by Susie Gayle
CHAPTER 13
* * *
“Say what?” I exclaim. “You and Stein are… doing the horizontal polka? Gross!”
Savage’s face goes from pale to an impressive shade of pink. He stares at his desk. “There’s no reason to be childish about it.” He looks up at me suddenly. “Wait, you didn’t know that?”
“No! And I wish I didn’t now!”
“Then… how are you involved in all this?”
“I’m not!” I practically shout. “I’ve been trying to tell you people that this whole time!”
“But I just told you about it,” he murmurs.
“You sure did.” I grimace. “Wait a second… that’s the cornerstone of this whole blackmail scheme? That’s what Sammy has on you?”
Savage sighs. “I used to play racquetball with him and Jerry. One day I was in the restroom when my phone went off; one of them picked it up, thinking it was theirs. They saw a whole text exchange between me and Rachel. They didn’t say anything at first. They let it build, waited to see just how long it was going on. Then they came to me and asked what I would do to keep it from getting out.”
“But—and I don’t mean to sound callous here—but who cares?” I ask him. “Is it really worth all this hassle to keep it under wraps?”
Savage nods slowly. “Yes. It is. We’re both married; we have kids; we run our own businesses. Heck, they call me ‘the family man’ in my radio ads. My receptionist out there? That’s my niece. It wouldn’t just destroy our personal lives; it could destroy our professional lives, too. Not to mention, who would trust us anymore? You think we’d be reelected to the council?”
“I can’t believe this,” I mutter. “All this ridiculousness over an affair.”
Sarah looks at me blankly and blinks a couple of times. I don’t have to be a mind reader to know what she’s implying; I had the very same thing happen to me. I know firsthand just how destructive an affair can be. I didn’t just lose a wife; I lost a house, I lost self-esteem, I lost self-respect, and up until Sarah, I lost the ability to be close to anyone.
Suddenly Karen comes back to mind, and I feel my face grow hot. This is all too much of an emotional rollercoaster for me, my initial anger having turned to confusion, shock, disgust, and now coming back around to anger.
“All this for an affair,” I say again. I look at Sarah. She doesn’t give me any indication one way or another, so I continue. “We found her, Savage. My ex-wife, Karen Bear? We saw what your guys did to her. This has come way too far. Now I want to know where she is.”
Savage looks at me and then Sarah, confused. “I don’t know where she is. What are you talking about? What did they do?”
“Didn’t I say that playing dumb wasn’t going to do you any good?”
“Mr. Sullivan, I honestly have no clue what you’re referring to.”
“They killed her, Tom! They didn’t murder her directly, but they were responsible for it. They set it up and they made sure we found her.”
“What? No… there’s only one guy, and there’s no way he did anything like that…”
“We saw her,” Sarah says softly. “She’s dead. We chased after your guy, but he got away. Then someone else took her car and… her.”
He shakes his head rapidly back and forth. “No, no, no. He was just supposed to follow her, nothing else—”
“She’s dead, Tom. And your guy was there,” I tell him “Black hair? Brown jacket? Goatee? Ringing any bells?”
“No… I don’t… I can’t…” Savage starts hyperventilating, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
I glance at Sarah, unsure if this is a ruse or not. Savage clutches his chest with a hand, his breathing becoming shallow. In seconds he looks like he’s choking, his face turning redder by the moment.
“Will, call 911!” Sarah shouts as she rushes around the desk. “I think he’s having a heart attack!”
I pull my phone out and almost drop it as I fumble with the keys. I tell the operator to send an ambulance to Savage Cars. As I hang up, there’s a loud bang on the door behind me.
“Are you okay?” the receptionist calls out. “Open the door!”
I forgot I locked it. I throw the bolt and open it for her. She rushes to her uncle’s side, throwing me a dangerous glare as she does.
“It’s okay, just breathe.” She opens one of his desk drawers and takes out a brown paper bag. “Just breathe.”
***
“I told you, I’m fine!” Savage barks at the EMT for the twelfth time.
“Sir, I just need to make sure you don’t need to go to the hospital,” the young man tells him, trying to listen to Savage’s heartbeat as the older man swats him away.
“I’m not going to the hospital,” he declares. “It was just a panic attack. I have bad bouts of anxiety. Thank you for coming, but I’m telling you: I’m fine.”
“Alright. But you should really get checked out as soon as possible,” the EMT tells him as he packs up his nylon bag.
Sarah and I stand in the office, feeling rather awkward that we induced a panic attack. Savage glances at us nervously; I can tell he wants to say more, or perhaps ask more, but his niece stands near the door with her arms folded, glaring at us.
“We should go,” I say, a little too loudly.
“Wait,” Savage says. “Beatrice, will you just give us a moment?”
“No,” his niece says adamantly. “I’m not leaving these people alone with you. Look what happened!”
“Just one minute, okay?”
Beatrice opens her mouth to protest again when a new figure enters the office—a short woman in a tan uniform and brimmed hat.
“Hi, folks,” says Patty Mayhew, chief of the Seaview Rock Police Department. She sees me and Sarah and forces a tight smile. “Welcome back, you two. I can see you wasted no time in falling back into old routines.” She’s referring to the numerous times in the past when she’s been called to a scene, only to find one or both of us there.
“Hi, Patty.” I smile as innocently as possible. “What are you doing here?”
“I called her,” Beatrice snaps. “Obviously the two of you said or did something that upset him enough to have a panic attack.”
“No, it’s fine,” Savage tells her. “Really. It’s no big deal.”
Patty looks at Savage, in his rumpled shirt and loose tie, and then at the floor, where the contents of his desk now lay thanks to me. “You sure about that, Tom?”
“It was just a simple disagreement,” he insists.
“About a car,” I add.
“We’re not very good at haggling,” Sarah chimes in.
Patty gives me a long, flat look. “Is that so?” I can tell by her expression that she doesn’t believe us one bit. “Well, if that’s all it was, then I guess we’re good here.” She looks from each of us to the next.
Her gaze falls on Sarah. “Miss Cummings? You sure there’s nothing you want to talk about?”
Sarah gulps. Her lips part, just a little, as if the words are trying to escape her throat. “I’m sure, Chief,” she says. “The three of us just got a little overexcited, that’s all.”
Patty hitches her belt and scans the office once more. “If that’s the case, it’s probably best you two leave. Maybe do your car shopping elsewhere, huh?”
“Good idea,” I tell her. I turn to Savage and stick my hand out. “Sorry for any misunderstanding.”
He rises and shakes my hand. With my back to Patty, blocking her view of Savage, he mouths one word: How?
As softly as I can, I whisper, “Petunia.” Petunia was his snake originally; he gave her to me as a gift for not going public with the blackmail. Of course, that’s like giving a vegan a box of steaks, but it’s the thought that counts, I guess.
He frowns so deeply that his eyebrows nearly come together. “No,” he whispers.
I don’t know what it means, or if he’s just dismayed to learn that his for
mer pet was responsible for a death, but I don’t have time to figure it out right now.
“Thanks again, Tom,” I tell him loudly, for the sake of the cop in the room.
CHAPTER 14
* * *
“I don’t think Patty believed us for a second,” Sarah says as soon as we’re back in my car.
“Me neither. We’re going to have to be careful; she’ll be keeping an eye on us, I’m sure.” I stare out the window, waiting for my rattled nerves to calm.
“One thing’s for sure. Tom Savage did not know about Karen.”
“Yeah, and he also kept insisting it was only one guy they hired. I think Rachel Stein is going over his head. I think she brought in someone else, and I think she’s calling all the shots now.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Sarah says. “When you told me about all this, you said that Stein threatened to put all the blame on Savage—but she said something about ‘cooking the books.’ That usually means some sort of illegal bookkeeping, right? But if this is about their affair, where does that come into play?”
“I was thinking the same thing. Best I can figure is that Stein is doing some creative accounting with the town’s money. The other council member, Ezekiel Birnbaum, was worried that these restoration projects of theirs could bankrupt the town; maybe Stein is trying to hide it.”
Sarah nods. “There’s only one way to find out. I’m guessing we’d find those books at city hall?”
“I’m not sure. For all I know, it might all be digital.”
“Hmm. You’re right. Chances are good we wouldn’t be able to get into it; you can barely work your email.”
“Ha. Thanks,” I say flatly.
“God, that was scary.” Sarah lets out a long breath. “I really thought he was going to die on us right there.”
“Yeah.”
She faces me fully, concerned. “Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. It was just pretty intense.” I stare out the window a little longer. Sarah doesn’t say anything, waiting for me to continue. “It… it reminded me of something.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not. Come on, out with it.”
I sigh. “It’s just… back when me and Karen were married, she gave me a scare like that. We thought she had sleep apnea; in the middle of the night she’d take these big, gasping breaths out of nowhere and wake us both up. First time it happened, it scared the crap out of me. Turned out to be… I don’t remember now, sino-something-or-other.”
Sarah smiles sadly. “That’s not stupid.” She sighs. “Where to now?”
“Well, Savage and Stein are suspicious of each other. Savage clearly doesn’t know as much as we do, which only leaves one option: Stein is behind this. So, let’s go end this.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We drive in silence until I reach Rachel Stein’s office. I park in front of the Chinese restaurant again and cut the engine.
“What are we going to say?” Sarah asks.
“I plan on marching in there, telling her everything I know, and giving her a choice: she can admit what’s happened and give up her conspirators, or I’ll call Patty on the spot. I don’t see any other way. I’m tired of all this, and Karen deserves better. Whatever happens, I guess I’ll have to accept it.” I turn to her. “It’s not too late for you. You could go back to the pet shop now and pretend you’ve only just found out about any of this. In fact, maybe you should be the one to call Patty; you’d clear your own name that way.”
Sarah bites her lower lip and then puts her hand over mine. “No way. We said we’re doing this together. I’m in it for the long haul.”
“That is monumentally stupid of you.” I smile weakly. “Thanks.”
“Let’s do it.”
For the second time today I throw open the door to Rachel Stein’s office and march in purposefully. “Alright, listen up,” I tell her, “because I’m only going to say this once—”
Rachel Stein stands and sticks a finger in my face, her expression furious. “No, you listen, Mr. Sullivan. Just what do you think you’re doing? Chasing people through town, threatening physical violence—”
“Who did I threaten?”
“Tom Savage! He nearly had a heart attack—”
“It was a panic attack, and I never actually threatened him. You want to talk about violence? Let’s talk about Karen, who we found dead in her car right before one of your boys took it—”
“Boys? What on earth are you talking about? And who’s dead?”
“My ex-wife!”
“Oh, dear lord.” Stein slumps into her chair. “How did that happen?”
“You tell me!” I’m not at all convinced she doesn’t know.
I didn’t notice upon entering that the side door in her office, the one that leads to the bathroom, is closed. A toilet flushes behind it, and a moment later it opens.
“Hey, Rachel, you’re out of paper towels.” A young man steps out, drying his hands on his jeans. He wears a brown leather jacket. He has black hair and a goatee. His left hand is bandaged… where my dog bit him.
He looks up at me and his eyes widen in surprise. “Hey, now wait a second—”
Too late. Before I even know what I’m doing, I half-vault over the desk and grab him.
CHAPTER 15
* * *
“You!” I grab him by the lapels of his jacket and push him against the wall. A framed diploma falls and cracks. “What did you do? Who are you working with?”
The guy puts both hands up, terrified. “No one, I swear! Just wait, I can explain!”
“Let go of him!” Rachel Stein shouts.
“You’d better explain really fast,” I tell the guy. “I’ve already used up all my patience today.”
“It’s true,” Sarah adds.
“Stay out of this!” Rachel Stein shouts at Sarah.
“You killed my friend!” Sarah shouts back. “Sort of!”
“For the last time, I didn’t even know your friend!” Stein counters.
“Yes, you did! When we here earlier, you called her Will’s ex-wife. You knew darn well who she was!”
Stein hesitates. “Okay, fine. I knew who she was, but I had nothing to do with her death!” She turns to the young guy in my grip. “Trace, what happened?”
“Yeah, Trace,” I repeat. “What happened?”
“I don’t know! I haven’t seen her since yesterday! Look, I broke into her apartment. It was the middle of the day; I didn’t think she’d be home. And I definitely didn’t know she had a snake…”
“Wait. What snake?”
“She had a snake, man. A nasty thing, in a cat carrier. You gotta believe me.” His eyes plead with mine, but I don’t believe him, not for a second.
“Get my phone,” Sarah says behind me.
“Where’s her phone?” I ask him, shaking his lapels a little.
“It’s in my jacket pocket,” says Trace, his hands still up.
“Take it out. And Karen’s phone, too. I haven’t been in a fight since the eighth grade, but if you try anything, I will hit you.”
“Alright, alright.” Trace slowly slips a hand into his pocket and comes out with both phones. He hands them to me, and I hand them to Sarah.
“Check Karen’s,” I tell her. “That’s the one he called me from. See who else he’s been in touch with.” What I’m hoping is that he’ll have called a number that will lead us to whoever he was working with that stole Karen’s car—and Karen.
She swipes with her thumb, navigating, and then shakes her head. “No, that was the only call he made from this phone, but…” She raises her eyebrows with interest, and then turns the phone so that both Trace and I can see it. “What’s this?”
There on the screen is a text message from an unknown number, just three words: Cat snake closet.
“I don’t know,” Trace insists. “That
message came in about an hour ago. I have no idea what it means.”
“Are you sure?” I narrow my eyes angrily. “Or is that some code that you and your mysterious partner are using so there’s no evidence?”
“Dude,” Trace says, “who exactly do you think I am? James Bond?”
“Hey, Will…” Sarah says behind me.
“No,” I tell Trace, “I think you’re a dirt bag who orchestrated the death of my ex-wife for money.”
“Will…”
“For the last time, man, I didn’t have anything to do with whatever happened to your ex…”
“William!”
I turn to Sarah. “Yes, sweetheart?”
She rolls her eyes and enunciates each word like its own sentence. “Cat… snake… closet. I think it means something.”
I frown. She raises an eyebrow.
“Cat?” What cats do I know? Basket, our shop-cat, and Pookie, Karen’s cat. My hand moves instinctively to my pocket, to the object I stowed away in there earlier that day.
“Snake.” Obviously, the only snake I’ve recently encountered was Petunia.
“Closet!” Sarah and I exclaim at the same time.
“Oh, my god,” I almost whisper. “Do you think…?”
“Only one way to find out.”
“Okay. You and you,” I point at Stein and Trace, “are coming with us.”
“To where?” Trace asks nervously.
“My pet shop. You know where it is; your blood is still on the floor.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Stein insists.
I turn to Sarah. “Call Patty.”
“Sure thing.” Sarah dials and puts the phone to her ear.
Rachel Stein folds her arms defiantly.
“Hi, Chief Mayhew? It’s Sarah Cummings. Listen, I need you to come down to Main Street—”
“Okay, okay!” Stein puts up her hands. “I’ll come.”
Sarah smiles sweetly. “Never mind, Chief. Sorry to disturb you.” She hangs up. “I think it’d be best if we all ride together—”