Heart of Ice

Chapter Thirty-four

Cherrystone

Casper Wilhelm’s voice was unmistakable. Every word he uttered hit like a punch to the face. The Spokane County medical examiner seemed impatient and a little irritated, which pretty much was the way he always was.

“I don’t like being kept on hold, Sheriff.” Dr. Wilhelm’s smoky, deep baritone echoed in the concrete cavern of the parking garage where Emily imagined he’d gone to make the call so he could light up a Lucky Strike.

A car honked.

Yes, he was smoking in the garage.

“Sorry about that, Doctor.” Emily knew him well enough to acquiesce whenever he chided anyone. Arguing only ensured a long and painful outcome—with the good doctor always right.

“I’m sure you are. But forget it. I’m about to make your day. I think. It’s about the Crawford case. You know, the dead pregnant woman?”

As if she’d forgotten. He must have had Cherrystone mixed up with Detroit or someplace where murders could be confused. In Cherrystone they were an exceedingly rare occurrence. Emily walked to her door, and pushed it shut with her hip.

“What’s up? Tox screen back?”

“Not that. She was clean as a mother-to-be.” He took a drag. “The DNA swabs came back.”

Emily could feel the doctor play with her a little, or maybe just dragging it out so he could finish his cigarette.

“Well?”

“Well. If Amanda Crawford was alive, she’d have some explaining to do. Turns out that Mitch Crawford wasn’t her baby’s father.”

Emily could feel the air squeezed from her lungs. “You’re postive?”

“We swabbed Mitch when he came up to do his ‘cry me a river’ routine, and you know the rest. The other part of the picture was on an autopsy table in my lab. Procedure. We ask and if they give it, we call it a bonus. Saves everyone the trouble later. Never paid off like this before.”

“I’ll bet it hasn’t,” Emily said, a mixture of excitement and uneasiness taking over. They chatted a bit more and, then, apparently done with his smoke break, the coroner ended the conversation as abruptly as it had stared.

“I’ll have the reports on your desk tomorrow,” he said.

Click.

“Thank you, Dr. Wilhelm,” Emily said, knowing he’d already gone. Thank you for making my case harder than it had been before.

Jason Howard walked by as Emily was about to call prosecutor Camille Hazelton. She waved him inside her office and indicated to shut the door.

“Don’t go anywhere. You’re going to want to hear this, too.”

Jason slumped into a chair as Emily got Camille on the line.

“You’re on speaker,” she said. “Jason’s here, too. I just got off the phone with Dr. Wilhelm.”

“How was Spokane County’s favorite old cuss? Wilhelm. Not Jason, of course.”

Everyone laughed.

Emily’s eyes met Jason’s. “He’s fine. He had a bit of news. Turns out that Mandy’s baby wasn’t Mitch’s.”

Jason mouthed, “Whoa.”

There was a beat of silence before Camille spoke. “Oh, really? That does make things even more fascinating.”

Emily glanced at Jason, then back at the speakerphone. “I know. I was thinking of springing it on Mitch this afternoon.”

“Let me think on that for a second,” Camille said. The wheels were turning. “Do we use it to shake him loose? Or do we spring it on him later, when we have no other options? It’s pretty hot, so I’m sure we don’t have the luxury of time. You know McConnell is a bear when it comes to discovery.”

“I’m sure.” Emily hated the reminder that Cary McConnell was involved.

“OK. Thought about it. Spring it on him. Also, go back to the scrapbooking girls and anyone else who was close to them. If we tell them what we know, maybe they’ll feel free to share something.”

“People hate sharing the secrets of the dead.”

“True. But they hate letting a murderer go free even more so.”

Emily set down her phone and looked at Jason, who’d done an expert job of pulling in both sides of the conversation.

“Let me guess. I get the scrapbook girls.”

Emily nodded. “I’ll take Samantha Phillips.”

“Who gets Mitch?”

Emily managed a smile, the first one of the day. “We’ll make a party of it. Let’s do it together.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. I’ll do my best. I won’t let you down.”

“You never have, Jason.”

Emily had one more call to make. She knew that the information about the baby’s paternity would leak from the ME’s office. She dialed the number for Amanda’s parents. Hillary Layton answered.

“Mrs. Layton, I mean Hillary, I have some news.”

“You arrested Mitch for Mandy’s murder?”

“No. This is upsetting news, but not that. I’m afraid that the baby that your daughter was carrying wasn’t Mitch’s baby.”

Hillary Layton started to cry very loudly into the phone.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know that this is hard to hear.”

“It isn’t that at all,” Hillary said, calming herself. “I’m so happy that Mandy had found someone to love other than Mitch Crawford. I only wish I knew who it was.”

Emily didn’t say so, but she was thinking the very same thing.

Samantha Phillips was filling boxes with clothing and household utensils in the garage when Emily arrived later that afternoon.

“I don’t suppose you’re here to help,” she asked, looking up from the pile of odds and ends that she was sorting.

“You’re not moving, are you?”

“Oh no. I could never leave here. Bad memories will fade soon, and I’ll focus on the good times with my family. And Mandy. This stuff is going to the Goodwill. The kids get so much crap at Christmas if I don’t clear things out of here, I’ll be featured on TV as one of those crazy hoarders.”

“Not likely,” Emily said, looking around. “You might be the most organized person I’ve seen, Martha Stewart notwithstanding.”

The garage was an organizer’s fantasy. Almost a vision of organizer’s porn with hooks here, labeled bins there, bikes hanging on racks like a row of Sunday suits, tools in perfect order above a workbench.

“I’m here about Mandy,” she said.

“I figured. I saw Mitch in the paper the other day. He was quoted that he was innocent and that the case has been a witch hunt from the start. Said people are jealous of him or don’t like him for this or that. No kidding.”

“I saw that article, too. I’m here about Mandy and her baby.”

Samantha set down her bundle of clothes. “What is it, Sheriff?”

“This isn’t easy to say. I know how close you and Mandy were.”

“Thank you. But what?”

There was no gentle way of saying it, so Emily was direct. “The baby Mandy was carrying wasn’t Mitch’s.”

Samantha shot Emily the kind of look meant to sink a person to the lowest depths of their being. “Why would you say something like that? I thought you were on our side?”

“I am, Samantha,” she said gently. “But it is the truth.”

“It smacks of something Mitch’s defense lawyer would say to smear her. How could you?”

Emily knew Samantha was right. But the evidence could work the other way, too—as a motive for murder. She didn’t say any of that to Samantha. No argument was needed. The shock of the news had to sink in.

“The DNA results came back,” Emily said. “I was as surprised as you are.”

Samantha turned away and walked toward the workbench. “You think you really know someone. I guess the joke’s on me. I told her everything about my marriage. How I hated the idea that my husband had his hands in people’s mouths all day long. It disgusted me. I told her how I thought my oldest wasn’t very smart and I wanted to kill myself for thinking that.”

“We all have silly thoughts. Every mother does.” Emily said, as the woman crumpled in front of her.

“The point here,” Samantha said, “is that I told her everything. If that baby isn’t Mitch’s, I wouldn’t have the first clue as to whose it could have been. It makes me wonder if I ever really did know her at all.”

“Nothing to suggest maybe she might have had an affair?”

Samantha shook her head. “Tell me something, Sheriff Kenyon.”

“What?”

“How do you grieve for a best friend you really didn’t know?”

Emily didn’t have a good answer, but she offered one anyway. “There are things we don’t know about each other, but our love is just the same.”

Samantha looked around her perfectly organized garage. Order amid the chaos. “She was like a sister to me.”

“I know. She still is.”

“But I didn’t really know her.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to disappoint you.”

On the other side of Cherrystone, Jason Howard made the rounds of the scrapbooking group. Neither Erica Benoit nor Alana Gutierrez had an inkling about who might be the father. He caught up with Tammy Sells as she trudged out on the crunching snow to get her mail.

“If Mitch knew about it, it’s the reason he killed her,” she said, stuffing her mail into her coat pocket and bracing herself against the chilly air. “In a way, though, I’m kind of happy for Mandy. Maybe for the last few months, she really did have a little happiness after all.”

“Thanks for your time,” Jason said. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

She looked at the young man and smiled. “Be good to your wife, deputy. She’s depending on you.”

“Thanks, ma’am. Will do.”

Darla Montague, Mitch Crawford’s assistant, was cleaning the “guest” tables from a day of free hot dogs. The dealership smelled more like a fast food place than a place that sold cars. Her spirit seemed to brighten when she saw Emily and Jason enter the showroom. She always expected good things would come her way, simply because she was good. Or tried to be.

“Hi, Mrs. Sheriff Kenyon,” she said, letting out a little laugh.

“Hi, Darla. My deputy and I are here to see your boss. Is he in?”

“Yes, he is.” She set down a bottle of diluted bleach and a cleaning cloth. “Mr. Crawford has been gone most of the day, but he came back an hour or so ago. He’s in his office.” She indicated the direction of the big glass windows that had enclosed the owner’s office since Mitch’s father opened up for business. A slogan painted on the window still endured: WE’LL STAND ON OUR HEADS TO MAKE YOU A GREAT DEAL.

Mitch was on the phone; his back was turned to face the car lot when Emily and Jason approached. When their reflections appeared on the glass, his body tightened and he turned around.

“Gotta go. Have some visitors here.” He hung up and stood, his manner stiff and unwelcoming. “What do you want? Are you here to mess with my head some more?”

Emily inched closer. Jason lingered just a few paces behind her.

“No,” she said. “We’re here with what may be upsetting news.”

“What could be more disturbing than having my wife and baby killed by some creep and having half of the town I love think that I’m the one who did it?”

“I’m sure it has been very hard for you, too,” Emily said, her voice cool. “But you’ve put yourself in this position, Mitch.”

“Are you here to tell me how to act?”

The conversation was escalating to a place that would have no victors. “No. I’m not. As I said, I’m here with some very disturbing news.”

Mitch folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah? What?”

“DNA results indicate that the baby your wife was carrying was not yours.”

Silence. His dark brown eyes looked around the room and his mouth tightened.

“Mitch, did you hear me?”

He turned and looked across the dealership. It was the end of the day and the balloons had fallen to the ground. A pair of salesmen, young and in need of commissions, stood at the ready in case someone came on to the lot in search of a deal.

“I heard you. And you ask me if I knew? Let me tell you this. What you’re saying is a goddamn lie. My wife would never cheat on me. She would never do that to me. She knew I could never forgive that. Now, get out. I don’t ever want to see you here on my lot again. Get your next car somewhere else. I don’t care. Leave me the hell alone.”

Before he turned his back on them, Emily and Jason thought they’d seen a tear in his eye.