As I drove toward downtown, I thought about Maggie. She was scared of someone, but who? She’d said “he”. Had killing Pete been a team effort, and she couldn’t tell me anything or her partner would kill her? Whoever it was, his threats had succeeded. Her lips were glued tight. But I’d managed to snap her picture and if Charlie could definitively say she’d been in his condo, that would be another piece in the puzzle. I pulled out my phone and called him. He didn’t answer, so I left a message for him to call as soon as he could.
I parked on the street in front of my building. The air felt wet after the rain as I walked up the porch to the Goofball Brothers’ door. I knocked and a moment later Ace answered.
“Hi, Reed,” he smiled. “Are you just getting home?”
“Yeah.”
“Boy, your day must’ve been really boring,” Deuce said as he came up behind Ace. “Watching someone all day and night.”
“Not as boring as you might think,” I muttered to myself.
“What?” Ace asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Did you ever see that woman?”
They shook their heads in unison. “No. We finally left around seven, but we never saw her.”
“Maybe she had to work,” Deuce suggested.
“Or she didn’t want to hang out in the rain,” Ace said.
“Both of those make perfect sense.” I couldn’t believe I’d said that about something that had come out of either one of their mouths. Every once in a while, I’d underestimate them.
“You want us to go back tomorrow?” Ace asked.
“You’d do that?” I said, surprised. “I figured one day would be enough for you guys.”
“It was kinda fun,” Deuce said. “Besides, Kendra was nice.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Kendra?”
“She’s the waitress at the bar,” Ace said. “She’s funny.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “You better be careful, or Nat will get jealous.” Natalie Bowman was a regular bartender at B 52s, and she loved the Goofball Brothers and was always teasing and pseudo-flirting with them.
They both laughed shyly, then frowned, wondering if they’d crossed some kind of line.
“I’m kidding,” I said. “When you go back to the bar tomorrow, you can kill two birds with one stone.” Two blank stares. “You can help me and see Kendra.”
“Oh, right,” Ace said. “So you want us to go back? I don’t have to work until four tomorrow.”
“Yeah, and I don’t go in for another day,” Deuce chimed in.
“Okay, it’s a deal.” I gave Ace some more money. He tried to refuse but I insisted. “You’re helping me, so take it.”
“Okay,” Ace said. He took the bills.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” I left them and went upstairs to my condo.
“Hey, hon,” Willie said when I walked through the door. She was sitting at the kitchen table, typing on her laptop. “How was your day?”
“Kind of boring,” I said. “Until the end.”
“Uh-huh.” She was only half-listening. “There’s a package for you. It’s from your mom.” She nudged a small box across the table.
The ring!
“Oh, okay,” I said nonchalantly.
I took the box from the table, went into the bedroom, and opened it. Inside was a beautiful diamond ring. It was perfect, not too fancy. Something I could see on Willie’s finger. I had the piece of paper that I’d used to trace her ring size in my wallet. I took it out and checked the ring against it. It was almost a perfect fit. There was a note in the box.
I hope she likes it, my mother had written. We are so happy for you. Love Mom and Dad.
I was touched.
“What’re you doing?” Willie asked as she came into the bedroom.
“Just checking a note I wrote myself,” I said as I quickly shoved the paper and ring into my wallet. I made a mental note to call my mother and thank her.
“Sorry I wasn’t listening when you came in,” she said. She came up and kissed my face. “How’s your nose?”
“Good as new.” I gingerly touched it. “Maybe a tad bit sore.”
“You want to go to bed? You can tell me about your day, and maybe…”
I stared into her eyes, feeling a deep love for her.
“Yes,” I said huskily, then kissed her hard as she pulled me to the bed.
Bogie’s voice woke me out of a deep sleep. Sun seeped through the cracks in the window blinds, so I knew it was morning.
Willie poked at me. “Get your phone,” she murmured, then groaned and rolled over. “Ugh, I wanted to sleep longer.”
“Sorry,” I said. I snatched my phone off the nightstand. “Hello?”
“Ferguson,” a voice barked.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Spillman.”
I bolted upright. “Yes?”
“Do you know a Maggie Hollenbaucher?” She was all business.
“Who?” I played dumb. She’d tracked down Maggie.
“Come on, Ferguson, don’t play dumb. She had your card.”
“Had?” My heart sank.
“She’s dead.”
Chapter Twenty
I was suddenly wide awake.
“What happened?”
She ignored my question. “Do you know where Rooster & Moon is?”
“The coffee shop on Bannock?”
“Meet me there in half an hour.” Then she hung up before I could respond.
I cursed as I hopped out of bed.
“What’s the matter?” Willie sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“Maggie’s dead.”
“What?” Now she was wide awake, too. “What happened?”
“Spillman wouldn’t tell me.” I dashed into the bathroom for a quick cleanup, then came back into the bedroom and threw on shorts and an Izod shirt. I gave Willie a peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you later,” I said as I ran out the door.
“Let me know what’s going on,” she hollered after me.
I made it to Rooster & Moon Coffee Pub in record time. Spillman was sitting outside at a table on a long, rectangular porch. She had dark circles under her eyes and she wasn’t smiling.
“This place seems a little too hip for you,” I said, grouchy because she had kept me in the dark.
“I’m full of surprises,” she said as she took a sip of a dark coffee concoction from a white mug. “I’ll bet this is your kind of music, right?”
“Uh-huh.” The Smiths, my favorite 80s band, was playing a peppy song, “What Difference Does It Make?” But at that particular moment, I wasn’t feeling very upbeat. I pulled out a chair across from her and sat down. Behind her, the downtown Denver high-rises glinted in the sunlight. She eyed my jaw, where I still had a small bruise.
“What happened to you?”
I carefully touched the sore area. “I’m going for the tough, film noir detective look.”
She was not amused. “Why were you talking to Maggie?” she asked bluntly.
I shook my head. “You first. I want the details.”
Spillman contemplated me for a moment, then sighed heavily. “Maggie was shot sometime late last night in the parking lot of Flex Fitness Center. She was seen working out around ten, and then someone spotted her body around midnight. And as with Pete’s death, we haven’t released details of the murder to anyone.”
Maggie had visited yet another gym, I thought, then said, “Any witnesses?”
“Not so far. We’re working on it.”
“Are there video cameras?”
“Not outside. Maggie was parked around the side of the building, out of the way. A gym employee came out the back door to throw out some trash and saw her car. The driver’s side door was still open, so he was curious. When he approached, he saw her. It looks like someone gunned her down as she was getting in her car.”
“That’s not the best part of town. Was it robbery?” I asked, even though I highly doubted that.
“It’s possible.” She crossed her arms
. “But you don’t believe that any more than I do.”
I shook my head.
“When did you talk to her?” Spillman asked.
“Last night, around nine,” I said. “She must’ve gone to the gym after that.”
“Where were you?”
I hesitated. She exhaled loudly, a dramatic he’s-lying-to-me-again kind of sigh. I held up a hand.
“It’s not what you think,” I said. It never was. “We were at Pete’s building.”
“And why were you there?”
“I followed Maggie.”
“Why’d she go there?”
I thought for a long moment, deciding what to say…and what not to. I wanted to be helpful, but I didn’t want to incriminate myself either. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “She had a key and let herself into Pete’s apartment.” I figured it wouldn’t hurt to disclose that. I just hoped Spillman would never figure out that I’d gone into the apartment as well. “When Maggie came back out, I talked to her.”
“And?”
“You know Maggie had been dating Pete, right?”
She nodded. “The neighbor told us. We interviewed Maggie and she didn’t deny it.”
“Did you know that Pete was selling steroids to Charlie Preston and others?”
“Yes.”
“I think Maggie was in on it somehow.”
Her face revealed nothing. “How’d you come to that conclusion?”
“By following her.” I kept other things – like the background check Cal had done on Maggie – to myself.
“That’s a lot of legwork.”
“Uh-huh.” I couldn’t tell if she was impressed or not. Nor could I tell if she already knew the same things I did.
“You know this for a fact?” she asked.
I shook my head. “That’s what I was trying to figure out, and why I was talking to Maggie. I can’t prove any of it yet.”
“And she didn’t admit to anything.”
“No.”
“Any idea who might’ve killed her?”
“None,” I said truthfully. “Where was Charlie last night?”
“He says he was at a friend’s house. I’ve got someone verifying his alibi.”
“If it checks out, then you’ve got another murderer out there, someone who’s likely killed twice.” And if Charlie’s alibi didn’t clear him, did that mean he killed Maggie?
Spillman glanced away for a second and then trained her gaze on me. “Be careful, Ferguson,” she finally said without telling me what she thought about my detective work, or if she had a suspect – other than Charlie – in mind. Then she stood up and eyed my bruised jaw again. “If this killer knows you’re poking around, you’re in danger, too.”
“Thanks,” I said as she walked between tables and out to the sidewalk.
I sat back and assessed my situation. I’d thought Maggie had killed Pete. Although that was still a possibility, I now had more questions than answers. Namely, who murdered Maggie? And why? I ran through last night’s conversation with her. She’d been scared of someone, even wondering if this guy might kill her. Did she know too much? Was she eliminated because she could identify him as Pete’s killer?
Bogie’s voice sounded above the roar of a car driving by. I pulled out my cell phone. It was Charlie.
“Reed!” he said breathlessly. “I just got through talking with the police!”
“I heard.”
“Then you know that this woman Maggie was killed.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t do it!” he said.
“If your alibi is solid, you don’t have to worry,” I said.
“It is. I was with a couple of my teammates and their girlfriends. They’ll vouch for me.”
“Then everything will be okay. Are you at home?”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming over,” I said. “We need to talk.”
“Reed, this is insane,” Charlie said. “I’m not a killer.”
We were sitting in his living room, and he held his customary bat while we talked. In my rush to meet Spillman, I hadn’t thought to grab my camera, so I had stopped back by the condo to get it and my laptop. Willie had gone for a run, so I didn’t see her.
“You’re sure your alibi is solid?” I asked. “Because if you’re lying, or if you have others lying for you, the police will figure it out.”
“I’m not lying,” he snapped. “I was at a friend’s house.”
I raised my hands. “I had to ask.”
He ran a hand over his face and then tapped the bat on the floor. “What happened to her? To Maggie?”
“She was shot in her car.” I explained what Spillman had told me.
He shook his head sadly when I finished. “First Pete, and now her. Do you have any theories?”
I gathered my thoughts. “Maggie knew more than she was telling.” I sighed. “Initially I thought she and Pete had some kind of business together, selling steroids. And that could still be the case. But now that she’s dead, it’s apparent someone else is involved. Maybe Maggie killed Pete and then got greedy with a new partner, and he didn’t like that. Or she knew who killed Pete, so she was a liability that had to be eliminated.”
“But if she knew who killed Pete, why not say so?”
“That’s a good question.”
“You don’t know much,” he said dryly.
I frowned at him. “I haven’t had a lot to go on.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Anyway, I took a picture of Maggie last night,” I said. “I want to know if she’s ever been here. If so, she could have stolen your gun.”
“Right.”
He started swinging the bat while I took my laptop from my backpack and hooked my camera up with a USB cord. “This way you can really get a good look at Maggie,” I said.
I navigated on my laptop, found the image of Maggie that I’d taken when she opened Pete’s door, and clicked on it. A second later, her surprised face popped up on the screen. It wasn’t nearly as clear as a professional picture, but it would do.
Charlie studied the picture. “Sure, she was around here.”
“She came with Pete?”
He shook his head. “No, she was with Greg Revis.”
Chapter Twenty-One
My jaw dropped. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?” I repeated. After all, this was coming from the guy who typically said he didn’t know anything.
“I remember because Pete acted kind of strange when Greg showed up with her.”
“Strange how?”
“He kept staring at Maggie, so I finally said he shouldn’t be eyeing Greg’s date. So then he tried to avoid them the rest of the night.”
“How long ago was this?”
His brow wrinkled as he thought about it. “A few weeks ago.”
I did some quick math in my head. “That was after she’d broken up with Pete.”
“No wonder Pete was mad, seeing his friend show up with her,” Charlie said.
“I’ll be damned.” I scowled.
“What?”
“Greg said he’d never heard of Maggie.”
“That can’t be, because I know they were together here.”
I started to put away my computer and camera.
“What’re you doing?” Charlie asked.
“I’m going to have a talk with Greg and see what’s going on.”
“You think he might’ve killed Pete?” The implications of that hit Charlie, and he slumped back on the couch. “Man, I don’t believe it.”
“We’ll see.” I threw my backpack over my shoulder. “I’ll call you later.”
He was still sitting on the couch, the bat held listlessly in his hands, when I left.
When I got to the lobby, I called Greg.
“Who’s this?” He sounded groggy.
I’d woke him up. I glanced at my watch. Almost ten. Not that early.
“Greg, it’s Reed Ferguso
n. I need to speak with you as soon as possible.”
“I didn’t get home until after two. Can’t this wait?”
So the police hadn’t talked to him this morning.
“I need to speak with you now,” I said.
He growled. “Fine. I’m off of 44th and Harlan.” He gave me the address.
I knew the general area. “I’ll be there soon.”
I rushed to my car and headed out of downtown. Twenty minutes later, I pulled up to a small apartment complex just south of 44th Avenue. The complex was laid out in a “U” shape, made up of three single-story, blond-brick buildings. I parked on Harlan Street and walked up a short sidewalk to Greg’s unit in the north building. I stood on a small porch, rapped on the aluminum screen door and waited. In the unit next door, a dog started yipping.
That would be annoying if you’re trying to sleep late.
The wood front door to Greg’s apartment opened with a whoosh that rattled the screen door.
“Hey,” Greg said when he saw me. He was in shorts and a worn, sleeveless undershirt. And I saw a tattoo on his left shoulder. It was a Rockies logo. And a piece clicked into place: Mason had seen a man with a tattoo with Maggie.
Greg didn’t bother to smile or greet me warmly. “You said it was important.”
“It is.”
He gestured for me to come inside, so I opened the screen door and followed him into a small living room that held nothing but an old couch and an entertainment center with a TV on it. He sat down on the couch and stared at me.
I decided to use the Sarah Spillman method of getting right to the point. I remained standing, and I spread my legs apart and crossed my arms for good measure.
“Why’d you lie about knowing Maggie Hollenbaucher?” I asked.
His eyes betrayed him. They remained cold, but they darted away from my gaze and he furrowed his brow. He was thinking of what to say. “Maggie who?” was all he finally came up with.
“Don’t give me that,” I snapped. “I showed a picture of Maggie to Charlie Preston and he distinctly remembers you and Maggie showing up together to a party at his place. And Pete’s neighbor saw you at Pete’s apartment. He remembered your tattoo.”
The Reed Ferguson Mystery series Box Set 3 Page 45
