Hotshot P.I.

by B. J Daniels

  But her mother had argued that Warren was stealing from the businesses and had been for some time. Clancy felt a sick, sinking feeling, knowing that their lives had suddenly changed and would never be the same again.

  When her father left by boat to meet Warren at the resort, Clancy followed by land, afraid for her father for reasons she couldn’t explain then or now.

  But when she reached the resort office, she could hear her father and Warren inside and decided to wait in one of the boats tied at the dock. She’d fallen asleep.

  Later, she’d woken only to find that she’d walked in her sleep. To this day,’ she had no idea where she’d been or what she might have seen. All she remembered was waking to find herself standing outside the office.

  Her father’s boat was gone. Inside the office she could hear voices raised in anger. From the shadows, she watched in horror as Warren Hawkins struggled with Lola Strickland. Lola stumbled backward into an adjoining room. Both figures disappeared for a few moments, then Warren emerged at a run. Behind him the office burst into flame, and within seconds the fire consumed the building.

  Just thinking about that night brought back the incredible regret. Lola’s death and Warren Hawkins’s arrest ended the life she and Jake had known on Hawk Island. Jake and his mother left Flathead; Jake left hating Clancy. Clancy’s parents had moved to Alaska to start over. They’d lost everything. Kiki purchased the lodge at Clancy’s pleading. Clancy had foolishly hoped her family would some day be reunited there. Two years later her parents were killed in a small plane crash outside of Fairbanks.

  Clancy didn’t come back to the boarded-up lodge for years and then only occasionally. At first the bad memories were just too painful. Then the good memories started to surface again.

  She opened her eyes and looked out the plane window. She’d had such hopes when she’d returned. Had she made a mistake coming back? Was there a curse on the island and her? Some debt not yet paid?

  She felt a chill as she thought of Jake. He’d believed his father’s version of what happened that night. Warren Hawkins testified during the trial that he knew nothing about the missing money. After Clarence Jones left, he’d gotten out the books to go over them. Warren was in charge of that part of the businesses in the partnership with Clarence, but he’d turned a lot of the responsibility over to Lola, he’d said.

  Warren said he’d heard someone in the adjoining office. When he’d gone to check, he saw two suitcases outside the door and found Lola cleaning out the safe.

  He’d tried to stop her. Lola had poured gasoline around the office, obviously planning to cover her tracks. In their struggle, she must have lit the gas. The room burst into flames. That’s when Warren swears he saw someone move in the shadows; someone else was in the office by the back door. When he ran out, Lola was still alive. He thought she was right behind him.

  Warren said the other person in the office that night must have taken the money from the safe, because it wasn’t found in the debris from the fire and Lola certainly didn’t get away with it. That person must have also murdered Lola. In the autopsy it was found that Lola had died from a head wound—not from the fire. That made Warren look all the more guilty.

  In the end, the jury didn’t believe there was another person in the office that night. Nor did they believe Lola set the fire. It looked too much like Warren had embezzled money from the businesses and tried to cover his misdeeds with the fire. Lola, who was leaving the island, just happened along at the wrong time. All of the joint businesses’ books were destroyed in the fire. Warren couldn’t prove his innocence. Nor could the police prove his guilt.

  Clancy’s testimony had clinched it. Warren was convicted of embezzlement, arson and deliberate homicide. He got sixty years at the state prison at Deer Lodge.

  And because of Clancy’s testimony, Jake had walked out of her life without a word. The hurt from that still made her heart ache. And now—Now he’d come back. For revenge.

  Just what she needed, Clancy thought as the plane descended into Gallatin Field outside of Bozeman. An old boyfriend with a grudge on top of all her other troubles.

  At the airport, Clancy rented a car and drove the eight miles into Bozeman to Dex’s condo. She felt as if time were running out. Jake wouldn’t be far behind her, she knew that. And he’d be furious. Boy, was that putting it mildly.

  But she hoped that by the time he tracked her to the airport, discovered she’d flown to Bozeman and rented a car, it would be too late for him to stop her. By then she’d have searched Dex’s place and hopefully found something that would help her case. Though she couldn’t imagine what.

  There was also the possibility that Jake would go straight to the county attorney. By the time she reached Bozeman, the police could be looking for her, as well.

  Either way, she needed to get this over with as quickly as possible.

  Dex owned a condo on the southside of town, set back against a hill overlooking Sourdough Creek. Clancy parked and sat in the car for a moment, watching the quiet street. No other vehicles cruised by. She told herself she was just being paranoid. No one was after her. Except Jake. And maybe the entire Bozeman police. And possibly the person who’d tried to drown her last night.

  She picked up her purse from the seat and got out, closing the car door behind her. As she walked toward the front door of the condo, she searched the street. A florist’s van passed by; the driver never even looked her way. She could only hope the spare key was where it had been the last time Dex locked himself out. Carefully, she slid the large flowerpot slightly to one side. Nothing but dust. She pushed it a little farther and was relieved to see the key.

  Quickly she scooped it up, slipped it into the lock and turned. The door swung open.

  Clancy stepped into the high-dollar condo, wondering whether the police had already been here, whether they’d already searched the place and found something that would further incriminate her. The cluttered condo didn’t surprise her as much as the man who came out of the kitchen.

  “Excuse me,” he said, sounding annoyed and a little frightened by her intrusion. He was short, with rumpled dark hair and sunless pale skin, and he was wearing nothing but shorts. “How did you get in here?”

  Her first thought was that the condo had been sold. Her second was that Dex had a roommate she hadn’t known about. A roommate who was looking more than a little anxious.

  “I’m a friend of Dex Westfall’s,” she said quickly, not sure that was exactly accurate, but it beat the alternative. That she was the woman the police had arrested for Dex’s murder.

  “Dex Westfall,” the man said, shaking his head. Had he heard Dex was dead? She felt her heart rate accelerate. Worse yet, had he heard about her arrest? “I suppose he gave you a key.”

  She shook her head, wondering how she was going to explain what she was doing here. “I used the one under the flowerpot.”

  He swatted the air with the pancake turner in his hand. “Did Dex tell everyone where to find the key to my condo?”

  “Your condo?” Clancy thought she must have heard him wrong.

  “Dex Westfall was only house-sitting for me for a few months,” he said, his tone increasing in both volume and irritation. “I come home to find he’s run up my phone bill and failed to pay the utility bills, and now the police want to talk to me about God knows wh—” Behind the man, smoke curled out of the kitchen. He spun around and charged out of the room.

  Pans clanged into the sink. A kitchen fan came on. A few moments later, he stalked back into the living room.

  “Look,” he said, his face flushed. “The guy’s a deadbeat. Just give me the key and tell Dex I don’t want to see him or any more of his girlfriends around here, all right?”

  He didn’t know Dex was dead. “The police called you?”

  “I got a message on my machine,” the man said. “I haven’t had time to call them back.” He seemed to resent her questions, but also seemed resigned to answer them. No doubt he felt sorr
y for a woman stupid enough to fall for Dex Westfall. “I just got back yesterday from Australia. I haven’t even had time to unpack yet.” He held out his hand for the key.

  Clancy noticed the stack of newspapers by the door. Magazines and junk mail were piled high on a telephone table by the door. “Did Dex leave any personal items here?” she asked as she handed over the key. “He has something that belongs to me.”

  The man rolled his eyes. “Dex isn’t completely stupid. He packed up and got out just before I returned home. Did you check his apartment?”

  She stared at him. “His apartment?”

  “You don’t get it, do you,” he said, his face growing redder. “Dex Westfall is a lying sleazeball. You aren’t the first woman to show up looking for him. Or the last, I’m sure.”

  No, she hadn’t got it. She realized how little she knew about the man she’d dated. The man she was now accused of murdering. “Where is his apartment?” Her voice came out a trembly whisper.

  He reached over to snatch a scrap of paper and a pen from the phone table and scribbled something on it. “If you loaned him money, forget it. I’m sure it’s long gone. Just like I would imagine he is. This is the address he gave me.”

  Clancy took the piece of paper. It had a northside apartment address on it.

  “If you should catch up to him, tell Dex—Never mind, it wouldn’t do any good,” the man said disgustedly.

  She figured he’d find out just how right he was as soon as he returned his calls.

  He moved past her to open the front door. “Good luck,” he said as she stepped outside, then he closed and locked the door behind her.

  Clancy stumbled to the rental car and sat for a moment, too shaken to drive. She remembered the first time Dex had brought her to see his new condo. His new condo. He’d told her what a great deal he got on it. He’d insinuated that he’d purchased it with their future in mind and even talked about how easy it would be to build on a studio for her.

  He’d been lying through his teeth. To impress her? Or con her? But out of what?

  She started the car, anxious to get to Dex’s apartment. Maybe the police didn’t know about it yet. Maybe he’d left something that would help her.

  Dex Westfall’s apartment turned out to be a basement rental in an old run-down part of town. Clancy circled the block and, not taking any chances, parked behind the house. A short, worn path led from the alley to the basement entrance. Clancy stepped down the crumbling steps and peered through a dirty window into what looked like the furnace room.

  “Can I help you?” The voice was elderly and shrill, with an irritated edge to it.

  Clancy spun around to find a wrinkled woman; her pink curlers clung haphazardly to her washed-out gray hair. Her eyes were narrowed and mean.

  “I’m looking for Dex,” Clancy said, adding what she hoped was a friendly smile.

  “Humph! Isn’t everybody.” The woman jammed her small fists down on her hips and glared at Clancy. “And just what do you want with him?”

  “I’m his…sister,” she said quickly. “I’m worried about him.”

  “His sister?” The woman eyed her. “Not much resemblance that I can see.”

  “Different fathers,” Clancy said, caught up in her whopper.

  The woman puckered her lipstick-cracked lips. “He owes me rent.”

  Clancy opened her purse. “How much?”

  It took all of Clancy’s charm, most of her cash and more flagrant falsehoods to get into the apartment. To her surprised delight, it didn’t sound as though the police had been there yet. But then, they had their killer; they weren’t looking for clues in Bozeman. Or maybe they’d only gotten as far as the condo, because that was the only address they had for Dex.

  “Last thing he said to me was that he’d be back with enough money to buy this house and me with it,” the woman said with a huff. “I’ve seen his kind before. Fancy dresser. Full of himself. Full of bull, that’s what he was.” She looked up at Clancy as she unlocked the apartment door. “Too bad you can’t pick your relatives, huh? Don’t take anything.” With that, she left, her worn slippers shuffling up the cracked concrete steps.

  Clancy closed the door and turned to look at Dex Westfall’s apartment. Under the golden glare of a single bulb overhead, the cramped studio apartment looked seedy at best. An old couch hunkered against a dark paneled wall next to an overstuffed worn chair and a small kitchen table and two metal folding chairs. A blanket was neatly folded at one end of the couch. Dex’s bed?

  An old, hump-shouldered refrigerator kicked on in the kitchen area of the room, clanging a little before it settled into a tired, noisy thrum. Clancy reminded herself that she didn’t have much time. Jake would be after her. And by now the man at the condo could have called the police back.

  But still she didn’t move. She stared at the apartment, trying to connect it with the man she’d known. Or thought she’d known.

  On the makeshift counter next to the fridge was a sink and a hot plate. Not far from it stood a tall, homemade pine closet, a bent wire hanger caught in its door. Past it, through a narrow doorway, she could make out a toilet, shower stall and a bathroom window, trash and dead weeds blown in on the outside.

  This was the kind of cheap apartment college kids rented while they attended Montana State University. They hung posters on the paneled walls, had loud parties and spent most of their time playing hackysack over at the park or studying at the library. There was no way that Dex Westfall had ever lived here. There had to be a mistake. Even if Dex was short of money—

  She reached to free the coat hanger from the closet door. The last thing she expected to find was any of Dex’s clothing inside—She’d been right. All of his clothes were gone. But what she saw sent a shock of horror through her.

  The wall at the back of the empty closet was covered with papers and pictures, all thumbtacked to the wood. One photograph in particular caught her attention. She shoved back the half-dozen bent metal hangers dangling from the galvanized pipe rod. It was a photo of a young woman.

  Clancy moved closer, panic making her movements stiff, unsure. The photograph was of her. Next to it was a ten-year-old newspaper article about Lola Strickland’s murder and Warren Hawkins’s trial. Clancy’s testimony had been highlighted.

  Her heart slammed against her ribs as she saw that the entire back of the closet was covered with articles about the trial and that summer. She felt her legs quake beneath her and all her blood seemed to rush to her head. She reeled and caught herself, grabbing the closet for support. A photograph fluttered to the floor. Mechanically, she reached to pick it up.

  It was a shot of her in a dark green suit coming out of the gallery where she used to work in downtown Bozeman. She stared at the photo. It was a candid shot, taken from the other side of Main Street. She squinted as something in the picture caught her eye. A silver spot on the jacket’s lapel. The pin her Grandmother Jones had left her when she died. Clancy drew the snapshot closer. She remembered that day! It was the last time she’d worn the pin. She’d gone to lunch and when she returned to work, the pin was gone. Lost. She’d run an ad in the paper, but the pin never turned up.

  Her heart began to pound harder. It was the same day she’d met Dex. After lunch that afternoon. She’d been so upset about losing her Grandmother Jones’s pin. And this man had walked into the gallery, looking for a sculpture. He didn’t know the artist’s name, just the artist’s work. And he had to have the sculpture.

  Clancy had been startled by Dex’s good looks, his charm, his passion for an artwork he’d only glimpsed in a gallery window. And even more startled and pleased when the artist’s work he was dying to purchase turned out to be her own.

  Clancy gripped the photograph tighter. Dex had purchased one of her most unusual—and most expensivesculptures. Then he’d asked her out for dinner that night, telling her he wanted to know more about the artist who did such magnificent work. And unlike her usual cautious self, she’d accepted.<
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  Tears rushed to her eyes, fed by fear rather than regret. Fear and a fresh sense of panic. Dex had taken this picture of her before he’d come into the gallery, before he’d pretended he hadn’t known the name of the artist he was searching for, before he’d ever met her.

  Her pulse thundered, drowning out the thrum of the refrigerator, drowning out everything but one single thought: Dex Westfall had known her! From that very first day. He’d known who she was. From the newspaper articles about the trial. He’d known. And he’d come after her.

  Clancy clung to the edge of the closet. Why her? She let the photograph drop. It drifted to the bottom of the closet, where it lay staring up at her. A play program lay beside it. A play Clancy had attended. Just days before Lola’s death.

  A thud overhead pulled Clancy back. Pretty soon the landlady would be down here, wondering what was keeping Clancy so long. But Clancy continued to stare at the pictures and newspaper articles, shocked by Dex’s deception.

  Carefully she moved away from the makeshift closet. The hangers rattled softly behind her. She glanced toward the small, dusty ground-level window over the sink, that feeling that she was being watched even stronger than at the airport. She shivered, urging herself to finish her search and get out of there.

  The rusted bathroom cabinet was empty. So was the chest of drawers she found tucked back in the corner. It seemed obvious that when Dex had left, he’d had no intention of coming back. He’d pretty much taken everything. Except for his wall of mementos. A shudder of apprehension rocked her as she stood before the closet again. Why had he thought he wouldn’t need them anymore?

  That’s when she spotted the letter. The letter she’d written him, warning him not to contact her again. He’d tacked it on the closet wall, still in its envelope. She reached for it at the same time she heard the creak of the door opening behind her. Clancy grabbed the envelope, folding it in her hand as she turned, and smiled to greet the nosy landlady.

  But the dark silhouette that filled the doorway was much larger than the landlady and much more threatening.