by Tom Fowler
“He’s looking better for it all the time,” I said.
“Well, you need any help with Tyler, let me know.”
“I think we can handle him . . . but thanks.”
“He up in Baltimore?”
“I . . . have a CI who says he will be.”
“Good. I’ll look forward to hearing about his arrest.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll make the news,” I said.
* * *
While combing through the slagheap of Anthony Tyler’s life, I discovered a couple ex-girlfriends. Neither brought any charges against him, which was not to say he didn’t mistreat them. The first woman hung up on me as soon as I mentioned Tyler’s name. I couldn’t blame her. The second, Connie Sweet, stayed on the line. “Whatever I can do to help bring that son of a bitch down,” she said when I told her who I was—for real this time—and why I called.
“It’s an older case, but I think Tony sexually assaulted and killed a girl in Baltimore about thirteen years ago,” I said. Getting those words out proved a struggle.
“Jesus,” she said amid a sudden, hissing breath.
“Did you see anything when you were with him to make you think he could do such a thing?”
Connie paused. I heard her sigh a couple times. Finally, she said, “I don’t know. I was with him about twelve years ago, I guess, so it’d be after . . . after that poor girl died. Tony was . . . I don’t know . . . a little strange. He was nice enough at first, but then he became abusive.”
“Physically?”
“No,” she said to my surprise. “He was just really good at manipulating me, making me feel like crap, you know? He had a way with stuff like that.”
“How long were you with him?”
“Almost a year, unfortunately. Asshole just about ruined my self-esteem. Took me a couple years to really pick myself up.”
“I’m sorry you went through it,” I said.
“Well, he was a son of a bitch.”
“Did he ever mention being in Baltimore?”
“We went to Baltimore a few times,” Connie Sweet said. “He seemed to like it there. The Eastern Shore was quieter, especially then.”
“Any areas of Baltimore he favored?”
“He liked going to . . . some park somewhere.”
“Patterson Park?” I asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. Patterson Park. He said he liked to walk around it. We stayed downtown but always spent some time there. I didn’t much care for it, but Tony loved it.”
“Thank you, Connie. You’ve helped me a lot.”
“Please take that son of a bitch down and put him away.”
“I plan to.” I was sure my definition of “away” differed from Connie’s, but I didn’t care, and I got the feeling she wouldn’t care overmuch either.
Chapter 23
I dug further into Anthony Tyler but didn’t unearth much. Detective Palmgren and Connie Sweet confirmed what I already knew and suspected. The world would be no poorer for Tyler’s loss. I turned my plan over in my head a few times. It was a damn good one. I’d likely be arrested for carrying it out, but between a claim of self-defense, a great lawyer, and a jury’s sympathy over Samantha’s murder, I didn’t worry about doing any time. If forced to give up my PI career, I could live with it. Samantha’s memory was worth it.
My phone rang a few minutes later, snapping me from my reverie. “Hello?” I said.
“I think he’s on to me again.” It was Melinda.
“Jackson?”
“Who else?”
“I thought you were staying with Joey.”
“I have been, but I can’t stay there all the time.”
“Have you . . . gone back to work?”
“No.” She paused. “I’ve been talking to some of the girls I worked with, though. Been near a lot of the same old haunts. I guess he picked me up again that way.”
I shook my head. The exact thing I warned her not to do. “You think he knows where you’re staying?”
“No. I’ve been careful.”
I could have provided her a testimonial of Jackson’s driving skills, but I figured it wouldn’t do much good. “I’m still working my other case, too. In fact, I’m pretty close to wrapping it up. What would you like me to do?”
“Come meet me?”
Why did I know it was what she’d ask? Without trying to audition for the role, I got the part as Melinda’s knight in armor. Anthony Tyler’s blood would take the shine off it, but I could tolerate the result. I sighed. “Where are you now?”
“I went to a public place so he couldn’t track me so easily. I’m at Papa Nick’s.”
“Do you see him?”
“He’s not inside,” she said. “I’m trying not to be obvious and look for his car outside.”
“OK,” I said. “Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
* * *
The last time I picked Melinda up at a restaurant, she exited via the kitchen and got into my waiting car. I hate repeating myself. Besides, the logistics of Papa Nick’s didn’t lend themselves to the screeching-tires-in-the-alley plan. I drove around the building. The kitchen opened out on the side of the building. I could have spirited her away there, but it would be no better than the front door. Instead, I parked the Audi as close as I could. Jackson McMurray’s silver Mercedes sat a few spots away. With the darkened windows, I couldn’t even tell if he still lurked inside. I walked into the restaurant.
I saw Melinda at the bar as soon as I walked in. She nursed a drink and looked around nervously until she saw me. Her eyes fixed on me, and she smiled as I walked to her and sat on the adjacent barstool. “Not every silver Benz is Jackson’s, you know,” I said.
“Ones that follow me here and make a show of driving around probably are,” she said.
“Let’s get you out of here.” She gulped down the rest of her drink, and we made our way toward the door. I walked through it first. She grabbed my hand. I let her. We walked toward my car. The driver’s side door of the Benz opened. A man I presumed to be Jackson McMurray stepped out. He looked about my height, a little heavier, but still in decent shape. His face still retained some good looks but a difficult lifestyle ravaged it. Beside me, my client sucked in a large breath of air.
“Melinda,” he said, standing at his car.
I unlocked the doors of the Audi, and we stood at the car. “Get in,” I told her. She did.
“You the detective?” Jackson said.
“I’m someone who’s protecting her from you,” I said.
“She doesn’t need protection from me.”
“She thinks she does.”
“Maybe you’re putting the idea into her head,” he said, glaring at me.
“And maybe it was whoever you hired to beat up her friend and shoot her pimp.”
Jackson stepped away from his car and walked deliberately toward me. “You putting those ideas into her head, too?” He stopped within arm’s reach of me.
“Get back in your car and go home,” I said. “Leave Melinda alone.”
“You don’t tell me what to do.”
“Does Vincent Davenport?”
Jackson scowled. He shook his head and feinted turning away, telegraphing the punch he threw. I blocked it, hit him with a quick jab in the solar plexus, and followed it with two more punches to his stomach. He doubled over, and I elbowed him in the face. Jackson stumbled backward into the car parked next to the Audi. A few people milled about the lot. We would attract attention before long if we hadn’t already. I grabbed Jackson’s arm and put him in a wristlock. “Get back in your car and go home,” I said again. “Leave Melinda alone. I strongly advise you to listen to me.”
Jackson grunted before he answered. “What if I don’t?”
“I don’t have time for you. I’m working on something much more important than your sister or you.” I tightened the hold on his lower arm and watched Jackson wince. “Get back in the car and
go away, or I break your arm.”
It took Jackson a few seconds of staring up at me to realize I meant business. He nodded. I released the wristlock. He cast a brief glance at Melinda, got into the Mercedes, and drove away. I got into the Audi and started it. “Did you hurt him?” Melinda said.
“No more than necessary.” We wheeled out of the parking lot.
“I wish he would just stop.”
“Like I told you earlier, I’m really close to finishing something else, something really important. I’ll tell Rollins what’s going on. If you need anyone for the next day or two, you’re going to have to call him.”
“You’re leaving me?”
“I figured out who your stalker is, Melinda,” I said. “The only way I can make him leave you alone is to kill him. I’m not going to do it, and I don’t think you want me to. You have to work things out with your father and eventually with Jackson.” I looked at her, and she nodded. “My other case involves my family. I guess we both have some things to work on.”
“Am I going to be OK?” Melinda said after a few minutes of silence.
“Eventually,” I said. “I offered to help you get a real job earlier. I meant it. You have a life to get back on track.”
She nodded. “I wonder if my family will be a part of it.”
“Family is often a mystery,” I said.
* * *
When I got home, I called Rollins and filled him in on what happened. “He tried to punch you?” Rollins said.
“He was unsuccessful,” I said.
“I think I can handle him. I’ll keep an eye on the girl. Where is she?” I gave him Joey’s name and address. “He’s your fat Italian friend?”
“His reputation precedes him as much as his stomach,” I said.
“You close to putting your other case to bed?”
“I should wrap it up soon.”
“You sure you’re OK with it?”
“With my plan to kill my sister’s killer, you mean?” I said.
“Yes.”
“I’ve never fancied myself a killer. The only person I’ve shot who didn’t pose a direct threat to me was the Chinese guy about to shoot you. I’ve thought about it.” I paused. “I can do it.”
“You trying to convince me or yourself?”
“I know what you’re trying to do,” I said. “On a different day, I might even appreciate it. You’re going to take care of Melinda tonight?”
“I got her.”
“Good. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” I hung up. I stared at Anthony Tyler’s picture on my monitor. If I possessed more time, I would print it out, take it to a shooting range, and satisfy myself with making his head the bull’s-eye. Tonight, I would get the real thing.
* * *
I stayed in and cooked dinner. If I ended up getting arrested for shooting Anthony Tyler, and if an arrest led to me spending time in prison, I wanted to fix my last free meal for a while. Going out somewhere very nice and expensive would have been easy. I hadn’t spent so much time cooking in college for nothing. I thought about what I wanted, made a quick trip to the market, and prepared everything fresh. My stuffed peppers finished baking. I already steamed the spinach and made whole wheat garlic bread in the toaster oven.
The garlic bread made me think of Tony Rizzo. A free meal at Il Buon Cibo would have been appropriate, too, considering my plans for the night. What better company when venturing out to kill someone than the local mob boss? As much as I liked Tony’s restaurant and enjoyed our chats, I decided to stay home and keep to myself. The fewer distractions—at least after I finished my delicious homemade meal—the better.
Speaking of distractions, my doorbell rang as I loaded the dishwasher. I grabbed my .45 on the way to the door. Rich stood on the front steps. I sighed and considered not letting him in. “I know you’re in there,” he said. “I can hear your existential angst.”
I opened the door. “My angst is not existential,” I said.
“Whatever. Can I come in?”
I stepped aside. “What’s going on?”
“Just dropping by to see how you are.”
“How I am?”
“We’re worried about you, C.T.”
“We?” I said.
“Your parents. Me. Gloria. Pretty much everyone who knows you.”
“I’m fine.”
Rich strode into the living room and sat in my recliner. “Bullshit,” he said. “You’re figuring out who killed your sister.”
“I already have,” I said. “It’s more than you or anyone else in your precious system ever did for her.”
“What the hell are you trying to say?”
“You knew she didn’t die of natural causes. How long have you been a cop? How long have you passed on chances to do something about her case?”
“I can’t just comb through cold case files until I find something interesting,” Rich protested. He took a deep breath. If this were a cartoon, steam would have poured from his ears. “She was your sister. I get it. She was my cousin, too. I loved her.” Emotion edged into his voice. “You think I didn’t want to do something for her? For all of us?”
I sat on the couch and took a calming breath. “Then why didn’t you?”
“No,” Rich said, shaking his head. “I’m not telling you.”
“Why not?” He shook his head. I leaned forward and stared at him. “You were in Afghanistan. Now you’re a detective in Baltimore. Fear isn’t the reason. You’re not as fast and loose with rules as I am, but you’ll flout them when you need to. I’m sure you’d also disobey an order if you felt it right.”
“Stop.”
I didn’t. “What’s left? Samantha was your family. You’ve said she was the sister you never had. She treated you like her older brother. I think my parents did, too.” I started to say something else but stopped. Rich looked at me and shook his head. I ignored it. “Family’s it, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“My parents asked you not to look into it,” I said.
Rich tried to scoff. “Why would they?” I wasn’t buying it.
“You tell me.”
He sat in silence. So did I. We stared at each other for a minute. “Fine,” Rich said, long after the silence grew uncomfortable. “They asked me not to look into Samantha’s murder.”
“Why?”
“They had their reasons.”
“Why?” I said, this time louder.
“Maybe you should ask them.”
“Why, goddammit?”
“Because they didn’t want to lose you, too!” Rich closed his eyes and shook his head once, admonishing himself for telling me this. “They didn’t want to lose you, too.”
“Why would they?”
“Because you’d get wind of what was happening. They knew you’d find a way to figure it out. They were already keeping one secret from you and—”
“So were you,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Fine, we all were. Keeping the secret was hard enough on all of us. Your parents were worried you’d obsess then exactly like you’re doing now, try and take on Samantha’s murderer, and get yourself killed.”
“It’s not going to happen, Rich.”
“But you’re planning to confront her killer?” he said.
“Would you do any less in my situation?”
He leaned back in the recliner and waved a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t matter what I would do.”
“But it does,” I said. “You’re a lot more like me than you care to admit. You’d do the same thing in my place.”
Rich stewed in silence before finally saying, “So?”
“So don’t try to talk me out of it . . . and don’t couch it with my parents’ ridiculous concerns.”
“They’re worried about you. I think they have a right to be.”
“I guess they do, but they have no cause for it. I’ll be fine.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” Rich said.
�
�Like kill the bastard who murdered my sister?”
“Yeah. Or get yourself killed in the process.”
“I can take care of myself,” I told him.
“Graveyards are full of people who could take care of themselves, C.T.”
“I promise not to be one more headstone, then. Go sit with my parents and drink gourmet cocoa while you all wring your hands and worry.”
Rich stood. “At least I tried to talk you out of it.”
“I’m not sure you did,” I said.
“Talk you out of it?”
“Try.”
Rich smirked. “I’m going to tell them I did,” he said.
“Your secret is safe with me,” I said.
* * *
After Rich left, I poured myself a glass of port. If tonight were to be my last night of freedom, I wanted to enjoy a good dessert wine. These are the kinds of things you can’t control when you leave other people in charge of your last supper. I swirled the fortified wine around in its small glass and watched tiny maroon rivulets stream down the side. It made me think of blood. Anthony Tyler’s blood.
Maybe my blood.
Gloria left me alone for most of the day. I wanted it, and on some level, so did she. She went out for dinner with a couple of her girlfriends and went upstairs when she saw me in the office staring at Tyler’s picture. Now she came down. “You have more of that port?” she said.
“How’d you know what I was drinking?”
She sat down beside me on the couch and kissed me. “You really think I don’t know a vidro para vinho do porto when I see one?” Her Portugese for “port glass” sounded perfect.
“I should know better than to doubt your upper crust upbringing.” I fetched another and filled it for Gloria. She curled up next to me on the couch and sipped her wine.
“So tonight’s the night,” she said.
“Tonight’s the night.”
Gloria’s head nuzzled my neck and shoulder. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
