by Drew Zachary
"You're not helping yourself. At all." DB looked like he was trying not to laugh, though.
"Kitten? Cuddles? Lovebug?"
"Don't make me hurt you."
Jesse laughed and got up. "You're funny." He walked toward DB, still chuckling. "And cute. Ohhh 'Cutie.' That'll do."
"Oh, God. Don't you dare." DB fixed him with a glare. "Now, come on. We've got work to do." DB tossed his coffee in the wastebasket and pocketed his notebook and pen before heading out.
Jesse followed along, smiling and happy. He had a job to do and a man to do it with. It was pretty cool, actually, even if he didn't get to win at chess that often.
***
DB drove up to the big house in one of the better neighborhoods and stopped the car on the street. This was where Lockhart's daughter Charity lived. "You wanna go take a peek around before I go in?" Sometimes it was very useful having a ghost for a partner.
"See if she's there and alive?" Jesse shrugged. "I could. Do you want me to?" Jesse was still in a playful mood. At times like that the ability to smack him would have been really helpful.
"I wouldn't have asked if I hadn't wanted it."
"Wanna ask me for something else you want?" Jesse leered, but he was moving, at least. DB had to suppose that even Jesse knew when DB’s glare was serious.
Jesse didn't vanish like usual. Instead, he walked up the path and through the door, probably just to be annoying. More annoying. He came back out the same way about two minutes later and then slid through the car door to sit down again. "Home and watching TV in the kitchen while she cooks."
"Was that so hard?" DB asked, climbing out of the car.
"You try it sometime."
"Right." DB shook his head. Jesse was in a mood. He went up to the door and rang the bell before glancing at Jesse. "Let me do the talking."
Jesse cracked up. Bent at the waist and not really able to stand up kind of cracking up. The kind of laughter that made DB smile and be all distracted when the door opened. He whipped his head around and gave Charity Lockhart the smile. "Hi there, Ms. Lockhart?"
He got a suspicious look in return. "Who wants to know?" She looked a little mussed, blonde hair in flyaway strands around her face and a tea towel in her hand.
"I'm DB Black. I'm a private investigator. I'm working for the person who purchased the junk shop after your father passed away. The new owner has a few questions we were hoping you could help clear up?"
Her look grew even more suspicious. "My father's been dead for ten years. What's so pressing now?"
Jesse managed to stop laughing for the most part. "Might want to smooth-talk her, Cutie. She didn't grow up in a nice house like this, after all, and she'll be pretty protective of it and everything else she's got."
DB had to take a deep breath and lock his smile for Charity Lockhart in place. He was going to cut Jesse off if Jesse didn't behave. "The basement's been relatively untouched since the new owner took over, and before we start going through the stuff and tossing it, we wanted to make sure there wasn't anything you wanted to keep." DB tried to keep to the truth where he could, and he figured this was close enough and sure as hell beat "your father is haunting the new owner, can you tell us how he died?"
She looked a little startled, but relaxed almost immediately. "Oh. I see." She looked over her shoulder and then back at DB. "I'm trying to get something done in the kitchen; would you like to come in? Mr. Black, you said?"
Jesse walked right in, narrowly avoiding walking through her. "Score."
"Yes, thank you. You can call me DB. Everyone does." He wiped his feet on the welcome mat and went in.
"What does DB stand for?" She led the way through the house, past a nice living room and a study on the other side, past open French doors to a dining room. The kitchen was pretty posh, too. "Coffee?" She didn't invite him to call her Charity.
"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you, and I'd really rather have that coffee, please." He chuckled. "This is a very nice place you have here."
"Thank you." She didn't say she'd worked hard for it or anything at all, just the thank you. "So, the man who bought the store wants to clean out the basement?" she asked as she filled the coffee pot with water.
Jesse poked around the kitchen, sticking his head in cupboards, but didn't talk. For a change, it was kind of nice.
"Yeah, I'll be cleaning it out for the owner. The thing is... well." He dropped his voice, like he was taking her into his confidence. "The truth is, I think there's mold and God knows what else growing down there. I was told your father died of a heart attack in the basement, but if you suspected it was something else, I'd really rather know before I go poking around and kicking up dust and stuff."
She snorted and poured the water into the machine, then opened a nearby canister of ground coffee. "Frankly, he was lucky it was just his heart." She gave DB a sideways look. "You're a private detective?"
"I am. Not the police, not working for the police."
"I don't care about that." She waved her hand and the scent of coffee wafted his way. When she had the coffee in the filter and the machine started up, she turned back to him. "I just wondered how much you know about dear old Dad. Private detectives don't often clean out basements for drag queens, do they? Although I totally believe you about the mold. The basement was creepy."
DB figured he'd give her enough of the truth to keep her talking, as she seemed inclined. "Well, you see, Yanya and I have worked on a few cases together. She talks to spirits, you know. Not everyone believes in that, but her leads have done well for me to date." He kept his voice light and easy. "I really am cleaning out her basement, though along with the mold, I'm just wondering what kind of stuff I'm going to find. All I know about your father is that he had a heart attack and that he sometimes worked as a fence. I was hoping maybe you could fill in some of the blanks for me?"
She nodded and pulled a mixing bowl to her and started stirring. "Sure, but I don't know how much help I'll be. He didn't tell me about the fencing stuff, but I worked it out easily enough. He just never said, you know? When I was old enough to be off on my own after school, I avoided the store."
"Can I do anything to help? Chop vegetables or something while we talk?"
"No, thanks, I've got it. What do you want to know about my father? Anything specific? Or is this about the actual basement?"
Jesse came around the counter and sat next to DB. "Want me to go poke around the house?"
DB nodded at Jesse. "It is about the basement; I think something happened down there. Do you believe it was a heart attack that killed your father?"
"Sure." She stirred the mix in the bowl and then looked at him. "At least, I always did. He wasn't particularly healthy -- he smoked, drank, ate for crap. I'd always thought maybe he'd get beaten to death or shot, but I wasn't shocked that his heart gave out. Especially down there."
Jesse had been moving away, but he stopped and gave DB a look. "I'll let you do the talking," he said with a grin. Then he vanished.
"Especially down there?" It was an odd statement to make, and DB was sure it had added meaning.
"Well, sure. Physical labor." She raised an eyebrow at him. "That's where he hid the stuff he was fencing. There's three or four places built into the walls where he kept stuff, and one in the floor. That one was really hard to get into. So I thought he'd been doing that and just pushed too hard, you know? There's probably more of them, too. Like I said, we didn't talk about it. What I know is just from what I saw when I was little."
Oh, now that was interesting. DB was more determined than ever to clean the basement out so he could find the hidey-holes and see if there was anything in any of them that could be holding Lockhart. "Was he into anything else dangerous? Besides the fencing?"
"He wasn't smart enough to do anything more dangerous." She rolled her eyes and got a mug out of a cupboard, then filled it for DB. "Honestly, I'm pretty sure he got fleeced a lot as it was. He'd take in stolen stock and sell it again
for less than he could have, even if it was hot and had to move fast. Jewelry was always a mistake for him, household stuff. Computers were a waste because he always tried to get too much. He should have just stuck to TVs that fell off the backs of the trucks."
Jeez, for someone who never talked to her father about fencing and then avoided the store, she sure knew a lot. "Was he involved with scams of any sort? Or something he might have been able to hold over someone's head? Or maybe he was working with a gang or the Mob or something?"
She didn't say anything for a long moment. "This isn't about you cleaning out the basement, and it sure isn't about seeing if I want anything saved. What's going on?"
DB thought for a long minute and then decided some of the truth would do. "Your father's ghost is haunting Madame Yanya. She's hired me to figure out why he's staying around."
Charity Lockhart stared at him for a full ten seconds before she started to laugh. "Okay, fine. Don't tell me." She grinned broadly at him and shook her head. "That Madam Yanya is a good one. Scams like that, he -- she -- should've worked with my father. I think it's time you left, though. I don't know any more, and after Father died I made sure the hiding spots were empty. I didn't want anyone coming after me, right?"
He nodded. "That sounds prudent. And I'll go. I just want to be sure there's nothing coming after you, either. You're sure there's nothing you can remember that might still come back to haunt you? So to speak." He gave her his best smile.
"Just tell Yanya not to exorcise the old crook in my direction. I don't want him back."
DB chuckled and dug out a card to give her. "I'll pass that along. Here's my card. If you think of anything you want to tell me, or if something comes up, give me a call."
"Sure." She took the card, but he doubted he'd hear from her. "Good luck cleaning out that basement. Or whatever it is you're really doing." She walked him to the door, not really rushing him, but not letting him linger, either.
DB wished Jesse'd come back before he was actually out of the house, but he couldn't think of any reason to prolong things. "Thank you for your time."
She smiled and pretty much closed the door in his face, leaving him no choice but to go the car. Slowly.
Damn it. That had been a bit of a waste of time.
He climbed into the car, frowning now at Jesse's continued absence. "Come on, Jesse. Where the hell are you?"
No one answered, so he started the car and started rummaging in the glove compartment, trying to look like he was just about on his way, he just had to do one more thing. Not lingering. Nope. Not hanging around.
"You're leaning over my spot." Jesse sounded perturbed at having to sit in the back. "Move it, Cutie."
"Stop that." He slammed the glove compartment closed and put on his seat belt, starting up the car. "And what the hell took you so long?"
"I was snooping, of course. Wanna know how a downtown kid with a fence for a daddy gets to have such a nice place in the 'burbs without marrying money?"
"Of course I do." He pulled out and drove slowly down the street.
Jesse got himself situated in the passenger seat and looked pleased with himself. "She's her father's daughter. Lady has a room full of neat stuff, mostly paintings and jewelry."
"No shit. So she's doing the same thing her father did? Only more successfully by the looks of things."
"She's got high-end stuff. Frankly, I'm surprised she let you in the house."
"It would have been suspicious if she hadn't. And then I might have dug even harder than I was. Besides, if all the stuff is contained, she knew I wouldn't see it."
He tapped the steering wheel, trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit. "Do you think Lockhart knows?"
"Oh. Huh. I have no idea. I could ask him, I suppose." Jesse looked thoughtful. "What did she tell you, anything good?"
"Nothing." He grinned over at Jesse. "She thinks I'm working a scam with Yanya."
Jesse laughed and then nodded. "Sure, that makes sense. Always looking for the racket, if you're running one. Where to? Want to go see Yanya? I can annoy Lockhart a bit."
"Yeah, let's try that. See if he knows what his daughter is up to. See if he's ready to talk about whatever he's got up his sleeve yet." DB changed directions from his office to Yanya's.
"Ten years." Jesse sounded thoughtful. "I'd like to know who he was watching all that time."
"Yeah. I think that's the sixty-four thousand dollar question here."
"I'll see if I can get a hint from him." Jesse nodded. "Maybe let it slip that his daughter's done well for herself."
"You don't think he knows that? That he was keeping tabs on her?" Though maybe it would get to Lockhart to know that they knew, that they were checking her out.
"It depends on how focused he was." Jesse shrugged. "There's too much unknown right now. But there has to be a way to make him talk -- and I kind of think he wants to. It's not like he's being real subtle, haunting Madam Yanya's bedroom like that."
"Yeah, well, it always seems to come back around to there being something in the house, and that means I'm going to have to clean that basement out, get some light in there, and check it out thoroughly." DB sighed as he pulled up in front of Yanya's. "I'll arrange to start that tomorrow while you scare up Lockhart."
"Okay." Jesse gave him a long look. "Make sure you wear a mask, okay? I don't want you joining me quite yet."
"Don't worry. I'm debating even going whole hog and renting a hazmat suit. Do you think that would be overkill?"
Jesse laughed. "Actually, no. Go for it -- it'll probably drive you crazy by making it hard to move and then you'll peel it off in half an hour, but at least you'll be able to tell people you had one, once."
He rolled his eyes and got out of the car, heading into Yanya's. The bell over the door rang merrily as they went in.
"I'll go find Lockhart," Jesse said, just before he vanished.
Yanya was sitting at her counter, her scarves and skirts looking like she'd put them on with a certain lack of care. She had a mug in front of her again and there were circles under her eyes. "Mr. Black. Please tell me you're here to evict my guest."
"I'm working on it. You and Lockhart are my top priority right now." He made himself comfortable on the couch.
"Mmm." She drank from her mug. "I can't sleep. Even when he's not on the bed, he's in the room. I just can't do it, so I wind up on the couch again. What have you found out so far?"
"His daughter's in the same line of business he was. Only she's much better at it."
Yanya blinked at him, and then her eyes went wide as she gave him a grin. "Is that right? That little bit of a thing? Well. I wouldn't have taken her for that sort of thing -- maybe that's why she's good at it. I don't suppose she wants him back, does she?"
"There didn't seem to be any love lost there." He leaned forward and pointed at the back. "Like I said, I’m coming back tomorrow to deal with the basement."
"Just don’t expect me to go down into that hole, child, because no. Not gonna happen, no how." She shuddered.
"No, I'll do it. I'm getting overalls and a heavy duty mask, though. There's shit growing down there I don't want to get in my lungs. Or on my skin."
"Lord, just don't find something that'll get me condemned, please."
"I think what I'm looking for will be more on the valuable side. The mold and shit? I'm scrubbing that away."
Yanya nodded. "Fine with me. Wait, what? You think there's something still down there?" She suddenly looked a lot more intrigued, but not to the point where she'd head down there to help him out.
"I think it's worth investigating. Something's got him sticking around, and I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I really don't see it being just this place."
Yanya looked around. "It has character. But he wasn't here for ten years and now he is." She shrugged. "I agree. Good luck."
"Thanks. He hasn't shared anything new with you, has he? Or have you remembered something from the sale of the building that could
be pertinent?" He glanced at his watch. It was suppertime. Maybe he'd go for a pizza or something once Jesse was done with Lockhart.
Yanya gave him a sour look. "He doesn't say much other than to complain about my clientele. It gives me a headache. At least he's stopped going on and on about my clothes."
In his coat pocket, DB's phone started to ring. "I'm doing what I can, Yanya, I promise." He grabbed his phone and flipped it open. "Hello."
"Hey, DB. It's Joe Donners. Are you busy?"
"Not particularly. What's up?"
Yanya shifted around and blatantly listened to his half of the conversation.