Gumshoe Rock

by Rob Leininger

  “I’d sure like to try. Maybe if I go right back to sleep—”

  “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Sonofabitch, Angel. It’s two-freakin’-thirty in the a.m.”

  “It’s only a little problem. Shouldn’t take long.”

  He sighed. “Okay, what?”

  “Got a guy here wants to talk to you. Name on his uniform says Reynolds. I think he’s thinking about hauling me in because I don’t look like Lucy.”

  “You don’t. She’s a hell of a lot better looking.” He sighed. “Okay, put ’im on.”

  I handed the phone to Officer Reynolds. He took it warily. “Yeah? Who’s this?”

  He watched me as he listened. Then he said, “Angel? That guy? You sure? This guy’s got two wallets. And I’ve seen Angel on TV lots of times. This one’s got long blond hair—”

  I whipped off the wig, the ball cap, black-frame glasses. Forgot I had all that on. I was getting too used to disguises.

  Reynolds goggled at me. “Aw, dirty son of a bitch. You gotta be shittin’ me. No, not you, sir. Guy’s running around with two wallets and wearing some sort of a disguise, but, yeah, it’s him all right.” He listened again. “Okay, hell yeah, I’ll read him his rights. Happy to.” He grinned at me, which tightened the skin around his skull bones. “Okay, will do.”

  “Seriously? You’re gonna read me my rights?”

  “Damn right. Back up against your car and face me.”

  Well, shit. I leaned against Lucy’s Mustang.

  “You have the right to sit in your fuckin’ car looking drunk and stupid. You have the right to have two fuckin’ wallets and wear a fuckin’ wig and a dress if you want to. You have the right to phone a detective to bail your sorry ass out, and you have the right to kiss my ass, sir.” He shoved my phone into my hands. “Have a nice fuckin’ night.” He marched back to his car.

  I put the phone to my ear. “You still there, Russ? Police sure do say ‘fuckin’ a lot when they get worked up.”

  “It’s a useful word. I use it, too. Two wallets and a disguise? What was that all about?”

  “I was undercover. Sort of.”

  “Sounds illegal. Don’t tell me another word. Night.”

  I shut the phone down. The cop left. Volker’s house was dark, Honda in the driveway, BMW gone. I fired up the Mustang and drove home. I didn’t know I had the right to wear a dress. Good to know. I’ll have to ask Lucy what size to buy, get her opinion about colors and fabrics.

  * * *

  So I got in another five hours’ surveillance and had a good time. When I got home, the quiet didn’t have that weltschmerz quality so I was okay with it this time. I went to bed and fell asleep with a smile on my face. I had a detective in my pocket and Ma was gonna love the cop-stop story because it might’ve taught me a lesson in surveillance and had nothing at all to do with finding body parts or Soranden’s ever-lovin’ skull.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  EVELYN JOSS WAS six feet tall, fifty-five years old, carrying a few extra pounds, narrow shoulders, a bit stooped, with graying blond hair, an easygoing manner, soft voice, a great smile. We were in her office at Joss & Volker, CPAs, seated in cream-colored leather chairs around a small cherrywood conference table polished to a mirror finish. We had a view out a picture window of a somnolent afternoon, no traffic on the street, no one outside on the pedestrian walkways. It was Sunday and this was Evelyn’s day off. But Volker’s purported embezzlement was the order of business, and it couldn’t be done with Volker in the next room, wondering why the Mortimer Angel of Saturday night who had mentioned something about $13,600 was in the next room chatting with his business partner of twelve years.

  “Twelve years,” I repeated what she’d told me. A glance at a clock on the wall told me it was 12:35.

  “Yes. He had six years’ experience with Wells Fargo when I hired him. I had more than I could handle back then. Now he’s a full partner. It’s been a good relationship.”

  “Up until now.”

  “Well,” she said hesitantly, “I don’t know. It depends on why he took the money, doesn’t it? I wish he’d told me about it, but it’s not as if he took it and ran. And thirteen thousand and a bit? That seems like an awfully gray area, doesn’t it? Not the kind of money people generally take off with.”

  In my experience, no, but I didn’t want to tell her that my experience in embezzlement as a gumshoe was exactly zero. On the other hand, as an IRS agent I had seen people unload bank accounts and abscond with wads of cash, but it was then up to the enforcement arm of the IRS to track them down and beat them with rubber hoses on the way back from Mexico or Brazil. I was never on the rubber hose team, but I’d heard it was a plum assignment, a wonderful stress reliever, better than antioxidants and yoga.

  “How long have you known about the missing money?” I asked. I knew, but I wanted to hear it from her.

  “Since Thursday before last, about ten days.”

  “You haven’t said anything to him about it?”

  “No. I would like to know why first. It isn’t like Mike to do something like this, Mr. Angel.”

  “Mort.”

  “Mort, then. And, please, call me Eve. Like I said, Mike and I have had a good partnership for years. Something like this could change that, and I’m not willing to do that at this point, to mention it to him, not for that relatively small amount of money. He took the money in June. The account had thirty thousand in it. He took less than fourteen thousand, so it wasn’t as if he was going to run, then got cold feet. If he were going to run, it seems he would have taken all of it—then if he decided not to run, he would put it all back. But that’s not what happened. And, well, there’s something I didn’t tell Mrs. Clary when we spoke. I was going to, but as we were speaking it went right out of my mind. I wish that wouldn’t happen so often, but …”

  “What didn’t you tell her?”

  “That starting in July, toward the end of the month, Mike has been putting a thousand a month back into the account. Of course, I didn’t know that either, until ten days ago.”

  Okay, that was more than a little significant. Enough that it made me wonder what I was doing here.

  “So he’s making restitution,” I said.

  “So it seems. But quietly. He never said a word, but I have the feeling he needed it for something and always intended to pay it back.”

  “So this investigation is for your peace of mind?” Which would make it border on a noninvestigation, but not quite.

  “Something like that. I mean, it was so out of character for Mike. I would like to know why in case it’s important or might happen again, possibly on a larger scale. It might have been sort of a trial run, although that doesn’t seem right since it’s not like we have enough in the account to make it worthwhile to take it all and run.”

  “He needed a short-term loan. Didn’t want to announce it or explain it.”

  “That would be my guess, yes.”

  “But that was in June, and you didn’t notice.”

  She smiled wryly. “The thrash doesn’t end in April. It just rolls into amended returns, working on getting all the extensions out of the way in time, then keeping up with the usual tax stuff that keeps us busy all year long. So, no, I didn’t notice. We don’t touch that account, don’t use it on an ongoing basis for anything. It’s a reserve, rainy-day fund. Mike keeps track of it, not me. I handle a few of the bigger corporate accounts. I’ve had no time to worry about it. No reason to, either.”

  “A no-worry fund? I could use one of those.”

  She smiled.

  I leaned closer. “So you want me to find out why he did it? Is that all?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And do it quietly?”

  “If at all possible, yes.”

  “Too bad. I think that horse has already left the barn.”

  “Oh?”

  “I went to his house yesterday evening and asked him to tell me about the thirteen thousand six hundred dollar
s. I didn’t mention you or the fund, but I named the money figure.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “Oh, Lord.”

  “Sorry. This is not the kind of thing people want kept quiet, as a general observation. Anyway, it was an old IRS trick.”

  “IRS?”

  “Don’t know if Mrs. Clary mentioned it, but I was a field agent with the IRS until I discovered I had a soul. Mike would know where I came up with the knowledge that thirteen six had become an issue in any context.”

  “He would, yes.”

  “I might be able to smooth it over a bit, but investigating this thing quietly is no longer an option. I’m sorry about that.”

  She leaned back. “I imagine things will be … awkward, tomorrow. And now that he knows I know, I’m not a hundred percent certain I want to know why he took it. I mean, since he’s been paying it back. This is getting so … well, messy.”

  “Does that mean Clary Investigations is off the case?” Ma would be pissed. If I’d quashed this, she wouldn’t pick up the tab in the Green Room for the next three months.

  Eve lowered her head, closed her eyes, and thought for half a minute. “No,” she said at last. “I would still like to know why, but I really don’t want to ask him, especially if it’s something he would prefer to keep private, which seems quite likely given the circumstances. I’m not a confrontational person, Mr. Angel—Mort. A little nothing quarrel can tie me up in knots for days.” She sighed. “But I’d still like to know why, even if it seems so much like … well, like prying.”

  “He borrowed almost fourteen thousand dollars without a word to you. I wouldn’t categorize your interest as ‘prying.’”

  “Perhaps not. One thing you should probably understand: our relationship is more professional than personal. That might seem strange since it’s just the two of us here, but we don’t have a lot in common outside of work. I’m quite a bit older than Mike. I know he bowls, of course. He must be quite good at it since his office here is full of trophies. I can’t remember having been in a bowling alley in my life. I belong to a reading group. There’s nine of us. We read the same novels then get together and share our thoughts about them. And I knit sweaters and do needlepoint. There’s not much crossover between Mike and me, other than we’re both divorced. But mine was twenty-five years ago so even that isn’t much of a connection.

  “I won’t say anything to him when he comes in tomorrow. I just couldn’t. And knowing Mike, he won’t mention it either. If he does, I guess we’ll deal with it, and I’ll let you know. I hope he doesn’t. It would make me sick all day. As it is … I really don’t want to think about it right now.”

  “In the meantime, are you certain you want me to keep looking into it?”

  “Only if you can do it quietly. Now. I mean, from this point forward. If you have a way to do that.” She was silent for a few seconds, then said, “It makes me feel so darn sneaky, though.”

  “Private investigation is often like that.”

  She sighed again. “I suppose.”

  “If we need to meet, we can do it after hours, here or at your home. And I’ll need to see the balance sheets of that fund.”

  “Of course.” She looked down at her hands. “This has been so upsetting. I haven’t slept well in a week. Some people seem to thrive on confrontation, but I hate it. I wish all of this would just go away, but … but I still want to know.”

  * * *

  So I wasn’t off the case, as exciting as it was. And I had Xerox copies of the rainy-day-fund balance sheets in a leather briefcase that made me look more like an accountant than a PI, but as a world-famous PI, I still didn’t have any clear idea as to how to proceed. Which was great and made Ma’s phone call as I was traveling north at forty miles an hour on Kietzke Lane a matter of good timing.

  I pulled to the curb. “Hola, Ma. You find Megan yet?”

  “Found out she moved to Albuquerque.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Huh. You been drinking?”

  “Evelyn Joss gave me a bottled water. Does that count?”

  “Jesus. Okay, Lucy and me are headed to LAX right now. She’s driving. I wouldn’t drive these freeways to escape a tidal wave. I’d take my chances with the water. We got a flight out in an hour and a half.”

  “To Albuquerque.”

  “Nothing gets by you, does it?”

  Man, I hate irony.

  I said, “You’re not going to farm the investigation out to an outfit in Albuquerque?”

  “I don’t do that if I don’t have to.”

  “My nephew Greg did it all the time.”

  “Maybe that worked for him. It don’t for me. When I ask questions, I like to see body language along with answers. And if I find Megan, I want to talk to her, hear her story. I spoke to Mrs. Galbraith, Karen. She said not to worry about expenses like a flight to New Mexico. She just wants us to find Megan. Hey! Watch where you’re goin’, you road-hog retard! Sorry ’bout that. How’d it go with Evelyn?”

  I gave her a rundown of our conversation, including the fact that Michael Volker was putting a thousand a month back into their joint account—which Eve had characterized as a rainy-day fund, not an operating account.

  “Sort of changes things,” Ma said, “but since she still wants answers, keep digging.”

  “Suggestions, Ma?”

  Silence for ten seconds, then, “You might keep an eye on Volker a while longer, see where he goes, what he does. If that doesn’t get you anywhere in a day or two, we’ll see if we can get into his bank records, try to figure out what he was doing with the money that way.”

  “Bank records? No court order? Is that legal?”

  “I never got a court order in my life, Mort. We’d get stalled into forever if I had to, and I’d never get one if I asked anyway. Private investigation isn’t about court orders.”

  “Let me guess. It’s about end runs.”

  “Yep.”

  “Illegally, Ma?”

  “How ’bout we use the expression ‘extra-legally’?”

  “Harder to pronounce, but you got it.”

  “Jesus. Okay, Lucy got us off that fuckin’ interstate alive and we’re almost to car rental at LAX. Who’s Mira?”

  “Not to worry, Ma.”

  “That’s not what I asked, boyo. You’re a step ahead of me and two ahead of Lucy.”

  I parsed that for a moment, still didn’t know what Ma had asked or implied, so I said, “This girl, Mira, tried to pick my pocket so I bought her dinner, which was breakfast.”

  “I’ll have Lucy talk to you later. You’re breaking up. Hope so, anyway.”

  She disconnected.

  * * *

  I drove back to Volker’s house. No BMW in the driveway. The red Honda was gone. Two lawn mowers were in use on that block alone, and a woman was walking a golden retriever and an Irish setter, getting their leashes tangled. And two boys were tossing a Frisbee across the street from yard to yard. An old guy sitting in his car watching a house wasn’t an option, so I kept on going.

  Mira.

  Maybe she needed feeding again. Some people eat more than every other day, which has long been my preference. And if I went up in that parking garage again, would I see a beat-up red Honda? Only one way to find out.

  I went all the way to the top floor. No Honda. I didn’t know what I would’ve done if I’d seen it. I didn’t know what I was doing anyway, so what did it matter?

  I locked the Toyota after putting on a shaggy blond wig, black frame glasses, and a navy-blue porkpie hat. Got forty feet from the car then went back and traded the porkpie for a ball cap with the improbable inscription World’s Greatest Grampa above the bill. Ma’s trick. Give ’em something to remember. I went down and hiked west on First Street, stood on the sidewalk in front of Truckee River Apartments, caught the door two inches before it shut when a young guy in a goatee, buzz cut, and a dirty green army jacket came out.

  Up the stairs to the third floor, down the hallway. I stood in fr
ont of 304 for thirty seconds, trying to figure out what I would say if Mira answered, what I would say if it was someone else, what I would do if Dooley and/or Kimmi popped out of 307 down the hall. I couldn’t come up with anything, so I knocked.

  A chubby girl four foot ten answered. Brown hair down to her butt, huge breasts, wearing a plain white tight T-shirt, black panties, bare feet, not the slightest hint of embarrassment. “Yeah?”

  “Is Mira in?”

  “She don’t live here.”

  “Except sometimes?”

  “She stays here sometimes, yeah, but she don’t live here.”

  “Know where she is?”

  “Nope.” She smiled and poked her chest out another inch, which was impressive and entirely unnecessary. “Hey, you want to come in, have a beer? I’m Robin.”

  “Can’t stay. Sorry.”

  “Too bad. You’re really big.”

  “Uh, yeah. Bye.”

  She watched me all the way to the fire door. I opened the door and looked back. She was still there. Must be a dearth of males in the building, or maybe in this part of Reno. I walked the hallway on the second floor. What was that other apartment number Mira mentioned? Two something. Two eleven.

  I knocked on 211’s door. Heard nothing, gave it one more try, heard a scuffling sound, and Mira opened the door an inch and peeked out. “Oh, hey. Hi,” she said quietly.

  “You hungry, kiddo?”

  “I … um, no.”

  Good enough. I was about to leave when I got a closer look at the eye peering out at me. It was half shut, looked dark, so I eased the door open a bit further against almost no resistance.

  Black eye, and not due to makeup since she wasn’t wearing any. Makeup doesn’t result in swelling. Or a split lip.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I, you know. Like walked into a door.”

  Uh-huh. Lot of that going on in these United States. Doors are a conundrum. Proper usage should be taught in high school. “Was the door’s name Ramon?”

  “What?”

  “Ramon do that to you?”

  Five seconds of silence. “Um, no.”

  She shut the door. I stood there for a moment, wondering if I should knock again or leave. Finally, I left.