Consider the Crows (16 page)

It couldn't be the homeless waif from the park. He wouldn't be way out here. Well, she'd just better see. You never knew. And cold as it was, he might need a warm stove to sleep by. Upending the tapestry bag, she dumped the contents on the seat beside her, scrabbled through the pile for the cat treats, dropped them back in the bag and hung it over her arm.

She crossed the ditch, scooted under the barbed wire and paused to catch her breath. With long strides, she set off for the trees. Way before she reached them, she slowed, walked softly and chirped to the cat.

Her eyesight was excellent—especially long sight—even if she was on in years, and her head darted this way and that, looking for movement and a small spot of gray.

Suddenly, she pulled herself up short and squinted. Down there, just under the trees. Now, what on earth is that doing there? Muttering to herself, she went to find out.

13

S
USAN BIT OFF
a chunk of cheeseburger, then started the pickup and eased out into the traffic. The radio crackled. Transferring the burger to her left hand, she picked up the mike.

“Wren,” she mumbled with her mouth full.

“I've been trying to reach you,” Hazel said.

Susan swallowed. “I stopped to grab something to eat.”

“Hamburger, I suppose, and french fries,” Hazel said in tart reproach. “You know—”

“Don't say it.”

“—that's not good for you.”

“It's food and it's quick. What's up?”

“Sophie called.”

“Now what?”

“She found Audrey's car.”

The entire force was on the lookout for that car and Sophie found it? Goddamn it, no telling what evidence she messed up. “Where's Parkhurst?”

“On the way.” Hazel gave her the location and instructions on how to get there.

Susan tore off a chunk of burger, washed it down with a swig of cola and headed out of town. The sky was a uniform gray, the color of lint in the pockets of jeans. So much for sunshine, and the day had started out so promising.

Two and a half miles from town, she spotted Parkhurst's Bronco parked at the edge of a graveled road and pulled in behind. The three strands of barbed wire had been cut and moved to one side. A car had churned through the mud getting into the field, but heavy rains had obliterated any distinctive treads and whatever footprints there might have been.

She crossed the field and went down the slope to a grove of trees. Audrey Kalazar's black Chrysler, mud-spattered and rain-streaked, was nosed up to a tree trunk. Parkhurst and three uniformed officers, along with a sheriff's deputy, were combing the area. He gave her a shrug to indicate they'd found nothing so far. It was already after four o'clock; there wouldn't be much daylight left for searching.

Sophie, long black overcoat flapping around her ankles, stood some distance away, like a mourner waiting for the funeral to begin. No doubt, Parkhurst had told her to get lost and that was as far as she'd go.

Osey Pickett, enormous hands and feet seeming to get in the way as usual, was going over the car. As Susan approached, he tossed straw-colored hair from his face and gave her an aw-shucks grin. He looked like a hayseed and played it up for all it was worth. When she first knew him, she'd had severe doubts about his mental ability, but she'd learned many things in the year she'd been here and right near the top was that Osey's amiable manner was an effective cover for an exceptionally alert mind.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Dings and scratches,” Osey said. “Some fresh, from driving through the trees. Fingerprints on the passenger side, a few in the back. Only smudges on the wheel. Whoever drove last wore gloves. Keys were in the ignition.”

The fistful of keys he handed her were attached to a silver letter A. How very like Audrey Kalazar to brand what was hers. They bounced in her hand with a solid clink. The blue feathers Egersund had found apparently hadn't come from Kalazar's key ring. Feathers weren't her style anyway, silver was much more fitting. The car was empty and, like everything else Audrey Kalazar owned, immaculate.

“Hey,” Sophie called, creeping closer. “Shouldn't you open the trunk and see if Audrey's inside?”

Audrey was not in the trunk. There was nothing in the trunk but a jack and a spare tire, and even they were immaculate. No suitcase, no handbag or briefcase.

The last of the daylight was rapidly fading, the sun managing a dying streak of orange.

“Anything?” Susan asked Parkhurst.

He shook his head. “We'll go at it again in the morning.”

She tossed Kalazar's keys and he caught them with an upraised palm. “See what they belong to,” she said and left him and Osey to get the car towed in.

“Something's happened to Audrey,” Sophie said, striding along beside as Susan started back up the slope. “She's a woman always where she says she'll be. Good as her word and never allows anybody to question it. Even herself.”

Susan's mind was working along the same lines.

“Now that husband Keith,” Sophie said. “What kind of a man sits on his backside all day making up stories? Up to things.” She clucked like a broody hen.

“What things?”

“Not for me to spread tales.”

Ha.

“Wouldn't do to bring trouble down on foolish people who should know better. Weak, you know, and then making excuses.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Susan, you ought to keep your eyes and ears open. Otherwise, how you going to know what's going on?”

“Sophie, if you know anything, I expect you to tell me.”

“Already told you all I know. If I knew any more, don't you think I'd pass it on? Now, you just better get busy finding out what's become of Audrey.” With a sweep of her coattails, Sophie slid into the Chevy.

*   *   *

George Halpern, seated at his desk, tossed down his pen when Susan came in, leaned back and clasped his hands across his rounded midsection. “What did you get from the car?”

“Nothing that leaps out at first glance.” She dropped into a chair, slouched and stretched out her legs. She'd learned a lot about being chief in the past year, much of it from George, and she still relied heavily on him. Without him, her facade of cool poise would have been exposed for what it was. “Tell me about Keith Kalazar.”

“Anything in particular?”

“I'm not sure. Sophie threw out some kind of hint he was up to something.”

“We're listening to Sophie now?”

“Why not? She tracked down Audrey's car. That's more than we were able to do.”

George took off his wire-rimmed glasses, making his pale blue eyes look tired, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. She felt a twinge of guilt; letting him work too hard, relying on him too much.

He put back the glasses and his eyes shapened into focus. “Keith is a local boy made good. Father worked at the lumber mill. Friendly man, liked to talk, went fishing whenever he got the chance. Used to be some of the best catfish ever around here. Mother died in childbirth. They had the two girls and then Keith and then the last little girl. The whole bunch was taken in and raised by the mother's sister. Don't know that she was exactly pleased, but she did it. Keith was a handsome boy, always had girlfriends in tow.”

“Would he have known Carena Egersund?”

“Sure. She was a Gebhardt back then. They were kids the same age, went to school together right on up through high school.”

“Did they have a love affair that might have resulted in a child?”

“You looking for a connection between Audrey's disappearance and Lynnelle's murder?”

“I don't like coincidences. And the timing is right.”

“It's possible,” he said doubtfully. “As I remember her, Carena was quiet and studious. Not much of one for the boys. Had plans for herself. Always looking out for a younger sister. Something not quite right about that one, as I recall.”

Picking up the pen, he tapped it against the desk while he thought. “Seems to me Carena left at the beginning of one summer, right after she graduated from high school. Off to work someplace and then on to college in the fall. The family moved to Missouri right around then. And if I remember true, Keith left at the end of that same summer. I doubt you can make much of that. He got himself a scholarship and went to school somewhere too. Colorado maybe. He was the only one in the family to get an education. They were all right proud of him, even if they were bewildered by what he chose to study.”

“What, ballet?”

“Worse than that.” George smiled. “Psychology. He taught at Emerson a short time, then married Audrey and pretty soon he quit teaching and commenced to write.”

“Can you tell me anything about Audrey?”

“Not much, she's not local. Not greatly liked, puts people's backs up. Respected, though. Knows her job and does it like God talking to Moses.”

“Happy marriage?”

George rubbed his jaw. “Oh, I think probably so. She runs things, acourse. Any threat of rebellion is squashed before it gets started.”

“Keith puts up with that?”

“Well, she sees to it that he has the good life. Beyond that, I expect he just quietly eases around to whatever he wants.”

“What has he been up to that I ought to know about?”

“Now there, I can't help you.”

Susan sat straight and sighed. “You haven't been very helpful, George.”

“Sorry, ma'am. We try our best,” he said with a twinkle. “You're always too impatient.”

“Yeah. I want solid results within forty-eight hours or I slump into a decline.”

“Go on home. Have a little something to eat, relax, watch a little television. Tomorrow might bring something new.”

“That's what I like about you, George.” She got to her feet. “Always optimistic.”

“It all turns out the way it turns out,” he said with a dry whispery laugh.

“Shove it,” she said. “And go home yourself.”

It wasn't very late, only a little after six-thirty, she thought as she collected her coat. That left a whole evening with nowhere to go at the moment on Lynnelle's murder or Kalazar's disappearance. A good time to get started on packing Daniel's clothes. Busy hands allow the mind to roam; right-brain, left-brain stuff. Except handling Daniel's things wouldn't be a mindless task.

It wasn't like her to put things off. As a kid, she always wanted to be first to read her class report, first in line at the dentist, homework done at the beginning of Christmas vacation. Get it over with. She'd been putting this off for over a year.

She started the pickup, turned on the headlights and pulled out of the lot, then dawdled along toward home. She could drop by Fran's. She needed to talk with her again anyway. Fran was the last person to see Audrey Kalazar. Susan cut left instead of right at Main Street. If Fran hadn't eaten yet, maybe she'd like to have supper someplace.

Fran lived in one half of a duplex, a neat white frame with red brick facing that sat on the center of U-shaped Beacon Street. The owner lived in the other half, a man in his seventies who kept a fatherly eye on Fran and worried mightily about the constant turnover of males in her life. You need to marry a nice young man and settle down, he repeatedly counseled her.

As Susan got out of the pickup, three teenage girls drifted by on the sidewalk. Their hairstyles were identical, skimmed flat on one side of the head and frizzed out in a wild bush on the other, as though they were passing through hurricane gales. The streetlight glittered on about six earrings apiece in the exposed ears. Susan smiled to herself. It was the sort of look that had the old folks shaking their heads. She caught a snatch of their twittering conversation.

“So I go, ‘Anybody that diddle-head is unreal!' and he gets this scrunched-in face and he goes like, ‘Hey, well how was I supposed to know…'” They trailed a cloud of heady perfume.

Susan pressed a thumb against Fran's doorbell.

“You look tired,” Fran said.

“That's not tired, that's hungry. You feel like going out for something to eat?”

“I have wonderful stuff in the crockpot. Stew that's been stewing itself all day. My mother's recipe. Give me your coat.” Fran wore what looked like a kung fu outfit in dark-green silk that swished as she padded barefoot into the living room.

Susan plopped into a low squishy chair of psychedelic greens and blues. Fran sat cross-legged on a couch piled with pillows of every possible color from white to pale yellow to oranges, reds, blues, greens, all the way to black. She liked vivid colors and unusual fabrics and surrounded herself with odd mixtures of each that somehow worked, in a stimulating sort of way.

“You sure it's only hunger?” Fran asked.

“Yep. Well, maybe a little of putting off going home.”

“Ah.” Fran looked at her with a squint of dawning perception. “You still haven't gotten rid of Dan's stuff.”

“I can't even bring myself to look at it.”

“I could take care of it for you, if you want,” Fran said gently.

“I can't do that either. But thanks.”

“Glass of wine?” Fran asked.

“Why not.” Susan didn't drink much; she didn't much care for the taste of alcohol. Nicotine was her drug of choice.

“You're at it again.”

“What?”

Lowering her chin, Fran spoke in a deep ponderous voice. “All right, I have to do this. Now. Get in there and get it done.” She raked fingers through the glorious cascade of red hair. “Why do you beat up on yourself all the time?”

“So I get things done.”

“Why do you have to get things done? It's highly overrated, if you ask me.” Fran unfolded herself from the couch and flowed into the kitchen. A moment later she returned with two glasses of red wine, handed one to Susan and reinserted herself among the pillows. “Drink your wine and stop fretting. When you're ready, you'll do it.”