by Robert Greer
“Stolen?”
“You bet. She has the kind of connections you need to move that kind of stuff.”
“Why tell me about it now?”
“Because I couldn’t very well tell you with Cheryl standing right there. Besides, she only showed you what was in that foot-locker in order to get me to stop riding her about something that could very well tie her to a double murder. It’s always made me nervous having the footlocker around.”
“Strange tactic on her part. Seems to me anybody seeing the contents of that footlocker would move her to the top of their list of suspects. Me included.”
“It’s a little odd, the way she looks at things, Mr. Floyd. And what she didn’t tell you is that she inherited a lot more from Wiley Ames than what you saw at the ranch this morning. She’s been selling the stuff off for years. And that man you mentioned, Gaylord Marquee? She lied about him, too. She knows Marquee, all right. Over the years he’s helped her peddle tons of her uncle’s stuff. I’d be willing to bet she’s up a good seventy or eighty thousand dollars from selling off Wiley’s shit.”
“Sorta puts a new slant on things. Why so confessional all of a sudden, Ramona? You barely said a word when I was there at the ranch.”
“Because Cheryl and I are through. Things pretty much ended for us an hour or so after you left. Answer enough for you?”
“It’s an answer.”
“And it’s my final one on the issue. We’re dealing with a lying, vicious, vindictive woman here, and one hell of an actress to boot.” Ramona’s voice cracked as she continued, “I thought she loved me. Boy, was I the fool. You know who she really loves? Herself. Cheryl Goldsby and nobody else. I’d watch my back if I were you, if you’re planning to continue looking into those GI Joe’s killings.”
“Do you think …?” Suddenly CJ was listening to a dial tone. “Damn,” he grumbled, cradling the receiver and looking confused.
“What’s up?” asked Ike, taking in CJ’s puzzled look.
“Looks like my trip to Sterling today is already paying dividends. That was a woman I talked to this morning calling with a lead on the GI Joe’s murders.”
“Who is she?”
“A woman scorned, and like they say, hell hath no fury.” Thoughtfully rubbing the barely visible cleft in his chin, CJ said, “Guess maybe I should fill you in.”
“Guess you should,” said Ike, suppressing a cough before rising and walking Marguerite to the door. “Skim off your pick of the litter from our slush pile and call her,” he said, handing Marguerite the applications.
“Okay, but …”
“Just do it, Marguerite, okay?”
Shaking her head, Marguerite walked away without a response.
“Think we’ll find a replacement for Nordeen?” CJ asked, watching Marguerite head down the hallway toward what had been Nordeen’s desk.
“Let’s save the issue for later.” Ike rolled his eyes. “Now, tell me what happened up in Sterling.”
CJ spent the next fifteen minutes bringing Ike up to speed on what had happened in Sterling and where he was with the Wiley Ames murder case, finally filling him in on what he suspected was the real murder motive and sharing his list of suspects. Ike coughed on and off the whole time.
Watching Ike run the information he’d given him through his head, his eyes dancing constantly as if they were connected to some number-crunching computer, CJ finished his summary and asked, “Anything you think I might’ve missed?”
“It’s not what you missed. It’s what you glossed over. Let’s start out with the Goldsby woman. Why the hell would she agree after all this time to talk to you?”
“To get me to close the book on her uncle’s murder and get me to thinking that her trunkful of supposedly legitimately inherited goodies, appreciating by the day, more than likely takes her off the hook for killing Ames.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, who’s to say she didn’t kill Ames and Chin for the stuff in that trunk in the first place? And suppose you hadn’t bought into her little setup? Suppose you’d flat-out called her a manipulating liar from the start, like that girlfriend she just dumped did?”
“I’m thinking she would’ve run me off the place in nothing flat.”
“Yep. And sent you scurryin’ back to Denver with the idea planted firm in your head that she had somethin’ to hide.”
“Which I still believe,” said CJ, slightly taken aback.
“So she miscalculated. Could be she’s coverin’ for somebody else.”
“Who?”
“Her girlfriend, Ramona, or ex-girlfriend, it sounds like now. Who’s to say she’s bein’ straight with you anyway? Did they look like a couple of lovers who were in the midst of a spat when you were there?”
“Not really.”
“So maybe the Lepsos woman killed Ames and that Chinese fellow at Goldsby’s directive?”
“Damn, Unc. You’re stirring the hell out of the pot here.”
“And if you ask me, it needs a bunch more stirrin’.”
“So what should I do?”
“Dig deeper than the surface, like you’ve been doin’. Find out more about anyone within an eyelash of a connection to those killin’s, and dog the shit outa them. Goldsby, Lepsos, your friend the pawnshop owner, Steed, and the English guy, Marquee, who sold you that license plate yesterday.”
“Marquee’s not a problem. I’ve got Petey Greene latched on to him, and Steed I’ll talk to myself. But there is one person I haven’t been able to connect with. A woman named Molly Burgess. She’s a concert cellist who’s given me the runaround for years.”
“Then maybe you should let somebody else do the chasin’. Sounds to me like she’s got your scent. Make her have to sniff out another one.”
“Are you up for running her down?”
“Nope,” Ike said, rising and wheezing like an asthmatic as he got out of his chair. “But I’m bettin’ that for a couple of old General Grants, Petey Greene would give it a whirl.”
Happy that Ike had offered him an alternative to confronting Molly Burgess that evening, CJ smiled and said, “I’m betting he would, too.”
Looking concerned, Ike said, “Just make sure Petey don’t turn himself into a batterin’ ram when it’s just a crowbar that’s needed. Gotta watch Petey, CJ. He’s got a healthy taste of little man’s syndrome.”
“I’ll tell him to tread lightly when it comes to Burgess.”
“Do me one better,” Ike said with a wink, walking to the doorway in response to Marguerite’s call from the other room. “Tell him to flat-out back off on any confrontation with the women if the setup ain’t right. He needs to remember he’s a man.”
CJ offered an acquiescent nod and watched Ike hobble out of the room, suspecting that Marguerite’s call of frustration couldn’t possibly bode well for their secretarial search and realizing that when it came to the art of investigation, he had one hell of a lot to learn.
Twenty minutes later, he was on the phone making sure that Rosie was set to stake out Mae’s Louisiana Kitchen and keep his eye out for any Walt Reasoner sightings. After giving Rosie instructions to page him on the pager he’d rented for the evening if anything unexpected happened, he checked in with Petey Greene to find out if all was quiet on the Walt Reasoner front and offer Petey the assignment of running down the elusive Molly Burgess.
Petey agreed happily. An hour later, all Petey could think about after scoping out the Epic Produce & Meats offices, which had looked to him to be dead for the weekend, was heading over to stake out Gaylord Marquee’s. He thought that at the rate CJ was passing out money, he’d be set with whores for a month.
When he called CJ to tell him that he’d spotted a woman in a pickup parked in front of Marquee’s house, slumped down behind her steering wheel and looking nervous, CJ sounded pleased. When Petey added that the woman was a melon head with sandy hair and funny shaped eyes, an elated CJ yelled, “Jackpot!”
Twenty minutes later, when he called CJ back from
a pay phone outside a 7-Eleven to tell him that Marquee had come home, greeted the woman affectionately, and hustled her into his house, Petey could hear cash registers ringing. When he finally asked, “Who was she?” and CJ laughingly told him, “A woman who owns a ranch and a bunch of seashells,” Petey simply said, “Oh.”
A few minutes after Petey’s second call, CJ came downstairs to Ike’s office from his apartment, using the inside stairs. He was wearing his new blue blazer, gray slacks, and spit-shined boots and nervously twirling his Stetson in his right hand. He’d wrapped up his final business for the day but remained disappointed that he hadn’t been able to set up a meeting with Harry Steed for the next morning. After four failed attempts to reach Steed by phone, he decided to scrub the meeting that he’d hoped would give him additional insight into Cheryl Goldsby and what besides a footlocker full of treasures she might have garnered as the sole beneficiary of Wiley Ames’s estate. He almost failed to notice Ike, who appeared out of nowhere from the darkened dining room, humming, “Dum da dum dum.”
CJ broke into a broad smile.
“You know it’s snowin’ outside, don’t ya?”
“Yeah.”
“Where the hell’s your coat?”
“In the Bel Air.”
“Guess maybe you don’t really need no coat when you’ve got somebody as fine as Mavis Sundee hangin’ on your arm. Word’ll be all over Five Points by mornin’ that the two of you were out at the symphony.”
“Like they say, gossip and bad news always travel fast.”
“It’s the way of the world,” Ike said with a shrug and a parting cough. “Have a good time, and give Mr. Beethoven my best.”
“I’ll do that,” said CJ, opening the front door and heading out into the snow, leaving behind footprints nearly as deep as the grin on Ike Floyd’s face.
That wet, heavy, first-of-the-season snow had intensified by the time CJ reached Mavis’s house, and when they arrived at Denver’s Auditorium Theater a little past seven, three inches of snow had fallen. All the way to the concert hall, CJ tried his best to remember what he’d learned in high school about Beethoven, but all he could dredge up was that the famous composer had been a long-haired deaf musical genius.
The fact that the programs he and Mavis were handed on their way to their seats summarized Beethoven’s life and career in a single page made him feel even more inept. Mavis, who, except for a single strand of pearls, was dressed elegantly in black from head to toe, seemed as comfortable as if she went to the symphony every week.
Once seated, CJ thumbed through the program and felt a strange sense of relief. When he scanned the orchestra’s musicians for Molly Burgess, spotting the second-seat cellist who with one leg shorter than the other limped to her seat, he couldn’t help but think that the small-boned, red-haired musician looked almost childlike. He could have sworn when she glanced briefly up toward his section and her eyes moved past him that there was a hint of recognition on her face, but he couldn’t be certain.
When Mavis leaned over and said, “The cellist seems to have caught your eye,” a lump formed in his throat.
Trying his best to look neither embarrassed or guilty, he said, “Just watching her get adjusted.”
“The secondary strings are pretty insignificant in the music they’ve chosen for tonight, anyway. The primary strings and the percussionist are the musicians to watch.”
“I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” CJ said, turning his attention from Burgess to the orchestra’s semicircle of kettle drums.
Nervously drumming his fingers on the cover of his program, CJ found himself staring at Mavis as she searched through her clutch for lip gloss and wondering what on earth had possessed him to bring her along on what was essentially no more than a stakeout. Drinking in the glow of her flawless dark-olive skin and the graceful arch of her neck, he all but blurted out, “Mistake.”
“Something the matter?” Mavis asked, catching him in midstare.
“Nope. It’s just that for a second there, I had this fleeting image of beauty being forced to spend a night trapped with the beast.”
“If you are referring to us, CJ Floyd, I’m not trapped anywhere. I’m here because I want to be, and hopefully so are you.”
Before he could respond, applause interrupted as the first-chair violinist walked across the stage toward his chair. “I absolutely am,” CJ said, loudly enough that the man seated next to him favored him with a reprimanding stare.
He and Mavis didn’t say anything more to one another until the conductor, greeted with thunderous applause, stepped up onto the podium and raised his baton.
“Watch the violins and the drums,” said Mavis, winking at CJ as the baton fell.
All CJ could think of as he and Mavis wove their way through the exiting shoulder-to-shoulder crowd after the concert was how much energy had been on display during the hour-and-a-half performance. Mavis had been right. Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony in particular, the evening’s featured piece, had kettle drums, strings, and tuba playing galore. Ike, it turned out, had been right on all counts, too. Any plan to ambush Molly Burgess, with or without Mavis in tow, would have been a bad idea. Watching Mavis shiver and at the same time look excitingly vampish with her coat collar turned all the way up, he locked a supportive arm in hers as they stepped outside in twenty-degree temperature and six inches of fresh snow. Thinking, Molly Burgess be damned, he admired how beautiful Mavis looked against the backdrop of snow.
“Goodness,” Mavis gasped as a blast of frigid air greeted them at the corner of Fourteenth and Curtis Streets.
By the time they’d reached the Bel Air, Mavis’s teeth were chattering. As CJ cranked the engine, she said, “You looked preoccupied all night, CJ. Were you looking for someone?”
Surprised by Mavis’s astuteness and uncertain what to say, he said, “Remember that cellist I was staring at before the concert started?”
“Yes.”
“I think she’s linked to a friend of mine’s murder.”
Mavis’s simple, matter-of-fact “Why so?” caught CJ by surprise. He dusted the snow off the brim of his Stetson and placed it on the back seat. “Because she knew a second guy who was killed along with my friend, and she’s been dodging me for a long time.” The Bel Air fishtailed briefly as they reached the icy northern edge of the Fourteenth Street parking lot.
“If your problem’s that she keeps dodging you, why not try to catch her before she comes to work? That would be better than trying to intercept her after a performance, don’t you think?”
Feeling embarrassed and suspecting that Mavis recognized that she’d been at least partially a prop for the evening, he said, “Yeah,” followed quickly by, “Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then we’ll do it again,” said CJ, inhaling the scent of her perfume in the chilly air as the twenty-year-old classic Chevy struggled to heat up.
“I hope so.”
He’d eased into the slow-moving postsymphony traffic on Fourteenth Street when his pager went off. He slipped it off his belt, punched the pager’s backlight, and recognized the incoming phone number on the tiny screen as that of Rosie’s Garage. Having left Rosie with instructions not to page him unless it was an emergency, CJ swallowed hard.
“Pretty late page,” said Mavis.
“Yeah. It’s Rosie. He’s calling me from the garage. I’d better get to a phone and call him.”
“Emergency?”
“Let’s hope not.”
The look of concern on CJ’s face told Mavis that he wasn’t being totally truthful. “Why don’t we just head straight there? It’s only a few blocks over to Welton, and from there it’s a straight shot to the garage.”
Heeding Mavis’s advice, CJ made a quick left and headed for Welton Street without responding, thinking as he accelerated, Educated, beautiful, and insightful to boot—damn, am I out of my league.
In the six-and-a-half minutes it took to get to Rosie’s Garage, the sno
w never let up. When the Bel Air finally slid to a stop in front of one of Rosie’s service bays and CJ partially rolled down his window, Mavis let out a silent sigh. Their fishtailing trip from the symphony had been alarming, but it was the determined, slightly fearful, wide-eyed look on CJ’s face—a look she hadn’t seen there since the early months of his return from Vietnam—that had her worried.
Within seconds, Rosie came rushing out of the garage with his Colorado State University hooded sweatshirt tugging at his belly and a watch cap in hand. “We need to haul ass over to Mae’s this second,” he yelled. “Some SOB’s been nosin’ around in the alley back’a the place for a good fifteen minutes. I left Petey standin’ watch while I came and paged you. Hope to hell I didn’t make a mistake, leavin’ him there on his own.”
Realizing only as he peered through the Bel Air’s fogged-up windows that Mavis was in the front seat with CJ, Rosie said, “Mavis, didn’t know you were there.”
Her voice rising, Mavis asked, “What the heck’s going on at Mae’s, CJ?”
“Something that could turn ugly. You need to stay here.”
“The hell I will.”
“CJ, we need to move it!” Rosie hollered.
In one quick, fluid motion, Mavis, a former high school gymnast, was over the front seat and into the back seat. “Rosie, get in!” With her face just inches from CJ’s, she shouted, “Let’s go!”
Feeling Mavis’s warm breath on his neck, CJ muttered, “Damn,” and took off with Rosie still trying to adjust his girth in the front seat. Two minutes later, the Bel Air’s headlights and engine off, CJ coasted to within twenty yards of the west entrance of the block-long alley behind Mae’s.
“Hope Petey’s still holdin’ down the fort,” Rosie whispered.
“You and me both,” said CJ, looking up at the streetlight that stood a little to the east of Mae’s back entry, then glancing beyond the light toward the hazy three-quarter moon and falling snow.
“There he is!” Rosie leaned forward in his seat and pointed through the fogged-up windshield toward a partially stooped figure outfitted in black who stood just a few yards beyond the streetlight.