Ghost Wanted (10 page)

Detective Smith cleared his throat. “That's quite a story.”

“It isn't a story. That's what happened to me, and I want you to find out who kept me a prisoner. It was awful.” Her voice was ragged.

Smith picked up his cell. “Check out 928 Montague Street. ASAP.”

When I was an English teacher, I stressed the poverty of mind indicated by constant use of clichés. Chief Cobb's exchanges with Detective Sergeant Hal Price, who was the only man I'd ever thought as handsome as my own Bobby Mac, were intelligent even if sometimes profane. Sam was on his honeymoon and Hal was in the hospital and somebody named Howie indicated he didn't intend to be in the office until Monday and expected these detectives to wrap everything up. Howie had already made up his mind that Michelle Hoyt was a thief, and likely he would be delighted to finger her for the shooting of Ben Douglas.

I had planned to drop by Sam's office, indicate Michelle was being framed, and be on my way. Instead . . . I sniffed. Not a hint of coal smoke. Wiggins understood. I was Michelle's only hope.

Smith pushed up from his chair. There was something ominous in the way he stood, leaning forward.

Michelle stood, too. “It's against the law to hold people against their will, right?”

“If what you
claim
is true, yes. Tell us what happened again.” There was a taunting tone to his voice.

“Why should I?” she demanded. “I've reported a crime. It's up to you to find out what happened.” She glared at him. “I'm tired. I've been scared. I've missed classes. I haven't been home and I've got to see about my cat.” She picked up her shoulder bag and started toward the door.

Smith moved to intercept her. “Not so fast, Ms. Hoyt. We're holding you for questioning.”

She jolted to a stop, stared up at him. “Questioning?” Her voice rose. “Why?”

“On a charge of theft. And aggravated assault with a firearm. Anything you say from this point on may be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. Do you wish to waive that right?”

I leaned close to Michelle's ear, said very softly, “No.”

She swung toward the sound of my voice.

Smith frowned. “Ms. Hoyt, what's your answer?”

I tried not to be heard, but I suppose even my whisper was loud in that small room. “Call Joe Cooper.”

“Hey.” The detective was irritated. “What'd you say?”

Michelle's face hardened. “I didn't say anything. But I've got a lot to say. I was the victim of a crime, and now you are accusing me of stealing something and assaulting someone. Who am I supposed to have assaulted?”

“Where's the gun?”

Her hand rose to her throat. “Gun?”

“The night watchman at the library is hospitalized with a chest wound. Why did you shoot him?”

“I didn't shoot anyone. I wasn't at the library last night. I was locked up in that house on Montague Street.”

“Let's start with Wednesday night. You came into the library at shortly after one a.m.” Smith pointed toward the chair. “Sit down. Tell us about it.”

She stood rigid, eyes huge, hands clenched. “I won't sit down. You have no right to accuse me. I've never entered the library at night. Not Wednesday night. Not last night. Not any night. I didn't steal anything. I don't have a gun. I don't even know how to shoot a gun. Who was shot? Where?”

I liked this girl. She reminded me of a cat Bobby Mac and I once had. Big Girl was a brown tabby who never saw a dog she wouldn't confront. Big Girl was scrappy, tough, and clever. When she was an old, old cat, too feeble to chase harassing blue jays, she ambled slowly into the yard, rolled over on her back, waited unmoving as blue jays swooped down at her. Finally a blue jay dived too close and, in one swift, lethal roll, Big Girl caught him.

Smith was brusque. “All right. You got one phone call. Then we'll book you on suspicion of aggravated bodily assault with a firearm, and you can sit in a cell until you're ready to give us some answers. You can lawyer up all you want to, but you won't lie your way out of this. Make your call.”

Michelle's hand shook as she drew out her cell phone. “I don't know a lawyer. I don't have any money—”

“I guess I'll call Joe Cooper.” I tried to imitate her voice. She had a nice voice, low and contained, as if she measured out words carefully.

Michelle drew in a sharp breath, lifted the cell. She tapped, found a number, held the phone close to her ear. “Joe—Michelle Hoyt . . .” She almost managed a smile. “I'm all right, but I was trapped in a house on Montague Street from Wednesday night until this morning. I came directly to the police station to tell them, and they're holding me and they say I stole something and shot somebody and it's all crazy.” She listened. Her eyes widened. “I didn't take that journal. . . . My code used? . . . Oh my God, what am I going to do? . . . Yes. Please come.” She clicked off the phone.

Smith looked at her with a slight curl of his mouth. “Big surprise, huh?” He jerked a thumb at the uniformed officer. “Escort the lady to a cell.”

As the lock clicked and the officer moved down the hall, Michelle looked around the small cell with a single bed and toilet. She walked stiffly across the cement floor, sank down on one end of the bed. “This can't be happening to me.” She spoke aloud, her voice quivering. Her oval face looked bewildered and frightened. “Nothing makes sense.”

I hoped Wiggins understood. Precept Four was all very well and good—“Become visible only when absolutely necessary”—but Michelle needed a boost. I stood with my back to the wall next to the bed. Colors swirling and forming—well, I can see how that might be unnerving. By the time she sensed my presence and turned, I was there. I'd chosen a vivid rayon top with vertical swaths in bright coral, aquamarine, and violet, with pale blue trousers and cream sandals. Drop earrings and a long necklace of silver rings interspersed with beaten silver coins added a note of cheer. I smoothed my red curls and smiled at her. “Don't be distressed. I'm here for just a moment”—I couldn't stay long, because surveillance cameras would already have revealed me—“to reassure you that there are those of us who believe in you, and we will make sure you are exonerated.”

Michelle's dark eyes were huge. One hand clutched at her throat.

Running footsteps sounded in the corridor.

I gave her another smile. “George is fine. I'll be back.” And I was gone.

L
eaves scudded on the path beside me. The downtown park that faces the police station was quiet. A jogger disappeared around a cluster of pines. A woman sauntered past with an elderly cocker spaniel who stopped to snuffle every few yards. When she and the dog were twenty feet distant, I appeared.

I felt festive and dressed accordingly in a light green tunic with cobalt blue embroidery on the front, the sleeves, and around the hem. Cropped slacks, also in blue, matching green sandals, a green canvas purse, and I was good to go. After all, I am a redhead and I know what makes redheads look their best. This isn't vanity. Looking our best gives confidence, and even Wiggins would agree that Heavenly emissaries must exude confidence. If there is some thought—not on my part—that I am too attuned to fashion, I simply mention that peacocks are admired for a reason.

I crossed the street, noting there were plenty of parking spaces in front of the police station. I spotted Michelle's car, a green Dodge sedan. Certainly, she must have been shocked to find her car and purse this morning. I thought it possible her car had been used by the intruder in black Wednesday night on the foray to the library, then left in the drive on Montague Street because there was no further need of either the car or the purse, with its useful personal information. Michelle had been entangled in a devilishly clever trap, her code used to enter the library Wednesday night and the rare book placed in her apartment. Michelle's nemesis had craftily linked the crime to her.

Now a night watchman had been shot, and the police, of course, considered Michelle a suspect. I felt a ripple of shock. Last night's intruder had not arrived intending to shoot anyone. Instead, the intruder had planned an undetected visit and removal of a diary. But when capture was imminent, the intruder didn't hesitate, and Ben was gunned down. The intruder would now, of course, want to associate the crime with the book theft and see Michelle accused.

I abruptly disappeared. I had intended to indulge myself with breakfast at Lulu's and consider how I could free Michelle, but that would have to wait. Instead I felt an urgency to talk to Michelle.

Michelle stood by the bars of her cell, staring into the long hallway, her face forlorn. Obviously, she felt abandoned. Anger bubbled within me at the figure in black who was disrupting Michelle's life, entangling her in every way possible, using her entry code the night the journal was stolen, placing the journal in her apartment, tipping off the police. Worse might lie ahead. . . .

“Michelle,” I whispered, “did you open the trunk of your car when you came out of the house on Montague this morning?”

She stood rigid. She gripped iron bars. She looked around the very bare cell. The planes of her face sharpened. “No one is here. Only me. I'm alone.”

“I was here. I told you I'd come back.”

Michelle edged along the bars, her gaze swinging all over the small cell, which was obviously inhabited only by her. “Do you have red hair?” The words were a bit jerky.

“Yes.” The same tone I used when a slow pupil successfully diagramed
The cat chased the dog.
“Heaven prefers that emissaries remain unseen.” I didn't have time to explain the Precepts. Or Heaven. Or the department.

She made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “I'd say you're definitely unseen. At least by me.” She pressed trembling fingers to each temple. “I started out on Wednesday to run an errand. That's all I did. A simple irritating errand, and somebody tricks me into a basement, locks me up, I finally get out, and the police put me in a cell, and I'm hearing voices.”

“Just my voice,” I emphasized. I wanted to reassure her. I was confident I sounded pleasant, a low, rather husky tone. Bobby Mac once rather poetically compared my voice to Lauren Bacall's. Now that was a compliment.

“Okay. Only your voice. Maybe I'm not totally nuts. Yet. Only one voice. Maybe I don't need to worry unless it's a bunch of voices. Even one voice bothers me.”

“Michelle, I have to hurry—”

“Don't let me hold you.” She made flapping gestures with her hands, as if shooing geese away.

“Your car.” Seconds were fleeting. “Did you check the car, look under the seats or in the trunk?”

“No.” It was a whisper of sound. “I got into the car as fast as I could and came straight here.”

Of course she did. Ben Douglas's assailant would count on that response. She was in dire straits as it was, but the evidence to be used against her could be much worse. Ben's assailant had the gun used to shoot him. If the police found that gun in Michelle's car, she could never explain how it came to be there.

“Stay calm. I'll be in touch.” She didn't look reassured as I left.

Upstairs, I checked out the main office. Two uniformed officers sat at desks near a bank of filing cabinets. I scanned the desks and two tables and didn't find what I sought. I flowed into the squad room, which was broken up into four quadrants with work stations. Only one was occupied. A uniformed officer sat at a computer, engrossed as he typed.

I heard voices toward the back. In an adjoining small, windowless room, I found Detectives Smith and Weitz. Wearing plastic gloves, Weitz stood at a table, emptying Michelle's purse. Smith filmed her actions using a small camera mounted on a tripod.

“. . . change purse, notebook, three pens, compact, lipstick, car keys . . .”

Michelle's belongings were being catalogued and a record made of the emptying of the purse, footage to prove the contents of the bag, the time and date of search duly noted. I scanned the objects on the table, spotted a set of car keys on a pink ceramic fob. I wanted those keys before the police arranged for a search of her car and before her purse was placed in a receptacle for a prisoner's belongings.

“. . . cell phone, vial of cologne . . .”

I studied the exact location of Weitz, Smith, the keys on the table, and the purse. I moved to the doorway, slammed the door shut, and turned off the light, plunging the room into total darkness.

“Hey, Don, what's going on?” Weitz snapped.

Hand outstretched, I moved around the perimeter of the room until I found the tripod. I tipped it over and gave Smith a shove. He stumbled, swore. I immediately moved to the table. Hovering, I reached down, my fingers flying over the objects Weitz had removed from the purse. I connected with the car keys, grabbed them, then my fingers closed on the bag. I hadn't counted on Weitz instinctively clutching the purse. I yanked hard, and the denim bag was in my hand.

Weitz yelped.

A clanging bang suggested Smith was tangled in the tripod. I heard a grunt and a thud as he scrambled to get up.

I swept the purse across the table. Michelle's possessions clattered onto the floor. The confusion should hide the absence of the keys at least for a little while. I tossed the bag in a corner. I opened the hall door wide enough to slip out, closed it again, but that shaft of light was enough for Det. Smith. He stormed out into the hall, looking each way. Fortunately, he looked at eye level. I pressed against the ceiling, held my hand with the keys on the side of the light fixture opposite him.

When he swung back into the room, turning on the light, I sped to the end of the corridor, opened a door, and entered an empty office. I smiled hugely. Windows. This building was constructed in the 1950s, and the windows, though closed since central heat and air had been installed, were old-fashioned. I flicked the catch, lifted the bottom pane, placed the keys on the outside ledge, and closed the window. I left the window unlocked. Rather on the order of
what goes up must come down
, in this case what went out must be brought back.

Outside, I hovered near the sill and surveyed the scene below. A good Oklahoma breeze scuffed dust in a graveled parking lot and rustled leaves in a big cottonwood on the other side of a chain-link fence. Keys in hand, I zoomed to the top of the cottonwood, slowly floated down until I was next to the large trunk. A quick glance up and down the street to be sure no one was near. I appeared. I thrust Michelle's keys into my green canvas bag and strolled up the sidewalk, no more remarkable than any other citizen abroad early on a Saturday morning.

When I reached Michelle's car, I didn't hesitate. I unlocked the door, slid behind the wheel, and drove to the other side of the park. Only a few cars were in a small lot near a playground.

I started my search in the trunk. I lifted up a lawn chair shoved against a wheel well. A gym bag lay on its side. I unzipped it. There, nestled next to a swimsuit, was a gun. I swiftly slipped the gun into my purse and closed the trunk. Once behind the wheel, I started the car, but I didn't know where I should go. I was determined to drive somewhere and find safe storage for the gun. The gun, of course, must be the weapon used to shoot Ben Douglas. Its intended discovery by the police was to be the coup de grâce in the web surrounding Michelle.

I drove sedately. This was no time to be picked up—

A siren sounded. In the rearview mirror, red lights flashed atop a cruiser that was closing rapidly. Even though Michelle had driven straight to the police station from Montague Street, very likely the alert for her car was still operative. For an instant, I felt a quiver of despair. What could I possibly do? I almost jammed my foot on the accelerator, but perhaps Saint Christopher was riding with me. It isn't only physicians who must heed the dictum
Do no harm
. A wild chase could endanger a great many people enjoying outings on a Saturday morning. I couldn't outrun the police. But there might be another way. . . .

I slowed, put on the turn signal, and lowered both windows. I pulled up to the curb.

The police car snugged in behind the Dodge. As the officer opened his door, I disappeared. I was interested to see that I, my clothes, and accessories were gone. Only the small black pistol lay on the front passenger seat. In a swoop, I grabbed the pistol and was out the window by the curb. I held the gun against the car door, out of the approaching officer's sight.

He stopped a foot or so from the car, bent to look inside. “Hey.” He turned and looked in every direction. He opened the front and rear doors, eased his head inside.

Immediately the gun and I rose, twenty feet, thirty, fifty. As he withdrew his head from the car, I was above a thick tangle of woods. I settled high in a tree and studied the terrain. Off to my left, smoke curled into the sky from the cement plant, a large white building with two big chimneys. Dark water gleamed in the river between the woods and the plant. In the early sunlight, the rusted railings of an abandoned railway bridge gleamed orange. Keeping close to the treetops, I reached the river, dropped low, skimmed just above the water. In only a moment, I reached the railroad trestle. I zoomed higher and wedged the gun securely into the V of the middle trestle. There the gun was and there the gun would stay. For now.

In the squad room, Officers Smith and Weitz hunched at neighboring desks. From the flush in her cheeks and the set of his shoulders, it was clear that they had exchanged sharp words.

I looked over her shoulder as her fingers flew over the keyboard:

. . . after Det. Smith entangled himself in the tripod and disrupted the recording of items in Prisoner M. Hoyt's purse, I again catalogued Prisoner Hoyt's belongings. When I finished the list, I realized Hoyt's car keys were missing. Det. Smith insisted no keys could have been in the purse since we searched thoroughly and there absolutely were no keys present in the room. However, I saw the keys and distinctly recall a key chain with a pink porcelain fob. I described the key chain to Det. Smith.

She slid a venomous glance at him, continued to type:

Det. Smith claimed he was vindicated when Patrolman Sykes reported the prisoner's car was stopped on Wheeler. I spoke with Officer Sykes, inquired about keys. Keys were in the ignition. He confirmed the key chain had a pink porcelain fob.

She paused and her face crinkled in puzzlement.

Smith's chair creaked. “Hey, Weitz.” His voice was conciliatory. “How come you knew those keys had this pink thingamajig before we got Sykes's report?”

They looked at each other.

Smith broke an uneasy silence. “Somebody shoved me into the tripod. You were on the other side of the table. Everything on the table got knocked on the floor. I didn't do that. The door opened, then the door closed. You didn't open it. I didn't open it. I blundered over to the door and yanked it open. I went into the hall. There was nobody there.”

She studied him, apparently decided a truce had been called, because she too spoke in a conciliatory tone. “The keys were there before the light went off. When you turned the light back on, I picked up everything from the floor. No keys.”

Smith rubbed knuckles along his chin. “The keys were in the car.”

“Yeah.” Weitz stared at him. “The keys and no driver.”

“I don't get it.”