Lalla Bains 02 - A Dead Red Heart (2 page)

 
Caleb pinched the skin under my elbow, but I could feel his mood lift under the scowl he kept up for benefit of the detective. His fingers gently stroked my skin in a message that said, relax.

I had to agree, now wasn't the time to hoist the verbal repartee.

"He was right there, leaning against that wall next to the garbage can. He said something I couldn't understand then fell down across my feet. I rolled him off, and that's when I saw... I saw the scissors sticking out of his chest."

Caleb whispered something to Rodney, and the detective's eyes shuttered once, then his chin jerked up in dismissal.

"Can you make it home by yourself?" Caleb asked, walking me out of the alley.

"Sure," I said, doing a stiff march beside him. "I'm fine, fine."

His sigh calculated the shock of the last hour, the high octane oolong and sugar ride I'd been on for the last fifteen minutes, and how long it would take me before I plowed into a stop sign. He signaled his sergeant who promptly stuffed me into a sheriff's car.

"I'll come out tomorrow, give you a lift into town for your car, okay?"

"I'm fine, fine," I bleated, my head bobbing like a marionette.

He squatted down next to the car window. "Lalla, look at me."

Instead of doing as he asked, I stared at the matching flyspecks on the windshield. I knew I was not at my best; white around the mouth, my troubled eyebrows bunched up against a recent horror that wasn't going to go away anytime soon.

I licked at dry lips. "Then it was some kind of altercation with another homeless guy?"

"Maybe. Not your problem anymore, okay? Okay, sweetheart?"

When I nodded, he said, "I'll call you." Then he stood up and slapped the roof of the car, turned, and walked back to the huddle of detectives.

He'd been right to insist I ride home with Kenny. I was out of steam, the last of my adrenaline left in a puddle on the dark pavement of the alley behind Mr. Kim's Chinese Restaurant.

When my widowed father announced that he was up for a triple bypass, and would I mind taking a few days to come home and help him settle his effects, since he probably wasn't going to live much longer, I packed a bag and flew home from New York City leaving behind a wobbly career as a runway model, and a disastrous divorce from a philandering Puerto Rican baseball player. That was four years ago, and since then my hypochondriac parent has decided he's going to live after all. I stayed, and now run what's left of my dad's cropdusting—make that Aero-Ag, to be PC—business. Unfortunately, all of it is now in free fall what with environmental issues, pest control issues, and all the housing developments blotting out the farmland that used to be the mainstay of our business.

Others may have something to say about a childless, twice divorced, forty-year-old ex-New York model hiding out in Modesto, California. But except for the new school that may or may not be built at the end of our runway, life is pretty good. Or it was, until I tried to talk some sense into Billy Wayne Dobson.

The porch and hallway lights were on, and lights flickered from under the door of the TV room where my dad and his arthritic Chihuahua, Spike, have bunked since the fire last year singed his eyebrows, most of the interior, and definitely the last of my patience.

Spike, hearing the drop of my keys onto the hall table, trotted up to greet me with a tail wag and a snarl, showing me a few teeth.

"Teeth cleaning needed again? I'll speak to him for you." He took my comment with his usual disdain, saluted me with a squeaky fart, and limped down the hall.

"Don't stay up because of me," I muttered, following after him. I didn't intend to do anything other than open the TV room door wide enough for Spike to slip through, and close it again. No sense in going over today's debacle. Any time I can procrastinate on a much deserved lecture works for me.

In the dim overhead light of the hallway, I peered at what I thought was a note my dad had left for me. Tomorrow's work? I looked closer. Tacked to the door, were three hand printed letters. Done with a fine point Sharpie, I supposed. Nice and black. It said, DOA.

I read it again. DOA. Something to do with the dog? Dog on…? Done? Arrival? The only DOA I knew of was... D-O-A. as in Dead On Arrival.

A chill ran through me. I reached out to turn the knob, and giving the door a violent shove, slammed the heavy oak against the wall.

The TV was on, his feet in white socks dangling over the edge of his Barca lounger, his eyes closed, head lolling to one side.

"Dad?" I stood at the threshold, waiting for some sign that he was okay.

"Dad?" I breathed the word again, then barked, "Dad!"

With no response, I charged into the room, turned on the lamp next to his chair and lifted his limp wrist to feel for a pulse. He was warm, his pulse strong, and steady. I gathered his thin frame into my arms, crying, "Oh, thank God! Daddy, wake up."

And he did, grumbling and sputtering, "What the hell's going on? Is the house on fire again?"

I squatted down next to him, wiping at my tears and laughing.
 
"I thought.... Oh Dad, I'm sorry I woke you, but I have to go call Caleb, and then we need to talk."

Chapter three:

Caleb and I stood together watching the forensics team pack up and file past, shaking their heads, the signal for no sign of a forced entry.

"Lots of prints to sift through," one of them said. "Though not much chance that the intruder left any of his own."

Closing the front door on the last one out, Caleb drew me into his arms and hugged me close, and thankfully squeezed me until I gasped. Then expelled a quick giggle; a reflexive gesture to the explosive emotions I'd been through today.

"This may not have anything to do with Billy Wayne's murder," Caleb said. "But, in any case, I'll put a man outside your house."

"Don't," I said, pulling back and then leaning my forehead onto his. "I'll set the alarm. Noah didn't 'cause he thought I'd be home before dark. He fell asleep with that damn TV on and wouldn't have heard the Second Coming." I felt my voice quaver with the effort. "I've been sent a message and the bastard has made his point crystal clear. Mr. Kim was right. I shouldn't have been there."

"I can move my gear into your house for the duration."

I did a rueful grin. "You know how I am in the middle of the season," I said. "Three a.m. start-up time, planes flying in and out all day. I don't sleep more than four or five hours a night this time of year. You here, I wouldn't get any rest at all. Besides, message sent, duly noted."

He nodded doubtfully, and I could see he was trying to decide if it would be worth the effort to push his case.

I was glad to see the stubborn set of his jaw soften, and that he wasn't going to waste any more air on it. "You've got your cell. You call me for anything, you hear?" He kissed me and left. Sure it would make me feel safer having Caleb here, but the note was a warning meant to bring me to my knees. I could have come home to the murder of my dad, but that would have sent me into a rage of revenge from which there would be no turning back, no stepping away from hunting the bastard down and shooting him in cold blood. Did the killer know me that well, or was it simply a guess?

I locked the door behind Caleb, set the alarm, turned off the downstairs lights, and dragged myself up the stairs for bed.

Routine won over exhaustion, so I brushed teeth and hair and then stripped and took a warm shower. Powdered and scrubbed, and in my tidy white cotton gown, I climbed in between the crisp white linen sheets of my antique rosewood double bed, and turned out the light.

Outside my bedroom window cicadas sawed a sleepy rhythm and a breeze picked musically at the dry leaves on the chinaberry tree, and then—nothing. I couldn't sleep. I turned over again, slamming down the image of a dying man clutching scissors sticking out of his chest. Never mind that I couldn't remember his last words. Terrible as it was to think that someone would murder Billy Wayne Dobson, it seemed obvious to me that the killer was also clever enough to know how, and where, to apply the right pressure. I'd felt, rather than seen, someone at the end of that alley. But the killer didn't know that, did he? I was seen, identified, and marked as a witness.

It was very clever of him to send me a threatening note. Really it was. I might later actually remember something and think to speak of it, maybe tell Caleb, or the police, I'd seen someone at the end of the alley. Now, however, any whiff of a memory would be sealed in a tomb of silence— silent as the grave, that would be me. I'd keep my head down, study
 
map coordinates, calculate chemical formulas for pest control, kick airplane tires, and check pilot flight logs, pay Av Gas bills, anything that would keep me away from the potential of a murder investigation that might endanger what was most precious to me—my family.

I rolled over onto the other side, dragging my unpleasant thoughts with me. Why did Billy Wayne have to single me out for an unrequited love interest? Whether he was mentally ill, or a drug addict, it wasn't my job to be his savior, was it? He had a mother and VA doctors to help him, didn't he? That was it, of course. At the heart of it was my own loss at age eleven, my own guilt, and I wanted nothing to do with another. I'd seen a counselor after my mother's death, but that ended at the dinner table when I asked my brother and dad what bi-polar meant. From then on, we never discussed her death, or her problems.

I turned over again, hearing again the interview with the first two policemen at the scene:

Did you know Billy Wayne Dobson?

We'd never actually had any kind of conversation.

Did he at any time accost you, or attempt to touch you?

No.

Other than the paper notes in the form of snowflakes, at any other time did he attempt to contact you by phone or at your home?

Eyebrows raised, subtle nods exchanged.

No.

Did you at any time go to his home?

No.

Do you know of anyone else who might have had a grudge against Mr. Dobson?

No.

Billy Wayne Dobson loved you, needed you, and you let him down. You're responsible for his death--

No, no, no!

I jerked awake, threw the covers off, pulled the sweaty nightgown over my head, and headed for another shower. Would this nightmare never end?

Chapter four:

I stretched out an arm and batted the digital alarm on my nightstand. Its little red digits glared accusingly at me–three a.m. Time to get up and go to work. The few hours of tortured sleep I'd endured only left me feeling as painfully bruised as if I'd been beaten with nightsticks.

Lately, lack of sleep has been due to those few and precious nights I get with Caleb, and then sleep seldom comes into the picture. Caleb. Did he call me last night? Oh God, last night wasn't just a bad dream. It really did happen, signaling the end of any hope I might have entertained that I was going to be able to extract myself from the attention of either the police or the killer. Regardless of my own fears, I knew that sometime today I'd have another round of interviews with a suspicious homicide detective who would only be too happy to have me back in the hot-seat.

Turning on the light I groaned, rolled over, got up, and reached for yesterday's T-shirt. My hand automatically retreated at the smear of dried blood. I jammed the soiled T-shirt into the laundry basket and went for another shower, even though last night I'd taken two, letting the sharp needles of hot water pound into the mauled pores of my skin. Poor Billy Wayne—poor me.

Pulling clean jeans and T-shirt out of the drawers, I added a sweater against the early morning chill and the freeze of ice that lingered in my own heart. I seized up my shoulder length blond hair and tugged it into the ponytail I usually wore, then opened the closet and taking a leather belt off the rack, threaded it onto my jeans. In the soft light of the lamp reflected in my bedroom window, I almost didn't see the dark shadows under my eyes that probably wouldn't be disappearing anytime soon. If you didn't count the fact that I was forty going on forty-one I might pass as the New York model I'd been twenty years ago. Then I had to go and ruin the image by looking down at my banged up, chapped, veiny hands, and short nails. If twenty years ago someone had told me that this was the life I would be living, I would have laughed like a hyena.