Hard Line

by Sidney Bell

  Maybe after they found Ghost, he could do something nice for Sullivan. Something to make up for what he’d done.

  To assuage his conscience.

  It wasn’t like he was killing anyone. Or robbing anyone. He was simply helping. He didn’t expect Sullivan to like it or to forgive him, but to Sullivan it was an inconvenience at most. To Tobias, it was crucial.

  When Sullivan returned, he got back to work without a word, and Tobias did the same even though the idea of more reading was about as attractive as getting dental work.

  He didn’t sigh.

  * * *

  Later, as he shut the door on a pizza delivery boy while juggling a 2-liter of soda, Tobias said, “Take a break.”

  Sullivan looked up from his laptop with the confused air of a man who’d lost all sense of time and place. After he blinked a couple times, he tugged his earbuds loose and tucked them inside the collar of his T-shirt once more. He closed his laptop and accepted a handful of napkins before tearing into his first slice, and for a few minutes, they ate silently.

  When they’d put a sizable dent in the pizza, Tobias asked, “What have you found so far?”

  “Nathalie’s father is Brock Trudeau, and he lives in California. He’s married to a teacher and they have three kids.”

  Tobias took a small sip of soda, savoring it. His parents hadn’t let him and his siblings have much processed food growing up, so he had a secret love of most things sugary. Soda was toward the top of the list. “It’s good he managed to recover from his wife’s death.”

  “Not sure how much recovery he needed. They weren’t married at the time she died—there’d been a divorce a few years before, fairly rancorous, I’m assuming, seeing as he remarried about five minutes after it was finalized. He did file for custody of Nathalie in the divorce, but according to the police report, Nathalie chose to stay here with her mom and Dad accepted it. And from what I can tell, Mom never accepted a penny of alimony or child support.”

  Tobias glanced at the papers strewn around Sullivan’s laptop, finding a picture of a young blonde girl.

  “Is this her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s pretty.”

  Sullivan threw a balled-up napkin into the trash with a little too much force. “I guess.”

  “Can this whole divorce/custody thing actually be related to the murders? I mean, it really comes down to who killed Margaret, right? You said the homeowner, Lawrence or whoever—”

  “Lawrence Howard.”

  “Yeah, him. You said he was a crime lord. So that makes it sound like another gang would’ve had reason to want him dead, which sort of implicates the Krayevs, but if the Krayevs did it, why would they kill someone they cared enough about to memorialize with a condo? But if Nathalie’s dad was the one pulling the trigger, it seems like a risky way to go about it—going up against a guy like that and some bodyguards.”

  At the very least, if Margaret had been the target, it made sense to wait until the guy and his bodyguards weren’t at home.

  Sullivan was watching him with a considering eyebrow lifted. “Not bad.”

  “Oh.” Tobias cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

  “Calling Lawrence Howard a crime lord’s being a bit generous, though,” Sullivan said, his mouth twisting wryly. “Small-time criminal overreaching his capabilities is more accurate, but either way, I doubt there’s a connection. Nathalie’s father was a person of interest at the time, and the cops looked pretty hard at him, but he seems to have had a pretty airtight alibi back in California.”

  “Dead end.”

  “Most likely.”

  “Find anything else?”

  “No one with the name Krayev, Yellena, Yalena, or any of the brothers’ names has ever lived in that neighborhood that I can find.” Sullivan stared up at the ceiling. “But one of the neighbors has lived down the block since the mid-eighties, so tomorrow I’m gonna go talk to him. See if he remembers anything.”

  “We,” Tobias reminded him, and Sullivan exhaled hard. For a second he looked like he might finally lose his temper and yell, and Tobias braced himself, but Sullivan’s shoulders slumped.

  “We,” Sullivan repeated, sounding weary. “Can I go home now?”

  “Yeah.” Tobias got up and stacked his school things on the table, clearing off the bed so he could get some sleep. The guilt in his gut seemed to grow with every passing hour, but he refused to let it sway his path. “I’d do this differently if I had a choice, you know.”

  Sullivan paused in the act of shoving his feet back into his boots. “You do have a choice. You just made the one that screws me over. That’s fine, whatever, be a dick if you want to. But don’t lie about what your options are. I can see the bullshit from a mile away.”

  With that hanging in the air, Sullivan finished tying his laces and grabbed his laptop.

  Tobias was still standing there, hands aching from holding his textbook too tightly, long after Sullivan was gone.

  * * *

  Saturday dawned bright and already warm, and Tobias was awake to see it, eyes gritty as sandpaper, his thoughts sluggish. He’d been snatching hours of sleep here and there, uncomfortable on the unfamiliar mattress, his thoughts too loud to muffle, his stomach in knots.

  When he’d showered and eaten, he halfheartedly tried to study some more, but he mostly spent the time with his thoughts in a whirlpool made up of the phone call and letter from Ashley Benton, his parents’ lies, the likelihood of Ghost being hurt, and this whole mess with Sullivan.

  He’d made little progress with his books by the time Sullivan knocked on the door.

  He was wearing jeans and another Henley, and looked nearly as tired as Tobias felt. “Ready to go talk to the neighbors?” he asked, voice blank.

  “Good morning to you too,” Tobias said under his breath, and followed him to the car.

  They parked across the street from the Howard house, and Tobias got his first look at the sprawling ranch with the stone wall and gated drive where Margaret Trudeau, Lawrence Howard, and a handful of bodyguards had died.

  “A ten-year-old could get over that wall easy,” Tobias said, noting the uneven gray blocks that jutted out along the entire surface. “If she needed to.”

  Sullivan nodded, squinting in the morning sunshine. “That’s what I was thinking. Kinda defeats the purpose of a security wall.”

  Beyond the gates, Tobias could see a two-car garage and several old elm trees. “Nice place.”

  “Yep.” Sullivan glanced at the plated numerals on the gate and jerked his head down the street. “This way.”

  Three doors down was a smaller bungalow. Lots of windows, but no gate so they walked up the drive to where a portly man in his mid-sixties was giving a beige Lincoln a wash. He wore a polo shirt, khakis, and loafers wet with soap suds.

  “Hi,” Sullivan said. “Are you Ray?”

  “Yeah.” Ray tipped his chin up in greeting. “You’d be the private detective I talked to this morning?”

  “That’s me.” Sullivan gestured to Tobias and introduced him.

  “Hello.” Tobias gave a little wave that instantly made him feel juvenile. He was definitely not cool enough to work in this business. “Thanks for letting us stop by.”

  If Ray thought Tobias was an idiot, he hid it well. “Not sure what all I can tell you, but I figure there’s no harm in asking a few questions.”

  Sullivan grinned. “A man after my own heart. You mind if we record this?”

  Ray glanced at the recorder with a gleam in his eye. “No problem. Let’s go up to the porch, though, and get out of this sun.”

  The porch had a complete set of wicker furniture that managed to appear weathered and expensive at the same time. Tobias sank into an armchair with a plush cushion as Ray went to the door and warbled, “Barbara, they’re here. Bring out the lemon
water, sweetheart.”

  He glanced back at Tobias and Sullivan. “My wife. She’s home all day, so she keeps an eye on things around the neighborhood.”

  “Hello!” A woman shouldered the door open while holding a tray with tall glasses full of ice and a big pitcher of water. She was short and plump with curly graying hair and a wide smile. “I hope you’re thirsty! I’ve brought enough for everyone. My, it’s already hot out. This weather, I tell you.” She smiled at them all, her cheeks pink and round.

  She was basically Mrs. Claus, Tobias realized, thanking her for the glass of water she passed to him. All she needed was a red velvet dress with white fur hems.

  “No trouble at all,” she said, patting him on the knee. She handed a glass to Sullivan as well. “I like your hair, Mr. Detective. It’s downright adventurous.”

  Sullivan was startled into a laugh by that, and Tobias did his level best to pretend that it wasn’t an attractive laugh at all, no matter how soft and warm it was. “Thank you. It pays to be adventurous in my line of work.”

  “Oh, I imagine it does.”

  “Now, Barbara, leave the young men alone.” Ray shook his head and tugged his wife onto the loveseat beside him. It creaked under their combined weight. “They’re here to talk about murder. It’s not a cheerful subject.”

  Tobias noted dryly that Ray looked every bit as enthusiastic as Barbara did. Sullivan must’ve had the same thought, because he sounded amused as he ran through his spiel for the recorder. When that was done, he said, “Well, before we get to the murders, do you think you could tell me a little about the people who lived there?”

  “We didn’t know them that well, I’m afraid,” Barbara said. “Larry—that was his name—was...how to put it?”

  “He was an ass,” Ray said bluntly.

  “Ray! Goodness,” Barbara admonished. She looked at Sullivan and Tobias apologetically. “He was though, a bit.”

  “How so?” Sullivan asked.

  “Full of himself,” Ray explained. “Pompous. You know the type. Puffed up a lot. Needlessly so, in my opinion.”

  “He wore a sport jacket to an evening wedding,” Barbara whispered to Tobias, still loud enough that everyone heard her anyway.

  “I see,” Tobias said.

  “Next day, he bragged about having been invited,” Barbara continued. “Held Ray up at the mailbox for ages talking about it.”

  “Like it’s any great compliment to be invited to one of Carole-Anne’s weddings,” Ray said. “Anyway, Larry seemed to have forgotten that we’ve been to three of them now, including the one he’d been at, a point he did not appreciate me making.”

  “She’s on husband number five,” Barbara murmured to Tobias. “Such a shame.”

  “That’s too bad,” Tobias managed.

  “Was there anything in particular that Larry was pompous about?” Sullivan asked. “Did he ever mention work?”

  “We didn’t really speak to him much,” Barbara said. “Neighborhood events only. I seem to recall there was an incident at a barbecue. He got into a tiff with someone over parking, I believe?”

  “It was Wayne,” Ray said. “They got into it over all those cars that were always parked in front of Wayne’s house.”

  “The cars?” Sullivan asked.

  Barbara nodded. “Lots of them. Parked up and down the street at all hours—”

  “Black sedans,” Ray interjected.

  “—and always these big men coming in and out of the place—”

  “Wore sunglasses,” Ray interrupted. “Sometimes at night, even. Ridiculous. Although I suppose it makes more sense now, why he thought he needed a bunch of bodyguard-types.”

  “—and Wayne and Larry got downright loud about it.” She leaned toward Tobias and spoke with that same stage-whispered confidentiality as before. “It was very dramatic.”

  “That was the last time Larry came to a neighborhood function, I think,” Ray said, squinting like he was trying to remember.

  “He went to a lot of them before that, though?” It struck Tobias as odd that a guy involved in small-time crime would be interested in neighborhood functions in the first place. “Was he interested in meeting women at the barbecues?”

  “Lord, no,” Barbara said.

  “He had a girl.” Ray took a sip of his water. “I did not approve of the way he spoke of her, did not approve at all.”

  “Can you be more specific?” Sullivan asked.

  “He kept talking about her...ah, attributes.”

  “Attributes,” Sullivan repeated.

  Ray huffed. “I asked what she was like and he told me her cup size.”

  “Ray, please,” Barbara said in a low voice.

  “Sorry, sweetheart.” Ray gave Sullivan and Tobias knowing looks.

  “I thought he had a daughter too,” Barbara said quickly, shifting the conversation back. “But she turned out to be the maid’s girl. All that horrible news about the search when she went missing.”

  “Was this her?” Sullivan asked, holding out the school picture of Nathalie.

  Barbara and Ray both slipped reading glasses on and took turns holding the picture out at arm’s length to squint at it. They both nodded.

  “She would sit and read on the porch,” Barbara said. “Saw her from time to time on one of my walks.” She gave Tobias a sweet smile. “I take walks around the neighborhood. For my blood pressure, you know. Sometimes I’d wander that direction.”

  She would’ve had to wander pretty close to the gate to notice someone on the porch. Tobias suspected that Barbara was bored out of her mind.

  “Did you ever meet Larry’s girl?” Sullivan asked. “The one with the, uh, attributes?”

  Ray shook his head, but Barbara said, “I did, once, about five or six years before the murders, back when she first arrived. To welcome her to the neighborhood, I took over a coconut cake of Hanna’s—Hanna’s our cook, she’s glorious—and the maid answered the door. Nice woman, very pleasant, and then Larry’s girl came up.” Barbara’s gaze went distant, as if she saw not her own crisp, elegant yard and rosebushes, but a front entryway from thirty years before. Her words slowed to a thoughtful crawl. “She didn’t fit Larry’s description a whit. I was expecting someone voluptuous and obvious, but she was so young, barely more than a child really, a slip of a thing but for this enormous pregnant belly. She was far too pregnant for how long she’d been in the country, so Larry couldn’t have been the father. I always wondered if that was part of his distaste; he could be such a low man. Her dress was far too large for her—I remember that so clearly. It was this cheap, spaghetti-strap sundress, and it kept slipping off one shoulder. She was standing in the shadows, looking at me with these enormous eyes, spooked, like a startled colt. She made me...mmm, I don’t know. Sad, I suppose. Uneasy. As if...”

  “Never came to the neighborhood functions,” Ray said, disapproving, and Barbara startled, blinking twice at her husband.

  “Never came out of the house,” Barbara corrected, her manner brisker now. “Not once that I recall. Maybe she had trouble adjusting to the States.”

  “Adjusting,” Sullivan repeated, glancing over at Tobias with a warning gleam in his eye, somehow guessing that Tobias was about to squirm out of his chair with excitement. “She wasn’t American?”

  “Larry called her his ‘foreign beauty,’” Ray said, and if a tone of voice could roll its eyes, his would’ve.

  “She asked the maid something while I was there. Had an accent. Russian, maybe.” Barbara pursed her lips, thinking about it. “Or it could’ve been Ukrainian.”

  Sullivan leaned forward. “Did Larry ever mention her name?”

  Barbara and Ray looked at each other, brows pinched in identical frowns, and as one said, doubtfully, “Lena, wasn’t it?”

  There it was. Tobias stared at Sullivan, fighting the urge
to reach over and shake him, to say that’s her, Yelena Krayeva—Mama!—was Larry’s girl way back then, she was living there, but Sullivan looked every inch the chill detective.

  “What about around the time of the murders? Did you hear anything about her then?”

  Barbara shook her head. “I remember being surprised that Lena never showed up in the news. She wasn’t listed as one of the victims, and the police never asked about her. I mentioned her to the nice police officer who talked to us right after everything happened, but he didn’t seem to know who I was talking about.”

  “You think something happened to her?” Sullivan asked.

  “No.” Barbara considered. “Larry had stopped talking about her altogether well before the murders, now that I think about it. It’s entirely possible that they broke up and she moved out, perhaps years before everything happened. I suppose we’ll never know now.”

  * * *

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” Tobias asked when they were back in the car. “Larry’s girl? Lena? That’s Mama, isn’t it? And Margaret Trudeau must’ve been the maid Barbara mentioned. Lena and Margaret were probably friends.”

  “It’s likely.” Sullivan didn’t start the engine, instead staring into space. “Interestingly, I don’t remember reading about Lena in the police reports I’ve got. My client passed on what he had access to, and I’ve read it pretty thoroughly. There’s no girlfriend mentioned, Russian or otherwise, throughout the investigation.”

  “Sloppy? Or did she leave so long before the murders that she wasn’t relevant?”

  “Good question. Probably impossible to answer, but good. What was the thing with the sports jacket?”

  “She was saying he was new money.”

  Sullivan frowned. “How’s that?”

  “Evening weddings are usually formal. Sports jackets are more informal, and they’re made for, like, afternoon events. It’s the kind of stupid social expectation that some rich people tend to think denotes someone’s value.”