Authors: Elaine Orr
I WAS AT SYL'S when Sandi called early Wednesday afternoon. She was tripping over her words. "You have to come. You have to come."
"Where? Are you okay?"
"Yes." Her voice was softer. "Ryan. Where?"
She was with Ryan. That was good.
"Can't be the diner. Make it the barbeque place," Ryan said. Sandi hung up.
I hadn't had a chance to tell her where I was and that I had to clean up at least a little. I stowed a rake and hand tools in my wheelbarrow and almost ran to the barn with them. Then I jogged to a spigot near the driveway. Syl had told me where a key was in case I wanted to go in to use the bathroom, but I hadn't done that yet. Besides, I was dirty.
The water was cold, and I splashed some on my face, hands, and arms. I was about to turn off the water when I noticed my knees were brown, so I used more water and rubbed. It did little good.
Oh, well. So I look like I work for a living
.
I was not far from the barbeque restaurant when the phone buzzed again. It was in a pouch attached to my dashboard, and I pressed the speaker button. "Almost there."
Sandi was doing a loud whisper. "Change of plans. Your place."
I couldn't imagine what was worth all the subterfuge. When I got home, Sandi and Ryan got out of her car and walked toward me.
"What?" I asked.
"Worth waiting for," Ryan said.
Mrs. Keyser opened her front door and stepped onto the porch. Apparently she had not had her hair done today. "Melanie? Is it a nice dog?"
Sandi and Ryan chorused, "Dog?"
I stopped and faced her. "He really seems it. Did Annette tell you it belonged to someone who just died?"
Ryan pulled his notebook from a shirt pocket.
"Yes," she called. "I knew her. As long as he doesn't go in the house, it's fine." She looked at Sandi and Ryan. "Come up through here."
Sandi started to say something, but I said, "Great, thanks." When Sandi half-glared at me, I murmured, "I want the dog."
"Better be a good dog," Ryan muttered.
As I suspected, when we walked through the front door, Mrs. Keyser showed no sign of letting us get to the inside stairway quickly.
"Melanie, Melanie. The county jail. Tsk, tsk."
Who says tsk, tsk nowadays?
I tried not to stare at the huge ladybugs on today's housedress. "It was a misunderstanding."
"Hello, dears." She did a brilliant smile for Sandi and Ryan. Lipstick smeared a top tooth. "I thought I might read about that in the paper."
Sandi adopted her professional pose, which means she straightened her spine and leaned forward a bit. "The real story was that the car was found. The fact that some people initially thought Mel should be charged with putting it there was just a distraction."
When Mrs. Keyser opened her mouth, seemingly to protest, Ryan said, "We'll probably never do a story on law enforcement overreach, but if we do, that's an example."
Sandi sort of turned green.
"Anyway, Mrs. Keyser. I really appreciate being able to keep the little guy. Did you know his name is Mister Tibbs?"
"Oh, that's one of my favorite movies." She patted my arm. "He'll be good for you."
Sandi and Ryan said nothing as we climbed the stairs. I unlocked the door. I hadn't asked if I could change the inside lock to my apartment, so now I had two house keys.
The interior stair entry to the apartment opened into the hall with the bedrooms. When we walked in and I'd shut the door, Sandi hissed, "Law enforcement overreach? It'll be all over town."
Ryan shrugged. "It was."
"I think it was more the IDI agents," I said.
Sandi and I sat on the couch, but Ryan pointed to the kitchen. "Let's use the table."
"Our intern is all grown up," I said.
"I asked Fred to call me a reporter now. I've only been the intern because I didn't graduate yet."
It also meant Hal could pay Ryan less. I had no idea what Fred would do.
We sat at the round table in my kitchen's breakfast nook. Ryan opened a manila folder he'd been carrying. "You won't believe this." He placed two photos on the table. They'd been produced on a regular printer and were kind of grainy.
I pulled them toward me. "Hal's car! Ryan. Where did you get these? I didn't really think there were cameras on buildings he might have driven by."
"Not commercial buildings. After I got your note I started walking streets that could lead out of town, you know, to where Hal was found. Most home security cameras I saw pointed at the spaces in front of entry doors." He put a finger on one of the pictures. "Except for some people who moved here from Kansas City last year. They also had cameras pointing at the street in front of their house as well as the side yards."
"Good job," I muttered. "Fred will make you a reporter for sure."
Neither of them said anything as I took in the photos.
Judging by the date stamp on the bottom right, Stooper had definitely seen two cars the night Hal was killed. I was certain the car in the first photo was Hal's. The face was unclear, but the driver looked to be male and his head was shaped like Hal's. Despite Stooper's possible blurred vision, I decided to assume he was right.
The second car was a dark Toyota – a Camry, I thought. Fred has a dark blue one. I squinted to look more closely. A car dealer could probably say if it was the same year and model. I tried to give Fred the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it wasn't Fred's car, or it was and he wasn't the driver. I angled the photo toward the window. I couldn't make out the driver.
Had Fred lied? It seemed he was in town near the time Hal was killed and had driven behind Hal's car in the early morning hours.
"It could be anyone's Toyota," Sandi said.
I thought she was trying to convince herself. I looked at Ryan. "Did you give these to the sheriff yet?"
"I'm not going near him. The people who own the house moved here to avoid crime, so they wanted to help." Ryan shrugged. "I sort of let them think I was working with IDI. When I stopped by to get the photos I said who I was. They were kind of mad, but they still let me have them."
"The
Washington Post
will hire you in no time," I said.
"Or the sheriff will put your tailbone in a sling," Sandi said.
Ryan grinned at both of us. "Sheriff's already mad at Melanie." He focused on me. "He might be more mad at you, but he'll get over it."
I stared at the photos some more. "I don't mind giving them to him, but I'll have to say you got them."
"Yeah," Ryan said. "But if he's into kill the messenger, it'll be you."
Sandi blanched and took the photos from me to stare at them again.
"How do we approach Fred?" I mused.
They both said, "You do it."
"He'll be mad at all of us," I said.
"Yeah, but he can't fire you," Ryan said.
I glanced at the clock above my stove. It said four-fifteen.
"Might as well get it over with." I stood, and they followed suit. "Where are you guys going to be?"
"I'm supposed to be tracking down the Chamber director about rumors a telephone service center is coming to town." Ryan shook his head. "Can't imagine they'll get enough workers here."
"Work ethic and lower wages, maybe." I said looked at Sandi.
"Nowhere specific. I'll…let's see, I'll come in about twenty minutes after you go into the paper. Unless I hear gunfire."
"YOU'RE TRYING TO SAY I killed Hal?" Fred was red-faced as he stood behind his desk.
"Keep it down." I shut the door. Only Salty had been in the bullpen a minute ago, but anyone could have come in since then.
"Keep it down? I thought we were friends."
I kept my tone even. "You act as if you thought you'd be in photos with Hal's car. I never thought that. And until I saw your reaction, I didn't know it was you."
Fred seemed to realize his reaction was all the verification I needed. He sat down and put his head in his hands, elbows on the desk.
"Fred."
He looked at me, elbows still on his desk. "What?"
"I don't know if you killed Hal, but I don't think you would frame me."
He straightened and put his hands in his lap. "I didn't try to."
I raised my eyebrows.
"Kill him or whatever."
"But?"
"I saw him – after."
"What?!" I stood up.
"Keep it down."
I sat back down. "Tell me everything."
His voice was low. "I went to Hal's. That night. To have it out with him." He stopped.
"Because you found out your unemployment appeal results that day?"
He nodded. "They also shared what Hal told them. He probably didn't know I was entitled to hear it. He didn't criticize my writing or say I'd made a mistake." He drew a breath. "He said I was lazy, and he couldn't rely on me to hand in stories when I said I would."
I thought Fred looked as if he was going to cry. "You didn't know you could maybe get a lawyer?"
He calmed himself. "You're being logical."
"Terrible fault for a reporter."
"Whatever. I had to finish working in Des Moines. It was, oh, maybe eight o'clock before I could leave for here. By the time I'd driven for close to two hours, I would have at least tried to hurt him."
"So, you went to Hal's?"
"First time he didn't answer. I mean, I didn't know if he was in there. I went away and drank a couple of beers."
"Always fodder for good decision-making."
"Yeah, well, I needed to get my nerve up. I wasn't drunk."
But you were buzzed
. "So, you went back?"
"I knocked on the door. After a minute I realized some taillights I'd seen when I was near his house might have been him leaving. So I drove in that direction. I was about to give up when I saw taillights weaving. A lot."
"Huh. And we never saw him drunk."
"Yeah, weird. Don't know if he did it a lot. Anyway, I almost caught up to him, but he made it through a light and I didn't."
"You lost him?"
"Yeah, but there were only a couple of ways he could have gone, so I kept driving around. I was at the edge of town, almost at the end of the blacktop, going to turn around. Then I saw taillights, and they turned off the road."
"At Syl's place?"
He nodded. "But I thought it was vacant until I saw it wasn't just Hal's car in the driveway. There was a truck. Something made me park on the road, a bit down from there. When I started to walk onto the driveway I heard yelling. One of the voices was definitely Hal."
"And the other was Syl?"
He shrugged. "I keep trying to meet the guy. I listened to his voice on his answering machine. He hasn't been there the couple times I've gone by."
"Did the machine sound like the person you heard?"
"I don't think so. The person arguing with Hal had a deeper voice, not like the outgoing message."
"Syl didn't come outside?"
Fred shook his head. "Not that I saw, assuming it wasn't his voice. There could have been a third person, maybe near the mulch. But I never saw them." He stopped.
"Did you hear what they said?"
"Just a few words. Something about Hal working his ass off and some talk about hiring. That was from Hal. The other person only said one thing I understood clearly. He said, 'You don't matter.'"
"So you think Hal was meeting someone there?"
"Don't know." Fred closed his eyes and opened them again, looking at a point above my head. "And then it was quiet."
"Hal probably wouldn't have gotten quiet on his own."
"Yeah, well, he didn't. After a minute something told me I should go look. Hal was, he was by the mulch pile. I could tell he was dead. Something about the way he was lying. And his eyes were…" His voice trailed off.
If the autopsy report was correct, Hal was dying, but not dead. Mortally wounded, soon to die. "What did you do?"
"I ran. It was really dark. I got to my car and drove away from town. Sort of toward your parents' old place."
"You never saw the other person?"
He had his head in his hands again, but he wasn't crying. "No, but if they'd walked straight back, toward the barn, they could have been hidden by the pick-up or Hal's car."
After a few seconds, I asked, "What did you see when you drove back by there?"
"I didn't. Drive by there. I drove west and came into town that back way."
I stared at him, and Fred finally met my eyes. "I was beside myself with horror. I'm sorry. I could have, I should have told…"
"Yeah, you should have! Why didn't you?"
"I thought it would look like I did kill him. It would be my word against, well, against anybody I told. Like the sheriff." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I can't think straight!"