Exposé: First of the Sally Harrington Mysteries (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 5)

by Laura Van Wormer

  "Thank you, officer." I take the ticket and pull out onto the road. I turn into a commuter parking lot to turn around and, heading back to the Merritt, I give the officers a wave as I ride by. I turn onto the entrance ramp for the northbound Merritt, picking up speed as I round the bend of the ramp. As I come up to the Merritt, I see that the red truck is waiting.

  11

  I can stop or make a run for it. I take another look at those dark­ened windows and make my decision. And floor it. But not be­fore I memorize the back plate.

  What's great about my Jeep is that its acceleration system hauls A. And so I haul myself past the Chevy onto the Merritt, zoom across the grill of the Sikorsky Bridge again and by the time I reach the other side, I am dialing the Castleford police. "Sally Harrington for Detective D'Amico, it's an emergency."

  They patch me through to wherever he is, but by that time I see the Chevy truck in my rearview mirror again. "Buddy, I've got a red Chevy pickup that's been chasing me all over 95 and the Merritt." I recite the plate number to him. "I can't give you a description of the driver because the windows are darkened, but the truck's one of those big things with the four wheels in the back."

  The truck is gaining on me. Since I'm doing ninety, he's got to be doing a hundred. Damn it, why can't I be on 91? Budget con­straints in our county have translated into fewer state police on the roads and the only place the troopers ever set speed traps, for some unknown reason, seems to be on 91.

  There is increasing traffic and there is no way I am going to continue playing this high-speed game around all these people. "I'm getting off on 22 in North Haven!" I yell to Buddy and fly off the exit.

  What to do, what to do? I slow for the stop sign and then turn east on 22. As I approach the intersection with 91, I take a left for the entrance ramp and keep bearing left onto a service road, hoping the truck will take the highway. I don't know where he is, but I keep going until I see a driving-range/­batting-cage place. I veer off the road, kicking up clouds of dust as I bounce across the parking lot before I illegally park near the front of the building.

  I grab my purse and jump out of the car and, as I'm hobbling in my high heels up the sidewalk to the en­trance, I see the Chevy come tearing in. I run inside past a baf­fled-looking woman at the desk, twist my ankle and then limp into the batting cages area. I put on a helmet, grab a bat, go into one of the cages and slam the gate closed behind me.

  I'm as ready as I'll ever be. The guy in the next cage says, "Lady, are you okay? Do you need some help?"

  "Please," I gasp. He is a kid, maybe fifteen, but a big kid. He comes into my cage to explain to me how things work. I keep looking over my shoulder to see who comes in. But no one does. The cell phone in my bag is ringing.

  "Sally, where are you?" Buddy says. "The plate number you gave me belongs to a truck stolen from Bridgeport."

  The young man tells me the name and address of the place, which I pass on to Buddy. "Stay where you are, stay with people—I've got a North Ha­ven cruiser less than a mile from you."

  The police are here within minutes and the officer finds me in the batting cage. The Chevy's in the parking lot, he says, but no one's inside. I take my helmet off and hand the bat to the young man before I limp off with the officer, leaving the kid open­-mouthed.

  We walk to the parking lot, where the officer's partner is standing by their patrol car. They've parked behind the Chev­rolet to block it in. The manager of the place is out there, want­ing to know what is wrong; another squad car pulls in and comes to a stop near the truck as well.

  I review the last hour with the police. No, I don't know who was following me. "Look at the windows!" I keep saying. "I thought windows like this were illegal!"

  They are black as night.

  I explain about the murder in Castleford and that I can't help but wonder if this has something to do with that.

  We look around; there are several people, mostly men, hit­ting balls at the range. The police ask the attendant who was the last one to come. "I think the one on the end," she says, point­ing to an older man.

  "He's got a bag of clubs with him," the officer observes.

  "What about that guy?" I ask, pointing to a burly fellow with dyed hair who is wildly hacking left and right with a driver from the tee. The guy is no golfer.

  The officer approaches the man to talk. The man points, takes out his license and something else from his wallet and gives it to the officer.

  My cell phone is ringing again. "Ms. Harrington?" a voice says. "This is Doris Black from Verity Rhodes's office calling. Verity asked me to pass along word that Cassy Cochran will be expecting your call at three o'clock this afternoon. She'll be at her office at DBS."

  I look at my watch. It's ten minutes after one. "Great, thank you. I will be sure to call her."

  "You have the number?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  "Who was that?" the officer wants to know.

  "It's unrelated to this," I mumble, looking around. It is hot and I am a perspiring mess. I suspect my shoes and suit may be beyond repair. "Look, the Castleford police expect me back there—like now."

  "Just give us your name and address and phone number," the officer says, "and we'll follow up. But are you sure you didn't see the driver?"

  "I didn't see anything. Look at the windows!"

  "Tell Detective D'Amico we'll be in touch," he instructs me.

  "When I see him," I say, moving toward my car.

  "You're to see him as soon as you set foot in Castleford," the officer warns me.

  I climb into my car and in a few minutes I'm back on the Mer­ritt and the air-conditioning is blasting and I am gulping water from the bottle I always keep in the car. I look around for men­acing cars, but there are none. My blood pressure slowly de­scends and I feel better.

  My reception at the Castleford police station is amazingly formal. I am ushered into D'Amico's office immediately, where I find the detective on the phone. "Well!" he says, hanging up, "if it isn't Typhoid Mary, causing calamity wherever she goes."

  "I think that's a mixed metaphor with Calamity Jane," I sigh, taking my compact out to check my face. I look like hell, with mascara smeared every which way. Yuck. I snap the compact shut and look at him. "So has North Haven found him?"

  He purses his lips slightly and shakes his head.

  Buddy is a very nice-looking man. In high school he went out with the same cheerleader all four years and we thought for sure they would marry. They didn't. He went to Southern Connecticut as a day student, she went off to William and Mary. The next thing we knew, she was the wife of a bond broker and living in Dar­ien. Buddy only married Alice a year and a half ago. Alice was a year behind us in school.

  "They went through everybody at the driving range," Buddy says, "matching car to driver, all the way through the lot, and guess what they found?"

  "What?"

  "The manager's car was missing." He shakes his head. "Whoever stole the Chevy stole his car. They found it in a park­ing lot off the Long Wharf exit on 95." He squints at me. "Sally," he says, his voice growing in awe and amazement, "you managed to get a moving violation while this guy was chasing you?"

  "In Shelton. I tried to explain, but the cop wasn't buying. So I turned around to get back on the Merritt and there he was."

  "Only you, Harrington," he murmurs, sifting through some folders in the stand on his desk. He selects one, pulls it out and opens it, glancing over the contents. "So why do you think someone was following you?"

  "You tell me." I remember something. "I've got to call Al!"

  "It's okay, he knows you're here," Buddy tells me.

  "Oh." I look at him uncomfortably, as if I am in the princi­pal's office and I'm not exactly sure for which activity I have been caught.

  "Let me repeat my question, Sally. Why do you think some­one was following you?"

  "I have no idea. Truly." I turn the tables. "I understand you know the identity of the victim now." I have no ide
a if he does, but it's been over twenty-four hours since the murder. He might.

  "And how do you know that?"

  Bingo. I smile. "Confidential sources."

  He studies me for a moment. "Yeah, we do," he says, sitting back in his chair. He props his elbow on the arm and rests the side of his face on his closed hand. "You know him, too."

  "Me? Buddy, I swear, I have no idea who the dead guy is. I stood there looking at him for ten minutes. I've never seen him before."

  "You don't remember seeing him? Not around town?"

  I shake my head. "No, and I have a good memory for faces."

  He looks me squarely in the eye. "He worked for your fa­ther."

  "My father's been dead for twenty-one years."

  "He worked for your father," he says again. "Tony Meyers."

  I look away, trying to think. "No, don't know the name."

  "He would have been around nineteen."

  I frown. "That guy did not look like an architect."

  "Exactly." He sits there, waiting for me to say something.

  "The only person who might know something about him would be Mother."

  "I was just about to go over there." He pauses. "Your mother said she'd prefer to have you there, too."

  I smile again. Mother wants to make sure I get all the inside information. Tony Meyers, Tony Meyers...

  "I'm holding you to our agreement," Buddy says. "Nothing in the paper until I say so."

  "Agreed."

  As I walk through the station house, following Buddy, I glance at my watch and see that it's past three. I have no choice but to call Cassy Cochran here and now.

  "Yes, hi," I say into my cell phone, "it's Sally Harrington of Expectations magazine. I believe Ms. Cochran is expecting my call."

  Buddy turns around to frown at me. "What are you doing?"

  I press my finger to my mouth, silently pleading.

  "You have one minute," he tells me, holding up one finger.

  Cassy Cochran quickly comes onto the line. "Hi!" she brightly greets me.

  "Hi, how do you do?" I ask politely.

  A patrolman walks by and his walkie-talkie squawks loudly and another officer is yelling that he can't find someone's ad­dress.

  "Please excuse the noise," I say.

  "What's the address again?" the patrolman yells across the room to the dispatcher. The dispatcher starts yelling back.

  "I don't mean to be nosy," Cassy Cochran finally says, "but where in Sam Hill are you?"

  "Um, well, a police station. I'm just finishing up a story for our local paper here in Connecticut.”

  "Does this have to do with the murder victim our newsroom tells me you found yesterday?"

  I am surprised. But then, she's probably checked me out since I'm going to be writing about her. "Yes, actually, it does."

  "Sally Harrington!" a sergeant bellows from the doorway. "Detective D'Amico's waiting!"

  "Sounds tantalizing," Cassy Cochran says. "Any chance you'll give a scoop to our affiliate in New Haven?"

  "Only after we print it," I say automatically.

  She laughs.

  "Sally Harrington, get your ass out to the garage! Now!" the sergeant yells.

  Cassy Cochran laughs again. She sounds very nice. "You've got to go. Listen, take my home number and call me tonight." After writing her number down and hurrying out to the police garage, I wonder if Cassy Cochran can possibly be as nice as she sounds given the cutthroat nature of her business.

  I follow Buddy over to Mother's and we find that she's dragged a box down from the attic that she says contains sum­maries of my father's business affairs at the time of his death. "Give me a receipt," she tells Buddy, "and you may take it with you."

  "Thanks, Mrs. Harrington. This will save a lot of time."

  "Why don't you come into the kitchen?" Mother suggests, leading the way. "I've made fresh scones."

  When we walk into the kitchen I can see that Mother's beau, Mack Cleary, is out back, working on the part of the stone wall that has fallen. He is wearing shorts and a polo shirt and looks very fit. And bigger than I remember. At least, his shoulders are. He doesn't look much like a professor today.

  "I didn't see Mack's car," I can't help but say.

  "It's over at Art's getting the brakes relined."

  We settle around the table and Mother serves us coffee and scones. "So, Mrs. Harrington, do you remember Tony Meyers?" She looks down into her coffee for a moment. Then she nods.

  "He was the young man who worked for Dodge—my hus­band. Way back. He couldn't have been more than seventeen. He lived on Pratt Street with his mother. The father left and I re­member Dodge saying he needed the work. Besides," she adds, looking up at Buddy, "Dodge said he had an aptitude for build­ing. I think his father had been in construction."

  Buddy is taking notes. "What exactly did he do?"

  "Oh, everything. He did all of Dodge's deliveries—you know, delivered bids and specs of plans to clients, snooped around to find out about new building plans, checked on the construction sites of buildings or homes my husband had de­signed." She laughs. "Spy a little on the competition, see what they were up to."

  "Kind of a jack-of-all-trades."

  "Yes." Mother is thinking about something and I know she is wondering whether she should say it or not.

  "Go ahead, Mother."

  "I was just thinking... " She closes her eyes and holds the bridge of her nose for a moment, and then opens them. "His name wasn't Tony. It was John. John Meyers."

  Buddy frowns. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm positive," Mother declares. "Dodge called him Johnny. Johnny Boy. No, I know that for a fact, that's right—Johnny Boy Meyers."

  I look at Buddy. "And the name you have is Tony Meyers?"

  Buddy nods. "Could be a brother." He makes a note. He asks Mother a few more questions and gets ready to leave. I know he is anxious to check through the box of my father's papers. Frankly, if I didn't have the Expectations piece looming, so would I.

  "Sally," my mother whispers, gently touching my shoulder. She is a wise woman to use this approach since she knows by experience I am not a happy camper when awakened.

  I struggle to open my eyes. I feel drugged. I remember sitting on the couch in Mother's den and putting my feet on the otto­man for a minute, and then...

  ''It's Alfred Royce, Sally," Mother whispers. "He's wonder­ing where you are. I told him you're working on the murder story."

  "What time is it?" I ask. My mouth feels like I have paste in it. I also have a headache and, after I notice the light outdoors, a sinking feeling in my stomach. It is no longer afternoon, I strongly suspect.

  "Six forty-five. You were just so tired, Sally, I put Al off as long as I could."

  I murmur something about how can you put off the inevita­ble and take the phone from my mother.

  "What the hell is going on with you?" Al yelled. "What are you doing at your mother's? Why aren't you here? You said—"

  "Oh, shut up, Al," I say irritably.

  My mother's eyes grow quite large.

  "What did you say?"

  "I said, 'Shut up.' You've got your story for tomorrow's edi­tion. I'm coming in to put the finishing touches on it."

  "No," Al says, "I'm putting the finishing touches on you. You're fired."

  "Ha!" I say.

  "Do you understand me? You're fired. You've missed the whole story and if it wasn't for Joe we wouldn't have any copy at all for tomorrow's edition."

  "I know who the murdered man is," I say, yawning. "What story could be bigger than that?"

  "That Crazy Pete Sabatino's the murderer," Royce says, "and that Crazy Pete's on the run again."

  12

  “I’m trying to park my car behind the Herald-American—some­body's Lincoln is in my space at seven-thirty at night, thank you very much—when my cell phone rings and I find myself talk­ing to, for the second time today, Cassy Cochran.

  "From what I hear in our newsroom," the
network president says, "this may not be the best time for you to try to freelance a piece for Expectations."

  "Why?" I ask, getting out of the car and locking it. "What do you hear?"

  "That you sheltered the primary murder suspect in your home last night, that you were followed by someone in a stolen car on the way home from New York and that the dead man found in Castleford might have a connection to your family."

  I am impressed. "I am impressed," I say.

  "We have our ways," she says modestly. "Seriously, I was calling to find out if maybe we should just postpone the article. I'm willing if you're willing. There's nothing I'm trying to pub­licize except our new magazine show and that will be up and on the air in September, anyway. In fact, with more time, maybe we can come up with something more interesting for you to write about."

  "Really? You're serious?" I let myself into the building with my security card and hit the staircase.

  "Absolutely."

  "Well then, let me check with Verity,” I say, "because you're right. This may not be the best time for me to leave Castleford. I mean, I'm not a suspect or anything—"

  I like how Cassy Cochran laughs. It is light, friendly.

  "You're a funny kind of person to be assigned to a story like this” she tells me. "Verity usually has some pretty tough char­acters working for her."

  I have to laugh out loud, and the sound echoes up and down the staircase. I've heard plenty of stories about what it takes to be on an annual retainer with Expectations. The faint hearted need not apply. And I must confess, I have been wondering how they will photograph me as a contributing writer. Will I look like I eat nails for breakfast, too? Before going to Kenneth's to get my hair done?

  "Give Verity a call and see what she says," Cassy suggests. "And then let's talk. That is, if you're not in jail by that time."

  "I still get one phone call, Ms. Cochran, and know that it will be made to you."

  She laughs again. "You know, this might even end up being a little fun."

  "Have you been dreading it?"

  "Are you joking?" she nearly cries. "Good Lord, I've been in this business for thirty years and surely you've noticed that I've managed to keep my face out of the press."