Chapter 36 Annie
It was the hottest morning of the summer by far, and the sunlight was bright and glaring. It blazed down over the pines behind the community pool and burned through the windshield of the Jeep, where Annie sat with her hands twisting in her lap.
No breath of wind stirred the tree boughs, no clouds broke the endlessly blue sky, and the temperature inside the car was close to smothering as she waited, the parking lot filling slowly around her with pool patrons eager to escape the heat.
Annie glanced at her watch for the dozenth time. She’d been sitting here for an hour and a half, and it was nearing ten in the morning, but the man she was waiting for had not yet arrived to work.
She needed to get to the station. Needed to clear the air with Jake and get their working relationship back to normal after what had happened last night.
It still made her face burn to think about the state Jake had seen her in and the thoughts that must have crossed his mind in that moment, but stronger than the shame she felt was the hollow, gutted feeling of knowing Daniel was in custody.
She hadn’t gotten the straight answer she wanted from him about the lighter, but there was still a chance, still a distinct possibility, that it belonged to someone else, and that Daniel honestly had nothing to do with Jamie’s death.
He was still innocent until proven guilty, at least in her mind if not in Jake’s, and after a few restless hours of sleep, Annie had woken more determined than ever to see the investigation through to its end—whatever that might be.
Yes, she’d deal with the fallout with Jake as soon as possible, but first, this. Another fish to fry. A slippery little fish named Ian Ward.
At ten fifteen, a black SUV with wide, custom rims rolled into the parking lot and took the spot marked MANAGER ONLY. The driver angled the vehicle in a deliberately crooked diagonal that far overshot the painted white lines, and inside the Jeep, Annie rolled her eyes.
Definitely Ian.
Two minutes after he climbed out of the SUV and disappeared through the gate, Annie followed, rounding the pool and storming into his office without knocking.
She left the door open behind her as she crossed the room and seated herself facing him at the wide, cluttered desk, enjoying the gaping astonishment on his face.
Intent on keeping him off guard, she deliberately swept aside a crumpled pile of receipts, sending several fluttering to the floor, then folded her hands on the desktop as she leveled a cool gaze in his direction.
“Good morning, Ian.”
“What are you doing here?” he sputtered, rising from his chair.
Annie directed him back down with a pointed finger. “I’m here about Jamie.”
Ian fell back into his seat. For five full seconds, his mouth hung ajar, then he seemed to recover his senses and snapped it shut.
Slowly, a change came over his features. The mask she was accustomed to seeing on his face fell into place, superior and full of contempt. He rose from his chair and came around the desk.
Moving past her, he shut the door and slid the lock into place with a click that made her stomach clench, then returned to his seat.
“Privacy. Them kids walk right in without knocking sometimes.”
A warning bell sounded in the back of her mind, the same siren that blared whenever she found herself at a disadvantage on the job, downhill from some predator she was tracking, or in too isolated a spot while confronting a belligerent poacher or fisherman.
Always have a way out. A plan of escape.
It was a necessity for a woman in this line of work, and the golden rule of all those her father had taught her about the woods.
But, the morning was warm, and plenty of people were splashing in the pool already, all within earshot through the window that was cracked open.
Surely Ian wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything in here.
“I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Drink, Annie?” he interrupted, gesturing at a minifridge behind the desk. Annie quickly shook her head, but Ian opened it anyway and withdrew a can of Sprite for himself, popping the top loudly.
Annie cleared her throat and started again. “Ian, we need to talk about Jamie.”
“So you said.” Ian lifted the fizzing can to his lips and took a long, noisy sip.
Annie couldn’t keep the scowl from her face as she stared at him across the desk. There was more than one way to skin a cat, but with Ian, the direct approach was best. Present the evidence and let the obvious conclusion hang in the air.
“I’ve recently learned that the man Jamie broke up with just before she was killed had tattoos, and given that you’ve spent the last several weeks in close proximity to her here at the pool, well…”
Annie sat back, sweeping a hand in front of her to indicate the obvious.
Ian gave a breathy laugh that concluded in a burp.
“Isn’t that convenient.” He traced a dirty fingernail around the rim of the can. “Lo and behold, Ian Ward has tattoos.” He shook his head at her, chuckling as though they were old friends. “Oh, Annie… you must be in serious trouble if I’m the best suspect you’ve got.”
Annie didn’t bat an eyelash. His condescension was infuriating, but it would only derail her if she let it.
“You are,” she said without inflection. “The fact of it is that you interacted with Jamie almost every day in the weeks leading up to her death—and, yes, you have tattoos. I’d be stupid not to suspect you.”
Ian tilted his head back, appraising her down his nose. “Does Jake think I did it, too?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Ian’s gaze slid briefly to the window beside the door, then back to Annie.
“Fair enough.” He nodded once. “Yes. Clearly, I have tattoos. Three of them to be exact, but guess what, Annie Oakley? So do a lot of other guys.”
“Not that many.”
“Twenty-seven percent of the male population, according to last year’s census.”
The frown on Annie’s face deepened, and Ian lifted the Sprite can in a sort of salute.
“I like statistics.”
Annie gazed at him for a bewildered moment, then, for the first time since walking in, she took a good look around the room.
The small bookshelf beside the window was lined with novels that were tattered in a well-read sort of way.
Moby Dick, War and Peace, and Lolita sat side by side on the shelf.
Beneath them on the floor was an untidy stack of magazines that ran the gamut from motorcycle accessories to high-end equestrian.
The potted plants on the windowsill seemed watered and healthy, and on the desk itself, beside an ashtray overflowing with orange and white butts, was a calendar with several dates penciled in, in neat, narrow cursive.
Annie read through a few of the dates on the calendar upside down, her confusion and surprise only deepening.
The man was impeccably organized. In the corner of each square were his work hours for the day, and several appointments had been jotted in as well, including a scheduled root canal and even an eye checkup with an ophthalmologist.
Who was this guy?
It dawned on Annie suddenly that Ian Ward was not the low-life buffoon he portrayed himself to be. It was a facade, and underneath it was a calculating man who took himself very seriously.
Quickly, she scanned through the calendar squares until she landed on the date of Jamie’s death, and there, in Ian’s tidy writing, were four words that made her mouth go dry.
Meet at the lake
Annie’s heart stuttered.
It was right there. Scheduled into his plans. Ian’s intent to meet Jamie at the lake on the day of her death.
The sweat that rose on her palms was instant and clammy, and Annie fought the urge to bolt, to turn and run for the door as Ian sat watching her, spinning the cold can of Sprite in the same hands that had held Jamie Boyd under the water.
Slowly, Annie looked up to meet his gaze.
“Where were you on the night Jamie died?”
The confidence had left her voice completely. She was a game warden, not a cop, and they both knew that she was out of her league. Ian watched her carefully, his dark eyes dancing with an unnerving mixture of amusement and disdain.
“It wasn’t me, Annie.”
He was enjoying this. Entertained by her discomfort.
“Where were you?”
Ian leaned forward in his chair, the corners of his mouth twisting upward.
“With a woman.”
He was taunting her, goading her, and she couldn’t let it show on her face that it was working.
“Who?”
Ian raised the Sprite to his lips and drank without breaking eye contact. He drained the can and crumpled it in his fist, then sent it in a flying arc toward the corner trash bin, missing by a mile.
“Doesn’t matter who. She wasn’t Jamie, and that’s all that counts.”
Forcing steadiness into her trembling hands, Annie reached out and touched the calendar, pressing down hard on the words he’d written.
“Then how do you explain this?”
Ian didn’t even look down. “Lake Chelan. My family owns a summer house up there. Sorry to disappoint.”
“Lake Chelan?”
Ian rolled his eyes. “Yes, Lake Chelan. Up by Leavenworth.” He leaned forward, pronouncing every word with deliberate slowness.
“Seven hours from here. I took a girl up there for a day of fishing and we spent the night. Didn’t get back until the next afternoon, and by that time the whole town was buzzing about Jamie’s murder. ”
Annie felt the dead end rising up to meet her, but she forged stubbornly ahead.
“Can you prove it?”
As though he’d had it prepared, Ian slid open the center drawer of the desk and pulled out a single, wrinkled receipt. He handed it to Annie and she scanned it. It was from a Lake Chelan liquor store, and time stamped for 11:02 p.m. on the night of Jamie’s death.
“We had dinner late that night, then picked up that bottle of Tanqueray on the way back to the house to make gin and tonics. Even if I’d driven straight here after leaving the store, I wouldn’t have made it back in time to kill Jamie.”
Annie stared at the slip of paper in her hands.
It was proof. A solid, airtight alibi, but she couldn’t let it go.
She couldn’t just get up and walk away. Ian Ward was the one suspect she had tethered her fraying hopes to.
Maybe… maybe the receipt was forged, or he was rich enough to charter a private plane to get here in time, or…
or something. Her thoughts floundered for several seconds, collapsing in and tumbling over one another like grains of sand gripped in too tight a fist. If she let go of her theory now, she’d have nothing left. Nothing but Daniel.
Annie sat back in her chair. There was an open pack of cigarettes beside the calendar on the desk, and she nodded toward it. “Can I have one?”
One of Ian’s sparse eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he said nothing as he pulled a single cigarette from the pack and passed it across the desk.
Annie took it and held it up. “Light?”
Ian reached around to his back pocket, fishing there for a moment before withdrawing a silver lighter. It was large and monogrammed with an elaborately embossed W, the ends of the letter curling and twisting around each other.
“That’s fancy.” Annie touched the tip of the cigarette to the flame. “You had it long?”
“Since Christmas.” Ian pulled out another cigarette and lit it for himself. “A gift from my father. Real silver.”
Of course it was. Ian was the exact kind of person who would have a summer home on Lake Chelan, and custom rims, and a monogrammed silver lighter. The cheap plastic variety was beneath him.
For appearances’ sake, Annie touched the end of the cigarette to her lips and took a shallow breath. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, she rose from her chair.
“Am I cleared, then?” Ian asked with another self-satisfied smile.
Annie took one more puff of the cigarette and mashed the end into the ashtray.
“For now.”
She turned to leave, disappointment crumpling her face the moment she twisted away. Ian was not Jamie’s killer.
Crossing to the door, she slid back the lock and pulled it open.
“You should have listened to me in the first place,” Ian called when she had one foot out the door. Annie turned back.
“About what?”
“I told you.” His cigarette smoldered in his fingers. “Jamie said she was dating a guy from her road, more likely than not someone she grew up with. Heard it plain as day.”
Ian reached a hand across his chest and pressed a fingertip to his forearm, the very same place where Jake had a tattoo of a cross.
“Maybe it’s time you start looking a little closer to home.”