A Fugitive Truth (14 page)

The drive would have been nice at any other—read: later—time of day. The sky was bright blue, without even fair-weather clouds, and it was almost possible to smell young plants struggling to break through the ground’s surface. Large, predatory birds soared on the thermals, and in the distance, I could see a factory clocktower, reminding us all that time was wasting. After twenty minutes of being buffeted by high winds along the hilly roads, I pulled into Monroe.

Main Street was pure downtown U.S.A., late nineteenth-and twentieth-century buildings converted to shop fronts in the 1940s, and not much changed since then. The wide street was just waking up and had few cars parked along it. When I got out, the wind was howling through the valley and the bitter cold made my eyes water. It wasn’t done being winter here just yet, not by a long stretch. I paused and out of habit checked my cell phone. Plenty of signal here. I found Nancy’s Breakfast Nook right in the middle of town, obviously a cornerstone of the community since its construction.

I began to perk up a little when I saw the interior: a counter of worn linoleum and chrome banked with stools, a menu on the sandwich board over a grill that hadn’t been changed in twenty years, and a few bright booths—complete with coat hooks and cracked vinyl seats—near the windows. To my infinite delight, at one end of the counter was a plastic pie keeper with three pies in it. By the looks of things the breakfast would be decent, I thought, though why Kobrinski had to pick the middle of the night for a chat was beyond me. By the time I arrived it was 7:05 and the detective was already pushing back an empty breakfast plate.

I slid into the booth in the far back corner and wondered who it would be this morning; the provoking, impersonal authoritarian or the fleet-footed queen of the bayou. The person I found was neither: Detective Kobrinski looked like a woman on the horns of a dilemma.

But when I caught her eye, the official mask slid easily into place over her consternation, so quickly and so smoothly that it spoke of years of practice. “Good morning,” she said pleasantly.

“It’s morning all right,” I acknowledged. A waitress came over with coffee carafe in hand, bless her, and poured a cup without being asked. After taking my order, she took another, closer, look at me and left the carafe on the table.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Kobrinski said. “Enjoy the band Saturday night?”

“Definitely, they’re the next Beausoleil,” I said, easily appropriating Brian’s knowledge. “You looked like you were having fun.”

Mention of my having observed her outside her professional capacity
almost
disturbed that impervious facade; I thought I detected just a hint of annoyance.

“We-ell, you know.” She smiled lazily, so quick a recovery that anyone not seated across from her wouldn’t have seen it. “Everyone’s a Cajun when the band starts playing.”

Or maybe the detective wasn’t quite as practiced at concealing her feelings as she wanted to be, for she waited until I actually sipped my coffee before launching her surprise attack.

“So, let’s start from the beginning. I gather this isn’t your
first
murder investigation.”

F
AITH
WAS
MURDERED THEN
. T
HE THOUGHT POPPED
into my head even before I had the opportunity to register my surprise over the abrupt change in the conversation, her use of the word, or the fact that she’d obviously heard more about my past involvement in a couple of homicide investigations. Placing my mug down with excessive care, I said, “No, I guess not. You spoke to Dave Stannard?”

She brushed her bangs aside with elaborate nonchalance. “He spoke to me. He called Saturday, wanted to vouch for your character. He said I should pay attention to what you had to say. Said you look at things differently.” I noticed a slight compression to her lips. “I don’t like being gone around.”

“There was no going around,” I returned. The coffee snaked a path to my cerebral cortex, lighting the ways to comprehension and insight and cheekiness, apparently. “
I
don’t like being left in the dark. Look, I only asked about drowning, I didn’t talk about this case specifically. I was upset, anyone in my position would have asked some questions.”

She snorted. “I’m not certain they would. But Sheriff Stannard was very careful to mention that you didn’t talk any specifics about this case,” she admitted. “Several times.”

Detective Kobrinski wasn’t convinced, and I realized just then that she thought I was challenging her authority. I thought about being a woman cop—a detective, no less—in a rural place like Monroe, or anywhere else, for that matter, and knew I was going to have to be very careful here.

“This is just my way of coping, trying to fit the pieces together,” I said. “I find myself in the middle of something like this—again—and I feel lost, out of control. Asking questions helps me sort it all out.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe we can do something about that. An exchange.” Kobrinski reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out a small, foil-wrapped package, took two and offered it to me. “Tums?”

“No thanks.”

She carefully unrolled the package and popped a tablet into her mouth. All around us were the sounds of cutlery on plates, food preparation, and early morning conversation between people who’d known each other for years. My breakfast came while I waited for her to continue, and out of habit, I lifted the thick ceramic plate up carefully to look for the maker’s mark underneath. I wasn’t surprised to see the familiar impression of a buffalo so common to diner ware.

“What, not up to your usual standards?” The detective’s sarcasm reminded me to behave like a normal person.

“Just a bad habit,” I said, putting the plate down. “Archaeologists like marked pottery. You mentioned an exchange?”

She sighed. “Back it up a minute. You’ve got something I’ll never have, and that’s access to Shrewsbury.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have access? You’re a cop!”

Kobrinski looked at me as if I were dim, and maybe I was. “You may or may not know that there’s some friction between Shrewsbury and the Monroe community. Always has been and it’s gotten worse since the new director, Whitlow, took over, trying to make it into a ‘business.’ The town-and-gown thing is a real pain, and as soon as I show up, no matter what for, people start thinking ‘protect the library.’ It makes my job difficult. And it makes me mad. The fat cats around here get away with too damn much and I don’t like it.”

“You sound like you have a grudge.”

“I don’t like being railroaded,” she replied tartly. “There’s always that little extra bit of leeway that Shrewsbury gets, and it’s not going to happen this time.”

I smelled a battle being drawn along class lines, and possibly it was a personal one for Detective Kobrinski. It was no surprise, really. Monroe struck me as a working-class town and I got the distinct impression from my discussion with Whitlow that the Shrewsbury family had treated the place as their own personal preserve. That could either make for very strong loyalties or for long-lived resentments, depending on how those relations were handled.

The detective’s face soured, and I looked behind me. Constantino had walked in and ordered coffee to go. He surveyed the place like he owned it, but stopped when he noticed us staring at him from our corner booth. He took the coffee, threw his money down on the counter, and left.

She turned back to me. “I smell a lot of rats at Shrewsbury, and the biggest one just walked out the door.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m getting pressured to lay off the investigation, go with the obvious suspect—”

“Wait a minute!” My head was spinning. “What obvious suspect?”

“Paul Burnes.”

“Faith’s ex?” I hadn’t gotten as far as thinking about suspects. “I suppose that makes sense, if it’s murder—”

“It is.”

Too many things were happening at once, and my head was spinning with this sudden onslaught of revelations. “But wait a minute, he’s…he’s in jail!”

“
Was
is the operative term. He was released nearly a year ago.”

If my jaw dropped any lower, it would have landed in my pancakes. “But he almost killed her!”

Detective Kobrinski shrugged. “The story I’ve been getting through official channels is a little different from the one you told me. I’m still trying to figure out what was going on between the two of them. They’re both crazy, if you ask me—”

This wasn’t making any sense. “Yeah, but he…she told me—”

The detective shook her head. “Like I said, I think the situation was a little more complicated than the side you got from Faith Morgan. She doesn’t seem to have been an easy person to pin down. Apart from Harry Saunders, people in the library didn’t seem to like her very much, and I got the impression that he was being kind—”

“But that has nothing to do with Faith being trustworthy!” I protested.

“You said yourself that you thought she was ‘controlling.’ Sasha Russo actually used the word
manipulative
. I think she was feeding you her side of the story, maybe a little jazzed up.”

I refused to believe this. No one would—could—make up such things. Could she? But I frowned when I remembered how I felt after Faith’s confessional monologue, that she had been setting me up as an audience, playing me. It just didn’t feel right, given her story. But then, I didn’t know Faith all that well, did I?

Detective Kobrinski seemed unaware of my internal conflicts. “—but we are trying to locate Burnes now. He hasn’t shown up to his job for a week. No one can find him.”

I put my fork down. “Oh, my God.”

“It gets better or worse, depending on your point of view,” she continued. “The forensics people lifted a blurred partial of his from a hair comb she was wearing on the night of her death. It could be an old one, though. It’s hard to tell.”

“You think it was Paul?” A small, guilty part of me willed it to be so.

“It’s a good possibility, considering their history,” she conceded wearily.

Their history. I frowned and bit a corner off my toast, thinking. “So why do you need me? If you’ve got Paul Burnes, why this little party?”

“There’s very little evidence to go on, and until we locate Mr. Burnes, I’m not going to sit and twiddle my thumbs, especially since it’s Constantino who’s asking me to do just that.”

She flicked another Tums into her mouth and crunched it violently, staring at the wall to one side of me. “I need what you can see, what you know about the workings inside Shrewsbury. I need it and I don’t like it, but I’m asking you anyway, because I’m damned if I’m going to let this case get away from me.”

Kobrinski sighed, carefully refolded the silver paper over her antacids, and buttoned them into her pocket again. “I don’t like asking for help, especially from someone from inside the gates—” She flushed a little and looked up at me quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that—”

It didn’t bother me much; at least I knew where she stood. “Yes, you did.”

I watched a brief skirmish of emotions battle for possession of her face. Defensiveness eventually won out. It was then I noticed just how the dark smudges under her eyes emphasized the paleness of her skin; she hadn’t had much sleep lately.

“Okay. I did, but I’m just saying that while I ordinarily wouldn’t trust you, I’ve been told by another cop that you’re reliable.” She turned her empty plate over and tapped it meaningfully. “That you look at things differently. So I’m taking a chance and I’m admitting that. The least you can do is help me out.” The detective sergeant gave me a little “so there” nod.

I nodded slowly myself. “Okay, fine, now it’s my turn to be honest. I told Sheriff Stannard that I would stay out of police business, and that also happens to be my personal preference.” I hurried along. “But if you need help and I can give it, well, I will. Because…because I…owe Faith at least that much. And it will help sort things out.”

Kobrinski relaxed ever so slightly and nodded agreement. “It will sort things out.”

“But why do you need me, when you’ve got Jack?”

“Jack?” She closed her eyes to flip through the mental Rolodex. “Right, John Miner. I haven’t seen him since…the interviews last Thursday. What about him?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, thoroughly confused—so much was happening that didn’t make sense to me. “Friday I, ah, I upset him, he stormed out. But he left a message for me at the library Saturday saying that he was going to talk to you. You say he hasn’t tried to reach you?”

She frowned. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Saturday morning—I heard him in the bathroom. He was still angry at me.” I tried unsuccessfully to smother the irony in my voice. “He knows I hate early mornings.”

“Heard or saw?”

“Heard. I didn’t run into him at all.”

She looked sharply at me, the way she had when she’d first arrived to take over the investigation. “What about this morning?”

“Are you joking? I left too early. People in the house, the Fellows, tend to take off for the weekend—he’ll probably stop by today.”

“When did he leave the note?”

“Early Saturday morning, I guess. Before I got to the library, at any rate.”

Kobrinski made a note on her pad. “I’ve got to talk to the state police, but I’ll stop by later, make an opportunity for him to tell me this afternoon. Maybe if you’re free then, you could answer a few questions.” She closed her notebook and stuck her pencil through the wire rings.

“Whatever you like,” I said nonchalantly. “Perhaps you’ll have a few more leads to share as well. To help me sort things out.”

“Could be,” she nodded thoughtfully, and slipped on her coat.

“We’re both of us being very careful, aren’t we?” I asked.

“Nothing wrong with being careful, as long as you say just what’s on your mind.”

I got the impression that Detective Kobrinski wasn’t saying everything that was on her mind, and rather relished our tense, somewhat combative relationship. Ever seen a cat smile? It happens occasionally, but there are a lot of teeth and you wonder what they’re thinking about.

“Nancy, I’ll see you later,” she called to the woman behind the counter. She nodded to me as she left. “Ms. Fielding.”

“Hey! Watch out there!”

Michael’s angry exclamation woke me out of my ponderings an hour later. I was still mulling over my conversation with Detective Kobrinski and I’d walked right into him and his armload of books that were now scattered on the reference room floor. It was the first time I’d actually seen him doing any work since I’d arrived at the library. The titles I saw didn’t indicate he was buckling down now, however: William Byrd’s
Diary
and Lawrence Stone’s
The Family, Sex, and Marriage
were both known, at least by undergraduates, for their racy passages. I picked up one of the others:
The History of the Nude
. Didn’t seem to be much of a connection with the Transcendentalists, as far as I could tell; the mere thought of Bronson Alcott naked seemed a good reason for a night light.

“Sorry, Michael. My head was elsewhere.” I stooped to help him retrieve the rest of his volumes. “Say, you wouldn’t have time for that quote of mine, would you?”

“Probably won’t take any time. Lay it on me.”

I screwed up my face, trying to get the wording right. “‘Since it is possible that thou mayst depart from life this very moment—’”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘regulate every act and thought accordingly,’” Michael finished for me. “Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations
. The sort of thing your eighteenth-century intellectual would have lapped up: resignation, order in the universe, all the appeal of the classics and no conflict with Enlightenment Christianity.”

I looked at him, amazed. “Really? You recognize it just like that?”

Michael ignored my disbelief, more pressing matters clearly at hand. “You haven’t seen Jack around, have you? I’ve been doing nothing but taking his phone messages since last night.”

“No, sorry, I haven’t. Has he picked up the messages?”

Michael shrugged. “How should I know? I stick them under his door.” He stood up, and I handed him the last book. “He’s probably just sleeping it off someplace—”

“Michael!”

“Well, what do you think?” He glanced over the top of his reading glasses. “He’s certainly gone to ground.”

I checked another polite,
pro forma
protest. “I suppose so. It’s sad he should waste so much time and energy on theatrics.”

“It will catch up with him,” Michael said darkly. “Don’t forget, Emma, it’s not the trial that’s the bitch. It’s the judgment that really sucks. See you back at the ranch.”

“Nuttier than squirrel burps,” I muttered as Michael strode out of the room.

“I’m sorry, Emma?” Harry emerged from his glassed-in office.

“Michael’s just a mass of contradictions. I can’t figure him out.”

Harry smiled. “You’re not the only one. You ever read his last book?”

“No. Why?”

“Take a look at it sometime. It’s won every prize in history and the history of philosophy you can imagine. Rumors were that he came within a hair’s breadth of a MacArthur ‘genius’ award after it came out. Don’t confuse how he acts with how he thinks. Michael doesn’t act like the rest of us, but it seems not to do his scholarship any harm. Quite the opposite; there’s nothing at all childish about it. I was impressed by it, but a friend of mine was terrified by it. Said there was a coldness to the logic he was using that scared her. She said it exhibited an almost alien detachment from the human race.”