Till Death - Mark Kane Mysteries - Book Four: A Private Investigator Crime Series of Murder, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Stories...with a dash of Romance. A Murder, Mystery & Suspense Thriller

by John Hemmings

  “Yeah, you’d have loved that because it would’ve meant you’d won.”

  “Won what?”

  “You know – the working at home thing.”

  Lucy laughed. “Well, we don’t need to worry about that anymore do we? Because we’re a team now; officially.”

  “It’s a good job we are. If you hadn’t found me yesterday I might have drowned on the bathroom floor – or choked on my own vomit.”

  “There’s no need to be quite so melodramatic,” Lucy said. But I glimpsed at her sideways and could see she was as pleased as a dog with two bones.

  I opened one of the files where I’d put together a brief synopsis of the evidence that I’d gleaned from the numerous scraps of paper that had been thrown at me.

  “This case happened in the South End,” I said. “The deceased – I can’t say victim because there’s no clear evidence that it was a homicide – was found dead in his bathtub. He lived alone. There were no marks on the body to suggest that he’d been forcibly held under the water. The autopsy was inconclusive. There was no sign that he had been suffering from any illness or disease. He was twenty-nine years old. There was no alcohol in his blood and no trace of any drugs, prescription or otherwise.”

  “Did he drown?” Lucy said.

  “Well that’s another thing – there was relatively little fluid in the lungs or airways to suggest drowning. All the autopsy says is that the death was sudden and instantaneous. The actual cause of death was never determined.”

  “How strange,” Lucy said. “Is there anything else?”

  “He hadn’t been out of prison long. He had a string of convictions since his early teens. He was bailed at the time for another offence − he’d been implicated in a blackmail racket. He was due in court a few days later for a preliminary hearing. There was some speculation at the time that he may have been killed to keep him quiet. There wasn’t any direct evidence of that; it was just the word on the street.”

  “Were there any suspects?” Lucy said.

  “Apparently not. I don’t know how thorough the investigation was; I rather imagine that he was considered somebody of little importance and no great loss to society.”

  “How horrid.”

  “Welcome to the real world,” I said.

  “So it’s really just the manner of death that’s similar?”

  “Well that and possibly the motive too,” I said. “Blackmail is a particularly insidious crime because it tends to be a continuing one. If you pay up, sooner or later the blackmailer is likely to come back for more. The most effective way to ensure that that doesn’t happen is to take the blackmailer out – either by having him arrested or by silencing him, or her, forever. Now the similarity between these two cases may be no more than a coincidence, but – and here’s the thing – although there were no significant clues found, the forensic boys did a good job at the scene. There’s a wealth of potential DNA on various items found in the deceased’s apartment. Most of the DNA came from the same person, but it wasn’t all the deceased’s. So the case may yet be solvable.”

  “Were there any prints found in the cold case?” Lucy said.

  “No. And that’s why the police are convinced that it was a homicide.”

  Lucy looked at me inquiringly. “What do you mean?” she said.

  “I mean that there were no prints at all found in the deceased’s apartment; not even his own.”

  “So somebody must have wiped everything after he died.”

  “That’s the theory.”

  “If it did turn out that there was a connection between the two cases it would be a real feather in your cap as far as the police are concerned,” Lucy said.

  “Except that I don’t know anything about the present death – remember?”

  “Oh,” Lucy said, “that’s right; it’s Calley’s case now isn’t it? We weren’t there. We don’t know anything about it, right?”

  “About what?” I said. Lucy thumped me.

  “But Calley doesn’t know about the cold case, so how would they make the connection – I mean if there is one?” Lucy said.

  “He doesn’t know − yet.” I said. “That information could buy me a lot of cooperation from Calley for years to come.” I smiled craftily at her. “Okay,” I said, “for the time being we tell Don only that we tracked Lisa’s car to South Boston yesterday but we couldn’t locate her. That’s the truth, after all. When all’s said and done we can’t even be sure that the two events are connected – I mean her probable blackmail and the death. I admit it’s likely, but we can’t dismiss the possibility that the dead guy might have pissed somebody else off. We’ll find out from Don whether Lisa is still acting the same. I hate to say it, but if she’s suddenly full of the joys of spring again it would rather tend to suggest that she knows about the guy’s death. Let’s go see Don at the gym where he coaches at lunchtime. I want to probe his whereabouts yesterday afternoon. I’ll have to be tactful – I don’t want him to know that he’s currently on our list of suspects.”

  “Who else is on our list?”

  “Possible cronies of the dead guy. I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase ‘there’s no honor amongst thieves’.”

  “In the meantime, maybe Calley can find out something about the…dead guy,” Lucy said.

  “I doubt we’ll hear anything for a few days. They’ll run his prints of course. By the look of him I wouldn’t be surprised if those prints were on file somewhere. Where’s the place that we’re meeting Don?”

  “In Fenway somewhere – I’ve got to look it up on the map.”

  “Well you go and spruce yourself up,” I said, “and I’ll see you back here at eleven.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Gym

  The smell of stale sweat assaulted our nostrils as we went down the steps into the basement. The gym was like a thousand others in cities across the States. There was a boxing ring at one end and a martial arts mat at the other. Between them and around the sides was an assortment of the usual paraphernalia – punching bags and kick bags, weights, ropes and medicine balls. A couple of guys were sparring in the ring and a short fat guy was hurling insults at them.

  Don was there to meet us. He was already kitted-up. There wasn’t anything much to add to what he already knew. I’d emailed him last night to bring him up to date on the progress, such as it was; or rather such as it wasn’t.

  “Hi, Don,” I said. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to make any real progress yesterday. We were outside the café and the man she met on Monday was there with a woman, but Lisa didn’t show up. She parked her car in West Broadway but didn’t turn up at the café. By the time we located her car she was gone. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to reach you to let you know.”

  “No. We don’t get a signal down here, I’m afraid.”

  “I called the gym,” I bluffed.

  “Oh, I wasn’t here long; they were still clearing up after last week, putting stuff back in place so we had to cancel our session. Lisa’s having tennis coaching at the club, so I decided to have an extra session today to make up. We’ve got grading coming up and the kids were falling behind so I thought we could do some catching up.”

  I looked around me. There was a group of youths gathering over by the mat.

  “So tell me about yesterday,” Don said.

  “Well,” Lucy said, “it was the same guy as the day before and he went to the same café; but this time there was a woman with him. They sat in the café for a while but didn’t order anything. Then after a while the guy got a call on his cell phone and they both left. We lost them after that − I guess they went back to his apartment.”

  As she spoke I tried to read the expression on Don’s face, but it was a mask of inscrutability.

  “Lucy said you had something important you wanted to tell us about,” I said.

  “I had a call from Lisa’s bank yesterday,” Don said; “the Citizens Bank. There was an unusu
al transaction on her account at the branch on West Broadway yesterday. The call came from the head office.”

  “Did they say what kind of transaction?”

  “No – they wanted to talk to Lisa, but she wasn’t in. They wouldn’t discuss it with me or give me any details.”

  “Hmmm. That probably explains what she was doing on West Broadway. Her car was parked quite close to the bank,” I said.

  “What do you think’s going on, Kane?”

  “It’s speculation on my part, but as an educated guess I’d say the guy she met in the café had… is putting the squeeze on her for something.” I almost said ‘had been’ instead of ‘is’ but I stopped myself in time. “Maybe the unusual transaction was a large cash withdrawal. Does she have substantial funds in her account?”

  “I don’t know what she has in her account. I give Lisa an allowance every month and she doesn’t have expensive tastes. Over the years she may have accumulated a reasonable amount of savings. Obviously I haven’t asked her about it.”

  “What time was the call?”

  “I can’t remember exactly – but she came home at about four so it was before that. I didn’t mention it to her.”

  “She must have stopped somewhere on the way home,” I said. “She was already well on her way by two-thirty; I checked the tracker. How did she behave when she got home?”

  “Her behavior was quite normal, but she said she was tired and didn’t want any dinner. She put on her headphones and listened to some music, and then she watched some TV for a while. She went to bed early.”

  “Did you ask her about her afternoon?”

  “No, I just asked her how she was and she said she was okay but a bit tired. Obviously I didn’t ask her about Cindy – that would’ve been rather pointless in the circumstances. She didn’t mention it either.”

  “Did you recognize the description of the guy she met? I’m sorry it wasn’t more detailed.”

  “Oh,” Lucy said, “I forgot – I took a picture of the two of them in the café yesterday. It’s on my cell phone.”

  She rummaged in her purse and pulled out her smartphone. I did my best to act as if I’d seen it already but it was the first I’d heard of it. The picture was at an odd angle, but it was good enough, although half the woman’s face was shielded by the guy who was sitting nearer to Lucy. Don looked at the picture. His eyes had a hard expression. It seemed to me that he spent longer than was necessary studying the picture before saying, “No. I’ve never seen him before – or the woman.”

  “I think it’s possible that Lisa may have met with him – or them – in his apartment yesterday. Again, it’s only speculation but the proximity between the place where her car was parked and the guy’s apartment suggests that they had an appointment to meet somewhere nearby. Maybe they were originally supposed to meet at the café again but for some reason there was a change of plan. I’m sorry we didn’t spot her but, as I said, by the time we located the car she’d already left it.”

  “Well, you can’t be everywhere at once,” he said. “I appreciate that you did your best and I don’t expect miracles. Where do you suggest we go from here? I don’t want the police involved under any circumstances. You understand that, of course.” He intoned the statement as a question and raised his eyebrows.

  They already are, I thought. “Lucy’s had an idea,” I said, ducking the question. “She thinks if we could engineer a chance meeting between the three of you – that is Lucy, Lisa and you, Lucy may be able to persuade her to reveal what’s going on. Keeping that kind of thing to yourself is a considerable strain. Maybe she’d open up to a virtual stranger, provided she felt she could trust her. And you can take it from me that Lucy’s powers of persuasion are not to be underestimated. If she can get Lisa to open up to her then she may be able to persuade her to open up to you too. However, the down side to that idea is that it may not work and in the process we’ll have blown our cover. We can keep it in mind for the future but I think it’s too early to try at the moment.”

  Don said he was willing to give it a try, but he could see the potential problem that it might cause as well. He agreed that we should put such a course off for the time being.

  “I’ll be coaching here again tomorrow so I’d like you to be ready to follow Lisa again if she goes out. Can you wait near my place? We don’t want to lose her again.”

  “You’re a dark horse,” I said to Lucy on the drive home.

  “Oh, the picture? Sorry, with all the excitement I forgot about it. I had the phone on my lap in the café – I had a quick glance to see if it had come out and then I just forgot.”

  “Well, I think you deserve congratulations, not a reprimand. I’m impressed. Well done.”

  “Only I’ve been thinking. You don’t think that’s why they left the café, do you? Because they knew I was watching them.”

  “No. I think Lisa went to the bank to get some cash – a lot of cash by the sound of it – and then called to say she’d got it. They probably decided that they needed somewhere private for the handover. After all they’d want to make sure it was all there. That’s what I think happened.”

  “Do you still think Don may have had something to do with the killing?”

  “I don’t know. He told us he was at the gym but couldn’t get a signal on his cell. When I said I’d called the gym he said he left early because he had to cancel the class − and I could hardly cross-examine him about it. I didn’t really make any calls to him, of course. I was just bluffing to see what he’d say.”

  “Anyway,” Lucy said, “there was no sign of his car in the vicinity yesterday. We walked nearly all the streets around there and we wouldn’t have failed to notice it.”

  “True. But he’d know that his car is obviously recognizable, especially to Lisa. He might have taken a cab. Probably he would have done.”

  “But I just can’t picture him like that.”

  “That’s one of the things you have to learn Lucy. You can’t take anyone at face value. After all, what do we really know about him? I had a strange feeling when you showed him the picture.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “There was a cold look in his eyes. He seemed to dwell on the picture a tad too long and there was a look of almost hatred in his eyes. That’s the impression I had.”

  “But he would hate the guy, wouldn’t he? If he thought he was responsible for Lisa’s problems. Particularly if he thought the guy was blackmailing her about something.”

  “Yes, I guess you’re right,” I said. “It’s not enough to jump to any conclusions, but what we’ve just learned from Don is food for thought. It adds weight to my theory or theories.”

  “In what way?” Lucy said.

  “If Lisa collected a large sum of money yesterday to pay off the blackmailer, and if the blackmailer was the dead guy, then where’s the money?”

  “Of course,” exclaimed Lucy. “The woman did him in – perhaps with somebody else’s help − and ran off with the cash. That’s probably why he was killed.”

  “That’s one possibility. The other is that Don killed him, recovered the cash and took it home with him – slugging me when I inconveniently showed up at the apartment.”

  “I think my theory’s better, because it would explain the absence of the woman from the scene,” Lucy said. “Suppose the woman was the − what’s the word − bag lady? She collects the dough from Lisa and then either she, or her accomplice, kills the creep to cut him out of the deal.”

  “Or perhaps to keep him quiet,” I said. “If his part of the job was over it might have been convenient to dispose of him,”

  “So he’s in the bathtub, getting ready to leave the place and having a drink and dreaming about what he’s going to do with his share of the money – then he’s taken by surprise, maybe by the mystery woman and an accomplice” Lucy said. “Then they take the bag he’s already packed for his getaway and leave – slugging you on the way out
. That’d explain why none of his clothes or personal items were there. They were probably cleaning the place up when they heard you trying to get in and hid in the bedroom.”

  “All perfectly plausible, I admit. But it’s still possible that Don killed him and took his stuff. There’s no evidence that the woman we saw yesterday had ever been to the apartment. We’ll probably know more after the police investigation. There’ll sweep the place for prints, and DNA too. If the murderer was disturbed by me going into the apartment there’s a good chance that he, or she – or they – wouldn’t have had time to clean up properly.”

  “In the meantime there’s nothing more we can do at the moment is there? Why don’t we treat ourselves to a nice lunch out and then go back to my snug little home and watch a movie?”

  I felt the lump on the back of my head. “Okay,” I said. And we can stop on the way home and get some liquor too.”

  “Try not to drink too much,” Lucy said.

  “I don’t have to try,” I said. “I just have to decide. Did you check out the new office?”

  “They said it’ll be finished soon, so I’m going to arrange for the furniture you bought to be delivered.”

  We stopped on the way back for some lunch. There was a new Thai restaurant that Lucy wanted to try. We ate green curried chicken and shared some Thai fried rice in a coconut shell. Lucy invented a new rule that we weren’t to talk shop during mealtimes unless it was really urgent. Afterwards I slipped into the liquor store which was conveniently right next door and then we headed home.

  “So we’ll be driving over to Don’s place again tomorrow,” Lucy said. “But now the guy’s dead it’s unlikely she’ll be going anywhere, I should think.”

  “For a grand a day I’m happy to be anywhere Don wants me to be. We’ll take both cars,” I said. “If Lisa does go to meet anyone we want to be in a position to keep both parties under surveillance.”

  “We could go and buy my new car this afternoon, if you like,” Lucy said; “instead of watching a movie.”

  “Let’s leave that for now. Your heap will be good enough for tomorrow,” I said.