Brain Trust

by A W Hartoin

  “You already have a therapist, Dr. Witges.”

  “I’m not sharing a therapist with you who dumped me.”

  Fats put a hand between us. “Let’s just say nobody’s getting dumped. I don’t have all day. Tiny and I have a dinner scheduled. I don’t want to be chasing Mercy around until midnight. What did the horny doctor say?”

  The horny doctor said that she thought Blankenship’s file had been gone through. Nothing was missing, but the file wasn’t in the right spot. Somebody had taken it out and put it in front of Nathan Black’s file. Dr. Rohner noticed immediately because the tabs were lined up wrong. There wasn’t a torn prescription in the trash, but she took out the trash every day.

  “I’ll send one of our guys out there,” said Sydney. “Anthony Bell can do the dusting and keep it quiet for a day or so.”

  “You sure he won’t feel obligated to call it in?” asked Chuck.

  “Are you kidding? I’ll tell him it’s for Tommy. He kept Anthony’s kid out of the system when he did those smash and grabs a few years ago. The kid’s in the army and doing well.”

  Sydney went off to deal with Hunt and I had second thoughts about the packet. “Mom said Dad has a handwriting guy. He can take a look at the note.”

  “Are you trying to take it back?” asked Chuck.

  Kinda.

  “Mercy can just take a picture,” said Fats, poised to move between us. “The guy doesn’t need the original, does he?”

  “It’s probably best, but a picture will do.” We laid the paper flat and I took several pictures of the note. They weren’t fantastic, but good enough to see the particulars of the handwriting. I didn’t know stink about handwriting analysis, but the note looked natural to me with no hesitation or choppiness. If somebody was trying to disguise their handwriting, I didn’t think it would look like that. “Alright,” I said. “I’m going over to my parents’ and see if I can find that handwriting guy.” I eyed Chuck. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll go back to the station and see if anyone has Frame’s number,” said Chuck.

  Grandad walked up and said, “I can get that for you. Scott is Leo Frame’s nephew.”

  I almost said something but managed to clamp my mouth shut in time. I knew that name sounded familiar. Leo Frame was the lead detective on the Bled Mansion break-in that happened before I was born, but I wasn’t supposed to know that.

  Grandad gave me a curious look. “I’ll give Leo a call. Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  “My lip’s really stinging. I think I need to fill this prescription before I go to the house,” I said.

  He took the slip from me. “I’ll do it. You go and get that handwriting analyst’s number. I’d never be able to find it.”

  “And The Brain Trust file,” said Fats.

  “And that,” said Grandad. “Don’t be long. I think I just heard a nurse say they want to take Carolina down for another MRI.”

  I groaned and went to the desk. Mom did need another MRI. She’d moved during the last one and it was blurry. I came back and told Grandad to stay with her. She’d done it before so it shouldn’t be a big deal, but I’d try to get back.

  Chuck walked me and Fats out. I was ready to make another great escape via ambulance, but Chuck called security and they swore the press had given up. It didn’t hurt that there was a police standoff in Kirkwood with a postal employee.

  We walked right out the front door and it felt great. “Since you don’t have to find Frame, what are you going to do?” I asked Chuck.

  “I’m going to check in with the investigation in Kansas, since I’m supposedly on that. They’ll stonewall me and then I’ll see what our FBI guys have to say,” he said.

  “Does Spidermonkey have anything on the rest of The Brain Trust?”

  He smiled his most charming smile and I very nearly melted before reminding myself that he’d been a jerk. “You knew that was him. Nice.”

  “I can tell, you big dufus,” I said.

  “Dufus. I guess that’s probably better than whatever you’ve been calling me.”

  “Marginally,” said Fats. “What did he say?”

  Chuck gave Fats the once-over. “How much does she know?”

  I sighed and told him about Dr. Bloom’s file, including the gas mask incident. Not my finest moment. That got me thinking. I’d never had a finest moment, just the not variety, which seemed unfair. The universe kinda owed me. I did look like I had mange.

  “You need professional help,” said Chuck.

  “I’ve got professional help. Chuck, meet Fats.”

  “I meant for the hair. I know a girl—”

  I held up a hand. “Stop right there. I know all about how you know girls and I’m good.”

  “You mean that I know her in the biblical sense? Does that bother you?” Chuck was grinning from ear to ear, shades of his old sleazy self and I couldn’t resist. “You probably know her the way I knew Marcus Collins in college.”

  His smile vanished and Fats was beaming. “You don’t mean Marcus Collins, the tight end for the Vikings?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Go on,” she said.

  Chuck growled. “Do not go on.”

  “Marcus had this thing for hot tubs and since he was an athlete…”

  Chuck threw up his hands and walked away. “Just for that, I’m not telling you what Spidermonkey said.”

  “You know I can call him, right?” I yelled after him.

  He just stalked off.

  The valet parking attendant brought the truck and we zoomed off, laughing.

  “For someone so handsome, he really is a dufus,” said Fats.

  “Aren’t they all?” I asked.

  She thought it over. “Probably, but I still have hope. Tiny is a sweetheart.”

  “He is, indeed.”

  “Exactly how are you two related?” she asked.

  I explained what happened in New Orleans and our discovery of our mutual ancestor as we drove home. I don’t know why, but I had the feeling that her estimation of me went up. I couldn’t imagine why. The concept of Plaçage was repugnant to me. Despite what Tiny said, I still thought that contracting Josephine as a kind of bonus wife was sick.

  We drove onto Hawthorne Avenue just as dusk was starting to settle. For a second, it became my home again, a place of beauty and elegance, not the place where my mother was attacked and our neighbors behaved badly. We rolled past the big houses, mansions to most people, I guess, but Mom and Dad never made a big deal about where we lived. I knew we didn’t have any money, but it never bothered them, so it didn’t bother me. We never really fit. I didn’t know how much until the neighbors got together, yelling about the inconvenience of the police interrupting their precious lives.

  “It’s beautiful here,” said Fats. “It doesn’t look like the same city where I grew up.”

  “Where did you grow up? The Hill?”

  She grinned. “How’d you guess?”

  “Just lucky.”

  “Look,” she said. “Somebody cleaned up.”

  Somebody did clean up, whether it was from guilt or to keep the street looking nice, I couldn’t say, but the crime scene tape was gone, the grass pampered back to a lush green, and the flowerbeds replanted.

  Fats gave me a sideways glance as we parked. “That’s nice.”

  I grumbled. “Maybe.”

  “What else do you want?”

  I didn’t answer. I trotted up the walk, bypassing the front door and going straight to the side yard, fully expecting it to be trashed—after all, you couldn’t see it from the street—but it was perfection. No tape. New hostas planted in the bed where Denny died. Only the lingering smell of some kind of cleaner, flowery and sweet.

  “Looks better,” said Fats.

  “It does. Why do I want to bulldoze it?”

  Fats turned me around and we went to the front door instead of trying the side door. A wise decision, in retrospect. I might’ve lost it if I had to walk over
where I found Mom. It was different when the cops were there, all busy and finding things. It didn’t really seem like my home then. It was a crime scene, strangely impersonal. Now, it was like nothing happened and something happened at the same time.

  We went in the front door and it was eerily silent. There wasn’t a cop on duty anymore since the crime scene stuff was all done. And the Siamese were still at the ASPCA instead of trying to scar me for life. I climbed the stairs to the second floor, aware that I was looking for something. I just didn’t know what. There was just this vague feeling that something was waiting for me.

  In Dad’s office, I found the handwriting guy easily. Claire had made a drawer just for independent contractors. I texted Donald Greenburg with my request and he got back in seconds. He’d heard about Mom and expressed his sympathies. I asked him to do what he could with the note. Mr. Greenburg wasn’t thrilled with not having the original, but he’d do what he could. I thanked him and asked him not to tell anyone about the note. That wasn’t a problem. He knew the drill.

  I looked up and Fats said, “It’s gone.”

  It took me a second. “What?”

  Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.

  “The Brain Trust file,” she said. “It’s not here.”

  Dammit.

  We went through the cabinets three more times and it was definitely gone. Claire was so organized that we knew exactly what had been taken. She’d arranged Dad’s files in a system that was easy to understand, if you understood my dad. There were sections for the contractors, employees, criminals, clients, etc. It was all cross-referenced. So if you went looking for the file on Dwayne Davis Smith, which we did, it had a marker saying his file was in the Brain Trust file in the Major Cases drawers. All the major cases were there, at least as far as I could tell, but The Brain Trust cases were gone.

  “Well, that isn’t helpful,” said Fats. “I wonder if those other detectives kept their files.”

  I sat down in Dad’s chair, feeling so sick it was like I’d just eaten another crab hotdog.

  “Mercy? What about that detective who died? What’s his name? Your grandfather said your dad and he were partners.”

  “Gavin Flouder,” I said. “He probably does.”

  Fats wedged herself into the chair opposite me. “So we’ll go over there. Will the widow mind?”

  “No, but Gavin wasn’t the lead. He wouldn’t have everything.” I frowned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Where’s my dad’s file?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Your dad took it or that Claire. You said she takes work home. Maybe she was color-coding it. She’s obviously a freak when it comes to this stuff.”

  “Yeah, she really whipped my dad into shape.” I held up a blue slip.

  “What’s that?”

  Claire loved organization to perhaps an unhealthy level. She’d ordered Dad to place a blue slip in the place of any file he removed so she’d know he’d taken it. All Dad’s people had their own slips since they came and went, pulling old files and cases as the need cropped up. Denny’s slips were green. I got pink, even though I pointed out that I would not be pulling any files, but Claire insisted. She was a freak that way.

  Fats returned to the cabinet and looked again. “You’re right. No slip.”

  “He was in the house. He took the file,” I said, the creepy crawly feeling back in a huge way.

  “The cops didn’t think he got in.”

  “Because nothing was taken or at least we thought nothing was taken. I was looking at normal stuff people steal. I never thought about files.”

  “Who would? That stuff happened decades ago,” said Fats. “You’ve got to tell Chuck.”

  “I will.” I spun Dad’s chair around to look out the window behind his desk, mentally kicking myself. We’d lost all kinds of time.

  “Hey,” said Fats. “I thought your mom’s cats were in a kennel or something.”

  Every hair on my body went to attention. “They are.”

  “Well, somebody brought them back.”

  Please let it be the Siamese. Please let it be the Siamese.

  It wasn’t the Siamese.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I SPUN AROUND in my chair and watched as Blackie, the cat of doom, slinked into the room. He was silent and unblinking, commanding our attention as he leapt from a chair to a filing cabinet to the mantel, where he sat in the center and wrapped his long, skinny tail around his paws.

  “That cat doesn’t look Siamese,” said Fats.

  “He’s not,” I said.

  “Is there another one?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  She frowned. “Why do you say it like that? It’s just a cat.”

  “Uh huh.” My phone rang and it was Spidermonkey with an update. Chuck had told him to leave me out of the loop so he immediately called me. I might’ve met Spidermonkey through Chuck, but he was my guy now. Suck it, boyfriend.

  My über hacker had lots of info that seemed useful, but it wasn’t immediately apparent how. Lainie Sampson’s murder was cold case city. The cops had nothing. There were witnesses, but they were unwilling to say anything. There was one old lady who initially said it was a Hispanic male, but she immediately changed her mind, saying she saw nothing and wasn’t wearing her glasses. Her glasses were on her face at the time. Forensics had multiple rounds from the same 9mm Glock, but they’d been unable to match them to anything. Unless new evidence showed up—and no one thought it would—Lainie’s case was done.

  Austin Jameson’s death that morning was a different story. Although it’d been reported in the news as an overdose, behind the scenes, it was classified as suspicious, possibly a murder. Austin had gotten up that morning as usual for his nine o’clock Precalculus class. His roommate said he was fine but tired from studying the night before for a test. Austin left for the coffee shop, where he was going to meet his girlfriend before going to class with her. He arrived on time at eight thirty, but she was late, showing up at ten till nine. She didn’t have time for a coffee so she took a sip of his. By the time they got to class, Austin was slurring his words and weaving. She thought he was having a stroke and called 911. By the time the ambulance got there, he was unconscious and she was woozy. Austin never regained consciousness and died an hour later. The girlfriend recovered and blood tests confirmed that they both had the drug known as 25i in their systems. 25i was a kind of synthetic LSD and taking it was like playing Russian Roulette. You might be okay or you might die. The girlfriend insisted that Austin drank and did a little pot, but no acid. She didn’t even know what 25i was and the cops believed her, especially after the coffee cup found at the scene came back full of the stuff. If you were going to try 25i, you’d put one of the tiny, colorful tabs under your tongue, not stick an entire strip of the stuff in your morning coffee.

  Beer but no drugs were found in Austin’s room and his roommate backed up the girlfriend’s claim that he didn’t do any drugs other than pot. It looked a hell of a lot like murder, but who would want to kill a college student? The kid had no enemies, was well-liked, and a good student.

  “It’s a totally different MO, but I can’t deny the connection,” said Spidermonkey.

  “They’re all different MOs,” I said slowly. “Totally different.”

  Fats kept an eye on Blackie, who continued to sit on the mantel without blinking once. She was starting to squirm in her chair, a sure sign that the so-called cat was getting to her. “How many MOs do we have?” she asked.

  “Well, we’ve got the stuff in Sturgis that was done by manipulating a third party.” I quickly told her what happened and then said, “The OD. There’s my mom. I assume he was going to shoot her, since he obviously had a weapon with him, but the stroke stopped him. Denny was shot. Lainie got a drive-by that looks Hispanic gang-related. A truck tried to run Mom off the road in June. How many is that?”

  “Five, if you count your mom’s attack and Denny’s death as one
crime,” said Fats. “Six, if you consider leaving her to die from a stroke as a separate act.”

  “Seven,” said Spidermonkey.

  “You found somebody else?” I asked, looking at Blackie, who stared back and then gave out a curly-tongued yawn.

  “I’m not sure it’s related,” he said. “It seems far-fetched, but Scott Frame’s ex-wife died in December. It could be a coincidence.”

  Coincidence. Yeah. Right.

  Scott Frame lived in Belleville, Illinois, working low-level security for some company. He was divorced in 1995 and the wife moved to California with their two kids. The divorce wasn’t friendly, but it wasn’t bitter either. According to Spidermonkey, they had some disagreements about summer visits, but the kids were adults now and saw their father occasionally. More importantly, they were both still alive.

  “How did the wife die?” I was ready for anything, but my guess was a stabbing. I was wrong. Allison Frame died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty furnace. She was found by a friend after she failed to show up for work. There were no signs of tampering and it was ruled an accident.

  “I don’t know,” said Fats. “That’s kind of left field. If you’re killing people that The Brain Trust members love, why would you kill an ex-wife? Guys hate their ex-wives and they’ve been divorced for forever.”

  “Maybe he didn’t hate her,” I said. “Who divorced who?”

  “She divorced him,” said Spidermonkey. “But your bodyguard is right—killing the ex isn’t exactly a body blow.”

  “I agree, but it’s suspicious. Have you found anything on Keely Stratton?”

  Spidermonkey had found little on the former detective. Keely was married to Ed Stratton. They had no children. After her husband sold his dental practice, they did move to Mexico, a town near Puerto Vallarta, but they only stayed for a couple years before they moved farther south to Columbia. They stayed there for only a year and had moved to Granada, Nicaragua. That was as far as he got.

  “When did they move to Nicaragua?” I asked.

  “Almost two years ago,” he said.

  “I wonder if they moved again. They sound adventurous.”