Raven Rain

by David Stever

  Back on the access road, we parked fifty yards away with an unobstructed view of the office door. I twisted a long lens on my Nikon and snapped shots of the building. Katie did a deep dive into Anthony DeRenzo and came up with a Twenty-Seventh Street address.

  “That’s a few blocks from where I grew up. Near Little Italy,” I said.

  “It’s the most current address I can find on him—wait, check this out. When I go back on his previous addresses, there is a Daniella DeRenzo. Same address. Daniella has to be Dee Dee.” She punched my arm. “Damn, I am so awesome. Could be brother and sister?”

  “Now we are making progress. Good work.”

  “But why would Stan say Dee Dee’s last name was Daniels?”

  “Protecting her.” Telling Katie he was protecting Dee Dee was true, but my gut was telling me Stan could be protecting himself. What else had Stan not told us?

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot he’s in love.”

  “Or they could be husband and wife.”

  “Which means Anthony was pimping out his wife. Scumbag. Stan would be devastated.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.” I clicked off more pics of the building and cars in the lot. “Recap.”

  “Okay. So, Daniella is Dee Dee—which is my guess—and we assume Anthony is her brother, and since he uses the Entertainment Ventures address, it could mean he’s the owner?”

  “Could be. But we’re not going to find out anything by sitting here. I say we begin with the neighbors.”

  We drove around the building to Gary’s Auto Body. We parked and walked to the open garage door.

  A small Hispanic man wearing a mask and coveralls was sanding the hood of a blue Camaro. He stopped when we approached.

  I flashed my investigator’s ID. “The owner around?”

  He gave us both a once-over and pointed to the front of the shop.

  We tiptoed our way through a minefield of sanders, buckets, and spray-painting equipment and found a tall, lanky, white guy leaning on a counter, flipping through pages on a clipboard. He had earbuds planted in his ears and I shouted to announce us. “Excuse me.”

  He yanked out the earphones. “Sorry about that. Name’s Gary. How can I help you?” He wiped off his hand with a rag and extended it but pulled it back when I held up my license.

  “Doing a background investigation on your neighbor. Entertainment Ventures. Can we ask you a few questions?”

  He looked at Katie then back to me. “What kind of background?” He folded his arms across his chest.

  “They applied for a government contract.”

  “Contract?”

  I sensed his skepticism. “All routine. We’ll only take a minute.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know nothing anyhow. Go ahead.”

  “What type of business are they in? Seems quiet.”

  “No idea what they do. Except for the one gal, hardly anyone ever goes in the place.”

  I pulled a pen and notepad from my pocket. More for show than anything else. “Our information said they’re event planners. Any trucks or vans ever come by?”

  He shook his head. “If they are doing events, they don’t do it from here. Like I said, we only see the one girl.” He focused on Katie more than me but who could blame him?

  “Can you describe her?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Tall, with long, black hair. Only met her once. Locked her keys in her car and came in to use the phone. We called her Pocahontas. Because of the hair. Good-looking, too.” His face turned red as he glanced at Katie. “Real exotic type. Drives a green Jaguar.”

  “Exotic? What do you mean?”

  “Umm…different. Light skin. My guess is she’s mixed. Part black, part white or part something else.”

  “You catch her name?”

  “No. Don’t you have her name?”

  “Yes, but we hoped you could confirm what was on the application. Anything else you can think of? Employees?”

  “Nah, no—wait, the muscle guy.”

  “Muscle guy?”

  “Weightlifter type. Comes around every now and then. We made fun of him because he wore the same thing every time we saw him. Black jeans and a black muscle shirt. Gold chains around his neck, hair slicked back. Not very tall but real cut. Wouldn’t want to mess with the dude. Hector, my employee, called him a poser.”

  “A poser?”

  Katie jumped in. “A wannabe, a phony.”

  “Okay. I’m hip,” I said.

  They both laughed.

  “Yeah, one of those guys who’s all show. Looks tough but really isn’t,” he said.

  “Happened to notice what he drives?”

  He thought for a second. “Nah, I don’t remember. Too many cars come through here. Can’t keep them all straight.”

  “Fair enough. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.” This time I extended a hand and he shook it.

  “Don’t know if I was much help.”

  “Hey, every bit helps.”

  He reached out and took Katie’s hand. “Ever need any body work done, give me a call.”

  We got back in the car and she opened her laptop to make notes on the interview. “All I have is a woman who they call Pocahontas because of long black hair and she drives a green Jag,” she said.

  “He liked you,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Gary, of Gary’s Auto Body.”

  “No he didn’t.”

  “Body work? He wasn’t talking about cars—”

  Tires squealed and our heads jerked to the road. A green Jaguar F-Type fishtailed around the corner, shot past us—missing my car by inches—turned in to the lot, and parked in front of Entertainment Ventures.

  “Damn, Johnny! Almost hit us.”

  “The green Jag. Maybe it’s her.” I picked up my camera just as the driver’s door opened. Out stepped a tall, slender woman wearing a white business suit and white heels. She had long, straight black hair that fell halfway down her back. She locked the car with the key fob, and then turned toward us and stared. I kept clicking off pictures and hoped we were too far away for her to get a look at us—or my license plate. After a long couple of seconds, she unlocked the door to Entertainment Ventures and went in. I snapped a shot of her license plate.

  “Must be her.” Katie grabbed the camera from my hand and scrolled through the pictures. “She’s gorgeous. Pocahontas in the flesh. I wonder how much she makes if she’s one of the escorts.”

  She zoomed in on a shot of the woman staring at us. From what I could tell from the small screen, the woman had light-brown skin and high cheek bones.

  I couldn’t agree more.

  Gorgeous.

  10

  We made two passes of the Twenty-Seventh Street address of Dee Dee and Anthony DeRenzo before parking a half-block away. It was a fairly quiet street of row homes on the edge of Little Italy. Strictly an Italian area when I grew up in this part of town, but it appeared many of the homes were getting makeovers in a now diverse, hip, and gentrifying neighborhood. It gave me an idea.

  Katie and I talked through a plan and I called her cell with instructions for her to keep the line open so I could listen to any conversation. With her notebook and phone in hand, she got out and walked up to the house. She knocked on the door.

  No answer. She tried again. “Nobody home,” she said.

  “Okay, come on back. No wait, a lady is coming.” An older woman, wearing a light-blue housecoat and a gray button-up sweater, shuffled along the sidewalk toward the house. She pulled a two-wheeled wire cart loaded with bags of groceries.

  The woman stopped at the row house. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”

  Katie extended her hand which the lady ignored. “Hello. My name is Amber and I’m with Port City Windows. We are doing some work two blocks over. I was talking to several of the neighbors and wanted to ask if you’ve considered having your windows replaced. Many of the homes in this area are getting to the point where the windows should be upgraded.
”

  “Not interested.”

  Katie made a show of looking at her notebook. “You must be Mrs. DeRenzo, right?”

  The woman cocked an eyebrow at her. “How do you know my name?”

  “Oh, these marketing companies give me a list of everyone’s name and address. Nothing is private anymore.”

  “That, I agree with. My phone doesn’t stop ringing with people trying to sell me something. Between them and the church, everyone wants money.”

  “Those calls are so annoying, aren’t they?”

  “You’re in my way.”

  “I’m sorry.” Katie stepped to the side. “Can I help you with those?”

  “No.” She pulled keys from her dress pocket and propped open an outer screen door with the cart of groceries.

  “Can I ask you one more thing?”

  “No.”

  “Not about windows. You look familiar. I think I’ve been here before. My older sister used to have a friend and I think this was her house. Daniella, maybe?”

  The lady turned to her. “I never want to hear her name.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…is she your daughter?”

  The woman turned her back to Katie and opened her door just as a black Jeep Cherokee pulled to the curb in front of the house. A man got out, wearing all black—jeans, boots, and muscle shirt. His black hair was slicked back. I snapped off a few photos.

  “Ma, you okay? Who’s this?” he yelled, as he headed to the house. His voice came through loud and clear through the phone.

  “Somebody selling stuff. Told her I’m not buying.”

  He approached and Katie stuck out her hand. “Hi, my name is Amber and I’m with Port City Windows and we—”

  The man brushed by her. “I don’t give a shit who you’re with. My mother said she is not buying. Get off our property.”

  “Sure. Sorry.”

  He scooped up the groceries and followed his mother inside. The door slammed. Katie hurried back to my car. “Got to be Anthony, right?” she said.

  “Sure fits the description.” My camera was to my eye and focused on the Cherokee’s license plate. I read off the number.

  She opened her notebook. “Yep. Matches the number Carlos gave us when he spotted the car in the alley. We can confirm he is Anthony and he owns the car—”

  “No. All we can confirm is the black Cherokee is the same car that was in the alley, and owned by one Anthony DeRenzo. We have not confirmed the charming gentleman you just met is Anthony. He probably is, but deal in facts, not assumptions.”

  “Well—the gentleman—fits the description of the guy who works at Entertainment Ventures and could be Daniella’s brother.”

  “Or husband.”

  “I refuse to believe it, but okay.” She tapped her pen on the paper.

  “Katie, what we do is collect pieces to a puzzle. Then we take those pieces and move them around until something fits. Anthony is another piece. All under the scope of why we were hired.”

  “To find out who tried to blackmail Stan Shelton.”

  “Yep.”

  “And the murder of Kenzie in front of his building?”

  “We’re not investigating the murder, but years of experience tell me that solving one will solve the other.”

  “You called it a message job.”

  “Dumping the body in front of Stan’s building—” I let it hang so she could move the pieces.

  She wrote notes as she spoke. “To tell Stan the blackmail is over…or to tell him to keep quiet…or to tell him he needs to cooperate.” Her big blue eyes looked to me for confirmation.

  “They also risked being identified or caught.”

  “So sending the message outweighed the risk,” she said.

  “Yep.” I started the car. “So, who gives us the most information?”

  She thought for a second, scanned through her notes, and then pointed to a name in the notebook.

  “Exactly.”

  11

  “We’re in a relationship. I don’t care what you say.”

  “Mike, she only calls you when her kids are out of the house and she is alone. You never go out in public,” Katie said.

  We were back at McNally’s. Katie tended bar as Mike was about to leave on an errand. An errand named Abby Lane. He met her two months ago at a policemen’s benefit golf tournament and now had himself infatuated. We called her Abby Road, but Katie didn’t understand the Beatle’s reference and rolled her eyes when we explained. Whenever he said he needed to check something on Abby Road, we understood what he meant. He claimed he was now in a “friends with benefits” relationship, which Katie tried to explain the entire point was that it was not a relationship.

  “So.”

  “She only wants one thing from you. Sex. That’s the benefits part.”

  “Not all sex. We talk.”

  “You’re her side dude. Whenever she has a need, she calls and off you go.”

  I laughed. Mike threw a bar towel at her. “She’s not like that.”

  “You haven’t met her children, have you?” Katie jabbed.

  “No. Too complicated at the moment.”

  “All I’m saying is, be careful. She’s going through a messy divorce. Abby Road could have potholes.”

  “Ha, she’s on a roll tonight,” I said. “Yeah, Mike, you might break your drive shaft.”

  Abby Lane was in the middle of divorcing Elliott Lane, currently a captain in the Port City Police Department. Elliott had found his own “friend with benefits” in the shape of his secretary. The scandal spread through the department faster than a wildfire on a dry California hillside, leaving Abby and her three teenage daughters alone in their large house. She met Mike while volunteering at the golf tournament and a week later, he was the friend reaping the benefits. I figured he was her personal revenge against her husband, but I couldn’t hammer that through Mike’s head.

  He drew off a half-glass of draft beer and chugged it down. He pointed at Katie. “I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

  She threw the towel back at him. He dodged it and left in a huff as two customers entered and plopped down at the bar. Katie waited on them and I went to my booth and continued the research on Kenzie Fitzgerald. Katie had it right when she pointed to Kenzie’s name in her notes. The dead girl had all the answers. All we had to do was figure out how to make her talk.

  Every ten minutes Katie would come back to the booth, turn the computer from me, and check on my progress, which was not much.

  “Let’s trade.” I went behind the bar while she sat and worked on the Kenzie research. The night crept along. Eleven thirty rolled around, and I glanced over at the booth and saw Katie curled up on the bench. It had been a long day, starting with Stan that morning.

  The two guys at the bar were glued to a Yankees game going into the twelfth inning. I told them it was time to lockup, picked up their last round, and shooed them out over their protests, locking the door behind them.

  I nudged Katie and it took her a second to wake up.

  “Oh my God, I am so sorry.” She stretched, yawned, and picked up the laptop. “I will work some more at home.”

  I took it from her. “No. You need sleep. I don’t want you in before eleven tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. I’m exhausted.”

  We went through the kitchen and out to the alley where she parked. I waited until she pulled off. In light of the uncertainty of the Shelton case, at no point did I want her to be alone. Day or night. I did not tell Katie, but it bothered me that Anthony DeRenzo saw her. She was too easy to remember.

  “Mr. Delarosa?”

  A woman’s voice. Behind me.

  I wheeled around and instinctively reached for the gun on my hip, which I never wear in the restaurant. A reaction from years as a cop. A light was mounted above our door, but the rest of the alley was too dark for me to make out a person. I stayed quiet.

  She stepped out from a shadow. “Mr. Delarosa?”

  “Do
I know you?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m a friend of Stan Shelton. My name is Dee Dee.”

  “Dee Dee?” I did another check up and down the alley. Nothing.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to hire you. I want you to find out who killed Kenzie.”

  12

  Igrabbed Dee Dee’s hand, and pulled her into the kitchen and locked the door behind us. “Don’t move.” The lights were still on in the bar, so I turned them off, then came back and snapped off the kitchen lights except for a small one over the range.

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  “Took a cab. I didn’t want to chance driving.”

  “Why hide in the alley?”

  “Stan told me to keep it a secret that he hired you. If I came into the bar, people could see us.” She kept her arms folded across her chest and stammered a bit when she talked. She was nervous or scared. Or both.

  “What if I never came out?”

  “He mentioned you live upstairs. I figured you would come out sooner or later.”

  “You tell anyone you were coming here?”

  “No, nobody. I swear.”

  “Not Stan?”

  “No way. He would be upset if he found out I was here.”

  Surprises were never my thing, and her showing up like this made me nervous and scared. Someone killed Kenzie Fitzgerald and tossed her body in the street like a piece of litter. Anyone capable of that would not think twice about killing another high-class escort—or a second-rate private eye.

  I unlocked the door and peeked into the alley. All quiet. I cursed myself for never installing security cameras in the back. Add that to my mental to-do list. “We’ll go up to my place. Follow me.”

  We climbed the back stairs and entered the condo. Inside, I locked the door and pointed to a chair at the kitchen table. “Wait there.” The living room had a sliding glass door that opened to my balcony and I did not want her anywhere near a window. I pulled the draperies across the door and turned on a lamp. “So, why are you here?”