Girl Most Likely

by Max Allan Collins

  Other Titles by Max Allan Collins

  The Reeder and Rogers Trilogy

  Executive Order

  Fate of the Union

  Supreme Justice

  Thrillers

  What Doesn’t Kill Her

  Midnight Haul

  Regeneration (with Barbara Collins as “Barbara Allan”)

  Bombshell (with Barbara Collins as “Barbara Allan”)

  Nathan Heller novels

  Ask Not

  Target Lancer

  Bye Bye, Baby

  Chicago Confidential

  Angel in Black

  Majic Man

  Flying Blind

  Damned in Paradise

  Blood and Thunder

  Carnal Hours

  Stolen Away

  Neon Mirage

  The Million-Dollar Wound

  True Crime

  True Detective

  Triple Play (novellas)

  Chicago Lightning (short stories)

  Mallory novels

  No Cure for Death

  A Shroud for Aquarius

  The Baby Blue Rip-Off

  Nice Weekend for a Murder

  Kill Your Darlings

  The “Disaster” series

  The Titanic Murders

  The Hindenburg Murders

  The Pearl Harbor Murders

  The Lusitania Murders

  The London Blitz Murders

  The War of the Worlds Murder

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Max Allan Collins. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542040587

  ISBN-10: 1542040582

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  For the reunion committee

  CONTENTS

  WELCOME!

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  WELCOME!

  Some call Galena, Illinois—near the Iowa-Wisconsin border and sixteen miles east of Dubuque, Iowa—“The City that Time Forgot,” frozen in the 1800s. But its one hundred or so dining, entertainment, and shopping options are a present-day delight—the half mile of Main Street’s shopping offers, free of charge, outstanding examples of assorted architectural styles—French Colonial, Greek Revival, Victorian, and more.

  Galena is the birthplace of General Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth U.S. president. His victorious post–Civil War return saw the town presenting him and his family with a house that, while no mansion, would become just one of today’s many restored historic homes now open to the public—actual mansions included!

  History buffs will take in with wide, appreciative eyes the exhibits of the Historical Society Museum in its magnificent Italianate setting. Named for its iron deposits, Galena was in its pre–Civil War glory days a mining boomtown. But you don’t have to be into history to marvel at an underground tour of the Vinegar Hill Lead Mine.

  Aboveground, myriad pleasures await—rolling hills, sweeping valleys, a golf resort, nearby ski lodge, trolley tours, an array of cozy bed and breakfasts and comfy hotels, hot air ballooning, magic shows, antiquing, art galleries, artisan and craft shops, a distillery, breweries and wineries.

  Events and activities every weekend await honeymooners and families alike, who will wonder at the stunning vistas of Greater Galena. Each year this city of three thousand-some souls welcomes over a million visitors. Be one of them!

  Jerome Ward, The Galena Visitor (published twice yearly by The Galena Gazette)

  ONE

  The two girls would be there, of this much you are certain.

  Two women, actually—“girls” ten years ago, but women now. Judging by their photos on Facebook, both are still quite lovely. Neither is married, interestingly. Well, married to their careers maybe.

  And if they both attend—and social media chatter assures you they will—and see you, and start talking. . . what could you do? Stay home, you suppose. But even in your absence they might talk. And if they talk, and that talk spreads, what would become of your career?

  The planning for the event took all year—the Galena High School Ten-Year Reunion has its own Facebook page, so keeping up becomes a daily thing. You have read all the posts, many from friends who pose no threat, others from kids you hadn’t been all that close to; but the class is small—sixty-five, and maybe thirty or at most forty will show up. . . and a few are gone already. A car accident and two Iraq deaths.

  Maybe something would come up and one or both girls would decide not to come. You keep tabs on them. Keep track.

  Sue has shared her travel plans, has her plane reservations made and hotel, too. Like most of those coming, she takes advantage of the special deal Lake View Lodge is offering. That has been a big part of why the Class of ’09 settled on a winter month—off-season rates. The lodge is geared toward golfers with its four courses. Travel isn’t an issue for the other girl, whose parents still live in Galena.

  That is how, six months before the reunion, you end up in Clearwater, Florida—not for golf, but because of the reservations Sue makes.

  You don’t know much about Clearwater. Your family has vacationed in Florida several times, but never Clearwater, which somebody told you is the Redneck Riviera. You can’t argue with that. The main drag is littered with fast-food restaurants, including the very first Hooters, and traffic is awful.

  You check into a Fairfield Inn paying cash, saying you lost your credit card, and will a cash deposit for incidentals do? It will. After your long day of driving, you cruise the main drag, in search of the kind of fresh seafood you can’t find in the Midwest. That stretch is so brightly lit, you don’t realize your lights aren’t on till the cop pulls you over.

  Turns out to be a kind of variation on a speed trap. When afternoon turns to dusk and then darkens to evening, that fast-food-littered four-lane is still bright as noon. That means a cop can pull over out-of-towners like you and reward them with a seventy-five-buck ticket. What a racket. Some people have no morality whatsoever.

  And when you finally choose a restaurant, the seafood is awful—heavily breaded scallops you suspect had been frozen.

  Back at the Fairfield Inn, you barely sleep at all. Can’t shut your mind off with all you’ve got to do.

  Next morning you locate her home, on a side street just a few blocks from the motel, which of course you already knew, thanks to Google Maps. You’d been able to view her street online, and already know what her house looks like. Shabbier in person. A pale green ranch-style that would have been nice back home, but the
tropical weather’s been tough on it here.

  You drive around her neighborhood, and the surrounding area. That main drag is hard to get onto if you’re caught at a side street stop sign—you need a stoplight, though even then it takes forever to turn green. But the light does change, and soon you have chosen your route. Getaway route, you think to yourself, and laugh a little at the absurdity of it all.

  She is living alone. You watch from just around the corner, parked in your Ford Edge, as she walks from a side door to her Prius in the driveway under a carport awning. You almost don’t recognize her. She had been curvy, very bosomy, and cute. She is a little heavier now, though still attractive. Wearing the blue blouse of her job at Best Buy, where she is assistant manager.

  You are close enough from where you parked to get a decent look at her. The red hair—in cheerleader days, so full and shoulder-brushing—is now a pixie cut. Her makeup is a little heavy. It always was.

  You follow her to work, keeping several cars between you. You already know the address of where she’s heading, thanks to her Facebook posts and the Clearwater Best Buy website. You do not go in, though probably you could have done so, staying at a distance—she is behind the returns counter. Why would she expect to see you here? Still, it seems too much of a risk.

  You return to your room and have a nap before checking out. In your car, you check your watch—she’d be fixing herself an early supper now. You drive to a diner not far from her place and have some yourself. Just soup, nothing heavy. It’s after nightfall when you park around the corner in time to see her exit again from the side door to her car.

  Now she has a professional look—burgundy silk blouse, gray pants, low heels. Purse with a strap over her shoulder.

  Her second job is at one of several venues at Ruth Eckerd Hall, a 73,000-square-foot performing arts center (Google said), part of an entertainment complex that is definitely upscale compared to the rest of Clearwater. That is because the patrons are mostly from the nearby Tampa Bay area, plus plenty of tourists from all over, of course.

  The Little River Band is tonight’s attraction at Ruth Eckerd Hall. They have so many good songs—“Reminiscing,” “Cool Change,” “Lonesome Loser”—Pablo Cruise is on the bill, too, with “Love Will Find a Way,” “A Place in the Sun,” “I Want You Tonight.”

  You go to the box office and spend $45 on a ticket. Part of that is to check out the venue, to see if this would be the right place for what you have in mind—the parking lot, maybe. And of course part of it is that you thought the two bands sounded like fun.

  After all, shouldn’t you get some enjoyment out of this? Why not chill a little bit? Must everything be so darn serious?

  And there is no chance of her spotting you, since she works the bar at the smaller Murray Theatre in the complex, and you are in the main hall. It is huge—four thousand seats, every one filled tonight—which tells you this is the wrong choice. That parking lot is packed, and endless, a sea of people and their vehicles.

  No, her quiet neighborhood would be better.

  The evening of music has relaxed you. But after driving back and parking in the diner’s lot again, walking the dark, dank residential side streets with their droopy, mossy trees—some of these homes are really crummy—you feel your stomach twitch and jump. Can’t help it. You are human. Anybody would be nervous in your place.

  She isn’t back yet. You’d had no way to research what her work hours are—she’d never been that specific on Facebook—so you just tuck yourself under the carport, toward the back.

  Maybe that was a bad idea, because when she pulls in and her headlights wash over you, you can—despite the glare—make out her wide-eyed shock at seeing someone there.

  When she emerges from the vehicle, you are the shocked one—she has a little pistol in her fist! She is firm-jawed and her eyes are narrow. Your presence hasn’t stopped her from moving forward, the gun probably encouraging that. Then her expression turns puzzled, and she speaks your name, adding a question mark.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” you say. You smile just a little and gesture toward the gun. “You really think you need that?”

  “I’m a woman living alone,” she says, adding your name to that, a decided—and you think quite uncalled for—edge to her tone. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m in town for a convention,” you say. “Just thought I’d look you up. Say hello.”

  “Okay, hello. Goodbye.”

  You raise your hands as if surrendering. “I know we left it in a bad place, all those years ago.”

  “We didn’t leave it in a bad place. It was always a bad place. You really need to go.”

  You hang your head. “Okay. All right. The real reason I’m here? I want to make amends. I want to apologize.”

  “Little late for that.”

  You risk a tiny grin. “‘Better late than never’ is a cliché, I know. But they say all clichés are rooted in truth.”

  “Do they.”

  “Could we sit and talk?”

  “Inside?”

  “On your stoop, inside, outside, I don’t care.”

  She studies you. She sighs. Nods. She always was a soft touch for you. She puts the gun away in her bag and fishes out her keys.

  Then you two are sitting in her small, very clean kitchen. She makes coffee. You tell her about your life, your marriage, your kids, your job, and how much it all means to you. She mostly just listens.

  Finally she gives you a cup of coffee and—her remembering you find touching—slides a sugar bowl over to you.

  “And you like cream,” you say.

  No smile. She sits. She looks pretty, and pretty tired. “I like it black these days. Strong, even bitter.”

  “Are you seeing anyone?”

  She squints suspiciously at you.

  You say, “There is nothing in that but simple curiosity.”

  “What you did is wrong.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  She sips the coffee. Isn’t looking at you. “I don’t hold a grudge. I take ownership of my mistakes.”

  Is that what you are? A mistake? But you say, “You don’t blame me?”

  “I guess. . . I guess I blame us both.”

  You sip the coffee; you’ve sugared the bitterness out. “Going to the reunion, I see.”

  “How do you. . . ?”

  “Facebook.”

  She pauses. Nods. “I am. You’re planning to attend?”

  “Well. . . yes. Why shouldn’t I?”

  Her eyebrows rise but her wide eyes look past you. “I guess if you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”

  “. . . I just want to ask one small favor.”

  “You think you deserve one of any size?”

  “No. But I hope you’ll do it anyway. Please. What happened. . . can you please keep it to yourself? And not talk about it with anybody?”

  The bitterness of the coffee touches her smile. “Not even. . . you-know-who?”

  You swallow. “Nobody.”

  She shakes her head. “No promises. Look, it’s nice that you have regrets. I like hearing you apologize. But I’m not sure an apology quite. . . cuts it.”

  “What would?”

  You have thought about money, and she could clearly stand to have some; but that is such a bad road to go down. Anyway, Sue is a lot of things, but a blackmailer? No. You won’t insult her.

  “Nothing,” she says. “Some things an apology can’t make go away. I do appreciate the effort. The sentiment. And I have no intention of broadcasting what happened.” She shrugs. “But if certain people bring it up. . . who can say? Some wine, some mixed drinks—who knows? No promises.”

  Your turn to nod. Your mouth twitches a smile. “I understand.”

  “Good. That’s a start, right there.”

  You rise, smile again. “I appreciate being heard out. Sitting down with me, like a couple of civilized people.”

  She summons a little smile, nods once,
then nods again, toward the door.

  That is your cue. She works at a theater, doesn’t she? She knows all about the theatrics of life.

  You walk quickly through the muggy night—it is almost cold, despite being late summer—and the sidewalks, the side streets, are empty. You are back at the diner now. You look around—no one in the lot, just a few cars. People in the diner windows eating, but otherwise you are alone. And you are parked away from those windows.

  You go to the trunk of the car, open it and put on the black hooded raincoat and rubber gloves. You know you probably look odd, with no rain even predicted, and the only bad thing is if someone sees you, they might remember.

  Can’t be helped.

  You walk back, quickly. Walk past the Prius under the carport awning and knock on the kitchen door. Doesn’t take her long to answer. Maybe she is fixing herself a little something.

  Framed in the doorway, she looks out at you, with a startled frown, but very pretty still, blue eyes, red hair, and says, “What the hell?”

  You begin stabbing her with the butcher knife, in the chest, surprised by how little blood gets on you, considering all your preparation. But after she falls, her mouth open in a scream that never finds its way out, when you step over her to go in and clean your prints from the coffee cup, you almost slip in the stuff.

  TWO

  Chief of Police Krista Larson pulled her dark blue Toyota into the reserved spot at the head of the slanted lot that started below on Main and ended just under Bench Street. She stepped out into sunshine that felt more like November than February, her tense expression belying what was an exceptional day for this time of year.

  What awaited her on the upper floor of the rough-hewn limestone-block two-story building—which supposedly dated back to mining days, before it became a power company building and then city hall—was about as inviting as being called to the scene of a bad accident.

  Krista at twenty-eight was a tall blonde (hair short though not mannishly so), her athletically slender but shapely figure somewhat hidden by the white blouse of her uniform—her long-sleeve polo (with badge-like insignia) a size up to downplay the natural beauty of her Danish genes. The weather required only a navy windbreaker today; her holstered .45-caliber Glock 21 rode high on her right hip, a badge pinned to her belt at left, her cotton slacks navy, her steel-toed shoes black.