Linwood Barclay - A Tap on the Window

That made my head hurt. “No. It doesn’t play that way.”

“Maybe you’re right. But it’s possible, whoever killed the Rodomski girl, they could have been thinking she was Claire. Thoughts?”

“That’d definitely cross Sean Skilling off your suspect list,” I said.

He said, “Hmm.”

I asked, “Why are you looking for Claire Sanders?”

“Who said I was?” the chief said.

“The collective you , Augie. Your minions.”

“Who was it again came to talk to you?”

“Brindle and Haines. Haines I know. He was the one... He brought us the news about Scott.”

Augie’s face softened. “About that. Haines should have called me. He shouldn’t have delivered that news to you himself. It should have been me. I’m Scott’s uncle, for Christ’s sake. I’m sorry about that.”

I nodded. It wasn’t the first time Augie had mentioned it.

“I honestly don’t think he made the connection,” Augie said. “If he’d thought for a half a second, seen the name Weaver on Scott’s ID, thought about Donna in payroll — you’re supposed to have some smarts if you’re a cop.” He glanced down toward the creek, where Ricky Haines and his partner were still mucking about. “Anyway, those two came to see you. Tell me about that.”

“They were looking for Claire. They knew I’d given her a lift at Patchett’s. One of them said something about getting picked up on closed-circuit there, but Patchett’s doesn’t actually have any. So my first question is, were they already watching Patchett’s? And the second is, who put them onto looking for Claire in the first place? Her father says he didn’t report her missing.”

“You talked to him?”

“Right after you had your little town hall chat. Could someone else have reported her missing? Her mother? Sanders’ ex lives in Toronto, right? But even if it was her, wouldn’t you have gotten a heads-up?”

Augustus Perry didn’t say anything. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed he was thinking.

I interrupted whatever process was going on in there.

“It would seem to me, even with my limited understanding of the inner workings of the Griffon police department, that when the daughter of our beloved mayor, your sworn enemy of the moment, is the subject of a police search, somehow you would be in the loop.”

Augie looked back to where his SUV and the police cruisers were parked. There was another set of lights approaching.

“Coroner,” he said, and started walking.

A short black woman in her fifties, wearing a shiny blue down-filled jacket zipped up to her neck, approached. It struck me that she was dressed for much colder weather than we were currently having.

“Chief,” she said, blowing her nose and stuffing a tissue into one of her jacket pockets. I could see the ends of some surgical gloves sticking out of both of them.

“You okay, Sue?” Augie asked.

“Freezin’ to death. It’s this goddamn cold. Been trying to shake it for two weeks.”

“Sorry you had to get dragged out when you’re sick,” he said.

Sue shrugged. “Still a hell of a lot better off than that girl down there, I gather.”

“Cal, you know Dr. Kessler. She’s what passes for a coroner around here.”

Sue Kessler sniffed, looked at me. “We’ve met before, I think.” She was right. We’d crossed paths once or twice since I’d moved to Griffon. “I won’t shake your hand.”

I was okay with that.

“Sue, Cal found the body.”

“You touch anything?” Kessler asked.

“No,” I said. “But I got pretty close to her.”

“Point me,” Kessler said.

Augie raised an arm, extended a finger. “Down by the creek. Just under the bridge.”

“Terrific,” she said, pulling the gloves on. “Give me a couple of minutes.”

She was gone more like ten. Augie talked briefly to some of his officers, then returned to my side, the two of us hugging the railing, leaning over, catching glimpses of Kessler doing her job. We walked to the end of the bridge to meet her as she worked her way back up the hill.

“I’d say strangled,” she said. “There’s impression marks on her neck, aside from the bite marks from some animals, dogs most likely. Dead at least a day, I’d guess, but I’ll know more later.”

“Sexually assaulted?” Augie asked.

Kessler shrugged. “You could presume, given that her pants and underwear are missing. But I won’t know until I’ve had a chance to examine her.”

“Missing?” I said.

“If they’re down there,” she said, “I didn’t see them. They’re certainly not close to the body. Your people find any of the vic’s clothes?”

Augie said he would have to talk to his people.

Kessler sneezed and said, “I’m gonna go home, drink a gallon of NyQuil, try to get some sleep. I’ll tackle her first thing in the morning.”

As Kessler walked away, Augustus Perry said to me, “You might as well go home, too, Cal. We’ll take things from here.”

I wasn’t ready to leave. “It’s bugging you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Someone’s not keeping you informed. That has to worry you.”

“Cal,” Augie said, bristling, “it may surprise you to know that the chief is not informed of every single thing that goes on within the department. If you get pulled over for speeding, I don’t get a call. If someone smashes a window at Griffon High, I don’t get a call. A cat gets stuck up in a tree, I don’t get a call.”

“Fire department gets that one, don’t they?”

“There are any number of reasons why someone in my department might be asking around about Claire Sanders that would not warrant my being brought into the loop, as you put it.”

I shook my head. I was suddenly very tired, but I knew I wasn’t heading home to bed anytime soon.

“See you around, Augie,” I said.

“You going home?”

“Once I’ve found Claire.”

I started to walk away, and then something struck me. I stopped and turned. “Of course, the other possibility is, you do know what’s going on. You know everything. Maybe you know something about Claire that Mayor Sanders would prefer didn’t come out. Maybe she’s into something she shouldn’t be. Maybe if you find out what it is, you’ll have some leverage against Sanders, get him to get the hell off your back.”

“Good thing there are a lot of people around right now,” Augie said. “Otherwise, I’d knock you flat on your ass.”

I looked around. “Just about all of them are cops,” I said. “I think they’d back up whatever story you wanted to tell. Isn’t that how it works around here? You may have thought you were fooling some of the people at that meeting, Augie, but you didn’t fool me.”

“You got a lot of nerve,” Augie said. “You think if this had happened anywhere else, where your brother-in-law wasn’t the fucking chief, you wouldn’t be getting your ass hauled in for questioning? You’re the last person who saw this girl alive, Cal. You don’t see me making an issue out of that.”

“Not yet,” I said.

Augie smiled.

On the way to my car, I stopped to check in on Sean, interrupting an interrogation by Kate Ramsey and Marvin Quinn.

Quinn said, “Excuse me, mister, but we’re working here.”

“It’s okay, Marv. This is a friend of mine, the one I was just telling you about,” Kate said. “How you doin’, Cal?”

“I’ve been better, Kate.”

“I was telling my partner that was you I saw earlier tonight, out front of Patchett’s when we were talking to our biker friends.”