Dying to Teach Page 27

  She stepped back and peered up. Flat roof. No attic. No eaves. Maybe the apartment was a wing added at the back. She gestured to Evan who followed her down the alleyway to the right of the building. They didn’t find a wing-apartment, but they did locate a door, down three steps, into the basement. There was no identifying number on it but it was painted the same green as the front.

  Evan made no negative response so she went down. And knocked. No answer. No dog barked. Lincoln Underwood’s personnel file had indicated he was single, but that didn’t mean a girlfriend wasn’t hanging out here. They hadn’t expected anyone to be there. Lincoln was at the high school, still drying auditorium seats. Even though the show had been moved outdoors; Mr. Reynolds didn’t want things getting all musty so he’d kept the staff busy drying the place out.

  After knocking two more times and still getting no response, Kiana tried the knob. Locked.

  She turned to ask Evan what to do next, when the door whooshed open, yanking the knob from her sweaty fingers. She prepared an excuse for why she’d been trying to get in but it was Evan standing there looking very proud of himself.

  “I found an open window.”

  “There aren’t any windows in a below-ground apartment.”

  “Sure there are.”

  Kiana stepped in to dark, though well-outfitted living quarters. The studio apartment appeared to take up half the basement of the building. To the left, a dresser and double bed, with a blue spread tucked neatly around the pair of pillows. To the right of that, beyond a half-open door Kiana could see a bathroom. Straight ahead, a leather sofa and chair in front of a wide screen TV hanging from the wall. To the right, a small kitchen. The eating area consisted of two stools tucked under a rolling countertop in front of the sink. Over the sink, as Evan said, was a rectangular window.

  “The bathroom window was open,” he explained. “I fell on my head in the bathtub.”

  “Could’ve been worse. You could’ve landed in the toilet.”

  Evan punched her on the arm. She shrugged. “Let’s get looking. Who knows what time he gets off today.”

  Kiana wanted to know more about this man who seemed so interested in that photograph from under Gwen’s blotter. Was he somehow related to her? Long-lost brother? Ex-boyfriend? Maybe they could find a clue here.

  On a small table near the couch sat a pair of framed pictures. She picked them both up. One was Lincoln holding a small blonde-haired girl of about eighteen months. In the other he held a blond boy of about four years old. Kiana guessed the janitor was divorced and these were his children. She felt bad for the man that, until this moment, she hadn’t liked.

  Evan had gone to the bedroom area. His hands were invisible in the top drawer of the dresser.

  “Find anything?” she whispered.

  “Just pictures of a couple of kids.”

  “Same here.”

  No other personal items were in the living room, so she went to the kitchen and pulled open drawers. Lincoln Underwood was a very neat man. He kept everything aligned side by side. The pile of mail stacked and fastened with a rubber band.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” came a growl from her left.

  Kiana didn’t have to spin around to know a very angry Lincoln Underwood had arrived. He stepped toward Kiana. She stepped back.

  “I’ll ask you again. What are you two doing here?”

  He took another step. She took one. Out the corner of her eye she saw that Evan hadn’t moved from the bedroom area, though he had shut the drawer.

  Underwood took another step. Kiana backed one more.

  This couldn’t continue. Soon she’d be trapped against the refrigerator. And he could make bodily contact. He didn’t wield a mop this time but his body said he could wring her neck without a second thought.

  Kiana launched herself at the man, pushing off with her feet and throwing her hundred-twenty-five pounds at his chest. He tumbled backward and landed with a thud on the floor between the rolling counter and the sink. His head make a terrible sound on the tile-covered cement.

  Kiana fell against the countertop, which rolled to the right. She slid off the edge of it and landed on the floor too.

  Evan shouted, “Run!” but there was no need to. She had already scrambled to her feet and taken a step around the counter toward the door.

  Suddenly her feet were yanked out from under her. She went down hard on her shoulder. The high-pitched squeal had to have come from her.

  “Kiana!”

  “Go, Evan! Get help!”

  He hesitated, torn, she knew, by opposing thoughts.

  Then, decision made, Evan’s silhouetted form raced past them, through the door and disappeared up the stairs.

  Lincoln’s grip loosened—probably from indecision on how to handle this new development. Kiana took advantage. She kicked, and though most of the force only shoved her across the carpet, one of her soles made contact with flesh. He grunted and ducked his head away, then shifted his grip to get hold of both ankles.

  She kicked both feet and tried to turn over. Skin tore. Ligaments stretched. Kiana rolled anyway and landed on her back. Her legs were twisted yet she kicked again and again.

  “Knock it off,” he said. “Stop kicking.”

  This only made her kick harder. Flat on her back now, her hand found wood, which provided leverage. She planted one shoe bottom on his head, the other on the arm that held her ankles. And pushed. The grip loosened a bit. Kiana moved both heels to his head—and jabbed.

  She wrenched herself free, feeling his groping fingernails digging into her skin. Kiana clambered to her feet.

  She’d taken two running steps when fingers found a handful of her shirt. Buttons popped. One hit the wall with a thwack. She slid out of the garment and took another step. A hand latched onto her right arm. Pain shot from her wounded shoulder and into each extremity.

  “Help! Help!” Could anyone hear? Had he chosen this secluded basement apartment for a reason? Maybe he routinely killed people here. “Help!”

  “Shut up.” Lincoln shoved her against the wall and she squealed again as her shoulder thunked against the metal.

  “You can’t kill me, Evan’s gone for help.”

  “I’m not going to kill you. I’m calling the cops.”

  That was a good thing, right? They’d rescue her from this crazed school cleaning man. A cell phone appeared in his hand. He dialed the three numbers.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  “Figured what out?” Jarvis felt his brow wrinkling into an accordion. It wrinkled further as Angelina and Debra’s discussion grew more cryptic. The more they talked, the more confused he became.

  “Though it still doesn’t explain why Gwen was killed,” Angelina said.

  “That’s what’s got me thoroughly confused,” Deb said. “Nothing in Gwen’s past could be construed negatively. There’s no reason for anyone to want her dead.”

  Jarvis wasn’t convinced Gwen’s past was as picture perfect as Deb said. She hadn’t lived a perfect lifestyle, as was evidenced by her arrest for marijuana possession. Deb must know about that.

  When Jarvis asked about it, Deb smiled. “Yes, she and Randy, and six others were arrested at a party one night.”

  “No claims of, ‘it wasn’t mine, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time’?” Jarvis asked.

  “No, they were guilty. But marijuana was an experiment for them, not a habit.”

  “Were you involved too?” Angelina asked.

  Deb gave a sly grin. “I was working that night.” She replaced the picture in its place.

  Angelina selected another and handed it to Jarvis. This one must’ve been taken the same time as the christening picture she’d described from Gwen’s album. Probably a few minutes later because Gwen was now holding the baby and standing beside the brown-haired man. A priest had entered the scene too.

  Jarvis had been watching Angelina, trying to get information from her expression—she usually had a very expressiv
e face—but right now he couldn’t read a thing.

  He handed the framed picture back to Deb, who feathered her fingers across the glass surface, then held it against her chest. “So, Angie,” she said, “I gather you haven’t told Detective Jarvis that Kiana is Gwen’s daughter.”

  He pulled forward on the sofa, perching on the edge of the cushion the way Angelina had been. His gaze shot toward Deb, who laughed. “I guess that answers my question.” She replaced the picture on the mantle.

  “So, when Gwen found out she was pregnant, she asked Randy for an annulment and left for California,” Jarvis ventured.

  “No,” Deb said. “The annulment really was because he was gay. Gwen didn’t learn of the pregnancy till she was out west. Actually, she passed out on her way into UC admissions office. She was taken to the hospital and received the momentous diagnosis.” Deb smiled nostalgically. “She phoned me that night. She’d just spoken to Randy, who’d been less than enthusiastic, but supportive.”

  “So, she planned to keep the baby?”

  “Yes, but time passed. The reality of raising a child virtually on her own became too much for her to handle. When Kiana was born, against my vehement advice , and my offer to take the baby, she gave her up for adoption. The adoptive parents lived in Kansas and did keep in touch, sending regular letters and pictures.”

  “Then the husband’s job got him transferred to New Hampshire?” Angelina ventured.

  “Right.”

  “And Gwen got tired of living on the outskirts of her daughter’s life, and decided to move close to her.”

  “Right again.”

  “I bet Kiana’s parents weren’t happy about that.”

  “I don’t think they knew—they’d never met Gwen in person. Didn’t know what she looked like.”

  “Did Kiana know the truth of her birth?” Jarvis asked, amazed at the rapport between these two women.

  In unison, Angelina and Deb said, “Yes.”

  Jarvis blew out a chuckle. “What the hell is it with you women—do you have some secret language?” They all laughed. “How did Kiana find out the truth?”

  “I don’t know,” Angelina said.

  Jarvis laughed again. “You mean there’s something you don’t know?”

  “I do,” Deb said. “Gwen told her. She couldn’t hold it inside any longer.”

  “How long have you known about Kiana?” he asked Angelina.

  “I suspected right from the beginning.”

  No way anybody could know something like that from simply meeting a person. Then again, Angelina had an uncanny knack for reading the truth in a person’s demeanor. If another person claimed such a thing, he would’ve accused them of grandstanding for the witness.

  “That first day,” Angelina explained, “Kiana was telling me about the play she wrote. The girl in the play, if you recall, experiences the same things we’ve just been discussing.”

  “But the girl in the play was in high school,” Jarvis said. “And she had a boyfriend who was a football star. Her best friend got arrested for drug possession.”

  Angelina went silent a moment. From past experience, he knew this meant he’d missed something. He ran the previous discussion around in his brain. Except for the age of the characters in the play, and that Randy was into track and not football, this could actually be Gwen’s story. “Okay, you’re right,” he said. “But what made you realize?”

  “At one point as she was telling me, Kiana started to say Gwen’s name.”

  “So you figured it all out from a slip of the tongue.”

  “It was only a suspicion at that time. It got clarified after the show last night when she said, ‘My mother is here.’”

  Now she was really stretching things. “Big deal. Her mother was in the front row. So was her father.”

  “Exactly. So, why would she say it only about one parent?”

  “I see, unless she didn’t get along with her adopted father.”

  “They got along great,” Deb said.

  “But doesn’t this add more evidence to prove Randy’s the murderer? He found out about Kiana being his daughter and killed Gwen to keep the whole thing quiet.”

  Angelina shook her head.

  “Randy doesn’t know,” Deb said.

  “But Kiana was proud to find out Gwen was her mother. To know her father was right there in town should’ve sent her over the hill.”

  “It would have, except that she doesn’t know Randy is her father.”

  “But that photo the kids found in Gwen’s office…It showed them—together.”

  “What photo is that?” Deb asked.

  Angelina drew her cell phone from her purse, clicked a few buttons then held up the screen shot of Gwen and Randy taken at the college.

  Deb smiled at the memory. “I took that the day they got married.”

  “This looks nothing like Randy,” Angelina explained. Angelina returned the phone to her bag and sat beside Jarvis. He resisted the urge to hold her hand and settled for letting their upper arms touch.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’ve figured out that Gwen switched over to drama in order to be close to her daughter.”

  “Right,” Deb said.

  “But doesn’t that make a better case for Randy being the killer? He found out about his daughter… He’s the one ransacking Gwen’s things, looking for Kiana’s birth certificate, adoption papers—anything connecting him and Gwen to Kiana.”

  “If he were the killer—then he would’ve taken the photo album from Gwen’s apartment. It was in plain sight,” Angelina said. “You see, that album is the key to the whole mystery. Randy would never allow it to see daylight. It’s got several pictures of him and Gwen.”

  “Therefore, since Kiana now has possession,” Jarvis argued, “she must know he’s her father.”

  Deb laughed. “No way is the Randy of those days recognizable from the Randy of today.”

  She had a point. He’d taken courses in recognizing suspects by comparing things they couldn’t change about themselves: bone structure, eyebrow and lip shapes, and it had been a struggle for him to connect the two men. No, probably Kiana hadn’t realized the truth.

  There seemed to be no further rehashing of the situation. No more information to be learned. Jarvis left contact information with Debra. She and Angelina hugged and said their good-byes.

  Back in the car and heading onto Main Street, Jarvis had to ask, “So tell me how the Ellis family photo made you sure you were on the right track?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You picked up that picture and nodded like things had suddenly become clear.”

  “Remember I told you about the album Kiana took from Gwen’s apartment? Well, in it was a picture taken at a baby’s christening. A girl baby.”

  “I get it. Debra has two sons.”

  “Therefore the baby at the christening had to be Gwen’s.”

  “I still don’t get the connection to her murder.”

  “Neither do I. Yet.”

  “It’s almost two o’clock, want to stop and get something to eat?”

  “What if we get a coffee for the road? I’m anxious to get back.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  Her soft, “No,” took too long in coming.

  Something was wrong. She looked okay. As a matter of fact, she looked fabulous. When Angelina got that serious set to her face, she was so sexy. Probably not something he should tell her. So, what was wrong?

  For several moments he had no answer. He concentrated on finding his way back to the highway. Suddenly he knew; it was that intuition thing she often called a curse. “You think something’s about to go wrong?”

  The nod was barely perceptible—which was probably not a good thing. The tightening of her lips was definitely not a good thing.

  “No idea what it’s related to?”

  “Kiana.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Kiana stood against Lincoln Underwood’s kitchen wall, wearing nothing
but jeans and her bra. The apartment door remained open from when Evan had run out. A cold breeze rushed in, raising her nipples to sharp points. Kiana had never felt more naked. She held her good arm up, fingers splayed to cover as much of her as she could.

  A clink of metal and rustle of leather said the cops had arrived. Cautiously they moved into the room and took account of the situation.

  With reinforcements in place, Underwood backed away from Kiana and retrieved her shirt from the floor near the refrigerator. He brought it and held it so she could ease her throbbing arm into the torn sleeve. Sure, now that witnesses had arrived, he could be Sir Galahad. A minute ago he was on a vicious rampage.

  He told his story to the cops, how he’d come home to find the two kids ravaging his place. Kiana said nothing. What was the point? She’d been caught red-handed. Speaking of getting caught. Where was Evan? He had to be around somewhere, no way would he have left without her.

  Because of her bad shoulder, they decided not to snap on handcuffs. Sandwiched between the two cops, she exited Lincoln Underwood’s apartment, and down the dank alley beside the building. People had gathered on the sidewalks on both sides of the street. They stood gawking as she was walked to the cop car with the lights flashing on top.

  She should be embarrassed at all this, but right now felt only relief to be alive. A fleeting thought, to try and escape, was quickly dashed when a second police car skidded to a stop behind the other. A half-block away, Evan’s bike sat parked against the curb. No sign of him.

  One of the cops yanked open the back door of the first cruiser and put a hand on her head as she slipped inside.

  Kiana wasn’t alone. Seated beside her was Evan.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” Sort of. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I was going for my phone in my backpack on the bike. I saw the cop car at the end of the street. I mean, what are the chances of finding a cop when you want one? They told me to get in and we came here.” Evan noticed her popped buttons. “What happened to your— Oh no, Kee, he didn’t—”