Last Call

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “I would like to ask you some questions about Mr. Janssen,” Duncan went on once the introductions were done, “starting with how long you’ve known him.”

  Chandler narrowed his eyes and glanced at the ceiling for a moment. “About six years, maybe seven.” He sniffed, swiped at his nose with the back of his hand, and shrugged. “Met him when I started on with Klein.”

  “Did the two of you work together often?” Duncan asked.

  “Pretty much every day the place had work,” Chandler said. He undid the remaining buttons on his coat but didn’t take it off.

  “And did the two of you become friends right away?”

  “I s’pose,” Chandler said, sticking out his lower lip. His remaining teeth—many of them were missing—were stained brown, and I suspected he was a user of chew. This supposition was supported by the round shape worn into the pocket of his shirt, which was the same size and shape as a can of chewing tobacco, a threadbare ring of white on the otherwise blue shirt.

  “Did the two of you do things together outside of work?” Duncan asked.

  “Sometimes. Wasn’t always just us, though. The whole crew would go out after work for drinks from time to time.”

  “Did you and Mr. Janssen go out for drinks without the rest of the crew?”

  Chandler narrowed his eyes at Duncan. “You suggestin’ sump’in?” he said in a suspicious tone. “We wasn’t secret lovers or nothing like that. I ain’t no pervert.”

  Duncan smiled and shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “I’m just trying to get a feel for how well you knew Mr. Janssen.”

  “We was friends. That’s all.”

  “Okay. Did Mr. Janssen talk to you about his private life at all?”

  “Yeah, some.”

  “What about his family? Did he talk about them at all?”

  Chandler shifted in his chair. I didn’t need my synesthesia to tell me he was starting to feel a bit anxious. “He wasn’t close with his family,” he said, looking away. “Said they all lived back in New York and they didn’t talk much.”

  “How about his wife, his ex-wife?” Duncan asked.

  Chandler looked at Duncan briefly, then away again.

  “Did he ever talk about her?” Duncan pushed.

  “Mighta mentioned her once or twice,” Chandler said. He looked back at Duncan, his steely reserve back in place. “But she’s dead, so I’m pretty sure she didn’t kill Sheldon.”

  “Did his wife have any family in the area?”

  “How the hell would I know that?” Chandler said, punctuating the question with a little harrumph.

  “I thought perhaps Sheldon might have mentioned them,” Duncan said, and I noticed he had switched from the more formal “Mr. Janssen” to the use of his first name.

  Chandler frowned and reached up to scratch his head, and when he was done, the knit cap was tilted sideways. “Now that you mention it, he did say sump’in one time about a sista who lived in Waukesha. Name was something weird, one of those hippie-dippie names parents liked to use back in the sixties, ya know? Freedom or Happy or some crap like that.”

  Duncan scribbled something in his notebook. I wondered if he did it out of habit, because all this was being recorded, or if he did it to create a pause of uncomfortable silence to see if Chandler offered up anything more. If it was the latter, it worked.

  Chandler let out a long, deep sigh and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I know you know about the kid ’cause she ain’t there no more.”

  This surprised me, and judging from the look on Duncan’s face, it surprised him, too. “What kid?” Duncan asked after a few seconds of stunned silence.

  “Sheldon’s daughter,” Chandler said with huge impatience, as if Duncan had asked the dumbest question possible. “I know she ain’t there ’cause I checked to make sure she’s okay. And she was gone.”

  “What do you mean, you checked?” Duncan asked, frowning.

  “I went by Sheldon’s place last night and let myself in. He gave me a key a long time ago. Said if anything ever happened to him, I was s’posed to take care of his girl.”

  “You went into Sheldon’s house last night?” Duncan asked, his irritation obvious both in his tone and his rapidly reddening face. He didn’t give Chandler time to answer. “Didn’t you see those big yellow tapes on the door that said not to enter? His house is a crime scene. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Duncan’s high ire startled Chandler. The man was leaning as far back into his chair as he could go, and if he could have melted into it, I think he would have. He stared at Duncan with wide eyes, one arm folded over his chest, the fist on that arm propping the elbow of his other arm, the hand of which was clamped over his mouth, as if he was trying to keep any more damaging information from escaping. I was sure the chief’s presence during this revelation didn’t help Duncan’s mood any.

  Duncan paused, sputtering for a few seconds. Then he closed his eyes and took a few more seconds to gather himself.

  “Let’s all take a breath, shall we?” Chief Holland said in a calm voice. “Mr. Chandler, what time last night did you go to Mr. Janssen’s house?”

  Chandler eyed the chief warily, and appeared to be debating whether it was safe for him to answer. Apparently, he decided it was. “Round about nine or so, I think.” He hesitated, his eyes darting from the chief to Duncan and back to the chief. “I didn’t damage your tape or nothin’,” he said. “I used my key, unlocked the door, and stepped between the strips.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand because I couldn’t help but smile at Chandler’s naïveté. He thought it was the integrity of the tape that had Duncan upset.

  “And what did you do once you were inside the house?” the chief asked.

  “I called out for the girl, and then checked to see if she was in her special place.”

  “You knew about the hiding place?” Duncan asked, resuming control.

  Chandler snorted back a laugh. “Of course I knew about it. I helped Sheldon build it.”

  Duncan, and the chief for that matter, seemed momentarily stymied. Finally, Duncan asked, “When was the last time you saw Sheldon?”

  Chandler squinted at the ceiling. “Day before he was killed,” he said. “At work.”

  “Did Sheldon indicate to you that he was worried about anything? Or afraid of anything?”

  Chandler chuckled. “He was afraid of the boss. We all of us are. Klein can be a mean bastard.”

  “Did he say he was afraid of Klein the last time you saw him?”

  “Yup, sure did. Said he knew Klein was gonna be real ticked off because of some on-the-job shenanigans.” Chandler pronounced the word like it was gender specific: she-nanigans.

  “What sort of shenanigans?” Duncan asked. He leaned a little closer, and I knew he was wondering if this might have something to do with Mal.

  “Don’t know for sure,” Chandler said with a shrug. He explored the inside of one cheek with his tongue. “Said something about a spy, but that didn’t make no sense to me,” he concluded.

  “Did Sheldon say who he thought the spy was?” Duncan asked.

  “Nah, he kept that kind of stuff private. I know he did other things for Klein. Side jobs, ya know? But he never talked about it.”

  “Do you have any ideas about who the spy might be?” Duncan asked.

  Chandler squinted at the ceiling again, appearing deep in thought. After a moment, he looked at Duncan and said, “There’s this one guy, kind of new to us. He asks a lot of questions and takes a lot of pictures with his phone. And he and Klein always seem to be butting heads, ya know? And he didn’t show up for work on Friday.”

  “What is this person’s name?” Duncan asked.

  Chandler shook his head and chuckled. “It’s Malachi O’Reilly. That’s rich, ain’t it? He’s got one of those Israeli first names, but his last name is as Irish as they come.”

  “Mr. Chandler, you can’t go back inside Sheldon’s house. In fact, I’m going to
ask you to turn over the key you have.”

  Chandler shrugged at this, fished in one of his pants pockets, and pulled out a key ring. He found the key in question, removed it from the ring, and handed it to Duncan. “The kid . . . she’s okay?” he said.

  “She is,” Duncan said.

  “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Duncan said. “She’s with a family right now who is well equipped to take care of her and her special needs. She’s safe.”

  Chandler nodded, his brow furrowed. He seemed genuinely concerned about Felicity, and despite his somewhat uncouth appearance, demeanor, and speech, I felt a twinge of affection for him and his devotion to the child.

  “You mentioned Sheldon did some side jobs for Mr. Klein,” Duncan went on, changing the subject. “What sort of jobs were they?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Chandler said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “He paid a lot of visits to people, and he always seemed to have packages to deliver.”

  “What kinds of packages?”

  Chandler shrugged. “Boxes, bags . . . who knows what was in ’em. I know there was money in one of the boxes he had one time because I saw it. But that was the only one I saw.”

  Duncan digested this for a few seconds, and I took advantage of the moment. “Mr. Chandler, does the term little peach mean anything to you?”

  “I guess. Shelly sometimes referred to the kid as his little peach. He said his wife, or ex-wife rather, started using it, and it stuck.”

  “Did you kill Sheldon Janssen?” I asked.

  Everyone in the room appeared surprised by my question, or perhaps the sudden segue. All three men looked at me, their expressions equally bemused.

  “Hell no,” Chandler said after a slight hesitation.

  The taste of his voice remained unchanged, and because he was cooperating, I decided to go a step further. “Is there anyone you know of who would have wanted Sheldon Janssen dead?”

  Chandler gave the question some serious thought. “Well,” he said finally, letting out a weighty sigh, “Mr. Klein is a scary dude. I don’t know what kind of stuff he and Shelly did together, but I got the sense from Shelly that it wasn’t strictly legal at times.” He paused, winced, and eyed Duncan and the chief to see if they had reacted to this revelation. When they didn’t, he continued. “I s’pose Shelly might a gone and got himself into a sitch-ee-a-shun”—Chandler enunciated the syllables with great care and emphasis—“that got him in trouble with the wrong kind of people, ya know? Or maybe he just got on the wrong side of Klein.”

  Duncan looked over at me, eyebrows raised in question. I shook my head, and Duncan turned back to Chandler and said, “Okay, sir, you are free to go. Thanks for talking to us.”

  Chandler looked a little surprised, but after a moment’s hesitation where he seemed to be waiting for someone to say just kidding or something like that, he got out of his seat and headed for the door. As he opened the door, he looked over at me and said, “You should prolly look purdy close at that O’Reilly guy, too. There’s sump’in shifty about that man.”

  And with that, he left.

  Chapter 20

  The three of us sat there in silence after Chandler left the interview room. A good minute passed before anyone moved or said anything. It was Chief Holland who finally broke the silence.

  “Ms. Dalton, I assume you asked Mr. Chandler if he killed this Janssen fellow so you could see if he was lying?”

  I nodded.

  “And?”

  “And he didn’t kill the guy. What’s more, he believes either Klein or this O’Reilly guy might have done it.” I saw Duncan give me a sharp look. “Of course, Mr. Chandler’s beliefs aren’t facts, so the only thing I can tell you for sure is that he didn’t do it and he genuinely cares about Janssen’s daughter.”

  The chief switched his attention to Duncan. “Who is this O’Reilly character? Is that the person whose fingerprints were found on the gun?”

  Duncan nodded. “It is, but I’m certain he didn’t do it.”

  Chief Holland gave him a quizzical look. “How so?”

  Duncan hesitated just long enough to give away the fact that he was hiding something. “Because I found him, and asked him with Mack here as my lie detector,” he said, apparently deciding to come clean. He paused, and we both waited to see if Holland would accept this as proof of innocence.

  “You’re sure?” Holland asked me, and I nodded. “Then I’m okay with that. How does he figure into this? And why were his prints on the gun?”

  “He’s a cop,” Duncan said. “He’s been working undercover at one of Klein’s sites. And he admits to struggling with Janssen when a gun was pulled on him, explaining how his prints ended up on it.”

  “I see,” Holland said, looking worried. “Do you think he’s on the take or something? Because we’ve suspected Klein of money laundering, possibly even drug smuggling, for a while now.”

  Duncan shook his head. “O’Reilly is a personal friend of mine, and of Mack’s, too.”

  Holland gave Duncan a look of disapproval. “So your level of objectivity with regard to him is basically none?” he said, his voice rife with skepticism.

  “You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Chief,” Duncan said.

  “And me,” I threw out for good measure. “Mal O’Reilly did not kill Sheldon Janssen.”

  Holland looked less than convinced. “So where is he? Why isn’t he assisting with the investigation?”

  “He is,” Duncan said. “But he’s doing it on the sly. He’s been trying to get a handle on just what Klein’s other activities are. I doubt he’s going to be able to continue that assignment, particularly if he’s persona non grata with Klein at this point. But while he may not be in Klein’s favor, I don’t know if his cover is blown. And until we can figure that out, we’re trying to keep a low profile with that part of the investigation, in case his superiors want to try to put another undercover person in there. O’Reilly did come across some books Klein had in his office that might be valuable as evidence.”

  Holland didn’t look pleased with this explanation, but he didn’t question it any further. Instead, he pushed back his chair, stood, and narrowed his eyes on me for a second. Then, without another word, he left the room.

  “We really need to talk to this Klein fellow,” I said. Duncan shot me an amused look. “What?” I said, feeling annoyed at being the apparent butt of a joke I didn’t get.

  “You sound like one of us. Like a cop.”

  “Well, in this consulting role, I sort of am one of you, aren’t I?”

  “I suppose you are.”

  “But I’m also the owner of a bar, and I should really get back to it.” I glanced at my watch. “I imagine any other inquiries will have to wait until tomorrow?”

  Duncan’s phone rang before he could answer me. “It’s the Syracuse cops who did the Janssen family notification,” he said. Then he tapped the screen of the phone, put it to his ear, and said, “This is Detective Albright.”

  Once again, I tried to listen in. But I was unable to hear the other end of the conversation and Duncan’s only comments were a couple of uh-huhs, a thank you, and then an intriguing, really? After listening for a full minute or more, he finally said, “That’s interesting.” Another pause and then, “I don’t know, but I hope to find out.” He ended the call with another thanks to whoever was on the other end and closed with, “I will.”

  I was literally on the edge of my seat, waiting for him to explain.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” he said. “Sheldon Janssen’s family said they haven’t heard from him in years.”

  I shrugged. “He was estranged, perhaps?”

  “It would seem so. His family said they had no idea he was ever married, or that he had a child.”

  “That’s odd. Felicity is what, eight or nine? Even if he hadn’t spoken to his family in two or three years, you would have thought he’d have mentioned a child somewh
ere along the line.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Any idea how Janssen ended up out in Milwaukee?”

  “He attended the U of W here. Moved out here when he was a young man, and apparently never went back or had any further contact with his family.”

  “Interesting,” I repeated, thinking. “What about Hope? I know she’s dead, but Chandler said something about a sister. Have you found any family for her out this way?”

  “We’re working on it,” Duncan said.

  Having exhausted our contemporaneous analysis of the case for the moment, Duncan drove us back to the bar. It had started snowing, big, fat, fluffy flakes that drifted lazily from the sky. When we arrived at the bar, Duncan asked if he could use my office and my computer for a while. “If I can check on a few things from here, I can stay and spend the night,” he said with a salacious wink.

  I was more than happy to accommodate his request and, after asking him if he wanted something to drink, and offering to have one of my waitresses bring it to him in the office, I left him to his work while I made my rounds of the bar.

  The place was busy for a Sunday evening, but as usual, my staff had things well under control. After checking in with Billy and Teddy Bear behind the bar, and asking Missy if she and Linda were managing okay, I poked my head into the kitchen to make sure things were going well there, too, and to order some coffee for me and Duncan. With that done, I headed upstairs to the Capone Club room.

  The gas fireplace was turned on its highest setting, and the room both looked and felt warm and inviting. Through the window at the far end of the room I could see the snow falling, heavier now, though the flakes were still fat and fluffy. This room was by far my favorite part of my new section remodel, so much so that I had been considering turning my dad’s office in the apartment upstairs into a similar type of room.

  Nearly all the chairs were filled, and as I scanned the faces, I saw most of the usual suspects were present: Joe, Frank, and Cora, of course, along with Carter, Holly, Tad, Alicia, Sonja, and Stephen. Greg Nash, our resident real estate agent, was also there. He had just returned from a two-week trip to the Caribbean, and he looked refreshed and tanned. He had decided to take a vacation back when I formulated my New Year’s Eve plan to out the letter writer and her cohort. Greg had had a scary experience around that time regarding the showing of a high-end home where no one showed up and he sensed something wasn’t right. It was later that same day I made the revelation to the Capone Club members about the letter writer, something I had kept secret up until then. When Greg learned the details of the deadly history I’d been keeping from him and the others, he’d decided departure was the better part of valor, at least until the letter-writer thing was resolved. I wasn’t sure he’d come back to the Capone Club at all after that, so I was happy to see he had returned to the fold.