Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  The mist was barely rising off the lake the following morning when Duke got into the office. He liked being there before Caroline. He liked being the first one in on any given day. It was a chance to absorb the silence, to enjoy the early morning peace and watch the little creatures scurrying through the woods across the winding four lane highway that passed right by the front of their office.

  A few minutes after Duke unlocked the door, the rich scent of coffee filled the office. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the wonderful aroma. There was nothing like fresh brewed coffee in the morning, especially his favorite, hazelnut chocolate. His mouth watered and he could not stop thinking about that breakfast burrito he had stopped to pick up on his way into the office.

  With a cup of steaming fresh coffee on his desk and a ham and green chili burrito resting on the open foil wrapper, Duke was pretty sure he was about to have a very wonderful morning. He picked up the burrito and lifted it to his mouth. He could smell the scrambled eggs and shredded hash brown potatoes smothered in melted cheese and liberally sprinkled with spicy green chili.

  “Oh, that looks disgusting,” Caroline muttered as she walked in through the open front door. It was open because Duke was a big fan of the fresh morning air before the day got so hot that they had to batten down the hatches and turn the air conditioning to subzero. “Where on earth do you get those things anyway? And why can’t you eat your bacon and eggs on a plate like everyone else?”

  Duke did not let her horrible attitude and rude questions deter him from that amazing first bite. He sank his teeth into the warm tortilla and took an enormous bite. Chewing slowly and deliberately, he let the flavors explode over his tongue. Then he carefully set the monstrous burrito back on the foil wrapper and reached for his coffee. He took a sip and reveled in the perfection of blended tastes on his palate.

  “You’re having a food orgasm right there!” Caroline said appalled. “You are! I can see it on your face. Oh. My. God. You. Are. Ridiculous!”

  “Damn, did you go to Rigoberto’s again this morning without texting me to ask if I wanted a burrito?” Titus stepped into the office sniffing like a dog onto a really good scent. “The guy makes the best breakfast burritos.”

  “I know!” Duke enjoyed taking that second bite even more because he could practically see Titus salivating over the thought of it. He didn’t bother waiting until he’d swallowed to start talking again either. “But you got to ask for the green chili special. You know? Because Rigoberto has a cousin that lives out west and he ships it frozen to Rigoberto’s restaurant but he only uses it for special customers because nobody out here knows what it is.”

  Caroline gave a sniff of obvious derision. “It’s just a weird jalapeno mixed with some ghost pepper juice or something. I bet that’s what it is. He’s just telling you it’s special stuff because you’ll pay more for it that way.”

  Titus rolled his eyes at Caroline. “Did you call the fence company? My gate was open this morning again. It won’t lock, Caroline. This is a problem. I asked you to take care of it yesterday. Remember?”

  “Oh. Right.” Caroline sat at her desk, turned her legs beneath the top, and settled herself at her computer. “Maybe I’ll get to it after lunch.”

  Titus muttered something about dogs peeing out of spite and then stomped over to his own desk. “No! You know what? Don’t bother. I’ll just go and get the materials and fix it myself.”

  “You could use baling twine. That always works on a stubborn gate,” Duke suggested through his third bite.

  “Look, farm boy,” Titus said, his eyes nearly closed into slits. “You don’t get to tell me how to fix my fence. I’ve seen what you do to yours. You get to tell me how the job went last night. Remember?”

  “Oh. Right.” Duke put his burrito down and reached into his pocket to pull out the check. He tossed it onto Caroline’s desk. “Here you go. Our base fee.”

  Caroline squealed and made a big show of treating the check like it was coated in salmonella or something. “That is disgusting! You didn’t even wash your hands!”

  Duke rolled his eyes. Sometimes Caroline’s behavior was just a little over the top. “I didn’t get any burrito juice on it. I promise.”

  “So, what’s your take on the case?” Titus ignored Caroline’s outburst altogether. “It sounded pretty straightforward. Maybe even just a case of putting up signs to ask people to be more mindful of their belongings.”

  “Yeah.” Duke scratched his neck and then picked up his burrito for another bite. “I think it’s going to be a little more complicated than that. There’s really only one time and place during a “show” where you could see a pickpocket having the opportunity to have enough cover to ply their trade, if you know what I mean.”

  “So, the theater itself is too open for that sort of thing?” Titus looked thoughtful for a moment. Then all at once he lifted his head and looked at the still open door of the office. “There’s someone coming. Did you tell your client to come to the office this morning?”

  Duke was momentarily taken aback. Sometimes it was really uncanny the way Titus’s senses worked. Every once in a while, it seemed like the guy had hearing and a sense of smell that was far beyond the normal human range.

  “No, I didn’t tell Olivia Houghton to come to the office. I told her I’d meet her back at the theater tonight with another guy in tow so we could both watch the foyer during the time before and after the show when people are just wandering about taking photographs.”

  Titus nodded, but at that moment Olivia Houghton walked into the office. She sailed through the door as though she were a woman on a mission. Her dark eyes were bright and her curly hair was spiraling wildly in the early morning humidity. Her yoga pants and tight-fitting tank top only served to emphasize the gracefulness of her slim figure. She looked as though she was either coming from or on her way to a work out. Leave it to a chick to make sure you couldn’t tell which it was. It was almost like they didn’t sweat and get dirty when they were working out, Titus thought.

  “Mr. Dunbar, we need to talk.” Olivia marched right up to his desk. Then she looked down at the remains of the burrito on his desk. “Ooh, did you go to Rigoberto’s? I love their burritos.”

  Duke was slightly taken aback by her enthusiasm for his food. He certainly would not have taken the rail thin woman to be a fan of any kind of food. “Yeah. I try to hit that place at least three times a week. It’s good food.” Speaking of, his coffee was getting cold. He reached down and grabbed the mug to take a big slurp of the still tasty brew. “What is it you want to talk about?”

  “Harvey Lightman.” Her voice was flat and a layer of anger seethed beneath her words. “I was at the theater very late last night. I usually am, so it’s not like he should have thought that was a good time to go snooping, but honestly—”

  “Hang on. Back up, please?” Duke interrupted her as was lost. “You were at the theater very late. That’s normal for you. And—Harvey was there too? Is that what I’m getting?”

  “Yes! He was snooping in my office!”

  It was certainly an interesting development. Harvey was an obvious suspect for someone who had a motive to either hire someone to pickpocket the crowds or to do it himself if he had the talent. The guy would make far more money if he sold out to a developer than keeping the theater going. No doubt the cost of the repairs was getting outrageous. Duke could not help but wonder if there was a caveat in the lease about that.

  “What?” Olivia pressed. She was staring up at him with enough intensity that Duke actually felt the need to turn around and break eye contact just to keep his thoughts to himself.

  But he wasn’t supposed to be keeping his thoughts to himself right now anyway. Duke could feel Titus’s gaze on him as well. Great. The boss wanted to know how Duke was going to handle this situation. That was always encouraging.

  “You said yesterday,” Duke began slowly, “that Harvey could not sell out or close the theater unless your uncle’s show suddenly
couldn’t pay him the minimum amount required by your contract. Are there other clauses in that contract that would give Harvey the right to terminate? Or vice versa. What do your escape clauses look like?

  She looked momentarily taken aback. “Oh. Well. Let’s see. There’s the money thing. Then there’s the repair clause. Harvey has agreed to keep the theater in a condition that is deemed safe to use and that meets safety and fire codes.”

  “Okay. Typical. And you can break the contract if he fails to keep up his end of the bargain?” Duke had a feeling he knew the answer to this. The Moonrise was an old building. Just by looking at the place, one could see plenty of repairs were necessary and it was equally obvious that nobody had any intention of fixing the little things that were probably piling up.

  “Yes, and emergency repairs can be called in to a contractor by me. There was a list of acceptable contractors included in the lease agreement. Those people can be brought in on an emergency basis if something gets to be too dangerous.” Olivia looked pensive. “I had to call in an emergency repair request in early June actually.”

  Duke snorted and cut a sideways glance at Titus. He could see by his boss’s expression that Titus had come to the same conclusion Duke had. “Let me guess,” Duke mused. “The air conditioning unit.”

  “Yes. The whole thing crashed about a week after the yearly service. We had an entire day of no air in the theater and I don’t think I need to describe for you how horrible that was.” She made a face. “We lost two days of shows thanks to that. I think they had to replace two of the units. And then there was some ductwork or something. The bill was huge. We were glad that it wasn’t our bill.”

  “Right,” Titus muttered as he walked over to the still open front door of their office. He sent a pointed look in Titus’s direction. “The humidity is getting too ugly in here to leave the door open anymore. You want fresh air, you go outside.”

  Duke rolled his eyes. “Right, boss. Got it.”

  Caroline was already hurrying to the wall to turn on the refrigeration unit. Soon there was frigid air pouring through the vents. Duke shook his head as he watched Titus sigh in what was obvious acute relief.

  “Where are you from again?” Duke asked Titus with a frown. “You act like you’re literally going to die from the heat here.”

  Titus made a face. “Montana. We had heat, but not humidity. And not really much heat either. This humid air crap makes me think I’m going to drown just by breathing.”

  Duke shook his head and laughed. “My parents still don’t have central air at the farm house. They’ve got a couple of window units to keep the temperature from getting too intense in August. That’s about it.”

  “Yeah? Well, good for your parents,” Titus said sarcastically. “Maybe that’s what happened to you. You had your brain melted as a child.”

  “Maybe so.” Duke chuckled and turned back to Olivia. “All right. This is what needs to happen then.”

  “All right?”

  “I need to have a look at your lease. Then I need to have a chat with Harvey, one-on-one. I have a feeling he’s not going to be too agreeable and I might need to push him a bit.” Duke didn’t exactly relish the thought. Harvey was a small guy with a bald head and a paunch. Duke was going to have to be careful not to break him in half.

  “Okay, so what do I do?” Olivia looked more than a little disappointed.

  Duke had a mental image of her taking the fight to Harvey and trying to strong arm the little guy. She could probably do it. Dancers weren’t weaklings.

  “I guess I thought that I was going to be helping you.”

  “Angel, that doesn’t get you a discount on services,” Duke teased her. “So, you’re better off just going about your business and letting me go about mine.”

  She was giving him a look, a very pointed look. The kind of look that suggested she wasn’t about to sit back and just let him handle it. “Last night at a little past midnight, I caught Harvey Lightman in my office with my letter opener. He broke it trying to open a locked desk drawer. When I called him out on his behavior, he told me he had a right to be there. But he doesn’t. That’s in the contract, too. The man is a jackass. I don’t care to just let you handle it. I want to know what’s going on every step of the way.”

  Duke pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. This was one of the worst situations that an investigator could find himself in. The whole client-wants-to-be-a-professional-and-run-the-show act never ended well. Usually, it ended in total disaster.

  Titus cleared his throat. “Duke, you should probably take Ms. Houghton along with you to interview Harvey. You might be surprised what you’ll get from him if he’s really feeling defensive and off balance.” Titus narrowed his gaze on Olivia. “And I have a feeling whatever happened last night when Harvey got caught breaking and entering was probably embarrassing enough to get him flustered all over again. Am I right, Ms. Houghton?”

  “He freaked out, backed my desk chair into a credenza with a hutch on top, and then the plant fell in his lap. So yeah, I’d call that embarrassing,” Olivia informed them with obvious enjoyment.

  “Well, there you go,” Titus told Duke. “Your day is all planned out.”

  Chapter Eleven

  There was no doubt in Olivia’s mind that Duke Dunbar was not thrilled to have her tagging along for this part of his investigation. At this point, Olivia wasn’t entirely sure she cared about what Duke wanted or didn’t want. The guy was working for her, right? That meant she got to have some say in where the investigation went.

  “Harvey has other theaters on the strip. He owns the White Mansion and the Ozark Star. If we’re going to find him this early in the day, it will probably be at the Ozark Star restaurant.” Olivia was already pointing to the short cut that would lead from the crowded Branson Route 76 thoroughfare to one of the alternate routes utilized by pretty much anyone who didn’t want to sit in the crawling line of traffic that characterized Route 76 pretty much three hundred and sixty-five days a year. “Um, you should turn. Now. Hey!”

  They sailed right on by the turnoff and then had to stop abruptly when the minivan with Arkansas plates slammed on its brakes. Olivia tried not to groan out loud, but she could barely hold it in. This was the part of living in Branson that got annoying as hell. Traffic. The infrastructure of the little city perched on the edge of Tablerock and Taneycomo just could not handle the number of cars and tourists that flocked to the area for the shows, the shopping, and the entertainment.

  “You do realize this vehicle is about ten times the size of any kind of sensible vehicle choice for living in a town like this, right?” Olivia looked over at Duke and felt a glower coming on. “And for the record, since I suggested we take my car and you opted not to, I’m not paying for the gas this beast is guzzling while we idle in traffic for thirty minutes.”

  He finally looked over at her, even though he didn’t smile or offer any other positive expression. “There is no way that I would fit into that tiny metal box you call an SUV. Sport Utility Vehicle. Ha!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Olivia shot back sarcastically. “Were you intending to just drive over the cars ahead of us on the road? Because I’m pretty sure you could manage it in this thing.”

  Duke snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Thirty-three inch tires aren’t going to drive over anything other than a few snow banks and some ruts on a dirt road. I have to put studs in these tires if I want to use them on a farm truck.”

  “Studs?”

  “Yeah. There are little holes built into the tread. You can put metal studs in them to help you in really rough terrain like mud in a back field in spring and fall or in snow.” He sounded almost bored informing her of this.

  “You know, if you just turn right into this parking lot there is a back exit that puts us on the blue route,” Olivia said hopefully.

  He turned to stare at her for so long that she actually started to squirm. Then he finally spoke with no small amount of surprise in his voice. �
��You’re kidding, right? You realize that we can see the Ozark Star from right here? I mean, you can actually see it. Like I can read the marquis and everything. From right here in the truck.”

  “That’s because you’ve got it lifted three feet in the air and can see over the entire lane of traffic for miles,” Olivia said irritably. “And we’re still wasting time and gas just sitting here. What did we move last time? A whole car’s length?”

  “You can get out and walk,” he suggested. “I’ll meet you there when the traffic catches up.”

  Olivia could not believe he’d suggested at all. “No! I’m not going to walk!”

  A gaggle of tourists walked by on the sidewalk to her right. They were all pointing at the gray monstrosity of a truck. It was enormous, lifted, had apparently thirty-three inch tires, and looked as though it had been purchased new before either Olivia or Duke had been born.

  “And Henry doesn’t have a three-foot lift,” Duke grumbled. “It’s a three-inch lift. There’s a bit of a difference. Don’t you think?”

  “I think your truck…” Olivia’s brain just stopped and suddenly went in reverse all on its own. “I’m sorry. Did you just call this thing Henry?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I call it. You can’t have a truck without a good name, especially not one like Henry. This is a nineteen eighty-six F250 with a three sixty in it.” He touched the gearshift on the floor as though he were caressing the thing. “It’s got a four-speed manual transmission and four-wheel drive. I replaced the transfer case last year and added a custom drive shaft that cost me a pretty penny and a trip up to St. Louis just to pick up the parts.”

  Olivia stared at him for a long moment. “You totally lost me.”

  “I can see that.” He exhaled a long sigh. “Oh look. We’re moving.”

  Traffic began inching along and soon they were able to nearly turn into the parking lot of the Ozark Star. Nearly. They were about four feet short on the turn. Four freaking feet. Olivia sighed and wondered how long it was going to take before they could actually make the turn into the driveway.