by F J messina
42
Sonia led the way, as Tee followed her out of O’Neal’s office. The weight of the situation’s time press felt even heavier on Sonia’s shoulders than before. As she walked, Sonia sensed that Tee had fallen behind. Turning, she realized her sister seemed fixated on one of the photos in a collection of portraits entitled, “The Horatio Blevins Family.” It hung on a wall they had just passed. “What is it? What are you looking at, Tee?”
Tee turned to her, eyebrows and mouth turned downward, anger in her eyes. “Nothing.” She stormed past Sonia and headed directly for the exit.
Sonia scurried behind her, “Tee? Tee?” She reached out and grabbed Tee’s arm. She spun her around. “What is it? What’s going on?”
Tee looked around furtively. “Not here.” She turned again and pushed through the doorway, out into the late afternoon sun that filled the parking lot. A few steps out into the gravel she stopped, tears running down her face.
Sonia moved quickly around her, then turned and stood only inches away from her. “Tee. Tell me. What is it? What’s wrong?”
Tee was silent.
Sonia reached out, one hand on each of Tee’s arms. “Tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me. What is it? What did you see?”
Tee took a deep breath. “Inside. On the wall. The pictures.” She stopped.
“What about the pictures?” Sonia was bordering on frantic.
“He’s in there. On the wall. It’s him.” She was choking for air.
Sonia was struggling to get control of the situation, of herself. “Calm down. Take a breath. Who is on the wall?”
Tee wiped a tear away from each cheek with the backs of her hands, first the right, then the left. She looked into the surrounding trees as she spoke, her eyes still brimming with tears. “That night. When I went to the Burl.” She took another deep breath. “There was this guy.” She stopped again.
Sonia was struggling to stay calm, patient. “And?”
Tee rubbed her running nose with her forearm. “And he was inside.” She stopped again, but this time she turned her head and looked directly at Sonia. “It felt like he was checking me out, almost like he was stalking me.”
Sonia blinked, “Stalking you?”
Tee struggled to swallow. “So, just when I was going to leave, I looked around to see if I could find him. I wanted to know where he was . . . so I could avoid him. But he wasn’t there. He was gone.”
Sonia looked deeply into Tee’s eyes. She was confused. “Wasn’t that a good thing?”
Tee’s emotion exploded. “No. It wasn’t a good thing. He was waiting for me in the parking lot.”
“What?!”
“In the parking lot. I got into my car, and when I turned around to back up, there he was. He was coming at me. He had something in his hand. Something long. It scared me.”
Sonia took a deep breath. Trying again to calm herself. She squeezed Tee’s arms harder and spoke softly. “Then what happened?”
“I just gunned it. I hit the gas and drove right at him.” Her eyes widened even more. “I just barely missed him.” She stopped.
Sonia waited. Finally, she reached out and pushed some tear-soaked hair out of Tee’s face. “And you were okay?”
Tee nodded silently, wiping her nose again with her forearm.
Sonia reached into her purse and pulled out a half-used tissue. She gave it to Tee who blotted the mascara that had run down her face, then wiped her nose again. Sonia waited patiently before she asked. “Then what did you do?”
Tee was getting herself under control. Sonia could sense her shift from totally rattled to pissed. “Then I came home, to your place. I had a couple of beers and went to sleep.”
“And you didn’t tell anybody? Did you call the police?”
Tee was becoming even angrier. “No, I didn’t. I just took care of it. I knew you’d be pissed if I got in trouble at that bar, like it was my fault, like I’d done something wrong.”
“Tee?”
“Come on. You know it. You would have been giving me the lecture about not going out to a club by myself, especially in a town where I didn’t know anyone.”
It hurt Sonia’s heart to think that Tee believed that. “Tee, I’m on your side. I’m always on your side. That was not your fault. You should never think that.”
Tee was silent, clearly processing what Sonia had just said.
Sonia let a moment go by. Finally, she took a quick breath. “And you saw a picture of him inside?”
Tee was silent, her head nodding.
“And you’re sure it was him?”
Tee’s face tightened. “Yes. And now we go find out who the hell that is and I kick his ass.”
Sonia spoke through clenched teeth, seething. “Hang on. I’m with you on finding out who it is, but let’s be careful. This guy could be dangerous.”
“Careful? I’ll give you careful. If I find this guy─”
“We. When we find this guy, we’re going to handle this the right way.”
“I don’t give a f─”
“Tee.” Sonia’s voice was firm. “Listen. You have to think this through. We’ve got to be careful.”
Tee stood there in silence, stewing.
Sonia stood in silence as well, thinking. Finally, she spoke again, softly, “And besides, we have some resources that most people don’t have.”
Tee asked the question with her eyes.
“He drives a dark blue Corvette.” Sonia smiled, reached out and drew Tee to her. She gave her a hug that was half-way between sister and mother, then pulled back just a bit and gave Tee a nasty smile. “Now, let’s go find out who that piece of garbage is.”
43
When they walked back into the Horatio Blevins Visitor’s Center, Tee headed directly to the ladies’ room to clean herself up. As she did, Sonia strolled nonchalantly over to the gallery of photos on the wall, wondering if she could pick out the perp just by his looks. She had a few ideas, but nothing jumped out at her.
Tee returned from the ladies’ room and walked up behind Sonia. She moved directly toward one of the photos and pointed surreptitiously to a picture of a man named Steven Belcher. “That’s him. That’s Creepy Guy.” She took a deep breath, staring at the photo as if to burn into her mind every tiny aspect of his face. When she turned back to Sonia, she noticed that Sonia was staring as well. “What?”
Sonia rubbed the back of her neck as she spoke, her eyes glued to the photo. “I’ve seen this guy before. I know it. I just can’t remember where.”
Tee had herself under control. “Well, he works here. Maybe you just saw him earlier or something. Maybe you noticed him and I didn’t.”
“No.” Sonia shook her head, her eyes still searching the image. “No, I’ve seen this guy before and it wasn’t here. It was . . . wait a minute. I do remember. It was at Magee’s.”
Tee’s eyes opened wide. “Oh my God, do you think he was following me?”
“Well,” Sonia twisted her lips, “he had a cup of coffee in his hand. But . . . . Damn, the son-of-a-bitch was tailing you.”
The look on Tee’s face was one of complete disgust. Her Italian blood boiled. “Figlio di puttana.”
Sonia’s eyebrows lowered. “Okay, Steven Belcher, your life’s about to get a whole lot harder.” She slipped her phone out of her jeans and took a photo of Belcher’s picture. “Come on, Tee, let’s go.”
Sonia started walking. Tee reached out and grabbed her arm. “Don’t we want to find out where this guy is?”
Sonia stopped, turned around, and smiled. “Honey, we don’t ask these folks where Steven Belcher is and leave people wondering why we wanted to know. We go to the man with the dark blue car and the bright blue eyes. He goes to his friends in NCIS and, within the next few hours, we know exactly who Steven Belcher is and where he’s likely to be.”
As soon as she got back to her car, Sonia put in a call to Brad. She put him on speaker.
“Hey, babe.” There was real war
mth in his voice. “Where are you?”
“Tee and I are at Horatio Blevins. Something has happened.”
Brad was quick to speak. “With O’Neal? Did you get something from him?”
“No,” Sonia started the Subaru, looked over her shoulder, and drove out of the parking lot. “This is something else, something that happened to Tee.”
“What? What happened to Tee?” Sonia could hear Brad shifting into protective mode.
As she drove, Sonia looked over to Tee momentarily, a tender look on her face. “Something happened the night she went to the Burl.”
“The what?”
“The Burl, it’s that rock club she went to alone on Saturday night.” As she said it, Sonia could sense how long ago that all seemed, all that had happened in the past three days. She also felt the sting of knowing that something terrible had happened to her sister days ago and she hadn’t done anything about it, hadn’t even known about it. She was determined to do something about it now. “Anyway, while we were out here, Tee saw a picture of a guy who hassled her while she was at the club. Someone we need to find.”
Brad’s voice was filled with more energy. “What’d he do to her? Was she hurt? Is she okay?”
“No, no.” Sonia tried to calm the situation with the tone of her voice. “She’s okay, but we’ve got to deal with this guy and see if he’s somehow connected to the case. Where are you now?”
“I’m downtown. I got Gabriela to lure Zeke Bartley out of his motel room and send him on a wild goose chase for a cup of coffee. As soon as he left, I got into his room. And remember what Ephraim said about Zeke’s pistol?”
Sonia looked at Tee, then back to the road. “Yeah?”
“Well, I found it. It’s one hell of a piece. Colt Python 357 Magnum. I’m telling you, honey, if Zeke shot ol’ Victor with that, he put quite a hole in him.”
Sonia gave Tee a raised-eyebrow look. “Wow.”
“Anyway, Gabriela told me where that coffee shop was. I’m down here now. Pretty sure he’ll be coming out soon, and pissed for sure. Maybe he’ll do something stupid.”
Sonia felt the need to get Brad back on her wavelength. “So, listen. We’ve got to find this guy. His name is Steven, S-T-E-V-E-N Belcher. He works at Horatio Blevins. And here’s the thing, Brad. Not only did he threaten Tee down at that club. He followed her to our offices.”
“Wait a minute. How do you know that?”
Coming off the Bluegrass Parkway, Sonia made the turn onto Route 60. “Because I saw him there, hanging around Magee’s.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Brad asked, “And you’re sure that he was trying to get to Tee?”
“Sure?” Sonia sent Tee a quick look. “Yes, I’m sure. Why else would he have been there?”
“I don’t know, babe, but somebody took a pot shot at us when we were in your offices. Any chance the guy was interested in more than Tee, maybe in all of us?”
Sonia pondered the thought for a moment. “I’m thinking that’s exactly right.”
“Then we need to find out for sure. Where is this guy?”
Sonia smiled. “Hey, cowboy, that’s your department. We didn’t want to make anyone suspicious by asking around about Belcher, so we figured we’d let you and your tech-savvy friends find him for us.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” There was a pleasant, collegial tone to Brad’s voice. “Do my best, babe. I’ll do my best. S-T-E-V-E-N Belcher. Works at Horatio Blevins. General scum of the earth, right?”
Sonia’s smile was returned by Tee. “Right.”
“Okay. I’m on it. As soon as I find out where he is, I’ll get back to you. Till then, I’m keeping my eye on Zeke. I’m pretty sure he’s our boy. What about you? Where are you going now?”
Sonia made the dog-leg turn in Versailles and headed for Lexington. “Wait a minute. Why do you say that Zeke’s our man? Just because you found his gun?”
“Well, yeah. That, and the fact that he told Gabriela he’d come to Lexington to kill both Rasmussens and that one of them was already a dead man.”
“What?” Sonia looked quickly at Tee then back to the road. “Zeke confessed to killing Victor and you didn’t tell me?”
“Babe, I tried. I just found out a little while ago and I tried to call you as soon as I was done with Gabriela. You didn’t answer.”
Sonia’s frustration showed on her face. “I guess I was with O’Neal. I had to silence my phone. But, really, are you sure?”
“Babe. Don’t you get it? He said he’s already killed one of them. Has to be that he means Victor. He must be waiting for Carl to get out of the hospital so he can get to him and finish him off as well.”
Sonia was torn. Here was Brad telling her that Zeke was the killer, yet she felt in her gut that it was Missy Charles.
“Sonia?”
“Yeah, well,” Sonia was trying to get strength back into her voice. “Listen. I still need to find out what’s on those files I’ve got decoding. You know, just to clean up loose ends. I’m on my way to my office now. Let’s see what the computer has for me.”
“Just let me know, babe. I’ll be out here watching Zeke and waiting for info on Belcher. Love you truly, babe.”
“Love you, too.”
“Wow.” Tee looked at Sonia smiling. “Guess you two have some different ideas about things, don’t you?”
“I guess we do.”
44
When they reached the parking lot at Magee’s, Sonia and Tee climbed out of the Subaru. Sonia was charged up but torn. She couldn’t wait to get upstairs and find out if she was right about Missy Charles. On the other hand, Brad had just told her that he was certain that Zeke had killed Victor Rasmussen. And then there was Steven Belcher.
Sonia scurried up the stairs, Tee right behind her. There were no fewer wooden steps to climb than there had ever been, but Sonia’s legs were driven by the energy and frustration in her mind. At the top of the stairs, she pushed open the heavy door and went directly to her desk. She was pleased to see that her computer had finished decoding all three files she had taken from Carl Rasmussen’s computer.
Sonia sat down, taking a yellow pad from a neat stack on the left side of her desk. Tee pulled up the wooden chair that normally sat in the corner of Sonia’s office and took a seat next to her.
Sonia opened the first file, ready to take notes. She was only half-way through reading the file when her phone sang to her, The Star-Spangled Banner. She checked the screen. It was Brad. “Hey. What’ve you got?” She put the phone on speaker.
“Listen. My buddies came through. Seems like Mr. Belcher and his colleagues get off at different times, depending on what’s going on at the distillery that day. Today’s a late day. They’re off at six.”
“Okay.”
“And it turns out that Belcher lives on the south side of Lexington. Little street called Longview Drive. Simple houses, shingle, built in the fifties.”
“Are you going to pay him a visit?” She was still scrolling through the Rasmussen file.
“I’m planning on it.”
“What about Zeke? Anything happening there?”
Sonia thought she heard Brad chuckle. “Ol’ Zeke seemed plenty pissed when he walked out. Not sure he even bothered to finish his caramel macchiato, skinny, no whip, no cherry.”
Sonia stopped reading. “His what?”
“Never mind. Just a joke. I’m just saying he was pissed. But, unfortunately, not pissed enough to do something stupid. I’ve followed him back to his motel room. I’m going to hang here until it’s time to go wait for Belcher to come home. I’d like to give him a nice homecoming for the evening.”
Sonia flashed Tee a snarky look. “I hope he enjoys it.”
“I’ll do my best. But listen. I need someone to get out here and cover Zeke when I leave. Give Jet a call. Find out if she can do that for me, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll call her and get right back to you.”
“Thanks, babe. Take care. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Sonia was still touched every time she heard those words, even when the pressures of her challenging and sometimes dangerous job bore down on her. From one perspective, the familiarity of the way they ended their phone calls made those words seem less special. On the other hand, it was exactly that familiarity, the fact that she could count on his simple and daily expression of his love, that made them even more important. It had been a long time since she’d felt the joy that came with that security.
Sonia took an unconscious moment to look around for a cup from which she might take a sip—preferably hot coffee—or maybe even something a little stronger. She found none and was certain there was no time to get something. She plowed on, finishing her review of the first file. It had to do with The Rasmussen Company but was mostly projections for several large commercial projects. She turned to Tee. “Nothing of great import here, but those were some hefty profit projections, weren’t they?”
Not having read the file as carefully as Sonia, Tee responded as best she could. “Yeah, wow.”
Sonia moved on to the second file. It didn’t take long before her eyes widened and she spoke out loud. “And there it is. A letter from Missy Charles to Carl Rasmussen.” She directed Tee’s attention to the screen. “Look, she’s explaining why, in her opinion, Victor is no longer the right person to run the company. ‘Lack of responsibility.’ ‘Loss of interest.’ ‘Defamation of the company’s reputation.’ Those are some powerful indictments.” She pointed to some comments near the end of the letter. “There’s even something here about getting useless emails from him while he’s in Europe.”
Sonia sat back, drumming her fingers on her desk. “Just as I thought. She was going for the company and trying to get Carl on board.”
Tee smiled at Sonia, almost smirking. “Gotcha, bitch. We gotcha.”
Sonia’s phone sang to her again. Without looking, she answered. “Bluegrass Confidential Investigations. Sonia Vitale.”