by J. C. Kenney
Rationally, I agreed with the plan. Emotionally, I didn’t. The thought of letting a killer remain free, even for a day, turned my stomach. I needed to figure out a way to force the issue.
To make sure Vicky’s murderer didn’t have the chance to disappear before an arrest could be made.
Chapter Fourteen
I’d seen—and felt—firsthand the results that came with giving a murder suspect a chance to escape. The result wasn’t pretty. In fact, the result could be quite painful. Because of that, I couldn’t stand by, with my hands in my pockets, while a killer remained loose on the streets of my beloved hometown.
It didn’t help that after parting ways with Jeanette, I’d interviewed another intern candidate. The meeting started out well enough but took a nosedive when the woman, a retired teacher, said she wouldn’t be able to work on books that contained sex scenes or profanity.
It was an objection I completely understood. Every reader had their likes and dislikes to which they were entitled. Shoot, Sloane had never been much of a reader until I turned her onto cozy mysteries. After reading her first Miss Marple novel, she was hooked on the genre.
“I like the puzzle without the blood and gore. There’s enough of that in the real world,” she’d told me one time as she helped herself to my collection of The Cat Who books. She never returned the books, but Luke had let me know she still read them, especially when she was stressed about something.
The thing was, as an agent who represented writers who wrote in a variety of genres, my portfolio included manuscripts with sex and violence. It was part of the business. I couldn’t have an assistant pick and choose what he or she wanted to read. If a story was good enough for me to represent it, it was good enough for an intern to work on it. Every single one of my authors deserved nothing less.
To counter my dwindling intern prospects, I texted Rachel with instructions on how the young woman from the pub could submit her resume.
I was editing a police procedural manuscript when the resume arrived. There wasn’t much to it. The candidate was a high school graduate named Calypso Bosley who professed a love for classic literature. She said she’d recently moved to town. The best way to reach her was via e-mail or her cell number.
The resume seemed a little odd, but it was error-free. That was a start. If she really did love classic literature, I’d be able to call her out on it in a manner of minutes. I sent Calypso a text that I could meet her Friday afternoon.
As afternoon turned to evening, I grew more antsy. Despite immersing myself in work, then taking Ursi for a walk, I couldn’t get Porter off my mind. When night had fallen, I gave in to my fixation and decided to pay Porter another visit.
To be accurate, I wasn’t interested in talking to the man again. I was interested in checking out his greenhouse and shed. Porter struck me as the kind of person who loved his flowers with such a passion that he wouldn’t destroy them. Even if he used some of them to commit a murder, he’d find a way to preserve them.
Hopefully, that meant there were clues to be found.
“Time to play cat burglar again, girl.” I filled Ursi’s dinner bowl, gave her a few extra kitty treats as I swore her to secrecy, and changed into my ninja outfit.
It was the same black head-to-toe ensemble I’d worn on a previous caper. That adventure had worked out in the end, so I had high hopes this one would, too. Of course, my trusty lockpick and penlight helped my confidence. I was a woman who believed in the right tool for the right job, after all.
After three deep breaths, I kissed Ursi on the head, asked her to wish me good luck, and slipped out my back window onto the fire escape.
With the assurance that came from pulling off this stunt before, I glided down the metal stairs and dropped the last few feet to the ground without making a sound. A few quick steps had me at the gate of the building’s tiny courtyard. As I opened the gate, a light from above stopped me cold. It was coming from the apartment on the third floor across from me.
I’d never seen that light on at this time of day.
Emulating Ursi as best as I could, I slipped through the opening quickly and quietly. With my heart in my throat, I leaned against the wooden privacy fence and closed the gate with my foot.
As long as I’d lived in my apartment, the sock shop across the hall from Renee’s had used that space to store excess inventory. There was no reason for that light to be on at this time of night. Unless someone from the store had left it on.
Or someone was up there right now. Someone who might have seen me.
There was work to be done, so I set the troubling issue aside. If the light was still on when I returned, I’d bring it to Renee’s attention tomorrow.
I gave the fence three taps for good luck, took a deep breath, and set off for Porter’s house. Since I was on foot, it was easy to stick to the shadows. One time, though, I had to take cover behind an oak tree to keep from getting caught in a truck’s headlights and ended up with mud-covered hands.
A few incident-free minutes later, I arrived at my destination. It was dark. With only pinpricks of starlight to illuminate the property, the place had an abandoned vibe. It made me sad.
Then I remembered the man inside might have murdered my hero.
I understood why Matt wanted to wait for more evidence before formally charging Porter with murder. I didn’t agree with it. That meant finding hard evidence that would lead to Porter’s arrest.
Now.
With my mission clear, I dashed around the side of the house to the backyard. The split rail fence was no match for me. I vaulted over the top horizontal rail with the ease of Wonder Woman.
Then it was decision time. Greenhouse or storage shed?
I headed for the shed. Luck was with me because the padlock on the shed doors used a key instead of a combination. It was time to, once again, use my trusty lock pick.
Picking a padlock wasn’t quite the same as picking a door lock, but the difference didn’t make me sweat. With my heart beating at a steady rhythm, I slipped on gloves and got to work.
I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I left the penlight in my pocket and worked the lock strictly by feel. After a minute of manipulating the locking mechanism without success, a neighbor’s dog let out a deep-throated series of barks. I dove to the ground and slapped my hand over my mouth to keep myself quiet.
When no lights came on, I got up on one knee and resumed my task, my heart now beating at a jogger’s pace instead of a more sedate walker’s. In fewer than sixty seconds, the lock was picked. I allowed myself a chuckle as I slipped inside the shed. Who knew a skill borne of desperation in New York years ago would be critical to snooping around in Rushing Creek?
My penlight provided illumination as I poked around the shed. It contained the usual things. In the center of the shed, like a luxury sedan at a high-end auto dealership, a spotless riding mower sat, waiting for action. On the far wall, lawn tools powered by small engines hung from nails. Bags of grass seed and lawn fertilizer lined the base of the wall to my right. To my left, rakes in assorted sizes leaned against each other as they towered over a couple of red, plastic gas cans. Smaller tools had made themselves at home on a wooden shelf that ran throughout the interior of the shed at eye level.
Disappointment grew as I analyzed every item in the shed with a close examination. Porter certainly took care of his things. The sharp edges of every cutting tool were covered with a thin sheen of lubricant. If something was metallic, it shone like polished silver in the penlight’s beam.
If Porter was hiding something, it wasn’t in the shed.
As if on cue, my phone vibrated. It had been an hour since I left the apartment. The longer I stuck around, the greater my odds were of getting caught. I’d spent time on the wrong side of Rushing Creek PD’s interrogation room table before. I didn’t want to do it again.
Time to
move.
I opened the shed door a crack. The house was still dark. I locked the shed back up and scuttled across the lawn on all fours until I’d plastered my back against a greenhouse wall.
My heart was banging against my ribcage while blood was pounding in my ears. I closed my eyes and took deep, slow breaths to get my nerves back under control. As the jackhammer in my chest eased back to a rhythmic, normal thump-thump, I dried my sweaty palms on my yoga pants and marveled at the insanity of my situation.
Rational Allie said it was time to stop pushing my luck and get the heck out of Porter’s back yard. Vicky’s murder was a matter for the police, not me. Matt and his team were good cops, smart cops, who would make an arrest at the appropriate time. Justice would be served. My presence here would only screw things up.
Emotional Allie insisted the opposite was true. That the Kickboxing Crusader wouldn’t leave the job unfinished. I’d promised to do everything in my power to bring Vicky’s killer to justice. That meant getting inside the greenhouse and getting a look around.
Emotional Allie won.
I focused on the brightest star in the sky. “You can do this. For Vicky.”
On all fours, I crept to the greenhouse’s door. It was locked. The lock wasn’t much more than a decoration, though, so I got inside the building in less time than it took to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
The shed had provided concealment from the outside I currently lacked. With nothing but glass surrounding me, I was as vulnerable to keen eyes as a free-range chicken was to a fox. It didn’t matter. Since I didn’t have Ursi’s gift of night vision, illumination was a necessity.
I clicked the penlight on and held my breath.
No dogs barked and no house lights flashed on, so I got to work. Pointing the beam at the floor minimized the illumination but made for slow going. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Sure, a small, glass bottle with a skull-and-crossbones label on it would have been helpful, but I wasn’t counting on striking that pot of gold. I was hoping I’d recognize a clue when I saw it.
With more patience than it took to get the twins to eat their vegetables when they stayed over, I made my way down the greenhouse’s center aisle. Other than the flowers themselves, the only things of note to my right were two plastic jugs of fertilizer and twenty-pound bags of potting soil, stacked four high.
A little table was at the end of the aisle. Pruning shears, a hand spade, and other garden implements were lined up in a neat row on the wooden surface, next to a brass watering can that looked to be a century old. Green garden hoses were wrapped up at the base of the table, one on each side.
I peeked inside the can. It was empty. A long sniff confirmed there were no noxious odors, either. So far, I’d come up with a big fat nothing.
A sinking feeling was growing in my gut as I bent down for a closer look at the hoses. Maybe this was nothing more than a fool’s errand. It would be easy enough to call it quits and make a quiet exit. Nobody would be the wiser.
Except me.
Now wasn’t the time to quit on Vicky. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes more and I’d be on my way. I turned off the light and started to stand so I could stretch my back muscles. As I did so, disaster struck.
My elbow struck the watering can. In the darkness, I couldn’t see it fall, but the clank, crash, and clang as it fell left no doubt what I’d done.
With my heart in my throat, I scrambled for the can, dropping the penlight in the process. Under my breath, I cursed my foolishness as I felt around in the dark. The split second I wrapped my hands around the spout, things went from bad to worse.
The dog started barking again. This time it kept up its woof, woof, woof until a light came on in Porter’s house.
Indecision left me rooted in place, just like the plants surrounding me. Make a break for it or find a place to hide? I pawed around on the floor until I corralled my penlight. The seconds it took seemed like hours, but leaving it behind would be way too risky.
With it back in my possession, I got down on all fours to keep out of sight and moved toward the front of the greenhouse. My fingers were within inches of the escape when the back door of the house flew open with a bang.
I retreated, dropping a few curse words as I scuttled around, desperate to find something, anything to give me cover. The beam of Porter’s flashlight flashed above my head as he shouted at the dog to be quiet. It responded to his shouts with more barking, as if to say hey, dummy, there’s a prowler in your greenhouse.
The exchange bought me a few seconds. I dove into a space between the floor and the underneath surface of the raised beds and wormed my way behind a collection of plastic flower pots that were covered in cobwebs. The stench of compost filled my nostrils as I curled myself into a tight ball. An invisibility cloak would have really come in handy at the moment.
My heart was pounding out a rhythm that would rival a bass drum as the door opened. Surely, Porter could hear my heartbeat, even if he couldn’t see me.
“Hello? Who’s there?” The man’s speech was slurred, as if he’d been drinking. “I’ve got a gun and I’m not afraid to use it.”
A tiny click was followed by the greenhouse being bathed in a dim, yellow light. Fabulous. Someone who’d had too much to drink and was armed was looking for me. I shuddered at the thought of what would happen should he find me.
Thanks to a lucky break, the light left me in the shadows. At least I had that going for me.
I took small, light breaths to keep from making noise and sent up a prayer that he’d overlook me. The irony of asking for divine intervention in the middle of a break-in wasn’t lost on me. Still, I was ready to take any help I could get.
Porter was making his way down the aisle at a sloth’s pace. The time taken between steps seemed to be hours. As he moved, he maintained a running dialogue with himself. The words didn’t make much sense, but at least they served to muffle the sounds of my breathing.
Before long, he left my limited field of vision. All I could do was remain as still as a corpse and wait him out. It was a thought that made my blood run cold.
“What do we have here?” Porter had come to a stop right in front of me. His tan chinos were mere inches from my face. The sour scent of cheap whiskey and sweat emanating from him made me want to gag.
“Can’t have this now, can we?” He moved away, only to return a few moments later.
I squeezed my eyes shut and asked my maker to forgive my transgressions. This was it. The man had murdered my hero and was about to do the same to me.
A soft thump right above my head almost pulled a scream from me, but I managed to keep silent. Then came a metallic snip. It was followed by more of the same. A few seconds later, green leaves floated to the floor.
Holy horticulture! He was pruning the flowers right above me.
My hip was broadcasting waves of pain to let me know it had reached its limit of being in such an awkward position. Yet, adjusting myself, even a fraction of an inch, was out of the question.
When I thought things couldn’t go downhill any further, sweat began dripping down my nose, tickling my nostrils. If my predicament didn’t change soon, a sneeze, and my exposure, was inevitable.
“Much better.” Another handful of leaves drifted to the floor as Porter shuffled away, his brown loafers scraping against the hard-packed, gravel floor.
A few seconds later, he passed me as he made his way back in the direction of the door.
“Must have been a squirrel or something. Well, goodnight my lovelies. See you in the morning.” The lights went out and Porter made his exit.
I let out a long breath and let my head fall back against the wall. My vision blurred as tears formed. That was too close.
Way too close.
A little later, the back door to Porter’s house slammed shut. Once again, I was alone in the darkness. Thanks to
the flowers mere inches above me, I’d escaped detection.
I crawled out from my hiding place and made for the door, ignoring the protests from my hip and shoulder. After counting to three to build up my courage, I slipped out of the greenhouse and headed straight for home.
When my building came into view, I vowed never to try such a foolish stunt again. Whether I could hold myself to it was another thing entirely.
Chapter Fifteen
Despite employing melatonin, smooth jazz, and bergamot oil, sleep was slow in coming. When I eventually did nod off, I had nightmares of my hair being cut off by garden shears, then being stuffed into a garbage bag and dumped in a landfill.
When the alarm went off, I was groggy from sleep deprivation but also agitated due to my misadventure’s lack of success. To remedy the situation, I headed for my spare room at the back of the apartment for a kickboxing session.
The exercise was good for me both physically and mentally. While I broke a good sweat, my mind cleared and let ideas come to the surface. Sure, it was frustrating I’d failed to find evidence to definitively tie Porter to Vicky’s murder. That failure provided the opportunity to consider other possibilities. After all, the evidence was all circumstantial so far.
As I pounded the leather bag with right-left-right combinations, my conversation with Ozzy came to mind. Despite the man’s crusty attitude, he knew a lot about Rushing Creek. I would be foolish to dismiss his analysis.
What if Ozzy was right? Could Gary really be the murderer? One thing was for sure. If I was Gary, I’d be keeping a low profile as the evidence stacked up against Porter. As far as I knew, there’d been no sign of Vicky’s ex since I’d seen him at the restaurant.
Was that a coincidence? I gave the bag a roundhouse kick with my left leg and arrived at a decision at the same time. Matt taught me not to believe in coincidences, especially when murder was involved.
