Shot Girl

by Karen E. Olson

  What should I say? "Instinct" seemed too silly. "It was just like before, except I didn’t see him," I said.

  "Did you know he was in town?"

  I nodded. "Priscilla," I said simply.

  "The calls started after he came back here?"

  "Yeah."

  ""Did you tell DeLucia? About the calls?"

  I remembered Vinny asking if I’d told Tom about the phone calls. Why hadn’t I told either of them?

  "I just told him about it last night. Not before," I said.

  "Didn’t it worry you?"

  I nodded. "Yeah, a little, but if it was Ralph, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me."

  "How do you know that?"

  "He never hurt me before. And he had more reason to back then than he did now."

  "Did he?"

  The question came at me like a fastball I wasn’t expecting. Something in Tom’s expression made me catch my breath. I had to say something, and quickly.

  "I didn’t go into his apartment. If you found my fingerprint, it was on the doorjamb, maybe the doorknob, on the outside somewhere, right? Do you think he thought I knew what was going on? That he was photographing me, or having someone photograph me?"

  Tom sighed. "I don’t know."

  I had another thought. "Did you find anyone else’s prints, I mean, besides Ralph’s?"

  "A couple, but we couldn’t ID them."

  "Is that why you’re looking for Felicia Kowalski? To get her prints? See if any of the ones in the apartment are hers?"

  "That, and something else." Tom’s lips curled into a small smile, like he had a private joke with himself.

  I found myself smiling despite myself. "What? What’s going on?"

  Tom shook his head, a rumble of laughter spilling out.

  "Come on, Tom, you have to tell me."

  "No, I don’t" I could see, though, that he wanted to.

  "Come on," I urged.

  He managed to pull himself together after a few seconds, then, "We thought it was funny that a guy would just keel over like that—you know, he wasn’t very old." He stopped.

  "What?" I prodded.

  "We had the medical examiner do a quick tox screen. We thought it was probably cocaine; that happens a lot. A younger guy, working in a business like that, drugs are probably involved, and coke’ll cause a heart attack."

  His eyes were twinkling, and then he started to snort because he was trying not to laugh out loud again.

  "Guy had a fucking hard-on. When we rolled him over, it was reaching for the goddamn sky. And even when rigor passed, it stayed that way."

  Okay, so that was weird. And I could see the humor in it. But what did it mean?

  He was laughing now. He couldn’t help himself. "Jesus, Annie, it was like those fucking commercials. You know, those ’If you have an erection for more than four hours, call your doctor’ commercials."

  I started chuckling. It was infectious. But I still didn’t get it.

  Tom was shaking, he was laughing so hard. Finally, he managed to spit out, "Your ex-husband died of a Viagra overdose."

  Chapter 17

  Viagra? Ralph? From what I remembered, there had been no problem there, but Ralph had turned forty a few months ago and there can be a big difference between twenty-one and forty, sexwise. And we couldn’t forget Felicia. He probably felt like he had to compete with those college boys, since he was dating such a young woman.

  And then I thought about how I’d kicked him after he kissed me. He certainly didn’t have a hard-on then—I would’ve noticed that. Made me wonder when he took it. Did he really think he was going to get lucky with me?

  Tom was trying to stop laughing. I grabbed another Munchkin. Hell, with this heat, I’d sweat off all those calories in no time.

  The phone rang, startling both of us, knocking the laughter out of Tom, causing the Munchkin to get caught in my throat. I reached for the handset, but Tom’s fingers curled around my wrist.

  "Screen it," he advised.

  When the machine picked up, we heard my message, then, "Annie?"

  It was Vinny.

  I picked up the phone before Tom could stop me again, waving my hand at him as I went into the bedroom. He didn’t follow me.

  "I’m here," I said softly. "I’m sorry." He knew I didn’t mean I was sorry about having the machine pick up.

  "Yeah, me, too. What’s Tom want? He’s been there awhile."

  I felt a bubble of anger, then pushed it down. "What, are you watching my building?" I asked, then thought about those pictures that Ralph had in his apartment. Had Ralph taken them himself, or did he hire a private eye, someone like Vinny?

  "Chill, okay? I was walking over when I saw him pull up. Figured he wouldn’t want company." Vinny lived kitty-corner to my brownstone on Wooster Square. My paranoia was getting the better of me.

  "Okay, fine."

  "You’re working today?"

  "Yeah." I sighed, thinking about the quilting bee. I didn’t mention that I’d be making a stop at my mother’s before work. I could try to get some more information out of Vinny about Ralph, but my mother had been representing him and hadn’t bothered to mention it, even while I was being interrogated by the police. She owed me an explanation. "I can call you later."

  "What time are you done?"

  "I’m going in at noon." A quick glance at the clock told me it was ten a.m. and I had to get a move on. Tom would want some more answers before I could leave. The truth was always a good idea, but in this case I wasn’t so sure. I wanted to talk to my mother before I was hauled to the police station again. "I’ll be off at eight. Dinner?"

  "I might be working."

  "Felicia?" I asked.

  "No one’s seen her in two days."

  Since Ralph died. "Don’t her parents know where she is?"

  "Let’s just say that she hasn’t been on the best of terms with them," Vinny said, his voice tired. Had he gone out looking for her when he left here last night? "Did you get a call last night? I mean, I wasn’t there. . . ." His voice trailed off.

  I thought about the hang-up. "Yeah," I said quietly.

  His silence told me how worried he was. I thought about telling him about the photographs at Ralph’s, but decided against it at the moment. I didn’t want to get into it over the phone and with Tom here.

  "Hey, I have to get back out to Tom and get to work. Call me later?"

  "Yeah, love you," he said, hanging up before I could respond.

  I stared at the phone. First the note and now this. Jesus. Like it was something we said all the time.

  "Annie?" Tom’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

  He was chewing on a Munchkin when I came back into the living room. "Vinny was just checking in," I said, putting the phone back in its cradle.

  "Figured." He pushed his sleeves up farther on his arms, like that was going to make it cooler in my apartment. "So, now do you want to tell me why you lied about being at Ralph Seymour’s apartment?"

  "You didn’t find any of my fingerprints inside, did you?" I asked again, wishing I hadn’t finished the iced coffee.

  Tom’s gaze leveled on my face. "No." He waited. "Why don’t you just tell me why you were there?" Now that he’d offered up the revelation about Ralph’s true cause of death, he was all official and shit again. I could see he’d been hoping I’d volunteer the information so he wouldn’t have to. He should know better by now.

  "You’re not going to take me in?" I gave him a little smirk, and his mouth twitched, like he wanted to smile, but he didn’t.

  "You weren’t inside, as far as we know. There was no crime, as far as we know." I didn’t like the way he kept saying "as far as we know."

  I went to the big fan in the window and turned it on. A whoosh of air was yanked out of the room and recirculated. If there wasn’t a grate on the fan, it could devour a chicken like those jet-engine tests.

  I killed a few more seconds while making myself comfortable on one of the chairs around the is
land. Tom was being unusually patient.

  "Priscilla was here last week," I said, knowing he could be as persistent as me. "She gave me those clothes I was wearing the other night."

  His expression changed slightly. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking whether they’d taken a close look at those clothes yet, so I continued with the subject at hand.

  "I told her about the phone calls, and she thought it was Ralph, too. She knew where he was living; he’d called her when he moved in. She didn’t think he’d start stalking me again or she would’ve told me sooner about him being back here. But she said I should to talk to him, confront him. I didn’t want to, but sometimes with Priscilla it’s just easier to go along than argue when she gets something stuck in her head. I made her go with me, though. We went over there—it really wasn’t my idea—and we knocked. He didn’t answer. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. We left. End of story."

  I wished it were that easy. I wished I could tell him that I’d left my business card—not that Ralph didn’t have my phone numbers already, but I wanted him to know that I knew—but I just wasn’t ready to tell Tom everything yet. If I told Tom, there would be more questions, and I might feel obligated to answer. As it was, Tom seemed placated, at least for the moment, so I brushed aside any guilt.

  "So you didn’t see him."

  "No."

  He studied my face, looking for a clue that I was lying, but he couldn’t find it. He nodded. "Okay." He started toward the door.

  "That’s it?" I asked.

  Tom shrugged. "Yeah. For now." But he stopped again in the doorway. "If there’s anything else, you should tell me."

  I sighed. "Yeah, I know."

  He stared at me a few seconds. "Be careful, though, okay? You get any more calls, let me know right away."

  I nodded, and he closed the door behind him. I grabbed another Munchkin and watched him from the living room window as he got into his Impala and drove off.

  I paused, wondering if I should replace the T with the Sturgis one. Probably not. The skull would freak out the old ladies.

  But I realized as I went down the stairs, my bag slung over my back, that it wasn’t the little old ladies who were freaked-out.

  It was me.

  Tom’s words sneaked back into my head, and I wondered who the hell had been taking pictures of me. Pictures that Ralph had found it necessary to keep in his apartment. Was it him? Had he been watching me himself? Or, as I suspected as I spoke to Vinny, had he hired someone to photograph me?

  I looked both ways as I crossed the street to my car, not so much for safety as for paranoia. Nothing looked out of place. I glanced across the square toward Vinny’s building, but I didn’t see his Explorer at the curb. He’d probably headed out after he talked to me.

  I kept my eye on the rearview mirror the whole way to my mother’s. When I finally pulled into her driveway, I sighed with relief, but then caught myself. What did I have to be relieved about? I hadn’t noticed anyone tailing me before, either.

  I consoled myself with the thought that I hadn’t been looking for anyone.

  My mother was scrubbing the upstairs bathroom when I arrived. Bill Bennett was nowhere to be seen.

  "He’s doing errands," she said as she vigorously scoured the toilet with the brush. Her hands were covered in bright green rubber gloves. I recognized them; she’d given me my own pair, but they made my hands sweaty, so I never wore them.

  Her hands weren’t going to get sweaty in here today. The AC was on so high, icicles could form on my head. While my apartment was way too hot, this house was way too cold. I shivered in my light T-shirt.

  "Mom, I’ve got something important to talk to you about," I said as she stuck the brush back in its little container behind the toilet.

  She stood up. I was a little taller than she was, which had been disconcerting when I first began growing. Now I was used to it. Without makeup, she looked her age; lines creased the corners of eyes and her skin had started to get that transparency like crepe paper. A lot of women were getting Botox treatments these days, and I gave her credit for allowing herself to grow older without the benefit of science or surgery. Her hair was as dark as usual, but she’d started to have it colored a few years back. We didn’t look alike, but I wondered how my face would change in twenty-five years.

  "It’s Ralph, isn’t it?" she asked, sidestepping past me out into the hall, pulling off the gloves.

  I followed her down the stairs to the kitchen, where she had a pot of coffee brewing. She poured each of us a cup and we sat at the table, the sunlight illuminating the bright white room.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up her hand to stop me.

  "I didn’t tell you because grand jury investigations are secret."

  "But he was dead," I tried, knowing the lawyer in her was going to win this one.

  "We didn’t know then that it wasn’t murder. I couldn’t risk it. It’s a federal case."

  Again I thought about Paula. I wondered whether she knew about this, and if she did, whether she knew Ralph was my ex-husband. Paula wasn’t like Priscilla. I hadn’t known her as long and I didn’t tell her too much about my marriage and divorce. Maybe a mention in passing—I couldn’t remember if I’d even called him by name.

  "I still can’t tell you anything, and your friend at the FBI can’t, either," she said, reading my mind.

  I sighed. "Tom told me some things this morning. I have to ask you, did Ralph tell you that he had pictures of me?"

  The puzzled look on her face indicated he’d said nothing. "What sort of pictures?"

  "If he wasn’t spying on me, he had someone doing it for him," I said, relating everything Tom said.

  Her worried expression concerned me. "You didn’t know anything?" I asked.

  My mother got up and poured herself another cup of coffee. She held up the pot, asking me without words whether I wanted more, but I shook my head. Between this one cup and the iced latte Tom brought me, I’d had enough caffeine. She carried her cup back to the table. "When Ralph came to me, he didn’t say a word about you."

  "Why did you take him on as a client?"I asked. "You never liked him."

  "I don’t have to like my clients."

  The words hung suspended in the cold air between us. I gripped my coffee mug a little tighter, warming my hands on it. "So you took him on like anyone else?"

  "I took him on as a favor to Ira."

  Ira Hoffman was one of my mother’s law partners. "Ira? What does he have to do with this?"

  "Let’s just say it was a favor for a favor for a favor." I could tell by her tone she didn’t want me to ask any more questions.

  She should know me better than that.

  "Whose favor, ultimately, was it?"

  She shifted a little in her seat, debating mentally with herself. Finally, "You didn’t hear this from me."

  Christ, my own mother going off the record. "Okay, okay," I promised, if it would get me some information.

  "Ralph was a friend of Reginald Shaw’s. You know who the Reverend Shaw is, right?" She didn’t wait for an answer. "Shaw came to Ira about it, said he owed Ralph and wanted to get him the best representation he could."

  Chapter 18

  Shaw? What was up with this?

  "What did he owe him?" I asked. "I mean, what did Shaw owe Ralph?"

  My mother shrugged. "I don’t know. All I know is, Ralph was very complacent, wanted to repent for his ’sins, as he called them." She emphasized the word with her fingers. "I just figured he’d found Jesus or something like that, and Shaw had helped him."

  But that didn’t explain why Shaw would owe him; it would have been the other way around.

  I thought about my conversation with the good reverend yesterday. If he’d known that Ralph was my ex, he didn’t show it in any way. Maybe he didn’t know. Why would he?

  Although Jack Hammer had. And I’d seen Jack and Shaw looking rather friendly at the nature center. Jack had indic
ated at Rouge Lounge that he knew all about me. There was no reason why Ralph wouldn’t have told Shaw about me, too.

  My thoughts were circling the runway, but they had nowhere to land.

  My mother was watching me try to work it all out. She cocked her head and lifted her chin. "What do you know?"

  I sighed. "I have no idea. I met Shaw yesterday. Doing a story about the community garden program he’s working on with some city kids. I hadn’t met him until then." I paused. "Do you know a Jack Hammer? I mean"—what was his real name? Oh, yeah.—"John Decker?"

  She was visibly startled. "How do you know him?" she asked sharply.

  "He was at the Rouge Lounge the other night when Ralph died," I said. "I met him then, and I saw him yesterday again at the nature center. After I met with Shaw. How do you know him?"

  "I can’t say."

  Jack was involved somehow in all this shit with Ralph. "Was he selling guns illegally, too?"

  My mother toyed with her mug for a second, then lifted her eyes to my face. "I’m not at liberty to say anything about Mr. Decker."

  "So the investigation is ongoing, even though Ralph is dead?"

  She shook her head. "The only thing I can say is that Ralph was not the only one involved in this. He was cooperating with the authorities; I was trying to help him."

  I knew what that meant: Ralph was naming names to get a lesser sentence if indicted and convicted.

  "I can’t divulge any other information at this point, Anne," my mother was saying. She got up and took her mug and mine to the sink. "Bill’s going to be home anytime now. Would you like to stay for lunch?"

  She knew how to get rid of me.

  I slid my chair back and stood. "No, thanks. I have the weekend shift. Have to get to the paper, anyway."

  She came to the door to see me out, and I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

  "Oh, by the way, I’m having a barbecue tomorrow. Would you like to come?" she asked before I could make my escape.

  Shit. One of her parties. That was the last thing I needed on top of all this. I shook my head. "I doubt it. I’m exhausted."

  She knew I was making excuses, but she didn’t call me on it. Instead, she put her hand on my arm.