The Littlest Witness Page 5

  “On the roof!” Mrs. Lewellyn looked genuinely shocked and more than a little concerned. “How on earth did it get up there?”

  “I don’t know.” Thea paused. “I was thinking that if you and Nikki had left the apartment last night, maybe to come over here for a few minutes, she might have dropped the doll in the hallway. Someone else could have picked it up and taken it to the roof.” She knew she was grasping at straws, but there had to be a logical explanation. And Nikki being on the roof in the dead of night simply wasn’t logical.

  “I think I may know what happened,” Mrs. Lewellyn said slowly. She wrapped a strand of pearls around her finger as she gazed pensively down the hallway. “I’ll bet you that girl took her up there.”

  “Bliss?”

  Scorn flashed in Mrs. Lewellyn’s eyes, and just a hint of triumph. She didn’t like Nikki’s regular baby-sitter and had not been shy in voicing her opinion. The girl’s too flighty, she’d said more than once, And not at all reliable. You should see the kind of people who hang out in her apartment. You don’t want her influence on Nikki, Thea dear. I’m more than happy to watch the child while you work.

  But as much as she appreciated Mrs. Lewellyn’s help, Thea knew how trying a four-year-old could be, especially one with Nikki’s problems. And Bliss was wonderful with her, so patient and loving.

  “You think Bliss took the doll up to the roof?” Thea asked doubtfully.

  “Why, I’m certain that must be what happened. She was very secretive when I got to your apartment last evening. She huddled with Nikki, whispering to her and laughing, and I even heard her say something about a picnic that afternoon. But when I scolded her for taking the child outside, she just fluttered those fake eyelashes at me and said something like, ‘Why, Mrs. Lew, I have no idea what you’re talking about. We haven’t left the building all day, have we, Nikki?’ She can be very disrespectful, that girl.”

  “So if the two of them had a picnic on the roof yesterday afternoon, Nikki could have left her doll up there then.” That would explain a lot, and Thea immediately warmed to the idea.

  “I’m sure of it,” Mrs. Lewellyn said firmly. “Because Nikki couldn’t find her doll at bedtime last night. You know how she refuses to go to sleep unless Piper is tucked in safe and sound beside her, but when I put Nikki to bed, I couldn’t find the blasted doll anywhere. Nikki was very upset. I finally had to make her some warm milk, just so she’d calm down enough to drift off.”

  As upset as Thea was over Bliss’s disobeying her orders, she was also intensely relieved. If Nikki hadn’t been on the roof last night, then she couldn’t have seen what happened to Gail Waters. She wasn’t a witness, as Detective Gallagher had claimed, which meant she wasn’t in any danger.

  Unless, of course, the Mancusos found them. And Thea had no intention of letting that happen. “I’ll call and ask Bliss about it when she gets home.”

  “She’s gone off to visit her parents,” Mrs. Lewellyn reminded her. “Or so she said. But that boyfriend of hers is still hanging around. I saw him on the stairs this morning. He gives me the willies, I don’t mind telling you. All that long hair. That awful scruffy beard. He looks as if he hasn’t bathed in weeks.” She paused, shuddering delicately. “You know, if I were you, I’d really set my foot down, Thea. Bliss had no right taking Nikki up there. That roof is a dangerous place. Why, the child could have fallen off just like that poor woman—”

  “I know,” Thea cut in, not wanting Mrs. Lewellyn to finish her words. The visual in her mind was already too graphic. “I intend to speak to Bliss the moment she gets home.”

  “If you need any help with Nikki, all you have to do is ask, dear.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mrs. Lewellyn seemed reluctant to let her go, and Thea knew the old woman was probably lonely. She had no family that Thea knew of, nor any friends who came calling. Except for her church work, Mrs. Lewellyn seemed as isolated as Thea and Nikki. For a moment Thea wondered if the older woman had something in her past that she was hiding from, too.

  Not likely, Thea decided as she turned down the hall to her apartment. Mrs. Lewellyn was probably just an old woman who had outlived most of her friends and family.

  Something that might have been self-pity tugged at Thea’s heart, and she had a vision of herself at that age, alone, bitter and still running. And what about Nikki? What kind of life had Thea sentenced her daughter to?

  In a way Nikki was in her own prison. The trauma of that night, seeing her father dead on the floor, seeing the gun in her mother’s hand, had sent the child running to her own dark place. A silent place.

  Dr. Nevin, the child psychologist Nikki was seeing, had warned Thea that her daughter’s treatment might take a long time. It could be months, even years, before Nikki trusted enough, felt safe enough, to speak. Until then, all Thea could do was be patient.

  But sometimes it was so hard, seeing her daughter struggle. Thea wanted to fight Nikki’s battles for her. She wanted to crawl into that cold quiet place and slay every last one of her daughter’s dragons. After all, she was the one who had caused Nikki’s trauma, and if she could take back that night, if she could change the course of events that had led to Rick’s death, she would.

  But her ex-husband would have killed her that night if she hadn’t pulled the trigger on her father’s gun. He might even have hurt Nikki. And that Thea could never allow.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Mrs. Lewellyn had closed her door, but an uneasiness stole over her that she couldn’t seem to shake. Maybe it was the thought of Rick and what she’d done, but it almost seemed as if someone was watching her. Judging her.

  You’re losing it, Thea scolded herself as she approached her apartment door. Sensing an invisible watcher was nothing new. Thea had long since become accustomed to glancing over her shoulder.

  “You’re safe,” she muttered under her breath. No one was watching her. And now that she had an explanation for how Nikki’s doll had gotten on the roof, she and her daughter were in the clear with the police.

  Once she told Detective Gallagher what had happened, there would be no reason for their further involvement in the case. There would be no point in his coming around anymore. He would be out of their lives for good. And her and Nikki’s secret would remain safe.

  But as she inserted the key into the lock, a chill crawled up her backbone, and she couldn’t help looking over her shoulder once more. The hallway behind her was empty, and Mrs. Lewellyn’s door was still closed. No one was about.

  But Thea couldn’t shake the chill. She stepped quickly into her apartment and closed the door, but not all the way. She listened through a tiny crack, and almost instantly, she heard the telltale click as a door somewhere in the hall was closed.

  FIRST THING Monday morning John went around to his uncle’s office at the station and knocked on the open door. “You wanted to see me?”

  Liam Gallagher glanced up from the report he’d been reading and motioned John into his office. Pushing sixty, Liam was still a handsome man with a shock of snow-white hair and bright blue eyes, which reflected his humor almost as often as his quick temper.

  He was a seasoned detective who’d started out as a beat cop on Chicago’s south side nearly forty years ago, just as his father had before him and his younger brother, Sean, had after him. Liam’s son, Miles, worked in Narcotics. They were, as John had told Thea Lockhart, a family of cops.

  Liam waited until John was seated, then said, “I asked Lieutenant McIntyre to send you down here because I wanted to talk to you about the report you and your partner filed yesterday morning.”

  “You mean the Gail Waters case?”

  Liam stuck a pair of bifocals on his broad Irish nose and glanced down at the paperwork on his desk. “McIntyre said you’d requested a follow-up investigation.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  His uncle glared at him over the rims of his glasses. “You know it is. We’re short over two hundred detectives in t
his division, and only half the homicides in this city get solved. I don’t have the time or the manpower to waste on a case that should be cleared.”

  “I know, I know.” John sighed, all too familiar with the shortage of detectives and the stack of uncleared murder files waiting on his desk. He’d pulled a double watch for so long now he couldn’t remember what it was like to get home at a decent time or have more than four or five hours of uninterrupted sleep at night. He plowed an impatient hand through his hair. “I’m not convinced Gail Waters killed herself.”

  “The evidence says otherwise.” Liam opened the folder containing John and Roy Cox’s reports and the preliminary autopsy findings. “No defense wounds, no hair, tissue or blood beneath her nails. No trace evidence or fingerprints at the scene. Toxicology tests clean. Contrecoup contusions to the brain, which means she was killed by the fall.” He closed the folder with an unmistakable finality.

  If it walks like a suicide, quacks like a suicide…

  John shifted in his chair. “Look, we spent most of the day yesterday canvassing the building and interviewing the tenants. We haven’t even had a chance yet to talk to her co-workers and family, let alone go through all her files. She has a database with hundreds, maybe thousands, of names from missing persons and fugitive reports she collected from every major police department in the country. One of those names could be a lead, but it’ll take days to go through that list.”

  “And if you don’t find anything?”

  John shrugged. “Then I don’t. All I’m asking is for a little more time. We haven’t been able to find out much about this woman except that she was a newspaper reporter. We still don’t know why she was at that building on Saturday night or who she went to see.”

  As John spoke, an image of Nikki Lockhart came to his mind. The little girl’s dark eyes and solemn face haunted him, and he couldn’t shake the notion that she might have seen something that night. Might know something she couldn’t tell him.

  And what about the kid’s mother? What was she hiding? John didn’t like to admit it, but Thea Lockhart haunted him, too. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind all day yesterday after he’d left her, and all night last night when he’d tried to catch a few hours’ sleep.

  It wasn’t so much that he was drawn to her, he told himself, but that he was intrigued by her. She was extraordinarily feminine with her soulful eyes and dark curly hair, but John had the distinct impression her appearance was deceiving. There was something about the way she carried herself, the fierce way she guarded her little girl that made him think she would be a formidable adversary if crossed.

  “There’s something else you need to know,” John said hesitantly. “Something I didn’t put in the report.”

  His uncle frowned. “What?”

  John got up and closed the office door. The squad room was crowded and noisy as always, but he didn’t want to take the chance his conversation might be overheard. “Gail Waters called me a few days ago and wanted to interview me for a piece she was doing on Dad’s disappearance. She’d done her homework, Liam. She knew all about Ashley’s murder, the frat party, Tony and Miles. She’d even been up to the prison to talk to Daniel O’Roarke on death row.”

  In less than a minute Liam Gallagher aged ten years. The vitality drained out of his still-muscular body, leaving him stooped, haggard and old. He slumped in his chair. “What did you tell her?”

  John shrugged. “Nothing. I didn’t have time to talk to her, and I didn’t feel like dredging up all that old business. But…”

  “But what?”

  “Now she’s dead.”

  A spark of life ignited in Liam’s eyes. “What are you trying to say, Johnny?” His tone was angry

  “Nothing. It may be just a coincidence. But it’s a piece of the puzzle I don’t think we can overlook.”

  “You told anybody about this? McIntyre?”

  “No.”

  “Not even Roy Cox?”

  “You’re the first person I’ve mentioned this to.” But John didn’t like keeping things from his partner. He’d be madder than hell if Roy pulled something like this on him.

  Liam stared at John for a long moment, then said softly, in a voice traced with an Irish accent, “You’re sure about this, Johnny?”

  Sure about what? That Gail Waters had called him or that she’d been murdered? “The only thing I’m sure of is that she called me and now she’s dead.”

  Liam sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Okay. You did the right thing bringing this to me. I’ll handle it from here.”

  John didn’t like the edge in his uncle’s voice. “What are you going to do?”

  Liam shrugged. “Follow procedure. There’s nothing in these reports that warrant a follow-up investigation.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Let it go, Johnny.” There was a warning note in his uncle’s voice.

  “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  In a sudden burst of temper Liam picked up the file and flung it at John. The contents spilled over his desk. “That wasn’t a request, goddamn it, that was an order.” His blue eyes glittering with fire, he folded his arms on his desk and leaned toward John. “You’ve always been a good cop, Johnny, and one helluva detective, but sometimes you remind me too much of Sean. You don’t know when to let go. You gotta think about this one, son. You gotta think what it would do to the family if you started asking the wrong questions. Think about your brother. Ashley’s murder nearly did Tony in back then. Look what it’s done to his life. I’ve had to appear before more review boards on his behalf than I care to remember. The kid’s always been hanging on by a thread. What do you think would happen to him if he had to relive all that?”

  “Tony’s got a few problems,” John admitted. “But he’s also a cop, a damn good one when he chooses to be. He’d be the last person to condone a cover-up.”

  “Cover-up?” Liam took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’d be careful how I used that word if I were you. Makes the brass mighty nervous. I shouldn’t have to remind you, you’d be stepping on some pretty big toes if you tried to pursue this angle.”

  “You mean Dawson?”

  “He’s never gotten over his stepdaughter’s death. She was like his own child. He was crazy about her. If you start trying to connect some two-bit reporter’s suicide to Ashley’s murder and Sean’s disappearance, Dawson’s not gonna like it one bit.”

  John knew that was true. Everyone generally regarded Superintendent Ed Dawson as a fair man, but he could be ruthless when it came to guarding his family’s privacy. John’s brother Tony and his cousin Miles had both sworn they’d seen Dawson’s son, Eddie, at the frat party that night, but somehow that part of their statements had never made it into the official report.

  “What if Gail Waters talked to Dawson, too?” John asked quietly.

  Liam stared at him for another long moment, then got up and strode to the dirty window. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he gazed out at the bleak morning, but John doubted his uncle was counting the snow flurries. It was strange to think that the events of seven years ago were still causing so many people so much anguish.

  “I’ve been over the what-ifs in that case a thousand times. What if I’d made Miles stay home that night? What if Sean had kept Tony on a shorter leash? What if he and Ashley hadn’t gotten so serious that year? What if Daniel O’Roarke had stayed on his own side of town…?”

  His words trailed off and John said, “What if Dad hadn’t started thinking Daniel might be innocent.”

  The quiet words were like gunshots. Liam turned from the window, his face a mask of pain. “Don’t ever say that again. Don’t even think it.”

  “But it’s true, isn’t it? Dad was having doubts about his own arrest.”

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Johnny. You’re starting to sound like Tony.”

  John let that one pass. “He was starting to have doubts and the
n he disappeared.”

  Liam’s voice hardened. “The O’Roarkes killed Sean. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I know that his body was never found. I know that we’ve never been able to prove anything.”

  “We’ve never been able to prove a lot of things on the O’Roarkes, but that doesn’t mean they’re not guilty as hell. If you’re starting to think one of the O’Roarkes is innocent, then God help you.”

  “I’m not thinking that,” John said wearily. “All I’m saying is that this connection with Gail Waters and Dad’s disappearance troubles me. I’d like to check into it. I’d like to find out what other stories she might have been working on when she died. What other disappearances she might have been investigating. Maybe that’s why she was at that building Saturday night. Maybe someone there can shed some light on all this for us.”

  Liam drew a long breath and released it as he turned back to the window. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to move on this thing regardless of what I say?”

  “Because you know, as well as I do, this case smells.”

  “Give me one good reason why I should let you do this,” Liam said grimly.

  “Because,” John said, staring at his uncle’s profile, “I may have a witness.”

  Chapter Four

  By the time Thea’s shift ended at three Monday afternoon, she was more than ready to get off her feet. She’d started working at the diner three months ago in hopes of keeping a low profile, and during that time, she’d gained new respect for waiters and waitresses. Today, her back ached, her head throbbed and she generally felt lousy.

  She knew the stress she’d been under for months was having an adverse effect on her health. And her run-in with the police Saturday night and early Sunday morning certainly hadn’t helped the situation. She hadn’t slept well for the past two nights, and the strain was wearing on her nerves. It was time to take action.

  With that in mind, she’d put in a call to Detective Gallagher on her break that morning to try to convince him that Nikki had left her doll on the roof on Saturday afternoon—hours before Gail Waters had died. There was no way her daughter could have seen anything.