The Shop

by J. Carson Black

  Jolie said, “To me, that’s just plain self-defense. If my husband told me he was going to kill me, I surely would try to kill him first. I’m not going to wait there like a sitting duck.”

  Amy took a deep breath. Said in a small voice: “She told me he hired a hit man to kill her. He said it could happen any time. She was terrified.”

  “And you believed her. Who wouldn’t?”

  “If I told you what she did, what would happen to me? I mean, what kind of deal would I get? Would I have to do jail time?”

  “Amy, if Maddy lied to you about her husband wanting to kill her, if she used you, that would be a mitigating circumstance. If you’re forthcoming about this, I could talk to the state attorney, see what he thinks…”

  She looked relieved. She wanted to talk.

  Here we go.

  “What if I had something to trade?”

  “Trade?”

  “So I wouldn’t have to do jail time.”

  “That’s up to the state attorney.”

  “What if I knew about something…” She twisted her hair. “You know, something bigger?”

  Jolie stared at her.

  “Something really huge.”

  Jolie said, “You’re going to have to tell me more about it.”

  “If we can work out a deal, if you can promise me I won’t go to jail, I’ll tell you.”

  “I can’t make that promise.”

  “Then I’m not telling.”

  “Amy—”

  “Do you have a safe house?”

  A safe house. Jolie realized something big was happening. It was time to talk to the state attorney. She stood up. “I’ve got to go to the little girl’s room. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She opened the door and collided with her detective sergeant, Skeet.

  It was not a pleasant experience. He shoved her back a little, hands clamped on her forearms, his bovine face blocking out the fluorescents above like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon. “Whoa there, you in a hurry?”

  He looked beyond her. “That Amy Perdue you got in there?” He leaned in through the doorway and spoke directly to Amy. “Ma’am? Amy Perdue? Your lawyer said to tell you he’s on his way.”

  Jolie’s disbelief turned quickly to anger as she realized what had happened. She looked back at Amy—who was as surprised as she was.

  Amy didn’t have a lawyer. Correction: she didn’t know she had a lawyer. Jolie stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind her, and said to Skeet, “What are you doing?” She didn’t know whether he understood the ramifications of his action or not. Skeet was dumb, but he also had a perverse streak.

  Skeet’s mouth turned up slightly at the corner. It made him look even dumber. “You’re going to have to be clearer than that.”

  “How’s this for clear?” Jolie said. “You just shut my interrogation down.”

  Jolie left Amy in the interview room to wait for her lawyer. From the moment Skeet poked his head in, Amy was off-limits—it was as if Amy’s fairy godmother had come in and waved a magic wand. While she waited, Jolie called Sheriff Johnson at home and asked for a surveillance team on Maddy Akers. She didn’t mention Skeet’s blunder or her reaction to it. There was no point. Tim Johnson was a good sheriff in a lot of ways, but he let Skeet do what he pleased. The reason Tim didn’t do anything about Skeet was because Skeet was married to the mayor’s cousin.

  “Surveillance? What are they looking for?” the sheriff said.

  “Anything out of the ordinary. If she goes anywhere, I want them to follow her. They’ll need two cars. I want to know right away if Amy goes by to see her.”

  She was thinking about the five thousand dollars Amy had coming. Jolie thought it was from Maddy for services rendered. “I’m asking for a warrant, for her financial dealings and also her house.”

  “You think you have probable cause?”

  “Don’t know unless I try. I’m thinking Doug Sharpe.” Doug Sharpe was a judge who was known to be supportive of law enforcement.

  “His wife is in a bridge club with Mrs. Akers.”

  “I’ll have to take my chances.”

  The ringing phone woke Jolie. The clock said eight fifteen. Jolie’d had about six hours of sleep after being up thirty-eight hours. Typical, when a homicide was going. She lay in bed, let the answering machine pick it up.

  A woman’s voice drifted in from the other room—agitated.

  Jolie ran for the phone.

  “Amy?”

  “Oh. You’re there.” She paused. “My lawyer said I shouldn’t talk to you. I shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Then why are you?”

  “Because…I think they’re after me.” She blurted it out.

  “Who’s after you?”

  “It’s…there was this car outside my place.”

  “A car?”

  “Maybe I’m just…I don’t know.” She stopped.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Do you have a safe house?”

  Jolie was pretty sure they didn’t have a safe house; the subject had never come up before. The FBI might. “I could probably arrange that,” Jolie said. “But you’re going to have to give me more information. We could meet—”

  “I didn’t hire that lawyer.”

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know. But I didn’t hire him. I think they wanted to make sure I didn’t end up in jail. I think.” She paused. Jolie could hear her swallow. “I think they want to get to me.”

  “Who wants to get to you?”

  There was silence. Then: “You know what? This isn’t a good idea.”

  “If you could just give me some idea who they are—”

  “You think I’m crazy.” Jolie could hear her breathing, ragged and fast.

  “Amy—”

  “I’ve got another call.”

  “Amy—”

  “Okay. Why don’t you check this out? See if I’m telling the truth, okay? And I can call you back. You have missing persons, right? You’re police, you do missing persons. Was there anything like that? On Memorial Day weekend?”

  Jolie was completely at sea. “A missing person?”

  “I’ve got another call. This is not a good idea. Forget I said anything.”

  Then she disconnected.

  Jolie sat in the kitchen, looking past the screened porch to the trees beyond. She could just make out the pond between the trees. Her stomach tightened.

  She’d put it off long enough. She went into the bathroom and looked at the shower. Sunlight arrowed off the chrome nozzle. She took a deep breath and turned on the faucet. To her surprise, she was okay. She pulled the lever that started the shower. The spray hit the bottom of the tub. She undressed. Pretend it was just like any one of the thousands of times she’d taken a shower in her life. Nervous, yes. Terrified? No. Like her trip to the ponds with Maddy yesterday, nothing bad materialized. No big thunderclap. No crushing darkness.

  She was fine.

  16

  Nick arrived in Aspen late in the afternoon. He got settled into his condo on Durant and went out to grab dinner. Saturday night, he couldn’t get into Cache Cache. There was a line on the sidewalk outside Locust, so he left his name with the maître d’ and took a short walk, watching the people on the street and window-shopping.

  As he passed the newspaper vending machines, the front page of the Aspen News caught his eye. He fumbled with his change, dropping it on the sidewalk, all the while staring at the headline. Pulled out the paper and dropped that, too. Stared at it hard, his heart going hammer and tongs, heat suffusing his face.

  “ASPEN MAN FOUND DEAD IN STARWOOD HOME.”

  It wasn’t the headline so much, but the photo on the right.

  Mars.

  In the photo Mars wore a heavy cable-knit sweater, his arm wrapped around a ski bunny at a local bar. His flared nostrils gave him a spoiled rich-boy look. He was spoiled—a congressman’s son. Nick knew for a fact he was rich. When he’d seen Mars
last, the guy was offering him a ride in his yellow Lamborghini. In hindsight, Nick knew Mars was trying to get him out of there before the killing started.

  He swallowed, but his mouth stayed dry.

  Please let the cause of death be cancer.

  Someone on the sidewalk brushed by him, and he jumped a foot.

  “Excuse me,” the man said, and Nick muttered, “’S okay.”

  Please let it be something he’s had for a while.

  But Mars had looked pretty healthy that night.

  Heart drumming, Nick read the story fast, then read it again, slower this time. His appetite gone.

  Mars’s real name was a mouthful: Frederick Cable Hollister III. Reading between the lines, Nick got the impression Mars was a rich ski bum who liked prescription drugs. In fact, he liked prescription drugs so much he died from an overdose of them in his fancy wood-and-stone house in Starwood.

  Kid was a druggie. He probably came close a dozen times.

  Maybe.

  Or maybe there was a connection to the Aspen murders.

  Maybe Brienne’s killers found Mars and killed him to keep him quiet.

  Maybe whoever killed Mars would come for him, too.

  17 ZOE AND RILEY

  Riley Haddox sat up. “Oh. My. God.”

  Zoe McPeek knew that tone. She heard her mom’s voice: Uh-oh. Riley’s gone into crisis mode.

  They’d been sunning on the dock since noon. Zoe wasn’t nuts about getting a tan; she knew all about melanoma and how sunning damaged your skin, but Riley was a tanning freak, so if Zoe wanted to hang with her, it was kind of required. She thought it was boring, though, and uncomfortably hot and sweaty. She could almost feel her skin turning into leather like Riley’s mom, who rode horses and looked like them, too.

  Riley was busy scrolling through her midnight-blue Sidekick LX. “How could I forget that?”

  “What?”

  “The video!” Riley cast her an impatient look, as if Zoe should know what she was talking about.

  Zoe came this close to asking, “What video?” but she didn’t dare. She rummaged through her memory bank, trying to figure out what Riley was talking about.

  Mr. Clean, far enough away to give them some privacy, looked over at them. He wore swim trunks, but that didn’t fool anybody; he still looked like a bodyguard. Scary looking, with his shaved head, dark glasses, and huge muscles—the reason Riley had nicknamed him Mr. Clean. Riley was no stranger to bodyguards—when her dad was attorney general, they’d had a security detail that went everywhere with all members of the immediate family. Riley’s dad told them two weeks ago he’d decided they should have more security, citing an incident where a high school girl in Panama City was kidnapped by a sexual predator. Mr. Haddox said it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Riley took it all in stride, but Zoe saw it as an invasion of her privacy. Riley, who never saw a man she didn’t like, flirted with all three of the guys, even Mr. Clean.

  Zoe just couldn’t see why they needed security when all they were doing was sunbathing on a private island.

  “Earth to Zoe! You’re not listening!”

  Zoe looked up. “What’s going on?”

  “My whole life’s going down the tubes, that’s what’s going on! You see this?” She held up the phone, tapping one of the thumbnail photos. “See that red S? That means sent.”

  “Sent?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, Zoe, you can be so dense! Somebody sent a whole bunch of pictures from my phone, and I don’t know who!”

  “I don’t see…”

  “The video! It was sent from my phone to someone else.” She stood up, pulled her shorts on over her swimsuit, and reached for her shoes.

  “Maybe we can figure out where it went. Who touched your phone?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “You’ve only had the phone for a couple months,” Zoe said. “Has anybody else used it?”

  “No, nobody…except Luke. He was the only one who got near it.”

  Zoe watched as Riley teared up again.

  “I miss him so much!” Riley grabbed herself around the middle, as if she had a stomachache. Zoe was used to Riley’s breakdowns. She didn’t blame her. Riley’s boyfriend, Luke, was dead. He’d been shot after taking a woman hostage at a motel in Gardenia. Only the fact that Riley and Luke had kept their love affair secret had spared Riley from becoming a household name.

  Zoe said, “You’re sure he was the only one?”

  Riley stared daggers at her. “Yes, I’m sure! We were in love. We shared everything!”

  “Then the video is probably still on his phone.”

  “We’ve got to go over there right now.”

  “Where?”

  “Luke’s. Aren’t you listening? What if he sent it to someone? Oh my God, what if it’s on YouTube?”

  Zoe said, “I think you’re blowing this thing out of—”

  “It wasn’t just any video! Luke and I taped ourselves. You know, doing it. We used my phone.”

  Zoe felt bad for Riley, but she was also curious how that worked—just how they had managed to have sex and take pictures at the same time. Although she had never had actual sex, she’d seen porn on the Internet and thought the mechanics of filming yourself on a cell phone would be hard to do.

  “What are you looking at?” Riley was still standing on one foot, still battling with one sandal. She threw it down on the deck and started to cry.

  “It’s okay,” Zoe said. “We’ll just go over there and get his phone. It’ll be all right.”

  “You sure?”

  Zoe didn’t have an answer to that.

  They took Riley’s Boxster Spyder because Riley didn’t like Zoe’s Miata.

  Speeding down the two-lane highway, top down, music loud, hair blowing in the wind, Riley freaking. She must have asked Zoe a dozen times if it would turn out okay. Zoe always said yes.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.” Although Zoe had her doubts. She imagined Luke’s family would have cleaned out the house by now. It had been over a month since Luke died.

  Riley tried Luke’s number. It went to voice mail. Zoe said she thought it was a good sign.

  “You think so?”

  “It’s out there somewhere.”

  “God, I miss him!”

  For the first time, Zoe began to believe Riley actually did love Luke. It didn’t seem like it when they were hooking up, but now Riley seemed genuinely wounded.

  Riley honked her horn at the black SUV ahead of them. “Can’t he go any faster? He’s driving under the speed limit.”

  The man holding the sharpshooter rifle in the open back of the SUV lifted a hand in a friendly wave. Riley returned his gesture by flipping the bird.

  Behind them, Mr. Clean stuck close to their back bumper. He looked like an egg with sunglasses.

  Riley glanced in the rearview mirror. “When we get there, make sure they stay far enough away, okay? I don’t want them hearing anything and telling tales.”

  “Okay.”

  Riley parked in front of a junky-looking green house. Two little kids sat in a kiddie pool out front. A chunky woman in a striped tube top, cutoffs, and flip-flops watched them from the porch, her face impassive.

  “Mrs. Frawley? I’m Riley Haddox—”

  “I know who you are.” She leaned forward in her lawn chair. The webbing looked like it would go any minute. “What do you want?”

  “There are some things that Luke said I could have. Can you let me in so I can get them?”

  “And exack’ly what kind of legal standing does a chippie have?”

  “Excuse me?”

  She pointed to the younger girl. “My neighbor’s little girl is on’y three years old, but she’s smart enough to look up your skirt. I know loose morals when I see it, and you can bet Luke did, too.”

  Zoe looked at Luke’s landlady in her tube top over a pouchy brown midriff ribboned with scars.

  “So I guess you didn�
�t know we were engaged,” Riley said. She held up her hand. Zoe knew for a fact that Riley had bought the ring herself and wore it on the occasions she didn’t want to be hit on. Rare, but it happened.

  “You think Luke would marry someone like you? For your money, maybe. I know all about you. I know about the times you drove by here and spied on him after he called it quits. Somehow I don’t think he’d want you pawing through his things now.”

  Riley’s face had gone slack with disbelief. For once, she had nothing to say. Zoe found her own voice. “Mrs. Frawley, Luke had something of Riley’s she really needs back. If you could just let us in for a minute, we could be out of your way.”

  “You her attorney? You sure sound like one.” She heaved to her feet and walked in the direction of the converted garage in back. “There’s nothing left. Cops took everything. But I suppose you won’t go away until you see for yourself. Watch Charly and the little one while I go get the key.”

  “Told you.”

  The blinds were pulled and the room was dark and sour-smelling, but the only thing that remained was the cheap furniture. Zoe cringed at the thought of living here, something Riley had retroactively fantasized about, after Luke died “an outlaw.” Zoe had to wonder how long Riley would have wanted to live here after growing up on the Haddox compound, love or no love.

  “When did the cops come?” Zoe asked.

  “Later that day. Put up yellow tape for everyone to see, which sure hasn’t helped me get a new tenant. Stuff like that gets around. They took out a bunch of stuff then, came back later that day to get the rest.”

  “Everything?” Riley’s voice was bleak.

  “It’s all evidence now, I reckon.”

  Riley went to the dresser, pulled open the top drawer.

  “Hey! I didn’t say you could do that.”

  Riley ignored her. She opened another drawer, went to the kitchen and opened cabinets. Crashed around the apartment, looking more and more scared—scared and desperate. Zoe just stood on the stoop, wishing they could get out of here.

  Mrs. Frawley looked at Zoe. “You look like a sensible girl. Not so caught up in your looks you can’t listen to reason. If she’s your friend, you ought to tell her she pushed Luke away with both hands.”