A Way With Murder (Bryson Wilde Thriller)

by R. J. Jagger

  Sean Waterfield didn’t see the need to leave Chinatown for dinner and took her to a place called the Hong Kong Clay Pot at 9th and Grant.

  He looked nice.

  Better than nice, actually.

  “A woman named Kava Every used to work at your firm,” Waverly said.

  Waterfield raised an eyebrow.

  “That’s right. Do you know her?”

  “She’s my cousin. That whole temp thing today, that was sort of unintended,” she said. “I came to town to see if I could find out what happened to her. That’s why I came to the firm, to see if anyone might know something.”

  The words sunk in.

  Waterfield’s face changed.

  “So you aren’t really a temp?”

  “No, but after you wanted me to get you food, well, you seemed nice so I figured, what the hell,” she said. “Then one thing led to another …”

  Waterfield shook his head in amusement.

  Then he got serious.

  “Kava was a good person,” he said. “It was a damn shame, what happened to her.”

  True.

  “Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

  Waterfield got a distant look.

  “There’s one little thing,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s anything or not.”

  “Tell me.”

  He hesitated.

  “Do you live in San Francisco?”

  “No, Denver.”

  “That’s a long ways off.”

  Right.

  It was.

  “I’m actually thinking of moving here,” she said. “Trade the sunshine for fog.”

  “Well, if there’s anything I can do to convince you to do it, let me know.”

  “I will.”

  He speared a shrimp, chewed and swallowed, washing it down with a sip of tea. “The cops talked to a number of us at Bristol after the fact. The theory was that it was a murder rather than an accident or suicide and that the murder was done by someone who knew her and knew her well, a boyfriend or lover to be precise. None of us at the firm knew anything about a boyfriend or lover.”

  “So it was a dead end,” Waverly said.

  “It was. Over the years it’s been gnawing at me. She was a vibrant woman. She wasn’t the kind of woman to not have a sex life. In hindsight, I think she was seeing someone in the firm. I think they were keeping it quiet to avoid complications.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Two people come to mind,” he said. “One is an associate architect named Brian Fernier.”

  Waverly tried to picture him and drew a blank.

  “He wasn’t at work today,” Waterfield said. “The other is Tom Bristol. Actually, he makes the most sense. If he was having an affair with one of the firm’s architects, there’d be cries of favoritism every time she got assigned to a good project or promoted or whatever. They’d have a motive to keep it close to the vest.”

  “Tom Bristol.”

  “Right, Tom Bristol.”

  “Tell me about him,” Waverly said.

  Waterfield frowned.

  “He’s a hell of a man, actually. You don’t build up a firm like ours and raise it to national recognition without being something of a force.”

  Waverly took a sip of tea.

  “I’m going to come back tomorrow and continue temping,” she said. “I need to see him up close and personal.”

  Waterfield’s face tightened.

  “Be careful.”

  24

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Evening

  River had no intent to bring January with him to bury the bikers’ bodies but she insisted and had already learned how to get her way. He wasn’t exactly sure how it happened but it was a fact. It wasn’t just a product of her being attractive. He’d had plenty better. There was something else at work, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  He pulled to the shoulder, turned off the headlights and killed the engine a half-mile short of the scene.

  The sun had already crept behind the mountains.

  Twilight was thick.

  By the time he got to the bodies, visibility would be down to thirty steps.

  He popped the hood and disconnected the positive battery cable.

  January would stay with the car. If anyone stopped, she’d tell them it broke down and that her boyfriend had gone to get help.

  That would explain the car being there.

  River would head into the terrain for fifty steps and then walk parallel to the road until he got to the bodies. He’d bury them deep enough to keep the coyotes out.

  He got the shovel out of the trunk.

  January stepped out and watched.

  The air was quiet except for crickets. A bat zigzagged overhead.

  “Be back in a jiffy,” River said.

  “Wait.”

  She put her arms around his neck and pressed her stomach to his. It was the first time they had touched. It felt nice. It felt right.

  “Don’t go. Something’s wrong.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, just something.”

  He looked around.

  Everything was normal.

  “It’s just the night playing a trick.”

  She looked around, then raised her lips so close to his that he could feel the warmth of her breath.

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  He headed into the dark with the shovel in hand, counting fifty steps then turning left. An orange moon lifted off the horizon.

  The terrain dipped and the temperature followed.

  The road was a strip of black to his left, darker than the surroundings but not by much. It was visible enough to follow and that’s all he needed.

  In his pocket was a flashlight.

  He’d only use it if he couldn’t find the bodies.

  A whoosh came overhead.

  He looked up and saw nothing, but pictured a bat snatching a bug.

  “Bad night to be a bug,” he muttered.

  Somewhere in the distance a coyote barked.

  No pack joined in.

  It wasn’t a hunt.

  Maybe it was just a lost soul out there in the world alone, separated from his kind.

  Something’s wrong.

  That’s what January said.

  Something’s wrong.

  River suddenly realized she was right.

  Something was going to happen.

  Something bad.

  He shook it off and kept going.

  He didn’t need the flashlight to find the bodies, the rancid smell pulled him in. He shined the light down to find something he didn’t expect, namely that both men had been torn apart by coyotes. Their faces and necks were mostly gone, their hands too.

  Now the flies were having their turn.

  He went through their pockets.

  There he found a folded up newspaper article. It was about the murder of a businessman in Kansas City last week. He shoved it in his wallet and started digging.

  The soil was hardly soil at all.

  It was mostly rock.

  He should have brought a pick.

  It took over an hour to dig a hole for the both of them to where they were under a good foot. He filled it in, disbursed the extra dirt, rolled a couple of big rocks on top and then raked everything down. If anyone wandered out here it would look suspicious for a couple of days. After that the wind would make it less and less visible. The first good rain would cloak it completely.

  He headed back for the car.

  When he got to where it should be, it wasn’t there.

  He must have passed it or not gone far enough.

  He hiked in one direction down the road far enough to know it wasn’t that way, then turned around and went the other way.

  It wasn’t there either.

  It was gone.

  January James.

>   He should have never trusted her.

  25

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Afternoon

  Wilde knocked on Michelle Day’s door, trying with all his might to put the image of this morning out of his head. The harder he tried the more vivid it got. He could see her hips wiggling with all the clarity of the movie screen down at the Zaza Theatre. He could feel her passion and taste her breath.

  Suddenly the door opened.

  It was Michelle Day, dressed now and brightly awake, wondering who he was.

  She was short, not much more than five feet, built in shades of brown—brown hair, brown eyebrows, brown eyes and brown skin. The hair matched up and down, a fact Wilde shouldn’t know but did. She wore shorts, brown, and a T, brown.

  Her feet were bare.

  Wilde pulled the photo of Charley-Anna Blackridge out of his pocket and handed it to her.

  After she studied it, he said, “My name’s Bryson Wilde. I’m a private investigator. The woman in the photograph was killed Friday night. Before she got killed she was at the El Ray Club where you were bartending. I’m trying to find out if you saw who she left with.”

  The woman processed it.

  “How’d she die?”

  “She fell from a roof.”

  “Fell from a roof. Was she pushed?”

  “The theory is that she was pushed or dropped,” he said. “Same landing either way.”

  The woman nodded.

  “Right, I suppose so.” She turned and headed for the kitchen. “Come on in. I remember her.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, she tipped me.”

  “Good.”

  “Not everyone does,” she said. “You’d be surprised.”

  “I probably would.”

  “There are a lot of cheapies out there. They can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned. Do you ever get stiffed by your clients?”

  He did; not often, but on occasion.

  “Then you know what I’m talking about,” she said.

  He did.

  He did indeed.

  The kitchen wasn’t much more than a closet with faded appliances, but it was large enough to hold a newly made pot of coffee that got poured into two cups.

  “Sorry, no cream,” she said.

  “This is fine.”

  Wilde tapped out a Camel, lit it and held it out to see if she wanted it, which she did. He fixed a second for himself and they ended up outside on the front steps.

  “I remember her, but I didn’t see who she left with,” the woman said. “When I’m working my world’s pretty much the three feet that’s in front of me. Everything else is a blur.”

  “Understood.”

  “Sorry.”

  Wilde blew smoke.

  “According to a friend she was with that night, the woman was hanging around to maybe take a run at some guy who looked like Robert Mitchum. Do you remember him?”

  Her face brightened.

  “I do,” she said. “He was one of those cheapskates I was talking about. He came over and flashed his smile and said, What’s your name baby? I told him and he shook my hand. He said, I’m Robert. He ordered a beer but didn’t tip. I guess he thought that telling me his name and flashing me his teeth was going to help me pay the electric bill. Three more times after that he ordered but didn’t tip, not once. He had money though, you could tell by his clothes.”

  “Did you ever see him there before?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, never,” she said. “I hope I never see him again, too.”

  “Who’d he leave with?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just glad he did.”

  Wilde asked more questions but the woman didn’t have any more answers. He said his thanks, tipped her a five and was headed down the driveway when the woman called after him and said, “I just remembered one more thing.”

  He walked back.

  “What?”

  “He had a tattoo on his left arm, up high,” she said. “It was a war plane.”

  “How big?”

  “I don’t know, average? It wasn’t flying. It was sitting on the ground. A woman was standing in front of it posing. She was one of those pinup girls with the big smile and the big tits.”

  Two minutes later he fired up Blondie and headed for Larimer. Halfway there he remembered something bad. He’d left London’s map sitting on the top of his desk.

  The window was open.

  The fan was blowing.

  He wasn’t sure he locked the door.

  Suddenly police lights appeared in his rearview mirror.

  He looked at the speedometer to find he was fifteen over.

  26

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Night

  Su-Moon didn’t have a car but did have a 90cc scooter she called Vibrator together with the guts to use it in San Francisco traffic. When Waverly told her about what she’d learned today, Su-Moon said, “Let’s go find out if this guy—Tom Bristol—and the girl who got dropped were doing the nasty.”

  Waverly raised an eyebrow.

  “And how do you propose we find that out?”

  Su-Moon lit a cigarette and blew smoke.

  “When it comes to being a criminal, you’re not exactly a natural, are you?”

  Under a black night, wearing sweatshirts and long pants, they took Vibrator across the Golden Gate Bridge into Sal Sausalito, which was an upscale community across the bay, given to bigger-than-necessary houses with hundred-dollar views carved into the hillsides and marinas down below jammed with floating houseboats.

  The air was moist, salty and chilly.

  According to the phone book, Tom Bristol lived at 22C, Last Lighthouse Marina.

  They pulled to a stop a hundred yards short and studied the place through an eerie fog. “The docks must run in order, A, B, C, et cetera. C would be the third dock. I’m guessing that 22 is the 22nd slip down that dock.”

  “You’re getting better,” Su-Moon said.

  “At what?”

  “At being a criminal. Let’s walk by and see if anyone’s home.”

  “For the record, this is nuts.”

  “For the record, duly noted.”

  A cool breeze pushed the air, strong enough to wrinkle the water and rock the boats. Waverly put the hood of her sweatshirt up.

  “It’s winter,” she said.

  “Always.”

  They walked through a nearly-packed gravel parking lot, past a large land-based building and into the docks, turning right at the third one.

  The houseboats were more houses than boats, technically floating but not built for waves or much of anything other than stationary sitting.

  Front porches had flowerpots.

  One even had a white picket fence.

  It was after ten on a Monday night.

  Most of the structures were dark.

  The shadows on the docks were thick and deep.

  They encountered no one.

  Some of the boats were numbered—fifteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one.

  The one they wanted, 22, was dark.

  They walked past, keeping an eye on it, then turned at the end of the dock and doubled back.

  Waverly’s heart beat.

  “He might be gone but he might be sleeping,” she said. “There’s no way to tell.”

  Su-Moon said nothing.

  The boat was a large box with a flat roof and a ladder up the side. Su-Moon stepped onto the front porch, transferring her weight carefully.

  Waverly followed.

  Su-Moon put a hand on the front door and twisted.

  “It’s locked,” she whispered.

  They stepped back onto the dock and then walked down a finger alongside the boat. The windows were down and the shades were drawn.

  When they got to the last window, something happened that they didn’t expect.

  A faint light appeared from inside.

  They
looked in around the edge of a shade.

  This end of the boat was the bedroom. A bed abutted to the wall next to the window. The light came from two candles on a dresser. A man was sitting in the bed with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out, facing the opposite way.

  A woman was draped across his lap. She wore a dress but it was pulled up past her waist. She had no panties.

  The man’s hand massaged her exposed flesh.

  Suddenly it rose up and spanked down.

  The slap was audible.

  The woman wiggled.

  Then she said something.

  It sounded like, “Forty-two.”

  Waverly held her breath, waiting for the next spank. It didn’t come for a long time, but when it did it was hard, with two more right behind it.

  The woman flinched but made no effort to get off.

  Then she wiggled her body seductively.

  Her head was to the left where she couldn’t see the window even if she turned.

  The window was an anonymous portal.

  If either of the people inside turned, Waverly and Su-Moon would have plenty of opportunity to duck down. They were invisible. Because of that, they were in no hurry.

  The spanks went to a hundred.

  Then the woman slid down between the man’s legs and worked her mouth.

  Waverly tugged on Su-Moon’s arm and they tiptoed off.

  Twenty steps down the dock Su-Moon said, “Her dress was red, did you notice that?”

  “Yes I did,” Waverly said. “We need to find out who she is.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we may have to warn her.”

  27

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Night

  River let out a war cry that shook the night, so pissed at January for leaving him stranded that every fiber of his body ached. She’d regret it, oh how she’d regret it. She’d learn a lesson about screwing with him. She’d learn a lesson she’d never forget, not in a million years.

  The keys to all the boxcars were on same ring as the car key.

  She had full access to everything.

  Right now she was probably rifling through his stuff, grabbing everything that had even a snippet of value.

  He walked north at a brisk pace, trying to remember how far it was to that Sunoco station they passed way back.