Free A Door in the River by Inger Ash Wolfe Page B

bade him goodnight and gone to make sure her mother was actually in the house. She was. There was a long, thin bump under her bedcovers.
    Hazel woke Cathy, as instructed, about every ninety minutes during the night, but as of five in the morning, she fell asleep herself and didn’t go into the woman’s bedroom until eight. She shook Cathy on the shoulder then and, after looking her over, decided the woman could safely be left alone. She left a note for her mother pinned to the back of her door, and another for Cathy on the kitchen table, telling her there was an officer outside the house and that when she woke, this officer, Eileen Bail, would bring her into the detachment. There were more questions, but she wanted Cathy as rested as possible. As soon as she left the house, she called down to Bail, who was finishing a twelve-to-eight, and asked her to do a couple hours of overtime in her car, outside the house in Pember Lake. She waited ten minutes for the cruiser to arrive and told Bail to bring Cathy in when she was ready.
    When she got to the station house, she brought Wingateand Constable Roland Forbes into her office. Forbes was about to take his detective’s exam. She thought it might be good for him to sit in. He dragged his own chair in and the two of them sat on the other side of Hazel’s desk. “This is what I’m thinking. Someone called Henry down there, to the smoke shop in Queesik Bay. And when he got there, he encountered this girl and there was an altercation and she discharged this weapon at him.”
    “What’s the chance it was a mugging or something like that?” asked Forbes.
    “Why would she go to the house and attack the widow then?”
    “I guess not. How did she know where he lived?”
    “Well, that goes to the question of their relationship,” Hazel said. “We don’t know enough about it yet.”
    “Should we be visiting that smoke shop?” said Wingate.
    “I think so. But I’m not sure I should be the one. I met with the police commander on the reserve yesterday and I don’t know if I want to show my face down there right now.”
    “Why?”
    “She seemed more like a kindergarten art teacher than a skip. And she’s got an angle, only I don’t know what it is. I’d like one of you to go down there and see what the place is like.
    “You’re out of here in three hours,” she said to Wingate.
    “You need me on this case,” said Wingate.
    “Forbes can do it. It’s reconnaissance, you know? Fact-gathering. Just go.”
    “I haven’t made detective yet,” Forbes protested. “I don’t know if the other officers –”
    “Just go down and buy a pack of cigarettes, would you?”
    “Okay,” he said. “I can make some notes. I can write it up if you want.”
    “Go forth, Gumshoe.”
    When he left, Wingate said, “What are you thinking?”
    “I just want him to buy a pack of cigarettes. Look around.”
    “
No
, Hazel. I mean with this case.”
    “We need to develop a blind spot to the murder and the murder weapon right now and focus on the reason Wiest was down there in the first place. I think it’s fair to assume that Wiest somehow knew this girl, and we need to find out how. That might tell us where this girl is heading and what or who she’s looking for. If she isn’t already done.”
    “I don’t want to make things any more complicated than they need to be, Hazel, but you should know Willan’s office called.”
    “Oh. Excellent.”
    “They said they expect to be notified in the future when cross-jurisdictional resources are being used, such as police cars in a countywide hunt.”
    “Well, are they for amalgamation or not? Jesus.”
    “There was considerable overtime in Fort Leonard.”
    “So what. Isn’t he impressed with there being a killer on the loose?”
    “I think he wanted to be notified.”
    “What’s the point of having moles if they don’t report back to you?”
    “I think it’s about getting the right clearances for extra