The Iced Princess (21 page)

I nodded and shifted into drive. “The way you said it was ten times more than adequate. I do have one question, though.”

“What's that?”

“Why did you leave the night Molly was killed? It wasn't because your friend needed help, was it?”

Emmy shook her head. “No. Well she is sick, but her daughter is staying with her. I didn't know what to think when the police came over and told me about Molly. They questioned me about what I knew, and I didn't know anything. It brought back all those terrible memories of when Howard died. I had to leave town for a day or two.”

“I've been wondering about it, so thanks for leveling with me.”

—

C
lint was my second unexpected visitor at the shop that day. He was wearing street clothes and his normal stern look. He walked toward me with purpose, and I felt myself tensing up. “Officer Mark tells me Irene Ryland found a photo of her miscreant stepson and you were picking it up so we could have a look.”

“Yes and yes. I meant to get back to Mark about it. He usually stops in earlier than this.”

“Calls for service have kept him pretty busy today. Do you have the photo here?”

I nodded. “I'll get it.” I retrieved it for him then handed it over.

Clint stared at it for a while. “How old was he in the photo?”

“Somewhere between eighteen and early twenties, Irene thinks. He'd be forty-three now.”

“So we'd be safe to age him twenty-two to twenty-four years.”

“We?”

He nodded. “As in me. We have a software program at the PD that does computer-generated age progression.”

“Our PD? Brooks Landing?”

A hint of a smile crossed Clint's face. “Yes, we can do that even out here in Hicksville. Wonders never cease.”

I guess not. I had planned on asking Mark about getting an aged image of Troy, but it seemed Clint was a step ahead. “When do you think you might work on that?”

He opened his jacket and slid the photo in his shirt pocket. “As soon as I get back to the PD.”

I was curious about the process. “Would be all right if I came along and watched?”

He frowned while he thought about it. “Well, I suppose that would be okay.”

“Let me talk to Pinky, see if it's all right to leave.”
Again.
Erin had volunteered to come in, so that was an option.

I felt Clint following behind me. Pinky's eyes rose up over my head, and she smiled at him. “What are you two cooking up?” she said.

Clint patted his pocket. “Something that requires detective skills more than culinary skills: bringing this bad boy's appearance into the right decade.”

Pinky was puzzled. I laughed when I guessed what she was thinking. “Clint's not talking about himself. He's got the old picture of Troy in his pocket.”

“Oh, okay.”

She still didn't understand, so I added, “They have a computer program at the police station that ages faces. He's going to use it on Troy's picture and said I could watch.”

Pinky smiled. “Aha.”

I glanced around and saw people at the back tables. “Erin offered to come in today if we need her.”

Pinky threw her towel on the counter. “You can thank your lucky stars, because she called a minute ago and is on her way in.”

“Good.”

“So grab yourselves a cup of something and get going. And I want to see what that computer program comes up with, okay?”

Clint nodded. “I'll make some copies to distribute.”

“While you're at it, Clint, maybe you can make some target-sized copies so we can throw darts at it.”

I wasn't sure if Pinky said that to show off in front of Clint or if she was that angry at Troy for what he had done to Molly. Either way, it brought a smile to Clint's face. And if the opportunity presented itself, I'd be up for throwing darts at the guy's picture myself. “Right,” he said then turned to me. “Do you want a coffee or something?”

“No, I'm good. I'll go get my coat.”

When I was ready, I spotted Clint putting a cover on a
to-go cup behind Pinky's serving counter. Great, I'd have a noisy, slurping detective on my hands. But he was willing to let me watch the process, so I would be polite, and if I felt too annoyed by the sounds, I'd excuse myself, go into the bathroom at the station, and scream silently.

We headed out to his truck. I had ridden in it once before when he picked me up from a costume party. I was dressed as Marilyn Monroe—long story. As I climbed in this time, I noticed it was much easier to gain access to the high seat without a dress and spike heels on.

“Buckle up,” he said, as if I wasn't going to.
Just go with the flow, Cami.
And then he took a noisy, slurpy sip of his coffee, and I pushed the seat belt together with an extra loud snap.

It was a short ride to the city hall where the police station was housed. Since it was Saturday, the doors to the city offices and police department were locked, but there was a woman sitting at the front desk going through papers. “We staff the office during the day on Saturdays and Sundays, mostly for phone calls. And then if a citizen stops by, someone is here and can step up to the front window,” he explained.

I nodded and smiled at Margaret, the same woman who had been at the front desk on my previous visit there. She frowned and nodded once in my direction.

Clint led the way to his office, set his coffee on his desk, dropped into his chair, then turned on his computer. He shrugged off his wool jacket then pulled it out from behind his back and tossed it on a side chair. He pulled the photo from his pocket and laid it on his desk. “Pull that chair around so you'll have a better view.”

I slipped off my coat and hung it on the back of the chair. It was on wheels and moved easily. I pushed it closer to Clint
but tried to keep as much distance between us as possible. Clint picked up the photo, put it in a scanner, then sent the image to his computer. He logged in then worked on cropping the photo. After he got rid of the background, Troy's face was front and center. He enlarged the image and made it sharper. Next he opened the software program and uploaded Troy's edited photo. After he'd punched in some data, two versions of an older Troy appeared on the screen within a minute. One image depicted a man who had lived a harder life than his counterpart.

“Amazing,” I said.

“It wasn't that long ago we had to have it done manually by a specialist. Now it's a slam dunk. I'd show you what I'll supposedly look like in twenty years, but I wouldn't want to scare you.”

Since Clint's looks had improved as he'd aged so far, I doubted he'd be anywhere close to scary looking as he closed in on sixty. “I'll use the chair arms for support and brace myself,” I quipped.

His lips parted slightly when he grinned. “Maybe some other time. We'll do your photo at the same time.”

Was he kidding? Because that would never happen. There were other, much less painful ways to embarrass myself. “We'll see.”

“I'll get this updated image out to the departments around the state in an attempt to locate him. We didn't find Troy Ryland in Minnesota records, so if he's still around, he's got to be hiding under another identity.” Clint raised his eyebrows. “Not that it worked out so well for Emaline Andersohn, who I understand bailed out of jail this a.m.”

“She came over to the shop, and I gave her a ride home.”

Clint swung his chair around so we were face-to-face,
and it felt surprisingly natural. “You don't say. Are you two bosom buddies now or what?”

“Or what. She needed a lift and I gave it to her. It's that simple.” It wasn't that simple, but it was not the time to talk about the oath I had asked Emmy to take and the promise I made to help her. “Clint, the evidence you found at Emmy's house, the cyanide? How did you find it?”

“We geared up for a thorough search, but as it turned out it was a fairly easy discovery. It was in a box with some glass ornaments, not very well hidden at all. Who knows, maybe Emaline thought it was. Or maybe she figured we'd never look her way in the first place. Or that we wouldn't figure out who she was.”

“If it was me, I'd make sure to get rid of the evidence.”

“You'd think, Camryn. But it's downright surprising how many people don't. And we have to consider the possibility that she planned to use it again on someone else.” My dad had wondered the same thing. Was there any possibility Emmy was a serial killer who'd been stopped in her tracks?

“I don't believe that, and if I was a member of a jury it'd be a hard sell to prove it.”

“Suit yourself, but I'd be willing to wager a bet that if Judge Terney believed Ms. Andersohn had the means to make a five hundred thousand dollar bail, he would have set it a lot higher. Usually you see a million or two on a murder suspect.”

Clint's cell phone rang. “No,” he said when he looked at the display. “It's our local reporter.” I thought he'd let the call go to voicemail, but he braved it out instead. “Hello, Sandy . . . Yes, I can confirm that . . . What? . . . No, I can't go into details, but we'll be checking in with her. . . . She can't leave the state. . . . That's correct. . . . Sorry, but I have
no further comments. Have a good one.” He pushed end on his phone and shook his head. “The media will be all over this one for a day or so until they move on to the next big story. The
Star Tribune
should be calling anytime.”

Clint turned back to his computer and sent an e-mail containing pertinent information on Troy, including his younger and older images, to his selected contacts. Then he printed a number of copies of the images. “An eleven-by-sixteen is the largest sheet I can print from here. Not quite the target size that Pinky asked for.”

Was he serious? “You're really giving one to Pinky to throw darts at?”

“No, I was making an observation. That'd be a good example of what could get a police officer in trouble. I keep my nose clean.”

That was true from all I knew about him. “That's smart. Mind if I take a closer look at the pictures?”

He handed me a copy, and I got goose bumps when it hit me that Troy's older image reminded me a little of three men I'd seen recently: the odd-acting man in the store, the man who stayed with Ramona Zimmer at her house, and the man who acted like Will Dalton's best friend. The one I'd followed home, all the way to Plymouth.

If the men were all standing side by side, their differences would probably be obvious. But their overall looks were similar. Faces on the full side, high foreheads, rounder noses, and thin lips. A general description that would fit a number of guys I knew. The man in the store and Ramona's friend looked more like the clean-living version of Troy, and Will's friend like the hard-living one. I reminded myself
that they weren't real photos of Troy; they were images the computer program had conjured up as possibilities.

“I'll stop by Irene Ryland's and give her back the photo. And I'd like her opinion of how close Troy matches up to one of these images.”

I was planning to visit or at least touch base with Irene myself and was tempted to ask if I could tag along. But on second thought, I decided it was better to let Clint do his thing, then I'd do mine later in the day. “As tough as this is, I know Irene would appreciate that. And if I can get a copy to show Pinky . . . Okay, I know Emmy is your suspect, but there was that someone in the shop not long before Molly died, someone who fits Troy's—and some others'—descriptions. Anyway, he asked for ‘the blonde'; that could have been either Molly or me. The trouble is, Pinky's the only one we know of who saw him.”

“You're back to him, are you?”

“I'm curious.”

Clint's eyebrows and shoulders both lifted a tad as he handed me the photo. “If Pinky does anything more than look at these images, I don't want to know about it. Understood?”

“Yes. Sir.” Then I braced myself as he lifted his coffee cup to his mouth and sucked in the noisiest gulp ever. He did it to irritate me; there was no question about it.

—

C
lint dropped me off at my shop. Erin was behind the counter in Brew Ha-Ha. Her straight black hair was pulled into a ponytail and showed off her beautiful Vietnamese-American face. Pinky was waiting on a customer
in Curio Finds. Her headband had worked its way down her forehead, and her curls were bouncing as she flapped around pointing to snow globes the older gentleman might like. I offered to take over, but the two of them had formed an immediate bond and didn't need me.

I hung up my coat and purse then carried the images of Troy into Brew Ha-Ha to show Erin. She was talking to a customer, so I went behind the counter, laid the photos aside, and helped myself to a decaf. When her last customer was served, I pulled Erin out of earshot and handed her the paper. “Have you ever seen this character around town?”

She looked it over. “Troy Ryland, huh? Around age twenty then fast forwarded to forty-three. The stepbrother Molly never mentioned, to me anyhow.”

I shook my head. “No, and if she hadn't kept secret about him, she just might be alive now.”

“What?
Cami.
” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Now you're thinking Troy killed Molly?”

“I don't know what to think except he needs to be behind bars.” I pointed at the pictures. “And now the police have something to help them identify him.”

—

I
rene Ryland phoned me in the early afternoon to extend her thanks for the beautiful floral arrangement. “And Assistant Chief Lonsbury stopped by earlier,” she added.

“Did that go okay?” It had to have been better than the last time he'd been to her house and ended up arresting her.

“Yes, he tried to return the old photo of Troy, but I told him to keep it. Then he showed me what the computer came up with, aging Troy to look more like he'd look now.”