Reed Ferguson Mystery Box Set 5

by Renee Pawlish

  I knew them well. One was Roland Youngfield, better known as “Spats” because he liked to dress well. Another was Ernie Moore, in his typical attire, a rumpled suit, the epitome of the detective cliché. The third – and senior detective – was a tall, blond-haired woman in stylish jeans and a yellow blouse. When she came up the stairs, she saw me and frowned.

  “What’re you doing here?” she asked.

  Detective Sarah Spillman was with Denver Homicide, and she and I had run into each other on several occasions. Over the years, she’d gained a begrudging respect for me, but she was never beyond busting my chops for interfering with her investigations, whether I did or not.

  I held up my hands. “It’s not what you think.”

  “It never is,” she said.

  One of the uniforms eyed us. “You know each other?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “What do we have?” she asked the officer, then glanced at me. “I’ll deal with you in a minute.”

  The three detectives put on latex gloves and booties, then went into the apartment. Spillman then emerged a long time later, took off her gloves and booties, and glanced around. By now, it was just a uniform and me in the hallway.

  “What happened?” Spillman asked.

  I told her about being hired to find Sally, how I had followed Gabe here, then had seen Sally walk into the building, and what I’d discovered when I entered the apartment.

  “That’s it?” she asked, her voice laced with skepticism.

  On some of my previous cases, I’d occasionally held back information from her, and I couldn’t blame her for being doubtful of me.

  “I’ve told you everything,” I said, and this time I had.

  She thought for a moment. “Okay. Go on home. You can get your gun back after ballistics tests have been run on it.”

  “What’s going to happen to Sally?”

  “It doesn’t look good for her, does it?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  She stared at me. “Do you think she did it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Hmm,” she said.

  With that, she went back into the apartment and I left.

  Chapter Eight

  It was late when I got home, and Willie was asleep with the kitten snuggled up by her head, so it wasn’t until the next morning that I could tell her what had happened. It was almost ten, and we were eating a late breakfast while we talked.

  “I’m going to call Brenda, just in case Sally didn’t,” I said when I finished.

  Willie picked up the kitten and started petting it. “She would’ve called her parents, don’t you think?”

  I shrugged. “With her, who knows?”

  “After so many days looking for Sally, that was an abrupt end to your case,” she said wryly.

  “Not the way I saw things playing out, that’s for sure.”

  “I’m glad you don’t have to keep hanging out at that bar.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. If they’d put in a pool table, that would help.”

  “But you’d miss your ’80s music.”

  “So true.” She rubbed the kitten’s ears. “What do you think about Chance for a name?”

  “Chance?”

  “He’s getting a second chance with us.”

  “You’re sure it’s a boy?”

  She held him up. “I think so. I’ll take him to the vet and get him checked out.”

  “We need to make sure he doesn’t have a home,” I said.

  “I doubt he does.” She started in with some baby-talk and kissed his head.

  I leaned over the table and stared at the kitten. “How about Bogart? Or Humphrey?”

  “Hon, please, be serious.”

  “I am.” I was smiling when my phone rang. I glanced at the number. “It’s Brenda Evans.”

  Willie tipped her head at me. “Her ears must’ve been burning.” She got up from the table. “I’m going to hop in the shower, and then I have some errands to run.” She walked out of the room with the kitten at her heels.

  I nodded and answered the phone.

  “Reed, you’ve got to help us,” Brenda said without any preamble. She spoke fast, in a full panic.

  “You’ve talked to Sally,” I said, the Great Detective using his deductive powers.

  “Yes. She called early this morning from jail. From jail!” she wailed. “We’ve been dealing with the police and lawyers ever since. Oh, it’s awful.”

  “Was she charged?”

  “Not yet, but she’s a solid suspect, that’s what they said.”

  “They didn’t charge her?” I was surprised by that.

  “They’re not able to pin the murder on her just yet because her fingerprints weren’t on the gun, and she didn’t have any gunshot residue on her hands. From what I can gather, it’s all circumstantial evidence at this point. And she denied doing it, so they don’t have a confession.”

  “So the police are building their case against her.”

  “I would assume so. Sally told me you were there last night, and that you urged her to call us. I’m so glad she took your advice.”

  “There’s not much I can do now.”

  “There is. I want to hire you to find Gabe’s killer.”

  I hesitated. “What if Sally did it?”

  “She didn’t. I know her. She may be flaky, but she’s not a killer.”

  You may not know her as well as you think, I mused, but didn’t say out loud.

  “Can you meet us somewhere so we can talk about this?” she asked.

  “Us?”

  “Sally and me. Please, I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “Okay, meet me at the Starbucks on the Sixteenth Street Mall. It’s near Market Street.”

  “We can be there in an hour.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  I ended the call and went to tell Willie that my case had been reopened. We chatted for a minute, and I left. I went down the stairs on the side of my building, and ran right into Ace and Deuce Smith, my downstairs neighbors. They are fun-loving, pool-playing characters. They aren’t, however, the sharpest tools in the drawer, so I’d affectionately dubbed them the Goofball Brothers.

  “Hey, Reed,” they said in unison. They sound almost alike, and they also look very much alike, with dirty blond hair and light gray eyes. But Deuce is more solidly built, thanks to his construction job, whereas Ace works in the electronics department at Best Buy, and his slight physique shows it.

  Deuce had his phone in his hand, and they were laughing about something.

  “You on a case?” Ace asked.

  “I am,” I said.

  Deuce’s eyebrows shot up. “Need any help?”

  Ever since I’d become a private investigator, both brothers, uniquely named because of their father’s love of poker, loved to help me on my cases. And sometimes, they did help with stakeouts. But it was a bit like working with Inspector Clouseau, so I had to be careful in the tasks I asked them to do. Deuce desperately wanted to carry a gun, but I didn’t see that ever happening.

  “Not right now,” I said. “But I’ll let you know.”

  Sounds came from Deuce’s phone, and Ace started laughing.

  I pointed at the phone. “What’s so funny?”

  “It’s this guy who posts these videos,” Ace said. “His name is Masta Dig. He’s a riot. Here, watch this one.”

  Deuce held out the phone and I watched a short video. In it a man in a black-and-white mask that had a long face and wide eyebrows over slits for eyes was dancing to a techno beat. Then he looked at the camera and talked about how cool he was. As he did, a big snake began winding up his arm. The video ended with the masked man saying, “Dig it, peace.”

  “Look at that snake,” Deuce said. He really liked snakes.

  I stared at the video, then looked at the Goofballs.

  “He’s funny,” Ace said.

  “Uh-huh.” The humor in the video was lost on me. “I’ve got to
go.” I waved goodbye and got out of there before I was subjected to more videos. I could still hear them laughing when I got into my car.

  Since I no longer kept a formal office, I liked to meet clients at the Starbucks on Denver’s outdoor pedestrian mall. It was easy to find, and being at a coffee shop seemed to put people at ease. When I arrived at eleven, Brenda and Sally were sitting outside at a table with an umbrella. It was warm, the sun shining, with the hint of a breeze; a perfect day, but you never would’ve known that by looking at the two of them.

  Brenda was in a blue pantsuit, sans any gold jewelry. Her already wan face seemed even more drawn than when I’d first seen her. Her makeup was anything but artful, as if she’d hurriedly applied some lipstick and blush, and she had a flowery silk scarf wrapped around her head. Sally was in the same torn jeans and flowered blouse she’d been the night before, but she’d pulled her hair back into a short ponytail, and I was struck by how severe it made her look. Dark circles under her eyes told of a long, sleepless night. Both women were frowning as they pretended to sip their drinks.

  “Hello,” I said as I came over.

  Brenda looked up and managed a small smile, but the frown quickly returned. “Thanks for meeting us. Do you want anything to drink?”

  I shook my head and sat down. I’d expected a healthy dose of tension between the two women, and it was there, but they also seemed glad to be around each other, despite the circumstances.

  “I don’t know where to start,” Brenda said.

  I turned to Sally. “I need to know about your conversation with the police.” I tried to make eye contact with her, but she glanced away. “What did the police say to you about Gabe?”

  Sally fiddled with her glass and finally looked at me. “They think I killed him.”

  “I know that,” I said. “Did you?”

  “Of course not,” Brenda snapped.

  I held up a hand. “Let me hear things from Sally, okay?”

  Brenda’s cheeks turned red, and she murmured an apology. I turned to Sally, and we spoke in low tones so that people at the other tables wouldn’t hear us.

  “Did you?” I repeated to Sally.

  She shook her head. “I told you last night, I told the police over and over again, and I’ll tell you now, I did not kill Gabe.”

  I searched her face. If she was lying, she knew how to cover it well. For the moment, I would have to take her word for it.

  “If not you, then who?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “From what your mother told me, it sounds like the case against you is largely circumstantial.”

  Sally nodded. “Since I never touched the gun, they won’t be able to prove I fired it.”

  “But you were there, and you didn’t even call the police to tell them about Gabe.”

  She looked miserable. “I know it looks bad.”

  “Honey, we’ll get through this,” Brenda murmured.

  Sally nodded.

  I leaned forward. “Let’s move beyond how it looks. Do the police think you have a motive for killing him?”

  “I don’t know,” Sally said. “I didn’t tell them anything.”

  “Anything?”

  “I told them exactly what I told you, that I went to Gabe’s to get some things that belonged to me. I found him there, already dead, but I knew if they sealed up his apartment, I’d probably never get my stuff back. I was going to find my stuff and then call the police.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Just … some things of mine. You’ll think it’s silly.”

  Brenda reached out and put her hand on Sally’s arm. “You need to be honest with Reed, so he can help.”

  Sally looked at her mother sadly, then finally nodded. “He had some notebooks and files of mine, with poetry and lyrics, things like that. And some journals. That’s why I went over there, to get them back. He’s had them for a while because he was helping scan them so I could save them on my computer. But every time I asked for them, he’d make up some excuse about why he wouldn’t give them back to me. Last night, I thought he was gone, and I let myself in with a key. I was going to get them and be gone. But it didn’t turn out that way.”

  “That sounds pretty lame,” I said.

  Her chin went up. “It’s the truth.”

  “Okay. Did you check Gabe to see if he was dead?”

  “Um.” For the first time, her composure wavered, and her eyes watered. “I was so shocked, I just stood there for a moment. I remember taking a deep breath, and it sounded so loud in the room. Then I pulled out my phone and started to dial, and that’s when it hit me that I should find my stuff first.”

  “So you left him there.”

  She nodded. “I … tried not to look at him.”

  “You told the police that?”

  Her head dropped in shame. “Yes.”

  That didn’t look good, I thought. “What else did the police ask you?”

  “They wanted to know if Gabe and I were a couple.”

  “Were you?”

  She hesitated, then looked up. “Yes.”

  I stared at her. “What?”

  “I think Gabe was seeing other people.”

  “He was cheating on you.” It was blunt, but now wasn’t the time for subtleties.

  She bit her lip. “Yes.”

  “Were you jealous of that?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Did you tell the police this?”

  “Um, maybe.”

  “Sally,” I said slowly.

  She kept gnawing her lip. “I don’t think I told them that.”

  “They might think your jealousy is a motive,” I said. “What else did they ask you about Gabe?”

  “If we fought, did anyone see us fighting, what did we fight about.”

  “And you told them yes to all that?”

  “Well,” she glanced uncomfortably at her mother, and then her jaw dropped.

  It had suddenly dawned on her what answering my questions meant.

  “Oh, god.” She ran a hand over her face. “The police will think because Gabe and I sometimes fought, or if I was jealous, that’s why I wanted to kill him?”

  I nodded.

  “But … people fight,” she said. “That doesn’t mean they’ll commit murder!”

  Her voice had risen, and a woman at another table glanced at us. Sally gulped and then leaned closer to the table.

  “These days, people don’t need much for a motive,” I said.

  “I didn’t do it!” she hissed.

  I ignored that. Her protestations wouldn’t do us any good.

  I put my elbows on the table. “Did you talk about any other motive?”

  She thought for a second. “They asked if Gabe owed me any money, and he doesn’t. They wanted to know if anyone knew I was going to his place last night, and if anyone saw me go into his apartment.”

  “Did anyone?”

  She shook her head. “The hall was quiet. I don’t think anyone was around.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That was about it. By that point, I kept telling them I was innocent, and that they should look for the guy in the alley.”

  I jerked up. “What guy in the alley?”

  “When I was over by the desk, I heard a noise outside the window. I went over and looked out, and someone was at the bottom of the fire escape. He dropped to the ground and ran off.”

  “He?”

  “I assume it was a man, but it could’ve been a woman. It was dark, and all I saw was someone in a dark-colored hoodie.”

  “Did you tell the police this?”

  “Of course. I’m not sure they believed me.”

  “Was that person in the apartment?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’ll at least look for that person,” I said, “and anyone else who might’ve heard or seen something.”

  She sighed. “I don’t think they’ll find anything.”

  I gave her a hard look.
“They’re going to investigate you as well, so you need to tell me if there’s anything bad that they’ll uncover, any skeletons in your closet.”

  Her eyes darted toward her mother. “Like what?” Sally asked.

  “Have you ever been arrested?”

  “A long time ago, for public indecency.”

  Brenda’s lips twitched, but she managed to stay quiet.

  I kept my gaze on Sally. “What else?”

  “That’s it. No other arrests.”

  “What other kinds of things? Have your neighbors heard you fighting with anyone besides Gabe?”

  “No.”

  I tapped the table, thinking. “They’ll be looking at banking and credit card statements.”

  “I only have a couple of cards, and there’s nothing on them that would incriminate me.”

  “Did you recently buy gloves of any kind?”

  “Of course not. Oh.” She pursed her lips. “I see what you mean.”

  “What?” Brenda asked.

  I pointed at Sally. “If she’s bought anything that might’ve been used while she allegedly murdered Gabe, the police will find it, and I need to know about it.”

  Brenda nodded. “Right.” Then she looked at Sally. “Well?”

  “There isn’t anything,” Sally said.

  “Do you own any guns?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t know who owned that gun at Gabe’s. He didn’t have any guns that I’m aware of.”

  I thought for a moment, then pulled out a pad and pen. “Where do you work?”

  “Jones Transportation, as a receptionist.” She gave me the address.

  “How long have you been there?”

  “A month. I’ve done some temp work there off and on, in the past.”

  I nodded. “Where are you living now?”

  “Over on Humboldt.” She rattled off an address near Cheesman Park. “My roommate’s named Kristen Dalrymple.”

  “What’s her number?”

  She pulled out her phone. “I can’t remember anyone’s number. I have to look it up.” She tapped the screen, then gave me Kristen’s number.

  I jotted down all of it. “I’m going to ask around, see what people tell me about you, so you might want to let them know.”