Baby Brother Blues (Sammy Dick, PI Series: Book 1)

by Trudi Baldwin

  If she could walk, she’d have to act quickly. Gingerly, Kathy dragged her feet slowly under her and tried to rise. Her head swooned and she dropped it back down to clear it. She decided crawling might be more efficient. The roof was hot on her palms and knees, but she crawled cautiously to the alley-side of the roof, making her way around the debris as best she could. She lifted her head up long enough to spot an air conditioning unit that might give good cover, yet allow her to see the parking lot below. Then she put her head down and crawled through the debris in that direction.

  When she got to the air conditioning unit, she peeked around the edge just in time to see a man’s leg, clothed in expensive looking gray cloth, hurriedly withdraw into the driver’s side of a navy blue BMW parked suspiciously far away from the title company’s back door. To avoid the premeditated explosion, Kathy figured. The door slammed shut, the driver jammed the car into reverse, screeched backwards and shot forward, out of the parking lot, spitting gravel all over the other parked cars. Kathy watched the BMW swerve to the left, away from Main Street.

  St. Pierre thinks that his plan succeeded, and I was blown apart in the gas explosion, Kathy acknowledged, shuddering. Not for long, though. Investigations would soon reveal that no one died in the blast, or at least Kathy hoped no one died in the collateral damage.

  I can’t stop to think about it now, she concluded. I may have to abandon my beloved Newark immediately, just to be safe, but, for right now, how to get off this roof? Kathy decided not to stand up, since she was unsure if she would faint, and she didn’t want to be spotted near the scene of the explosion. She examined her palms and knees. They were black from the tar, except for a smattering of burn marks. Slices in her skin oozed blood from contact with shattered glass and other debris. Nothing could be done about it right now, so Kathy crawled painfully along the back wall, peeking over the edge to look for a way down.

  Finally Kathy spotted a window below with a brick sill. She sucked in a deep breath of air. Gently dangled her legs over the side, groping blindly for a perch. Her navy skirt was ripped and dirty and bunched up almost to her waist, but she ignored it, clutching onto the edge of the roof until her toes touched the sill. She prayed no one in the building could see her, but she assumed everyone had most likely run outside into the main street during the big explosion. How to get her next handhold was not clear to Kathy, so she clung to the wall like a bat for a while, feeling around with the fingers of her right hand below her. She willed herself to stop trembling, but it didn’t work. To assist her descent, all she could find was a solitary brick that jutted out a little more than the others for her next handhold. It would have to do. Kathy clutched at it with the tips of her fingers trying to support her own weight as she eased her body lower and stretched her shaking right leg down to try and gain a purchase further down.

  Her shoe managed to find a toehold, but as she eased down while holding onto the little brick that jutted out, her trembling hand completely lost its grip. Kathy suddenly found herself free falling again, except this time it was backwards. She waved her arms frantically in big circles like a baby bird learning to fly, trying to right herself, but this time it didn’t work. Kathy expected the brief twenty-four years of her life to pass before her eyes, but all that happened in the fall was the crystallization of an intense anger, a very rare emotion for Kathy. If I live through this fall, her thoughts flashed, I dedicate myself to exposing the evil of this St. Pierre.

  Slam!

  Kathy’s back punched down into a mayhem of pointed extremities, crackling sounds, and stink.

  She lay spread-eagled, staring up at the impassive Delaware sun. She watched in confusion as a bird flew into her vision from the right and exited to the left. All the air in her petite body had whooshed out for the second time in the last five minutes. Kathy was much more of a reader than an exerciser. Her body couldn’t take much more of this. She decided just to lie wherever she was and rest until her head cleared. Maybe she’d just take up residence here wherever she was because her life was completely over. Those unpleasant thoughts didn’t last long, though, because her surroundings reeked. In fact, they reeked so much that Kathy sat up to find herself in a large, oblong garbage container behind the shipping company that was next door to her title company. Make that my ex-title company, Kathy thought dispiritedly.

  She looked down at her white cotton blouse she’d ironed meticulously just that morning, as she’d done every work morning for the last seven months. The blouse’s buttons had ripped off, black tar was streaked all over it and a gaping rip along the side revealed her pulverized flesh. Her cute little A-line skirt was wrinkled, torn and dirty beyond any hope of recovery. The only good thing was that Kathy’s all-time favorite shoulder bag was miraculously still on her. She’d flipped the strap across her head to the opposite shoulder to firmly secure it just before she made the leap out the window. Thank goodness for small blessings, Kathy thought, and for the first time a few tears slid down her tar-burned cheeks. To think that just this morning she was ironing her clothing to look nice for this job that now had nearly killed her.

  That thought caused Kathy’s blue eyes to harden. With renewed determination, she grabbed the side of the metal trash container, swung her leg over the top and dropped the five feet down to the gravel. Almost fainting upon the rough contact with the ground, she dropped her head down again, holding herself in a crouch with her bloody hands on the gravel until she regained her composure. When her head stopped spinning, she sucked in a deep breath, stood up slowly, shoved her rumpled skirt down enough to hide her underwear, and marched dizzily in the direction of her battered 1994 Saturn. We’ll see who gets the best of this one when all is said and done, Kathy thought determinedly, as she unlocked the driver’s door, slid in and quietly turned in the same direction as St. Pierre.

  Still bleeding from numerous cuts and other wounds, she made a left onto North Chapel in the direction St. Pierre had fled in his BMW. She drove through the quaint, old, normally peaceful neighborhood, but it wasn’t peaceful today. Sirens were still wailing, as if the whole world had caught fire, as every kind of emergency and police vehicle imaginable descended upon the scene of the explosion. Kathy sincerely hoped no one had been injured.

  As Kathy made another left on Cleveland, the enormity of her new situation began to take hold. There was a high probability that her boss might be in on St. Pierre’s illegal dealings, and those dealings had to be illegal, Kathy reflected, because St. Pierre was willing to kill her to keep his secrets. Why had St. Pierre shown up on the scene so quickly after Kathy had alerted her boss in the Madrid office to her suspicions? Perhaps, her boss had merely questioned St. Pierre innocently, and the questioning had thrown the entire chain of events into action, or, a much more sobering thought, her boss had.

  What to do next? Kathy was flooded with uncertainty. Her parents had both died in a car wreck three years ago and Kathy had been their only child.

  Kathy began sobbing softly as she tried to figure out what to do. Her whole life was gone. First her parents and now everything else. She really didn’t have any place to go. It had all been swept right out from under her. This angered her. Here she was being so conscientious for American and International Title and for her boss, and it was her very conscientiousness that had led to her undoing. Ever since her parents had died, Kathy had approached life with extreme caution. She dotted every i and crossed every t, making her a perfect fit for most title companies. Now she realized she’d probably been hired in to work alone with so much responsibility because she was so young. Her boss might have been banking on her to miss the subtle details of St. Pierre’s transactions. That angered Kathy even more. How dare someone hire her to miss things!

  As Kathy sorted through these thoughts, she turned onto New London Road. Two big fire trucks rushed past her, heading the other way toward downtown Newark. Their shrieking made Kathy wince and suddenly even more tears gushed out, running down her tar-streaked cheeks. Hopelessness wa
s setting in.

  I must get control of myself and figure out what to do, Kathy thought, but the tears kept coming and coming. Finally, Kathy gave up and decided to just keep crying and try to think and drive and cry all at the same time.

  She could go to the police with her suspicions, but her suspicions were more like educated guesses on her part, not supported by a lot of actual evidence. Meanwhile, as Kathy waited for the police to sort through her lack of evidence, St. Pierre would be free and out to get her. She doubted the police would offer her full-time protection on such flimsy evidence, and protection to do what? Return to a job that didn’t exist and to a boss she didn’t fully trust? Once St. Pierre discovered she hadn’t died in the explosion, the first place he’d come looking for her was Newark. Therefore, it would be wise to leave and leave quickly. But where to go?

  The research that Kathy had uncovered must have provoked the explosion and it centered around three cities: Madrid, Dubai and Phoenix, Arizona. One option would be to go on the offense and try to catch St. Pierre in the act. Kathy didn’t think the research she had so far was conclusive enough to convict St. Pierre on its own. The police might be able to tie him to the explosion, but who knew if that would happen or how long it would take? Kathy couldn’t count on that happening any time soon. Through her tears, Kathy realized one thing at least was clear. She couldn’t stay in Newark. Kathy had a few friends here, but not the kind she felt comfortable calling up in this situation, asking to stay with them. Besides, her presence alone might endanger them.

  Okay, I’ve got one thing sorted out, Kathy thought as she turned left onto Christiana Drive. I need to leave Newark. But, if I can’t stay here, where should I go? I have nowhere to go and no one. This man has taken it all from me!

  That thought did it. Abruptly, anger welled up in Kathy and the tears subsided. It was time to fight for her life, or at least get it back in some form or another. Kathy made a decision to head for Phoenix, Arizona. She certainly couldn’t afford to fly to Madrid or Dubai. Besides, Kathy had always kind of wanted to see the Valley of the Sun anyway. Her research had indicated that the illegal title deals most likely originated in Phoenix, where real estate was inexpensive, and then had spread to Madrid and finally Dubai.

  Kathy was fairly certain she could find a paper trail and enough hard evidence in Phoenix to get St. Pierre convicted of real estate crimes, if not attempted murder. And maybe one conviction could lead to the second. At any rate, Kathy didn’t want to be on the run her whole life. Kathy was now focused. The man had to be stopped. Being a nice, cautious girl had almost gotten her killed. She was going to stop dotting her i’s and crossing her t’s and start slashing the shit out of somebody. It was about time that her boss and St. Pierre got a dose of little Ms. Kathy Keach at her very best! Kathy blushed at her own language, even if it was just in thought, and turned into the entrance to her apartment complex.

  In the short drive over, Kathy had made some major decisions. She planned to pack everything she could, including Peepers, her cat, stuff it all into her ancient Saturn and head cross country for Phoenix, Arizona, to get her life back.

  Kathy headed toward the back units where her apartment stood along the creek. She circled around the lot toward her assigned parking space, and hit the brake so hard her head almost flew through the windshield. A shiny navy blue BMW sat there, parked in her space. Dread surged though her so swiftly she felt light-headed. Clearly, St. Pierre hadn’t found what he was looking for in the title office, and now he was ransacking her apartment to destroy all the remaining evidence of his illegal transactions. Either that, or he was lying in wait for her. Perhaps his illegal activities extended far beyond what Kathy had already uncovered. She hoped so, because she planned to help put him away for a very long time.

  Kathy couldn’t remember if she’d left Peepers inside or out. Probably out. It calmed Kathy down to think about how much she loved her cat. Peepers was a fluffy black and white tuxedo. He’d earned the name Peepers because he had such big blue eyes. Kathy would rub him under his chin and croon, “Jeepers creepers, where’d you get them peepers?” Peepers loved it and would purr contentedly, batting his big blue eyes open and shut as if he were flirting with Kathy. Peepers also liked to sit outside and look at the river and the birds behind their apartment complex. That’s usually where he spent his days. Kathy prayed this was one of those days that she’d left him out. She’d have to mark time until the BMW was gone. With that thought, she backed quickly out of the parking area and zoomed away. Kathy planned to spend the day reading in the book store, normally one of her favorite things to do, and then return to her apartment at night, when, surely, St. Pierre would be gone, so she could retrieve a few of her things, including her beloved Peepers, and head for Arizona.

  Chapter 8

  After returning back to Swann through the sweltering heat with my new buddies, the gloriously signed contract stuffed in my purse, I worked for several more hours, learning and perusing Swann’s records. I would have been bored out of my mind, if it weren’t for Tomas leaning in periodically, to expose a glimpse of his tanned and toned right pectoral as his perfectly tailored white shirt drooped open. Just when I thought I was going to glaze over from seeing one more page of neatly tabulated financials, Tomas would lean in and hit the print button for me or readjust a troublesome cable connection, enabling one more view of his great body.

  As far as enabling views of one’s great body, it takes one to know one, and I was pretty sure Tomas knew darn good and well that he was giving me little sneaky peaks. He was probably just as bored as I was. After all, he looked at these financials every day. I was glazing over in the first fifteen minutes.

  The truth is, most of my financial assessment work is done by my own wunderkind partner, Geo, pronounced Gee-Oh. Geo Dick is my cousin, the son of my father’s brother, George Dick, another member of the extended Dick family, as we liked to say, or at least, as I liked to say.

  I pay Geo by the hour for “interning” with Dick Investigations. He’s got dual major degrees in pre-law and information technology at Arizona State University in Tempe. The only trouble is that when I’m out in the field undercover, as I was today, and Geo’s in class, no one is minding the office. It’s an expensive piece of real estate to sit empty. We had both our cell phone numbers painted beautifully on the glass door, but that was a poor excuse for personal presence.

  All of these shortcomings might be why my dad tried to talk me out of leasing from the very beginning, but when people try to talk me out of things, I become even more set upon doing them. End result, a three-year lease. Geo and I were managing to pick up small investigations here and there, mostly through the website Geo created, not through attracting clients to our office. However, once we snagged potential clients on the internet, I invited them to the ritzy office setting to close the deal. That worked well, but the lease was killing me, making the Swann job even more attractive.

  I decided to quit worrying and drive back to our own office in time to meet Geo there. All my pectoral gazing with Tomas had allowed me to get enough information and printed records, I hoped, to enable Geo to access most of the diamond company’s records and do the real work of analyzing their business. Normally, I did the people assessing and Geo did the business assessing.

  One of the stipulations of Swann’s newly signed contract, whether Michael had read the fine print or not, is that I could come and go as I pleased. Right now, the “go” part of the contract beckoned irresistibly, so I told Tomas I had to conduct some outside research. I then powered down my computer, threw the printed records in my empty briefcase in such a way that Tomas couldn’t see its emptiness, wished him farewell and followed him out the door. I nearly ran to the elevator I was so intent on getting out of there.

  As I watched the elevator doors close, I realized all I really wanted to do was toss all this stuff over to Geo and get my body to the gym for an intensive two-hour workout. My favorite! I quickly switched plans to a “Fo
rget Work, Let’s Play” strategy. The elevator hit ground level. I trotted by the security guard, who never even raised his head, and pushed open the massive glass doors. Mid-afternoon heat blasted my face, invigorating me after the coldness of the office. I turned left toward the parking garage, dreaming of the great workout awaiting me. Maybe Mountain Man would be there. My secret love. Secret even to myself, I thought, smiling.

  After half a block, my happy pace turned into a jerking limp because my spike-heeled shoes had transformed into mini-torture chambers. Spotting a bus stop bench up ahead, I limped along a little further and sat upon the burning metal grid. I pulled off my heels, stuffed them in my bag, and extracted some light-weight sneakers I kept just for this purpose, I slipped them on my aching feet, tied the laces and stood up. Ah, sweet!

  As I rose, I glanced out into the traffic on Central. A familiar face locked eyes with my own. The face looked almost exactly like Mai’s face, but male, a male driving a glittering black Porsche 911.

  I smiled and waved at the driver, mouthing, Nice car! He continued to stare right through me as if I were invisible. Perhaps I was mistaken and this guy had no relationship to Mai, and he wasn’t looking at me at all. His gender was kind of vague. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t staring at me.

  I shrugged off the incident, turned in the direction I’d been going along Central to the parking garage. When I reached the main entrance, I stepped into the darker interior trying to avoid the oil stains on the concrete. The smell of old oil, rubber and exhaust closed in around me like a smothering cloak. I began to ascend the upward concrete slope leading to the second floor. I planned to hoof it up three floors to where my Mazda sat, baking in the sun on the roofless top floor.