Heart of Ice

Chapter Sixty-three

Seattle

Irvin Watkins, a retired Seattle cop, was watching the TV—actually reveling in the majesty of his TV, was more like it. Just sixty-three, with a thatch of snow-white hair and lively blue eyes, Irv sat in the dark and drank some beer and took it all in. Life was so good.

He’d just upgraded to high-definition TV and felt like everything he’d been seeing on the screen now dazzled. Sporting events were now so crystal clear that he could almost smell the sloshed beer on the bleachers. The local newscasters looked like they’d aged twenty years as every wrinkle and pore seemed to be diamond-cut.

As he was watching the Seattle news, a blond newscaster who’d been on the air for decades updated viewers on the Mandy Crawford case across the state in Cherrystone. It caught his interest for two reasons. One, he knew of Emily Kenyon mostly by reputation from her days in Seattle. But he also knew that she’d been dating his old partner, Chris Collier.

“The husband of the missing woman—Mitchell Crawford—has been unable to make bail and awaits trial in a cell at the Cherrystone jail.”

“Wait a second,” he said aloud, though no one was there to hear him. He lived alone. Had been alone since his wife died in August. Irvin set down his tumbler of pinot noir. He didn’t need his glasses as he studied the man’s face on the TV. The HD made sure of it. The guy on the screen was eerily familiar.

He reached for his old worn-out phone book, old school all the way, and dialed. The call didn’t go through and the operator’s recorded voice indicated that he should check the listing and dial again.

He did, to the same results. It seemed. Chris’s number was dead.

“He must have gone to a cell phone,” he said, again, to himself. The whole world had. He dialed a buddy at the downtown precinct where he’d worked before retiring. Within two minutes he had Chris Collier’s cell number. He dialed again, this time getting voice mail.

“Hey Chris, Irv Watkins here. I think I’ve got something you might find of interest. Call me. Or better yet, come by and see me.”

It was stone cold that night and despite the man lying next to her, Donna Rayburn couldn’t get warm. She cuddled up next to her lover, but his cool body offered no comfort at all. She got up, grabbed a robe, and went in search of an extra blanket. She used a flashlight to guide her way down an unfamiliar hallway to a linen closet. The contents of the closet were as ordered as the linen section of Saks. Nothing was out of place. All colors were coordinated. On the edge of each towel on the shelf just below her eye level she noticed they were monogrammed with the initials of her host. She waved her light up another row, looking for a blanket. Those, too, were monogrammed. Donna gave her head a shake and pulled one from the top, exposing a blanket with another set of initials—ML. Who was ML? A wife, she’d never heard of? She thought it was creepy that he didn’t get rid of those towels. The guy wasn’t cheap. He had to have kept them because he wanted, rather than needed them. She took a blanket and went back to bed. She made herself a mental note to ask about the unfamiliar monogram in the morning.

Donna didn’t know that her question would be the last she’d ever ask.