Bark M for Murder

by An Anthology

  The next morning I contacted Bailey and he let me come over to see the show again, using his TiVo. We played that one scene—the one Janet Slemboski was in—several times, in slow motion, and I was convinced that it was her.

  She’d had her nose done—it was smaller and more pert—and maybe her eyes, too—they were now almond-shaped, though that can be done with theatrical tape, hidden by loose bangs or hair that hangs close to the face.

  We watched the credits to see if we could find the name of the actress, and there it was: Girl in Hall— Amanda Hitchcock.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “Maybe this Hitchcock girl is the one you’re really after,” Bailey said.

  “Maybe,” I said, unconvinced. “But I don’t think so.”

  I contacted the TV series’ production company, they gave me the name of Amanda Hitchcock’s agent—the Lucy McCarthy Agency in Salt Lake City—and I spoke to someone there, hoping to get her address and phone number, which they refused to give over the phone.

  I contacted the Salt Lake City Police and they sent someone over to get the info, but all they had was a PO box in nearby Heber City, which is where they sent the checks, and a prepaid cell phone number, which is where they called when they had auditions for her.

  The Salt Lake cops didn’t pursue it. It seemed like no one but me was interested in following up on the case. Their feeling was that Cady Clark, AKA Janet Slemboski, had died in a murder/suicide several months earlier, somewhere in Maine, so who’s this idiot dog trainer to tell us to override the local DA’s decision in that case?

  So that’s how Jamie and I came to be driving a rented QX4 up 1-84 in the Wasatch Mountains, in a snowstorm, the night of the awards banquet at the Sundance Film Festival.

  “Jack,” she said, turning down my Townes Van Zandt tape, “what is it about this music you like so much?”

  “You mean other than the fact that he’s possibly the best writer of folk-type songs who ever lived?”

  “You’re forgetting Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and—”

  “—Greg Brown, I know. But Townes is still the best.”

  “But he can’t sing! And you also love Tierney Sutton, who is a truly phenomenal singer. I just don’t get it.”

  “Well, she’s the best jazz singer there is right now, bar none. The thing is, they both do what they do with absolute honesty and simplicity. What could be better?”

  “If Van Zandt had a nicer voice, it would be better.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. What do you want to listen to?”

  “I don’t know. We’re in Utah. Don’t you have a Beach Boys tape?”

  I said I had tons of them and put one in the player, though I wasn’t sure what the Beach Boys had to do with being in Utah.

  Before taking the drive up to Park City, we’d had a pleasant conversation with Amanda Hithcock’s agent, Lucy McCarthy. She told us that the last time she’d spoken to Amanda, the girl had mentioned getting an invitation to the film festival’s awards banquet.

  “That’s all she thinks about,” McCarthy had said, “Sundance. It’s her dream to win an award there some day.”

  We pulled up to the event tent just as the snowstorm went on hiatus, and as the last stragglers, dressed in ski clothes and talking on cell phones, their breath making important, decision-making clouds in the cold mountain air, made their way toward the entrance. The tent was set up in what appeared to be a high school parking lot.

  As I got out, feeling overdressed in my rented tuxedo, I told Jamie to try to keep the car ready.

  “Okay. But can’t I come inside?” she said. “I’m all dressed up. Plus, I want to see Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.”

  “Maybe we’ll rub elbows with them at an after-party.”

  “Okay,” she griped. “But how come you get to have all the fun?”

  “In this case, it’s because I’m the only one of us who’s qualified to recognize the suspect even though she has radically changed her appearance. And because one of us has to keep the car ready in case there’s trouble.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said, “use logic.”

  I kissed her through the open window and went around to the back entrance, showed my NYPD identification card to a bouncer who looked like he could probably play the second goon from the left in any Hollywood action film. I was very careful to put my thumb across the word “retired” on my ID before I showed it to him.

  “What’s it about?” he grunted.

  “I have reason to believe that a murder suspect who’s wanted back east may be inside the tent.”

  I stepped into the back of the tent, past The Second Goon From The Left, and hoped Lucy McCarthy had been right, that Amanda Hitchcock (or Janet Slemboski) was at the banquet inside.

  I came into the main part of the tent behind and to the left of the platform, where someone who looked semi-familiar (isn’t there an actress named Posey Parker?) was at the podium reading off the list of nominees for best actress in a supporting role.

  I trained my eyes on the audience, ignoring the famous faces; I was scanning the crowd for a tall, slender girl, about twenty-two, with three or four murders under her belt.

  As I came around the side of the podium I spotted her at a table, about seven or eight rows back.

  Oddly enough, there was a black toy poodle in her lap. Maybe Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua had made small dogs a popular fashion accessory.

  Posey, who was wearing casual ski clothes, had finished reading the nominees and was about to open the envelope when I came around front and headed toward Janet Slemboski, who I now saw was also wearing a casual but hip ski outfit.

  I got to about the first row of tables when she looked up at me. She tried to look past me, as if she didn’t know me, but she couldn’t ignore the recognition in my eyes or the determination in my step. The dog started barking and from the sound of his voice and the look in his eye, I knew it was Charley, with an ebony dye-job.

  Slemboski stood up suddenly and screamed.

  I rushed toward her.

  She jumped over her companion’s legs, threw Charley at me (I caught him neatly), and ran toward the exit, screaming, “Stop him! Stop that man! He’s a killer! He wants to kill me!” This was designed to give her time and room to get away, to get the crowd between us, but I was smarter than she was.

  “I’m a cop!” I shouted. “Stand back! Make a path!”

  She ran past one of the buffet tables at the back of the tent, swooped up a carving knife, and kept running.

  I held my wallet up with the hand not holding Charley, as though showing a badge. “Police business! Coming through!”

  I was gaining on her until someone who looked like Steven Seagal, but probably wasn’t, got in my way. I don’t know if his interference was intentional or not; I didn’t ask. I slammed an elbow in his face, jarring my funny bone, and went on my way, that arm tingling, then had to jump a leg that tried to trip me; another face got smashed. Charley was barking the whole way, having a helluva time.

  Cady, meanwhile, made her way screaming through the door that led to the street. When I got there I had to smear a bouncer’s face. My tuxedo shirt was now a welter of other people’s blood: bouncers, action stars, well-meaning fools.

  I ran outside where my face, hot with adrenaline, was stunned by the sudden shock of cold, dry mountain air.

  I saw Cady, brandishing her knife at the open door of a black Mercedes. She pulled the driver—a frail old woman—out, then got in.

  I looked around for Jamie, or a ready vehicle to follow in, but Jamie and our rented Infinity were nowhere to be seen.

  A guy in a calf-length shearling coat, smoking a slim cigar, and who reminded me a little of James Coburn, but wasn’t, casually caught my eye and tossed me a set of keys.

  “The red Ferrari,” he said. “I hope you’re insured.”

  “Not really.”

  “Ah, what the hell. But I get the film rights!”

  “Fine with me,” I said.r />
  He pointed to his car, I ran to it, clicked the door open with his key-chain, tossed Charley gently into the passenger seat, dove inside, found the keyhole, started her engine roaring, and took off after the black Mercedes, swerving and fishtailing through the lower gears.

  My mind ranged in all necessary directions: clutch, gas, brake, gearshift, receding taillights, Ferrari—god-this-is-fun, I wonder where Jamie is, clutch, gas, brake, curve, how’s Charley doing? Ferrari—god-this-is-fun, gearshift, receding tail-lights, curve, clutch, gas, hang in there Charley…

  The snowstorm was still on hiatus, though a few lingering flakes fell here and there as I followed the Mercedes out of town, where it ignored the on-ramp to the Interstate, and swerved onto a small canyon road, traveling beside a rushing creek.

  She had a good lead initially, but Ferrari is to Mercedes as rock, paper, scissors, is to, well, sawed-off shotgun. I was on her ass in the space of two mountain curves.

  I won’t lie. I love it when my movements, the thrust of my intentions, is exact, ordered, precisely aimed at a specific target or result. But then came the storm again. Deep snow, blanketing, hard, and full, and where the hell is the lever, the button, the dingus that makes the windshield wipers work? The Mercedes took a hard right across a wooden bridge, over the rushing creek, toward a rustic cabin, hidden in the pines—a perfect Mike Delgado hideout.

  I went after her but my wheels skidded, swerved, lost purchase, spinning me sideways toward the bridge. Damn! I needed that windshield wiper lever. How could I see without it?

  Then my borrowed, beautiful red Italian racing machine flew across the icy bridge, spun out of control, glided in a dozen slow-motion circles, and sailed easily and neatly into a power pole. Bam! The unbelievably quick explosion of the air bags was followed by more snow falling softly and slowly from the wires above me. Then, when all was still, I heard another car come over the bridge and then around mine.

  I looked out and saw a gray panel van come to a stop. A dark figure got out and came lurching forward, his movements not exact, not precise, barely on the edge of specific or ordered, and yet somehow more purposeful than mine.

  God! It’s Earl! How’d he get here? How’d he get to her? What’s that in his hand? A gun?

  The door of the Mercedes, which was parked next to the cabin, flew open.

  I threw open mine.

  Cady sprang out of her car, a bright flash of steel—the knife in her hand.

  I stumbled out of the Ferrari, Charley leapt over the driver’s seat and past me, barking his way onto the snowy gravel drive, then ran over to Earl and grabbed his pants leg.

  Earl was shouting something at Cady, asking, pleading for an answer to some impossible desire.

  Her mouth was an angry gash. She spat words and brandished the knife as she came quickly toward him, her arms wanting terribly to stab him.

  He stepped toward her with Charley at his ankle.

  I shouted something, a pathetic attempt to stop the inevitable.

  Earl pulled a gun. Cady lunged at him with the knife. The gun went off and both figures stumbled backward in the snow.

  From behind me I heard another car pull up to the bridge. A door opened and faint Beach Boys music wafted through the air. I ran toward Cady and Earl. Charley was jumping around, barking. I heard Jamie on her cell phone, “I need an ambulance, now!” A pause. “I don’t know. Just off 1-84, about a mile west of Park City, I think. I’m on a side road by a wooden bridge and a stone cabin.”

  I got to where Earl and Cady were lying in the snow. I took Earl’s gun with no resistance. He was holding on to the knife with his other hand. It was still stuck in his gut.

  “How did you find her?” I asked.

  He smiled at me. “I just followed you, you jackass. You ain’t as smart and I ain’t as dumb as you think.”

  Jamie came running to us and landed on her knees next to Earl.

  She shouted, “Don’t touch the knife!”

  “What?” asked Earl.

  “The knife! Don’t pull it out! It’s keeping you alive!”

  “This?” he said, looking down at the bloody hole in his grimy, dark blue parka.

  “Yes. It’s probably holding back the internal bleeding.”

  He lifted his head and looked over at Cady, who wasn’t moving, then smiled at Jamie, a sad smile, a tragic, inevitable smile, and said, “So?”

  He took the hilt deliberately in his hands and pulled it out, gasping, grimacing as he did. Jamie made to stop him, but knew any pressure she put on the knife would only do more internal damage. There was a soft sound like suction then the black, bloody flow of life followed after the blade as it left his body, and he gasped again, once, twice, and was gone.

  Jamie cried, “Earl, you fool!” but by this point there was nothing that could be done. He was no longer living.

  Then we heard Cady moaning in the snow. We went to her.

  “Is he dead?” were her first words to us.

  “Yeah,” I said, bitterly. “You killed him.”

  “You saw,” she said to me. “It was self-defense.”

  “This killing was, maybe. But you’re going away for all the other murders, Janet.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  She’d been shot in the abdomen; blood was oozing out of her side. Jamie unwrapped a scarf from around her neck and used it to staunch the bleeding.

  With a smug smile, Cady said, “I’ll never go to prison.”

  “This isn’t just about Earl, Janet—”

  “—don’t call me that.”

  “It’s about the real Cady Clark, it’s about Dr. Atkinson, and Joe Bruno, and the real Amanda Hitchcock, and an attempt or two you made on my life.”

  “You can’t prove any of that.”

  “Yes we can. You killed them. And the thing is, except for Cady Clark; you killed them all in Maine.”

  “So? They all got in my way.”

  “That’s not the point. You’re in Utah now, Janet. They love the death penalty here; it’s practically biblical for them. So, you’re not only going to prison, you’re going to die here in Utah for killing Earl Brown.”

  “No. You saw; you can’t lie. It was self-defense.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s part of an ongoing felony; that’s felony murder, and that means the death penalty.”

  I looked at Jamie. She gave a quick shake of the head; the girl wasn’t going to make it to the hospital, let alone prison.

  “What about Mike Delgado?” I said. “Where is he?”

  “That creep?” Cady said, her eyes fluttering.

  “Where’s Delgado?”

  “They’ll find him,” she said with a weak laugh.

  “What does that mean?” I said, and wanted to also ask why she’d done what she’d done, why she’d been bent on destroying so many lives, but I already knew the answer to that.

  “Easy, easy,” Jamie said, holding her scarf to the wound.

  “Tell us where to find Delgado,” I said.

  She shook her head, still smiling. “You’ll find him in the spring,” she said. “He got in the way too.”

  “Got in the way?”

  “Of my dreams,” she said, then closed her eyes and was gone.

  After that it was just the two of us, me and Jamie, the only two left living, except for loud, wonderful Charley, who stopped barking suddenly, lifted his nose into the air, and raced toward the cabin.

  I got up and followed him and found him digging at a bullet hole in a canvas tarp, next to the snow-covered firewood stacked up by the back door. I pulled back the canvas and found Mike Delgado’s blue, icy body lying there, with a black, bloodless bullet hole right between his staring black eyes.

  “Good boy,” I said, feeling my arms and shoulders tremble with waves of relief that it was all finally over. There was also a little grief for Delgado’s sad end and Dr. Atkinson’s sorry fate mixed in. Then I heard the sound of sirens in the distance and said, “You’re a good dog, C
harley.”

  He looked up at me and wiggled his butt, his round, dark eyes bright with happiness.

  Jamie came over, looked at the body closely, and said, “She’s really something, this girl.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you? Look at the bullet hole. There’s no blood around it and bits of canvas inside it.” My mind was too numb to think clearly; I asked what it meant. She said, “She put a bullet into him, through the tarp, after she’d already killed him.”