“I promised I wouldn’t put you in a situation, and I won’t. But Sherry was a friend and there’s no way I can just stand aside. So? Let’s trade. Tell me what you’ve got, I’ll swap you what I know. Then I’ll get out of your hair.”
“You first.”
“Fine. There’s no way Sherry got run off this turnout accidentally. She lives in Briarwood a few miles up the road. It’s a gated community, guests have to sign in and out. This place is a lovers’ lane. Handy if you want to meet somebody on the quiet.”
“Somebody like you, for instance?”
“We parked here once. When we broke up. A year ago. Your turn.”
“The car was spotted by a hiker, upside down in the creek at the bottom of the ravine. It didn’t hit hard, and the airbags would have absorbed most of the impact. She could have gotten out if she was conscious. The pathologist’s best guess is, she was already dead when the car went in.”
“On the phone you mentioned her throat was bruised?”
“It didn’t look like strangulation, but there was a livid mark and the hyoid was crushed. Maybe a judo strike to the larynx. You had hand-to-hand training in the service, right?”
“Along with a million other guys. The same course you had at the Academy. Was she assaulted?”
“There was no evidence of that, no bruises or torn clothing. Whose idea was it to break off your relationship?”
“Mine.”
“Why?”
“That’s... a bit complicated.”
“It always is. Give me a DD-5 version, Dylan.”
I mulled that over for a moment. How to condense a serious slice of my life into a police report? Straight up. Tear the damn bandage off.
“My last year in the Air Force, I came home on leave from Iraq. Sherry interviewed me for the station, a local interest story.”
“And sparks flew?”
“Something like that. It started as an overnight fling. But after I went back, we stayed in touch. E-mailed almost every day, hooked up whenever I could get leave.”
“So the affair was... serious?”
“It was for me. I bought a ring.”
“Wow.” Zee’s eyebrows went up. “What happened?”
“I got posted T.D.Y. to Barksdale Air Base in Louisiana—”
“T.D.Y.?”
“Temporary duty. I was an investigator with the Air Police. They flew me in to teach a course on crime scenes. The base is just up the road from New Orleans, and it was Mardi Gras week. Sherry flew down to party. I planned to pop the question over the weekend.”
“And did you?”
“Not quite. Three in the morning, we were in a disco in the French Quarter when the DJ announced the next tune would be topless. Sherry stripped off her blouse and kept right on dancing with the rest of the wild girls. Half naked in a room full of strangers and she never missed a step. And every doubt I had about our relationship came into focus.”
“Just because she flashed for a song?” Zee asked doubtfully. “Why? You’re no prude.”
“Not a bit. It was Mardi Gras. The whole scene was totally hot. People were making love in the streets.”
“Then what? It bothered you that she went overboard?”
“That’s just it, she didn’t. It wasn’t a lapse. She needed to be out there in front of that crowd. That’s what bothered me. Sherry grew up in the foster-care system, never knew her family. Maybe that’s where the hunger came from.”
“What hunger?”
“Down deep, Sherry was... a drama queen, I suppose. She came alive in the spotlight. She was desperate to be the center of attention. All the time. Wanted to be recognized, wanted people to know her name. And I realized the things she cared the most about meant nothing at all to me. And the things I care about, my family, living in the north, weren’t important to her. I could make her smile, we had some great times, but I could never make her sparkle the way she did in front of a camera.”
“So you ended it?”
“Not then. Things... wound down on their own. Most love affairs have chemistry in the beginning, but unless there’s more to it, an affair’s all it will ever be. That’s all it was for us. A month after Mardi Gras, we were over. No Famous Final Scene, no tears, no hard feelings. I went on the Detroit force after the service and we lost touch for a while, but when I transferred up here, we hooked up again. Went out a few times.”
“Rekindling the old flame?”
“More like auld lang syne. We were over and we both knew it.”
She looked down the ravine. A wrecker was winching the sedan out of the water. “You said you saw her last week?”
“She called me. We met for coffee.”
“Why?”
“Just to say hi, touch base.”
She glanced at me sharply. “You said this was a double homicide. I’m assuming she was pregnant?”
“We talked about that,” I admitted.
“Was it yours?”
“No. No chance.”
“Whose then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she know?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Did she sleep around?”
“She was twenty-six and single. She wasn’t a nun. Beyond that, you’re asking the wrong guy.”
“Who should I be asking?”
I mulled that one over. “She said she was seeing Rob Gilchrist.”
“I’ve already heard that. Anyone else?”
This time I didn’t answer. Zee knew I was holding out, but she let me off the hook. For now.
“Do you have any idea what Sherry was doing out here, Dylan?”
“Meeting a source? Meeting a lover? Your guess is as good as mine.”
Which wasn’t quite true. If she’d wanted to have it out with her married boss, Jack Milano, this might be exactly the place. He couldn’t risk signing in the gate of her condo or being spotted out on the town. Their involvement would be a firing offense.
Sherry’d asked me to check Milano out, and I’d taken my sweet time about it. If I’d been faster, she might not be in a body bag, headed for Grayling. I’d been too slow. But I was definitely revved up now.
Zee was staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me, Dylan?”
“Not a thing.” I was lying to her face now. She knew it. And didn’t like it.
“You’d better go home, LaCrosse. If Kaz finds you hanging around here, we’re gonna have trouble.”
“I’ve already got trouble,” I said.
Even by North Shore standards, Jack Milano’s lake-front home was a mansion. A Beaux-Arts brick estate with tall, ornately framed windows and multiple mansard roofs, it was isolated on its own personal peninsula. Definitely pricey. I guessed five mil, maybe more. Definitely more than a station manager could afford.
I checked my watch as I trotted up to the front door. It was nearly eight. Zee would be stuck at the crime scene at least another hour. With luck, I could ambush Milano before he left for work.
I pressed the buzzer.
No answer.
I was angry enough to kick the damned door in. I leaned on the buzzer, holding it down.
An overhead speaker crackled to life. “Who is it?” A woman’s voice.
“Police, ma’am. Sergeant LaCrosse. Is Mr. Milano in?”
A pause. “Wait, please. I’ll be right down.”
She opened the door a moment later. A tall, spare woman in an azure dressing gown. Silk, I think. She was fortyish, ash blond and elegant. And a bit myopic. She peered at me through thick glasses in designer frames. Ordinarily I would have been in a sport coat and dress shirt over jeans. North-country business chic. My black leather jacket suited my mood.
“Did you say police?” she asked.
“Sergeant LaCrosse, ma’am. North Shore Major Crimes.” I held up my ID folder.
“My husband is in New York, at a conference,” she said, squinting at my badge. “Perhaps I can help. This is about Miss Sinclair, isn’t it?”