Killing Katie (An Affair With Murder) (Volume 1) (20 page)

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look terrible. Are you sick?”

“Well, fuck you too,” she said with a giggle. Then she added, “Thank you very much.”

“Talk to me, Katie.”

She perched her elbows on the table and stared outside for what seemed the longest time. Yellow daylight shined on her face, and I could see the toll her worries had taken on her. I’d never seen the creases above her brow or the ones creeping away from her eyes. And though she continued to laugh quietly at what I’d said, I could see that she’d been crying, which added to the redness and swelling. She drank the wine spritzer in a single gulp and asked for another.

“Actually, can you make that a Scotch? A double?” she corrected. I cocked my head and tried to remember the last time I’d seen Katie drink anything stronger than wine. Jello shots at a college frat house, maybe? And even then, she couldn’t stomach more than two. Katie was a lightweight when it came to booze. Or at least she used to be. The waiter delivered the whiskey. My stomach dipped just looking at it, but I knew a drink might settle me. I motioned with my hand, saying nothing, and he disappeared to get another. Sunlight sank into the glass, glinting from atop the whiskey, bouncing as Katie raised it to her mouth. She stopped and peered through the glass at me.

“What? I’m not driving.”

“I’ll drive you,” I told her. If the need were there, she could have my drink. I slid my hand over the table, taking hers. Icy and rough and scathed from tiny cuts, she wore three bandages on her fingers: two of them blood-soaked, her fingernails beneath in question. “What did you do to your hand?”

She shook her head. Her other hand had faired the same; it too was roughed up and scratched, bandages covering the worst of the damage. I fixed her with a curious look that quickly turned to annoyance. By then, she was ready to start talking.

“Packing,” she finally said. “In a hurry too. Ripped the shit out of my hands on those fucking boxes and crap luggage. But we’re not taking everything. Just a few things.”

“Packing?” I asked. “What do you mean, packing? To go where?”

“You can’t tell anyone,” she said, her glassy eyes huge as she shook her head and searched around us. “Jerry’s got us packing. Told me that we have to run.”

“What?” I nearly laughed, thinking her story had to be a joke.

“It wasn’t an affair. There wasn’t another woman. But Jerry . . . he fell in with some people. Bad people,” she continued.

The tickle inside—the urge to laugh—went away then. My stomach soured and ached. Whatever was going on had to do with my seeing Jerry at the White Bear.

“He’s gotten himself involved with this group—these bikers—and he did something, but won’t tell me what it is, only that we . . . we have to run. Hide. Like fucking animals.”

This wasn’t the Katie that I knew, and that began to scare me. This wasn’t a joke. As much as I wanted it to be, I could sense real danger.

Todd,
I thought.

But the timing wasn’t right. Not yet, anyway. Poison wouldn’t show up until the autopsy. Or better yet, the toxicity screening. I’d done my research. So if it wasn’t a connection between Todd and Jerry, then it had to be about the money, the envelope.

But what would Jerry have to do with bikers?

Sam was the only biker I’d seen at the Bear.

“Bikers?” I asked. “Katie, you’re not making any sense.” She was crying heavily and swiped at her tears impatiently. I pushed my glass over, sliding it in front of her. She only sipped the whiskey this time as the last drink rose into her mouth. She caught it, pressing her lips, and held it in.

“All I know is that a year ago, these bikers wanted to start a distillery or something like that, and so Jerry helped them.”

“Do you know the name?” I asked, sounding abrupt, sitting on the edge of my seat. I knew the answer, but had to hear Katie say it.

“I’ve only overheard Jerry say the name Sam.”

“Which you thought was the name Samantha?”

Katie nodded, daring another sip. “He’s the owner, but a whole group of them is involved. Not just here, but all over the East Coast.”

“Money?” I asked, wondering if Jerry had tried his hand at extortion. Corruption in the mayor’s office was the norm, but the current mayor had remained untouched by it through his first term and well into his second term. Jerry might not have had an affair, but he surprised me with the balls he’d shown in taking a taste from the White Bear. “Was it Jerry, or was it his boss?”

Katie began to cry again. “I don’t know,” she managed to say. “Amy, I’ve got to go.”

At that moment, watching Katie finish her drink and collect her things, I realized that I didn’t know when I’d see her again. “Wait!” I pleaded, feeling dread slow me down.

“It’s too late,” she answered as she wrapped her arms around me. Her body shook against mine with a soft whimper. “You’re my sister, Amy. Always will be—don’t forget that.”

Her words sent a shiver through me. I fought the emotion, but choked up. I gathered my bag, paid for the drinks, and tried to catch up to Katie. But she’d always been leaner and taller, and her long legs carried her faster. By the time I reached the front door of Romeo’s, she’d disappeared into the back seat of a black town car.

The car must’ve been waiting.

I clopped over the sidewalk, raising my hand at the car window, unable to see anything except my oddly stretched reflection as the car passed me and drove away. My friend was gone.

A thousand fluttering wings suddenly sounded in a feathered breeze, and a black rain fell from the highest trees behind Romeo’s. The sky turned dark with the flight of blackbirds diving, twisting, and circling around me in an orchestrated cadence that seemed like magic. I watched the car drive away, wondering if Jerry was driving. The sputter of white exhaust puffed harshly as the sound of winged flight grew.

I glanced up, finding a mix of summer iridescence and speckled winter gray in the wave of tiny blackbirds. The birds dove, then rose straight up, and then funneled sharply, turning together like one amoebic body, whispering secrets as to which direction they were going to go next.

What was Katie’s secret? Which direction would they be going?

The large flock suddenly exploded above me, creating a daylight spectacle—a pale rusty sky filled with black stars—an impossible wonder that stole my voice. I wanted to scream out to Katie, but didn’t need to. The sedan turned at the furthest corner, disappearing onto Springdale, driving toward the interstate and into the city.

Why was she going into the city?

When the blackbirds reformed, they jetted across the street, disappearing into the alley.
My alley
, I’d begun to call it. The birds became noisy once they landed, and I wondered how much they’d witnessed the night the homeless man had called to me. Did birds even fly at night? Had they been huddled together in a feathery brood—their marble-black eyes open wide, watching me?

My body shook then, but it wasn’t from the late autumn air or from being sick with a hangover. I was afraid of what might happen to Katie and her boys. I could go to Steve, tell him what Katie told me, hope that he could do something. I decided to skip the visit with Nerd, leaving that to the next day. I’d find Steve and tell him what was going on.

By the time I was home, my eyes were damp. Steve listened to me, seeming to have forgotten about the buttons and my missing blouse. His arms went around me when the fact of Katie running overtook me. At his suggestion, I’d tried calling her phone. All I heard was a recorded message that the line had been disconnected. He made a few phone calls too, but didn’t share the details. He said only that he was going to put some eyes on Jerry and Katie and make sure they were safe.

Later that night, hours after I told Steve about Katie and Jerry—leaving out the details about the White Bear—a soft knock came at our front door. I peered into the gray darkness, then fell back to sleep. Another knock came at the door, stronger and rapid, thumping louder. The abrupt sound woke me, stirring me enough to make me sit up and focus. Steve sat up too, and swung his legs over the bed.

“It’s two in the morning,” I said, grabbing his arm as he lifted the remains of our warm covers. “You don’t know who it is.”

“That’s why I’m going downstairs,” he answered, his face blank and half-asleep. “It could be a patrol. They might have some news. I don’t know, won’t know till I answer the door.”

The knock came again—they didn’t ring the doorbell, as if they knew not to wake the kids. Katie came to mind. She could be outside with the boys, coming to us for help, for Steve’s help.

“Wait then, I’m coming with you.”

We hurried on some clothes and covered ourselves enough to go to the door. Winter had found our home, and it threw a frozen wall of air at us when we opened the door. Standing there, alone, his hair uncombed, his eyes bulging huge and bloodshot with a face stained from crying, Jerry looked to Steve and then to me, shaking his head.

“What?” I shouted, knowing immediately that he had something terrible to tell us. “What’s happened, Jerry!?”

“Katie is dead,” he managed to say as anguish stole his words. He tried to say more, but that was all he could manage to get out before collapsing.

I
DIDN’T JUMP
when the tea kettle whistled, urgently hissing and spitting hot droplets. I heard it, but ignored it. Hot steam spewed from the spout’s small hole, escaping the water’s violent rage. As much as I wanted a release of my own in that moment, I had none; my rage had to remain inside. I could feel myself boiling, blood coursing, rolling, heartbeats in my ears, sweat on my brow. I wanted to hurt Jerry for having started whatever it was that ended with Katie being dead. By now, Steve had heard back from the station, confirming that Katie had indeed been killed. There was a hole in my heart, and a part of me wished my world would be sucked into it and disappear.

They had been
packing, just as Katie had described. Jerry confessed everything to Katie about what he’d been doing at the White Bear. He told her the trouble he’d gotten into with the bikers. He told her how he’d been taking money from the owner, taking money from a lot of bikers.

“And the twins?” I’d asked. They were apparently safe, sent to his sister’s place to get picked up later.

“I told Katie how I’d been doing favors, but I didn’t have anything to do with what happened at the Bear last night,” Jerry went on to say. “When Sam went nuts, when he threatened me, I told Katie we had to run, hide for a while. I even had a driver from my office take her to meet with you.”

Spittle hung from Jerry’s lip and touched his chin, glinting with the light from above. He swiped at his mouth impatiently and blubbered again, sucking in as he tried to tell us more.

“There was a knock,” he’d said. A knock at their front door, the kind of sound that you hear but don’t hear. “I was boxing what we needed when I heard Katie’s footsteps come down the hall. I’d heard the door, but never gave it a second thought. Until she opened it.”

He told us there had been no words, no screams, just a pop and the sound of a wet splash before he heard Katie’s body crumple in their doorway. A motorcycle, maybe two—the kind with the deep throaty sound—sped away as he held her, but he didn’t see anything else—he didn’t have to. Sam Wilts wanted retribution for his son’s death, and he was going after anyone he suspected of being involved.

I swallowed hard, my heart stuck in my throat. He was talking about my hit on Todd Wilts.

Oh my God, did I do this?
I leaned against the counter, my legs wobbly.

“And you think it was this Sam person?” I struggled to say, seeing the bartender’s toothy grin and straggly hair in my mind. My words sunk into a whimper as I spoke, like a dying breath.

I killed Katie.

“Babe!” Steve whispered harshly. He lifted the kettle from the stove’s burner, placed it on the stony, flat counter to cool. “Careful.”

“Uh-huh,” I muttered.

“How are you doing?” he asked, rubbing my back, seeming to ignore my question. I leaned against his warm hand a moment before continuing.

“Hanging in there,” I answered, deciding to listen.

That’s safest, Amy. Just listen.

“Do you have to do this here?” Whatever Jerry had going on with the bikers had to be beyond anything that I’d done. What stuck in my gut like a hot stone was believing that I might have hastened their actions against Jerry.

But he opened that door
. That’s what I told myself; then the stone turned.

Steve glanced at his phone, his lips moving as he read a text message. “Won’t have Charlie there for another hour,” he said. “Prefer the station, but need to get what’s fresh.”

I poured myself a cup of tea, eager to feel the herbal burn chase down the acid rising in my throat. Steve decided on a glass of water. Jerry wanted a stiffer drink.

Whiskey, perhaps?
I wanted to ask bitterly.

Steve insisted that he stick to drinking water or coffee.

“Coffee, thank you,” he answered. I dumped the bitter-smelling contents of an old instant coffee packet and watched the dank, freeze-dried pebbles dissolve at the bottom of the wet cup. I prepared the coffee without effort, keeping it steamy black. I placed it in front of him. This was Steve’s area of expertise. I wasn’t even sure I should be in the same room.

“Listen, Jerry. We should really do any questioning at the station—”

“I don’t care where we talk,” he interrupted. “Why . . . why the station?”

“Because your wife was murdered, Jerry. Much of what you told us I’m going to have to ask you to repeat. I’ve had the station on the phone the last fifteen minutes. Your wife was found in the doorway of your home with a gunshot wound—that part corroborates with your story. I’ve got forensics there now, probably be there most of the day.”

Jerry winced. “I know how she died,” he said, angrily. “I was there.” He reached for his coffee, his hands shaking, but he managed to set his fingers on the cup’s handle and take a sip. He gestured appreciatively in my direction. I glanced at his face, then quickly turned away and tried to make myself busy.