Hello, Darkness

by Sandra Brown

  Dean turned to her. “The what?”

  “At his previous job, a female employee accused Stan of sexual harassment.”

  Dean gave her a look that said he couldn’t believe she hadn’t shared this information with him before now. She realized that she’d been wrong not to. Probably she also should have told him about Stan’s promiscuous parents and his overbearing uncle’s cruelty.

  Dean turned back to him. “Obviously you do have issues with women, Stan.”

  “She was the office whore!” he exclaimed. “She had slept with every other guy who worked there. She gave head to the anchorman under the desk during a newscast. She kept coming on to me and when I responded, she turned into a vestal virgin.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was more greedy than horny. She saw a way to get her hands on some of my family’s money. She cried foul and my uncle paid her to shut up and go away.”

  Dean assimilated that, then said, “Let’s go back to when you ‘responded’ to her.”

  “Wait, how come I have to answer your questions?”

  “Because I’m a cop.”

  “Or because you’ve been in Paris’s pants yourself?”

  Dean’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Because if you don’t answer my questions I’m going to take you downtown and lock you up until you get talkative. That’s my official, professional answer. Off the record, my personal answer is that if you say anything like that about Paris again, I’m going to take you outside and smear some of your pretty face on the parking lot.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “You bet your skinny ass I am. Now stop dicking around and tell me what I want to know.”

  Despite what he’d said, Dean wasn’t performing a hundred percent in an official capacity. He wasn’t interrogating Stan in the calm, confidence-inspiring manner he usually used with suspects. But Stan probably wouldn’t have responded to his usual approach. Taking a harder line with him seemed to be working.

  Stan glared at Dean, fired drop-dead looks at Paris, but crossed his arms over his chest as though to protect himself. “I’m going to file charges of police brutality. My uncle will—”

  “Your uncle will have more than me to worry about if it turns out you’re Valentino.”

  “I’m not! Don’t you listen?”

  “When that woman said no to you, did you go ahead and complete the act?”

  Stan’s eyes darted between them. “No. I mean, yeah. Sort of.”

  “Well, which is it? Yes, no, or sort of?”

  “I didn’t force her, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “But you completed the act?”

  “I told you she was the—”

  “ ‘Office whore.’ So she was asking for it.”

  “Right.”

  “For you to rape her.”

  “You keep putting words in my mouth!” Stan cried.

  “And you’re going downtown with me. Right now.”

  Stan backed away from him. “You can’t . . .” He looked frantically at Paris. “Do something. If you let this happen, my uncle will have your job.”

  She didn’t even consider questioning Dean. Frankly, she was now afraid of Stan. Perhaps she had misjudged him. She had always thought of him as a worthless, maladjusted screwup, but basically harmless. Maybe he was capable of committing the crimes against Janey Kemp.

  If he proved not to be Valentino, she would have to face Wilkins Crenshaw’s wrath. Undoubtedly it would cost her her job. But she would rather lose her job than her life.

  Dean took Stan by the arm and turned him toward the door. Stan began to struggle and Dean had his hands full trying to restrain him without handcuffs. When his cell phone rang, he tossed it to Paris so she could answer it for him.

  “Hello?”

  “Paris?”

  She could barely hear over the crude invective Stan was screaming at Dean. “Gavin?”

  “I’ve gotta talk to my dad, Paris. It’s an emergency.”

  • • •

  Gavin had been whiling away his time watching television, which was the only privilege his dad hadn’t revoked. He’d put his favorite movie into the VCR, but the challenges confronting Mel Gibson seemed tame compared to what was happening in his own life.

  He was worried about his dad and Paris.

  He hadn’t felt nearly as dismissive as he’d acted when his dad said that Valentino might come after them. This guy really could intend to harm them and didn’t seem afraid to try. He shouldn’t be underestimated. Who’d have thought he would murder Janey?

  When the house phone rang, he welcomed the distraction. He rushed to answer and did so without even checking the caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Why haven’t you been answering your cell phone?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Melissa.”

  Melissa Hatcher? Oh, great. “I haven’t had my cell on. It’s been kinda hectic—”

  “Gavin, you gotta help me.”

  Was she crying? “What’s the matter?”

  “I need to see you, but there’s a cop car parked in front of your house, so I drove on past. You gotta meet me.”

  “I’m not supposed to leave.”

  “Gavin, this is no bullshit,” she fairly shrieked.

  “Just come over.”

  “With cops there? I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? Are you high?”

  She blubbered and sniffed, then said, “Can I sneak in through the back?”

  He didn’t want any part of her crisis, whatever it was. Having to take a lie detector test would clear up a guy’s thinking and rearrange his priorities, but quick. He’d made a promise to himself that if he came out of this mess reasonably unscathed, he would cultivate a new circle of friends.

  Another major infraction, and he could find himself on his way back to Houston. He didn’t want to return to his mother’s house. Now that things were square between him and his dad, he looked forward to staying with him, maybe until he graduated from high school.

  It was definitely in his best interests to tell Melissa he was busy and hang up. But she sounded really strung out. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “Park on the street behind us and walk between the houses. There isn’t a fence. I’ll let you in through the patio door. How soon can you be here?”

  “Two minutes.”

  He checked to make certain that both policemen were in the squad car at the front curb, and that one wasn’t making his hourly tour around the house, then went into the kitchen and watched for Melissa. When she emerged from the hedge of oleander bushes that separated the two properties, she looked like a trick-or-treater.

  Tears had left tracks of black eye makeup down her cheeks. Her clothes looked more like a costume than anything a normal person would wear. It was a mystery to him how anyone could run in the platform sandals she was wearing, but she managed. She skirted the pool and clopped across the limestone terrace. He opened the sliding glass door and she flung herself against him.

  He pulled her inside and closed the door. Supporting her against his side, he half-carried her into the den, where he lowered her into a chair. While she babbled incoherently, she continued to clutch at him.

  “Melissa, calm down. I can’t understand a thing you’re saying. Tell me what’s going on.”

  She pointed to the wet bar across the room. “I gotta have something to drink first.”

  When she tried to get up, Gavin pushed her back down. “Forget it. You can have some water.”

  He took a bottle from the mini-fridge, and while she drank from it, he remarked, “You’re a freak show. What happened?”

  “I was . . . was with him.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy . . . the . . . the dentist. That Armstrong.”

  Gavin felt his jaw drop open. “What? Where?”

  “Where? Uh . . .”

  She looked around the room as though Brad Armstrong might be standing in a corner of it. Gavin wanted to slap
her. How could anybody be so damned dense?

  “Where, Melissa?”

  “Don’t holler at me.” She rubbed her forehead as though trying to massage the answer out. “A motel. I think the sign out front had a cowboy, or a saddle, something like that on it.”

  A motel in Austin with a western theme. That narrowed it down to several hundred, he thought caustically. “If you met him there—”

  “I didn’t. He picked me up in a bar on the lake and drove me there. I was shit-faced. I’d been drowning my sorrow, you know, over Janey, with tequila shots. He showed up, bought me a drink.”

  “And you went to a motel with him?”

  “It wasn’t like I didn’t know him. I was with him a few nights ago and we hit it off.”

  “Where was this?”

  “That, uh, oh, you know the spot. Where we all go sometimes.”

  He anxiously motioned for her to continue.

  “We did it in his car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “Today or then? They were different.”

  “Today.”

  “Red, I think. Or maybe blue. I wasn’t paying much attention either time. He was nice to me. Really got off on my pierced nipple. It’s new.” She grinned at him and proudly raised her top.

  “Nice.”

  Actually he thought she was grotesque. He’d never liked her much, had never been attracted to her, but just then, she repulsed him. He also began to question whether she was really hysterical or if this was all an act, a ploy to get inside his house, or more. She was jealous of Janey and could be trying to get some of the attention her murdered friend was receiving.

  He pulled her top back into place. “Are you sure it was Brad Armstrong you were with, Melissa?”

  “Don’t you believe me? Would I go out looking like this on purpose?”

  She had a point. “When did you learn that this was the guy the police are looking for?”

  “We drove to this motel. Got in bed. He’s humping away when I happen to glance across the room at the TV set. It was on, but the sound was muted. And his picture is on the screen. Big as Dallas. Everybody and his dog is out looking for him, and he’s balling me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What do you think? I got him off me. I told him I had to leave, remembered I was late for an appointment. He put up an argument. Tried to talk me into staying. The more he talked, the crazier he got. First he called me a tease, then he said I was a cruel bitch, then he totally wigged out. Grabbed me and shook me and said I could go when he was good and finished with me.”

  She held out her arms to show Gavin the bruises beginning to appear on her biceps. “I’m telling you, Gavin, he went completely nuts. Slapped me, called me a cunt, said I was as much a cunt as Janey Kemp had been. That capped it for me. I started screaming bloody murder, and he let me go. I grabbed my clothes and hoofed it.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Since I ran out? Maybe an hour. I flagged down a guy in a pickup truck and hitched a ride back to my car, then I drove straight here, saw the cop car. All this time I’m trying to reach you on your cell phone. Finally remembered your home number. You know the rest.” She gave him an imploring look. “I’m in a bad way here, Gavin. Just one shot of something, please?”

  “I said no.” He squatted down in front of her. “Did you talk to him about Janey?”

  “You think I’m stupid? I didn’t want to wind up like her.”

  “Did you see any pictures of her around?”

  “He had the newspapers.”

  “Any regular photographs?”

  “No. But when I first got there, I wasn’t looking, and later all I wanted to do was split.”

  “You said that when you met him earlier this week, he looked familiar. Had you ever seen him with Janey?”

  “I’m not sure. Could be I’ve just seen him lurking in the crowd. He visits the Sex Club website and—”

  “He said that?”

  “Yeah. And the other night he had this huge stash of porn. He likes to party.”

  When Gavin reached for the cordless phone and began punching in numbers, she sprang from the chair. “Who’re you calling?”

  “My dad.”

  She grabbed the phone from him. “He’s a cop. I don’t want to get involved with the police. No thank you.”

  “Then why’d you come to me?”

  “I needed a friend. I needed help. I thought I could get it from you. Of course, I didn’t know you had dorked out since the last time I saw you. No booze, no—”

  “There’s a manhunt on for this guy.” Angrily Gavin snatched the phone back. “If he’s the one who killed Janey, he’s gotta be caught.”

  Her facial features collapsed and she began to whimper and wring her hands. “Don’t be mad at me, Gavin. I know they’ve gotta catch him, but jeez . . .”

  He softened. “Melissa, the reason you came to me, out of all your friends, is because you knew I would call my dad. Deep down, you wanted to do the right thing.”

  She pulled her lower lip through her teeth. “Okay. Maybe. But give me time to flush some stuff. On top of everything else, I don’t need to get busted for possession. Where’s the bathroom?” He pointed her toward the powder room in the hallway even as he redialed his dad’s cell phone number. It rang four times before it was answered.

  He could barely hear the hello above the yelling and what sounded like scuffling in the background.

  “Paris?”

  “Gavin?”

  “I’ve gotta talk to my dad, Paris. It’s an emergency.”

  chapter 32

  “This is Paris Gibson. I hope you’re planning to spend the next four hours with me here on 101.3. I’ll be playing classic love songs and taking your requests. The phone lines are open. Call me.

  “Let’s start off our time together with a hit from the Stylistics. It’s what falling in love should be about, ‘You Make Me Feel Brand New.’ ”

  She shut off her mike. The phone lines were already lighting up. The first caller requested B. J. Thomas’s “Hooked on a Feeling.” “Since tonight’s theme is how we feel when we fall in love.”

  “Thanks for calling, Angie. It’ll be up next.”

  “’Bye, Paris.”

  She was going through her normal routine, although tonight wasn’t at all normal or routine. It had been almost an hour since Dean had left in a rush to meet Gavin and Melissa Hatcher at the downtown police station.

  Immediately after hanging up with Gavin, Dean had dialed Curtis and capsulized Melissa’s story. Curtis milked him for information and immediately acted on it.

  “It shouldn’t be long till we have him in custody,” Dean told Paris after concluding his conversation with Curtis. “We can start at the bar where he picked up Melissa. She has an approximate idea of how long it took Armstrong to drive from there to the motel, so that gives us a radius to search within. It’s a wide area, but not as wide as before.”

  Paris had asked him if someone had told Toni Armstrong about this development.

  He nodded somberly. “Curtis was with her when he took my call. Their attorney had joined her there.” Then he hugged Paris tightly. “He’ll soon be in custody, and you’ll be safe. It’ll be over.”

  “Except for the memory of what he did to Janey.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed his regret, but his mind was clicking along at a mile a minute, in cop modality. “Curtis says the squad car remains outside until we’ve got Armstrong. Besides, Griggs practically considers himself your personal bodyguard.” He looked over at Stan, who’d been momentarily forgotten. “I guess this lets you off the hook, Crenshaw.”

  “You’re going to regret the way you treated me.”

  “I already do. I wish I’d kicked your ass while I had a good excuse.” He kissed Paris swiftly on the mouth, then rushed out.

  Stan followed him from her office, leaving in a huff. She let him go without saying anything. He would pout, but he would survive, and in the mean
time she had a program to prepare for. Making amends with Stan could wait until she had more time and he was in a more receptive mood.

  Now, at half past the hour, she engaged her mike. “I’ll be back after the break with more music. If you have a request, or just something on your mind you’d like to share, call me.”

  She cut her mike and, sensing a presence, turned on her swivel stool. Stan was standing directly behind her. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I sneaked in.”

  “Why?”

  “I figured as long as you and your boyfriend regard me as a creep, I should behave like one.”

  It was a typically childish, peevish, Stan-like thing to say. “I’m sorry your feelings were hurt by Dean’s allegations, Stan. But admit it. For a while there, you looked like a plausible suspect.”

  “For rape and murder?”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “I thought you knew me better than that.”

  “I thought I knew you better, too,” she exclaimed, losing patience with him. “If your behavior had been above reproach, no one would have suspected you. But aside from the sexual harassment charge in Florida, you’ve been lying about me, telling people we were lovers.”

  “Only Marvin, or whatever his name is. And not in so many words.”

  “Whatever you said, you managed to get your message across. Why would you lead anyone to believe that?”

  “Why do you think?”

  His voice cracked and he suddenly appeared to be on the verge of tears. The emotional display made her embarrassed for him. “I had no idea you felt that way about me, Stan.”

  “Well, you should have, shouldn’t you?”

  “I never looked at you as a . . . in a romantic context.”

  “Maybe those damn sunglasses keep you from seeing what should be obvious.”

  “Stan—”

  “You only saw me as an incompetent whipping boy for my uncle, and a fag.”

  It was an uncomfortable truth that she couldn’t deny, but she did apologize. “I’m sorry.”

  “For godsake, that makes three times you’ve said you’re sorry. But you don’t really mean it. If you wanted to change the way you feel about me, you could. But you don’t want to. Especially now that you’ve got your boyfriend back. He slobbers over you, doesn’t he? And you—who have always maintained a hands-off policy—you’re suddenly in heat.