Darkness, Sing Me a Song--A Holland Taylor Mystery

by David Housewright

  “Taylor,” he said.

  “Freddie.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “We’re still on the clock.”

  “You make that sound like it’s a bad thing.”

  “I don’t know, Freddie. More and more I’m thinking this is one we should walk away from.”

  “We could, but that would be establishing a whaddya call, dangerous precedent, quitting a lawyer midcase. Besides, I like Helin.”

  “Me, too.”

  “He’s been very good to us.”

  “Yes, he has.”

  “Way I look at it, we’re workin’ for him, not the client. The way I always look at it.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So, we’re on the same page?”

  “Sure.”

  “You best take a look at this, then.”

  Freddie called up an article that appeared on the website of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The headline read:

  MURDER VICTIM WAS HIDING UNDER ASSUMED NAME

  “Did they get that from the cops?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t say, but whenever a pretty white girl gets killed, reporters like to run a picture, interview the family and friends, get folks to say they never expected nothin’ like this t’ happen in their neighborhood. Maybe they figured it out for themselves.”

  “The CA might have told them off the record. I’ve come to admire her sneakiness.”

  “Don’t know ’bout that. Paper does say how a PI gave up the alleged victim to the alleged killer.”

  “Did it print our names?”

  “Just yours.”

  “Swell. Does it mention anything about a license review?”

  “Is there gonna be a license review?”

  “The CA says so.”

  Freddie smiled a big toothy smile. “Never a dull moment, huh?” he said.

  I went to the coffee machine we shared, one of those expensive suckers that brews one cup at a time, and fixed myself a mug of Chocolate Caramel Brownie, a flavor provided by Cameron’s Coffee. Cameron’s used to be located in New Richmond, Wisconsin, but had since moved to Shakopee in Minnesota, just southeast of the Twin Cities. I, on the other hand, was in the exact same place I was six years ago. I sat behind the same desk and swiveled the same chair to look out the same window. The view of downtown Minneapolis had changed. Me, I hadn’t changed at all. Or maybe I had. What did I know?

  “How long have we been partners now?” Freddie asked. “Five years?”

  “Why? You thinking of throwing an anniversary party?”

  “I’m thinkin’ we’ve been involved in some serious shit since we joined up.”

  “Some serious shit before that, too.”

  “What we learned, people usually kill out of anger. Even if it’s over drugs or what you call gang related, it’s usually cuz someone is pissed off.”

  “Okay.”

  “This Barrington, Eleanor Barrington, she was supposed to have popped the Denys girl outta anger cuz she thought the bitch was rippin’ off the son—what the papers said.”

  “Freddie—”

  “How come the bullets weren’t in front, then? You pissed off at someone; usually you shoot ’em straight on. You’re facin’ your anger, so to speak. But little Emily—one bullet in the back of the head, no sign she even knew it was comin’.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t murdered. Maybe she was assassinated.”

  “A professional hit?”

  “Not necessarily. What I’m saying, the way she was killed, it wasn’t personal. That’s the thing.”

  That’s what I missed when I was working alone, the reason Freddie and I agreed to become partners despite what you might call a stormy relationship—was it really five years ago? It gave me someone to talk to besides myself, a second opinion to balance the voice in my head.

  I wagged my finger at him.

  “You just might make a decent investigator someday,” I said.

  “Comin’ from a seasoned professional like you, that’s mighty fine praise. Makes a brother all warm inside. Gotta ask, though—if a poor black child without no proper education can figure it out, how come the white man’s police department be laggin’ behind?”

  “Kind of makes you think the county attorney might be up to something, doesn’t it?”

  “All I know, a prosecutor callin’ out a private eye in the media for no good reason—I’ve never seen that before, have you?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Freddie made a production out of resting his index finger against his cheek.

  “Makes a man go hmmm,” he said.

  * * *

  Freddie was still hemming and hawing when the door opened and a woman with Asian features walked in as if she owned the place, which, if you go strictly by Minnesota’s property laws, wasn’t entirely untrue. She was carrying a one-year-old infant.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Freddie chanted. He rose out of his chair and reached for the child. “There’s my little man.”

  He took the child from the woman’s arms. The woman raised her cheek to be kissed. Freddie had to bend down nearly a foot to reach her. He buzzed her cheek, then returned to the chair as he waved the child through the air. The child was laughing. I wasn’t surprised. Freddie had been known to crack me up, too.

  I couldn’t pronounce the woman’s given name, much less spell it, so I called her what everyone else did.

  “Echo,” I said.

  “Hello, Taylor.”

  She moved across the office to my desk. I stood up to give her a hug. She was nearly a foot shorter than I was, too, a Chinese girl who moved to the United States with her mother two dozen years ago.

  “What brings you downtown?” I asked.

  “We’re going to Lake Calhoun for a picnic and to listen to some music.”

  “Yes, we are,” Freddie said. He was speaking to his son as he continued to wave him around. “Yes, we are. We’re going to the park. Taylor, look how big he’s getting.”

  “Think he’ll play football, like you?”

  “Not a chance, uh-uh, he’s not.” Freddie pulled the child to his chest. “End up like me, all-everything until he trashes a knee and becomes an AP in the air force because he’s too dumb to make it through college without an athletic scholarship? No sir. He’s going to be smart. He’s going to play basketball.”

  “Is he going to become an actor, too?”

  “Heck no.”

  Heck. I had never heard Freddie curse in front of his wife.

  “What does his grandmother say?” I asked.

  “Never mind his grandmother.”

  “What do you mean?” Echo said.

  “Haven’t they told you? Freddie’s mother wanted her little boy to become a famous Hollywood actor. That’s why she named him Sidney Poitier Fredericks.”

  Echo chuckled at the suggestion. “I did not know that,” she said.

  “Never mind,” Freddie said.

  I took the child away from Freddie—he seemed reluctant to let him go—and I waved him around a little bit myself.

  “When you get older, the stories I’m going to tell you,” I said.

  “I’d like to hear them myself,” Echo said.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Freddie said.

  He pulled the child from my arms and cradled him.

  “Did the bad man frighten you?” he asked.

  “Is it true that you once put a gun to Freddie’s head?” Echo asked.

  “Actually, I put a gun to his big toe while he was lying in bed, but in my defense, it was only after he whacked me on my head with his gun and left me unconscious in an alley.”

  “That happened?”

  “God’s truth.”

  “No big thing,” Freddie said. “Water under the bridge.”

  “How did you two ever get to be friends?” Echo asked.

  “What makes you think we’re friends?”

  “You’ve worked together for how long now?”

&nb
sp; “I saved his sorry”—a quick glance at Echo, and Freddie said—“butt.”

  “You did?”

  I held up two fingers. “Twice,” I said.

  Echo’s eyes flew from me to Freddie and back again, and I wondered, doesn’t the man speak to his wife?

  “We’re going to the park,” Freddie said. “Yes, we are. We’re going to the park.”

  “Taylor, come with us,” Echo said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It’ll be fun.”

  “You’ll have more fun without me.”

  “That’s for sure,” Freddie said.

  Echo called his name and gave him the look some wives reserve for husbands that embarrass them.

  “It’s true,” Freddie said. “Taylor’s been a stick-in-the-mud ever since he broke up with Cynthia—for the second time, I might add.”

  “Stick-in-the-mud?” I asked. “Is that street?”

  “Fuuuuudge,” Freddie said, although I don’t think that’s what he meant to say.

  “C’mon, Taylor,” Echo said. “Come with us.”

  I shook my head.

  “Freddie’s right. You’ve been moping around for months. She’s just a girl.”

  “Have fun, you three.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I still had a landline in my apartment, and not out of any sense of nostalgia. It was because I wanted a number that family, friends, and charities could call, leaving my cell phone strictly for business. The last thing a guy wants is to interrupt a due diligence investigation because some nonprofit is desperate to record his opinion on global warming. I can take it or leave it, by the way.

  The phone was ringing when I unlocked the front door. I would have let my voicemail pick it up, except the monitor told me who it was, and I knew she’d only call back later.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “I have caller ID.”

  “You should wait for the person to identify herself. It’s only polite.”

  “What can I do for you, Mom?”

  “Does it have to be something? Can’t I call just to see how my son is doing since my son never calls me?”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “You’re always busy. You should visit your family more.”

  “It’s kind of tough since you live in Fort Myers, Florida, and I live in St. Paul, Minnesota.”

  “Not us. Your other family.”

  “What other family?”

  “Your brother.”

  “Oh, yeah. How’s he doing?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Holland Taylor.”

  Whenever my mother uses your full name, you knew you’re in trouble.

  “You haven’t spoken to your brother and sister-in-law—and your nephews—in weeks,” she said. “And don’t tell me you’re too busy. You’re just being antisocial.”

  “Me? Every time I go over there they tell me how irresponsible I am, how I need to grow up and behave like an adult, how I need to be more like them, with a sensible job, living in a sensible home in a sensible suburb, living a sensible life. How social is that? Besides, I don’t need them to tell me those things. That’s your job.”

  “You never listen to me.”

  “You never listen to me, so we’re even.”

  A third voice said, “Don’t sass your mother.”

  “Dad,” I said. “You should clear your throat or something so I know when you’re on the other line.”

  “Are you still seeing that woman?” my mother asked.

  “That woman?”

  “You know who I mean.”

  “Cynthia Grey?”

  “Yes, that one. Cindy.”

  “Cynthia. No one ever calls her Cindy, Mom.”

  “Why not? What’s wrong with Cindy? A girl like that, can’t be called Cindy, who’s a partner in some hoity-toity law firm that takes up three whole floors of a building in downtown Minneapolis where you can’t even park unless you pay a man twenty dollars? We never liked her.”

  “Dad liked her, didn’t you, Dad? Many times you told me she was a looker. Wasn’t it you who always said I should find a rich girl who could take care of me in my old age?”

  “Don’t drag me into this,” Dad said.

  “Did you say those things?” my mother asked. “Well, I never. You, Holland Taylor, you can do better, don’t think you can’t.”

  “Just to settle your nerves, I haven’t seen or spoken to Cynthia in months.”

  “That’s good.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Who are you seeing now? Tell me.”

  “No one.”

  “Lee says she has a friend. A very nice girl.”

  “Who’s Lee?”

  “Letitia Taylor? Your sister-in-law?”

  “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah…”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Are you going to call her?”

  “Who?”

  “Lee—to ask about the girl.”

  “Probably not.”

  “I’m not going to force you.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “It’s just—I’ve been worried about you. We’ve all been worried about you. Ever since Laura was killed, and Jenny, too. Since the drunk driver … It’s getting to be an awfully long time ago.”

  “Nine years, seven months, sixteen days.”

  You’d think that after all these years I would have lost track. Only it was how I calculated the passage of time—before Laura, Laura, after Laura.

  There was a long pause on the line before my mother spoke again.

  “It’s time for you to find someone new and settle down,” she said.

  “I’m going to say good-bye now so you don’t accuse me of hanging up on you.”

  My mom was clearly speaking to my father when she said, “He never listens to me.”

  “Leave the boy alone,” Dad said. “He’ll figure it out.”

  “Good night, guys,” I said.

  “You can at least call. You never know, she might be a wonderful girl.”

  “Good night.”

  People talk about Jewish mothers. They’ve got nothing on God-fearing Catholic mothers, I promise you.

  * * *

  The knock on my front door came so quickly after I hung up the phone I thought my visitor might have been waiting for me to finish the conversation. I opened the door to find my neighbor’s eleven-year-old daughter holding a plastic sandwich bag containing a carrot and a few leaves of lettuce. She was smiling brightly.

  “Hey, Mandy,” I said.

  “Hi, Taylor. Can I feed Ogilvy?”

  “He’d starve without you. Call him.”

  Only she didn’t need to. As if on cue my gray-and-white French lop-eared rabbit hopped into the room. Amanda squealed when she saw him—as she always did—and knelt on my hardwood floor. She held the carrot above the rabbit’s head.

  “Beg,” she said.

  Ogilvy stood on his hind legs, holding his front paws forward like a dog might.

  Next the girl waved the carrot in a circle.

  “Roll over.”

  The rabbit rolled over.

  She rested the carrot on the floor.

  “Play dead.”

  The rabbit rested on his side, sprawled out in front of her.

  “Good bunny,” Amanda said.

  She sat cross-legged on the floor, the skirt of her private-school uniform forming a nest that Ogilvy happily crawled into. She fed him the carrot out of her hand.

  “He’s so smart,” Amanda said. “I never knew rabbits were so smart until I met him.”

  “If you can only get him to stop chewing on my computer cords, I’d appreciate it.”

  I propped my front door open so anyone climbing the staircase outside could see into my apartment. The door to Amanda’s apartment was directly across the landing. I was 2A. The Wedemeyers were
2B.

  “Is your mother working late again?” I asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I had an apple before I came over. Do you think Ogilvy would eat an apple?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What do you feed him when I’m not around?”

  “I throw some alfalfa into his cage. Sometimes I’ll feed him popcorn.”

  “How come you don’t feed him carrots and garden stuff?”

  “I have you for that.”

  Amanda stroked the rabbit while he ate, starting at his nose and moving her hand all the way to his tail. I withdrew to my kitchen and started thinking about what I was going to eat myself. The kitchen wall had been cut down at one time so I could see over it into the living room.

  “How’d you do on your test?” I asked.

  “I got an A.”

  “See. I told you not to worry.”

  “My mom says I do well because I worry.”

  “There might be something to that.”

  “Taylor, do you like my mother?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you think she’s pretty?”

  “I think she’s very pretty. Not as pretty as you, though.”

  “She says you’re nice.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “She says you’re nice because you let me come over and play with Ogilvy when she’s not home and because you carry heavy stuff for her and helped when the car wouldn’t start in the snow that one time.”

  “I was just being neighborly.”

  “You should go out on a date together.”

  “Where would we go?”

  Amanda gave it serious thought. Finally, she answered.

  “My mom really likes music. Do you like music?”

  “Yes, but I don’t listen as much as I used to.”

  The sound of someone on the landing caused the girl to turn.

  “Mandy,” a voice said.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  I walked into the living room just as Claire Wedemeyer did. She was dressed for business in a linen suit; a heavy bag hung from her shoulder. She gave me a high-wattage smile. It was the only thing that mother and daughter seemed to share. Otherwise, they didn’t appear related at all. Amanda was all sunshine and wheat fields. Claire was a dark and brooding forest—except when she smiled.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  Claire rested her hand on my wrist. She was one of those people who felt the need to touch the person she was speaking to. I found it annoying when we first met. Now it didn’t bother me at all.