In a Bind

by D. D. VanDyke

  “Precisely. Oh, I’m sure you do want to know more about the case, but not ‘just,’ not merely.”

  “Okay. You interest me. What you do. Who you are.”

  “That was my intention.”

  “It worked.”

  “Because I know you.”

  “Don’t you mean you know what kind of person I am?”

  His straight blonde fake locks swung back and forth with his head’s shake. “No. I know you – as well as anyone can from a distance. I had to get closer, though. To fill in the picture.”

  I smiled, intrigued. Despite the circumstances, his intense scrutiny and his focused attention pleased me. “And have you filled it in?”

  “A bit.”

  I considered what he’d said for a moment, and then remembered what I’d been doing all day. “I appreciate this banter, Thomas.” I left all irony out of my voice, not wanting to needle him or show disdain. Rather, I found myself willing to risk digging a bit deeper. “Tell me something. Why do you do it? The drag queen thing? Go on stage in public?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  “As much as you want to tell.”

  “It’s another mask I show to the world, but there’s truth in it. For someone who has to hide all the time, it’s very liberating. Sometimes it’s for the job, but not always. My usual operations involve more intimidation and, hmm, relaying forceful instructions than killing. It’s difficult to scare thugs wearing a dress.”

  “It’s also difficult to interest a woman that way.”

  “Like you?”

  “I –”

  “Never mind all this.” Suddenly he slid from the chair onto my bed, cat-quick, and leaned toward me so abruptly I had no chance to react. Instead I froze, pulse pounding in my ears.

  Snowflake purred in my lap but didn’t flinch, an odd reaction. Usually he didn’t like strangers much.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Thomas breathed into my face. “The fear. The rush. You crave it. It tells you you’re alive.”

  “Yes. I do.” I swallowed, unable to avoid staring into his eyes so close to mine in the dimness. A faint scent wafted across the intervening inches, a masculine smell composed of expensive cologne and that indefinable something brought to the mix by his body chemistry.

  Reaching up, I touched his hairline, waiting for him to move away, but he didn’t. Pushing slightly, I worked my thumb under the elastic of the blonde wig and slid it off of his head.

  Beneath it I could see his hair in the moonlight. Pale to match his eyebrows, it was short, a crew cut. Thomas blinked, but otherwise stayed statue-still as I tossed the hairpiece into the moonlit corner beneath the window. Snowflake leaped after the wig, attacked it briefly, and then curled up on top of it, a feline ghost.

  This simple alteration transformed him in my eyes from an androgynous stranger to an object of imminent desire. As much a junkie as any tweaker, I sucked air in through my nostrils, breathing in the night even as all my senses expanded. Fatigue from the long day and the brushes with danger and death thinned my strength, my resolve.

  Kerry had been right about one thing. Give a girl her drug of choice and her inhibitions vanish. Mine hopped the adrenaline night-train and told me they weren’t coming back until tomorrow. Maybe next week.

  Thomas lifted his hand to slide it under my hair, caressing the scars there as if they were attractive instead of hideous. Almost I pulled away, but his touch was so gentle that my flight response failed to trigger. Sensations of pleasure crawled up my neck, raising goosebumps.

  I don’t know who moved first. Our mouths slammed together like two sides of a leather-bound book, followed immediately by our bodies. I felt my lips bruise, but I didn’t care. Clothes slid and slipped off as if they had minds of their own. Hands fumbled with belts, socks, zippers, and caressed bare backs, breasts. Lips found throats and more.

  Much more.

  We devoured each other.

  Sometime in the middle of the night I spoke, our passion spent, my face in his chest. “It’s been a long time.”

  “I know. Since the bomb.”

  “How can you know that?” I ran my nail across his washboard abs, making his muscles jump. “How long have you been watching me?”

  “Not for so long. I just know. You were hungry for me. Starving. I fed you.” Thomas took my hand.

  “We fed each other.”

  “Yes. Why?” His angelic, angular face oozed an intense curiosity.

  I sat up, my palm bracing me upright on the bed. “That’s a stupid question.”

  A flash of irritation crossed his visage, and then fled. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m sorry.” I raised my free hand to trace his jaw. “I only meant that two people with this kind of…”

  “Fire?”

  “Chemistry, I was going to say…this kind of chemistry don’t need to ask why. Unless I don’t understand what you mean.”

  Thomas lay back, his arms laced behind his head against the pillows. “I want to know why you feed me. What do you offer me that I lack?”

  “You don’t know yourself very well, then.”

  “Agreed. I know others. I study others. Targets. Bosses. Suppliers. Competitors. But I can’t study myself. Neither of us can.”

  “Maybe attraction can’t be quantified so easily.”

  “No. You don’t understand.” His jaw clenched.

  Staring at me, darkness burned in his eyes, an unfathomable thing. I wanted to ask about it but all at once it scared me, and not in a pleasant way. Physically, I was damned hard to frighten. In the last ten years I’d been shot at, chased, punched, stabbed, and blown up. I’d crashed Molly more than once, a racing hazard. I’d pushed six months pay all in to a pot against a guy with one out and the magic card fell against me. Last meeting I’d stared at the wrong end of Thomas’ gun and not flinched. Tonight I’d faced him in my own bedroom and felt no terror.

  Until now.

  Whatever it was that he wouldn’t say scared me to death. I felt a pit open before me and I had no idea what was in it.

  When a woman sees that in her lover’s eyes, she can do one of two things.

  She can move toward him, give herself to him, ask him to banish the fear. Seek mercy and protection, knowing he could destroy her. Beg him to turn his darkness elsewhere, anywhere but at her.

  Or she can run.

  I ran. Slowly, calmly, yes, into the bathroom, locking the door behind me as I sat and shook naked for a time upon the closed toilet. It could have been five minutes or fifty, I didn’t know, but when I came out, he’d gone.

  Collapsing on my bed, I pulled the covers over me and cried with mingled relief and remorse and longing, breathing in the smell of him and of us, of our animal coupling that somehow went much deeper. Snowflake curled up with me with an instinct to comfort.

  Before tonight I would have said I don’t believe in all those things they sing about in love songs, in soul mates or kindred spirits, in fate or kismet or karma or angels or any of that stuff that my parents, in their own ways, clung to. Now, though, all I knew is that I had a piece of him and he had some of me.

  Thomas terrified me. I terrified me. I used to be a cop. I was still a cop, deep down, and he was everything a cop was not. Outside the law.

  Yet…

  It was that yet that dragged me under.

  Chapter 13

  When I awoke to seven a.m.’s light streaming in my window I rubbed my eyes as if to help me see the truth – whatever truth there was about Thomas and last night. I knew it hadn’t been a dream. Scratches on my back and the tenderness of long-unused parts testified to the reality of the encounter, as did a piece of paper on my nightstand, neatly printed with a webmail address. I guess now that we’d swapped bodily fluids he was willing to give me a way to contact him.

  How nice.

  The wig in the corner was gone, though, as were all other traces save a lingering masculine aroma, and I resolved to put Thomas out of mind as well a
s out of sight. I still had a case, even if it wasn’t quite as urgent now that my client was dead.

  On the other hand, once a human being has killed, doing so again either becomes impossible or easier: in my experience, generally the latter. If one murder solves a problem or assuages an emotional need, it often becomes impossible to resist another.

  By this time I’d worked the hometown angle enough to get an impressionist’s portrait of Frank’s life, lacking detail but accurate enough when stepping back to view it. Today I hoped to fill in some of those small but telling elements that would turn the picture from a concept into a reality.

  That meant spending today in the City and putting up with Allsop, a major annoyance, but one I’d grown used to over the last couple of years. It helped when I deliberately viewed him as a grumbling old dog who growled perfunctorily at me but seldom bit. Little by little we seemed to be smoothing things over, which was fine by me. I bore him no grudge; it was all on his side.

  After morning ablutions and my necessary fifteen minutes of mother maintenance over herbal tea, eating as little as possible of the vegan tofu-based fake eggs she’d prepared, I walked over to my office in the crisp bright Wednesday morning breeze. Inevitably my brain compared everyone I saw with Thomas’ lean figure, but none were enough of a match to make me believe he was watching me.

  I had no reason to believe he lurked anywhere nearby. He’d gotten what he wanted, I thought uncharitably, and then he’d run away.

  A little voice of truth and fairness nagged at me, insisting I face the fact that I’d run first. Besides, I was all grown up and responsible for my actions. I’d been a willing participant in our tryst, not some poor helpless damsel ravaged by a darker Prince Charming.

  I put that out of my mind as I opened the front door to my office just after eight and quickly shut it behind me. I found nothing beneath the mail slot and nothing significant on the answering machine, so after confirming Mickey wasn’t in the building I brewed a triple espresso and phoned Allsop.

  “Jay, Cal. You available to catch up?”

  “What you got?”

  “A lot of circumstantial stuff. Not so much solid, but some theories. You wanna get some breakfast?”

  “I could eat. If you’re buying.”

  “Sure.”

  “Universal?”

  I sighed. Looked like he was going to make me pay handsomely. “Okay. See you there soon.”

  “Meet you in ten.”

  I hung up, downed my coffee and left by the front door to walk briskly. Universal Café was not Allsop’s type of place – locavore, urban, upscale, trendy – but the prices were high and the brunch outstanding, which was why he chose it. By the time I’d tromped the half-mile there, my stomach had kneaded itself into a hungry knot.

  I spotted my former partner’s unmarked unit just as he saw me and opened the door to get out, sliding an Official Police Business placard onto the dashboard to fend off any cruising meter maids. He nodded to me and I returned the gesture before he walked up and rapped on the front door with his knuckles.

  “We’re not open yet,” yelled an aproned woman through the door glass.

  “Mind if we come in and wait?” Allsop showed his badge.

  “Sure, Officer,” she said, allowing us to enter.

  I chuckled as Allsop swallowed a correction and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t let it bother you, Lieutenant.”

  “With the hundreds of cop shows on TV, you’d think people would know the difference,” he grumbled.

  “You’re in a good mood today,” I observed as we took a table in the corner, out of the way.

  “Just doin’ my job,” he replied, and I knew what he meant. The closest he came to happy was on a case.

  Fifteen minutes before their nine a.m. opening, a waiter came over with coffee and took our orders, which was a kindness. I stuck to tasty and healthy, getting a salmon spinach omelet with cream sauce, while Jay asked for a full cardiac arrest including eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, butter and pancakes with fresh peaches and cream on top.

  “Where you gonna put all that?” I said with a smile, stoking the growing but still brittle comradely feeling as well as I could.

  “Hollow leg. You know my eating habits.” He sipped his coffee.

  “Where’s Brody?”

  “Making calls to bank branches, starting from the Castro out.” Allsop put his elbows on the table. “Well?”

  As I was the unofficial investigator I supposed it was my turn first, so I spent the time until our breakfast came filling Allsop in on what had happened yesterday. After that I watched as he demolished a day’s worth of calories in ten minutes. As we ate, the place filled up, making me glad we’d come in early.

  “I took a look at your deputy Mike Davis’ record,” Allsop said once most of his plates were empty. “He’s clean as a whistle, which was my first concern.”

  “I was pretty sure of that, but it’s good to hear confirmation.”

  “As for Frank Jackson…he had a few misdemeanors in college, but nothing since he graduated. Low level drug possession, disorderly conduct at a protest, stuff like that.”

  “Wonder how he got hired?”

  “Quotas?”

  “Maybe. Or they couldn’t get anyone else to take what they’re paying.”

  Glancing down at the notes he’d made, Allsop said, “I’ll run the Conrads and Lindquist and see what we got on your biker buddies.”

  “You mean you’ll have Brody do it, just like I used to.”

  “Of course. Gotta pay your dues.”

  “I know. So what can you tell me?” I’d been waiting patiently for critical facts Allsop possessed – forensics, observations, things he’d found out yesterday.

  “Not much.”

  I waited, but he didn’t go on, instead pushing the last few bites of pancake around in the compote as I fought not to snarl at him. In a pleasant tone I said, “Okay, Jay, the fun of busting my balls and eating some very good food at my expense is over. I gave you all I have, now give me something – something I can use to help you. And Frank.”

  Who knows whether it was my logic or the guilt trip, but he relented. “Yeah, yeah. As I said, we’re checking all the banks, but it’s a slow process because he probably used an alias. The fact that he’s a midget is what’s gonna get us a hit, I bet.”

  “Little person.”

  “Whatever. But someone should remember him opening an account or making deposits.”

  “Assuming he didn’t just use an ATM all the time. Did you find any odd bank cards in his wallet? In a different name, maybe?”

  “Nothing so easy.”

  I sighed. “What about the phone?”

  “Our tech guys are still looking, but the preliminary search found nothing.”

  “Next of kin?”

  “Nothing. The locals should have it. Feel free to ask.”

  “CSU?”

  “Lots of prints in the hotel room, probably from past tenants, but a lot of the surfaces had been wiped down so I doubt any are the perp’s. Nothing else on the physical evidence. The cord was standard nylon utility line that you can pick up anywhere. The drugs might yield something but they’re still being tested. The room itself is dirty enough that the fibers and crap CSU sucked up from the floor could be anyone’s.”

  “How was Frank restrained?” I asked.

  “The easy way. Drugged with roofies, looks like. We’re testing for all the fast-acting date-rape compounds – rohypnol, GBH, ketamine.”

  “He must have drunk from something, then. Looks like the perp did take one used cup with him, like you thought.”

  “Or her. You said this guy was straight, right?”

  “That’s what he told me,” I said. “I have no reason to doubt him.”

  “Then we’re looking for a woman.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “Or maybe two?”

  I shook my head. “Two women jealous and angry enough to kill aren’t like
ly to work together. No, I’m still thinking it’s only one. She had to be well known to Frank to get in and feed him a drink without his being suspicious, and she had to be fit and strong enough to hang him.”

  “You meet anyone in that town that qualifies?”

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking about Alice at the diner and Carol Conrad. “Let’s not discount the possibility our siren might have a current boyfriend willing to help. Someone killed that meth-head at the quarry, apparently for business reasons, possibly bikers. Not a crime of passion.”

  “If you believe that, it could be any woman. You just talked yourself into a huge pool of suspects.”

  I cursed under my breath. “Yeah. So we assume it was one person.”

  “Who’s your top suspect?”

  “Carol Conrad,” I said without hesitation. “Her husband may well be dirty. There are indications he’s a former mobster, perhaps an informant given a new identity. Anyone he married is likely to be of similar bent.”

  “Unless she doesn’t know about her husband’s former life.”

  “This lady’s sharp. She’s dialed into everything in town. I don’t see her being fooled for long. She’s morally flexible enough to have affairs with at least two people recently, which argues for a certain arrogance to believe she can get away with it.”

  Allsop spread his hands. “Or she has an arrangement with Mister Conrad. An open marriage. Keep up appearances but bang whoever they please.”

  “Someone official really needs to interrogate them both at the same time and compare stories.” I stared at Allsop.

  “Not me. Not our jurisdiction.”

  “Frank was murdered here. That makes it yours.”

  “Only if the sheriff – not the deputy, but Sheriff Bartlett himself – extends that courtesy.”

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “With Conrad being such a local bigwig, there’s no way they’d get grilled hard up there. And they’re wealthy and savvy enough to lawyer up if they don’t like the way the questions are running. But…what if we could get them here?”

  “How?”

  “I have no idea. I was grasping at straws. But if so, you could detain them for questioning, put the screws to them.”