Read A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) Online

Authors: Matthew Iden

Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Fiction, #Hard-Boiled

A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) (2 page)

BOOK: A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1)
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"Let's take a walk," I said.

We left the coffee shop and headed down Wilson Boulevard past the new developments that had sucked the soul out of the neighborhood and towards the older homes--the ones with lawns and shutters and chimneys--that kept the community alive, even if it was on life support. It was cold. No snow had fallen yet but a crisp, white sun gave the impression that it was warmer than it was. I tucked my hands in my jacket and turtled my head into the collar.

I stole a glance at Amanda as we walked. She was taller than I'd first thought, a willowy five-nine or ten. She tucked a lock of hair behind an ear as she walked, matching me stride for stride. "Thanks for agreeing to talk, Mr. Singer."

I waved a hand. "Just Marty. Mr. Singer makes me sound like a high school principal."

"Thanks, Marty," she said, and looked sideways at me. A shy smile slipped out.

"What?"

"You haven't changed much at all," she said. "Same black hair, same green eyes. I was afraid I'd be looking for an old guy with a gut and a comb-over."

"I'm glad I pass."

She kept up the appraisal. "You look tired, though. I thought retirement was supposed to be good for you."

Just like that, an iron band slipped around my heart and squeezed. "I don't want to talk about it."

The mask of the self-assured young woman fell away and, like the very first time I'd seen her, the face of a frightened girl peered back at me. "I'm sorry. I thought maybe it was a good thing, I--"

I grimaced. My voice had been raw, harsh. "Look, don't worry about it. Let's focus on you."

She smiled again, unsure. "All right."

We walked, letting our steps swallow the awkwardness. "So," I said after a second. "Michael Wheeler."

She nodded.

"That might be the first mistake," I said. "Assuming it's him. Let's start with what's got you worried and work towards a conclusion, instead of starting with the person first."

"The what and the who are linked," she said. "That's what's got me scared."

I didn't say anything. She took a deep breath.

"I guess you have to understand a few things to see the whole thing clearly. You may notice I call him Michael. Not Wheeler, not ‘that guy' or ‘the killer' or anything like that."

"I noticed."

"And you remember my mom's case?"

I nodded. I'd blanked on her name at first--it had been twelve years--but I could remember all my cases if given enough time. And I would've remembered the Lane murder regardless. It's kind of tough to forget a homicide involving a cop on your own police force.

"Back…then, before my mom was killed, Michael would come by the house, all the time. I mean, constantly. That's what creeped Mom out so much. It was stalking before anyone even used the word. But what made it worse is that it all started out so nice. Oh," she said with a pained expression. "You already know all of this."

"Act like I don't," I said. "Tell me how you remember it."

She paused, gathering her thoughts. "My mom and I lived alone. Dad was gone, killed in the Gulf. She hadn't started dating again and was working hard, so it was just the two of us. One night, before anything bad had actually happened, we heard a crash downstairs. We found out later it was the cat knocking things over, but we were terrified. I was scared like a little kid is scared, but the first thought in my mom's head was that she was a single woman with a twelve year old in a wealthy neighborhood. She called the police."

A woman with a small white dog walked towards us, then the dog abruptly stopped and squatted. We all pretended that he wasn't doing what he was doing. The dog looked embarrassed. "And Wheeler showed up."

"In a heartbeat. Later, when he started acting strange, Mom thought he might've made the noise himself that first night. He arrived so quickly, like he was sitting right around the corner. I don't think that was the case, but pretty soon we didn't need to dream up excuses for being scared of him."

"That was later, though," I said. "At first, he was the knight in shining armor."

"He was so nice, so...God, I hate to say it. I understand the concept, but...I despise the thought emotionally. It doesn't make me weak, but he was so--"

"Manly?" I offered.

"Yes," she said, scrubbing her face with a hand. "In the right way. I mean, I barely remembered my father. My mom was all I knew. I was a kid. The only males I ever saw were boys who grabbed themselves and the principal at school who smelled bad and here's this
policeman
, this big, hunky guy with a badge and a gun and a mustache…"

"I remember the mustache."

"I fell in love with him and maybe Mom did, too. She was lonely and working hard. Trying to maintain appearances and provide for me. Too busy to meet anyone, too tired to go out and try. Then chance dropped a man at our door. It's not a complicated scenario."

"And he picked up on that. Or at least tried to take advantage of it."

"No doubt."

"Was she sleeping with him?"

Amanda hesitated. "No."

I didn't say anything.

"I'm not deluding myself, Marty. I think it would've come to that, sure. But Michael turned weird too fast. The first few visits were sweet, like he was our guardian angel, you know? Then he started coming around three or four times a week."

I closed my eyes, trying to remember the details. "I looked at the complaints. I thought your mom reported him right away."

She shook her head. "My mom told the cops that she'd asked him to leave the second or third time he came around, but she hadn't. She said it after the fact to reinforce the complaint. He must've shown up a dozen times before she called it in."

"How long before your mom told him to leave the two of you alone?"

"A month, maybe? Then a week or two more before she made a complaint."

"Why wait?"

"She wasn't sure what to do. I mean, you report a cop to the cops and what happens? If you're lucky, they blow it off. If you're not, he hears about it and takes it out on you, right? But a friend convinced her that filing a complaint was what she had to do."

"So he had six weeks around you and your mom and your house before anyone even thought of slapping his hand."

"Yes."

"He ever come by when it was just you?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"His partner was with him most of the time, but sometimes he came by himself."

"Who was his partner?"

She thought about it. "You know, I can barely recall. A real tall guy. He'd always stay with the car, leaning against the door." She shook her head. "That's it. I only ever paid attention to Michael."

A December breeze kicked up and slipped an icy hand inside my collar. I hunched my shoulders and shoved my fists deeper into my pockets. "It was my case, after all, so I already know, or think I know, but I have to ask."

"He didn't molest me."

"And the next question is?"

"Yes, I'm sure. And, no, I'm not suppressing. I've been in therapy since I was twelve, Marty. It would've come out. All I remember was Michael being kind, being good. He made me a local celebrity with the other kids, coming to the house in his uniform, or bringing other cops around to show off. There always seemed to be a police car outside our place. No, if I blocked anything out, it was later, when Mom yelled at him, telling him to stay away. I hated her for that. I wanted her to like him. In retrospect, I know he was using me to get to her, but at the time I thought she was being a bitch."

"So how does this bring us to what's going on now?"

She sighed. "Michael came by a lot more often than Mom knew, since she was at work all the time. After he started scaring her, she sent me straight to the Jansen's, next door. Even the night she was…she was killed, I was at the Jansen's. But for weeks before that he would come by after school."

I blinked, surprised, but didn't say anything. She continued, staring ahead but looking into the past.

"He would leave me these white flowers, tiny things. I would find them on the porch or stuck in the front gate. I thought they were roses. What did I know? They were just carnations. He probably bought them at a grocery store or something, ten for a dollar."

"What did you do with them?"

"I was careful to hide or trash most of them, but I kept one or two in my room. Mom found them and asked me where they'd come from, but I was embarrassed. I lied and told her they were from a boy at school. She thought it was cute."

"What about after your mom reported him?"

She made a face. "He came by a few times before Mom got really paranoid, then I didn't see him for…well, never. But even after she chased him off, I'd find flowers on the back porch or one in the basket of my bike. He got sneaky and would spread the petals on the sidewalk. The worst was when I found one on my pillow, a few days before…before it happened."

Even twelve years later, I felt sick. Brenda Lane's complaints should've been enough to save her life. They hadn't because they'd been dismissed with a shrug and a
so what?
But if you add obsessive pedophiliac tendencies to Wheeler's profile,
somebody
at MPDC would've paid attention. The hammer would've been dropped on him, hard. Maybe Brenda Lane would be alive. If anyone had known about it. My blood pressure spiked. "Why the hell didn't you tell someone?"

"I was twelve years old," she said, her anger flaring to match mine. "I barely knew what the hell happened the night my mom was shot. I was in Child Services for two days before anyone even told me she was dead. And I still didn't believe it was Michael, not even after he was arrested. It took me a long time to accept that and what happened at the trial didn't help."

I rubbed a hand over my jaw. "Sorry. It's just a hell of a thing to miss when you're trying to nail a guy for murder. And he walks."

We were both quiet. I stared down at the sidewalk under my feet. I counted five cracks before I said, "That fills in some gaps but doesn't change the past. What's going on now?"

She stopped abruptly and dropped her backpack to the ground. She unzipped a small pocket, fished around, and removed a Ziploc bag, Then, from the plastic bag, she pulled out exactly what I didn't want to see.

A small white carnation.

 

Chapter Three

"I found it in front of my door two nights ago."

"Couldn't be an accident? Roommate, boyfriend, secret admirer?"

She shook her head. "No roommates. Too long since the last boyfriend. And it's an odd gift for a secret admirer, wouldn't you say?"

"Where do you work?"

"I'm a graduate student at George Washington University. Women's Studies."

I looked at her. "Students, rival grads, angry professors?"

"How would they know? What significance does it have if it's not from Michael?"

I took the flower from her and twirled it by the stem. A few petals fell off, littering the ground. It was a shoddy way to treat evidence, but the thing had been squashed in her backpack for two nights, destroying any integrity it might've had. Oh, and I wasn't a cop anymore. "So," I said, handing it back. "Why now?"

"I know. I asked myself, why should he come looking for me? It sounds stupid when I say it out loud."

"No, the why isn't stupid," I said. "There could be a hundred reasons why. The question is why
now
? Where's he been? And wherever that is, what's happened to trigger contact after so many years?"

"I did some digging around," she said. "You know, the kind of things you can do on the web."

"Sure," I said, like I knew. "What'd you find?"

"Nothing," she said. She hauled her backpack over a shoulder and we started walking again. We'd covered some serious ground and I was starting to feel it. "Not a damn thing. It's as if Michael was locked up for a decade, then walked out and decided to find me."

I grimaced and said, "We both know that didn't happen. The being locked-up part, I mean."

"I know. But it really is as if he vanished."

"It's not that hard to disappear," I said. "Especially for an ex-cop who knows the ropes. And, especially--no offense--to someone not trained to find people."

"I didn't just Google him," she said. "I've got friends at the university that can look into some sophisticated stuff. Not NSA-level, sure, but access to credit reports, arrest records, job applications, stuff like that."

That got my attention. "Really?"

"GW has programs for journalists, law enforcement officers, lawyers, poli-sci analysts, most of whom intern at government agencies or high-powered law firms. They've got juice."

I snorted. "Juice?"

A blush started under her chin. "I heard it on TV."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "What did you find?"

"Everything I got was from the initial search. There was big press about my mom's murder when it happened, then a resurgence when Michael got off, then nothing. It became old news, fast. It was the Wild West in the mayor's office. He was making enough headlines to bump anybody off the front page."

"Tell me about it. I worked for the guy. Then what?"

"Then nothing," she said. "There were some follow-up articles about him moving out of the city, but they never said where he went. After that, it's as if he ceased to exist."

"We should be so lucky," I said. My breath steamed in the air and the sky was getting gray. "All right, we've got a couple possibilities. One, Wheeler's lived a quiet life raising pigs in Idaho and one day decides twelve years later is as good a time as any to risk jail time by coming back and throwing carnations at you."

"Or, he's wanted to stalk me this whole time, but been stuck somewhere else for twelve years."

"Like where?" I asked.

"I don't know. Overseas? The military?"

A bus passed us, drowning out conversation. Bored looking passengers stared out of the windows. I waited until it got to the end of the street. "First one, no. You can get a plane any day of the week from most countries and it didn't take him twelve years to save money for a flight to DC. Second one, no. Unless we're talking the French Foreign Legion, soldiers still get leave, still get time off. It isn't prison, even if it feels like it."

BOOK: A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1)
7.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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