Clawed: A Gin & Tonic Mystery

by L. A. Kornetsky

  But wishes weren’t horses. So she smiled back at the uniform, equally professionally sincere, and went to collect her car from the parking lot, surrounded by squad cars and unmarked sedans.

  She stared at one of those sedans thoughtfully, something tingling in the back of her brain, but it didn’t come forward, and finally she shrugged and got into her car. The best way to coax a thought out of hiding was to ignore it for a while.

  The drive back was mostly on autopilot, her eyes on the road but her brain a jumble of what-ifs and should-haves. Teddy was right, the smart thing to do would be to hit the hotel, pack up Georgie and their gear, and point the rental car north to Seattle, putting this entire thing in the box labeled “fool me once” and filing it under “learning experience.”

  That would be the smart thing to do.

  So when she pulled into the hotel’s parking lot, she went to the front desk and extended her stay another night. Then she went upstairs and collected her partner in not-crime. Well, her four-legged one, anyway.

  “Hey, Georgie,” she said, as she opened the room door to the expected enthusiastic greeting. “Tired of these walls? Wanna go for another ride?”

  Georgie was down with that.

  Ginny was starting to think that by now she knew the drive from her hotel to the scene of the crime as well as she knew the walk from her apartment to Mary’s. Three days of walking Georgie on that street, and either she’d be arrested for sure this time, on suspicion of casing the neighborhood, or the locals would start to think she belonged there.

  It was an early Thursday afternoon, not quite the start of the weekend, but she had taken the measure of the neighborhood now: thirty-something homeowners, and teenagers, and retirees meant that every day there was a chance of different people being out and about. Hitting the neighborhood a few hours earlier than when she’d found the body increased the odds that she’d run into someone who had been out and about at the same time on Tuesday. Right?

  It was the only logic she had, so she was going for it. When they arrived in the neighborhood, she sent off a quick text to Tonica, telling him she was in the clear and on the case, and then got Georgie out of the car, snapping on her leash and shoving a few poo bags in her pocket. Just because they were visiting didn’t mean she couldn’t be polite, although she hadn’t seen any trash cans around where she could dump the bags, if it came to that. . . .

  Her phone vibrated, telling her she’d gotten a return text: b crfl. It took her a minute to puzzle that out as “be careful.”

  Always, she sent back, and was pretty sure she could hear the snort all the way from Mary’s.

  They moseyed down the street, giving Georgie plenty of time to investigate every interesting blade of grass, tree root, and rock, until they’d reached their destination. If you didn’t know what had happened there, the house looked like every other house on the block, quiet but pleasant, even welcoming, as if the owner had just gone for the day and would be back that evening. The house to the left felt more “closed up,” as though the owners had packed up and gone on a long vacation, with the porch light still on and the curtains all drawn, and the only person at the house on the right was a sour-faced old man visible in back moving the lawn with an old-fashioned push mower. She decided, even at that distance, that he looked more likely to bite than talk, but if he ended up being her only option, she’d take the chance.

  Fortunately, the house across the street was more lively: there were two adults sitting on their front porch, and one leaning against the pillar, indulgently listening to a preteen read something off at a rattling rate, while a small white dog lounged at the girl’s feet. Dog people: perfect.

  Then she took a closer look at the person leaning against the porch, and Ginny wondered if there was time to turn around, get back in her car, and drive back to Seattle. Then the standing figure turned and saw her.

  Georgie whined, and pulled against the leash. “Yeah, okay, girl,” Ginny said, and started across the street, never taking her eyes off the people on the front porch.

  “Ah, Mallard, there you are.” Agent Asuri was nearly unrecognizable in jeans and a long-sleeved pullover rather than her usual crisp suits, her black hair pulled away from her face in a short ponytail. It was almost like she was an actual person, instead of a fed.

  “Here I am.” She smiled at the preteen and—presumably—her parents, then dropped the leash and let Georgie do her thing with the little white dog, going nose to butt and then butt to nose until all the formalities had been exchanged, wondering all the while how much trouble she was in and what had happened to the businesslike suit she’d been pretty sure Asuri had been born in.

  “This is Angel and Marco,” the agent said, indicating the adults, “and that’s Sally.”

  “And that’s Fife and Drum,” Sally announced, in turn.

  Ginny assumed she was referring to the dog, until a small black cat appeared out of nowhere and rubbed against the girl’s leg, eyeing Georgie with suspicion. One was Fife and the other was Drum, then. Cute. “I’m Ginny, and that’s Georgie.”

  “That’s an . . . unusual-looking dog,” Angel said, her smile warm and honest, her hand resting on her daughter’s hair. They should have been in the ad for a planned community, multicultural middle-class happiness. Except, of course, for the dead guy across the street.

  “She’s a shar-pei. Mostly shar-pei, anyway.” Ginny shrugged, a “what can you do” motion. “She was a shelter adoption, so no papers. And as you can see, she’s almost painfully friendly.” The cat—Fife, she guessed—had moved on from suspicion to sniffing at Georgie, who was an old hand at cats and curiosity. After some mutual investigation, the three animals settled on the walkway with their heads together, as though they too were enjoying a bit of neighborhood gossip.

  “We were discussing what might have happened to Mr. Penalta across the street,” Asuri said, as casual as though she hadn’t already told Ginny to back off the entire investigation, as though they were partners or something. What game was she playing?

  “A shame, really,” Marco said. He was older than his wife, his black hair starting to gray around the temples, hipster-frame glasses tucked into the V-neck of his T-shirt. “Jamie was a nice guy. And not in the ‘gee he always seemed nice enough’ way, either. Like I was telling you,” and he nodded to Asuri, “he bought the house about a year ago—it was going into foreclosure and we were all worried, but he kept the place in shape, never threw loud parties, always had everything shut down by eleven when he did have people over.”

  “He was good with kids,” Angel added. “I guess because he worked with them, knew how to talk to them. He set up a pretty sweet patio in his backyard, let them hang out there. Even put up a heat lamp in the winter. Better than hanging out at the mall, the way we used to.”

  “He was pretty cool,” Sally said. “For an old guy.”

  Ginny smiled. Jamie Penalta, according to her research, had been in his mid-thirties. She supposed that was old when you were eleven or twelve. And Sally was too young to even think about a fake ID yet, so she wouldn’t know how “cool” he could be to teenagers. Or did she? Did Sally have older siblings? There wasn’t any polite way to ask.

  “I wish there’d been someone like that when I was a kid,” Ginny said. “Everyone was so scared of ‘stranger danger,’ though, I don’t think my folks would ever allow it.”

  “Oh, we checked him out thoroughly,” Marco said, shaking his head. “I freely admit to being an overprotective parent. I even had a friend who’s a cop run his driver’s license, just to make sure nothing popped up.”

  Asuri pursed her lips and nodded approvingly, although Ginny was pretty sure that that wasn’t fed-approved procedure. Or maybe it was? “Boy Scout?”

  “I don’t trust Boy Scouts,” Marco said with a grin. “Anyone who squeaks probably had a cleanup on aisle three at some point. He had some scuffles whe
n he was a kid—drunk and disorderly when he was in college, that kind of thing. But I wasn’t too worried about speeding tickets or shoplifting—although if you ever decide to try either of those things, missy”—he glared at his daughter—“you’re going to be grounded until you’re thirty, you hear me?”

  Only child, then. Ginny could relate. She’d often wished for a sibling to take the heat off her when she was a kid.

  “So he was a nice guy with a slightly shady past who made good?” Asuri asked, as if she didn’t have the entire federal machine—or at least a few overworked file clerks—at her beck and call.

  Ginny bent down to pet Georgie, listening intently. She was starting to get it, now: Asuri was doing her own digging, officially unofficial. Why? Who knew, but Ginny saw no reason not to take advantage of the lesson—although it would probably be tacky to pull out her tablet and start making notes. Or maybe not, considering Asuri’s greeting—what had the agent told them, that she was waiting for Ginny? Why?

  Her thoughts were doing the squirrelly thing again. Not good. She really needed Tonica around, to bounce things off of. Until then, she had to stay focused.

  “Pretty much,” Marco was saying. “He bought the house on the cheap, fixed it up, works hard—he ran a photography studio out of the house, low-level advertising stuff, I guess, but he said he was building a portfolio, to get to the next level. He did a lot of freebie work for the kids, too. You know, profile photos, stuff for the yearbooks, that kind of thing.”

  Ginny nodded thoughtfully. That matched up with what she’d found, and would explain why nobody had mentioned the studio setup, or people going in and out of the house. Mr. Penalta sounded like a smart guy—so who did he piss off enough to get his head bashed in and shoved under his kitchen table? Was the fake driver’s license business that cutthroat? Or was something else going on, maybe a jealous boyfriend or girlfriend in the picture? No, a regular sweetie would have gotten mention, if Marco had done that much recon on the guy.

  She wished now she’d had more of a chance to snoop around, maybe check out the bedroom or bathroom, but odds are if she had, she’d still be getting side-eyed. So, yeah, better not.

  “A shame,” Asuri said, shaking her head again. “Do the cops have any idea what happened?”

  Whoa, wait? Ginny’s head came up and she stared at Asuri, not even trying to hide the confusion that had to be on her face. The woman hadn’t shown them her badge, hadn’t told them she was a fed? Ginny was pretty sure that was against regulations or something, that she was supposed to identify herself? Although that explained the casual clothing. . . .

  Unofficially unofficial digging, then. Something was up—and something that sent Asuri into the field without identification and asking, however roundabout, for Ginny’s help. Why? Ginny was sure that wasn’t standard procedure.

  “Not that they’ve told us,” Angel said, after a quick glance at Sally, as though unsure if she wanted to keep talking with her daughter around. “That’s normal, though, right? I mean, not telling us anything specific, while it’s still being investigated? We have a neighborhood watch meeting scheduled for the end of the week, though, so we’ll find out then, if they know anything.” The woman Ginny had spoken to that first day had said the same. Angel didn’t seem optimistic that there would be any news, though.

  Sally made a face while her mother was talking, just a quick burst of expression that could have been annoyance or frustration, and then it was gone.

  “And you didn’t hear anything, that day? Didn’t see anyone lurking around?” Ginny looked at Sally when she asked, not her parents. There was something that had caused that flash of emotion, and based on the reaction the teenage girls had had yesterday, and the news that teenagers apparently hung around there all the time . . .

  Maybe eleven wasn’t too young to know something about Jamie Penalta?

  “I told the cop what I saw.” Sally’s tone was injured, as though she were assuming that people weren’t believing her. Ginny could see where that might happen: her parents were protective, probably tried to keep her from “getting involved,” and Asuri was smooth with the parents, but she’d not bothered to introduce Sally when Ginny came over, which means she was probably treating her as adjunct-to-parent, not a person in her own right.

  Mistake, that.

  “Sally was home that morning,” Angel said, taking over. Clearly she didn’t want to get into whatever it was that had pissed her daughter off, lending support to Ginny’s theory. “She thought that she saw someone with him, on the front porch.”

  “Two someones,” Sally said, not willing to let her mother take the presumed glory of the telling. “Maybe.”

  “One person for certain, possibly two,” Angel said, reaching out to touch her daughter’s braids in apology. “But she never saw their face, couldn’t even say if they were male or female, from across the street. We told the police that.”

  “But it sounds like it was someone he knew,” Asuri said, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets and leaning back against the porch support again. Clearly this wasn’t a story she’d heard before, and Ginny would have patted herself on the back if she hadn’t been sure she’d get odd looks from everyone. The expression on Asuri’s face also, if you knew her, did not bode well for whatever cop hadn’t put that information in her report.

  “I guess that’s more comforting than the thought that it was a home invasion of some sort?” Ginny said. “I mean, it’s still horrifying, but less random?”

  Marco made a face, but nodded. “They say most violent crimes are committed by someone you know. But yeah, as much as I’d never wish that on anyone, I’d rather it was Jamie who was the target, not just a random house on the street.”

  Asuri nodded again. Ginny knew that expression, too, had seen it before: whatever the agent had come around looking for, she’d gotten it. “Well, I’m sure that the cops will get it squared away. Mallard, you ready to go?”

  She said it like they had plans, so Ginny picked up Georgie’s leash, letting the dog know it was time to say good-bye to her new friends, and lifted a hand in farewell. “Nice meeting you folk.”

  “You, too,” Marco said, while Sally waved in return but ducked her head away from speaking, suddenly shy.

  Ginny and Asuri walked back to the sidewalk together, Georgie ranging ahead, and when she judged that they were far enough away not to be overheard, tilted her face toward the agent and, cautious, said, “So what was that all about?”

  “You can learn more talking to people than you can reading their words. And sometimes, after they’ve had a chance to sleep on it, things look different. The girl trusted you, more than me. I should bring a dog next time.”

  “Or a cat. You’d look good with a cat perched on your shoulder.” She caught the edge of the look Asuri gave her, and marked up a point on her side, without letting a smirk escape. “But I meant, the whole expecting-me thing. First you tell me to butt out, then you invite me in. I’m getting mixed messages here. Are we dating, or not?”

  The snark slipped out without intent, that time, but fortunately Asuri laughed. “I’m informed that your partner has been doing some asking around about the situation that you’re not poking your noses into.”

  “He did,” she said, cautiously. “When we were still concerned that I might get caught up in a murder investigation. Now, like I said, I just want to find out why someone wanted me down here badly enough to make up a client.” And pay out two thousand dollars for the privilege. “Unless you’ve found Mrs. Adaowsky hidden somewhere under the rosebushes?” The moment she said that, Ginny felt her heart drop about six inches. What if they had?

  “No, your mysterious client is still just a collection of recently manipulated phosphors. There are a few theories about what purpose she may have served, but for now that’s relatively low priority. But that could change at any moment, which is why you need to be car
eful.”

  “Careful, like you not identifying yourself as a federal agent? Isn’t that illegal, Agent Asuri?” If you’re going to poke the anthill, might as well start with the queen. Or was that only bees?

  The agent hesitated, as though she was sorting through what she could say, for what she should. “There’s more going on here than what’s on the surface; you’ve already figured that out. Jamie Penalta might not have been a big fish, but he was a crack in a much larger investigation, and he died within twenty-four hours of a file being opened on him. Someone’s scared—and violent. So it’s even more important that you fly so far under the radar, you learn how to burrow, capiche?”

  Ginny almost swallowed her tongue, biting back on every question that immediately came to mind. An informant within the Bureau? Penalta had been a snitch? What was the larger investigation? Was that the national ring Tonica’s contact had mentioned, or was something else going on?

  “Capiche?” Asuri asked again, the snap back in her voice.

  “Capisco.” Ginny shoved her curiosity back into its box and slammed the lid shut. Not her case, not her questions, not her nose that was going to get chopped off, right.

  “Excellent. Best to your partner, lovely seeing you, let’s not do it again for at least another year.”

  * * *

  Asuri might be able to turn it on and off at will, but there had been way too much shoved into Ginny’s brain in the past half hour for her to process all at once, and suddenly she was starving, even though a glance at her watch said it was barely lunchtime by her usual schedule.

  Then again, not much about this had been her usual, and she’d always heard that stress burned calories faster than routine. She aimed Georgie down the street, walking until they came to a small parking lot filled with food trucks that Ginny had seen on their way in. There were only a few other people there: three young men in suits, and an older woman in jeans and a sweatshirt, all of whom took their orders and left.