Hard Job

by Jeffery Craig

  The door crashed open as Mitchell and Reightman rushed into the room. He heard them shout, but couldn’t comprehend their words. He felt the fabric loosen and through a cloudy haze, he saw it flutter to the floor around him. Shots fired and then there was more shouting, but he couldn’t understand the words.

  Dameron screamed and fell to the ground. He crawled forward, frantically striving to reach Toby with the knife. Toby heard another shot and Dameron’s leg jerked as blood began to quickly pool underneath it.

  “Christina…!” Dameron wailed as Mitchell jerked up his arms and cuffed him.

  Reightman ran forward and pulled Toby off the ground. “Toby….look at me. Look at me, damn you!” He felt her wrap something around his arm and she knelt down beside him. “Toby!’ He understood she was shouting but didn’t know why. He saw her arm draw back and felt her slap him.

  Once. Then again. Then once more.

  He shook his head and saw her arm draw back. “Stop!” he croaked from his bruised throat.

  “Toby?” he heard her ask.

  “Yes…Detective…….Melba.”

  He heard her laugh with relief and felt Mitchell’s arms wrap around him. His eyes fluttered briefly. He knew he was safe, and then, he was out.

  

  Christina dropped the length of parachute silk from her gloved hands when the door burst open. She heard the gunfire and the shouts as she pulled herself up into the ceiling and balanced herself across the metal tile braces to the service opening. She reached the small door and pulled herself out and raced up the few steps to the roof access. She flung open the door and stumbled out, breathing heavily. She took a few shaking steps toward the ladder and made her feet pull her forward. She crossed the first rooftop and then the next one. She stepped on the last few feet of asphalt between her and the ladder and managed to take a single step before a hard, brutal hand grabbed her by the arm and fling her to the ground. Dazed, she shook her head, trying to clear her head and to make sense of what was happening.

  “Going somewhere, Christina?”

  She looked up toward the voice and recognized the enraged face. “You! What are you doing? You have to help me!”

  “No, I don’t. You’ve been a bad girl, Christina and I’m the last person who’d help you tonight.” John Brown pulled his gun from the back of his waistband. “You shouldn’t have tried to hurt Toby. No one gets to do that but me. “

  She reached her hand out in helpless supplication as he aimed the gun, and fired.

  Christina Dameron fell back on the asphalt, already dead from the single bullet hole above her eyes.

  

  Reightman left Toby in Mitchell’s capable hands as soon as backup arrived to take Dameron into custody. She vaguely heard them read him his rights as she raced out of the room, heading for the stairs in the break room, futilely hoping she’d be in time to catch the other assailant. As she rounded the corner, she almost ran into Jones and the cop who was following close behind.

  “We heard shots from the roof and couldn’t find access to get up! It looks like the old ladder was ripped of the wall!” Jones shouted at her over his shoulder as he raced ahead of her up the stairs. The uniformed cop followed behind her as they climbed past the open access door.

  “Dammit!” she swore when she saw it. “I should have double-checked that.”

  They stepped out onto the roof, searching frantically for the source of the gun fire. “There!’ the cop pointed and they ran to the small form on the rooftop. Jones was there first and knelt down beside the body to check for a pulse.

  “She’s dead,” Reightman said not waiting for his verification. “No one could survive that kind of shot to the head.”

  The cop walked up from behind her and looked down at the body. “Hey! That looks like…”

  “Mrs. Sutton Dameron,” Reightman said. “I think her name was Christina.” She remembered the words Zhou had said over lunch with her and Sam one day not too long ago. “She was from Sarasota, Florida, and her family….they were circus people – big stars at one time. They taught trapeze flying….and the skill of maneuvering lengths of silk. Aerial silk is what they call it.”

  After shooting her a concerned and questioning glance, Detective Jones whipped out his phone and started talking to someone on the other end.

  “Who shot her?”

  “That’s a good question, Officer,” she looked at his name tag, “Wilson.”

  Reightman went to the edge of the roof and peered down at the ladder that had been pulled from the building. She knelt down and reached out, feeling the top part of the wall. She got back up and dusted off her hands. “The support brackets were shot away.”

  Jones approached her. “An ambulance and additional backup units are on the way. I’ve also called the Coroner and Tom Anderson.”

  “Thanks, Jones,” Reightman said.

  “Is Mr. Bailey alright?”

  “Yes, I think he’ll be fine. He was cut a couple of times and almost strangled, but I think… he’ll be okay. Mitchell’s with him.”

  “He’s in good hands then. The EMTs will get him patched up, Reightman. It could have been worse.”

  “It could have been much worse. We’d better get back down there. Officer Wilson, please stay here with the body until additional personnel arrive.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When they hit the bottom of the stairs, Jones said, “I’ll go out front and wait for the others. I’ll direct them to where they need to go.”

  “That’ll be a big help. While you’re handling that, I’m going to check on Toby.” She walked into the back room and saw that Mitchell had Toby on his feet and partially dressed.

  Mitchell was holding a rolled towel to the worst of the cuts. “This one’s going to need stiches,” he informed her as she approached.

  “Just keep applying firm pressure until the EMTs arrive. They should be here soon.” She looked into Toby’s pale, but surprisingly calm, face. “I should have checked the roof access from the break room. I’m sorry.”

  “I checked it myself,” he told her hoarsely, “between three-thirty and four o’clock this afternoon. I locked all the doors – the one up top and the one into the break room.”

  “Then that means someone unlocked them after that.” She looked up at the hole in the ceiling where one of the large tiles had been removed. “Would any of the staff have gone up to the roof?”

  Toby tried to remember who had been in the building. “The only people here were SarahJune and Andre. Andre had an appointment about that time and SarahJune hates going up to the roof. She doesn’t like heights.”

  Reightman looked back up at the ceiling, trying to think of who else could have tampered with the doors. “I’ll be right back. I want to grab the appointment book.” She returned a minute later and showed him the page. “Am I reading this right? Andre had an appointment at four fifteen with a Ms. Marilyn Brown.”

  “Yeah, that looks right but I’ll check with SarahJune tomorrow to be sure.”

  “Toby,” she said reluctantly, “About tomorrow…I have some bad news. You’re going to have to close for a day or two so that the crime techs can process this room, along with the stairwell and the roof.”

  “Why? We know it was Dameron who tried to kill me, and did kill Geri.”

  “Another person was killed tonight. The person who tried to strangle you was Dameron’s wife and she was shot by someone on the roof.”

  He struggled to get the words out of his bruised throat. “So, you’re telling me…there’s a murderer still out there somewhere?”

  “Yes.”

  Before he could reply the EMTs came through the door. “If everyone will step back we can start getting this gentleman patched up.”

  A short while later, Tom and Laurie arrived, followed by Doctors Evans and Bridges. “Fancy seeing you here,” Tom greeted her. He took in her worried expression and tried to add a bit of levity. “Same accommodations as last time we chec
ked into this joint to investigate a murder?”

  Reightman smiled wanly, and then responded in kind. “Yep – the special suite – reserved just for you. Try not to wreck the place or you’ll never get your deposit back”

  “Same for us, Detective?”

  “Oh, no – it’s only the best for the Coroner’s office. I’ve reserved the Penthouse for you, Doctors. The body is on the roof.”

  Toby came out of the back room followed by Mitchell. He went to the desk and picked up the phone. As he croaked into the handset to SarahJune, Mitchell updated her. “He only needed five stitches, Detective. They shot him with some painkillers though, so he’s going to be kind of loopy for a while. I think I should take him back across the street as soon as he’s finished calling the staff.”

  “That’s fine, Mitchell. I can get your statements tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.” Mitchell looked toward the reception desk and watched as Toby spoke on the phone. “Is it over, Detective?”

  “No.” Reightman looked out the front windows at the flashing lights that were once again illuminating Capital Street. “It isn’t.”

  She stayed in her position by the window, watching as a wounded and drugged Sutton Dameron was led to the police car under the bright glare of camera lights. As he was placed into the back, and as she watched the car drive away, she realized it had been exactly four weeks since she first walked through the doors of the Time Out Spa. Exactly four weeks since the murder of Geri Guzman.

  “And four weeks,” she thought as she watched two young men cross the street and start up the stairwell, “since I first met Toby Bailey.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  On Thursday morning, accompanied his attorney, Sutton Dameron confessed to the murder of Geri Guzman and to the attempted murder of Toby Bailey. He brushed aside his lawyer’s objections and told them all that he was more than willing to share how he’d taken care of Guzman, and how he’d almost taken care of Toby Bailey. He, in fact, told them all about how he and his talented and devious wife had arranged the murder so brilliantly.

  Enraged at Guzman’s blackmail and financially strapped to the point they couldn’t continue to meet his demands, the Damerons made the decision to silence Guzman and end the extortion. Dameron maintained a semblance of lustful interest and, in fact, met with Guzman multiple times to scratch his itch, and to keep Guzman from suspecting that his blackmail scheme was at an end.

  “Well, the thing is, I’m totally straight and happily married with two wonderful children,” Dameron explained to those in the interrogation room. “But once in a while, I just have an itch for something different and Guzman was one hot piece of ass. But he really put the screws to us. All our money went to pay him off. Hell! I even had to give him Christina’s big diamond earrings, and that was the last straw! She was really pissed when she found out I’d done that.”

  “So that’s where the two earrings came from.” Reightman nodded as she ticked them off her list. Geri Guzman had been wearing one of them when he was murdered, and Toby had discovered the other in the same lockbox that had held the ledgers and the photographs. She continued to listen in amazement as Jones asked the first questions and the story began to unfold, filling in other unknown details of that night. With very little prodding, Dameron spilled it all, proud of his accomplishment and looking for verification of his cleverness and superiority.

  “I met with Guzman a couple of times down at that damned fancy spa,” Dameron told them. “One thing is for sure, those faggots sure know how to make a place look good. I scoped it out and one night Guzman even took me up to the roof for a little R & R – if you know what I mean. I shared the layout with Christina later and she even drew a little diagram for us to use to memorize the place. Christina figured she could get into the spa from the roof using an old ladder that was attached to the back of one of the buildings if I unlocked the door to the roof while I was there. I didn’t even have to do that – Guzman took me up on the roof that night and we had a drink. You know, Christina is amazing. Her family were bigtime circus stars once, and she learned all kinds of things. She wasn’t afraid of heights or anything,”

  Reightman shot Jones a glance, and then stood and walked over to where Dameron was sitting. “Mr. Dameron, you and your wife were very clever. But Mr. Guzman was a strong man. How did you manage to handle him by yourself?”

  Sutton Dameron thought it over and then gave her a confident smile. “You’re right. Our biggest problem was how to handle Guzman without a lot of mess and without him doing some damage to us. As you pointed out, he was a solidly built guy – I should know – I had him naked on top of me more than a few times and I knew just how strong he really was. We finally decided the best thing to do was to drug him – get him drunk and give him something to make him almost comatose. I got some drugs from Lieberman. He had some stuff he used on guys occasionally, and he gave me everything I needed. I put it in Guzman’s drinks the night we killed him. Once he was wasted and almost out cold, it was easy. I had a great big hunting knife – the folding kind – Christina picked up for some kid with the same name. We thought it was funny that it had the name ‘Toby’ on it. “That should confuse things,” Christina said. Christina came up with the idea of restraining him with the big piece of fabric. She said it was very strong and she knew from experience even a little thing like her could handle Guzman if she could get it wrapped around him. She dropped it down over his neck. Guzman was so out of it that he just hung there, barely moving. I kicked his legs back and dragged him into position. I sliced him up a few times and put in a couple of good deep stabs. Man, it felt great to pay him back for what he did to us. I didn’t even have to work very hard to keep him in place. Christina even played around some and showed me how she could swing him around, steering him with the fabric. It was kind of hot seeing her aim the blood spatter just like it was a water hose, and it was good to see her relax and have some fun. She’d been under a lot of stress with the campaign and it got worse when Guzman’s demands got out of hand. I didn’t want to spoil her fun, but I finally had to tell her to stop before she made too much of a mess. I didn’t even get any blood on me, well not my clothes anyway, because I’d already taken them off, and moved them out of the way.”

  Dameron started giggling at how naughty he’d been and Reightman turned away in disgust, indicating Jones should take the next question. Jones raised his eyebrows to make certain she wanted him to proceed and when she gave him a curt nod, he picked up where she’d left off. “What happened next, Mr. Dameron?”

  “Well, after I finished marking him up some more, I helped Christina pull Guzman – who I guess was just a dead body by then – back to the table in the center of the room and lifted him up. I tried to catch any drops of blood, but he’d stopped gushing well before that. He looked kind of creepy, so I arranged him more peacefully on the table. Even then he just kept staring. Christina rolled up the fabric when I took it from around his neck. It had a little blood on it so I wrapped it pretty tight. I think Christina got it out of the fabric later with some of that miracle cleaner that they sell on TV. She swears by that stuff and likes it because it’s not harmful to the environment. I got some cleaner and wiped down a few places where I thought there might be a fingerprint, but I didn’t do too much. I thought it would be suspicious, and besides, Guzman had explained to me that his faggot partner picked out the finishes in the room to make sure they wouldn’t get smudgy from all the oils and lotions they used. I guess those are hard to clean up.”

  Jones shook his head, not believing what he was hearing. Dameron’s lawyer hadn’t made any objections so far, and both Reightman and the assistant DA were waiting, so he continued with the questioning. “That was smart thinking. What happened after that?”

  “I knew that I had to figure out how to get out of the room without leaving a trail, so I wiped myself down, getting all the blood off my body, and took Guzman’s clothes from where I’d folded them, Christina told me to make some cuts and
slashes in them so they looked like Guzman had been wearing them when he was killed, so I did. Once I was cleaned up, I put on Guzman’s athletic shoes and walked to the door. I had to stop and clean one sole off when I stepped in a small drop of his blood, but it wasn’t too bad. I figured if there was any sort of footprint, it would have been made with Guzman’s shoe and would confuse everyone. I’d already placed my own things into my bag so I picked it up with one hand and jumped across the big puddles by the door. I carried everything to the break room, and dumped it all into the washing machine. It already had some stuff in it so I just crammed the bloody clothes and the shoes right in and – for fun – I tossed in the knife. I thought it would a great touch for it to be found with the bloody clothes.”

  “And then?”

  “It should be pretty obvious to you by now. I just got dressed in my own stuff while Christina put the ceiling tile back and went out through the ceiling. I bunched some paper towels around my hands and then locked the door at the top of the stairs. I shut the access panel and then came downstairs and locked that door. Then, I just walked out the front door – bold as you please. I couldn’t lock it, and I didn’t know how to set the alarm, so I just left.”

  “Didn’t you worry about anyone seeing you, Mr. Dameron?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it. “No, why should I? I looked around once I got outside and there wasn’t anyone around. I didn’t think I’d ever be suspected of something like this. Everyone knows I’m an upright citizen and one of the city leaders. I do have to say one thing though. After I’m elected I‘m going to make sure the city gets some better detectives on the payroll. You almost didn’t figure this out.”

  “You’re right Mr. Dameron, we almost didn’t.”

  “I guess it’s not all your fault, so maybe I’ll be able to find a place for you somewhere in the department after the election. Maybe you can check all of the meters or give people tickets for jaywalking.” Sutton Dameron laughed at the idea, delighted with the situation and the looks on their faces. “But you know the real reason why you had such a hard time figuring this out?”