The Finest Hour

by Anina Collins

  Move away from Sunset Ridge? Why was he talking about that? Who wanted to move out of town?

  “Is there something you want to tell me about, Alex? Is something happening that means we’ll be leaving Sunset Ridge?” I asked as my mind whirled with a dozen other questions I was too afraid to ask.

  He didn’t answer immediately, instead concentrating on the road and driving past a few cars that hadn’t gotten the news that the speed limit had been increased from forty miles an hour. After what felt like an eternity, he drove back into the right lane and said, “No, but you never know what the future holds, Poppy.”

  You never know what the future holds? What did he mean by that?

  I didn’t know which upset me more—Stephen spouting off in his ignorant way at the Food King that it should have been me who was murdered or the idea that at some point Alex and I would move away from Sunset Ridge. It may have sounded silly, but for all its problems, I loved the town I’d grown up in. I thought he did too.

  Well, maybe not loved it but had at least come to see it as somewhere he wanted to live.

  “Do you want to move away from Sunset Ridge?” I asked, unsure I wanted to hear the answer to that question.

  As he took the exit and began to drive down the ramp, he casually answered, “I don’t know. As long as you’re there with me, I could probably live anywhere.”

  Anywhere? I wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but I didn’t think I liked it.

  While I stewed over moving from Sunset Ridge and what that would mean, he drove through the streets of East Baltimore until he stopped on East Madison Street. I’d been so lost in thought that when I looked out the window at the place we’d driven to, I wondered if he’d gotten us lost.

  “Did you intentionally drive here?” I asked as I stared out at dilapidated buildings and rundown houses I wasn’t sure were even inhabitable.

  He turned the car off and nodded. “Yeah. Jefferson Sterling’s office is just down the street.”

  Unsure I even wanted to get out of the car, I hesitated as he slammed his car door shut. Alex came around to my door and opened it, looking down at me with confusion as I sat there in the passenger seat not moving.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I scanned the neighborhood and saw no one particularly dangerous looking, but the entire area just seemed so decrepit I wasn’t sure I liked even being there. Something told me being in that part of the city was just asking for trouble.

  “Are we going to be okay here?” I asked, still not making much progress in getting out of the car as my legs were with my head on this place being no good.

  Alex extended his hand and nodded. “We’ll be fine. It’s broad daylight, and I have a gun. This place isn’t the worst part of the city, so don’t worry. You’re in good hands with me.”

  Sure about only one thing—that Alex would always protect me—I trusted in his judgment and took his hand for help to get out of the car. Once outside, I quickly took a look around and hoped he was right. Wherever we were, I definitely didn’t want to move here, even with Alex.

  We walked down the block toward an old building with a red brick façade that had definitely seen better times. I imagined in earlier days, maybe even during the colonial period, it had looked stately and strong like brick buildings always seemed to look. Now, however, it looked like it may collapse at any moment.

  I reached down and searched for Alex’s hand as I asked, “Where are we?”

  He clasped onto my hand and held it tightly, betraying how little he believed in what he’d said about this place being safe. “East Baltimore. The Old Town Mall area.”

  “This place is like a run-down ghost town. I hate being in places like this. It makes me think about what might happen to Sunset Ridge in the future.”

  Alex looked at me and frowned. “This place didn’t have what Sunset Ridge has.”

  “What’s that?” I wondered as I looked around and saw building after building that looked like no one had been in them in ages.

  At least not for anything legal.

  “A community that cares about what happens to the town. This area didn’t have that, and once people left for the suburbs, it just kept going downhill until it ended up like you see now. Believe it or not, there was a huge shopping mall just a little ways down there a decade or two before I was born. Now it’s all abandoned.”

  “And this is where Jefferson Sterling has his office?”

  Alex stopped and pointed at the old red brick building in front of us. “Right here upstairs, if I’m remembering correctly. Ready?”

  “The sooner we get done here and I get back to my cozy little town where people care what happens to it the better,” I said, meaning that in more than one way.

  I didn’t want to be in this part of Baltimore, but I also didn’t want to move from my hometown. I liked living where people cared. I knew they cared too much about the wrong things sometimes, but it still was a hundred times better than living somewhere that no one cared for at all.

  The inside of the building surprised me, thank God, and didn’t feel like it would come down around our heads if a stiff wind blew or if someone slammed a door too hard. The elevator on the main floor looked usable, but after pressing the button and waiting for a few minutes, we decided to take the stairs. I took each step gingerly, afraid one wrong move could land me in the basement, but after a few didn’t even creak much, I hurried up behind Alex to the second floor.

  A dark hallway cut the floor in half, and two doors out of four had printing on them to say they were occupied. We passed by the first one that said Dr. Reginald Hunter, Oral Surgeon. Behind the frosted glass, people could be seen sitting down in the waiting room. I cringed at the mere thought of having my teeth worked on in this place.

  Further down the hallway past two empty offices was the office of the man we’d come to see. The writing on the frosted glass in his door said Jefferson Sterling, and beneath his name in elegant script were the words Private Investigations.

  Pointing at the text, I said, “Fancy. Is this an indication of what kind of person he is?”

  Alex shook his head. “No. Think the exact opposite, if I recall correctly.”

  He rapped on the door with his knuckles, and we waited to hear someone tell us to come in. But we heard nothing from behind the door. Alex knocked again, this time a little harder, and said loudly, “Mr. Sterling? I’m Officer Alex Montero from the Sunset Ridge police department. I have some questions for you.”

  Seconds later, the door slowly opened and there in front of us stood a man who looked to be in his early fifties with greying brown hair who looked like he’d just woken up. Scrubbing his face, he said in a gravelly voice, “What’s a small town cop want with me?”

  “Jefferson Sterling, I’m Officer Alex Montero and this is my partner Poppy McGuire. We’d like to speak to you about one of your clients. Samuel Morrow,” Alex said in the authoritative voice he usually only reserved for suspects.

  “Samuel Morrow?” the man repeated in a surprised voice.

  “Yes. Can we come in? I’d like to ask you some questions about your relationship with him.”

  Jefferson Sterling stepped back and opened his office door wide so we could enter. We walked into a dark room with a couch and an old portable TV to our right and a desk and chair on the back wall between two windows that had the shades drawn. He closed the door and walked past us to a small room on the left that looked to be a tiny bathroom.

  “Take a seat. I’ll be out in a minute. Make yourselves comfortable.”

  Alex and I looked around at the seating options and then looked at each other. With a chuckle, he said, “I guess it’s the couch or the couch.”

  I leaned in close to him and whispered, “I think this guy has read one too many Mickey Spillane novels. I’d bet he wanted to put the word gumshoe on the door in that fancy lettering but someone talked him out of it. Maybe some dame he knows and sees sometimes.”

  As we sat down o
n the stiff couch, Alex smiled and said, “You know, I love your imagination.”

  “But?” I asked, sensing there was a second part to that statement.

  He shook his head. “No but. I just love your imagination. I would have never thought of any of that just by walking in here. To me, this is just some guy’s office in a rundown building.”

  I placed my head on his shoulder and squeezed his arm to me. “It’s a gift. And a curse. And I probably just made this guy way cooler than he actually is.”

  “Probably.”

  Just then, the bathroom door opened and Jefferson Sterling emerged looking slightly better than he had a few minutes ago. His hair, now slicked back off his face, didn’t look like he’d just been sleeping on the very couch where we now sat, and his shirt was now tucked in instead of hanging out over the front of his pants. He didn’t look much better otherwise, but at least he looked dressed and ready to answer Alex’s questions.

  “So you want to ask me about Samuel Morrow, huh?” he asked as he grabbed a metal folding chair from the corner of the room and opened it up to sit down.

  “Yes. I believe he hired you right after the beginning of this year. I’d like to know what for.”

  Sterling hesitated for a moment and didn’t reply, instead walking over to the windows behind his desk to lift the shades. As I sat there examining a room that looked even worse in full daylight, I wondered if there was some private eye-client privilege I’d never heard about. But then he pursed his lips and nodded, as if to say he understood he needed to answer Alex.

  “Yeah, he hired me. Wanted me to keep an eye on someone,” Sterling said as he sat down in the metal chair across from us.

  “Who did he want you to watch?” Alex asked, and I sensed this meeting would be like pulling teeth trying to get answers out of this man.

  But he didn’t hedge his answer and immediately answered, “His wife.”

  I sat staring at him, surprised at how easy it had been to get that from him and surprised at the answer he’d given. So Samuel had been having his wife watched. But why?

  “Did he tell you why he wanted you to keep an eye on her?” Alex asked.

  Sterling nodded. “Yeah. He was worried she was cheating on him.”

  Excited by this news, I blurted out, “With who?”

  Alex turned to look at me and gave me a tiny smile that said I hadn’t broken any protocol with Sterling. We both waited for him to answer, and I silently bet that he would say the beefcake driver, Bruno.

  And then he said it. “He thought she was sleeping with her driver.”

  God, I couldn’t wait for this guy to start spilling the beans on Eliza and Bruno!

  I sat practically on the edge of the couch as Alex calmly asked, “Well, what did you find out?”

  As casually as if he was telling us the time, Jefferson Sterling said with a wide grin, “Well, I guess that depends on what you call cheating.”

  Now I was really intrigued.

  Chapter Eleven

  Alex and I leaned forward in tandem and waited as Jefferson Sterling let a pregnant pause drag out so long I wondered if he’d lost his train of thought or forgotten what he’d just said. You didn’t just say something like “That depends on what you call cheating” and not follow it up with more details.

  At the very least he needed to complete that thought and say if he thought she was cheating.

  When he didn’t say anything for nearly a full minute, Alex, who I suspected was losing his patience with Sterling’s need to make everything dramatic like we were all in an old black and white detective flick, groaned and said, “Well, tell me what you saw and I’ll decide if it was cheating or not, Mr. Sterling.”

  The man who sat across from us seemed surprised that we weren’t having as much fun as he was with this interview. His smile faded, and he leaned forward toward us.

  “Samuel hired me in early January, and I began to follow Mrs. Morrow around the tenth. At first, all I saw was a lady who was always driven around by a big guy. Have you met the driver yet? His name is Bruno, and he’s a piece of work.”

  Alex wrote down the details of Sterling’s story, so curious about his comment about the driver, I asked, “Why do you say that?”

  The private eye smiled again and gave me a wink. “Dumb as a bag of hair, but he’s got a nasty side to him, that one. Better be careful having your wife with him is what I told Samuel after the first time I watched her with that Bruno character.”

  Lifting his head, Alex asked the question that was on my lips. “Why? Did you see him do something violent to her?”

  Sterling shook his head and scrunched up his face like the mere mention of someone being violent with a woman disgusted him. “No, not her, but I saw him get pretty nasty with a parking garage attendant that first time I followed her. He actually got out of that Beemer he drives her around in and grabbed that poor little guy working there by the collar. I thought I would have to run up and rescue him.”

  “Mercedes,” Alex said flatly, correcting the private eye on what kind of car Eliza Morrow owned and Bruno drove her around in.

  “What?” Sterling asked, now utterly confused and lost in his story.

  “The car is a Mercedes, not a BMW,” Alex explained in a tone of complete frustration. “A silver Mercedes.”

  But the correction didn’t faze the man, who just waved his arm in front of him and rolled his eyes. “Mercedes. BMW. What does it matter? It’s an expensive car made by foreigners.”

  The district attorney would have the time of his life putting this guy on the stand if it turned out that Eliza or Bruno killed Samuel. Jefferson Sterling didn’t seem to care much for specific details, except when they added to his film noir persona thing he had going on.

  “Fine. So Bruno Carter got nasty with the parking attendant worker. What else did you see between him and Mrs. Morrow?”

  “They act like they’re either the best of friends or a couple that’s been together forever. Do you know what I mean?”

  I had a feeling I did, but Alex simply shook his head and said in a low voice, “No. Explain.”

  Sterling tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling to take another very long pause that only served to make both Alex and me want to shake him. I knew my partner well enough to know these kinds of stage theatrics annoyed him to no end. For me, the waiting to hear another tiny snippet of information that would require more explanation just made me want to scream at the guy. We didn’t have all day to be hanging out in his crappy office which doubled as a makeshift apartment that creeped me out.

  “Mr. Sterling, are you having trouble remembering what you saw?” Alex said impatiently.

  Still looking up at the ceiling, Sterling answered, “No, but I want to make sure I get this right.” After a few more moments, he lowered his head and looked directly at us. “They do things that best friends and couples who’ve been together and know each other well do.”

  The irritation radiated off Alex. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out before saying, “Yes, I believe you mentioned that. Can you give me any specific examples of what you mean?”

  For a moment, I thought Sterling might tilt his head back and return to staring up at the ceiling again. I had to hold myself back from screaming, “This isn’t that difficult, for God’s sake! What did you see them do?”

  Thankfully, he didn’t resume his examination of the dirty ceiling tiles above his head and merely nodded. “I’d see them shopping, which I think tells a lot about who this Bruno guy is to her. I mean, what man is shopping for clothes with a woman if he’s just a driver? I’d also see them hanging out in the park. Do you remember that warm spell we had in late February when it was in the seventies for a few days right before the end of the month? I saw them have a picnic at Meridian Hill Park down near the fountain. They looked pretty cozy to my eyes.”

  For the first time in this investigation, we’d finally heard something to point to Eliza Morrow and her driver having an af
fair. But had he seen anything more than what may have been some innocent time at a park for lunch and what could very well be a woman dragging a man with no ability to refuse out shopping?

  “Did you see them do anything that made you believe they were anything more than just two people shopping and picnicking?” Alex asked as he jotted down a note in his tablet about Eliza and Bruno’s time in the park in late February, using the words FEB HEAT WAVE PICNIC MERIDIAN so he could ask them later about Sterling’s claims.

  All of a sudden, it seemed that the private eye had a great deal to say and didn’t want to pause anymore. Maybe that whole staring up at the ceiling thing he’d done earlier was just to help him get his thoughts straight.

  Jefferson Sterling stood up and walked over to his desk. As he pulled open one of the drawers, he said, “Nothing physical. No motels or hotels. No holding hands. No kissing.”

  He walked back over toward his seat but stopped in front of us. In his hands, he held pictures he offered Alex. “Take a look at these. I gave them to Samuel, so it’s not like he hasn’t already seen them. These are pics I took of his wife and the driver since January. See for yourself.”

  Alex took a hold of the eight by ten pictures and held them in front of us for me to see too. One by one, the pictures showed Eliza and Bruno out and about doing things that couples would do, but there wasn’t a single picture of them having any physical or sexual contact whatsoever. Even the pictures of them picnicking near the fountain at Meridian Park looked complete innocent, if not strange since she was his employer and twenty years older than Bruno.

  When we finished looking through every one of the more than fifty pictures he’d taken of the two of them, Alex turned and began writing notes on the images and I asked Sterling, “So never once have they gone anywhere that could be considered a place they could have a rendezvous?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “I love that you used that word. Rendezvous. That’s exactly what it would have been too, but no, never. They never went to any motels or hotels or even anyone’s home or apartment. It was always someplace out in public like a park or a store or even a library.”