“Okay fine. So it said that. But you don’t know what the agreement was between Max and I. For God’s sake Anthony, he was the one who wanted his freedom. So he allowed me the same. He wasn’t a hypocrite, if he was going to leave me, which he wasn’t he would’ve left me with means. I know that. That’s the way it was.”
“Thing is Vanessa. He was going to leave you.”
“No he wasn’t.”
“Yes he was. I’ve seen the divorce agreement this Jack fella was writing up. And you’ve seen the new will. You took it from his desk after you killed him. he was leaving you Vanessa, because you were screwing around with his lawyer, Luke Logan. And that was off side. That was crossing the line. You and Luke had started barraging him about changing the prenup. I understand that. You just wanted your fair share. The share you were entitled too.”
“NO, no, no. I wasn’t doing any of that.” She drank her wine and started crying. She tried to suck on her cigarette but that didn’t work too well with her crying and her sinuses getting all pinched up. I got up and went into the kitchen where I got her some tissues. I had beaten her up, now it was time to play good guy.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Listen,” I said. I leaned over from the couch and put my hand on her knee. “I understand how hard it must have been for you. I’ve seen the photos and the video of you and Luke at the Holiday Inn up in Valencia. Luke always wanted the same room. Made it easy to wire. It’s just a matter of time before the police dig all this up. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself. Tell me why you did it. I’m just a simple schmuck. What you say to me is only hearsay anyway. I just want to try and understand. That’s all. Help me understand it Vanessa.”
I squeezed her knee gently.
“Jesus,” she said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was just supposed to redo the prenup. It would’ve been easy. He could’ve divorced me then. That would’ve been okay. But he wouldn’t. he said I’d crossed the line. But you don’t understand what it was like. I married him because I loved him. I still did. After all of these years. I gave him everything he wanted. My body, my soul my mind. But he got bored with me. So I let him have these hussies on the side if it made him happy.
You see I truly loved him. I didn’t like it though. I didn’t like the thought of him with other women so I tried sleeping with other men to see if he’d get jealous, see if he’d realize the mistake. But it didn’t work out that way. It seemed to egg him on. I even slept with our Lorenzo, with Jane. Maybe if I was sleeping with women he’d get jealous. But he didn’t, not even with me and Maria.
I didn’t know what to do so I thought I’d sleep with his lawyer. Surely that would wake him up. Instead he got all mean and nasty and threatened to leave me with nothing. So Luke and I tried to convince him otherwise. But he wouldn’t listen. He changed. I begged him. I told him I’d given him my whole life and he didn’t care. And that hurt Anthony. That hurt really badly. Because I loved him still. I thought he was my soul mate. And then when I confronted him on Saturday evening and I told him I was going to tell his son how awful he was.
I mean I was desperate. He got all angry at me. he started waving this new will in my face and telling me how I wasn’t going to get anything. I put my hand on his shoulder and he just brushed me off and told me I was as good as dead to him for sleeping with his lawyer. He called me horrible names and told me I was a slut. So when he turned around and told me to leave for good. To pack my bags I lost it and I hit him with the statue. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was so upset and hurt that the man I had loved for most of my life could turn on me like that. You have to understand.”
She looked up at me and her eyes were streaming tears. The tissues were all balled up. Her cigarette had burned out and left a long nose of ash in the ashtray. Same as mine. Thing is I did understand.
“I do understand,” I said. “But what about Lorenzo? I don’t understand that.”
“I thought I caught him out of the corner of my eye through the window. I thought I saw him down by the shed and he just turned and looked away and disappeared. I thought he might have seen me. So I told Luke and he said he’d take care of it. and I guess he did. He was a good man Lorenzo. Kind and gentle. Look what has become of my life.” She sobbed. “All this mayhem.”
I had been outside earlier this week and it was hard to see in when it was so bright outside. Even if Lorenzo was looking towards the house, if it was bright enough out he might not have been able to see in. Especially if the light was out in the office. Especially then. But I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
“I have to go,” she said. “I have to go.”
She got up and I stood up with her. I didn’t try to stop her. I watched her down the hallway still crying. Mumbling something about Max. Maybe she was sorry. Maybe now she realized her mistake. Maybe the dead do forgive, but the living don’t forget. She was trying to run away from herself I figured. She couldn’t do that. No jail was going to be as hard for her as the prison of her own mind. The door closed loudly behind her. Just as if she’d banged the k in my last name. But she hadn’t.
I looked around this living room. Stuck here in this big empty house. All alone and kinda lonely. And with all of this wealth around her. With a family and a husband. Vanessa was all alone. Lonely. And I knew how she felt. But I’d made a different decision.
I put my hand in my pocket and took out the recorder. I pressed rewind and then play. ‘All this mayhem’ I heard her voice say. Yes indeed I nodded. Yes indeed. I turned it off and put it back in my pocket. I pulled out my phone to call Jeff. It was time for an update and it was time to leave this big empty house. I was no longer welcome. The lonely ghosts were clawing at me.
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I write two mystery series. A cozy mystery series and a hardboiled detective mystery series.
Lady Marmalade Mysteries:
The charming and warm Lady Marmalade is the Baroness of Sandown. But don’t let that full you, she also loves solving crime and crafting the best ever marmalade jam you’ll taste.
Check her out for some cozy, warm mysteries set between the two World Wars. You’ll find cameos by some of history’s greatest characters like Gandhi and Lord Mountbatten!
Anthony Carrick Mysteries:
The tough drinking, hard talking Anthony Carrick is an ex-LAPD homicide cop with a conflicted past. From the same mold of Sam Spade and Mike Hammer, he enjoys seeking justice for the downtrodden. Sometimes that means using his fists.
He’s a painter in his spare time and lives with a one-eyed rescued cat called Pirate. For fans of noir and hardboiled fiction, this is your stiff, tall drink of fun.
CONTENTS
Title Page
One - Chapter 1
Two - Chapter 2
Three - Chapter 3
Four - Chapter 4
Five - Chapter 5
Six - Chapter 6
Seven - Chapter 7
Eight - Chapter 8
Nine - Chapter 9
Ten - Chapter 10
Eleven - Chapter 11
Twelve - Chapter 12
Thirteen - Chapter 13
&nb
sp; Fourteen - Chapter 14
Fifteen - Chapter 15
Sixteen - Chapter 16
Seventeen - Chapter 17
Eighteen - Chapter 18
Nineteen - Chapter 19
Twenty - Chapter 20
Twenty-One - Chapter 21
Twenty-Two - Chapter 22
ENJOYED THE BOOK?
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SECOND FIDDLE
by
Jason Blacker
Copyright © 2016 Jason Blacker
PUBLISHED BY: Lemon Tree Publishing
Visit www.JasonBlacker.com to get FREE books and other cool stuff!
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Editing: Andrea Anesi
ISBN: 9781927623527
For my wife - You are the music in my life.
ONE
Chapter 1
I'D just finished another show at an art gallery in LA called Worthington's Fine Art. It had gone better than I'd expected. What that means is I'd sold three paintings. Three paintings at five grand a piece. My take is half of that. If I was really careful I could make that money last three, maybe four months. All depended on how much art supplies I had to buy.
It was breathing room but I could use a new gig too. It had been a few months since I'd actually been hired independently of the LAPD and my good friend Roberts. Not that I wasn't grateful for his help. I was. But a private gig paid twice as much. Five Bennies was better than two and a half. I didn't need high school math to figure that out.
And can you imagine my surprise when I got a call? It was like my lips to God's ears and he responded. I was sitting on a park bench just up from the beach and not far from the pier when the call came in. Sometimes when I'm looking for inspiration for a painting I'll waste my time watching little old ladies with their leathery faces walk up and down the path along the beach with their little white trolleys dragged behind them, like stubborn dogs, filled with a brown bag of groceries.
On this particular occasion there weren't too many old ladies out. But there were tourists walking arm in arm. Couples kissing and holding hands. Ain't love grand? None of that earned me any money. It's the killing and the pillaging that puts food on my table. Though if you asked me after a few drinks, I'd sooner starve than live off the dead. But human nature being what it is, there's an abundance of work in my field.
It was getting towards dinnertime and I was thinking of something to eat when my phone rang. I looked at the number and I didn't recognize it. I don't usually answer it if I don't recognize it. It was a two one two number. I had no idea where that was from. But I felt like taking a chance.
"Hello," I said.
"Is this Anthony Carrick?" the voice on the other end asked. It was a man's voice. I'd put him middle-aged and polite. He had a generic accent, not something I could pinpoint.
"Who's asking?"
"Frank Moody," he said.
"I don't know a Frank Moody."
"I'm sorry to have bothered you, I must have the wrong number."
I had a feeling he was about to hang up.
"I didn't say you had the wrong number. I am Anthony Carrick."
"Are you always this careful, Mr. Carrick?"
"In my line of work you can't be careful enough, Frank. How can I help you?"
"I heard you're a private investigator, Mr. Carrick."
"My father's Mr. Carrick, I'm Anthony. Yeah, I help grannies get their cats out of trees."
There was a pause on the other end. It was probably a frown but I couldn't see it.
"I don't understand."
"Yes, I'm a private investigator. Where're you calling from anyway?"
"I'm in New York, Mr… Anthony."
"Right. You know I'm in California?"
"Yes I do, but I was asked to call you."
"I see. And what is it you'd like me to do?"
"Well, perhaps it's a bit premature but we're very concerned about our concertmaster."
"I see."
"He didn't show up for practice today and our show starts in five minutes and he's still not here."
"So you want me to ring him up and scold him?"
There was a frustrated sigh on the other end.
"No, that's not why I'm calling. We've tried that, but he's not answering."
"Have you sent anyone around?"
"Yes, and he's not answering. Mrs. Sonia Varnier, one of our benefactors is deeply troubled by this. It simply isn't like him to miss a practice or not call."
"I'm not sure how I can help. Missing persons cases are often solved within a few days. If not, the likelihood of finding them alive diminishes. You're better off calling the police."
"We've thought of that, but we don't want to burden the police unnecessarily. It has only been one day."
"Then I'm not sure why you're so worried."
"Because Paul Klee, he's our missing concertmaster, was worried for his safety recently."
"How so?"
"He had started to become paranoid that he was being followed and that nasty sorts were after him."
"And did he have any proof of this?"
"No. But honestly, Anthony, his behavior had changed in the last week and something must have been bothering him. It was quite the change."
"I understand. Did he give you any idea about who was threatening or what they might have been after?"
"Not to me specifically. He said it was a private matter but that he might need to take some time away. That was the last I heard from him. Will you come to New York, Anthony, and help us look for him?"
"I think it'll be a waste of my time and your money. He'll likely show up in the next day or two."
"That doesn't matter. We're happy to pay for you to come out. At the worst, it might just end up being a short holiday for you in our lovely city. We'll even throw in complimentary tickets to Vivaldi's Four Seasons."
That was mighty tempting.
"My fees are five hundred a day with a twenty-five hundred minimum. Plus expenses."
"That won't be a problem."
"Alright then," I said. "Transfer the money over, send me a ticket to New York, business class, and I'll see you tomorrow."
"Thank you, Anthony. We're very grateful."
"You might not be when he shows up tomorrow having just been on a bender for a day."
"Mrs. Varnier is not certain about that. Though I certainly hope that's what happens. I'll send the money and the ticket information right away. We'll have someone pick you up at the airport too."
"That'd be swell."
I hung up and got up from the bench. It was definitely dinner time. I was hungry enough to eat a horse, but horse is not what I wanted.
I got into my car and drove around until I found a restaurant that looked like my kind of place. Big steaks for small bills. I sat down and thought about this concertmaster. These artsy types could be flaky. He'd probably holed himself up in a hotel with some hooker and a bag of blow. I figured he'd beat me to the Philharmonic tomorrow with egg on his face, and I'd end up taking a week to tour the Big Apple.
It could've been worse. I could be stuck here painting portraits of tourists down by the pier for twenty five bucks a pop. If Moody wanted to be a sucker. I'd take his money. There's a reason police didn't take missing persons seriously, and it's because usually people go missing for a reason. Not kids of course, that's different. But a grown man in a big city. He's missing because he wants to be.
TWO
Chapter 2
AT just after ten the next morning, that was a Saturday, the plane touched down at JFK. As promised, as I got out of the terminal and into the public greeting area there was a chauffeur waiting for me.
He was dressed in a well-fitted black suit with a black cap and black gloves. My name was written in block capital letters.
He was a tall thin man with sallow complexion and heavy jowls. He was all business and no vacation when I greeted him. I shook his hand and he offered his begrudgingly.
"Anthony Carrick," I said.
"Terrence Smith," he replied in a monotone that could have been mistaken for a sigh.
His hand was warm through the glove and soft as overcooked fish that hadn't been filleted. Regardless of his manner, I was nevertheless pleased that I was being chauffeured around. Though I also found it surprising that the New York Philharmonic would go to such expense for a PI. I was even more unnerved when he opened the door for me to the Maybach.
"The Philharmonic sure treats their guest in style," I said to him, grinning.
"I work for Madam Varnier," he said, dryly.
He closed the door behind me and walked around to the driver's seat. When he was in he started up the car and started to drive towards town.
"There are soft drinks and bottled water in the middle compartment next to you if you wish, Mr. Carrick," he said without looking back at me.
I opened up the armrest and took out a cream soda. They had always been my favorite ever since I was allowed my first soda.
"Where are you taking me?" I asked him.
"To your hotel to sign in and then I'll take you straight to the Philharmonic's offices."
"And which hotel am I staying at?"
"The Ritz-Carlton, Mr. Carrick."
Indeed, I thought to myself. These people didn't have any idea of the kind of man I was. But if they were footing the bill they could put me up in a tent in Central Park for all I cared.
Terry drove slowly and carefully towards Central Park and I took in the surrounding views as we drove by. The whole trip took around thirty minutes for us to get to the Ritz.
Terry got out, but by the time he got to my door it was open and I was out. He shut it for me nevertheless. He got my single piece of luggage out of the car and placed it next to me.
Anthony Carrick Hardboiled Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3) Page 30
