When I kicked the box off my foot, the vision winked out. I exhaled a breath and flexed my own toes. Would these dreamscapes eventually escalate into soft- or hard-core porn? That could be interesting, but I didn’t really want to experience that aspect of Walt’s personality.
And how did Walt’s foot fetish relate to his death?
My hands were still shaking as I resumed my seat and put on my shoe. The creep factor was back in full force. A beer would be just the thing to eradicate it. Too bad I hadn’t put anything, let alone a six-pack, into the new fridge.
To distract myself, I spread Walt’s financial papers across the breakfast bar, sorting through them to find the checking account statement. I’d glanced at the miniature replica checks before and hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. This time I studied them more carefully, wishing I knew in which of my unpacked boxes I’d find a magnifying glass. I went through all the checks and this time one did stand out: Amherst Self Storage.
Well, well, well. And just what could Walt be storing? Tom hadn’t asked me to return Walt’s keys, and I hadn’t surrendered them. The problem was, how many storage units did this place have, and how would I find Walt’s? Could I trust my insight to lead me to the right one?
There was only one way to find out.
* * *
The night air was cool for late June, and I shivered as I crossed the driveway for my car. I got in, started the engine and was backing out when I saw Richard silhouetted by the lamplight shining down on his side steps.
He jogged over as I braked, tapped on my window. “Where are you going?”
I rolled down the window. “Out.”
“Where?”
Anger flared through me. “Why don’t you jump in and find out.”
Incredibly, he walked around to the passenger side and got in. I watched in awe as he fastened his seatbelt. “Go,” he said and gestured with his hand.
I backed out of the driveway. “What’s Brenda going to say when she finds you’ve gone?”
“Oh. Yeah.” He maneuvered around the seatbelt, took out his cell phone and called her. “I’m going out with Jeff. Be back in an hour—” He looked at me.
I nodded.
“Yeah, an hour. Bye.” He pocketed the phone and glared at me. “Where are we going?”
“Amherst Self Storage on Transit Road. Walt Kaplan rented a unit there.”
“How do you know?”
“From the check statement you copped the other day. I looked the place up in the phone book.”
“And what do you hope to find in there?”
“I’m just hoping to find it.”
Richard rolled his eyes. “I should’ve told Brenda two hours.”
I concentrated on my driving. “Oh ye of little faith.” It would’ve been nice if I’d felt as confident as I sounded.
After that, the conversation ceased. I risked a couple of glances at Richard and he was just as studiously ignoring me. My earlier conversation with Brenda kept recycling through my mind. Finally, I couldn’t stand the quiet. “Ya know, I was quite capable of taking care of myself before I came back to Buffalo. I still am.”
“Yeah,” Richard agreed, his voice full of scorn, “and Santa comes down my chimney on Christmas Eve. Want to sell me a bridge in Brooklyn, too?”
My hands tightened on the wheel. Choking the life out of him would only land me in jail for way too many years.
The gates of Amherst Self Storage were still open when I pulled in and parked. As we got out of the car, a string bean of a kid, no older than twenty, opened the door on what looked like a concrete pseudo guard tower. “We’re closing in half an hour.”
I waved him off and turned away. Richard followed.
The place was divided with inside and outside accommodations. The outside units had roll-up doors, but I got the feeling Walt had opted for something inside, with better climate control. I yanked open the plate glass commercial door and headed up the well-lit corridor.
“So?” Richard taunted, his voice echoing as he struggled to keep up with me.
“Okay—so I don’t know where we’re going. Just keep walking.”
“Why I let myself get involved—” he grumbled.
I shot him a look over my shoulder. “Hey, I didn’t ask you to come.”
His glare intensified. “Do the words ‘why don’t you jump in’ ring a bell?”
I kept walking, clasping Walt’s keys in my hand, hoping they’d act as a divining rod to lead me to his storage unit. Funny thing is, they kind of did. The farther I walked along the corridor, the warmer they seemed to grow in my hand.
I slowed my pace and started paying attention to the unit numbers. I stopped before the one marked 4537: the same number on the mailbox in Holiday Valley. A coincidence? The mailbox had said—well, almost—Taggert. It had to have some connection with Cyn Lennox. Only now I wasn’t sure if I trusted that piece of insight.
A brass padlock secured the aluminum hasp. I held the key ring in my left hand, sorting them until I came to the smallest one. I slipped it into the lock and it turned.
“Jesus, you amaze me,” Richard murmured behind me.
I removed the lock, pulling the hasp open, then clasped the door handle, trying to pull it open. Something was jammed behind it. I yanked harder, but it still wouldn’t give. “Dammit.”
“Let me do it,” Richard said, stepping forward, his condescending tone grating on my nerves.
I held him back. “You’re just along for the ride, remember.”
He looked like he wanted to haul off and hit me, but he did back off.
Grabbing the handle, I yanked it with all my might and the door jerked forward. A cascade of cardboard cartons came tumbling out. The next thing I knew, I’d hit the floor—pinned, the wind knocked out of me.
“Jeff!” Richard hollered, scrambling to extricate me.
I couldn’t answer—there was no air in my lungs. I couldn’t move at all.
Gasping and puffing, Richard pushed the heavy boxes off me and I rolled onto my side, knees drawn up to my chest, struggling just to breathe.
Richard was panting as hard as I was. “You okay?”
I nodded, but the truth was I didn’t know. It felt like I’d broken a couple of ribs. Richard must’ve had the same thought. Next thing I knew, he had my shirt up and was palpating my chest, sending me into new spasms of agony.
“Doesn’t feel like anything’s out of place—but I’ll bet it hurts.”
“Eleven years of medical training and that’s what you come up with?”
He yanked my shirt back down before collapsing next to me on the concrete floor, leaning against the opposite storage lockers. “Talk about the walking wounded. What a pair we make.”
“Speak for yourself,” I managed. “I don’t think I’ll ever get up again.”
I caught sight of a security camera protruding from the ceiling nearby, but if the kid up front was monitoring the corridor, he hadn’t raised an alarm or ventured out to help us. We sat there for a couple of minutes, trying to catch our breath before Richard helped me into a sitting position.
“You gonna be all right?” he asked.
“Yeah. Let’s see what nearly killed me.” I crawled over to the closest box. Walt had securely taped it. Using his keys, I worked at the tape until I’d slit it, and pulled open the carton.
Richard peered inside. “Porn?” he moaned.
Scores of copies of magazines with covers similar to the ones listed on the foot fetish Web sites were stacked in the box, none of them newer than five years old. Had he moved on from magazines to . . . something else? “That’s why his apartment was so clean,” I said. “He kept his collection here. I wonder if he had other storage units?”
“There’s got to be more than just magazines. Open another box.”
I did. More out-of-date magazines. I pushed it aside. A lighter box contained foot-fetish videos. Another box held old financial records. Nothing very interesting. I tried o
ne last carton. “Hey, look at this.” I pulled out a heavy, metal professional shoe sizer. Also inside the box were more of the generic shoeboxes like I’d found in Walt’s apartment. Each also had an odd collection of paper and souvenirs. I checked them all but their contents weren’t as remarkable as the one with the Veronica pillow. One had a hand-written receipt: Received: $237.54 for custom shoes, dated three years before. “Whoa, this is what I’ve been looking for.”
Richard looked over the faded slip of paper. “How can it help? It doesn’t tell you where he bought them.”
But it was as though the paper was vibrating against the skin of my fingers. “I hope I get an inkling when I get home and pull out the phone book.”
“Closing in five minutes,” came a voice from a speaker embedded in the ceiling. I put the receipt in my wallet.
“How are we going to get all this crap back in the storage space in only five minutes?” Richard groused.
“We could take some of it with us.”
“I don’t want this stuff at my house.”
“Just until I can dump it.”
“You’re not dumping it in my garbage.”
If looks could kill and all that shit . . .
Between the two of us, we managed to wedge all but the carton of shoeboxes back inside the unit and slam the door just as the lights winked out. I replaced the padlock and struggled to lift the bulky box. Not that it was heavy, but every part of me hurt.
Out of breath again, we sounded like a couple of asthmatics as we started back down the corridor. Yellow safety lights kept us from groping our way to the exit.
String bean was waiting for us outside the door, keys in hand to lock up. “I warned you we were closing.” He turned his back on us and we headed for the car.
Richard watched as I maneuvered the box into the back seat and slammed the door. He was pale, his skin looking eerily white under the lot’s mercury vapor lamps, and we were both sweating in the cool night air. Richard groaned as he settled himself into the passenger seat. Gingerly, I climbed behind the steering wheel and chanced a look at myself in the rearview mirror; my own face was chalky. Walking wounded sounded about right.
“Wanna go somewhere for a drink or something?” I asked Richard, wincing as I buckled the seatbelt around me.
“Just take me home.”
I started the engine. “You didn’t have to come.”
“If I hadn’t, you’d’ve been suffocated by those boxes.”
He was right about that, not that I’d give him satisfaction by agreeing.
“This is the second time in two days I’ve had to pull your ass out of the fire. What the hell are you going to do for two weeks when I’m gone?”
“Give me a break. I got along fine for eighteen years without you. You think I can’t make it for fourteen days?”
“No, I don’t.”
The light ahead turned yellow and I jammed on the brakes. Only Richard’s seatbelt kept him from sailing through the windshield.
He glared at me. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s called inertia. I put my foot on the brake—you keep going.”
“No, that Walt had all this stuff in storage, but there wasn’t a trace of it in his place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, from what I remember from abnormal psych, people with fetishes like their trigger objects near them. That kind of personality just can’t turn it off, either.”
“You think someone cleaned out the apartment before we got there?”
“I’m betting it was your boss. You sure he really wants this thing solved?”
No. I wasn’t.
The light changed and I pressed the accelerator. I hadn’t thought to look in the Dumpster behind Walt’s place when we’d been there days before.
The rest of the drive back to the house was a replay of the drive out—silent. But despite a little lingering animosity, we were at least speaking to one another again.
I parked in front of the garage. Richard got out and shuffled toward the house. “You coming?” he called over his shoulder.
“I’m going upstairs. Be over in a while.”
I left the carton in the back seat, too pooped to deal with it, and trudged up the stairs to the apartment. Easing myself onto a stool, I stretched to grab my brand new telephone book. Big mistake, as it set off more twinges of misery along my ribs. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten. This was already getting old.
There were six listings under SHOES--CUSTOM MADE. All but one of them were generic and boring; only Broadway Theatrics sounded flashy enough to have made the sparkling high-heeled beauty in my visions.
I punched in the phone number. It rang three times before a recorded male voice spoke: “You’ve reached Broadway Theatrics. We’re open by appointment only. Leave a message at the sound of the tone and we’ll get back to you.” Beep!
No point in leaving one now. I hung up, noting the address before closing the phone book. Maybe I’d just drive over there tomorrow after my stint at the bar. The more I thought about it, the more I warmed to the idea.
The clock on the microwave read nine twenty-five and I wondered if it was too late to call Maggie.
Probably. And what was I going to say to her anyway? “Hi, you’re hot and I want you as much as you want me.”
Yeah, that would go over well.
Then I figured what the hell—I’d already risked death once tonight; nothing else could faze me—and grabbed the phone, punching in the number I’d memorized three months before.
It rang twice before Maggie picked up. “Hello?”
“It’s Jeff.”
“Oh.” She sounded startled—or maybe disappointed.
“I can call back another time.”
“No, now is fine. Uh, hi.”
“Hi.” Now what? I’d called her. Say something you idiot!
“Are you okay? You sound funny.”
“I tangled with some boxes.”
“Oh yeah. Brenda said you’d be unpacking tonight. Listen, did you find out who owned that property outside of Ellicottville?”
“I haven’t had a chance to go back yet.”
“Well, I have a cousin whose husband works for the Cattaraugus County Highway Department, and his sister works for the Ellicottville Town Clerk, and he—”
“Whoa—slow down. I can’t keep track of all those people.”
She laughed. “You don’t have to. Bottom line—I found out who owns the house and where the tax bill is sent.”
For a moment I was speechless. “Cynthia Lennox?”
“How did you know? Oh yeah,” she said and laughed again, “ I forgot. You’re psychic.”
“Never use the ‘p’ word in front of me,” I chided her.
“Want the address?”
“Definitely.” I jotted it down. Cyn lived somewhere in the northern part of Amherst. “How can I ever repay you for this?”
“That’s not necessary. Although . . . maybe we could go out again sometime. Maybe another magical mystery tour.”
My heart rate picked up. “I’d like that. A lot.”
“Yeah, me too.”
So ask her out already, ya dumb ass!
“Well, thanks for calling. Bye.”
“Maggie, wait—” But the connection was already broken.
I hung up the phone.
That didn’t exactly go as planned, but at least she wasn’t pissed at me anymore. I glanced at the address I’d just written down. At least now I knew for certain that Cyn Lennox had a connection to Walt Kaplan.
Now to prove it.
# # #
CHAPTER 8
It had taken twenty minutes under a hot shower to ease the aches that twisted my poor bruised body the next morning. It was after ten by the time I staggered into the kitchen, with no Richard or Brenda in sight. She’d left a note, however: “We’re off to look at wedding corsages. See you for supper.” Then she’d drawn a little heart and signed it with a B.
>
Corsages? Poor Richard. He wasn’t even married and already he was pussy whipped.
I knocked back a couple of aspirins and hoped they’d take out the rest of the soreness. Primed with that and a couple of cups of coffee, I headed off to work.
Off to work. I liked the sound of that—especially after being unemployed for more than eight months. The Whole Nine Yards was beginning to feel as much like home as my new apartment. And after only six days I even knew a couple of the regulars by name. But I wasn’t feeling optimistic as I entered the bar. It was time for Tom and me to discuss what I’d discovered about Walt’s murder.
The place was empty except for Tom at the bar cutting fruit garnishes. He’d end up tossing more than half of it at the end of the day since beer was his biggest seller, but he liked to have it ready—just in case.
He looked up from the cutting board. “Hey, Jeff. What’s new?”
I came around to the back side of the bar and tied an apron around my waist. “Depends on the subject. For me, nothing. But I wanted to tell you what I’ve learned about Walt.”
Tom straightened, ever so slightly, his jaw tightening. “So talk.”
I took a fortifying breath before starting. “Tom, I don’t think the cops arrested the right person.”
Tom snorted a laugh and put the knife aside. “Come on, they found the murder weapon on him.”
“That doesn’t mean he used it. Where’d he get it? Witnesses say Buchanan was a Dumpster-diver. He might’ve found it anywhere. And what’s his motivation for killing Walt?”
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