Dead In Red (9 page)

I shook the thought away. I’d begun
moving some of the stuff from my room in the big house over; among
them were Walt’s shoeboxes and the envelope of his financial
papers. I’d examined the box with the Holiday Valley brochure from
every angle and done everything but wear the damn thing. The
absurdity of that thought made me laugh. Then I figured what the
hell, dropped the box on the floor and kicked off my grass-stained
right sneaker. I stuck my foot in the empty box with no
expectations. Instantly, the vision slammed into my consciousness
with the greatest clarity yet.
Bare,
red-painted toenails slipped into the sparkling shoe, guided by a
man’s rough hands. With exaggerated care he buckled the thin red
strap around the ankle. The toes wiggled in what seemed like
delight while the man’s hands traveled up to caress the shapely
calf
.

When I kicked the box off my foot, the
vision winked out. I exhaled a breath and flexed my own toes. Would
these dreamscapes eventually escalate into soft- or hard-core porn?
That could be interesting, but I didn’t really want to experience
that aspect of Walt’s personality.

And how did Walt’s foot fetish relate to his
death?

My hands were still shaking as I resumed my
seat and put on my shoe. The creep factor was back in full force. A
beer would be just the thing to eradicate it. Too bad I hadn’t put
anything, let alone a six-pack, into the new fridge.

To distract myself, I spread Walt’s
financial papers across the breakfast bar, sorting through them to
find the checking account statement. I’d glanced at the miniature
replica checks before and hadn’t noticed anything out of the
ordinary. This time I studied them more carefully, wishing I knew
in which of my unpacked boxes I’d find a magnifying glass. I went
through all the checks and this time one did stand out: Amherst
Self Storage.

Well, well, well. And just what could Walt
be storing? Tom hadn’t asked me to return Walt’s keys, and I hadn’t
surrendered them. The problem was, how many storage units did this
place have, and how would I find Walt’s? Could I trust my insight
to lead me to the right one?

There was only one way to find out.

* * *

The night
air
was cool for late June, and I shivered as I crossed the driveway
for my car. I got in, started the engine and was backing out when I
saw Richard silhouetted by the lamplight shining down on his side
steps.

He jogged over as I braked, tapped on my
window. “Where are you going?”

I rolled down the window. “Out.”

“Where?”

Anger flared through me. “Why don’t you jump
in and find out.”

Incredibly, he walked around to the
passenger side and got in. I watched in awe as he fastened his
seatbelt. “Go,” he said and gestured with his hand.

I backed out of the driveway. “What’s Brenda
going to say when she finds you’ve gone?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He maneuvered around the
seatbelt, took out his cell phone and called her. “I’m going out
with Jeff. Be back in an hour—” He looked at me.

I nodded.

“Yeah, an hour. Bye.” He pocketed the phone
and glared at me. “Where are we going?”

“Amherst Self Storage on Transit Road. Walt
Kaplan rented a unit there.”

“How do you know?”

“From the check statement you copped the
other day. I looked the place up in the phone book.”

“And what do you hope to find in there?”

“I’m just hoping to find it.”

Richard rolled his eyes. “I should’ve told
Brenda two hours.”

I concentrated on my driving. “Oh ye of
little faith.” It would’ve been nice if I’d felt as confident as I
sounded.

After that, the conversation ceased. I
risked a couple of glances at Richard and he was just as studiously
ignoring me. My earlier conversation with Brenda kept recycling
through my mind. Finally, I couldn’t stand the quiet. “Ya know, I
was quite capable of taking care of myself before I came back to
Buffalo. I still am.”

“Yeah,” Richard agreed, his voice full of
scorn, “and Santa comes down my chimney on Christmas Eve. Want to
sell me a bridge in Brooklyn, too?”

My hands tightened on the wheel. Choking the
life out of him would only land me in jail for way too many
years.

The gates of Amherst Self Storage were still
open when I pulled in and parked. As we got out of the car, a
string bean of a kid, no older than twenty, opened the door on what
looked like a concrete pseudo guard tower. “We’re closing in half
an hour.”

I waved him off and turned away. Richard
followed.

The place was divided with inside and
outside accommodations. The outside units had roll-up doors, but I
got the feeling Walt had opted for something inside, with better
climate control. I yanked open the plate glass commercial door and
headed up the well-lit corridor.

“So?” Richard taunted, his voice echoing as
he struggled to keep up with me.

“Okay—so I don’t know where we’re going.
Just keep walking.”

“Why I let myself get involved—” he
grumbled.

I shot him a look over my shoulder. “Hey, I
didn’t ask you to come.”

His glare intensified. “Do the words ‘why
don’t you jump in’ ring a bell?”

I kept walking, clasping Walt’s keys in my
hand, hoping they’d act as a divining rod to lead me to his storage
unit. Funny thing is, they kind of did. The farther I walked along
the corridor, the warmer they seemed to grow in my hand.

I slowed my pace and started paying
attention to the unit numbers. I stopped before the one marked
4537: the same number on the mailbox in Holiday Valley. A
coincidence? The mailbox had said—well, almost—Taggert. It had to
have some connection with Cyn Lennox. Only now I wasn’t sure if I
trusted that piece of insight.

A brass padlock secured the aluminum hasp. I
held the key ring in my left hand, sorting them until I came to the
smallest one. I slipped it into the lock and it turned.

“Jesus, you amaze me,” Richard murmured
behind me.

I removed the lock, pulling the hasp open,
then clasped the door handle, trying to pull it open. Something was
jammed behind it. I yanked harder, but it still wouldn’t give.
“Dammit.”

“Let me do it,” Richard said, stepping
forward, his condescending tone grating on my nerves.

I held him back. “You’re just along for the
ride, remember.”

He looked like he wanted to haul off and hit
me, but he did back off.

Grabbing the handle, I yanked it with all my
might and the door jerked forward. A cascade of cardboard cartons
came tumbling out. The next thing I knew, I’d hit the floor—pinned,
the wind knocked out of me.

“Jeff!” Richard hollered, scrambling to
extricate me.

I couldn’t answer—there was no air in my
lungs. I couldn’t move at all.

Gasping and puffing, Richard pushed the
heavy boxes off me and I rolled onto my side, knees drawn up to my
chest, struggling just to breathe.

Richard was panting as hard as I was. “You
okay?”

I nodded, but the truth was I didn’t know.
It felt like I’d broken a couple of ribs. Richard must’ve had the
same thought. Next thing I knew, he had my shirt up and was
palpating my chest, sending me into new spasms of agony.

“Doesn’t feel like anything’s out of
place—but I’ll bet it hurts.”

“Eleven years of medical training and that’s
what you come up with?”

He yanked my shirt back down before
collapsing next to me on the concrete floor, leaning against the
opposite storage lockers. “Talk about the walking wounded. What a
pair we make.”

“Speak for yourself,” I managed. “I don’t
think I’ll ever get up again.”

I caught sight of a security camera
protruding from the ceiling nearby, but if the kid up front was
monitoring the corridor, he hadn’t raised an alarm or ventured out
to help us. We sat there for a couple of minutes, trying to catch
our breath before Richard helped me into a sitting position.

“You gonna be all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Let’s see what nearly killed me.” I
crawled over to the closest box. Walt had securely taped it. Using
his keys, I worked at the tape until I’d slit it, and pulled open
the carton.

Richard peered inside. “Porn?” he
moaned.

Scores of copies of magazines with covers
similar to the ones listed on the foot fetish Web sites were
stacked in the box, none of them newer than five years old. Had he
moved on from magazines to . . . something else? “That’s
why his apartment was so clean,” I said. “He kept his collection
here. I wonder if he had other storage units?”

“There’s got to be more than just magazines.
Open another box.”

I did. More out-of-date magazines. I pushed
it aside. A lighter box contained foot-fetish videos. Another box
held old financial records. Nothing very interesting. I tried one
last carton. “Hey, look at this.” I pulled out a heavy, metal
professional shoe sizer. Also inside the box were more of the
generic shoeboxes like I’d found in Walt’s apartment. Each also had
an odd collection of paper and souvenirs. I checked them all but
their contents weren’t as remarkable as the one with the Veronica
pillow. One had a hand-written receipt: Received: $237.54 for
custom shoes, dated three years before. “Whoa, this is what I’ve
been looking for.”

Richard looked over the faded slip of paper.
“How can it help? It doesn’t tell you where he bought them.”

But it was as though the paper was vibrating
against the skin of my fingers. “I hope I get an inkling when I get
home and pull out the phone book.”

“Closing in five minutes,” came a voice from
a speaker embedded in the ceiling. I put the receipt in my
wallet.

“How are we going to get all this crap back
in the storage space in only five minutes?” Richard groused.

“We could take some of it with us.”

“I don’t want this stuff at my house.”

“Just until I can dump it.”

“You’re not dumping it in my garbage.”

If looks could kill and all that shit
. . .

Between the two of us, we managed to wedge
all but the carton of shoeboxes back inside the unit and slam the
door just as the lights winked out. I replaced the padlock and
struggled to lift the bulky box. Not that it was heavy, but every
part of me hurt.

Out of breath again, we sounded like a
couple of asthmatics as we started back down the corridor. Yellow
safety lights kept us from groping our way to the exit.

String bean was waiting for us outside the
door, keys in hand to lock up. “I warned you we were closing.” He
turned his back on us and we headed for the car.

Richard watched as I maneuvered the box into
the back seat and slammed the door. He was pale, his skin looking
eerily white under the lot’s mercury vapor lamps, and we were both
sweating in the cool night air. Richard groaned as he settled
himself into the passenger seat. Gingerly, I climbed behind the
steering wheel and chanced a look at myself in the rearview mirror;
my own face was chalky. Walking wounded sounded about right.

“Wanna go somewhere for a drink or
something?” I asked Richard, wincing as I buckled the seatbelt
around me.

“Just take me home.”

I started the engine. “You
didn’t
have
to
come.”

“If I hadn’t, you’d’ve been suffocated by
those boxes.”

He was right about that, not that I’d give
him satisfaction by agreeing.

“This is the second time in two days I’ve
had to pull your ass out of the fire. What the hell are you going
to do for two weeks when I’m gone?”

“Give me a break. I got along fine for
eighteen years without you. You think I can’t make it for fourteen
days?”

“No, I don’t.”

The light ahead turned yellow and I jammed
on the brakes. Only Richard’s seatbelt kept him from sailing
through the windshield.

He glared at me. “It doesn’t make
sense.”

“It’s called inertia. I put my foot on the
brake—you keep going.”

“No, that Walt had all this stuff in
storage, but there wasn’t a trace of it in his place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, from what I remember from abnormal
psych, people with fetishes like their trigger objects near them.
That kind of personality just can’t turn it off, either.”

“You think someone cleaned out the apartment
before we got there?”

“I’m betting it was your boss. You sure he
really wants this thing solved?”

No. I wasn’t.

The light changed and I pressed the
accelerator. I hadn’t thought to look in the Dumpster behind Walt’s
place when we’d been there days before.

The rest of the drive back to the house was
a replay of the drive out—silent. But despite a little lingering
animosity, we were at least speaking to one another again.

I parked in front of the garage. Richard got
out and shuffled toward the house. “You coming?” he called over his
shoulder.

“I’m going upstairs. Be over in a
while.”

I left the carton in the back seat, too
pooped to deal with it, and trudged up the stairs to the apartment.
Easing myself onto a stool, I stretched to grab my brand new
telephone book. Big mistake, as it set off more twinges of misery
along my ribs. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten. This was
already getting old.

There were six listings under SHOES--CUSTOM
MADE. All but one of them were generic and boring; only Broadway
Theatrics sounded flashy enough to have made the sparkling
high-heeled beauty in my visions.

I punched in the phone number. It rang three
times before a recorded male voice spoke: “You’ve reached Broadway
Theatrics. We’re open by appointment only. Leave a message at the
sound of the tone and we’ll get back to you.” Beep!