Casey Daniels - Dead Man Talking

“Maybe there’s something he can tell us about-”

“Maybe.” I’d admit that much.

“You’re the only one who can do it,” he reminded me.

Not technically correct. I wasn’t the only one who could talk to Dale Morgan. I was, however, the only one who could report the conversation back to Jefferson Lamar.

“I’d really appreciate it.” I knew Lamar wasn’t comfortable asking for favors. Which explained the pained expression on his face. “If there was anyone else-”

“There isn’t.” He didn’t need me to remind him, but I did, anyway. “I know I’m the only one. It’s just-”

He swallowed his pride so hard, I saw his Adam’s apple bob. “Pepper, please. I owe her.”

Of course he was talking about Helen, the wife who’d never stopped believing in him, but he never had a chance to elaborate. That’s because Delmar and Reggie raced into the room and Jefferson Lamar disappeared in a poof.

“There you are!” Delmar was red in the face. “We got us a situation.”

I didn’t want to ask, but it was another case of I-didn’t-have-a-choice. “What kind of situation?”

Reggie was breathing hard. “We been running all over this place lookin’ for you. Absalom, he went outside. Jake is somewhere takin’ pictures…” He waved away the thought that Jake would be any help, anyway. “We need you and we need you now.”

He hadn’t mentioned Sammi, and my heart shot into my throat, then slammed down somewhere at the bottom of my just-about-empty stomach.

Delmar pulled in a breath. “Virgil walked in the front door about ten minutes ago. He and Sammi headed somewhere together, only we can’t find ’ em anywhere. And that Greer, she saw him, too. She’s looking all over, practically drooling about the possibility of catching another fight.”

“Shit.” It was the only appropriate response. I headed out of the kitchen with them. “Where have you looked?” I asked.

“Outside. Back in the sunroom and in the library.” Reggie rolled his eyes at the very thought that any house would include a room so grand. “She sure ain’t in the kitchen slicin’ him to little pieces ’cause you would have noticed that.”

I glanced to my right and the winding staircase that led up to the second floor. “Anybody look up there?”

They shook their heads, and I took the steps two at a time.

The second floor of the home was no less impressive than the first. There were doors open on either side of the wide hallway, and when I peeked inside, I saw what might have been referred to in those ritzy home design magazines not as bedrooms, but as boudoirs. Each door led into a private suite that included a dressing room, a bedroom, and a sort of sitting room, and each one was chocked full of white furniture dabbed with gold. There was no sign of Virgil and Sammi in any of them.

And no splatters of blood, either, which in the great scheme of things actually cheered me.

Until I heard sounds from down at the end of the hallway.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Thankful for such an all-purpose word, I raced in the direction of the room at the end of the hall. The door was closed, and here, the sounds were louder than ever. Grunts, groans, moans. Prepared for mayhem, I shoved open the door.

It would have opened all the way if it hadn’t caught on the Wonder Bread dress lying on the floor.

“Oh.” Embarrassed more by my own naïveté than by what I saw happening in the bed on the other side of the room, I stood rooted to the spot, grateful that Sammi and Virgil were so busy doing what they were doing, they didn’t notice me. Desperate to keep it that way, I back-stepped out of the room and clicked the door closed.

Delmar caught up with me. “They in there?”

“Oh, yeah.” I looked over his shoulder. “And Greer-”

“Not to worry.” Reggie came running up the hallway. “Absalom told her he saw Sammi go after Virgil in the garden, so we got time to get them off each other.”

“Or not.”

They looked at me in amazement. “Apparently Sammi and Virgil have a love-hate relationship,” I told them. “Right now, they’re in a love phase.”

Jefferson Lamar was right! He was right about me avoiding Dale Morgan. He was right about me doing it because walking into a prison was just too painful. He was right about my dad. Of course he was.

But there was no way I was going to admit it. Not to Lamar. Not to myself.

With that in mind (or more accurately, not in mind, since I refused to think about it), I spent the next few days after the Team One fundraiser trying to prove to myself that I didn’t need to talk to Dale Morgan to help me solve the case.

I went back to the park where I’d met Reno Bob and sat in my car and kept an eye on him, just waiting for him to do something suspicious. He never did.

I went back to Bad Dog’s Big Car Nation and hung around in the check-cashing place next door, as inconspicuous as I could be under the hot pink and orange umbrella I’d borrowed from Ella that rainy afternoon. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to see. Maybe nothing. Maybe I was just trying to pick up on vibes, or impressions, or whatever. But except for that weird mechanical dog in the car waving and waving and waving some more, I didn’t see anything unusual. Or anything helpful, for that matter.

I reexamined the crime scene photos and reread the suspect and witness interviews, and I realized that if I’d been paying more attention the other umpteen times I’d read through the file, I could have saved myself the pleasure of meeting Steve the Strip Man. There was a rust-colored mark on Steve’s interview transcript that showed there had once been a paperclip attached to it, and a free-floating, handwritten note in the file with said rusty paperclip still attached. Eliminated , it said. Incarcerated .

Just like Reno and Bad Dog at the time of Vera’s murder. But not at Central State.

Did it matter? Not if Vera was the intended victim all along, and Jefferson Lamar was just the patsy who got in the way.

With all these questions swirling in my head, and as long as I had the file out, I reread the newspaper articles about the murder. By now, I knew the details by heart. Maybe that’s why, for the first time, I bothered to look at the byline above the stories.

Mike Kowalski.

The same name appeared over and over, and it sounded familiar. Just to check, I grabbed the morning’s Plain Dealer and paged through it. Mike Kowalski was still around, all right. That day, there just happened to be an article about him at the top of the Metro section. Apparently, he was some kind of hotshot because he’d just won a national award for investigative reporting. I skimmed the article that appeared below the picture of Kowalski holding some fancy-looking plaque and looking uncomfortable about being in the spotlight. According to his editor, who was liberally quoted in the story, Kowalski had what no other reporter in town did: a line on some incredible (and very secret) sources, spot-on information, and the added bonus of using all that to just about singlehandedly put a local drug kingpin out of business. I was sure the cops would be thrilled to hear it.

Oh yeah, Kowalski was a journalistic superhero, all right, but I called him anyway, and I was all set to give him my song and dance about restoration and research. As it turned out, I didn’t have to. He was a fan of Cemetery Survivor . In fact, he said I was one hot chick and his favorite thing about the program.

Just how desperate was I?

I made a date to meet him for coffee anyway.

Thanks to that photo that ran with the story about him, I recognized Kowalski the moment I walked into a neighborhood bar called Sullivan’s, even though he wasn’t wearing tights and a cape like I expected.