“Long, curly red hair pulled into a ponytail, very fit. Ring any bells?”
“That could be anybody,” he said.
“True,” I said. “Okay, I’ll see if I can get her picture and show it to you. She may have come to one of your parties.”
“Why is that important?”
“Your gun was used at the crime scene,” I said slowly, walking him through my logic again. Did he really not get it? “So if you didn’t kill Pete, it had to be someone who could have stolen your gun. If Maggie is involved, she would’ve had to be here in your condo at some point.”
“Oh, right.” He started swinging the bat again. “You think she may have killed Pete?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, until I can eliminate her as a suspect, along with a bunch of others. Like Mason.”
“Pete was friends with him.”
“Did you know they got in a fight and Mason belted Pete in the nose?”
“Really?” He was genuinely surprised.
I nodded.
“Huh. I thought they were friends.”
“Nope,” I said.
He didn’t have anything to say to that. A horn blared outside. Charlie suddenly flew to his feet and stomped outside. He stood in the middle of the deck, swinging the bat. I finally got up and joined him. The sun was sinking low in the sky, painting clouds a deep purple.
“This whole thing is messed up,” he said. “I didn’t kill Pete.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Do you believe me?”
I put my arms on the railing and looked down to the street. “Yes. Until I find something that would tell me different.”
“What’re you going to do now?” he asked. He set the bat down and came over to the railing.
I sighed heavily. It had been another long day. “I’m going home, maybe watch a movie with my girlfriend. I need some time to think.”
“You got a girl. That’s nice,” he said. “What’s she like?”
“She’s great,” I said. “She’s a nurse at St. Joe’s. And she likes baseball.”
“Have you been together for long?”
I nodded. “Quite a while. I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
“Oh yeah?” He brightened. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” I smiled as I thought about Willie.
“You should bring her around sometime. I’d like to meet her.”
“She’d be thrilled.” I thought about Willie and her comment that Charlie was cute, with his blue eyes and chiseled jaw. A twinge of jealousy shot through me and then vanished. She loved me, not Charlie. But she would be ecstatic to meet him.
“Hey,” Charlie interrupted my thoughts.
“What?”
“There’s that damn woman again.” He pointed to the street.
“The one you saw at Pete’s the night of the murder?”
“I’m not sure.” He ran into the condo and returned with binoculars. He trained them on her. “I think it’s her.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think so. I only saw her from behind, so I don’t know.” He began pacing, agitated. “I don’t like it. There’s usually three of them watching me, but she’s here all the time.”
“You said you were going to tell me if you saw her again,” I said.
He jabbed a finger in the air. “I’m telling you now.”
“Give me the binoculars.” He handed them to me and I stared down at a woman standing on the corner. Did she have a ponytail? Was his stalker Maggie? No, it couldn’t be, I thought. But what if it was her, wanting to know what Charlie was doing?
“I’ll go talk to her,” I said.
“If she was at Pete’s…” His voice trailed off.
“We’ll see,” I muttered as I left.
Chapter Seventeen
I hurried to the elevator and down to the first floor. I stood back from the door and peered out. The woman was still standing at the corner of Blake and Park Avenue West. In the fading light, I couldn’t tell if it was Maggie or not. I walked out of the building and to the right, headed for the corner. The woman across the street shifted position from the corner to near an emergency exit of a bar. She stayed focused on Charlie’s building, and didn’t notice me. I got to the end of his building and reached the street corner, then glanced back. The woman was looking up toward Charlie’s balcony. I walked around the corner, then stepped up to the building and looked back again. She was still gazing up. I studied her. Although her build and hair were similar to Maggie’s, I thought she looked younger than Maggie.
I leaned against the building, watched her and pondered what to do. I could go across the street and confront her. But it was dark and I was a stranger. She might run before I ever got close. Then she lifted something up and pointed it toward Charlie’s building. A camera with a telephoto lens. Quite the stalker. But she appeared to have it pointed toward the front of the building, not the balcony. Had Charlie come out?
I peered down the block just in time to see a dark figure go into Charlie’s building. Another player that Charlie’s stalker was interested in? The whole thing was creepy. I decided to try to casually approach the woman and talk to her, but first I had to get close to her without her seeing me. I ran down 24th to the next street over, hurried down two blocks to 22nd, then made my way to Wazee Street, on the other side of Blake Street. I hurried up Wazee to Park Avenue West. I caught my breath, then walked quietly back to Blake. I leaned against the side of the building and peeked around the front side. The woman was standing in the shadows, watching Charlie’s building, with the camera in her hands.
A couple holding hands crossed Park Avenue. The woman with the camera stepped back, trying to appear nonchalant. The couple gave her no notice, but chatted as they headed up Blake Street and into the bar. The woman waited until they were gone, and then she raised the camera to her eye. She stayed like that for a minute, and I realized she was using the zoom lens as binoculars. After another minute of this, I decided to make my move.
I stepped from the shadows and around the corner. “Hey, whatcha doing?” I asked.
She yelped, whirled around and saw me. Then just as quickly, she spun around and started running away from me.
“Hey!” I called, then dashed after her.
She reached 24th Street and turned left. When I reached the corner, she was already halfway down the block. She’s fast! I thought. I ran after her. A car zoomed down 24th, and after it passed her, she darted across the street and into a parking lot.
I had to wait for another car, then I crossed the street and made my way into the parking lot. Scant streetlights provided precious little light. I ran between some cars and then stopped. I didn’t know where the woman had gone. I listened over my loud breathing, and thought I heard an engine start. Then a few aisles over, a red Mazda – headlights off – headed for the lot exit. I sprinted in that direction, but by the time I neared the exit, the car was already on 24th. I slowed down, then kicked at a can on the ground. That was a fruitless effort. And for what?
I started back down 24th and past an alley, my mind on the woman.
“Hey, bud,” a menacing voice said as a specter emerged from the darkness.
I turned toward the voice, and heard a whistling in the air. A baseball bat flew toward my head. I instinctively ducked and it missed my head by inches. The bat glanced off my shoulder, but it still caused me to cry out. My assailant dropped the bat and punched me in the jaw. My head rocketed backward and stars crossed my vision. I staggered for a couple of steps and tried to get my bearings. The figure approached again and I managed to swing my fist at him. It connected with his midsection and I heard a satisfying “oof”. Then he grabbed me by the shirt and threw me against the building. I hit it with a thud and my elation vanished along with my breath. My knees buckled and I dropped to the ground. I heard a short scraping sound. He’d grabbed the bat off the ground. The hulking shadow approached and I quickly got my legs under me. Then I launched myself at him an
d wrapped myself around his waist. We fell to the ground in a heap. I tried to hold him, but he kicked me away. I scrambled to my knees and then he jabbed the bat into my gut. I gasped. He hit me again and I thought I was going to puke. I put my hands on the ground and coughed violently.
“Drop the case,” a low voice said in my ear. He popped me one last time, on the side of my head, not hard enough to knock me out, but enough to cause a headache. Then he ran off.
I stayed in the same position for a while, just trying not to lose my cookies. Then I staggered to my feet and assessed the damage. Blood oozed from my nose, but I didn’t think it was broken, nor did I think his hit to my head was serious. I’d be plenty sore in a while, but I’d live. It was mostly my pride that hurt. I’d barely managed one good punch.
As I walked slowly back to Blake Street, my cell phone rang. It was Charlie.
“Hey, I saw you chasing that woman. What happened?”
“She got away before I could talk to her.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “I’d like to know if she was the one at Pete’s.”
“Me, too.”
“Oh, well, maybe next time.”
“Let me know if you see her again. Maybe I can get some people to watch her.”
I ended the call without telling him about my encounter with the thug. Right at that moment, it felt like another failure, so soon after losing the woman.
When I came home, Willie was sitting at the kitchen table, typing on her laptop.
“What happened to you?” Willie bolted up, nearly toppling her chair.
I’d tried to brush myself off and wipe the blood from my nose, but I’m sure I still looked disheveled.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
“Oh, Reed, again?” She came up to me and gingerly touched my cheek. “Does anything feel broken?”
“No. I’m just bruised and sore.” And I had a headache.
“Come here.” She led me into the bathroom. “Over by the sink. Rinse off your face.”
I did as instructed while she grabbed a cloth, went to the kitchen and filled it with ice. I splashed water on my face and carefully wiped all the blood away. She returned and examined me again. “Here.” She gave me the icepack. “Hold that to your nose and cheek.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, my voice sounded nasal.
“It’s no wonder your mother worries.” She took my hand and led me to the couch in the living room.
I sat down slowly. “Don’t start.”
The longer we were together, the more accustomed I’d grown to Willie’s concerns about me, and she’d learned to try to keep her worries in check. She initially hadn’t even wanted to date me because of my profession. Her father had been a cop, and she grew up always worried that he’d be killed on the job. And that anxiety had carried over to her relationship with me. Now, after she’d been through so many cases with me, and had made me so many icepacks, she tended to worry for just a bit, and then she’d become very matter-of-fact.
“Who did this to you this time?” she asked.
“The shadow,” I said, trying for humor.
“Hon, be serious.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at him.” I filled her in on my day, ending with, “So I ended up on my hands and knees and he got away. So much for being a great detective.”
“Reed, you’re a PI, not a street cop. Plus, he took you by surprise. There wasn’t anything you could do.”
“I guess.”
“What’d he look like?”
“He was big, with a mean-looking face.”
“And the woman got away?”
I nodded. “Charlie thinks she may be the girl he saw at Pete’s the night Pete was murdered.”
“What do you think?” she asked as she got a couple of pillows and made me lie down.
I laughed, a short, bitter sound. “He saw her back as she was going down the stairs. It could’ve been anyone.”
“Hm. I wonder if there’s a way to talk to her.”
“I don’t know. I can’t keep an eye on his building all the time and follow up other leads.” I sighed. “Maybe the Goofballs could help.”
“I’d offer, but I have to work. And besides, that would be incredibly boring.”
Not the first time I’d heard that. Willie and the Goofball Brothers had both turned down boring surveillance jobs before. I couldn’t blame them. Surveillance was boring. “I might see what they’re doing tomorrow,” I said. “Maybe I can talk one of them into giving me a hand.”
“Deuce is probably working, but Ace might be free.”
That was true. Deuce had a steady construction job, but Ace had recently started working at Best Buy and his hours were flexible. “I’ll call Ace in the morning,” I said.
“In the meantime, just relax. How about a film noir?”
Willie was going out of her way to be sweet, since she didn’t always enjoy the old noir movies as much as I did.
“Thanks,” I said. “But you watch whatever you want. I’m tired.”
“I’ll bet you are.”
She curled up with me and we watched TV for a while and then went to bed. Willie soon fell asleep, but even though I was tired and sore, I lay awake, thinking about Charlie’s mysterious stalker. Could she have been at Pete’s, or was that just wishful thinking on Charlie’s part? I’d seen her with the two other women in front of Coors Field the morning I’d met Charlie for breakfast. Then I had an amusing thought: was she “the third fan”, like The Third Man in the movie I watched last night? In the movie, it turns out the third man didn’t actually exist. I sighed, and turned my focus back to Maggie. I needed to know if she’d been at Charlie’s. So I needed to get a picture of her to show Charlie. Through my headache, I formed a plan on how I could watch for the stalker and get Maggie’s picture. Then I fell asleep.
Chapter Eighteen
Willie had to work early the next morning, so she was gone by the time I woke up. I groaned as I got out of bed and plodded into the bathroom. Then I checked my face in the bathroom mirror. I had a small bruise on my jaw, but no black eyes, although my nose was sore. I also had bruises on my stomach where my assailant had pegged me with the bat. But overall, I’d been lucky I wasn’t hurt worse. I showered, dressed and then prepared a duffel bag of what I needed for the day: snacks, bottles of water, an early Elvis Cole mystery by Robert Crais, and my camera with a zoom lens. Then I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed out.
It was Monday, and I had wanted to leave earlier and possibly catch Maggie on her way to work, but I also needed to talk to Ace to see if he’d be available to watch for Charlie’s stalker. In any normal situation, a phone call with instructions would’ve sufficed. But then, I was dealing with a Goofball Brother, so “normal” didn’t apply.
It was another gorgeous morning, the sun a huge yellow ball overhead as I traipsed downstairs and onto the front porch, then knocked on the Goofball Brothers’ door. I was surprised when Deuce answered.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t you have work today?”
“I hurt my hand this morning.” To prove his point, he lifted up his right hand and showed it to me. He had a splint on his middle finger. “Right when I got to work – bam – sprained my finger. I’ll go back in a day or two, but my hand is pretty sore, so the doctor said to take a couple days off.”
“Oh, that’s cool. If you feel up to it, I’ve got something you and Ace could help with today – if you want.”
“Oh yeah?” He narrowed his eyes, part curiosity, part suspicion. Ever since I’d rescued him from kidnappers when he naively got involved in some criminal activity on a construction job, he had been more hesitant to assist with my detecting endeavors. And, like Willie, he didn’t care for the mundane tasks that I usually asked him to do.
“It’s easy, trust me,” I said.
“Okay. Come on in and I’ll get Ace.”
I stepped into his living room, which was sparsely decorated with a couch, a TV on a stand an
d a desk in the corner.
“Ace!” Deuce hollered. “Reed wants to talk to us.”
“I could’ve done that,” I murmured.
“What?” Deuce said.
“Nothing.”
Ace walked in from the kitchen. “Hi, Reed, what’s up?”
“I need some detecting assistance, if you have time,” I said. “And I’ll pay you.”
“I’ve got the day off. And you don’t need to pay us.” Ace was more enthusiastic than Deuce. “What do you need?”
I gave them an overview of the case, without mentioning Charlie’s name, and explained how I needed them to watch for his stalker.
“It sounds kind of boring,” Ace said when I finished.
This was an ongoing argument with them. They were always wanting more exciting work, but they didn’t realize that part of the investigative business was tedious surveillance. I gingerly touched my sore nose. On the flip side, I thought, rather than being bored, you could get beat up. And unfortunately for them, most of what I could trust them with was the boring stuff.
“It would really help,” I said.
Deuce crossed his arms and focused on me, all business. “So your client’s got a stalker, huh?”
“What does she look like?” Ace asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
Deuce’s perpetually perplexed look deepened. “You want us to watch for someone, but you don’t know what she looks like?”
“I have a general idea,” I said. “She’s younger, maybe early twenties, and she’s got longer hair, and it’s sometimes pulled into a ponytail.”
“That could be a lot of women,” Ace said.
Good point. “Oh, and if she does have her hair pulled back, you see the number twenty-three tattooed on her neck.”
“But if her hair covers her neck, we won’t see the tattoo,” Deuce said.
“You’ll know her by her behavior,” I said. “If you notice a woman that fits the description I just gave you, and she’s hanging around my client’s building for long periods of time, it’s probably her. Oh, and she might have a camera that she uses to watch the building.”
The Reed Ferguson Mystery series Box Set 3 Page 43