by Nick Pirog
I did a lap around the outskirts of the gallery, until my paintbrush restored to its flaccid, weary, despondent self. I wanted to be sure Paddington remained comatose and zigzagged my way through the crowd to the bar. Alex and Gregory were nowhere to be seen, and I used up my last two tickets on tequila shots, then wrote the guy an I.O.U. for a tall glass of Chardonnay. I scanned the masses but didn’t see the celebrity couple anywhere. Maybe they were in the bathroom. Together.
I could strangle him with my shoelace.
I offered the bartender my Tag Heuer if he’d just hand over the whole damn bottle of wine, but he refused. He was gentleman enough to top me off as I went in search of the mystery couple. I spotted their backs at the bar cattycorner to where I was. My jubilation was a toss-up between locating Alex and the discovery of a second bar on the premises.
I was about five steps away when I felt an arm slip through mine. Seems Ms. Dodds had intercepted me like a Brett Favre wounded duck. Alex and Gregory turned as Caitlin and I approached. I shifted my gaze from Alex’s timid grin to Gregory’s defiant sneer. Gregory took a sip of something pink, probably a Sex on the Beach, and said, “I came on Charles Mangrove’s behalf. I’ve been instructed to buy a painting in his stead. I’m sure he explained everything to you over the phone.”
Ah, so that’s why Charles had called. That explained why Gregory was here, but I was still confused why he was arm in arm with the cold, calculating Queen of composition. I shifted my glare to Alex. Her beer bottle was flat empty and she said meekly, “Your, uh, sister, uh, Lacy, invited me. It, uh, came up when she was staying the night. We started talking about my Winslow Homer pieces, and she said that I should, uh, should stop by.”
Okay, that explained why A and B were here, but for the life of me I could not see why the two of them were here together. Caitlin decided to clear up the matter, “I told Todd he should call Alex and the two of them should come together. They’re both single. I mean, why not?”
These were not the words I wanted to hear, especially coming from Caitlin’s mouth. I grabbed two shots of something brown off a waitress’s outgoing tray and knocked them both back. But why did I care if Alex came with Todd? I didn’t want anything to do with Alex Tooms. Did I?
I mentally and visually sized Alex up. She was a sneaky, extremely attractive, deceiving, wow, that slit really goes up high, doesn’t it?, scum of the Earth, is that Chanel she’s wearing?, back-stabbing, I don’t see any panty lines! I don’t see any panty lines! journalist.
I felt a jab in my ribs and snapped from my reverie. Caitlin said, “Let’s go, Thomas, they’re seating everyone at their tables.”
I followed behind Caitlin, a bit confused, a smidgen jealous, a tad pissed off, and a hell of a lotta drunk.
We were only allowed one drink at dinner, and if Caleb hadn’t been beside me I probably would have tried to slit my wrists with my butter knife. The waitress cleared our plates and Lacy said she had to go get ready for her pre-silent auction, fund-raiser speech. No cue cards for that one.
The liquor had run its course and was now sitting in my bladder like a ski racer atop the Super-G. I excused myself, stood up, and gazed over the crowd at Alex and Todd’s table. Alex was hunched over, and I surmised she must be choking to death because Gregory saying something funny was not an option.
Choke, what do I care?
I walked into the corridor I’d seen Caitlin hit on the way in and saw the sign for the bathrooms against the far wall fifty yards away. A quarter of the way into my pee-lgrimage, I passed Lacy’s lighthouse painting. The bidding didn’t start for another half hour, but I wrote my name and an astronomical amount next to it. No one was outbidding me on this one, I can assure you of that much. I made it to the end of the corridor and saw the bathrooms were another thirty yards down a peripheral hall.
I reached the bathrooms with limited pre-tinkle and saw Lacy had put posters on the doors that read “Buoys” and “Gulls.” Seeing as my inhibitions were lowered, I peeled the signs off the doors and quickly switched them. Then I pushed through the door marked “Gulls,” beelined it to a urinal, and chipped off a couple pieces of linoleum.
Ninety seconds later, I walked to the sink, brushed the hair out of my eyes, and ambled out of the bathroom. I was curious if there was an officer stationed outside the side exit and headed in that direction. From behind me someone snickered, “Why did you just come out of the girl’s bathroom?”
I turned. It was Alex.
I took a step toward her, “I wanted to bid on a painting hanging in stall number three.”
She lifted the back of the “Gulls” poster to reveal the word “Mens,” and said, “You’re an idiot.”
Guilty as charged. She switched the posters and said, “Are you always this immature?”
Yes. “No. But your date brings out the best in me.”
“Who? Pea Pod Todd?”
“Is that your pet name for him?”
“No, it’s his name because he’s so boring I want to snap his neck like a pea pod.”
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself. He must have said something funny to get you doubled over a minute ago.”
“I was choking.”
Thank God.
Alex put her hands on her hips and said, “And how are you and Mommy Dearest?”
Mommy Dearest? Did Alex know something I didn’t? Maybe she’d seen Caitlin at the grocery store comparative pricing home pregnancy kits. “We aren’t really on the best of terms right now.”
Alex cocked her head, “And what about us? What kind of terms are we on?”
In hindsight, I’ll blame it on the liquor. I walked the last two feet to her, pulled her to me, and gently kissed her on the lips. Neither of us said a word. We walked out the side exit, jumped into my car, drove to my house, went to the bedroom, and played the hokie-pokie all night long.
If you must know, two slices of cheesecake were involved.
End in October
Chapter 47
I opened my eyes and stared at the dark chocolate strands sprawled across my arm. Waking up with Alex in my arms felt better than not waking up with her in my arms. I guess that translates into love at some level, lust at another. I was in lovst.
Alex wiggled in my grip and said, “Make me breakfast.”
Uh-oh, looks like the honeymoon’s over.
She turned around to face me, and said, “Just kidding, I’ll make you breakfast.”
Close call.
I pulled the sheets off the bed revealing Alex’s stark form. “Why don’t you take a shower while I make breakfast? I have a surprise.”
A thin grin formed on her face and she said, “Why don’t we take a shower together then make breakfast together.”
Hold the telegraph. Did she just use “together” twice in one sentence? First, I enjoy showering alone. And second, I was starving. “Sorry, I have a date with a box of Bisquick, some blueberries, and a skillet.”
“You’re making blueberry pancakes. My favorite.”
How’d she crack that one? “It’s good to know that if back-stabbing, yellow journalism ever falls through, you can always get a gig as a recipe code breaker.”
Alex deflated like a punctured beach ball. She scurried into the bathroom, slammed the door and screamed, “Screw you!”
Again?
Alex walked down the stairs, her brown hair held back in a ponytail. She had taken the liberty of grabbing a pair of my sweats and her, change that, my Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt. I looked up from the skillet and said, “I hope you don’t plan on taking the bear with you.”
She rolled her eyes and I guess she thought I was kidding. I did the last flip on the pancakes and grabbed a gallon of OJ from the refrigerator. Alex grabbed two tall glasses from the cupboard and set them in front of me. She looked like she was set to speak, then swallowed the first syllable before her tongue flexed. I think she may have been a tad upset at my earlier remark
. Maybe I should have said, “It’s good to know that if back-stabbing, yellow journalism ever falls through, you can always get a gig as a recipe code breaker, buttercup.”
I grabbed two plates from a small stack in the cupboard and flipped three beautifully crafted flapjacks onto each. The microwave dinged and I snatched the hot form of Mrs. Butterworth, setting her in the middle of the table. Alex buttered her pancakes, and after each one I thought I saw the swallowed syllable rise in her throat, but it never escaped.
The two of us ate our pancakes in complete silence and I had an eerie feeling we’d fast-forwarded our relationship thirty years. I smiled at the notion and Alex said, “What?”
I’m not sure if I would have said the words, “Oh, nothing, I was just thinking about the two of us eating pancakes thirty years from now,” if Tristen Grayer was tied to the tree in my front yard.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
Alex took down her last syrup dredged, triple layer blueberry bite, and gulped it down. Her emerald eyes moistened and she said meekly, “If you really think of me as a back-stabbing, yellow journalist then why did you sleep with me last night?”
Good question, take your time answering. “Good question.”
F.
I was quite certain by the look on her face this was not the response she was seeking. I swallowed my last bite of pancakes—not to mention a large chunk of my pride—and added, “Because somehow, through your back-stabbing, and sensationalism, and runarounds, I fell in love with you.” I wasn’t lying and I wasn’t in the mood to play any more games with Alex Tooms.
After a lengthy post-sex coma, Alex and I saddled up in the Range Rover and headed in the direction of her house. She asked me, “So what are your plans for the day”
“We still haven’t found Kim’s eyes and—” I stopped. “Sorry, I can’t tell you.”
Love did not bridge the gap between our professions. Speaking of which, I don’t remember Alex heaving any declarations of “I love you” my way. I put this in the recesses of my brain and, while I was there, extracted a question that’d been hibernating for the last couple days. “I have to know who told you about the Kim Welding murder. There were only six people there. It was that little shit Gregory, wasn’t it?”
“It was—” She drowned off. “Sorry, I can’t tell you.”
“This isn’t a two-way street, missy. Whoever told you jeopardized our entire case.”
“Sorry. My source demanded he remain unnamed. I can’t renege on my promise. Journalists and their sources fall under a doctor-patient relationship.”
What, the Dr. Seuss-English Patient relationship? He got sick. He did not get sick quick.
It didn’t matter. I knew it was Gregory. They’d obviously collaborated at some point for them to have shown up at Lacy’s fundraiser together. Gregory knew how steamed I would get at seeing Alex on his arm and traded the details of Kim’s murder for her escort services. Damn, I was a good fucking detective.
I pulled through Alex’s gate and dropped her at her doorstep. She planted one on my cheek before opening the passenger door. Then she slipped the Pooh sweatshirt off, threw it in the car, and raced into the house. Now, if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.
Chapter 48
Back on the freeway, my cellphone chirped. I looked at the phone number—it was Caleb. I flipped the phone open to him biting my ear off, “Where did you go last night? Lacy’s going to kill you.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll buy her off.” I had a check for twenty-five hundred dollars written out to the MS Society in my pocket. “Hey, listen, I was going to ask you last night before we were sidetracked by Alex and Agent Dickhead, you didn’t talk to Tooms after we left the bluffs did you?”
“Hell no. I got home and slept like a rock.”
“Sorry, but I had to ask. Someone talked to her, and it had to be either you, me, Gleason, Gregory, or Caitlin.”
“Then it was Gregory.”
I was starting to have my doubts. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Now tell me, where did you go last night?”
I told him the story and he giggled like a tenth grader after each detail. When I was finished, I asked him, “Where’s Lace?”
“At the gallery. They have to get the silent auction winners finalized and fill out all the proper paperwork. I dropped her and Baxter off about an hour ago.”
We hung up and I headed for the Germaine Galleria, parking near the side entrance. I wound through the corridors and into the main hallway where I’d bid earlier on Lacy’s lighthouse painting. I read my bid for twenty-five hundred dollars, and saw just below it: “$2501-Todd Gregory.”
Of all the paintings to bid on for Charles Mangrove, he’d picked Lacy’s lighthouse landscape. I took ten deep breaths and excavated a simple solution buried deep: I would simply call Charles Mangrove and tell him he was outbid on everything. He wasn’t here. What the hell did he know?
I heard Lacy’s voice in the main ballroom and walked into the large void. All the tables were gone and the place was hovering around immaculate. Lacy was at a table with an older gent and I stealthily approached their table. Baxter stirred from his slumber, yelping at me twice. Busted.
I stood still, but I couldn’t fool either of them. Lacy stood and screeched, “Where the hell did you go last night? You better have a damn good excuse, buddy.”
“I had my appendix removed. I was discharged from the hospital about ten minutes ago. Incision’s a little sore, but they gave me some pills for the pain—”
She cut me off, “Did you see that you were outbid on my lighthouse painting? If you would have stayed around and not abandoned me and Caitlin, you could have topped Turd Gregory’s bid.”
I stopped listening at the word Caitlin, then zoned it just in time to hear Lacy refer to Todd as Turd. Priceless, it must run in the family. I said, “I forgot about Caitlin. What happened to her?”
“Caleb said she asked him where you ran off to a couple times, then must have left.”
Boy, was I going to pay for this one. Or girl.
I decided I might as well get it over with and whipped out my phone. I tried her twice and received her voice mail twice. I left a message the second time telling her I needed to talk and to call me back. I wasn’t sure if the message was in regards to screwing her over once again or pursuant to borrowing her copy of Children out of Wedlock for Dummies. I tried Conner but he didn’t answer his phone either.
The Dodds were both missing, and I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Chapter 49
Today was Saturday, October 13th. The next hot date was on Sunday at 8:41 p.m. I looked at my watch, it was a little after two in the afternoon. Thirty hours until game time and Kim Welding’s eyes still hadn’t surfaced.
I called Gleason but he didn’t know any more than when we’d talked on Wednesday. He asked if I’d conversed with either of the Dodds in the last twenty-four hours. I told him I hadn’t and that I would swing by and do a spot check on both their “cribs.”
I went by Caitlin’s first. Her car was gone, but I rang the bell anyway. No one came to the door and I used the key Caitlin had given me earlier to let myself in. Unless she was hiding under the bed, Caitlin wasn’t there. I went by Conner’s next, same drill. I’d probably see them both later and they’d be all, “We were under the bed, you idiot.”
I called Ali and Holly, my two female students who hadn’t been turned into science experiments. Both had flown back to be with their parents at their request. One of your students gets killed, it’s a freak incident and everybody wants to stay and help. Two of your students get killed and your students are harder to find than a Stick Bug in Sticks Abundant, Stick Island.
Driving home I started to think, what if this is no longer a game to Tristen? What if I’d gotten too close and now it was every man for himself? The last four bodies would be
saved or lost within the next fifty-six hours. Tristen Grayer liked to go out with a bang. Would this year be any different? In fifty-six hours would Alex, Caitlin, and Lacy all be dead?
Not a chance. I would keep the castle safe from the inside and let the FBI ward off any attack from the street.
Alex, Lacy, and Caleb started cooking dinner and I spent a half hour on the phone with Gleason. I informed him I searched both Caitlin’s and Conner’s and both were vacant. He couldn’t hide the fear in his voice. We went through every possible scenario and by the end of the phone call I was sick to my stomach. Gleason and Gregory would be stationed outside in the next couple hours and this did nothing to pacify any of my fears. I wasn’t scared for the four of us. I was scared for Caitlin.
Chapter 50
I woke up with my head on the kitchen table, my finger white against the trigger of my .45. I scanned the kitchen for bullet holes, but it appeared I hadn’t suffered a single body jerk during REM.
Lacy and Caleb were still sleeping when I peeked in Lacy’s bedroom, and Alex was sawing logs next to Baxter in my bed. I checked the clock, 8:55 a.m., less than twelve hours until the next woman was killed. I was no longer thinking in terms of a generic woman, I was thinking in terms of Caitlin.
I peered through the bedroom window and saw the overcast sky steadily weeping a light drizzle. I grabbed my running shoes, some sweats, my University of Washington hoodie, and walked out into the crisp morning air. A tightly formed unit of geese flew overhead, the cold arctic Canadian air stowed in their down feathers.
Gleason and Gregory were parked across the street and I jogged over to their black Caprice. Gleason rolled down the driver side window and asked, “What’s up?”
“I was going to ask you the same question. You get hold of Caitlin or Conner?”
He shook his head grimly, “No luck. I’ve tried calling them every fifteen minutes for the last eight hours.”
I made eye contact with Gregory and, yes, we did nauseate one other, but we were still in this heaping pile of shit together. “What do you think?”
