ON Fire (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 5) (Redemption Thriller Series 17)

by John W. Mefford

  He made a high-pitched noise, almost like he was sucking through a straw in a nearly empty cup.

  “Who fucking hired you?”

  “Winston Palmer,” he squealed.

  My mind cranked on everything I’d learned since Brook received the call from Noah. But I had no clue why Winston and Franklin would hire me and then pay another PI to tail me.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t fucking know. I’m just supposed to report back with what I see.”

  Was he telling the truth? I couldn’t tell. And it still didn’t make any sense.

  “What’s your name?”

  Silence.

  I dug around and found a wallet in his back pocket. Inside, I found his license. Marco Berelli.

  “There he is, Officer! He’s assaulting that man.”

  I looked up and saw the woman from earlier holding her child and pointing at me. Next to her, a man in khakis and a sweater nodded and started running at me. I saw his badge attached to his belt buckle.

  “Get off that man. Now!” he yelled, quickly closing the distance.

  His hand reached to a sidearm. I jumped to my feet, held up my arms. Marco’s wallet and license fell to the floor.

  “Turn around. Hands behind your head.”

  I must have hesitated, though it wasn’t intentional.

  “Do it now!”

  I did as he said and considered making a case that Marco was the one at fault for following me. But the cop wouldn’t believe me, and he’d tell me that it still wouldn’t warrant my aggressive behavior. I had to accept the humiliation for now and save my explanation for someone who mattered.

  “Are you okay, sir?” the cop asked Marco.

  Marco mumbled something I couldn’t hear. A second later, the cop clipped a cuff on my left hand and started pulling my arm behind my back.

  “Hey, where are you going?” the cop called out.

  I looked to my right and saw Marco running away from us, disappearing at the end of the aisle.

  The cop released a line of expletives that would have put my little league football coach to shame—and that was saying something.

  “At least I got one dipshit,” the cop said, cuffing my second hand and flipping me around to face him. “Now we’re going to make a little trip down to the station. Sound like fun?”

  I counted to ten so I wouldn’t fire off a zinger that might get me further in trouble.

  11

  Some names still carried weight. That I could be thankful for.

  I waited until the right moment—just before the APD was about to book me—and I uttered the name “Captain Rick Porter.” I said we’d been longtime friends, even went to school together. I kindly asked if I could have a few minutes with him before they went through their process of putting me behind bars. They ushered me into an interview room, hooked my handcuffs to a steel bar connected to the table that was bolted to the floor, and left me alone. Not five minutes had passed when Porter walked through the door.

  If his mood could be gauged by how many wrinkles lined his forehead, I was in trouble. He approached the table from the opposite side and leaned on the chair. His tie was pulled away from his neck, which seemed to be getting larger by the minute. Strangely, though, he didn’t scream or threaten me. He didn’t say a word. He just stared at me.

  For a second, I wondered if I’d made the wrong decision. I could have asked for Brook. She was a friend, and even if I’d put her in awkward situations at times, I knew she would have my back. But I didn’t want to call on her for this favor. She’d get me out of it, but along with that, I’d be forced to answer a lot of questions. Questions I didn’t want to answer…that I wasn’t even sure I could answer. But I wanted none of what I knew—or didn’t know—to get back to Noah or Franklin. Not yet.

  Think about it, Oz. If Marco was telling the truth, then he’s probably already alerted Winston and Franklin. So, get ready to be fired or at least called out.

  One crisis at a time. For the moment, I had to focus on gaining my freedom. Then I’d concern myself with how to approach everyone else.

  “I call chicken,” I said, finally cutting the silence in the room.

  I realized I was smiling and Porter was not. So I stopped.

  “Are you breathing?”

  “Of course, asshole.”

  Okay, he was alive. “Are you pissed about me telling the guys we’ve known each other for years?”

  He huffed out a breath, pushed his body off the chair, and crossed his arms across his chest. “Tell me what’s really going on here.” I moved my hands, and the metals cuffs clanked about. “I’d like a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card, please.”

  “Only after you tell me what’s going on.”

  I looked away for a moment, knowing that, to receive a favor, I had to provide something in return. I told him the abbreviated version of what had gone down at the grocery.

  “Marco Berelli. Name rings a bell, but I can’t quite place it,” he said, tapping two fingers against the side of his head.

  I withheld the urge to ask if he could feel rocks moving inside his skull.

  He stopped tapping and said, “But you still haven’t told me why you called for me and not Brook.”

  More negotiation. I was hardly in a position to play hardball, so I told him the important pieces of the story: Brook’s boyfriend, Noah, had a brother who’d been charged with murdering a woman at the Four Seasons.

  He snapped his fingers and then grabbed the back of the chair. “Franklin T. Marshall. You work for that guy?”

  “Well, I’m not a hundred-percent sure if I work for him or his lawyer. And after what happened at the grocery, I might not work for anyone.”

  “Winston Palmer. That snake.” He began to pace across the floor.

  “I guess you’ve met him.”

  “Ha! Met him? He used to work as an assistant DA back in the day. Then, after he did his time, he morphed into a serpent. That’s another term for ‘snake,’ you know.”

  “Ah, right.” I had to make him believe he was extremely intelligent.

  He stopped moving. I could see his mental gears cranking. Then he turned to me. “Now I know why you called me. You don’t want Brook to get in trouble for helping out the defense for her boyfriend’s brother.”

  “You got me.” And he had, but not entirely. But why split hairs? He was going along with it, and he thought Winston was a snake. So, we had something in common.

  He fished keys from his pocket and unlocked my cuffs. “Thanks,” I said, rubbing my wrists.

  “Tell me, Ozzie, based upon what you know and what you’ve found out, do you think Franklin killed Pamela Connor?”

  Porter took a seat on the edge of the table. Man, I really didn’t want to break down the investigation with him, if I could help it.

  I opened my arms and shrugged.

  “Off the record,” he said, sensing my hesitancy.

  “Can’t say.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” He moved to his feet and toyed with the handcuffs. Was that a subtle signal, or was I just being overly sensitive? He’d just freed me, but I couldn’t just roll over for the guy.

  “Technically, if I’m still employed by the duo of Winston and Franklin, I really shouldn’t be sharing anything with you.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded. “Wasn’t sure if you were one of those guys who just ran toward the money or if you had a higher calling to really get to the truth. I guess I just found out.”

  That one cut a little deep. I sighed. “I’m not holding back, Porter. I just got the case a few hours ago. I haven’t really learned anything to definitively say yes or no.”

  “Okay. I get it.”

  I reached for the door.

  “Hey, Ozzie. I know you and Brook are good friends. I’ve come around on her. I think she’s a damn good cop. So, you know…for this investigation, if you’ve got something to share, I’m your guy.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take that, but I put a positi
ve spin on it. “I appreciate the offer.”

  “What I’m saying is, if you need something, ask me.”

  “Cool. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “But just know, if you ask a favor, I’m going to ask for one back.” He smiled like a kid in a candy store.

  An eye for an eye. Now I knew his motive.

  12

  Baxter, curled up on his fluffy pad, looked like he’d been given a sedative. I held up the bottle of wine that Nicole had purchased at the store. “Are you sure you didn’t buy two bottles and give Baxter one of them?”

  She tilted her head, hands on her hips. “If I’m going to get anyone drunk, it’s you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re stressed. You need to chill out, relax a little.”

  I’d given her only a quick synopsis of my day so far, but I did plan on using her brain as a sounding board. I popped the cork on the cabernet and poured each of us a glass. She raised hers and waited for me to clink it. I did.

  “What’s this for?”

  “For silence,” she said, sipping the wine.

  “That’s usually not a problem for me, you know.”

  “Really, Mr. Obvious?” she said. “Just think about it. In this apartment—what is it, maybe a thousand square feet or so?—we have two dogs, one energetic child, and the two of us. And there is absolutely no chaos.”

  Not at the moment. When I’d gotten home, Mackenzie and Rainbow had barreled into the living room. They both had boundless energy. I got down on my knees, and the pair jumped on me, Mackenzie giggling and Rainbow licking my ear. The craziness ensued for a good twenty minutes, when Baxter signaled he needed to be let outside to do his business. Rainbow followed the Great Dane, and they seemed to do their own bonding. When they finished up and loped back inside, the vibe was much calmer…thankfully. I scratched Rainbow’s ears, and he nuzzled up to me. Mackenzie gave me a quick hug and kiss, and then she disappeared into her room. My mind was still swirling with the events of the day, including whether I was still employed on the Franklin T. Marshall murder investigation.

  “I guess we should drink to it—the silence,” I said with a wink. We dinged glasses again and sipped the wine. “So, how did you do it?”

  She extended her hand to the kitchen table. Not sure how I’d missed two pizza boxes. I walked over and opened one. A piece of pepperoni pizza was still remaining. “Did I tell you that I’d planned on cooking steaks for everyone tonight?”

  She patted my chest. “You said something about steaks and then pouncing on some guy with a beard and then getting arrested. I don’t know the details, but when you called after leaving the police station, I knew that steaks weren’t going to happen. So I took swift action.”

  “One eight-hundred Dominos?” I smiled.

  “Something like that. But I also bought the wine and picked up some dog treats. And before you got home, Mackenzie and I took the dogs on a good run.”

  “I guess being in the new surroundings, Rainbow was bound to be hyper. But why is Baxter so docile?”

  “Let’s just say some pizza fell to the floor. They were scarfing that pizza down, let me tell you.” She put a slice on a plate and handed it to me.

  “Thank you, for everything.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a wink. Suddenly, her nose wrinkled. “You could use a shower, you know.”

  I nodded. “I’m grossing myself out. I’m surprised the dogs haven’t asked me to leave.”

  I ate the slice of pizza and then grabbed a cheese slice and ambled to the couch. We discussed the idea of me sending off a text to Winston to confirm if I was still able to book hours to this investigation. I wrote the text but didn’t send it; then I put the phone down on the coffee table while I ate more pizza.

  “You’re going to assume that you haven’t been fired?”

  I finished chewing and washed it down with more wine. “I’m pondering. Technically, nothing has changed. So, I should be able to still work the investigation, or as Winston would say, ‘find the opportunities for reasonable doubt.’”

  “Speaking of doubt, there’s doubt written all over your face.”

  I sighed, tried to relax some. “Can you stick around a little while so I can work through some of this with you?”

  She twisted her lips and gave me a playful look. “What’s in it for me?”

  “Everyone wants to negotiate,” I said, lifting my arms in mock frustration. “How about you get one wish granted. Whatever you want.”

  “Wow, you’re desperate.”

  “Hardly. Just looking for someone to nod a lot and make sure I’m not looking at this completely the wrong way.”

  She picked up my phone and handed it to me. “We shouldn’t waste our time if they’re not paying the bill.”

  I paused for a second. I was charging the client for work that, up to this point, had only created doubt of Franklin’s innocence. Well, not completely. It was complicated, which is why I needed Nicole as my sounding board.

  “Part of me thinks I need to set up a meeting with Winston and Franklin and talk everything out first. I mean, they’re paying a guy to watch after me. It just doesn’t make sense. And it shows they don’t trust me.”

  “Maybe. Or it could be how Winston and his firm operates. And if you set up a meeting, that won’t happen until at least tomorrow, right? Do you really want to wait, or would you rather get the short answer tonight, and then, if they say you’re still on the investigation, you can think through whether you want to meet or don’t want to meet.”

  I looked her straight in the eye. “Your brain is pretty sexy.”

  “If you’re trying to get me in bed, it’s not working.” She reached over and grabbed my arm. “But I appreciate the compliment.”

  I sent off the text, then gnawed on the pizza crust as I got to my feet.

  “Don’t you feel more empowered already?” she said.

  “Well, considering I was banking on this gig to help kick-start Mackenzie’s college fund, I won’t feel completely empowered until I get a positive response.”

  I told Nicole I was going to put Mackenzie to bed and then padded down the hall and opened her bedroom door. She was sitting on her bed drawing something on what looked like her homework. “What are you doing?”

  She put a finger to her mouth and said, “Shh.” Then she pointed her pencil at Rainbow at the end of her bed, whose eyes fluttered for a second and then fell shut.

  “Right,” I said in a whisper, moving closer to her, seeing equations and word problems on her paper. “Is that your math homework?”

  Her baby blues looked up at me, and she nodded.

  “I know you don’t like math, Mackenzie, but you can’t blow it off.”

  “But look at what I drew. Isn’t that cute?”

  She turned her paper toward me. I saw a sketch of Rainbow curled up on the bed. “It’s great, Mackenzie, just like all your creative work. But there’s more to life than drawing.”

  “Why? I’m never going to use that stuff anyway.”

  I sighed, not really in the mood to tackle this topic tonight.

  “Okay, I’ll do it.” She must have sensed my lack of energy.

  I kissed the top her head. She yawned.

  “I’m tired. Can I do it in the morning? I only have three more word problems to solve.”

  And more negotiation. “As long you follow through and do as you say, then I’m cool with it.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I’ll think better in the morning. I just want to go to sleep, since Rainbow is sleeping now.”

  She tossed her schoolwork to the floor. I flipped off her lamp and walked to the door.

  “Dad?”

  I turned around. “Yes, sweet pea.”

  “Is Nicole going to be here when I wake up?”

  My lips opened, but nothing came out.

  “I just wondered, you know…if you guys are getting back together and if we’re going to be one big family, and if we’re going to
move.”

  I walked back over to the bed and got down on one knee. “Sorry if this is causing you to feel anxious.”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine. I like Nicole. A lot. And I like Baxter. I was just wondering if you had your life figured out yet.”

  I almost laughed at her pointed comment. From her, I knew it was all because she loved me. “I think I’m still trying to figure it out. But once I do, I’ll let you know.”

  She yawned. “Okay. Goodnight.”

  I closed her door and walked into the living room, ready to share that moment with Nicole. “Mackenzie just said the funniest thing.”

  Nicole waggled the phone in her hand. “You just missed the text.”

  “What did Winston say?”

  “One word response: ‘Yes.’”

  Now we could get down to business.

  13

  Nicole refilled our wine glasses while I cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, storing the remaining pizza in the fridge for a future night of leftovers.

  Nothing but the best for the Novak family.

  I took the glass from Nicole and sat on the couch. She plopped down next to me and then quickly scooted over a few feet. “No offense,” she said, grinning.

  I told Nicole about Mackenzie’s one-liner from when I’d put her down. I could barely get it out without laughing. After a few seconds, my chuckle snowballed into one of those laughs that created tears. When I wiped my eyes, though, I realized I was the only one laughing. Nicole, with her feet tucked under her, was playing with an earring, her eyes staring at something on the coffee table. Or nothing at all.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” I reached over and squeezed her leg.

  She shifted her eyes to me and said nothing.

  “Am I missing something?”

  Still the stare-down. I replayed the last five minutes, searching for why her mood had suddenly gone south. How could anyone take what Mackenzie said and think it was anything more than a cute joke? I was really laughing more at myself than anyone else. I couldn’t imagine how my own self-deprecating humor could impact her.