Murder and Mayhem (20 page)

“We were married right out of college and moved to
Burbank when Steven got an engineering job at Lockheed Martin, and I found work
as a paralegal at a well-respected law firm. Life was good and as Steven moved
up the ladder, we talked about buying a house and starting a family.

And then suddenly, one day, our world came crashing
down.”

Around them, chairs scraped–someone laughed–a child
cried–people shuffled past.

“What happened?”

“The stock market crash of ninety-seven. Some saw it
as the beginning of the end of the economic boom of the nineties and became
nervous. Lockheed started reorganizing the plant and Steven was let go.”

Nicola took a sip of water and then continued, “No
matter how hard he tried Steven couldn’t find a job where he was happy. He went
from place to place never settling. When he realized his life wasn’t turning
out the way he wanted, he became bitter. That’s when he started drinking,”
Nicola’s voice, dwarfed by her grief, was little more than a whisper as tears
slid down her cheeks.

Danny threaded his fingers through her smaller ones.
“C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

Nicola shook her head. “If I don’t tell you now my
courage might fail me. I’ve gone this far. Please, Danny, let me finish.”

“All right. But you don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.”

Nicola took another sip of water, and then she said
simply, “Steven started to gamble.”

Danny shook his head, but said nothing.

“Unbeknownst to me, Steven went to his parents for
money. At first they gave it to him but when they found out what he was doing
with it they refused to give him any more. His father told him that until he
grew up, acted responsibly, and got a job–any job that lasted more than a
couple of months, they wouldn’t give him another cent.

Nicola drained the last of her coffee, put down her
cup, and looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “Steven was furious.”

Danny looked around for their waitress and signaled a
refill. When the waitress arrived they sat quietly while she topped up their
coffee.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

“Nothing for me, thanks. Do you want something Nic?”

Nicola shook her head. She still couldn’t understand
how her fairytale life had turned so bad in such a short space of time. When
the waitress left she continued, “I don’t know what happened –” she broke off,
glanced at him quickly then frowned at the table. She said in a low voice,
“Maybe he was into drugs.” She faltered. “I don’t know. But he’d changed. He
was not the same man I fell in love with.

 “Steven’s mother often gave me money. She asked me
not to tell Steven where it came from. When he found out he went into an
uncontrollable rage. And then he became violent.”

Danny was shocked. “So what did you do?”

“I left him.”

 “Oh Nic, I had no idea.”

“How could you know? We never talked about it.”

“So what happened?”

“I got a place of my own but had to leave Backman,
Cain, because Steven kept coming around making terrible scenes. He accused me
of having affairs with just about every man in the office.

“So I quit, packed up and moved to Los Angeles. But he
tracked me down. Then I heard he owed a lot of money to a lot of people who
came looking for him–and he disappeared. I never saw him or heard from him
again.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Five, six years,” she said as she sorted through the
packets of sugar in the container, distractedly.

“What about his family? Did they hear from him during
that time?”

Nicola pushed the container to one side. “I don’t
know. I don’t think so. By then I had moved to San Francisco. I’d only been
there a couple of months when Mom rang to tell me Steven’s father had died from
a heart attack. I wanted to go to the funeral but I was afraid Steven would be
there–so I stayed away. I felt sorry for his poor mother. She was a lovely
woman.”

“Did he have any brothers or sisters?”

“No. He did have a twin brother but he died in a
boating accident when the boys were teenagers. Fifteen, sixteen, I think.
That’s what makes it so sad. When his father died, Steven was all the family
his mother had.” Nicola sat staring into her empty cup. When she lifted her
eyes they were moist and streaked with red.

Danny looked around and signaled the waitress. When
she arrived with the bill, he did a quick calculation, added a large tip and
handed her the money.

When they stepped into the cool night, the faint glow
of moonlight washed out from behind dark clouds and created shadows on the
sidewalk. The air hung heavy with dew–and unresolved tears.

* * *

She decided to go for a walk, hoping the night air
would clear her head and blow the sad memories away. She remembered how he had
protested when she told him. He didn’t like the idea of her walking the streets
on her own at night, even though it was in the center of town.

“I’ll call Jinko. Tell him I’m not coming,” he’d said
.
     

“Don’t be silly, the streets are full of people, and,
besides, there’s a cute little top in a store down the road I want to try on.”

He opened his mouth to offer further resistance but
she cut him off.

“Danny, I’ll be fine. Stop fussing and go!”

“I don’t like to leave you like this.”

“I’d rather be out shopping than sitting in a hotel
room feeling sorry for myself.”

“I’ll come with you,” he’d said.

“If you’re with me, I won’t be able to take my time.
Women hate men tagging along when they’re shopping. They get impatient.”

“I promise I won’t,” Danny said.

Nicola laughed and pushed him towards the door. “Just
go, so I can get on with the serious business of shopping.”

When he bent down to kiss her, she whispered into his
mouth, “If I’m asleep when you get back, promise you’ll wake me.”

He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand.
“Count on it, sweet thing.”

* * *

He stood in the shadows watching. As she came through
the doors of the hotel, she turned left and headed downtown, not up, as he had
expected. She tossed her head as she walked her heels click-clacking on the
concrete sidewalk as she hummed in time with the beat in her head. The
incandescent moonlight shone on her chestnut hair creating a halo as it fell
about her shoulders in waves.

He walked in the shadows, his sneakers making no sound
at all as he hid in dark doorways and created no shadow along the pavement–or
reflection in shop-front windows.

She turned the corner and glanced behind, then hurried
on, softly humming as she thought of the night ahead.

As she walked past an alley where drugs deals were
made and sex was sold he came up behind her. His hand closed over her mouth as
he dragged her into the shadows.

The knife sliced cleanly across her throat, severing
the carotid arteries and jugular vein, leaving a gaping wound like the painted
smile on the face of a clown.

She dropped to her knees, her face frozen in a look of
surprise, then, as if in slow motion, she fell forward–like a puppet whose
strings had been cut. Her blood pooled on the blackened concrete, seeped into
cracks and spread across used condoms and discarded needles and the filth of
human detritus. In the distance, the sound of voices drifted up to the alley,
but she did not hear them.

Suddenly the sound of thunder resonated loudly through
the night, and jagged streaks of white lightning lit up the black sky. Then the
rain fell and washed the still-warm body clean.

The water swirled around the gutters and flowed down
the drains, taking all the incriminating evidence with it–lost forever in the
mighty Hudson River.

NINETEEN

My sister’s voice cut through my
concentration.

“So that’s it then?”

I saved any changes I’d made
while I was reading through it, shut-down my laptop… and looked up. “That’s
what?”

“That’s it. She’d dead. Danny has finally killed her.”

I shrugged.

Rosie glared at me, indignation writ clearly across
her face. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“As I’ve said before you’ll just have to read the
book.”

A downy-soft pillow connected
with my head. “Tell me,” she growled.

“If I tell everyone what’s happening, how am I going to
make any money from the book?” The warning toot of the UPS van caught us
unaware as it rounded the corner and stopped at the mailbox out front.

“Oh, mail’s in.” I jumped off the bed and as I raced
out the door another pillow sailed through the air and bounced off the wall.

When I walked into the room,
Rosie was scrolling through my laptop.

“No point you looking in there,”
I said as I dropped the missile pillow onto the end of the bed, picked up the
other one and tucked it behind her back.

“Why not?”

Being a master at obscuration, I said, “Because I
haven’t written it yet.”

“Does this mean you won’t reveal who the killer is
until the end of the story? Or does it mean you haven’t decided how you’re
going to end it yet?”

“Something like that,” I muttered distractedly as I
read the return address on the top corner of an envelope.

Rosie closed the lid and pushed the laptop to one
side. “You are so damned infuriating. So, what’s in the post, anything
interesting?”

“Bills, bills and more bills,” I said as I tossed the
envelopes on the bed like dealing a hand of cards. I stopped, turned one over
and read the sender’s address, shrugged and added it to the pile.

Something suddenly piqued my interest. “Oh, look,
here’s one for Drew.” I waved the envelope in the air. The address across the
front was written in a flourishing hand, a rarity these days. In the top left
corner, a South Carolina Post Office box number.

“Oh goody,” Rosie said and held out her hand.

I lifted the envelope to my
nose, and sniffed.

“Perfume?” she asked her eyes
bright with excitement.

I passed the envelope under her nose and then handed
it to her.

Rosie screwed up her face and
added it to the growing pile of discards. “Drew can have that one too.”

I shuffled through magazines glancing at the covers,
sorting as I went.

“Is there any good stuff there
for us?” Rosie asked.

“Nup. Just a couple of business magazines for Drew–and
a motorcycle magazine for the over-the-hill Harley Hoon. I sighed. “Well that
sure was a waste of the mailman’s time. You’d think he could have at least
brought us a couple of fashion magazines or catalogues from Nordstrom or
Macys,” I said as I glanced at the cover of another magazine. “Who reads this
junk?”

I looked at the name in bold print on the cover, Cody
Albertson. “What do you suppose Cody is up to?” I said as I handed what looked
suspiciously like a girlie magazine to my sister. Rosie gave it a cursory
glance and tossed it to one side.

“Who knows what teenage boys are up to these days?
It’s probably for a school project.”

I don’t know how she figured
that out but I was willing to give Cody the benefit of the doubt–until I get
the chance to quiz him.

Suddenly I stopped. “Well, well, what do we have
here?”

“What?”

I waved a catalogue addressed to C. Albertson in the
air. “Now what do you suppose Cody would be doing with a ladies underwear
magazine?”

Rosie snatched the glossy magazine from my hand, tore
the plastic cover off and started flicking through the pages.

“He a teenage boy for crying out loud, where else is
he going to get his kicks. Certainly not from my underwear drawer!” she said.

“Mine either,” I had to admit.

As we flipped through the pages, the sound of our
laughter echoed through the rooms and dripped through cracks in the old
hardwood floor. And my sister’s house felt like a home once more.

*****