R. Jagger - A Way With Murder

No I’m not. Leave me alone.

At some point later,which could have been ten seconds or ten hours, a hand shook his shoulder and brought him out of a deep sleep.

He frantically fumbled for consciousness.

“Someone’s in the house,” London said.

Wilde felt around for the gun in the dark but couldn’t find it.

Then he had it.

The steel was cold and heavy.

“Where?”

“Downstairs.”

Wilde focused with a pounding heart.

He heard nothing.

Suddenly a heavy silhouette bounded into the room. An arm raised and a knife stabbed down at London’s head. Wilde jerked the woman to the side with one hand and pulled the trigger with the other.

Day Two

July 22, 1952

Tuesday Night

The dark silhouetteof a man emerged from the shadows of Su-Moon’s building. He pulled a black hood over his head, hunched his shoulders against the storm and headed up the street at a brisk walk.

He was coming their way.

Waverly and Su-Moon wedged into the shadows.

Twenty seconds.

That’s how long they had, twenty seconds, then he’d be on them. He almost certainly had a gun, that or a knife, not to mention his fists. He hadn’t seen them yet but he would. He’d catch strange shapes in his peripheral vision.

He’d turn.

He’d focus.

He’d see two women.

He’d focus harder.

He’d recognize them.

“He found the photos,” Su-Moon whispered.

Waverly’s veins pounded.

It was too late to run.

It was too late to do anything.

She closed her eyes and held her breath. The storm was too loud to hear footsteps.

Any second, that’s when he’d be on them.

She pressed her back against the building and kept her body motionless.

A swift menacing figure emerged in her peripheral vision. She fought to not turn her head towards it but her muscles didn’t listen.

Her eyes focused.

Her face twisted.

A dark hood turned in her direction. Inside that hood, Waverly could see no face, only an empty blackness. Suddenly the man stopped. The hood turned directly towards her.

A beat passed.

Then a hand grabbed her neck.

Python-strong fingerswrapped around her throat, squeezing and lifting at the same time.

Her oxygen stopped.

Her lungs froze.

No air went out.

No air came in.

She let her legs fall out from under her and twisted her body wildly in an effort to break free.

It did no good.

The grip tightened even harder.

Suddenly glass shatteredand Su-Moon had the broken edge of a bottle pressed against the man’s face.

“Don’t move!”

The fingers around Waverly’s neck stayed in place but loosened.

“Let her go!”

The fingers loosed even more.

Waverly punched them off and choked out stale air, then sucked in oxygen, sweet sweet oxygen. The man’s face came into focus, at first no more than a shadowy blur, then more pronounced.

It wasn’t Bristol.

It was someone she’d never seen before.

His eyes drilled into hers.

They were predator eyes.

“Search him,” Su-Moon said. “Get the envelope.”

Waverly heard the words.

She understood them.

She didn’t move though.

She couldn’t.

“Damn it woman, do it!”

Day Two

July 22, 1952

Tuesday Night

Get to cover,get to cover, get to cover-that was the one thought and the only thought that River allowed his brain as he hit the dirt. There was no time to worry about losing the gun. There was no time to feel the gravel cuts in his face. He rolled, took a long leap and rolled again, waiting for an explosion of gunfire followed by a bullet tearing into his body.

No shots came.

No bullets landed.

The storm pummeled down but no one killed him.

He got to a boxcar, made his way underneath to the other side and ran to January.

She wasn’t there.

“January!”

No voice called back.

“January, where are you?”

She didn’t answer.

He searched, first frantically, then methodically.

She wasn’t where he left her.

She wasn’t at the parking lot.

She wasn’t at the boxcars.

She wasn’t anywhere.

He crumpled to his knees and put his face in his hands. The storm raged down, nipping at his skin with sharp little teeth.

He didn’t care.

January was gone.

She’d been taken.

He’d let it happen.

Day Three

July 23, 1952

Wednesday Morning

The B-17G Flying Fortresswas a bomber equipped with four Wright supercharged Radial engines and a distinctive roar that could be heard two countries away. For much of the war, Wilde sat in the rear turret of that firebird with his hands on the trigger of a 50-caliper machine gun. Most of the men he’d killed in his life got killed from there. Although they got taken from a distance, they weren’t necessarily impersonal.

Wilde would watch the flames and smoke and death spirals.

He would picture their terror.

He didn’t regret doing it, even today.

He didn’t enjoy it though.

Not then.

Not now.

Not tomorrow.

Since the war he’d taken two additional lives, both fully justified, both with his back against the wall in a him-or-them situation. The events of last night brought that number to three.

“Had it coming.”

Those were the exact words of Casey Ballard, the barrel-chested, yellow-cigar-teethed homicide detective who responded to the scene last night for all of fifteen minutes, just long enough to ask a few questions and get the body out of there.

The words were true.

The guy had it coming.

No question.

No doubt.

Still, Wilde’s heart wasn’t quite right, exactly like it wasn’t quite right when one of his 50-cal presents found their mark. It wasn’t quite right even though London was alive this morning because of him and only because of him.

He got to the office early,just as the sun crept into the sky. He took a shower, changed into fresh clothes and sucked down coffee and smoke. None of it cleared his head. He couldn’t get the dead man’s face out of his brain.

He needed to know the guy’s name.

So far, that was still a mystery.

The man carried no identification.

London didn’t recognize him.

Neither did the cop.

He was in his mid-thirties with a rough, no-nonsense face. That’s all Wilde knew about him; that and the fact that he died with a bullet in his neck.

Alabama showed upan hour later wearing a pre-caffeine face. She headed for the pot, filled up and took a noisy slurp. Then she looked at Wilde over the edge of the cup and said, “So, how’d it go last night?”

Wilde wrinkled his face.

“Not good.”

He filled her in.

She listened without interrupting then said, “The guy actually stabbed at her head with a knife?”

Wilde struck a match.

“Right.”

The smoke snaked towards the ceiling.

“Why?”

Wilde waved the flame out and tossed it in the ashtray.

“What do you mean, why?”

“He was after the map, right?”

“Right.”

“So how was he going to find it if he killed the only person who knew where it was? It doesn’t make sense. I could see him going there to interrogate her. I could even see him killing her after she told him where it was-but before that? No, no way.” A beat then, “Something funny’s going on.”