Stick a Fork In It

by Robin Allen

  As I approached the railing and caught my first glimpse of the floor below, my skin felt suddenly drenched in sweat, but my body shivered. At first I thought the effort of climbing the stairs two at a time had induced a myocardial infarction, which didn’t seem very far from possible given my father’s recent heart troubles, but also didn’t seem very close to likely given my clean vegan diet and general good health.

  I took another step toward the railing and finally comprehended why I felt like I was dying. I’m so rarely in a situation that puts me significantly higher than ground level that I had forgotten about my fear of heights. I can ride an elevator to the top floor of the tallest skyscraper and fly in an airplane, but I cannot look down. If you want me to confess to anything, threaten to put me on a ski lift.

  I turned around and pondered whether I really needed to solve the mystery of the death of a narcissistic jerk who treated his own twin like a member of his entourage and spoke to his wife as if she were his ex-wife. I had no particular love for Troy Sharpe, and I couldn’t bring him back, but I do have a love for justice, for keeping the universe balanced, and I knew I couldn’t live with the burden of “what if.” I had to know for sure what happened. If I wanted to see what Troy had seen from up here before he died, I needed to be where he had been, which meant that I would have to step closer.

  I told myself I wasn’t afraid of heights, which, circle-of-hellwise, placed me in the eighth, fraud. Plus it didn’t work. I couldn’t talk my mind out of something my body insisted on, so I stuck my flashlight in my mouth and took a couple of slow, deep breaths like we do in yoga class. I dropped to my rump, scooted to the edge, and grabbed the vertical bars of the railing with both hands.

  The hard hat felt like a second head, compounding my dizziness and panic, so I leaned back and shook it off. It felt like a weight had been removed, which made things worse. I needed that weight to keep me grounded. I squeezed my eyes shut and released my hands so I could pivot around and turn my back to the abyss. I kept my eyes closed and felt around on the floor for the hat. My fingers didn’t touch anything but grit.

  I marshaled myself by visualizing what I would see if I opened my eyes. Cells in front and to my left, elevators in front and to my right, and farther down, the stairs that would take me back to where gravity was less terrifying.

  I opened my eyes to slits to make sure I hadn’t gotten turned around and was accidentally facing the void, then opened them all the way to see one thing I hadn’t seen with my mind’s eye and did not want to see with my real eyes.

  thirteen

  A pair of freckled knees, pale, dry, and hairy.

  Danny MacAdams squatted down in front of me. “Are you okay?” The overhead lights were on.

  I took my flashlight out of my mouth. “Where’s my hard hat?”

  It had landed on its dome and rolled into the crime scene. Danny reached for it and saw Troy’s name on it. “What are you doing with this?”

  “It was the only one in the office,” I said.

  “This was in the office?”

  “Yes, why?”

  Danny placed the hat on my head. “We couldn’t find it this morning.”

  He stood and held out his hand to help me up. My mind flashed on Évariste’s killer making that same gesture before I had to scramble for my life, but I batted it away. This was a new investigation, and I needed to interview my suspect.

  There we were, alone on the catwalk, standing in front of the very place Troy had died. What more perfect setting could there be to ask Danny pointed questions about his relationship with Troy? Except I couldn’t think of anything but plunging over the railing.

  “What are you doing up here?” Danny asked.

  “I came up to inspect the bathrooms and thought I’d take in the view.”

  Danny rested his elbows on the railing and looked down at the activity. I took a step back for him, willing him to come with me, but he stayed put. “It’s pretty cool, huh?” He seemed more relaxed than he had been before, and not at all like he was mourning the death of his business partner.

  I took another step back, which took the drop out of my view, and my mind went back to work on thoughts other than staying alive. Where had Danny gone after Troy went down behind the restaurant? Todd and Troy had been arguing about him when they walked through the back door, and I had assumed Danny left in a huff over something Troy did or said. Did his huff boil into a fury and he came back later and killed Troy?

  Danny looked over his shoulder at me. “Do you need to sit down?”

  I nodded.

  He went to an open cell and sat at a booth, motioning for me to join him. “You afraid of heights?” he asked as I slid in across from him.

  “A little.” In the cell, with Danny leaning back against the booth, we could have been having this conversation anywhere. “I’m really sorry about Troy,” I said. “Todd indicated that you’re still shooting for the eleventh?”

  “We won’t make it,” Danny said, “but right now it’s better to let Todd think we will.”

  “I’m surprised to see you with these guys. Did you become friends after high school?”

  He looked at me with a question on his face, and I recalled that he hadn’t been around the first time I refreshed Troy’s memory about our alma mater. “I was two years behind y’all.”

  “I don’t remember you,” he said, “but I don’t remember much about high school.”

  “Not even how bad the Sharpes treated you?”

  “They weren’t so bad.”

  I took off my hat and placed it on the table between us. “Are you taking some memory-erasing meds?”

  He laughed. “Life’s easier if you forget how unfair it is.”

  “How did you hook up with them?”

  Danny told me he had moved to Dallas after high school and started working in restaurants, and eventually became a manager. He worked at a few high-volume restaurants around the city and was managing a Planet Hollywood when Troy and Todd walked in one night.

  “I don’t think I’ve changed that much since high school,” he said, “but they didn’t recognize me. It was getting on to closing time, and I let them buy me a beer at the bar. You know the type—the ones who think they’re helping you get away with drinking on the job because you’re with a customer.”

  “They also think they’ve bought your undivided attention,” I said.

  “Exactly. So they do a couple shots of tequila, which starts them reliving all these high school memories, and I finally tell them I’m Danny MacAdams, and they have no idea who I am. It takes a while for me to jog their memories, but they finally make the connection when I remind them about that time they replaced my clothes with Ginger’s cheerleading uniform while I was showering after gym. ‘Danny Dull,’ they say. Troy starts talking about other tortures, embellishing as he goes along, but Todd apologizes.”

  “That must have made you feel good,” I said.

  “I really didn’t care anymore. Besides, Troy was always the instigator. We have another drink, and they tell me they just got out of the marines and have this great idea for a restaurant, something nobody has ever done before, and ask if I want to run it for them. By that time, I could see they hadn’t changed in twenty years, and they won’t tell me what they’re planning. I figure I don’t need to get involved with amateurs, so I tell them I’m happy where I am and wish them good luck.”

  “Obviously not the end of the story,” I said.

  Danny laughed. “They didn’t win so many football championships because they like to give up. The next day they come back and ask what it would take for me to say yes. Todd is doing all the talking this time. I figure they’re grandstanding like they always did, so I name a monster amount of money and tell them I want to move back here at their expense and I want a new car.”

&n
bsp; “And here you are,” I said.

  “They didn’t even blink.”

  Since Danny and I were buddies now, I figured it would be okay to say, “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but for all that trouble to hire you, they don’t listen to your advice.”

  “They do about some stuff, but Troy had grand plans and didn’t like them sidelined, no matter how crazy they were.”

  “Like buying an electric chair?” I said. “How did he get a real one?”

  “He had a replica made. Spent a bundle on it, too. I tried to tell him that we’d never be able to get insurance, but he did whatever he wanted. I didn’t know it was juiced until Monday.” Danny absently tapped Troy’s hard hat. “Next thing I know, we’re getting deliveries for eight-foot gallows replicas to hold the lights over the tables.”

  “Sounds like every day was a challenge.”

  “More like a grudge match,” he said. “I finally figured out it was better if I didn’t say anything, but that wasn’t always easy.” He jerked his thumb toward the cell behind him. “That one’s got boxes of medieval death implements in it. I had to hide them from Troy because he wanted to plan a raid on some of the construction workers while they were napping after lunch.”

  What else had Danny done to derail Troy? “I can’t believe he killed himself.”

  Danny looked out the cell toward the orange pylon and yellow tape. “If you knew him better, you would believe it.”

  I slumped against the booth, disappointed that everything was what it seemed and there was nothing to investigate. “Was he upset about something?” I asked, then waited for Danny to tell me a country-western song’s worth of reasons why Troy would have wanted to end it all.

  He looked back at me. “What? No. He was always drunk and always messing around. I’m sure he did it to himself, but whether it was an accident or intentional, we’ll never know.”

  I sat up straight. Troy’s truck didn’t break down, his dog wasn’t dead, and his wife hadn’t left him. My investigation was still on. “Why do you think he was messing around up here while the power was out?”

  “For his own amusement,” Danny said. “Which is pretty much why he did anything.” Seeing the disgusted look on his face, I wondered whether he had remembered the trauma of his high school days or recalled something more recent.

  The walkie-talkie hanging from his pocket crackled. “Miles to Danny, over.”

  Danny answered, “What’s up, Miles?”

  “Is that lady inspector still here?”

  “I’m with her now.”

  “I got the water working.”

  “We’re on our way down,” Danny said into the mic, then to me, “Feeling better?”

  I put on my hard hat. “It’s only bad if I look down.”

  Danny stayed between me and the railing as we walked to the stairs. Whether he assumed I had already inspected the bathrooms or it had escaped his attention, nothing was said by either of us. I now had a free pass back to the crime scene whenever I needed it.

  x x x

  In the few minutes it took for us to get down the stairs and into the kitchen Miles had disappeared, but Todd was waiting for Danny. He wore a smile that made me wonder if he had received news that St. Peter had commuted his twin’s death sentence and Troy had been brought back to life.

  “Suzi Grimm will see us if we can get to her office by three o’clock,” Todd said.

  “I’ll drive,” Danny said.

  “I checked every sink, and the water works,” Todd said to me on their way out the door. “Find Archer when you’re done.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  What I really wanted to find out was why those two wanted an emergency huddle with a criminal defense attorney the day after their business partner died. Were Todd and Danny in some trouble together? Like maybe they had killed Troy and needed to do some what-iffing with Suzi Grimm?

  I started with the three-compartment sink and turned on the cold tap. Water came out, as promised by both Miles and Todd. I turned on the hot tap and pulled out my thermometer while I waited for it to heat up to 110 degrees. A few minutes later I went in search of Archer.

  I hadn’t seen Miles in the dining room when Danny and I had walked through earlier, so I checked the back alley first. An unmarked snack truck rested in the shade of the building. Miles stood under the truck’s silver awning holding something wrapped in paper. Veggie wraps are not usually the go-to fuel for hot, hungry construction workers, so I knew that his belly would be getting a significant number of fat grams in the next few minutes.

  “Miles,” I called, starting toward him.

  He handed his lunch back to the snack truck operator, then met me halfway. “We got them kitchen sinks hooked up, ma’am.”

  “The plumbing is hooked up, but there’s no hot water.”

  “There’s not?”

  I searched Miles’s face for signs of mental disability. How could someone with so little concern for detail read a blueprint, much less oversee the complex construction of an entire restaurant to spec? Miles had blamed Troy for construction delays, and yes, having to add a second floor at the eleventh hour, suspending construction every time Troy indulged his inner six-year-old, and dealing with a power outage for an entire afternoon so close to deadline were out of Miles’s control, but the man was sloppy and lazy. It would have taken less than sixty seconds to check his work on the sinks. Why did I have to be the one to tell him?

  Because I am a health inspector. “It’s not working in the kitchen,” I said. “I didn’t check the bar, wait station, or bathrooms.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Does Todd and them know?”

  “Todd and Danny left, so you’re the first.”

  “They left?”

  “They had an emergency appointment. How long before the water is fixed?” I pointed to the snack truck. “Do I have time to do a surprise inspection while I wait?” And ask the vendors if they saw what happened to Troy the morning before he died.

  Miles looked back at the truck, then took a step toward me. “Sorry, ma’am, but you can’t do that now.”

  “Now is the perfect time. They’re so well-hidden back here, they’d never expect a health inspector to drop by.”

  He took my arm. “Troy doesn’t want anyone but me and my guys here when they’re not at the site.”

  I took my arm back. “Troy is dead.”

  “I mean Todd.” He looked down, and I noticed a shiny patch of skin on the very top of his head. “Look, I’m in the doghouse for the building taking so long, and I don’t want them to holler at me about you, too.”

  “I’m hardly a stranger, Miles.” Wait, what was I doing? If he fixed the water and they passed the inspection, I would need to be sworn in as a police officer to keep investigating Troy’s death. Miles had handed me a good reason to come back. “But I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “Much obliged, ma’am.”

  “I can come back in the morning.”

  “We’re staining the floors tomorrow, so it’ll have to be the day after.”

  “Thursday,” I confirmed. I started for the back door, then wondered what he could tell me about Troy. Miles had worked closely with him for a few months, or at least in close proximity. He could wait a few minutes to eat lunch. I turned around. “Miles?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Was Troy around the job site much?”

  “Yep.”

  “Every day?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you get to know him very well?”

  “Nope.”

  That’s what I got for asking yep or nope questions. “How did he seem to you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was he sad or depressed?”

  “I really couldn’t say, ma
’am. We weren’t friends exactly.”

  I learned from Jamie that when conducting an interview, you should start with questions you already know the answers to so the subject feels comfortable talking. I had seen Troy dress down Miles the first day I was there, so I knew Miles would have plenty to say about that. “Did you have problems with him?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle, but I’m all over the site, especially now that we’re finishing out. I can’t help but see stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  He looked toward the back door as if he expected Troy to come through it. “It don’t seem right for me to speak ill of the dead.”

  That’s what he said, but I could tell he was going to anyway. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “Troy got into it with ever’body, seems like. Todd and Danny, that snooty blond wife of his, even those guys letting him try their food. Troy’d eat ever’thing and ask for seconds, then tell them thanks for the free lunch but he already had a supplier. They’d be packing up their things, madder’n hornets. Troy’d be laughing at them like it was the funniest thing.”

  I knew how they felt. “Did any of them threaten Troy?”

  “Not that I heard, but like I said, I’m all over the site.”

  “What did he argue about with Todd and Danny?”

  Miles looked toward the back door again. “The usual stuff.”

  “Business or personal?”

  “They’d start out talking about the restaurant, like what color chairs did they want. Seemed like Danny and Todd never agreed with Troy. Troy’d say red and they’d say black. Then Troy’d say they were always double-teaming him, then Todd’d say he was being paranoid, then Danny’d try to get them to stop bickering and pick a color, and they’d tell Danny to shut his pie hole.” Miles shook his head. “Ever’ doggone day it was something.”

  “And Ginger?”

  “Who?”

  “His snooty blond wife.”

  Miles pulled a red bandana from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his face and neck. “That one’s meaner’n a skilletful of rattlesnakes. One day they’re sweet as pie, loving on each other, the next, she’s yelling and saying he’s a no-good scoundrel.”