Not in the Heart (26 page)

C
HAPTER
40

6 DAYS BEFORE EXECUTION

Abigail watched the clock tick toward nine, glancing back at the empty stalls and the one man still getting a haircut. She had wanted to quit the job after the scene at Tompkins's apartment, but something told her to hang in there. It wasn't bad having some extra money, of course, but working there gave her a creepy feeling. It was partly the section of town they were in but mostly the personnel.

Tompkins had returned in the afternoon and she gave him a stack of call slips, including one of her own at the bottom of the pile that said, “I need to talk to you after work.” He had called her phone and made her go through the whole spiel: “It's a great day for a style at Mane Street Hair and Nails. This is Cheryl; how may I help you?”

“I saw your note. What's up?”

“I need to talk. After work, if that's okay.”

“Sure thing. Lock up after everyone leaves and come on back.”

Even the way he said it made her stomach turn, but she shoved that feeling down and helped Dexter sweep the hair and wipe down the stations.

“You don't have to do that,” Dexter said.

“I know. I can finish up in here if you'd like.”

The man looked at her like she had a third eye in her forehead. “You don't mind?”

“I'm fine. Go ahead.”

Seizing an opportunity he acted like he'd never had, the man gathered his backpack and flew out the door. Abigail locked it behind him and turned off the flashing Open sign. Then she hit the Off button to cut the classic rock station that played more Lynyrd Skynyrd than any other station on the planet. She shut off the lights, took a deep breath, and knocked on the office door.

“Come,” Tompkins said. He covered the phone when she entered and nodded toward the chair. The room was dimly lit by a banker's lamp with a green shade that cast the requisite glow.

“All right, I got somebody here. Maybe we can talk about it later.”

He had the phone up loud, probably because most of his hearing was gone from the excessive noise levels at the club.

“What can I do you for?” he said when he was finished.

“I was just wondering about your offer. You said there might be more I could do for you than be a receptionist.”

“Money getting a little tight, or are you just looking for some adventure?” He smiled and leaned back in the chair. “After what happened at the apartment, I figured you weren't interested.”

“I am,” she said.

“All right. The way it works is this. I give you something to do. You do it. You don't ask questions. I pay you. Everybody's happy.”

“How often?”

“I don't know; how often do you want? Maybe once every couple of weeks?”

“And how much would it pay?”

“I'd start you out at a C-note. A hundred bucks. I'd just add it to your pay. At any point you don't like it, you let me know and you'll be done.” A pause. “What's the matter?”

“I just . . . I mean, I need the money, but I'm worried about what happened to that girl who worked here before.”

He rolled his eyes. “Diana? You got nothing to worry about. That was a fluke. And the guy who did it is buying the farm. That had nothing to do with this job.”

She eased forward in the seat, pasting a look on her face that showed concern. “I saw a guy in the club the night we were there. I've seen him before but I don't know where.”

“A guy? Honey, there are a lot of guys at the club who scare me, but I don't let that stand in the way of business, you know what I mean? What did he look like?”

She used her dad's description to paint a picture and watched Tompkins's face for any sign of recognition. She made a big deal about his blond hair and how long it was.

“Doesn't ring a bell. I'm not usually afraid of anybody with long blond hair, but maybe that's just me.”

“He creeped me out. I thought you might know him.”

“You see him again, point him out. In fact, why don't you come with me tonight? We'll get to the bottom of this mystery blond guy.”

“I'd rather get started with the delivery, to be honest.”

“Well, that happens when the need arises, on my schedule, not yours.”

“I understand,” she said.

He sat there looking at her as if she were some exquisitely wrapped present. “What else is going through your mind? Why would you stay late instead of heading home? There must be something.”

The look was knowing, inviting, seductive, stomach-turning.

“Come on, tell me.”

Abigail winced. “I don't know. I just can't stop thinking about that girl. Can't get her out of my mind. Working here one day and the next she's gone, buried in some junkyard.”

His phone buzzed and he looked at it. “You seriously need to stop living in the past. Are you her sister or something? Related to her? Trying to put some pieces together?” He hit a button on the phone. “Yeah? . . . All right, I'm almost on my way.”

Abigail beat him to the door and walked out. She could feel his stare. “I'm not related. It's just one of those stories I can't get out of my head.”

He moved past her toward the front door and she reached inside the top drawer of the reception desk and pulled out a weathered notebook. “I've been reading her last diary.”

He stopped and turned. “Her what?”

She held it up so he could see it and he moved toward her.

“I'm thinking maybe the police would want to see it. Or maybe the lawyers for Conley's defense.”

“Where'd you find it?”

She pulled it away from his grasp and glanced outside. “Have
you
been looking for it?”

“No, not me. Right after she died, there was somebody from her family who got in touch. Said they wanted it. We looked at her station but there was nothing in the drawers. Let me see.” He held out his hand. “Listen, they offered a reward. You could probably still make a few bucks.”

“Her family offered a reward? Her mother was this close to eating cat food.” She took a step back. “What family member called?”

“I don't know. It was a man. A little while after her body turned up. And then a few days ago.”

“A few days ago?”

“Yeah. I got a call from a guy who said they were still looking for that diary and could I help. I told him I didn't know about it. And now you come up with it.”

“What if I told you it tells everything? About what you did. About how you wanted to frame Conley. How you used her to make your little deliveries.”

“I'd say you're crazy because she never worked for me outside of . . . Look, who are you?” He moved toward her with a hand out. “Give me that diary. If you found it here, it's not your property.”

Abigail moved around the reception desk toward the front door and Tompkins followed. She shoved it into her purse, knowing this wasn't Diana's diary but her own from middle school. Her dad had suggested they try to age a notebook they bought at Office Max, but Abigail had a better idea.

“Where did you find it?”

“You tell me,” Abigail said. “Maybe your safe?”

His face scrunched in incredulity. “Now you're talking stupid. Why would I keep her diary in my safe when I could have gotten a reward?”

“You're right. You wouldn't have kept it; you'd have destroyed it. What are you hiding, Tompkins? Why did you kill Diana Wright?”

Tompkins lunged for her arm and grabbed it. He pulled her closer and grasped her purse. At that moment, glass shattered in front of them and a brick landed in a chair near the magazines. Tompkins covered his face and let go of her arm. Abigail moved behind the desk as a masked figure ran down the sidewalk.

“Hey!” Tompkins shouted. He unlocked the door and rushed outside, giving chase.

Abigail followed him out but quickly turned right and hurried away. Her car was parked on the next street and she was to rendezvous with her dad at a predetermined location. She glanced back a couple of times to make sure her boss wasn't following her, then broke into a dead run, her heart racing, a smile forming on her lips. Their plan had worked, at least somewhat. She would have to play back the audio she had captured with the microrecorder, but she felt sure this new information would be useful.

At the corner, she found her car parked right where her dad said it would be, but when she reached it, she heard footsteps behind her and a voice. She turned in time to see a figure before he pushed her to the ground. Metal glinted in the streetlight. She threw her hands up and screamed, and then the assailant was gone, along with her purse and everything in it. Her keys. The decoy diary. And her wallet and every bit of identification.

She struggled to her feet as the figure ran toward a streetlamp. He paused by a trash can, pulled something from the purse, then tossed the purse inside. The last thing Abigail saw of the man was the blond hair flowing down his back.

C
HAPTER
41

I stood across the street from a Subway restaurant, sweating like a pig, panting like a dog, and smelling a little like both, waiting for the police to pounce, worried about Abby, and wondering where she was. From my vantage point, the plan had worked. I had no idea how the conversation had gone, but when she brought that diary out, Tompkins tipped his hand. As I had assumed, he wanted to chase me down. I figured in his overweight condition he would lose steam and Abby would get away. I didn't know that he would have such fortitude, and he actually closed the gap between us. The closer he got, the heavier my heart beat, the shorter my own breath. He lumbered closer and his breath sounded like a freight train. The nine fifteen murder express was catching up.

Fortunately for me he pulled up lame, holding the back of one leg. I slowed to a trot. He pulled out his cell phone and I took off again, darting around a corner, ditching the ski mask I had picked up at Goodwill, and headed for the rendezvous point. When Abby didn't show in what I thought was plenty of time, I wanted to double back to her car, but the screaming siren and pulsing blue and red lights sent me into the shadows, then across the street to the Subway for something to drink.

Abby pulled up a few minutes later and showed me the cut strap and described the guy who had pushed her down and given her a nasty scrape where she hit the pavement. With her face and my eye, we made quite a pair. That razor could have been used on her instead of her purse strap, and that fact was chilling.

She drove from the area and I let the information sink in. The blond guy and Tompkins had to be working together. Unless they weren't. Unless the blond guy was watching the salon just as closely as I was. And the club as well.

Abby pulled into a deserted Mervyns parking lot. Looked like the place had been shuttered for a while. Perfect spot for a father-daughter chat.

She told me about the conversation she'd had with Tompkins, how she tried to lead him into giving more information about Diana, but that he wouldn't bite.

“He's a liar and a drug dealer and a cheat; there's no doubt about it,” she said. “But some of his responses . . . I don't know. Either he's a really good actor, or he doesn't know anything about Diana.”

“He's mixed up in it somehow,” I said.

She played me the audio of the entire conversation, right up to the point of the brick crashing through the window. She reached to stop it, but I told her to let it go. She had kept recording as she ran, breathing heavily as she rushed to her car. I was glad I didn't have a recording of myself after the brick-throwing incident.

The audio was muffled and rattled inside Abby's shirt pocket, but at the point when she turned, a man's voice rang out. I grabbed the recorder to replay that section and hit the wrong button, taking us back to the beginning. Abby rolled her eyes and fast-forwarded to the spot and played the voice again.

“One more time,” I said.

She played it again.

“He said, ‘Abigail.' He knows your name.”

“That's creepy,” Abby said. “Tompkins doesn't know my real name, so how would the blond guy?”

“Maybe they know a lot more than we think. When you showed him the diary, he was all over it.”

“Maybe there's something in there that incriminates him—stuff that was going on at the salon. But everybody who has worked there knows stuff is going on behind the scenes.”

“Makes you wonder why he hasn't been caught at something.” I ran a hand through my hair, thinking through the possible scenarios. “Maybe she threatened him. He got her to make some deliveries and then she got scared. Said she would go to the police.”

“Which would make sense that he said she was a prude. She wouldn't keep working for him. But what about the blond guy?”

“Maybe Tompkins hired him to track her, to make sure she wasn't going to the police. He confronted her, and things went south.”

“But why go to the trouble of framing Conley?” Abby said. “Before she was even murdered, he was out there.”

“And why would he be hanging around after all these years? At the club and watching you tonight?”

Abby touched my shoulder, a look of horror on her face. “Dad, that car at our house. Maybe somebody planted a bug. Maybe they're listening.”

I gave her a deadpan stare. “Maybe they'll check my mail and pay some of our hospital bills. This is not some grand conspiracy. This is a little criminal trying to cover his tracks.”
I hope.

“Murder is not a little crime and neither is framing an innocent man. That'll be two deaths to his account if Conley is executed.”

She had a point there.

“What should we do?” she said.

“If we find this blond guy who knows your name, we have to deal with the sharp razor.”

“If he would risk coming out in the open like that for what he thought was the diary, it has to have something in it. Dad, what if the police were involved? What if one of them found it and kept it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Their motivation?”

“Money. Maybe they're collecting it from Tompkins.”

“You've been watching too many bad cop movies. These cops aren't pure by any stretch but—”

Abby snapped her fingers. “Wait, you said Diana was looking back at the street in the video. What if she'd seen the blond guy through the window? Maybe that spooked her and she ditched the diary before she left.”

“Wanda said she was agitated that day and thought it could have been because of Conley. But if she saw the blond guy . . .”

“The surveillance camera clearly shows him there. And if she was scared, she might have left it.”

“Why?”

“To speak from the grave. To show everybody who killed her.”

“That's a pretty huge leap.”

“It's what I would have done.”

“Well, there's no diary there now.”

“How do we know?”

“Abby, it's been—sorry, Abigail—it's been a lot of years. Anything she may have hidden in the drawers or some secret compartment is long gone.”

“But think about it. If you were going to hide something incriminating, where would you put it? Right under the nose of the guy who could be hurt the most. Right?”

“No, I would have mailed it to my mother in a sealed envelope and marked it ‘Open at the event of my untimely death.' But that's just me.”

“Dad, the diary is in Tompkins's office. Stuffed in a filing cabinet, duct-taped under his desk, concealed in a bookshelf—I don't know, but it's there.”

“Well, we shouldn't have too much trouble getting it now that we've broken the front window and there are police crawling all over.”

“We need to go back.”

Good idea. Let me find my ski mask.
“That's crazy. We're not going near that place.”

“Dad, we'll find something.”

“Maybe so, but not tonight. Take me home.”

“No, I'm going.”

“Abby, you don't have to prove anything more. Let's go.”

She smiled. For the first time I saw some kind of satisfaction in her eyes, like she had reached the top of a mountain she'd been climbing all her life.