Felonious Jazz

by Bryan Gilmer

Walter nodded. “Sounds like us.”

  The man pulled two plastic-domed dinner plates from a green insulated sleeve. “$29.50.”

  As a wastewater systems engineer, Walter could easily afford it. But it did bother him to pay for a prefabricated dinner when his wife was home all day and could have cooked it for them. She’d hardly been cooking at all since Katie had left for college.

  Walter handed him the twenties and just asked for five bucks as change. The man blushed as if the five-dollar tip were more than he was used to. Walter would’ve liked to believe the guy was squirreling away money to make himself a better life, but he guessed he’d blow it on science fiction books or something.

  The food was delicious as always, and he and Janet each had one glass of pinot noir – their strict weeknight limit. He told Janet about the flagstone patio over dinner. She liked the idea and even suggested that he get the new stainless gas grill he wanted when it was done. As they chatted about their days, a smile cracked into Walter’s tight cheeks. Janet was sweet to him, and he was damn lucky to have her, judging from the number of miserable guys his age at work. His problem was that he came home from work in a bad mood every night.

  They headed over to the living room sofa ready to relax and watch a movie. He opened the drawer and pulled out the stack of red Netflix envelopes. He decided to go with the one Janet had placed on top.

  As Walter put in the DVD, he realized he was feeling powerfully sleepy. He’d felt pepped up before dinner, so he was surprised to be yawning. He kind of welcomed the feeling; he often struggled with insomnia. Must be what they always said about that chemical in turkey…

  The movie was Blood Work, based on the Michael Connelly book they’d both read and liked several years back. He stretched an arm around Janet’s shoulders. One of the neighbors had told Janet it had a different ending than the novel… Janet was yawning, too…

  FRIDAY

  Walter’s lower back was really killing him. He rolled onto his side. The bed felt super hard somehow. He opened his eyes, and the morning sunshine coming in the windows seared his eyeballs.

  Why hadn’t the alarm gone off sooner? He could hear it beeping now; it hurt his ears. Dang. He was supposed to be up before dawn to make it to work by 8 … He never overslept.

  He threw the comforter off. Ho boy, his body ached. It smelled like some kind of solvent in here… Ginger barked her head off, but she sounded far away…

  He forced his eyes open again. He felt like he had the morning after his bachelor party 25 years before. He pushed himself upright. The texture was strange on his hands – carpet instead of bedsheet, he realized.

  His vision finally cleared. He looked around the master suite and couldn’t believe it: He was sitting in the middle of the floor in his briefs and undershirt with his ankles under the bedspread. Besides the spread and the clock, the room was completely empty. Nothing hanging on the walls, no furniture, and there was some kind of crazy black design and writing all over Janet’s peach-colored walls, black-painted graffiti that started above Janet’s walk-in closet and dressing room: “1BR APT, FULLY FURN,” and two painted shapes that looked like vases or something?

  His heart throbbed faster. He felt dizzy. This was some sort of screwed-up nightmare!

  Walt squeezed his eyes shut and opened them to the same scene. He turned to his right, and there was Janet, under her half of the spread, on the floor, her head on the pillow and the alarm clock beeping into her left ear. It said 9:30 a.m. He jostled Janet’s shoulder to wake her.

  He couldn’t get her to move.

  He threw back the covers. Instead of her usual nightgown, she was naked except for her underpants. Oh, Lord! He put his palm near her mouth because he thought she wasn’t breathing; then he turned his hand over and felt the slightest movement of air. Sobs shook Walt, and his tears fell onto Janet’s skin as he shook her completely limp body. He had to call an ambulance! He couldn’t find the phone that was normally on the bedside table next to the clock.

  He leapt up, felt nauseated. He stumbled into a wall and slid down it out of control with a pathetic yelp, until his butt rested on the floor and he was looking up at more paint above where their headboard had been: “U WON’T REALLY MISS IT.”

  Was he having a stroke or something? He’d never felt this way before; his temples pounded with his heartbeat as if he’d just run a sprint. He made another frantic attempt to stand, then half staggered, half crawled to the bedroom doorway, his vision watery with the tears.

  He forced himself to concentrate, crawled through the open first floor to the kitchen counter and used it to pull himself up. He snatched the phone from its hook on the wall.

  He punched 9-1-1. “There’s been a burglary. My wife won’t wake up!”

  As he tried to explain, he realized how confused and slurred his words sounded through his blubbering. He felt furious that the old-fashioned looking wall phone had a cord, that he couldn’t go back to Janet and stay on the phone at the same time. The lady on the other end of the line was firing questions at him, and he answered each one the best he could.

  The door out to the garage stood open slightly, and the cooler air blew against his bare ankles. He hoped no one was still out there. He stretched the cord to its limit, slammed the door and turned the lock and then told the dispatcher he had to go. The lady said not to move Janet; she was sending the Sheriff’s Office and the paramedics, but Walt dropped the receiver on the floor and stumbled back into the bedroom and fell down next to Janet. Her pulse was weak and slow underneath his fingertips, and her naked chest rose and fell only faintly. He clasped her moist hand. The possibility of losing her flashed across his mind.

  He beat back the thought and prayed for Janet, massaged her cool hand, cried into her hair until it was soaked. She took shallow breaths a couple times more, but she never responded to him.

  Finally, the paramedics were banging on the door, and the doorbell chimed, too, and Walt sprang to his feet. He bashed his head good against the thermostat as he lost his balance again on the way, through the foyer, but he wrenched the lock open, and the paramedics pushed their way in. Walt collapsed onto one of them, a young guy who looked ex-military.

  “She’s in the bedroom!” Walt pointed the way, and three of them scrambled over there while the guy wrestled Walt to the living room sofa. Walt tried to pull away, “Janet, my wife…”

  “Sir, you need medical treatment, too. They’ll take good care of her. Sit here.”

  The blood-pressure cuff pinched Walt’s upper arm, the medic’s fingers hot fingers on his wrist. The guy shined a bright penlight into each eye. Walt tried to look past him at the doorway to their bedroom, but he couldn’t tell what was going on in there.

  Walt stood to go to Janet, but the man said, “Sir, sir,” and urged him back onto the couch. The others already had her strapped to an orange, plastic board and were hurrying toward the front door. “They’re taking her to the hospital. She needs you to be calm and patient. We’ll bring another ambulance for you, and then you’ll be able to see her.”

  Walt’s gasping sobs turned to weeping. When the paramedic got a report on his walkie talkie that Janet was still alive just one minute from the hospital, Walt finally raised his gaze.

  The television was on. But the image on the screen was still. The DVD player was paused at 20:35. Walt realized that he couldn’t remember past the opening scenes of the movie.

  Twenty-four

  Just as Jeff was stepping out of the shower, Cooperton called about another weird break-in: “More black spray paint. No homicide, but damn close. Woman is at Wake Med unconscious in ICU. Meet me at the convenience store outside the main entrance to Country Estates, and I’ll drive you in. We’ll say I’m giving you a ride-along today.”

  Jeff spotted Cooperton’s Crown Victoria at the gas station, parked the Audi and opened Cooperton’s passenger door. He squeezed into the small space next to the police radio and laptop computer that were mounted to the dash on flexible sta
lks. “I thought this was supposed to be a safe place to live.”

  Cooperton had the car running, but he didn’t put it into gear. “What’d you find out about Eddie?”

  “I ran him through every database the firm subscribes to, but fake people aren’t in those. Came up with nothing. Sorry to let you down. I’ll keep trying.”

  Cooperton spat. “Sounds like that little newspaper reporter’s got both of us beat. Her story today says ‘employees who wished to remain anonymous’ said the suspect’s name was Eddie Grant.”

  “Where’d she get that?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  Jeff frowned. “Any prints or DNA or anything from the store?”

  “Pretty good set of prints from the forklift,” Cooperton said. “But they’re not any that match ones we got on file. DNA takes a while, and really, you need a suspect in custody to match your sample to. We had popped the dead guy once for DUI…”

  “Maybe it’s somebody from out of town,” Jeff reasoned.

  Cooperton sniffed. “Shit, all I know is, we’ve had a year’s worth of crime up here in four days. There’s some motherfuckers around here somewhere who need a screen check.” Jeff knew that meant cuffing a suspect in the back of a patrol car with no seat belt, then slamming on the brakes so he slammed face-first against the partition between the front and back seats. Cooperton spat into the opening of a plastic soda bottle, then replaced it in the cup holder as he repositioned the wad in his jaw.

  “There’s all the spray paint – includin’ this one today. I’m thinkin’ maybe some kinda liberal terrorists.”

  “Well, what’s the deal with this new one?”

  “You got to see this.” Cooperton shifted the Crown into drive and rolled out of the parking lot.

  A wooden sign near the brick entryway advertised “Custom Homes 350s to 420s.” Jeff liked the look of this neighborhood; the houses showed real attention to detail and varied in architectural style – though they had identical mailboxes, and the dominant feature of each façade was a double garage door.

  “Come on inside,” Cooperton said.

  They parked the car, and Cooperton led Jeff up the cobblestone driveway where a Chevy Suburban was parked at an odd angle with one wheel on the lawn. “Homeowner parked it in the garage last night before dinner. When he woke up this morning, it was out here. Apparently, they moved it.”

  They walked up a path still illuminated by a row of tiny lights staked into the ground, though the sky was bright by now. Cooperton kneed open the oak front door. A couple of deputies straightened when he entered, and Cooperton said, “Meet our friend Jeff, fellas.” He walked Jeff across the living room past beautiful granite countertops and a kitchen full of restaurant-grade appliances. They stopped at an open door.

  “This is the master suite where our Mister and Miz Ellis woke up this morning. Norton, will we fuck up any of your evidence if we step in?”

  “No, sir, L-T, but could y’all stay right inside the doorway?” Norton wore tan slacks and a short-sleeve dress shirt. He was on his hands and knees inspecting the carpet. He looked younger than Jeff. “I think they mighta even vacuumed before they left, if you can b’lieve that.”

  “Ahh-ite. Ain’t nothin’ too weird for this one.” Cooperton shrugged and stepped in. Jeff followed and noticed the light-dark-light argyles that a vacuum combs into plush carpet.

  The master suite was the size of Ashlyn’s whole apartment—or bigger—and empty of furnishings. There were dents in the carpet where furniture had stood. “They stole all this? Was it antique or something?”

  “Naw, nice stuff, ‘parently, but new and from Haverty’s right down the street. Plus, they took all the pictures off the wall and all the clothes that was in the drawers. Last thing Mr. and Miz Ellis knew, they was watchin’ a movie in the living room. This morning, Mr. Ellis wakes up here on the floor. His wife’s half naked and damn near dead. We think both of ‘em was drugged. You’re gon’ like this: Hospital done a tox screen on the woman. She just come to. Small amount of diazepam, a.k.a. Valium, nothing she’d ever been prescribed. A shitload of sodium phenobarbital, just like them pets. If she’d got a little bitty bit more of it than she did, she’d be just as dead. We’re gettin’ Mr. Ellis checked out, but we bet it was the same thing. Only, he’s bigger so it didn’t affect him as bad. He woke up feeling like he’d drunk a fifth of Jack. Both of ‘em have little injection marks on their shoulders.

  “Lieutenant, have y’all checked into where the suspect could get hold of the phenobarb?”

  “Hell, probably on the Internet. We did look through our reports, and nobody’s reported any stolen in the past year.”

  Interesting, Jeff thought. He had to get back to his calls to vets as soon as he returned to his desk. Now he looked at the black letters on the wall. And the two large painted shapes, sort of cone-shaped, one an outline, one solid.

  “Yeah, read that,” Cooperton said. “I ain’t no prosecutor, but sounds like enough for attempted homicide. These are some sick fuckers. Let’s step back out. Downtown’s comin’ in on this, and I can’t let them see you in here. Right, Norton?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jeff made notes so he could add this writing to his office window. He felt strangely lightheaded as he followed Cooperton back through the living room – the paint fumes, maybe. Cooperton paused to point out diamond-tread tracks in the living room carpet where a hand truck had again been used to wheel items to the garage. “Tires match the dolly from your clients’ house. We think they loaded it all on a truck inside the carport. Must have moved Mr. Ellis’ SUV out to make room for it.”

  Jeff nodded, still feeling a little weird and not sure why. He was probably shy a cup of coffee or two, edgy and foggy at the same time. “Anything else missing from the house?”

  “Dunno, but all the TV sets seem to be here. They didn’t have no guns to start with. And buddy, their little Penkanese was just fine, shut inside an upstairs bedroom barkin’ her ass off most of the mornin’. We’re having her blood tested for that stuff, too, though.”

  Cooperton took Jeff back to his car. On the way back to the gas station, Jeff acted on instinct. “Lieutenant, I want to trust you with something.”

  “Ahh-ite.”

  Jeff told Cooperton about the charitable donation thank-yous and his theory that the amounts matched the value of the items stolen in the dead pet burglaries.

  “Seems way out there, but still, I like the way you think,” Cooperton said. “Keep on thinkin’ about it.”

  Cooperton dropped Jeff back at the convenience store, where Jeff went inside for coffee, then sat for a few minutes sipping it in the driver’s seat of his car. He still felt really funny, and he still couldn’t say why. It was as if his mind had figured something out without telling him.

  * * *

  Signs inside the hospital directed Jeff to Intensive Care Family Waiting. Jeff had learned the hard way, when his grandfather had died at Presbyterian Hospital a few months ago, that families of ICU patients formed a little fraternity in these waiting rooms, keeping up with each other’s loved ones, relaying messages and so forth. He decided to tap into the network.

  So Jeff introduced himself by name only to a haggard woman in her early 40s. He’d let her assume any official title for him that she wanted. “Is Walter back with Jan right now?”

  She nodded. “They won’t let him stay back there long, because she’s so delirious that it upsets him. And when he’s upset, that agitates her. You a friend of theirs?”

  “I’m investigating what happened.”

  Now a man opened the blonde oak door and stepped in, rubbing the corner of one raccoon-circled eye as he pinched the bridge of his nose. His untucked shirt didn’t match his pants, and he had bedhead.

  “Walter, this is Jeff Swaine,” the woman said, and Jeff stood silently to shake Walter’s hand. The woman asked, “How’s Janet?”

  “She’s still pretty mixed up, but the doctors say she’s through the wor
st danger already. They’re just giving her fluids and watching her, and they are hoping she’ll be fine. I can tell she’s getting back to normal. Any news about Harvey?”

  “He’s still sleeping, and the medicine seems to be helping. Supposed to hear more right after lunch.”

  Walter nodded.

  Jeff looked him in the eye. “You must be so relieved to hear she’s doing better,” Jeff said. “You’ve had a hell of a night.”

  “Yeah, I am. And I have. Thanks.”

  Jeff could see by Walter’s expression that the older man approved of his manners. “I’m J.D. Swaine, and I’m one of the investigators trying to find out what had happened and who did it.” If Walter Ellis thought he was with some government in some capacity, that was an error, but not Jeff’s fault.

  Ellis looked at Jeff with a needy gratitude. He sat in the next chair and spoke softly about waking up on his floor, about the terror of not being able to wake his wife. He told about calling the police, about coming to the hospital in another ambulance not knowing whether his wife was still alive: “I’ve never felt my love for my wife more than this morning, when I had to think for the first time in 25 years about how life would be without her.”

  Jeff let silence hang in the air. It turned out to be the perfect move.

  “I didn’t have the chance to tell the other police this,” Walter Ellis said, “but the more I think about it, the more I think that food delivery guy must have had something to do with all of this.”

  Leonard grabs

  Twenty-five

  Leonard pulled the rented white cargo van into a street being cut into the woods for a new subdivision. Once he was out of view of the main highway, he threw it into PARK and did a mouthful of sanitizer.

  Then he reached into the back seat for a package of blue vinyl letters he’d bought at Office Depot and got out. Within a few seconds, he’d spelled out “BBT Painting” on the side of the van, with a random phone number that began with a real local exchange.