Edge of Midnight (25 page)

 

31

At six, when Susan got home, heat still hung in air so thick with humidity that breathing was like sucking through wet wool. Would the damn heat wave ever break? Perissa the cat had left trophies on the kitchen porch steps, a field mouse and what might be the remains of a mole. Tail waving high, the cat came strolling up, enormously proud of herself. Juggling the work she'd brought with her, Susan got the door open and dumped everything on the table. She bent to stroke the cat and praise her for her hunting prowess, then filled the cat bowl with fishy-smelling stuff from a can.

The most important things taken care of, she gathered paper towels and went to dispose of furry little corpses thick with ants. Gingerly grasping the kill, she dropped it in a paper bag and tossed the mess in the garbage can. Two days until pickup. In this heat, they'd be pretty ripe, but she couldn't bring herself to store dead rodents in the refrigerator.

Inside, she washed her hands and headed for the living room. Having baked in the heat all day, the house was like an oven. She turned on the window cooler and was sorting though CDs trying to decide what she wanted to play when the doorbell rang. It was not a welcome sound, and for a moment she considered ignoring it, but marched herself to the door and flung it open.

“Friend.” Parkhurst held up a hand. “I come in peace.”

“It's been a long day. If you're going to make it longer I'll have to shoot you.”

“Just information.”

“In that case…” She opened the door wider.

“Had anything to eat?” he said as he came in.

She shook her head.

“Pepperoni okay?”

“No anchovies.” She went to the kitchen and got a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and a glass from the cabinet. He went to the phone. She held up the bottle with a questioning look.

He shook his head. “Orange juice?”

She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “What kind of he-man cop drinks orange juice?” She poured a glass, handed it to him, and poured wine for herself. In the living room, she put
The Art of the Fugue
on the CD player, took a sip of wine, and lay down on the couch. “Okay, I'm ready. What have you got?”

“I have to get you some decent music.” He sat on the floor with his back propped against the hearth.

“It doesn't get any better than this.” Her head ached, her ears hurt like crazy, and she wondered if she'd live long enough until it was time to take more Excedrin. She let Bach filter through her misery.

Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. He got up to answer and returned a moment later with the pizza, which he plopped in the middle of the coffee table. “We found the kid who caused the accident.” Parkhurst gathered paper towels from the kitchen. “Donnie Jasper. Nineteen years old.” Parkhurst peeled out a slice of pizza and handed it to her with a paper towel. “He was racing a buddy.”

“Alcohol involved? Drugs?”

“He says not.”

“You believe him?” She tore off the pointed end of the pizza slice, popped it in her mouth, and chewed.

“Yeah, I'm inclined to. Twice in the past he was issued speeding tickets. Nothing about DUIs. I don't know about the buddy he was racing. He's not saying.” Parkhurst took a gulp of juice, bent one knee, and rested the glass on it. “Strongest rule of teenage ethics: Don't rat out a friend.”

“He's facing serious charges. Speeding, reckless driving, accidental death, vehicular manslaughter, probably a few more I could cite if I didn't have a head full of fuzz.”

“Yep. Stupid mistake, goddamn adolescent error in judgment, and he could end up in prison for much of his life.”

“Is this Jasper kid sorry?”

“Oh God, yes. Wishes it'd never happened, wishes he'd never gotten out of bed that day, wishes he'd never met the friend, wishes he'd never been born.”

Susan raised her arm and turned to look at him. “Did you stomp on the kid?”

Parkhurst bared his teeth in a feral grin. “You bet.”

“You got him locked up?”

“Yeah. Won't last long. His parents may already have him out.”

Susan put her arm back on her forehead and stared at the ceiling. Spider web in a corner with a spider waiting patiently in the center. “Have Demarco talk with him.”

“Okay,” Parkhurst said flatly. “Why? The kid's scared enough as it is.”

Demarco was ex-marine, a poster boy for a lean, mean, fighting machine. He seemed to hate the world, but for some reason she'd never figured out, he could reach kids. He scared the hell out of everybody else just by raising an eyebrow, but kids looked at him and listened. He certainly didn't treat them with kindness; kindness was nowhere in his character. “Have Demarco spell it out. What he could be charged with, what it means in terms of years in prison, what happens to pretty boys in prison, and then give him a proposition.”

“Right. Proposition. And that is?”

“Is this kid a loser? Nerd? Loner? What?”

“Football player. Above average student. Competitive. Wanted to go to law school.”

“Stupid kid.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. That was the nature of kids, stupid. The brain hadn't yet developed enough for thinking.

“Activate Demarco and aim him at this kid. Have him suggest the kid go to the high school and tell his peers what happens if they drive too fast. Demarco will go with him.”

“Okay,” Parkhurst said in a voice you use to humor the sick. “Could backfire. The kids could be so blown away by Demarco they'll rush out and join the marines and ignore the message Donnie's giving them.”

“How bad is it to take Excedrin with alcohol?”

“I'm not sure. I think it kills you.”

“Right.” She found the bottle, isolated two tablets, and swallowed them with a gulp of wine. “My head hurts. Go away so I can suffer in peace.”

After he left, she stayed on the couch listening to Bach. If she had the strength, she'd get up and go to bed. Before she could gather the necessary energy, she fell asleep. In the dream, she walked through tall trees. Wind stirred the leaves. They whispered and sang, the tune tantalizingly familiar. Notes rose to the treetops, tangled with red and gold leaves, then fell to the ground to rot and form nutrients for rebirth. A gunshot shattered the music. Notes re-formed into atonal noise. She woke with a stiff neck. Her watch showed four
A.M
. Unable to go back to sleep, she took more Excedrin and got in the shower.

*   *   *

Hazel, already at work when Susan arrived, said good morning. Susan gave her a squinty-eyed look. “If it is a good morning, which I doubt.”

In the small kitchen, she poured a mug of coffee and went into her office. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork—the world was sinking in paperwork. She shoved a stack aside and turned on the computer. A search on Lily Farmer got her reams of information. She printed everything, starting with the girl's disappearance. Lily was last seen at a friend's wedding.

She was supposed to drive home with her boyfriend, but they had an argument and he drove off without her. She never made it home. Her father reported her missing. For weeks articles appeared in the newspapers, saying not much more than police were searching and her parents were frantic. As time went on, the articles hinted more loudly of the possibility of tragedy. A man walking his dog in Tilden Park, a vast wilderness area in Berkeley, found her body. Grainy photo of cops at the scene.

She'd been beaten and raped, an attack so vicious it was a toss-up as to what killed her. Autopsy determined death due to exsanguination. Lily had fought her attacker. Skin and traces of blood were under her nails. That was what got him caught. A graduate student from UCLA, he was in Sacramento visiting friends. He'd probably killed three other young women. After a long and arduous trial, he was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

At ten, eight California time, she figured she had a good chance of finding her former boss in his office. She picked up the phone and punched in a number she remembered. San Francisco PD. If he wasn't in, she'd leave a message.

“Reardon.”

“Morning, Captain. It's Susan Donovan.” She used her maiden name because that was the name he knew her by.

“Hey! How's it going out there in—Ohio, is it?”

“Kansas.”

“Oh, right. Where the sunflowers grow.”

“That they do. Emphasis on the sun.”

“It's fifty-eight degrees here.”

“Eighty-five here, and climbing.”

They talked briefly about the people she'd worked with, then she asked what he knew about the Lily Farmer case.

“Not much more than was in the papers. It was Berkeley's, not ours. Why you asking?”

She mentioned some sketchy details about maybe having a stalker after a local woman. “You know anything about Kelby Oliver?”

“Nothing.”

She asked who had worked the Lily Farmer case and he told her Sergeant Manfred.

“You know him?”

“Just to say hello to. Berkeley's full of liberal types. Don't associate much.”

“If I use your name, will he hang up on me?”

“Naw.”

She thanked him, disconnected, punched in the number for Berkeley PD, and asked to speak with Sergeant Manfred. He was busy on current cases, but he remembered the Farmer case because it had been so vicious.

“The parents were at the trial every day,” he said. “Apparently, when it ended there was nothing holding the marriage together and they split.”

Not uncommon. When a child died, no matter the circumstances, 80 percent of parents got divorced.

“They were upset because the bastard didn't get the death penalty,” he said. “You know, why should he be allowed to live after what he did to their only child? Especially the father, Joe Farmer. Did some talking to the press about what a travesty, and not justice, and that kind of stuff. He was really smoked about it. If it were my kid, I'd probably feel the same.”

She probably would, too, Susan thought. “You know anything about a jury member being stalked?”

“Yeah. Can't pull her name out right now—”

“Kelby Oliver?”

“Yeah.” A tighter tone of interest leaked into Manfred's voice. “Why you asking?”

“She moved here. Who was the stalker?”

“Father of the victim. He was pushed pretty far.”

“What did you do about him?”

“Talked to him. Went out whenever he violated her restraining order. Hauled him in a time or two. Where did you say you were from again?”

“Hampstead, Kansas.”

“Had another homicide with a thin thread to your neck of the woods. Woman beaten to death.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Arlette Coleridge. Severely beaten, found dead in her home. She was an attorney, so we're looking at disgruntled clients. Family law. Reputation for being the one to hire if you're female and wanting a divorce.”

“You looking for a crazed husband legally forced to turn over half his assets to the little woman?”

“And watch her enjoy the fruits of his labors with some clown she's taken up with.”

“You have somebody in mind?”

“Can't say that we have.”

“There's some connection to Hampstead?”

“Not Hampstead. Kansas. More specifically Topeka. We got a call from there telling us to look at one of our own.”

“You think a cop beat this woman to death?”

“Anonymous caller said to take a look at him.”

“What's his name?”

“Mitchell Black.”

“And did you take a look at him?”

“What do you think?”

“Right. What did you find?”

“Funny thing is, Mitch's wife disappeared a week ago.”

That wasn't an answer to her question. Manfred told her of the search for Cary Black. Car found in the parking lot of a shopping center. “She knew the Coleridge woman.”

“Any signs Cary Black was abducted?”

Susan heard Manfred take a breath. “Not unless you consider bags of groceries in the backseat and car keys under the car signs.”

“Do
you
consider them signs?”

A hesitation, then, “I don't discount them.”

“But?”

“But there's a BART station right across the street.”

“Meaning she could have gotten on a train and taken off.”

“Mitch has a temper, and he's been know to drink a little too much.”

Always a potentially lethal twosome. She thanked him, pushed back her chair, and trucked off for more coffee. When she got back to her desk she sat down, leaned back, and laced her fingers behind her head. Arlette Coleridge, homicide victim in Berkeley. Friend of cop's wife. Cop named Mitchell Black. Wife disappeared a week ago. Juror of girl raped and murdered two years ago moved to Hampstead. Maybe to escape a stalker.

Okay, Susan thought, what did she have here? Tangled threads, as far as she could see.

 

32

Lying in bed staring at the white ceiling, Cary measured her vision against the landmarks, a small water stain in the shape of a star and the light fixture. She closed one eye, then the other. Her tunnel of sight was shrinking and she had nobody to talk with.

Despite her resolve to be matter-of-fact, tears came. Angrily, she rubbed them away. This is just the way it is, so deal with it. It could be worse. You could be homeless and blind. It could be raining. So don't sink into depression. Count your blessings. You're not being used as a punching bag, you have a job, a place to live, food to eat, and you're learning to use a seeing-eye horse. She smiled at what her sister might say to that. Thinking of her sister brought images of her niece and nephew. Would she ever see them again? Rolling onto her side, she reached for a tissue and blew her nose.

Whenever she wasn't with Elizabeth, she was at Ronny's farm learning to work with a guide horse, getting more confident and less scared in trusting the animal. Despite her worries and longings and not daring to hope, she did get paired up with Cinnamon Ginger, the sweetest, most intelligent, most beautiful little horse in the world.