Tonight I Said Goodbye (St. Martin's Minotaur Mystery)

by Michael Koryta

  "Have a seat," Joe said. Swanders pulled up one of the client chairs, but Kraus settled onto a stadium seat. I liked him immediately.

  "So what exactly are you two planning to do?" Swanders asked. "Show up the old boys down at the department, make some headlines, ride off into the sunset?"

  "Don't have to have the sunset," I said. I knew Swanders vaguely from my days on the force, but I'd never dealt with Kraus. Brecksville was a small, upscale suburb, and its police force wasn't equipped to handle a major case like this, so CPD had stepped in to help. Kraus didn't look like he thought he was in over his head, though; if anything he seemed cooler than Swanders.

  Swanders stared at me and chewed on his lip. "You looking for the wife and daughter or trying to prove it wasn't a suicide?"

  "We're trying to find out what happened," I said. "That encompasses both aspects, I think."

  "Get paid whether you break this case or not, don't you?"

  "Yeah. But so do you."

  "True, but the victim's family ain't the one cutting me my check."

  I started to say that wasn't entirely true, since John Weston was a taxpayer, but it was a petty, silly response, and I managed to shut myself up in time.

  "You have a reason for coming down here other than griping, Rick?" Joe said. "We're not out to make you guys look bad, hassle you, breathe down your neck, or anything else. We're in the business of investigating things. John Weston wants us to investigate this thing, and that's what we'll do."

  Joe was the person to convince them of our harmlessness, not me. My rapid promotions hadn't endeared to me to some of the older cops, but Joe's endorsement had helped me overcome that hostility. Joe was a cop's cop, a fourth-generation member of CPD. There had been Pritchards in uniform on the city's west side for as long as anyone could remember. Joe's father had been a homicide detective, and his uncle had been killed in the line of duty. There wasn't a cop on the force who didn't know of the Pritchard family, and in the family itself, it was seemingly unthinkable that a male do anything else. Joe represented the last of his line; when he was thirty he'd married a woman nearly twenty years his senior, limiting the likelihood of a son to follow in his footsteps. It had been devastating for Joe's father, to whom the police legacy meant a great deal. Joe and Ruth had been happy, though, as happy as any married couple I'd ever seen. When she'd died a few years earlier, she'd taken a part of him with her. The work--always important to Joe--became everything for him, and rather than sit on his pension he'd decided to become a PI. There was nothing else that could satisfy him.

  Swanders and Kraus exchanged a glance, not happy about it, but Swanders nodded, giving Joe the respect he'd earned in the last few decades.

  "Fine, Pritchard. I wasn't thrilled to hear that you two are involved, because this case is messy enough as it is. But if you play it straight with us, we'll play it straight with you." He sighed and scratched his chin, where a day's worth of stubble had developed. "With all the damn media attention this case is getting, it's no picnic. You better hope those reporters don't get on your ass, too."

  "That bad, eh?" I asked.

  "You got it." Swanders leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. His sleeve pulled up when he did it, exposing a gold watch too small for his wrist, with folds of fat bulging out on either side. "So, since we're all going to be getting along together, how about you tell us what you've done so far."

  Joe pointed at the piles of paper wads. "That."

  Kraus grinned. "Stuck already, eh?"

  "Hey," Joe said, "it's our first morning on the job."

  "Just for the record," I said, "I want to point out that most of those paper balls on the floor are Joe's. Mine went in the basket."

  "You guys think Weston was a suicide?" Joe asked.

  "Yeah," Kraus said, and Swanders nodded. "The evidence at the scene makes it hard to call it anything else."

  "What about the psychological profile?" I asked. "Any signs of a problem, some indication that Weston wasn't too stable?"

  Kraus squinted and frowned, and Swanders nodded at him to speak.

  "Yes and no," Kraus said. "Some acquaintances told us that he'd been tense, morose, whatever. But I never put much stock in those stories, because after the newspaper declares a guy was a suicide, everyone who knew him starts imagining these things, you know, trying to rationalize it in their own minds."

  "But you couldn't come up with any reason for him to have offed himself, let alone the family?" I said. "The wife wasn't cheating on him, he wasn't an alcoholic or a cokehead, nothing like that?"

  Kraus and Swanders exchanged another glance, silently consulting on what they should offer to us.

  "He was a gambler," Kraus said eventually, after Swanders gave him some sort of osmosis approval. "Sounds like a pretty high roller, too. Frequent trips up to Windsor, and lots of betting on sports."

  Windsor, just across the river from Detroit, was home to Canada's largest casino. I wasn't necessarily surprised by the statement; it fit my image of Weston just fine.

  "Lots of people enjoy gambling," Joe said. "Doesn't mean they're suicidal. Just foolish."

  "His bank accounts were cleared out," Swanders said. "We're expecting to find he was in some pretty serious debt."

  "Any idea who he might have owed?"

  He shook his head. "Not yet. That's what we're working on."

  "If that's the truth, I'd think it would open up some other theories," Joe said. "I mean, I can see the gambling debts as a reason for suicide, but what about his family? Is it possible the people he was stiffing on the debts could have grabbed the wife and daughter, maybe even killed him?"

  Swanders and Kraus shared a frown. "Possible," Swanders said. "But damn near anything is possible at this juncture. There's absolutely no physical evidence at that house to suggest a break-in or any sort of violence. The neighbors say both Mrs. Weston and the daughter were at the home Tuesday evening, but they never showed up anywhere Wednesday morning. Weston's time of death was somewhere between midnight and four in the morning Wednesday, according to the medical guys. That means whatever happened had to happen Tuesday night, and the neighbors didn't hear or see anything unusual. It makes an intruder scenario less likely, unless they were taken out by the damned Delta Force or something."

  "What about the gunshot?" Joe asked.

  "Nobody's claimed they heard one, but that's not surprising," Swanders said. "Three in the morning, one shot fired from a handgun? That's easier to sleep through than people would think. Besides, this is in Brecksville. People out there hear a handgun fired, they probably think it's a backfire on the gardener's leaf blower."

  "Any chance we could take a look at the crime scene report?" Joe asked.

  Swanders shrugged. "I'd say no just to be a bastard, but that report's not going to offer you much help anyhow, so what the hell. You got a fax machine?" he asked, looking around the office doubtfully, as if unsure we even had a phone.

  "Yeah," Joe said, and gave him the number.

  "All right." Swanders got to his feet. "We'll keep in touch with you boys, and I expect you'll do the same."

  "We will," Joe said.

  "Hey," I said as they were heading for the door, "did you talk to April Sortigan? Some student who worked with Weston, I think?"

  Kraus waved his hand. "Yeah, she's nothing to bother with. Just some kid who met Weston through a class project, and he liked her and let her do some bullshit court records research now and then so she could add to the resume. I talked to her on the phone, and it was a waste of time."

  They left, and Joe and I sat and stared at the closed door. "Well," Joe said, "I suppose we ought to get to work."

  "Probably."

  "The gambling angle sounds interesting," he said. "Depending who he owed, or who he pissed off."

  "I don't like it. Too cute and simple."

  "Perfect," Joe said. "I'm cute and you're simple. Just the case for us."

  "You know anyone in Windsor?"

&nbs
p; "Not yet, but give me an hour or two on the phone and I'll have some friends."

  "Sounds good. I've got to see this April girl in half an hour, so we can rendezvous later this afternoon, if you're still awake."

  He faked a heavy yawn. "You're going to see her even though Kraus said it was a waste of time?"

  "Two things about cops," I said. "One, they've been known to overlook leads before, and, two, they've been known to lie to pain-in-the-ass private operators like us. So, yeah, I'll go see her."

  April Sortigan lived in a cluttered apartment about ten minutes from our building. She didn't have a roommate, but she did have seven cats. In the tiny living room, they seemed to be coming out of the walls. At first I assumed there had to be at least three dozen. Sortigan was a tall, slender girl with raven-colored hair, a slim, slightly hooked nose, and glasses with square black frames. Her body was willowy and firm, not unattractive, but nothing that would draw wolf whistles on the street. She sat with her legs crossed and drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch while we talked. After a few minutes of questioning, she'd assured me of her general ignorance of Weston's life and business. Maybe Kraus had been right. She looked like a dead end--and, unfortunately, a talkative dead end. That would have been all right, but the focus of her talkativeness was herself, not Weston. I tried to pay attention while counting the rings on her fingers. I was up to nine and still going when she fell silent.

  "You met Wayne Weston during your undergraduate years?" I asked, trying to steer her back to the point before she began listing her personal references and extracurricular activities.

  "That's right. I was working on a project about structural accidents, and I learned he'd investigated one in a liability lawsuit. I interviewed him, and the work interested me, so I kept in touch. He offered to give me some background in public records before I went on to law school."

  A large tiger-striped cat sprinted into the center of the room and attacked a newspaper that was lying on the floor. Apparently, the cat believed the paper had been ready to make an aggressive move at any second. April Sortigan ignored it.

  "How much work did you do for him?" I asked.

  "Oh, not too much. He showed me around the process; you know, the clerk's office and auditor's office and all of that. I probably did a few checks for him each month. Just minor research."

  "Anything recently?"

  "Actually, yes. About two weeks ago he sent me a list of three names and asked for a basic check through some of the computer databases and the county clerk's office. He said he couldn't do it because he was going out of town, and asked me to fax a report to him."

  "You know where he went?"

  "Nope, but I still have the fax number."

  "Can I see it?"

  "Sure."

  An obese gray cat waddled out from behind my chair and, with the great effort necessary to move such bulk, hoisted itself up on the couch beside Sortigan, meowing loudly. It wasn't really a meow, more like an air raid siren. Sortigan cooed softly to it and scratched under its chin.

  I cleared my throat to regain her attention. "Do you still have those names?"

  "Sure. In fact, I have all the information I gathered on them. Kinda shady guys, to be honest with you."

  "The cops ask you about this?"

  "Yes. But as I said, I have no idea what the significance of the case was. And it's not like many of the people we check out don't have criminal records, you know? It wasn't unusual."

  "Sure. Could I take a look at those names and that fax number?"

  "Definitely. Hang on, I'll go grab the folder." She dropped the fat cat to the ground. It uttered a squawk of protest and then collapsed on the floor, where it promptly decided that was as comfortable a place as any and went to sleep. Life as a cat.

  A moment later Sortigan returned with a manila folder. Inside were three sets of printouts detailing the records she had found on three men. It was the type of routine background check Joe and I were doing on a regular basis now, and she seemed to have done a pretty thorough job on it. All of the gentlemen were Soviet nationals, and all of them had criminal records. Perhaps there had been some confusion over the customs and ordinances of their new country.

  "Can I make copies of this?" I asked.

  "You can keep the originals. It's not like I need them anymore. Dead bosses don't pay."

  CHAPTER 4

  "VLADIMIR RAKIC, Ivan Malaknik, Alexei Krashakov," I read. "All in their mid-thirties, all born in the Soviet Union, all with criminal records. And all investigated by the deceased Wayne Weston in the weeks before his murder."

  Joe raised an eyebrow. "Murder? We know that now?"

  I shrugged. "It sounded more dramatic that way."

  "What are the criminal charges?"

  "Petty stuff, mostly. Several counts of battery, two of assault, one robbery charge involving all three that was dismissed, a few public intoxication charges, one charge of battery of a police officer, and one count of intimidation."

  "Aw, shucks," Joe said. "They sound like good boys. Just misunderstood."

  I nodded. "These barbaric Cleveland police officers clearly lack the appreciation for subtle differences in culture and values that our Soviet visitors expected to find in American authorities."

  "Clearly," Joe agreed. "What do you plan to do with them?"

  "Knock on the door and tell them I'm looking for a missing mother and daughter?"

  "Perhaps that's a little too direct."

  "Ah," I said. "Well, in that case, I'm out of ideas."

  "No surprise there," Joe said. "Fortunately, I've been a good deal more productive than you. I made a few calls to Windsor, and I must confess I had little luck. But, ever undeterred, I shifted gears and called John Weston. I told him to get his attorney on the phone with his son's bank and bitch until they gave us some records. Which they did pretty quickly. Swanders and Kraus were right; Wayne Weston was basically cleared out. Two grand in checking and about five hundred bucks in savings. He'd cashed in bonds and mutual funds."

  "Gives some credence to the gambling problem, maybe."

  "Uh-huh. I also asked for the details about the recent checks cashed by Weston's agency account. Five checks in the past two months, from five businesses." He glanced at a notepad in front of him. "Two real estate agencies, two construction companies, and a law firm."

  I frowned. "The law firm makes sense, but I wonder what he did for the real estate agencies and construction companies?"

  "Maybe he ran some checks for wiretaps or installed electronic surveillance equipment," Joe offered. "There are some firms that do that type of thing."

  "Maybe, but why would the real estate agency request it and not the homeowner? It seems strange to me."

  He waved his hand indifferently. "Any individual and any business can hire a private investigator."

  "Fine. We probably ought to look into the jobs, though, and see what we can learn. On the off chance Weston stirred something up with his work, it makes sense to check the most recent jobs first."

  "I guess." Joe didn't sound enthused.

  "You got a better idea?"

  He shook his head. "Not really. Let's check on those jobs and check on the Russians."

  "What are you thinking?"

  "That this guy didn't kill himself," he said. "If it was just Wayne Weston, I'd say forget about it, this case isn't worth messing with. But the family bothers me. It takes one kind of guy to run up some gambling debts and eat a bullet for the easy way out. It takes a different kind of guy entirely to murder his own family. And if he murdered them, how'd he do it? When did he do it? Where are the bodies? Most murder-suicide cases I've heard about, both acts are usually done in fairly close proximity, you know?"

  "Yeah."

  "And," he said, gathering steam with his argument, "if he killed them, he obviously took great pains to hide the bodies, which doesn't fit the thinking of a guy who was planning on suicide. Why bother hiding the bodies if you're not going to be around to wor
ry about it?"

  "So you think we should operate on the assumption he was killed."

  He gave me a tired grin. "I don't know. But regardless, I'm not so worried about Weston. He killed himself, or someone killed him. Fine. We've got the body lying there, you know? But what the hell happened to that woman and her little girl?"

  "That's what we're supposed to find out, old man."

  "I know." He waved a handful of papers at me. "Swanders kept his word and faxed the crime scene report over."

  "And?"

  "And the physical evidence makes it look like a suicide. They did a damn thorough job of checking the house, and they've also got no evidence of an intruder or any sort of struggle. Weston was killed with his own handgun, fired into his temple at point-blank range."

  "No chance someone else could have shot him, wiped the gun for prints, left it in his hand?"

  He shrugged. "Well, there wasn't any gunshot residue on his hand, no real convincing evidence he fired the shot himself. That doesn't always exist in a suicide, though. So your idea is possible but unlikely. I mean, the guy was a pro, right? A Force Recon vet and a professional investigator? It's hard to imagine a scenario where someone takes Weston's gun away from him and shoots him at point-blank range so easily, then deals with the family, all without causing enough noise to attract attention from the neighbors. You don't think the mother and little girl would get out even a scream?"

  "Maybe the guy kills them first."

  "While Weston sits around chewing on his fingernails? You kidding me?"

  I sighed and scratched my head. "When were the mother and girl last seen?"

  "Neighbors said they were in the backyard at seven that night."

  "So they leave the house, meet with some kind of trouble, and then the guy or guys head back to the home and finish off Weston."

  "Weston wasn't killed until after midnight. Probably closer to three or four than midnight. While his wife and kid are out missing that late, he sits around the house relaxing?"