“He was my friend. A really good guy. I don’t even—” My breath hitched. I paused for a moment to compose myself. “I don’t even know where he lived exactly. Somewhere in Ballston? We didn’t hang out, but he was a friend at a time when I really needed one. He was one of those people you can count on.”
“From what he said in his message, he was counting on you too. Can I hear it again?”
I brought the voicemail message up and played it so the detective could record it.
“Tell me what he was referencing when he said, ‘I don’t want to drag you into this.’ What is ‘this’?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. I wish I did.” Because he’d also said something about it being better if I didn’t call him.
“He mentioned something you talked about when you were on the Hill together. Can you tell me what that was?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. And it’s been haunting me all afternoon. I might be able to tell you once I look at my journals.”
“Journals? What journals?”
Chapter 16
I told him about my habit of making notes every evening about the day’s events and the people I met.
“Did you scooter here?”
I nodded.
“Then I’m your ride home tonight.”
“You don’t have to take me—”
“I want you to look through those journals. And I’d like to see that handprint you told me about earlier.”
I didn’t protest. Too many things had happened in recent days for me not to appreciate the company.
But when I headed toward the library’s front doors, he steered me to the elevator instead, where he punched a button for the parking garage. At this time in the evening, the garage was nearly deserted. Except for the black SUV parked right next to the door. He beeped it open and then hustled me into it.
As we climbed the ramp to Quincy Street, I gave him my address and then I sat there, in the passenger’s seat, clutching my backpack to my chest.
There was no other time in the past ten years when I’d so strongly, so desperately, wanted to go home. No other time that I could remember wishing I was eight or ten or twelve years old again. Before my mom got sick, before she died. But I was a big girl and I was living in the big world. I just needed to hold on a little harder, keep my head down a little longer. In a couple weeks, after Cade’s murder was solved—in a couple months, after the bar exam—I’d be able to breathe again.
“We already found out most of what you told us about your friend. LinkedIn led us to the congressman’s office and then to the FDIC. His social media posts told us where he’s from, where he went to university. He tagged a bunch of pictures on Instagram, so that’s given us a whole list of people to talk to. But what I still don’t know, what I’d give anything to find out, is why he wanted to talk to you out in that alley.”
“Hopefully I made a note of it. I talked to him every day. We geeked out on economics. I know I wrote down some of his ideas. They were interesting. He’s a deep thinker.” Was a deep thinker.
“Were any of those ideas interesting enough to get him killed?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. His training was in cybersecurity, but one of his interests was the economy. A lot of our conversations were about the fallout from the trade wars a few years ago.” Cade especially had lamented how some of the markets once available to the nation were gone.
“You think we’re looking for cloak-and-dagger economics?”
“Economics has real effects on real people.” The words came out sharper than I had intended. “Those are the kind of things politicians care about. And you can’t work around such powerful people without noticing who cares more about the money side of politics and who cares more about the people.”
He held two fingers up. “Peace.”
“Sorry. We talked a lot about the hearings we were organizing. Or which staffers were running around with their hair on fire and who to avoid. I just can’t remember anything so important, any reason to talk about any of that, this long after the fact.”
“Any possibility he might have confused a conversation he had with you with one he had with someone else? Was there anyone else he spoke with regularly?”
“I don’t think so. Most people treated him like the tech guy. That’s the relationship they had with him. ‘Hey, Cade, my computer’s not coming on. The printer isn’t working. My conference call is in five minutes and I can’t log in to the site.’” He might have talked like he was from the backwoods of the Deep South, but he was—had been—brilliant. And he had never turned down a cry for help.
But how did any of that fit in with his murder?
And why had he been holding Joe’s cup?
I was tempted, as we drove, to let the detective know about the information I’d gotten from the “Joe” account. But I didn’t want to get in trouble for accessing it and I didn’t want to pass on tainted evidence. Detective Baroni had said he was going to talk to the manager about the account’s phone number. He’d probably already been given that information. “Do you know yet how Cade is connected to Joe?”
“Hmm?” He was drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as we waited for a light to change.
“I was wondering about Joe.”
“The coffee orders.”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “No idea on that one.”
“I didn’t mean to pry. It just feels like, from the message, that . . . It just seems like there’s more that . . .” I didn’t know how to put words to what I was feeling.
“It feels like there’s something going on. I know.”
That was it, exactly.
The detective continued speaking. “He used the word better.”
Which, ironically, made me feel a lot worse. “And he said he didn’t want to ‘drag me into it.’”
“What’s it? That’s what I want to know. We figure that out and maybe that’s the whole case.”
I hoped so.
“That just leaves the roof.”
“The roof?”
“Your normal murder isn’t committed by a gunman in hiding. The shooter had to do some work. He had to figure out how to get up there. And he managed to do it without being captured on security footage. Then he had to wait. There’s some planning involved there. And I really don’t like it.”
Neither did I. “Take a left here.” As he followed my direction, I pointed out the corner up ahead. Told him which way to go.
As we turned onto Mrs. Harper’s street, I asked him about the package delivery and also about the planter and the handprint on my door. “Can you see any connection?”
“I really can’t. But with this new information about Cade? I want there to be.”
My scalp began to tingle. It all felt too much like my last weeks in DC. I didn’t want to have to look behind every corner again, didn’t want to have to wonder if someone was out there somewhere, waiting for me. I thought I’d left all of that behind. It felt like a vise was tightening around my lungs as I pointed out Mrs. Harper’s house.
“Am I in danger?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so, but your friend’s message is making me wonder. If I knew what it was he wanted to talk to you about, then I might know for certain. But I would say that until we figure this out, you’re safer if you stay in crowds. With groups of people.”
My breath caught.
“I’m just trying to let you know how serious this is. Rather, how serious it might be.”
“I know it’s serious. I also know that, killer or not, I’ll have to pay my rent at the end of the month. I can’t just stay in my apartment for the next few days until you work it out.”
“Then we’ll have to figure out how to gamble.” He parked the car out front along the curb and turned off the ignition. “Can I download a GPS tracker onto your phone?”
“A what?”
“A GPS tracker. That way we’ll always know where you are. Here’s the thing: Cade
Burdell worked with some very important people. That shooting wasn’t typical. So if this is the worst-case scenario, then the killer would be a professional. He probably gets paid by the job. And this job isn’t finished yet.”
Chapter 17
He asked if he could come in with me. “I’d like to at least see what the shooter saw if it really was him at your place. And maybe you could tell me if you see anything in your journal.”
I explained about my lease and the requirement to check in with Mrs. Harper.
“That’s fine. I’ll just come with you.”
“No. She’d want to know who you are, and if I said you were with the police then she’d start to worry, and that would defeat the whole purpose of trying to keep her from worrying.”
He wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Just tell her I’m a friend.”
I gave in. Walked up the front steps. Rang the doorbell.
“Whitney! Come in!”
Was she looking more pale than normal?
I would have introduced Detective Baroni, but he stuck his hand out before I could say anything. “I’m Leo.”
“It’s so nice to meet a friend of Whitney’s! Come in, come in.”
My goal was to get him out of there as quickly as possible. “How are things today? Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need?”
She flapped her hand at me. “No. I just can’t find that package. I was hoping to have it for you. Who knows where I put it? I hate to think I lost something that was yours.”
As we stood there talking, I saw the detective shift several times, changing positions slightly. If I were to guess, I’d say he was surveying the place.
“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Harper. I know it’s nothing that I ordered, so I’m not out anything, am I?”
She tilted her head. “I suppose not.” She walked into the kitchen, beckoning. “I brought half a cake back from bridge. Dolores made it but she didn’t want the leftovers. Would you like some?”
“I had a big lunch.”
She was already cutting a piece. “Then maybe you can have it later. Or maybe your friend would want some.” She slid it onto a plate and then put some plastic wrap over it for me.
I thanked her. “Is there anything you need?” I opened the fridge as I asked the question, thinking maybe the detective had been right. Maybe Mrs. Harper had put the package in it.
It wasn’t there.
“I’m fine. Don’t give me another thought.”
I told her good night and then we left through the kitchen.
I shook my head as we went down the stairs. “I’m thinking there probably was no package.”
“Or if there was, maybe it was just a decoy. An excuse to get access to the property.”
“Mrs. Harper might have another heart attack if I told her that. She’s already worn herself out trying to find it.”
He paused at the top of the stairs that led to my apartment. “You said the planter was where? Here?” He nodded toward the concrete ledge that separated the deck from the stairwell.
“Right there. It was clay. Big. And heavy.”
“It fell the day of the shooting?”
I nodded.
He peered over the wall into the area beneath the deck. There were still leaves there, left over, I supposed, from last fall. When he walked down a few steps, I joined him.
“It wasn’t anything a mouse or squirrel could have pushed over. I was thinking the only reason it would have fallen is if someone had been hiding up there.”
“Right.” He nodded. “And pushed it off the ledge as they went up. Or came down.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and thumbed something. The phone lit up, illuminating the space under the deck.
Somewhere down the street, a car door slammed.
Somewhere out in the backyard, a mourning dove cooed.
He climbed back up a few stairs and then leaned over the ledge, stretching his arm out to make the light shine farther. His bangs fell forward onto his forehead. “Few broken twigs. Someone might have been hiding there. Don’t see any footprints though. Hard to tell.”
As we walked back down the steps to the door, the detective held out his hand. “Key?”
I put my key into it.
He unlocked the door, switched on the light, and started to enter. But then he stopped. “What—!” He put his arm up, blocking the threshold, to stop me from walking in.
I leaned past his broad shoulders to peer around him. Gasped. My mouth fell open as I took in the scene before me. I swallowed air in deep gulps as I tried to talk.
Tried to think.
But I couldn’t do any of that.
My plates and bowls had been shattered against the bar’s counter. My forks and spoons had been bent and then thrown onto the rug.
My eggs had been taken from the carton and hurled against the wall—whites, yolks, and shells mixing in a pile of debris.
And my plants!
My plants had been torn from their pots.
I forced my way past him, ducking beneath his arm. I shed my backpack and went to kneel beside my cactus. It had been sliced open, its tender, fleshy pulp exposed.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I tried to press it back together. The spines pricked my palms, but I didn’t care.
I drew my hands away.
It fell apart.
I tried again, but it wouldn’t stay.
The fresh green smell of crushed stems permeated the room.
I cried, openmouthed, at the abject cruelty.
I pushed myself up into a crouch, then stretched out a hand to gather the aloe vera, whose long leaves had been snapped off.
And then I saw my palm. The fronds had been stripped from the trunk and tossed on the floor. I gathered them up and stood, clutching the stack to my chest as I wept.
As the detective approached me, I held them out to him in mute appeal.
He took them from me and placed them on the bar.
As I tried to talk, sobs tore from my throat instead. I stood there, arms folded across my waist, trying to hold on to myself so I wouldn’t fall apart.
“I’m so sorry, Whitney.”
“I—I—”
He came over and put an arm around my shoulder, turning me away from the massacre on my living room floor.
I shook my head, or tried to. It was jerking to the rhythm of my sobs.
He drew me closer and then stood there with me as I cried.
* * *
The detective reported the break-in.
I couldn’t make myself move. Everything around me had been shattered and broken and slashed and crushed.
But I was frozen in place.
As he took pictures with his phone, I tried to get my brain to engage.
The pages of the study guide I’d checked out of the law library had been torn from the book and scattered about the room.
I stooped to pick one up.
Then another.
And another.
The police came. The detective let them in. Then he took me out into the yard and stood beside me, arm wrapped around my shoulders, as the team went in.
I felt safe there, at his side. With my ex, I’d felt caged when he put his arm around me. Absorbed, possessed. As if the gesture was more about him protecting what was his than it was about protecting me.
At the detective’s direction, the handprint on the window was lifted.
Mrs. Harper came down. “Whitney? There’s a police car parked out front. I came to see if—” She paused as her hand rose to her throat.
A police officer stepped out, hand up. “Ma’am? If I could ask you not to come any closer? We don’t want to contaminate the crime scene.”
“Crime scene?” Her other hand joined the first. “There’s been a crime?”
“Are you a neighbor?”
I stepped away from the detective to take one of Mrs. Harper’s hands in my own. It was cold. “She lives here. This is her house. This basement I live in is hers.”
<
br /> Her hand began to tremble. “There’s been a crime? In my house?”
“We think it might be related to what happened to Ms. Garrison at work.”
Her head swung toward me. “Something happened to Whitney at work?”
I should have told her. I should have told her everything. I took her by the arm and went back upstairs with her. Settled her in a chair and made some tea as I told her about the shooting. About finding Cade out in the alley.
But telling her gave me flashbacks.
I pulled the tea bag from the cup and mixed in several teaspoons of sugar before I gave it to her.
Her hand shook as she took it from me.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m really quite fine.”
I don’t know that she was, but as she drank the tea, a little color seeped back into her cheeks. Eventually I told myself I could believe her; she really would be fine. I joined the detective back downstairs in the basement.
After the police left, he helped me clean. We dumped all the broken dishes and bent utensils into garbage bags. We did what we could with the plants, trimming the damage and then soaking roots in water to get rid of any air they’d accumulated. With soil salvaged from the mess, we replanted them in my now-dented mixing bowls. Maybe, with enough time and care, they would start to grow again.
The basement felt different now. It was a crime scene. It had been denuded, stripped of all that had been vital. All that had been mine.
In the center of the living room, the detective stood, his posture erect. “The door was locked when we came in.”
I nodded.
“I don’t like this.”
I didn’t like it either.
My phone rang.
I jumped.
Leo took it from the counter where I’d set it and handed it to me.
It was Mrs. Harper.
I’d forgotten all about her. “Mrs. Harper? Are you okay? I’m so sorry about—”
“Can you come up? Right away? I’m in the bedroom.”
Chapter 18
I found her on the floor in her room. One of her legs was bent at an awkward angle and her folding step stool was lying next to her. “I’m just—I’m having a time—a hard time—” She blew out a breath of frustration. “I used to laugh at those commercials on TV, but I just can’t seem to get up.”
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