by Gary Parker
Connie, of course, didn’t know all this. All she knew was the river seemed oblivious to her scream, and she wondered, for just an instant, if God was also.
CHAPTER
17
As soon as the kids left for school, Connie dressed quickly, throwing on her comfortable khakis and a white, short-sleeved blouse. Carrying a navy vest in case the plane got too cold, she pinned her hair back in a snug bun and left for the St. Louis airport. Though her ticketed flight departed at 1:20, she wanted to arrive early and see if she could get on the 11:10. The sooner she got to Las Vegas and found Reed Morrison, the quicker she could settle her business with him and move ahead with her life. At the airport, she caught a break—they did have seating availability on the 11:10.
Looking out the window at a sunshine so bright it blinded her, she tried to relax and plan what to say to Morrison. Go with the direct approach?
“Hello, I’m Jack Brandon’s wife, and I want to know why he wrote you a check for $10,000, and did that have anything to do with his death?” Or should she come on more subtly? “Hello, I’m Connie Brandon, I think you knew my late husband. Can you tell me all about your relationship?”
No matter how she said it, it sounded too blunt. But how do you ask a man you’ve never met why he received ten grand from your husband right before he ended up dead in the Missouri River? Blunt it would have to be.
Within two and a half hours, the plane touched down, and Connie climbed off. With no previous experience in Vegas, the presence of the slot machines in the airport terminal shocked her. Was this the destiny of Jefferson City? The destiny of the whole country, for that matter? Slot machines in grocery stores, airport terminals, public buildings? Would the country become so inundated with gambling that no matter where people turned, they would see it? No wonder Jack fought so hard against it. People destroyed their lives with the alluring but evil dream—a quarter buys you a chance for millions.
Hurrying through the terminal, Connie picked up a car and a city map at a rental agency and headed south on Interstate 15. According to the address from the check, Morrison lived at 208 La Toya Drive, a road the map showed running east to west off the interstate a few miles from downtown Vegas. Confident of her direction, she headed toward La Toya Drive, the rental car humming through the arid desert air. Connie tried to imagine Morrison. What did he look like? Would he wear a shiny suit like so many gangsters on television? Was he an elderly gentleman wearing a bolo tie and white shoes? What did he do for a living? Deal blackjack in a casino? Teach school? Run an accounting firm? What about family—did he have a wife and children?
Turning right off the interstate, Connie found herself on a road lined with well-manicured lawns and two-story, Spanish-style homes. Palm trees stood in straight rows up and down the street as far as she could see, and a variety of European cars sat parked in white, concrete driveways. Admiring the attractive neighborhood, she pulled to the shoulder of the road and checked the address again: 208 La Toya Drive. She checked the number of the house immediately to her right: 104. Morrison’s house was only one block up!
Connie glanced into the rearview mirror. Her face, though a bit thin, looked fine. No signs of the emotional torrents running inside. A frightening thought dawned on her. Maybe Reed Morrison killed her husband! Perhaps the money Jack paid him was extortion money, blackmail of some sort, money paid to keep an affair a secret?
Her face splotched red. She considered going to a phone and calling the police. Luke Tyler would know what to do. But she couldn’t do that. The police had declared Jack’s death a suicide. The Las Vegas police would call Jefferson City, get that verified, and shoo her away like a fly at a picnic. She hadn’t told Luke about the check from Jack to Morrison. Why would he help someone who held vital information from him? And what if Morrison didn’t have anything to do with Jack’s death? Then she would really seem crazy. No, she couldn’t get help. She had to do this alone.
Guarded by fear, Connie decided to leave the car parked where it sat. No reason to barrel straight into Morrison’s yard and ring his doorbell. Better to approach more innocently, walk by the place first, see if she saw anything amiss.
Shaky but determined, she stepped out of the car, gently shut the door, and walked up the sidewalk that ran under the palm trees. She dropped her head lower as if to hide herself in the bright daylight. A minute later she stepped past 208 La Toya Drive. Though she didn’t stop, she studied the house as she passed. It looked similar to the other houses on the street. A red, southwestern-style roof covered its two stories and a beige stucco exterior wrapped around it. Palm trees bordered the well-manicured front lawn. A late-model Mercedes with a personal license plate sat parallel to the sidewalk. The house would cost at least $400,000 in Jefferson City. Probably twice that here.
Past the house now, Connie walked another two hundred feet, then pivoted and started back. The house seemed so normal it gave her courage. Even if mixed up in Jack’s death, Morrison wouldn’t hurt her here. He would wait until later when she least expected it and then strike. By then she could go to the authorities, explain what happened, how she got involved, why she kept this information from them.
Buoyed by her logic, Connie came to the sidewalk leading from the street to Morrison’s front door.
Stay calm, she told herself, taking a huge breath. This guy isthe key. Talk to him, find out what happened to Jack. Clear Jack’s name.Prove he didn’t commit suicide, didn’t desert you and the kids. She took a step up the sidewalk. Then another. Thirty steps later, she stepped onto a white, stone stoop and rang the doorbell.
*****
Inside Reed Morrison’s house, Brit and Lennie heard the doorbell ring. In Morrison’s bedroom on the second floor, Lennie peered through the drapes and spotted a petite, redheaded woman in a pair of pleated khaki slacks and a short-sleeved, white blouse.
“Who’s this?” he whispered to Brit.
Though busy riffling through a desk that sat in a reading area of the bedroom, Brit instantly shifted his focus and eased over to the window. Spotting Connie, he swore quietly. “She ticketed her flight on the one-twenty!”
“She’s a bit early, wouldn’t you say?”
Brit sneered at Lennie. “But not early enough.”
Both of them looked back at the bed. Reed Morrison, a thick-bodied man in his mid-fifties lay still as a store-window display doll, a small needle prick in the inner middle of his left arm, the spot where nurses always go for blood. His face, though well-tanned, already seemed slightly stiff. Lennie had followed The Man’s advice and watched the house all night. Morrison had arrived only that morning, and he and Brit had been hard-pressed to handle their work in such a hurried fashion. The doorbell rang a second time. “She’ll go away in a second,” said Lennie. “Then we can search through his papers.”
Brit rolled his eyes. “We don’t want her to go away, jerk-face. We want to put her to sleep. Just like we did her dearly departed husband.”
Lennie rocked back from the window, buttoned his suit coat, and took a step toward Brit. “We didn’t get clearance on that,” he argued. “I don’t do work without clearance.”
“Then let me do it,” Brit said, his eyes eager, a flick of foam settling in the corners of his thin lips.
The bell rang once more.
“No can do,” said Lennie, remembering his orders to keep Brit under control.
They heard a door open. “What the—” whispered Brit, twisting toward the arched entrance of the bedroom, the entrance just past the stairs that led down to the kitchen on the back side of the first floor. “She’s coming inside! We have to do her, Lennie, no way out!”
As Brit looked toward the stairs, Lennie quickly unbuttoned his suit and pulled a gun from the waistband. Then, as calmly as if ordering a sandwich from a deli, which he planned to do within the next hour, he cracked Brit across the back of the skull. Catching him as he fell, Lennie snorted. “We’ll do her when we get clearance, Bozo, and not until.” His arms
locked under Brit’s shoulders, he slid him across the bedroom, through the arch, down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door.
*****
When no one answered the door, Connie made an instinctive decision. She tested the door to see if it was locked. To her surprise, the handle opened as she turned it. The thought of leaving never entered her mind. One way or the other, she planned to find out about Reed Morrison. Pushing the door open, she took one step onto the hardwood floors of the front entryway. A thud in the back of the house startled her.
“Hello,” she shouted. “Anyone home?”
Though not certain, she thought she heard movement, like something sliding, then the sound of a door opening. Without thinking, she rushed ten more steps into the entryway, then caught herself and stopped.
“Mr. Morrison!” she shouted. “Is anybody home?” Her voice echoed through the house, but she heard no answer. Several seconds ticked by. Then, from behind, through the front door, she heard a car door slam, once, twice. Pivoting hurriedly, she rushed back to the front door, then out onto the stoop. Outside, a black Mercedes occupied by two men whipped away from the curb and flew past her, headed toward the interstate. As the car passed, she stared straight at the man nearest to her, the one on the passenger side. His head lay at an odd angle, his mouth sagging open, a blond ponytail behind his head. To her astonishment, he looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
Morrison?
She didn’t know. Rapidly, she searched through her memory, trying to recall the man’s identity. Where had she seen him? Or had she? Was she just imagining she knew him from somewhere? Was it possible he was Morrison and she had seen him in Jefferson City at some point? She couldn’t remember. But she had to find out.
Running back into the house, she rushed through the downstairs rooms, searching them for a picture, some evidence of what Morrison looked like and whether or not the man in the Mercedes was him. She found nothing.
Her panic rising, she found the stairwell, paused for only an instant, then rushed up. On the landing, she saw a room to her right. She ran into it. A bedroom. It appeared unused. She hustled out and to a second room, a playroom. Again, no pictures and no signs of life. A third room followed, the room right at the top of the stairs. She ducked her head inside and instantly froze. A man lay on the bed. A man in a white, body-length robe and a pair of navy house slippers. He looked like he had just climbed out of the shower and stretched out for a nap. Connie knew instantly this was no nap. This man wore the face of death.
About to gag, she turned to run back down the stairs, but then realized she hadn’t yet identified the man. Was this Morrison? She didn’t know. But that’s why she came—to find Reed Morrison! She had to know if this was him!
Darting her eyes around the room, she searched for something to identify the man. A wallet? She spotted a desk in a sitting area across from the bed. Pushed now by desperation rather than rational thought, Connie rushed to the desk and yanked open the top drawer. A wallet lay in the middle of the drawer. She jerked it open and found a driver’s license. With trembling fingers, she held up the license, then turned around to the man on the bed. The picture matched the face.
She checked the name again to make sure. Reed Morrison. Dead. But why? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t wait around to find out. The police could take it from here. She would anonymously call in the murder, then fly back to Jefferson City. From there, she would watch to see if the police could figure out the mystery that had become way too serious for her.
Suddenly weak, Connie turned to leave the room. As she did, she stumbled over an ottoman sitting at the foot of Morrison’s bed. Falling face forward, she landed by the bed, her eyes at shoe level, staring under the golden dust ruffle that draped almost to the floor. Right before her eyes, she saw a stack of papers. Anxious for any information, Connie grabbed the stack. Then, her feet scurrying to get traction, she pulled herself up, rushed from the room and down the stairs. At the front door, she gathered herself enough to realize that a woman sprinting down the street in an elite neighborhood in broad daylight might attract more attention than she wanted. Though she desperately wanted to run, she forced herself into a fast walk and hustled to the car.
Laying the papers on the passenger side, she gunned the engine and headed the car down the street. Perspiring heavily, but gradually slowing down her heartbeat, she reached the interstate and headed north toward the airport. On the highway, a wave of relief overcame her, and she managed to catch her breath and think rationally.
Okay, she summed up. She found Reed Morrison. But somebody else found him first. But why kill him? Did his death connect to Jack’s or not? She glanced over at the papers. Would they tell her anything? Maybe, maybe not.
Spotting an exit just ahead, she pulled off and wheeled into a convenience store parking lot. Her blood still pumping rapidly, she turned off the car, grabbed the papers, and flipped through them.
A piece of letterhead immediately caught her attention. Reed Morrison, Personal Investigator. Underneath the letterhead, a phone number. She recognized it as the one listed on the back of the check Jack had written. Jack had hired a private eye! But why? What was Morrison doing that cost $10,000?
Connie ripped through more sheets of paper, one after another. Without bothering to read details, it didn’t take her long to figure out Morrison’s business. He did divorce work, missing persons, general surveillance. In addition, he served as a consultant for both prosecutors and defense attorneys in criminal investigations. Typical private detective stuff. His clients paid him handsomely. She read invoices for five, ten, even twenty thousand dollars. He obviously did his job well.
Too curious to feel fear, Connie kept digging at the papers. What about Jack? Anything here about Jack? Near the bottom of the stack, she came to a plain manila folder. She opened it quickly, ready to move on to the next sheet. But there, lying in the folder, she found three pictures. One of Jack Brandon. One of Sandra Lunsford. And one of an elderly gentleman she had never seen in her life.
*****
Headed south on the same interstate, Lennie lifted his cell phone from his coat pocket and punched in his number. Ten seconds later, he got an answer. “Yeah, Lennie here. We had a slight complication with last assignment.”
“How slight?”
“First part of assignment finished, job done. But then we got company earlier than we expected from the Midwest— female company.”
A pause. “But there was no link up between the company and your assignment?”
“Nope, too late for that.”
“Good. But we still got the problem from the Midwest.”
“Yeah.”
“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this.”
“Yeah, well, people get nosy, you know.”
“I need to think about the process. This has to go real clean. Anything else will bring down way too much attention. Let’s keep an eye on the company for a few days. See if she moves toward anybody. Maybe she’ll drop out at this point. If she does, we might can let her go. I’ll get in touch in a few days.”
“I’ll be available.”
“Lennie?”
“Yeah?”
“How’d Brit do?”
“Flew off the handle. Wanted to do the company without your clearance. I had to calm him down.”
A pause. “I don’t know about him.”
“I can handle him.”
“Please do. Talk to you soon.”
Lennie unbuttoned his coat and glanced over at Brit. The guy was still out. What a clown.
CHAPTER
18
When Connie’s flight touched down in St. Louis, she decided she couldn’t go home just yet. The picture of Reed Morrison, dead in his bed, kept rising up in her mind, and she couldn’t throw it out. Her nerves frayed, she tossed her overnight bag into the back of her van and headed to a restaurant on the west perimeter of the airport. She hoped a quiet dinner and a couple of hours o
f solitude would cleanse the image from her brain before she drove home. Right now, she didn’t know if she could concentrate enough to drive.
It took her thirty minutes to get situated at the restaurant, another fifteen to order shrimp and a salad and get served. She started to pick at her food, but she hardly tasted it. The whole day seemed like a jumbled dream, a harebrained, scattered, illogical nightmare. How ludicrous to think she could fly to Vegas and solve something the cops couldn’t unravel.
Did she cause Morrison’s death? If she hadn’t gone looking for him would he be alive tonight, enjoying his beautiful home and whatever family he had? To her sorrow, Connie realized she still knew nothing about the man except his occupation. She had stood over his dead body, seen him in the most intimate of ways but didn’t even know if he had a wife.
She took a bite of her salad, followed it with a drink of tea. She probably did cause his death. For Morrison to end up dead on the very day she arrived was too coincidental for the law of averages. While looking for information about Jack, she caused the murder of another human being.
A dim hope came to her. Maybe Morrison died naturally! A heart attack or a stroke! After all, she hadn’t examined the body! For an instant, she wondered how to find out. Would the authorities give her the information she needed? But then she remembered the sounds from the back of the house and the two men in the Mercedes. They weren’t Boy Scouts, she knew that for sure. They killed Morrison, she knew it in her bones.
Her fork dropped to the table as another truth came to her. Those two men probably killed Jack too! She hadn’t really considered that until now, but the connection seemed so obvious. But if they killed Jack, he didn’t commit suicide. Which meant he didn’t necessarily have an affair! But how did she explain the video?