The Woman (10 page)

After a minute or so of just looking dumbfounded at the chief, Linda poured herself another cup, not bothering with the splash of hazelnut flavored cream she normally added. She had never before drunk four cups in one morning. But then she’d never been in the middle of whatever she was in the middle of now.

“Chief . . . Ben . . . I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“Something I didn’t tell you before, but should have, as it turns out anyway.”

“Go ahead. I don’t know what any of this means, but holding back surely won’t help us figure out much.”

“The two men in the alley.”

“You know something about them?” The chief’s eyes narrowed a bit. “So far the Bradford police report their fingerprints don’t check with any known prints. Do you know who they are?”

“No. Not who they are. This likely won’t help at all, but . . . well, I should have told you before.”

The chief frowned, the movement furrowed his eyebrows.

“The night they were killed, I’d say around eight or so, I walked into town. When I passed the alley, a man grabbed me. He dragged me back to a point behind the donut shop where another man waited. That’s where the paper said the bodies were found. I believed they were going to rape me. But I got away. Now, I’m wondering if maybe they wanted to make me another victim. Why? I mean, I’m nobody special.”

“They didn’t rape you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think I would know, Ben.”

“Ladies don’t always admit being raped. So tell me, were you?”

“Last time, Ben, I was not raped. Next question.”

“Okay. They grabbed you, dragged you into the alley. Then what?”

“Only one grabbed me, the shorter man, the one with all the tattoos. When he got me back near where they were found, the second, a heavyset man appeared in the shadows, leaning against the wall about ten feet away, his foot up against the bricks. The one who forced me back there held both my arms. When he got me there, he relaxed his grip. I pulled my arm free, hit him in the nuts and ran. At the time, like I said, I thought I had gotten away from being raped.” Linda crossed her arms tightly, each of her hands in her armpits. She shuddered. “Now, I don’t know, maybe from being murdered.”

“You outran them both?”

“I run on the beach nearly every day. You’ve seen me. They chased me until I got to the street. After a block I looked back. They had stayed in the dark. After another block I stopped running. They weren’t chasing me. I walked home. That’s it.”

“Why didn’t you come to my office? It’s on your way home.”

“Turns out, I should have. But at that point, well, nothing really had happened. I had gotten away. I assumed they’d just scurry back into the hole they had come out of. I didn’t want an attempted rape police report. The paper picks that up. I didn’t want folks fussing when they saw me. I live a quiet life, Ben. You know that.”

“Okay. So what did you do?”

“I walked an irregular pattern, cutting back here and there until I got home. I never saw them again. I assumed they didn’t know my identity or where I lived. That they had been drunk or something and just grabbed the first woman that passed the alley.”

“Turns out, they never left the alley. Did you have a gun with you, Linda?”

“No, Chief McIlhenny, I did not. Certainly, you don’t think I shot them. That I could hit them each twice in the head, even if I did?”

“I suppose not. My job’s to ask.”

“I understand. Is it possible those two killed Cynthia and everyone at SMITH & CO., and then were killed in turn by someone else?”

“We got ourselves a long list of possibilities. The medical examiner from Bradford’s doing the autopsies, but his preliminary opinion was that Cynthia and her coworkers had all died earlier than the two men in the alley. He felt very sure about that. If so, that’d line up with what you just said. They killed the others, then, having done their job, were eliminated themselves. Why or by who is anybody’s guess. You’d think, with my having worked as a detective in New Jersey that I’d know a lot about murder investigations, but I don’t. My time there was spent mostly working home burglaries. The last couple years I worked vice. Now I’m a small town police chief. I’m guessing this is the work of a professional. Sure looks that way.”

“At Cynthia’s,” Linda said, “there were aspirins and a sleeve of decongestants on her kitchen counter. I also saw a box of Kleenex on the small table near her bed and another on the table in her living room.”

“You’d make a good detective,” Ben said, “I saw that, too. The way I figure it, they planned to kill Cynthia along with the others at SMITH & CO. But, when they got there, Cynthia had not come in due to being sick. So after they did their thing at her company, they made a house call.”

“Maybe all this is about murdering SMITH & CO., not Cynthia. You need to find out just what kind of consulting they did.”

“I agree this may have been about SMITH & CO. So far, we haven’t found anything out except there was no one named Smith. According to the state corporation commissioner’s office, Cynthia owned SMITH & CO. Certainly you knew that.”

“No,” Linda said. “Cynthia always told me the owner was an out-of-town guy named Smith. That she managed the place. Mr. Smith doesn’t like visitors, she’d say, so don’t ever stop at the office. Smith doesn’t even like us talking about the work we do. Blah. Blah. Blah. They had computers. A little time with them should tell you all you want to know about their work. Their clients. Mail. Files. The answers should all be in that office.”

“Only one problem.”

“What,” Linda asked.

“The computers are there, but the hard drives are gone. And the file cabinets are empty.”

“They’ll have back-up disks somewhere. Every business does nowadays.”

“Appears those things were all kept in a fireproof safe in the office. We found the door standing open and the safe empty. There was not a piece of incoming mail or an envelope prepared to be mailed anywhere. Cascades Bank said they had no safe-deposit box. I’m supposed to pick up a copy of their bank statements later today. The post office said their carrier never took or picked up mail at the business. O’Malley, at the bistro across the street, says Fed Ex trucks came there every day. And O’Malley never saw anyone enter or leave that office except for Cynthia, the three dead employees, the bottled water delivery guy, and the Fed Ex driver. They got no mail through the post office. None. Zip. Now that’s odd as hell, don’t you think?”

Chapter 16

Last night, the sky had been red. Old-time sailors say a red sky at night, meant sailors delight. This morning, the weather had provided some measure of proof. The air had been still and cool, the sky azure blue with high smeary clouds.

Later in the day, Linda left for a walk on the beach, but she would do no jogging this morning. No reading. No day trades. This walk was about trying to make some sense out of the recent events that had upended her life.

She began her walk heading up-beach. The locals considered the direction toward their small town always to be up-beach. Conversely, the direction away from town was always referred to as down-beach. The appropriateness of the terms was dictated by one’s location on the beach with respect to the direction toward town.

With the afternoon maturing toward evening and the sun sliding toward the horizon, Linda ignored her stomach’s overdue notices and continued walking and thinking.

A few hours later, with the sun seemingly sitting on the edge of the distant water, she turned from the surf and started up toward her condo. She had been walking since before noon. Her legs felt exhausted and she had grown quite hungry. She had found no answers. Soon she would go inside, to eat. She had homemade bean soup in the freezer for dinner. She would add some crackers to get back some of the salt lost while walking.

Fifty yards from her condo, she stopped in one of her favorite spots, snuggled down her beach hat, and sat behind one of the sand berms to watch the sea. Over the ages, violent storms had pushed the sand inland. The shaping winds contoured the berms with the seabirds pitching in to help spread the seeds. That mixture was then left to Mother Nature’s mild spring temperatures and hot summer hands.

On the coast, the sun drops from the edge of the horizon to behind it in a matter of minutes. About that time, being resigned to the fact that she would find no more answers sitting and thinking than she had found walking and thinking, she turned her position sufficiently to watch her condo through the wind-combed veil of sea grass. After a while, she startled when her two living room lamps, fixed with timers, came on. The lamps were positioned so that anyone moving inside would cast shadows. Ten minutes later, having seen no indoor shadows and not wanting to longer endure the demands from her stomach, she rose and trudged up the slight, steady incline to her condo.

She ate the bean soup and crackers in silence. She did not turn on the television or put on music, just watched as the deepening night pulled its dark blanket over the coast and began energizing the lamps in heaven. Then she went to bed.

Some hours later, she woke suddenly. Perhaps her subconscious had been reviewing her investments. It would not be the first time she had awakened with a decision regarding a buy or sell she had been pondering, but not this time.

She had awakened because something didn’t seem right, nothing she could put her finger on, just something she couldn’t ignore. Living alone, she had learned the personality of her home as one might come to know the personality of a spouse or roommate. And all was not right. Her bedroom seemed too dark. Then she felt a whisper of movement, nothing more than a breath, but not her own. She glanced peripherally, opening her eyes just far enough. The Venetian blinds beside her bed were closed. That accounted for the darkness. The problem, she always kept the blinds slanted open so the sun could gently wake her each morning.

Someone had been in her house.

Someone had darkened her room.

She remained motionless, feigning sleep, searching for a rational explanation. Yesterday morning, Ben McIlhenny had stopped by. But she had stayed with him the whole time. They hadn’t come into the bedroom although she had long known he desired to do so. At times she had found the thought appealing. Ben was a powerfully built man and that power would likely fuel his lust. But no, whoever had closed her blinds had come in earlier today. While she was on the beach, there was no other explanation. But why hadn’t he or they stayed to capture her when she came back inside?

A small odor came to her. Faint. Unmistakable. The smell of a human. Not body odor or flatulence. Musk? Yes, Musk, a man’s fragrance she found too bold. She could not think of a man in Sea Crest who wore musk. Yet, here it was. In her home. In her bedroom. Discernible even as it mixed with the salt air coming through her open glass-sliding door.

Ahab had told her someone would come.

She could see him now.

One man.

At least she could see only one man. He sat in the overstuffed chair near the door to the living room. She had placed the chair there for putting on her shoes, but instead she always sat on the side of the bed. The chair was comfortable, but her butt sank into the cushion below her knees, making it hard to lean forward to tie her shoes and a little klutzy to get out of.

His slouch suggests he might be asleep or at least drowsy. Why hasn’t he taken me? The neighbors’ small lamp next to their TV is still on. Even with her blinds drawn closed, she could see the light from their undraped window. They go to bed after the eleven o’clock news. Could he know that? So, it’s still earlier than midnight. He figures I’m asleep and he’s waiting until the deadness of total darkness.

She had gone to bed fully clothed, just as Ahab had warned her to do. But she had not kept the gun with her, something she had also been warned to do.

If he moves first, gets out of that chair, I’m a goner.

She eased back the covers as one does when getting up to go to the bathroom during the night. She paused, sitting on the edge of her bed, and with her back to the man, ran her hands through her hair. She stood. Reached up and ran her hands under her breasts, rubbing an area that sometimes got itchy while sleeping. Through it all, she denied herself even the slightest look toward the man. He had not moved. If he had, she would know it. No one could rise from that chair easily even at her height, and her glance had noticed he was still taller.

She took one unsteady step toward the bathroom, then a second. Each of her strides appearing to be those of a sleepwalker’s stagger. She was now no more than five steps from the man. Two steps from the mostly open sliding glass door. If awake, he would soon recognize she was dressed in street clothes.

She moved first.

She ran those two steps like a sprinter leaving the blocks, turning sideways slightly to burst through the screened slider which flew off its track, bent and flopped outward onto the deck. She stumbled briefly, regained her balance and ran directly toward the long side of the deck. There, she planted her hands on the top of the railing, just to the right of the hummingbird feeder, and vaulted over, dropping one floor onto the sand below, an area busy with her footprints and those of her neighbors. From there she withdrew into the darkness below her deck, shards of moonlight squeezing through the spaces between the deck boards above her head appeared to slice the sand beneath her feet.