Odd Partners

by Mystery Writers of America

  Gayle was nervous about bringing a kid into this, but Jamie said she’d recognize him, and they had spotted his car in the lot behind the gym. He was here.

  “Officer Knight and his partner are going to stay outside and out of sight.” Gayle had already taken off her blazer and pulled her blouse out of her slacks so it wasn’t obvious she was a cop. She shifted her holster to the small of her back to better conceal it. “We’re going in with Duke. But he has to be leashed. We don’t want him to go full-on attack dog, and based on how he destroyed that door, I think that’s a possibility.”

  “He killed Duke’s owner.” The girl scratched the dog behind the ears as she clipped on a leash Gayle had bought at the CVS down the street. “I’m ready.”

  Gayle walked into the gym first, the A/C hitting her full force. Jamie followed with Duke. Gayle had only an old DMV photo of Franklin and didn’t immediately spot him, but Jamie said, “I see him. He’s in the back.”

  As soon as Jamie spoke, Duke growled and started barking. The teen held the dog back.

  Franklin looked over at them, then immediately ran. Gayle said into her radio, “He’s heading out back!” She ordered Jamie to stay, then grabbed Duke’s leash and ran through the gym. She had one shot.

  Franklin was fast. Gayle followed, saw the emergency exit slam shut, and went that way. She burst out in time to see Franklin go around the corner.

  She could get into serious trouble for this, but Riley was still down the street. She unclipped the leash. “Get him, Duke!”

  She ran after the sprinting dog as he pursued Franklin to his truck. Franklin couldn’t even get the door closed before Duke leaped up and sank his teeth into the killer’s arm.

  “Shit! Oh fuck! Get him off me!” Franklin screamed in pain.

  Gayle caught up with Duke. “Randall Franklin,” she said, slightly out of breath. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Emily Carr.”

  “Get him off me! Get him off!”

  Gayle ordered Duke to let go, but the dog wouldn’t. Dammit, this wasn’t going as she’d planned.

  Jamie did exactly what Gayle told her not to, and came around the corner. “Jamie! Get back!” Gayle pulled her gun. She didn’t want to shoot the dog, but if his teeth got into Franklin’s neck—she couldn’t let the dog kill her suspect.

  “Don’t shoot him!” Jamie screamed.

  Riley and his partner came screeching to a stop behind the idling truck.

  “Duke! Come!” Jamie shouted, running toward the truck. Gayle put her hand out to stop her.

  The dog let go of Franklin’s arm, then the bastard kicked the animal. Duke yelped and fell to the ground. As Franklin was about to kick him again, Gayle said, “Don’t you dare! Hands up where I can see them!”

  Riley cuffed Franklin and read him his rights. Jamie knelt by Duke. He had blood on his mouth from biting the suspect and was trying to get up, but limped.

  “He’s hurt,” Jamie said. “Please, we have to take him to the vet.”

  “We do. Because we now have solid evidence tying Randall Franklin to the murder of Emily Carr.” Gayle smiled. “And as soon as the DNA comes back from the dog’s mouth and victim’s neck, I think we can look at murder one.” She said to Franklin, “No jury is going to let you off for strangling a seventy-nine-year-old woman.”

  “I-I-I—” he stammered. “I want a lawyer.”

  “My pleasure.”

  VI

  Two weeks later, Jamie told the district attorney everything. She didn’t want to—she was scared that everything Detective Holman had told her was a lie. That she was going to juvenile detention. That she would be in serious trouble.

  But the D.A. told her that if she kept her nose clean and testified against Randall Franklin, plus turned over all the information she knew about the identity theft ring and her jewelry fence, she wouldn’t see any jail time. “We’ll call it super-secret probation.”

  “What?”

  “If I put probation on your record, then you’ll be in the system.” He glanced at Detective Holman. “Gayle told me about your home situation. I can get you into a group home.”

  “No. My mom can’t take care of herself.”

  “But you took care of her by stealing.”

  She bit her lip. That was true. She didn’t know what to do.

  “Your mother has to be able to provide for you. You can’t steal for her,” Holman said.

  “I’ll get a job. A real job.”

  “Harder at fifteen, but I like where your head is at. And I think I have something for you.” The D.A. handed her a business card. “They’re dog groomers and run a dog hotel. They normally don’t hire minors, but I know the owner well, and you’re old enough for a work permit. It won’t be glamorous—a lot of cleaning up after the dogs—but it’s a real job, and you’re good with animals.” He glanced down to where Duke was lying next to her. She had been so worried about him after Franklin kicked him. One of his ribs was broken, but the vet said he was healing fine.

  “I just need your word that your thieving days are over. Once a month Gayle or Officer Knight will check in with you, make sure everything is okay.”

  She turned to the detective. “Why would you do that for me?”

  “You did the right thing even though you knew you could get into serious trouble. And you returned the diamonds.”

  “Why did he do it?” she asked them.

  “He’s not talking—though I have a plea meeting with his attorney for later today.”

  Holman said, “We’ve pieced together some information from what Mrs. Block said. He used the fence to leave a couple of times when Mr. Block made an unexpected stop home. Mrs. Block said Emily Carr made a comment a few weeks ago about how she needed to put an end to the shenanigans—Emily’s word—because Mr. Block was a good man who provided well for her. Mrs. Block dismissed it—but told Randall Franklin. He confessed to her that the woman had seen him a couple of times. That Thursday, he left through the back. Mrs. Block claims she didn’t remember when we asked her.”

  “You don’t believe her!”

  “No, but I don’t think she thought he had killed Mrs. Carr.”

  “She admitted to the affair, and that she was trying to keep it from her husband,” Holman added.

  “I think he panicked,” the D.A. said. “Brandon Block has a reputation for suing people who make him mad, and Randall doesn’t have a lot of money. He didn’t want to lose his gym or house, and I suspect Mrs. Carr saw him that morning and gave him a tongue lashing. Dr. Linn confirmed that Mrs. Carr always spoke her mind.”

  “He snapped,” Holman said. “And he will pay for it.”

  “I really don’t like people very much,” Jamie said.

  “Sometimes, I don’t either.”

  Detective Holman walked her and Duke out of the D.A.’s office. “I asked Officer Knight to take you home. Is everything okay with your mother?”

  “She’s not happy, but I don’t think she’s ever been happy.”

  “Don’t let her unhappiness rub off on you. You have a lot of potential, Jamie. You just have to see it.”

  “Thank you for doing what you said you would.”

  “Thank you for helping us put a bad guy in prison. You and Duke.” Holman bent down and scratched the dog. “You two make a great team.”

  Songbird Blues

  STEPHEN ROSS

  I

  It was 1959. Rayne Burns had been gone for three days, and Mister Ridge could still hear her singing in the night, in his sleep. He hoped he hadn’t strangled her.

  When Rayne Burns sang a song, her voice sounded like brandy pouring from a bottle; a warm, husky flow you’d happily be swept up in. She made you forget. She made you come alive. And Mister Ridge had drowned in her.

  We worke
d at the Rumpus Room—a joint on 57th Street. The doors opened at nine, but nothing really took off until around midnight, once the liquor tide had come in. It was on such a night, two weeks earlier, that Mister Ridge had first heard the voice of the angel.

  Two Weeks Earlier…

  Left. I was vamping, a slow, steady groove down at the bottom end of the piano. Key of A minor.

  Right. My brother, up at the other end of the keyboard, was picking out little patterns of melody in the pentatonic, with the occasional blue note. He was good with that, little improvised runs to offset my bass progression.

  The piano keyboard was a long, narrow river of variables: eighty-eight keys and almost infinite ways to play them. Get one note wrong and everyone knew it.

  My brother and I both worked for Mister Ridge. When he sat at the piano, our job was to play the true notes.

  Rayne Burns walked out onto the club’s little stage. Red dress and red heels. She walked up to the microphone and into the spotlight, and we went into Gershwin’s “Summertime.” And it was summertime, and she could sing, and everyone in the room knew it. Only O’Neill, the drummer, had heard her before; he had stood his paycheck on her voice. The band’s previous singer had had to be let go (she’d been on the needle one too many times). O’Neill grinned like a cat. He traded a satisfied nod with Hooper on the double bass and with Mister Ridge on the piano. The new girl had the pipes.

  * * *

  —

  “Is there hot water in this building?” Rayne asked the next afternoon, an undercurrent of Irish in her accent. She stood on the staircase of our rooming house, her thin arms wrapped around a bag of groceries, her two hands held flat against it. Her fingers were slender and smooth. Delicate. They had never seen hard work. They didn’t need to. Her voice was her work.

  “I know this is an old building, but I only get cold water,” she said. “And it looks like it flows out of the East River.”

  The building dated back to 1880; the pipes were all shot to hell. We’d all had problems. She needed to talk to Frobisher, the building’s supervisor. He lived down on the ground floor.

  She knew him. She had taken the vacant room on the third, the same floor as O’Neill. The drummer had gotten her the gig with the band and had found her a place to stay. He was good with that.

  I reached out to carry her bag.

  She was fine.

  Mister Ridge walked up with her.

  “I like the way you play,” she said. There was sincerity.

  My brother and I were proud.

  Mister Ridge paused when we got to her floor. There was no more talking, just that no-words communication that exists between musicians. The knowing. We had played together only one night, but we were already in tune, and we were liking it.

  She went into her room.

  Mister Ridge went up to ours, up on the fourth.

  “Who is the girl?” the woodpecker asked. “She’s cute.” Jack Staines (the “woodpecker”) had been creeping down the staircase; he had been watching.

  The woodpecker’s hands smelt of soap and hung motionless at his sides. His fingers were clean, always clean, and red, as though they had been scrubbed under hot water for long periods. The nails were chewed.

  I didn’t like Staines. Thirty-two, and he’d inherited the building from his grandfather. He lived up on the fifth, above us all, and he knew it.

  Mister Ridge left him on the stairs and went into our room.

  * * *

  —

  That night at the Rumpus Room, the band cooked. Rayne held the small crowd in her grip as she tore through the songbook: “Misty,” “Funny Valentine,” “Stormy Weather,” “Fever.” She brought the microphone over to the piano and sang “Black Coffee” to us directly. Lady Day in heaven, hear the angel and smile. And when it came around to Mister Ridge’s solo, my brother and I took over, and baby, we are a beautiful pair. My brother is indifferent to most things, mostly to me, but when we’re together on a keyboard, we go to work. Left hand, right hand. The hot notes.

  * * *

  —

  “I’m a bride of the wind,” Rayne said.

  She drank some more. We were seated with her in a coffee shop two blocks from our building. I held a cigarette. My brother was a drinker; he held a cup of joe with a jolt of whiskey. We had been there for two hours. Dawn was staggering in with a yawn, rubbing the nighttime out of its eyes.

  “I had a kid,” Rayne said. “Back in Los Angeles.” And, after a pause: “I still have her fourth birthday present. It’s still wrapped.”

  She put a hand on the table, facedown.

  My brother instinctively reached out and cupped it.

  “After she died, I took a Greyhound east, and I haven’t been back.”

  Many times I wished Mister Ridge had been left-handed. I so badly wanted to comfort her, to touch her skin, to feel the heat of her body. I had to make do with nonchalantly nursing our cigarette and feeling the heat of the tobacco.

  Rayne kissed Mister Ridge on the staircase at floor three. I got my chance. I reached out and took her right hand. Her fingers were the cherished notes made flesh.

  She said good night.

  * * *

  —

  For the next two weeks, Mister Ridge’s blood flowed in a major key. He felt good. The band was good, life was good. The whole damned world was good.

  And then the angel vanished.

  Friday night, and she didn’t show up at the club for work. She didn’t answer her door when it was knocked, and Frobisher wouldn’t open it; she’d paid her rent a month in advance, it was her business what she did.

  The night was a wreck.

  My brother and I did the thing with the needle: the sweet syrup into the vein and into the soul. Mister Ridge took the hit. He lay back on the bed and thought about the moon and the stars and the end of the universe. And the angel.

  There had been no message, no explanation, no reason. She was just gone, plain and simple.

  Now…

  Mister Ridge woke up.

  Rayne had been singing “Summertime” again, and it sounded like she had been right there in the room. She wasn’t. She had been gone for three days, and Mister Ridge hoped he hadn’t strangled her.

  We helped him sit up.

  It was moments before daybreak. A bus passed by down in the street. Mister Ridge climbed off the bed, and my brother and I shut the window. We were lit up in the on/off of the red neon that ran down the edge of the building across the street:

  D

  R

  U

  G

  S

  The last Mister Ridge could remember of Rayne had been a kiss; standing in the hall outside her room three days earlier. It had been the last he had seen of her; the last anyone had seen of her. A wet kiss and tight embrace. In the short space of two weeks, they had become close friends. In that moment, they had become lovers. He knew she soon would have opened her door and let him inside.

  Mister Ridge thought again about the photograph of the kid: a postcard-sized photograph, black-and-white, not quite in focus. A kid on a swing in a park.

  That wasn’t right.

  My brother and I helped Mister Ridge put on his clothes. We buttoned up his shirt and tied his shoelaces. We lit a cigarette, and I held it.

  Mister Ridge went looking for Frobisher. The building supervisor could damn well unlock Rayne’s door and let us look in her room. Maybe she was in there? Maybe she’d been hurt?

  I didn’t like Frobisher, and neither did my brother. Frobisher had pudgy workman’s hands—rough and raw. They were never calm. They fidgeted. The right playing with the left, tugging, forever pulling at loose skin.

  Frobisher wasn’t in his little office on the ground
floor. There was a little, dirty glass window that looked out into the lobby and to the mailboxes. His face wasn’t in it. He wasn’t in his room, either; it connected to his office by a door. He had a big set of keys, duplicates of every key in the building—we couldn’t find it. All we found was an unmade bed, a pinup magazine under it, and a little wooden figurine of a monkey.

  Mister Ridge went up to the third floor and to Rayne’s door.

  I knocked.

  There was no answer.

  Locked or not, I was going to open it.

  I put the cigarette in Mister Ridge’s mouth, and I took a slender tuning fork out of his pocket together with a nail file.

  My brother was hesitant. He didn’t like this kind of work. He didn’t like to have to concentrate. He was all about passion and the spur of the moment. He had a streak of violence to him that was like a thunderbolt. He’d rather have simply punched the door open, despite the damage to his manicure.

  I forced the nail file into his palm.

  I slid the tuning fork into the keyhole and waited. Tricking a lock was like playing ragtime; it only sounded the hell like ragtime if there were two hands on the keyboard.

  He joined me. Hesitation be damned, he wanted to get into that room, too.

  My brother looked down on everything I did. I was the bottom end of the keyboard; the chord progressions and the bass lines. The under work. He was of the noble notes, the melody, the ethereal above. I was just his counterpoint.

  We concentrated. Together, with several flicks of his file and the counterpunch of my fork, we unlocked the door and went into the room.

  Rayne wasn’t there.

  The photograph Mister Ridge had remembered was pinned to the wall above the dresser. A single pin. A picture of a little girl in a park on a swing. Rayne’s kid.

  Rayne’s room was the same as our own: single window, bare wood floor, green wallpaper that dated back to the nineteenth century, and a faded picture of a sunflower by that van Gogh fellow hung on the wall. Mister Ridge had the same cheap print on the wall in his room. Every room in the building probably had the sunflower.