Every Move She Makes (28 page)

"Cut the crap, Gillespie."

"You don't need to worry. Mathis is with me."

"I'll deal with him later. Now tell me what the hell is going on."

"I found another Slasher case. I tried to tell you, but-"

"Get back here, now. You're on light duty."

"I feel fine." It was hard, under the circumstances, to not read
underlying emotions into his voice. He was being a good supervisor, was
all. At least, that was what I told myself. And I was being a good cop
with a good lead, which meant that sometimes our pagers and cellulars
were more of an inconvenience. "I don't know if it's safe to talk on an
unsecured line," I said. "I'll call you from a land line."

"Damnit, Gillespie-"

The term "Management Control took on a new meaning, and I wondered if
that was what they had in mind when they changed the name from Internal
Affairs. I turned off the power to the phone, then changed my pager to
silent alert. If I was going to ignore it, I didn't want Mathis to end
up having to report the number of times he heard the thing go off in
case Torrance decided to open a "management control" investigation.

Unfortunately, what I didn't count on was Mathis being paged by
Torrance. He read the page, his expression telling me he wasn't pleased
by what it said. "We gotta go back, Gillespie. Sorry." We're almost
there," I said, looking at the address on the street sign.

Fourteen-hundred block. McAllen's building was in the fifteen-hundred
block. "I'm about that far away from being transferred back to patrol on
midnights. I gotta call him." "You can't call him a block up the road?"

When Mathis hesitated, I knew I had him. "Just drive to her apartment.

You can be talking to Torrance on the phone while I knock on one door.

One, that's it. I promise."

"One, Gillespie." I crossed my heart.

"Hell," he said, pulling out into traffic. "You know how long it's been
since I worked patrol? I don't even have a uniform that fits." "Yeah,
but that cute guy you were talking to works patrol." He stopped in front
of McAllen's building, a blue and white Victorian-style home converted
into a fourplex. "Here. Use my phone." I'd locked it, and figured I'd
have about a minute before Mathis came after me. Jumping out of the car,
I ran up the three steps. Didn't feel dizzy, at all. The place was nice
in comparison to the last address we'd been to, and I wondered about
McAllen's relationship with Spider Sherwood. The two neighborhoods
didn't seem to fit, but I suppose there was no accounting for taste when
it came to falling for potential rock stars. McAllen and Tilden had
lived in number two. I knocked there, and a man answered, telling me
that he'd moved in shortly after the murder. He didn't know where Tilden
lived, but suggested I check with the woman in number three upstairs, as
they had been friends. I was halfway up the steps when I heard Mathis's
car door open and then close. I hurried on, rapping sharply on number
three. He caught up to me, took me by the hand, and started to lead me
away. "You said one contact.

You got one. Now be a good girl and get back in the car.

That's an order from Torrance. And he says if you don't, I'm to handcuff
you to the door of the car."

"One more minute?"

"No." His grip on my wrist tightened.

"Fine. You win."

"You bet I do." We started down the steps when the door opened. A large,
square-shouldered woman, mid-forties, short brown hair, gazed from me to
Mathis, then down to his hand clasped around my wrist. She could have
been a linebacker for the Forty-Niners. "You okay"' she asked, sounding
every bit like she'd trounce Mathis should my answer be no. I glanced at
Mathis, who sighed in resignation, then muttered, "I hate midnights."

"I'll be quick." He let go, and I returned to her door.

"I'm Inspector Gillespie, Homicide," I said. "This is my, uh, partner,
Sergeant Mathis. And I'm fine, thanks."

She relaxed her stance, then opened the door wider.

"What can I do for you?" "I was wondering if you could tell us anything
about your former neighbors? Christy McAllen or Trish Tilden?" "Sure.

You want to come in?" She stepped aside, allowing us both to enter. She
identified herself as Reba Fairbanks. Her apartment was clean and neat,
and I doubted there was a roach within walking distance. "Can I get you
anything to drink?" Mathis gave a pointed look at his watch.

"No, thanks, we're sort of in a hurry. What can you tell us about them?"

"Not a lot. I looked after their cat while they were away. Still got
it," she said, nodding to the calico sprawled out on the windowsill.

"Trish left it here when she moved. That's her there in the photo. With
Christy." She pointed to a photo on a bookshelf. Reba Fairbanks was
standing between two shorter women, both with long dark hair, similar
height and build.

"Who's who?" I asked.

"Trish is on the left. She's the pretty one. Christy's on my right. Nice
girl till she got mixed up with that Spider guy. He's the one started
calling her Tanya. Said it sounded more rock and roll."

"Do you know where Trish went?"

"No, but I've got a message number. There was a private investigator
here earlier. I already gave it to him."

"The PI. Do you recall his name?"

" He didn't say. just flashed some ID. I can tell you what he looks
like, though." She proceeded to describe Scolari to a tee. Mathis and I
exchanged glances. "I'll get that number. It's in my phone book," she
said, retrieving her purse from her dinette table. "She gave it to me
when I agreed to take care of her cat. Said if something happened, and I
couldn't do it, call, and she'd get back to me.

It was supposed to be temporary, but she hasn't come back for it."

Reba gave me the number, and I noted it had no area code but had a city
prefix, which meant Trish was still in the vicinity-well, at least her
message taker was, assuming the number was still valid. I asked to use
the phone, called, and got an answering machine with a man's voice
recorded on it. I left a message asking Trish to call me, then rejoined
Mathis and Reba. "I know you've probably gone over this before with the
other inspectors," I said to Reba, "but can you tell me what happened
the night of the murder?" "I'm not sure if it's anything important. I
mean, I didn't see anybody or anything." "Not a problem. just tell me
what you remember." She rubbed her chin. "The only thing significant is
that Trish called me from work. Asked me to come pick her up. No
explanation. Might have been around nine." At the first break. "I get
there, wondering what's up, cause she's sitting in her car, making out
with some guy. At least I think so, till I walk right up to the window,
about to knock. I wasn't exactly thrilled." She opened her purse and
pulled out a pack of Marlboros. "Mind if I smoke?" "Go ahead." She lit
the cigarette, took a long drag, then blew a plume of smoke to the side.

"Like I said, I think I see Trish in this car, then suddenly, Trish
calls out from behind me. So I go, "What the hell's going on?" and she
goes, "I'm quitting." "That's it. No explanation." She sucked in a
lungful of smoke, speaking as she exhaled. "So I'm pulling out of the
parking lot, and I go, "What about your car?" She says something about
Christy and her boyfriend going at it. She says they'd gotten in a fight
during the first break, and now that they were making up, she didn't
have the heart to interrupt them. "I'll tell you what," Reba said,
flicking her ashes into a glass ashtray. "If it was me, I would have
booted Christy's ass right out of the car."

"So what happened after that?"

"Trish went to the car, said something to Christy, and then I took her
home. Later, she's telling me about someone putting something in her
drink. Never did find out what that was all about. Anyway, about two,
three hours later, Trish gets a call. It's Christy from the bar, crying,
because she finds her dimwit boyfriend of three months making out with
some barfly. Trish tells her to forget him and come home, because she
needs her car back. I think she was getting ready to take off for a few
days."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, she was packing a suitcase. So I give Trish a ride to the Ox. We
found the car a couple of blocks away from the bar, but not Christy. We
circled the area where we found the car. About halfway around the block,
Trish saw her lying in some parking lot. She started screaming.

Hysterical."

"Prior to that night, did Christy ever give any indication that she was
being stalked?" "No, not her. But the way Trish was carrying on, I
figured she was." The woman stared at her cigarette. "She kept saying
over and over, "It could have been me. Oh, God, it could have been me.'"

She exhaled.

I gave her a moment to compose herself "Why do you think she said that?"

"To me it was pretty obvious. If you look at that picture of them,
you'll see why. And that night, Christy was driving Trish's car and
wearing Trish's coat." You're off the Soma Slasher case," Torrance told
me Ywhen I got back to the office. His calm voice belied the fury in his
eyes. I'd made great strides on what had at one time appeared to be a
case with a near-zero solvability factor, and I wasn't about to let him
take that away from me. He picked up a report and started reading it.

Placing both my hands on the edge of his desk, I leaned across until he
had no choice but to acknowledge me. "This is my case. I won't give it
to someone else. Do you realize that the first victim may have been a
case of mistaken identity? She knew her attacker. The-"

"Forget it, Gillespie. You're on administrative leave, starting now."

"You can't do that." "I can and will. Look at you. You've got six
stitches in your head. The doctor said light duty and you chose to
ignore him. What if an incident occurred-" "I'm fine." Our gazes locked,
and I knew he wasn't going to back down. Finally I turned away, grabbed
my purse, not willing to let him see how mad I was. Before he could stop
me, I was out the door.

"Gillespie!"

Ignoring him, I continued on down the hall and around the corner. He had
no choice but to follow me. "Where do you think you're going?" I stopped
to face him, at this point not caring that he saw my anger. "The ladies'

room. Do you plan on following me there, too?" Without waiting for an
answer, I pushed open the ladies room door and stormed in. Dropping my
purse on the counter below the mirror, I strode to the sink, turned on
the faucet, then drenched my face in cold water-another trick I'd
learned to stop any tears before they started. I wouldn't give him the
satisfaction. WHEN the door opened behind me, I whirled around, ready to
lay into him for following. "How dare-" It wasn't Torrrance at all. It
was Leslie O'Keefe, my friend from the Domestic Violence detail. I think
she was as shocked as I.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." Water dripped down my face and onto my neck. After a moment
she grabbed a couple of paper towels and handed them to me. I plastered
them onto my face, turning away to hide my misery. Leslie and I had gone
to the Academy together, and had remained friends ever since. She
probably knew me better than anyone in the department. Right now,
however, I didn't want to explain the intricacies of my problems to her.