“You have any clues about what’s going on there between those two?”
“Some call it love.”
“You’re kiddin’. The man could easily be her father. I don’t buy the romance bit. Has to be something else.”
“Something kinky?”
“Not necessarily, but it could be something to do with business. Craven likes B.A., although I cannot imagine why.”
“Maybe she’s a sweetheart underneath the veneer of a wretch.”
“Ducks to swans?”
“Naw. Sorry. I think she’s pretty obvious. But, she may not be all bad. Just mostly bad.”
“Think she’d kill Joey or have it done?”
“Are you asking if my data about her would suggest that she is capable of murder, of this murder? If so, then the answer is of course. Absolutely. But if you are asking me if my data would suggest her to be a viable suspect, then the answer is no. But my data only goes so far. Limited on her at this point, you might say.”
“Remedy that. Dig deeper. And do some more searching on Cyler Conroy. Oh, by the way. I meant to ask you to research Dennis Morland. You checked on Tony, but not Dennis.”
“Grounds for this?”
“My thoroughness as an investigator.”
“Yikes,” Rogers said before she clicked off.
48
“I hope you like Chinese food,” I said to Gretchen when she opened the door. I held up a sack full of choices. There were a few grease spots showing on the large bag.
“I love Chinese food! Wow! What a great surprise! How did you know?”
“Took a wild guess. Hungry?”
“Yes.”
She cleaned off the table and we sat down and enjoyed our oriental feast. Gretchen made us some tea and we dined in style. Two girls devouring delicious food. I finished first and watched her continue. I don’t think I was as hungry as she was.
“You know anything to help me with your daddy’s death?”
“I know what I saw.”
“Enlighten me.”
“You asked about Mama and Daddy fighting. They didn’t fight at all. But Daddy did fight with some others.”
She devoured the last egg roll and then spooned out some more sweet and sour chicken to go with her fried rice.
“Who?”
She took a bite of the chicken and rice. I watched her chew with delight, then swallow. She sipped her tea. I was being patient. She was enjoying herself a whole lot.
“Mrs. Dilworth. She’s the editor, right?”
“I think so. Where did you see them fighting?”
“Well,” she said, and then took another small bite of chicken. She chewed and swallowed once more. “Mama and I were at Daddy’s place one evening a few weeks ago, we were celebrating my birthday. It is always a special occasion when I get to go to his big house.”
“You mean the apartment where he lived?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s so big, it should be called a house. Don’t you think?”
“Big.”
“Anyway, Mama and I were there when Mrs. Dilworth showed up. We hid in the back bathroom. We could hear everything they said.”
I watched Gretchen finish her chicken and rice.
“Why did you hide?”
“Daddy didn’t want anyone to see us there.”
“What did they argue about?”
“Argue?” she seemed a bit confused.
“You know, fuss and fight.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, they ar-gued about the magazine. Daddy wanted to sell it, but she did not want to sell it. She said some mean and hateful things to him. Told him, let’s see, that it was stupid to sell something that made so much money. Yes, I think that’s what she said first. Then,” she paused to think, “… well, she talked like it was her magazine and not his.”
“She said that?”
“Not those words, but Mama and I got the idea that she was being a little crazy. I think she lost her cool, if you know what I mean. I opened the door of the bathroom just a little to see what was going on, and she was acting crazy. Walking around the room, waving her arms, and shaking her fists at him. I was scared for him.”
“I can imagine.”
“She kept sayin’ that he owed her … ‘you owe me,’ she yelled, really loud a few times. You owe me! You owe me!” she was imitating B.A. Dilworth and doing a credible job.
“What do you think she meant by that?”
“Don’t know. I just know that Mama used to say that she hated that woman even though she was good at what she did.”
“Being an editor.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what she was talkin’ about.”
“Anything else?”
“You mean the fight we heard and saw a little?”
“Yes.”
“I think she finally got tired of screaming at him. Then she told him he’d pay or something like that. He’d pay if he sold it to anybody but her.”
“Did Joey ever say who the buyer was?”
“Some big shot here in the city. He called him Big Bob, but didn’t talk about him very much. Said it was business and that we didn’t need to know about the business. ‘Don’t trouble yourselves,’ he used to say to us all the time. Don’t trouble yourselves. Don’t trouble yourselves. Hey, did you open your fortune cookie? That’s the best part. I always like to read my fortune.”
She handed me the little piece of paper that had come out of her fortune cookie. It read: Your smile and charm will take you far.
They probably got that one right.
“Here, open this. See what it says for you,” she said as she handed me a cookie wrapped in plastic.
Mine read: Danger could be around the next corner.
“What does it say?” she said.
I told her.
“That’s awful, Miss Evans. Maybe you had better stay here with me tonight. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Me either.”
“Could you stay here tonight?” She sounded lonely.
“Tell you what, let me use the little girl’s room and I’ll think about it.”
She took me through the narrow hallway back to the bathroom.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said.
“I’m used to worse,” I said and closed the door.
My cell phone rang. It was Rogers.
“Interrupting something?”
“What you got?”
“I was nosing around the Detroit police files again and a bulletin just came up that said Tony Scarletti was out on bail pending a hearing set for September 21. Thought you might want to know that.”
“Good to know. I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“And your gun close.”
“That too. Say, tell me how much money is B.A. Dilworth worth?”
“Got a few minutes to wait?”
“Yeah. I’ll stay on the line,” I put the phone in my pocket while I finished up in the bathroom.
I could hear loud shouting in the other part of the apartment. Gretchen was talking to someone who was yelling at her. Sounded like a man’s voice.
I turned out the light and cracked the door of the bathroom. I could see down the hall, but not into the living room/kitchen area where we had eaten. I eased out into the hall with my gun drawn.
“You alone?” the man’s voice shouted. Sounded like Scarletti.
“Who are you?” Gretchen said.
“Never mind, just tell me if anyone is here with you.”
“I live alone. You’re scaring me. I think you’d better leave, or I’ll call the police.”
“I am the police, you twit. Sit over there.”
I was at the edge of the hallway where it turns into the living room. Scarletti was walking toward my position. I quickly moved into the light, gun drawn and surprised him.
Gretchen screamed. It must have been my gun.
“Get your hands up,” I said to Scarletti. He didn’t move.
“Well, bitch. Looks like we get to fini
sh what we started last night. You should know I have lots of connections. Here I am, free as a bird.”
“One more time, Tony. Hands high, above your head. Any other movement, and it’ll be your last.”
I tried to remain calm considering my recent history with the scumbag. So far, so good. Miss Calm.
Tony then did a very stupid thing. He turned his back on me, and as he did, he drew his gun. No doubt he was thinking that I would be fooled by his movement. Or he thought that he could draw his gun, turn around quickly, and shoot me faster than I could pull the trigger on my cocked .357. Same as drawing to an inside straight. Odds are against you.
He was wrong.
Gretchen screamed and began crying as soon as the sound of the gun went off. Tony was knocked back several feet. Gretchen had been out of the way, to the left of the bullet’s path. Tony was almost dead.
I kicked the gun out of his hand and then kept a safe distance from him. I was taking no chances with this guy.
“Good shot, detective,” he said in a rough voice. “I didn’t think you had the balls to do that. That’s funny, isn’t it? Joking here at the end. Way to go, Tony.”
“You working for Big Bob LeFoy?” I said.
He shook his head and then closed his eyes. He was gone.
Gretchen hugged me and was shaking all over. I calmed her down and then called the police. I asked for Morland and told him what had happened. I left out the part about him shaking his head when I asked if he worked for Big Bob.
Morland arrived in about fifteen minutes with a couple of uniforms. He took my gun and then my statement. He talked with Gretchen and her story matched mine mostly. He told me to come in to the police station the next day and then left. The two uniforms stayed until the crime scene unit finished their work.
I took Gretchen to my hotel suite and we talked about life for a few hours and we girls went to sleep.
49
I don’t trust death-bed confessions much, but I did wonder at Tony’s head shake at my question about Big Bob. He could have been trying to throw me off, or he could have been telling the truth. I would file it for the time being. It might help, then again, it might not. Such was detective work. I was filing a lot of things these days.
While Gretchen was still sleeping, I called Rogers.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just tired. Need to stop this crazy job for a few weeks,” I said.
“Need to stop killing people.”
“That, too. So tell me what you found out about B.A.’s net worth.”
“Sixteen million, give or take a few thousand here and there.”
“Wow.”
“Inherited mostly. But she’s a frugal wag. Doesn’t live too extravagantly, at least not by her credit card records. Most of it is invested, of course, but she does keep close to $200,000 in a money market at her bank. Plus she has a checking account of about $98,000 and some change. That enough?”
“Well, it tells me she has money. How much do you figure the magazine is worth?”
“I knew you were going to ask me that, so I checked it out. Somewhere around $30 million. Market value. Could be sold a bit higher or a bit lower, but that’s size of the ballpark we’re dealing with here.”
“So, she really didn’t have enough to buy the magazine.”
“Whoa, J.P. You figure that if she is worth 16 million, then she could easily go to a bank and borrow money. Considering her financial status and all, I’d say she could have bought the magazine for 30 million, but not a whole lot more. Maybe if she knew the banker personally, but she would be a good risk in today’s economy.”
“That means she wasn’t just blowing smoke when she was angry with Joey Malone for trying to sell the magazine without consulting her. Gives her motive to kill him.”
“True.”
“Who inherited the magazine?”
“Well, my search has revealed that there is a will and that Papa Malone is the only viable candidate to inherit anything.”
“Only viable?”
“Yes. No one else is standing in line. Joey had no wife, no children. Just papa.”
“You’re forgetting Gretchen and Bimbi.”
“Not for a minute. But they’re not legal relations. He could leave it to them, but it would be contested.”
“Papa?”
“You bet. The assets are too big to just give away to a former prostitute and her daughter. Come on, you think Craven Malone would do that?”
“He might, given the right incentive.”
“And that would be, what?”
“Coercion.”
“Ah, yes, friendly persuasion.”
“Keep your wheels spinning. I’ll check with you later.”
The shock had worn off by now and I was hungry. I heard Gretchen in the shower, so I called room service and ordered us a full course breakfast. I told them to bring everything they had on the menu considered breakfast food. For two.
After she finished, I jumped into the shower to refresh before my day full of police reports and lots of questions. I also planned to do some investigating, just in case I needed to. I told her to be on the lookout for the room service. I gave her twenty dollars to tip the bellboys.
When I emerged from the refreshing shower, there were two carts heavy laden with everything imaginable from the breakfast kitchen.
“Somebody comin’ to join us?” Gretchen said.
“I hope not. I’m hungry. You?”
“Yes, ma’am. I like being with you. You eat so well.”
Suddenly I had this tinge of guilt for having lavished this young girl with so much luxury. I had forgotten that she worked in a soup kitchen and spent many nights in a homeless shelter helping the poorest of the poor. My appetite was waning.
“Perhaps I did overdo it a bit. Sorry ‘bout that,” I confessed.
“Well, I don’t mind being spoiled a little now and then. But I try not to get used to it. Daddy used to spoil me when we would go on trips, or he would have me and Mama over to his place. But the real world is not like this, Miss Evans. My friends are very poor, but I love them anyway. I usually eat what they eat. Sometimes I go to bed hungry at night. It’s not because I can’t afford to eat regular food, or eat lots of food, it’s because I feel for them so much. I want them to trust me, and I want to know what they are feeling. I know that sounds crazy, but I really care about them.”
“Doesn’t sound crazy at all, Gretchen. I admire you for the work you do. You help more people than I help. You’re showing empathy.”
“I don’t know what empathy means,” she said.
“It means you’re a genuine human being full of compassion.”
“Thank you, Miss Evans.”
We ate our bounty in silence for several minutes. Despite my guilt feelings, the food was delicious and I was enjoying it.
“You wear that gun all the time?” Gretchen interrupted our silence.
“Not all the time, but I have to wear it a lot. Sometimes I have to investigate difficult situations. Sometimes there are dangerous people around. I use it to make sure I make it through the day.”
“I wouldn’t like a job where I had to wear a gun. I couldn’t shoot anybody.”
“I understand. I don’t like shooting people, but sometimes….” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence that sounded wholesome.
“You have to, is that what you were going to say?”
“Sounds horrible to say it, Gretchen.”
“Yes, ma’am. It does sound horrible to say out loud. Sometimes the truth is horrible, I suppose.”
We finished our meal without discussing guns. I was pleased that our subject matter shifted. She talked about her work and about her mother.
It was close to noon when I hailed a cab for her. She was going to the soup kitchen to work. I told her that I would still be working to get her mother released. I asked her to trust me. She said she did.
I took a cab to the police station and spent several hours wit
h Morland and the rest of the boys. I saw a few policewomen around the station, but none of them had anything to do with me.
“You know who Scarletti was working for?” I asked Morland.
“Not a clue. I figure it was LeFoy, but we have no proof.”
“What next?”
“Lots of new cases. No rest for the cops. What about you?”
“Working on loose ends. Lots of loose ends. Like your cases.”
He handed me my gun. I checked the cylinder. It was empty.
“That’s an interesting gun you have.”
“Ever fire a .357?”
“Oh, I don’t mean the caliber. Sure, I’ve fired many .357s and lots of other models. I mean that gun. It’s registered to a government agency in Washington, D.C. and you have a permit on file to carry it.”
I tried not to look as surprised as I was.
“And you thought?”
“Black market. Street gun. Some hooded figure sold it to you after you stepped off the plane a few days ago. So how did you get the gun, Miss Evans?”
“What did the permit say?”
“Didn’t say how you got it.”
“Issued, wasn’t it?”
“Well, if you are asking if everything was in order, then yes. But, you and I both know you are not allowed to carry guns on an airplane. At least not private detectives. You must have some friends in high places.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
He smiled wryly, but his eyes told me that he retained a few more questions.
50
It was after four o’clock when I entered the office building on McComb Street. It was a short walk from the police station. Miss Flair was still hard at work. Today she was wearing some bright aqua colored dress that was two sizes too small. Her neckline plunged on this one revealing more cleavage than I could ever hope to have.
“Mr. Conroy has left for the day,” she said.
“I’d like to see the editor.”
“I’ll check to see if she is in,” she turned a little sideways and punched a button on her yellow phone.
I thought about walking away to give her some privacy. That would make it easier for her to lie to me and say that Miss Dilworth was not in after she had spoken with Miss Dilworth. I decided against moving away from my vulture-like position. Mean and deadly.
One Lost Soul More: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 1) Page 20