Dead on Ice (21 page)

The lights inside the back of the ambulance lit up the tears that seeped into his eyes. “Never occurred to me that poor girl, my baby girl, would die thinking that her daddy was dead.” He sniffed. “Guess it’s better than knowing that he was a real-life bastard.”

Chapter Sixteen

Through the sun porch door, Cameron watched Joshua spooning vanilla ice cream into a bowl. She could see that his skin was still moist from a shower. Wet, his silver hair fell in loose, wavy locks down the back of his neck. In his bathrobe and lounging pants, he was ready for bed.

Rowlf! Smelling the sweet, frozen, creamy dessert, Irving struggled out of her arms and darted through the dog door to trot over to the kitchen counter and rub against Joshua’s leg.

“Oh, now we’re friends.” He gazed at her waiting on the other side of the kitchen door. “What are you waiting for? Suddenly, you’re going to start knocking and waiting for me to come open the door for you?”

Still tentative, she opened the door. “Am I allowed to come in?”

Joshua’s silver eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead. “Why wouldn’t you be?”

She crossed the kitchen to wrap her arms around his waist. “You had me so scared.” She rested her head against his warm bare chest. His clean musky scent excited her senses. She could feel his heart beat against her ear. “When you didn’t say anything to me—”

Hugging her, he rocked her in his arms. “I had to get Donny home. He was really upset, and he didn’t want to start bawling there in front of those troopers and Brianne. I had to get him out of there.”

She uttered a heavy sigh. “So it’s not over.”

His chuckle seemed to echo in her ear where it was pressed against his chest. “Of course not.” He pushed her away from him. Holding onto her shoulders, he peered into her eyes. “Do you have any idea how important you are to me?”

Her lips curled. “No. Tell me.”

“I love you . . . more than you will ever know.”

She cocked her head at him while he waited for her response. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

He grabbed her and kissed her so hard on the lips that their teeth crashed against each other. She could feel his passion for her flow through her body like a wave of emotion. When he let her up for air, she gasped out, “I love you, too, Joshua Thornton.” She threw her arms around him, and held onto him as tight as she could. “Come here.”

Joshua didn’t realize that he had fallen asleep until Irving began licking his cheek where a miniscule drop of ice cream had dried. Half-conscious, he swatted at what he thought was a fly before realizing that it was the skunk cat. “Get away from me.”

“Who are you talking to?” Cameron asked from where she was wrapped around his naked body.

They were wrapped around each other under a comforter taken from a linen closet in the downstairs family room.

Now awake, Joshua remembered the night before. After they were certain Donny had gone to bed, they had sneaked down to the family room. Giggling like a couple of guilty teenagers, they had built a fire in the fireplace and made love under an old comforter on the floor.

“Irving’s bothering me,” he told her while coming to his senses.

“Irving,” Cameron said, “leave him alone.”

Chastised, Irving went over to jump up onto the sofa and curl up on top of Admiral, who had spent the night stretched out on something more comfortable.

“What were you telling me last night?” Joshua struggled to recall what little actual conversation they had the night before. He was too focused on staring into the depths of her eyes and kissing her lips to pay attention. “Doris has another freezer?”

“Now you want to talk about it.” Hugging him tighter, she nuzzled his neck. “She has a freezer in her barn.”

“Did you have a search warrant?”

“Someone tried to burn down her house with her and Ralph in it. I was looking for an arsonist.”

“Sure you were,” he laughed while hugging her.

“I found it right there in the feed room. It wasn’t plugged in, just like the freezer that was in Brianne Davenport’s garage. She uses it to store the horse feed in. That was where the freezer Cheryl Smith’s body was stashed incame from. Forensics had found traces of molasses and oats in it. This freezer had a container of molasses and bags of oats.”

Joshua said, “When I asked her about it, she pointed us in the direction of Mildred. She didn’t think we’d find out about her having a second freezer.”

Cameron put the scene together. “She killed Cheryl for revenge because she thought she had killed Angie, stuffed her in the old freezer, and hid it in Albert’s basement. Then she had to get rid of the Ferrari. So she left it on Brianne’s doorstep like an abandoned baby.”

“How did she know Cheryl was in town?” Joshua asked.

“Kyle told her,” she answered.

“I thought Kyle said he never saw Cheryl when she came back to town.”

“Brianne told me that he did,” she said. “She claims she never saw Cheryl either. But Kyle, who set up the computer system at the winery, was on the Davernport payroll in 1985. Brianne says he was the one who told her about Cheryl being in town and stopping by the winery to sell her the Ferrari.”

“He must have been the one who gave her Brianne’s business card with Ned’s phone number on the back,” he said. “Why would he lie?”

“Because he didn’t want to be a suspect,” she answered. “He knew she had been murdered. He also knew he had a strong motive. Not only did Cheryl destroy his relationship with Angie, but she was also the prime suspect in her murder. To admit that he saw her would be putting himself under the spotlight.”

“Lying also puts him under the spotlight.”

“I need to go question Ned Carter again,” she said. “Now we know who gave Cheryl his phone number. Brianne says Cheryl never showed up, but her car did. I wonder if something odd like that happened to Ned. If I can recreate the chain of events leading up to and after Cheryl’s murder, I might have luck in finding real evidence against Doris.”

He rolled over onto his side and smiled at her. “So you think it’s Doris?”

“Of course, I do. It was her freezer. I’ll go to the hospital and question her today.” Conscious of covering herself, she sat up. “What time is it?” She looked up at the anniversary clock on the mantle. It was six o’clock in the morning.

Remembering Joshua’s son, who was only two floors above them in the house, she sprang for her clothes while clutching the comforter around her. “I have to go before Donny gets up and comes down here and finds us.”

Her reminder woke Joshua up all the way. He dove for his clothes. “He’s going to be up early. He and his friends are going to Pittsburgh for a concert. They’re going out for brunch—”

“Dugan says you and Donny need to go into the police barracks to give them your—”

“Admiral!” Donny’s voice called from upstairs. “Come on, boy! Do you want to go out?”

Clutching their clothes against their naked bodies, Joshua and Cameron froze. They held their breath. They could sense, rather than see, Donny at the top of the steps waiting for Admiral.

The huge dog took his time climbing down off the sofa to the floor and making his way up the stairs.

“There you are,” Donny greeted him.

They watched the ceiling while listening to Donny’s footsteps cross the floor to the back door to let the dog out. Then they followed the sound of his footsteps to the kitchen cupboard where he took out Admiral’s canned dog food. The whirl of the can opener signaled the opening of the can.

With a loud meow, Irving flew off the top of the back of the sofa and up the steps.

“No!” Cameron gasped.

Joshua covered her mouth with his hand. “Shhh!”

“Irving, what are you doing here?” Donny asked.

A moment later, Irving trotted down the stairs with Donny behind him.

“Traitor,” Joshua hissed at the cat.

A wide smile crossed his face at the sight of his father and Cameron wrapped in a comforter after having spent the night together. “Well, well, well.” Chuckling, he folded his arms across his chest. “Dad, I guess now would be a good time to talk to you about my curfew.”

“I don’t understand the purposes of curfews anyway,” Cameron argued with Joshua while he maneuvered the country roads in his SUV. “Like, what can Donny do after midnight that he can’t do before?”

“It’s called boundaries,” Joshua grumbled. “Children need boundaries. I don’t want my kids running around at all hours of the night getting into trouble.”

“Oh, I can see Donny running around at all hours of the night getting into trouble,” she said with sarcasm. “He’s a good kid, Josh.”

“And I want him to stay that way.” He pointed a finger at her. “Your skunk cat is a snitch.”

“You’re only put out because he won’t let you call him Irv.” She wanted to further argue for Irving’s innocence, but got distracted by a sharp turn that Joshua made to take his SUV down a worn country road leading back along a steep ridge in Johnsonville, a community on the outskirts of Chester. The back road was home to a row of mobile homes lots, one set up next to another. In an effort to make their trailers homier, their owners had erected wooden porches and decks with various degrees of success. Others had cheaply made additions that didn’t match the original structure.

“Ralph’s ex-mistress. Name, Peggy Lawson,” she read the name in her report. “Lives at 15 Hickory Lane, located off Johnsonville Road.”

Joshua pulled the SUV off the road. “There it is.” He pointed to a yellow trailer with black shutters. A muddy, red sedan was parked in the gravel driveway next to a gardening shed. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

“Why do you think I brought you?” she asked.

“I came voluntarily because I need the mental exercise from arguing with you.”

She smiled. “I’ll do the questioning, and you’ll be my back up.”

Groaning, he shifted his car into drive. “Oh, I hope I don’t have to shoot another suspect.” He parked next to the sedan.

Cameron unclipped her police shield to show Ralph’s ex-mistress when she answered the door. When she opened the passenger side door to climb out of the car, she saw two large gasoline cans filling the back seat of the sedan. The car reeked of the smell from the gasoline. “Josh?”

When she saw she had his attention, she pointed to the back seat of the car. He nodded his head. Together, they made their way up the steps to the front door. Standing aside from the doorway, Cameron knocked loudly on the door. “Peggy! It’s the police. Will you please open the door?”

The response was silence.

Cameron knocked on the door again. “Peggy Lawson, open the door. We need to speak to you.”

Joshua had his ear pressed to the side of the trailer. “I don’t hear any movement.” He turned the door knob, and it swung open.

Their guns drawn, Cameron entered first with Joshua directly behind her. With each turn they made, they aimed and searched the cluttered living room and kitchen area.

“I think someone was on a binge.” With the muzzle of his gun, Joshua indicated a row of empty vodka bottles along the kitchen counter. There was only one glass next to the bottles. Spotting an empty cat food and water dish, he said, “She has a cat.”

“She’s not all bad.”

“I wonder if her cat’s a snitch.”

“Peggy, it’s the police,” she announced again while peering down the hallway in case Peggy was asleep and didn’t hear them entering. “We have some questions for you about Ralph Hildebrand and Doris Sullivan.”

The hallway was too narrow to allow any place for her to hide. Cameron rushed down and threw open the door at the end of it.

The bedroom occupied the back portion of the home. The unmade king-sized bed filled the room, leaving barely enough space to navigate to the closet on the other side. Peggy Lawson was sprawled out on the bed with the sheets twisted around her naked body. An empty vodka bottle rested next to her body like a lover. Her hand still clutched the glass from which she had sipped.

Cameron holstered her gun.

“Is she alive?” Joshua asked in a low voice as if he feared waking her up. He was forced to wait in the hallway because there wasn’t enough space for him to enter the room.

Cameron reached across the bed to feel Peggy’s neck for a pulse. While searching, she watched her chest for any sign of breathing. She noticed her chest rise slightly. The pulse was very faint. “She’s alive—barely!”

Joshua unclipped his phone from his belt and pressed the button to call emergency.

Cameron yelled loudly into her ear. “Peggy! Stay with me, Peggy! Help is on the way!”

Spying an empty bottle on the floor next to the bed, she knelt to read the label.

“What did she take?” Joshua asked.

“Benzodiazepines.” She showed him the date on the label. “This bottle was filled yesterday morning.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Is it us?” Cameron asked Joshua while they watched Hancock County’s sheriff, Curt Sawyer talking to Peggy Lawson’s neighbor. “Everywhere we go lately, mayhem breaks out.”

Short and muscular, Curt Sawyer had never let go of his Marine training. One look from him intimidated anyone into saying and doing whatever he wanted. That was what made him a good sheriff.