After Caroline (23 page)

“Okay. Thanks, Gwen.”

She went as far as the door, then paused and looked back at him. “Um, boss? Shelley’s still there at the hotel, and she says Mr. Wade has started asking when they can take their daughter’s body home.”

Something inside Griffin’s chest tightened, and for a moment he couldn’t answer. A natural reaction of relatives, and one he’d seen before too many times. The urge to escape the scene of death and horror, to go home and, please God, find it had all been just a terrible nightmare. Griffin tried to imagine what it must be like for a parent to have a child die by violence, then shied away from the attempt so violently that it was almost a physical movement. Not something anyone could imagine—or want to feel, he thought grimly. And then to know her body would be further violated by an autopsy…

“Tell Shelley to be as vague as possible; there’s no need to say we’re waiting for the results of the postmortem. She can tell them we’re investigating the circumstances of their daughter’s death, that we’ll be as quick and thorough as we possibly can.”

“What if they aren’t satisfied with that?”

“Then I’ll talk to them.” He didn’t want to. God, he didn’t want to. Because there was nothing he could say to them that would help ease their pain. Absolutely nothing.

Gwen nodded and left without saying anything else.

Griffin looked after her for a moment, reluctant to begin reading statements he already knew would prove less than useless; he had good, well-trained deputies, and if they hadn’t noted anything of importance, he wasn’t likely to disagree with their assessment. He had to go over everything, of course, even if it was a waste of time.

But he couldn’t help wondering if he was making a mistake in investigating Amber’s death as he would any other. Was Joanna right? Was the death of this teenage tourist connected in some way to the death of another tourist months ago—and to Caroline’s death?

All his training and instincts said no. And so far, the evidence confirmed that. They’d only begun getting some
information from San Francisco, both about Robert Butler and about Scott McKenna’s business dealings there, but so far there was no connection. And how Amber could be even remotely connected to either man was something Griffin couldn’t imagine.

Other than the fact that all had died going over the cliffs, there was absolutely nothing to link those three people, or their deaths. But Joanna’s certainty, even based as it was on the intangible stuff of dreams, nagged at him.

The simplest answer was usually the right one. But what if, this time, the answer was complex and obscure? What if there
were
connections between the three deaths, the three people, and those connections were so enigmatic or well concealed they could be glimpsed only in the soaring imagination of a dream?

What if Joanna held the key to three deaths?

And what if the wrong person knew that?

It was midafternoon when Joanna came out of Landers’ Jewelry Store downtown. She was about to walk toward the library, where she had left her car, when she looked across the street and saw Griffin and Scott McKenna. Instinctively, without a thought as to why she was doing it, Joanna glanced both ways quickly and then crossed the street toward the two men.

Although roughly the same height and build, they made an interesting contrast, she thought as she neared them. Scott was almost feline in his elegant, rather cold good looks, aloof and detached in the way cats often were. He was dressed in a dark suit unrelieved by any hint of color, and his face was expressionless.

Griffin, casual as always in dark slacks and a light-colored shirt beneath his customary windbreaker, looked rugged, more powerful physically and, despite his own closed expression, curiously more animated than Scott, as if his life force couldn’t be contained or controlled as the other man’s seemed to be.

They didn’t like each other.
No, it’s more than that
.
Scott hates Griffin
. Joanna felt it as she stepped up onto the sidewalk through a break in the railing near them, the iciness coming off Scott like wind off a glacier. But his voice was perfectly calm, even pleasant, when he spoke, obviously answering a question asked of him.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I can’t recall a day more than four months ago, Sheriff. The interim has been … difficult.”

“Butler died a few days after I saw you speak to him here in town,” Griffin said, ignoring the reference to Caroline’s death. But his voice held a note of tension. “I would have thought that would fix him in your mind.”

“Afraid not. Sorry.” Scott smiled thinly. “I assume one of us must have asked the time.”

Griffin looked rather pointedly at Scott’s left wrist. “You wear a Rolex, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

It was Griffin’s turn to smile thinly. “Butler wore one too. It was on his wrist when he died, and judging by the pale skin underneath the watch, he wore it all the time.”

Joanna was standing less than three feet away from the little confrontation, watching and listening intently without making any attempt to hide her interest. She thought both men were aware of her, but their attention remained fixed on each other.

Scott shrugged, just a bare lift and fall of his shoulders. “Maybe his kept time badly. Or maybe he asked me where he could get a decent cup of coffee. There were so many tourists around town then, I really don’t remember what one may or may not have said to me. But I do wonder why you’re asking about it now. I was under the impression that that investigation was closed.”

“Maybe I closed it too soon,” Griffin said.

Again, Scott shrugged. “That is, of course, your call to make. Reopen your investigation if you still have questions. But I can’t answer them for you. I never met the man.”

After a moment, Griffin nodded. “All right. But we’ve
had another death now. Another
accident
. Mind telling me where you were last night?”

One of Scott’s eyebrows lifted slightly, but he remained otherwise expressionless. “At the house, naturally.”

“Alone?”

It seemed at first Scott wouldn’t answer. But finally he did, his voice a touch less pleasant than it had been. “Dylan and Lyssa were there until nine or so. After that, there’s no one to give me an alibi, if that’s what you’re asking. The housekeeper had retired for the night.”

He didn’t mention his daughter, but Joanna assumed Regan had gone to bed by that time and that Scott didn’t feel that had to be explained. Then her attention sharpened as Scott went on.

“I heard about the girl, of course. It’s a pity—but I didn’t know her. To my knowledge, I never even saw her. Satisfied, Sheriff?”

“For now,” Griffin said.

“Then I’ll be going.” Scott walked past Griffin toward Joanna. Those chilly gray eyes touched on her briefly, and he nodded slightly and said, “Joanna,” in remote greeting, but didn’t pause. He walked to the end of the block and turned the corner, presumably heading for his parked car, and vanished from their sight.

“You’ve met?” Griffin’s voice was a bit harsh, and when she looked at him, it was to see him flexing his shoulders unconsciously, the way a man would who had held himself too stiffly for too long.

Joanna halved the space between them and stood leaning back against the railing as she faced him. “Briefly. The other day, when I was talking to Regan at Caroline’s gazebo. It was a considerably less frozen encounter than this little meeting, I think.”

He grimaced faintly. “That obvious, huh?”

“Oh, no, not at all. A twenty-foot billboard with We Hate Each Other printed in giant letters would have made the point with more subtlety.”

“I hope you’re exaggerating.”

“Well … maybe a bit. But it was painfully obvious. Why do you think I crossed the street so fast? I had the odd feeling you two were about to start swinging. Tell me, who hates the other more, you or him?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“A nosy one. Want me to answer it? I think if Scott McKenna felt like running somebody over, you’d be first on his list. And I think you hate
because
you’re hated more than for any other reason.”

“It’s a little hard to feel positive about somebody who hates your guts,” Griffin admitted.

“And he hates your guts because… ?”

“I don’t know why.”

“No?”

“No,” Griffin said with just enough firmness to make her disbelieve him. “But, to be honest, even if he wanted to be pals, I wouldn’t be interested.”

“Why not?”

Griffin looked as if he wished he hadn’t made that last comment. And sounded like it as well. “Never mind. Just a clash of personalities, I expect. As I assume you heard, Scott claims no connection with or knowledge of Butler, and claims to have been home all night alone. Something I doubt I could disprove even were I inclined to.”

“Which you’re not?”

Griffin shook his head. “Aside from the fact that I just can’t see Scott out behind The Inn in the middle of a stormy October night for any reason—and far less to push an eighteen-year-old girl to her death—there isn’t so much as a whisper of a connection between him and Amber.”

Joanna wasn’t really surprised. If a connection existed, she had a hunch it was indirect and not easily visible. “You’re probably right,” she told the sheriff. Then, thoughtfully, she added, “You seem to be a lot more certain than you were this morning that Amber’s death wasn’t accidental. Are you?”

“No. The postmortem found injuries consistent with death as the result of a fall. We’ll get a lab report in a few
days that’ll tell us if she had any drugs in her system, but the doc tells me not to hold my breath.”

Joanna frowned. “So there’s no evidence to indicate it wasn’t either accident or suicide. Then why did you question Scott McKenna so specifically about last night?”

“All part of a standard investigation.”

She looked at him a moment. “Oh? Do you normally ask someone completely unconnected to the victim if they have an alibi?”

“When there’s even a remote possibility that this victim or her death might be tied in some way to an earlier victim to whom he
did
have a connection—yes.”

“A remote possibility. I guess dreams and hunches fall under that heading.”

Griffin was reluctant to admit that he was, in fact, searching for factual evidence to connect Butler to someone in Cliffside—in particular Scott McKenna. Unless he found that evidence, of course. So he merely said, “Well, they are outside the range of normal police work, you know.”

“Yeah.” Joanna brooded for a moment, not quite sure she wanted to bring up the next subject but having already talked herself into it.

“What’s on your mind, Joanna?”

She looked around them at the nice, peaceful little town of Cliffside, at the few people moving about on this cool October afternoon, and sighed. Just how much
did
go on under the surface here, undetected by the sharp-eyed gossips of Cliffside? With every day that passed, she was more and more certain the answer was a lot. This place had secrets. Secrets people were no doubt anxious to preserve. And what would happen if any of those well-protected secrets was exposed?

Especially to the wrong person.

You’re the logical person to ask questions of Griffin. But what if some of this town’s secrets are yours? What if I can’t trust you?

What choice did she have, really?

Joanna fished in the pocket of the flannel shirt she was
wearing in lieu of a jacket and held up the necklace she’d found in the old barn. “Recognize this?”

He looked at the heart charm for a moment, then took the necklace from Joanna’s fingers and examined it more closely, checking the inscription before he answered. “Caroline’s. She wore it a lot.” His tone was impersonal.

Joanna struggled to match his tone and kept her gaze fixed on his expressionless face. “Uh-huh. According to Mr. Landers in the jewelry store, Caroline had one inscribed from her for Regan’s birthday a couple of years ago. Then, for Caroline’s next birthday, Regan marched into the jewelry store, dropped a handful of quarters on the counter, and asked that an identical heart be inscribed from her. Mr. Landers complied, accepted about three bucks’ worth of quarters with a grave face—and held the bill for the difference, knowing that either Scott or Caroline would come in later and pay him. Caroline did.”

“Yeah, that story made the rounds. So?”

Joanna took the necklace back from him and absently wound the chain around her fingers. “So when was the last time you remember Caroline wearing this?”

“How would I remember—”

“Come on, you’re a cop. You notice details. When was the last time you saw Caroline wearing this?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Just answer the question—please, Griffin.”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and frowned at her with the inward-turned gaze of someone concentrating. “It was … okay. Okay, I’ve got it. This past Easter Sunday. I saw her here in town, with Regan, both of them dressed for church—and they were both wearing the heart necklaces.”

“You don’t remember seeing Caroline wearing the necklace after that?”