Pillow Stalk

by Diane Vallere

  “Nice little spitfire you got yourself, Lieutenant,” she said, and stepped away from the group.

  The men stood around, looking at their shoes and their watches and anything but me and Tex, both collectively and individually.

  Before I had a chance to consider if an apology was in order, Tex put a hand on the back of my elbow and propelled me away from the group.

  “Nice scene.”

  “I’m sorry. I was out of line. But I told you already that I don’t intend to be made a fool of by you and whatever it is you want people to think about us.”

  “So you’re allowing for there to be an Us. That’s progress.”

  “Lieutenant!”

  “Seriously, that was great. Nobody’s ever stood up to Nasty like that. The uniform scares a lot of people into behaving. I didn’t know you had that in you.”

  “Why am I here?” I asked.

  “I want you inside.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Like you said, you were one of the last people here. You went over the house with that decorator’s eye of yours. You’re probably better than a lot of my men at figuring out if anything looks out of place, if anything’s been taken.”

  “You really want my help?”

  “I might as well make full use of you as long as you’re in a cooperating kind of mood.”

  I was just as curious as Tex to get inside and see what had been taken from Thelma Johnson’s estate. I’d cleaned out as much as I was capable of doing on my previous trip, but Tex had brought it back. Boxes and bags of knickknacks lined the wall just inside the house; Tex hadn’t bothered trying to put things back where they went.

  As we walked through the house, it became evident that someone had been here since me, someone who didn’t believe mid-century furniture was a work of art. Somebody who’d been willing to flip the floral chair in the sitting room and slash through the fabric. Wads of stuffing were scattered across the rug.

  “I didn’t leave the place like this.”

  “So someone was looking for something. Did they find it?”

  “Not here. The bedroom.”

  The fake Steve Johnson entered the room while my words hung in the air. Tex looked at him, then back at me, then back at him.

  “It’s not what you think,” Tex said to him.

  “Go to the bedroom.” I commanded.

  Tex took the stairs two at a time with fake Steve right behind him. I ascended the staircase, too, as fast as I could, but my knee put me at a disadvantage. When I reached the room that only days ago had been filled with lemon yellow sunlight bouncing off floral wallpaper, hitting the beautiful walnut dresser that had been overflowing with vintage lingerie, scarves, silk stockings, and ribbon tied letters that Thelma Johnson had thought to keep for so long, I gasped.

  The dresser had been smashed. Splinters of wood stuck out at corrupted angles, contrary to the simple ninety-degree angles of the original piece. Three of the legs were on the bottom of the dresser, snapped. The fourth sat alone, on the floor, on a monogrammed white cotton handkerchief. The doors that had at one time folded, accordion-like, over the front of the piece now hung from their hinges. Empty drawers had been thrown on the carpet and smashed. There was no repairing it.

  “Why did they have to ruin the wardrobe?” I asked.

  Tex stopped in front of the broken wood and slowly turned around.

  “What did you just say?”

  “It was a beautiful piece of furniture. Not worth that much, really, but it was in great condition. You can’t find things like that anymore. The lines of it, the wood, the right angles, they were calming. I’ve always found right angles calming. And now it’s scrap wood.”

  “No, not that. You called it a wardrobe.”

  “Dresser, wardrobe, some people might have called it an armoire, but they’d be wrong. Why?”

  “That’s what Sheila and Thelma fought about that night. Her wardrobe. She said she had something valuable…” his voice trailed off while he followed his memory back to that night.

  “Did she say she had something valuable in her closet or her wardrobe?”

  “Wardrobe. She said wardrobe.”

  We stared at the destroyed pile of wood. The room was hot and my gingham shirt stuck to my back. I fanned myself with a hand, but it made no difference.

  “Sheila was found in her underwear. Someone took her clothes. What if what we’re looking for wasn’t in her wardrobe,” I waved my hands in circles over the dresser, “but was in her wardrobe?” I waved my hands up and down the length of my outfit. “As in, her clothes?”

  Tex had a faraway look in his eyes. He processed my question, running my take on his story against what he’d already concluded.

  “You took more than what I returned to the house, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “And I bet the first thing you went for was the closet.”

  I nodded again.

  “That’s it, Night. You have whatever it is this killer is trying to find. It’s somewhere in your wardrobe now. I’ll get a warrant if I have to, but you don’t really have a choice.”

  “A choice in what?”

  “Looks like I’m going to be getting into your drawers after all.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  I couldn’t begin to count the number of reasons I didn’t want Tex to drive me back to my apartment. They started with the notion that I had something worth murdering for and ended with the furry ball of terror trapped in my closet. I couldn’t readily explain Mortiboy’s presence without tipping my hand to how much I knew about Hudson’s leave.

  Hudson. From the minute my mind processed the broken dresser and the one single wooden leg that had been snapped off and laid delicately on the pristine white handkerchief, I knew he’d been there. He remembered what I said about the table legs and he’d set this one off to the side as a message to me. He was out there, somewhere, trying to figure this out, too, so he could move on with his life, away from the accusations, the arrest warrant, the gossip, the lies, and the innuendo. But he probably didn’t know what Tex and I had figured out. He was operating on his own without the same information. And that put him in danger.

  I followed Tex halfway back to the Jeep before making up an excuse to go return to the inside of the house.

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Night, we’re going to your apartment. Can’t you wait?”

  “No, I can’t. And if you were a gentleman you’d not make this any more embarrassing than it is. I’ll be right back,” I said, and headed into the house.

  “Not by yourself, you’re not. Nasty!” he hollered.

  I didn’t wait to see if he was really going to direct her to babysit me. I went as fast as my knee would allow me up the stairs and into the bedroom.

  The curtains blew into the room with a slight breeze. I moved to the open window and looked out at the row of dogwood trees that defined the property line.

  That’s when I saw him. Wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, with a red bandana that matched my own tied over his head. Hudson’s hair curled against his tanned neck just like it had when I watched him in the garage, working on the table legs. He looked up at me and our eyes connected. My hand reached out, as did his, and although two stories and one withering vegetable garden separated us, it was like we were touching.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing up here?” said a female voice behind me.

  “I was going to go to the bathroom.”

  “Funny detour you’re taking,” Officer Nast said. She pushed me out of the way of the window and looked around. “What’s that?” She pointed at the lawn.

  I held my breath, hoping she wasn’t pointing to Hudson, hoping he’d gotten away before she had the chance to identify him.

  “What? What’s what?” I asked innocently.

  She picked up her radio and pushed a button on the side. “Lieutenant Allen, there’s something tacked to a tree behind the house. Can you check it
out?” She turned to me. “You done yet?”

  “I’m done.”

  “Let’s go.”

  I followed her down the stairs. When we reached the back yard, Tex stood by the row of dogwoods with a piece of paper in his hands.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You tell me,” said Nasty. “I think she threw it out the window when she was upstairs.”

  “I did not!” I exclaimed.

  He handed the paper to me. Written on it in familiar handwriting was a new threat. IT ENDS AT THE MUMMY.

  “Where was that?” I asked. When I’d looked out the window at Hudson, there’d been nothing of the sort in my line of vision.

  “It was pinned to this tree. With this.” She held up a hat pin. It was the one Hudson carried around with him to remind him of his grandmother.

  “Night, where did that hat pin come from? And don’t lie to me. I can tell you recognize it. You might as well tell me now because I can make a guess and I’m probably right.”

  “Whoever the owner of the hat pin is, it doesn’t mean he left the note. It could have been stolen from him.”

  Too late, I realized I’d as much as fingered Hudson with a simple choice of pronoun.

  “Take me to my apartment.” I turned and walked away, leaving Tex and Officer Nast behind.

  I didn’t talk on the drive back to Gaston. It wasn’t because I didn’t have anything to say, but I couldn’t figure out which thought to start with. Too much connected Hudson to the murder, that I knew. Why did I believe in his innocence more than his suspected guilt? What was it about me that wanted—no, needed—to help find a way to allow him to move on from the net of memory?

  It was because I was trapped in the net of memory myself. Since leaving Pennsylvania, leaving a bad relationship, leaving behind a life I thought I was happy with and starting over, I’d spent so much time looking forward I never justified the past. But through everything I was living now, the memories were pushing against the surface.

  I wasn’t born yesterday. Just because my business was relatively new didn’t meant I didn’t have the battle scars gained from forty-seven years of life. I saw those same battle scars in Hudson and Tex. How their lives had been changed because of all of this. And focusing on this murder investigation had made it become my problem. It had taken the focus away from me and the problems I already had. Not trusting people. Not letting people in. Not seeing reality. Not willing to open up enough to allow myself to get hurt that badly again.

  Tex pulled into my apartment building and backed into an open space by the dumpster. He left the engine on.

  “Night, you are one crazy woman. I can’t begin to figure you out and on some days that is an incredible turn on, but on other days it makes my job very hard to do.”

  “Lieutenant—”

  He held up a finger to my lips, shutting me up with both the unexpected intimacy of his gesture and the heat coming off of his hand.

  “I keep telling you I think Hudson is guilty and you keep covering for him. But think about this. If you’re right, and he’s not guilty, he’s in a lot of danger. He’s closer to this thing than even you are and the best way for you to protect him, which is what I think you’ve been trying to do, is to let homicide do their job.”

  “Homicide wants to arrest him.”

  “Homicide wants to solve the crime and catch the bad guy. Right now, everything points to him.”

  “And if it didn’t? If I could make you see things differently, what would you do?”

  “How are you planning to do that?”

  “That’s my problem, not yours.”

  “You are my problem, Night. Like it or not, until this case is solved, I’m sticking to you like glue.”

  The sun had dipped below the tree line and the dumpster and a shadow fell across the hood of both the Jeep and Tex’s face. The heat was still in effect. I reached a hand up and adjusted the bandana that held my hair back. It would have been cooler to have my hair in a ponytail but necessity had eliminated that option. Now, my hairline, damp with sweat, created sticky tendrils that had snuck loose.

  “I’m your only link to the investigation, aren’t I? The only reason you’re here, carting me around Dallas, layering on your inappropriate come-ons and your man-about-town persona is because you need me.”

  I expected him to deny it, or to say something flip, but he didn’t. He reached a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me close to him. Our lips met in a crush of a kiss, powerful and unexpected. At first I fought him, but something inside me, a flicker of passion I thought had been turned off forever, lit and I kissed him back with equal intensity.

  My heart pounded when we pulled apart. We stared at each other. I didn’t know what to say, whether I should be embarrassed or flattered or both.

  “Night, I hate to break it to you, but you got your facts all wrong,” he said, his voice husky and low. My eyes dropped to his T-shirt, where they lingered. I was afraid to make eye contact again. I was afraid of what that kiss had meant.

  “I’m going inside now.”

  “Are you going to invite me in?”

  I raised my eyebrows. I wasn’t sure what kind of an invitation he was looking for, and after that kiss I certainly wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “Glue, Night. Whether I’m in there or out here, I’m not leaving. If Hudson James is your kind of guy, that’s your business. But if he wants to find you tonight, I’m going to know about it.”

  “You better make yourself comfortable, Tex,” I said, and climbed down from the side of the Jeep. I took a few steps toward the back of the building and turned around.

  He was watching me; he’d been expecting me to change my mind.

  “If it makes a difference, I’ll bring you a pillow.”

  He didn’t respond.

  I turned around again and went into the building.

  I hadn’t thought about romance since Brad. I thought that closet door was shut and locked. But I’d kissed two different men in two days, and whether I wanted to face it, the door was unlocked and open. And on top of everything else, I had to wonder what was so wrong with that anyway.

  I kicked my shoes off by the sofa, then called Effie to let her know to bring Rocky by. I glanced at my email. Buried between Fourth of July offers from Bed Bath and Beyond, Sears, and eBay was one from Susan at AFFER.

  There was a knock on my door. Susan would have to wait. I was eager to see my cuddly little fellow. I peered through the peephole and opened the door to Effie, with Rocky cradled in her arms.

  “Thanks again for watching him all day. How’s he been?”

  “He’s been a doll, as usual, but he keeps sniffing around like he’s looking for someone.”

  I draped his leash around my neck and cradled him in my arms. “Probably just wanted to play with a particular toy, that’s all.” I buried my face in the fur on the top of his head. “You said someone,” I commented.

  “What?”

  “You said he was looking for someone, not something.”

  “Well, I know you’ve had a couple of, um, friends over lately and I thought maybe he was looking for one of them.”

  “Oh?”

  “No offense, Madison, but I don’t think I ever saw three different men come by your apartment in the same week!” She giggled.

  The smile on my face froze like it had been hit with liquid nitrogen but I fought to hold it in place. Something didn’t compute. She’d seen Hudson at my apartment. And she’d been there when Tex came over, too. But three?

  “I think you counted Lieutenant Allen twice. He does occasionally like to pretend he’s someone he’s not.”

  “No, I can recognize the Lieutenant by now. I meant him, the handyman, and the Russian.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  A chill shot through me like a bolt of electricity. I put my hand on the desk to steady myself. “Effie, can you do me one more favor?” I asked, and reached for a pen. “The lieutenant is out back in his Jeep. He�
�s parked next to the dumpster. Can you take this to him?”

  Before she could answer, I grabbed a piece of paper from my desk and scribbled on the back of the paper Who is the Russian? I folded it in half and half again and held it out in a gesture of expectation, not giving her the chance to turn down my request.

  “Is he here on cop business or personal business?”

  I smiled enough of a smile for her to assume the answer she wanted to believe. Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine, bouncing from the left to the right, checking if I was pulling her leg or if I was serious. The gravity of the situation kept the smile from returning to my face. She made a silent O with her mouth and left me in the hallway.

  “Sure, I’ll deliver your love note.” She patted Rocky on the head and looked back up at me. “He’s cute, Madison. Lucky you,” she said.

  I waited until I heard the back door close before I entered my apartment. I turned on lights, a lot of lights. Lights in the living room, the hallway, the bathroom, and the bedroom. Enough lights to flood the parking lot with clues that I was inside.

  Nothing was out of order, but I suspected there was one angry cat in my closet. I pulled on a pair of oven mitts and headed into the bedroom, ready to face Hudson’s little devil. Somewhere during my pep talk to myself, there was another knock on the door. I pulled off the mitts and peered through the peephole. Effie stared back at me.

  I pulled the chain off the door and turned the knob. “That was fast!” I said before the door was all the way open. That’s why I didn’t see the black-gloved hand come at me, covering my mouth, pushing me back into my apartment.