by T. L. Hart
“It’s nice paying other people to do my dirty work.” I stood looking down at her as she stretched provocatively on the couch. I gave her a guilty shrug. “Never having had the pleasure of being filthy rich before my little adventure in Jenniferland, I had no idea how much work it would be to get a divorce. On the bright side, it does provide jobs for a whole lot of people.”
“Any idea how long it will take to get finalized?”
“Why the hurry?” I asked. “It’s not as if that marriage is really any part of my life, except on paper.”
“He’s trying to get more of your money,” Jo said. “You know he’s after your assets.”
“Who cares if he gets a few bucks? It’s not like I’d care if he wasn’t such an obvious prick about it.” I didn’t share my growing suspicion that Gregory was a dangerous man. No need in her having to worry too. Better to change the subject. “You know, it might be easier and faster to have him knocked off—God knows I can afford it.”
“Cotton, you better stop talking like that, even to me. If something happened to him, you’d end up in jail yourself.”
“You better stop calling me Cotton, even when it’s just the two of us,” I warned. “You’re going to slip and people will think you’ve gone nuts. Are you ever going to call me J.C.?”
“If I must.” Her dramatic sigh would have been overacting all the way to the second balcony. “Couldn’t you have picked some other name, something a little like closer to Cotton?”
“Linen? Woolen?” She giggled at my suggestions. “Would you rather cuddle up and whisper, ‘I love you, Cashmere’ in my ear?”
“As long as my baby is back to cuddle, I can even manage J.C.”
“You think so?”
“Come here and let me whisper it in your ear and show you.”
She beckoned me with a crook of her finger and a come-hither smile. I took a flying leap to land on the couch beside her. I was more than willing to be convinced and she acted as if she wanted the job. My God, was it good to be me.
I was ninety percent persuaded and one hundred percent exhausted when the phone rang. It was likely Cousin Dewayne again. His calls were getting less kissy and more urgently demanding, if not outright hostile. I was thinking of having my number changed again.
“Let the machine get it,” I begged, not able to make my shaky legs carry me across the room to the phone. “They can leave a message.”
“What makes you think I was going to crawl to the phone myself?” Jo pushed the tangle of black hair out of her eyes. “And I don’t care if they leave ten messages. I’m not moving from this spot until tomorrow.”
The phone clicked over to silent after four rings and was transferred to a voice mailbox. After a couple of minutes it rang again. Four rings—voice mail. And again. And again. Again.
“Oh crap. Let me get it so whoever it is will stop.” I wobbled toward the phone, kicking our scattered clothes out of the way as I went. “It can’t be Aggie. She’d either use my cell or be banging on the door by now.” I punched in the number for the voice mail service and entered my password. “Five messages. Aren’t we popular?”
“Who is it?” Jo asked after I listened to the first message without saying anything and went on the next. “What’s wrong? You better tell me.”
She came to stand beside me and put her ear next to mine as the third message came on.
“You bitches are an abomination to the Lord.”
Jo sucked in a sharp draw of air.
“Holy shit,” she swore. “What did the first ones say?”
“Pretty much a warm up for this one.” I was surprised my voice came out so evenly. Inside I was quivering like Jell-O. “Let’s see what comes next.”
I pushed the button for message four.
“I can see you. Both of you—you disgust me.” The next words of the raspy voice sent me running to the balcony, phone dropped to the floor. “Naked on the couch, making a mockery of decency.”
I yanked the curtain across the big window, not trying to cover myself. What was the point after providing the floor show for some pervert Peeping Tom? Jo had picked up the receiver and was listening to the last message. Her face was paper white and her hand shook as she held the phone out to me.
“Honey,” I soothed. “Don’t let it scare you. It’s some nosy watcher in one of the apartments across the road. We’ll keep the curtain closed next time. Let him get his jollies on his own.”
She shook her head.
“Listen to the last one,” she whispered. “My God, Cotton. It’s happening again.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“The dirty bastard.” Aggie was the first person we called. She was at the apartment in fifteen minutes flat. “Sneaky little window-peepin’ bastard.”
She was holding the phone in a grip she would obviously rather have had around the perpetrator’s throat as she listened to the fifth and final message: “I’m watching you every day and every night. Watching you both. You can’t be allowed to live among normal people. You don’t deserve another chance.”
“How sick is this dude?” She looked at me, then at Jo. “I know this is doctored, but anything about his voice sound at all familiar? Any phrases sound like anyone you know?”
Acknowledging our headshakes with a nod, she listened to the messages once again and then looked at the two of us as if the whole thing was our fault. We sat, side by side, on the sofa, looking like a couple of guilty schoolgirls who had been caught in the act by the headmistress. We had thrown our clothes on and fluffed the pillows on the couch, but it was obvious we had been doing the nasty. Even threatening phone calls by a nutcase couldn’t wipe the goofy-eyed satisfaction off my face.
“What am I going to do with you?” Aggie asked. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute without worrying about you getting into some kind of a mess.”
“Sorry we’re causing so much trouble—making out on the couch in our own living room. What were we thinking?” I said. “It’s not like we sent out an engraved invitation to this guy to join us.”
“Don’t be sarcastic with me,” she snapped. “I’m not blaming you. I’m just really scared.”
“Scared?” I was honestly not expecting fear. “It’s nothing to be scared of. I wanted some help figuring out which window he was watching from so we could…maybe we should…” I stammered, running out of anything to say. I had no idea of what we could do. “Call the cops or something.”
“Hell, yeah, we’ll be calling the cops. Like you should already have done.” She reached in her knapsack, pulled out her cell phone and tossed it to me. “In case you don’t remember it, the number is 911.”
“I’m not stupid.” I was pretty sure I would have known that on my own. “I can manage to report this by myself, thanks,” I said, turning my back and walking a few steps away to the kitchen as I called in the incident.
That’ll show her.
“They’ll be here in a few minutes.” I said as I walked back into the room.
“Good deal. That will give us time to look around ourselves.”
She pulled a pair of binoculars from her backpack. Always prepared. If I had called her with a fishing emergency, I had no doubt she could have pulled a rod and reel or bucket of bait out of her wizard’s bag.
“First, though, turn off the lights in here and let’s scope out the view.”
I flipped off the main lights. In the darkness of our living room, she cautiously pulled back the curtain far enough to slide the balcony door open and squeeze outside. I followed her, glancing back where I could see the dim outline of Jo’s body huddled on the sofa. She made no effort to join us and I let her stay there, thinking she needed a few minutes to herself. Her nerves had gotten the better of her, not that mine were in much better shape. I just handled it in a different way.
Aggie and I were doing our own Nancy Drew number on the case. Aggie slowly scanned the high-rise building across the street. There were at least ten floors of windows that could
have seen us if their occupants had been so inclined and willing to spend hours watching and waiting for an opportunity.
“This is creepy, Ag. Knowing someone was watching us.” I cringed. “No telling how many other people he’s been peeping. I’m calling the manager to tell everyone be on guard. Then—”
“This isn’t a problem for everyone, J.C.” Aggie put down the binoculars and lowered her voice. “I don’t want to scare Jo more than she already is, but this is no random pervert.”
“What do you mean? He’s watching us—us in particular?” I didn’t like where this was heading. “Don’t you think that’s a stretch?”
“You aren’t thinking clearly. The calls.”
“So he calls to threaten us. Probably how he gets off.”
“You’re not listed.”
“What?”
“You have an unlisted number, babe. No random creep is going to be able to make a dirty call without a lot of digging around for that information. Still think this is a smutty joke?”
“It’s happening again.”
Jo stepped out onto the balcony, her bare feet quiet as she joined us. Her tone was a whisper, almost without inflection. Fear had leached the color from her voice, taken away all the animation that was her trademark.
“I knew there was danger.” I had to strain to hear her. “Since I was a little girl, I’ve always known when something bad was happening. I knew it the last time. No one would listen to me then either.”
“Shh. It’s going to be fine, sweetheart.”
I put my arm around her shoulders, but she shook it off and hissed at me, actually hissed like an angry cornered wildcat.
“It’s going to be fine? Everything’s going to be all right?” Hysteria was gaining on anger. “‘No one is following you, Jo.’ ‘It’s all in your imagination.’”
“Come on back inside, Jo,” I said softly, trying to keep the fear from my own voice. “Let’s go back inside and we’ll decide what to do.”
“I warned you last time. I warned you and you laughed at me.” Her voice was a mournful echo. “And now it’s happening again.”
The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck were at full attention.
“Jo, Aggie and I are going to take care of this. The police will be here soon. We can get protection.”
“He got away with it before. He’s going to do it again.” She was crying now. Her whole body was shaking with the sobs. “Cotton. Don’t let him do this. Find him. Find Max.”
“We’re fine tonight. Tomorrow we’ll take whatever steps we need to make sure he’s caught. Let’s turn these tapes over to the police—”
“Trust the police? That’s a good one. They were so much help arresting the killer before.” She cried so hard I could barely make out her words. “He’s going to kill you again. He’s going to kill us both this time.”
“Honey. Ssh. It’s okay. This time we believe you. We won’t let anything bad happen. It’s going to be okay,” I soothed, promising more than I was sure I could deliver. “This time we’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, maybe we’re going to be okay this time,” Jo said. “It’s next time I’m worried about.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Our visit from Dallas’s finest wasn’t all that fine.
The two officers sent to handle our call looked as professional and reassuring as you could ask. Their dark uniforms were crisp. Their badges were shiny, as were their black cop shoes. In fact, they could have been on the recruiting poster for the City of Dallas Police Department.
Sergeant Teague was well built, if not too tall, maybe five ten or so. He looked as if he spent a lot of his free time in the gym. Officer Maples was almost the same height, but dark to his blond, and rail-thin to his stoutness. She had a little spiral notebook and scribbled furiously every time anyone spoke. I don’t think I heard her utter more than a dozen words during the interview.
“Dispatch said you received threatening phone calls,” Officer Teague began. “I need to get your authorization to copy the calls. And we’ll send tech people out later to set up a tap in case you get more calls.”
“Not a problem.”
“Did you recognize the caller’s voice?” I motioned to include Jo. “Neither of us did.”
“Have either of you had any trouble with co-workers or any family disputes?”
I thought about mentioning Dewayne, but it seemed a stretch. I’d learned to erase his messages without listening. I didn’t like that he had grown more demanding and much less charming, but his interest was financial, not peeping, and I don’t think he had a clue about my relationship with Jo. Then there was Gregory; he was certainly watching me closely.
“I’m getting a divorce,” I began, only to be cut off by the next question.
“Any conflict with your neighbors?” He might have been reading a checklist. I shook my head. “Noticed anyone following you or showing up in casual situations enough to make you aware of them?”
“I haven’t seen anyone,” I said, “but in case you didn’t hear me before, I’m going through a messy divorce. My soon-to-be-ex-husband has been having me followed—strictly for my own good. I don’t think even he’s this sick, but I would love you to question him.”
I gave the name, address and phone number to Officer Maples. I wish I could be an invisible observer when Mr. High and Mighty had to be interrogated like a mere mortal. The officers asked Jo the same question.
“Not lately.” Jo’s answer made Officer Maples look up at her, expecting more, but with a shrug, Jo went on. “Not really, but there was a problem several months ago—”
“Let’s say in the past six months,” Sergeant Teague sounded less than concerned. “A nice-looking woman is going to get watched—pardon me, but you ladies are the types likely to attract admirers. That isn’t the kind of attention I’m talking about.”
“Not to dismiss your compliment, Sarge, but I think some weirdo watching you through your window and calling to say you don’t deserve to live is a touch more than being an admirer.” I didn’t like the way he was looking at us, not a lot more respectful than the night peeper. “But thanks for the concern.”
“One other idea.” He looked at the couch again and raised an eyebrow. “It might be a good idea to close the curtain over the balcony or turn off the lights if you don’t want to put on a show.”
“I’ll make a note of that.” I was sugar-sweet. “Maybe you should listen to the calls now.”
They listened to the messages. Sergeant Teague’s eyes focused on us, then slid to the couch and across the street to the building facing our windows, then back to the couch. Officer Maples had the decency to keep any lascivious wonderings hidden. Her cheeks flushed noticeably and she cleared her throat.
“Ms. Strickland.” Her tone was comforting. “In most cases these callers are only trying to scare people.”
“Then mission accomplished,” I said. “We are scared out of our minds.”
“Yes ma’am. I’m sure you are.” Teague regained control of the interview. “Have you had any other calls or any other threats? Letters? Anything of that nature that might have fingerprints?”
“No. Just the calls last night.” I was trying to be helpful. “Can’t you check the phone records and see where the calls were made? They do that on all the crime shows.”
“This isn’t a high-profile crime, ma’am. It’s a nuisance call, not a murder investigation.” He had the temerity to smirk. “We don’t need to call the guys from CSI.”
“So until there’s a body, you aren’t going to do anything?”
“Of course we’re going to do something, ma’am. We’re going to investigate and follow up on it,” he said. “If I were you, I’d have my number changed and be careful who I gave it out to. These calls are usually from someone you know.”
“I didn’t know this guy,” I replied.
“The voice was altered,” he said. “That’s why it sounded so mechanical.”
“Don�
�t you have some kind of technology, something at the lab to run it through?” I was out of my element, but damnit, I had seen CSI a lot and no one had to beg Marg Helgenberg to do her job. “Voiceprints, databases, secret decoder rings—anything?”
“I’ll turn the tape we made over to the lab people, but anybody can buy stuff to distort a voice from the Internet or even local surveillance stores. Not likely to track him down by that.”
“What if we know who it is?” Jo had been quiet until now. “My ex-husband—”
“Lady, not to be rude or anything, but we hear that accusation every time. And here—” he pointed an accusatory finger at each of us. “We have two exes to consider. Do you have any proof your ex is involved?” He asked the question politely enough, but the twist of his mouth and the sideways glance at his partner said, “Here we go again.”
“Nothing more than the fact he murdered one of my friends last year and threatened me if I got involved with anyone else.”
Sergeant Teague—I probably should change the name to protect the guy’s reputation and to keep me from being sued—snapped to attention at Jo’s accusation. He glanced at Officer Maples to make sure she was getting everything on paper. He shouldn’t have worried; she was scratching away, transcribing his every word in her little notebook.
“Your ex-husband killed someone last year? What’s his name?”
“Max Sealy.”
“Max Sealy, the baseball player?” His voice rose noticeably and Maple’s pen came to an abrupt halt. “Your ex-husband is that Max Sealy?”
“That’s the one.”
“I remember the case.” Teague looked at his sidekick. “Local gay woman beaten to death. Everyone liked Sealy for the murder, but nothing stuck. There was a big investigation, then it was kicked to the Hate Crimes unit. Probably in the cold case files by now. No evidence Max Sealy had any connection at all, except the ex-wife here was the vic’s girlfriend.”
