They emerged from the back door of the apartment building to see the morning surveillance shift. Brooke wore a navy hooded knit jacket and stretch pants with silver stripes down the sides so she and Elise could take a short run in the clear morning air. Elise pulled on her leash until they reached her favorite bathroom stop. Afterward, Brook ambled down the road behind the apartment building, hearing the surveillance cruiser starting up to follow them. When they reached the end of the building, Elise turned away from the road and pulled toward the alley. “Wrong way, girl,” Brooke said. “There’s nothing down there except the smelly old Dumpster.”
Usually Elise was completely obedient on the leash, but today she kept pulling toward the alley. Brooke gave the leash a gentle tug, but Elise jerked back, determined to investigate the alley. “Oh, all right,” Brooke sighed. “Every day you go where I want. Today I’ll let you take control.”
Elise trotted down the alley, her curled tail in the air, daintily stepping around puddles with her slender paws and sailing over rain-soaked boxes with her sleek body. She sniffed various “interesting” objects, but without her usual concentration. Brooke had the strange feeling that Elise was on a mission, searching for one particular smell that intrigued her more than any others, and she wasn’t going to be stopped until she found it.
Puddles from last night’s rain reflected the clear, cloud-studded sky. Elise pulled closer to the Dumpster. Brooke was always amazed by how many people just threw refuse at the Dumpster instead of in it. The heavy metal container sat like an ancient gray behemoth surrounded by Styrofoam cups, dark trash bags torn by rats and spilling garbage, beer cans, a shattered wine bottle, and a fast-food hamburger container. Flies buzzed above and around the Dumpster.
“Come on, Elise,” Brooke said. “Thank goodness they empty this thing tomorrow, because it is getting rank.”
Elise continued to pull stubbornly forward, finally stopping at a pile of wet, mud-splattered clothing. The clothes lay over a mound. Elise nosed around the heap, then began to whine. The dog rarely whined unless she was really frightened or upset. Brooke took a couple of steps closer to the dirty heap of clothes. She saw what looked like a trench coat with a large brownish-red stain on the back. Farther down she saw a shoe—a shoe with a foot inside.
“Elise, get back!” she yelled, feeling as if her blood had turned to ice. “Back!”
But as Brooke jerked at the leash, dragging Elise away, the dog slipped out of her collar and returned to the body. She whined again and then howled—a long, mournful sound that sent shivers through Brooke. The dog pawed determinedly at the body, and finally took a piece of the trench coat between her teeth and pulled hard. To Brooke’s horror, the corpse slowly rolled over and Robert Eads’s beautiful blank eyes stared up at the azure sky.
2
Brooke would have expected herself to scream for all she was worth. Instead, she stood still and stared at Robert and the dog, whose howling had turned into whining. Robert’s affection for Elise was tentative because he was frightened of most dogs, but Elise was so gentle and quiet around him, he hadn’t seemed afraid of her. He’d always patted her on the head and called her “pretty girl.” He would never call her that again, Brooke thought.
Feeling as if she were in a dream, Brooke walked to the back of the alley, strode to the police cruiser, and said calmly, “There’s a dead man beside the Dumpster. It’s Robert Eads.” Then she staggered. She would have fallen if one of the cops hadn’t jumped out of the car and grabbed her.
Brooke was hardly aware of the sudden flurry of activity. Police spoke urgently on radios, more police cars arrived, and someone blocked off the alley. While Brooke sat on the curb, one of the policemen slipped Elise’s collar and leash back on and brought her to Brooke. The two of them sat huddled together beside a police cruiser when a balding man arrived and bent over her. “Hello, Miss Yeager. I’m Hal Myers, Sam Lockhart’s friend.” He smiled at her with his long hound-dog face and slightly crooked nose. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Sam.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Brooke returned without a trace of humor. “Look for a murder and you’ll find Brooke Yeager nearby.”
“He’s said only good things about you,” Myers said kindly. “What makes you think Robert Eads was murdered?”
“What?” Brooke looked at him blankly. “You mean he wasn’t?”
“I didn’t say that. I just want to know what made you think he was.”
“When we found him—Elise and I—he was lying facedown. There was blood all over the back of his trench coat and holes in it. Holes like stab wounds. He was stabbed, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Brooke closed her eyes. “I hope the first . . .”
“You hope the first?”
“I hope the first stab wound killed him. I mean, I hope he wasn’t alive, feeling the pain of being stabbed over and over.” She placed a hand on her abdomen. “I’m afraid I’m feeling nauseated.”
“It’s understandable. Don’t be shy about throwing up.”
Brooke bent her head down, drawing deep breaths, swallowing the hot water running into her mouth. Elise drew near to her, and she put her arm around the dog, squeezing her tightly. Finally, Brooke raised her head and opened her eyes. “I think I’m okay, now. At least as far as being sick, that is.”
Myers smiled again. He had jowls and deep nasal-labial folds. His face looked comfortable, like an old piece of furniture, but his dark eyes were sharp as diamonds. “Good. But if you feel like—”
“I’m fine. Really.” Brooke wondered what made her so determined to convince Hal Myers she felt fine when she didn’t feel fine at all. She felt sick—sick physically, sick emotionally.
“Okay. Miss Yeager, did you touch or move the body?”
“I didn’t. Elise did. The dog. She led me down the alley straight for Robert. We used to date, so Elise knew his scent. When we reached him, all I saw was the trench coat and a shoe. I tried to pull Elise away, but she seemed particularly strong and pawed at him, even took hold of his coat in her teeth, until she turned over . . . the body. I saw it was Robert.”
“Did you see him last night?”
“No.”
“Where were you last night?”
Brooke knew it was a routine question, but she stiffened anyway. “I was in my apartment. Alone.”
“Did he come to the door?”
“No.”
“You said the two of you used to go out.”
“Yes. We broke things off about a month ago. He’s been calling me a lot, though, even following me.”
“So you broke up with him, but he wanted you back?”
Brooke hesitated. “I ended our relationship, but he didn’t want me back.”
“It sounds like he did.”
“I know, but he didn’t.”
“Did you end it because you were seeing someone else?”
“No. Things . . . just weren’t working out.” It would have been so easy to tell this gentle-voiced man the truth, but Brooke knew how important it was to Robert that his homosexuality be kept secret. She’d been surprised when she found out the truth, but not horrified. She hadn’t even been hurt. She’d only been angry that he’d used her to cover up the truth, a truth she didn’t want to betray even now, even though it couldn’t hurt him anymore. “Our breaking up was a mutual decision,” she said, surprised that she’d lied and immediately regretting it.
“That’s not what you said before.”
“Well, there was a lot of back-and-forth, you know how those things go, and I guess I’m the one who actually suggested we just not see each other anymore, and he agreed to the suggestion.”
Hal Myers frowned. “If he was so agreeable to it, why was he phoning and following you?”
“Uh . . . he wanted to talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Just . . . I don’t know.” She was starting to breathe faster, well aware Myers knew she wasn’t telling the truth. “Mayb
e he wanted to apologize.”
“For a mutual breakup?”
Brooke sighed. “Oh, hell. I’ve been lying.” She looked into Myers’s face. It was serious. There was no humor in his dark eyes, but he didn’t look angry. Yet.
“I broke off things with Robert because I found out he was gay. He didn’t want anyone to know, especially his father, because he adored his father and thought he wouldn’t understand and wouldn’t love him anymore. . . . I don’t know. . . . I’ve met Reverend Eads and I think he might have been surprised and confused, even hurt, if he found out the truth, but he would never have stopped loving Robert and he would have eventually come to understand, at least I believe he would have, but Robert didn’t believe it and he was frantic that I was going to tell, so he kept after me, begging me not to tell anyone, which I wouldn’t have done anyway, and—”
“You’re running out of breath and you’re going to pass out,” Hal Myers said calmly. “I get the picture. Take a breath, then tell me why was Eads so certain you were going to tell his big secret?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, but he was convinced. He did say something about a call that had been made to . . . his lover, and he also mentioned a threatening letter. I guess he thought I made the call and sent the letter. Of course I didn’t. I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t believe me. He even offered me money to keep my mouth shut, for Pete’s sake.”
“Hold on now, Brooke. Someone called the lover. Who was Eads’s lover?”
“Oh God, please don’t make me tell that, too.”
“Miss Yeager, we are talking about a homicide case here. Murder.” Myers’s voice had become stern. “This is not the time for secrets, no matter how well-meaning. After all, considering the murder weapon . . .”
“What about the murder weapon?” Brooke asked sharply.
“You go first. Who was Eads’s lover?”
Brooke sighed. “Aaron Townsend of Townsend Realty. I work for him. That’s how I found out about Robert. I went back to the office late one night to pick up some papers I’d forgotten and I found them together.”
“What did you do?”
“I was shocked. I said something—I don’t remember what, but it certainly wasn’t threatening—and I left.”
“But you weren’t furious?”
“Furious?” Brooke shook her head no, then decided absolute honesty was the only way to go now that Myers had already caught her in one lie. “Yes, I guess I was furious, but not at that moment. Later. It wasn’t fury over losing Robert, though. It was fury over his using me as a smoke screen.” She frowned. “ ‘Fury’ is too strong a word. If I’d loved Robert, I might have been furious. But I didn’t love him. I thought he was a nice guy—I’ve known him since I was a child and we went to his father’s church—but as a boyfriend, he was actually kind of boring. No wonder. I wasn’t the person he wanted to be spending evenings with. I was already thinking of ending things, although I probably would have let them drift for a while. It wasn’t as if I was unhappy dating Robert or anything. We got along fine. There just weren’t any sparks, if you know what I mean.”
She stopped abruptly and groaned. “I’m babbling. All I can say is that I didn’t hate Robert. And although I was getting tired of his recent harassment, especially when it was so unwarranted, I wouldn’t have done anything to him to stop it, except maybe get a restraining order or something if he didn’t quit.” Brooke took another deep breath. “All right. I’ve told you everything I know. Now you tell me what you meant about the murder weapon. I don’t even know what it was. Why did you think mentioning it would frighten me into telling you the truth?”
Myers paused a moment, looking at her closely as if sizing her up. Even though the morning was comfortably cool, Brooke felt sweat pop out on her—sweat caused by fear of the unknown.
At last, Myers said, “The murder weapon was lying right beside Eads. It was a silver envelope opener—shiny and very sharp.” Brooke stared at him, baffled. What did a letter opener have to do with her? She didn’t even own one.
“I don’t get it,” she said flatly.
“Are you sure?” Myers asked coolly. “Because the opener was engraved with the letters ALY on one side and ‘I love you’ on the other side. I’ve studied a lot of Sam’s notes from your mother’s case, Brooke. I know—”
Brooke didn’t hear the rest of what Hal Myers was saying as her mind spun back. She could see her mother sitting at a small desk, her beautiful mother with the sun shining on her blond hair and glinting off the silver letter opener given to her by her husband Karl, a letter opener engraved with the letters ALY—Anne Lindstrom Yeager.
3
Brooke sat in a wooden rocking chair beside the stereo, Elise at her feet, listening to Lakmé by Delibes. She stared straight ahead, but she didn’t see her cheerful saffron yellow chair or hibiscus pink embroidered pillows or the violets growing at the window. All she saw was a trench coat covered with rust-colored stains and Robert’s soulless eyes staring up at the beautiful sky.
She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting in the cherrywood chair her father had made until someone knocked lightly on the door, then opened it. Vaguely, Brooke saw Stacy standing in front of her, kneeling down and covering her cold hands locked on the chair arms with her own strong, warm ones.
“Brooke? Brooke, look at me.” Obediently Brooke looked, but she didn’t really see. “Brooke, it’s Stacy.”
“I know.”
“Then look like you know it.” Stacy’s words were firm but not harsh. “Honey, snap out of it.”
“Stacy, you should have seen him.”
“I’m glad I didn’t, and you shouldn’t have, either. I know all about it. Jay’s down there now, talking with some other detectives.” Stacy stood up and looked around. “First, we’re going to turn off this unbearably depressing music. Robert gave you this CD, didn’t he? I’ve always hated it.” She snapped off the CD player. “And now I’m going to fix you something to drink.”
“I don’t want anything.”
Stacy was already in the kitchen. “I’m putting on a pot of coffee.” In a moment she was back, handing Elise a dog biscuit. “No matter what the tragedy, you can always count on Elise to drown her sorrows in beef-basted biscuits.”
For some reason, this struck Brooke as funny, and she started to laugh. And laugh. Louder. Harsher. Then Stacy was shaking her. “Don’t make me slap you, Brooke Yeager, because you know I will.”
“And enjoy every moment of it.”
“Damned right.”
Brooke almost immediately calmed down, tears starting to flow, the awful laughter stilled. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m used to it. Jay cries all the time. Sometimes I have to slap him senseless.”
Brooke smiled through her tears and Stacy smiled back. “Feeling better?”
“Not better, but not hysterical.”
“Well, that’s a start.” Stacy handed her a tissue. “I don’t mind tears, but your nose is running.”
Brooke blew, wiped, accepted a fresh tissue from Stacy to dab at her dripping eyes, then tossed the tissue in a nearby wicker wastebasket. “What a way to start out a morning.”
“It’s nearly noon,” Stacy said, looking at her wristwatch. “But I’ll bet you haven’t had a thing to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Okay, I can understand that. But you’re having coffee, whether you want it or not.”
Brooke heard cabinet doors opening in the kitchen. “Have you forgotten where the coffee cups are?” Brooke called.
“No.” In a few moments Stacy reappeared with a gigantic mug with a rooster painted on the side. “Christmas present from Harry last year. Remember?”
“How could I forget?” Brooke took a sip of the steaming liquid, winced, then smiled. “Now I know why you were opening all those cabinet doors. You were looking for the brandy. Exactly how much did you pour in here?”
“Enough to put yo
u back on your feet.”
“Or send me straight to bed.”
“Either one will do you good. But while you’re still conscious, do you mind talking to me a little?”
“I don’t mind. I need to talk.”
Stacy sat down on the floor, almost at Brooke’s feet. She didn’t seem to care how close she was to Elise, although she was allergic to dogs. “I know from Jay that you found Robert stabbed to death beside the Dumpster. I also know the section of the fire escape that leads practically to your bedroom window had been pulled down.”
Brooke’s eyes widened. “I didn’t notice that.”
“They’re dusting for fingerprints, but God knows how many people have touched that thing, even though it’s high. Kids jump up there all the time trying to grab it.”
“But it was down, and Robert was only a few feet away.” Brooke looked at Stacy. “Do you think Robert pulled it down? That he was planning to break in here?”
Stacy shrugged. “We were home and we didn’t hear anyone banging on your door. Did he phone you?”
“No. No one came to the door and no one called. I read all evening.”
“And listened to that awful music. We could hear it.”
Brooke managed a faint smile. “I’m sorry if I had the stereo on too loudly, but Lakmé isn’t awful. You just don’t like classical music.”
“It’s depressing. Anyway, my taste in music has nothing to do with this murder.” Stacy frowned. “Jay says the murder weapon was a letter opener with initials engraved on it.”
Brooke nodded, this time taking a gulp of the brandy-laced coffee. “The initials were ALY. Anne Lindstrom Yeager. On the other side was engraved ‘I love you.’ My father had it made for my mother because she was always so particular about her nails. She had long red nails. She always complained about opening envelopes tearing her nails or chipping her polish.”
“How can you be sure it’s the same letter opener?”
“How many letter openers of exactly that description do you think are floating around out there? Besides, my grandmother mentioned in the police report after my mother’s murder that the opener had gone missing shortly before her death. The detective in charge of the case now, Hal Myers, had read the report. He remembered the opener.”
Last Whisper Page 17