The Frailty of Flesh (12 page)

“Don’t tell me they found Shannon,” he said as he started the car.

Ashlyn laughed. “Since when did you become an optimist? Nothing quite so helpful. Mr. Smythe would like an update on the status of our search for Shannon Reimer.”

“Shame you aren’t sick today. I’m sure it really would have pissed him off to come in to a police station on a weekend and not even get the consolation of seeing you.”

“You were expecting me to be sick?”

Tain glanced at her and hesitated. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she was annoyed by his remark, but instead she looked hurt. “You haven’t been yourself lately. I thought maybe you were fighting off the flu or something.”

“I’d have to be pretty sick to call in in the middle of a case like this.”

“I know. I didn’t mean anything by it. We had a long day yesterday and…Look, forget it. I just wish you didn’t have to deal with Smythe today.”

“That makes two of us.”

When they arrived at the station Smythe was waiting in an interview room, looking relaxed. He was in casual attire, pants and a sweater instead of the custom suits he was fond of, and sipping an overpriced coffee that did not come from their staff room.

“Constable,” Smythe said as Tain entered. When Ashlyn joined them a moment later Smythe smiled. “Ms. Hart. It’s always nice to see you. Makes up for coming in on the weekend.”

Tain saw the shadow flicker across Ashlyn’s face as she sat down. “I can’t say the same, Mr. Smythe. This is taking valuable time from our investigation. Unless your clients are willing to consent to interviews, or to allow us to search—”

“Not at this time.” Smythe took a sip of his coffee, apparently undeterred by her brusque tone. “They want to know what’s being done to find Shannon Reimer.”

“Everything that can be done is being done.”

“And by everything you mean…” He held up a hand, inviting her to elaborate.

Instead, Ashlyn stood. “This investigation is being hampered by your clients’ unwillingness to speak with us. We have limited information about Shannon’s friends, associates and family members, don’t have access to her diary or any information from her family about her state of mind before Jeffrey’s murder yesterday.”

“My clients are not going to make any statements that may be used to help support a murder charge against their own daughter.”

“Christopher Reimer already has.”

He waved his hand dismissively “Statements that will be thrown out as inadmissible. He was in shock, he wasn’t afforded legal counsel, he’s eleven years old.”

Ashlyn glanced at Tain. He knew what she was thinking. Every exchange with this lawyer would be a cat-and-mouse game, wondering when to play certain cards. Revealing that Shannon was not necessarily their prime suspect now might be enough to persuade Smythe to get his clients to cooperate with them…

But not if one of them was guilty. Then it would tip them off, let them know they were under suspicion.

“Just remember, Mr. Smythe, that a young girl is out there somewhere. She may be injured, frightened, alone. Trying to get status reports from us is only going to make it take longer for us to find her. To be blunt, I don’t have time for this.”

Ashlyn turned and started walking to the door as Tain stood up.

“Wait.” Smythe remained seated, but he didn’t look quite as confident as he had when they’d first entered the room. He reached into his pocket and removed a small address book. “Shannon’s. I expect it’s bought me a bit of goodwill.” He slid it across the table, toward Ashlyn.

She paused, blew out a breath, stepped toward the table and reached out for the book.

“If you expect to get information from us you’ll have to do better than that,” Ashlyn said as she reached for the book.

Smythe put his hand over hers. “And if you expect me to help you, you’ll have to change your attitude.”

The cocky grin slipped back into place as he stood, let go of her hand and walked out the door, leaving his coffee cup behind.

Craig sat in his vehicle, parked behind a Tim Hortons. He doubted parking behind a Tim Hortons at any time of the day was a good choice if you wanted to find a quiet place to think, but morning was especially bad. All the people who had to work needed their morning caffeine fix, and all the parents being dragged to the malls needed something to compensate for noisy kids and jostling with strangers in crowded stores as they tried to get their holiday shopping done.

It wasn’t until a cruiser pulled up beside him and the officer got out and knocked on his window that he glanced at the clock and realized how long he’d been there.

He held up his ID. “Sorry. I’ll go in, get my breakfast and be on my way.”

“A little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”

“I’m not here on a call. Not really.”

“You don’t have to worry about it. Look, your sergeant called my sergeant and asked us to keep an eye on the Harrington place, just let him know if anything unusual came up. Apparently you didn’t show up for work this morning, so he asked us to keep an eye out for you.”

Craig pushed his irritation aside. How could Zidani know he was here? “Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary at the Harrington residence?”

“Not until you showed up there this morning.”

After a moment of silence the officer slapped Craig’s door and stepped back. “Well, I did my bit.”

Craig passed the officer his card. “If anything unusual does happen at the Harrington house can you let me know?”

The man shrugged, said, “Sure,” took the card and went back to his car. Craig waited until he drove away, then reached for his phone.

There was no answer at the first number, so he tried Steve Daly’s office. It was a weekend, and that seemed like a long shot, but this time of year everyone was trying to get things done before Christmas break. He was in luck.

“Steve Daly, please.”

“I’m sorry, he isn’t in.”

“Do you know when you expect him?”

“Can I ask who’s calling?”

“Constable Craig Nolan, Coquitlam RCMP.” Silence. “His son.”

“Oh, right. Sorry I didn’t recognize your voice, Craig. You should be able to reach your father at home by now.”

“I just tried his residence there.”

“I meant home in BC. He flew back yesterday.”

“Are you sure? I knew Alison was back…”

“Um hmm. Mrs. Daly flew back yesterday morning. Steve left a few hours later, around noon.”

He hadn’t asked Alison when Steve was due home, but she’d given him the impression that his father was still in Regina. Craig wondered if she knew. If Steve had flown back midday, he should have been home about the time an intruder was breaking in to his basement. “You don’t happen to know why they flew at different times, do you?”

“Your father was supposed to leave tomorrow, but he made a last-minute change to his flight.”

They went through the formalities of wishing each other happy holidays and he hung up. Then he started his vehicle and headed for the highway.

He was beginning to wonder if he should have insisted Zidani give the Lockridge review to someone else. Zidani, who’d been so quick to point fingers and assume Craig had been given a free ride by his dad when Steve had been his senior officer, had assigned Craig to review a case that his father had worked on years before. Something wasn’t right about that.

It took longer than usual to work through the Saturday traffic. With only a few weeks of holiday shopping left Saturdays were hell on the roads. It was over an hour before he turned down the road his parents lived on.

There was an unmarked police car in the driveway just like the one he normally drove. It was empty.

He parked and jogged to the door, barely stopping to knock before he opened it and called out. “Alison? It’s Craig.” He went in and started up the stairs.

“Craig?”

He reached the landing just as she entered the hallway from the living room.

“I tried to call you.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago.”

When he’d been on the phone, talking to his dad’s secretary. He looked over Alison’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Luke held up his hand. “Relax. I answered the phone at your desk. Nobody knew where you were so I came out myself.”

“I’ve been on a call since before dawn.” Craig turned back to his stepmother. “Could you make some tea?”

She returned his gaze for a moment, then nodded and gave one of her looks that told him she could see right through the flimsy request. He wanted her out of the room and she knew it, but at that moment he really didn’t care. Once she was gone he walked right up to his partner and pointed a finger at him.

“You should have called me.”

“She said she tried.”

“The phone was busy, not out of the service area.”

“What’s your problem? I’d think you’d be happy someone came out here to check on her.”

“The problem is, I don’t want you anywhere near my family without me here.”

“So that’s it? You’re going to talk about lack of trust when you’re out on a call and don’t even let me know?”

“A call that has nothing to do with you,” Craig said. “It’s something Zidani ordered me to go through yesterday.”

“Yeah, the boxes you took home. Just in case your partner decides to snoop around, I guess.”

“Messages have been going missing from my desk.”

“Who do you think answers your phone and puts the messages there to begin with? What do I want with your messages?”

Craig stared at Luke. He had to admit that Luke had a point. He’d always thought Zidani had been the one, rifling through the garbage, rummaging through his desk drawers. He thought back to the day before, when he’d seen Luke lock his desk.

Alison entered then, carrying a tray with a teapot and three cups. They all sat down and went through the pretense of civility. Luke recapped what he knew, which wasn’t much more than they’d learned the day before. Whoever it was hadn’t even gotten inside this time. A neighbor had been walking their dog and the dog went crazy, broke free and ran into the Dalys’ backyard. It wasn’t until the dog’s owner caught up with his pet that he saw a dark form dashing through the trees. The dog’s leash had gotten tangled, which was the only reason he hadn’t caught the intruder.

“Description?” Craig asked.

Luke shook his head. “Generic. Too far away to tell if it was a man or a woman or give a good guess on height. The neighbor couldn’t say for sure, but his glasses are as thick as Coke bottles. Dark hair hidden by a ski cap, dark jacket, sweatpants as far as he could tell.”

“When’s Dad coming back?” Craig asked Alison.

“He flies home tomorrow.”

She didn’t avert her gaze, her cheeks didn’t redden, she didn’t flinch or hesitate. Craig had never known his stepmother to lie to him, and he didn’t think if she tried now she could do it so convincingly. Which meant that wherever his dad was, Alison didn’t know.

“You should stay at our place tonight. I’d feel a lot better, knowing you’re okay.”

Alison shook her head. “I’m not going to be chased out of my own home.”

“You can’t stay here! It’s not safe.”

“I have a gun.”

“Since when?”

“It’s licensed and I know how to use it.”

“Alison…” He thought back to the day before. The unexplained blood on the floor.

“I haven’t used it. I hope I don’t have to. But once you start running, when do you stop? Could be it was just some kid, cutting through the yard this time. It happens.”

“Then why run?”

“If a rottweiler came charging at you, wouldn’t you run?”

He tossed up his hands. “But if anything else happens, you call me right away. And if you can’t get me you call Ashlyn. Or Tain.”

Craig stood, paused to bend down and kiss her on the cheek, then started down the stairs. When he reached the bottom he felt someone grab his arm.

“Should I be asking for a new partner?” Luke asked him as he turned.

“If you want one.”

“You’re a real piece of work. I heard Tain was a son of a bitch, but he’s got nothing on you.” Luke brushed past him, yanked the door open and slammed it behind him.

Craig went down the hall to the room where the boxes were stored. A break-in at his dad’s home and at Lisa Harrington’s and another attempted break-in, all in less than twenty-four hours? It was quite a coincidence.

He opened the closet. The day before he’d been forced to leave the box where the intruder had left it, pulled out and set to one side. It took less than a second to confirm it wasn’t there now, and he scanned the rest of the boxes.

It hadn’t been put back either.

Craig walked through the lower level, rechecking everything. It didn’t appear that anyone had been in since the break-in the day before, but somehow someone had stolen the files the intruder was after.

His dad’s work files. Files that dated back to the time of Hope Harrington’s murder investigation.