Darkness, Sing Me a Song--A Holland Taylor Mystery

by David Housewright

  “Played him?”

  “A pretty girl manipulating a man with money? That comes as a surprise to you?”

  “Doesn’t fit what others have told me about her.”

  “I’m not saying she was a bad person. Not saying she didn’t genuinely like the guy. I’m just saying the woman had goals, okay? And she knew how to reach them. What I mean—I have these very short shorts that only come to here.” Mickie indicated a spot on her thighs that suggested her shorts weren’t much longer than her panties. “I hardly ever wear them but this one time that I did, and Em kinda turned up her nose and said she didn’t think they were appropriate for a good Christian girl. That surprised the hell outta me because in all the time I knew her, she never said or did anything to make me believe she was some kind of religious fanatic.

  “Then later, the three of us were watching Buffy, and I asked her where the boyfriend was, and Em said he was with his mother, which seemed to annoy her. I asked if she and he had ever been intimate. She said no. She said that she was waiting for her wedding night. She was so very matter-of-fact about it. There was no preaching or anything. At the same time, it made me feel … It made me think I had given up a lot that I didn’t need to give up. It made me wish I were more like her, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “But then I came home this one time. It was late, a hot summer night, Emily’s front door was open, although the outside screen door was locked, and I could hear her, not shouting or anything, yet I could hear her saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, just like that,” and I’m like, what the fuck? I look through the window and, well, there was Emily bent over the arm of a sofa taking it from behind, Joel feeding it to her, and you know what? It didn’t look like this was a new experience for her, okay?”

  “You’re telling me Emily wasn’t who she claimed to be.”

  “None of us are, but Taylor, I liked her even so. The woman who killed her, the boyfriend’s mother—she makes me wish to God that Minnesota had capital punishment.”

  * * *

  I asked more questions, but Mickie’s answers weren’t any more illuminating than her roommate’s had been. I gave her my card, and she promised to call me if she thought of anything more. She walked me to the door, opened it, and gave me a hug. I don’t think she was interested in me so much as she craved human contact, which seemed to prove that it isn’t how many people you meet, it’s how many you connect with that matters. At the same time, it caused me to remember the hug Claire had given me the evening before. It was all I could do to keep from hugging Mickie back.

  The door was closed, and I stood outside the duplex, my back to the street. The yellow crime scene tape had been removed from Emily’s door. I tried the handle. Locked. I gave it a shake, just the same. I had burglar tools, although it’s illegal for me to possess them. It would have been easy to let myself inside. If I could have thought of a good enough reason to risk arrest, I probably would have. Only I doubted that there was anything I could see that the cops hadn’t, so I let it go. Instead, I turned and started down the sidewalk.

  I saw a man approaching at a right angle. He was in his early twenties with brown hair cut in the military style, and he was dressed in camouflage hunting clothes, which I thought was ridiculous. Not only were they warm—I could see sweat beading on his forehead—it was the middle of St. Paul, for God’s sake. What was he stalking? Chipmunks?

  Movement on my left caused me to turn my head. A second man, dressed in identical clothes, was advancing on me as well. He was the same age and had the same haircut, except that his hair was blond. He was speaking into his sleeve. While he spoke, the first man pressed his hand against his left ear.

  They weren’t wearing the same camo outfits because they were Duck Dynasty wannabees, I told myself. It was a uniform.

  And they were closing in.

  My fight-or-flight reflex activated. Most people, when that happens, they blow it off, tell themselves that they’re behaving foolishly. So they get onto the elevator with the stranger, they stop to assist the driver whose car is stalled on the road; they continue walking across the dark and deserted parking lot. Time and experience had taught me to never do that.

  When the hunters closed to within ten yards on either side of me, I dashed straight toward my Camry, moving as if a starter’s pistol had sent me down the track. If I looked foolish, who cared?

  The two hunters adjusted their routes and moved to intercept me. They might have managed it, too, if I had stopped to get inside the car. Instead, I continued across the street, running toward Professor Campbell’s house.

  Their hands reached under their shirts.

  Guns were pulled.

  Shots were fired.

  “Wait,” one of them shouted. If he was talking to me, he was wasting his breath.

  There was a car parked across the street, and I dashed around it, using it for cover.

  Bullets tore into it.

  I kept running.

  “Cease fire, cease fire.”

  “He’s getting away.”

  Campbell opened her front door and stepped out, holding the door open. What an incredibly foolhardy thing to do, I thought. Did she not know what was happening?

  “Taylor, in here,” she said.

  Apparently she did know.

  I ran straight at her.

  Behind me, a voice spoke.

  “We were sent to ask questions, dammit.”

  I dove across Campbell’s stoop, my arms wide. I hit her high in the chest and drove her back through the door into the house, a perfect flying tackle.

  She went down hard. The back of her head hit the floor. I heard a moan.

  I rolled onto my back and used my foot to slam the door shut.

  My cell was in my hand and I was dialing 911. I didn’t hear any more shooting, yet I kept low as I crawled to Campbell’s picture window just the same. I peeked carefully over the ledge.

  “911, where is your emergency?” the voice asked—where, not what.

  “Shots fired,” I said, and recited the address of the duplex.

  I stood slowly and surveyed both ends of the street through the window. The two hunters had disappeared.

  “Is anyone injured?” the operator asked.

  I look down at Professor Campbell. She was gasping for the breath I had knocked out of her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “No, I’m not. Are you?”

  I didn’t answer because I didn’t know how she’d react, but I felt fine. I felt exhilarated. I didn’t tell the 911 operator that, either.

  “I don’t think we need medical attention,” I said.

  The operator told me to remain on the phone until help arrived.

  I went to Campbell and helped her to her feet.

  “That was incredibly brave,” I told her. “Opening the door like that. My God, though. What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that there was a neighbor who needed help.”

  I eased her into a chair.

  “When you threw yourself on top of me, you were trying to protect me, too, weren’t you?” Campbell said. “From the bullets, I mean.”

  “Honestly, Alex, I was just trying to knock some sense into you.”

  “At least we’re on a first-name basis again.”

  * * *

  It took ninety-seven seconds before the first officer appeared at the scene and only two and a half minutes before three other squad cars joined him. Seventeen minutes later, Detective Casper of the St. Paul Police Department arrived. He wanted to know if the shooting was connected to the murder of Emily Denys. Six minutes after that, Martin McGaney drove up. He wanted to know the same thing.

  I said yes, of course it’s connected.

  “How do we know it’s not about something else you’re working on?” Casper asked.

  “I heard one of them say they were sent to ask me questions. Apparently the other panicked when I took off and started throwing bullets around.”

  “Q
uestions about what?”

  “About the Denys killing.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “Why else would they have been here? Obviously they had staked out the place.”

  “Obviously. You’re way too smart to let someone tail you.”

  “That’s right. I am.”

  “Puhleez.”

  “What can you give us besides the camouflage suits?” McGaney asked.

  I gave him estimates of age, height, weight, and skin color.

  “They had military-style haircuts, one brown, one blond,” I said.

  “Is that it?” McGaney threw a thumb in my direction. “He calls himself a trained investigator.”

  “I can’t believe I used to work with this guy,” Casper said.

  “Did you?”

  “For about six months, wasn’t it, Taylor? Just before you pulled the pin?”

  “Stop it,” I said.

  “’Course, that wasn’t long after Scalasi was promoted over him.”

  “Sounds like jealousy to me,” McGaney said.

  “She is a woman, so…”

  “Stop it,” I repeated.

  A door-to-door was conducted; neighbors were questioned. Apparently Mickie Umland had stepped into the shower immediately after I left her place and didn’t see or hear a thing, although she did confirm that I had stopped by to ask questions. But no, she hadn’t seen two camo-wearing hunters carrying handguns beneath their shirts lurking about. Neither, as it turned out, had anyone else within a several-block radius.

  Meanwhile, Alexandra gave her statement—gave it several times without wavering. Most eyewitness testimony is unreliable, yet hers was shockingly accurate. It was the scientist in her, I figured. It also reminded me that her testimony against Mrs. Barrington would be formidable.

  I asked her several times if she was all right, and so did the others. She said no the first time I inquired, of course, yet ever since Alex had kept insisting that she was fine.

  “Shaken,” she said finally, and smiled. “Not stirred.”

  That’s what made me think she was hanging on by her fingernails. Why wouldn’t she be? A running gunfight on the front lawn right after breakfast is not a common occurrence for most people.

  “I’m sorry about your car,” Casper told her.

  “My car?”

  “That’s your vehicle parked on the street?”

  It was stated as a question, yet Casper already knew the answer. He ran the plates before arranging to have the car towed to the impound lot so forensics could start pulling bullets out of the body.

  “Yes, that’s my car,” Alex said.

  “It’s pretty badly shot up. If you have comprehensive, your insurance should cover it. Otherwise—”

  “My car,” she said. “My poor car.” I knew she could have been just as easily talking about herself.

  Alex sat down in the middle of her floor and pressed her limbs together until she was about the size of a beach ball. I sat next to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. She leaned her head against my chest.

  “It could have been me,” she said.

  I made a lot of comforting sounds, and so did the officers, yet at the same time I told myself that this is what comes from opening your door to strangers in need.

  We stayed like that for a long time while the officers went through the motions of an investigation. Finally Casper asked, “Professor Campbell, is there someone you can call to stay with you? A friend or relative?”

  Alexandra patted my arms, indicating that it was time to let her go. I helped her to her feet.

  “I have friends,” she said. “You’re leaving, too, aren’t you, Taylor? To work your case?”

  “It’s what I do,” I said.

  The way she smiled sadly and shook her head, I think she took more meaning from my words than I meant to put there.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  David Helin was delighted.

  He was in a conference room when I arrived at the SKH&D offices, and the receptionist had no intention of interrupting until I explained my sense of urgency. A few moments later, he was practically jogging down the corridor toward where I sat, his arms wide and a happy grin on his face.

  “They shot at you?” he said. “That’s wonderful.”

  There were other people in the reception area, and they all stopped what they were doing. I noted the expressions of alarm on most of their faces.

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean it the way it sounds,” I said.

  Helin hustled me into his office.

  “I don’t have a lot of time for this,” he said. “Specific details. Who is they?”

  I explained, ending with what one of the shooters said—“We were sent to ask questions.”

  “The professor—”

  “Alexandra Campbell,” I said.

  “She heard this?”

  “She did. She might have saved my life.”

  “Is she willing to testify?”

  “Yes.”

  “To what she heard?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, she’s also willing to testify that she saw Mrs. Barrington shoot Emily.”

  “If it looks like a conspiracy and sounds like a conspiracy…”

  “Whose conspiracy, though?”

  “I don’t care. Yes, I do. Unravel it, Taylor. Unravel it.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to get much help from the city and county cops.”

  “What did the CA say?”

  “She wasn’t at the scene. Her investigator, McGaney—he remains skeptical.”

  “Even better. A conspiracy and a cover-up.”

  “If you say so.”

  “The fact is they shot at you. In front of witnesses. I can do a lot with that. You’ve made my day, Taylor. I couldn’t be more pleased.”

  He left his office, apparently in a hurry to return to his meeting. He called to me over his shoulder as he disappeared down the corridor.

  “Keep up the good work.”

  * * *

  I returned to the office. Freddie spoke to me without lifting his eyes from the computer screen.

  “Taylor, hey,” he said.

  “Freddie.”

  I moved to the safe we keep between our desks. It was stacked with the coffeemaker and K-Cups, so he didn’t know what I was doing until I knelt and started working the combination.

  “So, how’s it goin’?” he asked.

  “I’ve been better.”

  I swung open the door of the safe, reached inside, and retrieved a nine-millimeter Beretta semiautomatic handgun. Freddie didn’t react until I also pulled out two magazines.

  “Two?” he said. “Really?”

  “I want to make sure I have enough bullets to go around.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  I slammed a mag into the butt of the handgun and jacked a round into the chamber while I explained.

  “Whose cage did we rattle?” Freddie said.

  “I don’t know. Yet somewhere along the line someone became aware that we were attempting to learn Emily Denys’s real identity, and they sent two trigger-happy thugs to ask about it.”

  Freddie set his index finger against his cheek and said, “Hmmm.”

  “What? What does ‘hmmm’ mean?”

  “The whole point of Plan B is to muddy up the waters, create whatchacall reasonable doubt.”

  “I know what Plan B is.”

  “Except, what if Barrington really did pop the Denys girl for all the reasons we already know about? What if the Denys girl was on the run, hiding out from someone like we suppose? Now, what if, because we were asking about her, this someone just learned that Denys was dead, realized she was really whoever she was, and now is trying to find out what happened to her?”

  “I’ve got a headache, Freddie.”

  He opened his desk drawer, found a small white bottle, and tossed it to me from across the room. I caught it with one hand, struggled with the childproof cap, finally opened it, and shook out
two pills that I swallowed without water because that’s how tough I am.

  “What’s the plan?” Freddie asked.

  “Retrace my steps, including all the calls I made yesterday, and see what we find.”

  Which is what I did for the rest of the day and discovered—nothing.

  * * *

  I drove home with the Beretta muzzle down in the cup holder located directly behind the Camry’s gearshift—not that I had suddenly become paranoid. The fact that I studied the face of every driver of every vehicle that passed me on the freeway or pulled next to my car at a stoplight—that was just me getting to know my neighbors.

  The gun was in my hand, in my pocket, after I parked and moved to the entrance of my apartment building. I inputted the security code into the electronic keypad with my free hand and waited while an older couple strolled past on the sidewalk. The woman smiled.

  “Beautiful evening, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Just swell.”

  My remark caused her smile to fade a bit, but then I sometimes have that effect on people.

  I opened the door, slid inside the building, and made my way to the second-floor landing. I unlocked my apartment door, went inside, and froze. There was someone there. I could feel it. I could hear it. Light breathing coming from—where? If I hadn’t been so jazzed with adrenaline, I might have missed it. As it was, my heart was pumping blood through my arteries like a fire hose.

  It couldn’t be the rabbit, I told myself as I eased the Beretta out of my pocket. There definitely was someone in the apartment.

  I turned the switch. The overhead went on, flooding the apartment with light. In the movies, you always see the good guys wandering through dark houses looking for the bad guys with nothing but a flashlight. What a bunch of morons.

  I gripped the Beretta with both hands, the right pushing out slightly and the left pulling in to steady it. My back was against the door as I swept the sights over the living room, down the corridor, and over to the kitchen area. Movement to my right caused me to retrain the gun there. I saw a hand reach up and grip the top of the sofa. A second hand joined the first. A woman pulled herself up. I saw the crown of her head followed by her face. I aimed the gun at her. She blinked as if I had just roused her from a nap.