by Nancy Bush
She walked the length of the garage, her nerves screaming. But she was alone. Whoever had slashed her tires and left the note was long gone.
And there were no cameras apart from the ones at the entrance to Parking Sublevel A, which captured all the weekend shoppers who used the parking structure. The garage was ticket-accessed; no one on duty. She would have to pull the tapes if she wanted to find whoever did this. Unless they’d walked in . . .
And it could have been anybody, she realized. Maybe it wasn’t even meant for her personally. JJ&R had their share of dissatisfied customers, Rhys Webber being a case in point. He sure as hell didn’t like her.
Yet . . . the not belonging part . . .
In the end she punched in Faith’s number and started counting in her head, distantly aware that her heartbeats were still fast and hard. When Faith hadn’t picked up on the third ring, she almost chucked the whole idea and went back to her first thought. Danner. He would gladly help. He was a cop. She just didn’t want to be a damsel in distress, especially while he was working.
“Coby?” Faith finally answered.
And despite feeling in control, Coby could feel hot tears fill her throat. It took her a moment to say, “I . . . need help.”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay? Coby! Where’s Danner?”
“I’m in the parking garage at work. Someone’s slashed my tires. Can you come get me?”
A long moment as Faith assessed. Then, “I’m on my way.”
Coby clicked off, calmly called a towing company, then leaned her back against her car and kept a wide-eyed vigil until Faith’s BMW came down the ramp onto Sublevel B.
An hour and a half later, she told her sister, “I’m all right,” for the umpteenth time, sitting on a plastic waiting room chair, having Faith pace around in front of her. It was a living nightmare. Coby realized she never should have called her.
“You’re not all right,” Faith snapped. “Stop saying that.”
Faith had arrived just before the tow truck. They’d made plans to have the Nissan towed to Les Schwab Tires, and the towing man had winched the car up and onto a flatbed. She and Faith had followed the truck to the tire store and then Coby had picked out new tires.
“I needed new tires,” she said to Faith, trying to make light. “Just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.” And to the employees at Les Schwab, “There’s kind of a clunk under the right front tire.”
Faith was having none of Coby’s “I’m more than okay” attitude. “Somebody’s out for you,” she said in a whisper, as they were only a few feet from the counter. “What does that mean, you don’t belong? Who’ve you pissed off?”
“Any number of people.” Coby walked farther out of earshot. Though she appreciated Faith helping her out, she now wanted to handle things herself.
“This has to do with Annette’s murder, doesn’t it? You’ve made somebody nervous.”
“All I’ve done is talk to a few old classmates.”
“You think one of them did it?”
“No.” Coby gazed at Faith in frustration. “No.” She wasn’t about to discuss her theories with her sister.
“Who, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have an idea who killed her, don’t you? And somebody knows it.”
Coby held up her hands and sidestepped her sister, going to a vending machine. She yanked her wallet from her purse and pulled out a five-dollar bill. “I need caffeine. You want anything?”
“No, thanks.”
Coby inserted the bill and waited for her can of soda to drop, gathering her change and dropping it into her purse. Then she popped open the can and took a restorative swallow.
“Coby, c’mon,” Faith said. “Stop being so strong. I get it. This is scary. I’d be out of my mind, considering someone killed our stepmother.”
“Faith, thanks. Really. You’ve been great, but really—stop. You don’t have to stay with me.”
“I want to,” she said, trying hard to read Coby’s feelings and failing.
“No, really. Please.”
The two sisters stared at each other a moment, then Faith sighed and asked, “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to tell Danner about this, right?”
“Yes. Tonight.”
“All right.” She gave a quick little shrug of her shoulders. “One more thing: Mom and Dad. They really are together.”
“Oh . . .” Coby sighed. “I keep hoping it’s a bad dream.”
“Don’t you want them together?”
“Not now.”
“But after this is over?”
Coby stared at her older sister, who sometimes was so damned dense it made Coby want to bang her head against the wall. “What if this isn’t over, Faith? What if Dad, or Mom, or someone else we care about is responsible? What if, in the end, we learn something we just don’t want to know?”
Faith gazed at her steadily. “Maybe you should stop investigating with Danner. Maybe he could be . . . diverted.”
“Diverted? Oh . . .” She felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “You really do think one of them did it!”
“No. No . . . no, I don’t.” She shook her head, trying to convince herself as she moved toward the door, not even looking up to say good-bye as she headed through the double glass doors and across the tire store’s parking lot toward her vehicle, her hair blowing in the wind.
Coby thought about what she’d said, and the note on her windshield, and her slashed tires. Anger burned through her; her veins felt on fire. Whoever had tried to warn her off had scared her; that was true. But if they’d thought they would actually scare her off, they’d miscalculated: she was more determined than ever to learn the truth.
Danner walked into Rick’s with Metzger at about three o’clock. The same bartender he’d met the first time he visited the nightclub was there. This time he gave his name—Charlie—but he looked nervous about talking to the cops.
“We need to see Rick,” Danner told him.
His eyes rolled toward the door to the inner sanctum, then back to Danner. “He doesn’t like to be disturbed in the afternoon.”
Metzger leaned an elbow on the bar. “Call him.”
Charlie sized her up. Elaine wore her dark hair short and didn’t give a damn about the silvery strands of gray curling near her ears. He picked up his cell phone, punched in a number, and said nervously, “Mr. Wiis? The police are here.” They heard squawking on the other end. “I told them, but . . .”
Elaine snatched the cell phone from his hand and said pleasantly into the receiver, “Mr. Wiis, we’ll be coming into your back offices in one minute unless you’d care to meet us out here. We’re investigating a murder and would prefer not to bully you. But if we have to, we will. Your choice.” More squawking. Louder this time. Then she said, “We’ll be right in.” She hung up, looked at Danner, who couldn’t quite smother a smile, and said, “He seems like a very engaging personality.”
They left Charlie and pushed through the door to the inner hallway, which this time was void of hovering women. Danner led them to Rick’s door and Elaine gave a light knock. A moment later the man himself answered in a burgundy smoking jacket and an expensive toupe that had tilted just a smidge.
“I was resting,” he answered defensively to Metzger’s narrowed assessment of him. It was clear he’d come up short.
“All we need to know is how to find Sheila,” she said. Danner passed the man the artist’s sketch.
Rick wanted to both rush them out the door and somehow defend himself, so he kept them standing by the door but started into a convoluted explanation about the women in his entourage and how sometimes he didn’t know them that well, how he even had a few who just popped in for a bit and then left, not wanting to join the group, so to speak.
“Hard to believe,” Metzger muttered to this last part.
“Tell us about Sheila,” Danner said.
“Sheila was l
ike that. Didn’t want to join. She just sorta hung around, but she wasn’t really Rick’s material, if you know what I mean. She was better than Lucky, though. That girl was fucking weird.” He kissed the tips of his fingers and touched the sandaled feet of a brass figurine on a nearby table that might’ve been Buddha but looked a lot like the character of George Costanza from Seinfeld.
“So Sheila moved on to Jarvis Lloyd,” Danner prompted.
Rick shrugged. “She thought he was a patsy. She was looking for the big score.”
“You kinda pick up stray women here, don’t you?” Metzger said, glancing around at the black-and-white photos he had on the wall. New photos, Danner suspected, though the look hearkened back to the Rat Pack and the sixties.
“I run a nice place,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” She gave him another assessing look, her gaze lingering on the smoking jacket.
“We think this homicide was about Mrs. Lloyd,” Danner told him. “But something went awry and the daughter got killed, too. Lloyd made himself believe he could put his dying wife out of her misery. An act of mercy, self-involved as it was, and stop the financial bleeding.”
“Enter Sheila,” Metzger said, picking up the narrative. “And Lloyd suddenly has a plan and a timetable. No sense waiting around. They set up a plan and Sheila kills the wife, wounds Jarvis Lloyd, and then is surprised by the daughter. Then mayhem.”
“Suddenly, Jarvis Lloyd’s plans to ride off into the sunset with Sheila are scratched. He’s seen her kill his own daughter,” Danner said.
“And she’s made a big mistake.” Metzger paused, letting the scenario sink in.
“So, she takes off and now we’re looking for her,” Danner said after a moment. “What kind of person is Sheila?” he asked Wiis. “You think she has any remorse?”
Rick thought a moment. “No.”
“She likes money?” Metzger asked.
Rick laughed without humor. “She would cut the ring off her dying grandmother’s hand.”
“She didn’t get the big payoff from Lloyd,” Danner said. “His financial records show he sold his stocks over the last few months. He says to pay for his wife’s care. But it was a lot of money, and it’s just waiting in a bank account now.”
“Think she’d try to come back for it? Contact Lloyd? Maybe see if they can pick things up again?” Metzger posed.
“She’s too smart,” Rick said.
“It’s a lot of money,” Danner pressed.
Rick looked from one to the other of them. “Maybe . . . after a long time . . . but I saw where he got arrested.”
“Good lawyer might get him off,” Danner said, thinking of Charisse Werner and how pissed she’d been at him that morning. He didn’t really believe Jarvis Lloyd had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of this mess unscathed, but Rick Wiis didn’t have to know that.
As if suddenly deciding it was time to cash in his chips, Wiis blurted, “She bunked with Magda for a while. On the east side.”
“How do we get hold of this Magda?” Danner asked, but Rick was already turning to his desk and a black book.
As they left the place, Elaine said, “A smoking jacket and a little black book. Seriously?”
“He’s living the dream,” Danner said, and Metzger’s snort was loud enough to cause a newly arriving male patron in a sharp gray suit to give her a look as he pushed into Rick’s.
“Guess I’m not his type,” she said.
“But he was yours,” Danner responded, and the laugh he chased out of her nearly doubled her over.
Chapter 21
The Cellar was exactly as advertised: a cellar. The main entrance was down a flight of concrete steps painted red, the paint chipped off from many footsteps; the rail was a piece of gray metal pipe. At the base of the stairs was a door with a circular window that Danner pushed open. Inside stood a maître d’s podium with a gaunt, tattooed, dark-haired man standing behind it whose hair flopped forward into a Flock of Seagulls wave over his eyes. He said, “Take a seat anywhere,” and Danner, with Coby’s hand tucked into his elbow, led the way into a dark, black hole with wooden chairs scattered around the perimeter of a dance floor, and a chain-link fence dividing the dance floor from the bar, which was decorated with multicolored Christmas lights that spilled onto the chain-link divider.
Danner had picked Coby up at her apartment at her request and they’d driven to a local burger joint called Shake It Up near the Cellar that Coby had heard had fabulous hamburgers. Shake It Up had come through as advertised, though its real specialty appeared to be shakes and malts. Coby and Danner had each ordered a burger, then shared an order of fries. Afterward, they drove to the Cellar, and by the time they were sliding several chairs around one of the tiny round tables it was after eight. Jarrod’s band was the scheduled first act and were slated to appear on stage at nine.
As Coby and Danner sat down, angling their chairs toward the stage, a waitress in ripped jeans and a black midriff leather top took their order of two Coors Lights. Coby wasn’t about to trust the wine in the place, but she also wasn’t ready for hard liquor.
Now she slid a glance toward Danner, who was lost in his own thoughts, but she knew he was probably reviewing what she’d told him at Shake It Up about her slashed tires and threatening note. She’d put off telling him as long as she could, not wanting to travel down that road till she had to. But it hadn’t gone particularly well.
The evening had started with Danner briefing her at Shake It Up on his meeting with Genevieve the night before. He’d told her all about it and Coby had listened attentively with one ear. Danner had ended his tale with, “Gen said she was probably going to be at the Cellar tonight.”
Coby had surfaced enough to hear something unsaid in that statement, something uncertain. “What’s wrong?”
“She just . . . lost a little bit of focus while I was there. From the wine.”
Coby could easily read between those lines, but Genevieve was Danner’s sister-in-law and she simply nodded and therefore glossed over Gen’s obvious inebriation. She responded to the bulk of his narrative instead. “So, she blames Yvette, too.”
“Maybe because she just doesn’t like her,” was Danner’s response.
“Yvette’s hard to like,” Coby agreed.
“But it doesn’t make her a killer.”
“Are you going to interview her in person soon?”
“I was thinking Monday, after you talk to Hank Sainer,” he said. “She works at Xavier’s in Laurelton as a barmaid, so maybe Monday afternoon.”
“If whatever Hank wants to talk to me about seems to have something to do with Annette’s death, I’ll urge him to take it up with you. I’m not a lawyer, so there’s no expectation of attorney-client privilege, but if it has to do with Benedict’s paternity, he might be afraid of letting it all out.”
“Sounds good,” Danner had said and they finished their meal and headed toward the Cellar.
Now Coby eyed him surreptitiously. She’d carefully kept the events of her afternoon from him for reasons she didn’t quite understand until they were walking from the Wrangler toward the club’s entrance, when she’d surprised herself, even, by bursting out with, “Someone slashed my tires today. All four of them. And left me a note on my windshield in black marker: ‘You don’t belong.”’
Danner had stopped short and stared at her. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I . . . don’t know. I guess I wanted it to be something else . . . but . . .”
While she stumbled around for an answer, he suddenly grabbed her arms and said, “Coby,” in a voice that was like a slap of cold water.
She pulled herself together. “I know. I was afraid to say something.” She told him about calling Faith and getting her tires replaced, finishing with, “I think I’ve made someone nervous.”
“You shouldn’t be a part of this investigation,” was his flat response. “Christ, I’m an idiot!”
“No. Nope. This is what I was worr
ied about!” she said. “Don’t stop me. Don’t get overprotective. I’m in this by choice. You’re just helping out the TCSD, and it’s not your call!”
“I want you safe!”
“I can take care of myself!”
They glared at each other for several tense moments, and then he added quietly, “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.”
She’d wanted to throw herself in his arms and wrap herself around him, drag him to bed and make love till the sun came up, but she knew better than to run on pure emotion. “Give me some credit,” she told him. “I’m not putting myself in crazy danger here. This . . . message . . . is a warning, but so what? We’re tweaking somebody’s tail and that’s what we need, isn’t it? And besides, they’re cowardly, otherwise you would have been their target, not me. They’re afraid of you and so they sent the message to me.”
“I don’t like it,” he stated emphatically.
“I’m okay. I’m right here. And on Monday, after I see Hank, maybe we’ll know something more. We could even learn something tonight, depending on who shows up.”
Danner had let the discussion die, but Coby knew he’d just put it on hold for a while. Now she turned to him and said, “Are we going to get past this, or do you want to leave?”
“Goddammit,” he muttered.
“Danner, you’re not my keeper.”
“Somebody killed Annette,” he reminded her tensely.
“And we’re going to figure out who that is. Together.”
He shook his head. “All I want is to get you as far out of harm’s way as possible. I want to go back to your place. I want to drink wine and kiss you all over and get naked and fall in bed together.”
Coby laughed, amused and relieved. “Well, join the club. We could go right now.”
In the dim light his gaze captured hers and she felt her breath catch in her throat. Her pulse started to race. Then Danner groaned, closed his eyes, and muttered nearly unintelligible invectives before saying regretfully, “I have an issue with my brother that I have to take care of.”
“Well, I’m free later,” Coby said lightly.