The Homicide Report: A Nell Matthews Mystery (InterMix)

by JoAnna Carl

  “Dumb?”

  “Yeah, dumb. You’re just as nosy as Martina was, you know.”

  “Thanks a lot!” I drew myself back. Then I realized that my body language alone was giving Kimmie a juicy item for her coffee break, and I leaned toward Mike and spoke in a low voice. “They pay reporters to be nosy.”

  “True. And you’re a good reporter. But this is not a good situation for using those valuable news-gathering skills. Pretend you don’t want to know anything about it. Okay?”

  “Butt out of police business?”

  “More than that. I even take back what I told you at noon. This is not a good time to look into what happened to your father.”

  I probably stiffened up again. “What are you doing? Using reverse psychology? Trying to get me to call Aunt Billie by telling me not to call Aunt Billie?”

  Mike rolled his eyes and gave a disgusted shrug. “Your mind is too tricky for any psychology I could use, forward or reverse. I just want you to keep from stirring up anything while I’m out of town.”

  “Stirring up anything?”

  “About Martina’s death.” He made an impatient gesture. “I can’t get out of this trip. Will you promise me you’ll be careful?”

  “I’m always careful.”

  He shook his head. “You’re never careful. At least get the security guard to walk you out to your car tonight. Okay?”

  “If I feel like it.”

  “And one other thing.” He was looking at his tennis shoe again, staring anywhere but at me.

  I wondered what else was coming. “What is it?”

  “I’ve got a repairman coming over to the house while I’m gone,” he said. “I need your garage door opener.”

  I felt as if I’d been slapped. Mike’s neighbor had a front door key so she could let repairmen in and out. He didn’t need my garage door opener for a repairman. If he needed my garage door opener, it was for some other reason.

  Such as, he didn’t want me in his house any longer.

  Talk about throwing cold water on a relationship. I’d just been told to stay away from Mike’s house. Not to use the garage door opener. Well, I wasn’t going to make a scene, not in front of Kimmie. Or anywhere else. Not ever, not no way, not at all.

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

  “Nell—”

  I didn’t wait to hear what he was going to say. I jumped to my feet and walked back to the copy desk as quickly as possible. I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and took the garage door opener out of my purse. I also got out my key, the one that opened the door between the garage and the utility room.

  I smiled sweetly as I walked back across the office, leaned across the railing, and handed Mike the key and the opener.

  “I don’t need the key,” he said.

  “Neither do I,” I said. “Have a good trip.”

  I went back to my desk without looking back, but I felt sure Kimmie got an eyeful of the whole episode. She took a break right after that, at the same time Alicia Hess, our arts editor, went downstairs. Those two were Martina’s closest rivals in gathering and spreading news. My fight with Mike would be an item, even if it didn’t show up in the morning Gazette.

  I didn’t leave the building for my dinner break. Why buy food when your stomach is in such a knot you can’t possibly eat it? I went down to the break room and got a Diet Coke and some snack crackers out of the machines, then opened a copy of the Gazette to the crossword puzzle and stared at it. I’d forgotten to bring a pencil, but maybe the puzzle would keep people from talking to me.

  My plan didn’t work. As usual, the early pressroom crew was taking their boisterous break, and Bob Johnson snarled at me as he walked by the table. I ignored him.

  Ed Brown came through, still looking handsome from across the room and haggard close up. He was with Dan Smith, who was still wearing an angora shawl on his head.

  Dan had to come over and make sad sounds about Martina. I didn’t want to hear it. As shocked as I had been by Martina’s death, I was realizing that—for me—trouble with Mike was worse. I’m sure I made sympathetic noises at Dan, but I was too sunk in my own misery to worry much about his.

  I even had trouble being polite to J.J. Jones when he stopped to thank me for the advice I’d given him the night before.

  “My client really appreciated it,” he said. “You’re nice as a cotton hat, li’l missy. Cute as a bird dog pup under a red wagon.”

  I went back upstairs before I puked on his gaudy plaid sports jacket.

  Things didn’t go well on the desk, either. We were all realizing how much we’d depended on Martina, even if we hadn’t enjoyed her company. I spent thirty minutes digging through stories from the Gazette library so I could figure out that a young Grantham businessman was “Judd G. Bowen II,” not “Jr.” and not “III.” Martina would have needed only thirty seconds to explain that he had been named for his grandfather, Judd Gerrard Bowen, not his father, Judd Geoffrey Bowen. So his grandfather, who had founded a local oil field-equipment firm, had been “Judd G. Bowen” and his father, current president of the firm, was “J.G. Bowen” and the younger man, who had just joined the firm, was “Judd G. Bowen II.” The whole thing gave me a picture of the Bowen family—twenty-five-years ago—sitting around the cradle of Judd G. II, plotting the best way to confuse the newspaper. Seemed as if they’d have better things to do with their time.

  To make it worse, I was the only copy editor, so I had to stay late. It didn’t matter. I had no place to go and no one to see. And I could use the overtime.

  But eleven finally arrived, the police reporter who was filling in for Arnie turned in his last story—just an hour late—and Ruth told me I could leave. I would have ignored Mike’s directive about getting the security guard to walk me to my car, but Ruth insisted I call the guard.

  “I’m nervous as a cat myself,” she said. “I want everybody to be extra cautious.”

  “The parking lot’s full of circulation trucks,” I said. “Those guys are tougher than the security guard.”

  “Humor me,” Ruth said.

  So the guard accompanied me out into the covered garage, checked out my little Dodge with his giant flashlight, and stood there while I made sure the motor started, the doors locked, and the lights worked. I drove off, thinking how ironic it would be if the guard got mugged on his way back into the building.

  I live in central Grantham, about a mile north of the downtown area, in an area called College Hills. It’s near the Grantham State campus, and it’s an area a real estate professional would call “historic” maybe. Or maybe the word is “spotty.”

  In other words, the neighborhood has lots of nice new apartment houses, ratty old houses turned into apartments, old fraternity houses remodeled into unconventional homes for professors with big families, houses remodeled into businesses, strip shopping centers, trendy restaurants, and silk-screen shops. It also has lots of big trees and bushes. And narrow streets with cars parked on both sides.

  My two girl roommates, Brenda and Martha, were both graduate students, and the three of us had the second floor of an old house. We each had a bedroom but shared a bath, and we’d improvised a tiny sitting room on the landing.

  Downstairs was Rocky, who called himself our landlady. Rocky owned the house. He had his own bedroom and sitting room, and all four of us shared the kitchen and downstairs living room. It was a temporary arrangement. Martha and Brenda were both due to receive their master’s degrees in June, and Rocky planned to bounce us all then and remodel the house into two flats. I’d thought about moving in with Mike when Rocky evicted us, but if I didn’t have a key to his house, that obviously wasn’t going to happen.

  Rocky was part owner of the Blue Flamingo, Grantham’s most respectable gay bar. Our house was only a few blocks from the Flamingo, so Rocky usually walked to work. The Flamingo was in the Campus Corner shopping area, and it had an odd little alley but no parking.

  Anyway, “spotty” is prob
ably a good word for our neighborhood. And “bushy” and “wooded.” In fact, it was silly to worry about danger in the Gazette parking lot. My backyard was the place where anybody smart would hide for a surprise attack.

  Why the guy in the great big car didn’t do that is beyond me. But, no, he came up beside me on Mississippi Avenue and tried to run me into the curb.

  When you get off work close to midnight, you get used to having the street to yourself on the way home. I keep my doors locked, and I ignore the few other vehicles on the road. That’s the safest way. So I didn’t notice the big car for a while. I don’t know if he’d followed me from the Gazette, or if he picked me up later. I wasn’t aware that he even existed until he came up behind me fast, cut out to the left, almost passed me, then moved over into my lane on top of my left front fender.

  I yelled, and I blasted the horn, and I hit the brakes. My Dodge slowed enough that the big car could slide in front of me. He skidded to a stop. Luckily, my brakes worked better than his, so I got stopped without running over his back bumper. In fact, I had around four feet to spare, so I swung the steering wheel left as hard as I could, and I gunned the motor. I shot into the left-hand lane and passed him, nearly taking off his driver’s-side door, which seemed to be opening. I floorboarded the Dodge and headed on up Mississippi.

  I’m not a complete idiot. I knew that carjackers cause accidents, then rob or kill or rape or maim the drivers who stop. I wasn’t stopping.

  Neither was the big car. As I passed it, I’d mentally placed it as an old Cadillac—white. I hadn’t gotten the tag number, and I hoped it wouldn’t get close enough for me to get it. But when I checked the rearview mirror, I saw it was coming after me.

  I drove several blocks at top speed. This isn’t exactly a record-breaking pace in a compact Dodge, and I could see that speed alone wasn’t going to get me away from the Caddy. It was gaining on me. I was going to have to use guile.

  So I braked sharply and turned at the next corner. This put me in my own neighborhood, on residential streets I was familiar with. Of course, it also put me at great danger of killing some innocent bystander, because these particular residential streets were crowded with parked cars. In my neighborhood the Dodge has to hold in its stomach to pass a car going the other way, and pedestrians tend to pop out from between parked cars at the least expected moments. I took the middle of the street and hoped no one else wanted to use it.

  I shoved the gas pedal all the way down again. I glanced at the speedometer and nearly panicked. A safe speed in this neighborhood was around twenty. I was going fifty. And behind me I saw the behemoth turn off Mississippi. It seemed I could hear it roar, but maybe that was the Dodge. I was pushing it.

  I turned right at the next corner. Then right again. Then left. And every time, just before I could turn, I’d see those horrible headlights behind me. The blocks were too long for me to disappear before the Cadillac was on my tail.

  “Why don’t you quit!” I yelled. “My car’s worth nothing! I’ve got nothing to steal!”

  A driveway, I thought. Maybe a driveway was the answer. I turn a corner, pull into a driveway, cut the headlights. Maybe the Cadillac wouldn’t figure it out.

  But if the beast did figure it out. I’d be boxed in. Trapped. No, I didn’t dare turn into a driveway. Unless it was a police station drive. But that wouldn’t work. The Central Station was the closest one, and it was clear back near the Gazette office. I had to do something faster than that.

  God! I was doing things fast enough. The cars along the curb were whizzing by. Some people were standing on a lighted porch, saying good-bye. One of them pointed, and they all turned to look as I flew by. I heard faint yells.

  I turned around another corner, teetering on two wheels because I didn’t dare slow down. Where could I hide? Could I get back to Mississippi? To a main street? No, the Cadillac could outrun me there. And here, with houses all around, at least there were people who might hear me yell. Mississippi was deserted after midnight.

  If I didn’t dare pull into a driveway, maybe I could simply hide among the cars along the curb. They were bumper to bumper in the whole neighborhood. We’d turned our backyard into a four-slot parking lot, and sometimes we had to chase the neighbors out of it. College Hills has a continuous parking problem.

  I had a mad impulse to laugh. Even if I wanted to leave the Dodge, I’d never find a parking spot.

  But maybe that was the best idea I’d had. I began to scan the curbs, looking for an opening. I could go on past it, swing around the block, maybe come back and nab it before the Cadillac caught up. But the likelihood of finding such a spot was practically nil.

  Then I saw it. It wasn’t a parallel spot. It was an angle. It was the middle spot of the four used by the Campus Dry Cleaners for their delivery vans. Usually they had four vans parked abreast there. But tonight there were only three.

  Every night the Campus Cleaners drivers pulled the vans into the driveway that led to the drive-through windows. Usually customers from a tavern on the corner parked behind them, blocking them in. Nobody objected as long as the cars were gone by the six a.m. opening hour of the Campus Cleaners.

  But somebody was just pulling out of one of those spots behind the vans. I blasted my horn, and the car stopped and rocked back on its springs. It was a red sports car of some type, with a canvas top. A hand gestured out the window, not too politely. I kept the horn going until I was past, then swung around the next corner. That put me on University Boulevard, one of the streets that border the college, headed north. I gunned the motor, then skidded around the next corner. Sure enough, the Caddy came out onto University before I could get out of sight. I sped east on that street for a block, then whipped a right at the next corner, heading south. Before I’d covered a block, the giant Cadillac once again appeared in my mirror. I took the next corner at fifty, the Dodge teetering. Now I was headed west.

  As soon as I got around that corner, I cut my lights. The streetlights and porch lights and the security light at the Campus Cleaners gave me enough vision to see the delivery vans halfway down the block. I guided the Dodge into the empty slot, nestling it between three vans. I took my foot off the brake as quickly as the car stopped.

  Then I cut the motor. If this didn’t work, I’d have to get out and run.

  I ducked down in the front seat and watched the lights of the Cadillac go past behind me. It didn’t stop. The street got very still. I sat up, and all I could hear was my heart pounding.

  Should I restart the car and dig out? Or wait a minute? What if the Cadillac came around the block again? I sat there, panting.

  Then I heard footsteps.

  There was no reason on God’s green earth for me to think those footsteps belonged to the driver of the Cadillac. But I didn’t doubt for a minute that they did.

  I sat there frozen. Should I get out and run?

  Click, click, click. I could hear those steps. They were behind me.

  I realized that the phantom pacer was walking down the middle of the street. And he was coming closer. I’d have to lie down in the seat again, or he’d see me silhouetted against the security lights of the cleaners’ drive-through.

  I could start the car, back out, and drive off. But what if he’d used the giant Cadillac to block the street? What if I backed out of my parking spot and turned the wrong way and I couldn’t get by?

  I fingered the door handle. Maybe I’d better get out and make a run for the tavern on the corner.

  Then I looked ahead.

  I was an idiot! I was sitting in a drive-through! There was nothing ahead of me but a bright yellow rope.

  I turned the key, gunned the motor to life. The Dodge shot forward, past the window where I’d dropped off hundreds of garments to be dry-cleaned. The yellow rope popped in two and flew in the air. I whirled around the corner of the building and into the alley, then out onto University, but this time I turned left.

  As I passed the intersection, I saw the Cadillac parked
in the middle of the street. A figure was running toward it.

  My heart leaped into my mouth. The guy was pointing one of his hands at me. The hand was holding something.

  I heard a pop, but I didn’t stop to investigate. I drove two blocks, turned left, then ducked into an alley. I skidded to a stop, jumped out of the car, and ran to a door.

  Yeah! Thank God for fire regulations. The door was unlocked. I yanked it open and ran inside and down a hall.

  The music was semi-deafening, and the dance floor was crowded. Crowded with guys. No girls. Only guys.

  I swung toward the bar. “Rocky!” I yelled.

  A big guy, balding and slightly plump, gaped at me. “Rocky, call the cops!” I yelled again. “Somebody took a shot at me.”

  Chapter 10

  I wouldn’t inflict the police on the Blue Flamingo’s clientele, although Rocky’s customers are a quiet group. Martha, Brenda, and I drop by occasionally, and we’ve never seen anything more shocking than guys talking to each other—maybe with their arms around each other’s shoulders, just like at sports bars.

  After Rocky called 911 for me, I waited at the back door. As soon as the patrol car pulled into the alley, I went outside to meet the officer just as a second, unmarked, car arrived. That one held Jim Hammond. I was being honored with the attention of a senior detective.

  “Where’s your guardian?” he growled.

  “If you mean Mike, he’s out of town,” I answered.

  Jim glowered while I talked to a patrolman, who filled out an incident report. The officer was more nervous than I was, thanks to Jim’s supervision.

  “I guess it was an attempted carjacking,” I said. My voice sounded weak even to me.

  “Yeah, sure!” Hammond said. “On Wednesday you barely rescue a fellow editor from death by asphyxiation. On Thursday you find the same woman dead after being kicked downstairs. Slightly after midnight Friday you’re chased home by a creep in a Cadillac who tries to shoot you. Three completely and totally unrelated incidents. Obviously.”