Killer in Sight (A Tom Lackey Mystery)

by Sandra Carrington-Smith

“And what, Alexis?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.” Her little face was

  suddenly sad, the weight of the emotions battling inside

  of her too heavy to bear alone.

  Mike kneeled down until his eyes met his

  daughter’s. When he spoke, his voice was soft and laden

  with regret. “I found Granddaddy’s lighter, Alexis. It

  was exactly where Lily said it was. I am so sorry I didn’t

  believe you; I hope you can forgive me, and I hope Ms.

  Kathy can forgive me too, for being so ugly to her. I was

  just hurt and under stress, Alexis, and I know it is not a

  very good excuse, but I am asking you to please accept

  my apology.”

  Alexis’s eyes widened as far as her lids could open

  and as soon as she was able to process the words she

  threw her tiny arms around her father’s neck, squeezing

  as hard as she could. Rose burst into tears and hugged

  both of them; crying felt good right now and for once, it

  was for a happy occasion. She doubted she would ever

  tell Mike about the dream she had at the hospital, but

  never again would she fail to listen to her daughter.

  They thanked the officers and hugged Mirna

  Thompson who stood in the corner crying her eyes out,

  then they walked out of the bus terminal holding hands.

  Before she got in the car, Alexis hesitated for a

  moment and Mike asked her if she was okay.

  “I’m fine, Daddy, but I think I lost something that

  belongs to Ms. Kathy. I was playing with a lighter I

  found on a table in her studio while I was there, and I

  accidentally put it in my backpack. I wanted to bring it

  back to her but I lost it. Do you think it was important to

  her, like the one that belonged to Granddaddy?”

  “There is only one way to find out, Alexis. Let’s go

  home and call her.”

  “Daddy…” Alexis said in a small voice, sadness

  once again darkening her delicate features, “I was going

  to see Kathy to tell her something important that Lily

  said.”

  “Yes? What is it, Alexis?”

  “The people who killed Tracey are going to kill Ms.

  Kathy’s boyfriend if someone doesn’t stop them.”

  #

  Mary Townsend lay in bed staring at the ceiling.

  She missed Shannon, and knew that if Shannon lived,

  she would have some serious changes to make. Of

  course, there was a possibility that Shannon would go to

  jail, if it turned out that she was indeed involved in

  Tracey’s murder. Could her Shannon be a killer?

  Everything was possible of course, and in her own

  troubled life Mary had learned not to trust anyone

  completely. Starting from her mother, the relationships

  she forged in her life always left her stranded. The worst

  one to date was certainly the relationship she had with

  the foster father who raped her repeatedly, and Mary

  held her birth mother responsible for it – had she not

  abandoned her at an early age, Mary wouldn’t have been

  in that predicament. After years of abuse, she was

  finally old enough to run away and make it on her own,

  but her view of men was forever damaged, and her

  anger was so intense she felt overpowered by it. She

  dated a few girls after that, and enjoyed intercourse with

  them; for once, she didn’t have to lay in the darkness

  crying and hurting. None of the girls she dated ever

  captured her heart, until she met Shannon. Knowing that

  Shannon saw her as a hero allowed her to bask into the

  sunshine of her heightened self-image. Shannon was

  everything she ever wanted – she was beautiful, kind

  and gentle, and most of all, she needed Mary. Shannon

  wasn’t able to harm a fly – or was she?

  The arrow of a painful doubt pierced through the

  fibers of her consciousness and spread like wildfire. She

  sat up in bed and ran a hand through her hair, unable to

  shake the feeling of foreboding in her heart, so she got

  up and went to the living room. She sat on the couch

  and looked for the TV remote, cursing loudly when she

  couldn’t locate it. She turned on the lamp beside the

  couch and got on her hands and knees to see if it had

  fallen on the floor, but something sharp went through

  her knee and she involuntarily screamed. When she

  lifted her knee she saw a drop of blood erupting from a

  tiny puncture wound, so she ran her hand over the carpet

  to see if she could find what pricked her. Her hand came

  into contact with a small hard object and she picked it

  up to look at it. It was a small diamond earring, one of

  two that her mother had given her the last day she saw

  her. Mary laughed when that gift was given to her, and

  her anger came forth in waves. She clearly remembered

  throwing the closed box on the floor in the kitchen, and

  her mother’s boyfriend picking up and opening it to

  ensure the earrings were still inside. Mary told them

  both to leave and never come back, and when they did,

  Yago was clutching the box safely in his hand, with both

  earrings in it. How could one of those earrings be on the

  carpet right now? Had he come back to the apartment

  when she was gone?

  Thinking about her mother’s boyfriend made her

  even angrier, probably because she knew her mother had

  chosen his company all for the wrong reasons. Her

  mother never actually came out and said it, but his

  resemblance to Mary’s brother was so uncanny that

  Mary was sure her mother was dating him only because

  she felt closer to her lost son that way.

  Suddenly she thought of something…the cops had

  mentioned that the man who tried to kill Shannon at the

  hospital was Jack, but Mary knew Jack was not in town

  when the attack occurred. She hadn’t told anyone, but

  Jack had found some photos of Tracey he felt were

  particularly beautiful when he cleaned his bedroom

  closet, and had taken them to a photo shop to have them

  copied – he didn’t want to separate from them, but he

  also wanted her family to have them, especially the one

  of Tracey and her little sister together. He didn’t want to

  send them in the mail, so he bought a bus ticket to bring

  the photos in person; according to what he told Mary, it

  was his chance to also apologize for his past behavior.

  He never meant to scare Tracey, and he wished to

  express to her family how much he truly loved her.

  Actually, Mary thought that he loved Tracey too much,

  and if she had any doubts before, they were quickly

  wiped off when she saw the creepy shrine to Tracy in his

  apartment. Mary never went to Jack’s place, even if she

  had a key, and she was just as surprised as the two

  detectives who went in with her.

  Jack was gone when Shannon was attacked, and yet

  the man who attacked her fit his description. Yago! How

  could she have not thought of him?

  She sprang from the floor and ran to grab the phone

  to call the number hand-written on the back o
f

  Lieutenant Lackey’s business card. She was greeted by

  an answering machine and slammed the phone down.

  She had to warn the Lieutenant before someone else got

  hurt, but first of all she had to get some answers, and the

  only place she could find them, she was sure, was at her

  mother’s house.

  Chapter 20

  Parker had been a police officer long enough to

  know that under no circumstance he should put the life

  of a hostage in danger, and Tom’s agonized scream

  meant that he wasn’t alone; the worst thing he could do

  was to alert the other person of his presence. He got in

  his car and moved it to the next block, and thought

  about calling for reinforcement but decided against it –

  he never before went against procedures but in this case

  the hostage was his friend. He practically ran back to the

  house and looked for a way in, and cursed under his

  breath when he found that all the doors were locked.

  One look at the kitchen window made him want to

  scream for joy: The glass panes weren’t properly aligned

  which probably meant that the lock wasn’t fully

  engaged. With a moderate amount of pressure, the lock

  gave in and the pane slid up creating a passage way for

  Parker to enter the house.

  The kitchen was deserted and he couldn’t hear any

  sounds from anywhere in the house, aside from a

  grandfather clock loudly ticking away in the living

  room. Using the wall for cover he inched toward the

  doorway and scoped the room adjacent to the kitchen –

  it was furnished exclusively with antique pieces and a

  baby grand piano set at an angle in the far right corner.

  The blinds were closed to shield away the heat of the

  day, leaving the room in a semi-darkness which

  conferred an even more austere feel to the ambience.

  With his gun drawn, Parker made his way through

  the room and came to a small door situated directly

  across from the staircase. He put his ear to the door to

  listen for sounds coming from the inside, but everything

  was quiet. He tried the handle and was happy to find

  that it wasn’t locked, so he turned it as softly as he could

  and cracked the door, but before he could open it fully,

  the mouth of a gun appeared from the doorway across

  the foyer and Parker froze.

  A figure suddenly appeared behind the gun, only a

  few feet away from Parker. “Drop the gun, brother.”

  Parker didn’t argue, and let his gun fall by his feet.

  “Put your hands behind your head and open the

  door, then start going down the stairs slowly.”

  Parker did as instructed and was grateful that the

  stairs weren’t completely dark. The man moved behind

  him, keeping the gun so close behind his head that

  Parker thought he could smell the scent of metal. When

  they reached the bottom of the stairs, the man pushed

  Parker into a darkened corner toward a figure whose

  face was bathed in crusted, darkened blood. It didn’t

  take him long to recognize the man.

  “Oh my God…Tom…”

  The man watching the scene stood smiling, one of

  his hands clapping against his wrist. “Well, aren’t you

  the smart one, Detective? You found us after all. That’s

  really too bad that you won’t be able to tell anybody.”

  He made Parker lay on the floor and removed the

  handcuffs from his back pocket, then slid them across

  his wrists and snapped them shut.

  With his face pushed against the floor, Parker didn’t

  immediately see the other figure descending the stairs,

  but Tom did, and his breath caught in his lungs.

  Illuminated by the single light bulb on the stairs, her

  face appeared even uglier than Tom remembered when

  he saw Yvonne Fowler the first time at the warehouse of

  Caldwell & Sons . He was sure she was the same person

  who called him and accused Brad Johnson of the

  murder.

  “Oh my, look who came to visit! Two fine officers

  from our wonderful police department.” She said with

  an affected smile that accentuated the deep lines in her

  face and made Tom shiver.

  “Yes,” Yago picked up her line and carried it

  forward, “we should offer them some tea, Sweetheart.

  After all, we are in the south and we can’t forget about

  hospitality.”

  Tom tried to move but his hands were tied so tightly

  behind his back that his arms wouldn’t even budge. He

  licked his lips to moisten them and when he spoke his

  voice came out as a cracked whisper. “Why? Why did

  you kill Tracey?”

  The woman burst into bitter laughter. “Why? I

  thought you were smarter than that, Lieutenant. Tracey

  Newman was a whore who used my son and then

  dropped him like a hot potato when she was done with

  him. She accused him of stalking her and blocked him

  from even talking to her. Do you know what her

  rejection did to him?”

  Tom was confused. “Your son? Who’s your son?”

  “Oh, so you haven’t connected the dots yet, I see.

  My son is Jack Little, the man everyone suspects of

  killing that little slut. He even tried to change his name

  and start anew, but you couldn’t leave him alone.”

  “Your son has a shrine in his apartment with photos

  of Tracey. What do you call that if not insanity?”

  Yvonne’s face contorted into an angry, twisted

  mask, as she raised her foot and kicked Tom in the

  mouth. “Be careful about what you say, Lieutenant. My

  son wasn’t a stalker. His only sin was to love that

  woman; God only knows why. I was the one who

  encouraged him to create that little corner of happiness.

  Being near that woman made him happy and that’s all I

  cared about.”

  Parker couldn’t move, but he turned his face to the

  side to take a better look of the woman. Tom shook his

  head. “But why? If you didn’t like Tracey, and you felt

  she deserved to die, why did you support his love for

  her?”

  “You couldn’t understand, Lieutenant. My son loved

  her and she rejected him.”

  “Why do you feel so responsible for your son’s

  relationships, Yvonne?”

  The look on Yvonne’s face changed from angry to

  sad. “Because I was never able to protect him and make

  him happy when he was a little boy. Now is all I have.”

  The woman was mad, of that Tom had no doubt, but

  he couldn’t understand how her boyfriend could support

  her ideas. He shifted his gaze to look at Yago standing

  beside Yvonne; nothing registered in his eyes but sheer

  adoration for the woman. Why? Maybe if he could

  understand his motive he could find a way to play on his

  emotions and find his way back to freedom.

  “Do you agree with all this, Yago?”

  Yago nodded, his eyes still focused on his beloved.

  “Yvonne is like the mother I always wished to have. I

  wish my mother could have loved me enough to look
/>
  out for me. I support everything Yvonne does.”

  So there was a catch – like Yvonne’s children, Yago

  grew up without the safety net provided by a caring

  mother, and when he met Yvonne he fell in love with her

  mission to be there for the children she was hoping to

  reunite with. Maybe, if he found a way to show Yago a

  different side of Yvonne – maybe the side of her

  abandoning her children at a young age – he would be

  free from her spell.

  “So your mother left you too, Yago?”

  Yago’s face hardened. “Yes. Drugs were more

  important than I was.”

  “Was that what happened to you, Yvonne? Did you

  get involved with drugs and gave up your children?”

  “No! That’s not the way it played out. My children

  were ripped away from me.”

  “But why, Yvonne? Did social services come in?”

  “I…I went to jail for something stupid. I was caught

  stealing from the store I worked at. It was a long time

  ago.”

  “So you chose material things over your children?

  You knew you were going to lose them if you got

  caught.”

  Anger spread across Yvonne’s face and her hand

  reached into her jacket pocket from which she pulled

  out a small .45 and pointed its mouth directly toward

  Tom’s face. That unexpected turn of events convinced

  him that it was best to change his tactics. Yvonne’s face

  was streaked with pain so intense Tom feared she would

  shoot at any moment.

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant! I loved my children,

  and I was only stealing to give them what they needed

  after their fathers left us penniless. But someone like

  you would never understand what it is like to struggle

  and to wonder how you will feed your children the next

  time they cry because they are hungry. My boyfriend at

  the time was a drug addict, and he split after I was

  arrested. When the police found drugs in my house, they

  assumed they were mine.”

  “I understand, Yvonne. You were only doing what

  any loving mother would have done.”

  “You’re right, Lieutenant. And that’s why that

  woman had to die, and her little boyfriends had to

  suffer.”

  A sudden realization hit Tom square in the chest.

  “Did you put the bloody T-shirt in Brad Johnson’s car?”

  Yvonne sneered. “That’s a dumb one right there, so

  that was an easy job – Brad Johnson is too cocky to

  even lock his vehicle. It wasn’t hard. Just as it wasn’t