The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery (Lena Dane Mysteries) (25 page)

Glaring at me, Robert lowered himself to the easy chair, his knees popping loudly. “Why the hell would I help you?” he grunted.
 

“Because,” I said quietly, “once upon a time you were a good cop, and a decent man.” I could tell by his face the he wanted to throw me out of his house a lot more than he cared about thinking of himself that way, so I nodded at the doll parts and added, “And because you owe me.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” he blustered. “You framed and killed my godson, and then you go prancing around all proud of yourself ‘cause you got away with it–”

I leaned forward, or tried to, at least. “Robert,” I said tiredly, “Cut the shit. Like I said, once upon a time you were a good cop. There had to have been signs. You just didn’t want to see them.”

His jaw clamped shut, and he just scowled. I pointed at the doll parts. “That?” I said, “That’s pretty serious stuff for an ex-commander. But you and your little cabal of cronies need Matt to be innocent, so you make me the bad guy and make sure I stayed scared. Fine. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

He started to interrupt me, but I talked right over him, forcing him to stop and listen. “My point is that I’ve got bigger fish to fry now. So do you want to help me fry them, or do you want me to turn my considerable time and talents to proving that you’re responsible for harassment of a former policewoman? Think about it: ‘Ex-commander plots to terrify pregnant woman.’ It’s a hell of a headline.”
 

His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare,” he snapped.

“Wouldn’t I?” I countered. “You’ve been counting on me not going to the police, but I could always go to the press instead. I’m tired, Robert, and my ankles are swollen, and I have to get up four times a night to pee. It’s not a good time to push me.”
 

We sat there like that, glowering at each other, until finally Robert spat, “What do you want to know?”

I managed not to smile. “What did you keep out of the official file?” I asked promptly. “Anything in your personal notes, impressions, suspicions, that kind of thing.”

“That was thirty-some years ago,” he said sullenly. “You know how many cases I’ve worked since then?”

I could see it – the little glint in his eye that said he’d thought of something right away. He just wanted to make me work for it.
 

“Well, shit,” I said, shaking my head disgustedly. I stood up laboriously. “I figured you must be going senile by now, but I was hoping to catch you before your brain turned into jam. Good luck with your interviews. When the Tribune guy shows up, make sure he snaps your best side.”

I started toward the door. “You think I’m going to fall for that?” Robert said disbelievingly. “Girlie, I
invented
that bit.”

“Whatever you say, old man.” I opened the door and started through it, then paused, craning my neck to look back at him critically. “It’s your left, by the way. No, wait...your right.” I shook my head. “Aw, who am I kidding. You don’t have a good side.” I slammed the door shut behind me.

How’s that for working for it, dickweed,
I thought with satisfaction.

A few of the Barbie heads had fallen onto the front stoop when Robert closed the door earlier. I carefully navigated my way around them, holding onto the cold iron railing as I went down the steps. Before I made it to the bottom the door opened behind me. “We thought maybe he had a partner. Or an apprentice,” Robert said gruffly.
 

I turned back around again. “Why?”

“We found a few brown hairs at two of the crime scenes. Short. Male. Didn’t match Taper’s.”

I made a face. “That’s it? That’s your big evidence?”

If looks could kill, my entire existence would have evaporated on the spot.”They matched
each other
,” he said sulkily. “Two murders, no connection at all between the victims, both made to look like an accident? We wondered if there was a partner, but we couldn’t prove anything, and Taper claimed that he worked alone.”

“There,” I said sweetly. “Was that so hard?”

The door slammed shut again.

31. A Grownup Like That

On the way home, I felt exhilarated. I’d faced down the boogeyman! Robert Flanagan had done his best to discredit me, shame me, and ruin me in every way possible, and I’d confronted him and walked away unscathed. It felt amazing, and for a moment I was excited to tell Toby. Then I remembered that I couldn’t tell him about any of this, because I wasn’t supposed to be working the case.

I kept an eye on my mirrors, but if there was someone following me, he was too good to get caught again. My thoughts drifted to the possibility of Taper having an assistant, and from there to the timeline of Jason’s trip. He comes to Chicago, crashing at a friend’s house where he can’t be traced. He visits a professional killer in prison. And then as soon as he gets back to Los Angeles he’s murdered, possibly by another professional. A couple weeks later, the killer orders me to stop looking for Jason.

But Jason told Stoner David that someone seemed to be following him, and that he couldn’t trust his friend. And that was before he’d gone to see Taper in prison; before he’d even been on Taper’s radar. I frowned. Something was still missing. I picked up my cell phone and glanced at the clock. It was 4:30 in LA.

Starla picked up immediately. I identified myself and asked, “Starla, what can you tell me about Jason’s day-to-day life before he left for Chicago? I mean, way before. What was your life like together?”

“Uh, you mean, like, what was an average day in the lives of Starla and Jason?” She sounded amused, and maybe a little wistful.
 

“Pretty much, yeah. How did you spend your time?”

“Let’s see, I worked a lot, and I tried to audition around my job. Jason, well, whenever I was home to watch the twins he wrote, and when I wasn’t home he kept an eye on the kids. Sometimes he left them with one of our neighbors and went to coffee shops to write, or research, or whatever.”
 

Or whatever. “Was he employed anywhere?”

“Sometimes he would pick up a little extra cashing working for a moving company...but mostly he was trying to be a
serious writer,
” she added defensively, as if I’d accused Jason of being a lowlife. Which I kinda thought he was. “So he couldn’t be seen taking shifts as a busboy or something.”

“Did Jason have any friends he spent a lot of time with?”
 

“Not really – when he wasn’t with us, he went out by himself to work at Coffee Bean. He did go out for a beer with Conrad once in awhile, though.”

“Oh?” My ears perked up. “Did those two get along?”

Starla laughed nervously. “Well, you know. Most of the time. Jason tried really hard, though – he was always the one who called Conrad to hang out. I think he wanted them to have a good relationship, you know, for me.” She sounded proud.

“I see. Listen, Starla, I think maybe I need to come back out there,” I said, trying not to sound depressed about it. I wasn’t in the mood for another trip, even if I could figure out how to keep my reasons from Toby. “When I was in LA before, I was just trying to find Jason, and my search ended when...uh, when I found him. Now I need to come back and visit some of these places, talk to baristas, other writers, your brother.”

“You want to interview Connie?” There was a note in her voice: not
hurt
, exactly, but the potential for hurt if I found her brother in any way suspicious.

“Yes,” I said cautiously. “It’s possible that Jason mentioned something to him during their time together that would help with case.” And I needed to check his alibi for when Jason had died.

 
“Okay, um, I guess that makes sense,” Starla said thoughtfully. “I can pay travel expenses and stuff. Whatever you need. When do you want to come back?”
 

“Let me check out some flight info and get back to you.”

Toby called to say he’d figure out supper, and be home around 7:30. I beat him by about ten minutes, and the moment I sat down on the couch my temporary elation faded and I suddenly felt pulled toward sleep. I didn’t have the constant exhaustion I’d felt at the end of my first trimester, but I still got worn out really easily, which meant Toby often came home to find me passed out in unplanned catnaps. He usually woke me up to eat, and then I occasionally just went back to sleep for the night. Which felt as pathetic as it did fantastic.

That night, though, when Toby woke me up I knew something was off. I opened my eyes and propped myself up on my elbows. “Sorry, what?”

“I said, what the hell is this?” He held up a manila file folder. Jason Anderson’s file.

I blinked. “Did you go through my bag?”

“I needed a pen to sign for the Chinese food, so yes, I looked in your bag. Tell me the truth, Selena: have you been working on this case?” He glared at me, daring me to answer.

I sat all the way up and rubbed my face, trying to clear my head.
 

“I’ve just been making a few calls here and there, checking how the LA investigation is going.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Seriously, babe, it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” he snapped. He opened the file and shoved one of the pages of notes under my nose. “You visited a maximum security prison?” He tossed the paper, letting it waft to the bedroom floor, and pulled out another. “You agreed to pick up the case for a
new client
?” That one he practically threw on the floor. Stupid case notes. “Explain to me how this is no big deal. How this
isn’t
you going back on your word to me.”

The smart thing to do here would have been to tell him about the Camry and my certainty that the killer was following me, but I rarely manage to do the smart things. And he would just ask me when this had all happened, and point out that I’d started digging into the case long before seeing the Camry. So instead I said probably the stupidest thing possible. “Honestly? What did you think I was gonna do?” I said tiredly.

That stopped him short. “What?”

“Toby, you’re looking at me like I just kicked your puppy, but what were you expecting? That I could just drop it? That I would become a completely different person who would let the whole thing go? Do you really not know me at all?”

Wrong move, Lena. “
This
is your defense?” he said incredulously. “That you’re so...immature and reckless that I should never have believed your promise to begin with?” His tone was dangerously close to growling, and I tried not to flinch.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what?”

I shrugged helplessly. “That I’m the way I am. The guy attacked me, Toby. It’s not that I lied to you deliberately when I said I wouldn’t go after him, it’s that I just wasn’t capable of keeping that promise. That’s not who you married.”

Toby sat down on the bed beside me, still looking angry and hurt, but also just...sad. “Lena. You’re pregnant.”

“You think I don’t know that? Look at the size of my cankles.”

“Stop it. Just stop it, with the jokes. You are supposed to change, to grow up. You’re supposed to start putting someone else’s needs before your immature, stubborn impulses.” Then he looked into my face and said the one thing I had feared from day one. “Honestly, Lena. What kind of mother are you?”

I felt like I’d been punched in the face. “Please don’t say that to me. I’m trying.”

“Are you?” he countered. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re barely taking an interest. Most of the time you walk around like the baby, our child, is this awful thing that you’re pretending isn’t happening. You have a responsibility.”

My fingers clenched into fists. “I’m not an eight-year-old with my first kitten, okay? I get it. I’m taking my vitamins, and eating right, and I stopped boxing-”

“This isn’t about your body, Selena. It’s about you having some fucking consideration for the tiny person inside it.”

I clenched my jaw. “You said we would figure out how I could be both things,” I said through my teeth.

His face hardened. “Yeah, well, I’m taking it back.”

“You’re
taking it back
? Now who’s being immature?”

Being an adult, Toby ignored this. “I really thought some kind of instinct would kick in here, Lena, and you’d start to see this baby for what it is: an extension of us. A person. But you don’t, do you?”

I looked away from him. He was a person, I was a person. Nate was a person. But the thing that was happening to my body? “No.”

“Thank you for being honest.” He stood up and opened the closet, taking a small overnight bag off the top shelf.

“You’re leaving?” I asked, though I should have been expecting it.
 

He barely looked up from packing. “Lena, I don’t know what else to say to you. I need some time to myself to think about things.” He paused. “Unless you’re willing to drop the case for real.”

My temper boiled over. Why should I? Why should I have to change who I fundamentally was just because I’d gotten myself knocked up? And why did he have to be so goddamn patronizing about it?

I didn’t have to say anything. Toby just looked at my face and my clenched fists and sighed. “Fine. I’m going to crash with Blake. I’ll call you.” Blake was his old partner from the force.

“I might not be here,” I said to the ceiling.

He paused on his way out the door. “Where would you be? Rory’s?”

“I have to follow up on a lead in LA.”
 

I risked a glance at his face, and saw it turning cold and hard. “Of course you do.”
 

He didn’t slam the bedroom door, or the front door as he left. I glanced at Toka, who was sitting on the floor of the bedroom, looking bewildered. “He,” I told the dog, “is a grownup like that.”
 

Then I started to cry.

32. Don’t Be Stupid Lena

On Saturday morning, Nate took the bus to Great Dane Comics, as usual. Most of his days at the store were spent helping Peter: stocking inventory, straightening up shelves, answering the phone. Some days, though, there just wasn’t much for him to do, so Peter handed him a stack of comics and pointed towards the overstuffed armchair in the very back of the store. Nate read for hours, lost in the adventures of beings with far more important problems than his own.