Christmas Stalkings (9 page)

The mind plays funny tricks on you when a friend drops dead on your floor. I was wondering whether there were still laws on the books banning hatpins when I heard something that woke me up like a dash of icy water in the face. Mine is the last house on a dead-end road, out in the country, so when I hear a car I know it’s heading for me. This one was coming too fast, tires screeching around the steep downhill curve. I got to the window in time to see it slow for the sharp turn into my driveway. Amazing. He’d had sense enough not to use the siren. He can never resist the flasher, though; it spun like a dying sun, sending red beams through the rain.

It was like a thick curtain had been yanked away, clearing my head; I saw it all, clear as a printed warrant. I’d been set up. But good. A dead man in my study, my hatpin through his heart, and the fuzz tipped off in time to catch me red-handed. (A figure of speech we Pis use; there wasn’t much blood, and I hadn’t been stupid enough to touch the body.) I was in deep doo-doo, though. That wasn’t generalized fuzz, it was my nemesis, Sheriff Bludger. We had tangled before, on issues like gun control, and he wasn’t awfully crazy about little me. A thickheaded rednecked male chauvinist, he would be drooling at the prospect of catching me with my hatpin in somebody’s back.

The cruiser swung into the driveway and accelerated, sending the gravel flying. One of the cats growled. I looked at him. “Hold ‘
em
off, Diesel,” I snapped. He jumped off the windowsill and headed for the back door. The dogs were already there, stupid tails wagging. They could hardly wait to jump all over the nice cops and lick their hands and bring them balls to throw. The dogs were about as much use as fuzzy bunnies, but as I grabbed my purse I saw that Diesel had rallied the rest of the cats, six of them in all. They were all inside that day on account of the rain. Diesel himself weighs almost twenty pounds, and Bludger suffers from terminal ailurophobia. I figured I had maybe three minutes.

I went out the front door while Bludger and Company were trying to get in the back. Unfortunately the Caddy was also in the back. I circled carefully around the house, shivering as the cold rain stung my face, and crept through the shrubbery till I reached the garage. Peering around the corner, I saw the cruiser parked by the back steps. The back door was open, and from inside I could hear a lot of noise—dogs barking and men cursing! There was no sound from the cats. Unlike dogs and rattlesnakes, they don’t warn you before they strike. They aren’t gentlemen. That’s one of the reasons why I like them.

The Caddy purrs like a kitten and turns on a dime. I was out of the garage and heading down the drive before Bludger got wind of what was happening. Darned fool—if he’d left the cruiser blocking the gate I’d have been in big trouble, but no, he had to come right up to the door. That big beer belly of his makes him reluctant to walk farther than he has to, I guess. It was wobbling like a bowl of custard when he came barreling out of the back door, waving his stupid little gun and yelling. I waved back as I sent the Caddy shooting through the gate.

I pushed a lock of shining bronze hair out of my eyes and
shoved my foot down hard on the gas. The
car roared up the hill like a rocket, taking the curves like the sweet lady she is. You can have your Porsches and Ferraris; I always say there’s nothing like a Cadillac brougham for eluding the cops. Not that I was up for a high-speed chase across the county. Excessive speed is socially irresponsible, and besides, Bludger could cut me off at the pass; he knew the back roads as well as I did and he had plenty of manpower. I had to get out of sight, but fast—within the next thirty seconds—and I knew just how to do it.

I’m not given to praying, but I sent a passionate petition to the patron saint of private eyes as I thundered toward the stop sign at the top of the hill. She came through for me; the main road was clear. Instead of turning right or left, I hit the brake and sent the Caddy slithering across the road and up the bank on the opposite shoulder. A big green-and-white construction trailer stood there; the bridge across the creek had been finished three months earlier, but they hadn’t got around to removing the trailer. Typical. And lucky for me. I barely made it, though. A couple of inches of my back fender were still visible when the cruiser appeared, but Bludger didn’t notice. He was too busy trying to figure out which way I had turned. The decision was easy, even for his limited brain; a right turn would have taken me onto the bridge and a mile-long stretch of straight road. To the left the road rises and curves. He went left.

I waited till he was out of sight. Fastening my seat belt, which I hadn’t had time to do before, I backed out of my hiding place and headed across the bridge. I have to admit my pulse was pretty fast; this was the tricky part, if Bludger got smart and turned back too soon, he’d see me. I couldn’t stay where I was for the same reason, the Caddy would have been visible to a car coming down the hill.

Saint Kinsey was still with me. Across the bridge and over the hill, to Grandmother’s house we go . . . The driveway was a rutted track, with only a few grains of gravel remaining, the house looked like an abandoned ruin. She came out on the sagging porch, her shotgun over her arm, squinting through the rain. When she recognized me, a toothless grin split the wrinkled face under the faded sunbonnet

“Hey, Liz. Got time for—”

“No,
Grannie
.” I slung my purse over my shoulder. “I need to borrow the pickup. If Bludger finds the Caddy, tell him I stole your truck, okay?”

Grannie
spat neatly into the weeds beside the steps. “Keys are in the ignition. Leave yours; I’ll pull the Caddy into the shed after you go.”

Movement at the window caught my eye. Something fluttered against the pane, like a trapped moth. A hand—too small and thin, too pale ... I swallowed hard and waved back. “How’s Danny doing?”

“Okay. That wheelchair you got him was a big help. Don’t
s’pose
you’ve got time to come in and say hello? He don’t see many folks, and he’s crazy about you . . .”

“That’s ‘cause he don’t see many folks.” I forced a smile, directed it at the window, where Danny’s small pale face was pressed to the glass. The wheelchair might have been a help, but it was a heck of a Christmas present for a kid. I’d tied a big red bow across the seat and then ripped it off—too much of a contrast between holiday cheer and sad reality—one of those ironic contrasts we Pis keep seeing all around us . . .

I swallowed harder, stuck my cold hands in the pockets of my jeans. My fingers touched something soft. I pulled it out. It was a little squashed, but Danny and I had agreed we liked chocolate that way. “Give him this,
Grannie
. As a token of better things to come. Tell him—tell him I’ll be back to spend Christmas Eve with him.”

Grannie’s
rheumy eyes opened as wide as her wrinkled lids allowed—not much. “But, Liz, it’s your spare. What’ll you do without—”

“I’ll manage,” I said gruffly. “No big deal. See you later,
Grannie
—unless I’m in the slammer.”

She offered me the shotgun, the sunbonnet, and the dirt-colored sweater she had thrown over her shoulders. I took the last two, winked at her, and headed for the truck.

Heading south on 75 I met two cruisers heading north. I smiled without humor. The county crooks would have a field day today, beating up their wives and dealing drugs and driving drunk unmolested; Bludger would have every available cop out looking for harmless little old me.

I’d had my eye on Bludger for months. I couldn’t believe he was as stupid as he looked; but if he wasn’t up to his thick neck in the drug traffic, why did he keep getting in my face every time I tried to nail a local dealer? Over the past years, drug traffic in the county had increased a hundredfold. It wasn’t just kids and adult delinquents growing marijuana in woodland clearings, it was crack and coke brought in by big-city dealers who found lucrative markets and safer operations out in the boonies. Every now and then Bludger would round up some kids from the Projects, and there’d be a big hurrah in the local paper. But I knew, and Bludger should have known, that that wasn’t going to solve the problem. The people who lived in the Projects weren’t supporting a million-dollar industry. The buyers had to be people with money, and they weren’t buying off the streets.

I had a personal interest in the drug biz. It lost me a darned good cleaning woman—Danny’s mom. She was sixteen when she had Danny, after a hasty marriage to a
scuzzball
who beat her up with monotonous regularity before he got bored with the entertainment and walked out on her. Three kids (two of them died, don’t ask how), no education, no skills—it’s a wonder she stuck it out as long as she did. It was after the second baby died that she started doing drugs. Eventually, inevitably, they killed her. So now
Grannie
was trying to raise a seven-year-old on nothing a month and I was stuck with a lazy incompetent for a cleaning woman. You understand, it was the inconvenience that ticked me off. Not sentimentality. We tough female writer-Pis aren’t sentimental.

Grannie’s
pickup made a noise like a tractor. I encouraged it onto the freeway ramp and headed east toward Baltimore. A couple of miles and I’d be over the county line. Not that that would do me much good; Bludger would certainly have alerted the state cops as well as his counterparts next door. I drove at about forty, not because I was trying to avoid traffic cops but because that was as fast as the pickup would go.

There had to be some connection between Jaz’s murder and my recent investigations. Could it be Bludger himself who had set me up? I’d talked to Jaz about my suspicions, after he told me about a friend of his who’d been arrested for dealing dope down in D.C. (These days it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know someone who’s been arrested for dealing dope down in D.C.) Would Bludger commit murder just to get me off the trail? Not unless I was sniffing right at his heels. If I was, I sure as heck didn’t know it.

The sleety rain was falling harder and the windshield wipers seemed to be suffering from mechanical arthritis. I decided I’d better get off the road. Pulling into a McDonald’s, I ordered coffee and a Big Mac with everything (what the heck, you can only die once) and parked.

I always get my best ideas when I’m eating. Don’t know why that is. Maybe cholesterol stimulates the brain cells. After finishing my Big Mac I lit a cigarette and drove on to the shopping center. It was all decorated for Christmas—had been since mid-October—and it was the most depressing darned sight I had ever seen. The plastic wreaths and garlands had faded to a sickly chartreuse; they hung like dead parrots from lampposts and storefronts. Rain dripped drearily off the shiny red plastic bows. Strategically spotted speakers blared out that lovely classic carol, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Next on the agenda, no doubt, would be “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” or “I Don’t Care Who You Are, Fatty, Get Those Reindeer off My Roof.” I swallowed the tide of sickness rising in my throat and reminded myself to replenish my supply of Di-Gel. We Pis buy a lot of antacids. Especially around Christmas.

I miss the old-fashioned telephone booths, with doors you can close, but
Grannie’s
sunbonnet was a big help; it kept the rain off my face and kept passersby from hearing my end of the conversation.

First I called Jaz’s office. Mary Jo was on that day. She wanted to talk, but I cut her short. I sure as heck didn’t want to be the one to tell her about Jaz. I asked her where he was due to be that morning, before he came to me. Some of the names I knew, some I didn’t. But they made a pattern. After I hung up I called Rick. He wanted to talk too. Everybody wants to talk. I told

him what I wanted. He gasped. “G——d d
   
n it,

Liz—”

“Watch your mouth, Rick. You know my readers don’t like dirty words.”

“Oh—oh, yeah. Sorry. But what—”

“Never mind what. Just be there. I’ve cracked the case. You can make the arrest. I don’t want the credit. I never do.”

“But—”

I hung up.

Rick already owed me a couple. This would make three—no, four. You could call our relationship a social one—at least you’d better call it that. We’d met at a party, one of those boring Washington affairs writers get sucked into; I was sulking in a corner, nursing my drink and wondering how soon I could cut out, when I saw him. And he saw me. Our eyes met, across the room . . . Later, we got to talking. He asked me what I did for a living, I politely reciprocated—and that’s how it began. He’d been promoted a couple of times since I started helping him out and he was man enough to give me credit— privately, if not to his boss at the Agency—so I knew he’d respond this time.

It would take him an hour or more to get there, though. I dawdled in the drugstore, picked up a package of Di-Gel and a few other odds and ends I figured I would need, and then headed back to town at a leisurely thirty miles per hour. The rain slid like tears down the cracked facade of the windshield. Tears for a good man gone bad, for a sick world that teaches kids to get high and cop out. I felt sick myself. I chewed a Di-Gel and lit a cigarette.