by McKenna Dean
So absorbed, I allowed far too many hours to pass before I decided I would not find anything useful to help me with Margo’s death. My stomach growling, I popped into a small deli to purchase a sandwich for the ride home when I spotted a police officer walking along the street. Realizing I wasn’t all that far from the precinct that should have investigated Margo’s death, I grabbed my sandwich and bolted to catch the next bus.
I was doomed to disappointment, however. After waiting an interminable time in the police station, observing the interactions of the colorful personages there, a uniformed officer informed me the detective who had covered the case was not in.
“Please have him contact me at his soonest convenience.” I handed the officer my card with great dignity.
He flicked a glance from the top of my smart black hat to the bottom of my red coat and back up again before reading the card. “Redclaw Security, eh? What’s that? Some kind of insurance company?”
“Of a sort,” I replied.
“Right you are, Miss Climpson. I’ll inform Detective Horowitz you wish to speak with him.”
“Thank you.” I’d crossed out the agency phone number and penned in my own when I’d swiped the card from Climmy’s desk earlier that day. I hoped the detective would call the number I’d provided instead of Redclaw itself. To hedge my bet in case he did, I added with authority, “Be sure to ask for my assistant, Miss Bishop.”
Chapter Eleven
To my surprise, just after nine p.m. a peremptory rap sounded at my door. Sliding the ray gun into the pocket of my silk kimono, where it lay like the inert object it was meant to be, I opened the door and peeked out from behind the chain.
A disapproving Mrs. King stood in the hallway. “Telephone call for you downstairs. It’s the police.”
The way she emphasized the word police implied not only had I done something to warrant the attention of the authorities, but that she’d known it was just a matter of time.
I let my brow clear before responding. “Oh, good. It must be about my missing purse. I’ll be right down, thank you.”
I closed the door before she could say anything else and grabbed my slippers. Though I wanted to hurry down the stairs, I took my time so I would neither appear too anxious nor catch up with Mrs. King.
Just the same, she watched from the entrance to her apartment when I entered the little cubicle for the phone. I gave her a bright smile and pulled the folding door to the compartment shut.
“This is Miss Bishop,” I said in clipped tones, inserting a degree of supercilious efficiency into my voice.
“Detective Horowitz, ma’am. My sergeant said you stopped by this afternoon?” The man sounded bored or perhaps tired. Given the unusual hour, I bet on tired.
“That was Miss Climpson. I’m her assistant.”
I heard papers being shuffled in the background, and then the detective spoke again. “Right you are. Sorry to disturb you this late, but I’ve been out of the station all day. I believe Miss Climpson was seeking additional information regarding the Knight hit-and-run?”
“Yes. Has there been any further development in the case?” I was reasonably sure no one could overhear my conversation even if I’d seen anyone lingering about, but I lowered my voice just the same.
“May I ask what your interest in the matter is?”
I detected a hint of wariness in his voice, so I trotted out the cover story I’d drafted on my way home. “I don’t know all the details myself, but it appears there’s an insurance policy after all. My employers are following up.”
“Well, good luck with that. No new leads. It’s a cold case.”
I thought for a moment, then added, “So you don’t suspect Dr. Knight himself?”
“The husband is the primary suspect if we believe there’s foul play. We don’t. Unlucky accident. Besides, the guy was pretty cut up about it. Drove us nuts for a long time, then disappeared. I hear he lost his job too. How much was the policy for?”
“Five hundred dollars. It was meant to cover funeral expenses.”
Horowitz gave an audible sniff. “Hardly worth killing somebody for. Even if he wanted to get rid of his wife, which by all accounts, Knight did not.”
“Well, I’m sure that’s all my employer needs to know.” I spoke briskly, hoping to sound like someone doing her job and somewhat annoyed at being bothered on her down time. “So they ruled it an accidental death and there’s no current investigation?”
“Your employer is the first person other than Knight who’s shown any interest in the last couple of years.”
A dead end. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to see the actual police report for myself. “I would appreciate it if you could send a copy of the report to our office. Mark it to my attention, please.” I gave him the address. “Thank you for your time. Please contact me if anything changes.”
He gave a soft laugh. “Sure, though it won’t. But it’s your dime.”
I tried not to be disappointed as I disconnected the call. I’d hoped speaking with the detective would provide some shred of evidence that the hit-and-run was a deliberate attempt at murder. Perhaps it was just an accident, as Detective Horowitz said. That didn’t mean I couldn’t keep looking—someone who ran down a woman with his car still deserved jail time—but it didn’t seem possible I would identify said person after all this time. After all, the police hadn’t.
The first time I’d met Knight, he’d almost walked in front of a taxi. Having been there on the spot, I could honestly say he hadn’t been paying attention. Had that been the case with Margo too?
Memory of promising Knight something I couldn’t deliver made me squirm a bit in the telephone seat.
With a sigh, I pushed open the folding panels to the phone booth and headed back upstairs, noting the way Mrs. King’s door closed with a click as I passed. If she’d been a witness of Margo Knight’s death, the driver of the car would be in jail already.
Back in my apartment, I rolled my hair up in curlers, not an easy task when I couldn’t raise my left arm as high as I’d like. Though it no longer throbbed, it was abominably sore. An early night with a good book was what I needed after the excitement and drama of the last twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into the Nero Wolfe novel I’d selected, and was rummaging through my bookshelves for something more engaging when I heard a noise coming from the kitchen.
The ray gun lay on the coffee table where I’d placed it on returning to the apartment. It had been suspiciously quiet after its antics in Ryker’s office earlier, almost as if it wanted me to forget its presence, but now it seemed to slide into my hand as I picked it up and crept up to the entrance of the kitchen. The light there was off, and I didn’t turn it on, not wanting to alert anyone to my presence.
The sound repeated, a combination of a scratch and a tap. I peered around the doorjamb. Despite steeling myself for a possible intruder, I still jumped at the sight of Knight standing on the fire escape.
He ducked his head and waggled his fingers, as though he’d arrived late for a party and forgotten his invitation.
I hurried to the window, unlocked it, and wrenched it upward. Thanks to an earlier application of silicon spray, the window opened with ease. “What are you doing here?”
Knight climbed across the sill without waiting for me to invite him in. “What do you think I’m doing here? I didn’t see you at Redclaw today.” His fedora rode the back of his head, and he made a striking picture as he stood there in the kitchen, fists on his hips as he stared at me. “How’s the arm?”
There was no point in dashing for a kerchief to cover my curlers. It was obvious I’d taken my makeup off, and there was no way to disguise the current state of my hair. Flustered, I dropped the gun in my pocket and retied the belt to my robe. “Healing. Sore. You must have been in the lab section. I didn’t go down there today. I had an interview with Ryker, and then I left to do some research.”
He leaned against my counter, the barest hint of a smirk lurking a
round his lips as he crossed his legs at the ankles. The movement drew my eye to the long length of his legs, and the sharp crease of his trousers down the center of his pants. Who was pressing his laundry? For someone who’d let his life fall apart, Knight was a natty dresser. “So I gathered, when I spoke with Detective Horowitz.”
“How could he know how to find you? No one knew where you were.”
His shoulders moved up and down. “I always call him around this time of year.”
Around the anniversary of his wife’s death. Right.
“Well, then you know I’m attempting to uphold my end of the deal.”
“The answers aren’t out there. The man responsible for Margo’s death will never turn up, nor will you find any evidence leading back to him. I’m more interested in the forces behind her death.”
“You mean the government.” I wasn’t so sure myself, but then I’d never worked for the government the way Knight had.
He tapped the side of his nose. “Bingo.”
I suppressed a smile at his theatrical response. “That might be difficult to prove.”
He pushed himself upright. Plucking his hat from his head, he chucked it toward the counter where it landed with a skid. “You’re the one who made the promises, not me. Have you got anything to eat?”
His abrupt change of subject startled me. “What? No. And you never answered my question. Why are you here? How did you get up the fire escape?” It was my turn to place my fists on my hips and glare as he began opening and closing my cabinets.
He flicked a quick glance at me over his shoulder on his way to the refrigerator. Standing in front of the open door, he peered inside. The glow from the interior light caught his puckish expression as he raided the contents of the fridge. “I already told you. I didn’t see you today, and I wasn’t sure if you’d been canned or not. If so, I wasn’t inclined to stick around, cool toys or not. When do you go shopping next? You’re almost out of everything.”
Wrinkling his nose over the bottle of milk, he put it back and selected the egg carton instead. Without asking, he rummaged around beneath the stove and pulled out a frying pan. The gas whooshed to life as he turned on the burner and then adjusted it to a low flame. The nimble way he cracked several eggs into a bowl one-handed spoke of his skill in the kitchen, one that far exceeded my own.
“Being rather generous with my butter, there, aren’t you?” I watched as he cut healthy portions from the slab and tapped the knife against the pan.
“Got any tomatoes?” He was back at the fridge to replace the eggs. “Ooooh. Ham. And a bit of cheese, too.” He removed the plate of food I’d been saving and set it on the counter.
“That’s for my lunch this week.”
My protests were in vain.
“What, this? Not enough to make a decent sandwich. But perfect for an omelet.” He chopped the meat into bite-sized pieces with brisk authority and whisked both meat and cheese into the eggs. Within seconds, he was stirring the mixture into the hot pan, and a delicious odor filled the air. “It will be ready in a jiff. I’ll split it with you.”
“I’m not eating this late at night. I’ll never get to sleep.”
My stomach gurgled embarrassingly loud in the quiet apartment. He lifted a sardonic eyebrow in my direction. “Really? Then you’re doing it wrong. Food, drink, mindless hours of imbecilic entertainment—those are the things you need for true oblivion. Mark my words: ten years from now, virtually every home in America will have a television, and we’ll all be slaves to it. Pity they stop programing at eleven p.m. Just think, if they aired television shows all night long, a whole generation of insomniacs would find some sort of bleary-eyed peace.”
“Are you an insomniac?”
He flipped the omelet with expertise, poking it gently with the spatula as it sizzled in the butter. “Often.” Deftly, he changed the subject. “Say, why does everyone at Redclaw call the boss ‘Ryker’? Do you think that’s his first or last name? Or does he just go by one name only, like that flamboyant piano player? Whatshisname. Liberace.”
The mouthwatering aroma of frying food won me over. Sighing, I went to the cabinet and took down two plates, then opened the drawer beside the stove to collect silverware. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Ryker that the next time you see him? Salt and pepper are on the table.”
I sat down at the small table pushed up against the wall. He divided the omelet and slid my portion onto a plate with the spatula before he seated himself. The first bite was sheer heaven, as the melted cheese and hot ham complemented the lightly browned egg. He took a bite of his own portion, made a face, and shook pepper over his half.
“Should have added it before cooking.” He stabbed at his egg with his fork.
“I think it’s fine as it is.” I took another bite, finished chewing, and tried again. “So why are you here in my kitchen, consuming my food at this hour of the evening? Where are you supposed to be right now?”
“Ah, there’s the rub.” His grin became mischievous as our eyes met across the table. “Redclaw seems to think I’m a specimen they need to collect and store, like their precious artifacts. They set me up with a cot in a windowless room down in the basement. Rather like a monk’s cell.”
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. “Then no one knows where you are right now? Don’t you think that will create a stink when they realize you’re gone?”
“They have to notice I’m gone, first.” His enigmatic smile suggested he was keeping something from me. He dug into his omelet with gusto, finishing it in about three bites. It was a bit like watching a vacuum cleaner salesman in action. “Do you have anything to drink? I had to give my whiskey to your downstairs neighbor so she’d turn a blind eye again as I climbed the escape.”
Without waiting for a response, he sprang up and began rooting in the cabinets again.
“How’d you get up the fire escape, anyway? I pulled the ladder up when I got home this afternoon.”
“Climbed onto a trash bin. Jumped.” The cabinet doors banged shut. Snapping his fingers, he made for the small pantry on the far side of the kitchen. The folding doors hid a few shelves, where I kept my dry goods.
I tried to imagine anyone jumping from a precarious perch on a trash can to the suspended ladder, which is high enough to prevent the casual man-off-the-street from climbing it. It would be an athletic feat for any man, but somehow, I pictured Knight sizing up the distance and making the leap, catching the lowest rung in his bare hands and swinging his way up the ladder.
I could also see him bribing my neighbor with liquor, an image that displeased me for some odd reason.
“Hah!” He emerged from the pantry triumphant. “Wine.”
I started to warn him but he’d already uncorked the bottle and given the opening a sniff. I stifled a laugh at the contortions his face went through as he screwed one eye shut and grimaced as if in pain.
“Good God, that’s not wine, it’s vinegar. Pour it out, woman.” He thrust the bottle at me.
With a sigh, I took it over to the sink and emptied it, taking a moment to rinse the bottle with water before setting aside on the counter. “I’m afraid I care little for alcohol.”
That was an understatement, to be sure.
“I wish I cared less. Perhaps I should put you in charge of my stock.” Turning away to stare out the window, he shoved his hands in his pockets, which had the effect of pulling his pants taut against his derriere. I wasn’t in the habit of noticing such things as a rule, but it occurred to me at that moment this was why men performed this action. To excellent effect, I might add.
“If I wanted to mother someone, I’d have gotten married and had a passel of babies by now.” My tone was sufficiently dry that had he been a plant, he would have died from lack of water.
The smile he cast over his shoulder was the same one he’d given me in the bar the night before, a touch wicked while at the same time inviting me to join in his amusement. I found I liked it better without
the accompanying bleariness. “Yes, I can see that. Though if you ever become a mother, I’m sure you’ll be formidable at that as well.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “What do you want, Knight?”
He spread his hands wide, palms up. “Some company, some conversation, some food.”
I folded my arms over my chest and tapped one foot.
“All right,” he sighed. “You said you’d help me find Margo’s killer. I doubt you can do that from the reception area. You need to find an excuse to come down to the labs tomorrow.”
I shook my head. “I’m on probation. Desk duty. Besides, what do you think I can do down in the labs that I can’t do upstairs in the office?”
“Prove Redclaw isn’t behind my wife’s death.”
“That seems unlikely. I hardly think Redclaw is affiliated with the government.”
His narrow-eyed glare was almost pitying. “You think they’re not because of the whole thing about people keeping their supernatural abilities secret, and how the government would get their knickers in a twist if they knew shifters—and this technology—existed. My dear, how naive of you.”
“Why on Earth would any shifter organization risk aligning themselves with the government? You yourself fell victim to the Red Scare. Can you imagine how much worse the persecution would be if the existence of shifters became public? It would make McCarthyism look like a walk in the park.” I shuddered at the thought. If the shifter secret got out, the government wouldn’t stop at blacklisting.