T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality

by T. Lynn Ocean

  “Damn, Jersey, you don’t ask for much,” Soup complained. “I do have other jobs on my schedule, you know.”

  “A week’s vacation on Incognito. With Captain Pete. Fueled up, fully stocked with food and booze, anywhere you want to go.” Pete transported yachts for a living and he owed me a favor. I’d probably owe him after he had to put up with Soup and his techie pals for a week, but that was the nature of my business. Give and take. Keeping tabs on who owed whom.

  “Deal,” Soup said immediately, envisioning the party he would throw on my boat. “I’m on it.” The line went dead while I still had the phone pressed to my ear.

  Energized, I called Trish and explained how I wanted her to tag Chesterfield’s wireless phone. She agreed that it would be done within a day. My kind of private investigator.

  When I hung up the phone, Cracker licked my bare feet in approval but Spud wasn’t as enthusiastic. “I thought you retired.”

  “I did. I am. This is just a little job I’m doing as a favor.”

  “Uh-huh.” Looking above the reading glasses that were perched low on his nose, he studied me from across the top of the newspaper. “Don’t go an’ let your guard down, now, kid. Be careful.”

  “I always am, Spud.”

  SIX

  “Jersey, you’ve got to tell Lolly what you know,” Bill told me over the telephone from Las Vegas, after interrogating me as to the status of my investigation. He had never before been concerned with any case I was working, and even though Lolly was an old friend of his, I didn’t appreciate Bill trying to micromanage how I dealt with her. Unaccustomed to discussing my work with anyone other than Rita and Ox and sometimes Spud, I asked why he was so anxious about Lolly and her situation.

  “Because I’m the one who got you into this thing to begin with,” he said.

  “True,” I agreed.

  Changing the subject, I asked about his Vegas photo shoot. He confessed that they made him wear Roman warrior headgear and carry a long-handled spear, adding that the only other part of the costume was a thong fashioned from real copper. Ouch.

  “Did the metal thong, uh, damage anything down there?”

  “No, it was only metal in the front. The rest of it was made from cloth. And before you start giving me a hard time, you should know the job paid six grand, even though I’m worth much, much more.”

  “Can you keep the costume? I’d like to see it.”

  He ignored me. “At least tell Lolly that Sam isn’t cheating on her. If you don’t, she might go public and the tabloids would go nuts. She already told that dumb social columnist that her marriage might be in trouble. Now the lady’s hounding her for the rest of the story.”

  I asked myself again: why did he care so much? “How well do you really know Lolly, Bill?” I asked. “It’s been, what, fifteen years since you’ve spent any time with her?”

  “Well, yeah. That’s about right. Even though we stayed in touch for a few years after graduation, I don’t know what she’s been up to. But what difference does that make?”

  “If I talk to her now, Lolly might be so relieved, she’ll confess to Chesterfield that she hired me to tail him. Then my cover’s blown for whatever is going on.”

  “So, what’s going on?” he prodded.

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know. But it’s looking real interesting.”

  “Do you really need to be involved anymore, Jersey? I thought you were retired,” he said. “When I get back tomorrow, I’ve got a whole week with nothing to do but pamper you. Please, just talk to Lolly and walk away.”

  It sounded decadent. Once again I was tempted to drop everything and escape with Bill on the boat. But not tempted enough to do it. Like a swamp gator with her teeth sunk into something that tasted sweet, I wasn’t going to let go until I found out exactly what it was.

  “I am retired,” I said for what seemed like the fiftieth time in the past week. “But I’m involved with this now, and I have to get to the bottom of it. You shouldn’t complain since, as you just said, you are the reason I’m involved to begin with.”

  “Okay,” he relented. “Just tell Lolly that Sam is involved with something but he is not seeing another woman. So she should just go about her normal routine.”

  “Right.” To say I was skeptical was saying that the pope attended church.

  “Please? That magazine lady is going to wear her down.”

  “All right.” I gave in. “I’ll talk to Lolly today.”

  “Thanks, hon. I’m having a ball in Vegas, but I miss you. Let’s do something fun when I get back. You game?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “See if you can smuggle out the Roman warrior helmet. I’ve never had sex with anyone from the B.C. years before.”

  The costume attendant had already taken the helmet, he informed me. But he might be able to sneak the metal thong out, he said, and added something about loving me bunches.

  “Same here,” I said and hung up. One of these days I’d work up to telling Bill that I loved him, too. One thing at a time.

  I called Trish and asked her to keep tabs on Chesterfield’s place. I’d already done the hard part. All she had to do was plug in, turn on the recorder, and wait for something worthwhile. She would also keep an eye on who was coming and going from the building and monitor the tracker she’d placed on Chesterfield’s phone. I only wanted her for two or three days and luckily, her schedule was open.

  Next, I called Lolly and arranged a lunch meeting for one o’clock. Finally, I jogged to the gym, which was only half a mile from the Block. I did the free weights for forty-five minutes, then put on some boxing gloves and rendezvoused with the heavy bag. I finished with a sauna and a shower. I didn’t feel retired but overall, I felt pretty darn good.

  Lolly wore a revealing silk tank top and a pair of tight button-down jeans that tapered to hug each ankle. She sat at the bar of Paddy’s Hollow Restaurant & Pub with an untouched glass of wine in front of her and had attracted two horny businessmen in the short time she waited for me. Ignoring the ridiculously large rock on her finger, they stood in stereo on either side of her and boyishly argued about who had cheated on his golf score last weekend. Too polite to tell them to get lost, Lolly pretended to listen. I verbally elbowed my way in.

  “Lolly,” I said. “Great to see you. Is that hunky cowboy husband of yours coming tonight? I’d love to see another bone-crunching brawl, like the one that happened the last time a couple of schmucks couldn’t take a hint.”

  Lolly smiled.

  The two suits took a look at me and wordlessly disappeared. I watched closely, thinking they might be more than a couple of corporate suits trying to flirt during a business lunch. They weren’t.

  Lolly and I moved to a table and ordered drinks. She asked for an iced tea and I requested ice water and a Bass ale. I’d drink them in that order. When the server returned with glasses in hand, we ordered two Caesar salads topped with grilled shrimp and a basket of garlic rolls.

  Lolly sat with a leg tucked beneath her in the chair, giving me a look that was half victimized wife and half seductress. Her elbows were on the table and a pinkie finger, in a nervous but guy-catching gesture, played with her bottom lip as though her mouth was a toy. A nearby patron stopped eating his hamburger to openly stare at her.

  “He’s not cheating on you, Lolly,” I said.

  “He’s not?” She looked genuinely surprised.

  “No. There may be something going on at his firm that could be troublesome, but there is definitely not another woman. Feel better?”

  She looked at the ceiling and breathed a deep sigh of relief. Her breasts swelled momentarily with the effort, causing our neighboring diner’s eyes to nearly bulge. Just for kicks, I mimicked Lolly and stuck out the twins, as Spud had aptly named my government-paid implants. The fellow’s eyes moved from Lolly’s chest to mine and when I winked at him, he nearly choked on a mouthful of food. It was good to know that my semiretired self still had it.

  After
a beat, Lolly’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t understand. What’s happening at Chesterfield Financial?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her. “But Bill thought you needed to know that Samuel isn’t seeing someone else.”

  “I guess. It was dumb to have even confided in that woman to begin with.” Lolly turned the full force of her crystal blue eyes on me. “She was just so … sympathetic.”

  “Nosy would be more like it. She’s a social columnist. She’s a piranha.”

  Reprimanded, Lolly remained silent.

  “Look, Lolly, I don’t know you. But I do know Bill, and since you’re his friend, you’re my friend.” There was no gentle way to put it. “Being married to someone like Chesterfield is going to present challenges and people may try to take advantage of you. They’ll want your story, your money, and yes, at some point you may encounter a woman who wants your husband. But for now, just focus on your marriage and be happy with your good fortune.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “My mother told me the same thing. When I was little, I mean. She used to tell me to plan my strategy, like you do in a game of chess, before I acted on a thought. To know how it would turn out.” Lolly’s eyes were focused on a distant spot over my shoulder, as though her mind was far away. Suddenly, the pupils shrunk and she focused her gaze on me. “I never could figure out how to play chess. I’m not real smart, like Bill, or you. But I love Samuel so much. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. The thought of him with somebody else made me crazy. And, contrary to what people think, I didn’t marry him for—”

  “The money.” I finished the thought for her, thinking she was trying hard to convince me that she was a good person. I finished my water and started on the ale.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I really didn’t marry him for the money. I don’t want to have all that money. There are other things much more important than money.”

  I wondered if she was telling the truth. If given the opportunity, what person wouldn’t want to have millions upon millions of dollars at their disposal? Nobody that I knew.

  “Well, you are where you are, in a new town with a new husband. If you love Chesterfield, you’ll deal with being his wife in a responsible manner. Running to the tabloids with accusations that he was cheating on you would not have been good.”

  She looked ready to cry, and for a moment, I felt bad. Like I had just punished an innocent child. Or, like the time I popped Cracker on the snout hard enough to make him yelp because he’d snatched a peeled shrimp off of a customer’s plate at the Block. In both cases, they may have just been following instinct.

  “I see your point. I just don’t know if I’ve got what it takes,” she confessed.

  “Of course you do. Modeling isn’t an easy thing, and if you can learn the ropes enough to stick with that for ten years, then you can learn how to deal with being the wife of Samuel Chesterfield.”

  Our salads arrived. Lolly asked for fresh ground pepper and grated Parmesan. “Now I can see why Bill loves you,” Lolly said after a miniature bite of romaine lettuce.

  “Hmm?” I was here to talk about Chesterfield and Lolly, not my love life.

  “Well, you’re pretty. But you’re also smart and you understand things, you know? Even if you do guzzle beer and follow people around and stuff.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut for a second to keep from rolling them upward. “Let’s get back to why we’re here.”

  “Is Sammy in trouble?”

  “I don’t know. But I am going to try to find out. And if it turns out that he is, well, we’ll just deal with it then. All right?”

  She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “You trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not going to go run off and chat with the media?”

  “No.”

  “You understand that he’s not cheating on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good girl,” I said and purposely changed tack to catch her reaction. “By the way, where are your parents now? Are they still together?”

  She looked startled. “Uh, they’re in Europe. Traveling.”

  We finished our lunches and I wasn’t sure whether Lolly was better off after our little meeting or not. I hoped that I had helped her somehow, regardless of the outcome.

  I walked Lolly to her car, a blue BMW, before climbing into my own vehicle. Feeling bad about dumping everything in her lap, I decided to stop by the agency to see how Rita was holding up.

  What was wrong with me? First I felt bad about scolding Lolly and then I’m suddenly feeling guilty about bailing out on my partner? I, Jersey Barnes, was developing a conscience? This was a first. As I navigated the roads, I wondered if I was approaching a midlife crisis. I hadn’t experienced the urge to run out and buy a red convertible sports car, get my eyelids done, or have an affair with a young college football hero. Although Bill was younger, I didn’t purposely date him because of his looks. Not entirely, anyway. I’d have to ask Ox about my new conscience sometime, get his take on things.

  The Barnes Agency is located in what was previously a two-story residential home in the heart of Wilmington. If traffic was moving, it was only a ten-minute drive from the Block and would take just slightly longer to get there from Paddy’s Hollow. The agency’s central location also put it near the airport, which came in handy since Rita and I frequently traveled by air. Although the Wilmington airport was small and had very few direct flights to anywhere, the benefits of living in Wilmington more than made up for minor inconveniences.

  I had just pulled into the flow of traffic when my cell rang. Few people had the number, so it was usually something important. Or Spud, needing a ride somewhere. Or Bill, just to say hello. Since I’d announced my retirement, he’d been keeping closer-than-usual tabs on me.

  “You might want to check this out,” Trish told me when I answered. She was sitting inside the agency’s mobile surveillance unit, an old Chevy van with a variety of magnetic door signs and license tags. It was currently a TOOL-TEK HOME REPAIR van.

  “Chesterfield just got a call on his wireless. It was his assistant, Darlene, telling him that Eddie Flowers was found dead. Apparently, Flowers was one of Chesterfield’s top people. The vice president of accounting. He flew into Wilmington for some reason and got himself shot.”

  I aimed the Benz in the direction of Chesterfield Financial and, during the drive, called Dirk at the police station to fish for information. He didn’t know anything, but made a few calls and dialed me back within minutes.

  Flowers had been found dead inside his car. Apparently the man had gone to Taco Bell for a fast-food lunch. He purchased two burritos inside the store and returned to his car, where somebody put a bullet in his head at point-blank range. Either he’d rolled down the window to speak with the shooter or he’d been driving with it down to begin with. The deed was done in broad daylight. No witnesses came forward.

  I don’t much believe in coincidences. I had no way to be sure, but my gut told me that the accountant’s murder was related to the flash drive I’d found. It was time to have a talk directly with Chesterfield.

  SEVEN

  The next morning when I approached Chesterfield at his company’s Wilmington office, I posed as an investigator hired by Flowers’ family to help find the murderer. I wore a cheap navy suit with plain leather heels and carried a nondescript briefcase. I was Josephine Bell.

  A distinguished man in his late fifties, Chesterfield was even more handsome up close and in person, with dark hair that had grayed at the temples and warm brown eyes covered by nearly invisible wire-framed glasses. An aura of energy surrounded him, radiating success.

  “Thanks for seeing me without an appointment,” I began. “It’s so important to get on something like this immediately.”

  “Well, Miss Bell—”

  “Please, call me Josephine,” I interrupted with a smile.

  “Josephine, I’ll help however I can. But I am curious about
something.”

  “What’s that?” I gave him my most friendly, trustworthy smile.

  “The family has never heard of you.”

  I’d underestimated him. He must’ve called to verify my alias during the ten minutes I’d been kept waiting in the lobby. In the immediate wake following a tragedy, most people didn’t take the time to think about anything. It usually hadn’t yet occurred to them to be suspicious; they just complied and did what they were told to do. But Samuel Chesterfield was not most people.

  I decided to come clean. Sort of.

  “I’ve obviously misjudged you,” I said frankly, “and for that I apologize.” Taking a chance on angering Lolly, I explained to Chesterfield how I’d come in contact with his wife and how she’d been suspicious of him having an affair.

  “She’s been told that you are not seeing another woman,” I finished.

  A surprised laugh escaped from his mouth. “My goodness, I can’t believe she suspected me of infidelity. Poor thing. Lolly is such a sweet one and I love her dearly, but she’s a bit … naïve sometimes.”

  “Yes.”

  “And, you are here now for what purpose?” he asked straightforwardly. I had given him my real name and the real story, but left out the fact that I’d rummaged through his home and found a mysterious data storage device. I also hadn’t questioned him about the odd lunch meetings I’d witnessed.

  “It seems coincidental that Lolly said you’ve been acting strange and days later one of your vice presidents is murdered.”

  “The police say it appears to be a failed carjacking and I’m sure their judgment is sound.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and touched his fingertips together. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here. Who’s paying you to continue with your little investigation? Surely not Lolly.”

  “No, she never paid me to begin with,” was all I said.

  He leaned back in his chair. “Look, I’m a busy man. I don’t know what you’re after and I don’t have a good reason to cooperate with you. Yes, there’s been a tragic murder. Eddie was not only an officer of the company, he was a close friend. But none of this has anything to do with you.”