Dead In Red (5 page)

Sophie replaced the brochure. Her weary,
red-rimmed eyes widened when she picked up the paper fragment. “Now
this is more interesting.”

Intrigued, I leaned forward.

She closed her eyes, concentrating.
“Hmmm.”

“What is it? What do you see?”

Sophie opened her eyes and frowned at me.
“You aren’t usually this impatient.”

I backed off. “Sorry.”

She rubbed the scrap between her forefinger
and thumb, her head bobbing. “Yes. That’s it.”

“What?”

She reached over, grabbed my hand, pressing
the fragment into my palm with her thumb. A negative image burst
upon my mind; trees, a rural mailbox with the numbers 4537 glowing
upon it. Then the pressure was gone and I found myself sitting
there, open-mouthed, staring at Sophie’s self-satisfied
expression.

“Wow. How’d you do that?”

She flicked the paper from her thumb and it
drifted back into the box. “It’s a gift.” Her smile faded. “But
knowing it’s a house number doesn’t tell you where to find the
house.”

“It’s obvious. It’s in Holiday Valley.”

She picked up a macaroon and inspected it.
“Oh sure. If you know what street it’s on.”

I thought back to the image she’d shared
with me. The fact that it had been a negative made it harder to
discern details. A mailbox, glowing numbers. Maples and pines in
the background, but nothing else to help me identify the location.
And she had a point. “Can you tell me anything about this
place?”

“More about the paper the numbers were
written on.”

I was all ears.

“The man who wrote it is dead.” She
shuddered. “Died violently.”

I nodded.

Sophie concentrated. “He wasn’t well.”

I nodded again.

Her gaze strayed to the other box, then to
me. “This one frightens you.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘frightened.’ More—” Okay,
she was right. But it wasn’t the box; just the damn little pillow
inside it.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“Concerned.”

“Mmm.” She lifted the lid, peered inside and
frowned. “Oh. Yeah. Not nice.”

We could fence around it all night. “How
so?”

Her chin rose defiantly. “You tell me.”

“That would taint your perception. Come
on—give.”

Her brow again furrowed with concentration.
When she spoke, her voice was pensive—subdued. “Blood. Like a
slaughterhouse.”

Damn, I hadn’t wanted to hear that. “Yeah.
Walt Kaplan bled to death.”

She shook her head. “What we see is not his
blood.”

My heart sank. She’d used the present tense.
“I got that, too.”

“What will you do about it?”

“What can I do?”

“Try to stop it from happening.”

“Can I?”

She shrugged. “All you can do is try.”

“What about fate? If it’s supposed to
happen—”

“If I had my life to live over, I would
always try harder to do what was right. Always. It’s too easy to
turn away, to give up. I would be very disappointed in you if you
took the easy way out.”

Sophie had a knack for inducing guilt. I
found I couldn’t meet her gaze.

She tapped the other shoebox. I looked up to
see her frown, her brow furrowing. “What about this fancy
shoe?”

“I saw it, too,” I said, grateful for the
change of subject. “But I don’t know what it means.”

Sophie nibbled on her cookie, her expression
thoughtful. “Feet.”

“Huh?”

“The man who died had one of those feet
things.”

“Feet things?”

“You know—he was fascinated by toes.”

Understanding dawned. “A foot fetish?”

“Yes!” She popped the rest of the cookie in
her mouth, chewed, and swallowed, quite pleased with herself; then
her expression soured. “Why would anyone want to suck on another
person’s smelly toes?”

“Ya got me.”

Sophie shrugged, selected another macaroon
and winked. “These are better.”

# # #

CHAPTER 4

He was dead. Chest, clothes saturated with
blood. A lifeless body stretched out on the cold, stone floor. No
hope of revival. No hope at all.

Dead.

Forever gone.

Like everyone else I’d ever loved.

My father. I don’t even really remember him.
Not his face. Nothing.

My mother. The haggard-faced Madonna with a
whiskey glass clutched in one hand, pleading for release from this
life.

My wife—Shelley, her eyes glazed and vacant,
lips smiling after a line of blow.

And now . . .

The image of the dead dissolved, replaced by
a pair of masculine hands covered in blood. Palms away from me,
rivulets of blood dripping down the wrists, snagged by a forest of
dark forearm hairs—someone’s life blood gone, as though in a
slaughterhouse. Just like—

I jerked awake, sweating, muscles
quivering—my heart pounding like the rhythm of a rap tune.

I rolled over onto my stomach, hugged my
pillow. The scarlet numerals on my bedside clock read 4:09. I
closed my eyes and tried to get my ragged breathing under
control.

I didn’t need a shrink to tell me the
significance of the nightmare. It came to me a couple of times a
week, only now it had a new ending. But the dream lied. Unlike my
parents and ex-wife, Richard
hadn’t
died.

Another reality was that
Richard
could’ve
died because
of me. He’d been willing to sacrifice himself to save me, and I
wasn’t sure if I was worthy of that. Worse, if I’d find the courage
to do the same for him.

Those circuitous thoughts were unproductive.
I had a new problem: the vision of the bloodied hands. What did it
mean and how was I going to prevent seeing them in reality?

* * *

Warm, incandescent
light washed over the kitchen table where I’d scattered the
envelopes of financial information Richard had appropriated at
Walt’s apartment. The contents—heavy on receipts—indicated Walt had
fallen into the trap of credit card debt. He’d maxed out four major
cards, with finance charges far exceeding the monthly minimum,
which he dutifully paid. Top creditors were Erie Professional
Laundry, Sunoco Gas, a smattering of family restaurants, and
Macy’s. He also had a car loan with Bison Bank. His disability
payments were direct-deposited to a checking account regularly
drained by ATM withdrawals, and had an ending balance of
forty-seven cents for the previous month.

I sipped my second cup of coffee. Disability
payments would’ve saved me from my current deadbeat existence.
Richard had consulted an attorney about my filing a Social Security
claim, but taking a job at the bar had probably killed my chances
at ever seeing a check.

I pushed the thought aside as I shuffled
through Walt’s monthly credit card statements. Pay-per-view was a
favorite with Walt, and I could guess the content of the movies he
chose—not that they were listed. Was that the total extent of his
sex life? Had his disability prevented him from performing with
women, or was he shy about a scar or other infirmity? Revealing a
colostomy bag or stoma would not be the highlight of a sexual
encounter.

No shoe company was listed amongst his
creditors. Walt didn’t have a computer, so did he buy the footwear
over the phone or via mail order? I glanced over the miniature
checks printed at the bottom of his statement, but most of them
were either for his regular bills or the local grocery chain.

Richard hadn’t snagged a savings account
statement or anything from a brokerage firm. How long had it been
since Walt’s settlement? If he’d been a union man it could’ve been
hefty—minus the attorney’s fee, of course. Even so, where had the
money gone?

It was almost seven-thirty and I was about
to pour my third cup when I heard footsteps in the hallway. Seconds
later Brenda entered the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge.
“Someone’s got a date,” she teased in a singsong cadence. She took
out a pound of bacon and the egg carton, setting them on the
counter.

“News travels fast.” I doctored my cup and
sat back down at the table, collected the papers and returned them
to their Kraft envelopes.

Brenda retrieved a skillet from a cupboard,
set it on the stove and lay the bacon strips across its bottom. She
always made too much food, expecting me to tuck in when I just
didn’t have the appetite. When I moved across the driveway, it was
possible cold cereal or coffee alone would fill the bill of fare
twenty-four/seven.

I pulled out the coffeemaker’s basket,
dumping the grounds in the wastebasket before starting a new batch.
“You and Maggie tracking each other’s hourly movements these
days?”

“She is my best friend here in Buffalo.
Naturally she keeps me informed on what’s going on in her
life.”

A little too well informed.

Richard entered the kitchen from the
hallway. “So, you’re taking a trip to Holiday Valley tomorrow.”

Once upon a time nobody knew or cared
when I came and went or what I did. Next I expected a headline in
the
Buffalo News
.

Richard sat down at the table, his
expression wistful. “I had some good times skiing there, back in
the day.”

I remembered those days, too. Not for
skiing. I’d been stuck here in the house with the elder Alperts,
one of who despised me, while Richard would escape on his
all-too-rare days off from the hospital.

Brenda turned the bacon. “Get the bread and
the toaster out, will you, Jeffy.”

“So, you’re taking Maggie Brennan,” Richard
said.

I busied myself at the counter. “Uh, yeah.”
I glanced back at Richard, whose eyes had widened, though his face
remained immobile.

“What’s on tap for today? You working at the
bar or on your case?’

Brenda cringed. “Don’t call it a case.”

I took out plates from the cupboard. “She’s
right. But maybe a little of both.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What are you guys doing? Making more
wedding plans?”

“It’s two weeks away, and as far as I know
all I have to do is show up at City Hall in a suit.”

“You’d better be prepared for more than just
that,” Brenda said.

Richard ignored her. It wasn’t like they
were planning a splashy affair. Just the two of them with me and
Maggie as witnesses, then lunch at a swank restaurant before they
caught a plane for Paris.

“Got enough money for your date?” Richard
asked me.

My stomach tightened. “It’s not a date. And
yeah, I’ve got money.” Of course I did. He’d peeled off a couple of
twenties for me a few days before. I’d be taking the day trip with
his gas in the car he bought me. I didn’t feel good about any of
that, but being practically destitute engenders humility. I
intended to pay him back for everything now that I was working, but
as the days passed, and the debt I owed him increased, I found it
harder and harder to look him in the eye.

“I’m sure Richard would love to hang out
with you today, Jeffy, but we’ve already planned our day.” Hands on
hips, Brenda aimed her pointed stare at Richard. “Or are you trying
to get out of marrying me?”

Richard leaned back in his chair and
frowned. “Did I miss something?”

“We’re going to get the license.”

“We have plenty of time.”

Brenda stood rigid, her steely gaze arctic
cold.

“It’s good for sixty days,” Richard
continued, then cleared his throat and looked away. “Isn’t anybody
going to offer me a cup of coffee?”

Brenda shook her head in disgust and turned
her attention back to the skillet. I took two more mugs from the
cupboard, pouring coffee for both of them.

Truth was, I wished the four of
us
were
going to Holiday
Valley. Safety in numbers and all that crap. I had a feeling I was
going to learn something that Richard either wouldn’t want to know
or wasn’t likely to believe.

* * *

I had
an hour
to kill before reporting to the bar and figured I may as well work
on the apartment. It didn’t look or feel like home and the only way
that was going to change was to unpack some of my stuff; the
furniture would come later. None of the boxes had been labeled by
the moving company Richard had employed to move my possessions from
Manhattan to Buffalo, but I didn’t need an itemized list. There are
some perks to having acquired a sixth sense.

The kitchen seemed the best place to start,
and I found the boxes of silverware and dishes with no problem.
They’d sat in the garage for months, and who knew how clean the
hands were that had packed them, so into the dishwasher they
went.

As I sorted the knives, forks and
spoons, putting them into separate sections of the silverware rack,
I considered all I knew about Walt Kaplan and the circumstances of
his death. Not much. There were shortcuts I could take to obtain
more information, and the easiest was to contact my ex-schoolmate
Sam Nielsen, a reporter for the
Buffalo
News
. The problem was, he’d want to deal and I didn’t
yet have anything to offer him.

What the hell, I figured, and dumped in the
dishwashing powder, shutting the door with my foot. I hit the start
button then picked up the phone. It was answered on the first
ring.

“Newsroom. Sam Nielsen.”

“Hey, Sam, it’s Jeff Resnick.”

A long pause, then, cautiously, “Long time
no hear from. Got any hot tips for me?”

“Don’t play the slots at Batavia Downs.”

His tone changed. “Okay, what do you
need?”

“Have I ever called you for a favor?”

“No, but there’s always a first time and
this is it, right?”

The silence between us lengthened. I could
hear other phones ringing in the newsroom, the chatter of a busy
office.