by Tom Fowler
“I had some time to think about things,” I said.
To his credit (and my relief), Rich didn’t push the issue. Instead, he inclined his head toward the papers in my hand. “What do you have there?”
“Printouts. I know you stuck up for me, but I also know you think what I did over in Hong Kong was bullshit.” I tossed the small stack onto Rich’s well-organized desk. It made it three hundred percent messier right away. “My friends and I—mostly me, but they pitched in—got some Americans out of the country, and helped Chinese dissidents hide from the government. Those are emails thanking us for what we did. Before I settled on doing this job, I read them over. I told you I had them, and they’re real—not fake, not hacked. Read them. Then tell me it was bullshit.”
Rich looked at the papers, then back at me. “Why are you giving me these?” he said.
“You think I’m not cut out for this job,” I said. “Maybe I’m not. I don’t have your experience or your instincts. But I bring other skills. I’ve helped people before. There’s your proof. You vouched for me, and I’m grateful. You might as well know what you stood up for.”
Rich sat in silence a few seconds. Like me, he rarely suffered from being speechless. “Thanks,” he said after some more seconds had ticked by. “I’ll look them over.”
“Thanks for your help. I hope not to need it in the future.”
My comment made Rich grin. “Let’s not get carried away,” he said.
On my drive home, I called Jessica Webber and told her the story was in the bag. When I got to my building, she sat on my front steps. Her jeans fit her legs as if applied with patient strokes of a paintbrush. Her jacket, zipped to her neck against the cold, hid the low-cut top she probably wore underneath. She held a notebook and pen in her hands, and was busy writing when I approached. When I stopped in front of the steps, she jumped and almost came off them. She looked up. “You startled me.”
“I was told I need to practice my stealth,” I said.
She stood and closed her notebook. “You’re off to a good start. Can we talk about your case?”
“Sure.”
“Even before you called, I heard it all got wrapped up tonight.”
“You must have a source in the police department.”
“A good reporter has many sources.”
“Let’s go inside and talk.” I opened the door and climbed the stairs to my apartment. Jessica went in ahead of me and I shut the door behind her. I walked into the office and turned the light on. She followed me in and sat in one of the guest chairs. I stood behind the comfortable desk chair and shook off my trench coat.
“This feels so official in here,” she said.
“You can ask me some questions in the bedroom later,” I said.
Jessica blushed as she unzipped her coat. As I expected, she neglected the top three buttons of her blouse. I wondered if she chopped the top three off all her shirts to resist the temptation of using them. “Maybe I will,” she said. Jessica set her phone between us on the desk and opened her notebook again.
I sat in my chair. “Wow, a recording and a notebook. This really does seem official.”
“I’ll try to keep it comfortable. What can you tell me about the case?”
“Anything you want to know. Where should we begin?”
“What allowed you to put it all together?”
“I found the dots and connected them.” She scribbled a few things, then paused to look up at me. When I didn’t elaborate, she shrugged and kept writing.
“Anything else?”
“I followed the facts and followed the money,” I said. “Those led me to conclude Paul Fisher had been murdered. I had to prove it, and I was able to assemble the evidence I needed to do it.”
“Was it dangerous?”
“I got waylaid and abducted at one point, and I got in a few fistfights. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Were you scared?” said Jessica.
“At a few points along the way, yes.”
“Did you have to shoot anyone?”
“I’m not a killer, Jessica.”
“You don’t have to be a killer to shoot anyone.”
“True. No one put me in the position to test your statement. For that, I’m grateful.”
“You knew Vinnie Serrano prior to this case, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “we went to school together.”
Jessica jotted things down sporadically. “How did it feel to take him down?” she said.
I shrugged. “It felt . . . necessary. Vinnie strayed way over the line. He needed to be stopped, and I was right there to stop him.”
“It didn’t feel good?”
I thought about her question for a few seconds. “Satisfying, definitely.”
“But you helped someone. Paul’s widow got out of a really bad spot directly because of you.” She paused, so I nodded to acknowledge the fact. “It didn’t feel good, to help someone like that?”
“It did. I try not to approach the job in such a way, though. Someone somewhere will always need help. Sometimes, I’ll be the one to provide it.”
“Do you ever think you’ll want to do it?”
“You know I’ll sound like an asshole if you run these questions in your story, right?”
She smiled at me. “I know how to write a story to make someone look good, C.T. Don’t worry. The public won’t think you’re an asshole. I’m surprised you care so much how you’re perceived, though.”
“Like I said, I need the job. People have to want to hire me.”
“They will.”
I nodded. “I will leave the story in your capable hands.”
She smiled. “Good. This case started as an adultery case before turning into a lot more. There’s a lot of infidelity out there. Do you expect a bunch of infidelity cases?”
“Not at all. This was my last one.”
“Your last one?” Jessica said.
“My last one. I don’t really care who sleeps with whom, nor who gets upset about it. If anything, this case was a prime example couples should talk to each other more. All of this could have been avoided if the Fishers could have communicated with each other.”
“Do you think Alice realizes it now?”
“She’s not stupid,” I said. “Of course she does.”
Jessica talked to me for a while longer. She must have exhausted her insightful questions the last time she interviewed me. Maybe she decided this should just be a puff piece to help my business. I couldn’t complain; I needed the business to keep getting money from my parents. When she ran out of questions, Jessica took out a laptop. “Do you mind if I type it all up here?” she asked.
“Never let it be said I stood in the way of freedom of the press.”
“Or a deadline,” Jessica said with a grin.
“Mine sounded more dramatic,” I said.
She spent about forty-five minutes keying in everything, referring to both her notes and recording several times. I read articles online while she worked, then got up to make some tea. When I gave Jessica her mug, she looked up at me and smiled, then got right back to work. She spent some time reviewing and proofreading, making a few changes here and there. “I’m finished,” she said. “Before I send this, do you have anything to add?”
“I’d love to get you out of those clothes,” I said, raising my mug toward her.
Jessica blushed and smiled. “Patience, Mr. Ferguson. I’ll leave that out of the story.” She stroked a few more keys, clicked around with her mouse, then closed her laptop. “There. My editor will see it shortly. It should make the morning paper, and it’ll be online.”
“Excellent.”
Jessica stood and sauntered over to me. I watched the sway of her hips with some interest. She swung one leg over me and lowered herself onto my lap. “Now we can talk about you getting my clothes off,” she said.
We did more than talk about it. My bedroom floor ended up littered with clothes as Jessica and I ripped s
hirts, pants, and underwear off each other on our way to the bed. Once there, we both proved insatiable. We collapsed beside each other and fell asleep quickly.
The next morning, at the beastly hour of eight-fifteen, my cell phone rang. I felt like hurling the bloody thing across the room but decided to look at the caller ID first. I looked at the other side of the bed. Jessica had left during the night. Normally, such things woke me. I must have been tired.
“Hi, Mom,” I said as I answered the phone.
“Coningsby, your father and I are so proud of you,” my mother said. I could hear the happiness in her voice. It sounded like the same tone I heard her use when bragging to other parents about my grades.
“If you’ll still be proud in an hour, can you call back then?”
“Coningsby!”
“Fine. Thanks.”
“That Jessica girl wrote a very nice article about you, dear. She seems very sweet.”
I decided against telling my mother Jessica was much more than sweet, especially with her clothes off. “Yes, Mom, she’s very nice,” I said.
“You should ask her out,” my mother said.
“Mom! I’m doing OK. Can we go back to talking about the great job I did?”
“If you insist, dear. We read all about the case. It’s a shame Vincent turned out to be such an awful person.”
“He would appreciate you calling him Vincent, though.”
“I’m sure he would. How did it feel to go after one of your old friends?”
“It felt like something I had to do. I hadn’t seen Vinnie in a few years. We were never the best of friends.”
“You can expect the news stations to come talk to you, too, dear. I forwarded the story to them in case they didn’t see it.”
Of course she did. “I’ll check my messages when I actually wake up,” I said.
“You’re not awake yet?” she said.
“Mom, how many times have you known me to be up this early if I didn’t have to get up for school?”
“I thought you might be working on another case already.”
“I can’t believe I haven’t drained you of your optimism yet.”
“You’re doing good work, Coningsby. Your father and I are going to keep some of our optimism.”
“You make me out to be more noble than I am.”
“Well, in time, I think you’ll come to like it,” my mother said. “I wish it weren’t dangerous, but this is what you’ve chosen.” She paused. “Your father told me I would like helping people. I didn’t believe him. But he was right. Altruism gets in your blood. You’ll learn that the more of these cases you do.”
“I guess we’ll see,” I said. “This was my last adultery case, though. People should sit down and talk to each other instead of running to detectives to sort out their messes.”
“There’s some truth to that. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that your father and I have decided to give you a nice bonus for completing your first case. This should help you make a nice down payment on a house. We’re cutting you a $50,000 bonus today.”
Wow. I hadn’t expected so much. “Very generous of you,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t expect it all the time, dear,” she said. “This is merely to get you started and keep you interested.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“Go listen to your messages, Coningsby. You have some interviews to do and some new clients to talk to.”
“I think all my new business can wait until after breakfast.”
“I guess so,” my mother said. “Good job, dear. Your father and I are very happy.”
“Thanks, Mom.” We both hung up. I was happy, too, but more with the amount being transferred into my account than anything. Already, I imagined ways I could spend it. I needed to be judicious, though, to save and invest enough money so I didn’t need to do this job anymore.
For now, though, it was a living.
I went downstairs to make breakfast, drink some tea, and check the answering machine, satisfied with case number one in the books.
They could only get easier from here, right?
END of Novel #1
The Unknown Devil
Novel #2
The Unknown Devil
Chapter 1
Some people accept things easily, and others need a great deal of convincing. It has nothing to do with skepticism—which I have in droves and support in others—but a stubborn disbelief someone could possibly deny you something. The woman on the phone with me personified this trait.
“I don’t do domestic cases,” I said for at least the third time.
“But I’m sure my husband is cheating on me!” I heard crying at the edges of her voice. The tears may have been sincere, or they could have been a play for sympathy. Either way, I resolved to hang up on her if she started bawling. I have my limits.
“Then you don’t need me, do you?”
My question gave her pause. It took her a few seconds to devise a comeback. “I’ll need to prove it in court,” she said.
As comebacks went, it wasn’t one for the ages. “Do you have a smartphone?” I said.
“Yes, an iPhone.”
“Do you know how to work the camera?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then I have to reiterate you don’t need me,” I said.
“But I do,” she said. “You do this for a living.”
“That doesn’t mean I take better pictures than the average person. If you want to give a photo essay to a lawyer, call a photographer.”
“But—”
I cut her off. “I don’t do domestic cases. There are plenty of people who do.”
“But I can’t afford to pay them.” Now the tears came. I remembered my resolution.
“Then I suggest you practice with your iPhone,” I said, and hung up before she could implore me again. My first case started out as a domestic situation and turned into much more. In my illustrious eight-month career as a pro-bono private investigator, it had been my only domestic case. I resolved to keep it that way.
The woman who was sure she had a cheating husband called back. Some people just can’t take no for an answer. I ignored the call and did the same when she tried two more times. The fourth time must have driven the point home. All this client-dodging made me hungry. After a few minutes of deleting junk emails, I got up, locked my house, and ventured out into Federal Hill for lunch.
I bought the house a little more than a month ago. The Fells Point apartment was fine, but I didn’t like the idea of running a business out of there. The management company concurred. They allowed me to break my lease five months early without paying their usurious fee. I liked Fells Point enough to stay, but I found a great house in the Federal Hill area of Baltimore. It was an end rowhouse, and the previous owner had been a doctor of some sort, so the house came with an office.
Living in Federal Hill meant no shortage of food options. During the workday, Baltimore is a city of people stuffed into buildings. The exception is lunchtime, when the huddled masses yearn to breathe and eat freely, and the streets are awash with people walking to or from a lunch spot. I lived a few blocks from the Cross Street Market and headed there.
The Cross Street Market is a long building packed with food vendors and sellers of various tchotchkes. In the areas between the vendors are a few places to sit and eat. It was a warm mid-July day, and a lot of people milled about, straining the air conditioning and making me hope I could get in and out quickly. I grabbed a salmon burger and sweet potato fries from Frank’s and walked back to my house. Total time gone: twenty-five minutes.
The food made it worth the walk and the crowd. Like I usually did, I ate at my office desk, reading about the Orioles and baseball in general as I lunched. The Orioles won a tense extra-inning road game in Boston the previous night. I tried to watch the entire game but fell asleep in the twelfth inning as midnight loomed. I felt old at twenty-eight and a half.
I was busy rolling my ey
es at a sabermetric debate when my doorbell rang. Because of the home office, a ringing doorbell doesn’t mean a potential client. Sometimes, it’s my daily delivery from Amazon. This time, a young man who looked about seventeen peered back at me from the other side of the peephole. He didn’t seem like a delivery driver. Process of elimination made him a potential client. If so, he would be my youngest. I opened the door.
“C.T. Ferguson?” he said.
“The one and only.”
“I want to . . . I might need your help.”
“Let’s talk about it.” I invited him inside and led him down the hall to my office. It was about eleven feet square with hardwood floors and plain walls I needed to do something with. A large desk with three monitors connected to a powerful custom-built laptop consumed most of the room. If I sat behind the desk just right, the screens blocked my view of potential clients. This was by design. My young visitor took one of my guest chairs as I sat in my leather executive model. The boy looked at the remaining sweet potato fries on the desk and frowned.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “If I feel hungry, I’ll eat in front of you.” He didn’t know what to say, so he opted for nothing. True to my word, I munched on a couple of fries. He continued not knowing how to begin. I helped. “I presume you didn’t come here to watch me eat.”
“No,” he said, coming out of his reverie. “I think I need your help.”
“I’m listening.”
“My name is Brian, Brian Sellers. I’m worried about my older brother, Chris. I haven’t seen him for a couple days.”
“Is his absence unusual?” I said.
“I live with him. I usually see him every day.”
“You live with your older brother?”
He nodded. “Our dad split not long after I was born. I don’t even remember him. Our mom . . . died a few months ago.”