by Tracy Clark
The cop looked me up and down, then consulted his notebook. “What’s your name?”
I stared, transfixed, at my melting Maxima. “Cassandra Raines.”
“You got ID?”
I held my arms out. No wallet. “Not on me. Is there somebody else out here claiming the burning car?”
He glared at me, not pleased with the snark. “All right. Settle down.”
“What happened? Did anybody see anything?”
“What happened was somebody tossed a cocktail through your side window there. No witnesses.”
I blinked. “What’d you just say?”
“Molotov. Cocktail. We found shards of the exploded bottle inside and the whole thing reeks of gasoline. Basic, but, hey, sometimes basic gets it, right? So, what are we looking at? Angry boyfriend, crazy ex-husband, what?”
I ignored the question. “Was anyone hurt?” I scanned the front windows of my building, glad Mrs. Vincent was missing all of this. She didn’t hear well. She likely hadn’t heard the sirens.
The cop pointed toward the crowd. “Some of your neighbors tell us hacking people off is what you do for a living. You’re a private cop, right?”
I stared at the crowd, danger in my gaze. Turncoats. Backstabbers. “Which ones?”
The cop flipped pages in his notebook. “Lady, I can’t count that high.”
“Whatever. Did anybody see anything useful, or are they all just out here swapping stories about my personal business?”
“All they saw was your car going up like a Fourth of July rocket,” the cop said. He tore a sheet from his notebook. “Here’s the report number for the insurance. You’re going to need a tow. Have a nice day.”
* * *
“Hey.” Ben squeezed into the booth across from me. It was early, just after six AM. Deek’s was deserted. I was hungry, and it was the only place I could get to without a car. I’d need to rent one, until my insurance company did what it did, but it was all too much to think about in the moment. Right now, all I wanted was pancakes. I’d left Mrs. Vincent safely at home, sweeping charred debris off the front stoop, though I politely told her I’d handle it myself. She’d looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. Some battles weren’t worth fighting.
Ben eyed the table. “What’s that?”
I took a sip of tea, savored it for a second. “You know what it is.”
“That’s the pipe from your trunk.”
I sighed. “It’s the only thing that didn’t burn.”
“So you’re going to just carry it around with you like that?”
I sat my cup down, held his gaze. “Until I get another trunk to put it in.”
Ben watched me, his mouth agape. He shook his head. “Okay, give it to me straight. Whose shoes did you step on?”
I looked around for Muna, but she was in the back somewhere. I needed more hot water, a fresh tea bag. Truthfully, I could tick off a list of names, but didn’t. “I’m just glad whoever it was chose my car and not my house.” I took another sip of tea. I smelled like a melted tire. “My money’s on Darby. He did threaten to break me. What if he killed Tim for his boss’s bottom line? Maybe Stephen Ayers was in on the whole thing. I haven’t met him yet, but if he’s anything like his mother . . .” I shivered, remembering the coldness. “I can’t link the mother or Stephen to Darby, but they link to Nick Spada, and he links to Darby. Who says Stephen and Spada didn’t team up?”
Ben’s eyes narrowed.
“The cocktail,” I said. “I heard you. I’ll be ready next time.”
“You’re thinking there’s going to be a next time?”
“I’m chasing a killer, or maybe killers. Of course there’s going to be a next time.”
Ben checked his watch. “Look, we need to talk.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
His phone rang. He slid it out of his pocket, answered it. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” Ben’s face turned serious. “Dammit. Okay. I’m rolling.” He ended the call, put the phone away. “Gotta go.” He scooted out of the booth. “I’ll call you.”
I stared up at him as he loomed over me, getting a hint of something in the tone of his voice. “What’s going on?”
“It’ll keep. But, FYI, Weber’s been asking about you again. Now he wants to know where you buy your ammo. Anything you want to tell me?”
“Nope.”
“Sure?”
“Yep.”
Ben adjusted his blazer to cover his holster, smiled. “Okay then. Watch yourself. This shit is starting to get serious.”
I blew out a breath and eyed my trusty pipe, which was now homeless. “Tell me about it.”
* * *
Monday morning, I got showered, dressed, and headed downtown on the train to Stephen Ayers’s office. The train. It wasn’t a pleasant ride. The car I was in reeked of funk and fuel and piss and I wasn’t in the best of moods to begin with because someone had torched my car. My money was on Vincent Darby. He might have been pretty to look at, but he had a mean streak a mile wide.
The Ayers family owned manufacturing and industrial service companies, apparently, and had their pampered little hands in banks and boards and conglomerates and such, which meant next to nothing to me, since my money didn’t travel in those circles. I pushed through the glass doors to Ayers, Thurston, and Morgan to find a prim-looking, middle-aged woman sitting at the receptionist’s desk. She was smartly dressed in a lavender suit with gold buttons, her auburn hair coiffed just so, her nail polish matching the suit. The nameplate on the big wooden desk read H. GARDNER.
“Good morning,” H. Gardner said. “May I help you?” Her smile was effusive. Here was a woman who enjoyed her work, or at least appeared to enjoy it.
I returned the greeting, and the sparkle. “Cassandra Raines to see Mr. Ayers.”
“Certainly,” she said, reaching for a leather-bound appointment book.
“You won’t find me there. I don’t have an appointment. But Mr. Ayers will know why I’m here. I only need a moment of his time.”
H. Gardner closed down on me. She pinched her face, her shoulders bunched up, even her hands laced into tight little balls. “I’m afraid if you don’t have an appointment—”
“Perhaps if you let Mr. Ayers know I’m here, he’ll choose to see me without an appointment.” I kept the smile up. “It really won’t take long.”
I could tell she doubted me, but she picked up the phone and punched 4-6-6-3, which I duly noted, even though from my vantage point I was seeing the numbers upside down. I hoped she was dialing Ayers’s extension and not building security.
“Mr. Ayers, there’s a Ms. Cassandra Raines here. She . . . Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
Gardner listened for a few seconds, making affirmative noises, letting the big guy know that she was listening and that she understood. All the “yes, sir” utterances were a bit too deferential for me, but different strokes, I guess. After a time, Gardner put the phone down and stood. “Please have a seat.”
She quickly headed off toward the back, and I watched her go. The moment she disappeared from view, I quickly scanned reception for security cameras, but didn’t see any. Didn’t mean much; they could be hidden anywhere—behind a potted plant, at the edge of a picture frame—still, I decided to go for it. I leaned over the desk and twisted the appointment book around, flipping through the pages, reading the names, looking for one I might recognize, like Vincent Darby or Nicholas Spada. Neither name was there. I heard Gardner returning and hastily flipped the book back around and moved away from it, the very picture of innocence.
“Mr. Ayers is unable to see you at this time,” Gardner offered condescendingly—as though I ever had a chance of getting past her desk. “He refers you to his attorney, Mr. . . .”
“Robert V. Felton, Esquire,” I said, finishing her sentence. “I’ve had the displeasure.”
Gardner scowled. Apparently, she preferred to work alone.
“Tell Mr. Ayers I’ll wait,” I said, copping a squat on one of the fancy
couches. “As long as it takes.”
“But . . . ,” Gardner began to sputter. She looked as though she’d never seen such a thing. “He’s very busy.”
“As am I,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m trying to find out who killed his brother. So I’ll wait.” I eyed the end tables with magazines fanned out over them: Smithsonian, National Geographic, Barron’s. Gawd, even Ayers’s reading material was pretentious. I grabbed Smithsonian. “Oh, and if Mr. Ayers is thinking about sneaking out the back, you might want to tell him I’ll come back tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, until I speak with him personally.” I smiled sweetly, then settled in for a long, unproductive wait.
Gardner disappeared again, flustered this time, and stayed gone for at least ten minutes. She and Ayers were probably back there trying to decide whether or not to call the police and have me escorted out. They could do it, sure, but how much of a ruckus would I make? That was the unknown variable. Rich people didn’t like ruckuses. I’d moved on to National Geographic, and an in-depth piece on the Amahuaca Indians of Brazil, when Gardner returned.
“Mr. Ayers will speak to you, but not here. He has a meeting at City Hall. He’ll meet you in Daley Plaza. Eleven-thirty.”
What rube truck did they think I fell off of? I checked my watch. It was eleven. I stood and tossed the magazine down on the table. The Amahuaca Indians would have to remain a mystery. This was obviously a ploy to get me out of the office without causing a scene, but, frankly, I was tired of waiting, anyway. I strode up to Gardner’s desk, smiled, and went all in.
“Fine. I’ll play along. Daley Plaza. Eleven-thirty.” I headed for the door, turned. “Or back here shortly afterward to wait until the dawn of the apocalypse. Oh, next time you see Mr. Felton, let him know I was here, would you? We had a bet, and I just won it.”
Chapter 30
I stood by the Picasso in Daley Plaza and watched busy people hustle by, heading someplace else, scattering the dirty pigeons pecking at dropped bits of bread and bedraggled French fries from the McDonald’s across the street. I glanced up at the towering cubist monstrosity above me and wondered what illegal substance good old Pablo had been on when he came up with the idea for the thing. I didn’t know a lot about art, only what I liked, and this wasn’t it. This looked like something conjured up out of a sick man’s fever dream. City Hall stared at me from across the street. I let it.
I dialed Bucky T.’s cell phone, still looking for a line on Jung, but no one answered. The flashing light told me I had a voice mail waiting, and I dialed in for it, hoping it was Jung, only it wasn’t. The message was from someone inquiring about my apartment for rent. Already. I slid the phone into my pocket, my stomach suddenly queasy. “Nope. Not today.”
I swept my eyes over the plaza just in time to see a determined-looking man in a Burberry trench heading straight for me. It was Ayers. I recognized him from his depressing family portrait. I watched as he powered forward on angry heels, his back straight, his defiant chin set. He looked like a man used to running things, making things happen. He looked an awful lot like his mother. He wouldn’t meet in his office, likely because I had initiated it. This meet was his, and by the sureness of his stride and the iron in his spine, it looked like he meant to shut it down quick. I glanced at my watch. It was eleven-thirty, straight up. I braced for the confrontation.
“I’ll ruin you,” he said when he reached me. “I should have you arrested for harassment. You come to our home? My business? Who do you think you are? If I see you again after today, you’ll regret it.”
I watched as his pale, narrow face began to color over. He couldn’t have been more than five or six years older than Tim, yet his hairline was receding, his hair was starting to turn gray, and he looked like he ate stress and anxiety for breakfast and drank his lunch, the remnants of highballs or martinis or whatever showing in the mottled sag beneath glacial blue eyes. It couldn’t have been easy following in your father’s footsteps when your father was a business titan and family legacy was all. And then there was Elizabeth Ayers and her inability to forgive Tim’s bold grasp for a life of his own, and Tim himself, who despite the shunning, lived life on his own terms, leaving his brother shackled to the family name.
“Well?” Ayers barked. “Did you hear me?”
I nodded. “I think the entire plaza heard you.” A ratty pigeon, his head bobbing, walked around in circles close by, pecking at dreck. I eyed him warily. “If you’re done barking, maybe we can discuss the issue at hand like civilized adults? You’ve spoken to your mother, to Felton, so you know what this is about. I have only a few questions and then I’ll be on my way. Or we can continue this little pissing match, wasting my time and yours, for as long as you think it’s necessary . . . which would you prefer?”
His eyes, stunningly cold, a carbon copy of his mother’s, went hard, vengeful, his thin lips tightened. This was not a man who skipped lightly through fields of tulips or snuggled kittens. “My family’s affairs are none of your concern.”
“I agree. I’m not interested in your family’s affairs. I want to know what you know about Tim’s connection to Nicholas Spada. I may have discovered a reason why he might have wanted your brother dead. That’s my concern, my one and only. I’d like your help, if you’re willing to give it. I know you and your brother weren’t on the best of terms, but he was an Ayers. I’m hoping that means something to you.”
“Why the hell would anyone want to kill Tim? He didn’t have anything. He wasn’t important. Now you think Spada is somehow involved with him falling off that damned boat? Father should never have left it to him in the first place.” He chuckled meanly. “As for Spada, he’s a wannabe, a lightweight. He might have used Tim to get to us, but he wouldn’t dare kill him. Our family is—”
I cut him off. “An old, established family, yes, I know. Your mother told me.” I exhaled deeply, tired of the exchange. I checked over my shoulder, feeling more than a little exposed. I turned back to Ayers. “Do you know a man named Vincent Darby?”
“I don’t, and I don’t know Spada, except by dubious reputation. He’s nuevo riche.” Ayers sniffed the air as though he smelled something foul and distasteful. I understood then why Tim had been so adamant about getting away from him and his mother. There was a smugness to their wealth and position, a flintiness of spirit. “So if whatever agreement Tim had with him went sour, it’s his own fault. If he’d done what was expected of him, he’d be alive today.”
“Is that why you threw him under the bus by telling the police he was a prime candidate for suicide? Is that why you cut him off?”
The corners of his mouth turned upward, his eyes narrowed. “Who in their right mind would give up what he did? And I cut him off so he couldn’t piss away another nickel of Father’s money.”
“So that’s why you couldn’t be bothered to even identify his body. You sent Felton.”
“Mother told you we were in New York on business the night Tim killed himself. And now I’m walking away. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
“If not Spada,” I said, “who else might want to hurt Tim?”
He chuckled, but there was no lightness in it. It was a mean, spiteful, unforgiving chuckle. “You don’t give up, do you? Do you know how many lawyers I have?”
“Do they all wear watch fobs like Felton?”
Ayers glared at me. “Felton said you were a smartass. You want to pin Tim’s death on somebody, fine, go hound some of his predatory friends. That should give you a long list of suspects.”
“I’d be glad to. Give me their names.”
Ayers turned to leave. “I don’t think I will. Goodbye. Get lost.”
“Do you know where Felton was the night your brother died? He was at the marina mighty quick to ID Tim’s body.”
He turned back, appearing far more irritated than he had been already. “How would I know where he was? What does it matter anyway? Tim’s dead and buried, his problems right along with him.
It’s over, done, finally.” He cocked his head. “I think I’ll enjoy yanking your license.”
“If you want it, you can have it now.” We stood and faced each other, neither of us happy to be in the situation. Stephen Ayers stared at me; I stared back. The Picasso sculpture stayed out of it; the people passing paid us no mind; neither did the rangy pigeons. “I’ll keep coming back. I’ll keep asking. You’ll need a million Feltons to turn me away.”
“You haven’t the resources to fight me in court.”
“I’ll hold a garage sale.”
Neither of us spoke for a time. Ayers appeared to wrestle with something internal. All I could do was wait and watch him do it. He looked uncomfortable, stretched past his limits, but I hoped he could see the resolve on my face. “I’d already cut him off at the knees,” he said. “He was no threat to me. Even if I wanted to kill him, why would I bother? All I had to do was wait a few more weeks, days maybe, and he’d be gone, anyway.” He grinned. “Don’t look so shocked. Our relationship was always adversarial.” He looked around the plaza, inhaled deeply. “I’m done having to insulate the family from Tim’s screwups. You want to know who wanted him dead? It wasn’t Nick Spada. . . . I’ll tell you, but only because I really hope he did it and has to spend the rest of his pathetic life in a prison cell. It’ll be better than he deserves.”
“Who’re we talking about?”
“My brother’s blackmailer. I see you had no idea. It cost me two hundred thousand to keep him from dragging our name through the mud, but it doesn’t matter now. Tim’s dead. Now I want him to pay, just like I had to. I could ruin him financially, of course, but I think seeing him in prison would be much more satisfying. I might even come to visit him, just to see him squirm behind bars.”
“You never told the police about any blackmailer.”
“It was family business, not police business. Just another of Tim’s mistakes. This friend found out Tim had money, and went after it. Why not? He threatened to make things unpleasant, so I authorized the payment to make him go away. You’d think Tim would have been appreciative. He wasn’t. He said I did it for us, not for him. He was right, of course, but he was also an ungrateful bastard right to the end.”