Bad Karma

Chapter 9

Had the Gibson family home been in Aspen it would’ve made a nice ski lodge. As it was, sitting on a cul-de-sac with a lake view, it was impressive. A big stone Tudor styled to look as if it had been built in Europe during the nineteenth century. An attached four car garage did little to alter the illusion.

Shannon tried the front door, found no one home, then went back to his car to camp out. At a quarter past eleven it was hotter than it had been in Boulder all summer. He had parked in the shade and had the driver and passenger windows rolled down, but even so felt like he was baking in an oven. He was trying to get comfortable in his seat when a police cruiser pulled up behind him.

The cop took his time making his way from his cruiser to Shannon’s door. When he got there, he leaned into the open window and asked if Shannon wouldn’t mind telling him what he was doing there.

“I checked in with the desk sergeant at your North Main Street station when I arrived in Wichita,” Shannon said. “I told him my reason for coming here.”

“Sir, would you mind telling me.”

“Not at all. My name’s Bill Shannon. I’m a private investigator from Boulder, Colorado. I’m looking into Linda Gibson’s murder and am hoping to be able to talk to her parents. If you’d like I could show you my PI license.”

“Yes sir, I think that would be a fine idea.”

Shannon handed him his license. The cop couldn’t have been much older than his early twenties. Medium build with a military-style buzz cut and mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes. He took his time studying the license before handing it back to Shannon.

“Sir, I’d like to ask you how you got those cuts and bruises on your face.”

As polite a manner in which his questions were asked, the cop’s hand still moved an inch or so towards the butt end of his nightstick. “A couple of Russian mobsters tried to persuade me to drop another investigation I’m working on,” Shannon said.

The cop stood motionless for a minute as he leaned into the open window, all the while smiling pleasantly. Then he told Shannon to stay where he was while he checked his story. Taking his time, he sauntered back to his cruiser and spent a while on his radio before coming back to Shannon’s car.

“Sir, you did report in at the North Main Street station as you said,” he told Shannon. “I’d like to ask whether Mr. or Mrs. Gibson expect you here.”

“They’d have no reason to.”

“Wouldn’t it have been common courtesy?”

“I thought it would be better this way.”

The cop kept smiling his pleasant smile. “Now why would that be?”

Completely straight-faced, Shannon looked into the cop’s mirrored glasses and told him that he didn’t call ahead of time so the Gibsons wouldn’t worry unnecessarily. “I don’t think it would be much fun to have to wait several days to be asked questions about your daughter who’s been murdered,” he added.

“Now, that’s good you’re keeping their welfare in mind,” the cop said drily. “And you’re right, they don’t need people coming around here bothering them. I’ll hang around and make sure when the Gibsons do arrive that they’d like to speak with you.”

“I’m impressed,” Shannon said. “Residents here seem to be getting top notch service from their police force.”

The cop ignored him and started towards his cruiser. When Shannon invited him to wait in his car instead, the cop smiled over his shoulder and told him he’d rather not.

“I’ll burn some gas and put the AC on,” Shannon offered. “You can wait in comfort and maybe fill me in a little on this family. And you’ll be helping out a former brother in blue. I was on the force ten years in Massachusetts.”

That slowed him down. Still smiling his pleasant smile he walked back to Shannon’s car.

“You’re not lying now about being a former police officer?”

“What do you think?”

He gave Shannon a hard look, then strolled to the other side and got into the passenger seat. “You said something about turning on the AC,” he said.

Shannon started the ignition, closed both windows and turned the AC on full.

“Again, Bill Shannon,” Shannon said as he offered his damaged hand.

“Eric Wilson,” the cop said as he shook hands. He nodded towards Shannon’s missing fingers, asked if that was why he’d left the force. Shannon told him it was.

“Happen in the line of duty?”

“Yeah, it did.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Wilson said with the utmost sincerity. “Always sorry to hear of an officer going down. Now, what you told me before about Russian mobsters, you were feeding me a line, weren’t you?”

“I wish I were. How about my turn to ask a question?”

“I have a few more if you don’t mind. Who hired you?”

“An interested third party.”

“And who would that be?”

Shannon sighed. “It doesn’t matter. They have a legitimate reason for being interested, and the only thing I was hired to do was find the person or persons who murdered Linda Gibson and Taylor Carver. That’s all I’m doing.”

“This interested third party isn’t a book publisher or movie producer? Or one of the tabloids?”

“Nope. There’s no chance I’d take a case like that.” Shannon showed his damaged hand. “I could get as many book and movie deals as I want from my own story. Ever hear of Charlie Winters?” He waited until Wilson nodded slowly, then went on. “My guess was that you had since Wichita was one of his killing grounds. If I remember right, he and his cousin butchered six people here close to thirty years ago. Charlie Winters is how I lost those fingers. I’m also the guy who killed him. And his cousin, Herbert, twenty years before that.”

Wilson’s smile faded. “Wow.” He took his sunglasses off, stared at Shannon with wide blue eyes. “I knew your name sounded familiar. And I do know about the Winters cousins. Everything that’s been written about them, actually, including all the FBI and police reports I could get my hands on.” Lowering his voice, he added, “One of the people they killed was my aunt.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t born yet when it happened. I never got a chance to know her.”

“I’m still sorry.”

He nodded solemnly. “If you don’t mind my asking, how old were you when you killed Herbert Winters?”

“Thirteen,” Shannon said, his voice sounding tight, unnatural. He cleared his throat and repeated himself.

Wilson rubbed his jaw. “The police report I read kept your name out, probably due to you being a minor at the time. But this explains why the other cousin, Charlie, went after you later.” Thin lines showed on his forehead as he tried to recall more of that report. “The two of them murdered your mother,” he said softly, more as a statement than a question. Shannon didn’t bother answering him.

“Oh my Jesus,” he muttered to himself. Then to Shannon, “Sir, I don’t know what to say about all this except that I’d truly like to apologize for giving you the hard cop routine earlier. I only wanted to make sure you didn’t come here to dig up dirt on Linda. She doesn’t deserve that.”

“There’s no need to apologize, and no need for sirs, either. It’s Bill, okay? And about your concern-that’s not going to happen. Not even a chance of it. You knew her pretty well?”

“Must be obvious from the way I’m acting.”

“That and it wasn’t an accident you showing up here ten minutes after I did. Someone at your station house filled you in about me.”

Wilson broke into a more genuine smile than the artificial pleasant one he had worn earlier. “Don’t be so sure. You’re right, of course, but I could’ve come just as easily as a result of a call from a concerned neighbor. At least if Sergeant Jameson weren’t screening them. A Dodge Neon sticks out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood, and people do pay attention here. More than likely, there’ve been a number of calls already made to the station about you.”

“I’ll remember next time to rent a Mercedes. Why don’t you tell me about Linda.”

Wilson breathed in a lungful of air, let it out in a loud burst. “She was a beautiful girl,” he said. “Maybe the most beautiful I’d ever known. There was something special about her.” He hesitated, added, “And sad too.”

“What do you mean sad?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, as if he were stuck. Like he was trying to remember someone’s name but couldn’t quite get it. “Not sad in that she’d mope around,” he finally said. “Just sometimes you’d catch a certain look in her eyes, especially when she didn’t think you were watching.”

Wilson got very quiet. After a while Shannon asked whether he had dated her.

“Back in high school. She was a freshman then, I was a junior.”

“You two keep in touch?”

“No. We stopped after she went off to college.”

“How about her family life?”

He hesitated. Then with his jaw set, he said, “It was good. Solid. Parents first rate.”

“You two went to a public high school?”

“Yes, we did,” he said, showing a quizzical smile.

Shannon waved a hand towards the stone Tudor in front of them. “These people are wealthy. Why didn’t they send their daughter to a private school?”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

Shannon shrugged. “No, I don’t think so.”

“First off, I’d say the Gibsons are more well-off than wealthy,” Wilson said. “And no, not all wealthy parents send their children to prep schools. Believe it or not, we have excellent public schools in Wichita-better than many of the private schools you can find on either coast.” With a slight smile, he asked, “What makes you think I’m not from a wealthy family?”

“Are you?”

“My dad’s a heart surgeon. He probably does as well as Mr. Gibson.”

“And you ended up a cop. I guess it shows how fucked up rich kids can get when you let them mix with lower middle class runts like me.”

Wilson laughed at that. “Yes sir. I turned out to be a bitter disappointment to Dad. But in a way it’s your fault. I didn’t decide to be a police officer until I found out about Charlie and Herbert Winters, about them being responsible for murdering my aunt.”

A silver Jaguar convertible had pulled into the cul-de-sac and slowed down to a crawl and as it approached the police cruiser. The driver was a blond woman in her late forties with too much makeup and skin that looked like it was wrapped too tight against her skull. Wilson hopped out of Shannon’s car and waved to her. Shannon got out also.

“Hello, Mrs. Gibson,” Wilson yelled to her.

The convertible came to a stop and the driver, with a sour look on her face, peered at Wilson. Slowly recognition hit her and she showed a crack of a smile.

“Is that you, Eric?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“My, my. Eric Wilson. Look at you, a police officer now. I had no idea.” She gave Shannon a quick glance. “Eric, is there any trouble here?”

“No ma’am. This man is a private investigator from Colorado. He’s looking into Linda’s murder.”

“Is that so?” She looked back at Shannon and gave him a halfhearted smile. The way the sunlight hit her, Shannon felt almost as if he was wearing x-ray glasses and could see the skull beneath her flesh. As it was, he had no trouble making out the patchwork of thin blue veins which crisscrossed her temples. He nodded to her. “I’ve been hired to find the persons responsible for your daughter’s death. I’m hoping you can give me ten minutes of your time. If you’d feel more comfortable, I’m sure Officer Wilson would be willing to sit in with us.”

Wilson seemed surprised at being included, but said that would be fine with him.

Mrs. Gibson gave Wilson a patronizing smile and told him that wouldn’t be necessary. Turning back to Shannon, she agreed to give him ten minutes. “Although I’m not sure what good it would do,” she said. “I don’t know what I could possibly tell you that I didn’t already tell the Boulder police. But if you require ten minutes from me, fine. Meet me at the front door.”

Before pulling away, she smiled at Eric and told him to stop over at the house some afternoon, that she’d like to catch up with him. “I’m surprised you didn’t come to the funeral,” she said, her smile cracking a bit. Wilson mumbled an apology about that, saying he had to work that day. “That’s okay, dear,” Mrs. Gibson said. “I do remember receiving your flowers and note. They were very sweet. Please do stop by sometime.”

Wilson nodded. He watched stone-faced as Mrs. Gibson drove into her driveway and parked in the rightmost garage space. After the garage door closed behind her, Wilson extended his hand to Shannon.

“I need to thank you for what you did to both of those Winters cousins,” he said. “I can only hope they’re rotting in hell.”

Shannon nodded, taking his hand.

Wilson looked down at the ground a bit sheepishly, added, “Before you leave Wichita, could I maybe buy you a cup of coffee and pie somewhere? I’d like to ask you a few questions about them.”

“I’ll answer any questions I can, but I’d rather give you my cell phone number and have you think about it for a few days.” Shannon sighed, started to rub the joints around his missing fingers, caught himself and stuck his hands in his pockets. “There’re things about them you’re probably better off not knowing. My advice, try to remember that your aunt’s in peace now and there’s nothing Charlie or Herbert Winters can do anymore to change that.”

He ripped a sheet from his notepad, scribbled his cell phone number on it and handed it to Wilson, who took the paper and put a finger to his eye as if he were rubbing dirt from it.

“What time’s your flight back to Colorado?” Wilson asked.

“Five-o-eight.”

“I’ll think about what you said.” He turned his gaze away from Shannon. “I still might call you this afternoon.”

Wilson rubbed the back of his hands across his eyes, nodded in Shannon’s direction and slowly walked back to his cruiser. He honked twice at Shannon as he drove off.

Mrs. Gibson was waiting for Shannon at the front door. He had to squint hard to see a trace of her daughter in her. She was probably the same height and weight as Linda had been, but she was more bony than thin. She had on low-rise designer jeans and a tight blouse exposing her belly button. From a distance, she might’ve been able to pass for her twenties but up close she looked every bit her age. With all her facelifts, Botox and collagen injections, she hadn’t succeeded in shaving much, if anything, from her age.

“Who hired you to do this?” she demanded.

“Taylor Carver’s mother-”

“I don’t believe that woman would spend a dime hiring you!”

“I don’t believe so either. But she’s suing the owner of the condo that your daughter and Carver rented.” Shannon explained the whole story to her.

“Simply unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “I swear that woman must be pure white trash. And that’s the family Linda had to get involved with. Par for the course with her.” She stepped aside, letting Shannon enter past her. “I promised you ten minutes and I’ll give you exactly that.”

She led Shannon from a marble foyer into a room that could’ve been a small modern art museum. The room was large and the ceiling high enough to hold a basketball court. The walls were covered with modern abstract paintings. Shannon spotted Picasso’s signature on a watercolor of naked women done in blue and orange, but the painting that stopped him was one of a temple resting on a foundation of prayer books and pages that had been torn from them.

“My husband collects those,” Mrs. Gibson said to Shannon as she sidled up next to him. “I couldn’t tell you a thing about any of them. Follow me and we’ll talk in the kitchen. You have eight and a half minutes left of the ten I promised you.”

She led him through a living room, then into a kitchen larger than Shannon’s apartment back in Boulder. The living room walls displayed more artwork and family photographs were scattered about on tables and built-in shelves. Most of the photos were either of Mrs. Gibson alone or with her husband. A few had a teenage girl that he didn’t recognize. She was blond like Linda, but had a squarer face that was shaped more like her mother’s.

The kitchen he’d been taken to was all glass and stainless steel. Mrs. Gibson directed Shannon to sit at an oval-shaped glass table and asked if he’d like anything to drink. He told her water would be fine.

“Mineral or flat?” she asked.

“Whatever comes out of the tap.”

She smiled at that, took a bottle of San Pellegrino water from the refrigerator and handed it to Shannon. “I think you’ll enjoy this a tad more,” she said as she took a chair diagonally across from his.

Shannon took out his miniature tape recorder and asked whether she’d mind if he recorded their conversation. She told him she’d prefer he didn’t. He hesitated, but turned the recorder off and put it away.

“Those ten minutes were asked for figuratively,” Shannon said. He tried smiling at her but a dull ache from his jaw ruined it. “I’d hope you’d be willing to spend more time if it meant finding the persons responsible for your daughter’s death.”

“You hoped wrong, Mr. Shannon. As far as I’m concerned, Linda’s responsible for the choices she made and any consequences that followed. I’m through beating myself up over them.” She gave Shannon a thin, condescending smile. “Oh, I can see from your expression that you’re judging me as an awful mother. That’s your choice, but I’d suggest you have a daughter like Linda and then judge me. Besides, how do I know you’re any good as a detective and that my talking to you isn’t a complete waste of my time?”

“You don’t. I can tell you I solved a fair amount of cases when I was a police detective for six years. And unfortunately, more than my share of murders.”

“You were a police officer for six years?”

“Ten. Six as detective.”

“Where was this?”

“Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

That seemed to catch her attention. “I take it then you’re a better detective than you are a fighter,” she said half under her breath.

“You should see what the other two guys look like,” Shannon said, this time keeping his smile intact. “Could you tell me about your daughter?”

“Tell you about Linda?” She gave Shannon a sad, thoughtful smile. “Where to begin. When she was young she was a sweet girl, always trying so hard to please.” Her mouth began to crumble but she caught it. After the moment passed, she added, “Things changed around puberty. The last ten years it’s been nothing but a battle with her.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Everything was my fault.” She sniffed a couple of times but her eyes remained clear. “All her mistakes, all her bad judgment, all her problems were my fault. According to her I was responsible for everything that went wrong in her life.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Thanksgiving. She brought her boyfriend with her.”

“Taylor Carver?”

“Yes. What a horrible young man. Impolite, snide, with this ‘holier than thou’ attitude. I could’ve just scratched his eyes out. And of course Linda was in rare form.” She sniffed some more. This time a little wetness showed around her eyes. “I washed my hands of my daughter after that. The things she dared say to me!”

“Which were?”

She shook her head. “I’m not dignifying her comments by repeating them.”

“Anything that might explain what happened to her?”

“No.”

Shannon sighed. “I wish you’d tell me. There might be something in them that could help.”

“There isn’t.” She checked her watch and smiled thinly at Shannon. “You have three minutes left.”

“Was your daughter doing drugs?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me with the way she acted. But not that I know of.”

“Anything at all you can think of to explain what happened?”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“I didn’t see any pictures of Linda in your living room.”

“You are a good detective, aren’t you? I told you, I washed my hands of her.”

“Who’s the other girl?”

“My daughter, Gloria.” Mrs. Gibson smiled bitterly. “She’s enrolled in private school in France. A twelve month program. This one, I’m not giving any excuses to blame me.”

“Could you give me her phone number-”

“No. I’m sorry. Mr. Shannon, but you’re not contacting her. She’s only sixteen.”

“Her sister was murdered.”

“And she has therapists to talk to. She doesn’t need a private eye. Sorry.” A buzzer went off on her watch, and she again showed Shannon her condescending smile. “And I am sorry, but your ten minutes are up.”

Shannon could tell there was no point in asking for more time. Nor did he think he’d get anywhere even if she gave it. He pushed himself out of his chair and ignored the throbbing in his jaw as he smiled at her. “I’d like to thank you for your ten minutes,” he told her. “I’d also like to talk to your husband. Do you have a phone number where I can reach him?”

She seemed surprised, maybe even disappointed that Shannon didn’t put up a fight for more time. “I’ll give it to you on the way out.” Walking with him, she slid her arm under his. “You probably think I’m an awful person for writing my daughter off like I did, but I’m not! As far as I’m concerned I lost her years ago. Thanksgiving was only the final straw. Mr. Shannon, believe it or not, I’ve been grieving for my daughter for a long time now. I’m so worn out from it, though.”

She stopped in the living room to find one of her husband’s business cards. According to the card, Fred Gibson ran a commodity trading firm in the heart of downtown Wichita. At the door, Shannon asked whether they had any other children.

“Trying to sneak in another question, Mr. Shannon? But no, only the two, thank God.”

“Well, thanks again for taking the time to see me.”

“For whatever good it did you. Have a safe trip back to Colorado, Mr. Shannon.”

Once back in the car, he thought about calling the husband but knew that the wife would beat him to the punch. Instead he navigated to downtown Wichita where he hit more traffic than he would’ve expected, and after a few missed turns, found Gibson’s office address.

The office was on the sixth floor and was filled with dark wood and expensive leather furnishings. The receptionist’s eyes opened with alarm as Shannon approached her and they stayed large as she shifted her view from his bruises to his bandaged hand. Shannon gave the receptionist his name and told her that Mr. Gibson was expecting him. Her expression was a mix of wariness and extreme skepticism, but it changed quickly after she got on the phone and consulted with Gibson. With a warm smile she told him that Mr. Gibson’s office was the first door on the right.

“You don’t by any chance box?” she asked Shannon.

“Excuse me?”

“So many of our clients are into extreme sports,” she said. “Rock climbing, hang gliding, skyboarding. I think people who are into that type of adrenaline rush really get off on commodity trading.” She lightly tapped a finger to her lips as her smile grew larger. “You look to me like you could be an amateur boxer.”

Shannon shook his head. “Strictly street fighting. But only if I’m ganged up on,” he said, winking at her.

Fred Gibson was waiting at the door when Shannon entered. He pumped Shannon’s hand, all the while a confused and harried look on his face. He was a big man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. With his deep tan, solid jaw and sculpted nose, he would’ve been good looking if it weren’t for large and slightly bulging round eyes that gave the impression that he was missing his eyelids.

“Betty gave me your name as, um, Bill Shannon,” he said, his large round eyes trying hard to squint. “Is that right? I can’t recall us agreeing to meet.”

“I’m investigating your daughter’s death. Your wife told me she’d call you and let you know I was on my way over.”

Gibson slapped his forehead in an overly exaggerated manner. “That’s right. Mindy did call. I’m sorry, I don’t know where my head’s at today.” He ushered Shannon to a chair, then sat behind his desk. Like his home, an expensive collection of abstract paintings were displayed on the walls, mostly what looked like sunsets with different shades of yellows, oranges and blues. Shannon picked up a framed picture from his desk of two girls holding hands, both blond and wearing party dresses, one several years older than the other. The older one was Linda, maybe at age thirteen. She was smiling in the picture but a solemn look in her eyes seemed to contradict it.

“Those are my two girls,” Gibson said. He pushed a hand through his hair, all the while maintaining a friendly smile. “I understand you came here from Colorado. I’m sorry, but I don’t know how we can possibly help you.”

“I’m hoping you can give me some insight into Linda.”

He tried squinting again, this time appearing more genuinely confused. “Why would that do any good? From what I understand this was a random act. That a psychopath broke into their apartment.”

“Who told you that?”

“Jim Munson. He’s a police detective here in Wichita who’s been contacting the Boulder police for me.”

“The Boulder police haven’t made a determination yet as to what happened. Do you mind if I tape record our conversation?”

Gibson had fallen into a funk, his eyes dazed as he stared at one of his sunset paintings. Shannon had to ask twice about recording their conversation before Gibson snapped out of it. He gave Shannon’s recorder a confused look before nodding and telling Shannon to do what he needed to.

Shannon placed the recorder on the desk between the two of them, turned it on and asked Gibson about Linda.

“What’s there for me to say? She was my little girl. I loved her with all my heart.”

“From the pictures I saw of her she was very attractive.”

He nodded, his solid jaw pushed out slightly. “Yes, she was.”

“Can you think of anyone here who might’ve been obsessed with her? Someone who might’ve followed her to Colorado?”

He shook his head.

“Never any problems with stalkers?”

“No.”

“Anyone you didn’t know show up at the funeral?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I was in no state of mind to notice something like that.”

“Anything odd occur at the funeral?”

Gibson shook his head.

“Any strange phone calls? Anything odd happen afterwards?”

Again, he shook his head. “Why are you asking this?”

“If it was a serial killer, he might have made an appearance at the funeral or afterwards. Sometimes that’s how they get their kicks. How did Linda get along with her sister?”

“She was four years older than Gloria, but they got along fine.”

“I’d like to talk with Gloria. Maybe Linda told her something she didn’t tell you or your wife.”

Gibson gave him a tired smile. “This has been very hard on Gloria as you could well expect, and my wife and I don’t want to upset her any further. I’ll talk to her. If she has any information, I’ll get back to you.”

Shannon nodded, took out a notepad and made a show of consulting it. “I understand Linda and your wife didn’t get along very well.”

“No, that’s not true.” He hesitated, put a hand up to his eyes and squeezed them with his thumb and ring finger. “Mr. Shannon, have you ever lost a child due to violence? You have no idea how difficult it is to cope with something like that.”

“I haven’t lost a child, but I have lost people close to me. I have some idea what you’re going through. Your wife, though, she made it pretty clear that she had no relationship with your daughter at the time of her death.”

“That’s Mindy’s way of dealing with it. Blowing up past fights and arguments as a way to emotionally protect herself. But trust me, my wife, in her own way, is in as much pain as I am over this.”

“She told me about Thanksgiving.”

Gibson’s head moved to the side as if he’d been slapped. “What did she say?” he asked, his voice pinched, not quite right.

“That your daughter made accusations against you and your wife. That things got ugly.”

“There were no accusations made,” he said slowly in the same pinched voice. “Linda was very good at pushing buttons, and that’s all that happened. When she wanted to she could have a cruel sense of humor.”

“Can I ask you what was said?”

He shook his head, his jaw pushed further out. “It’s not worth repeating.”

“How about telling me about Taylor Carver?”

“I didn’t like him.”

“Why not?”

“Among other things, he was an opportunist.” Gibson checked a clock on his desk and told Shannon he had to get back to work. “I’m afraid this couldn’t have been very productive for either of us.”

“No, it’s been helpful.” Shannon reached for his tape recorder, but stopped himself, and made a further show of studying his notepad. After flipping through several pages, he asked, “Did you know a Candace Murphy?”

Gibson said he didn’t, which made sense since Shannon had made up the name.

“She was a friend of Linda’s. According to Candace, Linda was going to confront you and your wife over Thanksgiving about sexual abuse issues.”

Something flickered in Gibson’s eyes. Then he noticed the tape recorder and in a shaky voice told Shannon that he was lying.

“I’m not lying. If you need me to, I’ll get an affidavit from her, but I’m hoping-”

“You are lying,” he said, his voice more confident. He stood up, muscles bunching along his shoulders. “Get out of here now or I’ll throw you out.”

Shannon hesitated, hoping that Gibson would try something like that. He had had that hunch ever since he talked with Gibson’s wife, but when he saw that momentary flicker in Gibson’s eyes and heard the shakiness in his voice, he knew his hunch was on target. As he collected his tape recorder, Gibson warned him that he would sue Shannon for every cent he had if he ever repeated any of his scurrilous garbage. Shannon shrugged, told him he had a few thousand in the bank, and for Gibson to go for it. Fred Gibson stood rubbing his knuckles, but didn’t move as Shannon left his office.

Shannon stopped at the receptionist on his way out and asked if she knew of a good place nearby to get a piece of pie. She gave him an odd look, and he repeated himself. “I haven’t eaten anything all day and I’m in the mood for a good piece of apple pie,” he told her. She gave him the name of a diner a few blocks away, then checking her watch, asked if he’d like some company. “I haven’t gone on my lunch break yet,” she said.

“I’ll have to ask for a rain check. I plan to be meeting a few people.”

Detective Don Chase reached across the table and stopped the tape Shannon was playing for him and Wilson. “This is nuts,” he said, his face reddening with exasperation. “I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.”

Chase had one of those fireplug bodies; barely a neck, barrel-chested, and a thick trunk. Along with that he had a wide face that seemed stuck in a half scowl, half grin. He also had the same military-style buzz cut that Wilson had, which made Shannon wonder if the hair cuts were a departmental directive. There was something familiar about the guy that Shannon couldn’t quite put his finger on. Chase and Eric Wilson sat on one side of the booth while Shannon sat across from them. He held up a finger for Chase to wait while he chewed a bite of apple pie and vanilla ice cream, then said, “He sexually abused his daughter. I think that’s a good reason for your being here.”

“He sexually abused his daughter, huh? Where’s the evidence?”

“The mother sending the other daughter off to France. The way she acted, how she tries so damn hard to look like a teenager. The change in Fred Gibson’s voice when I asked him about Thanksgiving. How he nearly swallowed his tongue when I brought up sexual abuse.”

“You got to be shitting me.” Chase glanced over his shoulder, saw an elderly woman glowering at him. He lowered his voice. “You have Wilson drag me down here because of some circumstantial bullshit and a so-called change in inflection?”

Shannon couldn’t keep from smiling as it finally hit him why Chase seemed so familiar. He could’ve been Ed Poulet’s younger brother. Looked and acted like him. The one big difference was that Shannon instinctively liked this guy more than he ever liked Poulet. Chase asked him what the fuck he was grinning about.

“Nothing. You remind me of a guy I used to work with, that’s all.” Then more seriously, Shannon said, “He abused his daughter, probably both of them. That was what their Thanksgiving blowup was about. That’s why Linda brought Taylor Carver with her; so she’d have a witness to it.”

“And you know this how?”

“From my ten years as a police officer. I was always good at reading people, and there’s no doubt in my mind about any of this. Linda confronted her parents last Thanksgiving about the abuse.”

“Yeah, well, I know about your history as a police detective. That’s why you’ve got some credibility with me, and that’s why I’m here now. But shit, you’ve given me nothing.” He stopped himself in mid-scowl, looked away. “And if what you’re saying’s true, then what? They bump off their own daughter to keep her from making more accusations? This is fucking insane.”

“Chase, where are you from originally? You don’t have a New York or Philly accent, but you sure the fuck don’t talk like a Midwesterner.”

He grinned at that. “As much a Midwesterner as this clown,” he said, pointing a thumb at Wilson. “Born and raised in St. Louis. Getting back to my question you so adroitly sidestepped, are you trying to say they killed their own daughter?”

“I couldn’t tell you. At least not without knowing their whereabouts the time of the murder or if any unusual money transfers had been made. I’d also like to know what the phone records looked like between Linda and her parents. Maybe before her murder she had threatened to go public with the abuse. If they did kill their daughter, I wouldn’t know without further police investigation. But I’ll tell you, I’ve seen stranger things over the years, and just as sickening.”

“Yeah, well, this still sounds pretty farfetched to me.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But even if they had nothing to do with Linda’s murder you still have a child who was sexually abused by her father, and that demands an investigation.”

Chase gave Shannon a hard look and shook his head. “The only real witness to it is dead and buried,” he said. “Even if you’re right, there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it. Not without something concrete.”

“You could talk to the other daughter.”

“How would I do that? She’s locked away somewhere in France, and from the sound of it, she’s going to be staying there until she’s of age.”

“You could have the authorities there talk to her.”

“Oh, yeah, that would go over swimmingly. I can just imagine what the Cap would say if I asked him to do that with what you’ve given me. He’d laugh me off the force.”

“What do you think, Eric?” Shannon asked.

Wilson had been sitting quietly. He looked up at Shannon, his face a hard white. “I agree with Detective Chase. You’ve shown nothing to merit an investigation.”

“How about answering whether Linda was abused by her dad.”

“How the fuck would he know?” Chase demanded.

“He dated her in high school.”

Chase’s face turned redder as he stared open mouthed at Wilson. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, incredulous. “When the fuck were you going to say something about that?”

“Calm down,” Wilson told him. “I have no evidence of Mr. Gibson abusing Linda.”

“But you suspect it,” Shannon said.

“I never said anything to you about that.”

“No, you didn’t. But I told you, I’m good at reading people. And you had it written all over you in large print.”

“Damn it, Wilson,” Chase prodded. “Did Gibson abuse his daughter or not?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you suspected that he did,” Shannon said.

Wilson gave a slow and reluctant nod. “I don’t know if I suspected that exactly,” he said. “But I guess I knew something was wrong. Not that Linda ever talked to me about it. More by the way she acted around them, especially with Mr. Gibson. She’d get so quiet and withdrawn when she’d see him. With her mom, I remember times she’d fly off the handle over little things. Sometimes nothing at all. I guess there were other signals, but I was just too dense a kid to pick up on them. Maybe I never really wanted to admit it to myself that any of that happened. Listening to you and thinking back how Linda used to act, it makes sense.”

“Officer Wilson, you didn’t answer my earlier question,” Chase said, his tone completely business. “A simple yes or no. As someone who was intimately involved with the deceased, Linda Gibson, do you now suspect her of being the victim of sexual abuse by her father?”

Wilson gave a weak nod, said, “Yes.”

“Okay, then,” Chase said. “At least I can now consider going to the Cap about an investigation.” He leaned further back in his seat, his wide face looking a bit washed out. Eyeing Shannon’s pie, he asked if it was any good.

“Damn good pie,” Shannon said. “Almost worth a trip to Wichita for.”

Chase nodded grimly and waved the waitress over. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said to the sixtyish grandmotherly woman standing with pad and pen. “How about a piece of that apple pie? Make it big, something that will hold me to late ’cause I’ll be working ’til midnight now thanks to these two clowns. And hide a few scoops of ice cream on it, okay darling?”

Later, the waitress brought over what looked like half a pie with a pint of vanilla ice cream on top of it. Chase ate it quickly, barely coming up for air as he joylessly shoveled it into his mouth. When he was done, he nodded at Shannon and Wilson, and suggested that it would help if they all met with the Cap.

Shannon glanced at Wilson, who appeared deep in his own thoughts. “Eric and I have another matter to talk about,” he said. “How about we meet you at the station?”

Chase scowled suspiciously at both of them, but squeezed himself out of the booth and told them not to take too long. “Cap likes to take off early on Thursdays for Walleye fishing.” After he ambled out of the diner, Shannon asked Wilson if he still wanted to know more about the Winters cousins.

“At this point, I’m not sure what I want to know. I can’t believe I was in such denial about Linda and her parents all these years. Makes me wonder how I could be a police officer if I couldn’t see what was right in front of my face.”

“Sometimes you’re too close to a situation, that’s all. But your instincts were right. At a gut level you knew what was going on. Over time, you’ll learn to listen to your gut more.”

“I hope so. But I’m going to take your advice and think about how much more I want to know about Winters. I might still call you in a few days.”

“Anytime you want, although I hope you don’t-at least not about that.” Shannon paused, scratched the side of his jaw that wasn’t swollen. “I apologize if I dragged you into something you didn’t want to be a part of.”

“No need to apologize,” Wilson said, his eyes as hard as stone. “This needs to be investigated. You really think they could’ve killed Linda?”

“I don’t know. Let’s see where this leads. If they didn’t, but it still comes out that Gibson abused either of his daughters, at least that will be something. At least in some way justice will be served for them.”

Wilson nodded, got to his feet and headed towards the exit. Shannon covered the bill and followed him out the door.