Death Angel (8 page)

“Don’t you yell at me! Don’t you
understand what was happening?” Her voice was shrill and she pressed her lips
together to keep from screaming. “Carl was almost accusing you of lying. Why on
earth didn’t you say you’d taken the afternoon off? There’s no crime in that.
How could you believe that they wouldn’t find out you weren’t at the office?”

“It just never occurred to me to
explain.” He paced in front of the couch. “How could I be expected to think
about anything at the hospital when Jenny was —” He waved his hand helplessly,
his voice thick with tears.

Kate cupped a hand over her mouth to keep
herself from crying out. She was so close to hysteria she knew if she lost
control now, she might not be able to stop screaming. Breathing in short,
jerking gasps, she waited for him to continue.

“The next day all that mattered was to
find out who had killed Jenny. It didn’t seem important where I was. And now
Carl thinks I’m involved, doesn’t he?”
 

“Forget what Carl thinks,” she
snapped.
 

He stopped pacing, facing her across the
glass-topped coffee table. “Honest to God, Kate, losing Jenny is tearing me
apart.”
 

“Richard, I know you’re hurting.
Everyone is. But for now we have to forget everything and focus on finding
Jenny’s killer. Talk to Carl tomorrow.”

“You just threw the man out of the
house.”

“I know I’m not acting consistently, but
I really felt you were in danger.”
   

“Carl doesn’t understand that I wasn’t
trying to hide where I was the day of Jenny’s disappearance,” he repeated
stubbornly.

“Then you’ll have to explain it again.
You’ve got to make sure he understands. So what if he thinks you’re crazy for
driving around all day. It could have been worse. Just imagine if you’d gone to
the forest preserve.”

Richard’s eyes went blank. His very
stillness alarmed her and she rephrased her words. “You weren’t in the forest
preserve, were you?”

“No. Of course not. I spent the
afternoon driving around. I never got out of the car.” Kate opened her mouth
but before she could speak, Richard held up his hand for silence. “Enough,
Kate. Let it rest for a while. We’re both tired and the last thing we need is
to question each other. That’s Leidecker’s job. I think we need something to
eat and a good stiff drink. You stay where you are. I’ll get it.”

Without another word, he turned on his
heel and left the room. In the kitchen she could hear the rattle of dishes and
the opening of the refrigerator. She remained where she was, her mouth
partially open, her eyes fixed on the empty doorway. Awareness seeped into her
consciousness with the corrosive power of acid.
 

Richard was lying.

Five

R
ichard was lying.
Kate knew it the moment
he spoke.

She was so used to analyzing his moods
that, over the years, she had become accustomed to listening to the nuances in
his voice. Stress was evident in his inflection, and she knew that he wasn’t
telling the whole story. He was holding something back.

Pulling her knees up against her
stomach, she curled into the corner of the couch, resting her cheek against her
arm. Her eyes burned and she closed them.

At times it was difficult to return to
the world. The safety of the darkness was seductive. She would not stay long.
She only needed some time to gather her strength.

Oh
God, please help me. The nightmare is all around me and I cannot find my way.

She remembered praying in much the same
way when her father died. He had been big and bluff; a giant of a man to a
motherless girl. She remembered how he came to all her swim meets, cheering her
on to the finish line. He’d wrap her in a towel and congratulate her and then
explain how she could improve the next time. Until she met Richard, her father
had provided her with advice and a sense of direction.

Oh,
Daddy, where are you? I need your guidance.

Footsteps approached as Richard returned
from the kitchen. She could not face him yet. She was too close to panic. She
fought to keep her breathing in a steady rhythm.

She heard the clink of china as Richard
set some dishes on the coffee table. He didn’t speak, but she could feel his
presence beside the couch and knew he was staring down at her. It took
tremendous effort to feign sleep. He moved across the room, and when he
returned his hands were gentle as he tucked the Afghan around her. When he left
the room, a tear slid out of the corner of her eye, rolling down her cheek
until it was absorbed in the material of her sleeve.

Not
Richard. Please God, not Richard.

As repugnant as it was, she knew she had
to consider whether Richard had killed Jenny.

She knew it was possible that a man
might rape a child. But his own daughter? God knew there were enough stories on
television about incest and sexual abuse that she couldn’t pretend such a thing
didn’t exist. She had never had the slightest feeling of discomfort with
Richard’s relationship with Jenny. He hugged her and kissed her and comforted
her. None of this had ever seemed inappropriate.
 

She would have known if anything was
wrong, wouldn’t she?

Unable to answer in the affirmative, she
had to accept the fact that perhaps, under some sort of psychological
breakdown, Richard might have attacked Jenny. But he could never have killed
her!
 

In some ways Jenny was a clone of
Richard. In his eyes, she was a work of art, and he was far too narcissistic to
destroy such an incredible creation.
 

Kate had always wanted children and
Jenny’s birth was a much anticipated event. When they decided to have another
child, however, Kate had difficulty conceiving. According to the doctor,
Jenny’s conception had been a delightful miracle, but Kate might not be so
lucky again. She had discussed with Richard whether they should consider going
the route of fertility doctors, but they decided to leave it in God’s hands. An
only child herself, Kate had always hoped for a house full of children.

Not so Richard. Jenny was enough. He
could concentrate all his energies on his daughter, filling her with ideas and
carefully nurturing her talents. Jenny was Richard’s ticket to immortality.
With additional children, his gift to the world would be fragmented, watered
down.

No matter what he was keeping back, Kate
believed he had nothing to do with Jenny’s death.
 

God, she was tired.

Resentment flashed through her. In her
grief, she had counted on Richard’s support. Something had shifted in their
relationship. It was as if their roles had reversed. She had always been
contented letting Richard take the lead, now it was as though he had lost his
way. She had never been the one to take action. She didn’t know if she could.

Backbone,
Kate. You have a job to do.
 

She could almost hear her father’s voice
chiding her for shirking her responsibilities. She was Richard’s wife. Whatever
help he needed she would give. Having reconfirmed her support, she relaxed,
letting herself drift naturally into sleep.

Kate threw back the Afghan as she clawed
her way up out of the nightmare. She lay on her back, blinking her eyes in the
darkness, trying to find some point of familiarity to anchor herself in safety.
Her panted breath was loud in the night silence.

She didn’t try to hold on to the dream.
It was about Jenny, and she did not want to remember what had taken place in
the irrational world of her mind. Better to block it all out.

Instinctively she sought comfort from
Richard’s presence. She reached out but her hand encountered only space. Fear
of being alone brought her fully awake.

She was lying on the couch in the family
room.

It was night and the room was in
darkness. Richard sat in the lounge chair beside the couch, his back to the
patio doors, his face in shadow. His feet and legs were bare and he was wearing
a bathrobe over his shorts.
 

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked, propping
herself up on her arm.

“No. Too wound up.” Richard’s voice was
disembodied in the darkened room. “I called Mike and talked to him about
Leidecker’s interview. Apparently he had already taken a statement of sorts
from Mike.”

“From Mike? What for?”

“It appears that everyone we know is
under suspicion of one kind or another. Mike played it down, but I could tell
it was bothering him. I gather Leidecker was trying to confirm the time we
called him and when we got to the hospital. What seemed to trouble Mike was
that Carl grilled him pretty intensely on my college life and single days. He
also asked if Mike had ever seen any evidence that Jenny had been abused.”

“Dear God!”
 

“Apparently Mike read him the riot act
and Leidecker believed him. Doctors have credibility with the police.” His
softly spoken words were bitter.

She edged her legs over the side of the
couch and sat up, flexing her shoulders to release the stiffness from her
cramped position. She held up her arm, and in the glow of moonlight filtering
through the patio doors, she could just make out the numbers on her watch.
One-thirty.
 

“Mike thinks I should talk to a lawyer.”

“He does?” Kate’s heart jolted at their
friend’s confirmation of the gravity of the situation.

“Yes.” Richard’s voice was noncommittal.
“Suggested I see Stacie Wolfram. He dated her a couple of years ago. Says she’s
a first-class criminal lawyer.”

“I vaguely remember her. Cute and very
funny. Didn’t she play beach volleyball?”

Richard snorted. “That’s how Mike met
her. At any rate, he called her and she’ll see me tomorrow at four.” He glanced
at the darkened windows and grimaced. “I guess that’s today.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“No.” The single word was edged with
anger. He took a steadying breath and stared at her, his expression bleak in
the semi-darkness of the room. “I’d like to spare you any more hurt, Kate. I
wish I could make all of this go away, but I can’t. No matter what Leidecker
thinks, I had nothing to do with Jenny’s death. Do you believe me?”

Despite the pain in his voice, Kate did
not answer immediately. She turned toward the window so that the moonlight
would illuminate her face. Richard could read her expressions as easily as she
could gauge the shadings in his voice, and it was imperative that there be no
suspicion between them. When she spoke, her words were specific as she tried to
give him the assurances that he needed.
 

“I believe that you had nothing to do
with Jenny’s death.”

“Thank you, Kate.”

“Let’s go to bed,” she said, rising and
holding out her hand.
 

She undressed quickly and slipped
beneath the covers, opening her arms as Richard pressed against her. There was
nothing sexual in the embrace. Kate could not have borne that. Long after his
breathing had softened in sleep, she held him.
 

Dry-eyed she stared into the darkness,
her arms aching for the child she would never hold again.

“Judas Priest, Bea!” Carl Leidecker
glowered down at the mug in his hand. “Can’t anyone around here make decent
coffee?”

“That’s probably left over from last
night. Amy’ll be in shortly and she’ll make a fresh pot.” Bea Johnson smoothed
a hand over her crisp gray curls, avoiding his eyes.

“Couldn’t you make a pot? I’d do it, but
I don’t know how to run the machine.”

Besides being the assistant chief of
police, Bea made the best coffee in the department.
 

“Typical male copout.” She snorted at
the pleading look on Carl’s face. With ill grace she got to her feet, snatched
the extended mug, and stalked to the door of his office. “You owe me,
Leidecker.”

“Anything. I swear it.” He grinned after
her departing figure.
 

Bea was forty-nine, divorced, and had
three college-aged children. She’d gone to the police academy in Milwaukee and
worked as a cop for a year before she was married and moved to Pickard and stayed
home with her kids. When she turned thirty, her husband left her for a
twenty-one-year-old secretary in his office. She’d cried for a month then
talked Chief Corcoran into hiring her. She’d been with the department for
nineteen years.
 

Eight years earlier, Carl had been hired
as assistant chief of police with the understanding that he’d take over when
Chief Corcoran retired. He had two years to evaluate the department before he
became chief.
 

When he became chief, he asked Bea to be
his assistant. She took the job with two conditions. She wanted her salary
doubled and an understanding that she could quit at fifty.