Grounds to Kill Read online

  Mrs. Rudnicki wrapped her arms around Mojo and stroked her soft fur. Immediately I saw some of the fear evaporate from her eyes. Yorkie love. If I could bottle that kind of magic, I’d be rich.

  I poured her a king sized glass of wine and then we sat in my living room quietly, each of us contemplating the horror of the evening.

  Mrs. Rudnicki called an elderly friend to come stay with her and then headed to her own apartment. After she was gone, I downed a couple of Tylenol, because my head felt like someone had hit it with a baseball bat, although Mrs. Rudnicki said it was the butt of a gun.

  Once it was just me and Beth, we ordered a pizza and enjoyed the solitude. I told myself everything was fine, but my hands still shook.

  “If Mallory were here she’d suggest you did something bad in a prior life to have so much shit go wrong in such a short period of time,” Beth said matter-of-factly.

  “Maybe it means I’m getting all the bad stuff in my life out of the way in one intense period.” I touched the back of my aching head and hoped that was true.

  Beth used her iPad to show me how the GPS had tracked Charlie’s movements from the time I stuffed the tracking device in his van.

  “Ah ha!” I cried.

  “Do you see something?” Beth leaned in toward the screen.

  “Yeah, about an hour after he left Merlot’s he stopped at 2-a-Tea. Dirty double-crosser,” I muttered.

  “That doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  We looked over the track he took throughout the day. Basically he’d stopped to make deliveries and then gone out again.”

  “His vehicle’s moving again,” Beth said, pointing to the obvious yellow circle now bobbing along across the digital map. We watched his course for a few minutes.

  “Going home,” I said and, sure enough, that’s exactly where the van went and two hours later it was still there.

  Beth yawned. “Well, this has been exciting, but I’ve got to work in the morning.”

  “Come with me to walk Mojo?” I asked, hating the way I felt vulnerable, weak and needy and wishing that I had a guy in my life who’d comfort me.

  “I’m going to pack you and Mojo a bag and bring you to my place and I’ll walk her once we’re there.”

  I was instantly relieved. On second thought, it was great to have girlfriends, because they always knew what you needed without being told.

  Once we reached Beth’s place, she settled me on the sofa with a thick ham and cheese sandwich and the television remote.

  “You sit back and relax. I’ll take old fuzzy butt here for a good jog so she’ll be ready for bed when I get back.” She bent and kissed me on the top of my sore head. “You deserve a break.”

  When she got back a half hour later I’d eaten half the sandwich and was ready for bed.

  “Take a couple of Tylenol now so you don’t have a headache wake you up. Because I’ll probably be gone to work when you get up, I’ve left instructions on top of my iPad on the table letting you know how to log in and check out Charlie’s travels tomorrow. I’m in meetings most of the day, so I won’t be able to tune in to the Charlie show until the evening.”

  “I gotta work early,” I said with a yawn.

  “Nope, you’re taking the day off and staying here where you’ll be safe. I already called Mitch and told him about your run in with the butt of a gun and he said he’d call someone for your shift. Mallory has a day off tomorrow, so she said she’d swing by with food.”

  “That’s not necessary,” I said.

  “That sandwich I made you was the last edible thing in the house. Ramen noodles and alcohol are not listed on the American Food Guide Pyramid.”

  “You sure?” I stifled another yawn.

  “Yes. So she’ll make sure you’re fed and will even walk Mojo for you.”

  “Thanks, Beth. Will you marry me?” I hugged her.

  “If you did it for me, then I’d be lucky to have you,” she said into my hair. “I’ll be working on my computer, but you need to sleep.”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. Although I did go straight to bed, I wasn’t used to hitting the hay at just after ten so I found myself wide awake at six in the morning. The minute I sat up I felt a throbbing in the back of my head. When my fingers caught the lump in my hair, I winced.

  I got up and went in search of more Tylenol. Beth had left the bottle in the kitchen with a note. She’d already caught the bus for work. I took a couple of tablets and then had a shower. It’s really difficult to wash your hair without touching your scalp. It’s even harder to brush it. I felt like I’d tortured my head enough, so went to the kitchen and made coffee. Mojo lifted her head only briefly as if to say, it’s too early, go back to bed.

  Deciding to enjoy some fresh air with my coffee, I went to Beth’s balcony and sat down on a padded wicker chair. Ten floors below, Seattle was waking and busily pushing, shoving and honking its way in to work. I had the day off and no plans whatsoever. That felt very weird. And wrong.

  Frowning into my coffee, I debated what to do with my day. I decided that I needed a second cup of coffee before I could decide. Standing in the stony silence of Beth’s kitchen, I suddenly heard a very muted beep. It was so quiet that at first I thought I’d imagined it. I tilted my head and listened. A few seconds later, I heard it again. It sounded like my cell phone. I searched my purse and then the sofa, but no phone. Then I went to the bedroom and found my phone in the pocket of the jeans I’d worn last night.

  I had a whopping five new text messages and three missed calls. Both Mitch and Mallory had texted last night to say that they were sorry to hear about what happened and they’d check in with me today. Then there were three texts from Fred left last night. The last two were wondering why I hadn’t called him about the first one. The first one said:

  I found your dad. Call me.

  “Oh my God!” I shrieked. I dialed Fred’s number and he answered with a groggy, “’ullo?”

  “Where did you find him?” I demanded.

  “Jen, it’s six-fricking-thirty in the morning!”

  “I know, I know... Where is my dad?”

  “Harbourview Hospital. He was seen trying to direct traffic in the middle of the I-5 and luckily nobody used him as a speed bump. Apparently he was in a psychotic state, and they’ll be keeping him there for at least a few days to get his meds straightened out.”

  “Thank God,” I whispered, my voice filled with emotion. I closed my eyes and big fat tears slid under my lashes. “Thank you, too, Fred. Seriously. Thanks.”

  “Yeah. You’re welcome. I’m still working on the other stuff, but you gotta let me go back to sleep, okay? I’m useless if I don’t get enough sleep.”

  “Sure. Bye.”

  I sent out a flurry of text messages about Dad. Mallory borrowed a car from her neighbor and picked me up almost immediately wearing a white hoodie that said Vegans Save Lives. She got me to the hospital in record time. We didn’t get a lot more information at the hospital other than what we already knew. Dad was brought in yesterday, because he was found in a psychotic state. He couldn’t have visitors yet, but I was able to leave my name and number with the doctor who’d most likely get back to me later in the day.

  “Sorry to drag you down here so early on your day off,” I told Mallory.

  “Hey, I’m glad to help and of course you had to come. He’s your dad.”

  A flame of hope fanned inside my chest. If they got his meds straightened out and he actually stayed on his pills, he might even start talking again. He might even know who I was. The dream felt too big to even speak out loud.

  “Do you mind if we stop by Merlot’s?” I asked Mallory. “I need to send Mervin Lo an email, but his personal email address was on my old laptop, so I need to go in and get it off the work computer.”

&nbs
p; “And you want to see Mitch.” She elbowed me good-naturedly in the ribs.

  “That too,” I admitted with a lopsided grin.

  We were walking out of Harbourview Medical Center toward the parking lot. Clouds had gathered in a tight knot over the city and the air felt cooler.

  Mallory parked the car out in front of Merlot’s and I walked in the front door like a patron.

  “Hey,” Mitch called out. “Good news about your dad.” Then he frowned. “Well, not good that he’s in the hospital, but good that you know he’s safe.”

  “Yeah.” I grinned.

  He came around to the front of the counter and pulled me into a hug.

  “I am so glad you’re okay. I never should’ve just dropped you off at your place like that with everything that’s going on. I should’ve stayed with you.”

  “Not your fault.” I said, grinning because he still held me.

  As if he realized the hug was going on way too long, he released me and headed back around the counter.

  “You just couldn’t stay away from Merlot’s even for a day, huh? Today you need to rest. Besides, Minnie’s already working your shift, and it’s not that busy so...”

  “I’m not here to work. I just need to get Mervin’s email addy. I wanted to send him an email regarding the bakery stuff.”

  He nodded okay, snatched up the notepad next to the register and went in the back to get the email.

  “While we’re here let’s get a couple of coffees,” I suggested to Mallory.

  Minnie approached the register.

  “You’re a triple shot skim latte right?” she said to me.

  “Hey, good memory,” I nodded.

  “I’ll have a chai tea,” Mallory said.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  Minnie did up our drinks and handed them to us just as Mitch returned.

  “Here you go,” he said handing me the notepad. “I wrote the email in red ink so you could see it amongst all your X, Y & Z scribbling.”

  “My what?” I took the notepad.

  “You know...” He tapped the notepad. “We all call that your X, Y & Z pad.”

  “Right,” I laughed. They’d all teased me about my doodles before.

  At Mallory’s confused look Minnie added, “All day long when she’s working she scribbles X, Y & Z over and, over and over again all over and every day. Whoever is working flips over to a new page and she just does it over again.”

  Mallory took the sheet of paper and looked down at the notepad in stunned surprise.

  “Can I keep this?”

  “Of course,” Mitch chuckled. “It’s yours.”

  We walked out of Merlot’s and climbed back into the car.

  “What’s up?” I asked Mallory as she started the car. “You’ve got a weird look on your face.”

  “Can we go back to my place? I need to check something,” she said.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  There was a tiny nugget of worry in the pit of my stomach that was growing into a huge ball of fear.

  “Well,” she began. “Remember when we were going through the yellow pages and calling the storage unit companies?”

  “Yeah? I guess we never finished.”

  “No, but I had the end of the alphabet and I’m pretty sure one of those pages had a huge ad for a company called X, Y & Z Storage.”

  “Oh my God!” I shrieked loud enough to startle her.

  Mallory cut across traffic to a cacophony of car horns, steered into a parking lot and put the vehicle in park.

  “That’s it!” She stabbed the notepad with her finger. “That’s the important message from HOD!”

  “Maybe...” I felt like that was putting a lot of pressure on random doodling. “So let’s head to your apartment and—”

  “Forget that,” Mallory said and, in a take charge moment, dug out her phone and began surfing online. “Got it!” she declared. “X, Y & Z Storage on East Madison and Twelfth.”

  Mallory drove like a woman possessed and I hung on like a person who wanted to live to see another day. We were there in a few minutes, and Mallory was able to get parking close to the entrance.

  “Wait a second,” Mallory said as we raced inside. “This place has hundreds of units. How do we know which one the key opens?”

  “I think I know,” I said.

  An older bald man was working the counter when we stormed inside.

  “I’m looking for unit #207B?”

  “Section B is on the left side of the building and 207 is upstairs. Go outside and take the stairs or elevator around the corner.”

  We headed in the direction he said, and once inside our footsteps echoed against the concrete flooring and row upon row of metal rollup doors. The second floor stairwell opened onto unit 250 and went down in number from there. We ran down the long hallway at full speed. It was almost as long as a football field and we nearly blurred right past 207. Screeching to a halt, I was panting as I fumbled to peel the iSkin off the back of my Blackberry to reveal the key.

  “There’s security cameras everywhere here,” Mallory noted.

  I glanced up to see one in the corner of the hall peering down at us.

  “We have a key and we’re not being destructive, I doubt we’ll attract attention,” I said hopefully. “Well, here goes nothing.”

  What I felt was—here goes everything.

  I jammed the key inside the padlock and turned. When the lock sprang open my heart skipped a beat. With shaky hands I removed the lock and together Mallory and I hefted the rollup door.

  I held my breath until the door was completely up and then let the air out of my lungs in a huge whoosh.

  Lost dog flyers were everywhere; taped floor to ceiling in the ten-by-ten space and stacked in piles on the floor. One cardboard box lay in the corner, no doubt also filled with lost dog flyers.

  I spun around and around the room for a minute then sat down hard on the concrete floor and cried. Mallory sat down next to me and slung an arm around my shoulder. We sat there for a minute thinking about what to do.

  “I can’t believe all this running around and investigating brought me to a room full of flyers,” I said with disgust. “The same stupid papers dad has been handing me for months.”

  I picked up a handful of flyers that were on the floor next to me and sighed.

  “I guess in his delusional state maybe he thinks these mean something.”

  “Yeah,” Mallory agreed, picking up a small handful of her own. “I mean, it may not even be about the dog, because if it was, this would be a pretty bad picture. Your dad’s ill, so I guess we shouldn’t’ve expected some brilliant answer to who killed Misty.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “The dog isn’t even in the center of the picture. The dog is blurred and there’s too much stuff in the background and—” I stopped short and held the flyer up to my face. “Is that the crown sign from the King’s Value Motel in the background?”

  Mallory held a sheet up to her face and squinted.

  “It sure looks like it. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

  I nodded. “I wish the lighting was better in here.”

  “Do you want to grab a few sheets and take them back to the car?”

  I agreed it was a good idea. I took the handful of papers in my hand and decided to take those along with the box of them in the corner. We rolled down the door and locked it to protect Dad’s special cargo and then headed to Mallory’s car. The sunlight streamed in through the car windows and I stared hard at the papers as if willing them to provide all the answers.

  We decided to go back to Beth’s to get Mojo and then go to my apartment. While Mallory drove, I continued to analyze the flyers. I was positive the image in the backg
round was a cluster of people standing in front of the Kings Value Motel.

  I put the box down on my coffee table and Mallory sat on the opposite side of the box and picked up a flyer.

  “So if it’s not about the dog, then the message Dad was trying to send was about the motel, or the people standing in front of the motel,” I said.

  “Sure, but these have been copied and re-copied so many times that whoever’s in the background is just a gray and black blur.”

  “We need to find the original flyer,” I said. “The one he first brought in to be copied.”

  I picked up the box I’d put on the table and started going through the stack of flyers inside. At the very bottom of the box was a Rite Aid photo envelope filled with four-by-six photographs. I began shuffling through the pictures.

  “Hookers,” I said quietly. I flipped through them quicker. “Dad took pictures of prostitutes coming and going from the King’s Value Motel.” It was hard to keep disappointment from my voice.

  “Did you find the one that matches the picture on the flyers?” Mallory asked.

  “There’s a couple here of the dog.”

  I handed her the photos of the black lab on a street corner. The angle of the shot clearly looked as though Dad was either a very bad photographer, or he didn’t even care if the dog was in the picture. I flipped ahead a few more pictures and stopped.

  “Here it is,” I said, looking at the picture. “Dog in the front, but clearly he was aiming for the hookers in front of the motel. One guy with his back to the camera and two hookers. Looks like...” I squinted. “It is...the tall one is Kiki.”

  Mallory walked around the coffee table and came to sit down next to me. She bent and rubbed Mojo’s ears while she took the photo from my hands and stared at it hard.

  “Something looks familiar about the other one,” Mallory said. She pointed to the stack of photos still in my hand. “Are there any clearer shots?”

  I flipped through the photos, and it became clear that they were taken consecutively only seconds apart. Slowly, the people in the camera began to turn in the direction of the shot. The final picture in the stack was a close-up shot of three people under the glow of the Kings Value Motel. The two people with Kiki caused me to breathe in sharply.