Trial by Fire (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 6)

by Linsey Lanier

  Classy place.

  Iron bars on the windows, trash in front of the door, neon sign with some of the letters missing.

  It read “The Pin Pa...a...a.”

  Parker pulled the car into a diagonal space on the street and they went inside.

  ###

  The Pink Pajama didn’t have much pink in it. The place was so dark it took a while for Miranda’s eyes to adjust. When they did she saw the bar was a typical dive. Cheap dark wood paneling on the walls. Beer signs. Moldy smell. Loud music blasting from an old-fashioned juke box. She recognized the Chicago blues. At least it was something she liked.

  There didn’t seem to be a lot of business. One old guy snoozed in the corner. Another fat one sat at the bar, his nose nearly in his beer glass.

  Parker indicated a table in the middle of the room and they went over and sat down. After what seemed like an eternity a bony-looking guy in a stained apron with thin eyebrows, greasy hair and an annoyed expression slunk out from the kitchen with pad and pen in hand.

  “Take yas orders?” he snarled.

  Friendly service.

  Parker ordered two Buds, which was fine with her.

  Instead of getting them the man turned and yelled toward the back. “Yo. Got a drink order, Hildie. Two Buds.”

  A female voice came from behind the bar somewhere. “I’m on break.”

  “Who you think you are?” the man howled back. “The Queen of Sheba? Get yer ass out here and get these drinks. We got customers.”

  Customers must be a rare thing. Yet the guy acted as if they were too busy for him to get the drinks himself.

  “Actually,” Miranda said, “we’re wondering if we could speak to someone.”

  The man’s pencil thin brows shot up to his slicked back hairline. “You got a complaint already? You just sat down. Wait. You two from the Health Department? We got that cockroach problem under control now. I swear.”

  “We’re not from the Health Department,” Parker smiled and handed him a card. “We’re private investigators from the Parker Agency in Atlanta.”

  The man took the card and stared down at it, still studying him and Miranda out of the corner of his eye as if he didn’t buy a thing either of them said.

  “We’re investigating the suspicious death of young woman in this area,” Miranda told him.

  The man waved an arm with an air of desperation. “What suspicious death? This is a quiet neighborhood. We got nothing to do with no suspicious death of anybody.”

  Miranda wondered what went on in this club at night to make him so nervous.

  Parker gave him that winning smile of his. “I’m sure you don’t.”

  “The death occurred fifteen years ago,” Miranda added.

  The man’s shoulders seem to relax a bit. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know nothing about that. I bought the place ten years ago.”

  So he was the owner.

  “Do you have anyone who worked here then?” Parker asked in an easy tone.

  Miranda’s heart sank.

  You can be as smooth as you want, turn up the charm to a hundred and twenty degrees, but that won’t make people who were long gone appear out of thin air. She was ready to move on, but it wasn’t like they had another lead.

  The man pushed back a strand of greasy hair. “Hell, I don’t know.” He turned back toward the bar. “Yo, Hildie.”

  “What do ya want?” whined the same female voice.

  “Get out here. Now.”

  They could hear her groan all the way from the back. But after a few minutes a tall woman with thick strawberry red hair piled atop her head shuffled out and headed their way.

  She had on tight Capri jeans and a tight black low-cut, midriff-revealing top with “The Pink Pajama” bedazzled on it. She looked tired and worn out and probably at least forty.

  “What?” she said to the guy with a curled lip.

  Miranda felt a flutter in her stomach. This Hildie could have been a picture of herself in a few years if she hadn’t met Parker. If he hadn’t shown her her destiny and changed her life. Although she’d probably be on a construction site somewhere snarling at the boss.

  Miranda repeated the introduction, complete with her card and explained they were investigating a fifteen-year-old cold case.

  The barmaid’s powder-caked face didn’t move but one shoulder rose. “I been working here almost since I got out of high school. So yeah, I guess I was here then. God, I’ve been here forever.”

  Miranda took that as a hopeful sign. “The victim was Lydia Sutherland. She was twenty years old. She lived in the neighborhood on Bunting Street. Her neighbor says she worked here at the time. Do you remember her?”

  “I worked with lots of girls. They come and go like raindrops here.”

  “All except you, Hildie.” The man with the greasy hair gave her a slap on the butt. “You’re the loyal one.”

  Hildie turned her head to him with a look that said, “Do that again, and I’ll flatten you.” Her words were a little tamer. “Why don’t you go back to the kitchen now, Mitch.”

  He gave her a tough guy scowl. “Just make sure you get them their beers.” He spun around and walked away with the same listless shuffle Hildie had used.

  “Two Buds?” Hildie turned toward the bar.

  “Wait.” Miranda reached into her briefcase and pulled out Lydia’s photo. She handed it to the barmaid. “Does this jog your memory?”

  Hildie took the photo and squinted at the long creamy crimped blond hair and the bright, eager eyes. Her expression softened. She pulled out an empty chair at their table and sank into it. “Lydia. Yeah, I remember her now.” A wistful smile spread across the woman’s haggard face. “She was so much fun and full of life. She wanted to be a dancer or an artist. She wanted to go to Italy. She wanted it all.”

  Maybe she wanted a little too much. “Her neighbor said she dated a lot of guys,” Miranda prompted.

  Hildie gave a low, sad laugh. “Oh, yeah. And I mean a lot. She had the looks for it. Had to bat ’em off like hungry gnats, you know?”

  Miranda nodded. “Was there one guy in particular?”

  “Oh, she went through them like popcorn. But, yeah. Now that I think about it, there was one.”

  Hildie’s nod told Miranda they might have just hit a gold mine.

  “She used to talk about him all the time,” Hildie continued. “It happened so fast. She met him and fell head over heels. They’d only known each other maybe two weeks and she wanted to marry him. I told her, ‘Lydia, slow down.’ But she wouldn’t listen. And then….” Her face grew grim.

  “What?” Miranda asked.

  Hildie put a hand to her mouth. “God, I can’t believe I forgot about that. It was just before Christmas that year. I had to take some time off to take care of my dad. He had his gall bladder out. And when I came back to work, I heard she was…dead. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “House fire,” Parker said darkly.

  “Yeah. And she was gone like that. It was on the news and everything. It was so awful.” With moist green eyes Hildie looked at Parker then at Miranda. “That’s what you’re investigating? The fire?”

  “We think it was arson.”

  Hildie started nodding her head. “That’s right. I remember now. The cops thought somebody killed her. They were looking for people on the news. Anybody who knew who might have done it. Oh, my God.”

  Miranda jumped in before they lost her. “The guy Lydia was dating. Was he blond?”

  Hildie stared off into space and squinted. “Yeah. Blond shaggy hair. Wore a black leather jacket. I remember him now. Should I have called the police? I didn’t think I had anything to tell them.”

  “And this guy drove a silver Mustang?”

  “Yeah, I think so. That’s right. Lydia pointed it out to me through the window one night. She thought he was going to pop the question.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Name? Uh…I think it started with O or U.�
�� She drummed her fingers on the table. “Oliver? No, that wasn’t it. Maybe with an A. Andrew? You’d think I would as many times as Lydia said it. He wasn’t the one who hurt Lydia, was he? He was so nice.”

  “Was this guy a regular customer? Did he live around here?”

  “Around here? I don’t think so. No, that’s right. She met him at the Art Institute. She was taking classes down there. I think he was wealthy.”

  “Wealthy?”

  “Yeah, well-heeled. Don’t remember if he had a job but it seems like she told me his family lived on the north side. Maybe I just assumed he had money.”

  “Did you talk to him much?”

  “No. He came in sometimes while we were working but mostly he didn’t show up until the end of Lydia’s shift. She’d go home with him. He was always nice. Polite and everything.”

  “They’d go to her house?” Miranda said.

  “I guess so. I never asked. Like I said, they’d only been together about two weeks.”

  Okay. That made sense. “When you last saw Lydia, were they fighting?”

  “Fighting? Oh, no. Like I said she was head over heels about him. He was the same about her. Or at least that’s what I thought.”

  Miranda nodded. “Do you remember anything else about him?”

  Hildie thought for a long moment then shook her head. “Not a thing.”

  The waitress was telling the truth. It was all she had.

  Miranda took the picture back from her, put it in her case and rose. She extended a hand. “Thank you, Hildie. You’ve been helpful.”

  Hildie lingered in the chair a bit then got to her feet. “Have I?”

  “You have,” Parker assured her, handing her a bill.

  “What’s this for? You didn’t even get your beers.”

  “For your trouble,” Parker said. “You have our card. If you think of anything else, please give us a call.”

  “I will. Yes, I’ll do that.” Hildie laid a hand against her cheek as if she were still in shock after this blast from the past. “Poor Lydia,” she sighed. “She was so young. Didn’t have any idea what to do with her life. All she knew was that she wanted to make the world a more beautiful place. Guess that didn’t happen.”

  “Sadly, it didn’t.” Parker put a hand on Miranda’s back and they turned to go.

  No, it didn’t, Miranda thought as she made her way toward the flashing beer sign over the entrance. Before Lydia Sutherland got a chance to make the world more beautiful, some bastard killed her.

  And the world just got uglier.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “So a rich guy meets a pretty young thing at an art school, falls in love with her and kills her?” Miranda wrinkled her nose.

  Parker turned onto the ramp to the Eisenhower and ran straight into rush hour traffic.

  He pressed the brake. “Perhaps Lydia’s death was an accident.”

  “But Mrs. Esposito said she saw his car driving away from the fire.”

  “Perhaps the love interest ran away that night because he was frightened.”

  Miranda wasn’t buying it. “Was the fire an accident, too?”

  “It might have been. They were high, after all. We have proof she was.”

  And so you’d assume he was, too. Maybe he was her pusher. Maybe that’s how he could afford the Mustang. But Hildie thought he was from money on the north side. She mulled it over as she stared out at the sea of cars. Traffic worse than Atlanta.

  She’d forgotten about that. “And what about the broken trachea?”

  Parker’s gaze out the windshield was hard and steady. “Something that happen in the heat of passion?”

  “Rough sex?”

  “Perhaps. Or a fight.”

  Rich boy used to getting his way. Girlfriend doesn’t give it to him. He gets violent. Not too hard to believe.

  “So he realizes what he’s done. Maybe steps back in shock, knocks over the space heater and starts the fire? He panics and the next thing he knows he’s out the door, driving down the street?”

  “It might have happened that way.” Parker pressed the accelerator and did an end run around two cars in front of them. Then he had to stop again.

  Might have happened that way, but Miranda didn’t think so. In any case, right now they couldn’t prove squat. They needed more. A lot more.

  “We’ll head for the Art Institute next,” she said. “Might be a teacher or an administrator who remembers Lydia. And they’ll have to have her school records. Those might tell us something.”

  Parker glanced at the time on the dash. “It will have to wait until morning. The school will be closed by the time we get there.”

  Miranda closed her eyes and leaned her head against the seat with a frustrated groan. He was right. “So what do we do with ourselves tonight?”

  She was expecting him to give her that sexy grin, take her hand, tell her he had something titillating in mind.

  Instead he frowned. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. I have an appointment this evening.”

  Her eyes popped open. “What?”

  “I’m interviewing for an opening at the Agency. Demarco has lined up a few prospective candidates and I promised him I’d see them tonight.”

  “Oh.” That was news.

  She took in the clusters of old brick buildings, the L tracks up ahead stretching over the highway, the hazy outline of the Sears Tower in the distance.

  Parker kept his eyes on the traffic, avoiding her gaze. “You have enough to keep you busy while I’m gone with the case file, don’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “We’ll order room service. I won’t be gone longer than a few hours at most.”

  “Sure. Fine by me.”

  She was a big girl and had been taking care of herself long before Parker came on the scene. But it just seemed so odd for him to do interviews while they were on a case.

  Once again suspicion prickled her gut. What was he up to? But she decided not to ask.

  ###

  It took them almost an hour to get back to the hotel. As promised, Parker ordered room service. He offered her Lobster Bisque or Chateaubriand but she opted for a hamburger and fries.

  It was a tasty dinner. The meat was charbroiled, the fries hand cut, and the condiments included a large bottle of hot sauce. But Miranda had trouble getting it down.

  She shouldn’t be upset about Parker’s interviews, but she was.

  After a bellhop took the table away Parker showered and dressed. She was surprised when he came out of the bathroom wearing casual clothes. Designer jeans in a deep blue, gray knit shirt, lightweight charcoal jacket.

  The case file on her lap, her legs stretched out on the couch in the suite’s sitting area, she eyed him up and down. “You going like that?”

  He smiled, bent down to kiss her cheek. “I told Demarco it would be casual. Wouldn’t want to intimidate the candidates.”

  He didn’t mind intimidating everyone in the office, though. The Agency dress code had always been a point of pride for Parker.

  Something was up.

  But she decided to play along and gave him an innocent smile. “Of course not.”

  He seemed to catch her insincerity but chose to ignore it. “You’ll be working on the file then?”

  “Yep.” She patted the folder on her lap. “I’m only half through all these reports.”

  “Very well, then. I won’t be long.” And he left.

  Staring at the door Miranda let out a long sigh and forced back the sense of dread brewing in her stomach along with the burger. Either she could sit here all night and try to noodle out what Parker was up to or she could work on this case.

  She chose the latter.

  Opening the file she picked up the report where she’d left off that afternoon and began to read.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Feeling guilty as hell Parker took the keys from the valet, got in the Audi and drove it around the corner. He pulled over to the side of the busy
road and took out his phone.

  As he slowly scrolled through the information Demarco had sent him that afternoon, his conscience pummeled him like a heavyweight champion. Certainly Miranda had suspected the story he’d told her about the Agency interviews had been a lie.

  She had an excellent bullshit detector.

  But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if she saw through him. It didn’t matter if she was angry with him. It didn’t matter what she thought.

  She was the one who started the secrecy by keeping those text messages on her phone from him. He was doing this to protect her and he’d finish it. Nothing was going to stop him. Least of all her pointed looks.

  He thumbed the screen on his cell.

  Five semi-promising suspects. Where to start?

  He studied the photo of Charles Clark. Heavy, pockmarked jowls. Brows as thick and tangled as barbed wire. Eyes dark as night and mean as a beaten dog. He was the deceased one. Parents also gone. His only brother lived in Franklin Park, twenty miles away. It would take him at least an hour to get there. Still Clark would be a good beginning. And if Parker were very, very lucky, he’d be the one.

  He made a phone call, turned into traffic and headed for the suburbs.

  ###

  An hour later Parker was cruising through another Chicagoland neighborhood, absorbing reverberations from flights taking off at nearby O’Hara Airport.

  These streets were lined with single story ranch homes a few decades newer than the ones in Lydia Sutherland's neighborhood. And yet compared to the subdivisions perpetually popping up in Atlanta, they seemed ancient. Absently he wondered how his father would assess property values here.

  He crossed Belmont Avenue, proceeded down a block, made a turn, and the GPS told him he was at his destination.

  A U-Haul sat alongside the curb, blocking his view of the house. Parker pulled over, got out and came around the truck.

  On the other side lay a driveway with a thick hedge running alongside it leading to a two car garage. The garage door was open and boxes were piled inside it. A shirtless man in ragged jeans, thick tattoos, and leather sandals stood taping one of the boxes.