by Gina LaManna
I knocked again.
Jax's cheek twitched a bit, but he didn't say anything.
When I knocked a third time, he put his hand over mine.
"Let's come back," he said, not removing his hand.
"No. What if she sees it's you, and she's hiding in there?" I pounded again. "We can't let her get away."
"I don't think she's home right now."
"But her car's here." I pointed to a beat-up truck that Anthony used to drive around. It was originally white, but the paint was peeling so badly it looked more like a cow.
"Maybe she went for a walk. It's not like this is the largest town in the universe."
"I think we should go in."
"Believe it or not, I can't just break down anybody's door that I want."
"But you have probable cause."
"Do I?" Jax turned toward me. "One of the prime suspects, who I must admit is being very sneaky herself, just told me that a mysterious will was signed conveniently the day before the victim died. And it left a bunch of money to his wife, who is also a suspect. How do I know who to believe?"
"Jax…come on. You know me! I wouldn't lie…"
"What if your source lied? I don't even know who your source is."
"Father Olaf, you guessed it…"
"I thought you didn't want me to pass that information along, so I forgot about it like you asked."
I looked down, at a loss for words. "What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing. Let's go get you a phone. I have my guys looking into this. If there was a will signed in this town, we'll find out about it. Very soon. Probably by the time we're done getting your phone."
I sighed.
"Don't worry. We've got men watching her on a regular basis anyway."
"Do you have them on all the suspects?" I asked. I stepped back and gasped. "You're watching me, you sneak."
"You asked me to come with, if you'll remember. I don't know what you're talking about."
"You little sneak."
"Listen, you asked me to help you out. I'd be just as happy back in my office."
"Okay, then please feel free to go back to your office. I'm more than happy to take care of this myself." I put my hand on the knob of the front door and twisted hard. I wasn't sure what I was expecting to happen. Mostly I wanted to relieve some anger. But instead, the knob came off right in my hand, and the door swung wide open.
"Whoops," I said, glancing down at the knob now dangling between my fingers.
Jax's features scrunched up in exasperation, as if he didn't want to believe what he was seeing.
"Looks like I've been invited in." I stepped into the sorry excuse for a home, immediately plugging my nose. "Smells like something died in here."
I felt Jax freeze behind me. I hadn't realized he'd been so close to me, but his hand clasped my arm and his muscles tightened on the word died.
"Poor choice of words," I said. "It just smells terrible. But it could be because of that." I pointed to a molding pile of garbage in what used to be the garbage can but now looked more like a compost pile.
"I don't think she's been here recently," Jax said.
"She was at class."
"Have you seen her since?"
I paused, taking in the violently gross kitchen. The tequila bottle and citrus peels were where we'd left them after our first visit. "I don't think she's a great housekeeper. She could just be tolerating this smell."
"Nobody can tolerate this smell."
I nodded. Speaking of, the smell was getting to me. I leaned a hand against the counter. "Okay, you're right. It's making me nauseous."
"Let's do a quick scan of the place. Make sure she didn't OD in her bathtub or something." Jax strode past me without so much as flinching at the smell. Apparently he'd seen some nasty things on the job and had learned to put up with it. Either that or he was born with one of the strongest stomachs I'd ever encountered.
Jax must have noticed my struggle to stand upright. He extended his arm, and I grasped it like an inner tube that'd been tossed to save me in the middle of a particularly stormy ocean. I hung on for dear life, choking back gags as we started through the house.
There was nothing and nobody in the dilapidated bathroom, nothing and nobody in the living room or the hallways. All that was left in the tiny place was the bedroom.
"Ooh," I gasped. "This isn't good." At the sight before us, I turned around and waited out the waves of nausea in the hallway as Jax rubbed my back lightly.
Once I was under control, he took out his phone and placed a call.
"We need some guys over here, stat. Potential murder scene."
Jax did a quick scan of the room after hanging up the phone. He looked back at me. "We've got one hitch. I don't see a body."
Whether or not it was a murder scene, we couldn't be certain until there was a body. What I was certain of was that there had been some sort of struggle based on the amount of blood on the bed, the carpet, and even the wall.
"There's a good amount of blood," Jax said. "Whoever's it is doesn't have a great chance of surviving."
"What is that?" I asked. Jax hadn't let me enter the room any further, mostly so I didn't destroy a potential crime scene if my stomach revolted on me, but I peeked around the doorframe regardless.
One of the pillows was stabbed all the way through with a long, ugly knife. It looked suspiciously like the one wielded by Mrs. Jenkins the night Donna and I had stopped by. Had we barely escaped with our lives that night? The thought turned my stomach. What was I doing putting a mother of five children in danger?
"Our killer has left us a note, it appears," Jax said.
He gingerly leaned across the bed without touching anything and read the note aloud.
"My dear Anthony. When will you leave your wife? My heart is breaking. I can't bear to spend my evenings with you, only to go home alone. I'll give you one week, and then it's over. I'll never stop loving you, but I need to stop torturing myself. With love…"
Jax turned toward me.
"With love from who?" I asked.
"The note is ripped below the name," he said with downturned lips.
"Mrs. Jenkins probably wanted us to work for the name of the victim," I guessed. "If we don't know who it is, we don't even know whose body to look for."
"How do you think she got Anthony's lover to come here, into her home? If it is Anthony's mistress's blood."
"Force?" I shrugged. "Or maybe the girl found out about the will and came here to confront Mrs. Jenkins. Maybe she wanted the money. There's a bunch of reasons."
Jax nodded. "There's nothing more you can do here, Misty. Listen, I have a bunch of guys on the way. Take my car and go get a phone. We can't have you hanging around the crime scene anyway. I'll get a ride back to the station, and you can drive my car to your place. I've got the squad car I can use."
Jax handed over a key.
"That's…thank you," I said. "I'd like to stay though."
"We won't find out anything for a while, and I'll call you when I do. The team won't be happy if you're mucking up the scene when they get here. Speaking of…I think I hear them now. Give your statement and go. I'll have a patrol car follow you to the phone store at least until we find Mrs. Jenkins. If this is a crime of passion like I think it might be, then you're probably out of the woods. But it's better to be safe than sorry. Especially until we find her."
I backed away, horrified, but too intrigued to rip my eyes from the scene. Finally, the smell overwhelmed me, and I headed outside, giving my statement to a friendly cop who thankfully wasn't Alfie.
Once I finished, I took the keys and hopped into Jax's car, cruising away. Jax had mentioned that I should let the cops know when I took off, but I was only going to the phone store. That was a public, safe place. I'd give Jax a call from my new phone and tell him when I was headed home. He'd be proud that I kept him updated and got a new phone. Double score.
On the way to the store though, I had a sudden ping of
guilt. The woman who'd been in love with Anthony—she'd been wrong to sleep with a married man, yes. But did she deserve to be brutally murdered for it?
I took a brief detour. The comic store was supposedly closed today, but I had a gut feeling that the store was never completely closed. Maybe a member would be there to let me in. If I could just locate someone who had a better idea of who this girl was, maybe we could find her body. Her family deserved to know, if nothing else.
I whipped Jax's car into a parking space out front. I wasn't really worried about anyone seeing it. I'd only be inside for a few short seconds. Walking up to the door with a million different knobs, I realized I still wasn't quite sure how to get inside the joint.
First, I tried the same handle that'd caused the door to swing open before. Nothing, except the small electric jolt I'd gotten the first time. But this time, there was no swinging door that accompanied it.
I tried another one that set off a rooster-like sound inside the building, and then the next, which was incredibly slippery and made my hand feel like it'd bathed in olive oil, and the last, which was unpleasantly slimy.
"Come on," I said. "Open sesame."
I kicked the door, and this time it swung open a bit.
Wow, I thought. I was two for two at this whole getting locked doors opened thing today.
But this time, a face awaited me on the other side of the door.
"Merlin?" I asked.
Father Olaf was dressed in his purple cloak once more, looking both resigned and extraordinarily tired. "What is it?"
"I…I need to ask a favor."
"Haven't you already asked enough?"
"Actually, just about," I said. "But there's one more thing…and this time it's not for me."
"What is it then?"
"The girl—I really need to know who she is. The one Anthony liked."
"I told you, nobody knows her name. Not her real name."
"Bullshit," I retorted. Then I remembered that I was talking not only to Merlin but also to a priest. "Sorry. Bull-crapola. Somebody better know something because there's a very good chance this girl is dead."
Merlin gasped. "Dead? No. She can't be. Alfie said she might be coming by tonight…"
I gave Merlin the evil eye.
"I was going to call you," he hedged.
"Well, I just came from a pretty gnarly crime scene, and unless Anthony had more than one lover, things don't look good for her."
"That's…that's terrible."
"Yes, it is. But we don't have her body. We need a body, or else there's no crime. And a body might just lead us to Mrs. Jenkins. This is about more than some comic stuff, or whatever, that you guys are into. This is about life and death. Help me, please."
"Come in. We can talk more inside."
I followed the swirly purple cape into the comic store. The dark passageway melded into a room full of books, which was a blur. It wasn't until we'd reached the simple desk in the middle of the room that he stopped.
"What do you need from me?" he asked. "I assume the information will be kept in the greatest confidence."
"Yeah, yes. How can you even worry about that right now? A girl's life is at stake." I looked at Merlin. "We need to find her, in case there's a chance she's still alive."
The priest's eyes blinked once, a heaviness to his eyelids. "I don't know who…"
"You've got to know. Don't you guys have some inkling of who she might be? This town isn't exactly huge in size. In fact, it's not even a city. This girl can't have been coming from that far away. Someone had to know her." I took a step closer to Merlin. "Who was she?"
"There's one thing that might help," he started.
"Well? We don't have time to waste."
"Follow me then." Merlin took a step further to the back of the room, but a crash from the other direction stalled him where he stood.
"Let's go," I said. "Hurry."
Merlin raised a finger and pointed behind me.
I wheeled around, my throat constricting with shock and fear.
"We found the other half of the note." Jax spoke first, his large figure taking up most of the doorway. His face was stony, and I had the feeling I knew what he had come to tell me.
"With love from who?" I whispered. My heart sank to the very pit of my stomach below my navel, and chills took hold of my veins.
"With love, from Misty." Jax dropped his gaze. "If that blood in there is from Mrs. Jenkins, things do not look great for you, Misty."
I sank to my knees. "No. No, no, no. It wasn't—I never wrote a note! How could it have been me?"
I swiveled on my knees, feeling the urge to vomit once more. But nothing came up this time, as my stomach was completely, brutally empty.
"I've got to arrest you, Misty," Jax said without apology. "For the murder of Anthony Jenkins."
"No. No, you've got to believe me. Why would I have tried so hard to get into her house if I'd left the note? With you right there. That makes no sense. Come on, Jax."
"Misty—I've got a probable murder weapon stabbing a note with your name on it. Not to mention, you were the one who suggested it was Mrs. Jenkins doing the killing and not the other way around. It didn't dawn on me that Mrs. Jenkins might be the victim of a scorned lover, not right away at least, thanks to your suggestion."
"Jax, check the blood, check for fingerprints. Even if it looks bad, it wasn't me. I was framed," I said, using lingo I'd heard on TV. I wasn't a cop. I wasn't a killer. I was just trying to run a small business.
Jax looked resigned. "I'm going to get everything checked out, and if it wasn't you, then you can be sure we'll get to the bottom of it, and we'll release you. But fingerprints, blood work, it takes some time. I'm sorry. You're under arrest."
Jax snapped handcuffs around me.
I didn't even resist. I felt so weak. But another thought was puzzling me just as much. If Mrs. Jenkins wasn't the killer—where was she?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Things could've been worse. Though, they weren't particularly pretty. I was in a private cell, thankfully, locked away in the sleepy town's sleepy jail. A cop I'd gone to high school with sat out front munching on some Doritos, and I was so hungry I was tempted to lick the orange dust from his fingertips.
"Can I get a coffee?" I asked. "Froot Loops? Anything, please."
The cop ignored me. I wasn't sure what his current strategy was. The police had initially fed me and chatted freely, probing for information and asking me for a confession. I didn't give them one. I eventually realized that I would go nowhere, including a jail cell, until I lawyered up or gave them a confession. I chose to ask for a lawyer.
My call had been to Donna, asking for her help once again. I really needed to buy her a nice large steak once this was all over. Or maybe a cake. Or a lot of wine so we could be happy and forget everything that had happened. Money might not buy happiness, but it bought bubbly, which gave me quite a bit of happiness. That was, if I ever got out of this cell.
"Is anyone coming to help me?" I was beginning to sound whiney, but I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't afford a fancy-pants lawyer, I didn't know anyone who could, and I was still locked up for a crime I had nothing to do with.
"What did Donna say?" My high school acquaintance chewed on his lip.
"She reamed Jax out when she heard he arrested me, but he didn't change his mind."
"Then I ain't changing my mind," he said. "Jax is the boss around here."
"But you have the power to help me," I begged.
"And I'm gonna use that power to enjoy my Doritos, here." He flicked the paper up and read some more.
I lay back on my small little cot, kneading my hands against my forehead.
Eventually, his eyes flicked over to me. "Say, whatever happened to you after high school? You kinda up and left. We all thought you was a nerd and went to get real smart at college."
"Yeah, yeah. Didn't work, did it?" I snapped.
"Hey, Misty. I'm just trying to chat wit
h you. I get paid to sit here, and I can make things miserable or actually quite pleasant."
I sighed. "Sorry. It's just…my nerves are shot. I'm extremely tired. I've barely had enough to eat, and I'm framed for a crime I didn't commit."
"Sucks, man. Dorito?" he meandered over and held the bag out for me.
"Thanks." I took a few, crunching them with what was probably a sour expression on my face. Not because of the Doritos. Those were, in fact, quite tasty.
"Tell me your story. Maybe I'll take sympathy on you."
"Will you really?"
"Nah, I need the job. Got three kids at home, and they're gonna have to go to college someday, I suppose. But talking to you is better'n reading the paper. Plus, you'll be in the paper tomorrow anyway. I might as well get a jump start on the news. The missus will love a jump on the gossip. Er—news."
I rolled my eyes. But misery loves company, and I started the whole story. The whole sob story about moving to LA after college to obtain a fancy degree with lots of letters I could marry to my name. But in doing so, how I'd ended up with a broken heart and a surprising gig I loved, dancing at the burlesque clubs around the city. I finished the story in one giant circle, ending with how I'd arrived back here, splat in the middle of Little Lake's six-celled jail.
"Why did you stop dancing?" he asked. I really needed to learn his name. But by this point, it had turned into one of those moments where I'd let conversation go on for far too long before asking him to tell me his name again. The cop had both feet on the desk, a hand behind his head, and the other tipping the bag of Doritos straight into his mouth so he could drink the crumbs.
"Hello, monsieur." Donna strolled into the room looking very put together and dashing in tight jeans and a low-scooped top, an edgy little leather jacket completing the look.
The cop kicked his feet off the desk. "What can I do for you? Here to see Jax?"
"Yes, actually. Is he in?" Donna purred.
"I think he might've headed for home, as a matter of fact…" The cop glanced behind him. Jax's office wasn't far away, and I could almost read my high school buddy's face as he debated how embarrassing it would be if he called Jax on the phone versus walked the two doors down to get him.