by Karen Leabo
Kyle clenched his fist, then stuck his hand into his pocket. If he heard Jess referred to as a “babe” one more time... “None. She’s not exactly warming up to me.” Even as the blatant lie left his lips, Kyle wondered why he was lying. It wouldn’t hurt his position any to tell them that Jess was opening up, that he’d actually kissed her. Easley might even okay a second night of stakeout if he thought another purpose was being served.
Clewis snickered. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Stuff it, Clewis,” Easley said, echoing Kyle’s thoughts. Kyle’s disgust toward the homicide detective was growing by exponential proportions. “We have another detail for you, if you’re interested,” Easley continued.
Kyle shrugged. “Sure.” Just so it got him out of this room before he decked someone.
“We’ve had a guy watching. Jess.”
“Yeah, and she spotted him, too. She mentioned it last night.”
“I hope you played dumb,” Clewis said.
“Since I didn’t know anything about the tail, what else could I do?”
“Anyway,” Easley said, “we need that man back on another case.”
“And you want me to tail Jess?” Kyle wasn’t sure he liked the idea.
“It’s mostly surveillance, not tailing,” Clewis said. “She doesn’t go anywhere, except for one trip to her lawyer’s office. There are lots of cars parked on her street, so it’s not difficult to blend in.”
Hah! Kyle thought. He would bet that nosy Mrs. Tanglemeyer spotted the strange vehicle within ten minutes of its parking on her street. Not that that would be a problem today. He happened to know Jess’s agenda, and she didn’t plan to stay home. He’d be tailing her all over town. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“On one condition,” Easley said. “It’s pretty obvious you want this girl to be innocent. Do I have your word you’ll report every single move she makes, even if it tends to be incriminating?”
“Jeez, Lieutenant, I might be naive, but I’m not crooked.”
“All right, all right,” Easley soothed.
But Kyle wasn’t finished. “I don’t think she killed her boyfriend, but if she proves me wrong I’m not going to withhold information. I don’t like her that much.” Another lie.
Kyle’s collar was starting to feel tight.
“Go check out a car, then. We’ll send someone to relieve you for the next shift.”
Kyle made a swift escape before Easley changed his mind. Sitting in a car for six or seven hours, watching Jess and unable to make contact with her, wasn’t his idea of fun. But if anyone was going to keep an eye on Jess Robinson, he’d just as soon be the one to do it.
“I’m really sorry I can’t help you, Jess. I haven’t seen him in over a year.” Dean Shane, a former law-school buddy of Terry’s, had been third on Jess’s list of Terry’s friends and associates to check out that day. The first one hadn’t been home. The second one had moved away.
She remembered meeting Dean at a party a couple of years ago and liking the thin, balding man. He’d been surprised to see her on his front porch this morning—and who could blame him? It was disconcerting to be suddenly confronted with a murder suspect. But once he’d gotten over his surprise, he’d been cordial and concerned. He’d offered Jess coffee and a quiet place to sit for a few minutes.
“If there’s anything I can do to help...” Dean said.
“Oh, you’ve helped already,” she replied. He’d given her a handful of mutual acquaintances of his and Terry’s, their addresses and phone numbers. More people to visit. She would be at this for days.
“If it means anything, I don’t believe all that crap they’ve printed in the paper,” Dean-said. “Terry’s a loose cannon. In fact, when I first met you, I remember being surprised that he’d hooked up with someone so nice.”
Jess looked down at the toes of her boots.
“If Terry’s missing, I’m a lot more inclined to believe that he disappeared on purpose than that someone killed him, especially you.”
“Thanks, Dean. That means a lot.” She drained her coffee cup. “I have to go. Lots more visits to make today. You have my number if you hear anything, or something occurs to you?”
“Right.”
Jess made her way down the front stairs of Dean’s apartment building. Cold wind whipped up under her broomstick skirt, making her wish she’d worn slacks. When she’d looked out the window this morning, the bright sun and blue sky had lulled her into a false sense of security about the temperature.
Sitting behind the wheel of her car, she crossed Dean’s name off the list, then sighed as she realized who the next candidate was. Brianna, of the lip print. Jess had found her address scribbled on the back of an envelope. Well, nothing to do but give her a try.
Brianna Trehom lived in an old frame house near the university. Judging from the three mailboxes lined up by the front door, the grand-old-lady house had been divided up into apartments suitable for student housing.
Jess rang the bell. Seconds later the front door swung open on squeaky hinges. A young—very young—blond woman stared at Jess from behind the screen door, her smile frozen on her face.
“You.”
“Excuse me?”
“Terry’s girlfriend. God, I told him he was crazy to stay with you, and now you’ve proved me right. You’ve got your nerve, coming here. What, did you come here to gloat? Did he threaten to leave you and you killed him? If you couldn’t have him, no one could, is that it?”
The young woman’s hostility stole Jess’s breath right out of her lungs. She supposed she ought to be getting used to it by now. But it still surprised her when someone spewed hate toward her. What had she ever done to inspire hate?
“Excuse me, are you Brianna—” she began, but the other woman cut her off.
“You know damn well who I am.” Tears welled up in her big blue eyes. “Now get away. Get off my porch, or I’ll call the cops, you...you murderer. Evil, you’re evil!”
“But I just want to ask—”
“Bruno!” Brianna yelled over her shoulder. Jess heard a noise that sounded like a stampeding rhinoceros. Before she could even register what was happening, Brianna opened the screen door and a mass of black hair and muscle exploded outside, all snarls and fangs.
Jess screamed and found herself balanced on the porch railing. “I’ll leave, already,” she cried out, feeling the rottweiler’s breath on her legs as it growled and snapped just inches short of making contact. “Call him off.”
Brianna didn’t do a thing. When Jess could tear her gaze away from that of the huge black dog, she saw Brianna standing behind the screen, looking faintly amused.
“Call him off!”
Both women, and even the dog, swiveled their heads toward the commanding male voice coming from behind Jess. Oh, God. She knew that voice.
“Kyle?”
“Police,” Kyle said. “Call him off or I’ll shoot him. I mean it.”
“No!” Brianna cried. “Bruno, come! Bruno, sit!” Since the dog did neither of those things, Brianna was forced to come out on the front porch and haul the beast away by its collar.
Kyle reholstered his gun inside his jacket as he climbed the stairs to the porch. “Lady, if you’re going to own a dog that mean, you need to have him better trained. He could kill someone.”
“I know,” Brianna said from behind the screen. “Why do you think I have him?”
“If he hurt someone, you could get in a lot of trouble.” Without sparing Jess a glance, he offered a hand to help her down from the porch railing. “Lawsuits, criminal charges—”
“I was protecting my home,” Brianna objected. “From a murderer.”
“Oh, yeah, she looks real menacing to me. But I don’t see a gun or a knife. You’d have a hard time pleading self-defense. Just a word to the wise.”
Jess, recovering her voice, thought to ask, “Aren’t you overreacting just a bit, Brianna? You’re not hiding something inside that house, are you?
Or someone?”
Brianna merely looked confused. “What?”
Kyle shook his head. “Never mind. Jess, I think we’ve worn out our welcome here.” He took her hand possessively and led her down the porch steps toward her car. “One of Terry’s friends?” he asked when they were out of Brianna’s earshot.
“A lover, I think.”
“Whew. Jailbait, almost.”
“She’s awfully paranoid. She could be hiding him.”
“Mmm, doubtful. When you suggested as much, her confusion seemed pretty genuine.”
She stopped at her car. “I want to know for sure. Can’t you get a search warrant or something?”
Kyle shook his head. “Judges don’t grant search warrants based on a whim. Hey, you look cold. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
Jess was on the verge of accepting when she realized that Kyle’s appearance was just a little too convenient. “You were following me.”
“Well, yeah.”
“You’re a lousy tail. I spotted you almost immediately.” She scanned the street. “You were in that silver Grand Am.”
“That was me.”
She couldn’t even put her outrage into words. Last night he’d been on her side—or so he’d pretended. She’d held his hand while he got his stitches. He’d kissed her. Now he was back to being a stupid cop.
“Someone has to do it,” he said. “Today my number came up.”
“You’re trying to catch me doing something incriminating!”
“I just rescued you from a woman-eating dog. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Jess sighed. She supposed she should thank him for that. Another thirty seconds and she might have become a giant Milkbone. But he’d been spying on her. Finally she settled on a compromise. “Thank you for rescuing me. But I’ll buy my own coffee. And you can forget about the stakeout tonight. I know whose side you’re on, and I can’t help but think that the more time I spend with you, the deeper the risk.” All kinds of risk.
“Even if you’re innocent?”
“Yes. I’ve seen how easily innocent words and acts can be twisted. The less I give you guys to work with, the better.” With that, she climbed into her car and slammed the door. She didn’t want to look at him, at his face, his eyes entreating her to change her mind about him. She wanted to believe he was on her side, but the evidence to the contrary was overwhelming.
So much for her Pollyanna attitude. She had to get tough, shrewd. Like Marva. Even Lynn. She roared off without a backward glance, but three blocks away she had to pull over to wipe her eyes.
How was he going to explain this one to Clewis and Easley? Kyle wondered as he followed Jess, not even bothering to keep distance between the two cars. She knew he was there.
He’d blown his cover because Jess had been about to be devoured by a dog? How believable did that sound? Not that his cover needed that much blowing. She’d already identified his car as following her.
So why did he bother to continue to tail her? He supposed he wanted to protect her. Lord only knew how many other “Briannas” there were, waiting to vent their anger over Terry’s disappearance on the easiest scapegoat.
Next time it might be worse than a dog.
Still, he checked in at headquarters with his cellular, thanking his lucky stars that Clewis was out to lunch and he would only have to deal with Easley.
“Come on in,” Easley said. “If she knows you’re there, she sure won’t do anything to incriminate herself. We’ll let your relief catch up with her on the next shift. Maybe he’ll do a better job of staying hidden.”
“He’d have to.” Kyle tried not to resent the dig. Tried and failed. He’d done a good job tailing Jess. She was just too sharp not to notice when she was being followed. She’d spotted yesterday’s tail, too. Still, no point trying to defend himself. The only way he could redeem his reputation at this point was to prove Jess was innocent and Terry was alive.
When that happened he would turn “I told you so” into an art form.
Sitting in the dark in Lynn’s old brown Toyota—which Terry most likely wouldn’t recognize—Jess kept her eyes trained on the deserted parking lot. She’d been here two hours already, and she’d discovered one very significant thing: stakeouts were really boring. She was already short on sleep, and it was all she could do to keep her eyelids from drooping as she watched the pay phones, using a pair of cheap binoculars she’d borrowed from Mrs. Tanglemeyer.
“About as exciting as watching corn grow.” She could remember doing just that, growing up on her parents’ Kansas farm. She guessed that meant she was well suited to this kind of work.
At 1:00 a.m., she drained the last of her coffee and wrapped herself up in the blanket she’d brought. The weather wasn’t as bitter as it had been last night, but it was still plenty uncomfortable.
By one-thirty, she was wondering how long she could stand the boredom. Only three cars had passed in the past half hour.
By one forty-five, she was swearing to herself that if he didn’t show up by two she was out of here.
At one-fifty, a car pulled into the parking lot, and Jess completely forgot about warm fuzzy house slippers and electric blankets. The car was an ’80 Firebird, the body so dented and bearing so many different paint colors that it couldn’t be classified. Once seen, the car wasn’t soon forgotten, and she’d seen it before.
It was Kevin Gilpatrick’s car. With her hand trembling, she picked up her briefcase phone and dialed 911. She’d already decided what she would say to get the police to send out a patrolman.
“Yes,” she said when an operator responded, “I’d like to report an attempted burglary at the K mart on Eastern Springs Boulevard. I can see the guy across the street from my bedroom window. Looks like he’s trying to pry open a door.”
“All right, ma’am, could you hold a moment please?”
Jess disconnected immediately. If she provided no other information, they would have to send someone over to investigate.
A man exited the car and sauntered to the phones. Through the cheap binoculars, Jess couldn’t tell much about him. Like the teenager from last night, this man was slender, in jeans, jacket and cap. It could have been Terry. Or half a million other guys.
She couldn’t stand it. She had to find out. She started up the car. No reaction from her mark. Easing the Toyota into gear, she crept away from the curb, lights off. Unfortunately the Toyota’s engine was anything but quiet. As she drew closer, her suspect couldn’t help hearing it.
Suddenly he swiveled around, and she recognized the face.
Kevin.
He dropped the phone and made for his car. Before he could take even two steps, the roar of another car’s engine stopped him in his tracks. A bright red Mustang surged across the parking lot toward them both.
Jess hit the gas, fishtailing toward Kevin’s car to prevent his escape. The Mustang attacked from the other direction, boxing in the Firebird. Kevin could do nothing but slump in defeat.
Kyle jumped out of the Mustang, gun drawn. “Police. Up against the car. Jess, stay put,” he added when she opened her door.
Kevin seemed to know the routine. Resigned, he placed his hands on the roof of the Firebird and spread his legs. Kyle quickly patted him down, then holstered the gun beneath his jacket. “Okay, you can turn around, Mr. Gilpatrick.”
“I wasn’t doin’ nothin’, man,” he began, but Kyle silenced him with a look that could have frozen molten lava.
“Just out for a stroll at two in the morning?”
Seeing no danger, Jess stepped out of her car. Kevin stared at her, surprised.
“Who were you calling?” Kyle tried again.
“None of your business.”
“Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Phone-company records will verify the number you dialed. Jess’s sister will testify as to what you said. Do you know what the penalty is for harassment?”
Kevin’s face crumpled. “I was just—” He sobbed. “I just wanted her to tell whe
re she put the body so he can have a decent burial.”
Kyle looked over at Jess. “You want to press charges, right?”
“Yes. No, wait.” She approached Kevin, drawing closer until she was almost nose to chin with him. “I won’t press charges if you’ll come clean, Kevin.”
“Come clean about what?” he asked defiantly.
“Where are you hiding Terry?”
“That’s my line.”
“Look,” Jess said, “this practical joke has gone on long enough. It’s not worth getting arrested over. I know you’re hiding him. And when we find him, your butt will be in a sling, too. Conspiracy. Fraud. Lying to the police.”
For an instant Kevin’s gaze faltered. In that split second, Jess knew beyond any doubt she was right.
Then his face hardened. “You call murder a practical joke?” He spat at her, and she jumped just in time to avoid being hit.
Kyle grabbed Kevin’s arm. “All right, that’s enough, Gilpatrick. Any more of that crap and I’ll arrest you whether Jess wants it or not.” He turned to Jess. “How about it?”
She thought for a moment. “Let him go, if he’s that determined to drag himself down with Terry. Y’know, Kevin, if you expect loyalty from him in return for helping him get his revenge against me, you’ll be disappointed. He’ll never be your best friend. He’ll use you like he does everyone else.”
Again she saw the slightest glimmer of hesitation in Kevin’s eyes before he looked away from her.
You’re mine, she thought smugly. Sooner or later Kevin would realize she was right, and he’d turn Terry in. Of course, that didn’t help her now.
“Jess,” Kyle said, “could you move your car so Mr. Gilpatrick here can leave?”
She was more than happy to. Now that the rush of excitement was dissipating, she felt like wilted lettuce. All she wanted was to get home and get into bed.
“Park right over there, on the other side of my car,” Kyle said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I’m not done with you.”
Chapter 8
Jess watched as Kevin Gilpatrick’s taillights disappeared into the distance with a shriek of rubber against pavement. Damn. Something wasn’t right. She knew Kevin’s voice, had heard it on a number of occasions on the phone when he’d called for Terry. He hadn’t been the one to place those first two crank calls.
