A Way With Murder (Bryson Wilde Thriller)
Page 11
“What I propose is that you and me slip out the back right now and sort this out someplace quiet.” She was about to say something when River interrupted her. “Think long and hard before you say no. I’m only going to give you this chance one time.” A beat then, “You have ten seconds to give me your answer. After that I’m gone and you’re on your own.”
She darted her eyes.
“How do I know this isn’t a trick to get me to leave with you?”
“You don’t,” he said, standing up. “Five seconds.”
49
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
The dark beauty London Marshall bounded through the door early afternoon looking like a hundred crazed banshees were on her tail. “Someone broke into my house,” she said. “It’s trashed.”
“When?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “When I left for work this morning everything was fine. When I swung by just now it was trashed.”
Wilde swung his suit jacket over his shoulder and dipped his hat over his left eye.
“Let’s have a look.”
At street level Wilde pointed to Blondie and said, “That’s mine, the little green one.”
London headed to the passenger side and slipped in to find the steering wheel in front of her.
“It’s English,” Wilde said. “Everything’s backwards.”
They got rearranged and Wilde merged the front end into thick, noon-hour traffic.
He exhaled and said, “I have to be honest. I haven’t had ten seconds to work on your case.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, I understand.”
“I’m on it now though,” he said.
“You still have the map, right?”
He put a confused expression on his face and shot her a sideways glance.
“I thought I gave that back to you.”
Her mouth opened.
“Just kidding,” he said. “Yeah, I have it.”
The woman smelled nice.
Her voice was a song.
She was a vision in white—a white skirt, a matching white jacket, a white blouse and white high-heels.
The skirt rode up as they drove.
Wilde kept his eyes off her nylons but it was a struggle.
Her house turned out to be a two-story Tudor in a nice section of town out by Colorado Boulevard. The tree-lawns were wide and lined with shady elms. Vines crept up wrought iron fences. It wasn’t Capitol Hill, but it wasn’t anything to sneeze at.
London led him around to the back.
The door was jimmied.
“This is how he got in,” she said. “From the get-go, he didn’t care if I knew he’d been here. The first time was different—he was discrete. This time he was out for blood.”
Inside, a bomb had gone off.
Everything in the kitchen cabinets had been swept out and smashed on the floor. The drawers were pulled out, tipped upside down and dropped.
Cushions were cut open.
Clocks and TVs were smashed.
Furniture was overturned.
“I have some bad news,” Wilde said. “This was his last chance trying to find the map on his own. You’re next. He’s going to grab you and make you tell him where it is. I’m sorry to be so blunt but I don’t want to sugarcoat it. You need to know what you’re up against.”
She flipped a couch back upright, put the cushions in place and sat down.
“I can’t run,” she said. “I have a job, friends, everything. My whole life is here in Denver. I have a trial starting next week.”
Wilde lit a cigarette.
“In that case we’ll have to go to Plan B.”
“Which is what?”
“There are two options.”
“Which are what?”
“The easiest one is to just give him the map.”
She shook her head.
“That’s not going to happen. What’s the other option?”
“The other option is that we trap him.”
“How?”
“By dangling the bait.”
“Meaning me.”
Wilde nodded.
“You and the map.”
“How do we do that?”
“I don’t know but we need to do it tonight. Like you said, he’s out for blood.”
She stared out the window then back at Wilde.
“What happens if we actually get him trapped? Do we kill him?”
Wilde shrugged.
“Maybe he’ll put us in a position where we have no choice. Self-defense and all that.” A beat, then, “In the meantime, you’ll need to go down to the police department and file a report.”
London shook her head.
“I don’t want anyone to know about the map.”
“You don’t have to tell them about the map,” Wilde said. “Just get the report on file and let ’em come out here and investigate. Then if the guy shows back up and ends up dead, they’ll know it was self-defense.” He frowned and added, “Keep in mind that the guy is probably just a hired gun. If he ends up dead, he’ll get replaced. We need to get to the source.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have some idea.”
“Well, there is one thing,” he said. “The guy probably knows who hired him. If we ask him nice and polite and put a cherry on top maybe he’ll tell us.”
London smiled.
“I’ll pick up some cherries this afternoon.”
“They’re in the produce section.”
50
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
With the envelope clenched in her fist, Waverly got to the stairwell and bounded down three at a time with Bristol no more than a heartbeat behind. With every step she expected a fist to lock into her hair and snap her neck back so hard that her body yanked out.
Two seconds went by.
No fist came.
Then more seconds passed.
She made it to street level and ran with every molecule of strength she could summons.
Her lungs burned.
Her muscles cried.
The streets were crowded. She weaved through pedestrians as best she could.
A cup of coffee flew out of a hand.
An elderly lady tumbled to the ground.
Bristol didn’t let up.
He stayed behind her.
He didn’t care that people were staring.
He didn’t care a damn.
A half block went by.
Waverly swung onto the tail end of a moving trolley, dangled dangerously then got a foot planted. A look back showed Bristol sprinting at full strength but dropping back.
He slammed one fist into the other.
Then he bent over, braced his hands on knees and sucked air.
Waverly checked the envelope to be sure the photos hadn’t dropped out.
They hadn’t.
They were all there.
She already knew what she had to do.
She had to find out who they were.
She also had to find out if they were still alive or met a strange death like Kava Every.
She shoved the envelope in her purse.
Got you, Bristol.
Got you by the balls.
51
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Morning
River drank coffee while Alexa Blank tended to tables, deciding whether he was angel or demon. It was several minutes before she swung by with an answer. “Let me see your driver’s license.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
He obliged.
She studied it and said, “Dayton River, like you said.” She handed it back. “Get your car and pick me up behind here in the alley in ten minutes. You see that other waitress over there?”
River nodded.
“I told her that if I end up dead, you’re the one who did it. I told her your name, Dayton River.”
“You won’t end up dead.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Heading out of Denver they didn’t talk much. River concentrated on the rearview mirror, studying every car, looking for a killer behind a wheel. At the edge of the city he made several evasive turns. No one followed. The woman kept a sideways eye on him and had her body pressed against the door as far away as she could.
“Relax,” he said.
“How?”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “My assignment was to abduct you and not let you see my face. I would be contacted later and told whether I should kill you or let you go. My question is why?”
“I don’t know.”
River frowned.
“This is important,” he said. “Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“Do you have any enemies?”
“No.”
“Boyfriends?”
“No.”
“Did you see something you shouldn’t have?”
“No.”
“Do you know something you shouldn’t?”
“No.”
“Are you blackmailing someone?”
“No.”
“Did you steal something?”
“No.”
“Are you a mistress?”
“No, I’m a waitress,” she said. “That’s all I am, just a waitress.”
“That might be true but you’re a waitress who’s on someone’s radar screen.”
She stared out the windshield.
“According to you,” she said.
“Not according to me,” River said. “You are, trust me.”
“I am trusting you but it’s hard.”
River patted her hand.
“I know,” he said. “I wish I could say something encouraging. Unfortunately, it’s going to get harder before it gets easier.”
The city got smaller.
The country got bigger.
Black and white magpies appeared in the sky.
Rabbit brush grew in number and size.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to your new home, until we can figure this out.”
“What is it, a house?”
“No, it’s something you’re not going to like.” A beat then, “If you want to live you’re going to need to be strong. I’ll help you all I can but most of it’s going to depend on you.”
52
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
Alabama had big news when she returned from the library. “You’re like a monkey pecking at a typewriter,” she said. “Sooner or later you were bound to spell a word.”
Wilde smiled.
“So what word did I spell?”
“Connection.”
“Connection?”
Right.
Connection.
Wilde scratched his head. “I’m glad I did it pecking then because I’m not sure I could do it on purpose.”
She handed him a printout of a newspaper article.
“Read it and weep,” she said.
It was a short article dated August 14, 1949, about a 30-year-old woman named Brittany Pratt who was found at the bottom of a six-story office building in lower Manhattan yesterday morning. Police were investigating to try to determine the cause of the fall.
“This happened three years ago,” he said.
“Right.”
“That’s a cold trail,” he said. “There’s nothing in here about whether she was wearing a dress or not.”
“She was,” Alabama said. “It was red, too.”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell.”
“How?”
“The same way I can tell that you want to see me naked,” she said. “Instinct.”
Wilde smiled.
“I’ve already seen you naked,” he said. “Besides, that’s a totally different analogy. The reporter’s name is Michael Hyatt. Call the paper and see if he’s still there. If he is, find out if he knows anything that isn’t in the article. Maybe he did a follow-up investigation or kept in touch with the police.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Good.”
“I’m talking about seeing me naked,” she said.
“I thought you were saving that for Robert Mitchum.”
“I’m saving that for you,” she said. “Mitchum’s just a fill-in until you come to your senses.”
“Call the reporter.”
“Now?”
He handed her the phone.
“Yes, now.”
“What are you going to do while I’m doing that?”
He lit a cigarette.
“Smoke.”
Sometimes the universe works the way it should. Not only was the reporter still with the paper but he actually had something to say.
“It’s so funny that you ask whether she was wearing a dress,” he said. “She was. A red one.”
“Short or long?”
“Short,” he said. “It was up around her waist.”
“Was she wearing panties?”
Yes.
She was.
“White.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the person who found her.”
“You’re messing with me.”
“I’m not. I was out walking and there she was,” he said. “I’ll never forget it, not as long as I live. At first I thought she’d just passed out or something. There wasn’t as much blood as you’d think. Then when I got closer I could see the blood under her head and matted in her hair. The back of her skull was crushed like an eggshell.”
He talked to the woman’s neighbors and friends afterwards.
“Not a one of them thought it was suicide,” he said. “It was either an accident or murder. My money was and still is on murder. The funny thing is, though, she was squeaky clean in every way. No one had a motive to kill her, not even a tiny little one. Believe me, I checked. Being the one who found her, the whole thing became pretty personal for me.”
“Was she pretty?”
“Very,” he said. “Here’s the bad part about it. She had a five-year-old daughter. She was a single mom. The kid—her name’s Mandy—ended up in the orphanage right down the street from where her mom was killed. She’s still there. I go by every day and take her a candy bar.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“The truth is that I do it as much for me as for her,” he said. “What’s your interest in her?”
Alabama explained.
They might have a related case.
“I’ll help any way I can,” he said. “I’d give my right nut to catch the guy especially now that I know he did it again.”
“Thanks for the visual.”
He chuckled.
“I have more if you need ’em.”
“No, that one will be enough.”
She almost hung up.
“Hey, you still there?”
He was.
“Where was she, the night she got dropped?”
“She went out to a bar.”
“Alone?”
“As far as I know.”
“What bar?”
A beat.
“I’d have to pull my notes and get back to you,” he said. “I’m drawing a blank. Give me your number.”
She did.
They hung up.
To Wilde, “Next time I tell you I know something because of my intuition, I want to see a little respect from your end.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“That’s better.”
“I’ll give you even more respect if you can reach into your bag of intuition and pull the guy’s name out.”
She ran a finger down his chest.
“For that I’d need my crystal ball. Unfortunately, it’s in the shop right now.”
; “In that case why don’t you do this? Find out if your little lover-boy friend Robert Mitchum was in New York when the woman got dropped.”
She frowned.
“He’s not the one.”
“In that case, indulge me.”
53
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
Waverly had never seen murder in someone’s eyes but recognized it as crystal as crystal can be in that last, long, hateful look from Bristol. He would kill her. Nothing else mattered other than killing her and feeding the rage in his brain.
He was a snake.
She was a mouse.
The sun was bright but the railing on the back of the trolley was cold.
The wind blew straight into her bones.
The city looked the same as always but was different.
It was cold.
It was foreign.
It was as if it could care less if she was alive or dead.
Suddenly a hand grabbed her arm.
“Lady, you’re too close to the edge.”
She looked over.
It was a young Asian kid in a baseball cap, about ten or eleven.
“You’re going to fall off.”
He directed her into the guts of the trolley. The wind disappeared except for what came through the windows—just enough to sweep her hair.
She looked at him.
His eyes were kind.
They were the opposite of Bristol’s.
The city softened.
Her bones warmed.
“Thanks,” she said.
She made her way to the Green Dragon Oriental Massage to find that Su-Moon hadn’t returned yet, so she waited in the woman’s apartment and kept one eye on the street from behind closed blinds. Something happened she didn’t expect, namely Sean Waterfield came into sight.
He disappeared into the massage parlor for a time, then reemerged and leaned against a building on the sunny side of the street.
Waverly paced for a few minutes then headed down.
The man’s face was serious.
“Bristol calmed down. I’m not fired but we need to get those photos back to him,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because they’re his,” Waterfield said.
“They prove he knew Kava. Not just knew her, but knew her intimately.”
Waterfield hardened his face.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” he said. “I have my job back but only if I return with that envelope.”