F is for Fred

by Rebecca Cantrell

  Aidan was already watching the footage on his phone with Brendan looking over his shoulder. “That gull is pretty talented.”

  She swallowed a bite of toast. “That’s what Jeffery says.”

  “Did he post this segment to YouTube?” Brendan asked.

  “He said he’d use the bit a little later on where I’m meeting those folks and taking pictures. I double-checked this morning before I left the house, and that’s what he did. So far.” With Jeffery, you never knew.

  Aidan scowled. He was probably mad she hadn’t told him about the footage until now. “I don’t see how your agent can make a positive ID from this.”

  “Ex-agent. And he seemed pretty certain.”

  “It’s not enough to hold up,” Brendan said. “I don’t think we can share it with our client until we get more.”

  “Our ex-client,” Aidan reminded him. “We don’t need to share anything with her.”

  “I intend to get her money back and make sure she’s in the clear,” Brendan said. “Our errors resulted in that guy having the footage in the first place.”

  That was another thing she liked about Brendan. The buck stopped with him.

  Everybody finished their breakfast quietly. Maybe sensing the tension at the table, Taylor stayed away, too. Sofia finished eating first and snuck away to the bathroom.

  Once in there, she lost a few minutes marveling at her glossy hair. Sure, Gray was working on her so she’d look good next to him at the Oscars, but it was helping. Eventually, she couldn’t stall any longer and went back to the quiet table.

  “How was your quinoa?” she asked, when she took her seat again.

  “Vegan,” he said. “I had them leave off the egg.”

  Which wasn’t really much of an answer.

  She tried again: “My car looks great.”

  “I have a meeting with John Stark in a half-hour,” Brendan said. “He might have some insurance work.”

  Stark was a high-powered lawyer who often threw cases their way. That was a good sign.

  “Should one of us come along?” Sofia asked.

  “I’d like you and Aidan to follow up the lead on Rhett Fantome. See if you can get information out of him, trip him up on something, anything that might give us an idea of what happened to that cash.”

  They walked to the front of the restaurant and Brendan paid.

  One woman whispered, “Gray Cole!” as she walked by and gave Sofia a thumbs-up. Aidan rolled his eyes.

  “I’ll drive to Rhett Fantome’s,” Aidan said.

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Simi Valley. I looked it up on the phone while you were primping in the bathroom.”

  “OK, but I’m driving.” No way was she going to creep all the way to Rhett’s house at Aidan-speed. Simi Valley was at least a half-hour away if she drove, maybe half as much again if Aidan did. And she wanted to drive her car before it got dirty.

  “No, you’re not,” he said.

  They looked at each other. Standoff.

  “Rock, paper, scissors?” she asked.

  Aidan threw a rock, like he always did. She didn’t want to think how Freud would interpret that.

  She answered with paper. Sometimes she’d throw scissors to let him win so he didn’t notice he always threw a rock and maybe change it up. But not today.

  “And turn off the sound on your phone,” she said.

  23

  Sofia was getting tired of Aidan’s backseat driving. Not that it was unusual. He must think she was a voice-activated driver-slave. As if.

  “Are you taking the twenty-three over?” he asked.

  “I’m taking Kanan to the one oh one. It’s faster.” And much more likely to annoy him.

  “The twenty-three is a better road.”

  So it was. She turned onto Kanan anyway. Such a winding road with lots of trees and good views. The kind of road that made her glad the Tesla was so nimble.

  The kind of road Aidan hated.

  “We want to get there alive!” he yelped, after she took a corner a bit too fast, even for her.

  “Really?” She turned her head to look at him.

  “Eyes on the road!”

  She grinned and kicked it up a notch.

  His phone moaned. Both his hands clutched the dash. In her peripheral vision, she saw him glance between the road outside and the phone in his shirt pocket. Slowly, he peeled one off the dash. It must be true love.

  “I thought I told you to turn off the sound,” she said.

  He read the text and laughed. “She’s so amazing.”

  Sofia couldn’t get to a peanut, so she made a note to eat one later. After that, the ride was all texting and moaning. She dedicated herself to exploring the possibilities of the road and almost forgot he was there until she merged onto the 101 north.

  “Address?” she asked.

  He jumped a little in his seat. Maybe he’d forgotten she was there, too. She hoped he wasn’t sexting in her car. She’d just had it detailed.

  He read off an address and the car helped to navigate them there. Every so often, the nav system would try to send her somewhere completely random, like right off the Santa Monica Pier, but today it took her straight to her destination.

  Simi Valley had nice broad streets, lovely old palm trees, and a lot of one-story ranch houses in good repair. Rhett didn’t live in any of those. He lived in a dilapidated apartment painted an uninspiring brown outside with darker spots from a previous paint job bleeding through. The building was shaped like a long rectangle with a flat roof that had a shingled skirt sticking all around, like the house had had a bad bowl cut.

  Sofia parked across the street and watched for a minute or two. Various cars parked out front. Mostly Toyota and Honda four doors, and one shiny brown El Camino. Half the garbage bins were on the street, and a skinny dog sniffed at one. No people.

  “Does that dog look like it’s got rabies?” Aidan asked.

  “How should I know?” She studied the dog. It wasn’t foaming at the mouth or anything. “Why don’t you get out and see, Officer Friendly? You’re the dog expert.”

  “Aren’t you the one who befriends every mutt you see?”

  He was right, but this dog didn’t want to be friends with anyone. It growled at the car, fur standing up on its hackles.

  “Maybe we should do a run around the block, see if he moves on?” she suggested.

  She didn’t expect Aidan to agree. Usually, this was the kind of argument they could have drawn out for a good long time, until the dog got bored and left, but this time Aidan sighed theatrically and got out of the car.

  She wondered how long it would be until he jumped right back in. She eyed the auto door lock. Something to think about.

  “Hey, buddy!” Aidan yelled at the dog in a hyper-friendly and aggressive way.

  It yelped and scuttled off, tail between its legs.

  That was actually pretty darn macho. The sexting must have got him riled up.

  She started to get out of the car, but paused in the middle of closing the spotless ruby-red door. She felt a sudden desire to swap this gorgeous shiny car for the dirty old unobtrusive Tesla of yesterday. Her clean car stuck out in this neighborhood, and she hated to leave it behind.

  “He’s in one oh three.” Aidan headed toward the building. “Let me do the talking.”

  She didn’t dignify that with a response. Mostly because she’d no intention of doing that. She wasn’t a voice-activated detective either.

  The door for apartment 103 had cobwebs in the upper corners and a thin film of dust on the blocky wooden numbers. Rhett was obviously not much of a housekeeper.

  She rang the bell. No sound. But the curtains in 101, the apartment across the courtyard, twitched. Someone was watching them. A tabby cat sat on the windowsill, and she thought she’d seen a person peering through the curtains next to it.

  Aidan motioned to her to stand on one side of the door, while he stood on the other. Standard practice
when you were worried that the person inside might shoot through the door. Not an encouraging sign. She studied 103’s curtained windows, but nothing moved.

  Aidan pounded on the door, hard, insistent. Cop knocks. He didn’t stop until the door swung open.

  At first she couldn’t see anything because the room was completely dark. The smell of dirty socks wafted out.

  “What?” Rhett Fantome stepped into view and leaned against the doorframe. He was wearing gym shorts with no top and sported tattoos of Batman on his right shoulder and the Joker on his left. He was leaning into that Joker smile of his.

  “We’re here to talk to you about your involvement at a party in Malibu a few days ago.” Aidan was opting for by-the-book angry cop.

  She put on her tough-girl expression and stood as straight as she could.

  “You a cop?” Rhett’s dark eyes darted back and forth between them.

  “How about we discuss this inside? Spare your neighbors.” Aidan pushed past Rhett into the apartment. She followed, impressed by Aidan’s tough-guy routine.

  The apartment was nothing special. A sagging leather couch leaked stuffing onto the floor, a table made out of a door and cinderblocks, pizza boxes on the floor, and a big-screen TV covering one wall. Random laundry kicked into the corners.

  “Wait.” Rhett flicked on a light. “You look familiar.”

  Sofia shrugged. She always looked familiar.

  “What can you tell us about a party? At a Malibu home, two days ago,” Aidan asked.

  “Two days ago?” Rhett stared at her.

  She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. Her most badass pose.

  “Half Pint Detective!” Rhett said slowly. “I knew I recognized you.”

  Aidan mostly stifled a snort.

  “I’m doing a ride-along,” she said. Technically, she’d been driving, but she’d made it sound like Aidan might actually be a cop.

  Rhett blinked. He looked skeptical.

  “Where were you yesterday afternoon?” she asked.

  “I thought you were asking about a party two days ago.”

  He was more alert than she’d given him credit for.

  “That, too.” Aidan plowed ahead. “Let’s start there.”

  “It was in Malibu,” Sofia said. “Teenage girls.”

  “My daughter’s birthday.” Rhett turned to her. “Yvette. She’s beautiful and talented.”

  “We met. She seems like a lovely girl,” Sofia said.

  “She is. But she needs a break. Have you heard of any—”

  “I’m asking the questions here,” Aidan butted in. “Were you at a party at Zuma View Place?”

  He shrugged.

  “We can’t help you if you don’t help us,” Sofia said.

  Rhett thought that over. He probably expected her to get his daughter a gig. That was going to be awkward. But maybe they’d shake some info out of him first.

  “What happened at the party?” Sofia asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “A firearm discharged at the event. Are you aware of that?” Aidan asked.

  “Sounds like you should talk to Bev.”

  “Bev?” Aidan had pulled a paper notebook out of his jacket pocket. “Full name.”

  “Beverly Gurken Fantome. My bitch of an ex-wife. The Amazon.”

  “How can we reach her?”

  Rhett had to check his cell phone to get her number.

  “Thank you, sir. Now, tell me what you were doing at this party.”

  “It was my kid’s birthday.”

  “And?” Sofia asked. His eyes slid right past hers. You’d think an actor would be a better liar. He was hiding something about the how and why he was at the party.

  “And nothing.” His voice had firmed up. He was getting comfortable in his role.

  “How long had it been since you saw Yvette?” Sofia asked.

  “Not too long.” Again, he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Poor Yvette.

  Rhett’s phone rang. He turned off the sound and stuck it into his pocket.

  “Who’s calling?” Aidan asked.

  “I didn’t check. I’m talking to you two.”

  “What happened at the party?” She decided to get them back on track.

  “I was there for a while and then I left. Nothing much.”

  That seemed to be leaving out a lot. Like the doctor and the gunshot, at least.

  “Why did you leave?” she asked.

  “I had . . . an audition.”

  “For what?”

  “Oklahoma!. Jud Fry.”

  That was a good choice. Oklahoma! was being produced somewhere practically every day. It would be hard to verify. “Break a leg.”

  “Thanks!” Rhett smiled, and she saw the Joker. She hated to admit that Jeffery might have been right.

  “If you were going to an audition, why did you crash through the hedge?” Aidan asked.

  “I was in a hurry.”

  “Can you tell me who else was at the party?”

  “Bev was there. Yvette. Some of her friends.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Ask Bev. She knows everything in the world.”

  He’d conspicuously not mentioned Dr. Solov, but they couldn’t ask about the doctor without drawing attention to him.

  “When we ask Mrs. Fantome, will she verify your account?” Aidan asked.

  “She never verifies my account of anything.”

  “Why is that?”

  Rhett scowled. His mouth drew down in an angry Joker. It was pretty scary. He’d make a good Jud Fry, if he’d actually auditioned for it.

  Aidan didn’t look impressed.

  “Bitch lies about everything,” Rhett growled. He stepped toward Aidan, and his hand went behind his back.

  Aidan slammed him against the wall so fast she barely saw it.

  “Check him for weapons.” Aidan sounded as calm as if he were talking about the weather.

  Sofia patted Rhett down. He was thinner than he looked, almost gaunt. Brendan had trained her to do a thorough pat-down, and she didn’t find a gun. But she found a knife strapped to Rhett’s ankle. She took it and set it on the table across the room.

  Aidan let him go, but stayed pretty close to him.

  “That wasn’t very nice.” Rhett rubbed his shoulder.

  “Carrying a concealed knife is illegal. Penal Code Section 12020, paragraph A, subsection four,” Aidan said. “That’s one to three years, right there.”

  Rhett blanched.

  “Let’s start over,” Aidan said. “We come in. You’re not carrying a weapon. We ask you some questions, and you’re very cooperative. We never find a knife.”

  “I was at my daughter’s party. A few of her friends were there. My ex. Another guy. Nice shirt.”

  Dr. Solov.

  “Can we get a list of those names off you? First and last names,” Aidan asked.

  “Don’t know them.”

  “You don’t know the names of any of your daughter’s friends?” Sofia asked. Her own mother had known all of her friends. Mom-radar.

  Rhett shrugged, winced, and rubbed his shoulder. “We don’t hang out much.”

  “And the adults?”

  “Bev probably knows everyone’s name, address and bank balance.”

  Sofia suspected he was right about that.

  “I’m not asking her. I’m asking you.” Aidan kept going.

  “And I’ve told you all I know.”

  That went on for a while.

  “Where were you yesterday?” Sofia asked.

  Rhett didn’t say anything.

  “At the pier?”

  “It’s public property, last I checked.” Rhett loomed over her, and she was glad she’d frisked him.

  “Just because it’s public doesn’t mean you can’t commit a crime there,” said Sofia.

  Rhett looked confused and Sofia had to admit that she hadn’t nailed the clear and menacing beat she’d hoped for.

  “Eyewitnes
ses place you there,” Aidan said.

  If you counted Fred as an eyewitness.

  Rhett shrugged. “I get around a lot.”

  “Did you get around to the pier to pick up blackmail money?” Aidan asked.

  “Time to go.” Rhett walked to the front door and held it open.

  Sofia wasn’t sure what the play was. Should they stay? They were getting nowhere. She looked at Aidan.

  “We’ll be back,” Aidan said. “You can count on it.”

  “What about the knife?” Sofia pointed to the table where she’d had put it.

  Aidan picked it up and put it in his waistband.

  “I’m turning it in at the station.” Aidan smiled. “You can pick it up there if you like.”

  They went out to the car, which Sofia was happy to see was still there.

  “Wasn’t that technically stealing? His knife, I mean.” She kept an eye on Rhett’s door. No movement.

  “I can’t leave him with a concealed knife. I used to be a cop.”

  “But you’re not now. You’re just some guy who busted into his house and stole his knife. Like a mugger.”

  “I’m going to drop it off at the station,” Aidan said. “That means I didn’t steal it. I just moved it.”

  Sofia was pretty sure that wasn’t entirely accurate, but she drove him to the station and watched Aidan hand over the knife. Another gray area.

  24

  No way was the Fred footage enough to connect Rhett Fantome to the blackmailing scheme. Even though she’d seen a glimpse of what was probably him on the way out of Yvette’s birthday party, she couldn’t make a really positive ID either. It wasn’t enough.

  They tried to find Mrs. Fantome to get more details about the party, but she wasn’t home. Maybe Rhett had tipped her off, although they didn’t seem close. They ended up back at the office.

  The phone rang.

  “Maloney Investigations,” said Aidan.

  A pause.

  “I’m sure I can help you, too.”

  The caller must have asked for Brendan directly. Priscilla wouldn’t like that.

  Aidan transferred the call to his father. Sofia held her tongue.

  A few minutes later Brendan came out of his office looking relieved.

  “Are we re-hired?” Aidan asked.