Shots in the Dark

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “I admit my feelings are mixed. I’m happy that you might be able to exonerate an innocent man, but if he’s innocent, it means there’s a killer still out there, a desperate one. You need to be careful, Mack.”

  “I will be.”

  Duncan switched his gaze to Mal. “Thank you for looking after her for me.”

  “My pleasure,” Mal said, and I smiled at the irony.

  An uncomfortable silence followed, and I had to admit I admired Duncan’s unwavering trust in Mal. He knew Mal had feelings for me, and yet he kept allowing the two of us to spend so much time together. It couldn’t be easy, and I marveled at the level of trust and friendship they shared. I hoped I wouldn’t be the cause of some future estrangement between them.

  “One other thing,” Duncan said, shifting his attention back to me. “If you get to a point where you can prove Ben Middleton is innocent, we need to discuss a way to present the information so it doesn’t make the police department and the DA’s office look bad.”

  “They arrested and prosecuted an innocent man,” I said. “They’re going to look bad no matter how the information is presented.”

  “To a degree, yes,” Duncan said. “But that can be spun and mitigated. If you cooperate with them in that effort, it will smooth over a lot of things for you. Plus, given what this idiot is doing”—he pointed to the letter on the table—“I think the less publicity you get, the better it will be.”

  I didn’t argue the point. I hated the publicity. I hated the letter writer, the danger it put me and my friends in, and the hoops I was being forced to jump through. But I also saw the wisdom in what Duncan had said. Handle things right, and theoretically everyone would end up happy.

  “What or who are you following up on this evening?” Mal asked.

  “I’d like to try to have a chat with Melanie Smithson, Tiffany’s closest friend, assuming I can track her down. I want to see if she knows anything about Tiffany having an affair and, if so, who it might have been with. If anyone would know about an affair Tiffany was having, it would be her. I also want to have a chat with Sam about Tiffany’s paintings. I feel like there’s a clue to her somewhere in them. And I learned that Colin Gallagher hired a PI to follow Ben at some point. I’d like to find him and see what, if anything, he might have to offer on Ben’s lifestyle and any secrets the guy might have been hiding. I’ve got Nick and Tyrese trying to track the PI down. Based on Ben Middleton’s description of the man, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “Sounds like a busy agenda,” Duncan said. “Wish I could help.” He glanced at this watch, reached into another pocket of his parka, and pulled out a couple of small jars and a cloth bag. Inside the bag were three brushes, each one with a slightly different type of bristle on the end. “In the meantime, I want to see if I can find a print on this anywhere.” He gestured toward the metal box, the envelope, and the letter. “Mack, any chance you have some clear packing tape up here anywhere?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” As I headed into my father’s office to grab the roll of tape, Duncan hollered after me.

  “Grab a couple more sheets of paper, too, please.”

  By the time I returned to the dining table, Duncan had opened up one of the small jars, which contained a fine black powder, and he was using a brush with very fine splayed bristles to dust the metal box. He held the brush a smidgen over the surface and twirled the brush between his fingers, flinging the powder onto the box, my table, and his gloved hand. After covering both the outside and the inside of the box, he frowned and shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Maybe the envelope or letter will have something,” I said with halfhearted hope. No one agreed with me. We all knew the odds of that happening were miniscule.

  “I’ll need to take the envelope and letter with me,” Duncan said. “Getting fingerprints off those requires a different process.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t want to have the letter completely gone, in case I wanted to look at it again. “Let me take a picture of it first,” I said, and I snapped a photo of it with my phone. Then I watched as Duncan put both it and the envelope inside the plastic Baggies I’d fetched when Cora was here. Then he placed them back in the metal box and slipped that into the large shopping bag Mal had used. As he reached for his parka, his cell phone rang. Mal and I both stood by as he took the call.

  “Hey. What have you got for me?” he said. Whatever the person on the other end said made him frown. Finally, he said, “Okay. Thanks,” and then he disconnected the call.

  Duncan stared at the two of us with a curious thoughtful expression. “Was Gary Gunderson dating anyone around the time he was killed?”

  I shrugged. “Not that I know of, but I don’t know if I would have been privy to that info if he was. Billy or Debra might know. Why?”

  “Remember that swab I took from the armrest of Gary’s car?”

  I nodded, sensing that he was about to reveal something big. My mouth was dry, and I licked my lips in anticipation of his answer.

  “The techs found something on it,” he said. “A perfume. Specifically, Opium perfume by Yves Saint Laurent. So if Gary wasn’t dating anyone, then . . .”

  He let us come to the conclusion on our own.

  Chapter 29

  “The killer might be a woman,” I said. I stood a moment, letting the possibility sink in and searching my memory banks for any woman I had met who was wearing Opium. But I couldn’t recall ever documenting a reaction to that specific perfume. I might have smelled it before and not realized it. I needed to get my hands on a sample.

  “There’s no way to know for sure if the perfume came from the killer,” Duncan cautioned. “It could have been left by some woman he had riding in his car on or around the day he was killed.”

  “I’ll ask Billy and Debra right away,” I said.

  “Even if they don’t know anything, it doesn’t mean Gary wasn’t seeing someone,” Mal said. “He was an ex-con. Those guys tend to be kind of private.”

  Duncan nodded his agreement, and as he did so, his phone buzzed with a text message. He looked at it, said, “I have to go,” and finished putting on his coat. Then he looked at Mal and said, “Can you go downstairs and hang on the other side of the door for a minute or so? I’ll be right there. I’ll knock before opening it, and you can knock back if the coast is clear.”

  I looked at Mal, too. “You can check the alley, too, while you’re there. I left the alarm off.”

  Mal nodded and headed downstairs.

  I looked at Duncan, my head cocked to one side. “Wish you could stay,” I said.

  “Me too.” He leaned down and gave me a kiss, a nice long kiss that made my toes curl and sparked all kinds of other sensations. The fake mustache and beard tickled my face. “You be careful,” he said when he finally pulled back.

  “I will. You do the same.”

  With that, he pulled on his knit cap and lowered it so that the front came to just above his eyebrows. He picked up his bag of goodies, and I followed him down to the small foyer, where he lightly rapped on the door. A second later Mal knocked back. Duncan turned and gave me one more kiss, this one on the cheek. Then he opened the door.

  I was still relishing all the synesthetic sensations when I realized he was gone.

  “You okay?” Mal asked me.

  I nodded and hobbled out into the hallway, letting the apartment door close behind me. I locked it and then headed for my office, where I reengaged the alarm for the alley door. Mal followed me in silence, and as I turned to leave the office, he stepped in front of me.

  “I know this is hard for you and Duncan,” he said, “but it will get better. Have patience.”

  I looked up at him and smiled. “Do you always have to be so nice and understanding?”

  He gave me a rakish smile in return. “Hey, I can’t help being what I am.”

  “You don’t make this any easier for me, you know.”

  His smile faded. “Do you want me to back off and not ha
ng around so much? I can watch you from more of a distance if my presence makes you uncomfortable.”

  I shook my head and smiled again. “It’s just the opposite,” I said. “Your presence makes me very comfortable. I’ve enjoyed having you around, and you’ve been so patient and understanding about all of this. I feel a little guilty taking you away from your life. Anytime you want to move on, just let me know.”

  His smile returned, and I felt relieved. I liked his smile. “I’m having fun,” he said. “Besides, I had no life prior to this, other than my undercover work. Eat, sleep, work. That was my life. At least with you I’ve gotten to do some fun stuff. And I promised Duncan I’d look out for you. So that’s what I’m going to do until one of you kicks me to the curb.”

  “But what about your social life? You should be out dating for real, instead of pretending with me.”

  “Yeah, the women are just flocking around me,” he said with great sarcasm.

  “I’m sure they would be if they thought you were available.” I arched an eyebrow at him.

  He smiled hard and blushed a little, looking away from me. “Thanks,” he said. When his gaze returned to mine, his smile turned melancholy, wistful. Our eyes locked for several seconds, until he sighed and turned to open the door.

  My heart ached for him. And for a moment I wondered if I was making a mistake, letting my hormones rule my head while a great man got away.

  It was a thought I tucked away for a later time, because I had other things to tend to for now.

  We left the office and headed for the bar. Billy was behind it, and Debra stood at one end of it, waiting on a drink order.

  I hobbled over to them. “Hey, guys,” I said. “Do either of you know if Gary was seeing or dating anyone when he was killed?”

  Billy shrugged, but Debra shook her head. “No, he wasn’t,” she said. “I know because I had a discussion with him the day before it happened. He asked me if I knew anyone I could fix him up with.”

  “And did you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. My sons have a friend whose mother is single, and she did some time a few years ago for drugs. But she straightened up, and she’s been clean for four years now.”

  “Did you give him her info?”

  Debra shook her head. “I wanted to ask her first if it was okay.” Her expression turned sad. “But I never did.”

  “Why are you asking?” Billy said.

  I couldn’t tell them the real reason, so I made one up. “I was just wondering if there might have been someone in his life, someone who, well . . . you know.”

  They both nodded solemnly, and I quickly changed the subject.

  “Everything going okay?” I asked.

  “Right as rain,” Billy said.

  Debra nodded and smiled, confirming his answer.

  “I’m going to head upstairs to the Capone Club, then,” I told them. I looked back at Mal, who had been standing quietly behind me the whole time. “Do you want a drink or something to eat?”

  “I am kind of hungry,” he said, rubbing his stomach.

  We decided to order some burgers, and then Billy mixed us a couple of drinks, which Mal carried upstairs.

  The group had fleshed out. Sam, Carter, Holly Alicia, Tad, Dr. T, Cora, and the brothers were all present, along with Sonja West and Stephen McGregor. Tyrese and Nick were there, too. After a general greeting, Mal and I settled in.

  “What are you guys up to?” I asked.

  “We were discussing the Middleton case,” Carter said. “But we keep hitting dead ends. The biggest stumbling blocks are the location and the timing. Unless the carjacking was a random event by someone who was stranded on that road, we can’t figure out how anyone would have known when Ben and Tiffany were going to be there. We’ve been tossing around the theory that Ben might have hired someone to kill Tiffany. Maybe he set something up while he was in town earlier that day. Clay here showed us transcripts from the trial that prove he did go into town, like he said. There were witnesses who said they saw him. Plus, he had receipts for the stuff he bought.”

  “Are you sure Middleton’s version of the events was the truth?” Holly asked me.

  “As sure as I can be.”

  “Then there’s Harrington’s story that the guy he sold the gun to wasn’t Ben Middleton,” Carter added.

  Debra appeared with the burgers for me and Mal, and the conversation stopped while she set them on the table for us. As soon as she was gone, Sam said, “Maybe this Harrington guy made that up as a way to get more attention.”

  I made a face and shook my head. My mouth was full of burger, so it took me a few seconds before I was able to speak. “I don’t think so,” I told the group once I had swallowed. “At the end he tried to take back everything he had told us, and his voice changed when he did that. I’m convinced that what he told the police was a lie.”

  “Back to square one,” Carter said with a sigh of frustration. “Where do we go from here?”

  “I want to run something by Sam,” I said. I then described for him and the others the paintings I’d seen in Tiffany’s workshop. “I feel like she was trying to tell the world something. I mean, that’s generally the purpose behind most art, but I had a sense that she was revealing something personal about herself, about her life. Any insight?”

  Sam nodded thoughtfully, pulling at his chin. “Well, the depiction of the flower, the poppy, is typically a symbol of remembrance, to honor the dead. It’s a popular symbol used to honor soldiers who die in battle and dates back to World War I. But these days it’s often used for other forms of remembrance and consolation.”

  “Interesting,” I said between bites. Had the pregnancy in her senior year and the subsequent loss of the child been behind those paintings? It was a thought I had to keep to myself, thanks to my promise to Kelly Gallagher. I wondered about the mystery man behind that pregnancy. Granted, it had happened years ago, but maybe the man had resurfaced in her life. More than ever, now I wanted to talk to Tiffany’s high school friend Melanie Smithson.

  Holly piped up and said, “I called and chatted with three of Ben Middleton’s ex-coworkers today. It sounds like he was kind of a tight-lipped loner. He didn’t talk much about himself, his marriage, or any other part of his private life. But the third guy I spoke to did say that he got an interesting comment from Ben one day about a month before the carjacking, when one of the women in the office came by with her one-month-old baby. This guy asked Ben if he and Tiffany had any plans to start a family. Ben’s answer was that he had thought they did, but then he’d discovered that Tiffany was still taking her birth control pills on the sly.”

  “That had to hurt,” Carter said.

  “I’m surprised Ben didn’t tell us that,” I said. “Did this guy you talked to say whether or not Ben was angry about it?”

  “On the contrary,” Holly said. “He said that Ben seemed concerned but resigned. He said something along the lines of how he feared he’d pushed too hard, too fast, because Tiffany wasn’t ready yet.”

  “Any talk of Ben having an affair with anyone?” Nick asked.

  Holly shook her head. “All three of the guys I talked to agreed that he wasn’t a flirter and seemed devoted to Tiffany.”

  “Sounds like that’s a dead end, too,” I said. I turned to Clay. “Any luck tracking down Melanie Smithson?”

  “I need to talk to you about that,” he said cryptically. “Maybe out in the hall?”

  “Okay. Just a sec.” I turned to Tyrese. “Any luck tracking down our PI?”

  “Yes and no,” he said, glancing over at Nick with a half smile. “Nick figured out who he was, but the guy is deceased.” Tyrese saw my panicked look and held up a hand. “Nothing nefarious. He died of a heart attack six months ago.”

  Nick leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, chin in his hands. “I was hoping we might be able to get the case files and glean some information that way. The guy’s widow sold off his PI business to someone, and I thought maybe
the files went with the business. But then she told me she had shredded all the closed case files.”

  “Bummer,” I said, and several people in the room nodded.

  “Hey, I tried,” Nick said with a frown. He flashed me an apologetic smile.

  “It was good idea,” I told him. “Just not a viable one, unfortunately.” I shifted my attention. “Carter, did anyone have any ideas about your drawing?”

  “Which was amazing, by the way,” Cora piped up.

  Carter smiled, blushed a little, and shook his head. “Nope. Nothing so far. I think the picture is too vague with the lower half of the face missing.”

  Joe said, “Maybe we should experiment a little with adding in features, play around with the drawing and see what we come up with.”

  “Not a bad idea,” I said. “You can make copies of the original and block out the part that includes the scarf. Then you can draw in some lower facial features.”

  Carter perked up, liking the idea.

  Cora said, “Hand me the picture, and I’ll go make some copies in Mack’s office.”

  Carter dug the drawing out of his laptop case and handed it to her. I gave Cora my keys, and she headed downstairs, carrying her laptop with her. I ate the last bite of my burger and then turned to Clay, nodding toward the door. He grabbed his coat and followed me out into the hallway.

  “Tell me about Melanie Smithson,” I said.

  “I found a way to get ahold of her, but it wasn’t easy. She dropped out of grad school last year and moved out of the Milwaukee area. So I had Cora do an online search. She told me her company does computer security work for the IRS and she might be able to find me something by tapping into their confidential files. She threatened my manhood if I breathed a word of what she was doing. That woman is amazing, by the way,” he added, his eyes wide. “And scary.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Anyway, she came up with a cell phone number and told me that Smithson is currently hanging out in Washington State somewhere. I called Smithson about an hour ago and asked if some folks looking into Tiffany’s murder could talk with her, but she said no. Then she asked me why anyone was looking into it, since Ben had already been convicted.”