Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (25 page)

I stuck my head up through the hole in the loft floor. I saw the bed, the tangle of greyish sheets and a smashed guitar. A bloody walking stick lay on the floor by the end of the bed. A pair of bare feet poked out of the sheets. Big feet, size fourteen minimum. I lurched toward the bed with its tangle of sheets. Arlen Young lay face down, naked, his long, dark-blond hair spread around him. A pool of blood surrounded his head, probably from the wound in the back of his skull. A cluster of flies explained the loud buzz.

I gagged but moved forward. Could anyone survive that? The pool of blood was spreading slowly. I knew I shouldn't touch him. It was obviously a crime scene. He couldn't be alive, but what if he was? I reached over and touched his wrist. A faint pulse, but for how much longer?

Everything else seemed very, very unimportant. I knew if I didn't do something, Arlen would bleed to death. I grabbed the sheets from the bed, wadded them together and pressed them against his wound, waving away the flies.

Time ticked by.

I sat cross-legged on the floor, avoiding the blood, and kept murmuring to him, soothingly. “It's okay, you're going to make it. Josey has gone to call 911. Sweetheart's going to be all right, and so are you. But try to fight. Please try to fight.”

With my free hand, I held his limp hand and squeezed, hoping that it wouldn't increase the blood flow. “Don't go,” I said. “The world needs musicians.”

It felt like hours crouched there, mesmerized by the buzzing of the flies and the slow seeping of Arlen's blood. I was still trying to murmur encouragement when I heard the sound of sirens in the distance.

“Hang on, Arlen. Hang on.”

Contributed by Marietta

13 shrimp, peeled, deveined, but with tails intact

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 crushed garlic cloves

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon steak seasoning

1 teaspoon lemon zest

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 tablespoon chopped chives

Pour two glasses of chilled white wine. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes and shrimp. Season with steak seasoning or salt & pepper. Cook shrimp 3 minutes or until just pink. Toss with lemon zest, juice, chopped parsley and chives. Taste one. You know you can't resist it. Remove the rest of the shrimp to a serving plate, pour liquid in pan over.

Surprise your lover!

Any folksiness that Sarrazin had been projecting had pretty well evaporated by the time he lumbered in to see me in the interview room at the St. Aubaine Sûreté.

I jumped to my feet when he finally showed up. No ice tea this time. Just the low hum of the tape recorder noting Interview with Fiona Silk, June 11, five p.m. Present Sgt. F.X. Sarrazin and
Agent
Viau. Somehow
agent
seems much more menacing than the English equivalent rank of constable. I'd never seen Viau before. He was a wiry man in his early thirties, with hair buzzed close to his scalp. He gave off a “don't mess with me” vibe. I forced myself to make eye contact. His eyes were black, beady and accusing. Mine were most likely red-rimmed, matching my forehead. Not that I'd been near a mirror to know.

“Okay, madame,” Sarrazin said gently, “I just need you to tell the truth.”

I blinked. “But I always tell the truth.”

I may have looked a bit shifty at this point, because I didn't always tell Sarrazin the truth. At the moment, I was so rattled I couldn't really remember what fibs I'd told. Mostly white lies to protect Josey, I decided.

Viau cleared his throat. “I hope you realize how serious this is.”

I bleated, “Of course I realize it. I spent what seemed like hours worrying that Arlen Young was going to die in my arms. Is he okay?”

“Let's deal with the interview.”

“Listen, I held him. I have his blood all over me. I have a right to know if he's alive.”

“Yes. He is alive, but we don't know if he is going to make it. He's still in intensive care. So why don't you explain to me how you came to be in the bedroom with a naked bleeding man that you say you hardly know.”

“But it's true.”

Viau said, “Were you having an affair?”

My jaw dropped. I was starting to hate this man. “I only met him the one time when he looked at my wiring.”

Agent Viau smothered a smirk. Sarrazin swivelled and faced him. The smirk vanished. Viau squirmed in his chair until Sarrazin turned back to me.

I stared straight at Sarrazin. “I've told you what happened there. Arlen said he'd give me a quote, and then he talked to my insurance agent. I told you all about it in the café.”

“But why were you in his cabin?”

“I wanted to find out why he told Faron Findlay that my home was unsafe. You must be able to understand that. I lost everything I have ever valued in my life. I could have lost Josey and Tolstoy. You yourself said accelerant was used. Arlen was connected to that somehow, and I just—”

Viau interjected, “—hit him with your stick when he didn't tell you. Or maybe he did tell you, and then you hit with the stick. Which one is it?”

“It's neither,” I said in a wobbly voice. “I didn't hit him. I found him. The stick was just lying there, on the floor. It had blood on it. I never touched it.”

Sarrazin took over again. “Okay, we're having a bit of trouble with that too. The guy was naked and
upstairs
in his cabin. You told me you hardly knew him. Yet you walked in the front door
when he was, as you claim, already unconscious and bleeding.”

Viau added, “You do that kind of thing all the time?”

Sarrazin rubbed his temples. I guess it wasn't easy being the good cop.

“Of course not. Josey and I went to talk to him. We saw the truck outside. We knew he was there. The front door was open, and Josey took a look.”

Viau snorted. “Right. There's a name for that. Trespassing. That kid will answer for that.”

“Please, leave her out of this. If she hadn't gone for help, he would have died alone. She could see Sweetheart unconscious by the table. She called to the dog, and it didn't move.”

“That dog is a shepherd. Weren't you scared he would attack you, since you were intruders?”

“She. Of course, she would have barked if she thought we were intruders. Or she would have come to greet us, if she recognized us. When she didn't move, we knew something was wrong. That's why we went in. Then I sent Josey to call the police.”

Sarrazin said, “And you stayed behind because?”

“I knew Arlen wouldn't hurt his dog. When I heard moaning upstairs, I figured that something had happened to him.”

“So you went upstairs, even though you thought there might have been an intruder? Was that smart?”

“It was pretty stupid actually. Impractical. Idiotic. But it turned out to be the right thing to do. Arlen would have died if we hadn't gone to that cabin and if Josey hadn't gone for the police and if I hadn't checked upstairs. I wish you would try to understand that. I am not the bad guy here.”

Sarrazin puffed out his cheeks.

“Look,” I said, “why would we call the police if we'd committed a crime?”

Viau leaned forward and said, “People who commit violent acts
aren't always thinking straight. They do things that don't really help their case. Maybe this was one of those times. You didn't mean to hurt him. You certainly didn't mean to kill him. You just wanted information. Then when you were talking to him, you became enraged because this man had caused the loss of your home and your livelihood. We wouldn't blame you. You couldn't help yourself. You raised your walking stick, and you smashed in his skull.”

I flinched. “No.”

“And then you hit him again and again. You couldn't stop yourself. He had it coming.”

“No. I didn't.” I turned to Sarrazin. “You know that isn't true.”

Viau wasn't buying it. “Afterwards, you were overcome with remorse. You hadn't wanted to hurt him. You didn't want him to die. Just tell us, and we'll try to help you.”

“Oh, absolutely. That's what this is all about. Helping me. And what are you talking about,
my
walking stick? I had one something like it. It burned up in the fire like everything else.”

“No, madame. Apparently, it didn't. We know it was yours, because guess what we found on it?”

My heart constricted. “What?”

“Your fingerprints and those of that Thring girl.”

“It's not possible. Josey didn't go upstairs. And I didn't touch it. The murderer must have—”

Viau help up a hand. “Another thing—you keep saying the Thring girl called the police.”

I stared at him. “She did. I sent her out to the road to make the call.”

“Right. Getting a minor to steal a car.”

“It was an emergency.” My head was beginning to throb. “We've been through that, over and over.”

He shook his buzzed head. “But the Thring girl didn't call 911, did she?”

“Of course she did. You came, didn't you?”

Viau snickered. “We did. But not because of her. Didn't you think we got there pretty damn fast?”

I blinked. “It seemed like forever. I lost all track of time. It was like a nightmare. All that blood, those flies. Why are you saying that Josey didn't call?”

Viau leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “She claimed she couldn't find a spot with service before we arrived. And then she left the scene before we could question her. Must have hitched a ride back to town.”

I probably looked pretty murderous right then. That's the problem with wild, curly hair, it can give you a deranged appearance at a moment's notice. And it doesn't help your image if your clothes are covered with blood. “But why would you send patrol cars up to a cabin in the middle of the woods if it wasn't for Josey's call?”

Sarrazin and the agent exchanged glances.

My mouth felt dry. “Oh, let me guess. You got a tip.”

Sarrazin said, “That's right. Crime in progress. But not a tip about a seriously injured person. That's why the ambulance came later.”

“Well, ask yourself, who could tip you except the person who committed this crime?”

Viau had a way of smiling without a tinge of humour. “The tip said that you had said, and I quote, ‘Arlen Young knows who is behind my fire, and he is going to tell us if he knows what's good for him.' Is that true? Did you say that, madame?”

“No.” I had thought it, though, but there was no way a tipster could know my thoughts.

Sarrazin said sadly, “And then things got out of hand.”

Things were very definitely out of hand. I said, “I suppose I better have a lawyer. I don't know what to do.”

Viau said, “Why don't you just tell us the truth, and then the lawyer can help get you the best deal.”

“I didn't do it, and I don't want a deal. You need to find out who is committing these crimes.”

What had my wussy little world come to when I was yelling at the police in an interrogation room?

At that point, Sarrazin and Viau started all over again, back at the beginning, every detail of the morning and the events up until they arrived at Arlen's cabin. By the time we'd gone over it for the tenth time, I was beginning to understand how a normal person could confess to anything at all, just to get them to shut up.

There was a knock on the door as Viau was asking once again with feeling, “So did you bring the walking stick along just in case you needed protection from Young or from the dog? Was that it? Maybe you didn't plan to kill him, but you were a bit nervous around him. We could understand that.”

“It doesn't matter how many times you ask, I didn't take a weapon to Arlen's house. I didn't attack him.”

I heard the knock again.

Sarrazin held my eyes while Viau ambled over cockily to open the door. A fresh-faced young female officer whispered something into his ear. He made a face like he'd just found spinach in his chocolate sundae. He beckoned to Sarrazin. Sarrazin heaved his bulk out of the chair and joined them. They stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind them. I sat there, heart pounding. I'd heard the word hospital. I knew what had happened. Arlen Young must have died. Now I was done for too. And so probably was Josey. Wherever she was.

A century later, the door opened. Sarrazin loomed in it.

I stared at him. “I didn't do it.”

He nodded. “You're free to go.”

I staggered to my feet. “What? I mean, that's good, isn't it?”

“Yes, madame. That's very good.”

For some reason, my knees wobbled. “Why? What happened?”

“Good news, madame. Arlen Young regained consciousness.”

“That's wonderful. He didn't deserve to die.”

“No, he did not. And he was able to answer an important question for us.”

I held my breath. “He told you it wasn't me?”

“That's right.”

“But who did it?”

Sarrazin shrugged. “He didn't give us a name. He said he didn't know the person. We'll have to wait for that. He didn't stay conscious long. But it looks like he'll make it.”

I was still clutching the table for support. My knees appeared to be on strike.

He added, “Go back to your friend's place and get some rest.”

“And the small matter of Josey driving the vehicle. You'll drop that?”

He produced one of his major league shrugs. “Dr. Prentiss insists she'd given her permission for the Thring kid to practice on the vehicle as long as it was on a private road.”