“Uh hello, I’m not. I am so not. Why don’t we pretend you’re gay and trolling? You’re the one drinking the beer.”
“I’m not liking you right now.”
“Ditto. Back at you,” Simon replied.
“Drink your drink.” The waitress had come back and set their drinks down.
Simon picked his up and in two big gulps it was gone. He snapped his fingers and called out to the waitress, “Another one, honey.” He turned to Nikki. “There, how was that? I called the striptease waitress honey. Now that’s straight.”
“No comment.”
Duran Duran started playing “Rio” and Alyssa appeared on stage. Simon sucked down another Cosmo as Alyssa gyrated and did her thing. She made eye contact with Nikki once. It was hard to watch the young woman up there, and not because she had any bad feelings for strippers or weird nakedness phobias, but because she knew the woman had great potential and could do a helluva lot more with her life.
“Great music. She’s good.” Simon pointed at Alyssa. “I wonder how she does that thing with her hips. I’ve gotta learn that move.”
“You do that.”
The song ended and a couple of minutes later Alyssa came to the booth and squeezed in with the two of them. “Who’s the gay guy?” she asked.
“I am not gay,” Simon replied.
“Yeah, and I didn’t just take money for dancing for perverts.”
“He’s harmless, drunk, and a good friend. He’s helping me with this thing, too,” Nikki replied.
“Hey, I am not drunk either.”
Both women ignored him as he finished off his third drink. Simon couldn’t hold his liquor, and the way he was sucking down the Cosmos, Nikki knew she’d have to get him out of there soon. One thing she knew about Simon: he was notorious for having a really big mouth when drunk. The kind that usually gets people into trouble.
“You got my message?” Alyssa asked.
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“That Henry guy and his buddy . . .”
“Rick Moran?” Nikki asked.
“The same one that was here the other day. Anyway, they were here last night. Henry was plowed and the other dude was on his way to blitzville, so I cozied up to them and Henry said that they were heading to Mexico and asked if I wanted to go.”
“Did they say where in Mexico and when they were going?”
“Cozumel, and they’re going tonight. They told me and another girl to meet them at the airport bar at seven if we wanted to have some fun. Henry was tossing all sorts of money around, and said that he’d recently come into it. That seemed to make the other guy uncomfortable. He told Henry not to say too much, but Henry told him to shut up.”
“They had to have killed Georges,” Nikki said. “I’m betting they were stealing money from him, killed him because he found out, knew I was looking into things, and torched my place hoping to get rid of me, too.”
“Someone burned your place down?” Alyssa asked.
“Poor girl, but it’s not all bad because at least she won’t be wearing any more sweater sets,” Simon chimed in.
“What?” Alyssa asked.
“Never mind,” Nikki said. “I’ll tell you when we have time. Right now, we better get to the airport and stop those two from getting on a plane.”
“Shouldn’t you call the cops?” Alyssa asked.
Nikki sighed and nodded. “I suppose I should.”
“I hope I helped,” Alyssa said. “Right now I’ve got to go back on stage. But I have good news. I have a job interview tomorrow. I’m applying for a receptionist job at a private investigative firm. I kind of like this stuff, and you gotta start somewhere, right?”
“Good for you,” Nikki replied.
“It won’t pay me what I make here, but we’ll manage. I know we will.”
Simon coughed and Nikki looked over at him. He was tearing up. “I love a happy ending. Good for you, honey. Here, take this.” Simon opened his wallet and emptied it, giving her all the cash. “You, honey, are an outstanding dancer. I love that hip thingy you do.”
Nikki had no clue how much was in the wallet, but she knew the Guru Sansibaba would be proud and so was she. “Come on Mother Teresa, we better finish the rest of our do-gooding for the day.” She gave Alyssa a hug. “You know, since you’re looking for another job and I’ve seen what you’re capable of doing . . .” She raised her brows. “What I’m trying to say is that we might have a position for you at Malveaux.”
“You mean work at the winery?”
Nikki nodded. “You’ve got experience in the entertainment business, and we have an opening for a taster. Call me, and I’ll set up an interview for you.”
Alyssa hugged her back and asked them to wait a minute. When she returned she was fully dressed, her purse draped over her shoulder. “I’m going home. I quit. Let me help you out with him.”
The women stood on either side of Simon, his arms draped over them. He kissed them each on the cheek. “As the Guru Sansibaba says, ‘Everything happens for a reason. ’ Thank you, both. I love you. What a beautiful day. Now I know why I had to play Rock Hudson, not just once but twice today.”
“What?” Alyssa asked.
“Don’t ask.” She offered the girl a ride home.
“Nah. I think I’ll take the trolley. I like this time of evening and I want a moment alone before I go into mom mode.”
Nikki nodded even though she didn’t exactly know what mom mode felt like, but she knew that, one day, she hoped to find out. They said good-bye.
Once Nikki settled inside her Camry she phoned Detective Robinson and told him all that she’d found out about Moran and Bloomenfeld. He rudely thanked her and said that he’d have SFPD arrest them before they boarded their plane.
“But Ms. Sands, I believe that you and I need to have a chat. I’ll be by your place in the morning.”
Oh joy. Something to look forward to.
Chapter 22
The next morning Detective Robinson showed up before Nikki had even polished off her first cup of java. She sat waiting for Marco to bring over her breakfast of croissants with applewood bacon, tomatoes, and brie, along with biscuits with rosehip jam, and a bowl of strawberries. Customary champagne was on the morning menu, but she passed. She had work to do.
Marco scolded her for getting Simon drunk and told her that he’d be useless for the day, sleeping off the remnants from the night before. She promised to make it up to him by helping around the spa for the day, covering for Simon. He’d taken her up on the offer.
“Morning,” Robinson said as he took the chair across from her. He set down a large plastic bag he was toting.
“Good morning, Detective, would you like some coffee?”
“Never touch the stuff. Call me Jonah. You did, from the sound of it, solve my case. I was on a different wavelength. I suppose I should apologize to you, but you know I was only looking out for your best interest. Citizens should not be out trying to do a cop’s job. It’s dangerous, Ms. Sands.”
“Nikki.”
“Nikki,” he replied and smiled.
Who knew the guy had it in him? A real honest-to-goodness smile.
“Maybe next time someone turns up dead, you let me do my job and you do yours.”
“Hopefully there won’t be a next time,” she replied.
Jonah smirked.
“I take it the police in San Francisco caught up with Moran and Bloomenfeld?” she asked.
“We caught up with Bloomenfeld,” Robinson replied. “Moran . . .” He shook his head.
“What? He wasn’t there?” A chill shimmied down Nikki’s spine.
“Nope. I spoke with one of the detectives there, and they think maybe Moran got scared and took off. We’ve got an APB out on him.”
“An all points bulletin?” Nikki asked. “What do you think he got scared of?”
“Getting caught for starters, or maybe, Bloomenfeld. I’m not sure who the mastermind was, but we’ll get to the bottom
of it, and we’ll get Moran. Don’t worry.”
Nikki attempted a weak smile but couldn’t even muster that. How could she not worry? If Moran and Bloomenfeld killed Georges and then burned her place down, hoping she was inside, because she was snooping, would Moran not come back to finish the job? She sighed and reasoned that it was her overactive or overreactive imagination at work. Moran wasn’t coming back for her. If it had been Bloomenfeld who’d flown the coop, her need to look over her shoulder until he was behind bars would be greater. But Moran appeared to be a wuss. “The other day I was out on a walk at the vineyard,” Nikki said, “and I saw you talking to Moran. He waved you down?”
Robinson smiled. “Walking, huh?” She nodded. “Yeah, I saw Moran. Said he was wondering how the investigation was going and if we’d found out anything. I told him no. Hell, even if we did I wasn’t about to tell the guy. My radar went up that he was asking, and for good reason obviously.”
“Obviously. Um . . .” She bit her lip and shifted in her chair. “I also saw that you had a ladder in your truck.”
“You see a lot when you’re out walking the vineyard.” He put his elbows on the table.
“I do.”
“Mhhm. The ladder was taken in for evidence. We didn’t get any prints, but we’re sure it’s how the killer got up to the balcony, either before or after Debussey was in there. I questioned the therapist, Charlotte, and she confirmed that Debussey had requested music. He may not have heard the killer climb up.”
“There are also plenty of tall plants up on that balcony to hide behind.”
“There are.”
“Did anyone see anyone?” Nikki asked.
Robinson shook his head. “No one out of the ordinary. That doesn’t surprise me. On a day like last Saturday, as busy as it was here, someone could have posed as a worker and gotten in and out pretty easily.”
Nikki agreed; she’d already figured that was the case. “Now what about Bloomenfeld?”
“They’ll be transporting him to Santa Rosa some time today so I can have a crack at him. So far, he isn’t copping to a thing. Nada. Even though SFPD is doing what they can to jerk his chain.”
Nikki tilted her head.
“It means they got something else on Bloomenfeld that they’re using to try to get him to talk. Apparently Bloomenfeld had some pirated videos in his possession and they weren’t the garden-variety type either.”
“I met him. He is a real creep.”
“Anyway, he isn’t admitting to murder, and he isn’t admitting to having any type of partnership with Moran. Claims he has no clue where Moran is. But it’ll be a grounder once I get my hands on them. I’m also sure I’ll get him to confess to torching your place, or at least tell me Moran did it.”
“A grounder?” Nikki asked.
He laughed and shook a finger at her. “See, you’re not quite the detective, are you? You can solve a case, but you don’t know the lingo. A grounder means an easy case to wrap up. I figured you’d know that.”
“Nope. No clue.”
Marco came over and set down her breakfast. “You don’t have much time. I need you in the spa.” He turned on his heels.
Yep. He was pretty mad at her. Not good to be on Marco’s bad side. She’d have to sit down with him at happy hour and pretend she was interested in being enlightened by the Guru Sansibaba’s words. That would surely get her back on his good side.
“Looks like you better get to work,” Robinson said. “There’s another thing though. We tracked the cash Moran and Bloomenfeld had gotten their hands on. A couple hundred grand. Stupid though, they had stored it at SFO in the storage area. Moran had taken it out of storage yesterday and deposited the bulk of it into a bank account. He was setting up a transfer into a Cayman account in both his and Bloomenfeld’s name. The transfer would have gone through last night if it hadn’t been tracked. Then, Moran didn’t show up at the airport, which leads us to believe that Bloomenfeld did away with him, too.”
“Huh. Interesting,” was all Nikki could say.
“Yeah, but the detectives down at SFPD mentioned that after questioning one of the clerks, an interesting story came to light, which makes me wonder if there was another person involved in this.”
“Really? Who?”
He smiled. “Yeah, apparently a real attractive brunette worked the clerk to get ahold of the suitcase with the cash and then she must have gotten scared, because she didn’t take it with her. She’s about five five, maybe 115 pounds, green eyes, brunette, the clerk said she had nice, um . . .”
“I get it.” Nikki felt the heat rise to her face.
“I’m sure you do. I told SFPD I had an idea about who the woman is and I’d take care of it. Since, uh, you’re so good at figuring things out, do you have any idea who the mystery lady at the airport was?”
She sighed. “What do you want, Robinson?”
He laughed. “Nothing. I just like getting a rise out of you.”
Marco walked past them and gave Nikki a sharp look.
“Looks like you better get your ass in gear before the boss man has a fit,” Robinson said.
She was thankful he had dropped the airport incident.
“Yeah, I owe him. But first, can I ask you where your thoughts were on this case? You said that you’d been traveling down a different path.” She picked up her coffee cup.
“I thought his partner was the one I’d be locking the steel doors on. He had motive, and according to those in the kitchen that day, Mr. O’Grady had taken off after giving a few instructions and had not returned for over an hour, which gave him ample time to kill his partner.”
Nikki knew where Baron had been during that time . . . supposedly, anyway: shacking up with Lauren Trump. She wondered if that had become Baron’s alibi. “Where did he say he was?”
“He says he was with a woman. He didn’t tell me who, so that’s why I figured he had done it.” Robinson smiled. “Oldest alibi in the book is a woman, but if you can’t produce one, what good is she? He told me that she had an ex who had some badass contacts and that he didn’t want to get involved with them. I told him what he was up against, but he said that he’d done nothing wrong and that he’d rather take the heat from the cops than deal with his girlfriend’s ex.”
Maybe Baron was leaving the states to get away from Lauren and her Mafia ties. Who could blame a man who’d probably grown up amid the violence in his homeland? “You said that he had a motive. What? Just the fact that he stood to inherit some cash or part of the business?”
“Nah. That would have been a stupid move on Baron’s part. He’d have made more in the long run hanging on to Georges. The man, from what I understand, was a cash cow and only getting bigger daily. Baron had more reason than that. He had a five million dollar life insurance policy on Georges.”
Nikki’s mouth dropped. “He did?”
“Yeah. Get this, too. I went to ask him why he had a life insurance policy on his buddy, and the poor sap shriveled. Said that he knew if anything happened to Georges he couldn’t stay here and survive the business. He’d want to go back home and make sure he had enough to live on for him and his mother. He claimed Georges knew about it and therefore didn’t leave anything to him in his will, which Baron told him was fine because he never expected Georges to die anyway, and he said that he would have never expected anything be left to him. Said he’s not a good businessman. According to my investigation, he’s right. He can’t manage money worth a damn, but he’s an excellent cook and word is that Georges needed him for that reason. Source says that Georges was the brain and a helluva cook, but real traditional-like. Baron was the creative one.”
“How did you find out about the policy?” Nikki asked.
Robinson smiled. “I am a cop. I visited Georges’ ex-wife in jail.”
Nikki had forgotten about Bernadette Debussey. She’d left the voice message on Monday to see if she could visit her and had figured someone would call her back. But now it looked as though that w
ouldn’t be necessary. “Interesting. Baron never told you the identity of the woman he was with?”
“Nope, and now, thanks to you, he can keep his little rendezvous with Miss Trouble nice and tidy.”
Jonah Robinson’s demeanor toward her had been no less than horrible, but there was something about him now that softened her. Maybe his quirky sense of humor and way with words, or maybe when it came down to it he had that coolness about him that only a handful of people ever exuded. Sure, lots of folks pretended they had it, but Nikki got the feeling that Jonah never needed to remind himself he was cool. It was a given. When they’d first met, she’d thought it was only his look that fit the category, especially because his behavior had been downright mean, but sitting here talking with him changed her mind. She crossed her legs and shifted in her chair.
“Why are you telling me all this? Doesn’t this go against your grain? You know, since I’m so disrespectful to the police.”
“Hey, I was only doing my job. Trying to keep you outta trouble.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “You got a friend around here, too, who also asked me to keep an eye on you, make sure you kept your nose clean. But lady, I was too busy and you apparently did not keep it clean. The reason I’m telling you all this is, I figure I owe you an apology and you deserve some explanations. You were the one, after all, who turned me in the right direction.”
“Wait a minute, back up. You said that I have a friend who asked you to keep a watch on me. Who?”
Robinson winked. “Now I can’t go and reveal that.”
“Andrés? Was it Andrés Fernandez?”
“Nope. I’ll tell you that much. Listen to you. Don’t you have quite the following?” He took out his card and passed it to her. “I’m sure you threw the first one away, so take this one and add me to your list.”
“My list?”
“Of admirers. You ever make it into Santa Rosa and want a decent meal, I might know a place or two.”
“Are you asking me out, Detective?” Her face grew warm.
“Not my style. Like I said, you ever get on a few miles north, we’ll hang out.”
Silenced By Syrah Page 18
