Do or Die Read online

“Look, Mali, I want you to meet me at the office in an hour.”

  ——

  When I arrived, Elizabeth was pacing the floor. Travis’s file lay open on her desk and behind her thoughtful expression, I knew she was worried.

  “I hadn’t expected an indictment,” she said. “I thought we had compelling evidence that he was not the one. Somehow the assistant district attorney zeroed in on the whereabouts of the gun the night of the murder, questioned him about his impending divorce, and portrayed him as someone jealous and dangerous.”

  “Was his bail revoked?”

  “No. I managed to reach a judge, a sister, who believes that an indictment is just that. An indictment, not a finding of guilt. So he’s still out.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m not sure. He said he’d spoken to you the other night. Tell me again what he said. I need to see if there are any holes in his story, any contradictions.”

  “Is that his file?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I scan it without breaking any laws or rules of confidentiality?”

  “Technically, as of one minute ago, you’re now on the case. Working for me, so to speak. We’ll worry about licensing later.”

  “Okay,” I said, reaching for the file. “When I send you my bill, don’t faint, but here’s what I have so far.”

  I went over Travis’s conversation again, filled her in on the contents of Starr’s journal, Henry Stovall’s special history, and the girl with the fast-and-fancy shoes who may or may not have been rushing out for a taxi.

  Elizabeth sat at her desk, jotting the new information on a legal pad. I moved to the small table near the window to examine his file. It had been divided into two parts. “Civil,” dealing with the divorce action, and “Criminal,” dealing with Henry Stovall’s murder. I was looking for the small things, the mundane items that might provide answers to some of the larger questions.

  I leafed through a dozen pages in the civil material before coming to a five-by-eight brown envelope. The contents spilled out when I lifted it and I studied receipts, charge copies, and old, canceled checks.

  “Travis hasn’t canceled his charge cards or checking account yet? What’s he waiting for?”

  Elizabeth, who was going over her own notes, stopped to examine some of the checks. “I advised him to do this a while ago but seems he never got around to it. I suppose he was too distracted to take care of business as he should have.”

  “Travis doesn’t open his own mail?” I asked.

  “Not if he recognizes it as a bill. He knows who it’s from and it stresses him out so he sends them on to me. I’ll add them up and eventually he’ll deal with the one grand total.”

  “Starr must have meant a lot to him,” I said.

  “She did.”

  “But he didn’t kill Henry Stovall,” I said.

  “I don’t believe so either but thinking he’s innocent and knowing he’s innocent are two different things. We’ve got to find enough evidence to create a reasonable doubt.”

  She sat at her desk again and studied her notes. I continued to work but slower now, carefully examining each receipt one by one and setting a few aside as I moved along.

  “And those aren’t all,” Elizabeth said. “I expect at least a few more to trickle in before all this is over. I mean wifey is a damn big spender. The guy is totally stressed out.”

  I looked at more receipts, tucked some of the charge slips in another envelope, and placed the envelope in my bag.

  “I’ll return these as soon as possible,” I said, closing the file.

  “What’s your next move?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “I’ll have to think about this as I go along.”

  I hurried home, changed my outfit, and then took the subway downtown. At 70th Street, I walked over to Madison Avenue, the heart of boutique country. The store I was looking for was decorated in up-to-the-minute, spare, minimalist style and a small bell chimed discreetly when I stepped in.

  I was wearing my favorite outfit from Gourd Chips—a diagonally cut white linen sheath, and a necklace of large dark amber. My straw brim, black patents, and Hollywood sunglasses completed the picture.

  One of three saleswomen quickly sized me up, calculated the probable heft of my charge plate, and put on a wide smile as she approached.

  “Good evening, madam.”

  She was well trained and did not squint as if I were a stick-up artist casing the place.

  Instead, she seemed to purr. “My name is Dori. Look around and let me know if I may be of assistance.”

  “Well, yes, I think you can,” I smiled, pulling out a photo from my bag. “I’m interested in a pair of shoes like these. My girlfriend, who was aboard the QE2 with me, said she bought them here.”

  The saleswoman looked at the picture, heard “QE2,” and smelled more dollars. She smiled wider.

  “Of course. Of course. We remember her very well.”

  That was the cue for the other saleswomen to crowd around and gaze at the picture and murmur appropriate “ahhs” as I described the jazz cruise and the compliments Chrissie’s shoes received.

  “Very, very special customer,” Dori went on as if recalling the late Princess Di. “These shoes were custom-made. We had something close to it in stock but she didn’t want them. She wanted something unique so we designed a pair. We do that, you know, for our special customers.”

  She turned to the other saleswomen, who by now had crowded even closer to admire the photo of Chrissie leaning against the stateroom door, one hand on her hip, the other above her head to add distance between her rib cage and waist. The shoes, ringed with tiny bell-like objects, accentuated her foxy legs and she smiled and smiled.

  I smiled also and shook my head. “How much would a pair—not exactly like this, but something slightly different—cost? I mean, I don’t want to cause complications by copying her style, you know what I mean?”

  “Of course. Of course. No one likes to see themselves coming and going. No one. Especially a person of your good taste. Actually, your friend has the only pair like it. We wouldn’t dream of copying it. So we appreciate that you’d like something a little different.”

  The other saleswomen nodded in unison and murmured a chorus of “nooo,” like Madonna’s backup singers.

  Without losing her smile and calculating faster than I could blink, Dori said, “Six hundred and fifty dollars and three weeks delivery.”

  I thought I heard my throat constrict. I tried not to blink too hard and my face was beginning to ache from smiling so tightly. Finally, I said, “My fiancé gave me a birthday gift to spend any way I wished. May I have your card? I want to think about this and decide on a color. When I come again, I’ll bring him with me.”

  Outside, I walked quickly in the humid evening air, not quite recovered from the price quote. The avenue was crowded with the end-of-the-day rush of people heading homeward. Some of the shops were closing but the windows of most of them remained as bright and inviting as a Christmas scene. I ignored everything, thinking of this new development.

  This changes everything, I thought. Complicates things. It wasn’t Chrissie running down those stairs. She had been on that cruise and these pictures prove it.

  I felt a sudden anger knowing that I had wanted so badly for her to be the woman in those shoes. And felt angrier knowing that she couldn’t possibly be.

  I headed toward the subway again, feeling more frustrated than any of the nine-to-fivers swirling around me.

  Dad interrupted his practice session to come upstairs. I prepared a drink and kicked off my shoes as I explained my latest theory. Perhaps if I verbalized it, talked about it often enough, something—something that had been overlooked—might come to light.

  “Chrissie?” Dad looked up from the photos spread like a fan before him. “She was on the ship.”

  When I didn’t answer, he leaned back and scrutinized me with narrowed eyes. “You’re not allowing y
our feelings to get in the way of your judgment, are you?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, knowing very well what he meant, but hoping he’d say something different.

  “I’m saying the saleswoman is probably lying.”

  “About what?”

  “I mean, how do we really know that there’s only one pair of shoes like this? Salespeople are interested in sales, not in telling the truth. And shoe salespeople are worse than used-car people. You know that yourself, as many pairs of bad-fitting shoes you got talked into buying.”

  I didn’t appreciate the personal comparison and felt a slight rise in my blood pressure. My size 10s were my business but he wasn’t finished with his lesson and I had to listen to the bitter end.

  “You gotta be extra careful. Who knows? Maybe a hundred pairs of these shoes walking around as we speak. And a whole lot cheaper than six hundred fifty. I’d check and recheck if I were you before saying anything to Ozzie.

  “I mean suppose, by some magical power, it was Chrissie at the scene? Suppose she knew Travis was involved with Starr? Where’s the hard evidence—the fingerprints, the knife that was used? Proof that she was actually in the apartment?

  “From where I sit, sounds like one of Stovall’s women. Probably trotted up there in a knockoff of these shoes, knocked Starr off, and cut out.”

  28

  Knocked her off and cut out …

  I gathered the pictures from the table and left Dad sitting there. A hole was shot in my theory and I needed to rethink this whole thing. Why would the salesperson have lied? She risked losing an important sale (if I decided not to return). Something wasn’t right. Then again, maybe it was my attitude that wasn’t right.

  I changed into a pair of jeans, collared Ruffin, and stepped out to take him for his nightly walk following the usual route past St. Mark’s church to the perimeter of St. Nicholas Park. Minutes later, however, I detoured to Douglass Boulevard, where the lights from Bert’s shop cast a glow over the crowded avenue.

  She was alone when I entered and I felt free to sink into the chair near the window and sink further into a pool of despair. Ruffin lounged on the floor at my feet.

  “I need a deep conditioner …”

  Bert heard something in my voice. “You need more than that but it’s good for starters. Had a fight with Tad, I bet.”

  She assembled the shampoo, the towel, and a large bottle of conditioner. “And I bet you lost.”

  I did not answer. I was not in the mood.

  She waved me over to the basin, and the spray of water on my scalp seemed to open up more than my pores. I wanted to cry. Instead I let out a sigh, a whoosh of air that summed up more than losing a fight. It spoke of Ozzie puzzling over Starr’s journal. Of Dad, who seemed to be slipping day by day, a breath at a time, into his own state of despondency.

  And my own fear. I never thought of my father as being old. But now it was like watching a movie of him and each frame caught a different image—a deeper line across the forehead, under the eyes, near the mouth.

  And somewhere near the center of my feelings was my unacknowledged rush to reconfigure a jigsaw puzzle in order to jam certain pieces in where they couldn’t possibly fit. I wanted to arrange stuff that would put Chrissie’s hand at Starr’s throat.

  “It’s Tad, ain’t it?” Bert’s voice filtered through the warm spray and I opened my eyes.

  My scalp felt light, as if a tight band had been eased away.

  “Tad? I suppose so.”

  “I know so,” she said, turning off the spray. She applied a layer of conditioner to my scalp and I was enveloped in the scent of lilac. She slipped a plastic heating cap on my head, covered my shoulders with a thick towel, then headed to the rear of the shop to the coffeemaker.

  “Listen, Mali. You ain’t got but so much hair. Don’t let it fall out over some B.S. Whatever’s buggin’ you out, talk it out, straighten it out. That’s what Franklin and I had to do.

  “That hospital thing had really got to me, you know. I mean, suppose somethin’ had happened while he was out in the street? Suppose the nurse had peeped in? Or suppose the doc had been ready to run the tests? And him in the wind? Coulda got hit by a bus or somethin’ and the docs and nurses and even me would’ve been wonderin’ to this day how the hell an in-patient coulda got hit by a bus.”

  She poured two cups of coffee and extended one to me. “It’s like the old folks say, ‘All shut-eye ain’t sleep—’ ”

  “—and all good-bye ain’t gone,” I said, finishing the adage.

  “That’s right. I told Franklin that he had played a tight game that night. A real tight game. And scared ten years off my life, not to mention his poor mama. But you know, we talked it out so everything’s cool now. Now, I ain’t tryin’ to get in your business, but I think you oughta talk to your man.”

  I felt a mix of emotions just then: I was happy for Bert and drowning in my own sorrow. She was lucky. Franklin understood her and loved her.

  There was a message from Elizabeth when I returned home.

  “Mali, some more receipts just came in. I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet but you might want to look at them.”

  The message clicked off and I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the phone resting in my lap.

  I’ll speak to Elizabeth later. Right now, I want to speak to someone else.

  When I dialed Tad’s number and he came on the line, I held my breath, not sure if I wanted to speak after all. Thanks to that damn caller ID, I didn’t have to.

  “Hello, Mali.”

  “Hello, Tad.”

  There was a silence which threatened to stretch significantly so I said, “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Come on over. I’ll be here.”

  I hung up and pushed the notes and pictures into my shoulder bag. Then I changed from my jeans to something more suitable, refreshed my face with his favorite lipstick, and left the house.

  He offered me a drink but I was too wound up to take it. Boy, did he look good. He smelled good. I wondered if after I had hung up, he had showered and quickly slipped into the pale yellow cotton shirt and those tan linen slacks he knew I liked so much. His hair was combed and the silver seemed to catch like sparks in the soft light of the living room.

  I sat on the edge of the sofa trying not to look too hard at him. But a few minutes later, my bubble evaporated.

  “So you’re coming to me with this. What else do you have?”

  “What else like what?” I asked. I had heard something rising from somewhere in the back of his question and the sound sent up a prickle of anger within me. What on earth was the matter with him?

  I began to rethink the wisdom of bringing this information to him. Maybe I should’ve phoned it in to the TIPS hotline and I’d have been ten damn thousand dollars richer. But the scenario was so bizarre they might’ve laughed it off and not even bothered to file it.

  I knew I was taking a chance, knew he would be angry, and would get angrier because I was still not minding my own business, but hell, two lives were gone, another was disintegrating, and my own dad was not doing well either.

  Maybe I should have gone straight to Ozzie. But Ozzie had blood in his eye, and one more body wouldn’t have solved anything and Dad would’ve lost a piano man for good. Better to bring it here. After the anger faded, at least Tad would move on it.

  But this attitude was more than I bargained for. What was going on?

  I decided to go slow, check myself at every comma, because there was no room for two volcanos to explode in the same space.

  But when he opened his mouth, my best intentions evaporated and I forgot about the commas.

  “So where’d you get this information? While you were out walking Ruffin at three A.M? Did Travis help you figure this out? Did he help you walk the dog? Or help with anything else?”

  “Tad, what?”

  “You were out pretty late, or should I say early? It must have been some damn deep con
versation to make you stroll right on by your own house. And it was a good twenty minutes before you remembered where you lived.”

  My mouth fell open.

  All good-bye ain’t gone and all shut-eye ain’t sleep.

  I stared, trying to decide if I should laugh, cry, or tell him off for allowing his jealousy (the same thing that was aggravating me) to make a world-class fool of him.

  But then he pointed a finger at me, wagged his hand in my face, and seemed to be treating me like a suspect in the precinct interrogation room. I stared at him, at that hand, and all I could think of … all I could think of …

  I don’t know what I thought. He was shouting and waving the way my mother used to wave, except this man, whom I loved as much as my mother, was not my mother. His voice climbed the scale until I no longer heard it.

  “Listen,” I whispered through my teeth, “don’t wave anything in front of my face that I can’t eat!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me!” I reached into my bag again and threw the rest of the pictures in his face.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Pictures. And they don’t lie!”

  I read his face as he stared at one photo, then another.

  “Fold your fingers in your hand and put them in your pocket if you want to keep them. Wave them in my face again and we got a serious problem. Better yet, wave it at that half-naked, over-the-hill slut that’s so hot for you!”

  I turned away and headed for the door, not knowing what to expect. If I didn’t hear his voice by the time I opened the door, I knew I would not hear it again. Ever. I’d never see him again. That, more than anything, brought the tears. I bit my lip trying to keep them from spilling over, from acknowledging the sorrow, the loss, the void that I could never fill again, but would remain like something large and unquenchable within me.

  Reason could not help me now, neither could Mama’s presence, as much as I needed her to steady me. Remorse swept in. Why couldn’t I have simply asked him to explain the photos? Why couldn’t I control myself? Why did I get so damned emotional, why—?

  “Mali?”