Pillow Stalk (A Mad for Mod Mystery)

by Vallere, Diane

  “Stay back!” I shouted, still clutching the reel.

  “Madison, what happened? Did they get to you, too? What is going on?”

  “Did who get to me?”

  “I don’t know who. The people who are doing this.”

  “Richard, you’re not making any sense. You have a lot of questions to answer before I tell you anything.”

  “I’ll answer anything. Just please, stop acting crazy.”

  “I’m not acting crazy,” I said, and readjusted my grip on the metal wheel.

  “You look like you might decapitate me with that film spool.”

  I looked down at my hands, holding the metal reel like a Frisbee. “Sit down. Over there.”

  “You’re not going to hurt me, are you?” he asked, the whites of his eyes wide with fear.

  “Sit down, Richard.”

  He collapsed into a red molded plastic chair, like a balloon with a slow leak. All of the air, the bravado, fizzled out of him. His rumpled clothes and unshaven face hid a grey pallor that was borderline unhealthy. I knew I wasn’t going to hurt him—probably wasn’t capable either physically or mentally of hurting him unless he came after me—but I wasn’t about to tell him that before finding out a few things. He wasn’t acting like a murderer, but what he was doing could be just that—an act. And I wasn’t going to fall for it.

  “Why are you threatening me?”

  “I’ve never threatened you.”

  I pushed the papers around the desk and held up the sheet of paper.

  “You thought those were threats?”

  “How do they sound to you?”

  “I was brainstorming potential titles for your film festival.”

  “That sounds like a convenient cover story.”

  “Come on, ‘Your Days Are Numbered.’ The title for a Doris Day film festival? Considering you know I don’t even like the idea, you have to give me credit for a good event name. Can you please put that thing down?”

  I lowered the film spool to the desk and rested my hand on it. The pressure I put on my palm offset the weight on my right leg, still holding me up. Despite the pain in my leg, I stood, not willing to trade my position of power.

  “Tell me about the letter you wrote.”

  “What letter?”

  “The letter about Doris Day movies being a cancer on the landscape of American Cinema.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Never mind how. I want to know why you wrote it.”

  “That letter is the biggest buzzkill ever. I can’t believe it’s going to haunt me after all these years.”

  “So you admit you wrote it?” I asked, wishing for a second I had a tape recorder.

  “Of course I wrote it. It was my entrance essay for the MFA program at the University.”

  “Keep talking.”

  Richard slumped down in the red plastic chair, his shoulders hunched, his spine curved in the way a mother would immediately correct. He kicked his feet out in front of him and pulled on a raffia cord that was tied around his left wrist.

  “There were only five spots for the advanced program’s admissions, and I wanted to get in. We had to write a letter to an industry professional to prove we were hungry, that we wanted to be there. Show our passion for the art of film and cinematic history, man. I thought it would stand out from my classmates and give me an edge. I didn’t want to take the chance of sounding like a kiss-up like everyone else.”

  “Did you get in?”

  “Yeah. But what’s the big deal? It was an entrance essay. The only people who saw it were on the deciding committee.”

  “If that’s true, then how did it end up at AFFER?”

  “It went to AFFER? Why didn’t anybody say anything?” he asked. He sat forward, the fear that had crumpled him now replaced with an interested expression. He was suddenly alert and his eyes danced around the room. “That’s fantastic! What did they say?”

  “Richard, focus. If you didn’t send the letter, who did?”

  “Why do you care? So I wrote a letter about destroying Doris Day’s movies. It’s not like I actually meant it. Wait a minute. You think I meant it? You think I have some kind of Doris Day vendetta?” He jumped up from the chair and it flipped over backwards. “You think this has something to do with the women who were murdered around here, don’t you? You think I’m a murderer?”

  It was hard to admit to his face that I did. If I really did think he was a murderer I’d done a lot of stupid things in the past couple of hours. Like go to his house, leave him messages on his phone, corner him at the theater...

  “Richard, why are you camping out at the theater?”

  “Because someone’s after me and I don’t know where else to hide.” He righted the chair and sat back down. His shoulders raised and fell, shuddering unevenly a couple of times. Theatrics or not, the man was clearly shaken up.

  “Someone’s been leaving notes under my windshield. About not letting you organize the Doris Day film festival. At first I thought it was a joke. I told the other people from the committee we’d end up doing your idea unless one of them could come up with something better. I wrote that note to myself when nobody came up with any other suggestions. ‘Tell Madison she’s next.’ I didn’t want us to go down that path of fluff. No disrespect,” he added.

  “None taken.”

  “I tossed the notes but they kept coming. Don’t let her get away with it. Make her stop or I will. It would have been funny if it hadn’t started freaking me out. Then the notes started showing up at my house. They were all sort of the same tone. I didn’t know how to deal with them. Who did I know who knew where I lived, knew where I worked, who wouldn’t come to me directly?”

  “Did you tell the cops about this?”

  “I’m not about to invite the fuzz into my personal business, if you catch my drift. I know how they work. I tell them about those notes and they bust me for possession. The only reason I’m involved at all is that Carrie was killed at the theater. I used up a whole can of air freshener that day.”

  “Richard, who had access to your entrance essay?”

  “My professor and roommate. My parents. My ex-girlfriend. The deciding committee.”

  “That’s a lot of people. Can you give me a list of names?”

  “You don’t actually think one of them is involved, do you?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But it’s too weird that someone sent your letter to AFFER. Whatever your motivation for writing it, somebody out there thought it was a good idea to send it. And they didn’t bother taking credit for it, which means maybe they didn’t want anyone to know what they were up to.”

  I encouraged Richard to go home. If nothing else, he needed a shower and a meal other than stale popcorn. He left and I stayed, straightening up the mess from where the stack of film spools had crashed. I told him I had last minute business, not entirely untrue. I wanted to look around a bit. Richard’s explanation was sufficient, but I still felt he was hiding something. I walked up the stairs to the balcony to see his makeshift sleeping quarters. And there, in the corner of the projection room, next to a couple of sheets that had been pushed aside in a pile on the floor, lay two small, round, velvet pillows like the ones that had been used to kill Pamela, Sheila, Thelma, and Carrie.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I broke a few traffic laws driving home. While stuck at the third of five red lights I flipped through the recent callers on my cell phone and found Hudson’s number. I didn’t know where he was, but he needed to know what I had discovered. If he was on the run, not sure what was going on here, then maybe what I’d learned would make him come back and look less guilty.

  He didn’t answer after four rings. I hung up and called again in case he was screening. When he didn’t pick up on the second ca
ll I left a message.

  “Hudson, it’s Madison. I found something that might matter. Call me back.” I flipped the phone shut and tossed it in the cup holder. At the last red light I dialed him a third time. Call waiting beeped while it was ringing. I punched the button to take the call without looking at the display.

  “Hello?”

  “Night? What are you trying to do?” It was Tex.

  “I can’t talk right now, I’m waiting for an important call.”

  “From Hudson? I warned you to stay out of this.” Despite his accuracy, I bristled at his tone.

  “Why do you think I’m waiting for a call from Hudson?” I asked.

  “Because his cell phone is sitting on my desk and you just blew it up with a bunch of calls. You want to tell me what’s so important?”

  “Why do you have his cell phone?”

  “It turned up at the theater after Carrie Coburn’s murder.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “I don’t have to tell you that,” he said. “It’s part of the investigation.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Remember that text message you got telling you to go to the theater? The one you didn’t get because you were busy being mad at me?” he asked.

  I didn’t like where he was going. “Yes?”

  “You didn’t think we forgot about that, did you?”

  I didn’t answer, but my hand started to shake because where he was going had just gotten worse.

  “We got the phone company to pull the records. That text message came from his phone.”

  My cell phone fell to the floor mat of the explorer. I bent down and fished around for it and put it on speaker.

  “Night? Are you there? Night? Night!”

  “I’m here.”

  “Let me ask you a question. Did Hudson have access to the trunk of your car?”

  I closed my eyes and took the first of several deep breaths. I was hyperventilating. I needed Tex to spell it out.

  “He did, didn’t he? C’mon, Night, I know you’re not stupid. Why is it so hard for you to see that Hudson James is trying to kill you?”

  After I hung up on Tex, I pulled into the driveway and swung around the parking lot. I backed into my space, no longer worried about avoiding damages to the rental car. The building was dark. I wanted to go inside, to shower for an hour and crawl under pink four-hundred thread count sheets trimmed with daisies and eyelet, to fall asleep to the innocent nuance of a Doris Day movie, but life wasn’t that simple anymore. Until five minutes ago I had been sure—beyond the shadow of a doubt—that Hudson was innocent. Yet what Tex had just said scared me. The idea that I’d spent last night with Hudson in a vacant apartment, feeling safe just because he was with me, shook me up. I wasn’t that naive, I wasn’t that trusting. Not anymore.

  I was cautious as I entered the building, tension mounting from deep within me, like bubbles of boiling tomato sauce that creep up from the bottom of a vat of marinara. I hesitated outside my apartment. It was silent. I inserted the key in the lock, telling myself I’d come home alone a thousand times and aside from once, no one had ever been waiting for me on the other side. Had it been better to be in the dark about how easy it would be to get to me?

  I turned the key and pushed the door open. There was a crash from the bedroom. I didn’t hesitate. I pulled the door shut behind me and ran as fast as my knee would allow down the back staircase, over worn blue carpeting, to the parking lot. I would have welcomed the sight of the tailgaters in the lot next to mine, but I was alone.

  I pulled out of the lot with a screech of wheels and the near-miss of an oncoming sedan. The driver laid on his horn. I spun the SUV in a dangerously tight left turn onto Gaston and hit the gas, eager to put distance between me and the only place that felt like home. Within seconds, red and blue lights pierced my rearview mirror.

  I continued driving until I got to the parking lot that led into Lakewood Plaza, where other cars and other people created the illusion of safety in numbers. The cop pulled into the space next to me. I didn’t recognize him.

  “License and registration, ma’am,” he said.

  I was unaccustomed to being pulled over for minor traffic violations, but that wasn’t the least of what was bothering me.

  “Officer, I live back there. I’m sorry for speeding but I wanted to get away.”

  “Don’t we all? License and registration.”

  My hands clamped down on my wallet and I nervously pulled out my library card and Visa before landing on my license. I held them out the window to the young man. He took it without a word.

  “Officer, you don’t understand,” I started.

  “Registration?” he prompted.

  I stared at the glove box for a couple of seconds, wondering if I needed a key or not to open it. I yanked on the handle, but it didn’t move. I turned off the ignition and tried the key. The glove box popped open and a flood of AAA maps fell to the floor.

  “I’m sorry, it’s a rental and I don’t know how it works.”

  “You should always be familiar with your vehicle, ma’am,” he instructed, still holding a penlight over my license, staring at the information on the small plastic card.

  “Is this really you?” he asked.

  “Of course it’s me. Why would I have a fake license?”

  “Wait here.”

  Before I could dig out the registration, he walked away. I put the key into the ignition, rolled the window up, and cranked the air conditioning. I turned to watch the officer. He opened the door to access his radio and held the small mouthpiece in front of his face. A curly cord connected the small black box to his car. I couldn’t hear what he said. He stared down the street in the direction from where I’d driven. He never once turned back to face me.

  After several minutes he sat in his car and pulled the door shut. His head was bent down. I imagined him writing me up for some traffic violation I’d committed while getting away. It occurred to me if I backed the car up and fled while he was giving me a ticket, he’d be forced to follow me, and maybe even take me into the station. Surely that would provide some kind of escape from the situation I found myself in now, wouldn’t it? But if I was taken away, then there would be no one to check on Rocky.

  Rocky. In my apartment. With Mortiboy.

  Crap. Double crap.

  I knew who had caused that crash. I had to get home.

  I used the driver’s remote to roll down the passenger side window. “Officer, are you almost done? I have to get home.”

  “I thought you were trying to get away?” he asked without looking up. They must teach a class on sarcasm at the academy.

  “I think I made a mistake.”

  “We’re not going to take any chances. I’ll follow you back to the apartment and go inside with you. If there’s a threat, I’ll take care of it.”

  And if Hudson’s there, he won’t have a chance, I thought, realizing why the young officer had stared so intently at my license. He’d called Tex. He’d been given instructions to see me home. For all I knew, the cops were already at my building.

  The young cop returned to my window and handed my identification back. “Let’s go.”

  I drove home at a steady thirty-five miles an hour, adhering to every traffic law I remembered. The cop followed too closely for me to back into the space and I ended up parking slightly crooked. My neighbor would have a hard time getting her car into her space if I didn’t fix that when we finished.

  We walked to the back door and up the stairs. I turned the key in the lock, not sure what I’d find. The officer was on my heels, close enough that he’d see everything I saw the second the door was open. I leaned in and took a half-step, blocking his path, feeling around for the atomic lamp. The lamp wasn’t there. I took a few
more steps in, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. The cop clicked his penlight and flashed it around the room.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Ma’am, I think you’ve been robbed.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I took a few steps into the room and tripped over something. Something that hadn’t been there when I left. My hands flailed through the air to break my fall. They landed on the arm of the sofa. My balance lost, I fell forward, head first into a cushion.

  “Nice view. I’ve never been a fan of polyester knit until now,” said Tex from behind me.

  I used my hands to turn myself over and push myself back up until I was standing again.

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “I was in the neighborhood,” he answered. “Are you going to turn on the lights?”

  “The light isn’t where it used to be. Flip the switch in the kitchen.” My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw my pink atomic floor lamp lying on the floor. I kicked it under the sofa, out of the way.

  The younger cop rounded the corner. “What the—shit.”

  Tex ran to the kitchen and hit the light switch. The young officer leaned against the counter, balanced on one foot. There was a smushed pile of dog poo on the floor. I handed the officer a roll of paper towels.

  “Night, where’s your dog?” Tex asked.

  “Rocky?” I called out. “Rocky?”

  “Wait here,” commanded Tex. He moved into the hallway and flipped on the light. I followed him despite his instructions. The bedroom was torn apart, the closet open, clothes in a pile on the floor. “Is this normal?”

  “No, it’s not normal. I don’t keep my house like this.”

  “So what do you think happened here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I looked around the bedroom. The lamp on the nightstand was on the floor, the bulb shattered. The comforter was pulled off the bed. A piece of caramel colored fur peeked out from under the bed.