Fatal Debt

by Dorothy Howell

  “Anything you feel you should tell me,” he said.

  Yes, I’d done a few things, but nothing really bad. So I’d cheated on a test—it was algebra. Cheating is expected on an algebra test. And so what if I still had Lizzie Blake’s CD? Who listened to N’Sync now, anyway? The lipstick theft was the worst thing I’d ever done.

  No, trashing Nick’s payment was the worst thing I’d ever done.

  Nick leaned a little closer and mellowed his voice. “Anything you’d like to get off your conscience?”

  He knew. He knew I’d thrown out his payments.

  My confession pushed up from my stomach. I felt it in my chest, in my throat. It tickled the back of my mouth and danced on the end of my tongue.

  I clamped my lips together and shook my head.

  “Sure?” Nick asked, leaning a little closer.

  I nodded quickly, refusing to open my mouth.

  He looked at me a few seconds longer, then rose from his chair and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  He left the room.

  I collapsed in the chair, drained and exhausted. I wasn’t meant for a life of crime. In fact, neither side of the law suited me because I sure didn’t want to be in this police station any longer, giving a statement that would help the cops.

  So why was I staying?

  I glanced around. No sign of Nick. Nobody paid me any attention.

  I hadn’t been told I couldn’t leave. I wasn’t under arrest. As far as I knew, I was still a citizen, free to come and go as I pleased.

  And right now, it pleased me to leave.

  I got my purse and left.

  Chapter 3

  I found my car parked beside the police station outside a gated lot crowded with black and white patrol cars. The doors were unlocked, my keys over the visor. I jumped in and sped away.

  It’s really cool to be an adult, to make your own decisions, your own choices. You can eat cookie dough for dinner or sleep on the mattress when you’re too tired to put fresh sheets on.

  But there were also times when being all grown up wasn’t any fun at all. This was one of those times. I headed for my parents’ house.

  Bonita was one of the cities that adjoined Santa Flores. It spread across the base of the foothills where orange groves flourished decades ago before they were ripped out and replaced with tracts of houses. My parents lived in one of those houses in an older section that had held up well over the years.

  I couldn’t remember living any place else. That was the best part about going to my mom and dad’s house. It was always there. They were always there. The furniture had been in the same place for years, the same family pictures hung in the hallway. Every Christmas the same decorations were on the tree. Every Easter Mom baked a cake shaped like a bunny. My dad was the only person who’d ever changed the oil in my car. He even washed it for me sometimes. He slipped me a twenty every now and then.

  My parents had been married for over thirty years. They were the Mount Rushmore of parents, both carved from the same block of stone, permanently affixed side by side, forever. I found that comforting, and tonight, I needed comfort. I pulled into the driveway, parked and let myself inside with my key.

  The house was a one-story with four bedrooms, a big kitchen, a den, living room, and a dining room. The lot it sat on was a little larger than most, big enough for the pool that nobody used much since my brother and I moved out.

  “Mom? Dad?” I called.

  My mom came down the hall from the bedrooms. A huge surge of emotion shot through me.

  Mom saw me and flung out both arms.

  “That father of yours! You won’t believe what he’s done now!”

  “Well, jeez, Mom—”

  “I can hardly believe it myself!” she declared. “That man!”

  Mom was in her mid-fifties, tall, with brown hair and blue eyes, like me. Everyone said she looked younger, but to me, she always looked like Mom.

  She stomped past me into the den. “He’s really done it this time!”

  I followed like a little puppy hoping for a treat. “Mom, something happened—”

  “I can’t live like this! Not anymore!”

  “But, Mom—”

  “That’s it!” She drew in a big determined breath. “I’m leaving your father.”

  “Mom!”

  “And you’re helping me,” she said. “Find me a moving truck.”

  * * *

  Honestly, I didn’t know how this day could get any worse, unless a meteor fell out of the sky and crushed me. At this point, that didn’t seem so bad.

  After Mom’s announcement, I left the house under the pretense of finding a truck for her to move with. Mom acted a little weird some times, but I didn’t know what this leaving-dad thing was all about. I couldn’t imagine what my dad had done to drive her out of the house.

  Since Dad wasn’t home, I wondered if he knew what he’d done.

  Mom had waved to me from the front door, told me to drive carefully, just as if nothing were different. The most frightening part of this whole deal was that one day I was going to be like that, too. I was going to get old, get weird.

  I craned my neck out the window of my car and looked skyward. Where was a meteor when you needed one?

  My apartment was just a couple blocks off State Street in a big complex that attracted all sorts of people—singles, young married couples with kids, old married folks with grandkids. Hardly a day went by without a moving truck blocking a chunk of the parking stalls.

  I swung into my assigned spot, killed the engine and fell back in my seat. I was exhausted and hungry. I had a little headache going. The outfit I’d put on this morning—now sans jacket—that I thought had looked so awesome was wrinkled and limp. I probably smelled bad.

  I dragged myself out of my car mentally preparing a plan of action once I got inside my apartment: close blinds, turn off phone, find chocolate. Maybe I’d call in sick tomorrow and sleep all day. Yeah, that sounded good.

  I was just getting to the warm shower/cool sheets part of my plan when a car door opened on the other side of the parking lot and a man got out. He just stood there, watching me.

  I may as well have been hit by a meteor, because that’s how it felt.

  It was Nick Travis. He’d come after me.

  It’s funny what runs through your mind in stressful situations. Seeing Nick standing outside his car, I swore not to be taken alive.

  We could have a big shoot-out right there in the parking lot, except I didn’t have a gun. I could make a break for the Mexican border, if I’d paid better attention in Spanish class. I could zip into L.A. and become a street person, if I didn’t have such an aversion to public toilets. But I couldn’t just stand there waiting to be captured.

  I hitched my purse higher on my shoulder and marched over to his car.

  “Go away,” I said. “Go protect and serve somewhere else.”

  “I don’t protect and serve,” Nick said. “That’s LAPD’s motto.”

  “Oh. Well, what do you do?”

  “Anything I want.”

  Nick Travis was such a dog. A mangy, flea-infested dog who deserved to be run over by a garbage truck loaded with chicken gizzards.

  He leaned his elbow on his open car door and let one of his infamous grins creep over his face. It crept over me too.

  He was a dog, all right, but a gorgeous one.

  In matters of the heart, lighting was important. The glow of the security lamps in the parking lot softened the edges of his face making him even more handsome, if that were possible.

  My lighting wish was that he couldn’t see me all that well because I knew I must look pretty bad.

  “We need to talk,” he said

  “No, we don’t.”

  “Yes, we do,” Nick said. “So what’ll it be? Your place or mine?”

  His place was the police station. I absolutely could not go there again.

  I huffed, making sure he knew this did not suit me.

>   “Look,” I said. “I don’t have time for this. I’m hungry, tired, and I need a shower.”

  “I can fix one of your problems.” He reached inside his car and pulled out a white paper bag. “Or fix all of them.”

  My knees weakened a little, but I forced myself to stay strong.

  “Have you got any chocolate in there?” I asked.

  “It’s Chinese,” he said.

  “You’re not going to arrest me?” I asked.

  “Not tonight.”

  Good enough.

  “You can come inside,” I said. “But only because I’m hungry.”

  I led the way up the stairs to my apartment on the second floor, fumbled with my keys and went inside. Nick closed the door behind us.

  The entry way opened to the right down the hallway that led to two bedrooms. One I slept in, the other I threw stuff into. Straight ahead was my living room, and to the left was my kitchen.

  I switched on some lights and dropped my purse on the tiny kitchen table I’d wedged into one corner. Nick made himself at home opening cabinets, studying the microwave and checking out the refrigerator.

  “Go take your shower,” he said.

  I opened the flaps on one of the little white Chinese take-out boxes. One solitary egg roll was inside. I raised an eyebrow.

  Nick grinned. “Thought I’d save you from a few fat grams.”

  “Good of you to take the hit for me,” I said. “Just don’t sacrifice yourself completely while I’m in the shower.”

  “Then you’d better shower fast,” Nick said, as he shrugged out of his sport coat and hung it on the back of a kitchen chair along with his shoulder holster.

  A pleasant little meow came from under the table and my gray tabby came out, stretching and yawning. I’ve got the world’s best cat. Sleeps a lot, eats little, likes to cuddle, and never gives unsolicited advice. What more could you ask for from a roommate?

  “Come here, Seven Eleven.” I picked her up and stroked her thick fur.

  “You named your cat Seven Eleven?” Nick asked. “What, you found her at the convenience store?”

  “And the critics said the Miss Marple story hour at the Police Academy was a waste of taxpayer money,” I said, and gave him my aren’t-you-clever smirk.

  I got my aren’t-you-clever-smirk right back.

  “Hit the shower,” Nick said. “And make it fast. I’m hungry.”

  The hot shower felt good, but it was a little strange being naked in the same apartment with Nick Travis. It occurred to me that if I stood under the water too long he might think I’d hit my head on something and was drowning, and rush into the bathroom—all in the line of duty.

  That little scenario played out in my mind, and for a few seconds I considered lingering a while longer. Then I came to my senses and shut off the water, pulled on sweats and a Dodgers T-shirt, and headed for the Chinese.

  Nick sat in the living room sipping a bottle of Corona from my fridge and watching television over a basket of my underwear sitting on the coffee table.

  I’ve got a thing for underwear. The wilder the better. Prints, plaids, neon, whatever. Knowing you’re walking around with zebra stripes on your butt can give you a whole different perspective on life, sometimes.

  I wondered if Nick was getting a different perspective on something as he sat on my sofa looking at my front-clasp, leopard print bra dangling over the side of the basket.

  I stashed the basket in the corner and sat down on the end of the sofa. Nick had brought in another beer, plates, napkins, and put it all on the coffee table with the take-out boxes. He’d already loaded his plate and had turned on the Lakers game.

  “Is anything else on?” I asked, digging into the fried rice.

  “You don’t like basketball?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, tipping up a Corona. “That’s one of the things I’m changing when I take over the world.”

  I hadn’t really meant to say that out loud. People tended to look at me funny when I did.

  Nick looked at me funny. “You’re taking over the world?”

  What could I say but, “Yes.”

  He digested this for a moment. “What else are you doing differently when you take over, aside from getting rid of basketball?”

  Nobody had ever pursued this topic with me before, but I was ready.

  “For starters, I’m taking that one really high note out of the Star Spangled Banner,” I said. “You know, the la-and of the free. That one.”

  He nodded. “Makes sense. What else?”

  “I’m considering banning the playing of all Barry Manilow songs,” I told him, “but my mother might fight me on that one.”

  “A lot of mothers might.”

  “One thing I’m definitely doing is moving first base a foot closer to home plate,” I said. “There’d be a heck of a lot more runs scored that way.”

  “I like baseball,” Nick said.

  He must have been a huge fan because his gaze lingered quite a while on the front of my Dodgers T-shirt.

  When the Chinese food was gone and the beer bottles empty, we took the remains into the kitchen and dumped them into the trash. That’s the kind of housework I like.

  Nick leaned against the counter and gave me a stern look.

  “I need you to come down tomorrow and look at mug shots,” he said.

  I could have protested but the beer had me feeling a little mellow. And besides, I wanted the guy who’d killed Mr. Sullivan to get caught, though I didn’t think I’d be much help with the investigation.

  “I don’t know if I’d recognize the guy,” I said. “It happened really fast, and I only got a glimpse of the side of his face.”

  “I want you to look at the mug shots anyway,” Nick insisted. “Something might jog your memory.”

  I didn’t like the idea that my nanosecond look at the side of some guy’s face was all there was to go on.

  “Don’t you have any idea who shot Mr. Sullivan?” I asked.

  “We haven’t determined motive yet,” Nick said. “We need his wife to take a look around the house, see if anything is missing.”

  “Have you found her yet?” I asked.

  He nodded. “We caught up with her at her sister’s house when they got back from shopping.”

  I tried to imagine what it had been like for Mrs. Sullivan to hear the news that her husband was dead—murdered. The thought made my stomach roll. It made me angry.

  Nick must have noticed something from my expression.

  “You stay out of this,” he told me. “I don’t want you poking your nose into the investigation.”

  “I can put my nose where ever I want,” I said.

  “No, you can’t,” Nick said. “People think that because they discovered the body or pointed out a suspect, they’re involved. They want to solve the crime. They can’t. You can’t. This is a police investigation. Don’t get in my way.”

  “Well, don’t get in my way,” I told him.

  “I’ll get in your way if I need to,” he said.

  Okay, Nick won that round—but only because he had a badge. And I was starting to feel a little loopy from the beer. And he had great eyes.

  He pulled on his shoulder holster and sport coat, and headed for my front door. He paused, then withdrew a business card from his pocket.

  “Call me if you remember anything,” he said. “Day or night.”

  I took the card and saw that he’d written what must have been his personal cell phone number on it.

  I opened the door. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “What time are you coming to the station tomorrow?” he asked.

  “My lunch hour,” I said.

  Nick nodded and left my apartment. I closed the door and peeked out the peephole.

  “Lock the door, Dana.”

  His voice came from the hallway.

  I slid the security chain into place and peered out again. Nick was gone.

  Seven Eleven rubbed against my leg. I scoop
ed her up and went into the bathroom. I brushed my teeth while she stared at the sink, then I got into my pajamas.

  In the bedroom I curled up with my pillows in the dark. Seven Eleven curled up at my feet. She usually slept at the foot of my bed, and it was nice to feel her warm little body next to me during the night.

  Hers was the only warm body I’d had next to mine in a while.

  That made me think of Nick.

  I flopped onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I wished he hadn’t come over. It’s so much easier to dislike someone when you don’t know them well. I wished I’d never learned he could be a nice guy.

  I sighed and rolled over again. No way could I change that now. Even after I took over the world.

  Chapter 4

  I dragged myself out of bed the next morning and peeked through the mini blinds. Clouds darkened the sky. Rain seemed likely. Not a good way to start a day I’d rather not participate in.

  Poor Mr. Sullivan lurked in my thoughts. The visage of death had been on a distant horizon for me. I didn’t like the zoom lens I’d seen it through yesterday, and that I’d relived it in my dreams last night.

  I’d tossed and turned, waking over and over from the same nightmare: walking into Mr. Sullivan’s living room; being knocked down by the man running from the house; finding the body.

  Nor could I shake the thought that if I’d arrived at the Sullivan house a minute earlier—sixty lousy seconds—it might have made a difference. If I’d turned my head sooner—only two seconds sooner—I could have seen that guy clearly and been able to give the police an accurate description, or maybe recognize him somewhere.

  Of course, if I’d arrived sooner, if one single incident had been different, I might have been shot along with Mr. Sullivan. That’s the thing about life—you just never knew. Good-different, bad-different, which way might it have gone?

  Maybe just different enough that Mr. Sullivan would still be alive.

  In the parking lot below my window, I saw the retired couple who lived below me getting into their car, probably going out for breakfast. That brought my folks to mind. I’d have to find out from Mom what was behind her wanting to leave my dad after three decades of marriage. I’d have to talk to Dad, too, and see if he had any idea what was going on. Maybe I wouldn’t have to find Mom a moving van, after all.