Shot Girl

by Karen E. Olson

  I probably should’ve just stayed on the phone. Ned Winters was standing on my stoop. I didn’t want to let him in, so I picked up my bag and locked the door behind me before making my way downstairs.

  For someone I hadn’t seen in years, I was certainly getting my fill of him.

  "Hey, Ned," I said, but his presence unnerved me. "What’s up?"

  Ned leaned toward me and air-kissed my cheek. His eyes were downcast. "I’m sorry about getting all worked up the other day." His voice was soft.

  I actually found myself feeling sorry for the guy. "That’s okay."

  His eyes lifted and rested on my face. "Priscilla called. She said she’s on her way in and I thought we could pick her up together." He indicated a red Jeep parked in front of the building.

  "She was going to call me when she hit Milford," I said.

  "She just called me."

  "Huh?" Why hadn’t she called me? That had been the plan. I tried to shrug off my discomfort.

  "She said your phone was busy."

  Oh, yeah, I was talking to Paula. But why didn’t she try my cell?

  Ned opened the passenger door to the Jeep, and I climbed in reluctantly. I wanted to drive. I didn’t like the idea of not having my own car. At the first light, I turned to him.

  "How did you know where I live?" I asked.

  Ned shrugged. "Priscilla told me you lived over here."

  I didn’t like it that Priscilla had told Ned anything. It felt like there had been a lot of talking going on behind my back, and it creeped me out.

  "I thought maybe we could go out to lunch, the three of us. Downtown somewhere," Ned was saying.

  I was still a bit uncomfortable about getting too chummy with Ned, but on second thought, Ned and Ralph had remained friends. He knew about Felicia and the grand jury investigation. I wondered what else he knew.

  Ned stuck a Springsteen CD into the player on the dash. I wanted to turn it up to discourage conversation, but he turned it down so we could barely hear it. Why he even put it in in the first place, I didn’t know.

  "I talked to Ralph’s parents yesterday," he said.

  So maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. I stifled a yawn. "You know, I’m just doing this for you and Priscilla," I said, staring out the window. The Jeep didn’t have air-conditioning, and I was glad I’d put my hair up. We stopped at another light, right near the station, and I fought an urge to jump out of the Jeep and hightail it back to my place. Even though I might get some questions answered, I didn’t want to mourn Ralph. He didn’t deserve it.

  But I stayed in the Jeep, and we pulled up in front of the train station just as a throng of people came out. The train must have just arrived, and I saw Priscilla step through the doors.

  She was like a goddamn walking rainbow.

  Priscilla was a head shorter than me, with close-cropped, spiky red hair that would’ve been darker if she didn’t frequent the salon every month. A row of silver earrings framed each ear, and the sleeveless yellow T-SHIRT showed off the baby blue butterfly tattoo that draped over her shoulder. She wore stretchy gray capri sweats, and the platform flip-flops that gave her a little more height were orange. An army green messenger bag was slung across her upper body, accentuating the breasts she always tried to hide. It didn’t matter that she had amazing cheekbones that gave her face a pixie look despite the few extra pounds she’d put on over the years. No one looked at her face. Women pay good money for breasts like that, and Priscilla lamented that she couldn’t just give them away to a needy flat-chested girl.

  Priscilla leaned in the window and gave me a kiss on the cheek and nodded at Ned before climbing into the backseat.

  "Hey, there," Priscilla said, greeting both of us. "I’m starved. Where to?"

  Again I wished Ned weren’t there, that Priscilla and I could just go to Clark’s Dairy and get a turkey club and hang out.

  "Union League Café," Ned said. "My treat."

  The fancy French place on Chapel Street that served foie gras and duck confit and individual French coffee presses was one of the most pricey restaurants in the city.

  Priscilla was reading my mind as we both shook our heads, indicating that neither of us was dressed for it. Ned just smiled condescendingly, putting a hand on my knee and caressing it slightly. "You look great," he said quietly. Then, as an afterthought, he looked back at Priscilla. "Both of you."

  Priscilla frowned. "Bullshit."

  "Come on, it’s not dinner. It’s lunch, and the Yalies dress worse than that," Ned said.

  "But they don’t eat there," I said, slapping his hand lightly. He pulled it away.

  "You’re both fine," he said.

  Priscilla and I exchanged a look. We weren’t going to change his mind. Screw it. It wasn’t worth arguing.

  The ornate decor of the Union League Café intimidated me, but I wouldn’t let it show. I was already starting to try to figure out my escape. I could get a phone call from work; Vinny could need me; Tom could want to arrest me again.

  Anything would be preferable to this. Sitting at a table with my best friend and my ex-husband’s best friend and staring at one another, no one saying anything until we’d ordered food that was too expensive. Ned wanted drinks "to celebrate our friendship," but I said no and just ordered Pellegrino water, even though they both ordered Bloody Marys. Ned and Priscilla exchanged a look; I ignored it.

  "So how about those Red Sox?" I asked, trying to joke around, but it went over like a fucking lead balloon.

  "You know, Annie, Ralph still cared about you. Even now," Ned said.

  "Yeah, and he liked stalking me, too," I said. "Did you know that?"

  The waiter stumbled a little as he poured Pellegrino into my glass, but discreetly left before he could overhear anything else.

  Ned frowned. "What do you mean?"

  I settled back in my seat, which wasn’t easy because the chairs were a bit stiff. "He had pictures of me. Either he or someone else was taking pictures of me. Tom found them," I said, unwilling to let on that I’d seen them for myself.

  "This sounds like it was worse than before," Priscilla told Ned.

  "Before what?" Ned asked.

  Since I hadn’t been in touch with him, I’d thought Priscilla might have told Ned about the stalking, but his question made me realize she hadn’t. I gave Ned the short version. He took a sip of his Bloody Mary.

  "You’re sure about that?" he asked.

  I nodded. "Yeah. But this time is definitely worse." It was time to see if Ned knew anything at all, and I asked him, "How serious was this relationship with Felicia?"

  Ned snorted. "For him, not too serious. But for her, well, he had her wrapped around his little finger." The same ugly tone came into his voice as I’d heard the first time I’d asked him about Ralph and Felicia. Again I interpreted it as jealousy.

  "She’s one of your students, isn’t she?" I asked, adding the proverbial fuel to the fire and wondering how far I could push him. "What kind of student is she?"

  Ned fingered his fork for a second. "She was very ambitious. She wanted to go the distance." He paused. "You didn’t see her at the Herald?"

  I shrugged. "She just started, right? I don’t pay much attention to the interns." Understatement of the year. I didn’t even pay attention to Dick until he started getting in my face. "Although she did pose for the poison ivy art for the health and science section."

  "I thought that was her," Ned said thoughtfully.

  "Do you know Ashley Ellis?"

  "She and Felicia are roommates," Ned said, taking a sip of his Bloody Mary.

  "I hear they’ve got a fancy condo over at City Point."

  Ned snorted. "They’re just renting, although they got it for a song. That’s what happens when the owner is a friend."

  "Friend? Who’s that?"

  "That preacher guy. You know the one—Shaw’s his name. He’s everywhere these days."

  Chapter 31

  The Reverend Shaw certainly was everywhere. And
he owned interesting properties in New Haven.

  "You know Shaw owned the place where Ralph lived, too, right?"

  This wasn’t news to him. "How do you think Shaw met those girls?"

  "What was Ralph’s relationship with Shaw?"

  Ned chuckled. "That was one thing Ralph kept close to the vest. I asked him the same thing, and he wouldn’t tell me."

  I mulled that a few seconds before saying, "Felicia’s been reported missing. Did you know?"

  His eyelids flickered for a second, but it could’ve been the sneeze that followed. Then, "No, I didn’t know. What do you know?"

  "Very little. Just that her parents reported her missing, no one’s seen her in two days." And there just so happened to be a pool of blood in her condo. But I didn’t enlighten him about that.

  Ned looked from Priscilla to me as a small smirk crossed his face. "Why the twenty questions? What do you think I know?"

  "You knew about the grand jury investigation," I said, then turned to Priscilla. "You, too."

  Priscilla at least had the decency to blush. "I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. He made me promise not to tell."

  "And you honored that promise? Even though you and I—"

  "I’ve stayed in touch with him, Annie," she said, cutting me off. "You know that."

  Ned pushed his chair back and stood up. "I’m going to the men’s room." His face was white.

  "He knows something," I said as we watched him cross the room.

  Priscilla snorted. "Of course he does. Ralph told him pretty much everything. Me, not so much everything."

  I believed her. I had to. Or our long friendship had just been a sham. And I didn’t want to think that.

  "But how do we get him to tell us what Ralph told him?" I asked.

  Priscilla shrugged. "I don’t know. It’s not like either of us has been that close to Ned. Not like you were with Ralph."

  "But you went out with him that one time."

  A small chuckle escaped. "Oh, shit, that’s right."

  The smile was contagious. "What happened that night? You never told me."

  Priscilla glanced across the restaurant to make sure Ned wasn’t coming back yet, leaned across the table, and whispered, "He was a lousy lay."

  I couldn’t help but laugh. "You never told me it got that far."

  She made a face, rolled her eyes. "You really don’t want to know. We were much better friends. But speaking of getting it on, how are things with you and Vinny?"

  I felt myself flush.

  "That good, huh?"

  I was about to tell her about Vinny’s note and the "love" reference, but saw Ned swaggering back from the bathroom. "He always thought he was hot shit, didn’t he?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.

  She surprised me. "He’s really broken up about Ralph, Annie. Cut him a break, okay? I know how you feel, but can you put it aside for a little bit? It means a lot to him to have us here."

  Ned slid back into his seat; the color had come back into his face, and he took a drink from his Bloody Mary.

  The waiter came with a tray full of food. I had ordered only an appetizer of foie gras and a spinach salad, but Priscilla and Ned were salivating over their meals of steak and fries.

  Before I could stop them, they started tripping down memory lane, stories about nights at the Keg House and all-nighters putting out the school newspaper, and, inevitably, Ned came full circle to how Ralph and I had come back from our wedding in Vegas with Elvis dolls for both him and Priscilla.

  I glanced at my watch.

  "Catching a bus?" Priscilla asked, a smile in her voice.

  This was a lot easier for them than it was for me. While they’d been talking, I’d let my thoughts drift back to last night and that condo. I’d ignored it long enough. My curiosity was getting the better of me. I knew what Vinny and I had done was wrong. It could even be called obstruction. We should’ve called the police the instant we’d discovered the blood. We should’ve been there so we could have told them Ashley wanted Vinny to meet her there.

  We panicked. Not surprisingly. We did call 911, but it was time to come clean. I had to talk to Tom. And leaving this little party wasn’t going to be a hardship.

  I took the last bite of my foie gras, had one more sip of my Pellegrino, pushed my chair back, and stood.

  "Listen, guys, it’s been fun," I said. "There’s some stuff I have to do." I looked at Priscilla, whose expression did not mask her confusion. "Sorry, but this is important, and this"—I waved my arm in the air across the table—"is just too fucking weird for me right now." I looked pointedly at Ned. "Don’t think we’re going to be best buddies now, okay?"

  "What about—," Priscilla started.

  "Ned can take you back to the train. I’ll call you later, okay?"

  My flip-flops echoed as I left the restaurant, leaving them with their mouths hanging open. When I stood outside the sidewalk, I took a deep breath. I felt like shit leaving Priscilla with Ned, but I hadn’t gotten any information and I couldn’t stand another minute of it.

  The heat didn’t bother me as I walked up Chapel Street toward York. If they were going to try looking for me, they’d look for me at my place, which was in the opposite direction. It was just about two o’clock, and I jaywalked across Chapel to the art gallery and sat on the steps. I wanted to tell Vinny first what I was going to do, so I punched his number into my cell. I only got his voice mail. I left a message asking him to call.

  From my vantage point on the stairs, I saw Priscilla come out of the restaurant just a block up, Ned right behind her. I didn’t want them to see me, so I scurried into the art gallery.

  The cavernous concrete decor fit my mood, and I wandered until I found a spot where I could sit and stare at the Chinese scroll paintings. But Ralph even interfered in my appreciation of those, as they reminded me of the Mount Fuji print he had given me.

  I thought about seeing Shaw this morning and wondered what his warning had been about. Had he known Ralph had been following me? Did he know about those late-night hang-ups?

  I had lived all these years seemingly invisible. No listed phone number, so no listed address. Renting, so I wasn’t in land records. None of it made a damn bit of difference.

  I wondered about Felicia, her phone call to me yesterday pleading with me to make sure the cops knew "it" wasn’t her fault. What wasn’t her fault? And why had she called me?

  I wanted to put Ralph down, lay him to rest, but he was haunting me through his girlfriend, through his best friend, through my best friend.

  I wondered why Vinny hadn’t called back. He wouldn’t like it if I called Tom without telling him first, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. When I checked my cell phone, however, I didn’t have any bars in the gallery. How did they do that?

  I’d have to go outside, back on the street.

  I hovered just outside the entrance and checked to see if there were any messages or missed calls. Only two of the latter. Priscilla. I punched Tom’s cell number into my phone.

  "I figured I’d hear from you," he said without saying hello first. "I’m surprised you’re not here yet."

  Huh? "Where?"

  A couple of seconds of silence, then, "You don’t know, do you?"

  "Know what?"

  I heard him sigh. "We found a girl’s body a couple hours ago. On the grounds at West Rock School. She was beaten to death."

  Chapter 32

  I started walking the few blocks home so I could get my car. It was Sunday, I wasn’t dressed for a crime scene, and I wasn’t supposed to go anyway because I’d been banned from my beat.

  But Tom had said Felicia Kowalski’s student ID was found with the body. Her face was so battered, however, she was unrecognizable from her picture.

  I flashed back to the blood on the floor at the condo. Despite my best intentions, I didn’t ask Tom about it, and he didn’t say anything. He sounded a little busy at the moment.

  West Rock School was very close to Southern
, Felicia’s stomping ground, at the base of West Rock, obviously. The city was full of magnet schools that catered to kids who wanted to be in the arts or the sciences, but West Rock School was an old-fashioned neighborhood public school that took kids from kindergarten through eighth grade. After that, the kids went to Hillhouse High. Of course the school wasn’t in session over the weekend—and it was pretty secluded.

  No one from the Herald was at the scene, Tom said.

  Someone had to cover it. But I had to cover myself. So I called Marty as I walked.

  "Cops found a body of a girl at West Rock School," I told him when he answered. "I just talked to Tom."

  "And I just talked to Dick," he said. "He’s on his way. Simmons’ll have my ass if you go. I saw your story today about the shooting at the Green yesterday. That was great, and I talked to him about it. He understands why you had to go, but this has to be Dick’s story. If you go up to West Rock School now, Simmons could get you on insubordination."

  "Tom says it’s Felicia Kowalski," I said.

  "What?"

  "The body. Felicia was reported missing yesterday. Tom said her student ID is there."

  "Jesus," he said softly.

  I thought about everything I’d learned while on my double-secret probation. "I think she had something to do with the grand jury investigation."

  "That story about your ex and the straw purchases? You think she was involved?"

  "They were dating. She disappeared the same day Ralph died. No one’s seen her. She was reported missing." The words hung between us.

  Marty was quiet a couple of seconds before, "Get over there and see if you can find out anything. Work with Dick. He’s going to have to have the byline, but you know more people than he does. Help him, but don’t do the story, okay? You can’t."

  Being Dick Whitfield’s assistant wasn’t my idea of a good time, but at least I could go out there and maybe not get fired.

  The phone rang just as I got to the car. I climbed in and put on the hands-free headset. It would take me a little while to get up to West Rock, and I could multitask with the best of them. I’d thought it was Vinny calling back, but I recognized Priscilla’s New York number.