Cozy Up to Death

by Colin Conway

  While her right arm was bare, tattoos covered her left.

  Brody had called and left a message for her just as Donna Columba had entered his store. He expected Carrie to call him back, not to walk into his shop confidently.

  After introducing herself, Carrie studied him the same way a cop would—with distrust.

  “You could have called,” Brody said.

  “I wanted to see you in person.” Her eyes were curious behind red-lensed sunglasses.

  “Yeah? Why?”

  She set her notepad on the edge of the counter. “We’ll get to that in a minute.”

  “How about we get to it now? I called you, remember?”

  “How’d you get my number?” Carrie asked. Her voice was full of suspicion.

  He pointed to the yellow sticky note on the computer. “Alice left it there.”

  Carrie leaned over the counter to look. She smelled like coconut butter. When she dropped back into place, she said, “Your message said you wanted to talk about Alice. So talk.”

  “One of the locals told me that you and Alice were friendly.”

  “What about it?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what happened to her.”

  Carrie’s left eyebrow raised. “Why do you care?”

  “Because I do. I like the people around here, and they seem to like Alice.”

  “She was well-liked,” Carrie agreed, “but that still seems like a strange reason for you to get involved. You don’t know her. What’s in it for you?”

  Brody knew she wasn’t a cop, but she certainly had the mannerisms and the tone of one.

  “Give me something better than she was well-liked, or I’m out of here,” she demanded.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Listen. My friend has been missing for weeks, and I’m worried about it. Then you call wanting to talk. I don’t know you. And the only reason you’re giving me is that Alice was well-liked. I’m not buying it. Give me something better, or I’m gone.”

  Carrie stepped back from the counter and took a step toward the door.

  “There’s a girl,” Brody said.

  “A girl?”

  “She’s a friend of Alice’s, and she’s upset that she’s missing.”

  Carrie pursed her lips in thought. “What girl?”

  “You wouldn’t know her.”

  “I don’t care. Tell me her name.”

  Brody had no idea why she was so argumentative with him, so he went on the offensive. “As Alice’s friend, I’d figure you would want to know what happened to her.”

  “I do want to know. I’ve tried reaching her for weeks. No response.”

  Brody crossed his arms. “You’ve been looking for her?”

  “Of course. I want to know why she took off. It’s not like her to disappear. In the whole time I’ve known her, she never really left Pleasant Valley. Maybe for an afternoon, sometimes a day, but never overnight.”

  “How long is that?”

  “Year and a half, maybe.”

  Brody didn’t believe her. The way she talked about her friendship with Alice seemed fishy, almost forced. “You’re an unlikely friendship.”

  “Why’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The age difference. She could be your mom.”

  “People can’t be friends if they aren’t age-appropriate? That’s ageism.”

  Brody sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “It can’t be taken any other way.”

  “I’m trying to understand what you two were doing together.”

  Carrie looked around and extended her arms wide. “Books, man. She owned a bookstore. I’m a writer.” She pointed to the display of her books. “Those are mine over there.”

  “Yeah, I know. I haven’t sold any, by the way.”

  “Ouch.”

  Brody stared at her. He didn’t want to argue with the woman. He really was trying to determine what happened with Alice. “I’m sorry. That was a cheap shot.”

  She glanced at her books. “Maybe it’s the display.”

  “Maybe,” Brody agreed.

  The cat made his way out then and saw Carrie. He immediately walked over and rubbed himself against her leg. She reached down and petted the cat. “Hiya, Sherlock.”

  “You want the cat?”

  Carrie frowned. “He’s a bookstore cat. You’re clearly new to the industry. I think it’s a law or something that every independently-owned bookstore needs to have a cat.”

  “If it were a requirement to have a cat, I wouldn’t have bought the place. I don’t even feed him, and he stays here.”

  “You’re not feeding him?

  “I’m hoping he’ll run away and join the circus.”

  “How’s that working?”

  “It’s only been a few days. Give it time.”

  “It’s okay, Sherlock,” she cooed, rubbing his ear. “I’ll bring you some vittles the next time I see you.”

  “What were you doing with Alice?” Brody asked.

  Carrie reached for her notebook and pulled it from the counter. “Does it matter?”

  “Maybe,” Brody said. “I don’t know. My friend said whenever you two were together, it looked like you two were conspiring.”

  “Do you think she’s in danger?” Carrie asked, ignoring his question.

  “She’s missing. No one has heard from her in weeks now. That sounds like she could be in danger. Could she have run off with her foreign boyfriend?”

  “What? No!”

  “So, she has a foreign boyfriend.”

  “How would I know?”

  “You responded as if she did and that you knew about it.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No. I most certainly did not.”

  Brody stared at her for a moment then crossed his arms. He didn’t know what game she was playing, but he was about to be done.

  The woman tapped her notebook into her palm while she thought. She said, “I’m going to ask you something, and I don’t want you to get offended.”

  “I won’t promise that.”

  Carrie put her free hand on her hip. “Then I won’t ask.”

  Brody smirked. “Fine. I promise not to get mad.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I swear.”

  “You said you were looking into Alice’s disappearance for a girl.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let’s assume I believe that. Why are you here? Really here, I mean.”

  “What?”

  Carrie took a deep breath and studied him once more. Then she asked, “Are you the law?”

  She thinks I’m a cop. The idea almost made Brody smirk.

  Before he could think up a witty response, she asked, “Are you with the feds?”

  Brody blinked several times. How could she possibly know?

  “No,” Brody said. “I’m just a bookstore owner. What makes you think I’m with the law?”

  Carrie glanced around. She seemed unsure of herself now. “If you’re not with the law, then are you in...”

  “In what?” Brody asked, afraid to hear her finish her question.

  “The program?”

  Brody’s heart raced.

  The woman leaned in and whispered. “Alice was in the Witness Protection Program. Since she was, I’m guessing that means you are, too.”

  The big man’s tongue felt thick, and he had trouble swallowing.

  Carrie nodded with satisfaction. “Yeah, you’re in the program.”

  “I’m not in any program.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “How do you know that about Alice?” he croaked.

  “I discovered it.” Carrie was smiling now.

  “You discovered it? How does something like that happen?”

  “By accident. I was doing some research for a book about a mafia snitch in Portland.”

  “Oregon?” As soon as he said it, he felt like a fool.

  C
arrie titled her head. “No, Maine.”

  “I know,” Brody muttered.

  Behind her rose-colored glasses, the woman rolled her eyes. “It’s our largest city.”

  “I said, I know.”

  “It’s less than an hour from here. It’s a big city with about 70,000 people.”

  “That’s not a big city.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “There’s almost half a million in the Portland metro area.”

  “A metro area doesn’t make it a big city.”

  Carrie gnawed her lip. “You argue too much to be the law.”

  Brody shrugged. “I never said I was.”

  “Then you’re in the program. I don’t care what you say.”

  “You got it wrong,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m just a guy running a bookstore.”

  Carrie’s eyes went to the John D. MacDonald novel on the counter. “Okay, bookseller, name three other titles in the Travis McGee series.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Smelling blood in the water, she said, “Or give me a recommendation of two similar writers from the same period. I’ll give you a hint—it was the seventies.”

  Brody stared at her.

  Sensing victory, she said, “Or give me a recommendation for other crime fiction stories that take place in Florida.”

  He crossed his arms and scowled.

  Carrie flipped open her notepad and wrote something.

  “What are you doing?” Brody asked.

  “I’m jotting down your description so that I won’t forget.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to do some research on you when I get home. If you’re not going to tell me who you are, then I’ll find out myself.”

  Good luck with that, Brody thought.

  He remained silent for a moment while Carrie finished her notes. When she was done, she said, “By the way, you never let me finish my story about the mafia snitch in Portland. Before you say there is no mafia in Maine, they’re in any big city.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but Carrie continued.

  “The focus of my story—”

  “The protagonist,” Brody interrupted.

  Her brow furrowed, and she waited.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Go ahead.”

  The writer nodded appreciatively and continued. “He entered witness protection and disappeared for several years.”

  “What did this guy do for the mob?”

  “Are you going to interrupt every time I say something?”

  “No,” Brody said. This woman frustrated him.

  “The man was an analyst.”

  “An analyst? What did he analyze?”

  “Data, of course. He analyzed data.” She sounded annoyed.

  Brody’s face warmed.

  “Anyway, he called me one day and asked me to tell his story.”

  “A guy who is in the Witness Protection Program called you to tell his story. Why would he do that?”

  She tossed her notepad on the counter. “Because I’ve written a series of True Crime novels set in Maine. He believed his former employers were about to get to him, and he wanted to get his story out before it was too late.”

  “Why did he think they were going to find him?”

  “You’re still interrupting,” Carrie said.

  Brody shrugged.

  “I asked him the same thing, and he said he would tell me if we met. Of course, I wanted to hear his story, but I had to verify that he wasn’t some random creeper. He told me his real name, so I researched that part of him. I discovered his backstory was real, and we agreed to meet. He wouldn’t reveal where he lived, and he wouldn’t come to Maine, so we decided on Dayton. That would be Ohio if you didn’t know.”

  “I knew that.”

  Carrie smirked. “Uh-huh. Anyway, we met at Denny’s restaurant, and he began laying out his story. It was typical Law & Order stuff. Mob employee sees things he shouldn’t. He then has a case of the guilts. The FBI gets their hooks into him, and he turns. They slap him into the Witness Protection Program, and he disappears.”

  “Typical,” Brody murmured.

  “Except this guy is an analyst, and he knew extra things about the mob most people wouldn’t.”

  “Like what?”

  Carrie leaned in. “Do you know they maintain a website that tracks all of the snitches who have ever ratted on them?”

  She nodded with excitement as Brody realized what she was saying.

  “Pretty crazy, huh?”

  “Yeah,” the big man muttered, “crazy.”

  “Anyway, he shows me this website. It’s URL, that’s the name of the website by the way—”

  “I know.

  “Just making sure. You don’t look like the technologically savvy type. Anyway, the URL is so simple I wouldn’t forget it. He tells it to me during his story and even gave me a username and password for it. After we met, I went home and entered it into Google. It didn’t pop up in the search engine. Then I typed it into the address bar just as he said it. Boom, there it was. This whole website tracks all the FBI snitches who have disappeared into the protection program. It was crazy.”

  “Crazy,” Brody repeated.

  “There wasn’t much history on any of the people listed. It wasn’t a website for visitors, you know. It was a site used for catching rats.”

  “Rats,” the big man muttered.

  “You know, snitches.”

  “I know what a rat is.”

  “So I’m sitting in my hotel flipping through page after page of faces. According to my source, if a snitch dies, either from natural causes or, well, unnatural causes, their picture is removed. There is no fanfare, no bragging. Again, this site is not about the backstory and hyping the underworld’s search for these people. It is totally about getting the information into the field.

  “And I’m moving through these faces, and some of the pictures look old. I mean, like they were taken in the sixties and seventies. Someone has also done this very cool thing where they age the person in the photograph or modify their appearance slightly so you can imagine what they might look like today.”

  Brody stared at her, thinking about his own pictures on the website.

  “I keep flipping through the pictures until I come to my source, Raymond Zambotti. I’m staring at his picture when I notice one of the photographs above it is someone I know very well.”

  Brody’s eyes slanted, but he remained silent.

  “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged, trying to keep his expression non-committal.

  “Before I go any further, I need to know that you’re in the program. I can’t share information about Alice that’s confidential if I don’t know that you’re in the same situation as her.”

  “You’ve already told me that she’s in the program. You’ve outed her. You’re not a very good friend.”

  “Fine,” Carrie said. “I’ll take my notepad and go home where I’ll confirm you’re on this website. Then we’ll finish this conversation.”

  Brody sighed. She was going to find out one way or another. Besides, he would rather have her on his side than angry with him. “I’m not a rat,” he muttered.

  “Does the mob think so?”

  “I never did anything to the mob.”

  “Who did you snitch on?”

  “My club.”

  “Your club? Wait. You don’t have to tell me your story,” Carrie said. “I don’t want to know. You’re here for a reason.”

  “So was Alice,” Brody said.

  “Right.”

  “And you want to find out what happened to her?”

  “Sure,” Carrie said, “that’s why I’m here.”

  It didn’t sound compelling to Brody.

  “Are you really looking into Alice because of a girl?”

  Brody nodded. “Yes. I like her, and she’s upset about Alice.”

  “There’s always a woman,” Carrie said. “What
’s her name?”

  He ignored the question again. “About Alice?”

  “Alice,” Carrie said and nodded. “Right. So I’m looking at Raymond Zambotti’s picture, and who is staring back at me from the just above it? Alice Walker. Although, she wasn’t Alice Walker in that picture. She was a young woman named Evelyn Spier. There was a phone number to call if anyone saw her.”

  “Did you call that number?”

  “No, I didn’t call that number. Alice was my friend. What do you think I did?”

  “I think you smelled a story, and you went right to her, maybe blackmailed her into telling you why she was on that website.”

  Carrie shook her head. “I didn’t do that either. I told her what I saw, of course. How could I not? She closed the store early, and we went for a walk along the beach. She told me what happened back in Chicago during the last couple years of the seventies. That’s when I asked if I could write her story.”

  “She wouldn’t agree to that, would she?”

  “She did so long as it would only be published after her death.”

  “Did you get that in writing?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you have a finished manuscript?”

  “It’s almost done.”

  “It won’t fit your Maine series since it’s set in Chicago.”

  “Oh, it’ll fit,” she said. “I’m calling it Lying in Maine. I’m going to set it between idyllic scenes here in Pleasant Valley. It will work perfectly.”

  Brody crossed his arms, which drew Carrie’s eyes to the tattoo on his hand.

  “Fireball on back of the right hand,” she said, then made an entry in her notebook.

  “Do you have any idea where Alice is now?” he asked.

  Her eyes flashed briefly away before settling back on Brody. “I’ve tried her cell phone and sent her emails. Those were the only ways I had to communicate with her. She never called me from the landline.” Carrie pointed to the phone next to the computer. “After meeting her, I assumed she thought the place was bugged.”

  “It’s not bugged,” Brody said, confident after the search that Max Ekleberry had performed.

  “I don’t know how to get ahold of her beyond those two methods.”

  “If she’s not found...” Brody said.

  “I know. I’ve got a motive for her murder. The problem is I liked Alice, and we were friends.”

  “What happened to Zambotti, your original snitch?”

  “He died before we could start the book.”