Ham snatched up the note, which had been roughly folded in thirds and inserted in an unsealed envelope. Contrary to the coarseness of the folds, the note itself was neatly typed, perhaps to better emphasize the threat it contained. A threat, much to Ham’s shock, aimed not just at Blake. He himself framed the crosshairs.
The bullet was a warning and so is this. Next time the bomb, or the bullet, is real. Instructions will follow, and you will follow those instructions to the letter. And just so you know we’re serious, the Honolulu cop is dead because of you, Kyle McCalister. You will stop your investigation or suffer the same consequence, and so will Blake. Though this is not our wish, you should be quite aware that we will do what we must. It is our demand that you cease trying to find us, or stop us, and instead do what you are paid to do: keep Blake alive. You can do this if you help Blake follow our directions. In so doing, once this is over, you will never hear from us again, and Blake and you will be safe. You have our word.
“Kyle McCalister.” So whoever it was, or whoever they were, he or she or they wanted him to know they had a source.
Ham waved the note at Drew. “Somebody’s been checking on me.”
Drew’s eyes rolled in disgust. “Ya think?”
Ham ignored the sarcasm, both in eyes and voice. “Yeah. I do think. Which is good because when they do that they leave a trail. And that means they can be backtracked. Meantime, how the hell did this happen? How’d it get in here?”
“Some asshole with no respect for private property used the elevator without permission,” Drew snarled. “Some people just have no scruples at all.”
Ham recognized her dark flippancy for what it was. She was some kind of pissed. And the madder she got the more she would descend into verbal irrationality.
“Take it easy, Drew, nobody’s blaming you. How do you know it came in the elevator? There must be a fire escape here, right?”
“That door to the left of the foyer,” Blake told him. “It’s not an obvious exit, but that’s what it is. It takes you to the stairway.”
“The doors of which are locked both at the bottom and up here,” Charlie added. “You’d still need a key.”
“Anyway,” Drew interrupted, impatient, “if you’ll let me finish, I was going to tell you that we heard the ping that announces the elevator arrival. I figured it was you and Charlie. When nobody came back out here to join us, after a couple of minutes, I went out there. Carson was just returning, and we both saw it. At first, from a bit of a distance, I was unaware it was a fake. I thought maybe—”
“Wait a minute,” Ham demanded, “what do you mean, Carson was just returning?” Turning narrowed and suspicious eyes on Carson, he asked, “You were out there alone? Why? What were you doing?”
“You mean what was I failing to do,” Carson spat bitterly. “I was supposed to be protecting us from the rear. I got sloppy. I went to the kitchen for coffee. I was only gone a short time, a few minutes at most. Long enough, apparently,” he sighed.
Drew demanded attention again, just short of shouting, “As I was saying, if you’d be so freaking kind as to let me finish, is that I rang for the elevator and snatched up the so-called bomb, intending to catch the little shit and shove it down his fucking throat. It nearly fell apart when I did, it was so flimsily put together. Then I saw the envelope and read the note inside. I sent Carson back to watch Russ and Blake—no flaming coffee break this time—and headed down. And before you ask, it was probably about 5 minutes before you arrived and had the bad sense to point your gun at my head. Did you see anybody on your way in?”
Ham shrugged. “No. Couldn’t he have got off elsewhere, gone out the front rather than the garage level?”
“Not likely, not if he knew enough to scam a key. He’d know the lobby is secured, that there’d be cameras and guards.”
“There’s a camera in the elevator, too,” Blake pointed out. “They’ll have a tape at security.”
“I saw somebody,” Charlie slowly said. “Now that I think of it. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
Ham regarded her with surprise. “You did? I didn’t. Who are you talking about? Where? What did he look like? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well,” Charlie mused, “to answer your multiple questions out of order, I didn’t think to mention it until now, that’s why I didn’t tell you, because it didn’t seem important. As for where, as you escorted me out of the cab I saw a guy pass to the right of the alley by the garage. He was dressed in black, head to toe, which is what I guess lodged itself in my subconscious. That’s pretty strange dress for Hawaii. And finally, I don’t know the who of it, I never saw his face, just the back of his head. But I got the impression that he’s older, the way he walked. I know that sounds strange but it’s an impression somehow. There’s a difference between a deliberate casualness that young guys use and the less studied casualness of age.” At their somewhat bemused looks, she snapped, “Hell, I don’t know. It’s an impression, that’s all, and I’m at least trying to give you what I know. Or what I felt.”
“Great,” Russ teased. “Now I’m going to feel self conscience whenever I walk around Charlie, what with me being an old man and all.”
“Me, too,” Blake agreed. “And my own daughter at that. You’d think us old guys would get a little more respect.”
Ham liked to think he had a normal sense of humor, but this was a waste of time. Before Charlie could respond, he confronted Blake. “Who has keys to that elevator?”
Without hesitation, Blake replied, “I do. Russ does. Eric and Duncan.”
“Your other band mates.”
Blake nodded absently and continued, “Charlie, of course. And Lindsey has one. That’s about it, I think.”
“No, don’t give me ‘that’s about it,’ Blake, tell me exactly.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Mom has a key,” Charlie reminded him.
“Oh, right. Of course.” At Ham’s questioning look, he explained, “Carla got married—I should say remarried, she’s been divorced twice—last year. I gave her a key and sent her and her new husband out here as a present for their honeymoon.”
“You’re that close?”
Blake nodded. “Since we reconnected, since she told me about Charlie, we’ve been close friends. So I told her to keep the key, to use the place whenever she wanted. Any time that I’m not here is okay with me. Like I said, she gave me Charlie. She can have whatever she wants.”
“You have maid service,” Ham pointed out. “Don’t they have a key?”
“No,” Blake replied. “I don’t like anybody in here when I’m off island. When we arrive, we have them in, and then twice a week while we’re here.”
“Then how do they get in?”
Blake regarded him with an unspoken duh. “Somebody goes down and lets them up.”
“What about security? Don’t they have a key?”
“Yes, of course.” Blake’s eyes revealed a growing impatience at this line of questioning. “But unless someone currently on duty is in on this, it wouldn’t have been them. Would it?”
Ham ignored the question and the irritation. “So. You, Russ, your band mates, Charlie and her mom, Lindsey, they all have keys.”
“And you,” Blake retorted.
Ham refused to take the bait. “And me. Are there any extra keys laying around? Either here or elsewhere?”
“Yeah, I keep several here. For guests. It’s wouldn’t be fair to ask them to ring and wait to be escorted every time they wanted to go for a walk around Waikiki.”
“How many are left?”
Blake made a mental inventory, nodded. “There should be four.”
“Where are they?”
“We keep them in a drawer in the kitchen.”
“And everybody knows this?”
Blake shrugged, as though this should be obvious. “Well yeah, it would defeat the purpose to keep it a secret, wouldn’t it?”
“Go get them.”
Charlie favored him with an icy smile before she left the room, and Blake was far less friendly than that. “If you’re even thinking of accusing Charlie, you’ll be fired and out of here so goddamn fast you won’t have time to blink.”
Ham took a deep breath. He was treading in very deep water here, but he had to explore the depths. “Blake…I’m not trying to antagonize you, or to insult you, or to pry into your past, your secrets, your hopes, fears, whatever. But I do have to know everything I can about all this if I’m to protect you. And so I have to ask…are you sure, are you absolutely certain, that Charlie is really your daughter?” At Blake’s flush, he rushed on, “You did say you hadn’t known about it, that Charlie grew up without you knowing, and…well, you know.”
“I’ll take that,” Russ announced. Turning directly to Ham, he offered the facts. “Blake is a deeply loving, deeply caring individual, a humanist to the point that he’d give the shirt off his back to his own worst enemy if he thought the guy needed it. That’s what makes him such a gifted writer, both melodically and lyrically, because he lives that way and he writes his life. Me,” Russ grimaced, “I got no such scruples and it shows in the difference in our songs. Mine are more to the point, more acerbic, more real, even if admittedly not as beautiful. That’s the source of our joint strength, those differences.”
Ham noticed that Blake stared at the floor, a lopsided grin on his face, as Russ explained both his character and their separate approaches to life. Apparently, he’d heard this all before and, equally certain, he found some source of humor in the remarks. Or perhaps in Russ himself. The dynamic was, even as a cop, a little difficult to read. But whatever, clearly Russ felt not just a deep affection for his songwriting partner, but a big brother protectiveness as well. Recognizing that, at least, the next part came as no surprise.
“Blake was infatuated from the moment he heard, from the moment he laid eyes on his newfound daughter. Unlike me, with my passel of kids, Blake never took the time. Not out of selfishness, mind you, nor because he didn’t care, but because of the music. That was his baby, that was his love, and that was his mistress.”
Charlie returned at that moment and, still with an icy stare, dropped the keys into Ham’s open palm. “There you go. Four. I didn’t steal even a one.”
Ham nodded, determined not to explain his motives just yet. When he did, he’d receive a great deal more than the lecture Russ was intent on delivering, and for that he could wait. Besides, Russ’ lead-up was not mere rambling, he’d bet his fee on that. “Please continue,” Ham urged. “Unless this is something you don’t want Charlie to hear.”
Russ laughed, though completely without humor. “Well done, McCalister. If I quit now I’ve just announced to Charlie that I’ve been gossiping behind her back, now wouldn’t I?” Glancing at Charlie, he winked. “Which I wouldn’t do, sweetheart.”
“Only because I’m meaner than you,” Charlie retorted.
From Russ’ easy grin, it was clear that his affection for Charlie was only slightly less than Blake’s blind devotion. Turning back to Ham, he continued, “The point is this: I’m the bastard of the group. I face the world as it is, with the suspicion it deserves. Blake’s poetic naiveté makes him an easy mark and anybody and everybody who knows him well will tell you just exactly that.”
“You make me sound like a blithering idiot,” Blake laughed. “Poor Ham’s gonna think I’m just too stupid to live.” Squinting his eyes at Ham in exaggerated thought, he finished, “Or perhaps I’ve already convinced him of that myself.”
Ham rubbed his forehead in mock frustration. “I can’t deal with the both of you. Either one of you is too quick for me, the both of you together make my head ring.”
“The point is,” Russ firmly interjected, “I saw a scam being run, and for obvious reasons. Who wouldn’t want to get their claws into Blake? Like I said, an easy mark, but one with vaults full of money. I remembered Charlie’s mom, Carla, we all hung together way back when, but I sure as hell didn’t trust her. I mean, she was just another groupie, you know?”
By Charlie’s reaction, she’d heard all this before and had long since come to grips with it, either accepting it or agreeing to disagree. Either way, no sore point here.
“So you demanded a DNA test,” Ham guessed.
“You’re goddamn right I did,” Russ affirmed. “Blake was reluctant, pissed even, which just convinced me all the more. The stupid son-of-a-bitch just wanted it to be true, a lifeline, if you will, in his advancing years. A family to call his own, that kind of thing.”
Ham grinned awkwardly, but he asked. Glancing back and forth between Russ and Blake, he shrugged embarrassment. “You’ve got that kind of power over him?”
Both of them laughed, easily and without rancor. “We’ve got that power over each other,” Blake informed him. “Like…oh hell, like I don’t know what. We’ve been each other’s right arms for so long that when one goes off on a tangent, a demand, a tantrum, the other jumps in and helps it along. A sum greater than its part, which is the how and the why of our success. We don’t mess with that.”
“Exactly right,” Russ affirmed. “Exactly fucking right. So when I wouldn’t back off, Blake acceded to my…request…and of course Charlie had no problem with it, so it was done, and voila, the proof was in the genetic pudding.”
To Charlie, Ham explained, “I’m sorry about this, but I had to ask. I want you to know that I do not for one second mean to imply that you’re untrustworthy, or that I suspect your motives or anything about you. It’s just completeness.” Charlie’s only response was an unconcerned nod. No offense taken, she seemed to suggest.
“This one’s a little tougher,” he told her. “How do you get along with your mother? And your new stepdad?”
“I’m as close to Mom as I am to Popster. As for my stepfather, he’s a nice guy. He treats me well and of course he makes Mom happy, which is all I care about.” Without any apparent irony, she added, “Her life hasn’t always been so easy. Or mine, for that matter.”
“What’s his name? What does he do?”
“His name is Barry Warren. He’s does something with import-export, although I don’t know too much about the details. All I know is he deals in art and antiquities. The house is always full of stuff that he has yet to sell. It’s all very nice, makes the house look like a museum. I like it and so does Mom. Anyway, he’s a good guy. I don’t see how he could be involved.”
“How about you, Blake? Do you get along with him? Any tension between you and Carla?”
Blake shook his head. “I already told you that Carla and I are close friends. There’s absolutely no friction of any kind, not between me and her. As for Barry, I’ve yet to meet him. He’s only been here the once and of course I wasn’t here at the time.” With a grin he added, “It didn’t seem appropriate to spend their honeymoon with them.”
Ham stood up, stretched out the kinks and gestured to Russ. “Just one more question. Why’d you bring Drew out here? And how did you know about her?”
“I already told you—” Drew started before Ham interrupted.
“I know what you told me. I’m asking Russ.”
“I should think that would be obvious. To keep an eye on you. And as for how I knew about her, that was a simple phone call to a buddy on the Truckee Police Force. It took him all of an hour to get back to me with details.”
“You suspect my motives, I take it.”
“I don’t suspect your motives any more than you suspect everybody else’s,” Russ replied with feigned innocence.
Ham laughed a good natured reply then began his instructions. “Okay, people, here’s what we’re going to do. Number one, and most important, we’re getting out of here. Today. We’re gonna go somewhere else and hunker down for a while, get out
of this lunatic’s area of operation. Number two, Drew and…Carson, do you know any of the security guards here?” At his nod, Ham continued, “Good. You go with Drew to talk to them and to get a copy of that elevator tape and whatever they have for the garage, too. I’ll make a couple of calls, get a line on who else besides Russ may have been backtracking me.”
To Blake, he asked, “Is your place in Tahoe well protected?”
“Yeah. But like I said, it’s buried under snow and pretty freaking cold.”
“Even better,” Ham responded. “That’ll make it tougher for our lunatic to get to us should he decide to follow us out there, as I expect he will if he’s as well informed as I think he is.” As they all continued to sit and stare at him, he clapped his hands and said, “Come on, people, let’s move it.”
“I’ll call Lindsey, have her make the arrangements,” Blake announced. “She’ll have the jet ready when by time we get to the airport.”
Ham’s head snapped up as the thought dawned. “That’s right,” he recalled, “I haven’t seen her. Where is she?”
“At her apartment, two floors down.”
Stunned, Ham asked, “She has her own apartment? Why? Why doesn’t she stay here? Wouldn’t it be more convenient, not to mention cheaper?”
Blake grinned in return. “Relax, Ham. I own the apartment. That and two others besides this one. I was hungry for investments at one time in my misspent youth. As to why not here, that’s simple. I love Lindsey, but I don’t want to live with her. And vice versa.”
“What about at Tahoe?”
“Same thing. One of the guest houses.”
“Is she married?”
“Yeah. Nice, big strapping guy, the Gentle Giant I call him. He watches the compound, does odd work around the place and on the boats. He’s gentle, but fiercely protective. Nobody gets past him or past those gates without his approval. You can believe that.”
“His name?”
“Gordo. Gordon, actually, Gordon Galey.”
Ham made a mental note, avoiding another error in etiquette and, more to the point, another steamed lecture from Blake about Ham not trusting people that he, Blake, obviously trusted completely and with his life.
The Ghost of Truckee River (A Ham McCalister Mystery Book 1) Page 17