by Jill Jones
Jack stared at Garrison. “You mean you never asked Brad if he wanted to become president of Odyssey?”
Regret showed in every line in Garrison’s weary face. “I wish to God I hadn’t insisted. He wouldn’t be lying in there right now. I just assumed he would want to take over when I retired.”
Jack was torn between righteous anger at Garrison’s imperious manipulation of both his and Brad’s lives and a deep sense of sorrow at what it had cost Garrison.
“Why are you telling me this now?” Jack asked.
Garrison stood up and went to the window overlooking a busy London street. He wiped the back of his neck with his hand in a nervous gesture. “Because,” he replied slowly, “the other day when I was interviewed by Sandringham, he asked me if I knew of anyone who stood to gain by Brad’s death. Of course I told him no. But if he were to find out about the will…” He turned and looked at Jack in somber apology.
“He would find I have a motive,” Jack finished for him. “Thanks, Garrison. Thanks a lot.” He couldn’t hide the bitterness. That was all he needed. For Scotland Yard to have a real reason to suspect him, other than finding him standing over the murder victim at the crime scene. They knew he was an ex-cop and probably thought he had connections in Britain to secure a gun.
Motive. Means. Opportunity. He had them all.
“Christ, why didn’t you just turn me in?” he snarled.
“Calm down,” Garrison said, recovering some of his grit. “And shut up. I know you didn’t kill that young woman. Neither did Brad. But we must find the real killer before Sandringham finds out about the will.” Garrison paced to the window and back. “So what else did you learn while you were away? And what the hell is that girl doing here anyway?” he added in afterthought.
They turned simultaneously to look in the direction of Brad’s room, and Jack cursed silently when he saw Keely standing at the doorway to the lounge, watching them with wide eyes. How much had she overheard?
“This girl,” she said curtly, “has come a long way to find out the truth about the murder of her best friend.” The glare she shot in Jack’s direction told him she’d learned too much. Then she looked at Garrison. “I am truly sorry about your son, Mr. Holstedt. But at least he has a chance to live. Genny will never see another sunrise, and I want to know why. Can ye tell me?”
Jack saw Garrison’s face turn crimson. “No. I cannot. The only one who knows the truth of what happened is lying in that room in a coma.”
“The killer knows the truth.” Keely approached them, keeping a wary eye on Jack. “Why aren’t you trying to find him?”
Garrison raised his eyebrows and gave Jack a rather pointed look. “Why indeed?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Jack snapped irritably, but Garrison interrupted him.
“Just a minute.” He left Jack and Keely standing in awkward silence as he hurried down the corridor to Brad’s room. He returned momentarily with something in his hands. He thrust it at Jack. “It’s a photo of Brad. You might need it in case you come across somebody who might have seen him earlier that night. I’m paying you to solve this crime. Now get on with it.”
Jack’s face burned. This was the Garrison he did not much like. The Garrison who seemed compelled always to run the show. He had hired Jack to investigate the crime, now he was telling him how to do it. It rankled, because what he was suggesting is exactly what Jack already had in mind.
Keely did not fully understand everything she had overheard between Jack and Garrison, something about a will, whatever that was, but from Jack’s angry words, she concluded Garrison had accused Jack of the murder.
Why didn’t you just turn me in?
The echo of those words sent chills up her spine. Surely Mr. Holstedt could not believe Jack had tried to kill his own best friend. And yet, had she not considered it a possibility more than once? Keely’s newly-formed trust in Jack faltered, leaving her more vulnerable and confused than ever. Jack, her friend and protector. Or Jack, the murderer? Should she stay with him, or should she flee at the first possible moment and try to find help on her own?
Jack gave her no time to decide. “Let’s get out of here.” Roughly, he took her elbow and led her to the elevator without so much as a backward glance at Garrison Holstedt.
“Wait! Where are we going?” Keely was not at all certain she wanted to go with Jack, whose mood had turned black.
“To find a killer.”
Every nerve on alert, Keely hesitated as the door to the elevator opened. She could jerk loose from Jack’s grip and beg safety from Mr. Holstedt. But she knew even less about him than she knew about Jack. On top of that, Jack had said he was going to find the killer. Was that not what she had demanded only moments before? Jack had interrupted his search to help her. The least she could do in return was cooperate. Mayhap she would even find a way to help. A buzzer sounded on the elevator, and Jack impatiently motioned her inside. With only a quick glance over her shoulder at Garrison, Keely followed Jack, hoping she would not die as a result.
Outside the hospital, Jack waved his hand at a large black automobile, signaling it to the curb. He helped Keely into the back seat, then got in and gave the driver some directions. Keely tried to stop the pounding of her runaway heartbeat. Where was he taking her? Fear began to seep into its familiar dark places as she watched the city go by in a blur, but she remained silent.
They arrived at last at another hotel, and Jack paid the driver.
“Where are we?” Keely asked.
“This is the hotel where Genevieve Sloan was murdered.” His words were cold, clipped, official. She sensed he was burying his anger beneath the manners of his former police work, but she knew he was seething. His attitude frightened her, but at least his anger was vented in the right direction. Mayhap soon he would find out who killed Genny.
Jack nodded toward a pub across the street from the hotel. “We’ll start there.”
A small crowd of men and women lounged outside the pub, and Keely noticed an acrid, smoky, almost nauseating smell and saw a blue haze hanging just above their heads. Then she saw they all held small smoking white sticks between their fingers. “They’re on fire!” she exclaimed to Jack.
“They’re supposed to be,” he replied curtly. “They’re cigarettes.” He explained briefly that people smoked cigarettes for pleasure, but Keely could not imagine anyone inhaling smoke on purpose.
Ignoring her dislike for the odd practice, Keely shut her mouth and watched Jack approach the barkeeper. Gone was any sign of the gentleness he had shown her. With this man, he was all business. He handed him a card, then showed him the sketch of Genny and the photo of Brad. The barkeeper shook his head.
Moments later, they left the pub and walked briskly down the street without speaking a single word to each other. Keely was torn between wanting to apologize to Jack for giving Garrison an opening to criticize Jack’s efforts and thinking it wiser to hold her tongue.
As it turned out, she held her tongue, for he set a such a vigorous pace, it was all she could do to keep up with him.
They stopped in several more crowded eating and drinking establishments where Jack interviewed numerous people, all with the same results. She sensed his disappointment and thought he might be about to give up, when they turned onto a side street and came across a smaller, out-of-the-way pub tucked into the corner of an old building.
Jack surveyed it critically. “Looks more like Brad’s kind of place. Let’s go.”
There were fewer people in this pub, some seated at small tables reading newspapers, others playing some sort of game or just chatting with one another. He caught the barkeeper’s eye.
“I wasn’t on duty that night, guv,” the barman responded to Jack’s questioning. “But Roger was. He’s in the back alley, taking a smoke.” They found him near the doorway that led from the kitchen.
This time it was quiet enough for Keely to hear Jack, and it seemed to her his tone was less angry. Maybe he wa
s getting tired. “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I’m a private investigator looking into a murder that happened last week. Have you ever seen either of these people?” Again he brought out the sketch and the photograph.
The man looked at them, inhaled deeply of the cigarette, flicked the still burning ember to the street, and exhaled as he handed the items back to Jack.
“I wondered when th’ police would get ‘round t’ this.” He headed back inside, and they followed, Keely trailing Jack.
“I’m not with the police,” Jack reminded him. “You recognize them?”
“It’s that bloody bloke alright. And th’ girl. They was in here the night he killed her.”
“He didn’t kill her,” Jack said in a menacing tone, and the man straightened and raised an eyebrow.
“‘E didn’t? That’s wot they’ve been sayin’ on th’ telly.”
“He did not kill her,” Jack repeated, his jaw tense. “I am trying to find out who did. Do you remember what happened that night?”
The man glanced at Keely, and she smiled, hopefully reassuringly. She wanted desperately to hear what he had to say.
“‘E came in ‘round half past five, must’ve been. Sat by th’ window over there, makin’ notes on some papers. Th’ girl came in about half an hour later and sat by herself over there.” He indicated a small table in the corner, clearly visible from where he’d said Brad had been seated.
“What happened then?” Jack prodded impatiently.
“Th’ girl looked frightened,” he said. “Kept glancing at th’ door, like she was waitin’ for someone, or afraid that someone would find her.”
Moisture stung Keely’s eyes at the picture he brought to her mind. Of course Genny would have been frightened. By the Saints! She’d been all alone in this terrifying big city.
“She bought a half-pint,” he went on. “It was just a shandy, but I guess she wasn’t used t’ drinkin’, because it seemed t’ go t’ her head right on, y’know? She started cryin’ then. I was about t’ go over t’ see if I could help her, when th’ bloke by th’ window picked up his drink and went t’ her table. He bought her a soft drink, and a bite to eat, if me mind serves right, and they talked for a bit. Then they left. Must’ve been around seven. I didn’t think much of it at th’ time. Men pick up good lookin’ women in here all th’ time. That’s why they come here, y’know?”
“When you learned that she was murdered, why didn’t you go to the police?” Jack wanted to know.
The man shrugged. “Didn’t know what good it’d do. I didn’t see him kill her, y’know. Besides, I try t’ stay away from th’ police.”
Keely knew little of policemen or their work, but she found it strange that Scotland Yard had not made the simple investigation Jack had just made. It had not answered the question of who had committed the murder, but at least now they knew how Brad and Genny had come to know one another.
Jack took the man’s name and thanked him with a twenty pound note. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Keely.
When they reached the street, Keely looked up at Jack, wondering what he would do next. She was heartened by what she’d just heard, for now Keely believed that Jack’s friend, Brad, had indeed tried to help Genevieve. But when she saw Jack’s face, it was clear that instead of being pleased to learn the truth, he was shaken by the man’s story.
“Jack. What’s wrong?”
Chapter Seventeen
What was wrong was that apparently Brad had done exactly what Jack had adamantly denied he would do to Inspector Sandringham. The Scotland Yard investigator figured that Brad had picked up a girl, probably a streetwalker, in a bar, and took her back to the hotel with him. It was so unlike Brad to do such a thing that Jack had vehemently denied it as a possibility. He wondered how the truth would affect his credibility with Sandringham.
He wondered, too, what Sandringham thought Brad’s motive to be in killing a strange girl he had only just met? There had been no evidence of sexual contact. Did he believe Genevieve had tried to rob Brad, who had shot her in self-defense, then in a fit of recrimination turned the gun on himself? It was too ludicrous to even consider.
“Nothing,” he growled a response to Keely’s question. “Let’s go back to the hotel.” Seeing the exhaustion on her face, Jack repented of the foul attitude that had driven him on this relentless trek into the bars and back streets of central London. He wasn’t angry with her. He was angry with Garrison for his unnecessary directive. Jack sighed. Let it go, he thought. Garrison didn’t have the full story on why he’d stayed away longer than he’d planned, and Jack knew he was anxious to find the criminal, not only to bring him to justice, but to prevent any suspicion of Jack.
At least the outcome was worth the aggravation. They’d discovered how Brad met Genevieve. Not that it brought them one whit closer to understanding the mystery. But one piece of the puzzle usually led to another…
Keely did not speak as they rode in the taxi, and Jack wished he had not been so hard on her. He should have taken her back to the hotel instead of dragging her along on this rather sordid mission. Then he recalled her determination to go with him to the hospital and knew it would have been the same if he’d bothered to ask her if she wanted to go on this afternoon’s quest. She would have insisted on coming along, because the bottom line was, she didn’t want to be left alone.
But her silence bothered him. Jack knew she’d heard Garrison all but accuse him of the crime. Could she possibly believe he might have been the killer?
He cursed Garrison all over again for making him an unwilling heir. It was crucial that he find the killer before Sandringham learned he had a motive. Jack wouldn’t be much use to Garrison or Brad, or Keely for that matter, if they threw his butt in the slammer. But he needed more information from which to work. He turned to Keely.
“You knew Genevieve better than anybody. Do you think that guy’s telling the truth? Would she have gone with Brad that easily?”
Keely looked at him and chewed on her lower lip. “I think ‘tis possible,” she told him. “All this,” she gestured out of the window of the vehicle, “was as new to her as it is to me, Jack, and ye know how it has afrightened me. But she was all alone. Genny did na have someone like ye to lean on.” She furrowed her brow slightly. “Was Brad…a good man? I mean, could Genevieve have trusted him to help her that night? Or did he…?”
“Have other things on his mind?” Jack snapped, his earlier irritation returning. He was sick of people thinking the wrong thing about Brad. “He wasn’t the type to hang out in bars looking for a one night stand, if that’s what you mean.”
He saw that she did not understand the expression “one night stand,” and it brought home again the extent of her naiveté, an innocence Genevieve Sloan must have had in common with her friend. “Keely, Brad would never have taken advantage of Genevieve.” He spoke more gently now. “More likely, he brought her back to the hotel with him to protect her from men who might prey on her inexperience. Brad was…is like that.”
He must stop thinking of him in the past tense.
“But he did na protect her.”
Her stubborn continuing doubts about Brad annoyed Jack. How could she possibly believe Brad had done such a monstrous thing?
“What do you mean by that?” He did not try to hide his contempt. But she seemed not to notice.
“I mean…” She faltered, struggling for words. “He could na protect her, if it truly was the work of the Dragon.”
“Cripes!” Jack nearly shouted in exasperation. “It wasn’t the work of your damnable dragon. For God’s sake, Keely. There is no dragon! Get real!” But he could see renewed doubt in her eyes.
Brad did not protect her because he could not protect her, that’s what she was thinking. The dragon had found her regardless.
Jack did not know how to argue against such superstition.
“If Brad had known there was any danger, he would never have taken Genny back to his room. I think th
ere must have been someone, likely an employee of the hotel, who knew Brad was a wealthy guest and who was in the process of burglarizing the room when they came in. It’s my guess he shot the first person who entered the room, which would have been Genevieve, and then attacked Brad, pushed him into the bathroom, and put the gun to his head. But he was sloppy, probably panicked, and his bullet missed the mark. It was a burglar, Keely, not the dragon.”
Keely thought this over for a long moment, then asked, “Then why haven’t the police gone looking for this…this burglar person?”
“Maybe they have,” Jack said, giving up an argument he knew he could not at the moment win. “I’ll call Scotland Yard tomorrow and see what they are up to.” The taxi pulled up to the front of the hotel just as the clock chimed seven.
He was tired and irritated and wanted suddenly to be alone with his thoughts to try to sort out the events of that fateful night. He’d get Keely settled in and then go to the bar for a while. But when they reached the suite overlooking the atrium, Keely looked up at him, her own frustration clouding those enormous gray-green eyes.
“I did na mean to cause ye to be vexed,” she said, raising her chin slightly. “Like ye, I am trying to understand what Genevieve did. Why she went to a hotel room with a total stranger. ‘Tis so unlike a Dragoner’s ways.”
“It was unlike Brad to bring a strange woman home,” he shot back.
They stood outside the door, their gazes locked, each searching for answers neither could find and in their frustration blaming one another.
Jack blinked first. “Oh, hell, Keely. Why are we doing this?”
Her shoulders relaxed, and her expression softened. “I do na know, Jack. ‘Tis part of the grief mayhap.”
Jack knew he should leave her, escape to the bar, but he could not. This was something they had to sort out together.
He handed her his plastic key card. “You do it,” he said, indicating for her to unlock the door.