A Field of Red (22 page)

“Done?” she asked, smiling.

“No,” Frank said. “Not by a long shot.”

Chief King put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “OK, Frank, let’s not get all worked up...”

Meredith ignored Chief King and stepped closer to Frank, looking up into his eyes. She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes playing over his face and hair. She reached up slowly and placed a hand gently on his chest.

“Don’t touch me,” he said.

She looked into his eyes.

“Do you still think about drowning?”

Frank felt his insides drop. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “What?”

Meredith smiled.

“You heard me, Mr. Harper,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, yet everyone in the room could hear it. “I speak with perfect clarity, whether those around me have the capacity to hear me or not. I asked if you still think about what happened. In St. Bartholomew’s Church.”

Frank was flabbergasted. She’d been through the files, obviously, but had somehow found the one thing that would cut him to the quick. Of course he thought about it—too much—

“That…that happened a long time ago,” he stammered. Frank felt this stomach reeling, twisting up inside of him. He backed away. Last night’s bourbon surged in his belly, a wave of dark water, like the splashing, murky water in St. Barts. The room suddenly felt ten degrees warmer.

“The water was rising, wasn’t it?” she said quietly, smiling, enjoying her new toy. He was not the cat anymore—he was the ball of yarn. She leaned closer, her voice almost inaudible. “They left you behind, didn’t they? And you were hurt, and the water just kept coming. And coming,” she said. She reached down and touched the long scar than ran up his arm and disappeared under his shirt. “And there was no help for you.”

Frank backed away, bumping into Chief King. “I’m leaving,” he said, louder than he had planned. Frank struggled to keep his wits about him, but all he could think about was the rising tide of water, full of floating bandages and syringes. And the bodies.

Some part of his mind spoke up, trying to keep him tethered to reality by informing him that it was all public knowledge. Anyone who wanted to could find out what had happened.  Frank glanced at the young man with the greasy black hair—the kid was wearing a wicked grin.

“Good,” Meredith said, smiling. “Please go. Your presence isn’t required.”

Frank started to say something else, but nothing came to mind. His mind was already stuffed full of memories he despised, memories he’d worked a lifetime to push down into the darkest recesses of him.

Frank backed through the door, his eyes still on “Lady” Meredith.

Chief King left with him.

 “Don’t worry about it,” King said. “Let it go.”

Frank held his tongue, something he wasn’t used to, and turned and stormed off, trailing Chief King and the others in his wake.

George carried both trays back down the stairs again, negotiating the two bags George had gathered for their trip. Why Chastity had piled his things on the stairs, instead of where he’d had it by the door, he had no idea.

Charlie had eaten most of her food—she was in better spirits today, despite the fact that she’d been zip tied to the bed for ten days. George thought that maybe the little girl had decided to stop fighting the situation and just deal with it, much like he’d long ago decided to stop fight Chastity on every single issue. Sometimes it was just better to agree, especially when Chastity was yelling at him or, even worse, when she started in with that barn-owl screeching that put George’s nerves on edge.

The other tray was nearly full.

He was worried about Maya, the little Mexican girl. She cried all the time, rarely stopping, and didn’t eat much of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and other food that George had carried upstairs. She had certainly not accepted the situation. Every time he came into the room, she shouted at him in a mixture of English and Spanish and fought his every command. Getting her untied and to the bathroom and back was always a fight, but over the past few days she had gotten even more combative. Kicking, hitting, punching. Today, she’d caught him under the chin with a knee and almost knocked him off the bed. He’d explained, over and over, that they would be released when the ordeal was over, but either the little girl didn’t understand him, or she didn’t believe him.

Either way, caring for the girls had become an exercise in opposites. And keeping Chastity calm just added to the drama.

But it was nearly over.

The boss had called again last night, explaining about the second ransom and how some of that money was for George and Chastity and their extra time, money for them to start a new life somewhere else. And the boss had said again that everything would be square. Chastity had seemed pleased with the news, but she was still on the fence about just taking off. George would have agreed with her if it weren’t for the girls.

George carried the trays into the kitchen and set them on the counter, which was still piled up with dishes and old plates. Chastity was supposed to be in charge of keeping up the house. That had been her “rent,” they’d agreed, and George would take care of the house itself and all of the chores and work assigned by the boss—but she was slacking off. George knew she’d been getting high a lot more than usual, and he’d assumed it was stress. He rolled up his sleeves and started washing.

When the dishes were done, he went to look for Chastity. Sometimes, she went upstairs to their bedroom to get high and forgot to come back downstairs for hours. Sometimes, she went walking out in the marijuana field. One time, he’d found her wandering the field at night, stark naked. Other times, he would find her at the dining room table, playing with the golden sewing kit from her mother that she held so dear. She would take everything out of the sewing kit, lay it out on the table or bedspread or wherever she happened to be, and then slowly put it all away. Sometimes, when she was finished, she would start over, packing and repacking the sewing kit over and over. He felt sad for her, and a little worried. Sometimes, he just didn’t understand what was running through her mind.

He looked through the house and outside, but didn’t find her until he went into the barn.

She was asleep in the rusting Corolla.

She really wanted to leave. He knew it, but he’d been putting her off for days. The boss had said it was almost over, and George was torn. He needed to keep her happy, but he’d also promised the boss he’d see this through to the end.

And he was worried about the girls. He hadn’t told anyone yet, but George wanted to wait until the very end, after the money had come in. Once he figured the boss was coming for the girls, George would act.

George planned to put the girls in his car and let them go outside of Cooper’s Mill. It would mean defying his boss, but George and Chastity would be leaving the state with their part of the ransom money anyway, heading for California. If George could save the girls, he could afford to piss off his boss one more time.

George looked into the car to check on Chastity. She was sound asleep, her bag on her lap. Her arms were folded on top of her bags, and, in one hand, she clenched her mom’s sewing kit. Suddenly, George felt sorry for her.

Hours later, Frank was still shook up from the encounter with the psychic.

Chief King hadn’t said anything about it on the drive back to the police station. Once there, Frank had gathered up some files and headed out—he needed to drive, alone, to clear his head and follow up on a couple of out-of-town leads.

First, he’d driven down to Dayton and met with a pair of banker types in a very slick conference room. Nick Martin had invested in a condominium development near Dragon’s Field, a beautiful ball diamond in the downtown area and home to the local minor league team. The conference room looked out over the grassy infield. As Frank and the others met, he could see a team of groundskeepers far below working on the sandy infield, flattening it and smoothing out the dirt with rakes and brooms.

Frank had been impressed with the plans. The field had been built in a run-down part of town, surrounded by old factories and manufacturing buildings. Investors in the project were buying up the old buildings and converting them to apartments and condos. Frank found the project impressive and completely above board, thanking the men for meeting with him.

Now, he was headed north again, passing through Cooper’s Mill and heading east out of town to New Stanton, a town a few miles to the east of Cooper’s Mill.

Frank was driving to meet with a college friend of Glenda’s. The woman had been friends with the Martins for years and had agreed to meet Frank to talk about their relationship.

In the past twenty-four hours, Frank had worked up three competing theories about the case.

Theory number one went with the idea that whoever was behind the kidnapping was out to punish the Martin’s, either by bankrupting them or “bringing them down” to the level of the normal folks. He’d been working from that assumption yesterday and interviewed everyone he could find that might be negatively affected by Nick Martin’s fiscal decisions on the City Council or by layoffs and cutbacks in Martin’s construction company.

Nothing.

No one was happy with Nick Martin, that was for sure. But Frank couldn’t find anyone that even remotely fit the profile of taking it to the extreme and kidnapping Nick’s daughter.

Frank’s second theory was a little weak, but it never hurt to investigate the time-honored tradition of marital infidelity. It was stunning how many crimes could be laid at the feet of this go-to problem: cheaters and the cheated-upon. In this case, there had been some rumors that the marriage wasn’t stable and that Glenda might be stepping out on Nick. Frank was on his way to meet with Glenda’s friend to look into that situation.

The third theory had popped into his head late on Thursday night, after the bourbon and five hours of going through all the files again.

The case might be dirty.

It was never good to leap to that conclusion too early. If a kidnapper or other criminal involved with the case had an inside source, it did answer a lot of the outstanding issues, not the least of which that every single lead that came along seemed to dry up with frightening speed.

But Frank was going to hold off on that theory for a while. Going down that path was a one-way trip. Frank had only been on the case since Wednesday. It was too soon to start burning bridges.

So he was working theory #2 for the moment. Others had mentioned that something else was going on in the Martin’s marriage, based on a few clues that he’d gotten over the last few days. King had said something off the cuff after they left the psychic. And Frank had noticed that the Martins almost never stood together when talking to the police, and rarely looked at each other or comforted each other. Frank had never seen them hold hands.

When the second ransom call had come in, Nick had joined the policemen in the kitchen to review the call again, but Glenda had stayed away, content to nurse her drink and listen to the conversation from the next room. She’d not gotten involved until she’d decided to come into the kitchen to let everyone know that the psychic would be arriving.

The woman Frank was meeting owned a small coffee shop and art gallery in downtown New Stanton. Frank found the place with ease. New Stanton was smaller than Cooper’s Mill and consisted of nothing but one main street surrounded by a small neighborhood of homes.

From the outside, the gallery wasn’t very impressive. The rest of the town also seemed a little worse for wear. But inside, the space opened up into a large room with brick walls that held dozens of large paintings and photographs. The art gallery was light and airy and, in the back, there was a coffee bar and small bakery. The woman found him looking at the art, and they sat at a small table in the main room.

 “Hi, I’m Jackie,” the woman said. She was in her late fifties and brimming with youthful energy. Her hair was streaked with a playful stripe of blue, and Frank got the distinct impression that the woman had once counted herself among the hippies. He had noticed her bustling around inside the gallery before she’d approached him.

“I’m Frank, Frank Harper,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’m working with the police on the Martin kidnapping.”

She nodded, her face turning somber. “I saw it on the news. Just terrible. I hope they get those little girls back,” she said and suddenly stood and excused herself. Moments later, she returned with two coffees.

“Here we go,” she said, putting a mug in front of him and sipping at her own. “I was waiting on a fresh pot to brew.”

He nodded and sipped, thanking her. The coffee was hot and very strong, with a hint of cinnamon or something.

“Hmm, that’s interesting,”  Frank said, nodding at the mug.

“Oh, it’s chicory,” she said. “I’m from Texas, and we usually throw a little in there for spice.”

Frank took another sip and nodded, then put the coffee down. “That is good. So, you know Glenda Martin, right?”

Jackie nodded again. “Yes, she’s over here about once a week for painting and photography lessons, usually on Thursday afternoons.”

Frank looked up from his notes.

“Oh,” Frank said, surprised. “I was under the impression that she was coming over here regularly, but there was some talk about her meeting a friend for coffee. A male friend.”

“Oh, my,” Jackie laughed loudly, loud enough to draw the attention of the other people in the shop. “I have no idea about that—but I doubt it. She’s had some trouble with her husband over the years, but as far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with infidelity. He’s just not very supportive of her.”

“What do you mean?” Frank asked.

Jackie leaned back on the couch. “Oh, you know how it is, sugar. Men can be threatened by a powerful woman, or a woman who doesn’t derive her strength through her looks,” she said, smiling. “Don’t you agree? Glenda is passionate, and beautiful to boot, but Nick has rarely supported her choices. To most people, she’s just a pretty face. She gave up photography after several years, after Nick made some comment about one of her shots. It’s too bad—she had a great talent for it,” Jackie said, pointing at the wall.

Frank turned and looked. There was a three-picture grouping of wheat fields surrounded by fall colors, trees in red and yellow and fallen leaves. The photos were beautiful.

He was surprised again. “Glenda did those?” he asked.

“See how she’s framed the field with the trees,” Jackie said, nodding and standing to point at the group of photographs. “The leaves along the bottom and in the second photo pull it all together nicely, don’t you think? And that branch in the foreground gives the photo a nice depth.”

Frank looked at it and nodded, trying to follow what Jackie was saying. It was a beautiful shot, but it was difficult for him to explain why—it just was.

“I’ve sold a lot of her work,” Jackie said.  “But Nick thought she was just out ‘taking pictures’ and didn’t bother to notice how good she was. She still has a bunch up in her house, I think.”

Frank nodded, remembering the large landscape photographs on canvas in the Martin’s living room. He turned back to Jackie. “So, she’s moved on to painting?”

“Yes, and she’s working through the different techniques, trying to figure out what she likes,” Jackie said. “She’s thrown herself into it. I doubt she’s got time for a man on the side. Might not have time for the man already in her life. She said she wanted to take courses out of town, mostly for the privacy. Everyone in that town knows her. Of course, she’s not been back since the kidnapping.”

Frank wrote it all down and remembered how dismissive Nick Martin had been in their first interview when Frank had brought up his wife’s photography.

He turned back to look at the photos again, and another painting caught his eye. It was an abstract painting of what looked like a house. Frank knew dick about art, but he knew enough to know that if you liked it, and your eye was drawn back to it, that was the kind of art you bought. Not that he had any money.

She turned and followed his eyes up to the painting. “You like that? Me too. It’s a Hochstetter.”

“I’m just a cop,” Frank said, smiling and turning to her. “I don’t know anything about art, but I do like it.”

She nodded.

“That’s how I got into it—my husband and I were traveling in Mexico, on a vacation,” she said, remembering. “I saw a painting of a palm tree hanging in the hotel restaurant, and I was hooked. Before that, I couldn’t care less about art. Now, I’m in the business.”

Frank looked at the painting again. “How much is it?”

 “Well, if you have to ask…” she started to say, then smiled and slapped him on the knee. “Oh, I’m just kidding you, sugar. That’s what we always say. It’s $150. It’s not an original, but a print.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Frank said, looking at the painting.

Jackie smiled. “Oh, Louis lives here in town, but he has quite a following. His original paintings go for upward of $1,000 or even $2,000. That’s a print, which is essentially an oversized photograph stretched over canvas,” she said, pointing at the painting and others nearby for comparison. “If you touch it, there are no brush strokes, but that’s about the only difference.”

Frank nodded and then looked at Jackie. “Thank you for meeting me. I think I’ve taken up enough of your time.” He stood and shook her hand.

“Did you want to get the piece?” she asked, smiling.

“No, no,” he said. “I’m just in town for a few more days,” he said, but his eyes were drawn to it again. After he said goodbye and walked to the door, Frank couldn’t help himself and looked again.

Driving back to Cooper’s Mill, he thought about the painting again and what Jackie had said. The art “spoke” to him, bringing out an emotional reaction in him that he had not expected. It was much like when the psychic lady had brought up what happened during Katrina—it had spun him off in an entirely new and different direction from what he’d been expecting.

That little smirk on the young man’s face hadn’t helped Frank’s mood at the time, either.

Of course, they had looked up Frank. The psychic and her little helper had done the work, probably pulling together files on everyone involved in the investigation. He would have done the same thing in their position. But to have it just thrown out there like that had taken Frank by surprise. He should have known better, been more prepared. Instead, he’d looked like an idiot, standing there clenching his fists and then storming out like a pissed off little kid.

But making progress on the investigation had turned his mood around. He had poked a few large holes in theory #2 and, at this stage in the investigation, any progress was good. From all the files he’d poured through, it didn’t feel like this case would end up centered around infidelity, but it was good to eliminate that as a motivator.

And the painting had cheered Frank up. Maybe that was all it meant, or all it was good for. But it had worked, one way or the other.

The CD ended, and he flipped through the CDs, finding another jazz favorite. This one was “Easy Does It” from Sonny Stitt and Oscar Peterson. Nice relaxing piano with a standing bass. Great for driving in the rain, or late on a summer evening.

As he drove back into Cooper’s Mill, he thought about the psychic. It had been stupid, allowing himself to be surprised like that. But the worst part was letting himself get so angry. Clearly, he was frustrated with the case, but he needed to remind himself that he was making progress. Or, at least, he needed others to think he was making progress.

Especially with that third option looking more and more tangible with each passing hour.

He’d essentially eliminated the infidelity theory with his drive to New Stanton. She seemed like an angry wife, distant, but if what Jackie had said was true, it explained the distance and the lack of comfort. Nick didn’t support her, something Frank had witnessed directly. And it explained all the pictures and photographs in the Martin house—she was always taking photos.

Photos.

Maybe she had more photos, photos that she took that morning, the morning of the kidnapping. No, if she’d had photos, she would have mentioned it, right? Frank jotted it down on his notepad propped on the Taurus steering wheel.

Frank followed the road, crossing the open expanse of fields that stretched between the river and Cooper’s Mill proper, which sat on a rise. Stitt and Peterson played, the piano and soft drums carrying the tune as he drove. Frank pondered about all of the facets of the case, how they wound back and forth, in and out of each other like a complicated song.