Asking For Trouble (6 page)

Gill did as she was told. She bundled up her stuff under her arm and got the hell away from the security area, passing the unfortunate people receiving unwanted pat downs. She was still so nervous that she didn’t bother to slip on her sandals until she reached the concourse at the top of the short flight of stairs.

After that, everything went smoothly. The Southwest flight left and arrived on time. The Phoenix weather was glorious—the perfect balance of dry heat offset by a cooling breeze. There was no line for her rental car, and she even received a free upgrade. Her mood brightened to match the Arizona day.

She followed the MapQuest directions Janet had printed out for her. When she found the address, she was surprised to note that Janet’s friend didn’t live in the best of neighborhoods. Gill wondered if she’d had to move to cover the medical bills.

She pulled into the apartment complex and parked. A couple of preteens tracked Gill’s progress across the courtyard with malicious stares. She quickened her pace to the first-floor apartment and knocked on the door. A healthy looking woman with lustrous auburn hair answered the door. She didn’t show a hint of the ravaging effects of chemotherapy.

“Melinda?” Gill asked.

Melinda smiled and stood back. Gill walked inside the starkly furnished apartment, confused.

“Can I get you a drink?” Melinda asked.

“No. I’m good.” Gill wondered why Melinda looked so good. She expected the woman to be crippled by her disease. Maybe she was close to recovery.

“Do you mind if I get one?” Melinda didn’t wait for an answer and opened the fridge door. Her head buried in the fridge she asked, “Do you have the stuff?”

“Yes.” Gill had removed the bag from its hiding place in the airport bathroom and reached inside her purse and pulled it out. She held it out to Melinda.

Melinda let the fridge door close and held out her gun and her badge.

***

As it turned out, “Melinda” was actually an undercover cop named Faye Kirkland. There was no Melinda. The address belonged to a known felon and Detective Kirkland was there based an anonymous tip. Janet denied all knowledge of Gill’s claims during the trial, and Gill was completely flummoxed as to what had happened and why. The third month of Gill’s sentence, a postcard arrived at the prison. It wasn’t signed. It read, “Todd’s with me now.”

F
abian’s words echoed in Jude’s head. “Ms. Hennessy, I’ve found him...the man who fits the description.”

She’d waited such a long time for this news. Now that it had come, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. Potentially coming face-to-face with her sister’s killer seemed like a cruel taunt. She removed Fabian’s business card from her pocket and checked the address against the one on the office building in front of her.

The Argus building looked squashed by its neighbors. It couldn’t have been any wider than forty feet and looked to be an afterthought compared to the GAP store that ate up most of the block and the Metropol Hotel that made its presence felt with its art deco construction and abundant marble. The Argus held its own, though. It wasn’t as tall, showy, or palatial, but it didn’t have to be. The building was understated, in keeping with Fabian’s business. She pushed on the revolving door and let herself in.

The cramped foyer was crammed with a pair of sofas on either side of a coffee table and a uniformed doorman sitting at an uncluttered reception area. She approached the doorman and asked for Fabian.

He called up to Fabian before escorting her to the elevator. Unlike most elevators, this one required the doorman to swipe a card key before pressing the button for the fifth floor.

Discreet and secure
, Jude thought. Fabian took no chances. She wondered what the other businesses in this building did to eke out a living. All too quickly, the elevator reached its destination. She said a brief prayer before the door opened.

The doors glided back and a slight man, no more than five two, stood waiting for her. He looked well into his fifties, but he somehow retained a boyish quality.

“Jude Hennessey?”

“Mr. Fabian?”

He put out a hand. “Yes, nice to meet you.”

Fabian escorted her from the elevator. He had the whole fifth floor to himself, but considering the small square footage, it wasn’t an extravagance. Fabian kept the decor tasteful
and attractive. Generic art hung from the walls, and the furniture was a couple of notches up from Ikea. He showed her to a conference table in the middle of the room.

“Coffee? Tea?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Then we’ll proceed.”

Fabian slid a folder over an inch thick in front of him. He opened it and positioned it so as to keep the contents out of Jude’s sight.

“To start, could you tell me a bit about your sister?” he said.

“You know about my sister.”

“Not really. I know about the circumstances of her death, but not about her as a person. Before I tell you what I’ve learned, I want to hear about her from you.”

“My sister was killed four years and two months ago.”

“Stop. You’re getting ahead of yourself. Tell me about your sister’s life, not her death. We’ll come to that when we get there. Who was she in life?” He smiled. “Start with her name and go on from there.”

She felt like arguing, but why bother? She’d waited so long to reach this point that this distraction was nothing. Besides, it would be good to talk about Kirsten. The people close to her had tired of her tales about Kirsten and didn’t listen anymore. Especially Tom. He’d left her because of them.
Through thick and thin
—what a joke. If Fabian wanted to hear well-trodden reminisces, then so be it.

“My sister’s full name was Kirsten Elizabeth Hennessey. She was my younger sister by one year. Most people took us for twins, we looked so alike, and I suppose we were, in a lot of ways.”

Fabian smiled, and she smiled back. A tear leaked out. She palmed it away.

“Do you have a picture?”

Always
, Jude thought and produced one from her purse. Fabian took the snapshot and gave it an appraising glance.

“I see the likeness. She was very beautiful.”

Recalling Kirsten’s life came easy after that. The stories, the facts, the private jokes, and the kept secrets poured from Jude without interruption or prompting. Kirsten was one of those people who left an indelible mark on people’s lives.

After a half hour of careful listening Fabian said softly, “Now, tell me how she died.”

Rain
, Jude thought. She always remembered the rain. It was as if the heavens had cried at Kirsten’s death.

“I only have the police account to go on,” Jude said. “Not that they witnessed it either.”

“I understand. Just tell me what you believe to have happened.”

“It was late. Around ten or so. Kirsten was working part-time at a Starbucks to put herself through college. Her shift was over, and she was trying to get to the BART station to catch her train. It was raining. She was waiting at a crosswalk at Market and Sutter when a drunk driver missed the corner and plowed into her. Well, the cops assumed it was a drunk driver from the skid marks. It had to be a drunk, right? What kind of sober person drives over someone and doesn’t stop?”

“Did Kirsten die instantly?”

Jude blew her nose and shook her head. “They estimated she lay there dying for an hour before anyone noticed.”

She tried to hold back the tears but couldn’t. Her body jerked under the force of the sobs. Fabian rounded the table and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He muttered words of comfort that she barely heard, but his tone was soothing and the tears ebbed. He handed her a fresh Kleenex and returned to his seat.

“Thank you. I realize how hard it was for you to say all that.”

Fabian opened the folder on the desk. He picked up the first sheet off the pile and slid it across the table. Jude glanced over the details. The layout was similar to a police rap sheet. It featured both face-on and profile shots of a bedraggled-looking man in his fifties with thick features and thinning hair. A brief résumé of crimes followed.

“Is this him?”

“That’s Herman Meadows, arrested four times for DUI. He’s served time twice. He’s in AA, but I wouldn’t classify him as a recovering drunk, not according to his sponsor, anyway. His license is currently revoked, but that hasn’t stopped him from driving.”

Fabian peeled off six eight-by-ten shots and slid them across the table. The pictures showed Meadows going into a bar, drinking, then getting behind the wheel of a decrepit Oldsmobile Cutlass. Jude’s anger raged. This man was a danger to himself and everyone around him. He’d gone to prison because he was a menace to society, and here he was repeating history.
How did a person like that live with himself? He probably didn’t. Maybe that was part of the reason he drank. Disgusted, Jude shoved the pictures back at Fabian.

“When were these taken?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Did he do it? Did he kill my sister?”

“Is that important?”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Hennessy, you know that’s not the service I offer. I’m not the police.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“—But, you hoped it would lead to the person responsible.”

“Yes.”

“If it sets your mind at rest at all, I can tell you that Herman Meadows was a suspect in a fatal hit-and-run in ’98, and the night Kirsten was killed, he was witnessed drinking in a part of the city which would have brought him down Market Street to get him home.” Fabian looked at Jude with unflinching calm.

Jude wondered if he was humoring her, twisting the facts to pacify her.

“Is he the one?” she insisted. “I know that’s not what you do, but what does your gut tell you?”

Fabian fidgeted then exhaled. “I don’t believe so. But that’s not the point.”

“You provide closure in cases where there can be no closure,” Jude said, paraphrasing his company literature.

“That’s correct. What I do is track down someone who
could
be responsible. What you do with that knowledge is up to you.” Fabian paused for a moment before saying, “Do you wish to carry on? I understand if you don’t.”

“Yes, I’d like to carry on.”

“Good.” Fabian left the table and returned with a leather pouch. He unzipped it and placed the pistol before her.

***

Meadows wasn’t hard to find. He maintained a simple existence. He slept in his grimy apartment on Geary, emerged around eleven, ate breakfast at the crappy diner, and spent the rest of the day traipsing from bar to bar until it was time to go home and collapse into a stupor in
order to start the same sorry affair the next day. Jude knew this from Fabian’s file notes, but she spent three days tailing Meadows to be sure. Fabian coached her in surveillance techniques, and she took to them quickly. Meadows never noticed her, though she gave him plenty of golden opportunities. Twice she ended up nose-to-tail with him in stop-and-go traffic, and once she ended up behind him in line in a 7-Eleven. Luckily, Meadows was too drunk to realize he was being followed.

Fabian had suggested she spend the time following Meadows to get the measure of the man she was going to kill. Jude sure got a read on Meadows, but not in the way Fabian had intended. The exercise only served to create hate. The more she saw how Meadows lived, the more she wanted him dead. On the first day, he drove from an Irish pub on Valencia to a bar in the Tenderloin. During the journey, he ran two stoplights and clipped the sidewalk virtually every time he made a right turn. Only the luck of the devil or the hand of God prevented a fatality. As she bore witness to him pinballing his way through the city, one thought remained front and center in her mind—where the hell were the cops? She’d gone home at the end of the third day knowing that she would put Meadows out of his misery.

Thursday was a glorious day, although the Tenderloin reeked of urine and worse. She waited in a red zone for Meadows to emerge, but a meter maid forced her to move at the risk of being towed. She left her car one block over and paced the street in front of his building for over half an hour before he stumbled outside. He ignored his Oldsmobile and walked to a liquor store to load up with two six packs and a couple of bottles of cheap whisky.

How much does this guy drink in a day?
Jude wondered. No wonder he looked a decade older than Fabian’s file listed.

Meadows returned home to stash his booze before getting in his car. She followed him to Columbus and Broadway, a lovely neighborhood for strip clubs, porn shops, and, oddly, destination bookstores. Meadows started his productive day in a strip club. There was probably a drink special, Jude decided.

Yes, most definitely, today was the day she’d rid the world of Herman Meadows.

While he got his rocks off, Jude weighed her choices: kill him on the street, in his car, or at home? A street kill begged for witnesses, but she would have her opportunities. On several occasions, he’d ducked into alleys after dark. Fabian had provided a silencer as well as a gun; nobody would hear the shot. Audacity might be the perfect recipe for success. She discounted
killing him in his car. With the nonexistent parking situation in San Francisco, an abandoned car would draw attention quickly. She leaned toward killing him at his home. She’d ventured inside his building. His neighbors were too strung out to notice anything suspicious. It seemed the building supervisor wasn’t a reliable presence considering that half the hallway lights were out and urine stains dotted the tile floor.

Jude removed Kirsten’s photo from her purse. The snapshot was one of the last ones taken of her before she was killed. It was a candid pose of her standing on Pier 39 with Alcatraz tiny in the background. That day seemed like a lifetime ago.

“This is for you,” Jude murmured.

Saying this brought her no joy. For the first time, she considered Kirsten. During her four-year quest to find Kirsten’s killer, she’d never once considered her sister’s wishes. Would she have wanted Jude to waste her life like this pursuing a killer that couldn’t be found? What was she doing this for anyway? Justice for Kirsten? Or simply revenge? The sour taste at the back of her throat told her it was the latter. She wasn’t a crusader against injustice—just a killer waiting her turn.