Max Collins - Girl Most Likely

“I’ll change,” she said, climbing out of her windbreaker, heading into the formal dining room they little used.

Don’t ever change, he thought, and stirred stew.

She came back wearing a light blue terry-cloth bathrobe and he gave her a quizzical look.

“I have the reunion tonight,” she said. She went to the cupboard for dishes. “I’m not dressing till after my bath.”

“Thought that was tomorrow,” he said, then tasted the stew. Delicious. “The reunion, I mean. Not your bath.”

She smiled at that, setting the table now. “Casual night. At the Brewing Company.”

They said very little as they ate. The food had their full attention, although several times Krista also said, “Delicious.”

“A pity,” he said, “so few know of my culinary genius.”

“Few realize you know a word like ‘culinary.’”

“Also true.”

She shrugged without disturbing her latest spoonful of stew. “I don’t mind having you to myself.”

They shared a slice of cheesecake from Hy-Vee, just slivers. He’d made tea for them both.

Though she’d been pleasant before and throughout the meal, he could tell something was troubling her. Nothing overt. But he was her father.

“What is it, honey?”

She sighed. “Just some sad news.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “Remember Sue Logan?”

“Don’t think so.”

“She was in my class. Redhead, blue eyes, very cute. Busty.”

“Cheerleader?”

She laughed. “I knew if I gave you the right clues you’d solve it.”

“Something wrong where she’s concerned? Not coming to the reunion?”

Krista shook her head. “She was killed.”

He frowned. “Accident?”

A swallow. “Murder.”

“Ah, that’s terrible. Horrible. She didn’t live around here, did she? Or we’d have heard about it.”

“She was in Florida. Clearwater. This was months ago. August, I think. Jessy told me. Pop, it sounds like some... some maniac did it. I know that’s silly...”

“No. Maniacs are a lot of things. Silly isn’t one of them. What happened to her?”

“Somebody came up to her door and just stabbed her. Multiple times.” She shivered. “Pop, I love being a cop. I really like the job, and I can handle the sad, even tragic stuff. Comes with the territory. Mostly you’re helping people, and around here, people are nice to police. Most of the tourists, too.”

“I know.”

Her sigh came deep. “But something like what happened to Sue? I don’t know if I could handle that.”

“Sure you could.”

“There hasn’t been a murder on my watch. We have everything else — burglaries, domestic violence, fights, you name it — but not murder. And before that case I helped you on — and that was mostly on your turf — there hadn’t been any murders in Galena in twenty years.”

She was talking about a homicide case they’d wound up working together two years ago. That had been high profile and undoubtedly had led to her making chief at so young an age.

He reached over and touched her hand. “Don’t you let it put a damper on the festivities this weekend. Every class has its tragedies. That’s what makes reunions so bittersweet.”

She was nodding. “I know. I know. Just one of those freak things. We already had a death with that car accident last year, and two boys in my class died in Iraq.”

“Don’t let any of that keep you from enjoying yourself. Class reunions are special. Your mother and I never missed one. Hers or mine.”

Their arrangement, already set in stone, was that he cooked supper and she did the cleanup, including the pots, pans, and dishes, washing them off and rinsing them out and piling them into the dishwasher, although that ancient chugging machine needed replacing. He was surprised it hadn’t been on the “To Do” list.

She was heading over to the sink with their dishes when he said, “Hey, I’ll handle those. You go ahead and get ready.”

“Thanks, Pop,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek and scurried out.

He was watching the news on the TV in the den when she appeared between the French doors looking impossibly young and every bit as pretty as her late mother, which took some doing. Her short hair was different, fuller, with some waves in it. At work she didn’t wear much if any makeup, but tonight she’d applied some, delicately. She was in a red sweater and dark jeans, with black-and-red cowboy boots.

“Uh, Papa...”

He muted CNN. “Yes, sweetie?”

“I’m going to this with, uh, Jerry tonight. You remember Jerry?”

He sat up in his recliner, the only piece of furniture he’d brought with him. “Jerry who until last week was living here? That Jerry?”

Quietly, leaning against a door, she said, “That Jerry. Yes.”

He raised a palm. “None of my business. Have a good time.”

She could only get half a smile working. “I just... he and I were already going to this thing together, so I didn’t break the date.”

“Nothing to explain.”

“We kind of made a truce. Just for tonight.”

He got up and went over to her. Put his hands on her shoulders. “Honey, he can move back in as far as I’m concerned.”

“But you would move out.”

“Right.”

She laughed a little and the doorbell rang.

He followed her into the living room, but kept his distance as she answered it. Jerry, in a black jacket over a gray shirt and blue jeans and sneakers, stepped in and smiled at her, then noticed Keith standing half a room away.

“Mr. Larson,” he said, the smile curdling some.

“Jerome. How’s the writing coming?”

“The novel? Getting there.”

Keith crossed the room, nearer now but not much. Not wanting to crowd his daughter. Or her date.

Keith asked, “What’s it about this time?”

That reflected Keith’s awareness of many abandoned Great American Novels of Jerry’s that had preceded this one.

“Uh,” Jerry said, “a coming of age thing.”

“Can’t wait to read it. Have fun, you two.”

And Keith went back in the TV room.

He heard the front door close and got up and headed into the kitchen, helped himself to a Carlsberg, opened it, swigged twice, taking it with him as he walked through the dining room and around to his study, where he had a desk and a computer. He put “Susan Logan,” “homicide,” and “Clearwater, Florida” into Google.

He got a Tampa Bay Times account of the murder. A detective named Hastings had the case. Two follow-up articles indicated no resolution.

He called his friend Lou Ramos, a detective across the river who’d been his partner for a while, and asked, “You have pals in Florida, Lou? Police variety?”

“A couple.”

Lou was active in the National Association of Police Organizations. He was always going to some NAPO convention, seminar, or conference. He and his wife didn’t get along.

Keith asked, “How about the Tampa area?”

“I know a Tampa guy. Hell of a cop. You should see him drink.”

“What about Clearwater?”

“That’s almost the same as Tampa. But, no, nobody in Clearwater.”

“Could you give me your Tampa friend’s number?”

Lou did that, and Keith called the guy, who did sound like he’d been drinking. But friendly, and he knew Detective Hastings, who he didn’t think would mind hearing from a fellow officer, even a retired one.

So within half an hour of Krista leaving, Keith was talking to the officer in charge of the Sue Logan homicide. Keith explained the victim was an old friend of his daughter, who by the way was the police chief locally. Did they have any kind of line on the perp?

“Some random nut, we think,” Hastings said.