by Cleo Coyle
Forty-eight
AS Esther and Janelle ran off toward the struggling pair, the woman in the ball gown broke free. But instead of fleeing her attacker, she lashed out with flying fists.
One, two, three punches slammed into the Stalker’s face in quick succession. Reeling, the thug dropped his club. A fourth blow knocked his hat off; a fifth smashed his nose flat.
A final high-heeled kick to the groin laid the Stalker low.
As he sank to the icy pavement, Esther dived onto his back, pinning the Stalker to the ground. Janelle arrived seconds later, cell phone in hand.
The woman adjusted her ball gown and tried to fix her frazzled blond wig. With an exasperated cry she gave up and tore the hairpiece off. That’s when I recalled where I’d last seen those fighting moves—and that lovely powder blue dress.
“Punch!” I heard Esther cry. “I thought you were a woman. Are you okay?”
“I broke my heel,” Tuck’s boyfriend shrieked. “And these shoes are freakin’ expensive!”
The man on the ground shifted, and Esther applied more pressure, eliciting a yelp of pain.
Janelle, speaking to a police dispatcher, gave me a thumbs-up. I ducked back inside the kitchen.
What a night, and it isn’t over yet . . .
I unpacked my camera and double-checked the batteries. I had plenty of power and an entire digital card to fill, since I never found the time to take pictures at tonight’s Cookie Swap.
I started my photo diary with a pile of cardboard appliance boxes stacked in the corner. Most had delivery labels, and the addresses on them were Janelle’s.
Gotcha, you skunk!
I snapped away, getting close-up shots of some packing invoices, too.
It took a few moments to locate the appliances themselves—two blenders on a stainless steel counter, sheet after sheet of expensive silicone trays and baking pans on shelves, a commercial mixer beside a steel table in the center of the kitchen.
Strike one.
Next I rummaged through drawers. I found the expensive knives attached to a box with Janelle’s address on it, plus a set of stainless steel baking utensils. I ignored small stuff, but the fourth drawer yielded a bonanza: three manila envelopes, each one clearly marked.
The envelope marked Keys contained just that. Different sets, including keys for Janelle’s bakery (which I pocketed), and a set marked Sobel’s.
This second set brought back a memory. At tonight’s Cookie Swap, Nick had mentioned working for Sam Sobel, and stepping in when the old baker’s kitchen was damaged by fire. Coincidence? With Nick Bacque involved? I was starting to have doubts.
The third envelope was from a property company and contained the lease for this bakery space. I thumbed through it, looking for any partners. I gasped when I saw the name of his supposed cosigner: Janelle Babcock was scrawled on the dotted line.
Nick had forged his former boss’s name to help him acquire the lease.
Strike two.
I was feeling more confident now (after all, with Janelle’s name on this legal document, I wasn’t even breaking and entering!), and I took my time photographing every page of the lease.
Next my nose alerted me to a cloying but familiar smell oozing from a metal cabinet. I opened the door and found the source—three cans marked Acetone.
Colorless and flammable, acetone was used in most nail polish removers. It was also used in lacquers and varnishes, and some paint removers, too. But I didn’t see any fresh paint or varnish jobs here.
So why would a baker store it in his kitchen? Because acetone was one of the top twenty accelerants used to start illegal fires—and this baker also happened to be an arsonist!
Strike three and you’re out, Nick Bacque!
I snapped and snapped, making sure to include the pair of scorched asbestos gloves sitting beside the cans in my compositions.
I moved on to the pantry, where I found other cans. And I was sure these cans didn’t come from Janelle’s bakery, either. I can’t wait to tell her about this! The potentially criminal contents of these cans gave me a sense of satisfaction, too—even if it was just a culinary crime.
Finally my camera beeped, warning me the digital card was out of memory. I removed the tiny card from the camera, tucked it into a holder, and slipped it into my coat pocket. I fumbled through my camera case for another card, but came up empty, which meant it was time to go.
Why not quit while I’m most definitely ahead?
For the first time in days I’d accomplished something, brought a little bit of justice into this unjust world. I’d gotten the goods on Nick Bacque, and with Janelle’s forged name on the lease I could expose him without facing trespassing charges myself.
Better still, from the view outside the window it appeared the Christmas Stalker had been apprehended at last—and, just as I told Mr. DNA, the culprit was not my barista.
With a dozen police cars filling the narrow street, and a New York mob of the curious appearing out of thin air, my escape would be easy.
Why leave by the dumbwaiter, when all I have to do is walk out the front door and mingle with the crowd?
With a self-satisfied sigh, I tucked my camera into its case as I headed for the exit. But as I reached for the doorknob, I realized I couldn’t open the door. The dead bolt was the kind that required a key from the inside as well as the outside.
The moment I had that realization, I heard the bolt being thrown and watched the door yawn open. The man standing on the threshold looked as surprised as I was, but he recovered fast.
“Well, well, darling,” Nick Bacque purred. “I was just daydreaming about all the nasty things I wanted to do to you—and now here you are, like my own little Christmas wish come true.”
Forty-nine
HE lunged so suddenly that he might have grabbed me, if I had been his target. But Nick had spied my camera case and guessed what I was up to. Now it was the camera he wanted.
With both hands, he yanked the case, and I howled because my right arm was tangling in the strap. As he dragged me closer I tried to kick him, but my foot struck the wall.
“Taking pictures?” he hissed, hot breath on my cheek. “Maybe we should look at them together—”
With a snap the strap broke. As I stumbled backward, Nick spiked my camera into the linoleum, dashing it to pieces. Then he slammed the front door and locked the bolt into place.
Now I was Nick’s prisoner, and I half expected him to take his sweet time. Maybe take off his coat, taunt me. Instead he lunged again, eyes flashing with rage, mouth set in grim determination. I eluded his grasp by rolling across the kitchen’s steel table and landing on the other side.
What followed was something out of a French bedroom farce, where a man chases a woman around a bed. Except this was no bedroom. I was being chased around a steel baking table, and there is absolutely nothing funny about running for your life.
After a few laps, Nick positioned himself between me and the window. This was strategic, I realized. On his way here, he must have seen the police on the street. Clearly, he wanted to prevent me from calling for help.
Now I was without a rescue, and I couldn’t escape through the door unless I managed to knock him unconscious and rifle his pocket for the key. That left me only one way out. The way I came in. Fortunately I’d left the door to the dumbwaiter open. All I had to do was wait for the right moment.
It came suddenly, when Nick flew across the table instead of around it. I felt his powerful fingers grip my wrist and twist. Crying out in pain, I swung my other arm around, slamming him in the side of the head.
Breathing hard, his topcoat open, Nick grunted but wouldn’t let go. Finally I grabbed a can of condensed milk from a shelf and brought it down on his forearm.
With a cry of pain, he released my wrist, and I dived into the dumbwaiter.
I fumbled for the brake before I realized I didn’t need to. I’d forgotten to lock the car in place, as Janelle had instructed. As a result, m
y descent was way faster than the ride up!
The wooden car landed so hard it broke into pieces. My teeth clacked together from the jolt, and dust rained down on me. But amazingly, I was okay—well enough to hear Nick Bacque yell down the shaft.
“You got nothin’, bitch! Nothin’!”
Yeah, that’s what you think . . . As I felt the reassuring square of the digital card holder, still in my coat pocket, I knew I’d nailed him.
I pushed the door open and rolled out, tearing my coat on the shattered wood before hitting the concrete floor. I just wanted to lie there for a moment and catch my breath, but I didn’t dare. Nick could still come down here looking for me.
I raced up the basement stairs, down the building’s hallway, and out the front door.
* * *
THE cold air was bracing, especially with the huge tear in my parka. But it took me under a minute to reach the Sullivan Street crime scene, where I was surrounded by uniformed officers.
Janelle spied me and hurried over. “Esther and Punch are giving statements to the police. Did you know the Christmas Stalker was one of your customers? Some guy named Fred—”
“Listen,” I said, breathless, “we’ve got to get out of here. Nick Bacque was released by the NYPD. He showed up and nearly killed me!”
Janelle blinked. “He’s loose?!”
“And dangerous!” I noticed a cab turning onto Sullivan and waved madly to flag it down. “We’re going to your place, now.”
“You don’t want to report that he attacked you to these cops?”
“The NYPD released him once already. I have a better plan. Get out of town tonight—and let Lori Soles arrest him again tomorrow.”
Janelle nodded, then broke away to inform Esther, who told us to go on without her. Punch would walk her back to the Blend.
As Janelle shoved me into the cab and gave me back my shoulder bag, I explained my hasty change in travel plans.
“I was supposed to visit Mike in DC this weekend, anyway. All I’m doing is moving up my train ride by twelve hours.”
“Leave right from my place, girl. Nick knows where you live so no going back to your apartment.” She examined my torn parka. “I’ll lend you a new coat, and see your cats get fed.”
“Esther will do that. The weekends I’m with Mike, she takes care of Java and Frothy. She already has a key.”
“So what evidence did you get on that skunk?”
“Plenty. I’ll download my digital photo card to your computer. Then I’m calling Detective Soles . . .” Despite my throbbing wrist and aching arm, I suddenly felt crazy laughter bubbling up.
“What’s so funny?” Janelle asked. “Or are you having some kind of post-traumatic stress reaction?”
“No. I was just thinking: Nick is one piece of work. Arson, forgery, theft—these weren’t enough for the guy?”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw cans of partially hydrogenated oils in that jerk’s pantry. I’ll bet you didn’t know he’s using trans fat to make his cookies.”
She gasped, shook her head, and joined in on my stressed-out laughing fit. “Yeah, girl, last I checked, that was against the law in this town, too!”
Fifty
I hit the café car the second we pulled out of Penn Station. Turkey sandwich in hand, I returned to my train seat to find my cell phone vibrating the heck out of my plastic pull-down tray.
I couldn’t answer fast enough.
“It’s Soles. I got your message on what you found, and—”
“Why, Lori? Why did you let Nick Bacque go free?”
Her voice was steel. No apologies, just the facts: “The man was clean, Cosi. No blood, no residue. And none of his prints came close to matching the bloody fingerprint we found on the faucet.”
“Okay, I get it. He didn’t kill Rita . . .”
I took a breath, hoping my risk tonight wasn’t in vain. “What about the message I left on the incriminating evidence in Nick’s bakery: the keys to Sobel’s, the accelerants that point to arson, the forged signature on the lease, and all those stolen goods?”
“I’ve got a call in to the fire marshal on Sobel’s case. And I’ll get together with Janelle in the morning. I’m sure we’ll have Nick back in custody soon—and I have no doubt he’ll do time.”
I collapsed back in relief against the cushioned headrest. “Tell me about Fred. He’s the stalker you were looking for, isn’t he?”
“He is. Fred Allman confessed to every one of the serial stalking incidents. And his profile is eerily close to what you described. Jersey home, divorced, disgruntled, demoted at work, passed over for a younger woman, and he’s on medication. Good call, Cosi. Endicott even admitted it—said you ‘trumped’ him.”
Trumped? I gritted my teeth. This is not a game. It’s people’s lives!
“Has Fred confessed to killing Moirin? Or Rita?” I pressed.
“So far he denies killing anyone. He’s got an alibi for Rita and there’s no match on that bathroom faucet fingerprint. He’s still in the interview room, and claims he has an alibi for Moirin, too, something about an office party. He hasn’t lawyered up yet, so we may still get something.”
“You’ll get nothing . . .” I told Lori what I’d witnessed last Friday. When my taxi rolled up to the Village Blend, Dante had been helping Fred and his friend into a cab. Both men had come from their office party.
“I’m sure Fred’s alibi will check out,” I said. “He may be the stalker, but it’s like I’ve been saying all along, the stalker didn’t kill Moirin or Rita. So where does that leave you? Back to square one?”
“Not on Rita,” Lori said.
“Really? Well, please tell me who you suspect. Remember, I was at that party. Maybe I can help you with an observation . . .”
“Rita Limon was involved in a very ugly divorce. Her husband was seeking half ownership of her assets.”
“That’s motive but hardly opportun—”
“Opportunity knocked, Cosi. Victor Limon caused a scene at the front door of the Cookie Swap. He didn’t have an invitation and store security turned him away. But we’re speculating that he slipped past security after the stage show outside. They say it was possible. The kids and parents flowed in so fast after some Rudolph show that if someone wanted to gain access to the party, they could have done it then.”
“Have you picked him up?”
“Not yet. We’re looking. The murder weapon is also a question mark. We can’t find or even identify it.”
“You can’t identify it? What do you think it was?”
“The medical examiner says it appears that her head was cleaved with some kind of axlike weapon.”
“An ax?! How could her ex-husband have gotten an ax into and out of a toy store? Without anyone noticing!”
“I don’t know, but even CSU is stumped. They’re looking at a whole range of bladed weapons that might fit into those wounds—axes, machetes, even a bayonet.”
“A bayonet!”
“They have yet to find a match.”
How incredibly odd . . .
“Okay,” I said. “Apart from the murder weapon, it sounds like you actually do have a viable person of interest on Rita’s homicide, but what about Moirin’s? Who’s going to bring her killer to justice?”
The pause was deafening.
“Got to go,” Lori said, and the line went dead.
* * *
MY body was exhausted, but my brain kept running . . .
Did Rita’s ex-husband actually sneak into a toy store, cleave her head with an ax—or some other odd weapon—during a public holiday party, and then sneak out again, with the weapon?
The mind boggled.
Maybe Rita’s ex-husband was trying to create a Cookie Swap crime scene like last week’s, so the police would blame the serial basher. But why use an ax—or any kind of bladed weapon? That wasn’t even the basher’s MO!
Gazing out the murky train window, I couldn’t see much, other than the re
flection of my own exhausted face, and I eventually nodded off, sleeping like a corpse for much of the train ride until—
“Ma’am? Wake up. Last stop!”
Yawning, I pulled on the coat Janelle lent me and reached for my shoulder bag. Then I trudged across Union Station’s majestic marble floor, pushed through its glass doors, and headed for the cab stand.
Fifty-one
WHENEVER I came to Washington, I always thought the air smelled fresher than New York. Its plazas and parks gave it a much more spacious feeling, as well. But at four in the morning on a freezing December night, it felt a little too spacious.
Columbus Circle was completely deserted. The lack of traffic spooked me, but I had no intention of waking Mike Quinn. The man was a workaholic, who ran on very little rest. I wasn’t about to rob him of even more.
Besides, his apartment building was located right here on Capitol Hill, which meant the taxi ride would be under ten minutes, and I had keys to let myself in—so I waited.
By the time a cab rolled up, I was shivering.
The air wasn’t just cold, it was raw and gusty. Janelle’s swing coat was stylish, but the material was thin compared to my thick parka, and it was way too big for me. By now, I’d flipped up the giant hood, and hugged myself, trying to get the loose fabric tighter around me.
On the short taxi ride along Massachusetts Avenue, I imagined myself slipping into Quinn’s nice, warm, king-sized bed—and cuddling up to the nice, warm, king-sized man.
He’d been expecting me to arrive in the early afternoon, but I knew he’d be happy to wake up and find me next to him in bed. I would have saved him a trip to pick me up—and I could make us breakfast, first thing.
After a hot pot of coffee and a fresh stack of my buttermilk pancakes, the gears in my brain would surely start turning again, and I’d be better able to think things through. My stomach began to rumble as I imagined those warm, fluffy pancakes flipping on the griddle.