Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

re-outfitted for the modern age. The change kept with the integrity of the home, he’d say. But it was wall mounted and hard to get to. So much for modern.
    “Hello?” Olga said, into the mouthpiece, out of breath.
    “Olga Morris?”
    She pulled the zipper on her jacket. “Who’s calling?”
    “I’m Emily Kenyon, sheriff’s detective, Cherrystone”
    Sliding off one sleeve, then the other, Olga sighed. “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’ve already made my donations for the year.”
    “Detective Morris, I’m not collecting for anything. I’m calling for your help.”
    “It’s Cerrino now, and I’m retired.” The cat jumped on the kitchen counter and Olga frantically shooed it down. “Down, Felix!”
    “Huh?”
    “The cat. Never mind. You’re calling about?”
    “It’s about an old case you worked,” Emily said. “Do you have a moment?”
    The cat was now on the floor, and Olga was at ease. She took a seat on the old oak stool and absentmindedly started straightening the paper clips, tape holders, and scrap paper she kept by the phone. Felix yowled, his Siamese lineage coming through loud and clear.
    “They’re all old cases,” Olga continued. “I’m retired, as I said. Now is not the best time, can you give me a few? I have a cat here that if she doesn’t eat she’ll scratch a bloody groove through my leg.”
    Emily laughed. “I know the type. I’ll call you in say, a half hour?”
    “Fine. And what case was it?”
    “Angel’s Nest”
    There was a long silence and for a second Emily assumed that Olga Morris-Cerrino had hung up.
    “You still there?” she asked.
    Again a short pause.
    “Yes,” Olga answered, sounding a little rattled. “I’m here. Yes, call me. I don’t know how I can help you, but I’m glad that someone is looking into that mess”
    Olga Morris-Cerrino was still all that she had been years ago. She was still blond without the help of a bottle. She was still tiny, with a trim figure unchanged by childbirth or bad eating habits. Faint lines collected at the corners of each eye, but no one really noticed them. How could they? When her eyes sparkled as they always did, no one saw anything else. She fed the cat and took a Diet Coke from the refrigerator, popped the top, and filled a water glass. She sliced a lime and dropped it in; fizzy pop bloomed over the sides. The call hadn’t really surprised her. She had no idea what case the detective from Cherrystone was working just then, but she never thought Angel’s Nest or any of the people associated with it would just fade into dust.
    The world just doesn’t work that way, she thought. Evil doesn’t really die.
    While she waited for the phone to ring, Olga meandered around the first floor, a space filled with antique furniture and carpets. Over a settee with a pin-point gallery light on timer was her husband’s most prized possession an original Norman Rockwell portrait. It was a schoolgirl standing outside of a gymnasium as a group of cheerleaders practiced. It was called Dreamer. It was the image of his mother, who had posed for Rockwell when she was a girl in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The painting had been a family heirloom and was worth tens of thousands.
    Olga pushed the pager button for the cordless phone she kept in the den-the one thing she’d done that defied her husband’s wishes, but he was gone and there would be no arguing about being “true to the house” The phone handset called out to her from a sofa cushion in the living room. She fished it out, put her feet up on an ottoman, and waited for the earthquake that was sure to come when the phone rang again.
    It had been only a matter of time.
    Jenna finished the conversation with her father, cut short by a cheap cell phone they’d stolen from a man at the counter of the minimart. The theft was completely impulsive, but after being called a murderer, a kidnapper, and an “artsy” high school student, just about anything went by then. Jenna looked at Nick with disapproving eyes. His new look would take some getting used to. Nick had shaved his head earlier this morning and a slight rash had developed, making his pasty white scalp look something like a bruised strawberry. He sat glumly on the curb, the light of day eclipsed by the hour.
    “My dad said my mom called about us,” she said.
    “No surprise there. I knew we couldn’t trust her.”
    “She’s my mom. And we can trust her. She called my dad, not the FBI”
    Nick lit a cigarette, his