. Even while they were having ice cream, she'd been too preoccupied by that phone call she'd received from her ex.

Caleb couldn't blame her. From what he'd overheard, Danny Lieberman was an ass.

When Gibbons finally came to the phone, Caleb had to yank the receiver away from his ear before the loud, foulmouthed, twenty-year police veteran blasted out his eardrum.

"Trovato, what the hell are you doing calling me at home on a Saturday?"

Chuckling, Caleb leaned forward as Holly momentarily disappeared behind some hanging plants. When he'd ordered, she'd refused to eat, but he'd finally talked her into getting a hamburger and wanted to make sure she was still in line to order it. As soon as they finished a quick dinner, they were planning to canvass Susan's neighborhood again, just in case they'd missed someone or something. They didn't have a lot of other options. The private investigator was supposedly hard at work doing background checks on just about everyone who'd ever been associated with Susan, and the police were digging, too, searching for Susan's car, but no one seemed to be finding anything.

"What, you only accept calls when it's convenient, Gibbons?" he teased. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say you're in it strictly for the paycheck, man."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about, as usual," he grumbled, but the old affection was still there. Caleb could feel it beneath the surface of everything that was said. "What do you want?"

Caleb wadded up his hamburger wrapper and shoved it inside his empty cup. "I have some evidence that might connect the Sandpoint Strangler case to--"

"The Sandpoint Strangler case!" he interrupted. "I have a woman who looks like Catherine Zeta Jones on her way over to fix me dinner, less than five minutes to clean up this dump, and you call me, acting like there's some kind of emergency on a case that's totally cold?"

Caleb had a hard time believing Gibbons could get a woman who even
remotely
resembled Catherine Zeta Jones to cook him dinner. Short, balding and a little on the heavy side, he had a blockish head with bulldog jowls. To make things worse, he had a disconcerting way of shouting almost everything he said. "Just listen to me for a second, Gibbons. I think there might be a connection between the Strangler case and the Susan Michaelson disappearance."

"Don't give me that, Trovato."

"Susan Michaelson fits the profile. She's small, she's in the right age range and she was abducted from the same area."

"That could just as easily be coincidence as anything else. Quit looking for something exciting to put in one of those damn books you're writing these days."

Holly moved forward in line. Dressed in a denim jacket with fake fur at the collar, she studied the lighted menu overhead as though she hadn't seen it a million times. "I'm not working on a book right now. I'm trying to find Susan."

"Then why are you calling me? I'm not assigned to the Michaelson case."

"I think you should get yourself assigned to it, because I'm telling you there's a connection."

"Listen," Gibbons responded. "I'd give my right nut to know how that bastard Purcell did what he did. But you know as well as I do that the Sandpoint Strangler is dead. So, if that's all you've got, call me on Monday."

The phone clicked and Gibbons was gone.

"Damn," Caleb muttered, and dialed him again.

Gibbons answered on the first ring. "She just pulled up," he complained. "What the hell is it
this
time?"

Caleb came right to the point. "I've got a picture of Susan the night she disappeared."

His words were met with a few moments of silence, then, "How? Where?"

A doorbell rang in the background. While Gibbons let his lady friend into the house, Caleb explained how he and Holly had come across the photo.

"So Tuesday night's the last time anyone saw her alive," Gibbons said.

"Anyone we've found so far."

"I want to see that picture."

"I thought you were too busy with Catherine Zeta Jones to get involved in someone else's case," Caleb said. "It's Saturday night, remember?"

"Kiss my ass, Trovato. I was heading back to the office in a couple of hours anyway."

"
There's
the hopeless workaholic I know and love."

"Criminals don't only work nine to five."

"Well, I've got something that'll get your attention. In the background of this picture, there's an '87 or '88 Ford, blue, with a white camper shell. It's identical to the one Purcell drove."

Gibbons gave an audible sigh, hesitated as though weighing this information, then said, "That could be a coincidence, too."

"Too many coincidences usually means there's no coincidence," Caleb said. "What's this I hear about a woman who's gone missing from Spokane?"

"That's probably completely unrelated."

"Holly says there was an article in the paper detailing the similarities. Some Rohypnol was found in her car, along with a piece of rope."

"We haven't even found her body yet. You're a cop, for hell's sake. Or you used to be," he added. "Don't start jumping to conclusions like everyone else. For all we know, that Spokane woman could be languishing on a beach somewhere."

"Or the Sandpoint Strangler is back in business."

"I think the Sandpoint Strangler is dead."

Caleb didn't mention that at one point Gibbons had thought the janitor at Schwab Elementary was the strangler.

"I guess it's possible that we're dealing with a copycat," Gibbons said. "Spokane's not in our jurisdiction, but I'll talk to Lieutenant Coughman and see if I can't help out a little with the Michaelson case. I know the lead detective was expecting the preliminary findings on some of the hair and fiber evidence recovered from her apartment, but I haven't heard anything yet."

"You find out, and I'll drop by in a few hours." Caleb saw Holly making her way toward him with a child-size hamburger and the change from his twenty. "One more thing," he said.

"What is it?"

"Would you do me a favor?"

"That depends on what it is."

Caleb pulled out the license plate number he'd written down last night. "I need you to run a plate."

"Why?"

"Just covering a few bases."

"I've gotta have a better reason than that, Trovato. You're not on the payroll anymore."

"I saw Johnny Purcell last night. He was in an old Buick Skylark with this plate."

Another long silence. Finally, Gibbons muttered, "What the hell. This is probably a waste, but...get me something to write with, will you, Kitten?"

"Kitten?"
Caleb repeated.

"Go f--" Catching himself, probably for the lady's benefit, Gibbons lowered his voice. "Screw you," he said. Then he took down the plate number and hung up.

W
HY, AFTER DRAGGING HER
feet at every mention of moving, did her mother want to sell the house
now?

Madison paced the floor of her living room, with the movie
Chocolat
on her DVD player, wondering what she should do. She felt a headache coming on, was exhausted from her busy day and her lack of sleep the night before, but she couldn't let herself rest. Neither could she concentrate on the movie. She had to make a decision about that box before her mother's neighbor started clearing out the crawl space.

House for sale...Nightmare in the making...

Madison rubbed her temples, hoping to ward off her headache. Her mother's neighborhood was a mixed bag of brick, wood and stucco homes, the timeless and well-maintained next to the old and dilapidated. But it was close to the university, had appealing narrow streets, rows of tall shady trees and, like the ivy-covered, redbrick buildings of the campus, gave the impression of traditional values and old money. Her mother's place should sell right away--except for the fact that it was the home of an alleged murderer and the location of a suicide. That would draw more curiosity seekers and ghouls than serious buyers.

The telephone rang, startling her. Snatching up the receiver so the sound wouldn't wake Brianna, she murmured a soft "Hello?" She'd expected it to be Danny again. Brianna had called him before bed to tell him about the praying mantis. Caleb was letting her keep it in her room until Monday, when she planned to take it to school to show the class.

"Sorry to bother you." It was Caleb Trovato. Madison knew instantly because of the flutter of excitement in her belly. "I saw your lights on and thought you might be hungry," he said. "I just ordered a pizza. Would you like to share it with me?"

Instinctively, Madison moved toward the window to peer through the wooden shutters she'd closed when she heard Caleb pull into the drive an hour or so earlier. She saw him standing at his living room window, one hand holding the phone to his ear, the other propped against the wall as he gazed out. She knew he'd seen her peeking at him when he smiled and gave her a small salute.

Closing the shutters, Madison stepped quickly away. Attractive didn't begin to describe Caleb Trovato, which was a big problem. She couldn't afford to get involved with anyone right now, least of all someone so smooth. Earlier this afternoon, he'd neutralized Brianna's resentment of him in just a few hours. And he'd charmed them both at the ice cream parlor. Given enough time and privacy, imagine what he could do with a lonely divorcee....

"I've already eaten," she said. "But I appreciate the offer."

"I was actually looking for company more than anything," he replied. "It's Saturday night, after all, and I don't know anyone in the immediate area."

Plotting to cover up her father's misdeeds was by nature a rather solitary endeavor, Madison thought sarcastically. "It's getting late...."

"It's only ten o'clock."

She could tell that "no" wasn't an answer Caleb heard very often. But she wasn't particularly concerned about his potential loneliness. She was more worried about insuring her life and Brianna's remained on a calm and even course. No extreme ups and downs. Just thoughtful decisions, solid parenting and a strong work ethic--no matter how good he looked standing in that window.

"Let me be honest, Caleb," she said. "You've been very nice, and...and I really appreciate all the work you did in the yard today and the ice cream and all that. But I'd prefer to compensate you for your time and effort in rent or meals rather than feel obligated to you in...other ways."