Evelyn David - Sullivan Investigations 01 - Murder Off the Books (6 page)

“Easy going? Intense? Smart?”

“All of the above.”

Mac made a note in his book, giving himself time to consider his next question. “Did you spend much time with him?”

“The bidding process is fairly lengthy.”

Mac pushed. “I meant outside of the office?”

Her eyes widened. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing.” Mac had the impression that she knew exactly what he was asking. She just didn’t want to answer him. “I’m just asking if you and he ate a meal together, took in a movie or something. I was hoping for some insight into the guy’s personal life.”

“We had coffee a few times, but we talked mostly about work.”

Mac nodded encouragingly. “Was he friendly with anyone else? Someone special?”

Adams frowned and sat up a little straighter in her chair. “I have no idea.”

Mac waited a moment to see if she’d add anything.

She didn’t.

Mac flipped to a clean page in his notebook. “Do you know if he got along with Vince Malwick?”

“I think you can say that he didn’t have much respect for Vince,” Adams said, settling back in her chair.

“What makes you think that?”

“He said Vince Malwick was more concerned about the tops of his skis than the bottoms.”

“Let’s pretend I don’t know anything about skiing.” Mac smiled. “What does that mean?”

Adams shrugged. “Dan was saying that Vince was more concerned about how things looked than with how well things worked.”

“When did he say that?”

“About two months ago–when we were working on the current round of bid proposals.”

“Did you agree with his assessment of Vince Malwick?” Mac asked. He held up his hand, “And no ski analogies, please.”

“Vince was getting the job done–barely. But his methods were fast becoming obsolete.”

“His accounting methods?” Mac asked with a grin.

“That too,” Adams answered. She immediately held up a hand and smiled, “Just a joke. Vince wasn’t my type.”

 
He chuckled, wondering what her type was. Maybe dinner might be a good way to…. Hold on. Think with your head, a whiny little voice that sounded a lot like his Junior High principal, reminded him. He had a job to do and Whiskey was waiting in the truck for him.

“Did Vince have a type?”

“He’s married, or was.” Adams smiled. “But you know that. Are you asking me about the rumors?”

He wasn’t but he would have if he’d known about any rumors. “You’re very perceptive.”

“The college grapevine had it that he was shopping around for someone to replace wife number two.”

“Did you hear a name?”

“Nope, but you can bet he was in the market for someone more my secretary’s age than mine.”

“Do you think the current Mrs. Malwick knew?”

Adams laughed. “I think the current or–is it former now–Mrs. Malwick was doing her own shopping.”

Mac made a note to pursue that angle, even though a little voice in his head questioned Lenore Adams’ motives in telling him about Gina Malwick’s indiscretions. Was Lenore trying to redirect his investigation away from herself? “Again, did you happen to hear a name?”

“No.” Adams paused, but then added with a smile, “But the talk is she attached herself to one of the trustees during the homecoming reception on Saturday.”

Mac decided to get Lenore Adams back to the line of questioning that he’d planned to pursue. He could always track down Gina’s alleged affair through another source, a source that wasn’t also a suspect. “I heard that last Friday, Malwick and Thayer had a loud argument. Do you know anything about that? Something about the new computers not working?”

Adams looked surprised. “Not working? What do you mean?”

Before he could answer,
Adams yelled, “JJ!”

The girl instantly appeared in the office doorway. Mac wondered if she’d been listening to the conversation.

“Have you heard any complaints about the new computer systems?”

JJ shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, a few. Did you know the Computer Doctors lost their maintenance contract?”

“They didn’t lose it,” Adams snapped. “It’s frozen until the bookkeeping problem is fixed. Never mind that now. Who has computer complaints?”

“The English, History, and Sociology departments lost data. Luckily their files were backed up by the university-wide system, so I walked them through recovery.”

“How come I hadn’t heard any of this?” Adams said angrily.

“Excuse me, there was a murder? And with all the homecoming stuff I haven’t seen you since–”

“Give me the details of the complaints right now,” Adams demanded, reaching for a file on her desk. “Mr. Sullivan, is there anything else you need from me? Apparently I have some problems of my own to troubleshoot.”

***

Mac noticed immediately that either Whiskey had learned to unlock truck doors and let herself out, or someone had broken into the truck and let her out. Now he was willing to consider that his dog was smarter than he’d been giving her credit for, but the wild look in her eyes and the scrap of fabric hanging from her mouth, a scrap that looked suspiciously like the khaki back pocket of a pair of coveralls, tipped the scales in his mind towards the break-in option.

“Hey, girl,” he whispered, slowly approaching the back of the truck where she was standing.

Whiskey spit out the soggy fabric scrap as though tossing it on the ground in front of him was explanation enough.

He knelt down in front of her and gently ran his hands over her head and down her quivering sides, checking for injuries. She didn’t flinch from his touch so he gathered that her agitated state was due to anger not pain.

“Looks like you did a good job guarding the truck, girl.” He stroked her head and smiled when she visibly relaxed. “Let’s take a look at the damage.”

Mac straightened up and walked around the truck to the open driver’s door. The glass had been knocked out, the safety glass doing what it was designed to do; shattering into thousands of tiny cubes. No other damage was apparent. The ignition was still intact. The wires still connected. A man’s leather wallet lay on the floorboard. It wasn’t his.

He opened it. Forty-seven dollars, a gas card, a Visa, and a driver’s license, all in the name of Frank Flynn. “Hey, girl. That was the bugman. According to the info on the license, you’re taller than Frankie-boy. Hope you didn’t hurt him too bad. Course at 175 he’s got more than 50 pounds on you.”

Whiskey leaned against his leg.

He looked down and rested his hand on her head, his fingers scratching behind her ears. “Jeff’s gonna buy you a big steak–with Frank Flynn’s money–for saving his truck.”

Chapter 7

“Where do you want this desk, Mr. Sullivan?” A sweating Ray Kozlowski, dressed from head to toe in black, his long hair tucked behind his ears, asked as he and sixteen-year-old Sean O’Herlihy struggled to maneuver the battered junk store treasure through the office doorway.

“In the back room,” Mac grumbled from his seat on the orange shag carpet that covered the floors of the two-room office. He was busy trying to figure out why the perfectly good office chair he’d purchased, along with several other World War II-era government surplus chairs and tables, tilted dramatically to one side.

“This place is a dump,” Sean, ever his father’s son, exclaimed upon seeing the two-room office.

“Yeah, but what it lacks in ambiance, it more than makes up for in affordability.” Mac gave up on the chair. He’d save it as an interrogation tool. Keep his suspects off-balance.

“Huh?” Sean used the edge of his faded Bass Pro Shop t-shirt to wipe his sweaty forehead.

Ray sighed. “He means it’s cheap.”

“Are you gonna paint it at least?” Sean asked, staring at the dingy walls. “I don’t think your customers are going to think you’re any good if you don’t fix it up.”

“I thought you wanted to be a fisherman not an interior decorator,” Mac joked, getting to his feet, surprised the young man would even notice the office’s condition.

Sean blushed, his fair skin hiding nothing. “I’m just saying that unless your clients are bums, they’re not going to be impressed.”

“Well guys, I don’t have time to impress anyone right now. I’m going to have to get back to work on an insurance case that I’m investigating. Thanks for hauling this stuff for me.” Mac handed each a twenty-dollar bill.

“No problem,” Sean said. “If you happen to see my dad anytime soon, it would be cool if you’d mention I did some work for you. He’s on my case about getting a job after school.”

Ray handed the younger man the keys to his truck. “I need a minute to talk with Mr. Sullivan. Mind waiting for me in the truck? When I get through, I’ll take you home.”

“Fine. Can I drive?” Sean grinned, knowing the answer.

“No way.” Ray quickly grabbed the keys back before Sean could react. “Wait outside for me or catch the bus. Nobody drives my truck but me.”

“Sure, I’ll wait. No problem.” Sean grinned again and left.

“What’s up?” Mac asked. He had met Ray a year earlier at Fletcher’s Kennels, the place he boarded Whiskey sometimes. The shy young man had been working two part-time jobs: weekends at the kennel and a few hours after school at the garage where Jeff, with his growing fleet of used vehicles, was a preferred customer.

Ray glanced at the carpet, scuffing his black boots across the deep shag. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen carpet like this before.”

“Okay. I admit the carpet may be older than you are. Is that all you wanted to tell me? Cause I don’t think that’s anything Sean doesn’t suspect.” Mac smiled.

 At the mention of the other boy’s name, Ray backed up enough to see out the dirty front window and down to the street below. “The kid better not mess with my truck.”

“Ray? I’m getting older by the minute. What do you need?”

“How much do you charge to find someone? Like by the hour or what?”

“So this is business?” Mac asked, dragging up a chair for Ray at the metal conference table. He then grabbed another chair for himself, along with a notebook and pen. “I need some details before I can give you a quote.”

Ray had taken the chair that Mac had indicated, his eyes widening at Mac’s reaction. His normally slumped posture straightened. “Okay.”

The teen’s chair listed to one side and the young man automatically compensated by leaning in the opposite direction.

Mac waited. He waited for a complaint about the chair or for Ray to tell him what he wanted. But when neither came, the detective realized that the young man was expecting him to take charge of the conversation.

Mac started with, “Name?”

“Raymond Edward Kozlowski. That’s K-O-Z-L-O-W-S-K-I”

“Thanks. But I was actually asking who it was you wanted me to find.” Mac waited pen in hand and then a thought struck him. He remembered seeing the teen carrying a pizza box into the Brenner house. He realized what was coming before Ray said the words.

“Daniel Thayer. Mrs. Brenner’s–the mother of my best friend–it’s her brother. I want you to find him. Or rather Sam Brenner and I want you to find him. I told him you were the best PI in town. We’re going to split the cost.”

Mac wrote the name down in his book, buying some time so he could think this complication through. His case had just gotten a whole lot easier or a whole lot harder–depending on how you looked at it. He sighed. With his luck the latter option was more likely.

***

Two hours and a dozen problems later, Rachel walked home. Her feet stopped and she realized she was there. She also realized that her porch light was off and her front door was ajar. The light she’d deliberately left on so she wouldn’t come home to a dark house and the door she’d locked and doubled-checked before going to work.

Rachel looked at the useless key in her hand and considered her options. The cell phone that she’d forgotten to recharge was in her purse along with her billfold and a paperback book. She didn’t think the $20 in her billfold along with her maxed out Visa was enough to convince any uninvited visitors to leave.

She backed off the porch and hurried down the sidewalk, hoping Tuesday night wasn’t Althea Martin’s church bingo night. She planned to wait with her neighbor until the police came and threw the persistent thieves into prison, preferably for the rest of their miserable lives. She was passing the
Wilson house when she became vaguely aware of the sound of a truck motor, but it didn’t really register until she heard, “Hey, Mrs. Brenner. Where are you going? Need a ride?”

Rachel stopped in her tracks and turned around, recognizing Ray’s voice. “Someone’s in my house. I need to call the police.”

A strange expression flitted across the young man’s face. Rachel didn’t have time to identify it before he parked his truck and jumped out, pulling something from behind the seat. “Don’t worry,” he said, slamming the truck door shut. “I’m going to make sure they think twice before bothering you again.”

She glanced at his filled hand, then paled as she realized what the tire iron and his words meant. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not
….”

Her words fell on empty space. He was across the
Wilson yard and onto her porch before she could finish her order. “Ray! Stop!”

He never slowed down, just jerked open the front door and disappeared inside.

“Shit!” Rachel looked up and down the deserted street. Sighing, she looped her purse over her shoulder, then bent down and picked up a football-sized concrete garden gnome from the flowerbed edging the Wilsons’ front yard. Armed with the gnome, she reluctantly followed the young man into her house.

***

From his spot on the Freeds’ upstairs deck, Mac leaned back in the lawn chair and handed back the night vision goggles to the old man in the scooter chair parked next to him.

“Did she just steal Dewey Wilson’s yard doo-hickey?” Edgar asked, before taking a whiff of oxygen from the tank hooked to the back of his chair.

“Yeah.” Mac shook his head. “Strange woman.”

“Speaking of strange women, Elinor will be home from that bingo thing soon so she can see her game show. You’d better take off.”

“Thanks for the seat and the beer,” Mac responded. He got to his feet and folded up the battered aluminum chair the old man had provided. “I’ll stick this back in your shed.”

The old man sucked down some more air, then said, “Take the beer bottles too. Elinor is checking the trash now for evidence, thanks to you.”

***

Rachel crept into the dark house, hugging the living room wall and listening for sounds of confrontation. The silence was confusing.

“Ray?” she whispered, inching towards the portable phone that she was sure she’d left on the coffee table. Patting the mahogany surface, she came up empty, except for a candy bar wrapper that hadn’t been there before. “What the hell?”

A dim light from the den barely illuminated a path through the dining room. As she tiptoed around the table, past the buffet, Rachel debated two possible courses of action: whether to back up Ray in the den, since she was now convinced he was being held at gunpoint; or crawl to the kitchen, call the police, grab the butcher knife, and then challenge the intruders. Her decision was made for her as she tripped over a dead body or…a garbage bag of dirty laundry which she smelled, more than felt, as she went sprawling across the floor.

***

“Lady, are you crazy or just hopped up on drugs?”

Mac chuckled. The radio host certainly knew how to enflame his listeners–all two of them. He put the cab in gear and accelerated down Rittenhouse. He needed groceries, dog food, and a haircut. The haircut could wait but he definitely had to swing by a store for the rest before he picked up Whiskey. She hated shopping. She also hated talk radio.

A female caller’s voice filled the air. “Crazy? I’m not the one who’s advocating doing away with the Juvenile Justice System. You can’t treat a fourteen-year-old like an adult. I don’t care what crime they committed.”

Mac turned up the volume. Normally, he kept the radio set on a country music station, but since Whiskey wasn’t with him, he was free to please himself. The wolfhound had unambiguous ideas about what constituted music and what was just annoying noise. Most talk show hosts had her howling within two seconds, the only exception being a morning radio personality on NPR. The woman’s slow, low-pitched voice put Whiskey to sleep every time.

The host of tonight’s show was apparently doing a call-in segment on D.C. crime and Mac quickly realized that the topic and the man’s harsh rhetoric weren’t going to lull anyone to sleep.

“Marsha from Georgetown, wake up! It doesn’t matter how old the robbers and murderers are. Society has a right to protect itself. You’ll change your mind when it’s your front door that gets kicked in. Next caller.”

Mac noticed a Safeway store on the corner. He turned in, promptly finding the only pothole in the parking lot. Peeling his bruised forehead off the cab’s tattered headliner, he found an empty spot near the entrance.

“Kevin from Capitol Hill, you’re on.”

“D.C. needs more cops. That would cut the crime rate.”

“Kevin, how would you suggest we pay for them? The ones we have aren’t making a living wage.”

Turning off the radio, Mac got out of the cab. He didn’t need to hear the caller’s answer. The city’s budget was like his–in the red. The city needed a bigger tax base. He needed to find Concordia’s missing money and get paid.

***

“Don’t be mad. Aren’t you glad to see your favorite son?” Sam Brenner gave his angry mother another unsolicited hug.

“No, I’m not glad to see you. You should be in Philadelphia in your dorm room studying. When you graduate from college and get accepted to medical school, then I’ll be glad to see you.” She frowned at him and then turned her glare on the skinny young man sitting at her kitchen table. “And you–I can’t believe you’d scare me like that–letting me think you were rushing in to attack the intruders in my house.”

Ray blushed, but couldn’t resist a grin at the memory. “Sorry, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Sam had called earlier and asked me to come over, so I knew he was the one in your house. I kind of liked being a hero.”

Sam grinned. “Yeah, but you weren’t the one in danger of getting hit with a leprechaun.”

“Gnome,” Rachel and Ray said in unison.

“Whatever.” Sam picked up the t-shirt he’d dropped once when Ray had come screaming into the house waving the tire iron like a lunatic, and again when his mother had followed in his friend’s wake, a hunk of concrete precariously balanced in her hand.

“Why did you turn off the porch light?” Rachel asked, walking over to the refrigerator and checking to see if a miracle had occurred within. Nope, still empty.

“It was daylight when I got here. I just thought you had forgotten to turn it off.”

“I left it on because I knew it would be dark before I got home.”

“Sorry.” Sam grinned and pulled the t-shirt over his head. “I guess I should have called you at work and let you know I was here. How’s things in the funeral business anyway?”

“Dead,” she gave the automatic response, then caught herself. “Don’t change the subject.” She glanced over to the kitchen table and saw the empty, dripping carton of ice cream and the damp towel. “Sam!”

“I was hungry,” he said with a shrug. “I took a quick shower–”

“How long have you been here and how many classes did you blow off?”

“About an hour and only one chem lab. I’ll make it up later in the week,” Sam said quickly, looking to forestall any more maternal explosions.