Pillow Stalk

by Diane Vallere

  “Mr. Johnson? I’m Madison Night.”

  “Call me Steve,” he said, looking past me, to Tex.

  “This is my assistant,” I said, and let the sentence hang in the air, unfinished, not sure if Tex expected me to provide a full introduction.

  “Come on in,” Steve said, holding the door open for us to enter. I stepped past him into the small foyer that separated the front door and the kitchen. Tex followed. I would have paid good money to have seen Tex’s reaction when I called him my assistant but at the moment all of my good money was going toward Thelma Johnson’s belongings.

  The kitchen was small but efficient. A laminate table sat under the picture window, the sill lined with a neat row of African violets in white ceramic pots. A corner display shelf filled the space between the cabinets and the window held a collection of Eva Zeisel china in hues of white, aqua, and pink. With just a glance, I could tell she had almost the entire set.

  My eyes swept the room and took in the Danish modern chairs neatly tucked beneath the table. Yellow curtains, faded with fifty years of sunlight, showed off an atomic print of dingbats and daisies.

  “So, how do you do this? You’ll be quick, right?” said Steve Johnson.

  “I’d like to walk through the house first, then make you an offer, if that works for you.”

  “Sure, but you won’t take too long, right? I think I can catch an earlier flight.”

  “You’re not a fan of Dallas, are you?” I asked.

  “I want to get out of this godforsaken city,” he answered. “I can’t believe Mom stayed here.”

  “Didn’t she live here her whole life?” I asked. My initial assessment of the furniture was that these belongings hadn’t seen a moving truck or the critical eye that accompanies a major move from city to city. They looked lived in and loved, and like they’d been where they were for a very long time.

  “Yeah, but some people try to move on after tragedy. Not Mom. I offered to move her to Cincinnati to live with me but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “So you were close?”

  “‘Were’ being the operative word. We lost touch when she started dating.”

  I gave him some time to continue if he wanted. Experience had taught me sometimes people needed an outlet–a stranger like me–to listen to them unburden themselves of complaints, frustrations, or just memories they were left with after their loved one had moved on. I wondered briefly about Pamela’s family and what stories they would tell about her. But Steve Johnson didn’t continue and I didn’t push. It felt more respectful that way.

  “Do you mind if I start? And if I make notes and take pictures?”

  He shrugged. “Do what you have to do. I’ll be in the garage if you need me.”

  I pulled a small digital camera from my handbag and handed it to Tex. “Photograph the kitchen. I’m going to the living room.”

  He hadn’t expected me to put him to work. His eyes widened and I smiled.

  I’d been right. After a thorough walk through, the living room, sitting room, and the upstairs two bedrooms, I knew what kind of offer to make. It would take more than Hudson’s pickup truck to clear out the loot, but I could try to make arrangements with Steve before he left. I found him in the garage rooting through a pile of movie reels.

  “Steve?”

  He straightened. His white polo shirt had errant cobwebs stuck to the front.

  “Are you done?” he asked.

  “Not quite, but I know you’re pressed for time.”

  I made my offer, and after mild negotiations that seemed more inappropriate on the part of the grieving son than on mine, he accepted. I wrote out a check.

  “There is one potential problem,” he said before taking the check.

  “Actually, there’s two. Can I talk to you for a second?” said Tex from just outside of the garage.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Steve. “What?” I asked, closing the gap between the garage and the Jeep.

  “I can’t stick around any longer. I got a call.” He held up his cell, “I have to split.”

  “That’s okay, I can get home by myself.”

  “I don’t think you should stick around here by yourself.”

  “I do things by myself all the time,” I said, with just a little annoyance.

  “Call a cab.” He pulled a twenty from his worn leather wallet.

  “I have cab money.” We stared at each other for a couple of seconds. “I might dress like it’s the fifties but I don’t act like it.”

  He didn’t pull the money back right away, but finally, when I didn’t take it, it went back in his wallet which went back into his pocket. He pulled the scarf from around his neck in one quick motion but walked away with it in his hand.

  I turned to face the house. Steve Johnson stood inside the garage, watching us. Behind me, Tex drove away.

  “Ms. Night, I need a couple of days alone here, to make peace with her death.”

  “I understand. I’d like a chance to go through the house, make some notes, before I come back with a truck. Is that okay?”

  He rubbed his hand over the bald top of his head and stared at the small brick residence. “Take all the pictures you want tonight. Put the keys in the mail slot when you’re done.”

  At this point it seemed easier to spend my time figuring out what I didn’t want than what I did. By the time I left the house, it was after six, but the time had been time well spent.

  Thelma Johnson was a classic example of a woman who hadn’t redecorated in fifty years, but also of one who was quite stylish in her day. A closet filled with double-knit polyester pantsuits, cotton dresses, smart skirt suits that would have made an Avon lady proud, and a collection of hats in pristine round boxes were just the tip of the iceberg. There would be no resale value on the clothing because I’d have it all cleaned, tailored to my frame, and adopted as my own. It was like being a walking business card for Mad for Mod.

  Hours later, I locked the door behind me and fed the keys through the mail slot. I rooted around in my handbag for my cell phone. It was time to figure out how I was getting home. Only, the phone wasn’t here. I moved toward the front steps and sat down, emptying the handbag. Definitely not inside. Had I used it at all today? Did I leave it at home?

  The Johnson house was locked up and the keys were inside the mail slot. It was a good thing I had on sneakers. I started walking. Fortunately I’d paid attention while Tex drove, and knew that Thelma Johnson’s house was two blocks from White Rock Lake, and if I followed the path around the lake I’d get to Buckner. A right on Buckner would take me to Gaston, which would take me home.

  But a left on Buckner would take me past Hudson’s house, where I could take him up on his standing offer.

  My knee pulsed with pain. Two days of unexpected travel on foot was doing a number on the injured joint. If Crestwood wasn’t open tomorrow morning, I was going to have to find another place to swim. It was the only thing that helped.

  It was slow going, slower than if Rocky had been pulling me along with his leash. I made it halfway around the lake when I spied Hudson’s truck parked on the side of the street. When I reached it, I cupped my hands around my eyes and stared at the interior.

  “What are you doing?” I heard behind me.

  “Hudson!” I whirled around and faced him.

  He took a step backwards, into the shadow of a dogwood tree.

  “I know I’ve been taking advantage of your generosity, but I still don’t have a car, and my ride bailed on me, and I don’t have my phone to call a cab. Can I borrow your phone? Or better yet, can you give me a ride home again?” I stepped forward to see him more clearly.

  His mouth turned down, and his eyes were narrow. I moved back, away from him, scared by his expression.

  He stepped out of the shadows, and the closer he got, the more clearly I could see anger on his face.

  I’d overstepped my boundaries. I’d known him for close to a year but this was now the third time in three da
ys I’d asked for a personal favor. He didn’t look happy about it, but he strode toward the car door all the same.

  “Nothing good ever comes from rescuing women stranded on the side of the road,” he said. He got into the truck, gunned the engine, and drove away.

  EIGHT

  Hudson’s tires kicked up a spray of gravel and dust that swirled around my ankles. My white sneakers had turned the color of powdered Ovaltine and the hem of my dress matched. Sweat trickled between my breasts. I looked down at my knee, now the size of a grapefruit ready to be juiced. And the worst thing was I was still over a mile away from my apartment.

  I started walking, slowly. The sun had dropped below the horizon and it was starting to get dark, yet the needle hadn’t moved on the temperature and there was no rain in sight. While I walked, I thought about Hudson. No matter from what angle I approached his reaction, it didn’t make sense. Despite our professional relationship, there had been moments, flashes of something more, I didn’t think I’d imagined. Even if my request had inconvenienced him, it didn’t warrant the hostility he’d flung at me.

  As an indication that my luck was turning, a cab drove down the street in my direction. I flagged him down and rested against the sticky vinyl seat while the driver looped around the lake, Buckner, and Gaston. I re-ponytailed my long blonde hair and ran a tube of tinted lip balm over my lips. I was far from fresh but close to home. After close to two hours of walking, the cab delivered me to my front door in seven minutes. I would have been happy about that if it weren’t for the fact that Tex was sitting on my front steps playing with Rocky. I paid the cabbie and did my best to walk without favoring my knee.

  “Before you say anything, your neighbor had to leave and didn’t know what to do with your dog. I happened to be waiting here for you. I showed her my badge and she let me in.”

  “What exactly is going on here?” I asked angrily, even though Rocky was hopping around my feet waiting for a kiss.

  “I wanted to make sure you got home safely after I bailed on you,” he said.

  “I am continually shocked by what you claim falls under the title of normal cop behavior.”

  “Maybe it’s not cop behavior. Maybe it’s nice guy behavior. Does that shock you, too?” he asked.

  Rocky, frustrated by the lack of affection from me, had returned to the ankles of his new friend, who instinctively ran his fingers through Rocky’s long fur.

  “Officer Nast didn’t seem to think you were a ‘nice guy.’”

  “I’m not going to talk about her.”

  “Okay, so talk about me. I’m not a suspect, but all of a sudden I’ve got a lieutenant showing up at my door offering to drive me around, checking to see that I made it home safely?”

  “Madison. I told you you’re not a suspect and I meant it. But I do think you’re tied to the murder of Pamela Ritter.”

  “Do you have any news on the—that?”

  “On the murder? Not much more than a hunch at this point.”

  “So why do you think I’m tied to it?”

  “Well, there is one other thing. Remember the pillows, the pillow your dog pulled out from under the car?”

  “The pillows? From my trunk?” I looked away to a brown patch of grass on the front yard, trying to process what he said. “They’re not that hard to come by, if you know where to look—”

  “Madison, listen to me. That pillow was the murder weapon. That’s what was used to kill her.”

  Tex’s words bit into my mind. I wanted to tell him not to talk about her, but it was too late. “She was suffocated. Our team found a death mask on it.”

  “Those pillows were new old stock. There shouldn’t have been anything on them.”

  “A death mask is an impression left behind on the fabric. It’s made by her nose, mouth, eye sockets...”

  I lowered myself onto the step next to him as his voice trailed off. I wasn’t used to hearing the technical terms associated with a murder and I started to shake, even though it wasn’t cold. Tex put his hand on my knee, not knowing how badly it throbbed. I flinched and he pulled it away, mistaking my reaction. I looked at him, searching his face for something comforting. He kept it unreadable.

  “Who else knew those pillows were there? Who else had access to your car?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t a secret. I gave Pamela my keys so she could get a swim cap out of the trunk. The keys were in the lock when I found her. Those pillows have been in there for a week. Anybody who walked past while the trunk was open would see them.”

  “When’s the last time you saw them?”

  “I don’t remember. I was planning to put them in my storage unit soon, but the trunk of my car has been giving me trouble. Remember? You had to hit it to get it to open at the pool. What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know what it means yet, but one thing seems for sure. Someone broke into your trunk and stole the pillows, then used one to murder Miss Ritter.”

  After Tex’s news I wanted little more than to collapse inside my apartment. Tex ruffled Rocky’s fur then stood up and said goodnight. I entered the building. The mailbox overflowed with colored circulars from the local grocery stores that I tossed directly into the recycle bin in the foyer. Rocky pulled me up the stairs and stood on hind legs, paws on the door of our apartment. I turned the two locks mechanically and pushed the door open.

  Unclipped from his leash, Rocky ran into the bedroom and returned with one of my terrycloth slippers in his mouth. I let him play while I swallowed a prescription strength anti-inflammatory then kicked off my white canvas sneakers and left them in a pile covered with my dirty dress. I took a long shower, ridding my body of dust, dirt, dried sweat, and tense muscles. After drying off, I dressed in a fresh pair of yellow pajamas with white flowers and searched the freezer for a quick dinner option. There was a small Tupperware of frozen jambalaya left over from a big batch I’d made last month. I pulled the lid off and nuked it.

  I carried the hot Tupperware to the table and set it down next to the newspaper. While the rice, sausage, and chicken concoction cooled, I unfolded the paper. I was so hungry that I scooped a forkful of jambalaya into my mouth, only to burn my tongue. I ran to the refrigerator and chugged milk directly from the carton.

  I turned back to the table. The Tupperware had fallen to the floor and Rocky was lapping up the spilled jambalaya. “Rocky! No!” He froze. I crossed the small room, and with a wad of paper towels in my hand, cleaned up the mess that was left. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out what jambalaya did to a puppy’s intestinal tract.

  “Go to your crate,” I commanded.

  He stared at me with soulful brown eyes that looked like a melted Hershey’s Special Dark and my heart broke a little. But he was still a puppy and puppies have to learn.

  I won the standoff and he walked, both tail and head down, to the metal cage that sat along the east wall of the apartment. I pushed the door shut but didn’t bother to lock it.

  When I returned to the table it was with a torn off piece of bread that had been sliced open and slathered with butter. I sat in front of the newspaper and smoothed my hand over the creases.

  That’s when I saw the headline.

  Unsolved Twenty-Year-Old Homicide in Lakewood Back in Public Eye

  I scanned the article. Twenty years ago a woman had been left for dead by the side of White Rock Lake. Her body had been found dressed only in white cotton panties and a man’s denim shirt. There was no evidence of sexual assault. Details indicated she’d been killed in a different location from where she’d been discovered, her body moved after the crime was committed. Eyewitnesses saw a stranger drive her to her apartment building that night, providing the only substantial lead.

  The reporter had written a piece heavy on nostalgia that begged for the reader’s attention. Attractive, blonde, Sheila Murphy smiled at me from the photo they ran next to the story, side by side the promotional photo Pamela Ritter had used on her real estate flyers. Two blonde women, m
urdered, twenty years apart from each other. Oddly, both women bore a striking resemblance to Doris Day, but that wasn’t the strangest part of the article. It was the ending.

  Hudson James, longtime Lakewood resident, was taken into custody for the murder of Sheila Murphy, but was not charged with the crime. He declined comment for this article.

  Both murders remain unsolved.

  NINE

  The heat left my body, and I felt like my bones had been dipped in ice water. It was about eighty degrees in the apartment, yet my hands went white and rattling teeth shook my jaw. Somehow I reached Rocky’s crate and opened the door. He bounded out and I scooped him up and held him close. It wasn’t until I felt his wet fur against my cheek that I realized I was crying.

  “How can that be?” I whispered. I carried him past the bathroom to my bedroom and set him on the purple and white polka-dotted comforter. In lieu of a headboard, I had a skyline jigsawed out of particleboard, painted lilac, and mounted on the wall behind the bed, backlit with soft twinkling Christmas lights. The glow from the cutout windows illuminated the room. I looked out the back window, half-expecting to see the lieutenant’s Jeep in the parking lot. Instead, a blue pick-up truck patched with primer circled past the parked cars.

  Instinctively I backed away from the window, realizing too late that Hudson had seen me. I stood in the shadows with Rocky clutched close to my chest until the truck pulled out of the lot moments later. There was no doubt in my mind that Hudson had been watching my windows to see when I’d arrived home.

  Hudson, who had refused to give me a ride.

  Hudson, who had a deep, dark secret that had just been exposed.

  Hudson, who’d had access to my trunk the day before Pamela was murdered.

  I turned off all of the lights except the tall pink and white striped floor lamp that sat inside the front door. I sank to the floor and cradled Rocky close to my chest. I’d been alone so many nights before and it had never felt like this. My loneliness was splintered by fear and distrust. I went to bed with more questions than answers and more doubts than confidence, staring at the early sixties pattern of circles on the ceiling long after I’d turned off the lights.