“Driving a school bus?” asked Ray in a teasing tone.
“You know what I’m talking about. There are other ways to try to help build a better world than just spending your time looking for the bad guys. I was also thinking about going back to graduate school.”
“In what?”
“I don’t know. I’m just noodling around with possibilities. Like I used to play flute in the high school orchestra. I was very good, and it made me happy. And I took a lot of art courses in college before I became practical and settled on criminal justice. Maybe I could become an art or music teacher.” There was another long pause. “Or maybe I could meet a nice guy and start a family.”
“There’s always that possibility.”
“But I’m not finding many here. I’ve already scouted out the possibilities around Cedar Bay.” She looked over at Ray. “Too bad you’re old enough to be my father.”
“Why’s that?”
“You have most of the things I look for in a man.”
Ray chuckled, “I can give you the names of women who would be more than happy to enumerate on my many flaws.”
“You probably met the wrong women.” Sue said with some tenderness. “How about Sarah James? She’s sort of a babe. Have you gone out with her?”
“No.”
“Think you might?” she asked, bringing the car to a complete stop, waiting for another school bus to make a left turn.
Ray looked across the bay. There were still a few flashes of color on Old Mission Peninsula. Occasional columns of sunshine shot through the heavy gray overcast, illuminating areas of water and land like a spotlight panning across the horizon.
“Perhaps.”
“I saw her at the hospital. Did she visit you more than once?
“Yes.”
“We’ve never considered her as a possible suspect, have we?”
“It did cross my mind.” He felt a wave of discomfort run through his frame. “What would be her motive?”
“Jealousy, or… ”
“Seems like you’re making a long reach here.”
“I am. I’ve been going over and over the possibilities the last several days, trying to see if there is anything we’ve missed.”
“And Sarah?”
“We never clearly established her whereabouts on the night of Ashleigh’s death, and I just wasn’t sure that we’d looked at her as a possible suspect. You were the one who had most of the contact with her.”
“And you were wondering, to use your language, if the ‘babe’ factor protected her from close scrutiny?”
“It was just a thought,” responded Sue.
“Well, then I think you should be the one who takes a second look at Sarah James,” Ray said. “So, tell me about the Janet Medford postmortem.”
“It’s just a preliminary report, some of the more exotic toxicology will take a few weeks.”
“Give me a summary,” asked Ray.
“She died of smoke inhalation. Her blood alcohol was over 0.20—something like 0.23 or 0.24. As I’m sure you remember too vividly, the body was in less than perfect shape, but there was no evidence of trauma. I called the pathologist after I got the report. I had a couple of things I needed clarified. He had some interesting observations that I hadn’t quite picked up on in his more clinical statements.”
“Like?”
“He said that years of heavy drinking and smoking had taken their toll. Her lungs were severely damaged. And if she hadn’t died of smoke inhalation, it seems she would have eventually suffocated from emphysema. And he said that she had a badly diseased heart.”
“I wonder if she knew?”
“I was curious about that,” said Sue. “Found out she was a patient at the Cedar Bay Clinic, had a conversation with Cornelia Johnson, her internist. Johnson said she last saw Medford during the summer for a routine physical. They had discussed lifestyle issues many times, but she could tell Medford was not about to change her ways.”
“So, her visit was just routine or did Johnson give her any bad news?”
“No, just the usual report, ‘If you don’t stop doing what you’re doing you’re going to an early grave.’”
“How about the arson investigator, Ogden?” Ray asked.
“One interesting finding, Ogden found some traces of Coleman fuel in Ashleigh’s laundry room. He thinks it was just part of her camping supplies and not the initial cause of the fire. It just exploded in the course of the blaze. He said that the source of the fire would be listed as undetermined. Interesting word, isn’t it? He went on to say that he thinks it started with a grease fire. She left a pan on the stove, wandered away, fell asleep or passed out.”
“So, it might have been an accident?” Ray paused. “Or maybe she just wanted to leave the world rather than suffer alone with a bad heart and broken-down lungs?”
“Maybe,” said Sue. “One more thing. You asked me about two former students, Jay Hanson and Denton Freeler.”
“Oh, yes,” responded Ray. “I’d almost forgotten about them.”
“Jay Hanson is studying in Italy this year, according to his mother. He left in August. And Denton Freeler, well, I’ve had no luck running down his parents. Remember, Helen Warrington said that his death had been reported to the Leiston School alumni office? But I can’t find any record of his passing. But, if they are still living abroad, I guess he could have died abroad. Anyway, neither seems to have ever had any problems with the police. My full notes are in a folder with a filename Hanson/Freeler.”
She turned left up Ray’s long, steep drive. Shooting him a quick glance she said, “You’re going to have fun plowing this.”
She followed him with the wheelchair and finally settled him into it, carefully elevating the leg with the heavy cast.
“Where did the table come from?” Ray asked, looking at a long, folding table covered with neat stacks of papers and folders standing next to the far wall.
“It’s mine,” said Sue. “I bought it at a garage sale last year. I needed a place where I could organize materials. You don’t have enough flat surfaces, just that little table you eat at. That and your kitchen counter and I knew better than to stack anything there. I organize in piles, you organize in,” she paused momentarily, choosing her words carefully, “more non-linear ways. Like swirls, maybe.” She gave Ray a wry smile. “The exception is your kitchen, where everything has a place.”
“Okay,” he said, glancing at the neatly organized materials on the aluminum table. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”
“It’s just the next iteration of what I had set up in the office. Everything is in categories, starting with the murder scene, then everything we’ve collected on Allen and Dowd. Vedder is here,” she pointed to another stack. “Then there are print copies of the notes and related materials from each person we’ve interviewed. Also, the material from the Medford fire.”
“What’s all this fanfold?” Ray asked, pointing to a stack of green and white computer paper near the end of the table.
“That’s the output of plate numbers from Leiston’s security booth. The start date is three days before Ashleigh’s death and the end date is yesterday. The data has been exported to a spreadsheet. Using the videotapes from the security booth, Gary Zatanski had his men correct omissions and errors in the original log.”
Ray fanned the tall stack of papers, useless information until plate numbers were connected to vehicles and drivers. “So, what’s happening with this?”
“I’ve got Veitch working on this. Good thing we hired a geek deputy. He’s checking the accuracy of the faculty and staff list we got from Zatanski. Then he’s going to do a first run on those plates. We’ll see if anything interesting pops up. I’m having him organize this data with a timeline showing Ashleigh’s murder and the Medford fire. After he gets done with the first set of plates, he’ll broaden the analysis, looking at the other plate numbers, but then it gets real complicated. There are hundreds of additional numbers.”
“When is this all going to be done?”
“He should have the first piece completed this afternoon. The next part will take a lot of time. He’s got to retrieve the info on each plate number and then key into his database the vehicle type and owner.”
“And we have no way of knowing who actually was driving the car,” Ray said.
“There’s that,” answered Sue, giving him a knowing smile. “Sort of like going to the casino.”
“But even there you hit occasionally.”
“True,” she agreed. “Other than this plate thing, I’ve looked through everything several times. I’ve carefully reviewed the notes from each interview, the autopsy reports, and all the crime scene material. I keep expecting that something is going to jump off the page, that I’m going to make this gigantic cognitive leap and identify the killer.”
Noticing that Ray was starting to nod off, she said, “You look like you need a nap.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re almost asleep in the chair. We’ll get you in bed, and I’ll run out to find you something interesting for dinner.”
In the dream Ashleigh was in a kayak on his right. They were paddling toward South Manitou Island. He was listening to her, having difficulty hearing her over the din of the wind and waves, but catching her meaning from her tone. Her conversation was punctuated with laughter, which had a joyful, musical quality. Ray glanced over at her, her auburn hair highlighted by the sun.
They neared the island and paddled along the steep rocky shore, looking for a place to land. They found a ribbon of sand in a protected cove and turned their boats toward the beach. Ray released his spray skirt, positioned his paddle on deck behind him, and prepared to pull himself out of the cockpit. As his bow hit the beach, he came out of the boat, sitting on the deck, one leg in the shallow water touching the bottom, the other resting in the boat.
As he looked over at Ashleigh, the world went gray—they were cloaked in dense, cold miasma. As she disappeared from his view, he could hear the panic in her voice. He jumped from his kayak and moved in her direction, splashing through the shallow water, but he couldn’t find her. Ray stopped and listened, he could still hear her, there was fear in her voice, she was calling to him for help. He thought she said “father.” Then there was only silence. He stood helplessly, staring into the gloom.
He woke with a start.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” said Sue, peering into his bedroom from the open door, amused by the pile of books on his nightstand—a worn copy of Boswell’s
Life of Johnson
, an early Michael Connelly mystery, a collection of Judith Minty’s poetry, Jim Harrison’s newest novel, and a book on Inuit kayaks. “I was checking on you.”
He looked at his watch. “I didn’t plan on going to sleep; I was trying to read. Must be the drugs.”
“The drugs, the trauma, the kind of non-sleep you get in the hospital where people are messing with your body at all hours of the day and night. As I remember them, Dr. Feldman’s instructions were to take it easy, keep your leg up, listen to some good music, read, and not think about work for several weeks.”
“You did get my dinner?”
“Yes,” she responded. “Portobello mushrooms with goat cheese and roasted red peppers on a freshly baked sourdough roll.”
“And tea?”
“Yes, chamomile with honey, lemon, and some chopped ginger. Michelle knows how you like it. Do you want me to bring you a tray, or do you want to sit at the table?”
Ray sat up and slowly slid his legs over the side of the bed. “I’ve been here long enough, I’ll come to the table. Give me a few minutes.”
By the time Ray emerged from his bedroom, Sue had the food set out on the table, a simple rectangle of solid black walnut supported by an elegant central base. She helped him into his chair and took the crutches.
“What’s that?” he asked pointing to her plate.
“That’s a cheeseburger with gorgonzola and bacon, cottage fries, and a Diet Coke. I made two stops.”
Ray gave her a look and moved his head from side to side. “You won’t always have that load of hormones to protect you.”
“But I do now, so I might as well enjoy it.”
“Anything happen while I was unconscious?”
“I’ve got the first run from the plate numbers.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Haven’t looked at them. It’s our first task to enjoy dinner; then we will look at plate numbers.”
Ray watched Sue inhale her cheeseburger with great enthusiasm.
“Is your sandwich okay?” she asked, noticing that Ray was picking at his food.
“Nothing tastes quite right. I don’t know if it’s my sense of smell or taste—or both.”
“You’ve been under anesthesia, and you’re on pain pills. It will take a while to wash all the chemicals out of your system.” She finished her dinner and waited patiently as Ray sipped his tea. “Are you done?” she finally asked.
“Yes. I want to look through the material you brought.”
“Ray, we can do this tomorrow,” said Sue as she rose to clear away the remains of dinner.
“Let’s do it now.” Ray pulled himself up and stood in the background, rocking back and forth on his crutches as he watched her sort through the pile of folders on the aluminum table. She identified and removed two folders from the stack, and laid out the pages from each one sequentially.
The photo of Ashleigh and her mother slid out of one of the other folders. Ray picked it up and looked at it carefully. He quietly put it back in the folder, hoping that Sue wouldn’t comment. Although they were close friends and colleagues, he wasn’t ready to talk to her about this. Not yet.
“This is what we have,” she said, turning toward Ray. “Here,” she pointed to six sheets on the left, “are the plate numbers recorded from the day and evening that Ashleigh and David were killed. In this column you’ll see the name of the person to whom the vehicle is titled.”