by JoAnna Carl
“And I’m happy to say, he’s not a great shot—can’t hit a moving target. Also, he’s familiar with the Grantham business community.”
“How can you tell that?” I asked.
“The car lots. Both of them keep the keys to cars on boards in the back room. Somebody had to slip in there and take them. In the case of the Cadillac, he apparently took the key and had it copied, then returned the original. The van—he just took the key. Or at least the lot manager says it’s still gone.
“Also, the guy knew which florist to call.”
“What about the florist?”
“Speedy is the one my mom’s agency uses. They run an account. It’s common for someone from her office to call and order flowers by phone. She gets a discount because she buys a lot of flowers. She makes sure clients are greeted with a bouquet when they move into their new houses.”
“Are you telling me that those roses were sent by your mom’s business?”
“No, I’m telling you somebody called Speedy Florist and said they wanted the flowers delivered here and to put them on the Svenson Agency account. No other florist in Grantham would have accepted a telephone order for that particular account—with no credit card number or name.”
“Didn’t the guy tell the florist anything?”
“He told him the client—he called you the client—was leaving her home, so the flowers had to be delivered immediately. For a fairly expensive order, like a dozen roses, they were willing to do that.”
“What did he sound like?”
“The office clerk says he lisped.”
“Like the guy on my answering machine!”
Mike nodded. “Which means we can be pretty sure he doesn’t lisp in real life.”
We talked the whole thing inside out, the lab came and dug bullets out of the walls, and Mike punched the rest of the safety glass out of the storm door.
In our climate storm doors are as valuable in summer, when they help keep cool air in, as in winter, when they keep cool air out. Most people leave them up year-round.
“I’m glad I decided to get a new storm door when I moved in here and remodeled,” Mike said. “The old one wasn’t safety glass. It might have cut an artery for somebody.”
I touched a hole in the wooden door. “I owe you a new door,” I said.
“I’ve got insurance,” Mike said.
He swept the glass and roses off the front porch, and I vacuumed up debris inside.
By then the casserole was practically dry. I poured water over it, opened a can of green beans, and rescued enough casserole for dinner for Mike, Arnie, and me. No one was hungry, but we went through the motions.
At the end of the meal, Arnie’s hand was still shaking, and my upper lip felt as stiff as granny’s cooked starch. Mike got up and gestured for Arnie and me to keep our seats.
“I’ll do the dishes,” he said. “Nell, you and Arnie try to figure out what it is that you know that this guy is afraid you’ll tell. Because he is definitely out to get you, and I can’t think of any other reason.”
I glanced at Arnie. “Tell him about ‘small,’” he said. Then he got up and left the room.
I told Mike about my complete recollection of the phone call made to my mother the night before she died.
He frowned as he scraped the leftover casserole into a plastic dish. “That’s interesting, Nell, and we’ll pass it along to Jim. But I doubt the guy is worried about you remembering anything to do with your mother’s death. After twenty years, and with Martina out of the way, he probably feels as if he’s pretty much in the clear on that. It’s much more likely to be something to do with Martina’s death. Think back to the night she was killed. Try to remember every little thing that happened, starting at the beginning. When did you get to work?”
I started with my arrival at the Gazette, mentioned the short chat I’d had with Martina, and reported her request that I meet her in the downstairs ladies’ room on my break.
“I was so eager to hear what she had to say that I dashed down there the minute my break time got there,” I said.
“So far we’ve identified three guys connected with the Gazette who apparently also had some connection with Michigan twenty years ago. Did you see any of them as you dashed down?”
“Mike, I saw all of them. Ed Brown was in the newsroom, looking at a broken chair. He’s usually wandering around the building. It’s not at all unusual to see him up there at night.
“And Dan Smith came by earlier and had coffee with Martina. She came back to the newsroom alone. The Gazette is probably one of his biggest customers, so Dan Smith is probably as familiar with the building as most Gazette employees are. If he told Martina something like, ‘I’ll let myself out the back door,’ she would probably have just nodded and come back to the newsroom without checking to see that he really went.”
“What about those security cameras?”
“They’re only trained on the doors. If he didn’t go near the door, if he hid out someplace, the guard would simply think he was still in the building—which would have been the truth. Visitors don’t check in and out formally. And if you leave through the warehouse, you can usually slip out behind a truck and not be caught on camera. For that matter, he could leave openly through the back door, then slip back in through the warehouse.”
I stared at the surface of the table. “No, the best bet for Martina’s killer is Bob Johnson.”
“Because he’s hot-tempered?”
“That, and because he had the best access to all parts of the basement. Better than Dan or Ed. People might wonder what they were doing if one of them showed up down there. But that’s where Bob Johnson is supposed to be. In the pressroom or in the Hellhole.”
Mike stuck plates into the dishwasher. “We’ve identified those three as having Michigan links. But there may be others. Who else was around?”
“The entire night crew! There are a dozen guys in the pressroom. There are a dozen people who work nights building ads on the computers. We have five page designers who work on page building for the newsside. There were even some ad salesmen there that night. I bumped into J.J. Jones on my way downstairs, I remember, and there were lights on in the display advertising department, so he wasn’t the only person there. And how about the security guards? Just because they’re hired through O’Sullivan Security doesn’t mean they couldn’t be up to no good.”
“Jim’s got people checking them,” Mike said. “So far he hasn’t found any link to Michigan. Jim also took the tapes from the cameras on the doors. That may tell us something.”
I put my head in my hands. “It’s such a mess. I’m dreading going back to work tomorrow.”
Mike whirled around. “You’re not going down there!”
“How can I stay away? I don’t want to sound self-important, but with Martina out of the schedule, I may be the only copy editor available on Tuesdays.”
“Don’t be stupid, Nell! If this guy is so determined to get you that he’ll pull that stunt with the flowers, you need to stay away from the Gazette.”
We argued it back and forth a few minutes, but the disagreement ended when Mike said, “I don’t care if they get the damn paper out or not! I could get along without a newspaper for a couple of days! I could not get along without you for as much as an hour and a half!”
My eyes filled. I got up and led Mike back to the corner behind the refrigerator, the one where we couldn’t be seen from the living room.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you,” Mike said.
Seems as if that’s all that needed to be said for a few minutes.
I spoke. “Do you think you have to sleep on the couch again tonight?”
“Not if I’ve been forgiven,” Mike said. “I’ll hang some tin cans on the doorknobs in case Arnie decides to leave us.” He nuzzled my neck. “Do you think you could scratch my back a little later?”
“Sure. Do you think you could do that thing with your thumbs?”
“Yes, but without the bra.”
He took his hand away. “Guess we’d better join Arnie.”
“Guess so.”
I thought the next hour would never pass, but after the ten o’clock news Arnie went to bed, and then Mike and I did, too. We closed the bedroom door, and I forgot all about Arnie until the headboard began bumping gently against the wall. In a moment of revelation I realized my father was on the other side of that wall.
The thought didn’t inhibit me. In fact, it made me feel rather defiant. It was titillating. I made the headboard bump harder. So there, Daddy. I’m having sex. Yah, yah.
Everybody’s entitled to a bit of teenage rebellion, even if it comes nearly ten years late. Arnie and I were going through the stages of the parent-child relationship at an accelerated rate.
Afterward, Mike tried again to get me to talk about how I felt about Arnie and about having him pop into my life. Mike is a nice guy, but he’s taken far too much psychology. However, I know how to distract him when he begins to get too nosy about my ego, superego, and id. I didn’t find it too hard to entice him into showing an interest in my body rather than in my psyche.
I had him completely off the subject when somebody began to pound on the front door.
At the sound, the headboard thumped the wall really loud, and it had nothing to do with sex. Mike rolled over me, and we both started for the walk-in closet. Mike won the race. Standing in the closet door, he snatched a pair of pants off a hanger. I couldn’t get past him. The pounding was still going on.
I grabbed up the jeans and T-shirt I’d dropped at the foot of the bed. I pulled them on sans undies, then slammed my tennies on without socks.
“Who the dickens is out there?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “But you’re staying here until I find out.” He stepped into a pair of loafers, then yanked a sweatshirt off a hanger.
All the time the door banging continued. Minimally dressed, Mike opened the bedroom door and moved out into the living room, which was lighted only by a night light down the hall, outside the hall bathroom. Immediately Mike whirled toward the hall.
“Who’s there?” he said.
“It’s me!” The voice was Arnie’s. “What’s going on?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Mike said. “You keep Nell in the bedroom.”
Arnie came over to the door. He was wearing his striped pajamas, and his hair was tousled. The shenanigans in the next bedroom had apparently failed to keep him awake.
He stood between me and Mike, and Mike went to the door. He turned the porch light on and looked out the peephole. “Who’s there?”
“Me!” It was a woman’s voice, and it sounded scared. “Let me in!”
“It’s Martha!” I pushed past Arnie, but he caught my arm. “Let go!” I said. “Martha’s out there.”
“Who’s Martha?” Arnie said.
“One of my roommates!”
He didn’t let go of my arm. “Let Mike handle it,” he said.
“We can’t leave Martha out on the porch! She wouldn’t just drop by in the middle of the night! There’s some emergency!”
I could hear Mike feeling around on the bookcase nearest the door, and I realized he was getting the key to the dead bolt from the bookshelf. He keeps it in the door in the daytime, but stashes it in a hiding place at night or when he leaves the house. He clicked over both the locks.
Immediately the door swung open, and Martha yelped, then fell inside.
“Let me go!” she said.
She was speaking to a figure who was bending over her. With the bright porch light at their backs, they looked like King Kong and Fay Wray.
“Shut up!” a gruff voice said.
I recognized the sound.
I pushed past Arnie and turned on the lamp at the end of the couch, lighting the living room.
“Bob Johnson!” I said. “What are you doing?”
The light showed Martha, wearing her raincoat, on her hands and knees on the floor. Bob Johnson was holding her coat collar in his left hand, and his right clutched a slim, lethal-looking knife.
He grinned drunkenly.
“Well, if it ain’t little Nellie,” he said. “Maybe we can talk some sense this time.”
He lowered his knife to within inches of Martha’s throat.
“Or else!”
Chapter 22
I think I was paralyzed. Arnie may have been paralyzed, too. We stood there, with Martha on her hands and knees—she wasn’t moving either—and Bob Johnson standing over her.
Martha had lost her fashion-plate appearance. Her stylish blue coat was pulled out of shape by the grip Bob had on its collar, and her blush looked like war paint against her pallor. Her normally sleek black hair looked as if a bird had been in it.
Bob didn’t change his grip, but he wasn’t standing still. He was weaving back and forth, and his eyes didn’t focus. He was obviously drunk. But he didn’t move the knife from Martha’s throat.
Mike spoke. “Bob, there’s no reason to get yourself all in an uproar. Put the knife down.” His calm voice reminded me that he was the person we needed in the current emergency.
Bob was holding the knife in one hand and Martha in the other, and he was threatening her. That’s what law enforcement calls a “hostage situation.”
And the person the police would call in for a hostage situation is a “hostage negotiator.” And that’s Mike. Chief hostage negotiator for the Grantham Police Department. Realizing this made me feel a surge of hope. Mike would know what to do.
It’s rare, however, for a hostage taker to bring the hostage by the hostage negotiator’s house. What was going to happen?
Bob spoke, slurring his words. “I’m not letting her loose until I get what I want!”
“Sure,” Mike said. “What do you want?”
“I want somebody to take me sher—sheriously!”
Mike nodded. “I get the message, Bob.”
“I want to tell Nell all about the other guys who could have wanted to do Martina in.”
“We sure want that information, Bob. But you—you look miserable. You can’t talk in that position. You’re all bent over with your back in a crook.”
Bob pointed his chin at Martha, but he didn’t move the hand that held the knife. “She fell down.”
“Yeah. There was an incident with the storm door this afternoon,” Mike said. “The glass is gone, but the frame is still there. I expect she tripped over the frame when she stepped into the house.”
“What happened to the door?” Bob sounded as if he were merely curious.
“We had a little excitement.” Mike gestured toward Arnie. “Arnie, push a couple of kitchen chairs over there. Bob must be really uncomfortable.”
Arnie went into the kitchen—the door was about six feet from Bob and Martha—and brought out two chairs, carrying them out one at a time. He pushed them toward Bob, and the burly pressman pulled Martha up to her feet.
Bob seemed to forget Arnie, who disappeared back into the kitchen. He came to the kitchen door, standing where Bob couldn’t see him, and made a few motions.
“Yes, that’s right. That’s better,” Mike said, still looking at Bob. Arnie disappeared again.
Martha’s eyes were incredibly wide, and she was staring at Mike as if he were the chairman of her thesis committee, as if her life hung on his words. It probably did.
Mike ignored her. I knew enough about hostage negotiations to understand why. The negotiator must concentrate on the hostage taker. He never wants to remind the hostage taker that the hostage even exists. He must work only on the bad guy, ignore the person being threatened. This can be hard on the person in danger.
Bob and Martha jockeyed around, with Bob still holding the knife to her throat, until Martha was sitting in one of the chairs. Bob almost sat down in the other. Then he realized that he couldn’t do th
at and also hold the knife in a threatening position. So he stood behind her.
“Now, Bob, I thought you were going to go and talk to Jim Hammond,” Mike said. “Explain to him that you’re innocent. I thought you agreed.”
“That was before I got fired!”
“Gee, Bob! That’s rough! What happened?”
“Just one little drink! That’s all I had.”
“Wow! The Gazette must be strict.”
“Wes—he said I couldn’t be around machinery.”
He was talking about Wes McLaird, the pressroom foreman. I thought Mike would figure that out for himself.
“But it was just one drink!” Bob said. “So I thought I’d tell Nell”—he looked at me and nodded—“about the other guys down there.”
He leaned toward Mike and lowered his voice. “Everybody hated that bitch Martina, you know.”
“I’m not surprised to hear that, Bob.”
Bob nodded wisely. “That Ed Brown. She knew something about him, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that. Do you know what it was?”
“No, but I think maybe he got arrested once.”
Mike whistled.
“Yeah,” Bob said sagely. “Ha. Mr. Respectable himself. He was standing right there when Mac fired me. Butter wouldn’t melt.”
“Gosh, Bob. You’ve had a terrible time.”
“And Wes himself! He got really mad at that woman when she made cracks about the color registration for that damn bridal section! He and J.J. Jones both went for Martina over that one!”
He grinned smugly and gave a hiccup. “Even the boyfriend!”
“Do you mean Dan Smith?”
“Yeah! That jerk salesman.” He went into a long yarn about some argument Martina and Dan had had over a cup of coffee in the break room. Of course, he hadn’t been close enough to hear what it was about, but they’d looked as if they were quarreling.
Bob rambled on for about ten minutes straight. He enumerated person after person who had disliked Martina. Reporters, ad salesmen, bookkeepers, circulation—she obviously didn’t have a friend in any department.
It was the longest ten minutes of my life, and I’m sure Martha thought it lasted an hour. Her eyes never moved from Mike’s face. Mike stared directly at Bob Johnson and nodded sympathetically.