Single Elimination: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 4) Read online

  Jake looked just a little ill. He smiled, but, Please don’t make me pee my pants was written all over his face. He knew me too well. He knew this choke just as well. I could make it a really nasty experience for him if I wanted to. In that moment, I felt like one of those cheesy inspirational memes had come to life—Today is going to be a great day.

  15

  Why hadn’t I wanted to do this, again? I didn’t care if Jake got all the money; this was worth it. After we worked on the choke for a while, I took mercy on Jake and taught a turn-over and pin, then clapped my hands and sent everyone back to try with their partners.

  Jake stood up next to me and swallowed. That simple, necessary action looked painful for him. Unfortunately for Jake, our students had a lot of questions, and I’d had to repeat my demonstration of the choke several times before we moved on to the next technique.

  “You know what, Jake, this was a great idea. I’m glad I came. Maybe we should do this again sometime.”

  “Excuse me, Brenna?” I turned toward a blackbelt woman about my age, sitting on the mat near me, in position to perform the choke on her partner. “Are you sure this really works?”

  She sounded more sarcastic than frustrated, and I had to bite my tongue. No, of course it doesn’t work. That’s why I just showed it to about a hundred people. “It worked really well for me over the years,” I said evenly. You know, at the Olympics and stuff.

  “Wouldn’t work on me.”

  I barely heard her say it to her partner. Oh, boy. I had this way of interpreting things like that as a challenge. It was just a little quirk of mine. Blythe was trying to cure me of it, but I was still a competitor at heart.

  “You know what, Jake, I think it’s time for everybody to test out what we’ve been practicing in a live situation.” Before Jake could respond, let alone object, I said, “Everybody grab a partner about the same size for ne waza randori. Time to go live.”

  People hurried to find suitable partners for live groundwork. I took a few steps in Miss Know-it-All’s direction, but hesitated. To me, she’d already called me out in her own way. But I was on a whole different level. The World level and a good local, regional, or even the lower end of the National level, didn’t even compare. My conscience—which, not surprisingly, sounded an awful lot my my sister’s voice in my head—argued with my competitive side. It would be unfair of me to insist this woman prove me wrong.

  I turned around and began to walk away and find a kid to work with instead. You know, to take the high road. But someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Miss Awesome-sauce, the That-Wouldn’t-Work-on-Me lady, herself.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Want to go?”

  Now how could I say no to that? “Sure.”

  We knelt down in front of each other, and I saw Walter head for the water cooler. I guess he was sitting out this round. I’d have to keep an eye on him.

  As soon as we bowed in, I forced her into the turtle position, on her knees and elbows, face down, just so I could do the turn exactly as I’d demonstrated it. She resisted and she knew every move I was going to make before I did it, but it didn’t make any difference. Just when I got her turned over and pinned, I realized I hadn’t seen Walter come back to the mat. I looked up, and there was only a little kid by the water cooler. Miss Awesome-sauce struggled to turn into me, and I held her down as I scanned the sweaty people standing around the edge of the mat. She lurched hard, and I pushed back. Hey, she was cocky. I would let her up after the standard count to twenty, and no sooner.

  No Walter in sight. Dang it! I was going to have to let her go so I could find him. I felt her gather everything she had left and explode with energy, turning into me hard. Of course she had room to turn now, since I’d already begun to let her up. Of all the moments I could’ve let her go, it had to be while she was making a huge effort to escape. I saw the look of triumph on her face. I knew the type. You let them go at the wrong moment, and they thought it was all their doing.

  I got up, ignored the idiotic look of triumph on her face, forced a smile, and hastily bowed out.

  “Hey, come on. The round’s not even over!” she called after me. There was a little bit of a laugh in her tone.

  Next thing I knew, the whole Northwest would hear the story of how Brenna Battle the Olympian couldn’t even hold Miss Know-it-All down.

  I tried to forget about it and looked for Walter’s shiny head and his big, knobbly feet among the tangle of bodies around the dojo. The curtain to the men’s dressing area opened and Walter stepped out, dressed in his street clothes. Leaving already? Really? Just my luck. I had to bail on this whole thing and go after Walter. No time to say good-bye to Jake or anyone else.

  I didn’t bother to change; I just grabbed my bag and my coat and ran for the door in my flip-flops. You know what really, really doesn’t go well together? Flip-flops, rainy parking lots, and white judo pants. With every flip and flop, dirty rainwater spattered my pants, leaving a pattern of gray spots. Of course, I had to wear my favorite pair of judo pants today. I had a feeling I was going to be spending some quality time scrubbing them with Borax.

  I didn’t see Walter’s car pulling out of the lot. In fact, it was right where it had been when I came in, and Walter wasn’t in it. Why was his car still here? And where was Walter? That was him I saw leaving the building, for sure.

  I walked around the building and peeked into the alley behind it. Empty. I headed back in, but Walter wasn’t in the hallway. I set my bag down. From the open front door, I heard a cough outside, then someone saying, “Hello?”

  Walter! It sounded just like him. There was another street connected to the alley around the side of the building. Was that where it had come from? I ran back out. I took my flip-flops off and tucked them inside my gi. The pavement was rough and cold, and my feet weren’t nearly as toughened as they used to be. Too much living the soft life. Not enough hard, no-shoes, work on the mat, and a few too many foot-soaks and scrubs at Blythe’s insistence. I entered the alley and approached the corner where it appeared to connect with another alley or street. I stayed flat against the wall.

  “Okay,” I heard Walter say. “Be there in a minute.”

  He’d sneaked out here to make a private call, and now he was going to head back to his car so he could go and meet whoever he was talking to. He was going to come right past me! I slipped behind a dumpster and held my breath. I looked at the water pooling around my bare toes. Calling it water was a bit of a stretch. It was an interesting brownish hue, with some added rainbow oil swirls for color. Ugh. Too-soft feet or not, there was definitely a foot scrub in my future.

  I listened to the slap-splash of Walter’s sneakers—growing farther and farther away, not closer. Walter wasn’t headed back to his car. Wherever he was going, he was headed there on foot.

  I hurried out and after Walter. There was just no way to run after him without a lot of splashing, and there would be no catching up with him if I didn’t run. I sloshed through the wet alleys and prayed that he wouldn’t hear me over the sound of his own splashing.

  16

  I followed Walter at a distance. He kept mostly to alleys, as though he didn’t want to be seen either. Whenever he emerged onto a street proper, he sped up even though the streets were mostly empty. I hoped he knew where he was going. It looked like we had crossed over from Japan Town. The shops and restaurants had a different look and the signs changed from Japanese to Chinese.

  Walter turned a corner into another alley. I paused and peeked around to see where he was headed. Nowhere, apparently. Walter ducked under the eaves. He took out his phone and started texting. From the alley came the aroma of fish, pepper, ginger, and cardamom. Not quite Chinese. I sniffed, trying to place the smell. Maybe some sort of Asian fusion cuisine? No, this seemed like a more traditional area.

  Walter had his back turned, and I dashed into the alley and behind a stack of pallet boards on the opposite wall. Judging from the muffled kitchen sounds coming
from inside and the steamy smells wafting from the vents, Walter was at the back door to one of the many restaurants in the International District.

  In a few seconds, the door eased open. “Come. Hurry,” I heard a woman say.

  But before I could slip out far enough to see her, Walter had ducked inside. What now? Wait for Walter to come back out? Go back to the dojo?

  A car pulled up to the end of the alley and a young man got out and said something to the driver—in Vietnamese? Laotian? He swaggered into the alley. I tried to make myself invisible. I didn’t like the look of him—shaved hair, baggy pants, tattoos. Everything about him said gang. In fact, he had the very same look as some Cambodian mafia types I’d run into while training in California.

  The young man scowled as he shoved open the same door Walter had just gone through. He shouted something to the people inside and a woman, maybe the same woman who’d called Walter in, shouted back.

  Okay, so maybe I was in just a little bit over my head here. Cambodian mafia? How could Walter be associated with them? Did he have a girlfriend on the side? Or…he was crooked. Walter was from Bonney Bay, but had he worked there his whole police career? What if he’d started out in Seattle? He could’ve made some unsavory connections, especially if he’d been working vice. I didn’t think I could take another crooked cop in Bonney Bay, and I knew that would just about kill Will.

  I couldn’t just stand around. What could I possibly find out standing out here in the rain? I knelt down by the vent, trying to catch a snippet of conversation, hopefully in English. All I got was an earful of gushing air and a sickeningly strong burst of kitchen exhaust. There was a window that was propped open a crack, but it was slightly too high. I grabbed a discarded crate and plunked it under the window, then climbed up. There! I could hear Walter talking. I concentrated, trying to make out his words. They faded away, replaced by heavily accented English. Actually, with all the background noise, I wasn’t even sure it was English.

  The door to the restaurant kitchen opened abruptly. I jumped off the crate, sending it flying into a puddle.

  “Hey you! You, lady! What you doing here?” The woman, middle-aged and bespectacled, jabbed the air with her finger.

  Wow, she was loud. This woman had some serious lungs. I had to admire that.

  “You up to no good, I call police.”

  I was just about to give her some story about just checking to see if they were open, when someone else began to exit the restaurant. It wasn’t the gangster-looking guy. It was, however, Walter.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked the woman.

  But I’d already pivoted and begun sprinting away. What else could I do, but hope Walter didn’t recognize me from behind?

  “Brenna Battle?”

  So much for hoping. Bleepity-bleep! I was wearing my judo gi. With my name and country patch on the back. I wanted to die. Then again, maybe I should be careful what I wished for. Here I was, in a dark alley, caught red-handed, snooping into the business of a man who might very well be a murderer. A murderer willing to use a meat thermometer to do the job.

  Heavy, splashing footsteps pursued me. I could outrun Walter, no problem, but what good would that do when he already knew who I was? I turned onto the nearest street. One with actual cars parked along it. Maybe being in a semi-open place would help. It couldn’t hurt to put some distance between me and the Cambodian mafia guy either.

  I turned around and gave Walter a sheepish smile. Maybe a little bit of humor would help. I combed my rattled mind for something funny, but all I came up with was, “Hi there.”

  Walter was not amused. “I’ll handle this,” he told the woman, who stood a few yards behind him, holding her apron over her head to shield her hair from the rain.

  She gave a little nod of satisfaction and disappeared back into the alley. No need to call the police. She had the police right here.

  “Did you…? Did you follow me here?” The confusion, the fear, the anger, rippled over Walter’s face.

  Why hadn’t I prepared a story, just in case? Why hadn’t I taken off my stupid gi top? Or put on my raincoat? Because I was so focused on figuring out where Walter had gone, on hurrying up and following him. If Will ever found out about this…

  “Well? Did you follow me?”

  Here it was. The moment of truth. Or the moment of not-truth, depending on how I played it. You know what, I was tired of playing. “Yes, Walter. I was…concerned.”

  “Really?” His grimace looked just a teensy bit menacing. I scanned his figure for signs of a concealed weapon and considered whether I should go on the offense now, or wait until he forced a physical confrontation.

  “You left the seminar really abruptly.” I decided to take a shot in the dark. “And it looked like something was wrong.” Okay, so I was still sort of playing him, but it was true that I was concerned, even if it wasn’t necessarily for him.

  Walter ran a shaky hand through his wet hair. He didn’t have a hood, and rain water streamed down his forehead, over the bridge of his nose. “Well, everything’s fine. I was just saying hello to a friend.”

  “Oh. That’s good. Well, if you need anything…” I shrugged. That was easy. I’d let it go. Shrug it off and head back to the dojo. Walter didn’t say anything, so I turned to leave.

  “No!” Walter’s big hand was on my arm.

  All my instincts said fight! But I held back. If there was any chance I could leave here without him knowing I suspected him of committing murder, I had to take it.

  17

  Walter’s hand tightened. “You can’t go.”

  “Walter,” I said, “take your hand off my arm.”

  Walter snatched his hand back like a kid who’d just grabbed a hot cookie sheet. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked so sincere. And afraid. Afraid of me. Scary Brenna had come out without me even realizing it.

  “You can’t tell anyone you saw me here. Especially not Riggins or Chief. Or Helen from the Blaster. Please.”

  No diabolical criminal would tell someone exactly what he was afraid they’d do to expose him. But a guy who’d murder on impulse, with whatever object he found handy, just might…and yet, my gut was telling me not to be afraid of Walter Random.

  I said, “I guess you don’t want me to tell anyone about the things you said at the party. When you were on the phone?”

  “How? How do you know what I said on the phone?” The shock turned to defensive sharpness. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped. “I didn’t say anything on the phone.”

  “Yes you did, Walter. I heard you. I know you owe someone money. Do they know about what you did to Dina?

  “I didn’t do anything to Dina Hermiston! What does she have to do with this?”

  “You tell me what she has to do do with this. Maybe she knew something about this.”

  “Just what do you think ‘this’ is?”

  Okay, so he had me there. I had no idea what was going on. Should I lie? Tell him his secret was safe with me? Of course it wasn’t. If any of it was related to crime, I was going straight to the police with whatever I learned.

  “Gang activity.” I picked a criminal enterprise and tried to sound confident about my accusation.

  “Gang activity!”

  “Sure. Maybe you’re in a little bit of trouble with your friend. The one with all the tattoos, who met you in the restaurant.”

  “Prak? I wasn’t there to meet Prak. He’s Lu’s granddaughter’s good-for-nothing boyfriend. If there was anything—anything legal—I could do to get him to leave them alone, I’d do it.”

  “Who were you there to meet, then?”

  “An old friend.”

  “Tola?”

  Walter didn’t say anything, but I saw the flicker in his eyes. It was Tola. Too bad I didn’t know who the heck Tola was.

  “So, your friend Tola couldn’t just have you come by for dinner after the seminar? You left in the middle of everything and sneaked over here.”


  “Look, I’m helping someone. Someone with a serious problem.”

  “A problem with killing?”

  Walter shrank back. Then his face turned red with emotion. He blurted, “The only person she’s killing is herself, and I’m going to stop it or die trying!”

  Whoa. Walter was near tears. The grief-stricken near panic on his face was real. My gut told me this was a hurting man. A man who was trying to do the right thing. Whoever he was referring to, he was genuinely terrified for her. “Hold on. What exactly is going on here?”

  Walter seemed to instantly regret his words. “It’s none of your business.”

  “No, it isn’t. But I can tell you want to talk about it. You want to help her. Maybe I can help. Maybe the police can help.”

  He shook his head, hard. “No. You can’t. They can’t. This can’t get out. It won’t help anyone if it gets out. She’ll ruin even more than she already has.”

  “Walter, I want to help you, but given what’s been going on in Bonney Bay, it looks very suspicious. If I don’t know what’s going on with you, I have no choice but to report my suspicions to the police.” I might even have to make a citizen’s arrest. Who knew if Walter might bolt, or warn whoever he’d come all the way to Seattle to see.

  “Please, don’t do that.”

  “Tell me what you’re doing here. I know you don’t want to, but if I know what it is, and it’s not something the police need to know, I won’t report it. Otherwise, I have to—”

  “Alright!” Walter yelled. He took a breath and wiped rain water off his face. He lowered his voice. “I’m helping someone I care about. Someone who’s in trouble. It doesn’t have anything to do with Dina Hermiston’s murder.”

  That’s not enough, Walter. Maybe I could get more out of him with a less direct approach. “Who is she? An old girlfriend?”

  He laughed a short, sad little laugh. “She’s my mom. My mom is an addict. Has been for years.” Walter’s voice wavered, and he took another deep, steadying breath. “She always refused to get help, but now she’s finally reached rock bottom.”