Bark M for Murder

by An Anthology

  “How old was your wife when she died?”

  Maddy hated asking this particular question. It always sounded as though there were some magic moment in life, a Rubicon of years, before which it was bad to die and after which it was fine. And since Bud had been seventy-three when he died, she should have just straightened up and gotten used to the idea. Moved on, as people liked to say.

  But she asked the question anyway, just to keep the conversation going.

  “She was thirty-six,” he said.

  “Any children?”

  “None,” he said. “None at all.”

  Maddy found the ease with which Jamil Mahmoud told his lies utterly chilling. At least she had to struggle to keep her stories straight. He seemed to have no such compunction, and he didn’t seem to mind changing the story to suit the audience. Listening to him, Maddy had to give her niece a lot of credit. It sounded as though Shannon had been right as rain in thinking Jamil meant trouble.

  At the strip mall site, the superintendent was nowhere to be found, but Maddy did manage to track down a pair of electricians. After first swearing them to secrecy, she talked them out of a small collection of wire nuts.

  Once again, when she returned to the cab, Jamil hurried to assist her. “People seem to be going to lunch,” she observed. “Since I had a very early breakfast, how about our taking a lunch break as well?”

  “Where would you like to go?” he asked.

  “Fisherman’s Terminal,” she said at once. “My husband and I didn’t go there often, but it was one of Jonathan’s favorites. He loved their clam strips, and so do I.”

  “I’ll be happy to drop you off and wait,” Jamil said.

  “Absolutely not,” Maddy insisted. “I have no intention of eating alone. Please come in with me. I’d enjoy having the company.”

  The restaurant at Fisherman’s Terminal had, indeed, been one of Bud’s favorites right along with the clam strips, but he and Maddy hadn’t gone there often enough to be considered regulars, and there was little danger of running into anyone who knew her.

  And no one did. It was early enough that the slender hostess led Maddy and Jamil to a window-side table. Barely glancing in Maddy’s direction, the young woman’s focus was entirely on Jamil. He was good enough to return the favor with a toothsome grin that was only one step under a leer.

  What are people thinking about us? Maddy wondered as she threaded her way through the noontime diners. They probably think I’m his grandmother.

  A good deal of the city’s fishing fleet had already left for the season. What remained was docked outside. It was a charming scene with the boats bobbing up and down in the foreground while in the background white clouds scudded in a bright blue sky over the equally blue water.

  It was almost this time of year, Maddy remembered, when she and Bud had come here for the last time, although neither of them had known at the time that they wouldn’t be back, at least not together. It had been a clear day in early March, much like this one. She and Bud had gone outside after their lunch and stood in front of the memorial to lost fishermen, where Bud pointed out the names of the ones he had known personally.

  It was almost as though he knew he was going to join them soon, she thought.

  The waitress came with a red plastic mesh basket lined with a napkin and containing Chinook’s trademark cannery bread. Under ordinary circumstances, Maddy would have instantly collected two pieces of the tasty stuff and stowed them in her purse for Aggie and Daphne. Today she resisted that temptation.

  “Something to drink?” the waitress asked.

  “Coffee,” Maddy said. “No cream.”

  Jamil ordered iced tea. When the waitress left, Maddy noticed Jamil was smiling at her. “You were far away,” he said.

  “I was thinking about my husband,” she said.

  He nodded. “I thought so,” he returned. “He must have been a very good man in addition to being a very good businessman. But what will you do with all these properties he has left you? Will you keep them or sell them?”

  Yes, Maddy thought. We haven’t even ordered lunch, but he’s ready to cut to the chase.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “Handling so much property is a big burden to someone my age.”

  “You’re not so old,” he said at once. “You can’t be over fifty. I’ve heard that’s the new forty.”

  A couple of decades short of the mark, Maddy thought. But very smooth.

  “You’re too land,” she said. “Much too kind.”

  The waitress returned just then, bringing their drinks and ready to take their food order. In honor of Bud’s memory, Maddy ordered the clam strips just the way he would have—with extra tartar sauce.

  “If you decide you wish to sell some of them,” Jamil offered, “1 have an uncle who is looking to make some investments here in Seattle. I’m sure he’d give you a good price. A fair price.”

  What happened to the brothers who were so interested in the Internet start-up? Maddy wondered. This guy really is a piece of work!

  His grammar may have been impeccable, but all the while he was lying through his teeth.

  “You don’t think he’d try to cheat a helpless old widow?” Maddy asked.

  Jamil beamed at her. “As I said before, you are not old,” he said. “And I doubt very much that you are helpless. But my uncle is an honorable man. He would not try to cheat you.”

  “There are lots of people who would,” Maddy told him.

  “You must not think such a thing,” Jamil returned. “There are many very good people in the world as well. I learned that when Fatima got sick. People were so kind to both of us, and they were kind to me after she died. You must have found that, too.”

  Maddy sighed, because what he said was true. Most people were good, and they were kind as well.

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose I did.”

  “But you are still very sad.”

  “Does it show?” she asked.

  “Maybe not to someone who has not been there,” he said kindly. “But for one who has, it is obvious. Maybe that is why Allah brought us together—so we could comfort one another in our sorrow.”

  “Perhaps,” Maddy allowed. “Perhaps he did.”

  Throughout the remainder of lunch and their afternoon excursions, Maddy had to stay at the top of her form in order to keep up the pretense. It was hard to remember to call Bud Jonathan. Once or twice she almost stumbled, but each time she managed to pull back from the edge. Finally, at three o’clock and with her briefcase rattling with a growing collection of copper tubing and light sockets and switch cover-plates, she was more than ready to go back to the hotel.

  In the driveway, when she handed Jamil his money, he tried to return some of it. “Our agreement was for a full day’s work,” he objected. “This is too much.”

  “No,” she said. “Please take it. Consider the extra a tip.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

  “Does that mean you’re done for the day, then?”

  Jamil glanced at his watch. Maddy had never seen a Rolex, but she wondered if she wasn’t seeing one now.

  “I have a few more hours before I need to drop my cab off at the base down in Columbia City,” he answered. “Enough time for another fare to the airport and back.”

  “And if I changed my mind and stayed over another night,” Maddy said. “Would you be available to help me do some shopping tomorrow?”

  “But of course,” he said. “It would be my pleasure.”

  “Same time, then,” Maddy said. “Or perhaps you’d like to come a half hour earlier and join me for breakfast. I do hate eating alone.”

  Once inside the hotel, Maddy hurried up to her room, where she found everything in good order. Aggie and Daphne were overjoyed to see her. After greeting the dogs, Maddy went straight to the computer and logged on. A few minutes later, dressed in a jogging suit, she called for her car. Then, with the dogs along for company and with the
street address of the London Cabbie Company and driving directions firmly in hand, she hurried back down to the hotel’s drive-up entrance.

  A few minutes later she was parked across the street from the London Cabbie Company’s headquarters on S. Graham Street just north of Boeing Field. Usually she left the CRV’s back windows open so Ag and Daph could stick their noses out. This time she left them shut. Reaching under the driver’s seat, she pulled out the wide-brimmed Tilley hat she kept there for those rare occasions when the sun came out and nearly blinded her. Now she mashed it onto her head, hoping that it would help render her unrecognizable in case Jamil glanced in her direction when he arrived to turn in his cab at the close of his shift.

  As the night-shift drivers began arriving, Maddy was surprised at how closely they resembled one another. The same held true for the day-shift drivers who drove into the company’s parking lot at about the same time in order to drop off their cabs and switch to their private vehicles. Caught up in watching the drivers come and go, she almost missed Jamil when he sauntered out through the front office and headed for a fiery red Pontiac Grand Am parked a few cars in front of her.

  Maddy kept her face averted as he crossed the street, opened the car door, and got in. She waited until he was a good two blocks in front of her before she pulled out to follow.

  “Well, puppies,” Maddy said aloud, as she followed the Grand Am toward 1-5. “If this doesn’t turn me into a latter-day Miss Marple, I don’t know what will.”

  At first Maddy worried that Jamil would drive onto 1-5 and she’d lose him in rush-hour traffic. Instead, he went up and over the freeway and then continued on until he turned left on Beacon Avenue. Maddy knew that she was venturing into the Rainier Valley, a part of Seattle that wasn’t familiar to her but one where she suspected little old white widow ladies might not be entirely safe. She pulled her Glock-bearing purse close to her side and kept it there.

  “Where do you think he’s going, Ag?” she asked.

  By this time Aggie had assumed her accustomed position in the vehicle and was standing in the backseat on the driver’s far side, where she could pant in Maddy’s ear and watch on-coming traffic at the same time.

  “And what are we going to do when we get there?” Maddy added.

  Aggie, of course, said nothing.

  As the sun went down, Maddy reached to turn on her headlights. When she looked back up, she noticed that a vehicle had come up behind her with its lights on bright. Under most circumstances, she would have pulled over to let the driver pass, but if she did that, she was afraid she’d lose track of the Grand Am, which, by now, seemed to be slowing. A blue-and-white road sign appeared outside her window, announcing a place called Jefferson Park.

  Just then the Grand Am’s right turn signal came on. As Jamil slowed to make his turn, Maddy made as if to go past him, but suddenly the car behind her pulled into the left lane beside her then turned in front of her, cutting her off. Her only choice was to turn into the parking lot behind the Grand Am, which had already come to a complete stop. Cornered, she had no choice but to slam on her brakes and stop inches from Jamil’s rear bumper. When the CRV came to rest, it was next to a concrete Jersey barrier, and trapped by the other two vehicles. Beyond the barrier, a tree- and grass-lined cliff fell away from the parking lot.

  “What are you, crazy?” she yelled at no one in particular, but by then Jamil was already out of his vehicle and approaching the driver’s side of her CRV with what looked like a tire iron clutched in one hand.

  Maddy reached frantically for her purse, but her sudden-braking turn had sent it flying off the edge of the seat. It now rested on the floorboard, far out of reach next to the passenger-side door.

  “Open the door,” Jamil commanded menacingly, brandishing the tire iron. His face was distorted by an angry scowl, and Maddy noted there was no longer anything remotely handsome about him. “Open it,” he ordered again, “before I smash this window to pieces.”

  Hearing the obvious threat in his voice, Aggie and Daphne went nuts, growling and barking. But if he carried through on his intention of smashing the window, there would be glass all over. Maddy knew she would be cut to pieces; so would the dogs.

  “If I open the door, the dogs might hurt you,” she said, taking a deep breath and rolling her window down a crack instead. “What do you want?”

  Jamil looked at Aggie. Her teeth were still bared. The low growl coming from her throat was anything but friendly. He took a cautious step back from the car door and seemed to reconsider his threat of breaking the window.

  “I want to know who you are!” he demanded. “What do you want? I’ve checked you out. There’s nobody named Margaret or Jonathan Anderson living in Olympia. And all those places we went to today belong to someone named Rex Watkins. So who are you, and what do you think you’re doing? What are you, a cop? A private detective?”

  Gray Panthers aside, Maddy knew full well she was too old to be a cop.

  “A private detective,” she said.

  “Who are you working for?”

  “I’m not going to tell you,” she answered. “Client privilege.” Claiming client privilege was totally bogus, of course, but then so was Jamil Mahmoud.

  In her rearview mirror, Maddy caught sight of a passing car, but it didn’t hesitate at the sight of three vehicles, headlights ablaze, sitting just inside the edge of the parking lot.

  “Get out,” Jamil ordered. “Leave the dogs inside and get out.”

  Seeing the implacable look on Jamil’s face, Maddy knew if she did what he ordered she was as good as dead. Jamil and his friend had no intention of allowing her to walk away from this confrontation. And, since there was no one else there to save her, Maddy needed to save herself. “All right,” Maddy agreed shakily, and that was no pretense. “Just let me get my purse.” Loosening her seat belt, Maddy bent over to retrieve her fallen purse. With trembling fingers she extracted her Glock and came up firing. Her hands shook so badly that there was no hope of aiming, but Jamil was close enough to the door of the CRV that taking aim really wasn’t necessary. A look of utter astonishment passed across his face as a barrage of bullets crashed through the window. A shower of glass fragments and at least one bullet slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. He screamed as he fell. By the time Maddy turned her aim on Jamil’s compatriot, the man from the second car was already running for his life. He leaped into his vehicle, slammed it into reverse, and took off.

  In the fading light, Maddy saw it was a dark-colored sedan, but it was impossible for her to tell if it was blue or green or black. She noticed the Toyota insignia and a part of the Washington license plate, SLU, but that was all. When she looked back to check on Jamil, he was crawling toward the tire iron that had fallen from his hand and rolled away from where he had landed.

  “Don’t move, and don’t you touch that thing,” Maddy ordered through her shattered window. “If you don’t think I’ll shoot you again, try me.”

  Jamil took her at her word and lay still. Holding the Glock in her right hand, Maddy used her left one to wrestle her cell phone out of her purse. It wasn’t easy to dial 9-1-1 with her left hand, but she managed.

  “Seattle PD,” a voice responded. “What are you reporting?”

  “I’ve just shot someone,” Maddy said. “He and an accomplice were trying to carjack my CRV. I shot one of them. He’s still here. The other one took off.”

  “Does the victim need an ambulance?”

  “Looks like it to me, but I’m sure not going to get out of my car to check on him.”

  “What is your location? You’re reporting this on a cell phone?”

  “I don’t know where I am,” Maddy answered. “Not exactly. Somewhere in south Seattle near a park—Jackson, I think. Off Beacon Avenue South. And what happened to that advanced 9-1-1 thing taxpayers paid for? I thought you could locate cell phones.”

  “We have located you, ma’am,” the emergency dispatcher replied. “I have officers and an ambul
ance on the way. Just stay in your vehicle until they arrive. Are you hurt?”

  “No. I’m fine and so are my dogs, but my car window has bullet holes in it.”

  Maddy knew this wasn’t a good thing. The insurance company had been gracious enough about paying the claim for her house fire, but they might put up a fuss about her having a shoot-out from inside her own vehicle.

  Jamil was wiggling again, edging closer to the tire iron. “I said don’t move!” she ordered.

  “Is he armed?” the dispatcher asked. “Are you in danger?”