What Laurel Sees: a love story (A Redeeming Romance Mystery) (16 page)

“Yeah...”

Debra leaned on his desk. “What’s she doing, writing a letter that incriminates her? Why is she hiding a murder weapon they couldn’t have begun to connect to her, bagged in a kitchen drawer of all places? Why is she deserting the very daughter she supposedly killed her ex-husband to reclaim?”

Joe took a hard look at Debra. She still had it in her to surprise him. “You don’t think she did this.”

Debra looked at him, just as cool as an evening breeze. “No. I don’t.”

“Stella! Dinner.”

Joe slouched on a bar stool at his kitchen counter. There was so much to sort out in his mind. Over and over, conversations with Laurel tumbled through his memory. Where was she? He’d asked himself that question all afternoon. One thing was for sure. He wouldn’t get any farther on an empty stomach.

Joe gazed across the kitchen island. Remnants of Clay’s makeup were still smeared here and there. He’d have to clean it up later. Scour it, actually. After he polished off the rest of his takeout Lo Mein. Joe sunk his chopsticks into the carton and fished out a shrimp. Still, no sign of the cat.

“Stella. Baby, come.” He swallowed his food, then clicked his tongue against his cheek. What was it with the females in his life?

Joe leaned over and peered down his hallway. He groaned at the sight. Shredded newspaper clippings were strewn through the hall. Stella’s doing, no doubt. No wonder she hadn’t come when he called. She had a tendency to avoid him whenever she did such things.

Joe’s eyes fell on his answering machine across the room. The little red light blinked insistently. He had a message. Perhaps it was too much to hope that Clay had called to punch in with him.

Joe dragged himself over toward the machine. In all likelihood, it was a telemarketer hawking carpet cleaning or some phishing expedition for his credit card number. Or Debra. Maybe she’d broken her moratorium on calling him all of a sudden. As if they were friendly again.

He pressed the message button. A chill ran through him as a familiar voice reverberated through the speaker.

Laurel.

“
Joe, hi
,” she’d said. “
It’s me. Off the record, I wanted to say I’m sorry and... I’m just hoping you can let this go.  Maybe it’s classless for me to do this over the phone...I probably should have at least had you over, given you a beer from the fridge, but...  What’s done is done, okay
?”

Joe’s brow knitted.

“
Anyway, I just wanted to say goodbye, Joe. And please...don’t look for me
.”

The message ended with an abrupt click. Absently, Joe shook his head. He turned the volume up and hit the play button once more. Again, he leaned into Laurel’s words. He wrapped his mind around everything she had said, all in the flow of what she hadn’t. Why had she bothered to say that thing about having him over? Everything else tracked with a standard kiss-off message.

A chill ran through him as it hit him.

There was a massive iceberg beneath the surface of those waters.

fifteen

A
s testy as McTier could be with Joe, the detective was all too eager to give Laurel’s message a listen. It wasn’t so often that Joe was allowed into the police precinct’s tech room. He reminded himself not to push it. Not if he wanted to hear Laurel’s message run through their high tech equipment.

Joe held his breath as a tech played Laurel’s recording. With their sophisticated system, maybe there would be even more to glean than he could from his scratchy old answering machine speaker.

McTier leaned over the tech’s shoulder, watching the blips and lines of the monitors.

Laurel’s words were clear enough, but there was an uncharacteristic weakness to her voice. “
I’m just hoping you can let this go.
..”

McTier pointed to a monitor read-out. “You got anything you can isolate from that background?”

“
I probably should have at least had you over, given you a beer from the fridge, but... What’s done is done, okay
?”

“Traffic bleed,” the tech said. “A bus. Two buses, actually.”

Joe stepped up. “Okay, what she just said about giving me a beer, that’s what I’m talking about.”

McTier waved him off. “It’s as generic as saying you’ll meet somebody for coffee. You’re reaching to call that a signal.”

Joe tamped down his temperature. “She doesn’t drink beer. There isn’t any in her fridge, and she knows I know that. She was trying to tell me something, without coming out and saying the actual words. Somebody’s got her.”

The detective folded his arms over his chest. “Okay, if she’s so smart, how do you know she didn’t plant the signal, make it sound hinky, just to con you into thinking that she’s still the sweet little victim you bought?”

“Did you even really look at anyone else for this? What about the administrative assistant? She had access to the office after hours.”

McTier scowled. “Rene Cox? Soaking wet and pregnant, she’s barely a hundred pounds.”

Joe flung out his hands. “Hey, this was a crime of passion. You never know. Maybe things weren’t going so well at the office. Maybe they were going too well. What if that baby she’s carrying is the councilman’s? What if her husband found out?”

“Kevin Cox is a hothead, but he’s no killer.”

“Maybe. All I’m saying is there were other people with means and opportunity. They could’ve grabbed Laurel and planted everything you found.”

“Could have. Didn’t.” McTier pointed at Joe. “Face it. Laurel Fischer did this. She conned you.” 

“She’s not a con. And she didn’t kill her ex.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Hardisty. She took off when I specifically told her not to.”

Joe bit his tongue. Losing his temper was no way to get through to this guy. “Detective, I’m telling you. She didn’t take off. Somebody’s got her.”

McTier cut his eyes condescendingly. “I’ll tell you who’s got who. She’s got you, Pal. She’s got you.”

Joe trudged down the stairs to his apartment. Why McTier and his partner had felt the need to tail him home, Joe couldn’t figure. They should have better things to do, like looking for Laurel for starters.

Instead, they were wasting what could be precious time, camping out at his curb. Like he had anything to hide. Let them park it out there all night. Nothing to see at his place. Not unless they wanted to watch a washed up reporter pick up after his cat.

Joe opened his door. Ah, no. There was Stella, all fours on the kitchen island, lapping at his toppled carton of leftover Shrimp Lo Mein. Why hadn’t he stuck it in the fridge? Sauce ran in rivulets across the counter. A dribble traced down the side of the cabinet below.

Joe sighed. He’d already known a mess awaited him from the newspapers Stella had shredded in the hall. That would have been enough to top off a day like this. Now, she’d also pawed through what remained of his dinner. His appetite left. As long as that food had been out, it probably wasn’t safe anyway. Even if he did feel like eating after a cat.

It didn’t seem right to be all that hard on Stella, at least when it came to her impromptu shrimp-fest. That had been his fault. What had he been thinking, leaving seafood out on the counter?

He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. Laurel’s disappearance loomed so large. How could he think of anything else, yet what could he even begin to do? McTier was sure no help.

He hardly scolded Stella as he cleaned up the kitchen. It didn’t matter, though. She had a way of reading his moods. As he stooped to pick up all the shredded paper outside the hall closet, she kept her distance. She eyed him warily from her perch on the arm of his chair as, bit by bit, he bagged it to toss.

Joe looked up at the cat. “Sure know how to make a mess. You could help, you know.” It was Clay’s mess, really. Stella had a right, he supposed. She’d claimed that side of the closet as her territory, long before Clay’s stuff had been left to invade it.

Joe glanced at article after yellowed article. Apparently, Clay had kept everything ever written about his exploits in the case against Tom Zoring. Being a key witness seemed a dubious claim to fame. But then again, Clay did crave the spotlight, in whatever manner it presented itself.

Joe’s eyes fell on Clay’s boxes, the ones Stella had torn into to get to all that paper. “Great.  That’s great, Stella. You realize Clay will blame me for this.”

Stella leapt off the chair and skittered away.

“Oh, don’t be so touchy.” He craned around after her. She never did take well to his grousing. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better I told him not to leave his junk here.  I told him it was your bed.”

Joe gathered a splayed bunch of articles. One by one, he set them back into their folder. The dates on this batch were much more recent. It chronicled the approaching parole of newly released Tom Zoring. Maybe Clay had taken an interest in that miscarriage of justice after all.

His eyes fell on another article. What was this? Something about Frank Fischer serving at a local soup kitchen, alongside the Cardinal from the archdiocese. Joe blanched.

There was a photo of the smiling Cardinal, ladling stew with Frank Fischer.

It wasn’t often that Joe trembled. But as quickly as he tried to rifle through the remaining articles, his fingers refused to cooperate.

What exactly had he stumbled upon?

There, underneath all those articles, was a business envelope. It was addressed to Clay. From Frank Fischer. Joe flipped the envelope over. The flap had been unsealed. Whatever the envelope had once contained had been removed.

Just the sight of that empty envelope knocked the wind right out of him. He buckled, just as surely as he’d been socked in the stomach. “Oh, God... What now?”

All over again, Joe rifled through the shredded newsprint. The old mingled in with the new. His hands shaking, he dumped every shred of what he’d already bagged back out on the floor. He pushed his tired eyes—scanning, racing across the text, column after column. Something was there. It had to be. He just couldn’t see it.

Set everything aside for a moment.

Joe straightened. Where that thought had come from, he didn’t know. It seemed so counterintuitive. But okay. Give it a try.

He rested the papers down on the oak floor. Deliberately, he shut his eyes. Just breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Slowly. Again. And again.

Finally, there.

His throbbing pulse settled back to a normal rhythm. Once again, he opened his eyes.

Piece by piece, Joe laid out what he had of the puzzle. Hours passed. Still, there seemed so many disconnects, so much left to find. And how could he even begin to put it all together, especially at this late hour, with McTier outside, nipping at his heels?

Joe pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Debra wouldn’t like him calling at this hour, but this was an emergency. “Come on, Debra. Pick up.” Her line rang through to a full voicemail box. The only time Debra turned her phone off was when she went to sleep. She’d be conked out for hours.

Time was ticking away. Time Laurel might not have. At this point, it was hard to know anyone else he could call. He bit at his cheek and speed-dialed a familiar number.

Joe lifted a single slat of his window blind, his phone to his ear. “Yeah, they’re still out there. The black sedan, three cars south of mine. I’m on my way out, now.”

Joe hung up. He slipped into the hallway and up the basement stairs. As mind-bending as this whole thing was, something about it was eerily invigorating. It got his reporter’s blood pumping all over again. He would get to the bottom of this abyss, wherever it took him.

Rain pelted Joe’s jacket. He hurried down the darkened walk.

Lou’s headlights swept across as he eased his van up beside McTier, completely boxing the detectives into their space.

Joe hustled into his car.

Already, he could hear McTier fuming. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Joe glanced back as Lou reached out of his window toward McTier. “You know that memory card of photos I loaned you? I’d like to have it back, now.”

McTier smacked Lou’s palm away. “Move the car!”

Joe pulled out and sped away. The last thing he heard was the sound of Lou popping his clutch and stalling his van out, right in the middle of his street.

Joe pounded the heel of his fist against Debra’s brownstone door. She wasn’t the type of woman who wanted to be disturbed once she retired for the night. She wouldn’t like being seen without her makeup or hair being just so, as if that mattered.

He rapped at the door again. His only ace in the hole was that, most of all, Debra wouldn’t want her neighbors up in her business, sniping at her about some lunatic raising the dead on her stoop. Again. Eventually, propriety would get the better of her. She’d drag herself out of bed and come down, if only to shut him up. This wouldn’t be pretty. But then again, it wasn’t like he had a choice.

The peephole flap swung open. Debra’s half-mast eyes burned him.

“It’s an emergency.”

She slapped the peephole shut, unbolted the door and cracked it open. She snugged her robe around herself. “Didn’t happen to notice the time?”

Joe strode in past her. “If you’d have picked up your phone, I wouldn’t be here.”

Debra closed the door behind him. She ran a self-conscious hand through her hair. “Could this have waited?”

“Debra, where’s Adele on Zoring?”

“Still following the story.” She shuffled into the living room and gestured toward the clock on the hearth. “Three, Joe. As in three a.m. I don’t do business at this hour.”

He dogged her steps. “Do you know... Has Zoring landed anywhere? Is he working a job since Oliverio’s?”

“The church hired him. Not like anybody else would. The story is running in tomorrow’s paper.”

Joe’s jaw slacked. “What church?”

“Same church that ousted him.” Debra yawned. “Go figure. They’ve got him in housekeeping. Why could that possibly matter at this hour?”

“Debra, please.” Joe took her by the shoulders. “Use whatever you can. Pull every string you’ve got, but I really have to talk with the Cardinal at the archdiocese—I mean, face to face—first thing in the morning. Before office hours.”

She brushed him away. “What are you onto?”

“I swear to you, Debra. I’ll tell you everything. I will give you the exclusive if I’m right about this. But for now, I’m begging you. Forget about our personal issues and trust me.”

She studied him wryly. “Trust. You.”

He scrubbed a weary hand over his face. “Look, I know I haven’t given you all that much reason to do anything for me. I know I’ve let you down in the past. But yes. I’m asking you to trust me.”

Shana savored her morning coffee. As much as she had materially, there were very few things that truly gave her pleasure anymore, but a hot cup of coffee was one of them. There was something so soothing about it. The aroma. The bittersweet flavor, coating her throat. Maybe it was just those moments of silence it gave her, before she faced the day.

Not that the day hadn’t already started, more rudely than she’d anticipated. Apparently, Detective McTier had no compunction about calling, rousing a household from sleep at the break of dawn. Something always tightened in Shana’s chest when the phone rang at that hour. If it were anything other than a wrong number, it always meant bad news.