Suicide Squeeze

27

A dull shred of daylight remained when Randy dropped Conner at his Plymouth. The whole ride back, Conner thought about the Joe DiMaggio card, where it might be. It hadn’t been aboard the Jenny, in the binder with the rest of Folger’s collection.

There were a few things Conner wanted to see for himself.

He drove to Folger’s torched strip mall on Davis Highway. The place was a muddy, scorched mess, halfhearted, yellow police tape draped around the scene. It looked a shambles, but not particularly hazardous. He parked on the side in the shadows, stepped over the police tape.

There was still something of a roof left in places, held up by ash-black beams. Conner couldn’t immediately tell which store was which, but he found a half-burned, life-size cardboard stand-up of Spider-Man and figured he’d found the comic-book shop.

Conner poked through the rubble, but there wasn’t much left to see. Burned and melted shelves and display cases. He estimated where the cash register might have been and started kicking through the ash. It was dirty work, and Conner felt suddenly like he was wasting his time. But he quickly found the outline of a panel in the floor. It was caked with grime and ash, and he had to work it back and forth to slide the panel back.

He had the vague notion that he’d check the safe tonight, simply see if he could find the thing, and if it was undamaged, he would come back the next day with some heavy equipment and drill it out.

Conner felt simultaneously excited and silly. Secret safes were the nonsense of Nancy Drew treasure hunts.

He finally worked the panel all the way back. The safe underneath was unscorched, and presumably whatever might be inside was still undamaged. Conner had mulled the possibilities, thought it possible Folger had left the DiMaggio card in the hidden safe with plans to come back and pick it up later. Conner didn’t know much about safes but figured a good one should survive a fire. He examined its surface, a combination lock and a handle. He reached out, turned the handle.

It was open.

The elation of his good luck quickly segued into discouragement with the realization nothing of value would be within. Otherwise, Folger would have locked it. He might as well have a look. Conner didn’t currently have any better ideas.

He reached in, came out with a copy of X-Men. A yellow Post-it note stuck to the plastic covering said #172 First Byrne. Conner had no idea if this was significant. He put his hand back in the safe. The sum total contents consisted of four Star Wars action figures (Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and something called a Jawa) all in the original packaging, a Rubik’s Cube (unsolved), a videotape labeled Space: 1999 Bloopers, and a red lace brassiere.

No DiMaggio card.

“Damn.” But he wasn’t really surprised.

It had been difficult enough to find a thirty-six-foot sailboat. Something as small as a baseball card could be hidden in any of a million places. He reconsidered Jenny Folger. Conner had to admit, without her he’d never have found the sailboat. After all, she’d been married to the guy, knew his habits. If he told her about the card, got her thinking, she might be able to come up with something useful. He toyed with the idea of calling her, but decided the long, quiet drive across the Bay Bridge might help him think.

He pointed the Plymouth toward Mobile.

Conner arrived at Jenny’s complex. He didn’t immediately go up to her apartment, sat in the car a moment, leaning on the steering wheel. There had been something mildly disappointing and fatigued about their parting. He’d honestly not expected nor wished to see her again and assumed she felt the same way.

Conner would try to keep it all business. Jenny Folger would understand that, appreciate it. There was a mercenary quality about her, nothing cruel, but something born of necessity and survival. He’d appeal to her righteous sense of greed and revenge, and maybe she’d know something useful about Teddy’s prize baseball card just as she’d known about the sailboat.

He took a deep breath, went to her door.

When he knocked, the door creaked open, darkness within.

Hell.

“Jenny?” He pushed the door open the rest of the way, took a tentative step inside. “It’s Conner.”

No answer.

It happened sometimes. People leave in a hurry, late for work or a date, and they forget to lock the door. Leave it wide open sometimes. Even as Conner thought this, he knew on a gut level that this wasn’t one of those times, that he wouldn’t find anything but bad news in Jenny Folger’s apartment.

He found her in the bathroom.

She lay faceup, blond hair down over her face. Her right arm and leg hung over the side of the tub. She wore matching green bra and panties. She was so obviously dead. Conner looked at her from the doorway, unwilling to move closer. He didn’t want to see what had happened, couldn’t stomach a slit throat or a bullet hole or a caved-in skull, whatever had done her in.

With the life gone out of her, she suddenly seemed older, skin rubbery and fake-looking like the other bodies he’d seen recently. Too many bodies.

Who’s next? Me?

Conner recalled their sudden sex in the cheap riverfront motel. She’d been so heated and animated and desperate. It seemed impossible that this was all that was left of her.

He left the apartment. Closed the door.