by Leslie Leigh
"You should do what your boyfriend told you to do."
"Who? Frank? He's not my boyfriend. We date from time to time. That's all."
"How much did 'Sam Weller' get?" Del formed quotation marks around the name with her fingers.
"Don’t know."
There was a moment of silence after Allie spoke those words. And in that moment, everything slowed, and Allie thought about money, how it mattered, how Bennett said it was all that seemed to matter. Money was the key to this thing. She felt it.
"What's going on?" said Del, looking askew at her friend.
Allie was startled out of her reverie. "Hmm?"
"You look like you were daydreaming about Frank again."
"What?"
"You have this look on your face. And your poor sandwich is lying there with no one to chew it. Wanna let the rest of us in?"
"No," she said digging a twenty out of her purse. "Take this. Thank you again for a wonderful lunch. I have to go."
As she walked away, Del yelled to her, "You're a lousy date, you know that?"
Allie turned and walked back, then leaned down and whispered. "Remember the blackmail note was for twenty-five grand?"
Del was leaning back away from her with a wary look on her face. "Yeah."
"Well," she flashed a sly smile to her friend, "I bet I know how much Sam Weller got." She cleared her throat. "If that is his name. Wrap this sucker up for me, will you?"
13.
Bryant Walker's gorgeous blue eyes lit up when Allie entered the probate court's reception area. He jumped up from behind his desk and came around to give her a hug that made her blush. He looked like Zac Efron, he was smart and funny, and he worshipped the ground she walked on. However, he was also about fifteen years her junior. She still liked them young – the label of "cougar" had all but stuck to her like a stamp – but she realized that dating these younger men would never lead to anything substantial for her. So she broke it off with him once the sergeant had come a-callin'.
But he was gorgeous. She couldn’t deny it. It was the one thing that made her business here bearable. She tried not to think that she was using Bryant when she turned on the charm and asked him sweetly if he could look up the records regarding Honey Reilly's will and her beneficiaries.
"I almost got in trouble last time you asked me to do this."
"Almost. Right. But you didn't."
"It looks like most of her state is bequeathed to Bennett Reilly, her husband, with the exception of a sum that's allocated to someone by the name of Samuel Weller."
"Samuel Weller, huh? Is that a fake name?"
Bryant shook his head. "The guy's real. He's listed as a friend of the family."
"Can I ask you for one more piece of information? The amount?"
"Allie."
"Come on," she said, trying not to sound whiny, "You'd be doing me a huge favor."
"I'm not even supposed to tell you what I told you. Giving out this info is a serious breach of trust. I can't. I'm sorry."
"I have an idea. What if I guess and you nod or shake your head if I'm wrong. That way you're not telling me anything, right?"
He gave an exasperated sigh. "Go ahead."
"Is the amount between twenty-four and twenty-six thousand dollars?"
He rolled his eyes then nodded his head.
Allie leaned over the desk, grabbed Bryant's face in both hands, and planted a quick, juicy kiss smack on his lips.
The boy flushed crimson and looked around to see if anyone saw what had just happened. "You're welcome."
"See you soon," she said, meaning it, and left with a bounce in her step that wasn't there before.
14.
Seeing as how it was a Saturday, and it was turning out to be a lovely, breezy spring day that smelled of hyacinth, Allie sent a swordfish text to Beauchenne and the two decided to walk along the dirt path leading away from Sara's bridge into and through a grove of larches and wildflowers. Thankfully, the spot was nearly deserted, save for a jogger here and there.
After a word or two about the weather, Allie said, "So you say a hitman doesn’t get paid before the job."
"That is usually how it goes, yes."
"How about before and after?"
"Come again?"
"Let's say Sam Weller, whoever that is, killed Honey Reilly. Bennett Reilly paid him twenty-five grand out of a fake account, and he's about to get twenty-five from Honey's will. Twenty-five up front and a guaranteed twenty-five after the hit. That's fifty-grand for the entire job. Matson didn’t blackmail him. There was no blackmail."
"You're saying the note was forged."
"That's what I'm saying."
"So if the blackmail note is a fake, why did he show it to you in the first place?""
"For cover. Think about it. He pretends to have a blackmail note that he can show authorities after Honey is killed by a hitman. Having me around chasing leads lends credibility to the story."
They were strolling now, and walking in that way where two people who feel something for each other amble along close to one another, bumping shoulders every now and again and not caring.
"Allie, if you don’t mind me saying, your theory a little flimsy."
"It is, isn’t it? Dang."
"If you look at the bigger picture, not the details, but the whole thing, that blackmail note sticks out like a sore thumb. Something's not right there. Why would he show you the note?"
Allie's frustration had reached critical mass by this point, and she blurted out, "Because he didn't want the cops to know!"
It was a strange thing to say, and she's not sure where it came from. From the recesses of her mind? Where the puzzle pieces swirled, sometimes fitting together on their own?
Whatever the case was, the frustration subsided as quickly as it had reached its meltdown point, and she laughed.
"Oh my, Frank, I'm sorry!"
"Bite my head off, why don’t you?"
"Really, I'm sorry. But did you hear what I said? He didn't want the cops to know."
"And why is that?"
"I don’t know."
Beauchenne started to speak, but Allie held up her hand.
"Just hold on one second. I just said three words that are too seldom used in the world today. The age of information has spoiled us, and conditioned us into thinking that not knowing something is akin to a mortal sin. Know something, even if it's the wrong thing. That's the creed of the Internet age. But skeptics and scientists alike know that it's ok to say you’re not sure, that you don’t know, because you will know one day."
When she was finished, she felt the last of her frustration dissolve like sugar in tea.
Beauchenne watched her as they strolled.
"What?" Allie said, turning her head to her shoes.
Beauchenne smiled. "Nothing. It's just that you just became ten times more attractive than you were before, and I didn’t think such a thing was possible."
If his one mission in life was to make Allie Griffin deliciously uncomfortable, Beauchenne could settle back and retire now.
"I don’t know what to say to that."
"You just said you don’t know. That's fine. Don’t say anything."
"Touché."
"Can I turn your attention to something?"
She felt the hotness in her face flaring up like a paper fire. "Sure. Why not?"
"There's still no murder weapon."
"I know. I'm working on it."
He chuckled sweetly. "Oh that's great. You're working on it."
"Excuse me! I have a theory."
"And what's your theory?"
"I'm not telling you."
"Because you don’t have one. It's ok."
"I oughta belt you one," she said.
"I believe you would, too."
They emerged from the grove into a clearing, a field of wildflowers, with butterflies flitting about everywhere like airborne confetti.
"Let me ask you this, Sergeant. What do you think the
weapon was?"
"Honestly? Something solid and square. The head wound doesn’t lie."
"So do you have a pet theory?"
"Not as of yet. How about you?"
"To be honest, I think it was something the killer brought with the express purpose of using it in the manner in which he wound up using it."
Beauchenne laughed. "Wow! That is a radical theory."
"Cut it out. I'm not finished. It was something not commonly used as a weapon, which may be why the police are having trouble locating it. It could be hidden in plain sight. In fact, it had to be something so common that Honey herself never saw it coming, which is why she turned her back to him so casually."
"Interesting. I'd like to hear your profile of the killer."
"Are you serious?"
"Dead serious. I think you're getting this thing down. Let's hear it."
"You promise not to laugh or be a condescending jerk?"
"Hand to God."
"Ok, well she knew him, and he knew her."
"We know that much. Go on."
She walked a bit into the field without saying anything further as she gathered her thoughts, putting herself in that kitchen on that terrible night. Butterflies parted as she walked, giving her the sensation that she was some otherworldly figure with command over nature. While still in this odd semi-trance, she said, "He's vicious and he's cold."
"Go on."
"He's either not smart or not as smart as he thinks he is. He lacks foresight."
"Why so?"
She turned in the breeze, her eyes closed. "Because he didn’t realize that bludgeoning someone to death leaves more marks than a head wound alone. It leaves traces of its nature behind. It stains the weapon. It positions the body in such a way that any sharp eye can recreate the crime fairly easily. It requires keen disposal of the weapon and any evidence. He is someone with hatred in his heart, for the murder is up close and personal. And he's a coward, hitting her from behind so as not to look her in the eye when he's killing, which means something very important."
"Which is?"
She opened her eyes. "That he's not someone without a conscience."
Beauchenne looked at her with a smileless expression. "That alone should tell you a lot."
"It does," she said quietly.
They turned and walked back to their cars and said very little more to each other.
PART III: SHAPING
1.
Still no murder weapon.
Those four words dogged her wherever she went. And they dogged her now, at 1:22 in the morning as she tossed in bed with visions of a thousand different scenarios playing through her head. Until another phrase overtook the first one and repeated itself over and over:
The killer couldn't have brought a weapon. He had to have used something in that kitchen.
Sixteen more words there and every one of them a needle in her arm. She had to get up and pace. At least with pacing, thinking had bodily company.
She ambled into her kitchen, counting her steps as ticks on a time machine clock. Her kitchen became the Reilly kitchen. She was the murderer now, thinking evil thoughts, having arrived with evil intent. She paced the linoleum tiles of her kitchen, which were the porcelain-glazed stone tiles of the Reilly kitchen, and she saw Honey Reilly turn her back. And she raised her arm to strike the fatal blow.
She looked around. Her eyes settled on an item on her countertop, positioned strategically against the wall.
The knife block.
Something in her began to churn uneasily. The restlessness in her limbs had transmuted to flutters of both panic and exhilaration in her stomach. She closed her eyes and pictured the Reilly kitchen. She got it, crystal clear.
Was there really no knife block there? Or was her mind now inventing this little detail in absentia?
No. She remembered it now. The island, the countertop, it was all so empty.
There was no knife block there. A cutting board. Utensils. No knife block.
She lifted hers up and examined it. The bottom had edges like the top of a table leg. She hefted it over her head. Just heavy enough.
A chill shot through her and she put the thing down, fearing for a moment that she might actually be tainted with the action of simulating cold murder.
She imagined what kind of knife block Honey and Bennett Reilly might have purchased. A beautiful, rustic antique, or a piece of oaken Euro-chic. More likely it was some unwieldy prize find in a thrift store somewhere.
Whenever Allie Griffin found herself in any sort of mental distress, she calmed herself with books. The habit now paid off in a substantial way. She recalled Edgar Allan Poe's wonderful short story, "The Purloined Letter," where the titular object is hidden in plain sight.
Still no murder weapon? she thought.
Perhaps because the cops were too busy looking for its hiding place.
They didn’t check the thrift stores.
She called Del.
"Yuhh," said a voice wrenched out of deep sleep.
"It's me. I've got a job for you."
Yawn. "Wha time is ih?"
"Quarter to two. Listen. I need you and Ben to go out shopping at as many thrift stores as you can find. Hit every one and scour them. I need you to look for a knife block, any color, no wider than a human head. Try not to get fingerprints on it. If you come across more than one, buy more than one. I can't do this because I'm going to be doing other things and it would really mean the world to me if you could give a sista a break."
There was a deep breath on the other end. "Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna make believe this was a dream. And then you're gonna call me in the morning and tell me this again and we'll have a laugh at the coincidence."
Click.
It was good to have friends.
2.
"This will cost you dessert and coffee, in a public place."
She stared at Jimmy Welles. "A public place?"
"Uh huh."
"You mean a date."
"Well I didn’t say that."
"Yeah, but that's what you meant. You meant you'll do this for me if I go out on a date with you."
Allie thought, This is what you get when you consort with persons of questionable moral conscience.
"Ok," she said reluctantly.
"No funny stuff," said Jimmy. "I promise."
"Oh, there'll be no funny stuff whatsoever. No kissing. Understand?"
He appeared to be mulling it over.
"Jimmy!"
"Alright, alright. So you want to look at this guy's timesheet?"
"I just want to see if he was at work when he said he was, that's all. Nothing else."
"What's his name again?" "Reilly. First name, Bennett."
A few minutes of clicking, and then, "Bennett R. Reilly?"
"I guess, if that's the only one."
"Here it is. What day you looking at?"
"The night of the 7th."
"Ok." The boy scrolled and clicked. "Looks like he worked that night. Got off work at 2:30. Went back at 4 and stayed till 8."
Allie said the word she was trying to condition herself out of saying. Jimmy looked up.
"I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse."
"I'm sorry. I just thought I was onto something."
"Can I ask you a question? What exactly are you trying to find?"
"He said he was at work when his wife was murdered. The police said they had his timesheet and that his story checked out, but I wanted to see for myself."
"Well I'm glad the police are taking the word of a printout."
"What are you saying?"
"Well, I'm just saying...wait. Watch." Jimmy clicked around for a moment, and then pointed at the screen. "Ah, you see? I thought so. See these numbers?"
"Yeah."
"That's an IP address. Look. It's different from the IP address of the previous entry."
"What does that mean?"
"Well it means he punched in and out of work from two
separate locations."
"You can tell that?"
"You want to see exactly where from? I'll show you."
More clicking.
"It doesn't give specifics, but it looks like it's in the Wayne's Creek area. I can dig a little further if you want."
"No way!" She gave the boy a good-natured slap on the shoulder.
"I guess you're ok with what we got then. And now, check this out here. It looks like he entered his punch in and out times after the fact, like way after he supposedly worked. That stuff probably didn't appear on the printout the police have. And honestly, I don't think any of them know to check. They obviously don’t."
Allie paced the room while myriad thoughts swirled through her head, beginning to coalesce into one frightening picture.
She turned to him. "Jimmy, do you remember the last time I was here, we looked at that dummy employee account? Would you be able to tell if—"
"If this IP address here is the same one that set up the account? Yes." He reached over and grabbed a post-it off a Darth Vader statuette on his desk. "Here. I'd logged it just in case."
"You're incredible."
"Not really, just experienced. It's a given to note stuff like IP addresses. Identity theft thrives on it."
"Please tell me you're not involved in anything like that."
"I'm not stupid. I'm a hacker, nothing more. Give me a lock and I'll tell you how to pick it."
Allie closed her eyes and thought. This was breaking the law. But if it helped her catch a murderer...
There didn’t seem to be any question. She would atone, somehow. Community service. Something to give back to the public. She'd work it all out once this mess was taken care of. Then she'd swear off this kind of activity once and for all.
"Jimmy," she said with a dry mouth.
"Whose bank account is it? Glad you asked."
He clicked a few times. The screen flickered with a bunch of characters and nonsensical blather, the crazed jabberwocky of computer code.
"Bingo," said Jimmy. "The account is under the name Tracy Tupman. Doesn’t list her address or anything."
Allie let out a breath she realized she'd been holding for at least a minute. "It's not a woman. It's a man. It's another character from Pickwick. I knew it! Del owes me big time for doubting me. Why do people doubt me, Jimmy?"
