C T Ferguson Box Set

by Tom Fowler

  A few minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of Rich’s Hamilton house. His parents died while he served in the Army, and he used some of the money they left him to pay cash for a nice Victorian. I like my place better, but it would have fit at least twice over inside Rich’s, not to mention he had a driveway and a yard big enough to host a mean game of Wiffle Ball.

  “Gil’s,” Rich said with a smile when he opened the door, “you must really want something.”

  “I happen to like Gil’s,” I said.

  “Liking it isn’t enough. Embrace the grease.”

  Rich brought plates and two bottles of beer into the living room. We ate our pepperoni and sausage pizzas on TV trays. I only ate two slices, but Rich was halfway through his third when he got curious. “What brings you by, anyway?” he said.

  “My case in the county,” I said. “I’d like a second opinion.”

  “OK, shoot.”

  I told him the basics of the case, then about my conversation with Marvin at the funeral home. “I needed to check it out,” I said.

  Rich shook his head. “Or you could have told Gonzalez and asked the police to look into it.”

  “Your way is a lot more boring.”

  “It’s also what you’re supposed to do, C.T.,” Rich said.

  I shrugged. “I prefer to discover things for myself,” I said.

  “What did you learn?”

  “He was murdered. Marvin’s story checks out. There’s a second bullet hole.”

  “So now what?” said Rich.

  “Now I report some strong suspicions to Gonzalez,” I said.

  “You can’t do it the way you’re thinking. Even if he does take another look at the case, he’ll wonder how you came to suspect everything. They’re not going to go easy on you like we do.”

  Normally, I would have disputed the BPD goes easy on me, but this wasn’t the time. “How should I do it, then?” I said.

  “This requires me to think as you do.” Rich chuckled. “I’m not sure I like it.”

  “You’ll find my thought processes very liberating.”

  “I don’t plan to do it very often,” Rich said. He pursed his lips. I pondered giving him my best Darth Vader voice and encouraging him to come to the dark side but refrained. “I would tell him about your funeral home conversation with Marvin and you think he’s telling the truth. Just leave off the part about your little investigation of the suite.”

  I nodded. “OK. Thanks for helping me put one over on the man.”

  “Shut up,” Rich said, “and get me another beer.”

  It was late when I left Rich’s, but I called Gonzalez on his cell anyway. “This better be important,” he said. His voice didn’t sound sleepy.

  “I knew a dedicated public servant like you would keep late hours,” I said.

  “So what’s your explanation?”

  “I still stay up late from my days as a player in college,” I said.

  “Sounds like the better career choice,” Gonzalez said.

  “It was. The actual reason I called is the Rodgers case.”

  “What case? He killed himself.”

  “I have a witness who disputes your theory,” I said.

  Gonzalez paused. “Someone saw him get shot?”

  “Heard it happen. He was staying in the suite next door. Said he heard two muffled gunshots.”

  “And you think he’s telling the truth,” Gonzalez said, not in the form of a question.

  “I do,” I said. “He doesn’t strike me as canny enough to tell a lie.”

  “What is he, an idiot savant?”

  “A mousy accountant.”

  “Accountants lie,” Gonzalez said with a snort.

  “About money and the like, sure. I don’t think he’s lying about what he heard.”

  “What do you want me to do at eleven at night?”

  “Find out how many bullets were missing from the gun you’ve already processed,” I said.

  “And if it’s one?”

  “Then I’ll find my accountant and clobber him with a ledger book,” I said.

  “I’d pay to see you do it,” Gonzalez said and hung up.

  I needed to be quicker on the draw next time.

  I arrived home to find it empty. Gloria had taken her bag but left a scandalous dress in my closet and a small nightgown in a dresser drawer. While I admired her fondness for revealing clothes, I didn’t know how I felt about her leaving them at my house. It felt very . . . official, and I wasn’t sure how official I wanted things to be with Gloria. I enjoyed most of the time we spent together, but I also appreciated some time apart from her. She was too smart to have simply forgotten the sexy articles, and she put them where she knew I’d see them. We would have to discuss her clothing encroachment at some point.

  After changing into a T-shirt and a pair of Polo sleeping shorts, I went into my office and logged in to my laptop. It only took a few minutes to use Gonzalez’s IP address to break into the BCPD’s network. Simple fingerprinting found an unused IP in the same range, and from there, convincing the BCPD my laptop owned the IP address and was one of its own computers was quick and easy work. The BCPD possessed no better security than the BPD. Most places didn’t, which was good for me and sad for everyone else.

  My quest for the case file was in its infancy when Gonzalez called me back. “What’s the magic number?” I said.

  “Your accountant was right,” he said. He sounded like a little boy forced to return a puppy to the pet store.

  “There were two bullets missing from the gun.”

  “Three,” Gonzalez said, “but one was a test fire ballistics did. Two bullets were missing when they got it.”

  “Do you still think it’s a suicide?” I said.

  “I’m coming around to the idea someone might have killed this guy.”

  “The other option is he needed two bullets to kill himself.”

  “Most people don’t,” said Gonzalez.

  “What’s our next move?” I said.

  “’Our?’”

  “You’d still think this was a suicide if not for me. Just remember this when you collect a medal at the end.”

  Gonzalez chuckled. “You’re a persistent son of a bitch,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s not really a compliment. Herpes is persistent, too.”

  “I don’t come to you with my problems, do I?” I said.

  “Touché. All right, meet me at the precinct tomorrow morning. We’re going to look for the second bullet in the hotel room.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “What time?”

  “Nine o’clock,” Gonzalez said, “and bring some coffee.”

  I was about to say I would when Gonzalez hung up again. Bastard.

  At least he was on board with the murder angle.

  Chapter 6

  At seven minutes after nine, I walked into the BCPD precinct house, carrying coffee for Gonzalez and a vanilla latte for me in a drink holder, along with a bag of goodies in my other hand. I saw him at his desk, squinting at something on his monitor. I sat in his guest chair without waiting for an invitation. His eyes slid over to me. “You’re late,” he said.

  “It’s acceptable to be up to fifteen minutes late for a social event,” I said.

  Gonzalez swept his hand to take in the room. “This look like cocktail hour at the Ritz Carlton to you?”

  “I certainly hope not. It would be a dreadfully boring crowd.” I freed his coffee cup from the drink holder and set it on his side of the desk. “Maybe this will make you a little less crabby.”

  He took a long drink of it. “It’s a start. What’s in the bag?”

  “Donuts for you . . . a breakfast sandwich for me.”

  “What if I want the sandwich?”

  I reached into the bag, taking out a smaller paper bag holding my turkey bacon, egg, and Monterey jack breakfast sandwich. “Then you should move faster. Besides, you’re a cop. Eating a breakfast sandwich would b
reak a stereotype.”

  “I guess we can’t have that.” Gonzalez grabbed the bag and looked inside. “A variety. I’m starting to like you.”

  “I’m good at plying public servants with sugary breakfasts.”

  He took a bite of a chocolate glazed confection. “Don’t put it on your business cards.”

  “I’m surprised you think I have business cards.”

  Gonzalez seemed happy to eat his donuts—he selected a blueberry next—so I ate my sandwich. When he finished the fruity one and drank about two-thirds of the coffee, he looked more awake. “The gun in the room is definitely the one someone used to shoot our guy,” he said.

  “It’s ‘our’ now, is it?”

  “Your medal speech was stirring.”

  “Any prints on it?”

  “Only his.” Gonzalez shook his head. “Whoever shot him went to some trouble to make it look like a suicide.”

  “Good thing you had a brilliant private investigator working the case.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Gonzalez said with a roll of his eyes. He grabbed the third donut, a raspberry jelly filled, out of the bag. “We’ll see how brilliant you are when we get to the crime scene.”

  “I’ll try to shine just brightly enough to be impressive,” I said.

  A different desk clerk happened to be on duty at the Sheraton. Gonzalez flashed his badge, and I showed my ID. The CSI technician adjusted his impressive bag of crime scene investigative voodoo. The manager on duty appeared a minute later. I lucked out; it was a different person. Gonzalez did the talking. This manager voiced the same objection about the room being occupied but still gave us a key when he could tell we didn’t give a damn.

  Gonzalez opened the penthouse door without knocking. Thankfully, we didn’t walk in on an orgy, but we did wake up the guy I saw the night before. The call girl was gone. I guess he didn’t pay enough to get her to stay. “What the hell?” he said, pulling the sheet and blanket up to cover himself to the neck.

  “BCPD,” Gonzalez said, showing him his badge. “We need to look around the room.”

  “Why do you have hotel security with you?” the man said. He stared at me. “I thought you said this wasn’t the right room.”

  Gonzalez now looked at me in much the same way Rich often does. I shrugged. “Turns out it was after all.”

  “We’re going to look around now, if you don’t mind,” Gonzalez said.

  “Sure. I’ll just stay here.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I wasn’t involved in whatever it is you’re looking for,” the man said.

  “I certainly hope not.”

  The CSI tech already poked around. Gonzalez followed him. I leaned against the deck and tried to look inconspicuous. “You mind pointing us in the right direction?” Gonzalez said.

  “If I were you, I’d look behind the armoire,” I said.

  “A hunch?”

  “A pretty strong one.”

  “Whatever, I’m not taking the fucking thing apart. You’ve been here before, so you must know how it’s done.”

  I nodded and moved toward the armoire. “The curse of foreknowledge,” I said as I removed the drawers.

  “Or of lying by omission.”

  “You never asked if I’d been here before.”

  “I guess you have me there.”

  I disconnected the TV again and moved it off the armoire. The CSI tech pushed the large dresser out and found the bullet hole right away. Gonzalez nodded at him, and he took pictures of the hole and everything around it, then got some measurements. We walked away to let him work.

  “You came here last night?” Gonzalez said.

  “Perhaps there’s a fellow in hotel security almost as handsome as I,” I said. “It’s hard to believe, but it might be true.”

  “Or perhaps you came here last night.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “I don’t know how things normally work in Baltimore,” said Gonzalez, “but we don’t like it when people play fast and loose in the county.”

  “They tend to the say the same thing in Baltimore, too.”

  “Then I don’t feel so bad. Obviously, you don’t listen very well.”

  I said, “I prefer to think of it as being results-driven.”

  “Any other results you’d like to come forward about now?”

  “None.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. I’m not holding out on you.”

  “This time.” Gonzalez checked with his CSI. “You almost done, Miller?”

  “Just about,” Miller said.

  “Good. We’ll process everything and see what we know later today.” He looked at me again. “I’m going to take a risk by sharing this information with you. Don’t be an asshole with it.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Maybe you already did.”

  “There’s no maybe about it,” I said.

  After lunch, Pauline Rodgers called me and sounded frantic, so I drove to her house. When I knocked, she made sure to ask who it was, then I heard her undo two locks and a chain before she opened the door. Worry lines creased her face. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  “It sounded important.”

  “It is. Come in.” I entered, and she reset both locks and slid a chain in place behind me. The chain was new. It wouldn’t stop a charging toddler jonesing for a lollipop, but I didn’t have the heart to tell Pauline in her condition. She led me into the kitchen where we both sat at the light brown table. It looked like it came from a thrift store. Scratches marred the surface, and a dog had taken a liking to one of the legs. Pauline took a drink of coffee. I got the feeling it wasn’t her first cup.

  “This was in my mailbox this morning,” she said, handing me a folded piece of paper. I took it from her trembling hand and read:

  Dear Pauline,

  I am sorry to hear of Stanley’s passing. This has to be a difficult time for you. At the risk of adding to the difficulty, your husband owed me a rather sizable sum of money, which I now must collect from you. I will contact you tomorrow to make arrangements for payment. You do not want my bill collectors at your door.

  DR

  I looked up at Pauline. Her hands still shook, and she intermittently bit her lip. “What does it mean?” she said.

  I really didn’t want to do this, but the letter winnowed my options. “Your husband borrowed money to fund his . . . moneymaking plans,” I said.

  She shook the paper. “Who the hell did he borrow money from, the devil?”

  “Close. A loan shark.”

  Tears flowed. I looked around for a box of tissues but didn’t see any. I settled for a napkin and handed it to her. She took it and dabbed at her eyes. “What the hell am I going to do about a loan shark?”

  “He’s not going to go away unless you can pay him.”

  “I can’t pay him,” she shouted, then sobbed.

  I let her cry for a few minutes. When her weeping got quieter and sobs less frequent, Pauline wiped her eyes and set the napkin atop the table. “I can’t pay him,” she said again. “There’s no way.”

  “Stanley didn’t have any money to leave you?”

  She snorted at me.

  “Life insurance?”

  “He wasn’t working. We cashed out his only policy a while ago. That money’s long gone.”

  “Then I think you need to talk to the loan shark.”

  “What am I going to say to him?”

  “I’ll be there when you meet with him. Tell him the truth. He’s not going to be sympathetic, but he might give you some time.”

  “What would I do with more time? Work three jobs?”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  “You’d better.”

  I left a few minutes later. Pauline was disconsolate, and I didn’t see the point of staying only to have her reiterate she couldn’t pay David Rosenberg. As I walked back to my car, a red Mustang with a white racing stripe and extremely shiny chrome wheel
s drove slowly past. Two shady characters eyed me up and down, and one pointed a camera. After they snapped the picture, the Mustang sped off. With a head start, I could never catch them on all the side streets.

  Either I’d been followed, or those guys were casing Pauline’s place. Regardless, David Rosenberg would soon know who I was.

  Fantastic.

  The information age has made searching for data about someone much easier. I can’t imagine going to the library, looking in phone books, standing in rain-soaked doorways, and all the sundry methods my past counterparts used to learn about someone. Now, I could comb through a bunch of tweets and blog posts about someone. More data doesn’t make it better, though. Any idiot can post a tweet or a blog update, and many have. If David Rosenberg could learn about me, I could find out about him. All I’d learned from Tony Rizzo was Rosenberg was ruthless and Jewish, and I could have guessed the latter for myself. I started with basic searches and narrowed my criteria until I concentrated on the right David Rosenberg. The first thing I saw was a blog called “David Rosenberg Sucks.” I figured I would discover this fact on my own and skipped the blog. Ditto another journal proclaiming his status as an asshole.

  I saw several pictures of Rosenberg. He was blessed with a round face, a prominent nose, and eyes appearing too small for his head. His hair was long gone from the top of his head but was full everywhere else and a mix of brown and gray. The pictures of him standing made him look a little paunchy but not seriously overweight. I guessed him to be in his early sixties. The small, dark eyes lent him a sinister quality.

  Rosenberg’s legitimate business was in restaurant supply. I wondered if he sold anything to Il Buon Cibo. He posted a location in the county—Pikesville. I didn’t know exactly where it was, but I could hazard a good guess. Pauline and I would need to talk to Rosenberg soon. I hoped we could avoid doing it there. Meeting a loan shark didn’t rank high on my list of things to do, but if I needed to, I’d just as soon not hand him home-field advantage.