Strange Brew (The Tortie Kitten Mystery Trilogy Series Book 2)

by Constance Barker

  Until that Sunday.

  “Who the hell is that?” Murph asked when a car pulled up the driveway and honked the horn.

  “Your horn works,” Memorie spoke the language of sarcasm, even at a young age. Her attention was not to be ripped from the discussion of Dimetrodon.

  Setting aside my half-finished breakfast, I moved to the window and looked out. A black Lincoln sat in the driveway. I didn’t know anyone who drove a Lincoln. When I opened the door, I was startled to see a woman standing there.

  She wore a T-shirt and cut-off shorts, the sun had pinked the tops of her pale cheekbones and bridge of her nose. Tall and willowy, the woman angled her head at me and removed her sunglasses.

  It took me a moment to recognize her. “Kathleen?”

  The last time I’d seen Memorie’s biological mother, she signed the temporary custody order with a shaking hand, her features skeletal, the pink prison jumpsuit hanging off her. From hollowed sockets, her dead eyes took me in as she pushed the papers under the pass-through of the visiting window separating us.

  Kathleen no longer looked like death. No sores or scabs marred her face, her features full. I recognized where Memorie got her pretty looks. But in Kathleen’s case, her beauty really was only skin deep. “I’m out. Where’s my daughter?”

  I walked outside, closing the door behind me. Something scritched beneath my slippers, which annoyed me because I worked hard on my landscaping, Memorie always helping out. “You’re supposed to be locked up for four more years.”

  “What can I say? Overcrowding, good behavior. Don’t bother coming after me. I’m clean. Cold turkey prison rehab.” Kathleen’s face looked more alive, but not her eyes.

  “You didn’t call? You’re just showing up?”

  Kathleen put her shades back on. “Pack up some of her clothes. I’ve got prospects, but they won’t wait on me. I’ll send for the rest.”

  I heard the door open behind me. Small footsteps raced across the porch, down the steps. Memorie threw herself into her mother’s arms. My heart fractured.

  Kathleen hugged Memorie back. “Go pack some things, sweetheart. You and me are going on an adventure. Hurry up, now.”

  Memorie pulled away. As she turned, she gave me a quizzical look. Murph came out, and my girl ran back inside.

  “Hang on, Kathleen. Let’s slow this down. Memorie’s in school here. You’re just going to drag her away from her friends, her life?”

  Kathleen frowned. “Save the sanctimony, bro. This is what you want. You could’ve sued for permanent custody. The courts tend to frown on convicted crack whore mothers. Hell, you could’ve knocked up your cop bitch and squeezed out a few of your own by now.”

  Cop bitch? My fists clenched as I took a step toward her. The driver door of the Lincoln opened. A big man in a black leather jacket, despite the Florida heat, glared at me. “Problem, Kath?”

  Kathleen’s eyes were hidden behind her shades. Which was good. I knew a mocking glance would earn her a punch in the face. “Is there a problem, Officer?”

  “Detective,” I corrected through my teeth.

  The sweaty man reached into his leather jacket. My gun was safely locked up in the house. Instead of a weapon, the man pulled out a damp sheath of papers and handed them to me.

  “Everything is in order, I promise,” the man said.

  Memorie came back out of the house. Her purple backpack was stuffed. She dragged her Stegosaurus toy along with her. Hesitating, with a glance at her mother, she hugged me. “Should I go?” she whispered.

  No, I thought. No, no, no.

  Murph came up behind her, putting us in a sandwich hug. “I don’t think there’s any choice,” he whispered.

  I LIVED IN A DARK CLOUD from the moment that black Lincoln drove off. My brain went into automatic robot mode. I worked, I came home, I slept, I tried not to look in the empty room decorated in shades of purple. At some point during this deep, foggy depression, Murph had left. Since then, I didn’t have any urge to start up with another man. Which was probably why I had most recently chosen unavailable men. My fling with the suspect in question nearly crashed our case on the rocks. Though I was under a spell, the responsibility was mine. And Remy? Moonlight transformed him into a creature of the night. What kind of creature, I didn’t know. Heck, Remy didn’t know, either. The danger of this transformation had kept him out of commitment range.

  Right now, given the crushing debt I was forced to pay off, and the fact that I had screwed up my new job on Delta Vista Metro, non-commitment was fine with me. Paging Dr. Freud, paging Dr. Freud, patient in denial.

  I went on the offensive instead. “What’s so interesting on your cell phone?”

  “I’m just looking stuff up. I found the garage sale, didn’t I?” Shen took the exit to Wagner Heights. “Why is everyone getting on my case?”

  Darren Strathmore was a forty-something guy dressed nearly the same as our victim. Same ugly white sneakers, baby blue dad jeans, but his shirt was the Hawaiian kind rather than a bowling shirt. His beard was trendy, gray obviously tinted by Just For Men or something similar.

  We told him that a man was murdered after purchasing some records at his mother’s garage sale. Darren went pale.

  “Mom’s selling my stuff? I better get over there.”

  That was his reaction to a man being murdered. We stood on the front porch. Darren’s house actually looked a little bigger than the Strathmore abode in the Links. Plenty of room for his collection of 80s junk, I thought.

  “A couple questions first,” I said. “Was there an album in your collection that was worth a lot of money?”

  He blinked at me. “Should I call my lawyer?”

  I was close enough to read him. My hit was that he was bluffing. I let him off the hook. “Any idea what your lawyer charges for working on Sunday?”

  Strathmore balked. “Hang out a sec, I got an inventory here somewhere.” He vanished into the house.

  “How much do you think a record could possibly be worth?” Shen asked me.

  I had no idea. “I’ve never been much of a collector. Maybe of dust, but I get rid of that once every other month or so.”

  Shen eyed me. “Maybe volunteering to help you move furniture was a bad idea.”

  “It was,” I said. “But thanks.”

  Darren reappeared with a sheaf of paper in his hands. It was maybe thirty pages, single spaced. Shen took it and looked it over. He shot worried eyes at me. There was a lot of text on those pages. He turned to Strathmore. “Any of these valuable?”

  “I have a Yesterday and Today by the Beatles, but it’s a second state paste-over. Maybe worth five hundred bucks if the market is right. Had. I guess. Had a Yesterday and Today.”

  Five C-notes was not worth killing over. My theory had been shot down. We had driven all the way to Wagner Heights for no reason.

  “Oh, hang on. There was this one thing.” He took the document back from Shen and flipped through to nearly the end. “You ever hear of the Peerless Scarlet Jack Explosion?”

  I hadn’t.

  “Sure, Manifesto from the Madhouse,” Shen said. “Is that worth a lot?”

  “No, it’s not,” Darren said, “and no, not that one. This one.”

  He handed the document back to Shen, pointing.

  “Sonic Lobotomy: Or, the Portable Brainwave Installation Kit. Never heard of it,” Shen said.

  “That’s the thing. Nobody’s ever heard of it. But I have a copy.” He shot nervous eyes toward his car. “Had a copy.”

  “An album so rare that nobody’s ever heard of it might be worth a lot,” I mused. “Or it might be worth nothing at all.”

  “Right?” Darren said. “I could never figure it out. Scarlet Jack wasn’t the most popular band. There isn’t much about them, even on Google. I’ve read that they recorded a sophomore album, but no details. It’s really weird, because they were making the scene in San Francisco during the Summer of Love. You’d think someone was paying attention.”<
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  “Nothing else worth a lot of money?” I had no idea what to make of an album no one had ever heard of.

  Darren shrugged. “My collection started with my dad’s old records, from back in the day. A lot of psychedelia. I hate the music, the piercing sound, the weird spacy jams. But, hey, we’re an hour and a half from the Bay Area. Lots of fans of that kinda thing. Nostalgia, maybe. But it might not be about how much a record is worth,” Darren said.

  “No?” Shen asked.

  “Collecting, trading, buying and selling—to some people, that’s their whole life. I mean, even me, this one time, I saw a pristine Count Five LP at a flea market. I pushed a grubby old homeless guy out of the way so I could grab it.” Something like shame, mixed with pride, crossed his face. I could read it on him. “I was like an animal.”

  Chapter 5

  We let Darren the animal go to stop his mother’s sale. It seemed an unlikely endeavor. In the meantime, I’d gotten a text from Burl Jefferson. “He’s got Vandermoot’s phone working,” I said.

  Shen drove us back down the West Side Highway. “What’s he got?”

  “Texts made by the vic right around the time of death,” I said.

  “If he was texting when he was killed, there might be something there,” Shen said. “See if he can send you the texts to the MDC.”

  I texted Burl back and pulled the Mobile Data Computer toward me on its extending arm. This one was a little beefier than a regular laptop, and pretty useful on investigations. We could look up all kinds of public records. The communique light flashed, and I opened the encrypted document.

  “The texts are in code,” I said.

  “Read it to me,” Shen kept driving.

  “At oh-seven-oh-nine, the victim texts, ‘Dude, SLOTPBIK x PSCX.’ The reply, from someone named ZAK, is ‘BS.’”

  My partner mused it over. “Okay, BS is obvious. Anything else?”

  “Next is a photo. Kinda blurry. Looks like a diagram of the human brain. The vic then texts SYS.”

  “See you soon,” Shen said.

  “The rest are replies by ZAK: ‘Holy shit,’ then ‘where did you find it?’ then again, then ‘quit holding out,’ then ‘answer your phone, dick.’ The last was texted at oh-nine-thirty-two.”

  Shen frowned. “Ten minutes ago? Did Burl get an ID on the texter?”

  I closed the file with the texts and opened another encrypted message. Burl and his team were good at their job. “He did. One Robert Zackery. Guess what ZAK does?”

  “Something to do with records?”

  Zax Trax was on the Miracle Mile south of the University of the Valley campus. It was a typical student district full of boutique shops, salons, restaurants and cafes. Being pedestrian friendly, it was tough to find parking. The record store shared a building with a comic book store and a collectible coin shop. None of these were open. We walked over to Dutch Brothers for coffee. When we returned, the lights were on inside.

  A few customers milled around. Some wore the requisite bowling shirt ensemble, the rest were dressed like lumberjacks, all of them were male. Record bins defined aisles in the narrow shop, the perimeter dedicated to T-shirts and memorabilia. A fat guy dressed like Buddy Holly hauled a milk crate full of records on top of the checkout counter.

  “Robert Zackery?” I took a guess.

  He took records from the plastic container, sorting them into piles. “Who wants to know?” He didn’t look up.

  “Police,” Shen said. “We need to ask you some questions.”

  As if by some silent command, the lumberjacks and bowlers faded quickly out the front door. Robert Zackery watched them go. He turned his disconcerted expression on us. “Huh?”

  “We’re looking for information on one Vandermoot, John D.,” Shen said.

  “Mootie? He’s my best supplier. I just talked to him this morning. He in trouble?”

  “He’s dead, Mr. Zackery.” I said. “Can you verify your whereabouts at seven this morning?”

  “Dead?”

  “Mr. Zackery?” Shen pushed.

  “It’s Sunday. Sunday morning is garage sale day. I was out picking before the store opened.”

  I leaned against the counter, close enough to read him. So far, he was telling the truth.

  “We have his cell phone,” Shen kept pushing.

  Zackery’s eyes shifted between us. “He texted me.”

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  “He said he found something. Something... I was expecting him to bring it by.”

  In his mind, the words Something valuable came up, although he eliminated the second word from his spoken sentence.

  “Like a valuable record?” I said. “And you own a record store.”

  “Sounds like motive,” Shen hinted.

  A wave of fear rolled off Zackery. Fear, but not guilt. “Should I call my lawyer?”

  “Do you need to?” I asked.

  He pulled out his cell phone. “Look, I got a text from him this morning while I was picking. He was too. This is all I know, okay? You can verify my location with cell phone towers, right?”

  We had already seen the texts, but Shen made a show of squinting at the messages. “What is all this code stuff?”

  “It’s not code. Just initials. It stands for Sonic Lobotomy: Or, the Portable Brainwave Installation Kit by the Peerless Scarlet Jack Explosion. Mootie said he found one. But...”

  “But what, Mr. Zackery?”

  “The album, it’s an urban myth, a holy grail for record collectors. Most experts say it doesn’t exist.” He pointed at the texted photo. “I’ve never even seen a picture of the jacket before.”

  “If he brought it in here, would you have bought it from him?” I asked.

  “What? Hell no. I mean, I would, but I’d have to mortgage my house, sell my car. If it’s real, it’s worth thousands, tens of thousands, maybe more. Besides, I don’t have customers who buy really high end. A couple hundred bucks at the most. I just wanted to see it, touch it.” His eyes went wide, jaw dropping. “Do you think someone killed him for the record?”

  We let the question hang there. Tens of thousands sounded like a pretty good motive. Other than Zackery, who else would know Vandermoot had a copy? “Does Vandermoot work with anyone?”

  “Nope. He’s a hard-core picker, garage sales, flea markets, storage containers, estate sales. Pays a quarter for a record, and sells it for a hundred bucks. He has a web site, but some of the more valuable ones will sit for a long time. He sells me his higher-end duplicates, the bread-and-butter stuff.”

  “Would he have told anyone else? Another friend?” Shen asked, getting on board with my question.

  Zackery’s features drooped. “I don’t think he had any friends. Only customers.”

  “If you wouldn’t buy Sonic Lobotomy, who would?” Shen asked.

  “Maybe Scorpio, in San Francisco. Sketch Moses specializes in 60s psychedelia. I think he may even know The Peerless Scarlet Jack Explosion personally. He’s an old hippie.”

  Shen’s phone tweedled. “I have to take this,” he said, and wandered outside.

  “You don’t think Vandermoot had friends. Did you ever hang out, socialize?”

  Zackery made a face. “Mootie lived in the worst neighborhood, in a tiny apartment, completely full of records. I went there once to buy some vinyl. Once. The only time I saw him was at the record swap. We shared a booth sometimes. I figured he would show it off there, next week. But I guess he won’t show off anything, ever again.”

  “Record swap?” I looked at Shen. He was standing on the street, looking at his phone.

  “We do it once a semester or so, at the Student Union.” Zackery frowned. “Won’t be the same this time.”

  I told Robert Zackery not to leave town, and gave him my card. Out on the street, Shen stared at his phone. Students wandered around in groups, cups of coffee and phones in their hands. After a few long moments, he finally looked up at me. “Vandermoot’s apartment,” he said.

&nb
sp; “Did we get a warrant?”

  “Don’t need one. Uniforms are on scene. The place was burglarized this morning. Landlord called it in.”

  Chapter 6

  A lot of what they say on TV about criminal investigation is a bunch of bull. One thing that isn’t, is the seventy-two hour rule. In a homicide, if we didn’t catch the killer in three days, it was likely that the case would drag on, maybe for years, maybe go unsolved. Shen and I kept moving on it.

  We spotted the black-and-white sitting on the address. Three houses stood close together, with only pedestrian walkways separating. A jumble of numbers and letters adorned the doors. John Vandermoot had lived in a converted garage.

  “Landlord heard some noises and came out to check.” One of the uniforms got out of the car. His name tag read Bookerman. “When he looked, the place was already burglarized, no sign of the burglars.”

  I pulled out my notebook. “What time did you get the call?”

  “Oh-seven-fifteen,” Bookerman said. “We were in the area, three minute response.”

  Shen and I squinted at each other. We needed to get the time line down, but 7:15 sounded awfully close to the time of death. My partner nodded across the street. Although an off ramp from the Golden State Highway blocked the view, there was a homeless camp beneath the overpass.

  “Nope,” the other uniform followed his gaze. “This was a pro job. Lock was picked. Burglars in and out quick.”

  “What did they get?” I asked.

  “Everything,” the uniform said. “Almost.”

  We gloved up and entered the garage apartment. There was a bed, a desk with a computer monitor on top, but no CPU below, an armoire full of clothes. A coffee table was overturned. I saw a few hundred dollars in small bills, a bag of weed, and a weird looking little clamp-like thing that had spilled off of it.

  “Professional burglars who don’t take cash and drugs?” Shen mused. “What’s that skinny white thing?”