A Cold Dark Place

Chapter Nine

Tuesday, 3:10 n.M., Cherrystone, Washington

"Isn't this unbelievable, Detective?"

Dr. Sal Randazzo, the Cherrystone High School principal, was a small man with dark, flinty eyes and rounded shoulders that sloped to such an unfortunate degree that he looked more like an oversized bowling pin than a man. His bald head didn't exactly assuage the visual connection. Neither did his pasty white complexion, which belied his Italian heritage. Emily had never liked him much; he seemed high strung and pompous.

She greeted him warmly and took a seat in one of two metal-framed visitors' chairs across from his desk-a desk that seemed to be nothing more than a platform for an array of time-wasting toys. There was a collection of wind-up plastic cars and a miniature Slinky. A pendulum with six steel ball bearings was still swinging to and fro and softly clacking from his last play session. He also had a Chia Pet in the form of a man with a pate in the same hairless condition as his own. A few half-dead alfalfa sprouts bent toward the sunlight that streamed from a pair of floor-to-ceiling office windows.

Randazzo smiled sheepishly when he caught her looking at the Chia Pet. "That's me, I guess"

"I think it's sweet and a little funny," Emily said, though she really didn't. She changed the subject. "I guess you realize I'm here about Nick Martin."

"Yes, I thought so. Coffee?"

"No thanks. I had the world's worst mocha on the way over here"

Randazzo tugged at the knees of his pants as he bent down to sit. He wore a gray flannel suit, probably from JCPenney.

"We're hearing all sorts of things," he said. His eyes fixed on her. "Do you think he killed his family?"

"We really don't know what happened"

"But you can tell me what you think, can't you?"

Emily kept her eyes riveted to the principal. "You know I can't"

"Interesting how the police never want to share information with us and anytime our kids breathe on the wrong side of the road, you're here in riot gear and tasers ."

"Sorry. I know it seems unfair. I'll take that coffee after all."

Randazzo frowned and buzzed his secretary and she instantly appeared, smiled thinly, and deposited a badly stained plastic mug of tar-colored coffee.

"What can I tell you?" Randazzo gripped a file folder and drummed his fingertips lightly on it. "I probably can't tell you what you want to know. Brianna's Law, you know."

Of course, Emily knew about Brianna's law. As a mother she was fine with it, but as a cop, the whole idea that kids had some rights to privacy in the middle of a murder investigation seemed completely ludicrous.

The rules had changed after what happened to Brianna Lewis, a twelve-year-old schoolgirl from Yakima, Washington. She was picked up at school by a supposed caregiver and subsequently was raped, beaten, and left for dead. The alleged caregiver, a pedophile who'd seen her at the local mall and trailed her to the school, got her name from the bus driver. The girl's name got him into the office and more information from a helpful clerk. Before anyone caught on, Brianna had been abducted by the creep who stalked her.

Law enforcement officials theorized that the girl went with her captor because he knew so much about her, her parents, her life. He got all of that from a school district file. The laws in Washington State were hastily rewritten to squelch any possibility of any more Briannas. School information was locked up and not shared with anyone-not even parents-without a court order. Cops without kids hated it. But the law was the law.

Randazzo continued to drum his fingertips on the manila folder. Emily wasn't sure if it was a nervous habit, or if he was taunting her. She decided it was the former. Randazzo was kind of a nervous little guy.

"You probably want to know everything in this file," he said.

Emily nodded. "That would be nice."

"I can only tell you what's allowed under Brianna's Law, you know."

"Fine. But I'll be back with a subpoena in twenty-four hours. Do you really want me to go through all of that trouble, and let this kid do more damage? That would be on you, you know."

"Don't get cranky, Detective."

"You haven't seen cranky, Dr. Randazzo."

"Don't be formal. Our families have been friends for years"

Don't remind me, she thought, but said, "Yes, I know, Sal. We all are a part of the Cherrystone family."

Randazzo opened the file and held it to his chest, like a poker player. His eyes started to scan the documents.

"Nick's a good kid. Basically. He's been written up for smoking a couple of times, but nothing else."

"Teacher complaints? Concerns?"

Randazzo sat quietly, absorbed in the contents of file.

"One," he said, finally. "And I'm only telling you this now to speed up the investigation. I want the subpoena here in the morning. CYA and all that stuff."

"Certainly."

"Last Thursday he was excused to go home early because of a family emergency and he didn't come to school Friday. Let's see, the family didn't call to say he was home sick. So when we called Mrs. Martin, she said he was home with the flu."

"I see" Emily knitted her brow. Sure she understood what Randazzo was saying, she just didn't get why he thought it was so confidential, or even particularly noteworthy.

"Mrs. Murphy, our attendance secretary, sent an SCM to the office on Thursday."

"SCM?"

"Student Concern Memo," he said, his tone now somewhat smug. He leaned back and folded his arms over his chest, his suit jacket riding up over his round shoulders. "Part of the big CYA we all have to do in the event some parent wants to sue us later."

"More Brianna's Law?"

"I guess so. Hard to keep up with all those hoops, rules, goddamn laws, we have to juggle when all we want to do is a good job with their kids."

His pontificating sounded phony, but Emily acknowl edged his frustration with a knowing shrug. "So what did Mrs. Murphy say?"

"She said Nick went home because of a family emergency."

"What emergency?"

"I don't know and that's not the point. What I'm getting at is that the SCM follow-up indicates the call to the Martin place turned up `sick with the flu, out again for the second day.' But he didn't have the flu on Thursday. Why would his mother send him to school, then call him out of class later if he had the flu?"

Emily thought the same thing. She also wondered something out loud. "Just what in the world was the family emergency?"

Tuesday, 4:00 P.M.

Jenna Kenyon stood on her tippy toes and pushed the broad edge of butcher paper flat against the brick wall, a tape gun at her side. She and Shali Patterson were doing their best to try to create a poster proclaiming FOOD AND BLANKETS FOR THE PEOPLE OF OUR `TWISTERED' TOWN. The block lettering shrank precipitously as it moved across the paper when the writer quickly saw that there was not enough room for the lengthy message. A gift from the custodial staff, a box that had held a new dishwasher, was positioned below it. It was empty. Jenna could barely keep focused on the task at hand. She heard from one of the girls in the attendance office that her mother was in talking with Dr. Randazzo after lunch. Hell, within the hour, everyone knew.

"I wish you hadn't volunteered us for this," Shali said from the opposite end of the sign, now drooping precariously from the middle. "I could be watching TV now or chatting online."

Jenna sighed. "Tell me about it. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"That was yesterday when we didn't know an entire family was used for target practice."

"I wish my mom blabbed more about work, so I knew what was going on"

"Yeah, you'd be my pipeline to Inside Edition" Shali let out a laugh and hoisted herself up on a borrowed cafeteria table to tape the middle section of the banner. The table wobbled and she caught herself before falling.

"Like I could tell you anything. Like my mom would tell me anything. She never does. Never has. Sometimes it makes me so mad"

"Get over yourself. We already know what happened. Nick Martin wasted his family, high on meth probably. I've read about it. Those freaks do whatever. You know?"

Jenna didn't. Not really. She liked Nick. She thought he was sweet. "I don't think we should rush to judgment"

Shali made a face and put her hand on her hip in mock disgust. "Doesn't take a Fox news analyst to put two and two together to tell you who did what. I'd say the person who ran away is the one who did the shooting."

Jenna tossed Shali the tape gun and stepped down from the table. The banner looked good, but it dawned on her that someone would change TWISTERED to TWISTED before the day was done. She also knew Shali made sense, for once. Even so she knew that Nick Martin didn't have the soul of a killer. She was sure of that.

"You don't know Nick. I do. I sat next to him for half a year. The guy has some weird ideas. He's been through a lot. But he's basically decent."

"I'll bet Laci Peterson thought the same thing about her husband Scott"

Tuesday, 4:45 P.M.

The City and County Safety building had once been city hall, before a bond was passed in the mid-1960s and a new government office was built. The old brown masonry building with a handsome limestone crown made the building look like a baker's nightmare with piped-on swirls of white glaze-a wedding cake run amok. It was old, dank, and reeked of Pine-Sol and urinal cakes. Sheriff Brian Kiplinger's office overlooked Main Street. Next to his was Emily Kenyon's, a smaller, but serviceable, space that indicated with its lesser dimensions who was the top dog in the office. She kept a spotless library table desk behind which she was seldom seen. She was what the staff called a "walker," a person who just can't sit behind a desk. Itchy feet. Short attention span. The truth was Emily had battled lower back pain for years. The only relief was getting up off her butt and moving around. She never mentioned it because she didn't think it was anyone's business. Besides, people hated a complainer. She knew she did.

She nodded at Kiplinger, ensconced in his over-Rotary Clubbed and -Kiwanised space. There wasn't a bit of room for another plaque touting the sheriff's relentless community involvement. A two-year-old Easter lily that Emily was sure would bloom a second time if he took care of it sat glumly on a bookcase brimming with the minutia of law enforcement-binders, binders, and more binders. Kiplinger was on the phone, but he waved her in and covered the mouthpiece.

"It's Good MorningAmerica," he mouthed. A broad smile spread across his handsome face. "Guess who's going to talk to Diane Freaking Sawyer tomorrow?" He beamed.

Emily smiled back. "That would be you, I'd say."

"Be sure to watch. Got a stack of messages on your desk. You can have the next big one," he said.

Emily didn't care about the media, be it Meredith Viera or Matt Lauer. None of them. She cared about two things. Finding out where Nick Martin was and getting a good night's sleep. She returned to find a deck of pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT slips by her phone. The office secretary, Sammy Jo McGowan, had placed them in perfect chronological order: KREM TV, KING TV, and Northwest Cable News. (Seeing that one, Emily was sure it would be one of the "biggies" that Kiplinger would leave for her to handle once his preening with one of the national TV divas was finished.) The stack went on: Cherrystone High School, Mark Martin's office, the reporters from the local and Spokane newspapers, and even a guy from a Seattle radio station. The last was a message from Cary McConnell: "Call me! We need to talk!"

Emily separated the phone message slips into three piles: Call back, give to sheriff, and toss in the trash. McConnell's note was destined for the third pile. That was easy. The media calls were designated for the sheriff, leaving Emily actual potential leads. She dialed the number for Mark Martin's office and got his administrative assistant, Maria Gomez, on the line.

"Detective Kenyon," Maria said, her fluty voice, suddenly raspy with emotion, "I knew something was wrong. Mr. Martin got a call from home and was told to get there right away. That was on Thursday. He left like a bat out of hell. Friday morning he didn't come in ... and oh, then the storm, and well, I didn't even think about them until Monday morning."

Emily could tell from her voice that Maria had started to cry.

"It's all right," Emily said, "you had no way of knowing."

"But I did," she said. "I knew something was wrong. Mr. Martin has never left like that. Ever. He's never missed a day of work without calling in. I should have gone over there or something. Called the police."

This was typical of the last person to see a victim alive. Second-guessers, Emily called them. They were right up there with the neighbor who didn't have a clue what the guy next door was up to. She called them "mushroomers" because they claimed they were completely in the dark. In reality, they wanted to be in the dark. Being aware that the neighborhood's cat and dog population was being served at the church potluck was too much to take.

"Did he say anything about the call to come home? What did Peg say?"

"It wasn't Peg"

"Who was it?"

"He didn't say. He just asked to speak to Mr. Martin."

"Was it Nicholas?"

"Oh no. I know Nicky's voice. This one ... this one I'd never heard"

Emily thanked Maria and hung up. She was mystified. What was going on over at the Martins'on Thursday that had both Mark and Nick leaving early?

She looked at the clock. It was time to get home to Jenna.