I came across several allegations that were made to Fitz, but nothing had been verified. It made me wonder why he had placed the case on the docket without having more information against the magazine. Perhaps he had been bluffing. Dangerous game to play with that side of the world.
I found notes from several detectives he had hired to work the case who had been chasing leads. It appeared that he had lots of folks working on this one. Still, I saw nothing in my first reading of the file that provided any direct clue to how Lusty was connected with my father’s killing. Only the Malone name provided some relationship.
Something didn’t feel right about all of the mess I had just narrowly escaped. My plane was circling Dulles to land and I was still rethinking the events in Northern Michigan. I was more interested in knowing why they had happened rather than what had happened.
After being an investigator for several years, I was more than used to the what of the stuff that happened to me during the course of an investigation. The clues were found in the why questions.
No one but Rogers knew that I was going to Detroit. Margie, the lady across the hall from my apartment who looked after Sam and Blackie when I left town without them, only knew that I would be away for a few days. And who on earth would Margie tell? As far as I knew, she only talked to me. She lived alone, no one ever visited her, and she said very little even when she did talk. The perfect neighbor.
Someone found out. All roads led me back to my recently reacquainted childhood friend, Rosey. He had given me the clue about Craven Malone Industries. Indirectly, of course. He had certainly found out more about me than I knew about him. He was the one link as to why those pseudo-Mafia types found me in the northern wilderness of Michigan visiting with Fitzwaller and Ann.
I changed my flight to land in Dulles. Roosevelt Washington worked for some cryptic company named Washington Consulting owned by the law firm Fielder, Young, Lawson, & Associates. I had no address, but I was a detective. I had some business cards made up to prove it. Given enough time, I can find a business like Washington Consulting. What I couldn’t find were those business cards.
Fielder, Young, Lawson, & Associates were located on the fourth floor of a tall building on the corner of C Street and 20th Street. From their location, go south one block and you find the Department of State. Go north a block, and you discover the Department of Interior. The world of government.
I entered the reception area of FYL & others. An attractive blonde answering the phones and appearing to be extremely busy acknowledged me. The phone book at Dulles informed me that there was no listing for Washington Consulting. Being the deft detective I was, I concluded that either it didn’t exist, or it was an in-house group working solely at the discretion of FYL & Associates.
“Roosevelt Washington, please,” I said in my nicest voice.
“Fifth floor,” she said as she answered yet another phone call.
I was hot on the trail for sure. Back on the elevator and up one flight, I exited once more and found a similar area for receiving clients. And people like me as well. The reception area was worked by an attractive African-American brunette this time. She was not answering phones. She was reading a Washington magazine and didn’t look up when I approached the desk.
“Excuse me. I would like to see Roosevelt Washington,” I said. Nice voice again.
“Appointment?” she asked without moving her eyes from the page to me.
“No.”
“He’s not in.”
“He’ll see me,” I countered.
“Not if he’s not in.”
“Okay, let’s start over. I have an appointment.”
She put down the magazine and finally looked at me. She was attractive, but she possessed this glossy stare which gave all intentions that her body was there while her mind was elsewhere.
“You said you didn’t have an appointment.”
“I changed my mind. I have an appointment.”
“What’s the name?” she said as she reached for a large, opened calendar-type book resting next to the phone. I could see that there were no names written on the pages in front of her.
“Barbara Bush,” I said hoping to elicit some type of reaction from the beautiful zombie like creature in front of me.
“Don’t see it, Barbara. You must be mistaken.”
“Which office is his? I’ll leave him a note.”
“Leave the note with me. I’ll see that he gets it.”
“It’s personal.”
She opened a drawer to her right and found a small envelope.
“Here,” she said as she handed me the envelope, “put your note in this and seal it. I don’t read his personal stuff.”
I took a piece of blank paper from her desk and wrote down my phone number at the hotel where I was staying. I sealed it in the envelope and wrote Rosey on the envelope so he would know it was me.
“I’ll give this to him as soon as he comes in, Miss Bush.”
“You do that,” I paused as my eyes fell on her nameplate for the first time during our enlightened conversation, “… uh… Estelle Stevens. You’ve been a great help.”
“It’s my job,” she said proudly, as if she thought she had actually helped me.
There was a message at the desk by the time I walked to my hotel several blocks away. The number was not the same as the one on the card Rosey had given me. I called the number once I was in my room.
“Washington Consulting, may I help you?” said a familiar voice on the other end.
“Roosevelt Washington, please.”
“May I tell him who’s calling?”
“Barbara Bush.”
“Oh, hi Barbara. I’ll put you right through.”
Old friends.
“Who the hell is Barbara Bush?” Rosey’s voice came on.
“An alias. You don’t think I would tell Estelle who I really am, do you?”
“Be kind. She’s in training.”
“For what?”
“Hey, she’s new. Second week. Give her some slack. You didn’t get in, did you?”
“Didn’t really try. Wanted to be nice since I was on your turf.”
“Thanks. What’s going down?”
“Lunch. Name your poison and I’ll be there. Needs to be public.”
“The China Joy. On M Street, between 18th and 19th. 12:15.”
The cab left me in front of China Joy at 12:05. Nothing quite as exhilarating as a cab ride through the streets of Washington. You never need to tell the cabs that you are in a hurry. They assume.
“I’m waiting for someone,” I told the hostess after she smiled at me.
“He’s in the back on the left.”
Rosey stood up as I approached the table.
“Regular here?”
“Weekly. Weakness for Chinese-American cuisine.”
I sat.
“Use aliases often?” he said.
“Only for people like Estelle.”
“People like Estelle?”
“Humorless ones.”
“Did you provide her with some humor?”
“She never flinched. Absolutely humorless. I couldn’t help her.”
“I don’t like a lot of laughter in the office.”
“You have nothing to fear from Estelle.”
“You have a problem.”
“Let’s eat something and then I’ll tell you my problem.”
It was a large buffet with just about everything imaginable on it. My breakfast had been light, so I was hungry. Rosey recommended the shrimp dishes, so I loaded up with rice, several shrimp dishes and some egg rolls for assistance.
After several minutes of satisfying what I had thought was raving hunger, I eased into a conversation.
“You set me up.”
“Pardon?” he said after he swallowed a shot of his hot tea.
“You were the only one who could have possibly known I was going to Detroit. I don’t know how you knew, but I have some ideas.”
&
nbsp; “What on earth are you talking about?”
He sounded genuine.
“Three goons from somebody’s meat market came after Fitzwaller McCann and his wife while I was visiting with them. Then they came after me.”
“Who is Fitzwaller McCann?”
“You have no idea?”
“Not a clue.”
“Didn’t you give me the name of Craven Malone Industries?”
“Not likely.”
I suddenly remembered our conversation that night sitting in his BMW in front of the large corporation.
“So we just happened to drive by Craven Malone Industries and just happened to park in front of the building.”
“If you say so. I don’t recall.”
“Did you have me tailed to Detroit?”
“Not likely.”
“Is it possible to get a straight answer from you?”
“Depends upon the question.”
“Did you know I was going to Detroit?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Internal memo.”
“But you didn’t have me followed?”
“No.”
“But I was followed, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How did you know I was followed?”
“I followed the followers.”
14
It turned out that Rosey had spotted someone tailing him the night we had dined in downtown Norfolk. They had followed us from Craven Malone Industries. They must have spotted us while we were parked near the building and tailed us back into Norfolk. Some of them stayed on me while some others followed Rosey back to Washington.
I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room and Rosey was sitting backwards in the chair near the television. He was looking directly at me.
“You knew I was in Fitz’s mansion and you did nothing to help me?”
“I was hiding in the shadows. Knight the Obscure.”
“More like Knight Errant. Those thugs could have gotten lucky and killed me.”
“Possible, but not likely. You came out of that burning house unscathed.”
“You saw it all?”
“All.”
“I suppose that if I had been in more imminent peril, you would have come to my rescue.”
“Something like that.”
“Who were they?”
“No identification on them.”
My eyes met his. Now I knew why I had failed to see them following me to Detroit during my daring escape. All of that needless apprehension.
“And I thought it was my destruction of their car that kept them off of my trail.”
“That and my 9mm.”
I left that one alone. The less I knew, the better in the long run.
“You have any guesses as to who they worked for?”
“Malone-people would be my guess. I’ll find out. Let you know.”
“They saw us together, they know we talked, and then they followed me to Detroit. They must suspect we’re on to something. Just wish I knew what it was that they think we know.”
“Let me clear up one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“This ‘we’ stuff.”
“Together again.”
“I work solo.”
“Except when you’re watching my backside.”
“Won’t happen all the time.”
“Just enough to save my skin now and then is good. And it is your fault that I got into this mess. You came to me, Knight the Obscure.”
“Thought you’d be interested.”
“Good thinking. I should have known it wouldn’t be a walk in the park. Someone gunned down my father a long time ago. If the players are still around, they’ll gun me down too.”
“Every chance they get.”
“I have wondered all these years, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Why would someone kill my father? I knew as much as he knew about that pornography ring in Clancyville. They were just some small time players making lots of money. We knew nothing about their connections.”
“You stopped them.”
“Yes, we did do that. Good for the community, you know. They murdered two little boys. That was bad stuff. Your uncle was accused. I had to do something to keep him from going to prison.”
“You missed my point.”
“Which is?”
“You stopped them from making money. You cost them. You hurt the people they supplied. You ended one of their markets. Small, yes. But, nevertheless, important for their sleazy publication. You and your daddy were messing around where you should not have been messing. You hurt the supply and demand side of business. Sometimes that be fatal.”
“Grudge killing?”
“Take out the small town county sheriff because he got in the way of the business venture. Send a message. It happens. Your daddy was a good lawman, but maybe too smart for his own good.”
“But I knew what he knew. Everything. My mother would croak if she knew that, even now. Daddy and I talked about the whole sordid mess. Why didn’t they try to kill me, too?”
“You were eleven years old. No way could they know that you knew anything about this. You were a little girl. You were not credited with finding the culprits, correct?”
“Daddy made sure my name stayed out of the paper.”
“So they figured that if they killed the county sheriff, then the score would be as even as they could get it.”
“Have they bugged my apartment?”
“Don’t know. Better check.”
I picked up my cell phone and called Rogers. She had a separate line from my regular phone. In her long life of espionage, I was the only one who ever called her.
“Dearie. So good to hear from you. How’s Washington?”
“City or person?”
“You alone?”
“No.”
“Start with city.”
“DC is great. Love this place. Someday I may come here for a vacation.”
“This is why you called me on my private line?”
“Turn on your surveillance program and activate your system throughout the house. I need to know if we have been bugged.”
“Release the hounds!”
“Call me on my cell if you find anything.”
“Got it. Give my love to Rosey.”
“Unlikely.”
I clicked off the phone. I tossed the phone on the bed beside me.
“I thought you lived alone, except for the dogs. They don’t answer the phone do they?”
“Not yet. They talk on the phone, but they can’t manage to answer with any sort of dignity.”
“So, you were talking with whom?”
“With whom?”
“Oxford, remember?”
“Sure. Across-the-hall neighbor comes over and takes care of the canines,” I lied.
“You’re a trusting soul.”
“Long time friends.”
15
Mr. Obscure was gone by the time Rogers called me back. She found nothing. I felt more at ease. I called Rosey on his private line.
“This bugged?”
“Not likely.”
“Sure.”
“Few things in life be sure, Miss Detective.”
“May I speak freely?”
“Go ahead. I’ll stop you if you cross my line.”
“Your line?”
“Self-imposed.”
“No bugs in Norfolk,” I said. I was learning to speak cryptically.
“Good.”
“So, they’re working on hunches.”
“Logical.”
“But why me? Do you think they know who I am?”
“Can’t say.”
“Wait a minute. They know you! You did some work for them. They were following you and you led them to me.”
“Two and two.”
“Stay tuned. I have an idea. I’m going home. I’ll call you in a few days.”
&n
bsp; “Can’t wait.”
I was delighted that I had misled him. I couldn’t stop thinking that his line was bugged and that anything I might say would help them. I was going home, but not Norfolk. It had been years since I referred to Clancyville as home. But it was still home.
I was on the earliest flight I could get out of Washington the next morning. I landed in Richmond around noon. After an almost edible meal at the airport, I rented a low-budget Chevy and headed towards Clancyville to see my mother. The three-hour plus trip was over too soon. I missed my car which was still in surgery.
The house and surroundings where my mother lived had changed little since the days I called the old two-story place my home. I suppose in many ways it is still home, will always be home. The drive on the right side of the house was still unpaved. Great place for making mud pies when you’re five or so. The house looked good to be nearly one hundred years old. My grandfather Clancy built the house and Mama became sole owner of it when her brother, Uncle Samuel Walters Clancy, sold her his half of the inheritance for fifteen dollars. Like the purchase of Alaska, it was slightly undervalued at the time of the sale.
Rachel Jo Clancy Evans was sitting on the porch in a rocker counting the cars passing her home on Washington Street. She was an elegant looking sixty-five year old. Despite her elegant appearance, I could detect the pain embedded in her eyes from being a widow the last several decades. She still missed my father, Bill Evans. Some things you never get over.
“You could have called and told me you were coming,” she said with a hint of spitefulness.
“Last minute change of plans,” I feebly offered. I have been bantering with my mother for all of my life. I still feel like I am on the downside of any conversation and losing rapidly. It has always been like a game to her. She had to win.
“No phones in Norfolk.”
“Didn’t want anyone listening on my line to know I was headed this way.”
I wasn’t used to telling her the out and out truth about my life and work, but this time I thought it might work.
“Someone following you?”
“Maybe.”
“I thought you were a good detective.” This time her voice was full of sweet sarcasm. She hated the fact that I had gone into what she called police work. Even though she missed my father dearly, she hated the fact that he had been the County Sheriff and that he was killed because of his work.
One Lost Soul More: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 1) Page 6