Chill Factor

by Chris Rogers

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That you’d heard she’s a psychotherapist, and you’d considered therapy in the past but wanted someone discreet.”

  “Not bad. I can run with that.”

  “Great, because I made a provisional appointment for you.”

  “Provisional?”

  “If you don’t like the time, I call back and reschedule.”

  “Why don’t I call back and reschedule?”

  “Vernice likes my voice.”

  So do I. “I’ll keep the appointment, if I can find a place to stash Marty for an hour or so.” She told him about HPD’s suspicions.

  “My afternoon’s open. I could take over Marty-watch for a while.”

  “You don’t like him, Parker.” Without even meeting him.

  “Sure don’t,” he said cheerily. “Do I have to?”

  Dixie’s own feelings about Marty couldn’t be called favorable these days. She agreed, and they made arrangements to meet for lunch.

  As she powered off the phone and studied the Harris house, one of Barney’s directives popped into her mind: Tackle the tough jobs first, lass. Today it failed to galvanize her. She simply wasn’t up to speaking to Art Harris’ widow, especially with Marty along. She’d tackle the neighbors first.

  Chapter Forty

  The Clary home, pale yellow with white shutters, sat away from the street, flower beds bursting with color, sidewalks swept spotless, oak-and-brass placard proclaiming the family name, a mint-condition twelve-year-old Volvo parked under a vine-covered portico. The Clarys lived immediately west of the Harrises. Dixie rang the doorbell.

  “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Clary,” she told the man who answered.

  He stood about five-nine, in clean, pressed Dockers and a T-shirt boasting his participation as a blood donor. Thin, thirtyish, and suspicious as hell, he scrutinized Marty from hair to sneakers, then turned his piercing gaze at Dixie. As a pair, she and Marty might’ve been from different planets, the man’s frown suggested.

  “You’re not from the church,” he stated.

  “No.” Dixie handed him a card.

  “I was expecting a couple from the church to pick up the white elephants my wife donated. Carol! It’s a lawyer!” He glanced at Marty.

  A plump, thirtyish woman joined him on the threshold.

  “Whose lawyer?” She took the card from her husband.

  “I’m looking into the death of your neighbor, Arthur Harris.” Dixie’s vague explanation had worked once that morning. “Sometimes friends, neighbors, know more than they realize.”

  “Don’t see how we can help, but come in and have a seat.” The man pushed the door wide.

  A narrow entry opened into a pale yellow living area. The carpet appeared freshly vacuumed. Dixie examined her boot soles before walking in. A pair of matched love seats, pristine white, sat on either side of a glass coffee table. She spied a club chair with a yellow slipcover and motioned Marty toward a love seat. Instead, he perched on a straight-back chair pulled away from the dining table.

  “How well did you know Arthur?” Dixie asked, when they were all seated.

  “Not well at all.” Carol looked at her husband. “We invited them over—remember, Joe? Before the baby came, but they didn’t stay long. Ann was close to term and obviously miserable.”

  “Ms. Flannigan didn’t ask about Ann. She asked about Art.” Joe plucked a tiny leaf off his pants. “Art and I talked quite often. He’d be out with the stroller, me working in the yard.”

  “Not all that often,” Carol argued. “We didn’t know the Harrises at all, really, not at all.”

  “I knew Art well enough. What did you want to know?” Joe glanced at Marty again, then back to Dixie.

  “Just a sense of what he was like away from the job. Did he ever talk about work?”

  “Not as much as he talked about that baby,” Carol replied. “You know, ‘Peggy turned over.’ ‘Peggy smiled.’ ‘Peggy spat up her dinner.’”

  Joe aimed his careful scrutiny at his wife. “I never realized you and Art—”

  “Now, you stop with the jealousy, Joe Clary.” Carol turned to Dixie. “On his days off, Art sometimes brought Peggy over and we’d have a glass of tea. I always told him, ‘Bring Ann along.’ But she’d be in the shower or whatever.”

  “Did the Harrises have many visitors? Other officers, perhaps?”

  Marty stood and strolled to a media unit—TV, VCR, CD player—and appeared to study the titles of their music collection.

  “No.” Carol shook her head. “Never saw anybody over there.”

  “I did.” Joe lowered his voice. “Last Saturday, a blue-and-white parked in Art’s driveway. Art came out, leaned in the window, and talked for, I’d say, twenty-five minutes. Didn’t have Peggy with him.”

  “Did you see who was in the car?” Dixie asked.

  “A man. Blond.” He reached behind him and grabbed a folded newspaper off the sofa table. Opening it to the frontpage story on the sniper murders, he pointed to Ted Tally. “Could’ve been that man.”

  “It would help if you could be more certain.”

  “Sorry, no.”

  Carol picked up the paper. “Joe, that man is dead, too.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “Well, I don’t believe you saw him at Art’s house.”

  “I saw someone, and it could have been him.”

  “Had you ever seen Officer Tally visit Art before?” Dixie asked.

  Joe shrugged. “It’s not as if we kept track of their visitors.”

  “They never had visitors,” Carol insisted.

  As she rang a doorbell across the street from the Harrises, Dixie asked Marty, “What were you doing in there?”

  “Checking out their stuff, looking for clues.”

  “What clues? The Clarys aren’t suspects.”

  “Why not?”

  “I grant you, it’s possible, but Clary didn’t strike me as a coolheaded cop killer. Your average working Joe is rarely a practiced marksman.”

  “I felt like a dolt, sitting, doing nothing, you asking all the questions.”

  “Then make like a Watson and take notes.”

  They tried two other houses, with no luck, then approached a brick bungalow directly east of the Harrises’.

  “Nobody’s home,” called a voice from a neighboring yard. Partially hidden by rosebushes, a tall, rawboned woman with close-cropped blond hair and sun-weathered skin wielded a watering hose.

  “Do you know where they’ve gone?” Dixie called back. Under her breath she told Marty, “Ring the bell anyway. Nosy neighbors can be wrong.”

  “Off to Vegas for the holiday weekend,” the woman said as Dixie strolled closer.

  She could be fifty or a well-preserved sixty, Dixie decided. “Gorgeous roses. How do you make them so prolific?”

  “Pinch ’em. Soon as the first buds show up, pinch ’em off. For ever blossom pinched, three more grow in its place.”

  Dixie recalled Kathleen saying the same thing about mums, and the Flannigan garden always made a spectacular show, when she’d been alive to tend them.

  “Gotta keep water off the leaves, or they’ll spot,” the woman added, garden hose directed carefully at the dirt around the bushes. “And never water ’em at night.”

  “Maybe you could help us.” Dixie gave the rose lady her business card. “I’m sure you heard about Art Harris.”

  “Pretty much all we’ve talked about on this street since Thursday. You’re not aiming to cause that young widow of his any trouble, are you?” She glanced at the card.

  “Not at all. We’re—”

  “To my notion, that’s what lawyers do, cause trouble.”

  Marty’s bell ringing hadn’t brought anyone to the door, so he stepped off the porch, taking out a pen and a palm-size tablet that looked suspiciously like the back of his checkbook.

  “Mrs. Harris won’t have any trouble from us,” Dixie assured the woman. “We’re merely
looking into Art’s death.”

  “Looking into it? What the hell does that mean?”

  “We want to find out who killed him.”

  “A lawyer?” She looked at Dixie’s card again. “Then what are the cops doing?”

  “Ma’am, every law enforcement person in this city wants to find out who killed Officers Harris and Tally. If you knew Art, Ms….?”

  “Easton. Janet Easton. Mrs. Divorced.”

  “If you knew him, Mrs. Easton, you might answer a few questions for us.”

  “You want to know about Art, why don’t you talk to Ann?”

  “We plan to, but the more we find out in advance, the less we’ll have to trouble her at such a sad time.”

  Janet Easton redirected her watering hose to a row of hibiscus. “Fair enough, then. Ask away.”

  “Did you and the Harrises visit often?”

  “I stopped in from time to time, when Art was at work, to see if Ann needed anything. Looked after little Peggy ever once in a while, so they could get out to dinner or a movie.”

  “Did Ann stop leaving the house after Peggy was born?”

  “Never got out before that child was born. A lazy lump, if you ask me.”

  “Had they been married long?”

  “Five years. Soon as Art finished junior college, they married, bought that house over there, he applied to the police academy, and Ann had that baby. Blip, blip, blip, blip. Couples with any sense these days put off childbearing until they’re both ready.”

  Five years sounded to Dixie like a reasonable period to wait.

  “I suppose children can be a burden,” she said. “With Ann not working, the financial responsibility …” She shrugged, hoping Easton would jump in with some useful information.

  “Ann might call Peggy a burden, all right, but Art never complained. Wasn’t a better father on this earth than Arthur Harris. Can’t imagine where that child will end up now.” She shook her head gravely. “He worried about Ann not taking to motherhood, worried she might up and leave him.”

  “You and Art talked about this?”

  “Talked about a lotta things. Sitting on the steps together, Peggy and Ann both asleep, Art and I solved the world’s problems a couple times ever week.”

  “Did he seem worried recently? Besides his concern about Ann.”

  Easton moved along the hibiscus row as she considered the question.

  “Art worried about not being good enough,” she said finally.

  “Good enough for what?”

  “Anything. Grew up rough—but I guess you’d know about that, being a lawyer.”

  “Not really.”

  “Got caught up in some gang doings back in Dallas—that’s where he and Ann lived before moving here. Father deserted ‘em. Mother hopped from one boyfriend to another, looking for one dumb enough to adopt a ready-made family. Gangs take on a surrogate-family role to lost boys, and Art was about as lost as they get.”

  “But then he became a cop. So he must’ve left the gang before he landed in any serious trouble.”

  “Fights, drugs, weapons, petty theft—all juvenile, but Art said he treaded darn close to serious. A Big Brother turned all that around.”

  “Big Brother, as in the organization?”

  The woman nodded and moved down the side of the house toward a bed of caladiums. “When Art finally started seeing things straight, he looked back on what a terror he’d been and tried to make up for it. Intended to join the gang task force.”

  “Had he applied?”

  “Wouldn’t know about that.”

  Harris worked out of the Clear Lake station, a high-dollar district. Gang activity might not be obvious there, but it existed. And a cop who tried to influence gang members to drop out would make enemies.

  When Janet Easton turned off the water and began rolling up her garden hose, Dixie studied the Harris house: red brick, green shutters, a baby swing hanging from the lowest limb of a live oak tree.

  Tackle the tough job, lass. She’d put off talking to the widow Harris long enough.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Hearing her husband’s shower cease, Kaylynn Banning knocked on the bathroom door. She entered, and found Avery toweling his chest in front of the steamy wall mirror.

  Kaylynn liked to linger in bed late on Saturdays, and usually she could convince Avery to linger alongside her, but with Memorial Day less than forty-eight hours away, the Mayor was eager to be downtown.

  “Can’t expect people to work enthusiastically,” he’d told her, “when they know the boss is sprawled out, catching an extra forty.”

  Now he swiped steam off the mirror and leaned close to scrutinize his face.

  “No, you cannot go to the office without shaving,” she said, smiling at him in the mirror.

  Fresh from her own shower, auburn hair damp around her ears, she intentionally wore a light dressing gown that hugged her slender curves. A year older than his forty-six, she knew she still looked damned good, and didn’t want Avery to forget it. Kaylynn Welsh Banning came from old money, old politics, and she already had an eye on redecorating the Governor’s mansion.

  “How did you guess what I was thinking?”

  “Avery, you never shave on Saturdays, if you can avoid it. You think nobody notices.”

  “My beard’s so light—”

  “It’s not that light.”

  “I thought going extra casual might relax the atmosphere around the office today. You know, everybody pitching in—”

  “In that case, you’ll have an extra few minutes before you need to leave.” She slipped the dressing gown off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. Sliding her arms around his middle, she pressed her groin to his buttocks.

  “Kaylynn, there’s no time—”

  “Nobody likes a boss who arrives early. It makes everyone sneaking in late look bad.” Her fingers caressed his testicles; her lips trailed a string of soft kisses over his back.

  In the mirror, she saw a calculating glint in his eyes: He couldn’t deny her logic. And he wouldn’t dare deny her what she craved. Mayor Avery Banning might have the entire city—and an impressive old-boy network nationwide—wrapped around his little finger, but Kaylynn controlled the purse strings.

  Thirty-seven minutes later, she watched him sort through a rack of sports coats. When he reached for a gray bomber jacket, she pushed his hand aside and selected a navy blazer. She regarded it against his beige slacks and pale blue shirt.

  “Perfect,” she murmured.

  “No, too dressy.” He chose a tan, loose-weave silk that looked like hopsack and emphasized the faint spray of freckles across his nose.

  Reluctantly, she nodded her agreement and thumbed through his tie rack.

  “No tie,” he said. “Today, I’m one of the guys … toss my jacket over a chair, roll up my sleeves, do whatever-the-hell job needs doing.”

  She nodded again. In some areas, Avery did know best. He could assemble a roomful of drones who’d work until their eyes rolled out of their heads. Whirling from his closet, she went to her own and dressed in her gardening clothes. Their yardman handled the heavy work, but she enjoyed digging around in the beds, coaxing the beds to greater profusion every year. In the annual “Azalea Trail” tour of Houston homes, theirs always drew oohs and ahs.

  Later, in the living room, Kaylynn sorted through a handful of mail.

  “A letter came for you.” She held it up to the light. Anything really important usually went to his office.

  “Who from?”

  “Doesn’t say. An invitation, maybe. Nice paper.”

  “Someone begging a donation. Go ahead, open it.”

  She slit the top with a crystal-handled letter knife and unfolded a single page. Her stomach tightened as she read.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “A crank letter. Probably nothing.” She handed it to him.

  A shadow darkened his eyes as he scanned the message she’d already seen: You see what poor
management causes, Mayor? This will be the only warning you receive. Unless your resignation is announced within 36 hours, and unless every man responsible for killing Lucy Aaron Ames and Edna Lou Pine is relieved of duty, with no chance of reassignment to a law enforcement agency, you are all hereby sentenced to death. It was signed, The People.

  Avery scrutinized the emblem embossed at the top of the page. Apparently, it meant as little to him as it had to her. He turned the letter over. Nothing there.

  “Let me see that envelope.” He snatched it from her, passed his thumb over the address. “Typed, not laser-printed. Downtown postmark. No return.”

  The same emblem was embossed and foil-stamped on the heavy cream-colored paper. Not cheap.

  “You don’t think it’s a crank letter?” she asked quietly.

  He shook his head. “At the press conference last night, I never mentioned Tally was involved in the Pine shooting, or that idiot Harris—who was supposed to be on desk duty after the Ames fiasco—pulled a Rambo and somehow ended up right alongside Tally. No one outside Chief Wanamaker, the FBI task force, and the officers at the two scenes had access to that information.”

  “The reporters guessed,” Kaylynn argued. She’d heard them ask. Mayor Banning, could the assassination of these officers have anything to do with the recent bank robberies and the women who were killed?

  “That possibility is being investigated,” Avery had told them. “The task force will follow every conceivable avenue of investigation until the killer is caught.”

  Now, seeing the fear on her husband’s face, Kaylynn knew this letter was no prank. “Avery, you should cancel the Memorial Day celebration.”

  “I can’t. My press secretary worked up a speech addendum specifically commemorating the two cops. The city expects it. Anyway, we can’t feed this assassin’s ego.”

  “According to the letter, you’re not dealing with a lone assassin. Who are The People, Avery?”

  He looked down at the letter and shook his head. But he knew—or suspected—more than he was telling. In their two years of marriage, Kaylynn had never seen her husband frightened. What she saw now was genuine terror.