A Dead Man Speaks

by Lisa Jones Johnson

  “Damn you, Bob Greene!”

  Shit. I heard him in my head, but the room was like nothin’ had happened. I ran around the room yelling out “C’mon, show yourself, asshole! You can take over my life, but you won’t show yourself. C’mon!” I thought I saw something over in the corner, but when I blinked whatever it was disappeared. Damn him and his fucked up games. “What’re you afraid of?”

  A heavy force sliced through me, throwing me on the floor. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. An invisible hand had pinned me to the ground. My eyes were glazed over, and I could barely speak, but I wasn’t afraid. I was over the fear, and now I was just pissed. Pissed at him, pissed at myself for not being in control. Pissed that I needed to solve this case as much as he needed me to.

  And I think I saw him out of the corner of my eye. But not quite. Because then he was gone. The weight lifted off me, and I crawled back over to my bed. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to wake up and everything would be different: my life, his life. But knew it wouldn’t be. I knew I couldn’t close my eyes to it.

  * * *

  why him? why this cop? but they won’t answer me. why must our lives be coupled together in some unholy pact? they won’t let me leave him. maybe that’s my punishment for a life of self absorption. the ultimate sin i suppose. love yourself. just not too much. so now i’m stuck with him. but what if he doesn’t find out?

  what if I never know? where will I be? where will I go?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Detective Bob

  Playing cards with an invisible opponent. That’s what solving a murder case was. This case at least. What the hell did I have? A lover named Laurel, skipped town. I thumbed through her mail—city college, old paycheck, never collected…sent right after the murder. Must be when she left, in a real hurry. I had to get that APB back. I would check on it again. Cops weren’t what they used to be. Ten years ago, I’d a had that back in a snap.

  Somebody named Red, died…friend partner. Not sure. Accounts…illegal, maybe, probably. Leading right to Andrew Haven’s doorstep. A bunch of cards, but, was it a winning hand?

  The front of City College was red brick and had ivy snaking along the walls. Students lounged around the campus. I looked down on the letter. OFFICE OF CAREER GUIDANCE.

  I walked down the hallway of the building. I never liked colleges, reminded me too much of what I didn’t have. Maybe I shoulda gone back and gotten my degree, but hell, when I started on the force, none of the guys had gone to school.

  Now, all the detectives got some kinda degree, but me. But I didn’t give a damn. I could still run rings around them backwards when it came to cracking a case. All of ’em but this one. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was the shit with Margie. I couldn’t focus like I usually did, or the stiff feeding me information when I don’t want it. I didn’t know. All I knew was I had to get it done, so I could move on with my life and figure out what I wanted do, or what I could do.

  “Can I help you?” a smallish woman, thin nose, pinched face, asked.

  I flashed my badge. I didn’t have time for the fun and games today. “Yeah, I’m looking for a Laurel Davenport. She works here.”

  The woman sniffed disapprovingly. “You mean worked here. She hasn’t shown up in over a month. Never was that reliable, even when she was here.”

  “Oh yeah? Well I need to talk to somebody about her. See her office and things. We think that she may be involved in a murder case.”

  The woman sniffed again. “Well if you’ll wait a moment, Detective, I’ll call her supervisor.”

  “I got nothin’ but time.” I leaned against the wall, looking at the steady stream of students weaving in and out of the classrooms. After about ten minutes, a forty-ish looking black guy walked over to me. “You wanted some information on Laurel Davenport, Detective? I’m Harry Moss, Ms. Davenport’s supervisor.”

  “Yeah, like I was telling her. We think that Ms. Davenport may be involved in a murder case.”

  “I see. Would you come in my office, Detective?”

  I followed him into a cramped dark hole of an office stuffed with books and papers. “Sit down, please. Laurel, worked next door. I can show you her office in a moment, but first, Detective, tell me what this is all about. Laurel was somewhat of a free spirit, but I wouldn’t consider her the type to get involved in anything like murder.”

  “Well you never know about these things, Mr. Moss. I’ve been doing this a long time, and it’s usually what you least expect is what ends up being the case.”

  “I see.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to say next, so I filled in for him.

  “How long did she work here?”

  “Two years, or at least, it would have been two years, next month…if she’d stayed.”

  “Do you have any idea why she’d leave so suddenly?”

  “No, except…Well, she seemed troubled for at least about the last six months before she left.”

  “Did she ever talk to you about what was on her mind?”

  “No, we didn’t have that kind of relationship”

  “What kind of relationship did you have with her, Mr. Moss?”

  If he hadn’t been so dark, he probably would’ve turned red. “Business, strictly business. She was my employee, and that was the extent of it.”

  But by his reaction, it was pretty clear that there might’ve been more, or at least, that he might have wanted more.

  “So what exactly did she do here?”

  “She was a guidance counselor. She advised the students on career opportunities.”

  I scribbled down some notes while he talked. It was always good not to seem too interested in what they were saying. Let ’em talk more. “I’d like to talk to some of the students that she advised.”

  “That won’t be a problem, but I don’t think that’s really going to tell you much. I mean, they were just her students.”

  Something was going on here that he didn’t want me to know about. I was definitely talking to those kids. “Well you know, Mr. Moss, we gotta cover all the bases.”

  Silence again. Maybe he figured if he said too much he’d spill what was really on his mind. “Did she have a boyfriend, somebody she was seeing?”

  “I told you, Detective, that we didn’t have that kind of relationship. She might have. In fact, I’m sure that she probably did, but I wouldn’t know about it.”

  “Who would know?”

  “I don’t know, Detective. We were not friends. I don’t know how much more bluntly I can put it. We had no personal relationship at all.”

  “Right, I forgot. Well, did she have any friends, since you weren’t one of them?”

  “I couldn’t really say. She pretty much kept to herself. She didn’t go to lunch with the other girls…I mean ladies that work here, and she usually didn’t have much to say to anyone but her students.”

  “Like I said, Mr. Moss, I definitely want to talk to some of those students.”

  “I’ll arrange that for you this afternoon.”

  “Do you have any pictures of her? Official, of course.”

  He glared at me, but then stiffly reached for a yearbook from his shelf. Thumbing through the pages, he stopped on one. “There she is.”

  Bingo. The face…from the visions. Her, clear as a bell. Small face, attractive…but more…now that I was seeing her like this, I knew I’d seen those eyes before. But I didn’t know where. Shit. “Not a bad looking chick.”

  He ignored the comment.

  “I’ll need to take this yearbook, if you don’t mind.”

  “No, Detective.” He handed it to me crisply. “Take it. I can get another copy.”

  I looked at her face again and without looking up, asked, “So tell me, Mr. Moss, what was she like? I know she wasn’t your friend, but after working with someone for almost two years, you gotta have some impression of her.”

  He leaned forward, and for a moment, looked like he was going to break down. “She had this…incredible�
�sadness about her.” He cleared his throat. “Almost like she’d lost something and had never been able to find it again.” He settled back in his chair. “I don’t know if it was a child, or a husband, someone close to her. She’d been married before, but it was over before she came here.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She listed herself as divorced on her personnel records. It was no secret, Detective.”

  Interesting. “Did she ever mention the marriage, or her husband?”

  He pursed his lips. “Never.”

  “Well, I’ll definitely need to see those records and any other files you have on her. You know, personnel evaluations, that kind of thing.”

  “I’ll have my secretary pull everything on her.” He leaned forward and almost whispered, “You don’t think, Detective…I mean she couldn’tve…?”

  I finished the sentence for him matter of factly. “Killed somebody?”

  He swallowed hard. But I just smiled, the way I do when something’s not really funny, but I smile anyway. “I never say never, Mr. Moss.”

  * * *

  “Okay, I want you to get the prints from everywhere, desk top, chair, windows. The whole nine yards.” I was in Laurel’s office. It was pretty much what I expected. Neat, orderly, like somebody wanted to make sure that there was nothin’ ever out of place. No clues to what was really going on. My antennae always went up when something was too neat.

  The cop glared at me. “Believe it or not, Greene, this ain’t the first time we done this.”

  “Well, you know boys, you just can’t make no assumptions nowadays. They’re not recruiting the way they used to.”

  “Fuck off, Greene.” The other cop put his hand over his mouth. He was a rookie, and he probably figured it wouldn’t look to good to be laughing at me right off the bat and all. But his partner didn’t have no problem with it, kinda hissed under his breath, “Yeah, and what wouldya know about recruitin’ anyway, you’re too busy rattin’ on your partners.”

  “Whooo…rat, dirty rat…bang, bang he’s dead…” The rookie cracked up again.

  It took everything I had not to slam him and his partner on the ground and shove my foot up their asses, but why give ’em the satisfaction for hauling me on for assaultin’ fellow officers. Naw, this time I wouldn’t bite. So I held it in, turning my back on them saying, “Just get the prints.” The shit never seemed to end. Even after two years, they just wouldn’t let it rest.

  “Detective.” I looked up and saw the thin woman who worked for Moss staring at me. “I’ve got the files you wanted.”

  I took them nonchalantly, but really, I couldn’t wait to dig in.

  “And, Detective…the students you wanted to talk to…”

  I pretended I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.

  “They’re waiting outside Mr. Moss’s office. I had to pull some of them out of class, but Mr. Moss said it was urgent, so I did.”

  I smiled at her for the first time, and funny thing is, I think this made her more uncomfortable than me being a hard ass with her. “Well, you done good.”

  She just nodded and walked quickly out of the room.

  I yelled over my shoulder to the cops behind me. “Call me when you’re done. I wanna get a rush on those prints.”

  “Yeah right…soon’s we’re done…Detective.” The snide one, kinda spit out the last word, and the rookie, looked away from me, like he didn’t want to get caught laughing in my face.

  Like I said, they just couldn’t let it rest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “So tell me about your teacher.” I pressed the “ON” button on my tape recorder and turned to a heavy set kid perched on the edge of his chair. I was in a classroom, and all of ’em were looking at me like something was about to go down.

  “She wasn’t a teacher.” He kinda smirked.

  “Oh yeah, so what was she?”

  “To me personally or to everybody else?”

  One of the other kids snickered. I’d figured I’d see a bunch of ’em together first, get a feel for the dynamics, and then grill ’em one by one afterwards.

  Ten of them, eight men, and two women. The guys looked like jocks. Big beefy types. They were all smirking except for this one black kid. He looked mad, but he didn’t say anything.

  I turned to him. “So what was the deal on Miss Davenport?”

  He stared me straight in the eye. “No deal. She was the counselor. That’s all.”

  One of the white jocks, gave his friend high five, then catcalled. “Aw c’mon, Jackson, tell the detective about ‘Mrs. Robinson.’”

  One of the women, a tall blonde who looked too good to be true, swiveled around to the guy who’d cat called. “You are soooo disgusting. I think she was nice.”

  The jock gave her a sappy look, and then fired out at me. “So did she kill somebody, Detective?”

  Before I knew it, the black kid jumped across the room and collared the white kid. “Shut the fuck up, Kowalski!!”

  “Hey…hey…break it up.” I threw the black kid on the ground. Shit, he started it. I felt like gettin’ out my cuffs and hauling him in on GP, but I figured I’d get more outta him if I just let this thing play out. Another jock called out to the first kid.

  “Yeah, Kowalski, you’re just pissed ’cause you didn’t get nothin.”

  The black kid tried to get free from me and lunge at the new guy. “Fuck all y’all…assholes.”

  “Calvin, I don’t know why you’re getting mad at everybody. I was defending her. I think Kowalski’s a dick, too!”

  “Looks like Ms. Davenport had some real fans around here.”

  “Yeah ask Jackson. He knows all about her.”

  Before Jackson could yell out something else, I clapped my hand over his mouth. Unprofessional, but it worked. I turned to the group. “Okay…now I’m gonna ask everybody here to tell me in their own words something about Ms. Davenport.”

  “What is this, Detective, kindergarten?”

  His buddy catcalled, “Or better yet, show and tell.”

  Loud whooos went through the room. This was turning out better than I thought. I was pretty sure I’d get something pretty juicy out of this.

  I eyeballed the loud jock. “Okay, you first…Kowalski, right?”

  “That’s me. With a ‘K.’”

  “Okay, Mr. Special K, tell me about her.”

  “Well, I’d say she was helpful…to certain, people that is…like Jackson.”

  Jackson glared but managed to keep his mouth shut. I turned to the tall blonde. “What about you? First tell me your name.”

  “Sally Gonzalez…”

  Gonzalez, okay. Didn’t look like a PR to me, but who knows these days. “Sally, tell me about her, especially the last six months. Did she seem upset, or troubled about anything when you talked to her?”

  “No, not at all. In fact she was always very helpful to me. Whenever I had a career problem or something, she was always ready to talk.”

  “And you?” I turned to the other woman. She’d been noticeably quiet.

  “Pretty much the same, Detective. Except that I do remember one day I came into her office, and it looked like she’d been crying. When I asked her if she was okay, she just said that it was her contacts.” The woman shrugged. “So I guess it didn’t really mean anything.”

  “What about the rest of you? Anything pop in your head when you thought about her?” The rest just shrugged. After the initial flare up, everybody seemed pretty much subdued. “Okay, so when was the last time any of you remember seeing her on campus?”

  “Couple of months ago.”

  “No it was longer ago than that.”

  “I don’t really remember.”

  Jackson had been quiet the whole time, so I guessed it was time to talk to him again. “And what about you, Jackson?”

  The room became real quiet now.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “I don’t remember.”
/>   “Now, sure you do.”

  He stared at me with crystal clear dark eyes that didn’t blink.

  “No I don’t, Detective.”

  I got up and walked around the room. Time for Colombo again.

  “You know, I don’t think that you kids understand that this is a murder investigation. And anything that you don’t tell me now voluntarily, you’ll just have to tell me later at the station. And anything you don’t tell me there…well, you’ll just have to tell the whole world in court.”

  I looked straight at Jackson. “So I think that you better tell me when you saw her last.”

  * * *

  “It was about six months ago. I came to her office, I think it was maybe around five or six, just about everybody was gone. I’d had an appointment for earlier, but I had to cancel it ’cause of a midterm, so anyway she was on the phone, talking to somebody. I don’t know who. All I remember is that she was really pissed. She slammed down the phone. Then she asked me if we could talk later, and I said okay.”

  I looked him over carefully, wanted to make sure he was telling the truth. I’d let everybody else go, I knew he wouldn’t talk as long as the rest of them were there. “Okay, so then you saw her, what…the next day, week, when?”

  The kid looked me straight in the eye again, unlike most kids.

  “I saw her that night.”

  This was getting interesting. “Kind of late for office hours, don’t you think?”

  “Detective, just let me tell you the whole thing from beginning to end, and then…well…you just figure it out, ’cause I’m tired of thinking about it. She was…well…” And he started telling me, fast like he wanted to get it out of his soul so it would stop polluting his heart.

  “I was home studying. Kowalski, who was my roommate then, was gone over to his girlfriend’s, when somebody knocked on the door. I thought it was kinda weird because it was so late.” He hesitated before he continued. “When I opened the door, she was standing there…”

  Suddenly it was like I could see it as he was telling me, right in front of my eyes, the whole scene playing out like a movie. Just as it had when Andrew told me about when he and Clive first met. And I could see everything, just like I was there…