Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 01 - Last Call (10 page)

“Just like that.”

Tom rolled the pen between his teeth to the other side of his mouth, then sucked on the end, making a squeaking noise with his lips.

“Shouldn’t you be taking notes?” I asked.

“Fuck you, Rid. The bullshit’s so thick, I’m gagging on the smell. This is a murder we’re talking here.”

“You think I’m holding something back?”

“I think you probably already scoped the scene and, being the smart guy you are, have an opinion.”

I raised my eyebrows in exaggerated surprise. “You want my opinion?”

Tom yanked the pen out of his mouth and pointed it in my face. “You are no good at playing dumb. What did you see?”

I put my hands out at my sides, palms up. “Nada. I looked. You got me there, but I didn’t notice anything you haven’t yet.”

“Thanks for your confidence.” He tucked the pen back into the corner of his mouth and spoke around it. “So what’s it look like to you?”

If I took her side, with the story I laid on him, he’d see right through me. Not that he didn’t already. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Tom waited, as if he didn’t have a clue.

“Autumn hires me because she thinks her husband’s cheating. Husband ends up dead.”

“You saying you think it was her?”

“I’m saying it’s the most likely conclusion to jump to.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked back at the house as if it might tell him something. His lips smacked at the pen. “You don’t want to believe it, though.”

“Of course not.”

“Am I going to have trouble with you? I don’t need you sticking up for this bitch. She isn’t worth it.”

“What have you got against her, Tom?”

He laughed, grinning around the pen. “Besides her being a possible murder suspect?” He shook his head. “What else do I need?”

“You had it in for her before this. The mere mention of her name set you off.”

He removed the pen from his mouth, pinching it between thumb and index finger. He pointed toward the house with the end of the pen. “Now you know why.”

“There’s no way you could have known this would happen. Besides—”

“Besides, what? Innocent until proven guilty?” He snorted. “Did I know she’d off her husband? No. But I knew some trouble would come about. Don’t let her drag you into this, Rid. Stay out of it.”

“I’m just worried you’ve already closed this case in your mind.”

He pushed his face forward to give me a good view of his mug, though his gaze remained fixed to one side of my head. Something about the way he held his mouth, a small but tight curl of the upper lip, made him look different to me. A new kind of Tom had shambled out from some dark cave in his psyche.

“Do I look unfair to you?”

“No, Tom. Not at all.”

He nodded, almost met my eyes, then returned his attention to the house, once more tucking the pen between his teeth.

“I wanted to spare your feelings,” he said, “but I don’t see much point now.”

I didn’t interrupt.

“After you left, your girl here turned into something of a wild child.”

“This must be the bad crowd thing.”

He turned real slow, eyes wide, making a production. “Bad crowd? That what she told you?” He threw back his head and howled exaggerated laughter like a bad imitation of a cartoon super villain. “That’s tasty. Real delicious.”

“Cut the puppet show.”

His face went straight. “Fine. I’ll throw you a name and entertain myself with your reaction. Dixie Jawhar.”

I had two distinct memories of Samirah “Dixie” Jawhar from high school. The first was a sort of collective memory, a story everyone knew, but few had seen firsthand. The story goes: Dixie, so nicknamed for the series of t-shirts she owned sporting the confederate flag—a strange symbol to see on a girl of Middle-Eastern decent—was one of those angst-loaded south side girls. One day, a teacher caught her sipping gin from a hairspray bottle. The teacher attempted to take Dixie to the principal’s office, and instead of going along peacefully, Dixie spit a mouthful of gin right in the teacher’s eyes. For any other student it would be a straight road to expulsion. But according to the story, Dixie leaned over and whispered something into the teacher’s ear. The teacher, face still sticky with gin, backed off and never reported the incident.

What did Dixie say? The speculation on that was almost as legendary as the event itself. Most assumed some threat on the teacher’s life and the lives of his family. Yes,
his
. The teacher had been a man.

Probably, most of this story was bull. What wasn’t bull was the mashed noses, black eyes, and fistfuls of hair pulled from scalps all courtesy of Dixie Jawhar. She’d fight girls, boys, didn’t matter. If violence was ice cream, Dixie would have lived on banana splits.

Add to the all the stories a verified run-in with police right before graduation that got her sent to juvie instead of down the aisle in a cap and gown, and you got a pretty clear picture of the kind of girl Dixie was.

I could only imagine what she’d graduated to as an adult.

Tom laughed for real this time, obviously seeing something in my face that amused him.

I licked my lips and asked the dumb question I had to ask. “Dixie was… Autumn hung with Dixie?”

Tom didn’t give me the sarcasm I expected. He gripped my arm, pulled me to him, and said in a low growl around the pen in his mouth. “I didn’t want the chance to tell you ‘I told you so.’ I wanted to save your ass.”

Neither of us spoke for a while.

From an elementary school on the next block the first morning bell rang. The sound of screeching children swelled then faded. Someone in a nearby backyard started up a lawnmower.

My mind was too hung up on the first memory of Dixie to even touch the second one. I tried picturing Autumn running around with a sociopath. Didn’t mesh with the Autumn I knew then, or even the Autumn I knew now.

“But this was a while ago?” I asked.

“About three years or so after graduation. And before you start making more excuses, go back into that living room and look real close at the dead guy.”

I didn’t have to go back. In my mind I could conjure a vivid close-up of the bloody crater in Doug’s back.

Autumn knew the difference between a “bad crowd” and Dixie Jawhar. She should have told me. I’d already decided to help her. Did she think it would make a difference?

Did it?

I still thought Tom was blowing the relationship out of proportion.

“What’s Dixie doing now?”

Tom shrugged. “Last I heard she was doing time for armed robbery. But that was ten years ago.”

“Autumn a part of that?”

He hesitated, the look on his face like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “No.”

“So it’s guilt by association.”

“Like I said.” He gestured toward the house. “Notice the stiff in the living room.”

A new dose of fatigue rolled through me. I wouldn’t change Tom’s mind by arguing with him. If Autumn was innocent, I’d have to prove it on my own. And I desperately needed some sleep.

“Are we done?” I asked.

Tom rolled the pen from one side of his mouth to the other. “For now, I guess. You all right?”

I nodded, waved him off, and turned to leave.

“Ridley.”

“What is it, Tom?”

More wet sucking on the pen. “Where is she?”

I took a deep breath, ignoring the kick in my heartbeat. “If I knew …” I started, then tucked my hands in my pockets. “I don’t know.”

He pulled the pen from his mouth. “I hope not.”

Chapter 8

“Where is my daughter?”

I barely had my key in the front door. I froze, listening to the heavy breathing right behind me. When I turned, Lincoln Rice took a swing at me.

I dodged, feeling the breeze from his knuckles on my chin. “Wait,” I shouted, but he took another swing. This time I had to block, knocking his fist away with my forearm, and felt a little sting from the impact. For an older guy, he threw a pretty heavy punch.

“Chill a second.”

Face flushed, Lincoln staggered off the porch, squinting against the morning sun. He looked as tired as I felt.

“Where is she?”

“I assume the police contacted you.”

“I told you to stay away from her. Whatever she’s involved with, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“They did tell you what happened, right?”

His eyes scoured me. “He’s dead.”

“And they think Autumn did it,” I added.

He looked toward the sky, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard, the hemp necklace cutting into his tanned neck. Some of the buttons on his shirt were pushed through the wrong holes, and his shirttails hung out one higher than the other. His gray mane hung free, some sweat-darkened locks clinging to his face.

“Trouble follows her,” he said. “No matter what I do, she always finds it.”

“What kind of trouble?”

He brought his gaze down from the sky. “Trouble like you.”

“I’m Autumn’s friend,” I said. “I’m trying to help her.”

“Help her this way.” He swaggered up to me. “Tell me where she is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Police tell me otherwise.”

“The police are jumping to conclusions like you right now. That’s not going to help anybody.”

He looked at the knuckles on his right hand, maybe thinking about taking another shot at my face.

“And how, exactly, are you helping my daughter?”

“By staying cool,” I said, “and not assuming anything. Do you think Autumn killed Doug?”

He screwed up his face. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Only if you promise the same.” I unlocked my door and swung it open. “If you want to come inside, we can talk. But you can’t start throwing accusations, or punches, at me.”

Lincoln eyed the open door. “I’m a wealthy man, you know?”

I’d heard this before—a declaration of wealth meant as a threat. Life as a private detective wasn’t glamorous. Sometimes it barely paid the bills. Rich people knew this. They thought it gave them leverage. Sometimes, with a business to run and groceries to buy, it did. But I wasn’t a P.I. anymore.

“So am I.”

“No,” he said. “You are merely a scavenger of your parents’ wealth. There’s no power in that.”

“And I suppose you think you own Hawthorne because you have a lot of money.”

“The town respects and knows me. The only thing anyone knows about you is that you don’t belong.”

Who the hell was he to tell me where I belonged? I thought about teaching him how to throw a real punch, but the detective in me offered a better idea.

“You and Doug get along all right?”

Lincoln’s eyes narrowed. “What are you suggesting?”

“You have to admit, you haven’t been traditionally kind to Autumn’s boyfriends.”

“If you’re referring to yourself, I never knew the two of you were involved until long after she came to her senses and ended it.”

“There had to be a reason she went out of her way to keep you from meeting me.”

“She had no trouble introducing Doug.” He crossed his arms. “Maybe it was you.”

I didn’t take the bait. “You never answered my question. How did you and Doug get along?”

“Just stay away from my daughter.”

Lincoln turned and walked toward his Lexus parked across the street.

“You already said that,” I shouted at his back, but the words didn’t sound as satisfying as they had in my head.

When I made it to my bed, I collapsed, clothes still on, and drifted away. I think I dreamt about my parents, but the people in my dream looked nothing like them. I woke up with an oily taste in my mouth and the feeling I was forgetting something. The only thing I’d forgotten was to set my alarm before passing out. My digital clock glared at me with the red numbers 3:17.

My bedroom was stuffy. The t-shirt and jeans I’d fallen asleep in had twisted around my body. A funky smell I was afraid came from me hung in the air.

The shower revived me as only a three-thousand dollar shower-tower could. The first time I’d tried to use the thing, more water had ended up on the bathroom floor than on me, but my parents had installed the things in all the bathrooms, forcing me to learn how to master the luxury. Much like the BMW, I’d grown to appreciate it.

Refreshed, if a little thrown by the odd hour, I settled down at my laptop, removed the flash drive I’d found at Autumn’s from the key ring, and plugged it into the USB jack in back of the laptop.

My computer sounded a two beat musical tone letting me know it recognized the drive. I clicked through the appropriate icons to access the files, and a window popped up with an empty box under a prompt for a password. A cursor in the box blinked at me mockingly, if that’s possible. Probably me projecting my frustration. But, really, I think the cursor was mocking me.

I rubbed my head, trying to massage the password into my brain cells. I typed in Autumn’s name, hit enter.

The password box cleared itself and the message informed me I had two more chances to correctly type in my password.

“Or what?” I asked the humming computer. “You’ll self-destruct?”

I canceled out of the password prompt, shut down, and slapped the laptop’s screen closed. I glared at the flash drive plugged into the back of the computer. Sticking out like that, the drive looked like a middle finger.