Haunting Harold

by Jenna Bennett

I pushed Mendoza out of my mind. “Are you sure this guy is safe? It sounds like he’s following you.”

  “He lives nearby,” Rachel said.

  “Are you sure? Did he tell you that?”

  She sniffed. “I’m not stupid, Gina. I can take care of myself. And I’m meeting him in public places.”

  Fine. “Feel free to use the office equipment to run his information if you want.” Better safe than sorry. And if she didn’t, maybe I would. After she told me his name.

  I had probably pushed enough for right now, though. Any more, and I’d put her back up. So I let it go for the moment. “I should get back in the car. Just in case Harold makes a move.”

  “Is that likely to happen?” Rachel asked.

  It wasn’t, honestly. He hadn’t made any unexpected moves so far, except when he turned the car around on Hillsboro Road and went back to look for the woman in the gray dress. Every day he’d been in the office until lunch, and then gone back for the afternoon shift. I had no hopes whatsoever that today would be any different, or that Harold would do anything exciting.

  “We’ll have to tell Heidi,” Rachel said. “Won’t we?”

  “Eventually. I want to give it until after the weekend, though. Just in case something happens. He seems to have a pretty regular schedule during the week. Gym, work, lunch, work, golf or a meeting, and then home. There’s no time in there to play around. But maybe the weekends are different.”

  “Maybe,” Rachel said, although she didn’t sound optimistic.

  “I’ll try to narrow down the license plates to a single truck I can say pretty certainly is following Harold.” Unless it was following me. Or the woman in gray. “I know there is one. I’ve seen it too much for it to be a coincidence.” I just had to separate that truck out from all the others. “And if the VW Beetle shows up, I’ll try to get that license plate, too.”

  “Let me know,” Rachel said, and hung up. I dropped the phone back in my pocket and plodded toward the Lexus.

  Just in time to see the woman in gray move around the corner of Harold’s office building.

  “Hey!”

  Luckily, I was far enough away that she didn’t hear me. Or maybe she did, but just didn’t realize I was talking to her. She kept moving through the dry grass around the building.

  I started running, while I dug my phone back out of my pocket again.

  Just as I got it out, she reached the next corner. By the time I had the phone up and aimed—not easy to do while pounding the pavement through a parking lot—she had turned the corner and vanished.

  I picked up my speed. By the time I turned that same corner, she was standing still on the grass behind the building, looking at, or into, a window.

  Not close enough to it to have her nose pressed against the glass, or anything. Far enough away that anyone looking out that window, would see her clearly. All of her.

  Somehow, I had no doubt that it was the window to Harold’s office.

  “Hey!”

  This time she heard me, and turned toward me for a second before she took off running. I ran after her. She was younger than me by a decade or so, but I try to keep in shape. Not this week, since I had to be up so early to follow Harold around, but I usually spend an hour or so at the gym every day. While I didn’t gain on her, she wasn’t shaking me, either.

  We left Harold’s office property and moved into the parking lot on the other side. Another low-slung office building where I figured I’d be noticed if I hung out in the parking lot for any length of time.

  I could hear the heels of her boots—low, but hard—thudding against the blacktop. Halfway across the parking lot I saw the yellow VW, and I had to make a decision on the spot. It was hard to aim and shoot a picture while I was running, and anyway, the woman had enough of a head start that I didn’t really think I’d be able to catch up. I also didn’t know what I’d say if I did. So I stopped and tried to catch my breath instead, while I aimed the phone.

  She kept going until the last second, unlocking the car on the fly. I heard the beep of the locks disengaging. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder as she yanked the door open, and it was enough for me to snap a quick photo of her face. And of the rest of her. Then she was inside the car, and reversing out of the space.

  I’d been a little concerned that she’d try to run me over, but she didn’t. She took off in the other direction, with a shriek of tires. I did manage to snap a picture of the license place, and hopefully it was clear enough to make out the letters and numbers, even as the vehicle was speeding away from me at what was really too fast a pace for the small parking lot.

  She squealed around the corner on two wheels, and I turned and made my way back toward my own car, parked in the lot on the other side of Harold’s office building.

  Once there, I sent the pictures I’d taken in two different directions: the license plate to Rachel, and the picture of the woman to Heidi. With a question. Do you know who this is?

  It took a minute. Maybe two. Finally she texted back, No. Who is it?

  I thought you’d know, I said.

  Heidi told me she’d never seen the woman before. I told her I’d let her know if I figured out who the car belonged to, and settled back in my seat to wait for Rachel to give me the information from the plate.

  Before that could happen, though, Harold came out of the building and got in the Mercedes.

  It was a little early for lunch, but maybe he had an appointment. Or maybe something exciting was finally about to happen. I cranked the key over in the ignition and followed him.

  Chapter 4

  Harold headed back toward Nashville. I followed him to the interstate, and then managed not to lose him in traffic as he drove toward downtown. Just past the Adventure Science Center, he got off at the Fourth Street exit. He turned south, toward the old confederate cemetery, and I stayed a few car lengths behind. It wasn’t hard to do right now, since we weren’t the only two cars that had gotten off at the exit. There was a steady stream of cars headed south out of downtown.

  Harold turned on his signal and moved into the middle lane. A second later, he floored the accelerator and zoomed across the rest of the street. I held my breath, sure he’d get creamed by oncoming traffic. One truck, big and black and ahead of the rest, let out an angry beep. But by then, Harold had made it far enough that only his tail end was in the street. The truck passed him with what looked like inches to spare, and went on its way.

  I sat in the middle lane catching my breath, while I waited for traffic to pass so I could follow Harold into the parking lot.

  He pulled the Mercedes to a stop outside a low-slung building. It looked like a strip mall, but instead of stores, there were small businesses occupying each section of the building. A printer, a locksmith—Keys Made Here!—something called promotional merchandising.

  Harold opened his car door and got out. I watched between the moving cars as he walked the few steps to a door and pressed the buzzer next to it. The door must have been unlocked from inside, because a second later, Harold pulled it open and disappeared inside. The door shut, and I’m sure locked, behind him.

  There was no business name, or none that I could see. Just the suite number, 1022.

  When the cars had passed, I pulled into the lot and found a parking space a few spots away from Harold’s Mercedes. Up close, it was clear that I hadn’t missed anything. The storefront had no business name on it, no indication of what went on behind the door, and furthermore, there was no way to see inside. Just a door with a buzzer next to it.

  I pulled out my phone and called Rachel.

  “I don’t have anything for you,” she told me, without giving me a chance to introduce myself, even.

  Anything…?

  “Oh. The Beetle. That’s OK. I need you to look up an address for me.” I rattled off the address, including the suite number. “I tailed Harold here. He went inside, but there’s no business name on the front.”

  I could hear Rachel’s nail
s clacking on the keyboard. “Reverse lookup says it’s something called McKetchum Investigations.”

  My mouth dropped open, and it took me a second to close it. “Seriously? An investigator? Another investigator?”

  “Looks that way,” Rachel said. “Would you like me to call the number?”

  “No.” Probably not a good idea. “Is Zachary around?”

  He was. Occupying himself with SEO work in the back office.

  “Send him down here,” I said. “I want him to sit on the PI while I follow Harold.” Or maybe I’d have Zachary follow Harold while I sat on the PI. Harold rarely did anything interesting. This was the first interesting thing he’d done in three days. Zachary might as well follow him back to the office and sit there for the rest of the afternoon, while I stayed with the PI.

  Rachel said she’d get Zachary on his way. “Anything else?”

  “Stay on the Beetle license plate. I want to know who that woman is.” And once I knew that, maybe I could figure out what she was to Harold.

  Rachel said she would, and then she hung up to tell Zachary what to do. I settled into my seat to wait.

  The Music Row office is not far from where I was. It took Zachary less than ten minutes to pull into the parking lot, and call me. “I’m here.”

  “I see you,” I said. He had gone the opposite way from me, and was parked on the other side of the entrance to the lot, in front of the print shop. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  I could sense the disappointment wafting along the airwaves. “You want me to go back to the office?”

  “No,” I said. “I want you to follow Harold when he leaves.”

  Zachary perked right up. “Really?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Harold’s seen both my car and Rachel’s. He hasn’t seen yours. When he leaves, follow him to wherever he’s going—” It was either going to be lunch or back to the office, most likely, but there was no need to tell Zachary that, “and then stay on him for the rest of the afternoon, until he goes home.”

  “Will do,” Zachary said. He sounded like I’d given him a great, big Christmas gift. “Anything in particular you want to know?”

  “Who he’s having lunch with, if he has lunch.” Unless this meeting with the PI was going to take the place of lunch. “There’s no way to know who his clients are, so don’t worry about that. But anyone he meets privately. If he goes somewhere after work, to the golf course or somewhere, try to get a picture of whoever he’s with.”

  “Will do,” Zachary said. He was sounding happier and happier.

  “And keep a special eye out for a woman, around thirty, with blond hair down to her shoulders, wearing a gray dress, a brown belt, and boots.”

  “Mrs. Newsome?”

  “No,” I said, although the description could fit Heidi if you wanted it to. If she put on a gray dress and boots. “Someone else. A little shorter, a little curvier, and a few years younger. If you see her, drop Harold and follow her.”

  I could sense Zachary’s eyebrows crawling up his forehead. “Really?”

  “Yes. I want to know who she is and where she lives. And why she’s following Harold.”

  “Is she following Harold?”

  “I’ve seen her three times,” I said. Or maybe it was four. “So yes, she’s definitely following him. I’d like to know why.”

  “Do you want me to ask her?”

  Probably not. “Not yet,” I said. “If we can figure out where she goes, maybe we can figure out who she is. And then we’ll talk to her. But it’s always a good idea to know what you’re dealing with. Or who.”

  “OK,” Zachary said. “If I see her, I’ll follow her.”

  I thanked him. “If you don’t, just stay with Harold. We’re getting paid to follow Harold.”

  “OK,” Zachary said. He sounded as happy as the proverbial pig in slop.

  “Everything OK at the office?”

  “Sure,” Zachary said, and launched into a detailed speech on what he was doing to the website and what he was hoping it would accomplish. I understood a fraction of it, but it kept us both occupied, so I didn’t stop him. Might as well let him talk. There wasn’t anything else to do.

  In the middle of it—or while Zachary was still talking; I had no idea whether he was getting close to the end or not—the door to the PI’s office opened, and I had to interrupt. “Heads up.”

  Zachary stopped talking, and we both watched as a man came out.

  It wasn’t Harold. Tall, with curly brown hair, in faded jeans and a brown leather jacket.

  My eyes narrowed. Wasn’t that…?

  Yes, it was! The same guy who’d held the door open for me at the Olive Garden the other day. He’d ducked into the restroom immediately inside the door while I’d taken a look around the restaurant for Harold. The latter been lunching with a young man I’d assumed was a son or nephew, and I’d gone back out to the parking lot to eat my takeout salad and breadsticks. I hadn’t seen the guy in the brown jacket again.

  Until now.

  He stood outside the door for a second, looking around. Then he came toward me.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  I could hear Zachary’s voice quacking from the other end of the line, but not what he said. Then the quacking stopped when I shut the phone off.

  For the first time, I noticed that the car next to mine was a black truck. (A fine detective I am. I’d been parked next to it for thirty minutes, and it hadn’t crossed my mind that this might be the truck I’d seen following Harold.)

  The guy in the brown suede was probably headed for it.

  Please let him be headed for it.

  But no. He kept coming, straight at me. I waited until he knocked on my window, and at that point I couldn’t really pretend I couldn’t see him any longer.

  I powered the window down. “Yes?”

  “I need you to come inside with me, please.”

  The ‘please’ was clearly an afterthought. The tone was a lot more order than friendly request.

  But he had said please, and it would give me a chance to figure out what was going on, so I thought about it for a moment before I powered the window back up and opened the door.

  “So you’re working for Harold,” I said, as I preceded him across the blacktop toward the door. “I guess he noticed me following him around?”

  Or noticed the car, rather. If Harold had seen me, he’d have said something to me. Or at least acknowledged that he knew who I was.

  The guy didn’t answer. We crossed the threshold into a tiny lobby with a desk on one side of it. A pretty woman around thirty, with black hair and pink lipstick, sat there. She gave me a curious look but didn’t say anything.

  “So tell me,” I said, “was the only reason Harold drove here today so the two of you could ambush me in the parking lot?”

  The PI smirked. “Not the only reason. And I wouldn’t call it an ambush. Would you?”

  I would. But there was no point in saying so. Instead I looked around. “Which way?”

  He gestured down the hall. I headed in that direction, with him dogging my heels the way Edwina does when a treat is in the offing. He was probably looking forward to presenting me to his master like a juicy bone.

  “On your right.”

  The door on my right was open. Harold was sitting inside, in a black visitor’s chair in front of a desk, watching the door. When I walked in, his eyes widened.

  “Hello, Harold,” I said, while the PI closed the door behind me and gestured to the chair next to Harold. Who looked at me like he’d seen a ghost.

  “Gina? What are you doing here?”

  The PI looked from one to the other of us, frowning. He pulled out the chair on the other side of the desk and folded himself into it. “You two know each other?”

  “Gina was married to one of my good friends,” Harold said. And added piously, “May he rest in peace. What’s going on here?”

  He shared a scowl between the PI and myself. I didn’t let it bother me, just s
at back in the chair and crossed one leg over the other. The PI looked chagrined.

  “She was in the parking lot, watching the door. I’ve seen her before, too. At the YMCA, outside your office…”

  Harold breathed out through his nose. Loudly. “Let me guess,” he said, eyeing me. “Did Heidi put you up to this?”

  There didn’t seem to be any point in denying it. It wasn’t like anyone else would have hired me to spy on him. “She’s worried about you. She thinks something is wrong, but she doesn’t know what. So she asked me to see if I could find out.”

  Harold scowled. “Does she think I’m cheating?”

  “She didn’t say that’s what she thought,” I said.

  Harold snorted and turned back to the PI. “This isn’t who I was talking about.”

  The PI’s brows arched before they lowered. “But she was following you.”

  “Be that as it may,” Harold said, “I wasn’t talking about Gina.”

  “There’s more than one woman following you?”

  The PI sounded incredulous. I wasn’t. Clearly Harold had hired him to figure out who the blonde in the Beetle was, and what she was up to.

  “Blond hair,” Harold said. “Shoulder length blond hair. Does that look blond to you?”

  He pointed at my head. I’d been blond for most of the time Harold had known me, but I’d gone back to my natural color—with a little boost—after David’s death. It was as close as I could come to wearing red to the funeral, which would have upset too many people.

  The PI gave my hair a scowl. “No. But she was following you. I thought…”

  “I don’t pay you to think,” Harold said kindly. It was the same kind of thing that David used to say to me, and the PI didn’t seem to appreciate it any more than I had.

  Harold pushed to his feet. “I’m out of here.”

  “My fee…” the PI began.

  Harold chuckled. That was patronizing, too. Like an auditory pat on the head. “I haven’t fired you, Mitch. You brought me the wrong woman, is all. Go find the blonde.”

  Mitch—Mitch?—nodded, even if he didn’t look totally happy about it.

  “Gina.” Harold turned to me. “I would prefer not to see you again, if you don’t mind.”