I let the guy get out of earshot and then I hurried around the back end of the Cherokee. Maggie was about to get into her car. I noted her license plate, in case I needed it in the future, then took a couple of steps forward.
“Hello,” I said.
She jumped and then whirled around. “What the h –!” A hand flew to her chest. “You scared me half to death!”
“Sorry,” I said, although I really wasn’t feeling that remorseful.
I leaned against the Cherokee and crossed my arms. “What are you up to?”
She stared at me in total surprise and then her eyes narrowed. “You’re that private investigator who came to my house.”
I held up my hands. “Guilty.”
“I said I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“I think you should, especially after what I saw with you and –” I wagged a finger toward the gym rat, who’d just disappeared back into Planet Fitness, “that guy.”
Her eyes shifted left and right as she scrambled for an excuse. “I don’t know what you mean,” she finally said.
“What’d you sell him?”
“I…uh…” She stopped and scrutinized me. “Wait, are you undercover or something?”
I shook my head. “I’m a private investigator, remember?”
“Yeah? What’s your name?”
“Sam Spade,” I said, using one of my favorite pseudonyms.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Spade? Like a shovel?”
No, I thought. Am I the only Dashiell Hammett fan in Denver? Sam Spade was novelist Hammett’s fictional detective, and one of Humphrey Bogart’s most famous film roles, in The Maltese Falcon. It was also my favorite alias when I went incognito. But she didn’t know or care, and she didn’t ask to see any identification, as Jane had.
I jerked my head toward the gym. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“No,” she said. “It’s none of your business.”
“Then let’s talk about Pete Westhaven.”
Irritation flashed across her face and then was gone. “What about him?”
“You were dating him, right?”
“Says who?”
“Jane Reichel, Pete’s next-door-neighbor. She saw you with Pete.”
She blushed, knowing she’d been caught.
“So I’d been dating him, so what?”
“Why be so cagey?” I said. “I’m looking into his death, okay? You knew he was dead, right?”
Her expression flickered sad, but then that irritation quickly replaced it. “Yeah, I saw it on the news the other night. That baseball player did it.”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
“You don’t believe Charlie Preston is guilty?”
I shrugged.
She contemplated me, then said, “So?”
“How close were you to Pete?”
“We’d broken up, that’s how close.”
“Pete’s dad said that Pete hated you.”
If that bothered her, she didn’t show it. “I never met Pete’s dad, so I have no idea what he thought.”
“Jane said you and Pete fought.”
“Yeah? Couples fight. That doesn’t mean I killed him.”
“I’m not saying you did,” I said.
“So what are you doing asking me about my relationship with Pete?”
I kicked at a small rock lying near my foot. “I’m turning over all the stones to see what I find.”
“And under one of them you think you’ll find a killer.”
I nodded.
“Unless it was the ballplayer.”
“Yep.” I stared at her. “How’d you meet Pete?”
“At a gym. We started talking. He was a nice guy.”
“How long did you date?”
“A few months.”
“When did you break up?” I asked.
“A few months ago.”
So they were dating, even though Pete’s father, Oren, didn’t know it.
“Why’d you break up?” I asked.
She sighed, then briefly fussed with her hair. “We got along and then we didn’t. Look, there’s not much to tell, okay? And I need to get going.”
She slid behind the wheel, so I took a step over and held the door open.
“Where were you on Thursday night?”
“Quit bothering me,” she snarled and pulled at the door. “I don’t have anything else to tell you.”
“Stick around,” I said, trying to sound like Bogie.
“Don’t worry. The police already told me to stay in town.” She yanked at the door. “I’m late for a date.”
“So soon after you broke up with Pete?”
“That’s none of your business,” she said.
I let go of the door. She slammed it shut, then started the car and sped out of the parking lot with wheels screeching.
CHAPTER TEN
I thought about my conversation with Maggie as I walked to the 4-Runner and drove back to downtown Denver. She had not been what I would call “cooperative”. Not that she was required to be, but most innocent people liked to talk. And I’d caught at least one discrepancy in her story, the time frame when she was dating Pete. It didn’t fit with what Jane had said. She’d seen Maggie and Pete fighting about three weeks ago. So Maggie and Pete were either still dating, even though Maggie had said they weren’t together anymore, or they’d continued to see each other after they’d broken up – unless Jane’s memory about when the fight had occurred was faulty, or she assumed they were still dating when they weren’t. My head hurt with the possibilities.
And that exchange with the gym rat was telling. It didn’t take Humphrey Bogart to deduce that Maggie was involved in some shady dealings, most likely drugs or steroids. And since she’d been seen with Pete, who was selling steroids to Charlie, I’d put my money on the latter. Was Pete supplying her with steroids? Did they have a nice little operation going, selling at gyms, an arrangement that Charlie knew nothing about? Also, she’d told the gym rat she had a supply problem. If Pete was her supplier, then of course she had a problem because he was dead. But why kill him if she needed him to supply her? I didn’t have an answer to that. Nor did I have any idea where Pete was getting his steroids from. I realized I knew little about the steroid market, so I decided to go home and do some research.
I parked on the street in front of my building and walked up the sidewalk to the front porch. A light shone from the Goofball Brothers’ living room window. I was a little surprised they were home on a Saturday night, instead of at B 52s playing pool.
Hmm, I thought. A beer and some pool sounded fun. But Willie would be coming home in a couple of hours, and after hearing about Pete and Maggie’s contentious relationship, I found myself longing to be at home with Willie. That’s what it felt like to be with her…that I was truly “at home” in a way I’d never experienced before, even with my parents when I was a child. So instead of knocking on the Goofball Brothers’ door, I crossed the porch and trotted up the metal stairs to my condo. I let myself in, grabbed a beer from the fridge and headed back to my office. And wished that Willie was there.
My office is my favorite place in the condo, full of the memorabilia I love. One wall has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full of DVDs, primarily film noir, detective stories, and Alfred Hitchcock films, as well as rare first-edition detective novels. On another wall hang framed movie posters from The Maltese Falcon, one of Bogie’s most famous movies, and The Big Sleep, starring Bogart and his love, Lauren Bacall. I received the poster of The Big Sleep from a former client after I’d found his brother’s murderer. And a glass case in the corner holds my most prized possessions: first editions of A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. I’d recently been eyeing a first edition of The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain. It’s considered by many to be the noir novel that opened the doors for all other noir novels, and it would be so cool to have a copy of it. But its high price tag had
kept me from buying it, so I relished the rare books I did have.
I sat down at my desk, set my beer aside and logged onto the Internet. I typed “how to obtain steroids” into the search engine and received thousands of hits. I clicked on the first link and started reading. I’d wondered before how people got steroids, since they were illegal, and how many used them, and now I found my answers and more.
I first read that there are roughly three million steroid users in the U.S. and that about fifteen to thirty percent of people at gyms use steroids. I whistled. “If Pete and Maggie had a business selling steroids, the demand was certainly there,” I said to myself.
I clicked on more articles. Many of them talked about how people could obtain steroids through illegitimate medical prescriptions or through anti-aging clinics, but somehow I didn’t think Pete would’ve gotten them that way. According to the articles, those ways could be expensive, and even though Charlie was making good money, he’d indicated he didn’t have a lot of cash to spare.
I read further. Another big place to get steroids was health clubs. They had become places to socialize, and workout routines led to friendships and trust. And then people who pushed steroids could influence others into adding steroids to their routines.
So, I thought, if Maggie was a regular at the gym, she could easily sell to others there. So was she the seller, not the buyer?
I took a sip of beer. “How were she and Pete getting the steroids to sell?” I asked out loud. “The Internet?” I focused on my computer again.
Turns out the Internet was another way to access the black market for steroids, and it provided people with anonymity. But there were issues with obtaining the steroids on the Internet. For one, a buyer didn’t know if he’d be scammed by a seller who would take his money but never deliver the drugs. Another issue was that a buyer couldn’t be assured of the quality of the drugs. Some suppliers repackaged cheap steroids with expensive product labels and then sold them, or they sold fake steroids. I thought about that. The quality of the drugs would be an extremely important issue for Pete and Charlie. Charlie had even said that Pete was supplying him with high-quality steroids.
“All of the above hazards can lead to health problems ranging from minor infections and abscesses to severe reactions, illnesses and possibly death,” I read at the end of the article. I sat back, rubbed my eyes, and took another drink. “Lovely.”
I finished the beer and kept researching, and soon found my answer to how Pete could’ve been getting the steroids. Mexico. Steroids could be bought online from Mexico. However, buying from Mexico carried the same inherent quality risks as buying the drugs in the U.S. Another risk was that packages sent from Mexico are randomly screened and the steroids could be confiscated. But people could go to Mexico for vacation and smuggle the steroids home. The steroids are cheaper and more readily available in most Mexican cities, and many border towns have pharmacies that will sell them. And even though a prescription is required, it seemed that it was easy to get around this in Mexico.
Did Pete or Maggie go to Mexico? I had no way of finding out, but maybe Charlie knew if Pete vacationed in Mexico. I pulled out my phone and called him, but he didn’t answer, so I left a message for him to call me. If he didn’t know, maybe Cal could find out for me. Then I noticed a text from Willie that I’d missed.
“Hey, hon, have to work a double shift. Won’t be home until the middle of the night. Love you.”
I stared at the phone, disappointed. It had been a really long day, and I was looking forward to her coming home and relaxing with her. Now that was out. I turned off the computer and plodded into the kitchen. Then I made another call.
“Hey, Reed,” Ace said in his slow drawl. “Whatcha doing?”
“Not much,” I said, trying not to sound bummed. “I saw your light on and was wondering if you and Deuce would like to go to B 52s and shoot some pool.”
“Aw, we can’t. We’re over at Bob’s.”
“Oh, I saw your light and thought you were home.”
“No, sorry. But how about another time?”
“Sure.” I let him go, sighed heavily and went into the living room.
I took out the DVD of The Third Man, a great film noir starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles. It’s about a pulp Western writer named Holly Martins who travels to post–World War II Vienna to search for his friend, Harry Lime, played by Welles. But when Martins arrives, he finds that Lime has been killed. Martins gets caught up in the seedy underworld of the crumbling city. I loved the movie’s shadowy noir cinematography and its twisting plot of deception, racketeering, murder and love.
When the movie was over, I went into the bedroom, stripped and crawled under the covers. I rolled over and smelled the scent of Willie’s shampoo on her pillow, and I missed her even more. I pulled the pillow close to my face and fell asleep. A long time later, I woke when she slipped under the covers.
“Hi, babe,” she said as she snuggled close to me.
“I missed you,” I said, and my previous moodiness instantly vanished.
“I missed you, too,” she whispered. “I want to come home to you for the rest of my life.”
I smiled. “You got it.”
I held her close and we fell asleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning, Willie and I had a late breakfast, and then we sat at the table in the kitchen. Willie worked on her laptop and I stared into space, thinking about Pete, Maggie and Charlie. And I thought about Willie and what she’d said last night. I wanted her the rest of my life, too. Was it time to make it official? I was so engrossed in my musings, I didn’t notice her close her laptop.
“What’re you thinking?” she asked.
“Hm?” I said.
“You look like you have a lot on your mind.”
“I do.” I waved a hand as if to brush away my thoughts. “It’s this case.”
She pushed back from the table, put her dishes in the dishwasher and came over to me. “If Charlie is innocent, I’m sure you’ll find the real killer.” She kissed my cheek. “I’ve got to take a shower and then I’m going to the grocery store. Do you need anything?”
“Nothing in particular,” I said.
She left the room. I got up, loaded my dishes in the dishwasher, then strolled into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. “Okay, Reed,” I muttered to myself, “if you think it’s time to pop the question, then you need to take the next step and get her a ring.”
“What?” Willie called from the bathroom.
“Nothing,” I said.
She said something unintelligible and then I heard the shower. I got up and tiptoed to the dresser. Lying on it was a small jewelry box that Willie had inherited when her grandmother passed away. I rummaged around in it until I found a silver ring with a small ruby that Willie sometimes wore. I took it and hurried into my office, where I traced the inside of the ring on a piece of paper. Now I could figure out her ring size. I sneaked back into the bedroom and put the ring back into the jewelry box. When Willie came out of the bathroom, she was none the wiser.
“What are you going to do today?” she asked as she started getting dressed.
“I’m not sure. I need to talk to Charlie again.” My cell phone rang. I grabbed it from the nightstand and glanced at the screen. “What do you know, it’s Charlie.”
“Good timing,” Willie murmured.
I answered the phone.
“Reed, I didn’t wake you, did I?” Charlie asked.
“No, I was up,” I said. “Thanks for returning my call.”
“Yeah, sorry, I was out last night. Did you need something?”
“Yeah. Do you know if Pete ever went to Mexico?”
“Mexico? Not that I recall. I know he’d go back to Florida sometimes to visit his family.”
Ah, Charlie, as helpful as ever, I thought. “Hmm.”
“Oh, I got the number for Greg Revis.”
“Hold on.” I grabbed a piece of paper from the nigh
tstand and wrote down the number of Pete’s friend. “Okay, I’ll give him a call.”
“Are you making any progress?”
“Turning over stones,” I said, thinking of Maggie. “We’ll see what crawls out.”
“Okay, thanks.” He sounded bummed.
I ended the call and stretched.
“I’ll be back later,” Willie said. She’d dressed in denim shorts and a sleeveless shirt, and she looked really cute.
“I’ll miss you.” I kissed her and she left. Then I called Greg Revis.
“Hello?” a tentative voice said.
“Greg, I’m Reed Ferguson,” I said. Charlie might have told him that I’d be calling, so I figured I’d best use my real name. I explained that I was investigating Pete Westhaven’s death. “I understand you were friends with him and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Uh, sure, I guess so,” Greg said. “I can’t talk now, though. I’m at the ballpark, but I could meet you after the game.”
“That would be great.”
We agreed to meet at the View House, a restaurant and bar that was within walking distance of Coors Field, a half-hour after the game ended. It was Sunday and the Rockies game was at two o’clock, so it would be early evening before I could meet Greg. After I hung up, I glanced at the clock. It was almost eleven now.
What to do first?
I thought about Maggie and whatever I’d seen her selling. I needed to know more about her, her relationship with Pete, and if she was pushing steroids or something else. Time to pay her another visit. Decision made, I showered, dressed and left.
Traffic was light and I made it back to Maggie’s apartment in fifteen minutes. I’d obviously spooked her last night, and I didn’t want to do that again. But I needed to know what she knew about Pete. I couldn’t care less about her involvement in steroids or whatever she was selling, as long as it didn’t have anything to do with Pete’s murder. And if she was innocent, wouldn’t she want to help? I hoped so.
The sun was a fireball in a cloudless sky as I parked in the lot across from her apartment. I locked the 4-Runner, strolled up to her unit and rapped on the door. I thought I heard a noise inside, so I waited, then knocked again. Still no answer. Had she seen me through a window, and was she avoiding me? I stepped back and tried to surreptitiously glance in a window, but I couldn’t see anything. Her unit had a small porch enclosed by a six-foot wooden fence. I stood on my toes and peered over it, hoping I could see inside.
The Third Fan: A Reed Ferguson Mystery (A Private Investigator Mystery Series - Crime Suspense Thriller Book 9) Page 6