by Tracy Clark
“We had a deal,” I said.
“I wasn’t interfering, just observing. I swear. What’d that guy say? Why was he dancing?”
The doors on the Chevette were nearly rusted through. Through the car’s front floorboard, I could see the ground beneath. The car was unsafe to drive. It didn’t even look safe to sit in.
“There’s no backseat,” I said. The hollowed-out space behind Jung’s head clearly exposed the tail end of the vehicle’s bent metal frame. I pulled a face. “Whose car is this? And I’m using the term ‘car’ loosely.”
“Squish’s. Ten bucks a day, plus two tickets to Blue Man Group. So what’d the boat guy say? The case is hinky, right? Like I told you?”
Jung stared up at me expectantly. He was my client, technically, at least for a few more hours, so I owed him a report. Still, something didn’t seem right about the whole thing. Two days ago, he was just the weird guy on the bag end of my tuna melt. Now I worked for him, and I didn’t particularly care for the shift in dynamic. I didn’t ask who Squish was. I didn’t want to know.
“Never mind the boat guy,” I said. “I’m going to ask you three questions, and then you’re going to start this . . . this . . . thing and drive off. Got it?”
Jung opened his mouth to protest, but I waved him quiet. “Three questions, then you’re out.”
I could tell Jung didn’t like it, but, resigned, he nodded once. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“Cap in the marina office saw an attractive redhead visit Tim the same day his brother came by to check on him. Do you know who she is?”
Jung’s brows knit together, his thin lips twisted. “No idea.”
“She carried a briefcase, wore a suit.”
Jung shrugged. “Maybe she works for Felton? Tim’s lawyer. Well, he’s actually the Ayers family lawyer, but he handled Tim’s stuff, too. Tim had a lot of papers to sign off on, end-of-life stuff. Maybe she was delivering them, or something? You were on the boat. What’d you find?”
“I found where a lot of money went to die. Exactly how rich are the Ayerses?”
Jung gripped the steering wheel, looked away. “Why’s that important?”
“Because maybe somebody killed Tim thinking they’d get some of it.”
“Money’s a dumb reason to kill a person.”
I let it go. Even Jung couldn’t be that naïve. “How’d you fall in with his crowd, anyway?”
He didn’t answer.
“Jung?”
He fiddled with the binoculars. “Prep school.”
“You went to prep school . . . with Tim Ayers.”
He cleared his throat. “Our families are similar. Mine’s in textiles. But that doesn’t mean I’m an asshole. I mean, look at me. Do I look like an asshole to you?”
I stared at him, my mouth hanging open, really taking him in. Jung looked like he’d dressed from a Salvation Army bin. “If you come from money, why the hell are you delivering sandwiches?”
“Because that’s the way I like it, okay? Now that’s all you’re going to think about when you see me . . . the money. That’s all people ever see. You know what they don’t see? They don’t see the hundred little strings that come along with it, all the ‘dos and don’ts’ and ‘better nots.’ I gave it up, so did Tim. He was an artist in a family of pinch-faced tight asses. I’m not an artist, but I’m free to be whatever. My folks are gone, but they left the money behind. Still, I make my own way. I’m proud of that.”
Jung Byson is wealthy. Huh? He was right. From here on out, that would be the first thing I thought when I saw him. I shook my head. What a waste of good money. I thought about Reese. “Would Tim have hired a hooker?”
“A woman?”
I nodded. “Redhead.”
“Not in a million. Not in two million. I told you he was gay.”
Redhead. Big boobs. A briefcase and suit. Not a hooker. I looked over the lot, the traffic and skyline beyond it. “There are oil paintings on board. I assume they’re Tim’s?”
“Lighthouses?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure. He had a thing for them. Something about desolation and resilience, he said once. They’re kind of cool, I guess. He left me one, something to remember him by. I told you he’d started to give things away. Now I don’t know if I want it. Too sad, you know? Besides, I don’t know much about art. Teo knows more.”
“Teo?”
“Teo Cantu. He and Tim were together for a while. He’s an artist, too, but not lighthouses, more experimental. Teo’s too far out there for me.”
My eyes narrowed. How “far out there” did you have to be to be “too far-out” for Jung?
“How recently were they together?”
Jung shrugged, thought about it. “I think they broke up right about the time Tim found out he was sick. Some people can’t deal, you know?”
I flicked a glance toward the office. “What did Tim ever say about Cap, the guy in the office?”
“That he was a drunken bully who was always ragging on him. Tim thought he was a creep, too. He said he’d see him walking around the marina at all hours like he was looking for somebody. My theory? He was stealing stuff from the boats, but I don’t think anybody ever reported anything missing. At least Tim didn’t mention it. He’s just a creepy old guy.”
“Did Tim mention Cap’s back room?”
Jung’s brows knit together. “What back room?”
I frowned. “Never mind. Tim’s brother, Stephen, was here a few days before he died. He told Cap the same thing he told the police about Tim suffering from depression and having a rough past.”
Jung thrust himself out of the car, eyes blazing. “That son of a bitch.”
I stepped backward to avoid getting swiped by rust.
Jung pulled at his spiky hair, grabbing tufts of it in clenched fists. “What’s he think he’s playing at? First he tells the police that crap, now he tells the same to this guy? That backstabbing little . . . I’m going to . . .” Jung reached for the door handle, and I blocked him.
“Stop right there. You’re going to do absolutely nothing.”
Jung tried going around me, but I blocked him again, gently holding him back. “Let me go,” he said. “He’s making Tim sound crazy. He wasn’t.”
“Why would he want to do that?” Pena had said the family pressed to have Tim’s death ruled accidental. That they suspected he’d killed himself and didn’t want the stigma of suicide associated with the Ayers name. So why would Stephen draw attention to his brother’s instability? Why make sure Marta Pena knew he’d had a rocky past? What did Stephen hope to gain? “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Jung stomped around, pulling at his hair, tearing at his clothes. “It does if he hated Tim. That lying, pompous, small little man . . .” He turned to face me, his eyes pleading. “Why would he do it? What possible reason? Jealousy! Tim had friends. He had his art. He had a life. He got out of that smothering family and didn’t look back. Stephen got stuck. He got the power, the status, but he also got all the responsibility, all the burdens. Tim was everything he hated, so whatever he could do to bring him down, he’d do it.” Jung’s eyes widened. “Maybe he wanted all the money, not just his part? Do you think that’s it? He cut Tim off from the money, but it was still Tim’s. As long as Tim was alive, he had a shot at getting it back. Dead, it all goes to Stephen. That’s it. It’s the money, isn’t it? Why is it always the money?”
Jung, deflated, leaned hard against the rusted car, his head in his hands. The car groaned as if someone had harpooned it and it was dying a slow and agonizing death. I was going to have to talk to Stephen Ayers. Jung had just given me a solid motive for why he might have wanted to kill his brother. Could I be looking at a clear-cut case of fratricide? Was it jealousy and greed that led to Tim Ayers’s death?
I stood and watched Jung as he slowly settled. When he did, he said, “I hate this. I hate Stephen.” He lifted from the car. “We’ll go talk to Tim’s mother. She’s the only one who can ge
t Stephen to tell the truth.”
“Again, no we,” I said. “Get back in the car.”
Jung’s eyes fired. “No way. I’m doing this.”
“Jung, get back in the car.”
“But she won’t see just anybody, and she doesn’t know you. Without me, she’s a wall too high for you to get over. You need me.”
“I do not need you,” I said, opening the Chevette’s door, unsettling the rust again. “Go home. Go now before you do something you shouldn’t.”
I stood there with the door open, but Jung wasn’t moving. He was deciding. I let him.
“You can’t stop me,” he said.
I could stop him. “I’m hoping you’ll stop yourself.”
He quietly slid into the car. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Not my first or my last. Go home.” I slammed the door shut.
I stood and watched as Jung started the iffy Chevette, which, once the engine caught hold, shook like a janky washing machine. This was the vehicle he chose to go stealth in? Slowly the car sputtered away on a cloud of mean-smelling exhaust. I watched it belly crawl out of the lot and make the turn down the Drive before I turned away.
Chapter 13
Later that afternoon, I swiveled in my office chair, staring at my computer at all the write-ups on the Ayers family. They, apparently, were quite the society swells. One particular photo, taken in Stephen Ayers’s massive office, his seat of power, showed the pompous-looking man sitting in his chair, legs crossed, languid hands resting on armrests that looked like lion heads, every bit the regal king. I’d just hung up from talking to his snooty-sounding receptionist who’d told me quite coldly that Mr. Ayers was in a meeting, which everybody knew was code for “go take a flying leap.”
I left my name and number and a brief message, omitting the words “murder” and “lying bastard.” I wanted to know why he sent Felton, the family lawyer, to claim Tim’s body instead of coming himself, after making such a show of concern for his brother’s welfare. And why had he made such a point about telling Cap about Tim’s past troubles? Of course, he’d never call me back, but that didn’t worry me. I knew where to find him. In the meantime, I’d start with Tim’s ex-partner, Teo. He knew Tim intimately. If there had been something going on with him, Teo would know about it, so I headed out to see him.
Cantu lived in a studio loft in River North, a gentrified enclave of fussy millennials filled with bohemian nightspots and quaint bistros that thrived, despite hawking six-dollar pastries and high-hat coffee blends nobody normal had a taste for. Parking anywhere up north was always a crapshoot, and I had to circle the block five times before I found a spot I wouldn’t get towed from. I gave the city meter the stink eye, though. It was going to cost me one quarter for every nine-minute interval, and I resented it. It was highway robbery, pure and simple, and as I slipped my credit card into the meter’s voracious maw, I couldn’t help but feel as though someone had just picked my pocket.
Cantu’s name was on the bell in the lobby, but no one answered when I rang it. It took three rings and a long press before the lobby door finally buzzed open. I made my way up to find the door to 400A standing ajar, the strong odor of fresh paint wafting out into the hall, which I would have expected for an artist. I hadn’t expected the sweet stink of marijuana that wafted out with it. I knocked, and then peeked tentatively through the crack in the doorway.
“Enter,” a man bellowed from inside. “Watch where you step.”
I eased inside to find a tall, rail-thin man, dressed in a black Lycra bodysuit, standing on a painter’s tarp spread over the hardwood floor, giving the wall an appraising look. He was covered in splotches of red and brown paint, and there were Slinkys attached to the bottoms of his black ballet slippers. The loud, jangled music piped in from somewhere was about as appealing as the sound of a ham-fisted toddler pounding wooden spatulas against upturned pots. While I watched, the man stepped each Slinky into a flat pan of paint, took a running start, and kicked his feet out—Slinky first—against a huge black canvas anchored to the wall. Bouncing back, he tumbled to the tarp. The canvas hung there assaulted by at least a hundred Slinky circles. He’d apparently been at it for a while. I eased the front door open a little wider for an easier exit.
“Teo Cantu?”
Sitting cross-legged on the tarp, he swiveled to face me, and shot me a bemused look as his breathing slowed. He clapped his hands twice and the music stopped. “You’re not my pad Thai. I ordered pad Thai.”
“No. I’m a private investigator. Cass Raines. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Timothy Ayers.”
I stepped over carefully, handed him one of my cards, which he got paint all over. He looked disappointed. “But I’m hungry.”
I stepped back, eyed the wall, the tarp, the slippers, the bodysuit. “I can see why. So about Tim Ayers?”
Cantu rolled his eyes. “Nothing to talk about. He’s dead. At least that’s what the news feed said.”
Four floor-to-ceiling windows at the opposite end of the loft were all opened halfway, as a floor fan whizzed back and forth spreading paint fumes around. Cantu unstrapped the Slinky toys and stood, his slender hands on narrow hips. I eyed the Slinky canvas again. Teo caught me looking.
“You want to strap on a pair of springs?”
I smiled politely. “No thanks. I’m good.”
I walked farther in, skirting the tarp, looking for a clean place to light. Except for the tarp, Cantu’s futon, partly hidden behind a Japanese screen, and four beanbag chairs clustered around a ratty tatami mat, the place was empty. I eyed one of the beanbag chairs, but quickly ruled it out. Only a preschooler could rock a beanbag chair with any finesse. I decided to stand.
“You and Tim Ayers were together,” I said. “I was hoping you’d be able to give me some background, some insight into his state of mind.”
“Sorry. Can’t. I don’t rehash.”
“Excuse me?”
“Once I close the door on something, it stays closed. I never go back. It’s like it never happened. It’s my personal philosophy.” He paused, took a beat. “I don’t dwell,” he added as if that clarified things.
I stood and watched him, eyeing the forlorn Slinkys on the tarp. “And your philosophy also applies to people?”
“Especially people.”
“So you’re saying you’ve closed the door on Tim Ayers and won’t discuss him now.”
“Closed it. Locked it. And, no, sorry, I won’t.” The smug look on his face belied his profession of sorrow. He wasn’t at all sorry. He was far too glib for that.
He tried handing the card back, but I wouldn’t take it. I’d have a time getting the paint off my fingers. “Okay, then. I’ll pass your name along to the detectives in charge of Tim’s case. Maybe you’ll talk to them.” I took a sniff, drawing in the scent I’d recognized out in the hall. Even the strong smell of fresh paint couldn’t mask it. “But before they show up, I’d flush the weed and whatever else you’ve got stashed around here, or get yourself a good lawyer.” I smiled, headed for the door. “Have a good day, Mr. Cantu.”
I started counting Mississippis, but had a feeling I wouldn’t have to go too far with it. I didn’t. Cantu bounded off the tarp like a gazelle and slid in front of me to block my exit.
“Whoa. Hey. Slow down there.”
The smugness was gone, replaced by panic. Cantu’s face paled. He began to sweat. He obviously had something else besides the weed hidden. Cantu ran the back of a paint-splotched hand across his forehead. “Tim drowned, right? I had nothing to do with that. We broke up a year ago at least. Ancient history.”
“By mutual decision?”
“Why’s that your business?” He’d forgotten just that quickly the position he was in.
I reached for the doorknob, but Cantu stopped me. “Okay. Okay. My bad. He broke up with me, okay? One minute, I’m thinking we’ve got a thing, and the next, he’s packing up and heading out the door. That’s how it happened.”
/>
“No explanation?”
“Oh, he gave plenty. He said he’d gotten some bad news that put his life in perspective, and that he wasn’t wasting another second being unhappy. How’d you like to be on the tail end of that, huh?”
“You knew about his cancer?”
“Found out about it then, didn’t I? Me, like a fool, told him I’d hang in, help him through. I’m a nurturer. I can’t help myself. That’s when he tells me that won’t be necessary. Just like that. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ He had plans, he said, to travel the world, alone, on his yacht while he still had the time. Alone. His yacht. Here I’m thinking he’s a starving artist like me, and he’s got a yacht? He worked part-time at the arts center down the street, for Pete’s sake, and all the while he’s some rich kid from the North Shore? And he’s painting lighthouses? And he swept out of here owing me six hundred bucks? I’m bouncing off canvases, hoping to make some sales so I can quit my day job, and he’s sitting on all that?” Cantu tossed his head back, grimaced. “It got real fast after that.”
I looked a question.
“I may have tossed some of his clothes down the garbage chute. And I may have threatened to strangle him, though, obviously, I didn’t. And, once he was gone, I may have told everyone we know that he was high-class trash.” Cantu folded his arms across his chest, pouted a little. “He deserved it. I’ve no regrets.”
“So he told you he was dying and then walked out on you.”
“Calm as anything. Only the more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and then all the second-guessing started. You know how it goes. I convinced myself that maybe he didn’t really have cancer and that the whole story was a big lie to cover up the fact that he was sleeping around. He’d cleared most of his things out by then, but the stuff I tossed was still in the Dumpster.
“I found a book of matches in a pocket. It was so 1950s, it was almost a joke. They were to a bar I never heard of, Sophie’s Place.” Cantu rolled his eyes, smirked, as though the name of the bar just happened to be another indignity heaped upon Tim’s brush-off. “At that point, I was just pissed off enough, and wasted enough, to storm over there. Let’s just say, it wasn’t my kind of place. I showed Tim’s photo around and a couple of people recognized him. He’d come in to see a guy named C.D. Ganz, they said.” He threw up his hands. “I got control of myself before I made a scene, thank the gods, but frankly what would have been the point? He was on his way to Tahiti, or some-damn-where.” Cantu let out a breezy sigh. “It took me some time getting over what might have been. All that money. The yacht.”