by Duffy Brown
I sat down in Boone’s soft leather chair, put my purse on the floor, and held the flashlight in my teeth like they do on the TV shows. I tried not to think about the germ aspect, with my flashlight living in the recesses of my purse with my comb and other paraphernalia. Boone had a computer, not a laptop but one of those old ones, with the tower that sat under the desk. The man needed to upgrade. I hit the power button, and the screen came alive with a simple blue background, not even a big black Harley or badass fishing boat to liven things up a bit. I clicked on a folder just for kicks, but I needed a password to go any further. I considered trying “scum-sucking lawyer.”
I rummaged through Boone’s desk, finding the usual paper, pens, envelopes, and a gun. Most of the population of Savannah could give you the make and model of this particular firearm. I was more of the how-much-could–I–get-for-this–on–eBay mentality. It was heavy, older than dirt, completely untraceable. You can take the boy out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of the—
“It’s loaded.”
I jerked up. The gun went off with a loud bang that scared the liver out of me. I dropped the gun and jumped out of the chair, the light in my mouth zeroing in on Boone hunkered on the floor. “Oh my God!” I mumbled around a mouthful of flashlight.
Looking none too happy, Boone said, “I told you it was loaded.”
I spit out the flashlight, knelt down beside Boone, and grabbed his shoulders. “Are you dead? Where did I shoot you?”
Boone took the flashlight from the floor and waved it around to a blistered hole in some very fine cherry paneling that deserved better treatment.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in a high squeaky voice that I didn’t recognize as my own.
“I think that’s my line.” Boone stood and lit the brass lamp on his desk.
“I could have killed you, and why didn’t you ever offer me an espresso all the times I was here in this place?” My brain was oatmeal.
“When I saw the Colt in your hand, I figured the floor was the best place to be. You were going to be surprised no matter what I did. And I just got the espresso machine.” He pulled out his cell.
“Who are you calling?”
“The cops.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“I’m not a very nice guy.”
Boone told the police that a gun misfired in his office and everything was okay and not to send a car around.
“They’ll believe that?” I asked when he disconnected.
“It’s my office. Things happen here. You’re not helping Hollis, you know.”
“All I want to do is find Janelle’s killer, and I’m not having much luck.”
“That’s not my problem; you are.” He closed his eyes and seemed weary. “What did I do to deserve you, and what is that smell?” Boone asked, his eyes tearing at the odor. Some people had no taste whatsoever.
“How’d you know I was here?” I asked him. “You don’t have an alarm system; you told me so yourself.” I slapped my hand against my forehead, duh fashion. “Big Joey ratted me out, didn’t he? I should have known.”
“Big Joey doesn’t rat.” Boone pointed to a bookshelf behind his desk loaded with matching volumes of legalese. “Camera. I can check my office with my iPhone.”
“And you happened to check it in the middle of the night to see if I was here?”
“You didn’t find anything at the town house. I knew you’d come calling to see what I had, and ten thirty isn’t the middle of the night. Breaking in here is what I would do, except I’d get away with it.”
I sat on the floor cross-legged, looking up at Boone perched on the edge of his desk. “You think you’re so darn smart.”
“You got me beat in the little-black-dress department, but when it comes to finding evidence, it’s no contest. Stick to being a shop girl.” Boone’s cell buzzed, and he checked the screen. “I gotta take this.” He went into the outer office and called over his shoulder, “Don’t move.”
Yeah, right. I hooked my purse over my shoulder. Boone didn’t know how I had gotten in, so getting out the same way had possibilities. I started to crawl off; then I remembered my leftover pizza, and I peeled off the salami, pepperoni, and anchovies and placed them on the CD tray (which no one used these days with flash drives around) on Boone’s computer. I hit the close button and watched the smelly part of my delicious dinner slide away. Boone would have a great time wondering Where’s that smell coming from? I crawled around the side of his desk, inched through the door behind Dinky’s desk, slipped into the closet, and crept down the back stairs.
Now that I was out and free as a bird, I figured Boone probably let me go. I replaced the key in the crack and started to feel a little guilty over the pizza until I remembered his shop-girl crack. Hey, I was smart and getting smarter and making new important friends. Not everyone in the Victorian District had connections in the hood.
It was nearly midnight by the time I walked home. So much time spent tonight hunting around and so little to show for it. All I knew for sure was that Franklin and Baxter were off the hook, Cupcake had a contingency plan that would ruin a lot of people’s lives, Walker Boone had his office bugged, and I’d probably get a bill for a bullet-hole repair job. I started up the walk to my house and listened for a thumping tail and looked for eyes shining at me from under the porch. Nothing. Bruce Willis wasn’t there. He was on the porch, sleeping right by the front door. The trail of hot dogs had worked! I got my watchdog.
“What a good boy you are,” I called, my flip-flops slapping against the wood as I took the steps. I clapped my hands so he’d jump up and come to me like he always did. He didn’t budge. Bruce Willis just laid there, his back to me, very still. “I have a hot dog,” I lied, feeling a little nervous at the no–movement thing. His tail didn’t wag; his fur didn’t move.
Terror shot through me. I dropped down beside BW and gathered his big mangy head into my arms. He opened his eyes, but it was a struggle. His breath smelled like…chocolate? There were wrappers by his paw, more by the door. “Oh no. Oh, please, God, no.”
KiKi was at the country club; she couldn’t take us to the vet. The Abbott sisters would be in a complete tizzy over BW and I’d have to call an ambulance and have three to worry about. Shaking, I fumbled through my purse and dug out the phone. I punched in Mamma’s number. It went right to voice mail; she was probably at some political meeting this evening. I punched in the only other number I could remember.
“What?” Walker Boone’s voice barked at me over the phone.
“It’s Reagan. Don’t hang up,” I added in a rush. I was crying so hard I didn’t know if Boone could even understand me. “Bruce Willis.” I started to sob harder. “Someone fed him chocolate. I can’t lift him. He’s sick; he’s so sick. KiKi isn’t home, Mamma’s not home, and—”
But there was nothing more to say. The phone went dead.
I didn’t blame Walker Boone for hanging up. I had pushed his buttons too many times and had just shot up his office. The police. I could call 911. But if I told them that my dog ate chocolate, they’d refer me to the animal-something department, and those people would never get here on time. I started to cry harder. I wiped my eyes so I could see and ran for the street. I’d flag down a car, but at midnight on a little side street like East Gaston there weren’t any cars—except for a red ’57 Chevy, tires squealing around the corner and coming right at me, full tilt.
Boone slid to a stop and jumped out. Without a word, we ran up the steps. Boone scooped Bruce Willis up into his arms. Boone’s dark eyes were stone cold, his jaw set, his shoulders rigid. I ran ahead and opened the back door of the Chevy and Boone slid Bruce Willis onto the pristine white upholstery. I knelt on the passenger seat and leaned over the back to keep watch. “He looks just awful.”
“You would too if you ate poison.” The big V–8 under the shiny red hood came to life, and the Chevy launched forward. I had no idea where we were going and trusted that Boone did.
I wasn’t in the habit of trusting Boone on anything, till now. “Come on, Bruce; stay with me, boy,” I soothed in a choked voice, stroking his fur.
BW stared up at me with sad doggie eyes that broke my heart, and I started to cry all over again. In times of crisis, I sucked. The Chevy jolted to a stop, and Boone killed the engine. A blue-neon “Emergency Animal Clinic” sign glared from the window outside, and Boone charged through the double-glass doors, sick dog in his arms. “We need some help here right now!” Boone yelled.
Three people in white lab coats rushed out into the waiting area and led us to an examining table in the back. I told them about the wrappers; then they made us leave the room. Boone and I sat on red plastic chairs in the waiting area lined with lots of red plastic chairs. We stared out the plate-glass window into the dark parking lot. “Who would do this to a dog?” I said to both of us. “Do you think they did it to scare me off looking for the murderer?”
“Or to get into your house.”
“There’s nothing in there but used clothes. Everyone knows BW wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s a big fluffy marshmallow.” My voice broke, and more tears trickled down my face. I wiped my runny nose on the back of my hand like a two-year-old. “Thanks for coming.”
“You’re welcome.”
“There’s salami, pepperoni, and anchovies in your computer.”
Boone cut his eyes to me, his brows drawn together in one black straight line of disbelief.
“You said I belonged in a dress shop. I had leftover pizza. What’s a girl to do?”
“Mimi’s?”
“Who else?” I stood, glared at the closed blue door where they had Bruce Willis, and felt all my bones liquefy. I plopped back down in the chair and chewed my thumbnail down to the quick.
Boone took out his wallet. He opened it to a chunk of bills, fished around, and pulled out a mangled cigarette and one match. Ignoring the “No Smoking” sign, he lit up, took a deep drag, closed his eyes and had that same expression of euphoria on his face as I do when I eat peanut-butter pie.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
He kept his eyes shut. “There are times.”
Walker Boone was always cool, never ruffled; he never raised his voice; but right now, on the stress–o–meter, I figured we were both hovering in the red zone. I started on another fingernail. “Why did you come?”
“You got a dog with a good heart. He deserves a break.” Boone reached out and ruffled my hair like I was ten years old. “And then he had to go and find you.”
One of the lab-coat guys came out of the blue door and walked our way. I studied his face, looking for something positive—or God forbid something negative. I knew he’d tell us in a moment, but I looked anyway. Funny how every second seems like an hour when tragedy strikes.
“We think he’s going to be okay,” the vet told us.
Little black dots danced in front of my eyes, and I grabbed Boone’s arm to keep from falling out of the chair. I couldn’t talk, so I nodded as the lab-coat guy said something about inducing vomiting and swallowing charcoal to absorb toxins. We could see Bruce in a little bit. Lab-Coat Guy left without explaining what “little bit” meant, but I wasn’t going anywhere so it didn’t matter.
“You don’t have to hang around,” I said to Boone. “I’ll let you know how he’s doing.”
Boone carefully snuffed out the cigarette, blew the tip cool, then put it back in his wallet between U. S. Grant and Benjamin Franklin. “I’ll hang around for a while.”
“But I’m here.”
Boone leaned back, stretched out his long legs, and bent his head forward. “I’m tired. Someone broke into my office and made an unscheduled pizza delivery. I’ve had a bad night, and I’ve slept in worse places than this.”
I studied Boone as he got comfortable, or as comfortable as one can get in a red plastic chair. He shut his eyes. Amazing! He really was going to sleep! After fifteen minutes, he pried open one eye. “You’re staring.”
“Are you Janelle’s contingency-plan guy?”
Boone’s other eye opened.
“The guy she paid each month to keep her blackmail stuff and to send it out if something unfortunate happened to her?”
“What happened to sleep?”
“Good grief. My dog’s sick, and someone’s after me, I can’t sleep. So, are you Janelle’s life-insurance policy or what?”
“That policy didn’t work too well. I’m not the go–to guy for life insurance, but I imagine someone out there is. And before you ask, I haven’t found Janelle’s blackmail list or the evidence she had on everyone. I have no idea what she did with it. Now can we get some sleep?”
“It doesn’t matter if we find the list or not. No one on it would have murdered Janelle. They knew if something happened to her, their secrets weren’t secrets any longer.”
Boone let out a resigned, sleepless sigh. “Janelle’s murder was one of passion. She was whacked in the head by someone pissed off, who’d had enough of her for whatever reason and lost control in the moment. The murder wasn’t thought out; it wasn’t planned; it happened. That’s why Hollis is a prime suspect, though the premeditated part is still on the table. He and Janelle fought that night, so he had preexisting motive. He had opportunity because she was alone in the house and Hollis knew it. The body was found in his car, and his fingerprints are all over the ‘For Sale’ sign. It was in the Lexus under the body. As far as the police are concerned, this case is closed. Now can we sleep?”
“If that’s all you have, how do expect to find the killer? How do you plan on proving Hollis innocent?”
“I don’t have to find the killer; I just need reasonable doubt. I need the jury to believe that someone else besides Hollis had motive and opportunity to commit the crime.”
“Do you actually know that someone else met up with Janelle? Did the neighbors see another person?”
“The neighbors across the street were on their way to a movie and saw a single woman going into the house. Janelle’s car was parked on the street, so she was already there.”
“Maybe it was the person interested in buying the house?”
“That was a couple, and they arrived later. When the neighbors came back from the movie, they had wine on their porch and remember Hollis’s Lexus going in the drive and circling around to the back. They went inside before it drove out.”
“That’s a big nail in Hollis’s coffin.” I hoped it wasn’t literally. “Except Hollis is smarter than that; he wouldn’t just drive up in his noticeable car and cart off a dead body. He’d wipe his fingerprints off the murder weapon.”
“The police maintain Hollis was distraught and not thinking clearly. You and I know there’s something else going on. And here’s another interesting aspect: Janelle’s purse is missing. The police searched everywhere for it. If Hollis is the murderer, there’s no reason for him to hide the purse since his obvious plan was to ditch the body. Why not just drop the purse in the trunk, too? And why would Hollis wait till the next day to dispose of the body? Why not just do it that night and get rid of everything out in some swamp? It all seems a little off.”
“Don’t the police see that?”
“They see evidence. Usually it’s a pretty straight line from motive to killer, but not this time. I think someone took the key from Janelle’s purse, got the Lexus, and drove it over to the ‘For Sale’ house. He or she loaded up Janelle, then took the car and the body back to where Hollis parked it, framing Hollis while he sat fat, dumb, and happy in his office doing paperwork.”
“So why would the killer keep a purse?”
Boone shrugged and yawned. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. My defense is that someone else besides Hollis could have done the deed, and I have an eyewitness willing to testify that a woman visited Janelle that night. She could have returned, gone in the back door after the potential buyers left, and killed Janelle. The obvious appearance of the Lexus at the house later on makes it look like a frame. I could drag the
people being blackmailed up on the stand and question them, but they’ll just deny everything. I need Janelle’s blackmail list to prove I’m right and that others had motive.”
“Do you think your case is strong enough?”
“I’m looking for the woman who visited Janelle at the ‘For Sale’ house. She wasn’t there to see the house; there was no appointment in Janelle’s book. That gives me my other person, and you know she went to see Janelle for a reason. I find her, I win the case.”
I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach, the kind that said something else was going on here, and I wasn’t going to like it. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“You have a right to know. You’re putting your house on the line to prove Hollis innocent.”
“Try again.”
“You digging around ruffled some feathers. It’s probably someone on the blackmail list, who could also be our killer.”
“Our?” Now I knew how KiKi felt when I threw pronouns around.
“Go to the police about what happened to Bruce Willis. If you tell them you’re poking around in your ex’s murder, they will not be happy. A dog poisoning will make them keep an eye on your house. You need that.”
“You think tonight is about someone trying to scare me off the case and whoever it is may very well come back? This gives a face to your theory.” I thought about this for a few seconds. “You’re using me, Boone. I’m bait? I’m nothing more than a fat old worm on the end of a hook for you to find the murderer.”
“Hollis will be free, your house safe.”
“If I live that long.”
“Keep my number on speed dial.”
I lunged for Boone, but the vet came in before I could strangle him. “Is everything okay here?” the vet asked, eyeing my hands around Boone’s neck. “You can take your dog home tomorrow. You can see him now if you like. He’s still a little groggy.”
The vet handed me the bill, and I stuffed it in Boone’s shirt pocket. “Consider it bait fee.”