The Third Fan: A Reed Ferguson Mystery (A Private Investigator Mystery Series - Crime Suspense Thriller Book 9)

by Renee Pawlish

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what I think.” I casually leaned back against the coat closet, trying to disarm her by acting cool, although my stomach was a knot of nervous energy. I didn’t relish being discovered in Pete’s apartment any more than she did. “You’ve got a little business venture, and if I had to guess – which I am since you won’t say – I’d say you’re selling steroids.” She kept still but I saw a wary flicker in her eye. I continued. “I know you have a lot of student loans and other debt, so you need cash. Somewhere along the line, you hooked up with Pete and he’s been supplying you with steroids to sell. What was his cut? Or were you buying from him wholesale?” Silence, so I went on. “I’ll bet you’re making some nice extra change with your business. I’ve seen you visit a number of gyms the last couple of days. How many different gyms do you visit in a week? You’ve probably got quite a clientele. On one of those visits, I heard you talking about how your supply is running low, and, if Pete was your sole supplier, then I’m sure you are short on inventory, what with him being dead. How am I doing so far?”

  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” she whispered.

  “I can hold my own, but I don’t have it all figured out,” I said. “Like why you would kill Pete if he was your supplier?”

  Her voice rose. “I didn’t kill him!”

  “Careful,” I said in a low voice. “You don’t want the neighbors to hear.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” she repeated quietly.

  I ignored that. “What happened? Did you get into an argument with him and then you shot him? Or did he want too much of your profits so you decided to eliminate him and get the steroids yourself?” I glanced behind her, into the living room. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To find out where he’s getting the steroids from.”

  She gasped in surprise. I’d nailed that part – she’d been trying to find information about Pete’s supplier.

  “You can’t prove any of this,” she said.

  “It’s just a matter of time before I do.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  I shrugged, then wiped sweat off my brow. “Then tell me where I’ve erred.”

  Instead, she pointed at the camera. “Why’d you take my picture?”

  “There’s one final piece I need to confirm, and that’s whether you’ve been to Charlie Preston’s condo.”

  “Charlie Preston? Why does it matter if I was at his condo?”

  “When I confirm you were at his place, then that proves you had access to Charlie’s gun. And once you stole the gun, you came here. Since you and Pete were dating, he’d let you in without any commotion. Then you kill him and come back at a later time – like now – let yourself in with his key and find his records about the steroids.”

  She held up a hand. “Wait a minute. Pete was killed with Charlie’s gun?”

  It would’ve been hard to fake that kind of surprise. “Yes,” I said slowly. Suddenly I didn’t feel so cocky.

  “You’re crazy if you think that’s all true.”

  “Then tell me what is true.”

  “I can’t.”

  I crossed my arms. “Okay, let’s come at this from a different direction. If you’re innocent, you should have an alibi for Thursday, the night Pete was killed.”

  “I do!”

  “Well?”

  She hesitated. “I can’t tell you.”

  “And you expect me to believe you?” I said too loudly.

  Something thumped outside the door. She and I both instinctively ducked and my backside hit the closet door. It rattled like machine gun fire. I pressed my hands to the door and it stopped. My heart pounded loudly in my ears.

  “Keep it down!” she hissed.

  We waited. Footsteps sounded in the hallway and paused near Pete’s door. Neither Maggie nor I dared to breathe. After a long, nervous moment, the footsteps moved away from the door and then it grew quiet.

  We both exhaled slowly.

  “We need to get out of here,” Maggie said.

  Danger had momentarily put us on the same team, the one that needed to leave Pete’s apartment before we got caught.

  “Why can’t you tell me your alibi?” I whispered. “If it’ll mark you off my list of suspects, then isn’t it worth it?”

  “I can’t tell you, he’d k –” She gulped.

  “He’d kill you?” I asked quickly. “Who?”

  She shook her head. “Look, you’ve got it all wrong.”

  A silence stretched between us. I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t, so I pulled out a business card and handed it to her.

  “If you want to talk, call me.”

  She looked at the card. “I thought your name was Sam Spade.”

  I shrugged. “I was trying for incognito.”

  “I think Sam Spade’s a better name.”

  “That’s cold.”

  She sneered. “Whatever. I can’t say anything anyway, but it’s not what you think.”

  “Then tell me –”

  “I’ll prove it,” she interrupted. She turned her back to me and listened at the door, then cracked it open. “Now leave me alone.” Before I could say anything, she opened the door wider and dashed into the hall, leaving the door open.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  She ran down the hall to the stairwell and disappeared. I hurried down the stairs, but I didn’t want to yell her name. By the time I got to the door, she was getting in her car. She gunned the engine and peeled out into the street. I watched the Camry go by. I trotted down the sidewalk, but all I saw were the taillights. Then a white car pulled out of a space down the street, blocking my view of the Camry. I had started back toward Pete’s building when a red Mazda zipped by. I reached the front door to the building and grabbed the door handle, then stopped and looked back down the street. The Mazda. The woman hanging around Charlie’s condo the other night had driven a red Mazda. Was that her car just now? Then I ran a hand over my face. If it was, she was gone, and so was Maggie.

  I went inside and quietly climbed the stairs to the third floor. No one was around, so I tiptoed down the hall back to Pete’s door. It hadn’t locked, so I let myself in, shut the door and stood in the darkness of Pete’s hallway. Then I pulled out my flashlight, turned it on and looked around the apartment, wondering if Maggie had found anything to show where Pete was getting the steroids. It didn’t appear that anything was different from the last time I was there, but since I hadn’t stayed long the first time, I couldn’t be sure. And since I didn’t want to risk being found here, I thought it best that I leave. I went to the door and listened. I didn’t hear anything, so I mimicked Maggie: I cracked the door open, peeked out, then opened the door wider and slipped out. I quietly locked and shut the door and hurried down the hallway. I didn’t breathe until I’d run down the stairs and out to my car.

  As I drove toward downtown, I thought about Maggie. She was scared of someone, but who? She’d said “he”. Had killing Pete been a team effort, and she couldn’t tell me anything or her partner would kill her? Whoever it was, his threats had succeeded. Her lips were glued tight. But I’d managed to snap her picture and if Charlie could definitively say she’d been in his condo, that would be another piece in the puzzle. I pulled out my phone and called him. He didn’t answer, so I left a message for him to call as soon as he could.

  I parked on the street in front of my building. The air felt wet after the rain as I walked up the porch to the Goofball Brothers’ door. I knocked and a moment later Ace answered.

  “Hi, Reed,” he smiled. “Are you just getting home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Boy, your day must’ve been really boring,” Deuce said as he came up behind Ace. “Watching someone all day and night.”

  “Not as boring as you might think,” I muttered to myself.

  “What?” Ace asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Did you ever see that woman?”

  They shook th
eir heads in unison. “No. We finally left around seven, but we never saw her.”

  “Maybe she had to work,” Deuce suggested.

  “Or she didn’t want to hang out in the rain,” Ace said.

  “Both of those make perfect sense.” I couldn’t believe I’d said that about something that had come out of either one of their mouths. Every once in a while, I’d underestimate them.

  “You want us to go back tomorrow?” Ace asked.

  “You’d do that?” I said, surprised. “I figured one day would be enough for you guys.”

  “It was kinda fun,” Deuce said. “Besides, Kendra was nice.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Kendra?”

  “She’s the waitress at the bar,” Ace said. “She’s funny.”

  “Oh.” I nodded. “You better be careful, or Nat will get jealous.” Natalie Bowman was a regular bartender at B 52s, and she loved the Goofball Brothers and was always teasing and pseudo-flirting with them.

  They both laughed shyly, then frowned, wondering if they’d crossed some kind of line.

  “I’m kidding,” I said. “When you go back to the bar tomorrow, you can kill two birds with one stone.” Two blank stares. “You can help me and see Kendra.”

  “Oh, right,” Ace said. “So you want us to go back? I don’t have to work until four tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, and I don’t go in for another day,” Deuce chimed in.

  “Okay, it’s a deal.” I gave Ace some more money. He tried to refuse but I insisted. “You’re helping me, so take it.”

  “Okay,” Ace said. He took the bills.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.” I left them and went upstairs to my condo.

  “Hey, hon,” Willie said when I walked through the door. She was sitting at the kitchen table, typing on her laptop. “How was your day?”

  “Kind of boring,” I said. “Until the end.”

  “Uh-huh.” She was only half-listening. “There’s a package for you. It’s from your mom.” She nudged a small box across the table.

  The ring!

  “Oh, okay,” I said nonchalantly.

  I took the box from the table, went into the bedroom, and opened it. Inside was a beautiful diamond ring. It was perfect, not too fancy. Something I could see on Willie’s finger. I had the piece of paper that I’d used to trace her ring size in my wallet. I took it out and checked the ring against it. It was almost a perfect fit. There was a note in the box.

  I hope she likes it, my mother had written. We are so happy for you. Love Mom and Dad.

  I was touched.

  “What’re you doing?” Willie asked as she came into the bedroom.

  “Just checking a note I wrote myself,” I said as I quickly shoved the paper and ring into my wallet. I made a mental note to call my mother and thank her.

  “Sorry I wasn’t listening when you came in,” she said. She came up and kissed my face. “How’s your nose?”

  “Good as new.” I gingerly touched it. “Maybe a tad bit sore.”

  “You want to go to bed? You can tell me about your day, and maybe…”

  I stared into her eyes, feeling a deep love for her.

  “Yes,” I said huskily, then kissed her hard as she pulled me to the bed.

  ***

  Bogie’s voice woke me out of a deep sleep. Sun seeped through the cracks in the window blinds, so I knew it was morning.

  Willie poked at me. “Get your phone,” she murmured, then groaned and rolled over. “Ugh, I wanted to sleep longer.”

  “Sorry,” I said. I snatched my phone off the nightstand. “Hello?”

  “Ferguson,” a voice barked.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Spillman.”

  I bolted upright. “Yes?”

  “Do you know a Maggie Hollenbaucher?” She was all business.

  “Who?” I played dumb. She’d tracked down Maggie.

  “Come on, Ferguson, don’t play dumb. She had your card.”

  “Had?” My heart sank.

  “She’s dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I was suddenly wide awake.

  “What happened?”

  She ignored my question. “Do you know where Rooster & Moon is?”

  “The coffee shop on Bannock?”

  “Meet me there in half an hour.” Then she hung up before I could respond.

  I cursed as I hopped out of bed.

  “What’s the matter?” Willie sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  “Maggie’s dead.”

  “What?” Now she was wide awake, too. “What happened?”

  “Spillman wouldn’t tell me.” I dashed into the bathroom for a quick cleanup, then came back into the bedroom and threw on shorts and an Izod shirt. I gave Willie a peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you later,” I said as I ran out the door.

  “Let me know what’s going on,” she hollered after me.

  I made it to Rooster & Moon Coffee Pub in record time. Spillman was sitting outside at a table on a long, rectangular porch. She had dark circles under her eyes and she wasn’t smiling.

  “This place seems a little too hip for you,” I said, grouchy because she had kept me in the dark.

  “I’m full of surprises,” she said as she took a sip of a dark coffee concoction from a white mug. “I’ll bet this is your kind of music, right?”

  “Uh-huh.” The Smiths, my favorite 80s band, was playing a peppy song, “What Difference Does It Make?” But at that particular moment, I wasn’t feeling very upbeat. I pulled out a chair across from her and sat down. Behind her, the downtown Denver high-rises glinted in the sunlight. She eyed my jaw, where I still had a small bruise.

  “What happened to you?”

  I carefully touched the sore area. “I’m going for the tough, film noir detective look.”

  She was not amused. “Why were you talking to Maggie?” she asked bluntly.

  I shook my head. “You first. I want the details.”

  Spillman contemplated me for a moment, then sighed heavily. “Maggie was shot sometime late last night in the parking lot of Flex Fitness Center. She was seen working out around ten, and then someone spotted her body around midnight. And as with Pete’s death, we haven’t released details of the murder to anyone.”

  Maggie had visited yet another gym, I thought, then said, “Any witnesses?”

  “Not so far. We’re working on it.”

  “Are there video cameras?”

  “Not outside. Maggie was parked around the side of the building, out of the way. A gym employee came out the back door to throw out some trash and saw her car. The driver’s side door was still open, so he was curious. When he approached, he saw her. It looks like someone gunned her down as she was getting in her car.”

  “That’s not the best part of town. Was it robbery?” I asked, even though I highly doubted that.

  “It’s possible.” She crossed her arms. “But you don’t believe that any more than I do.”

  I shook my head.

  “When did you talk to her?” Spillman asked.

  “Last night, around nine,” I said. “She must’ve gone to the gym after that.”

  “Where were you?”

  I hesitated. She exhaled loudly, a dramatic he’s-lying-to-me-again kind of sigh. I held up a hand.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said. It never was. “We were at Pete’s building.”

  “And why were you there?”

  “I followed Maggie.”

  “Why’d she go there?”

  I thought for a long moment, deciding what to say…and what not to. I wanted to be helpful, but I didn’t want to incriminate myself either. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “She had a key and let herself into Pete’s apartment.” I figured it wouldn’t hurt to disclose that. I just hoped Spillman would never figure out that I’d gone into the apartment as well. “When Maggie came back out, I talked to her.”

  “And?”

  “You know Maggie had been dating Pete, right?”

>   She nodded. “The neighbor told us. We interviewed Maggie and she didn’t deny it.”

  “Did you know that Pete was selling steroids to Charlie Preston and others?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think Maggie was in on it somehow.”

  Her face revealed nothing. “How’d you come to that conclusion?”

  “By following her.” I kept other things – like the background check Cal had done on Maggie – to myself.

  “That’s a lot of legwork.”

  “Uh-huh.” I couldn’t tell if she was impressed or not. Nor could I tell if she already knew the same things I did.

  “You know this for a fact?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “That’s what I was trying to figure out, and why I was talking to Maggie. I can’t prove any of it yet.”

  “And she didn’t admit to anything.”

  “No.”

  “Any idea who might’ve killed her?”

  “None,” I said truthfully. “Where was Charlie last night?”

  “He says he was at a friend’s house. I’ve got someone verifying his alibi.”

  “If it checks out, then you’ve got another murderer out there, someone who’s likely killed twice.” And if Charlie’s alibi didn’t clear him, did that mean he killed Maggie?

  Spillman glanced away for a second and then trained her gaze on me. “Be careful, Ferguson,” she finally said without telling me what she thought about my detective work, or if she had a suspect – other than Charlie – in mind. Then she stood up and eyed my bruised jaw again. “If this killer knows you’re poking around, you’re in danger, too.”

  “Thanks,” I said as she walked between tables and out to the sidewalk.

  I sat back and assessed my situation. I’d thought Maggie had killed Pete. Although that was still a possibility, I now had more questions than answers. Namely, who murdered Maggie? And why? I ran through last night’s conversation with her. She’d been scared of someone, even wondering if this guy might kill her. Did she know too much? Was she eliminated because she could identify him as Pete’s killer?

  Bogie’s voice sounded above the roar of a car driving by. I pulled out my cell phone. It was Charlie.

  “Reed!” he said breathlessly. “I just got through talking with the police!”