Women on the Case

by Sara Paretsky

  “That’s—”

  “Absurd? I don’t think so. But what I do think is you found Chloe’s notes. You lured that poor, innocent girl to a meeting—easy enough since she didn’t suspect you knew that Anthony had told her about the scheme—killed her and dumped her body in that building on Forty-seventh Street so the gangs would be blamed.

  “Now if my colleague here checks you, I bet he’ll find the piece you used to kill Chloe and that you were going to use on Anthony.”

  A smiling Meyers stepped up to Trenton and patted him. Took a semiautomatic from his pants at the middle of his back.

  Trenton curled his lips.

  “He would have gotten you earlier, Anthony, but you’ve been hiding out because you thought the Vice killed Chloe and were after you too.”

  Anthony’s eyes got dangerously big. “You killed Chloe?”

  He stared at Trenton. A vein throbbed in his skinny neck.

  “She was my lady, man,” he said in a voice that was too calm. He lifted his gun.

  “Anthony, don’t,” Ariel pleaded.

  “I loved Chloe. I was leaving the Disciples for her.”

  Anthony moved the gun closer to Trenton’s face. “You killed my lady.”

  “She wouldn’t want you to go out that way,” Ariel said.

  “Don’t matter what way I go out.” His voice was shaking. “He killed Chloe!”

  “And we’ve got him now. He’s going to pay for it.”

  Anthony put the gun almost at Trenton’s cheek. The professor’s expression was smug, as if he dared Anthony to fire.

  After what seemed like a year, Anthony lowered the gun. Ariel saw his eyes were shiny with tears.

  “Told you fooling with niggers be nothing but trouble,” Riley piped.

  Anthony’s friend whacked Riley on the head with his big bare fist. The county sheriff’s police walked in as he hit the floor.

  Mrs. Love was waiting at the front desk. This time she had a smile on her face, and it was saucy.

  “I just wanted to thank you again for finding my baby’s murderer.”

  “There’s no need,” Ariel said. “I was only doing what they pay me to do.” She didn’t add that it was worth the dressing-down she’d received from Sergeant Mancuzek for working Donnelly’s case. Donnelly had been royally pissed and, of course, had run whining to Mancuzek claiming she had stolen his collar.

  “Well, you sure showed him. Showed him he couldn’t get away with killing people. Let him think about that in jail.”

  Ariel grinned. “Yes, let that be the last lesson he teaches.”

  In 1981, LINDA BARNES wrote her first mystery novel featuring Michael Spraggue. After three more Spraggue mysteries, Barnes introduced Carlotta Cariyle in 1985 in the award-winning story “Lucky Penny.” Since then, Cariyle has appeared in six novels, the latest being Hardware, published in 1995. Barnes has won the Anthony and American Mystery awards, and has been nominated for the Edgar and Shamus awards. Born in Detroit, she currently lives near Boston with her husband and six-year-old son.

  Miss Gibson

  Linda Barnes

  I hate to travel except by car or cab. Even then I like to call the shots, do the driving. If you see me on board an airplane, someone else is surely footing the bill. If you find me flying first class—United #707 to Denver, connecting first class to United #919 to Portland, Oregon—you can be absolutely certain that the lady paying the freight is Dee Willis.

  You remember Dee, the pop/blues singer who snatched seven Grammys after twenty years of hard-luck bar gigs. The hot new songbird with—can it be? is it possible?—a shred of dignity, a smidgen of integrity. Stubborn as they come, Dee couldn’t be bothered following trends. She just kept on doing what she always did. Never dumbed down her act for an audience. The fans had to catch up to her.

  Hell, even I have to admit it: Dee’s got more than a few remnants of tattered integrity. She supports good causes, sings her heart out at benefits for sick musicians and AIDS-infected kids. I tend to choke on her acts of kindness because I’ve been jealous of Dee as long as I can remember: first and always for her sweet soaring soprano; second, because some time ago she ran off with a Cajun bass player, my then husband, Cal Therieux.

  No surprise that her hastily scrawled plea hadn’t been enough to make me abandon my Cambridge, Mass., digs. Neither was her promise of primo plane and concert tickets. Only a carefully negotiated fee had me peering nervously from the Boeing 737’s pitiful excuse for a window.

  Dee owns one item I’d rather have than anything you can name, and I certainly do not speak of my ex-husband, who’s no longer a member of Dee’s band and was never her “possession” to give or to take. Twenty-five years ago, Dee studied at the feet of the Reverend Gary Davis, the blind bluesman who wrote holy spirituals and, when the spirit moved him, played such hymns to human weakness as “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down.” The Reverend was so taken with Dee that he willed her Miss Gibson, his favorite guitar. Dee hardly plays Miss Gibson anymore, what with her stock of custom-made electrics and glittering Stratocasters. I’d treat Miss Gibson right, give her a better home.

  The vision of the Reverend Davis’s Gibson keeping company with my old National Steel guitar had me up above the clouds, grasping the armrests, trying to fly the plane via mind control.

  Ridiculous. I took six deep breaths, accepted the futility of telekinesis, and lapsed into fitful sleep.

  I switched planes at Denver’s International Airport, wandering into a nearby ladies’ room, where I splashed my face with cold water, shook out my red hair, glared at the mirror, and hoped the lighting was bad. A mother of twins maintained serene calm while one offspring vomited and the other wailed.

  While we were waiting to take off for Portland, a guy across the aisle asked the flight attendant for a Bailey’s-on-the-rocks. I hadn’t indulged during the Boston-to-Denver leg in spite of the free flow of liquor, but Bailey’s sounded like such a good idea I decided to join the party.

  Bailey’s was my dad’s home tipple of choice. At bars, it was a shot and a beer, like the other Irish cops. Even after my folks split, Mom kept a bottle for him. She drank schnapps. Peppermint. Disgusting.

  Many Bailey’s later, the jolt of the plane’s wheels smacking the Portland landing strip made me grind my teeth. I didn’t relax my jaw till the damn thing slowed. Out of control, that’s how airplanes make me feel.

  Dee Willis always had style, now she’s got the cash to go with it: a guy in full livery wailed at the gate with CARLYLE printed neatly on a signboard. Broad-shouldered and burly, he resisted conversational gambits and stood at attention until the luggage carousel disgorged my bag. Hefting it, he gawked at its pathetic lightness, staring me down with narrowed eyes, as if he wanted to ask why I couldn’t have carried my stuff on board and saved us the twenty-minute wait.

  I saw no reason to explain that I needed to check my luggage because it contained a Smith … Wesson 4053, two magazines, and sufficient ammunition to turn an aircraft fuselage into Swiss cheese. I’m no U.S. marshal, just a private investigator; I can’t carry on planes. To carry at all, I’d have to check in with the Portland cops, explain my mission, and get a temporary license.

  I’d told Dee to hire somebody local. Seems like I’ve been giving Dee good advice all my life and she never takes one word to heart.

  “Stalker,” she’d said in her increasingly urgent phone calls. At every concert in every city, always seated in the same section, wearing colorful western gear, almost like he wanted her to notice him, wanted to stand out in the crowd. Always too damn close.

  Ron, Dee’s longtime lead guitar, and some of the other guys in the band had braced the man one night. He hadn’t seemed fazed, hadn’t backed off an inch. Showed up at the next performance bold as brass—and now he, or somebody, was sending wilted flowers, sending nasty letters. She’d FedExed a sample, of a semilyrical nature:

  Our lives are linked with chains of steel,

  Chains of steel, my Lady B
lue.

  Saw a chainsaw in a hardware store.

  Thought of you, babe. Thought of you.

  Block print in a Neanderthal hand. Cheap ballpoint ink. Unsigned. Hardly Dee’s favorite fan mail. And no proof that the “stalker” had sent it.

  Dee was set for three shows in Portland due to a venue screw-up. She’d been scheduled to play one date in a major arena; her manager had discovered the booking error after the tickets went SRO. Not wanting to disappoint the legions who’d finally made her a star, she’d rented a smaller hall. Intimate. Close to the audience. Close to the stalker. She was scared.

  Bodyguard, I’d advised.

  You, she’d insisted. We’d discussed terms, including Miss Gibson. Then the tickets came. For the planes and all three shows.

  Great seats.

  “I thought it didn’t snow in Portland,” I muttered as the chauffeur and I struggled through gusts of icy wind layered with flakes as soft and wet as soapsuds.

  “First blizzard since ’89,” he grumbled. “Just for you.”

  “You drive in snow much?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said, brushing ineffectually at the windshield with a gloved hand.

  In the terminal I’d noticed folks standing around, eyes glued to picture windows, staring with wide-eyed wonder at a paltry six inches Bostonians would have shrugged off with a laugh. I felt a jolt of pity for these two-season folk—rainy and dry—wished I had a shovel to offer the driver instead of a handgun.

  I blinked bleary eyes, figured that since the flight had landed after one in the morning, it was now past 4:00 a.m. Boston time. The little sleep I’d enjoyed on the Denver leg had been more than countered by the Bailey’s binge. I could barely stand upright in the slashing wind.

  I was grateful when the chauffeur opened the passenger-side back door, understanding when he didn’t wait politely to close the door behind me. I heard the lid of the trunk open, felt a brief stab of regret. Separated from my luggage again.

  I drive a cab part-time when I can’t make enough PI money to crack my monthly nut. My eye went automatically to the front visor. No photo, no license. Not to worry, I told myself. It’s not a cab; it’s a limo. No regulations, most cities.

  I halted, one foot poised on the shag carpet. The front door locks were shaped like tiny letter T’s. The rear locks were straight, smooth, and short, like the filed-off jobs in the backseats of patrol cars.

  I engineered a quick reverse, backing into a pile of slush that soaked through my thin boots. “Have a scraper in the trunk?” I asked as casually as I could manage, trying to come up beside the chauffeur.

  He gave way. “Jeez, I dunno. You wanna look?”

  The leather soles of my boots slipped on the slick stuff coating the pavement. I had to concentrate on my footing. No excuse, just the truth. When the “chauffeur” tackled me high, midback, he had no trouble flipping me head over heels. I barely had the presence of mind to tuck my head to my chin. If I hadn’t, I might have snapped my neck as the huge trunk lid came slamming down.

  Thank God and the Ford Motor Company for the depth of Lincoln Town Car trunks. Ditto for the plush carpeting. My head thunked against my soft-sided duffel.

  Dammit. Yes, I was jetlagged, half drunk, in a strange city at a beastly hour, but Dee had described her “stalker”: heavyset, big as a small refrigerator, built on the same square lines as my “chauffeur.” I cursed and cursed again. Uni-forms’ll get you every time; you trust a guy in livery, a guy parading your name on a signboard.

  The engine revved far too quickly for my assailant to have cleared the windows properly. As we fishtailed into motion I tested the limits of my confinement, reaching out with my right arm, then my left, pushing the trunk lid with both arms, then both feet, in case the latch had failed to catch. No such luck.

  Seven plus two, I thought. Seven plus two.

  I drive an old Toyota, but as a car freak in good standing, I pore over Consumer Reports New Car Yearbooks at newsstands or libraries, anyplace I don’t have to fork over cash. Seven plus two is the way CR indicates a huge trunk, one with room for seven pullman cases and two weekenders. I spent a while pondering the word “pullman,” which reeked of ancient railroad lore, and rubbing my head. Cubic feet, as in amount of available air, would have been a better measurement considering my predicament. Dual exhausts on a new Town Car. I hoped they were working well, discharging their fumes behind the car, not underneath it.

  Lying on my back, I approximated the position of a helpless turtle. My duffel bag, probably less than “weekender” size, was next to my head. My knees grazed the top of the trunk. The darkness was total, absolute. We careened around a corner and I found myself unwillingly shifted to an even less comfortable angle.

  Did the Lincoln Town Car possess a trunk pass-through to the backseat? I didn’t think so. Most of those are found in cars with less trunk capacity. I tried a crab-crawl deeper into the trunk, felt around for some doodad that might lead to the passenger compartment. Lots of effort; no result. Except sweat.

  It was going to have to be the duffel bag, maneuvering it, opening it, locating the 40 in its silica-lined case, finding a magazine, loading it. Not shooting off a round by mistake. I imagined one ricocheting through the trunk till it found a soft, cozy home in my body. Imagined igniting the gas tank. Even if the slug miraculously missed me and any flammable fluids, I’d wind up stone-deaf from the enclosed explosion.

  We turned a corner too fast. I tried to anchor myself, but I slid to the right, away from my bag.

  The “stalker” had an ally in Dee’s camp. Deeply embedded there. Dee’s no loudmouth, no idle gossiper. She doesn’t share her plans with roadies or groupies. Would she have told anyone I was arriving? Left a note by the telephone? Had someone overheard her call a travel agent? Had she relegated the duty to some gofer who’d been suborned by the stalker?

  Who’d want to stop Dee? Scare Dee off the circuit?

  She’d never harbored a female backup vocalist, didn’t tour with a regular opening act. Nobody in her entourage would cherish delusions of replacing Dee Willis.

  Her recording company might hire a goon to get her offstage and into the studio. Dee doesn’t cut many albums; she likes the rush of live performance. Says she’s the leader of a road band and proud of it. Her last two CDs went platinum practically overnight. More studio recordings might make a mint for some MCA/America exec.

  Would an entertainment giant hire a thug to frighten one of their stars? Not much I’d put past those L.A. suits.

  I wriggled closer to my suitcase.

  First step: simple. Unlock the duffel. Keys in my back pocket; I’m not a handbag toter. For the first time since high school I found myself wishing I were less than six feet one. I rolled onto my side, slid an arm behind me, and inched the key out. Might sound easy. Try it in the dark, in a trunk, in a lurching, skidding vehicle.

  My fingers found the lock, unbuckled and unzipped the bag from memory and touch, located the gun case. I placed it between my shaky knees. Then it was a race against time, my fingers steadily more numb, more unwieldy as they grew icy. It was not a job for gloved hands.

  I couldn’t find a magazine. Something sharp jabbed my hand. What? A nail scissor protruding from my plastic makeup sack? Blood welled from the cut and I made sure to smear some on the carpet. Evidence. Just in case. A snake-like garment grabbed my wrist. Panty hose. There. My hand closed on a rectangle of metal. The box of shells was at the bottom of the case.

  Which way to face when he opened the trunk? Should I try for a full rotation, a rollover to get my elbows on the floor? The car stopped. Red light? Traffic jam? I heard a door open, slam. What if he was stopping for backup? What if he abandoned the car? “Woman frozen in freak Portland blizzard.” Maybe he’d come back in a week, dump my body in a river.

  I clicked the magazine home.

  I forced myself to breathe. In and out. Slowly, regularly. I couldn’t hear footsteps.

  The trunk opened so fast
I only caught a glimpse of a hand holding an upraised crowbar before the flashlight blinded me. The beam gave me a target to sight on. My neck ached from holding my head upright. I kept my teeth from chattering as I yelled, “Hold it there. Drop the iron.”

  Never pull your piece unless you intend to shoot. Never shoot unless you mean to kill. That’s what they taught me at the police academy. I’d have shot the chauffeur without a qualm, just for being a lousy goddamn driver, but I wanted answers.

  If he’d flicked off the light and made a sudden move, he might have gotten me. My finger tightened against the trigger. If the light died I’d fire.

  It didn’t. It wavered and I heard a soft thud, like a tire iron landing in snow.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice a good two notes higher than before. “Relax. Take it easy. I look mean, but I’m not.”

  “I don’t look mean, but I am,” I said menacingly, wondering how the hell I was going to get out of the trunk without at least wounding the jerk, giving him something to hold his attention while I clambered over the rear bumper.

  “You got the safety catch on?” he asked nervously.

  “Guess,” I said. “Take five steps back and lie down in the snow.”

  “Lie down?”

  “Faceup. Make me a snow angel, and I mean a good one.”

  “A snow angel?” he echoed.

  “It’s like doing jumping jacks lying down,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve got a gun and you don’t, moron.”

  “Name’s Clay,” he muttered.

  “Well, Clay. I want to hear you flap those arms and legs. I want to hear your hands clap over your head, okay? Real loud and regular. If I even suspect you’re going for the tire iron, not to mention anything else, you’re going to be missing a kneecap.”

  I didn’t move till I heard a snort, followed by the scuffing of snow, and rhythmic clapping. Then I stretched my legs over the edge of the trunk, and lifted myself to a semi-sitting position using a combo of abdominals and my left arm.