He looked up at me. “I assaulted a woman when I was eighteen. I’m ashamed of my past, but I did my time. When I got my second chance, I didn’t want to screw it up. Got a job, got married, and got a family now. I’ve been on the straight and narrow since then and retirement with a pension is something I never dreamed would happen to me. But somebody found out. Somebody knew I lied about my past when I applied for this here job. And that somebody was your friend, Jane Strong.”
TWENTY-NINE
“Delbert, are you saying Jane blackmailed you?” I asked.
“I don’t know what else to call what she did,” Delbert said.
“She confronted you? At work?”
“Not exactly.”
I was starting to have my doubts about the truth versus Delbert’s perception of the truth. Not because I didn’t trust him—although after his admission, I needed a bit more information before I made my determination on that. “Tell me what happened.”
“I had just turned eighteen, and I spent a lot of time on the streets looking for money. Handouts and easy jobs. That’s what we did in my neighborhood.”
I tried to put myself in Delbert’s shoes, but our backgrounds were so disparate that I couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like for an eighteen-year-old black man in Dallas in 1970. “Go on.”
“I did a job for a lady in Oak Cliff and she caught me—” he looked down at his hands and refolded them a few times “—she caught me going through her purse. She said she was calling the police and I got scared. When she turned around, I hit her with a lamp. I got picked up by the police later that same day.”
I shivered. His story wasn’t a pleasant one and painted a very different picture of the jovial security guard. He’d admitting to lying about the incident to get the job at Republic Tower, and I knew he would have had to lie to even be considered.
“What happened with Jane?”
“About a week ago, I got a package at work. Now, I don’t get much mail at work. I get a couple of magazines, you know, ones I don’t want my wife to know about.” He looked up at me, embarrassed. “She doesn’t share my interest in woodworking, and sometimes things get quiet in the lobby. There’s only so many times you can flip through one of those Neiman Marcus catalogs.”
I stifled a smile. Not what I’d been expecting! “Go on,” I said.
“Well, I got a package, and I was curious, so I opened it up. It was a printout of my arrest record and a note that said if I didn’t look the other way, the same files would be sent to my employer. Later that day, I got an email that said the same thing.”
“You say this was from Jane?”
“That’s what it said.”
“But Jane’s the one who ended up needing help.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
This time we were both silent. I considered what might have happened. The killer knew he was going to strike. He threatened Delbert not to get involved but used Jane’s name as misdirection. Delbert would have been torn between helping Jane and not—jeopardizing his future or protecting his past. It explained the look I’d seen on his face when he heard what had happened on the twenty-third floor. By the time Jane was dead, Delbert had no idea he’d been distracted from a murder in progress.
“You didn’t verify my alibi,” I asked. “I left Republic Tower and went to the library to work. You said you’d sign me out, but you didn’t, did you? To the police, it looked like I’d been in the building the whole time.”
“Miz Madison, I sure am sorry. I didn’t know. And then, I was scared, and I kept my mouth shut. I was afraid if they knew I let you come and go without signing in and out, they’d wonder how I got my job in the first place and they’d do some digging and I’d be back out on the streets.”
“What happened to make you tell the truth?”
Delbert looked nervous. “A lady called me yesterday. She said she represented a private security company and was verifying that I received an email from Jane Strong the day before she was murdered. I’m supposed to be security for Republic Tower. If they hired a private company to look into me, that means it’s only a matter of time before they let me go.”
What I knew that Delbert didn’t was that Nasty owned the private security company, and when I’d left her and Tex, they were hard at work tracking down the recipients of any emails that had come from Jane’s computer. Detective Henning claimed that the outcome of those efforts was what led him to my door.
I took another sip of my coffee and considered things from Delbert’s perspective. He’d been living with the knowledge that his employment was based on a lie. And now, weeks away from his retirement, the secure future he thought he’d earned was threatened by someone who knew his secret. On one hand, that kind of threat might lead someone down a murderous path. On the other hand, I already knew the murder victim in this case wasn’t the person sending the emails. Someone knew about Delbert’s past and had played him just like they’d played me.
Delbert had also paid my bail, which did not seem like the sort of thing a murderer would do. Knowing the police had enough on me to get a warrant for my arrest would be what the murderer wanted. Delbert’s actions, sacrificing his secret to save me, was the last thing a guilty person would do.
Effie joined us in the coffee shop. “There’s more, isn’t there?” I asked.
He nodded. “The secret was tearing me up, so I told my wife. She smacked me upside the head. She said, ‘Delbert, you go get that nice lady out of jail or you’ll be spending the rest of your life in the dog house.”
“Does your wife know the truth about you?”
“She does now.” He held my stare. “I’ve been counting on that pension to make retirement easier, but without my wife by my side, it’s just not worth it.”
“You tell your wife I said thank you.”
“I’d rather tell her you said you’ll pay us back.”
“You drive a mean bargain.” I said. “Effie, give the man his money.” And then I gave him the biggest hug I could manage under the circumstances.
Effie dropped Delbert off at Republic Tower and drove to Thelma Johnson’s house. On the way, she caught me up on the status of the apartment complex. “I got your designs from the receptionist at DIDI, just like you suggested. She wasn’t all that happy about having to make a copy, but I bought her donuts and coffee from Paxton’s coffeeshop and she softened up a bit.”
“Did she say anything? About the competition, or the entries, or the judges?”
“Apparently their computers were hacked just like everybody else. You were smart to drop your entry off in person. She said four of the application files were corrupted and they had to bend the rules to allow them entry.”
“Did she mention names?”
“No, but that Sterling Webster showed up while I was waiting. He said it was cute how you assembled your entry like a high school paper.”
“What was he doing there?”
“He had an appointment with the head of the DIDI.”
“Gerry Rose?”
“Yes. The two of them went to a conference room while the receptionist made the copies.”
“That’s fine. Let him think he’s going to breeze into the prize. I like being the underdog.”
“You’re funny, Boss. Nobody would know you have a competitive streak by looking at you.”
I glanced down at the Olympic track suit I’d worn for the past thirty odd hours. “Today they would.”
Effie parked behind my Alfa Romeo. Neither Tex nor Nasty were at my house, but Rocky was. I thanked Effie for the seventy-third time and let her play with Rocky while I went upstairs for a shower and change. More than just about anything I wanted in life was to climb into bed and sleep. Two things exceeded that in priority: finding Jane’s killer and winning the VIP competition. After everything that had happened this week, I wasn’t going to say I’d sl
eep when I was dead, but I’d certainly sleep well when this current set of circumstances were behind me.
After a night in a jail cell, I was desperate to reclaim my sense of self. I fluffed up my blonde hair, applied tinted moisturizer, powder over my freckles, and a sheer tomato glaze over my lips. I dressed in a light blue and ivory tweed dress with three quarter sleeves, nude hose, and the white Courrèges boots I wore the day Jane had been killed. I stuffed an oversized gray sweatshirt into a bag and pulled on a tall blue cone hat. It had oversized daisy petals on the side fashioned out of polka dotted fabric. The back of the hat flipped up above my ponytail. Inside the hat were two tags: one indicating the designer, English milliner James Wedge, and the other indicating the original owner, Jan Randall. I hadn’t known enough then to ask her family members to tell me about Jan’s life, so she remained a mystery woman with a fabulous collection of wigs and hats and footwear. (Jan was the original owner of the white Courrèges boots too). I pulled on a pale blue wool cape that buttoned by my neck and met Effie downstairs.
“Wow, Boss, you look pretty good, all things considered.”
“Thanks. That’s exactly the response I wanted.”
She looked confused. “Is that smart? Wearing a good outfit to work on a renovation?”
“It’s not smart at all. Let’s head toward the apartment building and I’ll tell you the plan.”
On the short drive to Gaston Avenue, I brought Effie into my current list of problems and how I intended to solve them.
“Everything started the morning Jane sent me that email, right? I went straight to Republic Tower to confront her.”
“Yeah, that was a bad idea,” the usually more tactful college grad said. “If you just got mad at her like a normal person, you’d never be involved in this.”
I’d had a fair amount of time to think things over while in a jail cell, and I’d reached the same conclusion. “Jane sent that email for one reason: to get me to stay away from her. She knew something was going to happen. Severing ties from me was an act of self-preservation.”
“You think?” Effie asked. The light ahead of us turned yellow and she floored the pedal instead of slowing down. If I weren’t so eager to get to work, I might have questioned her driving.
“I don’t just think, I know. It’s what I would have done.”
“So why didn’t you do what she wanted and leave her alone?”
“That’s the irony. I would have wanted her to leave me alone, but I couldn’t do that for her. On one hand, it makes me a hypocrite.”
“And on the other?”
“It means I’m in a very good position to figure this out. This is about Jane. It’s about someone from her life. I’ve only been in her life for six months, and I met her after her divorce.”
“That makes you valuable how?”
“I don’t know how to explain this part, but there’s something about that time after a serious relationship ends that’s euphoric. It’s a time of self-discovery and empowerment. That’s where Jane was when I met her. She left her job, cashed out her 401K to start Posh Pit, and set out to make a name for herself. Jane wasn’t at all interested in fading into the woodwork and quietly going away. She wanted to be her own person.”
“But why would someone go after her assistant?”
“If the killer wanted Vonda dead, she would be.”
Effie’s expression changed. Dimples appeared on her cheeks, not because she was smiling, but because she was pressing her lips together. Their natural pigmentation all but disappeared with the pressure. Her eyes were wide, blinking repeatedly like an eyelash was irritating the surface of her contact.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is there news about Vonda?”
Effie nodded. “She never woke up. She died at the hospital last night.”
THIRTY
I hadn’t realized how much I’d clung to the hope that Vonda would survive the attack until Effie told me she was dead. Not because I wanted to know what Vonda knew, but because she was a person who had gotten caught in the crosshairs of Jane’s life. And now, she was gone, and with her passing, so was my last tendril of hope that she could provide a clue. I had only myself to rely on now. I wouldn’t pull anyone else into my nightmare.
The first stage of my plan was simple. Effie drove us to Gaston Avenue and parked out back. I got into my recognizable Alfa Romeo and moved it from the parking lot out back to the sidewalk out front. I wanted to make sure anybody watching knew exactly where I was.
I adjusted my tall, blue cone hat and walked halfway up the sidewalk that led to the front door. It had been awhile since I’d assessed the building’s curb appeal. When I first owned the property, I’d bought it as equal parts investment and residence. None of my tenants knew I was the landlord, and rent checks were dropped off in the box in the lobby and picked up either under cloak of darkness (by me) or by Hudson, who was often on the premises to do minor repairs. But this new incarnation of the building was about more than earning a quiet, steady income. I was forced to acknowledge that the exterior of the property was as important as the interior, and my exterior was sorely lacking.
It struck me that less than an hour ago, anyone could have said the same thing about me. After a night in the temporary holding cell at the Dallas police station, I’d been grungy. Exhaustion marks showed in undereye circles, limp hair, dry skin, and a rumpled outfit. A shower, some makeup, and a change of clothes had transformed me back into the person I was.
I could do the exact same thing for the house: power-wash the white brick exterior, repaint the shutters and trim, and add in decorative breeze block walls to make the entrance more majestic.
The bad news: my night in jail had cost me in both time and money.
The good news: I had everything I needed in storage just waiting for the appropriate project.
I flipped the cover back on my notebook and made a quick list. When I finished, I walked the rest of the way up the sidewalk and inspected the light fixtures that flanked the door. Yep, they’d have to go too. As I bent down to test the moisture level of the empty flower beds under the front windows, someone cleared his throat behind me.
I straightened and whirled around. Kip Bledsoe, in an athletic-cut gray suit that accommodated his football-player build, stood on the landing behind me.
“I saw your car out front and thought I’d check in. You sure didn’t waste any time starting work on the building,” he said.
“I don’t have time to waste.”
He looked confused, and then understanding dawned on his boyish face. His eyebrows relaxed, and he smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Now I get it. It’s okay, Madison. We all do what we have to do for money. Nobody’s going to think any less of you for getting into the house flipping game.”
“I’m not a house flipper!” I exclaimed. And then the more important aspect of Kip’s unannounced visit to the property struck me. I forced my face into a smile to match his. “I’m glad you stopped by. My employee gave me the keys you dropped off, and so far, so good. We have a lot of work to do, but that’s the fun of a project like this, right?”
“Right.”
“You saved me a phone call. I need some additional information on this building for the VIP competition, information that was lost when my computers went down. Could you access it from the MLS database and send it to me?”
“Most people ask about a building’s history before they buy a property.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Yeah, I guess most people wouldn’t have plowed ahead with their own entry after their original partner was murdered.”
I studied Kip. His arms were crossed over his linebacker chest and the fabric of his jacket strained across his biceps. “What do you know about Jane and me working together?”
“Don’t be naïve, Madison. The whole design community knows yo
u and Jane were going to work together on an entry. People talk. Jane’s death shook a lot of us up. But not you. It is a little weird how you submitted your own entry under the wire the day she died.”
To explain my actions would have been defensive. Plus, I couldn’t tell what Kip knew. Was he aware of the rift? Or did he think Jane and I were still on the same team? Where had his knowledge come from, local gossip or first-hand?
“How well did you know Jane?” I asked.
“Better than most.”
“Oh? She never mentioned you.”
His face reddened. “We were…discreet. For obvious reasons.”
It wasn’t what I expected, and the idea that Kip and Jane had been involved in what sounded like more than a professional manner caught me by surprise. “Kip, where were you the day she died?”
“I was outside Republic Tower. She told me she had to talk to Gerry and I gave her a ride, but she was going to call when she was done so I drove in circles around downtown.”
All thoughts of the apartment building faded into the background. “You’re the witness,” I said slowly. “You told the police I was there.”
“I’m sorry, Madison. I had to. I saw you two argue through the glass and when the police started asking questions, I didn’t have another choice.”
The witness had placed me on the twenty-third floor, in the ladies’ room, at the time Jane died. That wasn’t what Kip had seen. If his statement ended with a few loops around the block while Jane and I fought in the lobby, he wouldn’t know about the rest.
But there was one way he could know details about what had happened and inserted me into the timeline. If he’d been there himself.
I needed to find out if Kip’s IP address was on the V-day list I’d found on Jane’s computer. “Back to the MLS listing, do you think you could get me the details on this building?”
He appeared to consider my request. “I guess I owe you one. Our systems are back online, and nothing was lost. I’ll print out the history and drop it off later today.”
LOVER COME HACK Page 18