Death Opens a Window

by Mikel J. Wilson

  Lettie clenched her fists and lunged at her husband, backing him against the wall. She clutched his slender neck and started choking him. With his back still pressed against the wall, she lifted him by the neck so that his feet dangled two inches above the floor. “There you go questioning me again!”

  Red-faced and gagging, Frank grabbed his wife’s wrists, but he couldn’t break her grip.

  Oh my god! She’s going to kill him! Jeff reached for the screen door.

  Lettie threw her husband to the floor. Without another look at him, she walked back to the couch. “I’m not happy about this.”

  Jeff moved away from the screen just in time not to be seen. He returned his back to the wall and listened.

  In between coughs, Frank sputtered out, “I’m sorry.”

  Lettie turned on the TV. “Sorry isn’t going to cut it. You know what to do.”

  Jeff waited for a response but heard nothing. What? What does he have to do? The next sound he heard was of the sliding door opening. He jerked his eyes toward the bedroom slider. Still shut. Where was that… Jeff looked back the other way and saw Sherman stepping onto the balcony of the apartment next door. Shit! Don’t let him see me! Don’t let him see me!

  Sherman lit a cigarette and was about to sit down when he snapped his fingers. He left the cigarette in an ashtray and returned indoors.

  Jeff released a sigh of momentary relief. He heard a thwacking sound from inside the Belchers’ living room, followed by a cry of pain. He peeked through the screen door again and gasped.

  Lettie was holding a riding crop, ready to strike again at Frank’s ass. As if that weren’t enough to shock the peeping PI, Frank was also now wearing one of the maid uniforms.

  Holy shit!

  “Blake, is that you?”

  Stunned, Jeff turned his attention to the other balcony to see Sherman smiling at him.

  “I thought that was you.” Sherman pointed to the balcony. “This is your apartment?”

  Jeff whispered. “Yes. I got turned around.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I don’t want to disturb the neighbors.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.” Sherman did his best Tarzan yell while beating his chest.

  Jeff waved his hands toward the ground, trying to get him to be quiet. “Shh!”

  Sherman laughed. “It’s fine. No one cares how loud you are during the day.”

  Jeff heard a scream from inside the Belchers’ apartment – only this time, it didn’t come from Frank. He turned toward the screen door and saw a horrified Lettie pointing at him. Shit!

  “Burglar! Frank, get him! I’ll call the police!”

  Frank Belcher, in his little maid uniform, ran toward the screen door as ordered. Jeff bolted through the other sliding door and into the bedroom, but before he could get to the bedroom door, Lettie blocked it. She hit him with the riding crop again and again.

  Jeff shielded himself, but each blow stung his forearms, even through his coat sleeves. “Stop it! I’m not a burglar!” As he backed away from her, he tripped onto the bed, and Lettie came flying on top of him. Jeff struggled to push the weight off.

  “I got the handcuffs, honey!”

  Lettie took the cuffs from her husband and slapped them around Jeff’s wrists.

  Frank got his first good look at the intruder. “Jeff Woodard?”

  Emory sat at his desk, researching Lettie Belcher’s family on his laptop, when his cell phone rang. He checked the ID but didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

  “Emory, it’s Jeff.”

  “Hey Jeff. So Frank told me his wife’s brother gave her the money.”

  “It was a lie.”

  “I know. How do you know?”

  “I’ll tell you about it when I see you. Is Virginia there? I just tried calling her cell again.”

  Emory glanced at her desk. “She’s still not back.”

  “By the way, it’s possible Corey wasn’t being paranoid when he talked of drones watching him. I saw one hovering over Frank Belcher’s balcony.”

  “How did you happen to see that?”

  “That is something I wanted to talk to you about. I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “I need you to bail me out.”

  Chapter 31

  Emory knocked on the apartment door, and a moment later, Lettie Belcher was standing before him. “Yeah? Who are you?”

  “I saw you at Corey Melton’s funeral, but we haven’t officially met. I’m Emory Rome, Mourning Dove Investigations. Is Frank here? I went by his office, and they said he had a family emergency.”

  “You work with that guy who broke into our apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have nothing to say to you.”

  As Lettie started to close the door, Emory blocked it with a rigid arm. “That’s fine. I’ll do all the talking.”

  “Talking about what?”

  “Dropping the charges against my partner.”

  Lettie jabbed a fist into her hip. “Why would we do that?”

  “Because you’ll be in the cell next to him if you don’t.”

  Lettie glared at him for a second and stepped aside to allow him entry. “Come on in.”

  “Where’s your husband?”

  “He’s in the other room cleaning. Frank, we have company!” Lettie waved him to the couch. “Have a seat. What do you have to say?”

  “We should wait for your husband.”

  “Frank!”

  Frank appeared a moment later in the clothes he had worn that day at work. “Mr. Rome, what are you doing here?”

  Emory got right to the point. “You’re going to drop the breaking and entering charges against Jeff.”

  Frank looked at him as if he had just spilled red wine on his overstuffed, leopard-pattern couch. “What? He broke into our home! He saw… He invaded our privacy!”

  “All true. You know what else is true? Your wife’s brother is a cashier at a convenience store, so I don’t imagine he has a lot of loaning money lying around.” He turned to Lettie. “You received $9,000 from someone. Who was it, and what could you possibly have done to earn it?”

  Lettie sat in the chair across from Emory. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Is that your final word on the matter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Emory stood and headed for the door. “Then my next stop is to see Frank’s boss.”

  Frank blocked his path. “Darren? Why?”

  “Just to let him know about the deposit and then wonder aloud what project could’ve possibly been altered in return for that much money.”

  Lettie didn’t budge. “Go ahead. You can’t prove anything.”

  Emory looked down at Frank. “How long do you think you’ll be able to hold onto your new title with the suspicion of bribery in the air?”

  Frank stepped out of Emory’s path to plead with his wife. “Lettie, if I lose my job…”

  Her arms crossed, Lettie glowered at the TV.

  “Lettie.”

  “Okay!” Lettie jumped out of her chair “We’ll drop the damn charges!”

  “Great. You can ride with me, or I can follow you to the police station.”

  Jeff followed Emory from the police station and took a deep breath at the top of the steps. “Man, time crawls in lockup.”

  “You were in there for two hours, max.”

  Jeff was all grins. “Oh, you are not going to believe what I saw!”

  Emory’s lips curled in the opposite direction. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “No, I’m about to tell you. Just trying to build a little suspense.”

  “I don’t care what you saw! I’m talking about the fact that you got arrested for breaking and entering!”

  “I had a feeling you’d dwell on that.”

  “Dwell on it? I haven’t even started.” Emory plopped into the driver seat. “You realize you could’ve lost your lic
ense over this. Then where would you be? B & E is one of those lines we discussed that shouldn’t be crossed.”

  Jeff slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door. “Sometimes it’s the only way to get the information you need to solve a case. I’m not a TBI agent. I can’t just snap my fingers and get a warrant.”

  Emory started the car and drove from the station. “Then to paraphrase you, you have to come up with more creative means to fish out the information.”

  “That’s what I did.”

  “Within the law!”

  “Within the law, huh? How did you get the Belchers to drop the charges against me?”

  Emory fidgeted in his seat. “I just appealed to them and promised you wouldn’t do it again.”

  “No way. I know how angry they were, and Lettie was quite literally out for my blood. They wouldn’t have just rolled over out of the goodness of their hearts.” Emory fell silent and continued focusing on the road. “You threatened them.”

  “No, I—”

  “Yes, you did. Admit it.”

  Emory sighed. “I tried to think of what you would do if our situations were reversed.”

  “So you threatened to go to Frank’s boss about the money they received and suggest that it was a work-related bribe?”

  “I just applied a little pressure.”

  Jeff poked him in the shoulder. “That pressure’s called coercion or blackmail, both of which are against the law. Here you’re talking all high and mighty.”

  “Fine. I’m no better. You happy?”

  “I am, but not because of that.” Jeff placed a hand on Emory’s. “You did it for me.”

  Emory interlocked his fingers with Jeff’s.

  Chapter 32

  Emory could see the growing anguish on Jeff’s face. They had just come from Virginia’s apartment, which showed no signs of foul play.

  From the passenger seat, Jeff banged his fist on the dashboard of Emory’s car. “I should’ve started looking for her sooner.”

  “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since you spoke to her last, and you’ve been working the case. Stop beating yourself up.” Emory parked the car outside the Rutherford Geophysical Survey Company. “We’re going to find her, and she’s going to be fine.”

  Jeff leapt from the car to the sidewalk. “It’s getting late. I hope they’re still open.”

  Once inside, they asked the first person they encountered who handled surveys for the TVA, and they were directed to the office of Fred Leakey.

  The bearish man at the desk looked up through his shrubby eyebrows to see who entered his office. “What can I do for you?”

  Emory shook his hand. “Hello, Mr. Leakey. We’re here looking for a friend of ours.”

  “Does he work here?”

  “No, she was supposed to call here to inquire about the survey report for the TVA windfarm property in Brume Wood.”

  “No one called. A woman came by here yesterday asking about it.”

  Jeff showed him a picture of Virginia on his phone. “Is this her?”

  “She’s the one.”

  “Did she get the report on the TVA windfarm property from you?” Jeff returned his phone to his pocket.

  “I told her Clayton Barnes hadn’t submitted the report yet.”

  Emory typed the name into his phone. “What else did you tell her?”

  “I said he works out in the field most days, so he usually just checks in when he’s done with a job. She insisted on speaking with him, so I called his cell and left a message.” Fred looked at his desk phone. “No messages, so I’m guessing he hasn’t called me back yet.”

  Emory waited a second for anything else. “Is that it?”

  “Yep. She left after that.”

  Jeff thought about the argument he had with Virginia outside Becky’s home. “Maybe she went to find him. Does Clayton have a home number or a family member we can call?”

  “Family? He moved here from Idaho a couple of years ago. I don’t think he has any family here.”

  Jeff was growing impatient. “Can you just give us his number and address?”

  “The number I can give you. The address wouldn’t be appropriate.” Fred wrote the number down for them.

  Emory shook his hand again. “Thank you for your time.”

  As the PIs exited the building, Emory pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Clayton to—” His phone rang before he could finish. “It’s my dad. I need to take this.”

  Jeff took the number from him. “I’ll call Clayton.”

  Separating from his partner, Emory answered the phone. “Hi Dad.”

  From the sheriff’s station in Barter Ridge, Sheriff Rome greeted his son. “I had the picture and envelope you gave me tested. Everything was clean, except for one thumbprint on the picture.”

  Emory raised a celebratory fist. “You got a print? That’s excellent! Were you able to identify it?”

  “I was.” The sheriff sighed before spitting it out. “Emory, the fingerprint belonged to your father. It was Carl Grant’s.”

  “Wow. Well, okay. That’s to be expected. He had to be the one to take the picture from Granny’s house, so that makes sense. Whoever took it from him must’ve kept it in a safe place and only touched it with gloves before delivering it to me.”

  “It’s possible, but…”

  Jeff came back to him and mouthed, “No answer.”

  Emory nodded that he understood. “What is it, Dad?”

  “The picture, front and back, was totally clean except for that one clear print right smack dab in the middle of the picture. It was like someone wanted you to find it.”

  The weight of the sheriff’s words piled onto Emory’s heart, leaving him without enough breath to speak.

  “And you’d think after eight years, the print might’ve been smudged a little or a bit worn, but it was like it was touched yesterday.”

  Emory inhaled enough to say, “But he’s dead. We saw it.”

  “I know. I know, Son.”

  “His fingerprint is on file. Someone must’ve gotten ahold of it and fashioned a way to transfer it. Latex or something.”

  “There’s something else.” Sheriff Rome cleared his throat. “The envelope. It looked familiar to me. Then it hit me. It was your mother’s.”

  “He kept a memento from her?”

  “Not your birth mother. Lula Mae. It’s the same as the envelopes in the stationery set she keeps in her desk at home.”

  Emory tried to picture the postcard-sized envelope. A thin red line bordered the entire edge of the white paper, and a curious red tornado garnished the flap. “It looked pretty ordinary to me, apart from the little whirlwind.”

  “That’s actually a vortex. Lula Mae bought the stationery when we went to Sedona for our twenty-fifth. Some little bo-tique shop.”

  Emory shook his head. “That letter was slid under my door a month ago. That would mean your house was broken into twice.”

  “Emory, I don’t think the TBI is behind the break-in at your place or mine. Something else is going on here.”

  Emory nodded. “But what?”

  “But she’s missing! Do you not get that?”

  From behind the wheel, Emory listened as Jeff argued with a representative from Virginia’s car recovery service and waited for him to hang up. “Can’t they track her car?”

  “They can.” Jeff added a mocking tone to his voice. “But I’m not authorized to receive that information. Between them and the police just telling me they’ll ‘look into it,’ no one is taking her disappearance seriously.”

  Emory looked at the clock and the street for their current location. “I have an idea.” He spun the car into a U-turn. “He’s going to be getting off work soon, so we have to hurry.”

  “Who?”

  Emory ignored him and pushed his Bluetooth button. “Call Wayne Buckwald, office.”

  “Wayne? Why the hell are you calling him? He’s not going to care. He’s just going to tell us to call th
e police.”

  As Wayne answered the phone, Emory held up a finger to silence his partner. “Hello Wayne. It’s Emory.”

  “Emory? Why the hell are you calling me?”

  Jeff put his palms before him as if to say, “See!”

  “I’m calling because I need your help.”

  Wayne snorted. “Why on Earth would I help you?”

  “We’re working on the Corey Melton case—”

  “That case is closed, you idiot. Haven’t you heard?”

  “I know you’ve arrested Peter West, but surely you’re smart enough to realize by now he didn’t kill Corey.”

  “You’re wrong, once again.”

  Jeff cupped his mouth to silence a laugh, and Emory gave him the “Shh” sign.

  “Virginia Kennon’s car is missing.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “One of my new partners.”

  “So file a report with the police. What are you bothering me for?”

  “Out of respect for you and your reputation, I wanted to help you avoid embarrassment when proof surfaces revealing the real killer is not the one you’ve arrested.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Virginia was chasing down a lead and was given evidence explaining the real motive behind Corey’s murder and implicating the murderer, but before she could look at it, her car disappeared. The car is registered with a recovery service, but they won’t tell me where it is because I’m not the owner. They would, of course, assist law enforcement in finding it.”

  “Why doesn’t this Virginia just call them and get her car back?”

  Unsure how to answer, Emory shrugged at Jeff, who then imitated Emory’s voice. “She’s out of the country. She was on her way to the airport when she came into possession of the evidence.”

  “So her car was stolen with this so-called evidence inside?”

  Emory didn’t answer Wayne’s question. “My fear is that if the police find the car first, they’ll see the evidence and then realize the TBI – you, really – got it wrong. I’d like to work with you to get it before that happens. Then we could share the information, and you could announce the new suspect. If you’re the one who found the real killer, people would overlook the fact that you initially charged someone else by mistake. Will you help me track down the car?” Wayne was silent, so Emory added, “For old times’ sake?”