by Kathi Daley
“And?” I knew there had to be more to the story.
“And after dinner he took me home. I assumed he’d come in, but he said he needed to get home. He never turns down the chance to come in, if you know what I mean.”
I did.
“He seemed to be distracted, so I said my goodbyes and let it go. The thing is, he has seemed distracted ever since. It has been several days now, and he still hasn’t wanted to come in.”
Okay, that was odd. “Do you think that whatever is going on has something to do with the man who pulled him outside?”
“I don’t know for sure, but that was definitely when it started.”
“What did the guy look like?”
Bree shrugged. “Tall. Dark hair. Clean shaven.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Dress pants and a dress shirt. No tie or jacket, but he looked like he could be a professional of some sort who’d discarded his tie and jacket on his way home from work.”
“And what day did you say this was?”
Bree frowned. “I guess it was Friday.”
Men in White Eagle, even professionals, tended to dress down, which made me suspect that the man who’d pulled Mike aside might not have been from around here. The men from the CIA looking for Dad had shown up at Tony’s on Wednesday, and then he got the call from them on Monday. Could they have been in town watching us all this time? Could they have figured out who Mike was and asked for his cooperation as well? One thing was for sure: I definitely needed to speak to him.
“Did Mike say anything at all about who the guy might have been or which case he gave him the tip regarding?”
“No. I’ve asked him several times if something is wrong, or if the man who pulled him aside said something to upset him, and he just assures me that everything is fine. I want to believe him, but he doesn’t seem fine.”
“I’ll talk to Mike,” I offered. “It is probably nothing, but I know that it is important to Mike not to bring work home. He wants his time with you to be about the two of you and not his job. His reluctance to talk about it might be nothing more than that.”
Bree smiled. “You think so?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“That’s actually kind of sweet.”
“Mike is a sweet guy, although as the woman who is marrying him, I’m sure you know that.”
Bree placed her hand over mine. “I do know that. And thank you. I don’t know why I’m making such a big deal about this. Mike works hard. He has an important job. Sometimes he is going to be distracted. Even too distracted to come in after our date. I really need to learn to stop obsessing over his every mood.”
“You will. With time. I think the whole wedding thing has introduced an element of stress into both your lives. Once you are married, it will all be over and you can relax.”
Bree frowned. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
I raised a brow. “Ridiculous?”
“You are totally right. This wedding is causing us both quite a bit of angst. And why? I love Mike. I want to build a life with him. Why on earth am I obsessing over the details of the ceremony and the reception?”
“I told you to relax and enjoy it.” About a million times, I added in my mind.
“You did, and I should.” Bree let out a little sigh. “I will. I’m going to make this as easy on Mike as I can as well. Who cares if we have a dream wedding or we get married at a drive-through chapel in Vegas? The point is that we will be married.”
“Exactly. Although as fun as the drive-through chapel sounds, Mom will literally kill you if you elope. But I agree with the rest. Take a step back and enjoy the journey.”
I’d left Tilly with Tony, who had come into town with Titan to hang out with Shaggy, so I decided to head in that direction. When I arrived at the comic book and video game store Shaggy owned, I found them in the middle of a heated battle with a cluster of postapocalyptic spider soldiers. One of the coolest things about Shaggy’s store is that he has a gaming area in the back where customers can try out the various video games he features each month. The store was closed, but that didn’t prevent Tony and Shaggy from taking advantage of the comfy seating and large screen in the preview room.
“How’d it go?” Tony asked without missing a beat in his quest to rid the world of the eight-legged army.
“Okay.” I greeted both dogs. “Bree just had some things on her mind that she wanted help working through. I can see the two of you are right in the middle of important world-saving maneuvers. Should I order us a pizza?”
Tony hit Pause on the game. “No. Shaggy has a woman waiting for him at home, so we were about to quit anyway. We can grab a bite on the way back to my place.”
Okay, that caught my interest. Shaggy was a nice guy, but he didn’t really date a lot, and I had never known him to live with anyone. “A woman?”
“Her name is Mari,” Shaggy provided.
“And she is living with you?”
Shaggy nodded. “For now. We met at a gaming convention two years ago. She lived in Seattle at the time, but we’ve kept in touch, so when she lost her job, I invited her to come here and help me run the store. I figure that once Tony and I really get into the development of the game, I’ll need the extra help. Mari hasn’t found a place to live yet, so she is staying with me.”
I wasn’t sure if staying with me meant that she was sleeping on his sofa or sleeping in his bed, but I didn’t figure it was any of my business and it would be rude to ask. “I’d love to meet her. Maybe the four of us can get together for dinner this weekend.”
Shaggy turned off the game and began cleaning up a bit. “I’d like for you to meet her. I’ll ask her.” Shaggy glanced at Tony, who had stood up and was putting on his jacket. “So, are you on for Friday?”
Tony nodded. “I’ll be here.”
“Be here?” I asked Tony as we called to Titan and Tilly and headed out into the parking lot.
“Shaggy has a potential investor for our game he wants me to meet. I told him I would chat with the guy, who will be in town on Friday.”
“I wasn’t aware that you were planning to take on investors.”
“I didn’t know that finding investors was part of Shaggy’s plan either, but it isn’t a bad idea. It can complicate things a bit, though, so I want to meet the guy and then decide if I think he is someone I can work with. If not, I’m sure Shaggy will understand. This project was his idea, so I want him to feel like he has a say in how we proceed, but I am the one putting up most of the money, and I’ll need to be comfortable with the decisions we make as well.” Tony glanced at Tilly. “Why don’t you take the dogs home and I’ll stop to grab the pizza?”
“Sounds good. I’ll toss together a salad to go with it.”
I let my mind drift to my conversation with Bree as Titan, Tilly, and I drove out to Tony’s. I considered how to approach him about the incident without letting him know that Bree was upset about the encounter and Mike’s ensuing mood, and without spilling the fact that she had spoken to me about it, which would be a betrayal of trust. I also wondered if bringing it up wouldn’t just be opening a can of worms if it turned out that the man who’d pulled Mike aside was just providing a tip and didn’t have a thing to do with Dad or the men from the CIA who were looking for him. I supposed my best bet at this point would be to talk things over with Tony before I did anything. He had an objective way of looking at things that escaped me at times when it came to my family.
Once I arrived at Tony’s, I let the dogs out to run around for a few minutes before going inside to check on the cats. When they were snuggled and fed, I went upstairs to change into something more comfortable. If I was going to stay out at Tony’s for the entire spring and summer, I was going to have to bring more of my clothes here, but for now, soft gray and navy-blue sweatshirts would work just fine.
I thought about Shaggy’s live-in employee as I tossed the salad. I assumed that Tony had met her, so I’d have to ask him abo
ut her when he got home. I considered Shaggy a close friend and would love to see him in a relationship, but his history with women wasn’t all that stellar, so I was worried that he’d end up getting hurt. Not that it was my job to worry about his love life, but I supposed I was the sort to worry about all my friends to a certain degree.
By the time I’d made the salad, Tony had pulled up in the drive. I set out plates and grabbed a couple of beers. “I’m starving,” I said as he placed the box with the extra-large pie on the table.
“I worked up a bit of an appetite battling the spider army as well.”
I laughed. “I bet you and Shaggy are going to have a blast developing your game. And remember, I’m your number one tester.”
“Of course. It’ll be a while before we have anything to test, but once we do, you will be first in line.”
I slipped into a chair and served myself a helping of salad. “So tell me about this Mari. I assume you’ve met her?”
Tony slipped a slice of pizza onto his plate. “Sure. Lots of times. In fact, I was at the convention when Shaggy and I met her and her friend Ivy two years ago.”
I raised a brow. “I see. Are we talking about a double date sort of situation?”
Tony nodded. “At the time, yes.”
“Should I be jealous?” Okay, I already was.
“Absolutely not. I haven’t stayed in touch with Ivy the way Shaggy has with Mari, although she does send me an email every now and then. But we’re just friends. Even at the time of the convention, it was more that the four of us hung out during the week, and during that time we established a friendship. When the convention ended, Shaggy arranged to stay in contact with Mari, but I couldn’t wait to get home to you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Me? We weren’t even dating two years ago.”
Tony placed his hand over mine. “It is true that I’d yet to win you over with my rugged good looks and boyish charm, but the truth of the matter is, I’d been biding my time, waiting for your feelings for me to catch up with my feelings for you since we first met in middle school.”
Aw. That was so sweet. I squeezed Tony’s hand. “Sorry it took so long.”
Tony shrugged. “That’s okay. You were worth waiting for.”
I took a sip of my beer. “So, about Mari. Are she and Shaggy… friends?”
“Yes, they are friends, and yes, they are more than friends. If I know you as well as I think I do, I know that you are probably worried that Shaggy will get hurt. But honestly, I don’t think he will. Mari is a really awesome person, and quite frankly, I think she is perfect for Shaggy.”
I felt myself relax just a bit. “That’s good. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“I’ll follow up with Shaggy about the dinner idea. In the meantime, I think she will be at the store training this week. You should stop by.”
“I might just do that. If I can find a spare minute. It seems like I have fallen behind on my route every day for the past week at least.”
“You’ve been preoccupied with Brick’s murder. Any news?”
I shook my head. “I was going to try to talk to Mike today, but I didn’t have a chance. The last couple of times I’ve called him, he’s seemed evasive, which is sort of strange because he seemed to be willing to talk to me about the investigation in the beginning.”
“I suppose that Mike has a lot on his mind. He might just be preoccupied.”
I supposed that could be true. “The CIA guys who stopped by that night… Do you remember what they looked like?”
Tony paused and looked at me. “I only saw the one guy, the passenger who got out of the car. He was tall with dark hair. He wore a suit, which made him look like a fish out of water here in White Eagle. I remember thinking that he should trade out his designer threads for jeans and a sweatshirt if he wanted to blend in.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to blend in. Maybe intimidation was more his thing.”
“I suppose you might have a point. I know I would have taken him less seriously if he’d dressed down. Why the interest in what he looked like?”
I filled Tony in on my conversation with Bree.
Tony frowned. “I can understand why the men from the CIA contacted me. I’d been actively looking for the man who used to go by the name of Grant Thomas, so they had every reason to believe that I knew he was alive. But Mike? It seems like a big risk to talk to him when they had no way of knowing if he even knew his father was still alive.”
I narrowed my gaze. “That’s true. Maybe this guy really was just providing Mike with a tip about one of his cases. I hadn’t stopped to think about how unlikely it was that the CIA would pull Mike away from dinner when they couldn’t know what sort of reaction they were going to get.”
“Unless Mike had contacted them after we filled him in on what we had uncovered,” Tony added.
“Well, yes, I guess there is that possibility to consider. Still, my gut is telling me not to bring it up with Mike right now. If the man who pulled Mike aside was connected with Dad’s disappearance, it seems like he would have brought it up to me. The fact that he hasn’t indicates in my mind that the guy was after something else.” I paused and thought about things. “I don’t like keeping anything from Mike, but I don’t know how he would react if he did know the CIA was after Dad. Best to keep the situation between the two of us at least for the time being.”
Chapter 14
Friday, March 29
On Friday morning I found myself actually ahead of schedule for the first time in a long time, so I decided to stop by the police station to check in with Mike.
“Morning, Frank. Is Mike in?”
“In his office.”
I instructed Tilly to wait with Frank and Leonard, then headed down the hallway. I found Mike sitting in his chair staring into space. “Seems like you might have something heavy on your mind.”
Mike looked at me. “I do. Have a seat.”
I sat down across from him. I assumed this had to do with our father, but it turned out that his solemn expression was about Brick’s murder.
“I just spoke to Lacy Tilton, who I have been trying to get ahold of ever since Luke Warner gave me her name. If you remember, she was one of the two friends Darlene Brannigan went to the concert with on the night she died.”
“Yes, I remember. Did she know something that might help you with your search for Brick’s killer?”
“She told me that on the night Darlene died she had persuaded both Ginny and her to attend the concert with her so that she could meet up with someone she had met at a club the night before.”
“Club? I thought Darlene was only sixteen?”
“She was, but she had a fake ID.”
I nodded. “That’s right. Go on.”
“Lacy didn’t know the name of the man that Darlene planned to connect with, but she did say that she had indicated that he was with a band. She wasn’t sure if he was a musician or a support person, such as a roadie, but she did say that the name of the band was Satan’s Sin.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Sounds lovely,” I said with a hint of sarcasm.
“They were definitely not for everyone. The thing I found interesting was that the four band members went by the names Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, and Abaddon.”
“All names for the devil.”
“Exactly. And it just so happens the first letter of each of those names, L, B, S, and A, coincide with the letters used to identify the four DNA samples Brick sent for testing.”
My eyes grew large. “So, if the killer was L, Lucifer did it.”
“That would be my guess.”
“So how did Brick get DNA samples from all four men?”
“That I do not know. The band is currently doing a reunion tour, so I suppose Brick might have attended one of their concerts and then followed them around until he was able to collect what he needed. As the owner of a bar who hires bands to play on Friday and Saturday nights, he could even have had an in with the band’s man
ager.”
“So now what?”
“The band is doing a gig in Cheyenne this weekend. I thought I might take a drive down there to try to collect my own DNA samples. If I can prove what it seems Brick proved—that Lucifer was Darlene’s killer—I think we should be able to put both murder cases to bed.”
“Cheyenne is a fifteen-hour drive. Let me call Tony. Maybe his friend with the jet can fly us all down there.”
“All?”
“You will need help collecting the samples. If Tony’s friend is free, he should be able to fly us down this evening after we both get off work. I’ll book a hotel for Tony and me and you and Bree, if she wants to go. I’ll see if Tony can snag us some backstage passes, which will allow us to collect items that might possess the DNA we need.”
Mike hesitated.
“It’s a good plan.”
“Do you think Tony can get the passes?”
I nodded. “He knows a lot of people. I’ll call him now, and if the jet is free, I’ll check with Shaggy to see if he can stay out at Tony’s to look after the animals.”
Chapter 15
Saturday, March 30
As it turned out, Tony’s pilot friend was available, Tony did know someone and was able to get us concert tickets and backstage passes, and Shaggy and Mari were happy to stay out at Tony’s to look after the animals. Mike, Bree, Tony, and I all flew to Cheyenne on Friday evening, arriving just in time to check into our hotel and head off to bed. It turned out that the concert was a multiband event that started at four in the afternoon and ran until after midnight. The four of us dressed casually in torn jeans and leather so as not to stand out in the crowd. The plan was to identify the four members of the band and then split up into pairs, following each member until we had DNA samples from all of them. Mike had outfitted each of us with backpacks, rubber gloves, and evidence bags. Trying to slip on one of the gloves without being noticed was not going to be easy, but I figured we’d work out the details as we went along.