Soft Case (Book 1 of the John Keegan Mystery Series)

by John Misak

to see if Rick would see me. If he wouldn’t, then I knew he and I had troubles. Big ones.

  “A Mr. Keegan to see you.” The old man nodded. “I’ll send him up.” The man looked at me again. “You can go on up,” he said. “Eleventh floor.”

  “Thank you.”

  I got into the small elevator, which looked as though it could barely hold three people, and pressed the button for the Eleventh floor.

  The elevator creaked, not exactly instilling confidence, and slowly made its way up to Rick’s floor. The elevator stopped with a jolt, and the doors creaked open, revealing Rick standing on the other side.

  “Hey John,” he said, smiling.

  “Nice elevator you got there,” I said, walking out.

  “Yeah, we’ve been petitioning to get a new one, but most of the people that live here don’t want to spring for the cash.” He seemed comfortable, not ill at ease to speak to me.

  “Guess you’ll have to wait until someone crashes in it.”

  “Yeah.”

  Rick started walking towards his apartment. I followed.

  “You know, I’m not sure what is older, the elevator, or the security guard downstairs.”

  “Who? George? He’s been here longer than I have.”

  “He looks like he’s been here longer than the building has.”

  Rick laughed. We stopped in front of his apartment, which was at the left comer of the hallway. Apartment 13G, for you detail oriented people.

  “Just do me a favor. We’ll have to be quiet. Chrissy is sleeping, and I’m trying to get the little one to do the same.” Rick’s kids were three and almost one, if I remembered correctly. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with that.

  “No problem.”

  We walked in to the apartment. It was fancy, with shiny ceramic tiles and plush carpeting. There were a few artsy paintings on the walls, one that I recognized as a Picasso, only because I had a girlfriend that was into that stuff. I sat down on the tan leather couch in the living room. Rick had about four large bookcases filled with archaeology and medical textbooks, as well as romance novels. I don’t think I’d want to be married to a woman who read such books. It was their way of telling you that they didn’t have enough romance in their lives. If a woman did that to me, I’d probably start leaving books like “The Art of the Blow Job” on the coffee table. I know how to send a message.

  “You feeling any better?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I am. I couldn’t stop throwing up yesterday, though.” Information I didn’t really need.

  “Wow.”

  “It was terrible.” He stopped for a second. “I’m really sorry about that. You know I wouldn’t have gone home if I wasn’t that sick.”

  “Hey, I understand. And I am sorry too. I took out everything on you. That wasn’t right.” Yeah, I was sorry. My ass.

  “It’s okay. You’ve been through Hell. I mean, Jesus Christ, they treated you like a common criminal.”

  “They did.”

  “You okay now?”

  “I guess so. I just want to find out what is going on. Someone has it in for me.”

  Rick sat down in the matching leather chair across from me. I noticed that if someone sat in that chair, the person on the couch had a hard time seeing the big screen TV. Poor planning there, Ricky-boy.

  Rick took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as if to add emphasis to what he was going to say. “You really think it’s someone down at the precinct?”

  “I don’t know. Makes sense though, doesn’t it?”

  He looked me straight in the eye. “You think it’s me, don’t you? That’s why you came here today.”

  “Listen, I don’t think it was you. I’d be surprised if it was. But it was someone. I can’t see you having a motive. For all I know, you would have taken the rap with me, if you had come along. Good thing for you that you got sick. I’d rather spend my night with my head in the toilet than in handcuffs.”

  “They cuffed you?”

  I nodded. “They went through the entire process. Trust me, you don’t ever want to go through it.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “No, you can’t,” I said.

  “I guess not.”

  I wanted to get right to the topic, but I really couldn’t do that. Now that I had said I didn’t think Rick screwed me, I couldn’t start asking him questions that gave away the opposite. I had hoped he was going to spill the beans, but he didn’t seem ready to do that. I’d have to go about it carefully. I preferred to walk out of there with nothing, rather than give my angle away. If Rick really was involved, anything I said to him would go right to the wrong people.

  “I really need your help,” I said.

  “Anything.”

  “Well, obviously, I didn’t take any money from Mrs. Mullins, and I’ll tell you this, I don’t think she killed her husband.”

  “You sure about that? She had motive.”

  “Think about it. If she was going to kill her husband, she wouldn’t make it look like a suicide,” I said. I watched Rick as he spoke, but couldn’t get a good read off him.

  “Why, because of the insurance? That’s nothing compared to what she would get from the buyout.” That sounded familiar.

  “If you’re going to commit a crime, especially one like murder, you might as well get as much money as possible. Why miss out on an easy fifty mil?” I asked.

  “Because it works as a perfect contradiction to motive, that’s why. It’s got you convinced.”

  “But no one else, apparently.”

  “Hey, I’m not saying that I think for sure that she did it. I’m just saying that she is a good suspect.”

  “Everyone is a good suspect.”

  “True.”

  I could hear one of the babies cry in the other room. Rick got up.

  “Give me a second. You want something to drink while I’m up?”

  “I’ll take a soda.”

  “Diet okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  Rick went into the other room, and I got up to take a quick look around the apartment. It was tough to find what I was looking for. I wanted to see if there was any hint that he had spent the last day and a half home sick. A blanket on the couch would have been a sure sign, but I hadn’t seen that. Maybe the ring of a soda can on the table, but there was none of that either. I really wanted to take a look in the bathroom. I had to find out where that was, and I couldn’t yell out to him, with the baby and all.

  I worked my way around the living room, and towards the kitchen, and saw a door which looked to be the bathroom. I opened it. Closet. Real good detective work. I closed that door, and found another, across the hall. That was the bathroom.

  Rick had one of those fancy bathrooms, with expensive tiles and one of those stand-alone sinks. I’m not good at interior decorating terminology, but I think you know what I mean. It was fancy. And sitting on the counter was a can of Lysol, opened. Unless Rick was a neat freak, that might have been a sign that he actually was sick. Either that, or he was a lot smarter than I gave him credit for.

  Impossible.

  I heard Rick go into the kitchen, so I flushed the toilet and walked out. He was standing by the door with a can of soda and a glass of ice.

  “Nice shitter you have there,” I said.

  “Glad you like it.”

  “I do.”

  We walked back toward the couch and I sat down. I took the soda, had a swig, and looked directly at him. “I’m in a bad situation here, Rick. I’ve got the feeling that I can’t trust anyone. Hell, if my own parents were even remotely involved, I would be suspect of them too.”

  “I understand. I don’t know what is going on, but if there is any way I can help, all you have to do is ask.”

  “I’m not sure if you can, but thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “No. I want you to look at them, and maybe copy them. I want to know what was written in the report closing the case. And I also want you to keep me abreast of wh
at is going on with Sondra Mullins. I want to know how they go about prosecuting her.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  I had nothing else to say to him. For all I knew, he was innocent, but I couldn’t talk to him about what I was planning with my uncle, or anything else that I had in mind. I wanted to run this stuff by someone and, in most cases, Rick would have been a good person to do that with, but not now. Possibly, not ever again. But, of course, I am getting ahead of myself, so disregard that whole thing.

  After leaving Rick’s, I started driving toward the station out of habit, I guess. As I headed toward there, I thought about seeing Geiger. I hadn’t heard from him, and I really wanted to know what his angle was. What my father said about him stuck in my mind.

  It was right about this moment that I noticed I had a tail. It was a Ford sedan, and the driver was doing a good job of staying inconspicuous, but he had followed two erratic turns I’d made, and he was staying at a distance only an experienced tail would stay at. It was no big deal; I had expected to be tailed. I decided to let whoever this was follow me right to the station.

  When I made the turn to pull in front of the station, the tail kept going straight. No doubt it was someone from the station who was following me. Probably a plain-clothes guy who was hoping that getting a stint like this might get him the gold badge. Maybe they’d even give him mine, instead of having to shell out the extra bucks to get another one. Fuck them. That’s how I felt.

  I walked into the station and was greeted by a bunch of guys I’d never really talked to who were apologetic. They said things like, “Sorry to hear about the bad rap,” and “You’ll get through this,” and “We’re pulling for you.” Sure they were. They couldn’t give a rat’s