Simone looked hard at the photo. Caroline and The Blonde were smiling, as though they’d just shared a private joke. Simone had smiled like that with Caroline.
She closed the photo on her touchdesk screen, her hands numb and barely aware of what they were doing. She stood, not sure what was happening for a moment, her mind blank, and then walked to bed, stripped off her clothes, and went to sleep.
THE NEXT MORNING, BEFORE she had time to think about anything, Simone went to get a cup of coffee and heard whistling from her waiting room. She peeked her head out. There was a man there. Had she forgotten to lock the outer door? He was sitting patiently in the chair in front of her non-receptionist’s table, reading the paper. He looked up, wicked grin on his face, when she came into the room. She was wearing a worn set of sweatpants and a tank top, and her hair was a mess. He was perfectly put together in a white shirt, gold tie, and gray herringbone suit that still glistened like diamonds where the waves had hit the hem. He was around her age, maybe a little older, with perfectly parted hair that grayed at the temples and a straight-edged smile. He had the good looks of a movie star, and the acting skills not to call too much attention to it.
“Dash Ormond,” she said.
“You know, I’ve never been in your office before,” he said, looking around as though he hadn’t just cased the place while she was sleeping. “It’s cute.”
She went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee and one for him, which she set in front of him.
“You’ve never been here before because you’re where I send the jobs I don’t want,” she said, coolly.
“Oh, now let’s play nice,” he said. “We’re not rivals. We’re . . . contemporaries.”
“Then shouldn’t we be writing each other letters and discussing the philosophy of private investigation?”
“I’d love to. Though I fear mine would be a short letter. You see, my philosophy is simple: Get paid.”
She sat down behind the reception desk and took a sip of the coffee. She didn’t entirely dislike Dash. He had a good reputation, though he was perhaps willing to go a little further than Simone. He usually specialized in “retrieval,” which meant finding out who had stolen something and getting it back. Those sorts of clients had reasons for not going to the police, and Simone usually didn’t deal with them. She had heard rumors about Dash—that he could torture you, smiling the whole time, until you told him where you’d hidden whatever it was he was looking for—but he had always been polite to her, and she to him, and she didn’t know if the rumors were true. He was hard to read. There had been several cases of his that ended in dead bodies—whether he or his employer was responsible, Simone never knew.
Sometimes, if they found themselves staking out the same hotel bar, they’d send each other drinks. He had magnetism, there was no denying that. Even here in her office, the way he crossed his legs had a distinctly sensual elegance: part wild animal, part fine tailoring. He was a good flirt, too, but Simone was smart enough to never let it go further than that.
“What can I do for you, Dash?”
“You can help me find Linnea St. Michel.”
Simone took another long sip of coffee to cover the frown she was trying to hide, then tried to force a disdainful smile.
“Don’t know where she is, Dash. Sorry. But feel free to finish the coffee.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, Simone. We can help each other out. My client wants something from Ms. St. Michel. You, I assume, want to get paid. We find her together, we both get what we want. It’s a beautiful thing.”
“Who’s your client?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“What do they want with Linnea?”
He shrugged slowly. “C’mon, Red, make a handsome man happy.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Fair enough. But think quick. I’ll be looking for her myself, and if I find her without you, then it’ll be you coming to my office. And I don’t wear pajamas.”
“What do you wear?”
He smiled and eased out of the chair.
“Nothing, of course.”
“I thought you were trying to discourage me.”
She raised her eyebrow and sipped her coffee, keeping her eyes on his. He grinned.
“Your teasing wounds my heart,” he said, and tapped himself on the chest. He took a card from his inside pocket and laid it on the desk in front of her. “In case you’ve lost my number. Call anytime. Day or night. I’ll be looking forward to hearing your voice.”
“I’ll bet.”
He winked, plucking his fedora from the coatrack and donning it, left the office, hands in his pockets, probably aware that he looked like a dancer doing it. She thought she could hear him whistling down the hallway. Simone let herself smile a bit more before heading into her office. She sat down at her touchdesk, booted it up, and looked at the photo again. Danny had sent over a few more during the night: Caroline and The Blonde smiling, Caroline and The Blonde laughing, Caroline handing The Blonde a small envelope, which she put in her purse without opening. Simone pulled up Danny’s message from last night and wrote back, “Where was this photo taken?”
She knew she was stuck in this now. Even if Dash hadn’t shown up, she had to find out what was going on. One of her few friends was involved, and someone was dead. That meant Caroline could be the next victim. Or, said the tiny voice in the back of her mind, a killer. Maybe. Maybe Caroline and The Blonde’s meeting had nothing to do with anything. But she had to know. And she couldn’t ask Caroline, because if she lied, it would be like being out at sea without a piece of driftwood to float on. Until she drowned. Until Caroline pushed her under.
People lied, people cheated, people were never what they seemed, never simple, and rarely good. These were things her father had taught her every day. Why had she forgotten when it came to Caroline?
The response came back almost immediately, since Danny was always hooked to his messaging: “Outside the Four Seasons. I was going through the security camera footage from a pho shop across the bridge to check if a certain someone met a certain someone else there, and I stumbled on your girl. I zoomed in for you and cleaned it up. But this is great, right? Now you can just ask Caroline who she is.”
Simone smiled at his innocence.
“No,” she wrote back, “I can’t. And neither can you. I need to find out what her involvement with all this is before I confront her with anything. If she’s part of this in some way, I have to figure out exactly how. Otherwise, it could be a trap. She might want to use me to find my client or some other reason. So don’t you dare mention to her that we’ve seen this photo. I’m serious.”
Another response came back a moment later: “Anyone ever tell you you have trust issues?”
Simone lit a cigarette. She wouldn’t be responding. But now she felt fairly sure that The Blonde was staying at the Four Seasons and, more importantly, that she was meeting people there. Maybe clients? Was Caroline a client? Anika had said she was selling something—peddling bullshit. But what would Anika, Caroline, and Henry all be in the market for? And why would that lead to Henry’s death? He didn’t have whatever The Blonde was selling—not if she was still going around selling it.
Simone clenched her jaw and looked at the photos again, willing them to stop making her body feel creaking and slimy. Willing their significance away. She knew the staff of the Four Seasons well enough to know they were hard to crack. Their only security cameras were in the lobby, and she still didn’t know The Blonde’s name, so the best she could do would be to go to the front desk, present a photo, and ask what room she was in. And Simone knew that she would be shut down right then and asked to leave, and that The Blonde would be warned. Better to be less direct until she was desperate. She would stake the Four Seasons out and, if she was lucky, The Blonde would show up and maybe meet with some
one. Then Simone could start getting some information.
She stubbed out what was left of her cigarette, then showered and dressed, bought a newspage and a fresh pack of cigarettes on her way to the Four Seasons, and settled in. There was a café on a small boat just down the bridge from the hotel, so she sat there, and ordered a coffee. She read the news first swipe to last. She used the dicta feature on her earpiece to send out a few messages and listened to others—an automated job offer from a corporate espionage company, Henry St. Michel’s finances from Danny, and then, curiously, a message from Pastor Sorenson: “Dear Miss Pierce, I have the papers I would like your client to sign. If you could stop by in person on Sunday night to retrieve them, without your client, I would be most appreciative.”
Interesting. Simone blew smoke out of her mouth and sipped from her third coffee. deCostas didn’t really need to sign any release forms—he’d already dropped his marble. But Sorenson had said without her client. He wanted something.
She spent the next few hours watching the hotel while going over Henry St. Michel’s finances. The holo-projection from her earpiece could only create a small, flickering screen, so that took a while and gave her very little information. He’d taken out a lot of cash recently, but before then, his accounts were steady. He clearly wasn’t rich, and the business wasn’t thriving, but he was surviving in the city, which was more than a lot of people could say. Linnea’s finances were separate; Danny had tried to access them, but they were behind a heavily encrypted server that would take a while to crack. Simone told him not to bother. There was nothing here.
She’d been watching the hotel, camera at the ready, for nearly four hours. The Blonde hadn’t showed, and she had other things to investigate. And now a private meeting with Sorenson to wonder about. Maybe The Blonde had already checked out, or maybe Simone had been spotted and The Blonde had cancelled her plans to avoid being seen. Waiting and patience were part of a good detective’s job, but so was adaptability. There were other alleys of investigation to go down. Simone stubbed out her cigarette and left the newspage behind.
HENRY AND LOU’S BUSINESS didn’t look different from the outside. Henry’s name hadn’t been removed; there wasn’t a sign that said “Closed due to death of a partner.” Simone knocked and went in without waiting for an answer.
Inside didn’t show the signs of a hasty exodus that Simone had half-expected. No frantic Lou packing up goods in messy balls of plastic wrap and cardboard. It was the same as before. Lou sat at the same desk, a cigarette drooping from her mouth. It smelled good—real tobacco. Simone wondered how she could afford it. Wondered if she’d share. She looked up when Simone came in.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Simone walked closer to Lou.
“The cops said I shouldn’t talk to you,” Lou said, standing. “Said you weren’t whoever you said, from Canada. Said you’re a shamus and you helped Henry take his last drink.”
“That last one is a lie,” Simone said. “I want to find out who killed Henry.”
“That’s nice.” Lou took the cigarette from her mouth. She blew smoke out through her nose.
“You don’t seem too broken up over the death of your partner.” Simone sat down in the chair across from Lou.
“That’s a dumb line,” Lou leaned back in her chair. Simone stared until she looked away and started talking again. “Henry was a good guy. He worked for my husband, before he died. I liked the kid, but he wasn’t family. He was always closer with my husband.” She didn’t talk about Henry as though he were her son, Simone thought. More like he was a family pet.
“So who would have killed him? Was he working on anything big?”
“I told you the cops told me not to talk to you.”
“If you really cared what the cops thought you would have called them the moment I came in.”
Lou barked a laugh. “Fair enough.”
“So was he working on anything?”
“Nothing abnormal. You can look at his desk calendar if you want. The cops took his touchdesk server, but he kept everything on paper, too—people get old-fashioned in our business.” She gestured with her cigarette towards Henry’s desk. “Why are you even on this, anyway?”
“Linnea hired me,” Simone said, standing and walking over to Henry’s desk. “She thought he was cheating.”
Lou laughed again. “Cheating? They may not have cared much for each other anymore, but he wasn’t fool enough to cheat. Linnea was the one with the money.”
“What makes you think they didn’t care for each other?” Simone flipped through the calendar, finding the night he was shot. Usual business stuff was written down, but at the bottom of the page was the name Misty and “7 p.m.” No address. No last name. Simone took out her camera and shot a photo.
“Oh, nothing specific. He didn’t talk about her much; sometimes he sounded tense on the phone with her. But he didn’t confide in me. You should ask his mother.”
“His mother?”
“Trixie. She’s uptown, on the Paradise—you know, the cruise ship they made into an old-age home? Tasteless name. When I was younger I thought it was so tasteless it was funny. Now, just tasteless.”
“I know it.”
“It’s like a prison for people like me. I wouldn’t be caught dead on one of those. I’m still in the same apartment my husband and I bought before the water started rising.”
“You were there when it was retrofitted?”
“Oh yes. It was one of the late ones, built ten years before the water, so it was ready for it. Lots of neighbors moved out anyway. Cowards. Now I have a younger sort of neighbors. Noisier. I don’t mind it, really, but . . . Howard used to ask them to quiet down, and they would listen to him. I don’t bother.” Lou sighed and took a long drag on her cigarette. “Anything interesting on his calendar?”
“Do you know this Misty he was supposed to meet with the other night?” Lou shrugged, then turned to her touchdesk and pressed a few keys. “I don’t know the name, and we don’t have anything on record.” Simone filed the name away—maybe it was The Blonde.
“Don’t suppose you know where Linnea is?”
“Linnea? I hardly ever see her. Is she missing?”
“Not picking up her phone, anyway.”
“Isn’t that the sort of thing you’d call suspicious?”
“My dad always taught me to view everything as suspicious.” Lou cocked her head, half a nod of agreement. “Do you recognize this woman?” Simone found a photo of The Blonde on her camera and handed it to Lou. Lou held it away from her face, and lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose.
“No. Should I?”
“She had dinner with Henry the night before he died,” Simone said.
“She have a name?” Lou asked. Simone shook her head. “Well, I could see why Linnea might be jealous. But no. I don’t know her.”
“If you do see her, or she shows up asking questions, or Linnea pops up, would you mind calling me?” Simone took out one of her cards and put it on the desk.
“I’ll consider it.”
“That’s the best I can hope for.” Simone headed for the door but turned around as she opened it. Lou was staring at the card Simone had left on the desk, unmoving. “And thanks.”
“Police are idiots,” Lou said, not looking up. “But you seem like you might be smart. Don’t disappoint me. He might not have been family, but he was home. Part of . . . this.” She threw her arm out, gesturing at the empty room, then looked down at her desk, as if ashamed to have shown a flicker of sadness. Simone stared at Lou a moment longer and saw the wrinkles around her face slowly falling, like a wave in slow motion. She looked sad. Tired. Alone. Simone nodded and left. This wasn’t a moment she was invited to participate in. And she’d gotten enough.
LINNEA AND HENRY’S PLACE was just a half-hour walk uptown, around NYU. Once outside, Simone lit a ciga
rette and started walking. Her phone buzzed, announcing a new message. She tapped her earpiece as she walked away from the shipping company. The message was from deCostas.
“Simone,” her phone read to her, “I hope we’re still on for more exploration. I have selected more buildings, specifically One Wall Street, Clinton Tower, and 590 Madison Avenue. I hope you’re up for it. I promise to be a good boy this time and follow your every command.”
Simone took a drag off her cigarette as she walked. She didn’t really have time for babysitting deCostas anymore. But . . . he was still easy money and easy on the eyes. She could handle both cases. deCostas would just have to stay on the back burner. A lot depended on what she could get out of Caroline on Saturday, what she found at the St. Michel house, and what she learned from Henry’s mother. She had tomorrow open. She wrote him back that she’d meet him at his hotel and take him to One Wall Street. Best to do that one earliest, considering what it became at night. But for now she needed to figure out what was going on with The Blonde before she saw Caroline, and that meant finding Linnea, if she could. She finished her cigarette and tossed it into the water, then stared up at the St. Michel townhouse. If Linnea really had run off, she might have left behind some evidence of where she was going.
It was a simple-looking building: faded slate, glossy with Glassteel; probably the top of some residential building that went up in the 1950s or ’60s. Only three stories rose above the ocean, the first of them slightly higher than usual. It was one of a series of identical homes in the same building, and they all shared a wide, solid bridge, white polished steps descending from their doors to the walkway lined with waist-high lamps in the shape of old lanterns. It was a quiet part of town. A few bridges away were the buildings and boats where what was left of NYU operated, but these bridges felt private, like a gated community. A little ways away, Simone saw a woman pushing a stroller. She felt the gel in her coat warm up in response to an involuntary shiver.
Depth Page 10