Diane Pershing - Whispers and Lies

“I don’t understand.”

“This happened to me once in D.C. and when I got home I was shocked at first, then really pissed off. It’s a kind of violation, isn’t it?”

She nodded, but seemed distracted. After a moment, she shook her head slowly. “I thought it was nothing.”

“You thought what was nothing?”

“The last few days. I’ve had this…creepy feeling, like someone was watching me, following me.”

“Really?”

She nodded again, her brows furrowed. “It was nothing I could see, nothing tangible, but I sensed it. It was like he, they, whatever, were waiting for something. For me to do something.” She turned her gaze on him. “Since Mom died, I go down to the clinic in the morning and come back up here at night. I don’t much go anywhere else. And what I think, although I could be wrong, is that they were waiting for me to leave so they could do this. Does that sound nuts?”

“Not in the least.”

“And tonight there was a break in the pattern. I went out to dinner with you.” A look of sudden realization came over her face. “The men! Remember the two men, the ones who were in such a hurry right before we got here? They must have seen us coming and ran out before they could finish whatever they were here for. Oh!”

She stood abruptly, rushed to the smaller of the two bedrooms. Will followed. “Don’t touch anything before the cops get here.”

She knelt in front of the bed, lifted the spread and reached under. “I have to get Anthony.”

“Anthony?”

“My baby.” After a moment, she pulled out a highly protesting small black kitten with white paws, shivering and emitting tiny, pitiful little mews. Instead of rising again, Lou sat on the floor, leaned back against the bed and, cradling the terrified animal in her arms, murmured comforting words in a low, soothing voice.

Gazing down on the picture the two made, Will was oddly moved. The woman was something else; her place had been invaded, but she had put that aside to take care of a small, helpless animal.

The sound of heavy footsteps on the outside stairs was followed by a loud rapping on the door. “It’s Kevin Miller!”

“Kevin?” Will asked as he helped Lou to her feet and they made their way toward the front of the house.

“He’s our police chief.”

Will opened the door and sure enough, one of his buddies from high school stood there, wearing chinos and a dark blue sweatshirt with the legend Police Do It In Handcuffs scrawled across his ample chest. “Will?” he said, surprise on his round face. “Hey.”

The two men shook hands. “Kev.”

Kevin’s short hair was beginning to gray and his gut was somewhat more pronounced than it had been back in their school jock days, but he hadn’t changed much. He was still placid-looking and good-natured. He stepped inside, followed by a youthful uniformed cop. The rookie officer was introduced as Jack Kingman.

“How you doing, Dr. Lou?” Kevin asked.

She shrugged. “Not great.”

He perused the room, nodded. “So I see.” He turned to the kid. “Check the place out.”

“I already did,” Will offered. “No one’s here.”

“Not too smart.”

He shrugged. “I needed to make sure Lou was safe.”

“Check anyway,” Kevin told Kingman. “You know the drill, don’t touch anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And please,” Lou added, “the clinic downstairs? I need to know everything’s okay there.”

Kevin looked at the rookie. “Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

After the young man took off, Kevin tugged a notebook and pen from his back pocket, and told Lou to sit on the part of the couch that was still cushioned. Kevin then pulled up a wooden chair from the dining room table and sat in front of her.

As Will perched on the arm of the couch, Kevin asked Lou, “Can you talk to me now?” When she nodded, he said, “Tell me what you know, from the beginning.”

She did so—the feeling of being followed the past few days, the men rushing down the street as she and Will came up, opening her door to discover the place had been thoroughly trashed.

“Anything taken?” Kevin asked, jotting down notes.

“I haven’t really had time to look around, but not as far as I can tell.”

“Any idea why they’d pick you or your place?”

“Not a one.”

“You got any valuables here?”

“Not a thing. Kevin, I swear I can’t think of any reason for this, none at all.”

The rookie cop returned. “All clear up here, sir.”

“Check the clinic now.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left by the front door and Kevin returned his attention to Lou. “So, you think you’ve been under some kind of scrutiny and that the two men who nearly knocked you guys down are connected to that. Do you know that, or just think it?” He framed the question neutrally, but Will could see the skepticism behind it.

“I think it.”

“Okay, then. Any enemies?”

“Me?” She shook her head again. “Honestly, I have nothing of value and no enemies.”

“Old boyfriends?”

“No one of any consequence. An ex-husband who I haven’t seen in years—he’s remarried and happily, so I hear. He lives out west in Oregon.”

Will mused aloud. “They were looking for something, don’t you think, Kev?”

He nodded. “Money, probably, or something they could pawn.”

“If they were,” Lou said, “they were clean out of luck. I mean, what with student loans, the mortgage, then setting up the clinic, Mom and I only recently got out of the red. All the furniture you see here is from thrift shops, with Mom working her magic on them. The only thing I can think of is some silver. You know, a few old place settings that we happened to pick up at a swap meet.” Still cradling the kitten, she rose from the couch and walked over to the sideboard where she peered into one of the drawers that was hanging open. “Nope. They’re still here.” She turned around, shrugged. “There’s nothing, Kevin, trust me.”

“Could be a random thing,” Kevin said. “But I don’t think it was.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it was too thoroughly gone through,” Will said, then addressed the chief. “You mind, Kev?” An amused smile on his face, the other man shook his head. Will angled his body toward Lou, still standing behind him by the sideboard. “I used to be a beat reporter covering the D.C. cops and went to a lot of crime scenes. This is the kind of damage you see when someone is looking for one specific thing of value, something that might be hidden. You know, a first edition, a valuable painting, family heirlooms. Maybe important papers, like financial records in a divorce or some kind of evidence to be used in a lawsuit.”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing that complicated in my life, trust me.”

He believed her, as far as that went. But there could be something she had no knowledge of. The timing of the break-in was bothering him. Had his conversation with Lincoln earlier in the week set something sinister in motion? Lou said she’d had the feeling of having been watched for a few days. It was just three days ago that he’d talked to Linc and Lou’s mother had been mentioned.

Was there a connection? Was this reporter’s intuition or reporter’s overactive imagination at work?

He couldn’t be certain. In his profession, a prime credo was that all threads had to be followed to their source. “How about your mother?” he offered.

“How about my mother what?”

Kingman, the young officer, came pounding up the stairs and reported that everything downstairs was fine. The whole place was locked up tighter than a drum.

Lou seemed to relax just a bit at the news. After she thanked him, Kevin told him to wait at the foot of the stairs and to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.