The Trouble With Murder (19 page)

I strained my ears to pick up any other
out-of-place sounds while I dug around in the bag for a flashlight. I closed my
hand around it and heard what was surely a foot on the staircase. I’d noticed
one near the middle sagged every time I’d stepped on it, giving a soft moan. I
heard it now. Pezzani had few reasons to leave in the middle of the night. I
was sure now someone else was here. I hoped it was a family member or
ex-girlfriend or best friend with a key. I feared it was a figure in black
wearing a ski mask.

Hearing the step, I went to the
door. I had a split-second to make a decision. Option one: wait where I was
until the door opened and a gunman appeared. The problem with that was Pezzani.
If they went to his room first, they would probably kill him. I really didn’t
want his death on my conscience, no matter if I was dead or alive.

Option two: post myself in the
office and pick off the intruders one by one over the wall of the stairway.
This had the tactical advantage. The problem was the level of exposure. I would
be a sitting duck, trapped with no escape. If I failed to hit them, they would
easily be able to kill me. The fear was tempered, but it wasn’t wholly
overshadowed.

What’s the worst that could
happen
? I asked myself.

Well, I could get shot. If I got
shot, it would be painful. And I could die. Or, I could get shot and just die,
in which case it wouldn’t be painful. Of course, in either of those scenarios,
I’d be dead. I didn’t really want that. I was too young to die.

Worst vacation ever
, I
thought.

After an evaluation of pros and
cons, I decided option two was preferable to option one, despite its risks. I
might get shot, which would hurt like a bitch, and I might die, the only bright
side of that being I wouldn’t feel any pain. But my chances of
not
getting shot were better if I took an offensive approach.

Only a millisecond had passed since
I’d heard the footstep on the stair. I made a conscious effort to control my
breathing, keep it calm and even. Then I reached up and twisted the doorknob.

I pulled the door open silently,
listened, and then stood. The gun was raised in front of me, gripped with both
hands. I trained it on the stairs and crept silently out of the room. Just as I
knelt down in front of the desk, I heard another footstep. It was hard to
determine if there was more than one intruder.

A head bobbed up on the other side
of the low wall, the ski mask instantly identifiable. My heart skipped a beat. Then
it hammered against my ribs. All I could hear was my own heartbeat.

I took a breath to calm myself. Then
I heard the step creak a second time. I resisted the urge to pull the trigger,
waiting.

Figure One reached the landing and
briefly glanced in both directions. Then he or she moved left into the living
room. I could see the gun in the figure’s right hand. It was the same one from
the restaurant.

A moment later, a second head
popped up in the stairwell. This one also wore a ski mask. I hadn’t heard a
third moan from the saggy step.

“You guys here to see me?”

My words were like a starting gun
at the races. Suddenly everything happened all at once. Figure Two, still on
the stairs, swung around toward me, gun following. At the sight of my gun,
Figure Two dropped back down out of sight. Figure One, in the living room, wheeled
around. Catching sight of me, Figure One aimed. I switched on the light and hit
him or her square in the face. Figure One groaned, eyes squeezing shut
reflexively in the mask. But gun up, he or she fired anyway, blindly.

I fell back behind the desk. Bullets
whizzed overhead, landing in the wall and bookshelves behind me. I heard
movement and knew Figure One was headed my way. I scampered forward on my belly,
toward the hallway. By the direction and angle of the bullets, I knew Figure
One was close.

We made it to the hallway at the
same time. Figure One wasn’t expecting me to be at his or her feet, and this
was my only advantage. I rolled onto one side, the gun raised in front of me,
and fired. Three quick shots. They struck the figure directly in the chest. The
gun fell from the gloved hand and hit the floor. An instant later, the darkly clad
body followed.

The gunshots had drawn Pezzani; I
heard his bedroom door open. Back on my feet, gun in front of me, I hurried
backward.

“What the hell—“

I plowed into Pezzani then shoved
him back toward his open door.

Figure Two leaned around the stairs
and fired off several shots. I fired back, and the figure quickly retreated
behind the wall. But I heard a gasp. I’d hit him. Or her.

We reached Pezzani’s room, and I
dropped to one knee in the doorway. Keeping most of my body inside the room, I
maintained my aim on the stairs around the doorjamb. I told Pezzani to call
911. Figure Two leaned around the corner once more. I was ready.

I fired several shots quickly.
Figure Two had no time to squeeze the trigger. He or she immediately withdrew behind
the wall. Then I heard footsteps. An instant later, the door banged open.

The second shooter was gone.

I jumped up and hurried forward, one
eye on the stairs and the other on Figure One in the hallway. When I reached the
downed shooter, I squatted and picked up the gun, holding it in my left hand by
the muzzle. I stepped over Figure One and crossed to the top of the stairs.
They were empty, and the door was standing wide open. I hustled down and peeked
out into the darkness, glancing around the parking lot. I got there just in
time to see a pair of taillights pull around the corner and out of sight behind
another building.

I went back inside and flipped on
the lights. I set the confiscated gun on the desk and went to the figure. Squatting,
I pressed two fingers to the throat. No pulse. Relaxing slightly, I reached for
the mask.

Pezzani stepped out of his room and
stood staring, somewhat dumbstruck, at the scene before him. I yanked the mask
off and stared down at a face I didn’t recognize. The man was young, around my
age, with short brown hair and good skin, of obvious Hispanic descent. His face
was clean-shaven with only a day’s growth on his chin and cheeks. I wasn’t sure
who I’d been hoping for, but I was disappointed to find this guy. I stood.

“Did you call the police?”

In answer, I heard the faint wail
of a siren.

“You should go down and open the
door,” I said.

I picked up the dead man’s gun and
moved away from the body. Pezzani hesitated for a moment then moved toward the
stairs, stepping around the dead man. He went to the door and pulled it open as
the sirens stopped. The blue and red strobes were flashing through the windows,
dancing on the walls in a way that was becoming more familiar by the day. I heard
Pezzani talking and someone else responding.

I ejected the magazine and emptied
the chamber of my gun, then laid both at my feet. I stepped away from them, my
hands visible in front of me. There was the voice of a second officer followed
by footsteps and the jingling of equipment as somebody climbed the stairs. Officer
Frye looked from the body in the hallway to me and then the guns at my feet in
one quick glance.

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “You step
to the right and I’ll do the same.”

Slowly, as if moving together in
some kind of dance, I took one slow step after another. Frye matched my pace.
Keeping his eyes on me, he picked up both weapons by the muzzles.

“This one yours?” he asked, holding
up the empty one.

I nodded. “I didn’t want to touch
the other one too much. It belonged to him. Or, at least, he brought it.” I
inclined my head toward the dead guy.

“Okay. You and I need to go outside
now.”

“Sure.”

I preceded him out of the house,
stepping around the body and descending the stairs. When we reached the front
door, the EMTs were pulling bags of equipment out of the rig. I followed Frye’s
directions and walked to the police car parked in front of the condo. The EMTs
hurried inside. They were only inside for a couple minutes.

Frye secured both weapons and began
giving instructions to everyone else while I waited. I went to the front of the
car and sat on the hood. Pezzani stood with another officer a couple cars away.
As the conversation progressed, Pezzani began looking over the officer’s
shoulder at me, his looks varying but equally dark. I was experiencing déjà vu.
I’d been here before. I knew what happened next.

The conversation concluded and
Pezzani marched over. He was dressed in cotton pajama pants and nothing else,
his chest and feet bare aside from the white bandages on his right side. His
hair was mussed from sleep, and he was past a simple five o’clock shadow.

“What the hell were you doing with
a gun?” he demanded. His voice was intended to be a whisper but was far from
it. The anger was obvious.

“Protection,” I said. “Thank God I
had it. There were two of them. We would have been sitting ducks.”

“We?” he said, stabbing his chest
with an index finger. “
We
? No, I don’t think so.
You.
”

“Actually, it’s hard to know. The
two times someone has tried to kill me recently, I’ve been with you. They could
just as easily have been aiming for you.”

“Recently? Is this a habit of
yours?”

“No. It’s been a long time.”

“How could you shoot that guy?”

“Well, he was shooting at me, so it
was just a reflex really.”

“He’s dead! You killed somebody.
How can you do that? Doesn’t it bother you?”

“It was actually easier this time.
So, that’s sort of upsetting.”

“This time? How many other times
were there? How many people have you killed? What kind of person are you?”

Then it was there, on his face.
Disgust and horror. The same expression I see on everyone’s face when they find
out what I’d done. I was probably just tired, but seeing it on Pezzani’s face
now, the revulsion and fear and judgment, something in me snapped, and I was
beyond pissed. I flew off the hood of the car, planting myself in front of
Pezzani, pointing an angry index finger at him.

“Don’t judge me! Don’t you
dare
judge me. What if I hadn’t had the gun? Did
that
ever cross your mind?
What if we’d both been asleep and unarmed when they got here? We’d
both
be dead. Did it occur to you that I saved your life?”

I saw a navy blue Charger pull up
behind the ambulance.

“This isn’t about me!” he shot
back. “This is about
you
.”

“It was self-defense! What was I supposed
to do? Sit quietly and let the bastard kill me?”

Ellmann wound his way through the
emergency response vehicles, his eyes on Pezzani and me as our argument
continued to escalate. We had also drawn the attention of several others
nearby. I saw Frye and another uniformed officer hurrying toward us.

“The cop said you’ve done this
before,” Pezzani continued. “How many times? How many other people have you
killed?”

The cops reached us a few paces
before Ellmann.

“Hey, that’s enough,” Frye started.

“How many times?” Pezzani demanded.
“How many people have you killed?”

“I had no choice,” I said. “And
you’re welcome.”

The second cop reached for me.
“Come on, that’s enough.”

I jerked my arm out of his grasp.
“Leave me alone.”

The cop reached for me again, but
Ellmann stepped between us.

“It’s all right, Parker. I’ll take
it from here.”

The officers nodded to Ellmann then
shuffled back to their interviews.

My eyes were still locked on
Pezzani, daring him to ask me again how many people I’d killed, daring him again
to accuse me of making the wrong choice.

His disgust was battling his fear.
Ultimately fear won.

I felt a piece of my heart break,
as it did every time.

“All right, Joe,” Ellmann said
gently but firmly as he clapped a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Let’s take
a walk.”

Under Ellmann’s grip, Pezzani had
no choice but to go where directed. Ellmann steered him to a police cruiser
parked on the other side of the lot. After securing a babysitter, he returned
to me. His face was hard and expressionless, typical for a cop, but his voice
was soft.

“Are you okay?”

I was a breath away from tears. I
knew if I opened my mouth I’d burst out crying. Instead, I simply nodded and
leaned back against the car, crossing my arms over my chest.

Ellmann stood with his hands in his
pockets, studying me.

“I’m going to go talk to the first
on scene. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Again I nodded, and he was gone.

I lifted myself back up onto the
car and sniffed, wiping at my eyes. This was getting ridiculous. I thought
about the money I still had in the bank and wondered if it wouldn’t be better
spent on a trip to Brazil.

I stayed until an officer had taken my statement, asked me a
thousand questions, and had me walk him through the chain of events three
times. Then I repeated everything with Ellmann, who’d taken me inside for a
real-life, hands-on version. I’d been fingerprinted and photographed and tested
for gunpowder residue. Finally, I was permitted to pack my things and leave.
Pezzani was long gone, and I overheard someone say he was staying with a
friend. I had no idea where I was going to stay.

Packed onto the scooter, I made my
first destination my house, the crime scene. I hopped the fence and let myself
in the same way I had that afternoon. I debated taking the whole lockbox but
decided this was as good a place as any to keep the extra stuff, given my
current degree of mobility. I took the Sig Saur 9mm and all the trimmings. It
didn’t have the same brute-force stopping power as the .45, but I’d gotten a
look at the dead man’s chest. If I could shoot that accurately next time, I
wouldn’t need the brute force.

Feeling slightly more secure, I
climbed back onto the scooter and buzzed over to Best Western University Inn on
College across from CSU campus. I managed to check in and find my room without
incident. I used a fake name and paid cash. The clerk, a college-aged kid with
his eye on the small TV under the counter the whole time, didn’t ask any
questions. After I offloaded all essential items, I pushed the scooter into the
room, parking it against the wall between the TV and the door. The scooter was
too attention-grabbing and memorable to be parked in the lot all night long.

The room was small but sufficient.
There was a single queen-sized bed, a table with two chairs, and an
impressively large bathroom with bathtub. I flipped on the TV and dialed up CMT
and VH1, flipping back and forth at commercials, singing along with the songs I
knew. I wanted the noise and the company.

I sat at the table and cleaned the
gun, then reloaded it. It had been even longer since I’d shot that particular
gun, but the weight of it in my hand was familiar. I would make a trip to the
shooting range tomorrow, but I felt confident in my ability to use it should
the need arise between now and then.

I cleaned up then thought about
sleep. My ears were still ringing from the second round of gunfire, and I saw
the whole thing replay every time I closed my eyes. When I had them open, all I
could think about was the argument with Pezzani. I heard the accusations repeat
in my mind and saw the disgust and judgment in his eyes. And the fear. I wasn’t
sure which was worse, but the disgust hurt the most. It hurt even more than the
rejection.

TV long forgotten, I was well into
wallowing in my troubles. I was feeling sorry for myself and almost completely
hopeless. On top of that, I was confused. I really didn’t know who those shooters
had been after either time. It could just as easily have been Pezzani. Even if
I didn’t really believe that, it was a valid possibility.

Now on my way to full-blown
depression, I thought about a drink. I’m not a big drinker, but I thought a
shot or two would help me feel differently about the current state of my life.
The only thing causing me to hesitate was the fact that it wouldn’t help my
thinking. If I’d been followed to the motel, or if anything else happened, I
wouldn’t be operating at full capacity. That scared me.

Miranda Lambert was singing about being
the fastest girl in town when there was a knock at the door. When my heart
kicked back into gear, my brain followed. I picked up the gun off the bedside
table and crept to the door. It took a whole minute to work up the courage to
stick my eye to the peephole. I was so relieved to see Ellmann, I could have
fainted.

I unlocked the door and held it
open, the gun out of sight behind my back.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He was dressed in the same jeans
and button-down shirt, but his hair was standing up in tufts around his head
from where he’d dragged his hands through it, and he was holding a bottle of
Jack Daniels and a case of Bud Light. I looked past him and spotted the Charger
parked near the office.

He held up the alcohol. “I need a
drink after the past couple days, and I’ve just been showing up afterwards. I
figured you could probably use one, too.”

“How’d you find me? I didn’t tell
you where I was going.” In fact, I’d specifically taken precautions so I
couldn’t
be found.

“I’m a detective,” he said. “It’s
my job to find people.”

I just stared at him.

“I had a friend run a trace on your
cell phone. I called the front desk and asked the night clerk about a yellow
scooter. He remembered the ‘old motorcycle.’ When I got here, I showed him my
badge, and I may or may not have threatened him a little. He gave me your room
number.”

I stepped back, allowing him to
pass. I didn’t think Ellmann presented a threat, and I very much doubted anyone
who did had followed him. Ellmann seemed like he was a good cop, good enough to
pick up on something like that. Plus, I thought a shot of that Jack would taste
pretty good.

He walked to the table and set
everything down.

“Smells like gun oil in here,” he
said. “Don’t suppose that’s a gun behind your back.”

“And if it is?”

“I would suggest you keep one handy.”

I dropped the gun to my side.
“Seems like I need them.”

He nodded. “It does.”

I retrieved the glasses off the
bathroom sink and carried them to the table, where I sat with my feet tucked up
under me and the gun in front of me. Ellmann twisted the cap off the bottle and
poured a generous amount into both glasses, then sat opposite me. We each
picked up a glass, raised it toward the other, and drank. The amber liquid
burned on the way down, and my eyes watered.

Ellmann held the bottle to me again,
but I shook my head. One was more than plenty. I was still scared I’d need to
defend my life before sunrise. He set the bottle aside and pulled out a beer. I
passed on that, too, so he cracked one open for himself and took a long pull.

“You don’t just need a gun to defend
yourself, though, do you?”

I set my glass on the table. “It
helps when the other person is shooting at you.”

“I saw the security footage from
the apartment building and the restaurant. You were prepared to physically
confront the attackers both times. In the restaurant, it was deliberate; you
stopped running, turned to face the gunman.”

“He was out of bullets.”

“It wasn’t just the adrenaline, was
it? You’ve had training.”

“Some.”

“What kind of training have you
had?”

It seemed Ellmann wasn’t going to
let the issue drop. And, really, I couldn’t see the harm in telling him. It was
nothing illicit or scandalous, and he already knew more about me than most
people. The time to keep information from Ellmann had been before he’d learned
of the fatal self-defense part of my past.

“My best friend Amy and I grew up
together. The incident with my father, him . . . trying to kill me . . . well,
it scared me. Terrified me, actually. Like with everything else, I turned to
Amy.

“She’d been studying martial arts
for a long time. She’d always begged me to go with her, but I’d always had my
hands full at home; keeping an eye on my brother was a full time job. Martial
arts had given her a sense of control, a feeling of security. And after the
thing with my father, I needed that. So she began teaching me, after school, on
recess, on weekends. It helped. I started to feel less afraid all the time,
less worried, more confident.

“I began to drift away, devote less
time to learning from her. When I was fourteen, there was . . . an
incident. With a boy, someone I
thought I could trust. I tried to defend myself using what I’d been taught, but
it wasn’t enough. I’d been ashamed and angry. And the fear came back. So I went
back to Amy. The lessons resumed. And after that, my commitment never wavered.

“Amy has two black belts and will
test for a third in a couple months. She’s won several championships.
Obviously, she’s still involved in the art, still studies, and does a lot of
teaching. Since I’ve only studied with her, I’ve never tested for a belt, but
Amy assures me I could earn one if I ever want to.”

Ellmann took a long pull on his
beer then set it on the table. “The good news is, maybe I don’t have to worry
about you quite as much as I thought.”

“What’s the bad news?”

He looked at me for a beat.

“One day, in the near future, I
want you to tell me a happy story about yourself and your past. Something good
that happened to you.”

His voice was almost sad. I
searched his face, which was not hidden behind a cop mask just then. I was looking
for signs of pity but didn’t find any. Mostly I saw kindness and caring. Who
was this guy?

“I have stories like that,” I said.

I realized I was trying to reassure
him. Not everything in my past is horrible, even if that was all he’d heard.
More surprising was the realization that I wanted to tell him those stories.
And I wanted to hear his. I wondered how long he’d be around, what would happen
next, what we would do once this case was over. I didn’t know much about
Ellmann, but I liked him. I wanted us to get to know each other. Given my
history with people in general, and with men in particular, that was an
entirely foreign attitude for me.

What was happening to me? Maybe it
was the alcohol. I pushed my empty glass farther away. I noticed my hand was shaking.
But
that
had only to do with what had happened at Pezzani’s.

Ellmann noticed the shaking, too. 

“Are you really okay?” he asked.

“No,” I said quietly. “I’m not.”

He sighed. “I’m really sorry about
what Pezzani said. He had no right.”

I shrugged. “He’s entitled to his
opinion. What hurt the most
—
”
I choked back a sob and took a breath. “It was the look. The same one everyone has
when they find out. It’s like they see me as a monster.”

“You’re not a monster.” He leaned
forward, his elbows in his knees. “You’ve been through stuff most people could
never imagine, and you’ve survived. Most people couldn’t deal with what you’ve
had to. They see a person they know they could never be. And they make themselves
feel better by labeling you a monster.”

Tears ran down my cheeks silently.
I really wanted his words to be true. But something inside me refused to believe
it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, getting up as
I wiped at my eyes. “Your day’s been stressful enough. Hell, your whole week.”

“Don’t worry about that.” He was
suddenly behind me, his big hands on my shoulders.

“Why are they trying to kill me? Who
are they? What did I do to them?”

“I don’t know.” He rubbed my arms
gently, mindful of the bandages. “But I’m going to find out. And I’m going to
stop them.”

“I don’t need a rescuer.”

“I know. Maybe I’m rescuing them.”

I chuckled softly.

His touch was warm, comforting. I
wanted to melt into him, let him be a source of solace, but I feared I knew
what was coming: the same reaction I got from everyone who knew—my mother,
ex-boyfriends, past friends, Pezzani. I knew it would break my heart if I let
him get close now and he left later. Better he leave now. So I pushed him.

“I killed someone tonight,” I said,
turning to face him. “I chose my life over his.”

He looked at me, his eyes studying
mine. I wasn’t exactly sure what I saw in his. This wasn’t his cop face, but he
was guarded. I worried I knew why.

“And I don’t feel bad about it,” I
said softly, tears running down my cheeks. His hands reached for my shoulders again.
“I’ve done it before, and I’d do it again.
That’s
the kind of person I
am.”

Something in his eyes changed, but there
was no disgust, no fear, no judgment. Only pain. He was hurting for me, because
of what I was going through, what had happened to me.

“You’re the kind of person who did
the only thing she could do,” he said, his voice even and sure. “The kind of
person who knows she didn’t do anything wrong.”

Despite my tough talk, the tears
flowed freely, and I sobbed softly.

He pulled me into his chest,
wrapping his long arms around me. I felt his strength, his security. I wanted
to linger in it, allow him to hold me up, if only for a moment. Still, I hesitated.

I could feel that whiskey beginning
to swirl around in my brain now. It had only been one drink, but it never takes
much, and the alcohol played on my thoughts all the same.

I pulled away and wiped snot and
tears from my face. Ellmann brushed back a strand of hair, his hand lingering
on my face.

“Why don’t you look at me the same
way they do?” I whispered.

“What way?”

“Like I’m a monster.”

It obviously hurt him that anyone
saw me that way. Why? Had he killed someone? Did he know what it was like for
people to look at him that way? Is this why he seemed to see me differently?

“I don’t see a monster,” he whispered.
“That’s not why you scare me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve seen the real you.
I’ve caught glimpses of that girl every now and then, when you weren’t looking.
She could never be a monster.”

His eyes darkened slightly, and then
I knew why he was so guarded. It was personal. He wasn’t guarding Ellmann the
cop; he was guarding Ellmann the man.

He wanted to kiss me, but he
hesitated. Without thinking, I stepped closer and stood on my tiptoes, giving
him permission. And he lowered his mouth to mine.

Suddenly my body was warm in places
I’d forgotten about (places Pezzani’s kiss hadn’t awakened). I wrapped my arms
around his neck, and he pulled me closer. When our kisses grew hungrier, he
picked me up and laid me on the bed. (If he noticed the extra forty-seven
pounds, he didn’t let on.) He pulled the gun off his belt and set it on the
bedside table, then he paused.