Dead in the Water (Kate Ryan Mysteries Book 10) (10 page)

“Nice to meet you,” Phil said.

“The same here. I’m very sorry to hear about your partner.”

“Thanks,” Phil said with a sad smile. “It was a shock.”

“And they’ve yet to find out who did this?” Simon asked.

“No. I know they’re trying and I’ve been told how hard it is after a certain time to gather clues and all that.” He stopped and took a deep breath. I’m sure he repeated that sentence more than once since this happened. I felt bad for him. I knew the helpless feeling.

“Then it was a good idea for you to hire Kate, et al.” Simon looked across the table at me. “She helped me tremendously when I needed it the most.”

“Really?” Phil asked.

“Long story. But Kate came to the rescue and solved my cousin’s murder.” Simon struck a thoughtful pose for a moment. “Come to think of it, it was rather gruesome. But we don’t want to go into the gory details over dinner.”

“Well, thanks for inviting me to dinner,” Phil said. “I was just going to go home and sit in front of the TV.”

“You’re not married?” Simon asked, avoiding my glare.

“Oh, no.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

I cautiously watched Simon—he was in full flirt mode.

Phil blushed to the tips of his ears. “Not really. I spend too much time with my business. Doesn’t leave much room for dating.”

“What do you do?”

I decided to let Simon ask Phil some questions. Who knows, maybe he might ask the right one, whichever that was.

“I own a company that specializes in tech gadgets, I suppose is the right term. I’m not very good at explaining things. I left that up to Chad. He had the imagination.” He laughed self-consciously. “I’m a physicist by trade.”

“Did Chad come up with the name of the company?” I asked.

“He did. We all joked about how he was always trying something weird, always thinking out of the box. He was true to his science, but not much else. We called him a young Lex Luthor. And that’s where he got the name.”

“When you say not true to much else, what do you mean?” Costello asked.

“Oh, I don’t mean anything bad. He was just always looking for an angle. You know, we wanted to make some money, and while I was always apprehensive, Chad took any customer that waked through that door.” He chuckled then. “But he had a good heart and a magnificent mind.”

“How did you get into that type of business?” Simon asked.

“It was Chad. We met, and he had the idea of changing the world, I think, through technology. Or more to the point, weird science. I was teaching at Cal Tech and bored out of my mind. So we took a shot.”

“How did you wind up in Chicago?” I asked. “I mean, all the way from California, seems a long way to go.”

“Chad knew someone who knew someone, and this building was open and very cheap. We had plans of staying for a few years to get things going, then hopefully when things took off, we’d go back to the West Coast, which was where Chad really wanted to be. But that didn’t happen.” He looked down at his glass of water.

The table was silent for a moment, almost reverently. Then Hannah raised her martini glass.

“Well, here’s to Chad Henson, who had an idea and saw it through.”

“And got him killed,” Phil added dourly.

And we’re back to silence…

Chapter 10

The next morning, I found Costello at the office, her head buried in the file and a cup of coffee in her hand. I felt an illogical wave of happiness to see the little white bakery box on the corner of her desk.

“Good morning, Costello.”

“Hey…” she said absently, not looking up. “I got some pastry. And made Hannah’s delicious coffee.”

“Thanks.” I tossed my keys on my desk and poured some coffee. “Refill?”

“No, thanks.”

It was delicious. I took a sip before sitting at my desk.

“Will you oil that thing?” Costello asked. “Or just have Hannah order a new—”

“No,” I said, holding up my hand. “This is fine. A little WD40, and it’s all good.”

“Where is Hannah, by the way?”

“Out shopping with Maggie. Something about a sale. I don’t know.” As I drank my coffee, I knew Costello was watching me. I reached over and took Chad Henson’s file. “Stop it.”

Costello laughed and rocked in her chair that did not squeak. “Are you still nervous?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re still going through with it?”

“Yes.” I leafed through the pages of the police report; I had no idea why. Nothing had changed.

“Can I tell ya somethin’?”

I looked up then. “Sure.”

“I think you’re a grand woman, Ryan. I was sittin’ with Annabel this morning over breakfast. And I wondered if I would ever love someone so much that I’d have the courage to ask her to marry me. I’m not sure I would.”

I closed the file. “You will, trust me. If I can do it, anyone can. There was a time, though, when I thought it would never happen.”

“I felt that way after Rose died.”

Costello was in love with Dr. Rose Clancy, a psychiatrist, back in Ireland. She was somehow involved with Bridget Donnelly, the crazy ass who tried to kill me and anyone else. Long story. But we thought Bridget killed her, and we still couldn’t prove it. It really did a number on Costello. I watched her now, as she stared out the window. Her green cat eyes misted with tears. She took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her unruly red hair, as if she were trying to dismiss all the memories—good luck with that.

“That was a mess,” I said softly.

Costello let out a low chuckle then. “It was indeed. But I found Annabel again.”

“You did. And if you’re careful, you’ll keep her. And you know how to do that,” I said, drinking my coffee.

“I’m not too sure I’m very good at the long haul, Ryan.”

“I didn’t think I was, either. Of course, I was just trying to convince myself of that. Then I met Maggie, and I still tried to avoid it. But thank God for her.”

“And thank God for Annabel,” Costello said softly. “I hope I’m up to the task.”

“We’re pretty lucky, Costello. We have two great women who love us no matter how many stupid things we do.”

“I know. Maybe there’s something wrong with them.”

“Definitely. Because it can’t be us, right?”

“Right. The other morning, I stopped by Annabel’s for coffee. I spilled the sugar on the counter and she, God love her, bein’ a microbiologist, nearly had a conniption, goin’ on about microscopic organisms while she wiped off the counter.”

“Please tell me you didn’t say conniption to her.”

Costello laughed. “Oh, I wish I could.”

“Why are you laughing?”

“I love to see the little vein in her neck bulge when she gets angry,” Costello said, almost wistfully.

“That’s fine until she has a stroke. Or she coldcocks you with a frying pan,” I said dryly.

“Don’t go on, Ryan. Ya know ya love to irritate Maggie darl…um, Maggie.”

It was true. “Well, just be careful. She’s a microbiologist and probably has access to some of those scary microorganisms…”

We both laughed at the idea.

“Okay, enough girl talk. Let’s get back to Chad Henson.” I reached for the file once again.

“Ya know, last night, Phil said something that was interesting.”

“About Chad and always looking for an angle?”

“Yes. What do you make of that? There has to be a reason he was killed. It wasn’t random. I really think he knew the murderer.”

I agreed. “We’re missing something. Something was left behind that the police missed, and we’re doing the same.” I sat forward. “Let’s take a look at the surveillance tape again.”

Costello eagerly jumped up and got the tape. I met her at the TV we had in the back of the office. Costello slipped the tape in, and I grabbed the box of pastry.

“Ryan?”

“What?”

“The remote for the DVD player?” She motioned to the remote on my desk.

“Oh.” You’d think I’d set the box of pastry down first…

For the next half hour, we replayed the tape over and over. We noted the time stamp, how long it was between the time Chad was killed and Phil arrived at the office. And the amount of time the murderer took to leave. Costello agreed with me about that.

“He took quite a while to leave,” she said. “He had to be looking for the bullet casing. He had to take it.”

“He covered all his bases. Stayed out of the viewing area of the camera. He even wore a hat.” I tapped the remote against my chin. “So let’s try this for a scenario.”

“Grand. I love it when ya get an idea,” Costello said eagerly.

“Chad somehow is involved with this guy…”

“He probably made something for him.”

“That’s more than likely, given what they do for a living. The murderer comes in to pick it up, maybe, and that’s when things go bad.”

“But why?”

“Maybe Chad argued over money. Maybe it wasn’t what the guy wanted.” I looked up at Costello then. “And just maybe the murderer’s plan all along was to kill Chad.”

“But if Chad made some gadget or something for him, then why kill him and bring attention to him? If whoever this was wanted it to be secret, surely, putting a bullet in the back of Chad’s head wasn’t a very good way to accomplish that.”

“Well, obviously, it was. Because it’s been four months, and the police have nothing. Only what’s on that tape. Let’s watch it again.”

So there we sat, drinking an entire pot of coffee, watching the tape while Costello controlled the remote. That was when the Winfield women got back from their shopping spree. They were both laughing when they walked into the office.

“What are you doing back there?” Hannah asked.

“Watching this damned tape again,” I said. Maggie walked up and kissed me. “Hey, you.”

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Did ya buy me anything?” Costello asked.

“I did not, sorry. This was girly shopping,” Maggie said, holding up a bag, dangling it in front of me. “It’s for the weekend.”

“Really?” I asked, suddenly not caring about the tape. “What is it?”

“Whattaya think?” Costello sadly shook her head while Hannah laughed.

“Is there anything new on the tape?” Hannah asked. “And you two drank a whole pot of coffee? Good Lord.”

“And we ate all the pastry,” I added. “Let’s all watch. Maybe we’ll see something we didn’t before.”

“There has to be something we’re missing,” Costello said, waving the remote.

We all huddled around the TV. And that was when I noticed it. I sat forward. “Stop and go back just a little.”

Costello eagerly rewound the tape. “I’ll play it slow. Is this the right part?”

“Yes,” I said, watching the tape. As it played in slow motion, I saw it again. “There!”

Costello stopped the tape just as the murderer’s arm appeared reaching for something over the counter.

“Look at his hand, right by this thumb. Is that a tattoo?”

We all walked up to the TV and peered at the screen.

“Or a smudge,” Hannah said, wiping the screen. “Nope. Still there.”

“It might be a tattoo,” Maggie said. “But of what? I can’t make it out.”

“We need to take this back to the precinct. Maybe they can enhance this.”

“Maybe Phil has something in his shop?” Costello offered.

“Good idea.” I looked at Hannah, who rolled her eyes and walked back to her desk and picked up the phone.

 
“What do you think it is?” Costello asked, still fixated on the screen. “Why does this look familiar to me?”

Maggie and I said nothing while Costello continued to stare. I really wanted to shake her but restrained myself, especially when Maggie knew what I was thinking and dug her fingernails into my arm.

“I’ve got it. It’s small, and we can tell better when we enhance it. But I think it’s the emblem of your marines. Yes?” Costello said.

Maggie and I peered closer. “You could be right. It kinda looks like the globe and anchor,” I said.

“Phil said to drop by any time. He can enhance it. He’s eager to see what it is,” Hannah called out.

Maggie glanced at her watch. “I wish I could go with you, but I have to get back to the hospital. You girls behave.”

“Okay, sweetie.” I pulled her into my arms and gave her a big smooch. “And you have to go pack, don’t forget. Remember it’s only for the weekend, so no steamer trunks.”

“Just for that, you’re making dinner,” she said, patting my cheek.

“But I always make dinner.” I watched as she walked away and added, “And when are you going to learn how to cook?”

Maggie just waved her hand in the air, kissed Hannah, and was gone.

I sighed happily for the millionth time. “I love that woman.”

Hannah passed me on the way to the coffeepot. “Thank you, dear. I love you, too.”

*******

Costello, Hannah, and I huddled behind Phil as he put the surveillance tape in some contraption; his fingers danced across the keyboard, and in a moment, after all three of us pointed at the screen, he stopped the tape, and with a few more keystrokes, Costello was right. Though it was a little grainy, it did indeed look like a tattoo of the U.S. Marine globe and anchor. It was tattooed just under his thumb knuckle and above the wrist.

“My, my,” Hannah whispered. “This is interesting.”

“Definitely,” I said, looking at the screen. “Phil, I don’t suppose you know anyone with that tattoo?”

He stared at the screen, shaking his head. “I don’t, I’m sorry. But then I really didn’t travel much in Chad’s circle of associates.” He sat back, letting out a dejected sigh. “What do we do with this?”

“We take it to my friend at the precinct. Maybe they can run it through their computers and come up with someone.”

“That tattoo is something that would be in their system if he has a record,” Costello said. “Well, it’s something to go on, anyway. Something we didn’t have before.”