Whiskey’s Gone (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 3)

by Susan Russo Anderson

  You see, his dad had reminded him he’d never asked for much, and he wouldn’t be asking him this time, but Fina needed help. “You know how women are.”

  He knew Fina was involved in the hunt for the office manager. His father had said as much in the phone call, but told Denny the story from the old man’s point of view—was there any other—their tenant was missing, the stubborn redhead wasn’t calling it in, and how would it look if he, a retired officer of the law, hadn’t done the right thing? The old man had a point. And not for nothing, he sounded worried. All he asked was that Denny call someone at the precinct, give them a heads-up about the missing woman. “That blonde detective, Templeton, she’d be the one to call,” he’d suggested. Weren’t they friends? He’d heard, the old man had, that the female dick had a soft spot for Denny, always asking for his help. So why shouldn't Denny ask for hers? Then he started talking about the woman’s kid. Denny remembered the girl from a Saturday morning breakfast when he’d stopped by, his regular visit, to stoke up on his mother’s cooking: the girl had been sitting next to his father in Denny’s usual spot. The old man was nuts for her, claimed he didn’t want the kid to get hurt. So he, Denny, had called Jane.

  Afterward, he’d stayed in the cabin instead of fishing. Said he wasn’t feeling well. Coughed to prove it. He had to decide. The best thing to do was to call Fina right away and tell her. Leave a message if she didn’t answer this time. He punched in her number and listened to her canned greeting. Maybe she already knew about his call to Jane. Maybe she saw his name flash across her screen and didn’t pick up. So he didn’t leave a message.

  Enough. He’d had it with the Maine woods. He left a note, threw his pack in the trunk, and careened out of the drive onto the highway. If he didn’t stop, except for gas, he could make it in seven, eight hours.

  Brandy

  Lorraine was busy in the kitchen. I had a few more hours, so I decided to head back to Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey and talk to whoever was there as well as snoop through Whiskey’s things.

  The office staff were still buzzing about or had their heads deep into their computer screens—some work going on, but mostly late afternoon activity, Twitter and Facebook and YouTube—but I found Trisha Liam’s door open. She was surrounded by a group of teens and she was shaking her head. Brandy, Trisha’s thirteen-year-old daughter, and her friends. I smelled books and sweat and old socks. A few of them wore Parker Collegiate hoodies.

  Brandy was smiling, her feet rocking to the sides of her shoes. It was the first I’d seen her since her ordeal a couple of months ago. She’d changed, but not by much. Cleaner for one thing, and her wounds had healed, but she wore that same lime green hoodie I remembered from the last time. She had that same elfin grin and eye sparkle. A slew of words streamed from her. Not surprising. I heard snatches of the conversation and watched Trisha Liam, hunched a little in the shoulders and shaking her head. “We don’t know where she is.”

  “Aren’t you going to call Fina?”

  “She’s already on it.”

  “Can’t we help?” Brandy asked.

  “Nothing you can do, I’m afraid.”

  Brandy turned to me when I entered and hugged me with her eyes. She was way too cool to cling to an old lady like me when she was with her friends.

  “How do you know Whiskey?” I asked.

  Brandy shrugged. “We know Maddie. She’s cool, and her mom is, too. I like her.”

  “We all do,” a girl said, her voice soft in contrast to Brandy’s. I’d recognize her anywhere. I said hello to Heather, Brandy’s best friend, whom I’d met on the last case, and watched the window light turn her silky black hair into shades of blue and red.

  “Yeah, Whiskey used to live close to us in Cobble Hill,” a lanky girl said. She had caramel eyes and a wide smile. “And she used to read to kids on Saturday mornings at the BookCourt. She was real good, not like some of the other readers.” She looked at Heather, who crossed her arms and nodded.

  One of Brandy’s other friends, a boy with fine stubble around his upper lip, grinned down at me and shifted his feet. His backpack bulged, like it held every book he owned, and he held a small laptop in one hand. “Don’t you guys ring doorbells, stuff like that? We could do that.”

  Trisha Liam stood, yanking up her slacks above her nonexistent waist. “I don’t want any of you getting involved. Leave the investigation to Fina.” Her straw blonde hair stuck up in the back and wafted a little for emphasis.

  The room was silent as Brandy and her friends got closer to one another. They rocked a little bit, their eyes talking.

  Another girl, shorter than the others and thin and with those braid thingys all over her head, whispered something in Brandy’s ear.

  I figured it was a conspiracy and they were going to do what they were going to do, so I had to step in. Besides, I was desperate to find Arthur and here were some willing eyes. Without involving them in any heavy-duty confrontation, a little neighborhood surveillance wouldn’t hurt if they were discreet.

  I held out my phone with Arthur’s image on the screen. The air seemed to disappear as they closed ranks around me. While they passed it around, I said, “I’m looking for this man. He claims to be a friend of Whiskey, but we don’t think he’s a friend. We think she’s trying to dump him. If you see him in the neighborhood, I want to know right away.”

  Trisha Liam shot me a frown. I read it and gave them boundaries, telling them to stick to Court Street for the most part, and not to venture beyond Third Place in Carroll Gardens where we’d last seen Arthur.

  They wanted to hear more about him, and I told them how he’d appeared in Whiskey’s apartment while we were searching it for clues. I shouldn’t have used that word because I felt the room go electric. I described him in detail, his build, height, his manner, what he was wearing, the color of his eyes and hair. “He very well might be dangerous.” They were solemn when I told them to stay together and to keep their distance from him.

  “If he comes up to you and acts threatening, don’t hesitate, call 9-1-1, then call me, but above all, stay together. And if you see anything, anything at all that’s strange, let me know. And if you’re not sure, call me.” I texted Brandy my number and messaged her Arthur’s image, wondering what I’d started.

  I could feel Trisha Liam’s eyes boring into me. “Brandy, don’t you dare send that picture to anyone, hear me?”

  Brandy rolled her eyes. “We know all about 9-1-1,” she said, like I’d just time traveled from the nineteenth century. “Mom got me the safety app. I just press it and 9-1-1 has all my information. And don’t worry, Mom, I’m not as dumb as you think I am.”

  I looked at Brandy, feeling Trisha Liam’s grief and fear. “Like your mom says, stay cool. Don’t get involved. We don’t know what happened to Whiskey, but if she was abducted, whoever took her is dangerous.” As I said those words, my heart flew to my mouth. What if someone did nab her and that someone returns for Maddie or harms these kids?

  I could hear muffled traffic noise on the street and the normal office sounds outside Trisha Liam’s office door, but no one in the room made a move except for Brandy, who hugged herself and inched toward her mother’s desk.

  “So don’t go looking for trouble,” I said. “Above all, no stopping anyone. And if you do spot Arthur, I need time of day.”

  “We could take his picture. That would have the date and time,” someone said.

  I forgot, I was talking to the plugged-in generation. “If you see him, someone write down details—where you were at the time, where he was, what he was doing. It wouldn’t hurt to write down anything you see that you don’t understand.”

  “That’s a lot, I don’t know if I can write that fast,” someone said.

  They laughed.

  “Shut up, Kit!” That from Fine Stubble.

  They started to murmur, and I could tell they were done with me and anxious to get started.

  “And stay together,” Trisha Liam said as they filed out
.

  After Brandy and her friends left, I sat and held my breath while Trisha Liam looked hard at me.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, crossing her arms. “Because if anything happens to Brandy, you’ll be responsible, and I’ll prove it—don’t think I won’t. I’ll ruin you.”

  I almost saw steam rising from her.

  “You know how much Brandy’s been through, yet you goaded her.”

  I said nothing, jumping when she opened a desk drawer and slammed it, then shook her head. “Sorry. Those kids were going to do what they were going to do.”

  I exhaled.

  She took off her glasses and began cleaning them. “And it might be therapeutic in Brandy’s case. She’s bound and determined she’s not going to let what happened to her happen to Whiskey. I know what she’s thinking.”

  I hunched my shoulders. “She’s smart, and she’ll stay close to her friends. No respectable kidnapper would get close to that group.” My heart thumped extra hard as I realized what I’d just said.

  As if she read my thoughts, Trisha Liam nodded. “You’re right. Brandy told me she’d left the group that morning and went to get a soda, and that’s when the take happened.”

  I could tell by the set of her mouth she was reliving Brandy’s ordeal. “No use going over it again and again. She’s got to have a normal life.” She stared into the room. “What have you found out?”

  I tried to look hopeful, hard to do with Trisha Liam, who can see through all of my bluffs. And I owed her—after all she was paying me plenty to find her office manager. My stomach started its sloshing. If anything happened to those kids … I was on thin ice already, not notifying the police about a missing person. But I had some things to do at Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey before I contacted Jane Templeton.

  I told Trisha Liam about the state of Whiskey’s apartment, threw in some background information about Lorraine and Robert being Whiskey’s landlords as well as Denny’s parents. But I dwelled on Arthur’s surprise visit, meeting Tommy Marsh, and of course, meeting Maddie.

  “So what you have about Whiskey’s disappearance, except for a sinking feeling and this Arthur character, is next to nothing.”

  “I know that Whiskey and her daughter spent their usual evening together before Whiskey suddenly left the apartment for whatever reason after tucking Maddie into bed several times—it’s the norm I guess with Maddie. Her flight must have been in the middle of the night because Maddie was sound asleep and didn’t see her mother leaving. At least she doesn’t remember it. Although the kid’s bright and independent—just like Brandy in many ways—I could tell she was shocked when her mother wasn’t there this morning. And now that she hasn’t returned, Maddie’s scared.”

  “Of course she is! Her single mom is missing. Imagine how hard that must be, an eight-year-old’s worst nightmare come true.” Trisha Liam rubbed her forehead.

  Yes, Brandy’s ordeal had changed Trisha Liam. I shuddered. “Whiskey must have departed in a hurry.” That was about it, I’d told her everything I knew. But to make it sound like more information, I told her about finding Whiskey’s journals. During my monologue, Trisha Liam nodded several times. When I described Maddie, she smiled, I guessed at the memory of her with a much younger Brandy.

  “Go on,” she said.

  I went over what must have happened this morning in Whiskey’s apartment. “Maddie woke up and couldn’t find her mother. The kid’s smarter than most adults, but I can only imagine her terror when Whiskey wasn’t there. Judging from the appearance of things—unmade bed, messy bathroom, clothes on the floor—it looked like Whiskey had left in a hurry sometime after Maddie went to sleep, which I think was pretty late at night if not early in the morning.”

  Trisha Liam asked about Maddie’s temporary care arrangements and I gave her a blow-by-blow account of Maddie’s reactions to the neighbor and to Lorraine, and how much she seemed to like Robert. “But she didn’t seem pleased to see her uncle.”

  “As next of kin and Whiskey’s emergency contact, he’d be Maddie’s legal guardian, but who knows how Family Services operates these days.”

  I shook my head, not expressing a negative but like a dog shakes water from itself. I told her I wanted to look at Whiskey’s desk and computer.

  “Hoping to find Arthur’s last name and address?” she asked.

  I nodded, showing her Cookie’s sketch of Arthur.

  She examined it and shook her head. “I’ve never seen him, but I really don’t get involved in the staff’s personal affairs.”

  “Except you know Maddie.”

  “That’s different. Without Whiskey, this place doesn’t run. And Maddie is, well, different. Precocious. Lovable. She has a lot to teach all of us. If she goes into care …” She reached for a handkerchief and twisted it until her hands were red, but the softness around Trisha Liam’s face was becoming. I had a new take on lawyers, at least this one.

  “This Arthur fellow, he’s got to be the prime suspect?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “The only one right now. Except for …”

  Trisha Liam picked up on what I hadn’t said. “You have others?”

  “Unless and until Whiskey walks through that door, everyone’s a suspect, including you.”

  She waved my words away. “Trite.”

  “But true,” I insisted.

  “But he’s the main one?”

  “At this point, perhaps. But I’ve just begun.”

  She shot me a look.

  “Arthur’s one of them. The most enigmatic, I’d say.”

  “You can’t suspect anyone here?” But before I could reply, something passed through her, an electric shock. She’d answered her own question, I could tell, but she wasn’t naming him. As if I didn’t know—Seymour Wolsey.

  But I wasn’t about to single out that greasy walrus. “You’re all suspects,” I repeated.

  I let my last remark hang in the air for a while before I told her I also wanted to interview whoever was still in the office before I called the police. “You know what it’s going to be like when you call them?”

  She nodded. “Chaos.”

  With that I slipped on a pair of latex gloves and began rummaging through Whiskey’s desk. I found lots of manila files with what looked like work-related hard copies, but I also found an address book. I thumbed through it and found “Arthur, BB” and a phone number. When I called it, I got a voice saying the number was no longer in use.

  The middle desk drawer held the usual collection—paperclips, rubber bands, folders, a ruler, and a magnifying glass. I thought about the trail mix we leave behind, and not for the first time, decided I ought to do a little cleaning up in my study.

  Whiskey must love candy bars because there was a wad of Snickers wrappers stuck in the upper left-hand corner. I admit it, my stomach was beginning to quake and I was looking at my watch, sure signs I knew I was running out of time. Nothing else in the desk except for plastic spoons, napkins, paper plates, a vase, the normal detritus, but not much paper. I guessed most of Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey files were electronic.

  Getting into Whiskey’s computer proved a bit trickier. Being a small law office there were several Macs and PCs scattered around. Whiskey chose the former. Luck be a lady, I was fortunate and tripped the logon screen with Maddie123 on the third try.

  Once in, I found a messy desktop. I arranged all the files and folders by name, but decided it would take too much time to go traipsing through all the stuff. And time was one thing I didn’t have a lot of. Let Jane Templeton and her merry band sift through the slog.

  In her Contacts, though, I hit the jackpot and found over four hundred. I searched for Arthur, found the same discontinued phone number, and a note that asked a question: “Still on Neptune?” I began going through the rest of her contacts, one by one, but decided that would take too much time, so I exported them to a pdf and sent it to Lorraine’s iPad, asking her to sift through them for a list of her friends and any informa
tion on Arthur. After I copied the file to my keychain flash drive, I deleted the original pdf from the desktop before looking through her documents for something that might give me more solid background on Whiskey. I didn’t come up with anything. I poked around in Safari, but didn’t have much time, and anyway, it looked like Whiskey Parnell wasn’t a surfer at work.

  Rhoda the Receptionist

  As I shut down Whiskey’s computer, I saw the woman at the front desk staring at me.

  She told me her name was Rhoda and she’d been the receptionist at Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey for several years.

  “Be right back,” she said without turning around. “Liam’s daughter was kidnapped last spring. She wasn’t gone long enough if you ask me.” The receptionist’s voice trailed down the hall as I watched her ass cheeks bounce and strain the back of her jeans. “Getting my purse. Time to leave, but I’ll give you a few minutes, although I won’t be paid for it and have lots to do. I barely say two words to Whiskey on any given day. We’re not close, you might say.”

  When she returned to the front desk, Rhoda was still talking. “Liam don’t like it when I chew gum so I gotta park it and talk good when customers call or come around. I gotta enunciate—that’s what they call it—like they taught me when she sent me to this place in Midtown to learn how to speak. But it looks like I can talk regular with you.”

  Thanks a lot. The receptionist was silent after this brief intro, squinting up at me and cracking her gum.

  “I’ve got some questions, but why don’t you talk a little bit while I think of more stuff to ask.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Whatever comes into your head.” Two can play the same game.

  She nodded as if she understood what was going to happen next. Apropos of nothing, she began. “I got curly black hair. I’m pleasingly plump. That’s what my mom says. I got a guy already. A real go-getter. Aren’t you writing this down?”