Justice

by Dustin Stevens

  With his makeshift breakfast in hand, he worked his way back through the same streets he had the night before, this time pulling up a block early in front of a short, squat structure made entirely of brick. With a single walkway leading to the front door, matching windows were spread wide to either side, a square nameplate affixed to the wall beside the door.

  Quorum Property Management.

  “You ready?” Reed asked, taking one last pull on the tea, emptying its remaining contents, before casting it into the passenger floorboard, the plastic bottle ricocheting through the space.

  Behind him, Billie pressed her front paws on the middle console, letting it be known she was following him out through the front, anxious to be on her way after being forced to sit out the night before.

  A reaction Reed was reasonably certain he would have had as well if the situation was reversed.

  Climbing from the car, Reed opted against using a lead for her, the two of them walking in tandem from the front curb to the door. Pausing just slightly before it, he knocked twice before pushing through, leaning most of his upper body inside, only his feet remaining out.

  The interior of the building was one large open space, a single room measuring fifteen feet on either end. A wide chandelier hung down from the ceiling above, casting filmy light off the laminate flooring below.

  In between were a polished oak desk and a set of matching swayback chairs, a pair of bookcases along either wall.

  Atop each sat stacks of printouts advertising various properties in the area.

  “Mary Lazenby?” Reed asked, focusing on the woman seated behind the desk.

  Somewhere in her mid-forties, she had dark hair and skin, her shoulders narrow, a face that vaguely resembled Alfre Woodard.

  “Detective Mattox,” she replied, very much a statement and not a question. “Please, come in.”

  Pushing the door open a bit wider, Reed allowed for Billie to pass inside before shutting it behind them.

  “Down.”

  Beside him, Billie went straight to the floor, her body pressed against the rug demarcating a small foyer area from the rest of the room.

  Wiping his feet, Reed walked across the room with a hand extended, his running shoes squeaking slightly against the floor.

  “Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice.”

  Rising from behind the desk, her height stopping just short of Reed’s shoulder, Lazenby returned the shake.

  “Absolutely. Such a terrible thing that happened.”

  Again recalling the image of the foyer, Reed gave a quick twist of his head, casting the thought aside.

  Terrible didn’t begin to describe what he’d seen.

  “Truly awful,” he said, each side lowering to their respective seats. “And I apologize for keeping the building cordoned off right now. With an incident such as this, you can imagine we need to keep access as limited as possible until we make sure to glean every last clue we can from the place.”

  Waving a hand across her body, Lazenby shook her head. “Don’t need to apologize to me, I live in Grove City.”

  As if realizing what she had just said, she added, “Not that it would matter anyway. What happened to those ladies...”

  Shifting her head to the side, her eyes glazed ever so slightly, Reed giving her a moment before pressing forward anew.

  “Yes,” he said, “which is actually part of what I was hoping to come and speak to you about.”

  Snapping her focus back to face forward, Lazenby said, “Never two more different people could you imagine. One, a nun, a schoolteacher, nice as she could be. The other, well...”

  There she let her voice trail off, the sour expression on her face filling in what her words didn’t.

  Given how Lynda Cantwell had handled most things in the preceding six months, it wasn’t a surprise to find she had used the same insensitive touch when dealing with her new landlord.

  “So there were problems?” Reed asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Lazenby said. Opening her mouth to speak, she paused, leaning forward at the waist a few inches, and said, “Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.”

  Raising a hand, Reed gave her an unspoken message that it was okay to proceed, her acknowledgment exonerating them both from further judgment.

  Or at least letting them both speak freely for the next few minutes.

  “That woman,” Lazenby said, shaking her head slightly, “a real piece of work. I mean, when you see someone on television, you assume it’s all a show, right? That they’re just playing a part, getting their face on screen?

  “Well, she...she was the real deal. Everything she said to the camera, she said in real life, and then some.”

  Noting the careful avoidance of using Cantwell’s name, Reed nodded slightly.

  “Did she go after anybody in particular?” he asked. “Have anyone that might have taken exception to her?”

  “Exception?” Lazenby asked, her eyes bulging slightly. “Yeah, most everybody did. Walked in here one day and told me I was a no-good slumlord while a prospective couple was sitting right where you are.

  “You can imagine how that turned out.”

  Able to do just that, Reed again nodded. “But anyone that might have harbored more than just...”

  This time, it was his turn to let his voice trail off, the proper word eluding him.

  “You mean, do I know of anybody that wanted her dead?” Lazenby asked. Pausing, she pursed her lips, shaking her head slightly. “No, that I can’t rightly say.”

  “So there were never any incidents at the apartment building before that night?” Reed asked.

  “Not in the six years I’ve been here,” Lazenby said. “I mean, we have a couple of places over near The Bottoms that are hardly worth the effort. Fights or vandalism or something seems like every week.

  “Over here, though? It’s a lot nicer place. The neighbors are fairly friendly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a pretty poor area, but at least there’s some character.”

  Not sure that he would have chosen such a word, Reed couldn’t argue that it was wrong either. The difference between where he was and The Bottoms was instantly noticeable the night before.

  Even more so that morning as they drove in under the light of day.

  “What about the other girl?” Reed asked. “Sister Alice Hartong?”

  For the first time since his arrival, a look of genuine sorrow seemed to pass over Lazenby’s features, a momentary flicker that appeared and was gone in just an instant.

  “Moved in two years ago, and has been an absolute angel. No pun intended.”

  Feeling a crease form between his brows, Reed thought for a moment on what she was alluding to before the answer dawned on him, his face returning to neutral.

  “Did anybody ever stay with her?” Reed asked, already feeling that this stop was turning up a dead end, hoping to at least glean another avenue from it that he might pursue.

  “Not that I ever saw,” Lazenby said, “but I’m over here most of the time.”

  “Hmm,” Reed said. “So no friends? Coworkers?”

  “Nothing,” Lazenby said, raising one shoulder in a shrug. “Kept real quiet, almost like she was trying to stay out of sight. Never a minute late on her rent, always around if we needed somebody to grab mail for one of the other tenants. Sweetest girl you’d ever meet.”

  Moving her attention over a few inches, she again stared off, her thoughts clearly somewhere else.

  “And with that accent of hers? I can’t imagine anybody ever wanting to harm her.”

  For a moment, Reed was back in that hallway, thinking that from the looks of things, nobody had, Hartong suffering the misfortune of coming home at the wrong time and nothing more.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you folks have cameras anywhere on the premises?” Reed asked.

  “No,” Lazenby replied. “We tried at some of the other properties, figured out real fas
t it basically just painted a target on them.”

  Nodding, Reed ignored the slight pang of disappointment in his stomach, the meeting yielding exactly what he had anticipated.

  Which was to say, virtually nothing at all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The motel was located in a part of town known as Lincoln Village, a non-descript chunk of a city Sydney Rye was less than impressed with. If not for the more pressing concerns of figuring out exactly what had happened to Nora Heatherington and exacting her revenge for it, she might have thought to comment on it, or at the very least given a passing appraisal of the place.

  As was, it more or less confirmed every stereotype and long-held belief she had about the Midwest, the place just one sprawling cornfield with the occasional patch of tall buildings sprung up from the earth.

  The people, well, they seemed to fit the existing typecasts as well.

  Two stories in height, the place was arranged on a side street a block off the main thoroughfare, constructed of brick painted white, a black wrought iron rail running along the staircase and across the front.

  On each door was a metal numeral announcing the room number cut from the same material, the edges just starting to rust, sending red streaks south over the white paint.

  A fitting image if there ever was one.

  After leaving the coroner’s office, Sydney had spent a half hour patrolling the area, using her RoamZone to pull up a couple of options before moving in to scout the places in person.

  Yelp just didn’t offer the kind of insight she was looking for, her concerns running to things far more mercurial than the comfort of the bed or the thread count on the towels.

  If the young man behind the front counter – a kid with bad acne and a red ponytail – thought anything of her showing up at eight in the morning looking to check in, he said nothing of it, barely looking up as she plunked down a credit card under an alias, a name she would never again use after today.

  A name she thought she had retired long ago, having not touched it for the better part of two years.

  Once the room was secured, she made two quick stops, putting the extreme fatigue she was beginning to feel at bay for just a while longer. Starting with a farm supply store, she swung through long enough to buy an enormous bag of kibble for Blue and a bucket to hold his water, a handful of assorted protein and granola bars from the stand beside the cashier for herself.

  The second stop was at a Best Buy, almost beating the employees through the door. Cutting a direct path to the laptop counter, she picked out the cheapest device on display and carried it to the register, waiting for it to become active before using the same credit card to make her purchase.

  Half an hour later, both she and Blue had eaten and were sprawled on the bed, the enormous beast dominating the space. With his frame stretched from one corner to the other, both sets of paws hung over the edge of the mattress, his cheek buried in a pillow.

  The only sign of life to be seen was the one eye he left open and cocked her direction, a clear sign that after leaving his ass in the undercarriage of the plane and the backseat of a car for the last twenty-four hours, she better not even consider trying to move him.

  Knowing nothing good could come of it, she heeded his advice, folding her body into a corner of the bed and falling fast asleep.

  Three hours later, her eyes popped open just before a blaring rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” erupted from her phone, the alarm tone set back when she was still on the island, the last remnant of a much happier time.

  How it had been only a day before, the ocean still on her skin, Rye didn’t bother to think about.

  As a great philosopher once stated, shit happens.

  Slapping the phone off, Rye staggered her way into the shower, turning the dials as hot as they would go, leaving Blue asleep behind her. Having rolled flat onto his back, all four legs were pointed to the ceiling, his feet folding down behind his joints, his male anatomy dominating the space between them.

  Ten minutes later, she emerged to find him in the same position, his jowls drooping, revealing a soft pink underbelly lined with razor sharp teeth half the size of her thumb.

  Just one more of the many reasons she liked having him around.

  With her hair still wet, she swapped out the clothes she wore on the plane for a pair of running pants and a spandex top, the coming hours likely going to be spent in a much more active role than the night before.

  While that had been largely about data collection and getting her bearings, the time had come to become more proactive. Already Nora had been dead for almost twelve hours, meaning whatever window she had was likely a truncated one at best.

  Tearing the packaging away from the new laptop, she plugged the adapter into the wall and powered it up, waiting impatiently as the device attempted to get her to sign up and install a host of various applications and programs. Checking out of each one, she eventually landed on the homepage and pulled up a web browser, signing in using the motel’s spotty wireless network.

  Starting with the local news stations, she made a quick pass through, hoping to find any bits of information regarding the incident.

  As best she could tell, there were none, tracking with the fact that she had noted no media of any kind in her surveillance the night before.

  Whether that meant a general disinterest in the area of town where things went down or something much larger that authorities were hoping to keep under wraps, Rye didn’t know, and didn’t much care.

  Losing a bit of information on the front end was a nuisance, but not having to deal with prying eyes looking in her direction – even if they didn’t realize it – was more than the worth the trade.

  “Hey, you about ready?” Rye said, flicking her gaze from the computer screen to Blue on the bed, each breath making a slight wheezing sound as it passed through his nose.

  Despite all appearances, she knew he was processing everything around them in real time, his body able to coil and strike should so much as a knock be heard.

  More than once she had been convinced he must have been a Marine in another life, fully embracing the maxim to sleep whenever and wherever possible.

  “We roll in five,” Rye said, moving her focus back down to the screen.

  Closing out of the window before her, she went back to the main search engine. Taking a deep breath, she stared at the blinking cursor, the empty box beckoning her forward, letting her know it was ready to go to work.

  If the man she suspected was behind this, getting confirmation would be simple enough. All she had to do was run a couple of pointed inquiries, do a bit of digging around, and be sure to stay on long enough that her activities showed up on his radar.

  From there it was just a matter of sitting and waiting, watching to see who showed up and what their actions were once they did.

  That much would all be fairly easy, the sort of thing she had done many times before.

  The bigger task would be determining the best way to proceed once she had that confirmation.

  Or even worse, what to do if nobody showed up at all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The bell above the front door mimicked the entry to most business establishments in the greater Columbus area, though Reed Mattox wasn’t fooled in the slightest. Stepping into the Rainbow’s End Pawn Shop, there was no chance the point was to welcome customers inside, an auditory promise of a pleasant experience awaiting them.

  It was meant as a clear signal to whoever was behind the counter that someone was on the premises.

  A fact that was especially exacerbated when that somebody was a detective, his K-9 partner standing pressed against his leg.

  The sound of the bell was just fading as Reed stopped on the small mat inside the door, the surface of it sticky beneath his feet, a dried puddle of something red bleeding out into the alternating black-and-white tile floor around it.

  Standing on the only bit of real estate in the place with more than a few
inches of open room, the size of the establishment was almost impossible to peg, the space practically bursting with items for sale. From where Reed stood he could see everything from old bowling trophies to chipped China to an ancient compound bow, all with small price tags hanging from bits of string.

  Everything for sale, everything negotiable.

  “Officer!” a short man said from behind the counter, bursting into view from a doorway in the far corner. With his hands spread wide, the dim overhead lights glinted off the face of the watch he wore and the trio of gold chains around his neck.

  The button down he sported was starched to a point that almost crackled, tucked down tight into his slacks, left open down past his breastbone, plenty of dark chest hair spilling out.

  Unlike the cliché might indicate, though, there was not a trace of an accent in his voice, his hair light brown, his cheeks liberally splashed with freckles.

  Like a child trying entirely too hard to fit a specific image.

  “Oh, and you brought your dog,” the man said, stopping halfway down the counter and lowering his hands in tandem down to the glass. Leaning forward, he pressed his weight into his palms, the shirt twisting to the side from the position.

  Making no effort to hide the disdain he felt for the man, Reed looked at him through heavily-lidded eyes a moment before forcibly removing the glare from his face and walking toward the counter, reminding himself with each step that he did still need something from the visit.

  “Afternoon,” Reed said, “my name is Detective Mattox, this is my partner Billie.”

  As he spoke, he pulled his badge from his pocket and wagged it at the man before returning it to the front of his hoodie.

  “Well, hello to you both,” the man said, his smile stretched beyond what most faces would be able to handle. “How can I help you?”

  Sliding a hand into his back pocket, Reed retrieved the list of missing items that Eva Cantwell had given him. Unfolding the lined paper, he revealed the half-dozen entries jotted down in blue ink.