by Josh Lanyon
Okaaaay. Time to go.
There was really only one way out of the kitchen. The breakfast nook was a dead end. I’d never get the door unlocked in time. So I just shoved right past Jerry, who swung belatedly at me with the hammer—and missed.
I heard it hit the door frame with considerable force though, and that old cliché about adding wings to your feet? I was jetting as I darted across the dining room.
I ran into the parlor, hitting the light switch as I passed. The room plunged into darkness. Or at least partial darkness. The light from the dining room cast a faint irradiation over one end. At least there was no real moonlight.
I took a couple of cautious steps. A floorboard squeaked. I froze.
I thought my best chance was to escape through the front door. That meant getting to and across the foyer unseen. But I wasn’t sure where Jerry was now.
I listened.
Nothing.
But he was still here. No way had he given up and fled. He was somewhere close by. I could feel his presence like it was a tangible thing. Was he in the dining room? Or had he gone out through the breakfast room to try and cut me off if I tried to get to J.X.?
Arms out, I soundlessly felt my way past chair, shelf, table, lamp, chair—I was getting to know these rooms even in the dark—sofa, table, a solid cardboard box with tissue paper…
The Reading Bear bookends Jerry had given me.
I felt over the cardboard box and whispering tissue paper and lifted one bookend up. It felt solid, reassuringly heavy. As blunt instruments went, not too bad.
A distant sound that had been tapping on my consciousness suddenly made itself known. A siren. My heart lifted as I heard its approaching wail. Help was on the way.
I moved against the wall adjoining the doorway next to the foyer entrance, tucking myself in the corner, waiting.
I fully expected Jerry to enter the parlor from the dining room. My fear was that he would find the switch and turn on the lights. So my heart nearly stopped when he spoke from the other side of the doorway, mere inches away from me.
He knew the house—and me—well enough to try and cut off my escape out the front.
He said in a low voice, “I did it for you. I saved your life.”
I stepped silently to the perpendicular wall.
“He would have killed you. I stopped him. But now you’re treating me like I’m the bad guy.” His tone was aggrieved.
I started to reply, rethought, and stayed silent. There wasn’t any more reasoning with him than there had been with Beck. Sure, Jerry talked more, but that was the only real difference.
“Christopher?”
I bit my lip. My palms were sweating. The bear bookend felt slippery in my grasp.
“We have to go, Christopher. We have to go now.” He sounded like J.X. did sometimes when he was struggling to stay patient.
I said nothing.
He laughed. “I can hear you, you big silly.”
I pressed my lips together, trying to breathe more quietly. Or maybe it was my heart he could hear. It felt like I had a herd of wild horses galloping through my chest. I was shaking with fear and adrenaline and pain. My eyes never moved from the partial outline of his shadow on the polished floor. I could just make out the hammer, which was still by his side as he spoke to me.
Could he see my shadow too? I didn’t think so. The foyer light was behind him. Whereas I was standing in deep shadow, tucked into this corner.
Jerry’s voice rose, grew shrill. “I don’t understand you. We find each other again after all this time, and everything is going great, and then suddenly you start treating me like this. After everything I’ve done for you, including saving your goddamned life. You’re the most ungrateful person I’ve ever known, Christopher!”
The shadow Jerry suddenly swung the hammer up and lunged around the door frame. The hammer smashed into the wall where I had previously been standing. I heard the crunch of plaster. At the same time I slammed the bookend into where I thought Jerry’s head was. Wham. I felt hair, skin, ear. Jerry dropped like a bag of wet concrete.
I dropped the bookend from nerveless fingers. Switched on the standing lamp. Jerry was sprawled and unmoving on the hardwood floor he had admired so much. I lifted my gaze.
There was a head-sized hole punched into the wall where Jerry had struck home.
Despite J.X.’s efforts, Beck Ladas was pronounced dead at the scene.
And despite my efforts, Jerry was only knocked out. He was still groggily accusing me of assault and battery when he was loaded into the black-and-white police car and driven away.
That was only the prelude to the very long night’s festivities.
First I had to explain my “relationship” with Jerry. Needless to say, our stories didn’t match. Once Izzie showed up to cast light on the situation, things improved a little. Or at least everyone stopped looking at me like some kind of gay black widow luring hapless men into my web of deceit and violence.
“It’s not impossible that Knight could make trouble for you down the line,” J.X. explained quietly during one of the brief breaks in the inquisition. Er, interrogation. “This situation escalated so fast. There was no time to document anything, there’s no track record of threatening behaviors. You hadn’t even filed a request for a restraining order yet. You let him into the house on two occasions. You accepted gifts from him.”
I stared at J.X., aghast. “He was hiding in our backyard! How does he explain that? And there’s the message on the answering machine.”
“Yes, and I’ve played the message for Izzie. And Izzie knows I asked to see Knight’s record and that, according to me, you felt threatened. Izzie believes you. The cops are on your side. Knight killed Ladas. He dragged him, unconscious or at least stunned, to the swimming pool and dumped him in, leaving him to drown. There’s no question that Knight is in deep, deep trouble.”
I honestly didn’t know what to say. Nor had I missed the could make trouble for you—in the singular—comment versus could make trouble for us.
Whatever J.X. read in my face caused him to say, “I could be looking for problems where there aren’t any. Knight has contradicted his own story a couple of times already, but he does claim you invited him over here tonight, which makes me think he’s not unaware that he’s got a couple of potential angles for his defense. Don’t forget, he’s been through this before.”
“I don’t believe this!”
“Kit, nobody here is doubting your story. And maybe Knight doesn’t have a track record with you, but he does have a track record. And that record speaks for itself.”
“But a good lawyer could make a case in his defense.”
J.X. sighed. “Anything is possible. But is it probable? All I’m saying is, be cautious. Don’t say anything more than you have to when it comes to your relationship with Jerry.”
“There was no relationship!”
“You know what I mean.”
Did I? I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t think I was imagining the new and painful distance between myself and J.X. Was this because of our earlier argument or did he now believe there had been something between me and Jerry?
He couldn’t.
“J.X.—” I broke off as Izzie returned.
The floggings recommenced.
Okay. Maybe I’m a little prone to exaggeration. But though Izzie had been gruffly sympathetic when we were going over Jerry’s attempt to permanently tenderize me, I fell seriously out of favor once we reached the topic of my trip with Ingrid Edwards to Elijah Ladas’ loft.
“I was only trying to help,” I said for about the millionth time.
“Right. Except when the victim asked for help, you turned him down. When Ladas’ accomplice asked for help, you went to her aid.” Izzie’s brown eyes were narrow and hard.
“I didn’t look at it like that. All I was thinking was…I had to get this nightmare over with. I was a nervous wreck waiting for Beck Ladas to show up again.”
“So you a
dmit knowing that Ingrid and Beck were in it together?”
“They weren’t in it together.”
Izzie gave a disbelieving laugh and glanced at J.X. who had, surely against regulations, been allowed to remain in the breakfast room as an observer. He was leaning against the wall, next to the green and pink china plates we had hung that morning. Was it only that morning? His arms were folded and he watched us without visible emotion.
“They weren’t,” I insisted.
J.X. stared at me without pleasure. Izzie stared at me without pleasure. I could see—without pleasure—why they must have made a great team once upon a time.
I said, “Ingrid was scared to death of Beck. She thought he was a dangerous and unpredictable animal.”
“She told you that?”
I shook my head. “She didn’t have to. He was a dangerous and unpredictable animal. And dumb as a post. What she did say was he creeped her out.”
“But you don’t think he killed his brother?”
“No.”
Izzie slid back in his chair and waved a beckoning hand. “Okay. Go on. Dazzle us. What really happened?”
I said, “I realize you’re not serious. But as a matter of fact, I do know what happened.”
Izzie stopped smiling. “You’re saying you solved the case?”
“It’s not much of a case,” I said. “And I don’t know what Ladas did with the coins. But, if you want to put it that way, yes. I know pretty much everything else. I can’t prove it. But I’m sure I’m right.”
J.X. said, “But then, you’re always sure you’re right.”
That hurt. And it was unfair too, dragging our personal shit into the interrogation room. Okay, the breakfast room, but still. Not nice.
I didn’t look at him. I waited for Izzie to make another of those sweeping after you! gestures, which he did, right on cue.
I took a sip of water, put my glass down, and said, “Okay. Here’s how I think it all came about.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Once upon a time—”
Izzie’s head fell back and he groaned.
I stopped. “I have to tell this in my own way.”
“Go on,” he told the ceiling.
“There was a mean old man who used his wealth to control and manipulate his children. And unfortunately they learned these same behaviors when dealing with their own kids. Greed begat greed and manipulation begat—”
J.X. said, “Kit!”
“Anyway, Lorenson took a peculiar and potentially dangerous pleasure in taunting his family about what would happen to his money—most of which is tied up in his coin collection—once he died. He tried to play siblings against each other, and then generations against each other, and when that stopped amusing him, he played his final card. He announced he was donating the entire collection to the American Numismatic Society. With the end result being his grandchildren decided to take matters into their own hands.”
Izzie said sarcastically, “And of course you have evidence of all this?”
“Of course I don’t. I simply observe and deduce.”
J.X. leaned back against the wall like he was welcoming the bullets of the firing squad.
“I used a very similar plot in both Swan Song for Miss Butterwith and Sow Shall Ye Reap, Miss Butterwith.” I frowned. “Or was it Miss Butterwith Sees Stars? Anyway. I recognized the setup at once. It’s been done a million times, and not just by me.”
“Is this going anyw—”
“I doubt what, if anything, would have happened if the Lorenson grandkids had been left to their own devices, but Kenneth Lorenson has a reporter girlfriend by the name of Sydney Nightingale.”
“I know Syd.” Izzie was watching me more closely now.
“Then you know that Sydney is smart, capable and gutsy. She’s not a sit-around-and-whine-about-things kind of gal. She’s the get-out-there-and-make-them-happen type. You kind of have to be in her line of work. And Sydney just happened to know—from conducting an interview a few months earlier—a bored, retired master thief who was just the guy to pull off this kind of job.”
Izzie said, “Go on.”
“But from the point Sydney put together the deal, things began to go wrong. First off, Ladas was getting a little long in the tooth and he decided to bring his troglodyte brother along on the job. That resulted in the murder of John Cantrell, which I’m sure was a horrible, horrible accident.”
“Cantrell’s neck was snapped. It was no accident.”
“Right, but I mean, murder was not part of the plan. Neither the Lorensons nor Elijah Ladas wanted or expected violence. This was supposed to be a textbook heist. The kind of job Ladas used to pull off in his sleep. But Cantrell was killed, and even though the Ladas brothers successfully made away with their loot, now things were way too hot. The coins couldn’t be disposed of through the normal channels. So Ladas hid them.”
“But you don’t know where.”
“No. And neither does anyone else. Ladas didn’t tell his partners where he stashed the goods and I think that’s because he planned to change the terms of their deal.”
“And what was their deal?”
“The most obvious deal would have been a percentage of the total take. That’s typically how this stuff works.”
J.X. sighed. Heavily.
I ignored him. “I think Ladas would have been willing to work for a percentage because he liked being a thief. He liked the rush. He liked the thrill. I think he missed it. I’m guessing he found retirement boring. And he was a romantic. So I think he probably originally agreed to a percentage. For old times’ sake. But then another thing Sydney couldn’t have counted on, happened. Ingrid fell for Ladas. Or Ladas fell for Ingrid. Or they both mutually—”
“Go on,” Izzie said.
“And Ladas decided to take Ingrid away from all that.”
“All what?”
“All…well, her miserable life. Or at least what she considered a miserable life. Her controlling parents, mostly. Anyway, that’s not the point.”
“Oh, there is a point?” J.X. put in.
This time I gave him a long look. After a second his gaze fell.
“Here was the situation from Ladas’ standpoint. For the first time in his long criminal career, there was a good chance he might actually wind up in prison. Meanwhile there was Ingrid who needed rescuing. So he decided to pull out and start over—in Cuba, where it was unlikely he would ever be extradited. But to do that, he needed a big, big stake. Like ten million dollars worth of a stake.”
Izzie said, “So your theory is Ladas was going to double-cross the others and they killed him?”
“Yes. But I don’t think it was planned or anything. I think maybe there was an argument and things got out of hand.”
“Who killed him?”
“I’m sorry to say—because I like her—I think Sydney killed him.”
Izzie’s brows rose. He looked at J.X. J.X. said, “Kit, you can’t just accuse—”
“I’m not accusing her. This is a private conversation.” I looked at Izzie. “Right?”
“That’s one word for it.”
Two words, if we wanted to be precise. I let it go. “Ingrid is clueless. There’s no way she had anything to do with killing Ladas. She had no motive, for one thing. He was her ticket out.”
“Beck,” Izzie began.
“I’m certain Beck didn’t kill his brother. He didn’t know what happened to Elijah, which is why he was following me around. His brother ended up here so I became his starting point. From the minute Elijah died, Beck became a-a free floating radical.”
J.X. put a hand to his forehead as though he wondered whether he was feverish.
“Then how do you figure Sydney killed Elijah?” Izzie asked.
“Did Ladas sustain any other injuries beyond the knife wound?”
“No.”
“No. So there was no fight. And I think if Kenneth or even Beck had been Elijah’s killer, it would have all happene
d differently. I think there would have been a fight. But someone was able to stand right next to Elijah and stab him in the heart with a small blade.”
“Huh.” Izzie stroked his chin thoughtfully. “That’s an interesting angle.”
No pun intended. Clearly. “So Elijah wasn’t afraid of this person, wasn’t afraid to let her get right into his personal space. One thing about heterosexual guys, they defend their personal space from other heterosexual guys.
“Secondly, Ladas’ death obviously wasn’t planned because of the crazy, desperate way his body was disposed of. By the way, that required two people, and the only remaining twosome in that group was Kenneth and Sydney. I think they were terrified of Ladas’ body showing up and being identified because Beck was bound to come after one or all of them. So I think Sydney and Kenneth started driving—I think the plan was to dump Ladas just as far from San Francisco as they could. But then they spotted the broken-down moving van and thought they’d found the perfect solution.”
“Except, the van was headed for San Francisco.”
“Which they couldn’t know. Cue the Alanis Morissette.”
“But why would Syd kill Elijah? Especially when none of them knew where the coins were hidden?”
“And why would she keep turning up here?” J.X. put in. “She would certainly know the coins weren’t here.”
“She wasn’t looking for the coins. She was trying to keep tabs on the investigation. She figured because of my connection to you and your connection to SFPD, we’d probably have the inside track on what was going on. As for why she killed Ladas, I’m not sure. Maybe she just lost it when she realized he was double-crossing them. Maybe he did something to make her feel threatened. He was a big guy and he was no angel, despite the whole gentleman thief act.”
They were both silent. Izzie stroked his chin some more. “So that’s it?” he said finally. “That’s your theory?”
“Yes.”
He made a disgusted noise. “All I can say is, if you weren’t as good as married to my ex-partner, you’d be on your way to the slammer.”