Pamela Tracy - Holding Out For A Hero

She’d worn sensible shoes, Oscar remembered. They’d landed silent on the sidewalk when she’d stopped to talk to him. Peeve, his German shepherd, had sniffed at them and then been distracted by a bird fluttering in a nearby bush.

“That’s our Shelley,” Riley agreed.

Oscar remembered her chasing the toddler, who’d taken off across the sidewalk and tottered into Candace’s yard and then to the picture window. He hadn’t watched what happened next. There’d been a noise, and Peeve had barked until finally a cat scurried from its hiding place. When he’d turned back to the street, Shelley had been carrying Ryan up the apartment stairs, and Ryan had been crying. Just another day. That was what he’d figured.

He’d been wrong.

He wished more than anything he hadn’t been distracted by Peeve and the cat.

“Anything else you remember about the encounter?” Riley asked. “It might be important.”

“No, except something was bothering her.”

“You could tell that by how she looked?” Riley smirked.

“I’ve a sister. She had the same look Anna gets when something is bothering her.”

Speaking of Anna, Oscar needed to call her, break the news about her best friend, let her know he would do all he could to bring the killer to justice.

Riley raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got Bailey canvassing the neighborhood, asking if anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary yesterday. I’ll have her go to Shelley’s apartment. They know each other.” Immediately Riley pulled out his phone, called Bailey and gave the order.

Riley managed only a few words before he stopped talking to listen. It was all Oscar could do not to snatch the phone from his chief so he could hear, too.

“You’re sure?” Ending the call, Riley shook his head in disbelief. “Bailey’s talking with Shelley’s landlord right now. Apparently she’s packed most of her stuff and fled. Shelley Wagner’s gone.”

Not what Oscar had expected. He glanced up at Shelley Wagner’s apartment. Bailey and Shelley’s landlord, Robert Tellmaster, were just coming out the door.

Oscar turned to Riley. “I need to see the...the crime scene.”

Riley raised an eyebrow. “The State boys wouldn’t like that. It’s best—”

Oscar took a breath, opened and closed his hands a few times before balling them into fists. “Candace didn’t deserve this. She’s—was—a kindergarten teacher, great sense of humor, could play second base like...” Oscar was rambling, which was out of character. But he knew the victim, knew her well. Loved her like a sister.

The two men stood, sizing each other up. Oscar didn’t so much as blink. He had two inches on Riley, but that didn’t seem to matter. Maybe Oscar needed to check—Riley sure looked ex-military.

“One minute is all I ask,” Oscar finally said. “I won’t go in. I won’t touch anything.”

Riley’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ve been in this house several times. You asked me about what I noticed outside. I can tell you about the inside.”

Riley didn’t like it, Oscar could tell, but he marched to the front door and opened it, backing out of the way. Oscar didn’t hesitate.

He saw Candace first, lying belly-down on the floor. She wore a pink nylon shirt and jeans. One foot still had a sandal. The other was bare. Her brown hair was matted and her head was next to a leg of the coffee table. The table was scooted a few feet from its regular position near the middle of the room. Blood smeared a corner. The couch was bare, except for two pillows and an upended book. The television was off and a few movies were stacked next to it. Across from the couch there were a dozen antique wall clocks. All told the correct time of fifteen minutes after ten. Two easy chairs were in the room. Nothing on them. No animals—Candace’s husband, Cody, was allergic. Oscar couldn’t bring Peeve when he visited.

A large wedding portrait hung over the couch.

Except for Candace, nothing appeared out of place.

He stepped back, bowing his head to say a quick prayer, mostly thinking of how devastated Cody would be.

“Everything is as it should be.” Oscar proceeded to fill Riley in on his and Candace’s history, last time he’d seen her, family and friends. After a few minutes, he asked, “What do you know about Cody’s whereabouts?”

“He’s supposedly at a two-day meeting in Albuquerque. We’ve got the police there looking for him. He’s not answering his cell, and it doesn’t look like he was in his hotel room last night. No one’s seen him since yesterday morning.”

“I know Cody. He wouldn’t kill his wife.” Oscar heard the conviction in his own voice yet knew the husband was always the first suspect in a case like this.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Riley said, but Oscar could tell he didn’t mean it.

It was after eleven when he made it back to his office and started searching the computer for information about where Shelley might be. With Ryan, she’d need to stop. And since she was eight months pregnant, she’d likely need to stop, too. A lot.

He called Townley, who was able to tell him that Shelley had withdrawn two hundred dollars from an automatic teller before she left town. If she used her debit card again elsewhere, she could be tracked.

Townley suggested that Oscar head for Santa Fe. It was big enough to get lost in. “She has no known relatives except her father,” Townley reminded him. Oscar added the address of the father’s care center to his notebook. Townley sent a file detailing Shelley’s history, including names of college roommates, instructors, people she’d worked with.

Oscar printed it out and compared it to the file Sarasota Falls had on her, looking for repeated names. There weren’t many, as her local file had more to do with her connection with Larry Wagner.

Wagner had stolen and scammed roughly seven hundred thousand dollars from the good people of Sarasota Falls.

Over three hundred thousand of that came from the sale of Shelley’s family home and its furnishings.

Riley was good. Thorough. He’d ferreted out two women who’d had affairs with Wagner during his short marriage to Shelley. One worked at the bank. The other wasn’t named, but a desk clerk at the Sarasota Falls Inn swore Wagner had checked in with a high-class blonde at least five times. The signature on file matched Wagner’s handwriting. Unfortunately, the female hadn’t signed any receipts, and Wagner hadn’t called her anything but Sugar.

Picking up the phone, Oscar called Riley. “I’m going to head over to the care center where Shelley’s dad is.”

“Good idea. Wait for me. I’m coming in.”

“State police arrived?” Oscar asked.

“An hour ago. A couple of pretty decent guys. They looked over our reports of what the people in the neighborhood did and didn’t see. They took even more photos than I did. They think she was pushed and happened to hit her head on the table. But, based on the condition of the bedroom, they know there was a struggle. Coroner arrived right after they did.”

“Struggle in the bedroom. Did...?” Oscar hated that his attempt not to contaminate the crime scene meant he’d gone no farther than the front door. There’d been more to see, more that other people might miss.

“Lead guy said he didn’t think so. Seems someone broke in and disturbed her while she was getting dressed.”

“Time of death?”

“Between six and eight a.m., but only because she was dressed. The coroner says it could have been earlier. He prefers, for now, to say midnight and six.”

“If she fell and hit her head, then it might not be a murder.”

There was a full ten-second pause. “There are marks on the back of her shirt that could be handprints. Then, too, the way she landed implies speed and gravity. They figured this out by measuring. At the very least, it’s involuntary manslaughter.”