Jackson

by Dale Mayer

  “Yes, I picked her up. Deli, are you doing okay now??” James asked her.

  She nodded reassuringly. “I am. But then two guys from the military went after the shooter’s vehicle, and they were found, both alive but injured, their vehicle rolled into a ravine. Since then, we found another guy connected to this whole scenario was murdered.”

  She took a deep breath as James stared at her in confusion. “So we’re trying to separate two different problems—one, which is this nasty shooting and murder issue, and …” She glanced at Jackson, and he just stared at her steadily. She looked at James. “And a man who keeps calling me at different times of the day and night and isn’t very nice in what he says.”

  Instantly the color drained from James’s face. He stared at her and then at the two men. At that moment Kanen opened his laptop to the page he had ready and turned his laptop so James could see the list of calls he’d made to her phone.

  James sagged back against the chair and reached up, running his fingers through his hair. “Shit.”

  “So you can see why we might be here,” Jackson said. “I have to know for sure if you’re connected with the murder and putting several of our men in the hospital.” His voice was hard. “And I want to know why the hell you’re terrorizing Deli.”

  James just stared at Jackson but didn’t say a word.

  “James, was that you?” Deli asked. “I went through all the possibilities.” She kept her voice in a low tone. “I was thinking maybe somebody else had used your phone. But these guys seem to think it was you. I really need to know the truth. I’ve got enough going on in my life that I need to at least solve this.”

  He looked at the laptop facing him but appeared unable to speak.

  And she knew. Her heart sank. She glanced at Jackson, and he nodded.

  Jackson looked at James and said, “So now that we know it was you …”

  Instead of answering, James bolted out of his chair, raced out the apartment door and out of the building. The three of them sat in his apartment and stared after him.

  Kanen said, “Damn. I hate when that happens.”

  Deli looked at him in surprise. “When what happens?”

  “When a suspect does something I didn’t count on.” He stood slowly. “It’s not like he can run anywhere,” he said. “We know who he is and where he lives. The rest is just details.” He turned to look at them. “I suggest you contact the military police, get them to handle this, and also, contact James again in the morning. I don’t know how far he’ll run or for how long, but I highly doubt he’ll return anytime soon.”

  Chapter 9

  The next morning Deli woke bright and cheerful. Just knowing it had been James who had been calling her … Jackson was right, it was a huge relief. To think she’d been worrying about all manner of things when it was a harmless coworker playing mind games with her. She understood James’s panic, but he had brought it on himself. That had nothing to do with her. And it was really karma if he was panicked. For he’d caused her lots of worry too. What she really needed to do was figure out if that was related to her intruder and the bugs. Somehow she thought not.

  But James did have the same access she had on base. He might have friends, somebody in the supply department. She didn’t know.

  She hopped out of bed, had a quick shower, walked into the kitchen and found Jackson already up with a pot of coffee started. She smiled at him. “Nice house guest. You help around the place.”

  He nodded. “I aim to please.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and, in imitation of Groucho Marx’s voice, he said, “You could try my other skills too, you know?”

  She chuckled, not for an instant taking him seriously. “Not likely,” she said. “I know all about Mason’s group. No way I’m getting involved with any one of you.”

  His lips quirked. “I have to admit Mason’s reputation is pretty impressive. I’m not sure everybody thinks it’s a bad thing though.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, “but that doesn’t make it a good thing either. At least not in my book.”

  “You don’t want a relationship?” he asked curiously.

  She tilted her head, studying his face, looking for any sign of disappointment or some emotion attached to that question, but all she got was a bland, flat tone of voice. That in itself was a giveaway. She smiled at him. “I haven’t been looking, but, if I trip over someone who makes me forget where I am and what I’m doing, so I only want to be with him, then maybe.”

  “Wow, that’s an interesting way to look at it,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve ever considered a partnership to be like that.”

  “I’m not sure it always is,” she said, “but I want a partnership to be more than what I currently have all by myself. I don’t want it to take away anything I have. We need to be as good as or better together than what we have individually.”

  He nodded. “Agreed there. Just hadn’t expected somebody to want to be transported to another world just by being in a person’s presence,” he said teasingly.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m hardly a schoolgirl looking for her next crush.” She laughed and opened the fridge, looking inside. “Still didn’t go grocery shopping.”

  “No, but you do have enough to make pancakes, if you’re up for that,” he said.

  She frowned over the top of the fridge door. “You’re asking me to make you pancakes?” she asked suspiciously. “You haven’t tried my pancakes.”

  He was at her side in an instant. “Actually I was asking if you’d let me make pancakes,” he said eagerly. “I love to cook. We already went over that part. Remember?”

  She nodded and made a waving motion with her hand. “Be my guest.”

  He headed for the cupboards where she had bowls and pulled out flour and the last of the eggs.

  She watched in amazement as he very quickly, and with no recipe, had a bowl of batter. “You have made these a few times,” she said. “I wish I liked to cook more.”

  “I think being alone tends to diminish our enjoyment of stuff like that. I mean, really, it’s hard to make pancakes for one person. You make one pancake. That’s a letdown.”

  “On the other hand,” she said, “it’s fast.”

  He nodded “That it is.”

  As she watched, he had a frying pan heating up and soon flipped golden pancake circles onto their uncooked side. When she realized she hadn’t done anything to help, she set the table, refilled their coffee and brought out butter, jam, and honey for the pancakes. Then she turned and said, “I don’t have maple syrup.”

  He nodded. “I know. I saw that. But pancakes with jam and honey are great too.”

  Within minutes they both sat down to a stack of pancakes each. Another stack was on a plate in the middle of the table. She looked at it and said, “I hope those are for you.”

  “I hope they are too.” He flashed her a wide grin and took a large bite. He sat there for a moment with his head cocked to the side as he chewed, then gave a decisive nod. “They’re good.” And he cut into the rest of his stack.

  She was a whole lot more cautious with her bites. But he was right; they were good. Then she realized that was such a mild word. “They’re delicious,” she muttered around a mouthful. “It’s been a long time since I had homemade pancakes.”

  “They’re pretty simple to make,” he said.

  She didn’t bother trying to keep up a conversation. She was too ravenous. Maybe it had something to do with their evening visit last night; maybe it was just falling into bed dead tired, but she inhaled the pancakes to the extent that she looked at the stack remaining, wondering if he’d split them.

  He grinned, took the top two off the stack and put them on her plate. “See if you can eat these before you go after the rest,” he said.

  She chuckled. “I’ll eat these and not any more, so you go ahead and finish the rest.”

  He didn’t wait for her to change her mind. He stabbed his fork through the four remaining pancakes and dragge
d them onto his plate.

  When she was done, she sat back and smiled. “Any update on James?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. But we need to go to the MP station and talk to them this morning.”

  “Should have done it last night,” she said.

  “Should have, could have, would have. If he’d stuck around, we wouldn’t have had to,” he said, “unless you want to press charges.”

  “If he lays off now,” she said, “no, I don’t need to. But I really don’t want him taking off and doing this to somebody else.”

  “He’s already taken off,” Jackson said. “What we need to do is make sure he doesn’t do something stupid.”

  As she sipped her coffee, watching him finish the pancakes, she wondered about the stupid men in his world of peers, and then she realized James might feel cornered and could take a step that was seriously stupid. With that in her mind, she pulled her phone toward her and dialed his number.

  “James, answer me,” she whispered.

  She watched as Jackson slowly put down his knife and fork, staring at her in surprise. But the phone in her ear rang and rang. She frowned, turned off the call, looked at the number on the screen and then redialed it.

  “Just on the off chance he might answer me,” she said. “I don’t want to be responsible for him committing suicide.”

  Jackson nodded approvingly as he reached for his coffee cup and took a sip.

  The phone rang again and again. She frowned, stopped the call again and placed the phone on the table beside her. “I don’t feel very good about this,” she said.

  “What do you want to do?”

  She stared at him. “I want to go back to his place.”

  He nodded, straightened up from the table, collected the dirty dishes, rinsed them in the sink and loaded them in the dishwasher. He turned to look at her. “Then let’s go.”

  For a moment she was disoriented, and then she remembered. “It’s Saturday, isn’t it?” She grinned at his nod. “I forgot. I thought I had to go to work today.” As she thought about that, she wondered if it changed the scenario with James. “I wonder if he has a place to run to or to hide or to just get away from it all on the weekends. Because that would make the most sense right now.”

  She grabbed her purse and sweater, and then the two of them walked out to his Jeep. She got in the passenger side and thought about all the things she knew about her coworker. She didn’t know him all that well, but she remembered him talking about going to his mother’s and looking after her place. She told Jackson that, and he nodded.

  “Most of us have places we like to go to, but, if we don’t know where his mother’s place is, that doesn’t help much.”

  She was silent the rest of the way to James’s place.

  When they pulled up to the apartment parking lot and got out, she had a sinking feeling. “I really don’t like this now.”

  Jackson looked at her sharply and reached out a hand, and eagerly she placed hers in his. Then they walked into the apartment building, up the stairs to the second floor. At James’s apartment door, she stopped. A yellow crime-scene tape was spread across his doorway. Her breath caught in the back of her throat, and she could hardly swallow.

  Just then two men stepped out and stared at them. Jackson stepped forward, identified himself and said, “We came here looking for James.”

  “Well, you found him,” the first man said, his arms crossing over his chest. “What’s your business with him?”

  Jackson looked at Deli and explained.

  “And yet, you didn’t call us?” the man said in disbelief.

  “We were going there this morning,” Deli admitted. “But I had this horrible feeling. I’ve called him a couple times, and I decided we should come here first.”

  The men studied her for a long moment. “May I see your phone please?”

  She pulled out her phone, swiped it to the right to open it and showed the MP the history of her calls to James.

  “You must make a full official report. I also need you to verify where you were last night.”

  She stared at the open doorway, her stomach sick. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  The man nodded. “Yes, he is. But he didn’t commit suicide.”

  *

  Jackson walked a step closer, put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her up close. “You’re not responsible. You didn’t do this.”

  She stared up at him wordlessly, tears already forming in the corner of her eyes. “The last we saw of him”—she turned to face the detective—“he raced out of the apartment. Whether ashamed or shocked or he just didn’t know how to react, I don’t know. We left soon afterward.” She motioned at the doorway. “Have you identified him? Could I at least see to make sure it’s my friend?”

  “Friend?” He narrowed his gaze at her. “That’s an interesting relationship you have there.”

  “I worked with him, saw him occasionally. I had no clue he was my phone stalker,” she said. “I could have been friends with him, certainly more than we were, if I’d realized he wanted something more as friends. But I could never have been his girlfriend. I just didn’t feel that way about him.”

  The man walked back inside the apartment, conferred with somebody else and then called out to her to come inside.

  She walked in and gasped. Indeed, it was James. He lay on the living room floor on his back, his face to the ceiling and a bullet hole in his forehead. “Oh, my God.”

  “Can you confirm his identity?”

  She looked at Jackson. They both faced the detective and nodded. “That’s James.”

  She covered her mouth with her hands, turned and walked out in the hall.

  He knew she had to clear her head, get that image out of her mind. Hell, so did he. Although she’d asked to confirm the body, that didn’t make the reality any easier. James might have been playing games that had hurt and terrorized her, but she was all heart inside. She’d not wish for his death.

  Jackson watched her with concern as she paced back and forth in the hallway, faster and faster. Finally he pulled her into his embrace and just hung on. And then she started to cry. He held her close and let her bawl.

  He looked back at the two men. “Can we go to the station later and give you our statements?”

  After handing over his phone number and address, confirming his ID, the police let them leave. Jackson moved Deli along to his Jeep, and, once inside, he sat there for a long moment, wondering what his next move was. And then he knew.

  He pulled out his phone and called Kanen. He studied Deli, who sat in the corner, no longer crying but just staring, lost in her thoughts. When Kanen answered, Jackson said, “James was shot sometime during the night in his own apartment.”

  He heard Kanen suck in a breath and asked, “Did you see him again after last night?”

  “No. I went straight to bed, and I’ve only been up maybe an hour,” Kanen said, yawning. “I wasn’t alone last night myself.”

  “Good,” Jackson said. “It’ll make it easier for the police to believe you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I didn’t, so that’s not a problem,” Kanen said. “But that really tangles things up again, doesn’t it?”

  “It does indeed,” Jackson said, “I was pretty happy with the idea we could at least take the phone calls out of the equation. But for him to be killed just like Chester was …”

  “I know. Are you guys heading back to your place or her place?”

  “I’m taking her to my place,” Jackson said. “We need to get more intel on this James guy.”

  “The bodies are piling up,” Kanen said. “I’ll fill in Mason on this.”

  “Do that.” Jackson hesitated, looked at his watch and said, “We’ll swing by the hospital first. See if we can talk to Max or if Barney has regained consciousness. We’ll be at my house in two hours.”

  “See you there.”

  “Will do.” He pocketed his phone, started up the Jeep and dro
ve toward the hospital.

  As he pulled into the parking lot, he checked out Deli. She looked better now but still upset. “Are you up for this?”

  She nodded and hopped out of the Jeep. “Absolutely. But I really hate to think James was involved in the rest of this.”

  “We don’t know that he was,” Jackson said. “Last night we didn’t think he had anything to do with it. But I have to admit, his murder does change things.”

  Holding hands, they walked through the hospital and took the elevator up to the floor where the two men were staying. The security guard was still outside. That was a good thing. But did these guys have any idea they were potential links to the case?

  Jackson stopped where the officer stood, identified himself and then rapped on the door. When Max called out, “Come in,” Jackson opened the door, grinned and said, “You up for visitors?”

  Max smiled. “I’m glad you could brighten my day. I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m not that badly hurt. Why the hell are they keeping me?” His words came out in a rush, as if hoping somebody would give him answers. And then he caught sight of Deli. He smiled and said, “At least you brought me a pretty visitor.”

  They sat down on nearby chairs, and Jackson brought Max up to date on the death of the original driver and of James.

  “James who? James Carville? I don’t have a clue who that is.” He stared at Jackson and then at Deli, frowning. “How do these pieces fit together?”

  “We’re still working on them.” Jackson looked around at the room. “I presume you’re staying here for security reasons, not for your health.”

  “To the best of my knowledge, I’m very healthy. Well, outside of the fact my shoulder is still healing. But I could be convalescing at home.”

  “And where’s home?” Deli asked.

  “Off base with my wife and two kids. They’re concerned as to why Daddy doesn’t get to come home.” He looked over at Jackson.