That ‘going beyond the letter of the law’. My dad must have forgotten to take his ethics courses, I thought.
He slugged down more liquor. “Baird’s people found a baby for us.”
“Found?”
“Yeah.”
“Dad?”
“All right, damn it. They snatched a baby. Broad daylight. The old stroller in the park routine.”
“How the hell could you do that?”
“Damn it, child, listen. They took the wrong baby from the wrong family. Money. Power. The family wouldn’t rest until the baby was back, and retribution came in the form of...”
Again, he took a big swig. “Erin was stabbed to death. Seventy-four times. I found her body left folded up in the fold-away crib in our hotel room.”
“You’re a liar. Are there any records of this? Police or news reports?”
“Don’t be naïve, Breecie. We weren’t dealing with the kind of people that fancy getting their names in the paper. Besides, we never made it back to The States. This all happened in Russia. A little place outside St. Petersburg.”
My old familiar deposition. My mind raced, appraising everything he was divulging, but what wasn’t he telling me?
“So Erin died in Russia,” I said. “And Naomi and Mom?”
He sucked on the remaining ice in his glass. “Naomi died because she knew too much. She knew everything. Once she got wind that your detective was on to her she wanted to start talking to anyone that would listen. Out of pent-up guilt, I guess. Whatever. We couldn’t afford to have that happen.”
“We?”
“I’ve been a partner of Baird’s since the day I knew he might be able to help Erin.”
“Or kill her.”
“None of us thought that would ever happen, Pumpkin.”
“What kind of partnerships?”
“Just a couple, now.”
“And are they legit?”
“We walk a fine line, but yes. Those bulls and the chinchillas out at Ari Christenson’s place. Or, I guess I should say your place.”
I flashed back to a picture of the sickly looking bulls, the vet, and Rudy’s concern. “Tell me.”
“Good businesses. Damn smart businesses. Both of them. When the UK banned fur farms we picked up a big-time operation for next to nothing. A company selling chinchilla pelts all over the world. I was down here in Trinidad, snooped around, and found Christenson’s ranch. It was perfect. No one knows I’m involved, Christenson doesn’t give a rat’s ass, and we like the anti-fur static.”
“You like it?”
“Hell, yes. Gives the town something to grouse about without looking any deeper. And mind you, they wouldn’t find anything. Nothing we’re doing is illegal.
“Once Erin came down and saw the chinchillas, alive, even she got in on the protests. She handed her sister a coat I had given her on our anniversary because she couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore.”
Naomi, wearing the oversized chinchilla coat.
“I admit it’s not a pretty business. You don’t see me over there looking at those pathetic animals.”
Right. The bulls, too. “What about the bulls?”
“That’s a little dicier. You’ll see the ads soon enough. We take their semen. Mix it up with who knows what. Put it in fancy-smancy packaging and sell it.”
“What for?”
“Anti-aging cream for one. Male enhancement, another.”
I didn’t have to ask but I did anyway. “Do they work?”
“We don’t care. We’re not exactly going to get FDA approval but we’re not killing people with the stuff, either. We operate out of Mexico to keep things neat and tidy. There’s plenty of bullshit crap being made right here in the USA that’s guaranteed. Guarantee, my ass.”
“Who introduced you to Baird? You said you knew him forever, since your law days, but now you tell me someone introduced you to him for the baby he could get Erin.”
My father hollered after the waitress, his waitress. “I’m gonna need one more, Mildred.”
He turned to me, a flat look across his drawn face. “You’re a smart girl. I wouldn’t have it any other way. To this day, I wonder why you didn’t figure it out. But, hey. Love is blind.”
I did love my father. With all my heart. No matter what, I loved my daddy. And I loathed him.
“Baird has a history of helping people. If you’d give him a chance, you’d see lots of his money goes to serve the higher good. One young person with a bright future didn’t have what it took to get into college, let alone law school. He didn’t have the grades and he didn’t have any money. His family all died in a car crash when he was sixteen. Fools with no insurance. No provisions for their kid.”
My dad wasn’t talking about himself. He’d passed the bar with a prism of glorious colors and accolades. I shoved my plate away, I guess preparatory to something more to digest coming my way.
“Breeze, it was Adam that introduced me to George Baird, as a favor to all of us.”
No fucking stars. “I don’t believe you.”
“George found out the kid was living on the streets. Had no one. Managed for himself by getting in with a tough crowd. George took Adam in, paid his keep, even paid for law school. Bought his soul, so to speak. Imagine how pissed off that old bald bastard was when our illustrious Adam Chancellor couldn’t even pass the bar exam. George had to fix that for him, too.”
Tortured in the dullness of disbelief, I sat motionless. Dad didn’t seem to mind my state of shock.
“Baby girl, I’m going to tell you everything. I am. But this is enough for tonight. It’s too much for you, right now, and it’s too much for me. I’m not feeling well. I need you to take me home.”
I looked across at him, and even after all he had to say I took instant pity at his physical sight. He was inebriated. He was shaking badly. He’d broken out in perspiration. Beads of sweat pooled in the creases of his forehead. Truthfully, he looked terrible and it occurred to me I had pushed him too far. I had to remember my dad had a bad heart. It didn’t matter that he’d broken mine.
I despised the words more than the man. I felt sorry for him. He’d cheated on my mother. That was wrong. He was engaged in illegal and barely-legal activities. He’d hidden a lot of things from me, like Adam filling out the powerful trio of men more menacing than the Bermuda Triangle.
What did Dad have left to tell me? My mother. What happened to her? And Naomi? Dad admitted he knew she would be killed. But who did it? And the private detective’s death? And what about the threats to me? Who was responsible? Did Adam know?
I was sobbing when I entered the courtyard of the main house. Jonathan’s sweet guitar chords sifted through the night air. Compelled by the magic of the sounds, and overwhelmed with need, I went to him.
He took me in his arms and held me safe on the garden bench. He let me talk for a long while, and when he recognized my lack of words he reached for his guitar. Then we’d talk again, for endless hours. Somewhere in the night, he held me again, in his arms, in his bed, in a sea of tranquility.
He never let go.
Chapter Forty-Seven
He’s Dead, Isn’t He?
I had never spent a night with a man without having sex. I had never not had sex with a man and felt so much physical intimacy. Lightning collided with scent of dewy rose petals and both filled my heart in the morning sun.
Fully clothed but crumpled, I’d slipped away from under Jonathan’s sweet sheets and back to my apartment as he lay in a sound slumber. My teakettle whistled. For a moment, after lifting it from the burner, I thought I could hear his stirring guitar chords. But I had more to think about than Jonathan’s arms wrapped around my troubles and somehow squeezing them away, if only for the night. It was the morning after, and there was no pill to take for what I had to deal with.
One thing seemed clear. People died because they knew too much. But at whose hands? And what the hell did they know that justified death sentences?
In an attempt at distraction, I immersed myself in life’s daily little tasks. Benny needed fresh water and a clean litter box, let alone effusive pampering after my most unappreciated evening away. My agent called; the publisher required an immediate revision to a chapter. Oh, and I was suppose to check in on Macayla.
The auto-dial number rang through to Dad rather than The Lost Cat, just as I pulled my forefinger back realizing my mistake. Too late. I found myself instantly engaged in conversation and plodding through shallow content before I could hang up the phone.
Thrusting open double doors with my free hand, I walked out on the veranda my bedroom and living area shared, in search of fresh air. The questions buzzed my mind in no particular order of who got knocked-off when. Death was an equalizer.
Dad sounded good. Almost relieved? He’d had a good night of sleep. But he’d also run out of good-consciousness. He was too busy to talk with me.
“I’ll pick you up, Dad. We can run your errands together today.”
“I’m not doing any running, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I don’t care if it takes all day.”
In the silence, I recognized his pathetic legal ploy, making an appeal for deliverance from me. He huffed again, “It takes me forever to cross those damn brick streets.” Leave me alone. No more confrontations. You don’t want to tread the likes of my unchartered waters. I’ve already said too much.
“Then take forever, Dad. Just make it today. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“Sure you’re up for this? You’ve never volunteered before.”
My speech evidenced my exasperation. “Let’s see. First, you tell me you and Mom weren’t in love. My ex-fiancé arranges for you and Baird to go in cahoots together. You take a mistress who wants a baby but she was a tranny, so you turn to George Baird, and your tranny ends up dead. That explains a lot, Dad. Except for maybe why my mother is dead, Naomi is dead, and my private investigator is dead. And why somewhere, sometime when I least expect it, someone might try to knock me off next.”
“Yeah, something like that,” he muttered on the way to hanging up.
During my drive into town, I made the call to Kate’s daughter, Macayla, at The Lost Cat. Absent was her usual sarcasm. If anything Macayla’s voice was encouraging. “I’m doing fine. Rosa has me busy with mundane chores around here, and I’ve been for a check-up with my mom’s doctor. I just hope Mother Dear comes home ready to accept both me and this pregnancy.”
“I’m guessing she’s just getting used to the idea of being called grandma,” I laughed.
“I’ll know soon enough. She’ll be back in three days.”
“How about we have dinner together tomorrow night?”
Her voice lightened at the prospect, “Sure. But no place I’ll be tempted to order a drink. The doctor told me no alcohol.”
“You’re seventeen.”
“That’s not what my driver’s license says.”
Instead of his usual oatmeal fare, Dad and I grabbed a late-morning breakfast at Claire’s Bakery. I’d grown to love the slate of characters that frequented the shop, sitting on a hodge-podge of mismatched wooden chairs under the high tin ceiling, and oh, the wall of those crazy painted doors leading to worlds of enchantment, no doubt.
“I gotta get my barber. To my barber. And my bank. Gotta get to the bank,” Dad said.
“We have all day.”
With errands accomplished, I loaded Dad into the Jeep. His first growl of the day came when I passed the turn leading back to his house. “You’re driving too damn fast. Now, you have to go and turn yourself around.”
“We’re going out to the ranch. I’m cooking us lunch.”
“Hell. It’s past lunch time, and my guess is you’re no cook.”
“I’m a good cook. But if you have a problem with it, then I’m cooking us lunner. That’s lunch and dinner.”
“No good. That damn nurse of a...”
“...You mean ‘bitch of a nurse’,” I corrected his familiar term of endearment. “She has the day off, Dad. You’re stuck with me.” I glanced over in time to catch him frowning.
We winded the roads on the approach nearing the base of the Wahatoya. As he heaved, sighed, and shifted his weight in the passenger seat, I was certain, in spite of his claims, that the ranch was not unfamiliar grounds to my father. He didn’t really look around. You’d think as an investor he would want to see the chinchilla runs and the bulls. All the outbuildings. Dad just looked straight ahead.
I saw Rudy down by the chinchilla’s, waving me through with a grin as wide as his open arms. No one else seemed to be around.
Refusing my help, it took Dad some time to make it up the few steps to the front porch.
“My apartment is the third floor. It might be hard to get you up there, and there’s really nothing much to see except my cat.”
“We’ll stay right here. I hate cats.” He settled into the nearest chair, from which I feared never retrieving him. He ordered a cold beer from me before I realized I was the cocktail waitress.
I had barely retrieved two beers and a baggie full of fresh cut veggies when I saw Jonathan pull in. I tried to conceal my excitement from my father. He seemed happy to see him.
“Come join us, young man,” Dad said, after brief introductions.
Of course. Dad was happy for the interruption.
“Thank you, no, Sir. I wouldn’t want to intrude on your family time.” His gentle eyes assured me he’d be nearby if I needed him. “A pleasure to meet you.” He opened the wrought iron screen and disappeared, but not before I caught his look of concern.
Once we were alone and my father had his beer in his hands, I pressed on. “Is my P.I. somehow involved in all this mess of yours, Dad?”
“I don’t like that fellow, that Marasco.”
My god. You just asked him to join us. “Dad? My P. I.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Chapter Forty-Eight
He Whom Had the Most to Lose
I left my father alone on the porch. Retreating to the kitchen, I whipped together two Caesar-from-a-bottle chicken salads and what was left of my sanity. When I returned join him, Dad was jabbering into his cell phone as fast as his impaired speech would allow. The instant the screen door opened he snapped his phone shut.
Peculiar, since I was the one to convene the unwanted meeting, but Dad started in before I knew where to begin. “Your mother finally had enough. Not that she didn’t know or care about Erin, and even our attempts to adopt. It was that her gold digging days weren’t out of her system. She knew I was expecting big paydays ahead with my involvement in Baird Enterprises. Obvious to all of us, the Russian operations would bring in a conservative US$1 billion in the first year. After that, well, it was like Holy Fuck and Katy, bar the door! There’d be no damming up the flood of money.”
“One thing I know for certain. My mother was perfectly comfortable with our lifestyle in Georgetown,” I said, sipping on the beer like a child taking comfort in its bottle, desperate to defend Mom’s memory. “She didn’t want of more.”
“Lead a thirsty horse to water and she’ll drink, all right. Lead a sated but conniving woman to gold and she’ll fall to all fours, parched,” he said.
I watched my father’s lips shift and curl. He would say it was because of his stroke. I say it was a sign of guilt. Somewhere. Somehow.
Dad shook his head in defiance. “Baird got a bad rap. His conglomerate found itself, circuitously, linked to several deaths. Hell, I thought we were humanitarians. Placed a lot of babies in good homes. Maybe moved a few things around we shouldn’t have.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Nothing serious. Baird had enough of an infrastructure in place—political, moneyed, and otherwise, to protect our interests. It was a worldwide men-of-honor network with a code of silence, but that didn’t stop your mother from finding out.”
“Finding out what?”
“About some girls
we maybe ought not have brought over.”
“Girls? Those are the things you moved around? How young of girls?”
“Young enough your bitch mother threatened to expose Baird Enterprises and insisted she could prove we were trafficking minors, plus she got wind we were going through bull semen like garage mechanics go through motor oil.”
Nausea rummaged through my soul, thinking about Rudy’s fear for the bulls and the damn vet’s frequent visits that weren’t helping the bulls at all. I deduced he wasn’t a vet at all. He was there to collect semen. Period.
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