Schooled in Murder

by Kim Smith

  “We could go back to the coffee shop and do surveillance. I could use an iced coffee.”

  “Nope. She won’t take another chance like that. Reminds me, she has to be getting help from someone else now, but who? I mean, listen, if she’s with her lover, and I’m going with that thought, then she’ll put him up to doing everything. Keep her face out of the limelight. We have no clue who he is or what he looks like, so we are never going to get resolution that way.”

  “Did you get in touch with Charlotte Dillon yet?”

  “No. I put it off for the meeting with Denaldo. I need to do that. Do we have time now?”

  He sighed. “Yeah girl. We always have time to blow off editing and doing stuff that pays our bills.”

  “At least we have them paid for right now. You said so yourself.”

  He went down a side street and turned around. “Charlotte Dillon, here we come.”

  ###

  We parked at the end of the South Lake Times-Tribune building. A shiny red Ford Mustang gleamed from its slot.

  “She’s here,” he announced. “Fancy ass car and all.”

  “Hey, don’t diss her because you lost your Mustang. You could have kept it, you know.” The Mustang was a sore subject. Dwayne had given it to Sal’s cousin and I think he expected Rafe to bring it back. There was no honor among thieves, or so it’s said.

  He grumbled something and fussed with his seat belt. I let myself out of the car and waited for him on the curb. Just as we were about to enter the offices of the paper, Charlotte rushed out.

  Willowy, but not in a terribly thin way, her muscular legs would make a ballet dancer jealous. Knockout gray dress and killer red heels didn’t hide the utterly frazzled look she wore.

  “Excuse me!” she said, nearly plowing into us.

  “Charlotte, wait!” I called after her as she hurried down the walkway toward her car. She turned at my shout and frowned, waiting.

  “I need to talk to you about the murder over at the Denaldo residence. You may have some information that’s important to me.” I walked toward her hoping she would stay and talk to us.

  She didn’t. She frowned even deeper and asked, “Do I know you?”

  I stumbled and fumbled over my words trying to explain. Our only connection was Charlie Fine, my former boyfriend and murdered boss’ brother.

  She glanced at her watch, exasperated. “Oh yeah? Well, call and leave me a message with your telephone number. I’ll try to call you back and set up a meeting. I’m late for an appointment right now, and…I’m sorry, I have to go.” She darted to the lot, slid into her car, and roared off with twin exhausts screaming down Greenman Road.

  “Well, damn.” I glanced at the time on my cell phone. “That didn’t take long.”

  “Let’s follow her,” Dwayne said, tossing his toothpick out to the street.

  Why argue when he felt investigative?

  We shut our doors simultaneously, and he took off after the red car. In a short while, only a few car lengths behind her, it seemed luck was on our side, but traffic was not. Dwayne switched to the turning lane when she put her blinker on and pulled over to turn.

  “Watch out, don’t let her see you,” I said.

  “Why? It don’t matter if she knows we’re followin’ her ass or not. It’s a free country. Serves her right for not talkin’ to us. She acted like we were gum on the bottom of her ugly heels.”

  “Never mind all that. I like the invisible element, just in case.”

  She drove down around to the old highway and then turned off. We followed her several side roads and back roads until we crossed the state line and ended up in Memphis.

  “Aha,” Dwayne retorted. “Lookin’ promisin’.”

  I poked his arm. “This means nothing, Dee. She’s a reporter for two different places. This trip could be anything.”

  “Naw, girl. I’ve got a gut feelin’.”

  Dwayne’s gut feelings sometimes became real deals, so I didn’t give him any grief.

  Charlotte broke a lot of speed laws as she drove up Rivers’ Edge toward an industrial part of East Memphis. We remained three cars behind her, watching carefully. Suddenly, she whipped into a parking lot at a church.

  Dwayne turned at the light across from the church, zipped around the little corner gas and grocery store, and parked near the air machine. He dropped the door on his glove compartment, and pulled out a pair of mini-binoculars. “Here, keep her in sight.”

  I focused on the church and the Mustang. She climbed out leaving the door open, walked to the shiny red front door, and tried the handle.

  Locked.

  She returned to her car, pulled out her cell and called someone. They talked for a few minutes and then she tossed her phone through the window, and got back in her car. But she didn’t go anywhere.

  “Waiting on someone, I guess,” I said, passing the glasses back to Dwayne. “How about we go over and ask our questions while she’s not doing anything?”

  “Don’t you ever watch the Discovery Channel? You can get a whole lot better information about your prey if you sit back and watch,” he muttered from behind the binoculars.

  “Well, for your information, Sir Bright Idea, she is not my prey. And what if she’s meeting Charlie Fine here? I don’t want to go anywhere near him. What if they’re getting married or something? Maybe they’re visiting the church hosting the nuptials?”

  He pulled the glasses away from his face and glared at me. “Wall-ass, you are so full of shit sometimes.”

  “What if this meeting has nothing to do with Thelma Denaldo, Dee? We’re wasting time here. We could just go over and talk to her while she’s sitting, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.”

  He exhaled loudly, setting the binoculars down on the console. While he put the car in reverse and got us turned around, I watched Charlotte’s Mustang. From the neighborhood to the left of the church, a figure detached itself from some hiding spot, and fled down the lot to the car. A patterned scarf and dark sunglasses hid her identity, but I had my suspicions as I watched her step into Dillon’s car.

  “Well, either that’s Thelma Denaldo, or Charlotte’s cheating on Charlie,” Dwayne said, pulling forward. As he entered the church lot, Charlotte spun out in reverse and nearly crashed on the way out of the church’s driveway and onto Rivers’ Edge.

  “Damn!” Dwayne said, twisting the wheel to get turned around to go after them. “I bet I’m gonna wish I had my ‘Stang now!”

  I hung on for dear life as he made some very unsavory moves in the Toyota.

  We watched as they tore up Rivers’ Edge to Interstate 240 and took the exit toward Germantown. Dwayne cussed a blue streak as we waited for lights and traffic to clear to follow them, but once on the interstate, he settled down and focused on speeding.

  I kept one eye on the road for the Mustang and one eye on the side mirror for cops parked in nooks along the highway, waiting for speeders. None appeared, and neither did Charlotte and her mystery guest.

  “We should have caught up to them by now,” Dwayne said, disappointed.

  “What now?”

  He turned off the highway near the mall, and did a loop, getting back on the highway heading back in the direction we had just come from. “We’re going back and scout that neighborhood.”

  “You mean where the mystery guest came out and got in the car?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Something I learned about from the Discovery Channel, Wall-ass. If you flush an animal out of its hole, if you hide and watch, sooner or later, it will turn back up there.”

  It was a huge waste of gas, but whatever my partner wanted, he usually got. We entered the subdivision and slowed to a crawl, peering at every driveway. The shadows grew longer and I knew it had to be around six or seven o’clock.

  The houses in the area were old established homes with metal awnings over the windows and wooden frames that needed paint. Their front stoops were mostly concrete with some fancy wrought iron rail on at least
one side. A lady standing at her mailbox watched us with curiosity.

  “We’re just two folks lookin’ at the houses, maybe to rent,” Dwayne said softly, smiling at her. “No need to be afraid of us.”

  We cruised along that street with no success, turned left at the corner, and hit pay dirt.

  “Wait!” I shouted, pointing at a white house with peeling paint. “That’s the Escalade!”

  “How do you know?”

  This made me pause. How could I know? There were a lot of those monstrosities in Memphis, I would be willing to bet. But I remembered something about the one that had faced me in the car lot. There was a dream catcher hanging from the dashboard. It had been blue and had white feathers.

  “Stop the car,” I told him. He pulled over and I jumped out and ran up to the vehicle’s driver side window and looked in. It took all of three seconds to see the blue and white ornament hanging inside. I jogged back.

  “It’s the same one!” My cell phone fell out of my hands as I fumbled it to call Sal. Dwayne crept past the driveway housing the Escalade. Somewhere around my navel something told me I was onto something.

  “Hello?”

  “Is David Lunsford out of jail?” I asked, my voice cracking from the excitement.

  “Never went to jail,” Sal said. “Questioned him, then said hasta luego. Nothing to hold him.”

  “He was clean?” I gazed around. The houses outside my window were ramshackle, falling down, sad bits of board and brick, with dumpy-looking front yards.

  “Yes. And more information is not forthcoming from this side of the phone, so do not ask.”

  “God, why didn’t I think of that?” I said, flipping the phone closed. “David Lunsford is not the mark here, Dee. Lunsford is as innocent as a newborn baby.”

  Dwayne idled in front of the house next door to the house where the Escalade was parked. “What?”

  “They let him go. Obviously, he had alibis out the wazoo and they couldn’t hold him just because I said I saw him with his sister.”

  “Could be his car then.” He eased the Toyota into park and killed the engine.

  “We need to know the name of whoever owns the house, and subsequently, the car, in case it doesn’t belong to Lunsford, and we’ll be in like Flynn,” I said. “My money says there is a third party involved in this mess.”

  “Who’s Flynn?”

  “The guy who always makes an ordeal go smoother.

  “Damn! Where’s he been all my life?”

  “Quit. We need a name.”

  “Well, lucky for you I’m the right ethnicity.” He slid out of the car and walked up to the door of the house we’d parked in front of. A gray-haired woman answered and talked to him behind the security door.

  He gabbed and waved his hands around a few times before jogging back to the car. When he got in he was in Eveready Bunny mode. “Homeowner’s name is Donzell Harper. They call him the Harpoon, due to his ability to score heroin. Lunsford’s rentin’ a room. The neighbor lady, Mrs. Jones, was mostly interested in discussin’ the older woman that’s been comin’ to visit and stayin’ overnight. She suspects drugs, prostitution, and anythin’ else illegal.”

  “How on God’s green earth did you get her to tell you all that? Although, she’s probably right.”

  He took a deep breath. “Told her I was looking to buy a house and thought that the one next to her was the one my agent had told me about. Even though she might be on the money about the resident, suspicions don’t get convictions. That’s likely why that ‘Lade is parked in the driveway.”

  He started the car, but before he could get started down the street, a man came out from the house where the big fat car was parked, glared at us, and lifted his right arm to aim a pistol in our direction.

  “Go, go, go!” I shouted.

  Dwayne didn’t need any more encouragement, and sped off like a bottle rocket. The ping of metal hitting a part of the car made me duck. I prayed it wasn’t a tire or a gas tank. We took the next corner on two wheels and were gone in sixty seconds.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dwayne scooped two spoonsful of Aunt Nancy’s famous garlic mashed potatoes onto his plate. We were seated at the Mama’s house after raiding the fridge, too scared to go to either of our places for the time being.

  “Pass me the peas,” Dwayne said.

  Handing over the heavy bowl of black-eyed peas, I broached the subject. “It had to be, what’s his name? Harpoon? He’d shoot at anyone even remotely looking like a cop, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, I do, and yeah, it was him. The neighbor lady said he was at home because she’d already had a run-in with him over their back fence about his man-eatin’ dog.”

  “What dog?”

  “Harp’s Rottweiler. Big one, too, if his bass voice is any indicator. I heard him while I was out there talkin’ to the neighbor.”

  I shook my head. I hated big slobbery dogs. “What do you think we should do now?”

  He loaded his plate and set the bowl down. “Go see Sal. And this time I ain’t listenin’ to your malarkey. We need to tell him what we found out, and what’s happened. I don’t want to have to hide out, and I know you feel the same way.”

  I did. We’d had to sleepover a lot to keep the other one safe, and sometimes it wasn’t much fun. This time neither place was safe, leaving little alternative.

  I washed two pain relievers down with sweet tea and dug out a spoonful of my macaroni and cheese. “Sal’s going to be furious, and he may throw both of us in jail.”

  “Better jail than dead, Wall-ass. At least in jail the bad guys can’t pull out a nine.”

  “Hm. So you say. You just want to check out the male population,” I joked.

  “Ew. So not. Those men have germs. No, ma’am.”

  We ate in silence for a while until my cell phone rang and I saw Sal’s name appear in the little window. I swiped it open.

  “What’s up with the hang up call earlier?” Sal asked.

  My nerves waltzed. “Sorry about that. I was about to call you.”

  “You sound weird. Is Brown with you?”

  I stared at the phone in my hand, before replacing it over my ear. “Well, duh. Isn’t he always?”

  He ignored my attempt at sarcasm. “Why were you calling? If it was to apologize, I accept.”

  “Oh? Um. No, that wasn’t it. Why were you calling me?”

  “I was calling you for a date.”

  The phone shook in my hand. “What? A date? Wow. Oh, um. Isn’t that a coincidence! That was what I was calling you for, too. I need to see you. I mean,” I struggled to keep my sanity. “Dwayne and I need to see you.”

  He grunted. “I don’t want that kind of date. We’ve been at crossed swords lately. I miss talking over beer and pizza.”

  “Oh, good. That’s good, Sal. But, um, we need to talk to you about a police matter, though. Maybe I can get back to you on the other?”

  “I’m off duty. Call me tomorrow,” he said, with a sigh.

  “Later.”

  Dead air.

  I grimaced and set the phone face down on the table.

  “A date? He freakin’ called you for a date and all you could tell him was I’ll get back to you? Shan, girl, you’re gonna end up a lonely old lady.”

  I picked up my dishes and headed to the kitchen sink. “Well, I had to let him know we needed to visit him, didn’t I? He won’t be so antsy to date me when he has to arrest me.”

  I could hear my partner mumbling until I turned on the water in the sink.

  ###

  We idled on the Mama’s couch, channel surfing and painting each other’s toenails until we could come up with a plan. When the key turned in the door, we were both drooping, nearly asleep.

  Aunt Tillie entered first, arms loaded with boxes from the restaurant. “What a nice surprise to have you both here!”

  Aunt Nancy followed and bussed our cheeks on her way to the kitchen.

  Dwayne tried to get them to
let him help, but they refused. When his cell buzzed from where he had tossed it on the couch, I paused to be nosy and find out who was calling. His face registered excitement as he swiped it open to receive the call.

  “Hello?” His voice was bright and cheery, quite the opposite from the sleepy voice I usually got at this time of night.

  He mouthed at me. “I’ll be outside. It’s a man!” And hightailed it out the front door, striding in a manner that resembled a duck-walk thanks to his fresh pedicure.

  I padded into the kitchen to visit with the Mamas, hoping to get to check out the birthday presents that had been hinted at. I also needed to let them know about the unfortunate accident that I’d had so they wouldn’t be able to say I never shared things with them.

  “So…” I started to say. “I got hurt.”

  Nancy hip-checked the fridge door and faced me. “What? Hurt how?”

  “I sort of had some shelving fall on me. Hurt my shoulder.” I held my elbow and jutted my chin at the shoulder in question.

  “Oh, honey!”

  “Are you all right?”

  They pinioned me with worried looks.

  “I’m fine. Nothing broken this time.”

  Tillie poked Nancy’s arm. “This is just too weird.”

  “Yeah. Um. Shannon why don’t you sit down at the table and let’s talk.”

  Uh oh. This was aunt-speak for “there’s something we need to tell you.”

  I sat.

  Nancy sat across from me and waved at Tillie to join us. Once everyone was seated, I said, “Okay. What’s up? You two look too mysterious for this to be about birthday party time.”

  “No. It’s something else, but sort of related.” Nancy’s brow furrowed.

  Tillie, never one to keep a secret, blurted out, “Tell her, Nan.”

  Nancy clasped her hands in front of her and gave me a blank stare. Then she said, “Sister and I have been having a lot of accidents ourselves here lately.”

  I sat straighter. “Accidents? You two?”

  She nodded. “Yes, and don’t get excited, we’re not hurt, none of that. But when stupid mistakes lead to accidents, it’s time to rethink things.”