My townhouse has a small deck off the master bedroom, overlooking the backyard. The year I moved in, two robins’ nests appeared right underneath the deck. I thought it was kind of neat, the birds and I sharing the same habitat, so to speak. I kept track of the progress of the eggs by getting down on my hands and knees and peering between the slats of the deck, and when the babies hatched, I felt something akin to the pride of fatherhood, although when I shared that little nugget with Simon, he gave me a wry smile and asked if I’d started the college funds yet. I told him he was just jealous because his kids would never master the miracle of flight. My willingness to provide rent-free accommodations for my feathered friends underwent an abrupt change, though, once the little ones actually took wing for the first time. The closest and safest perch from the nests turned out to be the railing of my deck, which immediately became a major repository of, well, bird poop. I endured this for most of that summer, and determined that I’d put a stop to it in future years. My solution was simple: I filled in any space beneath my deck that was large enough for a nest. I used empty plastic jugs, old sprinkling cans, anything I could wedge into those spaces. Sometimes, the birds would find a new spot and get a nest built before I could stop them, and so I would remove the as-yet-unused nest and then fill in the space. I felt somewhat guilty about this until a friend of mine, a science teacher, told me that the birds would just build another nest within a day. When I expressed surprise at how quickly the new nest would be constructed, Jack said, “Hell, JB, they’re birds. What else do they have to do?”
A quick check showed me that my deck was still nest-free, which was too bad, in a way. If the birds had been nesting, I could have talked to them about Terry Pendleton’s murder. Maybe they could have used some of their free time to think about the case, or perhaps they knew an owl they could consult with. Hey, I’m not proud.
Instead, I headed for the weights. An hour later, sweating heavily, I shaved and showered, threw on an old pair of cutoffs and a T-shirt, then stretched out on the sofa in my living room for a while, alternately reading the paper and checking my eyelids for cracks.
* * *
A little before five, I got up and walked upstairs to my bedroom to dress for the evening. I figured Sandra Richardson would still be wearing her brown suit from that morning, so I didn’t want to go too casual. After splashing on a little cologne, I settled on a pair of tan slacks, a white, pinpoint cotton shirt open at the collar, and a cream-colored silk sports coat. I slipped into a pair of light brown loafers and grabbed my keys. As I slid into the 4Runner and opened the garage door, I thought about the fact that, on one hand, I was no closer to reaching any conclusions about Terry Pendleton than I had been earlier that day. On the other hand, I was about to have dinner with the sexy lawyer babe. Sometimes, things don’t turn out just the way I expect, which isn’t always a bad state of affairs.
Chapter 16
Station Square is a small shopping center directly across the Monongahela River from the downtown area. It’s part of a complex that includes a Sheraton Hotel and the Grand Concourse, an old train station that’s been converted to a restaurant. The trip from my townhouse, even at the tail end of rush hour, took only about twenty minutes. I parked in the multilevel garage across from the hotel and walked over to the entrance to Station Square. The restaurant Sandra Richardson had mentioned, AllSports, was right inside the door. AllSports was actually more of a combination bar and grill than a full-fledged restaurant. I’d eaten there before, and the food was okay, but the real reason most people went there was to let off steam at the end of another work day and, perhaps, to spot one of the several Steeler players who were minority owners in the place. As I entered at 6:25, I didn’t see anybody who looked like a professional athlete except Mac, the bouncer. He’d been an All-American offensive tackle in college, but he blew out a knee his senior year, thus ending his pro career before it even got started. He used his degree in education to become a history teacher, but he worked the door at AllSports several nights a week to pick up extra cash. Mac and I had taught together for a couple of years, and he nodded at me as I came in.
“Hey, JB, how’re you doing?” he asked.
“No complaints, Mac. How about you?”
“Still fighting the good fight. Hey, you know there’s a shortage of teachers. You could always come back, man, even just to sub.”
“Uh-huh, and I could always bang my head against a wall. Achieve the same result, only quicker.”
Mac laughed and said, “Business or pleasure tonight, JB?”
“Little of both, maybe. I’m meeting someone here in a few minutes. Tall, slender redhead, good figure.”
“Oh, she’s already here. Gotta be the lady over there.” He pointed to an area adjacent to the bar, where there were several tall round tables with high-backed stools. Sitting at one of the tables was Sandra Richardson. Seated across from her was a tall, slightly overweight man wearing designer jeans at least one size too small and a short-sleeved yellow Banlon pullover with a V-neck. I thanked Mac and wandered over to Sandra and friend. She spotted me as I approached and smiled a hello.
“Hi, Jeremy. I was able to get away from the office a little early.” She nodded towards the guy in the V-neck. “Chuck here was kind enough to ask if he could buy me a drink, and when I told him I was expecting someone, he insisted on waiting to see if you would actually appear.” She turned to Chuck and, with a bemused look on her face, said, “See, and you thought I’d made Jeremy up.”
“No, no,” he said. “I just wanted to be sure you was okay, ya know? Place like this, lotta guys would be hittin’ on a girl like you, so I figured I’d just stay here until the boyfriend showed.”
“And now he has,” I said.
The Chuckster sat for a few seconds before he got it.
“Oh, hey, yeah,” he said, “of course. What am I thinkin’ here?” And as he got down from his stool and walked, fairly steadily, back to the bar, I climbed up into the chair next to Sandra.
“Boyfriend?” I asked.
“It seemed the easiest thing to say at the moment,” she said.
“This sort of thing happen to you a lot?”
“Occasionally,” she said, “but it’s never anything I can’t handle. Old Chuck seemed pretty harmless, so I didn’t mind letting him sit there until you arrived.”
“Hm-hmmm,” I said.
“Okay,” she smiled, “and maybe I was curious to see how you’d react.”
“See if I’d go Cro-magnon on you? Challenge Chucky to a duel with swizzle sticks.”
“Hmmm, something like that,” she said. “Anyway, you conducted yourself like a gentleman. I hope I haven’t upset you, but I didn’t feel like wasting my time this evening with yet another example of arrested adolescence. I really didn’t plan on submitting you to a test, but when Chuck came along and refused to leave, well, the opportunity was there.”
“Hey, no harm, no foul,” I told her. “Have you ordered yet?”
“No, I was waiting for you.”
At that point, a waiter wandered by, and I got his attention. Both Sandra and I ordered dinner salads and white wine.
“You stop here often?” I asked her.
“Not as much as I used to,” she said. It was getting a little louder in the place, and as she spoke, she leaned in closer to me. I noticed that she was wearing perfume, which she hadn’t had on that morning. Things were looking up. “Lately, I’ve been more inclined to go right home and have dinner in front of the television most nights. On one hand, it definitely cuts down on one’s social life. On the other hand, there’s Chuck.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” I said.
I glanced down and saw a small briefcase and a plastic bag with drawstrings lying on the floor next to her stool. She saw me looking at the bag and said, “Those are the low-heeled shoes I wear around the office, unless I’m meeting a client or, in your case today, someone I think is a client. Also, I wear the low heels when I walk to and
from work.”
I noticed that she was wearing the high-heeled shoes from that morning. Interesting.
“If the weather’s bad, I’ll drive to work. But any day I can, like today, I take the incline down and walk across the bridge to get to the office, then reverse the process at night. I try to get as much exercise as possible.”
“It works for you,” I told her.
I got the smile again. And I also realized that she must have switched back to the high heels after arriving at the restaurant. Very interesting.
Our salads and wine arrived shortly, and we engaged in minor chit-chat while we ate. Afterwards, over a second glass of wine, I brought up the Pendleton case.
“You told me this morning that you didn’t think Terry Pendleton would have tried to fight off a mugger, but you also implied that there were other kinds of risks that he might be inclined to take. Care to elaborate?”
She took a sip of her wine and just looked at me for a minute before speaking.
“Jeremy, I’ve been thinking about this all day. I can’t imagine that what I’m going to tell you could have any connection to Terry’s death at all, but, well, if you’re going to be investigating the situation, I just think you should have a clear idea of what kind of person Terry was, that’s all.”
“Okay,” I said, “enlighten me.”
“It’s no big deal, really,” she said, “but Terry wasn’t afraid to take a chance when it came to his marriage.”
“Meaning what, specifically?” I asked.
“Meaning that he hit on me, more than once, and if he was hitting on me, he was probably hitting on other women as well.”
“You’re sure he was hitting on you?” I said.
“Jeremy,” she said, “I know when someone is coming on to me.” She moved her leg over so that it brushed up against mine. “Do you?”
Gulp.
“Yes, I do,” I managed to say. “Look, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you, uh, respond?”
“Not the way Terry wanted me to,” she said. “Life’s complicated enough without getting involved with married men, especially when, so far, I’ve never had any trouble attracting single guys.” And again with the leg. It was not an unpleasant sensation.
“Did you tell the cops this?” I asked her.
“If you mean that Detective Wykcoff, no, I didn’t. The man’s a pig.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Besides his general demeanor, you mean? Melanie overheard him telling one of the other detectives that we were all, let me see, what was it exactly? Oh, yes, now I remember. We were all tight-assed lawyers. So I chose not to volunteer information to Detective Wykcoff, particularly when I didn’t think said information was germane to his case.”
“So why me?”
“You’re not a pig,” she said. And she looked directly at me again for a moment. “In fact, you present definite possibilities.”
“I’m flattered,” I told her. And I was about to say something else when she interrupted me.
“Let me ask you a question now, okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
“How long am I going to have to rub my leg up against yours before you ask if you can give me a lift home?”
We were in the 4Runner five minutes later.
Chapter 17
As we drove out of the parking garage, Sandra told me that she lived just a few minutes away, on Mount Washington. In addition to all the super-expensive homes and condominium complexes up there, Mount Washington also has, at either end, a few fairly ordinary apartment buildings. They lack the spectacular views of the other establishments and, thus, are far less expensive. I assumed Sandra lived in one of those places; instead, she had me pull into the garage of one of the nicer condo units. She motioned for me to park in one of the visitors’ slots near a reserved space with her name above it. We then took the elevator down to her condominium, which was on the building’s third floor, which means that it was actually several stories below the top of the hillside. Nonetheless, the view would still be something to see, I was sure.
As we entered her apartment, she flipped a switch, which turned on several low-level overhead lights throughout the large living area in front of me.
“C’mon in, Jeremy,” she said. “Home sweet home.”
“Wow,” I said. “This is quite a place.”
“Well,” she said, “you’re looking at most of it. This is actually a large efficiency, although the realtor would never have used that expression. There’s just this big open area, the kitchen over on the side there, and my small bedroom and bath down the hall. It’s the smallest unit in the building.”
And still worth at least a quarter of a million, I thought. Looking around, I could see that the furnishings stopped just short of being spartan. I suppose you could call it a minimalist approach to home decorating. There was a large chocolate-colored leather sofa in the middle of the wooden floor, facing the drapes that were, at the moment, closed. There were end tables with lamps, and a coffee table, along with a chair that matched the sofa and was angled off to one side. Next to it was a floor lamp that matched the table lamps. Other than that, there wasn’t much, just a couple of plants in the corners, a few pieces of artwork, and a small table and chairs over by the kitchen area.
Sandra noticed me looking around and said, “I haven’t done much decorating yet. I’m buying things a piece at a time, as I can afford them, and I try to buy quality.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
“That’s very diplomatic of you,” she said. “I had a man here once who immediately commented on all the ‘ugly open space.’” There was a pause. “He wasn’t here very long.”
“No,” I said, “really, I like everything. It’s very nice already, and, as someone said to me earlier this evening, it’s got definite possibilities.”
She smiled then and walked over to the drapes.
“The real reason anyone lives up here, of course, is this,” she said, as she opened the drapes, revealing a wall of glass, beyond which was spread the entire Pittsburgh skyline.
“Quite a view, huh?” she asked, with her very shapely backside to me.
“It certainly is,” I agreed.
She turned back and smiled again.
“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment, but thanks, anyway. May I offer you something to drink, perhaps a glass of Chardonnay?”
“That would be fine, thanks,” I replied.
“Why don’t you wait for me out on the balcony?”
I slid open the door and stepped out. Considering the fact that the apartment was supposed to be the smallest in the building, the balcony was quite large, more than three times the size of my deck at home. With darkness now fast approaching, the lights of the city were beginning to twinkle, creating a beautiful effect.
I heard the door slide open behind me, and I turned to take a glass of wine from Sandra. We stood side by side for a minute, sipping our drinks and staring at the scene below us.
“It’s magnificent,” I told her. “I think I’d sleep out here.”
“Oh, I have,” she said. “Sometimes I just curl up on the chaise lounge over there and watch the city go to sleep. Then I do the same. By the way, Jeremy, thanks for not asking how I can afford all this. That’s what most people inquire about right away.”
“Not my business,” I said.
“I’m not a partner. Yet. But I will be, someday, and William and Elias know it. They don’t want to lose me, so my Christmas bonuses the past few years have been pretty substantial. I was able to afford the down payment and the mortgage payments on this place, but it’s going to take a while before I can furnish it the way I want.”
“It’ll be something pretty special, I’m sure,” I told her.
“Thanks,” she said, as she slipped her arm in mine. “Shall we go back inside?”
She turned the lights down very low, and we sat on the sofa together, looking at the view. It was mesmerizing. I’d seen th
e view from Mount Washington many times before, but always from one of the lookout points or from inside one of the restaurants. Seeing if from someone’s home was, as my students used to say, a whole other thing.
Sandra turned to me and said, “Why don’t we get the rest of the business talk out of the way?”
“All right,” I told her.
“Okay,” she said, “I’ve told you that Terry hit on me a couple of times. I deflected his passes, and he seemed to be okay with that, especially when it became obvious that I wasn’t interested. But you might want to talk with Cameron McKenzie. He and Terry spent some time together, and, well, they had at least one thing in common.”
“Cameron also hit on you,” I said.
“Bingo,” she said.
I was quiet.
She looked up at me and said, “You’re a very nice man, Jeremy. I’m going to tell you, anyway, even though you didn’t ask. Cameron got as far as Terry did.”
“Cameron married, too?”
“Engaged. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the same thing. Anyway, if anyone at the firm can give you any more information about Terry, at least in that area, it’d be Cameron.”
“Thanks for your help, Sandra. As you said, all of this probably has nothing to do with Terry’s death, but it’s still stuff that I have to rule out.”
“Are we finished with business?” she asked.
“We certainly are,” I said.
“Good.” She stood up and walked a few feet towards the hallway that led to her bedroom. Then she turned back to me in the soft light and took off her suit jacket, dropping it on the floor beside her. Next came the yellow silk blouse. Now I could see that she was wearing a yellow bra made of some sort of semi-transparent material. She stood there in her short skirt and high heels and bra for a minute, then said, “Now, about that tight-ass thing.” She reached behind her and unzipped her skirt and let it slide down her legs. Stepping out of it, she said, “I believe I’d like another opinion.” She turned and began walking slowly down the hallway, her hips swaying as though keeping time to some unheard melody. I followed her to her bedroom, managing to discard my sports coat along the way. Once we were inside the room, she unbuttoned my shirt and helped me off with it.
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