by W E DeVore
She tilted her head sideways to get his attention. “Y’all make up?”
He nodded. “Thank you, for calling her. You’re officially a yenta for meddling but thank you.”
He smiled at her and she winked at him. “For the record, I did not call her. She called me, but I’ll wear my yenta badge with pride if it gets you smiling again and not drowning in a bottle of tequila.”
“She accepted my apology for last night. You leaving on tour again. It just caught me off guard, is all,” he said, glumly. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on Yvie.”
She bit back her irritation. “You’re a terrible liar.”
He grimaced and said, “It’s not a lie. It was just too much. Finding out you’re leaving, this thing with the stalker, and then Yvie showed up and we had that fight…”
She folded her arms and studied him. “So, you go to Freddie’s Joint with a loaded weapon in your holster and get obliterated on a bottle of tequila? Bullshit.”
“You’re in danger. Yvie broke up with me. I freaked. It happens.”
“Not to you, it doesn’t,” she replied. Filling two cups with coffee, she sat across from Sanger at the table and pushed one towards him. “You could have patched things up with Yvie in about two seconds, and you know it. And I’m not in any more danger than I was a year ago when the first letter showed up. I’m in less danger, even, because I tightened up all my social media security and you’re on the case instead of that sorry excuse of a manager Derek has working for him. You were spouting some serious crazy last night about Mike’s case. Now start talking.”
He sipped his coffee and frowned. “No. I don’t want you involved in this.”
“You and I both know I’m already in it,” she said. “Now tell me what’s really going on.”
Before he could answer, Ben walked in and mussed Sanger’s hair. “How’s the hangover, slugger?”
Sanger moved his head away from Ben’s hand and gave him an irritated frown. “I’m fine.”
Ben raised his eyebrows and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Could have fooled me, brother. You look like shit. I hear my little sister hates you, I’m in some kind of danger, and my wife’s stalker is going to make good on his threats. We gonna figure out a way to fix any of that?”
Sanger glared at the sunlight streaming in through the window as it hit his right eye. “What?”
“Isn’t that why you decided to fall into a bottle of booze and drink your way out last night?” he asked, turning to Q for confirmation.
“That’s what it sounded like to me,” she replied.
Ben continued, “Well, Yvie’s car was in the driveway when I came home, so I’m guessing that situation fixed itself, unless you barfed on her. You didn’t barf on my little sister, did you?”
Sanger shook his head. “No, but watch it with that talk, because I’m right on the brink.”
Ben took a drink of coffee. “So, tell us what’s going on.”
“Come on, Sanger, let us help you,” Q said. “Maybe you just need to talk it through.”
“Thought you didn’t want to be my ride or die no more,” he said meaningfully.
She looked at Ben for permission and he winked at her. Exhaling slowly, she said, “One last ride, cowboy. Let’s try not to end this like a spaghetti western though, okay?”
“Those are the ones where everybody dies at the end, right?” he asked.
“God damn, will you watch something other than documentaries? Jesus.” Q grumbled.
“Fine,” he said, disregarding her. “Y’all ready?”
Ben clapped his hands and said loudly, “Let’s do this.”
Sanger grimaced at the volume level of both noises. “Sure, but can we do this without any loud sounds or raised voices? I could seriously puke right now if one of you looks at me the wrong way.”
“You need food and ice water.” Q stood up and started pulling out the items for the breakfast she wanted her husband to cook, and Sanger relaxed back into his chair.
“So, here’s what we know so far. Mike was running guns for Urian Galanos out of his store,” he started.
Q handed him a glass of cold water and pulled herself up onto the counter to face him while Ben started mixing the biscuit dough beside her. “Yeah, I figured that one out myself, cowboy. Remember?”
Sanger grinned. “But I don’t think Galanos was involved in his death. It’s not his style.”
“What do you mean?” Ben asked over his shoulder.
“Care to field that one, Clementine?” Sanger prodded.
She considered it for a moment and realized Sanger was right, having been on the receiving end of more than a few of Urian’s threats while trying to save her former bass player from his self-destructive nature.
“If Urian wanted Mike dead, he wouldn’t have bothered with staging a suicide and risk getting caught. He would have just beat him to death and dumped his body somewhere,” she said. “But I thought we all agreed Mike killed himself.”
“Ok. Then tell me why. Why did a fifty-seven-year-old man, who was loved and generally happy, get blasted on smack and blow his brains out?” Sanger asked.
“He got in too deep with Urian, got scared. Maybe Urian threatened Wanda,” she guessed. “That would be something Urian would do and Mike would have done anything to stop it.”
“Ok. He got in too deep with Urian. But how?” he asked again, clearly wanting her to make the same mental leap he had.
“Money. It’s always money with Urian.” Then she saw it. “Fucking hell. He had the money. Wanda sold his place for nine hundred thousand. Urian would have held out for an extra cut if he knew Mike had that kind of cash coming. He might have roughed him up a bit for the favor, but he wouldn’t have killed him when he could have gotten paid.”
Ben stopped stirring the eggs he was beating. “Wait. Mike had way more than that. That property is worth almost two million.”
Q watched Sanger see her understand the path his investigation had taken, and he nodded at her.
“Son of a bitch,” Q said slowly. “This isn’t about guns.”
“Nope,” Sanger said.
Ben stared at both of them. “You’re saying that Mike was holding out for more money and they offed him to short sell to his grieving widow?”
Sanger folded his arms and chewed on the inside of his lower lip. “Bingo.”
Q stared at Ben, her mouth refusing to move as she finally understood Sanger’s concern for her husband’s well-being was founded in good police work.
“Genevieve,” she managed to whisper.
“She refused to sell,” Sanger said. “That store’s been in her family for almost a hundred years. Got the other homeowners on the block to demand thirty percent over market value. Most of those homes are pretty run down. Charter Real Estate was barely offering what the land was worth. Wouldn’t have been enough for anybody to buy another house in this market. Joke’s on them, though.”
“Why?” Ben asked.
“She didn’t have a will. She died intestate. It’ll be a year before they can even make an offer. The condo development needs two solid city blocks. They got one. They can’t get the second one downriver, so now they need to go up.
“The Cove,” he said. “That’s why they want it so bad now.”
“But what about the guns?” she asked, still not wanting to believe Sanger’s theory. “You kept going on about how there weren’t any guns in Mike’s house.”
“There were like twenty, maybe thirty guns at the Emporium. That’s not a lot of cash and not a lot of product. Not in the grand scheme of things,” Sanger said.
“Wanda said there were guns everywhere, at his house,” Q replied. “That’s where he kept most of the inventory.”
“So, where did they go?” he asked.
“They took them back?” Ben guessed.
“So, if you’re Urian Galanos and you had most of your product back, would you bother with staging a suicide?” Sanger asked. “Because I wouldn’t. I might burn th
e man’s business down, to teach him a lesson, but I wouldn’t murder him.”
“It’s not Urian,” Q said, catching on. “The ATF is barking up the wrong tree. It’s not even his crew. He wouldn’t get involved in this. It’s too… messy. Mike was too sloppy. Guns are too dicey. He deals in vices, not murder.”
“Ok, so, not Urian. Would a sloppy gun-running crew do anything as elegant as staging a suicide and not leaving a trace of their presence behind?” he asked, finally taking a bite of the bread in front of him.
Q covered her mouth, realizing that Sanger was right. Ben was in danger.
“What time is your meeting?” she asked Ben, recovering her voice.
“This afternoon at two,” he said. “What do we do?”
“You do nothing,” Sanger said. “I try to prove it.”
Q stared at him until it made him visibly uncomfortable as she thought through the beginnings of a strategy.
“What?” Sanger finally asked. “Stop it, you’re creeping me out.”
“You question anyone at that investment firm yet?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Why?”
She swung her legs against the kitchen cabinets and said, “I think Ben should go to that meeting with a lawyer.” She grinned at her husband. “Don’t you, baby?”
Ben smiled as he understood what his wife had planned and happily returned to mixing the dough for his biscuits. “Let’s get you fixed up, Aaron. You’re my new lawyer.”
“It’ll never work,” Sanger said, finally catching on to the scheme.
“Why?” Q asked. “You’re smart. You handle yourself well.”
Ben tilted his head towards Q. “Maybe you should come, too, darlin’. You can help Aaron out if they throw him a legal curve ball he can’t handle.”
“How?” she asked. “My family’s all in criminal law, not real estate. Sanger will do fine. Besides, I have rehearsal in like an hour. I can’t.”
“Fuck it,” Ben said. “We can handle it. I’ll take the meeting with Aaron. He can be himself, though. It’ll work better. Be faster anyhow.”
Sanger rubbed his forehead. “Will one of you explain what you’re talking about?”
Ben wiped his hands on a towel and folded his arms. “How’s this? You’re Aaron Sanger, my best friend. When the Cove was in so much trouble last year, you fronted me the money to stay open a few extra months. When business turned around, you decided to leave the investment with me. Something to help with your retirement. I wanted a partner. Josh wouldn’t do it. So, I said yes to you. You’re my silent business partner, but my partner nonetheless.”
Q shook her head. “It won’t work. It’d be public record. All they’d have to do is go down to the Notarial Archives and look it up. It’s real estate, Ben. You can’t sell shit in this state without a goddamn notary.”
“Gentlemen’s agreement?” Sanger asked. “Keep it between us. I trust you not to screw me over. Ben’s right. That’d definitely be faster.”
“No,” Q said. “I don’t like it.”
“Why?” Both men said simultaneously.
“Because then Aaron will be the block in the road. All they’d have to do is kill him to get what they want.”
“Bingo,” they both answered back.
She threw up her hands and yelled at Sanger, “You’re gonna put yourself in the crosshairs for this? Why, goddamn it? There has to be another way.”
Sanger flinched at her raised voice and said, “Quieter, please, Clementine. Listen to me. Of course, there are other ways, but this way they’re after a cop with the resources to protect himself, not you and not Ben. This way they might back off or do something stupid.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like try to kill me,” Sanger replied, calmly sipping his coffee.
Ben looked from Sanger to Q and said, “It’s Aaron’s job, darlin’. We have to let the man do it. If he’s right, I’m already in danger. I may as well help get myself out of it.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Don’t you throw the Southern Male Code of Ethics bullshit in my face, Bordelon. If either one of you idiots gets killed, I will murder the one that’s still breathing. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ben said.
She turned to regard Sanger, staring at him until he replied, “Seems counterproductive, but alright then.”
Q laughed out loud. “You just told a joke, Aaron.”
He grinned back at her. “So, it would seem, Clementine. Please tell Yvie. She doesn’t think I’m funny.”
“There’s a reason for that, cowboy. You’re not.”
“Two words, Clementine,” Sanger said, sitting back.
“You’re welcome,” she replied, winking at him.
Chapter 11
The Long Con
While Q knew intellectually that Ben and Sanger weren’t walking into an ambush that would get them both killed immediately, a lifetime of bad experiences taught her that it was nearly impossible to reason your way through fear. Somehow, the distraction that picked at the edges of her mind spread like an infection through the rest of the band, and the first half of that day’s rehearsals was disastrously awful. Derek finally put an end to the ongoing catastrophe by throwing his cup of tea across the live room where they were practicing and announced that it was time for lunch whether anyone was hungry or not.
The members of Dark Harm, plus one still reluctant Archangel, sat down in the kitchen at Son of Perdition with their take-out. Q joined Fiona on the large bench at the far end of the family-sized table. She picked at her food, trying to figure out how much cheese was actually proportionally required for a Caesar salad, because hers consisted mostly of shredded mozzarella covering a mound of grilled chicken. Performing an archeological exploration of her lunch, seeking to discover if there was, in fact, any lettuce in her salad, she debated whether to eat any of it all.
Derek sat down beside her, sitting uncomfortably close. “Sorry about the tantrum back there. You ok?”
She glanced at him sideways and replied, “I was, until you invaded my personal space.”
He ignored her snipe. “What did Spot say about our love note?”
“Why?” she asked. “You worried or something?”
He stood up and gestured for her to follow him and they walked down the hall and into the control room of the main studio. Derek flopped down onto the soft, brown leather couch at the back of the room and Q joined him.
“How did they get your medical records, Q?” he wondered out loud, concern creeping into his tone.
“It was just one record, Derek. I was in the ER a few times before that and those papers weren’t in there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they just got a job at the hospital. Maybe someone left their screen up and BBB was only able to get the one. If they did hack the system, maybe that was the only one they could find.”
“No,” he said. “Why were you in the ER a few times before that?”
“Pregnancy and me don’t get on too good, apparently,” she said. “I couldn’t stop throwing up. Got dehydrated. The pregnancy gave me a cyst on one of my ovaries, and the pain got so bad I couldn’t stand without screaming one super fun day. Ben was afraid it had ruptured. It hadn’t. Doesn’t matter. It’s over now, and I’m ok.”
When Derek looked physically ill, she tried a joke, “Turns out you were right. Ben did knock me up to get me out of these shows. He just didn’t do a good enough job and it didn’t stick.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. It was a stupid thing to say.”
“No, it was a good joke,” she replied. “And you didn’t know. Almost nobody knows. I’d like to keep it that way, please.”
He leaned his elbow on the back of the couch and rested the top of his head against his hand. “So, I guess I won’t be talking you into joining us on tour for the next eight months. You’ll probably want to be near your husband.”
“No, actually, it’s what’s con
vincing me to do it,” she said, looking directly into his pale blue eyes and losing the fight against her impulse to spill her inner thoughts to a man she trusted so little. “We can’t try again for a while. I need to be distracted. I want to do the tour. But I need to make sure the Beasts are going to be ok while I’m away. I can’t just abandon them. We have a business. It’s their livelihood. But if they can make it for a few months without me, I’m in. I think it’d be a nice change of pace.”
A shy grin that she’d never seen before spread over Derek’s face. It made him look much younger and sadder than his charismatic demeanor normally allowed.