Deadly Messengers (33 page)

He looked at Kendall. “Perhaps you told me, Miss Jennings, do you think?”

Kendall shrugged, but was certain she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t known herself. It hadn’t occurred to her, either, he shouldn’t have known about the three killers’ medication.

Kendall turned to Trip. “Maybe it
was
in a news article?”

“No, I went back through them. Not a mention anywhere. Either you’ve guessed at it to make your studies look more compelling or you know something we don’t.”

Kendall watched Doug carefully, looking for signs of distress again. He continued to slowly dab at his still bleeding lip.

“Really, I don’t know detective. I’m an old man. Maybe it
was
a guess based on probabilities. I’m sure you can’t read
everything
printed in the news. How could
I
possibly know information before the police? Maybe
you
just weren’t doing your job.”

“Except, Mr. McKinley, you were spot on in your research, even listing the brand of drugs.”

A small, gentle smile touched Doug’s lips. “Did I? That
is
interesting, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I think maybe you do know more than you’re telling us.”

Doug looked up to stare at his son’s photo again. Once more, his mind seemed to have left the room. The tremors in his hands were back. He held his palms forcibly to his knees, perhaps to minimize the shaking.

“I think, Detective, if you don’t believe me, then arrest me.”

As though Trip was no longer in the room, Doug looked to Kendall and smiled the sweetest of smiles. Once again, he was the image of a kindly uncle.

“I really appreciate you coming here. You’re the first journalist in recent times to pay much attention to my story.”

Kendall half-smiled and nodded, uncertain why he seemed so happy and calm when Trip had literally accused him of lying.

“Well, Mr. McKinley, it’s an interesting idea.”

As quickly as his mood had turned upbeat, it now fell away to something else darker, like a light had gone out on his emotions.

“It’s not an idea. They’re facts. Why can’t people see that? I’ve never understood.”

His head snapped back from the photo to address Trip.

“I think, Detective Lindsay, you’ve come here under false pretenses. You’ve come asking ridiculous questions and wasting my time. You’re not here to help me stop what’s happening at all, are you?”

Kendall didn’t know where to look. Doug McKinley’s lip, which
had
stopped bleeding, had started seeping red again. Her annoyance with Trip was growing.

Trip waved his hands as though to say
calm down
.

“Mr. McKinley, like I said, we’re merely trying to tie up loose ends. They’re simple questions.”

Doug McKinley suddenly stood, almost toppling over in his haste. His hand reached out to steady himself on the arm of his chair. He righted himself, then shuffled around the coffee table and headed toward the door. At the doorway, he stopped and looked back at them.

“I can now appreciate
you
, Detective, are like the rest of them. Blind or part of the cover-up. I don’t have to answer your questions. In fact, I think you’d better leave. I’m not feeling well.”

He rubbed at his chest, as though to indicate he had a problem with his heart.

Trip stood. “Mr. McKinley, I apologize, but you
will
have to talk to us at some point. I’ll come back tomorrow with my partner when you’re feeling better.”

Trip motioned to Kendall they should leave. Kendall was flabbergasted. This hadn’t gone the way she’d expected at all. Trip’s ambush shocked her.

She picked up her bag and threw it over her shoulder. But instead of following Trip, who now stood at the doorway waiting to leave, she approached Doug.

Placing her hand gently on his forearm, she said, “Mr. McKinley … Doug, I’m so sorry. We didn’t want to upset you. This is a misunderstanding.” She glanced over at Trip, and gently squeezed Doug’s arm. “Trust me, I
do
want to help you.”

Doug looked into Kendall’s eyes. Suddenly she had the sense of a switch flicked inside his head, as though he’d made a decision, wrenched back emotional control. His mood changed instantly. Before her was, again, the sweet and eager old man she’d first met.

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you? You will help me, won’t you?”

Before she could answer, Doug called to Trip. “Detective, could I possibly chat privately with Miss Jennings? I have a few more notes. For her story.”

Kendall turned to look at Trip now standing in the hall next to the front door. She felt Doug’s hand on her upper arm, surprisingly steady and strong.

“Is that all right with you, Miss Jennings? It’ll only take a few minutes. I have them in the kitchen all ready.”

Kendall looked at Trip with a sinking feeling. She could almost predict like a fortuneteller that she would do even more damage to this man by raising his hopes when she had little control over what might come of any article she might write. It was too late, though.

“Do you mind, Detective?” she asked with a smiling grimace hidden from Doug, but one that told Trip she was an unwilling participant.

Trip reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a wallet from which he retrieved a card. He placed the card on the side table beside the door.

“My card, Mr. McKinley. I
will
be in touch tomorrow. You’ll be seeing me again.” Then to Kendall: “I’ll be waiting in the car. Take your time. I have some calls to make.”

Kendall watched Trip exit. Even before he’d closed the door, Doug McKinley had grabbed her hand and led her from the living room. Once again, his firm grip gave a different impression to his appearance. Maybe he wasn’t as ill as she’d first thought.

“Come this way, Miss Jennings. You are a lovely girl.
Really.
And you’ll be a big help to me. I don’t think even
you
realize how much.”

“If I can help you, I will.”

“Yes, you will.”

A fly being led into a spider’s parlor, was how she felt.

Kendall smiled at such a silly thought.

“NO PROBLEM,” SAID KENDALL, FEELING even more uncomfortable in the face of Doug McKinley’s enthusiasm. These stories she’d found herself writing had taken her to places she did not enjoy. She didn’t like hurting people, and she didn’t like disappointing people. She felt sure she would end up doing both to Doug McKinley.

As soon as she left here, she intended to make some life changes. First, she’d stop wavering over the direction of her work and find a way to ensure she had regular paying jobs. A friend of hers was doing well writing content for a large website. She could do that. Secondly, she would get as far away from anything involving crimes and death. That included Detectives O’Grady and Trip Lindsay.

Whatever Doug McKinley wanted to show her, she would find some other writer to take up the story. If it turned out he’d gotten it right, then let that writer enjoy the career boost. Kendall didn’t want that anyway. She wanted her old life back, where the things she wrote, or didn’t write, hurt nobody. She might not change the world, but, then, she wouldn’t damage it either.

As they entered the tidy green-themed kitchen, Kendall spied the dark-blue manila folder sitting on the melamine table, pushed up against the wall. On the folder, handwritten in big black marker-pen letters, was her name.

Doug shuffled his way to the stove and switched on the burner below a kettle.

“Tea or coffee?”

She hesitated. Trip was waiting outside. After everything, though, the least she could do was give the man ten minutes.

“I’ll take a coffee, thank you, but I think it’ll have to be quick. I don’t want to keep the detective waiting long.”

She put her hand on the top of the folder. With his back to her, Doug pulled two cups from a cupboard above the kitchen sideboard. “Now, don’t you open that folder until I’m there. I want to walk you through it.”

Kendall instantly withdrew her hand from the folder.

Seating herself into one of the two chairs at the table, she swiveled herself around, so that her arm hung over the back of the chair and she could watch Doug. She wanted to give him her full attention. Make him happy, even if it was only for the next few minutes.

“I’m sorry the police seem to have missed the point of your research, Mr. McKinley.
I
admire your tenacity.”

Doug shrugged his shoulders, then turned toward her and smiled before returning to the coffee cups. He dropped a spoonful of instant coffee into each.

Opening the fridge next to the bench, he said, “Milk? Sugar?”

“Black, thank you. One sugar.”

“Charlie took his coffee black. We used to sit and drink it together. Unusual for a kid his age. Usually they’re out with their friends. I think because my wife passed when he was so young, he felt he should be there for me. We were a team.”

Doug McKinley still hadn’t looked at Kendall. Moments before, his spirits seemed lifted at having her attention. Now, joy slid from his voice, which had become a monotone drawl.

As he talked, he moved back to the fridge to return the milk he’d used for his own drink. Even more slowly—if that were even possible—he moved back to a cupboard above the sink from which he retrieved a sugar bowl.

Kendall turned her attention to her iPhone and began to type a message to Trip …
Be about ten minutes
. After blindsiding her like that and bullying Doug, he was lucky she didn’t keep him waiting an hour. He might have a job to do, but he wasn’t dealing with a hardened criminal. Doug was a sick, old man. And
her
contact, after all.

Just as Kendall hit send on her message, the shriek of a whistle announced the kettle had boiled. While she was at it, she decided to check her Facebook account.

She heard the sound of water being poured into the cups, then tired footsteps as Doug made his way to the table. Looking up from her phone, she smiled at him, just as he gently placed a cup on the table before her.

“There you go. Black and hot.”

“Thank you.”

Kendall picked up the cup and sipped at the dark liquid. It was boiling. She wished she’d asked him to add a drop of cold water so she could finish it quickly.

Doug McKinley lowered himself into the chair across from her. Something had changed about him that she couldn’t quite figure. He still smiled, but there was flatness in his eyes when she looked into them. It unsettled her. If she hadn’t known him as a sweet, old man, she might have made an excuse and left right then.

Instead, she waited for him to speak. He continued to look at her, watching, as she took another sip of the coffee. Doug didn’t appear to be in any hurry, so Kendall took control.

“Okay, Mr. McKinley, what else do you have for me? I only have a few minutes, remember? Detective Lindsay’s outside.”

“Of course. Of course. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to delay you. I know you’ve more important things than having coffee with an old man.”

He moved his hand toward the folder and pushed it across to her. Kendall reached for it and was about to open the cover, when he reached over and placed his palm on top of hers.

“I just want to say one thing before you look inside.”

Was that a tear in the corner of his eye?

The folder’s new contents must cover issues dear to him—something more about his son, possibly. In a way, she was grateful babies weren’t on her near-horizon. She thought about her mother and now understood why she did what she did that night.

“I’m all ears.” Her voice was warm. “And if you want me to stay, if it will take longer than a few minutes, I can tell the detective to go and I’ll catch a cab.

“No, no. This won’t take a minute. I just need to say I’m sorry. If I could have found any other way, I would. You’re the kind of girl I would have liked Charlie to marry.”

That hit Kendall in the heart. She thought if he kept this up, she’d become a sobbing mess.

She placed her other hand over his.

“Mr. McKinley—Doug, whatever is in here, I promise I will help you in any way I can. I think you’re very brave. You’ve done more than most people. Some things are just inexplicable. And unfair.”

“Yes, unfair, but necessary.”

He dragged in a deep breath, exhaling slowly, before pulling his hand away. The glistening in his eye had become a single tear streaking down his cheek. Kendall couldn’t look at him or she’d start crying herself. She bowed her head to the folder and opened it.

What she saw was unexpected. She stared at the page for long seconds, wondering if she was missing something.

The page was blank.

She reached inside and slid the top sheet partially downward to look at the page below. It was the same. Blank.

Doug must have seen her confusion.

“You must look more closely,” he said, “and turn that page over. It’s a few pages in. Then you’ll understand.”

She did as he asked, dipping her head lower as she flipped over the top page as instructed. The reverse side revealed printed words. The printing, though, was minuscule, barely readable, forcing her to lean her face right down, so her nose almost touched the page.