Deadly Sin (Cassandra Farbanks) (14 page)

“Callaghan was her lawyer?”

“Yes and he was handling her divorce. According to Butcher’s notes, the divorce was messy. Her husband wasn’t going to give her a penny if he could help it, but she was, and I’m quoting one of the friends here, ‘going to take the rat bastard for every last cent’.” I winced at how venomous the words sounded. How could you love someone enough to marry them but end up hating them so much?

“How was her case? I mean what were her chances?” Hamilton leaned against his desk, thumbing his way through the file.

“Callaghan’s notes on the case indicated they were very good. Besides the fact that he was one of the best divorce lawyers in the country, she had iron-clad proof that he’d committed numerous acts of infidelity. In fact, she claims when they were first married he had a sex slave that he kept in the basement.” I cocked an eyebrow.

“Do you think she was seriously saying sex slave or was it bondage?” Hamilton shrugged his shoulder and flicked to another page.

“Callaghan had us go in to investigate the claim,” said Hamilton, meaning cops, not him and his crew specifically. “They didn’t find such a woman or any traces of any other than her. Especially as the man lives in a lavish penthouse that has no basement.” I leaned forward to give him back the piece of paper and asked.

“So who is this guy she’s married to? Was married to?”

“Philonius T Solomon. He’s some well to do stock broker, money up the ying yang. He tried hiring Callaghan out from under his wife but he wasn’t swayable. He’d already said he would help Cora and that promise appears to have been more important than money.”

I rested my face in my hands and my elbows on my knees, thinking. It was certainly enough of a motive for murder, but why kill her lawyer too? Why kill him first? I wondered what kind of man this Philonius T Solomon was.

“The divorce proceeding even made the papers.” Hamilton dangled a newspaper clipping in front of my face. I stared at the grainy black and white image and snatched it, studying it more carefully. “After the search turned up nothing she apparently screamed at him in court that he had to have murdered her and that we’d find her body if we just looked hard enough.”

“Is there any way to get a better picture of this guy?” Hamilton nodded, rounding his desk to his computer.

“He’s a fairly public figure. I should be able to Google up a better photo.” I rounded the desk and stood behind him, watching as he brought up the search engine and typed in the name. “That’s him,” he said clicking an image so it was larger. Philonius T Solomon was a barrel of a man, short and stout with very swine-like facial features. He wore a suite reminiscent of Al Capone. A cigar was perched on his thick lips because his fingers, swollen to a reddish hue and decorated with numerous gold rings, couldn’t grip it. Even Hamilton recoiled.

“Well she didn’t marry him for his looks,” he said, lifting up a picture of her. “That leaves sex or money.”

“Let’s go with money because I can’t imagine the sex without throwing up in my mouth a little bit,” I said as my stomach churned. “But I’ve seen him before.”

“Where?”

“Most recently at the shindig the vamps held to get that bill passed, but I first met him in the Soul Market. I think we could believe he would have a sex slave, and I can just as easily believe that when he got legitimately married, he disposed of her.”

“Oh?” he said curiously. That one word was a very loaded question.

“The man tried to buy me. My ex, Magnus, looks a lot more like his dark court father than his human mother. He thought he was there to sell me. I suppose the cut-off jeans didn’t help.” After the incident of the corset and the cutoffs, I bundled my old Halloween costumes and took them to a charity drop off. I never dressed as Daisy Duke or a vampire again.

“There is nothing to suggest he’s anything other than D grade human though.”

I called to my mind the last time I encountered him and realized why Cora seemed familiar. She had been his date, the woman in the barely there dress that was all red spangles. I also recalled the third member of their party, a man who’d given me the absolute creeps. I got some kind of ‘other than plain human’ vibe off him.

“He had a bodyguard, a man who when I met him, screamed ‘bad to the bone’. Think he could have a duel role as a magical assassin?”

“It could be possible. Anyway, Solomon and his bodyguard are persons of interest. We should go talk to him. Speaking of creepy guys, anything more from your stalker?”

“Not since the key, but I can’t work out how he’s involved in this. Guess the best way would be just to ask Solomon what he knows.” I gave Hamilton a wide grin.

“We’ll need a phonebook and a hose, right?”

Chapter Ten

Philonius T. Solomon lived in an impressive penthouse condo down by the river front close to the lock. Hamilton buzzed the bell and some manservant answered. We were allowed into the building and got into the elevator. It wasn’t a long ride up as it was only an eight-story building, but gave Hamilton and me a little time to talk.

“Do you want to be bad cop or can I?” Hamilton fought a smile and turned to me.

“As much as I would like to see you bad cop this guy, we have to go in cautious. At the moment, he’s just a man who’s lost his wife in bizarre circumstances.”

“But we’re both pretty sure he’s guilty? Not outright killing her but consorting to? How do we get him to confess?”

“Maybe if we ask him nicely?”

“I suppose hitting him would be too easy huh?” Hamilton shook his head back and forth.

“Sometimes I’m not sure if you’re kidding anymore. You’ve gotten a lot more violent. I’m beginning to think you might have rage issues.” The elevator arrived at the eighth floor blessedly drawing his attention away from me. I did have issues. I had a lot of mad to go around. I know that anger isn’t healthy for me, but no one mentions the flip side of the coin. How warm wrapping yourself in rage can be. The protective shell it creates around you. At least if you’re angry about shit, it means you’re alive. You’re still functioning. It’s when you stop worrying about everything that you have to worry. It is coldness that people should really fear.

The door slid open to a short, nicely carpeted hallway that led to the door of the penthouse. I stayed a pace behind Hamilton as he knocked on the door. I could feel something crawling on my skin. An unpleasant, sliding cold oozed over the back of my neck. I couldn’t explain the feeling so I tried to brush it off. The door opened and a man dressed a little like a penguin stood there to greet us.

“May I see some identification please?” Hamilton showed him his badge. The manservant’s eyes scanned it thoroughly as if memorizing the number on it. He only gave me a cursory glance before stepping to the side and ushering us into the hallway behind him.

“Master Solomon will see you in the lounge.” He showed us down and through an archway into a cavernous room. It ran the entire width of the building. As we entered we saw the left wall entirely glassed and exposing the room to a picture perfect view. The lounge area was sunken with a black leather corner couch and chair on a rich velvety red rug in it. The opposite wall was dominated by a monster TV. Pseudo-intellectual books lined tall, deep bookcases on the back wall. All of which looked brand new and unread. The bookcases broke for a large, steel door to a safe. The kind you see in movies about bank robbers, with the big, spoke wheel that looks more at home on a boat than as part of a door. At the end of the room, to the right, a large, solid wood desk dominated. No doubt an antique the man didn’t appreciate. There was a series of podiums with busts of such great thinkers and military tacticians as Plato, Aristotle, Wellington and Napoleon next to the wall. My heels clicking on the floor echoed and I looked down to see I was walking on white marble. The entire room screamed money. He was very much a man that went on appearance. The room looked classically sophisticated, but the fact that none of the books looked read and there were coffee rings on an antique desk, proved that appearances were deceiving.

When we walked in, I hadn’t notice the man sitting at the desk until he pushed back his chair and stood to greet us. Philonius T Solomon was exactly the way I remembered him. He wore the same pin stripe suit from the online picture with a crimson pocket handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket. Rounding the desk, he made his evaluation of Hamilton, then me.

I’d pulled on skinny, black jeans, a red, off-the-shoulder sweater, which clung in many places, and my black, thigh-length coat. The end of my ponytail, nearly completely dry, tangled and curled into a mess that would be difficult to brush out later. Solomon smiled graciously at Hamilton and me.

“I wish you had called a head detective. It’s a little inconvenient for you to show up unannounced.”

Inconvenient? We were in the middle of a murder investigation. It was more inconvenient for the two that were dead. Also, if he’d known we were coming, we would be having our conversation through a lawyer. Hamilton gave him a much practiced smile.

“Just a few questions, it won’t take long.” Solomon weighed the pros and cons of asking us to leave, but some perverse need for attention made him rethink.

“Come, we’ll sit. Can I offer you anything to drink?” Hamilton and I both shook our heads. Solomon nestled into the corner of his couch and Hamilton took the chair cattycorner to it. I prowled the bookcase. For some reason it pained me to see unread books and made me slightly pissy.

“How long had you and Cora been married?”

“Six months.”

“And I understand that at the time of her death, you and she were divorcing?” asked Hamilton pulling out his little notepad and pen. Solomon laced his fingers over his rotund belly.

“Yes. I won’t lie and say our marriage had been a happy one. She took what she wanted from me and then left. If she’d just left, I might have been a bit more upset when I heard she’d died, but she didn’t. She tried to leave me, taking my money with her. Some things a man just doesn’t forgive.”

“You resented the amount her lawyer wanted for her?” I turned from my inspection of the books to watch Solomon. There was a flicker of something in his eyes, irritation, but he kept a calm mask.

“Yes. I could take her not loving me anymore, but loving my money far more than she did me was a blow to my ego.” That was what mattered to him, the blow to his pride. Solomon was a man who was used to getting whatever he wanted. His eyes flickered to me and away. He was almost on the verge of recalling where he had seen me before. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to remember me.

“Did you talk to her at all in the last week?”

“Yes. She came by to get the last of her things. We argued.”

“What was the argument about?”

“She accused me of trying to bribe her lawyer. I accused her of sleeping with him. Cora didn’t have a lot of money without me, or brains. Without me, she wouldn’t have even had the assets she was using to secure him as her next mark.”

“Assets?” I made it a question. Solomon looked me up and down again. He gave me a little piggy grin.

“Yes, her figure, her ass, her tits, her tummy tuck, the collagen in her lips. I paid for every last bit of work she had done. Cora got her beauty from the doctors. She was not a natural beauty like you.” I arched an eyebrow at the compliment.

“So you didn’t like that her bought and paid for body was humping someone else?” Solomon’s eyes bored into me, the mental image I’d conjured up for him making him angry.

“We were still married,” he said slowly. “I thought it in poor taste. If she was, she never confirmed or denied it.” Hamilton gave a little cough trying to bring the conversation back around to his questions.

“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm her?” Solomon gave a very good pretense of a puzzled expression. He unclasped his hands to lean forward.

“Harm her? I’m sorry, I was lead to believe her death was suicide.” Hamilton deferred to me suddenly, and I was left with both their eyes pinned on me.

“It is my belief that dark magic was used to cause the death of both your wife and her lawyer.” As soon as I said the word magic there was a tick to his eyebrow, like he’d just placed where he had seen me before and it made him nervous. “Do you have any familiarity with dark magic?” Solomon shook his head.

“Absolutely not,” he said adamantly, but I knew he was lying. Not just because I had seen him trafficking a magical market, but I figured out why my nerves had been jangling since I reached the top of the building, his penthouse. There was a warlock nearby, a very powerful, dark wizard whose energy swirled around my own like a slimy, crawling serpent over my flesh. There was someone very nearby who could be our assassin.

“You’ve never hired a warlock to curse someone who’s wronged you?” He shook his head again. I made a quick glance around the room. “Where’s your bodyguard?”

Solomon had a tiny trickle of sweat. I saw it run down just behind his cauliflower-shaped ear.

“It’s his day off,” he said relaxing just a little. I imagined he thought if we suspected his bodyguard, that if push came to shove, he could hang the man out to dry. There was no way to prove he’d asked him to do it. It would be his word against the bodyguard’s. I took two, long strides and stood behind Hamilton.

“You won’t mind if I take a look around?”