Linwood Barclay - Fear The Worst

Jennings leaned in close to the screen and studied the scarf. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said.

I sat there at the computer, checked to see whether anyone else had been in touch in the last two days. There had been hardly any hits on the website for Syd, and my emails were all junk.

Jennings appeared in the doorway, something bright and colorful wadded up in her hand. She held up a scarf.

“The color caught my eye when I was looking in your daughter’s room earlier,” she said. “It was dumped out onto the floor with everything else.”

I stood, reached for the scarf, and held it as though it might dissolve in my fingers.

“Is that the scarf?” she asked.

I nodded very slowly. “That’s the scarf.”

“So if your daughter was supposedly wearing this scarf in Seattle a few days ago, what’s it doing here in your house?”

That was a really good question.

I didn’t have much time to ponder it. A minute later, one of the uniformed cops poked his head into the study and said to Jennings, “I think we found what they were looking for.”

“WHAT?” I SAID.

The cop said nothing. He led Jennings to my bedroom and I followed. One of the pillows had been stripped of its case and was slit open. A clear plastic freezer bag that was filled with a white powdery substance lay on the bedspread.

“I noticed a funny bump under the pillowcase,” he said.

Detective Jennings pinched the corner of the bag between thumb and forefinger, lifted it up for an inspection.

“Lordy, Lordy, what do we have here?” she said.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Detective Jennings said, eyeing me, the cop in uniform studying me as well. “What do you think it is?”

“I think it might be cocaine.”

“If that turns out to be right, what do you think it’s doing in your pillow?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Want to hazard a guess?”

Slowly, I shook my head. “No.” I thought a moment. “Yes.”

“Go ahead,” she said.

“Someone put it there,” I said.

The cop made a small snorting noise.

“I’d have to agree with you there,” Jennings said.

“I slept on that bed two nights ago. There was nothing in that pillow then. Someone put it there while I was away.”

“So what are you saying?” Jennings said. “That there were two different break-ins while you were away? That someone came in here and hid this what-may-prove-to-be cocaine in your pillow, and then someone else broke in trying to find it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “To be honest, as strange as this is, I’m a little more concerned about how my daughter’s scarf can be here if she had her picture taken wearing it in Seattle.”

“One thing at a time,” Jennings said. She set the clear bag on the bed. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that someone snuck in while you were away and hid this in your pillow. Wouldn’t that be pretty stupid? First time you get into bed, you put your head on the pillow, you notice it’s there.”

“I agree, that’d be pretty dumb,” I said. “About as dumb as my inviting you into my home to find it. And if this house really was broken into twice, once to hide those drugs, and then a second time by somebody else trying to find them, then how the hell did they overlook them? It took your officer here ten minutes to stumble onto them. I mean, look around. This house has been turned fucking upside down. And that pillow’s just sitting there full of drugs. Does that make any sense at all?”

Jennings said nothing. She was standing there, one hand held thoughtfully over her mouth and chin. She was trying to work it out.

“Unless whoever put those drugs there did it after the house was torn apart,” she said. “A place that’s already been searched is a great place to hide something.”

“Even if that’s what happened,” I said, “my pillow is still a stupid place to hide anything. I’d find it.”

She turned her head and looked at me. “Unless you’re the one who put it there.”

“For Christ’s sake,” I said.

“Do you have a lawyer, Mr. Blake?” Detective Jennings asked.

“I don’t need a lawyer,” I said.

“I think maybe you do.”

“What I need is for you to believe me. What I need is for you to help me figure out what’s going on. What I need is for you to help me find my daughter.”

That stopped her for a moment. “Your daughter,” she said. “She certainly wouldn’t have to break through a basement window to get in.”

“What are you getting at?”

“She could get in here anytime she wants. She has a key.”

“What? You think Sydney was here? You think my daughter’s been back? That she’d come back, and not let us know she’s okay? That she’d hide cocaine in my pillow?”

Kip Jennings closed the distance between us. And even though she was considerably shorter, she managed to get right in my face. “Now let’s talk about that scarf.”

“I can’t explain it.”

“Take a shot at it,” she said. “That scarf, the one she’s wearing in a picture supposedly taken in Seattle, is here, in this house.”

I shook my head. “Maybe Syd was out there and came back.”

“Just how well do you know your daughter, Mr. Blake?”

“Very well. We’re very close. I love her.” I paused. “How well do you know yours?”

She ignored that. “Do you know all of Sydney’s friends? When she goes out late at night, do you always know where she is? Do you know who she talks to on the Internet? Do you know if she’s ever tried drugs? Do you know whether she’s sexually active? Do you know the answer to any of those questions with any certainty?”

“No parent would,” I said.

“No parent would,” she repeated, nodding. “So when I ask you how well you know your daughter, I’m not asking you how close you are to her or how much you love her. I’m asking whether it’s possible she could be involved in things, involved with people, you might not approve of.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you think Sydney could have been involved in drugs?”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Your daughter’s missing. Her car was abandoned. And there was blood on it. You need to start waking up to the fact that something’s going on.”

“You think I’m not-”

“You need to wake up to the fact that it’s possible, just possible, that Sydney may have been mixed up in some nasty things. She may have been hanging out with some nasty people. She told you she was working at that hotel. If she was lying to you about that, what else was she lying about?”

I walked out of the room.

“Get out,” I said to a cop standing at the bottom of the stairs as I headed for the kitchen.

“What?”

“Get out,” I said. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Talbott,” Kip Jennings told the cop from behind me. “Mr. Blake, you can’t order these officers out of here. Your house is a crime scene.”

“I have to start cleaning up, put this place in order,” I snapped at her.

“No, not yet,” she said. “You won’t be doing anything around here until I say so. And you’re going to have to make arrangements to sleep someplace else tonight.”

“You’re not kicking me out of my own house,” I said, turning and pointing a finger at her.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. This house is a crime scene, and that includes your bedroom. Especially now.”

I shook my head in frustration. “I thought you were trying to help me.”

“I’m trying to figure out what happened, Mr. Blake. I hope that ends up helping you. Because my gut’s been telling me, up to now, that you’ve been playing straight with me, that you’ve been telling me what you know, that you haven’t been holding out on me. But things are a bit cloudy now. That’s why I think it would be in your interest to talk to a lawyer.”