When he hung up, Streeter called his client. He gave her McLean’s message and then he filled her in on something else. “I’ve got a meeting tomorrow afternoon up in Boulder with a guy named Carl Shorts. He’s plugged into the whole county up there and he’s got a line on an old girlfriend of Doug’s. It sounds like she might have something for us.”
“Who is it? Do you have a name for the woman?”
“He didn’t tell me on the phone. You think you might know some of his friends from when he lived up there?”
“No, but I might have heard the name before. Let me know what you find out.”
“You got it.”
Frank walked into the office shortly after Story hung up. “Working late, are we?” he asked.
“Just wrapping up some calls. What’s to it, Frank?”
“Same old. I take it you’re still busy with that lady from the other week.”
“Busy with her problem. It’s getting weirder all the time. Maybe you can give me a hand. Someone messed up her car last Friday night. Spray-painted the side—along with her dog, if you can believe that. Left her a bad note that made me think it might be this lawyer we’re dealing with. But the guy who lives across the alley from where she was parked got a partial on the plate of the car the painter was driving. I’m trying to think of why it rings a bell with me. The guy got B-J-J-3 clear but he couldn’t see the rest. That mean anything to you?”
Frank frowned and flicked his thumb against his ear a couple of times. It was his way of letting you know he was thinking. “It means you might have a cop on your case. That’s what it means to me. As I recall from my days with the Sheriff’s Department, all the plates for Denver unmarked police cars start either with B-J-J or J-B-J. They’re the only ones who get those prefixes. No wonder it sounded familiar. I probably told you that back when you started with me. If that’s the car that did it, your friend’s got at least one cop trying to tell her something. What the hell’s this little lady done to make the police want to paint her doggy?”
“Beats me. Maybe she’s got some unpaid parking tickets and they just wanted her attention. Maybe she wouldn’t buy raffle tickets. You could write several long books on what I don’t know about her.”
“Well, we can sit here and crack wise all night, but if the cops are behind this you’ve got some serious trouble. I’m surprised, though. The Denver police may not be a bunch of geniuses or Eagle Scouts but this just ain’t their style. I’ve dealt with these guys for thirty years and I know that’s true. Listen, I’m hungry. Let’s you and me go get pizza or some other big hit of garlic.”
“Sounds good to me.”
When they got back to the church after eating, Streeter read a little and then went to bed at eleven o’clock. But Frank’s revelation about the police car wouldn’t let him sleep. Finally, shortly after midnight, he got dressed and went to his weight room to think. Since he’d been a teenager, he had found solace and comfort in lifting weights. Growing up in a home with an alcoholic father, he used to retreat to the basement gym. It was his sanctuary where he could escape the endless arguments between his parents upstairs. He liked being alone with the cold iron, the smell of chalk dust and cold grease. There was a huge mirror on one wall, and a rusting bench dominated the middle. He would go through hours of repetitive sets, feeling strength and, more important, a sense of order in his chaotic and angry house. When he moved into the church, he immediately built a weight room off to one side of the garage.
He warmed up with five sets of fifty push-ups, his feet elevated a couple feet off the ground to give him more range and stretch. Then he did six fierce sets of bench presses, working up to two hundred forty-five pounds for a set of five. It was an easy weight for him. Next he moved on to curls, doing slow sets of six with a hefty one hundred eighty pounds. His biceps bulged and the veins shot out like someone had injected blue fluid in his arms.
Streeter knew he was biting into trouble when he and Story took on Cooper. But he never figured anyone else was in the picture. Much less a cop. Or cops. He had no idea how many there were, who they were, or what they were after. Nor did he know how far they’d go.
The most logical theory he’d been toying with was that the same cop who heisted the evidence against Shelton somehow heard that he and Story were looking into Doug’s business. Obviously, that cop wouldn’t want anyone nosing around. He was sure the cop thought that any possible problems died with Doug. All snooping now was to be discouraged. Before he and Frank went out to eat, Streeter had put in a call to Carey. He hadn’t heard back yet. He’d ask his friend to sniff around the department and see if there ever were any suspects in that evidence theft.
His other theory was more disturbing. What if the cop or cops got wind that Doug left a bundle and they jumped into the hunt? Because of Doug’s arrest, the police might have the inside track. Who knows what Doug told them? He tried to think of who the renegade officer could be. Frank had a point. This isn’t the way Denver cops usually behave. Still, you wave enough money in front of anyone and they can turn sour. Then he thought of Arthur Kovacs. This had to be the best suspect. The guy was right in the middle of Doug’s case and he had been a Detroit cop. Streeter knew about them. Spray-painting foreign cars and dogs could be a hiring requirement in Detroit, for all he knew. Kovacs gave him that stupid tip about Shannon Mays and he made it clear what he thought of Story and Doug’s family. He’d ask Carey specifically about Kovacs while he was at it.
Streeter got so deep into thought that his lifting was getting sloppy. He decided to call it a night at about one-thirty. No lights were on when he came out into the garage. His dumpy brown 1979 Buick Belvedere, a mule of a car that fit in with most of the neighborhoods he worked, sat illuminated by a streetlight through the huge stained-glass windows. Streeter’s concern about how far the cops would go was about to get some illumination of its own.
The gunshots were loud but sounded distant. Streeter guessed a three fifty-seven or maybe a forty-four. He could almost swear that he saw the two bullets go through one of the high garage windows. He heard one of the bullets ricochet about twenty feet from him and it sounded like it ended up hitting the Buick.
He had dropped to his stomach when he first heard the rounds. After a minute or so, he got up and ran to the small side door. He opened it and stuck his head outside. No one was in sight. He figured that whoever did it was not firing at him. Not at that hour in the dark. Rather, they just wanted to send a couple more messages into the church.
One message was clear: I know where you live. The second was implied: Back way off.
Frank came slugging around the side of the building a couple minutes later. He held a large flashlight and he looked furious.
“That son of a bitch,” he hissed. “I looked all over and he’s gone. How the hell we gonna get a new window? Stained glass and all. I’m starting to wish that little lady friend of yours never found this place.”
Streeter was thinking the same thing.
TWELVE
Rhonda Taggert, aka Ronnie, stubbed out yet another cigarette, then quickly grabbed the pack. Even though it was empty, she stirred her finger through it for quite a while. Then she crumpled it and tossed it on the table, wondering if she should go out for more. Better not. Her lungs already felt cooked and her warm breath was shallow. She’d gone through well over a pack that day, mostly since their ridiculous meeting with Story Moffatt.
The whole day was pretty much of a bust. The meeting soaked up most of the morning, and then she spent the rest of the day convincing Cooper that she’d done nothing wrong. Nothing disloyal. She’d never seen him that mad. It took a stream of tears and some quick sex on his desk to calm him down. But she had to admit the look on his face when Moffatt mentioned her being at Shannon’s almost made it worthwhile. She thought he was going to blow breakfast right in his chair, and he looked pretty queasy for the rest of the day. Seeing the big bounty hunter helped make it worthwhile, too, she noted. He had an aura of compet
ence about him and yet he wasn’t pushy about it. He seemed stable but there was something unpredictable and exciting about him.
“Really, Tom, I wasn’t actually looking for that money for myself,” she had explained breathlessly to her employer. “All I was really trying to do is keep an eye on those two bozos you hired. I don’t trust them, and you shouldn’t, either. I think you’re nuts to be using them all the time. Plus, honey, I wanted to surprise you. I wanted to show I’ve got a little initiative of my own. Maybe you can use me for some investigations from now on. Man, I can’t believe you don’t trust me after all we’ve been through. After all the love that’s between us.”
That seemed to satisfy him. Somewhat. Then, after he came off the ceiling from the blow job, she got down to some world-class ball busting.
“I told you this Story chick was no pushover,” she laid into him. “She’s got a pair of stones on her. A blind man can see that. You underestimated her and now you’re looking down the barrel of a lawsuit. You could easily get your ass handed to you in court by this William McLean, whoever the hell he is. Keep going like you are and you’ll end up paying her. Good day’s work, Thomas Hardy. And you think I was a bimbo for snooping around into this mistress stuff. At least I didn’t shove my tit into the old wringer like you did.”
“You should have told me what you were doing,” came his feeble response. Clearly, he was a beaten man. Overwhelmed on all sides. Then he added for emphasis, “You just should have told me, is all.”
By the time she left, Cooper was so fed up with the whole pathetic soap opera he just wanted to go home, knock back some Scotch, and hit the rack. Pretend the day never happened. That was fine with Ronnie. She needed some downtime by herself to think of her next move. She knew the day could have gone worse. Much worse. What if, she pondered, Cooper had found out the truth about her and Doug Shelton? That was the kind of thing that got you tossed out of the job for starters and maybe netted you a conversation with Soyko and his lunatic partner. It would be a one-way conversation that might be your last.
Ronnie met Doug in the office a couple weeks after his drug bust. He was feeling his old cocky self again and he was taken with Ronnie’s street smarts, not to mention her MTV sexuality. For her part, Ronnie liked his looks and his constant patter. Too bad he couldn’t produce in the bedroom. Like they say on the rodeo circuit back home, “Built like a Brahma, hung like a mama.”
When Cooper started all this talk about the missing money, she thought she might have a little edge because of some of the things Doug had told her. She decided to give it a ride on her own. Hence, the trip to Shannon Mays’ apartment. But so far she’d come up with nothing.
She walked to her desk and pulled out a small pad where she kept some rough notes about the deceased realtor. “Sex a D-minus. Definitely fucked up about women. Talked about himself and money constantly. Big surprise! Talked about his mother and darling brother up in Montana or somewhere. Acted like his car was made out of gold. He wouldn’t let me stay in it alone when he went into liquor store. Said he didn’t think I would be safe there by myself. Bullshit. Probably afraid the little whore would pee in the ashtray. Remember what Bobby said. Stingy with just about everything. Claimed to have tons of money but I never saw much. Lots of BS about how money sticks to him and he’ll never worry about it again. Sure right about the ‘sticks to him’ part.”
There was a knock on her door. Ronnie put the notebook back and went to answer it. Initially she hoped it wasn’t Cooper, but when she opened it she instantly wished it was. Out in the hallway, leaning against her door frame, was a supremely relaxed Leo Soyko. His smile was thin and humorless. Ronnie sucked for air, startled but concealing it pretty well. How did this maniac find out where I live? She felt utterly unprotected, like when she was little and her mother’s nameless lovers, with whisky and decay on their breath, would touch her all over. She was terrified, because she knew that the man at her door could do worse than that. His eyes, dead and furious at the same time, took in everything. Those eyes could see right through a concrete wall, she thought.
“I bet you’re surprised I’m here.” He widened his smile and thought how Ronnie didn’t look nearly scared enough. “You’re not going to ask me to come in?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“That’s not very nice.” He pretended to be offended, something they both knew was impossible.
“All right. Why are you here? Did Cooper send you?”
“Don’t I get to come in?” He said it with enough sting this time that she knew letting him in was her only move.
“So please do,” she said as she stepped aside, giving him plenty of room. He had a faint body odor. Not dirty, more like he never used deodorant.
“You gonna offer me a drink?”
Ronnie hated the look of her place with him in it. She knew she couldn’t force him out, but she doubted that he had come to hurt her. Her best shot was to hear what he wanted and get him out fast. Don’t want him feeling at home here. Not ever. “You’re not going to drink, you’re not even going to sit down.” She put as much spine in it as she could without sounding shrill. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, so then you don’t have to be for very long.”
Soyko studied her face. She kept even eye contact and didn’t budge. His eyes said nothing, but when he spoke again his voice softened just a trace.
“Cooper could use your nerve, Goldilocks. Probably your brains, too. And, no, he didn’t send me. The counselor doesn’t know I’m here and I want it to stay like that. This visit’s strictly my idea.”
Ronnie acknowledged nothing. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” he repeated as he leaned his butt against the dining-room table. His way of settling in. Show her he had all the time in the world. “I’m sitting there in Cooper’s office today thinking, Why’s Goldilocks out there looking for this money? And I’m wondering, What’s she finding out? One thing’s a dead-sure cinch. Perry Mason there won’t be getting much out of you. I figure, you show him some snatch, he’ll believe damned near anything you dish out. So whatever you told him today was either pure horseshit or only about a tenth of what you know.”
Again there was silence. Then, finally, Ronnie spoke. “You figured that out, did you?”
“Yeah, I did. And here’s what else I figured out. I figured I don’t give a rip if someone beats me to that money. I’ll just take it away from them and all they get out of it is hurt. But if someone was to help me get there first, why, hell, I’d be in a very generous mood. Wouldn’t want to hurt a friend like that. Might even want to give them a little something for their trouble.”
“You might, huh?”
“I might.”
“Someone could get hurt, huh?”
“Oh yeah. That’s guaranteed. Guy named Grundy Dopps would verify what I’m saying but he’s not talking much these days.”
Grundy’s name drew blood. Ronnie looked away. This guy wasn’t fooling around. He wouldn’t mention Grundy if he wasn’t certain she knew about that little number. This was his way of telling her to play ball or else end up in the same condition as the welder.
Ronnie’d been squeezed like this before and she had always worked her way out of it. When she was fifteen, a boyfriend had left her out in Ohio with these crazy drug dealers. She was the insurance on a big cocaine buy. If the boyfriend didn’t produce the cocaine, Ronnie would get shot. Simple as that. The boyfriend didn’t produce, but Ronnie came out okay. She had managed to get on the good side of one of the guys who were holding her. She was so young, but she could turn on the Marilyn Monroe so heavy the guy let her live. She became his sex slave for a couple weeks until she found an opening, and then she split.
But Soyko made those dealers look like Jerry’s Kids. He wouldn’t get thrown off the track by a little action. No sir, this guy was after blood. Always. He never let up. That was her read. He was pure Robomaniac, with only maybe a nodding interest in sex and absolutely no
interest in mercy. She decided to take the practical path. Feed him a little shit and stall him.
“I think you pegged Tom Cooper about right.” Her voice softened but not too much. “He doesn’t get it half the time. See, he’s playing by some set of rules he must have learned at college or someplace weird like that.”
“I’m not learning anything new here.”
“Listen, I like your idea. There’s no point in us both doing the same things without the other one knowing about it. I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t all that much, and you tell me where we go from here.”
“Then I tell you where we go from here,” he repeated more to himself. “Say you don’t know much, huh?”
“This is on the level. I didn’t find nothing from the girlfriend’s apartment. They wouldn’t even let me in. But I’ll tell you something you didn’t know. I sort of went out with Dougy. Not really a date and no sex or nothing, but he met me for a drink one night. It was a few weeks after he got busted. We went over to some stupid theme bar in Aurora. The Jolly Douche Bag or something. Had a few beers and he loosened up a little. He told me that he wasn’t close with his wife or whatever she was. Moffatt. You want my advice, you might look where he goes and no one else goes. I’d go through that car of his, maybe, for starters. He guarded that thing pretty damned close, if you ask me. It was really nuts.”
“Didn’t someone already do that?” Soyko sounded less sure of himself.
“I don’t know. The man treated that thing like it was a woman, that’s all I know. There must be other places to check, too. For instance, it might be nice to go through his townhouse. Another thing. There was something really strange about him and his mother. Seemed that way to me. She lives up in Wyoming or Utah or some damned place. Doug seemed really afraid of her but he talked a lot about her. Maybe they had some sort of deal going. He spent a lot of time talking about her—to me, of all people. Like I could give a rip.”
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