Swift Edge (24 page)

I heard the muffled sounds of a brief conversation and some footsteps before Gigi came back on the line. “Irena was right there,” she said. “I figured that someone born in Russia wouldn’t speak Pig Latin. I’m outside now.”

Gaagh.

“You know, I’m wondering if maybe Irena is spying on me. Every time the phone rings, she’s right there, listening in, and I know she already talked to Dmitri at least once today.”

Hm. “You could be right, Gigi,” I said, considering it. “Maybe Dmitri set up this whole bodyguard thing to get a spy into our camp, keep him posted on what we’re doing.”

“You think she’s really a spy?” Gigi squeaked. “What should I do?”

She sounded ready to call the CIA or Homeland Security. “Let me think about it,” I said. “Go on doing whatever you’re doing. I’ll let you know if I think of some way to turn the tables on Mata Harirena.”

“Say hello to Roger if you see him,” Gigi said.

From her tone, I knew she was gaga about the man. I hoped he didn’t turn out to be the villain Dmitri was mixed up with.

27

Dellert House was quiet and seemingly deserted when I arrived twenty minutes later. The snow that had been threatening all morning had started to fall, soft white flakes that were already sticking to grassy areas and trees. I eyed the sky warily, hoping it quit before making the roads slick enough to foul up traffic. No one answered when I knocked on the door of the dilapidated house, so I turned the knob.

“Hello?” I called, walking into the foyer. A threadbare rug and a wall sconce with a sad little twenty-five-watt bulb were the only things that greeted me. “Hello? Anyone here?” I called louder.

Taking the silence and my continued solitude as an invitation to explore, I poked my head into the room on my left, deducing from the long table and mismatched chairs that it was a dining room. It smelled vaguely of sauerkraut. Trekking back across the hall, I discovered what had once been a formal parlor back in the house’s heyday but now contained only a couple of scuffed sofas—undoubtedly donated—and a rickety bookcase filled with paperbacks, most of them sci-fi, horror, or action thrillers. Man stuff. Back in the still-empty foyer, I debated my options: the stairs leading—probably—to the bedrooms, a hall straight ahead that I guessed led to the kitchen, and another hall to my left. I went left, drawn by the copy machine against the wall halfway down; with any luck, I’d find offices that way. Checking the copy machine’s trays as I passed—nothing—I peered into the first room on my right. File cabinets and taped-up boxes stacked four or six deep against the walls. Promising, if I had more time and had the slightest clue what I was looking for. The open door across from the storage room held a desk with a laptop, a chair with a heavy parka thrown over it, and a row of thriving violets in four-inch pots on the windowsill. The glowing screen of the laptop drew me like a flame tempting a moth, but I hadn’t taken more than a step toward the desk when a man’s voice asked, “Can I help you with something?”

His tone was more “What the hell are you doing here?” so I turned with my most reassuring smile. He was short and sixtyish, with a graying beard and mustache and a shiny bald head. Shrewd eyes surveyed me with a hint of hostility. From the way he rubbed his hands on his black suit pants, I deduced he’d been in the bathroom.

“Looking for Roger Nutt. Is that you?”

He nodded warily. “Who’s asking?”

“I’m Charlie Swift,” I said, holding out my hand. He shook it reluctantly. “Gigi Goldman’s partner. She said to say hi.” This was a first—invoking Gigi’s name to soften up an interviewee.

He didn’t quite smile, but his expression lightened. “She mentioned you.”

I felt a moment’s impulse to ask “In a good way or a bad way?” but I repressed it, telling myself it didn’t matter what Gigi thought about me. “I wanted to let you know we found Kungfu,” I said, “in case you were worrying about him.”

“Really?” Nutt stepped past me to his desk and closed the laptop screen. “Around here?”

“Yes, he was still in town,” I said.

“He’s all right?”

I nodded.

“I’m glad to hear it. We’ve got room for him, if he wants to come back here, and we’ve still got the stuff he left.”

“He’s found a safe place to stay,” I said, carefully not mentioning Father Dan or St. Paul’s, “but he asked me to pick up his things. He’s working today or he’d’ve come himself.” It was a tiny white lie; I figured Aaron would’ve asked me to pick up his things if he’d known I was coming to Dellert House.

“Sure,” Nutt said.

He led me across the hall to the storage room. “I’ve got a funeral to attend”—he indicated his black suit and white shirt with a sweep of his hand—“and I don’t want to get all dusty, so if you wouldn’t mind…” He pointed to a stack of boxes and nudged the second one from the bottom with his shoe.

“Of course,” I said, stooping to shift the taped boxes, which didn’t weigh much. A spider scurried to hide under a different box. I shuddered. Spiders—ugh. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Nutt sighed sadly. “One of our volunteers was murdered Saturday. It’s been a huge shock to all of us here.”

A frisson scuttled up my spine like a spider, and I jerked, almost dropping the box I held. “Murdered?” My voice came out as a squeak.

Nutt didn’t seem to see anything odd in my reaction. “In his apartment,” he said. “The men who bunk here, some of them have been homeless; they’re used to sleeping with one eye open, never feeling safe. Boyce, on the other hand…” He shook his head. “I’m sure it never crossed his mind that an intruder would break into his apartment.”

Boyce Edgerton had spent time here as a volunteer. That fact clanged in my brain, almost drowning out Nutt’s next words.

“I packed this up a couple days ago, right after Gigi was here.”

“Is all this stuff from teens—men—who stayed here?” I asked, looking at the dozen or so boxes, most labeled with four or more names in black marker.

“Um-hm,” Nutt said, sinking to his haunches and slicing a pocketknife through the tape. It gave with a ripping sound.

“They just go away and leave it here?”

“Sadly, yes. We keep it for a few weeks—in case they come back for it—and then we donate it to Goodwill or turn the clothes over to needy men staying with us.”

That gave me a thought. Maybe Aaron’s brother had left his effects here when he disappeared. I decided it might be worth revealing part of Aaron’s story to Nutt on the chance it would net us Nate Wong’s stuff. “Did you have another Asian kid staying here?” I asked. “About a month ago?”

Nutt looked up from the box he was digging through. Items seemed to be encased in labeled plastic bags, and he had a slippery pile of them beside him. He surveyed me for a long moment without speaking. “What are you after, Ms. Swift?” he finally asked.

“Kungfu wasn’t really a runaway,” I said. “He was searching for his brother. The last time the boy’s mother heard from him, a month back, he was staying here.”

Pinching at his lower lip, Nutt debated whether to tell me anything. “What was the kid’s name?” he asked. “We get a few Asians through here, not too many. It’s mostly whites and Hispanics.”

“Wong,” I said. “Nate Wong.” Was there the remotest chance Aaron’s brother had used his true name?

Something flickered in Nutt’s eyes.

“What?”

“I remember him,” Nutt said slowly. “He had a military-looking buzz cut and called me ‘sir’ every time he opened his mouth. I figured him for an army guy, maybe even a deserter. Real nervous. I don’t know if we’d still have his stuff here or if it’s already been donated.”

I couldn’t fault the man’s instincts. He pointed to a stack of boxes in the corner, and I unstacked them until I came to one with
ALLEN, NAVA, BUSSEY, NAUMAN, WONG
scribbled on the side.

“That one.” He hesitated. “Shouldn’t I be giving Wong’s effects to Kungfu? I don’t really know that you’re authorized to take them.”

“You’re on the verge of giving them to Goodwill,” I pointed out, fairly dancing with impatience. “What does it matter if you give them to me instead?”

For answer, he slit the tape on the box and pulled out the bulky plastic bag on top. “Here.” He handed it to me and slid it across the bag marked
KUNGFU
from the other stack. “You’d tell me if there was something going on I should know about, wouldn’t you?” he asked. “These boys are my responsibility while they’re here, and I take that seriously. If there’s something illegal, or dangerous, going on…”

He trailed off and looked a question at me.

“Not that I know of,” I said honestly. I didn’t
know
anything, and I wouldn’t have confided in Roger Nutt if I did. He seemed harmless, caring even, but that didn’t count for much. I cradled both plastic bags awkwardly and said good-bye. Nutt walked me to the foyer—almost as if he didn’t trust me not to snoop around on my own—and opened the door for me. The snow on the porch was deeper, and I eyed it with dismay.

“Tell Gigi I’m looking forward to this evening,” he said with a smile.

“I will,” I said, wondering if he really liked Gigi. If so, maybe he’d marry her and she could go back to being a housewife instead of a PI … Okay, it might be a bit early to speculate about marriage, but two dates was practically a long-term relationship in my book. “Thanks for your help.”

*   *   *

Walking to my car, parked on the street a block away, I wished I’d worn my snow boots. Snow squished over the sides of my low-heeled pumps, and my feet were soaked by the time I climbed into the car. Cranking the heat, I shucked off my shoes and knee-highs, wiggling my bare toes in front of the vent. With dry feet, I tore at the masking tape sealing Nate’s bag. I wondered fleetingly if I should let Aaron do this but decided time was of the essence. The bag yielded pitifully little. One pair of cargo shorts, two T-shirts, a pair of socks, a webbed belt, and a thin wallet containing a photo of a young brunette, a military ID card in the name of Nathaniel N. Wong, and three dollars. Holding the wallet in my hands, I felt real uneasiness. Who would voluntarily go off and leave a wallet? I tried to tell myself Nate had ditched all remnants of his former identity when he got his new identity papers and headed for Canada, but the uneasiness remained. I slid the photo out of the plastic sleeve, and a slip of paper fell into my lap. Flipping the photo over, I read, “To Nate, Love Alisha.” A girlfriend. Aaron hadn’t mentioned her, and I wondered if Nate had met her at his military base.

I fished the scrap of paper out of my lap and unfolded it. A telephone number. Alisha’s? No area code, so I didn’t know if the number was local or for California or somewhere else. On impulse, I punched the numbers into my cell phone and let it ring. Finally, a harried voice answered. “Czarina Catering.”

I hung up without saying anything, a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold traveling down my spine. Here was a concrete link between Dmitri Fane and Dellert House. For some reason, Nate Wong, a young man looking for a new identity, had Dmitri’s number in his wallet. Well, it wasn’t actually Dmitri’s number; it was Boyce’s, too, come to think of it. I tamped down my excitement and put the car in gear, driving barefoot. What did I really know?

One: Dmitri Fane was a credit-card-stealing crook mixed up in couriering fake IDs for unnamed Mr. X. Two: Mr. X and/or other parties wanted something from Dmitri badly enough to beat up his coach and shoot at his mother. Three: Nate Wong told his mother that he was at Dellert House and knew where to get fake identity papers. He didn’t mention Dmitri or Tattoo4U, but he had the Czarina Catering phone number in his wallet. Four: Aaron Wong arrived at Dellert House, let it be known he wanted a new identity, and someone directed him to Tattoo4U. Five: Boyce Edgerton volunteered at Dellert House. He was my candidate for most likely note leaver. Six: Someone, possibly Dmitri Fane, called the FBI and said he had evidence of an identity theft ring in the area providing new IDs for criminals and other undesirables.

The car swerved on a slick spot as I got off I-25 onto Woodmen, and I slowed to a crawl. A line of cars trailed back all the way from the intersection with Academy. Damn snow. I realized, sitting in the traffic jam, that I had no solid connection between Dmitri Fane and anything. I didn’t know that the Wongs’ search for new identities was linked to Dmitri at all, although it seemed likely. The closest thing I had to a link was the phone number in Nate’s wallet—maybe he wanted to order a cake, or maybe he and Boyce had struck up a friendship. If that had been the case, though, wouldn’t Boyce have given Nate his home number? I couldn’t see Montgomery getting a court order to search either Tattoo4U or Czarina Catering for evidence of identity theft based on this thin web of almost-connections I had. I might be working two completely separate cases or they might be tied together. I blew an exasperated raspberry as I finally edged into the parking lot at Swift Investigations.

A Pepsi took the edge off, and having the office to myself went a long way toward restoring my equilibrium. I sank into my chair and looked around, appreciating the peace, even though the scent of coffee lingered. No Kendall, no Gigi, no clients. Perfect. I’d become somewhat reconciled to Gigi in the months since she’d been foisted on me—she had decent computer skills, and clients tended to like her—but I missed my solitude and missed the simplicity of my undecorated, uncoffeed office. As I drained the Pepsi and clanged the can into my trash can, the fax machine beeped and began to spit paper.

Reaching for the first page, I realized Fiona had come through: It was a list of Czarina Catering clients. I skimmed it, not expecting to recognize any of the names. I trailed a finger down the page: ENT Bank, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Emmons, SAIC … I flipped the page and kept reading. Emily Stevens, Tanner Industries … I was about to pitch the list into the trash when two names I recognized caught my eye: Dellert House and Trevor Anthony.

28

Half an hour later I walked through the doors of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church looking for Aaron Wong. I’d brought his brother’s belongings with me. I knew the church administrative offices, including Dan’s, were to the left, so I headed right, toward the sanctuary. I’d be just as happy not to have to talk to Dan. I peered into the church, dimly lit by the snowy sky showcased by massive picture windows behind the altar, but saw no one. Rows of empty pews lined either side of a central aisle, and the brassy pipes of a serious organ glimmered to my right. I sometimes heard the organ playing when I jogged past the church on a Sunday morning, and the glorious music almost tempted me in to the service. Almost.