“I spent a few minutes with her about seven o’clock,” Rae confirmed, wondering exactly what Nathan had told them.
Richard looked around the office and then back at her. His jaw firmed. “We’d like to hire you to find out who killed our daughter.”
11
Rae pushed open the door to Bruce’s office and turned on the lights. A conference room didn’t fit the conversation she needed to have with this couple. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. May I get you coffee or a soft drink?”
“Coffee, please,” Mrs. Worth said.
Richard helped his wife slip off her coat. “It would be welcome.”
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
In the break room she started coffee and then walked back to the reception area to get her briefcase. She retrieved her notepad, glad Nathan had thought it important enough to have couriered over.
She pulled blank forms from the office manager’s supplies, not sure which she would need so she took a few of everything. She wished Bruce would swing back by the office and join her for this conversation, but she didn’t want to call him and convey the fact she couldn’t handle this.
This wasn’t a case she wanted.
Lord, I’m not equipped for this coming conversation. Denial is natural in cases of sudden death, and they’ve had very little time to absorb this loss. If they pursue the idea their daughter was murdered in the face of information that it was a natural death, they will cut off the grieving and mourning they need to pass through in order to go on with their lives. Somehow, please, help me know how to help them turn that corner and accept what happened.
Rae collected the coffee and added cookies to the tray. She very much doubted if they had taken the time to eat, not if they had spent the day making arrangements with the coroner after the release of their daughter’s body and had sought out the sheriff.
They had taken seats, Lucy Worth on the couch, Richard Worth in one of the chairs alongside. Rae slid the tray on the table and handed out the coffees, then took a seat near Richard, staying on their side of the desk. Lucy looked near the end of what she could handle today, her hands had a fine tremor as she lifted the cup to drink and her eyes were rimmed red from tears.
“I am so sorry for your loss.”
“The police department called to pass on the fact she had been identified. We drove down and the coroner let us see her before the autopsy. Today we made arrangements for her burial plot. . . .” Lucy tried to say it without her voice breaking but her words trailed off.
Rae sipped her own coffee and just listened.
“We want to know what happened to our daughter,” Mrs. Worth said. “It makes no sense that this was a seizure that killed her, when there is no history of epilepsy in either of our families; she never had a head injury or anything else which might contribute.
“This case is being closed as natural causes and we don’t believe that’s the full story. She was young, in good health, wasn’t one to abuse her body with drugs or alcohol, and we don’t think she drove to this community to sightsee. She was a freelance reporter, a good careful writer, and we think whatever story she was investigating in this town is related to her death.”
Rae watched Richard from the corner of her eye while she listened to Lucy. Despite Richard’s initial statement, she wasn’t sure if he agreed with his wife’s conclusions. “When did you last speak with your daughter?” Rae asked Mrs. Worth.
“Peggy called Saturday morning about nine. We made arrangements to see a play tomorrow night; she was going to buy the tickets from a friend who wasn’t able to use them. We talked about her ongoing plans to redecorate her living room. She had found two table lamps she thought would be perfect. Peggy sounded fine.”
Suicide didn’t fit with what Rae already knew, and Mrs. Worth’s words reinforced that. No one who initiated a call to her mom, arranged an evening out, would take her life before that day. She’d want one last opportunity to say good-bye.
Foul play . . . it was hard to get past the coroner’s report. She hadn’t seen the details but the conclusion of natural death had a legal implication and it wouldn’t have been made had the coroner not been satisfied he had established both cause of death and the absence of contributing factors. “Do you know why your daughter was in Justice?”
“She often worked freelance on stories that interested her. What she was currently working on—she never said. We haven’t found her notes at her apartment or in the belongings at the hotel which were returned to us this evening.”
“I spoke with her Saturday evening and she mentioned she was going out on a late movie date. Do you know who she might have been meeting? A friend who lives in this area? A fellow reporter?”
“She didn’t say. I have her address book; there might be something there which would suggest a name.”
“Did she have a cell phone?”
“Yes. It was with her purse.” Mrs. Worth leaned forward. “Please, you were the last person to talk with her that we know of. Don’t you wonder?”
Rae studied her notes. Stalling for time wasn’t going to work; they wanted an answer tonight on whether she would help them. Rae knew as much as anyone did about what had happened Saturday night, and it was precious little. She looked at Mrs. Worth. “What would set your mind at rest that Peggy’s death was natural causes?”
Mrs. Worth reached for a tissue.
“We have questions,” Mr. Worth replied. “What she was doing in town, where she went, who she saw. We’d like you to answer those questions for us.”
“I would need to see her things from the hotel, and I’ll need your permission to visit her home and copy items I might find helpful—phone bills, e-mails, even a diary.”
“You have it.”
“Mrs. Worth? I don’t want to add to the grief you now feel. If my work confirms what the police have already told you, will that be helpful or will it just be more painful? I’ll have to ask questions of her friends and coworkers and they may wonder why you asked me to investigate your own daughter. I don’t want you to feel like you betrayed Peggy when that happens.”
Lucy took a deep breath. “I need to know what happened. Even if the answers you find are not what I want to hear, I want the questions answered.”
Rae nodded. She looked at Mr. Worth. “Twenty hours should be enough time to review what the police and coroner have, to complete the interviews with hotel guests and town residents who might have seen your daughter, and to learn what Peggy was working on. Let me brief you in a week on what I’ve found.”
Mr. Worth visibly relaxed. “That would be fine.” She understood his relief: he was doing this for his wife and while the costs would be accepted without blinking an eye, he didn’t want to set in motion something that was open-ended. “What do we need to do next?”
“Are you staying in town?”
“At the Hilton Hotel.”
“I’ll need you to sign one form hiring me for the time discussed, and for you to fill out a questionnaire for me about your daughter. I’d like to come over to the hotel and pick up your daughter’s things tomorrow morning, say 10 a.m., and also make arrangements to visit her home.”
“Thank you, Miss Gabriella,” Mrs. Worth said.
Rae took her hand after she rose. “I’ll do my best to answer your questions. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
Mrs. Worth tried to smile. “Peggy was the light of my life.”
Mr. Worth gestured to the photos on the wall as Rae led Mr. and Mrs. Worth back to the receptionist area. “You lived in Chicago?”
“I grew up about forty minutes from your daughter’s home,” Rae replied.
“That’s good to know. Very good to know,” Mr. Worth said.
Rae escorted them to the door and after they had reached their car, she turned off the outside lights and locked the door. She leaned her head against the doorjamb.
She had her first case. She couldn’t say it was one she would have chosen; she had just found herse
lf unable to say no.
She walked back to Bruce’s office and picked up the coffee cups and tray. She thought about calling Bruce, but what would she say? I’m taking it because it needs to be done?
She had lived through an innocent man being accused, even though all the work had been done with the intent to get it right. Now she was asking was a natural death really something else? Not an intentional mistake by officers or the coroner’s staff, but because of something that would change how they viewed what evidence they now had before them.
Bruce was going to raise an eyebrow and warn her to be careful. She wasn’t worried about Bruce. Nathan was really not going to like this.
The last few days of enjoyable company and goodwill with Nathan were going to get trashed in a matter of hours when she stepped onto his turf and implied the police had missed something. Rae sighed. She couldn’t seem to avoid controversy even when she wanted to keep a low profile.
12
“Tracy, get the Streets Department on the phone again, and tell Scott I want that bomb crater of a pothole on Second Street filled before I go home tonight or I am going to park a squad car in front of his house and leave the sirens on at 2 a.m.” Nathan brushed at the spilled coffee on his shirt and tried to remember if he’d had time to do laundry in the last week or if this really was his last clean shirt.
“I’ll get him. And you’ve got someone waiting in your office.”
“So I just realized. Good morning, Rae.”
“Sheriff.”
He smiled and walked around her to dump his newspaper and his briefcase on the desk.
He had a 7 a.m. conference call with the state police beginning in minutes and an emergency meeting of his command staff to talk about protecting strikebreakers twenty minutes after that. He leaned back against the front of his desk. He’d take sixty seconds to enjoy the fact that Rae Gabriella looked wonderful first thing in the morning. She wore a business suit in hunter green and her jewelry was black pearls. Her smile alone was worth a rushed morning. Bruce, you are one lucky man having her as a partner.
“A hazardous morning?”
He accepted the Kleenex she offered to help dry his shirt. “Only because I really needed that full cup of coffee to drink. I’m a bit rushed for time, I’m afraid. How can I help you this morning?”
He took the stack of phone-call slips Tracy brought him. The number of them with red underlines would keep him on the phone for better than an hour. He dropped them in his in-box.
“Peggy Worth’s parents came to see me last night.”
“Did they?”
“You mentioned I was the last one to see their daughter.”
Nathan tried to remember the details of the two conversations he had had with her parents. “Yes, I may have.”
“They’ve hired me. They want more information about why Peggy came to Justice, where she went, and who she saw Saturday night. Mrs. Worth doesn’t want to believe it was natural causes.”
Nathan walked over to the door. “Tracy, would you ask Detective Sillman to stop by my office when he gets in and to bring the Peggy Worth file?”
“Will do.”
“I’ll have a copy of the file sent to you, as much as can be released to her parents, which will probably be all of it. If something is held back, we’ll put in a paragraph summary.” Rae’s mouth opened and then closed without her speaking. He’d caught her off guard and it was fascinating to see. He had a feeling it didn’t happen that often.
“You’re not bothered because I’ll be going over your department’s work?”
“Rae, we do a good job. And for your first case, investigating a natural death will keep you out of trouble. No villain is out there. I’ve got enough trouble in this town at the moment.”
A shouting match erupted out in the open bull pen of desks. “Anything else you need, don’t hesitate to ask. If you can’t find me and Tracy can’t provide it, she’ll know who to direct you to.”
“Thanks, Nathan.”
He paused in the door long enough to look back and share a smile. “Remember, I want a rematch on that pool game this week.”
Nathan headed toward the shouting match. “Okay, what happened?” The officer desperately wiping his eyes smelled strongly of Mace. “Tyler, don’t use your shirt material; it makes it worse. Someone get him a water bottle.”
“Here.” Jim tossed one from the other side of the room.
The officer who caught it doused paper towels and handed them and the bottle of water to Tyler, who tipped his head back and flushed out his eyes. “He Maced me.”
The department’s youngest rookie looked like he wanted to disappear through the floorboards. “It was an accident. I used it last night to break up a fight, and I didn’t get it secured on my belt.”
“Tyler?”
“Yeah, it was a mistake. One I’m going to kill him for, but a mistake.”
Nathan looked around and the crowd of officers began to fade away as the crisis passed. “Learn not to take down your fellow officers,” he advised the rookie softly and offered a reassuring pat on the back. “For what it’s worth, you’re the third officer this year to catch the latch on his belt; these new canister designs are painfully bad.”
Nathan turned his attention to Tyler. “Hold still, and look up. Let’s make sure those contacts aren’t trashed.”
“One’s moved to the corner of my right eye; I can feel it.”
“Yeah, I see it.”
Tyler managed to blink it out. “I’m fine, Nathan. I’m due off shift. I’ll go take a shower and find my glasses and give my partner a remedial class in equipment safety.”
“Check with Walter and see if there are eyedrops available over the counter that will counter some of that burn.”
“I can do that for you, Tyler,” the rookie offered.
Nathan took one last look between the two of them and left the men to sort it out.
When Nathan returned to his office he found Rae had gone and the phone was ringing. He’d hoped to get a cold soda before he started this conference call. He answered and set his handset to put the conference call on speaker. His deputy chief joined him in the office as the secretary taking minutes for the meeting began a roll call inquiry of names, her voice over the speakerphone fading in and out.
“Sheriff Nathan Justice.”
“Here.”
Nathan held out a grateful hand as Chet arrived and passed over the second cold soda he carried.
“Detective White.”
“Here,” a faint voice answered somewhere down the line on the call.
Nathan motioned for Chet to close the door. At least this workday had begun with a good-looking lady sitting in his office. He was going to have to find an excuse to get Rae back here when he had more than one minute to talk.
Nathan studied the duty board on his wall as the state-police spokesman who ran these conference calls began the overnight update.
“A tanker truck was hijacked in St. Louis overnight, carrying two thousand gallons of unleaded gas.”
Nathan glanced over in time to see Chet wince. That one would fall under Chet’s patrol officers’ duties. No one had ever told them a safe way to stop a loaded fuel truck.
“We continue to search for a missing ten-year-old girl from Peoria, Kim Louise. An updated flyer will be issued at 9 a.m.”
Nathan opened the soda. It got to be a drag to have a job where he heard the bad news all across the state as the way to begin his workday. They cut off the bulletin at sixteen items and began the city roll call.
“Clarksville, do you have anything to issue?”
“No.”
“Justice?”
“No.”
“Treemont?”
“A 7-Eleven robbery last night killed four. We are searching for a ’93 Honda Civic, license plate TRG 3498.”
“Brentwood?”
“No.”
As tough as a 7 a.m. call was on his schedule, it did help, if only to let him hear
the voice of his counterparts in surrounding towns at least once a day. He tried to get over to Brentwood every month or so to do some after-hours chatting with Luke. The police chief over there, Luke Granger, had the big-city problems to deal with that Nathan was slowly seeing arrive in his own town. It helped, having that friend in the business to swap ideas with. The odds were good that before this was over, he’d be asking Luke for the loan of some officers to help with this strike.
The news that the company would bring in strikebreakers would be public in a day or two. Nathan needed a plan ready to implement, but as much as he studied the duty board there just weren’t options that didn’t leave him vulnerable in other areas.
Patrol, investigations, dispatch, and administration: the duty board showed twenty-six names with two on vacation or sick leave. It was thin staffing for the amount of work under way. The state call began its wrap-up and Nathan hit the speaker button to drop them off. “Will, Chet, let’s find a place away from the office to have this strike discussion.”
“I vote for breakfast,” Will said.
“See if Della can give us the back room for some privacy,” Nathan suggested. Nathan saw Sillman approaching the office and waved him in. “Gray and I will catch up with you.”
Will and Chet headed out.
“What’s up, Boss?”
“Peggy Worth.” Nathan closed the door. Sillman wasn’t going to like it.
* * *
“Rae Gabriella, you don’t even have a desk in your office yet and you got your first case.”
She half turned from her discussion with Bruce’s part-time office manager and was grasped around her waist and swung off her feet. “Bruce, put me down!” She laughed.
Bruce lowered her so her feet touched the floor again but left his arms draped across her shoulders to hug her. “Good job.”
“How did you hear?”
“I ran into Nathan and his guys walking toward Della’s café. Detective Sillman didn’t exactly look pleased with it, but he’ll get over it. So what are you going to do first?”
“Finish giving Margaret the coroner-report number so we can get a copy of it, head over to the hotel to finish up a few staff interviews, then meet up with Peggy’s parents at ten. Nathan said he’d send over a copy of the police report and that should be here anytime.”