Silent Weapon

My whole family would be absolutely horrified at the idea of my walking into a place like this alone. The slightly run-down bar, nestled in the midst of numerous other more prominent establishments like Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, was located in Nashville’s famous honky-tonk central, slap in the center of downtown. It just wasn’t considered proper for a young woman to be out and about in such places without an escort or a friend, at least to my mother’s old-fashioned way of thinking. But then, I’ve always been different.

How else could the only girl in a houseful of boys survive? Whatever obstacles life threw in my path, I always worked extra hard to overcome them. Not that I fancied myself some sort of martyr or heroine, but even I had to admit that I had proved my relentless determination in the past two years. Whether my family was prepared to admit it or not, there were things I wanted to do in life, and taking extreme measures was the only way I knew how to make the point clear.

That’s why I had to do this. Come here. To a bar not listed in the prestigious brochures offered by the Chamber of Commerce or among the suggested places to visit in Music City, tailing a man whose identity I’d discovered in a cold-case file in the Metro Police Department’s historical archives.

That’s what I do for a living now. I file the records of closed cases as well as cold cases deemed unsolvable by the powers that be. Each all-inclusive record is filed first by the date of the crime, then in alphabetical order by either the victim’s last name or the moniker used to refer to the case, like Church Street Strangler or Eastside Robberies. Occasionally I retrieve a complete record for a detective who has discovered new evidence and decided to reopen the case. But this isn’t one of those kinds of cases.

This is my case. I stumbled across it by accident. My predecessor had misfiled the record. According to the lady who trained me, the previous archivist had grown bored with her work years before she’d retired at age seventy. At first I’d been somewhat bored as well, until I decided to familiarize myself with the workings of Metro detectives. Just something to pass the time since my co-worker spent her every free moment studying for the bar exam. Conversation is seriously limited by a coworker that fiercely focused on her future.

At fifty-one Helen Golden had decided she wanted a new career. Seven years later she was ready to take the plunge. I loved working with her, had deep respect and admiration for what she was doing. Hey, the woman was facing the bar exam as well as turning sixty in only two years. Maybe her example had prompted my own decision as I sought to learn more about the investigators for whom I filed and protected records.

There were the meticulous, detail-oriented detectives whose reports were methodical to the point that I wanted to scream get on with it already. And then there were the guys who investigated by the seat-of-their-pants method and who utilized one primary tool—gut instinct. That was my preferred method, I decided after reading more than a dozen case files.

Forcing my errant attention back to the matter at hand, I surveyed the two men I’d followed into this saloon. The first, my primary suspect, stood tall—well over six feet—and was broad-shouldered. He had thinning hair about the color of the brown fur of a guinea pig I once owned. The beady eyes were dark brown or black as well. His square face with its perpetual glower and heavy lines made him look about fifty, though I knew from the file that he was only forty-one. He had a criminal record a mile long, petty stuff mostly except for two charges of felony assault. The one murder charge hadn’t stuck. That’s why I was here. After reading the file, I’d known, as had the detective in charge of the case, one Steven Barlow, that this guy was guilty, but the good detective hadn’t been able to prove it.

Proving it was, admittedly, the tricky part. Charges couldn’t be filed nor could juries be swayed by gut instinct alone. Unfortunately, in situations like this one, the police can only go so far. Their hands are tied to an extent by the civil rights of the suspect. A cop can’t listen in on a suspect or search his property without a warrant approved by a judge. A cop can’t lie or otherwise mislead a suspect beyond a certain point for fear of having the case thrown out on a technicality like coercion. In my unofficial research I had decided that it was vastly unfair to expect a cop to collar a slippery bad guy when he couldn’t do anything underhanded.

That’s the beauty of my plan. You see, I’m not a cop. I’m just an overzealous file clerk taking her week of paid vacation after her first full year on the job. There are no rules governing how I conduct my investigation. I’m limited only by the fact that I cannot arrest or shoot the slimeball. But I can set him up to get caught, which is exactly what I intend to do.

I watched intently as the two men spoke quietly but fiercely about what needed to be done. The first man, the one I’d followed, whose name is Brett Sawyer, used his hands occasionally as he spoke, making frantic gestures to punctuate his words. It hadn’t taken a psychology degree to figure out what buttons to push to set this guy off—though I’d taken a few psych courses in preparation for my former career.

Until two years ago I was an elementary school teacher. But that person no longer existed. I tuned out that line of thinking and zeroed in more fully on the two men under surveillance.

I have to move the body tonight, Sawyer growled. His mouth twisted savagely as he flung the words at the other man.

…mistake.

I only caught the last word Sawyer’s companion uttered. Dammit. I needed the entire conversation, but moving to a different table was out of the question. Sawyer had looked straight at me when I came in and sat down, but he hadn’t looked again. Not even when the waitress came by and took my order. I had to keep it that way. His suspicion was the dead last thing I wanted to arouse.

I’m telling you she knows too damned much to be yanking my chain! Sawyer muttered fiercely. Details. She knows frigging details no one else could know! The vein in his forehead throbbed viciously, as if it might pop at any moment.

My heart skipped a beat. I knew with complete certainty that the she he mentioned was me. But he didn’t know my identity…only my voice. My heart kicked into a faster rhythm. My ploy had worked. Sawyer thought I knew everything. And I did, to a degree. I had the case file, which included evidentiary information not released to the media, as well as Metro’s top homicide detective’s gut instincts and hunches.

I bit back a smile. No getting cocky just yet. Stay calm. Pay attention. I couldn’t get carried away with my own ingenuity right now. The two men seated only a few feet away had committed at least one heinous murder. If I screwed up—got caught—I could very well be their next victim. The thought made me shudder.

So, I sipped my beer and glanced at the newspaper in my hands. I had it propped so that I could look beyond the top of the pages while appearing to stare directly at the headlines. I’d gotten pretty good at this kind of maneuver. Maybe I’d finally found my niche. Good thing, too. With thirty looming only a couple of months away, I had begun to worry that I might never figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

This could be my new calling.

The unidentified companion said something else I didn’t get. Double damn.

I’m not taking the risk, Sawyer said. I’m moving the body tonight with or without your help. He chugged the last of his beer before slamming the mug down on the table hard enough to make the other man’s glass wobble.

The companion’s hands came up in a calming gesture. All right. All right. He glanced covertly from side to side. …time…

Desperation slid through my veins. I couldn’t afford to miss the time and place specifics. But I couldn’t get a fix on the second guy. Not good.

Ten, Sawyer said. We’ll meet there and do this thing. We should have taken care of this a year ago, then maybe someone wouldn’t be blackmailing me.

Your problem—the second man said as he glanced in my direction. Goose bumps poured over my skin—is that you slept with a player.

Shock rumbled through me on the heels of that statement. He thought…oh, God. Sawyer thought the female calling him was some woman he’d had a relationship with. Dread curdled in my stomach. Oh, Jesus. I hadn’t anticipated that. What if he hurt the woman? It would be my fault. Surely fate wouldn’t play that kind of cruel joke on me. I was trying to do something good here.

The companion pushed up from his chair, jerking my attention back to him. Six-one or -two, I estimated. Black hair, peppered with gray. Blue or gray eyes. Dressed expensively. I hadn’t seen his face in any of the pictures in the case file or newspaper clippings, making him an unknown factor. He paused to say something I missed completely and then walked away. Sawyer stared after him a moment before motioning for the waitress to bring him another beer.

My pulse rocketed into overdrive. What if the guy who’d left intended to take care of Sawyer’s old girlfriend? A cold, harsh reality sent the air rushing out of my lungs. I’d made a terrible mistake playing amateur sleuth. I’d unintentionally put someone’s life in jeopardy.

A new epiphany washed over me, obliterating all the self-confidence I’d walked in here brandishing like a shiny sword. I would never be able to do this alone.

I needed help.

I didn’t have the location for tonight. I only knew that the two men planned to meet at ten o’clock and move the body, which meant constant surveillance. I couldn’t risk letting Sawyer out of my sight from now until then. Not to mention that if he planned to harm the woman he suspected of blackmailing him, I had to watch every move he made in order to keep her safe. But what if his friend took care of her? I shuddered at the idea. But I couldn’t afford to borrow trouble.

Sawyer hadn’t mentioned the woman’s name. The guy in the fancy designer suit didn’t look like the type to do anybody’s dirty work. Those two facts made me feel a little better. Okay. There was nothing I could do about the other guy, anyway. My only recourse was to keep Sawyer in my sights and call for backup when the time came.

Another wave of uncertainty hit me, making my gut clench. How the hell was I going to persuade Metro PD to go along with my cockamamy plan? Even I recognized how seriously nonsensical it sounded.

I didn’t personally know the detective who had initially worked this one. I knew Barlow was the best, but that’s all. He would likely think I was some sort of weirdo with a major case of cop envy. But, it appeared that was a risk I would have to take.

Sawyer stood, then tossed a few bills onto the table.

My heart lunged into my throat. When he turned his back and took two steps toward the door, I shouldered out of my attention-drawing red sweater and left it on the back of my chair. I had already placed money on the table. I abandoned the newspaper and quickly looped my hair into a ponytail before exiting the joint. If Sawyer noticed me now he wouldn’t remember a woman with her hair pulled back—sunglasses, I quickly shoved them into place—and a navy T-shirt.

I got into my car, parked several spaces away from his in a side lot. Thankfully, another vehicle, a gray four-door Saab, pulled up behind his Ford SUV while he waited for an opportunity to merge into Broad Street traffic. At six o’clock the last of the evening rush-hour traffic had peaked and started to lighten almost imperceptibly. I idled up behind the sedan in my little compact Jetta and waited.

My cell phone vibrated and I answered it, my attention divided between the display and Sawyer’s big black SUV.

Merri, where are you? Did you forget about dinner tonight?

I read the words and cringed. “Sorry, Mom,” I said, hoping the traffic noise wouldn’t be picked up by the phone’s speaker. “I completely forgot.” I grappled for an acceptable excuse as the SUV took a left. The Saab made an easy right, but I still had to get out without causing an accident or incurring undue drama, like the blowing of horns. In the meantime I couldn’t lose sight of the SUV.

Where are you? appeared on the small screen.

Uh-oh. Overprotective mom radar had reared its head.

“I’m meeting friends for dinner. I’m really sorry. I hope you don’t mind.”

Now or never. I nosed out onto the street in hopes the herd slowing for the changing traffic signal would give me a break. To my supreme relief it worked. No one made a fuss about letting me out.

Well, I suppose that’s all right, spilled onto the screen next. I didn’t have to hear my mother’s voice to know that she was disappointed that I would be missing yet another family dinner. The Walters were big on get-togethers.

A new kind of relief surged through me. I had hoped the friends thing would work. My entire family worried that I didn’t get out enough. How could my mother fault me for doing what she constantly nagged me to do? Also, I had managed to get within four cars of the black SUV I feared I had already lost. Thank God.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I offered. “Maybe we can have lunch.” I needed my full attention on driving.

My patient mother agreed to the date and let the conversation go at that. I closed my phone and tucked it back into my pocket, all the while hoping I would still be breathing come tomorrow.

I stuffed all the uncertainty and fear back into a little compartment in some outer recess of my mind and focused on the street and my target. I could do this. I had to do this. I couldn’t pretend my inconsequential job—my insignificant life—was enough anymore.