Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘Danny doesn’t live here.’

The kid with the hairnet looks at me.

‘Oh. Then you know where he lives. You can tell us.’

‘I think you ought to leave.’

‘Hey, man, no trouble, just tell us where he is.’

I know Danny well enough that these are not friends. If they are looking for him, it is because he is in trouble. It could be nothing more than an indignant look that Danny flashed their way, an offense to their macho dignity. With what is now standing at my front door, anything other than downcast eyes could earn you the kind of greeting that comes in a muzzle flash from the window of a moving car.

Headlights pull up out in front.

One of them turns to look. He tugs on his talking buddy by the shirtsleeve. The hairnet takes in the car.

Dana’s getting out at the curb. She sees the crowd at my front door, stands for a moment, and looks at them over the roof of her vehicle.

A woman alone. The hairnet gives me a smile.

‘Your woman maybe?’ he says.

I don’t respond. I sense an ugly scene about to start. Me in here, Dana out there.

When they turn and look again, she’s on the phone, the cellular receiver from her car. The cocky smiles suddenly evaporate.

One of the seconds is at the hairnet. ‘Hey, man, let’s go.’

The leader of the pack isn’t happy. He’s bouncing on his toes. ‘Okay for now, man. But we’ll be back,’ he says. ‘You got it?’ He’s pointing a finger in my face, an inch from the screen, like it will have to do until he can find something more lethal to aim in my direction. All the charm of the seven plagues.

‘See you around,’ he says.

‘It’s been a pleasure.’

‘Yeah. A pleasure, man.’ He spits in my roses.

I make a mental note to call Harry, to have him talk to Laurel. Perhaps she is right. Maybe Danny would be better off someplace else for a while.

They’re down the steps, through the front gate, and across the street to a low-slung wagon, a cherry-red Impala with a sound system to rouse the dead. Around the corner I can still hear the boom-boom of base with no treble as they drift away.

‘Friends of yours?’ Dana’s up the steps.

‘Not exactly.’

Before she clears the front door, a black-and-white cruises down the street. She turns in the light of my porch lamp and waves. Then she points in the direction of the boom box, and the cruiser picks up speed, nearly taking the turn on two wheels.

A screaming visit behind red-and-blue lights from those sworn to serve and protect may not cause these guys to widdle in their pants, but they will know they’ve been tagged.

‘I hope they’re not carrying any contraband in the car.’ The way Dana says this makes me think these kids will be talking with bright flashlights in their faces for a while. The professional courtesies of the law-enforcement fraternity.

‘You look awful,’ she says. She touches the side of my face with the softness of her gloved hand, gentle, feathering, like a local anesthetic to my skin.

‘Does it hurt much?’

‘Only when I laugh.’

‘Then we’d better talk about serious things,’ she says.

‘Cup of coffee?’ I ask.

She looks at her watch. ‘Why not? The night’s shot. I have a feeling this is going to take a while.’

Twenty minutes later, over the scent of a freshly brewed French roast, Dana is studying the contents of the note written by Kathy Merlow and the envelope it came in.

The little snapshot I have left in the inside coat pocket of my sport jacket — my trump card — for the moment I keep to myself.

‘It isn’t much to go on,’ she says after reading the note.

‘It’s a lead.’

‘Still, she could have had someone else mail it.’ Dana’s looking at the postmark. ‘I mean, if this woman Kathy Merlow really wants to stay lost, she might have a friend carry the note on vacation and mail it, then wait to collect the item from general delivery and bring it back. That’s what I would do.’

‘Good thing I’m not looking for you,’ I say.

She makes a face, smiles. ‘Just telling you what I’d do.’

‘Anything’s possible. But for the moment the note and that envelope are all I have.’

‘What makes you so sure Merlow knows something?’

‘Because of what I was told by Marcie Reed.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Kathy Merlow knows who killed Melanie.’

‘This Marcie told you this?’

‘She didn’t give me a name. But she did say that it was a hired killer. That Kathy Merlow would have to give me the rest.’

A gray cast comes over Dana’s face. ‘A hired killer? How would Kathy Merlow know that? I mean, I can understand if she saw the killer she might be able to identify him — ’

‘Maybe she didn’t see anything,’ I tell her. ‘Maybe she was told something.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she says.

‘Think about what we know,’ I tell her. ‘We know that Melanie was pregnant at the time of death, and according to Laurel, Jack is not a likely candidate for father.’

‘So Melanie was getting it on with someone else. One or more,’ she says.

‘I’m only concerned about one in particular,’ I say. ‘Someone who lived close to her. Who could slip in and out of the house with apparent ease. Who might know when Jack was out. Who might have been Melanie’s principal sideline squeeze. A friendly neighbor,’ I say.

‘Kathy Merlow’s husband,’ she says.

‘Enter George Merlow.’

‘But how would George know about a hired killer?’

‘What if Melanie was getting worried, concerned that Jack was on to her and George? I know Vega,’ I tell her. ‘He would not put up a good front. Planning something like this, under stress you could read Jack like a book. And Melanie may have had more than a hint. Maybe she stumbled across a note or a phone message that put her in a panic. Not enough to call the cops, but something to keep her up nights. Who is she going to tell? Who would she take into her confidence?’ I say.

‘George.’

I nod. ‘So George is keeping watch, the dutiful lover. And that night he gets an eyeful. He sees the murder. Too late to do anything about it, the thought enters his mind, if Jack was willing to do his wife, he’d be fairly itching to do her lover. George gets scared. He’s got to tell his wife something. He comes clean, tells Kathy, she’s either forgiving or suffers from low esteem, whatever,’ I say.

‘And like that, the two of them are gone,’ she says.

‘You got it.’

‘Why not stay and tell the cops what he knows?’

“’Cuz all he knows is that Melanie had suspicions before she was killed. What can he say? “I was screwing his wife and she suspected he was getting jealous”? While the cops were investigating, if there was a contract already out, George could end up in the crosshairs. Especially if word gets out that he saw the killer. The Merlows weren’t heavily invested in the community. Smart money says to run,’ I tell her.

‘So you need Merlow as a witness?’

‘That’s it. Without him all I have is a lot of circumstance. Attempts to shine some light on another suspect. If that collapses, it’s gonna be a cold hard hunt for mitigation.’

‘If it comes to that, I don’t envy you,’ she says.

Dana’s right. Laurel’s no sobbing spouse or molested child to claim she was battered, the defense of choice in modern America. My sister-in-law is just an ex, after the fact, allegedly out for revenge.

‘There is another possibility. A reason why they might have run,’ she says. ‘How do you know Kathy Merlow or her husband aren’t involved in Melanie’s murder?’

‘I wasn’t sure until today. Think about it. The courier delivers the package. At the same time somebody asks to talk to me at the loading dock. The tooth fairy? My guardian angel?’ I say.