Collared: A Gin & Tonic Mystery

by L. A. Kornetsky

  “Yeah. Like she couldn’t have taken a car service, or gone off with Uncle Joe, or gone for a walk, not intending to come back . . .”

  He had a valid point. Instead of answering it, she marched up the walkway curving between two bits of green lawn, and up the two concrete steps to the front porch. By the time she lifted her hand to the buzzer, Tonica was standing solidly at her left shoulder, a reassuring presence.

  “May I help you?”

  The woman who answered the door was definitely the woman they’d come to see. Like her house and car, she was attractive but not flashy, anywhere from mid-forties to early sixties, neatly dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved lime green T-shirt, her feet bare, her hair cropped short and left natural, the black curls showing an occasional glint of silver.

  “I sure hope so.” Tonica took the lead again. “You’re a friend of Joseph Jacobs, yes?”

  The woman’s cool but friendly façade shifted, so subtly that Ginny wasn’t sure if she would have noticed if she hadn’t been looking for exactly that sort of reaction. She was certain Tonica caught it, too, although his own demeanor—a cross between eager puppy and door-to-door salesman—didn’t change.

  “Yes, I know Joe. May I ask what this is about?” Her body blocked the door, so they couldn’t see inside, but there was the sound of the television or a radio in the background, canned voices turned down low.

  “Oh, thank God. Because we’ve been trying to reach him for days, and nobody has any idea where he’s gone, and someone said that you’d had dinner with him and maybe you’d know?”

  Ginny was taking mental notes: he’d managed to convey the idea that they were friends of the missing man, and were looking out of concern, without telling a single falsehood. That was impressive. And a little scary.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I had dinner with Joe last week, yes, but . . . what do you mean? Nobody knows where he is? But . . .”

  She was lying. Ginny would have bet everything she had on it. She knew that Jacobs Senior was missing, and she knew why—and where he was. That sudden certainty was an odd feeling for Ginny, and she was normally cautious of odd things, but she trusted this, implicitly.

  “Ms. Coridan, please.” She moved up to stand a little ahead of Tonica, shutting him out of the conversation and making it woman to woman. “You know he’s gone away. We just need to get in touch with him, that’s all. Please, if you know where he is, can’t you tell us?” She wasn’t good at playing people, but she wasn’t playing here. She did just want to talk to him. She was worried. She just hadn’t realized how much, until that moment.

  “I didn’t even know he was missing, how would I know where he is? Better to talk to someone from his office. Don’t they keep tabs on him?”

  She was lying, still, but bitterness weighted down those words. Whatever Zara Coridan’s relationship to Joe, his work was clearly a bone of contention between them.

  “The office won’t tell us anything useful, just that he’s not in. He wasn’t in on Friday, or Thursday . . . that’s not like him. It’s not like him to pack up his stuff and disappear, without a word to anyone.” She was extrapolating, but the evidence so far painted the broad strokes of a guy who was conscientious, and a little obsessive, so it seemed a fair guess.

  “Who are you two?” The woman’s dark eyes narrowed, and she studied them carefully. “You’re not family, he doesn’t have any family other than DubJay and his spawn. And if you were friends, you’d know better than to come here and ask me anything. So what’s your game?”

  Ginny shook her head, trying to reach for that connection again. “We’re not playing a game. We just want—”

  “No.” Coridan moved forward, a measured pace, and they both saw in the same instant that she was armed; she held a small pistol in her right hand. It might have been small, but Ginny didn’t doubt that it could do damage. The metal gleamed blue-black in the sunlight, and the hand holding it was relaxed, but not casual.

  Any sympathy Ginny had for the woman evaporated.

  Beside her, she could feel Tonica tense up, alert but unmoving, and she wondered if he was as scared as she was. “Look, we—”

  “I don’t care how big you are, mister, or what story you’re spinning.” Coridan’s voice had gone icy. “You want to leave now. Or I will swear to the cops that you two came here to cause trouble, tried to shove past me to rob me.”

  “Hey, wait a minute, I—” Tonica tried to defuse the situation, raising his hands in a “we came in peace” gesture, and she did something to the gun that made it click once, ominously.

  He stopped, and Ginny almost stopped breathing.

  “You want help? I’ll give you some, whoever you are. Back off before you get hurt. And if you’re working for that slimy dog, tell him to go to hell. I wouldn’t tell him if his ass was on fire. And yours will be, too, if you don’t get the hell off my porch.”

  She was bluffing. Ginny was almost one hundred percent certain that she was bluffing; normal people didn’t shoot strangers on their front porch for asking questions, not in this neighborhood, in the twenty-first century, anyway.

  Except, her lizard brain said, when they did exactly that.

  Coridan raised the gun higher, the business end pointing right at Tonica’s belly. “Both of you, get the hell gone.”

  Ginny grabbed his elbow and, without even bothering to make her farewells, jerked him back down off the porch and onto the walkway, backing up rather than risking turning her back on the crazy woman with the gun. Ginny’s arm was shaking so much, it wasn’t until halfway down the path, when the woman had gone back inside the house and shut the door behind her, that she realized Tonica was shaking, too.

  She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse.

  They didn’t speak, getting in the car and driving away—the clutch rattling a little as Teddy misjudged it, more proof that he was not unaffected by what had happened. With a little space between her and a gun—that did make Ginny feel better, after all.

  She felt her heart beating, too fast, too hard, and tried not to throw up.

  “I’ve never seen a gun before,” she admitted. “I mean, not close up.”

  “I have.”

  Of course he had.

  “I’ve never had one pointed at me, though. And never by a woman.”

  That distracted her a little from the need to throw up from adrenaline overload. “It makes a difference?”

  “Damn right it does. A guy, I’d know how to handle it. And if I couldn’t handle it, I’d know how to take him down, probably without getting shot, and without you getting shot. A woman, I have no idea . . . I’ve never been threatened by a woman before.”

  Normally, she’d make a wise-ass comment just then, but she was too shaken to think of anything. Her only experience with violence had been the bully-girls in fifth grade, and a couple of screaming matches between the upstairs neighbors, at her first apartment after college.

  “So.” Ginny stared out the car’s window, watching the landscape change from suburban lots back into strip malls and interchanges, leading into the city proper. “Is it time to call the cops?”

  “Normally, hell yes. But what would we say—hey, we were poking around and a crazy woman showed us her handgun?”

  “Yes!” She had a distinct aversion to guns, she decided.

  “And then what? Either she pulls the ‘I felt threatened’ card, which against me would stick, in case you haven’t noticed—big white male vs. older black woman? Or she flatly denies it, we look like idiots, and any chance we have of finding Joe gets chewed up by filling out paperwork and being interrogated by cops who don’t give a damn anyway.”

  “Sounds like someone has some experience with cops.” She must be feeling steadier, if she was snarking.

  “Yeah. My cousin’s husband is Boston PD. Nice guy. Overworked and deeply cynical. Look, if Jacobs wanted the cops involved in the first place, he’d have called them, right? Filed a mi
ssing persons report? He hasn’t, has he?”

  “No.”

  “So. We go to the cops, and they’re looking at us, and your client’s unhappy with us, and we still haven’t gotten anywhere for our trouble. We keep having this discussion over and over—can we just accept the fact that we’re not giving up, and stop wasting time poking the other person to see if they’re on the same page?”

  He sounded pissed off, and she couldn’t blame him: he was right. But . . . “I got a text from someone yesterday,” Ginny blurted. “Telling me not to play PI.”

  Tonica pulled out of traffic, halting the car at the curb and letting the engine die, then turned on her, one arm resting on the wheel, the other across the seatback. For a moment she saw what he meant, about him being a credible thug. “And you were going to mention this . . . when?”

  “Never. I just . . . I don’t like to think about unpleasant things.” Her parents used to nag her about that, saying it was a mark of immaturity, but she had always figured that if she could do something about it she would, and if she couldn’t do something about it, there was no point in fretting.

  “And I don’t like being told what to do.” She pretended not to see his “no, really?” expression.

  “Anyway, it was probably nothing. Maybe even Uncle Joe, telling me to back off. Like you said, what could I do, go to the cops? Believe me, it takes a hell of a lot more than a text to get the cops’ attention. A friend of mine got stalked, the guy did everything but camp out in her garden, and the cops just said they couldn’t actually do anything unless he made a physical threat. This? They’d treat it like a prank, tell me not to worry, or to just give up the job.”

  “Jesus, Mallard.” But he didn’t argue with her, just stared through the windshield. His jaw was so tight, there was a tic in his cheek that looked painful. “Remember when I said I didn’t like the way this gig was turning? I like it even less, now.”

  Her stomach hurt. “You want to quit?” she asked him again. It was different now: there was an unknown factor in the game.

  “Hell no, I don’t want to quit.” He sounded annoyed. “Someone’s telling you to back off—in my world that usually means there’s a damn good reason to keep going. Something someone doesn’t want us to find out. If we find Uncle Joe before anyone else, at least we have a chance to figure it out, maybe even help.”

  “Help who? Joe’s lady friend seemed to think that DubJay finding his uncle would be a bad thing. What if it is Uncle Joe who told me to back off?”

  “That’s what we need to figure out—the who, and the why. But the only way to do that is to track down Joe. Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She drummed her fingers against the tablet. “Tonica?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think we’re in way over our heads.”

  That made him laugh. “No shit. So what now?” He was handing control of the job back to her, his body facing forward again, ready to turn the key in the ignition and move forward, as soon as she gave the word.

  “Now . . . we go talk to the lawyer. But I want to make a stop at home first.”

  In a sleek modern office downtown, that anonymous text was also under discussion.

  “You did what?”

  Mitch Goren rarely lost his temper; he had not lost it now. He was, however, deeply annoyed and more than a little incredulous.

  His assistant, a young man with impeccable credentials, an impressive CV, and balls of steel wrapped in military-grade asbestos, held his ground, but his voice wobbled slightly. “I sent her a text message, warning her away. From a prepaid phone. Impossible to trace.”

  “You . . . from a prepaid phone. You sent Ms. Mallard a texted threat?” Each word was pronounced carefully, inflected just so, to ensure that there was no confusion, no misunderstanding, no ability to backstep later.

  “Not a threat, sir.” His assistant looked disturbed at the thought. “Merely a suggestion that this might not be a job she was competent for. Sir, if she is as capable as her reputation, then such . . . advice will make her dig her feet in more. She would no sooner give up than stop breathing. And once she starts digging . . . who knows what she might find? Even the slightest hint of scandal would put Jacobs Realty in a position of weakness.”

  “You took initiative.” There was a pause, where the conversation could have turned either way, and the assistant didn’t dare swallow. “Oh, Bjorn. There are days and times when that would have impressed me. This day, this time, was not one of them. If she is as smart as Walter thinks, then in sending that text, you may indeed have alerted Ms. Mallard to the fact that something more than her stated assignment is in play. And, not being a fool, she might decide, instead, to go to the police with her suspicions.”

  Bjorn considered that possibility, and wilted slightly.

  “While I have no objection, particularly, to seeing Walter Jacobs carted off in handcuffs, his incarceration does us no good unless I am able to make use of it. And once the police are involved, any move I make would be under suspicion as well.”

  Having made his point, Goren relented slightly. “We will hope that your attempt worked as you hoped, and not as I fear. In the future, however, please do not attempt to think until I tell you what I want you to think.”

  “Sir. Yes sir.”

  There was a muffled tone in his assistant’s response that didn’t sound like either embarrassment or fear. Goren narrowed his eyes. “All right, out with it. What?”

  Bjorn had been with him for years; he rarely held back what he was thinking, and Goren usually encouraged that. “You sounded like an evil overlord. Sir.”

  He sat back in his chair, the leather creaking underneath his weight, and stared at Bjorn, then let out a surprised laugh. “Yes, you’re right, I did. And that is why you keep getting raises, rather than being kicked out the door when you are an idiot.”

  “Sir.” There was equal parts remonstrance and pride in that single word.

  Goren waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh, go take an early lunch. Don’t let me see you again until I find out how much damage you may have done, with your thinking. And for God’s sake, stop reading spy novels. They’re rotting your brain.”

  The phone was already to his ear before the door closed behind his assistant.

  “DubJay? It’s Mitch. How the hell are you? Look, I’m actually home this week—no, no travel, thank God—and I want to get the boat on the water. How about you and Gretchen join me? Oh, and Joe, too, of course.”

  He relaxed, the worry of the previous moments fading away while he listened to the other man make excuses for his uncle. Poor DubJay, so certain that the world could be arranged to his satisfaction, no matter what. It must have been a hell of a shock when his nearly retired uncle finally showed some backbone.

  And to think that he could keep it all quiet . . . that was hubris of a dangerous sort. Mitch had nothing against DubJay, personally, but a savvy businessman kept his fingers stirring all sorts of pots just for exactly this sort of information. Outright betrayal or careless slip, it was all useful, eventually.

  And now all he had to do was sit back and wait for the inevitable unraveling.

  “Lovely. I’ll see you both tomorrow, then!”

  It might not be kosher, this game he was playing, but real estate was no place for a conscience.

  7

  By the time they got back to Ginny’s apartment, they’d both mostly recovered from the shock of being threatened. But Ginny was still determined to follow through on her idea to carry protection.

  Tonica wasn’t thrilled. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Humor me,” Ginny said, and then turned her attention back to the problem at hand. “C’mon on, baby, into the car.”

  Georgie looked at the space her mistress wanted her to jump through and then back at Ginny, the expression on her sweet, wrinkled face clearly asking “No, seriously? You want me to do what?”

  “If that dog slobbers—or pees!—in my car, I swear, Mallard—”

&n
bsp; “She won’t. She’s already done her business for the morning, and shar-peis don’t drool.”

  “Uh-huh.” He wasn’t convinced. Thankfully, Ginny’d thought to toss an old towel into the bag when she went to collect Georgie, and that was now covering the space behind the passenger seats.

  Looking at it from a dog’s point of view, she admitted that the old coupe had a pretty tight squeeze between the seat and door frame. But once inside, Georgie would have plenty of room—at least as much as her training cage in the apartment.

  Breaking out the big guns, Ginny reached into her pocket and brought out a pup-tart. “C’mon, girl.” She tossed it into the back of the Volvo, and before her arm had finished its arc, Georgie had the treat in her mouth, her bulk through the door and comfortably settled inside the car.

  Tonica stared at the dog and shook his head, then ran a hand over the top of his head, as though the flattop cut might have gotten mussed. “And what do you think that lump of puppy is going to do? Lick someone to death?”

  “You know Georgie,” Ginny said, getting back into the car, the bag filled with water dish and toys and poo-bags at her feet.

  “Yeah. And?”

  “So you know she’s a sweetie. But if you didn’t? Look at her. She’s solid muscle; her breed was originally meant to be fighting dogs.”

  He craned his neck around to look at the animal in his backseat, and got a blue-black tongue in the face for his effort.

  “Ugh. Georgie, down!”

  Georgie, having decided that the car wasn’t so bad after all, remained standing, her front paws on the back of Ginny’s seat.

  “Georgie . . .” her mistress warned, and with a disappointed whine, Georgie settled down on the floor, her nose resting on her paws, close-curled tail twitching in anticipation of whatever was going to happen next.

  “Yeah. Hell of a watchdog.” But he shook his head, and started up the car.