“Okay, Rachel, I’ll look into it, but I have to tell you that there’s a good chance I won’t find out anything more than the police did.”
“Angie said you were good, very good. I know Terry didn’t die because he resisted someone trying to rob him. He just wouldn’t do that. If you look, you’ll find something, I’m sure.”
We discussed my fee and came to an agreement quickly. Rachel said both she and Terry had large life insurance policies and that money was no problem. When I left, she shook my hand and told me again that all she wanted was the truth about her husband’s death. I told her I’d do my best.
When I got into my car, she was back behind the glass again. Staring. At the sidewalk.
Chapter 6
When I left Rachel Pendleton, I used my cell phone to call police headquarters and ask for Dennis Wilcox. Denny was in, and he came on the phone in less than a minute.
“Detective Wilcox.”
“Good morning, detective. I know you told me not to call you at work, but if you expect me to keep quiet about you and those call girls on Seventh Avenue, I’m going to need more than that hundred bucks you slipped me last Saturday.”
Denny gave a deep chuckle and said, “JB, if you ever grow up, we’ll have to put out a press release. What’s up?”
“You free for lunch? I’m working on a case, and I wanna ask you a few questions.”
“What case?”
“Terry Pendleton.”
“Guy got shot last week at The Poplars. Who you working for, JB?”
“The widow. She seems to think there may be more to the story than you boys in blue suspect.”
“I’m wearing charcoal gray today, with just a hint of an underlying red plaid. The Pleasure Bar. Noon.”
“See you there, Denny.”
* * *
The Pleasure Bar is located in Bloomfield, in the city’s East End. The restaurant part of the place is an L-shaped affair, with one end fronting the main drag of the area. I was already there when Denny arrived at a few minutes past twelve. At 6’4” tall and a little under 240 pounds, Denny has me by about two inches and almost twenty pounds. With his mocha skin, short curly hair, and GQ wardrobe, he never just walks into a room. He makes an entrance, even when he’s not trying to. I was at a table near the long end of the L, overlooking the street right outside, and as Denny approached, I watched as everyone he passed stole a glance at him. Actually, in the case of one particularly good-looking woman, the glance wasn’t all that covert. Denny and I had known each other since fifth grade, when his family moved to Pittsburgh from Erie. We’d become friends almost immediately, mostly because we were both sports-crazy. It didn’t take long for the friendship to expand beyond the playing field, though, and by seventh grade, he was as good a friend to me as Angie was, and the three of us began spending a lot of time together. Even today, Denny and I often join Angie and Simon and the kids for barbecues in the Ventura backyard. Now, as he sat in the chair opposite me, Denny smiled and opened his menu.
“You order yet, son, or were you waiting for me to help you with the big words?”
“I thought I’d chance it on my own this time, ordered the Caesar salad.”
“Good choice.” Even though the restaurant was full, a waitress suddenly appeared beside Denny, asking if there were anything she could do to help him, anything at all. That happens a lot with him.
“I believe I’ll have the Caesar salad, too,” he told her. “And a glass of iced tea, please.”
“Certainly, sir,” she said, giving him the big smile. That happens a lot with Denny, too. He’s single, and there’s something about him that seems to attract every woman within a four-square-block area. I’m not jealous, though. Really.
As he opened his napkin and spread it across his lap, I looked at the custom-made suit that draped his body. Denny’s father had been a chemist, and during our senior year in high school, Mr. Wilcox had patented a couple of formulas that he ended up selling to a major pharmaceutical company for several million dollars. When Denny’s parents died in a plane crash during our sophomore year of college, he inherited a small fortune. Why he became a cop is another story.
“So,” he said, adjusting the razor-sharp crease of his right pants leg, “the Pendleton killing.”
“Yeah, the Pendleton killing. Who’s got it?”
“Guy named Carson Wykcoff.”
“What’s his take on it?”
“Oh, Carson’s sure it’s a simple case of a mugging gone bad. Figures that one of the brothers came down off the Hill that morning, saw Pendleton walking along, decided to take advantage of the situation. Pendleton put up a fight, the brother panicked and shot him, and then, quote, fled the scene, unquote.”
“This was at 7:00 a.m. What’re we talking here, some kind of early-bird mugger, out to get a jump on the rest of the criminal element?”
“I ‘spect you’d have to ask Detective Wykcoff about that.”
“Let me take a stab in the dark here. By any chance, would Detective Wykcoff be a bit on the racist side?”
“Detective Wykcoff is about every kind of “ist” you can think of, in addition to being a world-class screw-up and, probably, the laziest detective on the force.”
“How’s he manage to keep his job?”
Denny grinned and said, “Naivete, thy name is Barnes. Word is that Carson owns a couple of our city councilmen. Caught’em both in a raid on one of the city’s more notorious after-hours gay bars a while back. Carson must have loved it. For him, it was a two-fer. Apparently, he managed to hustle both of them out of there without anyone else seeing what was going on, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“So much for my belief in the sanctity of city government. What do you think of his must-have-been-a-brother theory?”
“About what you do. It’s probably bullshit.”
“You have a chance to talk with him about the case?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Ran into him yesterday afternoon, asked him how he was doing with it. Told me it was cut-and-dried, no mysteries.”
“Terry Pendleton’s widow told me her husband was expecting to be promoted to partner soon, and that he never would have resisted a mugger. Just wasn’t in his makeup to do something like that.”
Denny was silent for a minute. Then he said, “That’s interesting. Might be you’d want to ask Detective Wykcoff about that, too.”
“I will. Do you know if he bothered to talk to anybody at Chaney and Cox?”
“Oh, yeah, Carson paid them a visit. Told me everyone over there was a tight-ass, wouldn’t tell him anything.”
“You got any take at all on this thing, Denny?”
Our salads had arrived, and he waited until the waitress left before he answered.
“I know they checked into Pendleton’s background a little. He didn’t have a record, not even a speeding ticket. No money problems, no evidence of any drug use, either. And what little his colleagues said about him to Wykcoff was all positive.”
“So . . .?”
“So on the surface, the panicked mugger theory looks good. But there’s a smell around this thing that I don’t like, especially after hearing what the widow told you.”
“I guess I’ll try to set up a meeting with Wykcoff. You mind if I use your name?”
Denny gave me one of his super-wide grins.
“Are you kidding? I’d pay good money to be there when you and old Carson get together. Maybe he’ll share his secrets of super detectin’ with you.”
“And maybe I’ll be sure to take my super-large bottle of Excedrin.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” said Denny. “Couldn’t hurt at all.”
At that point, the good-looking lady who’d been staring at Denny the whole meal got up and sauntered over to our table.
“Excuse me,” she told him, “but don’t we know each other?”
“I don’t think so,” Denny said.
“Well, then,” she purred, “perhaps we should.”
“Check, please,” I said, as Denny pulled out the chair beside him.
Chapter 7
When I left the Pleasure Bar, I decided to walk around the neighborhood for a while. It was early April but felt more like early May. We’d had a mild winter, and all the signs pointed toward a hot summer. El Nino, said the weather people. A change for the worse in the commercial fishing industry in some of the South America countries, they said. I didn’t yet get the relationship between the number of tunas frolicking off the coast of Peru and the number of rainy winter days in southwestern Pennsylvania, but the evidence appeared to be pretty solid. I guess you had to have a degree in meteorology to actually understand it. Or, at the very least, perfect teeth and an expensive haircut.
I wandered down the street with no particular destination in mind. I just wanted to walk a bit and think about Terry Pendleton. At the beginning of a new investigation, I often organize my thoughts while walking or running or hitting the weights. Any sort of repetitive physical act will do. It seems to help me clear my mind, a task Angie once described as being “no big deal.” As I walked, I was peripherally aware of the people I passed, the kids on skateboards, the young mothers pushing baby strollers, the sexy businesswomen in Ann Taylor ensembles, but my thoughts were focused on the case. So far, I didn’t have much of an opinion as to why Terry Pendleton had been shot, but the mugging theory wasn’t very high on my list of probable explanations. I try to keep an open mind, but after talking with Rachel, I had a gut feeling that there was something else at work here. It didn’t seem likely that Terry would have resisted a mugger, not if what his wife had told me about his personality was true, and I generally try to believe what my clients tell me, at least until I’m given reason not to. That has happened, of course, but unless I’d really lost my touch, Rachel Pendleton hadn’t lied to me. And anyway, thinking that she hadn’t been truthful gave me no place to start. Better to assume she was right, that Terry hadn’t been gunned down by a pissed-off mugger. At least then I had a way of looking at things, a framework. The framework might collapse, but if it did, I’d have a little more knowledge when I constructed the next one.
By this time, I’d circled back to the Pleasure Bar, and as I walked past the front window, I saw Denny and his new friend getting up to leave. There was plenty of room between tables in the restaurant, but the woman still managed to brush up against Denny as she moved away from her chair. I’m a trained professional, so I notice these things. I went around to the parking lot to see if there was any more noticing of the woman that needed to be done, but Denny came out of the side entrance by himself. I was standing by his city-issued, nondescript sedan that, as far as the criminal element of the city was concerned, might as well have had COPS printed in neon letters on the roof. As he approached, Denny reached into his suit pocket for the car keys.
“So, you got that Pendleton thing nailed down yet?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” I said. “Everything except for the who-done-it-and-why part. And speaking of doing it, who’s the new flame in your life?”
“Name’s Crystal. Works as a buyer at Saks downtown. Told me she liked the cut of my, ah, suit. Said quality was always easy to spot.”
“Good God, Denny, did she really talk like that? I’m surprised the manager didn’t throw both of you out. Or at least hose you down. The cut of your suit? Jesus.”
Denny grinned and said, “We’re having dinner together tomorrow night. Her place. Seven-ish. And you’re just jealous.”
“Am not,” I said. “Could I be jealous of a man who’d break bread with a woman who said seven-ish, and in public yet? I think not. Did she happen to mention how many unpaid parking tickets she has? That would explain why she came on to you instead of me.
“Doesn’t work. How’d she know I was a cop?”
“Oh, please,” I said.
“Anyway,” Denny said, as he got into his car, “don’t bother calling to ask if I’m available to watch some old video with you tomorrow night. I’m otherwise engaged.”
Denny closed the car door and put down the window. As he started the engine, he looked up at me and said, “Let me know if I can help, JB, okay?”
“Thanks, Denny. I’ll be in touch.”
I watched as he pulled out of the lot and made an illegal turn to head back downtown. Should have made a citizen’s arrest, I thought. See how old Crystal would feel about going out with a convicted felon.
Maybe if I got one of those expensive haircuts.
Chapter 8
Denny had checked Wykcoff’s schedule and told me that he would be off at 7:00 that night, so for the second time that day, I called police headquarters, this time leaving my name and cell phone number. The sergeant on duty said he’d relay the information to Detective Wykcoff. As I pulled into my garage, the phone rang. When I answered, Wykcoff identified himself and asked who I was.
“My name’s Jeremy Barnes, Detective,” I told him. “I’m a private investigator, looking into the Pendleton murder. Dennis Wilcox is a friend of mine. He suggested I contact you, see if you could help me out. Any chance of us getting together for a few minutes sometime?”
“The Pendleton thing, huh? Jeez, I don’t know how much help I’d be. I mean, that was a pretty cut-and-dried affair, ya know? And my time’s pretty tight right now . . .”
Denny had also mentioned that Wykcoff had a reputation as someone whose best friends had names like Jim Beam and Jack Daniels, so I was pretty sure I knew where to take the conversation now.
“Perhaps I could buy you a drink when your shift ends today. I just need a few minutes of your time.”
“Yeah, well, okay. Do you know where Clancy’s is?”
I assured him that I did, and we agreed to meet there at 7:15 that night. I knew that sometime before then, he’d probably check with Denny to verify my identity, or he would if he was a good detective. Meanwhile, I had some time to kill, so I checked my answering machine for messages from Hollywood starlets looking for a security escort to the upcoming Oscar ceremonies in Los Angeles. Strangely enough, there were no messages from California. There hadn’t been any yesterday, either. Probably some kind of problem with the long-distance lines at AT&T, is what I figured. Or maybe the fact that it was still late morning on the coast. The starlets weren’t up yet.
There was a message from Angie, though, telling me she wanted to talk to me, asking if I could meet her at her place after school that day. I called the school and spoke to Mrs. Bavaro, the chief clerk, asking her to tell Angie I’d see her when she got home. That left me with a couple of hours, so I decided to walk over to my office. I hadn’t been there for a few days, so it was time to check my mail and air the place out a bit.
* * *
The warehouse where my loft/office is located is one of the oldest structures in the area, and every time I’m there, I expect to see a notice-of-demolition stuck on the lobby door. The notice wasn’t there today, but I knew it was only a matter of time. The yuppies are coming.
My office isn’t large, just one room, with a small washroom off to one side. In addition to my desk with its computer, there are two chairs for clients, a filing cabinet with a lock that a three-year-old could break, a small sofa with floor lamps at either end, a couple of plants and a few prints on the walls. Everything except the computer, the plants and the prints had been there for years, going back to when my Uncle Leo owned the agency. I’d added the computer a few years ago, and Angie and Simon had given me the plants. Angie said that watering them would give me an excuse to actually stop by the place once in a while. The prints are mostly originals by my younger brother, who lives in Maryland. Jim sells annuities for a living, but art is the real passion of his life. He’s sold several pieces over the years, and he’s had several one-man shows at local galleries near his home in Frederick. His stuff is really good, and it’s a constant source of amazement to me that he hasn’t made it big in the art world. Of course, I’m also mystified by the fact that I’m not
pitching for some major league baseball team. Go figure.
Since I have a corner office, there are two windows, which, along with the skylight in the center of the ceiling, give the place lots of natural light and a feeling of cheerfulness that is sometimes at odds with the business that’s often conducted there. A light brown carpet covers the floor. A few months earlier, I’d spoken to the owner of the building about replacing the carpeting, but he’d just laughed and told me, funny, you don’t look that stupid. I guess he was expecting the yuppies, too. In fact, he was actively recruiting them, and until they arrived, he sure as hell didn’t intend to spend any money on frivolities like carpeting. Actually, I couldn’t blame the guy.
I check the office answering machine and e-mail daily, so all I had to do today was sort through the snail mail. There was the usual assortment of bills and flyers and offers of credit cards and home equity loans. The bills were mostly local. Almost everything else came from banks I’d never heard of in cities I didn’t know existed in states I’d never visited.
And there was one check, from a man who’d hired me a few weeks earlier to find his 19-year-old daughter. The girl had run away with her 26-year-old boyfriend, and her parents just wanted to be sure she was okay. It hadn’t taken me long to track the girl and her boyfriend to a small town in West Virginia. They’d been using her parents’ credit cards. I drove down there and found the boyfriend working at a little bar out in the boondocks. He told me he and the girl had had a fight, and she’d taken off, said she was gonna hitchhike home. It took me about one hour to find her, which was how long a drive it was to the county sheriff’s office. I went in and flashed my ID along with a picture of the girl. It was just a courtesy call, let the local fuzz know I was in the area and would be snooping around. The sheriff was a grizzled old coot who looked at Melissa’s picture for a long minute and then, with a gentleness that didn’t in any way match his appearance, told me one of his deputies had found the body that morning. Looked like she’d been raped and strangled. They’d just started checking out-of-state reports but guess that wouldn’t be necessary now, would it. I told him about the boyfriend, but I found out later that the guy had over a dozen witnesses who placed him at the bar at the time the medical examiner said Melissa’d been killed. I’d told the sheriff that I would notify the parents, and then I drove straight back to Pittsburgh to see them. As soon as the mother opened the door and looked at me, she knew. I stayed with them for a while, and the only other time I saw them was at the funeral. I didn’t send them a bill. I don’t think you should charge people for telling them their daughter died a horrible death on a lonely stretch of road in the hills of West Virginia.
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