Authors: Margaret Fenton
“Where was Ashley the night before her
son died?”
“What day was that?”
“Monday, June twenty-seventh.”
Trish turned around from her desk and
pulled down a thick red binder from the top of a lateral filing cabinet. I
walked closer to her desk so I could see. She flipped to a tab, then turned a
few pages. I stood in front of her desk and read upside down.
The page was a photocopied form, filled
with Trish’s neat, block writing. She scanned the list of names until she came
to Ashley’s. She read across and said in her soft voice, “She cleaned the law
firm, then went to one of our once-weeklies, CitiCorps.”
“What do they do?”
She shrugged. “I think they’re city
planners. Or architects, maybe.”
“What about on Friday? The
twenty-fourth? Where did Ashley work?”
Trish flipped two pages back and scanned
it. “Same law firm, as usual. Then she had a new client. Another once-a-week.
BaxMed.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Holy
God.
“Does that mean anything?” Liz asked.
“Maybe,” I said, trying hard to cover my
surprise. I quickly memorized the upside-down address of BaxMed. They were on
Eleventh Avenue South, near the university campus. “Who cleans their offices
now?” I asked Trish.
Liz answered, “Nobody. They cancelled
their service right after Ashley was arrested. Me and Trish figured they saw
the story on the news and got the idea that we’d hired some kinda child killer.
I guess they thought they couldn’t trust any of our girls. I called them and
tried to smooth it all over. Talked to Dr. Walt Baxter myself, he’s the owner,
but it was a no go. He just said they wouldn’t be needing us anymore. Oh, well.
What’re you gonna do? Right, Trish?”
“Right, Liz.”
“You just can’t convince some people,”
Liz finished.
I thanked the ladies and asked after
another of my clients.
Back in my Civic, I checked the time.
Five twenty. I called
The
News
. As expected, I got Kirk’s voice mail. I left him a message asking
him to call me on my cell.
I wanted to go home. To be alone and to
think. But unbidden images of Jimmy with his knife and Ashley’s fear-twisted
face kept me from feeling easy. My phone rang. The caller ID said it was Grant,
from the shop.
“You headed here?” he asked.
“I was just debating that. I think I’ll
go home.”
“That’s not such a good idea.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Famous last words.”
“That’s not funny.”
“This whole situation isn’t funny. At
least let me come over.”
“No. Really. I just want to be alone for
a while. I’ve got some things to do too.”
“Then I’m going to call you every hour.”
I laughed.
“I’m serious.”
“Fine, call me if it’ll make you feel
better.”
“It will.”
“Okay.”
“I’m only doing this because I care
about you.”
That threw me. I didn’t know what to
say. Before I could piece together a response, he hung up.
My house was still standing,
undisturbed. I checked it over, cell phone in hand, ready to dial 911 if
needed. Several messages were on my answering machine. Two from Dad, asking me
to call him when I got in, one from a friend, and two from Royanne, wondering
where the heck I was and confirming lunch for tomorrow.
I called Dad and checked in, did the
same with Royanne. I called my friend and we chatted for a while, then I sorted
the laundry and washed clothes. Precisely an hour after I got home, the phone
rang. Grant’s cell.
“You okay?”
“Yes. Are you really going to do this
all night?”
“Maybe not. I think I have an idea. I’ll
see you in a little bit.” He hung up before I could protest. Twenty minutes
later, I heard a vehicle pull into my driveway. I peeked out the window and saw
Grant’s minivan. He hopped out, a box in hand.
I met him at the door. “What’s that?”
“Something I remembered.” He put the box
down on the dining table.
smarthome
was printed in blue letters across
the top. He opened it and took out a rectangular white motion sensor, a box
with a keypad, and a small keyring remote.
“What’s all this?”
“It’s an alarm system. You can get them
for about a hundred bucks online. I bought this when I first opened High Tech.
I used it until I could afford a real security service. I had it in storage at
the shop.” He surveyed the room. “This detector will sense motion in a range of
about twenty feet. It’ll go off if someone comes in. All you have to do is turn
it on before you go to bed.”
“It’s a loud alarm?”
“One hundred and thirty decibels, so,
yeah. And,” he pulled out the white keypad, “this is already programmed to call
my cell phone if it goes off. It’s an auto-dialer. I just need to hook it to
your land line.” I watched as he positioned the motion sensor on an occasional
table, and plugged the little box into my phone. “There. Just switch it on with
the remote when you go to bed. The beam goes all the way across this room, so
if anyone comes in here, you’ll know about it. Just don’t forget to shut it off
before you break the beam in the morning.”
“You’re a genius.”
I gave him a grateful hug and felt his
long arms pull me in. He kissed the top of my head. “You sure you don’t want me
to stay? I don’t mind.”
“I know. I just want some time to
myself,” I murmured into his chest.
He held me for a few minutes longer.
Then, “I meant what I said on the phone. That’s why — the other night — why I
didn’t — I want to do this right.”
Suddenly, so did I. “Me, too.”
He left after a long, sweet kiss
good-bye. I switched the alarm on before going to bed, and it did make me sleep
easier in between thoughts of what my next move in Ashley’s case should be.
The next morning, on my way to work, my
cell phone sang.
“You rang?”
Kirk. “Hi. Can you look into something
else for me?”
“For this mysterious story that is going
to surface someday?”
“That’s the one.”
“Shoot.”
“BaxMed. It’s some kind of medical
research firm —”
“Oh, yeah, one of Joey’s.”
“Who’s Joey? The owner’s a Dr. Walter
Baxter.”
“What, you don’t read my newspaper?”
“I read all the articles destroying my
career, thank you very much.”
He laughed. “Joey Renzi is one of our
reporters. He’s doing a series of articles on Birmingham’s biotech industry.
BaxMed is one of them. The article ran a couple of weeks ago.” Now that he
mentioned it, I did remember reading something about a biotech firm, probably
the same day as Kirk’s article quoting my name.
“Gee, I guess I had my mind on other
things. I can’t imagine what. Can you get me copies of the articles?”
“You want the whole series?”
“Sure. And anything at all on BaxMed or
Dr. Walter Baxter.”
“You got it. I’ll bring them by your
office.”
“No! Are you nuts?”
He laughed again. “Oops. Sorry, I
forgot. So, you’ll put the red flag in the flower pot, and we’ll meet in the
parking garage down the street?”
“Don’t you dare start calling me Deep
Throat.”
He did have a point, though. My paranoid
self didn’t want to be seen walking into the newspaper building, and he sure as
hell wasn’t welcome at the office. We needed a place, downtown, close to both
our workplaces. “I’ll meet you at the main library.”
“Where?”
“In the mystery section, of course.”
“What time?”
“Five?”
“That works. When am I going to get this
story of yours?”
“When there is one. I promise.”
We hung up as I arrived at work.
Russell walked in, his usual cup of
coffee in hand. Before he could start his daily ritual of checking his messages
and returning calls, I asked, “How’s Heinrich?”
“Fine.”
“Are y’all busy tonight?”
He put the handset back down on the
phone. “Why?”
“Got time for drinks?”
Eyes narrowed, he asked, “Why?” Boy, he
knew me.
“I wanted to talk to Heinrich about
something.”
“What?”
“I just have some questions to ask,
that’s all.” I wasn’t even sure what those questions were yet. “About the
university. He’s getting his master’s in chemistry, right? I want to ask him
about some things.”
“I guess we could do that. Let me call
him and see.”
A few minutes later, Russell hung up the
phone and said his boyfriend would meet us at the office at five thirty. That
didn’t give me much time to meet with Kirk and get back here.
Our secretary came in with a new case
for Russell. He left while I was catching up my case narratives. At ten till
ten, I left for the jail.
All the glass cubicles were filled
today, so I had to wait a few minutes until someone left before claiming my own
uncomfortable stool. The guard brought Ashley in. Her hair was pulled back
today, and it looked brittle. She looked thinner than the last time I’d seen
her. I could only imagine how bad the food was here, if she even felt like
eating with all she’d been through.
She sat down and grabbed her handset as
I picked up mine. After the way we left things last time, this was going to be
a bit awkward. I was over the anger. Now I just wanted answers.
“Hi,” I began. “How are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No. Are you still mad at me?”
“No. I wasn’t really mad. Just
frustrated.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s not. Ashley, I’m trying to
help you. I can’t for the life of me understand why you don’t want to help
yourself.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“But if you know something that can get
you out of prison —”
“What for? What do I got to go home to?
Mikey’s gone.”
“There’s your mother. And Jimmy.”
“Jimmy’ll wait for me.”
“I know where you were the Friday night
before Michael died.”
“So? I was at work. And Monday. All day,
like always.”
“Friday, you were at BaxMed. That’s Trey
Baxter’s company. You knew him through Zander, didn’t you?”
The moment the words were out of my
mouth, her expression turned to raw fear. Like I’d just pulled out a gun and
aimed it right between her eyes. I pressed on. “Did something happen there?”
She was making an effort to stay
composed, but I could detect a slight tremor as she clutched the handset. “I
cleaned for them, yeah.”
“Ashley, I don’t get it. Why did Michael
die now? What happened that someone tried to get rid of you, or him?”
“I relapsed.”
“No, you didn’t. Don’t give me that.
Something happened, and I think it was at BaxMed. If you tell me, I can —”
The fear flashed again in her eyes. Her
knuckles around the phone were white. “Claire! No! Promise me you’ll stop.
Please!”
“Why? What are you afraid of?”
“Death.”
She was serious, and it stopped me cold.
“Whose?”
“Mine. Yours. Please, please let this
go. They’ll kill you.”
“Who?”
“I’m not sayin’. If we shut up and leave
it alone, no one will get hurt.”
It sounded like she was repeating a line
someone had said to her. “Who threatened you?”
“Please, Claire. Please don’t do this.
Mikey’s already dead because of me. I couldn’t live with it if somethin’
happened to you. Please.”
The begging was getting to me. “Okay.”
“You’ll drop it?”
“Yeah.”
“You promise?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but
couldn’t do it. I owed it to Michael. Once I gave my word about something, it
was law, and I couldn’t honestly say I was going to stop. I couldn’t lie to
her. Ashley saw my open-mouthed hesitation.
I muttered, “I’m sorry,” and hung up the
receiver. I turned my back on Ashley and started for the elevator. She was
leaning on the cubicle, yelling through the glass. Before the guard grabbed her
arm, she screamed, “Don’t! It’s not worth it!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I went back to work, my mind a jumbled
mess of thoughts. Over my whole mood lay a blanket of apprehension. I was close
to something dangerous. Mac popped his head in to check on my crazy case from
the other day, and I asked him about the attorney general. He said there’d
still been no word, and there probably wouldn’t be for another week or so.