by Ken Douglas
And then there was Gordon. She hated deceiving him as much as she hated deceiving Nick, maybe more. Nick had his work, his friends, family. Gordon didn’t have anyone, except maybe Jonas, for a shoulder to cry on. She wished there was a way she could tell him.
Close to the duplex, she came up the alley behind, was about to take the stairs, when she remembered the newspapers on the garage floor. Nick was a newsman and he wasn’t stupid. If he saw those papers like that, he’d know she’d gone through them. He’d want to know what she was looking for and he’d find it.
Maggie tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Inside she turned on the light. There were no windows, so there was little danger anybody would see. They’d have to be close enough to see light coming out from under the door, a risk she had to take.
The papers were where she’d left them. For a second a flash of anger rippled through her. Nick never failed to park his precious Mercedes in the garage. But her Mustang, that was too much trouble. Maggie took a breath, pushed her anger away. It was stupid. Her job here was to put the papers back the way they were as quickly as possible and get out and that’s what she did.
Outside again, she took the back stairs, careful to step over the fifth step because it squeaked. At the top, she found the key under the mat where she’d expected it. A quick breath and she opened the door. She eased it closed, locked it. The house was dark, but enough light seeped in from the apartment building next door for her to see her way around.
Bedroom first. She stopped at the door. The bed was rumpled. The place smelled of sex. Nick was fastidious, he’d never leave an unmade bed. Not ever. That girl must have been in it when he’d gone to the station. Where was she now? Would she be back soon?
She closed her eyes for a second and examined her feelings. The affair must have been going on for some time. How come she wasn’t hurt? Maybe she hadn’t been as much in love with Nick as she’d thought.
She went to the closet and pulled out her flight bag. Then to the bottom bureau drawer, Nick’s drawer. She fished under his ski sweaters, found the pistol. She didn’t know much about handguns, but she knew about this one, a Smith amp; Wesson Sigma nine millimeter automatic. Nick’s plastic gun. Better than a Glock, he’d boasted. Seventeen rounds in the mag, plus one in the chamber. Just point and shoot. And Maggie knew how to do that, Nick made sure of it by taking her to the range more afternoons than she could count. It was the only gun she knew, but she knew it well.
She checked to make sure he’d chambered a round. He had. She dropped it into the bag. Nick would miss the gun and undoubtedly report it stolen, but that couldn’t be helped. She wanted protection now, tonight.
Gordon Takoda stepped out of the shower, pulled a towel from the rack and dried his hair. Despite the shower, he felt like he hadn’t slept in a week. Losing Maggie had been as bad as losing Ricky.
Ricky had been worried about renting the upstairs to a straight couple, especially a TV person, but Nick Nesbitt was willing to pay the high rent and they seemed like nice people. Ricky used to say there were three kinds of straights. Those who hated gays, those who bent over backwards to prove they were okay with it and those who didn’t give a shit. Nick and Maggie didn’t give a shit.
Nick had been standoffish at first, but he was that way with everybody. He was on television, he had to be careful. Maggie, however, had swept into their lives as if she’d been there forever. They swiftly became fast friends. The three of them did everything together. Then Ricky died. Without Maggie, Gordon would have taken his own life.
At least Maggie never knew about Stephanie. She’d spent the night last night. Maggie not even buried yet and they were sleeping together. There was only one explanation for it. They’d been doing it before Maggie’d been killed. A man didn’t jump in the hay with someone the night after his wife was murdered, unless he’d been rolling in it for sometime.
A motive?
Not Nick, surely. Gordon couldn’t believe that. But the girl? He’d have to give it some thought.
He stepped into his jeans, pulled on a pair of running shoes without socks. He was out of coffee and besides, the walls were closing in. He had a yellow Spooner Hawaiian shirt half on when he heard a noise. He paused. It sounded like somebody was upstairs. He listened for a second. Nothing. Just ghosts in his imagination.
Maggie went to the closet, pulled out a pair of faded Levi’s. Though she wasn’t so wet she was dripping, she was uncomfortable. An Angels sweatshirt with cut off sleeves followed. She shucked off the wet clothes. Nick was going to know someone had been in the apartment anyway, if he noticed the wet spot on the carpet, it’d just confuse the cops. She put on the dry clothes and felt better right away. After wrapping the wet ones inside another sweatshirt, she stuffed them in the grip along with a second pair of Levi’s. She was a sweatshirt and Levi’s person and there were three more pairs of the jeans and a couple sweatshirts left in the closet, Nick wouldn’t notice what she’d taken.
But he’d notice her jewelry box. Too bad.
She hated rings on her fingers or in her ears. Necklaces seemed like a noose around her neck. And even though she hardly ever wore the engagement and wedding rings Nick had given her, she wanted them. She also wanted the gold crucifix her mother had given her. And she wanted the pearl earrings her father had given her when she graduated from high school. She loved the memories associated with her jewelry, the love that went with the giving of it. And besides, despite how she felt about it, sometimes she’d put some on for a dinner party or something.
She remembered she was barefoot and went back to the closet where she found and slipped on a pair of well used Nikes.
Now all she wanted was a photo album from the bottom bookshelf in the living room. She pulled out the album and flipped through it. She was there as a little girl, with her mother, with her dad, with both during birthdays, graduation, holidays. She closed it, dropped it in the grip.
She was about to let herself out when she noticed all the correspondence on the coffee table. There was plenty enough light coming in from the streetlamp out front for her to go through it.
She sat down on the sofa and started. Condolence cards. Heaps of them. Already? She’d only been dead a couple of days. There was a clipping from the Press Telegram with her photo in it. Not a good one, she thought, but anyone would recognize her. She hoped Margo’s friends or classmates didn’t see it.
She read the caption and gave a start. She was being buried tomorrow at noon.
Poor Margo. Maggie fought tears. Life was so unfair.
Horace found the house, an upstairs duplex. The lights were out. That made sense if the guy did the eleven o’clock news. He’d be at the station in L.A. till midnight. He parked in front of the garage in back as if he lived there, got out of the van without locking it.
He paused, took out a pair of latex surgical gloves, put them on.
There was some light from the apartments next door, but the alley behind was dark. He went for the steps, confident he wasn’t seen.
A squeak rippled through the night. Horace pulled his foot off the tattletale step as if it were red hot and he’d been barefoot.
Maggie heard the squeak. Somebody was on the steps out back. Not Nick, he’d have stepped over it as she had. Someone else. She started for the front door. Stopped. If it was the police they’d be out front, waiting. If that was it, then someone had called them. Could Gordon have heard something from downstairs? Was that it?
Gordon was on his way to the front door when he heard the telltale step. Nick? No, he said he’d be doing the news as usual. Probably that Stephanie.
Horace stood still as the night. Any second he expected lights, shouting. But it didn’t happen. He thought about Virgil. He thought about Ma rocking in that chair. He thought about Sadie. He thought about Striker and Congressman Nishikawa. And he thought about Margo Kenyon back from the dead.
A cool breeze wafted between the duplex and the apartment building next door. Someone put a CD o
n or turned on an oldies station. The Beatles, “Yellow Submarine.” Stupid song, but he found himself softly humming along with Paul McCartney’s vocals as he ghosted the rest of the way up the stairs.
At the landing, he unzipped the bomber jacket, fished a leather pouch from the inside pocket, opened it and smiled as he fingered the picks. Standard lock, probably the one that came with the house when it was built back in the ’50s. Piece of cake.
He went to work.
Maggie forced herself to be still, though her heart was racing. The doorknob clicked as someone tried it. She grabbed the grip. More clicking sounds. Someone was out there trying to pick the lock.
The police didn’t do that. They’d bang on the door, wake up the whole neighborhood.
Instinct said run. She rose from the sofa, started for the front door. Stopped. She flashed on Ferret Face and Virgil. What if it was them? One could be waiting somewhere out front.
She inched her way toward the bathroom. A mistake, she realized as soon as she slipped in. There was no way out and the lock on the door wouldn’t keep out a child, much less someone able to pick locks. She was about to leave, to take her chances going out the front way, when the back door opened.
Too late, whoever he was, he was in.
She took her hand from the door. It was open a crack. She heard quiet footsteps tiptoeing through the kitchen. She backed up to the bath, sat on the rim and fished in the bag for the gun. She let out a silent sigh when she found it, wrapped a hand around the grip, finger on the trigger as she pulled it out.
Gordon strained his ears, searching for sound from above. He’d heard the step. Heard the door open. Heard someone ease it closed. Nick never did that and there was no reason why Stephanie would either. He expected to hear footsteps cross the kitchen. And he expected to see the reflection of the upstairs light on the trees outside his windows when it came on. Whoever was up there was taking pains to be quiet and they were moving around in the dark.
He went into the bedroom, reached under the pillow, pulled out his thirty-eight. He took the holster out of the top drawer of the nightstand, clipped it to his belt at the small of his back.
Armed now, he opened the front and back doors, turned off the lights, then stood in the dark, gun in hand, in the center of the living room. Not even God could get out of that upstairs apartment without making some noise and Gordon planned on hearing it. When whoever was up there came down, he would be waiting.
Horace stopped in the middle of the kitchen. The lights were out, but the house seemed alive. He eased a hand into the shoulder holster, brought out the Beretta. He sipped at the air, but heard no sound.
There was a hallway off the kitchen. He was familiar with the layout, there were a lot of duplexes built to the same plan in the Shore. In his younger days he’d been in several.
He passed the bathroom on the left, checked the bedroom on the right. Empty. Sterile. A guest bedroom most likely. Back in the hall, he started for the bedroom at the end, stopped a few feet from the door. The house seemed more alive now. He had to piss. A look over his shoulder at the bathroom door. It was ajar. If there was anybody home, they’d be asleep in the master bedroom. He’d check it out, piss after.
Maggie sat on the rim of the tub, elbows on her knees, bracing her arms, two hands wrapped around the butt of the Sigma. She sucked air as if she were taking it through a straw, slow and silent. He was just outside the door. She heard the rustle of the thick pile on the carpet as he started toward the back bedroom. He was quiet, but she was quieter. However, she wasn’t moving and he was.
Horace stepped into the room gun hand first, Beretta ready to fire. The bed was empty, but he smelled the sex. That must have been what made him think the place was occupied. He wrinkled his nose. What kind of guy fucked around right after his wife died?
Then he saw it. An eight by ten color glossy, surrounded by a silver picture frame on the nightstand next to the bed. He picked a miniature flashlight out of his jacket pocket and lit up the photo. It was a wedding picture, groom in tux, bride in white. And the bride was her, spitting image.
How?
Twins, had to be. No other explanation. And he’d killed the wrong one. Wait! Not possible. He and Virge grabbed her from the parking lot in Huntington Beach where Margo Kenyon lived. And the red Porsche, that was Margo Kenyon’s car. The woman he did was Margo Kenyon, no doubt about it.
Something strange was going on.
A bead of sweat ran from behind Maggie’s left ear, down her neck. It tickled and itched at the same time. Her senses were all aware. She was running on overdrive. Her lips were dry. She licked them, but there was no moisture on her tongue. Sweat trickled under her arms. She shifted her weight. Her right heel rubbed against the tub. It squeaked.
Horace froze. There was someone in the house. His first instinct had been right. Oh shit! He hadn’t checked the living room. Someone could be asleep on the sofa.
He went cat-quick through the hallway, gun ready. In the living room, he pointed it at the sofa, a perfect place for falling asleep while watching television. But like the bedroom, there was nobody there.
Maggie heard the intruder rush down the hall. She tightened her finger on the trigger, expecting him to come crashing through the bathroom door, but he ran past instead.
Her nerves were lit, the fuse was short, but her hands were steady on the gun. Thank God for Nick and that endless practice on the range. She’d learned how to conquer her fear of the weapon, to hold it still and sure no matter how much her stomach was churning. And it was churning now.
Gordon heard the ceiling creak as footsteps moved fast through the hallway above. They stopped in the living room. He looked up. The intruder was right on top of him. He aimed the thirty-eight toward the ceiling, almost as if he were going to fire through it, like those action heroes do in the movies. He was breathing fast, panting like a tired dog, and he hadn’t strained a muscle. He was in shape, swam a hundred laps at the Olympic pool every morning, but he was ringing with sweat now. Not so cool, he thought, but then he was thirteen years out of the FBI. He was a sixty year old man, who’d been living a quiet life in the Shore for the last ten years.
He’d dealt with death during two tours of duty in Vietnam and during his twenty year tour with the Bureau, but now he was what he was. A quiet man, a reader, a chess player. He’d gotten lazy over the years. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fired the gun, but he still remembered how.
Horace shook his head. He felt like an idiot. A stupid high school jerk. He was as jumpy as he was on his first date at a drive-in movie. He sighed. Steamy windows, long blonde hair swirling around pink tipped breasts. He smiled at the memory. High school was the best time of his life. It had all been downhill after that. Then he met Striker and things started to pick up.
He was somebody now. He drove a new van, had an airplane, a zillion channels on the TV. He dressed well, ate at good restaurants. He felt good when he left the house.
He slipped the Beretta into the shoulder holster, looked down, saw the condolence cards on the coffee table. He picked up a couple, dropped them. He still had to piss like a race horse. He started for the bathroom.
Maggie heard him coming. She steadied herself, licked her dry lips again.
She’d expected him to pass by the bathroom as he had twice before, but all of a sudden the door was pushed in and the light came on.
“What?” he said when he saw her. It was Ferret Face.
She pulled the trigger, again and again and again.
Horace knew he’d done a stupid thing the second he turned the light on, then he caught a quick glimpse of a dark haired woman with Margo Kenyon’s face. Another one, he thought, registering the gun. Then something hit him in the side, spun him around. He was slammed out of the bathroom as if he’d been hit by a train, picked up and smashed into the wall. He slumped to the floor amid a hail of gunfire, rapid explosions that took away his hearing as bullets tore through the plaster above.
/> He curled up like a baby as everything turned to black.
Chapter Fifteen
Maggie ran out the front door, grip over her shoulder, gun in her left hand. She crossed the porch, leapt down the steps to the sidewalk.
“Freeze!” Gordon’s voice rang out through the night.
Maggie turned, Gordon was on the porch, in the shooter’s position, feet spread, arms extended, both hands on a pistol.
“Gordon, it’s me!”
“Maggie?”
“Yeah.” She put her right index finger to her lips, the sign for silence. Sirens in the distance broke the quiet of the night. “I need a ride outta here!” she said.
“I’ll get my keys.”
“Hurry!” Maggie said.
Seconds later Gordon slammed the door after himself, leapt from the porch. “It’s not locked.”
Maggie jumped in the passenger seat of his old Ford as Gordon slid behind the wheel. “Drive!”
“Whatever you say!” Gordon keyed the ignition, stepped on the gas. The tires screeched, the car shot forward. The Ford was more than it looked. Close as Maggie was to Gordon, she’d never ridden in his car. The Shore was a beach community, they walked everywhere.
He slid the car around a corner, drove like a man possessed. The Shore had stop signs on every other street. He ran them all. Suddenly, he hung a right, slowed down, drove normally, turned on Ocean and headed toward downtown Long Beach.
“So, you’re alive.”
“Yeah.” Maggie pulled the flight bag off her shoulder, stuffed the gun into it, then tossed it in the back. “The guy from the other night, the one with the ferret face. I just shot him.”