“Yeah, but you can come in tomorrow. We’ll need to know about the man who attacked you at your house, and you can fill in some details for me. Like why you didn’t bother to call me about that.”
I hadn’t said anything about the attack last night, and Brian hadn’t mentioned it on the tape. Unless it was the part I missed when I was calling Jimmy C. “How do you know about that?”
“Junior’s statement.”
“Right.”
“Oh, one more thing.” He opened his desk drawer and removed the Glock and the clip, then slid them both across the table towards me. “I’m sure you’ll see to it this gets returned to the friend who loaned it to you, right?”
“Did you run the serial number?”
“Yeah. It’s legal.” He was watching me, smirking.
Is that a fact? “Uh, Jimmy C, it’s been kind of a crazy day and I’m a little confused about who I borrowed the gun from. Can you remind me?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Rose, Alex. You borrowed it from Rose Salazar.”
I smacked my hand to my forehead. “Right, I remember now. Thanks.”
He groaned. “Why don’t you go get some rest. You look like hell.” That was certainly the consensus.
“Thanks.” I flipped him off. Then I said, “Really, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I shuffled into the hallway and saw Mikey coming out of the interrogation room. I had to stifle a cry. He looked like he’d been run over by one of his gravel trucks. Both eyes were black, his lip was cut and bleeding, his cheek was swollen, his shirt was open from where Bruno had ripped it, revealing black and blue ribs. He held his hand to his side, pressing in on the ribs, and he winced when he walked. Tears filled my eyes. He hobbled over to where I was standing.
“Hunh-uh, none of that. Come here.” He took my hand and pulled me along, steering me down the hall. He opened the door to the men’s room, checked to make sure it was unoccupied, then ushered me in, locking the door behind us.
“God, I’m so sorry,” I stammered, still taking in his injuries. “I didn’t think - ”
“I’m not. Your plan wasn’t responsible for this, Alex. Brian brought Bruno along for a reason, to make sure I went along with his plan. I would have ended up looking like this no matter what, but thanks to you, it wasn’t for nothing. So, thank you.”
I was staring at him now. He was bruised and battered and looked like death warmed over, but he also looked like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and his eyes shone with exhilaration.
He answered as if he’d read my mind. “I killed a man, Alex, I have to live with that. But, you know, helping the cops get the bad guy and all, now maybe people will honestly believe I’ve changed. Maybe people won’t automatically assume the worst.” He paused and gave me a look. “You and Danny get everything worked out after I left last night?”
I shrugged. “He was speaking to me when he left this morning. Now, I kind of doubt it.”
“Want me to kick his ass for you?” He grinned and winced, tasting the blood on his lip.
“Thanks, I’ll pass. I just want to get him to talk to me again.” And hopefully do that thing with his tongue... My mind drifted a minute to a happy place, until I heard Mikey clear his throat.
“Uh, Alex?”
“Hunh?” I looked up. Stupid ESP. He was laughing now, holding his ribs. Smartass. “I hope it hurts,” I snarled.
When we got out of the bathroom, the paramedics were waiting for Mikey, Pauline was waiting for Kevin, and my parents and Melody were waiting to find out what the hell was going on. I guessed Brian had used his phone call to contact his wife, and she’d called my parents. I had the desk sergeant buzz Jimmy C for me, and he invited us all back into an interrogation room to wait. They weren’t allowed to see Brian because the police were still taking his statement, but Jimmy C and I filled them in on the charges, leaving out the more disturbing details. They’d find out soon enough, but let them deal with one heartbreak at a time, I figured. It was an awful scene, and I left them alone to wait. I felt like the family Judas. I knew I’d done nothing wrong, but I still felt like they’d kill the messenger, given half a chance.
“I’m outta here,” I said to Pauline as I entered the waiting area once again. “You can come with and wait at my house, if you want.”
“No, I’ll stay here. It can’t take that much longer, can it?”
I glanced at my watch. It felt like days since I’d been at the body shop, taping my brother’s decline and fall. In reality, it’d only been a few hours. It was just before eight o’clock, not even completely dark out yet.
I’d been walking around with Rose’s gun in my pants, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea to carry a concealed weapon, so when I got to the car, I dumped it and the clip onto the front seat. In case I got stopped for a speeding ticket, I didn’t want to get arrested for a weapons violation. I wasn’t sure how the cops would feel about a gun in the front seat, but at least it wasn’t concealed. I drove home, feeling a lot like a piece of spaghetti that had been left in the pot too long, and I thought a nice long shower would be just the thing. Unfortunately, when I pulled into my driveway, Debbie was in her yard, feeding cats and watering plants, waving me down like an air traffic controller.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Too tired to deal with my purse and shopping bags, I put the car in park, smacked the clip into place, tucked the gun into the back of my jeans and pulled my t-shirt out over it. I locked the car with the thingy, plastered on a smile and said, “Hey, Debbie.”
“Oh, Alexis, I’m so glad to see you.” She had put down the hose and switched to wringing her hands, so I didn’t think this was likely to be one of those enjoyable conversations I had heard of other neighbors having. “Did you hear a gunshot last night?”
“Well, I might have heard something. Maybe it was a car backfiring?” I sighed. It was all going to be in the papers tomorrow, and if I lied now, I could kiss neighborly relations goodbye. And I wasn’t ready to give up my weekly batch of free cookies. “Actually, Debbie, it was a gunshot. Do you have any cookies?” Lucifer appeared and sat down next to me, licking his front paw and looking bored.
“It was! Oh, dear. Well, maybe we should start a neighborhood watch program. I’ve heard those are wonderful deterrents to crime.”
“That’s a great idea, Debbie. I nominate you as president. Now, about those cookies.”
“I was just getting ready to put a big batch of brownies in the oven. Why don’t you come on in?”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
We were in her kitchen, cats galore. I wondered which one was the retarded cat that fell in the pool, and if the other cats made fun of it. Debbie started the brownies baking, and I started at the beginning. I knew her stock would go up at the post office tomorrow. Good gossip like that, from one of the principle players, was as good as a winning lottery ticket in a town like Minter. She might even get a date. I wrapped up the story and stood to leave.
“Thanks, Alex. I’ll bring over some brownies in a few minutes. You can have the whole batch. I’ll make more to take to work.”
“Uh, Debbie, can you loan me some milk, too? I think Jack finished off all of mine. I’ll repay you as soon as I get to the supermarket.”
She shrugged, smiling. “That’s what neighbors are for.” She hugged me, and I hugged her back. She was weird, but she was okay.
I trudged across our yards and up the front steps. It was dark now, and I flipped on the porch light when I got inside, along with the lights in the living room. I threw my mail on the hall table and looked in the mirror. I had black streaks on my face from where I’d smudged the soot, and I looked like I hadn’t slept since the Clinton administration, but my new earrings were pretty cool. The doorbell rang, and I opened it with only one thought on my mind. Brownies.
It wasn’t brownies. It was Ski Mask. He shoved me back, hard, and I ran into the hall table but regained my balance and backed a
way into the living room. He was waving his knife around again. Shit, I thought. Brian never called him off.
“You should really check the peephole before you open the door. You never know who might be out there.”
I found his attire bizarre, shorts and flip-flops in honor of the heat, with a t-shirt and ski mask. What all the rapists are wearing this season. I backed around the easy chair, keeping it between us. He didn’t make a move to get closer. He wanted to talk first. “Did you miss me, whore?” That sounded familiar somehow.
“My brother is already in jail, you know. You’re not going to get paid for this.” With my luck, Brian had paid him in full in advance.
“What are you talking about?”
Uh-oh. “My brother didn’t hire you?”
Crazy cackle of laughter. That can’t be good, I thought.
“This isn’t about money, bitch. Didn’t you get my welcome home notes?”
I thought. Did you miss me? Whore. The exact words in two of the sparkly love letters I’d gotten. So the fashion disaster rapist was my secret admirer. Good to know.
“It’s payback.” He peeled off the ski mask. I gasped. Derek. “You know what it feels like to have every one of your fingers broken?”
“Jesus, Derek, are you insane?” Stupid question. I was confused. He seemed somehow out of context and I had trouble getting my cobwebby brain around the situation. An image flashed in my mind of a man jogging down my street and the dozens of hang-ups on my phone. Another thought followed.
“Crap, is that your piece of shit Escort that’s been around here lately?”
“You drive that freakmobile out there, and you call my car a piece of shit? Bitch.” I took that as a yes. He looked around the room, brandished the knife. “What, no armed thugs tonight? Bummer for you, bitch.”
I was sick and tired of him calling me bitch. I’d had a shitty day. I was hot and filthy and I wanted my brownies, and I was just too damn pissed to be scared anymore. I knew I couldn’t outrun him, even in his ridiculous flip-flops. And I knew no one was coming to my rescue this time, not Danny or Mikey or the cops. Hunh, I thought. Like I need anyone to rescue me. The cobwebs cleared, and I reached behind my back and pulled out the Glock, chambering a round and leveling the gun at his stupid head.
“Drop the fucking knife, jerk.”
He stared for a second in shocked disbelief, then waved the knife like he was brushing away a gnat. “You won’t shoot me, pussy bitch.” He snarled his contempt. “Put the gun away before you hurt yourself, whore.”
I swung the gun just to the left of his head, widened my stance and bent my knees a little to brace for the kick, and shot a big-ass hole in my living room wall. Jack would understand. I returned my aim to his face. Derek was wailing like a little girl and I thought, what a fucking sissy. I didn’t even graze his ear.
“My foot!” he screamed.
His foot? I looked down. Evidently, he’d been so startled when I fired the gun that he dropped the knife. It was sticking through his foot and the thin rubber sole of his flip-flop and into my floor, and I thought of butterflies pinned in display cases, only this had a little puddle of blood starting to spread, whereas the butterflies didn’t.
“Hunh.”
“MY FOOT!”
I kept the gun trained on him in case it was some kind of trick and made my way around him to get to the office so I could call for help. “Don’t move.” Jeez, I crack myself up, I thought. As I passed the front door, there was a knock. Finally, my brownies. I opened the door. Jimmy C stood looking at me with a pained expression. I stuck my head out the door, looking around the yard.
“You didn’t see a pan of brownies out here, did you?”
“Alex, I think there’s a problem. When we played the tape for Brian, he broke down and admitted everything. Everything except sending someone over here. He admitted he was planning to have you killed, but he insists he had nothing to do with the attack last night.”
“No shit.” I waved my gun in the direction of the living room, then followed him in. “I was just going to call you.”
“She stabbed me in the foot, the crazy bitch!” Derek screamed, flapping his arms around. “Do something!”
“Goddammit, you call me bitch one more time, and I’m going to fucking shoot you right in front of Jimmy C,” I growled, pointing the gun at him again.
Jimmy C’s eyebrows disappeared into his bangs. He took in the butterflied foot, the ski mask on the floor, the hole in the wall and Rose’s gun in my hand. “Aren’t you Derek Harrison?”
Derek nodded. “She stabbed me in the foot, and she tried to shoot me. She’s fucking crazy!”
“Shut up.” Jimmy C radioed for a uniform and the paramedics. “Don’t move,” he said to Derek. “Get it, don’t move?” he said to me, laughing, easing the gun out of my hand and ushering me towards the office.
“I know, I told him the same thing. He doesn’t seem to think it’s funny.”
When we were out of earshot, he whispered, “What’s this about? You know him, right?”
“All I can figure is, he held some kind of grudge because I broke up with him back in high school. He said it was payback.” I didn’t see any reason to bring up the other stuff from high school.
“Uh, Alex, he stabbed himself in the foot, right?”
“Yeah. Apparently he’s a little gun-shy.”
“Did you miss?”
“Hell no.”
“And you’re sure he’s the same guy from last night?”
“Well, he had the mask on, but he’s the right build. Mikey could corroborate that. Plus, he’s been leaving me notes for a week. Most of them were paste-on letters, but today there was a handwritten one. It’s on the front seat, I’ll go get it.”
Just then, we heard another blood-curdling yowl from the living room. I rolled my eyes. That guy was such a wimp.
“Jesus, what now?”
Jimmy C and I got to the living room in time to see Lucifer sink his teeth into Derek’s good ankle, evidently for the second time, if the bloody puncture marks were any indication. I guessed I hadn’t shut the door all the way when I let Jimmy C in, and the cat had slunk in when we weren’t looking.
“Get your cat off me!” Derek screeched, trying to shoo him away with his foot, but unable to do so without increasing the pain in his other foot. Karma’s a bitch.
I scooped up Lucifer, afraid he might get a disease from biting Derek’s rotten flesh, and he immediately started purring. “He’s a stray. Don’t know if he’s had his vaccinations or not. Probably they’ll have to give you the rabies shots. I’ve heard that’s not overly pleasant.”
Jimmy C stifled a snicker. I ran outside to get the note, dumped Lucifer on the porch and almost mowed Debbie down. She looked for a gun. I looked for a pan of brownies.
“I heard the shot, and I called the cops. They said a detective had already radioed. Are you okay?”
“Fine, just have to get something from the car for the detective.” I beeped the car open and picked up Derek’s note by the corner, trying not to put any more fingerprints on it than I already had. The one that said WHORE was still on the seat, too, and I grabbed it. “This’ll be over in a minute.” Hint, hint.
The uniform and the paramedics rolled up simultaneously, and I let them in and took the notes to Jimmy C. He read them and nodded. “This is good,” he said. “We’ll check the fingerprints and match the handwriting. If they’re his, it certainly indicates he was here before.” He slipped the notes into a plastic bag. I brought him the others from the kitchen drawer, and those went in the bag as well.
“You didn’t tell me about this, because...” he asked.
“The first couple were friendly, I figured they were a joke from a friend. By the time they got rude, and then threatening, I just assumed it had to do with Brian. Turns out, Derek’s been stalking me. His ugly car was parked out front for awhile every day, and he’d jog by from time to time. I never got a good look at him, so I didn’t
realize it was him till he showed up here tonight.”
Jimmy C shook his head. “You have this much excitement when you lived down south?”
I thought of my ineffectual attempts at seducing my own husband and gave Jimmy C a wry smile. “Sure. Doesn’t everybody?”
Jimmy C went to talk to the uniforms. I couldn’t watch when the paramedics pulled the knife out of Derek’s foot. The red stain had grown considerably. I didn’t think Jack would be able to fix that, or the slice in the carpet either.
While the paramedics wrapped up Derek’s foot, Jimmy C asked to see the scene of last night’s attack. I took him into the bedroom and explained how Ski Mask, aka Derek, had jimmied the lock and stealthed into my room, brandishing the hunting knife, how he woke me up and threatened to kill me if I screamed, how he tried to untie the security knot in my pants, and how Mikey had come in and scared him away, sending him crashing through the French doors. Jimmy C stood, nodding, looking thoughtful, and took some notes. Jack had boarded up the door like he’d promised. But the gunshot wound to the wall was still untreated, not to mention highly noticeable, and bore a striking resemblance to the one in the living room. I hoped he wouldn’t ask how Mikey had scared him off. I was getting better at lying, but I wasn’t eager to try it with a detective.
“All righty, then. That’s about all I need.” He flipped his notebook closed and slipped it into his jacket pocket. I held my breath. “It’s a shame what those previous tenants did to this house. Good thing your new husband is a contractor.” I closed my eyes and exhaled, and I seriously considered kissing Jimmy C on the mouth.
When the paramedics and the cruiser had left, Debbie finally brought over the pan of brownies and a half-gallon of milk. I invited her to stay, and she, Jimmy C and I finished off the lot of it. Debbie asked him about the neighborhood watch idea, and I figured it was a good time to have my long-anticipated shower.
“There’s a spare key in the hall table,” I told her. “Lock up when you leave. I’m going to bed.”
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