Margaret Daley - Detection Mission

“Yes. Hands down.”

Heidi’s laughter floated across the room, drawing a couple of his friends’ attention. Lee liked the sound, light with a musical quality. He hadn’t seen her smile and certainly not heard her laugh much in the short time he had known her, but for some reason he wanted to make that his mission, to see and hear more of that.

“I thought you were resting downstairs.” Lee touched her elbow and led her toward the exit to the three-room apartment.

“I was getting bored. Resting is all I’ve done for the past few weeks.” Heidi leaned closer to him, her fresh scent of apples and cinnamon instantly reminding him of his childhood home at Christmas. “Molly went into the kitchen to make some sweet tea for y’all and see to her chocolate chip cookies. I snuck up here when she left.”

“You said y’all. Maybe you’re from the South. You have a faint accent.”

She cocked her head and stared off into space for a long moment. “I don’t know. I like the sound of cold sweet tea even though it’s the first of February.”

“I can’t say it gets that cold here in southwest Texas in the winter.” He guided her toward the third-floor landing. “It’s not that I wouldn’t love for you to join us. I just don’t want you to overdo it.”

“I have to admit I’m tired. You would think after resting and sleeping so much I wouldn’t be. My body isn’t wanting to cooperate with my mind, which would like to be upstairs with y’all pitching in, especially with how nice Molly has been.”

He descended the stairs with Heidi next to him. “Tell you what. Come join us about seven when the pizza is being delivered. Until then, take a nap.”

“All I can promise is I’ll rest. I’m tired, not sleepy.” At the bottom of the steps on the first floor, she turned toward him. “I can find my own way back to Molly’s spare bedroom after I see her in the kitchen.”

“You’re going to go in there and help her?”

She pointed to herself innocently. “Who, me?”

“Don’t answer. I don’t want to know you aren’t resting. See you at seven, and I’ll introduce you to the folks you don’t know.”

She headed for the kitchen while he went back upstairs. He hadn’t had a chance to talk with Gail. She’d gotten off work late and arrived here as soon as her shift ended. Not three minutes afterward, Heidi had come into the room. He didn’t want her involved at this time.

“Is she going to behave herself and take it easy?” Gail asked when he entered the first room in the new apartment.

“Probably not. She may not know it, but I have a feeling she has a stubborn streak.”

“I call it determination. She went through an ordeal and is alive. Someone wanted her dead in the woods attacked her earlier today.” Gail pursed her lips. “I can’t believe Gus Zoller tried to hurt her. On my floor. Bold. Desperate, maybe. So why go after Heidi unless she knows something?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. I’ve talked to everyone but his supervisor in housekeeping. She had already left for the day, and I wanted to bring Heidi here.”

“Mrs. Hanson is a tough one, but all you have to do is flash that great smile of yours and that badge, and you won’t have any problems.”

“Mrs. Markham, are you flirting with my friend?” Gail’s husband joined them, with beige paint in splotches all over his clothing.

Looking her husband up and down, Gail fisted her hand and planted it on her waist. “Harry Markham, I declare I’ve never seen a man so messy except when it comes to the dogs. Everything has to be neat and precise with them.”

Harry flicked his brush at his wife.

Her eyes grew round when she saw the paint spatter her shirt. “Good thing for you this is an old blouse.” But as Gail said that, she pushed the brush he held upward into his face.

“I’ll leave you two to work this out,” Lee said and crossed the room to continue painting the far wall with Mark and Slade.

“I don’t get it. I would have thought by now we would have a flood of leads to run down with Dante Frears coming forward and offering $25,000 for any information on the whereabouts of Rio and the person responsible for my father’s beating.” Slade finished his section and moved to the next one.

Lee picked up his brush and dipped it into the paint. “Give it time, Captain. I can’t imagine someone passing up that kind of cash for long. Someone’s gonna come forward. We’re going to find your dog and get the person who hurt your dad.”

“The criminals in town are scared and keeping their mouths shut, especially with Keevers’s disappearance. And now that we found Adams’s body in the woods, they are even more nervous. Who has them so afraid?” Slade applied his long strokes to the wall. “You would think we’d be aware of some criminal with that kind of power.”

“Maybe it’s a cop, and he’s got all the bad guys quaking in their boots,” Mark said with a chuckle.

Slade laughed. “Yeah, I’d like to be able to make the criminal element in Sagebrush quake with fear.”

Was that the person that had Heidi so frightened? Lee thought back to her reaction a couple of times when she looked at his police badge on his shirt. She’d tensed. Did she know more than she was letting on? His gut told him no, but he’d been all wrong about a beautiful woman before and ended up hurt.

Mark Moore, his neighbor across the hall, glanced toward him. “I think you’re smart, Calloway, keeping our mystery lady close. Easier to keep an eye on her. She could be involved in all of this.”

“Why do you think that?” Lee’s hand tightened about the brush. “Someone tried to kill her today.”

“She was in the woods that day the police found Brady. She could be part of the crime syndicate. Others have gone missing. Ned Adams, a petty criminal connected to Charles Ritter—one of the three middle managers in this crime syndicate—ended up dead. Maybe he angered The Boss. Maybe The Boss is cleaning up loose ends. The only others found in the Lost Woods were the two kidnappers. What was she doing?”

Lee bit back his response, Running for her life. There was a slim possibility she was involved, but he didn’t doubt she had amnesia. It would be hard to fake that lost look or the scared vibes pouring off her. Someone was after her. He wasn’t convinced it was someone in the crime syndicate. Besides, she wasn’t from around here. “She’s in trouble. I think a crime was committed against her, not the other way around.”

“If not the kidnapping, then what about the wrecked car and the missing man?” Mark retorted. “Maybe she had something to do with William Peterson, instead.”

Lee’s protective instinct welled up in him. “Haven’t you heard of innocent until proven guilty? I’m counting on you, Moore, keeping an eye out for her while I’m at work.”

His neighbor attacked his section with angry strokes. “Sure. But I get to tell you I told you so if she proves to be involved.”

Lee ground his teeth together and again kept his mouth shut. It was a good thing he and Moore worked on different shifts.

Slade jumped into the fray. “I’ve talked with the police chief. I want both of you to watch our mystery woman. Someone did go after her today. She may still be in danger, and until we know for sure, we need to protect her. I still think she knows something about what happened in the woods the day Brady was found.” He glanced at Lee. “Have you talked with Zoller yet?”

“I’m going to after you all leave. I want the man to stew for a while. Maybe then he’ll be ready to talk. He wasn’t earlier.”

His captain frowned. “I hope so. We don’t have many leads to follow.”

* * *

Later that evening, Heidi sat at Molly’s kitchen table. “Those cookies smell great. Are you sure I can’t do anything to help you?”