R. Jagger - A Way With Murder

The handle was rusted in place.

River worked at it with a rock and a rusty metal bar for fifteen minutes before it got enough motion to open. The door hinges were tight but not enough to keep the door from opening.

The inside was empty.

Eight or ten drainage holes in the floor would allow enough air for breathing. There might be a better place somewhere in the universe to hold a person captive but River couldn’t imagine where.

From the graveyardhe headed to the target’s house on Clarkson, parking three blocks away and walking past it on foot, then down the dirt alley that ran behind it.

That’s where the cars got parked.

A few houses had small garages.

Some had overhangs.

Alexa Blank’s house had neither.

A dirt path was beaten through scraggly brown grass between the rear door and the alley.

This is how he’d enter, from the back, right up that path.

The house had two stories.

The bedroom would be upstairs.

He didn’t spend any time.

All he did was walk past, barely glancing at it. Two doors down he spotted an extension ladder on the ground near the house. Three houses farther down was a German Shepherd on a ten-foot rope.

It barked as River walked past.

Damn dogs.

The world didn’t need them.

Every one of them should be dead.

He’d take the woman tonight, sometime between one and two. That would give him plenty of time to get her to the graveyard in the thick of the night.

He’d be home before dawn.

He headed home,opened the padlock on the storage boxcar and stepped inside. From the inventory he assembled the goodies he needed-three lengths of chain, an ankle iron, handcuffs, rope, padlocks, a blindfold, two flashlights, and an assortment of miscellaneous items.

Everything went into an army backpack.

He relocked the boxcar with the backpack inside, then headed down to the grocery store. There he purchased enough non-perishable food to keep someone alive for a week-beans, tuna, spaghetti, cookies, crackers, bread, peanut butter, jelly, toilet paper, toothpaste, aspirin, soap, hairbrush, water, pop and the like.

Back home, all the grocery items went into the backpack.

Then he headed back to the graveyard, using the car this time. He parked on the shoulder two hundred yards down from the old abandoned road.

Wearing the backpack, he walked straight into the terrain until he was out of sight, then cut left until he intersected the dirt road.

The graveyard was just as he had left it.

He got everything situated, then sat down in the shade and went through tonight in his mind, playing out everything that could go wrong and outlining the best responses.

Day One

July 21, 1952

Monday Morning

Charley-Annawasn’t short in the looks department. She’d have a chance at any guy she took a run at, including a Robert Mitchum type, especially in that black dress. Wilde headed over to the El Ray Club to see if anyone knew who Mitchum was. The front door was locked and the place was dark but he headed around back just in case. A beer truck was parked behind the club and the back door was open. Inside, two men were in the basement stacking cases.

One had the barrel body and the tanned left arm of a truck driver.

The other was a scraggly guy.

A memory of sneaking down there one drunken Saturday night and screwing the socks off Mary Browning flashed briefly in Wilde’s brain. He let it play for a few moments then focused on the ratty looking guy.

“You work here?” Wilde asked.

Yes.

He did.

“I’m trying to find a guy who looks like Robert Mitchum,” he said. “He was here Friday night.”

“Don’t know him.”

“You never saw anyone like that?”

“I only work days.”

“Okay,” Wilde said. “Thanks.”

He was almost to the steps when a voice came from behind him. “There’s a night bartender who might know. Her name’s Michelle Day. She lives over on Delaware just past Colfax.”

“Thanks.”

“If you wake her up tell her Joey sent you,” he said.

“I take it you’re not too fond of her.”

“No, not really.” The man walked over and held his hand out. “That’ll be a dollar.”

Fair enough.

Wilde paid and headed upstairs for a phone book.

She was there-1732 Delaware.

He drove a 1947 MG/TCnamed Blondie, British Racing Green over tan leather, a two-seat roadster only made from 1946 to 1949. The English steering wheel was on the wrong side and the vehicle didn’t have bumpers or a heater or a radio or hardly any other amenities, but it did have a drop top and a Moss Magnacharger engine. It also tended to make the women spread their legs ever so slightly when they sat in the passenger seat.

He took the top down.

The sunshine spilled in.

The drive to Michelle Day’s house took hardly any time. He found a slot on the street for Blondie two doors down and headed back on foot.

The door was shut and the house was quiet.

If he knocked, he’d wake her.

That would be the second one today.

“One more reason I’m going to hell,” he told himself.

Then he knocked.

No one answered.

No sounds or vibrations came from inside.

He knocked again, harder.

No answer.

He turned the knob just for grins and found it unlocked. He opened the door far enough to get his voice through and said, “Anyone home?”

No answer.

Louder, “Michelle, are you here?”

No answer.

He stepped inside, leaving the door open.

The place was trashed.

It wasn’t the kind of trashed that came from sloppy housekeeping, it was the kind that came from someone tearing the place apart.

His pulse raced.

A quick search of the first floor turned up more disorder but no humans.

He headed upstairs two at a time.

Day One

July 21, 1952

Monday Afternoon

The Green Dragon Oriental Massageturned out to be in the heart of Chinatown on the Street of Painted Balconies, which was an alley between Stockton and Grant. Waverly opened a metal mesh screen door and stepped into a dim red room with lots of plants, a koi pond and soft abstract music. Herbs scented the air. An Asian woman entered from the back through a barrier of hanging beads.

She was striking, exotic, about thirty, with a tiny waist and long black hair styled with bangs that hung a little too far over her eyes. Her body was wrapped in a full length kimono. Her glance dropped to Waverly’s suitcase then back up.

She walked over, pecked a kiss onto Waverly’s lips and said, “You’re prettier than I expected.”

“You’re Su-Moon?”

“I’m Su-Moon, Su-Sun, whoever you want me to be. Tilt says he’s a big-shot owner of a paper now, is that true?”

“Mostly.”

“That’s because of me,” Su-Moon said. “I wished him good karma. It always comes true.”

“Why did you wish him good karma?”

“He was a good tipper,” Su-Moon said.

“Tilt?”

Su-Moon nodded.

“Shelby Tilt?”

Right.

Him.

“There must be two guys with the same name.”

Su-Moon laughedthen held Waverly’s hands and looked her up and down. “Later I’ll give you acupuncture-very, very sensual. There’s a deep part of you inside that you don’t know about yet. You’ll never be the same. I’ll bring it out for you. No charge.” She picked up Waverly’s suitcase and said, “Follow me.”

Through the beaded barrier was a long black hallway with doors painted cartoon colors. All were open except three. The moaning of a male voice came from behind one of the closed ones.