The Dangerous Edge of Things

CHAPTER 2

Eric’s office was decorated with the military zeal that only a civilian could muster—navy carpet, gold brocade drapes, coat-of-arms wallpaper. Dueling pistols crossed above the loveseat and mock samurai swords above his desk, this bombastic creation as pitched and massive as a merchant schooner.

In the middle of the excess was one spot of hominess—an old family portrait on the wall, taken when I was barely eight, Eric on the edge of twenty. We were both dark blondes, but while he was tall and slim, I was short and compact, with Dad’s broad shoulders. All I remembered from that day two decades ago was how excited I’d been to have us all together for once.

The detectives didn’t care about Memory Lane, however. I waited in the doorway while Vance walked a slow circle around the office, as if she were printing it with her mind. Ryan stood by Eric’s desk, looking pointedly at the stacks of papers and manila folders, including Eric’s desk calendar.

“Did your brother have any appointments scheduled for this afternoon?”

“Why would he? He was leaving for the Bahamas.”

Ryan eyed the calendar. I stepped forward and moved a notebook on top of it, but not before I’d caught a glimpse of the day’s agenda—two items, both in the morning: Tai pick-up: 7:30, flight to Miami: 11:05. I wondered how much Ryan had scavenged from his brief perusal.

He smiled. “Maybe he forgot, made a mistake.”

“My brother doesn’t make that kind of mistake.”

“Thorough guy, huh? Organized, a good planner?”

I folded my arms. “Yes, Eric’s all those things. Why do you make it sound like that’s a crime?”

“Not my intention. I’m just wondering why a young woman would come to his home office unless she had an appointment.”

“What makes you think she was coming to see him? The car was parked across the street.”

Vance flanked me from the left. “Because we found your brother’s business card under the front seat.”

The white square I’d seen in the plastic baggie. So Eric had known the dead girl. And she’d heard of him.

Through the picture window, I saw movement across the street as the EMTs loaded the body into the ambulance, threading past a crowd that had swelled to include a news crew. Bars of waning sunshine cut through the branches of the oak tree, slanting across the hood of the Lexus. The sandy-haired man watched from the sidelines, cell phone pressed to his ear.

I noticed Ryan looking at me then, his expression alert. Vance seemed to be cataloging everything in her periphery—leather reading chair, framed Kandinsky print, cut crystal whisky decanter—and using it to decide who my brother was, who I was, what had really happened. Like Norris, she’d decided I didn’t fit. And she was right—I didn’t. But that didn’t make me, or my brother, a criminal, and I was determined to prove it.

“Is there anything else?”

Vance snapped her notebook shut. “We appreciate your cooperation, ma’am, but that probably does it for here.”

Ryan nodded in agreement. “For here.”

I felt a surge of relief. It was almost over. And then it hit me. “For here?”

Ryan nodded again.

“I know what that means. That means you’re taking me downtown, doesn’t it?”

Vance laughed. Ryan crooked a half-smile at me. “Oh yes, ma’am. You are definitely going downtown.”

I sighed and dug in my pockets for a piece of nicotine gum. God, I wanted a cigarette.

***

Waiting in the interrogation room felt very much like being kept after school. Boxy and square, off-white and badly lit, it had the same smell as a principal’s office—Pine Sol and plastic and industrial air conditioning—and the same sense of imminent unpleasantness.

Detective Ryan brought me coffee. Detective Vance turned on a video camera. And then I repeated a lot of the same information I’d told them before. But before I could explain once again how very little I knew, I actually learned something.

“Eliza Compton,” Vance said, slapping a file folder on the desk. “That name sound familiar?”

So they had an ID. “I’m sorry, no.”

“Did your brother ever mention knowing her?”

“No.”

“Not even in some offhand casual way?”

“No.”

I didn’t tell them that Eric and I had spent the majority of our lives being offhand and casual. But now, thanks to the gun shop, our every conversation was tinged with exasperation of the most personal sort. Still, we were trying to get along, and I was ready to follow our relationship wherever it led.

Of course, if I’d had any idea it would lead to the APD interrogation room, I’d have been a little more hesitant.

Ryan shifted forward and put his elbows on the table. “Any idea why she might be leaving him a voicemail message?”

“What message?”

Ryan motioned to Vance, who pulled out a small digital recorder and hit play. The voice that came from the machine was female and young, with a deep Southern accent. Her words were clipped and nervous at the edges: “Dr. Randolph? It’s Eliza. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it last night. I tried, but there was a problem, a big problem. I’m headed over right now, though.” Then a robotic voice announced the time: three-fifteen p.m.

Ryan looked at me. “You don’t recognize her?”

“I don’t know Eric’s friends.”

“She called him Dr. Randolph. Sounds like she’s a client.”

“I don’t think he works with individuals any more, just businesses.”

“If that’s true, then why would she be meeting him at his home, and not at work?”

I started to say she wasn’t really at his home, she was on the curb, but I dropped that idea. I’d heard rumors about Atlanta’s finest from Rico—taser-gun waving, bad cop/bad cop scenarios—and decided pretty quick the last thing I wanted to be was an uncooperative witness.

“I honestly don’t know. I take my brother to the airport, go to check his mail, and suddenly, there’s a dead girl across the street and everybody’s asking me what I know, which is nothing. Have you talked to Eric yet?”

“We’re still processing that information.”

Uh huh, I thought. That meant they were using me to verify whatever it was he’d told them. I wondered—again—why he hadn’t called me yet and took a sip of my coffee. It was surprisingly good, creamed and sugared with a heavy hand.

“How did you find out who she was?”

“We got an official ID on the scene.”

The sandy-haired business type, I decided. Mr. G-Man.

“Then I’m not sure what more I can tell you. If she is the woman on the answering machine, then it’s obvious my brother didn’t kill her—he was on the plane by eleven, on a cruise ship by two. I’m assuming you’ve verified that by now, along with my alibi.”

“I wouldn’t call it an alibi, Ms. Randolph. You said yourself that your friend Rico can only account for your whereabouts until about four o’clock, when you left Kennesaw. After that…” He spread his hands.

I put down my coffee. “Wait a minute, you don’t really think I had anything to do with this, do you?”

“Now why would we think that?”

Which wasn’t a no.

“Well, do you?”

“No, Ms. Randolph, we don’t. But the fact is, you found the body. And that makes you very important, whether or not you had anything to do with how that body got there.”

“What about my brother? Is he important too?”

“Of course. He was the person Eliza Compton was trying to see when somebody blew her brains out a hundred feet from his front door.”

He leaned forward, and I caught the smell of secondhand smoke on his jacket, probably from some other innocent bystander he’d been interrogating. The tips of my fingers itched. I rubbed them on my jeans.

“Do I get to go soon?”

“Yes, very soon. A few things to sign and you’re on your way.”

I sighed. “Good.”

“Just don’t leave town.”

“What?”

He smiled. “I’m kidding. We can’t make you stay in town—that only happens in the movies.” He got up and his chair scraped backwards. “But seriously…don’t leave town.”

***

Detective Vance escorted me to the lobby, where I sat in an anti-ergonomic chair and waited for a patrol car to take me back to Eric’s. She perched on the check-in counter, reading rap sheets and ignoring me. When my phone rang, however, she gave me her full attention. I got up and moved to the far corner of the waiting area.

It was Eric. “Tai! Thank God! I’ve been worried sick!”

Vance cocked her head. I turned my back on her.

“You’ve got some explaining to do!” I hissed.

“I’ve already talked to the cops.”

“So have I. Down at the station. Still here as a matter of fact, wondering what the hell—”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this under control.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You didn’t just get interrogated.”

Vance rustled her paperwork. I ignored her.

“I’ll explain soon, I promise, but right now the important thing is getting you someplace safe.”

“Why isn’t your place safe?”

“Tai—”

“I mean it, Eric. Who was that girl? Why was she—”

“Look, I had nothing to do with what happened, but I’d still feel better if you stayed someplace else. And I don’t mean that room over the gun shop.”

“Don’t start. This has nothing to do with the shop.”

“You’d better hope not. That’s the last thing I need right now.”

My temper flared. “When did this become about what you need? I’m the one stuck at the police station with you being all bossy and mysterious and suggesting I might be in danger—”

“Which is why I’m trying to help!”

I glanced at Vance. She raised an eyebrow. I lowered my voice.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I’m setting you up at the Buckhead Ritz-Carlton. I’ve got a corporate account there, and the security is top notch.”

“But—”

“Just for tonight. Call it a favor.”

He made it sound simple, which made me suspicious. I decided to take him up on the offer, however. Rico still hadn’t called me back, so his place was out. And I didn’t really want to stay at Eric’s, not until I could close my eyes and not see blood.

“Okay,” I said, “but—”

“There’s a car on its way to pick you up.”

“I don’t have my things.”

“Get some things on the way, I’ll pay you back.”

“But my car—”

“You can get it tomorrow.”

“I just—”

“Look, I know this is hard. I’ll explain everything tomorrow, I promise, but until then, stay put at the hotel. And relax.”

He hung up, and I stared at the phone. Something was happening, of that I was certain. I felt like a minnow in a trawl net, flopping about with sharks.

Just then Ryan joined Vance in the lobby. She frowned and looked a question at him. He nodded, then looked at me. A taut smile stretched his mouth, but his eyes were sharp enough to slice brick as he said, “Rumor has it the Mercedes out front is for you.”