CELEBRITY STATUS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #4) (25 page)

            A man came down the hall, a small yappy dog, leash dangling, tucked under one arm. As the man slipped a key in the lock of the apartment next door, he called over to them, “They moved out yesterday, lock, stock and barrel. Shut up, Princess.” The dog only paused for breath. “Actually the young woman was house-sitting for the tenants, so they didn’t have a whole lot of stock and barrel to take. Hauled out of here with a couple of suitcases each.”

            “I don’t suppose they mentioned where they were going?” Skip raised his voice over the noise of the dog as he walked toward the man. The dog shifted to a growl.

            The man clamped a hand around the tiny muzzle. “Don’t mind her, she’s a legend in her own mind. But to answer your question, nope. Nancy mumbled a goodbye as they rushed past me. The guy just ducked his head and raced after her.”

            “Who are the regular tenants?” Judith asked from behind Skip, setting off a new round of yapping from Princess.

            “Damn mutt,” the man muttered, recapturing the dog’s snout. “Sorry. It’s the wife’s dog. Bill and Jane Jessup live there. They’re traveling in Europe this summer. I’m John Harper, by the way.” The man disentangled his right arm from Princess.

            Skip watched the dog warily as he shook the offered hand. He pointed to his companions. “Judith Anderson. Dolph Randolph.” Judith was scribbling names in her notepad.

            “Did I hear you say police?” Harper asked.

            “Baltimore County,” she said, producing her gold badge to show him. “We just wanted to have a friendly chat with the gentleman. Anything else you can tell us about them?”

            “Well, they had a rip-roaring row the night before they left. Walls are thick here, but when people yell loud enough, you can still hear them.”

            “Could you make out any words?” Skip asked.

            “Not a lot. Seemed to be fighting over whether or not to leave. Don’t think she wanted to go. His words, the few I could make out, didn’t make much sense, but he sounded kind of paranoid.”

            “Thanks for the information, sir,” Judith said, handing Harper her card. “Please call me if they come back. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell them we were here.”

            Once they were out on the hot sidewalk, she said, “Sounds like you scared this guy off. He may not be your saboteur.”

            Skip thought for a moment. “He still could’ve sent this last letter. We think Thompson’s been sending them to friends or a mailing service and then they’re re-mailed to Cherise’s L.A. address. Twice a week her fan mail is forwarded here. All that takes a few days, so this latest note would’ve been sent last week, before we showed up on his doorstep. After our little visit he knew he’d better scram before it was delivered.”

            “Do you think he would’ve taken the time to come after you, Mr. Canfield? He doesn’t sound like he has his act together all that well. Tracking you down and tampering with your brakes would take some clarity of thought, and at least a little bit of planning.”

            “Call me Skip, please, ma’am–”

            “Not unless you cut the ma’am crap,” Judith interrupted.

            Skip grinned. “Well, Judith, I agree this guy’s a brick or two short of a load since he’s been frying his brain with drugs for years, but the fact he went after the van tells me it was a sloppy job. I’m not that hard to find. My agency carries my name. Quick glance in a phone book gives him that info, then he follows me home. Next day he hangs around, not necessarily with any plan in mind, just looking for an opening. Sees me at the wheel of the van when I take my family for a drive, and assumes that’s my regular vehicle. Messes with the brakes after dark, then goes home to inform his honey they have to skedaddle.”

            “And he’s got multiple reasons to want you out of the way,” Judith said. “Thinks you’re his lady love’s new squeeze, knows you’re her bodyguard which is keeping him from getting to her, and you now know who he is and have threatened him.”

            “I did no such thing, Judith,” Skip said. “I just stood up.”

            Judith smiled up at him. “Like I said, you threatened him, by your mere large presence.”

            “Or we could have a copycat,” Dolph threw in. “And our visit just plain spooked Thompson into running even though he didn’t send the last two notes.”

            Skip mimicked pulling his gun and shooting himself in the head.

            Dolph slapped him on the back. “Son, denial is not a river in Egypt.”

* * *

            Judith put out be-on-the-lookout bulletins on Kirk Thompson and Nancy Knight, and notified both the New York and Los Angeles police departments that the man was wanted for questioning by multiple jurisdictions in Maryland. She sent techs to the auto shop to retrieve the sabotaged brake cable and fluid reservoir.

            Tracking down Ms. Knight’s parents led nowhere. They swore they hadn’t heard from her in over a month and thought she was still house-sitting for their friends, the Jessups. They didn’t know who her current friends were, only the “nice girls” she had gone to high school with. Judith spent a fruitless afternoon tracking them down; none had talked to Nancy in several years. A call to the young woman’s cell phone number informed Judith that the account had been closed. This guy might not have the brain power he’d once had, but he was still smart enough to cover his tracks.

            Rose headed for New York to see if she could pick up any more leads on where Thompson might go. She got a few more names of friends and acquaintances, but nothing panned out. Most of his so-called friends seemed pretty fed up with his mooching. She passed out cards, asking them to call her if he contacted them.

            Tuesday was the Fourth of July. The Canfields opted to play it safe and stay home from the fireworks.

            On Wednesday, Mac stayed at the house with Maria and the children. Ben was once again escorting Kate to work and hanging out in her waiting room.

            That evening, Rose took a cab directly from the train station to Kate and Skip’s house. She found everyone, including her honey bun, sitting down to dinner at the big oak table in the kitchen. Maria jumped up to get her a plate.

            As they started to eat, Rose filled Kate in on her weekend research, then gave them her succinct and discouraging report from the New York trip. “Thompson has a juvenile record in Montgomery County, sealed of course. Talked to a couple of his old neighbors over the weekend. General consensus, he was spoiled rotten and out of control, but nothing specific about, uh...” Taking in the avid look on Edie’s face, Rose chose her words carefully. “Nothing about animals or fights. He left for college in New York at eighteen. Dropped out after two years but stayed up there. Parents continued to foot the bills and bail him out of trouble, until a few months ago. Some of the gang he partied with admitted that he could turn mean when he was high. Located a couple of girlfriends up there. Reading between the lines of what they said and what they weren’t saying, I think he could be a batterer.”

            “What’s a baddader, Aunt Rose?” Edie asked.

            Rose looked helplessly at Kate.

            Hiding a smile, Kate said, “Someone who sells batteries for a living.”

            By unspoken agreement, they chatted about inconsequential things for the rest of the meal. Afterward, Maria offered to give the kids their baths.

            Skip got up to clear the table. When Kate lifted her arm to hand him her plate, Rose caught sight of the scabs and the purple and yellow remnants of bruises on her arm.

            Rose raised an eyebrow. “What’d you do to yourself, Kate?”

            “Oh, I got jostled on the sidewalk and fell down,” Kate replied.

            Rose switched eyebrows. “When did this happen?”

            “Friday, as I was walking to my car after work.”

            “Who jostled you?”

            Kate hesitated. She had long since dismissed her injury as an accident, but in light of what had happened since then. “I don’t know,” she said, as Skip stacked the dishes in the sink and came back to the table. “I’d been talking to Cherise and we were about to part company, when somebody–”

            Rose shook her head in confusion. “Wait a minute. What was Cherise doing there?”

            “She and I ran into each other as I was walking out of my building. We talked for a few minutes and we were saying goodbye when it happened. I almost fell into the street. A man grabbed me and dragged me back onto the sidewalk. I tripped and landed on my arm. But then Cherise said she thought some guy who was standing behind me might have pushed me on purpose.”

            Now both of Rose’s eloquent eyebrows were in the air.

            “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Skip’s voice was sharp.

            “Because I dismissed it as Cherise’s imagination. Even she said it was just an impression and she could be wrong.”

            “She get a look at the guy?” Mac asked.

            “Not much of one. He was tall and thin, wearing a tee shirt and a knit cap pulled down to his ears.”

            “In ninety degree weather?” Rose said.

            “Yeah, we thought that was pretty odd.”

            Rose’s brow furrowed. “Where was her guard?”

            “That was the day you texted me that she’d slipped her leash,” Skip said.

            “Oh, yeah,” Rose said. “Cherise insisted she needed some alone time. Took a drive by herself, after promising Ben she’d stay locked in the car.”

            Mac snorted. “Instead she was runnin’ around Towson.”

            “She tends to have too much confidence in her ability to disguise her appearance,” Skip said, remembering the day she’d shown up at his office.

            “Well, I didn’t recognize her at fir–“

            “Wait,” Skip interrupted his wife. “She said the guy she thought had pushed you was tall?”

            “Yeah.”

            “The florist’s description of the guy who sent the flowers a few weeks ago. It could be the same guy. She said either that he was a tall guy or a big guy, I can’t remember which. I thought of a man my size or Rob’s. A big guy in general. But she might have just meant he was tall.”

            “Don’t make sense,” Mac said. “If it’s the paparazzi, the flowers to stir things up does. But not tryin’ to push you into traffic, sweet pea.”

            “Unless this guy had been trying to get a picture of me and Cherise together and he accidentally bumped into me,” Kate said.

            “Could the guy have been Thompson?” Rose wondered.

            “Fits the description but Cherise would’ve recognized him,” Skip pointed out.

            “Not necessarily,” Kate said. “She never saw his face. Maybe that’s why he had the hat on. Is his hair distinctive looking?”

            “Yeah, dark, shoulder length and kinda curly,” Skip said. “I just thought of something else. That was Friday, the day Dolph and I talked to Thompson. Maybe he’d followed Cherise to your office at some point and had figured out that she was seeing you for therapy. He could perceive you as one of the people who’s telling Cherise to stay away from him. So I confront him. He gets desperate and comes to Towson to make good on his threat to, quote, take care of those people who are keeping them apart. Tries to shove you into traffic, then sabotages the van to take me out.”

            “Tamperin’ with the van coulda been aimed at either of ya,” Mac said. “An’ it coulda been done Friday night. Leak was slow. Brakes wouldn’t go out right away.”

            Kate blanched at the thought of the whole family in that van Saturday, on winding Cromwell Bridge Road that was cut into the side of a ridge, with a sharp drop off on one side. She crossed herself and said a silent prayer of thanksgiving.

            “So what’ve we got here? Looks like Dog Boy’s our stalker,” Rose was saying. “Maybe he shoved Kate off that curb. He tried to take either Kate or Skip or both out with the van brakes. Now he’s in the wind but the police have BOLO’s out on him and his new girlfriend. And some tall paparazzi dude is trying to stir up trouble between you two. He might’ve been the one who pushed Kate, trying to get a pic of her and Cherise, or maybe that was Cherise’s imagination.”

            Kate nodded. “Apparently he didn’t succeed or the picture would’ve shown up in a tabloid by now.”

            “Ya know,” Skip said, “it’s almost anticlimactic to discover this bad guy we’ve been chasing is just a druggie with a burned-out brain.”

            Rose snorted. “Yeah, well, most bad guys are more lucky than smart, until they get caught.”

            Skip nodded. As former cops, they both knew that to be true.

            “We shouldn’t be underestimating him, though,” Rose continued.

            “Yeah, as my daddy used to say, ‘He’s dumb like a fox,’” Skip agreed.

            Mac let out a low chuckle that sounded like rocks rattling around in a box.

            “Well, hopefully Detective Anderson will catch up with him soon,” Kate said. “My brain’s tired, guys. Let’s call it a night. Rose, take your man home.”

            “You be careful, sweet pea,” Mac said to her as they left.

* * *

            The next day, Manny Ortiz called Rose to tell her there was another letter in the fan mail sack.

            Rose swore under her breath, then asked, “What’s it say exactly, Manny?”

            She heard paper rustling as he found the page in his notepad where he’d written down the exact words. “It says, ‘I can’t believe you don’t know who I am. That hurts. You’re breaking my heart, my love.’”

            “When was it mailed?”

            “Monday, from L.A.”

            Rose had been jotting down the words. She crossed out
your
and re-wrote it correctly. “Wait,” she said. “How’s
you’re
spelled?”

            “Uh, let me double check.” Manny moved to the kitchen table to look at the bagged note itself. “Y-o-u, apostrophe, r-e. Why do you ask?”