The Trouble With Murder (13 page)

It was Sunday. At seven o’clock, there was the sound of
sharp heels clicking against the tile and someone hitting my feet. I shot up
and peered through one blurry, barely-open eye at my mother standing at the end
of the sofa with her hands on her hips.

“What’s wrong?” I mumbled.

“Aren’t you going to church?” she
asked. “After what you did last night, you need to go to church.”

I groaned and fell back against the
pillow.

“You’re going to hell.” She said
this with the authority you’d expect from the gatekeeper herself. “You’re a
troublemaker. You need to go to church.”

The same record, the same lines.

I rolled over and smashed a pillow
down on top of my head. I knew I fell back to sleep, because I awoke sometime
later to a sharp pounding on the front door. Vacations are supposed to be about
sleeping in and relaxing, being lazy. So far mine sucked.

There was another round of pounding,
and I adjusted the pillow, pressing it against my head.

What does Hensley want now?
I wondered, until the sleep cleared enough for me to realize Hensley shouldn’t
want anything now that his case was closed.

Upstairs, I heard the front door
open and Donald speak to the visitor. The visitor’s voice was muffled, and I
couldn’t make out the reply. A moment later, the door closed and there were
footsteps on the stairs. I rolled over in time to see Ellmann cross to my
former bedroom and peek inside, finding it empty. Maybe they taught cops how to
knock on doors at police school.

I threw the blanket back and swung
my legs over the side of the sofa.

“I don’t live here anymore,” I
said, my voice hoarse from sleep.

He came to stand at the end of the
sofa, the same place my mother had stood earlier. He was dressed in jeans,
t-shirt, and a ball cap.

“I need to talk to you.”

“You look pissed.”

“I just came from the hospital.
Stacy Karnes woke up briefly but then went into cardiac arrest. She’s back in
critical condition, and it doesn’t look good.”

I looked at him, confused, rubbing
sleep out of one eye. “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said. I felt genuine sadness
for Stacy and her family. “But what does that have to do with me?”

“While I was there, I ran into
Stacy’s roommate, a girl named Tina Shuemaker. She told me all about some girl
who came by her house asking all sorts of questions about Stacy and her
boyfriend. She described the girl pretty well. You wouldn’t happen to know
anything about
that
, would you?”

“And if I did?”

He sighed and grabbed the cap off
his head, running a hand back through his hair. “So that’s what you were really
doing when you ransacked her purse. You were looking for her address. Why would
you do that?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” I said. “I didn’t
ransacked
her purse.”

“Is that the only part you heard me
say?”

“Okay, look. I might have wondered
what her name was, so it’s possible I looked for her driver’s license. I might
have found it and happened to noticed her address. I might have wanted to
express my condolences to her family, so it’s possible I went to that address.
Her roommate might have been home.”

“Hypothetically?”

“Exactly!
Hypothetically
.
And, in that hypothetical scenario, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Why the interest in her
boyfriend?”

“Hypothetically, I might have
wanted to offer condolences to him, as well.”

“Is it also possible you wanted to
have a face-to-face with him so you could determine if he was the one who
attacked Stacy?”

Among other things.

“Do you think he’s the one who
attacked Stacy?” I asked.

I didn’t. Tyler Jay was way too
tall and too slim. And he didn’t seem to recognize me. Surely the person who
came after me that night would recognize me if I walked up to his or her door.

“It’s one theory we’re running
down,” he said. “Tell me, did you offer Tyler Jay your condolences?”

I sighed. I think I had known, even
if only in the very back of my mind, Ellmann would learn about my phone call to
the tip line.

“
Hypothetically,
maybe.”

“
Maybe
you can explain about
the message you left on the tip line regarding the whereabouts of Tyler Jay,
who happens to be a very wanted man in this county.”

“It’s possible I might have run
into a guy named Tyler Jay. It’s also possible I thought you guys would want to
know where he was.”

Ellmann bit back his response then
sucked in a deep breath. After a long pause, he slowly exhaled.

“Zoe, Tyler Jay is a very dangerous
man. He kills people. A growing number of people think he
enjoys
killing
people. You can’t be ‘running into’ guys like him.”

“Well, what does it matter now? You
guys arrested him, right? He’ll be in prison for a very long time.”

Ellmann shifted, and I saw it in
his eyes before he could wipe it away.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked,
shooting up off the sofa.

“We went to the address you gave,
but by the time we got there, he was gone. His mother won’t say a word. He’s in
the wind, probably long gone by now.”

I threw my arms up. “Unbelievable.
What use is that stupid tip line then?”

“Tyler Jay will turn up eventually.
We’re looking for him harder now because of his possible involvement in this
case; we’ll find him. In the meantime, I have to offer you a friendly piece of
advice: stay out of this case. Next time, it won’t be friendly. Do I make
myself clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Between you and me,” he added, his
voice a bit softer, “the boyfriend isn’t a nice guy. I don’t want anything to
happen to you.”

“Why? Would you feel responsible?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Sort of like I feel now, about
Stacy being attacked. I was late for our meeting. I should have been there
sooner.”

I dropped back down to the sofa.

Ellmann sat down beside me, placing
the hat on his knee. He spoke softly.

“If you’d been there any sooner, chances
are good you would have wound up in a hospital bed right beside her. Maybe
worse. What good would that have done?”

I couldn’t keep the tears out of my
eyes. I looked up at him, searching his eyes and face.

“I still feel responsible. I see
her in my dreams.”

“Don’t get hung up on that. It’ll only
drag you down.”

He was right. But it wasn’t that
easy.

We sat quietly on the sofa for
several minutes before my guilt subsided enough that my surroundings came back
to me.

“Shit,” I said, hopping up.

“What’s the matter?”

“Uh, we need to go.” I looked at my
watch as I grabbed my bag. My mother could come home at any time, and I didn’t
want to be there when she did.

“Worried about your mother?”

“Aren’t you?”

He shrugged as he stood and
returned the hat to his head, as if he’d had more dangerous run-ins. “She’s
actually the reason I needed to talk to you.”

“Yeah? What about her?”

“I need to know if you’re
interested in filing charges against her for the incident in the kitchen
yesterday.”

“Charges? Is there some reason I
should?”

He looked down at his shoes,
searching for the right words.

“You have to stand up for
yourself,” he said. “You can’t let people hurt you anymore.”

He’d looked into me after our chat
yesterday. Found out what I didn’t want to tell him myself. That being true, I
was rather surprised to see him again so soon. What he now knew about me was,
to say the least, a turn off. More often, people found it scary. Some
irrationally believed I’d do the same to them. For a cop investigating a crime
to which I was distantly connected, no doubt it cast me into further suspicion.

“Believe me, people don’t hurt me
anymore. She’s the single exception.”

“I know what happened thirteen
years ago, and I know you had several charges filed against you for assault and
battery when you were in your late teens.”

“Those files are sealed,” I said,
thinking back to the conversation I’d had with Hensley not so long ago. “How do
you know what’s in them? Or are you guessing?”

“Relax.” He held a hand out in
front of him, palm toward me. “I had a friend take a little peek, just to see
what the charges were. Nothing was opened; I don’t know any details.”

I wondered if Hensley had the same
friend.

“Well, there you go; I don’t let
people hurt me anymore. Of course, I’ll admit it’s harder with my mother. You
can’t hit your mother.”

He shrugged in such a way that
implied he knew mothers beyond that rule and was trying to decide if mine was
one of them.

“You could file charges,” he said.
“And, if you wanted, I could help you get the house back. I mean, it doesn’t
seem right that you own two houses in the area and still have to rent a place.”

Ah. I was beginning to understand a
little better now.

“I was being honest yesterday; it’s
simpler if I move. Let her stay here.”

I walked around him. He turned. “If
it’s leverage you need, I have some. After our search yesterday.”

I stopped.

When Hensley had dropped by
unannounced, I’d been concerned about what he might spot lying around. But by
the time Ellmann, Troy, and Troy’s helpers had shown up to actually search the
place, my mother’s habits had been the least of my concerns. No doubt they had
uncovered a whole host of illegal substances in her room, perhaps elsewhere in
the house. For the first time, I was truly fearful of what the cops had found
in this house. In the end, it was
my
house. I’d just barely scrapped out
of trouble with Hensley, but Ellmann’s case was still far from closed. And if I
was held responsible for whatever had been found, I might not be so lucky a
second time.

Slowly, I turned back to face
Ellmann. I was practically sweating with the exertion it took to keep my face
neutral. Or maybe the sweating was from fear.

“What did you find?” My mouth was
dry, and I couldn’t hide that, no matter how hard I tried.

“Everything I found was in her room
and bathroom,” he said, his hands up. I knew he was trying to reassure me, but
it wasn’t working, not by a long shot. “After I detained your mother, I ran her
name, saw her priors. Suspicious of what could be found, I searched her room
myself. Troy and the others have no idea what I found, and it’s won’t show up
in any report. I could use it to have a conversation with her, however. Help
her understand the wisdom in finding her own place.”

“No.” I said it too quickly and too
sharply. I took a breath and tried again. “Look, I appreciate what you’re
doing, but please, let it go. You don’t know her lawyer; the man’s a snake.
Whatever you try to do here while operating in the gray, he’ll turn back on
you. Nothing will change with her, and you’ll be out of a job. Or writing
parking tickets downtown
—
whatever
happens to cops whose careers have been ruined. Please, let it go.”

He stared at me for a beat. He
wanted to press it, but he resisted. Finally, he nodded.

“Let me know if you change your
mind in the future.”

I didn’t think him hanging onto
whatever drugs he’d found in my mother’s bedroom was wise, for the reasons I’d
just mentioned. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she tattled to her attorney,
who would then pull Troy’s report and find no such substances included in it. His
twisted and malicious mind would immediately know the drugs didn’t just
disappear. He could easily make a fuss, discover them in Ellmann’s possession.
And whatever Ellmann had found would not be minimal. Anyone caught with that
amount of product would be in seriously hot water, especially a cop, who could
then be accused of stealing from a crime scene.

But Ellmann seemed to trust me to a
degree, so I could do nothing but return the favor. He was an adult, had been a
cop for a while, and seemed to know what he was doing. I had to trust that he
did.

I crossed to Zach’s door and
knocked. There was no sound from inside, and no one answered. I opened the door
and saw the bed was empty; Zach was gone. I had a sinking feeling I knew what
that meant.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered under
my breath as I closed the door and turned back to Ellmann. “Look, I really
appreciate the thought and concern, but I don’t need anyone to rescue me. Think
you’re the only one with leverage?” I kept my voice soft, gentle, considerate
of the fact that he was reaching out to me and I was batting his hand away,
even if part of that response was out of concern for him. “You know, I’ve never
had help, never had a rescuer, so I wouldn’t know what to do with one now.
Anyway, given the kind of trouble my mother can get into, it’s probably easier
keeping her here. Besides, despite it all, I would feel bad if I kicked her
out. She’d have nowhere to go.”

“She’s an adult. She can buy or
rent a place like everyone else. She can afford it.”

“So I’m not the only one you looked
in to. It’s like I told you yesterday, it’s complicated. I don’t think I’m
going to press charges.”

I went to the stairs. Ellmann was
behind me. He nodded his head as if I’d given him the answer he’d expected,
even if he was disappointed.

“She didn’t think so, either. But
she
is
going to file a complaint with my superiors regarding my
‘unnecessarily cruel treatment’ of her yesterday, so I’m looking forward to
that.”

I led the way to the front door.

“I’m sorry. I thought it was great,
but I guess everything comes with a price.” I looked up at him. “Remember what
I said about her attorney.”

He shrugged. “Remember the night we
met? You said something about a detective wearing a uniform. I was working off
a reprimand from a particularly scathing complaint. So, your mother’s isn’t the
first, and it won’t be the last. Occasionally they’re even true. Between you
and me, it was worth it. You know . . . your hair looks nice down. You should
wear it that way more often.”