Long Shot: A John Rockne Mystery (John Rockne Mysteries Book 4)

by Dan Ames

  But those had been earlier in his life. Still, he’d realized that murder didn’t scare him. He always knew he would probably kill again, when the time was right and the opportunity was too good to pass up.

  So when the stars aligned and he realized that Colleen Fairbanks was going to have to be eliminated, he’d worked tirelessly to put together a plan.

  His endless and secret fascination with guns had paid off.

  Of course, he knew the best way to murder someone was to make it look like it wasn’t a murder at all. He’d learned that with his friend’s mom.

  But try as he did, he couldn’t come up with a way to do it. So the next best thing was to kill her and simply leave no evidence. Or, more accurately, only leave the evidence he wanted to leave.

  Now, as he sat in his den and studied the rifle on the wall, he thought about how excited he was to use it again.

  It would be soon.

  Very soon.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Timelines are essential. It’s like the five w’s of reporting. Who, what, where, why and when.

  So I knew who was murdered. I knew where. I knew when. The only one I didn’t know was why. Of course, if I knew why, the case would be solved.

  For now, I would have to focus on when and what the timeline might or might not mean.

  There was no doubt on when Nick had been murdered, so I decided to take a look at the exact time Colleen Fairbanks had been gunned down and see if that would tell me anything.

  A quick search confirmed what Ellen had told me, that Colleen Fairbanks had been murdered nearly six months earlier. Six months would have been a long time for Nick to have dealt with her murder, if he knew her, that is.

  If Nick had been involved with Colleen Fairbanks in some way, he would have certainly known about her death. For one thing, it had been in all of the newspapers and probably on the television news as well. So if he had an idea of who she was, there would have been plenty of opportunity for him to get wind of what had happened.

  Additionally, if he had been involved with Colleen Fairbanks, it stood to reason that he would have most likely done some investigating, or if nothing else, he would have talked to someone about it.

  But who?

  I had learned enough at this point to guess with a fair amount of confidence that it wouldn’t have been his wife. Not unless he wanted to have his ass handed to him. Or another few thousand dollars of catalog merchandise charged to his platinum American Express.

  One question was, if he was involved with Colleen Fairbanks and she was a venture capitalist or startup investor, would it have been a business relationship? In which case Nick’s partner ought to have known about it.

  I had delayed talking to him until now, wanting something more than just a bunch of questions that were little more than stabs in the dark.

  What I did know was that Nick and his business partner were at least friends on some level outside of the medical practice. After all, Nick’s partner had been on the boat when Nick had been murdered.

  It took me a minute to lock up the office, get into the car, and hop onto Cadieux Road headed toward the freeway. At the first spotlight I checked my rearview mirror and saw a black Chevy Impala behind me. Something triggered a flutter in my brain. Where had I seen that car before? And what was the deal with the face behind the steering wheel? It, too, looked familiar.

  The Impala followed me all the way to the freeway but when I turned onto the ramp to merge, I lost sight of the car. But not before I caught a quick glimpse of the face of the driver behind the wheel.

  It was a woman’s face. She had short, spiked blonde hair and wore sunglasses.

  Grosse Pointe was essentially a small town, so when I saw the woman’s face, I didn’t really give it another thought. Because here, if you didn’t know someone, you certainly knew someone who did. And even if you didn’t recognize a person right away, that didn’t mean that you had actually never met them. Because the odds were fairly good that you probably had bumped into them at some point, if you’d lived in Grosse Pointe long enough.

  So seeing vaguely familiar faces happened all the time. Especially with the constant number of parties going on every weekend, it seemed. Parents of fellow elementary students, sports parents, neighborhood block parties, the small cluster of bars and restaurants that everyone frequented. Plus, the one thing nearly all Grosse Pointers loved to do was drink.

  So I promptly filed the face of the spiky blonde-haired woman away, for now.

  But something about that face bothered me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Michigan Neurological Services had multiple offices but the main one was located at Harper Avenue and Fifteen Mile Road. The parking lot was crowded and there was a huge semi-trailer parked to the right of the modern, single story office building. There was a sign on the side of the trailer that read Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

  Really? An MRI in a semi-trailer?

  I shrugged my shoulders. I’d seen Nick Giordano’s house. He had made himself a pretty penny so I wasn’t about to become some kind of Judgey Judgerton.

  I parked, went inside and asked to see Dr. Claude Rieghels. The extremely attractive receptionist – think young Sophia Loren meets young Raquel Welch joined for a threesome by Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island - asked me if I had an appointment or wished to make one.

  I wasn’t really sure exactly what she said as I was still semi-lost in my ridiculous reverie. Eventually, though, her words got through to me.

  “No, I don’t have an appointment, but my name is John Rockne and I’m a member of Dr. Giordano’s family and I’m investigating his murder,” I answered. “So I do need to speak to Dr. Rieghels as it’s very important.”

  “Ok, let me see what I can do,” she answered.

  There was a stack of files to the left of the reception desk and I pretended to be intrigued by them while Sophia-Raquel-Mary Ann spoke to someone on the other end of the line.

  Moments later, a nurse appeared in the doorway to my right.

  “Sir? You can come with me, please.”

  With a quick thank you to Sophia-Raquel-Mary Ann I followed the nurse down the hallway to Dr. Rieghels’ office.

  “He’s with a patient but he will be able to see you in five or ten minutes.”

  After she left, I took a look around the doctor’s office. It was what you’d expect. There were pictures on the desk of a family. The wife was a trophy blonde, two strapping sons, one in a football uniform. And two framed diplomas. One from the University of Michigan. The other from Emory University in Atlanta.

  Color me impressed.

  The medical books on his bookshelf were also to be expected and I was slowly making my way through the titles when the door opened and Dr. Rieghels stepped inside.

  He was a short, barrel of a man with a bald head and a spring in his step. He wore a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck, tan slacks and loafers with tassels.

  “How can I help you?” he asked, in a tone of voice that actually made me believe he wanted to help.

  “John Rockne,” I said, sticking my hand out. “I’m married to Anna Giordano, Nick’s sister.”

  He smiled. “I think we met once, maybe at the office Christmas party.”

  See what I mean?

  “Obviously, I’m here to talk to you about Nick’s murder,” I said. “Had he done anything differently before his death? Noticed any changes with him? Anything unusual?”

  Rieghels shook his head. “No, not at all.” Rieghels rubbed his forehead. “Nick was a fantastic doctor and an even better person. I can’t believe this happened.”

  I waited for the doctor to regain his composure.

  “Does the name Colleen Fairbanks ring any bells?” I finally asked.

  He frowned and then shook his head again. “I don’t think so. The name I might have heard somewhere before but I can’t place it. But I’m positive I don’t know her. Why?”

  “Just a lead I’m following u
p on,” I answered. “How was Nick’s relationship at home?”

  I kind of already knew the answer, but I was curious to see how he would react.

  It was obvious that he had visibly tensed at the bluntness of the question.

  “Nick and I didn’t really get into our personal lives,” he said, which was a pretty even response. It was also an obvious lie. But not all lies are told with malicious intent. And I got the feeling that Rieghels was putting down some bullshit to protect his dead friend. Or his dead friend’s family.

  “But you did sail together sometimes,” I followed up, not wanting to totally let him off the hook.

  “Sure,” he admitted. “Once a month in the race but that was a new thing. We didn’t really know what the hell we were doing.” He smiled at the memory. I got the distinct feeling that he had really enjoyed Nick Giordano’s company.

  “So Nick hadn’t been sailing long, then?”

  Rieghels shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. All of my boating experience had been with boats that had motors. Big motors. I had no idea how sails worked, or how to tie them off. He usually put me in charge of cocktails.”

  A silence followed before I asked, “How is the business doing?”

  “Couldn’t be better. We’d recently expanded adding another office. But we had decided that was it,” he held up his hands as if to stop an avalanche. “We all work enough hours and any more expanding would mean that I would never be home at all. Just work around the clock. That isn’t worth it to me. It wasn’t worth it to Nick, either.”

  I thought that point might be open for debate, but I left it at that.

  “I talked to Nick’s son, Frederick,” I said. “He told me that he thought his Dad was actually working less. That he seemed to be doing a few more things outside of the office. Does that sound right?”

  Dr. Rieghels contemplated the question. “Possibly,” he said, rocking back and forth slightly in his chair. “But Nick was really the brains behind the whole practice. I know that he had cut back on seeing patients, but he did the bulk of the administrative work. Finding the buildings. Hiring other docs, managing payments and revenue. So I know he was in the office way less than he’d ever been, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he was working less, if you know what I mean.”

  It did make sense to me. As a small business owner myself, I understood the difference between doing the work and running the company.

  We talked a little more but I learned nothing of importance so I thanked Dr. Rieghels, left the office and got into the car.

  When I pulled onto Harper and headed for the freeway, I checked my rearview mirror.

  A black Impala was behind me, driven by a woman with spiked blonde hair.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Since Frederick was here in Detroit and Paul was in Chicago, I decided to take the easy way out and call the son closest to home, just in case I had to follow up in person.

  He answered right away and I asked him if he had ever heard of a woman named Colleen Fairbanks.

  “Doesn’t sound familiar,” he said. “Why?”

  “Just following up on a lead,” I answered. “Probably nothing.”

  “Do you think my Dad knew her?” he asked.

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “Would this have been before or after my Mom’s trip to Napa?”

  The first thing I considered was the timeline of when Nick may or may not have been involved with Colleen Fairbanks and immediately after that it struck me what his question meant.

  “That was a wine-tasting trip to Napa, right?” I asked, stalling for time as I tried to figure out a way to get more information.

  “Yeah, I guess,” he said, with little to no conviction.

  Before I could get another question in, he cut me off.

  “Look, I have to go, okay?” he said, his voice anxious. And I felt bad. I knew the kid, even though he was now a young man. He was a good guy and the last thing I’d meant to do was to badger him into revealing information he didn’t want to.

  But there was still a killer out there, and I had promised my wife I would do everything I possibly could to catch him.

  I tried to ask a follow-up question but I heard the sound of him disconnecting. My cell phone screen showed the call was over.

  That was weird, I thought.

  Why had Frederick seemed so agitated about the issue of Katie going out to Napa for some wine tasting? Hell, Anna and I had done that while we were engaged.

  The problem was, I hated wine.

  My memory of Napa was Anna getting pissed off every time I asked the winery people if they had any beer around.

  The bigger question, as I pondered Frederick’s response, was did I believe him about his Dad not knowing Colleen Fairbanks?

  Somewhere in my notes would be Dr. Claude Rieghels’ phone. I called him and left a voicemail inquiring whether or not he could check to see if Colleen Fairbanks had done any business with the medical practice.

  Something told me it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Back in my office, I popped open the fridge and helped myself to a bottle of Point beer. The memory of all that crappy wine in Napa had made me thirsty. In fact, why didn’t they call it Crappy Valley, because that wine was terrible.

  I’m kidding, of course. Sort of.

  Point beer, however, was the good stuff. It was my favorite beer, brewed in north central Wisconsin. The nearest place I could buy it was at a gourmet grocery store in Lansing, so I had to make the hour drive occasionally to stock up on my supply.

  I twisted off the cap and took a long drink. A coffee might have been a better idea but I figured I was closer to the cocktail hour and further away from the caffeine-cutoff hour to merit my choice.

  Besides, the beer tasted pretty damn good. As always.

  My cell phone rang and I saw Nate’s name in the display.

  “You must have some good news if you’re not waiting until our lunch to spring it on me,” I said into the phone.

  “Don’t know if it’s good or bad,” he answered. “Besides, as a reporter I don’t really believe in either. News is just news, John.”

  “Thank you, Professor Becker.”

  “What I can tell you is that Colleen Fairbanks was a very successful investor,” he said. I heard the sound of paper shuffling and could picture him digging through his notes at his desk. “She’d managed money for quite some time before branching out into the venture capital arena. And she did really well there.”

  I put down the beer and inspired by the sound of his notes, decided to start taking my own.

  “How well?” I asked, now armed with a pen and paper.

  “Well, she owned nearly twenty percent of an app that was developed by a think tank here in Michigan,” Nate said. “It had something to do with phone messaging, I’m not sure. Anyway, Microsoft bought it for nearly a billion dollars.”

  Math isn’t exactly my strong suit, but I let out a low whistle and said, “So she made close to a couple hundred million on the deal?”

  “Yep.”

  “Huh.”

  “But she’d had some hits and misses until she started doing well again, and more consistently,” he continued. “She had a string of ventures that nearly all paid out quite handsomely.”

  There was a wonderful edge in his voice and I knew it was the reason he called.

  “They all had to do with a single industry.”

  I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

  “Medical.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Point beer tasted so good I decided to double-check my judgment by having another.

  Nate’s information rattled around in my brain. Colleen Fairbanks was a venture capitalist recently specializing in medical investments.

  Nick Giordano was a highly-regarded neurologist with a successful practice who’d been spending less time in the office.<
br />
  It suddenly occurred to me to wonder if Nick had been a medical convention kind of guy. Weren’t doctors famous for jetting off to places like Vegas and the southern coast of France?

  Hell, I wouldn’t have blamed him. I’d only been to one law enforcement convention in my life, in Chicago and it had been a lot of fun. Way too much fun–

  I slammed the beer down on my desk and sat straight up in my chair.

  Holy shit.

  The blonde woman with spiked hair. The one who’d been following me in the black Impala on my trip out to see Dr. Rieghels.

  I knew who she was.

  It was difficult for me to believe, but it had to be true.

  She was a private investigator.

  Which meant that someone had hired her to keep tabs on me.

  I’m not going to lie, it chapped my ass big time. I didn’t appreciate it at all. I was a guy just trying to do his job and do it well. What motivation could anyone have to keep track of where I was going and what I was doing?

  Again, a pang of guilt came with the answer.

  Katie Giordano.

  She had been openly rude to me during my questioning. She clearly hadn’t been eager to help. And she had the means, i.e., plenty of money, to hire someone.

  Plus, it was pretty clear that she just didn’t like me and the idea that I was digging around in her husband’s murder case probably pissed her off even more.

  Or maybe my instant reaction was because I was fresh from my conversation with Frederick about the trip to Napa. Had he called her? Or was I just being paranoid?

  Maybe it wasn’t Katie at all. Maybe it was a former client of mine. Or maybe a criminal I had helped build a case against.

  But something told me I wasn’t being paranoid. That I was, in fact, correct.

  Well, goddamn it now I was riled up. It was time to talk to Katie again. And this time, I wouldn’t be so nice.

  Chapter Nineteen