Whiskey’s Gone (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 3)

by Susan Russo Anderson

  Some of the initials were crossed out; others had a check mark next to them or a phrase. Without a doubt, the letters stood for people, the pencil marks, maybe an indication of their relationship to Finn Trueblood or the action taken by him.

  In the middle of the list I found the letters, M. L. There was a thin, pencil line running through them. Mitch Liam, I figured, the scratch through his initials made after his death.

  My eye lingered on the last four entries—A.M., H.S., S.N., W.P. They were circled and the phrase, “Got to go” was scratched next to them with that same ominous pencil line through the letters, A.M.—Arthur McGirdle, no doubt about it. I held my breath as it dawned on me: I was staring at a hit list.

  I could hear Denny telling me my conclusions were built on sand, based on nothing but a notebook locked in someone’s desk, and I was invading his privacy. No matter, I told myself, I had to find Whiskey Parnell. I could be staring at a shopping list for all I knew, but I shook my head, rejecting this notion. I was sure of it—Finn Trueblood was not who he appeared to be. A senior partner at Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey was his cover. I was convinced he was someone significant in organized crime, this was a hit list, and Arthur McGirdle, Huey Smith, Star Newcomb, and Whiskey Parnell were on that list for reasons I didn’t understand. Not yet.

  Whiskey Parnell probably found out too much and confronted Finn. For all I knew, she overheard a conversation or came across something or saw someone leaving his office. Maybe Arthur or Star told her something about the man. She was no dummy, I thought. My skin began to crawl.

  I was missing a lot. I could see Arthur getting himself mixed up in the mob, but not Star Newcomb. He was an enigma. I felt a rumbling in my stomach and asked Trisha Liam what she thought about the list.

  She shrugged. “Client contacts, and he needs to keep in touch with them, I’d guess. He’s a senior partner.” She shook her head, staring at the list, but I could tell she wasn’t saying what was on her mind.

  “Those are Mitch’s initials, aren’t they?”

  “Finn might have known Mitch, worked with him on a case, although they wouldn’t be friends. And how many lawyers have the initials M. L.?”

  I shook my head. “Look at the last four sets of initials. They stand for Arthur McGirdle, Huey Smith, Star Newcomb, and Whiskey Parnell.”

  “Another coincidence.”

  “There’s no such thing as coincidence.” I looked straight at her and saw a tremor around her mouth.

  “I haven’t kept up with what Finn’s doing. Life gets in the way, I guess, and I have my own caseload. With Seymour, it’s different. He tells me more than I ever want to know, but Finn keeps to himself, always has done. That’s his style. We have weekly meetings, but lately we’ve been going through the motions. As long as Finn Trueblood brings in his share, and it’s usually much more than that, who has time to question?”

  She didn’t have to explain, not to me, I assured her, and slapped myself for making the remark. She’d have plenty of explaining to do if it got out that a named partner of Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey was up to no good. I thought of Zizi Carmalucci and wondered how long Trisha Liam could shut up the likes of her, even if Trisha had friends in high places. A bad apple at the top of a law firm could spell its demise.

  I pictured Huey Smith and Arthur McGirdle together. It worked. They were both out of the same brown paper bag. But the one that didn’t fit for me was Star Newcomb. What was he doing on the list? He was an outsider, an artist, a painter. He knew Whiskey Parnell, but that was all. Or was it? Then I remembered his sad story, his remorse at not having rescued Whiskey Parnell when he saw her the other night. I pictured him standing near Sovereign Bank’s ATM, watching as Arthur McGirdle held a gun to Whiskey’s head, waiting while she withdrew money. In the CCTV clip, there was a shapeless figure in the foreground. Who was it? What was Star Newcomb not telling me?

  I watched the wheels of Trisha Liam’s mind turning in the darkened office as she gripped the address book.

  Suddenly there were noises below, a distinct opening of the door, a shuffling of feet, steps walking, the murmur of voices. We both jumped.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Trisha Liam stuffed the book in her bag.

  Like flies racing to escape the swatter, we got out of Finn Trueblood’s office.

  “He’ll know someone’s been here. He can smell it when something’s up.”

  “I’m not worried about him now,” I said, listening to the footfalls below. I’d have to get the book to Jane somehow and hoped she’d act on it before morning. I heard the banging of desk drawers.

  “An intruder,” I said as we tiptoed down the stairs. I heard the shuffling of paper, urgent voices.

  “More than one,” I said.

  I held the flashlight like a mallet and slowly crept down the stairs, one at a time, Trisha by my side. We stood on the second-floor landing, listening. The opening and closing of drawers continued.

  “We’ve got to stop them,” she said.

  “And if they’re armed? Let’s not be foolish.”

  Denny would be proud of me. I restrained the lawyer, who wanted to confront whoever was inside. “Can’t take that chance, not until we see what we’re up against. They could have guns, and we’re not armed. If we frighten them, we don’t know what they’ll do.”

  “But they’re taking files.”

  I listened to the sounds of cables being yanked out of sockets.

  As we stood in the dark, Trisha Liam tried to reassure herself. “But everything should be digitized.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe they’re stealing those, too?”

  We stood there a few seconds, our ears straining to pick up words.

  Slowly we continued our descent, as silently as possible until a beam of light in the hall stopped us cold. From the darkened stairwell where we hid, I listened to them whispering to each other and heard their terror. From our perch we saw their shadows, one short and wide, the other tall and muscular and holding a box filled with stuff. The fat shadow opened the door and both of them slipped outside.

  “Quick!” I yelled, running down the stairs and through the entryway. I flung the door open and from the stoop looked up and down the street, heard a motor coughing and sputtering, the accelerator gunned. Then I was blinded by headlights flashing in my face. A second later, the car screamed down the street, too fast for me to catch the tags.

  “They got away, driving some kind of beat-up black sedan,” I told Trisha Liam. It haunted my mind for the next few minutes, flashing back and forth, the wreck tearing down the block as leaves scurried in its wake.

  The lawyer sat in the receptionist’s chair, reading a note sitting on top of the desk. “Rhoda’s given notice,” she said. “And her desk’s cleared of everything.”

  “Her computer?” I asked.

  “Gone.”

  “Not enough time or know-how to pry the case open and swipe the hard drive, so they took the whole thing,” I said.

  After calling Jane, I glanced at Trisha Liam and took the address book from her hands, telling her I wanted to go over it when I got home. I assured her I’d bring it back in the morning.

  “And when Finn Trueblood discovers it’s missing?”

  I shrugged. “Events are coalescing.”

  Day 3

  Bridge Lights

  It was so late it was early. The moon had gone to sleep, but I was up—me and Mr. Baggins, that is. I burrowed my nose into his fur, trying to get rid of the smell of the Beretta and its smoldering images. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the sweetness of the animal, savoring his undying love. I remembered he was Mom’s cat, my last living link to her. Him I trusted. I figured he was much dearer to me than a rusting Beretta.

  And things were good between me and Denny, too. Earlier, after I’d told him about Finn Trueblood’s office, I watched his predictable response. For Denny, it was subdued, especially after I reminded him that since the building belonged to Trisha Liam and she was with me an
d had the key, technically it wasn’t breaking and entering.

  Mom’s burning Beretta hit me again. I sobbed into him and, I admit it, after a few good laps in bed, I watched his body from my elbow perch. I loved the rise and fall of his chest and shoulders, how the light from a lone streetlamp sculpted his face, and marveled at how he could sleep through almost anything. I wondered why I deserved the love of such a man.

  My thoughts were here, there, all over the place, and I needed to focus. For one thing, I had to go over Finn Trueblood’s thick book, but try as I might, I couldn’t concentrate on the words. Perhaps I should have given it to Trisha Liam to look over, but after all, she was the client—she was paying me to do the research. That gave me an idea. It was too late to call Lorraine, but in the morning, I’d ask her to look at Finn Trueblood’s address book. Who better than Lorraine to do the research. I flipped through pages until I came to the list of initials and marked it with a Post-it.

  My mind came back to Whiskey. I pictured her tied up in some hole someplace in Brooklyn, gasping for air, time running out. I hadn’t a clue where she could be. When I stopped and considered it honestly, I had no hope that she was alive, but I needed to ignore the bad thoughts and the knot in my stomach.

  My idea of going through Finn Trueblood’s files and finding out what had happened to Whiskey Parnell had turned into a consideration of Rhoda. Why flee in the night and who was helping her? Of course, it had to be that boyfriend of hers, Huey Smith. It would be too neat if his last name were Berringer, but I decided to call him that and wondered again if he were Arthur’s Berringer, the guy mentioned in Whiskey’s journal.

  Sleepless, I got up and tiptoed into my study, my stealthy assistant following. I stared out the window, the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge winking softly in the distance. Moving in slow motion, I thumbed through my notes going over all my suspects—Seymour Wolsey, Finn Trueblood, Malcolm Giro, Star Newcomb, Huey Smith. Like pieces on a checkerboard, I arranged them in order of least to most likely, placing Malcolm at the bottom of the heap, followed by Seymour Wolsey. Was I right to exclude them? I remembered how Gran told me never to discount love as a motive. Love gone awry. Love that morphed into obsession, not really love at all, but then who was I to weigh and judge those who were capable of love however warped? What would Star Newcomb’s motive be—love or lucre? Probably a mixture of both. To me, his mind was a tangled web.

  And if he were the abductor, why was Star Newcomb on Finn Trueblood’s hit list? Arthur’s image intruded when I tried to concentrate on Huey Smith and Star Newcomb and why I mistrusted both of them. They were on the top of the pile except for the specter of Finn Trueblood off to the side, pulling the strings. The puppet master, the uber villain.

  As I smiled, knowing what Jane and Denny would make of my Finn Trueblood theory, I looked up in time to see pieces of reflective dawn streaming from the east. But other lights, electric and jarring, caught my eye. They glared up at the bridge, illuminating the facade of a nearby building on Front Street, sending out smoky beams into the early morning. When the CSU van rolled into view, everything became clear—Arthur, Flossie, Huey, Star, my flat tires, my poor Beretta—everything, except for who had abducted Whiskey and why. But I was getting closer to the mystery of her disappearance. If only she had the guts to stay alive.

  Then someone, my fairy godmother for all I knew, prompted me to do a good deed. For the life of me, I don’t know why I did it, but I called Zizi Carmalucci and gave her the tip of her life. “Get yourself down to Front Street. NYPD’s made an important discovery.”

  “Wake up, Denny, quick. The whole sky’s lit up. Jane’s found Arthur’s warehouse on Front Street. We need to get down there.”

  Denny is nothing if not fast. He was up, dressed in a flash, checking his Glock and buckling a pancake holster to his leg. “Just in case,” he said, his favorite phrase.

  Finding Flossie

  Denny brushed a clump of hair away from his face as we rode down Bridge Street to York, his Jeep bouncing on the cobbles toward the lights. Jane must have commandeered a set of mobile NightSuns—their strobes made sleepy Front Street seem like Fifth Avenue at Christmastime. There were squad cars, fire trucks, and ambulances and, of course, Jane’s unmarked car parked in that haphazard way of hers, nose pointed toward the scene with her two right tires straddling the curb. What can I say? If I were Jane, I’d be like that, too—owning the world. Denny told me no one had risen as fast as she had in NYPD’s detective division.

  I tried to explain what was going on when Denny asked me, but all the while he was driving and asking questions, the fog was lifting and things were becoming clearer, so at first I wasn’t too coherent. You see, my head was back in Finn Trueblood’s office, trying to decipher the connection between him and the rest of the world, especially Whiskey. She must have seen something involving him and his underworld connections. Maybe she guessed it long ago, although she didn’t tell anyone, didn’t even mention it in her diary. It might have had to do with Arthur’s storage and his plans—or someone’s plans—to sell snake oil to the city. Or not. Maybe Whiskey confronted Finn Trueblood with what she knew and threatened to tell someone and that started the chain of events resulting in Whiskey’s disappearance.

  “Where are we going, at least tell me that.”

  “See the building with the lights shining on it? They must have discovered Arthur’s storage area and they’re searching it. They’ve found something. Or someone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “How do you know?”

  I shrugged. Denny was getting better, but he still had a hard time keeping up with where I was in my head. He didn’t quite believe in my sixth sense, as Cookie liked to call it. Not me, I always believed in it, but didn’t know how different I was, not until after Dad left.

  “Maybe they’ve found Whiskey?”

  I shook my head. “Not that good. I would have felt it.”

  “Is she alive?”

  I didn’t answer, just stared straight ahead, afraid to admit what I was almost certain of in my gut.

  After we parked, I ran down the block to the swarm in front of a windowless building.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” It was the blonde detective blocking my way, a half-grin on her face. She stood in the middle of the street, arms crossed, legs forming a V, blocking our way. In the background I saw some of her minions glancing our way, then quickly resuming their business. After all, everyone enjoyed a show. I waved to her partner, Willoughby, who was busy stuffing the last bite of a hot dog into his maw. He must know the location of every twenty-four-hour food stand in the city.

  Jane must have forgotten who was feeding her information. “You promised you’d call me,” I said. And I was hopping mad, too, even though my heart was pounding.

  She smiled at Denny. “I see you’re having a hard time reining her in as usual.” Turning to me, she said, “I did call you. If you’d check your voice mail once in a while, you’d have been here in time to watch us open the door. We’ve been searching the area for the better part of today and finally hit the matching lock. Take a look.”

  But the building didn’t interest me. My eyes gravitated to a huddled form on the side, sitting up on the gurney surrounded by medics.

  “Don’t even think of going near her,” Jane said.

  “Last time I looked, it was a free country. And if it weren’t for me and Denny, you wouldn’t have found Arthur’s apartment. You guys were all over Brighton Beach searching and didn’t find anything. And don’t forget who turned the key over to you in the first place. So I’m claiming my right to interview her.”

  Jane shrugged. “We’ve already tried to talk to her. Trust me, she won’t say a word except for her rants against the world. The paramedics say she’s in shock and it’ll take a couple of days before she opens up.”

  “I don’t have a couple of days. And anyway, why would she talk to a bunch of badges and suits? But I’ve
got to try—she may know something about Whiskey Parnell and she’s been missing too long.”

  “Still holding onto the myth she’s alive?”

  “My bones tell me she is, but we don’t have the luxury of time. We’ve got to find her.” I pointed to the woman on the gurney. “In case you’re interested, that’ll be Flossie, Arthur’s wife. The landlady said she’d disappeared.”

  Even though she was seated on a gurney, I could tell Flossie was tall. Rail thin, she was clothed in a tattered dress and held an apron up to her face. Her black curls trembled.

  She gazed straight ahead, her voice disembodied. “I thought I was going to die in there. Doesn’t nobody care, I says to myself. I banged on the door for hours until I thought I’d collapse, I tell you, but no one came. What a bunch of flatfoots. What took you so long? And where’s Arthur?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Just then Zizi Carmalucci plowed in, waving to us.

  Denny’s eyes flashed to mine. “I swear I didn’t call her.”

  “I did,” I said and watched his face, encircling my arm in his and kissing the sleeve of his jacket.

  Jane tapped Zizi on the shoulder, and she turned around. I don’t know what the detective told her, but whatever it was, it subdued the reporter, who stood by Jane’s side and took notes and snapped a few photos, but didn’t speak. I shot Jane a warning look, like keep out of this and let me talk with the woman.

  Flossie’s face was swollen, scarred with old wounds.

  I showed her my ID. “Flossie?”

  She made no reply, but stared straight ahead.

  Zizi stood behind us, probably texting the story to the Eagle.

  I reached out and touched the blanket Flossie was wrapped in, but kept my mouth shut, gazing at Arthur’s destruction, a wounded, beaten soul.