2 Maid in the Shade (10 page)

“
I showed up.”

“
Doesn’t make any sense does it? Y’all were close, then you had the big success, then he avoids you. Professional jealousy I reckon.”

“
Dallas, he is a partner, virtually untouchable. Any coup for the associates lands in your bank accounts. And there is certainly no reason to be jealous now.”

“
Doesn’t keep people from being petty. It happens a lot with mentors. And he’s a snob. Wait, did he ever make a pass at you? Never struck me as a very manly man but…”

“
Of course not; we couldn’t have stayed friends if he had. You know, talking about him, just thinking about him makes me feel sick right now.”

“
Fair enough, tell me what you’ve been up to since the fishing trip.”

W
e talked for about ten minutes until the sound of Marge clearing her throat made it obvious that he really didn’t have any more loose time on his schedule. With Dallas time is money; piles and piles of money. I promised to come back and renewed, very awkwardly my vow to let him know if I remembered anything more about my attacker. It was Dallas’s fondest wish that, since I never reported it, he could get enough information to track down my rapist and go on a little hunting trip of his own.

D
allas can be a little scary.

I
made my way down the plush hallway to the golden mirrored elevator. I was digging for my keys in my old leather Longchamps bag when I felt a chill run down my spine and looked up into the mirrored doors. Hugh was standing behind me. His tall frame seemed to hover over mine as I stared ahead at his reflection.

He
smiled. It was his warm boy scout’s smile, as though nothing snarky had passed between us in his managing partner’s office. I looked straight at the doors casually smothering my internal shriek.

“
Looks like we’re both going down,” he said pleasantly.

I
wanted nothing more than to make an excuse and head to the ladies’ room, but I said nothing. I looked into my bag and continued to feel for my keys. Once I had them, I gripped them in one hand and slung my bag back over my shoulder. When I looked up again he was gone.

Facebook Post: “
Isn't it weird that in the prison system rapists and child molesters are considered by other prisoners to be the lowest among the low and they get the crap beaten out of them consistently but in these wholesome small towns the rapists and molesters are protected? Happened in my home town more than once.”

Chapter 5

M
y next stop was Harlan’s office. He had left a message asking me to come by and I told him Dallas sent his regards. “You his niece or something?” He asked abruptly. “I’ve never seen him so protective of anyone.

“Oh I don’t need protecting, we just hit i
t off when I went to work there. He saw my dad in the lobby one day and they had some friends and interests in common, so I guess he appointed himself my unofficial godfather.”

“Well, you couldn’t do any better if you had a Sopran
er.”

“Sir
?”

“You know
, those mob boys that was on HBO.”

I
smiled, “That’s probably true. I’m very grateful he introduced us and for all the business you’ve sent my way,” I added.

“Wouldn’t keep sending them if you w
asn’t doing a good job,” he said gruffly, pulling at his tie.

“
I appreciate it all the same. Is there something particular you wanted to talk about?”

“Actually, I do. Coffee
?”

“Sure, I’ve always wanted to try coffee from a police station.”

He grinned and stood up, and his old linebacker frame made his desk look ridiculously tiny.

“COFFEE!” He bellowed once and I heard a scramble of at least half a dozen feet rushing about on the linoleum before a very short policeman with a doughy face and round eyes came in holding a cup bet
ween both hands as though it were the Holy Grail.

He
set it down before Harlan and gave him a weak smile.

“Davis, you still hoping to be a detective one day
?”

T
he young cop nodded.

“Do you think I am a
Philistine?”

“No. Uh, no sir
?”

“Do you detect another presence in this room
?”

D
avis turned around and looked up, and up some more at me then swallowed. I waved my fingers as though from a far height and smiled kindly.

“
Davis! Can you think of any circumstance in which I would have myself served a beverage and ignore the thirst of a guest? Why, I would naturally go without if this young lady wanted nothing, or I would join her if she did?”

“Ye-yes sir.”

“Can you deduce why that might be?”

“No sir.”

“Because I am a gentleman damn it!”

D
avis looked at me in utter confusion.

“Just a little sugar,” I said
gently.

“No coffee
?” Davis asked, as sweat appeared on his brow.

I
heard the men outside the door guffaw as Harlan leaned over his desk and shouted, “SUGAR IN HER COFFEE!”

A
nother policeman rushed in with the second cup, gave me a long look and grabbed Davis by the neck and yanked him out of the room.

Harlan
grinned broadly. “Between the two of us, I think we could wring any kinda confession out of my boys in blue.”

“How’s that sir
?”

“W
ith my stunning good looks and your brawn we could make an imposin’ interrogation team.”

“Very true,” I said settling down in my chair so he could do the same, “but you know, I think my tactics of intimidation might make you feel insecure about your looks after
a while. I’d hate for you to feel you were just window dressing.”

“Ah, so now the fabled Gretchen comes out
.”

“Aw, don’t make me blush sir,” I said slouching down in my chair a bit and fluttering my lashes
.

H
e laughed. “You are something. I guess now I’m feeling a little jealous Dallas called dibs on the godfathering position. What happened after you solved that serial murder case for everyone awhile back?”

“
I didn’t solve it I merely survived it.”

“Which was how they solved it
. They should have given you a medal.” 

“T
hey offered—well I think it was a plaque.”

“You turned it down
?”

“Of course not! I asked them to mail it.”

Harlan chuckled again. “Oh, foiling the politicians’ chance at glory and a photo opportunity; not a good move gal.”

“I suppose not, I never got the plaque.”

“You do know how to play by the rules, you couldn’t have worked with Dallas otherwise, so why aren’t you playing? Woulda been good for business, got your name out.”

“I guess I learned al
ong the way whose rules counted, and that I could sit the game out from time to time.”

Harlan
chuckled, “Well, I better get to the reason I asked you here. That young suicide you cleaned up after. Something doesn’t quite ring true and I gotta wonder what’s bugging me about it.” He leaned forward suddenly. “Nothing ties this to anything else but a bunch of well educated young women in town for jobs and becoming victims in one way or another. I’d like to think this is all one guy; that we have a finite number of monsters here but I can’t point to any one thing about this girl that makes her anything more than a tragic thing. I wish we hadn’t been quite so settled on suicide.” His brow furrowed, as he flipped open a file. “Just what that might be, well maybe it will come to me sooner rather than later.”

“The drinks!” I exclaimed
, loudly enough to make him rear back in surprise.

“What drinks
?”

“I’m sorry, I tend t
o be overzealous; what were you going to ask me?”

“
Now I’m going to ask you this; what drinks?”

“Oh
,” I said, a little embarrassed, “I thought you were going to say it seemed strange to you too, that someone planning suicide would order a diet cocktail. I mean, who cares at that point right? Plus, the fact that there were two different drinks and the man using the exit seemed to purposely avoid the cameras. Perhaps he visited her room and the other drink was for him. Then there was that whole method of suicide. I’m no expert but I thought the strategy was you draw the bath then slit your wrists, not slit your wrists stumble around and wait for the tub to fill.”

Harlan
opened up the file and began to flip through it. “Okay yep, the skinny girl margarita and bourbon, well the bourbon glass should be easy enough to test. Ah,” he shook his head “that bourbon glass was missing from the room. But what’s this about when she slit her wrists and got in the tub? Where’d you get that?”

“
I thought you fellows had blood spatter analysts or something.”

“Police
in Charlotte don’t have the time and money they seem to have on cable shows, ‘specially when it appears to be a suicide. Still, could have been worth a look.” His massive shoulders slumped. “We didn’t much evidence. No reason at the time. Anything else specific you remember?”

“
The blood stains were pretty dark. They were on the drapes, the carpet, but none of them looked watery--not one. I know suicides change their minds but this doesn’t fit. If you had come to your senses and gotten out of the tub the blood would stream right? Mixed in with the water?”

“What else
?" He asked

“Oh nothing, the earring, that
the lone man on the hotel security camera must have been lucky or sly, he seemed to have purposely evaded the security cameras.”

“You know I wish---
”

“That people like me would stop watching CSI
?”

“No that those jugheads out there would. Don’t get me wrong, some of what you noticed was in the file, but no one drew any conclusions from it because they assumed
it was a clear case of suicide. And with budget cuts and all... Well I asked you here because you went through the room and I’m wondering if we should be looking at the attempted abduction and the suicide together. I saw you caught the cleanup. Might seem a stretch, but the girls were of similar age, visiting town on interviews straight out of college. Rapists aren’t always picky but sometimes, if they are working themselves up to worse, they do. There’s more a’course, we suspect there have been other victims, unconfirmed, but we can get to that later.”

“I don’t think there is anything I can add.”

“Think harder,” Harlan said gruffly.

I
closed my eyes. “Scuff marks in the closet and inside the door, diet cocktail, an earring in the loveseat cushion and a fingernail,” I shuddered, “under the closet rod.”

“You do clean a room.”

“Indeed.”

“So what would your guess be
?”

“My wild guess
?”

“Why not
?”

“If
you’re certain it wasn’t suicide I would guess the murderer got himself invited up for a drink, maybe they had sex or he raped her on the loveseat maybe he put her in the closet while he ran the bath, then slit her wrists, perhaps he put something in her drink earlier so he thought she would be sufficiently weakened, and he left taking his glass with him. It’s a lot of guessing.” I said apologetically, “and it doesn’t allow for her not using the phone if she came to alone. Did you find her cell?”

“It’s not listed in the effects.”

“A girl that age, that driven, interviewing in a new city. I don’t know if you realize for her that would be like losing a hand. She would have replaced it immediately.”

“Maybe she was saying goodbye to that
girl she was and tossed it. You know, good-bye to that life?”

“And yet she was still a creature of habit with the low calorie drink.”

“So what would you do next?”

“I have no
idea; check the closet rod for prints? Get the earring from the manager? The torn fingernail? Maybe she broke it trying to get the rod loose to use as a weapon? I gave the nail to the manager in a baggie with the earring, but he seemed pretty squeamish about it. He may have tossed them.”

“I’ll send somebody over, damn little pipsqueak he should have
brought that over here. Actually, step out here a minute would ya?”

I
followed him out to the squad room. No one looked terribly busy except in a feeble attempt to look terribly busy.

“Listen up,”
Harlan rubbed his forehead in weariness and disgust.

“
This gal Gretchen here, you know who she is right?” There were a couple of nods among the otherwise blank faces. “She was taking care of the room at the Dunbarton and noticed some things that support our idea that this kid…Valerie Hickman? Anyway, that the Dunbarton suicide maybe isn’t a suicide; which falls into place with some other discrepancies we’ve been discovering as we look at possible other assaults in the area. This Valerie is a young professional woman visiting town like the girls we questioned, or tried to.”

“Now I want you to all look over the case file,
and determine to my satisfaction whether it was in fact, a suicide. Hank, you go over to the hotel. Ask the manager if he happens to have left out any details and find out why. Ask him what Gretchen found; see if he gives you a baggie with an earring and a fingernail in it right off the bat. Also call down to the coroner and see if there is a fingernail missing on the body and why the Medical Examiners report isn’t in this damn file yet. Make sure it’s checked for any DNA if it’s hers.

H
ank, take Davis. And men, women, we need to do a full court press on this BEFORE it comes to light that we got too many things happening to the young ladies visiting this town. The press is already digging and hinted something to that effect this morning. We need to get in front of this.”

He
lowered his voice as he leaned towards me, “You got a few minutes?”

I
nodded, anxious to hear the rest of the story he had alluded to in that impromptu meeting.

“Let
’s go get us a real cup of coffee.”

“I didn’t picture you as a Starbucks man.”

“That’s good, ‘cause we’re going to “The Coffee Cup.”

W
e strolled down a couple of blocks to a little isolated rectangle which was a classic dive with a sign right out of the 1950’s in the shape of a coffee cup and a line of patrons out the door. Harlan was beckoned forward by a manager and we settled into a worn orange vinyl booth. I had heard of the place of course, but never thought about spending a single billable moment hunting it down when the coffee was fairly decent and available around the clock at Goldberg, Helms and Micheaux.