Consider the Crows (12 page)

“Keith Kalazar's been on the phone,” Marilee Beaumont said in her soft southern voice. Marilee was the dispatcher when Hazel went off duty. “He says he needs to talk to you.”

“I'll call him. Anything else?”

“You wanted to know if anybody spotted Sophie? Ben Parkhurst just reported in. Saw her car on Essex. At the Lutheran church?”

The pickup tires skidded a bit as she made a right turn, cut past the campus and reached the church just as some meeting or other was letting out. The quilting ladies, she thought, since they all seemed to be female and mostly elderly. They made beautiful quilts and sold them to raise money. She intended to buy one before she saw Hampstead in her rearview mirror.

Lights on the outside of the church building reflected on the icy tarmac in the parking lot. She squinted at the quilting ladies filing out and flowing toward their cars and spotted Sophie in a long black overcoat as she broke rank and swooped toward her elderly Chevy.

“Sophie.” Susan slid from the pickup, and her boot heels cracked sharply on the ice as she closed in.

The old woman peered across the dark lot, shading her eyes with one hand. “Evening.” Her face was etched with fine lines, deeper lines creased her forehead and formed brackets from her sharp nose to her determined mouth. The long black coat was buttoned up to her chin and a black watch cap was pulled down over her ears, leaving spikes of iron gray hair sticking out around the edges.

“I want to talk with you,” Susan said.

“Can't think why,” Sophie said with a seraphic smile.

“The little cat cannot—”

“You need a cat.”

“Sophie—”

“Everybody needs somebody to love.”

“Yes, well, cats need company. I'm not home enough—”

“Poor little mite. Needs love. Been mistreated. You just don't worry about it. It'll all be fine. Plenty else to worry about with that girl getting killed. Find out who did it yet?”

“Did you know her?”

“Not to say know. Went 'round to see her about the time she moved in. Took her some pumpkin bread. Being neighborly, you might say.”

Being nosy was closer to the truth, Susan thought, but she wasn't above taking information wherever she could get it. “What did you find out?”

“She wasn't easy when I came. Like she was nervous I might find out what she didn't want a body to know.”

Susan suppressed a grin. That's exactly what Sophie would have had in mind.

“We chatted a bit like you do. Made me some coffee. More like weak water, not what I'd call coffee. But being nice and all. She was lonely really, and glad of any company. I asked where did she come from and why did she come here. She gave me one of those I-don't-want-to-say looks that always make me feel like asking more questions.”

I'll just bet it did.

“She loved her dog. Told me she'd never been allowed pets because
he
was allergic. Stepfather, turned out. She hates him.”

“Hates?”

Sophie sniffed, then exhaled in a puff of fog. “I may be old, but I can spot the difference between hate and dislike. She was all stiff and her face got pinched, and white around the nose. I got the idea he maybe mistreated her some way. I felt sorry for her. I hate to see innocent creatures mistreated. She said he didn't like dogs. He liked birds.”

“Birds.”

“Birds,” Sophie said impatiently, as though she were talking to somebody slow-witted. “Watched them through binoculars. She worked, you know. Lynnelle. Gone most during the day. House wasn't always empty though.”

“Somebody was there when Lynnelle wasn't home?”

“Little Kalazar girl, Julie. She'd go out there, meet her young man and they'd go inside.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

Saw them, obviously. Probably lurking in the shrubbery. In her assiduous devotion to needy cats, Sophie quartered the countryside and if she ran across anything interesting, she made it her business to poke her sharp nose into it.

“Now, just what do you suppose they were up to in there?” Sophie smiled and shook her head. “Wouldn't her mother have a fit, she was to find out. Audrey keeps close watch on that young'un's friends and weeds out the undesirables.”

Sophie tugged the watch cap down to her eyebrows. “Can't stand around here talking all night,” she said, clomped to her car and wrenched open the door. “The little cat needs shots. Get her to the vet real soon.”

“Sophie—”

Sophie fired up the motor with a roar, then eased back and sedately rolled away.

Susan sifted through Sophie's information as she headed for home, trying to find the nuggets of fact. A hated stepfather? Only Sophie's interpretation. Damn it, why haven't we gotten onto the next of kin? Thirty-three hours since the body was discovered. What kind of drag-ass outfit are we, anyway?

What about the other little gem Sophie dropped? Nick and Julie using the house for a trysting place. Anything there? Could explain the second sleeping bag. Nick was a scholarship student and Hispanic. Would either or both make him unsuitable in Dr. Kalazar's eyes? The whiff of barely suppressed violence that Nick exuded was enough to make any parent nervous. Did Lynnelle threaten to tell Dr. Kalazar and one of them killed her? She gave them permission— why turn around and rat to Kalazar?

Susan pulled into the garage beside the little brown Fiat she hardly ever drove these days and, as she squeezed past, gave its dusty flank a pat and a promise for a spin. Soon.

The neighborhood kid she'd made friends with sat on the back step with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, foil-covered bowl beside her.

“Hi, Jen.”

“Hi,” Jen said, an eleven-year-old uncertain of her welcome, but obviously glad to see Susan.

Cops don't have that many admirers that they can afford to pass one up. “Want to come in a minute?”

Jen tossed her brown ponytail over her shoulder. “I don't mind.” She was a skinny kid in jeans and red ski jacket with unusual yellow-green eyes and a stubborn chin. A neat kid, smart and funny, with endless enthusiasms for anything new and a mind always looking for answers.

Dad had a new wife and Mom had a new boyfriend and when they weren't using Jen as cannon fodder in the battle between them, they were making her feel like excess baggage. Jen had the usual anxieties and confusions and fears that it was all her fault.

Susan hated it when kids had problems. It scared her and she was always afraid she'd say the wrong thing. “Does your mom know where you are?”

Jen shrugged. “She won't mind, she's on the phone with
Casey.
” Her mouth screwed up over the name.

“You could call and let her know.”

“She'll talk forever.”

“Well, you can keep trying.”

Jen picked up the bowl and moved out of the way. Susan unlocked the door and snapped on the inside light. “Are you hungry?”

The kitchen looked the same as when she left; at least the kitten hadn't created any more rubble.

“I fixed spaghetti for supper. I brought you some since you never have anything to eat.”

“Hey, Jen, that's nice.” Susan tried not to be too effusive with praise. Jen got embarrassed. She hadn't received enough compliments in her young life and Susan tried to remedy that by throwing out lots of good words without overdoing it. Getting the balance right was a worry. “For spaghetti you deserve a reward. How about I let you beat me at Trivial Pursuit?”

Jen's face lit up with the sunshine grin she didn't use nearly enough. She was a wizard at the game and almost always won. “Shall I get it out?”

“You mind if I make a phone call first?”

The grin faded. “That's okay.” In her world, adults made promises and too often didn't come through.

“It'll only take a minute. Before I do that I want to show you something.”

“What?”

The dining room looked the same, except for tiny paw prints all over the clutter on the table. The living room—

“Wow,” Jen breathed, looking around wide-eyed.

The two spider plants had been knocked from the mantle, the pots had shattered on the hearth and the plants were torn to bits, then scattered, along with the dirt, across the room. The kitten was crouched on the arm of a chair, brown paws tucked neatly under her beige chest, blue eyes slitted with the smug expression of a job well done.

Despite vigorous resistance, Hazel had managed to press the plants in Susan's hands. Killer hands. Even the sturdiest of plants shriveled up and died in her care. Hazel was almost as particular about finding homes for plants as Sophie was for cats. One unwanted gift destroys another.

“Are you mad?” Jen asked in a nervous little voice.

“I'm not pleased.” Susan fingered a piece of pottery she and Daniel had bought in Mexico when they were on their honeymoon.

“I'll help you clean it up.” Jen knelt by the chair and stroked the kitten who scampered up her arm and nibbled her ear. Jen giggled and cradled the kitten against her chest. “She didn't mean it.”

If Susan thought Mom would stand for it, the kitten would be Jen's in a flash.

“What's her name?”

“She doesn't have a name. Can you come up with one?”

Jen nodded solemnly. “I'll think about it.”

When they finished with dust cloths, brooms, dust pan and vacuum cleaner, the living room looked better than it had in a long time. Susan left Jen playing lurk-and-pounce with the kitten and went to phone Keith Kalazar. He answered immediately with a sharp hello.

“Chief Wren, Mr. Kalazar. I understand you were trying to reach me.”

“I don't know where Audrey is.”

Susan did not take the receiver from her ear and stare at it, but she felt like it. “I believe she's attending a conference in Dallas.” Maybe he was even more vague than she'd originally thought.

“Yes.” He paused to take a breath. “That's what I thought. The thing is—” He cleared his throat. “I just called the hotel.”

“Yes?”

“Audrey never checked in.”

10

“S
OMETHING'S HAPPENED.
” Keith Kalazar rubbed an agitated hand over his well-trimmed beard and shook his head. “I know it.”

At nine on Tuesday morning, he was seated in the wooden armchair in Susan's office and anxiety had him jumpy; leaning forward, leaning back, propping an ankle on one knee, tapping fingers against his thigh. Morning sun shone against the window blinds and spread a striped pattern across the floor.

“I knew it when he called.” Keith jabbed a hand in a jacket pocket, the same fawn-colored jacket with the leather elbow patches.

“The conference coordinator,” Susan said.

“Audrey didn't show up for her speech.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Saturday morning.” He pulled out his pipe and smashed tobacco in the bowl.

“How did she seem?”

“Fine. Like always.”

“She wasn't distracted, maybe thinking about the conference?”

“No. Oh, she did have her speech, glancing over it, last-minute checking.”

“Was Julie there?”

Impatience crossed his face. “No.”

“Where was she?”

“What difference does it make? She was around.”

“What time did Audrey leave?”

“Ten-thirty. I put her suitcase in the trunk and she went off. She was leaving her car there so she'd have it when she got back.”

“Tomorrow evening,” Susan said.

He nodded. “Commuter flight to Kansas City and then the flight to Dallas. The same coming back.”

“Was there anything at Emerson that was troubling her?”

“No.”

“What about problems at home?”

“No.” He patted his shirt pocket, then jacket pockets, then pants pockets, where he found a book of matches.

“Mr. Kalazar, I know this is difficult, but I need all the information I can get.”

He tore out a match, struck it and held it over the pipe. “Nothing like that,” he said shortly.

She waited.

He puffed on his pipe. “Maybe some minor worry about Julie.”

“What worry?”

He moved a hand as though brushing that away. “Her grades have slipped a little. Audrey didn't like it.”

“Anything else you can think of?”

He shook his head. “She just wouldn't do this.”

“Did the two of you have a … disagreement?”

“Of course not.”

Right, she thought, not really believing him, but not disbelieving him either. In any case, she decided not to push him on it at the moment.

After he left, she spent an hour on the phone before tracking down the conference coordinator, who was seethingly miffed because Audrey Kalazar had been a scheduled speaker. He'd been forced to find a replacement—at the last minute—and fill up holes in his schedule—at the last minute. He didn't sound too happy in his job.

Almost as much time was spent getting switched from extension to extension by the hotel in Dallas. “I'm sorry, I'm not authorized to give out that information. Would you hold?” Muzak each wait. She was fuming when she finally got a man who would talk. They must have run out of extensions. A room had been reserved for Dr. Kalazar but she had never checked in.

Receiver tucked against her shoulder, Susan rubbed her sore ear, then pressed a button and asked Hazel to send Parkhurst in. She ran over her scribbled notes. Audrey Kalazar had been last seen on Saturday, three days ago.

Feeling eyes on her, Susan glanced sidelong at the doorway. Parkhurst, in a navy-blue suit, stood there looking like he had an important appointment someplace else, dark eyes remote and guarded, slightly pinched at the corners as though he hadn't gotten enough sleep. Unexpected heat spread over her face. She stiffened her spine and took in a quick breath.