Memory of Murder

It was true that Alan-Detective Cameron-had told her to call him if she found out anything that might help narrow down the location of the traumatic events in her mother’s past. But this was such a small thing. Would he think it significant enough to warrant bothering him on a weekend? He had made it pretty clear he was looking into this without much enthusiasm or real hope of success. And he had said he would call her if he found anything. Which meant, since she hadn’t heard from him, that he didn’t have anything to tell her. She didn’t want to be a pest.

Oh, grow up, Lindsey. At least be honest with yourself. You know the real reason you can’t let yourself call the man is because you want to so badly.

There. She’d done it-spoken inside her head the truth she’d been trying not to acknowledge. She wanted to call Detective Alan Cameron. Wanted to hear his voice again. Better yet, wanted to see him again.

His face hovered in her mind wherever she went, whatever she did, always there, following her the way she used to think the moon followed her when she was a little girl. His eyes…the unexpected softness that came into them when he spoke to her mother, in such stark contrast with the hardness, the speculation, the cop look that was there all the rest of the time. She wondered what it would be like to see that softness when he looked at her.

Silly, of course. So very junior high school. She’d just barely met the man. Ridiculously, demoralizingly stupid to have his voice, the words and phrases he’d spoken, playing over and over in her mind like a song that had gotten stuck there.

She wasn’t sure what she was going to do about it, but one thing she was not going to do was make an idiot of herself over a man she didn’t even know. And a cop, for God’s sake!

It had been such a long time since any man had made an impression on her-why did it have to be a cop?

Needing to get out of the house, away from the phone and the temptation it presented, she changed her clothes and went out for a run along the cliffs, taking her house key on a chain around her neck as she always did and leaving everything else, even her cell phone, behind.

Tomorrow, she told herself as she ran. Monday, a work day-will be better. I’ll have plenty of things to distract me-with any luck, a flood or a hurricane or some sort of disaster. You know I don’t mean that, God, right? And if he hasn’t called by the end of the work day, well, that’s a reasonable length of time to wait.

She felt better, somehow, having made that decision. Stronger. More disciplined. If he hasn’t called by five o’clock Monday, I will call him.

Monday morning when Alan reported in, police headquarters was still a zoo. But at least there hadn’t been any more shootings overnight. No more bodies. Thank you, Lord.

By around four o’clock, with the short November afternoon already sliding toward dusk and the lights in the squad room turning the windows to mirrors, he finally found a moment to see what the make he’d run on Richard and Susan Merrill had turned up. He wasn’t expecting much-was pretty sure he knew what he was going to find- nothing. No warrants, no arrests, no priors. The Merrills were undoubtedly exactly what they seemed to be: Two nice, law-abiding, upper-middle-class Americans with no more than the usual number of skeletons in their family closets. Sad about the wife’s Alzheimer’s, but, those things happened, even to nice people.

For a few minutes after he brought up the screen, his sleep-deprived mind refused to process what he was seeing. He read through the results for Susan Merrill, then for Richard, scrolled back to the beginning of Susan’s and read through both again. Nope-he hadn’t missed anything. He tipped back his chair and gazed at the data neatly boxed and itemized on the screen, frowning and tapping a pencil on his desktop. He straightened abruptly and reached for his phone, but hung it up without dialing and shoved back his chair instead. A few minutes later he was knocking on the door of his captain’s office.

Getting the answer he usually did-an unintelligible growl-Alan opened the door, stuck his head through the crack and said, “Sir, got a minute?”

Captain Ron Tupman hitched back in his chair and snapped, “Just about that much.”

Alan gave him about half a grin. “Yeah, been a crazy couple of days, hasn’t it?” Captain Tupman was in charge of both the gang and homicide units, among others. “If you’d rather not-”

“Already got my attention, don’t wimp out now.” The captain tossed a pen onto the mess of paperwork on his desk. “What’s on your mind, Detective Cameron?”

Alan filled him in, beginning with Lindsey Merrill’s visit and ending with the results of the background search on Richard and Susan Merrill. The captain listened without interrupting, a habit that was one of the things Alan liked and respected about the man, and no doubt at least part of the reason why he was currently occupying an office with a nameplate on the door.

“Now that things have settled down a bit, if you can spare me, I’d like to take a couple of days to follow up on it,” Alan concluded. “See where it goes.”

Captain Tupman stuck out his lower lip and contemplated the mess on his desk for a full ten seconds. Then he leaned forward and picked up the pen. “This mess is Gang Unit’s headache, they’re coordinating with the feds, so yeah, unless any more bodies turn up, might as well go with it.” He looked up and leveled his patented black stare at Alan. “If this thing grows legs, I want to know about it.”

“Sure-you bet. Thanks.” Alan was on his way out the door when his cell phone vibrated against his side. He waved an apology and a farewell to his captain and exited, glancing at the caller ID as he thumbed the talk button. He didn’t recognize the number immediately, but somehow knew it was Lindsey, and was surprised by the little zap of electricity that shot through him. Not adrenaline-he got enough of that in his job and it wasn’t a sensation he enjoyed, not like some thrill junkies he knew. This was different-and entirely pleasant.

“Hey,” he said, after she’d identified herself in a hushed and breathless voice, as if she were doing something illicit, “I was just going to call you.”

Lindsey felt quivery inside. “Oh,” she said, and laughed. She took the phone away from her ear to check. But the hand holding it appeared to be steady. She cleared her throat, and when she spoke, so did he.

They both said together, “Did you find something?” And Lindsey laughed and said, “You first.”

“Uh-uh,” Alan said, “you called me. You go first.”

Her heart was pounding. She thought, This is silly. I’m being silly. “I don’t know if it’s any help. It probably isn’t.”

“Why don’t you tell me and let me decide?”

She took a breath, closed her eyes and said, “Snow.”

“Snow?”

“I told you. It’s probably nothing. My mother says she remembers Jimmy liked to play in the snow. At first, I thought, at least that tells us it wasn’t in San Diego. But then I realized, you can drive a couple of hours from here and be in snow. I’ve played in the snow. So maybe…”

“Yeah,” he said. He sounded distracted, and again Lindsey thought, Stupid, stupid. I’m wasting his time. Then he said, “Look, I need to talk to you. How about if I meet you somewhere?”

A breath gusted through her like a freshening wind off the ocean, chilling her, but at the same time filling her with what could only be described as joy. She tried to believe the cause was the thought that he must have found some information on her mother’s memories, but she knew it wasn’t only that. She wasn’t in the habit of kidding herself. This thing she was feeling, this junior high school excitement, or whatever it was, was because she was going to see Alan again.

Demoralizing, she thought, for a forty-year-old businesswoman who should certainly know better. She was being ridiculous and in grave danger of making a fool of herself. She had to get a grip, now.

The silence on the phone had lasted no more than a moment. “Tell you what,” she said, and was pleased and a little surprised at how calm and adult her voice sounded. “I’m about to go for a run. Why don’t you meet me at Sunset Cliffs Park? By the time you get there I should be about finished.” There, she thought. That should demonstrate that she wasn’t falling all over herself to accommodate him.

And, she thought, a brisk run along the cliffs should give her a chance to expend some nervous energy and get her head on straight. A good dose of endorphins was just what she needed.

Her heart lurched into her throat as she realized he’d said something that hadn’t registered. “What?” she