Courage Matters: A Ray Courage Mystery (Ray Courage Private Investigator Series Book 2)

by R. Scott Mackey

  “Wah, wah, wah. If I felt any more sorry for you I’d organize a telethon,” she said.

  We arrived at the front door of Ziebell’s office. The two Wall Street Journals that had been lying on the mat earlier in the day had been picked up by Ziebell or snatched by someone else. I took a quick look around to double check that we were alone, then gave Rubia the go ahead. She put on her latex gloves and started to work the lock.

  It took her longer than it did at Norris’s house. She said the commercial-grade locks sometimes were a little tougher to crack. But after about five minutes she declared victory and we walked inside, closing the door quickly behind us. I fumbled along the wall for a light switch, found it and flipped on the overhead fluorescents.

  “You sure we want lights?” Rubia asked.

  “We need to see,” I said. “Flashlights would look worse if somebody saw it. This way it looks like Ziebell’s working late or he just left his lights on.”

  The layout of the office was similar to that of Evergreen Mortgage and Loan next door, except that instead of two offices behind the small reception area and reception desk, Ziebell’s had just one. Again, we wore latex gloves and paper booties.

  We didn’t waste any time in the reception area because clearly no one ever worked there, the desk completely empty, lacking even a telephone. When I flipped on the lights in the first office space, the sight of a man sitting at the desk caused me to jump back.

  “Jeez Louise!” I said.

  “Holy shit!” Rubia said.

  Like Andrew Norris, this guy had been shot, this time with two bullets in the middle of his chest. He sat slumped in his chair, eyes opened, dead.

  “Ziebell?” Rubia said.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before. Maybe he’s got ID on him.”

  “Go check.”

  I approached the body, circling to the side of the desk to see if the corpse might have a wallet. The bulge in the back pocket suggested that he did. I wedged my fingers between the back of the chair and his pants and reached into his pocket to grab the wallet. The damn thing hung up several times, the proximity to the corpse spooking me, but eventually I retrieved the wallet. I flipped it open and immediately spotted the California Driver’s License.

  “It’s him,” I said, reading the name on the license and checking the photo.

  “What do you want to do now?” Rubia said.

  “Stick with the plan. See if there’s anything having to do with Norris, Stroud, or any of their clients. Shouldn’t take long. There’s not much here.”

  I slid the wallet back into Ziebell’s rear pocket. First I checked the desk drawers. Rubia started looking through the files in a credenza on the back wall, the only other piece of furniture except for an empty coat rack and a trash can overflowing with discarded paper.

  The first drawer I checked contained blank boilerplate contracts. Another held pens, pencils, rubber bands and miscellaneous debris, while the contents of the third and last drawer consisted of a bottle of Dewar’s Scotch, a couple of unused Cup O’ Noodles containers and a half full box of Snickers candy bars.

  “Find something?” I said to Rubia, who seemed interested in the contents of a manila folder.

  “Not really. These look like files on recent investment deals is all. Pretty straightforward.” She put the folder back into the credenza and opened another file.

  I got onto my hands and knees, careful not to touch Ziebell’s body in the chair, and moved under the desk to see if something had been stuck to its underside. Nothing. I pulled out all the drawers again, this time looking at the underside of each. It was impossible to get a look underneath the bottom drawer so I ran my hand along the underside, feeling nothing unusual.

  “There’s nothing in any of these files,” Rubia said. “I looked at them all.”

  “You didn’t find Norris’s file?”

  “Negative.”

  “How about any of Norris’s clients?”

  “What part of ‘nothing here’ don’t you understand?” she said.

  “Just being thorough.”

  “Pain in the ass is more like it.”

  “I didn’t have any luck either,” I said. “We’d better get out of here.”

  “You gonna report this to the police?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Anonymously. If I report a second murder in two nights, Trujillo will put me in jail for sure. He’d slaughter me if he knew I came here in the first place, let alone finding another dead guy. Let’s get out of here and find a pay phone, if there are any more left in the world.”

  We reached the front door. I raised one of the blinds to make certain no one had arrived since we entered the office. It looked clear. I turned around checking for any indication we might have left of our presence. Something about the trash can next to Ziebell’s desk seemed wrong. Crumpled up pieces of white paper overflowed from it. The brochure about the office building I read earlier mentioned a daily cleaning service. If Ziebell had arrived sometime after my departure in the late morning, he had produced and rejected a heck of a lot of paperwork in just a few hours.

  “Hold on,” I said as he went to the trash can. I had already removed my gloves so I took one from my pocket and put it on my right hand. One at a time, I removed three or four pieces of paper from the bin. I unfolded each one to see that they were blank on both sides. I reached in again to remove another paper when I saw the unmistakable side of a laptop computer. I pulled it out of the trash.

  “Must be broken,” Rubia said.

  “I don’t know. I think he might have been hiding it. All these papers are blank. It’s like he put the laptop in the garbage and then covered it up so no one could see it.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “No idea,” I said. “Could be he was here and heard someone come into the office and was suspicious and so he decided to toss the computer.”

  “You mean like someone came to rip off his laptop?”

  “Yeah, but not an everyday thief. Someone who wanted something he had on the laptop.”

  “Let’s fire it up,” Rubia said.

  “No, we need to get out of here.” We headed again towards the front door.

  “You taking that with you?” She gestured at the laptop in my hand.

  “Absolutely. If I find anything that will be useful to the cops then I’ll find a way to get it to them, but for now this might be what I need to get out of this mess.”

  twenty-two

  I awoke at six, showered, skipped breakfast and headed for the Say Hey by six-thirty. Sunrise was still some forty-five minutes away and the early morning chill prompted me to wear a UC Berkeley sweatshirt over my polo shirt. The forecast called for rain later in the day. I punched in KNBR on the radio as I backed the car out of the driveway and onto the street. From Scottsdale, Kruke and Kuipe were singing the praises of the Giants’ rookie first baseman who was turning heads with 450-foot bombs, slick footwork and a cannon arm on defense. I made a mental note to turn on the Giants and A’s exhibition game that afternoon at the bar.

  I made it a half block before a black and white squad car, lights flashing, pulled me over. I glanced over at Ziebell’s laptop on the passenger seat next to me. I thought about stashing it under the seat, but the officer had already started toward me. Moving the laptop now would be obvious and suspicious. I rolled down my window when he arrived.

  “Good morning, officer.”

  “Sir,” he said in greeting.

  “Must be a world record,” I said. “I didn’t make it a hundred yards before violating a traffic law. Mind telling me which one I broke?”

  “Broken tail light,” he said. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, brush cut hair, clean shaven, weightlifter buffed and all business.

  “Broken as in cracked?”

  “No, broken as in not working.”

  “Left or right?”

  “Left,” he said after a pause.

  “And you were staked out in this gan
g-infested neighborhood teeming with criminal activity waiting for the first scalawag to violate the state’s well-known reputation for zero tolerance of broken tail lights?”

  “Is that a joke?” This guy was practiced in the art of not smiling.

  “If you have to ask, then I guess not,” I said. “How about this? A Catholic, a Jew and a Muslim walk into a bar. Stop me if you’ve heard it.”

  “Driver’s license.”

  “Sorry?”

  “May I see your driver’s license, please?”

  I pulled my driver’s license from my wallet and handed it to him. Without a word he took it back to his car, where he sat in the driver’s seat and worked the computer and then the radio. What seemed like ten minutes later he walked back to my car and returned my license. I started to thank him and say something clever when I noticed in the rearview mirror that a second car had pulled next to the police car. Out of the second car emerged Detective Nick Trujillo, who joined the uniformed officer next to my car.

  “Thank you, officer,” Trujillo said. “You can go now. I’ll take it from here.”

  We both watched the uniform get into his car and drive off. For the second time I thought about stashing the laptop, but failed to use the diversion of the cop’s leaving to my advantage.

  “Did you get reassigned to broken tail light division?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Broken tail light division. See, your boy there pulled me over for a broken tail light and now—”

  “Shut up!”

  “At least the other guy was polite.”

  “Get out of the car.” Trujillo wasn’t quite there yet, but he was working his way up to a major hissy fit.

  “No.”

  “What? Are you refusing the direct orders of a police officer?”

  “You want me to get out of the car for a broken tail light? Write me a fix-it ticket and I’ll be on my way.”

  “You know what this is about,” he said.

  “Of course I do. You put a cop on my house, told him to pull me over the second I leave, and then call you to come talk to me.”

  “How do you know Craig Ziebell?”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sakes are we going to do that dance again this morning? I thought I told you to stay away from the Norris investigation.”

  “You did.”

  “Then why did you go to talk to Ziebell yesterday?” Trujillo crossed his arms and gave me a smug look. I didn’t think they would have put Norris and Ziebell together so quickly. I had either overestimated my abilities or underestimated Trujillo’s.

  “Who says that I did?”

  “Wally Wallace.”

  “Sorry, don’t know a Wally Wallace. Is he friends with Woody Woodpecker?”

  “He’s the owner of Evergreen Mortgage and Loan. He said a guy came in asking about Ziebell. The description he gave matched yours. I showed him a picture of you and he gave us a positive ID.”

  “You have a picture of me in your wallet? Nice. Can I have one of you?”

  “Explain.” If I was getting under Trujillo’s skin he masked it well.

  “I’ve got nothing to say,” I said.

  “I know you’re all lawyered up right now and you don’t have to talk to me, at the moment. But it would be in your best interest if you cooperated. When I file charges on you it will get ugly fast. You play ball now it will be a whole lot easier. Trust me.”

  I just looked at him. He had me in his crosshairs. This fact did not scare me as much as it probably should have, my innocence fueling a naïve confidence. I felt no obligation to say anything that would play into Trujillo’s hands.

  “Did you know that Craig Ziebell was murdered last night?” he said, looking at my eyes in search of a reaction.

  “I never met him,” I said. “But that is awful.”

  He held my gaze for a long moment. He appeared tired, like he had been up all night, which he probably had.

  “Once I have the lab reports from Ziebell’s office, once we’ve poured over everything on both homicides, once I find enough to get the most hard-assed judge in the county to issue a warrant you’ll be in a world of hurt my friend.” It was the best threat he could come up with and it wasn’t bad.

  “But that isn’t right now, is it Nick?”

  “Soon enough,” he said.

  “Are you going to cite me for the tail light?”

  “No. Consider it a favor.” He leaned into my opened window until our faces were only inches apart. “Nice laptop, by the way, professor. Laptop like that should probably be put in a case or something, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll get right on it,” I said.

  I sat in the car until Trujillo drove away, giving me a hard stare as he slowly moved past. I didn’t know what to make of the laptop comment. Did he suspect it was Ziebell’s? Should I toss the thing now? No, I had to learn what, if anything, Ziebell might have on his hard drive. When Trujillo turned the corner, I killed a few more seconds listening to a commercial about erectile dysfunction in men over fifty. When that segued to a Match.com ad, I punched off the radio and put the car in gear, my mood considerably darker than it had been fifteen minutes before.

  twenty-three

  It seemed colder inside the Say Hey than it did outside, so I cranked up the heat to seventy-five. I started a pot of coffee, pulled a chicken burrito out of the freezer, removed the packaging and set it in the microwave for two minutes. Rubia had recently added the burritos to the menu of popcorn and beer nuts on the theory that even experienced drinkers needed a little sustenance if they were going to make it through a good ballgame or a serious happy hour.

  While the burrito cooked in the microwave, I took a chimney glass from the shelf, filled it with ice, added tomato juice, some Tabasco, a little Worcester sauce, a squeeze of lime, two dashes of pepper and a celery stalk, which I used to stir the concoction.

  Sitting at the bar, I’d eaten half the burrito and drank most of the virgin Bloody Mary when Rubia entered.

  “You’re late,” I said.

  “Good morning to you, too. You got one of those for me?” She carried a stack of files, which she set down on the bar next to me.

  “Burrito or Bloody Mary?”

  “Both.”

  “Help yourself,” I said. “Coffee is almost ready.

  “What are these?” I said, tapping the top file in the stack.

  “The reports you asked for.” The wrapper on the burrito challenged her. She finally gave up on her fingers and used her teeth to rip it open. “You know, the Tylers, Burke and Rios.”

  “Anything good?” I asked.

  “Check them out yourself.”

  She passed on the Bloody Mary, opting instead for the fresh squeezed orange juice from the refrigerator. While she waited for her burrito to cook I started in on the Eric and Joanne Tyler file, seven pages about their financial, personal and social backgrounds.

  “Just like Mrs. Tyler said, the old man makes his money in the florist business,” I said, reading from the file.

  “Fifty three stores up and down California,” Rubia said, retrieving her burrito, settling in next to me at the bar.

  “Says here that Eric went to see a psychiatrist for about a year. How’d you find that out?”

  “Again Ray, You don’t want to know.” Rubia took a massive bite, annihilating a third of the burrito.

  “Doesn’t say why. Does your guy know?”

  “Doubt it,” she said, barely intelligible with a full mouth of food. “But if you look at the date their son died it was right before he started going to the shrink. Could be the reason.”

  “That would make sense. Other than that, nothing really jumps out about the Tylers.”

  I started in on Charles Burke. Rubia finished the burrito, chugged the glass of orange juice in two gulps, and then headed for the refrigerator for a second burrito. Burke’s wealth approached a half-billion dollars, with about $130 million of it invested through Strou
d. He also had considerable real estate investments that seemed to be the origin of his wealth. He had $10 million in very liquid, low yield cash accounts, essentially checking accounts. That seemed imprudent, but I supposed if you’re worth nearly $500 million then $10 million must seem like pocket change. He’d been married three times, divorced three times. Currently he dated a twenty-seven year old stripper at Dream Girl Centerfolds. Previously, he had dated two other strippers from the same club. He had no evidence of a criminal record, connections to any organized crime figures, or any other red flags.

  “The guy likes strippers,” I said.

  “I believe the term is exotic dancer.”

  “Okay.”

  “I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that if you set your expectations accordingly,” Rubia said. This time she was able to tear the wrapper off the burrito with her fingers.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s almost seventy years old. He’s got to know those girls are around only for the money, not because they are into him for his personality or the sex. If you can live with that then you’re fine.”

  She was right, of course. Not even an arrogant bastard like Burke could delude himself into thinking a twenty-something stripper, or exotic dancer, would really be attracted to him. I wondered if I could do that, deciding I’d wait until I’d amassed a couple hundred million dollars before thinking too hard about the matter.

  Rubia waited for the microwave to finish cooking the second burrito and then returned to the barstool. I put down Burke’s file and picked up the one on Blake Rios. Just like Andrew Norris’s file on Rios had been, this file was also thinner than the others.

  “Not as much intell on Rios,” I said.

  “He’s twenty-eight years old. Not much time to develop stuff for a file if you’ve kept your nose clean.”

  The fact sheet on top of the file showed that Rios had graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in finance. He then went on to earn an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Dallas to parents Armando Luis Rios and Esmeralda Francisca Rios Cardoza.

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time with that softball chick,” Rubia said, her breakfast completed.