“I’m just looking around,” I said carefully. “I heard good things about you guys, I just wanted to see if you lived up to the hype.”
“You heard good things about an insurance agency?” The woman didn’t look like she believed me.
I glanced over her shoulder and saw the nameplate on her desk. “Yeah,” I said jovially. “I heard everyone here but someone named Charlotte was really great and easy to work with.”
So much for reining in the snotty.
The secretary, the only one that didn’t look like she belonged on the pages of a Victoria’s Secret catalog, snorted and buried her head in the paperwork she had been perusing when she saw Charlotte cast a biting look in her direction.
“Have a seat,” Charlotte said. “Someone will be with you . . . eventually.”
“I can’t wait.”
I watched as Charlotte moved back to her desk and plastered a fake smile on her face for the woman sitting in front of her. Once I was sure that Charlotte was otherwise engaged, I sidled over to the secretary and shot a winning smile in her direction. “She’s friendly.”
The secretary, whose nameplate read Chelsea Princeton, glanced over her shoulder to make sure Charlotte wasn’t looking towards us and then nodded her agreement. “She’s a bitch.”
“I’m guessing she’s mean to you, too.”
“Well, I don’t look like her, do I?” There was bitterness to Chelsea’s tone. I had a feeling that, at 5’3” and a hundred-and-ninety pounds, she was the odd woman out in this particular nest. The shoulder-length bob and wide swath of bangs wasn’t doing her any favors either. She was friendly to look at, though, which made me immediately gravitate towards her.
“She won’t look like that forever,” I said dismissively. “And once her looks go, no one will want to be around her because she’s got the personality of a dirty ass.”
Chelsea laughed openly this time, and I caught Charlotte raising her head and shooting a glare in our direction out of the corner of my eye. I opted to ignore it.
“So, what do you need?” Chelsea asked. “You need house insurance or something?”
“Actually, I’m looking for information on Malcolm Hopper.”
Chelsea looked surprised. “Malcolm? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Malcolm passed away.”
“I know. He was killed in a freeway shooting,” I said. “I’m a reporter over in Macomb County. We had a similar shooting over there the other day. I’m just trying to find out if Malcolm had any ties to our victim.”
“I thought the police said that was a random shooting,” Chelsea looked confused.
“The police don’t know what to think right now,” I replied airily. “My boss just wanted me to come over here and ask some questions about Malcolm. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time. That’s how I keep a roof over my head, though.”
“What do you want to know?” Chelsea asked nervously.
“What was Malcolm like?”
“He liked young and pretty women,” Chelsea said quietly, almost to herself. “He surrounded himself with them.”
I knew she was the one to come to for information. “Are you saying the women here don’t know how to do their jobs?”
“I’m sure they do,” Chelsea replied. “I’m sure they knew exactly how to get their jobs, too.”
That was pointed – and I knew which direction she was heading. “So, Malcolm slept with all the women here?”
Chelsea caught herself and shook her head. “I don’t know that.”
“You just have a feeling.”
“He was a little . . . handsy.”
“With you?”
“No,” Chelsea scoffed. “I’m not his type. Look around, why would he pick me when he could go after all of them?”
This was a woman in definite need of a self-esteem boost. “So, you’re saying he goes for flash and no substance?”
Chelsea grinned and I couldn’t help but think she had a nice smile. “I guess I am.”
“Sounds like he wasn’t too bright?”
“No,” Chelsea shook her head. “I think he was really good at his job. I just think he had certain . . . weaknesses.”
“Most men do.”
“Yeah, but not all,” Chelsea smiled shyly. She clearly had a specific man on her mind with that smile. I noticed she didn’t have a wedding ring on, so I figured she was referring to a boyfriend and not a husband.
“What happens to this office now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Malcolm owned it. Will it close now that he’s gone?”
“No, his wife is keeping it open.”
“He was married?”
“Yeah.”
“And he was still getting handsy with the help?”
“Yeah, what a prince, huh?” Chelsea obviously didn’t like Malcolm.
“If you hate it so much here, why do you stay?”
“It’s Birmingham,” she shrugged. “I make more as a secretary here than I would as an executive in Detroit.”
She had a point. “Have the police came and questioned you guys?”
“Yeah, they did the day after it happened,” Chelsea said.
“What did they want to know?”
Chelsea shrugged. “The standard. What kind of a boss was he? Did he have any enemies? Did we know of anyone that would want to hurt him?”
“Did he have any enemies?”
“Not that I know,” Chelsea replied. “Like I said. He was good at his job. I think his only weakness was women. I mean, maybe one of them had a boyfriend or something.”
“What about a woman named Carrie Washington? Did Malcolm have anything to do with her?”
Chelsea bit the inside of her lip while she considered the question. “I don’t think so.”
“Could she have been a customer here?”
Chelsea typed on her computer keyboard quickly, glancing at her screen after a few seconds and then shaking her head. “No. There’s no one by that name that’s a customer here.”
“I didn’t think so,” I blew out a sigh. That would have been too easy.
“Who is she?”
“Who?”
“Carrie Washington.”
“She’s the young mother that was killed in Macomb County.”
Chelsea’s brown eyes filled with pity. “That’s terrible. Do you think there’s really a freeway shooter out there? Do you think we’re all in danger from some crazy person?”
“It looks like it.”
“Are you really a newspaper reporter?” Chelsea asked.
“I am.”
“That sounds like a cool job. Where do you work?”
Everyone that has never been a reporter thinks it sounds like a cool job. The first time they would have to write eighteen obits in a two hours, though, they would quickly realize it’s not as glamorous as it sounds. “I work for The Monitor.”
“Oh,” Chelsea looked surprised. “I think a guy I went to high school with works there.”
“Really? Who?”
“Oh, his name was Brandon. I think he’s on the copy desk.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know anyone by that name,” I said. “Maybe he used to work there or something. I’ve only been at the paper for about five years.”
‘Yeah, maybe,” Chelsea said. “Maybe I heard wrong or something.”
“Maybe.”
I thanked Chelsea for the information, shot one last haughty look in Charlotte’s direction, and then left the business. When I got to my car, I sent Fish a text to tell him I had found out some information, but nothing that tied Malcolm Hopper to Carrie Washington. I was waiting for his response when I saw Chelsea exit the front of the building and climb into a pickup truck that was idling in one of the parking spots.
I figured this was the special someone that she had been thinking of earlier. I watched the truck pull out in front of my car, straining my neck to get a gander at her boyfriend. I couldn’t help but be curious.
&n
bsp; I felt the air whoosh out of me when I saw the driver – and I recognized him. It was Brick.
“Holy crap!”
Eleven
I thought about following them – but I wasn’t exactly trained for that. Who am I kidding? I can barely drive when I’m not distracted. Thinking about Brick laying pipe in a truck with Chelsea in the middle of the afternoon was enough to make me crash into a stop sign – or drive off a bridge – without noticing.
Instead, I drove back to Macomb County, and headed towards The Monitor instead. Someone there had to know something about Brick – like why his name was Brick and what he was doing with Chelsea in the middle of the day.
When I got to the paper, I fobbed my way into the building, and headed straight for the sports department. I didn’t spend a lot of time with them – except for an ill-fated bowling league that made me realize that bowling was inherently stupid and I had subpar hand-eye coordination when it came to resin balls with holes in them. What I did know is that they were a unique group of guys that were mostly easygoing – which meant Brick would be the odd man out.
They were also gossipy – and I was banking on the fact that they would be chatty enough to give me the insight I was looking for.
The Monitor’s newsroom is long and rectangular, with one half of the room boasting tall cubicles (the better, in theory, to cut down on our incessant chatter) and the other featuring shorter cubicles so the editors and copy desk could communicate with each other easier. The sports department was in the taller cubicles, with the reporters, and they were lodged one aisle over from where I sat.
I rounded the corner and ran into Steve Planter, the paper’s Red Wings reporter first. “Hey.”
If Steve was surprised to see me, he didn’t let on. “What’s up?”
“No Red Wings game today?”
“They’re out of town,” Steve said. We only cover the professional teams when they’re in town – or deep in the playoffs.
“Bummer.”
“It’s fine,” Steve waved off my concern. “It let’s me catch up on some other stuff. What are you doing here, by the way? Big story breaking?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I actually wanted to ask you something.”
“Me?” Steve looked more alarmed than impressed. My reputation precedes me, I guess.
“Well, someone in sports,” I corrected myself.
“You need tickets to a game or something?”
“No.” Well, maybe. Eliot loved hockey. “I want to know about Brick.”
“Brick Crosby?”
“Is that his last name?” Now that I thought about it, I guess I had heard that. It was just such a ridiculous name.
“Yeah.” Steve wasn’t looking impressed with my investigative reporter skills. I didn’t blame him. “What do you want to know?”
“What do you have?”
“He’s a little intense,” Steve admitted.
“I got that, trust me.”
“He’s an avid hunter.”
“The scary guy that constantly wears camouflage and expounds on a person’s right to own forty guns likes to hunt? That doesn’t really surprise me. Does he mostly kill deer?”
“And birds.”
“What kind of birds? Like parrots?”
“I think more like turkeys and guinea hens.”
Like I know anything about bird hunting. Although, on retrospect, the parrot comment probably did make me look stupid.
“What else?”
“I don’t know him that well,” Steve shrugged. “He’s only been here for a few months. Maybe you should tell me what you’re looking for.”
“Okay, why is his name Brick?”
“Oh, that,” Steve chuckled to himself. “His name is actually Brandon Richard. He just goes by Brick.”
“Why?”
“Brandon Richard. B Rick. Brick.”
Ah. Well, that was just stupid. “Did his parents give him that name?”
“No, we asked,” Steve admitted. “He gave it to himself.”
That made it even more ridiculous.
“Is he married?”
“Why? You’re not interested in him, are you?”
“Not in the least,” I said. “I’m just wondering about his personal life. I would think a guy that was getting sex on a regular basis would be a little less . . . militant.”
“Well, there is actually a story about that,” Steve glanced around conspiratorially.
Finally.
Steve leaned in closer to me. “So, Brick is in the middle of a messy divorce.”
“Someone really married him? I was just fishing for information.”
“This is his second divorce.”
“He found two women dumb enough to marry him?”
“His first ex is down in Tennessee,” Steve said. “He has two daughters with her. They’re both in high school.”
“And the second wife?”
“She’s living out in Romeo with her parents and the kids they had together,” Steve continued. “He’s living in the house that they bought together a few months ago in Marysville.”
“Why did they buy a house together if their marriage was on the rocks?”
“I don’t know,” Steve shrugged. “I’ve never met her. I just know, according to Brick, she’s a crazy bitch. He claims she tried to smother him in his sleep.”
“I admire her restraint,” I said. “I would have tried to stab him in his sleep.”
“I guess she once said that woman that cut off her husband’s penis while he was sleeping – and dumped it in a field while she was driving – was her hero,” Steve said. “Brick said that was his first inclination that maybe their marriage was a little rocky.”
“I bet.”
“So they moved up here from Tennessee and immediately broke up?”
“Pretty much.”
“Is he seeing anyone?”
Steve narrowed his eyes at me curiously. “Why do you want to know?”
“I just saw him with a woman,” I hedged. I didn’t want to tell Steve the whole story. The gossip mill at The Monitor is notorious – and by the time the rumor got around Brick would be doing her in the parking lot of the insurance agency. I didn’t want to be responsible for that.
“What did she look like?”
“She was short, brown hair,” I said.
“Were they in the parking lot?” Steve looked interested, like he wanted to go and check her out.
“It wasn’t here,” I said hurriedly. “It was in Oakland County. It just took me by surprise.”
“Her name is Chelsea,” Steve said. “They went to high school together.”
Well, that was interesting, she really had known a Brandon in high school and he did, technically, work on our copy desk. “And they both just happened to end up here together?”
Steve looked confused. “Brick grew up here.”
“I thought he was from Tennessee?”
“No, he just moved down there when he met his first wife. His parents are still here. He went to high school in Birmingham.”
“Birmingham? He doesn’t seem like a Birmingham native.”
“No,” Steve agreed.
“So he went to high school with this woman and just met up with her again?”
“Kind of,” Steve said. “I think they reconnected on Facebook.”
Huh. “Before or after his second marriage went south?” I asked.
“That is the question, isn’t it?” Steve’s blue eyes sparkled mischievously.
“What do you think?”
“I think that Brick was in contact with this woman on Facebook before he moved up here – and that’s why he pushed to move back to Michigan,” Steve said. “I think that his wife found out and that’s when she moved out.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I heard him screaming at her on his cell phone outside one day,” Steve explained. “That’s the way it sounded to me.”
“So, it’s not really a theo
ry, you have actual knowledge of this?”
“I don’t have any confirmation from his wife,” Steve said.
“Still . . .”
“Yeah,” Steve nodded. “It sounds like Brick was at least emotionally cheating on his wife with this woman.”
“And now he’s actually involved with her?”
“She brings him a home-cooked meal every night.”
“You’re kidding. I thought he cooked?”
“He used to cook his own stuff every night. Now she brings huge meals to him. In Tupperware.”
“Nice.”
“Then they rendezvous in the parking lot for his fifteen-minute break before he brings the meal inside to eat.”
Gross. “By rendezvous do you mean . . .”
“Yeah, he’s having sex with her in the parking lot.” We were both as excited as teenagers. It really wasn’t a ringing testimonial to our maturity level.
“How do you know that?”
“We might have spied,” Steve admitted.
I was about to tell him that was both immature and disgusting, but then I realized I would have done exactly the same thing. “Do you know anything about this woman?”
“No,” Steve replied. “I just know she thinks Brick is the greatest guy in the world.”
“So, maybe she has brain damage?” I was joking – kind of.
“Brick seems happy,” Steve said. “He’s a lot easier to be around when he’s happy. Trust me.”
I didn’t doubt that. I thanked Steve for the information and then dropped back by my desk. I checked my email to see if anything new had come in and then got back up. I didn’t have enough for a new story but I did have some interesting new leads. Now I just had to figure out what it all meant.
I was momentarily distracted by the sound of my cell phone going off. I glanced down and internally cringed when I saw Carly’s phone number pop up on the screen. This couldn’t be good.
“What’s up?”
“I’m going to kill her!” Carly has been prone to dramatic outbursts since I met her. This wedding, though, was on the verge of tipping her over into a 48-hour involuntary psych hold.
“Who are we talking about?”
“Harriet, who do you think? And you call yourself an investigative reporter.”
I could tell, by the shrill tone of Carly’s voice, that things were about to explode in Chesterfield Township.
Shot Off The Presses: An Avery Shaw Mystery Book 4 Page 8