Frozen (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (15 page)

“I’m sorry.” Ellie spoke gently. Rick had sat in on the autopsy and she knew what he said was a repetition of the observations of the medical examiner, but they sounded cold and unfeeling, which wasn’t surprising, given the vocation of the person who had originally said them. Still …

Wilson stared at his hands and blinked rapidly. “No one had any reason to kill her.” He was wrong. There was a reason in someone’s really screwed up mind. Ellie knew they just didn’t understand the incomprehensible nature of it.

Rick got up and went to the coffee pot in the corner, poured some in a white cup, brought it back, and extended it. “Here you go. Might help a little.”

The other man looked at the offering as if he didn’t know what it was.

Dear God,
Ellie thought, sympathy rising, almost choking her. “You’re right, sir. No one had any reason to do her harm. We’re going to do our best to find out what happened. You have my word.”

It sounded old-fashioned and stupid.
You have my word
. Like she was the marshal of a town in the old West or something. Wilson didn’t seem to mind. He just nodded. “I keep telling myself there should be something I could tell you. Something I know to help in all this. I keep thinking and thinking. But I can’t find it.”

The bewilderment in his voice was evident. Ellie was sure he was right; he didn’t know anything that could help. They’d looked at him already. Checked out his whereabouts, his financial records, all the usual things. He was an accountant in Merrill, went bowling with the guys on Wednesday night, and he and Margaret had just bought a little house about twelve miles out of town. All pretty bland and unsuspicious for a man about to kill his wife. Not that as the husband of the third woman to disappear he was really under suspicion anyway, but there were no possibilities they were going to ignore.

“She was on her way home from a showing and we needed a few things.” His voice was pathetic.

“We know.” Ellie nodded. Margaret Wilson had said she was going to stop for milk, a can of green beans, and a jar of spaghetti sauce. The items and the receipt hadn’t been in her car, so she hadn’t made it there.

“I really don’t think she’d have stopped for someone. All the women around here are scared.”

He’d told them the same thing before, in varying forms, over the past thirteen days. Ellie had no idea really what to say now that his worst fears—and theirs—were confirmed. Even before, when Margaret didn’t turn up in twenty-fours, then forty-eight, and so on, she’d been at a loss. She wasn’t a counselor, she was a cop. Catching the bad guys was her job, not helping people cope with their loss.

“We’re puzzled by that too, Mr. Wilson,” she said, wondering if he was even listening.

“I guess they’re going to give me the body for the funeral now.”

How on earth did a person reply to that?

He rambled on. “The newspaper said the same man who found Margaret was with the other girl that night before.”

That unusual aspect of the case had been leaked out somehow, so Pearson had confirmed it. Too many people knew about Grantham’s grisly run of luck in the corpse discovery department for it to stay quiet, but at least his name hadn’t been included. Neither she nor Rick responded to the question in Wilson’s voice. “We’re looking into every possible angle, sir,” Ellie said.

“I can’t believe this, you know?” His hand lifted for some purpose, then just fell back limply into his lap. “In the streets of New York, yes. Chicago, sure. I read somewhere Philadelphia has one of the highest murder rates of anywhere. But here? It’s so quiet. Safe.”

Ellie could have pointed out that Ed Gein, one of America’s most infamous serial killers, was from Plainfield, just a few hours south. She’d been through Plainfield. It was quiet too. She decided not to bring up the subject. When she was a little kid, Ed Gein was the real bogyman in her mind.

“We’ll catch him,” she promised firmly.

“We will.” Rick backed her up, but there wasn’t nearly as much conviction in his voice.

*   *   *

One of the
advantages to being married to a lawyer for five years was you tended to meet a lot of lawyers as a result. After sitting and unsuccessfully trying to read for several hours, giving up to pop a movie into the DVD player and being unable to concentrate on that either, Bryce got out his cell phone and looked up one of the numbers he called infrequently but hoped was programmed in there. To his relief, it was. Predictably, because it was a weekday toward lunchtime, he got voice messaging when he called. He left a brief request for a call back because he might need some professional advice and hung up.

He went back to the movie. The motivation to write didn’t exist and there wasn’t much else to do.

An hour and half later, Bruce Willis had successfully foiled an entire building of armed terrorists and Bryce was drinking a light beer in the aftermath of testosterone and violence, when his phone rang. Outside the big windows facing the lake, the wind rippled the water and big fat crimson maple leaves floated like spots of blood near the shore.

“Bryce, it’s Alan. How are you?”

“Fine.” Maybe fine. Maybe not. It was the automatic polite phrase. When he went to the doctor last year because he had strep throat, he’d told the physician the same thing, for God’s sake.

“Glad to hear it. What can I do for you?”

Brisk, professional, to the point. Alan was probably sitting in his expensive office, gazing out the window at his expensive view, wearing a designer suit that cost over a thousand dollars, a half smile on his affable face. Alan Silver was one of Milwaukee’s best defense attorneys, or so Suzanne had always claimed. To awe Suzanne took some doing, so Bryce believed it. All he knew was that Alan played golf with a handicap and usually humiliated him when they went out for a round, which happened about three times a year, even since the divorce. They were friends, and the humiliation on the course was due to superior skill, not a superior attitude. Bryce liked Alan, and he needed advice.

“I’m up north,” he began. “I’ve run into a situation and I am trying to decide if I need to talk to a lawyer.”

“Any lawyer? Or me?”

“You.”

“You think you might need a defense attorney?” There was a hint of disbelief in the tone.

“I don’t know. You tell me. They’ve asked me not to leave Lincoln County.”

“‘They’ being the police?”

“Sheriff’s department, yes.”

A pause.

“Maybe you’d better tell me why.” The voice on the other end changed subtly from friendly and curious to professional.

Bryce gave him a brief overview of what had happened.

At the end of his abbreviated recital, there was a small silence. “That’s you? I saw a small bit on the news about it last night.”

“On the news?” Bryce felt vaguely sick.

“The Milwaukee station. It wasn’t CNN, but it could be on there. One man connected to two missing women in such a short amount of time. It’s an unusual story.”

“The overuse of that word in reference to me telling the truth is getting irritating,” Bryce muttered. “It’s a recounting of what happened, that’s all, not a story. I feel like the guy who gets repeatedly struck by lightning. Not so lucky.”

“I can only imagine.” Alan sounded thoughtful. “I see where the investigation includes you right now because of the anomaly of the two victims. But really, unless there is some physical evidence to show a connection to a crime, they don’t have a case, even without solid alibis for the disappearances. You are a person of interest, no more, and I’m going to guess that’s only because they don’t have anyone else.”

It was a relief to have his own thoughts echoed by someone who knew what he was talking about. “Good to hear.”

Alan laughed. “It should be. Do you have any idea how much I charge an hour?”

Bryce sat down on the couch, aware he had just relaxed muscles he didn’t even realize were locked in viselike tension. “I hope I never have to find out, to be honest. There’s still a problem though.”

“As in?”

“I don’t really have an alibi for the other disappearances. You know what I do. I work at home most of the time. No one sees me come or go. I don’t want to hire you, but I’m worried enough to consider it.”

The brusque response was reassuring. “Don’t blame you there. I wouldn’t want to have to hire me either. I’ll tell you for free you don’t have to stay up there, and the lack of an alibi doesn’t matter until they can prove you need one. The police just don’t want to have to haul themselves down to Milwaukee to talk to you if they think up another question. I feel confident you’ve told them all you can, so if you want to leave, go ahead. Just let them know you’re going. That will make them either move forward with some charges if they really are leaning that direction, or agree you can do whatever you want.”

The word “charges” made his stomach do an interesting sick roll.

Bryce said thickly, “Thanks for the help.”

“No problem. I’ll call you in the spring and we’ll hit the new country club course.” Alan paused. “Suzanne know about all this?”

It might be natural for him to ask, since he and Suzanne were colleagues, but it was still an unwelcome question.

“No,” Bryce said grimly, “but I suppose she might find out. She took out a restraining order against me when we separated to keep me away from the loft. The police have already asked me why. If they continue to target me as a possible suspect, I suppose they might ask her. I get the impression that because the victims are female, they are looking for someone who has a violent predisposition toward women in general.”

“What will she say?” Alan sounded neutral. Perhaps he’d heard everything already and wouldn’t be surprised, even by the behavior of his friends.

Bryce sincerely hoped he never became that jaded. “God only knows,” he replied. “She wasn’t kindness personified during our divorce, but the restraining order was all for show. She felt guilty for screwing around on me so she tried to make me look like someone who deserved it.”

“I see.” Neutral again, no inflection.

Maybe Alan believed him, maybe not.

When the call ended, Bryce stared out the windows. A steel gray pall had settled over the sky and the clouds resembled bunches of dirty cotton dusted with soot. With the leaves off the trees he could see the other cabins across the water, shuttered and unoccupied. His mother was right, it
was
lonely. October lonely with the trees going to sleep and every creature bracing for the coming deep freeze. Most of the birds were gone, the squirrels industrious, the turtles burrowed into the mud to wait it out.

It was cold and bleak.

In retrospect, maybe he should have gone to Florida.

Chapter 12

He’d drunk two beers, watching the news, quietly laughing to himself, feet up on an old ottoman.

Law enforcement was clueless, but he’d known that all along. They didn’t seem to get the single most important rule: You have to know the animal you’re hunting.

That was it in a nutshell. They didn’t know him, what he could do, what his capabilities were … or how dangerous he could become.

If you don’t get that, you are just some idiot stumbling around with a gun.

Hell, that described most of them perfectly.

Not Detective MacIntosh though. The thought took the edge off his slight buzz; sobered him up a little.

She might be trouble.

*   *   *

Rick wandered over
to the television, decided against turning it on because he couldn’t find the remote to switch the channels at will, and glanced at the clock on the wall. When Jane worked second shift, she didn’t come home until close to midnight, if not later, and he had the evening to himself.

If only Vivian hadn’t called. He usually equated calls from his ex-wife as being as much fun as having his gums scraped, or at least if he’d ever had the dental procedure, he imagined it would be about as enjoyable.

Tonight had been no exception. The antagonism still hung in the air like the smoke from a bad kitchen fire, rancid and palpable. They’d argued over money, but for them, any subject was a good excuse. She’d signed up Amy, their oldest daughter, for some kind of expensive gymnastic lessons and informed him he had to pay for half.

Jesus, it pissed him off.

She did similar things all the time, like agree to hundred-dollar tennis shoes—the same shoes he’d firmly told the girls were ridiculously expensive and refused to buy—and hand him the bill. It ticked him off to the point he’d even skipped out on his visitation rights with the girls twice now, canceling at the last minute and hopefully ruining the plans Vivian had for the weekend. It wasn’t the most mature way to strike back, but half the time both Amy and Adrienne complained anyway because they couldn’t see their friends when they were with him. When he and Vivian split, she had moved back to Green Bay.

He didn’t need her shit right now, not with this case staring him in the face.

Rick walked through the untidy living room, telling himself he should really take the time to haul out the vacuum and do a couple of loads of laundry, but not feeling like it. His coat hung on a peg by the back door and he shrugged it on and went out to the battered Jeep he’d bought for when the snow got really deep. His house was about five miles outside of Merrill and he was in town in minutes, for a moment startled to see the plethora of porch lights and pedestrians everywhere, even though it was now fully dark. Halloween, he realized wryly as a small troupe of witches and ghosts were shepherded across at a light on Main Street by a set of attentive parents. He waited until they were safely across and turned, went down two blocks, and then parked in front of Gil’s Bar and Grill.

Inside the place was full as usual and on the noisy side, busy even on a Thursday night. Low, fake stained-glass light fixtures hung over the tables, most of which were occupied. Rick headed for the bar, sliding onto a stool and propping his elbows on the wooden surface. Joe, the bartender, greeted him with familiarity. “Hey, Rick. Leinie?”