and along came SPIDER ( A Martina Spalding Thriller ) (Spider Series Book 1) (14 page)

Marti’s father had done
a superior job of fine tuning the old Chevy when he owned it.  But even at
that, it was no match for the newer, more powerful, car behind her.  She saw
what she thought was a pistol suddenly appear from the driver’s side window. 
This prompted her to begin swerving in her lane, making it difficult for him to
target her.  The first shot shattered her rear window, and the bullet lodged
into the seat at her back.  She felt the thump, but knew it hadn’t come through
the steel shell that was in there somewhere.

At the next
intersection, paying no attention to the traffic light, she whipped a sharp
right turn.  The tires squealed as the car nearly went over on two wheels. 
She’d avoided the second shot fired.  Looking back, as he followed her around,
she noticed that the rear tire on right side was completely flat now.  It was
also smoking from the friction of the rim spinning around in it.

Another quick turn,
this time to the left, produced the results expected.  The Thunderbird stalled
out on the turn.  Only the rims raced inside the tires, leaving it dead center
of the intersection.  Soon thereafter, horns began blaring from all sides. 
Marti was safe at last and exhausted a long held breath in relief.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Fifteen minutes later,
Marti pulled up to the curb at Spencer House.  In her panic to get inside, her
purse strap caught on the door handle while entering, setting her back on her
heels.  Embarrassed, she fumbled to get it free.  She needed to use a phone
quickly, and the one there was the handiest, since she felt a need to tell
Gloria what’d happened, anyway.  Finally, coming through the door, she noticed Scott
Harris at Gloria’s desk.  Gloria had a cardboard box and seemed to be in the
process of clearing out her desk.  Her face showed that she had been crying.

“You understand, don’t
you?” Harris was saying, when Marti approached.  “We just can’t have that kind
of publicity.”  His finger pointed to a newspaper on the desk.  The headlines
read: “TWO OFFICERS DIE ESCORTING SPENCER HOUSE NURSES HOME AFTER A NIGHT OF
DRINKING.”  “And that goes for you too, Martina.”  Harris focused on her now.

“What goes for me?”
Marti asked, but already had a good idea what was coming down.

“Why are you firing
Martina?” Gloria protested.  “She was at work here till midnight.  She had only
one glass of wine at Hannity’s before we left there to go home.”

“I’m sorry, Martina,”
Harris turned to her again.  “Like I told Gloria, when this blows over I’ll be
happy to hire you both back.  It’s just that this sort of thing makes the home
office very irritable.  In this case, I have no choice but to abide by their
wishes, and let you go.  For what it’s worth, though, I will be issuing you
each a glowing recommendation.  Absent of this recent incident, of course.  You
both have been superior employees.  If you should choose to seek employment
elsewhere, hopefully those will help.  I might add: we also have openings at
our Los Angeles and Portland Oregon facilities.  That is, if you’re interested
in continuing with us.  You can think about it.  In the meantime, however, your
final checks will be available in a few minutes.  They’re working on them
upstairs now.”

‘Oh, wow!’ Marti
thought, once all of this had sunk in.  What would her folks think of her
getting fired after only a month on the job?  But she understood why and didn’t
hold a grudge against Spencer House for doing it.  Or even Scott Harris, for
that matter.  He was only doing his job.  “I’ll just go up and get my things,”
she said, timidly backing away.

“That won’t be
necessary, Miss Spalding.”  Harris waved her back.  “A fourth floor nurse will
be down with the contents of your locker, momentarily.  I took the liberty of
having that done for you.”

So now she wasn’t even
trusted to retrieve her own things?  “Okay.  Then I’ll just wait.  In the
meantime, can I use the phone?  I need to call a friend.”

“Help yourself,” Harris
tossed over his shoulder, already retreating toward his office across the
lobby.

Marti opened her purse
and searched for the card given to her by Lieutenant Dunbar.  She knew just
where to look.  It was, no doubt, under the pistol, but she wouldn’t bring that
out here.

“I’m sorry, Martina,”
Gloria said, between sniffles.

“Don’t be.  I figured
to be leaving soon anyway.”

“And when were you
going to tell me that?”

“Tonight, probably.  It
just came to me this morning, after I left you,” Marti said.  “I planned to ask
you to come along.”

“You did?”  Gloria
seemed pleased.

“Of course!  It’s
because of you I decided to go.  It’s the only way you’ll be safe again.” 
Marti came up with the card and reached for the phone.  “I thought we’d leave
tonight,” she said, then remembered the broken rear window in her car.  It was
the reason for the phone call she was about to make.  She dialed the number.

“I can’t go that soon,”
Gloria protested.  “I’ve got furniture to deal with and…”

“Yes, Lieutenant
Dunbar, please?” Marti said, then paused.  “No, just tell him Martina Spalding
called…  Yes, I’ll be at the apartment, once you’ve radioed him…  He knows,
yes.  Thank you.”  Marti dropped the phone into its cradle.

“What was that about?” 
Gloria took on a blank look.

“I’ve got a bullet in
my car.  I thought he’d be interested in it.”

“A bullet!  My God,
Martina!  What happened?”

“Raym took a couple of
shots at me,” Marti said, then for some strange reason, she smiled as if the
whole ordeal had been a hoot.

“What…!  Martina, are
you alright?”

“I’m fine.  But I bet
things aren’t going so well for Raym, about now.  I told his mousey wife that I
was having an affair with him.  I even gave her reason to believe me.”

“And he shot at you for
that?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my God!  What am I
going to do with you?  Somehow, when I drew that floor plan of the building
last night, I just knew something like this would happen.  Raym has a terrible
temper.”

“That’s all you have to
say?  He has a temper?  The man’s a killer, Gloria,” Marti corrected her.  “And
an easily provoked one, at that.  But then, I knew that going in.”

Twenty minutes later,
the two of them cautiously exited Spencer House and ran for the car with their
possessions.  Two minutes after that, they were at the curb in front of the
apartment building, and soon thereafter scrambling to get inside.  But before
they could, a familiar voice shouted from the street.

“Miss Spalding!”  It
was Dunbar they saw stepping out of the patrol car and marching toward them. 
“You called?”

“Go on in, Gloria,”
Marti said, looked around, then descended the steps again.  “Lieutenant, I
called because, as you can see, I ran into a little trouble,” she said,
pointing to her car.

“This is your car?”
Dunbar walked to it.  “What happened to the rear window?”

“Raym Koffee shot it
out.  But that’s not why I called…”

“Now, wait just a
damned minute, Martina!  There you go again.  Will you just once answer a
damned question, before creating another one?  Now, let’s start over.  Raym
Koffee shot out your rear window.  Was he trying to kill you?”

“Well, I guess that’s
pretty damned obvious, wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?”

“Okay.  Then let’s try
this one.  Why was he trying to kill you?”

“Because I provoked
him,” Marti said.  “Are you going to ask me how I provoked him?  Or why I
provoked him?  All of that is counterproductive, Lieutenant.  The important
thing is one of his bullets is lodged in my seat.”  She yanked open the rear
door and pointed at the hole.  “I thought maybe the bullet that’s in there
somewhere may match up to the ones removed from the John Doe.  If so, then you
have your killer, Lieutenant.”

“Okay,” he said,
scratching his brow, confused.  “But one question first.  Then I’ll let the
others rest until later.”  Dunbar lifted his eyebrows in anticipation.  “Did
you actually see Raymond Koffee shoot at you?”

“Of course!  He was
chasing me with his car.  Plenty of people must have seen it.  It happened just
an hour ago, in the downtown area… two blocks from the police station,
Lieutenant.”

Several people, in
fact, had reported a car chase.  But none reported gun shots that he knew of. 
“Did you see the actual gun?”

“Well, I saw his fist
come out of the window.  It looked like something black was in it.  Then
POW!
 
My rear window exploded.”

“So, it could have been
a small pistol?  Even smaller than the one I gave you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Alright!  Now, we’re
getting somewhere.”  Dunbar then got down on his knees with a small knife to
cut the seat and remove the bullet.  Moments later he came up with it. 
“Twenty-five caliber,” he said, holding it up to the light.  “Okay, Miss
Spalding, I’ve got to get this downtown.  You’d best get inside.”

“Aren’t you going to
tell me if that’s a possible match?  I mean, I think I have a right to know,
since I was almost killed by it.”

“Okay, Martina.  I’ll
share with you just this once.  Both the John Doe and Officer Bright were
killed with twenty-five caliber bullets.  The only thing is, the markings on
the slugs recovered could not have come from a modern gun.  The gun those
bullets were fired from could only have been a Colt vest pocket pistol,
manufactured somewhere around 1896.”

“So it was an antique?”
Marti said.

“I suppose so, yes.”

“As Gloria mentioned…
the Koffees own hundreds of antique guns. Do you suppose that Colt you’re
talking about is one from their collection?”

“Could be,” Dunbar
shrugged.  “But now I need to go.  I’ll wait for you to get inside.”

“There’s just one more
thing, Lieutenant.  I tricked Raym Koffee’s wife into admitting he wasn’t at
home last night.”  She fingered some hair aside, proud of her accomplishment. 
“He told her he’d been at the club.”

“Okay!  You got me
again, Martina.”  He pushed his hat back in frustration.  “Now just how was it
you happened to be chatting with Mrs. Koffee?”

“I’ll make it quick for
you, Lieutenant.  I went to the Koffee building this morning.  I did it with
one goal in mind, and that was to intimidate Raym.  Give him some of his own
medicine.  So, when I went in, who’s the first person I bump into?  Well, it
just happened to be his wife, Sheela.  To get the ball rolling, I told her I was
pregnant.”

“Pregnant!”  Dunbar
glanced to her midsection.  “Are you pregnant?”

“Of course not,
Lieutenant!  But I’m on a mission, remember?  What I did then was tell her that
Raym was the father.”

“Wow!  So, that’s why
he chased you and shot out your rear window?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Miss Spalding, I don’t
have time for this.” Dunbar said, holding up a hand.  “Do me a favor.  Go to
your apartment, and please don’t come out again until you hear from me.  I’ve
got your number.  Okay?”  Dunbar was beyond frustration.  He wondered now if it
was still a good idea that she continue to have the Beretta he’d given her. 
Where’d this gal come from? he asked himself, again.

“Okay, if you insist,”
Marti said, then she backed away to a point, and ran up the steps.  Why was he
so sour, she wondered?

Fearing by her
departing expression that he’d hurt her feelings, Dunbar shouted after her,
“Thank you, Miss Spalding!”  He was, after all, appreciative of the potential evidence
she’d supplied him.

“Sure!”  Marti felt
better now and merrily entered the building.  Even if she didn’t have the
opportunity to tell about how clever it was of her, to have the foresight to
flatten Raym’s tires.  Even though it hadn’t worked out quite as well as she’d
expected… he didn’t need to know that.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

To add insult to
injury, when Gloria got to the apartment door, attached to it was an eviction
notice.  After a petition was circulated by the tenants of the building,
management determined by the results that they were no longer wanted here for
safety reasons — their own safety.  They had one week to relocate. 
The balance of this month’s prepaid rent, plus deposit, would be fully
refunded, if they complied as requested.  Otherwise, a court order would be
sought.

Gloria had a martini in
hand when she allowed Marti entry into the apartment.  What else could go wrong
this day? she wondered, waving the notice about.

“What’s that?”  Marti
asked, knowing it must be something awful, judging by Gloria’s body actions.

“We’re evicted,” she
said.  “The other tenants are worried for their safety.”

“I can’t say as I blame
them.  I’d be plenty scared myself.  Them not knowing how much of what happened
is our fault.”  Marti took it from her hand.  “How long do we have?”

“Just a week!”  She
tipped the drink for a sip.  “One stinking week!  Can you believe that?”

Surely, Marti could
have a new rear window installed in her car by then.  “If we’re leaving town,
what difference does it make?”

“Maybe none.  But I
like things on my terms.  I’m tired of being told what to do.”

“I know, Gloria,” she
went to her, “but all of that is about to change.”  She pulled her in for a
hug.  “How does Los Angeles sound to you?”

“Actually, any place
but here sounds good to me right now.”

“I’ll drink to that,”
Marti said and went to the kitchen, where she poured a glass of wine. 
“Cheers!”

“Cheers,” Gloria
laughed, hoisting her drink.  “After this, why don’t we go to Hannity’s and
celebrate our new adventure?”

“Oh, honey!” Marti
said.  “Dunbar made me promise to stay in until we hear back from him.  He’s on
to something and apparently doesn’t want to have to worry about us for a
while.”

“Well, if I’m to be
trapped here for any length of time, I’ll need a resupply of gin.”  Gloria
picked up the bottle and held it to the light of the window.  There seemed to
be only about four or five good drinks left in it.

“If it can wait until
afternoon, perhaps you can call Hannity’s and have Lenny send over a bottle,”
Marti suggested.  She then headed to her bedroom to change out of the tight
dress.  A few minutes later, she emerged in jeans, a white sweatshirt, and
sneakers, to find Gloria pouring herself another drink.  Marti laid the
Beretta, previously removed from her leg, on the table and topped off her wine.

“Have you ever been to
Los Angeles, Martina?” Gloria spoke of what was on her mind.

“You know I haven’t. 
I’m a virgin, remember?”  She then laughed at her own joke.  “Why?  Is there
something about it I should know, before going there?”

“It’s beautiful.” 
Gloria sat down at the table with her fresh drink.  “And then there’s
Hollywood.  Hey, maybe you could get into the movies?”

“Me?”  Marti laughed at
the suggestion.  “How about you?  You’d make a great movie star.  Not only do
you have all the right features, your voice is so sexy… like… silk.  Change
your hair color to blonde and you could be another Marilyn Monroe.”

“You think?” Gloria
extended fingers and fluffed her hair.  “Then I may give it a shot.  I tried
once before, but I guess I was too young then.  Maybe I was just at that in
between age, where nobody wants you for a movie. Too old to be a
kid — too young to be a woman.”

“How come you never
told me about that before?”

“How much can one
person tell about herself over a month’s time, and do a decent job of it? 
There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Gloria said, looking into her drink as
she stirred it with a finger.  “I didn’t have a happy little home to grow up in
like you, Martina.  My folks were divorced when I was eight.  After getting
shuffled around all over the place, I ran away at seventeen.  That’s when I
ended up in Hollywood.  After a couple of weeks of getting screwed on every
agent’s couch in town, I finally wised up.  After that, my grandmother took me
in.  Then, eventually, she sent me to nursing school.  End of story.  Now you
know it all.”  She laughed heartily.

“Oh, Gloria!”  Marti
reached out to her.  “It doesn’t have to be LA.  Hell, we can go to Oregon?  Or
anywhere else you want, for that matter.”

“Los Angeles is fine. 
It is truly an exciting place.  Besides, I’m wiser now.”

“Yes, you are,” Marti
said, patting her back.  “That’s what comes with experience.  It can cure you…
or near kill you even, but we always seem to emerge the better for it. 
Right?”  She smiled warmly, with concern.

“Bravo!”  Gloria
hoisted her drink and drained it.

Then, eventually,
Gloria drained the bottle too.  And, after finishing the drink made from it,
she went to her bed to sleep off what she’d previously thought was a decent
drunk.  That is, until dizziness set upon her, and she found it difficult to
speak coherently.

After Gloria left the
room, Marti paced the floor for a half hour, before forcing herself to sit
down.  It had been a traumatic morning, and even after two glasses of wine, she
wasn’t recovered.  The wine was gone, but she probably wouldn’t have had any
more of it, anyway.  She knew her limit when in this frame of mind.  Drinking
when anxious only served to make her more anxious, she knew from experience. 
Now she’d proved that true, one more time thus far in her short life.  How many
more times like this would there be? she wondered dreadfully.

Springing to her feet
again, she went to the door and looked through the peep hole.  Nothing there,
nor did she expect anyone to be.  Nobody but the two of them lived on the sixth
floor.  It was too much of a climb for most people to want to have to deal
with.  Dunbar intimated he would call if there was an all-clear… or something
to that effect.  At least that’s the way she took it.  Certainly he wouldn’t
drive over just to tell her an arrest had been made, when a phone call would
serve to update her just as well.

Looking back at the
clock on the wall, she saw it was near noon.  Strangely though, she didn’t feel
hungry.  Why not?  She was always hungry at noon, regardless of the breakfast
she had eaten.  Another revelation!  Enough excitement could cause a loss of
appetite.

And then the phone
rang.  She dashed for it, so as not to allow it to disturb
Gloria — any more than it had already.  “Hello, Lieutenant,” she
said, with bottled anticipation.

“Lieutenant…? 
Lieutenant…?” a man’s voice mocked her.  Then there was laughter.  “God, you’re
a crazy bitch, Martina.  Why don’t you look out the window?  I’ve got a little
surprise for you.”

“Who is this?” Marti
frantically asked.  Then, when it became evident she would get no response to
that, she dropped the receiver and ran to Gloria’s room.  She figured it was
Raym on the phone, but since she had never heard his voice, except for that
shout, “You!” from in front of his office building, she had no way of knowing
for sure.  And as far as him calling her by name, which shocked her at first,
Gloria could have told him that at some point before she broke it off with him
and all hell erupted.

At the window, Marti
hastily raised the blind.  What she saw below completely devastated her.  Her
precious car, the one her dad had so lovingly cared for all those years, then
generously handed off to her, was on fire.  White smoke bellowed from the
shattered rear window, and the interior was a cavern of blackness.  So angry
was she now, sound reasoning appeared no longer an option.  And fright never
entered her mind.  Without further delay, she dashed for her keys on the
table.  Then, seeing the Beretta there as well, she pulled it from the holster,
shoved it in the waist band of her jeans, and pulled the sweatshirt over it.

At the door, she made a
quick check through the peep hole of the hallway again, then unlatched it.  To
be doubly sure no one was out there, she looked again before fully stepping out
and turning to relock the door.  Then, just as she had the key in one of the
locks, she heard footsteps behind her.  Turning back, she saw nothing and
hurried to finish the job.  Gloria was inside.  It raced through her mind that
it was important this be done properly.  The footsteps were louder now and she
glanced back again.  And again, she saw nothing but the stairwell railing, dead
ahead.  She could not see around the corner, where the mouth of the stairway
was, but that was only a short distance.  If someone was there, making the
noise, they would have rounded the corner by now.  The person must be on the
stairs.  But somehow that didn’t seem right, either.  Footsteps on stairs
sounded different.  Or did they?  Fumbling to get the key in the second lock,
the keys accidentally slipped from her trembling fingers and rattled to the
floor.  “Shit,” she said under her breath.

Snatching up the keys,
she had a complete change of plan.  She would let herself back into the
apartment, where she should have stayed in the first place.  Going back to the
first lock, she inserted the key.  That’s when her head exploded with a call
for action.  A killer instinct was now in control.

“Miss Spalding?” had
echoed down the hallway.  But the words were of no importance.  A reaction had
triggered with the first tiny fraction of the first syllable.

“Ahhhh!” Marti shouted
and jumped into the air.  Then when she came down again, the direction she
faced had completely reversed… and she was in a stance to do battle,
physically.

“My!  Now that was
impressive!”  Dunbar marched toward her.  “Were you going somewhere?”

It took her a second to
register.  “My car is on fire, Lieutenant!”  She charged past him.

“Your car is
not
on fire, Martina!”  Dunbar turned to see her go, stop, then return.

“I just saw it from the
window… two minutes ago!”  She was adamant in her effort to convince him.

“Well, then I saw it
before you, ha, ha, ha.  I’ve been on those god awful stairs for at least five
minutes,” Dunbar said.  “Someone tossed a war surplus smoke grenade in your
car, Miss Spalding.  It’ll be fine, once the smell is gone.  I don’t suppose
you happened to see who did it?”

“No.  I got a phone
call…”

“From whom?”

“I assumed it was Raym
Koffee.”  She paused for recall.  “He said something like, ‘Look out your
window, Martina.  I have a surprise for you.’”

“What made you think it
was Raym?”

“Who else could it have
been?  Besides, he called me a crazy bitch!  Probably for what I did to him
this morning.”  She turned back toward her apartment door, where her keys still
dangled in the lock.