One Hot Target

by Diane Pershing

  “Was.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, was.”

  He gazed at her, as though expecting her to expand on her answer, to say something. Something incriminating? What else? So he’d lied—gee, what a surprise! He did expect her to talk to him. She sighed. She was an idiot, Carmen told herself ruefully as she got up and walked toward the door. “I think you’d better leave.”

  “Why? We’re just having a little chat.” He remained seated.

  She shook her head, then crossed her arms over her chest. He was doing cop tricks—she’d seen them on TV plenty of times. “If you read the report from Culver City, you know I had nothing to do with Tio and his illegal activities. Besides, what does that have to do with the murder?”

  He spread his hands. “Those of us in law enforcement operate on a ‘where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire’ kind of theory.”

  Again, she shook her head. “Not this time. No smoke, no fire. Sorry. I really do think you’d better leave now.”

  He went back to staring again, and most definitely not leaving. And yeah, it was having an effect, starting to make her nervous, which was precisely his intention.

  Frustrated, she moved away from her visitor and found herself pacing, something she always did when she couldn’t keep still. “Look, my only connection to what happened at Nordstrom is that I tried to save someone’s life and I failed.” Her gaze roamed the room restlessly, taking in a small stuffed elephant JR had bought her years ago that now rested on the fireplace mantel. “It was a terrible day, the worst day of my life.” A framed photo of her dad and mom and all three kids from way back hung on the wall and briefly drew her attention. “But I was a witness, that’s all. There’s no other connection.” Her gaze hopped around some more, finally coming to settle on a shopping bag she’d shoved into a corner.

  Her brow puckered for a minute. A shopping bag. A Nordstrom shopping bag….

  She snapped her fingers. There it was, that thing she’d forgotten the last time Mac had interviewed her. “The sandals,” she said out loud.

  “Excuse me?”

  She whirled around to face him. “I’m sure it’s nothing but the other day you asked me if there was anything else I could add to my statement, and there was, but I couldn’t think of what, but now I remember. The woman, Mrs. Davis? She was wearing the same sandals as I was.”

  She rushed over to the shopping bag and pulled out the box, opened it up, took out the sandals and brought them over to Mac. “Look familiar?”

  Now the detective stood, grabbed the shoes and frowned at them. “They were on her feet. Covered with blood.”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get them?” He was confused; it was obvious.

  “No, no, they’re mine. There are two pairs. She and I bought the same shoes. At separate times, of course. They were on sale,” she added for no particular reason.

  “But I didn’t see you wearing them that day. I would have remembered.”

  “That’s because after I bought them I wore them up to the dressing rooms, but I kicked them off to try on some suits. You know, to pretend I was wearing heels? They were a distraction—all the colors and that huge flower. You see? And then, after the blood…I mean, after poor Mrs. Davis was shot and I cleaned up, I put them back in the box and wore the rubber thongs I’d had on earlier. It’s probably nothing important, but—”

  The look on his face stopped her nervous monologue cold and told her that she was wrong. Very wrong. What she’d just told him was important. Extremely important.

  As the full significance of what she had just said hit her, Carmen gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my God.”

  Stern-faced, Mac nodded slowly. “Yeah. If the shooter came into the dressing rooms and identified the victim by what shoes she was wearing, it’s possible, more than possible, that you were the intended target.”

  Chapter 4

  JR’s cell phone rang. After looking at the readout, he picked it right up. “Carm?”

  “Hey,” she said shakily.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, instantly alarmed. He knew her too well.

  “I’m sorry about your date, but that detective, Mac? He’s here.”

  “Put him on. Now.”

  “Marshall here.”

  In his car, JR pulled over to the side of the road; he could usually talk on his cell and drive at the same time, but the added element of fear—which he’d heard in Carmen’s voice and which he was now feeling himself—was too much. “You weren’t about to talk to Ms. Coyle without me present, were you?”

  “Don’t give me lawyer b.s.,” the detective snapped. “This is pretty serious.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing much. If you ignore the fact that I think your girlfriend’s life is in danger.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” he snapped back at the detective, then felt pretty stupid for responding to that part of the sentence instead of the important part. “And what are you talking about? No, don’t bother, I’m ten minutes away. Put Carmen back on the phone.” When she was on the line, he said, “Nothing. Not a word to him. Okay? I’ll be right there.”

  He broke a law or two getting back to her place, then spewed several colorful curses during the traditional Venice parking-space hunt. When Mac opened the door of Carmen’s little house eight minutes later, Carmen was fussing with some plants in the corner.

  She looked up when he came through the door and gave him a poor imitation of a smile. “Hi.” Her face was pale, her eyes huge.

  He looked from Mac to Carmen and back again. “Fill me in.”

  The three of them sat around Carmen’s small corner breakfast table. Within two minutes he had the complete picture and he didn’t like it. In fact, it terrified him.

  But he was a lawyer and he thought like a lawyer, which meant he tried not to jump to conclusions.

  He directed his comments to Mac. “Okay, we have several choice theories here. Let’s go with the first, that Peg Davis was the target and, for the present, you can’t find any obvious reason for it.”

  “We’re still digging, but she seems clean as a whistle.”

  “What about a random act?”

  “Not likely,” the detective said with a shrug, “but you can’t ever rule that out.”

  “Okay, so that’s two explanations. A hit, for reason or reasons unknown, on Peg Davis. Or a random act of violence against innocent bystander Peg Davis. Some gang initiation, maybe.”

  “Maybe.”

  He took in a breath and expelled it before saying, “Now, if Carmen was the intended victim instead of Mrs. Davis, we go back to an on-purpose hit or a random act again.”

  “Not liking the whole random-act thing, Counselor,” Mac said.

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t have the usual earmarks—word on the street of someone taking credit afterward, some schizophrenic on the loose, making threats, some sort of sloppiness or screwup because the shooter’s a nutcase. No, this was clean and professional. The gun—which was reported stolen three months ago, by the way—was left near the scene, no fingerprints. No way to ID the shooter. My gut is it was a hit, and my gut’s been serving me pretty well for thirty years on the force.”

  “And you’re thinking Carmen’s association with Schluter has something to do with it?”

  “Best guess, yeah. Remember, there aren’t always logical reasons for some acts of violence. It could be payback for something he’d done to someone else,” he said grimly. “Or Schluter himself thinks she knows something. Or seven other theories. There has to be more than she’s telling us.”

  Carmen had been following the two men and their exchange, feeling just a bit like the ball being batted back and forth between two Ping-Pong paddles. “Hello? I’m here,” she announced, “right at this very table. And I don’t enjoy being discussed as though I were on another continent.”

  Both heads whipped around to face her. JR looked surprised, then rueful. “Sorry
,” he said. The detective said nothing.

  “Both of you, please,” she said. “Listen to me. You’re on the wrong track.”

  “Humor me,” Mac said. “Let’s go over your association with Schluter one more time.”

  She heaved a huge sigh. Whatever, she thought, and again, she related the facts: Tio had told her he’d sold a house back in Philadelphia, that he was on the west coast because he had some screenplay ideas and wanted to develop them. Sure, he’d spent a lot of time at the Venice basketball hoops, playing with some of the regulars there, and quite a bit of time lying on the beach getting a tan—thinking, he’d told her, creating, working on ideas. The creative process. And yeah, sure, he’d get phone calls and go out late at night, but she’d figured it was his business, that he was making friends with industry people who went clubbing in the area, and he never got high or even had too much to drink in her presence, for sure, so she’d never connected him with anything other than what he’d told her. Just one more pilgrim to the Mecca of movie-making, trying to strike it rich.

  “You see? Tio came and went on his own,” she explained earnestly. “Told me nothing. Left nothing with me. Trust me on that, please.”

  She looked from Mac to JR. Their expressions let her know that they were tolerating her. She hated when men looked at women that way. In her gut, she was absolutely positive that her association with Tio had nothing to do with the recent murder, but somehow, she was not getting through.

  “Fine,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Search the place if you want to. I give you permission.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” JR said. “Not without a warrant.”

  Thoroughly exasperated, she pushed her chair back, stood and began to pace. “There’s nothing here. You know I don’t do dope. After Tio took off and I found out what kind of a scumbag he was, I scoured the place to see if he left any of that behind. There’s no paraphernalia, no Baggies, no pipes, no money, nothing.”

  At that moment, Mac’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said, and went into Carmen’s small kitchen, where they heard him mumbling without being able to understand what he was saying.

  Hands on hips, Carmen faced JR, who was still seated. “For sure, Tio didn’t murder that woman. I mean, he wasn’t the shooter. For one thing, he’s much taller…and, well, bulkier, than the person I saw. And the thought of him hiring someone to shoot me? Well, whatever he is, he’s not a cold-blooded murderer. I’m telling you, JR, this is not about Tio. It’s not about me. It has to be about Mrs. Davis. Poor Mrs. Davis.”

  Every time she thought about the murder victim, the sadness came back, and this time was no different. That sense of desolation, the lump in her throat, the threatening tears. It might have been an unseasonably warm November day, but she was chilled, so she wrapped her arms around her waist for protection.

  JR rose quickly from his chair and faced her, gripping her upper arms, steadying her. “Carm. It’s okay.”

  She gazed at him through moist eyes. “It’s only a theory, you said, about me being the target. Just one of many.”

  “Yes, but it has to be considered. We have no choice.”

  Oh, God. She wanted so badly to be comforted by him.

  She was the one who had taught JR to hug way back in prehormonal development days. She was the one who had introduced him to a whole world of affectionate touches, friendly back rubs, warm, physical, comfortable connectedness. He’d learned the lesson well, had become a superior hugger, and over the years she’d come to depend on his arms around her, the clean smell of him, the warmth of his embrace, the knowledge that he was always there.

  But…hadn’t JR told her not to need him so much, and hadn’t she agreed that it was time?

  And hadn’t Shannon told her JR was in love with her, and didn’t that put a whole new wrinkle in the once easy physical relationship between them? Hugs were out now, weren’t they?

  Shouldn’t they be?

  Oh, how she longed for the clock to be turned back to a week ago, before JR had given her a talking-to, before the murder, before hearing what Shannon had to say. She wanted him to hug her again with no worries about subtext. She wanted her life back.

  Her life. Was someone trying to end her life? Out of nowhere, a huge sob rose in her throat.

  “Carm?” JR’s grip tightened on her arms.

  No, she told herself, fighting her body’s hysteria with every fiber of her being. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. “I don’t believe that my life is in danger.”

  JR stared at Carmen. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. She was in such denial. Yes, it was one of the ways Carmen had always dealt with unpleasantness, by pushing anything she didn’t want to face so far away that it barely affected her.

  But not now. This threat to her life couldn’t be ignored.

  “Listen to me,” he began, determined to get through, but he was interrupted by a knocking on her front door.

  He probably overreacted, but then so did Mac, who came barreling out of the kitchen; together they rushed to the door and stood on either side of it as though standing guard at the palace gates. Carmen walked over and peered anxiously out of the curtained window.

  “It’s okay, it’s only Gidget.” She pulled open the door and said, “Hi, come on in.”

  But when the white-haired woman saw all three of her greeters, she got spooked, backed away and was on the verge of running off.

  “It’s okay, Gidget.” Carmen smiled gently. “These are friends. You’ve met JR. Remember? And this is Mac.”

  Eyes narrowed in suspicion, the older woman looked from one man to the other and stayed right where she was. “I just wanted to check up on you, is all. Haven’t seen you since the other night. Wanted to make sure you were safe.”

  “That’s so sweet. I’m fine.”

  “You sure? Bonzo was pretty freaked.”

  “I’m fine,” Carmen said again. “Sure I can’t get you something? A glass of water? What about a cookie?”

  “I’m good.” The homeless woman offered a conspiratorial smile, one that revealed the lack of several teeth. “Found a box of unopened Oreos.” She shook her head as she walked away, muttering, “The stuff people throw out. It’s a crime.”

  After Carmen closed the door, JR looked at her and said, “What was that all about?” closely followed by Mac’s “What about the other night?”

  She walked away from them, raking her fingers through her hair. “I’m not sure,” she answered. “It’s all kind of a blur.” She turned around, faced them, not at all happy, it was obvious. “What’s today?”

  “Thursday,” both men answered, then looked at each other before transferring their attention back to Carmen.

  “Okay then, Tuesday night I think someone tried to break in here. While I was sleeping. But I could be wrong. I really don’t know. Gidget gets a little spacey sometimes. There was a noise in the alleyway, that’s all.”

  JR’s patience was growing thin. “You didn’t tell me.”

  Carmen stuck her chin out. “I didn’t think there was anything to tell. Whoever it was ran away. Gidget’s dog barked.”

  “Gidget’s the lady at the door just now?” Mac asked, his notebook out, scribbling away.

  She nodded. “My neighbor.”

  “She’s not really a neighbor,” JR explained. “A homeless woman who sleeps in a huge carton in the alleyway. Carmen’s kind of befriended her. Feeds her sometimes.”

  Mac nodded. Hearing about a homeless person wasn’t news to him, not in the Santa Monica/Venice area, which a local radio satirist had pegged The Home of the Homeless. “Give me details. What happened?”

  “I was sleeping and I woke up. There was some noise, garbage cans being turned over, that kind of thing.”

  “Okay, nothing unusual so far,” Mac conceded.

  “That’s what I thought,” Carmen agreed.

  But she was holding back. “There’s more,” JR said. “I know you.”

  “
Yes, there is.” She straightened her shoulders, faced him. “Gidget saw a figure. In black. Wearing a baseball cap.”

  “Did you report it?” Mac again.

  “No.”

  “Anything happen since then?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Again, she raked her fingers through her hair. “Yesterday morning I went up to Santa Barbara to be with my mother and I just got back. JR drove me.”

  JR looked at Mac. “I don’t like this.”

  “Neither do I,” Mac agreed.

  “Can we get her some protection?”

  “Probably not. I just asked my captain to issue an APB for Schluter, but until we find him, we’re only working on a theory—we have no evidence, no proof of anything.”

  Boy, was Carmen getting sick of this! Sick of being discussed like she was some helpless victim, sick of all the testosterone in the room, all the advice, all the orders. She let her irritation turn into anger—not big-time anger, but enough to burn off the fear. She glared at them both.

  “Listen to me. You have no way of knowing if the noise in the alleyway was in any way connected to what happened on Monday. No way at all. Get it through your heads. I may be a lot of things—disorganized, forgetful, even unreliable—but I know what I know. There is absolutely no reason on earth that I can think of for anyone to want me dead.”

  “But you don’t know that for sure,” JR said.

  “But that could go for anyone. I mean, you or Mac or anyone! You can’t live your life like there’s some huge…thing you have no idea about, just waiting to get you. I’m not going to live my life like that. In fear and terror. I refuse, I absolutely refuse to start acting like a poor little paranoid victim.”

  She held her head up and glared at Mac, then at JR. “Look, both of you, go. I’m tired. I want to get some rest. Please, leave.” She walked over to the door, pulled it open and stepped aside.

  “Are you nuts?” JR said in disbelief, striding toward her.

  Mac was more circumspect. “Ms. Coyle,” he began.

  “It’s Carmen, remember?”

  “Fine. Carmen. I highly advise you to stay with a friend tonight, at least until we can get this straightened out.”