Madison turned and went back into the apartment, bounding to the kitchen. She opened a drawer and grabbed a sterling-silver fork. Returning to the door, she placed the head of the nail between two of the prongs from the fork, careful not to touch the paper, and pried the nail out.
She touched the paper by the edges with her gloved hands and placed it into the Warwick’s bag. Setting the bag on the large oak dining table that she used as a desk, she sat down in her office chair with a sigh. She knew what she had to do next, but she didn’t want to. She stared at her phone, willing herself to make the first move: a phone call asking for help was a good way to get past awkwardness that had caused months of silence despite a long friendship.
Madison grabbed the phone and dialed before she could change her mind.
“Well, well, well. They always come crying back,” he said.
“Hi, Tom.”
Thomas Clark, decorated San Diego Police Department homicide detective. Madison hadn’t spoken to him in two months. She was suddenly tongue-tied, and the silence went on too long.
“So, how’ve you been? Busy?” he asked. He was uncomfortable too.
“Can’t you see from your spot in the alley?” she said, and regretted it immediately. She’d meant it to sound funny and flippant and like she didn’t care anymore—water under the bridge, they’d both moved on, let bygones be bygones—but it came out mean. Well, frankly, maybe she’d meant to be a little mean.
There was steely silence on the other end of the line.
“I’m only kidding, Tom,” she said. “I don’t care, really.”
“What do you need, Madison?”
“I need your help,” she said.
Tom laughed. “You need my help? Oh how the mighty have fallen.”
Madison started pacing. She didn’t really want to get Tom involved, but she didn’t see any other way right now. And now she had messed up the phone call. He was highly regarded in the police department, having closed some of the most high-profile cases. He could get things done quickly—and quietly. And no matter what had gone on between them, they’d known each other for ten years and she knew that Tom cared about her and respected her as an investigator. The fact that a couple of months before she’d caught him watching her apartment at night meant their relationship was strained now, sure. But he was still a good cop.
“Someone left a note on my door. A threatening note.”
“What sort of threat? What did it say?”
Madison read him the note. “And the thing is, I’m not investigating anybody right now.”
“No one?” he asked. “Not some poor guy with a jealous girlfriend?”
“Funny. I don’t do domestic investigations and you know it. They’re all batshit crazy.”
“Okay,” he said, and was silent. Madison could tell he was doing the same thing she’d done before she picked up the phone to call him: weighing the pros and cons. Finally he spoke.
“I can have the note processed. Is that what you want?”
It was exactly what she wanted. “Yes, that would be great.”
“I can come by at noon on my lunch. Where should I park?”
Madison started to answer but then realized he was joking. He knew all the places around her apartment to park. If he could joke about it, maybe they would be okay after all.
* * *
Madison decided to walk to Busy Bee’s Bagels; she was starving after jogging on an empty stomach and then all of the excitement. She put on a lightweight hoodie so she would have pockets and put her wallet, keys, and phone in them and walked out her front door.
She put in her headphones and turned on her favorite podcast, Crawlspace, to listen to the latest real-life mystery that Tim and Lance were discussing. She liked these kinds of shows and followed several podcasts covering true crime. It kept her faculties sharp. But she had to admit she was obsessed with Crawlspace: she often did further research on the mysteries they discussed, especially a San Diego mystery they were currently covering, and she tweeted the hosts constantly. Too much time on my hands, Madison thought.
She turned right onto Nautilus, walking away from the ocean. The bagel place was only two blocks away. She stepped over the broken sidewalk where the roots of the huge trees lining Nautilus had busted through. The morning gloom was clearing, and the street was dappled with sunlight coming through the trees.
She knew she would continue to work in investigations; she just didn’t know what kind. She had a knack for figuring things out, for getting people to tell her things they had withheld from others, for being lucky when luck was all an investigator had left. It always made her laugh when someone said to her, “You don’t look like a PI.” She would reply, “Isn’t that sort of the point?” She could follow someone for days and never get spotted; she could go undercover in a flash and get information out of someone who would clam up the minute they saw a “cop” type of person. It was rewarding to be good at something. But the freelance insurance investigator was a dying breed. And she didn’t know if she could stomach murder investigations.
As she approached La Jolla Boulevard, Tim and Lance started discussing the San Diego mystery that fascinated her. Two young women had disappeared after leaving bars in the Gaslamp District of San Diego. Tim and Lance used their podcast to bring attention to the case and to discuss theories: Was it a serial killer who had gotten both girls, or was it a coincidence? Their bodies hadn’t been found, so were they not dead at all? Madison liked Crawlspace because, although the hosts weren’t professional investigators, they were thorough and methodical in their approach to true-crime cases.
She paused the podcast and walked into Busy Bee’s. She ordered a toasted bagel with sesame seeds and cream cheese. She hadn’t even had the one cup of coffee she allowed herself each morning, so she ordered that with cream. She ate and drank her coffee as she walked back home, listening to the podcast. Halfway down Nautilus, the ocean could be seen framed underneath the two huge trees that met over the top of the street. It was like a 3D image of the most beautiful landscape painting you could imagine. The water in the image was so beautiful that a color had been named after it: Pacific blue for the Pacific Ocean. Madison took a deep breath of ocean air and turned into her alley. She paused the podcast again and took her earphones out; she wanted all of her senses working as she got closer to home.
She looked around as she crossed over to her building and walked around to her stairs. No suspicious cars or people.
She walked up the stairs to her apartment and used her key to get in. The note was still there in its bag on the desk. She stared at it like it might move on its own. She threw away the trash from her breakfast and sat in her office chair. Was she going to investigate this? And if so, where to begin?
Suddenly there was a pounding at the door, and she jumped out of her chair; she made it to the door in three large steps and looked through the peephole. Tom thought he was being funny by doing a cop knock.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she said as she opened the door.
“Good. Need to keep you on your toes,” he said, walking in. “I see the place hasn’t gotten any bigger.”
Madison stepped out of the way so as not to get run over. “I thought you were coming at lunch.”