Linda Crowder - Jake and Emma 02 - Main Street Murder Page 8

  11

  “Boy, have I missed you!” said Jake, wrapping his arms around Emma when he found her in the kitchen.

  She laughed and tilted her head so he could kiss her neck. “I’ve been busy,” she said.

  “Don’t I know it.” Jake released her an stood leaning against the counter, his eyes never leaving Emma as she bustled about the room making dinner. “I think I’ve only seen you enough to say hello in the morning and goodnight when we go to bed.”

  “I seem to remember you saying a few other things the other night,” she answered with a rakish smile. Then she dodged him and popped a bowl into the refrigerator. “Pasta salad is done and cooling in the fridge. Shrimp is on the skewers and resting in the teriyaki marinade. Ten minutes on the grill on each side and they’re good to go.”

  “We having company?” asked Jake, noting the volume of food Emma had prepared.

  “I asked Kristy to come,” reported Emma. “I’ve been feeling so guilty keeping it from her that I’m working with Cheri. I just wanted to do something nice for her.”

  Jake took a second look at the food and turned to his wife, the refrigerator door still open. “Kristy eating like a lumberjack these days?”

  Emma blushed. “Oh no,” groaned Jake. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  Emma turned away from him and began making tea to ice for dinner. “Who is he?” asked Jake.

  “Just somebody I thought Kristy would like,” said Emma vaguely.

  “Who?” persisted Jake.

  “It’s only one night,” said Emma.

  “No, you didn’t. You did not invite that man to our home,” said Jake.

  “You’d like him if you gave him a chance,” said Emma.

  “How much more of a chance do I have to give the man? I see him in court every damned day. I don’t want to see him…” Jake’s voice was cut off by the sound of the doorbell.

  “Just be nice,” whispered Emma. She kissed Jake’s cheek and went to open the door. “Could you open the wine?” She called over her shoulder as she left the kitchen.

  Jake grumbled to himself as he pulled the wine from the rack in the wine cooler. He fished in the drawer for the corkscrew and was taking glasses from the cabinet when Emma returned with Kristy in tow. She wore a pink sundress, with her hair tied up off her neck because of the heat.

  His smile faded as a man joined them, following Emma and Kristy into the kitchen. “Clint,” he said, manufacturing a polite smile. “I see you’ve met Kristy.”

  Clint Taylor, assistant county attorney, smiled easily and accepted the glass Jake handed him. “We turned off the highway together,” he answered, his voice a little too loud to Jake’s ear. “She followed me ten miles up the road until I figured we were either going the same place or she was some kind of crazy stalker.”

  It was a long evening for Jake, who stopped checking his watch after Emma kicked his shin under the dining room table. She’d planned to eat on the deck but the Casper wind had forced a quick change of venue.

  Finally, after slices of sponge cake topped with strawberries fresh from the farmer’s market, Jake was finally able to say goodbye to his unwelcome guest and watch his car move slowly down the dirt road on the way to the highway below.

  Returning to the kitchen, he took a seat at the breakfast bar and listened to the ladies analyze the evening. Taylor had offered to follow Kristy back to town to make sure she arrived at home safely, but Kristy had declined, telling him was going to stay to help Emma clean up then pay a quick visit to a friend who’d been in the hospital recently.

  Now, the dishwasher churning and kitchen in order, the two were laughing about Taylor over coffee. Emma set a steaming mug in front of Jake then she and Kristy retired to the sunroom. He sat in the darkening kitchen, watching the sunset and listening to the women’s laughter.

  By the sound of it, Clint Taylor hadn’t made a good impression on Kristy, for which Jake was thankful. Had Kristy fallen for Taylor, Jake would have had to put up with having the man over on a regular basis and that would have been a real test of his friendship with Kristy.

  On the other hand, as the women returned to the kitchen to deposit their empty mugs in the sink, Jake felt a twinge of sympathy for his odious fellow attorney. He was going to have to be very careful not to laugh at what Kristy called Taylor’s “Alfred E. Neuman ears” next time he met the man in court.

  “I take it our intrepid A.C.A. is not going to be spending more time with Kristy?” he asked as Emma joined him on the deck after seeing Kristy to her car.

  Emma laughed out loud. “Oh my, yes!” she countered. “I think they might just end up getting married!”

  “Bite your tongue,” warned Jake. “Don’t even joke about a thing like that.”

  Emma snuggled against Jake, who put his arm around her as she sat down. “I’m sorry, honey. I always thought you were exaggerating about him.”

  Jake snorted. “I do not have enough imagination to make up that man’s faults. How did he end up being invited to our house for dinner anyway?”

  “I ran into him at the market when I was shopping for tonight. You know I’ve always thought if you just got to know him better - outside of the courtroom - you might actually learn to like him.” Jake snorted again. “Ok, ok, but he was buying frozen dinners…”

  “Oh not that old ruse,” broke in Jake. “I can’t believe you fell for it.”

  Emma giggled, “I know but he wasn’t hitting on me and I knew Kristy wasn’t planning to bring a date so I decided it couldn’t do any harm.”

  “You warned her first though,” said Jake.

  “Of course. I’m not going to let her show up in sweat pants,” Emma giggled thinking of the comfortable old jeans Kristy wore the last time she’d been over for dinner. There had been nothing fashionable about the rips in those jeans.

  “She had a good time though, don’t you think?” asked Emma.

  “Taylor did offer sheer entertainment value, I’ll give you that,” said Jake. Then, seeing the speculative look in his wife’s eyes, “No more matchmaking.”

  “Jake, I think Kristy is lonely. No, don’t wag your finger at me like that. I’ve never known her to go out on a date or have a boyfriend.”

  “Maybe she has a girlfriend and thinks you won’t approve,” suggested Jake.

  “She might,” mused Emma. “I hadn’t thought of that. Do you really think so?”

  “Hell if I know,” answered Jake. “I’m just saying that maybe you should let Kristy find her own dates.”

  Across town and along the river, Cheri Jackson was enjoying a glass of wine on her patio. Officer Rutledge sat beside her, tea in her glass instead of wine, Cheri’s security detail for the evening. A citronella candle burned on the bistro table between the two women, it’s brave flame struggling to keep away what some jokingly call Wyoming’s state bird - the mosquito.

  Mosquitoes were thick along the river, taking advantage of the slow summer pace of the water to wreak havoc on those whose homes huddled along the shore. Cheri slapped at an offending insect that had settled on her leg, just below the hem of her lightweight shorts.

  “That is the only think I don’t like about summer,” she said to the officer, whose uniform left little open skin to tempt the hungry mosquitoes. “Makes me envious of your long sleeves and pants.”

  “And here I was just wishing I felt as cool and comfortable as you look in those shorts and that sleeveless top,” responded Ann Rutledge. “I guess there’s always a trade-off.”

  “That’s for darn sure,” agreed Cheri, swatting another mosquito. “I for one am giving up and going inside where these blood-suckers can’t get me!”

  “I’m right there with you,” agreed Ann, who bent to blow out the ineffective candle and followed her charge into the cool of the air conditioned house.

  The phone was ringing as the two women went inside and Cheri stopped in the kitchen to pick it up. Ann had never seen a wall mounted telephone outside of her grandmother’
s house. In fact, she didn’t know anyone of her own generation who even had a land line anymore.

  Cheri hung the receiver in the cradle and turned to the younger woman. “That was Kristy Castle,” she explained. “She is going to stop by on her way home. She says she has the funniest story to tell me.”

  Ann had been advised by Detective Joyner to regard Ms. Castle as a possible suspect, but she knew Cheri was not aware of the detective’s suspicions. He had instructed her, along with the other members of Cheri’s security crew, not to leave her alone with Kristy.

  Detective Joyner was concerned that whoever attacked Cheri might try again and that they might become increasingly desperate as time made it more likely her memory of the attack would return. “Keep your eyes open for anything suspicious,” he’d cautioned the policewomen who guarded Cheri. Male, female, poison, knives or a gun - we just don’t know who or how the attack will come.”

  If it comes at all, thought Ann, as she sat listening to Kristy and Cheri laughing over the hapless A.C.A. Secretly, she shared Kristy’s assessment of Taylor but her face remained impassive, her body alert for any possible threat.

  None came and Kristy rose to leave. There was a crash outside the house, followed by angry hisses. Kristy jumped but Cheri assured her it was probably Jonas arguing with the neighbor’s tom cat again.

  Ann offered to walk Kristy to her car and check on the noise just to be sure. She pulled out her heavy duty police-issued flashlight and told Cheri to be sure to lock the door until she returned.

  Kristy was parked behind the patrol car, near the end of the long drive. As they walked, Ann cast her light methodically side to side in front of them. They heard the low growl of a cat warning off his foe, then Ann spotlighted Jonas facing off against a large orange tom.

  Startled by the light, Jonas broke for the house, the tom in hot pursuit. Both women laughed at the release of their mutual tension, then Ann watched Kristy unlock her car door and settle herself inside. Turning, she switched off the powerful flashlight to let her eyes adjust to the moonlit night.

  Ahead of her, she saw Cheri open the front door to give a hissing and spitting Jonas safe harbor. Ann made a mental note to remind Cheri not to open the door to anyone, not even her cat, when her police guard was out of the house.

  Her attention focused in front of her, Ann didn’t hear the footsteps approach from the rear until it was too late. Assuming Kristy had forgotten something, she started to turn when her head exploded in light and pain. She was dead almost before her body hit the ground.

  12

  Sirens screamed in the quiet summer night, converging on Cheri’s house by the river. Neighbors peered out curiously as two then three then four police cruisers joined the one that had been sitting in Cheri’s driveway since early evening. Silence returned as each arriving car cut its siren, the noise replaced by blue and red lights rotating on the top of each vehicle.

  First to arrive on the scene, Luis Altrez found Officer Rutledge laying on her side, eyes fixed with the unmistakable look of death. Blood mixed with brain and bone oozed from a wound in her head. Officer Altrez withdrew his hand from her neck when he found no pulse and controlled the impulse to wretch.

  He reached for the radio on his shoulder. “Officer down,” he told the dispatcher. “I repeat, officer down.” His fellow officers spread out as they moved past the body, each advancing in a semi-crouch, guns drawn, nerves jagged. Officer Altrez noted the distant siren of the approaching ambulance and joined the line moving cautiously toward the house.

  “Police!” shouted the lead officer as he flattened himself against the wall beside the open front door. He nodded to the officer who was pressed against the wall on the other side of the door.

  “Police, hands up!” shouted the officer as he threw himself around the wall and crouched in the doorway, gun pointed forward ready to shoot if needed. Methodically, the officers moved through the house, searching every room but finding them empty.

  They gathered in the entry and radioed the results of their search to the dispatcher. There was no indication that anyone had broken into the house. There was no sign of either the intruder or the home’s owner.

  The ambulance crew had followed protocol for what the dispatcher had designated an active shooter scene and waited for back up before approaching Officer Rutledge. They hadn’t waited long when Detective Joyner arrived. He stood guard while they hurried to see if there was anything they could do for the fallen officer.

  Joyner had radioed for the coroner as soon as he saw the body. He’d seen enough death to know the look of it. He swore under his breath and spared a moment to think how devastated her parents and fiancé would feel when the police chaplain called on them to break the news.

  He roused himself from his thoughts when Altrez called to him from the house. “Where’s the other body?” he asked, resigned to hear the worst.

  “The house is empty,” responded Altrez. “No sign of a struggle that we could find.”

  Joyner nodded to Altrez and another officer. “Check the grounds behind the house. See if she made it outside.” They moved to the patio door and Joyner turned to the other officers. “Check with the neighbors. See if anybody heard or saw anything. We can’t have missed them by much.”

  Joyner stood alone in the doorway of Cheri’s house, wondering where the killers would have taken her. He’d given the older woman one of the few panic alert devices the department possessed and told her to keep it with her at all times. She had sounded the alarm, probably when she saw the attack on Officer Rutledge, alerting the dispatcher at the station who had immediately put out an “all units respond” alert.

  They first officer had arrived within five minutes of the alarm, with the others close behind. He’d hoped the fast response would have been enough to catch the killers before they could strike. They hadn’t been fast enough to save Ann Rutledge.

  “Detective!” Joyner turned to find a shaken and pale but very much alive Cheri Jackson. Officer Altrez had one arm around her holding her upright and the other clung tightly to her hand.

  “Bring her in here,” Joyner gestured to Cheri’s armchair. Ducking out the front door he shouted to the ambulance crew, who grabbed their stretcher and hurried to the house.

  They knelt down in front of Cheri, checking her vital signs and looking for injuries. They radioed the supervising physician in the emergency room, who advised they bring her in for observation. Reluctantly, Cheri agreed and they helped her from her chair onto the waiting stretcher.

  As they secured the safety straps, Joyner leaned over her. “Who did this Ms. Jackson? Who killed Officer Rutledge?”

  Cheri looked up at him, a pained expression on her face. “Ann is dead? Oh my dear God.”

  “Can it wait, detective?” asked the EMT. “Her vitals are all over the place. We’ve got to get moving.”

  Joyner stepped back and waived them out. He turned to Altrez. “Where did you find her?”

  “Hiding down by the river,” he answered. “Shaking and scared to death, poor woman.”

  “Did she say anything? Did she tell you what happened?”

  Altrez shook his head. “She just kept asking where Ann was and was she ok.” He shuddered, the image of Officer Rutledge’s body when he found her was not going to be easy to get out of his head.

  Joyner nodded. “Good work,” he said. “Now go home. Don’t argue with me, you know the protocol. Go home and in the morning report to the police chaplain. You,” he turned to the officer who had been searching with Altrez, “can wait for the lab. When they’re done outside I want them to go over this place with a microscope and see if they can pick up anything to tell me who our killer is.”

  The two men headed outside, parting at the end of the drive. Since Altrez been the first to arrive, his car was blocked in by the coroner’s van. The coroner was waiting for the crime scene photographer to finish before he could remove the body of the fallen officer. He got into the van and backed it up an
d over to the side of the road far enough for Altrez to extract his cruiser.

  Before the coroner could reclaim his vacated space, the crime lab vehicle pulled into it. The coroner sighed and parked his van down the street from the murder scene. It was going to be a long night.

  Detective Joyner left the scene in the capable hands of the coroner and the lab crew and headed to the hospital. Talking with the neighbors had yielded nothing, which frustrated him. He’d hoped someone would have noticed a vehicle out of place in the quiet neighborhood, but no one had. They’d been inside watching television or out on their decks enjoying the cooler evening temperatures. No one had noticed whether any vehicles came or went from Cheri’s driveway.

  All the coroner had been able to tell him from an initial inspection of Officer Rutledge’s body was that she’d been struck with considerable force by a blunt object. The rest would have to wait for autopsy, which would require the body to be sent out of state since Wyoming didn’t have a forensic specialist.

  One of the benefits of the low population, thought Joyner as he pulled up at the hospital and parked in the space reserved for law enforcement. Low murder rates meant low demand for forensic examinations. If they weren’t too back logged in Colorado, he’d have the results within 48 hours.

  Joyner stopped at the desk to inquire about Cheri’s location and was directed to an examining room in the emergency department. Entering the room, he was surprised to see Jake and Emma Rand. Emma was standing by the bed, her hands wrapped around one of Cheri’s. Jake was sitting uncomfortably in one of the chairs that wasn’t built for a man his height.

  Emma turned and Jake stood when Joyner walked into the room. Jake shook the detective’s hand and offered to leave the room if Joyner wanted to speak with Cheri more privately.

  “No, you’re fine,” answered Joyner and Jake reclaimed his uncomfortable chair. Joyner moved to the side of the bed opposite Emma and was relieved to see Cheri had lost the ashen look she’d had when he last saw her.

  “How are you feeling, Ms. Jackson?” he asked. “Do you think you’re up to speaking with me about what happened tonight?”