R. Jagger - A Way With Murder

Tom.B.

Monday, 1:00

Euclid and 9 th

Tom B has to stand for Tom Bristol. Do you understand what I’m saying? He actually knew the woman. He was in town to meet her about something.”

“How did the PI find that out?”

“He has connections down at the police department,” Su-Moon said. “He called and asked if the name Bristol ever came up in the Bobbi Litton investigation. It didn’t specifically but they had this mysterious Tom B. note that never made any sense.”

Waverly wrinkled her brow.

“The blond with Bristol, Jaden, had an interesting theory,” she said. “She said someone might be setting Bristol up. If that’s true, maybe he planted the note in the woman’s purse. Jaden’s running it down this afternoon. I’m going to meet her at four.”

Su-Moon looked at the sky.

“I thought it was supposed to be sunny in Denver,” she said. “I can get this back in San Francisco.” A beat then, “If someone was going to set Bristol up, don’t you think they would have used his name instead of Tom B.?”

True.

Very true.

“I want to run it down anyway,” Waverly said.

“We already know the answer. Bristol’s the one.”

“I need to be a hundred percent certain,” Waverly said. “I don’t want any second thoughts creeping into my life after I do what I’m going to do.”

“Which is what?”

“Which is something serious.”

Waverly must have had a tone in her voice because Su-Moon backed off a half step and studied her.

“You’re going to kill him?”

“Let’s put it this way,” she said. “If he stays on the streets, someone else is just going to end up dead.”

Su-Moon shook her head.

“Let the police handle it.”

“With what evidence?”

“What do you mean, with what evidence? With all of it.”

“All of it is basically nothing,” Waverly said. “There isn’t enough at any one place.”

Day Four

July 24, 1952

Thursday Morning

River exercised outsidewith his shirt off, occasionally pulling in the industrial area with his peripheral vision to verify that the woman with the binoculars was still in place. January ought to be getting close. In hindsight River should never have let her go. She was armed but the other woman might be too.

He worked through the pain of one final set of seventy-five pushups, then wiped his brow with the back of his hand and headed inside.

Thunder rolled through his veins.

He pulled the roof in with the binoculars.

The woman wasn’t visible.

She was in her down position.

He kept the scene in sight, ready to dart to the side at the first sign of a head popping up.

“Whoever you are, you’re going down.”

Suddenly there was movement. Two figures were fighting, standing chest to chest and pounding each other in the face.

They dropped.

Seconds passed.

River ran outside and took the ladder to the top of the boxcar, hoping to get a line of sight over the parapet. It didn’t work. Whatever was happening was out of view.

Come on.

Come on.

Come on.

Then a partial silhouette of a figure appeared, not frantic, not fighting, but visibly shaking. Then the figure stood upright and turned around.

It was January.

She looked directly at the boxcars and waved her arms.

That was it.

That was the signal.

River dropped the binoculars and ran that way, cutting across abandoned tracks and knee-high weeds, trying to not step on anything that would jack-up his foot.

When he gotto the building, January was waiting for him at street level. Her face was a mess, her hair was disheveled, her shirt was ripped, her arm was scraped.

“Where’s the woman?”

“She’s up on the roof,” January said. “She’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yeah, dead. We ended up in a fight. It was her fault. She’s the one who started it.” A beat then, “So what do we do now, just leave her there or dump her somewhere?”

River weighed it both ways.

“We’ll dump her. Go get the car, I’ll bring her down.”

Up on the roof,River recognized the body. It was that woman who worked with Bryson Wilde. He picked her up, flung her over his shoulder and carried her down to street level. January was already there, waiting for him with the car.

River looked around.

No one was in sight.

He dumped the body in the trunk and slammed the lid.

Then they got the hell out of there.

Day Four

July 24, 1952

Thursday Morning

Wilde couldn’t think.The sound of Secret hanging up was a noise in his head he couldn’t quiet. Whatever relationship they had was either over or dangerously close to it. He didn’t want it to be, but if it was, he wanted to at least know for sure one way or the other.

“I have to make a run,” he told London.

“To where?”

“To see a woman.”

“With everything that’s going on?”

“Yes.” He grabbed his hat and tilted it over his left eye. “Come with me. You can wait in the car. You’ll be safer there than here.”

“Okay.”

Ten minutes later he rapped on Secret’s hotel door, expecting the usual, namely no answer. This time was different. This time the door opened.

“I thought we had something,” Wilde said.

She turned.

“Come in.”

He followed, shutting the door.

“I know you’re a model,” he said. “I know you’re big time.”

“Look, Bryson-”

“Tell me what’s going on,” he said. “Tell me if I fell in love with the wrong woman.”

“You didn’t fall in love with anyone, Bryson.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

He waited.

She studied his eyes.

Her face softened.

“I’m not who you think I am,” she said.

“I already know that.”

“No, I’m not talking about my name, I’m talking about inside, in my heart.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t get it-”

“What I mean is that I did something,” she said. “Something that was wrong.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “I do something wrong every day.”

“I don’t mean like that,” she said. “I mean something serious.”

He frowned.

“Tell me.”

She walked to the window and looked out, keeping her face away.

“It was in August of 1950, about two years ago,” she said. “It happened in Chicago. I was there on a photo shoot. My manager was with me. His name is Sam Lenay. He was in trouble. I did something to help him. At the time I did it, I didn’t realize exactly what I was doing.”

“Did what?”

“I played a role,” she said.

Wilde lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and blew smoke.

“You’re confusing the hell out of me,” he said. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“I seduced someone,” she said. “I did it for Sam, to get him out of trouble.”

“I don’t care who you slept with.”

“It’s not about sleeping with someone, Wilde. It’s about doing something that makes them end up dead.”

Wilde stopped a puff halfway through.

He pulled the cigarette from his lips.

“What are you saying? Are you saying that you killed someone?”

She exhaled.

“Yes,” she said. “More than one.”

The piecesdidn’t fit.

He didn’t care.

He wasn’t interested in the pieces any more.

He turned her around, took her in his arms and pulled her tight.

“I don’t know who you are and I don’t care what you did,” he said. “I do know one thing though. I know that I don’t want to lose you before I even really have you.”