Thin Luck

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Detective Joe Turner

DETECTIVE TURNER SET down the novel. He'd skimmed through the first half of the book. Nothing stuck out at him that was relevant, but in the absence of tracking down any more updates on Robyn he'd continued reading. He hoped the long descriptions contained some nugget of information that was relevant to the case. But so far most of it was about the obsession that the protagonist, Jerry, had with the female character, Raven. Jerry was high the first time he laid eyes on her, but the 'lingering remnants of her beauty' never faded from his mind, at least not for about thirty pages. Raven, being of sound mind in Turner's eyes, wouldn't have anything to do with Jerry. She ignored him when he showed up at her work at the coffee shop 'slash' bookstore on campus. She refused to go out with him on a date when he asked. Turner was uncomfortable reading the scene where Jerry watched Raven having sex at her boyfriend's house while the boyfriend's wife was away. A few weeks later, Jerry was still obsessing and Raven didn't notice Jerry when he was standing behind her at the pharmacy. She gave the clerk her phone number to activate her savings card. Jerry then called her every day from random payphones throughout the campus just to hear her voice. He couldn't 'manually stimulate' himself unless he'd talked to her that day. Long paragraphs were dedicated to talking about his 'junk.' Turner fast-read through those pages.

If Jerry was a real person, and if Raven had reported him, the police would tag the guy as a classic stalker. But in the novel, Raven had been blissfully unaware of Jerry. Even though it was fiction, Turner couldn't help wondering if any of this was based on anything real in Nick and Robyn's life.

Why they got married, conceived a child, and then Nick moved across country didn't add up in Turner's mind. In order to dive deeper into the nature of their relationship, Turner had called several of Robyn's friends, including two of them from New Haven. Not one friend had even talked to Robyn from before she was incarcerated. The one time Turner mentioned something about her pregnancy and child, a fellow reporter at WFSB, Sara Mackey, was so shocked he had to clarify whom they were talking about. No one knew who Robyn really was, but Sara was stunned to hear that Robyn was a mother.

One person he put off calling was Wayne Kendall, Robyn's former producer at WFSB. Based on one of the uniform officer's reports Wayne admitted to harboring Robyn Saturday morning, but he didn't know she was a fugitive at the time. Wayne didn't come in for a statement either. Turner wanted to know how Robyn managed to get to Cleveland without using the credit cards she stole from the woman in City Steam, unless she stole gas or a credit card from someone else. But Wayne never reported anything stolen.

There was no time like the present to interview Wayne, since despite the good weather for fall Turner wouldn't be golfing.

Wayne's classic West End home had white round wooden pillars in front with an empty, dusty porch. Houses in the West End were built around the turn of the 20th century in the shadow of Mark Twain's immense brick home. Even with all that history, the West End homes sold for almost half of their similar neighbors just one or two blocks further in the town of West Hartford.

After Turner rang the doorbell, Wayne, mid-thirties with curly black hair, was standing in front of him.

"Wayne Kendall?" Turner asked.

"Yes?" His eyebrows furrowed and released.

"I'm Detective Turner from the Connecticut State Police. I'm wondering if I could ask you about Robyn Hughes?"

Wayne swallowed as if a piece of gum was stuck in his throat. "I don't have time right now." He took a step back. The door started to close.

"It'll only take a few minutes of your time," Turner said. "I think she's in over her head, and the sooner I can track her down the easier it will be for all of us to protect her."