Born Under a Blond Sign

by V. J. Chambers

  “You took the money.”

  “Well, I didn’t have the memo. I didn’t have any proof,” said Stanley. “So, even if I ran that story, I’d only be running it with a source as proof. And if Gilbert denied it afterward, I could get sued for libel. So, anyway, there wasn’t any point in sticking it to Quikslim at that time. I didn’t have a play to make.”

  I understood his position. “Yeah, I can see your perspective.”

  “Of course, then I heard about Gilbert shooting those kids,” said Stanley. “And that just…” He shook his head. “Well, that seemed weird to me, which is the whole reason I agreed to talk to you.”

  “Do you think Gilbert was the kind of person who’d do something like that?”

  “Well, not at all,” he said. “But then people like mass murderers, you know, maybe you can’t tell, really? Lots of people thought Ted Bundy was a nice guy.”

  “Well, that’s a lot different,” I said. “He was killing serially, and this was mass shooting.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “And anyway, I tried to, um, wrap my head around it. I tried to convince myself that maybe he was so depressed that his father had taken the wind out of his sails, killing the story like that, that he got depressed and wanted to kill himself. And maybe he thought he’d just take a bunch of people with him. But I couldn’t really make it stick. Couldn’t make myself believe it. Because that wasn’t Gilbert Pike. Deep down, he wanted to do the right thing. When he found out that his father’s product had killed two people, he was devastated. This kid valued human life, and he had a conscience. I just can’t see my way clear to thinking he did it.”

  “We’re with you,” said Brigit. “There’s something else going on here.”

  “But who do you think it is?” said Stanley. “Louis?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Louis killed the story. He’d already solved the problem. There wouldn’t be any reason to kill his son, now would there?”

  “Cal,” I said. “Cal didn’t want his product—”

  “I’m telling you,” said Stanley, “Cal didn’t know about the ephedra. He was going through the motions, trying to please Daddy, but he had no freaking clue there was an illegal ingredient in there. He doesn’t have the smarts to even try something that devious.”

  I wasn’t sure. Cal seemed pretty devious when he convinced me to have dinner with him, telling me that Miles had given us his blessing. But that was a reactionary sort of manipulation. It was hot and emotionally charged. Putting an illegal ingredient in a product to make it sell better because it increased weight loss, well, that was a different kind of deviousness. And Stanley was right. Cal didn’t seem to exhibit the tendency to plot out those kinds of machinations.

  * * *

  After Stanley left, Brigit and I stared into empty coffee cups and tried to figure out where to go from here.

  “So it was the dad after all,” said Brigit.

  “Stanley didn’t seem to think so,” I said.

  “Well, maybe Gilbert didn’t roll over so quickly,” said Brigit. “Maybe after the story got killed, Gilbert was going to go to someone else, another journalist. Maybe Louis realized he couldn’t pay off every writer in the world. Maybe he realized the only way to stop Gilbert was to kill him.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But we don’t have any evidence of Gilbert talking to another journalist. There’s no number on his phone, is there?”

  “I don’t think so, but we didn’t call every number on his phone.”

  “We need to talk to Louis,” I said. “That’s for sure. We need to understand what happened.”

  “Right,” said Brigit. “Well, I’ll get my friend to get us on his schedule.”

  “Do that,” I said.

  “What about Cal?” said Brigit. “What do you think now?”

  “If Cal didn’t know about the product, then I’m not sure what his motive is,” I said. “But I do have to admit that he’s kind of been a jackass to Miles. He stole Miles’s phone to get my phone number, and then seduced me—”

  “Is that fair?” said Brigit. “To say he seduced you? Do you even need seduction?”

  “Brigit, don’t be a jerk.”

  “I’m not. I’m serious. I don’t really understand how this works. Do you need to be seduced or not? I mean, wouldn’t you just jump on anything that moved?”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “Sure, sometimes, I don’t need a lot of encouragement, but—” I glared at her. “Look, the point is that Cal did what he did not because he was into me, but because he wanted to hurt Miles. So, we know he’d go out of his way to hurt his own brother. Maybe he’s got it in him to kill the other brother.”

  “Yeah,” said Brigit. “But like you said, what’s his motive?”

  “What was his motive for being an ass to Miles?”

  “Sibling rivalry?”

  “Maybe,” I said, “and you don’t kill over sibling rivalry. Do you?”

  We both peered morosely into our cups.

  “Should we get more coffee?” said Brigit.

  “No, I’m pretty wired,” I said. “But the whipped cream was pretty fantastic. It’s tempting.”

  “If you don’t kill over sibling rivalry, and Cal isn’t our killer, then where are we with this case?” said Brigit. “We don’t have any evidence if this stuff with the energy shake turns out to be unrelated.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  We were quiet again.

  I was thinking about whipped cream.

  “Maybe one more little coffee.” I held up my fingers to show just how little. “With lots of whipped cream?”

  * * *

  “You aren’t saying what I think you’re saying,” said Louis Pike, staring at the two of us.

  We were standing just inside the door to his office, which was even more lavish and huge than Cal’s had been. This place looked like a hotel resort or something. You could practically fit my entire apartment inside. There was that much room. Like Cal’s office, the back wall was composed entirely of glass, and it gave the place an airy, bright feeling.

  “We just want to know how Gilbert reacted when you killed the story about the ephedra,” I said. “Was he angry? Did he threaten to go to another journalist?”

  “I didn’t kill my son,” said Louis. “That’s what you’re implying, isn’t it?”

  Well, he was just as defensive as Cal, wasn’t he? I crossed my arms over my chest.

  Louis got out of his chair. “Gilbert and I came to an understanding. I was going to clean up the mess he’d made by going to that reporter. I told him that the shake would never go to market with the illegal ingredient in it. I told him that I wouldn’t dare profit from something that hurt people. Once he knew all those things, he was satisfied.”

  “Well, so you say,” said Brigit.

  “I’m not lying,” said Louis. “I had no motive to murder my son.”

  I just stared him down.

  He walked around behind his desk chair and looked out the wall of glass. “I would never have done something like that. When I heard he was dead, I was devastated.”

  Well, staring him down didn’t work if he wasn’t looking at me. I cleared my throat. “Was there anyone else in the company that knew that Gilbert had gone to the journalist about the ephedra?”

  “No one even knew about the ephedra,” he said, not looking back at us.

  “What about Cal?”

  “What about him?” Louis turned back to us.

  “Did he know about the ephedra? This was his product, wasn’t it?”

  Louis gripped the back of his chair. “Cal didn’t know a thing about this. I did this without Cal’s knowledge. This was all my screw-up, you understand that?”

  Boy, he was really insistent about that, wasn’t he?

  “So, Cal didn’t know about the ingredients in his own product?” said Brigit, sounding skeptical.

  “He knew what was in the ingred
ient list we sent him,” said Louis. “It’s not as if Cal was in the manufacturing plant, watching them blend the stuff. I wanted him to have something that did well. That’s why I put him on the energy shake. I thought that if he could bring that to fruition, he’d have a higher standing in the company. More respect. People might stop treating him like he only got the job because he was my son.”

  “Well, that is the reason he got the job, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is, but he’s just so damned insecure.” He cocked his head to one side. “Why are we talking about Cal? You don’t think that Cal… Oh, no, you can’t accuse my son of murdering his brother. He would never do such a thing.”

  “You said yourself that he’s insecure. Maybe he heard about what Gilbert was planning to do to the company, and he decided to eliminate the threat. Make himself more secure.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Louis. “Cal didn’t know about what was going on with Gilbert. I promise you that. He had nothing to do with any of that. Not with putting the ephedra in the drink, not with removing it, not with covering up that story.”

  “Why don’t you walk me through this, then?” I said. “You expect me to believe that you got an idea for a drink with an illegal ingredient. Then you decided it would be better for your son if he was the one to introduce the idea. So, you gave the idea to him. Then he presented it to the company, and it was adopted. Then, when your other son found out that there was an illegal ingredient in the drink, you removed the ingredient, killed the story, and Cal was ignorant of all of this. Really?”

  “If you knew Cal, you’d understand,” he said. “He can be quite oblivious, let me tell you. He’s never had the kind of work ethic that I have, or that my son Miles has. Cal has always just been a bit… unconcerned.”

  “I do know Cal,” I said. “Or at least, I’ve spent time with him. And he’s fairly insistent that he works hard and that he’s completely responsible for that product.”

  “Well, of course he would be. The poor boy is just struggling to hold onto anything that he can call his own.”

  “Does this have something to do with this breakdown I keep hearing about? Last year, Cal lost it for some reason?”

  He glared at me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Was it a violent breakdown? A psychotic one? Is it possible that Cal went after Gilbert for no reason other than he’s mentally ill?”

  “It wasn’t like that at all,” said Louis. “You need to stop meddling in this. You’re causing more damage to my family than you could possibly know.”

  “Well, I would think that whoever had your son Gilbert killed would be the person who caused the damage. And if that person was you or Cal, then—”

  “I did not kill my son!” Louis’s voice broke. He bowed his head for a minute, collecting himself. When he looked up, there were tears spilling out of his eyes. He let them slide down his cheeks without wiping them away. “I would never have hurt my little boy. Never. And Cal didn’t do it either. Cal has problems, but they’ve got nothing to do with Gilbert, and everything to do with me.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “If I tell you this, will you back off?” said Louis. “Will you let it go?”

  “I’m following the evidence, Mr. Pike. If you have evidence that leads me elsewhere—”

  “He’s not my wife’s son,” said Louis. “There. Now you know all my dirty laundry. Little Cal was the son of my mistress, and she died in a car accident when she was pregnant with Cal. They saved the baby but couldn’t save her. He was all alone in the world, and he was my son, and I convinced my wife that we had to take him in and raise him as our own. We tried. God knows, we tried. But she could never love him the way that she loved her other boys. And he was always treated just a little bit differently. And when he found out last year, I think everything began to fall into place for him.”

  Louis took a deep breath. More tears were running down his cheeks. There was a hitch in his voice. But he plowed on. “He’d just always been treated like a second-class citizen. And he couldn’t understand it. He’d followed in my footsteps. He’d joined the company. But he felt like my wife and I favored the other boys. And he was right. I never meant to, but he always seemed like my… my other son, if you know what I mean. I love him. I’ve always loved him. But I didn’t show him that. So, yes, I gave him that product, and I told him to claim it as his own. Because that’s what fathers do for their sons. And I am trying to be his father.” Louis bowed his head again. His shoulders started to shake. He was sobbing.

  Brigit and I exchanged alarmed glances. This hadn’t been what either of us had expected. From what I knew of Louis Pike, he was cold and exacting. I didn’t expect him to cry. And in the face of such naked emotion, I couldn’t believe it was an act either. If it were, then we had a really twisted person on our hands.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I said softly. “We’ve obviously upset you. Perhaps it’s time we go.”

  * * *

  The other animal shelter was on the other side of Renmawr, out near the interstate. When I got there, I was in a little bit of a better state than I had been at the previous shelter, and I was able to concisely explain to the man working there that I was looking for a dog that had been brought in recently. I gave a description of Regan, and I even revealed that she’d been called Fluffy.

  Ugh.

  The man nodded, listening to my description, and when I was done, he said, “Actually, I do think that a dog came in matching your description. Come with me?”

  I followed him back to a similar room to the other shelter, and we walked among the cages where all the sad little dogs stood, slept, or barked. But when he stopped walking, and he pointed to the cage directly in front of us, there she was.

  I fell down to my knees and reached through the grates. “Hey there,” I said.

  Regan recognized me. I’m sure of it. Anyway, she was always a friendly dog, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that she started licking my fingers like crazy and wagging her tail like it was going out of style.

  But it still brought me to tears for some reason. Maybe it was the overt show of emotion that I’d witnessed from Louis Pike that somehow unhinged me. Or maybe I’d just really missed that damned dog. I don’t know. But I knelt there, my fingers getting licked off, and I crooned to Regan about what a pretty girl she was, and I cried.

  When I looked up at the guy who’d brought me there, he was smiling. “That’s her, huh?”

  “Yeah, that’s her.” I stood up, wiping at my face and feeling like a total idiot. Here I was crying over a dog. What the hell was wrong with me? I squared my shoulders, looked down at her, and then back at the guy. “I want to take her home.”

  His smile widened. “Of course you do.” Then he made a face. “Thing is, you’re probably going to have to wait until tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, see, there’s an adoption form that you’ll need to fill out and some other stuff that has to be processed, and right now, there’s just not enough time before we close to get it all done.”

  “Oh,” I said, my heart sinking.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “No,” I said, “it’s okay. It’s a good thing, because it’ll give me time to get my place ready for her. I kind of came here on a whim. I need to get food and treats and toys and… actually, I’m not even really sure what I need.”

  “Well, I’ll be happy to talk to you about that,” he said. “Just to be sure, though, we’ll need to verify that you live somewhere that pets are allowed, and we’ll want to know about your other pets and your children—”

  “No, no other pets,” I said. “No children.”

  “Okay,” he said, still smiling. “Well, do you want to go fill out the application now, or do you want to stay here for a minute with the dog?”

  I looked down at Regan. “Stay here, I think. Just for a minute.”

  “Sure,” he said, patting me on the back.<
br />
  Generally, I would have bristled at the contact from a stranger, but I didn’t so much mind right then.

  “I’ll be out at the desk,” he said. “Come out when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He started out. “Of course, keep in mind, you’ve got about fifteen minutes before we close.”

  “Right.” I watched him go. Then I knelt down to talk to Regan again. “Hey,” I said. “I’m here. I should have been here earlier. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should have been here earlier.”

  Regan started licking my fingers again. She forgave me already.

  Dogs were so forgiving.

  I scratched her under her chin. “Things are going to be great. You’ll see. We’re going to be very happy together. And I promise I will never lock you in a bathroom. Never.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Where were you?” said Brigit, as I sat down in The Remington with a bottle of High Life.

  “I was at the animal shelter looking for Regan,” I said.

  “Regan?”

  “The dog formerly known as Fluffy.”

  Brigit gasped. “You’re adopting Fluffy?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “See, I knew you had a soft spot for that dog. You always claimed it was about noise, but I could tell.”

  “No, you couldn’t.” I took a drink of my beer. “Every time the subject came up, you would just lecture me about breaking and entering.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have broken into that woman’s house. You really shouldn’t have.”

  I shrugged.

  “I think having a dog will suit you,” said Brigit.

  I felt uncomfortable. “Look, it’s not a big deal. Let’s talk about something else. Didn’t we say we’d meet here to discuss the case?”

  “Oh, right,” she said. “Well, I figure either Louis Pike deserves an Oscar or he didn’t kill his son.”

  “Yeah, I’m right there with you,” I said. “Besides, Stanley the journalist was right. He doesn’t really have a motive if he shut the journalist down. And since we don’t have any evidence of Gilbert pursuing the story after that, I think we move him to the back burner for now.”