Tonight I Said Goodbye lp-1

by Michael Koryta

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “You know the case interests you, and our plate isn’t exactly full of other projects.”

  He grunted but didn’t say anything, gazing around the office as if seeking support from the furniture. Our little office is on the city’s west side, on the second floor of an old stone bank building. It has hardwood floors badly in need of a polish, two desks, a small bathroom and secondary office, and freshly painted walls that look frighteningly bright in the old building. My contribution to the office furniture sits across from our desks: a set of four wooden seats from the old Cleveland Stadium. The stadium had been torn down in the early nineties, and they’d auctioned off some of the memorabilia. I’d purchased the chairs and had them refinished, and I thought they looked pretty decent, if slightly out of place. Joe referred to the seats by various vulgar names and refused to sit in them. It was hard to believe he was an Indians fan. No sense of nostalgia.

  “Well, I told Weston we’re in it now,” I said, “so let’s not hassle over whether we should have taken the case. Let’s figure out how we’re going to get started.”

  “We could get started by grabbing a sandwich,” Joe said. “I’m starving.” Joe eats with a ravenous appetite, but he also drinks almost nothing but water and runs several miles each day, so he’s still trim and fit even in his fifties.

  “I haven’t paid very close attention to the case,” I said, ignoring him, “so we probably ought to review the newspaper articles before we make any calls down to CPD. Hate to look uninformed, you know.”

  “You’re looking for an excuse to drag Lois Lane into it,” he said with a sigh. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.”

  I grinned. “I’m sure Amy will be happy to assist in any way possible.”

  “Fabulous,” he said. “I’ll tell you what: How about you track down the background information while I go get something to eat? Then, when I come back, you can give me a concise briefing and I’ll be able to focus without being distracted by my growling stomach.” He pushed away from the desk.

  “That’s fine,” I said as he opened the door to leave. “I’m expecting to do most of the work around here. You old guys don’t have the stamina to keep up.”

  Amy Ambrose agreed to come by on her lunch hour with all the relevant articles. Around noon she stepped through the door, wrinkling her nose.

  “Your stairwell reeks. The winos taken to sleeping there again?”

  “Hello to you, too.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She shrugged off her coat and flopped onto one of the stadium seats. She looked good, as she always did. Her hair was a little longer than it had been when we first met in the summer, but it was the same dark blond and had the same soft curl. Amy was a reporter for the Cleveland Daily Journal and in the summer she’d been assigned to cover a murder investigation. The murder victim had been a patron at my gym, and Amy showed up at my door looking for information. With my usual charm, I’d told her to go to hell. A day later she was back, with more information about the case and about me than most reporters could turn up overnight. She’d won my respect, my assistance, and, soon, my friendship. She was outspoken and brazen and cocky, but she was also completely her own person, and she was genuine. We were drawn together because of that—two self-reliant loners who trusted only our own judgment and ability when under pressure. Outside of Joe, she was my closest friend, and while I told people I thought of her as a sister, a small part of my mind recognized that my breath didn’t catch in my chest when I saw my real sister the way it could when I saw Amy.

  “So you and Pritchard think you can accomplish what dozens of cops and a few FBI agents haven’t been able to, eh?” Amy said.

  “We’re not that cocky,” I said. “I figure it may take us two, maybe three days.”

  She smiled. “Sure. Well, it looks like you’ve got your hands full. I read through most of this stuff before I came over, and if the cops have any worthwhile leads they aren’t sharing them with the media, that’s for sure.”

  “You’re not working on the story?”

  “No, they gave it to another reporter, a guy named Steve. He’s a good writer, but I don’t know if he has much of a nose for investigative work.” She spotted a minute wrinkle on her pants and frowned at it, then tried to smooth it with the palm of her hand. It’s the little things that bother Amy. She’s indifferent to the striking resemblance the backseat of her car holds to a landfill, but she can’t stand wrinkles.

  “Did you get me some background information?” I asked.

  “Here’s everything Steve’s written about the case,” she said, passing me a stack of printouts. “That’s all I could get.”

  I read through them. Plenty of articles for just a five-day span, but none of them said much more than I already knew. Weston’s body had been discovered Wednesday morning by his cleaning lady. He’d died from a single gunshot wound to the right temple, a wound determined to be self-inflicted. The gun, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, was still in his right hand when the body was discovered. It was registered in his name. The police had been summoned, and they spent the rest of the day trying unsuccessfully to locate Weston’s wife and daughter. By Wednesday evening, the police had put out a missing persons report. There was no evidence to suggest kidnapping, which would have made it an FBI case, but a few agents from the Cleveland office were “assisting” CPD. The article revealed some suspicion among neighbors and acquaintances that the incident had something to do with a case Weston had been working on, but the police hadn’t supported that theory. It was likely nothing more than curiosity and intrigue associated with the PI business. The police searched Weston’s office and home and were “actively pursuing leads,” but the detective in charge of the case, Rick Swanders, said they had no justifiable suspicion that the wife and daughter had been targeted by anyone Weston had investigated.

  “Well,” I said when I was finished, “I haven’t cracked the case yet. I suppose I’ll actually have to conduct an interview or two.”

  “I was expecting you to piece it out from the articles,” Amy said with mock disappointment. “This is a real letdown.”

  “Any chance your buddy Steve knows details he isn’t sharing with his readers?”

  “There’s a chance, but I wouldn’t put much hope into it. You know how closemouthed cops are at the start of an investigation like this. Unless he’s developed a great source, I doubt he’s heard much more than you just read.”

  I nodded. It had been a while since I’d left the force, but not so long that I’d forgotten the well-founded distrust most cops held for the media.

  “So where do you go from here?” Amy asked.

  “When Joe gets back, we’ll go over to see Weston’s father. We’ll interview him for details about his son and try to get a feel for what his life had been like in recent months. Then we’ll talk to the police and see how much cooperation we can expect to get from them. Once that’s been taken care of, I imagine we’ll focus on his business, learn as much as possible about his recent cases, and determine if there’s anyone he’s really pissed off.”

  She nodded. “You think he was murdered?”

  “From everything I’ve heard or read, no, I don’t think he was murdered. I think he killed himself. But the father wants us to prove otherwise, so I’m going to have to go into the case thinking he didn’t commit suicide. Besides, if his family’s alive, then it’s much more likely he was murdered. So until somebody can prove they’re dead, I’ll pretend the police are looking in the wrong direction.”

  “You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

  “I’m not. I’ve got a bad feeling we’re going to take the father’s money so we can stick our noses in this mess, and then the cops will hold a press conference a week or two from now and announce that they found the bodies of the wife and daughter where Weston dumped them. I hope that’s not true, but it’s hard not to think about it.”

  “So why take the case?”

  “If someone wa
nts me to investigate something as bad as this old man does,” I said, “I’m damn well going to give it a try.”

  She ran the tip of her tongue across her lips and frowned. “I can’t help wondering about it myself, just because of the line of work he’s in. The nature of the business makes the whole thing seem a little more sordid, doesn’t it?”

  “A bit.” I leaned back and put my feet up on the desk.

  “So,” she said, changing the subject, “how’s Angela?”

  “Why do you say her name like that?” I asked. “Like you’re laughing at me?”

  She raised her eyebrows and tried to look innocent. “Laughing at you? Not at all. Don’t be so defensive. Now, what’s the deal with you two?”

  “Angela and I have gone our separate ways.”

  “Really? I’m sorry,” she said, but I could tell she wasn’t at all. “Might I ask why?”

  “We were very different people,” I mumbled. “She was, ah, a bit—”

  “Of a ditz,” Amy interjected.

  I frowned. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “Oops.” She grinned. “My mistake.”

  “She wasn’t a ditz,” I said. “And you only met her once, so you’re hardly one to judge.”

  “Once was enough, Lincoln.”

  “And how’s your love life? Your sexy news-anchor boyfriend, Mr. Jacob Terry?” I said, dropping my voice to a deep baritone.

  “We’re fine.”

  I smiled. “What is it that most attracts you to him? The romantic musk of his cologne, or the gallon of hair oil he uses to shellac that striking mane into place for a windy live report?”

  “Jealous,” she said, “that’s what you are.”

  “Almost uncontrollably,” I said with a nod. “It’s hard to sleep at night.”

  “Joke if you want to, Lincoln, but I know the real reason you and Angela didn’t work out. You can’t stop thinking about me.”

  I pointed at the door. “Hit the road, Ace. I’ve got work to do.”

  She smiled and got to her feet. “So do I. But I expect a phone call in the next few days to let me know what you’ve found out.”

  “I’ll call.”

  Joe returned half an hour later, and we left to visit John Weston. While he drove I filled him in on what I’d learned from the articles, which was basically nothing.

  “I hope this old man’s not as loud and fiery as you say,” he told me. “I don’t deal well with those types.”

  “You mean your peers?”

  “Silence, boy.”

  Weston greeted us at the door in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He shook Joe’s hand when I introduced them.

  “I sure as hell hope you don’t drag your feet like your partner,” Weston said to him. Fond of me already.

  “Neither of us will do any foot-dragging once we’ve agreed to take the case,” Joe said. “But he’s the one who had to talk me into it, sir. Not the other way around.”

  “I don’t give a damn about that anymore. Just get started.”

  He led us into the living room. I quickly headed for the recliner on the far wall, leaving Joe to struggle with the torture chair.

  Weston returned to his position on the couch and held up a notebook. “I’ve been working on this since you left yesterday,” he said, nodding at me. “I’ve written down as much information about Wayne as I could think of. I tried to keep it focused on the recent stuff, of course, but I gave you some background, too. I figured it might all be useful.”

  I looked at Joe, and I could tell he was seeing what I already knew. John Weston might be grieving, and he might be temperamental, but his focus was on resolving this investigation. In many situations it’s hard to get the victim’s family to put aside their emotions long enough to provide information. That wasn’t going to be a problem here.

  “Go on, take a look and see if there’s anything I left out,” Weston said, waving the notebook at me.

  I took it, and I was impressed. He’d filled nearly twenty pages with neat, precise printing, all capital letters. Each category had a title, such as “Business History,” “Acquaintances,” and so on. He’d even taped photographs on some of the pages, complete with captions identifying those pictured. It was exactly the type of report Joe and I had been hoping to put together ourselves after this interview.

  “It’s very thorough,” I said. “We appreciate this, Mr. Weston. This is the type of information we need to have available if we’re going to get off to a fast start on the case.”

  He lit a fresh cigarette. “I figured that. The cops have already asked me about most of it, so I knew what you’d probably be looking for. I figured I’d save some time by putting it together for you.”

  I stopped turning pages when I saw a photograph of Wayne Weston in uniform.

  “Your son was in the military?”

  “That’s right. Eight years in the Marines. He was Force Recon,” Weston announced proudly. I knew the reason for that pride; Force Recon was the elite special operations unit of the Marine Corps, that branch’s equivalent to the Army’s Green Berets and the Navy’s SEALs.

  “How old was he when he mustered out of the Corps?”

  “Twenty-eight. He left the Marines and came back here, then signed up with the Pinkerton outfit. He thought the investigation business sounded interesting, and they weren’t going to turn down a Recon vet, that’s for damn sure,” Weston said. “He stayed with them for several years, and then he met Julie and got married. The Pinkertons had him doing a good bit of traveling, so he decided to cut out on his own.”

  “How long was he working independently?” I asked.

  “Nine years,” Weston said without pausing to think about it. “Making a hell of a good living at it, too. Beautiful house, fancy cars for both him and Julie, the works.” Beyond the haze of cigarette smoke, Weston’s brown eyes were somber.

  “You told me you weren’t aware of any sort of problem,” I said. “No family quarrels, no financial problems, nothing of that nature.”

  “That’s right. I talked to him at least once a week, and everything seemed to be fine. Well, almost fine. He’d seemed a little more serious in the past few months, you know, a little less quick with the jokes.” He puffed on his cigarette and then shrugged. “It was probably just the winter getting him down, though. You know how these damned Cleveland winters can wear at you.”

  “Did he ever mention any business concerns?” Joe asked. “A tough case, tough client, anything like that?”

  “Nope, not a thing.” He said it uneasily—not like he was lying, but like it made him uncomfortable not to have something to blame.

  “He worked alone?”

  “Yes.” Weston held up a finger and launched into a coughing fit that sounded like a sputtering diesel engine. He got it under control, swore, took a hearty pull on the cigarette, and returned to talking. “Early on he had a partner, but then that guy moved to Sandusky, and Wayne went back to being alone. I guess he had a—well, what would you call it—a research assistant, I suppose? Some graduate student he’d ask for help with research occasionally, when he was really swamped.”

  “Do you know his name?” Joe asked.

  “Her name,” Weston said. “Her name’s April Sortigan. I put it in the notebook.”

  I stopped flipping through the notes and stared at the photographs Weston had included of his daughter-in-law, Julie, and his granddaughter, Elizabeth. I’d seen pictures of them on the news and in the papers, but those had been headshots, and John Weston had included snapshots of the two at various family activities. Julie Weston was beautiful, with dark, Italian features, the kind of body men dream about, and a smile so bright and genuine it made me want to look away from the picture.

  Elizabeth Weston was a miniature copy of her mother. She had the same dark skin, hair, and eyes, and, if anything, the smile was more radiant. In one picture she was wearing a light blue dress and holding a bouquet of flowers, and she appeared to be laughing at something the phot
ographer had said. John Weston’s caption declared the picture to have been taken the past Easter. In another picture, Elizabeth was wearing a party hat and holding a hot dog, with a slight smear of ketchup beside that smile. John Weston had written “Fifth Birthday, August” beneath the photograph. I closed the notebook, wishing he had given us less-personal pictures, something closer to the cold, unsmiling mug shot cops are used to seeing.

  We kept at him for a while, but it was too early in the case for precise questions, and the general background information awaited us in the notebook.

  “We’ll be in touch every few days,” Joe promised as we left. “When we develop some leads, we’ll probably call back with more questions, too.”

  “Fine,” Weston said, standing at the door. “You do whatever it takes. I’m not worried about the money. I just want to prove my boy was murdered and find my granddaughter and her mother.”

  Joe worked his jaw back and forth slightly, looking away, out at the flagpole in the center of the lawn.

  “Sir,” he said, “we’re going to do the best we can to get to the truth. But I want you to know, if after a little work it seems the truth is that your son committed suicide, we’re not going to lead you on and play games with you. We’ll tell you that appears to be the truth, and then we’ll end our investigation.”

  Weston tightened his hand on the doorknob. “I appreciate a man who’s not prone to bullshit,” he said. “But I’ve been around for a lot of years, fella, and I’m no damn fool. If you two are any good, you’ll find my boy was murdered. I’d stake my life on it.”

  Looking into his eyes then, I thought maybe he already had.

  CHAPTER 3

  JOE LEANED back, the old office chair creaking, and arced a paper wad up and over his feet, which were resting on the desk. The paper dropped into the wastebasket, adding to an already sizable pile.

  “Best moment in baseball history,” he said. “You first.”

  I fired a paper wad into the wastebasket and thought about it. “Bill Mazeroski hitting that home run in Game Seven of the World Series to beat the Yankees. For pure flair and showmanship, though, you can’t top Ruth calling his shot and then hitting one out.”