Past Deeds

by Carolyn Arnold

  “Uh-huh.” She turned into the lot.

  The attendant directed us to a temporary parking section on P1. Paige pulled into a spot near the elevator and we took it up to the building’s lobby. We unloaded into an immaculate space, just as one would expect from a Fortune 500 company with no expense spared. There were a fountain and a pond, and I surmised there’d be koi in there. As we walked past it to the front desk, I looked in, and sure enough...

  I whistled again, and Paige chuckled.

  “Good day. Welcome to Pratchett Group. How can I assist you?” The receptionist’s proportions resembled a troll doll with a head that was comically large atop her narrow shoulders, and her wide pressed-lip grin also didn’t help her image.

  Paige and I held up our badges.

  “We’d like to speak with William Pratchett,” Paige told her.

  “Sure. Do you have an appointment?”

  “We do not.”

  Troll winced. “That’s going to be a problem. Mr. Pratchett’s calendar is quite packed.” She looked at the monitor. “He’s in a meeting now, matter of fact.”

  “I’m sure he could squeeze us in for a couple of minutes.” Paige flashed a smile. “We can wait until he’s finished. When do you expect that will be?”

  “Give or take another fifteen minutes.”

  “Great. We’ll wait. If you’ll just be so kind as to notify him the minute you can that we’re here.”

  “I can do that.” Troll flashed a toothy smile. “In the meantime, you can help yourself to a latte or cappuccino if you’d like.” She pulled out two red pieces of paper the size of standard business cards and pointed to a café nestled inside the lobby. “These will get you complimentary ones.”

  “Oh, wow. Thank you.” Paige took them.

  “You’re very welcome.”

  Paige and I headed to the café. Caffeine was always a good idea—free caffeine even better, aside from the fact we shouldn’t be accepting anything free in case it was construed as a bribe.

  A few minutes later, we were armed with our drinks and headed back to the reception area, where we took a seat.

  “Guess we should be happy the guy’s even here,” I said, getting comfortable on a couch. I took a sip of my black coffee. “He could have been anywhere in the States covering a story or dealing with business.”

  “That’s very true. I thought it was a long shot when Jack told us to head over right away, but I’d much rather be here than attending the autopsy.”

  I grinned. “And miss out on seeing Mr. Congeniality?”

  “Wasn’t that ME a piece of—”

  “Excuse me.” A slender woman in her thirties approached us. “You’re here to see Mr. Pratchett, correct?”

  “We are,” Paige replied.

  “Please, then, follow me.” She smiled politely, but the expression faded quickly. She took us up the elevator to the twenty-first floor and down a series of hallways. She stopped outside a door, rapped her knuckles on it, and waited for an acknowledgment before opening it.

  Inside, four men sat around a table. William Pratchett was easy to pick out, and not just because I saw his driver’s license photo, but he had an energy exuding from him that clearly communicated he was the man in charge.

  “Mr. Pratchett, these are FBI Agents Dawson and Fisher,” the twentysomething woman said, gesturing to the two of us.

  “Come in, have a seat,” Pratchett said cordially. “Thank you, Connie.”

  With that, the woman left, closing the door behind her.

  Pratchett kept his eyes on Paige and me as we took a seat. My gaze briefly went over the three other suits, all aged somewhere between fifty and ninety, given the deep lines in the eldest’s face and his stock of white hair.

  “These are my lawyers.” Pratchett tugged down on his suit jacket and tilted out his chin. “I’m sure their presence isn’t going to be a problem.”

  My guess was the man lived for confrontation and wanted us to challenge him.

  “No, not at all,” Paige said.

  “Good. Now, what brings you here?”

  “There’s been an unfortunate turn of events,” Paige began. “Prosecuting attorney Darrell Reid was shot and killed this morning.”

  Pratchett’s body tensed—just slightly—enough to tell me he already knew about Reid’s death. “Tragic, to be sure, but I’m not sure what this has to do with me.”

  “We understand that he was going to be trying a case against your son, Mr. Pratchett.” Paige set that out there far more delicately than I could have managed. Guys like Pratchett were bullies, and I had no tolerance for bullies.

  “He was, but I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

  Paige continued. “I guess to start, we wanted to know if you knew Reid’s plans for his case against your son?”

  “That he was going to blow the entire event out of proportion?”

  Out of proportion? Three people are dead! His son should pay for that! I clamped my mouth shut for fear I’d say something I might regret.

  The youngest lawyer held out a hand to stay Pratchett, and the man snuffed out derision at the gesture.

  “Ah, I see…” Pratchett leaned back in his chair, a sadistic-looking grin on his face, and rubbed his chin. “You think I had something to do with Reid’s death.”

  “We never said that,” Paige was quick to say.

  “Good, because you’d be greatly mistaken. Besides, I’d have no reason to kill him.” Pratchett gestured to the lawyers. “These three men are but a small sampling of the legal team I have at my fingertips, agents. Reid wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with his grandiose plans to make a mockery of my son. He made one teeny mistake, and the boy’s to sit behind bars for life? Not as long as I’m drawing breath.”

  I balled my hands into fists under the table. This guy was reprehensible! Easy for him to sit in his ivory tower and downplay the severity of three lives lost when they weren’t people close to him. Though I suspected Pratchett didn’t hold many—if any—intimate relationships or let himself care too greatly about other people. He was probably even more concerned about his image than his son’s fate.

  “Things don’t always go as planned,” I said at a low volume. “There was the possibility that Mr. Reid would have met with success.”

  “What are you implying?” Pratchett hissed.

  “We’re simply here to get a read on things,” Paige mediated.

  Pratchett’s face shot a bright red. “To see if I—”

  The middle-aged lawyer seated next to Pratchett put a hand on his forearm. He took me in for less than a millisecond but leveled his gaze on Paige. “Unless you have evidence of Mr. Pratchett’s involvement in the death of Mr. Reid, this meeting is over.”

  “You mean in Mr. Reid’s murder?” I slung back, not able to restrain myself any longer.

  The lawyer clenched his jaw but said nothing.

  “We’re sorry that we’ve upset you, Mr. Pratchett,” Paige said, shooting me a molten-lava glare. “That was not our intention. I hope you can appreciate that, as a matter of procedure, we had to speak with you, though.”

  “A matter of procedure,” Pratchett mumbled. “As I said, I’d have no reason to kill him. I have enough money to fight for my son for a lifetime. Besides, my defense team had every confidence that they could get the charges against him tossed out. He was never going to see a day behind bars—Reid or no Reid.”

  The last claim stung like alcohol poured on an open, fresh wound. Anger swept around the back of my neck and heated up my core. The audacity that he would think his son could kill three people and get away with it was preposterous. I had to get out of this room, away from this piece of shit. I stood and headed for the door.

  “That’s right. We’re done here,” one of the lawyers said to my back.

  “Thank you fo
r your time, Mr. Pratchett,” Paige said and joined me in the hall. “You better hope none of what happened in there gets back to Jack.”

  “You heard that douche—”

  “Ahem.” The low volume of someone clearing their throat. It was Connie, the woman who took us to see Pratchett. She rose from a bench and didn’t say a word as she took us back to the lobby.

  “Unbelievable,” Paige exclaimed as she slammed her door shut on the SUV.

  “Yeah, that piece of work is!”

  “I meant you,” she fired back.

  “Me?” I snapped. “You’ve got to be kidding me. He thinks the murder of three people shouldn’t come with a sentence. He thinks his little boy should just walk.” I mimicked the action with my fingers.

  Paige shook her head. “Jack told us to tread carefully. Do you really think—”

  “I’m not sure I care.”

  She smacked the steering wheel.

  “I wish that Reid had the chance to stick it to Pratchett Junior,” I seethed.

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Argh. We’ve been through this before. My feelings about drinking and driving aren’t as strong as yours. But it doesn’t mean I think he should walk.”

  I flailed my arms in the air as if to say there you go.

  Quiet passed between us, and warm air started blowing from the vents.

  “I tried to swallow my temper. I really did.”

  Paige glanced over at me. “I saw you clench your fists in there.”

  “Yeah, and aren’t you happy one didn’t come up and punch Pratchett in the nose.”

  “Ah, very.” Paige’s mouth twitched like she was refusing to laugh but losing—and she did. “Can you imagine…the guy’s face if…”

  I grinned. “Priceless.”

  “Oh, but can you imagine Jack’s?”

  Her question had us both sobering.

  “Yeah, that wouldn’t be a good face,” I admitted.

  “No. Do you think Pratchett’s behind the shooting?”

  I shook my head. “I think he’s actually egotistical enough to think his son would have walked. Like he said, ‘I have enough money to fight for my son for a lifetime.’” I pushed out my chest and held my arms like an ape, best as I could in the confines of the SUV.

  “God, you look just like him.”

  “I really did want to knock the smug look off the cocky son of a bitch’s face.”

  “I know you did.”

  “Props for self-control?”

  “Well, he was infuriating.”

  “There. You finally admit it.”

  “Here’s something that just occurred to me.” Paige’s face fell serious. “Father might be cocky, but what’s Junior like? Maybe he didn’t have as much faith in his father’s ability to make the charges go away, and he took action on his own.”

  “Could be. I mean, it’s possible. He likely has access to his own spending money.”

  “I think we should speak with Adrian Pratchett.”

  I already had my phone out, looking for his home address.

  -

  Thirteen

  Kelly shadowed Jack up the steps to Gerald Stevens’s townhouse. She was thinking how she’d really gone from being the big fish in the small pond of the Miami PD to the small fish in the big pond of the FBI. There were moments she felt in over her head, but she recalled how her grandfather had told her about Jack’s obsession with perfection. Until now, she thought he’d exaggerated on that point.

  Jack knocked on the door, and footsteps padded toward them from inside.

  The door swung open, and an imposing sixty-something man of six-four stood there.

  “Can I help you?” He eyed them with curiosity.

  Jack held up his badge and identified himself and Kelly. “Are you Gerald Stevens?”

  “I am.” Gerald crossed his arms in front of his expansive chest.

  “We’d like to talk to you about your time as a doorman at Wilson Place. Could we come in?”

  Gerald stepped back and gestured for them to enter, but he didn’t invite them to a sitting room. He closed the door and tilted his head in inquiry.

  “You might have heard there was a shooting at Wilson Place this morning,” Jack began.

  “A shooting? At Wilson Place? Really?” Gerald’s hands moved about, not sure whether to settle on his hips or in his pockets. “No, I hadn’t heard, but then again, I don’t watch or listen to the news. Don’t read a paper, either.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “Anyone hurt?”

  Or go online, because the news is all over the internet, Kelly thought.

  “There was one fatality.” Jack pulled up Reid’s license photo on his phone and angled the screen toward Stevens. “Do you know him?”

  “Yeah, um…yeah.” Gerald rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Name?”

  “Darrell Reid. He’s a prosecutor for the commonwealth attorney’s office.”

  “That’s right.” Jack backed out of the picture and tucked his phone away. “How do you know him?”

  Gerald chewed his bottom lip as if hesitating to answer that question. Was it because he still held on to a sense of loyalty to his former employer, have a confidentiality contract still in place, or was there some sort of connection between him and Reid’s shooter? A look at his background didn’t show a military record—but there was always that blasted one degree of separation Herrera had brought up.

  “I didn’t really know him.”

  “All right,” Jack said leisurely. “How did you recognize him just now?” His eyes studied the man.

  “He came to Wilson Place from time to time.”

  “Often?” Kelly asked.

  Gerald licked his lips and looked at her. “I don’t know if I should be talking with you two about him.”

  “We’re FBI, Mr. Stevens. It’s usually a good thing to talk to us.” Jack’s face was expressionless, but there was no missing his tone that made it obvious cooperation was the right route.

  “Very well.” Gerald tucked his hands back into his pants pockets. “Mr. Reid came to the building often.”

  “How often?” Kelly rushed out and was sorry she had when Jack glanced over at her. She understood the reprimand in his gaze to rein in her excitement at this possible lead. But this was the closest they’d gotten to finding out Reid’s purpose there.

  “Usually a few times a week.”

  Kelly bit back the urge to immediately counter with what days and what times? She let a few seconds of silence wade between them. “With any sort of regularity? Specific days? Times?”

  “Now, I’ll have to think on that.” Gerald tugged at the stubble on his chin. “I know he came in on Wednesdays and Fridays…” More whisker tugging, then, “And Monday nights, come to think of it.”

  “Do you know who he was visiting or why he wouldn’t have signed in at the front desk?” she asked.

  Gerald shook his head. “Not my place. You speak to the front desk clerk?”

  “Yes, we have.” Kelly spoke slowly, locking eyes with the former doorman and getting the feeling he knew the reason Reid didn’t sign in. Maybe he didn’t want to soil the reputation of a dead man, but the thing with death was it was better than truth serum: with it, everything had a way of coming out. “Did he usually show up at night?” She didn’t think she should ask Gerald outright if he thought the attorney was having an affair with someone in the building. If Reid had been, it was definitely something he wouldn’t want found out.

  Gerald planted a hand on his hip. “Nah, not always. He’d come on Fridays in the afternoon.”

  “But at night on Mondays and Wednesdays?” Kelly asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Did he ever stay overnight on Mondays and Wednesdays
?” Kelly toed carefully.

  Gerald put up his hands in surrender. “I’m not answering that one.”

  “Okay,” Kelly said. “When he did show up, was it like clockwork, same times, reliable?”

  “I don’t know if I’d set my watch by it.” He paused and smiled, light twinkling in his eyes. “But, yes, I’d say it was with some regularity.”

  It would make sense how the sniper knew when and where to strike. Had Gerald fed that information to the sniper? If he had, he could win an Academy Award for acting. “Do you know what brought Mr. Reid to the building? Maybe he was visiting someone?” She did her best to keep suspicion of a mistress out of her voice.

  Gerald shook his head. “I know I don’t work there anymore, but I pride myself on my discretion, and I always have.”

  “So, you know but are choosing not to talk to the FBI?” Jack raised his brows.

  “I never said that.”

  Kelly softened her stance, pushed her hip a little to the left. “Was he alone when he’d show up?”

  Gerald pointed a finger at her. “I see that you’re still trying to get me to tell you something that could hurt a dead man’s character, but I’m not going to fall for it. Actually, I’ve said all I’m going to. If you’d kindly leave.” He maneuvered around Jack and Kelly for the door.

  “Just a couple more things.” Kelly’s adrenaline was pumping. The former doorman’s reaction told her Reid had a mistress at Wilson Place; she just wished he’d put it into words.

  Gerald turned the handle and swung the door open.

  “Please,” she rushed out. “We understand that your last day working at Wilson Place was this past Sunday.”

  “Is there a question in there?”

  “Here’s the question. Did Mr. Reid keep the schedule you mentioned of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday up until last Friday?”

  “He did.” Gerald looked out the door to his front steps, a not-too-subtle hint for them to leave.

  “And for how long before that? As in, how long had he been showing up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?”