Better Off Dead (18 page)

I was so intent on getting away that I
almost hit another car rounding the curve and heading toward me. It
screeched to a halt a few feet away. I shrank back into the
shadows, and started to accelerate around the other car. The driver
turned to glare at me.

It was dark. The street light was too far
away to illuminate much. But I could have sworn I recognized the
face.

What had brought Lyman Carroll, embittered
academic, to the street where his biggest rival lived?

I thought about it all the way home to
Helen's house, where Fanny would be waiting up to hear the bad
news. My informant was dead. David Brookhouse's facade remained
intact, even if his window and television weren't. And we may all
have been wasting our time on the wrong man.

I guess Lyman Carroll could have been
passing by that particular house innocently. I guess he could even
have lived down the block. And I also guess pigs will fly one day
if this genetic engineering bullshit keeps up.

But I didn't think it was a coincidence.

Shit. What if we had the wrong man?

No one was asleep when I got back to
Helen's, except for her mother who was draped on the couch in the
sitting room and snoring so loudly it sounded like a shoe with a
loose sole had been jammed into the mouth of a foghorn. Killer was
sitting in the doorway staring at her comatose figure with
undisguised interest. He was probably trying to determine her
species in hopes she might be edible.

I returned to the living room and exchanged
a glance with Fanny, who looked away innocently. She was still
dosing Miranda with her special Mai Tais, and this no doubt
accounted for the snores.

"Let's all meet around the kitchen table,"
Fanny decided for us all. "I made a sour cream pound cake and you
can tell us what happened."

Bobby crushed my foot in his stampede to get
the biggest piece of cake. Burly and Helen sat to my right while
Fanny squeezed into a chair on my left. I thought about saying,
"You may wonder why I've gathered you here tonight," but no one
looked like they were in the mood for a joke. They all knew
something bad had happened.

"What was it?" Helen asked, her hand
unconsciously caressing her throat. "Did it happen to someone
else?"

"Worse," I said. "A woman was killed. I
don't know who it is, but she's married to a bigwig in public
relations at Duke and had a couple of kids."

"Was she the one on her way to see you?"
Fanny asked.

I nodded. "I think so."

Fanny started to cry. "She had such a lovely
voice. She sounded so... sad every time she called."

Helen reached across the table for Fanny's
hands. "She's not sad anymore," she told her. "And if he did to her
what he did to me, then believe me, she's better off dead."

"Don't ever say that again," Burly said
sharply. Helen turned to him, startled. The glance they exchanged
was a private one meant only for those who had suffered horribly. I
was an outsider in such things, I realized.

A silence fell after Burly's words. No one
could think of a thing to say. Helen truly believed she was better
off dead, I realized. I'd better keep a closer eye on her, maybe
check her medicine cabinet and pill bottles. Anything was
possible.

A cough from the doorway distracted us. Hugo
stood anxiously at attention, still dressed in his gardener's
uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. "What's wrong?" he asked, his eyes
on Helen. "Why are the lights on so late?"

"Sit down, dear," Fanny insisted, drying her
tears and busying herself in hostess mode. "I'll get you a piece of
cake."

"Something bad has happened again," Hugo
decided, making the sign of the cross and touching the gold
crucifix that hung around his neck.

"Something bad has happened," I admitted.
"And I don't even know if we have the right man after all."

Helen's head jerked up. She stared at
me.

"I went by Brookhouse's place after I saw
the crime scene," I explained. "He was there."

"That proves nothing," Bobby D. said. He was
the professional skeptic among us.

"And then I saw Lyman Carroll outside his
house." I explained who Carroll was to Bobby and Burly.

"It's not Lyman," Helen insisted. She
touched the base of her throat. "The man who did this to me was
David Brookhouse. I'll never believe anything else."

"I still have to look into Carroll," I
explained. "Find out why he was there tonight."

"I can start looking into him," Burly
promised. "I'll run a background check starting tomorrow."

I nodded my thanks and evaded Burly's eyes.
I'd tell him about the rock through the window later.

"Whichever man it is," Hugo said, "we must
take care of him as soon as we are sure." His eyes were bright.
"This must not be allowed to happen to anyone else. Where I come
from, they both would be dead. Just to be sure. We must stop him as
soon as we know. Without waiting for the police." He glanced at
Helen and looked away.

"I'm with Hugo," Burly announced defiantly.
He knew I'd be pissed, even if half of me agreed with their
sentiment.

"Me, too," Bobby grunted. "So long as no one
gets caught."

Fanny was in the pantry, rummaging for
napkins, or Bobby would never have dared say this out loud.

"Helen?" I asked. "I'd have to say,
karmically speaking, that this is probably your call."

She didn't hesitate. "David could do this
for the rest of his life," she said, pushing her plate of cake
away. "He's too good. They'll never catch him." She stared at Hugo.
"I already know who it is. As soon as the rest of you are
convinced..." Her voice trailed off.

"What?" I asked. "What do you want us to
do?"

"I want you to kill him," she said angrily.
"I want you to kill him again and again and again."

It took me less than half an hour to screw
up the next morning. I drove by my apartment to pick up some
clothes and the moment I turned onto my street, I knew I was in
trouble. An unmarked car was parked a few doors down from my
building. Skeeter Thompson was behind the wheel. He's a scrawny
redneck cop who got religion before he could jump my bones, and so
thinks I'm a slut bound for hell. As I unlocked the front door, I
saw him reach for his radio. He was calling in the cavalry.

So it was no surprise when my doorbell rang
about twenty minutes later, just as I was stuffing a pink babydoll
nightgown and a pair of black high heels into a duffel bag. Too bad
I hadn't been modeling the outfit: Detective Angel Ferrar had come
knocking.

Not that he looked in the mood for love.
"I'm too busy to be polite," he said, brushing past me without
waiting to be invited in. He sat down on my couch and stared at me.
Huge brown eyes with long Latin lashes. Wasted on a man who was all
business. "What were you doing at the crime scene last night?
What's your relationship to this case?"

"I'm impressed you didn't send an underling
to interview me," I stalled. I sat across from him in a chair that
showed off my legs. Not that he was looking. The only thing he
intended to pull out was his notebook. Which he did.

"I don't trust any of my team to interview
you without being distracted," he explained. No smile. “This is too
important to screw up."

His sincerity was contagious. I decided this
was no time to yank his chain. "I'm working for a woman David
Brookhouse was accused of raping," I explained. "Her name is Helen
Pugh. Your department knows her as Helen Mclnnes. She hired me to
look into his background. He's filed a civil suit against her. I'm
trying to find out anything that might help her case. He's already
raped her once. I'd like to stop him from doing it again in
court."

Ferrar looked me over in silence. I was glad
I had told him the truth. I had the uncomfortable feeling that this
particular detective could not only see beneath my clothes, he had
bored right down into my soul and was busily deciding if I was a
piece of scum or on the side of the angels. I suddenly wanted him
to understand that he was not the only one with honorable
intentions on this case.

"She hasn't left her house in eleven
months," I explained. "Her cleaning lady came here to my home, and
begged me to help her. No one else cared. The system let her down
big time. If I don't find a way to convince her that she's safe,
she'll never leave her house again. I know it. I've seen the way
she can't even walk in front of a window without wincing. That's
the only reason I'm sticking my nose into your homicide
investigation. I'm trying to help her."

"And you think her case is related to my
investigation?"

I shrugged. "I certainly don't like to think
that there's more than one rapist and murderer hanging around these
parts. That's inconceivable. Maybe where you come from..."

He didn't appreciate the slur. "Where I come
from, you wouldn't find a woman who was afraid to leave her own
home being left alone to suffer for nearly a year without help from
family or friends."

"Sorry," I mumbled, not knowing whether I
had insulted Miami or Cuba. His accent was hard to pin down.

"Who told you about the crime scene last
night?" he asked—and I suddenly understood that this was the real
reason that he was at my apartment. Ferrar was worried about leaks.
With an unknown cop as a possible suspect, he could not afford to
ignore it.

"No one told me," I lied. Convincingly, I
might add. If you didn't look at him, it was easier. "I had been
tailing David Brookhouse and saw the commotion as I was driving
home."

He stared at me for a few seconds. I tried
not to move, but his dark eyes were impossible to resist. I ended
up nervously bouncing one leg over the other, feeling as unworthy
as when I'd been caught passing notes in church as a kid.

"You can verify where David Brookhouse was
earlier in the evening?" he asked.

Well, shit, talk about a conundrum. If I
lied and said yes, Brookhouse was off the hook for last night's
murder. If I told the truth...

What was I thinking? "Actually, no," I
admitted. "I can't. I lost him. I drove back to his house hoping to
find him, and he was there. But I can only vouch for his
whereabouts after midnight."

Ferrar nodded and rose to go. "He's not a
suspect anyway."

"He should be," I said. "There's something
seriously wrong with that man."

"Do you know something I should know?" he
countered— and I got the feeling that this man was going to back me
into corners all morning, picking my brain clean, if I didn't end
the conversation quick.

Although, in this case, I had nothing to
give him. "How can you be so sure he's not a suspect?" I asked.

"He's got an alibi," Ferrar offered, taking
pity on my obvious lack of progress. "One of the best kinds you can
have."

"What?" I asked. "He was in church?"

"He was with someone who hates him," Ferrar
explained. "Another professor. They were meeting about some common
academic projects and the meeting went longer than they expected.
The guy only admitted he'd been with Brookhouse reluctantly. I got
the feeling he knew why I was asking and would have been happy to
see Brookhouse hang for it."

"Who was it?" I asked. "Lyman Carroll?"

"I see you are making a little headway after
all." Ferrar gave me the briefest of smiles. It was like the moon
emerging from behind a mountain on a winter night, silver and
bright and comforting. The road not taken opened up in front of me
for a tantalizing second. Nice guy. Warm home. Quiet life. So he
had a wife and kids, shined his shoes, kept his hair short and
probably went to Mass three times a week. Ferrar was still quite a
guy. If I was going to do a Dudley Doright, I'd do him. And I'd do
him right.

"That's all you're going to give me?" I
complained. "One measly scrap of information?"

"I'm watching you," he answered, pausing at
my front door to give me the once-over. He shook his head. "You
know too many of my men for me to trust you to behave," he
explained in an almost apologetic voice. "But that doesn't mean you
aren't telling me the truth. Just watch yourself and stay out of my
way. This needs to stop. None of us can afford for me to screw it
up."

He left me standing in the middle of my
living room, wondering what he would say if he knew I was posing as
a student in Brookhouse's class. I also wondered how long it would
take him to find out.

Luke wasn't in class the next afternoon and
I found that I missed the little squirt. I sat there, pretending to
take notes, studying Brookhouse as he moved from podium to window,
wondering if he had killed the woman who had been on her way to see
me. I imagined a brightness to his eyes not seen before. And I
wondered why the hell I had seen Lyman Carroll, well after
midnight, heading back to see Brookhouse again? Had he forgotten
something? Maybe he'd wanted to share the news of the murder—they
were both invested in Duke's reputation. What other reasons could
there be?

When class was over, Brookhouse asked me to
stay behind. I didn't like it. Maybe my immunity from his sleazy
advances was coming to an end.

But, no. He was all business. Hurried
business. This time his pressing engagement was a blond who
lingered in the doorway, shooting hopeful glances his way.

"There's been a change in the protocol of
the trial," he explained. "After much debate between myself, the
administrator of the former trial and the drug company, we're going
to ask you to interview subjects twice a week instead of just once.
You'll get paid for it, of course. But everyone involved feels a
need to monitor possible mood swings more closely."

The administrator of the first trial? That
would be Lyman Carroll. And it would explain why they had been
together the night before. "When did you decide this?" I asked.