“I figured as much,” he said when I was done. “After Wayne and I went our separate ways, I still kept in touch with some of the people we’d worked with in the past. As the months went by, I heard rumors that he wasn’t accepting new clients and that he was doing some extremely confidential, high-paying work and wouldn’t talk to anyone about it. Hell, you’ve seen his house, you know he was making cash. But ask around the PI industry a little, and you’ll hear a lot of rumors about him, almost none of which involve him being legitimate.”
“It looks like he was supplying blackmail material for Hubbard,” I said. “How’d he get involved with Belov, though? We don’t have a clue yet. And now we’ve got this ex-Marine working the same streets we are. It adds up to a lot of questions and not nearly as many answers.”
“You said Hartwick’s going around the neighborhood posing as a cop?” he said. “I wonder what the hell that’s about. If Wayne got involved with Belov’s crew, it’s a safe bet that Hartwick led him there. But what’s Hartwick doing cruising the neighborhood and asking questions?”
“Could be trying to do exactly what we are,” I suggested. “Maybe he’s trying to determine what happened to Weston and his family.”
Kinkaid made a face. “Possible, I guess. But with a guy like Hartwick, I’d be more inclined to believe there’s money involved. And if there is, you can bet he’s out to get it.”
“You think the guy’s stupid enough to try to rip off the Russian mob?”
Kinkaid smiled grimly. “Stupid enough to do it? Randy Hartwick would jump at the chance, Mr. Perry. It would offer a challenge he just couldn’t refuse. Hartwick thinks he’s the toughest, most dangerous guy there is. And he definitely believes he’s the smartest.”
“So what’s he trying to do?”
“I don’t know,” Kinkaid said. “But you’ve got his phone number, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, why don’t we call and ask him?”
Joe looked at me and shrugged. “Why not?” he said. “If he doesn’t answer, or if he hangs up on you, we’ll go from there. But if he’s willing to talk, it could save us a hell of a lot of effort.”
“All right.” I grabbed the phone and dialed the number the Golden Breakers clerk had given me. On the third ring, a male voice with a hard edge answered: “Hartwick.”
“Mr. Hartwick,” I said, “my name’s Lincoln Perry.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m an investigator working for John Weston. My partner and I were hoping to ask you a few questions about your relationship with John’s son.”
For a few seconds all I could hear was his breathing. “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said, and his voice had a measure of caution now.
“You still driving that green Olds?” I asked.
There was another brief silence. “You’re the guys from the Taurus,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“You said you’re working for John?” When I acknowledged that was true, he said, “All right, we can talk.”
“Think you could stop by our office this afternoon? I can give you directions. It isn’t hard to find.”
“No way,” he said. “Don’t take this personally, but I’d kind of prefer to call the shots here until I know what I’m getting into.” He paused, considering the options. “Where are you guys?”
I told him.
“All right, here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “I’m going to take a little drive around, see if I can pick out a meeting place I’m comfortable with. When I find one, I’ll call you back, and you can come meet me.”
“That works,” I said, thinking about Kinkaid’s description of Hartwick as the most dangerous man he’d ever met. We could be walking into a trap, but at least we’d be somewhat prepared. I was glad Kinkaid had decided to make the trip to Cleveland. If he hadn’t, Joe and I would have approached Hartwick with our usual caution—but with a man like that, the usual caution might not have been enough. I gave him the office phone number and hung up. Joe and Kinkaid looked at me expectantly.
“He’ll meet with us, but only on his terms. He said he’s going to pick out a meeting spot and call us back, then we’ll go down to see him.”
“Shit.” Kinkaid frowned and shook his head emphatically. “I don’t like that, man. That sounds like a setup to me. He’s got too much control in that scenario.”
I turned to Joe. He was expressionless, listening to Kinkaid’s warning but not reacting.
“Well, grandpa?” I said.
“This Hartwick guy sounds like he could hold a lot of answers,” Joe said. “If this is the only way he’ll talk to us, then that’s what we’ll have to do. There’s only one of him, and there’s three of us. We should be all right.”
“You’re thinking we split up?” Kinkaid asked. “Keep someone out on the perimeter in case anything goes wrong?”
“I’m not expecting anything to go wrong,” Joe answered, “but that’s not such a bad idea. No matter what, I don’t think you should be with us during the meeting.”
“What? Oh, come on!” Kinkaid leaned forward and slapped the top of the desk with one hand. “That’s bullshit, Pritchard. You want my help or not? I know this guy better than you do. I need to be there when you’re asking him questions.”
Joe shook his head. “No, you don’t. I know you’re more experienced with Hartwick, but that isn’t necessarily a helpful thing. If he sees you, he might be more guarded than he would be with just Lincoln and me. He probably assumes you know some of his background, and that might hurt us more than it would help us. As it is now, you’re the ace up our sleeve. Let’s not throw you on the table just yet.”
Kinkaid pursed his lips and exhaled heavily, his face forming an angry pout, like a child trying unsuccessfully to whistle.
“Joe’s right,” I said. “Right now Hartwick thinks we’re clueless. And, while we don’t know much, what we do know is thanks to you. The longer we can keep him off balance, keep him feeling smart and in control, the better chance we have of figuring out what he’s doing here.”
I almost believed what I was saying. In some aspects, it was true, but it wasn’t the real reason I wanted Kinkaid kept out of the meeting. He’d been honest with us so far, and I had to give him credit for that, but I wasn’t used to working with him. Joe and I had interviewed hundreds of people together, we knew how to work as a team, and I didn’t want Kinkaid’s presence disrupting that. And I had no idea how he’d perform under fire if something did go wrong. If Hartwick was setting us up, Kinkaid could be a liability.
“You mind if I smoke in your office?” Kinkaid asked about ten minutes later, breaking what had become a fairly long silence as we waited to hear from Hartwick again.
“Prefer you didn’t,” Joe said. “I can’t stand the stench of stale smoke, and it’s too cold to open the windows.”
“No sweat. I’ll step outside for a few minutes.”
He left, and I turned to Joe, thankful for the opportunity to discuss things without Kinkaid in the room. “What do you think of him?”
“Kinkaid?” He shrugged. “He lied to me once, and he tried to hit it with his partner’s wife. Makes him an asshole, right? But his desire to help us out now seems legitimate, and, love him or hate him, you have to admit he can be useful to us. He knows Weston, and he’s already been helpful with Hartwick. I say we let him string along with us for a while. This case is heavy already, and there’s no harm in having a little help with it.”
“That’s about how I feel,” I said. “His track record seems a little suspect, but if he can help us, I don’t give a damn who he wants to sleep with. If we can find Julie Weston, he can have her.”
“You’re sticking with the idea that she and the girl are alive.”
“Got to stick with it. The other option is too depressing.”
CHAPTER 11
AFTER PARTING ways with Wayne Weston, Aaron Kinkaid had moved to Sandusky to work as the chief investigator for an estab
lished security company. A few years later he’d become part owner, and now he ran business operations alone, with a silent partner. He told us this as we sat in the office, waiting impatiently for Hartwick to call.
“How’d you end up in the business to begin with?” Joe asked. “You weren’t a cop?”
“No, I was never a cop.” Kinkaid gave a sheepish grin. “I know how pathetic this sounds, but, to be honest, I liked the way it looked in the movies. You know, Bogart as Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe? Or Nicholson in Chinatown? Man, I ate that stuff up when I was younger. I was in college, studying business marketing, anticipating a life of hyping paint thinner to hardware stores or some crap like that, but at night I’d go home and watch those old movies on TV and think about how much I’d like to have that job. The constant change intrigued me, the idea that a mysterious client could walk into your office any day and put you in the middle of something . . .” The words died off as Kinkaid stared at the wall, lost in his memories. He shook his head, bringing himself back into reality.
“Funny,” he said, “I went into the business for the intrigue, and now I’m running a security company, dealing more with marketing ploys and bottom-line figures than I am with investigation. I basically ended up doing the same thing I set out to avoid.”
“It works like that sometimes,” I said, and Joe looked at me with an understanding Kinkaid couldn’t share. After being forced to leave the department, I’d attempted to leave all the remains of my old life behind with the badge. I’d cut ties with almost everyone on the force, and I’d purchased the gym and plunged into work as a small business owner. It had been several months before Amy had convinced me to look into the murder of one of my gym patrons and pushed me back into the life I’d tried to abandon. Somewhere along the line, I’d realized what a mistake I’d made. I couldn’t be happy in the business world. I fed off the investigative process, off the questions and the answers, the unknowns and the facts. I fed off the pursuit of truth. It was what made me complete, what gave my life purpose. I wouldn’t try to leave it behind again.
“I remember Bogart as Spade,” Joe said, breaking in on my thoughts. “I was a kid when I saw it, and I’ve got plenty of years on either of you. Hell of an old movie. Who wrote the book?”
“Dashiell Hammett,” Kinkaid and I said in unison, and then all of us laughed.
“What was it about that story that grabbed people so much?” I wondered aloud. “I mean, yeah, the movie was well done, and Bogart was a phenomenal actor, but what about the story itself? How’d that one endure so well? Hell, the book’s still in print after seventy years.”
“It’s all in the ending,” Kinkaid said. “The idea that Spade’s loyalty to his partner means more to him than money or love. He didn’t like his partner much—he’s even sleeping with the guy’s wife—but he’s still got that loyalty . . .”
He stopped talking abruptly, his mouth still half open, as we all realized what he was saying. Joe and I looked away, and for the first time since he’d entered the office, Kinkaid seemed unsure of himself. I knew why. Kinkaid wasn’t in this case because of loyalty to his partner. He was in the case because he still loved Weston’s wife. If anything, he viewed Weston’s death as an opportunity.
“So,” he said awkwardly, then laughed at himself. He was spared further comment by the ring of the phone. Joe picked it up.
“Pritchard and Perry. Yeah, this is Joe Pritchard. You talked to Lincoln before, he’s my partner. You need to hear the comfort of his voice this time, or can we handle this? Uh-huh. Right.”
Unlike the clerk at the Golden Breakers, this caller spoke in a soft voice, so Kinkaid and I could only hear one side of the conversation, but it clearly was Hartwick. We waited. Joe said a few more words, but nothing that suggested what was being discussed, and then hung up.
“He’ll meet with us,” he said. “But it’s a hell of a place he picked out.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“Just down the avenue. You know the little cluster of picnic tables behind the take-out Chinese place?”
I took a moment to place the scene in my mind and then nodded. “I can picture it.”
“That’s where he wants to meet. Seems like a strange choice.”
I shook my head. “Makes good sense, actually.”
“How do you figure?”
“Think about it, Joe. If you’re sitting at one of those picnic tables, you’ve got a clear view of everything in front of you and on either side, and the cemetery fence protects your back. There are three parking lots bordering that Chinese place. If he has his car up there, he could get out in a hurry, make a right turn onto the side street and head for Chatfield, pull out on the avenue and head in either direction, or even cut all the way through the Ford dealership parking lot.”
“I’ve already figured that out,” he said. “That’s why it’s a good choice for someone afraid of being set up. But I thought we were playing that role?”
It was a good point. I’d automatically considered the location from the perspective of someone looking to avoid danger. If I were looking to cause it, the location wasn’t so good after all. There was too much open space, and visibility was too good.
“Well,” I said, “we shouldn’t be too disappointed at his selection, then. It indicates he’s not planning to kill us.”
“Yet,” Kinkaid said.
Joe grimaced. “You’re a real optimist, aren’t you?”
He frowned. “In general, yeah, I am. But as I said before, I know Hartwick better than you. If he’s involved in something dirty—and chances are he is—then he’ll be looking to eliminate any threat. As far as I can tell, that’s what you two are going to be to him.”
“It was your idea to call him.”
“I know. It wasn’t my idea to be kept out of the meeting, though. And I’m not about to let you two wander over there alone.”
“We’ve been over this,” Joe began, but Kinkaid held his hand up and interrupted.
“I understand you don’t want him to see me, and even though I don’t like that, I’ll go along with it. I’m just saying you’re going to need some backup with this guy. Now, is there anyplace I can sit with a good look at the scene?”
“Nowhere close,” Joe said. “That’s why this was a good choice for him, if he’s afraid of us. If you’re nearby he’s going to see you.”
“It’s getting pretty dark.”
“Come on, Kinkaid. The guy was a special ops soldier. This is what he’s trained for. I suppose you could hang out across the street, but even that’s a gamble.”
“The cemetery,” I said. “That’s where we can put him. Cemetery access isn’t from the avenue, but once he gets inside he can work his way up to right behind us.”
“That fence is six feet tall,” Joe objected. “It will block his vision.”
“It’s a chain-link fence, so it won’t be that much of a problem. But I wouldn’t have him up close to it anyhow. We’re not wanting him to be right on top of us, we’re wanting him to have a clear line of sight to watch for an approaching threat, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. On the other side of the fence, the cemetery’s built on a hill. It’s a pretty gradual slope, but if he got up at the top of it he could see us clearly, as well as the rest of the parking lot.”
Kinkaid’s head was oscillating back and forth between Joe and me like a fan, listening to the debate. Joe considered it all, then gave me a nod.
“Top of the hill is the best option. He’s going to be fairly far away, but he’ll be able to see clearly, and that’s the most important thing. And it will be easier for him to get up there undetected than it would be to keep him on the other side of the street or hidden in the parking lot.”
“That’s the nice thing about Hartwick being an out-of-towner,” I said. “He’s got to handle this on the fly. We already know the terrain.”
“Right.” Joe looked at his watch. “And we’ve got to be moving. He said he
’s down there now, and he expects to see us soon.” He looked at Kinkaid. “You have a gun and a cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“Good. If you see anything you don’t like, call my phone, let it ring once, and hang up. If Lincoln and I hear that, we’ll clear out fast. If anything starts to go down, call the cops.”
Joe gave Kinkaid his cell phone number and told him how to get inside the cemetery. I opened my desk drawer and withdrew my Glock nine-millimeter. I checked the clip, then chambered a round so I’d be ready to fire instantly. I fastened my holster onto my belt, up against my spine, and then put the gun in it. My heartbeat had picked up a little, my senses heightening. I was ready to go.
Kinkaid left, and Joe and I waited a few minutes to give him time to get inside the cemetery. Outside the sky was darkening quickly, the shadows deepening along the window. Joe checked the Smith & Wesson he kept in his shoulder holster, then replaced it, leaving the buckle open.
“How do you feel?” he said.
“Couldn’t be better. You?”
He was calm, but there was a new tension to his posture. “I don’t know, LP. Something doesn’t feel good about this guy.”
“It’s just Kinkaid,” I said. “All that talk about how dangerous Hartwick is went to your head.”
“Sure.” He got to his feet and pulled his jacket on, leaving the zipper halfway down so he could reach for the gun easily. “Let’s roll.”
We took Joe’s Taurus. The Chinese restaurant was only a half mile from the office. Amy and I occasionally picked up carryout there. Not bad food, but a little heavy on the garlic. Fabulous wonton soup, though. Traffic was still quite thick with the lingering hangover from rush hour. Joe drove while I rode with my eyes on the street. Just like we’d done it thousands of times before. Only now we didn’t have the badges, and there was no dispatcher waiting to send us backup.
Joe pulled into the restaurant parking lot and stopped the car. A Dumpster stood in the corner of the lot alongside the cemetery fence. To the right was another wide expanse of parking lot, this stretch belonging to a drugstore. To the left was a Ford dealership with bright lighting and rows of shiny cars. There were five round picnic tables at the rear of the Chinese restaurant lot. In the summer there would be umbrellas over them, but now they were empty. A lone man sat at one of them, his back to the drugstore parking lot instead of to the cemetery fence as I’d expected. The green Oldsmobile was parked in front of his table, pointed toward the Ford dealership.
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