Dead of the Day (2007)

by Karen E. Olson

  I peered through the glass door, looking through the waiting area and into the hallway ahead that led to the advertising department. No one would be there now.

  ''What are you doing?''

  The loud, gruff voice came from behind me, and I swung around to see a heavyset man with a closecropped Afro towering over me.

  ''Call the cops,'' I said. ''There's a guy with a gun in the back of the building near the loading dock.''

  He looked at me dubiously. I guess I didn't really blame him. My hair was a mess, my face scratched up, my clothes dirty, and the big bandage on my hand made it look like I'd gotten into some sort of fight.

  ''I work here,'' I insisted. ''Annie Seymour. Call the cops.''

  ''Where's your ID?'' He didn't give a shit who I was.

  ''It's in my bag near the loading dock near the guy with the gun.'' Jesus, I was sounding like a nut. I probably wouldn't believe me, either. ''Just call the cops.'' How many times was I going to have to say that?

  His eyes didn't leave me as he unlocked the door to his area, which revealed eight security monitors, on which you could see pretty much everything that was going on in the building. Except, of course, the room with the flatbeds and the rolls of paper.

  The guard looked at me like I was some sort of sad excuse for a human being, that I could be so deluded as to think there was a man with a gun somewhere in the building while he was keeping watch.

  I grabbed for the phone. ''If you don't call them, I will,'' I said sternly.

  He took the receiver and punched in 911. ''There's a report of a man with a gun at the New Haven Herald,'' he said, although I could tell he didn't believe me.

  I needed to call Tom. I saw the button to unlock the door and, before the guard could do anything about it, I reached over, punched it, and ran out and through the door toward the newsroom.

  I grabbed the first phone I saw and dialed Tom's cell number.

  ''Where are you?'' he asked. He was pissed.

  ''Sam O'Neill. He's here. At the Herald. He has a gun. You have to get here, fast. I think he's still out there.''

  ''Annie—''

  ''Now!'' I shouted.

  Mr. Security Guard was standing next to me, his hands on his hips, when I hung up the phone. I thought for a second he was going to question me again about who I was, but my face must have convinced him I was telling the truth. ''Near the loading dock?'' he asked.

  I nodded and he ran back down the hall. I hoped Sam was still there; this security guard was pretty big, definitely bigger than Sam, and he could probably hold him until Tom got there.

  I turned around and saw that I had attracted a crowd. Marty was frowning, the copy editors were all looking up from their desks, and the news editor was scratching his head. Dick was standing next to his desk, staring at me with a funny look on his face.

  ''Annie?'' Marty asked. ''What's going on?''

  I quickly told him what had happened. And then I remembered Vinny. I reached for the phone again and dialed.

  ''I'm halfway back there,'' Vinny said. ''Are you okay?''

  I gave him the short version, sirens getting closer.

  ''I'll be right there,'' he said quickly.

  I hung up and went toward the front of the building. Marty and the entire newsroom followed, sort of like those faux fire drills we had occasionally.

  We got outside just as the cop cars pulled into the parking lot, crashing through the tape that had been put up to keep anyone from driving on the new pavement.

  Tom's Chevy Impala was the last to come in, and he stepped out of the car, spotting me.

  ''Where?'' was all he asked.

  I pointed. ''Loading dock. The security guard went after him.''

  In seconds the cruisers sped stealthily around the building and out of sight.

  ''What's going on, Annie?'' Dick was next to me, his notebook open.

  I glared at him. ''No notes, Dick. Not right now.''

  We waited a long time. At least it felt like a long time, but when Tom finally came back, uniforms behind him with Sam O'Neill in handcuffs, I looked at the clock on top of the building and saw that only about ten minutes had passed.

  Dick turned to me again, but before he could ask anything, Tom's hand was under my arm, leading me to his car. He handed me my bag and my phone, and I took them without a word. When we got in the car, he turned to me.

  ''We're going to the station, and you're going to tell me everything that's happened. You can't leave anything out. I want to hear it all.'' His voice was steady, his face unreadable. A stranger listening to him would never know that we'd spent a year sleeping together and that he still—and I quote—couldn't forget me.

  I nodded, and he started the car. Vinny was just turning into the parking lot as we were leaving.

  Tom opened the window. ''Station. Now.''

  Vinny looked at me, nodded, and I nodded back.

  The car that held Sam O'Neill was behind us. We were a fucking caravan.

  I replayed Sam's words back in my head so I could remember them accurately for Tom. But even with Sam's admissions and all the puzzle pieces now starting to fit firmly together, I was still left with a question. Who killed Tony Rodriguez?

  Chapter 41

  The sun streamed into my bedroom the next morning, and I rolled over to see an empty pillow next to me. I sighed, but then smelled coffee and I smiled, getting out of bed and throwing on my robe. I padded out into the living room to find Vinny sitting at my kitchen island with a cup of coffee and the paper. He looked up and grinned when he saw me, grabbing me and kissing me before I could say anything.

  ''Hey there,'' he said softly.

  ''Hey there, yourself,'' I said, going to the cupboard for a mug.

  I'd spent two hours at the police station waiting for Tom as he did his thing with Sam. I spent another two answering Tom's questions; he'd talked to Vinny for another two. He kept us separate, probably to make sure our stories jibed. And then he told us to go home, but that he might have more questions in the morning.

  We tumbled into bed about five a.m., which meant I'd slept about three hours.

  Vinny pointed to the paper as I poured my coffee. ''Dick's got a story.''

  I took the paper and scanned it, taking in Dick's words. He actually had two stories, the one from the port earlier and a very short story about the ''incident'' at the Herald. There was no mention that the acting police chief had been arrested; Tom probably wouldn't give anything to him on the record. My name was missing, as was Vinny's.

  The first story told of ''an abduction and subsequent shooting of Lourdes Gomez, who was behind a scheme to bring illegal workers into the city and then rip them off by promising green cards in exchange for two thousand dollars each.'' There was no mention of my mother or her possible lawsuit.

  ''Lots of fucking holes in it,'' I said, going back to my coffee. ''Sounds like Lourdes was the one abducted.''

  Vinny grinned. ''You could write it.''

  I shrugged. ''Yeah, but I can't.'' I didn't want to know what was going to happen to my job. I was going to take my sweet time going in to the paper today, just to put it off.

  ''Don't worry,'' Vinny said, coming over to me, taking my cup, and putting it on the counter. We were well into the kiss when my cell phone rang. ''Shit,'' he said.

  I grinned, then flipped the phone's cover up.

  ''Miss Seymour?'' It was a familiar voice. ''It's Marisol. Marisol Gomez.'' Her voice was hurried, nervous. ''I don't know who to talk to anymore now that Sam's . . .'' She lingered on his name, then recovered. ''I found out something. Something you need to know. Can you come to my house? I found out what she did and I got angry and called her to tell her I knew all about it. She said she's coming over. I'm afraid, and I don't know where Hector is.''

  She wouldn't tell me anything else, so I told her I'd be right over, hung up, and turned to Vinny.

  ''Something's up with Marisol,'' I said, quickly telling him about the cryptic conversation. ''I'm wo
rried about her. Maybe she's losing it, finding out her lover was in cahoots with her cousin and now is being held for all sorts of crimes.''

  We got dressed and headed to Fair Haven. When we turned off Grand onto Blatchley, I had an odd sense of de´ ja` vu. I shook it off as we pulled into Marisol's driveway.

  As we climbed the front steps, we heard voices inside and stopped.

  ''Why couldn't you leave us alone?'' a female voice was asking loudly. The voice was familiar, and I nudged Vinny, pointing to the Pathfinder at the curb in front of the neighbor's house. Lin Rodriguez.

  ''I haven't called in months.'' We could hear tension and fear in Marisol's words. ''I broke it off. I told you already. I was tired of waiting. I met someone else.''

  ''He told me he was leaving me for you.'' Lin's voice was full of steel.

  ''I told him no. If you'd just waited, you would've known that.''

  Vinny motioned for me to follow him, and we tiptoed across the wraparound porch and past the window, flattening ourselves against the outside wall as we listened.

  ''Because of you, Tony's dead,'' Lin said.

  ''I'm not the one who pulled the trigger,'' Marisol said.

  ''Neither did I.'' Lin's voice was clear, steady.

  ''But you made it happen.''

  ''I don't know why you keep saying that.''

  ''If you didn't, then why are you here? Why are you going to kill me, too?''

  Vinny glanced at me, a worried look on his face. He pulled his phone off his belt. ''Call nine-one-one,'' he mouthed as he handed it to me.

  As I flipped up the phone, he stooped down and crawled under the window. I punched in 911, hoping the argument inside was distracting enough that they wouldn't notice we were out here.

  Vinny stood upright when he reached the door and knocked twice, standing to the side of the door instead of right in front of it. ''Marisol,'' he called. ''Are you ready to go?'' Like she was expecting him.

  ''Not just yet,'' she called back, playing along.

  The dispatcher answered my call and I told her to send the cops here. I ended the call just as Vinny turned the knob and the door swung in. I stepped forward a little and saw through the window that Lin was holding a knife.

  ''Vinny, knife,'' I shouted as he went through the door.

  Lin swung around, the knife gleaming in the light from the door, and she lunged toward Vinny, who, being a bit larger than she was, got out of the way and grabbed her hand, wrenching the knife from her grip. It clattered to the floor, and I stepped around them to Marisol.

  ''Are you okay?'' I asked her.

  She nodded.

  ''What did you mean that she's responsible for Tony's death?'' I asked.

  Marisol took a deep breath. ''She hired Roberto to do it.''

  ''She's a liar,'' Lin spat out.

  ''Then why were you holding a knife on her?'' Vinny asked.

  Lin shook her head.

  ''How do you know she hired him?'' I asked Marisol.

  ''I went to see Roberto at the hospital. He's a good friend.'' She paused. ''He woke up last night, out of the coma. I told them I was his sister so they would let me in. He told me she hired him, paid him ten thousand dollars.'' She stifled a sob. ''He said with that kind of money, he could do anything.''

  A siren rang out in the distance.

  Marisol didn't look as if she'd heard it. ''Roberto met her''—she indicated Lin with a toss of her head— ''through Lourdes, because Lourdes cleans her house. Lourdes knew what she wanted. She got them together.'' She hung her head.

  ''But why did he go back? Why did he shoot again after shooting Rodriguez?''

  Marisol shook her head. ''He wanted to marry me, make me respectable, give my son a father. He didn't like it that I was seeing Sam. He thought Sam was using me.'' She paused. ''When he saw Sam with Tony, he thought he could get them both, you know, but he missed Sam the first time and that's why he went back.''

  ''He has to talk to the police about this.''

  Marisol sighed. ''He said he wanted to tell me first. He said I needed to know first.''

  I shook my head. ''But why would Tony tell Lin he was leaving her for you when you said no? Didn't he know about you and Sam?''

  She looked up at me, her eyes glistening with tears. ''Sam said we should keep it quiet. He said he would tell Tony when the time was right.''

  ''Why were you there that night?'' I asked softly. ''The night Tony was shot.''

  ''Sam was with someone else. Maybe he really was using me.''

  Vinny still held Lin by the arm as the police cruiser came to a stop in front of the house. A few minutes later, Ronald Berger stepped through the open door. He was surprised to see me.

  ''Jesus, Annie, what are you into today?''

  I shrugged and pointed at Lin. ''She was holding a knife on Marisol here.''

  Berger looked at Lin. ''Why?''

  But she stayed mum, her face hard.

  ''Marisol says she hired out Tony's shooting.''

  Berger's face hardened. ''What?''

  I told him what Marisol had said.

  Vinny let go of Lin's arm and Berger took it. ''Lin, you have to come with us.'' He looked at Marisol. ''And you, too.''

  Marisol nodded.

  Berger looked at me and Vinny. ''Hell, you, too. Jesus, you might as well join the force.''

  As we went outside, we could see that the skies had finally parted and there wasn't a cloud in sight. April had come full force overnight, and the air was warm. I could see the daffodils just starting to open up in the garden next door. Vinny took my hand as we went back to the car.

  ''I guess you and DeLucia are back together,'' Tom said after he shut off the tape recorder and put his pencil down. The sun blasted through the window behind him, and I had to squint. I wished I had my sunglasses.

  ''Yeah, I guess so,'' I said, although I wasn't completely sure. Okay, so we'd slept together, but that didn't necessarily mean too much. We hadn't talked about what had happened yesterday, all the shit before Christmas, or made any plans. We were pretty much living in the present.

  ''Roberto admitted everything,'' he said.

  ''So what Marisol said was true.''

  ''He's acting like a fucking martyr. But killing a cop and shooting at another one, well, he should've known better. He'll probably get the death penalty.'' He paused. ''And Lin . . .'' He didn't have to finish that thought.

  Tom didn't mention that he'd gotten shot at, too, but he didn't have to.

  ''So after he abandoned the car at Sherman Avenue after shooting Tony, what did he do? How'd he find another car?''

  Tom sighed. ''He says he knew he hit Tony but missed Sam. When he left the car, he ran through the back lots to a friend's house and borrowed the other car.'' He paused a second. ''He was high as a fucking kite.''

  ''Why would Lin have Tony killed and not Marisol? Somehow it seems like that would make more sense,'' I said.

  Tom shook his head. ''She was angry. She and Tony couldn't have kids, and when she found out about Marisol's son and that Tony was paying support and had decided to leave her and be a father to the child she could never give him, it pushed her over the edge. This way she could be the grieving widow, get all the insurance, and keep her dignity. She's one tough broad.''

  I remembered the way she'd been on the freighter and I had to agree with him. It was too bad, though, that she didn't think she had any other choice. Because now she had nothing.

  I picked at the corner of the bandage on my hand. ''Who tried to kill her with her bees?''

  Tom snorted. ''Sam was there that day. That TV reporter, you know, the one with the big breasts?''

  Cindy Purcell. I nodded.

  ''She saw him. She said he told her and her van to get lost, to leave Lin alone. So they left.'' He paused. ''That bee operation was going to screw up what they were up to down there.''

  ''I assume Roger Hartley has been charged, too.''

  ''That security guard, Springer, too.'' Tom nodded, his
eyes instinctively looking at my hands.

  I smiled. ''I'm not taking notes, Tom.''

  He smiled back.

  Something had been tugging at me. ''Why the hell was Lourdes cleaning houses if she was making money off the scam?''