New Title 1

by Carol Davis Luce

  Sloane was silent for several moments. "If you intend to interview all the men who know her, you have your job cut out for you, my friend."

  “Why do you say that?"

  "Look, don't get me wrong. Alex is a lovely lady. And she's bound to attract men . . . lots of men. The plain truth is she goes through them like someone with a head cold goes through Kleenex.”

  "You're speaking from personal experience?"

  "Sergeant, I have a great little woman back in Dallas. She'll be joining me as soon as the sale of the house is final. I wouldn't want what I'm about to tell you to get back to her, you understand what I'm saying?"

  Justin nodded.

  "Alex has been coming on to me for as long as I've known her."

  "How long is that?"

  "About eight years.” He looked up at Justin. "She's been divorced three.” When Justin made no comment, Sloane continued. "Her husband didn't trust her one iota, and he was damn jealous of her. Christ, if he had thought anything was going on between his wife and me, I wouldn't be here talking to you now.”

  "Her husband is out of the picture now."

  "True, Very true. And she's a great-looking woman, Alex is, but I don't fool around on Sara.”

  "Yet you went to see her Sunday night. Why was that?"

  "Dumb. Just plain dumb. She invited me to a party. I'm alone in town — till Sara gets here, that is-- and it was something to do." Sloane straightened the papers on his desk. "Alex can be very persistent. She's used to getting her way. And if things don't go her way, she can be extremely, spiteful. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ huh, Sergeant? When I wouldn't play her game, she threatened to call my wife. Y'know, tell her we had a thing going between us. Spite, plain and simple." Sloane sighed. "If I were you, I wouldn't take everything she says as gospel.” He paused, then added, "Has she tried to come on to you, Sergeant?"

  Justin shook his head slowly.

  "Well, at the risk of sounding egotistic, it's my opinion that that little woman is shopping for an influential meal ticket.”

  "Mrs. Carlson's house was broken into late Monday afternoon. A few things were taken. Among the stolen property was a pair of dueling pistols —"

  "Dueling pistols?"

  "Yes. She was pretty shook up about the loss. Sentimental attachment.”

  Sloane laughed. "Sentimental, my ass. Look, I'm not big on antiques, and I don't know a dueling pistol from a popgun, but that didn't stop her from trying to sell those guns to me.”

  "When was that?"

  "Last time I saw her. Sunday night. She asked me to stick around after the party and have a look at them. My friend, she wanted to show me more than a pair of pistols.”

  Lightning flashed across the entire southeast skyline. The clap of thunder followed approximately seven seconds later.

  In the dimly lit living room, Alex stood at the window looking out in fascination at the clouds being propelled northward by the wind. Through gaps in them the sky was a striking shade of Windsor blue. For one instant the eyes of Detective Holmes flashed into her mind. Why, she wondered, had he come to mind.

  She had buried Winnie that morning at the back of the house in a wild strawberry patch. The hole she'd dug had been deep. After filling it in, she'd rolled a large rock across it so other animals would not dig up the carcass. Blackie had rubbed against Alex, mewing pitifully, as she had said words that comforted no one.

  Another flash of lightning— so bright, she automatically stepped back — lit up the sky. Her father would turn over in his grave if he knew she was tempting fate by standing within inches of electrocution--paternal warning number three hundred sixty-four. Five seconds later the boom of thunder acknowledged the lightning. "Getting closer," she said aloud.

  After gathering an armful of wood from the deck, Alex dropped the logs into the canvas hammock beside the round fireplace. Brushing wood chips from her hands and clothes, she went to the kitchen.

  She turned on the radio and was filling the teakettle when the phone rang. Another bright flash filled the room, and the thunder rumbled immediately, before the sky could turn dark again. "Right on top of us now," she said as she reached for the phone.

  Heavy static crackled through the line, making her "Hello" sound hollow in her ear. The static went crazy, like a Geiger counter poised over a mound of scrap metal; then the wild clicking eased into a low hiss.

  "Who is this?" Still no one spoke. Alex pulled the receiver away from her ear and stared at it. When she put it back to her ear there was no sound. She hung up slowly.

  The wind screamed. The high wailing wound down to an agonizing moan, only to rise and fall again and again.

  The phone rang again. Cautiously lifting the receiver and pressing it to her ear, she listened without speaking. Not all the hissing on the line was interference. Someone was breathing. She was certain she heard raspy, uneven breathing.

  "All right, what the hell do you want? Thelma Klump, is that you?" She was rewarded with a loud click.

  The phone shrilled again as soon as she hung up. Alex grabbed the receiver. "What?"

  "Well, a thousand pardons."

  "Margie? Oh, I'm so glad it's you. I thought you were that telephone creep."

  "Honey, if I were you I'd call that detective and tell him about it."

  Alex sighed. "I don't know. Maybe."

  "I'd make up calls if it would bring hormone 'man out to my house."

  "I know you would.”

  "Seriously, Alex, tell him.”

  The entire room lit up. Thunder rocked the house, shaking windows and doors. The wind howled, and battered against the windows. Alex loved electrical storms, but she was getting more than she'd bargained for tonight.

  The doorbell rang, startling her.

  "Margie, there's someone at the door.”

  "Who?"

  "I don't know. I didn't see a car drive up."

  "Don't answer it, you don't know who's out there."

  "It's probably Greg.”

  "It could be the guy who broke into your house. It could be the prison escapees."

  "Margie, you're letting the storm rule your imagination," Alex said, but she suddenly felt cold.

  "Don't hang up. If you must answer the door, then just put the phone down. I'll stay on the line and if you're not back in . . . say . . . four minutes, I'll call the cops."

  The Westminster chimed through the house again. "Okay, here goes."

  "Alex, be sure to use the peephole and —"

  "If I don't answer the door soon, whoever's out there will have given up and left, or frozen to death on my porch, so hold on."

  "Remember — four minutes . . . I'm timing .. . now."

  Alex reached the door as the bell chimed again. She flipped on the porch light, peered through the viewer. Although there was light, she saw no one. Oh no, she thought, tensing, not again. "Who is it?" she called out.

  "Mrs. Carlson, it's Justin —" The last name was carried off by the wind.

  Justin? Did she know a Justin? "Who?"

  "Detective Holmes, RPD." His face came into view.

  Alex let out her breath. She glanced in the mirror by the door and quickly tucked her baggy sweater into the waistband of her jeans. She unlocked the deadbolt, leaving the safety chain in its track, and opened the door a crack.

  "Sergeant?"

  "It's not a fit night out for man or beast." Justin Holmes nodded at his feet where Blackie sat hunched, head nuzzling his pantleg. Alex closed the door and unhooked the chain.

  "Hurry, get in here . . . both of you." Blackie bounded over the threshold. Justin quickly followed. Alex closed the door.

  He was wearing snug blue jeans and a pastel blue polo shirt. A golden locust leaf nestled in his hair above one ear. Alex reflexively reached up to remove it. His eyebrow arched upward as her hand touched his hair.

  "A leaf." She quickly withdrew her hand, showed it to him, then crumpled it.

  He nodded and ran a hand through his tousled
hair. They stood facing each other awkwardly. "Are you here on official business?"

  "That depends." His windbreaker was slung over his shoulder, held by two crooked fingers. She took it, hung it over the banister knob and turned back to him.

  "Have you found out anything?"

  "I've found out quite a few things, Mrs. Carlson. The more I learn, the more confused I become.”

  "Do you plan to share your findings with me?"

  "Why don't we both share what we know."

  "I've already told you everything I know." Alex felt as though he was setting her up to be interrogated.

  "Have you?" He stared at her intently. "What do you know about an assault?"

  Her hand flew to her mouth. She turned abruptly and ran up the stairs to the living room.

  Holmes charged up the steps after her. He stopped her by grabbing her around the waist and pulling her roughly around to face him. “What the hell's going on?" he said tightly. "What are you playing at?"

  He smelled fresh, woodsy and masculine. "The phone,” she said, short of breath from her dash up the stairs and across the room. "Margie's on the phone. She'll call the police if I don't let her know there was no

  big brute lurking on the other side of the door."

  He released her so unexpectedly she had to put her hands up against his chest to steady herself.

  "Better talk to her then. One brute from the RPD should be enough for any defenseless woman.”

  She snatched up the phone. "Margie? Margie, are you there?"

  After several moments Margie said, "You were gone four minutes and thirty-two seconds. I was just looking up the number for the police.”

  "It's 911."

  "Is that a signal? Do you want me to call them?" Margie whispered.

  "No, it's not a signal. And why are you whispering? Everything's all right." Margie was going to love this. "It was — it is —Detective Holmes. You remember Detective Holmes? From the break-in?"

  "You're kidding? One of Reno's finest just happens to come out on a dark stormy night. How apropos." Reno's finest was standing at the windows, hands in the back pockets of his jeans, looking out at the storm. "Sooo, what's he doing there?" Margie asked.

  "I don't know.”

  "Can't talk, huh? Is he standing beside you, gazing longingly down at you with those electric blue eyes?"

  "You can be very exasperating, my friend," Alex turned her head slightly to steal a glance at Holmes. Their eyes met briefly before he turned his head away. "I have to go. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow, my ass. Call me after he leaves. Unless of course, he doesn't leave before my bedtime . . . which is very, very late."

  Alex could hear Margie's laughter as she slowly put the phone down.

  "This is fantastic. Stupendous." He turned to look at her. "You're not having a problem with your lights, are you?"

  "No. I was doing just what you're doing now, watching the lightning in the dark."

  They stared at each other silently for several moments. Justin broke eye contact first. "Just happened to be in the neighborhood. Didn't see lights up here. Thought I'd just run up and make sure everything was okay."

  “I see.” No one just happened to be in her neighborhood. Whatever was on his mind, she was certain he'd get to it in his own good time.

  She walked to the lamp on the end table and reached down to switch it on.

  "Don't," he said softly. "Don't spoil the effect. Unless being alone in the dark with me makes you uneasy?"

  She laughed lightly. Why was he here? "Can I offer you something? Coffee? A drink?"

  "Scotch, if you have it.”

  "Scotch I have." She walked into the kitchen, turned on the twenty-watt bulb above the stove. "Ice, water, soda?"

  "Ice and a little water, please.”

  The room brightened, dimmed, and brightened again. Thunder rumbled on the second flash.

  She poured J&B over ice and added water. After turning the burner on under the teakettle, she returned to the living room and handed him his drink.

  "You're not joining me?" he asked, taking the glass. "I have the kettle on. Hot buttered rum and storms go hand in hand." Alex bent down to stack logs in the fireplace. He took one from her hand.

  "Here, let me do that." She watched as he stacked the logs into what looked like a miniature log cabin, then stuffed a wadded sheet of newspaper inside the little house. "You're not afraid of electrical storms?"

  "I'm crazy about them. The element of danger, maybe." The kettle sputtered. She went to the kitchen, made the buttered rum, then joined him at the window.

  "Dangerous situations intrigue you?"

  "No, not really. Not if the danger pertains to me personally."

  "Did I upset you by popping in unannounced?"

  "You might have if I hadn't been on the phone with Margie. She was my lifeline, so to speak."

  "Was it your idea to have her stay on the line?"

  "No, hers."

  "She's a bright lady."

  "Meaning . . . I'm not?"

  "That depends on what you'd have done about an unexpected visitor had she not been on the phone."

  "I would have done just what I did."

  "And if a man had identified himself as Detective So-and-so from the RPD, would you have opened the door to him?"

  I probably would have, she thought. But damn it, what does he expect from me? "I saw it was you. I let you in. Did I make a mistake?"

  "Perhaps. You don't really know me. My being a cop doesn't automatically make me trustworthy."

  “What if I asked you to leave?"

  "You can ask, but I'm in now. If I choose not to leave, what could you do about it?" He stared at her with an unreadable expression.

  "Is this a test?" She was beginning to feel extremely uneasy about his visit. "Did you come all the way up here tonight to see how I'd handle myself in such a situation?" His eyes were fixed on hers. Her question went unanswered. She swallowed hard and continued, "Look, I live alone . . . and I don't much like it. I'm having a few problems in my life right now, which I also don't like. But I'm learning, day by day . . . I'm learning."

  "I don't want you to learn the hard way." His tone was smooth and cool. "I'm a cop. It's my job to protect people and to help them protect themselves. On the average, women are too damn trusting. Every day some woman, somewhere, opens her door to a stranger or, climbs into a car with a man she doesn't know well enough to trust. The serial murderer has relatively no problem luring a victim. He can be attractive, sociable, and very charming. Mrs. Carlson, there are more Ted Bundys hiding in the woodwork than even the crime experts would care to admit."

  She studied him a moment before saying, "You don't think much of women, do you?"

  "I think a great deal of women or I wouldn't bother trying to save their necks. At this moment there are two very dangerous criminals loose somewhere out there. They may be in Brazil by now, and then again they may be right here in your neighborhood."

  "I'm acutely aware of that. I read the newspaper. I called the numbers you gave me, plus practically every security company in town. I told them I wanted an alarm system installed as soon as possible." She dropped onto the swivel rocker, draping her legs over the arm of the chair. "When they finished laughing, they said maybe, just maybe, they could get out here by the end of the month—for an estimate. You were right; the escapees are good for their business."

  "Shit." He lowered himself to the floor with his back against the brick firepit, his knees drawn up. A blinding flash of light caused him to blink instinctively.

  "So now what do I do?"

  "Are you afraid?"

  "I'm scared out of my wits. I've been getting these phone calls. Tonight I got two before you came."

  "Phone calls? Obscene calls?" He looked at her as though carefully watching for a reaction. Almost as if he was trying to judge her credibility.

  "No one talks. But I heard breathing." She looked out the window to see a bolt of lig
htning zigzag to the ground on Rattlesnake Mountain. There'll be brush fires tonight, she told herself.

  He was silent —deep in thought for several moments. "Phone calls now, is it? Any m_ore wild parties, midnight visits, ‘sort of’ assaults?"

  Alex stiffened. She hadn't told him about those things. Who had he been investigating? Her?

  Disbelief, frustration, anger, one after the other washed over her. "How do you know — how did you find out?"

  "It's my job to know.”

  After a long pause, with both of them staring at each other, Alex said slowly, "Sergeant, since your investigation seems to be directed toward me personally, then you must know that last night one of my cats—missing since the night of the break-in—was found at my front door, dead, its stomach ripped open."

  He sat quietly gazing into the glass in his hand. The orange and scarlet light from the fire glowed on his face, reflecting the flickering flames in his eyes.

  "I don't believe this," she said. "You haven't been doing a damn thing about the break-in. Has all your time on this case been spent digging into my personal life?"

  His eyes came up slowly to meet her. "The break-in. Now that's a very perplexing matter. Someone breaks out a window too small to come through — why? You say the house was locked up, yet there was no other sign of forced entry. And of the property you claim was stolen, the only item of any great monetary value — the pistols — would, in my opinion, be very difficult to fence.”

  "What are you saying?"

  "Are we dealing with some sort of mysterious entity here, Mrs. Carlson? A phantom perhaps? I doubt it. I think you should know that filing a false police report is a criminal offense. Insurance fraud is also frowned upon.”

  Alex was so outraged by his accusation she was at a loss for words with which to defend herself. But why should she defend herself? She hadn't done anything wrong. She was a victim. But no. To this man, sitting across from her, drinking her liquor, warming his back at her fire, she was something else. She was either a kook or a criminal. Or both.