Stephanie Feagan - Run For The Money

Two blocks later, I had to admit defeat. Olga had vanished. Probably just as well, I decided, if the woman was out to kill me. Nobody but a fool chases death.

I kept walking until I came to a major thoroughfare, where I hailed a cab and gave him Taylor’s address. I knew she lived in a condo complex a block over from my loft, because I’d seen her leaving a couple of times when I passed the building on my way to work. When we arrived I realized I had no money, which naturally annoyed the cabbie to no end.

“Look,” I said, trying to mollify him, “if you’ll just wait here, I’ll be right back with some money.”

“Do I look stupid, lady?”

Taking in his hairy face and hard eyes, I shook my head. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

“Hurry up about it, will ya? The meter’s gonna keep running.”

In the lobby, I signed the guest book, but when I explained that I had no purse and no ID, the security guard waved me on, barely looking at me as he read a magazine.

At Taylor’s door, I sucked in a breath of courage, raised my fist and knocked.

“Come in!”

I reached for the knob, opened the door and was instantly hit with a sense of seriously bad karma. I’m not psychic or anything like that. I just get this bizarre feeling of impending doom sometimes, and it never fails to pan out.

Inside, it was gloomy, with only one lamp lit in the far corner of the living area. The wooden blinds were closed, blocking any light from the city outside. “Taylor? Where are you?” It felt strange walking into someone’s home without that person there to greet me. Strange, hell. My hair was standing on end.

She didn’t answer, so I went toward the only other light, streaming through the doorway to the kitchen.

I found Taylor. On the kitchen floor. With a telephone cord around her neck. Her wide green eyes stared up at me without blinking. Maybe I wasn’t a fan of Taylor’s, but Jesus, I didn’t want her to die. I felt sick to my stomach seeing her there, so twisted and dead, a look of startled fear frozen on her face.

It hit me then. If Taylor was dead, who had called out for me to come in? The voice had been muffled and indistinguishable.

I turned quickly, just in time to see the front door closing. I booked to the door, jerked it open and saw the sleeve of a dove gray jacket just before the fire-exit door slammed shut. I nearly fell several times rushing down the concrete steps in my heels, but I didn’t want to stop long enough to take them off. Maybe I should have. By the time I reached the ground floor, the outside exit door was closed. I ran outside, into the alley, but it was pitch dark and I knew it was way past stupid to continue any farther.

Unfortunately, the damned exit door locked behind me and I couldn’t get back in. I had no choice but to walk down the alley, in the dark, and hope I made it to the street alive.

For approximately one nanosecond, I considered jumping in the still-waiting cab and gettin’ the hell outta Dodge. But I knew it would bite me in the ass later. I’d signed in at the front desk. I’d probably left something in Taylor’s apartment, like a hair, or carpet fibers from Steve’s house. Hey, I watch CSI. I know about those things.

There also was that pesky problem with the Kansas bank account, and all those people who saw the catfight between Taylor and me that afternoon.

Running from the problem would not make it go away. It would only make me look more guilty. Deciding to face it head-on and be completely honest, I made my way around to the street side of Taylor’s building, winded and pissed off because I hadn’t caught Olga. At the security guard’s desk, breathing heavily, I said, “You need to call the police. I went up to see Taylor Bunch and she’s dead. Whoever killed her ran out the fire exit in back.”

Naturally, Mr. Macho didn’t believe me. He had to go up and see her dead body for himself. As soon as the elevator door closed, I looked at his guest book to see who’d signed in within the past three hours. There were only two names. Mine, and somebody named J. Smith. Yeah, right. No doubt it was “J. Smith” I’d just chased down the stairs. I used the security guard’s phone and called the cops.

They arrived quickly and we all went upstairs to Taylor’s apartment, where we found the security guard wandering around, looking in closets and under the bed. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten it when I said the killer ran out the fire exit.

The two uniformed officers told him to go downstairs, said that they would question him later, then asked me to have a seat in the kitchen, which seemed odd to me since Taylor was there. It unnerved me, her body lying so close, her eyes staring up at me.

“Tell me what happened,” the taller of the two said as he took the chair opposite mine and the shorter one went off somewhere else in the apartment.

I’d already given some thought to what I would say, and it seemed to me that being honest was the best way to go. Start lying and I was bound to trip myself up. As briefly as possible, I told him.

He wrote it all down, then had me read it over and sign it. Several minutes later, a middle-aged, ordinary-looking man in a dull brown suit came in and walked around Taylor’s body, checking her out before he sat across from me.

“I’m Detective Schumski. I know you’ve already given your statement, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

He stared at me as I spoke, without asking any questions. When I was done, he got up and left the room, then came back and said, “Did you leave a cab driver downstairs without paying him?”

“I told you, I was chasing Olga and didn’t take the time to get my purse before I left.” I glanced at the entry to the kitchen. “Is he still there?”

“I paid him. You owe the city thirty-two bucks.”

“Thank you.”

He gave me another hard stare. “I’m taking you in, Miss Pearl. There are way too many questions I need answered, and there’s a dead foreign dignitary across town. Until I have a better handle on what went on tonight, you’ll be a guest of the city.”

So I went downstairs and rode to the police station in the back of a squad car. Once there, I sat around and waited aeons before Schumski and another detective came in and asked a thousand more questions. Not only did they have the deposit and check copies from the office, the ones I’d handed over to Taylor and she’d conveniently taken home, but they also had the contents of Taylor’s surprise package—multiple Valikov Interiors invoices made out to me, covering three hundred thousand dollars’worth of Chinese antiques and furniture. For ten thousand bucks, an antique fish pot with a wooden stand, and three pairs of Chinese wedding shoes, the tiny kind women wore when their feet were bound. A real bargain at twenty-two thousand dollars was a jade horse from the Yuan Dynasty. All of the invoices were for similar items, equally pricey.

I said to Schumski, “Why would a person embezzle money, then spend all of it on this kind of stuff? It seems to me a person would buy things like cars, or go on a trip, or maybe blow it on some expensive jewelry.”

He glanced at his partner. “You tell me, Ms. Pearl. Maybe you have a thing for Chinese antiques.”

“Detective, I am not behind this, and I didn’t murder Taylor. I’m being honest and forthright because I want you to find the woman who did do it. Besides, if I bought all of this stuff, where is it?”

“My guess would be that it’s in your home, either here or in Midland. That’s why we’re getting a search warrant for both places. We’re also going to get the signature card from that bank in Kansas, and I’ll bet it’s a spot-on match with yours.”

He was wrong about that. The signature card had to be my ace in the hole. I would have to remember signing a signature card. I’d hire the best handwriting expert in the country to prove it. I was not going to prison. Period.