R. Jagger - A Way With Murder

“We’re going to your new home, until we can figure this out.”

“What is it, a house?”

“No, it’s something you’re not going to like.” A beat then, “If you want to live you’re going to need to be strong. I’ll help you all I can but most of it’s going to depend on you.”

Day Two

July 22, 1952

Tuesday Afternoon

Alabama had big newswhen she returned from the library. “You’re like a monkey pecking at a typewriter,” she said. “Sooner or later you were bound to spell a word.”

Wilde smiled.

“So what word did I spell?”

“Connection.”

“Connection?”

Right.

Connection.

Wilde scratched his head. “I’m glad I did it pecking then because I’m not sure I could do it on purpose.”

She handed him a printout of a newspaper article.

“Read it and weep,” she said.

It was a short article dated August 14, 1949, about a 30-year-old woman named Brittany Pratt who was found at the bottom of a six-story office building in lower Manhattan yesterday morning. Police were investigating to try to determine the cause of the fall.

“This happened three years ago,” he said.

“Right.”

“That’s a cold trail,” he said. “There’s nothing in here about whether she was wearing a dress or not.”

“She was,” Alabama said. “It was red, too.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell.”

“How?”

“The same way I can tell that you want to see me naked,” she said. “Instinct.”

Wilde smiled.

“I’ve already seen you naked,” he said. “Besides, that’s a totally different analogy. The reporter’s name is Michael Hyatt. Call the paper and see if he’s still there. If he is, find out if he knows anything that isn’t in the article. Maybe he did a follow-up investigation or kept in touch with the police.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Good.”

“I’m talking about seeing me naked,” she said.

“I thought you were saving that for Robert Mitchum.”

“I’m saving that for you,” she said. “Mitchum’s just a fill-in until you come to your senses.”

“Call the reporter.”

“Now?”

He handed her the phone.

“Yes, now.”

“What are you going to do while I’m doing that?”

He lit a cigarette.

“Smoke.”

Sometimes the universeworks the way it should. Not only was the reporter still with the paper but he actually had something to say.

“It’s so funny that you ask whether she was wearing a dress,” he said. “She was. A red one.”

“Short or long?”

“Short,” he said. “It was up around her waist.”

“Was she wearing panties?”

Yes.

She was.

“White.”

“How do you know?”

“I was the person who found her.”

“You’re messing with me.”

“I’m not. I was out walking and there she was,” he said. “I’ll never forget it, not as long as I live. At first I thought she’d just passed out or something. There wasn’t as much blood as you’d think. Then when I got closer I could see the blood under her head and matted in her hair. The back of her skull was crushed like an eggshell.”

He talked to the woman’s neighbors and friends afterwards.

“Not a one of them thought it was suicide,” he said. “It was either an accident or murder. My money was and still is on murder. The funny thing is, though, she was squeaky clean in every way. No one had a motive to kill her, not even a tiny little one. Believe me, I checked. Being the one who found her, the whole thing became pretty personal for me.”

“Was she pretty?”

“Very,” he said. “Here’s the bad part about it. She had a five-year-old daughter. She was a single mom. The kid-her name’s Mandy-ended up in the orphanage right down the street from where her mom was killed. She’s still there. I go by every day and take her a candy bar.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“The truth is that I do it as much for me as for her,” he said. “What’s your interest in her?”

Alabama explained.

They might have a related case.

“I’ll help any way I can,” he said. “I’d give my right nut to catch the guy especially now that I know he did it again.”

“Thanks for the visual.”

He chuckled.

“I have more if you need ’em.”

“No, that one will be enough.”

She almost hung up.

“Hey, you still there?”

He was.

“Where was she, the night she got dropped?”

“She went out to a bar.”

“Alone?”

“As far as I know.”

“What bar?”

A beat.

“I’d have to pull my notes and get back to you,” he said. “I’m drawing a blank. Give me your number.”

She did.

They hung up.

To Wilde,“Next time I tell you I know something because of my intuition, I want to see a little respect from your end.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“That’s better.”

“I’ll give you even more respect if you can reach into your bag of intuition and pull the guy’s name out.”

She ran a finger down his chest.

“For that I’d need my crystal ball. Unfortunately, it’s in the shop right now.”

“In that case why don’t you do this? Find out if your little lover-boy friend Robert Mitchum was in New York when the woman got dropped.”

She frowned.

“He’s not the one.”

“In that case, indulge me.”

Day Two

July 22, 1952

Tuesday Afternoon

Waverly had never seenmurder in someone’s eyes but recognized it as crystal as crystal can be in that last, long, hateful look from Bristol. He would kill her. Nothing else mattered other than killing her and feeding the rage in his brain.

He was a snake.

She was a mouse.

The sun was bright but the railing on the back of the trolley was cold.

The wind blew straight into her bones.

The city looked the same as always but was different.

It was cold.

It was foreign.

It was as if it could care less if she was alive or dead.

Suddenly a hand grabbed her arm.

“Lady, you’re too close to the edge.”

She looked over.

It was a young Asian kid in a baseball cap, about ten or eleven.

“You’re going to fall off.”

He directed her into the guts of the trolley. The wind disappeared except for what came through the windows-just enough to sweep her hair.

She looked at him.

His eyes were kind.

They were the opposite of Bristol’s.

The city softened.

Her bones warmed.

“Thanks,” she said.

She made her wayto the Green Dragon Oriental Massage to find that Su-Moon hadn’t returned yet, so she waited in the woman’s apartment and kept one eye on the street from behind closed blinds. Something happened she didn’t expect, namely Sean Waterfield came into sight.

He disappeared into the massage parlor for a time, then reemerged and leaned against a building on the sunny side of the street.

Waverly paced for a few minutes then headed down.

The man’s face was serious.

“Bristol calmed down. I’m not fired but we need to get those photos back to him,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because they’re his,” Waterfield said.

“They prove he knew Kava. Not just knew her, but knew her intimately.”

Waterfield hardened his face.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” he said. “I have my job back but only if I return with that envelope.”

He let the words hang.

Waverly retreated in thought, deciding.