Heart of Ice

Chapter Eleven

Emily Kenyon pulled the Crown Vic to the side of the road. The Cherrystone Sheriff’s Department hadn’t yet ordered the hands-free phones that were a state safety requirement at the beginning of the New Year. She answered her ringing phone. The young woman on the line was one of those who masked her nervousness with inappropriate laughter. The end of every sentence was punctuated with a giggle or quick laugh. Throughout her years as a detective, Emily Kenyon had interviewed so many of her ilk. Also, the criers, the derailed train-of-thoughters, and the story-changers. The story-changers were always the worst. As long as people kept the basics of their information consistent, they’d probably make it through the trial process.

A crier was better than a laugher, though. Laughers frequently turned off members of the jury. What’s so funny about homicide? A crier could win a case for either side.

“My friend says I should call because we saw something that might help your case,” the woman said, laughing.

“What is your name? What case?” Emily felt a little annoyed, but Gloria had taken the call and said that the girl “might have what we’re looking for—a real lead.”

“Steffi Johansson,” she said. Again, the laugh. “I think Mitch Crawford was in our shop just after Thanksgiving. He was a total freak, too.” Another laugh.

“I see,” Emily said. “How about I come out to see you. Are you at your shop?”

“Yes, I am. It’s Café Patisserie on the north end of Griffin Avenue, just off the highway.”

Emily knew the place. “I’ll be there in a twenty minutes. Tell your boss you’ll need a break.”

“I am the boss,” Steffi said, letting out a short laugh. “At least, for this shift.”

Steffi Johansson was waiting just inside the front door of the café when Emily arrived. “I made you a mocha, double-shot, no whip.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Emily said, taking the paper cup and moving to a table by the front window, away from another patron reading USA Today and sipping a chai latte.

Steffi smiled. “I nailed your drink, didn’t I?”

Emily hated mochas. “That you did,” she said.

The young blonde laughed. “I have a real knack for that. Don’t ask me why. I just know what people want.”

“Well then, you know what I want,” Emily said, not caring that her segue was silly and obvious. Finesse wasn’t needed with Steffi Johansson. The girl was annoying as hell.

“Right. OK.” She sat down. “It was late one night, just before closing. Cherie and I were working and wanted to get out of here on account of the snow. We were kind of ticked that he came in.”

“Cherie?”

“Cherie Parks, she was here that night, too.”

“All right. And you think it was Mitch Crawford that you saw?”

Steffi sipped her own concoction, a frozen ice cream drink that had about a million calories and zero nutritional value. “Pretty sure,” she said. “I saw him on TV. Actually, Cherie saw him on one of those TVs at Seattle’s airport and called me. She doesn’t work here anymore,” she said, with a laugh. “She’s in Hawaii, lucky bitch. She got fired for coming in late too many times. The owners are really strict.”

Emily knew the type. She was pretty strict herself. “Yes, so Cherie made the connection between the TV and the customer in your shop. How is it that you remember him? It’s been awhile.”

Steffi swirled her plastic straw in the cup. “He was a total freak. One of those customers who thinks he’s so hot and hits on you. Not only that, he had a cut on his head or somewhere. Yeah, I remember that.”

“A cut?” The revelation interested Emily.

“Yeah, he went into the bathroom while I made him his drink. He seemed a little put off that I even mentioned the blood.”

“So he was bloody?”

Steffi pointed to a spot on her forehead. “Around here. Said he hurt himself cutting a Christmas tree out in the woods. That—besides the fact that he was a creepy letch—is the reason I remembered him at all.”

“Because he had been cutting down a Christmas tree?”

“Because he said that’s what he’d been doing.”

Emily tilted her head and lifted her shoulders slightly. “I don’t follow.”

“He didn’t have a tree in the back of his pickup. We thought it was odd. Like, why would he say he’d been out getting a Christmas tree and was on his way home, when he didn’t have a tree?”

Emily liked what she was hearing. The timing made sense. Steffi’s details could be believed. The right details—the cut, the lack of a tree, the man’s attitude—seemed to be in sync with Mitch Crawford and the disappearance of his wife.

“The prosecutor will probably want to do a lineup tomorrow,” Emily said. “Would you be able to come in or should I send a deputy to pick you up?”

Steffi looked around nervously. “Oh, I’ll be there, I guess. Just tell me when. If the guy who came in here that night is there, I’ll remember. I never forget a customer’s face. Or a name, if they tell me. Actually, we’re rated on how many customer names we know. They want us to make everyone feel like we give a crap about them when really all we want to do is serve them a latte and get them out of here.”

Emily didn’t doubt that, and she waited a beat while Steffi did her little laugh. She looked around. The whole place was set up to be cozy, but not too comfortable. Turnover was everything to a place like Café Patisserie.

“Can you describe the truck he was driving? Anything about it? Plate? Decals? Color?”

Steffi shook her head, her blond hair bouncing against her shoulders. “I’m not good at that. Maybe blue. Or black. Newish, I think. I’m not sure.”

Emily got up to leave. She smiled at the young woman. She wasn’t much, but she was all she had just then. “All right. Thanks, Steffi, I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Want a biscotti? On the house.”

“No thanks, I’m good. Thanks for the mocha, though. It was divine.”

She walked out to the cruiser, and dropped the half-full cup into the trash. It was without a doubt the worst thing she’d ever sipped.

Sweeter than a box of sugar cubes.

Lineups were rare in Cherrystone. Most everyone knew everyone in town, so identifying a perpetrator was as easy as recalling what year he or she graduated high school. In the odd instances in which a lineup was called for, the prosecution and sheriff’s staff emptied a conference room in the jail that had been outfitted with a two-way mirror. The table was pushed to one side, the chairs to the other. It was rinky-dink in every way, a far cry from the setup Emily Kenyon had been used to in Seattle.

Emily and Prosecutor Camille Hazelton, smartly dressed in a dark blue suit that looked much more CEO than Emily’s sheriff’s uniform, waited in the hallway with a nervous—and laughing—Steffi Johansson as five men were ushered inside the room.

“Is she going to be all right?” Camille asked Emily, just out of Steffi’s earshot.

Emily nodded. “She’s a laugher. Sorry. We get them the way they come to us.”

“The jury will hate her. If we ever get that far.”

“Tell me about it.”

Camille approached Steffi with a warm, welcoming smile. “I’m Camille Hazelton, I’m the Cherrystone County prosecutor. I’m very grateful that you’ve come in this morning. I’m also grateful that you called the sheriff’s department. Steffi, you’ll see five men. I want you to look carefully at each one and let me know if any one of them is the man that came to your coffee place just after Thanksgiving.”

“OK. Can I ask them anything?”

The question surprised Camille. Most potential witnesses just want to look and leave, kind of hit-and-run identification. “No, no questions, but I’m curious,” she said. “What would you ask them?”

“Well, I’d guess I’d ask them what they’d order for a coffee drink. I never forget what a person orders.”

Camille looked over at Emily. “We can’t ID someone based on a coffee drink. The things that you told Sheriff Kenyon are crucial because of what you said you saw. The man’s injury, for example.”

Steffi took a deep breath. “Got it. OK. I’m ready.” She dropped another laugh, this time softer, and Emily and Camille detected the fear emanating from the pretty blonde. It was clear that she wanted to be helpful, but she was also scared.

“Where is defense counsel?” Emily asked, not wanting to say Cary’s name.

Camille looked at her watch. “Can’t make it, something about a personal emergency at home. He’s sending an associate.” She looked down the hallway. “And right on time, here comes Donna Rayburn now.”

Emily knew Ms. Rayburn, of course. She was an attractive brunette with a law degree and implants that she made no bones about (“They’re not D’s,” she’d been heard to say at a law office party, “but lowercase C’s.”). She was nice enough, but she was one of those people who’d come to Cherrystone with the idea that it was a stepping-stone to a better job elsewhere—and ended up staying. The newspaper had three reporters and an editor who’d done that; the hospital had four doctors. And of course, she knew that Jason Howard had once planned to leave.

Donna walked purposefully toward the three women. She wore a charcoal suit, four-inch heels, and carried a large Kate Spade bag that swung back and forth like a wrecking ball. As always, Donna was in a big hurry.

“Let’s get going on this,” she said, still ten yards away. “I have to catch a flight. I’m speaking at a conference in Chicago.”

“Well, Donna,” Camille said, sarcasm apparent to all, “by all means we wouldn’t want to hold you up.”

Clearly annoyed, Donna Rayburn made a face. “Look, I can’t help it if I’m busy. Really, dragging me over here for a latte-stand clerk’s ID is beyond the pale. I can’t see how it is of any relevance whatsoever. Mitch Crawford is a very, very busy man. And I’m a busy woman.”

It took everything she had for Emily not to pull the Kate Spade from Donna’s hand and bop her upside her head with it.

A jailer popped his head from inside the doorway to the conference room. “Lineup’s ready.”

“Steffi, remember,” Camille said, ushering her toward the glass.

“It isn’t a latte stand,” Steffi said, turning to Donna. “We’re a full-service restaurant and patisserie.”

Donna nodded, her affect smug. “So I hear.”

The lights went up inside, and the miniblinds that covered the window/mirror rose.

Five men stood in a row. Three were jail inmates; two were DUIs, and the third was a burglary II. One was an assistant jailer who often pulled duty for a lineup. He had the kind of bland face and average build and height that made him good filler for lineups. Mitch Crawford was also in the mix. He, like the others, was clad in jeans and a button-down shirt.

Steffi inched forward and studied each one.

“Take your time,” Camille said. “This isn’t about being fast. We’re looking for truth here.”

“All right,” Steffi said, this time without a laugh.

“I’m going to have each one move forward and turn to the right and left,” Camille said.

One by one, each man followed the command.

“Number five looks familiar,” Steffi said.

“Take your time,” Camille said, her heart sinking a little.

Donna impatiently shifted her weight and pulled her handbag close. “I think she’s doing fine.”

Steffi looked at the defense lawyer, then back to the five men. She was so far from laughing by then, that Emily wondered if Steffi Johansson was about to cry. Frustration on her face was unmistakable. Her lips were tight and her eyes seemed glossy with tears.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “Number five seems so familiar, but I can’t be sure.”

Donna Rayburn turned to leave. “This identification is over. Thanks, ladies. I’m off to Chicago.”

No one said good-bye to Donna. She slipped away and headed toward the jail office.

“I’m sorry,” Steffi said, a tear rolling down her check.

“You did your best, Steffi, that’s all we can ask.”

As the three women started to leave they saw Donna walking down the hallway. She wasn’t alone. She was chatting with man number five.

It was Mitch Crawford.