Getting Rid Of Bradley

Chapter Three

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Lucy said. “I mean, first you grab me in an alley-”

“Listen.” Zack fixed his eyes her. “ John Talbot Bradley is six-five and weighs about two hundred pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes, and he’s in very good physical condition. He used to be a high-school phys-ed teacher. Does he sound like your ex-husband?”

Lucy opened her mouth and Zack held up his hand. “Think about it before you answer. I know it sounds dumb, but think about it.”

Lucy shook her head. “No. Bradley’s blond and good-looking and a little out of shape. I bought him sweats once so he could run with me, and he told me that physical exertion was for people who didn’t use their minds. The height is close. But his eyes are gray.”

Zack began to slap his notebook with his pencil. “He still might be able to pull it off. You met him in March and that’s when John Bradley went missing in California.”

Lucy shook her head again. “Then definitely not I met him in March, but he’d already been branch manager of his bank for a year.”

“Branch manager of a bank?” Zack stopped frowning. “Two Bradleys, two banks. And then the phone tip and the diner. There’s got to be a connection here. All my instincts tell me there’s a connection.”

“All my logic tells me there isn’t,” Lucy said. “Your logic is wrong,” Zack said absently. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why were you in that diner today?”

“I told you, I was at the courthouse…”

“Were you supposed to meet Bradley at the diner?”

“Not exactly. I was supposed to meet Bradley at the courthouse. But he’d sent me a note, asking me to have lunch with him at the diner after the hearing, and then when he didn’t show up at the courthouse and my sister Tina wanted to talk, I suggested the diner, just in case he’d be there.”

“So you went to the diner to meet Bradley.”

“No,” Lucy said patiently. “I wasn’t even sure he’d be there. But Tina insisted on lunch so she could convince me to become spontaneous and irresponsible, and I picked the diner just in case he might be there. And then thanks to her, I beat up a cop.”

“You did not beat up a cop. I told you, I wasn’t fighting back.” Zack leaned forward until he was almost touching her, his blue eyes blazing into hers. “Now, listen. Concentrate.”

Lucy blinked at the heat in his gaze. “Okay,” she said, trying to remember what they’d been talking about. He was doing something to her brain, scrambling her thoughts. I bet he’s murder on cell phones, she thought, and then dragged her attention back to what he was saying.

“My partner and I were there because a woman called and told us that Bradley was going to be there,” Zack said, speaking very clearly as if he thought she was slightly backward. “That is all she said. ‘Bradley’s going to be at Harvey ’s Diner on Second at one.’ Now, could that have been your sister?”

Lucy pulled back a little so she could think. “My sister would love to see Bradley arrested and shot, but even she wouldn’t call and tell you he was going to be there if there wasn’t any reason for you to arrest him. Trust me, Tina does not think that Bradley is involved in a crime. And neither do I. And neither do you. You’re just annoyed because your instincts failed you.”

“No,” Zack said. “Somebody shot at you this afternoon. Remember when I grabbed you by the alley?”

“Vividly.”

He leaned forward suddenly and touched the cut on her cheek, and she jerked back. “How did you get that?”

“A car hit a stone…”

Zack shook his head. “Somebody shot at you and missed and the bullet kicked back a piece of the brick wall. I saw it hit you. That’s why I dragged you into the alley.”

“Oh.” Lucy digested the information. “So you thought you were saving my life while I thought you were mugging me.”

“I didn’t think I was saving your life, I…”

“And then I beat you up. I’m really sorry.”

Zack closed his eyes and then looked at Lucy again. “Listen to me carefully. Somebody is trying to kill you.”

She glared at him. “Listen to me carefully. Nobody is trying to kill me, and if you looked at this logically, you would see that.”

“Wait a minute.”

“There are two people standing against the wall. One of these people is a mild-mannered high-school teacher whose students all adore her. The other is a condescending police officer who grabs innocent women and drags them into alleys and who has probably alienated everyone in the greater Riverbend area. Now, which of these two people is most likely to be shot at?”

“You,” Zack said. “My instincts tell me you.”

“Your instincts stink,” Lucy said and blinked. “I’m sorry. I’m usually not rude. I’ve had a bad day.”

“That’s all right,” Zack said. “People are rude to me all the time.”

He shoved his notebook back in his jacket and stood. “Listen, we’ll argue about this later. Right now, I’m going to look around the outside of your house. You stay inside.”

Lucy stood, too. “I beg your pardon?”

“Inside. You. And the dogs.” Zack looked down at Heisenberg. “Stay. All of you.”

Lucy put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Who do you think you are?”

“Me?” Zack said on his way out. “I’m the guy who saved your life, so you owe me. Stay put.”

He glanced back and grinned at her as he went out the door. Lucy said, “Listen, you, you didn’t…” and then he was gone.

“Who does he think he is?” she asked the dogs. “He just comes in here, out of the blue, and tells me somebody’s been shooting at me, and orders me around. Just what I needed. Somebody else ordering me around.”

Only she hadn’t let him. She’d fought back.

And it really felt good.

“I think I’m on to something with this independence thing,” she told the dogs. “I really enjoyed arguing with him.”

Of course, it hadn’t had much effect on him. He’d just glared at her and charged on ahead. And he hadn’t been all that mad, anyway. A minute after the glare, he’d been grinning at her again. She pictured him again, those bright blue eyes heating her and that crazy grin scrambling her thoughts, and she had to remind herself that she was mad at him. “This is my problem,” she told the dogs. “I’m too easygoing. I should be mad at him. I should want to kill him.” She stopped on the last thought.

He’d said somebody was trying to kill her.

Who would want to kill her? That was ridiculous. That was something that happened on TV. A car backfired and kicked up a stone. People did not go around shooting guns in downtown Riverbend.

He must be wrong.

Wrong, but gorgeous.

She pictured him again, much against her better judgment. That grin, that swagger, those blue, blue eyes that connected with hers with such impact on her breathing. “The thing is,” she told the dogs, “even though I know he’s a policeman, he doesn’t look like a policeman. He looks like a very, very sexy bad guy.”

She heard a noise in the vestibule and looked up to see Zack leaning in the doorway, and she blushed so hard she almost passed out.

“You talk to the dogs,” he said.

“Well, of course I talk to the dogs.” Lucy prayed he hadn’t heard what she’d said. “It’s not like I talk to plants or anything non-sentient.”

“What I was going to ask was why you have such expensive locks on this place. You must have dropped a small fortune on the front doors alone, and from what I can see from the front, the windows are locked, too.”

“Oh, they are,” Lucy said, eager for a change of subject. “Even the attic windows. Did they really cost a lot?”

“So they weren’t your idea.” Zack looked satisfied. Smug, even. “Bradley ordered them, right?”

“No. It was my sister.”

His satisfaction disappeared. “Your sister was afraid you’d be robbed?”

“No, my sister hates my ex-husband. She did it to annoy him. She said it was to keep him from taking anything out of the house that I might possibly be able to strip him of in the divorce. My sister plays hardball in divorce court.”

“I bet she does,” Zack said, taking out his notebook again. “And when was this?”

“Oh, she had them put on as soon as I told her about…the blonde. I mean, within the hour, the locksmith was here with a crew. That was about two weeks ago.” Lucy thought back. “The end of January.”

Zack went out to the vestibule. “Do you have burglar alarms?” he called back to her.

“No.” Lucy followed him. “Look at this place. Does it look like it needs a burglar alarm?”

Zack glanced around the high-ceilinged hall. “It’s not bad. It’ll be nice when it’s fixed up. So, for protection, you’ve got the locks and the dogs.” He looked down at the three dogs who had followed them to the vestibule and were now sitting in a row, watching him.

“Don’t make fun of my dogs,” Lucy said.

“I’m not making fun of your dogs. Dogs are a good deterrent for thieves. They make noise. Thieves hate noise. Killers aren’t crazy about it, but they’ll cope.”

Lucy folded her arms. “Nobody is trying to kill me.”

Zack spread his arms wide. “Look. Humor me, okay? Just in case somebody really is trying to get you?”

“Who would want to get me?”

He cocked his head at her. “Well, ex-husbands have been known to go after the wives who locked them out of their houses.”

“Bradley didn’t want this house. He signed the divorce papers without a fight. He didn’t want the house or me.” Lucy stopped. “Sorry about that last part. I’m not really that pathetic, it’s just that-”

“You’re not pathetic at all.” Zack flashed his grin at her. “Bradley, however, must be an idiot.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said.

“You’re welcome,” Zack said. “Now stay inside.”

ZACK WALKED AROUND the house, checking the windows and the back door. The basement door was in the back near the neighbor’s alley on the right, an old-fashioned, sloping wood door that had two metal bars across it, both with locks. The locks, like every other one he’d seen on the house, were very new, very efficient, and very expensive. Sister Tina either hated Bradley a whole lot or really worried about Lucy.

And possibly she had a reason to be worried. Zack frowned at the scratches on the basement-door lock. He was peering into the lock with his penlight when someone screamed at him, startling him so much that he dropped the light as he spun around.

“I’ve called the police so you might as well run off like all those other young punks,” she screeched. “Go on. Go on!”

“Damn it, lady, you scared the hell out of me!”

The gray and wizened woman on the back porch of the next house was hunched over the rail in a nothing-colored coat three sizes too big for her. Her clawlike hands waved at him while the pleats of skin on her face worked soundlessly for the moment in indignation. Then her voice came back.

“Get out,” she screeched. “Smart-mouthed good-for-nothing!”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Zack said, gritting his teeth. “I was startled. I’m a police officer.”

“Well, if you are, the world’s in worse trouble than I thought, and I thought it was in the toilet.” She stared at him viciously, and Zack wondered briefly about the evil eye. If such a thing was possible, this hag could deliver.

“Hello, Mrs. Dover,” Lucy called out from the back door. “It’s all right. He’s with the police.”

“I knew this neighborhood was finished when you moved in,” Mrs. Dover shouted back. “Torturing my cat. Bringing those vicious dogs in. Coming and going at all hours.”

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” Lucy came out onto the porch and looked down at Zack.

“Torturing her cat?” Zack asked and Lucy shook her head.

“Phoebe hasn’t been the same since the Porters moved in,” Mrs. Dover said. “I’ve called the humane society, but they won’t do anything. Oh, no.”

“Usually the sun doesn’t come out much in February,” Lucy said brightly to no one in particular. “We’re very lucky today.”

“And now this trash.” She gestured at Zack. “Does your husband know you’re entertaining hoodlums?”

“Actually, I’m divorced now, Mrs. Dover. And Detective Warren really isn’t a hoodlum. I made the same mistake, too, but he’s really very nice.” She looked at Zack. “I think it’s your jaw and the five o’clock shadow. I know you can’t do anything about your jaw, but you would look much more reassuring if you’d shave. And get a haircut. Really.”

“Thank you,” Zack said.

A patrol car pulled up in front.

“Maybe he’s the police.” Mrs. Dover climbed down her back porch steps while she kept an eye cocked on Zack. “Maybe. But I bet he’s on the Most Wanted list Ha! We’ll know soon.” She nodded and hobbled down her driveway to the street to meet the uniforms.

“Great,” Zack said. “This makes the second time today somebody’s called the cops on me.”

“Well, as I was saying, I think your image needs work. I realize you’re probably undercover-”

“No, I’m not.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Forget it.” Zack started for the street. Then he screamed in pain.

A large dirty yellow cat had leaped on his leg, burying her claws deeply into his calf through his jeans. Zack kicked out, and the cat dropped away while Mrs. Dover screeched at him from the street.

“Meet Phoebe,” Lucy said.

“Damn!” Zack nursed his shin. “What’s wrong with that animal?”

“I think she’s psychotic. I hate her because she uses my car for a litter box so I have to keep the windows rolled up all the time, even in the summer. And because all three of my dogs are terrified of her.”

“Her, who?” Zack glared at Mrs. Dover’s back as she gestured wildly to the police in the street. “The woman or the cat?”

“Both,” Lucy said. “Do you want some iodine?”

“No,” Zack said, as a young patrolman approached him. “I want to shoot that damn cat.”

“Sir?” the patrolman began. “This lady has a complaint.”

Zack looked at him closely. “How old are you? Twelve?”

The young patrolman stiffened. “Sir…”

Zack got out his badge again. “I’m sorry. I’m having a bad day. I’m investigating an attempt on this woman’s life.” He nodded toward Lucy.

“You are not,” Lucy said. “They shot at you, not me.”

“Shut up.” Zack looked at the patrolman. “Do you ever get tired of defending the public?”

“All the time,” the patrolman said. “I’ll just have to call this in, sir…” he began, looking at Zack’s ID, and then he, too, screamed.

“Shoot the cat,” Zack said. “It’s assaulted two officers and resisted arrest. Do it.”

Mrs. Dover hissed at him, scooped up Phoebe, and disappeared into her house.

“Is this some kind of a joke?” the patrolman asked, nursing his shin.

“No. Tragically, no. Go ahead and call that in.” Zack looked up at Lucy as the patrolman made his way back to the car. “What does it mean when everyone you see is younger than you are?”

“It means you’re getting old. There’s a new teacher at my school. She asked me yesterday what it was like in the old days when I first started teaching.”

“Did you deck her?”

“No.” Lucy stuck out her chin. “But I may when I go back in to school tomorrow. I’ve gotten a lot meaner today.”

Zack laughed. She looked so funny, neat and round with all that crazy dead black hair haloing her face, calmly announcing mat she was a lot meaner today. What a sweetheart.

Dumb as a rock, but sweet.

“You’re not going back to school tomorrow,” he told her. “You’re moving in with your sister until I figure out what’s going on.”

Lucy frowned. “How long will that take? Especially if you’re going to figure it out by instinct. I don’t have that much sick leave. I don’t think anybody does.”

She wasn’t that sweet. Zack glared at her, and she bunked.

“Sorry,” Lucy said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me today.”

“Forget sick leave,” Zack said. “How much dead leave do you have? I’m not kidding here. You could be in danger.”

“I think-”

“Don’t. Trust me on this one. I know what I’m doing. Somebody’s been trying to pick your locks.”

“What?”

Zack pointed his finger to the back door behind her. “There are scratches on your back-door lock, and there’s a piece of metal broken off inside this basement-door lock. Somebody’s been trying to get in here.”

Lucy swallowed. “Bradley?”

“Well, that would be my best guess. He may just be trying to get his golf clubs back. But then again…” He shrugged. “Somebody shot at you on the street today.”

“At you,” Lucy said, but her voice held a lot less conviction.

“Just stay with your sister for a while. She’s got room, right?”

“Oh, she’s got room. But I’m not going. She can’t take the dogs, and I’m not leaving them.” Lucy stuck her chin in the air. “Besides, I don’t believe this.”

Zack lost his temper and stomped up the back porch steps. He grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face the door as he pointed at the lock. “See those scratches?” His face was so close to hers they were almost nose-to-nose. “Those were made by a pointed metal tool. Somebody was trying to break in.”

Lucy blinked at his closeness. “Well, they didn’t get in, did they? So I must be pretty safe.”

“Only because they’re trying to be subtle for some reason. Sooner or later, they’re just going to smash a window and climb in. Lord knows why they haven’t already. I advise you to move to your sister’s.”

“No,” Lucy said.

Zack let go of her arm and closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then he looked down at her with all the patience he could muster.

She looked up at him, wide-eyed and trusting.

Oh, hell. If somebody did hit her, it’d be his fault for not taking care of her.

He forced himself to speak calmly. “Look, just do me one favor. Stay inside tonight. I’ll call you when I find out more tomorrow, okay? And I’ll have the patrol car keep an eye on you. Just until we can get a handle on your Bradley and see what he’s up to.”

Lucy opened her mouth to speak, and he overrode her again. “Just for tonight and tomorrow. That’s not much to ask. Please.”

“I’d have to leave, anyway,” Lucy said. “I’m a teacher. Even if I wasn’t going in to school tomorrow, I’d have to take in lesson plans.”

Zack looked again into Lucy’s huge brown eyes and thought again about how much she needed a keeper.

Not him, of course.

Still…

“I will take them in. Now, about this sick-leave thing. How long have you been teaching?”

“Twelve years.”

“And how many sick days have you taken?”

“None.”

“That’s what I figured. So how many do you have saved up?”

“One hundred and thirty-eight,” Lucy said.

“So if you use a couple, you could still develop a major disease and have everything covered, right?”

“Right,” Lucy said, “but that’s not the point. The point is, I’m not sick.”

Why was it he finally found an honest citizen only when it worked against him? “Look. Think of this guy who’s trying to kill you as a life-threatening illness. I do.”

“I really think-”

“I told you, don’t think. Just do what I tell you. If it will help, I’ll shave and put on a suit and come back and tell you to stay inside. I’ll do whatever it takes. Because I really do think you’re in danger.” He gestured to the basement door. “These are all good locks. Take advantage of them. Stay inside and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Well…” Her pointed face was so confused under all that dead black hair mat suddenly Zack’s annoyance faded and he felt protective again. She seemed so helpless, so soft and round and absolutely clueless about reality.

“Please,” he said. “Just for tonight.”

“All right.” Lucy swallowed at his earnestness. “But I still think you’re wrong. Anyway, if you give me a couple of minutes, I’ll print out the lesson plans. This is very nice of you. Thank you, Detective Warren.”

“Zack.” He grinned at her in relief. “Detective Warren is for people who haven’t hit me with a purse.”

Lucy smiled back uncertainly. “Zack.” She hesitated. “I’m Lucy.” Then she turned and went back inside.

Cute. A little snippy but very cute. Even with the hair. Very, very cute. And she thought he was sexy.

Maybe he could convince her that he really had saved her life, and she’d be grateful.

He tried to picture Lucy, naked and grateful, but all he could see was Lucy, blinking at him, surrounded by dogs.

That could be a bad sign. He was losing his ability to fantasize.

Maturity.

Death.

“Sir?”

Zack turned back to the patrolman who had joined him again.

“You’re cleared,” the patrolman said. “What’s going on here, anyway?”

“I’m not sure,” Zack said. “I need you to question the neighbor.”

“The old lady?”

“Yeah. I don’t think she’s going to talk to me.”

“I don’t think so, either. She wanted me to shoot you. So what do you want me to ask her?”

“She said she’d seen somebody hanging around here, possibly trying to break in. And the locks have been tampered with.” Zack frowned back at the house. “Find out what she saw, and when she saw it, and get it to me as fast as you can, okay?”

“You got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Keep a close eye on this place for the next couple of days. I think she might really have trouble.”

“With neighbors like she’s got, that’s no big deduction,” the patrolman said.

“You should see her sister,” Zack said.

“I ALMOST INVITED HIM back in,” Lucy told the dogs when Zack had driven away with the lesson plans. “That would have been stupid.” She pulled back the lace curtain at the front window and looked out at the empty street. “He was just so different, you know? I just didn’t want him to go. So much for my new life. I make these big plans to be independent, and then I cling to the first man I meet an hour after my divorce. Still, you should have been there when he told the other policeman to shoot Phoebe. You would have loved it.”

She dropped the curtain and turned to the living room.

Her room.

Her house.

She remembered the first time she’d seen it. She’d passed it one day when she’d taken a wrong turn near the university. A big old cream brick house on a hill with a porch and a cracked old driveway and big beautiful beveled-glass windows.

And a For Sale sign in front.

And she’d wanted that house with a passion that she’d never in her life felt for a man. A big, safe, warm house she could fill with dogs and books and comfortable things. Beautiful things. A house with a big kitchen where she could make cookies and bread and soup. A house with a huge fenced-in backyard where Einstein could run. And maybe another dog. Or two. She didn’t want Einstein to be an only child.

A house. A house instead of her cold, tiny little apartment where Einstein took up half the floor space, and the oven didn’t work right, and she never felt safe. A house.

Her house.

After that, for three months, even after she started seeing Bradley, she’d drive by the house and long for it hopelessly, the way some women long for movie stars. She knew it would never be hers but it was the dream of her heart And then one day she’d been with Bradley and they’d driven by, and she’d said, “Slow down so I can see my house,” and he’d asked her what she meant, and she’d told him. And he’d said, “If we were married, we could buy that house. Will you marry me?”

And she’d said, “Yes.”

What she hadn’t realized at the time was that she was saying “Yes” to the house, not to Bradley.

“Maybe it wasn’t a mistake,” she told the dogs as she moved back into the room. “At least we have the house.”

It sounded cynical. And selfish. Tina would be pleased.

Einstein barked at her.

“I know,” Lucy told him. “I should pull myself together and stop talking to dogs. Well, you’re the only ones who listen to me without telling me what to do. Especially Tina, lately…”

Tina. Telling her to get rid of Bradley. Actually, packing up all his stuff in a box might be another small step toward independence. She wouldn’t throw it out on the lawn, of course, but she could store it neatly in the basement That would make the house seem more like it was hers alone.

Alone.

With Zack gone, she suddenly felt alone, as if something warm was missing.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone. Especially if Zack was right about the shooting and the scratches… Except of course, he wasn’t right because it was ridiculous that anyone would be threatening her, and besides there was probably a perfectly good explanation for those scratches… And if there wasn’t, what was he doing leaving her alone? He should be there, protecting her. Obviously he didn’t think she was in danger, or he wouldn’t have left her alone.

Alone.

Of course, she wasn’t alone. She had the dogs.

And besides, there were some kinds of alone that were good. In fact, wonderful. For example, the without-Bradley kind of alone was heaven. No more chill in the air, no more one-right-way-to-do-things, no more long silences and emptiness. Just her and the dogs and the fireplace. Warm.

And alone.

“Enough of this daydreaming stuff,” Lucy told the dogs, suddenly straightening. “We have work to do. Let’s get rid of Bradley.”

Lucy packed up everything of Bradley’s that she could find in the house, surprised to find it filled three boxes, not one. “There was more to Bradley than I thought,” she told the dogs. Most of the stuff was papers and books. His clothes were already gone; Tina had thrown them all out the front door while the locksmiths were changing the locks. By the time Bradley had come back mat night, his entire wardrobe was on the front lawn.

Mrs. Dover had enjoyed it immensely.

He hadn’t argued much. He’d knocked on the door and called her name, and then Tina had opened it and threatened him, and he’d gone away.

Not much of a fighter, Bradley.

Not much of a lover, either.

Or maybe that was just with her. Maybe he was better with the blonde.

The blonde. Lucy tensed as she remembered the shock she’d felt when she’d come home to find the blonde standing in the middle of the living room. Her living room. Saying that she and Bradley had been together in the house. Her house. Her bedroom. How could she have been so stupid, not to even have had a clue? How could Bradley do that to her?

He had just stood there with his mouth working like a fish, saying he could explain.

Except he never had.

He was a creep. Bringing that woman into her house. Her house. What a creep.

At least she was free of him now.

Her eyes fell on the boxes.

Or she soon would be.

She stood, gently displacing Einstein’s head from her knee, and carried Bradley’s boxes to the basement door. She set them down, opened the door, picked them up again, and threw them down the stairs, watching them turn and smash against the steps as they fell.

“Too bad there wasn’t anything breakable,” she told the dogs, and shut the door.

Then she went back into the living room and studied it. Beautiful. Bradley-less. Un-Bradleyed.

Almost.

His chair still sat in the middle of the room beside the love seat. It was ugly-a recliner upholstered in synthetic olive-green flecked with red. If Bradley had been born a piece of furniture, he would have looked like that chair. Practical, boring, and irritating. The fact that he’d loved it and wouldn’t let the dogs on it only made it more Bradley-like. The dogs had been napping on it regularly since he’d gone, but it was still an annoyance.

“What do you think?” Lucy asked the dogs. “Getting rid of a perfectly good chair would be totally irresponsible, right?”

The dogs cocked their heads at her.

“Right. Just think how proud of us Tina will be.” Lucy opened the basement door. Then she pushed the chair to the doorway, shooing Maxwell away just in tune, and shoved the chair down the stairs. Halfway down, it hit the stair rail and broke through it, tumbling over the side of the steps to smash on the concrete below in a small cloud of dust.

“Independence Day,” Lucy said, and slammed the door.