Following Her
Hugh Lessig

Hugh Lessig, 41, has been a newspaper reporter for 18
years. He lives in Richmond, Va. with his
wife, Ann Marie. He covers Virginia state government
and assorted politicos who, through no fault of their
own, commit the act of news. He is a latecomer to
the world of hardboiled fiction, but he got there as
fast as he could. His work has appeared in The
Thrilling Detective web site and Plots With Guns. Email
him at hlessig@earthlink.net. Web site:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/8002/
©Copyright 2001
Hugh Lessig

I met Mary six months before they found her strangled and shot
through the forehead. She was working a con in the parking lot of
the Kroger’s, and all it cost me was $20 and a smile.
It was an old game. She walked up and wanted a $20 bill in
exchange for some small bills. Her look fell somewhere between
needy and earnest, like those blue-collar kids in school who
chewed on their pencils and never had fun. She was a black
woman with hard hands. Maybe 40 years old, maybe 35 with high
mileage. She wore clean blue jeans, a red sweatshirt and red
sunglasses. I think the sweatshirt had some kind of designer logo.
Her teeth needed work.
Anyway, she pushed a wad of bills at me and I dug around and
finally gave her a $20. I counted her money - old, crumpled bills
that had seen the laundromat too many times. It only came to 16
bucks, and I politely pointed out this fact.
She stammered something. It turns out she wanted a $20 bill for
her mother’s birthday present. She had already stuck my bill in an
addressed, stamped envelope. But she lived right around the corner,
so she’d go get the four extra bucks.
She gave me the envelope and I returned her sorry bills. She
disappeared around the corner and I opened the envelope. It
contained a slip of paper. I never saw her make the switch.
Like I said, sometimes you just have to smile.
Four months later, I saw her in the parking lot of the Safeway,
down the street from Kroger’s. She stood next to a Honda Accord
with its hood propped open. She had stopped an old couple with
some sob story about how her battery had gone dead, and could
they give her $20. I walked up to her.
“How’s your mother?”
She looked at me through the same red sunglasses. Her face
carefully went blank.
“Remember? Twenty dollars? Your mother’s birthday?” I studied
her face. It was smooth, nut-brown. Later, I would comment on the
star-shaped wound in the middle of her forehead, and I would
listen to the cop tell me it had something to do with gases blowing
under the subcutaneous tissue from the muzzle making contact with
the skin.
“I’m sorry, sir.” She smiled sadly. “My mother has been dead these
eight years.”
The couple seized the moment and beat an arthritic retreat,
walking with quick, efficient steps in their white Nikes. She watched
them go and her mouth went hard. I fished out my press card.
“I work for the River City Blade,” I said. “I’d like to do a feature
on con artists. You’ll be anonymous, of course. Photographs from
the back, that sort of thing. It would be a good read, don’t you
think? I mean, let’s face it. This isn’t your car, right? It’s been sitting
here a while. Maybe overnight. Yes?”
She looked over the shades. “You’re a very nasty man, Mr. ......
Picasso Smith Jr. What kind of name is that?”
“At least I’ve told you mine.”
“My name is Mary,” she said. “And you’ve ruined my day.”
“Mary what?”
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary.”
“And how does your garden grow?”
“Not very well, thanks to you.”
As the weeks passed, I saw her more and more, always in
Hudson Town, a 10-block stretch of retro diners, outdoor coffee
shops, urban boutiques and a leather bar called The Crag. Hudson
Town attracted enough outsiders to provide easy marks. It had
enough savvy natives who would just as soon give Mary a buck to
make her disappear. We crossed paths more often than seemed
natural, and I wondered if I had started following her. When we
met, she asked me for money and I asked her for a story. Neither of
us succeeded, but she always looked me in the eye. The last time
we talked, she seemed a little sad and I got news to use.
“You know, Mr. Smith, if you wanted to do a story on us -”
“Us?”
“Uh-huh. I got a friend. And we both got problems. Me? I’m
raising two kids. Him? He used to work, now he ain’t got much.
Maybe if you do a story on us, people will come forward.”
“You won’t get charity from me, Mary. You’re a crook,
remember?”
It bounced off her thick skin. “You should meet my friend. My 
friend lives in low places.”
“And you? Are you from low places?”
Her eyes flashed. “Hey, I got a second-floor apartment above the
Thai Diner right here on Hudson Street.”
That slipped out, and the look on her face showed it. With a
quick nod, she turned around and walked away. My mother,
lecturing from the grave as she often does, told me to follow her.
She got two kids, Pica. Get her off the street. You’re such a stoop.
Like I said, that was the last time we talked. They found her
Saturday morning in some weeds.
She was on her back, staring with wide eyes at a beautiful
morning sun. The forehead star came from a small caliber gun. A
white sock was tied around her neck for good measure, and a
blood trail led from the sidewalk to the weeds. The cops called me
because my business card was still in her purse. I knew the
detective sergeant at the scene, and he sold me some off-the-record
speculation.
She’s walking on Hudson Street, early morning probably.
Someone comes up and shoots once, straight on. No defensive
wounds or sign of a struggle. Maybe she’s surprised. Maybe she
knows him. The killer was slightly taller than the victim judging
from the bullet angle. The killer ties the sock around her neck for
good measure. He drags her into the tall grass of the vacant lot.
Maybe he does the sock thing afterwards.
I asked about motive. The sergeant, whose name was McGowan,
shrugged his shoulders.
“The killer drags the body off, like maybe he didn’t mean to kill
her on the sidewalk, like maybe it wasn’t planned.” He shrugged
again. “There was no rape. They left money in her purse. Maybe
she tried her schtick on the wrong person.”
That didn’t ring up. Mary would not inflict her grift. McGowan
said they didn’t know where she lived or if she had any survivors.
All she had was a Social Security card, and it had an old address.
“Her full name was Mary Margaret Foushee,” he said. “How’d she
get your business card, Smith?”
I gave him the unvarnished truth. I forgot to mention that I knew
where she lived and that she had two kids. I jokingly asked if I was
a suspect, and he jokingly said he never rules anything out.
Then I set out for the Thai diner.
A teen-aged boy answered the door. He was black, with a thin
nose and high cheekbones. Behind him on the couch sat a younger
white girl. She had blonde hair and a lazy, stupid mouth. Her
clothes were mid-shelf. GAP wear.
I told him who I was, and I asked if this was the home of Mary
Margaret Foushee. He nodded lazily, leaning against the door. He 
wore gym shorts and a cut-off T-shirt from the University of
Richmond. He held a dishtowel in one hand.
“I don’t got a whole lot to say,” he said.
“You don’t even know the question.”
He shrugged and walked back inside, but he didn’t bother to
close the door. I followed him and closed the door behind me. I
broke the news straight out, which is the only way to do it.
The boy flopped into a recliner, and the footrest shot out so fast it
made me jump. He put his hand over his eyes and took two deep
breaths, like he was play-acting his grief.
“She was our stepmother, not our mother.” He turned to the girl.
“Did you hear that, Sis? Did you hear what he said?” The girl
scrunched deeper into the couch and tried hard not to look at me.
“You don’t seem surprised,” I told the boy.
He rolled his eyes. “Mary hustles people for money. People tend
to get pissed at stuff like that.”
“You got a name?”
“Phil. And I’m 18.”
“How did Mary become your stepmother?”
“Mary - she stepped into a relationship with my dad. My dad left
and Mary stayed with us. Sis there, she’s from one my dad’s
previous…she’s previous.”
Suddenly, the footrest snapped back and he popped off the chair.
“I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore,” he said. “I thought
maybe you were a cop.”
“Were you expecting a cop?”
He clenched the dishtowel in both hands. For a moment, I saw
his hands tying the sock around Mary’s neck. Phil held the pose as
if he wanted me to see it. He held it an unusually long time. Then
he asked me to leave, and I spread my hands in a gesture of
surrender and backed toward the door.
The girl peered at me from over her comic book, and I let out
some string: Phil has strong hands. Phil is slightly taller than Mary. If
he stands in front of her with a gun, maybe the angle of entry is
right. Maybe Phil wants to be found.
I wondered if they kept a gun.
“The police don’t have this address,” I said, “and I won’t tell
them. But I have to write a story about your stepmom. I sort of
knew her anyway.”
“You knew her? Did she con you out of money?”
I smiled. “Twenty bucks.”
Phil laughed sadly. “When someone says they know my
stepmom, that’s the first thing I ask.” Then he closed the door on
me.
I followed him as I had followed her. It was terrifyingly easy to 
figure out his routine. Hudson Town has outdoor tables and narrow
side streets that cast shadows. It has dog walkers and window
shoppers to hide lines of sight. It is a yup magnet, but it is stalker
heaven.
Phil had two jobs - one at the psychotronic-horror video store, the
other at a McDonald’s. The video store was Tuesdays, Fridays and
Saturdays, all days. McDonald’s was Mondays, Tuesdays and
Wednesdays, all nights. His Tuesdays were killer. But every morning
at 7:30 a.m. he was out on the curb with his little sister, watching
her get on the school bus.
My editor and I came up with a game plan: If we like Phil for
putting hands on his stepmom, follow him. See who he hangs with.
Pick up some string for a profile. Until we see an arrest warrant,
we’re not protecting a fugitive. If the cops arrest him, we know
Phil’s bosses, we know his co-workers, we know his routine. We
are locked and loaded for a major blow-out on A-1, and the Poof
Hairs on TV will chase the story through our First Amendment Dust.
At the end of two weeks, if nothing happens, we step back and
regroup. Maybe we clench our ass and tell the cops about Phil.
Two weeks passed, and the cops hadn’t found the kids. Mary
Margaret Foushee had left little on the public record - no house,
car, bank account, diploma, marriage license or will. Adoption
records had nothing.
On Wednesday, as Hudson Town began sliding toward the
weekend, Phil finally broke from the tall grass. He was supposed to
leave the house at 7ish to begin his 7:30 p.m. shift. I was supposed
to follow him there, make sure he checked in, then walk down the
street to interview a street musician and write up a thumbsucker for
the weekend.
Phil left his apartment early, without his McDonald’s duds. He
walked across the street to a bus stop and sat on the bench. I got in
with a group of window shoppers and edged closer.
Phil looked hinky.
The bus came down Hudson Street a few minutes later. He
grabbed a handful of change from his pocket and got on the bus. I
trotted to my car and edged into traffic behind the bus, and together
we headed downtown.
Phil got off in the Canal District, all glass-walled hotels and bank
buildings, and, of course, the canal itself, an 1800s relic that the city
refurbished into a walking trail. I slipped into a parking spot and
followed him.
Phil was in search mode. He scanned benches and bus stops. He
looked down side streets. I wondered if he was carrying a gun.
Five minutes later, he hit the canal itself and moved along the
concrete sidewalk. The canal was a 55-foot swath of dull-green
water that sloshed peacefully toward the river, and I followed at a 
safe distance. I went under a dark overpass and went momentarily
blind. I stopped while my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
I lost Phil.
I came out of the overpass and did a 360. Nothing. He may have
seen me and run. He could have doubled back, walking right past
me in the darkness. I walked a few more feet and heard footsteps
behind me.
“Hello, sir.”
I wheeled around to face a man who was maybe 6-2. He wore a
plain green T-shirt, shorts and mocs. Gray flecks sprinkled his black,
kinky hair. Two things gave him away as homeless: an
overpowering body odor and long, uncut fingernails.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I don’t mean to disturb you, but I was
wondering if you had yourself an extra bus ticket?”
Behind him, someone was moving in the shadows of the
overpass. Then the shadow seemed to see me, and it stopped. Or
maybe I was just imagining it.
“I thought I seen you get off the bus,” the man said. “I could be
wrong. Was there another person with you? The bus don’t stop
much here in the low end of town.”
Mary jolted me from the grave. I got a friend in low places. The
Canal District. The Canal District is the lowest point in the city. I
cleared my throat and told myself the shadow in the overpass was
not real.
“Do you know Mary Margaret Foushee?”
The man’s face broke into a wide grin. “Why, I sure do! She’s my
little one. Where’s she been keeping herself?”
A gun cracked. A piece of the man’s shirt tore away from his arm.
Phil came from the shadows, his eyes wide white and rimmed red.
I grabbed Mary’s friend and jumped into the canal. The cold
shock took away my breath, and I reached down and felt concrete.
The water wasn’t deep enough to stop bullets. Then I remembered
that water doesn’t stop bullets anyway.
A divot of water shot up near me. Phil’s little stepsister had
entered staged left, and she was the one holding the gun.
Her face looked like nothing in particular. It transfixed me in a
horrible way, like I was looking at the scene of a bad accident and
people with dead, open eyes. The revolver looked big in her hands
and Phil forced her to point it at the sidewalk. It went off again.
The water slapped up.
The trigger clicked empty. The air smelled of a freshly fired gun.
Phil was panting, trying to talk.
“Sis. Sis? It’s over. C’mon now.”
He carefully pried the gun from her baby-fat, powder-burned
fingers. 
We’re waiting for the cops now, and Phil has his sister in a bear
hug. The homeless man, whose name is Samuel, is shivering and
holding his arm and looks way too scared to leave the water. I’m
thinking maybe he’s blown a fuse. Sis had tried to bite her
stepbrother in the forearm, so I’m holding the little girl’s head like
you would hold a rabid poodle. Phil is talking without prompting.
“She was getting it at school,” he says. “She wanted to tell all the
kids that her mother was a corporate vice president, or maybe an
actress - anything but the grifter who stood across from the
playground and hit up other parents for money.”
“What grade was she in?”
“Eighth grade,” Phil says. “That’s the devil grade.”
He looks down at his stepsister with a tenderness that explains a
lot of things. I am about to ask another question, but Phil is still
unwinding.
“So one night, Sis decides she hears enough from the eighth
grade, so she gets the gun from Mary’s drawer and goes out. I
follow her, but I don’t know about the gun. I figure maybe she’s
just walking. It’s maybe 5:30 a.m. I see Mary coming towards the
apartment, coming home from the bars, I guess. Mary sees Sis. Mary
kneels down. That’s when Sis shoots her.”
“The angle of the bullet,” I whisper. “It came from above.”
“And then I…”
“You drag Mary off. You tie the sock around her neck to throw
off the cops. So that it looks like a strong person did this.”
But Phil is not listening. “Mary had mentioned this Samuel guy -
her friend, she called him. He taught her some tricks. And we knew
Sam hung out along the Canal. So tonight I see Sis get on the bus,
and I get on the next one. I guessed right. I figured she come down
here.”
Police sirens scream softly toward us. I had called on my cell.
Phil looks at the pathetic homeless man in the dull-green water. “I
saved him. That’s something, isn’t it?”
I pull out my cell phone to call my editor.“And maybe I saved Sis,
too. Killing two is worse than one. You think”
The phone rings. I am praying he answers.