"1 love you, John," Josie said suddenly. Her voice caught. "Big surprise, huh? But I had to say it at least once. Funny, it didn't hurt a bit. Call me later, okay?"
She hung up before he could say anything. He stared at the phone for a moment, listening to the dial tone, then placed the receiver back in its cradle. The ache he felt inside was bittersweet, and it left him wanting a resolution he couldn't have. He should call her back. He should tell her he loved her, too. But he knew he wouldn't.
He was still mulling the matter when he caught a glimpse of movement through the kitchen window. When he walked over for a closer look, a sheriff's cruiser was parked in the driveway and Larry Spence was walking toward the house.
CHAPTER 24
Just from the look on John Ross's face, Nest knew who it was even before she answered the knock at the door. Her impatience and frustration with Larry Spence crowded to the forefront of her thoughts, but she forced herself to ignore them. This visit did not concern her; it concerned Bennett Scott. Because it was necessary to talk with him about Bennett at some point anyway, she was prepared to endure the unpleasantness she was certain would follow.
"Afternoon," he greeted as she opened the door. "Would it be all right with you if I took those statements now?"
As if she had a choice. She managed a weak smile. "Sure. Come on in."
He clumped through the open doorway, knocked the snow from his boots onto the throw rug, and slipped off his uniform coat and hat and hung them on the rack. He seemed ill at ease, as if his size and authority were out of place here, as if they belonged somewhere else entirely and not in her home. She felt better for this, thinking that it wouldn't hurt for him to walk on eggshells for a while.
"Armbruster finished the autopsy," he advised conspiratorially, lowering his voice. "The young lady had enough drugs in her system to float a battleship. But the drugs didn't kill her. She froze to death. The marks on her body were from the fall off the bluff. I'd say she lost her way and wandered off, but it's just a guess."
"Larry," she said quietly, turning him with her hands on his arms so that his back was to the living room. "I don't know anything about Bennett Scott and drugs beyond the fact she was an addict. John knows even less. I didn't even know she was coming back here until she showed up on my doorstep. John, when he came to see me, didn't either. He hasn't been back here in fifteen years. Bennett was five then. All this talk about drug dealing in the park, true or not, does not involve us. Keep that in mind, will you?"
His face closed down. "I'll keep an open mind, I can promise you that." He glanced over his shoulder. "I'll need to see the young lady's room. You don't have to let me, of course, if you don't want to. But it would save me a trip down to the courthouse for a search warrant."
"Oh, for God's sake, Larry!" she snapped. "You can see anything you want!" She sighed wearily. "Come with me. I'll show you where she was staying."
They walked down the hallway past the den and Nest's room to the guest bedroom where Bennett and Harper were staying. The room was gray with shadows and silent. Bennett's clothes were still in her bag in the closet, and Nest had already picked up after Harper and made the bed. She stood in the doorway while Larry Spence poked about, checking the closet and the dresser drawers, looking under the bed and in the adjoining bathroom, and searching Bennett's worn satchel. He didn't seem to find anything of importance, and when he was done he put everything back the way he had found it.
"Guess that'll do," he said without much enthusiasm. "Why don't we do the interviews now, and then I'll be out of your hair?"
"All right," she replied. "Do you want some privacy for this?"
He shrugged his big shoulders, and she could hear the creak of his leather gun belt. "I can interview you and Mr. Ross out in the living room. Do the both of you together. Maybe the children could play back here while we talk."
She shook her head. "I don't want Harper alone in this room just yet. I just finished telling her about her mother." She hesitated. "They can play in my bedroom."
She went past him out the door and down the hall, irritated but resigned, already thinking about the more pressing problem of how she would manage the next twenty-four hours. It wouldn't be easy. Harper would be thinking of her mother. Little John was a weight she could barely shoulder, and yet she had to find a way to do so. Ross would probably be wanting to leave and go into hiding; he hadn't said so, but she could sense he'd made the decision. Whatever she did about any of them, she would second-guess herself later.
She collected Harper and Little John, the puzzle and a few other toys, and took them all into her bedroom. She told the children she had to talk with someone out in the living room, but she would be back to check on them. It wouldn't take long, and they could come back out when she was done.
It felt awkward, but she wanted the space and maneuverability that the living room offered so that she could usher Larry Spence out as soon as the interviews were concluded— sooner, if he started to annoy her—without disturbing the children.
Larry Spence had closed Bennett's bedroom door and was standing in the hallway, waiting for her. He continued to look ill at ease. Leaving her own bedroom door open just a crack, anxious that Harper not hear what might be said, she took him back down the hall to where Ross was waiting. They sat together in the living room, Ross and Nest on the couch, Spence in the easy chair. He produced a small notebook and pen, jotted a few notes, and then asked Nest to begin.
She did so without preamble, detailing the events from the time of their departure from the house until her discovery at Robert's that Bennett was missing. She left out anything about Ross, preferring to let him tell his own story. She also left out everything about the ur'droch, saying instead that she had come back to find the house broken into and the power and phone out.
When she finished her account, she brought out the note that Bennett had left in her coat the night before. "I forgot about this earlier, but I found it this morning before you called. Bennett must have tucked it in my pocket last night before she slipped out of the Hepplers'."
She handed it to Spence, who read it carefully. "Almost sounds as if she thought something was going to happen to her, doesn't it?" he said, mostly to himself. He cleared his throat and shifted to a new position. "Just one or two more questions. Then I'll take Mr. Ross's statement and be on my way."
He ended up asking rather a lot of questions, she thought, repeating himself more than once in the process and annoying her considerably. But she stuck it out, not wanting to have to go through this again later. Once or twice, she got up to peek down the hallway, and each time Larry Spence quickly called her back by saying he was almost done, that he had just a few more questions, as if he was afraid she was going to walk out on him and not come back.
When he was finished with her, he interviewed Ross, a process that for all the noise he had made earlier about drug connections and shady characters took considerably less time than it had with her. He raised an eyebrow when Josie Jackson was mentioned, but said nothing. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought he'd lost interest in Ross completely.
"Guess that's it," he announced finally, checking his watch for what must have been the twentieth time, slapping closed the notebook, and rising to his feet. "Sorry to take so long."
He was still nervous as Nest walked him to the front door, glancing everywhere but at her, looking as if he had something bottled up inside that he was dying to get out. At the door, he gave her a peek at what it was.