A Cold Dark Place (8 page)

Of course, Emily knew about Brianna's law. As a mother
she was fine with it, but as a cop, the whole idea that kids
had some rights to privacy in the middle of a murder investigation seemed completely ludicrous.

The rules had changed after what happened to Brianna Lewis, a twelve-year-old schoolgirl from Yakima, Washington. She was picked up at school by a supposed caregiver
and subsequently was raped, beaten, and left for dead. The
alleged caregiver, a pedophile who'd seen her at the local
mall and trailed her to the school, got her name from the bus
driver. The girl's name got him into the office and more information from a helpful clerk. Before anyone caught on,
Brianna had been abducted by the creep who stalked her.

Law enforcement officials theorized that the girl went
with her captor because he knew so much about her, her parents, her life. He got all of that from a school district file.
The laws in Washington State were hastily rewritten to squelch
any possibility of any more Briannas. School information
was locked up and not shared with anyone-not even parents-without a court order. Cops without kids hated it. But
the law was the law.

Randazzo continued to drum his fingertips on the manila
folder. Emily wasn't sure if it was a nervous habit, or if he
was taunting her. She decided it was the former. Randazzo
was kind of a nervous little guy.

"You probably want to know everything in this file," he
said.

Emily nodded. "That would be nice."

"I can only tell you what's allowed under Brianna's Law,
you know."

"Fine. But I'll be back with a subpoena in twenty-four
hours. Do you really want me to go through all of that trouble, and let this kid do more damage? That would be on you,
you know."

"Don't get cranky, Detective."

"You haven't seen cranky, Dr. Randazzo."

"Don't be formal. Our families have been friends for
years"

Don't remind me, she thought, but said, "Yes, I know, Sal.
We all are a part of the Cherrystone family."

Randazzo opened the file and held it to his chest, like a
poker player. His eyes started to scan the documents.

"Nick's a good kid. Basically. He's been written up for
smoking a couple of times, but nothing else."

"Teacher complaints? Concerns?"

Randazzo sat quietly, absorbed in the contents of file.

"One," he said, finally. "And I'm only telling you this now
to speed up the investigation. I want the subpoena here in the
morning. CYA and all that stuff."

"Certainly."

"Last Thursday he was excused to go home early because
of a family emergency and he didn't come to school Friday.
Let's see, the family didn't call to say he was home sick. So
when we called Mrs. Martin, she said he was home with the
flu."

"I see" Emily knitted her brow. Sure she understood what
Randazzo was saying, she just didn't get why he thought it
was so confidential, or even particularly noteworthy.

"Mrs. Murphy, our attendance secretary, sent an SCM to
the office on Thursday."

"SCM?"

"Student Concern Memo," he said, his tone now somewhat smug. He leaned back and folded his arms over his
chest, his suit jacket riding up over his round shoulders.
"Part of the big CYA we all have to do in the event some parent wants to sue us later."

"More Brianna's Law?"

"I guess so. Hard to keep up with all those hoops, rules,
goddamn laws, we have to juggle when all we want to do is a
good job with their kids."

His pontificating sounded phony, but Emily acknowl edged his frustration with a knowing shrug. "So what did
Mrs. Murphy say?"

"She said Nick went home because of a family emergency."

"What emergency?"

"I don't know and that's not the point. What I'm getting at
is that the SCM follow-up indicates the call to the Martin
place turned up `sick with the flu, out again for the second
day.' But he didn't have the flu on Thursday. Why would his
mother send him to school, then call him out of class later if
he had the flu?"

Emily thought the same thing. She also wondered something out loud. "Just what in the world was the family emergency?"

Jenna Kenyon stood on her tippy toes and pushed the
broad edge of butcher paper flat against the brick wall, a tape
gun at her side. She and Shali Patterson were doing their
best to try to create a poster proclaiming FOOD AND BLANKETS FOR THE PEOPLE OF OUR `TWISTERED' TOWN. The block
lettering shrank precipitously as it moved across the paper
when the writer quickly saw that there was not enough room
for the lengthy message. A gift from the custodial staff, a
box that had held a new dishwasher, was positioned below it.
It was empty. Jenna could barely keep focused on the task at
hand. She heard from one of the girls in the attendance office
that her mother was in talking with Dr. Randazzo after
lunch. Hell, within the hour, everyone knew.

"I wish you hadn't volunteered us for this," Shali said
from the opposite end of the sign, now drooping precariously from the middle. "I could be watching TV now or
chatting online."

Jenna sighed. "Tell me about it. It seemed like a good
idea at the time."

"That was yesterday when we didn't know an entire family was used for target practice."

"I wish my mom blabbed more about work, so I knew
what was going on"

"Yeah, you'd be my pipeline to Inside Edition" Shali let
out a laugh and hoisted herself up on a borrowed cafeteria
table to tape the middle section of the banner. The table wobbled and she caught herself before falling.

"Like I could tell you anything. Like my mom would tell
me anything. She never does. Never has. Sometimes it makes
me so mad"

"Get over yourself. We already know what happened. Nick
Martin wasted his family, high on meth probably. I've read
about it. Those freaks do whatever. You know?"

Jenna didn't. Not really. She liked Nick. She thought he
was sweet. "I don't think we should rush to judgment"

Shali made a face and put her hand on her hip in mock
disgust. "Doesn't take a Fox news analyst to put two and two
together to tell you who did what. I'd say the person who ran
away is the one who did the shooting."

Jenna tossed Shali the tape gun and stepped down from
the table. The banner looked good, but it dawned on her that
someone would change TWISTERED to TWISTED before the
day was done. She also knew Shali made sense, for once.
Even so she knew that Nick Martin didn't have the soul of a
killer. She was sure of that.

"You don't know Nick. I do. I sat next to him for half a
year. The guy has some weird ideas. He's been through a lot.
But he's basically decent."

"I'll bet Laci Peterson thought the same thing about her
husband Scott"

The City and County Safety building had once been city
hall, before a bond was passed in the mid-1960s and a new
government office was built. The old brown masonry building with a handsome limestone crown made the building
look like a baker's nightmare with piped-on swirls of white
glaze-a wedding cake run amok. It was old, dank, and
reeked of Pine-Sol and urinal cakes. Sheriff Brian Kiplinger's
office overlooked Main Street. Next to his was Emily Kenyon's,
a smaller, but serviceable, space that indicated with its lesser
dimensions who was the top dog in the office. She kept a
spotless library table desk behind which she was seldom
seen. She was what the staff called a "walker," a person who
just can't sit behind a desk. Itchy feet. Short attention span.
The truth was Emily had battled lower back pain for years.
The only relief was getting up off her butt and moving around.
She never mentioned it because she didn't think it was anyone's business. Besides, people hated a complainer. She knew
she did.

She nodded at Kiplinger, ensconced in his over-Rotary
Clubbed and -Kiwanised space. There wasn't a bit of room
for another plaque touting the sheriff's relentless community
involvement. A two-year-old Easter lily that Emily was sure
would bloom a second time if he took care of it sat glumly
on a bookcase brimming with the minutia of law enforcement-binders, binders, and more binders. Kiplinger was on
the phone, but he waved her in and covered the mouthpiece.

"It's Good MorningAmerica," he mouthed. A broad smile
spread across his handsome face. "Guess who's going to talk
to Diane Freaking Sawyer tomorrow?" He beamed.

Emily smiled back. "That would be you, I'd say."

"Be sure to watch. Got a stack of messages on your desk.
You can have the next big one," he said.

Emily didn't care about the media, be it Meredith Viera or Matt Lauer. None of them. She cared about two things.
Finding out where Nick Martin was and getting a good
night's sleep. She returned to find a deck of pink WHILE YOU
WERE OUT slips by her phone. The office secretary, Sammy
Jo McGowan, had placed them in perfect chronological
order: KREM TV, KING TV, and Northwest Cable News.
(Seeing that one, Emily was sure it would be one of the "biggies" that Kiplinger would leave for her to handle once his
preening with one of the national TV divas was finished.)
The stack went on: Cherrystone High School, Mark Martin's
office, the reporters from the local and Spokane newspapers,
and even a guy from a Seattle radio station. The last was a
message from Cary McConnell: "Call me! We need to talk!"

Emily separated the phone message slips into three piles:
Call back, give to sheriff, and toss in the trash. McConnell's
note was destined for the third pile. That was easy. The
media calls were designated for the sheriff, leaving Emily
actual potential leads. She dialed the number for Mark Martin's office and got his administrative assistant, Maria Gomez,
on the line.

"Detective Kenyon," Maria said, her fluty voice, suddenly
raspy with emotion, "I knew something was wrong. Mr. Martin
got a call from home and was told to get there right away.
That was on Thursday. He left like a bat out of hell. Friday
morning he didn't come in ... and oh, then the storm, and
well, I didn't even think about them until Monday morning."

Emily could tell from her voice that Maria had started to
cry.

"It's all right," Emily said, "you had no way of knowing."

"But I did," she said. "I knew something was wrong. Mr.
Martin has never left like that. Ever. He's never missed a day
of work without calling in. I should have gone over there or
something. Called the police."

This was typical of the last person to see a victim alive. Second-guessers, Emily called them. They were right up
there with the neighbor who didn't have a clue what the guy
next door was up to. She called them "mushroomers" because they claimed they were completely in the dark. In reality, they wanted to be in the dark. Being aware that the
neighborhood's cat and dog population was being served at
the church potluck was too much to take.

"Did he say anything about the call to come home? What
did Peg say?"

"It wasn't Peg"

"Who was it?"

"He didn't say. He just asked to speak to Mr. Martin."

"Was it Nicholas?"

"Oh no. I know Nicky's voice. This one ... this one I'd
never heard"

Emily thanked Maria and hung up. She was mystified.
What was going on over at the Martins'on Thursday that had
both Mark and Nick leaving early?

She looked at the clock. It was time to get home to Jenna.

Red spattered the countertops. A German-made butcher
knife dripped crimson. A pot of water sent a cloud of steam
from the stovetop toward the kitchen skylight. Emily Kenyon
surveyed the kitchen. Orderliness had been replaced by chaos.
Schoolbooks were scattered all over the tabletop; a navy
sweatshirt was on the floor. Yet everything was still, save for
the rolling boil of the six-quart Calphalon pot. A blue flame
licked its blackened sides.

"Jenna?"

There was no answer and Emily's heart rate accelerated.
Her eyes darted about the room.

"Jenna? Where are you?" She reached for the knob and
turned down the gas. The pot slowed its boil to a simmer.
"Jenna!"

Emily heard a sound and spun around.

"Hi Mom!" It was Jenna, emerging from the hallway.
"Spaghetti tonight."

"So I see," Emily said, lightening, and feeling a little foolish, but not wanting to say so. "And a mess to clean up"

Jenna reached for a dishcloth. "Yeah, it did get out of
hand" She picked up the knife she used to cut tomatoes for
the sauce and deposited it in the sink. "But I wanted to make
the sauce the way you like it and that takes work. Probably
too much work. Next time, it'll be out of a jar."

Emily smiled. She opened the refrigerator and saw that
Jenna had made a salad-more tomatoes, Bibb lettuce, English cucumber. She grabbed a half bottle of merlot on the
counter, uncorked it, and poured herself a glass.

"Pepsi for you?" she asked.

"Sure.,,

Emily retrieved a second stemmed glass and filled it with
Pepsi. Jenna had gone to a lot of trouble making a special
meal and a fancy glass was in order.

"I had the proverbial day from hell," Emily said. She
slipped off her shoes and took a seat on one of the kitchen
barstools while Jenna dumped a box of pasta into the water.

"Did you salt it?" she asked.

Jenna nodded. "Yes. And I already heard about your day.
Everybody at school is talking about the Martins."

The merlot in Emily's hand swirled in the crystal globe of
the stemware, coating the sides and flowing back into a deep
pool of garnet. The blood she'd seen at the Martin house
flashed in her mind. She set down the glass.

"I'll bet. Seems like the whole world has literally turned
over since the tornado" Emily swiveled the barstool to face
her daughter, now stirring the pasta with a wooden spoon as
it foamed, nearly boiling over. "You know Nick Martin, don't
you, honey?"