Baylin House (Cassandra Crowley Mystery)

by L. J. Parker

  Finally, the bus coughed a cloud of black smoke and roared away from the curb. Gorduno inched the sedan forward until he could make the turn, and then hit the gas hard to move out of the stream of smoke. Gasping now, he lowered his window and turned on the A/C full blast. Baxter lowered his own window, grateful to clear the air trapped inside the car.

  Still, neither of them spoke.

  The left side of the street had even numbered addresses for two large apartment complexes about five years old. Number 3219 St. Ignatius, the address listed in the dead man’s wallet, would be on the right hand side of the street.

  They found it in the middle of the block; single story cinder block with four units, surrounded by waist-high chain-link fence on the property line.

  Gorduno eased to the curb ten feet short of the mailbox.

  Just then, the man they’d seen climb off the bus, the heavyweight in red uniform shirt and dark trousers, came from the corner behind and walked through the gate. Gorduno watched the moving figure, wheezing, “If he’s a neighbor maybe he could make the ID. Let’s wait and see where he goes.”

  The Detectives sat quiet, watching. To their surprise, the man went straight to the door marked 3219. Seconds after he reached the covered stoop, the door opened and he walked inside, closing the door behind him.

  Baxter called dispatch and requested a cross-index search on the address. They waited in the car for the answer. “Property owner’s name is Harold Cashion with a Dallas address for contact. Lease Holder is Rosalie Baylin Trust in care of Thornton & Laswell CPA LLC, located at 2900 North Mayfair Boulevard this city. Do you want their phone number?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Baxter said as he wrote the names and address in his notebook, and then added the phone number when she read it to him.

  Gorduno glanced at the notebook and grunted. “Thornton, huh?”

  Baxter arched his eyebrows in question.

  “His dad was big man on campus at Cordell High. His grandpa was a Cozier.” Gorduno pronounced the French name Cozz-ee-aay.

  None of that meant anything to Baxter.

  “No mention of a Brady Irwin at this address?” he asked the dispatcher.

  “No Brady Irwin anywhere in our records. Kirkland already ran that one. He’s sending it through NCIC now, and he sent three sets of prints to AFIS.”

  Baxter closed his notepad and slid it into his pocket as they got out of the car. They went through the gate and followed the concrete walk to the door marked 3219. Gorduno knocked.

  They easily recognized the same man they saw a few minutes ago. He had changed from the red uniform shirt to a casual gray tee, and changed from the dark blue trousers to cut-off sweats that hung a couple inches below his knees. He was around Gorduno’s age, sixty-something, six feet tall, easily 300 pounds, with large features on a large round head. He didn’t look muscular, just large.

  Gorduno held his badge in front of the man’s face, and watched for his reaction. “I’m Detective Gorduno and this is Detective Baxter. Okay if we come in and talk to you a few minutes?”

  Neither Detective expected the child-like excitement that met their request. “Sure!” the man said with a big smile. “Wow, you’re real cops?”

  “Yeah, we are,” Detective Baxter said, stepping forward. Obviously, this man was not completely normal, but that did not confirm innocence or guilt of anything. “We have a case to work on and we might need your help. Okay if we come inside and talk to you a while?”

  The man bobbed his head eagerly and stood aside for them to enter. Gorduno grunted and followed Baxter through the door.

  Inside the small apartment was an eclectic collection of cast-offs; worn out green frieze sofa, scratched end table holding a lamp, small TV atop an orange crate, another crate holding magazines and newspapers. Through a door on the right was a bed; green army blanket, no bedspread. And straight ahead, a round patio table, two unmatched chairs, cubbyhole kitchen.

  It was old, but the place looked clean and smelled clean.

  “Okay,” Baxter said, standing inside the small living room, “Let’s start with - does someone live here with you?”

  “Noooooo,” the man said, wagging his head back and forth, “that’s not allowed.”

  Baxter and Gorduno glanced at each other.

  “This is my place,” the man confirmed with a big smile. “I work at Halvery Foods every day.” He held up one hand and ticked off the days on his fingers. “Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Five days.”

  Baxter kept his attention on the man’s eyes. “Looks like you take good care of the place here. My name is Rob. This is Pete. What’s your name?”

  “My name’s Brady,” the man answered proudly.

  Baxter and Gorduno locked eyes for a beat. Gorduno said, “Brady Irwin?”

  “Yeah! How’d you know that?”

  Baxter said, “I think somebody down at the police station found your wallet, Brady. Did you lose it somewhere that you know of?”

  Brady’s face lit up. “Really? I thought I lost it for good. Wow! Can I have it back? It was a Christmas present and I don’t want Harvey to know I lost it.”

  “Harvey, uh-huh. Where’s Harvey now?”

  “Harvey works at Baylin House. He helps Miss Rosalie.”

  Chapter One

  Cassie’s nerves were raw as road burn long before the Detectives showed up at Baylin House.

  Her day began when she rolled out of bed at three o’clock that morning, twelve-hundred miles away in her home town of Las Vegas, Nevada. She’d showered and dressed, packed the last minute items that needed to be in the suitcase, and made one more pass around the inside of her second floor condo for anything she missed.

  The digital clock on the stove glowed 4:03 when she turned everything off, and stepped outside into the suffocating desert heat that hung somewhere in the 90’s even at that hour.

  She walked to the end of the sidewalk with her suitcase and carry-on to wait for the cab she’d requested. A late model orange and green Ford eased its way slowly in the main drive, still two buildings away. Cassie stepped off the sidewalk and waved an arm; the cab sped up and quickly reached where she stood.

  The driver jumped from his seat behind the wheel, yanked open the rear passenger door as he trotted past, and hardly paused as he raised the already unlocked trunk lid. It opened easily when he touched it, but groaned when he pushed it higher. He stepped to the sidewalk and grabbed Cassie’s bulging Voyager Duffle, straining as he swung it into the trunk. It landed with a thud.

  Hair behind Cassie’s ears prickled; she snapped down the handle of her carry-on, and lifted it into the back seat as she climbed in. Her precious laptop computer was inside and she could not afford to have it banged around like that.

  “Just the one bag, Ma’am?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  The trunk lid slammed down and the driver returned to his seat.

  “Which airline?” He spoke over his shoulder as he backed the cab into an open parking space to turn it around.

  “American,” she told him.

  “Main terminal then,” he said, nodding. “Fifteen minutes tops.” He seemed to be talking to himself, not to Cassie. He picked up a microphone hanging on the dash and mumbled into it. A moment later, a squawking reply sounded like foreign code, but he apparently understood it. He completed a turn onto Warm Springs Road headed west. Then he mashed the accelerator and the cab shot toward the airport like something was chasing it.

  Later Cassie sat in the open boarding area at McCarran International with a couple dozen other passengers, watching the purple sky turn pink, then orange, and finally yellow as the sun crept from behind the horizon. Already there were heat waves rising like undulating fronds from the tarmac outside the windows. The TV hanging from the ceiling announced the official temperature expected to top 112 degrees for the fifth day in a row. Cassie rolled her eyes. That meant 112 at the airport; some areas of the valley would be ten degrees higher by late afte
rnoon, 120 degrees in any parking lot in town, 180+ inside a locked car with the windows rolled up, so when you finish shopping you can bake your brains along with a batch of cookies on the way home. Welcome to the desert in July, folks!

  It was a good time to get away for a while. Cassie had never been to the Gulf Coast before, and a few weeks work with expenses paid -- sun and sand and a paycheck attached – was more than welcome, it was a lifesaver.

  She had been happy enough in the Marketing Department at the Horizon Holiday Resort until last year when her boss jumped ship to another property. The new boss brought his own staff – that’s why they call it ‘musical chairs’ when Gaming Industry bosses move around. Without a college degree attached to her name, Cassie was not invited to come with the departing team.

  The ‘downsizing lay-off’ notice didn’t take long to show up, and her job hunting efforts since then hadn’t found much over poverty level, so she took whatever she could get from Lattimore Temp Agency. That meant posting invoices at a furniture store and job costing for a small construction company, both on part-time basis only.

  To earn extra cash two years ago, Cassie worked on an autobiography for a pompous professor at UNLV who shall remain nameless because he was a jerk to work for. Her contract included a portion of the Royalty earnings as well as the meager salary his publisher approved for “editing fees”. When the first Royalty check showed up in the mail six months ago it was enough to pay for the laptop computer and to put Cassie back in the black for a while.

  This spring there was another check, only smaller. The Jerk must have run out of friends and relatives willing to pay for his pretentious hardback in case lots.

  Cassie’s friends at Lattimore added another assignment: stuffing envelopes and typing contracts three days a week for Convention Services Management Corp. But hanging onto the condo without a steady job, waiting for the sale to close, was taking everything faster than Cassie could make it. Her bank account was shaky again; her cell phone service was cut off for non-payment, and it looked like all the proceeds from the condo would be gobbled up by Realtor Fees and Escrow costs.

  She was running low on options, and at forty-two, she really hated the idea of moving home with Mom and Dad until something better came along. She hated admitting one more failure, one more disappointment for her mother to add to her list, with Cassie’s divorce from David The Golden One at the top, and No Grandbabies right underneath. It didn’t matter that Cassie was the one who couldn’t reproduce, and that David was the one who moved to more fertile pastures. In her mother’s mind, there was always room for argument about what Cassie should have done differently to save the marriage. Maybe David wouldn’t have strayed if . . . if . . . Cassie avoided the subject best by not spending too much time around her parents.

  So she was open to the startling proposal when Dorothy Kennelly called from Texas last Friday. Cassie vaguely remembered meeting Mrs. Kennelly several years ago; remembered the Kennellys live in Florida most of the year and travel in late summer and fall to avoid inconvenience during Hurricane Season. The year they visited Las Vegas, they spent most of the time with Cassie’s parents, and enlisted Cassie to hand address envelopes for a fund raiser of some kind that Mrs. Kennelly was coordinating. Cassie didn’t hang around to get acquainted with her mother’s guests, but she remembered the woman as a few years younger than her grandmother, long boned and stringy, maybe a barefoot inch under six feet tall – actually eye-to-eye with Cassie, which was unusual enough. She had the demeanor of a drill sergeant. Dorothy Kennelly’s husband, whom she referred to as The General, was an ancient military retiree who looked old enough to have fought in the Civil War.

  The phone call began with Dorothy Kennelly introducing herself and explaining she had gotten Cassie’s number from Helen, Cassie’s mother.

  “Yes? How can I help you?”

  “You can help me by editing and finishing an autobiography and have it ready for bookstore release before Thanksgiving.”

  “Before Thanksgiving? That’s not enough time to--”

  “Yes it is, Cassandra, most of it is already written. You’ll do some filling and polishing is all. Helen said you were available when I told her I can triple what Templeton Publishers paid, plus living expenses of course. This project is very important to me, Cassandra. Will you do it?”

  Cassie almost choked at the triple-pay offer; Mrs. Kennelly definitely knew how to hold her attention. “Maybe if you could tell me what the project is about?”

  “Yes, of course. The subject is Rosalie Baylin. You do know Rosalie and your grandmother knew each other years ago, don’t you? Well, I want--”

  “My grandmother?”

  “Noreen Crowley, yes, your father’s mother. Rosalie rented a room at Noreen’s house in Berkeley when your grandfather was overseas in the Army. Rosalie was a Berkeley student at the time. It was your grandmother who put me in touch with your mother when The General and I came to Las Vegas several years ago. I was working on a fundraiser for Rosalie and I believe you helped address envelopes for us, didn’t you?”

  “Uhmm . . . yes, I remember that.”

  “Good. I want two things from this endeavor – one, for you to turn Rosalie’s manuscript into a publishable book, and of equal importance to draw out information about Rosalie’s life that she has kept to herself until now. It’s not just about her accomplishment at Baylin House. And you won’t have that long to work on your part. I’d say three or four weeks if you start right now, considering production time and distribution. I have already arranged for an advertising campaign based on Thanksgiving release aiming for heavy Christmas sales. It’s a focused fundraiser with a University level audience, Cassandra, not mass market escapism for the grocery store rack. Are you writing this down?”

  She wasn’t, yet, because she was still stumbling over the idea that her grandmother rented out rooms to anyone. Noreen and Cassie were close; Cassie was always able to tell Noreen whatever was on her mind, and she thought she’d heard everything about Noreen’s life too. Obviously not everything!

  Quickly Cassie plugged in the telephone headset and sat down with the laptop. “Let me get a new file open, Mrs. Kennelly. I can type legible notes a lot faster than I can write them on paper.”

  The older woman huffed a bit, but stayed quiet until Cassie spoke again.

  “You said ‘Baylin House’? What is that – a Bed & Breakfast?”

  “Well . . . not really,” Mrs. Kennelly hesitated. “It’s more complicated than a B&B, Cassandra. You’ll get all that when you talk to Rosalie. I’m more interested in collecting her personal life experience, not just her Baylin House project.”

  They talked for more than an hour after that. Cassie learned Rosalie Baylin was only a few years younger than Noreen, and already a licensed RN before she started pre-law at Berkeley. She left school to serve in a M.A.S.H. unit in Korea where she nursed Mrs. Kennelly’s injured husband – so that’s how Dorothy Kennelly got into the mix. When Rosalie came back to the states after Korea she enrolled at UCLA and majored in Psychology, moved to Sacramento for a while, then to Texas, and eventually founded Baylin House in the south Texas Gulf Coast city of Cordell Bay. And that was where Dorothy wanted Cassie to come to work with Rosalie, to coax her into completing a manuscript suitable for publication and distribution, and to give up some hidden secret that Dorothy Kennelly wanted for herself.

  She was succinct about it all as though outlining boot camp to a new recruit. Cassie’s instinct said she should be suspicious, but she was too grateful for the job to look at it that closely.

  “I’ll have a contract drawn up that guarantees your payment. You did say the offered salary is agreeable?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Very good, then.” Dorothy Kennelly paused, and then spoke in a softer tone, “Cassandra, I should tell you that my schedule is only partially due to publisher requirements. Rosalie has information that I absolutely need, and I don’t have long to get it. She’s been
diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctor I spoke to was not encouraging about the months ahead. Right now she is lucid and looking forward to meeting you, so I’d like to arrange your flight immediately. Can you come on Monday morning?”

  “Monday . . . this Monday?” Cassie quickly calculated where to leave her car, who to call at Lattimore Agency, what needed to be finished at the condo before she could leave town, and . . . . She couldn’t get it all done in two days.

  “Wednesday would be better,” she hedged.

  “All right then,” Dorothy said. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow evening with your itinerary.”

  Click. She had hung up without another word.

  As promised, Dorothy’s message popped into Cassie’s Yahoo mailbox on Saturday. It listed a flight number, departure time, and instruction to pick up the plane ticket at check-in Wednesday morning by six o’clock. Upon arrival, Dorothy would meet her at the gate; they would have lunch in Austin, and then drive south to Cordell Bay, arriving just about suppertime. They would stay at ‘The Marlin’, a hotel on the mainland bay with three restaurants and 24-hour room service, and a nice private beach if Cassandra was inclined to spend some time there when she wasn’t working.

  Cassie tried calling her mother to let her know she had accepted the job – actually hoping to pump for some information, but no one was home. She left it all in a brief message on their answering machine, promising to call from Texas if she didn’t hear back from them before she left.

  As expected, Cassie’s dad called to wish her good luck. She asked if he remembered anything about his mother renting out rooms when they lived in Berkeley. He was surprisingly vague, said he didn’t actually remember anything, but knew his mother took in laundry and rented rooms while his father was stationed somewhere in Europe. “I don’t remember paying attention to anything beyond what time to be home for dinner and what movie was playing at the Saturday Matinee,” he told her.