Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (21 page)

There was a pause. Laura heard the tape reel turning, the fuzzy sound of the wheels turning.

SHERRI: I called out their names.

JAIME: You called out their names
and
did a head count?

SHERRI: No. I was wrong—I just called out their names.

JAIME: Did everyone answer?

SHERRI: Yes.

JAIME: How many girls were on the van?

SHERRI: Twelve on one van and eleven on the other.

JAIME: And all of them answered? On both vans?

SHERRI: Everyone said, “Here!" I remember that.

Jaime stopped the tape and looked at Laura. “She didn't check the tags. She didn't even count heads.”

Sherri had mentioned the tags, and they were in Jenny's case file as well. Laura remembered them from her own stint at Camp Aratauk. The tags were like metal pet tags, stamped with numbers. Each camper was assigned a number. The tags were kept on a pegboard in the mess hall, and every time the girls went on an outing, they pinned the tags to their uniform shirts. The counselors were supposed to keep track of them by writing down each number. That didn't happen this time.

Jaime played the rest of the tape. Sherri told him that after they’d returned, all the girls had gone to their bunkhouses to change clothes. Everybody had been soaking wet. But she’d told all of them to hang their tags up on the pegboard.

“Jenny's tag was on the board,” Sherri Giles told him. “She obviously came back with us. We didn't even notice she was gone until dinnertime.”

That seemed to be a discrepancy with what the CEO of Camp Aratauk had told Art Schiller. Laura looked it up.

“She's shading the truth again,” Laura said. “Says right here that it wasn't long after they got back that they realized Jenny was missing.”

“They thought she went off by herself,” Jaime said.

“Yes. They called her the wanderer. Jenny the wanderer.”

Jaime said, “It sounds to me like everybody was covering their own ass. We don't know when she disappeared. At dinnertime? Before the picnic? After the picnic? Christ, did they just leave her behind?”

“She was found not a mile from the camp,” Laura said. “So maybe she never left.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Dave Toch questioned Sean Grady at the downtown TPD station. In the fluorescent light of the interview room, Grady's face looked pasty. His lawyer's face, if possible, was even pastier; she looked as if she'd gone ten rounds in the ring and lost.

The light turned Grady's forehead into a shelf over two dark hollows for eyes.

“Tell me again how it happened,” Toch said.

The lawyer opened her mouth to say something, but Sean just stared at her. His stare said “butt out.”

“I'm acting against the advice of my lawyer, talking to you guys, but I'm doing this because I'm innocent. This is bogus, and I'm going to prove it.”

“Let's start with the knifing.”

His sigh had the tone of the long-suffering. “How many times and in how many ways do I have to say it? There was no knifing. If she hadn't charged at me, she wouldn't have hurt her hand. It's that simple.” His expression earnest. “I didn't lay a finger on her. She's imagining things. She really needs some help.”

“You said you showed her the knife. Why did you do that?”

The lawyer glanced at her client, but Grady stopped her with a look. He shook his head. “Man, this is such a misunderstanding. I just bought it. I was showing it to everybody who came in. I'm like a kid with a new toy, I've always been that way. She just took it the wrong way.”

Dave Toch laid a copy of a receipt he'd gotten from a Big 5 on the table beside Grady. “Says here you bought that knife last year.”

“That was another knife.”

“Another knife? Exactly the same make, type? Why'd you do that?”

“Why not? It's a free country.”

“I'm just curious is all. Wondering why you'd buy one knife a year ago and another one recently. They're exactly alike.”

“We're getting off the point here.”

“What is the point?”

Laura saw Grady shift slightly so that he had a direct view of the one-way glass she stood behind. He stared right at her. She knew he couldn't see through the window, that he didn't know for sure that she was even here. But his gaze reached out across the space between them through the wall. It made Laura think of someone probing a shell with an escargot fork, looking for the meat. Digging, digging, digging. Persistent and intrusive.

So
sure
of himself.

He leaned back but kept his eyes on the window.

“The point
is
she lied. She freaked out; it was totally inappropriate; and the next thing you know, she's shooting at me. I've got grounds for a lawsuit, and you'd better believe once the charges are dropped, it will be in the works.”

He leaned toward Detective Toch, but kept his eyes on Laura.

“I. Did. Nothing. Wrong.” He landed on each word for emphasis, his eyes never leaving Laura's. She could swear he could see her.

It made her want to step away; it made her want to hide.

He smiled, as if he saw her discomfort.

Gotcha
.

It was late afternoon by the time Laura left TPD. She had a quick dinner at Chuy's, then drove to the Brashear house for her first voice lesson.

The unsettled feeling went with her. Grady's father had come up with his bond, and he was out. Not only did Sean Grady have contempt for her as a law officer, she knew he wanted to do her harm.

Toch told her the CA was going to drop the ag assault charge all together. When Toch protested that Laura was a cop, that it would send a very bad message, Rutan had echoed Sean Grady's own words. “We wouldn't even be talking about this if her hand hadn't gotten in the way.”

So Laura was careful to watch her rearview mirror. She would be careful later tonight, too. She didn't want Grady to know where she lived.

As she pulled up in front of the Brashear house, though, Laura was nervous for another reason. She had not sung in front of anybody for years; she'd only sung along with her CDs at home and in the car.

Her favorite song was “I Can't Make You Love Me,” made famous by Bonnie Raitt. Laura had never had a voice lesson in her life, but she pictured how it would be. Nina Brashear would have her sing the song and then help her sing it better.

That wasn't what happened, though.

“It'll be awhile before you should sing that song,” Nina said, after taking Laura through fifteen minutes of scales. The scales—so many different kinds—were boring and Laura found herself getting impatient.

They worked on “I dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair” instead. Laura liked “I dream of Jeannie,” so it was all right. She had the slightest glimmer that she was completely out of her depth, though. A sudden self-consciousness, a feeling that her voice was unnatural and untameable.

Nina glanced at the clock. “That's enough for today. Always warm up with these exercises. Can you remember them?”

Laura nodded. She didn't ask when she'd finally get to sing “I Can't Make You Love Me”; it seemed as if would be very far away.

Feeling a slight let-down, she walked out, wondering if this was such a good idea.

“How are things going with Micaela?” she asked Nina as they walked to the front door.

“She's doing well,” Nina Brashear said. “I hope she's been helpful.”

“She has been.” Or at least she tried to be.

“Well, I'll leave you here,” Nina Brashear said. Clearly distracted.

Suddenly Dr. Brashear appeared in the arched doorway of the kitchen. “Nina, where's Micaela?”

“She's out.”

“Just once I'd like her to have dinner with us.” He glanced at Laura, dismissed her with a look. “When are we eating?”

“Joanie said about an hour.”

“Where is she? I don't see her anywhere.”

“She had to pick up some things for dinner.”

“Oh.” Dr. Brashear pulled his tie off and balled it up. “Where's Lourdes? The study is a mess.”

Laura felt superfluous. She didn't like the fact that Dr. Brashear didn't acknowledge her. He had that arrogant tone that she couldn't stand in men.

As she drove out, Micaela drove in, the headlights of her sporty little car bouncing off the royal palms. She turned to look at Laura, her face pale in Laura's lights. Her lips pressed tightly together in consternation, as if she were thinking:
you again?

Laura had nothing to ask her so she didn't bother to roll her window down. They drove past each other and into the night.

Laura's unease grew when she got back to the Bosque Escondido Ranch and checked her messages. No messages, just a hang-up. Whoever it was had stayed on the line for a full five seconds before hanging up. She'd timed it.

It was just silence. Nothing more and nothing less. No way to tell if there was any animosity there. But that didn't stop her from thinking of Grady.

Laura had an unlisted number. She'd also installed motion detector lights, iron bars on the doors and windows, and deadbolts on every door of the house. Most people out here didn't bother to lock their doors; Laura always did.

From the Brashear house, she'd driven a circuitous route to the freeway, aware of the headlights in her rearview. She'd looked for a Hummer, but didn't see one. Laura had done enough to be sure that no one had followed her out here, but she couldn't be sure that Grady didn't have other resources. Any private investigator would have access to her address and phone number. By law, they were not allowed to give that information out, but that meant nothing.

________

Laura had only been asleep for what seemed like seconds when the phone rang. Loud. She blinked at the clock. It was two forty-five, the time of night when you got only bad news.

She reached for the phone, but it stopped ringing. By the time she got the receiver to her ear, all she heard was a dial tone.

Wide awake now, her heart speeding up.

She hit Star 69, but all it showed was an unknown caller.

She went to the window. The wind tore through the small courtyard, the trees tossing. Lightning wired itself to the ground in a hail of airborne grit and the acrid odor of the wildfire south of town. The Diamondback fire was now one-hundred-percent contained, but she could still smell it.

No rain. No long-awaited monsoon. Just the wind, the heat lightning, and the thunder. Laura closed her eyes and her eyelids felt dry and brittle. She needed to sleep. If it was Grady, he was probably just playing games.

But she brought her SIG-Sauer to bed with her anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Steve awoke before dawn. He felt much better. The aches were still there, but he could move pretty well. Jake lay on the floor beside the twin bed. Outside, Steve heard the faraway grumble of thunder.

He got up, careful not to step on the dog, and walked across the wood floor to the window. He parted the drapes and stared out into the forest. Even though it was still dark, he knew it wouldn't be a clear day. The air seemed opaque, weighed down with moisture. Dark, gloomy.