Stalker (9780307823557) (4 page)

Jennifer signed the paper he handed her, shook her watch from the envelope and put it on. It was almost time to pick up Mark. She’d better hurry. She shoved her wallet into the back hip pocket of her jeans and clutched the keys to Mark’s car.

“I’ve got a girl about your age,” the detective said. “Goes to Ray High. Plays a lot of basketball. Anyhow, I know you kids take things pretty hard, and this is a rough one for you.” He blinked, looking uncomfortable. “I’m trying to say, don’t tear yourself up attempting to make things come out the way you want them instead of the way they are. See what I mean?”

“I know Bobbie.” Jennifer’s words were spaced and slow, as though she were talking to a child who couldn’t understand. “She didn’t kill her mother.”

She turned and left the station, running down the steps, crossing the nearly empty street to the parking lot, where she found Mark’s car nosed in under one of the bright arc lamps. She drove it out of the parking lot and down the side street to Staples, heading toward the supermarket where Mark would soon be waiting for her.

Would a private investigator help? Why not find out? She had some money—not much—but there was a small bank account where she put something from the paychecks she got for her weekend and summer work at the Green Garden Nursery. There was almost three hundred dollars in the account now. And she’d be willing to spend it all to help Bobbie.

She knew a private investigator. Well, she didn’t really know him. She had met him a year or so ago when she was over at Bobbie’s and some guy had come by to pick up Stella for a date. They’d said hello, and after he and Stella had left, Bobbie had told her the man was a private eye. They had giggled about that and about his funny name. What was his name? If she could only remember it! She had never seen him again, and Bobbie hadn’t mentioned him; so apparently he and Stella hadn’t dated much. But he knew Stella. Surely he’d want to help.

Mark came out of the side entrance of the market at the same time Jennifer pulled to a stop next to the curb. “Good timing,” he said, climbing into the driver’s side as she quickly scooted over. “Did you find Bobbie?”

Jennifer told him everything that had happened as he drove her home. She ended with her encounter in the interrogation room as Mark parked his car in front of her house. He turned off the ignition and twisted in his seat to face her.

“You might have been shot!”

“But I wasn’t. Anyhow, that doesn’t matter. Bobbie matters. We’ve got to help her.”

Mark’s scowl was made deeper by the shadows cast from the streetlight. “That detective was right. Leave it alone. They wouldn’t have arrested Bobbie if they didn’t think she’d done it.”

Jennifer gasped. She hadn’t expected this reaction from
Mark. “But Bobbie didn’t even know her mother was dead! I had to tell her!”

“A guy in the store said he heard on KRIS that the scarf that strangled Mrs. Trax belonged to Bobbie,” Mark said. “Bobbie could have put on an act with you.”

“Even if you don’t believe in Bobbie, I do! And I’m going to do what I can to help her.” Jennifer reached for the door handle, but Mark grasped her shoulders, turning her toward him.

“Right now you’re upset. So’m I. But you’ve got to take it easy and slow and think things out. Maybe get away for a while.” His voice softened and deepened. “Jen, I’ve got an idea, and please don’t say no until you think about it. Why don’t you and I go over to Padre for the weekend?”

“No.”

“Look,” he said. “I worked this all out and gave it a lot of thought. I know how you feel, but it won’t be wrong. We love each other, and we’re going to get married right after graduation. That’s only a few months away. And you need to be comforted and loved right now.”

“I haven’t said I’d marry you.”

“Not in so many words. But we’ve both taken it for granted all along. You’ve said you love me. You aren’t changing your mind, are you?”

“No. Oh, I don’t know!” She could feel the tears burn up to the surface again, and she cried out, “Mark, I don’t know what I feel about anything right now!”

“See? That’s what I mean.” He was closer, enfolding her tightly in his arms. “You need me, Jen.”

She struggled to sit up, pushing his arms away, rubbing at the tears with her knuckles. “Not that way,” she said.

He shrugged and leaned back against the door, watching her. “Okay, then. How?”

“I’ll—I’ll let you know. Right now I don’t know.”

“When you do, just tell me. I’ll be on hand,” he said. “You know that, Jen.”

She nodded, opened the door, and jumped down. She didn’t watch Mark drive away.

The chipped pottery lamp on the corner table gave a yellowed glow to the living room. As Jennifer came through the door, she could see her father asleep in his chair, his chin tucked into his chest. The television set was still on. She turned it off, and her father awoke, snuffling a little, coughing as he sat up.

“I guess I fell asleep in my chair,” he said.

“You do every night.” Jennifer came to his side and smoothed down the strands of hair that curled upward at the back of his bald spot. “You work such long hours.”

“We planted the front of that new mall on Everhart today. Got all of that part done.” He blinked as though he were suddenly aware of his surroundings. “Oh, Jennifer! Mama told me about your friend Bobbie! I’m sorry, hon.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

She squatted next to the arm of his chair, her face close to his. “Dad, what Grannie told you isn’t true! Bobbie didn’t do it! I promise!”

“Well now, hon,” he said. “Hon—I—I hope not.” He blinked again, looking confused.

Jennifer rested her forehead against his shoulder. She was too tired to go through this again. “Never mind, Dad. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Jennifer awoke early, resentful of the fact that she had slept at all. The normal patterns of life seemed to be out
of place. All the tooth-brushing, bed-making, breakfast-eating routines belonged to another, alien world. An empty coffee mug and a plate dusted with toast crumbs showed that her father had already left for his job. As usual, Grannie wasn’t up yet.

Taking her orange juice and toast to the living room, Jennifer turned on the early news, catching a repeat of the interview with Mrs. Aciddo. “Bobbie didn’t do it!” Jennifer muttered. “And I’m going to prove it!”

She wolfed down her breakfast, then opened the Yellow Pages. She didn’t know where else to look for the information she wanted. If she saw that man’s name, she’d recognize it. It was funny. Why? She couldn’t remember. There was nothing under Private Investigators, so she looked up Detectives. She was surprised to find “Detective Agencies—Private.” She supposed that she had expected secrecy, a covert, undercover method of discovering these people.

The name jumped out at her as she scanned the page: Bartlee Biddle. Of course. She jotted down his address.

Jennifer looked up the number of the attendance office at school. One of the student helpers should be there now. She dialed it, and when a voice answered she gave her name and said, “I’m not coming in today.”

The voice said in a rush, “Jennifer, we all know about Bobbie. And you were practically her only really good friend, and it must be awful for you, although I guess you could have expected it with a mother like Bobbie has—had.”

“Look, Alicia,” Jennifer said, recognizing the voice, “you’re only supposed to take the messages, not give opinions.”

“Well, if you’re staying out because you’re upset about
Bobbie, I can understand it. That’s all I’m saying. Shall I put down that you’re sick, or what?”

“I don’t care what you put down. Okay?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll say you’re sick, so they won’t get on your case. Gotta hang up.”

There was a click before Jennifer could put down the receiver. She sat in the kitchen chair, her hand still on the phone. So Bobbie didn’t have many friends. Neither did Jennifer. They weren’t in the popular group, they didn’t have time for all sorts of school activities. Some of the girls didn’t like Bobbie because she got kind of noisy at times, and used too much makeup, and dressed in all the wrong colors and wrong things; but Jennifer didn’t care because Bobbie made life fun and full of laughs, and when Jennifer really got to know Bobbie, she found a steady, kind, and loving person, a good friend. Lately she hadn’t seen as much of Bobbie as she used to, because of the time spent with Mark; but Bobbie hadn’t seemed to mind.

Jennifer had never cared to have a lot of friends. She felt comfortable with just a few people, and that was the way she wanted it. She had Bobbie and Mark to spend time with, and a few kids to talk to in each of her classes. She didn’t need more.

But she did need Bobbie, and it was time to get busy.

The phone rang, and she grabbed for it, hoping it wouldn’t wake Grannie.

“Jen,” the voice said. “It’s me—Darryl.”

“Darryl?” Jennifer was so surprised, she didn’t know what to say. “Uh—do you know about your mother, Darryl?”

“Yeah,” he said. “They got in touch.”

“I—I’m sorry about what happened. I—”

“That’s why I called you.”

The pause that followed felt like an empty hole that had to be filled. Jennifer stammered, “Uh—Bobbie told me last week you were in Arizona with your dad. Are you in Arizona now?”

“Got to Corpus a few minutes ago. Trailways bus. Jen—about Bobbie.”

“She didn’t do it, Darryl.”

“Are you her alibi?”

“No. But she didn’t do it.”

“How come you’re so sure?”

“Because Bobbie’s my friend. I—I’m the one who found her and told her what had happened. She didn’t know.”

“Big innocence, huh? Could of been an act.”

Just what Mark had said. Jennifer gripped the receiver and tried not to shout at Darryl. “You’re her stepbrother. You’re family. You ought to trust her.”

“No law says I have to.”

“Look, she gave me her word.”

“Just her word. So she hasn’t got an alibi. That’s what I needed to find out.”

“Are you going to help her?”

“Nothing I could do. Nothing anybody could do.”

“Yes, there is,” Jennifer said. “
I’m
going to help Bobbie. I’m going to hire a private investigator to find the real murderer!”

Without waiting for his answer she slammed the receiver on the cradle. Stupid pothead! Darryl was one of the most obnoxious guys she had ever met. She shouldn’t have expected him to lift a lazy finger to help Bobbie. He was a loner, a drifter, a loser. She wished he would just go back to Arizona. She never wanted to talk to him again!

She finished getting dressed, closed and locked the
front door quietly, and set off for the bus stop. She was going to see Mr. Bartlee Biddle, private investigator, specialist in family matters, child custody, and divorce. The “family matters” ought to cover it—and the fact that he once dated Stella.

Mr. Biddle’s office was down the street from the courthouse in an old brick building with wood trim that badly needed painting. There was no elevator, so Jennifer climbed worn wooden stairs to the third floor.

Near the head of the stairway she could see a door with Mr. Biddle’s name stenciled on it. As she reached for the doorknob, the door suddenly opened and she nearly collided with a man so lean and limber he gave the impression that his bones were held together with binder rings.

“Oh!” Jennifer said. “Sorry.” The man, who was dressed in a dirty T-shirt and tight jeans, paused, staring at her from under a battered cap he had pulled low on his forehead. He didn’t speak. As the question in his eyes slipped into boredom, he moved aside and clattered down the stairway.

“Jerk,” Jennifer muttered under her breath, and entered Mr. Biddle’s office. A battered desk stood near the window. It was cluttered with papers covered in large, scrawled handwriting. Some were puckered with dried brown coffee rings, and the wastepaper basket next to the desk overflowed in a crinkled white eruption. On a dirty tray at the far end of the desk were a hodgepodge of paper clips, chipped coffee cups, and a jumbled assortment of nonprescription drugstore remedies. A fat, balding man in a sport shirt with wide, moon-shaped stains under the arms suddenly reared up from behind the desk, heaving himself to his feet.

Jennifer jumped and took a step backward.

“Dropped some papers down here,” he said. “Been meaning to clean this mess up, but things have been busy.”

Jennifer took another step toward the door.

“Don’t go away,” the man said. “You must have come here for some reason. What can I do for you?”

“You—you probably don’t remember me,” Jennifer stammered. “I—I met you about a year ago. You had come to pick up Mrs. Trax for a date. I was with Bobbie. We said hello. I mean, you and I said hello.”

She was so nervous, she couldn’t help babbling. His eyes had narrowed as he studied her, and he didn’t speak. “What I’m here for,” she finally said, “is—well, I’m looking for a private investigator.”

“Why?”

Jennifer took a gulp of air, forced herself to walk up to Mr. Biddle’s desk, and said, “Let me start over. I didn’t even tell you my name. I’m Jennifer Lee Wilcox, and I need someone to find a murderer.”

Mr. Biddle’s head shot up, his jowls quivering. “You better go to the police, young lady.”

“The police have arrested the wrong person. They think my friend murdered her mother, and I need someone who can find out who really did it. Since you knew Mrs. Trax, I thought you’d want to help.”

“Stella Trax,” he said so softly that at first Jennifer thought he was talking to himself. “Your memory’s better than mine, young lady. That was a long time ago, and I don’t remember you at all.” He lowered himself into his chair and stared at her until Jennifer squirmed. She really hadn’t expected him to remember her. Adults never remembered kids.

“Well?” she finally asked. “Can you help me?”

“Nope,” he said. He picked up a wad of papers and
tapped them against the desk top, trying to straighten them. “So I dated Stella once. Makes no difference, because I don’t handle cases like that. My specialty is divorce—finding out who’s up to what, and getting pictures. That’s about it.”

“I’ve got to find somebody to help me,” Jennifer said.