“I have someone coming to look at it this afternoon,” he said.
There was one chair facing the desk, so she sat. Her eyes flicked over the room, not that there was much to see. The furnishings consisted of a large wooden desk that had seen better days and a secondhand filing cabinet that leaned to the right, all of the drawers offset in the frame and unable to close properly. Her eyes trained on an ominous rust-colored stain on the ceiling above Charlie’s head. She cleared her throat.
He eyed her from behind the desk, unsmiling.
“I see your dreams have come true,” she said, jerking her head toward the door and the voluptuous Maxine sitting at the ready in the reception area. Charlie raised his eyebrows, and Vivian elaborated. “A leggy brunette to answer your telephone.”
After a moment, his initial confusion faded into a slight smile as he recognized the reference. They’d discussed leggy brunettes and his desire to have a secretary the first night they’d met. He leaned back in his chair and raked Vivian over with a long, hard look that made her skin tingle, but he said nothing.
Vivian glanced out the window, hoping that if she ignored it, the telltale flush on her cheeks would disappear. The view from Charlie’s office consisted entirely of the grimy red brick of the building next door. She turned her attention back to Charlie, who was no longer smirking, but leaning back precariously on the two back legs of his rickety wooden chair, considering her.
She wanted to explain everything. About how she’d thought she would never see Charlie again, and that being the only reason she was “dating” Graham. About how she’d tried to contact him. About how distraught she was that he’d disappeared without any explanation. She could do it. There were no giggling girls to overhear. But that wasn’t why she’d come today. She’d come for Charlie’s help.
“I want to hire you,” she said.
Charlie let the front legs of the chair fall to the floor with a thump. He tented his fingers underneath his chin and regarded her thoughtfully. “What for?” he asked.
There was a rap on the frosted glass of the closed door.
“Yes, Maxine?” Charlie said. “What is it?”
“Would you like me to hold your calls?” she asked.
Vivian placed a hand over her mouth, hiding a smile. She couldn’t help but note that the phone hadn’t rung once since she’d stepped into the office.
“That’s not necessary,” he said, glancing at Vivian. “Why don’t you go ahead and take an early lunch? I can handle things around here.”
“Sure,” the secretary said, the disappointment evident in her voice.
Charlie waited until Maxine had gathered her things in the other room and shut the door on her exit before returning to the subject at hand. “So,” he said. “I believe you were about to tell me why you require my services.”
“I want you to find out what my father was up to,” Vivian said. She thought for a moment and then added, “And I want you to prove that he wasn’t a criminal.”
Charlie’s eyes widened before narrowing at her. “But we agreed that was the most likely scenario,” he said slowly, as if talking to a child. “And, as I recall, we agreed that the safest thing for you to do would be to drop the whole thing.”
“I know we did, and I’ve changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s more to it now,” she said. She wondered if Charlie gave the third degree to everyone who wanted to hire him or only her. Her money was as good as anyone’s, wasn’t it? By the looks of this place, he needed every job he could get. “That cash I told you about yesterday? It’s gone missing.”
Charlie arched one dark-blond eyebrow but said nothing.
“Actually, it’s been missing since before I even told you about it.”
Charlie continued to look at her, eyebrow frozen in place. Vivian shook her head in frustration. She was telling this all wrong.
“I mean, of course, that I found the money the night of the Christmas party, and when I went to look again on Christmas morning, it was gone… And then I looked again last night just to satisfy my curiosity, you see. The money was still gone, but now there is a note written on the bottom of the desk drawer.”
Charlie blinked at her. After a long moment, he said, “What kind of a note?”
“It said ‘Stop before you hurt everyone you love.’”
“Stop what?”
“Looking into my father’s affairs, I assume,” she said.
“So the first thing you did today was come to my office and tell me you want to hire me to do exactly that. You don’t take your warnings very seriously, do you?”
Vivian exhaled in exasperation. She didn’t want a lecture. Not today, and certainly not from Charlie. Of course he didn’t see that the warning was the reason she needed to dig further. That warning meant there really was something to all of this.
“But I’m getting ahead of myself. I didn’t tell you about the first note, did I?”
“The first note,” he repeated.
“Yes, in the envelope with the cash was a note that said ‘Talk and you lose everything.’ Directed at my father most likely.”
“So there was a threatening note with the secret wad of bills in your father’s long-locked desk drawer, and you just forgot to mention it?”
“I didn’t forget. I just didn’t want to tell you unless you thought the money was important. And you didn’t, remember? You told me my father was just a crook, and I should drop all of it… And it stands to reason that if he really was a crook, that was probably only one of many threats he received.”
He looked at her without speaking, and she squirmed a little under his unrelenting gaze.
“Oh, and there’s this,” she said, holding the bronze key out to Charlie in the palm of her hand. “I found this taped to the back of the drawer on Christmas morning. I’m lucky that I took it. Otherwise it might have disappeared with the money and the note—the first one.”
“What’s it for?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “That’s why I need your help.” She leaned over and dropped the key into Charlie’s hand.
“Looks like it belongs to a safe-deposit box,” he said, holding it up to the light. “Any idea which bank?”
Vivian shrugged.
“What else can you tell me?” he asked, leaning forward in his chair now, truly interested. Vivian hid a satisfied smile in the corner of her mouth.
“Not a lot. There was something written on the outside of the envelope. It said ‘A. W. Racquet.’ I dismissed it at the time, but now I realize the ‘A. W.’ stands for ‘Arthur Witchell,’ of course. But the ‘Racquet’ part has me stumped.”
“R-A-C-Q-U-E-T? Like a tennis racquet?”
Vivian nodded. “Do you know what it means?”
“The Racquet Club in Cicero was a gaming palace for swells. Went belly up not long after Capone got sent to the clink—I assume from lack of qualified leadership,” he added drily.
“A gaming palace? Like blackjack, roulette?”
“You got it.”
The thousands of dollars in small bills flashed through Vivian’s mind. “So maybe my father won big at blackjack?”
“Could be,” Charlie said, drumming his fingers on the desktop in thought.
“But he didn’t gamble.”
Charlie shrugged. “Maybe you didn’t know your father as well as you thought you did.”
Vivian bit her lower lip. She was starting to suspect that she hadn’t known him at all. “So you’ll do it then? You’ll take the case?” she asked.
Charlie drummed his fingers for a few seconds longer before answering.
“I’ll do it,” he said. Then he pointed at her. “But I want you to know that it may be an impossible task. I’m used to proving people have done things, not that they haven’t.”
&nb
sp; She paused to lift her chin and gather her courage. “Then I want you to prove that he was a criminal.” Her voice trembled a little, and she cleared her throat. “Either way, I want to know the truth.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
She nodded. “I need to know.”
Charlie regarded her for a long moment, his blue-green eyes betraying nothing. Then he smiled at her, and despite her reservations, Vivian felt the flip-flop in her stomach.
Chapter Eleven
When they emerged from the dilapidated office building onto the street, Charlie had wanted to stay in the neighborhood and go to an unsavory nameless lunchroom. Happily, Vivian succeeded in steering him a little closer to civilization. The diner they stopped at wasn’t the Ritz, but there also weren’t any unwashed men staring hungrily at her from behind empty plates.
“More comfortable here with real china cups?” He lifted his own cup and set it down, deliberately clinking it noisily against the saucer.
She knew he was teasing her, but she nodded. Of course she was more comfortable here. Who wouldn’t be?
“I think you secretly enjoy my part of town. It thrills you to see life on the other side of the tracks,” he said.
She looked toward the door, unable to meet his eye and admit that yes, it did, a little. Marjorie Fox’s murder investigation had been almost fun—if murder could ever be considered fun. Even believing her own life was in danger had almost been a thrill for Vivian. Almost.
“So where do we start?” she asked, glancing back toward him and leaning in over the Formica table.
“I’d like to say there’s no we, but we both know how that conversation’s likely to go,” he said.
“Smart man,” she said, smiling. “Besides, it was a trick question. I’ve already started.”
“Of course you have.”
“I went to see Uncle Freddy yesterday after I met you for coffee,” she said.
“And Uncle Freddy is…?”
“Frederick Endicott. He and my father were law partners for about fifteen years—right up until my father’s death. Uncle Freddy said hoarding cash wasn’t that unusual for my father. That he was cautious because of the economic times. He’d been burned by the crash, and he always liked to have enough on hand in case of emergency.”
“A reasonable enough explanation, I suppose.”
“Reasonable for someone else’s father. Something about it doesn’t ring true with me. I was little more than a kid then, but I don’t have any recollection of my father’s finances taking a hit after the crash. Actually, he did well financially, as far as I know. You’ve seen where I live. You’ve seen how my mother dresses. She’s got her own money, of course, but he also left a lot when he died.” Vivian’s mind flashed to the news about her unexpected inheritance, and she decided not to mention it. For some reason, she didn’t want Charlie to know that she was, for all intents and purposes, about to become of those spoiled heiresses that she’d always abhorred. “And now that I know what the Racquet Club is… Well, Freddy’s story really doesn’t make sense.”
“So you think Uncle Freddy lied to you?”
“I don’t know.” Vivian sighed. “Maybe he and my father weren’t as close as I assumed. Maybe Freddy only knew the side of my father that my father wanted him to see.”
“And you told Uncle Freddy about the cash you found?”
“Yes.”
“And the threatening note?”
She shook her head. “But he said he’d be the first to know if my father had any enemies.”
“Could he have taken the money?”
“I don’t think so. It was gone before I told him I’d found it.”
“What about the note, the second one directed at you? Could he have done that?”
Vivian hesitated for a second before nodding. “Freddy was over for dinner last night.” And he had disappeared from the dinner table and stayed away for at least twenty minutes, presumably in the bathroom. But there had been plenty of time to scribble that note and come back to the table as if nothing had happened.
Charlie nodded. “Was anyone else over for dinner last night?”
“My father’s old protégé, Martin; he’s now an assistant state’s attorney. My brother, Everett, and his girlfriend, Gloria. And my mother’s new”—she stumbled, searching for the right word, before finally settling on—“friend, Oskar.”
“Your mother’s friend, Oskar?” Charlie arched an eyebrow. “What does your mother’s friend Oskar do?”
“He’s a financier of some sort,” she said. Then she frowned, remembering the unsettling conversation she’d had with Oskar the evening before. “He told me that he knew my father—that he had been a client some years before my father died.”
“Quite a coincidence.”
She nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought.”
“Would he have known about the money?”
“It’s possible, I suppose, but I didn’t tell anyone but Uncle Freddy about it.” She thought of Oskar, alone in the quiet house long after everyone had left.
“Not even your brother?”
Vivian cocked her head to one side. “It’s obvious you don’t have siblings.”
Charlie had been adopted from the foundling home, likely by a couple that had tried for a long time to have a child of their own. Vivian wondered what his adoptive parents were like—well, his father. He’d told her his mother was dead.
“I love my brother, but I don’t trust Everett as far as I can throw him.” She frowned, smoothing the wrinkles in her skirt with her palms. That sounded terrible, even to her own ears. “He’s immature, and I don’t want him to blab the whole story to Mother. I don’t want her to find out about any of this, not until I’m sure of what the truth is…and maybe not even then.”
Now that Vivian thought about it, she wasn’t sure that Everett didn’t know about the money. She hadn’t told him about it, that was true, but he’d come into Father’s study right after she’d found it. Who’s to say he hadn’t seen something and simply didn’t let on?
“And the others at dinner? Your brother’s girlfriend, the hotshot assistant state’s attorney?”
“Gloria’s new to everything. I met her at the Christmas party. She wouldn’t know about the money. Besides, Everett was practically glued to her side.” But if Everett had known about the money, she thought, he may have told Gloria. Vivian shook the thought from her head. “And Martin, well, I haven’t seen him in ages—not since my father died. I suppose if he’d known about that money and wanted it, he would have claimed it long ago.”
Charlie frowned, then nodded decisively.
“Occam’s razor,” he said.
Vivian blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Occam’s razor,” he repeated. “The simplest explanation is likely the best one.”
“Isn’t that Sherlock Holmes?”
He smiled. “Not quite. I believe Mr. Holmes said, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ But if we’re splitting hairs, I think both apply in this case.”
“And that means?”
“That Everett is likely your man.”
Vivian’s stomach sank. She didn’t want to believe that Everett had taken the money. But he’d been the only one with the opportunity.
Charlie pulled the brass key out of his pocket and tapped the end of it on the table, lost in thought for a moment.
“I’ll find out which bank this key belongs to,” he said.
“And I’ll—”
“And you’ll stay out of it…for now,” Charlie said, tempering his harsh tone with a quick wink. “When I need your help, I’ll let you know.”
Vivian fumed. If this were any other man, she’d look up at him through her lashes and pout to get her way, but she already knew
that act wouldn’t fly with Charlie. She’d tried it several times during the Marjorie Fox affair, and it had gotten her nowhere.
“You know, this is like old times, Viv,” Charlie said.
Vivian glanced up. It was like old times. She had to admit that the flutter in the pit of her stomach wasn’t just from being in such close proximity to Charlie again after all this time. Some of it was from finding herself in the middle of a case, the thrill of detecting, of uncovering what someone wanted to remain hidden—even if that someone was her father. It was almost as if the last two months hadn’t happened. Vivian swallowed, and the question that she had been carrying around with her for months popped out of her mouth before she could stop it.
“Why didn’t you call me, Charlie?”
She watched the sardonic smile slip from his face as he set his jaw and glanced away from her. He shifted in his seat, then stared down at the table. He was silent for a long while, and Vivian thought he might not answer the question at all.
“I could ask the same question of you,” he said finally.
Vivian shook her head. “I did call. I left a message with your answering service.”
He glanced up at her. His brow furrowed, and then his eyes shifted from hers again as he shrugged. “I never got it.”
She studied his face, but it was a careful blank. She wanted to believe that, even though she knew it probably wasn’t the truth. Should she tell him that she’d gone to his office and found it empty? No, that sounded desperate. But she wanted him to know that she’d tried, that they hadn’t lost touch because of her. She hadn’t forgotten their deal. She’d needed him, and she’d called him. What had happened to make him change his mind about her? What had she done? What hadn’t she done? It couldn’t only be that he thought she was with Graham, could it? That hadn’t stopped Charlie before.
Homicide for the Holidays Page 12