Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  For a long time there was nothing, then I heard it again. A soft, rhythmic crunching, like footsteps.

  The sound stopped. I waited, my heart pounding in my ears. It had seemed to come from outside, by the driveway. I listened hard for other, closer sounds. I thought I heard a creak. And then nothing.

  The only telephone was in the kitchen, at the front of the house. The stretch of darkness between here and there was like uncharted space. Avoid of untold peril.

  But I couldn’t simply lie there, either.

  I slid out of bed as if in slow motion, pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt. As I reached for my shoes, my arm knocked against the nightstand. I froze, anticipating a quickened shuffling in response.

  But the house was still.

  Then I heard a low hiss, coming again from somewhere outside.

  Moving as quickly as I dared, I felt my way along the wall to the bedroom closet where my father kept his shotgun. I’d left it there, out of harm’s reach, when I’d learned Goodwill wouldn’t accept firearms.

  I hadn’t fired a gun since my father had taken me duck hunting for my thirteenth birthday. I’d practiced all summer on old cans out back, and I hit a duck almost immediately. I strutted along behind my father when we went to retrieve it. And then vomited as I watched him ring its neck for the final kill. I haven’t eaten duck since. Nor, until that night, had I touched a gun.

  I felt for the box of shells, slid one into each chamber and another two into my pocket. Not that the extras offered much beyond peace of mind. If I had to reload, it was already too late.

  At the closet door I stopped to listen again. Then I carefully tiptoed into the kitchen, checking for unexpected shadows along the way. It was a warm night, and I’d left the windows cracked, but as far as I could tell, none had been opened farther. The back porch door remained locked as well.

  It was small comfort, but it was something.

  I was reaching for the phone when I heard a frantic scurrying outside, followed by a loud crash. Then car alarm began to shrill. And mingled in with all of it was the yelping of a very agitated dog. I went to the front door and flipped on the outside lights.

  There, where I’d parked it earlier, was my lovely, new BMW — with tires slashed, a window shattered, and kindergarten-style splashes of red paint covering the doors and hood. My heart, which had been in my throat for what seemed an eternity, dropped suddenly to the pit of my stomach. Not even a thousand miles on the odometer, and the thing looked ready for the salvage yard.

  What with the alarm’s wailing and Loretta’s yapping and my heart dropping, it took a moment to make out the figure sprawled on the car’s roof — George Marrero, hunched on all fours, intent on fending off Loretta with a can of spray paint.

  I unlocked the door and stepped slowly out, keeping the gun raised and ready. The alarm continued to wail, and Loretta continued to yap so I had to scream to make myself heard. “I’ve got a gun here,” I shouted, “so don’t try anything funny.”

  “Call him off,” George shouted back. “Call the goddamn dog off.” His face glistened, and there were dark circles of sweat under his arms.

  “It’s a her, ”1 said, “not a him.”

  “Call her off then, for Christ’s sake.” In desperation, George flung the can at Loretta, missing her by several feet.

  This, of course, only made Loretta bark more frantically. And her tail wag even harder. In spite of whatever guard dog instincts she may have possessed, she was clearly having the time of her life. It was probably the most excitement she’d seen.

  George had leaned over to toss the can, and now pulled back as Loretta leapt once again against the side of the car. “Call her off, would you.” It came out as an order rather than a request.

  I readied the gun, then called Loretta’s name, as much to protect what was left of the car’s finish as to appease George. In an instant, she stopped her barking and sat, but her body continued to wiggle with excitement.

  “Can’t you put the gun away, too?” he asked.

  “You must be joking.”

  The car alarm cycled off, and I lowered my voice. But I raised the gun to eye level. I wished now I’d thought to phone the police before coming outside. I was having a hard time figuring out the logistics of keeping my eye on George and calling the cops at the same time. “Slide down off the car now, nice and slow. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “You going to hold the dog?”

  “Move it,” I said, keeping my voice low and gruff.

  George hesitated, his eyes wide and fixed on Loretta.

  “Oh, for goodness sakes.” I grabbed her collar, and George slid off the roof. There was a sharp grating sound as the metal from his belt buckle scratched the car’s finish. I winced.

  “I knew this was a stupid idea,” he said when he was once again on firm ground.

  “Damn right, it’s stupid. And a whole lot more.”

  “It wasn’t my idea in the first place.”

  “Whose was it then?” George started to tuck his hands in his pockets. “Hands up,” I told him, “on top of your head.” The hands went up, begrudgingly.

  “It was Carla’s idea. I told her it wouldn’t work.”

  “Carla?”

  “She was only trying to help me out. I mean, it’s not really her problem. Look, do I really have to keep my hands up like this? I feel ridiculous.”

  “Is that so?” He wasn’t winning my sympathy. “Keep your hands where they are and start moving toward the house.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  ‘You’re not going to do anything. I’m going to call the police.”

  “The police?”

  “What did you expect, a sit-down meal?”

  “Listen, I know you’re upset, but do you really have to call the police? I’d prefer that this whole thing didn’t get out.”

  George hadn’t budged, and I was getting angrier by the minute. “Get moving.”

  He started for the porch, dragging his feet like a schoolboy. I followed, one hand on the gun, the other on Loretta’s collar.

  Once inside, I ordered him to sit against the far wall of the living room. There was nothing there he could grab as a weapon, and I could see him easily from the phone in the kitchen. I kept Loretta in tow, as though I were restraining her. Only a person truly terrified by dogs would have been fooled, but George apparently fit the description.

  “I’ll pay for the damage,” he said, lowering himself awkwardly onto the threadbare rug. “The spray paint is water soluble, and I can have someone out to replace the tires first thing in the morning. The window was an accident. The damn dog was chasing me, so I threw a brick. Only I missed and hit the window.”

  I backed into the kitchen, keeping the gun pointed at George.

  “I was just trying to scare you off, is all,” George said.

  “Well you’ve made your point loud and clear.” I held the gun over my forearm, freeing my hands for the phone. “But you’re a little late. I’ve pretty much figured it out. You’ve been skimming money from the business, probably have been for years. You managed to cheat Eddie’s father pretty easily, but you knew it would be hard to pull that kind of stunt with Eddie. That’s why you were so anxious to buy Susie’s interest and force him out. When she decided to sell to Eddie instead, you got desperate and killed him.”

  “Killed him?” George mopped his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Surely you don’t think—”

  “You and Carla have a nice little scam going there with Foothill Cleaning. Tell me, what do you do with the money? Is it drugs?”

  “You think that I killed Eddie?” His voice had a kind of squeak to it, like a broken record. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “We’ll let the police decide that. And while we’re at it, maybe you can tell them about Cheryl, too.”

  George stared at me. His face went white, and fresh beads of sweat appeared on his brow. Then he dropped his head to his hands and moaned. “I
should have known. You can’t keep a thing like that quiet.”

  It had been something of a stab in the dark, but it appeared I’d been right. “Those photos may not be technically obscene, but that’s irrelevant when you’re dealing with girls that age.” My disgust was apparent in the tone of my voice. “Did you ever stop to think what it would do to them? What emotional scars it would leave?”

  George remained hunched over. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.

  “I think you do.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t kill Eddie. And if you think I’d do anything to harm Cheryl, you’re crazy.” He looked up. “After all, she’s my only child.”

  Chapter 24

  Maybe it would be best,” I said, hanging up the phone and moving back into the living room, “if you started at the beginning.”

  George stared glumly at his two thumbs.

  “Is Cheryl involved in this scam you and Carla are running?”

  “It’s not a scam. All I’m trying to do is help support my daughter.”

  “Opening a phony business account is a funny way to go about it”

  “Yeah, well I couldn’t exactly write a personal check, now could I? Not without Gloria finding out.” He moved his eyes from his thumbs to my face. “Look, can I move to the sofa or something? My back is killing me.”

  I nodded, but kept the gun ready. George pushed himself off the floor and lumbered to the sofa. He sat heavily, arms crossed against his chest.

  “Go on,” I said.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Carla and I had an affair. A long time ago.”

  “Like fifteen years?”

  The look he gave me was biting. “My wife and I were going through a rough time, and Carla was . . . well, there was something almost electric about her. At least I thought so at the time.”

  George’s face no longer glistened with sweat, but he looked uncomfortable all the same. He shifted, uncrossing and then re-crossing his arms. “We’d been seeing each other about six months when she told me she was pregnant. I offered to pay for an abortion, but she wasn’t interested. I don’t know whether she really wanted a kid, or just some hold over me. By then some of the novelty had begun to wear off. I think she realized I was pulling away.”

  “So she blackmailed you?”

  “It wasn’t blackmail, really. Carla asked for support, and I agreed. There was always the chance she would take me to court and sue for support anyway. This way I could keep it quiet, keep Gloria from finding out.”

  Sounded an awful lot like blackmail to me, but I guess maybe, like the glass that’s either half-full or half-empty, it’s all in how you look at it.

  “It was right about then that my wife developed cancer. We’d tried for years to have a child ourselves. Lots of waiting and two miscarriages. Then with the cancer, she had to have a hysterectomy. Learning about Carla would have destroyed her.”

  “And Carla accepted this arrangement?” I asked. I’d known a woman in a similar situation. She’d gone after the gold band as well as the support.

  “Once she realized I wasn’t going to leave Gloria, I guess she figured there was nothing to be gained by creating a scene. She was already getting money. And then she met up with some new guy not long after. By the time that died out, there was a lot of distance between us.”

  I’d taken a seat across the room from George. Although I no longer had my finger on the trigger, the gun was in my lap, within easy reach. As a concession to the easy flow of words, however, I’d left Loretta locked in kitchen.

  “But there was no scam,” George insisted. “I never cheated my brother. I paid Carla off in cash from the business, but I kept tabs. He always got his fair share.”

  “Then when he died, you did everything you could to keep Eddie out.”

  “I offered to pay him fair and square, but he wouldn’t give up.” George mopped his brow. “Last thing I needed was somebody looking over my shoulder.”

  “So you phonied the books. You tried to fool him.”

  “I tried to protect Gloria.” George smoothed his hair, looked at me, then looked away. “Eddie wanted to examine the books. He wanted an accounting of everything. So I came up with the idea of Foothill Cleaning. I’d make a deposit into the account, Carla would pull it out. The money flowed as it always had, only now it was accounted for. I didn’t want Gloria to find out, especially now, when the cancer has returned.”

  “But Eddie figured it out anyway, right?”

  “If only he hadn’t been such a stickler for detail. The guy was obsessed with learning every aspect of the business. I offered him and Susie, both, a fair price. But he got this bee in his bonnet about running the business himself.”

  “So you killed him.”

  George blinked and leaned forward, half-rising out of his seat. A vein in his temple throbbed. “I told you before, I didn’t kill him! He’s family, for Christ’s sake. My dead brother’s son.”

  “You have a pretty strong motive for wanting to see him dead.”

  “I wanted to keep this thing about Carla from blowing up, but I never wanted to see Eddie dead. What do you take me for anyway?”

  When I didn’t answer, George sat back and glared at me.

  “You’re right about one thing,” he said finally. “Eddie figured out Foothill Cleaning was phony. Like I told you the other day, though, we’d reached an understanding. I hadn’t wanted a partner at first, and Eddie, well, he was full of crazy ideas about expanding the business. But after he found out about Carla, we had a heart-to-heart. He understood. Was real nice about it. He could have held me up for money, or gone all righteous and threatened to tell his aunt. You never know about things like this. But he didn’t. ’Course, he knew Cheryl, maybe that made a difference. Anyway, we made our peace. Hell, in the end I was looking forward to having him there. Some of his ideas were actually pretty good. Then suddenly, he’s dead.”

  “You’ve got your business, and your secret is once again safe.” I shook my head in wonder. “How convenient.”

  “You still don’t believe me?”

  “What about the pictures of Cheryl and the other girls?” I asked.

  His brows furrowed. “What pictures?” He sounded genuinely perplexed.

  “Pictures of nude teenaged girls. You don’t know anything about that?”

  He shook his head. “One of them was Cheryl?”

  “One of Cheryl; five of other girls. Cheryl stashed the whole set at a friend’s house right after she saw Eddie last Saturday morning.”

  I watched George carefully. Not a hint that any of it sounded familiar. I ran a what-if by him anyway. “Cheryl’s your daughter. Eddie’s involved her in something sleazy. Seems like that might be another reason you’d want to see him dead.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about any pictures, and I didn’t kill Eddie. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  I leaned forward. “Why did you and Gloria postpone your flight to Tucson at the last minute?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “You were supposed to leave Saturday morning, then you changed plans at the last minute and didn’t leave until Sunday.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you had everyone believing you were in Tucson, while in truth you were still in town when Eddie was killed. That’s another convenient coincidence, don’t you think?”

  George tugged at his pants’ leg and coughed. A dry, hoarse cough that brought a pink flush to his cheeks. “I was having prostate trouble,” he said, averting his eyes. “We changed our flight so I could see the doctor. You can call him and check.”

  The guy looked embarrassed enough, maybe that part was true. “And what about me? What about this stuff with my car?”

  The pink flush grew deeper. “Like I said, it was a stupid idea. Jannine mentioned that you had Eddie’s files, and then at the funeral you started asking all those questions about the tave
rn. And you mentioned Cheryl. Last night, when you showed up with a newsman, I was already getting antsy, and then this morning I get a frantic call from Carla. I figured you were ready to blow the whole thing. I guess I panicked.” He looked at me. “Carla made it sound so simple. She probably got the idea from one of those idiotic television shows she watches.”

  “Were the fish guts her idea, too?”

  “What are you talking about? What fish guts?”

  “And earlier this evening, were you only trying to scare me when you practically ran me over? You could have killed me, you know.”

  George shook his head in bewilderment. “Either you’ve got a good imagination, or there’s something going on here I don’t know about. I was at the tavern all evening. Ask anyone there.”

  “And you don’t know anything about a florist’s box filled with fish entrails?”

  George choked. His complexion turned from pink to green. “You think I’d get involved in something like that? I can’t even cut up a raw chicken without feeling sick.” We eyed each other warily.

  “What kind of car do you drive?” I asked finally. I was suddenly aware that the answers weren’t coming the way I wanted them to.

  “A Toyota.”

  “What color?”

  “Maroon. It’s parked down at the bottom of the hill.” He paused. “Look, if you call police on this, they’ll make a formal report and that will lead to all kinds of trouble. There’s no way I could keep something like that from Gloria, even if it didn’t make the papers.” His voice was strained, his tone almost pleading. He looked like a man cornered.

  I hesitated.

  “Please. Think about Gloria, about what it would do to her. I am sorry about your car, really. I’ll have someone come out and take care of everything.”

  I was angry about the car, but involving the police wasn’t going to get it fixed any quicker. And I’d taken a liking to Gloria when I met her. Besides, I was inclined to believe George. As far as his story went anyway. It made sense, though it left a lot of questions unanswered as well.