One Shot

by B K Stevens

  I rocked back on my heels. “What?”

  He’d found his strength. The words rushed out, a soft, steady murmur. “Not the bunny. I wouldn’t do a bunny, not on Easter. She must’ve done it, so she could yell at Jackson and get in the papers. I did the others, though. That was bad. Dad says, shoot only what you eat. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Tell me about last Friday.”

  His eyelids eased down, and a smile pushed at the corners of his mouth. “So clever. I followed the car, all the way to McDonald’s. Nobody saw me—nobody ever sees me. The bag came out of the window, right into the Dumpster. Just a McDonald’s bag, but I knew what was in it.”

  “All right.” How many minutes did he have left? Or was he down to seconds now? “You saw the killer throw a bag into the McDonald’s Dumpster. Did you see the killer? Can you describe the car?”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. “I knew what was in it. So I looked for it, through all the icky, icky stuff. Grandma in an apron yelled at me, but I found it. And I put it away.”

  “The gun?” I said. “You found the gun in the bag? And you put it away? Where, Mr. Spat?”

  Again the faint, secret smile passed across his lips. “Nice and safe,” he said. “Nice and simple.”

  “Yes, but where? Where is it now, Mr. Spat?”

  There was a sound in his throat, almost a giggle. “Perhaps a little too plain,” he said. “A little too self-evident.” He sighed, and squeezed Jackson Haywood’s hand, and died.

  “I had no choice,” Haywood said. “He would’ve killed you.”

  “You probably saved my life.” It was ridiculous and ungrateful to wish he’d given me another moment to get the rifle. But Spat didn’t want to shoot, I thought stubbornly. I could’ve managed. “Where was the gun, Mr. Haywood?”

  “On a hook under my desk. I never told anyone—I felt foolish about it. But ever since Karen Dodd stormed in here with that rabbit, I’ve felt vulnerable.” He paused. “Lieutenant, this must seem trivial. But what Wayne said about the rabbit—would he lie about that, on his deathbed?”

  Things were coming together—half-thoughts that had stirred while I looked through the files last night, while I watched the news with Charlene Gorshin. “I don’t think he lied about anything,” I said.

  *

  “You’re not to say a word,” I said. “Not until I give you permission. Clear?”

  “It’s clear, it’s clear.” Carlson looked out the passenger window. “How’d you get away from the station so fast? I’d have thought you’d be filling out forms all night.”

  “It wasn’t easy.” I turned a corner sharply. “I said I had to make an important homicide arrest. So we’d better make damn sure I can make the arrest. Tonight. Don’t blow this one, Carlson.”

  “Hey, I don’t blow arrests. You’re the one blowing it, rushing in without evidence.”

  “I’ve got evidence. Maybe not enough, but maybe I can make it sound like enough. Maybe I can get a confession—preferably, two confessions. But it’ll take tact. That’s why you can’t open your mouth. Most of all, don’t let on about Wayne Spat. I don’t want them to know he’s dead.”

  Carlson half-chuckled. “Poor, weird Wayne. That’s a lucky break for the murderer, Wayne popping off before telling his side of the story.”

  “He told part of it. And it was a deathbed statement, and I’ve got a witness. Plus I’ve got the McDonald’s employee who yelled at Spat when she saw him going through the dumpster. That’s worth something.”

  “Not worth much,” Carlson said as we pulled into the driveway. “Not without the gun. Wayne could’ve just been dumpster-diving for leftover McNuggets. Well, there’s Bixby’s Porsche and Gorshin’s Accord. We can confront all three of them, just like you wanted.”

  When Charlene Gorshin answered the door, her eyes sharpened instantly. “The solemn, official look,” she said. “Business, not pleasure. Is there news?”

  “Not exactly.” I walked past her into the living room, with Carlson following, clutching the laptop to his chest. Randy Dodd and Jim Bixby sat on the couch, legal pads spread out between them. They stood up—Bixby slowly, Dodd eagerly, the delighted host.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, scurrying over. “I hope you’re hungry. We’ve got so much food—”

  “No thanks.” The living room didn’t seem as stridently tidy as it had the first night, but I saw no signs of the children, no toys or scattered coloring books. “Are your children upstairs?”

  “They’re staying with my parents. Remember? You suggested I get them out of the public eye. What can we do for you?”

  “Help me tie up some loose ends, I hope,” I said, relieved I wouldn’t have to worry about what the children might overhear. “How are you tonight, Mr. Bixby?”

  “Fine, Dan,” he said, heartier than any normal person would be when two policemen show up late at night. “Loose ends, you say?”

  “That’s right.” I walked over to the reddish-brown splotch on the carpet. “This stain, for example. That’s a loose end. Know what it is, Mr. Bixby?”

  He crossed the room reluctantly, dropped his glance to the carpet for one moment, then looked up with a tight, determined smile. “Can’t help you, Dan. No idea.”

  “It isn’t blood, is it?” Dodd asked. “Then I don’t know. One of the kids must’ve spilled something.”

  “Not unless your kids like Chinese food. I had carpet fibers tested—that’s sweet-and-sour sauce. Did you bring Chinese food home for lunch on Friday, Mr. Dodd?”

  “No—remember? I offered to fix lunch, but Karen had already eaten.”

  I shook my head. “The coroner said her stomach was practically empty. So maybe she planned to eat later, with someone else.” I turned to Bixby. “You took a late lunch on Friday, didn’t you? Where did you eat?”

  Bixby met my eyes. “Gosh, Dan. Awful hard to say, after all this time. Wendy’s, maybe. Some fast-food place.”

  I nodded approvingly. “Some place where lots of people come and go, where we couldn’t reasonably ask you to produce a witness who remembers seeing you. Good choice. As it happens, though, we have our own witness. Detective?”

  Grinning, Carlson took some papers from his pocket and pretended to consult them. “Today, I visited six Chinese restaurants. The proprietor of Golden Wall positively identified a photograph of James Bixby. He said Bixby arrived at the restaurant around 1:15 last Friday—the day of the murder.” He looked up to enjoy people’s reactions. “Bixby made a phone call, nursed a drink for half an hour, placed an order for food, and left about 1:45—with two egg rolls and a double order of sweet-and-sour shrimp.”

  Gorshin gave Carlson his most thoroughly satisfying response. “Oh, my God,” she cried. She grabbed a notebook from her purse. “The stain on the carpet! A stain on her character! Her husband’s best friend! The secret double life of a respected public figure!”

  Dodd’s normally ruddy face paled to a mime-like mask. “It’s some innocent coincidence. Karen was a devoted wife and mother. She never even looked at another man.”

  “Maybe you’ve been paying too much attention to press releases,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t know your wife as well as you thought. Mr. Bixby, though―you knew her pretty well, didn’t you, sir?”

  Bixby gave me a long, measuring look. Very deliberately, he walked to an armchair and sat down, defiance settling into his face. “Y’know, Dan, I don’t think this is the best time to discuss that. I’d like to give it more thought.”

  I nodded. “That’s your right. In fact, you have lots of rights; soon, Detective Carlson will tell you all about them. But the phone company keeps records—”

  “Aw, let’s move this along.” Carlson bounded across the room and loomed over Bixby’s armchair. At six-three, Carlson looms impressively. “Just tell us. Jacqui got to be a drag, so you handed her over to Randy. Then you figured, hey! Karen’s home alone! I bet you told her about Randy and Jacqui, got her feeling
all rejected and resentful. That cleared the path for you. Not bad, Bixby. Not bad.”

  “That’s enough, Carlson,” I said, not harshly. Bixby had flattened himself against his chair, as if afraid Carlson would do him physical harm. “Mr. Bixby probably wants to consult his attorney. Drive him downtown right now, so he can make his phone call.”

  “You bet.” Carlson leaned in closer. “Okay, Bixby. Get your ass in the car.”

  Bixby had hoisted himself halfway up the back of his chair. “Lieutenant! I’ve reconsidered! I’ll cooperate right now. Right here. I—that is, I didn’t do anything. She was already dead when I got here.”

  I heard the gasps behind me but didn’t bother to turn around. At this point, I didn’t have much to learn from studying facial expressions. “What time was that?”

  “Maybe 2:00. She’d said to come after one, said Randy would be gone by then. I called from the restaurant just to make sure, and she obviously couldn’t talk. She said, ‘I need more time,’ and I said, ‘Half an hour?’ and she said, ‘Fine.’ I had a drink and drove over here. The door was ajar, so I walked in. There she was, all bloody. I was so shocked, I dropped the sweet-and-sour shrimp.”

  “And then you scraped it up and ran away,” I said, “leaving the woman you loved dead on the floor.”

  “Hey, I never said I loved her,” Bixby protested. “Karen was a great gal, we had some good times, but I never told her—”

  “Hear that, Charlene?” Dodd seized her shoulders. “He didn’t love her! They were just friends. It was just an innocent lunch—right, Jim?”

  “I’m surprised by your reaction,” I said. “Mr. Bixby just admitted he was in your house the day your wife was murdered, and all you can think about is how it’ll look in the press. Aren’t you wondering if he might have killed her?”

  Startled, he backed away from Gorshin. “Jim wouldn’t do that.”

  Gorshin sighed. “So touching! The blindness of love! The betrayed husband’s unshakable faith!”

  “Maybe.” I nodded at Carlson, who started setting up the laptop. “The wife’s faith wasn’t all that unshakable, though. Did you know she was paying Helen Quinn to spy on you, Mr. Dodd? She was gathering evidence, in case she decided to file for divorce.”

  “Divorce?” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “That’s not possible. Karen was devoted to me, to our family.”

  “She was a good politician, Mr. Dodd. She knew how to build an image, to inspire trust—in the voters, in the press, in you. She said she planned to spend the afternoon writing a speech, and you believed her. You counted on it. Carlson?”

  “Ready.” He turned on the laptop and displayed the menu.

  I walked over to join him. “This is the laptop your wife took to Washington. Notice the file titled ‘Speech—CGS.’ Let’s see the speech itself, Carlson. There—that’s the speech she planned to give when she accepted the award at the Citizens for Gun Sanity banquet. Page down, Carlson. See, Mr. Dodd? It’s a complete speech. And a good one. Very direct. Very passionate. The kind that brought people to their feet whenever she spoke.”

  Gorshin crowded in for a look. “Yeah, that’s good stuff. She wrote that just before she was killed?”

  “No, she wrote it the night before.” I nodded at Carlson, and the menu re-appeared. “Run the courser over the file name, Carlson—there. See? The file’s dated 8:37 p.m., March 12. I’m always forgetting that computers automatically record when a document was saved. But they do. She wrote this speech in Washington. That’s why she took the laptop with her. She didn’t want to be bothered with a speech on Friday afternoon. She had other plans for Friday afternoon—didn’t she, Mr. Bixby?”

  Bixby shrugged. “So we had plans. So what?”

  “What about the speech she was writing on Friday?” Gorshin demanded. “Didn’t you find a half-finished speech on the computer upstairs?”

  “We did.” I inserted a flash drive and called up the text. “We found this on the screen the night of the murder. Poignant, isn’t it, the way it breaks off in mid-paragraph? What’s your professional opinion of this speech, Gorshin?”

  She glanced and grimaced. “Pitiful. Stiff, plodding, gutless—reads like a CPA reporting to the board. Karen Dodd wrote this?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “This was saved at 1:37 on Friday afternoon. I bet someone had it ready on a flash drive, copied it onto the hard drive, and saved it, to make it look as if she was alone in the house, working on a speech, when the killer showed up.” I turned around. “Who might’ve wanted to create that impression, Mr. Dodd?”

  His face had petrified. “But Karen was alone. I left at 1:00, to see Jacqui. And Karen called Helen at 1:34 and said I’d been gone for half an hour. Karen said that herself. Remember?”

  “I remember,” I said. “It’s a nice touch. Let’s see. You left work at noon, but you didn’t go straight home. You had to go to Jacqui Liston’s house first, to get the gun—and of course she was so drunk she barely remembers what day you showed up, let alone what time. Then you came here and gave your wife some story about being delayed and afraid you’d get in trouble at work. You got her to call Helen Quinn and make your excuses for you. Well done, Mr. Dodd. You shoot one woman, frame another, and use them both to establish your alibi. You’ve got a real knack for manipulating people. No wonder you thought you could manipulate the police—and the press.”

  “That’s crazy,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you? This affair with Jacqui Liston—you started that because you knew it’d make a great story. You let her make the sex tape because it made the story hotter. Were you thinking of murdering your wife, right from the beginning? Or weren’t you sure you’d go that far?”

  He shook his head weakly. “I don’t understand you.”

  I walked to the fireplace and gazed at the wholesome, smiling faces in the family portrait. “And the murder itself—you had the set all decorated. Shattered glass, ripped-up roses, ‘Welcome Home, Mommy’ signs in the kitchen—poignant stuff. As for your children, no one could’ve exploited them better. You made sure they’d find the body. You bought the twins new coats, so they’d have good costumes for the funeral. I advised you to send the kids out of town, but you kept them with you until all the good photo opportunities were exhausted. Then—well, why keep the kids around after the reporters were gone?”

  “No.” The words came more slowly now, more softly, but the tone was still insistent. “My children—they’re everything to me. All I care about now is doing the best I can for them—without her.”

  I half-smiled. “I’ve heard that phrase a lot lately. Without her. What is it, Gorshin? A screenplay title?”

  For once, it took her a moment to respond. “A reality show concept. You know—after his wife’s tragic death, an erring but penitent father struggles to raise their children—without her. Randy came up with the title; I wrote the outline. CBS loves it.”

  “I bet.” I looked back at Dodd. “You didn’t even hate her, did you? Oh, I’m sure you resented her for being more successful than you, but that didn’t make you kill her. No, you did it for the reality show, the book deals, the mini-series. That’s got to be a sure-fire route to fame and fortune these days—cast yourself as the tragic survivor in a spectacular true-life crime, then sell your story for every cent you can get. And you made damn sure it’d be good enough to sell.”

  Dodd looked at me wildly, then howled and flung himself at Bixby. “Bastard!” he cried, gouging his fingers into Bixby’s throat. “You killed my Karen!”

  I sighed wearily. “Carlson,” I said.

  Joyously, Carlson threw himself into the fight. I turned away, staring at the portrait again, wondering what would happen to the children. By the time I turned around, Carlson was sweatily triumphant, Bixby was gasping for air and massaging his throat, and Randy Dodd sat on the floor, his eyes more stunned than scared, his hands cuffed behind him. Gorshin pulled a camera from her purse and cir
cled him slowly, taking pictures. I didn’t make her stop. Usually, I feel some pity for a cornered killer. Not this time.

  She took a final shot, then walked over to me. “So he planned all along to sell his story? He was using me?”

  I nodded. “Give the man credit, Gorshin. He’s an artist. He saw Bixby with a mistress straight out of Fatal Attraction—a former beauty queen, no less—and recognized her potential. His wife and kids had potential, too, as innocent victims. All he had to do was pile on the irony. Shooting a gun-control advocate—that’s plenty ironic. Shooting her right after she’s testified before the Senate, on the day she’s getting an award from an anti-gun group—that, to quote Detective Carlson, is Irony City. Add the sex, the politics, the crying kids—he could’ve milked that for years. He could collect his royalties, get cuddled by talk-show hosts, maybe skim some cash from his memorial foundation. That’s lots more lucrative than being a second-rate salesman and filling out background shots of My Wife, The Governor. Lots more fun, too.”

  She took a minute to absorb it, but just a minute. “I love it! A deeply disturbing new motive for murder in the twenty-first century! A provocative reflection on the role of the media in contemporary society! Randy Dodd may be the first to commit murder for this reason—but Will He Be the Last? God! This’ll get me an op-ed piece in The New York Times!”

  I walked away from her. Carlson joined me, shaking his head. “Dates on files,” he said. “That’s all the solid evidence you’ve got, and a smart lawyer can find millions of ways to explain those away. It’s a great theory, but without the gun—”

  “Then we’ll find the gun,” I said. “It’s probably at Spat’s apartment. Once we’re finished with Dodd, we’ll get a warrant and do a real search.”

  Carlson sighed. “Here we go. Crawling around in closets, tapping on floorboards, looking for secret compartments, taking the plumbing apart—the whole deal. I’ll tell you one thing, Lieutenant. If you decide to search inside all those dead animals, you can damn well ask someone else. Who knows where that creep would hide a gun?”