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Authors: Nancy Bush

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BOOK: Nowhere to Run
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September reached the site where Emmy Decatur had been found and realized the two hikers who’d discovered the body were there and prepped and ready for the camera, too. Pauline was talking to them like they were old friends, and the videographer was standing by, his camera on his shoulder.
Uh-oh. Ambush, September thought, as she pulled her Pilot to a stop at the edge of the gravel access road and climbed out. Spying her, Pauline waved and walked carefully across the field in her expensive-looking black pumps. “Detective Rafferty!” she greeted with a wide smile.
September did a mental inventory of her black pants, black, V-necked T-shirt and light gray, linen jacket. It was sweltering, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to go on camera and have to worry about pitting out. She’d dragged the jacket out of her locker and given it a few snaps to clear the wrinkles . . . she hoped.
“Come on over,” Pauline invited, glancing at her watch. “I’d like to get this tape ready for the ten o’clock news.” She showed September where she wanted her to stand, then said, “We’ve already done the intro, so we’re ready for you.”
September wondered what that intro was. Since the hikers didn’t seem to be setting up, she suspected they’d already spoken.
Peachy.
 
 
If there was one thing Pauline Kirby knew it was good television. When Lieutenant D’Annibal—sly politician-type that he was—had said he would put her in touch with one of the investigators on the Decatur homicide, she’d expected to be given someone who would make the Laurelton Police Department look good, in the public-opinion sense. What she hadn’t expected was to be delivered someone so attractive. Dark auburn hair, large and serious blue eyes, a trim figure that looked hard, as if she worked out regularly, a wide mouth.
And young . . .
It was all Pauline could do not to touch a hand to her hair, though she knew every strand was in place because her hairstylist sprayed the hell out of it.
Little did Detective Rafferty know what she had in store for her. Pauline had friends in high places, all over the region. Well, maybe not friends, exactly, but sources. She even had a few with the Portland PD and had curried favor with someone at Laurelton, too.
As if catching a whiff of what was to come, Rafferty said, “I can’t tell you much more about the investigation than you already know.”
“I just need some corroboration. Darrell . . .” She signaled her cameraman without looking at him. She and Darrell understood each other and there was no need to ask him to set the shot.
He lifted the camera to his eye. They were going hand-held. Gave the video a little more jerky-but-immediate quality that played well to the public. The hikers were off to one side, out of the shot.
Pauline started slowly, getting Rafferty to reiterate the circumstances that brought Decatur’s body to their attention, and also the connection made with Sheila Dempsey. When the detective was a little more relaxed, she asked, “We understand there were markings on the bodies. Words.”
Rafferty’s eyes slid off camera, to where the hikers stood. Then she looked directly at Pauline. “Cause of death was strangulation in both cases.”
“But there were markings . . .” Pauline looked over to the two hikers whom she’d introduced in the intro. “There were words, cut into Emmy Decatur’s torso. ‘Do Unto Others As She Did To Me,’ right?” Brian, the male hiker, nodded and Pauline felt rather than saw Darrell pull back the camera lens to include him. “Can you confirm, Detective Rafferty?”
“Not at this time.”
“You’re afraid of a panic? That people will freak out when they learn there’s a serial killer whose signature is cutting a phrase into his victims’ skin? Well, I think this is information we all need to know.” She looked directly at the camera, her expression super-serious. “Young women are being murdered and their bodies used as a crude message.” She turned back to Rafferty. “What are you doing to protect us, besides keeping the truth to yourselves?”
“There’s an ongoing, full-scale investigation in progress,” Rafferty said smartly.
“Really? Excuse me, Detective, but how can that be, given the other still-unsolved major case, the Zuma Software Massacre? Is that an ongoing, full-scale investigation, too?”
“Yes.” Rafferty’s lips had tightened.
“Do you have the manpower for both? We all know there have been major slashes to government budgets and that includes law enforcement as well. Can you guarantee our safety? I mean, seriously?”
“Laurelton PD, in conjunction with the Winslow County Sheriff’s Department and Portland PD, has qualified personnel working hard on both cases. We—”
“But has progress been made
anywhere?
”
“Yes, of course.”
“On Zuma, or the Do Unto Others killer?”
“Both,” she said. “I’m sure you understand we can’t reveal details that would jeopardize—”
“What about Dr. Frank Navarone?” Pauline asked, almost hearing the descending whistle of the dropping bomb. Blindsided, Detective Rafferty blinked once. Perfect!
Pauline waited, and after a long moment, Rafferty said, “Dr. Navarone is a person of interest.”
“In which case?” Pauline asked, loving it.
“The Zuma Software shootings,” she said after another pause.
Oh, it was delicious!
With that Pauline turned back to the camera and Darrell zoomed in on her face. “It may be just as Detective Rafferty suggests, that the police are doing everything they can—” Her tone suggested otherwise. “—but can we trust our lives to an undermanned, overworked local police force? There’s a killer out there. Likely more than one. Take care and lock your doors. . . .”
 
 
Weasel and Auggie headed up the drive to the garage apartment that Dr. Frank Novato was renting in an older section of southeast Portland. Bubbles stood in pools of tar from broken-down asphalt and they stepped carefully toward the brick walkway that ran to the front door.
Auggie was tense. They had no warrant. This was really a reconnaissance trip; hopefully the doctor would be willing to talk to them. If not, they would have to go through proper channels, and Auggie was already chafing at the time waste, even though it hadn’t happened yet.
“This guy Dr. Frankenstein or Dr. Feelgood?” Weasel asked.
“More like a Freud–Timothy Leary combo, from what I get.”
“And maybe the Boston Strangler?”
“That, too.”
The converted garage apartment was a separate building in front of the main house by about ten yards. The brick walkway was about ten feet from the asphalt drive to the front door. Pampas grass leaned forward like greeters and Auggie pushed at it as he walked to the door, his heart rate elevating. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. His Glock was in a holster under his arm, concealed by the navy jacket he kept at the station for whenever he needed to hide his weapon. With his dark blue T-shirt and jeans under the jacket, he supposed he looked like a guy working “casual Friday.”
Except it was Tuesday.
He knocked and Weasel stood a little in front of Auggie to the left, visible but ready to push his way in if necessary.
There was a long wait, and then the door opened. A man with oiled down gray hair and dark, suspicious eyes stood in the aperture. Dr. Navarone, Auggie thought, his pulse spiking.
“Dr. Novato?” he asked.
“I have a session. You’ll have to come back later.” He tried to shut the door, but Weasel moved quickly, his foot in the way. “I’m not buying anything!” Navarone shouted.
Auggie pulled out his badge and said, “Detective Rafferty with the Laurelton Police Department. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Get a warrant!” He slammed the door against Weasel’s foot.
“We will if we have to,” Auggie warned. “We just want to ask some questions!”
“Fuck you.” This time when he hauled the door back to slam it, Weasel moved back.
Bam!
The door shuddered as it slammed shut.
“Did you see that?” Weasel asked, inclining his head to the apartment.
“You mean the hypodermic on the table, or the woman passed out on the couch?”
“Probable cause.” Weasel was grim.
“Dr. Novato!” Auggie called through the paneling. “I’m calling 911. Open up, or we’ll break this door down! You have till the count of three!”
 
 
Liv was baking in the car. The events of the past week—her head injury, bruises and lack of sleep—all made her feel physically ill. She was parked around the corner from Navarone’s apartment. Part of her was glad to be safely out of range. Another part worried something awful would happen.
Bam!
She heard the sound of a door slamming. She’d rolled down the window and now she stuck her head out, listening. Someone was beating on a door. Then there was yelling. Then
blam, blam.
Gunshots.
Throwing open the door, she was running to the corner, skidding around, before she even considered her own safety. The front door to the apartment was wide open. There was a body lying half-in, half-out of it, a man’s jean-clad legs visible, his upper body disappearing inside.
Auggie . . .
Her heart lurched painfully. No, the shoes were wrong.
Weasel!
Liv ran forward, then stopped, looking around for help. She wanted to run pell-mell inside, but knew what a bad idea that was.
She needed a phone. Auggie had the cell. She glanced around quickly. A house . . . a neighbor . . . everything looked hot and dead and empty.
Somewhere someone was moaning. Then shouts. She heard Auggie’s voice, yelling, “Put it down! Put it down or I’ll shoot. Put it down, so help me God!”
A clunk and then silence. Then a scuffle. And in the distance, the WOO-woo, WOO-woo of an approaching siren.
A moment later a middle-aged man came staggering out of the apartment, hands on his head, shrieking and sputtering, throwing spittle with each syllable. Navarone! Behind him, Auggie had a Glock aimed between the man’s shoulder blades.
“Give me a reason, you cocksucker,” Auggie growled through his teeth. He saw Liv and his mouth hardened even further. “Make a move toward her and I’ll kill you!”
“No, no . . . I don’t know what you want . . . she’s fine . . . she’s fine . . .” He fell to his knees on the brick path, catching himself with his hands. “You’ll pay for this!”
It was Dr. Navarone, Liv thought faintly. It was. From Hathaway House. From the picture.
“Shut up! Shut up!” Auggie yelled as the ambulance screamed down the street and came to a screeching halt. “You shot a police officer, asshole!”
Liv looked over at Weasel, whose legs were moving in pain.
Please,
she thought.
Please . . .
EMTs rushed out of the ambulance and raced to Weasel. A Portland prowler pulled up, spilling out a couple of uniforms who aimed their guns at Navarone and Auggie, until Auggie carefully set his gun down, said, “I’m Detective Rafferty with the Laurelton PD,” and gingerly pulled out his ID.
Chapter 23
By the time September got back from her interview all hell had broken loose around the station. “What? What?” she asked as George and Gretchen were crowded into D’Annibal’s office and the lieutenant was on the phone.
“Pelligree’s been shot. They’ve taken him to Providence.” D’Annibal was grabbing his jacket from the coat tree behind him and smoothing his tie, his actions automatic, his gaze in the middle distance.
“Shit,” September whispered. “Is he all right? What happened?”
“Gunshot wound to the abdomen,” George said soberly. “He’s heading for surgery.”
“Navarone?” September asked, her mouth dry, her heart thundering in her ears. “My God . . . Auggie?”
“He’s fine. He contained Navarone after the doctor shot Wes.” D’Annibal was already halfway out the door.
“I’m going,” Gretchen said.
“No.” D’Annibal stopped. “Stay here. Take the calls. The press is going to be on our necks. “George, Nine . . . both of you, too.”
Then he was gone.
“Jesus,” George said, heading back to his desk and dropping heavily into his chair. His phone rang and he glanced at it dully, picking up and speaking into the phone in a monotone, clearly already answering questions of the press.
Gretchen was staring at the wall, her hands clenched, her slanted blue eyes glittering with suppressed anger. “If Weasel . . . if . . . that fucker hurt him bad . . . maybe . . . killed . . .”
“Don’t say it,” September said soberly. “Just don’t say it.”
 
 
Auggie and Liv were in the waiting room, both of them standing, neither being able to sit still. Auggie’s call to 911 had brought the cavalry, but he was kicking himself for not being able to stop Navarone before that first wild shot went off and Pelligree took the hit.
“Damn,” he said for about the fiftieth time, but with less energy now as worry replaced fury.
“He’s going to be all right,” Liv said. “No vital organs hit.”
“I took my eyes away. All I saw was the woman. I thought she was dead. But he reached for the gun on the shelf.”
“Auggie, it’s all right. She’s all right, and he’s going to be all right,” she said, parroting the doctor. “She was drugged with some kind of mind expander. Psychotropic drugs. But she’s going to be okay, and Detective Pelligree isn’t going to die.”
D’Annibal appeared through the whoosh of the ER’s sliding-glass doors.
“He’s in surgery?” he asked Auggie.
“Yep.”
“Where’s Navarone?”
“Portland PD took him in. I want to talk to him,” Auggie said pointedly.
“It’s your case. Go after him,” D’Annibal said. He looked to Olivia. “Excuse me, Ms. Dugan, but what are you doing here?”
There was nothing warm and fuzzy about his tone. And while she searched for an answer, Auggie said, “I’ll take her home before I interview Navarone.”
Interior double doors that could only be accessed by a card key or code suddenly opened, allowing a glimpse into further hallways and rooms, and a doctor stepped into the waiting room. Spying Auggie, he came forward and directed his report to him. “Surgery’s going well. We removed the bullet which was lodged in Mr. Pelligree’s hipbone, and cut out a piece of disrupted lower intestine. We’re now stitching him back together. Everything looks good.”
“Thank you,” D’Annibal answered.
“Lieutenant D’Annibal is Detective Pelligree’s commanding officer,” Auggie said as he introduced the lieutenant.
“We should be done soon,” the doctor said with a nod to D’Annibal. “I’ll let you know when he’s out of surgery.”
As soon as the doctor was out of earshot, Auggie said, “I’m outta here.”
“I know you want to crack the bastard’s head into the wall. Be careful. It’s Portland’s jurisdiction,” D’Annibal said.
Auggie made a succinct remark, expressing his feelings, then looked to Liv. “I’m taking you home.”
“To your house,” she corrected him, hurrying after him through the sliding doors and to where he’d parked the Jeep sideways, taking two spots in his hurry.
“My place.”
“I want to go with—”
“Hell, no. Please. Lock the doors. Navarone’s in custody, so you’ll be all right. I can’t take you.”
There wasn’t a lot she could say to that besides, “Can you get him to confess?”
“I’m gonna give it the old college try,” he stated stonily.
September sat at her desk, tapping her forehead with one finger, tamping down her roiling feelings. Gretchen was talking into the phone, her answers growing shorter and shorter and finally she pressed a finger to the connection, severing the conversation in mid-word, as if they’d been accidentally cut off. George was staring off into space.
“I hate this,” Gretchen said.
D’Annibal had called around eight. Wes was through surgery and in recovery and everything looked good. Auggie was interviewing Navarone with the Portland PD and there was really nothing for any of them to do on their end, but nobody wanted to work on other projects or go home yet.
Gretchen looked at the phone, and then over at September. “So, how did that interview go with Kirby?”
“Oh . . .” She’d pushed it to the back of her mind. “Not great. It’ll be on the ten o’clock news. The hikers that discovered the body were there, so she knew about Do Unto Others As She Did To Me.”
Gretchen made a face. “Bound to happen. How’d you handle it?”
“Basically ‘No comment.’ Where she really got me was when she brought up Navarone.”
“Navarone?” Gretchen’s brows drew together in a frown. “You were doing that interview before Auggie and Weasel got to the bastard’s house. How’d she know?”
September shrugged. “It took me by surprise. I said he was a person of interest and left it at that.”
George said, “Pauline Kirby’s got a pipeline into Portland PD. Didn’t D’Annibal say Olivia Dugan threatened the director of that mental outpatient facility, Hargrave House?”
“Hathaway House,” September corrected him. “I didn’t hear that.”
“Me, neither,” Gretchen said.
George nodded. “Oh, yeah. You two were staking out Jaffe. Dugan told the director she had a gun and that she wanted information on Navarone. Scared the shit out of him.”
“Dugan?” September said, surprised. “I can’t picture her with a gun.”
“She didn’t show the weapon,” George said, “so, everybody’s kind of past it now with everything else going on.”
“You think someone at Portland knowingly leaked that information to Pauline Kirby?” Gretchen looked skeptical.
George shrugged. “I’m just sayin’. . . .”
“Kirby’ll be calling you again,” Gretchen said to September. “As soon as she’s sucked ’em dry at the hospital. Just wait.”
“Like today?” September asked tiredly.
“They don’t call her the barracuda for nothing.”
 
 
Auggie’s arms were crossed over his chest and he was leaning against a painted cinder-block wall inside the interrogation room. No frills for Dr. Navarone, who was cuffed and seated in a chair at a table.
The Portland detective on the case was named Curtis. Detective Trey Curtis. Cool, and gruff-voiced and willing to let Auggie run point, which was gratifying that he didn’t have to fight him for it. Curtis was fully aware this was a Laurelton case that had spilled over into Portland.
Auggie had proceeded to fire questions at Navarone who, after explaining and explaining and explaining that he’d thought Auggie and Weasel were going to kill him and that’s why he grabbed the gun and shot wildly, was answering them willingly enough, though he adamantly decreed that he’d had nothing to do with the Zuma shooting, Trask Burcher Martin’s homicide, or anything to do with Olivia Dugan, though he did allow that he remembered her from Hathaway House. When the questions switched to Rock Springs and the strangulations, he grew visibly upset, but he swore that all those old, malicious rumors had been started by Patricia LeBlanc Owens and had nothing to do with him!
Had he been in love with Deborah Dugan?, Auggie asked, which shocked him to his socks, but he finally admitted, yes, he had. But she was married to Albert Dugan and nothing ever happened between them, despite what others may have thought. She wouldn’t betray her wedding vows. Not with him, anyway.
Periodically throughout the interview, the doctor’s eyes rolled around, as if he couldn’t control them. When asked about his behavior, he admitted that he had to take medication himself. That he suffered from an unspecified neurological condition. Auggie recalled Angela Navarone mentioning he had dark moods and had alluded to him having mental problems.
Auggie kinda thought the doctor might just also be a drug abuser, so he brought up Halo Valley and the loss of his license and Navarone started shouting about all those pernicious imbeciles! They never understood his brilliance and technique. If anyone should have their licenses revoked, it was the quacks that worked there, not him!
At this point Detective Curtis said, with more empathy than Auggie would have credited him with, that he had a colleague who’d once felt very much the same way about Halo Valley, an ex-detective with the force. The officer in question had since had a reversal of opinion, but Curtis could understand why Navarone felt the way he did. That calmed the doctor down again and Auggie was able to run Navarone back to the Zuma shootings, but he just kept shaking his head and saying they had the wrong guy. He then asked for a lawyer.
Taking a break, Auggie met Curtis in the outer hallway. “What do you think?” Curtis asked him.
“He’s a lying piece of garbage. But I don’t have anything to tie him to the crimes,” Auggie said, frustrated. “It took him a while to lawyer up, but we weren’t getting anything anyway.”
“You’ve got him for practicing without a license. Whatever drugs he was using gotta be illegal, too.”
“It’s not enough,” Auggie expelled angrily. “But it’ll hold him a while.”
“I’ll talk to Lieutenant Cawthorne. See if he can delay things as long as possible,” Curtis said.
The lawyer, an officious-looking man with wire-rimmed glasses and an annoying habit of looking at each detective a full ten seconds in the face before moving on to the next one, hustled in. Apart from letting them know that calls had been placed to Angela Navarone, his client’s sister, and Glenda Navarone Tripp, his niece, who lived locally, the attorney shut down the interview.
Auggie left the station around midnight and sucked in a long draught of cooler air. He left the windows down as he drove out on the Sunset and to his duplex. When he pulled into the drive his heart clutched a bit: both sides were completely dark. Though it made sense—he’d told Liv to turn off the lights and lock the doors—he had a moment of fear, nevertheless.
He’d given her his extra house key, so he debated whether to just let himself in, wondering if that would scare her. But when he got to the door the porch light went on and she flung the door open, wide awake herself.
“I saw you pull in,” she said.
“Hey . . .”
“Did he say anything? Did he confess?”
“Not yet. But he’s safely locked up.”
“But he didn’t say anything?”
“He will,” Auggie stated positively.
She nodded, gulped, and choked out, “Thank you.”
And then he was through the door and pulling her into his arms and she was responding. It was all they could do to get the door shut and locked, the porch light off and up the stairs to his bedroom.
He thought, inconsequentially,
I love you.
 
 
September had one of the worst night’s sleep of her life. She tossed and turned then woke at four
A.M.
from a dream about carving her initials in a tree, words that morphed to being embedded in the skin of a corpse. No need to look for why she’d had
that
dream. Then she’d fallen asleep again, only to wake up at five on a loud scream issuing from her own lips, a dream that disintegrated into wispy fragments as soon as she was fully awake.
BOOK: Nowhere to Run
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