4 The Killing Bee (7 page)

Their feet crunched the sidewalk gravel as they came my way. I was doomed.

But then I got a last-ditch inspiration.

"Meow," I said. But loud, and with feeling.

The footsteps stopped.

"Meow," I said again.

"Hell, if s just a cat," the first cop said.

"Great. Let’s try Hyde Street," the other one said, and they took off.

I waited the obligatory twenty seconds and took off myself. I scrambled across Ash and veered left, avoiding Hyde. Th
en I hit another couple of backyards, woke up another couple of dogs, climbed a fence, and plopped down into my own backyard. I ran up to my back door and let myself in.

Hallelujah
. Safe at last. I felt exhilarated and incredibly macho—

"Honey, is that you?" Andrea called from the front of the house. She must have had trouble sleeping and come downstairs.

I walked toward her voice. "Yeah, it's me—"

But then I stopped.

She wasn't alone. Two men were standing with her in the front hall.

Foxwell and Balducci.

"Have a nice little walk?" Foxwell asked pleasantly.

I was dumbfounded. "How'd you find me?"

Balducci snorted. "Wasn't hard. Who else would be dumb enough to do what you just did?"

Andrea watched me, frightened. She was dying to know what it was I'd done, but she couldn't very well ask me with these servants of the law around.

"Let’s go, pal," Foxwell said.

"Where?" I asked.

"Where do you think? We gonna need handcuffs?"

I went over to Andrea and gave her a kiss. "See
you soon, babe. Don't worry, it’s nothing serious."

"But I wouldn't hold breakfast for him if I were you," Balducci said.

7

By eight o'clock that morning, I'd spent an hour in the police station interrogation room giving my story about fifteen different times to Foxwell and Balducci. I'd used my one approved phone call to reach the trusty Malcolm Dove, and I gave him the story, too. Then I passed another two hours sitting around various waiting rooms, being thankful they hadn't thrown me in the clink—yet. Now I was sitting in Chief Walsh's office, telling my tale yet again. The more I repeated it, the more preposterous it sounded, even to me.

My adrenaline was long gone and the pounding in my skull was back. My shoulder was aching too. I'd asked for aspirin, but they hadn't brought me any. They did bring me coffee. If anything it made the pounding worse.

"So you just
happened
to be hanging around outside the school at two-thirty in the morning," the chief said sarcastically.

"I told you, I was hoping for inspiration."

"And then you just
happened
to get knocked out without seeing who did it. How convenient."

"The guy bashed me with a heavy flashlight!" I was shouting with frustration. "How else do you think I got this big bump on my head?"

"Running from the police."

"I swear, that's not how it was." I stomped the floor for emphasis. "Don't you get it? Laura Braithwaite didn't kill Meckel, somebody else did. And that person snuck back into Meckel's office last night to cover it up."

The chief pointed an accusatory finger at me. "You went to see Laura yesterday. In jail."

"Yeah. So what?"

"What did the two of you talk about?"

"She told me she was innocent."

"Oh, did she now?" He flashed me a knowing grin.

"Look, what
’s your point?"

"This."
The chief lifted a manila folder out of his Inbox and held it up for me to see. It was the Terra Nova folder. "You left this on Meckel's desk."

"Yeah, I was reading it."

"Why?"

I tried to recall. "I don't know, I was curious."

"Don't play your idiotic games with
me,"
the chief snapped angrily, stepping into his alternate personality. I seemed to bring out the worst in the guy.

"I called Hilda Helquist this morning," the chief continued, his perfect white teeth bared. "She told me all about these tests, and how Meckel was using the preliminary scores to d
ecide who got in the gifted program." He came around the desk and got in my face. "Laura knew about the test scores, didn't she? She knew they gave her a murder motive. So she asked you to break into Meckel's office and get rid of them."

"But
—"

He leaned in even closer. I could smell the mint
-flavored toothpaste on his breath. "Admit it. You broke into that office."

"No
—"

"There was a coverup last night, alright. You were covering up the murder yourself."

Enough was enough. The toothpaste smell was getting on my nerves. "Don't be a damn idiot," I shot at him. His head snapped back. "Laura already told the police she was pissed off at Meckel. That’s your so-called murder motive, right there. So why would she care about some stupid folder? It doesn't add anything new to your case."

"Sure, it does.
It’s the icing on my cake," the chief said triumphantly, waving the folder at me. "These test scores are what sent her over the edge. See, Laura admits she talked to Meckel the night before. Logical conclusion is, he told her about Adam's scores being too low for the gifted program. So the very next morning she goes berserk and kills him." He shrugged his shoulders, smiling. "Makes a nice simple story that even the most dim-witted jury members will be able to follow, don't you think?"

Unfortunately I agreed with him, but I kept that to myself. "Laura says Meckel didn't tell her Adam's test scores. And anyway, the scores still don't prove a thing. Susie and Elena's daughters scored too low, too. So why not suspect Susie and Elena?"

As soon as I said that, I realized I actually meant it. Both Susie and Elena could get pretty intense when their children's welfare was threatened. And neither of them had totally ironclad alibis.

But the chief wasn't interested in my insinuations. "I'll be glad to inform them you said that," he said sarcastically. "But luckily for them, they weren't found next to the dead body holding the murder weapon."

"Listen, Chief," I began, in a pleading tone.

But he cut me off. "Look, Burns, Laura Braithwaite is going down for this. The only question is: how far down do you want to go with her?"

I got a powerful desire to bash Chief Walsh right in the middle of his arrogant face. Where was that spelling bee trophy when I needed it?

"Here's the deal," the chief said. "You drop your ridiculous little fairy tale about what happened last night, and you confess to the break-in. Then I'll let you cop to a misdemeanor. Otherwise it's felony B and E, to say nothing of obstruction." The chief broke into a sudden twisted smile. "So what do you say?"

I gritted my teeth. I'm far from the world's most courageous guy, but after hours of listening to all these bozo cops with bad breath giving me crap, it was time to satisfy my inner reptile. "You sure you want to play it like this, Chief?"

"You kidding? I'm enjoying every minute."

"Yeah, but throw me in jail and guess what? The entire upstate New York media rehashes our whole history. How we tend to have little disagreements from time to time, and how I tend to be right and you tend to have your head so far up your ass it's looking out through your belly button." I clicked my tongue sadly. "I'd hate to see you go through the shame, the embarrassment, the public ridicule. . . ."

"Hey, it goes with the job." The chief pushed a button on his desk. Balducci entered.

"Read this guy his rights," the chief told Balducci. "Then throw him away."

Maybe I should have kept my inner reptile locked up.

The jail was just as ugly, smelly, and all-around gross as I'd remembered. The good news was, I was only there for half an hour before all of us heavy
-duty criminals were taken upstairs for arraignment. In addition to myself, there was an elderly gentleman who'd walked backward down the middle of Broadway after the bars closed, urinating on the yellow stripes as he went; a skinny kid who'd shoplifted some condoms and chocolate bars from CVS; and a Peeping Tom who'd made the strategic error of peeping a policeman's wife.

Just another fun Tuesday night.

But then another inmate joined us on our way up the steps to the courtroom. It was Laura, fresh from the women's section of the jail, which consisted of exactly one cell. Being a suspected murderess, she made our motley little crew a lot more interesting. We stood taller and walked with more pride once we had her with us.

Laura did a double take when she saw me. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Had a bit of fun last night," I said, and repeated the whole saga yet again—or at least the broad strokes, since we only had a minute before we hit the courtroom and the judge gaveled us into silence.

"God, I feel terrible. I got you in trouble," Laura said. But her face
glowed with excitement, not remorse. I didn't blame her. Finally, she had at least one other person in the world who believed in her innocence: me.

Now if only I could convince Chief Walsh and his mighty minions.

Heck, if only I could convince them of my own innocence, I thought as we filed into court and took our seats in the jury box up front, with three cops standing guard over us.

The joint was jam-packed with spectators and media creatures from as far away as Albany. They were buzzing whispering and wiggling their finger bones at me and Laura. I felt like an animal in a very cramped zoo.

I turned to Laura. "Shall I treat them to my stoned chimpanzee imitation?"

She didn't respond. She was rigid with fear. I put my hand on her arm. "
It’s okay, Laura," I said gently. "We're not alone. We have lots of support."

"Oh, is that what all these c
ops are doing here—supporting us?"

I pointed to the
front row. "Look over there: Andrea, Susie, Elena, Barry . . . and last but not least, our fearless attorney—"

"All rise!" some courtroom factotum declaimed.

We all rose, and the judge entered. He was a short bald man who looked rather goofy in his long black robe. But he made up for it with a commanding bass voice. I'd encountered this Little Napoleon before, and I knew you messed with him at your own peril.

Little Napoleon dispensed with the preliminaries quickly and announced the first case. Since he was going alphabetically, it was Laura's.

"The People versus Laura Braithwaite," he pronounced stentoriously. After Laura and Malcolm stepped up to the bench, he continued, "Ms. Braithwaite, you are charged with murder in the first degree. How do you plead?"

She gulped, and said nervously, "Not guilty."

"Mr. Hawthorne, does the D.A.'s office have a recommendation?"

"Yes, Your Honor," said Hawthorne, the assistant D.A. He had gotten all duded up for the occasion, even going so far a
s to put a folded white handkerchief in his breast pocket. "Given the severity of the crime, and the terrible effect it has had on our entire community, the People request that bail be set at five hundred thousand dollars."

"Oh, knock it of
f," Malcolm Dove broke in scornfully. "This woman is no threat to anybody, and she's not escaping to Argentina, either. She has a seven-year-old boy to take care of. We request that she be released on her own recognizance, so she can go home to her child."

"This is a murder case," Little Napoleon said dubiously.

"A remarkably flimsy one. Totally circumstantial, no eyewitnesses . . . and new evidence has come to light in the last few hours which strongly indicates the real murderer is not in custody."

"What new evidence is this?" Little Napoleon asked.

"It’s a complete fabrication," Hawthorne interrupted. "A friend of the defendant burglarized the scene of the crime. When he was apprehended, he tried to pretend somebody else had broken in before him—and this 'somebody else' must be the real murderer."

"The individual we're speaking of is Jacob Burns," Malcolm declared. "His reputation
—"

"I know his reputation," Little Napoleon said, and then gave a sniff. I got the feeling my reputation didn't impress him all that much. In fact, he looked straight at me with narrowed eyes while he said, "The suspect is ordered remanded to the county jail. Bail is hereby set at four hundred thousand dollars."

Malcolm sputtered, "But—"

Little Napoleon brought down his gavel. "Next case. The People versus Jacob Burns."

As I stepped up to the dock, I had trouble focusing at first. Damn, four hundred grand. If I was really bankrolling Laura's defense—and it sure looked like I was—then I'd have to spring for ten percent of that, or forty grand, for a bail bondsman. Suddenly my three hundred K nest egg didn't feel quite so large.

Forty thousand dollars
. That was more than I used to make in three years as a starving artist. How much more dough would I end up spending on Laura's defense? And how much would I need to shell out for my own bail?

The answer, as it turned out, was five thou, because the judge set my bail at fifty thou. He also gave me a stern warning to avoid any "shenanigans" related to Laura's case. Malcolm told me later that fifty K was way higher than the ave
rage bail for B and E's in Saratoga County. Especially for a first-time offense. Okay, they were hitting me for obstruction of justice too, but still, what was the deal here? Was Little Napoleon buddies with Chief Walsh? Or maybe he saw my
Gas That Ate San Francisco
movie and didn't like it.

Speaking of movie
s, the way my finances were getting zapped, I might be forced to crank out another Grade Z flick after all.

Laura and I were removed in separate police cars to the Ballston Spa County Jail. Meanwhile, Andrea feverishly set to work contacting bail bondsmen and imploring our mutual funds to wire emergency cash to our bank account.

Fortunately, she managed to untape enough of the red tape that my fellow crimie and I were released at 5:27, just before the administrative office of the jail closed up for the night. Andrea was waiting for us at the front desk, and Laura and I took turns hugging her. My concussion-induced headache, which had held me tightly in its grip all day, began to dissipate.

"God, Andrea, I don't know how to thank you," Laura said, tears streaming.

"Hey, I had to make sure you don't miss bowling tomorrow night," Andrea replied.

After we got into Andrea's car
—a red Honda minivan that made me feel hopelessly suburban—I said to them, "Guess what, ladies? I have a couple of hot murder suspects for you."

Laura leaned forward eagerly from the backseat.

Andrea's hands gripped the steering wheel tight. "Like who?" she asked.