Fatal Debt Page 2

  I was about to take off for the Sullivan place when a face appeared through the glass on our front door.

  Nick Travis.

  My heart did a little flip-flop.

  I recognized him because he’d been into the office on previous months to make his payment. He’d changed so much I’d never have recognized him from high school.

  Nick was taller now, bulkier as men got after their teenage years. In high school he’d been drop-dead gorgeous; now there was a blunted, more angular look to his face. Square jaw, strong chin, straight nose. Still good looking, but in a more rugged way.

  He had on gray trousers, a navy blue sport coat, and a tie that actually looked good together. I wondered if he had a woman dressing him.

  I was pretty sure Nick had recognized me from high school when he’d come into the office a few months ago and I’d waited on him at the counter. I’d seen that flash of recognition in his face, but he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he didn’t like being reminded of high school—or Katie Jo Miller.

  Or maybe he was just being a jerk.

  I unlocked the door and peered at him, pretending I didn’t know who he was.

  “We’re closed,” I told him.

  “You called me just now about my payment,” he said.

  I stared, still pretending.

  “Nick Travis,” he said.

  “Oh, right. You’re the one with the late payment,” I said.

  “I sent my payment,” he told me. “In plenty of time.”

  “It was never received, obviously,” I said. “You can make your payment, if you’d like. We’ll post it tomorrow. You’ll have that late charge by then.”

  He glared at me. “Fine.”

  I let him in and couldn’t help but take a long look as he headed toward the counter. My heart did a little pitter-pat. To compensate, I stepped to the power position behind the counter.

  “You might want to stop payment on that check you claim you sent,” I said.

  He pulled his checkbook from the pocket of his sport jacket and said, “That will cost me another twenty bucks on top of the late charge.”

  I gave him my too-bad-for-you shrug.

  “This is the fourth time this has happened in the last five months,” Nick said. He dashed off his check, then ripped it out of the book.

  I made him stand there and hold it out for a few seconds before I took it.

  My stomach felt a little queasy, but that was probably because I’d trashed his check this morning, though my I’m-feeling-guilty stomach roll was a little different from what I experienced at the moment.

  Or maybe it was Nick. I always felt a little nervous when he came into the office, but that was because he was in law enforcement. Policemen always made me feel as if they knew everything I’d done wrong, like they could somehow see inside me and know about the lipstick I shoplifted from Wal-mart when I was fourteen.

  “I need a receipt,” Nick said.

  Carmen was busy counting the day’s payments so I wrote out a receipt. When I looked up again I caught him eyeing the office, using his police detective X-ray vision to check out my trash can, no doubt.

  “Here,” I said, distracting him with the receipt.

  Nick tucked it inside his checkbook, then headed for the door. I followed. Once outside, he looked back and gave me a half grin.

  Nick had a grin other men would have paid serious bucks for. The kind of grin that made women melt into their shoes. For a second, I got lost in that grin. I started to melt.

  Katie Jo had reacted the same way. How many other women had, too?

  I locked the door, shut down my computer and left the office.

  * * *

  The neighborhood seemed oddly quiet when I pulled up in front of the Sullivan house. No one was outside. No kids played in the yards. No music blared from the nearby houses, no dogs barked. The sun was going down, the light fading.

  I got out of my car and climbed onto the porch. The front door stood open a few inches. I knocked and the door swung open a little more. A lamp burned in the living room and the television played softly; it sounded like a basketball game was on.

  “Mr. Sullivan? Hello?” I called.

  I figured I’d find him asleep in front of the TV so I stepped inside and leaned around the corner.

  No one was there. I walked farther into the room. Movement off to my right, down the hallway, caught my attention a fraction of a second before a man barreled into me. He hit me on the right shoulder and knocked me backwards. I stumbled over something and sat down hard on my butt, my feet flying into the air, my head thumping on the side of the recliner. Stunned, I sat there for a second or two, then scrambled to my feet more mad than hurt.

  “Hey!” I shouted. But I was talking to myself. The man was gone, the front door slammed shut.

  I straightened my clothes, restoring some sort of personal dignity. A minute passed before it occurred to me that I still hadn’t seen the Sullivans.

  “Mr. Sullivan?” I called.

  I crept down the hallway and peered into the first bedroom on the left.

  Mr. Sullivan lay on the floor. Dead.

  Chapter 2

  Everything I’d eaten that day bounced once and shot upward. I gulped it down and edged closer to Mr. Sullivan. He lay on his side facing me, a dark spot on the front of his shirt, a trickle of blood seeping onto the floor.

  I panicked. I knelt and shook his shoulder.

  “Mr. Sullivan!”

  He didn’t respond. Just lay there. Still, quiet, unmoving.

  Some things in life you just know. No one has to tell you, you don’t need any previous experience, you don’t have to read it on the Internet. You just know.

  And I knew Mr. Sullivan was dead.

  My legs gave out. I plopped onto the floor. My head got light.

  Different ideas skittered through my mind. Get help. Call 9-1-1. Probably a dozen things I should do.

  But I couldn’t seem to move. All I could do was sit there staring at Mr. Sullivan in his denim jeans, his corduroy slippers with the broken backs, and his flannel shirt with the big stain on the front.

  Sound intruded. A siren. A squawking radio. Voices. Running feet.

  Two uniformed policemen charged into the bedroom, guns drawn. They yelled at me. I couldn’t hear them with my heart pounding in my ears.

  While one of the officers kept his gun trained on me, the other holstered his weapon. He touched the arm of my blazer.

  All right, I didn’t know much about police investigations, but this hardly seemed the time to admire my jacket, even though it cost a small fortune.

  “Blood,” the officer said.

  That word oozed into the confusion in my mind.

  I looked down. Blood covered my fingers.

  “Get on your feet,” the officer with the gun said.

  It took a few more seconds but I finally realized what they were saying. They thought I’d had something to do with Mr. Sullivan’s death.

  My brain refused to process this information. My life flashed before me. My heart thundered in my chest. My stomach squeezed into a knot.

  And then Nick Travis walked into the room.

  He did a double-take when he saw me, then waved at the uniforms to put away their guns.

  Nick leaned down. “Are you hurt?”

  I heard him but couldn’t seem to make much sense out of his question.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked again, louder this time.

  I looked up at him, and asked, “Where’s Mrs. Sullivan?”

  We stayed like that for a second or two, him leaning down, me looking up, staring into each other’s eyes, with the horrible possibility of where Mrs. Sullivan might be arcing between us.

  Nick spoke to one of the uniforms who hurried out of the room, then knelt in front of me. He picked up my hand and looked at my bloody fingertips. I realized he thought the blood was mine. He looked closer, then evidently satisfied I wasn’t injured, released my arm.

  �
��Did you see who did this?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to Mr. Sullivan.

  “I just got here,” I said.

  I couldn’t seem to stop looking at Mr. Sullivan. Nick caught my chin and turned me to face him.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I squinted my eyes closed for a second. “Somebody ran into me when I came into the house.”

  “What did he look like?” Nick demanded.

  “I—I’m not sure,” I said.

  “Tall, short, white, Hispanic, old, young, male, female?”

  The urgency in Nick’s voice prodded me to think harder.

  “A man. Tall. White, I think,” I said. “I only caught a glimpse.”

  “What was he wearing?” Nick asked.

  “A hoodie,” I said. “Black, or maybe navy blue.”

  Nick repeated the description to the other uniform who hurried away, then turned back to me.

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” he asked.

  Right now I wasn’t sure I could pick my own mother out of a line-up.

  “I didn’t see his face, just the side of it, I think. I don’t know.” I looked at the blood on my fingers and felt lightheaded again.

  Nick caught me under my arms and pulled me up. He hustled me out of the room. I tried to cooperate but my feet seemed to be on backwards. At the doorway I turned back for a final look at Mr. Sullivan. Nick pulled me down the hallway before I could see him that last time.

  Nick took me to the kitchen sink. He stuck my hand under the faucet and doused it with dishwashing detergent. .

  “Breathe,” he said.

  He washed away the blood, dragged a dishtowel over my hand, then yanked off my blazer and tossed it on the table. The room spun and I leaned against him. He pulled me out the back door and dumped me on the top step of the cement porch.

  “Keep breathing,” he said and sat down beside me. He caught the back of my neck and pushed my head between my knees.

  “Stay here,” Nick said, and went back into the house.

  I kept breathing. Gradually my head cleared. Behind me, inside the house, I heard all sorts of commotion. More officials arriving, going about their duties. Probably a half dozen vehicles were out front by now, lights pulsing, drawing neighbors out of their homes to gawk, point, and speculate.

  All because a sweet old man, whose only goal in life was to keep a 42-inch Sony television for his wife, was dead.

  Sometimes life really sucked.

  When I take over the world, I’m definitely changing that.

  The sky got darker and the street lights came on. I didn’t want to be there, but leaving meant I’d have to go through the house and my stomach rolled at the prospect. All sorts of people were out front. My car was likely blocked in.

  It occurred to me that I’d been lucky that Nick had walked into Mr. Sullivan’s bedroom. A detective who didn’t know me might assume I’d been part of the murder, as the uniforms had.

  I didn’t like feeling grateful to Nick Travis for anything.

  I sat there long enough that the shock wore off and I got cold. My blazer was in the kitchen, but no way did I ever want to see that thing again.

  The back door opened and Nick sat down beside me. I couldn’t help but notice he gave off some serious heat. Not that I’d consider snuggling closer, just enough to make me anxious to leave.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  I wasn’t exactly glad to see him, yet it was comforting, something familiar in this foreign, horrifying setting.

  “Did you find Mrs. Sullivan?” I asked. If that sweet old lady were dead too, I didn’t know how I’d handle it.

  “No sign of her,” Nick said.

  Well, thank God for that much, I thought.

  “I’m leaving now,” I said.

  Nick frowned. “You’re coming with me.”

  No way was I going anywhere but home.

  Nick seemed to read my expression and said, “I need you to come to the station.”

  My fear spun up again, but for a different reason.

  “Am I under arrest?” I asked.

  “I’m not arresting you,” Nick said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  I shot to my feet. “I didn’t do anything.”

  Nick rose. “You need to give us a statement.”

  “Okay, look, here’s my statement,” I told him. “I got here, some jerk bowled me over, I found Mr. Sullivan, and that’s it.”

  Frown lines appeared between Nick’s brows. “Are you refusing to cooperate with law enforcement in a murder investigation?”

  “I’m supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty,” I told him.

  “Then coming down to the station shouldn’t be a problem for you—unless you have something to hide.” He switched on his cop X-ray vision and drilled me with it. “Are you hiding something?”

  I cringed. He was going to get me down to that police station and I was going to spill my guts over everything I’d done wrong in my entire life. The lipstick I’d shoplifted at Wal-mart. The N’Sync CD I’d conveniently forgotten to return to Lizzie Blake in junior high. The algebra test I’d cheated on. Everything. Every tawdry, underhanded, deceitful thing I’d done in my whole life—including throwing his payment in the trash four out of the last five months.

  I squared my shoulders and pushed my chin a little higher, and announced,” Of course, I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “Then, let’s go,” he said.

  When we got to the front of the house Nick put me into one of Santa Flores’s finest’s patrol cars and told me he’d have somebody bring my car down to the station.

  Nice, being escorted away from a crime scene and loaded into a police car.

  I knew he’d done this on purpose.

  * * *

  I’d been to the police station on Seventh Street a couple of times to pick up police reports for things relating to Mid-America’s customers, but never farther into the building than the front desk. I’d gotten the shakes just going that far. So sitting across a desk from Homicide Detective Nick Travis in a room full of other cops was a real joy.

  Even this late in the evening the telephones rang. Detectives moved around. Papers shuffled, conversations hummed.

  Nick rolled back the sleeves of his shirt. He’d taken off his sport coat. A gun rested in a shoulder holster under his left arm.

  “Want some coffee?” he asked.

  I didn’t intend to be here long, so no need to get comfortable.

  “How did you get to the Sullivan house so fast?” I asked.

  Nick rifled through his desk drawers. “Neighbors heard shots fired, called it in. We were in the area on another call.”

  He made it sound routine.

  “So that’s how Mr. Sullivan…died?” I asked.

  Nick stopped searching for whatever he’d been searching for and looked at me. His face softened, just a little.

  “Yeah,” he said. “He was shot. Two rounds in the chest. Point blank. He died instantly.”

  I don’t know about that died-instantly thing. Seems to me that unless you passed away in your sleep you’d have those last few seconds when you knew your number had been called—or in the case of Mr. Sullivan, somebody had called it for you.

  I didn’t want to think about death anymore. I wanted this over and done with.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked Nick.

  He seemed to sense my mood change because he went back to searching through the drawers and came up with a pen and a form of some sort, and started filling it out.

  “What were you doing out there?” he asked.

  “Mr. Sullivan told me to come,” I said. “He was behind on his account and I was going to pick up money from him.”

  Nick stopped writing. “You went out to that neighborhood by yourself, at that time of night?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  “That’s a dangerous area. You shouldn’t go out there.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I t
old him.

  Nick glared at me for a few seconds, then went on to his next question.

  “Was Sullivan giving you a large sum of money?” he asked.

  I guess he thought robbery might have been a motive for Mr. Sullivan’s shooting.

  “Around a hundred bucks,” I said. “Have you found Mrs. Sullivan yet?”

  “We’re trying to track her down,” he said.

  “Her sister lives a block over,” I said. “Leona Wiley. Mrs. Sullivan might be there.”

  Nick raised an eyebrow. “Are you a friend of the family?”

  “Leona has an account with us, too,” I said.

  Nick went back to asking questions. I told him everything I knew about the Sullivans, why I was at their house, what I remembered about the man who’d run into me in the living room, which wasn’t much.

  “He’s the one who shot Mr. Sullivan, wasn’t he?” I said. I was really creeped out, knowing I’d been that close to him.

  “He could have been a witness,” Nick said. “We won’t know anything until we find him and ask him some questions.”

  “Didn’t any of the neighbors see him leave?” I asked.

  “If they did, they’re not talking,” Nick said.

  I understood that. Devon was the kind of neighborhood where minding your own business and keeping your mouth shut could prolong your life considerably.

  “Your jacket was marked into evidence,” Nick said. “You’ll get it back eventually.”

  “Keep it,” I said. “Or give it to charity. I don’t care.”

  Nick looked over the form he’d filled out, then leveled his gaze at me. “Anything else you want to tell me?” he asked.

  I felt his brain-penetrating sensors boring into me. He was scanning my thoughts, searching for all the bad things I’d done in my life.

  My stomach did its I’m-guilty heave.

  Nick sat back and propped his foot up on the open bottom desk drawer. His good-cop pose, I guess.

  “Well?” he asked.

  I could feel my confession gurgling around in my stomach. I was going to tell him. I was going to admit to every bad deed I’d ever committed. I’m no good at keeping secrets. I’d have made a horrible spy.

  I gulped, trying to keep my stomach where it belonged.

  “Like what?” I asked, and managed to sound innocent.