Reed Ferguson Mystery Box Set 5

by Renee Pawlish

  I glanced at Bogie’s picture on the posters.

  “How about some inspiration?” I said to him.

  He looked cool, but he didn’t say anything to me. Too bad. I picked up Humphrey and looked him in the eye.

  “Do you have any inspiration for me?” I asked.

  He meowed and his whiskers twitched.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said as I put him back in my lap.

  I watched some more Masta Dig videos while I drank my beer, and Willie popped in a while later.

  “Dinner’s about –” She stopped when she heard some of Masta Dig’s shtick. “What in the world is that?”

  I pointed at the monitor. “That,” I said dramatically, “is Masta Dig.”

  She moved around so she could look over my shoulder. The video finished and I glanced at her. Her brow was wrinkled.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Play another.”

  I did, and she looked even more bemused.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “This is funny?”

  “To a lot of people. This dude has over five million followers on YouTube.”

  “Huh.”

  “The Goofballs like him.”

  “Oooh,” she said, then watched another one. “I could see how Ace and Deuce would think that’s funny.”

  “But you don’t see it.”

  “Do you?”

  I shook my head as another video began playing.

  “Give me some of your ’80s songs any day.”

  “This guy might make millions.” I explained about the advertising dollars that social media personalities could get.

  “I’m in the wrong profession,” she muttered.

  “Right, I –” I stopped and stared at the monitor.

  “What?”

  I held up a hand. “Hold on.” I backed up the video and played it again. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” she repeated.

  “I’ve heard that before,” I said.

  “You’re a Masta Dig fan?”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “No. Sally had those same words written down in one of her notebooks.” I played the video, called “Get on with It,” again. “If I remember right, it’s almost word-for-word with what she’d written down.”

  “What does that mean? Sally helped with the creation of these videos?”

  I stared at the screen. “That’s what I’m wondering.”

  “Did she lie to you?”

  “It’s possible, or Gabe wrote that in her notebook. I haven’t been able to ask her what she knows about Masta Dig.”

  I started listening to other videos, and then something else caught my eye.

  “Look at that.” I pointed at the monitor again. “The date this video was posted.”

  She leaned in. “Yesterday.”

  “Exactly. After Gabe was killed.”

  “So Masta Dig is acting on his own now.”

  “But Chase Walker said he thought Gabe was the one who posted the videos, that they were his social media accounts.”

  “That’s not the case, unless this Masta Dig has access to the accounts as well.”

  “Huh,” I said. I handed Humphrey to her and pulled out my phone. “Someone had to create the YouTube, Instagram, Vine, and other accounts. And Masta Dig has his own website. Cal can figure out who’s behind all that.”

  Willie laughed. “Yes, he can.”

  I called Cal, but he didn’t answer. I left a message asking him if he could find the internet account information for Masta Dig, then called Sally again.

  “She’s still not answering,” I said. “She said she doesn’t always answer her phone,” I said mostly to myself, “but what if something’s happened to her?” I pocketed my phone and stood up. “Since Sally isn’t returning my calls, I’m going to see if she’s home.”

  “You think someone might’ve tried to hurt her?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’ll worry until I find her.”

  “Do you want to grab a quick bite? You must be starving.”

  “I am, but I’ve got to go.”

  She frowned. “Be careful, hon, okay? You’ve been running ragged the last couple of days.”

  She was clearly worrying, but I needed to talk to Sally.

  “I’ve got to go,” I repeated.

  She drew in a breath and nodded. “I know. Do what you need to do.”

  I kissed her, grabbed a light jacket, and headed out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The rain had stopped by the time I reached Sally’s apartment, but it was still dark and gloomy, with a chill in the air. I walked down the steps and pounded on the door. A moment later, Sally opened it.

  “Hi, Reed,” she said, a little startled to see me.

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day,” I snapped.

  Now that I saw her, and she appeared to be okay, I was furious at her for not answering my calls.

  “I, well, I didn’t have my phone with me.”

  “We need to talk.” Before she could protest, I pushed past her and looked around.

  “Is Kristen here?” I asked.

  Sally shook her head. “She’s at work. I was doing some writing.” She gestured at a notebook and pen on the coffee table.

  A lamp in the corner bathed the room in soft light. Music played quietly in the background, but I didn’t hear anything else.

  “Where is my phone?” she said as she hunted around. She picked up a big purse that was sitting beside the couch and dug into it. Then she held up her cell phone triumphantly. “Ah, here it is. Oh, it’s turned off.” She pressed the side of it. “Sorry about that.”

  I threw up my hands. “Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to help you if you won’t even answer my calls when I need to talk to you?”

  “Uh, well …” She blushed. “I’m sorry.” She sat down and stared at me. “What’s going on?”

  “What do you know about Masta Dig?”

  “Who?”

  Her face was blank. She had no idea who I was talking about.

  “You’ve never heard of him?”

  She shook her head. “No. Who is that? A rapper or something?”

  “Where’s your laptop?”

  “Here.” She reached into a backpack, pulled out her laptop, and turned it on. “Why do you need it?”

  I sat down next to her. “Search on ‘Masta Dig’ and go to his Vine channel.”

  She waited until the laptop had booted up, did as I’d instructed, and found Masta Dig’s Vine channel.

  “Search for a video called ‘Get on with It,’” I said.

  She found it and clicked on it. Masta Dig began speaking, and as he continued, Sally’s eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped. When it finished, she stared at me.

  “I wrote that.”

  “You did? That’s not a lie?”

  “I did,” she said indignantly.

  I tapped the notebook on the coffee table. “Is this the notebook I saw the other day? Those lyrics are in there.”

  “Of course they are. Gabe had the notebook, but I got it back from him.” She jabbed a finger at the laptop. “But who the hell is Masta Dig and why is he doing my routine?”

  “Gabe said he knew Masta Dig, that they were partners.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “It’s true, and the partner’s still active.” I pointed at the laptop. “Look at that one. It was posted yesterday, after Gabe was murdered.”

  She clicked on the video and played it.

  “The concept for this video was something I told Gabe about,” she said when it finished. “He said he thought my idea was funny.” She scowled. “He stole it from me and let Masta Dig use it.” She turned back to the laptop and played more videos. With a few of them, she shook her head angrily.

  “Are all the videos your material?” I asked.

  “Not all, but there’s enough.” She gnawed her lip, then repeated, “I’ve never heard of
Masta Dig.”

  “Gabe had his videos posted on his Facebook page.”

  “I told you, I don’t really do social media, so I never saw it.” She swore. “Unbelievable.”

  “Does Masta Dig look familiar to you?”

  She studied another video closely. “His voice seems familiar, but the mask muffles it, and it’s like he’s talking in a way to disguise it.”

  “They filmed some of these at an old farmhouse near Roggen,” I said. “Did Gabe ever mention going there?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Masta Dig is really popular. Gabe was trying to get representation for Masta Dig, so they could cash in on advertising dollars.”

  “Using my material,” she said harshly.

  “The man Gabe met at Club 77 is Chase Walker. He’s an agent.”

  She shrugged. “Never heard of him.” She seemed to be telling the truth. “Did Gabe sign with him?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No, but they were working on a deal.”

  She called Gabe a few choice words. I couldn’t argue. What Gabe had done to her was inexcusable. But I believed her when she’d said she didn’t know anything about Masta Dig.

  I switched topics. “Why were you going over to your old apartment?”

  “When?” She tried to act innocent.

  “Yesterday.”

  “How do you know that? You followed me?”

  “This case is about you, Sally, and I need to know if you’re hiding something.” I stared hard at her. “You said you were going to stay home, or go to your mother’s, but that was all.”

  “I was … seeing someone else. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Who? Was it the man you left Club 77 with the night Gabe met with Chase?”

  She started to protest, then stopped. “You know about that?”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing the last few days? I’ve been asking questions about you and trying to prove your innocence. Not that you seem to care.”

  “I do!” She took a long time to answer. “I’m embarrassed to say it, but I saw Gabe’s friend, Adam.”

  “You were cheating on Gabe.”

  “Well …”

  “Did you get in a fight about that and you killed him?”

  “No!”

  She was telling the truth. I thought back to when I’d first visited the Columbine apartment complex and had seen Gabe coming down the stairs. “Is Adam on the second floor?”

  She nodded.

  “Is he younger, and thin? Kind of scrawny?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Something fell into place. “Why’d you leave with him that night at Club 77?”

  “It was just to piss off Gabe. Nothing came of it.”

  “But you’re seeing Adam now.”

  “That was just because he wanted my …” She stopped.

  “What?”

  “He was asking about my notebooks and the stuff Gabe had scanned onto his computer. Adam told me that Gabe had written some lyrics in my notebooks, and he wanted to see it because it was some music they’d been working on. I didn’t believe him, and I didn’t give him anything.” She sneered. “I said ‘Listen, A, you’re not getting any of my stuff.’”

  “Wait.” I held up a hand, thinking about what Luis had said to me. “You said what?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said, ‘Listen, eh. Like a Canadian would say?”

  She shook her head. “No, I was mocking Adam. Gabe would call Adam by his initial, A. ‘Listen, A. What’re you doing, A?’ Things like that. It was their way of being cool, I guess.” She stared at me. “What?”

  I told her about my conversation with Luis Hernandez. “He was with Gabe and Masta Dig when they created some of the videos, and he heard Gabe call Masta Dig ‘A,’ just like you said Gabe would do with Adam.”

  “Adam is Masta Dig?”

  I grimaced. “It sure looks like it.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  More things began to make sense. “When I was looking for you, I saw Gabe at the apartment building on Columbine. He was coming down the stairs and he yelled that he should take it all, that he had the material and he could do it himself.”

  “So?”

  I stood up. “If Adam is Masta Dig, he may have killed Gabe.”

  “Why?”

  I thought about what Davon had said about having to split the car-theft money with Gabe. I’d been looking at things wrong. “Gabe thought he could cash in on Masta Dig’s popularity and not have to share the money with anyone. He was the one with the connection to Chase Walker, and he had access to your material. I’ll bet Gabe and Adam were fighting about that, and when Gabe threatened to go on his own, Adam killed him.”

  “But a lot of it’s my material,” she said.

  “Exactly. That’s why Adam was trying to get your notebooks.”

  “Oh.” She had a few choice words for Adam as well. “I can’t believe they were stealing my stuff!”

  My phone rang just then. It was Cal.

  “O Great Detective,” he said. “You did say ‘Masta Dig,’ right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I did some looking around, and –”

  “His website belongs to a man named Adam.”

  “Yeah, Adam Jance. You figured it out before I did.”

  “Yeah, but you confirmed it. I’ve got to go. Thanks for the help.”

  “No problem. You sound like you’re on to something, so be careful.”

  “Will do.” I ended the call and thought for a moment. Something else occurred to me and I turned to Sally. “Did you tell Adam about my investigation?”

  “Yes. He was asking about what the police knew, and whether I thought they’d charge me with Gabe’s murder.”

  I was now almost certain it had been Adam who had shot at me in the field behind the farmhouse. He knew I was figuring things out and that I’d be after him soon. But what would he do now? I suddenly was worried for those around me, and I immediately called Ace’s cell phone.

  “Hey, Reed, how’re you?”

  “Do you have time for a favor?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Is Deuce there?”

  “Yeah. We were about to go play pool.”

  “Can you put that on hold?”

  “How do I hold pool?”

  I put a hand to my forehead. “Never mind. Can one of you go upstairs and stay with Willie? And I need one of you to come stay with my client, Sally.” I quickly explained what was going on.

  “Sure thing, Reed.” I heard him tell Deuce what I’d said and to go upstairs. “I’ll come over there.”

  “You remember where she lives?”

  “Yep.”

  “Great. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “No problem. I’m on my way.”

  I ended the call and turned to Sally. “I might be overreacting, but if I’m right, Adam may come after you because he’s worried about what I’ve told you.”

  “He would do that?”

  “If I’m right, he’s killed once, and he shot at me.”

  She shivered. “I can’t believe it.”

  I went to the window and peeked out.

  “When does Kristen get home?” I asked.

  “Not until after midnight.”

  “And you’re not expecting anyone else?”

  “No.”

  We didn’t say much else until Ace arrived. I let him in and introduced him to Sally.

  “Hi,” he said. Normally he’s shy, but because he was involved in my case, he stood straight, with a stern look on his face.

  “Don’t go out, and lock the door,” I said. “And don’t let anyone in except Kristen. Call the police if Adam shows up. I’ll touch base with you in a while.”

  “Gotcha,” Ace said with a little salute.

  Sally suppressed a smile.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Answer the phone when I call.”

  “I will.”

  I s
tarted for the door.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going to start at Adam’s apartment,” I said. “He has a lot of questions to answer.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When I walked into the apartment complex on Columbine, it was quiet. No loud music, no blaring TV coming from any units. I’d put my Glock in my jacket pocket so it would be easy to get to, and I put my hand on it, then tiptoed up the stairs to the second floor. As I neared the second floor landing, I could see down the hall. A man in a hoodie was standing in front of 203, his hand on the doorknob.

  “Adam?” I said.

  He glanced up, saw me, then bolted the other way.

  “Hey!” I yelled and ran up the stairs.

  I raced down the hall after him. He turned the corner and was gone. I reached the end of the hall, and saw a stairwell. Adam was already at the bottom of it. As I leaped down the stairs, he opened a door and disappeared. I crashed down the last steps and ran out the door, which led to a parking lot. I looked around and saw a figure heading toward the back of the building. I ran after him. He reached a chain-link fence at the edge of the complex, climbed it, and dropped onto the ground on the other side.

  I got to the fence and climbed it, not as adroitly as Adam, so by the time I’d gotten over it, he had vanished around the side of a house. I sprinted through the shadows, and when I came to the front of the house, I didn’t see him anywhere. I hustled over by a tall maple tree and crouched down for a minute and listened. All I heard was my ragged breathing. I scanned the street, but never saw him or anyone else. I finally gave up and sneaked back around the side of the house and over the fence. I went back into the building and up to Adam’s apartment. The building was still quiet.

  After listening for a moment longer, I tried the knob and the door opened. I let myself into Adam’s apartment, quietly shut the door, and turned on a light. I was standing in a small living room that was furnished with a ratty loveseat, a card table with a computer and papers on it, and a TV sitting on a low stand. A poster of Snoop Dogg was on one wall. I’d never been into rap, but I recognized him. Posters of what I assumed were other rappers hung on the other walls. The room smelled of marijuana and bacon, an odd combination.