Hush (20 page)

done.‖

Coby had met Nicholette‘s boyfriend, Cal Eckhardt, on several occasions and had found him silent and unsmiling. She could imagine what it would be like if he were ―done.‖

―I might stop by the hotel at lunch,‖ Coby said. ―See how they‘re doing.‖ She‘d promised her father she‘d pop in sometime. She just hadn‘t expected it to be so soon.

―Good,‖ Nicholette said. ―I hear you got through to Shannon Pontifica. Nice job.‖

―The figures were there in black and white.‖

―Don‘t be humble. They could‘ve been printed on the insides of Shannon‘s eyelids and she still wouldn‘t have seen them without your help. What do you think about Mr. Webber?‖ she asked, referring to the file Coby had splayed on her desk.

As diplomatically as she could, Coby said, ―I‘m not sure he‘s being entirely truthful about his economic situation.‖

―His wife‘s out for blood.‖

―Yeah, well, he‘s got one woman claiming she was his mistress and another who‘s been calling the office,‖ Coby reminded her. Nicholette grimaced, as she‘d been ducking the woman‘s calls. ―He needs to settle with the wife unless he wants a Tiger Woods debacle on his hands. It might not be the same media sensation, but it‘s going to play pretty ugly in the courtroom.‖

―You‘re right.‖ Nicholette pressed her lips together. ―I wanted to believe him. He seemed so genuine.‖

―I know.‖

―I‘ll talk to him.‖ She placed her hands on the arms of the chair and resolutely pushed herself to her feet. ―I‘ll probably be sending him to you for a consultation.‖

Coby nodded.
Terrific,
she thought as Nicholette left.

Three hours later Coby was just grabbing her purse and getting ready to go to Lovejoy‘s when her cell phone rang. Normally, she didn‘t answer it during office hours, but this time she shot

the screen a glance. It was her father.

―Hi, Dad,‖ she answered. ―I was coming—‖

―She was murdered! My God! She was murdered, Coby! They‘ve ruled it a homicide,‖ he broke in. ―Someone held her head underwater and deliberately killed her!
They killed her.”

Coby was stunned to have her fears suddenly turned to reality. ―Oh, Dad,‖ she murmured.

―Who? Who would do that?‖ he asked, lost. ―Who?‖

―I don‘t know. I‘m coming to Lovejoy‘s. Wait for me. I‘ll be there in ten minutes.‖

She hurried to the elevator and slammed her palm on the Down button, waiting for the car that would take her to the building‘s parking lot. She could scarcely think. She felt disembodied, somehow. Removed from the truth that she‘d feared deep in her soul.

Her father‘s voice circled her brain:
Someone held her head underwater and deliberately
killed her.

Lieutenant Draden stepped into the squad room and glanced around at the desks slammed up against each other, ignoring the buzz of telephone conversation and the grumbles and odors of the two perps currently being booked. He caught Danner‘s eye and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Danner nodded back to indicate he‘d received the message and would be heading to the lieutenant‘s office soon.

Detective Joshua Celek, cherubic, perpetually cheery and still somewhat naive, was saying,

―There‘s just no evidence. Nobody to pin it on.‖

Danner had been sitting at his desk, lost in thought, listening to Celek with half an ear about the home invasion and homicide case they were working on. Even though Celek had been with the department for almost five years, he wasn‘t really the critical thinker Danner would have liked. Nor was he particularly intuitive, another quality that elevated the department drones to higher levels.

He‘d been with robbery, moved up to homicide, and was now kind of straddling both, as were most of the detectives given the current cutbacks, but in Danner‘s opinion, he wasn‘t up to homicide yet.

The job required something more than Celek possessed, and though the man wore slacks and open-necked shirts, Danner always visualized him in high-water pants and horizontal striped T-shirts, like a kid from the fifties. Celek was over thirty but you‘d never know it.

Danner longed for Elaine to get back from vacation. He could use a heavy dose of her acerbic wit and an even heavier one of her unflinching look at the seedy side of life. She could pick up a rock and look at the slime beneath without the slightest queasiness or need to look away. She was tough, but also intuitive, and her determination and persistence tended to open up cases and create results.

Celek was a nice guy and, well, that was about it.

Pushing back his chair, Danner headed toward Draden‘s glass-walled office, ignoring Celek‘s, ―Hey, where you going?‖ figuring the answer would be self-evident.

One more minute of listening to his stumped review of the ugly home invasion and homicide might send Danner over the edge.

Draden was seated at his desk as Danner closed the door behind him. The lieutenant was affectionately known as Drano because of his craggy face and hangdog expression, as if he were drained of life, which was a complete misnomer as the man was savvy and acute and filled with more energy than his persona revealed.

―Sheriff O‘Halloran called from Tillamook County,‖ the lieutenant informed him. ―Your drowning accident now looks like homicide.‖

Danner stood stock still. He‘d known it. There were just times you could tell. ―I‘d like to talk to the sheriff.‖

―He wants to talk to you, too, since you were friends with the victim.‖

―Acquaintances.‖

―Give O‘Halloran a call. Sounds like he wants an in-depth interview.‖

―Maybe I could help in the investigation,‖ Danner suggested, his mind already churning ahead.

Lieutenant Draden gave him a look. ―First, I think you gotta clear yourself off the suspect list,‖ he said dryly. ―O‘Halloran sounded—tense.‖

―Yeah?‖

―A lot of people at that party, and nobody saw anything? O‘Halloran didn‘t say it, but there‘s bound to be someone holding something back. Someone you probably know personally.‖

Danner nodded.

―Can Celek handle the Lloyd case by himself?‖ Drano asked, referring to the home invasion.

Danner‘s hesitation prompted the lieutenant to add, ―Okay. No surprise. Just don‘t give this Tillamook County case all your time, Lockwood.‖

―I won‘t.‖

―When‘s Metzger returning?‖

―The end of next week,‖ Danner said.

The lieutenant swore softly under his breath, looked through the glass walls of his office at Celek, then shot a glance at Danner‘s shuttered face. ―Keep in close contact,‖ he said, basically giving Danner carte blanche to investigate on his own.

―Got it.‖ But his attention had already moved on to Annette‘s homicide, and as he walked back to his desk and telephone, it was Coby Rendell who was on his mind. He planned to see her.

Directly after he took a trip to Tillamook for a face-to-face with Sheriff O‘Halloran.

Genevieve stood at her kitchen window, staring out at her rhododendrons, their brilliant fuchsia blossoms being hammered by the rain. Water was pooling in the yard; the grass was practically underwater. Only a few extra-long blades were pointed up through the brown, dirty flood of precipitation.

Genevieve sighed, her thoughts dark. Why was she the only one who thought Annette had been murdered? Even Jarrod acted like she was half crazy, infuriating her. And this place—this house! It wasn‘t even really her house. It was her mother‘s. After her father‘s heart attack Kathy Knapp sold the family home and bought a house that was smaller and more affordable. She was a real estate agent who‘d weathered the economic downturn better than some, and only by the timing of Genevieve‘s father‘s death; if he‘d lived a few more years her mother would have probably taken a loss on the sale. Of course, Lawrence‘s death hadn‘t saved Gen and Jarrod from losing their own home. They‘d kept their place with its exorbitant interest rate and had taken out a home equity loan to boot. They hadn‘t meant to borrow up on the second, but they had, and then
boom.
Everything went to shit. Gone. Their house underwater. No equity. Owing more than the home‘s worth and letting it go back to the bank. They‘d moved in with Kathy while they got back on their feet, whatever that meant, since the way things were going, there was no way to get back on their feet.

Jarrod needed a real job for that, not some menial inventory checking that earned him a pauper‘s paycheck.

Genevieve liked nice things. She could admit that . . . had no problem admitting that . . . was proud of it, in point of fact. That was just one of the things she and Annette had in common, an appreciation of the finer things. It was why she‘d chosen Jarrod Lockwood, who was a business major with winning ways and therefore a bright future. How was she supposed to know he was never going to give up that damn guitar? He‘d cut his hair and put on a dress shirt and tie, but the guitar held him in a grip as strong as a drug addiction.

It wasn‘t fair, the way things had turned out. She‘d really thought that Jarrod‘s job at Our House was a temporary position, a stepping stone to something bigger. But all he still did was make sure the candlesticks, and settees, and crystal, and bedroom sets, and bath linens, and mixers and every other goddamn thing was in its rightful place or sold. Still! That ‘s all he did.

And play that fucking guitar.

After her father‘s death Genevieve began feeling anxious; she‘d always thought there was something
there
for her, something he‘d put aside for her. But it turned out Lawrence Knapp wasn‘t the investor everyone thought he was, apparently. When Jarrod lost his parents in quick succession— his father of lung cancer, his mother to basic inattention to her own health after her husband‘s death—Gen kind of expected something financial to come their way, but again, no such luck. The Lockwoods were part of the vast middle-income group that was currently slip-sliding into lower-income and maybe even downright poor. There was no money left for Jarrod and Danner after their deaths, and therefore, certainly nothing for Genevieve.

She thought now about her father, feeling ambivalent, if she were kind to herself. In reality she was hurt and pissed off. How could he leave her like this? How could he?

Her father had been a lawyer and she‘d grown up an overindulged only child; she could admit that. But she‘d done everything right, hadn‘t she? She‘d gone to college, married a good guy, and started a real estate career of her own. Her mom had always wanted her daughter to join her in the business, and Genevieve had. Her mother had then planned to start their own real estate firm, Knapp and Knapp; Kathy never seemed to accept Lockwood as Genevieve‘s last name.

But, of course, about the time they were making plans for their company, the real estate market tanked. Forget the new business, Genevieve couldn‘t make a single sale to save her soul after that. She started looking around for other work and found nothing. Annette, bless her well-meaning but deluded soul, had offered Gen a job at Lovejoy‘s in the tearoom, somewhere in the menial range of Suzette and Juliet‘s jobs, and Gen had told her politely, but firmly, ―No, thank you.‖

So Jarrod worked at Our House and Genevieve tried to get a job in marketing until she ‘d been turned down enough times to be completely disheartened. Besides, she didn‘t really want to work, though she pretended to be pounding the pavement every day. Jarrod played with his band, Split Decision, whenever they could get a gig, but the economic downturn had taken its toll there, too: they hadn‘t been getting as many gigs as before, and the ones they did involved long-distance traveling for not much cash.

Money was tight.

It just wasn’t fair.

Now Genevieve heard her mother on the phone in the third bedroom, her office, sounding cheery and upbeat to some potential client. It made her angry, her mother‘s positive attitude. What the fuck was she thinking? Everything was shit, shit, shit.

As if determined to make Genevieve‘s mood darker, Kathy appeared a few moments later and gave her daughter a big smile. At sixty, she was still slim and attractive, with blond-gray hair, bleached a bit but natural-looking. She could pass for fifty, easily, but didn‘t seem to care, which also pissed Genevieve off.

―So, what did the doctor say?‖ Kathy asked, pulling a mug down from the cupboard, pouring herself a cup of cold decaf coffee that was still sitting in the pot, and sticking the mug in the microwave.

―What do you think he said?‖

―Oh, honey. What are you going to do?‖

Genevieve stared at her mother in frustration. Kathy knew Genevieve was having trouble conceiving, and her concern grated on Gen‘s nerves. ―What can I do? I can‘t afford IVF. You know that. And it doesn‘t look like I can have a baby any other way, although other women seem to barely brush up against a penis and they get pregnant. Why can‘t I?‖

―You‘re sure it‘s not Jarrod?‖ Kathy asked, blowing across the top of her coffee cup to cool the now nearly boiling liquid.

It was all Genevieve could do to keep from blowing her top. ―It‘s me, Mom.
Me.
I‘m the one whose parts aren‘t working. It‘s my uterus. My ovaries. My goddamn cervix! I‘m flawed. Broken. I don‘t know if in vitro would work even if I had the money. Probably not!‖