R. Jagger - A Way With Murder

“Alabama!”

Silence.

He leaned over the parapet and checked the ground to see if she’d fallen off.

She wasn’t down there.

He checked everywhere.

She wasn’t there, not on the roof, not inside the building, not even in the area around it.

Wilde went back to the roof and pulled in River’s place with the binoculars.

It was empty.

The doors were shut.

His car was gone.

Day Four

July 24, 1952

Thursday Afternoon

Bristol’s little blond squeezeJaden didn’t show up for the four o’clock meeting in the alley. Waverly paced and checked her watch every five seconds. Where was the woman? Was she just late or not coming at all? Ten after the hour came and went. At a quarter after, Waverly left.

On her way out, she encountered Jaden coming from the opposite direction.

They headed to the back of the building.

“Sorry I’m late,” Jaden said. “I zigzagged around. I wanted to be absolutely sure no one was following me.”

Her words were laced with stress.

“What’s wrong?”

“Bristol’s the killer,” she said. “There’s no question in my mind.”

“Did he confess it?”

“No,” Jaden said. “But when I started to bring up Cleveland, he said he’d never been there. It wasn’t so much what he said but the way he said it. The more I talked about it, the more agitated he got.”

“So he was hiding it.”

“More than hiding it, trying to deflect it,” Jaden said. “I might have pressed it too far. By the time I was done, I had the feeling that he knew that I knew something. He knew that I was probing him. When he looked at me it was like an alligator looking at a frog.”

“It’s time to run.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” Jaden said. “I’m doing it right now, as we speak. I’m never going back.”

Waverly exhaled.

“Good.”

“I’m going to take a cab to the airport and just fly somewhere.”

“Where?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know. Not San Francisco, that’s for sure.”

“That’s a good plan.”

They walked outof the alley, hugged goodbye at 16 thStreet and headed in opposite directions.

This was good.

If nothing else positive came of everything that had taken place, at least Jaden wouldn’t be the next statistic.

Suddenly someone tapped Waverly on the shoulder.

It was Jaden.

“You’re still going after him, aren’t you?”

Waverly nodded.

“Yes.”

“I should help.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“Yes, I should. Don’t get me wrong, I’m scared, but I owe you something for saving my life.”

Waverly retreated in thought.

“I need a way to trap him,” she said. “Do you have any bright ideas?”

Day Four

July 24, 1952

Thursday Afternoon

Wilde wouldn’t be easyto kill. River knew that and knew it well. What he needed was a plan where Wilde would never see it coming, never have a chance to react, and in fact wouldn’t even know it happened. He’d be alive one second and dead the next.

Something that fast meant a bullet to the brain.

It also meant River couldn’t miss.

He’d have to be close.

As he drove back to Denver with January at his side, the mountain topography was every bit as spectacular as he remembered. He really needed to get up here more.

January put her hand on his knee.

“You’re thinking about something,” she said.

He was.

He was indeed.

“I have to do something tonight,” he said.

“What?”

“Something that you’re not going to be involved in.”

“What if I want to be?”

He shook his head.

“Sorry, not this time.”

“That’s not fair.”

He tossed his hair and looked at her sideways, then gave her a peck on the lips. “Tomorrow, we’re leaving Denver.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I have some money stashed away. It’s more than enough to give us time to think.”

“Think about what?”

“About getting normal,” he said.

She laughed.

“Normal is boring.”

“I’m not talking about totally normal,” he said. “Just enough that we don’t have to keep looking over our shoulder all the time.”

The Rocky Mountainscenery rolled by, seriously riveting. When they got to the outskirts of Denver, River didn’t go home. Instead he turned south on Santa Fe.

“Where we going?”

“A graveyard.”

“Are you serious?”

Yes.

He was.

“Why, who’s there?”

“No one, yet.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means it won’t officially be a graveyard until tonight,” he said.

She ran her fingers through his hair.

“You couldn’t get normal if your life depended on it.”

He smiled.

“You’re probably right.”

“There ain’t no p robably about it.”

Day Four

July 24, 1952

Thursday Afternoon

From the warehouse,Wilde checked the BNSF office to see if Alabama had shown up there, which she hadn’t. When he got back to the office, she wasn’t there either. He paced next to the windows with a cigarette for all of one minute before the door opened.

London stepped in.

Her face was beautiful but serious.

She put a piece of paper on his desk.

“That’s the original map,” she said.

Wilde picked it up.

Compared to the two he’d seen previously this one really did look authentic. It had dirt smudges on it, reddish in color, not indigenous to Colorado.

“How’d you get it away from Bluetone?”

The woman lowered her eyes.

“I’m going to tell you something and you’re going to hate me,” she said. “I had it all along.”

The words slowly sunk in.

“Are you telling me you had this last night when we were busy giving the guy a fake?”

Her eyes met his briefly then darted away.

“Yes.”

Wilde pounded his fist on the desk.

“That little trick may have cost Alexa Blank her life.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why it’s here now.”

Wilde looked at her in disbelief.

“Is this really the original?”

“Yes,” she said. “No more tricks.”

Wilde studied it again.

“It’s time for you to leave,” he said.

“Wilde-”

“I’ll handle it from here.”

“But-”

“Go! Do it now before I say something I’d rather not.”

She gave him a short look, then walked out the door and closed it gently behind her. Wilde set a pack of matches on fire and lit a cigarette from the flames. From the window he watched London disappear down the street.

Day Four

July 24, 1952

Thursday Afternoon

Jaden couldn’t thinkof a way to trap Bristol but did come up with an alternate thought. “What if he admits the murder?”

“You mean to you?”

“Yeah, say that, for starters.”

“That’s no good,” Waverly said. “That’s not evidence. Even if you told the police about it, they’d just assume there was some kind of lovers’ quarrel at work. And even if they did believe it enough to sniff around a little bit, they wouldn’t find enough corroborating evidence in the end. Meanwhile, while they were looking, Bristol would know about it. He’d disappear or lay a bribe or something.”

Jaden didn’t disagree.

“You said if we couldn’t trap him, you’d kill him if you could be certain he was the killer,” Jaden said. “Did you mean that?”