by Lyla Payne
The police station is quiet, a golden sheen coming from a few of the windows and two police cruisers parked out front. The unmarked blue sedan belongs to Travis, the cars with the lights to the Ryan twins. As much as I love shooting the shit with those numbskulls, if they’re here it’s going to make conspiring with their boss harder.
I glance down at my watch and realize I forgot it. There’s always a good chance their big butts are out getting food.
Travis is the only one inside, which is my first stroke of luck today. He’s at his computer, a takeout container from Suds and Rubs open on the desk and hamburger juice dripping into his keyboard. He doesn’t hear me come in, whatever’s on the screen holding his attention like a tractor beam, and he almost falls out of his chair when I wave a napkin in front of his face.
“Holy moly.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Holy moly? What are you, a grandmother?”
“From what I hear, your grandmother would have said something more colorful.”
“That’s true. But she was exceptional.”
He tears his gaze away from the screen. “A fact that’s clear enough, knowing the girls she helped raise.”
I smile, acknowledging the compliment and trying not to wonder what he’s trying to pull by giving it to me. “Anyway, I know the city pays for your computer and everything, but how much food do you think it can hold before it gives up?”
Travis’s expression turns sheepish and he uses a napkin to wipe up some of his mess. It’s hopeless; there are more crumbs than keys on that thing. “Sorry. This job … I mostly live here so I treat it like home when it’s not.”
“Hey, the boss man won’t hear it from me.”
“Comforting to know your pillow talk doesn’t include the performance ratings of city employees.”
“Well, it’s sexy and tempting, but we manage.”
A soft, knowing smile. “I haven’t found anything on your boy Wellington. Nothing solid, at least, though the background check did show a larger bank account than a DA should have.”
“He’d just explain that away with family money,” I murmur, coming to look over his shoulder. “Is there anything in there about boarding school?”
“Boarding school?”
“Yeah, it’s this place where people who never really wanted children send them so they can pay someone else to raise them?”
“I’m familiar with the concept.” There’s enough of an edge to his voice that it makes me wonder how intimately.
Another question to toss out into the river. Let the current bring it back to me another day.
“He went to school with one of the Carusos, and I was thinking … what if something happened? What if he feels like he owes him, or maybe they started running some kind of scam way back then and just continued it into adulthood?” I pause, watching him for a moment. Travis doesn’t seem convinced, but he’s not arguing. “I mean, there are only two reasons people do favors for people like the Carusos: money or threats.”
He starts to nod, slowly, his gaze turned inward. “Could be. Could be.”
I plop myself into Ted Ryan’s rolling chair and slide over to Travis’ desk as he starts to punch information into the computer. “The twins walk home?”
“They got called over to Sonny and Shears because Hadley Renee’s having trouble getting old Mr. Lassiter to pay. Again.” He frowns. “Poor old bastard can’t remember what happened five minutes ago and thinks he’s already square.”
“And it takes all two officers on duty to convince a ninety-year-old man he owes for a ten-dollar haircut?”
“They were fighting over the call so I told them both to go.” He turns and gives me a slight twist of the lips. “You’ve met Hadley Renee, haven’t you?”
“I believe so, yes. I can’t say she has quite the same effect on me.”
“It only affects some people, apparently.” A couple of clicks of the mouse fill a borderline awkward silence. “Here we go. Wellington School for Boys.”
“Wellington …”
“Makes you wonder just how much money this guy’s family has, doesn’t it?”
“It also makes me think that money’s not the motivation here. The Carusos have enough money. They don’t need it any more than the Wellingtons,” I muse, struggling to make my theory come together.
“First, some people—mostly rich people—don’t ever put the words enough and money next to each other. Second, you watch too much TV.”
“You know, people tell me that all the time.” I lean my elbows on his desk and filch a cold French fry. “What else?”
“He roomed with Robert Caruso, the eldest grandson of the current head of the family, a ruthless bastard named Anton,” he explains as he continues to click through documents. When he pauses and squints to read, my heart kicks into overdrive.
Robert Caruso. He’s the one Lindsay called her boss.
“Looks like there was some kind of incident there during their last year. Both of them were on the honor roll, headed for college, but a bunch of kids from the school got arrested for … guess.”
“Drugs?”
“Yep. They fingered Caruso and Wellington as the suppliers, had signed affidavits from half the school saying they got stuff from the two of them—not just pot, either, and at least one kid OD’d—but Caruso’s the only one who did time.”
“Interesting.”
“Definitely. I don’t know how easy it’s going to be to prove that any of this is connected or that Wellington’s in the guy’s pocket for taking the fall. We’d need to know the whole story as far as why Wellington was never tried.”
“What about other cases? Recent ones, maybe affected outcomes since Beau left?”
“I can look into that. Let me go put in a request.”
He gets up and heads to the records room in the back. I don’t know if there’s some kind of invisible filing system with crystal balls like in Harry Potter or if there’s a specific computer with a program for interdepartmental requests like at the library, but he’s gone for several minutes.
The printout of Wellington’s background check is still on the printer, tempting me. I bite my lip, wondering if my shoddy luck will hold another couple of minutes, knowing it’s worth a shot. We need answers now, and Travis isn’t going to do anything like call one of the other boys from that school to find out the juicy gossip about the arrests and how one of the boys ended up getting off scot-free. He’s going through the proper channels and there’s just not time for that.
Travis is still in the mysterious hall of records requests by the time I’ve made a copy of the background check, replaced the original, and slipped out the front door.
There’s no chance my running off like that isn’t going to arouse suspicions, but there’s no time to worry about Travis’ feelings right now or whether this is going to affect the two of us working together in the future. I’m not sure how he would feel about assisting in ghostly investigations instead of real live ones, and once he gets over his crush on Millie, he’s probably going to be done sucking up to me, anyway.
The closest parking lot is at Sonny and Shears, so I pull in and turn off the engine, too out of sorts to drive and make this phone call at the same time. The big windows at the front allow me to see inside, and neither of the Ryans are in view. They must be done taking care of business—and flirting—for the day. I probably just missed them coming back to the station.
My stomach grumbles, that single French fry reminding it of a thing known as sustenance, as I pick a random name off the list of students that had been arrested with Chandler and Robert.
Chip McComas.
Sounds solid enough, and unique enough that his name, address, number, and wife’s name all come up in a simple White pages search. He lives in Connecticut—of course—and picks up on the second ring even though he doesn’t know the number, leaving me to wonder just what kind of psychopath I’m dealing with here. I crank down the window as a bead of sweat rolls down into my eye.
/>
“Hello?”
“Mr. McComas?”
“Speaking.”
“The Chip McComas who attended Wellington School for Boys twenty years ago?”
A pause. “What’s this about?”
Definitely less friendly now. A tinge of annoyance, even.
“I’m calling about the incident that occurred your senior year, when some of your classmates were arrested for drug possession and distribution.” I rush on, unwilling to give him the chance to hang up on me. “I’m a reporter writing a piece on whether the follies of youth have any impact on adult life. It seems you’re doing well.”
“I’m a lawyer. If you consider that doing well, then I’m fine.” He barks a laugh, but we both know it wasn’t a joke. “Look, we were smoking a little dope, big deal. Some kids were into harder stuff, someone lost control. We’re all fine.”
“What about the guys running the whole thing …” I pause, wrinkle the pages in my lap as though I’m searching through notes. “Robert Caruso and Chandler Wellington?”
I see Hadley Renee slip outside for a smoke out of the corner of my eye. A cigarette dangles from her fingers and her light eyes flick around the parking lot in a lazy arc. Her nails are bright pink, her long, dirty blond waves almost to her elbows as she watches me, apparently unconcerned about being caught eavesdropping.
Or maybe it’s not eavesdropping if I’m in my car five feet away with the window down.
“What did you say your name was?”
It’s as though someone flipped a switch when I mentioned their names, and the heavy, threatening suspicion in his slightly fuzzy voice makes my blood turn to ice.
I can’t think of a single thing to say, so I hang up the phone. It’s not until afterward that I think about things like caller ID, and tracing phones, and the fact that he’s going to find out who I am if he doesn’t just write it all off as a weird phone call.
My hands shake around the phone in my lap. Nancy Drew never had to deal with this technology shit. It really throws a wrench into things.
My cell rings, and I jump so badly I almost hit my head on the roof of the car. It takes all my courage to turn it over to check the caller ID, sure it’s going to be Chip calling back to … something scary. But it’s a Charleston number. The Charleston PD, according to the caller ID.
Great. And I still haven’t taken my damn car to the shop.
“Hello?”
“Miss Harper?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Officer Franklin with the Charleston Police Department. We need to speak with you.”
Franklin. The older guy from the other night, the one who had known Brian’s father. Not the cute, helpful one. My luck, as usual, has somewhere better to be.
“Well, congratulations, you’ve learned how to use a phone.” I shouldn’t sass them, but it makes me feel more like myself.
“Just for that, I’m going to insist we do this talking at the station. I can either send two officers to escort you in the back of a police car and tell them to put on a show for your small-town neighbors or you can come in yourself.”
“What’s this about?”
Beau had insisted I call one his lawyer friends this morning, despite my protests that Heron Creek’s finest, a portly, white-haired old man named Harrington, was good enough for this silly nuisance. He’d said I wouldn’t have to talk to the police again at all, so it can’t be about Friday.
“The Thomas Rose House was broken into last night and ransacked—property damage, theft, the whole nine yards. I’m afraid we’re going to need a statement from you. And an alibi.”
The news startles me. One night after Dr. Ladd takes me to the Thomas Rose House looking for some of his things and I get tossed in jail, someone else breaks into the place? By all accounts, the house is nicely restored and everything but there aren’t exactly any Rembrandts on the walls. Confusion sets my teeth gnawing at my bottom lip and worry nags—those winking fairies again—that this has something to do with me. With the doctor.
Brian’s face keeps popping up in my mind, but one thing stops me from believing it has to be him. The cop said the place was ransacked. Someone who treasures the past like Brian—like me—would be careful not to hurt anything.
I think.
“What did they take?”
“We can talk about all that when you get here. Oh, and Miss Harper?”
“Yeah?”
“Within the hour, smart-ass.”
Chapter Nineteen
It’s obstinate and immature, but I’m eating my goddamn potatoes and meatloaf before dragging my ass to Charleston tonight. Aunt Karen and Amelia are both in their rooms, and neither makes so much as a peep at my announcement that I’m going into the city again tonight. My halfhearted offer to bring Millie along is met by silence, as well, so I sit at the kitchen table with a steaming plate of food and my laptop, searching for ways to harm my own car. The Internet claims it’s easy, even has a couple of how-to videos, so after I rinse my plate, put it in the dishwasher, and make sure the kitchen is as clean as it was when I got home—I can’t mess with Aunt Karen all the time—I find myself outside.
It’s dark enough now that Mrs. Walters won’t be able to see our driveway, which sits in a convenient puddle of shadows an equal distance between two streetlights. The hood release on my Honda sticks, like always, and then it’s time to decide whether to disconnect the spark plugs or pull a fuse. The Internet did not say which would be more convincing as far as likeliness to happen on its own, but the fact that the fuse one had the videos and I haven’t the slightest idea what a spark plug looks like makes the choice easy.
Spark plug. It sounds like something Christian Grey would stock in the red room.
“Okay, radiator and a box with a black cover,” I mutter, using the flashlight app on my phone. Who needs an emergency kit anymore?
The black box is easy enough to find, and I do know what fuses look like. Once I find the box and remove the lid, which has a convenient fuse guide on the inside, it’s simple enough to find the one marked ecu, just like the man on the Internet said. I disconnect it but leave it where it is, hoping one of the lazy mechanics down at Burt’s will vouch that it came undone all on its own. I’m not above a bit of shameless flirting to make sure that happens.
The second towing is going to have to wait until morning, though, because I’m not about to pay after-hours prices. I didn’t exactly ask Millie if I could take her car, but that old line about asking forgiveness instead of permission is a useful one. Let’s hope I can get there and back without any trouble. How hard can it be?
I shut the trunk and stifle a scream at the sight of Dr. Ladd lurking by the driver’s-side door. His earnest expression flickers toward apologetic, but he goes back to urgent quickly enough, pointing to the car.
“I just broke it,” I inform him. “But we’ll take Amelia’s. Are you listening to my phone calls now or what?”
The question seems to confuse him, and he points at the car again. He might know about what happened at the Thomas Rose House last night and he might not, but he’s not giving up on me getting underneath those floorboards just because I got tossed in the clink the last time, apparently. He also doesn’t understand about broken cars, it seems, but since he was alive in the mid-eighteenth century I suppose I can forgive him that.
“Come on,” I tell him, feeling magnanimous. He follows me around to the garage, where I pick up a pry bar, a box of long nails, and a hammer.
Just in case.
An idea hits me as I pull into Charleston, not fretting too much about the fact I’m about to be late for the hour deadline issued by Officer Franklin. Thanks to Siri and actual cell service in the city, I connect to Bulldog Tours and hear Brian’s voice on the other end of the line before I can think twice about how crazy I’m going to sound. The prospect has never stopped me before, and I guess I don’t have the qualms about spreading my quirks into Charleston that Millie does for me.
&nbs
p; If he’s the one who broke into that house last night, maybe he’ll be willing to do it again. At the very least it means he’s half crazy, too.
“Brian?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“It’s Graciela Harper.” I pause, impatience tingling in my fingers as I park at the police station and undo my seat belt. “I did a brief stint as your dad’s cellmate Friday night?”
“Oh. Yeah?”
“I was wondering if we could talk about Dr. Ladd.”
He pauses, and when he speaks again, his tone sounds guarded. “Okay.”
“Did you hear what happened last night? At the Thomas Rose House?” I hope he can’t hear the fact that I think he’s the one who did it in my tone.
“Everyone heard.” Another breath. “Was it you?”
“Me? No,” I reply, trying not to sound defensive. “Why, did you?”
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”
Interesting. That definitely wasn’t a no.
“Look, you know this town, and you’ve been rambling about its history for what, almost a decade?” He grunts. “You know the current owners of the place?”
“Of the Thomas Rose?”
“Yeah.” What the hell are we talking about here, Brian Ryan?
“The Rosses. Old money, old attitudes. Not all that bright.”
At least he’s honest. “Can you get them to let me—us—look around?”
“How am I going to do that?”
“Tell them whatever. That I found evidence that Dr. Ladd might have had a hiding place in the home, and if he did, there might be documents that could expand his story and increase interest in the house.” My mind races in an attempt to keep up with my mouth. “They can’t have great business there lately. They’ve got a restored home and rumors of a whistling ghost. This would be better. You said they’re old money, so that means they’re always looking for ways to stay relevant.”