Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) (10 page)

Oh, and picturing Doreen as Sophie had found her wasn’t so
good.  Especially not on top of remembering her own mother’s death.

Yes, researching Depression era pressed glass was a whole
lot safer.

But turning off her thoughts once she lay in bed was a whole
lot harder.  It was incredibly frustrating to be so tired and yet not be
sleepy.

There’d been something unreadable in Daniel’s voice when he
asked if Doreen might have had a lover.  Was he only conscious of the
possibility that Sophie would be uncomfortable talking about anything like
that?  At least, as related to a woman she’d admitted had been a mother figure
to her?

Maybe, but—  Did he know something she didn’t?  Or had heard
gossip?

It had never crossed her mind that Doreen might have a
romantic relationship at all, and certainly not a lover.  Sophie examined why
that was so, and decided it was partly Doreen, so brisk and no-nonsense, so
lacking in vanity, but it was partly Sophie’s own view of a woman who’d given
her security by being so unchanging.  Always there.  Her enthusiasms came and
went, but she remained essentially the same.  Sophie could drive over the
mountains to the ocean and find Doreen no different than the last time she was
here.

I never will again
, she thought, with grief that
struck like a knife blade – or heavy cut glass.

No.  Think about her alive, not dead.

All right.  Had Doreen ever talked about a man in a way that
might suggest he’d shared her bed, or that she had unrequited feelings for him,
or—?

If so, Sophie couldn’t recall.  Doreen was both exasperated
with most people she knew and yet tolerant at the same time.  She understood
and sympathized with people’s foibles, but grew irked they couldn’t overcome
them.

Still.  Doreen had been sixty-three years old.  She’d surely
once dreamed of love and sex if not marriage.  Sophie wished she’d thought to ask. 
Would her aunt have told her?

Tomorrow, she resolved, she would call her stepmother.  She
had, of course, let her know about Doreen’s death, but they hadn’t talked
long.  Maybe she could get Julie reminiscing.  She’d know if her sister had
ever been engaged or anything like that, surely.  No, they hadn’t been close in
recent years, but they’d both lived in the same small town until Julie married
Sophie’s father.  They were family.

Sophie’s thoughts veered to wondering why Daniel was turning
his attention to possibilities unrelated to the auction.  Because he was
thorough?  Or had he hit brick walls where it came to auction volunteers? 
There were those videos at the storage facility, too; maybe he or Officer
Grissom had recognized some people coming or going.

Well, of course they had, Sophie thought practically. 
They’d probably recognized everyone they saw on the video.  This really wasn’t
a very big town.

Was Daniel competent to conduct a murder investigation?  She
hadn’t thought to ask.  His easy air of command had made her assume he hadn’t
only been a patrol officer before he took the job of police chief, but he might
have been risen through the ranks without ever being a detective.  Or if he was
one, he could have been investigating fraud or something like that.

She worried at that for a few minutes, but finally concluded
that he acted like someone who knew what he was doing.  She
would
ask,
though.  She didn’t think she could bear it if no arrest was ever made.  If she
had to be haunted by another person she loved dying violently for no reason she
could ever understand.

Afraid that she would have nightmares, she pictured Daniel
Colburn as sleep began to blur her thoughts.  That strong face, eyes such a
dark blue she had tried to peer closely over the dinner table to see if really
they were muddied by brown only to determine that no, they weren’t.  Those
lines carved in his forehead that spoke of weariness or pain.  The sharp
delight she felt when he smiled.

His was the face she carried with her into sleep.

*****

Reluctantly, Daniel met Kurt Gillespie, mayor and therefore
his boss, for breakfast at The Waves, a restaurant attached to the town’s
largest hotel, the Surfside.  The menu was pretty conventional, which was fine
for breakfast.  Kurt seemed to like the food, or maybe just the well-padded
booths.  Daniel had eaten here more often than he’d like, because it was almost
always Kurt’s choice.

Daniel thought wistfully of the thick slabs of delicately
spiced French toast at the Sea Watch Café, Naomi Kendrick’s place.  Maybe next
time he’d dig in his heels and demand they eat there instead.

Gillespie was okay, but aside from the one open-and-shut
killing that had been followed by a quick arrest, this was the first really
significant crime that had happened in Cape Trouble since Daniel took the job
here.  There’d been the usual loud domestic disturbances, a brawl or two, a few
locals charged with driving under the influence, a runaway teenager, car
accidents including a couple of ugly ones out on Highway 101.  Mostly, though,
complainants were tourists, and tourists were arrested, too.  This was
different.  Daniel tried to brace himself for an elected official determined to
stick his nose into an investigation.

Predictably, Kurt had no sooner heaved his bulk onto the
padded bench on his side of the booth when he said, “Well?  You getting
anywhere on this thing?”

Thing?
  Mildly offended, Daniel couldn’t help
wondering how Kurt Gillespie and Doreen Stedmann had felt about each other. 
Plus, he was in the right age range to conceivably be the mysterious lover. 
Married, too, to a wispy nonentity.  Could be Gillespie occasionally craved a
little spunk in a woman.

Yeah, but he hadn’t been springing over any fences, that was
for sure.

He explained to the mayor why closing this investigation
wasn’t going to be easy.  Whoever committed the crime had likely taken out the
camera that would have given investigators the best view of anyone coming or
going at the storage facility.  The sheer quantity of fingerprints on every
surface in the unit where Doreen was killed.

“There’s hardly a citizen in town who hasn’t stepped foot in
there, donated something, handled something a neighbor or acquaintance
donated.”  He shrugged.

Kurt grunted.  “Wife donated a few things.  Me, I’m a
believer in economic expansion.  We’d all be more prosperous if some major
development arrived.”

Daniel had considered exactly that as a motivation for the
murder, but had trouble believing in it.  The Campaign to Save Misty Beach had,
from what he’d learned, brought in some substantial donations already.  Yeah,
Doreen had launched it and was its driving force, but there hadn’t been any
guarantee that eliminating her would grind it to a halt, allowing the land to
go to developers.  And who was crazy enough to crush the skull of a nice woman
in hopes of higher daily receipts from your coffee shop or boutique?

A nut.  There were some out there, he couldn’t dispute
that.  But the town had been surprisingly united in the desire to see the land
on the other side of the river preserved in its natural state.

He disliked the notion of someone killing Doreen to stop the
campaign for another reason, too:  Sophie had now become the driving force.  It
scared the shit out of him, imagining someone plotting to murder her.

Over the course of a meal that ran to pancakes heavy enough
to form a sea stack, Daniel managed to calm Mayor Gillespie.  Gillespie wanted
real bad to believe a transient had somehow stolen into the storage facility
and come on Doreen and been unbearably tempted by all the riches within her
cavern.  Daniel didn’t work as hard as he could have to divert him from his
dream world.  He’d have liked to believe in that dream world, too.

Back at the police station, he greeted Ellie then went into
his office and closed the door.  His last glimpse was her surprised face.  He
tended not to shut himself in unless he had a visitor, but he didn’t want
anyone else to know he was looking into the death of Sophie’s mother.  Much as
he liked Ellie, he doubted he could depend on her to keep her mouth shut.  He’d
rather not have to explain why he was indulging his curiosity.

He hadn’t even explained it to his own satisfaction.

It only took him a minute to find the basics in the
computer.  Unfortunately, no police reports had been appended, no lab results
if any had been done, no interviews.  About all he learned was what year
Michelle Thomsen had supposedly killed herself, and therefore how old Sophie
was now.  He also had a case number that should allow him to locate the binder
or box stored in the evidence room down in the basement.

“I’ll be downstairs,” he told Ellie as he passed her desk.

She half rose.  “I’ll be glad to find anything you need.”

“I’d rather have you on the phones.  I’m just going to poke
around.  Had an idea that probably won’t go anywhere.”

She didn’t look happy, maybe because he’d disturbed her
sense of how things ought to be.  Or was the filing system so inadequate he
wouldn’t be able to find anything without her help?

No, not with Ellie around.  That was a woman who knew how to
organize.  She’d never put up with sloppy filing.  Doreen should have tapped
her for help.

Except, Daniel remembered as he descended the steep stairs
with a crude handrail, Ellie’s husband took tourists on whale-watching cruises from
spring into fall.  His was one of the businesses that would boom if a couple of
new resort hotels were built on Misty Beach.

Mulling that over, Daniel pulled out his keys to let himself
into the room that held the older records.  This was the first time he’d had
occasion to want anything out of here, but he found that tall steel shelving
units held ranks of white cardboard boxes clearly marked with case numbers and
dates in thick black marker.

He found the one he wanted right away and, surprised by how
light it was, took it off a top shelf and set it on the table by the door.  For
some reason he hesitated before removing the lid.  This felt like opening
Pandora’s box.

Irritated with himself, he shook off the melodramatic
thought.  This was a twenty-year-old…no, not even a crime.  A tragedy, sure,
but he really was checking it out only because of his curiosity about Sophie.

The box was damn close to empty, he saw with a surge of
disappointment as he set aside the lid.  Anger, too, which might not be justified
depending on what those couple of manila folders held.

He sat on a metal folding chair and started reading.  The
responding officer’s name wasn’t familiar to him.  Officer Justin Stroh had
called for his chief right away.  Daniel had heard Randy Marsh’s name before,
even though he’d resigned or retired ten years or so ago.  The further notes
were his.  No, he’d never requested assistance from the county because he’d
convinced himself he didn’t need any. 

The second folder held photos.  As many bodies as Daniel had
seen, as many crime scene photos, this one shook him because he knew
ten-year-old Sophie had come upon exactly this scene.  Her mother had been
blonde like her daughter, slim.  Pretty, he guessed, but you couldn’t see that,
not with her head having been blown apart.  The single shot had entered her
temple and done one hell of a lot of damage.  She’d fallen awkwardly, as people
tended to do who were dead long before they hit the ground.  The handgun looked
as if it had fallen about a foot away from her right hand, which lay flopped
palm up.

He recognized a Colt .38 revolver.  The chief’s notes
confirmed his impression.  It was a model with a two inch barrel and a six-shot
cylinder, a standard detective special for many years.  A good backup weapon
that could be easily concealed.  Not too big for a woman to use.

But nowhere in the too scanty notes did he see any evidence
that the weapon had been traced or even fingerprinted.  There was mention of
the child who had found her mother. 
Had to be sedated
, said a note. 
And,
Claims to have heard voices, possibly a man’s as well as a woman’s. 
Could have been other people on beach, or even someone speaking back at the
cabins.  Hard to tell with fog.

The father had been called immediately and had left work and
driven straight over to Cape Trouble.  The chief had had to go through several
people in Mike Thomsen’s office to reach him.  No question but that he had been
in Portland, which was something.

Just as Sophie’s belief that she’d heard Mommy talking was
disregarded, so was Mike Thomsen’s insistence that his wife never removed the
white gold chain with a heart pendant that had been his first gift to her.  He
wanted to know where it was.

Admitted they had had some marital discord in recent past
but denies wife was depressed
, Chief Marsh wrote. 
Necklace not found at
cabin.  Husband sure she was wearing it previous weekend.  Claims she wore it
even in shower.
  In a different ink, a note had been added:
Search of
scene didn’t turn it up.  Rescue personnel could have trampled it into the
sand.  Don’t like to think of sticky fingers, but you never know.

Final conclusion: 
No reason to doubt that Michelle
Thomsen did take her own life.

Daniel found nothing to indicate what had happened to the
handgun.  It could have ended up melted down, as sometimes happened, or
returned to Sophie’s father if in fact it had belonged to him or his wife. 
God
,
Daniel thought,
do I ask her?

He went back through every scrap of paper, hoping he’d
missed something.  No such luck.  Chief Randy Marsh had wanted to accept
Michelle Thomsen’s death as suicide.  There was no suggestion he’d given even
passing thought to the possibility that it could have been murder.  That would
have shaken up townsfolk.  Marsh would have had to bring in outsiders to
conduct an investigation he was incompetent to handle.  Nope, call it a
tragedy.  Explain away any anomalies.  Lucky these were summer people.  Father
and daughter would pack up and leave, and Cape Trouble could go back to being a
peaceful small town.