by Rob Cornell
She pressed her lips together and studied me with her mouse eyes, probably looking for a lie. “Fine. I will fetch him for you.”
Fetch him. I liked that.
Before she closed the door, I caught a glimpse of the inside. The door entered onto a large common room that looked like the Victorian version you’d find at a college dormitory. Bookshelves lined the walls between the Renaissance style paintings. A central square of fancy couches and wingchairs took up the center of the room. Other chairs were sprinkled about the periphery. A variety of men and women read or chatted. A woman’s boisterous laugh burst through the room, cut short when the door closed.
I stamped my feet and rubbed my arms to keep warm. I still felt a cold trickle on the back of my neck from the snow that got in there. Come on, Warren. I’m going to turn into an ice sculpture on the porch here.
The puff of warm air that came through the door when Warren arrived felt like a breath from heaven. “About time. Let’s get inside.”
He blocked my way. “What are you doing here? Mary said it was an emergency.”
“I’m freezing out here and I need to ask you some more questions.”
“You’re unbelievable. You’re not supposed to even be here. I could get in some serious shit for this.”
“You could also get into some serious shit for killing Eddie Arndt.”
He staggered as if I’d punched him in the face like I had Shwineski. He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
He looked convincingly surprised. But killers could fool you. Stakes that high could make even the most honest person a perfect liar. “You can hide back here in your servants’’ quarters only so long, Eddie. Mr. O’Leary and his brick walls won’t keep the police out.”
“This is insane. Eddie’s dead?”
“Don’t fuck around. You know he’s dead because you killed him. You couldn’t let go of your grudge. He’d pissed you off so badly, you figured out a way to kill his family. You probably expected Eddie to be there, too.”
Warren kept shaking his head. “No. No. This is crazy.”
“Then you figured out killing Eddie’s loved ones was even better revenge. So you kept at it, until you’d all but run out of people to kill. So you finally took your last victim—Eddie himself.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Warren’s voice shook, the first sign of vulnerability. “It’s all a crazy theory. You think I’d waste my life killing Eddie’s family because he pushed me down some stairs.”
“I know about the cousin. How he beat you so badly you missed two weeks of school.”
He glanced over his shoulder. A few faces had turned our way. Someone out of my line of sight said, “Would you close the door. You’re letting in cold air.”
Warren’s mouth formed a line. He stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “I pissed blood for three days. When you’re a seventeen year-old pissing blood it scares the hell out of you.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “Enough to make you want to pay back the person responsible.”
“You’re damn right.” He wasn’t wearing a coat, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold at all. “Doesn’t mean I killed anyone.”
“What did you do, then? To get even?”
“Doesn’t matter. It didn’t work out anyway.”
“Come on, Warren. If you can’t give me a reason not to, I’m going to push this. I’ll find something, I can guarantee that.”
He turned to gaze off toward the O’Leary mansion. “It was pretty fucking ingenious.”
I waited. I knew he wanted to tell me, to brag about his grand idea that never got off the ground.
“That psycho cousin of his? He wasn’t put together right. Halfway into the beating he gave me, I knew it really didn’t have anything to do with sticking up for Eddie. That was just an excuse to do something he liked to do…a lot.”
Eddie had already filled me in on Hunter’s instability, made even more apparent by his strange behavior the night Eddie had killed him. “What’s your point?”
“My point is, all this guy needed was a reason. So when I healed up, I gave him one. Three hundred bucks if he’d kick the crap out of his own cousin.” He faced me again, the smirk on his face worthy of the devil. “He took the money and said he’d do it.” He snorted and folded his arms. “Then the guy has to go and fall down the stairs and crack his skull open. Waste of fucking money.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. While still crazy, Warren’s story explained Hunter’s goal that night. He planned on carrying out the job Warren had paid him for, only Eddie had nixed that plan and good.
“You’re a sick fuck,” I said.
“Like I said. Pissing blood. And another broken leg. Had to have my jaw wired shut and ate through a straw.”
“You’re not making a very good case for yourself. If you were that angry, you’d still want to get at Eddie. You mean to tell me when your plan with Hunter didn’t pan out, you just let it go?”
“No. I had some ideas kicking around. Then that shit happened with his dad going wacko and I figured he’d suffered enough.” He shook, the first sign that the cold was getting to him. “Mental issues must run in that family.”
“I’m going to check this story,” I said. “I find anything out of place, I’ll be back. And I might just have a chat with the master of the house here and let him know what kind of person his little servant really is.”
Warren raised his chin and looked down his nose at me. “You don’t want to start a pissing match with me. Just ask Eddie.”
“I would,” I said, my voice like dry sand, “If I could.”
Chapter 27
Back at the bar, back in my booth, no further along on either of my investigations. I’d pushed Warren with accusations, playing bad cops without the benefit of a good. Running over his responses, I still felt like he was good for it. Warren was an angry and violently capable man. And he’d made it clear he still hated Eddie despite what he’d claimed during our previous meets.
The only thing missing for this theory? Evidence.
And I was out of places to look for it.
Only I wasn’t.
Bobby had said he was at Eddie’s around the time he was killed. He said he had a picture of the last person to come out of his apartment before I showed up. Someone I would recognize. Which meant someone I had already questioned during my investigation. Which meant Amanda or Warren as the likely suspects. No way it could be Amanda. That just didn’t jive.
Which left our buddy Warren. And the easiest piece of evidence I could find would be that picture. Okay, maybe not easy. Still, it would help. If I could get that pic and hand it over to Detective Shanks, we might have a chance to piece together a legitimate timeline that puts Warren at the scene. It wasn’t bullet proof by any means. But it might make a good tool to crack Warren.
So once again, two separate investigations merged into one. All I had to do was find Bobby and that would bring both to a close.
A couple in their forties took the stage and the bebop opening bars of “You’re the One That I Want” from the musical, Grease, jib-jabbed from the speakers. They started in, and while they didn’t come close to the likes of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, they could carry a tune, and they both sang it like they meant it.
Paul made an unexpected visit to my booth, even sat down across from me. “You’re not drinking.”
I shrugged. “The buzz wore off. Too much work to get it back.”
“Offer still stands. You need me for anything?”
“I need you to tend my bar. Last thing I want is for you to get into my kind of trouble.”
“I’ve dealt with trouble.”
“I know. All the more reason to keep you out of it.”
He hitched one shoulder. “Suit yourself.” He slid out of the booth and took up his station behind the bar once more.
I leaned back and tried to let the karaoke victims entertain me and take my mind off thi
ngs until I could start fresh tomorrow. I barely heard any of them—probably a good thing. All I consciously noticed was our missing fixture. Hal. The High Note wasn’t the same without him.
“I found her.”
My gut twisted at the sound of Bobby’s voice. A tremor rolled through me. “Bullshit.”
“I’m looking at her right now. Want me to take a picture?”
“I don’t know why you’re doing this, Bobby, but you touch her, I will kill you.”
“You’d have to find me first.” He hummed low. “She’s pretty. Must take after her mother.”
Every nerve and muscle buzzed. I kept picturing turning his face into a meaty mess with my fists.
I sat at my desk in the office. The celebrity faces in the photos along the walls stared at me with disdainful eyes. You fucked up, Ridley. You failed. “Tell me where, Bobby. For all we’ve been through together, you can’t really want to torture me like this.”
“Heard you called home,” he said. “Did you cry when you heard about Dad?”
“Did you?”
“You fucking prick.” His voice sounded sloppy wet, as if he were foaming at the mouth. “I loved my dad more than anything. I took care of him all through his last weeks. You’re damn right I cried. That’s why it fucking burns me.”
“Are you finally ready to tell me what that is?”
“Now that I’ve found her, yeah. You can know.” I heard him swallow. “Dad had a will. He gave almost everything to me. Almost.”
“You’re talking about what he wanted me to have.”
“You don’t even know what it is.”
“Of course not. You’re his executor. Right now, you’re the only one who knows.”
“I’ll tell you what he gave you,” he said. “He gave you the agency. Can you fucking believe that? His own son, who’s worked for him forever, who was the one that brought you into the equation, and I get his fucking house, his money, his car. But you get the agency.”
When you stack stunning revelations, it can make you stick, like beer before liquor. I didn’t have anything to say. No problem. Bobby had plenty.
“I don’t want any of this other shit. He could have given it all to you, if he’d given me the agency. You don’t even live here anymore. Why would he give it to you?”
I hadn’t a clue. Not even a guess.
“You still there?” Bobby asked.
“I’m here.”
“You got nothing to say?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why he would do that.”
“He says why, in the will.”
His tone told me this surreal moment would go from bizarre to full on wacky land.
“I made a copy of this part. Let me read it to you.” He cleared his throat in an exaggerated way. “I have chosen Ridley Brone to take on my investigative agency in order to coax him back to where he belongs instead of where guilt has guided him. I hope that he will shake loose those chains of false responsibility and do what is right for him.”
Mort, what were you thinking? I can’t just drop everything here and move back to LA.
“Can you believe that crap?” Bobby asked.
“No,” I said. “No I can’t.”
“So now you know.” I heard the snap of a shutter. “There. A nice picture. I’ll email it to you.”
“You don’t have to do this, Bobby. If you’d just come and talked to me, we could have worked this out. My place is here, now. I can sign the agency over to you. Then we’re good.”
“Are you kidding? Dad chose you over me. I’m pissed, Ridley. Pissed at him and pissed at you for being such a suck ass that he forgot who his real son was.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Say what you want. It’s too late to make deals.”
That tremor rolled up through me again and rattled my throat when I spoke. “What are you going to do?”
“I told you. I met some guys in the clink. I’m going to introduce them.”
“You might be angry with me, but you’re not going to take that out on a sixteen year-old girl.”
Bobby belched a curt laugh. “You know what I did time for?”
I was afraid to ask, so I let Bobby tell me on his own.
“You seen those show where they set up guys trying to hook up with underage girls?”
Scorching bile ran up the back of my throat.
“I got caught myself. Didn’t make TV or anything, but the cops did a good job setting me up. When it comes to young tail, I get careless.”
“You’re lying.”
“You know how to do background checks. Run one on me.”
How could so much warp after only a few years? I didn’t even recognize Bobby anymore. And it hurt to wonder what Mort had thought about all this. Now it made some sense why Mort had left the agency with me. He’d wanted to punish Bobby. To make it clear he didn’t trust him to run his business anymore.
“How did this happen to you?”
“It’s been nice talking, Rid. But I’m feeling a little horny. I might have to stop following her around the mall and rub one out in the man’s room.”
“Stop it! This pervert act won’t solve anything. It’s bullshit and you know it.”
He sighed. “Like I said. I’ll email you a pic.” He disconnected before I could say more.
I knew the sex stuff was crap. Just like the first time he’d tried to pull that. He knew it was the best way to burn me. And it had worked, even as I didn’t believe a word.
For all I knew, he could be lying about finding her, too.
Then my computer dinged with a new email message. I opened it reluctantly.
The photo Bobby promised filled the screen. A zoomed in portrait.
She had dark, straight hair like her mother’s.
Lots of people have dark hair. That doesn’t mean this is your daughter.
She had a familiar cast to her face, a gaunt don’t-fuck-with-me look even while she smiled. I knew that face because I saw it every time I looked in a mirror.
That is the height of ego. You’re projecting. She looks like any other random teen trolling the mall.
Bobby had zoomed in close enough that I couldn’t make out any of her surrounds or who, if anyone, she was with. Just the smiling face that looked like a hybrid mix of Autumn and me no matter how much that inside voice wanted to deny it.
Oh, I’ll deny it. I’ll deny it until you come to your senses and realize Bobby is playing you yet again. He knows you well enough to push every right button, flip every last switch.
I closed the email.
Despite its annoying rebuttals, the voice had dropped an interesting fact that I could turn around and maybe use. Bobby knew me, knew my character, knew exactly what to say and do to pull me apart. But didn’t I know him, too?
I picked up the phone and dialed Mort’s office number again. The receptionist I’d spoken to before answered with the agency’s spiel.
I introduced myself.
“Yes, I remember,” she said. “How are you?”
“Well, I’ve been better. I’m a little worried about Bobby.”
“He still hasn’t returned. But I’m sure he’s okay.”
“Here’s the thing. He contacted me since the last time you and I spoke. He sounded pretty upset about something in Mort’s will.”
“Oh?” Her curiosity was palpable.
“It seems Mort left the agency to me.”
She gasped.
“I know, right? I can’t figure why Mort would do such a thing.” But I had an idea, and it had to do with Bobby’s time in prison, which had nothing to do with being a perv and everything to do with disappointing his father.
The hesitant noise Wanda made told me she knew, too. “It’s not really my place to guess.”
“But you don’t have to guess, do you?”
I heard a sigh leak from between her lips. “I can’t talk about it.”
“I know about his time in prison,” I said. “He told me. Might th
at have something to do with it?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. I had just started working here. I almost quit because Mr. Quinn was always in such a rage. I didn’t realize at the time that wasn’t normal for him.”
“What changed your mind?” I asked, throwing in some casual conversation to keep her comfortable talking to me.
“Flowers.” She giggled like a middle-schooler. “Mr. Quinn bought me a bouquet of lilies and apologized. Shortly after that, he calmed down and I got to know the real Mr. Quinn.”
I’d seen Mort as upset as she described only one time before—when he had discovered Bobby’s drug problem.”Was Mort responsible for Bobby’s arrest?”
“How did you know?”
“It was the drugs, wasn’t it?”
“Gosh. I really shouldn’t be talking about this. I really shouldn’t be on the phone this long, either. Mr. Barclay’s stressed enough as it is without me slacking off.”
“One last question?”
“You sound like Mr. Quinn. He was always asking questions, all the time. Even when he wasn’t working.”
“Occupational habit.”
“Just a quick one,” she said.
“After Bobby got out, did he start back on the drugs?”
“It was none of my business.”
“Come on, Wanda. You must have been able to tell.”
“I didn’t notice with Bobby, but he’d always been good about hiding it…” She trailed off.
I waited.
“Mr. Quinn, on the other hand? He spent more and more time locked in his office. Began passing off casework to Mr. Barclay, or turning it down outright. I knew things were…getting like before, when I’d first started.”
I wanted a bigger picture of Mort, not necessarily because it would help with Bobby, but because all of this reminded me of how much I’d missed out when it came to my mentor. I should have stayed a part of his life, might have even been able to help with Bobby.
“Mort wasn’t upset when he sent Bobby to prison?”
“Oh, no. He didn’t talk much about it with me, but I hear things, conversations on the phone and whatnot. If anything, he felt…relieved. I think he expected this to straighten out Bobby once and for all.”
