Blaze of Glory

by Weston Ochse

  Greg ground his teeth, then turned to look at the other end of the foyer.

  At first he didn’t register what he was looking at, then Greg realized what the murderer had done. Mindful of the pool of blood around the small, wooden table over which the corpse was bent, the detective stepped closer. There wasn’t much he could see until the body was moved, and they wouldn’t do that until the techs got here and bagged the victim’s hands, dusted the keys and the other surfaces in the foyer. Lying on its side in the blood beneath the table was a black leather handbag, its zipper closed and clotted with blood—no robbery motive here. Eloise Addison’s skin was a dull, bled out gray and her eyes were slightly open; she’d had her hair, long and dark, twisted into some kind of a chignon and part of it had come loose and was now covering most of her face. From what Greg could tell, the dead woman was wearing an expensive navy blue business suit under a lightweight London Fog trench coat; the coat had gotten tangled to the right when her head and upper body had been forced between the table and the wall. Her skirt and stockings were still intact and tear free, so there’d been no rape. The atrocity that had been committed here had gone down fast and, for what it was, neat.

  The inside door on the right was slightly open and beyond it Greg could see a stairway leading up. He nudged the door with his shoulder so he could get inside, though he knew the neighbor had probably turned the doorknob when she’d run to her apartment to call the police. The detective climbed the stairs slowly, his mind turning over what he’d seen so far. No robbery, no rape, no break in. What was the motive here?

  When he got to the third floor landing, that door was also open so Greg walked inside without knocking. It was a nice place and probably had the same layout as the victim’s directly below, but they’d have to contact the landlord to let them in before they could look around down there—that was standard procedure, and no doubt one of the uniforms had already called. He was standing in a living room that had been painted a cheerful yellow to complement a feminine looking living room set. Vases with silk flowers were set here and there amid lots of floral paintings and china and crystal knickknacks, Victorian lace curtains and embroidered pillows. Nice place but it made him nervous; he wasn’t a big man, but he felt like he could move the wrong way in here and break something without even trying.

  He heard voices down the hall and turned that way, followed an oak-floored hallway to a kitchen that could have come right out of a Martha Stewart magazine. More yellow—lots of it—trimmed with a generous motif of tiny pink and white roses. A border of the stuff encircled the room at the juncture of the wall and ceiling and on one wall hung a four foot square cabinet with an exhibit of collectible miniature teapots and matching plates. The counters showed off an assortment of carefully placed cookie jars and serving dishes in colors that matched the kitchen and the ruffled, painfully floral curtains at the windows. By the time Greg’s brain had taken in all this, he’d resigned himself to dealing with someone his grandmother’s age.

  But the woman who sat clutching a cup of tea at the table was only a few years older than the victim, in her mid-thirties at the most. Built a little round at the edges, her attractive face was pale and streaked with tears below a messy head of reddish curls that fell to her jaw line and she’d thrown a dainty crocheted sweater over a ribbon-trimmed dress that Greg wasn’t surprised to see was in another heavily flowered pattern.

  When he saw Greg, one of the officers in the kitchen stepped forward. “This is Mary Kidman,” he said. “She found the victim.”

  “Eloise,” Mary Kidman said. Her voice was a little loud and brittle, like little pieces of wood being shaken in a bag. “Her name was Eloise. She was my best friend.”

  Ow, thought Greg, but Mary didn’t lose it. “I’m sorry,” he said simply, then squatted in front of her. “I’m Detective Jedrek. Can you tell me what happened here?”

  Mary shook her head. “I don’t know.” Her eyes, strikingly gray beneath reddened lids, filled up and a double line of tears joined the moisture already on her cheeks. “I just…found her like that, in the hallway, when I came home. I didn’t see anyone and I could tell that she was—” She gulped air and dropped her hands to the twisted Kleenex in her lap, then managed to keep going. “She was already dead.”

  Greg nodded and gave her a second or two before asking his next question. “Do you know if there was anyone who would do this to her? Was she married, or did she have a boyfriend?”

  The woman worked her fingers together. “She wasn’t married, and she didn’t have a steady boyfriend.” She bit at her bottom lip for a second. “There was this one guy she had a little trouble with, but I don’t think he knew where she lived—she said she’d never told him and her phone number was unlisted. And she hadn’t heard from him in almost two weeks, since she told him off.”

  Greg’s eyes narrowed and he pulled a small notebook from his breast pocket, flipped it open and readied his pen. “What kind of trouble? Did you meet him?”

  “No. And I just know what she told me.” She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue.

  “And what was that?”

  Mary frowned as she tried to remember. “Eloise was an account executive at Leo Burnett Advertising,” she told him. “They’re downtown and she met this guy, Blake, in line at one of those fast food places everybody goes to for lunch. They had lunch a couple of times—nothing more serious than that—then she couldn’t go the next time he called her at work and asked her out. She was busy and wanted to call him back, but he wouldn’t give her a number, said he wasn’t reachable because he was out in the field or something.”

  Greg scribbled a few notes on his pad. “Where did he work?”

  “I don’t know. I remember it was some kind of security company, but when she called there, they told Eloise they’d never heard of him. So she put it all together and decided he must be married, and when he called her back, she told him not to call her again.” Mary looked vaguely embarrassed. “Eloise was rather…outspoken sometimes, and I’m afraid she was rather crude when she did it.”

  Greg resisted the urge to smile. There wasn’t anything about this that was funny, but he found it amazing that the fragile Mary Kidman could be best friends with someone like Eloise Addison, whom he suspected had been a polar opposite. “Then what happened?”

  Mary blinked. “He kept calling her, at work, at home, at least twice a day. Finally she told him that she was going to call the police on him if he didn’t stop.”

  “And did he?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Eloise was on edge for a couple of days, but her threat must’ve worked. She never heard from him again.”

  Oh, yes she did, Greg thought without looking up. One last time. “Did she mention what he looked like?”

  “She said he was tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. Handsome.”

  Just like a million other guys in Chicago. “All right, Ms. Kidman. Thanks for your help.”

  She looked up at him, her wide, gray eyes penetrating. “I wasn’t really much help at all, was I?” Her voice trembled.

  “Don’t be so certain of that,” he said, but it was an automatic response. He’d run the Addison woman’s phone records, but the wannabe boyfriend had likely called from pay or untraceable cell phones, especially if he had murderous tendencies. Greg glanced at the two uniforms. “Is there someone you can call to…?”

  She sniffed. “I already did. My fiancé will be over as soon as he gets off work.” She looked at the two officers. “You can go ahead and leave— I’ll be all right. I think I’ll just stay in here until…” Her words faded and she stared at the floor.

  Greg knew exactly what she was talking about. “That would probably be best. If you think of anything else, you can call me at this number.”

  He handed her one of his cards, then headed back downstairs, stopping at the second landing when he saw the door to Eloise Addison’s apartment was open. There was a heavyset middle aged man standing just inside, shock still etched into t
he lines of his face. Greg could hear noises from deeper in the apartment. “Who are you?” he demanded. “And who else is in here?”

  “I’m the landlord,” the man said, stepping back at Greg’s sharp tone. “The detective downstairs said to let him in—that’s all.”

  Greg relaxed a bit as he registered the crowded ring of keys in the man’s hand. “It’s fine,” he said, not bothering with any more of an explanation. He hurried down the hall—a matched layout to the Kidman apartment upstairs—and found his partner in the bedroom, methodically looking through the dresser drawers. “Find anything?”

  Tony shrugged. “Bunch of frilly underwear, socks, sweaters, the usual. Nothing kinky. The super says as far as he knows, she never gave anyone else a key, not even that woman upstairs. Seemed to like her privacy.”

  Greg looked around the room thoughtfully and left Tony to his search, though he had a hunch the other man wouldn’t get much out of this place. No number for this Blake guy, no last name, no employer; he’d do a follow up with her coworkers and a canvas of the neighborhood, but he was betting no one but the late Eloise had actually seen him. When he passed the techs on the way outside, they looked at him and shook their heads—that meant no fingerprints or, at least at first glance, anything else usable. Guy had probably been wearing gloves.

  He sighed and went down by the car to wait for Tony. Too bad they didn’t have anything to go on, but at least they weren’t dealing with a serial killer.