“The guy had a lot goin’ on. You mentioned hook-ups?”
“Sure, but a lot of people—”
“Not judgin’ your friend, Fontana. I just wanna know did he let a lotta strangers into his home?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Makes this harder, you know what I mean? Can’t go find some stranger we don’t even know about.”
“I’m thinking there’s plenty of possibilities for who did this that won’t be so hard to find. People in his life that we know about or could easily find out about. My guess: that’s the best place to start.”
“Like…?” Bynum stared at me, friendly but serious.
“It’ll still be a long list of choices. Sammy could drive people crazy, even his friends. Sometimes a guy can get under your skin without even knowing it. And sometimes…” I paused and looked at the blood-soaked bed.
“Yeah? Sometimes what?”
“I was gonna say that sometimes a guy like Sammy ticks people off by doing what he does, by just being who he is.”
“So you’re tellin’ me the guy had enemies he didn’t even know about?”
“Not enemies exactly.” I hedged. “Like at work. Sammy was— is good at his job. Steps on toes if he has to. And that can piss people off. He’s an accountant. A numbers guy. He knows more about some people than they know about themselves. That sets people on edge. You know any accountants who don’t make people nervous?”
Bynum chuckled.
“You say the apartment was unlocked when you arrived?”
I explained how Sammy operated and Bynum just shook his head.
“People do some dumb things, if you ask me. No offense to your friend, but he’s livin’ in downtown Philly, anything can happen.”
I agreed with him. We batted around some theories and Bynum allowed me to hang around while he searched the place. When the CSI team began going over the apartment bit by bit, I took a hint and left. There wasn’t any more that I could do at that point anyway.
As I left, Bynum told me he’d keep me in the loop. He didn’t tell me not to leave town, but I knew he was thinking it.
Back on the street, I took a moment to gather my thoughts. I told myself I should just leave it to the police but I knew I couldn’t do that. I headed back to my office. Passing the Village Brew, I spied Sean, the barista, behind the counter, his taut sexy body and rakish smile mesmerizing yet another customer waiting in line for coffee but wanting so much more.
My office, on Latimer Street, was in an old building that housed a few other small businesses needing cheap quarters. I’d been wanting to move to a better location but rents in downtown Philly kept me using the old dump. The worst feature of the location was an industrial-looking fortress of a building that some family had built so they could live in the city and not be in the city all at the same time. Nothing about that house faced out onto the neighborhood. The nuts and bolts exterior, faced with metal plates, seemed hostile at best. Never mind that everything else around was red brick, this old steel bucket of a building refused to be neighborly. The window in my office looked out over the Fortress of Hostility which was never a nice view.
The stairs squeaked and creaked as I moved up to the third floor. It was a homey sound, comforting. One of the few things I liked about the building.
“You are here!” Olga, my secretary, greeted me as I entered. “People are calling from early morning. I cannot say to them where you are, because you are not telling me.” She stared at me. “Poor boss. You are looking like raining for ten days.”
After having worked for me a little while, Olga got the idea I needed nurturing. Her Russian mothering skills were comforting, even all-knowing. She often sensed something was wrong before I said anything.
Olga also liked making a fuss. Maybe it was her Russian capacity for drama. Whatever it was, she made me glad I’d finally hired a secretary. Someone I know would say that the universe was just waiting for me to meet Olga, who had exactly the talent and temperament I needed for the job.
We met when Olga was on trial for the murder of her fourth husband. Her lawyer hired me to do some investigative work. While I’m usually inclined to believe the spouse did it, especially when the fourth one in a row dies under suspicious circumstances, once I’d actually met Olga, I knew she was innocent. There were plenty of other suspects, but the police zeroed in on Olga. It took a while and a lot of legwork, but we found what we needed to get them to drop the charges.
After that, Olga kind of followed me back to my office and started doing chores without being asked. I figured she needed something to do now that her fourth husband was gone. Besides, truth be told, I’d warmed up to her motherly fussing. When I told her I could use some help around the office, she jumped at the chance. She didn’t need the money, since her four marriages had left her more than well off, so the pittance I could afford to pay her didn’t matter.
“Sammy Denning has been taken to the hospital. Somebody tried to put a new hole in his head. The hard way.”
“Sammy? Sammy is dead?” Eyes wide with astonishment, she half stood then sat back down. “Is possible? Yesterday he is talking on phone.” She looked balefully at her telephone. “He is saying broken legs making him crazy. He is wanting to be out. And now is dead.” She sighed, a weary Russian sigh, and shook her head.
“Sammy’s not dead, Olga. He’s unconscious, maybe in a coma. They took him to the hospital. Keep your fingers crossed.”
“I will do better,” she said. “In church I am lighting candle.”
I nodded my thanks, entered the inner office, and shut the door behind me. I needed the silence. But, no sooner had I sat down than the phone rang.
“Is it true?” He didn’t identify himself but he didn’t need to. I knew his voice, and it was like a delicate finger tracing a line up my back. Luke’s booming housecleaning business got him into lots of places, and he often used that ability when he helped me on cases. He also knew a lot of people and came across loads of gossip, rumors, and news through his business. I wasn’t surprised he’d already heard about Sammy.
“Tell me what you think you know.” I had to assume news about Sammy had made it onto the Drama Queen Network and was spreading fast.
“Sammy Denning was killed. That’s what I heard. And you discovered the body.”
“Only half right, Luke. Sammy was unconscious and in bad shape when I found him. But he wasn’t dead,” I said. “Where’d you hear this anyway?”
“People are talking. But I got most of what I heard from one of my guys doing a job at the Dilworth. He saw the ambulance. Said he saw Sammy being taken away and that they’d drawn a sheet over his face.”
“Your guy is kinda dramatic, isn’t he? They did take Sammy, but he was still breathing when they left.”
“Well, Reese can be overwrought sometimes. You know what he’s like. That’s why I called for confirmation. I guess you’re on the case? Anything I can do?”
“I’m not officially investigating, but I’m not gonna sit around and wait for the police to figure this out.”
“Any ideas what might’ve happened?”
“All I can say for sure is that it wasn’t an accident. Looks like somebody surprised him while he was napping.”
“Why would anybody do that to him? I know he wasn’t a real sweetheart, but he wasn’t so bad. Who’d hate him that much?” Luke asked.
“I’m not sure it was somebody who hated Sammy. The way the place looked, it was more like somebody who wanted something Sammy had. Whoever did it turned over his apartment looking for something.”
“Or, maybe somebody just turned the place inside out to make it look like there was a search. Maybe it wasn’t about that at all. Sammy made a lot of people angry. All kinds of people. It could be anybody. Exes, co-workers, anybody he ticked off. And he managed to tick off people by the boatload.”
“Could be. Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple dozen people who had some serious problem with
Sammy. That doesn’t count people he worked with or whoever he dealt with through the new consulting firm he started. It’s not gonna be easy figuring out where to begin. Friends, co-workers, tricks. I can probably eliminate lots of them, but that still leaves quite a pile.”
“I’ll be at your office in ten.”
“Uh, maybe—” But I didn’t get the words out fast enough. He’d hung up.
Before I got down to work, I put in a call to the hospital. The duty nurse said there was no change in Sammy’s condition. But, she wouldn’t give more than that, no matter how I asked. That information was reserved for the family. Sammy had some but I didn’t know them. I hung up the phone and looked at a half empty mug of coffee on my desk. Couldn’t have been too old or Olga would’ve swept it away and cleaned it. I took a slug. Cold and bitter. But caffeine is caffeine.
I pulled out a pad and began making a list. I like lists. They’re solid things. I can hold them, look at them, rearrange items, shape them to help me and make sense of things. Not like the rest of the world. Lists and my old tack board came in handy, especially on a case where information is hard to connect and patterns don’t come easy.
After a few minutes, I had quite a list of names. People I knew he’d been involved with one way or another, except for his mostly-anonymous flings. His casual internet and telephone contacts probably wanted to stay in the shadows. It was no use worrying about them anyway, since the crime didn’t seem random. His place had been tossed. Somebody was looking for something, meaning they knew Sammy and what they were looking for. Or, whoever did it was sent by someone Sammy knew. Of course, that opened the door to someone not necessarily on my list, someone who was just an errand boy.
I’d put Bart on the list. Sammy’s latest ex was a boy with more guts than sense and with, as far as I remembered, a healthy appetite for revenge. An aspiring musician, Bart was cute but lethal. Sammy had fallen in love with the angelic face, the light blond hair, and the winning smile. What Sammy didn’t bargain for was the emptiness behind that smile, an emptiness that often made Bart sullen and caustic. Bart also had a roving eye. Always looking for a better deal, more pleasure, more anything than whatever it was he had. He was never satisfied, and because of that never knew when he had it good. So, he did plenty behind Sammy’s back and when Sammy couldn’t take it any more, he dumped Bart and sent him packing. Bart never forgave Sammy and had creepy ways of showing it. For several Christmases, Bart sent Sammy his old Christmas cards, ripped to shreds, and spattered with something resembling blood.
So, yeah, Bart was near the top of my list.
After Bart, there were two other exes who could qualify, such as Cal, also of the sweet but poisonous variety, and Mack, who’d been unceremoniously dumped and left with his belongings on the sidewalk after selling one too many of Sammy’s possessions to support his habit. Most of the time, Sammy and his boyfriends parted amicably, and one of them had even dumped Sammy. Still, I’d have to look into all of them.
I wasn’t forgetting Dan, though. He might’ve put on a good show at the apartment, but that didn’t totally disqualify him. He didn’t have as great a motive and wasn’t as deranged but he’d been there. Some people who commit crimes get off on coming back to look at their handiwork.
Then there were co-workers. He’d told me about some rocky times with a few of them. I remembered Sammy talking about one of his supervisors and some others. Of course, I wouldn’t keep them off my list. One of them might have as good a reason as any of Sammy’s exes. I’d put that list together next. For now, all I could do was add possible motives to the names and try to prioritize the list so I could get started.
When Luke arrived, I realized it was almost dinnertime.
“How about dinner at More Than Just Ice Cream? We can talk there,” I said as he pecked me on the cheek.
“As long as I get to pick dessert,” Luke winked.
***
I found myself dragging as I entered the office early the next morning. Luke had kept me up late, not exactly against my will. It took sheer force of will to roll out of bed, shower, and gulp some coffee. Walking down Broad Street, allowing the fresh air to slap me awake, had only marginally helped. I needed more coffee to be able to tackle Sammy’s case.
Olga wasn’t in yet and I had the place to myself. Before anything else I made a pot of coffee. Knowing my late-night habits, Anton had gotten me a blend called “All Nighter” and it had opened my eyes on more than one occasion. I filled the coffeemaker and allowed it to do its stuff.
As the machine wheezed and bubbled in the background, I tried tracking Bart down. The old number I had for him dated from the time he’d left Sammy’s apartment and moved in with a friend. That turned out to be a dead end. Other contacts I had for Bart didn’t pan out either. There were a couple of numbers from old friends of Bart who’d wanted to date me. If they didn’t pan out, I’d have to hoof it over to his last known address.
I picked up the receiver and was about to tap in a number when I heard the outer office door slam shut. I placed the receiver back without making a sound and listened again. I stood and cautiously stepped to the door leading to the outer office. Through the frosted glass I could make out a man standing at Olga’s desk. Anyone well behaved enough to wait at an empty desk for service, didn’t seem like much of a threat. I opened the door.
“Fontana! Just the man I want to see,” said Martin Van, acid-tongued, sleazy, gossip columnist for a local rag. Tall and angular, with dark blond hair which fell in luxurious waves around his head, he sat back on Olga’s desk to look at me. His face was long and not unattractive but marred by cruel, almost sadistic features. He had a certain animal magnetism, as they say, which seemed to get him into almost any bed he wanted. And he wanted a lot.
“Marty!” I said cheerfully, knowing he hated the nickname. “What brings you here? Certainly not because you need me?” Unless, he wanted me to be his bodyguard and that would happen the day after never. Martin Van was universally despised. All right, maybe his mother liked him, but I wouldn’t bet money on it. Everybody else, though, wanted to see his heart roasting on a spit. And that might happen but for one thing. All those people who hated him also feared him. His column in City Underground and his blog PhillyShh! had a way of releasing little tidbits of really nasty information. He never used names though the threat was always there, of course, and sometimes the details were enough to make some people very uncomfortable. He spotlighted lots of sensationally kinky peccadillos in his column and did it so that the guilty parties and anyone who knew them would know exactly who he was talking about. It also wasn’t difficult for smart observers to guess at who his victims were. Thing is he never wanted anything for his revelations. Never asked for quid pro quo. He just basked in the power and status it got him.
There were probably lots of guys whose boyfriends he’d stolen, or wives whose husbands he’d snatched that would also have loved to get the goods on Martin but none of them dared. He’d dropped his pants in more bedrooms than a male hooker anytime he liked and with almost anyone who caught his fancy. So far, he’d done it all with impunity. No one complained because they didn’t want to see information, that Marty could dig up, printed in his column or his blog.
Maybe he needed my help because someone finally found a way of getting even. I hoped so. It’d be proof that there was justice in the cosmos.
“You bet your ass I’m here because I want your services.” Peering at me, indignation twisting his features, he held out a ragged accordion folder.
“What’s this?”
“That’s what I want you to find out. I came into work this morning, and some skinny-assed, filthy messenger flew right in behind me. Made me sign for this and dropped the package on my desk. Then he buzzed out without even waiting for a tip. Not that I’d have given the bastard one.” He drew a breath. “May I sit?”
“Make yourself comfortable.” I backed into my own soft swivel chair. It was both strange and fascinating to watch Mar
tin. He moved into the chair like a panther: compelling and lethal.
“Someone either thinks this is a wonderfully funny practical joke or they have the nerve to think they can actually blackmail me.”
“Blackmail?” I pulled the material from the folder. Photographs. Martin and a companion were the subjects. Actually Martin and several different companions. Good old Marty performed acts you only see in gay porn films. His companions, all considerably younger and lots hotter than Marty ever was, seemed vaguely familiar. One set of photos, again with Marty and a younger guy, had a frame in red permanent marker drawn around them. I couldn’t make out the face of the young guy in any of the photos but something about this set was obviously important to the blackmailer.
“Doesn’t look like your shutterbug pal is joking around, Marty. Did this come with a note? If it’s blackmail, you usually get asked for something. But I don’t see a note, so what makes you think this is blackmail?”
“Could be the phone call I got after the messenger left.” He said this as if I should have known it.
“What did the caller say?”
“It was a male voice but I couldn’t place it. The first thing he said was, ‘Got ‘em yet?’ Of course, I knew what he meant. So I told him the folder was on my desk.”
“Did he make you an offer, ask for anything?”
“He said that there were more where these came from. And that they were even better. Whatever that meant.”
I could guess what that meant, especially looking at the red framed photos.
“Did he ask for anything? In exchange—”
“He wants me to quit my job. Leave town. Forget my column and my blog.”
“That’s all he wants? You get outta town and he lets you go?”
“He also wants money, of course. A lot.” Marty sat up straighter, his dignity returning along with his anger. “Don’t they always want money? As if he’ll get anything. I’d like to see him try to do something with those… that trash. Anything!” He looked at me and his eyes were glassy bright. I wasn’t sure if it was arrogance or the fear that had to have been eating away at him.
Crimes on Latimer: From the Early Cases of Marco Fontana Page 20