Jake paused, a piece of sausage waving at the end of his fork. He had to stop himself from opening and closing his mouth like a startled fish. "I have lots of family."
She looked as startled as he felt. "Dad said you were an orphan and your family was far away."
"I am an orphan. I was raised by my aunt and uncle. Their kids, my cousins, are like my brother and sisters, making me an uncle four times. They aren't that far away, though...except the year they all went to Disney World for Christmas. I think that was the first year I went to the Thorsen Yuletide dinner." He stared at her. "That still doesn't explain why you stopped going."
She shrugged.
Omission is a kind of lie and sometimes a kind lie. He didn't want kindness. He wanted truth.
"You didn't want to be around me, that much?"
"It's not much fun being around someone who treats you like a spoiled brat, especially since I don't think I ever was one." Her company smile had twisted into something darker…"Obstinate, maybe. Wilful, at times. Not spoiled."
Once again, he had to fight looking like a fish. This time, Jake popped the sausage in his mouth and chewed on it, as well as the information.
"The first time you met me, you treated me normally," she said, waving her hands in a gesture of exasperation. "The next time I saw you, you treated me like some prissy little girl—you even called me Miss Kate."
He swallowed. "Lots of people call you Miss Kate."
"Only people who knew me as a kid."
"Ike!"
"Known me since I was eight."
"Not so!"
"So."
Jake thought about this, then came back with, "Well, you were my boss's daughter. You weren't a child, but you were still a teen when we first met."
"Nineteen."
Jake did the math and realized that she was right. At the time, Joe had made it seem as if his daughter was a minor.
"I guess your old man thought you were too young to go out with a guy hitting thirty. He warned me off, you know."
She dropped her fork. It hit her eggs, causing a yolk eruption. A moment passed, then she resumed her meal. "The bugger."
Jake was thinking something similar. Joe had unwittingly sabotaged their relationship. They might have been friends. He might have come to think of her as a little sister. He remembered that mane of chestnut hair, then looked across at the older, wiser and possibly more beautiful woman and thought, no, not a sister.
He poured more coffee. "Clean slate?" he suggested.
"I'm not sure if there is such a thing." She tempered the remark with a quick smile. "Still, we can try. We'd better. We have a case to solve."
A half hour later, with a second pot of coffee, they were down in the office reading over each others' notes. Kate finished first. She poured them more coffee then sat and stared at him.
"What?" he said, looking over his shoulder in hopes he wasn't the target.
She scooted forward so she was at the edge of her seat. "I know the chief hates the C-word, but there is a connection between the murders. Between us, we've been involved in four homicide cases, all related to prescription drugs. It's quite possible that Fania Michaels, Delano Gage and Felix Proctor were all killed with drugs supplied by Frank Rossini."
Jake seesawed his head to indicate he agreed to a point.
"There are probably a lot of crimes connected to drugs supplied by Rossini. They aren't necessarily relevant."
"True, but Gage, Proctor and Rossini also shared a connection to another crime, the Moonlight Games fire."
"You think they were conspiring? I'm not sure that any two of them shared a common motive."
"I don't think they were working together. I think they were all killed by the same person, or because of the same person."
"Someone related to Moonlighting or someone related to the drugs?"
"Neither, or maybe both." She shook her head. "I have a theory, but first I want to see if you see what I do."
He went back to reading. When he was done, he was impressed. She had put the pieces together into a credible theory, something he and Valerio had failed to do.
"It's a stretch," he said.
"I know, but it would explain why Eldridge was targeted. Your notes make it clear if the Gage and Proctor murders are related, they were not killed for profit. There had to be another motive. In which case, my theory is worth investigating, isn't it?"
Jake couldn't argue, but he was inclined to be cautious. "Okay. We can pursue this as well as carrying out the investigations assigned. It's okay for you," he said. "You're on salary. I want to make sure I get another contract."
She gave him a funny look and he wondered if this show of practical materialism had diminished her opinion of him. He then wondered why that mattered so much.
29
After making a couple of calls, Kate headed out the door with a plan and a great deal to think about. The plan was simple. What she had to think through wasn't so easy.
Kate was sure her father intended her to take over for him. She was equally sure he hadn't intended this to happen so early in her career as a police detective.
If she didn't take her place within the partnership, it wouldn't really be Garrett Investigations. Would it become Carmedy Investigations? If Carmedy did that, he might lose clients. Garrett was a name that carried weight in this city. Right now, Kate felt like that weight was all on her shoulders.
If she gave up her job, she would miss more than a regular pay cheque. Mercy Rudra, Vince Valerio and, most of all, Igor Thorsen might understand her leaving the force, but their relationships with her would change forever. She'd be an outsider. She wouldn't be a cop.
Yet, if she didn't do this now, she might miss her best chance to come to terms with Carmedy.
She wondered why that mattered so much.
It was a relief to arrive at Leon Eldridge's upscale townhouse and put aside the internal debate.
"Mr. Eldridge," she announced to his CCTV security system, holding up her shield, "it's Detective Kate Garrett. Chief Thorsen has assigned me to your case."
The door opened and Eldridge warily stared out.
"Why you?"
"Why not me, Mr. Eldridge?"
No answer.
"Perhaps Chief Thorsen thought you would be more comfortable with me, since you used to work with my father."
Eldridge grunted and opened the door to her.
"I suppose I should be grateful that Thorsen is finally taking me seriously."
There was nothing Kate could safely say to that, so she let the comment slide. Instead, she told him that her purpose was two-fold. She needed to go over his police statements, in light of the new murder, and see if anything was missing or misinterpreted. In addition, she needed to go over his house to make sure it was secure against trespassers and, more importantly, did not contain anything that had been tampered with.
"After all," she said, "we are dealing with a very clever poisoner who may or may not be concerned with timing his or her kills. For instance, Felix Proctor's death may have been staged, or it may have been luck that caused him to drink the poisoned wine when he did. Delano Gage's time of death seemed random, but perhaps it was carefully arranged. You might be the key to working out these puzzles."
Eldridge nodded and even managed a hint of a smile. His antipathy slipped away as Kate went over his statements, complimented his thoroughness and showed her meticulousness by asking intelligent questions. While never entirely dropping his habitual reserve, Eldridge seemed to warm to her, at least enough to refrain from sarcasm and barbed comments about so-called police intelligence.
"I only wish you had been assigned to me in the first place, Miss Garrett," he said, standing up to stretch. "Shall we take a break for tea?"
Kate agreed, then inquired, with all sincerity, if he had an unopened box of tea bags.
"Never use bags, Miss Garrett. They add impurities to the brew. I have a sealed canister of Oolong I can open. I use a reverse osm
osis filtration system for my water. We don't need a murderer to poison our water. We do that ourselves."
"Very true. Perhaps I can start testing items in your kitchen while you make tea. Would I be in the way?"
Kate examined every opened package of food, beverage or condiment. She asked about gifts or free samples he might have received. She even checked the water filter for tampering.
"To be honest, unless someone gave you a bottle of wine or liquor recently, I wasn't expecting to find anything in the kitchen. Guests can rarely count on being left alone in a kitchen for long enough to tamper with things. I am much more concerned with the bathroom and any prescription drugs you have."
While they drank tea, Kate had Eldridge list all medications and supplements that he took. Then she asked him to try remembering any and all people who had entered his home in the past month.
He smiled. "I can do better than that. I can give you a security report. My entry CCTV records a time indexed digital photo of anyone standing at the door. I burn the memory to mini-disks every month before clearing it. I can give you a copy of last month's and this month to date."
Kate thanked him, then pulled her portable printer out of her shoulder bag to output a copy of his revised statement so he could read it before signing. While he read, Kate plundered his bathroom. With his permission, she took anything that could have been tampered with to poison him, including any opened vitamin bottles or drugs other than those he had purchased since leaving the hospital. They, he assured her, had never been out of his possession.
"I'm afraid I've just about cleaned you out," Kate said when she was done. "The lab isn't going to be happy with me, but I think we are better safe than sorry. I'd like your permission to go through your office, as well. Perhaps Monday morning? In the meantime, if you do go in to work, don't consume anything stored there."
"Monday morning is Delano Gage's funeral," he said. "I will take the full day off for that."
She had forgotten. "Tuesday morning, then?"
He agreed, then thanked her for her time and trouble. Kate returned the courtesy and left the townhouse. The moment she was out of range of Eldridge's security cameras, she heaved a huge sigh of relief.
30
Jake considered interrupting Valerio's day, then decided against it. Instead, he arranged to meet Sabrina Yao at Moonlight Games, reasoning there shouldn't be any backlash from interviewing one of his own clients.
I'm going to have to stop thinking like that.
He was used to working by the book. First there had been the military book, then Joe's book, and just recently, he had been letting Thorsen provide direction. If he was going to keep that up, he might as well join the police force and forget about being an independent agent.
That idea had a certain appeal. He could be riding in a state-of-the-art, electronic police car instead of driving Joe's rusty old hybrid. He'd be building his pension fund again, instead of borrowing from it when times were tough. He'd be back in uniform, figuratively, if not always literally. Dressing for Joe's funeral, he realized he missed that. Strange, because a decade ago, he swore he would never wear a uniform again, despite the fact that he had reserve status and could be recalled anytime.
Of course, he'd have to carry a sidearm again. Maybe not.
On the way to Moonlight Games Jake stopped at a deli. He bought a couple of bottles of juice, and small plate of cheese and crackers, something to grease the wheels. Sabrina must have had the same idea. She drove up, minutes after his arrival, and emerged from her hybrid sports coupe with a paper tray holding two extra large coffees and a selection of sweetening and whitening packets.
"I make terrible coffee. I wasn't sure if we had milk or cream in the fridge..." Her voiced trailed off and she smiled. "So, are we trying to bribe each other, or are we just terribly nice folks?"
"I think we are good people trying to get over rough ground as smoothly as possible."
"Sounds good to me. It's been a helluva week."
She let them in, locking up behind Jake once he was inside. Leading the way to her office, Sabrina was quiet and her shoulders seemed weighed down with fatigue.
Jake aimed for a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry to drag you in today."
"S'okay." She flopped into her chair, causing it to spin ninety degrees. She swung back and leaned over her desk to sort out beverages and snacks. "Just don't ask me if I killed Frank. Been there. Done that. You either think I did or didn't and I won't convince you otherwise."
Jake left the coffee for the moment and cracked open a bottle of juice. After taking a large swig, he sat back and considered her.
"No alibi?"
"Nope. I was at the wake for a while, then came back here to work. What with one thing or another, I haven't had much time to do the stuff that makes money around here. I talked to Les Caldwell from Magpie for half an hour. I am told my conversation wasn't within the window of opportunity for killing Frank. That pretty much makes the call totally useless."
"How do you mean?"
She grimaced. "Magpie wants to buy Moonlight Games. One co-owner, Bruce Wassim, wants me to come with the deal. The other, Les Caldwell, doesn't want me to be associated with Magpie. I thought we had sorted this out ages ago, but the business with Frank has muddied the waters again."
She waved her hand and forced a smile. "I don't really care, you know."
Liar, Jake thought.
"I wouldn't be selling if I was really married to running this business. My only concern is if they screw around with me, what will they do with my staff?" Her smile faded. "Frank getting killed has only made things worse. Now I don't know if the sale will go through. Too much scandal. Part of me is glad that Matt isn't around to see this. Part of me wishes he were here to help me sort it out."
"Well, for what it's worth, I don't think you killed Rossini," said Jake, pushing the cheese toward her. "I am hoping you will have information that will help us find out who did. To start with, did you know that Frank Rossini was a drug dealer?"
Sabrina looked genuinely shocked. "Drugs? He was a con artist, first-class jerk and a coward. Dealing drugs sounds like too much risk for Frank. Too much work too."
"He was distributing stolen prescription drugs to street dealers."
She nodded thoughtfully. "I know he used to work for Gage Pharmaceuticals. He was fired around the time Matt died. That was data I was careful not to bring up around Delano Gage when we talked about insurance. Matt was as honest and straightforward as his brother was crooked." Hope sparked in her eyes. "Does this mean one of his connections killed him?"
"It's possible," Jake said with no conviction.
"You don't think so." She slumped back in her chair, drawing her coffee toward her as if it could protect her.
"I am working on a possible theory I will keep to myself for now." Giving her what he hoped was a charming smile, he added "If I'm wrong, I don't want you to realize how out on a limb it is."
She responded with another forced smile which faded as quickly as the first.
"Sabrina, I don't want to worry you more than necessary, but three people related to Moonlight Games are dead. If you aren't involved, you could be the next target."
"What?"
"The only thing Gage, Proctor and Rossini have in common is this company. Then there's the fourth victim, Leon Eldridge. He wasn't killed, but an attempt was made on his life. He performed Moonlight's risk assessment. Is there something he might have found out that would have affected the Magpie deal?"
She shook her head in confusion. "Are you saying that someone here conspired to murder all these people and is going to kill me next?"
"Let's go back to the fire. Who did have access to the file room that day?"
Sighing, she reminded him, "We've been here before."
"I know. Humour me. Maybe something will come up, something we missed every other time we talked. For instance, Lloyd Jericho always insisted he was beta-testing a game, but there was no record. Did you fire h
im over that business?"
"Couldn't. There's no proof he didn't beta-test the game. There was a glitch in the security system. We assumed that the fire destroyed the security recording of the filing room. As a matter of fact, there were a few other technical problems that day."
She leaned forward, displaying a nice amount of cleavage and some of her customary energy. "Do you remember how I said Eldridge's risk assessment forced us to upgrade our security systems? Well, as mad as I was, he might have done us a favour. The company that did the work for us analysed the equipment they took out."
"You could have mentioned..."
"I got the report after we talked and I've been a bit preoccupied since."
Jake bowed his head in silent apology. "So?"
"It seems the old system was badly compromised before the fire. In fact, the fire probably wouldn't have done so much damage if the system had been working properly. There was a delay in detecting the fire and the suppression measures didn't go online until the smoke reached the main office. The same glitches caused problems in other areas, including a short that wiped out information on the computers where we do the beta-testing."
She fiddled with her eCom while she talked. "I'm sending you a copy of the file," she said. "To be honest, I never thought Lloyd lied about being on the computer. He's more likely to fiddle the records to make it seem like he played less than he really does."
That jibed with his assessment of Jericho.
"Does everyone know you had security in the filing room?"
Sabrina gave a snort of laughter. "The only reason I had the cameras in there is because it's one of the few areas around here that has a door that closes, other than the washrooms, of course. Lloyd isn't the only one prone to goofing off on company time. I allow a lot of creative play around here, but there's a limit. I had to draw one of my systems engineers aside and show him footage of him and one of his co-workers."
Deadly Legacy (A Carmedy & Garrett Mystery) Page 18