Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (7 page)

“Officer, you’ve got to believe me!” Shayna cried as the policewoman put her hand on Shayna’s head and pressed her down into the backseat of the patrol car. For what it was worth,
I
believed her. Drug use was a part of her past, but I doubted very much she was involved in it any longer, and she certainly hadn’t seemed under the influence when I had dealt with her in the last few weeks. She just seemed like a normal young woman who had made some bad decisions but had been working to turn her life around.

Now her life was taking a turn, all right, but definitely not in the direction she’d intended. Verlene and I silently watched as the police confiscated the bags of Shayna’s new clothes and then drove off, lights flashing but with no siren. I watched the back of her head through the window as they slowly drove away, feeling a
surge in the pit of my stomach, anxious for this poor kid and what might happen to her next.

Verlene was shaken and exhausted, and our earlier conversation about rental space and third parties was forgotten in the trauma of the afternoon. Eventually, her daughter showed up to drive her home, and I was relieved to see the girl put one arm firmly around her mother’s shoulders and lead her carefully to the waiting car.

Once they were gone, I hung around the scene a bit longer, eavesdropping out of curiosity more than anything else. I tried to figure out who was who among the different people milling around the scene. I had already identified the lieutenant, the coroner, and the detectives, and I figured out which man was the patrol supervisor by the way he spoke to the other uniformed cops and kept a wary eye on the borders of the crime scene.

That left a man in a coat and tie who seemed to hover among the activity without becoming directly involved. He had a thin face with a pointed chin and a hook nose, and I had heard someone refer to him as “Litman.” I probably wouldn’t have thought much of him at all, except that the lieutenant seemed almost to defer to him, which was odd.

I finally decided Mr. Litman must be with the district attorney’s office. In an area like this, they probably didn’t get many murders—which meant that when they did, everyone who could possibly get involved came crawling out of the woodwork. The number of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances that had first responded to the scene was a testament to that.

I wondered who Shayna’s public defender would be and if he or she would be any good. Shayna had no way of knowing I was an attorney, and I was glad. As a corporate lawyer, I had never practiced criminal law and wasn’t qualified to start now.

But I had also been a private investigator for quite a few years, and that part of me wondered if perhaps I could help now in some way. The poor kid didn’t have any money or contacts. Though I hadn’t been willing to sign on for her “missing persons” problem
earlier today, murder was a different matter. I decided to visit Shayna at the jail the next day to see if we could figure this out. For now, it was time to go home. The sun had set quickly, and the darker it got the colder it became.

I approached the female cop who had arrested Shayna to ask if I was free to leave the scene. She was talking to another officer, so I waited at her elbow, watching as several men extricated the stiff, dead body from the trunk. First, they unzipped a body bag and spread it out on the ground, and then they carefully lifted the body and set it down on the open bag.

As they zipped the bag shut, I noted that the dead man was wearing cheap shoes, polyester pants, and an ill-fitting navy sweater dotted across the back with some kind of seed burrs. Nearly all of his clothing was darkly stained with blood.

The tire iron was carefully removed next, a dark metal rod with one curved end, the diameter of which seemed to match the size and shape of Eddie Ray’s head wound. My guess was that they had found their murder weapon. The policeman slid the rod into an extra-long evidence bag and carried it away. I felt sure the police would impound the car.

At last the female cop finished her conversation and turned her attention toward me.

“Hey, Callie,” she said. “I’d bet you’re about ready to get out of here.”

Again, I had that feeling that we knew each other. I didn’t want to embarrass myself, but I also didn’t want to go any further without making the connection.

“I’m sorry, but how do I know you?” I asked bluntly. “I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

She looked bemused, and then she took off her hat and grinned.

“I’m Barbara Hightower,” she said, smoothing down short, dark bangs. “Denise’s sister?”

I smiled, recognizing her now from the beauty salon. She had stopped in once while I was there, and I remembered remarking
there was probably a Hightower in every line of work in the county.

“Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry. You look just like her. I should’ve remembered.”

“No offense taken,” she replied, putting her hat back on. “There are so many of us, even we get confused sometimes.”

I told her that my father and brother were cops and that I had been impressed with the police work I’d seen there this evening. I asked if the public defender’s office was equally as proficient.

“It’s really the luck of the draw over there,” she replied under her breath. “Depends on who she gets. You know how it is.”

I nodded, saying that I hoped someone competent would be assigned to Shayna’s case.

“Excuse me,” a man said, interrupting, “but what exactly is your involvement here?”

We turned to see the fellow in the suit, the one I assumed was from the DA’s office.

“Mr. Litman, this is Callie Webber,” Barbara said, stiffening. “She was with Shayna Greer when the body was discovered.”

“Has she been questioned by the detectives?”

“Yes, sir. We’re just wrapping things up.”

“Very well,” the man said, turning away as if he had already dismissed us. “When you’re finished, Officer Hightower, please escort Ms. Webber to the perimeter of the police line.”

He strutted off and Barbara rolled her eyes.

“Who is that?” I whispered.

“Just a bureaucrat.”

Together, we walked toward the perimeter.

“So anyway,” Barbara said, “you don’t think she did it?”

“No, I don’t,” I replied. “She doesn’t have it in her.”

“Maybe not.”

“Besides,” I said, “like I told the detectives already, Shayna spent half the day sobbing because she thought Eddie Ray had gone off and left her. Trust me, when Verlene opened that trunk, Shayna was as shocked to see the guy there as we were.”

Another officer began waving Barbara over to the car, so she told me I was free to leave and then shook my hand, thanking me for my cooperation. She gave me a card with her name and numbers on it, in case I thought of anything else I needed to tell the police. I tucked the card into my pocket, my fingers stiff from the cold. I was more than happy to head home to the warmth of my house.

I started the car and pulled into the line of traffic heading out of town, thinking about Shayna and her plight. The poor girl! Not only had she lost Eddie Ray—admittedly, not the most wonderful guy in the world but certainly someone she’d shared a past with and still had some feelings for—but now she was sitting in jail, about to be charged with his murder. All afternoon, when he was merely “missing,” I had told myself that she was being an alarmist, that she had no reason to worry about him.

Apparently, I had been dead wrong.

By the time I made it out of Osprey Cove and onto the highway, the air coming through my heater vents was warm. My brain was spinning, and I told myself that it was time to clear my thoughts. Shayna’s problems would still be there in the morning, I knew. I would check up on her then. For now, I decided, I would concentrate on picking up my dog and getting home. I said a prayer for Shayna, and then I put her out of my mind and turned my attention toward the tasks at hand.

Nine

After the confusion and trauma of the afternoon, it did feel good to be going home. Located about ten miles beyond Osprey Cove, my house was my retreat: a cozy two-bedroom cottage on three acres of wooded land right on the waterfront. It was an odd
area to live in and had taken some getting used to—especially the lack of city conveniences and the irritating rhythms of tourism. But the problems of living there were well worth the trade-off, for I had merely to stroll across my yard and down the dock to be out on my canoe, where I spent nearly all of my free time paddling up and down the hundreds of rivers, inlets, and tributaries of the wildlife-rich Chesapeake Bay area.

You couldn’t see the water from the highway—especially not in the dark, like now. The road was lined with tall pines and dense vegetation, broken here and there by long driveways that wound off out of sight into the trees. To the casual visitor, it was all very deceptive, since most of those plain-looking driveways led to shockingly huge and expensive mansions along the waterfront. I saw everything from the river in my canoe, so I knew just what was hidden beyond those pines, and the opulence was sometimes astonishing. My own home was a true find, a former caretaker’s cottage that had been parceled off from an estate and sold for a large but not unmanageable sum. Bought with the full amount of Bryan’s life insurance settlement, the place gave me privacy and water access without a million-dollar mortgage.

As I neared my turnoff, I called Lindsey, the teenager who always kept my dog when I was traveling. She was surprised to hear from me so soon but said she would have Sal ready to go when I got there.

Lindsey was as good as her word, and after a quick, two-minute stop, I proceeded to my house with Sal on my lap. She was a good dog, very tiny but not nervous the way so many toy breeds tended to be. She loved riding in the car, and right now she was also happy to have me back.

There was one light on in the house when we got home, the lamp in the front room I kept on a timer. Otherwise, the place was quiet and dark. I didn’t mind. I found the solitude peaceful and welcoming.

I flipped on lights as we came in, working my way down the hall to my bedroom at the end. I put my pumps away, took off the suit I had worn all day, and slipped into sweatpants and a warm sweatshirt. I felt weary but wired, and I couldn’t believe I had started the day in a graveyard in Nashville. What a lot had happened since then!

I went back to the kitchen and heated some canned soup for myself and scooped some dog food on a plate for Sal. My kitchen was wide and functional, with a door to the carport on one side and a sliding glass door that led to the deck on the other. On summer days I could pull a wonderful breeze all the way through. Now that the days were getting colder, however, I wouldn’t be doing that for a while.

The rest of the house was simple and cozy, its rooms all in a row from front to back. First there was the wide front room with a fireplace, couches, and chairs; then the kitchen with its access to the big wrap-around deck; then the back bedroom, with a small adjoining bathroom. The second bedroom, which I used as an office, jutted out from the side of the house on the right, and I had a feeling it had been added to the cottage’s original structure at a later date.

Outside, I used the “L” shape of the house to form two sides of a play yard for my dog. I had placed a neat little dog house in the corner and then fenced in the other two sides, putting the gate right next to the carport. In comparison with most of my wealthy neighbors, my home was quite small, but I loved it and found it big enough for my simple needs.

In the kitchen was a perfectly good table and chairs, but now I ate my dinner standing at the counter, still feeling edgy. After Sal and I had both finished eating, I let her out and then washed my dishes, flipped through my mail, and checked my phone messages.

There was nothing there from Tom. I walked down the hall to my home office, turned on the computer, and went online to answer my e-mail. There was nothing from Tom there, either.

I tried calling his cell, his office, and his home phone numbers, but there was no answer at any of them. My frustration surged as I hung up the phone. What was going on with him? What was the emergency, and exactly when was he going to be able to get back to me?

For the first time, I felt truly cut off from him. It made me realize that no matter how much I liked Tom, no matter how well we got along over the telephone, in the end I was just another employee. When this emergency arose—whatever the nature of it was—he was simply off and gone. That I could understand, of course, but what hurt my feelings was the lack of personal contact afterward. I had thought we were more to each other than that.

I stood and crossed the hall into the bedroom, intending to change into a nightgown and go to bed. The more I dug through my nightgown drawer, however, the more upset I became. Finally, I slammed the drawer shut, went to the closest, and started digging for some warm clothes, plus gloves, a scarf, a hat, and a big, strong flashlight.

With everything that was on my mind, I was never going to get to sleep tonight. If I was going to feel this way all evening, I decided, I might as well accomplish something useful in the meantime.