Beverly Long - Deadly Force

Ten minutes later, Hannah was still hanging over the cubical wall that Claire shared with her. She was speculating on what Claire should wear to the awards dinner. Claire’s telephone rang and she reached for it, grateful for the interruption. Hannah smiled at her, before her face disappeared from view.

“Claire Fontaine.”

“Hi, it’s Sam Vernelli.”

Like she wouldn’t have recognized his voice . She cupped her hand around her phone, attempting to create some privacy. Hannah out of sight didn’t necessarily mean Hannah out of hearing. “Detective?” she said, her voice low.

“How’s it going?” Sam asked.

“I just…” She stopped. She couldn’t tell him about the contest, about how absolutely psyched she was about being a finalist. That was something you told a friend, a confidant. He was neither.

“You just what?” he prompted.

“Nothing. What can I do for you?” she asked, her tone purposefully brisk, businesslike.

“I wanted you to know that we’re releasing the scene. You can get your apartment cleaned up.”

She pictured the splattered wall and swallowed hard, suddenly glad that she’d skipped breakfast. “I’ll call the painter now. Maybe I can have him meet me there tonight.” She really didn’t want to return to her apartment, but unless she planned on living indefinitely in a hotel, she needed to do it. She needed to put the ghosts behind her.

All night, she’d tossed and turned, wondering about the woman, reliving every word she’d said. At about two, she’d given up all pretense of sleeping, booted up her laptop and forced herself to work on upcoming proposals.

The work was bad and would need to be redone, but it beat dreaming about dead women and blood-spattered walls any day. She kept thinking about the woman’s family. “Did you talk with Mr. Bird?”

“Briefly and only on the phone. He’s busy planning a funeral. I gather that he’s pretty worried about how his boys are going to handle this—they’re just ten.”

Three years younger than she’d been when she’d faced death for the first time. She’d lost her sister before she’d ever really known her.

When Tessa had left Nebraska at eighteen to go to college in Chicago, Claire had been in fifth grade. She’d been more interested in computer games and birthday parties than in establishing a relationship with her sister.

She barely remembered the funeral. It had been a crazy couple of days. People in and out, calls to and from the police in Chicago, trips back and forth to the airport to pick up relatives. Death was a noisy affair.

Then, when all the people had left, the house had gotten quiet, very quiet. She’d been too young to understand it then. It was only later that she realized that everyone had been drowning in grief. Tessa’s death had stripped the sunshine out of their lives, leaving behind a cold, unforgiving torrent of rain.

And as hard as she’d tried, as good as she’d been, she’d never been able to make her parents smile in quite the same way again.

“Is there anything else, Detective?” she asked, her throat feeling tight.

“We’ll continue to investigate—probably talk to a few neighbors and check out the drugstore where Fletcher Bird works. I’ll call you if I have any more questions.”

“That’s…fine. Goodbye, Detective.” She hung up before he had the chance to respond.

Hannah’s head peeped over the cubicle wall. She didn’t even look embarrassed. “So? Does the detective have a name?”

She’d told Hannah about the shooting in her apartment. There hadn’t been much choice. Hannah’s cousin lived on the first floor of the building. It was through Hannah that Claire and Nadine had found out about the available third-floor apartment.

“Vernelli. Sam Vernelli.”

“Married?”

Hannah was thirty-eight and spent most of her evenings filling out profile sheets for online dating services. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Straight?”

Sam Vernelli radiated testosterone. “Pretty sure he is.”

“Does he in any way resemble a troll?”

Claire smiled at her friend. “He’s…very handsome.” It was the truth and it begged the question of why he had never married. Was it possible that he was still in love with Tessa, that he’d never gotten over his first true love?

Or gotten over the guilt of harming her?

She was going to drive herself crazy. She deliberately looked at her watch. “Wow. Where is the day going? I better get busy.” She grabbed the top file off the pile on her desk, opened it and pretended to read. When she heard the squeak of Hannah’s chair, she started to breathe again. After another ten minutes, she quietly pulled her cell phone from her purse and left the office area. She took the elevator down to the lobby, exited the building and walked just far enough that she wasn’t bothered by the smoke from the office workers who were huddled around the front door grabbing their morning nicotine fix.

She dialed Nadine’s cell.

“Hey, Claire,” Nadine answered.

“How’s Omaha?”

“You know, nothing much changes in Omaha. What’s going on there?”

“The police said that we can return to the apartment. I’ll call the painter today.”

“Thank goodness. So, do the police have any more thoughts on what might have happened?”

“Apparently not. When I did speak to Detective Vernelli this morning, he said that they were continuing to investigate.”

There was a pause on the line. “What’s to investigate?” Nadine finally asked. “She must have just been crazy.”

“We could attest to that, right? I guess they intend to talk to the husband. I guess that’s all probably routine.”

“Yeah, sure. I thought you were going to ask for another detective to be assigned.”

After the shooting, in between questions from the police, Claire had given Nadine the Cliff Notes version of her visit to Sam Vernelli’s house the night before.

“I’m calling Detective Vernelli’s boss next.”

He’d come to her rescue—she was grateful for that. And he’d been decent about giving back her check. But none of that mattered. She detested Sam Vernelli.

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