“Now why?” she said. “Why are you not interested in a free beer and fifty dollars tonight, Jimmy?” She tightened her hold on his collar and shook him like the rat he was.
“It’s bad for my reputation to be seen with you,” he whined. “Everyone thinks I’m a snitch.”
This earned him another shake.
“Try again, Jim. You’ve never cared about being known as a confidential informant before, so why should you start now? It’s part of your income stream. If you gave up snitching you’d have to switch to a cheaper brand of beer, and cane brandy would be off the menu altogether. What’s the real reason?”
Jimmy cringed away from her. It was as though he were trying to disappear into his own shirt collar.
“I thought you’d be mad at me.”
“About what? What have you done to make me mad at you – apart from trying to run just when I want to have a civilized conversation.”
“You know. The thing.”
“The thing?”
“The thing about the forest. It’s your home, isn’t it?”
“Okay.” Eulalie loosened her hold on his collar. “What do you say we go back inside and talk about this over a drink like we normally do? I’ll buy you a beer and a brandy chaser, and this fifty-dollar bill can stop burning a hole in my pocket.”
Jimmy straightened his collar. “I think you mean a hundred-dollar bill.”
“Let’s see what your information is worth first. If it’s good, I might go up to a hundred.”
They turned and went back into Mo’s where Jimmy was greeted with instant mockery.
“Told you she’d get you, Jimbo.”
“You’ll have to be faster next time, Jimmy.”
“Nice try, Jim,” said Mo from behind the bar. “But she always gets you in the end. I just didn’t expect it to be so fast.”
Eulalie quieted him with a shake of her head. She wanted Jimmy in a good mood because that was when he gave the best information. She ordered the beer and brandy for him and a café au lait for herself.
She took the drinks to a corner table where Jimmy was sitting. It was where he traditionally held court and was referred to only half-jokingly as Jimmy’s office. He took a long pull of the beer, and Eulalie could practically see the milk of human kindness flowing back into his veins.
“Ahh. That’s better.” His eyes glistened as Eulalie slipped him a fifty-dollar bill and left another one peeking out from under her coffee cup as a promise of things to come. He was regaining his confidence by the minute.
“So, what’s up, girlie? What do you want to ask me about?”
“I think you know. A few days ago, a man turned up dead in the deep forest. He had been shot through the chest with an arrow. Nobody seemed to know who he was. Then we found out that his name was Sawyer Blakely and he was here to negotiate a real estate deal on behalf of a company called Megamoxy. They are planning to flatten a few hundred acres of the forest to build a theme-park. My job is to find out who killed him. Would you have any theories about that?”
Jimmy frowned, pulling the scar over his eyebrow skew. That scar was the reason for his nickname – Jimmy the Knife. He had survived a knife-attack years earlier. He apparently had a similar scar across his ribs, although Eulalie was pleased to say she had never seen it. If people chose to believe that he had earned his nickname through his deadly prowess with knives, Jimmy was perfectly happy to let them.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he said. “Arrow through the chest – it must have been one of your guys. A villager. They’re the only ones who use bows and arrows around these parts. I’m not saying I blame them, mind. He was a nasty piece of work. Sooner or later, someone was going to interfere with his vital organs.”
This was said so casually that Eulalie found herself believing him. Jimmy had no more idea who killed Sawyer Blakely than she did.
“What about the people he was meeting with while he was on Prince William Island?” she asked. “I know one of them was a Waylon brother from Waylon Construction, but as far as I can tell, they never actually met. Howard Waylon vanished just before he could keep his appointment. He’s been missing ever since.”
“That would be the brother who ditched his wife for some babe?”
“It is. That babe as you call her would very much like to know where her husband is. I can report that she has a piercing voice and a deadly aim with a bunch of keys. She nearly took her brother-in-law’s eye out when he kept on insisting that he didn’t know where Howard was. He’ll need stitches in his forehead.”
Jimmy couldn’t suppress a smile. “You don’t say? Well, I can tell you that the aforementioned babe has expensive tastes. She and her hubby both. Between them, they’ve run up rather a lot of personal debt. I know this because I tried to buy some of it up recently. I figured he’s good for it if they liquidate the company. The loan shark who holds most of his debt obviously thinks the same because he didn’t want to sell.” He shrugged. “You win some you lose some.”
“So, Howard Waylon’s disappearance might have nothing to do with Sawyer Blakely and everything to do with his debts.”
“That’s what I thought too but it doesn’t make sense. Why not just sell his half of the company? We’re talking about Waylon Construction here. They must be worth millions – easily enough to clear his debt.”
“The company has been in trouble lately. They have a lawsuit hanging over them that has affected client confidence. Herbert Waylon told me they’ve lost contracts and aren’t getting as much new business as they were. And now that one of the senior partners has gone AWOL, they’re in serious trouble. He’s desperate for Howard to come home.”
“Surely Herbert could tell you why his brother was meeting with the dead guy? He must have known what it was about.”
“He says he has no idea. He didn’t even know the meeting was taking place and had never heard of Sawyer Blakely. When I told him about the Megamoxy theme-park deal, he was horrified. But he admitted that Waylon Construction were just about desperate enough to take on the contract if they were offered it. We’re talking big bucks, Jimmy. The biggest.”
His eyes flickered away from hers in a way that told her that this was not news to him.
“Sounds like it was a good thing I didn’t manage to buy up Herbert Waylon’s debt after all,” he said. “I thought the company was good for the money, but that’s starting to sound doubtful.”
“I wonder whether Sawyer Blakely deliberately targeted a construction company that he knew was in financial trouble.”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? There can’t be many Queen’s Town businesses that would be happy to be associated with the theme-park. It’s going to generate a lot of anger. The islanders are funny about that forest. They won’t want to see a huge piece of it flattened. And Waylon Construction – well, they’re the salt of the earth, aren’t they? They’re the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Church Council all rolled into one. They wouldn’t even think of touching something like this if they didn’t have to. Their work is good too. I don’t know what this lawsuit is about, but everyone knows Waylon’s Construction are the best in the business. Blakely had done his homework.”
Eulalie nodded at Mo to bring Jimmy another round of drinks. She was getting to the crux of the matter now and needed him to cooperate. He smiled widely when the new drinks arrived.
“Who else is the best in the business?” she asked. “Who else did he do his homework on?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when I asked the Bartineau brothers whether they had been approached by anyone from Megamoxy to help facilitate the deal, they told me that you were the person I should be speaking to.”
Jimmy clutched his beer in one hand and his brandy in the other, as though they were about to be snatched away from him.
“Now listen, girlie. I explained about that already. That was why I tried to run when you came in, remember? I know what that old forest means to you – what
it means to all you islanders, but especially the villagers. But business is business. Money talks, and the kind of money those guys were flashing around talks louder than most.”
“I hear you, and I would be the last person to condemn anyone for trying to put food on the table. What I don’t understand is why you’re not off living the high life if Sawyer Blakely came in here talking big numbers. Don’t tell me you were too ethical to take it, because I won’t believe you.”
Jimmy’s face twisted with regret. “He came in here asking for a guide – someone who could take him into the deep forest and help him look around. He wanted someone who could help him negotiate with the villagers. He was convinced that if he just offered them enough money, they would roll out the red carpet for him. We tried to explain that the villagers don’t think like that, but he didn’t want to hear it. In his book, there was no problem that money couldn’t solve.”
Eulalie nodded. This gelled with the research she had done on Blakely.
“Now, I know you might find this hard to believe,” Jimmy went on. “But despite being such a fine specimen of a man, I’m not much of a one for guiding people around any forests.”
“You don’t say.”
“I hear the sarcasm, girlie, and I choose to ignore it. What I’m saying is, I couldn’t give this guy what he needed. So, I gave him the next best thing – information on how to find the guide he was looking for. He was grateful and generous, but not to the tune he had been talking about. I got a thousand dollars out of the deal, which is the most I have ever been paid for passing on a piece of information he could have got from a dozen other sources. So, I wasn’t complaining. The person who really cashed in is whoever he found to take him into the forest.”
“I suppose you directed him to Majestic Towers?” said Eulalie. The exiled villagers mostly lived off the proceeds of petty crime, but had been known to take on work as guides into the forest.
“I did, of course.” Jimmy finished his second beer and started on the brandy. “I directed him to your friend Antoine. It seemed to me he and Sawyer Blakely would hit it off. They’re just as creepy as each other.”
“Antoine.” Eulalie’s jaw tightened. “I should have known. He probably thinks that bulldozing his childhood home would be a fine idea. Thanks for the tip, Jim, and enjoy your brandy. I have a snake to catch.”
Chapter 12
Majestic Towers was dark and silent when Eulalie got there after a fast, adrenalin-fueled walk over from Mo’s.
She looked up at the sullen hulk of a building. A faint glow near the top suggested that someone was burning a low-watt bulb in one of the apartments. Antoine’s apartment was in darkness. Eulalie checked the time on her phone. It was midnight. Not a great time to catch him at home. He was a nocturnal creature.
She stepped back a few paces and surveyed the front of the building. There was a drainpipe running the length of it that she happened to know was sturdy enough to take her weight.
Normally, she would also look for a back or side way up the building, but today she couldn’t be bothered. In this neighborhood and at this time of night, no one would blink an eye at the sight of a cat burglar climbing the front of the building, much less call the police.
Eulalie slipped her phone into her back pocket and jumped to catch the drain pipe with both hands, the rubber soles of her boots gripping the pockmarked wall. She climbed like a spider, her movements quick and sure, carrying her to the top floor in less than a minute.
Antoine’s apartment was on the fifth floor. She stretched out her right foot and felt for a window ledge that would lead her to his window. She located it with the toe of her boot and swung her weight onto the ledge.
It crumbled under her feet.
Anyone watching from below would have thought that this was the moment she plunged to her death. But Eulalie had the reflexes of a cat. She would no more let herself fall than she would visit her grandmother wearing the wrong shade of lipstick.
In the blink of an eye, she was clinging to the drainpipe again. Her heart was racing, and the palms of her hands sweaty. She calmed herself with deep breaths and wiped her hands one by one against her jeans.
Then she felt for the window ledge again.
This time, when her toe found the ledge, she kicked at it to test its soundness. Some flakes of mortar fell into the void, but the rest seemed to be solid. It was just that one piece that had been loose.
More gingerly this time, she transferred her weight onto the window ledge and shuffled sideways to reach Antoine’s living room window. It was unlatched, as usual. Prince William Island’s subtropical climate did not encourage tightly shut windows, unless one was blessed with air conditioning, which Majestic Towers certainly was not.
Eulalie eased open the window and let herself into his apartment.
She knew it was empty almost as soon as her feet touched the ragged carpet. There was a stillness in the air, undisturbed by human breathing, that told her she was alone.
She did a fast walk-through just to make sure.
It was deserted, but the occupant had been here recently. There was a half-drunk cup of coffee sitting on a table. His bed was unmade, and had been recently slept in. A bowl of dried-up cornflakes stood next to the sink in the kitchen.
It was a relief to know that Antoine was still in town. Had he bolted, it would have made Eulalie’s life more difficult. If he really was the guide who had taken Sawyer Blakely into the deep forest, he was worth his weight in gold as a witness. And quite possibly as a suspect.
Eulalie didn’t for a minute think that Antoine was incapable of putting an arrow through the New York consultant. He might have started his career as a petty criminal, but she happened to know he had recently graduated to murder.
Earlier that year, a society widow had put out a hit on one of Queen’s Town’s known gangsters. Her motive had been to hide her own involvement in her husband’s death. Eulalie knew that Antoine had been the one to carry out the assassination. But nothing could be proved against him, and he walked the streets as a free man.
He had told her that he regretted his actions and intended never to repeat them, and she had believed him. It galled her that he would never be brought to justice, but he was a useful contact, so she had been prepared to let sleeping dogs lie.
The thought that he might have been involved in another murder made her sick to her stomach. This time, he wouldn’t get away with it.
She stood in the middle of his bedroom and turned in a slow circle, looking for clues as to his whereabouts. There were none. He could be anywhere. He didn’t stick to a routine like Jimmy did. She would have to come back in the morning while he was asleep.
Eulalie let herself out the window and went back down the building the way she had come. It was past time for her to be in bed herself. Unlike Jimmy and Antoine, she intended to get an early start in the morning.
As she walked back up to Lafayette Drive and turned towards Bonaparte Avenue, she asked herself why she hadn’t questioned Jimmy about the possibility of tusk hunters being active in the forest. She had gone to Mo’s fully intending to speak to him about it, but when it came down to it, some instinct had warned her to keep quiet.
She wasn’t sure why.
If anyone would know about tusk hunters in the forest, it would be Jimmy. It was just the sort of crazy, get-rich-quick scheme that would appeal to him. If he knew about it, he would have told her, especially with that extra fifty sitting on the table. So why hadn’t she asked?
Eulalie let herself into the side entrance to her office and climbed the stairs to her apartment.
Perhaps it was because she didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag. The only people she had spoken to about the tusks were Chief Macgregor and her grandmother. What if she were wrong about why someone was digging a trench through the old riverbed? What if it wasn’t mammoth tusks they were after at all? And what if they were hunting for tusks, but Jimmy knew nothing about it?
How long wo
uld it take for the news to be all over Prince William Island that there was a king’s ransom in ivory waiting to be dug up? A day? An hour?
If there hadn’t been tusk-hunters before, there certainly would be after. Eulalie wouldn’t be the one to spread that information around. She’d find another way to ask about it.
A few minutes later, she collapsed gratefully into bed. It was one in the morning, so she set her alarm for seven. The cat stood up in his basket and stretched extravagantly. He hopped onto her bed and fixed her with a look that seemed to say, ‘What kind of time do you call this to be getting home?’
He collapsed against her side, and she fell asleep with her hand resting on his furry flank.
Eulalie woke up a minute before her alarm clock with the feeling that something bad had happened.
The events of the night before flashed through her mind. Jimmy … Antoine … the tusk hunters. It was all worrying stuff, but that wasn’t it.
As she sat up, it came back to her.
Angel.
The way she had reacted to the sight of that arrow. She had come close to collapsing. Whatever it was had disturbed her deeply. Unless of course it had nothing to do with the arrow. Perhaps Angel was just ill. Perhaps something was terribly wrong with her.
No. Eulalie pulled herself together and swung her legs out of bed. Of course, it had been the photograph. It was obvious that faintness had overcome her the moment she looked at it. Something about that photo had shocked her deeply, and she had promised to explain it this morning.
There was no point in panicking until she knew what it was she was panicking about. She would go and visit Angel for breakfast and find out exactly what was going on. Her grandmother had never lied to her. If there was something she didn’t want to tell her, she would simply say so rather than giving false information.
Eulalie fed the cat and took a shower, turning the dial to cold at the end to help wake herself up. She didn’t want a lecture from Angel on looking heavy-eyed.
The Eulalie Park Mysteries Box Set 2 Page 10