Hell on Wheels

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “The taste of the sports drink probably masked the poison. Or he might not have noticed anything off in the excitement of the game.” Steele paused, and I thought I heard him gulp some liquid. “The question, Grey, is who put it in his water bottle? Whoever did this had to have access to it without raising any suspicion. Would Miranda have had access to it?”

  “That’s a good question. And would she have had access to the poison? How easy is it to get?”

  “It’s obtainable, but not as easy as you might think. The government really clamped down on it after the Tylenol poisonings in the ’80s. Do you remember that?”

  I dug through my brain. “Didn’t someone lace capsules of Tylenol with cyanide, causing the deaths of several people?”

  “Yes. It was in the Chicago area, and they never found the killer. That event caused most drug companies to stop using capsules for over-the-counter drugs and to develop better tamper-proof packaging.”

  “Okay,” I said, filing the information away in my brain. “So where would someone get cyanide today?”

  “Well, it’s not like it’s on sale at Target, priced at two for five dollars. Forms of cyanide are used in pest control, especially in the wild or in industry, as well as in mining and even electroplating jewelry. If someone has connections to one of these industries, it could be fairly easy to get. It would be a little more difficult for other people, but not impossible.” He laughed. “You can order a do-it-yourself electroplating kit online that comes with a form of cyanide, but the kits aren’t cheap, although most home kits now come with a non-cyanide solution.”

  I shook my head. “You really got into this, didn’t you?”

  “You know how I love research.”

  I paused, then said slowly, “Should I worry about drinking anything at your place in the future?”

  “Not if you stay in line, Grey.”

  I smiled to myself. “Speaking of which, what is this BS about my stopping by your place tonight? Jolene just told me she has stuff for me to drop off.”

  Steele sighed. It was the sigh that signaled I’d forgotten something important, or at least something important to him. I waited, knowing that after the dramatic pause he would enlighten me as to my alleged goof.

  “I think that went without saying, Grey. Every night this week, you’ll need to bring by any work that can’t be scanned and emailed and take back to the office the work I’ve finished.”

  “I don’t recall agreeing to be your errand girl, Steele, and I don’t have time for it, not with everything else going on. I’ll send a messenger.” When he paused, I added, “Or I could send someone from the office.”

  I knew Steele wasn’t so much of an ass he wouldn’t understand about my personal time crunch, and I knew he would not want someone from T&T showing up at his door looking the way he did. Cruz might not be the only one who immediately pegged his injuries for what they really were.

  “Use a service,” he finally answered, “but tell them to leave it by the front door, no signature required.”

  “Okay, will do, but what about work you have coming back to the office?”

  “There’s not much, just some letters. I’ll email them to Jill, and she can print and sign them for me.”

  “Now, if you will excuse me,” I told Steele, “I need to get the work you emailed to me last night done before I call the messenger.”

  “What about Tanaka’s criminal report?” Steele asked. “Anything you want me to follow up on with regard to that?”

  “What report?” I asked, truly puzzled.

  Another big sigh. This one was deeper and longer and relayed that I must be slipping into senility. “The report I gave you last night that you were going to show to Greg,” Steele reminded me.

  “Oh, that report.” I started digging through my bag.

  “You never showed it to Greg, did you? I’ll bet it’s still in that overnight bag you call a purse. It’s probably wedged between your makeup bag and a Snickers bar.”

  A lot he knew. It was under the toasted cranberry bagel I’d picked up on my way in and forgot about. I pulled the report out and used a fingertip to wipe away a small gob of melted cream cheese that had oozed onto it from the hastily wrapped bagel.

  “You’re right, at least about not showing it to Greg. With everything that was going on last night and this morning, I forgot. Cut me some slack, would ya?”

  He paused. “You’re right. You do have a lot going on. Sorry.”

  I froze. Had Steele actually apologized to me? I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it, then tapped it like it was on the fritz. “I’m sorry, Steele, what did you just say?”

  Another deep sigh. “I said I was sorry, Grey. Make me say it again and I’ll set the dogs on you the next time you drop by.”

  “You don’t have a dog, singular or plural.”

  “I’ll rent a whole pack just for the occasion.”

  I grinned at the phone. It was nice to see that even though Steele had had the crap beaten out of him, his assailants hadn’t bludgeoned his spirit.

  “I’ll scan this to Greg when I get off the phone,” I told my boss. “That way he’ll see it sooner.” I scanned the report, running my eyes over it to see if there was anything of note. “Are there Cliff’s Notes to this, too?”

  Another deep sigh from his end.

  “Do you have a slow leak, Steele?”

  “Basically, Tanaka was a real jerk,” Steele said after letting go with another longer, deeper, and very exaggerated sigh just to annoy me, “but it sounds like you already knew that. He’s had a few scrapes with the law for public brawling. He even served sixty days for one assault. He was also arrested on a few domestic violence charges, but those were eventually dropped. Seems the guy liked to get physical with most anyone, male and female, but mostly women.”

  “Anger issues? Maybe over his injuries?”

  “Could be, or it could be he was an ass before whatever happened to put him in a chair.”

  I made a mental note to ask Greg if he knew how Peter Tanaka became a quad. My eye snagged on something in the report. “Is this a drug charge?”

  “That, Grey, is the big news. Seems Tanaka was also a drug dealer.”

  “Dealer, user, or both?”

  “Not sure about the using, but considering his athletic abilities, if he was using it would have been steroids or some other performance-enhancement drugs, not the hard stuff.”

  I read the information with a more focused eye. “It doesn’t say that here.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I placed a few calls early this morning. Those charges were for selling heroin and cocaine.”

  “Were you impersonating an attorney again, Steele?”

  He laughed. With the swelling of his mouth, it came out almost like he was clearing his throat. “According to my source, Tanaka was suspected for a long time of being a small-time dealer in Canada, but due to some bad handling of the evidence, they had to drop the charges. They were hoping to leverage those charges to find out the names of the higher-ups.”

  I looked once again at the list of Tanaka’s criminal history, wishing the whole story was there. Maybe it was scratched in the margins or between the lines with invisible ink, like the stuff we made in elementary school with lemon juice that could only be seen when held over a light bulb. Or maybe we needed to make a few more calls. “This drug arrest happened earlier this year,” I said to Steele. “I wonder if that’s why he left Canada and returned to California.”

  “Could be. Maybe things got too hot for him. My source said Tanaka was under constant surveillance after he was released.”

  “Did you tell your source that he was murdered?”

  “Sure did, and he was only surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner.”

  I waited for more information, but Steele was quiet on the other end. “Did your source offer up any suggestions as to who might have done it?”

  “He said it could have been most anyone—an angry husband or boy
friend, a battered woman, or even his drug supplier. Or maybe Peter Tanaka made a whole new set of disreputable friends when he returned to Southern California.”

  Eleven

  After I scanned the report and sent it to Greg, I took a careful look at it. Steele had provided more than just a criminal report, which was on top. He’d also discovered a lot of personal information about Peter Tanaka. He had grown up in Altadena, California, and would have turned thirty-two in just three months. He had graduated from Pasadena High School and from Pasadena City College, transferring to Cal State LA to complete a bachelor’s degree. According to the report in my hand, Tanaka never received his degree, dropping out in his last year. His current address was listed in Altadena. None of this came from Westlaw. It was on another page without the legal search engine’s footer.

  It seemed my boss did have sources outside of his usual legal research packages. Did he hire a private eye to get this information? Not that he’d ever tell me, but I definitely planned on asking Steele the next time I was eyeball to eyeball with him.

  I looked again at the report and wondered if Tanaka had dropped out of college before or after the event that had landed him full-time in a wheelchair. I didn’t have to wonder long. The information on the next page informed me that he had been injured in a bad car accident his senior year in college. He and a few friends had been drinking and joy riding along the winding Angeles Crest Highway when their vehicle went over an embankment. There had been three people in the vehicle. The driver and one passenger, a woman, had been killed. Tanaka had been thrown away from the vehicle, breaking his back in several places and leaving him a quadriplegic.

  I closed my eyes against the horror. The words of the report stretched across the page in a clinical formation of black against white, like industrious ants marching across a clean kitchen counter. Still, the tragedy and senselessness wasn’t dampened. Peter Tanaka had not only been crippled for life, he’d lost two friends, all because they didn’t believe they were too drunk to drive. I read more of the report. It seemed that the accident had only involved their car. It was a small glimmer of light. At least they hadn’t plowed into someone else, inflicting carnage upon innocent people.

  Putting down the report, I went back to thinking about where Steele might have gotten the information. The way the report was written and formatted on the page reminded me of something, or at least of someone. With a few taps on my keyboard, I found the name in our firm’s online contact list and placed a call to the number indicated. The call was answered on the fourth ring by a woman who sounded out of breath.

  “Barbara?” I asked.

  “Yes.” The voice was cautious—not “danger” cautious but the kind of care reserved for when you’re not sure if you’ve just answered a call from a solicitor.

  “Barbara, this is Odelia Grey. I work for Mike Steele.”

  “Odelia, of course.” The voice changed from cautious to friendly. “How are you?”

  Barbara Marracino’s late husband, Larry, had worked as a freelance corporate investigator. Like a police dog sniffing out drugs, Larry could follow the money or dubious transactions or track down owners or partners who wanted to remain silent. If something smelled of rotten fish in the business world, he’d find out why—for a price. Over the years Steele had used his services, mostly when he wanted to make sure the people opposite a client on a big deal were above-board. I’d heard that after Larry passed away a few years ago, Barbara had taken over his business—not the actual field work but the computer end of it. We hadn’t needed such services in quite some time, and I wondered if Barbara was still in the business.

  “I’m fine, thanks. And yourself?”

  “Not bad for an old broad with creaky joints. I’m mostly housebound these days with my bad knees and back, but my son and his wife visit often with the grandkids. And I keep busy with my research business.”

  “So I see from the report I’m holding.” I had no concrete evidence that Barbara had prepared the report on Tanaka, but I plunged forward on my hunch. If it wasn’t Barbara feeding Steele this information, no harm. I’d just cross her off the list, which was short since it contained only her name and Clark’s. I wouldn’t put it past Steele to call my brother about something like this. He’d figured out that Clark now worked for Willie, and I wouldn’t put it past Clark to keep silent about work he might be doing for Steele.

  “Do you have any more to give Steele on this Tanaka guy?” I asked Barbara, hoping it was her. I really didn’t want to ask Clark about it.

  “Yes,” she answered. “As a matter of fact, just this morning I confirmed the information on his family. Should I send it to Mr. Steele or to you?”

  I let loose the breath I was holding and smiled with self-satisfaction. “How about to both of us.” Not wanting this run through the T&T system, I gave her my personal email address.

  “Will do.” She cackled softly. “This must be off the books, because Mr. Steele used his personal email account too.”

  “Yes, way off the books. In fact, it’s something personal for me and my husband, and Steele is helping us with it.”

  “Do you want the information I pulled on Miranda and Richard Henderson, too?”

  “Steele had you look into them?” I tried my best to keep the surprise out of my voice. Greg and I had discussed our need to question some of their other friends, especially Miranda’s, but it never occurred to me that it would occur to Steele. I’d only asked him to research cyanide.

  “Yes. He emailed me yesterday about it.”

  “Do you have employment information on the Hendersons?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Then copy me on that, too,” I told her, silently thanking Steele for saving me time in ferreting out Miranda’s work information. I knew she was a dental hygienist but had no idea where. “Did Steele also ask you to run a check on cyanide poisoning?”

  “No,” Barbara answered, “but I can if you like. Most of my assignments are for writers, especially crime writers. You’d be amazed at what they ask me to research. It’s a really good setup, especially for someone with my limited physical capacity, and it doesn’t involve all the running around that Larry did.” She paused. “It was so nice to hear from you and Mr. Steele. It has been a while. Do you think you’ll be needing my services beyond this?”

  “We just might, Barbara. We’ll let you know.” I had never thought of using Barbara Marracino before for my nosiness and was kicking myself. She could have saved me a lot of time in the past on the things that weren’t deep and dark. I usually went to Clark and Willie for that information, but the general stuff I did on my own with what resources I could muster. I was sure Barbara had many more streams of information than I knew of, and she had more time. And using her would help keep my activities off of Clark and Willie’s radar, more or less. Leave it to Steele to think of her.

  Before I said goodbye to Barbara, I glanced at the report and thought of something else. “Barbara, do you also have information on the two people who were killed in that car accident involving Peter Tanaka?”

  “No, just their names, which is in the information I sent. Do you want me to locate their people?”

  “Yes, that would be very helpful. Thanks.”

  “Glad for the work.”

  For a moment I considered asking Barbara to go way, way off the books and investigate what had happened to Steele in Perris, but I quickly changed my mind. Cruz was right. One day we would know, and if Steele ever got wind that I was having him investigated, he’d never forgive me. And I wouldn’t blame him. No matter how snarky we were with each other, when push came to shove, we were also dead loyal to each other. Steele had had my back on numerous occasions, especially when it came time for me to leave Woobie, and I’d had his just as many times. For the time being, I’d just have to sit on my hands when it came to Steele and focus on the issues and people at hand—and the work I needed to get done for the firm. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much. Steele had sent em
ail instructions on some things he needed done, and I had a couple of minor things for other attorneys that I had dispatched quickly before digging into Steele’s work.

  Coming in so late, I’d lost track of time and was surprised when I checked the time to see it was well past my usual lunch hour. My squashed bagel still sat in its loose wrapper on my desk, looking forlorn and unappetizing, but I gnawed on it anyway, downing the bites with slurps of cold morning coffee from my mug. I had more important things on my mind at the moment than digging up a better lunch. I wanted to use the time to set out my plan of attack on the information Barbara had provided, which now included the names and last known addresses of the families of two people killed in Tanaka’s car accident. The woman’s name had been Heather Stuart; the driver’s, Wayne Mercer.

  My divide-and-conquer plotting was interrupted by my cell phone. It was Greg. “Hi, honey,” I said upon answering. “Did you get the emails I sent you? I sent two.”

  “Yep, looking at them now,” he answered. “It’s the first chance I’ve had all day. That drug stuff is interesting. Considering the way Miranda died, if it isn’t suicide, my money is on a drug dealer connection.”

  “On the surface it looks that way,” I told him, “but do you really think Miranda was involved in drugs?”

  “Maybe not, but if she was involved with Tanaka, the drug dealers might have taken her out, thinking she knew too much.”

  “But why hurt Rocky? I don’t think he knew anything about an affair with Tanaka until right before Peter died, so he wouldn’t know anything about the drugs unless he was also a loose end they wanted tied up.”

  “Could be,” Greg replied, “but we still don’t know if Rocky’s injury was self-inflicted or a murder attempt. That might be totally unrelated to Tanaka and Miranda’s murders. Could be that Rocky had just reached the end of his rope with the murder and Miranda’s death crashing down on him.” He paused. “Interesting information on Tanaka’s accident. In all the time I’d spent around him years ago, I’d never heard about this. I only knew it was a vehicle accident, not that other people were killed.”