Trouble Magnet

by DelSheree Gladden

  “What do you keep mumbling?” Gwen asked when she slipped into the kitchen for a break.

  I looked over at her in surprise. “I didn’t realize I was mumbling anything.”

  “You’ve been doing it all night. It sounded like states.”

  Leaning against the wall where we kept the aprons, I closed my eyes. “Places Officer Williams worked before coming to New York. I can’t get it out of my head.”

  “Why would that matter?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “There’s just something about it that’s been bugging me. Maybe it’s just all the dirty tricks he’s pulled over his career.”

  “What are the places?” Gwen asked.

  “Texas, Europe, Pennsylvania, Southern California, and New York.” I rubbed at my neck, muscles taught from work and nerves. “Texas twice, actually. Before and after his four years in the military overseas.”

  “Where in Europe? My brother’s in Germany right now. He was hoping for something more exotic, but he actually said Germany is really beautiful and he loves it there now.” She smiled. “He keeps trying to talk me into coming to visit him, but I just don’t have the money right now.”

  Frowning, I wondered at the answer to her question. It didn’t say where he was stationed in Europe. Gordy hadn’t sent Officer Williams’ actual personnel record. I doubted he was even supposed to be looking at private information like that and figured he’d called in a favor just like Baxter had. The summary he’d sent Baxter simply said Europe. Usually I kept my phone in the breakroom, but after Saul had left, I’d stuck it in my back pocket in case Baxter or Sonya tried to get a hold of me. Poor Sonya had been texting me all day in between dealing with having Ms. Sinclair’s stuff hauled off. She was nearly as anxious as I was.

  I had planned to call her when the rush died down, but as I pulled out my phone, I went back to my emails instead. After reading the message from Gordy twice and finding nothing new, I noticed his cell phone number below the message in the signature line. I didn’t know this guy. He’d been doing Baxter a big favor looking into any of this. I was desperate, though.

  Tapping the number, I put the phone to my ear and hoped he would answer.

  “Detective Gordon,” he answered on the third ring.

  “Um, hi, this is Eliza Carlisle. Baxter’s friend. I’m sorry for calling you, but I needed to ask you something.”

  He was quiet for a moment, probably wondering how I got his phone number. I hoped I wasn’t going to get Baxter in trouble and I hoped just as hard that this guy wouldn’t hang up on me.

  “Eliza, hi,” he said uncertainly. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, for now. A couple of cops are watching the diner while I’m at work.”

  “Good.” He paused again. “You said you had a question?”

  I was sure he was wondering why I hadn’t relayed this through Baxter. I didn’t really have a good answer for that, other than being too scared to think of it. “Um, yes, if you’re not busy.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s about Officer Williams. I was just wondering if you knew where he was stationed in Europe.”

  He seemed confused by my question, and I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t even know why I was asking. “I believe it was Greece for two years, then Italy for the last two. He was discharged about eight years ago. Why?”

  The list of states ran through my head again, but this time more specific, more complete.

  Texas, Italy, Texas, Pennsylvania, SoCal, New York.

  Then a new list snapped to the forefront of my mind.

  Robert Porter, Elizabeth Escobar, Phyllis Ormond, Elbert Cruz, Constance Michaels, Peter Denish, Mark Little…and Maria Sinclair.

  “It can’t be,” I whispered. My hands were shaking. All of me was shaking. Gwen grabbed my arm looking panicked.

  “What can’t be?” Gordy asked.

  I was on my way to hyperventilating. I had to focus, force myself to breathe so I could answer him. “The places. They match.” I had to fight my breathing again, feeling lightheaded suddenly. “They match the deaths. They can’t, though. Most of them were natural causes, right?”

  “Eliza,” Gordy said firmly, “I’m not following. What deaths?”

  “From the obituaries we found. Ms. Sinclair’s friends, the ones who killed Donny. They’re all dead, in order.”

  “In order of what?” he demanded.

  I gulped down breath after breath. “Of where Officer Williams worked.”

  I heard shuffling of papers, something tipping over.

  “Oh, shit,” Gordy said. “You’re right. I missed it.” He was silent for a few more seconds as he moved more papers around, then said, “He worked in or near every city one of them died in. I can’t believe I didn’t see this earlier.”

  Hearing him confirm my theory was the last straw. My knees buckled and only Gwen holding onto me forced me to land on a box of potatoes instead of the floor.

  “I’m calling this in right now. He needs to be brought in for questioning, at the very least.”

  “But,” I said, “some of them died of regular things. Cancer, heart attack. He couldn’t have done that, right?”

  Gordy grunted. “You’d be surprised what people can do to make a death look like natural causes, especially if someone was already sick. Who’s going to do an autopsy on a cancer patient? He may not have murdered all of them, but this is too big of a coincidence not to look into it. If nothing else, Baxter witnessed him assault you. Provided you’re willing to press charges, we can hold him on that until we uncover more.”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “I was just scared before. I didn’t know if I could trust the other cops.”

  A low growl rumbled across the line and I heard more shuffling and shifting. “That’s what assholes like Williams do. They make you afraid of the police, so no one reports what he’s doing. It’s how they survive as long as they do pulling this kind of shit.” He said something else, but it was far away, like he was talking into a different phone or someone in the room with him. He came back a moment later, speaking to me again. “We’re going to make this right, Eliza. Don’t hang up, okay? I’m sending uniforms to Williams’ apartment right now. They were already watching his building, so it shouldn’t take long.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  I couldn’t breathe as I waited. I felt numb, desperate for this to be over. I couldn’t find the diamond. If they didn’t catch him tonight, he would kill me. I knew he would. He’d killed all the others. Most of them, anyway. Elbert Cruz’s car accident had always been under suspicion, and I was sure Gordy was right that there were ways to make a death look natural. With older people, it probably wouldn’t even be investigated most of the time. What would he do to me?

  It was an eternity later when Gordy spoke again. “Eliza,” he said slowly, instantly alerting me that something wasn’t right. “I don’t want you to panic, but Williams isn’t in his apartment. Nobody saw him leave the building, but he’s gone. We don’t know where he is right now.”

  23: Crashing Down

  I slapped my hand over my mouth to cover a scream when the door to the kitchen swung open. My heart started beating again when I realized it was Baxter. I was trembling too much to move, so he came to me. Still dressed in the suit he probably wore to court that day, he kneeled in front of me.

  “Eliza, calm down. Freaking out isn’t going to help anything.”

  I almost slapped him for saying that to me. Gwen threw him a dirty look on my behalf.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked in between shaky breaths.

  “Gordy texted me.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I missed the connection. I completely passed off where Williams had worked before moving here. The misconduct was my main concern.”

  There was a voice in the background, someone saying something, but I had trouble focusing on it. Baxter yanked my phone out of my hand and started pacing as he spoke to Gordy. Gwen was still holding my hand to
make sure I didn’t collapse or fall over or something. When the bell on the diner door rang, she looked over at me with a pained expression. Feeling slightly calmer, I motioned for her to go ahead, but I stayed sitting on the potatoes.

  A few minutes later, Gwen gave me an apologetic look as she clipped a ticket to the carousel. I didn’t want to get Saul involved in all of this, so short of calling Sean and trying to talk him into covering for me, I was pretty much it. Baxter’s gaze snapped over to me when I stood, but he didn’t try to stop me from doing my job. I put the order up twenty minutes later and looked to him for an update.

  “They still haven’t found him,” Baxter said with his hand over the phone.

  That was all I got before he went back to his discussion with Gordy. I tried to do the same. Orders were painfully slow, and I ran out of things to clean too quickly. I ended up pacing, straightening things, restocking, and worrying as the hours dragged on. By closing time, Officer Williams was still in the wind.

  Baxter had given me my phone back at some point, switching to his to make calls and receive text updates from Gordy as the search turned up nothing. Remembering I had never called Sonya, I took my phone out of my pocket. I was in the middle of bringing up her number when my phone buzzed, sending a jolt of adrenaline through my system. Baxter’s voice in my head told me to calm down. Even though I wrinkled my nose at the advice, I tried.

  At least until I tapped on the text notification that had come from a blocked number.

  The police won’t protect you. I want the diamond by tomorrow night. Don’t disappoint me.

  The phone slipped from my fingers, clattering against the tile and drawing Baxter’s attention. He was next to me a second later, picking up my phone, making a call on his. I heard him give Gordy permission to put a tap or trace or something that started with a T on my phone to try and figure out where the unknown number had sent the text from. Or maybe it was to catch him if he called or texted again. I wasn’t sure which. I wasn’t entirely sure it was legal for Baxter to give them consent when it was my phone. Maybe he was acting as my lawyer? Did I have to sign something for that, to make it official? Did it matter if I was going to be dead by tomorrow night?

  Probably not.

  Baxter grabbed my backpack and pushed me out of the kitchen and into the dining area. He had a hold of my arm with one hand and was holding his phone to his ear with the other one. I wasn’t sure where my phone had gone, but I didn’t particularly want it back if Officer Williams was going to text me with threats.

  “A couple of officers will follow you home,” he told Gwen. “They don’t think you’re in any danger, but they don’t want to take any chances. Don’t go anywhere else tonight, got it?”

  Gwen nodded. She hugged me hard and fast then darted over to her car, which someone must have moved from the back of the restaurant at some point. Baxter started shoving me again, this time into his car. I managed to buckle myself in and Baxter shut the door. He was beside me a few seconds later and he drove us straight home with a pair of cops following us the entire way.

  It should have made me feel safer, but it didn’t. Officer Williams had been getting away with skirting the law for a long time. I believed him when he said the police couldn’t protect me. He would find a hole in their surveillance at some point, and when he did…I wouldn’t have what he wanted.

  Sonya clobbered me when we made it into the lobby. She was crying. I wanted to cry, too, but I was too numb. Baxter practically had to peel her off me and yell at her to get her to go back to her apartment. She argued that she should stay with me, but when Baxter lost his temper and said he wasn’t going to put anyone else in Officer Williams’ path, and if she didn’t go back to her apartment he’d have one of the officers watching the exits come in and make her, she backed down.

  I mouthed that I was sorry as Baxter dragged me toward the stairs. She nodded, tears running down her cheeks as she turned back toward her apartment. I wanted to tell Baxter he didn’t have to be so mean, but the expression on his face kept me quiet. I didn’t object when he unlocked his apartment door and shoved me in. I hadn’t wanted to go back to my place anyway.

  Baxter said nothing as I left him to deal with the deadbolt and my backpack he was still carrying. I kicked off my shoes on the way to his bedroom and skipped brushing my teeth. I was curled up on his bed, breathing in the scent of spices his pillows always carried, when he made it into the room. He pulled the blankets out from under my body and settled them over me. He moved to the other side of the bed and collapsed next to me. Everything came crashing down in a waterfall of tears. I was in his arms a second later, crying all over him. He didn’t even get mad at me for ruining his dress shirt.

  24: A Yowling Mess of Fur

  I woke up late. I woke up clinging to Baxter. My eyes were bleary, but the mascara stains I’d left on his shirt the night before were right next to where my face was squashed up against his chest. I looked up slowly, hoping fiercely that he was still asleep. Nope.

  “You okay?” he asked as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said quickly. I slid away from him, mumbling, “Sorry.”

  He pushed himself up in bed and scrubbed at his hair, leaving it standing up all over the place. I almost laughed. “It’s fine,” he mumbled. He still looked exhausted. He rolled his shoulder and caught sight of his shirt. “I’m going to send you the dry cleaning bill for this.”

  The corner of my mouth twitched. “I’d be more than happy to pay for that,” I said quietly. It would mean I’d still be alive. Dry cleaning bill in exchange for not dying. Seemed like a fair trade.

  Baxter stared at me, then shook his head. “I’m holding you to that, because everything is going to be fine.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t believe it. I wasn’t sure he did, either.

  Reaching for his phone, Baxter scrolled through messages and notifications. I waited, barely breathing. When he set it back down, I asked, “Any news?”

  “Not on Williams’ whereabouts,” he said. “They did get confirmation from several of his previous units that he was in town when the deaths from the obituaries happened, as well as from a military contact who said he was in Italy on leave near where Robert Porter died that week. Gordy also said that even though Williams never finished the criminal justice degree he started after high school, he took several classes on anatomy and physiology as well as forensics that dealt with toxicology reports and causes of death. It may have been enough to make some of these deaths look like natural causes when they weren’t. Honestly, though, all he’d need to know was what any person could find on the internet.”

  I was glad things were progressing, but I curled my arms around my knees. “That all sounds pretty circumstantial.”

  Baxter shrugged. “So far, but they’ll keep digging.”

  Not as encouraged as I wanted to be, I needed a few minutes alone. “Do you mind if I take a shower?”

  He nodded and got out of bed. “I’ll start some breakfast.”

  I felt a little weird undressing in Baxter’s bathroom, but I didn’t want to go back to my place quite yet. I didn’t even have any clean clothes to change into when I got out, but I didn’t care. The hot water eased away some of the tension knotting up my muscles as I stood under it. I washed my hair and body, smelling each of the soaps in hopes of finding the scent on Baxter’s pillows. Neither one matched, which was oddly disappointing. Half an hour later, I forced myself to turn off the water and get out.

  After drying off, I reached for my clothes from the day before and found a stack of folded clothes I didn’t recognize sitting on the top of the vanity. Had I not even noticed someone coming in while I was in the shower? That didn’t speak well of my chances of not getting snatched and killed. Was it Baxter who came in? Confused, but grateful, I pulled the clothes on and brushed out my wet hair. When I made it into the kitchen and saw Baxter, I gestured at the clothes in question.

  “Sonya,” he said. “I wouldn’t let her go into
your apartment, so she brought you some of hers.”

  I should have realized. “Where’d she go?”

  He shook his head. “Something about laying carpet and needing to watch the guy doing it.”

  “That’s right, the apartment that flooded. She thinks the guy is padding his hours and overcharging her.”

  Baxter shook his head, clearly not that interested. He switched gears as he set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me. “You’re not to leave this apartment today. No arguing. That comes directly from Detective Hollister.”

  “Are they still watching the building?”

  Nodding, Baxter set his own plate down and took a seat across from me. “Williams will turn up.”

  I couldn’t help glancing up at the clock on the microwave. Baxter saw me look, but didn’t say anything. Frowning at his eggs, he ate mechanically. I barely ate at all. He didn’t bug me about it, at least. When he stood and asked me if I was finished, he took my nearly full plate away without comment. He disappeared to shower after that and left me to sit on his couch with my knees pulled up to my chest.

  Jumping when my phone rang, I almost didn’t recognize my own ringtone. Between classes and work, I almost always had it on vibrate or silent lately. I scrambled up off the couch in search of the ringing and found it in Baxter’s jacket pocket. I answered the call just before it went to voicemail.

  “Hello?”

  “Eliza, is that you? It’s Maggie.”

  “Maggie, hi. Is everything all right?” I asked.

  She hesitated. “Well, I was hoping to ask you that. I got a call from a Detective Gordon last night asking me all kinds of questions about who else might know about the diamond. I couldn’t tell him anything more than I told you, but he didn’t really explain what was going on and I was worried you were in some kind of trouble.”