Face of Darkness (A Zoe Prime Mystery—Book 6) Read online

  She was almost back over a full analysis of all of the numbers that had come to her so far, particularly in relation to the bodies and their placements on the town map (which didn’t seem to be giving her any kind of clue) when Flynn shifted awkwardly in his seat next to her.

  “Still,” he said, taking a left turn past an ominously spreading leafless tree that dominated the corner behind a cast-iron fence. “I mean, I’m not bad at math myself. But I’ve seen you do those ridiculous kinds of calculations before. Not just now, but in other cases. You always seem to just know how stuff works or who we’re looking for. You’d have to be… not just good at math. Like, a math prodigy. How do you do it?”

  “Maybe I am a math prodigy,” Zoe said, hoping that would shut him up. The “maybe” could be enough to throw him off. Detectives, especially inexperienced ones, could get lost in a rabbit hole with a “maybe.” They’d know it didn’t mean yes, and start second-guessing whether it was a bluff or a double-bluff, an admission or a deflection, and by the time they had stopped running through all the possibilities your partnership would probably be over already. At least, that’s how it went in Zoe’s experience.

  The phone in her pocket chimed out, leaving her to dig in her pocket, glad about there being a second distraction. Perhaps it was Morrison with some news about the person they were going to see next.

  But when she looked at the screen, Zoe realized it wasn’t work-related at all. It was a message from John, asking her if she’d been able to get home safely or if she’d been sent on assignment somewhere.

  Christ. Zoe realized that she had forgotten about going back inside to let him know what the call was about. She’d just left the bar while she was talking to Maitland, and driven straight to the J. Edgar Hoover Building without a moment of thought. She hadn’t called or texted John afterward, either. Not even to tell him not to wait for her, because she wasn’t going back inside.

  She sighed to herself and closed her eyes for a moment. She’d really messed up now. There was no way that John was going to want to see her again after this. Her one last chance to redeem herself, and she had treated him like he didn’t matter yet again.

  “What is it?” Flynn asked. “Has there been another body?”

  “Not yet,” Zoe said grimly, trying to figure out how to compose an apology. “Just drive. We need to get this done as quickly as possible.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Zoe examined the house as they pulled up to the curb, analyzing it as quickly as she could. Three bedrooms, two baths, standard footprint: small yard out front, small yard out back. Much as expected from the general architectural style of this part of the city. The married couple, one room for their daughter, one room as a guest bed or study. It looked like it had been built around twenty-five to thirty years ago. Perhaps bought new for the Richards couple to move into when they knew they were expecting.

  The street was dark and almost silent as Zoe got out of the car, beating Flynn to the front door. She knocked, perhaps a little timidly compared to how she would knock in the middle of the day, suddenly all too conscious of the decibel level of every noise she made.

  The door opened almost immediately. “Are you the FBI?” the woman on the other side of it asked, though she glanced down at Zoe’s logo-emblazoned jacket and no doubt knew the answer immediately.

  “Yes. Can we come in?” Zoe opened her badge to show it. Flynn did the same, and the woman looked between both of them quickly before nodding.

  “Yes, please. Come and sit down. Can I get you a coffee?”

  The “no” died on Zoe’s lips as Flynn answered for both of them in the affirmative. She would have preferred to get on with the interview as soon as possible, but Flynn clearly had other priorities.

  They sat on a chintzy sofa in a solidly middle-class living room, surrounded by framed photographs of the family throughout the years. Zoe charted Frank Richards’s age through the eras: twenty-two on his wedding day, in his thirties on a beach, his fortieth birthday (an easy calculation, given the candles on the cake he was pictured smiling over). With him and his wife, a petite blonde woman, was the daughter: easily recognizable as the same woman who had just answered the door. Blonde like her mother, a little taller like her father. Zoe had calculated her age as twenty-four, and a glance at Frank’s appearance in the framed picture of him holding the baby only confirmed her assumption.

  “Here,” she said, bringing them two cups of coffee and setting them down on the low table in front of them. “I’m Patience. I don’t know if Detective Morrison passed it on, but my mother’s in the hospital.”

  “We are aware of that,” Zoe said quickly, then forced herself to remember the politeness that Shelley had spent so long drumming into her. “We are sorry for your loss.”

  “Thanks.” Patience flashed her a quick smile that died on her lips almost immediately. She looked a little lost, now that she was sitting opposite them in an armchair rather than keeping busy. Zoe saw the grooves that had been worn in both that chair and the other that now sat empty, and calculated that she was sitting in her mother’s place. She must have been used to the sofa. Now that this option was filled, she didn’t want to sit where her father had.

  “What can you tell us about your father, Patience?” Flynn asked. “Anything about his character, his relationships, would be really helpful.”

  “I told the other detective everything already,” Patience said, with a modicum of doubt.

  “We need to hear it from you,” Zoe said. “The local police brought us in because this case is more in our specialty area.”

  Patience nodded, obviously mollified about being kept up late to repeat the same things again. Zoe checked her watch surreptitiously; it was half past midnight already. There was no telling if the killer was already in position to strike. “Dad was a good guy, honestly. I know a lot of people must say that, but he was a great father. We didn’t have any problems at home. He and Mom never fought or anything like that.”

  They never let you see them fight, Zoe mentally corrected her.

  “How long were they married?” Flynn asked.

  “Twenty-five years,” Patience said. She offered a wan smile. “They were still so in love. I don’t know what Mom’s going to do now.”

  “How was the business going?” Zoe asked. Financial difficulty was always an avenue worth exploring when a murder involved a business owner. The things people did for money were often beyond logic.

  “Pretty well, as far as I know,” Patience said. Something seemed to hit her, and she flinched back, her eyes dropping down to the mug in her hands. Zoe took it as a reminder to take a sip of her own caffeine, to fuel her up for what could be a long night. “Oh, god, I have to figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow. Maybe Billy can cover… Dad wouldn’t want us to leave the place closed for two days in a row.”

  “Billy?” Zoe asked.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s a local kid, he works at the store with Dad, part-time. He was the last person to see Dad, we think. Sorry, did you want to talk to him as well?”

  Zoe turned an exasperated look to Flynn. Morrison should have told them about this.

  “Yes, we will need to. If you have his contact details…?” Flynn asked.

  “Right.” Patience got up and started looking through a notepad that had been left on the side by a landline telephone. “I should have called him last night. We thought that Dad was just working late, that he’d lost track of time as he sometimes does. He wasn’t answering the phone, so we just left him to it. He didn’t like being interrupted if he was doing inventory or something. I kind of do my own thing in the evenings nowadays anyway, and I guess Mom just had an early night, so we didn’t realize he hadn’t come home until this morning.”

  “Did he work late often, then?” Flynn asked. Zoe was sure they were thinking the same thing: maybe this was where the cracks in the marriage were. Maybe he wasn’t late at work, but doing something else.

  “Not anymore,” Patience sa
id, tearing off a page from the notepad and handing it over. It held a telephone number below Billy’s name, and instructions to call him if cover was urgently needed for the store. “He used to, back when he was getting the Chamber of Commerce stuff together.”

  “Oh?” Flynn asked with a raised eyebrow as he tucked the paper into his pocket.

  “Yeah, it was his pet project, I guess.” Patience took a moment’s pause, a sip of her drink, before continuing. “He was always saying there needed to be more community spirit here. He helped build up the modern Chamber of Commerce, with a few other local business owners. I think he was pretty proud of what he’d achieved. The town’s really been booming. He felt like he was part of that. I mean, he was part of that.”

  “He was well-known around Salem?” Zoe asked, surmising it from this little piece of his background.

  “I’d say so,” Patience said, with a flash of a smile. True warmth, at a memory of her father. “People knew not to mess with him.”

  Flynn practically leapt on that nugget. “What do you mean? Did he have a reputation?”

  “He wasn’t the kind to take any… well, any BS,” Patience said, with a little grin matched against a flush in her cheeks, no doubt from hinting at a rude word in front of two FBI agents. The smile kept coming and going, love and pride warring against grief and the renewed realization that he was gone. “He had a whole list of people that were banned from the store.”

  Zoe narrowed her eyes. Here was quite probably a list of people who had reason to dislike Frank Richards. That was a good place to start for suspects. “What did he ban them for?”

  “Oh, all kinds of things.” Patience shrugged. “I guess, soliciting for business. Trying to put up posters without permission. Shoplifting.”

  “Would there be a police record of that?” Flynn asked.

  “No, he never called the cops on people,” Patience said, flushing again as she realized who her audience was. “He liked to deal with things himself. That was part of why people liked him, I think. He was fair. He wouldn’t escalate something if he could just deal with it himself. But once you’d caused a problem, he wouldn’t give you a second chance either.”

  “I would like to see that list,” Zoe said. “As soon as possible.”

  “It’s at the store, behind the counter.” Patience nodded. “I can fetch it for you in the morning.”

  Zoe stared at her.

  “I can head out after this,” Patience amended, thankfully getting the message. “I have Detective Morrison’s card—I can send a picture of it to him.”

  Zoe was about to tell her no, to give Patience her own number to send it to—but Flynn beat her to the punch, springing forward with his own card between his thumb and forefinger. “Please, send it to us directly,” he said. “Time is of the essence.”

  Perfect. Flynn was obviously of the same mind as her: Morrison was slow and annoying, and they didn’t need a middleman.

  “Is that everything?” Patience asked, studying Flynn’s card and then looking up at them.

  Zoe nodded. “We have some other inquiries to make in the meantime.”

  “Thank you for your help, Ms. Richards,” Flynn said, reaching out to shake her hand as he stood. “We’re really very grateful. At this point, anything we can do to stop another member of the community losing their life is of the utmost importance.”

  Those words seemed to hit home with Patience; she was gathering her purse and a coat even as she saw them to the door. “I’ll have it with you as quickly as I can,” she said, her face pale and drawn under the harsh light of a bare bulb in the hallway.

  Zoe nodded her own thanks and stepped outside, waiting for the door to close behind them and for Flynn to join her by the car. “I wonder if there is a similar story with Harry Stout,” she said. “A disgruntled customer, perhaps singled out and banned from entering his store.”

  “There’s a quick way to find out,” Flynn said, digging out his phone and dialing. “I’ll find out where Morrison’s arranged for us to talk to Stout’s family.”

  Zoe slid into the car, rubbing her hands together against the cold—and hoping they would find the information that they needed in time to pinpoint the next victim, and save them from joining Richards and Stout in the metal drawers of the morgue.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “This is it?” Zoe asked, looking up. The street was completely dark—it was after one in the morning already, she realized with some despair—but she could just about make out the lettering above the door beyond the glare of the headlights. Judge’s Hardware.

  The store was dark, but it was still easy to make out the old-fashioned architecture, the whole storefront made from carved wood. There were decorative flourishes here and there that would have made Zoe think of Halloween, if it wasn’t February: decals of witches on broomsticks stuck on the glass, a black cat stalking along below them, even a wooden witch figurine on the windowsill peering at them through the glass.

  “Morrison said this Joe guy would meet us here,” Flynn confirmed. “See anyone?”

  “No,” Zoe said, twisting in her seat to look down the rest of the street. “Wait—yes.”

  They both got out of the car at the same time, Flynn buttoning up his long coat as Zoe hugged her FBI windbreaker closer around herself, waiting on the sidewalk for the lanky young man who was rapidly approaching them.

  “I’m Joe Madison,” he called out, from not far away, keeping his voice low due to the hour. “Are you…?”

  “Special Agents Aiden Flynn and Zoe Prime,” Flynn greeted him, opening and closing his badge with that same fluid movement he always used. It made him look like he was something out of a movie, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, even if it did impress the suspects.

  “I had a call from some detective, said you needed me to show you around and tell you a bit about the place,” Joe said. He was buttoned up to the neck in a coat and scarf, his breath coming out as a cloud of white. The outfit only served to highlight further the fact that his ears stuck out further than most, giving him a mouse-like appearance. “I’ve got the keys. Do you want to head inside?”

  “Lead the way,” Flynn said, stepping back as Joe unlocked the door with a practiced movement and opened it up.

  Inside the store, it wasn’t much warmer than outside. Joe moved around flicking on light switches while Zoe and Flynn stayed safely by the door. When yellow light bathed all of the shelves, full of various tools and supplies that any DIY project might need, they moved over to the counter, where Joe busied himself looking through shelving underneath the till.

  “What do you need to know?” Joe asked. “The place has been locked up since Mr. Stout died. I didn’t really know whether to come in or not. There wasn’t anyone to ask.”

  “He did not have any family, correct?” Zoe asked, remembering what Morrison had told them.

  “Yeah, it was just the store really,” Joe said, pulling out a battered-looking accounts book. “He put his heart and soul into it. I don’t know if he ever had anyone, but since I’ve been working here, he’s been single. No kids or anything.”

  Zoe looked Joe over. He could only be twenty years old. “How long have you been working here?”

  “About a year,” Joe said. He paused for a moment, looking around at the shelves. “Yeah, I’m gonna miss this place. It’s not been bad at all.”

  “He was a good boss, you would say?” Flynn prompted.

  “I couldn’t complain.” Joe shrugged his shoulders up and down. “Not fair, really, is it? He was an all right guy.”

  “Why did he name the store Judge’s Hardware?” Zoe asked. “That seemed strange to us.”

  “Oh, that,” Joe said with a grin. He shook his head as if remembering a joke. “Oh, man, Mr. Stout would have loved to have been here right now. That was his favorite thing, telling people the story.”

  “What story?” Flynn prompted. He seemed as impatient as Zoe felt.

  “Well, Stout, it’s an old name ar
ound these parts,” Joe explained. “You must know about Salem’s history. This guy, William Stout, he was the Chief Justice around that time, presided over all of the witch trials. It was pretty gnarly, I guess. So anyway, our Mr. Stout is his great-great… I don’t know how many greats, but he’s related directly. He was really proud of that. That’s why he named his business that. He’s always going on about how he’s got this long heritage, stretching back all that way. Guess he’s kind of ended that, now.”

  Zoe thought this over. “If he was as vocal about it as you say, would it be safe to assume that most locals knew who he was?”

  “Oh, yeah, definitely.” Joe nodded vigorously. “There’s a bunch of them—these kind of guys who have this long history in Salem. People who were involved in the witch trials. I mean, it’s a big deal around here, you know? A lot of our town’s income is from tourists, so anyone who has that kind of connection, they tend to want to shout about it. Someone might come in and pick up a box of nails or something, just so they can say they bought it from the descendant of the guy who sentenced all those witches.”

  “What else?” Flynn asked. There was an edge to his voice, something that made Zoe drag her eyes away from the numbers popping out at her from all of the shelves and move to his face. He was squinting at Joe with his head tilted. Zoe followed his gaze, and saw that Joe seemed evasive, looking off to the side. She tried to pay attention. She hadn’t picked up on that, not until Flynn had said something. She had to stay focused.

  “Well…” Joe shrugged and shook his head. “It’s stupid, really.”

  “Any piece of information you have may be important,” Zoe reminded him. A standard kind of law enforcement statement.

  “Well, it’s not information,” Joe said. “It’s just a rumor. I mean… I don’t believe it myself. But people have been saying as how it might be linked to the witch trials.”