by Ada Madison
To my surprise, I couldn’t decide between rushing home to my laptop or taking the SD card directly to Virgil. So unlike me.
I wanted more than anything to see what was on the card, to be the first to see it. And I’d thought Kira had acted childishly! But I had a plausible excuse—what if there was nothing on the card but pictures of Cody Graves’s seventeenth birthday party? Or another boring speech by the mayor himself? Shouldn’t I screen the card before taking up the valuable time of a detective in the HPD?
On the other hand—maybe it would work to my advantage if I showed the kind of diffidence and responsibility Virgil would like by taking it to him immediately. I might get his attention and agreement to share with me. A bargaining chip, in the literal sense.
I wanted to review my suspects—that is, his suspects—with him. Without more information, I might as well put “Collins,” “Richardson,” and “Sizemore” labels on a dartboard and see what stuck. It seemed to come down to money for the two men, love for the woman. I wondered what the statistics were on those combinations.
The answer had to be on the card I held.
Still undecided, I put the envelope, unmarked except for the Henley address, into a plastic sleeve meant for a three-ring binder. I’d get in my car and see where it took me. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d used such a sophisticated method of decision making.
I flashed back to Saturday, picturing Mayor Graves in my office on graduation day, having sweet-talked Woody into letting him in, probably hearing the applause across the campus as young people symbolically started a new life. Did he think back to his own graduation, to his hopes for the future? Did he ruminate on how much simpler things were then, when he didn’t have to skulk around hiding things in piles of “NOT TRASH”? One thing I was pretty sure of: He didn’t know he’d die on this campus that same day.
I wondered again why he would have chosen such an inglorious method of presenting me with evidence, if that’s what I was holding in my hand. Why not hand me the envelope at Zeeman, or at the president’s reception? Or send me an email and meet me for lunch. Not that the most recent lunch I’d had with an official turned out very well.
Why does anyone do what they do in a perceived or real crisis? Nothing that has to make sense. My mother did some strange things at the end of her life. In the days before she died, I might find her ironing tablecloths or restocking the soap in the laundry area, as if they were the most important tasks left for her to do. She set out large bags, stuffed out of my sight, for the trash pickup. Instead of sharing stories of her life, she made me promise not to look through the bags.
“What’s in them?” I’d asked her. Since I’d been the one dragging them to the curb, I’d felt I had a right to know.
“Never mind.”
“Hmm. Love letters to someone other than Dad?” I’d teased.
“If that’s what you want to think,” she’d said, inscrutable. In her last weeks she’d become harder and harder to read.
It wasn’t very satisfying, but eventually my curiosity faded away as I tried to hold on to only the unambiguously good memories.
I ran my finger along the SD card through the plastic sleeve. Was I holding the key to the mayor’s murder?
As I exited the building, the SD card tucked in my briefcase, my cell phone rang. I looked at the screen. Monty. Not now, Monty. I have an important errand to run.
My better self won out and I answered, thinking I might get rid of him quickly by telling him that yes, I did find something and that I’d get back to him within the hour.
I walked toward my car and slid my phone open.
“Hey, Monty.”
“Sophie, I’m just calling to, you know, check on things.”
I was about to announce to him that I’d finally made some progress and that he’d better not hold me up if he wanted the results anytime soon. But something stopped me. The background noise on the phone. There was none. Why the lack of noise reminded me of the presence of noise, I couldn’t say, but I remembered the sounds as clearly as if they were playing in stereo.
First, the sound of the train in the background of the call to me from Mayor Graves on the morning of graduation. Second, the sound of the kids playing in the park below Monty Sizemore’s business office. One of main attractions at the kiddie park was a small train that ran around the perimeter of the area. Kids could sit in the colorful little cars and ride around the track. Melanie loved it. The pint-size wooden train made a sound like the grown-ups’ train.
It all fell into place. The mayor had made the call after noon from Monty’s office. I imagined he got in somehow when Monty wasn’t there and took the SD card, perhaps from a camera he knew was in place, or from any number of repositories. I already knew he was good at getting into empty offices.
Monty’s story about his sister was true. Chris had let the mayor walk out of the room in Admin after he called an end to their relationship. But Monty had been waiting nearby and didn’t let him off so easily.
My head ran the video, as if I were directing a screenplay to a movie set on my own campus. I could picture exactly where Monty must have been standing, exactly where a faculty member’s desk held a mug of pens and pencils. And a letter opener.
“Sophie?”
I couldn’t let Monty know what I suspected. I stammered into my phone. “I’m in kind of hurry, Monty.”
“I can see that,” he said, sending a chill through me.
I looked up from the screen. A man in white was approaching from the direction of the Mortarboard Café. I squinted against the strong sunlight. Monty, with large shades.
I knew it would be a close race to my car as I quickened my pace and made dramatic gestures toward my watch: I’m in a hurry! And Monty did the same, breaking into a run. He held up his hand and showed me his fingers. I only need five minutes. Whom did he think he was kidding?
If the respective distances we had to travel had been different, I might have made it to my car, pretending not to understand his five-minute gesture, pretending not to have figured out who killed the mayor. But Monty was closer to my car and had longer legs, so the math worked out in his favor.
“Hey, Sophie,” he said from a few yards away. “I thought that was you. Did you find anything?”
Could Monty possibly not know what I had in my briefcase? Could this be just another innocent if pesty encounter? It was worth a shot.
“No, I…” I stammered. “I was just doing some work on—”
“You’re a lousy liar, Sophie. You’d never make it in the business world. I knew it was just a matter of time before you either figured it out or found that video.”
“What video?”
But there was no fooling Monty. I could tell by his anxious expression, and by his determined pace as he closed the gap between us, towering over me.
And, finally, by the gun he held in his right hand.
In seconds, the air on campus went from hot and sunny to icy and overcast, a heavy dark cloud passing over the tennis courts and over our heads. Monty’s visage took on an ominous look. He might as well have been wearing a dark cloak instead of his tennis whites.
“Hand it over, Sophie,” he said, his face pinched. “I knew you wouldn’t give up until you found it.”
I couldn’t have been more surprised at the turn of events in the last two minutes. I felt winded and weak at the same time. I thought I’d fall over on my face. I moved toward the grass in case I did take a tumble. As if the gun pointed at me wasn’t a much bigger threat to my well-being.
“Monty, what’s going on? What are you doing?”
He held up his hand and yelled, “Enough! I know you found it and I’m protecting myself is what I’m doing.” He held out his gun-free hand and wiggled his fingers. “Give me the card, Sophie.”
“Monty—”
He grabbed the briefcase from my hand and tried to undo the flap. He ended up dropping the briefcase and making every effort to right it, while still trainin
g the gun on me. If he hadn’t been holding a gun, I’d have said he was as nervous as I was, but the balance of power gave the lie to that.
“Please let me—”
I wanted to explain that I hadn’t seen what was on the card, that I never had to see it, that I’d swallow it whole if it would make him put the gun away and let me get in my car and be on my way. But each time I began a sentence, his look became more frantic, his eyes more threatening.
I perked up at the sound of a vehicle. I snuck a look to my left, in the direction of the library entrance. Monty heard the sound, too, and we both watched as the car, a nondescript sedan, drove toward us. I tried to play it out quickly. I could scream but would the driver hear me? Would Monty dare shoot me in broad daylight? He looked wild and unstable enough to follow through, taking his chances on escaping. All the driver would see would be a tall guy in a white suit and a petite woman in jeans crashing to the ground.
My heart fell as the car made a right, heading for the parking lot near the dorms. I was surprised to find I was still holding my phone, technically still on a call with Monty. If my life weren’t on the line, it would have been a funny moment.
Monty was unnerved by the arrival of the car and what could have been his undoing. For me, the event had been a roller coaster of hope and despair as the car went on its way to the other side of campus.
“Get in your car,” he said, his voice nothing like the confident, often cajoling businessman-instructor that I knew. He used the gun to nudge me along the few yards to my car. This Monty was ready for a serious institution of the mental kind.
Where was everyone? It was the middle of the afternoon. I knew very well where everyone was. On vacation. At home, catching up with all the things that got neglected during the busy end-of-year days. My colleagues were doing laundry and paying bills while I was held captive outside my own building.
What could I do to get away? I fingered my cell phone, now in my jeans pocket, wondering if I could manage a nine-one-one call without looking at the keypad. First I’d have to mute the sound or Monty would hear the dispatcher’s voice. I felt around my phone to determine its orientation. I found the long edge that had no portals, which was on the right side of the protective case. That would put the mute switch on the upper left. I used my fingernail to tuck the lever to the left.
There were still many more steps to go. I’d have to click the button on the bottom, slide the lock to the right, find the phone app, then the keypad, then…tears welled up in my eyes. It was hopeless.
As much as I hated to, I followed Monty’s deadly instructions and climbed into my car.
“Drive,” he said.
I tried to adopt a pleasing, cooperative demeanor. “Of course. Where are we going?” You might think we were headed for a getaway at the beach.
Monty had difficulty entering my car, what with the pesky briefcase and the gun to manage. He placed the briefcase on the floor between his legs. I couldn’t imagine why he was having trouble finding the SD card since the plastic sleeve that held it was simply stuck between two folders of the same size.
I put my car in gear and coasted toward the library gate. Surely someone would be coming in at this time. I could drive into him. A fender bender, which Massachusetts was famous for, would help my cause. Or get the other guy killed also, I feared.
Maybe I could alert the guard at the gate, if there was one. During off-season, sometimes we swiped our ID cards to enter and exit. I looked ahead to the checkpoint. And, wouldn’t you know, we were in the unmanned season.
“Use my card,” Monty said, retrieving his from his pocket. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was prepared. After all, he’d brought a gun. He probably learned his lesson on the night of the murder when he’d had to improvise with a letter opener. Looking at him on the seat beside me, I had no doubt that he had the strength to plunge the blade into a man’s back.
I turned right, toward the police station, though we weren’t even close. “Make a U-turn,” Monty said, waking up to his responsibility to give me directions.
With my vast experience with crime dramas on television I knew the key to survival was to get your captor talking. But I couldn’t get started. It was not a good time to be tongue-tied. Monty helped me out.
“He deserved it, you know.”
The mayor, I assumed. “Why do you say that?”
“Not just what he did to my sister. That was the last straw. He stiffed me on the waste contracts, then fired me. As if his contracts were all aboveboard. He was in bed with the CEO of Thomas. That guy was one of his biggest campaign contributors, so, big surprise, Graves wants to throw the city’s waste business his way.”
“But you’d already made a deal with the Stewart Brothers.” That was me, making an educated guess.
“So?”
“I just wondered, that’s all,” I said, my voice faltering, but still sympathetic.
Was Monty really asking why kickbacks on city contracts were wrong? Was he also telling me that all the rumors of the mayor’s dirty hands were true? I hated to think things were this bad in Henley, that business as usual meant money changing hands in all the wrong ways.
Monty let out a mean chuckle. “You really don’t know what’s on that card, do you?”
I shook my head. Monty might be willing to deal now that he knew I hadn’t read the card. “I could—”
Monty dug the gun into my ribs. “It doesn’t matter whether you read the card or not. I can’t very well let you go now. I had a good thing going. Not just with Stewart. The mayor was in on a deal or two. If it weren’t for the conflict on the waste contract, we’d still be doing business together.”
Shaky as I felt, a puzzle was a puzzle and I had to know. “The mayor’s dealings are also on the card?”
“Sure they are. I told you, he took money from Thomas for the dump contract.” Monty seemed angry that I hadn’t learned the lesson he was trying to teach me.
“I remember now. That’s terrible.”
“No kidding. Then out of the blue he gets an attack of conscience. I think the attention from all those cute and adoring campaign workers went to his head and he started to believe he was some kind of hero. He gets my secretary to let him into my office, plants a camera, and catches me in a ton of meetings. Financial meetings that should have been secret. Tells me he’s ready to pay for his one or two indiscretions as long as it stops me cold. He was willing to take a little heat for his own actions, just to see me crash.”
My mind was a jumble of thoughts and questions; my body shook with fear. Even in my panic, I tried to put the jagged pieces together. I finished the story in my head. The phone message started with Zeeman but it was really all about city contracts. I imagined the end. I’d mistakenly focused on Something’s troubling me about Zeeman, but the important part had been cut off and he was probably in too much of a hurry to start over. In the meantime should have ended with I left an SD card nailing Monty Sizemore in your office in the “NOT TRASH” pile.
How different this moment would have been if he’d been able to finish his message. I made a resolution: If I lived, I’d immediately change my message length to infinity.
Monty was reliving another moment. “He never knew what hit him. I stood there in the office next door, listening to His Honor dissing my sister. I knew they were meeting and I figured this was the Big Dump, you know, and I wanted to be there for her.”
“I know you love Chrissy, Monty. You just wanted to protect her.”
Sympathize, sympathize, I reminded myself, but Monty continued as if he were alone. Except that the gun was meant for me.
“The letter opener was on the bookcase by the door with a bunch of mail. The thing was shining, from the lamp outside the window.” Monty rubbed his eyes and for a moment the gun pointed straight toward the roof of my car. If he’d only keep it that way. “It’s like the thing was blinding me.”
He shook his head so hard it must have hurt. He wasn’t quite finished
with his story. “I let him go, you know? I could have finished it then and there, but I’m not a bad person.” I tried not to react to Monty’s self-assessment. “I watched him stumble out the door and I almost hoped he’d make it, that he’d find help and survive. I just wanted to make him suffer.”
I felt like Monty was telling his story not to me, but to himself.
I’d made the turn to drive east on Henley Boulevard, trying to guess where we were headed.
The airfield that was Bruce’s base was northwest; the police station was due west; my home and Zeeman Academy were southwest. The only thing east was…I shuddered…the city dump.
I couldn’t let this happen. I couldn’t drive myself and my killer to the most ugly, remote part of town. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone I loved being called to identify my body, clothed in garbage.
We were still on a relatively busy street, three lanes wide, but soon we’d be isolated. If I were going to make a move it would have to be now.
I saw a signal light in the distance, probably the last one before we left the main part of town. I checked the traffic around me. It was light, but it would do. Timing now was everything. It was a good thing I remembered the rate-time-distance equation; math and science could save my life. I couldn’t stop a small smile from forming. Or my stomach from churning.
Monty must have noticed my thinking, planning, puzzle-solving look because he said, “Don’t do it, Sophie. Whatever you’re thinking. I have nothing to lose. I want this to be over, for my sister’s sake. I never intended for her to suffer for what I’ve done. If I’m going out, I’d just as soon take you with me. One less busybody on campus would be a service to all.”
His remark unnerved me, but the setup was falling into place. Unstoppable.
First I had to adjust some things in my pockets. I pretended to be reaching for a tissue, an action that provoked only mild irritation from Monty.
“No funny business,” he said.
Of course not.