Watching for Willa

by Helen R. Myers

  “If only he would go to the police!”

  “Felix? Unlikely,” Zach said, with a new understanding of the man. “He’s the type to push to the limit for a client because it’s abstract and never really touches him personally. But personally, he’s an emotional coward.”

  “At least you have to give him some credit for trying to protect his daughter and the girl’s mother.”

  Zach tried with only minor success. “I’d feel more generous if I believed they were his chief concern. But I’m not convinced it isn’t his living arrangement he’s more interested in protecting.”

  “I was afraid you might say that.” Willa took a deep, emotion-settling breath. “Well, that certainly narrows your list, doesn’t it?”

  “In a way. But listen to what happened next and tell me it’s not getting more complicated.” He then shared his experience with Ger and Roger’s strange phone calls.

  “Good grief!” she groaned when he was done. “I thought I’d been put through fire, but you have two volcanoes that sound as if they’re about to explode in your face.”

  The analogy was frighteningly on target. “The damnedest thing is that I haven’t received any more notes. What’s up? Why the sudden reticence?”

  “He may be watching to see how you react. Or maybe Judith has forbidden him from doing any more?” Willa suggested, sounding just as mystified. “What if the murder was unexpected to her, as well?”

  Zach frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I know it’s dangerous to play doctor, but it sounds as if we’re dealing with two psychotic personalities. Maybe she tugged on the wrong line and is finding out that her puppet isn’t as controllable as she’d thought.”

  “There’s nightmare,” Zach murmured, although he was impressed with her logic.

  “The thing is that I can easily check on Ger’s story to you. I only have to go next door under the pretense of having lost something yesterday.”

  “No way!”

  “But if he’s there, at least we’d know he was probably placating one of the club’s clients. He’s an indiscriminating flirt, Zach, and it’s possible that he’s spread his favors too thin. Maybe that interchange you overheard was some sugar mama getting testy.”

  “Judith doesn’t share. Anything.” This was a given Zach told himself he couldn’t forget. In keeping with the old expression about cutting off one’s nose to spite the face, she would destroy everything before yielding or surrendering. Knowing how frighteningly intense, he must have sounded, he quickly added, “At any rate, you can’t assume he won’t see through your ploy. Besides, Roger may be the one I should be focusing on anyway.”

  Willa made a pained sound. “He’s too…wimpy, Zach.”

  “There’s a great deal of anger inside him.”

  “He’s nowhere as physically dominating as Ger Sacks.”

  “But he has his own leverage, namely his harmless appearance,” Zach insisted, having dealt with all her arguments himself. “Who would you be more likely to turn your back on, Ger or Roger?”

  “Oh, damn.”

  When she didn’t say anything else for several seconds, he frowned and asked, “What is it?”

  “He’s asked my assistant manager out.”

  “I thought she was after Sacks?” he replied, confused.

  “She’s after love.”

  Zach finally understood. He’d made the mistake himself. Once. “You have to stop her.”

  “You think she’s listening to me after last night? And things are even worse now. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to keep her as an employee.”

  “Stop her, Willa. We’re talking about her life.”

  “She’s not a blonde and she doesn’t have blue eyes,” she ground out, her concern and fear apparent.

  Zach was careful to keep his voice gentle. “And what if that’s no longer a criteria?”

  “Then I have to tell her.”

  “Short of that.”

  “Zach, there’s no other way she’ll believe me!”

  He knew that. But he also knew that the more people who they confided in, the weaker his control of events.

  Who are you kidding? You haven’t had control since the notes changed.

  He exhaled, knowing he, too, had a major decision to make. “All right. Tell her. And I’ll phone Pruitt.”

  “You mean you’re going to show him the notes?” Willa asked, concerned.

  “More than that. I’m going to tell him everything.”

  “Oh, Zach…there has to be another way. He’ll charge you with complicity!”

  “Maybe. Interfering and hampering for certain.” But he had no choice. He saw now that he’d run out of options, at least from a moral standpoint. He wouldn’t risk any further attacks; nor would he put Willa through the emotional trauma of knowing she could have kept a person she cared for from being hurt. “It has to be done.”

  “At least wait for me.”

  “Sweetheart, Pruitt’s going to be ticked off as it is. Do you think he’s going to be in a better frame of mind if I wait until the middle of the night to call him?”

  “At least give me an hour. As soon as I hang up, I’ll bring Starla into my office and explain things to her,” Willa entreated urgently. “If she comes around, I can leave her in charge of the store and be with you by…five? Zach, my input is important, too.”

  She was trying to protect him. Again. And knowing she would do what she wanted regardless, Zach relented, adding, “I don’t deserve this—or you.”

  “Great,” she replied softly. “Now that we both might be heading for jail, you start sweet-talking me.” Then she hung up, as if she knew what response he would make to that.

  The first thing Willa did when she ended her call with Zach was to telephone for more sales help. It took her three calls, but she found the woman she wanted to offset her absence.

  Immediately afterward, she signaled Starla into her office. The younger woman’s resentful expression wasn’t reassuring as she strode in and dropped into the chair beside the desk, but Willa hoped that once she began listening, things might change.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Starla groaned, pressing her hands to her cheeks. The pink matched the intense shade of her dress. “And all this time I thought…”

  Seeing her guilty glance, Willa managed a wry smile. “I know what you thought. And I won’t say I wasn’t offended by it because I thought we had a better basis of trust than that. But what’s important now is that you don’t get hurt, and I help Zach get through this.”

  “You’re really taking a gamble by telling me all this,” Starla murmured, shaking her head in wonder. “I haven’t earned the faith, but thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re really getting serious about him, aren’t you?”

  Willa shoved her hands into her pockets and tucked her head like a turtle. “I didn’t want to. I don’t want to. Good grief, I’m not ready for this—I’ve just bought a house, I have this place that takes up so much of my time and he’s had such a terrible life, who knows if he can even think beyond one day at a time. But…” She shrugged out of the tense pose. “It’s happened and we’re going to have to deal with it.”

  “I know that tactic.” Starla nodded with confidence, the warmth returning to her eyes. “The more defined and logical you get when describing your feelings, the more you care.” She rose, clenching and unclenching her hands as if not knowing what to do with them. “And I’m a twit. Roger Elias and Ger Sacks…do I pick ’em or what? Jeez, maybe I need a therapist.”

  Willa hugged her, knowing Starla was too burdened with guilt to initiate the gesture herself. “Maybe you need to stop trying so hard. I think if you concentrate on being yourself, the real you, then the rest of your life will fall into place.”

  “Maybe I’d like to talk to you about that sometime.” Blinking, Starla backed away and offered a shy smile. “You get moving.”

  “What about your date with Roger?�
�

  “I’ll call and let him know I have to work. Don’t worry. We’ll be okay here.”

  This was the Starla she’d thought she’d lost. Sighing with relief, Willa touched the younger woman’s arm, then grabbed up her purse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Willa could tell that Detective Pruitt wasn’t pleased when he saw her and Zach together. He arrived only minutes after Zach called him—which Zach had done only after drawing her close for a long, achingly sweet kiss. Willa had let the policeman into the house, leading him to the study, where she’d stopped beside Zach, placing her hand on his shoulder.

  “Why do I know I’m about to be greatly disappointed?” he asked, looking from one of them to the other.

  Zach motioned to the chess table where the board was pushed aside to make room for several items. “Maybe you’ll want to look at those before I make my statement. The one on top of the purported evidence taken from Nancy Porter was left in Mrs. Whitney’s mailbox the day before she moved in next door. I would wager only hours before Ms. Porter was attacked. The notes on the right are those I’ve been receiving for several weeks.”

  The lawman pressed his lips together and, with a negative move of his head, approached the table. After glancing at her note, Willa watched him lift it and see the red panties she’d put in the freezer bag. The look he shot her over his shoulder had Zach laying his hand over hers.

  “I don’t believe they were part of the set Ms. Denton referred to,” Willa began, although her voice sounded thin at first. “A few days after the incident, I made myself examine them more closely, and I recognized that the manufacturer isn’t the same one who does the set Ms. Porter was supposed to be wearing.”

  “That doesn’t excuse what you did. It’s our job to determine what is and isn’t relative.” Detective Pruitt gestured to the note. “Didn’t this frighten you? You weren’t inclined to notify the police?”

  “She thought I’d put it in her mailbox,” Zach interjected before she could reply. He tightened his hold of her hand. “It arrived after we’d had a brief but…un-promising introduction.”

  “Must have been some meeting.” The aging policeman shifted slightly and took up the handful of notes Zach had received. He spent almost a full minute going through them. “All right, Mr. Denton, I’ll ask you the same question. This is disturbing no matter how you tried to look at it. You felt no need to notify us?”

  “You read what he said in the fourth one, Detective. If I went to the police, someone would pay. Perhaps you should hear my story first,” Zach told him, calmly. “That may resolve some of the mystery and nullify most of the questions.”

  “Go on, Mr. Denton. But I should warn you that you have a right to have an attorney present. You and Mrs. Whitney both.”

  Willa intercepted Zach’s glance and smiled to reassure him, and let him know she had every confidence in him. As their gazes clung, she once again felt that mysterious but wonderful aura, as if they were the only ones in the room.

  When Detective Pruitt cleared his throat, Zach turned back to their visitor. “We have no problem sharing what we have to say with you, Detective.”

  “Then by all means, proceed.”

  Zach told his story, not as a writer trying to grip an audience, or as a public speaker intent on swaying the listener’s position one way or another; he simply conversed as if they were two acquaintances sitting across from each other at a bar catching up on the last several years of news. It was easy in delivery if not content, and yet wholly without embellishment. Willa found herself moved again, even though she was hearing some parts for the second time in only days.

  But what did Jack Pruitt think? That was hard to determine, for if Zach was a good speaker, then the experienced policeman was an excellent listener. Tugging down his tie and releasing the top button on his suit shirt, he simply shoved his hands into his pants pockets, pursed his generous lips and scowled. He reminded Willa of Long John Silver in Treasure Island, and that amusing thought wasn’t altogether reassuring. Did the wily detective mean to look comical as a means to disarm them?

  If so, it didn’t work on Zach. He kept to the facts, answered questions when they were volleyed at him, and when he was through, he didn’t grasp for anything to fill the silence; he simply waited for Detective Pruitt to respond however he would.

  The police officer nodded several times as he considered the material on the table. Or was it the chess pieces themselves? Willa wondered.

  “Greed and revenge,” he murmured at last. “Why is it that so much of a cop’s work is tied up with those two…?”

  “Cancers?” Zach offered. “Because ‘a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.’ Bacon,” he supplied at Pruitt’s questioning look. “Who, when it came to greed and ambition, by the way, didn’t escape some condemnation himself.”

  Detective Pruitt’s grunt held disdain. “For someone so danged smart, you’ve made a nice mess for yourself, my friend. Still…your story is just ridiculous and sick enough to be true.”

  “You can verify Judith’s threats before the plane crash and her behavior since with my agent. My ex-agent,” Zach corrected when the policeman lifted an eyebrow. “And he’ll confirm her blackmailing scheme, which led him to embezzle money from me. That will explain how his tie pin ended up at the murder site. It’s up to him whether he wants to disclose the reasons for the blackmail, though I have no doubt Judith will have no reservations in sharing the information with anyone who’ll listen.”

  “She’ll also say that you had more of a reason to frame Fraser than she did.”

  “She’ll be wrong because to know me is to know it’s enough that Felix pays me back and never makes another penny off me again. You see,” he added with a frosty smile, “he and Judith have a love of money in common. It will drive him crazy if I become even more successful without him. And, believe me, I have plenty of dark corners to explore on paper.

  “In the same vein, Judith was wrong when she chose to have either Elias or Sacks leave the pin after the murder. First, it detracted from her allegations that I was the stalker. Second, only an idiot would use someone so easily connected to them if they were masterminding the crimes.”

  “Yet you’ve been hiding the fact that you can walk,” the detective pointed out. “Or does Gerald Sacks know?”

  “He knows I have some feeling, and that I have considerable pain at times due to nerve damage, but I’ve been careful to let him assume that they won’t hold my weight. Actually, they barely will without the assistance of my canes.”

  Detective Pruitt scratched his furrowed forehead. “And you think Ms. Denton set up her own houseguest as the first victim?”

  “Maybe I can provide some insight there,” Willa told him. She then shared her earlier experience with Judith in her shop, the woman’s history of writing hot checks and, finally, her threat.

  Her comments did seem to make an impression with the detective. “I’ll admit I have seen her behavior take sudden turns as you described,” he murmured, as though thinking out loud. “On the other hand, one could say that you might have a motive for damaging Ms. Denton’s reputation, since you and Mr. Denton seem to be, er, so close.”

  Willa could feel Zach stiffen. She tried to restrain him, but he gently extricated himself from her hold and wheeled himself closer to the detective.

  “Willa is the woman mentioned in those notes as the stalker’s ultimate target, make no mistake, Detective. And why? Because she happened to be born beautiful, blond and blue-eyed. But even more, because she’s a caring, generous human being who either Sacks or Elias and Judith knew would shatter the emotional walls I’ve worked hard to build around myself. I resent your implication that she’s somehow to blame for anything. If anyone deserves to be accused, it’s me for subjecting her to danger!”

  “Zach, it’s all right.” Willa crouched beside him and touched her forehead to his upper arm, hurting for him, and at the same time overwhelmed with his declaration. Did he
realize how much he’d almost confessed?

  He clasped her fingers with his left hand and stroked her hair with his right. Except for when they’d made love, she’d never felt him shake so. She couldn’t bear what this was doing to him.

  “Detective,” she said, looking up at the older man, “tell us what we need to do to make this insanity stop.”

  He drew out one of the chairs at the table, sat and took out a notebook. “I’ll follow up on everything you’ve given me. Hopefully, something will give us the break we need. Care to tell me your hunches on which of these two is our stalker?”

  “Ger Sacks,” Willa said.

  “Roger Elias,” Zach said at the same time.

  They exchanged glances and Willa knew they’d just given Detective Pruitt one more thing to doubt about them.

  “Which of the men have you had the most contact with?” the police officer asked her.

  She thought about it and shook her head. “Well, neither. I know them both by sight and name, and we’ve exchanged the bare minimum of words, but…”

  “Why don’t we go over a few things one more time,” the lawman said, wearily, clicking his pen. “I want to make sure I have everything straight.”

  Almost an hour later, Detective Pruitt finally headed toward the door, the notes and bag in hand. “I don’t suppose I have to warn you not to leave town?”

  Her spirits sinking, Willa forced herself to ask, “Does that mean we should call an attorney?” Lord, what was she going to tell her family? And how was an arrest on her record going to affect her business?

  “Not quite yet,” he replied, the hint of warmth in his eyes. “Are you going back to the store tonight?”

  “No,” Zach said before she could answer.

  Willa didn’t dare meet his gaze. “I guess I can get my assistant to lock up for me,” she told the policeman. But her thoughts were all on Zach. Drat the man, she moaned, he was determined to make her blush yet.

  Detective Pruitt opened the door. “All right, then I’ll have the night shift make sure they keep an eye out on your street. And if something comes up, here’s my home number.” He handed her a business card.