by Tom Fowler
“I don’t know,” I said. “I gave them enough to identify potential suspects and work from there.”
“What if they can’t get anywhere?”
“Then I’ll try on my own.”
“Be careful, son. You know Samantha wouldn’t want to see anything happen to you.”
“I can take care of myself, Dad.”
“I know you can.” Another pause. “Do you want to talk to your mother?”
“No, I have to go look into something else I’m working on. Tell her . . . give her my best, I guess.”
“You guess?” he said.
“Let’s not add to the awkwardness, Dad.”
“All right. Good luck.”
“I’ll let you know what the FBI says,” I told him.
“OK, thanks. Goodbye, son.”
“’Bye, Dad.”
I hung up and let out a long, slow breath. Whatever Rollins would tell me, I could handle it after this conversation. Talking to my mother would have made it worse. She would have tried to make me feel guilty and then tsked and sniffed when I didn’t play along. Once this mess was over, whatever the outcome, my parents and I would need to sit down and settle our recent dysfunction.
Now, however, other obligations took precedence.
* * *
I walked from Federal Hill Park to the Rusty Scupper. I enjoyed the scenic stroll out to the harbor. It also eliminated the need to park at the restaurant. When I arrived, Rollins was already there, of course, and the hostess led me to his table. We were treated to a nice view of the water looking out at the Pier Five hotel and restaurant complex.
“You’re late,” said Rollins.
“I walked,” I said.
“So did I.”
“You’re an overachiever.” I looked over the menu. A pretty waitress who wore the bland white shirt and black skirt like she owned it came to take our drink orders and review the restaurant’s daily specials. They all featured seafood of various types, though I tuned out and focused more on the waitress than her routine pitch.
I asked for an unsweetened iced tea and a shrimp cocktail appetizer. Rollins opted only for a tea. "Gotta watch my figure," he said when the waitress left. "Sitting in the truck and watching shit happen isn't good for my diet."
"I feel you,'" I said.
"Hope you don't mind if I mooch a couple shrimp."
I shrugged. The waitress came back with our drinks and my appetizer. An array of peeled shrimp sat balanced on the edge of a large wine glass, with a petite bowl of cocktail sauce in the center. Rollins, true to his word, used his fork to spear two prawns from around the rim of the glass and put them on his bread plate.
Our waitress returned after dropping off another table's check. I ordered the glazed salmon; Rollins opted for crab cakes. "You're paying, right?" he said when the waitress left to key in the order.
I watched the waitress' hips as she walked away. "Sure.” I tried not to sound too distracted.
"She's wearing a nice skirt," said Rollins.
"I doubt people are admiring her sartorial sense. When a waiter in tight pants walks by, I'll point him out to you."
“I'll see him before you will,” Rollins said with a grin.
"I’m sure."
I went back to my appetizer. The sauce needed a touch more horseradish, but the shrimp were plump, flavorful, and deveined by an expert. When only a couple remained, I said, "What have you learned these past couple days?"
"Ruby's pretty popular," Rollins said. "I saw a couple of return customers."
"But no stalker?"
"If he was there, he didn't make a move."
"I wonder if we've scared him away,” I said.
"I don't know. I doubt it. He's probably figuring out how to get past us to get to her."
"Reassuring."
"It's what those people do,” said Rollins. “Stalkers don't think like everyday folks. They got something going on in their heads, and a car chase through Fells Point isn't going to fix it."
A few tables around us filled up. I lowered my voice. "You've dealt with stalkers before."
Rollins nodded. "When you do bodyguard work, stalkers are a part of the job."
The waitress returned with our dinners. The aroma of glazed salmon wafted up to my nostrils. It disintegrated into delicious fish slivers in my mouth. As good as it was, Rollins' crab cakes looked just as savory. I saw lumps of crabmeat bursting from the surface. When he cut into one, I spied precious little filler inside. The next time I came here, I would need to order them.
After Rollins had finished his first crab cake, he got down to business. "You said you knew some things about Ruby."
I nodded as I finished a bite of salmon. "I do."
"Feel like sharing?"
"She's very guarded. I'm sure you've noticed. Every time I thought she was going to discuss something private with me, it was like she realized it and shut down. So I went the indirect route."
"What do you know?"
"Her name for one. Melinda Davenport."
Rollins stared at me and then shook his head. “Supposed to mean something?"
I lowered my voice more. "Melinda Davenport is the girl who went missing and spurred her father to start the Nightlight Foundation. Her father is Vincent Davenport."
"Never heard of him,” Rollins said.
"You're not very familiar with the Baltimore power brokers, are you?"
"I'm not from Baltimore."
"Vincent Davenport's family started a bakery a couple generations ago. Now it has operations in several states and a couple thousand employees."
Rollins frowned in thought. "D and S?"
"You got it,” I said.
"And Ruby is this guy's daughter?"
"Yes."
"He started some foundation. Does he know she's a hooker?"
"I think he must. He's too well-connected, and Baltimore isn't too big. A girl like Melinda could disappear in New York. Not here."
“What are you going to do now?” Rollins said.
“I’m not sure. I doubt her father is stalking her.”
“It’d be pretty creepy,” Rollins said with a shudder. “If he knows about her.”
I nodded. “I’m operating under the assumption he does.”
“You gonna talk to him?”
“I might have to at some point.”
“He sounds like a powerful man.”
“He is,” I said with a shrug. The reality was Vincent Davenport operated on a different plane than people like my parents and Tony Rizzo. I rubbed elbows with the B-team of Baltimore power players.
“How does this get you closer to the stalker?” Rollins asked.
“Who would want to stalk a nameless hooker? The list is endless. Who would want to stalk Melinda Davenport? There’s risk there because of her father. It’s a more manageable list.”
“And maybe a more dangerous one.” Rollins frowned in thought. His eyes scanned the restaurant. “She says this started recently. How long has Melinda been Ruby?”
“A few years,” I said. “It’s possible the stalker only recently learned who she really is.”
“Sounds like a good blackmail opportunity against the old man.”
I hadn’t considered the possibility. If I needed to chat with Vincent Davenport, this would make an easier conversation starter than saying his daughter worked as a hooker. “It is.”
Rollins polished off his second crab cake as I finished the last scraps of my tepid salmon. “You still want me to stick around Ruby?” he said.
“When you can.”
“What about you?”
“If I land in the soup, I’ll let you know.”
“I’ll be waiting for your call,” Rollins said with a smile.
“Go to hell,” I said.
* * *
I paid the check, bid Rollins adieu, and walked back to Federal Hill. I took a lap around the park at a brisk walk, figuring it might burn off the calories of a few of the shrimp I enjoyed a
s my appetizer. Staying fit had been easier before I started meeting people in restaurants to converse about cases.
After my brief constitutional, I headed home. As I walked down Riverside Avenue, I noticed a silver Mercedes parked on the other side past my house. It could have been the stalker’s car. It could have been anyone’s car. Maybe vehicular anonymity went into being a successful stalker. Rolling in an Aston Martin like James Bond tends to get a body noticed.
My house grew closer. I heard an engine start. The headlights on the silver Mercedes glowed to life. The car pulled out. I reached inside my coat and took out my .45. I stopped behind another vehicle, holding the pistol up so the driver could see it. The Mercedes sported no front plate as it approached.
I stared down a darkened window which never lowered. A door never opened. Maybe the gun discouraged the driver from taking a shot. Maybe he did all this to show me he knew who I was. The car eased past me. I turned my head and watched it. No rear plate. The driver sped up once he got past me and then turned toward Key Highway.
I let out a deep breath. Whoever this guy was, he knew who I was and where I lived, and he made a show of telling me tonight.
Point taken.
Chapter 17
I went inside and closed the door. Gloria watched TV and lay on the couch. She looked up at me and smiled, then frowned when she glanced down. It made me realize I still held the .45 in my hand. “Would you believe I was doing some bicep curls?” I said.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. A yawn broke her face, but the look of concern returned quickly.
“I think I saw Ruby’s stalker.”
“Here?”
I nodded. “Waiting down the block.”
“So he knows where you live now.”
“It would appear so.” I put the hand cannon away and double-checked the lock on the door.
“What are you going to do?” Gloria sat up now. Any weariness vanished from her face.
“Keep working,” I said. “I can’t let something like this scare me off. If you want to stay here, I think you should use the parking pad and back door to enter and leave. Don’t park on the street. Don’t come and go via the front door if you can help it.”
Gloria shook her head. “Is every case you take going to be like this?”
“I tend not to take the easy ones. They’re too boring.”
“I could use some boring right about now.”
I gave her a grin I hoped she found reassuring. She didn’t reciprocate. My smile game was mired in a slump. “This case has become bigger than I thought, but I can’t abandon Ruby now.”
“I know,” she said. “You wouldn’t be you if you could.” She paused. “I wonder if the stalker knows where Ruby lives, too.”
“I don’t even know where she lives.”
“But he might.”
She posed a excellent point. Ruby made a habit of not opening up to me. I’d learned more about her through observation and research than the sum of everything she told me. She practiced the art of circumlocution when talking about where she lived. Maybe girls who did what she did in the areas she did it rarely enjoyed steady residences. The fact remained I never tried to find where she lived, but her stalker might have put in the effort.
She deserved to know.
* * *
“I’m working,” Ruby said when I called her.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt you while you’re . . . with a client,” I said.
She chuckled. “I never answer the phone . . . even if they’re lousy. What’s up?”
“Your stalker turned up outside my house tonight.”
Silence served as my only reply for the few seconds it took Ruby to find her voice. “You’re sure it was him?”
“If it wasn’t, it was someone else in a silver Benz who desperately wanted me to notice him.”
“Shit.” Her sigh hissed in my ear. “No plates on the car?”
“We wouldn’t be so lucky,” I said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I can take care of myself. The question is what are you going to do?”
“Me?” she said. “Why?”
“This guy found me. Yeah, I’m in the phone book, but it’s not like I handed him a business card. He figured it out.” My tag number would have been all he had to go on. If he converted the information into my name and address, he was resourceful. I paused to ponder this before I continued. “If he can find where I live, who’s to say he can’t do the same to you?”
“You think he knows who I am? Who I really am?”
“Why not?” I said. “I do.”
Silence again. It lasted so long this time I pulled the phone away from my ear to make sure Ruby didn’t hang up. “I guess it was inevitable,” she finally said, her voice resigned.
“You could have saved us both the time and told me. Regardless, if I discovered it, and your stalker deduced who I am, he could solve for Ruby and get Melinda.”
“I guess,” she said after another delay. Losing her anonymity must’ve weighed on Melinda. “Besides, I don’t really live any one place.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You need to find somewhere safe to stay.”
“What about with you?”
“I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“Your girlfriend wouldn’t like it?” Melinda said. I heard mirth in her tone for the first time tonight.
“Of course she wouldn’t. More importantly, why would staying at a place the stalker already knows make you any safer?”
“Shit. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Can you get somewhere safe tonight?”
“I’m working.”
“Take the night off,” I insisted. “Tell Shade what’s happening. Send him to see me if he gives you any shit. You can’t make money for him if you’re dead.”
“He’d just find another girl.”
“Would this be a bad time to suggest a career change?”
“I think it’s a little late for that,” said Melinda.
“You’re twenty-three. I didn’t find my career—if you want to call this a career—until I was older than you.”
“Really?”
“You still have time. You have to want to do it first. Your job might have led this stalker to you or made it easier for him to fixate on you. It might have nothing to do with anything. Can you really take the chance?”
“OK, OK.” She took a few contemplative breaths into the phone. “I can find a place to crash tonight. I’ll tell Shade I’m going on leave. If he doesn’t like it, I’ll send him to you.”
“Good. Call me tomorrow, and I’ll see if I’ve found a spot you can stay.”
“I will.” Melinda paused. When she spoke next, her voice threatened to break. “Thanks, C.T. It’s been a while since anyone really did anything for me.”
“You’re welcome, Melinda.” Calling her Ruby seemed inadequate now.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said and hung up. I did the same.
Melinda would be safe tonight. Until tomorrow, I could focus my attention back on Samantha’s case.
* * *
Agent Hess asked for a day or two. I would give him until tomorrow to judge his progress. Even though I’d hit several roadblocks along the way, it still chafed me to hand my sister’s murder investigation over to a bureaucracy like the FBI. They possessed reach and resources I didn’t, but they were also constrained by laws. In theory, I was too, but I’d always found those constraints to be loose. Hess and his fellow agents couldn’t think in those terms.
Gloria already went to bed. After my encounter with the stalker and conversation with Melinda, I felt amped up. I thought about where I might be able to stash her until the case ended. My parents’ house was out of the question, even if we were on good terms. Rich’s girlfriend would have the same objections Gloria would to a hooker staying in the house. I didn’t want to put her in a hotel, even a nice one, because I couldn’t control the security there.
Part of leaving Melinda with someone was knowing I didn’t have to be around all the time.
I got a beer from the refrigerator, opened it, and sat on the couch. Maybe Melinda could stay with Rollins. He knew her, could protect her even better than I could—despite the protests of my ego—and would be immune to her charms and come-ons. Rollins freelanced a lot, however, and he couldn’t take Melinda with him, nor could he leave her unguarded in his house. No, I needed someone who would be able to stay home and keep an eye on Melinda.
Midway through my second beer, I experienced an epiphany: I could ask Joey Trovato to take Melinda in for a while. He worked out of his house so leaving for long stretches wouldn’t be a concern. He owned guns and knew how to use them. I didn’t doubt his ability to protect her, and despite the crust he sometimes put up, his heart was good, and he would want to help me and Melinda. Unfortunately, he’d be very vulnerable to her charms and come-ons. I didn’t know if a hooker houseguest was the best situation for Joey, but I would let him make that decision. Tomorrow.
I finished my second beer and went upstairs to bed.
* * *
I woke up, ran a few laps around Federal Hill Park, came back, showered, and set about making breakfast. After a careful inventory of the refrigerator and pantry, I made pita sandwiches with turkey bacon, eggs, and fresh spinach. Gloria came downstairs to join me for breakfast and coffee. There were days I wished Gloria would take the initiative to make breakfast. Then I remembered her disastrous forays into the kitchen and scuttled those wishes.
After breakfast, I needed something to do. I wanted to wait for Agent Hess and the process—his process—to play out. Not working Samantha’s case chafed at me. Rich vouched for Hess. He seemed like a stand-up guy, and I thought he would do what he could. I’d be salty if all this waiting led to Hess telling me I didn’t give him anything actionable.
I sat in front of my computer. Temptation gnawed at me. Given time, I could find Rondel or Romirbo or whatever he wanted to call himself now. ISPs, like any monolithic entities, harbored weaknesses. They hid them well, and the law was on their sides, but I could find their vulnerabilities and get in. I did it in China against entities more secure than American Internet providers. The keyboard mocked me. I should have been at work bringing some electronic walls down.