Heart of Ice

Chapter Sixty

Cherrystone

Jason Howard entered Emily’s office with a file folder and that kind of cat-that-killed-the-canary look that Emily knew all too well. She knew immediately he had something to go on.

“Didn’t Samantha Phillips say that she and Amanda stopped talking?”

Emily nodded. “Yes, not by her choice, I gathered.”

“She lied, Sheriff.” He pulled out the phone records addressed to Mitchell Crawford, 21 Larkspur, Cherrystone.

“What have you got?”

“Ten calls.”

“Ten?”

“Yeah, between Halloween and the date of her disappearance.”

“Good work, Jason. Anything else?”

“A bunch of calls to and from different dealerships, his lawyer’s office, and calls to Mandy’s folks in Spokane. Not much else.”

Emily looked the list over. Jason had highlighted the calls to Samantha.

“When someone lies,” she said, “we just need to find out why, now don’t we?”

“That we do.”

A call to the Phillips’ grand residence was answered by a housekeeper named Anna, who sweetly informed Emily that Samantha, “the lady of the house,” was volunteering at her children’s school for the day.

Lady of the house? Emily thought, Why can’t I be the lady of the house? Why can’t I have a housekeeper? Oh, yeah. I’m a top elected official and I make $53,000 a year, that’s why.

Emily grabbed her coat and keys for the drive to Crestview Elementary School. She knew the school well, of course. Jenna had attended there, just as she had. She parked by a maple tree that she could remember being a sapling when it was planted to commemorate an Earth Day celebration. In winter, it was an enormous skeleton, with four bird’s nests still clinging in the frozen air.

She parked and made her way into the office.

“Hi, Sheriff Kenyon,” said the woman behind the counter. Her glossy dark hair was held tight to her head, and her eyes were magnified behind the thick lenses of her glasses. Her name tag read MS. JONAS, but Emily didn’t know her.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Everything all right? Mr. Gray is out at a conference in Boise. I’m Heather Jonas, his assistant principal.”

“Nice to meet you,” Emily said, extending her hand. “No problems here. I just need to speak to one of your parent volunteers. Can you tell me how to find Samantha Phillips?”

Heather set down her clipboard. “I’ll ring her right now. She’s in computer lab helping Ms. Brennan’s class.” She retreated to the telephone/intercom console one desk over and made the call.

“She’s on her way. Would you like to talk somewhere privately? You could use Mr. Gray’s office. He has a nice visitor’s table. Maybe I can find some refreshments in the staff room. I have a key to the fridge.”

“That would be wonderful,” Emily said, thinking that the very idea of “refreshments” seemed out of place when she wanted to dig in and see what Mandy Crawford’s best friend was holding back.

Five minutes later, Samantha’s mask of charm failed her as she took a seat in the principal’s office at Crestview Elementary to face Emily Kenyon. She looked irritated and in a hurry. She carried her purse and coat as if she planned on leaving the building after she was done talking with Emily. The housekeeper had told her that Samantha volunteered for the “entire day” at the school.

“I’ve told you everything I know already,” she said.

Emily ignored the chilly reception. “Good morning, Samantha.”

Samantha caught herself, and tried to find her good manners. “I’m sorry. Good morning, Sheriff Kenyon.”

“I am sorry to bother you, but you might be our only hope in Mandy’s case.”

Samantha fidgeted with the big Chanel clasp of her purse.

Emily smiled inwardly. Figures. It’s real. She has a housekeeper, too.

“What help do you need? You’ve got her husband locked up already.”

“Yes, I know. He still has to be tried and convicted.”

“Look, I’ve told you all that I can. All that I know.”

Emily fastened her eyes on Samantha’s. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Do I need a lawyer or something?”

The answer was a bizarre non sequitur and it jarred Emily. “Why on earth would you need a lawyer?”

Samantha continued to open and close the clasp. Over and over. “I feel like everyone’s pushing me, pressuring me.”

“Everyone? What do you mean?”

“I just want to be left out of it. OK?’

“You know something, don’t you?”

Samantha shook her head. “No. I don’t.”

“Samantha, why is it that I don’t believe you? Is it about Mandy’s affair?”

“You are harassing me. I don’t know why. Leave this alone. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do. You saw something when you visited her that day, didn’t you?”

“You don’t understand, Sheriff. I can’t tell you anything more.”

“Why can’t you? She was your friend. Don’t you want to make sure that her husband gets what’s coming to him?”

Samantha looked away. A row of bright yellow school buses had converged out front. The morning kindergartners were going to line up soon to be taken home.

“I loved Mandy. But this isn’t about her anymore. OK? Please just leave me alone. Please, I’m begging you, Sheriff Kenyon.”

“What do you mean, isn’t about Mandy? Are you all right?”

Heather Jonas opened the door with two cans of Diet Coke, but before she could say a word, Samantha stood up and started for the door. “I’ve said more than I should say. Please. Let it go.”

“Is everything all right?” Ms. Jonas asked, stepping out of Samantha Phillips’s way.

Neither Emily nor Samantha responded as they trailed out the door. No response was needed. Things were clearly far from all right.

Emily stopped Samantha as she opened the driver’s door of her Volvo wagon.

Samantha looked up. Tears were streaming down her face.

“Look,” she said, “I got a call right after Mandy disappeared. The person told me if I didn’t keep my mouth shut about what I knew, my kids would die.”

“Oh, Samantha, who was it? And what is it that you know?”

Samantha got into the driver side and reached in her purse for a tissue. She was sobbing and her tears made it hard for her to see anything in the car’s dark leather interior.

“I really don’t know who it was. I don’t know anything. Mandy was having an affair, but I don’t know who it was. She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Was it Mitch who threatened you?”

“No. No. It wasn’t him at all.”

“Are you sure?”

She dabbed at her ruined eye makeup. “I’m sure, Sheriff. The caller was a woman.” She turned the ignition. “Please,” she said, “I’m begging you. Keep me out of this. If I knew something I’d tell you. I promise. I’d like to kill the bastard and the bitch who’ve made me feel like Cherrystone is no better than L.A. or Chicago.”

Emily drove back to the office, nearly out of breath from the shock of Samantha’s disclosure. Who was it? Was it Tricia Wilson? Who and why would anyone threaten Samantha with the death of her two little children?

Were all roads leading to Tricia Wilson?

Her cell rang.

“Hi, babe.” It was Chris on the phone, calling from the drive back to the airport for a flight to Seattle after checking things out at the bank in Spokane. “Tried you earlier. How’s your day going so far?”

“Hang on.” Emily searched for a spot to pull over. Frozen snow crunched under her tires as she pulled into a parking place in the Mayfair Market lot. “You tell me how the bank went first,” she said.

“Is this like ‘Show me yours, I’ll show you mine’? We’ve already done that.”

Emily ordinarily would have laughed and teased him back, but she was still reeling. “I’m processing my talk with Samantha.”

Chris didn’t catch the anxiety in her voice. Emily could hold it inside and she chose to do so just then.

“OK,” he said. “Bottom line here is that Mitch Crawford has never been a customer of the branch that sent the cash to Tricia Wilson. Absolutely not. I got it from the woman who works the circle.”

“The circle?”

“Yeah, the customer circle. It’s a bank thing. Don’t ask.”

“So, if the money came from there, someone else paid off Tricia, right?”

“Yeah. We just don’t know who. What about Samantha?”

“All right. I don’t think she’s a liar. She says she was threatened. She’s a mother. Once she told me of the threat, she’s not going to protect some creep.”

Chris understood, at least he said so. “All right. I’ll talk to you tonight when I’m back in Seattle.”

“I love you,” she said.

“Back at you.”

Before pulling away, Emily hit the speed dial for Camille’s private line.

“Camille, it’s me.”

“Yes? Do you have something so soon?”

Emily could feel the lift in Camille’s voice. “No. Hold on. I have until five. Here’s what I know. Bank employees confirm that whoever made the transaction—and remember this is without a warrant, thank you—it was not Mitch Crawford.”

“We need a warrant, of course. Cary McConnell will be all over this. He smells blood like a shark.”

“Don’t I know that,” Emily said. “Based on what we know, Mitch didn’t pay off Tricia.”

“Who else would do that? Who else would tamper with a witness?”

Emily was surprised at the prosecutor’s question, but she answered it anyway.

“The only person I can think of is someone with a whole lot to lose. Someone with more to lose than Mitch.”

The line was silent for a second. “Who?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. I also talked to Samantha Phillips. This thing is bigger than just Tricia Wilson’s bank account.”

Camille paused. “How do you mean? You think Samantha’s involved?”

“No. No. She’s frightened. Someone threatened her after Mandy’s disappearance.”

“Threatened her? Why? How?”

“Her kids. Killing her kids if she talked.”

In her mind’s eye, Emily could see Camille’s face just then. Anger turned her face a shade of pink. A vein on her temple had likely risen to the surface of her otherwise flawless skin.

“That goddamn Mitch Crawford’s a complete snake!”

“Cammie, it wasn’t Mitch. Sam said it was a woman.”

“What kind of woman would threaten another’s children for that monster? Darla?”

Emily liked Darla and saw her as a young woman who’d already figured out that she’d made too many mistakes. “I don’t think so. She’s not the type.”

“Tricia?”

“Could be. Or someone else.”