I parked on the street and walked to his car window.
He rolled it down. “Hey, Val, what’s up?” In his dark sunglasses all I could see was my own wavering reflection.
“I just came from the hotel,” I said.
He tossed his computer tablet on the seat and unfolded his tall, muscular form from the car.
My pulse quickened.
“Did you run into the reporters?” His voice, concerned and commanding, sent a ripple of awareness through me. It didn’t hurt that he looked darn good in his dress shirt and navy slacks.
“Yeah.” I leaned against the sedan. “I think I was a disappointment.”
“They’re all over this case. For once, I’m glad Shaw is taking point. Did you see the chief on TV this morning?”
“I’m sorry I missed it.” I crossed my arms and grinned. I couldn’t help smiling around him. “What are you doing at the dog park? I thought the fairy problem had been taken care of.”
Before Gordon left for his extended training trip to Wyoming, the SNPD fielded complaints about supernatural lights in the dog park. He’d caught the very human, very embarrassed culprit and let him off with a warning.
He glanced through the open window at the computer tablet. “It was. I’m just catching up on paperwork.”
“I ran into Steve and Nigel.”
He arched a brow. “Ran into?”
“Okay, I was looking for them, but that’s not the point.” I crossed my legs. “Steve told me he saw Frank on the golf course the night Ilsa was killed.”
Gordon’s expression smoothed. “Did he?”
“I tried calling Frank, but he’s not answering,” I blundered on. “He’s not . . . He’s not at the police station, is he?”
“Not the last time I was there, but I’m off the case, remember? Shaw’s not keeping me informed.” He shifted his weight and looked towards the dogs. A Chihuahua joined the two retrievers, and yapped in steady, high-pitched barks.
My heart cratered. So Gordon did blame me for his removal. “I wish I could make this up to you. It’s unfair you’re off the case.”
He turned toward me, his gaze remote. “You have nothing to apologize for. It’s just one of those things.”
“I shouldn’t worry about Frank—I barely know the man.” I dropped my arms. “But for some reason—”
“Val.” He pulled off his sunglasses and polished them on a loose bit of his shirt fabric.
I dragged my palms down the thighs of my jeans and waited, dreading what might come.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he finally said, meeting my gaze.
“Shaw thinks my father’s a suspect, doesn’t he? On the positive side, Shaw is nearly always wrong, so that means Frank couldn’t have killed anyone.”
“Val . . .” He used a tone I’d never heard on him before—hesitant, unsure.
My lungs tightened. “What’s wrong?”
“The press has this,” he said rapidly, “so I’m not breaking any confidences by telling you. A man was seen on the golf course around the time we think Ilsa was killed. He was wearing a Pie Town hoodie.”
I braced my hand against the roof of his sedan and jerked it away, palm burning. So that was what the reporter had meant about a Pie Town killer and the hoodie. “I gave the entire crew black Pie Town hoodies,” I whispered, horrified.
“I’ll make sure the chief knows.”
“They’re not . . . They’re not really calling him the Pie Town Killer, are they?” I shouldn’t have cared. Two people were dead. Pie Town couldn’t take another hit like it had this spring, when someone had died at my counter. If Pie Town went under . . . I couldn’t start a new business. It would be over. I had so many new ideas. Pie in a jar! Pie shots! Pie samplers!
His expressive face grew serious. “I hadn’t heard that, but I haven’t been watching the news since the chief’s conference this morning. We’ll figure this out, Val.”
“Will we? You’re off the case.” My laugh was shaky. If I lost Pie Town, would I have to leave San Nicholas? This part of California wasn’t on the high-affordability list. It was only because of Charlene’s low-rent tiny home that I was able to make ends meet. I shook my head. I couldn’t worry about what might happen to Pie Town. There were more pressing concerns. “Were you able to learn any more about Frank?”
“I did,” he said and nodded to a green park bench. “Let’s sit.”
I had to sit down for this? That was never a good sign. “This is bad news, isn’t it? Just tell me.”
“Frank isn’t who he seems to be.”
“You mean he’s not my father?” Disappointment and relief twined inside my gut.
“He is your father, but he’s not exactly an addiction coach.”
“Not exactly?” My voice grew shrill. “How not exactly?”
“Your father’s an enforcer for the mob.”
CHAPTER 21
I stared at Gordon in horrified disbelief. Birds chirped on the electric lines running through the tree branches above. Dogs frolicked in the park. The sun shone merrily on our shoulders. And my world imploded. “What?”
“They call him the Persuader.” The line of his mouth tightened.
“What?”
He averted his gaze. “I’m sorry, Val. I’ve triple checked this. I didn’t want to say anything until I was certain. That’s why I’ve been so distant lately. That and the stabbing case. Keeping this from you has been pure hell.”
“My father is a mobster?”
“Low level, if that makes you feel any better.”
“Why would that make me feel better?” I raked my hands through my hair. This wasn’t happening. My father? In the mob? Did that make me part of the “family?” It wasn’t possible. “My life is a telenovela! TV shows, ninjas, mobsters. What else? Are you my secret long-lost brother? Do fairies really exist? Maybe Charlene’s right about Bigfoot.” Oh, God. Did that mean UFOs were real too?
“My parents would be pretty surprised to learn we were brother and sister,” he said, wryly.
Breathing heavily, I dropped my chin to my chest. If my father was a criminal, it would explain why my mother had cut contact with Frank so completely. “What exactly do you mean by enforcer?”
“He’s a debt collector.”
Nausea clenched my throat.
Frank had lied to me. What had I expected? I’d known he was no good from the start, but I’d wanted to believe him. He’d been so charming. Frank didn’t look or sound like a goon. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t he be . . . I dunno, bigger? Or meaner?”
“Val, your father’s the Persuader.”
I slumped against the sedan.
“I know how disappointed you must be.”
“I shouldn’t be. I hardly know the man. There’s nothing to be disappointed about.” My voice shook.
He pulled me to his broad chest and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m disappointed too. You deserve better.”
Tears heated my eyes. Turning my head toward the dog park, I blinked them away. Frank had been in my life for less than a week, and I’d let him get under my skin. After twenty-five years, I should have been smarter. I rested my ear against Gordon’s chest and listened to the soothing, steady beat of his heart, inhaled the scent of his woodsy cologne. “Thank you for telling me,” I mumbled. “It’s better to know.” Ignorance truly was bliss, though. I pulled away. “Does the chief know?”
“I had to tell him, though I didn’t tell him why I was looking into Frank. Fortunately, he didn’t ask.”
“This is going to move Frank up the suspect list, won’t it?” Was my father a killer? Had those elegant hands broken bones?
He nodded. “Shaw will still need to figure out Frank’s motive. Staying at the Belinda, he had means and opportunity. A mobster in the mix raises eyebrows. Has your father given you any hints or sign about what he’s really doing here?”
“No.” But I was damned sure going to find out.
* * *
&nbs
p; Not even the Goddess Gals could cheer me up when I returned to my tiny house. Chest aching, I retreated to my sleeping area behind the bookcase and curled up on my futon.
It all made sense now. I thought my mother refused to speak about my dad because he’d hurt her so badly. The truth was far worse.
Sighing, I got Annie’s phone number off my kitchen counter. Now that Ilsa was dead, calling her was probably a moot point. I called her anyway.
“Hello?” a sleepy voice asked.
“Hi,” I said dully. “This is Val Harris. I’m a friend of your sister, Maureen.”
I glanced out the big glass doors. The goddesses sat in a circle in front of the yurt, their arms raised over their head. As one, they let out a whoop.
“Yes?” she asked.
“I own a pie shop, and Pie Hard came to film us. Ilsa Fueder died.” I went to perch on the futon.
“I heard. It’s awful.”
“I understand you worked with her in Las Vegas. Were you and Ilsa close?”
She snorted. “High and mighty Ilsa? Are you kidding me?”
“I wanted to ask you about the fire at the restaurant you two worked at. Did anyone ever figure out who set it?”
“I only know it was arson. Rumor had it the owner might have set it himself. But as far as I know, no one was ever arrested.”
Tires crunched up the drive, and I checked my watch. Just past eleven, time for the lunchtime catering truck.
Outside, a car door slammed, and I wrinkled my brow. I hadn’t heard an engine.
“Could Ilsa have done it?” I asked.
There was a long silence. “She was furious with the owner, and I saw her do some crazy things—throw dishes at people, shout at customers. But I never thought she set that fire.”
Someone rapped on my door.
“Well,” I said, “thanks. I’m sorry, someone’s at my door. I have to go.”
“Good luck with Pie Hard. They’re rough on bakeries.”
“So they say.” We said our goodbyes and hung up.
“Val?” Frank called. “You in there?”
I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I could play possum. But then I rolled off the futon and walked to the door. I opened it and stood unmoving, blocking the entry.
“Hey!” Natty in a tweed sports jacket and pressed, brown slacks, Frank smiled up at me. “I got your message and thought I’d swing by and see if you were home.”
Unable to speak, I didn’t budge from the doorway.
He gazed across the lawn at the goddesses, sitting motionless in a meditation circle beside the yurt. “So they’re still here. May I come in? I’d love to see your place.”
“It’s not mine. It’s a rental.” Grudgingly, I stepped aside. I didn’t want him inside my home, but I couldn’t inflict him on the Goddess Gals. Being a mobster had to carry all sorts of bad karma. It might wreck their groove.
He climbed the two steps into my container home and took in the kitchen, eating area, desk set into the wall, bookcase. “You won’t be renting for long, I’ll bet. Soon you’ll have a string of Pie Towns across California. Have you ever thought of franchising?”
My lips flattened. “No.” He’d probably try to turn them into a money laundering scheme.
He ambled into the kitchen and peered inside a cupboard. “I used to live in a trailer, before I met your mother. It wasn’t as nice as this one. Not as big either.”
“Was that before you joined the mob?”
He shut the cupboard and turned to me, his arms loose at his sides. “Ah.”
My chest ached with disappointment. He wasn’t denying it. Pulling out a chair beside my miniscule dining table, I dropped onto it with a thud. “Then it’s true.”
“There are all sorts of shades of truth.”
“No, there aren’t. You’re either in the mob or you’re not.”
“You sound just like your mother.” He came to sit across from me.
“Did she know what you were before she married you?”
“Before she married me, I worked as a car salesman. Afterward, too. It was a steady job, and I was good at it.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course he’d been great selling cars. That explained his hokey charm.
“Some of the guys started a weekly poker game. It seemed innocent enough.” He wiped his brow. “But once I got a taste of winning, I wanted more. And then I started losing and couldn’t stop. I became a gambling addict. Your mother tried to be patient, but then some collection agents showed up on our doorstep when you were home.”
“What kind of collection agents?” I asked. I didn’t remember any of this, but of course my mother would have shielded me.
“The wrong kind. Your mother and I agreed that for her sake and yours, it was time for me to leave.”
When he put it that way, it almost sounded selfless. I clenched my fists. Dammit, he was persuading me! “That doesn’t explain how you came to become a collection agent for the mob. The Persuader, isn’t that what you’re called?” Nausea swam up my chest and into my throat.
“I’ll assume your detective found that out for you.”
“Does it matter who found out?” I asked, my voice shrill.
“Of course not, but you don’t understand—”
I leaned back in my chair. “I think I’ve seen enough movies to understand everything. How far do you go to persuade people, Frank? Breaking legs? Threatening families?”
He raised his hands and reared away. “Heavens no! I persuade. How do you think I got out of my own little problem? I was always able to talk the men they sent out of breaking my arm. I can be charming when I put my mind to it. And so the mob sent higher ups, and then more higher ups. Soon they realized it would be best for all concerned if they just made me part of the team. It’s so much cleaner to reason people into paying their debts rather than bringing in the heavies. The authorities take a dim view of that sort of thing.”
“You’re telling me the mob has reformed,” I said, mouth slackening. How gullible did he think I was?
“Not exactly.” One corner of his mouth tilted upward. “I prefer to think of myself as providing their white glove service. I only work with elite clientele with high income-earning potential that could be impeded by injury.”
There was a whoop from outside, and a drum began a slow, steady beat.
“Without the jargon?” I asked.
“I work with actors, dear. They can’t earn money to pay up if their legs are broken or their faces bruised. It’s only logical I—”
“Wait, actors? You mean you haven’t been in Vegas all this time? You’ve been in Hollywood?” I grew up alone, in not-so-far-away Orange County.
“My employers are in Vegas. My work takes me to various places. Mostly Canada. You’d be surprised how many films are made there these days. That and Iceland. Now that country is amazing.”
“And you want me to believe you just talk people into paying.”
“Talk, cajole, I work with them to figure out ways to pay, get them onto payment plans. I’ve got a ninety-eight percent success rate, knock wood.” He rapped on the fold-out table.
“That’s Formica. And the other two percent?”
“Ah, I step away from the situation at that point. Not sure what happens afterward, and don’t want to know.”
“Oh, my God.” How could he rationalize this?
“Val, I help people. I keep them away from the goons and leg breakers, and ensure a peaceful resolution to any contractual disputes.”
“You work for the mob!”
“Think of me as the lesser of two evils. I’ve saved many people from extensive pain and suffering. And I get them into treatment. I’ve got a ninety-eight percent success rate there too. As I learned the hard way, that debt is never going to get paid if you keep digging the hole deeper with more gambling.”
“It’s still the mob.”
He smiled, rueful. “I see you have your mother’s superpower.”
“What’s that?�
��
“Resistance to persuasion. It’s incredibly attractive. She’s the only woman I knew who had it. Well, her and—” He shook his head. “Did she tell you how we met?”
“No.”
“I tried to sell her a used VW. A real lemon. She saw right through me. I knew then and there she was the one.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Why are you really here?”
His blue eyes widened. “I told you. I’m working with Nigel. He owes a lot of money, and his face is his fortune. He’s never going to earn an income to repay it all if my colleagues have to get rough with him.”
“So you’re persuading him. Out of the goodness of your heart.”
He pressed his broad hands to the gold-flecked tabletop.
“Not entirely. I made my own deal, remember, and I’m well compensated. Ninety-eight percent success! I’ll admit, knowing who I represent motivates people to listen. And once they’re open to listening, they see a lifeline. I have a chance to set them on the straight and narrow.”
It was the biggest cock and bull story I’d heard since Charlene claimed aliens in the dog park were masquerading as fairies. Sap that I am, I wanted to believe he wasn’t a bad guy, that even if he was working for the mob, he was actually helping people get out from under them. That he didn’t use violence. It shouldn’t have mattered one way or the other. The mob was the mob. But he really was persuasive.
“Please,” he said. “Do you think for one minute your mother would have married a knee breaker?”
“No,” I said slowly. My mother had always been sensible, by the book. I couldn’t imagine her getting swept off her feet by a mobster, but how well do we know our parents’ younger selves? Maybe she’d learned her lessons the hard way.
He sighed. “You don’t trust me.”
“It’s a lot to swallow.”
He spread open his hands. “What can I do to gain your trust?”
My breathing grew loud in my ears. “You can tell me everything you know about the Pie Hard crew and these murders.”
“I have told you everything.”
A cloud covered the sun, darkening the tiny house.
Pie Hard Page 20
