No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (No Such Thing As...: A Brandy Alexander Mystery)

by Shelly Fredman

  I finally went with “Insta-search,” a popular site for stalkers and other would-be felons. They faxed me the information in less than an hour.

  I took out the notes I’d jotted down at the prison and checked for Harmon’s old phone number against the list of Laura’s outgoing calls. A third of the way down the page I spotted it. At 11:14 p.m. on the night of May 2nd a two-minute phone call was made to Harmon’s number. It was reasonable to assume that Laura had made that call. So at least Harmon was telling the truth about Laura calling him that night. It didn’t prove much else, but it was a start.

  I scanned down the list of numbers. There were relatively few calls on the page. It made me feel bad to think that Laura didn’t have anyone to talk to. Out of curiosity, I punched in the first phone number on the list. It was no longer in service. The second one connected me to the registrar’s office at Drexel University. I hung up and dialed the next number on the list.

  After three rings a man’s voice answered. “Dante’s Garden where every night is Ladies’ Night. How can I help you?”

  Dante’s Garden? As in the male strip joint? I thought I’d dialed wrong so I hung up and tried again. I hadn’t dialed wrong. What was Laura doing calling a place like this? I quickly scanned the list. There were several more calls, all to the same number.

  “Oh. Um, hi,” I said into the phone. “What’s your address?”

  Okay, the way I saw it, I didn’t have any choice. I’m an investigative reporter now. So if getting information on Laura meant spending time with hot, gorgeous naked guys gyrating around to cheesy music while women stuffed dollar bills into their jock straps, well that’s a sacrifice I’d just have to make. I hung up and called Franny, Janine and Carla because I knew they’d want to be there to support me every step of the way.

  Craig came by my office at around three p.m. I’d just finished calling the local E.R.’s to inquire if anyone with a missing finger had come in for medical assistance. At the moment, said digit was residing in the mini fridge in Nick’s office. If I could find its rightful owner, maybe I could bargain body parts for answers.

  Craig had come around to the other side of my desk. Now he was peering over my shoulder while I typed up my notes from my visit with David Dwayne.

  “Um, did you need something?” I asked.

  “Someone came by to see you,” he announced, never taking his eyes off my computer screen. “He’s a detective so the guards had to let him in.”

  I shut down the screen. “Did he leave a name?”

  “Uh huh. Detective DiCarlo. Are you in trouble?” he asked.

  “Depends. When he asked where I was, what did you tell him?”

  Craig shrugged. “I told him the truth. I didn’t know where you were.”

  “Then no, I’m not in trouble.”

  “He called you Brandy.”

  “Who?”

  “Detective DiCarlo. He said, ‘Tell Brandy to give me a call,’ like he knew you or something. But he called you the wrong name.”

  “Oh. That. Listen, Craig, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…”

  I had one thing left to do before I left for the day. Something I’d been putting off all afternoon. In order to get the full picture of who Laura Stewart was, I had to talk to her family. This is the thing I hate most about being a reporter. The part where you track down innocent, grieving people, shove a microphone in their face and demand that they tell you how devastated they feel about whatever tragedy has befallen them.

  I don’t mind sticking it to people who deserve it. In fact that’s why I wanted to be a reporter in the first place. To right the wrongs and be a voice for those who can’t speak for themselves. I know it sounds corny, but it’s true. But in this case, it meant dredging up horrible memories of the loss of a loved one. The only solace this family probably had was the knowledge that their daughter’s killer had been caught and would soon be put to death. And I was about to take that away from them. Somehow I didn’t think they’d welcome me with open arms.

  I didn’t have the heart to confront Laura’s parents head-on. Instead, I looked through the Philadelphia phone directory for her half-brother, Ethan. According to the old newspaper clippings, his last name was Girard. At the time of Laura’s murder he was an intern at Childrens’ Hospital. I found a listing for an obstetrician named Dr. Ethan Girard out in Bryn Mawr and put through a call.

  Dr. Girard’s receptionist answered and informed me that he was with a patient.

  “Would you like to make an appointment?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I thought it best to meet with him in person. I figured he’d be less likely to turn me down if I were already sitting in his office, than if I just explained to him what I wanted over the phone.

  “Is this for an existing patient?” she chirped. If Tinker Bell could speak I imagined she would sound just like this woman.

  “No, actually I’d just like to interview Dr. Girard.”

  She didn’t seem surprised by my request. I guess with Harmon’s execution set for next month, I wasn’t the only reporter looking to speak to the victim’s brother.

  “Interviews are scheduled on Monday and Thursday mornings,” she explained, confirming my suspicions. “Doctor Girard has a cancellation for this coming Monday at 10:30 a.m. if that’s convenient for you.”

  I booked the appointment, relieved that I had the weekend to gear up for the interview.

  “See you then and congratulations!” she added sweetly.

  “For what?” I asked, but she had already hung up.

  “Wow.” Carla leaned forward on the table, her arm outstretched so far I thought it would pop right out of its socket. Frantically, she waved a five dollar bill in the air as if she were hailing a cab. Only it wasn’t a cab she was hailing. It was a guy. A bare-chested, bare-assed hunk of human male perfection. And he was headed our way.

  We were seated at one of the side tables located right off the stage at Dante’s Garden. I’d opted for a seat towards the back, preferably in a dark corner near the exit. But Janine had insisted on up close and personal. Franny, Janine and Carla were whooping it up alongside dozens of other uninhibited females and one lone guy who kept pantomiming a phone to his ear and mouthing “Call me” to all the male strippers.

  Carla was tanked on rum and coke, her beehive listing like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Zeroing in on her, the dancer reached the edge of the stage and air humped to the beat of the music, his considerable attributes dangling above her. Carla’s eyes began to widen in either terror or anticipation, I really couldn’t tell which. Then without warning she jumped to her feet and rushed the stage.

  “Don’t tell your uncle,” she yelled, ripping open her shirt and stuffing the fiver into her bra. He leaned down to meet her and plucked it out with his teeth. The crowd went wild. I slid under the table, (my natural response to anything embarrassing) and stayed there until he headed back upstage.

  What I really wanted to do was slug down a straight shot of bourbon, but I was working and needed to sound at least a little bit coherent when I talked to the club manager. I couldn’t stop thinking about Nick and it didn’t help that he’d called again. I ignored the call. I knew I was being childish, but I was never going to win any prizes for maturity anyway.

  At 11:00 p.m. I took a bathroom break and then wandered over to the bar. Joe Allen, the manager was there. He was a short, burly man in his late fifties. At the moment he was wrestling a drink out of a very drunk patron’s hand. “You’ve had enough for one night, honey.” He nodded to the bartender. “Take some money out of petty cash and call her a cab.”

  I waited while Joe turned the woman over to the bouncer and then went up and introduced myself.

  He smiled at me. “Hey, I know you,” he said. “You’re Brandy Alexander from that morning show. Are you doing a piece on the club?” He looked around. “Where are the cameras? Come on, I’ll buy you a drink. What do you want, doll?”

  I liked Joe. He remi
nded me of my Uncle Marty on my father’s side of the family. I smiled back at him. “I’m fine with this,” I said, holding up my Coke. “But I would like to talk to you if you’ve got a minute.”

  We went into Joe’s office where I took out Laura’s picture and showed it to him.

  “Do you recognize her?” I asked.

  Joe stared at it, scratching his head. “Yeah. She looks familiar. I can’t put my finger on why though.”

  “Her name was Laura Stewart. She was murdered about four years ago. Maybe you saw her picture in the paper?”

  “Maybe.” After a minute he shook his head. “Nah, that’s not it. Wait. Now I remember. She used to be a regular here. You say she was murdered?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m not surprised. This chic was a real weirdo. She’d come in about two, three times a week. She was always alone. She’d sit over there in the corner of the bar, not talking to anyone. It was kind of spooky. Reason I remember her is she used to call here before she came in to make sure this one particular dancer would be here that night. She’d even asked for his phone number so she could call him directly, but we don’t give out personal information on our boys. I figured if he wanted her to have it, he’d have given it to her. Danny used to say she had some strange tastes, if you catch my drift.”

  “Who’s Danny?”

  “Danny Lang. The guy she used to come see perform.”

  “Is that all she’d do is watch him dance? Do you remember if they had any contact outside of the club?”

  Joe cut me a look. “This is a legit business here. We don’t promote anything except some good, clean fun for the patrons. Whatever arrangements Danny made with this chic were off the clock, y’know what I mean?”

  “Does Danny still work here?”

  “He quit about eight months ago. Listen, Danny’s a good kid. I don’t want to make trouble for him by implying there was anything improper going on between him and this Laura girl.”

  It was a tad late for that, but I kept my mouth shut. “Do you know how I can get in touch with Danny?” I asked instead.

  “I’ve got his home phone number.” He hesitated. “Look, I don’t feel right just giving it out to you. How about I take yours and ask him to call you?”

  I routed around in my bag for my business card and handed it to him. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot, Joe, but this is important. Tell him either he talks to me or he talks to the police.”

  I thought about Laura all the way home. Her friends, the few she had anyway, had described her as quiet, shy and reserved, while David Dwayne Harmon insisted she was an insatiable sex addict with an appetite for kink. This was confirmed tonight by what Joe had told me. For all I knew, this guy Danny was the one who killed Laura.

  Damn! I just couldn’t believe that no one had thought to follow up on Harmon’s claim that Laura had pursued him. It was an automatic assumption that he’d been lying. Granted, the guy was pond scum, but it’s the constitutional right of every American citizen to have adequate council, even the grossly unlikable.

  I would have pondered this some more, but at that moment my cell phone rang. I pulled up to my street and parked one handed while I answered the phone with the other. It was Bobby. Oops. I’d forgotten to call him. “Hey, what’s up?” I said.

  “I’m about to make your day, sweetheart. I got a call this afternoon from a buddy at the Pennsauken precinct. The autopsy results are in.”

  “And?”

  “And it looks like you were right. They’ve turned it over to homicide.”

  “I knew it!” I yelled.

  “Okay, calm down,” Bobby said. “There’s more.”

  Having turned off the car engine, I was rapidly turning into a Popsicle. “Listen, don’t go anywhere. I’ll call you right back.”

  I flew into the house, almost tripping over Adrian who was sprawled on the living room rug like a tiny beached whale. He looked up at me with baleful eyes, his tummy distended beyond normal capacity. Lying next to him was half a meatball. The poor little guy was seriously in need of an Alka Seltzer. “Didn’t I warn you to stay away from my mom’s cooking?” I whispered.

  I dashed upstairs to call Bobby back when I heard my mother’s voice calling to me from the kitchen. “How was your book club meeting?”

  I stopped mid-dash. “Fine. Great. We all cried when Mr. Darcy finally declared his love for Elizabeth. Mom, I’m really tired, so—”

  My mother walked into the living room, ladle in hand. She’d been hard at work lovingly creating tomorrow night’s meal which sadly, was bound to be inedible. “Honey, a friend of yours called tonight. A Nicholas Santiago.”

  “He did?” Omigod! Omigod! Stay calm. Don’t give anything away. “Did he happen to leave a message?”

  “Well, naturally he was calling to speak to you, but somehow we got to talking and—”

  “You talked to him? What exactly did you say?”

  “Oh Brandy, don’t be ridiculous. How am I supposed to remember every word of our conversation?” My mother has a mind like a steel trap. She can recall conversations she had in the 4th grade. “The point is he seems like a very nice boy, so I invited him to join us for dinner tomorrow night.”

  “You what? He’s not coming, is he?”

  “He most certainly is. In fact, he insisted on bringing the wine.”

  Nick can’t be serious about coming over tomorrow night… or can he?

  I sat closeted in my room fruitlessly dialing Nick’s number. The phone kept going to voice mail, finally forcing me to give up and leave a message. “Nick, it’s Brandy. I’m sorry I haven’t called you back, but I’ve had, um… pink eye… It can be very debilitating.” Oh God is there any way to erase this? “Anyway, I just wanted to say that it was very nice of you to humor my mother by telling her you’d come for dinner, but it’s totally unnecessary. I’m sure you have better things to do, so—” BEEP. Shit. “Hi, it’s me again. Anyway, we’re not even having dinner tomorrow night. My mother drinks a lot and she gets mixed up. So, uh, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” Unhhh!

  I dialed Bobby next. He picked up on the first ring, his voice a soft blend of Philly and his Chicago roots.

  “Did I wake you?” I climbed into bed and snuggled under the covers. Rocky and Adrian had beat me to it and were fast asleep at the foot of the bed.

  “Nah,” he yawned. “I was just lying down with Sophia. Sometimes she gets scared at night, so I stay with her until she falls asleep. What took you so long to call me back?”

  “My mother. Don’t ask. So what did the autopsy report show?”

  “I wasn’t able to get the specifics,” he said. “Something about chloroform in the blood stream, cardiac arrest. Whatever it was, it was enough to convince the D.A. that foul play was involved.”

  Bobby breathed out a slow puff of air. It was the sound he made when he was trying to keep his cool. But I knew him too well and braced myself for the worst. “The autopsy showed something else, Bran. At the time of her death Tamra was pregnant.”

  A shock ran straight through me. “How far along was she?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of months I think. Like I said, I don’t have all the details. I just thought you’d want to know.”

  I was quiet for a minute as I digested this new information.

  “Hey, you still there?”

  “Yeah.” Something had been nagging at me and now it worked its way to the front of my brain. “Bobby, do they know who the father is—I mean was?”

  “I assume it was her husband’s. Why?”

  “When I was at their house I noticed an open box of condoms on the nightstand. Why would they have condoms around if they were trying to have a baby?”

  “Maybe they weren’t trying. Maybe they were using protection but she got pregnant by accident. Rubbers aren’t foolproof.”

  I knew he was speaking from personal experience. Even though Bobby loved his little girl more than life itself, the pregnancy wasn’t planned and, g
iven the choice, it’s not the path he would have chosen.

  “Okay, here’s a thought,” I said. “What if it turns out Jeff wasn’t the father? Jeff thought Tamra was having an affair. What if he knew she was pregnant and suspected the baby wasn’t his—”

  “That would be one hell of an incentive for him to kill her,” Bobby cut in.

  “Are the cops going to run a DNA test on the baby? I should call and tell them to.”

  “Great idea. Cops love being told how to do their jobs. Look, Brandy, you were right all along about Tamra and I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time about it. But I want you to promise me that from here on in you’ll let the professionals handle it.”

  Yeah? Well, David Dwayne Harmon left his fate up to the “so-called” professionals and look where he ended up. I wasn’t about to drop this. Not by a long shot.

  “So,” Bobby said, not waiting for an answer, “I haven’t seen you on-air the last couple of days. Are you taking some time off while your parents are in town?”

  “Um, no, actually, I’ve been re-assigned. My boss thought I’d be more useful in another department. I’m doing a little investigative work.”

  “Yeah?” he said, his voice guarded. “What kind of investigative work?”

  “Oh, I’m just following up on a story for a colleague. Nothing too eventful.” Not exactly a lie. Nothing’s happened to me in at least twenty-four hours. That’s uneventful given my track record lately.

  “Oh. Well, I’m glad to hear you’re taking it easy. I’ve been worried about you.”

  “No need to be. Really.”

  I didn’t know whether to be touched by his concern or pissed at the vote of “no confidence.” At any rate, he wouldn’t be happy with the news that I was taking on Tamra’s case. I figured I’d better hang up before guilt took over and I ended up confessing everything to him. Hell, he probably knew I was lying anyway.