by Linda Welch
***
For a moment I was the only living person in the room.
“Do you know how I felt, watching him eat and watch TV, invite his friends here for the evening, enjoy a long, hot shower?”
I mutely shook my head.
“And now I’m stuck here, in his house.”
Mindful of the officers in the other rooms, I kept my voice low. “Not forever, Hannah. Just hang on to that thought.”
Which was useless advice. So I said nothing more while she raved. At least she would not be alone. The three other women Kent murdered would keep her company.
I hoped someone would kick me out soon because I knew one of the others would start in when Hannah wound down. All four wanted to vent and they would never get another audience like me.
Not once have I got gratitude from a dead person. Not one said, Thanks for catching my murderer, Tiff. More often they rant, but I know it’s not directed at me. They rail at whatever cruel fate or circumstance made them a victim, at being stuck in the here and now until their killer dies.
***
The house was locked up, the police armada drove off and I walked away, like everyone else. Royal waited in the truck with the passenger door open for me. As I slid across the smooth leather seat, he lifted his right arm so I could nestle into his side. The big truck pulled away from the curb with a rumble. Street lights curved an amber glow over one high cheekbone as he moved his head to check the rearview mirror.
We got off the interstate, through Peak City and left streetlights behind as we drove through farmland. The terrain rose in great grass folds, often dipping down to protected meadows. To the west, spotlights from the White Basin resort climbed the mountain, where people took advantage of the late-night gondola rides. In the east, away from the glow of artificial light cast by Peak City, stars like cold white diamonds spat in the black night. I rolled down the window; the familiar smell of desiccated sagebrush and dying wild grasses greeted me. Forgetting Utah is a desert is easy here in the north, but every year this distinctive aroma reminds me.
The truck growled to the crest of the ten-mile incline and the lights of Clarion spread below us on the other side.
***
Royal parked in the resident’s parking lot. We crossed Twenty-Second Street to his apartment building.
We stood on the sidewalk, taking in our surroundings as day segued to night and the street wound down. The faux Victorian lamps glowed brighter as stores darkened, the odd neon sign here and there blared garish green or glaring white. A few stores, bars and the Comedy Club were still open. Looking east, stoplights climbed the hill where old avenues intersected, all the way up to the East Bench. Clarion Station with its stunning Art Deco façade dominated the skyline in the west.
Royal paused at the bottom of the wrought iron staircase which climbs to his apartment. “They put up our signs.”
Slanting black letters on a ten by twenty inch polished brass sign attached to the brick wall said: “Banks and Mortensen. Private Investigators.” I stepped back, turned my face up, and saw the same announcement stenciled on our office windows in bold black lettering.
“We should have stopped for creamer,” he said.
Creamer for me. Royal drinks his coffee black with an inordinate amount of sugar, but I like mine with liquid creamer. I don’t care for the powdered kind. I glanced behind me. The Open sign hung on the Manic Moose’s door. “You go on up. I’ll see if the Moose has any to spare.”
Royal went up the steps. I took another minute to look at the signs before walking across the street. With luck, the Manic Moose’s proprietor would let me have some mini plastic cups of flavored creamer. If not, they sold milk in small chug bottles.
A customer came out as I reached the I. Behind him, Mimi saw me coming and held the door open. “Just closing, Tiff. What can I get you?”
I slipped inside. “Are you sure? I don’t want to keep you.”
She flipped the sign on the door to CLOSED. “I’m late as it is, but a few more minutes won’t hurt.” She nodded at the departing man. “Thought he’d never leave.”
I stood at the counter. “I appreciate it. Royal and I just got back from West Jordan. We forgot to pick up creamer.”
Mimi rounded the counter and stooped behind it. She came up with a wicker basket half full of tiny plastic containers. “Take what you need.”
She sounded a little grumpy. I didn’t blame her. It was late and she should have closed shop half an hour ago, and she had to clean up before she could call it a day. So I didn’t pick through the bowl for my favorite creamer, just took four containers off the top. “How much do I owe you?”
She smiled then, tiny lines crinkling around her tired eyes. “You know better. Come over tomorrow, buy a pastry and we’ll call it even.”
I smiled in return. “You got a deal. I’ll see you then.”
She followed me to the door. As I stepped outside, she engaged the lock and pulled down the blind.
I paused on the sidewalk to let Twenty-Second’s ambience wash over me. It was good to be home.
I looked up at Royal’s apartment. The door between his living room and our office must be open because light shone hazily through the office windows.
A low boom. The window panes cracked and fell in large shards. I dropped behind the two trash cans in front of the Moose, folding my arms over my head as glass exploded on the pavement, spraying a billion, glittering particles.
The backs of my hands stung. Glass crystals fell from my arms, my shoulders, and sparkled on the ground around my feet as I came up in a crouch. I saw a dull, angry red glow in Royal’s apartment.
***
I don’t know how much time I lost, standing on the sidewalk, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Can shock do that to a person? Trapped in a bad dream, a nightmare of sirens and flashing lights, I tried so hard to break free. I knew if I could, I’d wake in Royal’s bed, nesting into his warm body.
The vacuum popped, noise suddenly assaulted me and I could no longer pretend. Two fire trucks screeched to a stop in front of Royal’s building. I stood like a zombie as one crew fought with the hose between them, trying to get in position so they could direct a stream of water through our office windows, from which ugly black smoke plumed. The other crew went up the wrought iron staircase. Police were setting up barricades two blocks to the east and west, and bystanders already pressed against them, trying to get close as possible to the scene. Paramedics attended to three bloodied people who sat on the sidewalk. Royal was not with them.
Creamer dripped between my fingers, plastic dug in my skin. I’d crushed the containers.
Royal?
A blizzard of frosty particles blew through me, a chill which enveloped me from scalp to toes. I stood there, frigid on the inside, while heat from Royal’s building tried to warm my icy skin. I would never feel warm again.
I wanted to curl up on the sidewalk and go to sleep. And as I slept all the stages of grieving would pass. When I woke I would not blame myself for letting Royal die, I would not blame him for leaving me, I would not go through an endless list of why didn’t I do and why didn’t I say. When I saw him in my mind’s eye it would be his smiling face and the laughter in his glinting demon eyes. I would no longer picture a charred body in a burning building.
A hand fell on my right shoulder and lightly squeezed. “Okay?”
My knees started to buckle, but another hand clamped on my other shoulder to hold me erect. “Tiff!”
My heart stopped beating, surged.
It takes more power than I possess to bring a demon down, yet Royal’s backside hit the sidewalk seconds later and I thought I’d broke my fist.
Tears streaked my face. “You bastard. You dirty, rotten, lousy, no-good son of a bitch.”
His white teeth dazzled from his blackened face as he cupped his jaw. “You do love me.”
I glared. You have every right to glare when you go through hell unnecessarily. When your world comes apa
rt and you experience every emotion known to humanity, you can’t help but glare at the nearest animate object, which happened to be Royal. I know, not his fault, but he was handy.
Two paramedics with a gurney between them arrived as Royal lurched to his feet. “Sir, I need to check you over,” one said as she reached him.
Hel dusted himself down. “I’m fine. Just a bit charred at the edges.”
But he looked odd to me, with face, hands, jacket and pants stained, his hair dull and black. He shook his head and a sooty cloud puffed in the night air, letting a little copper and gold glint through. He took off his jacket and let it fall.
My knuckles hurt. I felt limp, disoriented. Bereft one moment, furious the next, now my emotions flat-lined. I didn’t know what to feel.
Royal gently cupped my cheek before his arms pulled me to his chest. He pushed his fingers through my hair. “It’s okay, Tiff. We’re okay.”
I lay against him. “Tiff, sweetheart, say something,” he whispered.
It was too much. My mouth crumpled. Tears all but spurted from my eyes. I clung to his lapels, shaking with huge, heaving, gulping sobs. He crushed me to him so forcefully it hurt. I didn’t care; I wanted to be closer, I wanted to burrow into him. I wanted our flesh to meld.
Minutes passed. The pounding of my mangled heart calmed, warmth crept back to my body. Royal’s cheek rested on mine and our hair mingled in a fall of silver, sooty-black, copper and gold. Encircled by the noise of shouting voices and pounding water, air thick with smoke, broken glass beneath my feet, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Royal tensed. “Someone bombed my apartment. Tiff, your house. . . .”
***
The sun hung overhead as Royal and I stood down the street from my house. The Bomb Squad wouldn’t let us nearer. The entire street had been evacuated and my neighbors spluttered like a gang of moths hitting a sixty-watt bulb. Mike Warren stood with us - not that he had jurisdiction, the FBI took it from him. Alert, Agent Larsen stood just beyond the barricade, probably ready to dive for cover should my house blow up.
Strangest thing, my house didn’t seem critically important now. You can rebuild a house and Royal had come back from the dead. I felt an entirely inappropriate glow. I felt . . . jolly.
Royal looked much better. The cop who drove us here gave us some wipes to use on our faces and hands. I think I looked worse, with sooty handprints all over my back and dark smudges on my hair.
Old Mildred Farmer tugged at my sleeve. “I don’t understand, dear.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Mrs. Farmer,” Royal soothed, laying his hand over hers.
His other hand held mine; he hadn’t let go since we got out the police cruiser.
The scowl smoothed from her face. “If you say so,” she said, blushing, slightly breathless. She placed her hand over Royal’s. Her voice hushed. “I’m so glad you’re here, a real man, one a woman can rely on. And so handsome. I - ”
“Mildred!” George Farmer exclaimed as if shocked.
Royal freed his hand. Mildred lost her blush. “My goodness! Did I really say - ?” She closed her mouth in a little wrinkle, eyeing her husband with a distinctly guilty expression.
George took her by the upper arm, gave Royal an accusing look and towed his wife away.
“She was upset,” Royal said defensively.
He did that to a volunteer at Clarion General Hospital when we asked about Rio Borrego. She had orders not to speak about him, but a touch of Royal’s hand changed her mind. I made her relax, he told me. Yeah, to the extent she couldn’t stop herself saying what ran through her mind. He had to persuade me he didn’t hex her, Gelpha style, before I forgave him.
He didn’t mean any harm. He acted instinctively to comfort Mildred.
I put my free hand over my mouth to hide a grin. “Poor Mildred! And poor old George. What must he think?”
I concentrated on my home, the tiled roof I saw over the brow of the hill. Jack. Mel. They must be frantic, with those men in space suits going through the house.
Mac wound his leash around my ankles. He didn’t understand why we stood in a street of milling people instead of taking our walk. Office Barron, who brought Mac out to me, thought I’d lost my mind when I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him.
I felt hopeful. My house hadn’t blown up and I had not heard the muffled boom of a contained explosion either.
After standing outside all night, many in nightclothes, my neighbors were unhappy. They could have gone elsewhere, were told they should go elsewhere, so had only themselves to blame. I felt hostile looks and caught some from the corner of my eyes. Hell, it wasn’t my fault! I didn’t invite assassins to my home.
I looked around again. With Royal’s apartment bombed, my home threatened and our recent involvement with the FBI, I expected Vanderkamp and Gunn to turn up. They must. . . .
Ice slid up my spine. I will deal with the agents.
I again thought back to the day Royal and I went to see Rio Borrego at Clarion General Hospital and were told he left under his own steam, with Gia. I mulled over the complexity of her healing Rio there, in his hospital room, with no interference from staff. Of walking him out unimpeded. Of ensuring no word of what happened was circulated.
I could see her doing that. It was possible. But use her mojo on the Federal Bureau of Investigation? She would have to go deep, every level of authority, and tamper with the dreaded FBI databases to ensure nobody ever happened upon a thread which could pique their curiosity.
I gave myself an imaginary kick in the butt - don’t be an idiot, Tiff. Even Cousins can’t do all that.
I hoped to God they couldn’t.
Larsen suddenly went into action. He unpegged the yellow tape from one side of the street and let it drop. Four officers walked a path through the crowd, telling us to move off the road. I held my breath.
Two armored vehicles came through first, followed by paramedics, ambulance and fire truck. The cops tried shooing residents back to their homes.
Agent Larsen smiled as he came to us. “You can go on up.”
My eyes flicked to the house and back to Larsen. “You’re sure it’s safe?”
“One-hundred-percent, attic to basement.”
He held my gaze. I tensed. I don’t know what magical instruments the FBI use, and I have bodies in my basement. Literally.
Matt Larsen is five-seven so I tower over him, but I’m sure that doesn’t bother him. I doubt he notices any disparity in height, with any person. He has buzz-cut light-brown hair, swarthy, pockmarked olive skin, a narrow, thin-lipped mouth, a nose like a knife blade and bushy eyebrows darker than his hair. He has a way of staring at you with intensity in his dark-blue eyes, but his facial muscles relaxed. His look makes me wonder if he knows all my secrets. He doesn’t; he just likes to unnerve me. When he gives me his penetrating stare, I smile into his face.
I smiled. “I’m relieved to hear it.”
“They managed to disconnect the detonator from the explosives,” he went on. “Are you coming?”
We followed him up the hill with my neighbors’ curious eyes on us. Three plain cars and two squad cars were parked outside. One unit, with its wheels on my sorry excuse for a front yard, had squashed my solitary rose bush. I expected to see Jack and Mel’s anxious faces at the window, but they must be elsewhere in the house.
“A simple device wired to a kitchen outlet. The first time you plug in an appliance - boom!” Larsen said, making me feel so much better.
Mike Warren stood at the garage. He beckoned me over.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well?” Royal echoed.
Mike took off his hat and dusted the speckless brim with one hand. “Not much to go on, Tiff. We found a partial footprint out back and mud in your kitchen.” He shrugged wide shoulders.
The forensics gang came out the front door with hard-sided black bags in hand. I nodded in their direction. “Did they find anything, apart from the b
omb and footprint?”
“They’ve taken samples. You know the procedure.”
“Can I go inside now?”
Mike barely got out a “yes” before I had the front door open.
The door to the basement stood ajar. I walked through the hall to the kitchen, into a whirlwind. Jack zipped around the perimeter in a blur of motion. Mel sped back and forth in a straight line between backdoor and west windows. I watched with my mouth open - they didn’t stop. They moved so fast, I barely made them out. They were in full panic mode.
Yellow markers like those I saw in the Welsh’s house sat on the countertop next the stove, in the open cabinet above it, another at the backdoor beside what could be a smear of mud.
Mike and Larsen squeezed in the doorway either side of me, Royal behind them. As I observed my roommates’ awesome display of alarm, I heard Larsen and Royal talk about the explosion at Royal’s apartment. Same method, doubtless the same perpetrators. Someone was out to get us. Hence the Bureau’s involvement – this fell under the Homeland Security Act.
Jack and Mel noticed me and stopped at the same time. I could virtually hear the brakes screech. Then they were on me. I couldn’t speak to them so steeled myself to ignore their yammering, but wonder upon wonder, my spectral buddies said not a thing. Eying the cops, they backed off and went to stand near the kitchen windows.
Larsen went to the stove. He indicated the cupboard above. “It was in back of here.”
I keep casserole dishes and roasting pans I rarely use up there. The investigators had moved them aside to reveal where a square piece had been cut out of the cupboard’s back wall. The section lay on the counter. It would leave only a thin seam when replaced, and even had I looked in there I would not have noticed with the pans and dishes covering it.
“We’ve seen this before, and the same setup used in Mortensen’s apartment.” Larsen pointed to the hole, then directed my attention to the outlet next the stove. He held the missing outlet cover. “They put the explosive behind the cupboard and ran a wire through the wall to your outlet, connected it to a small pressure plate. You plug in an appliance, the prongs hit the plate. . . .”
