Lucky Catch

by Deborah Coonts

  “You got it, girl.”

  “And send the doc up here. We got a guy who took a nasty fall. Luckily, he’s so shellacked, I think he just bounced, but I’d like him checked out, anyway. I’ve scrambled the paramedics.”

  “Sounds serious. Where’d he fall from?”

  “The ceiling.”

  Silence greeted that admission. When he’d collected himself, Jerry added, “I’m not going to ask.”

  “Probably better that way. But you might want to let Sergio know we won’t be needing the duct tape, nail gun, nor probably the radar gun.” I rang off at his stunned silence, reholstered the phone, then addressed my father. Pointing to the shower stall, which was roomy enough to accommodate a large party, I ordered, “Put the cubs in there, but make sure the mama tiger can still see them. And if you cause me any more trouble, I’ll give Mother another explanation as to how you came by those scratches.”

  My father shot me a grin and let me have my bit of fun—we both knew he deserved it . . . and that while I might have the bark, when it came to him, I lacked the bite. He rushed to the shower, set the cubs inside, and closed the glass door as he shot the mother tiger a glance.

  My anger spiked as I turned on the huddled group of geeks. “Explanation? And it had better be good. You do not even want to think about how much jail time you’re facing, not to mention a nice little bill for damages.”

  Dr. Phelps stepped forward. “My lip and my jaw.”

  I stepped in close to him—I had him by a couple of inches, which I could see made him nervous, so I went with it. “You don’t want to call my bluff, really you don’t.”

  As realization dawned, guilty school kids replaced the smug eggheads. “It’s all really innocent. Really,” one of the guys started.

  Dr. Phelps shut him down with a stare. “This is my fault.”

  “Amazingly, that much I figured out all by myself.” My anger fled as quickly as it had come—and to be honest, I doubted it had much to do with this whole silly scenario. I could handle this sort of thing in my sleep, and had hundreds of times. No, Teddie’s reappearance and my family’s complicity had me hardwired to pissed off. Then that simmering murder thing and Jean-Charles on the lam. At least the goods doctors gave me a problem I could solve. I crossed my arms and fought back a derisive snort.. Just to make sure my father wasn’t going to complicate things now that I was getting them under control, I snuck a glance at him. From the look on his face, he didn’t see the humor, but he no longer looked ready to take a chunk out of someone. “What were you going to do with these animals?” I asked the assembled group.

  “Chip ’em.”

  “Explain.”

  He vacillated a bit, but then gave me most of what I wanted. “I developed some new chip technology. Actually, it’s been around for decades—I’ve just refined it a bit. It’s used to track animals, shipments, that kind of stuff.”

  “RFID?” I said as if I knew what I was talking about.

  “Yeah.” A look of respect lit in his eyes, which was different. “I’ve developed a way to make it more economical while making it more useful, incorporating different kinds of data. It’s all a bit esoteric.”

  I agreed with him—he had just exceeded my knowledge base by many multiples, but I faked it. “Impressive. Did you happen to know a Richard Peccorino?”

  “Pecker? Sure. He’s supposed to be here.” All of a sudden, reality broke through his haze, and he looked wildly around the small room. “Where is he?”

  I stepped closer to him and put a reassuring hand on his arm. “Dr. Phelps, you and I need to have a chat.”

  * * *

  Telling somebody his friend and colleague was dead, even though I spared him the specifics, had me feeling drained and my stomach queasy—of course, no food and too much firewater didn’t help. All things considered, he was coping pretty well, although he looked a little green. We had left the others under the direction of my father, to sort things out while we repaired to the living room and parked ourselves in facing wing-backed chairs, a good distance form where the paramedics and the doctor tended to Dr. Phelps’s fallen comrade.

  When Dr. Phelps leaned back, the two rear legs of the very expensive chair holding his weight, I didn’t even cringe. But I leaned forward, and when he moved to put a booted foot on a delicate antique table, I eased it to the side. Dr. Phelps gave me a distracted look.

  “Do you have any idea what Mr. Peccorino might have been doing in Chef Bouclet’s kitchen at a hotel that isn’t even open yet?” I put my elbows on my knees and rested my forehead in my hands.

  “Not sure, exactly.” Dr. Phelps pushed off with one foot, rocking further back in the chair. When he returned forward, he caught himself with the same foot and pushed off again. One hand clutched the arm of the chair. The other hand shook as he rubbed his eyes, then ran his fingers through his hair. The effects of the alcohol evaporated quickly under the assault of reality. Shell shock replaced the arrogance I’d seen in his eyes earlier.

  Conjuring control I didn’t know I had, I resisted making him stop rocking—if the chair broke, we’d add it to his tab.

  “Pecker was working with JC . . . Chef Bouclet. . . . They were testing our new RFID chip.”

  “Testing?”

  “Yeah, tracking various shipments, see how the chip held up, especially the power source.” Dr. Phelps laced his fingers behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling and continued his rocking, like a kid with ADHD.

  “Any idea why?”

  That stopped his rocking—the front legs of the chair banged on the hardwood. Placing his hands on his knees, the kid leveled his stare at me. “To see if it works.” He gave me one of those you-can’t-be-that-stupid looks, which I chose to ignore, primarily because he was wrong—I could indeed be that stupid.

  “And how did they hold up?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I sure wish I did—the project is expensive, and our research funding hangs in the balance. Pecker was over at JC’s to collect the chips and grab the data off them. God, I can’t believe somebody killed him.” With the back of his hand, he swiped at the tear that trickled out of the inner corner of one eye. “The guy wouldn’t hurt anybody.” He looked at me with haunted eyes. “He’s really dead?”

  I reached over and squeezed his knee. Stupid, I know, I just couldn’t think of anything else to do or say. “How do you guys know Chef Bouclet?”

  “I introduced them.”

  I whirled at the female voice. “Chitza?”

  The chef moved with the grace and subtlety of a feline hunting dinner as she stepped over to Dr. Phelps, looking as if she wanted to bend down and give him a kiss. The almost imperceptible shake of his head stopped her and she recovered nicely with a hand on his shoulder. “I heard about Pecker. Are you okay?”

  “Me? How about you? The two of you go way back.” Dr. Phelps patted her hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s a shock.”

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Dr. Phelps continued. “What could he possibly have done to deserve this?”

  Chitza turned her cold eyes in my direction. “Do the police have the killer?”

  “Not that I know of. They’re working on it. I assure you they will do everything possible . . .”

  She cut me short with a curt gesture. “Right. If there is a way to screw up an investigation, Metro will find it.”

  Even though I harbored an equally low opinion of the bulk of the police department, I didn’t think trotting it out now would be a good idea. “Do you mind me asking how you two know each other?” I couldn’t fathom how a chef would cross paths with science guys.

  Chitza gave me a flat stare—she could probably turn me to stone if she wanted. She let a couple of beats pass before answering, as if to tell me she did in fact mind my asking. “I have taught some courses at Berkeley. The new science of food preparation has a basis in chemistry.”

  “Acids and alkalines and all of that?”

  “To put it simpl
y,” she purred.

  If the cooking gig went south, she could get a job writing thinly veiled insults.

  “And you knew Jean-Charles?” I arced a questioning eyebrow at her.

  She shrugged in a nonchalant sort of way. “The culinary world is small.”

  * * *

  Sadness overrode any lingering sizzles of anger as I rode the elevator down to the lobby, changed wings, then rode the elevator back to the penthouse floor, this time in the west wing, the private wing. With all current crises dealt with, or at least tamed for the moment, Dr. Phelps and his gang itched like a burr under my saddle. Boys will be boys and all of that. Personally, I thought that little maxim provided an excuse for the male of the species to continue acting like idiots long past the single-digit years, the only acceptable age range for idiocy, but nobody had consulted me and apparently, my opinion wasn’t widely held.

  My small, temporary abode was halfway down the hall on the right. The double doors at the end guarded the entrance to my parents’ permanent address—they also had an elevator entrance inside, so they rarely used the hall past my place, unless they came for a visit.

  The door to my apartment stood open, which didn’t alarm me. Access to the floor was limited, and Mona and the Big Boss regularly availed themselves of my stocked bar while waiting for me to share news of the day. Although, since her pregnancy Mona had limited herself to club soda, amazing me with her selflessness. However, I didn’t allow my guard to drop—I knew her newfound virtue would expire when those babies took their first breaths.

  Today, my father and I had already shared enough, so I expected I’d find Mona curled on the couch, wanting to hear my side of the adventure.

  I was wrong.

  Chapter Eleven

  A man stood at the wall of windows, his back to me, his hands clasped behind him. Although silhouetted by the lights of the Strip below, his shape gave him away. Every inch had been branded on my soul.

  Teddie.

  I paused in the doorway. One hand on the jamb, I bent and pulled off one shoe, then shifted feet and shucked the other one. I must’ve sighed as Teddie turned.

  He acted like he wanted to say something. I beat him to the punch. “You take a lot of liberties, Mr. Kowalski, and you are trying my patience.”

  “What? We used to wander in and out of each other’s places all the time.” Amazingly, he sounded somewhat taken aback.

  “Yes, but we are not the ‘we’ we used to be.” I shook my head at the tortured syntax, but it was the best I could do.

  “We could be that ‘we.’” Teddie picked up the syntax baton. Oh, joy. He was trying to make nice. I wasn’t ready to be friends. I was still trying to get over being a jilted lover and I thought “angry” was one of the steps along the healing path—right before homicide.

  I tossed my shoes toward the couch, then stepped to the bar. Pulling a double old-fashioned glass from the shelf, I poured myself what most would describe as a healthy dose of Wild Turkey, although I doubted it had anything to do with my health—Teddie’s health maybe, since he was within pistol range. Closing my eyes, I savored the hit as jangling nerves settled. Only then did I did I open my eyes and face Teddie. “Is that really what you came here to talk about?”

  “It’s burning a hole in my heart.” When I started to fire off a retort, he stopped me with a raised hand. “Not the time. I know that. And—” He reached into his pocket as he walked toward me. Stopping barely short of too close, he pulled his hand from his pocket and showed me what was in his fist. “I found this in Chef Bouclet’s restaurant.” He extended an envelope—white, legal size, it looked normal, except for my name in an angry red scrawl—Jean-Charles’s handwriting. Distinctive and practically illegible, his was the scribble of a doctor, not a chef.

  “Where did you get that?” Apparently, all my smart brain cells had either been killed or had vacated, leaving only the stupid ones.

  Teddy repeated, “In Jean-Charles’s restaurant, before you came. Before Romeo showed up.”

  “You didn’t tell the police?”

  “I thought it better if we read it first.”

  “Better? Like bringing us closer to incarceration will bring us closer together?” My voice escalated, but then, just as quickly, I curbed it—Mona and my father would come running if they thought something was wrong. Of course, something was wrong, a whole lot of somethings, as a matter of fact, but they couldn’t help—not unless they’d assist in burying the body, which I doubted. Parents could be so straitlaced that way, even mine.

  “I am trying to help.” Teddie actually sounded like he believed it.

  “Yeah, helping me right into jail.” Curiosity overrode good sense, not that I had much sense, good or bad, at this point. I took the envelope and stuck my finger under the flap, working it loose. “There’s something in here.” I looked up into Teddie’s eyes, dark blue pinpoints. “Hold out your hands.”

  He cupped his hands, palms up, in front of me, and I placed a sheet of newsprint I grabbed from the coffee table over them. I shook the object out of the envelope.

  A plastic, rectangular tag dropped onto the paper. The chip from the missing truffle, if I could hazard a guess, but I kept that tidbit to myself.

  “What is it?” He poked at the chip.

  I ignored his question as I bent over, inspecting the chip, then raised my eyes to his. “I can’t believe you took evidence from the scene of a homicide.”

  “Now, we’re both in this together. Is there anything else in the envelope?”

  “A note.” Using two fingers, I clamped one corner and worked the letter loose, ignoring the whole in-this-together thing. What had he meant by that? Come to think of it, Teddie had been pretty cavalier about handling the envelope—not worrying about disturbing any prints or adding his own. The Teddie I used to know would’ve been more careful. After all, hanging with me gave him at least rudimentary knowledge of evidence preservation techniques. Not that I was proud of that, but a hotel like the Babylon was a cauldron where alcohol distilled life to the elemental.

  Murder had knocked on my door before.

  Leaving Teddie standing there, I stepped to the couch in front of the windows. Lowering myself to the cushions, I stared out at the lights and wondered where in that vast sea Jean-Charles had hidden himself. Was he all right? Scared? Angry? Guilty? That last thought stuck in my craw—I just couldn’t believe it. He’d sent me the RFID chip. What did he want me to do with it? Who could I trust?

  The last person with an interest in this chip had gotten himself broiled.

  Curling my legs underneath me, I pressed myself into the embrace of the deep cushions. I almost didn’t notice Teddie as he joined me. His Old Spice cologne enveloped me like the hug of a warm memory. Lingering for a moment, I then shook myself loose of the past and lay the folded sheet gently in my lap, thinking, feeling. Jean-Charles. I knew he was safe. I don’t know how, but I just knew. I also knew Romeo was going to be beating every bush looking for him. And the police tended to get pissy when you made them work hard to find you.

  “You love him?” Teddie’s pitch rose at the end, making the statement a question—it was a good one.

  “You’ve asked me that before.” My voice cracked a little—life was getting to me. And the alcohol overrode my defenses, letting loose emotions too long held in check.

  When he put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, I didn’t resist. Instead, I put my head on his shoulder.

  “I can see that you do.” He sounded sad. And clearly, he saw more than I did, but I didn’t point that out. I was so done with giving everyone what they wanted. At some point, there needed to be some quid pro quo. “Let me help.” He sounded sincere.

  But I was too tired and too scared to detect any subterfuge, which wasn’t my best thing, anyway. “With what, exactly?”

  “Why don’t you read the letter, then maybe we’ll both know.”

  Why did his arm around me have to feel so nice? Raising my head
from his shoulder, I looked at the folded paper on my lap, buying time. Did I really want to know what it said?

  Teddie nodded toward the note. “Read it.”

  I took a deep breath, then carefully unfolded the paper and let my eyes wander over the words. Jean Charles’s scrawl took a couple of passes to decipher.

  “What does it say?” Teddie asked.

  I scanned the lines one more time to be sure, then carefully refolded the page and put it in my pocket. Lifting my eyes, I caught Teddie’s gaze and held it. “He said that chip is the first. There are others—more pieces to the puzzle. He is being watched, but he will tell me where the other chips are.”

  “How?”

  “He didn’t say.” I stared out the window. “He’s scared. Although he didn’t say so, I get the sense he was doing something benign, working on a new, more economical, high-level food-tracking system. And somehow he stumbled into something far more sinister than you or I can imagine.”

  “We’ve got two gruesome deaths. Imagining is not necessary.”

  I turned to Teddie. “That’s the problem. Jean-Charles felt the killer was only getting started. Knotting the threads, he said.”

  “Knotting the threads?”

  “Tying up loose ends.” I smiled, but not from joy. “He’s not too good with American idioms. Especially when he’s scared.”

  Teddie’s eyes held the sadness I felt.

  I needed a hug. I could tell Teddie wanted to comfort me. But Jean-Charles stood between us, as effective a barrier as if he’d truly been standing there.

  “How many loose ends do you think there might be?” Teddie asked, knowing I would have no clue.

  “More. I think the ante just got upped.” Propelled by stifled frustration, I whipped my feet from underneath me, propelled myself off the couch and out of his embrace, and retook my position in front of the window. Unable to still my thoughts or my body, I paced in front of the window as I tried to calm down and corral a coherent thought or two. What had been an amorphous threat had now coalesced into a race to stop a killer before he eliminated all the threads. We only needed one . . . a place to start. “If we could just find some connections.” I wanted to run through theories, bat some possible scenarios around, but for the first time ever, doubt seeped through the fracture between me and Teddie. Could I really trust him? What had he really been doing at Jean-Charles’s restaurant? Was my distrust founded on his personal betrayal, or something more?