Reckless

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “Tell me,” he said when she buckled herself in and he began to back out of her mother’s driveway, “will your ‘gift’ make you feel it more acutely when I turn you across my knee? I just want to know because in that case I might hold back a little.”

  So much for the hope he’d cooled down.

  “I have nothing to apologize for,” Mia said. “You signed off on the case and I had new evidence that needed to be followed up on. And for the record, you don’t get to treat me like a misbehaving child.”

  “Only when you act like it.”

  “Nope. Not even then. In case last night wasn’t a big enough newsflash for you, Jack, you’re not my father or my brother. You don’t like it when I get an idea that you don’t agree with but that’s too bad. I have my own ideas of how this case needs to be handled.”

  “Goddam it, Mia, you are not going to get killed on my watch. I won’t allow it.”

  She should have realized it wasn’t pride that was scorching him. She hesitated only a moment before she reached over and touched his hand as it gripped the steering wheel. He was literally vibrating with worry and helpless anger. She pushed past it and started to feel his strength, his determination.

  “I know, Jack,” she said, softly. “I believe that. But you’ll do it not by altering my behavior but by being with me. You see that, right?”

  “I can’t be with you every minute.”

  “Just when it counts, Jack. Just when it counts.”

  Heather pulled up alongside Keith’s truck. She knew it was his from how he’d described it to her earlier. She wasn’t at all surprised Keith drove a pick-up truck. Not with all the tats and the day-old beard he always wore. She preferred her men clean-shaven, like Dave always was. She frowned at the thought of Dave.

  This was the weekend they were supposed to go to Key West. She’d been shopping all fall for it. But instead, she was sitting in her Highlander in the parking lot of Piedmont Park—just like all the derelicts and sexual deviants except most of them didn’t come in cars—waiting for a guy she’d never given two thoughts about before.

  She watched two young men walk across the park hand in hand. One of them broke away to catch a flying disc that had sailed into his path. Heather could hear him laughing even with the car window up from this distance. It’s true, she thought. Everyone who has someone is having so much fun. That’s because the world is made up of couples…and losers.

  Which is why, she thought as she watched the two men continue their walk, I am sitting here on the sleazy side of Piedmont Park waiting for the one man who’ll make me remember who I used to be—and not who I am now.

  A harsh rap on the window by her face made her jump and give a small scream. She twisted her head, half expecting to see one of the gays standing by her car. Instead, of course, it was Keith.

  As soon as her hand fumbled for the latch to lower the driver side window, Heather felt what she knew she should have felt from the moment he called. An ominous feeling of dread came over her as she watched the glass descend and the noises and smells of the park—and Keith—pour into her car.

  What in the world had she been thinking?

  “Keith, this was a mistake,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  His hand reached in and grabbed her wrist and she gasped. She watched in horror as his other hand disengaged the lock and pulled the door open.

  “What are you doing?” she said as he dragged her out of the car. “Help! Help!”

  He grabbed her face with both hands, covering her mouth and brought his mouth close to her eyes. “Keep screaming and I’ll break your neck,” he whispered hoarsely. “You hear me?”

  Heather put her hands on top of his holding her face, but she nodded, wondering in her terror if the warm liquid she felt trickling down her leg was blood or pee.

  Burton drove back to Mia’s condo in Atlantic Station after picking up a Thai take-out from a place located off Piedmont Park. It was all Mia could do not to insist they drive immediately to Carol and Maxwell’s house in Pershing Point to confront them together. But she knew Burton would never agree to it. Not tonight anyway.

  After they’d eaten, she sat down with him on the couch, amazed that the day’s events had helped her forgive him for last night, and opened up her video tablet.

  “Can we look at this together?”

  He acted like he’d been expecting it. He put the remote control down and leaned back into the couch to see the tablet screen. She clicked on the link on the video-sharing site.

  “I only saw a few seconds of it,” she said, holding the tablet between them. She rested it on Burton’s knee and they watched the video in silence. After the first shocking few minutes, Mia realized the rest of it was nearly boring. There was very little conversation among the three on the video, mostly just animal grunts and groans, some laughter.

  That would be Dave. Everything was funny to Dave.

  When the video ended, Mia turned the tablet off. There was no way she could bear to watch it again. She was surprised there was no embarrassment between her and Burton. The sexual acts, although obviously real, were not graphic, with most of the action happening under covers or behind other bodies.

  “So that’s why you went to Maxwell,” Burton said finally. “Because you think this jumps him to the top of the suspect list.”

  “I did,” she said, twisting around to look at him. Was he starting to come around to her way of thinking? “Except, when he cuffed me, I couldn’t feel his guilt. Besides my senses tell me a woman is involved.”

  “Trust me, darlin’,” Burton drawled. “A woman was very involved.”

  “Stop that,” she said. “You know what I mean. My senses picked up that it was a woman who handled the glass that poisoned Dave.”

  “Then going by your theory—and if this video is key at all to what happened—the killer is either Carol or Trish or Heather,” Burton said.

  She knew he was patronizing her. “I told you,” she said patiently. “It’s not Heather. Although, every time I’ve tried calling her lately it just goes straight to voicemail so she might be screening my calls.”

  “What a surprise.”

  “And, say what you will, I just can’t believe it’s Trish. Carol was the one sleeping with Dave. It makes more sense that it’s her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Jack, we really need to talk to her and I know we tried to do that yesterday but this changes everything.”

  “You know Maxwell will have told her what happened today.”

  “So?”

  “So, we won’t be catching her with her guard down.”

  “I don’t care. I just need my hands on her for one minute.”

  “This is a totally crackpot way of going about things.”

  “That’s because you don’t believe in me.”

  “Oh, I believe in you,” Burton said, reaching for the remote again. “I believe in your grit and your brains and in your single-minded determination to bulldoze all other theories–along with any and all palpable evidence—that conflict with your own.”

  “That’s a mean thing to say. And it started out so nice, too.”

  Burton laughed and shook his head as if in wonder. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a bigger emotional roller coaster than I have from the moment I met you,” he said.

  “Is that good?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” He laughed again. “I don’t think it’s good at all.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Burton directed the mattress deliverymen into Dave’s bedroom and oversaw the removal of the old bed—sheets and pillows. He was pretty sure a brand new bed with new sheets wouldn’t lure Mia back into this room—not to sleep in anyway—but in time she would.

  Everything in time.

  Mia sat at the breakfast bar with a large cup of coffee in her hands. Her finger tapped the rim of the cup as she stared out the kitchen window.

  “I don’t want to call first,” she said.
<
br />   “It doesn’t matter whether you call or not,” he said. “If you show up today, you’re going to get arrested. Again.”

  “Technically, I didn’t get arrested yesterday. It was all just grandstanding on Maxwell’s part.”

  “If we show up on his doorstep—”

  “We’re not going to their place. She’s not there.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Mia opened up her tablet and turned the screen around so he could see. “Her Facebook page lists her as single and she has a new address.”

  Burton picked up the tablet and stared at the photo of Carol. “Yeah, she certainly looks single,” he said, frowning.

  “No, she changed her status. See?” Mia pointed to Carol’s profile. “Either she’s formally separated or she’s playing games, but in any case, we won’t have to worry about running into Maxwell now. So maybe he won’t have told her about yesterday.”

  Burton placed the tablet back down on the kitchen counter. “That’s all very well but how do we know her new—”

  Mia picked up her cellphone and spoke into it. “Get me the address for Carol Maxwell in Atlanta,” she said.

  “No way.” Burton grinned at her. “You kids and your techno toys.”

  She held out the screen of the phone to him to show him the map. “Looks like she’s in Morningside. Are you coming or am I doing this alone?”

  “Only if you promise that if she tells us to bugger off, we’ll leave and there’ll be no lunging across the welcome mat to get your hands on her.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Mia, I’m serious.”

  “Well, so am I, Jack. And I’m not playing by the rules in this case. Screw the rules. You’re not on the force any more. You can step out of line now.” She hopped off the kitchen stool and went to the front door, grabbing up her purse along the way. “It’s early enough she should be home but not so early she’ll still be in bed. Are you coming?”

  “If only to prevent you getting yourself arrested,” he muttered, scooping up the car keys as he met her at the door.

  * * *

  Morningside, even in autumn, was one of the prettier drives in Atlanta, Mia thought. And in a city that was eighty percent trees and flowers, that’s saying something.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re going to ask her or are we going strictly by touch here?”

  Mia shrugged. “I might ask her if she’s seen any good sex videos lately.”

  “A little in-your-face, don’t you think?”

  “I’m going to play it by ear.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  She pointed to an upcoming street sign shrouded in heavy foliage. “I think this one’s it. Yes, it is. Turn here.”

  The street was a narrow residential one. Most of the homes had been torn down and rebuilt but there were two on opposite sides of the street that hadn’t been done yet. They looked diminutive next to the looming re-builds, most of which were done with steel and stucco instead of wood.

  “Last driveway on the right,” Mia said, already unbuckling her seatbelt. She turned and put a hand on Burton’s chest. Surprised, he looked down at it before looking into her eyes. “I don’t think you should come,” she said.

  She removed her hand and Burton put the car in park at the base of the driveway.

  “Fine,” he said, leaning back and draping an arm loosely over her seat as if to show he was comfortable lounging out here all day.

  “Good.” Without a backward glance, she exited the car and hurried up the leaf-strewn driveway. Every deciduous tree in Atlanta had dropped its leaves by now, Burton noted. Looks like Carol isn’t into lawn work.

  The days were still warm for November in Atlanta. He rolled the passenger side window down and unbuckled his seatbelt. It was quiet here—too far from Piedmont Road or Peachtree to pick up the nearly constant hum of Atlanta traffic. He looked across the street and realized the neighborhood felt deserted. There were no mothers with strollers, no joggers, no sounds or signs of life from any of the homes.

  Probably all working double incomes to afford the outrageous cost of living in Morningside, he thought. Except for some sections of Buckhead, this neighborhood was generally considered to be the most expensive zip code in the southeast.

  He looked at his watch and at Carol’s house. The front door was obscured by the serpentine driveway lined with several towering gardenia bushes. He hadn’t heard any conversation while he was waiting so it appeared, amazingly, that Mia had gotten Carol to let her in.

  Unless.

  He opened the door and stepped out onto the driveway.

  The front door was ajar.

  He stood in the middle of Carol’s driveway, pondering whether to knock or go back to the car. As he stood there, he saw a shadow pass by one of the front, draped bay windows.

  If there were two people in there, shouldn’t I have seen two shadows? If Carol let her in, why didn’t she close the front door?

  With the sudden and absolute knowledge that Mia would go into an unlocked house whether Carol was there or not, Burton ran up the drive and pushed open the front door. He heard no voices, only the faint sound of paper rustling coming from the living room.

  “Mia?” he called. “Carol?”

  “In here, Jack,” Mia called from the next room.

  He moved through the small foyer and stepped into the living room, sure now that Carol was not home and that Mia had, if not broken in, at least trespassed. Holy crap, I should never have trusted her to go to the front door alone!

  “Mia, where are you and you’d better not have just let yourself in.”

  The minute Burton saw her, leaning over the couch going through a large handbag, he also saw the body lying face down on the carpet in front of the coffee table.

  “Jesus! Mia!”

  He watched her look up at him in surprise as if startled to see him there.

  “Jack, you’ll never believe what I found,” she said, her face flushed with excitement.

  “Do not touch anything! Are you crazy? Is that…?” He walked to the couch, intent on physically removing Mia if he had to, when he saw the head on the body was twisted toward him—revealing the beautiful and stone cold profile of Carol Maxwell.

  13

  They spent the rest of the day and most of the night answering questions at police headquarters. It had been all Burton could do to prevent Mia from pocketing the five Ecstasy pills she found in Carol’s purse—or touching for the third time the water glass she was convinced was the vehicle for the poison that killed Carol.

  She had already popped out the DVD from Carol’s laptop labeled “Three on a Match,” and put her hands on every single, useless item in Carol’s purse, not to mention, Carol herself, before Burton dragged her out of the house.

  Now, seven hours later, they sat side by side on metal chairs in the narrow hallway of the Atlanta police department’s homicide division. Maxwell was not in attendance and the detective team who questioned them, together and separately, was new. Burton thought that might be a good thing. Unless they’d heard too much about him, they might not have a prejudice against him. After the questioning, he gave up that possibility. They were treated less as important witnesses to a major crime than as possible suspects. Except they weren’t charged.

  Not yet anyway.

  “We’re going to lose our brand new license if you do crap like this,” he said as he handed her a cup of vending machine coffee.

  “I’ll play by the rules in the next case,” she said. A moment passed between them as she sipped her drink before she spoke again. “I guess this eliminates Carol from our list. Now we’re down to Diane and Trish.”

  “So you’re not giving Trish the Christian discount any longer?”

  “With Carol gone, Trish is my prime suspect. Fact is, she should have been all along. You were right, Jack. I let my prejudice distract me.”

  “I’m waiting for a motive.”

  “I’m not sure why she
would kill Dave,” she admitted, “but it seems pretty cut and dried for her killing Carol.”

  “Because Carol was sleeping with her husband?”

  Mia frowned at him. “You don’t think that’s a good motive?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe if there was money involved.”

  They sat again without speaking. A woman in her forties sat several seats away. She looked distraught and was shredding a tissue in her hands with nervous, jerky movements. As Mia watched, she saw the woman alternately weep into the tissue and look about her forlornly. Mia wondered if she were there to bail an errant husband out or a drug-dealing son. When she looked closer, she saw the woman was hugging a small blue cardigan to her breast.

  She was a mother who had lost her child.

  “What did you…feel when you touched the body?” he asked.

  “I was wondering when you were going to ask me that,” she said, tearing her eyes away from the despondent woman.

  “Well?”

  “She was killed by a woman.”

  “Not this again.”

  “Look, I know what I know, Jack. Carol was poisoned the same way Dave was.”

  “I thought you said Carol poisoned Dave? You said you felt her in his condo and that it was her hand that coated that glass.”

  “I’m not sure I said that,” she said frowning. “Sometimes it’s hard to separate what I’m feeling. I knew Carol had been there the day Dave died. And I knew she touched that glass.”

  “But so did half the police techs—including yourself, am I right?”

  “Whatever.”

  A door swung open and one of the detectives, a man in his late thirties with bad skin and long hair, stepped out in the hall and gestured for them to come with him. Burton took Mia’s drink and tossed it in the trash receptacle and they followed the detective down the long narrow hall. It was nearly midnight and they were both exhausted.

  Burton was pretty sure the guy—Daniels, was his name—was releasing them but he didn’t want to push their luck by asking. He knew from personal experience that if the guy wanted to keep them sitting on metal chairs in the hallway—or worse—another twenty-four hours, he could.