A Way With Murder (Bryson Wilde Thriller)

by R. J. Jagger

  He nodded.

  “Are you setting our new client up as bait?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” he said.

  “Maybe subconsciously?”

  “No, neither,” he said. “The more I think about it, don’t make your dress red. I don’t want to find out later that that’s what triggers this guy.”

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “I’ll be bait if you want.”

  He put a look on his face.

  “Don’t even talk like that.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m serious.”

  She studied his face and then smiled. “You never said anything about panties. Do you want me to get panties for her or not?”

  He did.

  “What color?”

  He pictured it.

  “Black.”

  “You’re so evil,” she said. “By the way, no one’s named Secret.”

  “She is.”

  “Trust me, no one is,” Alabama said. “Not me, not you, not her. It’s a fake name. My advice is to find out why before you get in too deep with her.”

  5

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Morning

  The Beat was housed in a three-story, 62-year-old brick building on Curtis Street that was an affront to every building code known to man. It was still standing but not by much. Everything was there—the offices, the printing presses, the distribution hub, the vans, everything. Except for the areas where the ink permeated the air, the place smelled like a bad cigar. Most of that could be attributed to Shelby Tilt, the owner, who was everywhere all the time and never without his nasty little habit in his nasty little mouth.

  His office was on the second floor, cantilevered over the presses. The wall on the press side wasn’t actually a wall, it was a opening where a wall once stood, together with a guardrail to keep dumb asses from falling off.

  The noise of the presses, when they ran, was deafening.

  Tilt liked it that way.

  They were the sound of money.

  Right now they weren’t running.

  The space wasn’t big. What it lacked in volume was made up for in clutter. Tilt’s desk probably had a surface but no one had ever seen it.

  Waverly sat in a worn chair in front of the desk.

  Tilt mashed the stub of a cigar in the ashtray and lit another. His forehead—the gateway to a bald top—wrinkled up.

  “I’m going to pose a situation to you that you can either accept or decline,” he said. “Whatever you decide, there are no repercussions. I want you to be clear on that, there are absolutely no repercussions whatsoever. That means you can say no, you’re not interested, and nothing is going to happen to you. Do you understand?”

  “Okay, then, no,” she said and headed for the door.

  Then she smiled and came back.

  “Had you going.”

  He took a deep puff and blew a ring.

  “Keep this on the down-low, but we’re in serious financial trouble around here,” he said.

  “I thought we were doing good.”

  “We are, for the time we’ve been at it,” he said. “The problem is we’re running out of time. The paper’s been losing money since it started. At the rate our circulation is growing, we’ll be profitable in six months. The problem is that I can’t keep making up the difference for that long. We need to get our circulation numbers up and get ’em up now, otherwise we’re a done dog.”

  “Ouch.”

  Right.

  Ouch.

  “Keep it confidential,” he said.

  Sure.

  No problem.

  “I don’t get why you’re telling me this,” she said.

  “Here’s the reason,” he said. “Before I propose what I’m about to propose, remember that you can say no.”

  She tilted her head.

  “You’re like a vibrator on slow speed,” she said.

  He got up, walked to the railing and looked at the presses. “I love that junk down there,” he said. “I really do. We need some big stories. That’s how we can get our circulation up.”

  Waverly nodded.

  “Like what?”

  “Like getting out in front of the news instead of just reporting it,” he said. “There was a woman who ended up taking a dive off a building Friday night, just two blocks up the street. The word is that she was wearing a short red dress. Did you hear about her?”

  Waverly nodded.

  She had.

  “The police don’t know if it was a suicide or she got pushed off or what,” he said. “I have reason to believe she was dangled over the side and then dropped.”

  Waverly wrinkled her face.

  “Why do you say that?”

  Tilt lowered his voice.

  “I’m going to tell you something but I don’t want you to repeat it. Before I came to Denver and started the Beat, I worked for a paper in San Francisco.”

  Right.

  Waverly knew that.

  “About three years ago, I got assigned to cover a small matter,” he said. “It was a woman in a short red dress who ended up taking a dive off a building, same as we have here.”

  He stopped talking and waited for Waverly to process the information.

  The implications hit her.

  “So what are you saying, that this is some kind of a serial thing?”

  He nodded.

  “Exactly. That’s why it will be such a big story if we can break it.”

  “Wow.”

  Right.

  Wow.

  “Now,” he said, “my offer to you is to find out who’s doing it. That’s your assignment if you want it. Be clear, though, it’s risky. If you start snooping around and closing in on the guy, and he finds out, well, you do the math. That’s why you can say no and there won’t be any repercussions. In fact, my advice to you is to say no. My advice is to say, Screw you, Tilt. Are you crazy?”

  She exhaled.

  “Can I think about it until tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  She smiled.

  “Just kidding,” she said. “Of course I want it.”

  He studied her.

  “Okay,” he said. “But don’t go and get yourself killed. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hating myself.”

  “Why not? Everyone else does.”

  “Not funny,” he said.

  Then he laughed.

  6

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Morning

  River parked the Indian two blocks from the Down Towner and swung over on foot to see what his little target Alexa Blank looked like. No waitresses matching her description came into view after two passes. A third pass would be risky. Going inside was out of the question. He headed back to the Indian and drove south out of the city.

  He needed a place to keep her.

  It needed to be secluded.

  The miles clicked off.

  The city gave way to less city which gave way to no city.

  An abandoned barn or structure would work. Sunshine was everywhere, pure and uncompromised. Yellow-winged butterflies dotted the sides of the road. The air was warm.

  A narrow dirt road appeared up ahead.

  River stopped at the base and gave it a look.

  It was choked with weeds.

  Whatever it had been used for, it wasn’t used for it anymore.

  The world had abandoned it.

  He turned in and drove far enough to get the Indian out of sight. Then he shut it down and continued on foot. If it turned out to be useful, he didn’t want to fill it up with motorcycle tracks.

  The topography rolled, a prelude to the foothills three miles to the west.

  In typical Colorado prairie style, trees were almost non-existent except for the occasional scraggly pinion pine. Tall grasses and rabbit brush ruled, dotted with sharp pointed yucca and
small hidden cactuses. Rattlesnakes were at home here.

  River loved the city.

  He loved the noise and smoke and buzz, the danger, the anxiety and desperation, the beauty and opportunity, the night neon and the early morning shadows.

  He was equally at home out here.

  This is where the real men met the world.

  It was raw and unforgiving, there for the taming.

  Back in the day, River could have been one of those tamers. He could have been one of the persons who boarded a wooden ship and headed for the horizon, not knowing if anything was out there except a slow descent into starvation.

  It was in his genes.

  The present assignment was going to be tricky. River was supposed to take the target—Alexa Blank—but not kill or harm her until and unless given orders. That conceivably meant that he might be told to release her at some point. He couldn’t do that if she saw his face. That was the tricky part, staying anonymous.

  He could wear a mask but that would only partially solve the problem.

  There was still the issue of his body, both the warrior physique and the height.

  Baggy clothes, he’d need those for sure.

  Also, there was his voice. How could he disguise that? The only positive way to do it would be to never speak. That would be impossible. He’d need to give the woman orders.

  Complicated, that’s what it was.

  Too complicated.

  Too complicated for the standard commission at any rate.

  He’d renegotiate at the first chance.

  Up ahead something appeared on the horizon that wasn’t part of the landscape. It looked like a rusty metal remnant of some type.

  Another appeared.

  Then another.

  There were dozens of them.

  It was some kind of machinery graveyard, mostly old farm machinery and truck hulks from the looks of it.

  Interesting.

  He picked up the pace.

  As he walked a thought came to him. If the woman did end up seeing his face, he could have her die by a rattlesnake bite. He could say it wasn’t his fault, just nature at work.

  7

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Morning

  The dead woman in the red dress was someone named Charley-Anna Blackridge. The phone book had her listed at 1331 Clayton in near-east Denver. Wilde headed over in the MG, parked two blocks away and doubled back on foot, intending to break in and find out who was in her life before the night in question. The house was a small brick bungalow with no driveway or garage, jammed in the middle of an endless sea of the same. Wilde knocked on the front door to be sure no one was home before heading around back.

  Something happened he didn’t expect.

  The door opened.

  A woman in her early twenties appeared. The knock had woken her up. Her hair was tossed. Sleep was thick in her eyes. She wore a pink T-shirt that covered her ass but not by much.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Wilde said.

  She studied him.

  “Are you a cop?”

  “No, a P.I.”

  “Are you here about Charley-Anna?”

  He was.

  “Come on in but don’t expect much,” she said. “I don’t know anything. You got a cigarette?”

  He did.

  He did indeed.

  The woman turned out to be 22-year-old Alley Bender, the dead woman’s roommate who was, in fact, wearing something under the T, namely white panties that flashed with regularity. She reminded Wilde a little of Night Neveraux, his high school squeeze.

  “We were out dancing Friday night at a couple of clubs,” she said. “The last one we were at was a place called the El Ray Club. I met a guy a little after midnight and we ended up leaving. Charley-Anna had her eye on a guy and said she was going to stick around. That was the last I saw of her.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “That I left with?”

  “No, the one Charley-Anna had her eye on.”

  The woman shrugged.

  “I didn’t know him,” she said.

  “Did she point him out?”

  “Yeah but he wasn’t anyone I knew.”

  “Describe him.”

  Her eyes faded to the distance then back.

  “He reminded me of Robert Mitchum. He had that same dimple in the chin and those same bedroom eyes.”

  “Robert Mitchum, huh?”

  Right.

  Robert Mitchum.

  “He was nice looking,” she said. “Too nice looking. He had more than his fair share of women gawking at him. There was no danger he was going to end up going home alone, that’s for sure.”

  “Did he talk to Charley-Anna?”

  She shrugged.

  “Not while I was there,” she said. “What happened after I left, I don’t know. Do you want to hear something strange?”

  Yes.

  He did.

  “When they found her she was wearing a short red dress,” she said. “That’s not what she had on that night though. She was wearing a black dress, a longer one with a slit up the side.”

  “Well that’s interesting.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She brightened.

  “Actually, I think I have a picture of her wearing the dress she had on that night. Do you want me to see if I can find it?”

  “That would be great.”

  She drained the last of the coffee and stood up.

  “I like your eyes,” she said. “I’ve always been a sucker for green eyes.”

  Wilde watched the woman with a half-eye as she dug through a metal cookie tin jammed with photos. Her knees were slightly open and her panties peeked out.

  It wasn’t an accident.

  She knew exactly what she was doing.

  Wilde pictured the two of them in bed.

  The picture didn’t last long though. It got squeezed out by Secret St. Rain.

  8

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Morning

  Shelby Tilt didn’t remember much about the San Francisco case other than the red dress. He didn’t even remember the dead woman’s name. His file, if you could even call it that, was long gone.

  “If you’re serious about breaking this story,” Waverly said, “then I’m going to say something that you’re not going to want to hear.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I think I need to go to San Francisco.”

  Tilt frowned.

  “Go there?”

  “Right.”

  “That costs money,” he said.

  “I’ll take the bus,” she said.

  Tilt shook his head.

  “Stay here and work the Denver angle,” he said. “The Denver stuff’s fresh.”

  “Let the cops work the Denver angle,” she said. “I’ll get Johnnie Pants to feed it to me.”

  Tilt knew the name.

  Pants was one of the homicide detectives.

  “How are you going to get him to do that?”

  “I’ll give him a blowjob or something,” Waverly said. “The point I’m trying to make is that if we’re going to find a common denominator, we need to run down the San Francisco case. There’s no way to do that except to go there.”

  Tilt puffed the cigar and blew a ring.

  “If I get totally stupid and say okay, you’d need to do it on a shoestring,” he said. “You’d need to stay at the cheapest flophouse in town and not even think about eating anything more fancy than peanut butter and jelly. No cabs when you get there either. Take the trolley or the bus. Or better yet, walk.” A pause then, “There’s a Chinese girl I know there named Su-Moon. Maybe you could stay with her. I’ll give her a call.”

  “Who is she, an old girlfriend?”

  “Sort of,” he said. “She gives massages.”

  “She’s a massage girl?”

  “Don’t say it like that,” he said. “It’s a legitimate profession.�
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  “Does she give happy endings?”

  He smiled.

  “I’m taking the fifth on that.” He got serious and added, “I’m going to go ahead with your plan partly because you’re right that we need to run down the San Francisco connection and we can’t do that from Denver. That’s only 10 percent of it though. The other 90 is because you’ll be safer there. I’m still deciding whether I really have the right to put you at risk.”

  “The world’s a risky place,” she said. “We should be glad. Otherwise there wouldn’t be anything to report.”

  Two hours later Waverly was sitting in the window seat of a shaky airliner as it left Denver in the rearview mirror and headed west over the mountains.

  A small hastily-packed suitcase was in the overhead bin.

  In her purse was all the money Tilt could spare, a banana and the phone number of a Chinese woman who gave happy endings.

  9

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Morning

  The graveyard of rusty hulks had an eerie patina even in the daylight. Everything was ancient—thirty, forty maybe even fifty years old. There was no evidence that anyone had visited the place in a long time. There were no pop cans or cigarette butts or empty rifle shells. It would be a great place for target practice or bonfires or to scare the high school girls after dark with ghost stories. If anything like that had happened in the last decade there was no evidence of it.

  There were a couple of good options.

  One was an old combine.

  River almost decided on it until something farther back caught his eye.

  It turned out to be an old wrecked truck of some kind. The hood was gone and the engine compartment was gutted all the way to the firewall. The wheels and tires were gone; the undercarriage sat squat on the ground. The interesting part was the cargo box, about half the size of an eighteen-wheeler, with closed double doors at the back.

  The handle was rusted in place.

  River worked at it with a rock and a rusty metal bar for fifteen minutes before it got enough motion to open. The door hinges were tight but not enough to keep the door from opening.