Left for Dead (15 page)

“They called me at two o’clock this morning,” Al said, leaning back in the chair in the sheriff’s office. He had his leg crossed, one ankle resting on the other knee. Between his sock line and trouser cuff was about three inches of exposed hairless white leg.

“They needed our help to identify the victim,” he continued. “We had her name on file, and that sped up the ID process for the guys at headquarters. They found the gal last night in a garbage dump in North Seattle, her throat slit. Anyway, they called me again this morning, confirming it. She’s number six, Terrianne Langley. Actually number seven, if you count the one who got away. This girl’s been dead two weeks. You’ll see it on the news tonight.”

But Al wasn’t all business and police talk, he also asked the sheriff about the best places to eat on Deception. He wanted to know if the Whale Watching Tour was worth checking out. And was there a nice local bar that served free hors d’oeuvres?

“Any place you can recommend?” Al asked. “I’m looking for a spot where the beer is warm, and the women are cold.”

Tim just rolled his eyes.

The sheriff finally got a call that he needed to take. Tim figured it was probably a telemarketer. The sheriff put the caller on hold while he bid them a hasty good-bye.

Tim didn’t say anything while he and Al drove to the Shaws’ house. But he dreaded what was coming.

Al parked in the Shaw’s driveway. On their way to the front door, he mentioned that it was almost noon. “Maybe this Shaw fella will take us out someplace and treat us to lunch.”

Tim sighed. “I think when Mr. Shaw sees me, he’ll want to treat us to a couple of one-way ferry tickets back to the mainland.”

Ignoring him, Al jabbed at the doorbell several times.

“Who’s there, please?” a woman called from other side of the door.

“Detectives Sparling and Sullivan,” Al said loudly. He pulled out his badge and held it up in front of the peephole. “We called earlier.”

Claire Shaw opened the door. She swept her dark brown hair away from her face, and gave Al a cordial smile. But when she locked eyes with Tim, her smile faded.

“We parked in the driveway,” Tim said. “Is that all right? Are we blocking anyone?”

“Oh, no, you’re fine,” she said, opening the door wider. “Please, come on in. My husband’s in the bathroom. He’ll be right out. Won’t you have a seat?”

“How are you feeling, Mrs. Shaw?” Tim asked.

She smiled and nodded. “Still a little weak. But I’m okay, thanks.”

She led them into the living room. He and Al sat on the sectional sofa, their backs to the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to the front yard and the unfinished house across the street. “You don’t have any coffee on the stove, do you?” Al asked. “Because I could sure use a cup.”

Claire was about to sit in a club chair. “Um, I’ll have to make some.”

Tim piped up. “Really, you shouldn’t bother—”

She locked eyes with him again. “I don’t mind. It’ll only take a minute.” She retreated toward the kitchen.

“Not a bad looking gal,” Al whispered. “Not bad at all.”

Tim just nodded. She certainly was pretty. She also seemed a bit nervous. From the way she kept glancing at him, he wondered if she might be a little attracted to him. He felt a certain instant connection. Or was it something else? Maybe she hated him as much as her husband did.

He heard her knocking on a door in another part of the house. “Honey, the police are here,” she was calling.

Tim heard a response, but the words were muffled. He felt very uncomfortable. He didn’t like confrontations, and he know one was coming as soon as Harlan Shaw saw him sitting on his living room sofa. Tim began to tap his foot.

When Claire returned to the living room, he stood up.

“My husband and the coffee will be with you in a minute,” she said. “Please, sit.”

But Tim remained on his feet. “Um, Mrs. Shaw. Your husband and I have met already. I don’t know if he mentioned it to you. My name’s Tim Sullivan. There was kind of a misunderstanding—”

“Hey, hey, pipe down,” Al said.

“I just want to clear something up,” Tim continued, ignoring his coworker. “Mr. Shaw got some bad information, and he thought I was in charge of security at the hospital—”

“That’s enough,” Al said forcefully. “She doesn’t need to hear this.”

“No,
she does
need to hear it,” Claire replied, frowning at Al. She turned to Tim. “You had a run-in with my husband, didn’t you?”

Tim nodded. “I don’t blame him for being angry. But I never had anything to do with security at that hospital…”

Tim trailed off as he heard the kettle whistling.

Harlan Shaw stepped out from the kitchen and stopped dead in the foyer. He glared at Tim. The tall, imposing man wore a T-shirt and jeans.

Claire turned toward him. “Harlan, I think there was a big misunderstanding—”

“Kettle’s boiling,” he grunted. “You gonna get it, honey?”

She patted her husband’s shoulder. “Well, simmer down yourself,” she muttered, retreating toward the kitchen. “And listen to what Detective Sullivan has to say.”

Harlan let out a chuckle and shook his head at Tim. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

“Mr. Shaw, I was just telling your wife—”

“That he’s sorry,”
Al interrupted, jumping to his feet.

Harlan gave Al a wary look. “Please tell me this incompetent son of a bitch isn’t part of the security team they sent here.”

“I’m in charge, Mr. Shaw,” Al assured him. “I just brought him along today to apologize to you, and then he’ll on his way.”

“Wait a minute,” Tim started to say.

“The door’s right there, bub,” Harlan said.

Al pulled out the car keys, and handed them to Tim. “I’ll call you at the hotel, and you can come pick me up—”

“It’s okay,” Tim sighed. “I’ll walk. It’s only a mile or so.”

Harlan opened the front door—just as Claire came out of the kitchen. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“I am sorry, Mr. Shaw,” Tim muttered. He nodded. “You too, Mrs. Shaw. Take care.” He ducked outside.

“Wait just a second,” Tim heard Claire Shaw say. Then the door slammed shut after him.

Tim locked the door to his room, then closed the drapes. The hotel maid had cleaned already, and the place smelled like Windex.

He set his briefcase on the table, worked the combination, and clicked open the lock.

He told himself it was probably the best thing that could have happened. Now he had a little reprieve from Al. For the next hour or so, he could be alone. They’d probably pull him from this assignment on Deception, which was fine. Maybe he could get his life back. Hell, maybe they’d even take him off the Rembrandt case. He could go back to his mundane paper-pushing, desk-jockey job. Or was that too much to hope for?

He’d never asked to be on the Rembrandt task force. He’d never even had high aspirations to stay in law enforcement. His degree was in graphic design, but jobs there were scarce. At his father’s funeral, a friend of his dad’s said he could get Tim into the police academy. It was supposed to be a temporary job. He knew computers pretty well, so they stuck him behind a desk. That was okay by him. He’d proven himself above average on the practice range, but had no desire to pack a gun. For the most part, they left him alone, and kept giving him pay increases. He was doing all right, and helped put his kid brother through college. He hadn’t planned on sticking with it for ten years. He had other ambitions.

Tim opened his briefcase, and took out a long sheet of cardboard-like paper that had a tissue cover. He pulled back the tissue. Two of four square panels on the cardboard sheet had been filled with detailed drawings. The first panel showed a cartoon of a slick, handsome man wearing a hat and forties-style suit. He was talking with a woman who looked like Veronica Lake. In the bubble caption over his head it said,
“I’M TELLING YOU, LOLA. THAT EVIL PROFESSOR SHRUBB IS OUT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! HE HAS TO BE STOPPED!”

Tim’s cartoon,
THE ADVENTURES OF PRIVATE EYE GUY,
ran in
The Seattle Sounder,
a popular weekly. The comic strip had gained a small cult following. Though set in the forties, the exploits of Private Detective Guy Kaplan were full of current social and political parodies. Weekly newspapers in Portland and San Francisco had picked up the comic strip last year. Recently, there was even an independent film producer interested in acquiring movie rights, but nothing ever came of it.

Tim used the nom de plume, Tim Timster, for his comic strip. He was proud of his creation, but kept it secret from his coworkers on the force. He still needed his day job. He couldn’t have lived off the money he was making on
Private Eye Guy.
For several years now, he’d managed to do his ho-hum civil servant job, and afterward, he’d go home and work on the comic.

Tim gave Guy Kaplan a better love life than he had himself. Most of Tim’s relationships were short-lived. He turned a lot of women off when he told them he was a cop. The ones turned on by that revelation were often disappointed he didn’t fit their vision of a gun-toting macho hero. Some women just didn’t understand his dedication to a comic strip. His last girlfriend, Charlotte, left him after nearly a year, because he wouldn’t abandon
The Adventures of Private Eye Guy
in favor of a steady job with her father’s advertising company. It seemed his devotion to the comic strip was constantly being put to the test.

Last month at work, they stuck him on the Rembrandt task force. It wasn’t routine. He’d always felt like a phony at the job, but it didn’t really matter until now. He couldn’t just punch a clock and coast along sorting data. Lives were at stake. They were trying to stop a serial killer.

He kept hoping they’d wise up and fire him. Or maybe that film producer would get in touch with him again—and miracle of miracles—he’d have a movie deal for his comic strip, then he could just quit. He wanted out. He couldn’t handle all the responsibility.

He thought about Claire Shaw, and her husband. Hell, he deserved to be booted out of their house. He may not have been the one who screwed up the security at her hospital, but his lack of initiative warranted Harlan Shaw’s contempt just the same.

With a sigh, Tim pulled out his drawing pens. He started working on the third panel of his comic strip.

The telephone rang.

“Oh, crap, it’s Al already,” he muttered.

Tim pulled himself away from the table and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

“Detective Sullivan?” a woman asked.

“Yes?”

“It’s Claire Shaw,” she said. “I’m awfully sorry about what happened.”

“Well, so am I, Mrs. Shaw. But you shouldn’t apologize. It’s no one’s fault. It’s just a misunderstanding. I’m sure Al—um, Detective Sparling explained it all to you and your husband—”

“No, he didn’t,” she said. “He didn’t say anything to clear your name. It would have meant admitting to my husband that he’d been misinformed. My guess is, someone higher up in the chain of command was responsible for hospital security, but they blamed you for whatever went wrong. You have nothing to do with hospital security. Am I right?”

“Well, you’re pretty damn close,” Tim admitted.

“In other words, they’re lying.” Tim heard her sigh on the other end of the line. “Detective Sullivan, since I started getting my memory back, that’s all I’ve heard: lies and cover stories. I was told my son ran away the night before I disappeared. Then the next day, I was supposed to have gone shopping with a friend in Seattle and spend the night there. Well, detective, I don’t think I’m Mother of the Year or anything. I haven’t always been there for my son, but…” Her voice cracked a little. “But what kind of mother goes off on a weekend shopping spree in a city a hundred miles from home the day after her only son has run away? What kind of mother does that?”

“Why are you telling me this, Mrs. Shaw?” he asked guardedly.

“Because you’re nice,” she replied. “When you came into my house and asked how I was feeling, I could tell you really cared. I know it’s silly, but you also asked if it was okay to park in the driveway. Shows you’re considerate. And you didn’t want me to go to any bother making coffee. But your friend couldn’t have cared less. He’s down in the living room, talking with Harlan right now. I think he expects me to fix him lunch.”

Tim couldn’t help grinning. He wondered how long it would be before Al used his “warm beer, cold women” line on Harlan Shaw.

“He keeps hinting about how hungry he is,” Claire went on. “I just got out of the hospital yesterday. I’ve been gone three weeks. There’s nothing in the house. I wonder if he likes pork and Fritos. There’s this casserole I want to get rid of.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Tim said, shrugging. “Does he know you’re talking to me right now?”

“Oh, God, no. Neither does Harlan.”

“How did you know to call me here?” he asked.

“Your friend said he’d call you at the hotel, and there’s only one hotel in town.” She paused. “So do you think you could help me?”

“Help you—how, Mrs. Shaw?”

“I don’t think my son ran away, Detective Sullivan. I’m pretty sure something else happened to him and no one wants to tell me the truth. This friend I supposedly went shopping with, her name is Linda Castle. I think she’s lying. I wouldn’t have gone off for on a weekend shopping spree while my son was missing.”

“Why haven’t you said anything to the police about this?” he asked.

“You’re the police, aren’t you?” she asked.

Tim didn’t answer her.

“I think I can trust you,” she continued. “I felt it the moment I met you. Won’t you please help me, detective?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know, Mrs. Shaw. I may get pulled off this island tonight.”

“But if you stay on, could you ask around for me? My son’s name is Brian. Brian Ferguson. His father died a few years back. He didn’t take Harlan’s name. In fact, he didn’t take to Harlan. Anyway, could you look into it for me, Detective Sullivan? Please? No one will tell me the truth.”

“Well, I—” He glanced at the unfinished comic strip on the table, then sighed. “I’ll need some more information from you. Then I’ll see what I find out, Mrs. Shaw.”