The Love-Haight Case Files

by Jean Rabe, Donald J. Bingle

  She pouted, and waved to a booth at the very back by an emergency exit sign. “You a friend of his?”

  “No.” Dagger brushed by her. He could feel the beat of the bass coming up through the soles of his shoes; it was that loud. Already he had a headache from this place. The odors of beer and whiskey were nearly strong enough to choke him. Keen senses were hell sometimes.

  Only half the tables were occupied, but it was early for a place like this, especially on a Friday night.

  He sat opposite a man that weighed more than three hundred pounds, barrel chest wedged against the table in the booth so that some of the fat spilled over on the surface. He was Latino, with a tattoo like the men in the restroom at the biker bar, a similar scar on his face marking some sort of prison rite of passage. Dagger glanced at his watch.

  “Do I know you?” The man’s words had a roundness to them; he’d been drinking.

  “No.”

  He leaned forward, as much as the table allowed him. There was a meanness to his dark eyes. Dagger met his stare.

  “Sly, you own a car I’m interested in.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The waitress came by and set a beer in front of the big man then looked to Dagger.

  “Nothing right now.”

  She shrugged and jiggled away.

  “A Buick. A rusted-to-shit Buick.”

  The big man gripped the edge of the table and started to squeeze out of the booth. Dagger was fast. He was up and out of his side and into the other wedged against Sly. In the same motion he’d pulled a gun and pressed it against the man’s stomach.

  “It wasn’t you driving the Buick last night,” Dagger said. With his free hand he picked up the beer and took a drink. Nothing special, he pushed it away. “That was a man with your height but not your girth. Your brother. Brother-in-law.”

  “He’s not here.” The man’s eyes flitted toward the bar. “He’s not—”

  “That’s the problem with taking a booth like this, eh? Too far from the action. Nobody to see the Berretta.” He pushed it harder.

  “My brother-in-law—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. He’s not here. He’s the one who told me where I could find you.”

  The big man moved, using his bulk to shove Dagger out of the booth. He pushed off on the table, tipping it and spilling the beer, drawing the attention of a passing waitress, who gave them a look and then rushed toward the bar, waving her empty tray to get someone’s attention.

  Dagger shoved the Berretta in the waistband of his jeans and spun behind the man, reached up and grabbed his collar and a handful of the back of his shirt and propelled him toward the back door, conveniently located only a few feet away. Behind him the club was buzzing with “what’s going ons?”

  “That’s the problem with a booth like that, makes it tougher to get help,” Dagger told him. An alarm sounded; it was some sort of a fire door, the alarm also serving as a warning that maybe customers were leaving without paying their bills.

  The alley behind the club was cluttered with overflowing trash bins. Garbage pickup must be tomorrow, Dagger thought, given the sheer amount of accumulation.

  “I figure I don’t have a lot of time to do this civilized,” Dagger said, pushing Sly farther from the club. The man struggled against him, but he was bulk without muscle, and he’d apparently had enough to drink that he was uncoordinated.

  “They’ll come after you,” Sly said, his words still round from alcohol. “You can’t get away from this.”

  “You better hope they don’t come out here.” The last time Dagger had glanced at his watch it had read 8:45. “And you better talk very fast, or unfortunately for the both of us, I’m going to tear into you.”

  The fire door opened behind them, and Dagger heard men tromp out, two or three; he wasn’t going to turn around and look.

  “This isn’t your concern!” he called to them. He gave Sly another shove and dug his fingers into the back of his neck. “Tell them to leave it.” Dagger’s voice had changed, sounding gravelly. He growled for emphasis.

  “It’s okay,” Sly shouted. “Go back inside.”

  There was some shuffling, and then the door closed. It sounded like they were alone again, but Dagger suspected there would be more company soon. Muscles bunched in Dagger’s neck. This was the second time today he’d not been especially smart—following the guy into the bathroom in the biker bar and working tonight. He’d told Evey he wouldn’t. He should have stuck to that.

  Dagger threw the guy down and rolled him over, dropped to his knees on his stomach and grabbed the man’s thick throat. Sly struggled, and in the light from a bare bulb hanging over a business’s back door Dagger saw the man’s eyes bug out. He quit wiggling and Dagger eased up.

  “You need to talk fast,” Dagger growled. He felt veins rising in the sides of his neck, felt his heart hammering in his chest. “You sent your brother-in-law after Thomas Brock.”

  “Wh-wh-who?” Sly managed.

  “The young attorney.”

  Sly’s eyes glimmered with understanding.

  “Why did you want him dead?”

  “Following orders,” Sly said. “Paying a debt.”

  “I get that.” Dagger pressed in again and watched the eyes bug wider. “Who’s holding your leash, Sly? And why did they want Thomas Brock dead?”

  “Not just Brock. The woman, too. The redhead too. Everyone in that office. All of them dead.”

  Sly told him a little more before Dagger pushed off him, his blood running hot and hurtful.

  Dagger loped out of the alley.

  Chapter 1.15

  The cleaner had showed up a little early; Evelyn found him waiting in a big gray van in the loading zone spot in front of the abandoned building next door. The space was marked for 15-minutes, but no one paid attention to that, not even passing police.

  She thought there would be a sizeable crew, but it was only two, one a retired police officer who owned the company, and the other a zombie that had retained enough of its intellect to follow instructions and who had only a little odor about him. Both wore caps and coveralls. Though Evelyn considered herself nonjudgmental, she was thankful for their attire, as the zombie was a particularly old one, and from looking at his face and hands, he appeared to be more bones than flesh.

  “Don’t need the air-conditioner on tonight,” the retired cop had said as he started to work. “You like to keep it cold in here for some reason?”

  Wrapped in a sweater, she sat at Gretchen’s desk, occasionally working a crossword puzzle while listening to them scrub. It was chilly, Thomas was somewhere watching; maybe Val was with him, adding to the drop in temperature.

  The cleansers they used had a surprisingly pleasant smell. She didn’t have to watch to know what the men were doing. She heard the sloshing sound of a mop and the scritch-scratching of a scrub brush. One of them had plugged something in, not a vacuum; it didn’t have that sound. She was curious, but not enough to turn around and look. The zombie starting humming or whistling, it wasn’t terribly distinct with the sound of the appliance in the background, and it took her a moment to realize the tune was “Poker Face,” the pop version by Lady Gaga, not the piano one.

  An hour into the cleaning work, Crystal Gaye arrived, knocking repeatedly to be heard over everything to get Evelyn’s attention.

  She was pretty, Evelyn thought. No, gorgeous, she corrected herself. Gaye could have passed for Cindy Crawford in her model days of twenty years past. Gaye even had a beauty mark. Evelyn remembered Thomas had referred to Crystal as having a “sparkling” personality in a conversation several months back. It was when he told Evelyn about his designated attorney paperwork.

  “Thomas spoke well of you,” Evelyn said, thinking she should say something. Would Thomas show himself? The air was so chilly she could faintly see her breath.

  “We went out most of our second year at Stanford.” Gaye smiled, revealing gloss white teeth, too even to have been born with t
hem like that, Evelyn thought. Her lips were a dark red, her face lightly tanned, and her eyes large, brown, and expressive. “Tom and I … ah, we were quite the item.”

  Evelyn waited, wanting to know why they’d stopped seeing each other, or to pick up any juicy romance gossip for that matter. She figured it had to be Crystal that broke it off. What man would quit on such a beautiful woman? And a woman with brains too, to make it through Stanford. Crystal Gaye was what some folks would call the complete package.

  Gaye looked behind her to the sidewalk and waved. A young man trotted in and propped open the front door. “I figure Anton here … Anton, meet Miss Evelyn Love, Evelyn, meet Anton … can put the filing cabinet drawers in the back of my Isuzu. You don’t mind, do you? Those file cabinets look so Goodwill. I forgot to bring boxes.”

  “No.” Evelyn’s voice was flat. “I don’t need the file cabinets. Take the drawers. Take the cabinets.” She was more than certain Thomas’s brother and sister wouldn’t want them either.

  “Well, then, Anton, if you would be so good?”

  He paused, looking to the back of the office.

  “Just work around them,” Evelyn said, still refusing to turn around. “Just work around them.” She could still see the blood pool in her mind. The area by the file cabinets hadn’t been touched by Thomas’s splatter. Anton could easily get to the files.

  Evelyn returned to Gretchen’s desk, and Gaye stood in front of it, steepling her manicured nails against the oak. Gaye’s smiling demeanor had vanished, and Evelyn thought she looked honestly sad.

  “I really cared about him, Miss Love. I always thought we’d end up together, Tom and I, having our own firm.”

  Evelyn filled a word in the crossword puzzle and put down the pen, looked up at her.

  “The law got in the way, I guess,” Gaye said. “Got in both our ways.”

  They watched Anton carry out two file drawers at the same time. “I’m just going to load the drawers,” he said. “The cabinets will fall apart if I move them.”

  “Strong,” Gaye said. “Strong, sweet, and could give a wit about the law.” He returned and headed back for another load. “I heard the dark fey that killed Thomas got knifed in jail.”

  “Before his preliminary hearing was even scheduled.” Evelyn had wanted to attend that, wanted to hear what the defense would say.

  “Some satisfaction in that, I suppose,” Gaye said. Anton walked past with another two drawers, nearly tripping on the step at the sidewalk.

  “There’s more paper than you thought there’d be, Crystal,” Anton hollered. “We might have to make two trips with your car.”

  “You can squeeze it all in there. Get creative,” she called back.

  Evelyn was on the verge of tears again. Thomas physically gone, now the files … some of it, a lot of it, her work—going out the door because she didn’t have a law license. She should have taken more courses, worked less, and earned the degree by the end of last May so she could have taken the bar in August. Thomas could have designated her; the paper would be staying, the cases would be staying. Her work wouldn’t be going out the door in the arms of a strong young man named Anton who worked for a gorgeous woman who used to “be quite the item” with Thomas.

  “We’ll start calling the clients on Monday, see who wants to stay with us, who wants to seek other representation,” Gaye said.

  “There’s only a dozen open cases,” Evelyn said. “Most of them minor. There’s just a lot of paper. Past cases, some cases that never materialized, stuff like that. I think Thomas loved paper. I put the Holder stuff in the red folders so they’d stand out. Judge Vaughan was supposed to hear more of the arguments Monday, the rest of Thomas’s arguments. But I sent over a note asking it to be continued to the following week.”

  Evelyn gave Gaye a quick run-down of the child-custody issue involving the ghoul. “Thomas was sure he was going to win it. I was sure, too. Holder deserves to see the kids. You should probably call him right away. I told him about you this morning, that you were Thomas’s designated attorney.”

  “In fact, Holder called me, just a little while ago. We set up a meeting for late tomorrow afternoon. Interesting case. I’ll start reading his files right away. I’ve nothing else planned for the weekend,” Gaye said. “And I’m familiar with Vaughan; he might want to keep the Monday date, so I’ll make sure I’m ready.”

  Evelyn felt a good dose of relief. The total package: beautiful, smart, and eager to step in and help. Thomas had made an excellent choice designating her. Maybe Evelyn could look to that law firm when she passed the bar, see if they might hire her.

  The zombie started whistling-humming another tune: “Jesus Frankenstein,” from Rob Zombie’s Hellbilly Deluxe.

  “Appropriate music,” Evelyn mused.

  Gaye laughed, the sound was like crystal wind chimes. It carried through the office, and the zombie stopped humming. A minute more of shuffling and scritch-scratching and the appliance was turned off. It sounded like they were packing up their equipment and buckets. “And you’re right, Miss Love, Thomas always did love paper. I hardly keep any around. Save trees and all that. I prefer everything digital. Keeps my office clean.”

  “The office is clean!” the retired cop announced, tromping to the front, the zombie shuffling behind him. “Good as new. Give us a little bit and we’ll have all our stuff out of here.”

  O O O

  Thomas appeared above Gretchen’s desk after Gaye and the cleaners were gone.

  “I don’t know why I’m here, Evelyn.” His voice was clearer than when he’d talked to her before. Evelyn thought maybe it took some getting used to, being a ghost. Maybe he’d practiced his diction when he’d hovered in the walls, and so could talk louder and could enunciate better now. “I don’t know why I didn’t go—” He let the thought hang.

  “—wherever it is spirits go?” Evelyn finished. “I prefer to call that heaven.” Despite everything life had thrown at her … from childhood on, Evelyn believed in God. She’d picked the Catholic faith just because when she was a child there was a big Catholic church across from where she and her mother were staying, and she found a measure of peace inside it. And though they moved around, there always seemed to be a big, beautiful Catholic church nearby. “I believe in heaven, Thomas.”

  The ghost wavered for a moment. “I don’t know what I believe, Evelyn.”

  Was Thomas’s soul not ready to move on? Soul, it had been number forty-three down in the crossword puzzle. And what about Holder’s soul? And the souls of the other dead-but-not-dead OTs?

  Evelyn was reserving all of Sunday for church, planning on attending both morning services at Saint Agnes. She wanted to pray for all of their souls. Maybe she’d even go back in the evening.

  “I don’t know what I can believe, Evelyn.”

  “I believe I’m exhausted, Thomas.” And she was. Even though her thoughts were filled with angst and her heart was so unsettled, she knew sleep would come easy tonight. And she knew she’d have to practically set the alarm right next to her ear or she wouldn’t ever wake up. “Good night, Thomas.”

  “Good night, Evelyn.”

  She left and locked up; the glow from the streetlight spilling in through the office windows showed that he still floated above Gretchen’s desk.

  Chapter 1.16

  Evelyn spent the day at the law school library, returning to her apartment long after dark. She’d ridden the bus for a while after the library closed, and then went out for dinner before riding it again. She briefly entertained the notion of calling for Thomas, to ask how the day with his sister went. Instead, she headed straight upstairs, flicked on the lights, and dropped her backpack, startled that a man sat at her tiny kitchen table.

  “I like what you’ve done to the place,” Dagger said. “A little more furnishings than your previous digs. I can see that you’ve gone all-out.”

  Evelyn’s apartment was barely furnished. The kitchen had a table that doubled as a desk, and two cha
irs. The living room was a little better, with a recliner next to a pole lamp, a futon that passed for a couch, and a 14” television perched on an upended milk crate. There were no pictures on the wall, no knickknacks, nothing to give it a homey feel or to give it the look that someone lived here.

  “Didn’t know they still made TV sets that small.”

  Evelyn didn’t bother to ask how he got in. Dagger didn’t need keys. In fact, he’d taught her the art of picking a lock. He’d been here a while. She noticed her teakettle on the front burner—she always kept it on the back, and an overturned coffee mug on the drainer next to the sink.

  The purple mass of bruise on his cheek had gone down somewhat, more than it should have since yesterday. But there were other scratches and scrapes that hadn’t been there when they’d met at the Vietnamese restaurant. Two of the fingers on his left hand were taped together.

  “I could use a drink,” she said. “How about you?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Tough day?”

  “Crystal Gaye.”

  “I take it that’s not a pastry.”

  “I wish. Yesterday she was with Boyd, Cranston & Gaye. She was hired this morning by Brock, Davis & Davis.”

  Dagger watched her.

  Evelyn pulled out the chair across from Dagger. “Crystal Gaye is Thomas’s attorney of record, and so she got all of his case files, including the custody case. Holder’s ex-wife is represented by Brock, Davis & Davis. Want to bet they hired Gaye so they could get the files? Mr. Holder could have asked for another attorney or gone to another firm, but dear Crystal Gaye got him to accept a settlement of joint custody that is only a hair better than the previous arrangement. I think Thomas could have got him full custody.”

  Dagger didn’t say anything.

  “So I’ve been at the law library all day. I’m going to file the paperwork to get some of our other cases back. Somehow I’m going to try cases myself.” She leaned against the back of the chair. “But you don’t know anything about the Holder case and could give a rat’s ass about the Holder case, or about any of our cases. And I could use a drink.”