What the River Knows (6 page)

“Good luck.” Bates stopped at the coffee pot.

Scott checked his watch. He should be able to get some current addresses and phone numbers before he had to head home for Rica’s party. He pulled the yearbook toward him and clicked into the white pages on his computer.

Bates tapped on his desk. “Trish is here.”

“What?” He looked at his watch again. “Oh, shit.” He hit the keys to shut down his computer, slammed the yearbook closed, and kicked back his chair. “I’m in hot water now.”

Bates paused on his way to the front desk to retrieve Trish. “What do you mean?”

“I was supposed to be headed home ASAP at end of shift, which was—” He nodded toward the clock on the wall. “Over forty minutes ago.”

“Orders from the boss?” Bates frowned.

Scott was almost to the back door. “Dinner with her boss.”

“Get your ass in gear, then, boy.” Bates continued to the front. “I’ll interview Trish.”

Scott barely heard him before the door slammed. He ran to his truck, and was halfway across the parking lot before he had the seatbelt fastened. He paused at stop signs and slid askew into his parking space. He dashed up the stairs; Rica opened the door as he reached for it.

The look she gave him said it all. He’d heard it often enough, she didn’t need to say it. “Sorry.” He brushed past her, stripping off his shirt and kicking off his shoes as he trotted to the shower. He heard the door open just as the water hit the right temperature.

“What was it this time?”

“Got sidetracked looking up leads while we waited on a witness to come into the station.” No way he could come up with a lie that would sound any better—or worse.

“Don’t you have an alarm on your cell phone you could have set?” Before he could answer—it really was a good idea—she spoke. “I have your clothes laid out on the bed. If you hurry, we can be just fashionably late.” She let out a big sigh, as if she had more to say, then the door closed. He shut off the water.

****

“Rica!” Dr. Ambrose held open the door for them, a big smile creasing his mocha latte face. “And you must be Scott.” He offered his hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Complaints, I’ll bet.
Scott returned the handshake. As expected for a surgeon, Ambrose had a long, slender hand with fingers to match. Ambrose and Rica introduced him around, though he had trouble remembering the names they tossed toward him. He just knew that they were all doctors and their spouses, except for an anesthesiologist and his receptionist.

“Would you like a drink, Scott?” Ambrose asked.

Maybe a drink would let him relax and be more social. “Maybe one.”

Ambrose led the way to a bar off the patio. “What’ll you have?”

“Beer?”

“Heineken or Bud Light?”

“Let’s go with the Bud.”

“Bud it is.” Ambrose set the cold bottle on the bar. “Rica tells me you’re working on the murder case.”

Scott took a long swallow. The beer felt good going down. “Yeah.”

“Any leads?” Ambrose smiled when Scott shrugged. “Or nothing you can talk about?”

Scott shook his head. “Just nothing concrete yet.” He took another hit on the beer. “It doesn’t work like on TV.”

“Neither does surgery.” Ambrose came out from behind the bar, carrying his own glass of wine and one for Rica, who was talking to a woman in the family room.

Scott raised his bottle to the doctor. It seemed they had some common ground, after all. Scott followed as Ambrose took the wine to Rica.

“Rica here is my best nurse.” Dr. Ambrose threw an arm around Rica. Scott knew he needed to stifle the surge of jealousy. Ambrose looked down at Rica, and she gazed up at him with admiration in her eyes. He tossed back another slug of beer. She used to look at him that way.

“You make it easy, Bryce.” Rica made no move to get away from Ambrose, and when they started toward the patio, his arm stayed around her shoulders. Ambrose only let go of her when he had to tend the steaks.

Scott had drained the beer, working on peeling off the label, when he realized Ambrose was standing in front of him, speaking. “Scott, how do you want your steak?” Many sets of eyes watched; Ambrose must have had to ask him more than once.

“Medium, please.” He searched the crowd for Rica and saw her beside the grill, still nursing the original glass of wine, her brows forming a storm cloud above her eyes.

“There’s more beer in the cooler by the pool,” Ambrose turned back to his cooking. “Help yourself.”

“I guess I’ll do that,” Scott muttered, so low he could barely hear himself. He wandered over to the cooler, and stood between the anesthesiologist and the wife of one of the doctors, but their conversation was about people he didn’t know. Though he listened for ten minutes, he could find no way to jump in. He tried another group, gathered around the patio table, but their discussion involved surgical research. He found it interesting, but had nothing to contribute. He finished his beer and turned to see if Ambrose had a trash can or recycling bin for it. The receptionist took the empty bottle from his hand and pressed another into it.

By the time Ambrose announced the steaks were ready, she had removed that one from his hand, as well. He grabbed a bottle of water to have with dinner, but when he looked up from his salad, another beer stood beside it. He tried to ignore the beer, but when the water bottle ran dry, he reached for the beer.

Finally, the wife of the doctor sitting nearest him asked, “I understand you’re working on that murder case.”

He nodded. “Yes, we’re on a murder case.”

“The one where the woman was raped and tortured?” Her wide eyes and rapid breathing told him she wanted the sordid details.

“The Delia Enfield case.” He wasn’t about to offer information, sordid or not.

“I heard she was raped multiple times.”

“Rumors run rampant on most cases.”

“So that’s just a rumor?”

“I can’t discuss the case now.” His refusal to offer information shut down conversation with him. After dinner, people drifted into small groups, and he found himself conversing with a ficus tree. He saluted it with the beer that had replaced the dinner one.

“So,” he addressed the silent tree. “Do you just hang out on the patio all day?” The beer went down easy, and his companion asked no questions.

****

The icy silence in the car almost made the air conditioner irrelevant. Scott leaned his head against the window, hoping the ninety-plus degrees outside the car would thaw the way Rica felt about him right now. He felt her gaze upon him. “Rica—” he began.

“Don’t even start, Scott.” She cleared her throat waiting for the light to change. “Not until you sober up.”

“But, Rica, I only had—”

“I don’t care how much you had to drink, Scott.” She punched the gas to pull away from the stoplight and the acceleration pushed him back against the seat. And his stomach into his throat. “The fact is that you had enough to be drunk and stupid.” His head hit the window when she turned the corner onto their street. “Enough to cost me my chance at chief surgical nurse.”

“Rica, I’m sorry.” He wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t form themselves into any order that made sense.

She swerved into her parking space, hit the brakes, hopped out of the car, and slammed her door. Scott opened his door. She stood at the front passenger corner of the car. “Get your ass in the house within the next two minutes or you’ll be sleeping in the car,” she hissed. She spun on her heel and marched toward the stairs.

Scott couldn’t seem to get disentangled from the seatbelt. It wasn’t fastened any more, but it wouldn’t let him go, either. Finally, he more or less fell from the seatbelt and the car. Closing the door, he worked his way toward the stairs. He had to grab the rail to make it to the top. It swayed like a rope bridge instead of the solid staircase he knew it to be. Rica was right; he was drunk.

He got through the door to the apartment, though it took him several seconds to get it locked once he was inside. Rica hadn’t left any lights on, so he fumbled his way to the bathroom. Brushing his teeth proved a challenge, but he completed the task. He turned toward the bedroom only to realize that the door was shut. He stared at the closed door, blinking, for several minutes before making his way to the couch.

Chapter 11

The front door slammed, then the sunlight through the east living room window slapped him in the face. Grasping the top of his head with his hands, he opened his eyes to slits. Sunlight meant it was morning. Morning meant the slamming door must have been Rica leaving for work. Rica leaving for work meant that he still had time for a shower before he had to be at the office. A shower—after coffee and aspirin. Now that the top of his skull seemed to have reattached itself to the rest of his head, he rolled from the couch to the floor, easing to his knees. When the floor stopped spinning, he rose slowly to his feet. That made the floor stand still and his head spin. Soon, though, he made his way into the kitchen. Safe now from the direct sunlight, he stood blinking before the cabinet that held the drinking glasses. Finally, nothing was spinning. He grabbed a glass, then opened the next cabinet to get the aspirin bottle. Shaking two out into his hand, he turned on the tap. He cringed at the sound as the jet of water hit the stainless steel, but he filled the glass, tossed the aspirin down his throat, and chugged the water. Because he knew that too much alcohol led to dehydration, he chugged a second glass. Then he headed for the shower and let the hot steam pull the rest of the toxin from his system.

****

Bates looked up from his desk as Scott walked past him. “You look like shit.” He rose with coffee cup in hand and followed Scott to his desk. “Good party?”

Scott glared at him. “Do I look like it was a good party?”

Bates perched on Scott’s desk. “Not really.” Scott hit the power switch for the computer and took a sip of the coffee he’d grabbed at the McDonald’s drive through. “I had too much to drink, and my behavior pissed Rica off.” He signed on. “She thinks I blew her chance to be chief surgical nurse.”

Bates patted his shoulder. “You’d better stop for flowers on your way home.”

Scott stared at the screen as the system came up. “I think this is more than flowers can fix.”

“Give it time,” Bates advised. “Time and lots of groveling.”

Not inclined to discuss it further, Scott changed the subject. “What did Trish have to say?”

Bates rose from the desk and crooked his finger. “Let’s go to the conference room.”

Scott hopped up to follow him. Before the door closed completely, his question popped out. “So did she have an affair with Moran?”

Bates sat and sipped at his coffee. “Took a while to get her to admit it, but yes.” He drank again, made a face, and set the cup down. “She said he acted all sympathetic to her after the divorce, took her to lunch, and then within a couple weeks, they’d meet after work and sometimes at noon at his ‘fishing cabin.’” He tried the coffee again, with the same result. “It didn’t end until he went on a three-week trip. When he came back, Delia’s divorce was final, and he started working on her. From the way Trish acted, she was kind of glad, though she liked the nice gifts he gave her.”

Scott raised his eyebrows. “So we have two people with motive.” He traced an invisible pattern in the conference table. “Trish if she was really jealous the affair ended and Moran if Delia didn’t cooperate.”

Bates nodded. “Though I don’t think Trish was jealous of Delia. She said that she tried to warn her without giving her details, but Delia either didn’t understand or didn’t believe her.”

“Do you know if Delia went through with it?”

He shook his head. “Trish wasn’t sure. She never figured how to bring the subject up.” He grinned. “She’s not as direct as Shawna.”

“Not many are.” Scott sipped his coffee; his was evidently much warmer than Bates’. “So when can we interview Moran?”

“Three more days. Sandy said he would be back Saturday.” He picked up his cup and headed for the door. “I left word for him to call us.”

Scott, too, rose from the table. “I guess I’ll try to follow up on the leads from home.”

Bates paused. “Good luck. You know as well as I do that if we don’t have a suspect soon, we’ll have something else to work on, and this will go unsolved.”

Not if he could help it; Scott owed it to Delia. And working on this case, even if he had to do it on his own time, would keep him from thinking about how long it would be before Rica cooled down this time. He pulled out the numbers he’d looked up the day after he discovered Delia’s body. He started with Dean Gordon, the football captain who had tackled Kyle. He dialed the number.

“Hello?” A woman’s soft voice answered.

“Scott Aylward here. I went to school with Dean. Is he there?”

“Yes, just a minute.”

In seconds, a rough voice came on the line. “Dean here. Who is this?”

“Scott Aylward. From high school.”

“Oh, yeah.” The voice sounded tired. “You played defensive end.”

“Yeah. Now I’m working for the PD.”

“Oh.” A year older than Scott, Dean had not befriended the lower-classmen on the team.

“What are you up to these days?” As Scott remembered, Dean left school with a football scholarship to K-State.

“Working my ass off for the tractor plant. Just got off shift a half-hour ago.”

No wonder the voice sounded tired. “They keeping you busy?”

“Yeah, since the plant at Greensburg got wiped out by the tornado, we’ve been running three shifts.”

“That sounds tough.” Scott thought Dean had planned to major in biology.

“Yeah, they keep rotating shifts, so it cuts down on the time you have with the family.”

“Kids?”

“Three. Twelve, nine and seven. Two boys and a girl.”

Scott paused. If Rica would have agreed, they would have had kids by now. “That must keep you busier than work.”

“It does. Little league, scouts, gymnastics. Me and the wife spend all our time on the road, seems like.”

“Who’d you marry?”

“Janice, my best girl all through school.” Scott recalled them as pretty well joined at the hip in school.