Deadly Interest

by Julie Hyzy

  Just as I finished reading, he was back. Perfect timing. My guess is that it wasn’t coincidence.

  “Looks fine,” I said. I reached for a pen in the holder across his desk.

  He beat me to it, held it for a moment before handing it over, finally making eye contact. “You’re sure?”

  I felt the gears in my mind start to churn. “Yeah,” I said, slowly. “I think this is pretty much word for word what I said.”

  He sat. “Then go ahead and sign.”

  I did.

  Detective Lulinski watched me till I finished my name with my customary flourish. “You do know that this becomes part of the permanent record.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  “You’re not going to be able to deny any of this.”

  “Why would I want to?”

  “Well,” he said, pulling a cigarette out from the pack and fingering it for a moment before tucking it over his ear, “I know sometimes you media types think that you can say one thing and mean another.”

  “What?”

  “The night of the murder, you came traipsing over to let me know you’d been with the decedent earlier in the day.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You were pretty forthcoming.” He shrugged, staring at me with those dark eyes. “But not so forthcoming to let me know you worked for a television news station.”

  “What would that have to do with anything?”

  He looked at me as though I were stupid. “You just happened to have been in contact with the victim hours before she was murdered. Murdered in a neighborhood known for being quiet and gang-free. Sweet innocent lady gets killed, it’s big news. And guess what? You were there.”

  “You’re not thinking that I had anything to do with it?” Stunned, I could hear the indignation and disgust in my voice.

  “No,” he said, slowly. “But I do find it interesting that you barged in, yet never said a word about what you did for a living.”

  “Why would that have mattered? It has nothing to do with the fact that she was murdered, and it can’t possibly help you catch the guy.”

  “But it can help you get ratings, can’t it?” His face tightened—not an attractive look. As if furious with me, his cheeks sucked in, giving added shadow to the burgeoning beard at his jawline. The long creases that bracketed his mouth, deepened.

  “What are you talking about?”

  The background buzz in the office had quieted enough for me to realize that the otherwise unoccupied detectives nearby were listening in.

  “You come in here, purportedly to provide a statement.”

  It was a prompt, and I nodded.

  “What’s the first thing out of your mouth? You start questioning why a funeral home picked up the body instead of the medical examiner.”

  “I was curious,” I said, feeling defensive.

  “Curious.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “That’s what you people call it nowadays, huh? Come on, Ms. St. James, we both know you media guys have a reputation for taking small incidents and turning them into heart-breaking feature stories with the requisite inept police investigators.” He smirked. “By ‘guys’ I mean reporters, you understand. Non-gender specific.”

  This character was getting to me. I told myself to keep calm.

  “I don’t understand the basis for your anger, Detective.”

  “Nevermind.”

  A swell of resentment gathered in my chest, and even as my voice rose, I wrestled with tamping down my frustration. “I will not ‘nevermind.’ You obviously have something you want me to know. So, consider this your big chance.” I sat back, folded my arms, and stared at him.

  Despite the fact that I felt like a rotten little kid pitching a fit in the grocery store, I held tight for an excruciatingly long thirty seconds. He stared me down.

  “I think we’re about finished here,” he said. Just as he propped his hands on the arms of his chair to stand, I stopped him.

  “Listen,” I said, my voice softer now, quiet enough to keep out of the reach of curious ears, “I don’t know why, but we’ve gotten off to a bad start. If my occupation was important to your investigation, then I apologize for not mentioning it sooner. I didn’t think it would make a difference.” I cringed a bit inside. I’d held back on that tidbit of information for just that very reason. We in the media often were regarded with suspicion and I’d wanted to avoid that.

  Fingers splayed on the desk before him, he took a breath. Whatever was bugging this guy, it was more than just my job at Midwest Focus. “Where can I reach you for follow-up, if I have any further questions?” he asked.

  I pulled a business card from my purse. “Here,” I said, standing.

  He took one look at the card, then stood, stepping sideways to block my departure. “Wait.”

  Left without much choice, I waited.

  “Midwest Focus Newsmagazine?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “Yeah,” I said, the same way people say, “Duh!”

  For the first time all afternoon, the detective appeared nonplussed. “I thought that you worked for Up Close Issues.”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “So you don’t work with Dan Starck?”

  I offered a thin-lipped smile. “Not if I can help it.”

  He opened his middle drawer and pulled out a clipping from the newspaper. Sandra Stanek’s article. “What about this?”

  Fed up, I rolled my eyes. “Don’t believe everything you read, Detective.”

  “Hmm,” he said. He stepped aside, allowing me passage. “I’ll call you if I need anything further, is that all right?” His voice had softened enough to sound almost conversational. As though we’d just met and he hadn’t decided to hate me, yet.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I left, wondering what that had all been about.

  Chapter Eight

  “Alex!”

  Lucy ran at me, all arms and smiles, and threw herself into a bear hug.

  As I pulled her close, I thought again about how I felt so much like her older sister, not three years her junior. She had bright blond curly hair, cut about shoulder length, and as I ran my hand across the back of her head, I felt a rough patch of knots. Lucy always twisted the back of her hair when she was nervous.

  She was only five-foot-two; I was a good four inches taller. They say Williams Syndrome gives its victims a pixie look, and for Lucy, at least, it was true. She had bright blue eyes that tilted just enough to give her that “different” appearance, and her chin was narrow, coming almost to a point. The fact that she was tiny, both in stature, and in bone structure, made the pixie-illusion even stronger. She liked to wear dresses, as did I, but where I’d relax at home in a pair of worn blue jeans and a sweatshirt, she’d grab a cotton dress to pull over her head, and feel just as comfortable. It stemmed, I believed, from the fact that throwing a dress over her head and slipping on loafers took a lot less concentration than dealing with the zippers, buttons, and shoelaces.

  She had a tendency to spill on herself, however, and my mom, in an effort to keep cleaning bills and replacement clothing costs down, started providing some of those elderly women house-dresses for Lucy. I hated them. She was wearing one of them now, a blue checkered gingham.

  She clung to me for a long time.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, as we finally pulled away.

  “Nothing,” she said, smoothing the back of her head with her left hand. “I was just waiting and waiting for you to come.”

  “I told Mr. Raymond I’d be here by ten,” I said, with a glance at my watch. “It’s not even nine-thirty, yet.”

  Giggling, she bounced up on the balls of her feet. “I know. I just was so excited to see you.”

  I took another look at the housedress. As long as she was staying with me, I’d see that she had some slightly more stylish clothes to wear. “It’s cold outside,” I said. “Don’t you have anything heavier?”

  “I’m hot.”

  “It�
�s cold in the car. Let’s go see what else you’ve got.”

  Lucy was better than anyone I knew at reading people and pinpointing when someone was unhappy, or troubled. She herself was in a perennially cheerful mood, and in addition to her favorite activity—socializing—she loved to read, listen to music, and play the piano.

  It hadn’t been till she was eleven and I was eight that I started to notice the differences between us. I’d memorized my multiplication tables over the course of an evening, and I asked her to test me on them while we were grocery shopping with Mom.

  Within a couple of minutes it was apparent to me that she had no idea what I was doing. It was then that I began to notice our mother taking her aside and explaining how much the bill should be, how much cash she should offer and how much she should expect back in return.

  I was wearing my favorite pink top that day—the one with three puppies in hula skirts that were sewn on special so they moved in the wind, and a pair of matching pink shorts. “Here,” I said, trying to inject some lightness into the conversation. I pointed to my shirt. “Think of it like this. How many puppies do I have here?”

  I waited.

  Mom waited.

  Lucy bit her lip and looked down at her feet. She held her fingers out, low, and snuck a glance back up at my shirt, trying to match the number of fingers to the number of puppies.

  I felt my heart break. Reality rushed at me, making me feel like I should have been more aware, should have been more sensitive, and at the same time knowing that I’d never look at her the same again.

  “Don’t worry about it, honey,” Mom said. She turned to the closest grocery shelf and I watched her eyes scan over the boxes and cans, with frantic eagerness. “Here!” she said, in discovery, moving halfway down the aisle to reach. “You two love fruit cocktail.” She held the bright-colored can up for both of us to see. Lucy’s face rose enough to catch a glimpse. “We haven’t had fruit cocktail for dessert in a long time, have we?”

  Just as eager to change the subject, I said, “Could we buy some?”

  “We’ll get two cans,” Mom said.

  Somehow that night, the perennial favorite family dessert didn’t taste so great.

  Now, in Lucy’s room, I sorted through her clothes and pulled out her suitcase to start packing. For an assisted living facility, this place was pretty nice. Each resident was treated as an important member of the team, each person had a job, and was responsible for his or her own living space. Lucy had a roommate, a young girl about fourteen with a mild case of Down Syndrome. Lauralee had gone home already, Lucy said. She’d left over a week ago.

  “I’m really lonely here now.”

  She was standing behind me, trying futilely to see over my shoulder when she said that. I turned and saw the sadness in her pale blue eyes. “Well, no need to feel lonely any more. You’re coming home with me and we’re going to have a great time together.”

  “You won’t have to go to work, right?”

  I hedged, turning back into the closet and pulling out a deep blue T-shirt dress. It still wasn’t warm enough for the weather, but it had long sleeves. “How’s this?”

  She grabbed it and made her way to the bathroom in the corner to put it on as I dug out her winter coat. She kept the door open, and peered around the opening. “You won’t have to work, right?”

  I hated the hopeful sound in her voice. From the time I got out of high school, and went away to college, Lucy constantly asked me when I’d be home again. Even if we didn’t do anything together specifically, she always seemed happiest when the whole family was in the house at the same time.

  I thought about the new story Bass had dropped into our laps. And that trip to San Francisco.

  How the heck was I going to make it all right?

  “Well, I was thinking about that,” I said. “I do have a few projects I have to work on, but Aunt Lena and Uncle Moose are going to want you to come visit while you’re home, you know.”

  She came out of the bathroom with a grimace. “Yeah.”

  “Come on,” I said, hoping to coax her into a good mood. “They haven’t seen you in such a long time, they miss you.”

  She nodded, unimpressed.

  I turned on a classical music station on the ride back, and watched Lucy’s mood improve with every mile we traveled. By the time we were thirty miles out, she was fast asleep.

  I gently switched stations to classic rock and let my mind wander. At the staff meeting yesterday, Bass had dropped another bombshell. If I couldn’t make the trip to San Francisco, he’d offer the opportunity to someone on the film crew. He was certain one of them would take him up on the offer, and made mention that one of the women there had expressed interest in going.

  I’d kept my voice neutral as I asked who it was.

  Bass shrugged, “What’s-her-name—the one who used to be a smoke jumper—”

  “Caroline?” William asked.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. She says she’s ready to pack up and go as soon as I give her the word.”

  “Great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. A beautiful girl, Caroline Bliss had a cheerful disposition and an adventurous spirit. She also had a tendency to hang around William and make small talk whenever we attended a filming. Bugged me. Big time. The thought of William and Miss Bliss jetting off for San Francisco together made me regret the timing of Lucy’s visit, once again.

  I tried to shake off those feelings as I backed into the garage. We made good time, it wasn’t even three o’clock yet. The car’s jerky back-up movement must have registered with Lucy, because she woke, sitting up fast, wearing a blank-eyed, “Where am I?” look. A half-second later, her face relaxed into a smile of contentment when she realized we were home.

  With a pang I remembered Evelyn Vicks. I’d have to tell her about that. Sooner, rather than later.

  I pressed the remote on my garage door opener, and to my surprise, it responded on the first try. “There is some bad news, Lucy,” I said, my words stopping her from opening the passenger door.

  Her eyes, light blue, with a lacy pattern of white in the iris that made her gaze especially compelling, looked at me with fearful awareness and trust. “Did something happen to Mom and Dad?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  The garage had dimmed, with the closing of the big door, and the only light in the area was the single 100 watt bulb attached to the opener above us. I hesitated, then switched on the car’s interior lights. Lucy shot me a quizzical look.

  I pulled in a breath.

  “Somebody . . .” I didn’t quite know how to phrase it. Lucy was the most sensitive person I’d ever met. How to tell her that a woman she’d known since birth had been brutally murdered?

  “It’s really bad, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice high and childlike.

  “Yeah.”

  We were silent for a long moment and I heard Lucy’s breathing. Shallow. She was nervous.

  “Mrs. Vicks,” I said, finally.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s . . .”

  I hesitated again.

  “She died?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  I told her that it had been just two days ago, and that they hadn’t even had the wake yet. That was scheduled for tomorrow night, with the funeral on Monday morning.

  “We’re going to go to that, right?”

  I leaned my head back. When had we not gone to a wake or funeral of someone we knew? Our parents toted us along from the time we were young, so the ceremony that accompanied death became, for us, a part of life. So many of my friends avoided the rituals, claiming that they hated wakes and funerals. Yeah, I always wanted to say . . . like I like them? “Of course,” I said. “But there’s a bit more.”

  Lucy shook her head, in a “tell me” motion.

  “Somebody came into her house and… I’m sorry to tell you this, Lucy. Somebody killed her.”

  Lucy’s eyes went wide
, shifting suddenly around the desolate garage as though the person who murdered Evelyn Vicks might be waiting in the corner ready to pounce on us.

  “It’s okay,” I said quickly. I had no idea whether it was okay or not, but I knew I needed to allay her fears. “The police are looking for him now. I talked to them yesterday.” Switching gears, I said, “Guess what Aunt Lena made us for dinner tonight?”

  Lucy shook her head, shrugged, and said “I don’t know,” all at once. Her eyes still held fear that hadn’t been there before.

  I pushed myself to smile, waited for her to grin back. “Your favorite.”

  She bounced in the car’s seat. “Mom’s meatloaf?”

  “Yep.”

  She lurched forward, and grabbed me into a full-body hug. “Oh, Alex,” she said, “It’s so great to be home.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sunday evening, we stood outside the funeral home’s glass doors. Inside, past the vestibule and second set of doors, I saw people walking by, all dressed in muted shades of blue, black, and brown. I wished I were somewhere else.

  Lucy tugged at my arm, eager to see the neighbors, eager to talk to people she hadn’t seen in almost a year. I held firm, wanting just a moment longer to quell the small trembling I always fought right before walking in to a wake.

  “Hang on,” I said.

  Lucy looked at me and squinted. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The tile floor inside lent a homey air to the central lobby. A low fireplace to our right burned brightly, and a group of people occupied the easy chairs surrounding it, perhaps attracted by its cheeriness in these otherwise dismal surroundings.

  A black fuzzy sign, with white letters pressed into its horizontal lines, directed us to the chapel at the far right of the building. Lucy nearly skipped down the hallway.

  Just outside the chapel, Uncle Moose nodded to us, murmuring to me that Aunt Lena was inside waiting, keeping an eye on Diana. Mrs. Vicks’ roommate had refused to return to live in the house, and with no family nearby, she’d begun taking turns staying at each of the neighbors’ homes over the past several days. She returned to Mrs. Vicks’ home only to pick up necessities, and only when accompanied by someone else.