Chapter 28
“Look at you passing the ball,” Tanaka said on the other end of the line. I was holding up my end, sharing the lead. Eric Rogers. Meisner’s. “We’ll take it from here. Good get.”
I ended the call, stared out of my car window at the front of Meisner’s flower shop. Cooperation didn’t mean I was going to just sit on my hands while things went down without me. I had the Mickersons to think about, a job to finish.
I got out of the car and walked in. I didn’t think Eric would be here. I mean, he had knifed a cop. If it were me, I’d be halfway to Newfoundland by now, but maybe someone here would know where he lived or where he might go if he had to get there ahead of the law.
It was a tiny shop inside a dying strip mall off Damen Avenue. A giant Costco literally loomed over it from the next block over, a veritable harbinger of doom. Big box? Try death knell. But there was a large empty lot filled with trash, debris, and human castoffs separating the giant from the little shop, a sea of crabgrass and nettles, a tangible line of demarcation between holding on by a thumbnail and raking it in hand over fist.
It was cool inside, large refrigerated cases with colorful flowers in chilled vases helping the air conditioner along. I took one whiff of the cloyingly sweet flowers and thought, Funeral home. There were plenty of happy occasions, of course, for which people purchased flowers, but for me, flowers always smelled like death.
There were no customers at Meisner’s. Costco sold flowers, too, or maybe it was just because it was getting late in the day. I walked up to the counter and hit the little bell sitting there, calling for service, and a short white woman of about sixty emerged from the back, all smiles. Her eyeglasses hung from a chain around her neck and hit right at a full bosom. I looked behind her, but she appeared to be alone.
“Hello. May I help you?” Her smile was polite; her blue eyes were sharp.
I smiled back. “I hope so. I’m looking for Eric Rogers. Is he around?”
The smiled faded. I wondered why. “I’m Joan Meisner, the owner. Is there a problem?”
“Absolutely not. I’m an old friend of Eric’s. Just passing through. His father told me he worked here. I thought I’d stop by and say hello. Catch up before I hit the road.”
She relaxed. “Oh, I see. How nice.”
“He does work here? I haven’t come to the wrong place?”
“He does. He makes our deliveries. Very reliable. We’re quite pleased.” She reached under the counter, and a buzzer sounded.
I tensed. He’d shown up for work? Seriously? “He’s also very good with customers. Efficient, trustworthy.”
“Also fast,” I said, “sure-footed.”
Meisner looked confused, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. Eric walked in from the back, took one look at me, and froze. I’ll be damned, I thought. There he was. At work. After knifing a cop. Clueless or just plain stupid? I studied him, up close, as his face drained of color and his eyes bore into mine. He stood there, as stiff as a ship’s plank, behind his boss. And then something shifted in his eyes.
“Eric, don’t even think about it,” I said.
Meisner looked from me to Eric and back. “What’s happening?”
Eric took off, bounded over the counter and straight-armed me right in the chest as he barreled past me and out the front door, headed for the open field. The hit to my chest took my breath away, and I saw stars. I wasted several seconds, bent over, trying to recover, then took off after him, shooting out the door. I turned for the field, spotted him sprinting through the tall weeds, in the direction of the train station two blocks up.
I ran after him, dirt and city dreck beneath my feet, stumbling over old shoes, bike tires, and discarded clothing, not stopping, but not making any progress, either. Eric was fast. But if I didn’t catch up to him before he hit the train, I could hang it up. I dug in.
I’d envisioned this going a different way altogether. I’d planned on calmly talking to Eric while we waited for Tanaka and Marcus to show up. I’d planned on a quiet end to all this. Now I was racing through an obstacle course of garbage, my chest on fire, and coming up short. I jumped over a rusted box spring. No sign of the cops. When Tanaka had said they’d follow up, I had assumed she meant today.
“Stop!” I called out.
Eric turned to see me but kept going. I would have, too. Did I hear him wheezing? Was I actually gaining? Maybe it was the weeds. Maybe he was allergic. He looked back over his shoulder again but didn’t slow down.
“I just want to talk!” Goddammit. It was hot. I was hot. My boobs hurt. I wanted to stop. I felt something sticky on the bottom of my running shoe and worried about what it might be. I wondered, too, what Joan Meisner was doing. Standing there in all that air-conditioning, smelling the funeral flowers.
“Eric,” I called again. “Where do you think you’re going?”
The train station would be my bet. He pulled away from me. My legs burned. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw flashing lights and turned to see an unmarked car speeding toward the edge of the field to cut Eric off at the pass. Guessed Tanaka had meant now. I tracked the car as it screeched to a stop in front of Eric, kicking up dirt and debris. Tanaka and Marcus jumped out and approached, guns drawn, barking orders for Eric to put his hands up and get on the ground. I slowed, then stopped, then doubled over, wheezing, holding my chest. It felt like I might actually die right here in this skanky field. By the time I straightened up, Eric was in the back of the police car.
“Cooperation, huh?” Tanaka called out. “Doesn’t count if you toss the ball and then run to catch it yourself.”
I dismissed her with a wave. It was all I had.
* * *
“Need anything? Ice pack? Oxygen?”
“I would have caught up, Tanaka.”
She smirked. “Yeah, okay.”
It was hours later, and we were watching Eric through a two-way mirror. Marcus was in the next room with him, making a big show of things. He had heard about Farraday’s meltdown and had doubled down on his resentment toward me. If Farraday was through, and I hoped he was, that meant Marcus was going to have to haul his own ass into the superintendent’s chair, and he didn’t have that kind of finesse even on his best day. Still, he was in there strutting around, giving it his best. I had no idea which one of us he thought he was impressing, me or Tanaka, but it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t scoring any points either way. Eric Rogers was clean. No run-ins with the police until now.
“What’d you want with Vonda Allen?” Marcus asked.
“It’s personal.”
Marcus circled the table. “Knife in your pocket. What’d you go there to do?”
“Nothing.”
“You assaulted a police officer.”
“Hey, those two cops put hands on me first. I defended myself.”
Marcus flicked a cocky grin at the mirror. The grin was meant for me. He then leaned on the corner of the table, his arms folded. “So, what had you planned on doing with that knife?”
“I told you, nothing. I use it for work, to cut through the wires on the crates. They came at me. Wouldn’t let me see her. I had a right.”
“A right?” Marcus reached across the table and slid an evidence bag with a piece of paper in it in front of Eric. “We checked your place. Tell me about this letter.”
Eric stared at the bag, then glowered at Marcus, but didn’t open his mouth.
I turned to Tanaka. This was my first time hearing about them finding a letter in the search of Eric’s apartment. “They found the letters?”
She shook her head. “A letter. Typewritten, addressed to her. Him introducing himself to her, asking for a meet. It doesn’t match the one you described seeing—no red ink, no Dear Bitch, and there wasn’t a single flower anywhere in his place. Meisner says Eric doesn’t know a thing about flowers. He only delivers. Inconsistencies. I hate them.”
“Any flowers missing from Meisner’s?”
“No. She says Eric bought a bouquet a few weeks ago, then the roses right before Allen’s signing. Nothing else. She even gave him an employee discount.”
“Hers is not the only flower shop,” I said.
“No, but if he used another, we haven’t found it yet.”
Marcus took a seat at the table. “What about those phone calls to Allen?”
“What about them? How else was I going to get through? She wouldn’t even talk to me.”
“Where were you three nights ago?”
“Working.”
“Where were you Wednesday morning?”
“Working.” Eric sat up straight, clearly frustrated, but angry, too. “I’m always working. That’s what I do. I work. I had a right to be there. I wanted to see for myself who she was. I wanted to know what went on, okay? Why she gave me up. She figured I wanted something from her. Money.” His face twisted in disgust. “I didn’t want her money. She wouldn’t even give me the time of day. She’s a bitch!”
Tanaka and I looked at each other.
Inside the next room Marcus said, “So, you decided to do something about it? Make a point?”
Eric stared at the letter in the bag. “I never mailed that. I wanted to talk to her. I sent flowers once. She never even said she liked them. After that bookstore, I was done chasing her. She’s not worth it.”
Marcus slid photos across the table. I had a good idea what the photos were of and waited to see how Eric would react.
“Linda Sewell and Philip Hewitt. They worked for your mother, if I can use the term. Know anything about them?”
Eric glanced at the crime-scene photos of their bodies and flinched. “Hey, hey, man. I got nothing to do with any of that. I never even saw those people before.”
“You sure about that? It’d be a good way to get back at her, wouldn’t it?”
“What? No!” Eric began to sweat, his eyes landing on the door, which was locked, penning him in. “She’s trying to set me up. All of you are. I told you, I wanted to see her, talk. They came at me. I defended myself. It was self-defense. I didn’t even stab that cop. We were struggling, and he was just there. I didn’t do it.”
Marcus stood. “I’m on your side here, Eric. Trying to help you.”
Eric snorted derisively. “Bullshit. Since when does a cop help anybody out? You’re not sticking me with this. I didn’t kill anybody. It was self-defense. I want a lawyer.”
Marcus didn’t move.
Eric said the word again, firmer this time, determined. “Lawyer. Lawyer! Lawyer! Lawyer! Lawyer!” He punctuated each word by banging his fists on the table.
Game over. Marcus picked up his evidence and left the room empty handed.
Tanaka moved for the door. “Guess I won’t be going home tonight.”
I watched Eric, every line on his face, his body language. It didn’t look like he had it in him to walk up to complete strangers and blow their heads off. That took a special kind of defect, a special kind of sick. One letter found, but not like the ones Allen had been receiving. No flowers missing from the shop he worked at, except for the ones he had bought himself. And he had no obvious connection to Hewitt or Sewell, and none really to Allen, except for the DNA.
“It’ll hinge on his alibi,” I muttered, more to myself than to Tanaka.
She stood at the door. “Yeah, that’s next.”
I turned to her. “I have a feeling it’s going to check out. He’s good for the bookstore, but I don’t think he’s good for Hewitt or Sewell, and not for the others. Those feel personal.”
Tanaka groaned. She had a tough job ahead of her and knew it.
“Heard about you and Farraday,” she said. “Wow, huh?”
I turned to stare at Eric through the glass, trying to get a sense of him. I didn’t want to talk about Jim Farraday not one more time.
Tanaka wisely took the hint and headed for the door. “You know, I didn’t ask about you not wearing shoes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Now I feel I have to.”
Eric, still at the table, scrubbed his hands across his face. He was scared.
“I stepped in something in that field. Maybe dead cat,” I answered absently.
It had been some kind of viscous goop matted with fur that had slimed the bottom of my shoes. Could have been rat instead of cat. I hadn’t wanted to look too closely. I had dumped the shoes in a trash can before I got back in my car. I had spare shoes at my office and shoes at home, but I wasn’t at either place. I stood in my sweat socks. I’d have to toss them, too, when I got home.
Tanaka shuddered.
“It could have been anything, really. Raccoon, squirrel, dog,” I added.
She backed out of the room, looking a little green.
I smiled. Score.
* * *
Carole and Mrs. Mickerson were in the ICU waiting room with the rest of the family when I showed up later to tell them the news. Everyone looked like they’d just marched to war and back on half rations; but when they found out Eric was in custody, they revived, clapping, cheering, slapping me on the back; but that wasn’t the only thing to celebrate. They’d just gotten news that Ben was improving. It felt like Christmas and the Fourth of July all rolled into one, and the knot of dread that had planted itself in the pit of my stomach for days was suddenly gone. We’d reached the light at the end of the tunnel.
When I ducked in to see him later, I was taken aback by how small he appeared in the bed, not like himself at all. But he was going to be all right. He was coming back. I took the night shift so the family could get some rest and fell asleep in a chair by his bed. It was the easiest sleep I’d had in days.