Stone Cold (5 page)

‘Sounds good,’ Olsen confirmed and then vanished into his office.

‘Sheila McKenzie owns an art gallery in a mall downtown,’ Maietta said from her desk as she looked at her computer screen. ‘You want me to call in and get us an interview?’

‘Yeah,’ Griffin answered, and then said: ‘No. If the perp’s an employee it’ll rattle them. Find out how many people work for her, then we’ll go in without badges as though we’re regular punters and see what gives.’

‘I’m heading out,’ Kathryn reported to Griffin, ‘but I’ll be back this evening.’

‘You mean your bodyguard’s leaving you all on your lonesome for the day?’ Maietta asked Griffin as she pinned her phone between her ear and her shoulder. ‘What ever will you do?’

Kathryn picked up her bag and smiled sweetly at the detective.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t leave him for long,’ she said, and then to Griffin: ‘Be a good boy.’

*

Kathryn whirled and strode out of the operations room, then released a long sigh of relief as she strode out of the station to her car and checked her watch. She climbed in and drove out of the lot, the sky above now bright and blue and speckled with light clouds.

It should have been a moment to be cherished, a time for reflection on her performance, but Kathryn was far beyond revelling in any kind of success. Too much at stake she guessed, like the rest of her entire life.

She drove into town, parked, and made her way to a coffee shop that she had frequented often while studying for her diploma. Sitting inside the window was a portly woman with a bright smile and a waving hand. Two lattes steamed in front of her as Kathryn walked into the shop.

Ally Robinson was a friend who like Kathryn had studied for a diploma and worked for the same company. English by birth and by nature, she had deliberately sought out small–town America for reasons nobody could really fathom and built a life for herself in Great Falls. She stood and her arms wrapped around Kathryn’s shoulders and almost lifted her off the floor as thick tresses of auburn hair wafted across her face.

‘Sit down Stone,’ Ally commanded as she released her friend.

Kathryn took a seat across from Ally and sipped at her latte. A silence enveloped the table.

‘Get on with it then,’ Ally insisted, leaning across to peer into Kathryn’s eyes. ‘What was so important that it couldn’t wait?’

Over several days Kathryn had spent countless hours constructing the conversation that she was about to have. The smart, witty opening. The sombre, brooding revelation. The chirpy,
I don’t really care much at all
breezing through of the details. Now, in the moment, she found that she could not speak. Instead, she looked down at her left hand.

Ally’s gaze flicked down to the same hand and she gasped. ‘No!’

Kathryn nodded.

‘When?’

Kathryn shrugged.

‘Why?’

Kathryn took another sip of her latte.

‘How?’

Kathryn finally found her voice again. ‘He doesn’t know yet. I keep the ring on when we’re together.’

Ally’s face folded in upon itself as one hand flew to her mouth. ‘
You’re
leaving
him
?’

‘You don’t have to say it like it’s so ridiculous.’

‘But, I mean, for Christ’s sake Kathryn it’s
Stephen
!’

‘I know who it is.’

Kathryn’s quiet response carried far more weight than she had intended. So much for the carefully imagined responses and elegantly cultivated demeanour she had believed would be required to reveal the greatest catastrophe of her life. In truth, the revelation itself was enough.

Ally’s hand reached out and held Kathryn’s. ‘What happened?’

Kathryn sucked in a breath, felt it quiver slightly as her resolve began to crumble. She swallowed hard and held the grief at bay as she replied.

‘Stephen is seeing somebody else,’ she said.

‘Oh my God,’ Ally uttered. Her grip on Kathryn’s hand tightened. ‘You’re sure?’

Kathryn nodded. ‘One hundred per cent certain. I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about it otherwise.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ Ally acknowledged, her brow furrowed as she examined Kathryn’s features. ‘You want to tell me about it? In your own time, of course. Just tell me what happened, from the beginning.’

Kathryn hid behind her latte for a few moments more and then spoke quietly.

‘I found a key in Stephen’s belongings, when I was searching for some of my own stuff after we moved into the apartment. Stephen has this little lock–box, and he never really spoke about it to me before but it was always just around in his apartment, before we moved in together. I guess I figured it was personal to him, and maybe he’d talk about what was in it at some point.’

Ally’s eyes widened and her lips parted slightly. ‘You opened it, didn’t you?’

It was strange, how although Kathryn had herself been wronged she still felt somewhat ashamed at having betrayed Stephen’s trust. The little mahogany box with its brass lock had always been sitting somewhere in Stephen’s apartment, on a mantelpiece or in a cupboard, never hidden and yet its contents never revealed either.

‘I knew the key looked about right for the box, so I opened it,’ she confirmed.

‘What was inside?’ Ally asked, leaning forward a little, her drink forgotten.

Kathryn sighed softly, staring at the table as she spoke.

‘Jewellery,’ she said, ‘women’s jewellery, and a lock of hair. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but none of the jewellery matched so it belonged to different women. I thought maybe that it all belonged to his mother, but Stephen’s an orphan so I couldn’t be sure and I didn’t want to ask. I knew that it could be something innocent, but it got me thinking.’

Ally nodded. ‘So you started digging?’

Kathryn nodded. ‘Stephen travels a lot and I realised that some of his travel costs don’t quite add up.’

‘In what way?’

‘Gasoline,’ Kathryn explained. ‘Sometimes he drives long distances to business meetings that last days, but the money he spends on gas doesn’t cover the distances so he can’t have travelled that far.’

Ally frowned. ‘Maybe he gets driven by other people while he’s there?’

Kathryn smiled. ‘Yeah, that’s where I went with it for a couple of months.’

‘A couple of months?’ Ally exclaimed. ‘How long as this been going on, honey?’

‘Six months,’ she replied. ‘I never noticed all this stuff until we moved in together and got the apartment. Stephen travels so much that I offered to do his books for him, seeing as I wasn’t working a day job. I had my studies to do but I figured it made sense to help him out, and he seemed really cool about it. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t notice.’

‘Notice what?’ Ally pushed. ‘I take it you got further than gas receipts?’

‘When I looked further, after I realised it was happening most trips,’ Kathryn nodded. ‘He’d say he was off to some city, so I’d figure out roughly how much gas he’d need. He always came back with a bill that was for like, half of that much, so I tried to figure out where he was going. Turns out, depending on how much he had in the tank when he left, that he was always going the same distance away.’

Ally’s gaze was fixed upon Kathryn’s, and she could almost hear her friend thinking hard. Revelation dawned on Ally’s face.

‘Oh my God you followed him, didn’t you?’

‘Can you blame me? I had to know.’

‘Where was he going?’ Ally asked, feigning dispassionate concern but leaning closer to Kathryn with every passing moment.

‘The city,’ she replied, ‘just the other side. I checked the mileage in his car too, and that tallies with the gas used in every trip he’s made in the last year.’

‘The airport is near the city,’ Ally frowned. ‘Maybe he flew the rest of the way each time?’

‘No parking fees,’ Kathryn explained, ‘and no tickets. He would have claimed the travel expenses back just like everybody else.’

Ally frowned again, as though uncertain. ‘Didn’t he used to call you sometimes from other places though?’

Kathryn nodded. ‘I get calls from time to time. He was always so sweet, always asking how I was. I guess I was so enamoured that he bothered to stay in touch all the time that it never crossed my mind to wonder about where he was calling from. When it did I traced the number using the Internet. It’s surprising, to be honest, how easily you can track such things down these days.’

‘Where was he calling from? The city?’

‘No, that’s the thing, he was often calling from hundreds of miles away.’

Ally’s creased features went blank as she stared at Kathryn. ‘Okay, honey, you’re going to have to run this by me again because I’m not following here.’

Kathryn smiled, and this time she held Ally’s hand. ‘It’s not important right now, okay? And I followed him, remember? He didn’t go to the airport.’

‘Where did he go?’

Kathryn sighed.

‘I’ll tell you about it later. Right now I really need you to do something for me.’

Ally appeared not to have heard Kathryn’s response. ‘You can’t tell me all of that and then leave me hanging like this!’

‘I’ll tell you all I can, as soon as I can, okay?’ Kathryn insisted, squeezing her friend’s hand a little tighter. ‘Right now I’m in the middle of something.’

‘Your first day at your new job!’ Ally gasped, horrified. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t ask about it and…’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Kathryn soothed her. ‘I didn’t exactly give you much of a chance, asking you here on such short notice.’

‘Why
did
you ask me here? And what do you want me to do?’

Kathryn felt her jaw tighten as fresh resolve blossomed inside her.

‘I’m going to see just what Stephen’s been up to,’ she replied, ‘and I’m going to make sure that he pays for what he’s done. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone since we got together, earning my diploma, looking after the apartment and his damned books, trying to keep everything in order while he’s been seeing some other damned woman behind my back!’

Ally’s concern melted into delight. ‘You naughty bloody cow! What are you going to do to him?’

‘One thing at a time,’ Kathryn said. ‘I might need you to cover for me here and there. I’m going to follow him again and find out what he’s really getting up to. All I’ll need you to do is cover my back while I’m doing it if he comes calling, and maybe pick up a few things for me.’

Ally quivered, her eyes sparkling with intrigue. ‘What’s your end game?’

‘Later,’ Kathryn promised. ‘But let’s just say the bastard’s going to regret everything he’s done.’

***

7

‘You ever been shopping here?’

Jane Maietta stood in front of the gallery, one of a row of boutique shops with broad windows and fashionably minimalist interiors that lined the swankier end of a massive retail park off 13th Avenue South. Bright interior lighting illuminated the works of art mounted on the walls within.

‘I can’t afford to even look in the damned window,’ Griffin said as he surveyed the gallery. ‘You think they talk English in this place?’

‘Probably not the kind you and I are thinking of,’ Maietta replied as she followed Griffin in through the main door, the glass hissing open automatically. ‘Sheila’s only got one employee, which will make this a little easier.’

The door closed of its own accord behind them and the rush and bustle of passing shoppers was silenced. The interior of the gallery was whisper quiet, like a library that held the world’s most expensive books.

Griffin glanced at a large square canvas adorned with what might have been a sunset or something. He couldn’t really tell, the canvass adorned with a colourful but shapeless smear.

‘What do you make of this?’ he asked Maietta, who was peering deeper into the gallery looking for somebody to talk to.

She glanced over her shoulder at the painting. ‘Looks like pretentious crap.’

‘Yeah,’ Griffin agreed. ‘I’m just looking for the coffee stains right now.’

A voice spoke in a clear, perfect accent in reply. ‘It’s a Germaine Verdant original.’

Griffin turned to see a tall woman in a pale white silk shirt and long trousers with heels striding toward them, the heels clicking against the highly polished tiles. Her head was perched on top of a perfect neck, hair pinned up. Fashionable, square–rimmed spectacles balanced on her tiny nose. Griffin figured he was kind of looking at a work of art again, except this one had taken years to perfect.

‘Verdant, huh?’ he echoed, glancing again at the painting.

‘Impressionistic expression,’ Saira said. ‘The portrayal of the emotion of hope via clean sweeps of vibrant colour amid darkness. It’s one of Verdant’s finest pieces.’

‘Is that so?’ Griffin asked, feigning interest. ‘And what would one of Verdant’s finest pieces set back an ordinary guy who wanted to brighten up his living room?’

Saira managed a small, unconvincing smile. ‘Your house, car and the rest of your life’s earnings. Both of you. Can I help you? I’m Saira, the sales manager here.’

Griffin didn’t bridle at the veiled insult. ‘We came into some money, the honey and me.’ Griffin nudged Maietta and winked at her. ‘Looking to spend some of it here. We were told your boss, Sheila McKenzie, is the woman we need to talk to. She around?’

‘Mrs McKenzie didn’t come into the gallery this morning.’

‘Do you know where she’s gone?’ Maietta asked.

‘Business,’ Saira replied with a smile that betrayed no warmth. ‘She often slips away for meetings and leaves me in charge.’

‘Hell of a gallery,’ Griffin said, ‘hell of a responsibility for somebody so young.’

Saira could not quite conceal the tiny smile that curled from the corner of her lip at the compliment. ‘I’m sure it’s just the light, and yes it is a great responsibility, but Mrs McKenzie trusts me implicitly.’

‘You got any idea when she’ll be back?’ Maietta asked.

Saira frowned. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Has she missed any appointments?’ Griffin asked.

‘Two, both today,’ Saira admitted, and then she peered at Griffin and Maietta. ‘Why do you ask?’

Maietta flashed her badge. ‘Detectives Griffin and Maietta.’

‘Oh my God,’ Saira mumbled, one delicate hand reaching up to touch her lips. ‘Is she all right? I haven’t been able to reach her on her cell.’