So Weeps the Willow - 35. Salix Babylonica - 13 - 1:53 PM

Salix Babylonica 13 – 1:53 PM

Willow trees are kind, Dear God. They will not bear a body on their limbs.

Alice Dunbar Nelson

Rush and Hammond stepped up to the bagged heater and the detective took a key ring from his pocket. He fit it into the padlock adjoining two ends of a cable that was wrapped around the tarp.

“What are you thinking?” Hammond asked as he started unraveling the binding on the plasticized canvas.

“I’m thinking this shard of plastic looks suspiciously like something that would come from a dial of some kind.”

Hammond nodded and gestured Rush over for help. Together they unveiled the kerosene heater. Romer crouched down and held the piece up to the sensor. The pie-shaped piece of clear plastic fit perfectly on the sensor face. As he peered closer, he noticed something else, something that had been on the report, but something they hadn’t really noticed.

“Detective, look at this,” Rush said, excited.

Hammond leaned down and squinted his eyes. “What am I looking at?”

“The soot, the scorching on the dial of the sensor.”

“Yeah,” Hammond said. “What about it?”

“Something made sure that heater continued running. Something acted as the connection between the ignitor and the burner.”

“Yeah, the experts already figured that out. So what?” Hammond stood back up and scratched his chin. “I don’t get it.”

Rush pulled his blue glove out of his bag. The glove, with a smudge of black, encased in a fresh evidence bag. He dangled it in front of the cop. “There was a coin at the apartment that was blackened. It was a penny sitting in the change bowl, and I’m pretty sure it was the connection that caused the heater to continue running.”

Hammond scowled at first, then his eyes widened.

“There wasn’t a penny, or any other connection, in the heater when the firefighters arrived on the scene?”

“No,” Rush said quietly. “I’ve been very stupid. So stupid.”

“You don’t think the firefighters –Fuck!”

Rush pulled out his phone, and saw a missed call from Clay. He hit the call button, but he continued speaking to Hammond.

“The only person on the scene, when emergency services arrived, was Jake’s friend Nats. She was the only person who could have removed the coin.”

“The plastic splinter of the sensor either fell out when she put the penny in place, or when she removed it.”

Hammond watched the blind panic on the private investigator’s face.

Rush was listening to the message, and he said abstractly with dawning horror. “Clay found out something. Clay thinks he figured out … oh my God. Where is he? Where the fuck--?”

Hammond pulled out his radio. “I’m getting someone over to Nats right now. You don’t think Clay is at her apartment, do you?”

“I hope not. That woman has killed twice already, and I’m not sure why.”

“Let’s get moving. We’re only a couple of miles away from Loring Park.”

“Oh shit!” Rush yelled and calling while he ran out of the parking garage.

Ben wasn’t answering his phone either. Where was Clay?

***

“I’m Ben Miller, Rush Romer’s partner in the business.”

“What’s going on?” Nats asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She looked seriously hungover and still dressed in sweats and with her hair askew, as if she had been roused from her bed.

“I just have a couple of questions about Jake’s death.”

“I’ve spoken with the police a bunch of times. Can’t you leave me alone?” She was obviously upset, and then yawned, which Ben thought was an interesting response. She started closing the apartment door on him.

“I’m helping with the investigation of Steve Wylie’s death as well, and I have a couple of background questions.” Ben said.

“Background questions?” she asked, now quite alert, he could see.

“Yeah, there are a couple of things we’re following up on and I was hoping you could help me.”

“I don’t know him,” she said quickly. “I doubt I can help.”

“This isn’t really personal,” Ben said. “It’s about his vocation. Can I come in?” He showed her his credentials hanging from a lanyard around his neck.

“I guess,” she said after examining his laminated card emblazoned with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department emblem.

“Thanks,” Ben said, stepping into the front hallway.

The woman walked into the living room and turned on a lamp. Otherwise the apartment was dark and gloomy. There were a few pots on tables here and there, but it was hard to see.

“We appreciate your help, Natalie,” Ben began. “Can I sit down?”

“No,” she said firmly. “What do you need from me?” Her tone was harsh and strained, a little scared, Ben thought.

“Did you know Steve Wylie?” Ben asked, shifting awkwardly in place. His bag was bearing down, and he removed it from his shoulder and set it next to him on the floor.

“No,” she denied, her voice shrill.

“You didn’t?” Ben asked, truly confused now. “But, didn’t you know him from Gallivant’s?

Nats bit her lip and hugged herself tightly. “I don’t know any Wylie person.”

“I thought you and Jake and Eddie were acquaintances of Steve. His sister is the manager at the bar?”

Nats paused, standing stock still for a moment, then she swayed a little. “I know a Steve, but he’s dead now. I—I never knew his last name.”

“Oh,” Ben said, exhaling. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath. “Yeah, Steve was a potter too, like you?”

She looked around and then nodded.

“You have some beautiful pieces here,” Ben said, hoping to get her to relax a little. He stepped closer to a small table with a lovely vase on it, smooth and gray in the somber room.

“I have to use the bathroom,” she said loudly, and she disappeared through a doorway. Ben stopped, and stepped backward reflexively. Something seemed amiss; her actions seemed so strange, awkward.

He looked for a light switch and saw one behind him. He reached over and flicked it on. The room was bathed in bright light, and then Ben saw there were many pots on tables and stands. Most were like the ones from Jake’s phone, but a couple looked like those in Wylie’s emails.

Ben’s eyes widened.

Some of the pots looked so familiar.

They were the pots in the photos. The photos he saw from Wylie’s account? Or from Jake’s phone? He wasn’t sure.

“I think you should leave,” he heard as Nats returned. She marched across the space and shut off the light switch. She backed away from him, one of her hands behind her back.

“You have a studio at The Warrens, don’t you?” Ben blurted out, feeling his heart race. But why? This was an over-reaction. He tried to calm himself. This was a routine inquiry. This is only background information. He felt his breathing begin to ease as he inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.

Maybe he’d made a mistake coming here. He’d promised Rush not to do this, but Nats wasn’t really a suspect, right?

He saw she was as still as a painting, and her affect just as flat.

Then, her face changed, and she sputtered, “I do have a studio. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Wylie had a space there as well,” Ben said, then paused and continued. “I was wondering where he would have fired his pots. We saw pictures of his work, but there wasn’t a kiln.”

There was something pinging in his brain about this situation, but it didn’t really make sense.

Ben looked around at the pots again, and their familiarity was becoming more striking. “Is there someplace in the city he might have used? That you use?”

She was chewing on her lip again, swaying. “I don’t know. Can you just go please?”

Ben leaned down to pick up his bag, and as he did so, a nagging question popped into his head. Without thinking, he asked, “Why did you shut off the heater in Jake’s apartment?”

“Get out!” she shouted.

“I’m sorry, it’s just something that bothered me since--,” Ben continued, smiling nervously at the fidgeting woman. Her body was now trembling. His realization of her rage and terror chilled him.

When Ben realized his mistake, he couldn’t respond quickly enough. There was a look about her and the physical reaction was something that he’d never experienced before. Nats’ muscles tensed. Her face shined with an angry red bloom. She clenched her fists, leaned forward, and her voice was high-pitched and terrified.

“I can’t believe you people are hounding me,” she shrieked. “I only did what I thought was right.”

Ben recoiled at her remark. “I only asked why you turned off the heater at Jake’s apartment.” He pawed through his words since he arrived, trying to find the trigger of her reaction. He was at a loss.

Nats keened loudly, a wail of pain, and then leaned forward. “He was already dead. I just wanted what was mine. He stole those designs, you know. I was the one who told him about the idea of projecting character into the pots using animals. He’s the one who robbed me, and so I took what was mine.”

She was breathing hard now, and Ben could see her eyes were sparked with fury. “First it was Jake and then the police, accusing me, always blaming me for Steve’s death. I didn’t kill him. I took what was mine, what that bastard Steve stole from me, that’s all.”

Ben lifted his hands in surrender. “Ms. Howe, I’m not saying—”

“Of course, no one is saying it. Nobody ever fucking says it out loud. Jake was my best fucking friend in the world, and he knew I’d taken them, but that wasn’t enough. He said I killed him as well. Why the fuck would I kill him? Why?” she demanded, her face red, eyes streaming with tears. Her heavy mascara and eye liner ran down her cheeks. “Why?”

“I should go,” Ben said, grabbing his bag, and moving towards the door. “This isn’t a good time…”

“No, it’s not a good fucking time,” she answered. She reached behind her and brought around her hand. In it was a gun. It looked large and shiny, though it fit neatly in her hand. It flashed in the low lights of the dim room, malevolently. She waved it at him, her eyes burning fiercely, feverishly. “Fine, I might as well tell you.”

“No, please,” Ben begged as his heart leaped and beat furiously. He thought the blood rushing to his ears would deafen him.

“Jake was hounding me and hinting that he knew. He knew I’d taken those pieces, and he knew Wylie was missing. Nobody else was worried, not even Steve’s fucking bitchy sister. I didn’t have a choice. I had to protect my goddamned art. It’s my work, and I have to defend it. No one else fucking will, you know. Nobody.” She was now waving the gun around. “My art is all I have.”

Ben dropped the bag and it fell on the floor with a heavy thud, but in her apartment, it sounded like a bomb.

The last thing he heard was a gun fire, and then the door crashed in. It wasn’t exactly at the same time, but then what really is.

***

“Clay, pick up the phone. Clay,” Rush shouted into the phone. Hammond was maneuvering quickly through the one-way city streets toward the apartment building where Nats Howe lived.

“We’re almost there,” Hammond assured him as they barreled around a corner.

Ahead, three police cars with their cherries blazing blocked off the street. A huge, bright red firetruck was parked along the length of the building. Sirens howled from an ambulance that approached from downtown. Its lights were pulsating blue and red flashes.

Rush hit end, and his phone started ringing immediately. He took the incoming call, relieved to see it was Clay’s number.

“Where are you?” he growled into the phone.

“We’re at Jake’s dad’s house,” the teen answered.

“Who’s ‘we’?” Rush asked heatedly, watching as the ambulance came screeching to a halt two blocks ahead. “Is Ben with you?”

“No,” Clay said, sounding confused. “I’m with Carl. Ben was going to ask that friend of Jake’s about kilns or something.”

“Fuck, no,” Rush growled, “I’ll call you back,” and hit end on the phone.

Hammond pulled over to the curb a block from the apartment building. He said, “Ben’s there isn’t he?”

Rush choked out, “Yeah, he went to question Nats.”

Hammond’s radio burst into a staticky cacophony of sound as he pulled it from his belt and turned it on.

“Shots fired on Summit near Loring Park. Neighbors are reporting shouts and screams along with two loud pops. One call reports a bleeding victim in the hallway. Police are responding with caution. Area being closed off.”

“Fucking A!” Hammond barked, jumping out of his vehicle. The detective’s behavior was so out of character. The private investigator was now shocked. The impact of the scene now bloomed within him. These speculations were cold things, making him shiver.

Rush put his hands over his face. He was petrified. How could they have been so wrong? What had he done? Why didn’t they think about Nats? Had he and Ben ignored the evidence so completely? What had he done to put Ben in danger? Fuck.

Breath.

Clay was safe. Ben would be fine. He had to be. Rush felt his brain turn sluggish and his thoughts spun wildly and gurgled in his head.

Ben was in danger, because of him.

A knock on his car window made him look up.

“Are you coming?” Hammond asked, his face solemn and stern. “Come on.”

Rush shook off his worry, and opened the door. He climbed out and walked quickly behind the cop toward the apartment building.

Rush was whispering a silent prayer as they rushed to the scene.