by Dan Ames
“It is a bar,” I said.
“But it’s called a café?” he asked as he put the big truck into gear. “That doesn’t make a fucking lick of sense. People go in think they can get some French Toast or something? I hate uppity people. Always putting on airs.”
I didn’t quite know what to say to that so I stayed silent.
“How come you don’t carry a gun?” he asked me. “I looked after I decked you. And you call yourself a private eye? What a joke. Coming after people like me without a weapon? That’s just suicide, you stupid ass.”
“Usually I don’t need one,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” he said. “You don’t need one because you wouldn’t use it anyway. Too afraid. You’re just a pussy pretending to be some kind of neighborhood cop. I hate people like you.”
“That’s too bad because I’m quite fond of you,” I said.
He pulled into the Cadieux Café’s parking lot and I prayed to God that my feeble plan would work out. That Jeff, the young cop who’d told me about the mayor’s party was at the bar like he’d told me he usually does after work. It was a stretch, but it was the only thing I could think of.
“She calling you on a pay phone or what?”
I laughed. “A pay phone? What the hell? You stuck in 1980? There aren’t pay phones anymore.”
He reached over and half-punched me in the face but I managed to twist my head so it was more of a glancing blow.
“Keep it up, smart-ass,” he said. “Your wife is already going to be screaming for mercy. Maybe I’ll go even harder on her than I had planned.”
I’d tried hard to keep my anger in check, but I swore if he said one more thing about Anna I was going to take that gun away from him and shove it up his ass.
“Jade said she’s going to call the bar and ask the bartender if I’m there,” I explained patiently but through my gritted teeth. “That’s the plan. Do you get it?” My tone was completely patronizing but it seemed to go right over his shaved head.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said.
He dragged me out, put the kitchen towel back over my hands and we walked inside.
I saw right away that my plan had failed miserably.
Not only was Jeff not there, there wasn’t a single person at the bar. The place was completely empty.
Shit.
Now what was I going to do?
Hitchfield pushed me forward and had me sit on the stool at the far left, up against the wall, so he could pin me in.
He’d put his gun in his waistband and pulled his shirt over it.
The bartender appeared from out of a room behind the bar and walked over. She was the same middle-aged woman with the impressive attributes who had served me when I came to talk to Jeff. Different T-shirt, but it was another tight one.
“Two beers,” Hitchfield said.
I felt the muzzle of his gun press into my side.
“All right,” she said.
She brought the beers and Hitchfield threw a ten dollar bill on the bar. When she brought the change back, he scooped it all up except for fifty cents.
Jeez, a bad tipper, too.
I had no way of drinking the beer, but Hitchfield took a long pull of his and glanced at the clock over the bar. When the bartender slipped into the back room, probably for a smoke, he leaned forward and whispered in my ear.
“I’m giving you five minutes or until I finish these beers,” he said. “Whichever comes first.”
With that, he drained the rest of his first beer in three giant gulps. Then he winked at me.
He glanced toward the back room to make sure the bartender wasn’t watching then slid my beer in front of him and put his empty in front of me.
We waited in silence, except for the jukebox playing in the background. Some country song about someone buying a boat.
A boat sounded like a nice place to be, I thought.
Anywhere seemed like a better place to be than right here. Right now.
The bartender came back over, saw my empty and asked me if I wanted a refill.
Hitchfield’s gun went into my ribs again.
“No thanks,” I said.
She left and it took him another five minutes to finish the second beer.
By then, we’d been there at least ten minutes and I desperately tried to think of something to keep him there, but I drew a blank.
I tried to catch the bartender’s eye and thought about asking if Jeff was coming in but I figured that wouldn’t accomplish much.
Hitchfield slammed down his second beer bottle, now empty, onto the bar.
“Let’s go,” he said softly.
The bartender reappeared upon hearing the sound of the empty bottle, but Hitchfield gave her a little wave. She collected the empties and Hitchfield got to his feet. He hesitated until the bartender’s back was turned then he hoisted me up.
We walked to the front door, me leading the way so Hitchfield could block the view of the bartender and we made it outside.
“Can’t wait to have some quality time with your wife, John” Hitchfield said. He gave a little giggle and he seemed extremely happy that Jade hadn’t appeared. It was all the excuse he was going to need.
He opened the passenger door and pushed me in none too gently. I waited for the door to slam shut but it didn’t.
Instead, I heard the sound of tires on gravel.
I turned and looked.
Nix stood there, looking at me.
Behind him, I saw two big guys in black suits shoving Hitchfield into the back seat of their big black SUV.
Nix pulled out a switchblade and I held my hands out.
I had no idea if he was going to stab me or free me.
Without taking his eyes from my face, he sliced through the duct tape.
“There’s a small price for the service I just provided,” he said.
“Name it,” I said. My wrists were rubbed raw.
“All I want is a little gap in your memory that includes seeing me and my guys here,” Nix said. His eyes were flat and his voice was soft. Everything else about him had the edge I remembered.
Nix was someone I never wanted to see again.
“As far as you can remember you came here for a drink and left. Never saw anyone. Certainly not any individuals who resemble me in any way. Understand?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
Nix scanned my eyes and seemed satisfied. He walked around to the passenger side of the big SUV and got inside. They drove off.
I got out of Hitchfield’s truck and shut the door.
It would be a short walk home.
40
The flight to Los Angeles landed on time but then I had to wait in a long line for my rental car.
Traveling was not one of my favorite things to do. It always seemed like if you ever actually got a break like a flight arriving ten minutes early you then lost that ten plus another twenty waiting for the guys at the gate to get the boarding door open.
Eventually I was able to get the little envelope with my number and then I headed out to the rental car parking lot to look for my car. I found my numbered space and in it sat a little Ford Hatchback.
It was a bright blue which seemed like an odd color but I didn’t care.
With a software program that provided reverse lookup for cell phone numbers I had learned that the phone used to call Lace had come from a drug rehab center just north of the city of Los Angeles.
After some consideration, I had decided it might be best for me to come out and see if that’s where Kierra was before I shared the information with Marvin and Arnella.
False hope was the worst kind.
Once again using my phone’s navigation I punched in the address for the facility and pulled out of the lot.
After a few twists and turns on surface streets I eventually made it to the freeway.
Traffic was light, which was a mild surprise for me because I’d heard nightmare stories about traffic jams in LA. As I drove, I thought ab
out the case. It still wasn’t exactly clear to me who had hired Hitchfield and how Kierra had managed to get out here to a drug rehab facility. The Cottons had been very clear with me that they didn’t have the kind of money something like this would take.
So who was paying for it if in fact I found out that Kierra was really out here?
No answers came to me and after less than an hour on the road I pulled up into the Mountain View Center, a lodge-style main building with several smaller structures surrounding it.
I parked in a visitor spot and went inside.
“Hi, I’m here to see Kierra Cotton,” I said to the perky attendant. She was a sun-kissed California girl complete with blonde hair, blue eyes and perfect teeth.
“Oh,” she said with a big smile. “She’s getting a lot of visitors today. Kierra is outside right now with her attorney.”
Her attorney?
Why would Kierra be meeting with an attorney?
The thoughts washed over any relief I felt that I had most likely found her and that she was alive.
The front desk attendant asked for my ID and to fill out some information on a visitor’s log, but the pit of my stomach had gone ice-cold. I shoved my ID at her, took the clipboard and looked around the lobby.
“That’s great, do you think I could just give her a quick hello first?” I said. “Where are they meeting?”
She smiled, looked at me and then laughed. “You look harmless to me,” she said. “Just promise to fill that out before you leave.”
She pointed to a set of doors at the back of the room. “Those doors right there lead out to our nature preserve,” she said. “That’s where they are. Outside.”
“Thank you,” I said. I walked to the doors, opened them and stepped outside. I set the clipboard down on a bench just outside the door.
The preserve was a long sloping area of green, like a fairway on a golf course, that led down to a small pond. There was a ridge above the pond and I saw several paved pathways radiating out from the doorway in different directions.
Some of the walkways disappeared inside some impressive foliage. Giant rose bushes, and ivy-covered shrubs that had to be ten feet tall.
I scanned the area for Kierra.
Where to start?
I saw a few solitary walkers wandering around. One group of about six people appeared to be doing some kind of yoga or stretching exercise in a finely cropped circle of lawn.
And then I heard a loud crack that could only be a gunshot.
It came from the direction of the pond.
I started to run and several heads turned toward the same direction. Someone screamed and then I saw something just past the pond.
Near the edge of the tree line.
As I ran, the scene came into view. A tall man with a head of silver hair stood next to a person in a wheelchair.
Both of them were looking down at the ground.
At a third person.
I had no gun. I had no weapon at all.
But I ran as fast as I possibly could and when I came within speaking distance of them, the man turned toward me.
Michael Vaughn had a gun in his hand.
Kierra was in the wheelchair, her eyes wide with fear. She looked more like the girl in the photo on the Cotton’s mantle than the skinny party girl on Instagram.
I could now see that she was tied into the wheelchair with a gag in her mouth.
The person on the ground was a woman.
With red hair.
When I was ten feet away, I stopped running and walked forward.
A pool of blood was seeping out from beneath the dead woman on the ground.
Michael Vaughn looked at me.
“Claire was going to kill her,” Vaughn said.
“Why?”
He looked up at the sky.
“Was it blackmail?” I asked. That was my theory. “Was AJ blackmailing you?”
Vaughn nodded.
“I wasn’t ashamed of what Kierra and I had. I was in love with her. But Claire couldn’t deal with it. She didn’t care about the money. She just wanted her image and prestige.”
Vaughn smiled. “It wouldn’t do that her husband was in love with another man.”
“You sent her out here, didn’t you?” I asked.
Vaughn nodded again.
“So why Hitchfield then? You knew where she was all along.”
“Claire told me to. I had to play along.”
“Let her go now, Michael.”
“Somehow Claire figured out that I had hidden Kierra out here and she took off. That’s when I called Nix.”
Vaughn reached out and pulled the gag from Kierra’s mouth.
“Michael, don’t,” she said.
“I love you,” Vaughn said.
He then put the muzzle of the gun in his mouth and fired.
41
Nix disconnected from the call and slid the cell phone into his pocket.
He looked down at Clay Hitchfield.
“Before our boss left town,” Nix said, “he told me he was going to put an end to this thing. And he asked me to put an end to you.”
They stood in the abandoned warehouse Clay had used for his private torture sessions and body disposal.
Hitchfield was trussed up like a turkey at Thanksgiving. Nix had taken the man’s gun and his knives. He’d also done a thorough inspection of the warehouse. He’d even discovered the white boy’s little hidey-hole. Nix had survived this long by knowing everyone’s moves well ahead of the time when he might need to take advantage of them.
So when Vaughn had called and given him his orders, he knew exactly what to do.
And where to do it.
One of Nix’s men slid open the giant cement cover to the pool of acid. The other one of Nix’s men dragged Hitchfield over to the opening. The white boy was terrified but trying not to act like it.
“I got money,” Hitchfield said. “I can pay you more than what you’re getting now. For this.”
Nix smiled at him.
“You’ve got more money than a judge and her husband who’s a partner at one of the biggest law firms in the city?” Nix said. “You know his Christmas bonus every year is probably a couple million dollars, right?
One of Nix’s men laughed.
“And you’re saying you’ve got more money than they do? And that’s why you wear clothes from the dollar store and a truck from 1970?”
Hitchfield’s head sagged. He looked around him. At each of Nix’s men and then his gaze finally settled on Nix himself.
“I always knew some scum from the ghetto would get me in the end,” he said. “Some filthy scum that never should have been born.”
Nix smiled.
“Some beautiful last words right there,” he said. “That’s poetry, man.”
He pulled the gun out of his shoulder holster and looked at it.
“I was going to be nice and shoot you first, then dump you,” Nix said. He slid the gun back into its holster. “But since you’re obviously an ignorant racist cracker, I’ll just skip to the good part.”
Nix raised his foot and kicked him in the stomach, then nodded at his men. The two of them picked up Hitchfield and tossed him into the pit of acid.
He struggled and writhed in the slime, his mouth open.
One of Nix’s men used a long piece of rebar to push Clay’s head under the acid as he kicked and fought to stay above it.
After a scream or two, Clay’s head went all the way under and it never came back up.
“That’s the deal with racists,” Nix said. “All talk, no real fight in ‘em.”
42
The Cottons ended up flying to Los Angeles. It took them several weeks to arrange for Kierra’s release.
When she was able, they all flew back to Grosse Pointe.
By then, I had already been back for awhile and was now working on several new cases.
Marvin Cotton appeared in my doorway one morning with a couple cups of coffee from the Star
bucks down the street. He also had a couple pieces of lemon cake.
“Cheers,” he said and we each drank our coffee. I devoured my piece of lemon cake with gusto.
“Since it’s lemon, does that count as a fruit?” I asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Marvin answered.
Once the cake was gone I asked, “So how is she doing?”
“It’s going to take some adjusting,” he said. “And we were worried that when she came home she might fall back in with some of her friends. But AJ is gone and we all did some group therapy out there in Los Angeles.”
“You have to,” I said. “It’s the law. Any stays of two or more days you are required by California law to do some yoga and at least one therapy session.”
Marvin laughed.
“I just wanted to thank you for what you did,” he said. He dropped an envelope on my desk. “That’s the final payment.”
“I’m just glad I could help,” I said. “How is Arnella doing?”
The story had gotten a lot of press, obviously. A prominent judge and lawyer dead from a murder suicide. But so far, Kierra’s involvement had been minimal as far as the reporting was concerned.
“She’s doing fine,” Marvin said. “At first she was worried about what people might say and do. But I think she’s in a good place. We’ve all accepted what the situation is and we love our daughter. We would do anything for her, including helping to figure out how we can help her financially with her transition.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “But we’re all going to work together and make it happen. We want her to be happy. And being happy requires being true to yourself.”
I nodded and Marvin got to his feet. He stuck out his hand and I shook it.
“If there’s anything else I can ever do, just let me know,” I said.
Marvin smiled, patted me on the shoulder and left my office.
Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I took it out and looked at the screen, saw it was Anna.
With a smile I swiped to accept the call.
“Grandmaster John speaking,” I said. “How can I help you?”
THE END
