by Claire Booth
‘Back away from me,’ she said in the same even tone that probably intimidated the hell out of most people. ‘I’m going to call the police. I … I’m going to call your boss. I’m going to get you fired. You won’t even be able to write a parking ticket. I’m calling my attorney.’
‘That’s just fine, ma’am. But I’m going to go about my search. So …’
Those last few words seemed to be said at a closer distance. Hank debated going into the office. He didn’t want to undercut Sam, though. He was weighing the pros and cons when the decision was made for him. Sam backed out of the office, stalked by an aggressively highlighted cosmetics aficionado who froze when she crossed the threshold and saw Hank.
‘You weren’t trying to force Deputy Karnes out of your office, were you?’
She recovered quickly, he had to give her that.
‘I’m not doing anything else until my attorney gets here. And then I’m calling the sheriff and reporting you both for harassment.’
Hank straightened, smoothed his shirt, and stuck out his hand.
‘By a happy coincidence, I happen to be the sheriff.’
She did not appear to be impressed. She also didn’t appear to know what to do next. He let her stand there and stew for a moment. Then he laid it out.
‘We’re going to come inside, and we’re going to go through any file that we feel might contain evidence pertinent to our investigation. Because we have the legal right to do so. It’s called a search warrant. Now, it’ll be a lot easier if you cooperate with us. We have no desire to mess up your office, or ruin your filing system, or anything else.’
Based on the look on Sam’s face, that was exactly what the Pup wanted to do. Luckily, the Concierge was facing away from him, staring Hank down through heavily mascaraed eyelashes. She blinked first, mincing back inside and sitting primly on a chair by the window. He bet she wasn’t used to taking orders from people with their low net worth. He made an elaborate ‘after you’ motion and then followed Sam into the office and over to the filing cabinets.
Twenty minutes later, they knew exactly where Euford Gunner was staying, that his show was expected to open in three weeks, and that whenever he came into Concierge Travel Consulting, he was to be served Lemon Lift tea, extra strong.
‘This seems like a pretty expensive place,’ Hank said, holding up a glossy photo of the faux-Zark boulder-and-beam mansion in Gunner’s file. He looked at Sam, who confirmed that it was recently built out behind the old high school on the Branson side of Lake Taneycomo. ‘Why is there no record here of a security deposit, or even a credit check?’
The Concierge glared at him. Hank shrugged and started digging through her desk. He got to the locked lower left-hand drawer and reached for a long steel letter opener lying by the desk phone. That led to a strangled sound and a stream of muttering. She marched over and unlocked the drawer with a key from her pocket.
If he’d been enjoying himself before, well, that was nothing compared with now. There were files for some of the biggest names in town. He pulled out one for a country music star who had done a series of shows at the Mansion Theatre, right after he won a Grammy. Inside were copies of rental checks for an address right on Lake Taneycomo, as well as a grab bag of other expenses – housekeeping, transportation, a florist. Good grief.
Another one – a Christian music singer – had bills for the luxury hotel out by Table Rock Lake, including an extraordinary amount of room service. He riffled through the papers, finding one from the Grammy winner’s record company and another in the Christian star’s file from a church.
‘So, what – you’re given an amount of money, like, by a record company, and then you pay their expenses out of that?’
She nodded. Sam, who’d knelt down and was rummaging through the drawer, looked up and at the Concierge.
‘Why wouldn’t their companies just do that themselves?’ he asked. ‘Why do they need to use you?’
Hank thought her head was going to explode. She spluttered for a minute and then corralled her voice.
‘Because I’m the one who knows what’s available. Of places to stay. None of these houses are listed anywhere but with me. If you come to town and you want to stay somewhere exclusive and secure, you come to me. There are no other options. And everyone who is important knows that.’
She fell back into furious silence.
‘Was that your arrangement with Mr Gunner?’ Sam asked as he handed Hank the Euford file. She nodded, but Hank held up his hand as he looked in the file.
‘What’s Entertainment Enterprises, Inc.? This isn’t a record company.’
‘That’s who pays me. For Mr Gunner’s expenses.’
Hank gestured to Sam, who briskly started snapping photos of the documents with his phone. The Concierge balled her fists at her sides, but otherwise didn’t move. She was learning. Hank asked her for names, and she said she’d never spoken with anyone at Entertainment Enterprises. It was all done over email, and they’d have to find the address in the file, because she wasn’t going to tell them what it was.
‘Did they happen to explain to you – via email – why it is that a Branson show is three weeks away from opening and yet has no publicity, no brochures in hotel lobbies, and no listings on the Branson tourism websites?’
She stared at him. ‘I don’t do publicity.’
‘Yes, well, that wasn’t what I asked, ma’am. I asked—’
She turned abruptly and stared out the window, leaving Hank’s half-finished sentence hanging in the air between them. He glanced at Sam, who was smothering a laugh, and bent back to the desk drawer. He quietly pulled out his own phone and took a picture of the names on the neatly ordered folders. He had no grounds to open all of those files, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to know who her other clients were. It didn’t matter now, but you never knew … and he wasn’t one to pass up an opportunity to gather information.
He straightened and Sam signaled that he was done. The Concierge rose from her chair.
‘I’m still calling my attorney.’
Hank nodded politely and led Sam out of the office. The door slammed behind them.
TWENTY-THREE
Sheila spent another half hour with Nora Rossetto before it occurred to her that no one had notified Mick Fitch about Hailee’s death. His most recent arrest report (out of Greene County for selling stolen cartons of cigarettes out of his car) listed an address out north on Highway 248. It turned out to be a little shack off the road that smelled of beer thirty feet away. Sheila kicked a Nat Light can out of her path and double-checked her gun. She scanned the yard for signs of a dog, but didn’t see anything. Her knock was met with a startled-sounding crash and some swearing. That was promising.
She stood in silence for several minutes. It was like her little nieces when they did something wrong. Freeze, and hope nobody noticed. She knocked louder. Finally, the door opened. A white man with several days’ worth of stubble and a tsunami of stench stood there. He was only slightly taller than Sheila, but with broad shoulders and powerful arms. The bleariness in his eyes didn’t hide the cruel flicker at their edges.
She said she wanted to ask him some questions. He told her to fuck off. It was going exactly as she’d expected. She suggested that they go down to the station, seeing as he was on parole and not in a position to refuse law enforcement anything. She motioned for him to come out on the sagging porch. Once she was sure he was the only person in the one-room hovel, she patted him down and gave him her undivided attention. She’d get around to notifying him, but first she was very interested in his whereabouts at the time Lauren Blenkinship was chased through the woods and sent tumbling down a cliff. After Sammy’s tracking discovery yesterday, she wanted to know that about everybody even remotely connected to any of those kids.
‘Where were you Saturday night?’
That was apparently too far back to remember. Mick eventually narrowed it down to one of two bars closer in to town. ‘Don’t know which one.
’
‘How’d you get home?’
His eyes darted toward the beat-up Honda Prelude parked crookedly on the side of the house. ‘Um, a friend.’
He’d driven drunk. Sheila shuddered. Out on this windy, two-lane, unlit road. She made a mental note to station a patrol unit out here this weekend to try to catch him. She had a feeling he’d do it again. It was probably his standard operating procedure.
‘When was the last time you saw Emily?’
He snorted with laughter. ‘Emily, my kid? That Emily? You gotta be kidding. I ain’t seen her in who knows how long. That little bitch do something again?’
Sheila gave a noncommittal nod. ‘What’d she do last time?’
That made him pause. He shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
She felt her eyebrow doing its disbelief climb up her forehead. So she brought up his parole again. They went back and forth for a while before she pointed out that Emily would be the first to hang him out to dry. He considered that for less than a minute.
‘Whatta I get for it? Giving you information?’
‘You get not violated back to prison, pal. If you’re real lucky, I don’t tell your PO about this little conversation at all. So far, you aren’t that lucky.’
Mick blinked, like blinds closing over windows into an empty room.
‘She come by here a while back. Don’t know exactly when. Wanted something.’
Sheila put her hand on her gun.
‘I dunno exactly what. I swear. She had on a nice leather coat. Expensive. Was driving a black Dodge Challenger. Looked new. Sweet ride. She wouldn’t let me take it for a spin, though.’
Smart girl.
She’d had someone in the car with her, but Mick didn’t get a good look at him. The person had stayed in the car, and she’d parked too far away.
‘You’re not answering the question – what did she want?’
‘She said she wanted to say hi. Which’s a bunch of horseshit. She never did anything without something bein’ in it for her.’ He wiped his nose on his T-shirt. ‘So she said hi, then left. And that was it. And afore you ask, I don’t know where she went. Or where she’s now.’
Sheila stood there and considered him. Based on his priors, the man didn’t seem to have much aptitude for lying. Oh, he did it, all right, but very badly. Hence the long list of arrests. Right now, though, he seemed to be telling the truth.
Without turning her back on him, Sheila pivoted to take in the yard. It was unkempt woods all around, with the rutted track of a driveway the only cleared space.
‘How much land you got here?’
‘I got no clue,’ he said. ‘Couple acres maybe? It ain’t mine. I rent it. All I care about’s the house.’
That was a generous description of the shack he’d come out of. She contemplated it for a minute, and then took a breath.
‘Mr Fitch, I now need to talk to you about Hailee,’ she said slowly.
Another blink. ‘What about her? Still in high school, lives with my bitch ex-wife. Won’t talk to me.’
She softened her stance. ‘Mr Fitch … I need to tell you that Hailee was killed in a car accident Saturday night.’
It took several seconds. Then he sagged against the warped siding and gaped at her.
‘What? How? Why? Is that why you was asking about Saturday night? God damn. I always expected Emily to be the one to go and get herself killed or something. Not Hailee. That’s …’ He trailed off and pushed himself to standing. ‘I need a drink.’
He disappeared into the house and the door slammed behind him. Sheila decided she’d done things in the right order after all and stepped off the rickety porch as an old AC/DC song started rattling the windows. Good thing for his neighbors that there was so much land to serve as a buffer zone. She shook her head and headed for her car.
Hank dialed the phone. He hated being an adult. He hated sharing. But he knew that if things were reversed, he’d be furious if he wasn’t brought into the loop. He slumped down into the driver’s seat and laid his palm on the glass of the car window, but the overnight coolness had long gone.
Raker finally picked up.
‘We think we found him. Euford.’ He waited out Raker’s Michael Jackson whoop and then recited the address.
He let Sam drive. Raker pulled up to the mansion just behind them. It stretched up two stories and out who-knew how many rooms, covered in big wooden beams and multi-hued stone. Raker knocked. After five minutes and several more bangs on the door, he turned to Hank.
‘I’m not getting this far and having to stop because nobody’ll answer the damn door.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s the kid?’
Hank backed off the sweeping front steps just as the Pup came trotting around from the left side of the house. He grinned and waved them over.
‘I was looking for the Cadillac, which I found. It’s in the garage.’ He pointed at a garage door with decorative windows at the top that was tucked around the side of the house. ‘But, even better, I think I found him. There’s an old dude in a cowboy hat sitting out by the pool in the back.’
Raker slapped his hands together in approval and led the way around the rest of the house. They found the man noodling around on a guitar. Sightline obscured by a large brown Stetson, he didn’t notice them until all three stopped about a dozen feet away. He looked up and the expression of mild curiosity bled out of his face as he registered Sam’s sheriff uniform. In its place, dread.
Raker, who had his own police badge clipped to the front of his rumpled business suit, stepped forward. Euford, a good three decades older than the Wikipedia photos, shrank back. His hands tightened on the guitar, like it would shield him from what was coming.
‘Patrick?’ he whispered.
Raker asked if Patrick’s last name was O’Connell. Euford nodded.
‘He hasn’t come home.’ The hands holding the guitar, a battered six-string, were trembling now.
Raker pulled another pool chair over and sat down. He said he needed to show Mr Gunner a photo and that he should prepare himself. Hank silently approved. Raker had put himself on the same level, instead of looming over the witness while handing him a picture of a dead man who might very well be a loved one.
Patrick must have been exactly that. Gunner slumped in the chair and Raker barely caught the guitar as it fell out of limp hands. Hank moved forward and took it from the detective, mostly so he could take a better look at it. It was a top-of-the-line Gibson J-200 that had seen as many miles as its owner. The pick guard was warped and the back was decorated with scratches right where the belt buckle of a standing guitar player would hit. It was beautiful. Hank laid it very carefully on the glass-topped patio table, and then he pulled up a chair and tried to keep his mouth shut.
‘What was your relationship to Mr O’Connell?’ Raker asked quietly.
‘How … how is he dead? What happened?’
‘We’re still trying to figure that out, sir. That’s why we need to ask you some questions.’
More good tactics, Hank thought. Get information before giving it. It took a while, but in fits and bursts and digressions and bouts of sobs, Euford Gunner explained.
He met Patrick four years ago in Nashville. It was at a free music class for some of those disadvantaged youngsters everybody was always on about helping. He’d been in town for a show and said sure he’d come by. It’d been more fun than he’d expected. There were kids of all ages and all of them were real eager to learn. Afterward, some of them came up to ask questions. One of the older ones, who seemed real shy and skinnier than a toothpick, waited until everybody else was gone and then came up. That was Patrick.
He invited the kid to his show that night, and then he came to the next one, and the next. And then Euford was done with the road for a while, and told him so and thanks for coming out. And Patrick looked like someone just killed his puppy. Turned out he had no place to go. He was eighteen, just graduated from high school and his folks had said the gravy train was over. He was on h
is own and couldn’t find a job. He’d run out of money and was squatting in an abandoned house.
Euford thought on that, and said Patrick could stay in the little cabin on his property in Georgia. The boy made himself useful and so when Euford went back out on tour, he took Patrick with him. And he’d been with him ever since.
Gunner leaned back in his chair and swiped at his eyes. Raker glanced sideways at Hank, who nodded that he was wondering the same thing. The question hung over them like the sun umbrella swaying on its pole above to the patio table. They both turned back to Euford. Sam shifted self-consciously in his seat.
‘Sir,’ Raker began, ‘I need to ask you a little more about your relationship with Patrick. Were the two of you … lovers?’
It took him a minute to register the question. He blinked at Raker and then his eyes widened. He barked out a half-laugh.
‘Son, I been in the panties of more women than y’all have probably seen in your whole life.’
That could be true. Gunner had the remnants of a looker, lean face and frame, with a wry glint in his eye and a voice that was deep and twangy at the same time. But then, all that would hold true no matter which team he played for.
‘I ain’t no gay,’ he said. ‘And we – Patrick and me – we weren’t that at all. There was nothin’ like that going on.’
Raker tried to remove the skeptical look from his face. Hank saw him pause and decided this would be a good moment to insert himself.
‘Then why, sir,’ Hank asked, ‘has he lived with you for four years? Sure, he’s helpful, but … that seems like an awfully long time to have someone tag along after you.’
They watched Euford think about that one. The vestiges of handsomeness morphed into tired old age as he kneaded his hands together with his head bowed.
‘He was like Andy.’
All three men leaned forward. They could barely hear him.