3 Time to Steele (5 page)

Patterson stopped abruptly. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened his hands and held them before him as best be could. “Look. I know why I’m here, ok? I know what I did was wrong, and though I don’t regret it, I
am
sorry. Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry. I’ve learned my lesson, and I won’t do it again. Now can you just slap me with a fine or whatever it is you need to do and let me get on with my life?”

I shared a look with my partner before looking at Patterson. “Yeah, buddy. I hate to break it to you, but the punishment for murder is a little more severe than that.”

Rudolph suffered an eye tic. “Wait…what?”

“We found Darryl Gill murdered in his apartment this morning,” said Shay. “Care to tell us where to find the hammer you used to kill him?”

“WHAT?”
Patterson tried to stand, but his shackles kept him tied to the table. “Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa. Whoa. WHOA. I did not murder anyone. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then why did you just confess to us?” I asked.

“I wasn’t confessing to
murder!”
said Patterson. “I vandalized Gill’s repo business. I swung by there last night and wrote ‘Savages’ on his warehouse exterior in green paint. That’s it, I swear!”

I recalled the half-breed cleaning the warehouse, and the letters reading ‘VAGES’ on the wall. ‘SAVAGES’ made much more sense.

Patterson kept talking. “Seriously, you have to believe me. I had no idea the guy’d been killed. Look, I was angry with him, but I’d never
murder
anyone!”

“Where were you last night?” asked Shay. “And early this morning?”

“Like I said, I went and vandalized Gill’s storefront,” said Rudolph. “I came home probably around midnight, then slept in with my wife before heading out to my office in the late morning. I’ve been there ever since, trying to pick up the pieces of my life. Seriously, ask around. I’m sure people saw me.”

I shared another silent look with Shay before standing up. “Alright, Patterson. Hang tight here for a bit. We’ll be back.”

7

Shay and I waltzed back to the pit, but before we made it to our desks, a combination of moans, grunts, and satisfied sighs distracted me. Figuring nobody would be stupid enough to engage in any hanky-panky in the middle of the common area, I was only mildly surprised when I realized the guttural noises were coming from the direction of Quinto’s desk.

“Hey big guy,” I said as I walked over. “I take it you found the bag of assorted street goodies we left for you.”

Quinto turned in his chair at the sound of my voice. “Daggers. Hey. Thanks for the vittles,” he said around a mouthful of bread and filling. “The bank run took longer than I expected. I was about ready to eat a horse by the time I got back here.”

“Well, for all you know, you are,” I said. “You never know what kind of mystery meat makes it into those pockets.”

Quinto chuckled. “Wouldn’t be the strangest animal I’ve eaten. But regardless, this one’s definitely horse free.” He held up a half-eaten pasty. “Salted cod and potato. These are delicious! You should’ve filled the bag with these. Want a bite?”

I made a face. “No thanks. I already ate. And I wouldn’t be caught dead filling my belly with those things.”

Quinto raised an eyebrow at my partner. “Whatever happened to the sense of culinary adventure you were instilling in him?”

“It’s a work in progress,” said Steele.

“Hold on now,” I said, holding up my hands and turning to Shay. “You wouldn’t have touched those salted cod concoctions with a ten foot pole either, so don’t give me that.”

“Maybe not,” said Shay, “but I’d be perfectly happy to sample a nice salted cod brandade if I knew where it had been prepared and where the fish had been caught. Really, this is more about your unwillingness to try anything new than anything else. Isn’t that right, Quinto?”

The big guy nodded.

I gave Shay a squinty-eyed sort of glance.

She responded with a slightly tilted head. “You have no idea what a brandade is, do you?”

“Not a clue,” I said.

“It’s a dish made from pureed salted fish, oil, cream, potatoes, and garlic.”

“That sounds hideous,” I said.

“You realize you’re making my point for me, right?” said Steele, crossing her arms.

Quinto popped the last of his cod pasty into his mouth and licked his fingers. “So, anyway…scuttlebutt has it you found a guy.”

“Yeah, we found
a
guy,” I said. “But not
the
guy.”

“What makes you so sure?” said Quinto, searching through the bag of goodies for his next victim.

“Well, this guy would have to be the world’s biggest idiot if he were the killer,” I said. “He confessed to the crime, except when we told him Gill had been murdered, he about soiled himself. Said he was admitting to vandalism, not murder. His story seems to hold water, though. His description of his adventures in building defacement matched the tags we saw on the side of Gill’s repo warehouse this morning.”

“Nonetheless,” said Steele. “We’ll need to check into his alibi. Make sure he was at home during the murder window.”

“Not necessary,” said Rodgers as he popped up behind me. “I already did.”

I blinked and shook my head. The sunny-faced one had crept up on me from out of the blue. “Hey, you’re back. That was fast.”

Rodgers’ chest rose and fell rhythmically, and he’d pulled his lips back, displaying his teeth. “Eh…I jogged a little on the return trip. Helped work out some of the kinks.”

Quinto frowned and lifted an eyebrow. “Kinks?”

I opened my mouth to make a snappy remark about the radishes, but Rodgers caught my gaze and gave me a subtle, pleading shake of his head. Apparently, he was more embarrassed about the cart incident than he’d let on.

I settled for an off-the-cuff quip. “I think Rodgers is trying to fit his exercise regimen into company time. Can’t blame him though. It’s tough working out with kids, and they say the last five to ten pounds of post-baby weight are the hardest to get rid of.”

Shay rolled her eyes. “Get anything useful, Rodgers?”

“Yeah,” he said, his breath still a bit uneven. “I hit up Patterson’s apartment and talked to his wife. She said her husband came home late last night and stayed home until about ten or eleven.”

Shay emitted a hum that stopped short of being a grunt—it was too cute and high pitched for that. “Well, that matches Patterson’s story. Though she’s his wife. I’d imagine she’d cover for him if he was our guy.”

“Which is exactly why I corroborated the story with some neighbors,” said Rodgers. “Two of them confirmed Patterson was at home this morning from around eight thirty to nine thirty. One of them also remembers seeing Patterson leave the apartment building sometime after ten.”

“Two
neighbors can confirm his presence at home this morning?” I asked. “We’re never that lucky. And before he even left?”

Rodgers smiled. “Yeah, well, neither neighbor actually
saw
Patterson during those hours, but they did hear him—and his wife. By all accounts, they engaged in some epically loud sex this morning. Apparently, Patterson’s wife was trying to console him after his business went down the drain.”

“Seriously?” I said. “He loses his job and his wife rewards him with ear-splitting sex? Someone should give this woman the Wife of the Year award.”

Rodgers shrugged.

“Ok, so Patterson’s not the killer,” said Steele. “Good to know our character judgment abilities aren’t way off. But where does that leave us?”

Quinto held a finger in the air as he finished chewing and swallowing the remains of another pasty. “You know, no one’s asked me about my trip to the bank yet.”

We all stared at Quinto. He stared back.

“Well?” I said.

Quinto shook his head. “Really? That’s the best you can do? No, ‘why did it take you so long, Quinto?’ or ‘why don’t you tell us about your experience, Quinto?’—the place was swamped, by the way, and I met a nice young gnome teller by the name of Sheila who was more than happy to help once the opportunity arose. But, nope, you just want the facts.”

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Figures,” said Quinto. “Well, I found that Darryl Gill was making fairly regular withdrawals of money from his account.”

“That’s not too out of the ordinary,” said Steele. “Everyone needs cash for day to day expenses.”

“True,” said Quinto, “but Gill was withdrawing more than he’d need for regular purchases. And while the amount of some of the withdrawals varied, others, which occurred about every two weeks, were always for the
exact
same amount of money.”

“Hmm.” I scratched my chin. “That does sound a mite suspicious. Maybe it was hush money? Or bribe money?”

“Could be Gill’s murder
is
related to his business,” said Rodgers, “but not necessarily in the way we expected. Maybe we should take at look at his business’s financials in addition to his own.”

“Not it,” said Quinto, throwing up his hands. “It’s somebody else’s turn to go to the bank this time.”

“Whatever happened to the budding relationship you described between you and Bank Teller Sheila?” I asked.

Quinto shrugged. “I may have exaggerated a little. It’s called poetic license.”

“Why don’t we head back to Gill’s Repossessions, instead?” asked Steele. “They should have copies of the business’s financials on hand, and that guy Gronk was pretty accommodating last time. He should be able to help us sort through any inconsistencies.”

That seemed like as good a suggestion as any. While Quinto finished his lunch, I packed a thermos of hot coffee for Gronk—on Shay’s insistence, of course—before the four of us hit the road.

8

Gill’s Repossessions looked exactly as we’d left it, except the sun’s rays landed on the other side of the sign and the half-breed janitor had finished cleaning up the last of the green paint from the side of the warehouse.

I popped my head into the shack at the front of the place in search of the soft-hearted manager with the face of nightmares, but the only trace of him left was his lingering smell—a cross between dirty gym socks and halitosis. Even the guy’s clipboard and pencil were missing.

Hoping he hadn’t gone to a bar to drown his sorrows or crept back under whatever rock he lived, I dove into the warehouse with the rest of my fellow detectives in search of him.

Given that Gill was in the repo business, I’d expected his warehouse to be full of used equipment and supplies, but I didn’t anticipate the sheer quantity of stuff that would be in there. Piles upon piles of goods, from all different sorts of trades: sewing machines, display racks, and spans of treated leather for shoemaking, gleaming copper brew kettles for fermenting beer, pots and pans and utensils for cooking or confectionery, and, of course, rickshaws, whether repoed from Patterson or some other poor sap, I couldn’t tell.

Some of the stuff had cobwebs on it, which I found surprising. Didn’t the banks come calling for the goods, or did they simply have Gill hold on to the stuff while they tried to reach an agreement with the debtors? Or did Gill pay the banks a fraction of the original cost of the goods in exchange for the rights to the property, which he could then auction off at his leisure? Despite being an officer of the peace, I had no idea how repossession law worked. I was sure I could ask Gronk about it, but the response might bore me to tears, so I decided against it.

Eventually, we found the sullen-looking gogre moping around in a pile of lumber and pig iron, clipboard in hand.

“Gronk! There you are,” I said.

The poor guy nearly jumped out of his shoes. “Good gods!” he said in his grating, raspy voice. “You scared me. I didn’t hear you coming.”

I turned to Quinto, who followed a couple paces behind me. “I think he’s saying you’re light on your feet, big guy.”

The green and black-skinned manager rubbed a hand against his forehead. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I meant…” He sighed and sat down on one of the cords of wood. “Oh, I don’t know what I meant. I’m drifting, that’s all. Drifting in a sea of my own thoughts.”

I hoped the guy wasn’t going to start waxing poetic on me. Impromptu, depression-induced spoken word events rarely went well for anyone.

Shay squeezed by from behind Quinto and poked me in the ribs. “The coffee,” she said.

“Oh. Right.” I handed the thermos to Gronk. “We brought this over from the precinct. The quality’s nothing to get excited about, but, well…you know.”

He accepted it, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip—right from the thermos. I shuddered. At least the thing wasn’t mine. I’d leave a note with it when I returned it to the precinct with instructions for it to be sterilized.

“Thanks,” said Gronk. “I appreciate it. Really. But why are you back? Did you find that Patterson guy?”

“We did,” said Shay. “But he’s not the killer. Though he was responsible for that nice piece of street art that graced the side of your warehouse this morning.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a shame,” said Gronk. “Well…not a shame, really. I don’t have anything against the guy, I just meant that…” The manager rested his face on an upraised palm. “Argh. I’m a mess. Don’t mind me.”

“We’ll try not to,” I said. “We’re actually here for a different reason, though. We found some discrepancies in Gill’s personal finances, and we were hoping to take a look at the business’s records to see if the problems spilled over here as well.”

“Discrepancies?” said Gronk, looking up. “What sort of discrepancies?”

“Mr. Gill was withdrawing abnormally large sums of cash from his bank account on a somewhat regular basis,” said Quinto. “More than he’d need to get by. We’re thinking perhaps he was being extorted—or something worse.”

“Oh. Wow. Ok,” said Gronk. “Well, sure. You can come up with me to the front. We’ve got all our records there. But I don’t think you’ll find anything strange. I do the business finances myself—”

I snorted, not entirely of my own volition.

Gronk noticed. “Don’t worry. I don’t take it as an insult. I get that a lot. But as I was saying, I do the finances, and I don’t remember stumbling across anything that raised any red flags.” The guy picked himself up off the lumber and took a step toward the front before pausing. “Wait. How much cash, exactly, was Darryl withdrawing?”