Partnerships Can Kill: The Third Charlie Parker Mystery (4 page)

"He was shot through the head," she said.
"The police just called me about an hour ago. He was found in his
car in the parking lot of a grocery store near his apartment. They
think it was suicide."

"What do you think?"

"I'm not sure I
am
thinking right
now," she said, taking a deep breath. "I don't believe it was
suicide, at least I don't
want
to think so." She reached for
a new tissue. "Charlie, I don't know what to believe."

"Had David been depressed recently? Any
problems that you know of, personal or business?"

She was twisting one corner of the Kleenex
between her thumb and index finger. "Not really depressed, no. We
had a few business problems, like I told you the other day.
Business had slowed down at the restaurant. We were both concerned
about that. But, I always thought David had such a good grip on
things. He was a doer, not a worrier. He was working on some new
advertising to help bring people back."

"What about his personal life?"

"I don't know that much about it." She looked
a little embarrassed. "We never talked about personal stuff very
much. He was single, dated a lot. I never met any of his ladies.
His parents are very devout Catholics. I remember meeting them when
we had our grand opening. This is just going to devastate them."
This started a whole new spasm of crying.

"What would you like me to do?" I asked after
she calmed down a bit. "Are you hiring my firm to look into
it?"

"Yes, I guess so. I don't know, Charlie. I
don't have anything concrete to go on, but I can't believe David
would kill himself."

"Why not let the police continue to
investigate? If there are suspicious circumstances in the case, I'm
sure they'll follow through with it."

She squirmed a little in her chair. "Well,
there is one thing about this whole matter that involves me
directly." She uncrossed her legs, and leaned toward me. "Charlie,
please don't think badly of me for letting this be one of my first
concerns. I mean, there hasn't even been a funeral yet, and I don't
want you to get the wrong idea."

I waited, wondering what on earth she was
getting at.

"When we started the business, David and I
took out life insurance policies on each other. Well, really, the
business paid for them. We each made the other partner beneficiary.
Our thinking was, if something happened to one of us, the other
would have money to keep the restaurant going."

"And?"

"And, the policies had a two-year suicide
clause. If death was by suicide within the first two years, the
policy wouldn't pay off. Oh, Charlie, I know that sounds horrible
of me. I'd hate for anyone else to know I'm even bringing it up.
But, without David, I'm going to have to hire someone else to
handle the financial end of the business. We're operating on a
shoestring as it is. I'll need that insurance money to stay in
business."

Chapter 5

She was in a tough spot, all right.

"I'll have to get some basic information
about the case. I'm sure the police reports will have been filed by
now. They may also be ordering an autopsy."

"I want to give you a retainer," she said.
"How much would you need?"

I was torn. She was in a bind financially,
and I felt guilty asking for anything. But, Ron and I had one basic
rule of business. No allowances for personal friends. I couldn't do
Sharon a favor at Ron's expense.

"Our rates are two-fifty a day, plus
expenses. I should be able to find out enough within the first day
to know whether it's worth proceeding any further. If we have to
take it beyond that, we'll settle up then."

She wrote out a check for three hundred
dollars on her personal account, and signed our standard contract.
I walked her to the front door, and gave her a hug as she left.

Ron walked in the back door as I started up
the stairs. I motioned him into my office, where he took the seat
just vacated by Sharon. I filled him in on the situation, beginning
with my meeting Sharon and David at the restaurant on Friday. He
said he'd drive down to the police station and see if he could lay
his hands on a copy of the police report. That's what I like about
doing business with Ron. He's great at the legwork, and he has
contacts in all sorts of high places.

He was back an hour later with a whole folder
of tidbits. The little bit Sharon had told me checked out. David
Ruiz had been found, shot through the left temple, in his Porsche
which was sitting in the parking lot of the Food City supermarket
at the corner of San Mateo and Academy Road. One of the busiest
intersections in town.

Ron had managed to make fairly decent
photocopies of some of the crime scene photos. They showed the body
draped across the center console, lower half in the driver's seat,
upper half on the passenger side. The gun, a Smith & Wesson
.357 Magnum, lay on the floor near his left hand.

I flipped through the sheets to a preliminary
interview with the next of kin. Apparently, the parents had been
too distraught to provide much information. Most of the answers had
been provided by a cousin, Michael Mann. The transcribed interview
read like a family squabble, with the elder Ruiz's insisting that
David would never commit suicide, while Mann tried to tell the
police that David had been worried about something recently.

"Taylor said at this point, they excused Mr.
and Mrs. Ruiz from the room, so Mann could tell his story
uninterrupted," Ron said, pointing to a spot partway down on the
page.

"Kent Taylor? Homicide?"

"Yeah, but he says they've not officially
ruled on the case yet. Right now they're just looking at all the
possibilities."

I went on to read the rest of the cousin's
statement. He told police that David Ruiz had been very upset about
something recently. Mann thought it concerned business, but
couldn't say for sure. David hadn't confided details to him. Mann
had also told them that David was left handed.

"The case isn't closed yet, but Kent says
they're leaning toward the suicide theory. It all looks like a
pretty self-contained incident."

There were a few more photos of the scene,
showing the parked car both close-up and at a distance. It sat at
the outer fringes of the parking lot, not unusual for someone with
an expensive car to do if they wanted to avoid getting their doors
dinged up. Certainly not unusual enough to attract any attention at
an all night grocery store.

Time of death had been established as
sometime between ten and midnight, Saturday night. I tried to
picture the location in my mind. There was a movie theater in the
same shopping center, as well as a couple of fast food places.
Surely, on a Saturday night there would have been a lot of
activity, even at that time of night. You'd think someone would
have noticed a man sitting in an expensive car, putting a gun to
his head. Even with traffic and horns and car radios blasting,
you'd think
someone
would have heard the shot. The Porsche
had apparently stayed in the lot overnight, until the police found
it mid-morning on Sunday. I closed the file cover, but couldn't put
the thoughts out of my mind.

"So, what did you think about Vicky?" Ron
asked. "Isn't she nice?"

I didn't want to be cruel. "Ron, how old is
she, really?"

"Twenty-four." His voice got defensive.

"Don't you think that's a bit young? What
does she think about your three kids?"

"We haven't exactly gotten around to that,
yet. I mean, she knows I have them. She just hasn't met them
yet."

"Well, she sure seems to be crazy about you,"
I told him. I wanted to ask about her strange moodiness, whether
she had anything to offer but sex, but when I tried to formulate
the questions, I couldn't come up with a way to ask that didn't
sound petty. Or worse yet, jealous.

He wasn't listening anyway. He said something
about dictating a report for Sally to type before she left, and
headed across the hall toward his own office. I couldn't sit still.
I felt like we had to be doing something to earn the money Sharon
had given us.

Rusty looked at me expectantly when he saw me
pick up my keys and purse, but I told him he better stay here this
time. He went back to his corner near the bay window. I buzzed
Sally on the intercom and told her I'd be out for awhile. I went
out the back door, and started the Jeep. It was nearly noon, and
already hot. I switched on the air conditioner, and rolled the
windows down to blow the intense air out. From the weather report
on the radio this morning, it sounded like the week-long warm trend
was going to continue.

I wanted to take a look at David's desk at
the restaurant, but hated to bother Sharon during the lunch hour. I
decided to head across town to the scene of the ... was it a crime?
I meant to find out. I drove up Lomas to Second, and headed north
until I came to the freeway. As I remembered, the shopping center
where the police found David was located just off I-25 and San
Mateo. I almost saw the off ramp too late, and some jerk in a dark
blue Cadillac honked at me as I changed lanes in front of him. I
slowed to the legal speed limit, and let him stew as he was forced
to follow along.

At this time of day, the supermarket parking
lot was packed. I wasn't sure exactly where the car had been
parked, but judging from the photos I'd brought with me, I got a
pretty good idea. There was one of those red and yellow
free-standing photo booths in the middle of the parking lot, with
two blue mailboxes next to it. I parked my Jeep, and walked around
until I could see the photo booth at approximately the same angle
as the Xerox copy of the photograph showed. There was no indication
now that a violent death had taken place here—no broken glass, no
blood, no police tape or spectators. David's life had ended without
fanfare.

I walked into the grocery store. The cold
contrast of air-conditioning came as a relief after the hot sun
outside. I found the manager in a little booth near the front.

"Excuse me, could I ask you a couple of
questions?"

He looked up from a stack of papers he was
rubber stamping. He was about forty, thin, with black hair and old
acne scars. He had a smudge of ink across his chin, but I thought
it best not to mention it. His name was Alvin Rodriguez according
to his name badge.

"Sure. How can I help you?"

"Were you working Saturday night? Between ten
and twelve p.m.?"

"No, the night manager would have been here
then."

"How about any of the other employees?
Checkers, or anyone who's here now that might have been working
then."

"I don't think so," he said. "Why?"

I gave him my business card, which he dropped
on his desk without a glance. Sighing, he said, "I’ll check the
schedule."

He pulled a white sheet of paper from a
drawer down near his knees. I got a glimpse of a very complicated
looking chart. He looked it over quickly, running his index finger
down the rows, one by one.

"No, I didn't think so. You want to talk to
the night people, you'll have to come back at night."

What a wealth of information this guy was. I
guess I should have figured that out myself. I left the store
feeling unsatisfied. I supposed the same story would hold true if I
were to check the other businesses in the center. I would just have
to come back in the evening to see if I could learn anything.

It was after one o'clock, and I was starving.
The french fry scent from the nearby McDonald's was beginning to
make me salivate. I pulled through the drive-up, and got some
chicken nuggets that I scarfed down without sauce. I figured it
might be late enough now that I could catch Sharon, and try to gain
access to David's desk.

I had just pulled out of the shopping center,
heading in the direction of the freeway on-ramp, when I noticed
that the Porsche dealership was right here. On impulse, I swerved
in and took the first open parking space I saw. I lifted the cover
on the police file once more, to get a picture of David's car
firmly in my mind. I spotted one just like it, and walked toward
it.

I had not quite circled the car once before a
salesman was at my side.

"Beautiful car, isn't it?" he asked smoothly.
Despite the heat, his white shirt was still crisp, his tie
perfectly knotted. He had, however, removed his suit jacket. His
blond hair was expensively cut, and his flat nails were buffed to a
shine. He looked to be in his late twenties.

"Yes," I answered, "I was just admiring it.
Could I sit in it?"

"Go ahead," he said, pulling the door open,
and standing back graciously.

The leather seats felt like they'd been
custom made for my rear end. A roll of padding lined the outside
edges of the seat, rising up on either side of my hips just enough
to make me feel secure. At a hundred twenty pounds, I consider
myself to be about average build. Even so, I wasn't sure how anyone
much larger would manage these seats. They were definitely built
for slim people. The rest of the interior was just as comfortable.
The gear shift was right at my fingertips. A padded console divided
the space between driver and passenger, giving a nice place to rest
my forearm. The instruments were basic and easy to look at.

I pulled the door shut, and put my hands on
the wheel like I was driving. My eyes scanned the
instruments—everything okay there. Now I reached for the gear shift
with my right hand. Ready, clutch, okay. Yes! I could see myself
zooming past other cars like they were standing still. The
announcer's voice was clear and triumphant. Yes, folks, in the
final laps of the Indianapolis 500, Charlie Parker easily takes the
checkered flag.

The door opened just then, abruptly bringing
me back to Albuquerque. I guess the salesman was nervous, not being
able to talk to me.