He stared at me. “Are you saying that’s not right?”
“I’m saying that there are some questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Questions about whether or not someone else might have been involved,” I said, leaving out the who and the why.
He ran his tongue under his upper lip and stared at me. “Are you serious?” he finally asked. “You’re saying it wasn’t suicide, but that he was killed?”
“I’m looking into that possibility.”
“Why?”
I’d thought about how I was going to answer that particular question from him. I didn’t want to single out Marnie Haskell, but I couldn’t lie and say it was anyone else, either. If there were a killer, I couldn’t put anyone in danger. The only thing to do was give an ambiguous answer and move on. “I work for a private investigation firm. We were hired to look more closely at what led to Philip’s death. I understand Philip worked for you, is that right?”
“A couple years ago, yeah,” he admitted, but he wasn’t done trying to suss out his own answers. “Who hired you?”
“Mr. Quaffman, I can’t tell you that. It’s confidential.”
He studied me, and suddenly he didn’t look—or sound—like a harmless lanky scarecrow. “What do you want from me?”
“Would you like to sit down?” I asked, hoping he would relax enough to answer at least a few questions.
He exhaled through his nose, and for a second, I thought he was going to flat out refuse and storm out of the restaurant, but then he tossed his satchel onto the floor, sank down onto the seat opposite me, and propped his elbows on the table, cradling his head in his hands.
“Let me get you a glass of water,” I said, hurrying to the beverage station and returning with two glasses. I set his in front of him, then sat back down. Joe Quaffman looked like he needed some time, which I was happy to give him.
I tried to be invisible while he sat there, distressing over the revelation that his former employee may have been murdered. Or, I thought, maybe his worry was about the fact that questions were being asked at all. Because maybe Gemma had been right, and Joe Quaffman had lost a gasket over Philip taking his clients with him when he’d gone out on his own. And maybe, just maybe, he’d been the outsider involved in Phil’s death.
Marnie Haskell had planted a seed about her son’s death, and that seed had taken root in my mind. It took an active imagination sometimes to be a PI. Right now mine was running wild.
“Mr. Quaffman?” I asked quietly.
Nothing.
“Mr. Quaffman, are you alright?”
He grunted but didn’t lift his head.
“Mr. Quaffman—”
“What do you want from me?” he demanded, his upper lip curled.
Asked and answered, I thought, but clearly this man was going to take some placating. “I just want to know if there’s anything you can tell me about Philip that might help me understand why he might have killed himself, or why someone else would have wanted to hurt him.”
“I don’t know anything,” he said, but his voice shook. What had Joe Quaffman so shaken?
“Can I ask you a few questions?”
He half nodded, half shook his head. “Shoot.”
I thought carefully about how to phrase my questions without alienating the man. I had no doubt that he would skip right out of here if I pushed the wrong button. I already knew Philip had worked for Quaffman for quite a few years. How long was really irrelevant, and I didn’t need Quaffman to corroborate what I already knew. Instead, I delved into his perception of Philip’s character. “Was Philip a good employee?”
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if he were warding off an approaching headache. When he looked at me, his eyes were bloodshot from the strain of our conversation. Assuming he wasn’t a murderer, I felt for the guy. “Depends how you define good,” he said. “I taught him everything he knew, and then he left me high and dry, but not only that, he took some of my clients with him. So, let’s see, he was a good employee for a while, till he stabbed me in the back.”
“You didn’t have any idea that he was leaving to start up his own company?” I asked.
“He was tight-lipped about it. I didn’t have a clue.”
“He had to have been setting things up for his own business for quite a while before he left Quaffman Electric, right?” I mean, you couldn’t set up a business overnight. He would have had to plan, get a business license, set up his books, develop a marketing and advertising strategy.
“Yeah, he would have.”
“Joe—can I call you Joe?”
He nodded.
“Joe, how did Philip tell you he was leaving?”
Joe barked out a harsh laugh. “Son of a bitch told me in a text.” He dug his phone out of his back pocket and scrolled through his photo stream. He slid his phone across the table so I could see the saved screenshot. There it was, in Philip’s own words:
Joe—I started my own gig. Thanks for everything. I’ll see you around.
Below the image was a simple: WTF.
“I took a screenshot and sent it to my wife, then to Tim Haskell,” he said. “He frickin’ quit in a text. No notice. No apology. Who does that?”
Philip’s death hadn’t softened the anger Joe clearly still held onto. “Philip’s dad must have been upset, too. You’re friends, right?”
Joe gave a half-hearted shrug. “Used to be. Not anymore.”
“After Philip quit?”
“Yeah. Tim tried to defend Philip, telling me he was young and trying to figure out who he was. Phil wanted to—” He made air quotes. “—make a name for himself.”
“You didn’t buy that, though?”
“Make a name for himself.” He scoffed. “Hell no. That kid took what wasn’t his. He used me to learn the business, then he stole my customers. When he killed himself, I figured his guilt got the better of him.”
Sounded to me like Joe Quaffman subscribed to the KARMA playbook. What goes around comes around, and Philip’s disloyalty had finally caught up with him.
I didn’t want Joe to think I was focusing on him and his beef with Philip, so I redirected the conversation away from Philip’s betrayal of Joe. “Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt Philip?”
His eyebrows pinched together as he thought. Finally, he said, “Look, I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t pissed as hell at the guy. I was. I am. And if he screwed me, he probably screwed other people, too.”
He paused long enough for me to start to ask for a name, but then he said, “I’m sure he screwed other people, but I have no idea who.”
I wondered if he was being straight with me, or if he was disinclined to throw somebody else under the bus given that he seemed to think Philip had gotten what he deserved. “Thanks for your time,” I said, standing up, but he didn’t follow suit. Instead, he grabbed his satchel from the floor, flipped it open, and pulled out an invoice pad.
I didn’t think he’d really bill me, but there he was, scribbling on the duplicate form. When he was finished, he ripped the top copy from the perforated upper edge of the pad and handed it to me.
¡Hijo de la chingada! “One hundred and sixty-five dollars? Are you kidding?”
“You booked an appointment.”
I stared. “Because that was the only way I could talk to you. This wasn’t a service call. I’m investigating a death.”
“And I’m running a business. One that has suffered because of Philip Haskell. Time is money.”
How cliché. “Now that he’s dead, I’m sure you’ll get your customers back.” It was a snide remark, but I was pissed. He was seriously charging this as a service call.
“Yeah, well, that hasn’t happened yet.” He nodded to the invoice in my hand. “Check or credit card. I’m sure you can bill it t
o your client. Whoever that is,” he added under his breath.
“I’ll put a check in the mail,” I said, holding back a scowl.
“Payment is due upon completion of services.”
“Well, since there were no services, I guess that doesn’t apply.”
“Trip visit counts as service.” He glared at me. Clearly he wasn’t budging.
I didn’t have cash or a checkbook, and there was no way I was giving him my credit card number to write down. “I’ll be right back,” I said through my pursed lips. If this guy was guilty, it was going to give me a lot of pleasure taking him down.
“Tick tock,” he said smugly.
Now I didn’t bother to smother the scowl. I glared at him and coolly walked away from the table and to the kitchen. My family was still there tasting the dishes Antonio had prepared for Leti’s wedding. I went up to my dad and whispered in his ear. “Papi, I need to borrow some money. I’ll pay you back pronto.”
He turned his weathered face to me. “Money for what, m’ija?”
“I need to pay an electrician, but I don’t want to give him my credit card.”
My mother would have shot questions at me in rapid succession, but my father, sweet soul that he was, didn’t hesitate. “¿Cuánto?” he asked as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet.
“One hundred sixty-five.”
He shoved his wallet back in his pocket, nodded succinctly and just once. “Momento,” he said before he disappeared up the stairs. I knew he was going to the little office where he and Antonio did the bookkeeping and ordering. There was a small safe that held the petty cash and the day’s earnings. I could picture him writing an IOU and tucking it in the bank deposit bag after he withdrew the cash for me.
He returned a minute later and handed over the pile of bills. “Thanks, Papi. I’ll go to the bank today.”
He nodded, then tapped his finger against his cheek. “Un beso,” he said.
I smiled and gave him a kiss before calmly walking through the OUT door and back to the table where Joe Quaffman still waited. “I’d like a receipt,” I said, holding out the money, but not handing it over.
He took the invoice he’d given me and laid it back into place over the yellow duplicate copy. He wrote PAID IN FULL, CASH, and the date on it before handing it back to me. And then, without another word, he grabbed the pad, his satchel, and strode out the door.
Chapter 9
Coming home to an empty apartment made me feel about as lonely as a widower visiting his wife’s grave. Hijole, what had gotten into me? I needed a pick-me-up, and bad. I changed into leggings, a sports bra and t-shirt, put on my running shoes, harnessed Salsa, and headed out for a run. Before long, endorphins would be pumping through my body and would give me the lift I needed.
I’d invested in a pair of AirPods and had a Spotify playlist on while I followed my usual route. The temperature had dropped to fifty degrees and a breeze had come in from the southwest off the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. Less than two weeks ago, we’d had an uncharacteristic late winter storm come through causing excessive rain, high wind advisories, and flooding. The weather had cleared in the last few days, but now I was running against the biting wind and was chilled to the bone. It looked like another storm was on its way.
I lowered my head and pushed on. I’d put my hair in a ponytail, but it still whipped at my face. I gave it another five minutes, then gave up. The wind was too rough. I turned and headed back home. As my feet pounded the pavement, Philip Haskell’s death replayed in my mind. Something wasn’t sitting right. He’d left a suicide note to his family. I hadn’t seen it yet, so I didn’t know if that was a summary of what he’d said, or if it really was a minimal blanket apology.
“What about Gemma?” I spoke aloud, but my voice was carried away on the wind. They’d been engaged, so why wouldn’t he have said something to her specifically? Who had the suicide note? My guess was that the police had made a copy and returned the original to the family. I made a mental note to ask Marnie Haskell about it.
Salsa usually trotted right by my side, but now she took the lead, pulling her leash taut. She wanted to get back home and out of the wind. I gave the leash a hard yank, bringing her back to my side. “I know, it’s too much,” I said. “We’re almost home.”
We made it back. I laid out my yoga mat and collapsed onto my back while Salsa lapped water from her bowl in the kitchen. She came and stretched out by my side, snugging up as close as she could to me. Outside the wind howled through the newly budding trees. I hadn’t wanted to come home to an empty flat, but now that I was back after my run, I was glad not to be fighting against the cold and wind.
I sat up suddenly. Fighting against the cold and wind. Philip Haskell had died a little more than a week and a half ago. The first wave of the late winter storm had been blowing through two weeks ago. Had it been windy the night he’d hung himself?
I rolled over and stretched my arm out to grab my laptop from where I’d left it on the coffee table. I sat in modified Lotus pose, booted up my computer, and searched what the weather had been over the last two weeks. Google took me to the National Weather Service webpage where I clicked through until I found past weather. I narrowed the search and found what I was looking for. The evening Philip Haskell had died had been under a wind advisory. It had been far worse than it was right now, and right now was pretty tough.
How had Philip managed to hang himself while fighting against the cold and wind? He’d had to have strung the rope up and over a sturdy tree limb. Then he’d had to have scaled the tree, climbed across the precarious branch while the wind thrashed against him, put his head through the makeshift noose, and flung himself down.
If he’d killed himself, he’d had to have done all that alone. Was that even possible?
The more I thought about it, the more I thought it wasn’t. Or, at the very least, it would have been incredibly difficult.
I took out my AirPods, turned off my music, and dialed Jack.
He answered on the first ring. “Cruz. I was wondering if I’d be hearing from you tonight.”
“Wonder no more,” I said, smiling. His voice alone was enough to make my knees go weak.
“Feeling lonely?”
How did he know? “I have Salsa, my parents, and an active imagination. Why would I be feeling lonely?”
“Have you ever lived alone?”
He had a way of cutting right to the chase. The truth was that, no, I had not ever lived alone. I came from a family of seven and I’d gone from living with my parents to bunking with Antonio right upstairs. I knew how to be alone, and there were definitely times when I wanted space and Lola time. But there were also times when I just wanted the comfort of another person nearby. “I live alone now,” I said.
He rephrased. “Prior to now, have you ever lived alone?”
“Is that relevant to something?”
“Maybe.”
Other than inquiring minds want to know, I couldn’t think of a reason it would be. “I’m listening.”
Instead of giving me an explanation for his questioning, he changed the subject. “Plans tonight?”
“Early day tomorrow,” I said, happy to drop the inquisition into the history of my living arrangements.
“Oh yeah?”
“I’m working on the Philip Haskell case. I want to talk to Phil’s mother tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if Mrs. Haskell can give you anything more than she already did,” he said.
I uncurled my legs, stretched them out in front of me, and laid back down on my yoga mat. “Do you know if she has Philip’s suicide note?”
“She does,” he said.
“Have you seen it?” Whether or not he had didn’t change the fact that I wanted to see it, but if he had, I wanted his opinion.
“I haven’t. Asking didn’
t seem like the right thing to do.”
I was worried about that, actually. I didn’t want to be indelicate or seem crass by asking to see it, but at the same time, it was important.
“Do you think you can come with me tomorrow?” Having him there might make it easier for Mrs. Haskell to share her son’s note. Plus a little Jack time sounded pretty good to me.
He didn’t hesitate. “Name the time.”
Mrs. Haskell and I had agreed on nine o’clock. “Eight thirty at my place, so we can drive together.”
“Deal,” he said. “I have an article due tomorrow. I’m going to wrap it up tonight, so I’ll be all yours.”
After I’d hung up, I couldn’t help but smile. I’d wanted to see him tonight, but if I got him all day tomorrow, I could make that stretch into the evening. And maybe even into the weekend. It was a situation I could live with.
Chapter 10
Jack and I arrived at Marnie Haskell’s house at 8:55 the next morning. She lived in the Greenhaven-Pocket area of Sacramento in a simple pale blue house with a brown roof and the garage jutting out front and center. We ambled up the cement walk to the small cement stoop where I knocked on the dark brown wood door.
We stood, side by side, waiting. When no one came to answer the door after a minute or so, I knocked again. At the same time, Jack pressed the doorbell with his index finger.
Silence. No ding-dong sound. No TV from the depths inside. No footsteps rushing to the door. No nothing. Jack looked at me. “She knows you’re coming?”
“I talked to her yesterday,” I said, confirming.
He hesitated for a beat, then fisted his hand and pounded on the door. “Mrs. Haskell, it’s Jack.”
Silence.
He tried again. “Mrs. Haskell?”
Nothing.
I pulled out my phone, searched recent calls, found her number on the list, and pressed it. A second later, the line was ringing…and ringing…and ringing.
“No answer,” I said, hanging up.
We turned toward the street at the sound of a car engine. A white SUV pulled up alongside the curb, parked, and a few seconds later a woman stepped out and rounded the corner. It was a much younger version of Marnie Haskell. Jack raised his hand in greeting. “Hey, Anne.”
Drop Dead Lola Page 7