Riley Thorn and the Dead Guy Next Door

by Lucy Score

  Her eyes widened. “Never mind. Just remembered it’s my turn to sanitize the fountain heads. Bye!” She scurried back into the kitchen.

  Clearly Walt had street cred here.

  Nick picked up the food menu. But Walt shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. They got rat turds the size of thumbs back there.”

  He closed the menu and slid it to the edge of the bar.

  Their drinks were served in glasses so clean Nick could taste the dish soap.

  “So, how’s the kickback game these days?” he asked.

  Walt choked, and an ounce or two of mai tai shot out his nose.

  A wide-eyed manager popped up as if she’d been crouching behind the bar, a neatly labeled bottle of sanitizer in one hand and a fresh towel in the other. She swiped up the mess and disappeared again.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Walt squeaked.

  “Sure, you do. Look,” Nick said, “I don’t care if you’re blackmailing the governor’s husband. All I care about is Dickie Frick.”

  “Dickie?” Walt swiped a hand over his mustache, probably checking for snot and cherry juice droplets. “You sure you’re not a cop?”

  Nick sighed and handed over his badge. “Private investigator. A client hired me to look into Frick’s murder.”

  The health inspector telegraphed his move before he made it. Nick clamped a hand down on his shoulder.

  “Do you really want me to kick your ass in front of your loyal subjects here?” He recognized the need to be respected and had no problem putting his boot on it.

  “No,” Walt pouted.

  “Then talk.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” he whined.

  “No shit. Tell me why Nature Girls, an establishment that looks like it’s been hosed down in bodily fluids, has never once been cited for health violations.”

  Walt took a drink and dribbled mai tai down his chin.

  “Come on, man.” Nick sighed. “I’ve got other people to tackle today.”

  “Okay. All right. Fine. So maybe in exchange for a friendly gesture, I might possibly loosen the criteria—”

  “They give you cash. You rubber stamp their inspections. Great. Who approached who?”

  Looking left and then right, Walt swallowed hard. “Within forty seconds of me walking in, Dickie handed me a fistful of cash.” He said it almost fondly as if Dickie Frick and his dirty money had been a turning point in his life.

  “How long’s that arrangement been going on?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno,” Walt said cagily.

  “Walt, buddy, I think you do know. And I know a lot of things,” Nick lied. “Like I said. I’m not here to play judge and jury. I’m not running to the cops to tattle. You could single-handedly help solve a murder here.”

  Walt sighed. “Six years next month.”

  “Did Dickie ever mention a silent partner?” Nick asked.

  Walt pursed his lips until they disappeared under the bristle of mustache. “No. But one time Dickie wasn’t there, and a bald guy met me instead. He wasn’t as friendly.”

  “Name?”

  “Something weird. Drew? Down? Durf?”

  Only an amateur would have no problem accepting money from a complete stranger without doing any due diligence. “Besides being bald, what did this Durf guy look like?”

  “Uhh. I dunno. Not real tall, but not like super short. Bald,” he repeated half to himself.

  “White? Black? Latino? Asian?” Nick prompted.

  “Maybe white?” Walt guessed.

  The health inspector was not the sharpest crayon in the box.

  “How about other illegal activity? You ever notice anything else going on at Nature Girls?”

  “Not really. I mean, not besides the betting. I won fifty dollars on the U-18 baseball league. But it wasn’t like they were cooking meth in the kitchen and selling it.”

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want Dickie dead?”

  “Really anyone who met him. He was a disgusting pig,” Walt said fondly.

  Nick drained his beer and fished in his pocket for a business card.

  “If you think of anything else, give me a call,” he said, dropping the business card in front of Walt. He pushed back from the bar and stood. He’d let Mr. Not Very Helpful pick up the tab. “Thanks for the beer.”

  “Wait!” The health inspector was flustered. “I can’t go back to work like this. They’re all gonna think I got arrested. Or beat up. Or both. What am I supposed to tell them?”

  Reputations, Nick thought. It must be exhausting worrying about one.

  “Geez, man. I don’t know. Tell them it was a fraternity prank.”

  Walt brightened. “That’s a good idea! I bet it would have been a secret fraternity. Not one of the ones where anyone could get in.”

  Nick walked out into the July sunshine, leaving Walt to figure out what cool nickname his fictional fraternity brothers would have bestowed upon him.

  38

  4:47 p.m., Thursday, July 2

  “What?” Nick asked the dog when Burt rested his big face and jowls on Nick’s desk. “Are you bored? Don’t you have any hobbies?”

  He couldn’t blame the dog. He’d taken Burt down the block for lunch and to meet Perry of the unstable housing situation. Burt’s whip-like tail had wagged the entire walk. He greeted everyone like they were his long-lost best friend. It had been the last fun either of them had. As interesting as Nick’s morning had been, what with the wad of cash from Fat Tony and the tackling of the health inspector, the afternoon had consisted of two downtown office serves and reports out the ass.

  Nick checked his watch. If he headed over to the mansion now, he could be there when a certain sexy psychic got off work. Maybe he could talk her into dinner and then into revisiting how they’d started the day… before Burt the Beast had cock-blocked them.

  Pleased with the plan, he backed up his work, shut down his computer, and declined to dissect why he was looking forward to seeing her again.

  His gut told him Riley Thorn was nothing but trouble. But that was more of a turn-on than a deterrent.

  He walked out into the front room, Burt trotting on his heels.

  “Think I’m cutting out,” he informed his cousin. “Gonna take this guy home and see if Riley wants to grab dinner.”

  Brian dragged off his headphones and cocked an eyebrow.

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “You’re into her,” Brian observed.

  “Of course I am.” It wasn’t exactly breaking news for Nick Santiago to be into a woman.

  “No. You’re into her,” Brian repeated.

  “Say it as many times as you want with a different emphasis, and it still doesn’t change the meaning, man.”

  “Ah, but it does. You answered the phone when she called you in the middle of the night. You spent the night with her. You’re dog-sitting her pet lion.” Burt liked that and gave Brian a slurp with his Gene Simmons tongue. “Good boy. Good lion. And now you’re taking her to dinner.”

  “I’ve taken women to dinner before,” Nick scoffed.

  “Not with that stupid look on your face.”

  He frowned. “What stupid look?”

  “The one that rearranges your face every time you know you’re going to see her. It’s like antici…”

  “Pation?” Nick filled in.

  “Riley’s your Christmas morning.”

  “Did Josie cut off your oxygen for too long last night?” Nick asked, taking Burt’s leash off the coat rack. The dog went from dignified to dancing queen in half a second.

  “See that look on Burt’s face?” Brian asked. Burt looked crazed and way too enthusiastic. His tongue peeked out the corner of his mouth, ears perked up, brow wrinkled. “That’s how you look.”

  “Your Uncle Brian is full of shit,” Nick said to the dog. His cell rang, saving him from having to defend himself further.

  “Hmm,” he said, flashing the screen at his cousin.

/>   “Well, that can’t be good,” Brian said.

  Burt continued his tap dance while Nick answered.

  “Santiago,” he said.

  “Nick, it’s Katie Shapiro. Have time to meet me for a beer?”

  The Sturges Speakeasy was an easy three-block walk from the office and dog-friendly, so Nick brought Burt along.

  He found Detective Katie Shapiro on the rooftop terrace at a table with two beers. She was a long-legged, no-nonsense kind of woman. Her hair, a dark blonde, was pulled back in a sleek tail. Unlike Weber, she dressed like a normal human being. Jeans and blazers mostly. She’d ditched the blazer and kept the tank top that showed off the arms that had bested more than a few academy-fresh uniforms in push-up contests.

  Police work was in her blood. She’d climbed the ranks of the Harrisburg PD behind her father, the now-retired chief of police. She was cool, smart, and could wrestle a guy twice her size to the ground without breaking a sweat. She also took everything seriously. Which was why he hadn’t taken her up on her offer to get naked after a department ugly Christmas sweater party a few years back.

  “A fiancée and a dog,” she said, arching an eyebrow over her aviators when he took the seat she pushed toward him with her boot. “What’s next, Nick? A 401(k)?”

  Actually it was a SEP IRA, but his bad-boy rep had already taken enough hits.

  “How’s it going, Katie?” he asked, helping himself to the beer she’d ordered for him.

  “Another beautiful summer in the city,” she said wryly. The hot dogs and fireworks that July brought meant more people were spending more time getting drunk and committing crimes. More assaults, more muggings, and more homicides.

  People just couldn’t be trusted with good weather.

  “I hear homicide is swamped,” he ventured, wondering when she’d get around to telling him why she was here.

  “You heard right,” she said. Her lips were a pale pink that never quite stretched beyond an amused smirk. “And it’s about to get hairier now that we’re down a man.”

  This was news. For Harrisburg’s 50,000 residents, there were 175 officers. It wasn’t hard to know just about everyone in the department. “Who’d you lose?” he asked, stroking a hand over Burt’s furrowed brow.

  “Weber. This afternoon. On suspension pending investigation.”

  He knew she was watching him for a reaction. Rather than climbing on the table and crowing like a rooster like he wanted, Nick took off his sunglasses. “Weber got suspended? For what? The guy was born with the book shoved up his ass.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Can’t really say. There was some questionable behavior. Some tips getting ignored. Cases not getting closed. Couple of complaints from witnesses.”

  “You saying he was dirty?” he asked.

  “I’m not saying anything,” she told him, lifting her beer. “He was looking pretty hard at your girl in the Frick case, wasn’t he?”

  Nick tapped out a beat on his leg. “She had nothing to do with it. He should have known that.”

  “She knew something was going down,” Katie pointed out. “Enough to report the crime to the cops before it was committed. Twice.”

  He shook his head. “Just one of those coincidences. She had a feeling.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “She see anything that’s not in the report from that night?”

  He leaned back and stroked a hand over the dog’s broad head. “Nah. She didn’t see a damn thing. The shots woke her up. By the time she hit the stairs, the guy was long gone. And I was parked at the wrong angle to catch anyone coming down the fire escape on the dash cam. You catch the case?” he asked.

  “Yeah. In addition to the three I’m already working. So I’d appreciate you throwing me anything you come across in your digging. Professional courtesy.”

  “Same goes.”

  “I’m not too proud to take help when it’s offered. I caught wind of a few rumors about Dickie and some mysterious married woman. No one’s coughed up any names yet. But you know how those things shake out. Jealous husband. Bang. Bang.”

  “So you’re leaning away from the gambling angle?” Nick asked.

  Her lips curved in that thin almost smile.

  “Professional courtesy only goes so far,” she reminded him.

  “Don’t play me like that, Detective. Come on. We go back.”

  She took off her sunglasses and kicked back in her chair. “Fine. No. The gambling doesn’t ring for me. I’m liking the jealous husband.”

  “May the best man win,” he said, lifting his glass to her.

  “Oh, she will,” she said. “What’s wrong with your dog?”

  Burt had effusively greeted every person on the deck as he’d pranced to the table. Now, he was staring at Katie, head cocked, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. Like he was trying to puzzle her out.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen him make that face before.” He couldn’t tell if the dog was impressed with the detective or unsure of her.

  “Speaking of dogs, you hear about the vigilante shit last night?” she asked.

  “I didn’t get the details,” Nick lied easily. “Something about a break-in and some dogs?”

  “A bunch of those weirdos broke into a house on17th Street and busted a dozen dogs out of the basement.”

  “Summer in the city,” he said.

  Her smile was wry. “Tell me you don’t miss it.”

  He grinned. “All those late nights? The rules and regulations? Having to toe the line? No thanks, detective. I like my gig now.”

  “Geez. Maybe I should give the civilian life a shot.”

  39

  9:17 p.m., Thursday, July 2

  “Hold this in your hands,” Gabe instructed, handing Riley a heavy metal object that had a carved frowning face. She recognized it as a bookend from one of the dusty bookcases in the front parlor. They were seated cross-legged on the floor in her apartment.

  Burt was behind them on the couch, happily burying his new favorite toys under the pillows. Nick was off on some non-murder-related surveillance job. He’d pouted when she’d told him she already had plans for the evening with Gabe.

  “Shouldn’t we be doing this with something of Dickie’s?” she asked Gabe. The whole reason she was opening herself up to this crap was so she could help solve a murder. It seemed counter-intuitive to be reading a dumb bookend that had nothing to do with anything.

  “This is your first time reading an object’s energy on purpose. I felt it would be best to begin with something not tainted by homicide,” he explained. “So as not to emotionally scar you.”

  “Ah. Good call,” she agreed. She turned the bookend over in her hands. It was the bust of an ugly, scowling man with crazy hair.

  “Let us close our eyes and empty our minds,” Gabe said, the cadence of his deep baritone soothing like a cozy blanket.

  She yawned. “Okay. Emptying.”

  She needed to schedule a vet appointment for Burt. Eggs. She was out of eggs. Ugh. Next week started the six-week catalog proofing project that she was absolutely not looking forward to. Proofreading SKU numbers and dimensions. Her job was the most boring job in the world. Were stability and normal a good enough trade for the hours of her life that ticked away within the industrial gray walls of SHART?

  She needed the paycheck. With her legal debt to her ex-husband, she didn’t really have a choice.

  “And bringing your mind back to its focus since it has wandered,” Gabe said.

  Oh, shit. What were they doing again?

  Riley yanked her attention back to the ugly object in her hands.

  “Good,” Gabe breathed. “Now, tell your spirit guides that you are ready to receive messages associated with this item.”

  She cracked open one eye. “Is there some kind of spirit guide etiquette? Like should I ask them how their day was or something?”

  “It is always good to be polite,” he said without opening his eyes. He was so calm. He looked like an athleti
c, black Buddha enjoying enlightenment.

  She cleared her throat. “Uh. Okay. Spirit guides, I hope you had a good day. I am ready to receive messages about this ugly bookend thing. Please,” she added hastily.

  “Now, empty your mind again,” he instructed.

  She took a breath and imagined a blank screen. She was both appalled and delighted when something she hadn’t put there popped onto it.

  Gabe was still speaking, but he sounded like he was very far away.

  She focused on the screen and hung on to the bust while those cotton candy clouds whizzed around her head.

  “What are you seeing?” Gabe asked. He sounded like he was in her closet with the door closed.

  “Um. A bunch of colorful clouds. Oh, wait. They’re parting. I see a table with a bunch of crap on it.” She uselessly tried to push the clouds away to see more clearly. “Wait. No. It’s a yard sale. There’s a woman. She’s grumpy. She’s cheap. Not frugal, but one square of toilet paper cheap. I see a quarter.”

  The picture fuzzed and disappeared behind the clouds. “I don’t see anything now,” she reported. “Just feel anticipation. Excitement. Young and bubbly. Oh! It’s a birthday party. There’s a cake and a girl. A teenager.”

  The grumpy woman popped into the image and handed the girl the unwrapped bust.

  The birthday girl would have rather had a new sweater—Riley couldn’t blame her there—but she accepted the gift politely. “Thank you, Aunt Gert.”

  Riley saw a clock face with the hands moving and then Aunt Gert— “Holy shit. Aunt Gert got hit by a tractor? She’s dead. Now, the ugly bust is important. Valued.”

  Riley opened her eyes, blinked. “Did I do it? Did I get it?”

  Gabe was frowning. “I do not understand.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Did I get it wrong?”

  “This was a gift from Lily’s Aunt Gertrude on her eighteenth birthday. It was given to the family by Charles Lindbergh. Aunt Gertrude gifted it to Lily the day before she was tragically killed in a car accident.”

  She winced. “I think Aunt Gert lied. She bought it at a yard sale and was annoyed by having to get her ‘frivolous’ niece a gift. And that car accident? She was hit by a tractor when she was trying to steal sweet corn out of a neighbor’s field. She thought their farm stand prices were too high.”