Coming Unclued (26 page)

“Eames,” said Heather and Angie in unison. Angie seemed to have recovered from her fright at the sight of a gun. She was lounging back on the couch, chewing on a cuticle. “Stock tips,” she said, waving vaguely at the room. “Insider trading. And they won’t be able to prove a thing.” She stood up and gestured to Heather and me. “Could you get going now? You’re beginning to overstay your welcome. I really am going to call the police Val. And you can put the gun down. You might have stabbed Harry but I know you’re not going to shoot me.” Angie put her wine glass down and reached for the phone.

“We have to go Val,” Heather said, standing up. “She’s calling the police.”

Did neither of them believe I was capable of firing a gun? “Put the phone down Angie,” I said, pointing the gun at her. “I’m leaving. You’ve really disappointed me. You’re not the person I thought you were.”

That would fix her. I was disappointed. And actually she was the person I thought she was, only more so.

Angie squinted at the gun. “Let me see that. What’s that on your gun?”

I quickly moved my thumb to cover the batman sticker. “An NRA sticker. I support their cause. The right to bear arms and all that.”

“Uh huh,” said Angie, clearly not convinced. “That’s not even a real gun is it?”

“Oh it’s real all right. Let’s go Heather. And you,” I said, in the toughest voice I could muster, “You keep your mouth shut about seeing me. I don’t think you want the police looking at you too closely.” I was angry. Really angry. Angie had known all along that Mr. Potter was scamming the elderly out of their money and she’d done nothing. I wanted to do something, retaliate somehow, make her feel really bad. There was still a healthy amount of crapple dip in the bowl. I eyed the dip, then shoving the gun in my pocket I grabbed the bowl and flung the contents at the Warhol on the wall.

“Are you crazy?” Angie screamed as she rushed over and picked a chunk of crab off the picture.

“Val,” said Heather. “That’s an Andy Warhol. It’s not a poster, it’s a numbered print.”

“Ha!” I said. Not my most erudite line, but the look of disgust on Angie’s face was incredibly satisfying nonetheless.

“Shall we?” I said to Heather. “I have some people to see.” And if it wasn’t for the hole in the pocket of my pantsuit, I would have left Angie’s with my head held high. Unfortunately, at that moment the cap gun slipped down my pant leg to the floor, the batman sticker glaringly obvious under the shimmering candlelight. Angie lunged for the gun and grabbed it. “This is a cap gun. A friggin cap gun.”

“Of course it is,” I said. “I’m hardly going to be running around town with a loaded gun. What kind of person do you think I am? I’m going now Angie. And I just want to reiterate that I’m really disgusted with you.” Then, and I’m not proud of this, but there’s no denying it happened; I spit. I spit on Angie’s beige suede shoes.

“Jesus,” she screamed, hopping out of the way. “I’m disgusting? You’re a pig.”

I couldn’t think of a good response to that. I had, after all, just spit on her. “Whatever,” I said and I turned tail and marched out of her apartment, stopping to retrieve my stinky coat from the floor outside the door. Heather was hustling along behind me, looking distinctly uncomfortable with the proceedings.

“That was really immature Val,” she said, as we got in the elevator. “Really gross. You spit on her.”

Heather was big on stating the obvious.

“And you probably ruined her print.”

“I think you’re missing the big picture here,” I responded. “She doesn’t even care about what Mr. Potter did to those poor old people. She doesn’t even care if I killed him or not. She’s a terrible person.”

Heather nodded her head in agreement as we left the building and headed for her car. “But what if she calls the police? What if she tells them you’re with me? They could pull up my driver’s license and put out an APB on us.”

“She’s not calling the police. She has too much to hide.”

“I can’t believe you let me think that was a real gun. That was mean.”

It was a bit mean. Once this was all over I was going to do something really nice for Heather to make up for it. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not myself.”

I was exhausted. I leaned back into the comfortable leather seats of Heather’s car and contemplated my next move. “Here’s the thing,” I said to Heather as we headed back toward the east end of town. “There’s still the issue of the key. Could I have let someone in and can’t remember it?”

“You were drunk.”

“Even so. I served Brie and crackers. Does that sound like someone who’d be so drunk she’d forget letting a murderer in? He had to have had a key. Evan lost his key a while ago. Maybe that’s the link. The missing link.” I mulled this over as I relaxed into the heated seat. “I think that’s it,” I said. “I have to figure out this key thing.”

“You’re assuming a lot,” said Heather. “You’re assuming someone planned this far in advance. You’ve never had your boss to your house before. How could the murderer have planned for that?”

Unfortunately, that was the bug in this particular stew. Who could possibly have anticipated that I would invite Mr. Potter back to my place? Who could have imagined that one night I would get so horribly intoxicated that I would invite a man I didn’t like, a man I found physically repellent, a man I would cross the street to avoid if I happened to see him coming, that I would invite said man back to my condo for late night wine and cheese.

“I need to talk to Annette next,” I said. “She could be the answer to all this.” I tapped my finger on the armrest mulling it all over. Heather said nothing. Was I boring her? “And the key,” I mused. “Who would have the key? Who was Evan dating before he moved out? Could he have left it at a girlfriend’s house? He’s always been terrible for forgetting his belongings.” Still no comment from Heather.

“Where does Annette live?” I mused.

“I don’t know,” said Heather.

Of course she didn’t know. Did the woman not understand the concept of thinking out loud? “I’m thinking out loud,” I said. “I have to see Annette next. She has her finger on the pulse of the office.”

“I thought you said Angie had her finger on the pulse.”

“Annette is even more on the pulse. She did his paperwork. She’ll know for sure who had it in for Mr. Potter.”

Heather just nodded and stared at the road. My phone rang and I dug around for it in my coat pocket. Heather screwed up her face as all the motion was sending wafts of stink through the car.

“Where
are
you?” hissed Julie when I answered.

“With Heather,” I told her. “We just went to see Angie, the receptionist from work. Mr. Potter was definitely up to something. He cheated a bunch of seniors out of their savings, and Douglas, you know — the guy with the white linen pants — was going to buy him out of the company. And Douglas saw me getting into the car with Mr. Potter after the party. Plus his assistant just got sacked.”

“And this helps your case how?” asked Julie.

Exactly. How did this information help my case? Mr. Potter, was among other things a scuzzball. A soon to be retired scuzzball. Follow the money…

“I think it was either Douglas or one of the people he screwed out of their life savings,” I said. “That’s motive. Or Annette. His assistant. Because knifing is a crime of passion and I think she had this weird passion for him.”

“Hmmm,” said Julie. “You said he screwed over seniors. How senior?”

“I don’t know. Very senior. Extremely elderly.”

“Some extremely elderly, very senior person followed you home from a party, climbed four flights of stairs and stabbed your boss to death.”

“Quite possibly, yes. Plus there’s Annette and Douglas.”

“Okay,” said Julie. “Those are possibilities.”

“The more I think about it, the more I’m thinking Annette. There’s something about her. The quiet, deadly type.”

“Is she the one you called the Queen Mother? You think the Queen Mother would stab someone?”

“Maybe. If she’d had enough gin.”

“Where are you headed anyway?” demanded Julie. “Stay out of my neighborhood. There’s police everywhere. I’m a pariah.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Haven’t decided. I’ll call you.”

I hung up the phone just as Heather was pulling into her parking spot at our building. “I’d let you hide out at my place Val,” said Heather, “But I don’t think it’s safe for either of us.” She lowered her voice, as if she was perhaps worried that someone in the back seat might hear us. “I could be charged with harboring a felon. I looked it up and it’s a pretty serious thing.”

“I’m actually not a felon, I’m a fugitive.” I said. “But I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I won’t forget this.”

Heather looked like she’d prefer me to forget it. Perhaps forget about her all together. “You should go to the police,” she said softly.

“I’m getting closer,” I said. “I can feel it.”

“Where are you going to go? It’s cold and dark. It’s not safe to be an old woman out on your own at night.”

Honestly. Sometimes she was quite obtuse. “I’m not actually an old woman Heather. I’m a middle-aged woman. Barely middle aged. Anyway, I have a safe place to go,” I told her. “I don’t want to say where it is. You’re too involved all ready. But I definitely need to get out of this neighborhood.” I reached in my coat pocket for the comforting feel of the key to Diane’s house. The key wasn’t there.

“I could have dropped you somewhere.”

“It’s better that you don’t know where I am,” I said. “I should never have dragged you into it.” I checked the other pocket. No key. Shit. It must have fallen out when I tossed the coat into Angie’s hall.

“Tell me where you’ll be Val. I’m worried about you. I want to know that you’ll be safe.”

“You don’t need to worry,” I said, opening the car door. “I’ve got everything under control. I just need another day or two.” I reached over and gave Heather an awkward hug. I could feel her recoil as my coat rubbed against her, but admirably she hugged me back.

“Be safe,” she said.

I got out of the car and looked quickly around the parking lot. There was no one around, and why would there be? It was frigid and black and the fresh snow that had fallen was blowing around in a frenzy. I headed toward Kingston Rd. at a good clip. For some reason I wanted Heather to believe that I was in control of the situation. That I had a place to go.

I had nowhere to go. I had twenty-six dollars left and I couldn’t imagine a friend or acquaintance who would welcome the sight of me at their door. Forget welcome. I couldn’t imagine anyone, other than Evan, who would even open the door, and there was not a chance in hell I was going to put my son in jeopardy. There was Rose. Rose would let me in. I ducked into a doorway to protect myself from the wind, and contemplated my options. Would the police come back to my building looking for me? Quite possibly, especially if Angie did call the police. They would come looking for me at Heather’s, maybe check the whole building. I felt bad about that. It wasn’t right to involve Heather in my problems.

It was too cold to stand still so I commenced walking, my shoulders hunched, pushing down the sidewalk as if I had a destination. A police car was driving down the street toward me, slowly. Too slowly. Were they coming for me? Cruising my neighborhood, looking for a weary old woman? Should I stop or keep walking? If I kept on, would they shoot me in the back? I braced myself for the inevitable and stopped. I couldn’t fight it any longer. I would go peacefully and with dignity. So this was it, the end of the road. I’d tried and I failed. Story of my life. Except for the trying part. I turned to face the music and saw the lights of the police car rolling past me, down the quiet street. I had survived to fight another day.

A few minutes later I’d crossed the street and was heading down into the ravine. Hard to believe only a few days ago I was nervous about being there at night. Now it felt safe, almost homey. But where to go? The police had already searched Julie’s house. What were the chances they would come back again? And if they did, I knew I’d be safer being arrested inside the house than I would out on the streets. I struggled through the bushes, slipping a bit on the snow, but I was getting pretty handy at this. Soon I could see the cheery light in Julie’s kitchen window. How could I do this without actually involving her any more than she already was? If I snuck into her basement, had a little nap, and left early in the morning no one would be the wiser. I eyed over my escape route from a few days ago. And was it really only a few days ago? Could I open that window from the outside? I jogged across the yard and over to the basement window and crouched down on the freezing ground. Forget locked. The window wasn’t even shut tightly. It easily slid open. How could Julie live like this? Anyone could crawl into her house.

Not anyone as it turned out. I took my coat off and mentally crossed my fingers that this wouldn’t take very long because my entire body felt numb the second I disrobed. I got down on my stomach, stuck my arms and head through the window and flailed about, trying to grab something so that I wouldn’t fall and land on my head. There was nothing to grab. I lay there for a moment, my head poking into the dark basement bedroom and the rest of my body lying frigid on the frozen ground. I inched in a little further and felt the window scraping against my lower back. This wasn’t good. There was no way to do this without falling through the window head first. Gritting my teeth, I shimmied in a few more inches, but couldn’t go any further. I tried to wiggle around but it wasn’t happening. The top half of my pantsuit was caught on something. A loose nail perhaps. It was beyond freezing. My legs were so cold they were throbbing. How could I be stuck? I’d barely eaten a thing in the last few days. I must be thinner than when I crawled out. I tried to yank on the pantsuit but my hands were through the window and there wasn’t enough room to get them back out. Shit. This was not good. Julie would find me here in the morning, frozen to the ground, the fetid fur coat lying beside me. She’d be distraught. She’d probably never have another decent night’s sleep, so overcome with guilt that she hadn’t come to my aid. “Julie,” I called, in a hoarse whisper.