Danger Returns in Pairs (Shawn Danger Mysteries Book 2)

by Nina Post

"Is it within city limits?" Shawn asked, half-joking.

  "Oh, sure."

  "Are actual spiders involved?"

  "No." Matt smiled. "That's the shape of the flower."

  "You want me to water it?"

  "Just see if the bark is moist. If it's dried out, yeah, add a little water, not much." Matt scribbled the address. It was close to Sarah's father's house. "I really appreciate it. It probably sounds crazy, but it was a pricey orchid, and I really don't want to kill it, you know? I could be in here for a few more days."

  "I get it." Shawn started toward the door.

  "You gonna find the guy who shot at us?"

  "Yes," he said, wanting to believe himself. "Take care, Matt. I hope you're out of here soon."

  Shawn left the hospital and drove the fifteen minutes to Matt's house to tend to the orchids. They didn't have any leads on Brower's current location, so Shawn figured this little errand would help clear his head for what would definitely be a long night. A call came in and he put on his earpiece. It was Sarah.

  "Where are you right now?"

  "Driving out of the hospital," he said. "Why?"

  "Are you anywhere close to my dad's?"

  "I'm about to do a small favor for someone who lives a few blocks away."

  "Would you pick up my soft box?"

  "Your what?"

  "It's a white box, attaches to the camera. I think it's in the dining room, on the table, or maybe one of the chairs. Or maybe my room, or in the kitchen."

  "That narrows it down."

  "I just got a portrait gig and thought I had all of the equipment I needed. If you can't, that's fine, I just thought -- "

  "I'll get it for you."

  "Oh, great." She sounded relieved. "I'll text you the address."

  When he got to Matt's place, he fetched the key from under the potted plant on the front porch, and let himself in to search for the orchid, finding it by a bay window where the light came in from the east. He touched the bark around the plant and thought of touching Darcy's cold face. At the kitchen sink, he filled a cup then poured a little water from it into the pot. He gave the orchid a mist with a nearby spray bottle labeled Water.

  After he locked up, he drove over to Sarah's father's house and let himself in there, too, feeling a bit like a benevolent serial burglar.

  There wasn't anything on the dining room table, or chairs, or armoire that could have been what Sarah described. He hurried into her room and glanced around. No soft box.

  "Dammit," he muttered. On the way to the kitchen he passed a stand in the hall and his attention was snagged. The soft box! He picked it up and checked it over, then noticed a book on the stand. It was a leather-covered journal. He was about to put it back on the table when he noticed a sticker for a milkshake shop called Shakydétente, in Burbank, California.

  Shaky détente -- the unsteady easing of strained relations, facilitated by milkshakes?

  When had Sarah been to Burbank?

  As he flipped through the pages, his blood chilled.

  This was Jasper's journal, and it covered everything from when one of his songs took off and he started making money, and continued until just after he moved back to Erie. The margins were filled with tiny, impeccably drawn monsters.

  Why did Sarah have this?

  The journaling was inconsistent; there were a few irregular but long entries each month, as though Jasper had forgotten the journal existed for a while, then tried to catch up. Shawn read the part where a famous singer, one he'd never even heard of, wanted one of Jasper's songs. It became a huge hit and started to make him real money, but Jasper wrote that it was like one of those fables where the person is actually cursed. He stopped writing songs, stopped talking to people he once thought were his friends but who he knew were now against him, and gradually retreated to the point of people speculating if he was still even alive, so he heard.

  Jasper was afraid he'd lost whatever he had, was afraid he would never write another song, and added, "it's killing me."

  Jasper's only friend was Natasha, an actress he'd met when he first moved to L.A., and that was only because she kept checking on him. 'I tell her not to bother but she doesn't listen.' Natasha would bring in his piled-up mail, accept his packages, bring him Korean take-out food and eat with him there, then eventually, when Jasper still didn't go outside, she arranged for grocery delivery, talked with a few vendors at the house, made sure his bills were being paid and his checks were being deposited.

  One day, Jasper took a cab to the airport. He left flowers with a note that read, as Jasper remembered, Not to be too Golden Girls about it, but thank you for being a (my best/only) friend. I can't stay here another day or I'll lose my mind. Forgive me, but I have to get closer to who I used to be. Everything here is yours now.

  Shawn read very closely from there. Jasper had called Darcy, who was going to come over to the house but then couldn't -- and that explained the food in Jasper's fridge, Shawn realized. She invited him to join the Battles museum board, and then to go with her to their fundraising gala. Jasper was happy to donate money to start the Battles' new folk dance program, probably for no reason other than Darcy mentioning it.

  Shawn straightened, rubbed his neck. He felt like he was always the only one who didn't do circus monkey dances for Darcy to win her approval, her affection, her attention. He had liked her company, wanted her to be their friend, and admired her quick mind, but he left it at that. He had a different horizon -- going to college as far away as possible (even though he ended up staying in the state) and getting a good, steady job. In high school, a police detective -- murder police -- came to speak at their school, and he knew it in his heart that day like it was a calling: Yes, this. This is exactly what I need to be doing. Being murder police had integrity, purpose, excitement. Since that day, he had a mission. And over time, he learned how to listen to people and be present for them, and just as important, to learn how to be more easy-going. It took work.

  Shawn flipped a page in the journal. At the gala, Jasper and Darcy ended up kissing in an out-of-the-way hall. His hand in her hair dislodged the pin holding in her top knot. Her hair tumbled down, and then she took out a long hairpin, 'like a geisha would use,' Jasper had written, and pinned it back up. Jasper noted that Darcy was acting odd, but didn't go into detail.

  But maybe he was wrong. Maybe he did do a circus monkey dance for Darcy. By assuming she was the victim.

  He closed the journal, took the soft box, and left in a hurry.

  ***

  When he pulled up to the house where Sarah was working, she ran outside to meet him. He gave her the soft box and she raised up on her toes to kiss him, then frowned.

  "What's wrong?"

  Shawn showed her the journal. Sarah nodded. "Oh. That."

  "Yeah, that. Why do you have Jasper Stowe's journal?"

  Sarah crossed her arms. "I was at his house before I saw you there. We had a good rapport over email, and we were supposed to talk in person, but something came up and he had to leave. He told me I could have his journal, as long as I brought it back to him when I was done."

  "So you lied to me."

  She shook her head. "I knew that if I told you about the journal at the crime scene that you'd have to take it into evidence."

  "You think?"

  "Once I had a chance to photocopy it, I was going to give it to you."

  "Sarah -- " he shook his head.

  "But I knew that after I gave it to you, I wouldn't see it again."

  "Never mind how it would help my investigation. Never mind how it was the victim's diary."

  Her brow tensed. "I read through it right after I saw you at his house and I didn't notice anything that could be useful."

  "That's my determination to make, not yours," Shawn said, noticing someone at the window of the house pulling back the drapes.

  "I finished photocopying it and was going to let you have it -- "

  "Let me have it?"

  "-- but it sli
pped my mind. The journal was absolutely crucial to making this movie. But then too much time had passed to give it back. I knew you'd be mad, and I just kept putting it off -- "

  "At the expense of finding out who his murderer is?" Shawn asked.

  "It's not as though he wrote something about it. Besides, you already knew who his murderer was," Sarah said, and his stomach turned.

  "Look, I have to go, and someone in that house is waiting for you."

  "I didn't think there was anything useful to you in it!" she said as he went to his car.

  He put up his hand in a half-hearted wave. "I'll call you later."

  You already knew who his murderer was.

  They were chumps, all four of them.

  ***

  His mind still reeling, Shawn made a quick stop at his house to check on Comet. When he came in through the back porch that connected to the garage, Comet wound around his ankles then paced in an agitated manner by the kitchen, making it very clear he was hungry.

  "Your source of food is home! Rejoice! Sorry, buddy." Shawn fixed that, then went back to the living room and slumped in the chair in the corner, too tired to get up on the trampoline. He felt like he'd been stranded in the Gobi Desert.

  "She was right -- I was so sure it was Brower. Those notes…"

  He took the laser pointer off the side table and flicked it on, dancing its red light over the wall.

  Comet finished eating then walked over like he wasn't really interested, like he just happened to be passing by, but then went predictably crazy. Shawn never knew why the laser had that effect. His living room floor was littered with toys that looked like small prey, which was disconcerting at times, and not a good thing when he used to bring dates home. But a red light on a wall? It was like the technological version of catnip.

  "Tunnel vision. Only one of the biggest mistakes in the book," Shawn told Comet. "The tendency to zero in on someone to the exclusion of other possibilities."

  With slight movements of his wrist, Shawn drew the light in circles.

  Comet swiped a paw at it when it arced down, then leaped up when it hit its zenith. Shawn chuckled but turned off the pointer. "See? It's gone." Comet made a growling sound. "Yeah, I'm an idiot. I know, trust me."

  Comet leaned over and cleaned himself. He liked to make a point that way.

  The notes. Brower drew them. He knew at least that.

  "He drew those notes to stage it. He staged the whole goddamn thing. He wanted me to look at him for this. He knew if I didn't work the scene, I'd at least see those notes. He was covering for her the whole time and I didn't see it. He pointed a laser pen at the wall and I chased it. No offense, buddy."

  They all wanted to protect her. They all wanted to save her.

  But those hands had killed Jasper. And Paul. And, most likely, her father, as well as two veterans like him.

  Shawn flicked the light back on, feeling tired to his bones. Comet shot his head back up, froze halfway into his cleaning position, then jumped up and went right back to pawing at a simulacrum.

  He missed spending time with his cat.

  Shawn pushed off the chair and paused. Comet gave him a comically wide-eyed stare.

  Shawn laughed. "Stop staring, I'm thinking."

  Comet blinked, then lazily closed his eyes most of the way.

  He called Craig Dahl. "Can you set up a video press conference this morning at Saint Vincent's hospital?"

  The PIO grumbled something incoherent. Shawn checked his watch. It was four-thirty in the morning. "You were going to get up soon, anyway," Shawn said. "Can you or not? Great. I'll meet you there at eight."

  Feeling more awake, Shawn climbed up on the trampoline in his living room and bounced for a while, thinking.

  Chapter 22

  Shawn went to the hospital, early, and stopped in the morgue. The attendant pulled out the drawer.

  "Can I have a few minutes, please?" Shawn asked.

  The attendant gave him a look, but went back to his work area.

  He talked, and for a moment, she wasn't the person who, he suspected, drove an antique hairpin into the skulls of her friends with her husband's auctioneering gavel. She was just Darcy.

  "I was going to move," Shawn said, leaning against the stainless steel wall of drawers. "It could have been the perfect time, before you came after me. If I hadn't found the Tapeta Footings, hadn't found the van and then the gavel, hadn't found the geranium between Paul's butt cheeks -- well, Ron Safari deserved the credit for that one. You ought to see his hair. But you're not going to see it, because here you are. Anyway, if I hadn't found those and the other things that helped me realize what was going on, then maybe I would have ended up with enough brotizolam in my system to put a wooly mammoth into a coma, not to mention a half-dozen stab wounds and a shaved head, and no one wants to go out like that."

  He felt sympathy for her husband, who had no idea. He wondered if he'd been auctioneering while his wife…

  Just then he realized that maybe Brower was trying to save him from her. He winced. Could he have gotten it more wrong?

  "Was it because Jasper came back, and then Paul, and as the icing on the cake, I came back from county? Were you worried we knew you killed your dad? That we would get together and chat about it then decide to destroy the life you worked so hard to build? Your nice house, your loyal husband, your Flagship Creamery franchises, your council position, your board seats? Better to stop us before any of that was put in jeopardy, right?"

  He stood and paced, taking a few deep breaths, then switched to something less confrontational.

  "Remember when you guys stayed over at my house?" Just a regular conversation. "That's something, isn't it? Anyway, I think I have to move. Out of Erie. Out of the state." He chuckled. "Maybe the region, maybe the country. I know it's a 180 turn. You can't escape your own mind, et cetera. And I just figure this out after I actually might have made a friend, and started a weekly tabletop gaming night. But I think I need to get out of here."

  To himself, he said, "I should be telling this stuff to Sarah, not a corpse in a drawer. Jesus."

  Darcy looked so small and fragile. She was small.

  "You gave them brotizolam so you could handle them."

  Her family had broken her more than any of them realized.

  "Sarah deserves more than a workaholic homicide detective whose only skills are talking and keeping a cat alive, and I'm even doubting my abilities in those areas. She deserves more than a homicide detective who's lost his mojo and can't take a vacation and is still in the same damn town as his screwed-up family. And she deserves more than a guy who's afraid of starting a family of his own, a guy who's lugging his past around with him. I want to try to be more than that. Not a lot more, just…more." He added, "I hope she goes with me. Do you think she would?"

  It always was easy to talk to her. She was a good listener.

  "I thought of you in detective school when they talked about listening. I tried to be like you, do what you would have done." Whatever you told her, she seemed to really hear you and really understand. She had it harder than any of them.

  ***

  After the local media showed up -- radio and TV, as requested -- Craig Dahl announced that the Erie PD found city councilwoman Darcy Kehoe at an undisclosed private location. He didn't say that they found her dead -- just that she was at the hospital.

  Shawn stood next to Dahl and delivered a single quote on behalf of the EPD about Darcy's family and her work on the city council, mostly so Brower would see he was there. He hoped that Brower would think that Darcy was still alive, panic, and come see for himself.

  After it wrapped up, Dahl said, "Okay, Detective. What now?"

  "We wait for Brower to show up." His plans went further than that, but Dahl didn't need to know.

  "What makes you think he will?"

  "He's not a laser pointer on a wall."

  Dahl gave him a baffled look, on top of his permanently morose expression.

&nb
sp; Shawn sighed. "Police work, Craig."

  This answer appeased the PIO more. "You can go," Shawn said. "I'm going to stay for a while."

  Dahl left and Shawn claimed a room where a blonde female was in a medically-induced coma. Shawn pulled up the sheet on her. From the door, Brower would just see the hair.

  Brower would be tracking local media for any mention of himself. He'd find out about the press conference, though Shawn made sure the statement to the press didn't happen during the abbey's morning prayer. He thought Brower would wait until the media cleared out, and then at least twenty minutes after that.

  In the meantime, Shawn made a phone call and explained his situation and how he needed the abbot to help.

  Then he waited.

  Forty-five minutes later, Shawn heard steps and stood next to the door, peeking into the hallway.

  Brower slipped into the patient's room. Shawn walked out into the hallway from the other room. A backup officer waited at the end of the hall near the waiting area. Shawn held up his finger. Wait.

  After a few seconds, Shawn went into the patient's room and stood across from Brower on the coma patient's left side. In his pocket he had his old Zippo lighter. He tossed the lighter over the patient and Brower caught it.

  "Go ahead, keep it," Shawn said. "You would have kept it after Darcy killed me. Would you have slipped one of those notes in my mouth after you cleaned up for her, too?"

  Brower looked down at the lighter and closed his fingers over it. It was startling for Shawn to see him again, especially after hunting him down for days. He was tall, dressed in jeans and a blue checked flannel shirt. Shawn had no idea what they wore under the robes at the monastery, but figured Brower could have changed. He was leaner than Shawn would have expected, but with the broad shoulders and implication of strength he'd always had. Dee was right about the scar -- it ran over his cheek from his temple. His hair was shorn close and his eyes were a clear, light brown.

  "You used her to get me here." Brower flicked his eyes away from the patient to Shawn. "She's…she's…"

  "Alive? No."

  Brower flicked his eyes back to Shawn, angry and confused.

  "Yeah, I found where you were put her. Shouldn't you be wearing your cowl and robe, Brother Benedict?" Brower looked like an off-duty manufacturing employee or a country guitarist in his jeans and a flannel shirt, close-trimmed brown hair. He put his hands on the side of the narrow bed.