by Jan Coffey
The sidewalk was well lit. The traffic on the street was light. She accidentally kicked a can and jumped a foot. Looking up, she realized she could have taken the elevated walkway that ran right from the train platform to the buses. Instead, she was following these two morons.
It didn't matter. She’d taken the Metro North from New Haven to Bridgeport, and hadn’t seen anyone she knew on the train.
They wouldn't be looking for her here.
A police car with City of Bridgeport written on the door was parked by the curb some thirty yards ahead. Two cops were sitting inside. She hurried to stay close to the preppies.
As she passed the cops, she kept her eye on them. They were talking, paying no attention to what was happening on the street. Alisha let out a sigh of relief when she got past them.
About twenty yards farther, an SUV with tinted windows pulled up next to her. By the time she realized what was happening, the passenger door had opened.
She recognized him immediately.
“No…please!” she said, backing into the concrete wall behind her.
“Get in the car, Alisha.”
“Help!” she cried to the two preppies up ahead. They didn't even turn around.
“Get in here,” the man said, menacingly. “Now!”
She turned around and started to run back toward the police cruiser, her arms flailing in the air like a wounded bird.
Before she got five steps away, she was caught from behind and lifted into the air.
“You fuckin’ scumbags! Let me go!” Alisha was shoved inside the SUV, and the door slammed shut.
One of the cops glanced up at the departing vehicle, but only for a second before turning back to his conversation.
CHAPTER 12
A long shower, herbal tea at midnight, a two a.m. bowl of cereal, and intermittent periods of meditation, pillow hugging, pillow punching, and yogic breathing. Nothing worked. Lacey didn't get even a minute of sleep. Every bit of conversation she’d had with Gavin played back in her mind. His invitation, most of all.
It wouldn’t be just dinner.
Lacey didn’t go on dates. She didn’t do relationships.
She was far from oblivious to the opposite sex. She knew men were attracted to her. But she wasn’t flattered. She didn’t do well with one-night stands. Over the years, she’d perfected the routine of putting up a wall before things got serious. She didn’t want to get emotionally involved with men. She didn’t trust any of them and she was not about to risk her heart and her life the way her mother had done.
But Gavin wasn’t simply a stranger. They had a connection through Terri. And, man, she had to admit that she was attracted to him. And, for some reason, she wanted his approval. Perhaps because of Terri. He was the only human link she had to segments of her sister’s life that she didn’t know much about.
But dealing with Gavin would be complicated. And for that reason alone, she had to keep their relationship on a professional level. She couldn’t afford to screw it up.
But loneliness surrounded her like a shroud.
Terri had been the cheerleader in her life. In Lacey’s darkest moments, her sister had always held the light that showed her the way. Now what did she have? There was no motivation to put one foot in front of the other to get through each day.
As daylight slipped grayly into her room, the clock ticked over to six o’clock, and she got out of bed. Pulling on an old sweatshirt and sweatpants, she went down to the kitchen. She made coffee and watched the brown liquid start to drip into the decanter. Turning away, she gathered up the piles of mail she’d had forwarded from Terri’s address.
Since the funeral, she’d pressed the snooze button of life too many times. The meeting with Gavin last night had been her wake-up call. Now she was getting someone else involved — asking for their help.
Pouring a cup of coffee, she grabbed the bundle of mail and went into her office. The green light on the Internet modem flashed, reminding her that her system had come under attack. Last night, she'd turned off her main computer, stopping any potential hacker from reaching her files.
As the machine hummed, rattled, and beeped to life, she dropped the mail onto the desk and checked her day's schedule. She had only one appointment at ten this morning. Benita Gomez, a reporter for the Westbury Times. The woman had stopped by a couple of weeks ago and made an appointment with Amy to talk to Lacey. She was doing a column each week on new businesses in town.
Lacey had checked out some of the write-ups and decided she couldn't buy this kind of publicity. She'd agreed to the interview.
There was a sharp tap on the front door and, for an insane moment, Lacey's heart leapt into her throat. She glanced at the clock of the computer. It was only six twenty-two.
Going to the front hall, she peeked through one of the beveled glass panels next to the door. Donna Covington, dressed in a sleek teal running outfit, was standing on the front porch. She seemed tense and was staring hard into the fog at the garage across the driveway.
Lacey opened the door. “Hi, Donna. Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes. I’m fine.”
Her pale expression contradicted her calm words, though. Amy had mentioned that Donna had been sick this past week.
“I hope you don't mind me stopping by so early, but I saw you working through the window.”
“You could see me inside my office from the road?”
“Oh…no.” Donna shook her head. “I was trespassing like I do most mornings. I take a shortcut to the cemetery through your yard. Nice easy uphill start and I don't have to run on the road.”
Lacey knew all about the dangers of jogging on the road.
“You don't mind that I cut through, do you?”
“No, of course not,” Lacey replied, guessing this wasn’t the reason for the early morning visit.
“I sent you an email yesterday about a job. I know it was a last minute thing, but I was out sick and everything backed up.”
“I know all about running behind. I haven’t checked my email for a couple of days.” Lacey was behind a lot more than that, but there was no point in mentioning it. “What do you need?”
“Well, we're doing new flyers for the health club. So if you have the time, I'd love to get a price for new pictures of the facilities, inside and out. Some with clients exercising with trainers. You could either put together the flyer or just give me a price for doing the photos. How does that sound?”
“I can do that,” Lacey said, trying to wrap her head around the business side of her life. She needed jobs like this to pay the bills. “Do you want the photos from the Westbury location?”
“We're actually going to use the same flyer for all the clubs in the state. But most of the pictures could definitely be from the facility here in town.”
Travel time and the number of locations made it a little more complicated.
“You said you emailed me the information?”
“Yeah. Some of it. Most of it.” Donna rubbed her arms as if she was cold. “I'll take you wherever I want to have the pictures taken. Why don't you give me a quote for one day of your time and equipment? Say, nine to five.”
“And the flyer?”
“Actually, never mind about the flyer. We can put that together at our main office and send it to the printers. I really need good photos.”
“When do you need the price quote?” Lacey asked.
“Is today too soon? That's why I stopped by this early,” Donna said in an apologetic tone. “I have to get the money okayed by my boss tomorrow and we only meet once a week. Saturday mornings at the district office.”
“I'll email you an estimate by five o'clock then. Okay?”
“Perfect.”
Actually, translating what Donna wanted into hours made it really simple. She'd have to tack on a little extra since she was handing over the copyright on the shots, but that wasn't a big deal.
Lacey remained in the doorway for a few minutes after Donna left with
a wave, and watched the dense early morning fog swallow up the other woman. All around her, the low branches of the trees hid whatever lay beyond the clearing immediately around the house.
Back in the office, she opened her email. She knew why someone like Donna would approach her about this job: she was a very little fish among the talented and well-known photography studios in western Connecticut. Which meant that she’d work dirt cheap to build a client list. These days, with the ease of digital cameras and smart phones, more people took their own pictures. And with the exception of an occasional wedding, there weren't too many well-paid assignments.
Lacey stared with disbelief at her email inbox. Not even three days and she had four hundred and eighty-four unread emails.
She skimmed through the various spam emails to find Donna’s. Thankfully, Donna had put the name of the health club in the subject line.
Before opening it, Lacey noticed the subject line of an email about a dozen lines above Donna's.
Road Kill.
She stared at the address. A totally meaningless series of letters and numbers. There was no attachment to the email, but she couldn’t bring herself to open it. Her finger hovered over the delete button.
Her mind shifted to the vulnerability of her system. Lacey opened the My Documents directory on her hard drive and sorted the folders by date. Road Kill had a new sub folder, inserted last night at ten fifty-five. She'd turned off her computer at midnight.
Opening the file, she stared at the single photo.
A woman. Clearly dead. The cord still around her neck.
CHAPTER 13
It was almost happy hour and the string of bars and clubs and restaurants lining the beach road in Misquamicutt was humming with people.
Gavin had his arm draped around Lacey’s shoulder. She had hers wrapped around his waist as they walked down the stretch of road beneath the late afternoon sun. There was a crowd gathered in the sandy parking lot. They stopped to see what was going on. Music was blaring, and on the flat roof, a half dozen women in sparkling bikinis were calling out to the onlookers, dancing and tossing bead necklaces down. Lacey laughed. Gavin realized he’d never heard her laugh before.
He was just about to kiss her lips when blue, twelve-foot curtains suddenly rose up around the parking lot, cutting the crowd off from the road as attendants ran out with mats for everyone. Lacey took his hand and they sat down. The summer sun was golden, and the sandy pavement was warm. Immediately, the sex-advice columnist Dr. Ruth and a dozen assistants in lab coats were circulating among the couples on the mats. She had a microphone and was giving everyone directions.
It was a sex therapy clinic.
They’d already gone through exercises in spanking and in the joys of body-painting and were just about to start on oral sex.
A phone ringing in the distance brought everything to a sudden stop.
Gavin opened his eyes and stared up at the white popcorn ceiling of his bedroom.
Shit. Just when we were getting to good part. He picked up the cell phone, checking the number. Lacey. Talk about irony.
Taking a deep breath—which didn’t do much for him—he answered the call. “Hello.”
“I’m so sorry to call you this early.”
Gavin drew a hand down his face, making sure he was awake. The sheet was tented over his middle. He adjusted his genitals and pushed himself up onto one elbow. He looked at the clock radio. Two minutes to seven.
“No problem. The alarm was about to go off. What's up?”
“I just found something else on my computer. Another file.”
He pushed the covers off and swung his feet around to the floor. “More pictures of Terri?”
“No.” Her voice trembled. “It’s someone I don't know. A murder scene. Someone put the file in my system last night. It wasn’t there before. I’m sure of it.”
“Send it to me. Right now. Email it to me.” He shut off the alarm radio as it was about to buzz. “Stay on the line.”
Gavin gave her his email address as he walked to the next bedroom where he’d set up a home office. He opened the laptop. Last night, he’d wrangled a favor off Marg Botto who worked in the state police Photography and Identification unit. Marg didn’t ask why when Gavin called to see the crime scene photos from Terri’s hit-and-run. She just gave him the access code, and Gavin spent time going over them. As he’d guessed, the pictures on Lacey’s computer weren’t from the batch taken by the cops.
“I just sent it,” Lacey said quietly.
He sat behind the desk and retrieved the email. What opened as the attachment on the screen was a close-up of a homicide. “Got it.”
Gavin frowned, studying the photo. The murder weapon was clearly evident. The ends of a white cord lay haphazardly on the victim’s collar and coat, and the black woman’s head was angled back, revealing the line cut into her throat during the strangulation. The photo was a close-up, showing only the chin and mouth—with the distended tongue—and the pink neckline of a shirt inside the lapel of her coat. Nothing in the picture gave away anything definitive as to the identity of the victim. The angle of the head and the blurred background to the body made him think she’d been sitting on the front seat of a vehicle when she was attacked.
“Could this be someone you know?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Lacey said thickly. “There was an email sent, too, nudging me to look for it. The file and the email subject line said the same thing. Road Kill. Same name as Terri’s folder.”
She talked faster. He could hear the panic in her voice. He didn’t blame her.
“This other picture…of the strangled woman,” he spoke softly, surely, hoping it’d help her calm down. “Have you called the police yet?”
“No. I just found it a few minutes ago.”
“Good. Just wait a bit. Let me run this by one of my contacts. It shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours,” he told her.
He started drafting an email to Marg. She’d worked third shift last night and would, therefore, be at work for another hour. He sent her the photo. Two favors in one shift. He was pushing his luck.
“I don't know who this person is or why someone would send me the photo. If this picture is real, I'm terrified to think she was killed because of some connection to me. And the same caption.” Her voice shook. “I didn’t talk about it last night, but I’m responsible for my sister’s death. It’s my fault.”
She broke down and the phone went silent.
“Lacey? Lacey?” he called louder, wishing he could reach through the line and just hold her.
A lengthy pause went by before she came back on. “I’m here.”
He had no doubt that she was crying. “Let’s think about what’s going on here. The most important thing right now is the identity of the victim,” Gavin said, keeping his voice steady. “This photo could be from last night or from a homicide twenty years ago. There's no telling.”
“Road Kill,” she said in a low voice. “Don't you think this creep is trying to tell me something?”
He couldn't disagree. “What we have going for us is that he likes to boast about the kill. This is a record of a trophy for him. And he's communicating. This is exactly what leads police to killers. This should help us find him.”
There was an incoming call on his cell phone. He looked at the number. It was from the state police.
“Lacey, I’m going to call you right back. Keep your phone handy.”
He ended one call and answered the other. It was Marg.
“Where did you get this picture, Gavin?” Her tone was sharp.
“Who is it? Where is it?” he asked instead.
“Don’t fuck with me. Where did you get it?” she demanded.
“I don’t know who took this. It came through on the Internet this morning. That’s why I sent it to you, to figure out what it is.” He was not willing to throw Lacey into the wolf den until he could figure a way to drag her out.
Marg cursed profu
sely first. “It’s a homicide. They discovered the body and the car last night in the parking lot of a tenement building in New Milford. Some guy coming home from second shift reported it.”
“Maybe he took the picture,” Gavin offered. “Is she identified?”
“Fay Stone. A state probation officer. An old timer. The badge and wallet and money were still in the car. This was no robbery.”
The killer had emailed the picture the same night as committing the crime. Lacey’s fear was totally justified.
“The next of kin hasn’t been notified yet, so a word out of you and I’ll drag your ass—”
“Not a word, Marg,” he told her.
“Our crew is still at the site, taking statements and collecting evidence.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to do paperwork on this, Gavin,” she ordered. “And you leave my name out of it. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m doing you favors.”
“Got it.”
As soon as Marg let him go, he got Lacey back on line again. “I’ll try to get there sometime before noon. Can you clear your schedule?”
“I’m in trouble?” she asked.
“We’ll talk more when I get there.”
“Okay,” she said in a defeated tone.
“And Lacey,” he added. “I want you to lock your door. Don’t let any strangers in.”
CHAPTER 14
The five-hundred-dollar-a-plate campaign breakfast for Katherine Green, the candidate for Connecticut's U.S. Senate seat, had over eight hundred people crowded into the Aqua Turf Club.
A retired Republican senator and a couple of the conservative, older Hollywood actors living in Roxbury and Washington Depot were attending to show their support for the challenger, and the polls were showing that Kathy—as she liked to be called—was neck-and- neck with her Democratic opponent. The purpose of this event was to beef up her coffers for the final media push.
Benita Gomez's press badge guaranteed her a free seat, but she wasn't there to listen to the political rhetoric. Most of the media understood that Kathy Green's success was inextricably tied to her family's tragedy and her willingness to display the past like an open book before the public. Before their official interview next Monday, however, Benita wanted to witness the woman's showmanship in person.
