Dead Wrong

An amazing number of those friendships dated from high school. In fact, it seemed every conversation today had twisted back to the halls of Elk Springs High School. Maybe that was natural in a small town. But given that they’d all graduated ten years ago, wouldn’t you think the group would include more newcomers, and that more of the high school crowd would have left town? The jocks were still the only desirable guys for the popular girls, who still clustered to flip their shiny hair and giggle at jokes no one else would get.

Not fair. Trina grimaced. They had lives. She was the one directing the conversations, asking them to dredge up memories.

Anyway, who was she to talk? She could have gone anywhere, but had chosen to come home to Elk Springs even though her childhood wasn’t what you’d call happy. And didn’t she still nurse a little bit of a crush on Will Patton, Homecoming King?

Besides—chances were none of this had anything whatsoever to do with Amy Owen’s murder. She’d likely been chosen at random, because she was available: sitting alone at a table in a pub or walking out to her car in a dark parking lot by herself. The odds, Trina thought, finally switching on her turn signal, were against Amy having been raped and murdered by a friend or even acquaintance.

BETH HAD GONE TO WORK, the girls to school. Will had intended to hunt for an apartment today. He wanted to buy, but was finding little for sale at this time of year. Absentee owners could rent by the week at astronomical rates. Spring, when the out-of-towners melted away with the snow, was when houses appeared on the market, according to the real estate agent who was helping him look.

The guy had called that morning. His income was probably zip at this time of year, and he was trying like hell to find something Will would buy.

When Will had walked into the real estate office last week, he’d been startled to recognize Jimmy McCartin from high school. The guy had been a hanger-on to Will’s group, too little and scrawny to play sports, but around all the time because he was manager for the football and baseball teams. Will hadn’t liked to crush the guy, but he never seemed to notice when he wasn’t welcome.

Heck, maybe that made him the salesman of the century. Successful real estate agents had to be damn pushy.

Jimmy was still scrawny and still able to make Will uncomfortable by doing things like slinging an arm around his shoulder when he introduced him to people and implying that they’d been best friends in high school.

“Hey,” he said. “Did you hear about Amy? I saw Travis this morning. He told me.”

Will had been hoping the caller was his mother with news.

After he and Jimmy hashed over the news for a couple of minutes, with Will pretending he didn’t know any more than anyone else did, McCartin asked, “Did you think any more about that house at Crescent Ridge? If you buy now, you could pick your own tile, paint colors, maybe upgrade some fixtures.”

The new development he was talking about was maybe half a mile from Will’s mother’s place, just off the mountain loop highway on the way up to Juanita Butte. The handful of houses that had been framed in so far were going to be beauties. Different builders were working there, which avoided the cookie-cutter effect, too. There was a shingled one at the top of the ridge that Will had liked.

“It’s just too big,” he said. “What was it, thirty-five hundred square feet? I don’t have any use for a place that size.”

“You could think about buying a lot and getting one custom built,” McCartin suggested.

“Yeah, but then I’d be looking at next fall before I had a place to live.” He got cream out of the refrigerator and poured some into his coffee, cell phone to his ear. “I don’t know. I’ll keep the house in mind, Jimmy, but I’m thinking I’ll wait a couple of months before I commit.”

“You know I’ll call you the minute I see any new listings,” McCartin assured him. “Hey, you planning to go to J.R.’s this weekend?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Will said, because he didn’t want to be rude.

“Great! I’ll see you there, then.”

Will shook his head as he hit End.

He hadn’t slept much last night, so at noon he was on his third cup of coffee and still trying to summon some motivation to get going. When the phone rang, he snatched it up.

“Pattons’ residence.”

“Will?” His father’s deep voice was unmistakable. “I just talked to Meg.”

“Are you coming home early?”

“I’m giving the keynote address at the banquet tomorrow night. I can’t. Besides, what can I do that your mother can’t?” Still, the growl in his voice betrayed his frustration. This was his county, his command. He wanted to be there, not exchanging tips of the trade with other law enforcement personnel in Seattle.

He wasn’t coming home early. Then what was this phone call about? Will waited.

“You know we’re going to have to consider the possibility that Mendoza was wrongly convicted.”

“Bullshit!” Will exploded. “You had DNA! How much more solid can you get?”

“We had proof he’d had intercourse with Gillian,” Jack Murray corrected. “In the absence of semen or hairs from another man, it was enough. But he’s been saying since the day we picked him up that he had sex with her, and that was all.”

“Bullshit!” Will said again. Intensely agitated, he paced the kitchen, wheeling each time he reached a wall. “Gilly wouldn’t have gone out and screwed some stranger! You knew her better than that.”

“What I know is that she was mad as hell. People do stupid things when they’re drunk, and her blood alcohol level was sky-high.” His voice softened. “She might have done it to punish you.”

The raging pain tore into Will’s gut, as it so often did. He stopped in his pacing and bent over as if he’d struck across the belly with a two-by-four.

Whatever Gilly had or hadn’t intended, he had been punished a thousand times over. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that Gilly would have been that careless with herself. That cruel to him.

“No,” he said. “No. He did it. He raped her and killed her.”

“Will…”

“Copycat crimes happen. We both know they do. What if he talked some buddy into it so he could walk?”

“Goddamn it, Will, you know we’ll consider every possibility. One of those possibilities is that we convicted the wrong man.”

“You’re back to defending him, aren’t you? Still can’t believe you could have been wrong about him? That he was using you?”

“That’s low.”

“Is it?” The phone creaked, he gripped it so hard. “Funny how fast you came to the conclusion that this murder clears Mendoza.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“The hell you didn’t.” He pushed End and slammed the phone onto the counter. Planting both hands there, he bent his head, teeth gritted. Fury and shame and renewed grief swelled in his chest until it hurt.

After a minute, breathing hard, he straightened. He’d been looking for motivation. Guess what. He’d just found it.

He grabbed his parka from the coat tree, checked to be sure he had his car keys, and left the house. If he had to rent a place that stank of cat urine, he’d do it.

Anything, to be out of here by the time his father got home on Sunday.

CHAPTER FOUR

TRINA AND Meg Patton, having failed to catch Doug Jennings at home, drove up to the Juanita Butte ski area on Saturday.

The lieutenant parked in the employee lot, taking a spot right by the slope of packed snow leading up to the lodge. Since her husband was the ski area general manager, she had reason to feel at home here.

Unlike Trina, who stepped out of the Explorer gingerly.

Despite frostbite-inducing cold, the lift lines were long, the slopes busy enough that skiers and boarders must be having to dodge each other. Never having learned to ski, Trina felt out of place here, which made her sulky and reminded her of her teenage resentment of the popular kids. But how could she help it? In contrast to all the tanned, long-legged, bleached-blond athletes heading for the lifts, she was pasty-skinned, dark-haired and compact.

She trailed ten feet behind Lieutenant Patton by the time they reached the A-frame that was, according to the lieutenant, the nerve center of the ski area. Ducking to save her skull from a snowboard carelessly swung by a teenage boy calling to friends above in the lift line, she slipped, knocked into a passing skier who yelled at her and finally righted herself at the foot of the snow-packed stairs leading up into the hut.

Naturally, the information center was staffed by a tanned, Nordic blond beauty.

“Oh, yeah! Doug’s wife! That was such a bummer. I mean, he’s going around with this tragic face.” She sounded awed at his suffering. More practically, she added, “His shift should be ending in a minute, anyway. I can call him down here.”

She got on the radio and his crackling voice agreed that he would rendezvous with the police officers at the ski school hut.

Stamping her feet and shivering, Trina thought about what Lieutenant Patton’s husband had said about Doug Jennings. Enthusiastic, great with the public, no apparent ambitions beyond the next ski season.

“Of course, Scott doesn’t know him well,” she’d added. “Unless the guy had been a major problem, a lift operator is a pretty small cog in Scott’s operation.”

Now, Lieutenant Patton also had the Nordic goddess call the ski school and ask for Travis Booth, Will’s friend who now headed the ski school. “If he could come down in, say, half an hour?”

Yet another crackling voice agreed.

Recognizable from photos in her apartment, Amy Owen’s ex-husband slid to a stop right by the door, as beautiful and Nordic as the goddess inside. Tapping the bindings with the tip of one of his poles, he stepped off the skis and set them inside.

His eyes were actually brown, despite the sun-bleached blond hair. Brown and puppy-dog-like and mournful. “You’re here about Amy?”

“Yes.” Lieutenant Patton nodded toward the lodge. “Can we go inside and talk?”

“Oh. Sure. I guess you’re cold?”

Despite heavy parkas and gloves, the lieutenant and Trina weren’t dressed for sub-zero weather. In just minutes, Trina had lost awareness of her face as a part of her body. When any of them talked, their breath froze in plumes that hung in the air. Trina wanted to say, Gee, you think?

Inside the busy lodge, they stamped snow from their boots. Meg Patton led the way upstairs to what appeared to be offices. A secretary smiled and said, “Scott said to give you the small conference room. Can I bring you coffee?”

“Please,” the lieutenant said.

If she’d turned it down, Trina would have whimpered. She was shivering and trying to hide it. Damn, she thought. Why hadn’t she taken a job somewhere warmer? She didn’t even like snow. The LAPD must have openings on a regular basis. Or maybe San Diego.

In the conference room, Doug Jennings dropped his gloves on the table, stripped off his snow-white hat with the cute pompom and peeled off his form-fitting parka. Very reluctantly, Trina divested herself of her outer layers. Gratefully seizing a mug of the coffee the secretary brought, she sat next to the lieutenant and opened her notebook.

Lieutenant Patton asked, “Mr. Jennings, when did you last see your ex-wife?”

His face crumpled, as if he were about to cry. “Wow. I can’t believe she’s dead. Amy was…” He swallowed. “Um. When did I see her the last time. Maybe Monday?” He pondered. “Yeah. Monday. I ran into her at Safeway. Kind of on purpose. See, I know she shops there, and she usually goes after work. So that’s when I shop.”

“But you are divorced.”

“Yeah, but…” He took a huge breath and let it out in a rush, his beseeching gaze moving from Lieutenant Patton’s to Trina’s and back. “I didn’t want to be! I love Amy! I shouldn’t have let her go.”

“And how did Ms. Owen feel about your pursuit?”

Expression ingenuous, he said, “I think she was coming around.” As if reading doubt on their faces, he added, “Really! We’ve actually kind of gotten together a couple of times lately. You know.”

They knew.

“Had you asked her to marry you again?”

“She said no, but not like she was mad or wanted me to leave her alone. More like…” He frowned. “Like she was teasing. I figured it was just a matter of time.”

“And the issues that led to the divorce in the first place?”

“I told her we could have a baby if she wanted. Kids are okay.”

Trina barely refrained from rolling her eyes at his magnanimity.

Lieutenant Patton’s voice changed. “Mr. Jennings, I have to ask where you were from Wednesday evening until Thursday morning.”

“Where I was?” He gaped at her, and Trina realized he really was naive enough not to have realized why he was being questioned in the first place. Bronwen was right; he was dumb. “You don’t think I…” Wildly searching their faces, he saw that they did indeed think the possibility existed that he had murdered his ex-wife. “I loved Amy!”

“Mr. Jennings, we’re obligated to rule out an ex-husband. If we can verify your whereabouts…”

He relaxed. “Oh, sure. Um…” More deep thinking. “I was here. I worked late shift on Wednesday evening. After the lifts shut down at ten, some of us stopped at the Timberline for drinks.”

The same place Amy had been earlier in the evening.

“You didn’t see Amy there?” Trina asked.

Both the lieutenant and Doug looked startled to hear her speak.

“No. It must have been close to eleven by the time we got there. She gets up early for work. She wouldn’t have still been out…” His Adam’s apple bobbed.

Hastily, before the moistness in his eyes could develop into a deluge, the lieutenant asked, “How late did you stay?”

He seemed to focus with an effort. “I don’t know. Until about one? Then Steve and I went back to our place and crashed.”

“Steve?”

“My roommate? Steve Bacon? He works lifts, too.”

“I see.”

Trina could read her mind. Why the hell hadn’t anybody mentioned that Doug Jennings had a roommate?

“Is Mr. Bacon here at the ski area today?”

“Sure!” He started to surge to his feet, then checked himself and sank back in the chair. “I think he’s working Outback today.”

The lieutenant abruptly stood. “Just one moment.”

She slipped out, returning quickly. “All right, Mr. Jennings. A couple more questions. Was Ms. Owen dating other men?”

“Flirting sometimes. Maybe just to make me jealous.” Even he didn’t believe himself.

“Did she mention anyone making her nervous? Following her, bugging her for a date?”

“Nothing like that.” He shook his head and pleaded, “Why Amy? Everybody liked Amy.”

Voice gentle, Meg Patton said, “The chances are that she was chosen randomly, simply because she happened to be alone at the wrong moment.”

His face worked. He cleared his throat. “Are you, uh, done with me?”

“Yes. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Jennings.”

Face still contorted, he nodded, shoved the chair back and blundered from the room.

The two officers sat in silence for a moment. “What did you think?” the lieutenant asked.

“My impression is, he’s sincere. Also not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

“No kidding.” Lieutenant Patton let out a gusty sigh. “I’m liking the feel of this less and less.”

Trina knew what she meant. A murder committed by a spurned ex-husband was one thing; a brutal, sexually motivated murder by a stranger choosing a victim only because she was available and fit a vague “type” was another altogether.

After a moment, Trina asked, “Did you send for the roommate?”

Still brooding, the lieutenant nodded. “Let’s squeeze him in before we talk to Travis. We might as well accomplish as much as we can while we’re here.”

Steve Bacon arrived a minute later, dark-haired, at least, but otherwise fitting the mold: blue eyes sapphire-bright against that glowing tan skiers all seemed to have. Cold air and an aura of energy entered the conference room with him. His glance took in Trina, dismissed her in an all-too-familiar way and turned to Lieutenant Patton.

Irritated, Trina said too loudly, “We understand the area was open for night skiing on Wednesday.”

She felt the flick of the lieutenant’s gaze. Nonetheless, Meg Patton stayed quiet.

As if she were an idiot, Steve Bacon said, “Yeah, sure. It always is.”

“And did you work?”

“Yeah. I ran the Gold Coast lift.”

“Did you carpool up here that day?”

She must have sounded too bellicose.

He balked. “Is this about Amy’s murder? Why are you asking me questions?”

“Can you just answer the question, please.”

“I rode with Doug. Doug Jennings. We take turns when we’re working the same shift.”

“And you did that night.”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“What did you do after the lifts shut down?”

He told the same story Doug had. He was more certain about the time, because he’d glanced at the clock when they walked in their apartment. “We got home at 1:45. Then we sat around and bull-shitted for a while. I don’t know. Maybe an hour. Neither of us had to be at work until one.”

After letting him go, the lieutenant said, “So much for the ex-husband.”

“It didn’t look like a murder committed by an ex-husband.”

Meg rubbed the back of her neck. “No,” she said, voice weary. “No, it didn’t.” Her eyes were sharp when she looked at Trina. “You didn’t like him.”

Trina hunched her shoulders, a bad habit when she felt defensive, one she was trying to overcome. “No. I guess I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“He just seemed like a jerk.”

“In a way relevant to this case?”

“Uh…no.”

“Was coming on that strong justified, then?”

Trina looked back at her, face as expressionless as she could make it. “No, ma’am.”

Voice milder than Trina expected, the lieutenant said, “On the job, keep your personal feelings to yourself.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Trina repeated woodenly.

“I didn’t like him, either. Ah.” Lieutenant Patton tilted her head. “Possibly Travis?”

Sure enough, Trish escorted in yet another handsome man with that unmistakable air of vitality and athleticism. He had changed from high school as much as Will Patton had. Adolescent cockiness had become masculine confidence. But something on his lean face hinted at pain and regret.

Both were obliterated by his grin. “Hey, Will’s mom.”

Smiling, the lieutenant stood. “Travis. It’s good to see you. Congratulations on the Frye Museum showing.”

“Thanks. It felt good. I guess I’m not just a local boy anymore.”

Frye Museum?

“We’d like to ask you some questions having to do with Amy Owen’s murder,” the lieutenant continued. “I understand you’d stayed closer friends with her than Will had.”

“Sure, no problem. Hey, Trish,” he called over his shoulder. “Can I get a cup of that coffee?”

He dragged out a chair and turned it so that he was straddling it, arms crossed on the back. He studied Trina. “I know you, don’t I?”

“I was two years behind you in school. Trina Giallombardo.”

He nodded. “Nice to meet you, Trina Giallombardo. Again, if we ever actually met before.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay, then.” He smiled thanks at Trish when she brought his coffee. Turning back to the police officers, he said, “As for Amy… I don’t know about friends. She was more part of the group. We didn’t have much in common.”

Trina asked, “Did you ever go out with her?”

“Yeah, a couple of times. After she and Doug said bye-bye. But we didn’t have much to talk about, and it didn’t go anywhere. I doubt she was hurt when I didn’t call again.”

“Then the decision not to continue dating was yours rather than hers?”

“I really do think it was mutual. Amy was a sweetheart, but not much of a reader, no interest in art, didn’t like to ski because she got cold…” He shrugged. “In turn, I have no interest in the latest movie opening at the cineplex, fashion, what everybody we knew back to grade school is doing nowadays… We ran out of things to talk about. She looked as restless as I felt.”

“Surely you knew this when you asked her out.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you? But when conversation is general in big groups you don’t always remember who contributes what. She was fun, pretty, had a nice laugh. So on impulse I asked if she wanted to have dinner. This was…I don’t know. Maybe six weeks ago. The next weekend we had drinks and she came to a gallery opening with me. Afterward she wanted us to join Marcie and Dirk Whittaker at Sister’s, that new brew-house. I made an excuse and left her there. End of romance.”

The lieutenant asked, “Did you sleep with her, Travis?”

His eyebrows rose. “Does it matter?”

“We’re gaining the impression that she tended to end her evenings in someone or other’s beds. I guess I’m asking if that was true.”

Expression conflicted, he appeared to be thinking furiously. “Okay,” he said at last. “After our first date, she came home with me. Are you asking me to rate her performance?”

Lieutenant Patton gave a crooked smile. “No. What I’m trying to determine is whether she would readily have agreed to leave a bar with someone Wednesday night.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah. I think maybe she would. My take is, Amy liked sex. Or maybe what she liked was having a guy. She always seemed to be looking.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Thank you for your honesty.”

Forehead still creased, he asked, “Why would anyone want to kill Amy? She liked sex, sure. But to the best of my knowledge, she never hurt anyone.”

“Knowingly.”

He shrugged in concession. “Let me put it like this. I think she went out of her way not to hurt anyone.”

Face drawn, Lieutenant Patton said, “Travis, I want you to think back. Way back. Do you know of anyone who has harbored a grudge against Will? Anyone who is still around town?”

He straightened, gripped the back of his chair. His gaze locked with Meg Patton’s. “Will? What does…” He uttered a guttural obscenity. “Amy wasn’t murdered like Gilly, was she?”

“There were…similarities.”

He swore again. “You told Will?”

She nodded.

“How’s he taking it?”

“I don’t know,” the lieutenant said in a voice Trina had never heard from her. “As I’m sure you’re aware, he doesn’t open up to me much.”

“Why didn’t that idiot call me?” He shoved himself to his feet, hesitated, then sat back down. “No. God. I can’t think of anyone who hated Will like that. Everybody liked him.” He shook his head as if he were trying to clear it. “Mendoza was convicted. I called damn near every night during the trial! Will told me about the evidence!”

“Ricky always said there was another explanation. That he left her alive.” The pencil in the lieutenant’s hand snapped. She didn’t seem to notice. Her voice had become raw. “What if he did?”

“God.” Travis scrubbed his hand over his face. “Is Will still at his dad’s? He hasn’t found a place?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll talk to him tonight.” He stood then, and squeezed Lieutenant Patton’s shoulder. “Hey, Will’s mom. You’re super cop. You’ll find out who did this.”

Her smile hurt to look at. “Thanks, Travis. You’re a good kid.”

His laugh wasn’t any more real than her smile. “When I want to shed a few years, I just come see you.”

She watched as he left the room, then met Trina’s eyes. “I’ve known him since he was fourteen.”

“Wasn’t he around during the trial?”

“No, he was in Europe training for the World Cup tour. He had an exciting life in those days. Val d’Isere, Innsbruck, St. Moritz…Will would get postcards. Travis won the opening downhill of the season that year, at Chamonix. I remember how excited Will was.” She fell silent for a moment. “Gillian was killed that spring. Travis was in Japan that week. By the time the trial started, he was back in Europe training for the next winter.”