Nowhere Safe (11 page)

A rap on Lucky’s bedroom door sent her shooting to wakefulness, the wisps of a recurring nightmare—where she was running from a burning pyre—evaporating into smoke.

“Mr. Blue . . . Hiram?” she called, afraid. He’d never knocked on her door before and if it wasn’t him, then who was it?

“Come on out,” he said through the panels.

Quickly she looked at the sky through her window and realized the gray light of dawn was edging out the blackness, giving faint visibility to the evergreens beyond the garden. She hurriedly grabbed the clothes she’d thrown on the floor the night before: a pair of jeans, black socks, a tan jog bra, and a black sweater. Padding sock-foot across the floor, she unlocked her door and peered into the garage. Mr. Blue was nowhere to be seen, so she shut her door and headed into the kitchen.

She’d expected him to be seated at the dining table, contemplating the outdoors, but he was in the kitchen, drinking from a mug of tea. She could smell the deep, loamy scent of the herbs he used to steep it.

This time his gaze was through the window over the sink, which looked out to the front of the house. He turned her way, then nodded toward the window. Lucky moved up beside him and looked out. In the front of the house was an older model champagne-colored compact sedan. A Nissan, she thought, though she couldn’t quite tell from her angle of sight.

“Juan brought it up from California,” Mr. Blue said.

Juan was Mr. Blue’s contact who bought and sold up and down the West Coast and into Mexico many of the items Mr. Blue asked for. Lucky didn’t know Juan’s last name. She’d scarcely actually ever seen him, nor he her, which was all to the good. The less connections, the better. And every deal was made in cash. Maybe once upon a time Mr. Blue had trusted banks. She suspected he still had an account or two somewhere, but his dealings in herbs, narcotics, and various other illegal ventures were strictly in US dollars that were kept somewhere on the property.

“Thank you,” Lucky said.

“The plates are good. Be careful.” Then he handed her the keys and headed back down the hall to his rooms.

 

 

“The tox screen came back on Carrie Carter,” Wes said when September arrived at work on Friday morning. “Looks like she died of an overdose of several different narcotics, Special K being one of them.”

“Special K . . .” September repeated.

“Ketamine hydrochloride. Big in the nineties,” George called from across the room.

“Big at raves, I know. I was just wondering where she got the stuff.” September shot George an annoyed look.

“Some dealer in date-rape drugs,” Wes said with a shrug as she continued on her way to the break room and her locker.

Ketamine hydrochloride was commonly used in veterinary clinics to anesthetize animals before surgery. Administered intravenously, the drug worked instantaneously, but it could also be taken orally—put in someone’s drink, for instance— and within minutes, the person would be dissociated from reality or completely out, depending on the amount ingested. Roofies and GHB were the two drugs September had encountered most often, roofies being what had been used on Chris Ballonni and probably Stefan.

When she walked back into the squad room with a cup of coffee, she asked, “So is J.J. leaning toward homicide now?”

“Results are inconclusive. I’m going to go talk to Carrie’s mom again. See what shakes loose. She’s convinced it was suicide, but there was no note. Can you come along?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a call into Rhoda Bernstein, one of the people on Chris Ballonni’s mail route. She complained about Ballonni. He gave her daughter a piece of gum, which was something he did all the time, apparently.”

“Not smart. Handing out gum to kids.”

“Yeah, I know. She says he handed out gum to everyone. She doesn’t see why anyone would object.”

“She ain’t living in the real world, then,” Wes said.

“I’m hoping Mrs. Bernstein calls me today. I plan to talk to other people along her husband’s route, and also his coworkers. But for now, I’m yours.” She smiled.

“Let’s go.”

Wes went to grab his coat and September did the same. There was rain in the forecast but currently it was dry, though a sharp wind was hitting in surprisingly hard bursts. Half an hour later they were pulling up to the Carter home, a two-story saltbox that had seen better days. Originally painted dusty blue with white trim, the blue had faded unevenly and the white trim had yellowed and chipped. It was located about two miles from Foxglove Park.

Wes and September walked up to the front door together and Wes pressed the bell. He had to push it a second time before the door was opened by a woman with dark circles under her eyes and wearing a bathrobe that was as faded as the house.

“Mrs. Carter?” Wes asked. She nodded, silently opening the door as she stepped back to allow them entry. Wes had called and alerted her that they would be stopping by, so she’d been expecting them, but she hadn’t gotten dressed in the meantime. Grief zapped energy, and there was no doubt that she was grieving.

“I’m Detective Rafferty,” September introduced herself.

Debra Carter shook her hand limply. “Have a seat,” she said, gesturing toward the living room before letting her arm drop. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you, ma’am,” Wes said. There was a slight drawl to his words that intensified his unconscious, cowboy-ish manner.

They sat down in two occasional chairs while Debra dropped onto one end of the couch, leaning above the overstuffed arm as if it were her total support.

“A reporter called me,” she said. “They wanted to do an interview. . . .”

Wes looked to September and she realized he wanted her to take the lead. She rarely had while Gretchen was her partner because Gretchen just bulled right into the questions and damned the consequences.

Diffidently, she said, “Mrs. Carter, in your initial statement you indicated that you felt your daughter had committed suicide.”

She had a box of tissues on the table beside her and she reached over and grabbed one up, crumpling it in one fist. “Carrie Lynne was heartbroken after Dan broke up with her. I didn’t like him much, but she thought she was in love. When he left and moved to California, she quit her job and planned to go after him, but he told her not to. He was just moving on.”

“How long ago was that?” September asked.

“About two months.”

Wes had told her that he’d tried to contact Dan Quade, the boyfriend, but the guy was hard to find.

“Where did she work before she quit?” September asked.

“T.J. Maxx. I sent her to Dr. Rolfe. I told you that, didn’t I?”

She was looking at Wes, who nodded and reminded her, “You said Dr. Rolfe prescribed the antidepressant found in her system.”

“There’s who killed her,” she said sorrowfully. “The doctor.”

“Mrs. Carter, there were other drugs found in her system, too,” September said. “Ketamine hydrochloride was one.”

“What’s that?” She asked the question with no real interest.

Wes said, “It has a lot of street names: Special K, or just K, or OK, Vitamin K. It’s a legal drug used for anesthesia but it’s also a date-rape drug.”

She focused on him, a line between her brows. “You think someone gave her a date-rape drug?”

“We don’t know how it got into her system,” September said.

Debra Carter sighed and wagged her head back and forth. “You know, I didn’t want to go on vacation, but Charles, he loves Mexico, loves the sun. I knew Carrie wasn’t doing well after Dan left. He was such a bad influence. If she had Special K or whatever it’s called in her system, you can be sure he got it for her.” She opened the tissue and smoothed it out. “I’d like to blame him, but she probably used it on herself. She was like that.” She thought for a moment, and then added hopefully, “Unless Dr. Rolfe prescribed it for her . . . ?”

“That’s unlikely. It’s used by veterinarians to sedate animals before surgery,” September explained.

She blinked several times. “It’s for . . . animals?”

“Does that mean something to you?” September asked.

“The Stafford Animal Clinic is right across the parking lot from T.J. Maxx. That’s how Carrie met Dan. His brother worked there at the clinic.”

September looked at Wes, who had pulled out his notebook and a pen. He asked, “Do you know his brother’s name?”

“No. Ben, maybe?” she tried, then shook her head. “I don’t think he’s there any longer. But maybe he got the drug for Dan and then Dan gave it to Carrie.”

They asked her a few more questions, but Debra couldn’t add anything further. She got up from the couch a few minutes later and walked them to the door, saying sadly, “I know it’s your job to make sure this wasn’t something else, but in the end, I think she just couldn’t stand to be here anymore, so she found a way out.”

When they were back in Wes’s Range Rover, September said, “She blames herself for not being around when her daughter committed suicide.”

Wes nodded. “Think she’s going to forgive Charles for taking her away when her daughter needed her?”

“Not a chance. Let’s go check with the Stafford Animal Clinic and see what they have to say.”

“And then Dr. Rolfe.”

“And Stefan,” September reminded Wes. “When you interview him again, I want to know what he says.”

“Your stepbrother doesn’t want to talk to the police. No way, no how.”

“Ex-stepbrother.”

He snorted. “Yeah, right. I keep forgetting.”

“I don’t,” September said, thinking about Stefan’s secretive ways and sour disposition.

They were almost back to the station when her cell phone sang a familiar tune,
Hawaii Five-0,
which she’d assigned to her sister, July, more an homage to cop shows rather than because it had any real meaning for her sister. Once Auggie had sneaked
Dragnet
onto her phone as her default ring-tone, which she’d immediately taken off as soon as it rang and her brother collapsed into fits of laughter. Now, she kind of didn’t care.

“Hey, there,” she answered.

“September, my God. What the hell’s up with Stefan?” July asked.

“Yeah, I know. First he said he was tied to the basketball hoop pole as a prank, then he recanted and said he was attacked.”

“It’s just like that other one, right?”

“Christopher Ballonni. Definitely looks like the same MO, but it could be a copycat.”

“I always said he was a creep,” she declared fervently. “But I kind of expected him to attack somebody, not the other way around.”

“Stefan’s too much of a coward,” September heard herself say. She hadn’t really thought of him in those terms—mainly, she didn’t think about him, period—but once the words were out, she realized how true they were.

“Who’s doing this?” July demanded.

“Don’t know yet. We’re following up.” September couldn’t keep her sister informed, but at this juncture there wasn’t much to say anyway. “How are you feeling?”

“I should be asking you that,” July said. “How’s the neck?”

“More shoulder than neck. Fine. How’s the baby?”

“So far so good.”

Her older sister had determined that she was going to have a baby whether there was a father in the picture or not. To that end, July had gone to a fertility clinic and had been artificially inseminated with her daddy-of-choice’s sperm. Originally, she’d thought her little girl was due in May, and she’d planned to name her after their sister, May, who’d been killed when September was in her early teens. But recent tests showed that the baby was further along and it looked like the little girl would be coming in April. The last September had heard, her sister was torn between still naming her baby May, in honor of their sister, or April, in keeping with the family tradition of naming children after the months of the year in which they were born. Not that July was really in love with that idea, but she’d admitted she liked the name April. Still, like September and Auggie, July scoffed at their father’s strange obsession. Braden had just been lucky Auggie was born in August and September in September. If it had been the other way around, would he have kept with the tradition?

Whatever the case, July’s daughter would be born in April.

“Have you talked to Dad about the fire?” July asked now.

“Over and over again. There’s been no movement.”

“What’s that mean?”

“No new information. No new clues. It’s still an open case.”

“You know what I think.”

“About Stefan? Yes,” September said.

Though July wanted to believe Stefan was responsible for pouring gasoline in the garage at Castle Rafferty and setting fire to it, there was still no proof. It was all well and good to believe Stefan capable of such an act, but just not liking him wasn’t reason enough to lay the blame at his feet. This was the same thing she’d told her sister damn near every time they spoke, so now she decided to go the other way. “Let’s say you’re right. Then why? Why would Stefan set the fire?”

“To destroy evidence,” July responded promptly.

“What evidence?”

“Of a crime.”

“You gotta be more specific.”

“Maybe it was drugs,” July said, grasping at straws. “Or computer files, or something, that incriminated him. God, it could be anything.”

“The fire was set in the garage and it burned into the kitchen,” September reminded her.

“And it burned up all those boxes of our stuff that Rosamund dragged back from the storage unit after you nailed her about tossing them out.”

“Dad got on her, too,” September reminded her.

“As well he should,” she said roundly. “Don’t get me started on Evil Stepmother Number Two. Rosamund can’t just erase everything Rafferty from the house. But back to my point: some of those boxes were filled with Stefan’s old stuff.”