Old World Murder (2010) (12 page)

Had it been random? Or … had someone done it because Nika was black? Chloe felt sick. Lights glowed from the houses she passed, warm and welcoming. She wished she’d thought to leave a light on at her place.

Then another light caught her eye—this one tiny, and red, and blinking a furious warning from the control panel of her car.

“Oh, no,” Chloe groaned. She pulled over and parked beneath a streetlight. She got out, raised the hood, and stared at the motor. No smoke, no flames. No obviously dangling parts.

Back in the car, she flicked on the interior light and retrieved her owner’s manual from the glove compartment. Her particular light translated to “See your dealer.” Right. She had no idea where the nearest Ford dealership was.

Headlights flashed in her mirror as a familiar blue Mustang stopped beside her. Rupert, the maintenance worker who’d provoked Stan to fury by coming in late, rolled down his window. “You all right? I recognized your car.”

“A warning light came on. I’m trying to figure out if I can drive to a garage.”

He got out and shoved his hair away from his eyes long enough to fiddle with a couple of caps, check a couple of dipsticks. “Fluids are OK. She making any noise?”

“Nope. Just the warning light.”

“You should be all right. I’d take it down to Elkhorn. George’s Garage. He’s pretty good. First Avenue, near the Fairgrounds.”

Chloe decided to believe that Rupert knew what he was talking about. “Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate you stopping.”

Rupert headed back to his Mustang, then stopped. “Hey, you gonna be OK? You need a ride from Elkhorn? I could follow you, if you want.”

“No, but thanks,” she told him. “My parents don’t live too far away. I’ll call them.”

Chloe drove off with her spirits lifted. There were still good people in the world.

She found the garage, parked her car, slid a note under the door for George to find in the morning, and considered. It was almost ten o’clock. George had thoughtfully installed a pay phone on his lot, but she didn’t want to bother her parents at this hour. She called a cab instead.

The cab arrived twenty minutes later, and twenty minutes after that, deposited her at her back door. “Thanks again for accepting the check,” Chloe told the driver as she got out, hoping it wouldn’t bounce. Cab fares were not in the budget.

Then she unlocked the door to her dark, empty house, and went to bed.

____

Chloe stared into the darkness, wondering what had awakened her. As usual, she’d raised every ground-floor window. Occasionally she heard snorts from the Holsteins pastured just beyond the driveway, but something unfamiliar had disturbed her sleep. She waited. Then she heard the noise again—a hushed
scritch
of sound.

She kicked aside her sleeping bag and got up. She listened. Nothing. She padded silently to her bedroom door and stopped, straining to hear the noise again. The front door to the house was just ahead of her, to her right. Beyond the door was a window which opened onto the porch.

Scri-i-itch.

The noise came from that window beyond the door. Chloe heard another tiny sound, a hushed
thump
. Someone had pulled the screen from the window, and set it quietly on the porch.

Her hand found the light switch by the front door.
“Hey!”
she yelled, flicking it on. In the sudden glare she glimpsed a foot and leg extending through the window. In an instant it was gone. Something thumped again on the porch, much louder this time. Scrambling footsteps pounded over the boards. Then silence.

Chloe flipped the porch light on and jerked at the front door knob. The old door stuck, and she had to wrestle with it before wrenching it open. No one in sight. As she ran across the porch and into the yard, a car with no headlights on roared away.

A sickle moon shed little light. Chloe stood, waiting, feeling the grass cool and damp beneath her feet. Finally she blew out a long breath and turned back toward the house. The window screen lay on the porch. It was inexpensive, the type intended to slide easily in and out, held in place only by the weight of the open window.

Chloe stared at the screen. “Son of a bitch,” she whispered.

Roelke jerked awake when
the telephone rang. His feet hit the floor, his hand reached for the bedside lamp, and his brain switched into gear. One-fifteen A.M. He snatched the phone. “McKenna here.”

“Roelke? It’s Chloe. Someone just tried to break into my house.”

His throat tightened. “Did you call the cops?”

“What? Yes!”

“OK. Unless you have reason to believe that someone is in the house, stay inside and sit tight. Call your neighbors so you’re not alone. I’ll be right down.” He pulled on jeans and extracted his service revolver from the lockbox under his bed, grabbed his truck keys, and ran down his flat’s exterior staircase.

He hit Highway 59 at an illegal speed and kept at it as he wound through the state forest toward La Grange. When Roelke pulled into Chloe’s driveway, anger pulled his muscles even tighter. Chloe sat on the front porch steps, faintly illuminated by the light spilling from the farmhouse interior. No one else was in sight—no cop cars flashing red and blue, no hovering landlords defending their property.

He jumped from the truck and strode toward the porch. “What are you
doing?
I told you to wait inside!”

“I didn’t want to wait inside. I needed air.” She stood to meet him. A baggy green T-shirt proclaiming “WVU Foresters Do It In The Woods” almost covered her denim shorts. She was barefoot.

“Did you call your neighbors?”

“I don’t want to wake them. They’re dairy farmers, for God’s sake. The guy is gone. There’s nothing here that can’t wait until morning.”

He glared at her, angry and incredulous and painfully aware of her long blonde hair. He’d never seen it completely loose before, flowing past her waist. “What about the cops?” he demanded. “You
told
me you’d already called the cops!”

“I called
you!
”

Roelke quivered with the effort of keeping his hands from those thin shoulders. He wanted to shake some sense into her. He finally turned and walked away. One deep breath. Another. OK, a few more. Finally he felt ready to try again.

She stood waiting on the steps, arms folded, jaw set.

“Let’s start over.” Roelke managed the calm, pleasant tone he’d perfected on the beat. “First of all, your home is out of my jurisdiction. I’m employed by the Village of Eagle. You don’t live in Eagle. You don’t even live in Waukesha County.”

She considered that. “Oh. Yeah.”

“And second, you didn’t call the station. If you had, you’d have been routed to Walworth County.”

“Oh.”

“You called my home number,” Roelke added, feeling a need to make his position crystal-clear.

“OK, I get it.” She sighed. “I guess I screwed up. Sorry.”

“A local car could have been here in half the time it took me. If you’d been threatened, that might have made all the difference.” Roelke ran a hand over his hair, not liking the images flashing through his head. “All right. Tell me what happened.”

“Can we go inside? I really don’t want to wake up my neighbors.”

Roelke ground his teeth together, and followed her into the house.

She gestured to her bedroom door. “I was asleep, and a noise woke me up. I got up to listen. I was standing here in the doorway when I realized that someone was pulling the screen out of that window.” She pointed.

Roelke’s chest tightened as he looked from her bedroom to the open window. She’d only been a few feet from the intruder. “What happened next?”

“I heard the screen hit the porch. Then I flipped the light switch and yelled ‘Hey!’ The guy had one leg in the window, but he jumped backwards when I yelled. It sounded like he fell. I tried to get the front door open but it’s been humid, and it sticks. You know how old houses can be—”

“Could you please finish the story?” Roelke managed, through gritted teeth.

“So, I finally got the door open.” Chloe tucked a strand of that incredible hair behind her ear. “By then he was gone. I ran out into the yard, but I couldn’t see anyone—”

“You ran into the yard?” Roelke exploded. “Jesus! Are you incredibly brave, or just stupid?”

“I
beg
your pardon?”

“Two days ago you went into that trailer without knowing if an intruder was inside. I
told
you not to do anything like that again—”

“I don’t take orders from you!”

“And now—what possessed you to open your front door, knowing an intruder was on your front porch?”

“I—I wanted to run him off, I guess. Or maybe get a look at him. I don’t know! It all happened really fast.”

Roelke began to pace. “And then you ran out into the yard! What the
hell
were you thinking?”

“I said I don’t know! It was just instinct! Stop bellowing!” She clasped her elbows, arms across her chest.

He paced a moment longer, struggling to rein in feelings that didn’t want to be corralled. “You could have been beaten. Or stabbed. Or raped. Or killed.”

Chloe rubbed her forehead. “Look, I’m sorry if I didn’t follow your rulebook, but I’ve never had someone break into my house before.” She walked into the living room and dropped into one of the armchairs.

Roelke followed and perched on the sofa, leaning forward, elbows on knees. “Let’s get back to what happened. You ran into the yard, but didn’t see anyone?”

“A door slammed. Then a car drove away without any lights on. I think the guy had left it parked out by the road.”

Roelke had talked to many women who’d been victims of one type of assault or another. Too many. He’d never seen a woman so calm. “Chloe.” He tasted the word, realizing it was the first time he’d called her by name. “Chloe, do you have any idea who this intruder was?”

“Of course not!”

“Is there any particular reason why a man would want to break into your house? An old boyfriend? An angry spouse?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Current boyfriend? Anyone you’re seeing socially?”

“No.”

Was that good news or bad? Roelke wasn’t sure. “How about people you work with? Any weird vibes there?”

“Weird vibes? Well …” She considered. “Hank DiCapo, the security guard—I ticked him off the first day. Byron Cooke, curator of interpretation—I ticked him off my first day too. Stanley, the maintenance guy—I ticked him off this afternoon—”

Roelke sat back. “How long have you been working there again?”

She shot him an irritated glance. “Well, you asked. And if you want a full list, I should add Ralph Petty, the director.” She spread her hands, palms up. “But … so what? None of them have any reason to break into my house.”

“Let’s go back to the moment you turned on the light. Close your eyes and tell me exactly what you saw.”

She hesitated, then obeyed. “My eyes squinched up when I turned the light on. But I have this impression of a foot in a white running shoe. White with red styling on the side. And blue jeans above it, just about to the knee. That’s all.” She opened her eyes again.

“Man’s foot? Woman’s?”

“Um … I don’t know.”

“Not a lot to go on.” He didn’t like this. Didn’t like it at all.

Chloe nibbled her bottom lip. “I’ll tell you what I think. First of all, I left my car at a garage in Elkhorn tonight, so whoever broke in probably thought no one was at home. Second …”

“What?”

“Well, maybe someone was looking for that ale bowl. Whoever was pressuring Mrs. Lundquist to get it back. Whoever went out to Kvaale, and broke into the storage trailer, looking for it. Maybe they thought I’d found it.”

“Why go so nuts over a particular antique that no one had seen in years?”

“If not that, then what?” she demanded. “Why pick this particular old farmhouse to break into? I don’t have anything worth stealing. There’s nothing in here but second-hand furniture from my parents’ attic and a bunch of cardboard cartons.”

But criminals aren’t always rational, he wanted to tell her. Sometimes bad things happen to pretty women—things I don’t want you to even know about.

He stood up. “I’m going to look around outside.”

After grabbing the heavy-duty flashlight from his truck, he searched the yard before going back inside. “Nothing,” he reported. “Do you mind if I look at your other ground-floor windows?”

“Go ahead.” She managed a tiny smile. “I do appreciate your help, really. It was very kind of you to come.”

Roelke worked his way around, living room to kitchen to dining room to bathroom, closing and locking each window. And fighting a new layer of unease. He was used to poking through other people’s houses. He’d been called to the homes of the rich and the poor. The slovenly and the tidy. The well-furnished and the cheaply cobbled-together. He’d been in homes that emanated warmth, homes crackling with tension, homes that made the hairs on the back of his neck quiver. He’d never been in a house like this one that exuded … nothing.

He checked Chloe’s bedroom last. No clutter on the dresser. Shelves empty of books. Nothing but an unzipped sleeping bag on a mattress.

The only memento in the room—in the whole house—was a photograph. He studied the snapshot of a younger Chloe on some mountaintop. She stood bent slightly forward to accommodate a backpack, hands tucked under the shoulder straps as if to relieve some of its weight. Her companion, a bearded man, stood erect beneath his pack. Both, sweat-stained, grinned deliriously at the camera.

Roelke clenched his jaw. I don’t know who you are, buddy, he thought. But if Chloe cares enough about you to keep this photograph out, you damn sure should be here making sure she’s OK.

Finally he rejoined her in the living room. “I locked all the windows,” he told her. “The screens are too flimsy. Talk to your landlord tomorrow about replacing them.”

“What about the screen the burglar pulled out? It’s still lying on the porch.”

“We’ll leave it for the Walworth County boys.” He doubted they would make much of it, but that was their call.

“OK. Listen, Roelke?” She tipped her head to one side. “I’m really,
truly
grateful to you for coming down. Now … I need to get some sleep.”

“Me, too. Mind if I crash on your sofa for the rest of the night? I’m pretty fried.”

That was a lie. He knew it, and he was pretty sure she knew it too. He waited.

“Um … sure,” she said. “That would be fine.”

____

Chloe lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if Roelke was awake, too. She was clearly weirding him out.

Well, so be it. She needed to find out who wanted Mrs. Lundquist’s ale bowl so badly. And why. This was no longer some well-intentioned but impersonal diversion. It
was
personal, now.

Mrs. Lundquist may have been afraid of you, she told the unknown culprit silently. But
I’m
not afraid of you. I have nothing to lose, and one way or another, I’m going to figure this mess out.

____

Chloe heard Roelke stirring a little after six. Groggy, she got up and pulled on a pair of jeans and her favorite dark green shirt. She found him in her kitchen, staring dubiously into her refrigerator.

“I’m not big on breakfast,” she said. “The fridge is dead, anyway.”

“So I see.” He shut the refrigerator door. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No,” she mumbled, stifling a yawn. He startled her by smiling. It made him look even younger than usual. Chloe felt herself smile too.

Roelke glanced at his watch. “If you can be ready to go in, say, twenty minutes, I can run you down to Elkhorn.”

She shoved some hair back from her face. “Well … OK. Thanks. That’ll save me another cab fare. Just let me call work and say I’m going to be late.”

Roelke’s good humor slipped back behind his cop face on the drive. He didn’t speak until he pulled up in front of a nondescript diner called the Cloverleaf. “This place serves good food.”

Chloe climbed out of the truck and turned back to him before shutting the door. “Thanks again. I’m grateful.”

“Get some eggs, and some juice,” he ordered. “A nutritious breakfast will do you good. After you get your car, don’t forget to stop at the sheriff’s station.”