took off alone.
The garden was empty except for an older woman sitting on one of the stone benches. She looked to be at least in her seventies with paper-thin skin and deep wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. A full, dark skirt hung to her ankles revealing only a glimpse of her black leather boots. A woolen cloak shrouded her, covering her head, but he could see enough of her hair to tell it was gray.
She looked up when he approached. “Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning. What brings you out so early?” he asked, mostly making small talk, but somewhat curious as to why she was out and about before the sun had cleared the horizon.
“I like to watch the sunrise from the garden.”
“Do you come here often?”
“Too often.”
A strange answer, but he wasn’t about to pry into her business. “Enjoy your day,” he said, in way of goodbye. He’d already walked by her when she responded.
“He’ll kill again.”
Bart stopped and spun around, wondering if he’d heard her wrong. “What did you say?”
“He’ll kill again.”
“Who’ll kill again?”
“The man who abducted the woman and shot you.”
The statement threw him off. He’d been certain no one knew who he was or why he was here. “How do you know who I am?”
“I listen.”
That didn’t explain much, but his thoughts were rushing ahead. “Do you know who abducted the woman?”
“No. Why are you looking for him?”
“I just want to find him and make certain he goes to prison before he strikes again.”
“Is that your duty?”
“That’s the way I see it.”
She nodded and pulled her cloak tighter. “Maybe you should reconsider your priorities.”
She stood and walked to a nearby fountain. Slowly, she slipped off her gloves and stuffed them into her skirt pockets. She spread her open arms in front of the spray the way people held their hands in front of the fireplace to get them warm. After a few seconds, she pressed her damp fingers to her thin lips.
“He kills because of what was done to him.” Her voice was low and she was still facing the fountain, more as if she were muttering to herself than talking to him. He stepped toward her.
“You seem to have given the killer a lot of thought.”
“No, but the mist is full of whispers.”
Bart was beginning to doubt the woman was totally lucid, but she knew about him, so maybe she knew about other people as well. “I’ve been looking for a woman I saw the other night in the ballroom,” he said. “She was wearing a long, green satin dress and a magnificent diamond-and-emerald pendant.”
“Katrina.”
“Is that her name?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know her room number?”
“No, but if you watch for her, you’ll see her again.”
“What’s her last name?”
“Katrina is all I know.”
“Is she here with someone.”
“No. She is always alone.”
He heard voices on the path just beyond the garden. He checked his watch. Ten before six. The first of the day crew were arriving. The restaurant opened at seven, but room service ran all night, and the silver urn in the foyer was filled with hot coffee at exactly six-thirty every morning.
When he turned around again, the old woman was gone. But at least now he had a name for the mysterious woman. “Katrina.” He said the name out loud, liking the sound of it as it rolled off his tongue.
Katrina. Beautiful. Elusive. And much too enchanting to spend her nights all alone.
CARRIE PUSHED UP the sleeve of her uniform and glanced at her watch. Only eight-thirty, and Rich was already getting on her nerves. It was the third day into the partnership, and she was still desperately searching for a sign it might actually work.
“I’ve already questioned half these people,” she said, tossing the list of names he’d just handed her to the top of his desk. The same way she’d already questioned Elora Nicholas’s husband, but Rich had spent the past two days putting the poor guy through an intensive interrogation.
“So, we’ll talk to them again.”
Her hands flew to her hips in spite of her determination not to butt heads with him today. “So what’s the problem? Do you think I don’t know how to handle a few questions?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what makes you think we need to redo everything I’ve done for the past month.”
“The case isn’t solved, and we’ve got a killer out there threatening to strike again.”
Like she needed him to point that out to her.
Rich picked up his coffee mug, an ugly green one with the logo of a Seattle pharmacy emblazoned across it in black. He took a long sip, then pushed back from his desk and grabbed his jacket. “You got a better idea for how to spend the day, Fransen, or do you just want to sit around here and jaw about it?”
“Jaw about it?”
“Okay.” He gave a mock bow. “Is it your wish, Deputy Fransen, that we remain at the office and discuss this matter further?”
“It’s my wish that we not waste time backtracking.”
“So, what do you have in mind?”
“I know the hotel owners won’t like it, but I think it’s time to start tracking down all the guests who were staying at the hotel that night.”
“According to your notes, you already ruled them out.”
“I did cursory background checks on all of them,” she said, “but I think we should interrogate some of them further.”
“For what purpose? The only red flags you reported were James Fox from Portland, a one-time shoplifting charge from twenty years ago, and Bailey Ledlow who did time for embezzlement.”
So he had at least read her notes. Which meant he knew she’d talked personally to both of those men and was reasonably sure they weren’t involved in the abduction. Ledlow was seventy years old and in poor health. He probably couldn’t have made the hike through the woods alone, much less dragging a woman. James Fox and his wife had argued that weekend and checked out of the hotel early. They’d been back in Portland by the time Elora Nicholas had been abducted. Besides, neither of their prior crimes made them suspects in a murder case.
Rich walked to the door. “You going with me, or not?”
“Partners usually discuss their day.”
“I thought that’s what we just did.”
He would. She started to point out that he was a jerk, then decided against it. Even if she argued and won her point, he was probably right. The killer was probably still here on the scene. Why else would they have received the note?
So they’d do this his way today. She’d just take advantage of this opportunity to sit back and watch McFarland in action, see if he had anything on her when it came to questioning the locals.
“Come on,” Rich said. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“At the hotel?”
“At ten dollars an egg?