by Nancy Bush
I thought about it. “I agree.”
“There were two calls to Roland Hatchmere’s cell phone that morning,” he revealed. “One came from a business called the Columbia Millionaires’ Club. I want you to find out if Violet’s ever been associated with it.” He read something in my face though I tried to shutter my thoughts. “What?”
“I know about CMC.” I filled him in on what Violet had said about Roland and Melinda. Larrabee absorbed the news, and I finished with “I put a call into Melinda, but she hasn’t called me back yet.”
“Let me know when she does.”
“You think someone from the club has something to do with all this?”
He lifted his palms. “It’s just one of the calls. The club doesn’t have a record of who made that call to Roland, though. They’ve got an interesting operation. They rent space downtown,” he said. “During the day, there’s no one specifically slated for the front desk. They don’t have many full-time employees and the employees that are there are manning the small restaurant and bar, which is available for the members, all male, mostly. Apparently, it’s mainly an escort/dating service that floats from venue to venue. They have parties semimonthly.”
“The women aren’t members?”
“Didn’t get into it with the president, George Tertian. I just was following up on the phone call. There’s a phone for member use at the end of the front counter. Anyone could step off the elevator at the sixth floor, walk right up and use it. But I’m guessing it would most likely be a member.”
“If it’s an escort service…and Roland was married…maybe it was a ‘secret’ call?”
“Another woman?” He thought it over. “It would be tough for a woman to make that call and not be noticed. It’s a men’s club, at least during the day. They have parties and women are invited. Probably how they get around having only male members. I have a club roster.”
“Anyone on that list I should know about?”
“Haven’t checked it closely yet, but Roland’s name is still there.”
“How about the girl at the desk?” I suggested, although why I was traveling this path was kind of a mystery to me. Roland was already involved with Melinda and Violet. He seemed to have been a serial dater, not a juggler of numerous affairs.
“The receptionist is about twenty-three,” Larrabee said.
I thought that over. Roland Hatchmere seemed to stick closer to his own age bracket. “Maybe it’s not about a woman. The caller could have been a man. I mean, if that’s what the club’s all about, stands to reason, right? Maybe it was someone who wanted to use the phone when no one would be listening. Someone who didn’t want the call traced back to him.”
“Or it could simply be that someone made a call when the receptionist was busy elsewhere.”
His casual attitude finally registered with me. He was only partially invested in the Millionaires’ Club angle. “You said there was a second call to Roland’s cell,” I reminded him.
He nodded.
“Well, who was it? Do you know?”
“Roland’s son. Sean Hatchmere.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Sean?” I said.
Larrabee nodded again. “Those were the only two calls to Roland’s cell that morning.”
I thought about Roland’s son, his laid-back, “let’s get high” nature. Is that what had set Roland off? His anger over Sean’s continued drug use? And had Roland simply taken out his anger on Violet?
It seemed anticlimactic, though. “Sean didn’t go to the rehearsal dinner,” I remembered. “I thought he was with his band, working that night. That was his excuse, anyway.”
Another surge of screams from the crowd sent my gaze back to the game. I caught sight of the end of a spiraling pass. The receiver, arms out in a cradle, captured the ball on a full run for another Lake Chinook touchdown. I glanced at Keegan, who held both arms in the air, his hands fisted.
“What do you think of the quarterback?” I asked Larrabee.
He followed my gaze. “Lendenhal? He’s good.”
“At football,” I agreed.
Larrabee checked his watch. “Time to get home.”
“You’re not staying for the end?”
“This is about all the beating I can stand to watch.”
We smiled at each other. Larrabee cocked a brow and said, “You’re not Durbin’s usual type.”
I tried not to react. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Ask him.”
“Oh no. I deserve more of an answer than that.”
“You pretty anxious for information on him?” He was truly enjoying this, and I found it just as irritating as when Dwayne did it.
“When it comes to Dwayne’s past, I’m apparently on a need-to-know basis only,” I said dryly.
“I’m here to help.”
Like, oh, sure. That’s what this was all about. But if he was going to pretend to “dish” with me, I was going to go for it. “How did you meet him?” I queried.
It was the fourth quarter and Brookstone was trailing by twenty-eight points. I fell in step beside Larrabee and we headed toward the gate and the parking lot. “We took criminology classes together at Portland State.”
“You went into law enforcement and Dwayne apprenticed with a private investigator.”
“We don’t call each other unless we have to.” The detective pulled a remote lock opener from his pocket and I heard the chirp-chirp as he depressed the button. From across the lot his car’s lights flashed. It was apparently his personal vehicle tonight, a silver BMW.
“Dwayne never thought about law enforcement?”
We reached my Volvo first. Larrabee leaned a hip against my front fender and considered me. “Okay, screw Durbin. He’s not gonna like me telling you this. He was under suspicion of murder once. Never convicted. No evidence. Kinda broke his faith with law enforcement.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Murder?” I repeated. “Oh, come on.”
“It was more a case of him getting caught up in a large net of possible suspects. Pissed him off but good. Can’t say I blame him.” Larrabee held up a hand in goodbye as he headed out. In a dry voice, he said, “Still, I owe him.”
“Yeah?” I was still absorbing these unlikely bits of information about Dwayne.
“He introduced me to my wife.”
I tried to call Dwayne as soon as I was on the road. Wife? Wife? I knew Dwayne had been joking about the dating thing with Larrabee, but not for a single minute had I suspected the man had a wife!
And a murder charge? I still didn’t believe it. Larrabee had enjoyed shocking me with that one. Dwayne clearly hadn’t expected him to be so candid.
“Come on, come on,” I muttered, but Dwayne didn’t pick up his phone.
I drove by his place, but I didn’t go in. I didn’t really have time if I wanted to meet Dawn and my teen cohorts at Do Not Enter. Not that I was looking forward to tonight’s tête-à-tête, but I wanted the task behind me.
I decided it was better to corral Dwayne when I had no other pressing engagement. As soon as my mission was accomplished, I would head over to his house and demand some answers.
Tonight when I parked my car down Beachlake, I positioned it nose out, just in case I needed a hasty getaway. I stayed in my car thinking over all the things Larrabee had said, more absorbed with what he’d said about Dwayne than anything to do with the Hatchmere case. I mean…wow. My brain felt overloaded. I wondered if too much information was a bad thing. I had this vision of neurons spontaneously combusting inside my head. Phhhhtttt!
With an effort I put everything aside and concentrated on the task at hand. I stayed in my car for a while, watching as other teenagers arrived. It was interesting how quiet they were, their music subdued, their talk low, the only serious sound coming from car engines and tires crunching on gravel. Someone had laid down the rules since the events of last weekend. The party had broken up before Keegan arrived, but this seemed like his doing. This was Ke
egan’s kingdom. Keegan’s rules.
I still thought it was highly dangerous not to change their venue, but I’m a known chicken.
Stripping off my jacket, I grabbed the Lake Chinook sweatshirt and yanked it over my head. To hell with bare midriffs in November. Finger-combing my hair, I snapped it into a ponytail, smushed the baseball cap back down, tucked my purse under my arm, then zipped my ID and keys in a pocket, just in case somebody got snoopy and checked my license. After locking my car, I picked up yet another rock to hide in my pocket. Then I switched my cell phone to vibrate again as I headed toward the driveway. I’m getting a whole lot better at cell phone function. By the time I’m forty, who knows? I might be able to program rocket trajectories.
Everything was wet and wind shook water from the surrounding trees, but the rain was still on pause. I passed by Social Security on the way and felt the hairs lift on the back of my neck, as if accusing eyes were glaring down at me. My guilt, I knew. Maybe I’d feel better after I got them back their canoe.
Skirting mud puddles, I made my way to the plank that led up to the front of Do Not Enter. Work had been done on the property. More two-by-four walls had been erected and whips of loose, white electrical wiring hung down or were looped through bored holes. Tonight we weren’t connecting to the temporary power pole, apparently, as no string of lights illuminated the house’s interior. More caution. A good sign.
“Hey.” A guy materialized from the shadows, nearly scaring me out of a year’s growth. He was the lank-haired kid who guarded the alcohol stash.
“Hey,” I responded.
He checked out the sweatshirt. “Oh, okay. Go on in. We’re kinda on red alert here.”
“Oh, I know,” I breathed, throwing a wild look over my shoulder at Social Security.
“No shit.” He’d been holding a cigarette down at his side, as if that could disguise it. I’d already smelled the smoke and seen the orange glow, but then, I’m a detective. Ha.
I walked carefully up the ramp and inside. The party tonight was in the basement. Again, better thinking. I eased myself down the hazardous steps and joined the group. They all stopped and turned toward me, like a herd of elk sniffing the air. The sweatshirt was an automatic access card. Spying it, they went back to their little groups within the group and paid me no never mind.
I’d half decided to steal outside and work my way to the canoe, but I realized it would be better to take Beachlake to its end, cross the footbridge, pick up the road to the empty house, sneak to the water, then paddle the canoe back to its home.
A girl detached herself from a group at the far end of the basement and came my way. Dawn. She gave the impression that she’d been on pins and needles, waiting for me, especially when she suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me out to the slippery, muddy backyard, leading me away from the house. Her grip on my wrist was like a vise.
“Hey,” I said uneasily. “What’s up?”
“I just want to talk to you, you know?” She tried to sound pleasant, but something was going on beneath her tone.
“Sure.”
She drew a breath, exhaled, drew another. “Keegan’s been asking for you.”
“For me? Is he here?” I twisted around to look, wondering if she was ever going to let go of me.
“He’s on his way. Are you with Brett?” she demanded. “I mean, I don’t really care, but Clarissa wants to know.”
“I’m…not really with any guy. Who’s Clarissa?”
She dragged me closer to the water’s edge and for a moment I wondered if she planned to throw me in. Here I’d thought we were becoming friends, but it looked like I was mistaken on that. Dawn sure didn’t act like she was overjoyed to see me tonight. She seemed intent on intimidating me. Because of Keegan?
I was trying to come up with the proper reaction to her high-handedness. Should I be cowed or snotty? These seemed to be the two main forms of behavior for the girls. There wasn’t a whole lot of female bonding going on. Pretty much it was a dogfight over the menfolk, and what a stellar group they were.
Dawn and I were out of earshot of the rest of the group. She still had hold of my wrist like I was her prisoner, and I was waiting for her to make some kind of move when she started shaking all over as if from ague. “You okay?” I whispered, alarmed.
The sobs started from her core and came out in ragged gasps. She was trying desperately to hold them in, tamping back a spiral to a full-blown wail. Awkwardly I put an arm around her and she turned into my shoulder, her slender body racked and quaking. Were she to let out her feelings instead of clamping them back, I could believe it would be a scream-a-thon. No wonder Dwayne had named her house Rebel Yell. The emotional violence held in check was awesome.
I patted her on the back. Whatever was troubling her was deep and soul-consuming. “Are you pregnant?” I asked.
She clutched my clothes with fingers like talons, hanging on as if she would fall. I tightened my grip. “How did you know?” came her muffled response.
“An educated guess.” My gaze drifted back to the half-finished house. Groups of kids had split off, some drifting back upstairs. Little pods of secluded lovemaking? Something…
“I’m not pregnant anymore,” she sobbed. “I wanted this baby! I wanted her so much! I told my parents and they demanded that I give her up. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.” Her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “But I lost her. How could that happen? Why couldn’t I have her?”
“You miscarried,” I realized.
“My parents were happy! They tried to hide it but they were happy!”
“Well, relieved, maybe.”
She pounded her fist on me. “Happy,” she insisted fiercely. “Glad. They wanted her dead.” She flung herself away from me.
I didn’t believe she’d been far enough gone to actually know the sex of the child before the miscarriage. She was projecting, planning for a baby to give her unconditional love. A baby, to take the place of her missing, one-eyed cat, Caesar.
“Who’s the father?”
“I don’t know.” She scrubbed at her cheeks like a child.
“Come on, Dawn,” I chided softly.
“I don’t know! Keegan…maybe? What does it matter now?”
“Did you tell him you were pregnant?”
“Dionne wouldn’t let me. She said he wouldn’t care, and I was better off without him. He’d moved on to Clarissa, by then. So I listened to Dionne, but I shouldn’t have. He had a right to know.” It sounded like this was something she’d rehearsed often, but hadn’t actually been able to perform.
“Is there a chance someone else is the father?” I asked.
“No.”
Oh, now she was positive? “Why did you say that you don’t know for sure it’s Keegan?”
“I just don’t remember. I had too much to drink.”
“But you’re sure you were pregnant?” I asked, treading carefully.
Dawn sighed as if I were truly dense. “Yes. I didn’t know at first. But then I started feeling terrible. Really, really gross. I puked up breakfast one morning and Dionne heard me. She, like, had a fit. Started screaming and yelling. I told her to shut up! Mom and Dad wanted to know what was wrong and Dionne told them she was pissed off because I’d ruined her favorite shoes. It was a total lie. Then later she brought back this birth control test, the one with the pink lines, you know?”
“Pregnancy test,” I corrected.
“She made me pee on this stick and there it was. Two pink lines. I was just…I don’t know…scared. And then, when I figured it was Keegan’s…” She pressed her knuckles to her mouth while tears rained down her cheeks. “I thought he might, want me back, you know?”
I gazed at her in consternation. This was a whole lot more involved than I’d expected. “So, he still doesn’t know?”
She shook her head violently.
“Have you told anyone else?”
“No. You think I should tell him?” she asked, suddenly hopeful.
/> “No!”
She recoiled from me. Okay, I didn’t mean to sound so absolute. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. But subtlety didn’t seem what was called for here.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” Like I was coming up with a plan. I didn’t like it that she couldn’t remember having sex with Keegan. I didn’t like it one bit. “Come with me,” I said.
“Where are we going?”
I didn’t answer her, just turned back toward the house. She followed after me like a puppy. We headed back inside and up the stairs, but at the front door ramp the King himself suddenly separated from the shadows. “Where are you going in such a hurry?” Keegan asked.
Both Dawn and I froze as if caught in a searchlight. She gazed at him as if he were a screen idol while I couldn’t get past my sick smile. “I’ve got to move a canoe,” I told him.
“A canoe?”
I grabbed Dawn’s arm and hauled her down the plank. “We’ll be right back.”
“Don’t make me wait long…Veronica,” he said.
I didn’t answer or turn around. I practically dragged Dawn behind me, though she started resisting and twisting her arm.
“Let go of me! Where are you taking me?”
“I need help,” I said, increasing my grip. She didn’t like it much that the tables were turned, but we bumped along that way until I thought we were out of earshot. I loosened my grip and she shook me off.
We were near my car but I didn’t let on that it was mine. Dawn wasn’t sure what to make of me. She’d wanted a friend but with Keegan’s sudden interest in me, that wasn’t quite working out.
“Where’s this canoe?” she demanded.
“I’ll show you.”
We moved in silence for a while, the only sounds the faint, tinny noise from the television sets of different homes we passed as we worked our way to the end of Beachlake. In the distance, I could hear the faraway rush of traffic from a road far to our south. At the footbridge Dawn said, “Keegan’s into you.”