Criminal Intent (MIRA) (13 page)

“Maybe your boyfriend—Bill, was it? Maybe Bill surprised him before he could take anything.”

“Maybe.”

“So does Bill have any family, or are you it? I’ve read that sometimes, having loving family members around can make the difference between life and death in a case like this.”

She paled at the word death, but nodded somberly. “I’ve heard the same thing. He has a daughter. Robin. And a granddaughter, Sophie. Such a pretty little thing.” She smiled ruefully. “Well, not so little. She must be fourteen or fifteen. Cute as a bug. I’ve tried to reach them, but I can’t seem to track them down, and it’s making me crazy.”

He raised both eyebrows. “You can’t track them down?” he said. “You mean, they’re not home?”

“Worse than that, I’m afraid.” She looked sheepish, as if embarrassed at having to admit the depth of her own ignorance. “I don’t know where they live. Even Bill doesn’t know.” At his quizzical look, she rushed to explain. “They had a falling-out sometime back. Apparently Robin’s moved around a bit in the last few months, and she hasn’t told her father where she is.”

“Gee, that’s awful. And nobody else knows where she is?”

“There’s one person who might know. A relative of theirs. He lives somewhere in the Detroit area, and I’m pretty sure that if I could locate him, I could find Robin. But apparently he has an unlisted phone. I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to track him down. Directory assistance didn’t have a listing for him.”

“Hey, talk about coincidences! I used to live in Detroit! Maybe I know him.”

Lottie’s
blue eyes widened. “You’re kidding,” she said.

Louis grinned and held up two fingers in a mock salute. “Scout’s honor. What’s his name?”

“Bobby. Robert Sarnacki.”

Louis crinkled his forehead. “Hmm…Sarnacki, Sarnacki. Nope. Don’t know any Sarnackis. Darn. I was really hoping I could help you out.”

Lottie sighed in resignation. “So was I.”

He glanced at his watch and frowned. “Ruthie should be out of surgery by now. They said they’d let me know, but you know how they are in these places. I could sit here all day and nobody’d bother to come by. Do you suppose you could watch my stuff while I run down to the nurses’ station and see if I can find out what’s going on?”

“Of course.” Lottie’s smile was warm and genuine. “It’s the least I can do for you after everything you’ve done for me.”

“I haven’t really done all that much,” he said modestly.

“You would have if you could. If only you knew Bobby Sarnacki. And don’t forget that Reese’s peanut butter cup. If you weren’t here, it would still be hanging there, waiting for the next sucker to come along.”

He chuckled. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “Hey, help yourself to an orange. They’re really great. There’s nothing quite like a fresh Florida orange.”

Louis left the waiting room and walked down the hospital corridor, hands in his pockets, a spring in his step. Just another visitor. Here today, gone tomorrow. He flashed a bland, unremarkable smile at a cute brunette R.N. as he passed the nurses’ station and kept on going, directly to the bank of elevators at the end of the corridor.

Robert Sarnacki. Detroit.

Louis Farley whistled as the elevator took him downstairs to the lobby. He was still whistling when he walked out the front door of the hospital.

T
here
wasn’t an inch of her body that didn’t ache: back, shoulders, neck, thighs. Annie’s face and arms, sunburned to within an inch of their lives, felt white-hot and tight, as though she’d grown overnight and her skin had yet to catch up. It must be true that no good deed went unpunished. Today, she had to finish the damn roof. A benevolent God would at least have given her an overcast day to work with. But it was another sunny, humid day—proving once and for all that God was a man—and Annie just couldn’t wait to spend it twelve feet in the air, stapling shingles to splintery plywood.

She took a cool shower, gradually adding warm water until at last it was steaming-hot against her overworked back muscles. The benefits were minimal, but at least when she stepped out of the shower, her stiff muscles were flexible again. She dried off gently because of the sunburn, pulled her wet hair back in an elastic she found lying around, and dressed in the only white jeans she owned. In the closet, she found a pale blue cotton long-sleeved shirt. She rolled the cuffs up to just below the elbow, then liberally applied sunscreen to every inch of exposed skin.

Breakfast was a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a slice of toast with
peanut butter. To hell with worrying about the size of her thighs. If pounding nails and hauling roof shingles didn’t work off the calories from her morning repast, she might as well just give up right now and begin that slow slide into middle age.

When she finished her breakfast, Annie put her empty cereal bowl in the dishwasher. “What are you planning to do today?” she asked Sophie.

“I don’t know. Maybe hang around downstairs with Estelle.” Sophie glanced up from the breakfast table, shoved a stray wisp of raven-dark hair away from her face in a gesture that reminded Annie of herself. “There isn’t much else to do in this one-horse town.”

“Hey, if you can survive until I get my car back, we’ll drive down to Portland and do the mall. We can shop at Claire’s and eat tacos at the food court.”

“Geez, Mom, you’re way behind the times. I haven’t shopped at Claire’s in ages. That’s for, like, girly girls.”

“Girly like you used to be, you mean? Forgive me. I guess that would be pretty lame.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “You sound like such a dork when you’re trying to talk like a kid. You’re too old, Mom. Give it up.” Brightening considerably, she added, “But I wouldn’t mind doing the Portland mall. Estelle says it has Hot Topic. Their stuff is way cool.”

“Well, then.” Annie took a bottle of water from the fridge. “We’ll have to shop at Hot Topic instead.”

She had stored her tools in the small closet beneath the staircase that led to the shop. Annie descended the creaky stairs, opened the closet door and took out the hammer, the crowbar, the hated gloves. Wishing she’d thought to buy a tool belt, she swung around to take the most direct route to the front door.

She took a single step into the shop and stopped dead in her
tracks. The front door hung wide open, swinging in the breeze, and the shop itself looked as though a tornado had blown through. The shelves had been swept bare, movies scattered everywhere. One of the freestanding shelving units had been upended, its contents dumped haphazardly on the floor. Dozens of movie cases had been opened, and yards of VHS tape lay unspooled, tangled and hacked to pieces amid the rubble. The cash register had been tossed onto the floor, the computer screen smashed. Whoever did this had topped off his handiwork with neon-pink spray paint, applied everywhere in crooked stripes and circles. She could still smell the paint. On the far wall they’d painted a single word on the knotty pine, obscene and condemning. Aimed at her?

BITCH.

“Mother of God,” she said. She took another step into the room, felt the anger begin. She’d come here for refuge, not for this. Who would have done a thing like this? Who would have criss-crossed hot-pink spray paint like a psychedelic spiderweb over her tidy white wooden counter? Who would have kicked in her front door and torn open bags of popcorn, strewing corn kernels everywhere? Who would have unwound movie after movie and sliced the tape to ribbons, probably with the very scissors she’d used to defend herself with just twenty-four hours ago? What kind of animal would be this destructive, this angry at the world? And why her, when all she wanted was to be left alone?

With a deep sigh, she went back upstairs to call the police.

His eyes were blue.

Not a nice, safe blue, Annie decided, not the warm blue of a summer sky. No, Davy Hunter’s eyes were a dark, chaotic blue, like the sea during a hurricane. Dangerous eyes. At once hot and cold, unsettled, so turbulent they had her instantly revising her initial impression of him. The aloofness was a façade. Somewhere
inside those impenetrable depths lurked a man whose emotions roiled as furiously as the ocean they resembled. It was only on the outside that he resembled a chunk of stone.

“I don’t understand this,” she told him as he silently surveyed the disaster that had been her video shop. “Who would target a place like this, and why?”

“I don’t know.” He reached for the two-way radio on his hip and spoke into it. “Hey, Dix, is René hanging around the station?”

“He is,” said a scratchy voice at the other end. “You need him for something?”

“Send him out to the Twilight. Tell him to bring a fingerprint kit. And a camera. And make sure there’s film in it.”

“Something big going on out there?” the dispatcher said.

“Break-in at the video store. Whoever did it vandalized the place pretty good.”

“Damn troublemakers. Okeydoke, I’ll send René right over.”

He hung the radio back on his hip and cautiously waded into the debris. From the doorway that led to the back staircase, Sophie silently watched him, wide-eyed with a combination of horror and excitement. She’d never witnessed anything like this before, and Annie knew that for a teenager like Soph, something as novel as this catastrophe was bound to produce some measure of forbidden thrill. It was like watching those horror movies she was so fond of. She might be revolted by the grisly scenes, but at the same time, she was human, and possessed of that innate human curiosity which made the abhorrent fascinating.

As long as it was happening to somebody else.

“I’d ask if anything was missing,” Hunter said dryly, “but how would you tell?”

“What would they take in a place like this?
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle?
”

He
glanced over his shoulder, her sarcastic zinger seeming to miss him completely. “Did you keep money in the cash register?”

“No. Estelle deposits it at the bank every night after closing.”

Squatting, he picked up a length of loose video tape, let it slide through his fingers. “Have you talked to Estelle yet this morning?”

“I called her right after I called you. She should be here any minute.”

He straightened back up, turned and focused those blue eyes on her. “I’ll need to talk to both of you. Who else was working last night?”

“How the hell should I know? Some teenage boy. Kenny somebody-or-other. You’ll have to ask Estelle. I haven’t been introduced yet.”

His gaze grew contemplative. “You seem pretty pissed off.”

“Really? What was your first clue?”

“Care to tell me why you’re so angry?”

She gaped at him in disbelief. “Wouldn’t you be? I feel violated. I may not have been here long, but this is my property. Nobody has a right to do this to me.”

“You’re sure that’s all there is to it?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you asking me if I have some kind of feud going on with somebody in this town? Like the Montagues and the Capulets? In case you’ve forgotten, I just got here three days ago. I’m sure if I live in this town long enough, I can find somebody to feud with. But three days is a little soon, wouldn’t you say?”

He didn’t answer her. They faced each other boldly, a charged silence between them. Outside the open door, a vehicle pulled into the yard, its racing engine telling her it could only be Boomer’s truck. “Estelle’s here,” Sophie said quietly. Was
that relief Annie heard in her daughter’s voice? Poor Soph. She was probably wondering what alien force had taken over her mother’s body. Especially since Annie was wondering the same thing herself.

She deliberately turned her back on Hunter as Estelle stepped through the open door, looking downright pallid, right from her ashen face to the conservative blue maternity top decorated with pink and blue teddy bears. Estelle took a long look around the room and said, “Those bastards.”

With slow deliberation, Hunter said, “You know somebody who might do something like this, Estelle?”

“Hey, Davy. No, I was using the term generically. I don’t have a clue who might’ve done this. If I did, I’d probably take the law into my own hands and throttle the shitheads myself.” She paused to look around. “Damn them. All those movies destroyed.” Her gaze landed on Annie’s face. “Hey,” she said gently. “Annie, Soph. What a way to start the day.”

“Tell me about it,” Annie muttered.

A second police cruiser pulled into the yard. “Stick around,” Davy Hunter said. “I’ll want to talk to both of you in a few minutes.” Glancing at Sophie, he added, “All three of you.”

The second cop looked barely older than Sophie. Cute as a button and of moderate height, he was a little stocky, with peach fuzz lining his upper lip. While Hunter stood outside conferring with him, Estelle picked her way through the rubble to Annie. “Hey,” she said, threading her arm through Annie’s. “I’ve worked here for four years. This place is as much mine as it is yours.”

“Probably more,” Annie admitted.

“They better catch the rat bastards who did this. They better catch ’em and string ’em up.”

“They will,” Annie said. “I guarantee they will, because I intend
to make Hunter’s life miserable until they do.” She gave Estelle’s arm a squeeze. “Come on, let’s go get a cup of coffee. When Hunter needs us, he’ll know where to look.”

While Hunter and his assistant—René Bellevance who, according to Estelle, had a wife and three kids and was older than he looked—took pictures and dusted for fingerprints, the three of them sat upstairs and drank coffee, Annie and Estelle at the kitchen table and Sophie perched on the counter. It was too hot for coffee, but Annie didn’t know what else to do with herself. Normally she didn’t allow Sophie to drink the stuff, but today wasn’t an ordinary day, and she suspected that in spite of Sophie’s eager curiosity, the abhorrent had struck a little too close to home.

“I have insurance,” she said to nobody in particular. “Cleaning up will be a bitch, but I have insurance. It’ll pay to replace what we’ve lost.”

One more headache. Once the police were done processing the crime scene, her next call would have to be to the insurance company. They’d probably want to send out a rep to look over the damage, and God only knew how long it would be before she could start cleaning up the mess and putting some kind of dollar amount on the loss.

And somewhere along the way, she realized, she still had to shingle the roof.

She thought briefly about calling Uncle Bobby. This thing had spooked her pretty bad. But it didn’t have anything to do with Brogan. It couldn’t. Even if it did, she was determined to stand on her own two feet. She had to stop depending on her uncle’s strength and generosity. She was a grown woman. It was time she started acting like one.

Estelle stirred sugar into her second cup of coffee, and Annie’s motherly instincts kicked in. “Should you be drinking that while you’re pregnant?” she said. “All that caffeine can’t be good for the baby.”

“Hey, I
gave up cigarettes and booze. A girl has to hang on to one or two of her vices.”

Annie couldn’t argue with that. “So,” Sophie said, studying her mother over the rim of the coffee mug she held in both hands, “why do you guys think somebody did this to us? I mean, us in particular.”

Annie didn’t have an answer for her, unless this was connected somehow to Luke Brogan. Could it be possible that he’d found them? But this didn’t seem his style. Brogan was much more subtle than this. Whoever’d committed this travesty possessed all the subtlety of al Qaeda. “I don’t know, Soph,” she said. “It probably wasn’t aimed at us. Somebody saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.”

Sophie, perched on the counter, kicked a leg absently against a cupboard door. “But why would anybody vandalize a video store? Because they hate movies? I mean, it doesn’t make sense.”

“There are people out there,” Estelle said grimly, “who don’t give a rat’s ass about other people or respect their property. They do what they want, when they want, just because they can.”

“Well, it makes me just want to hurt them right back!”

“I understand that, Soph,” Annie said. “But you can’t. If you do, then they’ve brought you down to their level.”

“Yeah?” Sophie said indignantly. “Well, what right do they have to screw with my life, just because they can?”

Annie realized they were no longer talking about last night’s vandals. Sophie’s resentment ran deep. Luke Brogan had stolen away her father, her home, the very life she’d always known, just because he could. It was a terribly unfair lesson to learn at such a tender age, and Annie wondered, not for the first time, if her daughter might benefit from counseling. But under the circumstances, she didn’t dare to send her. Doctor-patient confidentiality be damned. Annie couldn’t risk
allowing anybody to know the truth. Not while Luke Brogan was still walking around out there, a free man.

She heard footsteps climbing the stairs, and then a sharp rap on the door. Annie got up from the table and let Hunter in. “Coffee?” she said.

“Thanks.” He leaned against the counter, those lanky legs crossed at the ankles. “Black’s fine.”

She poured it, handed it to him, waited while he took his first sip. “Well?” she said.

He shifted position, angled narrow hips more comfortably against the edge of the Formica countertop. “I had René look around, check to make sure they didn’t touch anything else. All the guest rooms are locked, and he didn’t see anything that looked out of place. It seems all they were interested in was the shop.”