Sheer Gall

by Michael A. Kahn

  “I knew this was a bad idea,” she said, her voice edging toward hysteria.

  “No, it wasn’t, Tammy,” I said, aiming for a calming tone. “We need to talk. It’s so important. Name another place. I’ll meet you there. Alone. I promise.”

  North of the parking garage was the Equitable Building, with its opaque reflecting windows. If she was in there, she’d be invisible to me. I turned toward the Marriott. She could be up in one of the rooms facing the plaza. There were a few with the curtains open, but I couldn’t see inside.

  “Please, Tammy. You pick the place. I’ll follow your rules.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly.

  “Please, Tammy.”

  There was another long pause. “I probably shouldn’t, but okay.”

  “Great. Where?”

  “The Arch.”

  “Outside?”

  “No way. You could have a hundred people hidden outside. Inside. Down in the museum. In exactly ten minutes. Meet me back by the stuffed bison. If you bring anyone with you, forget it. You’ll never see me and you’ll never hear from me again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Don’t try any funny stuff, ’cause I’ll know it if you do. I used to work there. I know my way around that place.”

  There was a click, and then a dial tone.

  ***

  “This is good,” I said to Benny as I opened the car door.

  We were on Sullivan Boulevard, the wide street that runs along the St. Louis levee. Had there been any sun today, we would have been literally in the shadow of the Arch. The Mississippi River was to our east. To our west was a broad flight of stairs leading up to the Arch grounds.

  “This is totally fucked up,” Benny grumbled. “What the hell am I supposed to do while you’re in there with her?”

  I got out of the car and turned toward him. “She said she used to work at the Arch. Maybe you can get someone to pull old personnel records.” I paused, thinking it over. I opened my purse and found Walter Brunt’s card. “First,” I said, handing it to Benny, “call Walter. Tell him what’s going on. Tell him where I am. He’ll know what to do.” I gestured toward the hillside leading up to the Arch. “She’s probably watching us right now. You’ve got to go. I’ll meet you in the bar at the Adam’s Mark in one hour, okay?”

  He shook his head. “You must be nuts.”

  I leaned into the car and smiled. “Order me an Irish coffee.”

  I straightened up, closed the door, and turned toward the stairs. Tilting my head back, I shaded my eyes from the mist. Towering above me on either side were the massive, curving legs of the Arch. They disappeared into the clouds about halfway up. There was nothing visible directly overhead but dark, swirling clouds.

  As I started up the long stairway, I tried to think of ways to calm Tammy. Whatever it was she wanted to tell me, it wasn’t evidence. Not yet. It was only evidence if she told it again under oath in front of a jury. If she had witnessed something that would help Neville McBride, I needed to persuade her to be a real witness, i.e., to step forward in open court, raise her right hand, and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If, as I suspected was more likely the case, she had witnessed something unfavorable, well, I’d pass that on to Jonathan and let him deal with it. My hope was that whatever she knew would also shed light on the car bombing.

  There were more than seventy steps, and when I reached the top I was breathing hard. I took the path toward the north leg of the Arch. Along the way I passed a uniformed park ranger.

  “Ma’am,” the ranger said in greeting as he touched the stiff brim of his ranger’s hat, which was fitted with a plastic cover to protect it from the rain. The Arch is run by the National Park Service.

  At the base of the north leg I took the slanted rampway that leads to the underground area directly beneath the Arch. Down there are the Museum of Westward Expansion and the loading zone for the two trams that travel up the hollow curving legs of the Arch. There was a sign at the top of the rampway stating that the north-leg tram was closed for winter maintenance.

  As I walked down the wet rampway, I flashed back to that sunny day—last month? a thousand years ago?—when Benny and I came strolling up this same incline, completely unaware that my newest client was already dead. And now, after tracking the strange parabolic loop of this case, here I was, back at the beginning, heading under the largest parabola in St. Louis.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  A bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson stands at the entrance to the Museum of Westward Expansion. When you move past Tom, the underground museum fans out in a semicircle of exhibits and displays that include a Conestoga wagon, sod farmhouses, mannequins in buffalo hunter costumes, a Native American tepee village, a quarter-scale replica of the St. Louis levee from the 1850s, and, not surprisingly, a large section on the Lewis and Clark expedition, including maps, artifacts, memorabilia, and murals.

  Off in the distance, near the back wall of the museum, loomed the huge stuffed bison. I didn’t move toward it. I wanted to work my way back there gradually and indirectly. Although a cheerful, well-lit museum seemed a perfectly benign setting for our rendezvous, I wanted to scope it out first, get a sense of the layout and, just as important, the people wandering through it. Tammy’s repeated insistence that I come alone had started to reverberate within me. I wanted to make sure she didn’t have her own accomplice down here.

  The museum had a completely different feel today from back when Benny and I had been here. That had been a sunny day in the middle of the week, and the museum area and gift shop had been filled with noisy school groups on tours, moms pushing strollers, older couples, out-of-towners with cameras and guidebooks. There had been lines at the ticket booths. The columns of people waiting to board the trams had snaked all the way up the ramps from the loading zone below.

  Today’s miserable weather and poor visibility had discouraged the usual weekend crowds. The museum was relatively deserted, and the ramp down to the tram loading zone was empty. The determined few who took the tram ride to the top today would find the observation windows cloaked gray by low clouds.

  Slowly, I meandered through the museum, working my way toward the back. As I did, my anxiety level spiked up and down. A young couple were holding hands in front of the steam railroad exhibit. Two homeless men in shabby overcoats were seated on a bench by a stuffed longhorn cow. Two kids darted by me, and a moment later their exasperated mother lumbered past, pushing a toddler in a stroller and muttering under her breath. There were others—maybe a dozen in all. Some young, some old. Some together, some alone. As far as I could tell, there weren’t any contract killers or psychopathic conspirators, or at least I didn’t see any with a name tag identifying himself as such.

  Eventually, I reached the bison. The massive beast was mounted in an alcove that also included a display on beaver ecology. I turned slowly. No one else was near. I moved around the bison display. Along the back wall was a large mural of a scene from the Lewis and Clark expedition. To the left of the mural was an empty, darkened section closed off with a chain. A sign in front of the chain read TEMPORARY EXHIBIT AREA—CLOSED. I leaned over the chain and looked around. The room appeared to be empty. To the right of the mural was a door marked NO ADMITTANCE.

  “Miss Gold,” someone hissed.

  I spun around as a woman in a black trench coat approached. She was wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses and a maroon-and-navy-patterned scarf around her head. She had shoulder-length red hair.

  “Tammy?” I asked.

  “Hush,” she whispered, looking back to see if anyone had heard. She turned and signaled for me to wait.

  I watched as she walked over to the door marked NO ADMITTANCE. First pausing to glance around, she pushed the door open and looked inside. She turned and gestured for me to fol
low her in. I moved to the door.

  “Hurry,” she hissed.

  Warily, I leaned forward and peered inside. The door opened into a well-lit hallway that stretched at least a hundred feet in each direction, with other passageways branching off it. I could see several doors down the hall, each clearly labeled in red block letters: MAINTENANCE SUPPLIES; ELECTRICAL; WOMEN’S LOCKER ROOM.

  I stepped inside and let the door swing closed behind me.

  “Okay, open your purse,” she said. She had a gold front tooth.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “No secret recordings, that’s why. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it by my rules.”

  I shrugged and handed her my purse.

  “Unzip your jacket,” she said, poking around inside my purse.

  As I unzipped, I studied her. She was wearing heavy pancake makeup, plenty of rouge, and bright red lipstick. There was nothing subtle about her appearance, including the prominent beauty mark on her left cheek.

  She handed me back my purse and ran her hands inside my jacket and patted me down. “What’s this?” she said, pulling my heavy key chain out of my coat pocket.

  “My keys,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “All of these?”

  I shrugged good-naturedly. “It helps me find them when they’re with all the other stuff in my purse.”

  She frowned but handed the key chain back to me. I slid it back into my pocket.

  “Okay,” she said, gesturing behind her. “There’s a room down there.”

  “Why not here?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “People come down this hall all the time. I used to work here, remember?”

  I paused. “Okay, then let me see your purse, too.”

  She frowned. “What for?”

  “Your rules, remember?”

  Impatiently, she handed over her purse. “Hurry.”

  Among the contents was a portable phone—presumably the one she had used to call me at the pay phone at Busch Stadium. I handed the purse back to her and said, “Unbutton your coat.”

  She did. I pulled open her trench coat. She was wearing jeans and a cream-colored fisherman’s sweater. I checked the deep pockets of the trench coat and ran my hands down her sides. Nothing.

  I stepped back and nodded. “Okay.”

  “We have to hurry.”

  “Show me where we’re going.”

  She pointed down the long hallway. “That green door way down on the right.”

  “What’s in there?”

  She turned to me, exasperated. “Nothing. That’s the point. Come on, before someone comes by.”

  I followed behind as she walked briskly down the hallway. We walked past what looked and sounded like the boiler room of an ocean liner—a symphony of thumping and ratching and hissing—and past three doors on the left, and finally reached the green door on the right. It was labeled NORTH ELEVATOR. She pulled the door open, poked her head in, and then entered.

  “Hurry,” she said.

  Cautiously, I stepped to the doorway and peered inside. I wanted to make sure we were really alone. The room was small, roughly seven feet square, and dimly lit by one red bulb. There were three fire extinguishers and a canvas fire hose along one side wall and a row of five lockers along the other. Set against the back wall was a service elevator. I stepped into the room and let the door swing shut behind me.

  “It’s important you understand something,” Tammy said, her voice edgy. “I like Neville. I don’t want to hurt him. That’s not why I’m here. Okay?”

  I nodded, and in each lens of her mirrored sunglasses I could see a distorted reddish reflection of myself nodding.

  She breathed in deeply and exhaled. “It’s just that I have to tell someone what I know. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.” She pointed her finger at me. “So you listen careful, and you tell whoever needs to be told.”

  She turned toward the elevator, her arms wrapped around her waist. She started tapping her foot. I waited.

  “He’s lying,” she said, her back to me.

  “About what?”

  A pause. “I was there that night.”

  I caught my breath. “Where?”

  Another pause. “His place. He wasn’t there.”

  I nodded slowly. “You’re speaking of the night of the murder?”

  She turned to me with a nervous shrug. “I thought I’d surprise him. I had a key to his apartment. I went up at nine. I knocked. No one answered, so I let myself in. No one was there. Do you understand what I’m saying? He was gone.” She was wringing her hands. “I waited for him. I waited until midnight. Before I left I wrote him a note and left it on his pillow.”

  I nodded slowly, studying her. “Are you aware,” I said, “that he claims he spent the night watching Monday Night Football and waiting for you?”

  “I know, I know.” She was wringing her hands again. “That’s why I’m here. Don’t you see? He’s lying.”

  Tammy’s version of the facts was troubling, but it wasn’t the only thing troubling about her. Despite the heavy makeup, beauty mark, and gold front tooth, there was something disturbingly familiar about this woman. I tried to place her. The scarf and reflecting sunglasses made it difficult, and the dim light further masked her features.

  “When did you first talk to him after that?” I asked, trying to visualize her without the scarf and sunglasses.

  “About an hour later,” she said. She checked her watch anxiously. “I think we’re going to have to leave soon.”

  “In person?”

  “Huh? No. He called me.”

  “Tell me the conversation,” I said, scrutinizing her features, trying to make the match.

  “He was hyper, screaming about the note I’d left on his pillow. He said I could never tell anyone I’d been there. He told me he’d take care of me, set me up in a beautiful house, buy me a new car, whatever I wanted, so long as I kept my visit that night a secret forever.” She shrugged nervously. “I had no idea what he was talking about then.” She shook her head. “Now I do. And now it’s in your hands.”

  I didn’t say a thing. I was stunned.

  There was no Tammy.

  Tammy was an imaginary character, created to set up Neville—to do everything from collecting samples of his semen to performing this charade with me.

  I struggled to make the rest of the puzzle pieces fit.

  “Miss Gold?”

  I snapped out of my reverie. She moved closer to me.

  “Pardon?” I took a step backward.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Nothing,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  I took another step backward, trying to sense where the door was. “Okay,” I said, forcing a smile. “I understand why you don’t want to testify.”

  She frowned and moved in close. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Her Chicago accent was gone.

  “Sure,” I said, reaching behind me for the door handle. “We’ll just forget the whole thing.”

  “Get away from the door,” she snapped, her voice suddenly harsh and familiar.

  The final puzzle piece dropped into place with such force that I almost lost my balance. “Oh, God.”

  “Shit,” she muttered as she pulled open her jacket. She quickly reached around to the back of her waist. When her hand came out again it was holding an automatic pistol. “Get over to the elevator. Hurry.”

  She followed behind me, the gun pressed against the back of my neck. “Push the button,” she said, jamming the gun against my neck.

  I did.

  I turned to face her. “Why?”

  Amy Chickering pulled her sunglasses down for a moment to stare at me with steely eyes. “Guess I need a few more acting classes before I try Hollywood again, eh?” />
  I heard the elevator gears and cables engage somewhere above us.

  “Did you kill her alone?” I asked.

  She nodded smugly. “Never underestimate the skills of a legal secretary.” She gave me a self-satisfied chuckle. “They sure don’t teach that in law school, do they? Like the way I ran you around out there on that plaza like a puppet on a string.” She grinned at the memory. “We were always going to meet here. I threw in the Stan Musial detour just to make sure you didn’t bring any company with you.”

  That made me think of Benny. He was supposed to call Walter Brunt. I prayed that he had, and that Brunt had been around to receive the call. But how would he ever find me back here? There were park rangers in and around the Arch that could help. But they would need time. I needed to get them time.

  I looked at Amy. “Brady Kane didn’t help?”

  That made her laugh. “No way.”

  “Isn’t he your gallstone partner?”

  That drew a scornful reaction. “Partner? That goon? He’s my supplier. Period. I offered him a bigger piece of the action than that bitch, and he’s tickled pink.”

  The elevator stopped with a clunk. The door slid open. She pressed the gun under my chin. “Get in.”

  She pushed the top button, marked Level 3. The door slid closed and the elevator started upward with a shudder.

  Amy turned and gestured with the handgun. “Sit in that corner. We’re going to have a nice, peaceful ride.”

  I backed into the corner and sat down. “Where are we?”

  She had the handgun aimed at my head.

  “Inside the north leg of the Arch. Sit on your hands. There, that’s good. As you may have noticed on your way in, this leg is closed for winter maintenance. How convenient for us. We’ll be all alone. It’ll give us a chance to spend some quality time together.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Third level, women’s lingerie.”

  We rode in silence as I tried desperately to organize my thoughts. Wherever we were headed, it couldn’t be the top of the Arch. Although the high-tech trams could maneuver through the long sweeping curves toward the top, we were inside what clearly was a conventional elevator. Conventional elevators go up and they go down. They don’t do curves.