Back in Black

by Rhys Ford

  “She could have had a team, or at least someone small and wiry to help her,” Bobby threw out, stacking the last of the papers next to him. “That’s what they did in Victorian London, right? They had little kids shimmy down the chimney because they’d fit? Maybe before Marlena got her sheepskin, she was out fleecing the sheep with dear old Grandma.”

  “That’s all conjecture,” O’Byrne replied. “We don’t have any evidence the Brinkerhoffs were anything but upright, law-abiding citizens.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, leaning back in the wing chair.

  The house wasn’t huge, maybe eighteen hundred square feet. It looked like it had three bedrooms and two bathrooms neatly packed into its early 1900s bones. While not as luxurious as the mansions in Brentwood or Beverly Hills, its prime location and vintage classic lines more than made up for its lack of space. Technically the home was considered a Craftsman bungalow, rich with polished wood and pocket doors, lovingly tended by its older European owners. It was a gorgeous house, perfect to raise a child in, with good schools nearby and close proximity to everything Los Angeles had to offer.

  Considering I’d purchased a larger, much more run-down version of the house in Brentwood, I had a pretty good idea of its market value.

  “This place right now could probably go for a million and a half. Property taxes are steep here. Even if they bought it years ago, it was still a pricey neighborhood. Always has been, this close to the studio,” I said, taking a good hard look at the living room. “Marlena said they gave up their old lifestyle, but how did they pay for all of this? Did either one of them have jobs? Costs a lot to raise a kid, right?”

  “And put it through college,” Bobby chimed in gruffly. “Especially when they take six years trying to figure out what they’re going to do for the rest of their lives and then when they graduate, do something totally fucking different.”

  “He’s bitter his son opened up a coffee shop,” I said, making O’Byrne laugh. “But really, where did they get their money?”

  “We just started digging into their finances, but I’ve got to step carefully,” she replied. “I might be investigating a murder, but there’s still a lot of politics I’ve got to wade through, especially with her job up in San Francisco. I sniff at the wrong pile of dog shit, and it’s going to end up in my face.”

  “You worried more about your career or catching a murderer?” Bobby growled, lifting his eyebrows at her.

  “I’m not only going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that,” O’Byrne replied with a snarl of her own, “I’m also going to not shoot you for saying it. You know how this kind of crap works, Dawson. You did a full ride with the LAPD during some of its shittiest times. Even as cleaned up as it is now, there’s still a lot of the good old boys left over from those days, and they’re just as filthy now as they were back then.

  “I’m lucky enough I’ve got Book as my captain, but some cops, like Bishop, are stuck with some real assholes. This case is already screwed up, because it crosses over several departments and there’s some infighting going on, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do my job.” She did another circuit of the room, stopping at odd points for reasons she didn’t share. But I got the feeling she really wasn’t seeing anything beyond her frustration. “If I find out Bishop didn’t say anything, then I’ve got a damned leak. That means I would have to watch my back and my mouth around everybody in the department except for probably Captain Book. Well, and the two of you. So, someone’s got to speak for the dead, and in this case, Adele Brinkerhoff seems to only have the three of us. Are you assholes in or not?”

  “Do I get paid the same rate as Princess?” Bobby cocked his head, smirking at her. Since he pretty much rewrote the definition of cocky, I wouldn’t blame her if she decked him, but O’Byrne was a better person than I was.

  “Have McGinnis pay you,” she shot back. “He apparently doesn’t need it.”

  Their now-lighthearted bickering faded into a waterfall of white noise, because the odd feeling I got about the room finally settled in and I took a good hard look around. The place was a mess, but I got the sense of a comfortable placidness to the home, something violently disturbed by the intruder who’d beaten the hell out of Arthur Brinkerhoff. Picking up one of the books, I glanced at the spine, curious as to what Adele or Arthur would find interesting to read, but somehow a dry account of animal husbandry written by an Englishman in the early 1900s didn’t seem like a titillating choice. The books were all stripped of their dust jackets, or perhaps they never had any to begin with. Scattered about like confetti after a three-year-old’s birthday party, I was struck by how they were all shades of dark green, oxblood, and brown.

  Their subject matters were a range of nonfiction and the occasional unheard-of novel by an unknown author, not something I would have chosen to line my shelves with, but I didn’t know either Brinkerhoff, so I couldn’t really say what held their interest. Leaning back, I tried to see the room as a place where I spent my evenings, sitting with my spouse and talking, because if I wasn’t mistaken, the television wasn’t plugged in, and it was too far away from an outlet to get any power.

  “This is all window dressing. This room. Their lives,” I said, standing up to join O’Byrne in her pacing. “These books are like the kind you buy by the yard to make your shelves look good. But they’re worn, more homey. And look at the walls. What do you see?”

  “Other than some really nice wainscoting, they’re kind of drab. I think they call that paint color oyster,” Bobby said. “It looks just like my grandparents’ house used to. My mom’s house probably looks this way now. Don’t give me that look, Princess. You know things went to shit when I came out. I just haven’t been over there.”

  “Look, we know they live here. All of the neighbors we talked to say the same thing—nice older couple, raised their grandkid right and put up Christmas lights every winter. The old man hands out full-size candy bars at Halloween,” O’Byrne commented. “There’s clothes and toiletries thrown about upstairs in the bedrooms, and the guy even went through the hall closet and pulled out all the towels. I think there’s even a half-eaten gallon of butter brickle from Thrifty’s in the freezer.”

  “Did you find any BDSM gear?” I asked, turning to face her. “Anything out of the ordinary? A rubber ducky in a leather mask?”

  “No.” If O’Byrne could have tossed me into a cell on a 5150 at that moment, she would’ve buckled the straitjacket on me herself. “They’re, like, fucking seventy years old.”

  “Adele Brinkerhoff had a thing going with at least one other woman—a thing that included bondage gear and French ticklers, which I only know about because I had to look it up. And when she died, she was wearing a leather jumpsuit. Or a romper. I’m not sure what the difference is, but the old woman had a bit of a kink going, and that’s got to be stored someplace. If not in this house, then somewhere else.” I gestured toward the walls. “Look around you. Marlena Brinkerhoff told us Arthur used to forge art for a living. My guess is he’s a painter, because I can’t see that there’s a lot of money in forging sculptures, not to mention trying to move the damned things, but the walls are fucking empty. There’s not even a velvet painting of Jesus or those big-eyed freaky fucking children on the walls.

  “I live with an artist. They can’t stop arting. They can’t help it.” I finally had their attention, and O’Byrne began to look around her with a calculating gleam in her eye. “Even if he gave up forgery, he wouldn’t give up painting, and there’s not a damn thing in this house that points to either one of their lifestyles. There’s no pictures on the wall either. Marlena Brinkerhoff graduated from law school, and there’s not one damned photo of her in a cap and gown? Maybe I’m missing all of it and it’s hidden somewhere else in this house, but it doesn’t seem like this place is real. And I have no idea on where to start looking for where their lives are stashed.”

  “You might not,” Bobby said from his perch on the couch. “But I bet y
ou their granddaughter knows.”

  Nine

  “O’BYRNE’S GOT you on a leash,” Bobby grunted, the punching bag rocking in his hold when I connected with a couple of hits. “With that consulting thing, she’s pretty much got another detective in her back pocket that dances to her beck and call.”

  My punches in no way moved him. Bobby had long mastered the art of planting himself firmly and using his knees and hips to absorb any impact. I still tried, though. It gave me something to do besides not gnaw on my frustration. Bobby wasn’t wrong. There were things I couldn’t do for Dell O’Byrne. Gathering evidence and actually arresting someone was outside of my purview, but if she tapped me to help with a case, I could run down leads and feed her any information I got. As far as I was concerned, Arthur Brinkerhoff hired me, and he was my first priority. But O’Byrne definitely had tangled me in tighter.

  My problem was I was unsure about what exactly I was chasing down. Adele’s murder weighed on me, and despite the possible criminal activity she was involved in, she didn’t deserve to die in the middle of a wet lawn with a hole punched through her chest. I just didn’t know where to start looking for who killed her and who attacked Arthur.

  “I think we need to see if Arthur is up to talking.” Shifting my feet, I tried a couple of uppercuts. They strained my damaged shoulder, but the burn was light, not the stinging, tearing alarm of something going terribly wrong along my joints. “Every time we dig, we just come up with more questions. I need answers.”

  Bobby and I did our best thinking when either eating or sparring down at JoJo’s. Since he and Ichi were once again freeloading dinner off of me and Jae, our evening meal would be a large one, probably tons of barbecued meat and a million little plates of panchan. While I loved kalbi, there was something special about picking through all of the tiny white plates filled with things I still haven’t figured out after all these years of being with Jae. Panchan was kind of like food-based Cracker Jack prizes—some things I recognized by shape, while others were always pure surprise. The slivers of slightly sweet fish cake with thin slices of burdock root and jalapenos were probably my favorite, but there was a dish of almost sugary cuttlefish strands made with a spicy chili sauce I’d fallen in love with. They were the kind of hot Jae and Ichi found spicy, but the two of them also mixed lava in with their breakfast smoothies.

  I liked to think I’d grown a lot since meeting Jae, especially considering all of the food adventures he’d taken me on, but I still really hoped tonight’s panchan wouldn’t include the bright pink baby octopi he and my brother loved.

  “Are you thinking about food or your husband? And don’t deny it. You’ve got that look on your face, Princess. Why don’t you try to focus?” Bobby asked, bumping me with the bag. “Less drooling and more punching. Where do you want to go with Brinkerhoff? If your little theory about them hiding their lives away holds up, the granddaughter’s going to know about that, and she’s going to try to block you out.”

  “Depends on what’s more important to them,” I said, shifting up my punches with different angles. “She and Brinkerhoff are going to have to decide what they want more, finding Adele’s murderer or protecting their secrets.”

  “I don’t think either one of those exists without the other,” he suggested, pressing his shoulder up against the bag as I began to intensify my strikes. “Let’s assume Adele was ripping somebody off with those diamonds she had. So either they came from a stash they squirreled away somewhere, or she did a job recently and that was her haul.”

  “O’Byrne said Stevens worked with teams, but it was probably more likely Adele either worked by herself or with her husband. They weren’t anyone the cops noticed, or at least they weren’t big enough to draw attention to themselves.” Stepping back from the bag, I shook out my arms, sweat drenching my T-shirt. I had another ten minutes with the bag. Then we could hit the showers, worn out from spending an hour in JoJo’s gritty, no-frills boxing gym. “Arthur’s too old now. If she was going to do a job and needed help, she’d have to tag somebody else.”

  “Not like that woman was a spring chicken. There’s no way she was limber enough to pull off a burglary,” Bobby growled, tapping the bag to remind me I still had time on the clock to work through. “If they were hurting for money so bad she had to pull off a heist, why not sell that house? It’s worth a hell of a lot, and they could buy something smaller.”

  “When I first ran into her a few years back, she was plenty enough limber and spry,” I replied, ducking back into a fighting crouch. “She kept up with me while holding a shotgun. And I think she was wearing heeled boots. Wasn’t like I was taking fashion notes. I was running for my life. She looked about the same when I found her. A little pillowy, but you and I both know that’s kind of deceptive. Women hide a lot of muscles in those curves of theirs.”

  “True,” Bobby agreed. He gave out a little grunt when I punched the bag, leaving me with a small sense of satisfaction. Also, he wouldn’t be able to return the favor, because he’d already done his bout. Going second had its advantages because sometimes holding the bag left me as bruised as going a few rounds when Bobby needed to work off some of his adrenaline. “If the granddaughter is smart—”

  “Marlena,” I corrected as gently as I could while plowing another punch into my target. “She’s an assistant district attorney. Let’s assume she’s got two brain cells to rub together.”

  “Okay, Assistant DA Brinkerhoff has a lot more to hide than where her grandmother’s stash is. If she’s got any political aspirations, she doesn’t want any of that dirty laundry to be pulled out of the hamper.”

  “She’s the one who told me about their criminal dealings,” I reminded him, dancing back a step to shake out my arms again. The workout helped limber me up, loosening tight joints and sometimes even helping me think. “Looking at everything, it makes me wonder if she’s playing a long chess game of sorts. By closing off access to Arthur, she’s going to be controlling the narrative and any information we get. It won’t matter if Arthur wants to find Adele’s murderer. It’s going to be Marlena who guides us through things if we let her.”

  “So we just have to get you in to talk to Arthur without her being around.” He checked his watch, and I knew he was simply adding minutes to my end time for however long I stopped to gather my thoughts and talk to him. “Divide and conquer seems like the best thing to do. I’ll have to keep her busy while you sneak in and talk to the old man. You’ve got five minutes left, Princess. Then you could hit the showers.”

  Having Bobby as a best friend meant going through a lot of physical activities, usually on days when running five miles in the rain was the last thing I wanted to do, but it helped me keep fit. Since I was married to a slightly younger man with a hell of a lot more stamina and flexibility than I had, keeping myself in fighting form was smart. Sad to say, being a private investigator and sometimes ending up in very sticky situations wasn’t enough of an incentive lately for me to get out of bed at 5:00 a.m. for a run or a boxing bout—not when I had Jae in bed next to me.

  Of course, that was probably a lie I was telling myself. I liked the burn of my muscles being worked through their paces, and the aches through my body reminded me of how far I’d come since that fateful day Ben tried to end my life. He’d taken away everything I loved—my boyfriend, my career, and with his suicide, a man I considered my brother as well as my partner. And as much as I’d gained since that day, I was also carrying around a bunch of scar tissue and healed-over wounds I needed to stretch out once in a while. Doing yoga with Jae—or at least attempting to do yoga, since I wasn’t as graceful as he was and yoga seemed to be based on the positions a cat cleaned itself in—wasn’t as effective at getting my blood pumping and my muscles aching as boxing was.

  I also really like to hit things.

  “We’re close enough to the hospital to hit the start of visiting hours. Won’t hurt to see if Arthur’s up for a little conversation. Even if he just gives me a nam
e, I’ll have some place to start looking.” I squared off, going for a round of body shots on the bag’s thick form. Sweat was beginning to sting my eyes, and I was really looking forward to a lukewarm shower in the locker room. I spoke between punches, knowing Bobby could keep up. “Do you think you can keep Marlena out of the way for five minutes?”

  “I think I can do that,” Bobby promised, grunting again when I gave a good punch into the middle of the bag. “Let’s face it, between the two of us, I’ve spent more of my life lying to myself about preferring women. Hopefully that will at least hold me over until the old man gives you something you can work with.”

  THE BEST thing about JoJo’s was it had parking, a premium perk in Los Angeles’s urban sprawl. Since the city and building owners were serious about guarding their lots, it was usually only somebody incredibly stupid or an idiot willing to risk his car who parked someplace they didn’t belong. The worst thing about JoJo’s was the parking lot was pretty much a glorified wide alleyway jammed in between two looming, run-down warehouses. You didn’t go to JoJo’s for a workout on treadmills while a talk show played on big-screen TVs mounted on the walls or to try your hand at the newest weight machine positioned in front of a wall of mirrors. It wasn’t the kind of place you could pick up a smoothie after you were done, and there were no free water bottles waiting for you at the reception desk.

  Shit, there wasn’t even a reception desk.

  It was an old-school, no-frills boxing gym where trainers took their up-and-coming fighters to test their skills against men and women who’d been around the block more than a few times. If you could hold your own at JoJo’s, you had a good chance in a ring where money exchanged hands and your night ended with blood smeared on the mat—hopefully not your own.

  So the guy walking down the parking alley toward JoJo’s front door stuck out like a Persian in a whirl of Tasmanian devils. I wasn’t sure if a group of Tasmanian devils was called a whirl but it seemed likely, and I’d just come from the gym, so I knew what it was like in there.