Reclaim My Life Page 3

  “What time was this?”

  “We’d agreed to meet at six. I was about ten minutes early. Anyway, Kris and I ordered iced tea—” She gave him a brief smile. “Not the alcoholic variety. I told you we were real party animals. Anyway, we had our drinks by the time Cathleen came in. Sunny arrived last, right at six. You sure you want all these details?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Well, I think Cathleen ordered a Diet Coke. Sunny wanted ice water with lemon. I think. I mean, how important is it to know what we ordered?”

  “Tell me everything. I’ll decide what’s important.”

  The contents of Cathleen’s stomach, for instance, could help determine how long after Friday’s dinner she’d died.

  “I ordered one of those big fried Vidalia onions and shared it with everyone for our appetizer. Then our waitress, whose name was Joyce—I remember because we ask for her anytime we go to the Lantern. She’s great.”

  “I know her.” He made a note to question Joyce Winston. Her husband, Devon, was one of Wil’s deputies. “So what about Joyce?”

  “She told us about the special, which was deep-fried catfish fillets with cheese grits, green beans, and sliced tomatoes. Cathleen and I got the special, Kris ordered the barbeque chicken plate—I believe that came with slaw and fries—and Sunny ordered hamburger steak with mashed potatoes smothered in a mushroom-and-onion gravy.” She paused, then added, “Cathleen and I chose wisely. The catfish was amazing.”

  He jotted down details of the meals. At least the women weren’t obsessive dieters on their night out. On second thought, he’d never seen Elizabeth fixate on dieting. She seemed comfortable with her curves. In fact, there didn’t seem to be a vain bone in her body, which was one more thing to like about her.

  Focus, pal. “What did you talk about during dinner?”

  “Gasoline prices and whether we were better off to visit the nearest mall in Valdosta or pay shipping prices and order online.” At his nod, she continued. “I said I preferred mail-order because even if it didn’t save money, it saved time. Sunny and Kris agreed that I failed to grasp the female ritual of going shopping. Cathleen contended that frequent online shoppers were often rewarded with a free-shipping offer, in which case she sided with me. And your eyes are glazing over.”

  He grinned. “Are not. I’m fascinated, really.” Unfortunately he’d heard nothing that helped his murder investigation. “What else did you discuss? Seriously, it could be important.”

  “All right. Let me see.” She chewed her bottom lip and frowned. “We discussed our … this is a bit embarrassing—”

  “Sorry, but I need to know.”

  Elizabeth removed her glasses, rubbed her eyes, then slid the glasses back on. “We debated at what age a woman should give up on having children. You see, only Sunny is married, and she’s the youngest of us at twenty-nine. The rest of us are on the downhill side of thirty-five, and you know what they say about the ol’ biological clock.”

  He resisted asking her if she wanted kids. He’d be forty in a few weeks and felt time running out on his own opportunity to settle down and raise a family. Such talk wouldn’t further his interrogation of Elizabeth, however. “Do you know if Cathleen Hodges was involved in a relationship?”

  “She said she wasn’t. Neither is Kris or I, which is why the topic came up. Even if we met Mr. Right this year, we figured we’d be forty before the courtship, wedding, and pregnancy ran their course. And none of us has found Mr. Right, which became our next topic of conversation: Men.”

  He looked up from his notebook to see if she was smiling. She wasn’t. He’d love to know the story behind her frown but couldn’t afford to be sidetracked now. “Go on.”

  “Kris and I agreed that after ridding ourselves of losers, we weren’t going to try marriage again—”

  “You were married?” The question slipped out before he thought better of it.

  “No, Kris was. I had a dangerously close call but broke the engagement.” She didn’t seem to mind the question but volunteered no more.

  “What about Cathleen Hodges?”

  “No, she’d never married. She told us her animals were children enough for her.”

  “Did Cathleen mention dating anyone after moving here? Or any old boyfriends who might’ve come calling?”

  “Not Friday night, but wait a minute.” Elizabeth grabbed the sides of her head with both hands. “Oh, God, this could be important! She once said she’d been in an abusive relationship a couple of years back. She’d had to take out a restraining order on the guy but still didn’t feel safe. Finally, she’d moved halfway across the country to get away from him. But she didn’t mention his name, and she said she hadn’t heard from him since she relocated.”

  Wil wrote down the information. He would run a check on her veterinary license and track her back to her former location. “She say where she was from?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I thought she moved here from Auburn, Alabama, but now I don’t think so. I think that’s where she attended vet school.”

  Wil tried to remember his one visit to Hodges Animal Clinic, when he’d taken his golden retriever for her rabies vaccine. He’d seen a diploma on the wall. What university was it from? It’d be easy enough to search the premises. He made a note to have Brady secure the vet’s office. It’d give his deputy an excuse to string more yellow tape.

  “What time did she leave the restaurant?”

  “We all left together. It must’ve been about seven thirty or so. There were people waiting for a table, so we paid and went to the parking lot, where we chatted another few minutes. Then we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.”

  Wil scribbled, catching up with his notes. He should’ve brought his recorder but had left it in his desk. He’d not started his day planning for a homicide investigation, but that didn’t excuse his ill-preparedness. Law enforcement officers couldn’t afford the luxury of complacency.

  “When you left, did you notice where Hodges was parked? See her get into her car?”

  “She parked next to the street, the first slot off Main.” Elizabeth stopped for a moment and frowned. “If someone had been hiding in the back of her minivan, we couldn’t have seen him.”

  The missing person’s report included a description of the victim’s minivan. “Anything else you remember her saying, either Friday night or anytime that might help us find her killer?”

  “No. In fact, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her. Everyone seemed to like her, and she was building a good veterinary practice here. She was as gentle with people as she was with animals.”

  “Well, some animal murdered her.”

  She nodded. “I wish I knew more to help you catch him.”

  He handed her a business card. “Call if you remember anything else, okay? Anything.”

  Frowning, she stared at the card and nodded. “I will, but I’ve told you everything.”

  At a loss to explain why, Wil left the interview discouraged. Sure, he had a couple of leads, but what was Elizabeth Stevens not telling him?

  Thank God, he’s gone.

  Groaning, Elizabeth removed her glasses and scrubbed her face with both hands. All energy drained from her body at Wilson Drake’s departure, and she slumped over her desk. She’d hardly expected one of her new friends to be murdered! What was she—a jinx?

  She reached for the end of the braid she no longer had. Even after more than a year, she cringed when she caught her reflection in a window or mirror. Instead of the image of what her brother called a “reed thin” body, she saw an inflated version of herself, wearing scholarly glasses and a ghastly wig. Except it wasn’t a wig. She’d donated her long, chestnut mane to the Cancer Society and bleached out what remained.

  She knew she couldn’t remain in Kentucky with a price on her head. She’d accepted the offer of entering the Witness Security Program, but she’d underestimated the sacrifices she’d make to stay alive. She’d committed no crime y
et lived far removed from all she knew and loved, possibly never to return, taking on a new identity and all it entailed.

  How fair was that?

  How ironic that she now ran the drama department. She’d mastered wearing a mask and acting the part of a fictitious character. So ingrained was her new name and invented biography, she’d all but forgotten she was born Sofia Desalvo. She thought of herself only as Elizabeth Stevens, dowdy professor of English. If she indulged in remembering the woman she used to be, she might slip up and betray herself. Her handler made it clear that she had to stay in role at all times and trust no one.

  The U.S. Marshals selected Drake Springs because of its low profile and nonexistent crime rate. They’d assured her no hit man worth his salt would dare venture there. He’d stand out worse than Joe Pesci in Alabama in the movie My Cousin Vinny. She tried to tell her handler that the man who wanted her dead wouldn’t hire a stereotype. No, the pillar of the Lexington community and well-regarded physician attended church, belonged to all the right charity organizations, and was a bona fide Kentucky Colonel. His thugs would fit right in anywhere in the southeastern United States.

  She’d requested California, preferably San Diego, where the weather was perfect and she could lose herself amongst millions of its citizens. Or Anchorage, Alaska, too far from Kentucky for the crime syndicate to bother. But according to her handler, her Southern accent was too difficult to change in a short time and would surely give her away. She’d given up her business and profession, severed all contact with her past, and memorized a new life story. Now here she sat, right where a killer had slain a woman about her age. A veterinarian, no less.

  Oh. My. God. Suddenly a thought so frightening, so awful, seized her, shaking her body with a terrible quaking. Their witness was a thin, brunette veterinarian. Could it be? Had Sullivan’s men traced her to Drake Springs, Florida, and then killed the wrong person? If so, Elizabeth was partially responsible for the death of Cathleen Hodges.

  She fumbled with the combination lock on her briefcase, opening it on the third try. Digging out her cell phone, she turned it on to check for signal strength. Cell towers were scarce in this part of Florida, but she managed to get a call through to her handler only to be told to call back from a landline. In her turmoil, she’d forgotten about the rule against calling wireless. She redialed from her desk phone, then related what little she knew about the murder of her friend.

  “Agent Cory, she’s a veterinarian and is very similar in appearance to me, or the former me. Don’t you think I should tell the sheriff what’s going on?”

  “We can’t take that risk, Elizabeth.” The use of her new name sounded strange coming from him, although he’d been the one to emphasize the importance of never using her real name. She’d mastered saying Elizabeth Stevens. “The state agency is aware of your situation and can run interference with the locals. You keep quiet.”

  “Sure, all right. But is it possible my cover’s blown and I was the intended victim?”

  “We have no intelligence to support that. But keep me informed. Be careful.”

  She ended the call. Talking with her WitSec handler had not eased her anxiety. “Be careful,” he’d said. Great. She lived life walking a tightrope. How much more careful could she be?

  The desk telephone jingled, startling her with its shrill tone. “Professor Stevens.”

  “Hi, Liz. Just calling to remind you about din-din tonight.” For unexplainable reasons, Sunny Davis insisted on calling her “Liz,” just as she called Cathleen “Cat.” She’d been unable to shorten Kris’s name, so Kris had escaped getting one of Sunny’s cutesy nicknames. It might have been her way of coping with a moniker like “Sunny.”

  Elizabeth had forgotten about tonight’s dinner and everything else except Cathleen’s death. “What time again? Six?”

  “Come over whenever you want, but we’ll probably eat at six.”

  Big surprise. Sunny always wanted to eat dinner at six.

  “I’ll be there. I’m bringing dessert, though.”

  “Ian’s cooking. I’ll tell him. Hope you like spaghetti.”

  “Love it.” She almost said, “Are you kidding? I’m Italian.” But Elizabeth Stevens was not Italian. “I’ll see if the IGA Market carries spumoni.”

  Sunny snorted. “Good luck. Just bring any kind of ice cream.”

  She paused, then quietly said, “I suppose you heard about Cathleen.”

  “That she’s missing? Yeah. That’s so strange—”

  “No, she’s—” she could barely get the words out. “Oh, God, Sunny … she’s dead.”

  “Shut up!”

  “I’m serious. Someone murdered her. The sheriff questioned me about Friday night. That’s the last anyone saw her. He’ll be talking to you and Kris, too.”

  “I can’t believe this. Who’d want to harm that nice woman?”

  “That’s what I said. I can’t imagine.” But she could imagine, and the possibilities chilled her.

  No matter what her handler had said, Elizabeth could’ve been the intended target. If so, what happened next, when Sullivan realized the witness against him was still alive? She shivered as if someone had just “walked over her grave”—another favorite expression she’d learned from Grandma.

  This time her grandmother’s proverbs offered no comfort.

  Wil left Foster County High School, where he’d questioned Kris Knight in the faculty lounge after school, and headed for his Jeep. He’d learned little to help his investigation, but he had one more of the victim’s dinner companions to interview. He had an appointment with Sunny Davis later in the evening at her home. He could’ve gotten to her earlier if he hadn’t spent time on the computer.

  His gut had told him to look closer at Elizabeth Stevens. Or maybe it was another part of his body. Torn between wanting to know her better and wanting to know more about her, he’d searched through both internet and law enforcement files to find any records on her. When he had more time, he’d dig deeper, but at least he knew she didn’t have a record. So why did she seem uncomfortable with conversations about her past? Or was he being insensitive to her grief? After all, she’d lost all of her family not long ago. She’d moved to Florida to escape painful reminders of the tragedy.

  He climbed into his Jeep and started the engine so the air conditioner could tackle the oven-temperature interior while he went to work scrubbing off dead love bugs. Within a minute, he’d worked up enough perspiration to dampen his uniform shirt, and soon he’d removed all the bugs’ carnage. During the months of May and September, the mating black insects plagued afternoon motorists throughout Florida. Natives prepared themselves by carrying squeegees and window cleaner.

  By the time he plopped down in the driver’s seat, the interior had cooled. Checking the battery level on his cell phone, Wil grabbed his DC adapter and plugged it in. His phone had gotten a heavier workout than usual today, thanks to the Hodges homicide. He plugged in the charger and immediately got another call.

  His brother’s voice greeted him. “Wilson, did you forget dinner?”

  “Sorry, Sam. I’ve been investigating a murder.”

  “I heard. Listen, you still need to eat. Meet me at the Sub.”

  “The Sub?” Wil would sooner grab a stale vending machine sandwich than dine at the student union building surrounded by noisy teenagers. “What happened to meeting at the Lantern?”

  “I’m not the one who forgot. In fact, I’m calling from their parking lot.”

  Wil was a mere fifteen minutes late, but Sam wasn’t a patient guy. “Go back inside and grab us a table. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

  Wil disconnected. Except for the occasional dinners, he’d not spent time with his brother for a while, but he wasn’t above mixing business with pleasure. He might be able to catch Joyce Winston and question her about Friday night. Waitresses—especially experienced ones like Joyce—had their fingers on the pulse of a restaurant better than anyone.

  He parked b
eside Sam’s Saturn, left his phone plugged in to charge, then headed inside. Sam already had a tall glass of iced tea waiting for him, for which Wil was grateful. He slid into the booth across from his brother. Not even two years apart in age, Sam and Wil could’ve passed for twins, except for their hair color. Sam had his dad’s red hair, whereas Wil had his mother’s fairer coloring. Their younger sister favored their mother but had the Drake flaming-red hair.

  “Thanks for waiting. It’s been one helluva day.” The sugary tea was too sweet for Wil’s taste, but the icy liquid quenched his parched throat.

  “Did you know the woman who was killed?”

  “I’d met her. She was nice. Sophie liked her.”

  Sam chuckled. “That adorable mutt loves everybody, doesn’t she?”

  “She must. She puts up with me.” He finished off the iced tea and sighed. “Also, she’s good for Dad. He seems to enjoy her company when I’m working.”

  “How is Father?”

  “Good, considering.” Wil resisted suggesting that Sam stop by and see for himself. After all, Sam had been there for their father when Wil hadn’t. “Who’s our waitress tonight?”

  “Louisa. The one you call Weezie. Here she comes with the pitcher of tea.”

  “You’re psychic, darlin’,” Wil said, holding up his empty tumbler for a refill.

  “No, Sheriff, just a terrific waitress.” Louisa Montoya’s black eyes flashed with merriment. She and her husband, Carl, who ran a fuel station and wrecker service on Coronado Street, were expecting a baby and told everyone they met about it.

  “How many more months till the blessed event?” Wil already knew the answer but couldn’t resist the inevitable beaming response.

  “Three. Carl’s already buying him toys for Christmas.” Smiling, she smoothed her denim apron over her pregnant belly. “You guys need a few minutes to decide?”

  Sam answered, “I’m ready. Wilson?”

  “I don’t know why I even look at the menu, Weezie. Just bring me an order of your catfish fillets.” One more thing to remind him of Elizabeth. She shared his appreciation for good catfish.