by Jude Hardin
The expatriate maid I’d talked to yesterday led me through the house to the back patio. She wore a white cook’s uniform and walked along with purpose, her plump fanny seeming to propel the rest of her. She pointed toward Dr. Spivey and then deserted me.
There was a party going on, which explained all the cars in the driveway. Spivey held a tall frosted glass with a celery stalk growing out of it. He wore white shorts, a sky-blue polo shirt, and New Balance court shoes. He was talking to a short guy with curly hair and glasses. I walked over and stood there stupidly for a minute until they shut up long enough for me to introduce myself.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Not a problem,” Spivey said. “Excuse us for a minute, John.”
John excused us with a polite smile and nod, and then walked toward the food. It was a big spread: corn on the cob, baked beans, several types of salads, fresh fruit, pies. A guy wearing a chef’s hat and an apron stood beside two half-barrels topped with grating, stoking the coals. If you ever come to my place for a cookout, you’ll get a big steak and a baked potato and a beer from the keg. You’ll eat the steak, drink the beer, and throw the potato away. I’m not that great at cooking potatoes.
“You’ll be able to stay and eat, won’t you?” Spivey said.
“Looks good,” I said. “But I really need to get to work.”
“Let’s walk inside. I want you to meet my wife.”
Mrs. Spivey sat in the living room staring out the front window. The room was furnished with a studded leather sofa and love seat, heavy pine tables, travel posters from several Mexican resorts.
“Sweetheart, this is Nicholas Colt,” Dr. Spivey said.
She rose, took a couple steps toward us, and extended her hand. Her fingernails were glossy, red, and perfect, but the hand I shook felt like something not quite alive. She had what I call “elsewhere” eyes, the type of gaze I’ve seen from rape victims and women who were abused as children. I didn’t know her story, but I got the distinct vibe it was a whopper. Her forty-something chin was heavily dimpled and reminded me of a humongous canned green pea.
“Mister Colt is going to help us find our Brittney,” Dr. Spivey said. “Isn’t that right, Mister Colt?”
“You can call me Nicholas,” I said.
“Oh, right. I’m Michael and this is Corina.”
“What makes you think you can find her?” Corina said, the Xanax coming through again. She was skinny as my Balabushka with approximately half the personality.
“All I can do is try,” I said. “No guarantees. She might have left town, but I doubt it. She would have contacted me or the police when she heard about Leitha’s murder. I think Brittney’s either dead or being held against her will. The two of you haven’t heard from anybody, have you?”
Corina grabbed a Kleenex from a box on one of the pine tables. Michael put his arm around her. She wiped her eyes and held the tissue in front of her like a tiny bride’s bouquet. Michael said, “You mean, like a ransom note or something?”
“Anything,” I said.
“No. Why would anyone get in touch with us? We’re not her parents. Not yet, anyway.”
“Yeah, but you have money. If someone kidnapped her, she might have told them about you.”
“We haven’t heard from anybody,” Michael said. “We’ll be sure to let you know if we do.”
“All right.”
“Sweetheart, why don’t you go on out and join the party,” Michael said to Corina. “Nicholas and I have some business to discuss. The Schonbergs are here, and the grill should be just about ready for the steaks.”
“I’ll go out in a minute,” Corina said.
Michael led me down a long hallway, leaving Corina to stare out her window.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined two walls of Michael’s library, and the others were paneled with what looked like mahogany. The aroma of pipe tobacco mingled with the subtle and clean scents of leather conditioner and furniture wax. The room had no windows. Michael sat behind a cherry desk you could have parked a jazz trio on and motioned for me to have a seat in one of the adjacent chairs.
A large gray cat jumped onto the desk. Michael petted him for a minute, then picked him up and set him on the floor.
“His name is Twist,” Michael said. “He was a stray we took in. I’m afraid he doesn’t do much but eat and sleep.”
“Strays are the best,” I said. “They always seem to appreciate everything. I have a dog named Bud.”
He opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out a large leather-bound checkbook, the kind people use for payrolls.
“I want to make sure every effort is made to find Brittney,” he said. “Name your price, Nicholas.”
“My normal rate is a hundred an hour,” I said. “Plus expenses. I can get started with a five-thousand-dollar retainer. I’ll log all my time and present you with any relevant receipts, of course.”
“What do you consider chargeable expenses?”
“Everything I need to get the job done,” I said. “Gasoline, bar and restaurant tabs, hotel rooms if I have to leave town, informant fees. It usually doesn’t add up to a lot, but it could. I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but a reward would help. People who normally wouldn’t talk to a cop or a PI will crawl out of the woodwork if enough money’s involved.”
“A reward. That’s a good idea. How much—”
“Fifty grand. If she’s found unharmed. You don’t want to go public with it, though, like you see sometimes. I have a select crowd in mind. If it gets out in the local news, you’ll have every crackhead in town leading you down every goat path.”
“And if you find her by yourself—”
“I’m working for the fee I mentioned earlier. The reward’s not for me.”
“It seems like I could hire a whole team for the money you’re talking about,” Michael said.
“Then hire them,” I said. “It’s your money. Hire whoever the hell you want to. I told you my rate. It’s really not negotiable.”
I didn’t bother to tell Spivey I was dedicated to this case whether he paid me or not. I knew he could afford what I was asking, and the money would help, but I was determined to find Brittney on my own if I had to.
“You probably think I’m rich, don’t you, Nicholas? The fact is, my wife is very ill. She’s dying. We have very good insurance, but it doesn’t cover some of the alternative treatments we’ve sought abroad. This house is mortgaged to the hilt, and I’m having a hard time just keeping up with my own expenses these days. I want to find Brittney. We love her dearly. But I’m just not in a position to offer a reward of that size.” He held up an envelope. “Back taxes in the amount of four hundred forty-three thousand, five hundred fifty-six dollars.”
I wondered what the square root of that was. “Does your wife have cancer?”
“Yes. It started with a little black mole on her shoulder. Turned out to be a melanoma. There’s very little hope now, and we’ve exhausted nearly all our resources. The barbeque today is a fundraiser. Not for Corina, specifically, but to open a research grant in her name. Some of my colleagues are making sizeable donations, and I’m auctioning some antiques later tonight, all proceeds to go toward the grant. We hope to raise a million dollars by the end of the day.”
“I’m truly sorry to hear about your wife,” I said.
Michael opened the leather binder, wrote a check for five thousand dollars and passed it across the desk to me. “Here’s your retainer,” he said. “It’s really all I can do right now.”
“I understand,” I said. “Are you involved in the cancer research yourself?”
“My practice is obstetrics and gynecology. Most of my patients are healthy young women. Have you ever witnessed a birth, Nicholas?”
“My daughter, Harmony.”
“It really is a miracle. I still have tears in my eyes, every time, and I’ve helped deliver over a thousand babies. Corina and I were never able to have children of our own, so we’ve been i
nterested in adoption for quite some time. I guess it seems strange that we’re still interested, with Corina’s condition and all, but she wants me to go ahead with Brittney despite the fact that I’ll probably end up a widower.”
I ripped the check in half, passed it back to him. “This will be my donation,” I said. “I’ll find her, Michael.”
“That’s very generous of you,” he said.
I shrugged. “Even private eyes have a heart sometimes.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A different freak show stood outside The Tumble Inn when Papa and I drove by Sunday night. Lots of leather vests and chains and heavy black boots and tattoos. A couple dozen shiny motorcycles were parked in the small lot adjacent to the club, and the fat kid named Shep was at the door checking IDs again. Joe’s pickup truck would have been about as inconspicuous as a diamond necklace on a squirrel, so we were in Papa’s Ford Explorer. I pulled to the curb.
“I’m going to check his apartment. Call me on my cell in a little while.”
“You got money?” Papa said.
I handed him two hundred dollars. “Don’t spend it all on whiskey now, old man.”
“Whiskey hell. I’m going to get myself a woman.” He laughed, got out of the car, and walked toward The Tumble Inn. He turned and looked back once but didn’t see the thumbs-up I gave him through the Explorer’s tinted window.
I traveled north on Roosevelt Boulevard and noticed someone tailing me. It wasn’t Roy Massengill this time. Probably another one of Fleming’s guys.
I let the tail follow me all the way to Duck’s neighborhood. I got lucky this time and found an open space across the street from the apartment building. It only took two tries at parallel parking. I was getting better. The car following me cruised on by. It was a Volkswagen Beetle. I jotted down the tag number. I had a feeling the driver parked nearby, waiting for me to move again. The car was black and shiny and reminded me of Darth Vader.
I rolled down the windows of Papa’s Explorer, turned sideways and leaned against the door. I sat there for a long time watching nothing happen at Duck’s place.
My arm hurt like hell. I took a Dilaudid tablet, even though it was an hour before another one was due.
I wished I had packed a Thermos. Of all the things to forget to bring on a stakeout. I remembered seeing a Krispy Kreme doughnut store on Roosevelt, but didn’t want to drive off and risk losing my parking place. I decided to walk. I had to have coffee. It was only two blocks to Roosevelt, and if I hurried I could be back to the truck in fifteen minutes. I locked the Explorer and walked a brisk pace toward Krispy Kreme.
My arm felt better by the time I got to the doughnut store. The pain wasn’t completely gone, but it was tolerable.
I ordered a large cup of black coffee and two jelly-filled doughnuts. I exited Krispy Kreme and waited for the traffic light at Roosevelt and Cedar to change so I could cross the street. A teenager wearing baggy pants and a Metallica T-shirt sat at the bus stop there, his eyes glued to some sort of portable video player.
“You gotta bump?” the young man said.
“No.” I stared at the traffic light. I had Joe’s .25 tucked in my pocket, but I didn’t feel like shooting anybody tonight.
“Gotta cigarette?”
I set my doughnut bag on the bench and handed the kid a Marlboro.
I took my doughnut bag and crossed Roosevelt. When I got half a block down Cedar Street, I heard two gunshots from the direction of Duck’s apartment.
I moved from the sidewalk into the shadows of moss-draped oaks. It was past midnight, and all the tidy bungalows along Cedar Street were dark and quiet. Crickets sang their lonesome songs in the moonlight. A cat moaned in the distance.
My cell phone trilled and startled the shit out of me. It was Papa.
“Hey,” he said. “One of the bartenders says he saw a cute young blonde in Duck’s car yesterday. Matches Brittney’s description.”
“I just heard gunshots,” I said.
“Where the hell—”
“I’ll call you in a few.”
I hung up.
I saw an orange glow above the treetops. I ran to the Explorer and set my coffee and doughnuts on the seat and gazed at Duck’s apartment building, which was on fire.
Plumes of black smoke rose and choked the moonlight. No alarms were sounding, but several of the residents were on the lawn in pajamas and housecoats. Duck wasn’t one of them. I called 9-1-1 on my cell and trotted toward the inferno while talking to the dispatcher. Help was on the way, she said.
A woman bolted out with an infant in arms and two older kids trailing behind. Duck’s Escalade was still in the parking area.
If what the bartender told Papa was true, Brittney was up on the second floor with Duck.
I had to get her out.
“Stop that idiot,” I heard someone shout. “Don’t go in there. You’ll get yourself killed.”
I didn’t stop. I’d been to Duck’s apartment before and knew the way. I figured I could get in and out in under a minute.
I took my shirt off and balled it into a wad. I filled my lungs with one last breath of fresh air, held the makeshift respirator to my face, and walked into the greasy black haze.
Wood crackled hotly overhead. I couldn’t see anything. The smoke was too thick. It was like trying to breathe motor oil, and the shirt wasn’t helping much. I felt my way to the stairwell and started to climb, my leg muscles already screaming for oxygen. I made it up to the second level. Duck’s apartment was right around the corner. I felt the door. It was locked and hot. Everything seemed eerily familiar. I’d been in this nightmare before. I tried to stay in the moment, but I couldn’t help thinking about Susan and Harmony and my band, roasting in that goddamn airplane. I kicked the door, but it was strong and my legs weren’t. I rammed it with my shoulder, again and again, and finally felt the frame start to give. I took a couple of steps back to gather some momentum. I was going to make it through this time. I could feel it.
Then someone from behind grabbed my waist and pulled me away.
“You can’t go in there,” he said. “You’ll cause a back draft and blow us all to shit.”
“Fuck you. There’s a fifteen-year-old—”
He dragged me down the stairs and then outside. I tried to resist, but my oxygen-deprived muscles wouldn’t cooperate. I struggled to stay conscious, my peripheral vision rippling with swarms of psychedelic gnats. My lungs felt like they’d been bathed in acid. My face was coated with tears and snot.
The fireman slapped a mask over my mouth and nose. I pulled it off and tried to get up. He held me down, and I felt a needle pierce my thigh. Then everything went black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I was treated and released from the hospital.
Papa had taken a cab to where his Explorer was parked. He picked me up, and we drove toward his house in Green Cove Springs.
“Can you roll that window up?” I said. I had the chills. My brain felt like it had gone through the spin cycle in a Maytag.
“Window’s not there anymore,” Papa said. “Someone shot it out.”
“Darth Vader,” I said.
“Huh?”
“There was a car following me,” I said. “Black Volkswagen. They must have thought I was still in here when they shot the window out.”
I stayed the night in Papa’s guest room. At five a.m. I switched on the television and watched the news. At six Papa came in carrying two coffee mugs. His hair looked like someone had taken a whisk to it. Scrambled hair.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” I said.
“You can’t sleep worth a shit when you get old. Have to piss about every two hours.” He handed me one of the cups.
“Want to go outside?” I said.
We sat on the porch. I lit a cigarette but my lungs were sore and I couldn’t handle it.
“Was the fire on the news yet?” Papa said.
“Yeah. Two people upstairs died. A man and a woman.”
“And you’re thinking it was Duck and Brittney?”
“I hope not.”
“So what now?”
“I don’t know. Can I use your computer?”
“Of course. What about that couple who was planning on adopting Brittney? The Spiveys.”
“I’m not calling them until I know for sure that it was Brittney who died in the fire. I’ll get in touch with Fleming some time today, see if the coroner has anything yet. And, I told Juliet I’d come over and get my stuff. That’s the first thing I’m going to do this morning. Right after I run these tags.”
Juliet’s car was in the driveway. Gas Man’s wasn’t. I still had my key to her front door, but didn’t use it. She answered a few seconds after I rang the bell.
“Please come in,” she said. She wore blue denim shorts and a bright yellow shirt with a western-style yoke, and a pair of purple socks with tiny yellow hearts and nickel studs at the top. I remembered her buying them when she coaxed me out shopping one time. Her olive cheeks burned with the kind of flush you associate with a fever.
“Is that my stuff?” I pointed to the plastic bag leaning against one wall of the foyer.
Juliet nodded.
“Is the tape in there?” I said.
She nodded again.
“I guess this is goodbye then.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Nicholas—”
“Don’t even.” I held my palms up, fingers spread.
Tears welled in her eyes, and a single one led a trail of mascara down her cheek. “That night with Martin, it didn’t mean anything. You’re the one I love.”
“I almost shot the son of a bitch,” I said.
“It wasn’t his fault. I told him I was single. He doesn’t even know about you, Nicholas. He flirted with me at the hospital one time when he was on my unit seeing a patient, but we never talked much. He asked me to dance the other night at Lyon’s Den, and—”
