I GOT TO Leah’s house around four thirty p.m. She wasn’t home yet. I zombie-walked to her couch and sat down. The adrenaline of the chase evaporated somewhere on the drive between SBPD and Leah’s. I wanted to go to bed and wake up in a week. Maybe my head would stop pounding by then. But the information about Krista drinking again made me reassess everything I’d theorized about Colleen’s and Krista’s deaths.
What if Tom Weaver really was in the drunk tank the night Colleen died, but no sheriff’s deputy was willing to risk a reprimand or something worse to corroborate it? What if Krista was drinking again like Kessler said? Maybe I’d gotten so caught up in my lust for justice that I’d jumped way out on an unsustainable limb?
Mike Richert could be telling the God’s honest truth and Colleen still could have been murdered by someone other than a cop. A lot of security guard uniforms look just like those of the police. Some security guards were wannabe cops who washed out of the academy for psychological reasons. What if Colleen had been murdered by a twisted rent-a-cop and a buddy and not the real thing? That made just as much sense, if not more, as a cop going bad and pulling in a brother in blue to commit man’s worst sin.
I sat down at my new computer and dosed myself with another 1,000 milligrams of pain reliever and pulled up Frank Cornetta’s security camera files. Day three going backwards from Sunday.
An hour and a half later Leah came home while I was in the middle of day four. Nothing of importance happened at Krista’s house. Except Leah and her brother arriving at the house and staying inside for an hour. They came out with a couple boxes. The video wasn’t very clear, but I could sense the anguish on Leah’s face. She looked broken.
“Did you find anything?” Leah sat down next to me on the couch and set the leather satchel with her design notes and tools on the coffee table. She wore blue slacks with a cream blouse and looked very professional. And very beautiful. Her anger from this morning gone.
“Not yet. Three and a half days down.” I thought about what Captain Kessler said about Krista’s drunk dial. “Is it possible that Krista had started drinking again?”
“What?” Her eyebrows rose. “No. Why?”
“Captain Kessler thought she was drunk when she called him the Thursday night before she died.” I thought of another possibility. “How about prescription meds?”
“There’s no way she started drinking again. But …”
“What?”
“She hurt her back skiing over Christmas and did have to take Vicodin for a few weeks. There were still some in her medicine cabinet after she died, but the prescription was from January. I don’t think she was still taking them. She wouldn’t take them to get high. That wasn’t Krista. She was proud of her sobriety. She didn’t even want to take the Vicodin, but the pain was pretty bad.”
“You’re probably right. Thanks.” But what people did when no one was watching could sometimes shock their loved ones. Maybe Vicodin explained Krista’s call to Kessler. “Your brother call you back about Weaver being in the drunk tank the night Colleen was murdered?”
“Yes. He said he didn’t know anything about it.”
That didn’t mean it didn’t happen, but it didn’t help Mitchell’s story.
“How’s your head?” Leah gently touched my forehead.
“Fine.” The Tylenol had moved the arrow of pain from an eight down to a seven. Livable.
“I guess I should figure out dinner. Are you hungry?”
I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Leah.” I turned toward her on the couch. “I appreciate the hospitality, but you don’t have to take care of me. I got beat up on a case. I’ve been beaten up on a lot of cases. That’s part of the job. You don’t have to feel responsible for me. I’ll head back to the hotel tonight and contact Grimes in the morning. See if we can work together.”
“Do what you want, Rick.” Cobalt blue eyes thrumming with intelligence and beauty. “Go ahead and make things hard on yourself. That seems to be what makes you happy. Misery is your joy. If you can’t let someone help you when you really need it, you’ll never allow someone to see who you really are. Your weaknesses. Your vulnerabilities.”
“I …”
“I want you to stay.” Leah’s eyes bore into me. Not angry. Adamant. “I want to ease some of that misery, but I’m not going to beg you to stay. I won’t be angry if you leave. I’ll understand. I’ll have my answer and life will go on.”
Leah was on the other side of my shadow life, out of reach. I couldn’t get there until my mission was complete. I owed Colleen justice. I owed myself vengeance. But maybe I could allow myself a glimpse of what life could be.
“What’s for dinner?”
We settled back onto the couch after we’d consumed the last bit of sauce from Chinese takeout food containers. Moo shu pork, cashew chicken, and pot stickers. Leah gave me a second set of eyes on the last half of day four of the security tapes. Another blank.
I leaned back and rested my eyes for a couple seconds. Two hours later, movement on the couch woke me. Leah set my new laptop onto the coffee table and stood up.
“I made it through day five. I didn’t see anything around Krista’s house that seemed suspicious to me. I’m not as savvy as you, but I’m pretty sure no one broke into her house. No Dodge Challenger or Jeep Wrangler drove by. Black, white, or any other colors.”
“Thanks.” I sat up. “I’ll get through the last two days tomorrow.”
“You know, this house has three bedrooms. One is my office, but the other one has a bed. More comfortable than the couch and it has a lock on the door. First door down the hall on the right.”
“The only doors I wanted locked are the ones to the outside. I wish I could explain about the other night …”
“You don’t have to. Separate rooms make more sense.” Leah studied my face, looking for an answer I hoped to be able to give her someday. “For now.”
She lowered a hand to me. I grasped it and stood up. Warm. Like the first time we touched. She led me down the hall and into the room. The suitcase I’d left in the trunk of the car was sitting on the bed. There was only one thing missing. The Smith & Wesson for the nightstand.
“Thanks.” I let go of her hand. “I just have to get something out of the car.”
“It’s in the drawer.” She nodded at the nightstand to the right of the bed. I opened the drawer and saw the Smith & Wesson in its holster. “My father always keeps a gun next to his bed. Even now when he’s retired. I’ve never known a cop who didn’t. The house alarm is set for the night, so make sure you disarm it if you go out for the shotgun.”
She kissed me on the cheek and lingered. I turned my head to meet her lips but she’d turned away.
“Thanks for taking care of me.”
“Goodnight, Rick.”