Collared: A Gin & Tonic Mystery

by L. A. Kornetsky

  Then DubJay spoke, although Teddy couldn’t hear what he said, only that Ginny was clearly listening.

  “No, I . . . yes. Yes, I understand.” The look on Ginny’s face wasn’t one of understanding, though. It had been, first, annoyance, and then a baffled rage.

  “Yes, of course. No, that would be perfectly acceptable, I . . . yes. Good-bye.”

  The call ended, and she put the phone away. Carefully, as though it were an unexploded grenade or a dubiously poisonous snake.

  “So?” She had been worried that he would refuse to pay, or try to harass answers out of her, or blame them, somehow. Clearly, none of that had happened.

  “He didn’t care. Or he wants to keep things quiet more than he wants real answers. ‘The money’s already being transferred to my account, thanks for your work, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’ ”

  “Well. That’s good, right?” The last thing they needed was DubJay asking questions and raising hell. They’d dodged that with the cops, more or less; he’d be just as happy if nobody ever looked at him twice in relation to any of it, ever again.

  “Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.”

  “But?” He knew Ginny, better now than he had three days before. She was too quiet, too thoughtful for a woman who’d just made a large sum of money.

  “That was his uncle, Tonica. His uncle. And all he could think about . . . all either one of them could think about was their family name. About keeping themselves out of any whisper of scandal, either about the business or . . . because his uncle killed himself. Or got himself killed. Or we got him killed.”

  “Gin, stop that. You didn’t have anything to do with Joe’s death. That’s all on DubJay—and hell—on Joe, too. They were both grown men, and they made their decisions. Even if the decision was to not deal with shit that needed dealing with.” He had been guilty of that, often enough, to accept the bitter truth there.

  “I know.” She bent down to rub Georgie’s ears, then slid off her chair, picking up her pacing. Her drink was still half finished on the counter in front of her. “I’m for home.”

  “See you Tuesday at trivia?”

  There was an awkward pause, when they both remembered that DubJay was on one of the teams, too.

  “Yeah. Probably. I’ll be there.”

  14

  Teddy opened his eyes on Monday, the sunlight telling him it was mid-morning, and felt a brief moment of unexpected anticipation—until he remembered the events of the day before. The job was done. No mad chasing about today, nobody appearing out of nowhere with threats, or veiled promises. No federal agents, no dogs drooling in his backseat; just a day of calm and order stretching in front of him.

  He should be glad about that, right?

  He was, he assured himself. Life could get back to normal now. He just wished things had ended . . . better.

  Ginny and Georgie had gone home—he hoped to sleep, but knowing Ginny, she’d probably spent the rest of the night straightening the rest of her apartment, down to scrubbing the floors.

  He had hung around an hour or so longer, but Stacy had things well in hand and his hovering like a worried daddy wasn’t going to let her develop any self-confidence—not that she really needed more, after retelling the story of how she and Georgie caught the robbers to appreciative imbibers.

  And now it was Monday. The job was done. The only thing on his agenda was a morning run, some necessary paperwork, hitting the bank, and taking care of the errands he didn’t get to over the weekend.

  What had once seemed like a pleasant routine felt oddly stale, looking forward. No worrying about who was doing what, no racing around town, no sniping back and forth or trying to solve a mystery—or getting threatened or potentially shot at or arrested, he reminded himself. The past four days had been an interesting change in routine, sure, but that didn’t mean the routine wasn’t a good one.

  He got up and shook it off, sure that by the time he got through his run, life would be back to normal.

  “Turn on the news.”

  “What?” His hair was still wet from his post-run shower, and there was water in his ear, because he was having trouble hearing the voice on the other end.

  “Turn on the news.”

  “I don’t have a television, Mallard. What is it?”

  “Walter Jacobs. DubJay.”

  Teddy went on full alert. “What?”

  “He’s been arrested.”

  No TV, but his computer was already on. He woke it up, and surfed to the local news station. Breaking local news: prominent businessman doing the walk of shame from cop car to courthouse. And the guys escorting him wore the uniforms of tie-and-jacket that said Serious Feds were Serious.

  “Holy shit,” he breathed, the phone still to his ear.

  “Money laundering.” Ginny’s voice had calmed down, now that she’d reached him.

  “Money . . . is that what the hell this was all about? Not the certificate fraud or whatever Joe was going on about?” Shit, no wonder Asuri had taken them seriously. “How do you launder money in real estate?”

  “Shhh, hang on.”

  He could hear her tapping at the keyboard as she spoke. “No, it makes sense. I mean, once you put everything together, and look at it like . . . well, like someone who looks at things like this. The company was doing a lot of business with buildings that were being transferred from one use to another, which required a lot of renovation work and official sign-offs, and there are so many places where money can get lost, transferred, turned around, and come out without any idea who had originally put it into the system . . .”

  Teddy felt his stomach bottom out. “So the guys who hassled us . . . they were really Mafia? Do you think they killed Joe, because DubJay was horning in on their turf?”

  Ginny didn’t usually let a lot show in her voice, but right then, the uncertainty and upset flowed through the phone line. “God, Tonica, I don’t know. But I don’t think so. There was another company that was underwriting a lot of these buildings . . .”

  She paused, then typed again, then there was the scraping sound of a mouse being moved around. “Speder-Goren Management. Looks like, if Jacobs Realty went down, they’d be in a position to pick up where the company left off, maybe make some serious money. So long as everything was kept clean.”

  “This wasn’t clean.”

  “No.” There was a short pause, and he could hear her breathing. He thought, maybe, that she was crying, but he knew better than to ask.

  “No,” she repeated, “Joe’s killing himself made it all very, very messy. And now the Feds are involved. No wonder those two were pissed.”

  “Is it definitely a suicide?” He’d assumed it was, like Asuri said, there was no reason to think otherwise, based on the evidence. And Joe had seemed like the kind to go for a dramatic end, rather than just fizzle away.

  “They’re calling it that.”

  She was right: the scroll at the bottom of the screen confirmed the death of one Joseph Jacobs, founder of the firm, the night before, by “presumed natural causes.”

  If despair and pills were natural, anyway.

  He didn’t want to ask, but he had to. “You believe it? Do you think Joe killed himself?”

  He could almost see her, head cocked to the side, her eyes thoughtful.

  “No. I don’t. If Zara had thought he was suicidal, she wouldn’t have left, no matter what he said to her. She was too fierce for that.”

  He’d hoped that she would say yes. Then, it could all just be a Greek tragedy, and the curtain falls, everyone goes home. But, as usual, Gin’s logic was sound.

  “Then who?”

  “I think your benefactor,” she said. “The guy who kept you from being beaten up. He said he worked for DubJay . . .”

  “He implied that he worked for DubJay.”

  “Okay, fine. But his whole thing was about making sure that things stayed quiet, right? How much quieter could it get than a dead man?”

  “No fuss. Tha
t’s what DubJay wanted, all the time. Quiet, quiet. Everyone so concerned with reputation. But, to the point of murder?

  “Joe kills himself, DubJay could throw the blame for anything that was discovered on Joe, say the suicide was guilt. And Joe . . .” She went silent. “I don’t think Joe would have killed himself. But he wouldn’t have stopped someone else from killing him. You know?”

  He did. And he wanted to take that sick, sad note out of Ginny’s voice. “It’s a good theory. Just a theory, though. No way to prove anything.”

  “No.” Her voice was still sad. “Not a shred of proof. I think the spin is going to be that Joe offed himself out of a sense of shame, as his nephew was being arrested. And nobody’s ever going to look further.”

  There was a long silence from both of them, and then she said, “I need a drink.”

  He wasn’t working today. He almost suggested meeting somewhere else, but the thought was oddly disloyal, as though the bar would know, and be insulted.

  “Yeah. Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”

  By the time he arrived, the late-afternoon crowd had already assembled. If anyone was surprised to see him there on his off day, nobody said anything.

  Then again, the gossip already had a focus.

  “Did you hear?” he heard, the moment he walked in the door. Not to him: someone talking to another person at the bar, and not quietly, either.

  “Yeah, I heard. Hell of a thing, huh?”

  Snippet from another conversation: “Never trust anyone who wins that often at trivia. Arrogant know-it-all.”

  “Ah, you’re just pissed your team’s always last.”

  Teddy moved through the crowd, his ears as sharp as ever for what the crowd was doing, but his eyes were on the figure at the far corner of the bar, in her usual spot by the window.

  She was nursing a martini, playing with the olive, which the bartender had—despite Teddy’s frequent reminders that that wasn’t how they did it at Mary’s—speared on the end of a toothpick.

  “I don’t think they’re going to skate,” she said, not looking up at him.

  He slid onto the seat next to her and easily into the conversation, despite the time that had passed since. “What, then?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it.”

  Of course she had. “And?”

  “I think they’re going to be baited. I think there’s going to be an entire sting going on, and DubJay’s arrest—it’s just the surface, the chum in the water to attract bigger sharks.”

  He thought about it while Stacy brought over a nicely poured beer for him, serving it without a flourish, but also without dislodging a drop of the head. He nodded at her approvingly and took a sip, then said, “I think we should stay out of the water for a while, then.”

  “Yeah.” There were layers in that one word, making him look sideways at her.

  “You’re thinking something, Gin. That always worries me.”

  “Hah.” But she didn’t deny it.

  He was having an odd cognitive-dissonance flare at being on the wrong side of the bar again, but shook it off, and asked, “What?”

  “I’m bored.”

  “What?” Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.

  “I’m bored. Last night I went home and took a long, hot shower, and submitted my invoice, and had a new client waiting in the queue—the same bastard who I was waiting on last Thursday, in point of fact. And I thought hey, great. Back to normal. A nice, basic job, no crime or violence or trickery . . . twenty-four hours of looking up this and checking on that, and I’m bored.”

  He would have laughed at her, or made a comment, but the truth was, so was he. The stale taste of that morning hadn’t gone away. Even the dark, bitter stout tasted stale, and he knew damn well it wasn’t.

  “It will go away,” he said, talking to himself as much as her. “You love your job.”

  “I’m good at my job. That’s a different thing entirely.”

  “You don’t love your job?” That surprised him.

  “Oh hell, I don’t know. I just . . . I woke up this morning and it was all . . . flat, stale, and unprofitable.”

  That sounded like a quote, but he couldn’t place it. Probably Shakespeare. If it sounded familiar but off, it was usually Shakespeare. Stale. That word again. Flat and stale, like all the fizz was gone.

  Her face lit up, like she’d just thought of something wonderful. “We should do it again.”

  “What?” He shook his head, not sure he’d heard her right.

  “Investigate. Research other peoples’ problems and solve them.”

  “Um.” He backpedaled furiously. “No. Did you not hear what I just said? The Feds got involved in this case! Helping you out one time, okay, we did our good deed, even if it didn’t end well. But I like my job. I don’t like getting broken into, or threatened, or shot at, or having the cops giving me the fish-eye.”

  She ate the olive with a clean, careful bite, and put the toothpick down on the counter. “Afraid of a little trouble? And you’re a bartender?”

  “I’m a bartender at Mary’s,” he said, like that settled the argument.

  “All right. Point to you.” She sat for a minute, her pointed chin sunk in her hands. He looked away, watched Stacy working with Bill, the afternoon guy, restocking the speed rail, while he waited for whatever came out of Ginny’s mouth next. She had that Look again. The Thinking Look.

  “We were good at this. Together, I mean. Really good.”

  He shook his head again. “No.”

  “And don’t even try to tell me you couldn’t use the money.”

  “I’m set.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve seen your place.”

  “You never think I might like a pared-down lifestyle?”

  The look she gave him was brilliantly scathing. No, she didn’t think that. The sad thing was, it was the truth.

  “You live in a monk’s cell, you spend all your time keeping this place running . . . and you have not just a degree from Yale in poli-sci, but honors—and a government career waiting for you, if you’d wanted it.”

  The scathing look turned into satisfaction at his obvious astonishment. “I’m a researcher, Mr. Tonica, and you’re just another topic. No matter how well you thought you covered your tracks. And I know for a fact that that brain”—and she leaned over to tap him smartly on the forehead—“is dying in there. Even with the reading and the bartending, and the trivia games . . . dying.”

  “I don’t have any interest in being a private investigator.”

  “And we’re not! You got a license? I don’t have a license. We’re . . . problem solvers.”

  “Problem solvers. What kinds of problems are we solving?”

  Ginny played with her toothpick, now denuded of olives, looking up at him with a coy look that—if he didn’t know better—might have been innocence.

  “I have no idea. That’s half the fun.”

  He shook his head, and sipped at his stout. He wasn’t considering her proposal. He wasn’t thinking about it. He was content.

  “No,” he said again, finally.

  Ginny just smiled.

  Georgie had been dreaming of chasing the biggest, fattest squirrel—wearing wool dress slacks—when something tapped her on the nose. She batted at it, and it tapped her again, this time with claws.

  She wasn’t surprised to see Penny sitting there; Herself had left the door to the balcony open, so Georgie could go out and relieve herself there, instead of on papers in the kitchen like when she was a puppy.

  “Hi,” Georgie said sleepily, rolling over on her side and looking up at the cat. “What’s up?”

  “She’s at the busy place.”

  “I know that.” It was rare she knew something when Penny told her, so Georgie said it again. “I knew that.”

  “They’re talking about doing it again.”

  “Doing what? Oh, no.” Georgie got up, as though she could do something about it, then and there. “No.” She s
hook her head, her left ear flopping over. “No.”

  “What? It’s a good thing. Humans are like dogs, they’re happier when they have something to chase after.”

  “The den got broken into! They almost got killed! I had to bite someone!”

  Penny sat on her haunches and licked one paw delicately, paying particular attention to the area around her claws. “Almost doesn’t count.”

  “What do you mean it doesn’t count?”

  “You almost got killed, too, when that woman pulled the gun, but you didn’t. Does that count?”

  “Yes!”

  Penny sighed dramatically. “Dogs.”

  “You . . . you’re doing this for your own entertainment, aren’t you? You don’t care about any of us.” Georgie whined a little, and both of her ears flopped.

  Penny looked insulted at that, her tail lashing in irritation. “Of course I care about you. You’re my friend. They’re our humans. We have a responsibility to them. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be fun, too!”

  “You call this fun?”

  “Yes.” Penny looked at her, wide-eyed and innocent. “Don’t you?”

  Georgie just sighed, and put her head back down on her paws.

  L. A. Kornetsky is an amateur chef, oenophile, and cat servant. She lives in New York City and also writes fantasy fiction under the name Laura Anne Gilman.

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