Nowhere to Hide (11 page)

"Black, please."

He set the cups on the desk, Ellen’s in front of her. She was still standing, unbuttoning her coat.

"I suppose you’ve come to collect her things from the apartment." He could see the family resemblance, especially the eyes. But where the victim had been petite, Ellen Harris was tall. She moves like a dancer, he thought. Her hair was that color they used to call "strawberry blond" in his day.

"No, Sergeant Shannon," she said, draping her coat over the back of the chair and sitting down. "That’s not why I’m here."

He took in the simply styled navy dress she wore, the strand of pearls. Belying an air of soft womanhood, Shannon sensed
a fierceness
about her.

Taking his cue, he went back behind his desk. He picked up his pen and began making little tapping noises on the blotter. She was obviously planning on staying awhile. Well, maybe she could shed a little light on this case. Somehow, he didn’t think so. Oh, Christ, he thought miserably. I don’t need this.

The strain of her sister’s murder showed on her face. Her pupils were unnaturally large. Shannon had seen his share of shock victims in his time, and clearly, Ellen Harris was still in shock.

He waited.

She glanced briefly at the wanted poster on the wall behind him, then at him. Her blue gaze was penetrating, damn near unnerving. "I want to know everything that you know about the circumstances surrounding my sister’s murder," she said, her voice strong and unwavering. "And I want to know exactly what your department is doing to find her killer."

It was an hour later when Ellen left the police station. The wind had picked up, accompanied by a light, freezing drizzle. Drawing up the hood of her blue London Fog, she stepped onto the sidewalk. Glancing in both directions, she intuitively turned left, becoming part of the stream of pedestrian traffic.

She’d walked two blocks before she finally spotted a small diner with the sign, "D.J.’s" over the door. It was crowded inside, but she managed to find an empty booth at the back. The décor was cream and blue—soothing colors.

They weren’t working on her.

She ordered the soup of the day from the peppy, pony-tailed waitress. While she waited, she thought over all the detective had related to her, which really hadn’t amounted to a whole lot. Gail had put up a hell of a fight, he said, which came as no surprise to Ellen. "She had no chance," the detective said. "Only a strategically placed piece of hot lead would have stopped him."

Gail didn’t believe in guns. Neither did Ellen, though she had one. She’d almost forgotten. Ed had bought one for her when they were first married and he had to be out of town a lot.
In the construction business, you went where the work was.
Would she remember how to use it?

"Forensics found fragments of skin and blood under her fingernails," the detective told her.
"Wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s walking around with some pretty nasty scratches on him right now."

The soup came and Ellen found she wasn’t hungry, after all. Sliding the bowl away from her, she
unwrapped
the cellophane from the pack of cigarettes she’d bought from the machine at the airport. She lit her first cigarette in more than two years.

Though the first puff made her feel light-headed, she smoked it down to the filter.
Lit another one.

Conversation droned around her, dishes and flatware clattered. In a little while the smell of frying grease began to make her feel nauseated.

She crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray, paid her check and left the diner, not noticing the man in dark glasses who’d been sitting at the counter watching her.

He followed her outside.

When she arrived back at the apartment, the phone was ringing. To her surprise, it was Paul. At first, she felt pleasure hearing his voice, until she heard the agitation in it.

"I’ve been beside myself with worry. I drove over to your place last night. When I got back home, I kept dialing your number until well past midnight. I thought you might have done something crazy... hurt yourself. I was on the verge of calling the police."

"Oh. Well, I’m sorry, Paul—"

"And this morning I called Myra and she guessed you might have flown down to New York.
A shot in the dark."

"Well, you hit your target," she said coolly, unbuttoning her coat with one hand, tossing it on the sofa. It slid off onto the floor. She switched the receiver to her other ear, annoyed that he had tracked her down, had taken it upon himself to bother Myra. She was of age, for God’s sake. She was under no obligation to report her comings and goings to Paul or anyone else.

Relenting a little, Ellen asked herself if maybe she was being unfair. He was worried about her. She supposed she should be grateful he cared that much. But it was hard to concern herself with Paul’s feelings right now, hard to think of anyone right now but Gail being dead, and him out there somewhere, stalking other women.

"I’m sorry if I worried you, Paul," she said. "And you’re
right,
I should have left a note or something. How was the convention?"

"It would have been a lot more fun if you’d been there with me. I miss you, darling. You need to come back to work. I’m sure it would be the best thing for you."

"I’m not going anywhere," she said flatly. "Not until her killer is found. I told you that."

"Ellen you have to move ahead. You—"

"Please, Paul, don’t tell me what I have to do. I know you mean well, but please..."

He was silent.

A need to share with him what she’d learned came over her. She didn’t want to shut him out, dammit. She wanted his support. "Paul, they found a half-smoked Pall Mall cigarette on the kitchen floor. They can tell a lot from that. They can do a saliva test."

"So? That doesn’t necessarily mean it was his. A lot of people smoke that brand. It’s my own, you know that."

"Yes, I know, but there’s still a good chance it is the killer’s. Neither Gail nor Sandi smoked, and the landlady told me they rarely, if ever, had anyone in. Gail hated the smell of cigarette smoke. She used to nag me all the time to quit. And they found broken glass in the far corner of the closet. He put it there so she wouldn’t see it when she came into the room. That’s where he was hiding, Paul—in the closet. He was waiting for her in the closet when she got home."

His sigh of impatience traveled over the line. "Jesus, Ellen, who do you think you are, Jessica Fletcher? Sweetheart, I’m worried about you. So is Myra."

He didn’t give a damn about Myra. He was just using her to build his own case. He wanted to know when she was coming home. Ellen couldn’t say with any certainty. It depended. In a few days maybe, she said. She had no intention of telling him she was going to the
Shelton Room
tonight, or that, with any
luck,
he’d be watching her on tomorrow night’s news broadcast.

Hopefully, the fact that she was a psychologist would carry a little weight.

"I know how you feel," Paul was saying, "I know how terrible this is for you. But you must let the police do their job. It’s what they get paid for, what they’re trained to do. All you’ll do is get in the way, and end up making yourself sick."

My God, did he think she wasn’t already sick? "I know they’re the professionals, Paul," she said, suddenly weary of the conversation. "But they have plenty of other cases to solve. Gail is just one more." With that, she said good-bye, told him she’d see him later, and hung up.

He didn’t really want to hear anything she had to say, so why was she forcing it on him? Paul didn’t understand. He didn’t understand how it had been with her and Gail. No one did.

Ed had. He would have been there for her. But Ed was gone.

There was one other person. Feeling guilty for worrying Myra, she picked up the receiver and dialed her number. As she waited for her to answer the phone, she thought:
We have to find him. We have to find him before the scratches fade.

~ * ~

"I didn’t like the way she sounded, Carl," Myra said after hanging up the phone. She’d gotten little sleep last night, and after getting Joey off to kindergarten this morning, she’d gone back to bed.
Which was a mistake.
Now her mouth tasted wooly and she had a rotten headache. Ellen’s call didn’t help. Still in her robe, Myra plugged in the kettle for coffee.

"Well, honey, she’s depressed," Carl Thompson said. "And she’s probably still in shock." A big, raw-boned man with a receding hairline, he was getting into his new brown leather jacket with the warm fleece lining, a Christmas gift from Myra—zipping it up carefully, as if fearing his clumsy fingers might damage it in some way. "You have to expect it’s going to take her a long time for—"

"Carl, I know that," she snapped. "Do you think I don’t know that? And don’t you think ‘depressed’ is a bit of an understatement for what she’s feeling right now? Don’t patronize me, okay?"

Hurt clouded his face. "I’m sorry. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing."

After a pause, Myra said, "Oh, Carl, I’m the one who’s sorry." Her headache was beginning to pound with a vengeance. She raked a hand through her disheveled hair. "I didn’t mean to jump at you. I mean, I know she’s in terrible pain right now, but it’s not sadness I heard in her voice. She said she’s sure the police are keeping something from her, and that she’s going back tomorrow and make them tell her what it is. She was talking real fast, sort of hyper.
Like she was on something.
She didn’t sound like Ellen at all."

Carl tilted his head at her, frowned. "You’re getting another one of your headaches, aren’t you?" he asked quietly.

"What?" Her hands went automatically to her temples. "Getting" was hardly the word. "It’s nothing, just a... Joey, don’t eat so fast, you’ll get cramps."

The small towhead turned in his chair, setting big, brown eyes on her. "No, I won’t. You always say that, and I don’t get cramps.
Me
and Jimmy’s going sliding. He’s waiting for me." With that he stuffed the last of his cheeseburger into his mouth and scrambled from his chair, nearly upending it in his rush to get to his jacket, hanging on a hook on the back door.

Myra was across the room in two strides. "Oh, no you, don’t, young man," she said, snatching the jacket from his hand, ignoring the surprised hurt that leaped into his eyes. "You change your clothes first. You know you don’t wear your kindergarten clothes out to play. And it’s ‘Jimmy and I’."

"Aw, Mom—"

"And don’t ‘Aw, Mom’ me. You—"

"Just do it, okay, Tiger?" Carl interceded, tousling Joey’s hair.

Without another word of protest, he was bounding up the stairs to obey, his small feet thumping on each step, and inside Myra’s head, as he went.

"Honey, why don’t you take a couple of Tylenol and lie down for a while this afternoon?" Carl said.

Meekly, Myra answered, "I just got up."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth.
Tenderly.
"I’ll call you later, okay?" he smiled.
A smile that could always melt her anger.

Joey had Carl’s smile. Poor Joey, she thought guiltily. He’s got a harpy for a mother. "You deserve a medal for putting up with me lately, Carl." Maybe she’d make an appointment with Doctor Hoffman. It had been a while since her last checkup.

Hearing the van’s motor idling out in the driveway, she said, kissing him lightly, nudging him toward the door, "You’d better get going. You don’t want to be running late with your calls."

"Yeah, you’re right. I’ve got a couple of phones to install in one of the offices over at the McLeod building this afternoon. Naturally, they wanted it done yesterday."

She listened to the van backing out of the drive, wheels crunching on the hard snow.

Carl had been working for the phone company for the last twenty years, landing a job right out of high school. A couple of times, he’d been offered the supervisor’s job, but turned it down because he couldn’t stand the thought of being stuck in an office all day, handing out orders to others. While they weren’t rolling in dough, they were doing okay.

She’d done the career thing. It was where she’d met Carl, in that little boutique where she worked as assistant manager. He’d come to repair a faulty phone.
And returned a couple of times on the pretense of checking it out, sealing their fates.
She could always go back to work, probably would eventually, but for now she liked being a mom, she liked making a home for her family, a place where they could feel loved and safe.