Author: Renee Pawlish
Date: 2012-04-21 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Mystery
Description: Now in a single volume - the first three humorous, film-noir-flavored Reed Ferguson mysteries, plus a Reed Ferguson short story... THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN IN THE MOVIES A wannabe private eye with a love of film noir and detective fiction. A rich, attractive femme fatale. A missing husband. A rollicking ride to a dark and daring ending. REEL ESTATE RIP-OFF Lights! Camera! Reed! A mysterious death. A brother searching for the truth. A devious ex-wife. Real estate shenanigans. More danger for Reed than a film noir plot. THE MALTESE FELON When an attractive female client begs Reed Ferguson to find her
Publisher: Llama Press

A Reed Ferguson Omnibus

The Novels:
This Doesn't Happen In The Movies

Reel Estate Rip-off

The Maltese Felon

A Short Story:

Elvis And The Sports Card Cheat

First Digital Edition published by Llama Press

Copyright 2012 by Renée Pawlish

LICENSE NOTES:

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.  This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people.  If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.  If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your personal use only, then you should return this copy to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy.  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges all those who helped in the writing of this book, especially: Beth Hecker and Beth Treat.

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What Others Are Saying About Nephilim Genesis of Evil by Renée Pawlish

I Couldn't Put It Down!

This is not my normal genre but the title caught my attention. As soon as I saw it I recalled the Nephilim from my long ago Sunday School classes. I downloaded the sample, read three pages, and then purchased the book. My intuition was dead on. Renee is a heck of an author. The book grabs you immediately and it doesn't turn you loose until you've read the last word. Ms. Pawlish is a storyteller of the highest order. She brings her characters to life and sends them straight into your head. Her descriptions are vivid and the plot doesn't waver; that's all one should expect from any book, though it's way more than we normally get. I'm not even tempted to say it was worth the price because I don't indulge in gross understatements. After you buy the book, carefully plan when you will begin reading it because it's more than likely you won't be able to put it down. Renee Pawlish is now on my favorite writer list and it's not a long one.

Bert Carson, author of Southern Investigation
www.bertcarson.com

A Chilling Read!

Fans of early Bentley Little should enjoy Nephilim: Genesis of Evil, a chilling, horror outing that uses The Apocrypha as source material for its menacing beings. It’s a well-crafted tale of the re-emergence of spirits who are the offspring of humans and angels. The spirits begin possessing humans in a small Colorado town in order to obtain corporal form, capturing the attention of paranormal journalist Rory Callahan who’s traveled from New York City where he witnessed a strange and malevolent presence. Rory joins forces with Anna Holmes, a local resident with a troubled past. Anna is a counterpoint to the skeptical Rory, allowing a deeper metaphysical exploration as the novel charges forward into a full-fledged confrontation between good and evil. This is a powerful and well-written effort.

Sidney Williams, author of Midnight Eyes and Blood Hunter
www.sidisalive.com

Great Read!

Pawlish has created a wonderful story that will pull readers in from the very beginning. The Nephilim, children of fallen angles and mortals, have resurfaced in the small town of Taylor Crossing, and Rory's curiosity lands him in the middle of an epic battle within the town. Watching the story unfold was amazing, and I really came to love the characters, especially Rory as he pieced together the background of the town and realized what the Nephilim truly were.

I really enjoyed this book, especially since I'd never heard the term Nephilim before. It turns out that I've been reading a lot of books about the Nephilim lately and just didn't know it. I am thankful that Pawlish presents them in such a way that I now truly understand what they are, and realizing that the Nephilim are actually mentioned in Genesis chapter 6 was a jolting experience, making this novel all the more scary as it unfolded. Pawlish is a wonderful storyteller, weaving the novel together through both past and present events, masterfully revealing the plot twists and turns. The mystery and suspense of the novel kept me on edge as I read and I highly suggest those interested in fallen angels read this novel.

A Book Vacation

Buy the eBook version of Nephilim at Amazon or Smashwords (sample chapters available at Smashwords).

Nephilim Book Two Available Soon

The long-awaited second book in the Nephilim Trilogy will be released this fall! Visit www.reneepawlish.com for more information.

This Doesn't Happen In The Movies

CHAPTER ONE

“I want you to find my dead husband.”

“Excuse me?”  That was my first reaction.

“I want you to find my husband.  He’s dead, and I need to know where he is.”  She spoke in a voice one sexy note below middle C.

“Uh-huh.”  That was my second reaction.  Really slick.

Moments before, when I saw her standing in the outer room, waiting to come into my office, I had the feeling she’d be trouble.  And now, with that intro, I knew it.

“He’s dead, and I need you to find him.”  If she wasn’t tired of the repetition, I was, but I couldn’t seem to get my mouth working.  She sat in the cushy black leather chair on the other side of my desk, exhaling money with every sultry breath.  She had beautiful blond hair with just a hint of darker color at the roots, blue eyes like a cold mountain lake, and a smile that would slay Adonis.  I’d like to say that a beautiful woman couldn’t influence me by her beauty alone.  I’d like to say it, but I can’t.

“Why didn’t you come see me yesterday?” I asked.  Her eyes widened in surprise.  This detective misses nothing, I thought, mentally patting myself on the back.  She didn’t know that I’d definitely noticed her yesterday eating at a deli across the street.  I had been staring out the window, and there she was.

The shoulders of her red designer jacket went up a half-inch and back down, then her full lips curled into the trace of a smile.  “I came here to see you, but you were leaving for lunch.  I followed you, and then I lost my nerve.”

“I see you’ve regained it.”  I’ve never been one to place too much importance on my looks, but I suddenly wished I could run a comb through my hair, put on a nicer shirt, and splash on a little cologne.  And change my eye color – hazel – boring.  It sounded like someone’s old, spinster aunt, not an eye color.

She nodded.  “Yes.  I have to find out about my husband.  He’s dead, I know it.  I just know it.”  Her tone swayed as if in a cool breeze, with no hint of the desperation that should’ve been carried in the words.

“But he’s also missing,” I said in a tone bordering on flippant, as I leaned forward to unlock the desk drawer where I kept spare change, paper clips, and my favorite gold pen.  Maybe writing things down would help me concentrate.  But I caught a whiff of something elegant coming from her direction, and the key I was holding missed the lock by a good two inches.  I hoped she didn’t see my blunder.  I felt my face getting warm and assumed my cheeks were turning crimson.  I hoped she didn’t see that either.

Perhaps I was being too glib because she glanced back toward the door as if she had mistaken my office for another.  “This is the Ferguson Detective Agency?  You are Reed Ferguson?”

“It is and I am.”  I smiled in my most assured manner, then immediately questioned what I was doing.  This woman was making no sense and here I was, flirting with her like a high-school jock.  I glanced behind her at the framed movie poster from the The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.  It was one of my favorites, and I hung the poster in my office as a sort of inspiration.  I wanted to be as cool as Bogie.  I wondered what he would do right now.

She puckered pink lips at me.  “I need your help.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”  Now I sounded cocky.

The pucker turned into a fully developed frown.  “I’m very serious, Mr. Ferguson.”

“Reed.”  I furrowed my brow and looked at my potential first client with as serious an expression as I could muster.  I noticed for the first time that she applied her makeup a bit heavy, in an attempt to cover blemishes.

“Reed,” she said.  “Let me explain.”  Now we were getting somewhere.  I found the gold pen, popped the top off it and scrounged around another drawer for a notepad.  “My name is Amanda Ghering.”  She spoke in an even tone, bland, like she was reading a grocery list.  “My husband, Peter, left on a business trip three weeks ago yesterday.  He was supposed to return on Monday, but he didn’t.”

Today was Thursday.  I wondered what she’d been doing since Monday.  “Did you report this to the police?”

She raised a hand to stop me.  “Please.  I already have and they gave me the standard response, ‘Give it some time, he’ll show up.’”

That one puzzled me.  The police wouldn’t file a missing persons case for twenty-four hours, but after that, I was certain they would do something more.  “They didn’t do anything?”

“They asked me some questions, said they would make a few calls to the airlines.”  Amanda paused.  “They were more concerned about my relationship with Peter,” she said, gazing out the window behind me.  The only thing she would see was an incredible view of a renovated warehouse across the street.  For a brief moment, her face was flushed in as deep a sadness as I’d ever seen.  Then it was gone, replaced by a foggy look when she turned back to me.  “You see, Peter wasn’t exactly what you’d call a faithful husband.”  She frowned, creating wrinkles on an otherwise perfect face.  “Well, that’s not completely true.  He was faithful, to his libido at least.  But not to our marriage.”  I paraphrased the last couple of sentences on the notepad.  “He travels quite a bit with his company, computer consulting, so he has ample opportunity to dally.  And he never tries hard to conceal what he’s doing.”

“Did you tell the police all of this?”

“Yes.  I believe that’s why they’re not doing that much.  That, and the fact that there appears to be no foul play, has kept them from doing little more than paperwork.”

“You’re afraid they’re not treating his disappearance seriously.”

“Exactly.”

I scratched my chin with the pen.  “I’d have to disagree with you about that.”  I didn’t have much experience – okay I didn’t have any experience – but in the tons of detective books I’d read and all the movies I’d seen the police would take someone of Amanda’s obvious wealth with some concern.  At least until she gave them a reason not to.

“They don’t have the resources to track him down,” she countered.  “That’s left up to me, which is what I’m here to do.”

“And this way you also keep any nasty details private.”

“Exactly.”

“Why come to me?”

Amanda glanced around the sparsely furnished office and the stark white walls decorated with noting more than movie posters, as if she were second-guessing her choice of detectives.  “You came recommended.  I know you’re not licensed but…”

“You don’t have to be in the state of Colorado,” I interrupted.  Anyone who wanted to could be a detective here, just hang up a sign.  Hell, you didn’t even need a gun.  I could testify to that.  Never had one, never shot one.

She waved a hand at me.  “I don’t care if you’re licensed or not.  I know your background.  You come from a well-to-do family; you know when to be discreet.”

I came recommended.  Now that caught my curiosity.  The only thing I’d done was to help a wealthy friend of my father track down an old business partner.  It was slightly dangerous but not noteworthy, and at the time I didn’t have an office or a business.  I had been between jobs, so I decided to pursue an old dream.  I hung up a shingle to try my hand at detecting.  I loved old detective novels, had read everything from Rex Stout and Dashiell Hammett to Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain.  I’d watched Humphrey Bogart, William Powell, and all the classic film noir movies.  I pictured myself just like those great detectives.  Well, maybe not.  But I was going to try.

“Who recommended me?” I asked.  The list was surely small.

“A friend at my club.”

“Really?  Who?”

“Paul Burrows.  Do you know him?”

I shook my head.  “Does he know my father?”  I assumed he was someone who’d heard about me helping my father’s friend.

“I don’t know, but Paul said you were good, and that you could use the work.”

She was right about that.  I lived comfortably off an inheritance from my obscenely rich grandparents, plus some smart investments I’d made over the years, so I’d never had a real career.  I had always wanted to work in law enforcement, but my parents had talked me out of that.  Instead, I got a law degree, flitted from job to job, and disappointed my father because I never stuck with anything.  I hoped being a detective would change all that; it was something I’d always wanted to do, but my father still thought I was playing around.  I needed to solve a real case to prove him wrong.

“Are you a fan of old movies?” Amanda asked, noticing the posters for the first time.

I nodded.  “I like old movies, but especially detective film noir.”

“Film noir?”

I pointed to a different poster on another wall of The Maltese Falcon, one of Bogie’s most famous movies.  “Movies with hard-boiled detectives, dark themes, and dark characters.”

“And dark women?” Amanda said.

I kept a straight face as I gazed at Lauren Bacall.  “Yeah, that too.”

“I hope you’re as good as Sam Spade,” Amanda said.

I watched her cross one shapely leg over the other, her red wool skirt edging up her thigh.  Trouble.  Just like I’d thought before.  I should have run out of my own office, but I didn’t.  I know what you’re thinking, it’s her beauty.  No, it was what she said next that complicated things immensely.

“I’m prepared to pay whatever it takes.”  Saying that, she pulled a stack of bills from her purse.  I crossed my arms and contemplated her.  This sounded like I’d just be chasing after a philandering husband.  Not exciting at all, even though I had little basis for making that assumption, other than what I’d read in books.  But a voice inside my head said that making money meant it was a real job, right?

I named my daily wage, plus expenses.  It was top dollar, but she didn’t blink.  And I had my first real case.  What would my father say to that?

*****

“Let’s start with you clarifying a couple of things,” I said.  Moments before Amanda had inked her name on a standard contract, officially making her my first client.  “How do you know your husband’s dead and not just missing?”

Amanda sighed.  “Because he would’ve called me, kept in touch, and I haven’t heard a word from him.”

“But if he was out with someone else?”

She shook her head.  “No, he always calls.  He pretends things are normal.  We have our routine and he always follows it.  Only this time he didn’t.”

“But he knew?”

“That I knew?”

I nodded.  She nodded.  “Yes, he knew.”

I resisted the urge to continue the Dr. Seuss rhyme.  “So he hasn’t called you, but what makes you jump to the conclusion that his not calling means he’s dead?”  I leaned back in my chair, tipping it up on two legs.  “What if he wanted to disappear, or he’s fallen in love with someone else and has run off with her?”

Amanda emitted a very unladylike snort.  “Peter’s not capable of love, so it’s impossible for him to leave me.  Not for that reason, anyway.”

“Have you given him another reason to leave?”

She hesitated.  “I was going to kill him.”

We moved out of the realm of boring.  The chair legs hit the floor hard.  “Excuse me?”

“I was going to kill him,” she repeated.  She stared down at her hands and ticked items off on an index finger.  “For the insurance money and the inheritance.  Well over five million.  Besides that, I would get my freedom from the farce of our marriage.”  She spoke matter-of-factly, as if she were detailing a cooking recipe.  “I was trying to figure out a way to do it.  I couldn’t make it look like a suicide, because I’d lose out on the insurance money.  I couldn’t murder him, because I couldn’t guarantee getting away with it, and I might not get any money that way either.  A domestic dispute gone bad was out of the question because Peter wouldn’t hit a rabid dog, let alone his wife.  I was left with creating an accident.  Only I never could figure out what to do.  Help him lose control and drive off a snowy mountain road?  Too much risk for me.  Electric shock of some sort?  But how could I pull that off?  Poison?  But with what, and how to keep it from being discovered?”  Her breasts lifted and sank in a deep sigh.  “I finally gave up,” she said and looked me straight in the eye.  “I didn’t do anything.”

Blurting out her plans like that intrigued me.  Bogie never had it this easy.  “But he’s disappeared,” I came back to the original point.  “How do I know that you didn’t have him killed?”

“Why would I hire you?”

“To make it look like you weren’t involved.”

She smiled.  “I’m afraid that’s impossible.  First of all, I wouldn’t know where to start.  And as I said, I gave up the idea of killing him.”

“Then how do you know he’s dead?  If he knew you wanted him dead, that’s a lot of motivation not to come home.”

“He didn’t know anything about it.”

“But you just said that he might not come home because he knew you were trying to kill him.”

She emitted an exasperated sigh.  “Peter never knew anything,” she said again.

“How do you know?”

She spoke to me like I was the class dunce.  “All Peter knew was that our marriage, and his money, were in jeopardy.  When I was considering what I might do to him, I was less,” she struggled to find the right words, “less than kind to him.  Cold.  Indifferent.  He sensed that.  Then I decided I was being foolish, so I resumed the game.  Things were back to normal, whatever that was.  He didn’t have any reason not to come home.”

I sat back again, feeling like I’d missed the answer to a test question.  “So I’m supposed to find your presumably dead husband, whom you wanted to kill, but deny that you did, and now that he’s gone, you want him back.”

“Yes,” she said, exasperated.

“Fine,” I said.

I should’ve run, right then.  I should’ve, but I didn’t.

CHAPTER TWO

“This is quite a house,” I said as Amanda walked out of her huge three-car garage.  I noticed a black Porsche parked in the far space, and a blue Mercedes in the middle spot, next to Amanda’s sleek gray Lexus.

I had just followed Amanda to her house in Castle Pines, an exclusive gated community of huge, custom-built homes resting in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains near Castle Rock.  The continuing sprawl of suburban Denver threatened smaller towns, but in areas like Castle Pines, between Castle Rock and south Denver, the neighborhoods were still quiet and you had breathtaking views of the mountains thrown in.  I could smell fresh pine carried in an early winter breeze that whipped up dead leaves in the lawn.

“Come on inside,” she said, looking around nervously.  I didn’t know what she had to worry about; the nearest house was at least a hundred feet away and I hadn’t seen anybody out on the meandering road that led to her place.

I suppressed a whistle as we walked across creamy red flagstone steps to a long front porch.  Having grown up in the cradle of wealth, I was not easily impressed, but this came close.  The Ghering house, with its opulent Victorian design, certainly challenged my childhood home in size.  It was painted eggshell white, complemented by black trim and decorative ironwork on the windows, with a huge red brick chimney jutting out from the south side of the house.  Unlit Christmas lights hung from the eave, and from the branches of two large pine trees in the front yard.

“Why did you give up the idea of killing Peter?” I asked as we stepped inside.  A spacious foyer branched off in three directions, to the right a cozy sitting room, to the left a large living room, lavishly decorated, and straight ahead stairs leading to the second floor.  It didn’t take a detective to know that a lot of money had gone into the decor.

“Let me take your coat,” Amanda said, hanging both hers and mine in a closet under the staircase.  “Would you like a drink?”

I hesitated because it was barely lunchtime.  “It’s a bit early for me.  A glass of water would be fine.  And how about an answer to my question.”

She beckoned me to follow her into the living room, where she crossed to a minibar and began preparing drinks, water and ice for me, vodka and a splash of Rose’s lime juice for her.  I curled an eyebrow at her as she swallowed half her drink.  “This whole thing’s got me tied up in knots,” she said, justifying her actions.

I sat down on an expensive leather sofa near a towering Christmas tree adorned with gold ribbons and red lights.  I sipped my glass of water and said nothing, but wondered if she’d already thrown back a drink or two before coming to my office.  It could explain her willingness to talk.

Amanda stared at me as she finished her drink.  “I decided not to kill Peter because he may be unfaithful, but he’s not worth killing.”  She set the empty glass back on the bar and pushed an imaginary hair away from her eyes.  As she talked, I was riveted by those eyes, how piercing they were.  “I assumed the role of the spoiled rich wife, a country club woman,” she continued, toying with an enormous diamond on her left ring finger that reflected the light from a huge bay window.  “I use his money like he uses me.  I’m a side attraction, there when he wants me; I fade into the woodwork when he doesn’t.”

Dressed as she was in another expensive designer outfit, every piece from her earrings to the matching leather heels, she clearly used his money well.  “Tell me about this business trip,” I said, sinking further into the sofa.

“Peter started out in Florida.  He stayed there for a week, then a week in New York, and he was supposed to be in Philadelphia this last week.”

“Supposed to be?  Did he not make it to Philadelphia?”

“No.”

“Are  you sure?”

Amanda frowned.  “Of course I'm sure.  The last time I heard from Peter was his last night in New York.  He was leaving for Philly the next morning.  The police told me that his ticket from New York to Philly wasn’t used.”

“Could he have changed his mind?  Taken the train instead?”

“I suppose that’s possible.  But it isn’t like Peter.  He’s meticulous to a fault and tied to his routines.  I can’t see him changing his plans like that and not telling me.”

“Okay, so he didn’t use the airline ticket, and you didn’t hear from him this past week.”  I cocked my head to the side.  “But that doesn’t mean he never made it to Philadelphia.  Or that he’s dead.”

“True.”  She thrust a finger in my direction.  “That’s why I hired you, to find out what happened.  I think he’s dead.  Maybe he had an accident, met an angry husband of one of his lovers.  I don’t know, but I’m preparing myself for the worst.”  She was doing a fine job of it, I thought, eyeing the empty glass behind her.

“Then you’d inherit the money and all your problems would be solved.”

Her face twisted into a quick mixture of emotions – sadness, pleasure, fear, then blank.  “I suppose.  Boy, would that make Peter’s parents angry.”

“Why?”

Amanda contemplated the question for a moment, then said, “Peter’s parents never really liked me.  I think they resent the fact that Peter has done well for himself, that we live so well now.  They don’t live as well, but money from Peter’s estate would go a long way for them.”

“You’re sure you would inherit and not his parents?”

“Yes.  I saw a copy of the will after Peter came from the attorney’s office.  His parents have their own money.  Not as much as us, but they have some.  He didn’t see any need to give them any more.”

I pondered her last revelation.  “I can see why you hope he’s dead.”

If it angered her, she didn’t show it.  She stood a bit straighter and gazed at me, unflappable.  We stayed in speculative silence long enough for me to sing the chorus of The Police’s “Murder by Numbers” in my head.

“So,” I finally said.  I set my empty glass on the coffee table and leaned my elbows on my knees.  “Do you have a copy of Peter’s itinerary and who he was working for?”

“Sure.”

“Plane reservations, hotel reservations, any car rental information?”

She nodded.  “All of that should be upstairs in his office.  Peter was self-employed, so everything would be there.”

“Let’s have a look,” I said.

“Right now?”

“Is that okay?” I asked.  I wondered about the slight resistance, but dismissed it.

“No, that’s fine.”  I stood up and followed Amanda as she headed for the stairs, passing a picture in a gold frame sitting on a teak wood end table.  “Is this Peter?” I asked, picking up the photo.

Amanda stopped and turned.  “Yes.  As you can see, he’s easy to fall for.  Tall, six-two; dark brown eyes, quite good-looking,” Amanda said.  I examined the picture and agreed.  Peter Ghering, dressed in white shorts and a dark blue Oxford shirt, stood in front of a long white sailboat, a cocky half-smile on his tanned face.  He kept his hair short, the curls neatly slicked into place.  He pointed at the camera with his sunglasses, seeming relaxed, a man without a care in the world.

“How recent is this?” I asked.

“Taken last summer, but he still looks the same.”

“Six to eight months probably wouldn’t change him much,” I said, memorizing the picture before I put the photo back.  “What kind of a man is Peter?”  I chose my words with care, speaking of him in the present.  No reason to think otherwise.

“A control freak, driven to succeed.  Highly successful, but emotionally he has nothing to give.  He’s charming, at least at times, devastatingly handsome, and great in bed.  That alone kept me going for a long time.”

A Harlequin hero.  “How long have you been married?”

“Fifteen years.”  Amanda gazed out the window, as if she could see her wedding day in the sunshine outside.  “We were young, right out of college.  Peter was going places and I wanted to be right there with him.  He liked the high life, and so did I.  We were going to be Mr. and Mrs. Perfect.”  Her eyes turned back to me.  “But the monotony of marriage set in.  He spent more time on business trips; I spent more time at the country club.  He began to play around.”

“Did you?”

“Have an affair?”

I nodded.

“No,” she said.  “Tempted, once, but I didn’t.  When I wanted great sex, I had Peter.  As for an affair, I never met anyone that I thought could be a suitable companion.”

That made sense, at least at the moment.  “Was he always unfaithful?”

“I didn’t think so, but looking back on it, he probably was.  A few of my sorority sisters were awfully close with him.  At the time I was in love, so I didn’t see anything bad in their behavior.  I assumed he was being friendly.”

“Any children?”

“None.  I wanted to, but he didn’t.”

“Any financial troubles?  Business troubles?”

“No,” she said.  “Everything was great.  We were playing the game like we always did, no questions asked.  Then Peter didn’t call.  It doesn’t fit.  He should’ve come home.”

I wondered why a man with no problems would disappear.  Unless she was the problem.  The threat of a violent end at the hands of one’s wife seemed like a problem to me.  If he knew about it.

Amanda turned to head upstairs to Peter’s office.  “I know you don’t believe Peter’s dead.  Please, find out what happened to him.  I need to know.”

With five million hanging in the balance, I could see why.

CHAPTER THREE

Peter’s office took up the whole north side of the house.  The room was painted a light, creamy brown, with large windows east and west.  A mahogany desk the size of a compact car sat directly across from the door, taking up a sizable portion of the room.  On one side of it was a two-drawer file cabinet, on the other a computer printer sitting on a small stand.  Three-foot shelves spanned the entire wall behind the desk, and a huge painting of a sailboat on calm waters hung centered on the wall over the desk.  In the remainder of the room were a small table with a reading chair in one corner and a glass display case with a few model boats in the other corner.

“This is where he works,” Amanda said.  “When he’s in town,” she said as an afterthought.

I moved around the desk and sat in the leather executive chair.  Definitely more comfortable than the one in my office; it cushioned my underside like a pillow.  I ran my hands across the mahogany desktop, then checked out the computer monitor.  It was the very latest model, practically paper thin, taking up very little room on the desk.  I lightly tapped the keyboard, then switched on a small antique Tiffany desk lamp.  The room reeked of expensive taste.

“He also has a laptop for travel,” Amanda said.  “It’s with him.”

That made sense, since he was on a business trip, but I didn’t point out the obvious.  “I guess we have to start here.  Do you mind if I look at what he’s got on the computer?”

“I could care less what’s on that thing.”  I glanced at her as I turned it on.  Did she despise the technology or the man who used it?

“Let’s see what we have here.”  I waited for the computer to think its way through initial setup; when it finished, the desktop appeared with a variety of files on it.  I examined them, humming the catchy opening notes from a tune by The Smiths.  I double-clicked on one file after another.  Most of the files were documents related to Peter’s work, details of program modifications, suggestions for improvements, and a lot of computer lingo that I didn’t understand.  A few documents prompted me for a password, which raised my curiosity.  Not that they contained anything more than contracts or something he wouldn’t want just anybody, like me, to have access to, but a detective didn’t like not knowing.

“Anything interesting?” Amanda asked after a bit of fidgeting from the reading chair.

“Nope.”  I continued perusing files and humming The Smiths song.

“Is that How Soon Is Now?” she asked.

I looked up in surprise.  “Sure is.”  Not too many people recognized that alternative '80s band, or one of their greatest hits.

“I think we’re about the same age,” she said with a roll of her eyes.  “You’re what?  Thirty?  Thirty-five?”

“Thirty-four,” I said.

“Class of eighty-two.”  Amanda smiled.  “I like a lot of the groups from the eighties.”

“The Smiths were great,” I said, feeling like the schoolboy again.  She likes the same music as I do!  Get a grip, Reed.  She’s a client.  But I kept humming.

“Well, well.  What have we here?”

Amanda bolted up from the chair and came around the desk.  “What?”

I was checking Peter’s emails.  I couldn't believe he hadn't password protected them, but it made my job easier.  The Inbox contained only a few, but one of those was from a lady named Sheila.  The email was dated six months ago, and was brief but to the point.

“Dear Peter,” it read.  “So glad to hear from you.  Call me when you get in and we can have dinner and then… :-)”.  Below that: “Love Sheila”.  Underneath that was an auto signature, standard with most company emails, and this conveniently listed her full name as Sheila Banks.  It also had the company address, phone and fax numbers, and web site address.  Sheila obviously had little concern about being caught.  Either that, or she was incredibly stupid.  I’d recently heard about a couple who had spent the night together, and the unfortunate woman wrote her lover a steamy email about their night of passion, only to see him send it on to his friends, who send it on to their friends, and so on.  In a nanosecond the email passed through cyberspace, ending up in Inboxes all over the world, turning into a lover’s nightmare.  I saw the story on the news.  I’ll bet Sheila didn’t count on Peter keeping her email around, which wasn’t a very smart assumption on her part.

“That bastard,” Amanda said, smacking a delicate palm on the desk.  “Keeping an email like that.  I knew they were contacting him, but to keep the evidence...”  I knew exactly who “they” were.  And it sounded like there were a lot of “them.”

“Where did you expect them to contact him?”

She bit her lip.  “I don’t know.  I guess when he got to whatever city they were in.  Not here.”

“Maybe Peter didn’t consider his computer part of your home.”  I pulled out a pad and pen from my coat pocket while I talked.  “However, I would’ve thought he’d at least keep the correspondence on his laptop and not here.”  I printed the email, complete with Sheila’s business information and email address.

“Why?” Amanda asked.  “I never use this computer.  As a matter of fact, I hardly use the computer Peter bought me, except for occasional emails to keep up with friends.”

“But you could’ve looked here.”

Amanda shook her head.  “No, it’s like I told you.  Peter and I kept up the pretense of a good marriage.  I had no need to spy on him.  Besides, I knew what was going on.  There wouldn’t be any need for me to look here at all.”

The other emails were business correspondence, but I jotted down names and addresses just in case.  I didn’t find anything else on the computer that seemed significant, so I shut it down and rummaged around in the desk drawers.  “Where’s his itinerary?”

“Right here.”  Amanda opened the file cabinet drawer and pulled out a manila folder marked “airline info”, and handed it to me.

I leaned back in the chair and thumbed through the papers.  Each was a travel printout either from a travel agent or an airline, organized chronologically, with the latest trip in the back.  On his apparent last trip, Peter flew United Airlines, starting out twenty-six days ago.  The printout detailed flight information and times from Miami, Florida, to New York City, and then Philadelphia.

“Three weeks.  That’s a long business trip.”

She shrugged.  “That was where the work was, so he took it.  He made great money by consulting.”

I closed the file.  “Can I take this with me?”  Amanda nodded, so I set the file aside and examined the rest of the folders in the cabinet.

“Here’s his hotel information,” I said, pulling out another folder neatly labeled like the others.  I shuffled through it.  The last sheet was an email printout from a travel agent showing which hotels Peter was booked in and for how many nights, the last in Philadelphia.  I put that aside as well.

I looked further, admiring the neat and organized manner in which Peter kept his business files.  I did not have nearly the talent.  I found folders for each trip he had taken from the beginning of the year, ten months worth, with receipts and an itemized printout recording each expense in detail.  Planes, hotels, taxis, parking, car rental, all paper clipped to the printout.  The last folder had a label with the dates of this trip, but it was empty, the receipts Peter would have collected presumably still with him, wherever he was.

“Too bad,” I said.  “But at least I’ve got names of hotels where he planned to stay.  That’s a starting point.”

“Yes.”

“Did the police check with any of them?”

She shrugged her shoulders.  “I don’t know.  I talked to them yesterday, and they didn’t tell me anything.”

“Who’s the detective working on this?”

“His name is Detective Merrick.  Jimmy Merrick.  He’s with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department.”

I took down his phone number and made a mental note to contact him, then rummaged some more, checking all the drawers.  More letters to clients, marketing plans, bills.  That was all.  Enough to know that Peter made a lot of money, but little else.  I opened the thin middle drawer of the desk, pushed around the papers and notepads, uncovering some photos.  I pulled them out, four in all.  In each one Peter posed with a different woman, and from the backgrounds, in different locations.  The women were stunningly gorgeous and appeared to be much younger than Peter.  He hadn’t tried very hard to hide his dalliances.

I handed them to Amanda.  “Recognize any of them?”

As she looked at them, her breathing became more controlled, heavy breaths coming out of a slit in her mouth.  “No.”  She slapped them on the desk.  “No, I don’t recognize them.”

“You don’t know anything about his liaisons?”

“No.  I told you, we pretended everything was normal.”  I wondered how she could keep up the pretense when he had so much available time and seemingly so many available women.

“Do you mind if I take these?”  I picked up the pictures.

“What do I want with them?” she murmured with a dismissive wave of her hand.

I sat back in the chair and slowly looked around the room, searching for inspiration, something to set off a flame.  I didn’t even get a spark.  Only the silence of the room, and the low rumblings of a huge, nearly empty house.

“So what do you do now?” Amanda broke the quiet.

I shrugged.  “Try and track Peter down through hotel records, that sort of thing.  See where this email leads.”  I held up the stack of papers.

“If you need anything else, let me know.”

“I do need one other thing.”

She tucked a wave of hair behind her ear, waiting for me to continue.  “I’m assuming you have shared credit cards?”  She nodded.  “Good.  I need you to call them or go online and get the transaction information for the past three weeks.  I want to know all the transactions, when and where.  As soon as you can get it.”

“I can do that this afternoon.  Will that be quick enough?”

“Sure,” I said.  “You can call me at the office.”

“Is that all?”

I smiled.  “For now.”

She leaned against the edge of the desk.  “If you’re done here, how would you like to have a drink before you go?”

Was she flirting with me?  No, couldn’t be.  I tried to look at my watch without looking like I was looking at my watch.

“I know it’s early,” she rushed to explain, leaning forward.  “But I’m used to having a cocktail at the club with lunch.”

I caught another whiff of perfume.  “No, uh, thanks.”  I stood up but Amanda didn’t budge.

“Do you know why I hired you?”  She traced a figure eight on the desk.  Back and forth.

“Because I can be discreet?”

One side of her mouth turned up in a sexy half-smile.  “Yes.  And you seem like a nice guy.”  A cliché, but it worked.  I felt my chest getting tight.

“It’s just one drink.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

“Well, maybe another time.”  The half smile remained.

I tripped around the desk.  “I’d better be going.”

A pout formed at the corners of her mouth.  “If you say so.”  She continued to trace on the desk.  “Will you take a rain check?”

“Sure,” I agreed.  And got the hell out of there.

CHAPTER FOUR

My office, creatively named “Ferguson Detective Agency”, occupies two small rooms in a renovated warehouse in downtown Denver, a few blocks from the outdoor Sixteenth Street Mall, the city’s urban heartbeat.  The rent borders on outrageous, but I thrive on the lively atmosphere and the burgeoning nightlife in the neighborhood.  I also like that I have my very own bathroom; it’s miniscule, but at least I don’t have to run to the end of the hall every time nature calls.  Or when I need to splash water on my face.

“Wow.  That’s cold,” I said to my reflection in the mirror above the sink in the bathroom.  My hazel eyes gazed back, chastising me.  I had just successfully averted a liaison with my first client.  At least for the moment.

“Focus, Reed.  It’s your first case,” I said to my reflection.  “You don’t want to emulate all the traits of the movie detectives.”  Like having an affair with your client, who also happens to be married.

I dried my face off, feeling more-or-less in control.  I tossed the towel on a rung and returned to the office.  Okay, what would Bogie do, I asked myself as I paced back and forth.

After a moment I sat down at my desk, grabbed the phone, and dialed a hotel number from Peter’s itinerary.

“Thank you for calling the Hilton Miami.  How may I direct your call?”  A deep male voice droned.

“I’m trying to track down a friend of mine who stayed there a couple of weeks ago.  Could you help me?” I asked.  I’ve found that a direct approach usually gets you the information you want, and what better way to verify how far Peter had made it through his trip than to contact the hotels on his itinerary?

“Name please.”  This operator at the Hilton in Miami didn’t waste any air.

I figured he was asking for the name of my supposed friend, not me.  “Peter Ghering.”  I spelled it for him.

I heard some tapping on a computer keyboard.  “Yes.  He stayed here for six nights and left on November twentieth.”  It’s amazing what information can be gleaned from a quick phone call.  If you don’t hesitate and sound self-assured, you can get almost anything out of anybody.

I thanked him and called the next stop on Peter’s itinerary, the Embassy Suites Hotel in New York City.  “Could you spell the last name, sir?” a friendly female voice requested.

I did and waited while she looked up the information.

“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Ghering checked out over a week ago, on Sunday.”

“Did he leave any forwarding information?”

She paused.  “No, I’m sorry.  Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, thanks.”  I hung up, dialed the number for the hotel in Philadelphia, and went through the same routine.

“Ghering?” another feminine voice asked.  “I show that he checked out on Friday morning.”

“Any forwarding information?”

“I don’t show anything.”

I hung up.  So Peter Ghering had made it to Philadelphia, stayed the week, and left.  Where did he go?  I read through the itinerary again.  It showed that Peter had a flight out of Philadelphia International Airport at just past nine in the morning this past Monday.  So what did he do over the weekend, and where did he stay?  He was probably with a girlfriend, but which one?  And why didn’t he use the airline ticket from New York to Philly?  Did he not like the puddle-jumpers?

I picked up the phone again and called the number for United Airlines, and after a series of transfers, spoke to a manager.

“This is Abe Avery,” a nasally voice said.  I pictured Abe speaking with a clothes pin on his nose.  “How may I help you?”

I launched into an explanation about how I was trying to find out if the tickets Peter purchased had indeed been used.

“May I have your name please?”

“Sam Spade.  I’m a private investigator.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Spade, but that information is confidential.”  His tone implied that I should’ve known that.

“This is a missing-persons case,” I put an imperative edge in my voice.  “This man has not been seen since last Friday.”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot reveal that information without a warrant.”  His voice droned like an annoying bee.  “If you’d like to come down here with that, I’m sure I can help you with what you need.”

The real Sam Spade didn’t have to go through this, I thought.  Too bad the airlines weren’t as easy as hotels.  I thanked Abe anyway and hung up.

My stomach growled, noting that feeding time had passed.  I glanced at the clock: two o’clock.  At least I’d miss the lunch rush.  I walked to BD’s Mongolian Grill where a light crowd filled a few tables.  Two trips to the make-your-own stir-fry   meat, vegetable, and condiments bar filled me up, and I headed back to the office with renewed vigor.

*****

When I returned to the office, I checked my voice mail, hoping that Amanda had called with the transaction information from their credit cards, but there were no messages.  I decided to see if I could find out anything about the official investigation, so I picked up the phone and called Detective Merrick at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, located south of Denver.

“Merrick,” he said pleasantly into the phone.  I identified who I was and my interest in the case.  “I see,” he said when I’d finished.  “I don’t envy you your job.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled.  “I really shouldn't divulge any information about our investigation.”

“Could you tell me if his airline ticket was used all the way to Denver?”  I knew I’d never get this information from the airlines themselves.

He sighed into the phone.  “You could get Amanda to look into that.”

“I could, but I’ve got you on the phone.”

After a long pause, he said, “The ticket Peter booked was used only as far as Philadelphia.  Not back to Denver.”

“Did he fly back to Denver on any flight?”

“He wasn’t ticketed on any flight that we know of.  That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have taken an unregistered flight, hired a private plane or something like that, but we don’t have a record of that.  Now that’s all you’ll get from me.”  The line went dead.

I sat back in my chair.  Amanda told me that Peter’s ticket wasn’t used from New York City to Philadelphia.  Merrick said that it was.  Was she getting things confused?  Or was she lying to me?

I grabbed the phone again and called Amanda, but after four rings, an answering machine picked up.  I hoped that meant she was working on the credit card information.  Or maybe she had sought out the drink at the club.  As the digital voice instructed me to leave a message, I wondered why Amanda said what she did about the airline tickets.  She had some explaining to do.  I heard a beep on the line, asked her to call me when she got in, left my number, and cradled the phone.

I pulled out the sheet of paper with Sheila’s email address.  I re-booted up my computer, connected to my email, and composed a message to Peter’s clandestine friend.

“Sheila,” I wrote.  “Please contact me about P. Ghering.  It’s very important.  Thanks.”  I signed it Reed Ferguson, with my only office and cell phone numbers beneath.  Unless Sheila was psychic, she would have no idea who I was.  I hoped the mystery would prompt a response, but not create too much curiosity in case someone else read Sheila’s email.  After all, I knew nothing at all about this woman.  She might be married or in a relationship.  I didn’t want to let her secret, however much there was, out of the bag, at least not yet.  I’d see what kind of response I got from her first.  If this didn’t work, I’d resort to a phone call.  I hit the send button.  “C’mon Sheila, you’re a curious woman, right?”

I picked up the four photos of Peter and his nameless girlfriends.  Was one of them Sheila?  I looked at them more closely.  They all had the same general appearance, tall, thin brunettes with long, straight hair, and lots of gold jewelry.  Smiles adorned their faces as they clung to Peter while he grinned as if he’d just won the lottery.  Cookie-cutter girlfriends.  And they bore no resemblance to Amanda.

A sound clip I had downloaded from The Maltese Falcon, Bogie's voice, said, “Somebody always gives me guns.”  When I heard his voice, I knew I had mail.  I opened up the message, a cryptic note from Sheila.

“Who are you and what do you want?” the lone line stared back at me.

“So you want to be evasive,” I said to the screen.  “Okay, you asked for it.”  I hit the reply button and wrote, “I’m a private investigator.  I’ve been hired by Mrs. Ghering to find the whereabouts of Peter Ghering, and I need to know if you have any information about where he might be, or if you’ve seen him in the last three weeks.”  I hit the send button.

“You have to respond now,” I said to the screen.  “You don’t want to be involved, but now you have to know who I am and if I’m telling the truth.”  While I waited, I turned on my MP3 player and selected The Smiths greatest hits CD.  I forwarded it to “How Soon Is Now”, sat back down at my desk and sang along.  I didn’t make it through the song before Bogie's voice interrupted.  Sheila was hooked.

I opened the email.  “Please,” it read.  “I can’t tell you anything right now.  I’ll call you when I get off work, around six, four your time.”  I assumed she guessed I was writing from the same city as the Gherings, and that I was in the Mountain Time zone.  If she was two hours ahead of me, she lived somewhere on the East coast.  New York, Philly, or some other place Peter visited?  I responded, telling her to call the office number, and sent the email.  I sat back with a satisfied sigh.  It was three-thirty.  I didn’t have long before I’d hear personally from the mysterious Sheila.

CHAPTER FIVE

At precisely four o’clock, my phone rang.  I picked it up after a not-to-appear-too-anxious three rings.  “Start talking,” I said in a way I imagined the inimitable detective Kinky Friedman would talk, to the point and don’t waste my time.

“Reed Ferguson?”  At any other time the voice would have sounded pleasant, soft and lilting.  Right now it sounded like an old beeper on vibrate, all nervous edges.

“And you’re Sheila?” I asked.

A pause.  “Yes.”  The connection crackled, mixed with the humming of a car engine.  “I’m on my way home from work.  This is the only time I can talk to you.”  No questions about Peter, me, or why I was contacting her.

“Then let’s get right to the point,” I said.  “Tell me about Peter Ghering.  Specifically about you and Peter.”

“I worked with him on occasion.  And before we go any further, how did you get my email address?”  A touch of indignation.

“Off of Peter’s computer, at his house.  And it wasn’t a business email.”  I didn’t mention that she’d left all her business identification on a very personal email.

Silence, long enough, I imagined, for her to mentally review her correspondence with Peter, and to wonder if Amanda had read any of it.  I began to wonder if the connection had broken when she spoke, the ire gone from her voice.

“I just said, I worked with Peter.  That doesn’t mean a person can’t send a friendly note once in a while.”

How stupid did she think I was?  “The tone indicated more than words were exchanged,” I said.  “Why don’t you tell me about your relationship with Peter?”

“What do you want to know?”

Now how do you like that!   She wanted to play it as if we were exchanging beauty tips.  I sat up in my chair, leaning my elbows on the edge of the desk.  “Sheila, how long before you get home?”

“What?  Uh, in about fifteen minutes.”

“Is there a husband waiting for you there?”

Another pause.  “Please, you can’t let him know anything about this.  I can’t have that happen.”

“Then answer my questions straight and maybe we won’t have to involve him.”  I was all pleasant, but the threat dug deep.  “I couldn't care less about your affair.  I’m trying to find Peter.”

“All right,” she said, her voice tight.  “I met Peter about a year ago.  He was doing some consulting work for my company, and he was out here for a week.”

“Where’s here?” I asked.

“Willow Grove.  A suburb of Philadelphia.”

“What happened?”

“We worked through the week, and the last night Peter was here, I took him to dinner.  It’s standard practice for the company, a courtesy kind of thing.  The VP who was supposed to go with us canceled at the last minute, so it was just Peter and me.”  I heard the sound of a horn honking.  “Hey, watch it,” Sheila yelled at another driver, then to me in a quiet voice, “Oh, sorry.”

I relaxed some and smiled.  “No problem.”  I can relate to rush hour traffic.

“Anyway, we went to dinner, and afterward Peter invited me up to his room for a drink.  My husband was out of town, so I said yes.  One thing led to another.  Do I need to paint you a picture?”

I chuckled.  “Your honesty is astounding.  Let’s try another question.  Have you been seeing Peter since that time?”

“Yes.  Whenever Peter came out here, we made it a point to get together.”  She seemed smart enough to realize that the email I had read could’ve been dated at any time over the last year.

“How often did he work with your company?”

“Not that often, but we’d get together whenever he came East, not just when he came to Philly.  He made trips to New York, Washington DC, sometimes Baltimore.  I’d go wherever he was if I could get away, or he’d come here when he finished with his business.  Whenever we could work it out.”

“Your husband never suspected anything?”

“No, he doesn’t know anything.  He travels a lot, so I have plenty of time on my own.”  It sounded like a familiar story.  A big, lonely world.  Spouses not happy in their current situation.  And everybody left to their own devices.  Poor babies.

“Did you see Peter on this latest trip?”

“Yes.  I picked him up at the hotel on Friday and we spent the weekend at a cabin outside of Philadelphia that my husband and I own.  I took him to the airport on Monday morning, dropped him off, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him.  I didn’t know anything might be wrong until you emailed me.”  For the first time she seemed concerned, but whether it was for Peter or for the possibility of her involvement in his disappearance, I wasn’t sure.

“No emails from him, or phone calls?”

“No, nothing.”

“Have you tried to contact him since then?”

“No,” she said.  “Look, I’m almost home.  Haven’t I answered enough questions?”

“You don’t seem very upset about all this.”

“Hey, I’m no fool,” her voice took on a cautious edge.  “I enjoyed my time with Peter.  We had a good time in bed, had some nice conversations, but that was all.  He has his life and I have mine.  If he’s missing now, my first thought would be to see what other women are involved.”

“Spoken like a true saint.”

“Don’t judge me, Mr. Ferguson.  I’m trying to help you now,” she said.  “Please don’t contact me again.”  The connection died.

I hung up and stared at the pictures of Peter.  I still didn’t know if one of the women was Sheila.  Not that it mattered.  It seemed Peter had a girl in every port.  A little fun on the side, no strings attached.  A wife at home who didn’t say a word about it.  “You must be really good,” I said to his smiling image.  “No wonder you look so smug.”

I stood up and stretched, thinking about the conversation.  I could now place Peter at the airport in Philadelphia on Monday.  According to Detective Merrick, Peter hadn’t taken his scheduled flight, or any other commercial flight, back to Denver.  So where was he?  The credit card transactions could help me narrow that.  Had the police already checked this?  Amanda could fill in some of these holes.

I glanced at the clock.  Four-fifteen.  Where was Miss Lonely-Hearts?  Still at the club, more likely.  As if an ESP connection had started, the phone rang again.  I answered on the first ring.

“Reed, it’s Amanda.”  She gasped, her breathing coming out in sharp spurts.

“Just the lady I wanted to talk to.  Have you called the credit cards companies yet?”

“You’ve got to come out here!  Right away!”

“Why?”

“I received a ransom note.”

CHAPTER SIX

“We’ll take this in for fingerprint analysis and let you know what we find out,” Detective Jimmy Merrick said to Amanda.  She stood in the middle of the room, rubbing her hands over her arms as if she couldn’t get warm.  “If you hear anything at all, call me right away.”

I was standing in the Ghering’s spacious living room, listening to Merrick, a tall, red-haired guy in wrinkled gray pants, white shirt and blue sport coat, his tie askew, wrapping up his interview with Amanda about the ransom note.

I had arrived just as the detectives were finishing.  Merrick had the ransom note in a Ziploc bag, but he begrudgingly showed it to me after I showed him my driver’s license, verifying who I said I was.  He wasn’t at all impressed with my presence, but Amanda made a scene about the police interfering with her right to hire an outside investigator.  Merrick shrugged his shoulders, but offered little in the way of information.  His partner, Randy Cash, had already gone.

“You want one last look?” Merrick said to me, holding up the baggy.  Sarcasm dripped like sap at his offer.

“No, I think I’ve got it committed to memory,” I said with just as much bite in my tone.  If I couldn’t remember the note, I should get out of the business, for it consisted of two lines.  The first said, “One million - cash.”  The second, “We will be in touch.”  Printed on white paper, almost certainly done on a computer.  Hardly anyone used a typewriter anymore.  The note, paper, and print type were so common that I didn’t expect any possible clues from it.

“Mrs. Ghering,” Merrick nodded curtly to her and turned to leave, almost running into the massive Christmas tree.

“Thanks for your help,” I said, acting on Amanda’s behalf as Merrick sidestepped the tree on his way to the entryway.  I felt like a butler escorting him out.

“Watch yourself.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

Merrick held the door open, and he met my eyes with a cold gaze.  “Watch yourself with her.  She’s not what she seems.”

“How would you know?”

“Too many years on the job.”

I searched his face, but nothing accompanied the warning.  His face had the expression of a corpse.  “Thanks for the tip,” I said.  Merrick stepped out into the cool night.  I watched the detectives drive off in a white four-door sedan, then walked back into the living room and sat down.

“Now you see why I hired you,” Amanda said as she slumped down into a leather chair across from me.  She picked up a martini glass from an mahogany end table and swished the last droplets around, then tossed the drink back.  With the other hand she twirled a curl of her hair, pulled it straight, then let it flop back onto her forehead.  I had watched her do the same nervous motion while the detectives talked to her.

“They seemed competent,” I said.

“Ha!” she spat at me.  “They’re not going to do anything.  Pat the poor woman on the hand and leave.”  She managed her words carefully, in the way heavy drinkers do so no one knows they're drunk.

“They don’t have much to go on,” I said.  I knew from our earlier phone call that upon returning from the country club, she'd discovered the note slipped partway under the doormat on the front porch.  It had been folded in half, delivered without an envelope.  She had called me right away.

“Does this mean that Peter’s dead?” she asked, a hazy look on her face.

I stood up and walked over to her, taking her glass away.  “I doubt it.  In most cases, if the kidnappers ask for ransom, they keep the hostage alive so they can get the money.  Kind of like leverage.”  I had no idea if this was true, but it sounded comforting.  It seemed to work for her.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, standing up.  She grabbed the glass from me and walked a shaky path to a minibar at the far end of the room.  She set the glass down with a clunk, poured Stolichnaya vodka into it, added a dash of vermouth, dropped a green olive in the concoction, and meandered back to her chair, sipping the drink as she went.

“Can you come up with that kind of money?”

“I don’t know.  I may have to involve his parents.”

“They don’t know anything?”

“Of course not.  We don’t talk to them much at all, the holidays mostly.”  She sucked the olive from the glass.  While munching on it she said, “I didn’t see any need to worry them, not when I didn’t know what was going on.”

“But you thought he was dead.  That’s seems like a good reason to involve them.”

“Why tell them anything when I didn’t know for sure?  They’d be angrier at me for upsetting them needlessly if it all turned out okay.”  She tipped her head back and finished off the vodka.  Her words were becoming more slurred.  “You don’t know Peter’s parents.  They’re as insensitive as he is.  Was.  Oh god.”  She turned her head to the side and let out a sob, then recovered enough to head back to the minibar.

“What about your parents?”

“My parents certainly don’t have that kind of money,” she said as she mixed yet another martini.

“Do they know what’s going on?”

She guzzled the drink down and said, “No, and I don’t intend to tell them either.  Not until this is resolved.”  She turned to face me, leaning against the bar for support.  Anger and alcohol turned her face splotchy red.  “If you must know, Peter and I don’t have much contact with our families.  They resented our getting married, and the rift begun then remains.  That’s the way they want it, so I haven’t told them anything.”

I watched her, contemplating this beautiful woman with a growing pity.  Amanda Ghering, at the present moment, was a pathetic, drunken mess.  I sighed as I watched her twirling her hair.  I had a lot of questions about what was going on, but I decided against asking anything now.  I stood up.  “I don’t know what we can accomplish at the moment.  I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She turned her wet, mascara-smeared eyes to me.  “Please, don’t go.  It’s so lonely here.”  She reached a bejeweled hand out to me.

“I thought you didn’t have affairs.”

She smiled.  “There’s a first time for everything.”

I was flattered, but as I looked into her hazy eyes, I knew that now was definitely not the time.  I shook my head at her and left.  As I opened the front door, I glanced back.  She was walking back to the minibar, fixing another drink.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next morning I slept late, ran some errands, and didn’t get to the office until after lunch.  And to my surprise, Amanda was pacing in the hall, waiting for my arrival.  She looked like leftovers after a month in the frig, wearing the same slacks and blouse from last night, the curl in her hair flattened, her eyes puffy and bloodshot, her face the color of ash.  She was a walking hangover.  And I didn’t feel sorry for her.

“It’s about time you got here,” she fired at me.  “What kind of detective are you?”  She traipsed past me and tapped her foot while I unlocked the inner office door.  Once inside, she eased down into the chair and said, “You have some explaining to do.”  I raised an eyebrow at her.

“I have some explaining to do?”  I was prepared to confront her, but she was not following the plan I had in my mind.  “What’s going on here?”

“What did you tell the police last night?”

I sat back, staring at her.  “I didn’t tell the detectives anything.  You did all the talking.  Or don’t you remember?”

“Don’t be fresh with me,” she clipped her words.  “I know perfectly well what I said to them.  Why wouldn’t I?”

“Maybe because you were trying to crawl into a vodka bottle while they talked to you.”  I matched her intensity.  “Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”

She slammed her purse down onto the floor beside the chair.  Lipstick and a pocket mirror flew out of it.  “I got a call this morning at eight o’clock.  It was Detective Merrick.  He’d like to ask me more questions about the note.  If that would be okay.”

“So?”

“So,” she mimicked me.  “He practically said that I wrote it, that I knew more about Peter’s disappearance than I was telling them.  He grilled me for half the morning.”  She pointed a finger at me.  “You told them something to put the suspicion on me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.  “I didn’t talk to them at all.  I was with you the whole time.”

“You saw them to the door.”

Apparently she hadn't been in a total blackout.  Or her selective memory was better than I thought.  “Where Detective Merrick warned me," I said.  "About you.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said, and I quote, ‘things aren’t always what they appear.’”  I pointed at her.  “That you might not be what you appear.”

Her eyes became slits, warily contemplating my.  “What does that mean?” she finally asked.

“You tell me.  I know you lied to me.”

“About what?”

“Now who’s being fresh?” I said while she glared at me.  “The plane ticket.  Peter used his ticket from New York to Philly.  And the police told you that.”

“I must’ve made a mistake.”

I didn’t detect anything that made me think she was lying again.  “Why are the police suspicious of you?  Are you hiding something from them?  From me?”

“The police always suspect the spouse.  You should know that,” she snapped.

“Would you like to start this conversation over?”  I let Amanda think about that while I fixed her two of the most well-known hangover remedies known to man: coffee and water.

“Thank you.”  She accepted the coffee and ignored the water.  I set the glass on a table beside the chair and went back to my desk.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked, sitting down and crossing my arms.

She gulped the coffee.  “Okay.  The truth is, I knew about all the women.”

“You told me that.”  My patience was slipping away.

“Yes, but I wanted to put some kind of suspicion on them.  Whoever they were.”  The coffee seemed to be perking her up.  “Peter ruined our marriage.  I wanted the women to pay as well.”

“Maybe they already had.”

“I have no way of knowing that.  I figured if I said that Peter didn’t make it back to Denver, you’d have to go searching elsewhere to find him, and in the process, you’d have to bring these other women into the open.  Expose the affairs to their husbands or boyfriends.”

“But you had no way of knowing if these women were in relationships.”

She shrugged her shoulders.  “Some of them had to be.”

I stared into her blue eyes, trying to find some feeling floating behind the hangover glare.  Nothing but a cold stare.  No emotion for her husband, certainly none for anyone with whom he was involved, or the unsuspecting partners.

“Tell me what the police told you,” I said.  “The first time you talked to them.”

“Except for the thing about the plane tickets, I told you everything.”  She paused to sip more coffee.  “The police didn’t do anything.  They filed a missing persons report.  I gave them a picture of Peter and his itinerary, and they said a detective would look into it.  After a day, Detective Merrick called me and said the plane ticket was used to Philadelphia, but not back to Denver.  If Peter did fly back here, nobody knows about it.  They did some checking at the airport, and with the airlines, but nobody specifically remembers Peter being on that flight, or any other.”

Amanda’s monologue was one helluva lot more than she had shared when I first met her.  “What about the credit cards?” I asked.  “Which ones did he use?”

She averted her eyes.  “I haven’t looked into it yet.”

I shook my head slowly at her.  “You sound an awful lot like someone who doesn’t want to find her husband.  Is there anything else you’d like to do to make this harder for me?”

“I am trying to help you,” Amanda said, pouting.  “You’ve got to believe me.”

I stood up and came around the desk, handing her the phone.  “Then call the credit card companies.”

“Now?”

“Now.”  I held the receiver closer to her.  She set the empty cup down and took the phone gingerly, as if it might shock her.  “The numbers are on the back of the cards.”

“You don’t have to treat me like a child,” she fumed, cradling the phone in her lap while she dug around for her wallet.

“Then quit acting like one.”

I received a steely glare for that one.  She selected five credit cards out of a deck.  “These are the ones he carries.  He uses the American Express for business.  I have that card, but don’t use it.”  I gestured to the phone.  “All right.  You don’t have to get pushy.”  As she dialed a number she said, “This part of you I was not told about.”

“Darn.  I thought my charm was never-ending.”

I watched her while she called the numbers, jotting notes on a pad I provided her.  I read what she wrote after she completed the last call.

“He used AmEx on the seventh, paying for his hotel in Philadelphia,” I said.  That was a week ago, which meant that he’d spent the weekend with Sheila instead of returning to Denver.

“You didn’t make the other charges?”  I pointed out some charges on the list.

She shook her head.  “No, I rarely use these cards.”

“The Discover card was used at a gas station in Pennsylvania last Saturday,” I said.  “That could fit with what Sheila said.  But why use the Discover card if he’s got AmEx for business?”

Amanda’s head jerked up and she grimaced.  “When did you talk to Sheila?”  There was poison in her voice.  “What did she say?”

I smiled.  “That’s right.  I haven’t told you that.”  I sighed in an exaggerated manner.  “I was going to tell you last night, but you didn’t seem up for it.”

“I was upset, okay?  Stop harassing me about it.”

“I talked with Sheila late yesterday afternoon.  She told me about her and Peter, how they would meet on occasion, in Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, or New York.  Whenever and wherever it was convenient for them.  She spent last weekend with Peter before dropping him off at the airport on Monday morning.  That’s the last she’s seen or heard of him.”  I left out the part about appreciating Peter’s sexual prowess.

“That bastard.”  Amanda sat back and chewed the inside of her cheek.  She finally looked up at me and said, “You can see why I want her to suffer, too.”

I shrugged my shoulders.  “You’re worried about Peter, but you still want Sheila to suffer?”

“Absolutely.”

I shook my head, glancing at the poster of The Big Sleep.  I’d found a dame right out of the movies: darkly seductive, and probably dangerous.

Amanda sat up straight in the chair.  “What’s the matter?”

“I’m wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.”

“You’re not giving up, are you?”  Now she leaned forward on the edge of her chair, exposing some cleavage.  “You can’t do that.”

“I never said I was quitting,” I said.  But as I contemplated her, I began questioning why I agreed to take the case in the first place, and more significantly, what my initial attraction to her was.

“Look, I need your help,” Amanda pleaded.  “I’ll work with you, I promise.  No more games.”

I stared at her.

“Please,” she said.

“No more games,” I said.

She stared at me before nodding.  “Would you like to go for a drink?” she said with a sudden switch in demeanor.  She inched forward, trying to be sexy.  She may have even batted her eyelashes, but my anger had returned, so I couldn’t be sure.

“Amanda,” I said, moving around my desk.

“Yes?” she asked in that seductive voice.

“Get out,” I said.  Without another word Amanda grabbed her purse, got up, smoothed her outfit, and flounced out the door.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get some work done, but since there wasn’t much of that to do, I finally left.  I walked a few blocks over to B 52’s, a converted warehouse that was now a pool hall decorated with old plane propellers and advertisements from a time long gone.  I did a good bit of thinking there, shooting pool and letting my mind wander over whatever problem was at hand.

And Amanda was definitely a troubling, seductive problem.  I cursed myself for not listening to my better judgment, and for letting her beauty pull me in.  But whatever her goal was in hiring me, I had a sneaky suspicion that finding Peter was only part of the issue.  And that bothered me.  If she really didn’t want him found, why hire me?  It didn’t make sense.

It was happy hour on a Friday, so the place was already getting crowded.  I marched straight to the bar and ordered a Fat Tire.  A busy bartender with his own tire-sized chest handed me a cold bottle of beer and I strolled to a pool table in the corner, racked up the balls, and began shooting while tunes from the 80's blared overhead.  I felt right at home.

Two beers and six practice games later, I had determined only that I didn’t trust my first client, and I was none too sure of my own instincts.  Amanda smelled of more than expensive perfume, I thought, as I banked the cue ball off the side and behind the eight ball, hitting a striped ball into the corner pocket.  On that brilliant, lucky shot, I left the game unfinished and headed home.

Since I live near downtown, I frequently walk to and from work.  It makes for a good workout.  That’s what I tell myself on a dark night like this, one where the late winter temperatures hovered near freezing, and a light snow was falling.

I could see my breath as I scrunched up my shoulders, tucking my chin inside my coat collar.  I walked at a brisk pace, headed toward my condo in the Uptown neighborhood, immediately east of downtown Denver.  Christmas lights on houses and trees combined with the fresh snow to give everything a festive, holiday feel.  The street, lined with parked cars on either side, was otherwise abandoned.  The snow was starting to blanket the asphalt.  I crossed diagonally toward my building, halfway down the block, and made my way between two cars to the sidewalk.

I dug in my pocket for my keys and stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk, falling to my knees.  With a shake of my head I looked back toward the guilty piece of concrete that caused my fall.  As I did, a shadow appeared out of the corner of my eye, coming from behind a wall of snow-covered hedges.  I had just enough time to jerk in surprise before a shadowy specter materialized, its arm raised high in the night air.  I noticed something dark and long, maybe a baseball bat, coming down toward me.  I raised my arm in a feeble attempt to protect myself, heard a hollow thumping sound, and then a searing pain shot through my wrist.  I groaned and grabbed my wrist with my other hand, and felt myself stumbling again.

“Stay away from Amanda,” a low voice said.  In an instant, I saw the club coming down toward my head, and everything went black.

*****

“Wow, dude!  What happened to you?”

I heard a moan, a curse word, then silence.  I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me.  I heard another groan and realized it was coming from me.  I sensed cold underneath me and wet spots on my face.  My encounter with the shadow came back in a sudden rush.  I opened my eyes, and experienced something more terrible than my worst hangover.

The voice said, “Are you okay?”

My eyes focused and I saw shimmering gray clouds and snowflakes falling.  If not for my cold backside and hangover-like headache, I might have appreciated its beauty.  A face appeared above me, young with a stubble of dirty blond beard, eyes the same gray as the snowy sky.  “Yeah, I’m okay,” I mumbled.  I sat up slowly and was rewarded with a pounding on the right side of my head.

“Dude, you’re bleeding,” the lazy, drawling voice said.  I touched my temple and examined my fingers, now dark with blood.  I forced my eyes to focus on the origin of the voice.  Meet my neighbor Ace.  I live in the third floor condo building and he and his brother live below me.  Ace is twenty-five years old, works at Blockbuster, where he aspires to be a manager, and has the common sense of a pea.

“Your blood?” Ace asked, pointing at my hand.  Make that a frozen pea.

I managed a nod while I wiped my fingers on the snowy sidewalk.  “Yeah, someone popped me.  Guess he got me pretty good.”  It hurt to talk, made the pounding in my head more intense.

“Popped ya, huh?”  Ace bent down and squinted in my face, tugging at his ponytail.  I could smell his tobacco breath, mixed with peppermint, and clouds of nausea swirled around me.  “You don’t look so hot.”

“Thanks, Ace,” I said.  “You want to help me up?”

“Oh, sorry.”  He grabbed my outstretched hand and pulled me to my feet.  Wooziness set in, like my head just split in two.  I bent over and saw the snow shake before my eyes, so I sat back down on the ground.  I heard another voice say, “What are you doing on the sidewalk?  You want me to get you a chair?”

I turned my head and squinted toward the front door of my building, shielding my eyes against the glare of the porch light.  Ace’s brother, Deuce, stood in the doorway.  He looked almost exactly like Ace, but with a bulkier build from working in construction.  Deuce wasn’t much younger than Ace, and by all accounts wasn’t much wiser.  “You want a chair?” he repeated slowly.  “Maybe an icepack?”

Ace waved at him, and Deuce came down off the porch.  The nausea hadn’t left me, so I bent my head down between my knees and sucked in deep breaths, wishing that the Goofball Brothers would be quiet, if only for a moment.  I kept an eye on them, and they did me.  Sort of.

“He tired or something?” Deuce said as he approached.  Most times I didn’t mind the Brothers; we were friends in an intellectually unchallengeable kind of way.  In the year that I’d lived above them they had helped me appreciate the lighter side of life, and made me laugh.  Right now wasn’t one of those times.

“Don’t know,” Ace answered.  His drawl not as slow as Deuce’s, a turtle rather than a caterpillar.

A pair of dingy tube socks and blue jeans came into my vision.  I tipped my head up and saw Deuce staring down at me.  He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his bare arms folded across his brawny chest were his only defense against the weather.  “Damn, it’s cold out here,” he said with a shiver, hunching his shoulders.

“Might help if you put shoes on,” I mumbled.  “And a shirt.”

Deuce looked down as his stocking feet.  “Oh, yeah.”  He chuckled.  “What’re you doing out here?”

“Someone popped me,” I said, gingerly touching my temple again.

“Popped you?” Deuce said, glancing over at Ace, who shrugged his shoulders and made a face that said he didn’t have a clue what was going on.  “That guy with the baseball bat do it?”

“You saw him hit me?” I asked, gazing up at Deuce.

“Not hit you.  He was getting into that SUV over there.”  We all looked down the street where Deuce pointed.  Red taillights suddenly pierced the darkness, and a black, full-size SUV peeled away from the curb.  Deuce started to run after it, but the vehicle disappeared into the night.

“He’s gone,” Ace stated the obvious.

“It had a broken taillight,” Deuce said.  “The left one.”

I shook my head.  “Help me up,” I grimaced.

“I just tried to,” Ace said.  “You sat back down.”

“I’ll stay up this time.  I promise.”  Ace grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet, and this time I did stay standing.  Wobbling and nauseous, but standing.

“You don’t look so good,” Ace said through chattering teeth.

“Is there an echo?” I asked no one in particular.  It didn’t matter.  The brothers gawked at me in confusion.  Like Two Stooges.  Not too bright, but funny as hell.

Ace stooped down and picked something up.  “Are these yours?”  He held up my keys.

“Yeah, thanks,” I mumbled.

“Hey, you want to come in for dinner?” Deuce asked.  “Our brother’s coming over.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Dude,” Ace rolled his eyes at me.  “Our brother.”

“What?”  Now I was acting like a stooge.  As far as I ever knew, there were only two Goofball brothers.  “Another brother,” I said.  This was a night for surprises.

“Yeah,” Deuce said.  “There he is.”

I was not ready for a third Goofball Brother.  Not with my head pounding the way it was.

“Hey, what’s going on here?”  The voice was deep and sounded more assured than a Goofball Brother should.

I straightened up and put out an unsteady hand.  There was no mistaking the man before me as a Goofball Brother.  Although obviously older than the others, he had the same slim build and light hair, and the same stark gray eyes, but with wisdom lines flaring from the corners.  I missed his hand on the first try.  “Let me guess, you must be Trey.”

“Huh?” he said, a not so bright look on his face.

Oh boy, this card didn’t fall far from the pack.  “If you’re Trey, how can you be older than them?”  I gestured toward the other two.  “Shouldn’t you be younger?  You know.  One,” I pointed to Ace.  “Two, three.”  I pointed at Deuce, then the new guy.

The man leaned closer to me, his eyes narrowing as he examined me.  He sniffed near my face.  “I can’t smell any booze, so you’re not drunk,” he said.  “But you look like maybe you’re a few flames short of a fire.”

I pointed to the blood near my temple.  “Someone used my head as a baseball and took a bat to it.  I’m a little woozy.”

“Oh,” he said with a sympathetic nod.

“Who are you?” I asked, not bothering to hide my own confusion.  I wasn’t really close to the Brothers, but I thought I would’ve heard about another brother.

“I’m Bob Smith.”  He jerked his head toward his brothers.  “I’m the oldest of the Smith clan.”

“Bob,” Deuce said.  “Same forwards as backwards.  Although he doesn’t look the same from behind.”  Ace and Deuce snorted and guffawed at the joke, while Bob’s left lip twitched up in an embarrassed smile.

“Dad hadn’t discovered his love of poker until after I was born.”  Bob grinned.  “That, or Mom wouldn’t give in to the naming convention on the first kid.”  He took my elbow and propelled me up the steps and into the Brothers’ condo.  “Let’s get a look at your head.  I’m an EMT and I don’t like the looks of you right now.  It must’ve been one helluva whack to have you so out of it.”

Now I had to reevaluate.  The brains in the family must’ve come around only once, the first time.  “An EMT?  Do you work here in town?”

“Uh huh.  Come on in here.”  Bob guided me to a couch in the living room.  I laid my head back and closed my eyes.

“Here, get him a glass of water,” Bob said.  Ace mumbled something as he ambled to the kitchen at the back of the condo.

“Sit still.”  Bob ordered and I sat immobile while he carefully checked out the wound.  “You’ve got a good-sized lump and a decent cut there, but it doesn’t need stitches,” he said.  “That headache won’t go away for a while, though.”  He dashed into the bathroom and returned with a First Aid kit.  He took out butterfly bandages and proceeded to tape up the cut.  I relaxed and almost dozed off.

“Are you feeling better?”

I opened my eyes again and nodded.  Bob was sitting on a chair across from me, arms folded over his chest, smiling at me.  Behind his shoulder Deuce stared at me, still as confused as ever.  Which reminded me.  I sat up straighter, ignoring the ensuing throbbing, and studied Bob.  “Why haven’t I heard of you before?  I’ve known your brothers for a year now.”

“I don’t know,” Bob said.  “I’ve heard of you.”

I nodded, but was speechless.

“Deuce, why don’t you help Ace with the pasta.”

“Huh?”  Deuce turned his stare to Bob.

Bob raised an eyebrow at him.  “When you called me earlier, you said you guys were fixing pasta for dinner.”

“Oh yeah.”  Deuce shuffled off into the kitchen, where we soon heard the sounds of pots banging onto the counter, and then the start of an argument between Deuce and Ace.

“I guess Ace forgot your water,” Bob said.

I waved a hand at him.  “Forget it.  I should be going anyway.”  But my behind still stayed glued to the couch, contemplating this newest brother.  How could I have missed this?  I must have been tuning out the Goofball Brothers whenever they had talked about Bob.  My observation skills needed honing.

“I haven’t lived in Denver long,” Bob said as if he could hear my thoughts.  “I lived on the East Coast until a few weeks ago.”

“Oh.”  I paused.  “I should be going,” I said again, but this time I forced myself out of my seat.  I stood, swaying a bit.

“Are you going to make it?”

“Yeah, I’m just upstairs.”  I shook Bob’s hand.  “Thanks again for the help.”

He showed me to the door.  I stepped onto the porch and walked its length to the left side of the building, where a wet, metal staircase led to the third floor entrance to my condo.  Behind me I could hear Bob chuckling, probably wondering what kind of a goofball lived above his brothers.

CHAPTER NINE

When I let myself into my place, I tramped right to the kitchen for Advil.  I tossed two in my mouth and washed them down with half a bottle of water, then stumbled into the living room and crashed on the couch.  I awoke later to the sound of the phone softly ringing, its pulse barely loud enough to rouse me.

I grabbed the cordless off of the end table and held it to my ear.  “Hello,” I mumbled, my voice sounding like I was talking through cotton.

“Honey, is that you?”

“Mom?”  I propped myself up on one elbow and squinted at the clock on the wall.  Ten-fifteen.  I’d been asleep for more than two hours.

“Honey, are you all right?  Did you swallow a frog?  You’re not doing drugs, are you?  I never did, not even smoking pot, even though it seemed like everyone else did.  They say that when you smoke pot, your mouth gets all dry and you sound like, well, like you do.”  My mother had a way of launching into a topic like a preacher into a hell-and-brimstone sermon, full force and not taking a breath.  “Reed, this is not how we raised you, to blow your money on drugs, ruining yourself.  Get a good job, find a nice lady, and settle down.  Out doing drugs.  Why, the next thing you know, you’ll be on the streets, and then where will you be?”

“On the streets,” I said.

She sniffed.  “You’re not funny, dear.”

“It’s good to hear from you, Mother.  How are things in Florida?”

“Everything’s fine here, but don’t change the subject.  How are you, really?”

“I’m just tired.  It was a long day and I fell asleep on the couch.”  Half the truth was better than the whole thing.  No way could my mother handle the whole truth.  Not when her son was falling down in the line of duty, and especially not when my duty involved a profession that she saw as “chasing those people around for money.”

“I’m glad you’re working hard, but you need to take better care of yourself, dear.  Now, I wanted to let you know that your father and I made our flight reservations.  We’ll be coming to visit in two weeks.”  She rattled off the dates for their annual Christmas visit and I pretended like I was writing it all down.

“Now it’s late, so I’ll let you go,” she said.  “I love you, dear.”

“I love you, too, Mother.”  I hung up the phone and promptly fell back asleep.

*****

I awoke the next morning with a splitting headache and a tender spot on my temple where the butterfly bandages held the cut closed.  I also knew I wanted to find out what had happened to Peter Ghering, and why I was the target of an attack.  As I stood in the kitchen fixing a bagel and cream cheese, I thought through what last night’s assailant said to me: “Stay away from Amanda.”  Someone was taking an interest in my investigation, someone who was either tailing me or knew where I lived.  Or both.  But why was I such a threat?  I’d barely gotten started on this thing.  Was it about this case, or something else?  Why stay away from Amanda?  And the biggest question: who attacked me?

It was Saturday, so I lingered over a long breakfast, showered, then reapplied bandages to the cut on my temple.  After a half hour of contemplation over a cup of coffee, I decided that I would focus on the source of my anxiety: Amanda.  If she was hiding something, I wanted to know what it was.  I’d had a bad feeling about her from the start, but my focus had gone in another direction, to finding her husband, Peter.  It was time to turn my attention to her.

It was now almost eleven.  I took two more Advil for my headache, threw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes and headed out the door.  I stopped by the office to check messages – none – and grabbed a sandwich from Jason’s Deli across the street.  A light snow fell, and temperatures hovered barely above freezing, so I drove with caution over slick roads to Castle Pines.

Once in Amanda’s neighborhood, I parked where I could see the road that led down to her house.  I opened a Coke and ate my Italian sub sandwich while I waited.  The DJ on the 80's radio station gabbed over the end of a Cars’ song, saying that it was heading into the noon hour, time for the top five songs from the last week of April, 1984.  I kept my eye on the bend in the road.  It wouldn’t be long now.

As if I’d just looked into a crystal ball, Amanda’s gray Lexus came into view.  She barely looked toward my vehicle.  She yielded for a second before tearing off down the road.  She hadn’t even noticed me, unless the whack to my head had left me more addled than I realized.  I could surmise where she was going - to her country club.

Sure enough, I followed the Lexus back onto the highway and soon exited on
Lincoln Avenue, where Amanda drove straight to the Lone Tree Golf Club.  I knew the club, had golfed there a few times the previous summer.  Advertised as a premier private country club, with an Arnold Palmer designed course, the club catered to the social elite of south Denver.

Amanda turned into the circle drive entrance of the Lone Tree, got out, and handed her keys to a young valet who had helped her out of the car.  She said something that made him laugh, pulled her long fur overcoat around herself and walked into the building.  I had a feeling I was in for a long wait, at least a couple of hours.  I hunkered down in the car seat, where I could still see the front door, turned on the radio, and sipped my Coke.  The DJ was announcing the number one song from 1984, by the Thompson Twins.  Amanda would like that.

I tapped on the steering wheel, humming the song.  It finished, and REM came on.  I hummed through that and two more songs as I watched the valet park cars.  I was just thinking that I needed to use the bathroom when the valet drove up with a gray Lexus.  I sat up as Amanda came out the door.  I checked my watch, already knowing that she couldn’t have been inside for more than a half hour or so.  At her speed that was only a couple of drinks.  What was going on?

She tipped the valet and peeled out of the drive and around the lot.  Okay, maybe she’d gotten three drinks in her.  I barely had time to duck before she came out of the exit, almost directly across from where I’d parked.  She drove back toward the highway.  As I did a U-turn I hoped she didn’t recognize my 4-Runner.  What kind of an amateur was I not to even try and hide myself?

But if Amanda spotted me, she either didn’t care or was lousy at losing a tail.  She kept a steady speed of ten miles an hour over the limit as she headed toward downtown Denver.  We kept that pace for ten minutes and I wondered if she was going to my office.  But we soon came to the Cherry Creek Mall, an upscale shopping center.  It appeared that Amanda was throwing over drinking for shopping.

I parked and followed after her, hearing her heels click on the concrete as she walked through a parking garage to the Neiman-Marcus entrance.

I got to the door  and cautiously peered through the glass but didn’t see her.  I stepped inside, hoping she wasn’t lurking somewhere nearby.  I didn’t see her at all.  I frantically scanned the racks of clothes and displays, cursing under my breath.  Then I caught sight of her, going toward the perfume and jewelry area.  I started slowly down the aisle, prepared to peruse female lingerie while I kept my eye on her, but she moseyed right by the glass cases and out into the mall.

So, Neiman-Marcus wasn’t her speed.  I wondered what was.  She walked at a fast clip past a bookstore and a couple of specialty shops.  I could smell the tantalizing aroma of cinnamon rolls coming from the CinnaBun shop.  Maybe she needed some dessert.  My mouth watered.  I could use some dessert.

But Amanda turned in another direction.  I stopped and window-shopped at a shoe store while keeping my eye on her.  She made a beeline to a triangular-shaped kiosk with a map of the mall on one side, an advertisement on another, and a pay phone on the third.  Now I was puzzled.  What was going on here?  Surely she had a cell phone.  Why use a pay phone?  I could think of only two reasons: her cell phone battery was dead, or she didn’t want any record that she made the call.  If the latter, why?

She dialed a number, hung up, and dialed again.  She spoke a couple of words, then hung up.  I watched her rummage in her purse, pull out a piece of paper, and dial another number from it.  She turned in my direction, and I pulled back into the store entrance, glancing discreetly around the corner.  Amanda was tapping her foot, apparently listening to endless rings on the other end.  She hung up again, this time smacking the phone down harder, making a passerby glance at her.  Amanda glared at the lady, threw the piece of paper back in her purse, and stormed back in my direction.  I turned quickly and began inspecting a pair of red high heel shoes.  Out of the corner of my eye Amanda passed by, looking straight ahead.

“Are you interested in those?” a young salesman asked me.

“Not my color,” I said, setting the shoe down.  He turned as red as the shoe while I hurried after Amanda.

She walked back through Neiman-Marcus, apparently heading straight for her car.  I chose to leave her to her own business and ran back to the pay phone, just beating a teenage girl with enough gold on her wrists and fingers to stock a jewelry store.

“Excuse me.  Emergency,” I mumbled as I picked up the receiver that Amanda was using moments before.

“Asshole,” the girl said and walked off.

“Once a day and twice on Sundays,” I said, with a curt nod.  She looked fiercely at me.

I looked for a redial button, but there wasn’t one.  Obviously, I thought, not on a pay phone.

“Damn,” I said, and received a glare from an elderly lady who could’ve added diamonds to the teenager’s jewelry store.  I smiled at her and walked off.

So I hadn’t found out who Amanda called, and now I didn’t know where she was.  Great.

CHAPTER TEN

A calculated guess took me back to Lone Tree, where I found Amanda’s car, parked in a space close to the building.  After a couple of hours, I was rewarded with only sore muscles and an intense case of boredom.  I left her car there and spent the rest of my evening shooting pool with the Goofball Brothers.

I followed Amanda back to the club on Sunday, where she stayed for the entire day.  Monday morning found me again parked near her house, hoping this time for a day more exciting than the daily sabbatical to the country club.

A storm front moving over the mountains made it colder, and the forecast called for more snow.  I waited with the engine running, hoping nosy neighbors wouldn’t notice me.  At twelve o’clock on the nose Amanda’s Lexus came into view.  She seemed to be a creature of habit.  I followed her to the club, dreading another day sitting in the 4-Runner.  But after a few bored, slow hours, Amanda finally emerged, retrieved her car, and drove off.

The Lexus barreled onto I-25 and continued north.  I barely had time to wonder where Amanda was headed before she turned into a gas station, the kind that also had a convenience store with it.  She parked near the entrance and dashed inside, returning a few minutes later with a magazine.  She got back in her car and drove out of the lot, with me still tagging along.

I puzzled over this development as I followed the Lexus to the Washington Park neighborhood, known for expensive homes near a spacious park.  Amanda drove around a couple of blocks, to a posh little Italian restaurant on Clarkson Street called Patini’s.

I parked across and down the street from her, and watched as she left her car near the restaurant and went in, the magazine rolled up in her hand.  It was early, just after five, but it looked like the restaurant already had quite a crowd, especially for a Monday evening.  I got out, crossed the street, and walked by the front window.  I could see her through the glass, smiling in a cute way to a twenty-something looking waiter as he showed her to a two-seater table near the bar.  She sat down, and I saw that she was carrying a comic book, not a magazine.  She placed it in the middle of the table.

I looked on as she ordered not only a meal, but two drinks as well, chatting with the waiter each time he came to the table.  He was tall and thin, wearing tight black jeans with a spotless white apron tied around his waist.  But his rear end was at her eye level, so each time he walked away, she paid attention to it.  Her husband didn’t seem to be on her mind right now, but then he really hadn’t been all along.

The bill finally arrived, and she paid with a credit card.  After she signed the receipt, she took one copy for herself, turned the other over and wrote something on it, then got up and pulled on her coat.  She lifted a hand in a coy wave at her waiter and walked out.  The waiter waved back at her, came to the table and took the receipt, immediately reading the message on it.  Amanda came out the door.  I turned toward the window, staring at the waiter inside, with my back toward Amanda.  An elderly couple seated by the window stared back at me in surprise.  I ignored them as I waited for Amanda to discover me.  But she walked quickly to her car, not noticing me in the darkness.  Meanwhile the waiter tucked the receipt in his white apron pocket, picked up the comic, and headed for the kitchen.  I was vaguely aware of the Lexus pulling out into the street as I dashed around the north corner of the building, looking for a back entrance to the restaurant.  Amanda had passed that waiter a note, and I was going to find out what was on it.

I found the back entrance that led into the kitchen and stepped through an unlocked screen door.  Even though the outside temperature was dropping, I could feel heat emanating from the hot ovens inside.  I looked around until I saw Amanda’s waiter, leaning his hands against a long metal prep table, waiting for an order of food to be filled.  The comic stuck out of the back pocket of his black slacks.  And no, I was not looking at his ass.

I made eye contact with him and gestured for him to come over.

He gave me a quizzical look, but walked over.  “Who are you?” he said with a touch of surprise and a lot of annoyance.

“Archie Goodman,” I said, flipping open my wallet to give him a nanosecond glimpse of my detective badge.  “I’m a detective with the Denver Police Department and I need a word with you.”  If he asked to scrutinize the badge, I was in trouble.

“What’s going on?”  Not scared, just irritated.  And not interested in verifying my credentials.

“Would you come with me, please?”  He hesitated for a second before walking past me, tapping an older man on the shoulder as he passed by.  “I’m taking a quick break,” he said.  The other guy rolled his eyes but said nothing.

We stepped outside and away from the small square of light that came from the kitchen door.  He reached under his apron and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.  A smoking break was probably a common occurrence, which was why no one stopped us.

He lit one, blew smoke into the crisp air, and contemplated me.  “What’s this about?”

“What did Amanda tell you?”

“Who?” he asked with genuine ignorance.  A gold name tag pinned to his white shirt had “Jack” written on it.

“Amanda Ghering.  The lady you served.  The one who dined alone.  She just left, and she wrote something to you on the receipt.  What was it?  What did she tell you?”

“Hey, screw you, man.”  He flicked the cigarette into a puddle of icy water, and tried to step around me.  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

I pushed him back against the brick wall, so fast that he exhaled with an “oomph” sound.  For the first time, I saw fear in his eyes.  “Now, you tell me what I want to know, or I’ll haul your ass downtown and we’ll talk there.”  I tapped him emphatically on the chest.  “Your choice, Jack.”  Wouldn’t the Denver Police be surprised when we showed up.

“Hey, all she did was leave her phone number on it, okay?”  He stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.  I grabbed it from him and examined it in the light from the kitchen.  In Amanda’s loopy writing, she had scribbled her name and phone number.  Underneath that, she had written: “call me.”  I turned it over, but there were only the itemized menu items and totals for her meal and drinks.

“That’s it?” I said with a stern glare.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Has she ever come in here before?”

He nodded.  “A couple of other times, a few months ago.  She’s a hot chick, okay.  She’s making her move, I’m making mine, you know?”

“All you’ve done is flirt with her?”

“She flirted with me,” he corrected me.  “That’s not breaking the law.”  He squared his shoulders and pushed his way past me, saying, “what the hell kind of wacko cop are you?”  Before I could respond, he disappeared back into the kitchen.  I stood in the cold for a moment, puzzled and a bit embarrassed.  Amanda was flirting with him.  That could explain coming to this particular restaurant instead of the club, or a place farther south.

I shook my head and strolled back around to the front of the restaurant, still deep in thought.  I glanced in the window.  Jack was back at work, delivering drinks to one table, taking orders from another.  I was about to walk away when I saw him reach behind him and take the comic book out of his pocket, dropping it onto a booth table near the exit.  He picked up the bill from the table and walked away.

A slender hand came out and picked up the comic, then a tall brunette in a dark business suit and equally dark overcoat scooted out of the booth.  The woman tucked the comic in her overcoat pocket, slung a small purse over her shoulder, and strode three steps to the exit.  It all happened so fast that I didn’t see her face at all.  As she came out the door, I ducked around the corner and peered out.  She hurried quickly down the street in the opposite direction of my car.  I hesitated briefly, considered going for my car, thought better of it, and rushed after her.  I tucked my head down into my coat, pulling up the collar, and walked with my eyes down.  Dark Suit walked down one block and got into a black Chevrolet sedan.  I was a half block behind her, so I stepped up my pace.  I got a quick look at the license plate before the car squealed away.

I said it repeatedly so I’d remember it as I passed back by the restaurant, and around the corner.  I jerked open the kitchen door, walked past a surprised cook and waitress, and up to Jack, who had just come in from the front.  He opened his mouth in surprise and started to head back through a swinging door to the restaurant, but I grabbed his arm and pedaled him right on through the prep food tables and ovens.  He sputtered in protest as I threw him out the back door.  He stumbled into a big plastic trashcan, and fell to one knee.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snarled, picking himself up.

“That’s what I want to know,” I snarled right back.  I grabbed him just as he was regaining his balance, and threw him into the wall.  “Hey,” he said.

“What’s going on with the comic book?” I asked, pinning him face first against the wall.

“Wha…” he mumbled.

“I saw you pass the comic book to Ms. Dark Suit,” I said, my face an inch from his cheek, my teeth bared.  “You passed the comic from Amanda to her.  Why?”

“What?” he said, his voice shaking.

“I won’t ask again.”  I tightened my grip on his arms, nearly lifting him off the ground.

“Okay, all right.”  He coughed.  “They paid me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know her name.  The lady in the dark suit.”  The confession came fast.  “She came in one day a few months ago, said that I could make an easy hundred every time I’d make a delivery for her.”

“Deliver what?”

“Comics, man.  That’s it.  She said someone might come in, request to sit at my table, and leave a comic for me.  She said to hang on to it, that someone would be in afterward to get it.”

“What kind of bullshit is that?”

“It’s the truth, I swear,” he said, struggling against me.  “Hey man, let go.  I swear that’s it.”

“How many times has this happened?” I asked, loosening my grip slightly.

“Three times.  Twice before tonight.  It was the same two ladies.  The pretty one, Amanda, ate and left a comic book, two times.  I passed it to the other lady, and she left an extra hundred with her bill.”

“A comic book?” I repeated.

“Yeah, a Spiderman comic.  One other time the lady in the dark suit left a comic with a hundred in it.  It was an X Men comic that time.  I took the hundred and left the comic for that lady Amanda.  That’s it, I’m telling you.  Leave me alone, man.  I’m going to be in a shitload of trouble with my boss if I don’t get back.”

“You’re going to be in shitload of trouble if you’re lying to me.”  I pressed him into the wall for good measure.

“It’s the truth.”  We were both breathing heavily as I released him.  He turned around, rubbing his wrists where I’d held him.  He slid along the wall to the back door.  “You’re crazy, man.  Crazy.”

“And you better hope I believe you,” I said.  He looked at me with near terror.  It took him two attempts before he got the screen door open.  Then he disappeared inside.  I almost laughed at his fright.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was time to talk to Amanda again.  I’d made that decision before walking out of the alley, so Tuesday morning I was parked in Amanda’s driveway at exactly nine o’clock.  I had a suspicion, based on my own experiences with too much alcohol, that she would still be in bed, and I was right.

“Too much vodka last night?” I said when she answered the door, bleary-eyed and tired, after the fourth ring.

“Reed,” she said, her voice a gravelly mix of cigarettes and semi-sleep.  “I was hoping you’d stop by.”  She wore a stark white terrycloth robe open to her navel.  The silk nightgown underneath was too sheer for the cold weather, accentuating body parts I didn’t want to know about.  I focused on her face, ashen from what I’d guess to be a massive hangover.

“We need to talk.”  I pushed past her and into the living room.

“What’s the matter,” she asked, shutting the door.  “Aren’t you still looking for Peter?”

“Yes, I am.  But I want to know what’s really going on.”  I stalked to the bar and leaned against it.  She’d have to step through me to get to any liquor.  I crossed my arms and inspected her.  She had dark circles under her eyes, and the white robe drained her face of any color.  To say she looked like a ghost would be an insult to Casper and his relatives.

“What do you mean?”  She held a hand to her ear, as if our voices were a cacophony of out-of-tune instruments, while she eyed the bar behind me.  I’m sure the vodka was calling to her.

“You’ve had me on a wild goose chase, haven’t you?”  She didn’t answer.  “I’ve been running around trying to figure out where Peter is, but he’s dead, isn’t he?  You had him killed, just like you said.  You hired someone to kill him, and now you’re trying to cover your tracks by making it look as if you're concerned.  Then you hired me, and you've had me calling around to credit card companies and checking with the police.  Merrick probably tracked all of that down, but you made me do it again, to keep me busy, and misdirected.  And you made a fake ransom note.  ‘We will be in touch.’  Like any ransom note would say that.”  I couldn’t keep the derision from my voice.  “What other bullshit have you concocted?”

“No, that’s not it.”  She waved her hands nervously.  “You don’t understand.”

“Obviously,” I retorted as she shook her head vigorously, then blanched from the effort.

“Level with me, or I’m out of here right now,” I said.

“No, please,” she pleaded, clasping her hands as if in prayer.  “You’re right.  I haven’t been honest with you.”  A long pause stretched out before us, but I wasn’t going to rescue her.  She could fall into the proverbial hole she’d made.  She finally let out a huge sigh, and began.  “You’re right,” she said again.  “I did hire a group to take care of Peter, but something happened.  They were supposed to kill him before he ever reached Philadelphia, but they didn’t.”

“How do you know?”  I still didn’t trust anything Amanda said.

“Because Peter contacted me after the time he was supposed to be dead.”  I didn’t have any response to that.  “I was sort of telling the truth when I hired you.  I did want you to find him, to find out why he wasn’t dead.  But I couldn’t very well tell you that.”

“But why me?”

She sighed.  “I heard about you from someone at the club.”

“Sure,” I said.  “I’ve built up such a reputation for myself.”

“No, really.  Paul Burrows knew your father’s friend and knew how you helped him.  I thought you’d be perfect.  You’d only helped that one guy, you were brand new, hadn’t really done much detective work.”

“I’m inexperienced,” I translated.

“Yes.”  She threw her hands up.  “For crying out loud, I didn’t think you’d actually figure any of this out.”

I bit my tongue, cutting off a snide reply.  “Did you lie about the plane ticket, and not helping the police with the credit card information?”

“Yes.”

I let out a long breath.  “If you want Peter found, why send me in the wrong direction?”

“If you weren’t sure where Peter was, maybe you’d contact some of his lovers.  Then they’d suffer for what they’ve done to me.”

I glared at her.

“I was going to tell you about the ticket.  And about the credit cards,” she said sourly.

“So what’s all this business about passing comics books at Patini’s?”

Her jaw dropped.  “You’ve been following me?”

“Surprise,” I said.  “I’ve figured out a lot.  I knew something wasn’t right almost from the start.  I just didn’t know what.  You’ve never seemed that concerned about Peter, and that made me wonder about you.  What you might be up to.”

She thought about that before she responded.  “But it wasn’t just about finding out what happened to Peter.  There’s more.”  I waited.  “I think the group is after me now.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m being followed,” she said.

“Was it a 4-Runner?  Gray?”  She nodded her head.  I tried not to smile.  “That was me.”  She turned red.  “I thought that was them,” she said, but with no relief.

“It’s okay.  I’ve been tailing you for two days.  And by the way, what's with making phone calls from pay phones at the Cherry Creek Mall?  Why not from somewhere around here?”

Amanda blushed.  “I thought if the call was somehow traced, it would be better if the call was placed far away from my house.”

I rolled my eyes at her illogical logic.  “Why are you worried about calls being traced?”

“Oh, it doesn't matter!  They’re still after me.”  She covered her face with her hands, muffling a sob.

“Who?”

“The people I hired,” Amanda said.  She finally worked around me and reached for a glass.

“How about doing this straight?” I said, grasping her wrist.

“Just water, then.”  Her hand shook as she filled a glass with water and sat on the sofa.  After draining half the glass, she repeated, “I think the group I hired to kill Peter is after me now.  I, uh, wasn’t exactly truthful with them.”

“Are you with anybody?”

She threw a vicious look at me.  “I made it sound like Peter was a monster.  That way this group would take care of him for me.”

“Why?”

“I wanted him dead,” she stated flatly.  “I wanted the money, not him.  Our marriage was… is… nothing anymore.”

I locked eyes with her, staring her down.  “No, there’s more than that.  You’re not fooling me.”

She held my gaze for at least ten seconds before averting her eyes.  “All right.”  She threw up her hands.  “I was afraid Peter was going to divorce me.  He didn’t care anymore, he wasn’t trying to hide his affairs, and he’d been dropping hints about a separation.  I didn’t want to go back to having nothing.  So I hired this group.  But now,” she whispered, “but now, I wish I hadn’t done any of this.  I want Peter back.  Not because I love him.  I don’t.  I made a mistake.  But if I can get him back, we might be able to work something out.”

I heard voices in my head, one saying I told you so, the other, you should’ve dropped this case when you had the chance.  I ignored them.  “You need to see the police.”

“No!” she said.  “If I go to them, I’ll be dead within days.  This group does not play around.  They made that very clear.”  I saw the fear leap into her face, and I had no doubt what she said was true.  Whoever she hired would not risk exposure of any kind.  “I need your help.”

“What good is finding Peter going to do?  He’ll divorce you for sure.”

“Not if I can convince him not to.  And that doesn’t really matter now, anyway.  But if we find Peter, we can expose the group.  They made a mistake keeping him alive, and I can use that against them.”  She was arguing for her own life, as well as Peter’s.

“And Peter will be grateful to you in the end, and not leave you penniless.”  The spark in her eyes told me that even fear of death didn’t keep her from thinking about money.  “That’s pretty shaky,” I said.

“It’s all I have.”

I sat down on the other couch and regarded her.  She was a scared, lying, conspiring woman.  But could I walk away knowing what I did?  Could I let harm come to her, and not feel terrible, even if she’d brought all this misery on herself?  Didn’t that lower me to her level?  And could I rest not knowing where Peter was, or what happened to him?

“Who is this group?” I asked, grabbing the rope that would pull me further in.

Immense relief flushed over her face.  “I don’t know anything about them.  They’re an underground group that goes by the name X Women.  I found out about them from a friend at the club.”

“Is it that common to get rid of your spouse, that you can just get a name from someone at the club?”  I spoke in a mock imitation of a snooty rich person.

“Don’t be coy,” Amanda said.

“Who told you about them?”

“I can’t…”

I held up a hand to stop her protests.  “Tell me.  If you want to get to the bottom of this, you’d better.”

“But she’ll kill me,” Amanda used the expression without thinking.

“And if she doesn’t, this underground group will.”

She paled, then blurted, “Maggie Delacroix.  She gave me a number.  She didn’t even write it down, she made me memorize it.  And before you ask, I have no idea how she knows of them, or if she ever used them.”

“Is she a friend of yours?”

“Not really.  I see her around the club.”

“What do you know about her?”

Amanda waved a hand at me, like she was shooing a fly away.  “What does it matter what I know about her?  She’s just some lady at the club.  She’s married to some rich guy who owns paper warehouses or something.  He’s her second husband.  I think she’s got kids, a daughter or something.  I don’t know Reed.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to calm her down.  “So you contacted this group, and then what?”

“The person who answered told me to go to Patini’s with a Spiderman comic and leave it with a waiter named Jack.”

“I knew you didn’t like Superman,” I said.

Her eyes flashed at me and she bit off a protest, remembering that I had followed her.  “Most of the contact was made through signals like that.  It was a type of code.  The only time I met face to face with anyone was after I left the comic the first time.  I was contacted again, and told to go to Washington Park and wait near the boat rental place.  A lady met me there, and I told her what I wanted.  We spoke for about five minutes.  I was supposed to return to Patini’s in a week.  If they accepted, Jack would pass me an X-Men comic.  If nothing was passed, they had declined to take me on as a client.”

It all sounded so professional, as if it was a mundane business transaction, not a death deal.  “So they accepted.  What happened next?”

“I got a call and was instructed to wire five hundred thousand dollars to an account in the Cayman Islands.  They’d take care of everything from there.”  So that was the going rate.  Pathetic.

“Where did you get that kind of money?”

She rolled her eyes at me.  “Please, we have that in our accounts.  I can access it just as easily as Peter.”

“He didn’t notice?”

“I lied to him.  I said that our accountant suggested we transfer some of the money into a new bank.”

“He didn’t find that suspicious?”

“No.  I handle some of our finances, and he’s too busy to pay a lot of attention to the details.”

“Okay.  Who did you wire the money to?”

She shrugged her shoulders.  “I don’t know.  The caller gave me an account number to wire the money to.  That’s what I did.”

“Do you still have the account number?”

“Sure,” she said.  Her purse was sitting on the floor in the hallway.  She got it, rummaged around and pulled out a piece of paper.  She handed it to me.  It had the account number, the name of a bank, and also a phone number.

“This is the number you called to get in touch with this group?”  She nodded.  “Didn’t Maggie make you memorize it?”

She blushed.  “I was afraid I’d forget it,” she said sheepishly.  “It’s useless now.  It’s disconnected.  When I called it the other day, the woman said the number wouldn’t work anymore, and I was to wait for them to contact me.”

I sighed.  The plot thickened.  “So after you paid the money, you didn’t have to help set up Peter?”

“They do all of that,” she said.  “Someone called me one more time, gave me the time frame for the deal, and told me what to do when Peter didn’t come home.  That was it.  I wasn’t supposed to contact the group again.  Ever.  No matter what happened.  If something went wrong, they would contact me.”

“You were supposed to go to the police, report Peter missing, and leave it at that.”

She nodded.

“But you didn’t leave it at that.”

She protested.  “I did it according to plan.  They gave me a date, last Monday, but not where or how.  Just the date.  I went to the police after a few days, when I thought it would make sense.  I had to take Peter’s normal behavior into account,” she said like she was talking to a child.  “But since Peter called I’ve been in a panic.  So I decided to come to you.”

“And now, since you’ve breached the group’s code of conduct, you think they’re after you.”

Her lower lip trembled.  “Yes,” she whispered.  “Now they’ll come after me.  I don’t know what to do.”

“Is this why you’ve been passing comics again?”

“Yes,” she said.  “They wouldn’t do that if everything was okay.  They asked for me to be available to them, that the plan had changed.  Passing the comic was my answer.”

“Which was?”

“Yes,” she spat.  “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

I nodded.  “They’re not happy with you, are they?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I’m looking for Maggie Delacroix,” I said to the pert receptionist at the country club.  “She said she’d meet me in the bar.”

I had convinced Amanda that I had to contact Maggie in order to track down the group she hired.  Once she’d had a drink, she called Maggie and dropped the news that someone else knew about their contact with the group.  Maggie resisted, but Amanda pleaded, begged and finally pointed out that I would find Maggie anyway, so she might as well get the meeting out of the way.  I was wary of the compliment, even as Amanda arranged to have me meet Maggie at the club.  I left Amanda to her second drink of the morning and drove to the country club.

“Yes, she informed me that she would have a visitor.  Down the hall on your right.”

I retraced my steps from the other day and entered the bar.  Amanda had described Maggie as an elderly woman, with gray hair and too many wrinkles to be attractive anymore.  I was instructed to look for her at a table by the windows that faced west.  As I stepped into the bar, I immediately noticed Maggie, but not because the description fit.  Just the opposite.

Maggie was on edging toward sixty, with dark hair dramatically streaked with light gray.  As she looked up at me, I noticed hints of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, but otherwise her face was plastic-surgery flawless.  She wore an understated blue pantsuit, had a large diamond ring on her left fourth finger, and smelled subtly of expensive perfume.  My only criticism would be a bit too much makeup.  Reflecting on Amanda’s description, I’d say she was jealous of Maggie, and I could see why.  Amanda’s drinking would age her at twice the pace of someone like Maggie.

I sat in the chair Maggie indicated.  “I don’t think introductions are needed,” she said, pushing the remains of a salad bowl off to the side of her place mat.  She lifted a glass of water to her lips, took a tiny sip and said, “I really don’t know that I can be of any help to you.”  Maggie was trying to play it cool, but I noticed that her glass shook as it came back to the table.

“Let me make it clear that I have no intention of bringing you into any of this.”

“You already have,” she said.

I shrugged.  A waiter came to the table but Maggie shooed him away.  I wouldn’t be staying long enough to finish a drink.  “Amanda screwed things up and she’s probably in danger.”

“Amanda is a stupid woman,” Maggie said through pursed lips.  “I never should have recommended her.”

I agreed with her, but continued.  “I need to know how to find this group.  I don’t know or care what your involvement with them is.  Tell me about them and I won’t say a word about you.”

“Impossible,” Maggie said.  “Even if I had that kind of information, I couldn’t give it to you.”  I knew she couldn’t either.  Her life wouldn’t be worth the ice in her glass if she did.

“How do you know of them?”

She leaned forward in her chair.  “I found out the same way Amanda did.  By asking a question here and there, by presenting my need to the right people.  By listening to rumors.  There are ways to do anything, especially if you have the means.”

“How did you contact them?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Did you pass comics back and forth?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  I was sure she did.  She wasn’t that good a liar.  She took another sip of water.  “I have far too much to lose to tell you anything.  Amanda was foolish to even mention me.”

“I hate to make threats, but I can make things very uncomfortable for you if you don’t help me.”

The water glass stopped halfway to the table.  “That is a threat.”  I nodded as the glass clinked to the table.  “What would you do?”

“The police aren’t doing much right now.  I’m sure a phone call from me would at least bring them to your doorstep.  At this point, no one knows we’re having this conversation, and no one knows about your involvement, other than Amanda and me.”  I paused.  “And whoever you had killed.”

“I never hired them for myself,” she snapped.  “I did it for a friend.”  Her voice grew quiet.  “A very close friend.”

“Jesus.  You all make it sound so business-like,” I said.  “You’re still implicated in this whole thing.”

She didn’t respond.  I waited.  She thought.  “They are an organization referred to as the X Women,” she finally said, speaking in a hushed tone.  “They work for the rights of women.  They take on cases where a woman has been abused, where rape has occurred, or domestic violence, that sort of thing.  They seek  justice when it doesn’t occur within the boundaries of our ineffective legal system.”  A hint of emotion split the calm demeanor.  “I can contact them in the same manner as Amanda.  Through a phone call.  I have never personally met anyone, nor have I hired them for my own revenge.”  She wanted that last point made very clear.

“How do you know of them?” I asked.  “Amanda said the number she had would be disconnected by now.”

“Did you try calling it?”

I shook my head.  “Not yet.  I wanted to do it where it couldn’t be traced.”

Her lips moved into the suggestion of a smile.  “That’s good.  You’re giving them the appropriate credit.  They are not a group to be trifled with.”  A finger tapped the table.  “And Amanda is correct about the number.  It will be useless to you now.”

“Then how could you get in touch with them when Amanda can’t?”

“Amanda is a stupid woman,” she repeated.  “She has broken group protocol, so the organization will now take measures to ensure they are not compromised by that stupidity.  For myself, I have my resources, but I will not reveal them to you.”  She sat back and crossed her arms defiantly.  “I have nothing else to tell you.”

I contemplated her.  “An organization called the X Women, huh.”  Great, I was trying to find an outlaw women’s group who carried out vigilante justice.  PMS meets Marvel Comics.  “I don’t suppose I can find a listing for them on the Internet.”

“You are not funny, Mr. Whatever-Your-Name-Is.”  She waved the bartender over and asked for her bill.  As she signed it, she continued.  “Whether you believe it or not, this organization does good work.  There are people, usually men, I’m afraid, who do little more than clutter up this lovely planet we live on.  This organization helps in some small way to rid the earth of vermin.”  She used a well-manicured hand to brush an errant curl off her forehead.  “Our justice system leaves a lot to be desired.  Murderers, rapists, sadists, abusers, too often get away with little or no retribution.  This organization sees that, at least some of the time, this does not happen.”

“I’m sure they’re just grand.”  I couldn’t hold back my sarcasm.

She strained to stay calm.  “When my daughter was in high school, she was friends with a sweet young girl.  This girl, I won’t tell you her name, was around a lot.  I got to know her.  She had a good heart, was maybe a bit innocent, but that’s never been a crime.  She was around so much that she soon seemed like my own daughter.  The two girls did everything together; they were inseparable.  They even chose the same college so they could remain close.”  She paused for effect.  “That wonderful girl was abducted, tortured, raped, and strangled to death one night coming home after a date.  The police had a suspect, but he was an all-star on a prestigious, winning football team.  Even though the police knew this young man was guilty, they had to answer to very influential people who could sway the balance of justice.  No charges were ever brought against him.  Nothing was ever done.  We were all devastated, her parents especially.  I wasn’t willing to sit by idly, and I had the means to do something where her parents couldn’t.  I made inquiries, found out about this group, and contacted them.  Soon after, the football player had an unfortunate accident that killed him.  As I said, this group does good work.  Justice was served.”

I met her steady gaze.  “I’m sorry about your daughter’s friend, but justice was not served.”

She got up.  “You are entitled to your opinion.  I expect never to see you again.”  She turned and left, her back stiff, her head held high, as if she balanced a law book on it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I called Amanda and told her briefly about my meeting.  Judging by her slurred words, she was well past drunk.

“Why don’t you take it easy,” I chided her.

“I have a lot of tension in my life right now,” she said in excuse of her behavior.

“And your life is in danger,” I countered.  “You need to be able to think clearly.”

“I’m thinking just fine, thank you,” she said, acid in her voice.

I let that be.  “Do you know the name of Maggie Delacroix’s daughter?  One who was a friend with a girl who was murdered?”

Amanda hissed into the phone before answering.  “Janet.”  She didn’t want to tell me, but she knew she had to.

“Do you know the friend’s name?  The girl who was murdered?”

“No,” she said.

“Where did Janet go to college?”

“I don’t know.”  Anger rose in her voice.

I hung up before I could hear her start to ramble about me prying into areas I didn’t need to.  I drove to my office, checked my messages, none of which needed my immediate attention, and spent an hour tracking down the license plate of the car I’d seen leave the restaurant last night.  The sedan belonged to Enterprise Car Rental, a dead end for me.  I retrieved the mail, which consisted of bills and a box of oranges, shipped fresh from my parents.  I took the box and headed up into the mountains west of Denver.  Maggie, who said she didn’t have any information to share, had told me quite a bit.  Now it was time to call in some help.

*****

“She sounds like quite a lady,” said my friend, Cal Whitmore.  Cal is akin Sherlock Holmes.  He has more knowledge loaded into his brains than the Smithsonian has items on display.  The guy seems to know every obscure thing there is to know about everything.  However, unlike Holmes, Cal has a hard time finding his way out of the house.  He’s brilliant but has little common sense.

I had finished relating everything that had happened since I’d taken on Amanda as a client, and was sitting in Cal’s office cum computer room.  The rest of his house was sparse, but his computer room was cutting edge.  Cal boasted things that probably weren’t on the market, certainly stuff I wasn’t familiar with, nor did I know how to use.  He had a hard drive filled with a variety of musical genres that he listened to on state-of-the-art speakers, and watched DVDs on one of his four computers, the one with the thirty-inch screen.  Stacks of papers, manuals, and other assorted computer stuff were piled against one wall, and boxes of disks, wire, CDs, and other accessories leaned against another wall.  I could write my name on the dust that covered everything except the computers, and at any given time dishes, cups, glasses, beer bottles, and soda cans littered the room.  He owned the house, but the computer room was where Cal lived.  “Maggie is a mystery in and of herself,” I said, throwing Cal an orange from my parents.

He caught it deftly.  “These are good ones, known for their sweetness.”  Cal tossed it from one hand to the other.  “A Valencia orange.”

I knew from the package the oranges came in that he was correct, but he hadn’t seen the box.  “How do you know that?”  I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was.  I’ve known Cal since grade school, and I’ve seen him deduce amazing things.

“It’s pretty easy, really,” Cal said in a matter-of-fact tone.

I nodded my head and waited for more.

He held the orange up to a small desk lamp, examining it.  “See its color, the green blemishes, and how it seems kind of marked?”  He pointed to a faint streak on the skin of the orange.  “That’s called wind-scarring.  Comes from the Florida breezes.  The warm temperatures cause chlorophyll to return to the peel, giving it the greenish color.  The skin’s thin, and,” he gently squished the orange, “it’s easy to squeeze.”

“That’s impressive,” I said.

“Besides, your parents are in Florida, right?”  I nodded my head.  “This is the season for Valencias.  It’s too late for Hamlins or Navels.”  I stared at him.  “I put all the information together,” he said blandly in answer to my awe.  He looked closely at the orange, then squeezed it again.  “It’s ripe.”

“Mom thought I’d enjoy them,” I said.  “She says ‘hi’, by the way.”  Mom has a soft spot for Cal, ever since I brought him home one afternoon after school, crying from a bee sting he’d suffered when he put his face right up to a furiously buzzing hive.

“Tell her I said ‘hey’.”  He smiled.  “Anyway, the season for Valencias is ending, but you can still get some good ones.”  Cal bit into the peel and grimaced.  No common sense.  I shook my head as he spat out the rind.  I had a hard time envisioning Holmes doing that.

“Even if the skin is thin, it helps if you peel it,” I said, taking the fruit from him.  I peeled the rind off and handed back a juicy section, keeping some for myself.

“So what do you need me to help with?” Cal asked as he turned back to his computer, not fazed by his mishap with the orange.  Cal’s specialty was computer viruses and virus protection.  He was more than his own business, he was like a computer god.  Cal was involved with people and groups that I didn’t even want to know about.  He could hack into almost any system, even the Pentagon’s.  Cal was a recluse, lived on the fringes of the law, and rarely ventured anywhere.  He almost didn’t exist, and if he wanted to, he could make himself disappear.

“I have the license plate number of the woman Amanda passed the comic to.”  I flopped on an ancient love seat across from him, throwing my legs over the arm and letting my feet dangle.  “It belongs to Enterprise Car Rental.”  I waved clouds of dust away from my face.

“I’m listening.”  He typed on the keyboard while talking.  “Who played Ole Andersen in the 1956 film The Killers?”

“Burt Lancaster,” I said through another bite of orange.  “I highly doubt an organization like this would use real names, or credit cards, so I’m not going to waste anymore time with that.  But if I could follow the money trail, it would eventually have to lead to some real person who wants access to the money.”  Cal nodded.  “Is that something you could help with?”

“Sure, that’s easy,” Cal said, running a hand through his wavy brown hair.  “What information did Amanda give you?”

“I’ve got the account number that she wired the money to, and the name of the bank in the Cayman Islands.”

Cal laughed.  “That sounds like something out of a movie.  Wire it to my account in the Caymans,” he spoke in a scratchy, quiet, Marlon Brando voice.

“Tell me about it,” I said.  I threw a piece of peel at the back of his head.  It sailed by his right ear and landed by the computer speaker.  He didn’t even notice.  “Have you ever heard of an organization of women called the X Women?”

He wagged his head back and forth in a negative response.  “Who wrote, directed, and starred in Touch of Evil?”

“Orson Welles.  How do you find out about a group like that?”  I situated myself more comfortably on the couch.  “These women act like it’s no big deal to be asking around and then being told about a group that kills people.  You should’ve seen Maggie and Amanda.  They talk as if they’re trying to find someone to help them invest their money.”

Cal stopped typing.  “What was the name of the group?”

“The X Women.”

Cal connected to the Internet, and typed “X Women” into the search line.  I could see a list of web sites appear on the screen.

“Whoa, should’ve known that would happen,” Cal said.

“What?”  I didn’t have the energy to get off the couch.

“The X Women.  Anything with ‘X’ in it is bound to bring up some porn sites.”  He scrolled through the list.  “Here’s one for a women’s water polo event.  Doubt that’s it.”  He clicked and went to the next screen.  “No, not there.”  He scanned through more of the results, periodically clicking on a site.  He read off some of the names, but none of them had anything to do with an underground group of any kind, or killers for hire, not that either of us thought we would find a web site.  “I’ll spend some time looking into that.”  Cal said.  “There might be something on the hack sites.”

I nodded, contemplating the designs on his ceiling.  “This is what I’m wondering.  They have to be organized somehow, and have connections, and that sort of thing, right?  If wealthy women can find out about them, we should be able to.”

“They can’t exactly advertise in the Yellow Pages.”

“Duh,” I said.  “But I’m a detective; I should be able to find them, right?”  Cal shrugged.  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

He was smiling, I could tell.  “What is considered the first film noir film?”

“The Maltese Falcon.  It’s a great movie,” I said.

“Who directed it?”

“John Huston.  It was his directorial debut.”  I sat up.  “What're you doing?”

Cal tapped the computer screen.  “A detective film noir crossword puzzle.”

“Oh.”  Cal may know a lot, but I was the old-movie buff, especially old detective movies.  I moved over to the computer and looked over his shoulder.  He had the puzzle almost completed, which showed he knew almost as much as me in this area.

“You’d better be careful,” Cal said.  “If Amanda had anything to do with Peter’s death, she could be capable of anything, too.”

“I hear you.”  I pointed to the screen.  “That’s
D.O.A.”

Cal typed in the answer.  “Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan starred in a remake of an original movie starring Edmund O’Brien?  I didn’t know that.”

I laughed.  Rare words from Cal.

*****

I left Cal’s house around midnight.  He had his assignment.  He was going to follow the money trail, and he would find out anything he could on the X Women.  I didn’t know how much time I had with any of this.  The X Women wanted something from Amanda, and I didn’t think they’d wait to get it.  On top of that, I also needed to figure out what happened to Peter Ghering.  Was Amanda telling the truth?  She appeared to be, so that brought up another question: where was Peter?  And why did the X Women spare his life?

I mulled over the conversation with Cal as I made the journey back to downtown Denver.  Cal lived in the foothills west of Denver, off of Highway 285 past the mountain community of Pine Junction.  I followed a winding dirt road to 285, turned left and on to 285, and drove in the moonlight back to Denver.  I was alone on the road, but still sped cautiously over the winding road, slowing as I rounded a sharp bend.  When I came out of the curve, a full-size SUV pulled in behind my 4-Runner.  Despite its bulk, the SUV quickly gained speed behind me.  I accelerated until I was going ten over the speed limit, but the driver of the SUV kept pace with me.  I glanced uneasily in my rear view mirror as the SUV headlights inched closer and closer toward the rear end of my vehicle.  I picked up more speed, but the SUV stayed right on my tail.

“Okay, I’m going,” I muttered, watching my speed top seventy as I veered around a sharp turn.  The road dropped off a few feet on the right, the direction where the momentum of the turn was pulling me.  I felt the left wheels of the 4-Runner lose grip with the road for a second, then regain traction.  The SUV matched my speed as we roared around another bend.  The road straightened.  I sped up, the speedometer going over eighty, but the headlights glared right in my rear-view mirror.  I looked for a pullout, a wider spot on the road that allowed slower cars to pull over and let others pass, but I saw none.

"Get off my ass," I muttered.

I gripped the wheel tighter as we rounded another dangerous turn and hit the brakes, slowing down.  The SUV headlights disappeared from the mirror.  I braced for a hit, unconsciously hitting the gas.  The 4-Runner leaped forward, coming within inches of the guardrail on the right.  I caught a brief glimpse of blackness dropping off into space before I eased up on the pedal.  My tires screamed, but kept their purchase on the pavement.  I raced around three more bends with the SUV on my tail.  I gritted my teeth, knowing that soon the road widened into two lanes.  I whipped around another crazy turn and the road suddenly widened, giving the SUV room to pass.

“Ha!” I yelled, easing up on the gas.  “Go on by, asshole!”

The SUV stayed behind me for another five seconds as I slowed down, then pulled into the other lane and sped up.  The driver pulled parallel to me, jerked the wheel, and the side of the SUV loomed in my face.  I again prepared to die as I drove the 4-Runner dangerously close to the shoulder of the road.  I had exhausted any more pavement, but the SUV suddenly pulled into the left lane and raced forward.  Before it disappeared, I noticed that the left taillight was broken.  Last Friday night, someone paid me a visit complete with a baseball bat beating.  That someone was sending a message again.

I slowed to a stop and parked on the side of the road, at once furious and grateful.  For a moment I clenched the wheel and shook violently.  A dark thought occurred to me.  Maybe the X Women were after me, too.  I shuddered and forced myself to breathe evenly.  After a minute, I pulled carefully back onto the road and drove home, more fearful than I’d been in a long time.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“What?” I mumbled into the telephone the next morning.  I squinted at the big red numbers on the clock.  Six a.m.

“Here’s what I found out.”  Cal hasn’t many social graces.

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Uh, it’s early,” Cal said.  “Listen, I’ve been up all night, and I’ve found out a few things about that, uh, situation.”

I sat up in bed.  “Cal, you don’t need to be so clandestine.  It’s not like my phones are tapped.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true.”  Cal paused and I heard papers rattling in the background.  I could picture him trying to find the dozens of scraps of paper that he typically took notes on.  “How much do you know about money laundering and that sort of thing?”

“Only what I see in the movies,” I chuckled.  “Are the X Women into money laundering as well as murder?”

“Sort of,” Cal answered.  “Here’s the two-dollar version of what they do.  With that much money being passed around, and not for legitimate business affairs, the group has to have a way of accessing it without anyone interfering.  That’s where the Cayman Islands come in.”

“I’m with you so far.”

“The money is deposited in a bank in the Caymans.  Now you need a legitimate business in order to make this all work.  So you buy a corporation in the Caymans or somewhere in Europe.  There are probably others, too.  Anyway, you can buy a corporation cheap; I found a number of ways of doing this.  Once your corporation is set up, you borrow money against that corporation, set up a legitimate business, and make your deposits as profit from the business.  Money launderers do this all the time.  Maybe they buy a restaurant or something, and at the end of each month, they deposit money from their drug deals or whatever with the real profits.  Now you can use the money from illegitimate sources, and no one’s the wiser.”

“But that can be tracked, can’t it?”

“Sometimes, but once the feds figure out what the criminals are doing, the criminals change the way they do things.”

“Always one step ahead.”

“Exactly.  And if you put enough layers around yourself, it makes it that much harder to get caught.  Think of it like an onion.  If the real source of the money is at the center of the onion, and you have numerous businesses and banks involved, each one a layer around the center, you have to peel a lot of onion skin before you get to the truth.”

“So how are the X Women involved in money laundering?” I asked.

“Well, I suspect it’s not like you think of money laundering, like the Mafia, but they do use the same type of system so no one knows about them.”  I heard more paper rattling.  “I traced that account number Amanda gave you to a bank in the Cayman Islands.  She deposited five hundred thousand dollars to an account back in December.  The name on the account is ‘Ultionis Femina’.”

“That sounds like Latin or something.”

“It is, Reed.”

“They weren’t even trying to fool anyone with that name,” I said.  “Can you imagine naming your daughter that?”

Cal chuckled.  “No, especially when you learn the meaning.  I looked it up.  It roughly translates into ‘avenging woman’.  The address the woman provided was 3241 Five Book Way.”

“Hang on, let me write that down.”  I sat up and grabbed a pad and pen I keep handy on the nightstand.  Cal repeated the address, spelling the street name for me.  “Funny name,” Cal said.  “I found a number of Book Avenues, and Book Ways, but not Five Book.  I didn’t find that street listing anywhere, not that that’s a surprise.”  I studied it while he talked.

“I’ll bet it means something,” I yawned, still trying to wake up.

“Yep.”  Cal never talks in a know-it-all tone, but when he knows it all, you just know that he knows.  “You already figured this out,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Okay, let me think here.  I’m not at my peak before the sun rises.”  Cal didn’t respond.  I had a sudden flash.  “Did you look that up in a Bible?”

Cal snorted.  “Good idea.”

“What’s the fifth book in the Bible?  Not Genesis.  Numbers?”

“Keep guessing.”

I scratched my chin.  “Deuteronomy?  Is that the fifth book in the Bible?”

“Very good, Holmes.”  I rolled over on my side, and felt around under the bed to find the Bible my mother had given me.  I blew the dust off of it and coughed.

“It hasn’t seen much use, huh?” Cal asked.

“No, to my mother’s chagrin,” I said.  “Let’s see.”  I cradled the phone with my shoulder and turned to Deuteronomy, chapter 32, verse 41.  “When I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.”

“These women are creative, if nothing else.”

“And scary.  They’re not leaving much to the imagination.”

“I wouldn’t want to run into them in a dark alley,” Cal said.

“Since you rarely leave your house, I don’t think that’s a problem.”

“Yeah, right.  Anyway, I searched for anything on ‘Ultionis Femina’, but didn’t find anything on her, either here or in the Cayman Islands.  Not that I expected to, but you never know.  And you know how simple it is to create fake names, identities, the whole works.  So I continued with the money trail instead.  Amanda’s funds were rewired that afternoon to an account in Lucerne, Switzerland.  The money was withdrawn from that account a day later.  The name on that account is Wilma O. Trace.”

“Wilma O. Trace?”  I pondered that for a second as I wrote it down.  Then it made perfect sense.  “Oh, I get it.  Without a trace.”

“They are cute, aren’t they?”  Cal chuckled again.  “Same thing with that name.  Nothing.  And the money trail disappeared, too.  It’s all that layering going on.  They essentially vanish.”

“Without a trace.”  I pulled the covers up over me, getting more comfortable.  “This is a well-connected group,” I said.  “It still takes a bit of rope-pulling and power in order to set all this up.  It takes a good bit to put together fake I.D.’s, credit cards, Social Security numbers, and who knows what else for a bunch of people.”

“I spent quite a while searching for the X Women,” Cal continued.  “Once I got past the porn sites, I contacted a number of sources,” his polite way of saying computer hackers, “but it was a dead end.”

“Too bad,” I said.

“No, I really mean a dead end,” Cal repeated.  “I’ve never seen a bunch of geeks get so frightened all of a sudden.  And these guys break the law all the time, so it’s not like this should’ve scared them.  But it did.  I finally got one of the guys, Scatter D, to talk with me a little bit in one of the chat rooms, and he said he’s heard a few things here and there, but he wasn’t saying much.  He did say that people who talk end up dead.  Reed, this organization of yours does not mess around.  They remind me of the Mafia.”

“It’s not my group,” I said.  “Please, I want nothing to do with them, especially if they’re like the Mafia.  Hey, I didn’t tell you what happened to me last night on my way home.”  I proceeded to relate my adventure with the SUV.

“You should get out, now.”

“I wish I could.”  I heard Cal let out a huge sigh.

“I’ll be careful, Mom.”

“Your mother would say the same thing,” Cal said.

“I know.”

“I’ll keep looking.  Go back to bed.”

I tried, but I couldn’t get what Cal had said off my mind.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

There was no way I was falling back asleep.  I was wide awake after my conversation with Cal, and this new information was running a race in my head.  I pulled on a pair of sweats and plodded barefoot into the bathroom.  I splashed cold water on my face, and carefully took the butterfly bandages off the cut on my temple.  It seemed to be healing well, so I cleaned the wound but didn’t bother to reapply bandages.  I’d have a small scar, but nothing more.  I smiled at myself in the mirror and sauntered into the kitchen where I fixed coffee.  The aroma of the gourmet beans filled the kitchen, and I took a steaming cup into my home office.

I don’t indulge in many things, but my office is one of them.  It’s a cozy room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on one wall where I keep most of my prized possessions.  I have a DVD case full of my favorite detective movies, along with a collection of Alfred Hitchcock classics.  The bookshelves are packed with a ton of books, mostly murder mysteries, and a collection of rare first edition detective novels.

I set the coffee down and started up my computer, and began an Internet search on “Janet Delacroix”.  Maggie had given me little information about the football player she claimed to have helped eliminate, but I had her daughter’s name.  That would be my starting point.

I typed in ‘female student murdered’ and received a list of more than fourteen thousand matches.  I needed to narrow the search, so I typed in the name Janet Delacroix.  This brought the list to a measly five websites.  I quickly scanned the  highlighted search words, and the associated web link, and determined that, except for the last one, none fit my criteria.  The last one took me to a website for the National Library of Medicine, with Janet listed as an employee in the research department.  If it was the same Janet, Maggie’s daughter, she lived in the Washington, D.C. area.  That didn’t help me in finding out about her murdered friend, but contacting her might be a possibility, if I wanted to follow that trail.  I thought about my Internet search.  I’d gone too broad, then too narrow, now could I find something in the middle?

I took out ‘Janet Delacroix’, kept the words ‘female student murdered’ and added ‘college’.  Still over seven thousand.  I added ‘football star’.  This narrowed the search to a thousand.  I checked a number of the websites, but none had anything to do with a girl murdered by a college football star.  I mulled over how to narrow the search even further while I sipped my coffee.  I scrolled through another page and was about to start a new search when one website caught my eye.  It was an archived article from the Miami Herald about a university student murdered near the school campus, and how that had an influence on campus safety at some Florida college campuses.  The article wasn’t specific to the murder, and didn’t mention the school or the student.  I added the words ‘Florida’ and changed ‘college’ to ‘university’.  Now I had a little over a hundred.

Not only was the list more manageable, I was hitting a number of archived articles about the murder of a university student.  Unfortunately the websites were for newspapers that wanted a fee to check the articles, or I could request a hard copy that would be sent in the mail.  I didn’t have time for that, so I kept scrolling down the screen, clicking on each website and scanning the web page.  After the first ten or so, I began to doubt my research methods.  By twenty, I began to devise ways to get Maggie to divulge the information.  Tell me or I’ll force you to wear polyester.

On twenty-eight, I hit gold.

“Murder of popular teenager has police puzzled,” read the teaser line under the website address.  I clicked on the link.  The logo for The Gainesville Sun appeared on the top of the page, with “archives” in bold letters underneath.  Six articles were listed on the page, and I didn’t have to pay to check the articles.  I held my breath as I clicked on the first link and opened the article.

Two sentences into the article I knew this was the one.  The article was about a nineteen-year-old woman named Elaine Richards, found murdered on November 1, 2006.  Her semi-nude body had been discovered near Lake Alice, close to the University of Florida.  She had extensive bruising around her neck, and rape was suspected.  The police were not releasing further details until after an autopsy could be performed.

The next article had even more information.  The night before the discovery of her body, Elaine and her boyfriend, Derek Jones, star linebacker for the University of Florida Gators, spent the evening together.  When I read the name, a vague memory popped into my mind.  I’m not a big fan of college football, but I seemed to remember something about the incident because the announcers for one of the Bowl games mentioned how Derek’s potential pro football career had been in jeopardy because of the murder and his possible culpability in it.

The couple had gone out to dinner on Halloween night at a posh restaurant near the university.  The waiter and maitre’d both remembered Derek eating there with a pretty girl, but could offer little else about them.  Elaine’s roommate and best friend, who wanted to remain anonymous, hadn’t expected her friend to come home at the end of the evening, and hadn’t worried until Elaine didn’t show up for a ten a.m. class they shared.  Elaine’s roommate still hadn’t told anyone of Elaine’s disappearance when the nightly news reported finding the body of a woman on the shore of Lake Alice, near the university’s nature preserve.  Elaine’s roommate had a gut feeling and went to the police.  She identified the body.

Poor kid, I thought of Janet Delacroix.  Barely an adult and being thrust into a situation like that.  The rest of the story centered on the lack of clues in the investigation, and how the police had initially suspected Derek Jones, but dismissed him after his roommate and another friend provided an alibi for him.

I read the other articles, each shorter than the last.  Cause of death was asphyxiation caused by being choked, most likely with a belt.  She had been raped, and due to bruises on her back, wrists, legs and face, beating and possible torture were also suspected.  The police lamented the lack of clues and leads, and the campus population was on edge.  The last, tiny article said that Elaine’s funeral was being held out-of-state, and that the police still had no leads or suspects.

Now that I had a name, I searched on “Elaine Richards” and “Derek Jones”, and came up with some more articles that didn’t divulge much more than what I already knew.  One victory was the mention of the detective in charge of the investigation, George Romero from the Gainesville Police Department.

I spent a few minutes finding the number for the police department in Gainesville, Florida.  It was a few minutes after eight, Denver time.  As I dialed the number for the Gainesville PD I hoped that George was both still employed with the department and available.

A woman with a slow drawl informed me that George Romero had retired.  Maybe that was a good thing – a retired cop might be more likely to talk to me about an old case.  After thanking her and hanging up, I searched phone directories in the area and found a couple of George Romeros.  Now I just had to hope one of them was the former detective.

I struck out the first time.  “Please be the right George,” I whispered as I dialed the next number.

“George Romero.”  A deep voice rumbled into the phone.

“George, my name is Philip Marlowe,” I said, using the name of the fictional detective in The Big Sleep.  “I’m with the Boulder Police Department.”  After Jon Benet, I didn’t need to identify the state.  Everyone at all related to criminal investigation knew of Boulder, Colorado.

“Yes?”

“You were the detective investigating the death of Elaine Richards, correct?”

“Yes sir, that's true.”  I did a silent high five into the air.

“I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm wondering if I can ask you a few questions?”

“What can I do for you?”  Polite, but cautious.

“I’m investigating a rape case that took place near the college here, and some of my research into similar cases around college campuses led me to one you investigated a few years ago, a woman by the name of Elaine Richards.”

“Yes sir, I remember that case.  The unsolved ones can stick with you.”  His voice boomed so that I held the receiver an inch from my ear.  “She was a popular young lady, had quite a future in front of her.  One of those cases you hate to see.”

“Why did the case remain unsolved?” I asked.

“We didn’t have anything to go on.”  He stretched out his words as he spoke.  “I looked first at Derek Jones – you familiar with him?”  I said I was and he continued.  “Of course, you always look at the husband or boyfriend, right?  But he had an airtight alibi, so I had to look elsewhere.  And we didn’t have that much to work with.  We think the killer, or killers, dropped her body there after she’d been raped and killed.”

“What about forensic evidence?”

“Very little of that.  The perp, or perps, used condoms because the autopsy didn’t find any sperm, even though she was violated.  Hair and fiber results came up with very little as well.  No DNA evidence.  Whoever murdered that poor girl must have read a lot of detective fiction.  They were careful.  Really careful,” he mused.

“So after Derek Jones, did you have any other suspects?”

“We checked into a few boys she dated that fall, but never did get enough on anybody to take it to the D.A.  You know how that goes.”

I concurred.  “You mentioned that Derek had an airtight alibi.”

“Yes sir, his roommate and his best friend both swear he was with them after he took Elaine home.  All three said they dropped Elaine off at her dorm.  They watched her disappear through the front door and they left.  We checked around the dorm and found a few students who remember the car, a black Firebird, driving through the parking lot at the time those boys said they were there.  No one specifically remembers Elaine getting out of the car, but it was dark, and the witnesses saw the car, not the people in it.  I tried to find loopholes in Derek’s alibi, but I couldn’t.”

“You think Derek did it,” I said.

Romero breathed heavily into the phone.  “That wasn’t a popular viewpoint around here, him being a football player, and a damn good one at that.”  I waited for him to continue, hoping he would share what he really thought.  He finally spoke.  “Yes sir, I think that boy was guilty.  He raped and murdered that girl.  I’d hang my badge on it.”

“Why so sure?”

“My gut told me those other boys were lying for him, giving Derek his alibi so he wouldn’t take the rap.  And when I looked into his background, he wasn’t the all-American boy that he appeared to be.  He had a history of violence, some bar brawls, and some allegations from a former girlfriend.”

“None of that was ever reported?” I asked, thinking about the articles I’d just read.  This did not fit the football star described by the papers.

“No sir.  Derek had that little girl scared silly.  She never pressed charges, never said anything to her parents, or any authorities.  I stumbled on it when I interviewed some of the girls in Elaine’s dorm; would’ve missed it otherwise.  That girl told me she’d deny it if I reported it or said anything public about it.  Now she may’ve been lying, but my gut says no way.”

I pondered that for a moment.  “So the case remains unsolved?”

“That’s right.  And it’ll probably remain that way.”

“Why?”

Romero grunted.  “You know what happened to Derek Jones?”

“No,” I said.

“Derek was driving down Highway 75 two nights after he played in the national championship game.  He had two interceptions in that game, played just great.  Maybe he was still celebrating.  Anyway, he ran his truck straight into a guardrail, and down an embankment.  He was thrown from the car, killed instantly.”

“It was an accident?” I couldn’t contain my surprise.  I naturally assumed the X Women wouldn’t worry about covering up a murder.

“Yes sir, an accident.  And I can’t say that I mourn his passing,” Romero said.

Silence filled the phone line between us.  “What’s this case that you’re working on?” Romero finally asked.

“Oh, I can’t divulge any information right now,” I said.  He murmured understanding.  “But I appreciate your help.”

“My pleasure,” he said.  “I hope that helps you in your investigation.”

“Let’s hope so,” I said truthfully.

“What was your name?”

“Philip Marlowe,” I said.

“Isn’t that the name of a detective from an old book or something?”

“Yes,” I said.  “My mother was a fan of the old classics.  Hey, thanks again,” I said and hung up the phone.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I must’ve sat at my desk for ten minutes mulling over my conversation with George Romero.  So the X Women made Derek’s death look like an accident.  This group looked more and more like one that operated with a cold efficiency, swooping down like Spiderman, I thought wryly, to mete out justice, then leaving without a trace of ever having been there.  I wondered how many other murders the X Women committed in the name of justice, murders that they made look like an accident.

I plodded to the kitchen for a fresh cup of coffee, then returned to the computer.  I ran some searches, trying to come up with a way of finding accidental deaths of people who had recently been accused of a crime, or had been convicted of a crime.  I didn’t have much luck, hitting way too many websites that had nothing remotely to do with my search.  I also had a difficult time getting a reasonable list.  Most searches resulted in thousands of hits.  I sat back, thinking of how I could glean this information from the World Wide Web.  There was only one thing to do.

“Hey, aren’t you going to get some sleep?” I asked when Cal picked up the phone.

“Tonight.  I’ve got some work to get done.”  He didn’t even sound tired.

“Have you come up with anything more on the X Women?”

“I just got off the phone with you a couple of hours ago,” he said.  “I have a client who’s screaming to get his software back tomorrow.  I need to work on that for awhile, then I’ll look into it some more.”  Cal’s work as a consultant allowed him to work from home, but I didn’t understand much of what he did.  He once told me his work was similar to Sandra Bullock’s in The Net and I took his word for it.

“You’re not going to believe what I found out since you called,” I said.

“That you drool in your sleep?” Cal asked.  The sound of him tapping on his keyboard clacked through the phone while we talked.  “Want me to find out more about the X Women?  Are they really women?  Or does the X stand for women who’ve had sex change operations, hence they are ex-women?  See it on the next Jerry Springer.”

“Ha, ha,” I said.  “I tracked down another victim of the X Women.”

“You’re counting Peter Ghering as a victim?”

“Yeah, besides him.”  The clicking stopped, which meant I had his full attention.  “I’ve been on the Internet, and I finally tracked down Maggie’s friend, the girl she says was killed by a football star.”

“I really thought you’d go back to bed.”

“I couldn’t sleep after everything you told me.”  I relayed to him my last couple of hours of work, ending with George Romero’s tale.  “I need to find out if there’s been other accidental deaths of people who’ve been accused or convicted of a violent crime, or who have served time for something like that, then got out and died in mysterious circumstances.”

“That’s your working theory?”

“So far.  I know it’s thin, but…”

“Uh huh,” Cal said, before lapsing into silence.  I could almost hear the wheels grinding in his head as he thought.  “It wouldn’t just be violent crimes.  I’d bet the X Women have committed murder for other things as well.”

“That’s what I would assume,” I said.  “But I can’t find anything on just the violent crimes.  If I broaden my search that much, I’ll never find anything.  It’s just a starting place, to see if I can find a pattern.”

“I’ll take care of that for you,” Cal said.  “I’ll just add it to the X Women list.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, then immediately said, “No, I don’t want to know.”

“It’s nothing bad,” Cal chuckled.  “I have more resources at my fingertips, and I know where to look.  You just play on the computer.”  Compared to Cal’s computer skills, I had to agree.  “Come up here later and we’ll see what we can find.”

“Sure, how about later this afternoon?”  He grunted a response, which I took to be a ‘yes’ and I hung up.  That done, I padded into the kitchen with my empty coffee cup, then showered and dressed.

*****

After I got cleaned up, I ate a bagel, and walked over to the office.  I didn't have much to do there, just check my messages and retrieve the mail.  I wondered, not for the first time, about spending so much for rent on an office I rarely saw, but I held hopes of a burgeoning business.  Besides, I needed an office to show my father that I was legitimate.  The voicemail system had a call from a prospective client, a man who wanted to set up an appointment with me after he returned from Barbados.  He’d call again in two weeks.  Another prospect.  All right then.

I turned on the stereo, booted up my computer, and made some notes about the case so far.  In the midst of finding out about the X Women, I had shoved Peter Ghering to the back of my mind.  Where was he?  And the bigger question, was he still alive?

I called Detective Jimmy Merrick.  The dispatcher put me through to him.  When I identified myself, his tone turned cautiously curious.  “You’re still helping that Ghering woman?”  He couldn’t have sounded more derisive of her.

“Let’s just say that I have my own interest in the case,” I said.

“Okay,” he agreed.  “We’ll say that.  What do you want from me?”

He certainly came right to the point.  No bullshit, just like the night I’d met him at Amanda’s.  “I know you don’t think much of Amanda.”  His silence spoke volumes about his opinion of her.  “But what do you think happened to Peter Ghering?  Do you have anything more?”

A chair squeaked in the background, and I could picture Merrick shifting his powerful frame.  “I can’t tell you anything.”  He spoke as if he didn’t believe his own weak bluff.

“Sure you can, if you want,” I said.  “I promise not to bug you if you tell me what you’ve got.”

“Hey, buddy, I’m the one who’ll be crawling up your ass if you step over the line."  He let out a sigh that sounded more like a wheeze, as he played the Reluctant Game.  “All right, I guess it can’t harm anything to tell you that we haven’t turned anything up yet.  We’ve been in contact with the feds in Philly, and they haven’t gotten any unidentified male bodies, or anything else that would lead us to believe Peter was murdered and left there.  He hasn’t turned up here, at least as far as I know.  Amanda might be able to tell you more.”

“What do you mean?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s holding out on all of us.”  I’m sure my silence now told him that I agreed.  “On the record, I don’t have anything to go on, so there’s not much I can do.”

“Off the record?” I asked.

“My own opinion, he got the hell away from that crazy woman.  Officially, he’s a missing person.”

“Any leads?”

“None.  He hasn’t used a credit card since that Monday.”

“Monday?”

“Is there an echo?  That’s what I said.  Monday.  He pulled out a cash withdrawal of five hundred from an ATM in downtown Philly.  Near the Liberty Bell.  We don’t have anything else.”

“Which credit card?” I thought about Amanda’s calls to her credit card companies.  She hadn’t said anything about that transaction.  I wondered how many lies of hers I would uncover before I found Peter.

“Am-Ex.  It was his business account.  You want anything else, Sherlock?”

I ignored the gibe, thanked Merrick and hung up.  If Peter was slated to be killed on Monday, before he left Philadelphia, did this confirm he’d gotten away?  Unless someone else used his card instead.  I shuddered at the thought.  Today was Wednesday.  More than a week had passed since Peter disappeared.  Was he alive or dead?

I took care of some busy work, mostly stuff I concocted, ate a late lunch at Jason’s Deli, and drove up to Cal’s house about three o’clock.  As I made each winding curve, I couldn’t help but envision last night's journey, hurtling down the mountain.  What had been gaping blackness now showed up as the jagged sides of valleys sloping down from the highway.  Had I gone over the edge, it would not have been a pretty death.  But it would have been made to look like an accident, I thought.  The signature kill for the X Women.

“Don’t you ever work?” Cal said when he opened the door.  Before I could answer he was shuffling back down the hallway to his office.  Judging by his matted hair, wrinkled shirt, and cheap cologne, Cal hadn’t bothered to shower or change clothes.  Personal hygiene took a back seat when Cal pursued a new project.

I followed him into his sanctuary and plopped onto the  love seat.  “I am working.”  The usual dust cloud swirled into the air when my butt hit the cushions.  I settled back.  “I’m working with you.”

He wagged his head as he swiveled around to face one of the monitors.  “I’ve got something on that thing.”  He was being clandestine again.

“The X Women?” I asked.

“Yeah.”  He started punching away at the keyboard, hunched over.

I sat up.  “Anything good?”

“I’ve come up with some possible accidents that they could’ve been involved in.  I’ve created a list.”  He printed a document and handed it to me.

“How did you do this?”  I got up and started to pace, reading the paper.  It had a list of names, all male, a date next to the name, and the cause of death.  I held up a hand.  “Wait, no, I don’t want to know how you did it.”  I sat back down.

“Quit worrying,” he said.  “It is possible to get information without hacking.”  I began rubbing my eyes nervously.  “Do you want to know what I found out?”  He held up numerous pieces of scrap paper, his way of organization.

“Why didn’t you put it in the document?”

He held up his hands in exasperation, pitching the paper pieces back onto the desk.  “I didn’t get that far.  Do you want to know what I’ve got here?”

“What?”

He rolled his chair closer to me.  “Going back ten years, I found at least seven accidents.”  He used his fingers, making  quotation marks when he said the word “accidents”.  “Each one could’ve been just that, an accident.  But all of them could’ve been murder.  Things like car crashes, a suicide, a hunting accident, and the most interesting one was a guy who apparently was into kinky sex.  He liked that auto-erotic asphyxiation thing.”

“You strangle yourself while you’re masturbating,” I said in plain English.

“Right.  It’s very dangerous, or even deadly.  That was the case for this guy.”

“Okay, that kind of sex is unusual, but why is this guy special?”

He leaned toward me, intent on his revelations.  “I know it happens, a lot more lately.  But here’s what makes this particular case stick out.”  If he intended on making a pun, he didn’t show it.  “It happened in New York City, at a Manhattan brokerage house.  The guy, name of Rick Gerardo, had been acquitted in a rape case two months previous to his death.  He was accused of raping a woman that he worked with.  According to the story, they’d been getting it on in his office after hours, but after a few months, she broke it off.  He wasn’t happy with that, and she accused him of forcing himself on her one Friday evening after work.”

I pursed my lips, thinking it over.  “That could tie in, but it’s shaky.”  I rubbed my eyes again.  “Ah, hell.  This whole thing is shaky.”

He leaned even closer, adamant.  “No, listen.  This is the tie-in.  Guess what kind of sex they liked to have?”

I tipped my head up slowly.  “Ah.  Kinky sex.”

“Not just kinky.  Auto-erotic asphyxiation.  They both testified to that in court.”

“But what about the rape?  Was it really forced or was she holding a grudge against him?  Trying to get back at him for something, so she accuses him of rape.  That’s what I would wonder.”

He shrugged.  “From the articles I read, it sounds like that’s the line the jury took.  They didn’t believe the prosecution proved force, so they acquitted.  But according to court testimony, the woman said Rick was brutal that night.  According to her, he nearly killed her while he raped her, that he choked her with the intent to kill, not just for the sexual rush.  And he was her boss, so after she broke it off, he threatened her with her job.”

“Apparently that didn’t work,” I observed.

“Right.  She went ahead and accused him publicly, lost her job, was humiliated by having to tell the story in court, then was blackballed by the company and its associates.  Her statement after the trial said she was leaving New York, going back to Delaware to live with her parents for a while.”

“And devise a means of punishing Rick, if this is an X Women case.”

“Right.”  Cal sat back with a satisfied look on his face.  “I researched the family some.  Daddy is a prominent attorney in Delaware, and they're old money.”

“So they could afford to hire the X Women,” I finished.

Cal clapped his hands once in triumph.  “And the other cases I found are similar.  If possible, the death was made to mirror the crime of the accused.  I haven’t got all the details, but I can work on that tonight.”

I didn’t say anything for a minute.  “This organization is slick,” was all I could come up with.

“You said it,” Cal concurred.  “Now it could all be coincidence, but you never know.  And I’ve only been at this a little while.  Who knows what I might find with some more time.”

“You want to grab a bite to eat?” I switched topics.

“No, I’ve got too much going on here to stop.”

I smiled at his dedication.  “Keep at it, then.”  I stood up to leave.

He smiled.  “Sure.  This is more fun than looking for viruses in software.”

“And don’t forget to eat something fresh.”  I held up a bowl with a substance that once might have been cereal, but now was a congealed blob.  He stared at me blankly and turned back to the computer.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Late afternoon shadows were already turning to darkness as I left Cal’s house, and I smelled a crisp coldness in the air.  I had an uneventful drive down the mountain, even though I kept checking my rear-view mirror for suspicious SUVs.  In forty minutes I was pulling the 4-Runner in the alley garage I shared with the Goofball brothers.  Deuce’s battered Ford truck sat in the other space, so he was home from work.

I got out and closed the garage door, then trudged through the back yard and around the building to the front porch.  I was headed for the side entrance to my condo when Ace came out.

“You wanna go with us to B-52’s?” he asked.  “We were thinking about shooting some pool.”

“That sounds like fun,” I answered.  It had been a long day, and I didn’t need much convincing.

Deuce leaped out onto the porch, his heavy gray overcoat and black gloves already on.  “How’s business?” he asked with a goofy grin on his face.

“Trying to help a lady find her missing husband,” I explained in simple terms.

“Hmm,” Deuce mused.  “Is that stuff exciting?”

“Not usually,” I said as we started walking down the street.

“Like in the movies?”  This from Ace.

“Yeah,” I smiled.  Humphrey Bogart, eat your heart out.

“Those movies you like, are they any good?” Deuce asked.

“They’re great.  All the action, the subplots, and the actors.  Bogie, Edward G. Robinson, Burt Lancaster.  Beautiful women and mysterious twists and turns.”

“Bogie?” Ace said.  “Why are we talking golf?”

“We aren’t,” I said.

“Weren’t we talking about some movie?” Deuce asked.

I looked up into blank faces.  “Forget it.”

Ace put an arm around my shoulder.  “Nah, man.  You like those movies, maybe we should watch one.”

“Yeah, whaddaya recommend?” Deuce asked.

I smiled, thinking about Bogie, the coolest of the cool detectives.  “The Big Sleep.  That’s film noir at its best.”

“Film what?” Ace said.

“Film noir.  It’s a genre…Forget it.”  The blank stares told me I’d lost them again.  “I like that one, although I don’t know if you guys would.  It’s kind of complicated.”

“Hey, if you like it, we should watch it,” Deuce said.

“The Big Sleep,” Ace said.  “We got that down at the store.  I can get it.”

“I’ve got the DVD if you want to borrow it.”  I really doubted they would get it, all the subtleties and dark subplots, but it might broaden their horizons.  At least it had lots of action, and lots of people getting killed.  And Lauren Bacall, she was one hot babe.

Ace smiled.  “I can get it for free, so it’s no problem.”

“Connections,” Deuce said wisely.

“You have some phone work or cable done on your place?” Deuce asked abruptly, picking the question out of the air.

“Hmm?” I mumbled.

“Are you changing your cable or something?” Deuce changed his phrasing, as if that would help me understand him.

“No.  Why?”

“I saw a guy going up to your place a few days ago.  Drove up in a Comcast truck, had a tool kit with him.  You know, he looked like a cable guy or something.”  Comcast provided my cable, but I didn’t have any service work scheduled.  My cable worked fine, but the alarms in my head were ringing loudly.

“When was this?”  I stopped and grabbed Deuce’s arm.

Deuce grimaced, thinking hard.  “Last Friday.  Early afternoon.  I saw him when I came home for lunch.”

My eyes flitted around, and I felt my senses shift into overdrive.  Was someone watching me?  Was I being followed?  Did someone actually break into my house?

“Did he go around back?” I asked.

“No.  He went up the steps to your place.  He was in there for at least half an hour.”  A puzzled look crossed Deuce’s face.  “You didn’t change your cable?”

“What’d he look like?”

Deuce shrugged his shoulders.  “I dunno.  Kind of tall, I guess.  Like the cable guys, you know.”

“I’ve got to go,” I said, turning back.

“Hey, man.  I didn’t mean to make you mad,” Deuce had a hurt look on his face.

I calmed down.  “No, you didn’t.  There’s something I have to check.”

“Okay,” he said cautiously.  “We’ll be at B 52’s if you want to join us.”

“Thanks,” I called over my shoulder.

“We’ll get that movie,” Ace yelled back at me.  “I hope it’s as good as you say.”

“So do I,” I hollered back, leaving them to their fun.

I ran back home, Deuce’s words drumming in my brain the whole way.  I took the side stairs two at a time up to my door and just as I was about to put the key in the lock, I thought about electronic devices.  The only reason I could think of for someone to be in my home was to plant a bug.  Spy equipment.  To listen to me.  A pounding began in the back of my eyes, brought on by adrenaline, and maybe some fear.  I was stepping into the big leagues.

I looked at the key in my hand.  The second I opened the door, someone would know I had come home.  Maybe they were watching me right now.  I flipped around and stared down the steps, onto the street below.  The moon, milky white and round as a marble, cast the street in a hazy glow.  Then a car came down the street, moving slowly.  It stopped and backed up, parallel parking across the street.  The engine died and Willie Rhoden, my neighbor across the street, got out.

“Hey Reed, why are you staring at me?  I told you I have a boyfriend.”  Willie, real name Willimena, was a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital, just east of our neighborhood.  She was twenty-eight, built like a marathon runner, and very attached to her boyfriend, Alan.

“Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”  I couldn’t believe I didn’t recognize her car.  My suspicion meter was crossing into the red zone.

“Right.”  She started up her front walk.  “You were staring,” she hollered.  Any other time that would’ve been true.  Okay, I have a crush on her, even if she has a boyfriend.

I watched her disappear into her house before I turned and, with a determination born out of false bravado, unlocked the door and entered my condo.  I tiptoed into the living room and turned on a lamp on the end table.  The whole time my eyes were scanning the walls, the furniture, the windows, the television, and the phone.  Why had someone disguised as a cable guy been in my condo?  Was there a bug somewhere in this room?  Or camera equipment?  A creepy feeling started from the base of my skull and zipped down my spine.  I felt naked.  And paranoid.

“Oh hell,” I said, taking off my coat.  I took a deep breath, let it out, and determined that the X Women were not going to scare me.  Not this guy.  I was like Bogie.

I began a search of the condo, starting in the living room, coaching myself with tough-guy talk.  “They don’t know who they were messing with,” I mumbled.  I began a search with the obvious, checking the television, the cables behind the entertainment center, and the cable box.  I checked the phones, starting with the one in the living room, then the bedroom phone.  I took apart each receiver and didn’t see anything beyond the complex equipment.  Nothing looked out of place.

I examined the bedroom thoroughly but didn’t find a thing, no hidden cameras or recorders.  Nothing.

I gave the living room, my office, and the kitchen the same treatment, looking everywhere for any signs of bugs or listening devices.  I even looked inside the Tupperware in the cupboards.  I came up empty-handed.

I finally stopped for a breather, falling Indian-style on the floor, rivulets of sweat crawling down my face.  My living room resembled a scene from The Conversation, where Gene Hackman’s character tears up his entire apartment looking for an elusive bug.  I scanned the mess and then I gave up, thoroughly frustrated.  I laid back, stretched out my legs, and stared at the ceiling.  I must be getting extremely fearful.  I’d let Deuce’s comment about a cable guy send me on a wild goose chase.  I should’ve known not to listen to a guy I dubbed as a goofball.

And then I saw it.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In the center of the ceiling hangs a ceiling fan.  The housing was in two parts, the lower housing screwed to the upper housing, which was then secured into the ceiling.  The faux-brass motor is decorated with evenly spaced holes.  In every fifth hole a screw secured the housing together.  Except for one hole, where the spacing was only three holes apart.  I got up and looked up at the fan.  That one screw didn’t resemble the others.  It looked like a tiny glass eye.

I dragged a chair from the kitchen and stood on it, directly under the fan.  Now I could peer up into the metal housing, right at the suspicious-looking screw.  I was being watched by a tiny camera.  I wondered which X Woman was staring back at me.  And if they had planted a spying device, I was sure they would be listening as well.  Judging by the mess in the condo, I was pretty sure a bug wasn’t inside, but maybe  outside, on the building or in the phone cables.

In my haste to go outside and look I nearly fell off the chair.  Anger was taking over my sense of reason.  The X Women were watching me, listening to me.  I jerked open the door, ran out onto the little porch, and looked for the phone lines.  I spotted them, coming from wires in the alley, attached to the overhang of the building then running down the side of the house.  I dashed down the stairs, did a one-eighty around the rail, and started to run under the stairs toward the back yard.  I ducked under an overhanging branch from one of the large oak trees on the side of the house and ran smack into the biggest man I had ever seen.

“Oof!”  I swear that’s exactly what I said.  And after the “oof,” I stumbled backward right into another man.  I felt hands come under my shoulders and push me erect, and much closer to the Herculean guy than I cared to be.

“Mr. Ferguson, would you come with us, please?”  The man behind me spoke in a resonating baritone.  I slowly turned around, expecting another giant.  Instead I was confronted by an average-looking, average-aged man.  He could’ve been a businessman or a neighbor coming home from a long day at the office.  Except for the gun in his right hand.  I glanced at Hercules behind me.  Moonlight beamed off of his completely bald head.  His squared shoulders stretched the seams of a black wool overcoat and I saw a bulge in his left coat pocket.  I debated my options, like running, or asking them upstairs for a beer.

As if he read my mind, Baritone said, “Let’s not make this difficult, Mr. Ferguson.”  He spoke in a cultured manner.  I’d bet money he was Ivy-League educated.

“I didn’t know the X Women hired men,” I countered, stalling for time.  “I thought they just killed them.”  All the great detectives stall when they don’t have a clue what to do next.  And I was clueless.

“Come with us, please.”  Baritone gestured toward the street with the gun.  A full-size, four-door SUV sat doubled-parked in front of the building.  He strode off toward it, looking over his shoulder to ensure that I followed.  I hesitated but then felt the breath of Hercules behind me, so I reluctantly made my way over to the vehicle.  Hercules matched my every step, his shoes crunching loudly on the sidewalk.  In the meantime, Baritone reached the SUV, opened the back door, and waited for me.  As I neared him, he reached out and began searching me.

"You won't be needing this," he said, taking my cell phone.  When he'd finished, he jerked his head toward the car.

I eyed him levelly as I climbed in the backseat.  He had an amused look as he eyed me back.

Two men sat in the SUV, a driver and another solid-looking man on the other side of the back seat who wore a dark overcoat over a gray suit.  He tipped his head once, then resumed staring at the back of the driver’s head.  Hercules got in right after me, scrunching me in the middle.  Baritone got in the front seat and we took off down the street.

“So is somebody going to tell me what this is all about?” I asked.

No answers.  We rode in silence until we got to 17th Avenue, where the driver turned right and headed east.  After two lights, Baritone hiked himself around where he could see me.

“You’ve become a real liability.”  He smiled at me.

“That’s what I was hired to do.”

The smile turned into a slit.  “No, Mr. Ferguson.  You were hired to find Peter Ghering.”

“I go where the trail leads me,” I said, shifting to my left, trying to get some of Hercules weight off me.  “It led straight to you guys.  Or gals.”

Baritone shook his head.  “I may have given you more credit than you deserve, Mr. Ferguson.  We don’t work for the X Women.  We’re trying to find them.  Just like you.”  I tensed slightly.  “I’m Special Agent Dobson of the FBI.”

“Yeah, right,” I said.  My nerves felt taut and adrenalin was pumping through my veins.  I looked from Dobson to the guy on the left, who nodded once again but didn’t introduce himself.  I turned from him to Hercules.  “Special Agent Jones,” he said, speaking for the first time in a voice too high for his massive physique.  He tried to stare me down, his dark eyes squinting at me.

I felt all my organs churning inside me, and hoped the agents couldn’t hear them.  I had my doubts that real agents would nab someone like they’d just done to me, but how could I question a gun pointed at me?  I locked my jaw and narrowed my eyes in what I hoped was an intimidating posture.  “If you’re FBI agents, where are your badges?”  With a trace of a smile on his face, Dobson pulled a black wallet from his coat pocket and flipped it open.  I saw a golden shield with three initials carved into it, and an identification card underneath the shield.  Jones did the same, and I scrutinized his ID as well.  The guy on my left continued to gaze straight ahead, and I chose to let him continue doing that.  I didn’t need to see his badge to know that I was in a precarious situation.  “They could be fakes,” I said.

Dobson continued to look at me as he put his wallet away.  “I had hoped that it wouldn’t come to this...”  He left the rest of the sentence for me to figure out.

“You’ve been watching me.” I received a nod in answer.  “Listening in?”  Another nod.  “Following me?”  After all, I was riding in a black SUV, the same kind that I assumed had been following Amanda.  Dobson nodded his head one final time.  “Why’d you slug me over the head?”  He stared at me.  “And what about the following me home from Cal’s, trying to run me off the road?”

“I assure you that was not us, but it is clear you are a danger to many people.  As for our interest in you, once Amanda Ghering hired you, we had to know how successful you were,” he said.  “You really have been too smart for your own good.  Certainly too smart for ours.  You’re threatening our investigation.  I won’t allow that.”

By now we had turned north onto Colorado Boulevard, past the Natural History Museum, IMAX Theater, and Denver Planetarium.  “You got me into the car by using a gun?  Isn’t that illegal?” I asked.  “What happened to my rights?”

Dobson chuckled.  “That’s a myth of all those detective shows you watch.  If needed, I can stretch the rules.”

“This is stretching?”  I shifted again, elbowing Jones not so subtly in the side.  He leaned into the door.

Dobson glanced out the windshield.  I noted that we were now merging onto Interstate 70, going east again.  “Where are you taking me?”

“All in due time.”  Dobson paused.  “What happened to Peter Ghering?”

“I don’t know.  He’s disappeared without a trace.”  I was puzzled by the question, though.  If the FBI had been spying on me, why didn’t they know about my progress in the investigation?  “Let me see that badge again,” I demanded.

Dobson ignored that.  “We need to come to an understanding, Mr. Ferguson.”

“Like what?”

“Like you need to let this investigation go.  You need to let us do our job.”

“No can do,” I said.  “I’ve had my life threatened, and I’ve come too far.  I’m not stopping now.”

“What have you learned about the X Women?”  Dobson raised his voice.  He shifted so I could see the gun in his shoulder holster.

“They have quite an organization and they are very adept at what they do.  But you already know that.”

“How did you find out about them?”

I chose my words carefully.  “I noticed some unusual occurrences.”

“What?”

“A pattern of accidental deaths happening to men who had been recently accused of a crime against a woman,” I said.

“Who?  What women?”

I crossed my arms defiantly.  “That’s all I’ll say without a lawyer.”

“I see.”  Dobson examined his fingernails thoughtfully.  “As I’ve said, I have worked on this case for quite some time.  Now I’m close to bringing this group down.”  He paused, then met my gaze.  “And I won’t allow you to jeopardize this.”  I stared back, waiting.  “Do I make myself clear?”

“I’m not going to back off.  Look, I’ve been lied to by the woman who hired me, knocked over the head, nearly run off a road, and now spied on by the FBI.  If you think you can just tell me to 'let it go', as you say, you’re crazy.”

Dobson took a deep breath.  “I can understand your reluctance to give up.  But I must ask you again to not jeopardize our work.  Do I make myself clear?” he repeated.

“I’m not a child.”

His face stiffened.  “Quite right.  But I can ground you like one.”

“You’re going to sic Hercules on me?” I wagged my thumb at Jones.

“No.”  Dobson made a clicking sound.  “I’m going to make it exceedingly uncomfortable for you if you continue.”

“How?”  By now we had passed Peña Boulevard, which leads to Denver International Airport.  The area was becoming more barren the farther east we traveled.  Only a few more exits and we would leave Denver behind and head toward Kansas.  My mouth was suddenly dry, and I felt real fear grinding in my stomach.  “Where are we going?”

“Sit tight, Mr. Ferguson.  It will become clear.”  Dobson turned around and settled into his seat.  I watched the back of his head for a moment, then peered to my left and right.  The guy on the left seemed in a hypnotic state, focused on the seat back, while Jones appeared as bland as his name.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

We drove on in a chilling silence past the last exit to the eastern suburbs, into the darkness.  I listened to my heart pounding and watched the mile markers pass by.  Then the driver slowed, exited onto a frontage road, and followed this for a minute or two before turning down a dark dirt lane.  The headlights illuminated a long stretch of road straight ahead, with no lights from houses or any other building visible.  We traveled on the deserted road and after a mile or so, the vehicle stopped.

“Won’t you join me outside?” Dobson said as he opened his door.  Jones got out and held the door for me.  “This way, Mr. Ferguson.”  Dobson walked down a slight incline at the edge of the road and waved me over.  I had a sneaky suspicion that these guys weren’t who they said they were, but I didn’t have much choice except to go along.

I was flushed with fear even though it was frigidly cold.  I stood rooted to my spot until Jones pushed me from behind.  “Come on,” he said.  I stepped carefully, not sure of my footing as I followed Dobson.  I tried to glance at the license plate on the SUV, but I couldn’t make out the numbers on the dark plate.  Besides, with Hercules prodding me on, I didn’t have much time.  I got to the bottom of the incline where Dobson stood waiting.  He put his arm around my shoulders in a friendly gesture.

“Let’s be reasonable about this,” he said, like we were best friends chatting.

I didn’t say a word.  We started walking into a field, the uneven ground frozen under our feet.

“It’s time for the games to end, Mr. Ferguson.”  We kept walking, the icy dirt crunching loudly under our feet.  “Let the government handle this.”

“And if I don’t?”

Dobson stopped and faced me.  His features were ghostly in the moonlight.  He did not appear happy.  “Things will get messy for you.”

“Like what?”

“It doesn’t take much to ruin a person, personally, financially, morally.  I can make any of that happen.  How would you like it if that trust fund of yours was suddenly eliminated?”

“I can handle it.  I wouldn’t be happy, but I’d work it out.”  I hoped he didn’t hear the shaking in my voice.  I crossed my arms against the cold, burying my hands in my armpits.  “Money isn’t everything.”

Dobson moved in for the kill.  “Maybe so, but what if I take down your family?  Your friends?  I can make things very complicated for Cal.”  His eyes narrowed.  “He runs quite a little operation from his house in the foothills, doesn’t he?  I wonder just how much of it is legal.  Maybe we should check into that.”

A different kind of coldness swept over me.  I couldn’t let anything happen to my parents, nor could I let Cal get into trouble at my expense.  “You’re right to protect him.”  Dobson's smile chilled me more than the frigid air.  “And you can.  Just by leaving this investigation alone.”

“You wouldn’t,” I said.

“Don’t try me, Mr. Ferguson.”  He rocked back on his heels, signaling the end of our discussion.  “Do I have your assurance that you leave this alone?”

I couldn’t think of any alternatives.  “Yes,” I finally said.

“Stay away from Amanda Ghering.  Do not see her.  Do not communicate with her in any way.”

“What if she calls me?  I can’t stop her from doing that.”

“Let her know that you are no longer available to her.  Understand?”

I nodded.

“Good.”  He seemed pleased with himself, clapping his hands together.  “It is cold out here, isn’t it?  Too bad you rushed out without a coat.”  He turned and started back for the car.  I took a few steps after him.  Dobson turned around and held up his hand.

I stopped.  “What now?”

“Our meeting is over, Mr. Ferguson.”

“Okay, take me home.”  I pointed to the SUV.  Dobson shoved his hands in his coat pockets, and even in the dark I could see him clutching the gun that was in the left pocket.  He contemplated me in a nonchalant manner.  My knees buckled under me and I almost fell down.

“What are you going to do?” I finally asked.

Dobson shrugged.  “Stay away from this investigation.  Stay away from Amanda Ghering.  Stay away from anything that has to do with this organization.  Do I make myself clear?”

“I said I would,” I managed to say.

“Excellent choice.”  He turned his back to me again.  “I will leave you to your own resources now,” he called over his shoulder.

“You’re going to leave me here?” I yelled after him.  “If you’re really the FBI, you wouldn’t do that!”

He reached the SUV and in the moonlight I could see him say something to Jones, and then they both laughed.

“Hey!”  I raised my voice even louder.  Sensation came back into my legs and I began trotting toward the car.  “You just threaten me and that’s it?” I shouted, jabbing my finger into the air.  “I have rights.  I pay taxes.”  The men opened their car doors.  “It’s freezing out here!”

“I can do whatever I want,” Dobson called out to me.  “Let this be my warning to you.”

“This doesn’t happen in the movies!”

Dobson held a hand up.  “This isn’t a movie, Mr. Ferguson.  Good night.”  The two men got into the car, slammed their doors, and the SUV pulled a quick U-turn, dipping down into a slope on the side of the road.  The wheels spun for a second before catching traction, and the SUV roared off, spraying dirt behind it.  I ran after it, swearing as many four-letter words as I could think of in the cold, but by the time I got to the road all I saw were two tiny red lights disappearing in the distance.  And the left one was broken.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Thanks for the ride,” I said to the semi driver as he dropped me off at the side of the road near Interstate 70 and Quebec, on the eastern side of metro Denver.  The big eighteen wheeler groaned as it edged its way back on the highway, leaving me in its dust.

Once I had determined that the SUV was not coming back for me, I ran back down the dirt road to the highway, yanking my flimsy sweater up around my ears, and stuffing my hands deep into the pockets of my jeans.  That did little to keep out the burning cold, and I had to stop and walk twice because of stabbing pains in my side.  I definitely needed to get in shape if I were going to continue in this profession.

I reached the highway, cold and out of breath.  I crossed the eastbound lanes, ran through a grassy, frost-covered median, and began walking along the westbound lanes.  I stuck my left arm out and pointed my thumb up, hoping someone would have pity on me.  Cars hurtled by, but none stopped or even slowed down.  After ten minutes my arm was tired, and I was fuming.  The broken taillight told me one thing: the X Women were posing as the FBI.  That thought made me grow colder still.  I was lucky to be alive.

I was composing sentence after sentence of creative curses for the X Women, the FBI, and the imposter agent Dobson in particular, when a big rig slowed down ahead of me.  The young driver seemed disappointed that I wanted a ride only to the nearest telephone.  He’d have to look for someone else for company.

He dropped me within walking distance of a 7-Eleven that we spotted from the highway.  I jogged to the pay phone on the side of the building and dug change from my pocket.  My hands shook as I fed quarters into the pay slot.  I punched in a number and waited.  Three rings.

“Hello?”

“Deuce, it’s me,” I said through chattering teeth.

“Hey, Reed.  We’re done playing pool.”

No kidding.  “I need you to do me a favor.”

“Sure.  What do you need?”

“Can you come pick me up?”

“Uh, sure Reed.  But why do you want me to pick you up?”

“I’m across town.”  I gave him directions to where I was.

“Oh.  Okay,” he said.  “I’ll leave right now.”

I hung up and entered the store.  I used the restroom and bought hot chocolate, never so grateful for a warm cup in my hands.  I chatted with the clerk, who seemed wary of me.  He didn’t need to worry.  If I robbed him of anything, it would be his coat.

I wished Deuce would hurry.  Twenty minutes later, a white, full-size Chevy truck pulled up outside, and Deuce waved at me from the passenger window.  It took a second before I realized that his brother, Bob, was driving the truck.  I thanked the clerk as I left, and he seemed relieved that I wasn’t going to do anything to him.

Deuce opened the truck door and scooted over into the middle seat.  “Thanks for helping me out,” I said as I got into the truck.  I felt like I’d crawled into a fireplace.  I put my hands gratefully in front of the heating vents as Bob hit the gas pedal.

“Somebody playing a joke on you?” Bob asked as we chugged out of the lot.

“Something like that,” I said.

“Why are you all the way out here without your car?”  Deuce glanced at me.  “And your coat.  You got mad at me the other day for not having my coat, remember?”

“Uh-huh,” I said.  “I’ll make sure to follow my own advice next time.”

“Is this about your job?” Deuce asked, a touch of worry in his voice.

The last thing I wanted to do was complicate his life with my work.  Not that he would understand it.  I didn’t understand it.  “Yeah, Deuce.  It’s no big deal, though,” I answered.

Deuce seemed to buy that, crossing his arms and launching into small talk about his pool game.  Bob listened with a wry smile on his face.  I sank into the seat and was nearly asleep by the time we got home.

“You gonna watch the rest of the movie?” Deuce asked Bob as we walked up the porch steps.

“No, buddy, I’ve got to be up early tomorrow,” Bob answered him.

“Okay.  Don’t forget dinner this weekend.”  Deuce said, punching Bob on the arm.  “And you be careful,” Deuce said to me in an eerie imitation of me warning him.  Spooky.

“I will,” I said as he disappeared inside.  I turned to Bob.  “Thanks again.”

“I know I don’t know you well, but should I be worried about you?” Bob asked.  “First someone gives you a nasty bump on the head, then someone takes you on a ride into the middle of nowhere.”

I hesitated a second, surprised by his concern.  “No, I’m fine.  All part of the job.”

His eyes twinkled.  “My brothers talk about you all the time.  I’d hate to see anything happen to their friend.”  He extended his hand.

“Thanks,” I said.

I watched his white truck drive off and climbed the stairs to my place.  I took a hot shower, threw extra blankets on the bed, and crawled under them, still trying to shake off the chill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I slept late the next morning, then spent an hour cleaning up my apartment.  Once I’d put everything back in its place after the debugging rampage from last night, I climbed on a chair and placed a piece of masking tape over the tiny spying device in the fan.  My first thought had been to get in the attic and take it out.  But I didn’t want to tip my hand just yet.  Let them think I still thought they were the FBI.  They could have their spyglass, but they wouldn’t see me.

After I showered, dressed, and ate, I headed outside and around the house to the garage in the back.  First thing I needed to do was get a new cell phone.  I turned the corner and ran smack into a man that would give a professional wrestler a run for his money.  “Oof!”  Just like last night.

A smile formed on the man’s face.  “Are you okay?” he asked politely.

I noticed a shorter, slender man behind him.  Both were dressed in dark suits.  A sense of déjà vu swept over me.  “What do you want?” I asked.

“I’m Special Agent Forbes with the FBI,” the smaller guy said.  He flashed a gold badge at me, then waved a hand at his partner.  “This is Special Agent White.  We’d like a word with you.”  No guns, just a civil demeanor.

“Yeah, right,” I said.  “Wasn’t last night enough?”  I had quickly gone through a range of emotions, from surprise and fear, to downright pissed off.  I hoped the last wouldn’t get me killed.

“What do you mean?” Forbes asked.

“Let me see that badge again,” I said.  He handed it over and I scrutinized it carefully.  “How do I know you’re who you say you are?”  Even as I said it, I noticed a gray sedan with government plates parked down the alley.  Government plates – white plates.  Not like the dark plates on the SUV last night.

“What happened last night?”  A look of genuine puzzlement spread across his face.

“Someone’s impersonating you guys.”

Forbes and White exchanged a cautious look.  “Who might that have been?” Forbes said a bit too lightly.

“Oh, come on,” I snapped.  “We all know who it was, or you wouldn’t be here.”

Forbes shrugged.  “The X Women, no doubt.”  He met my gaze.  “You’re correct.  We know about them, as well as your investigation.”  He frowned.  “But pretending to be the FBI is new territory for them.”

“How do you know about my investigation unless you’ve been spying on me,” I glared at him.  “It was you guys who planted the spy camera in my house.”

Forbes shook his head.  “No, that’s the work of the X Women.  But we have been tracking your investigation.”

“I feel so exposed.”  That got a trace of a smile from White.

“What did they do to you?”  I briefly explained about my trip in the SUV last night.  “It sounds like you must be a threat to them,” Forbes mused when I'd finished.  “And I wouldn’t take that lightly.”

“So I gathered,” I said.

“Unfortunately, you’re a threat to our investigation as well.”  Forbes stared at me.

“This sounds familiar.”

“I need to ask you to stop,” Forbes said.  “We’ve been working this case for too long to have the X Women bolt because of the meddling of an amateur detective.”

“Amateur?  I’ve done pretty darn well, if I do say so myself.”

Forbes was not amused.  “You’re coming dangerously close to tampering with a federal investigation, Mr. Ferguson.  If you do cross the line, I can prosecute you.”

“More threats.”

White stepped up.  “Watch yourself.”  His nostrils flared.  Forbes held him back.

“Leave this to the professionals,” Forbes said.  They both turned and walked down to the sedan.

I waited until the car disappeared before I let out a deep breath.  Threatened by the X Women, and now the real FBI.

I strolled to the garage and pulled the 4-Runner out and drove down the alley.  As I turned onto 18th, another sedan pull up behind me.  A man in a dark suit and equally dark sunglasses sat behind the wheel.  I then saw Special Agent White in the passenger seat.  They stayed close to me all the way to the office.  The FBI weren’t even bothering being subtle.

The feds followed me as I visited a cell phone store and bought a new phone and had the data uploaded onto it, and they were still with me as I drove to my office.

I parked in my space and tried to walk as nonchalantly as possible to my building, but having Big Brother watching made me uneasy.  I entered the building through double glass doors and stepped to the left, then peered out through the glass.  The sedan sat across the street in a spot where the agents could watch the doors.  The driver inserting something into his ear.  So, they weren’t responsible for the camera device at the condo, but they were listening here.  Cute.  I hurried through the first floor halls to a back entrance and peeked out the metal door.  A similar vehicle was parked in the alley, and I had no doubt that a similar agent was also watching for me.  I eased the door shut and took a deep breath.  Special Agent Forbes was not kidding.

Once in my office, I peeled off my coat, chucked it onto a chair and went to my desk.  I picked up the phone and checked messages.  There were three from Amanda, begging me to call her, and one from Cal.  He had more information, call when I could.  I had no sooner cradled the phone than it rang.

“Where have you been?”  Amanda’s breathy voice sounded surprisingly lucid.  “Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

“Things are,” I paused, “complicated.”

“I have to talk to you.  Please, Reed, you have to help me.”

“Okay, but we can't talk over the phone,” I cut her off.  “Come to my office.”

“Why?”

“I need to talk to you in person.”  I didn’t want to tell Amanda anything over the phone.

I heard only silence on the other end.  “I’ll come down now,” she finally said.

“Okay.”

I hung up without another word and cursed myself for ever taking the case.  Now I had to detach myself from her, or my own family and friends would be in danger.  I thought about my game plan while I waited.  I turned on my MP3 player and selected a Talking Heads CD, turning it up loud.  I figured I had about forty-five minutes before Amanda showed.  The phone rang again.

“Reed, I thought you were going to call me.”

“Sorry, Cal, I got waylaid last night.”  Literally.  “I need to talk to you.”

“And I need to talk to you,” Cal said.  “Hey, turn that down.  I’ve got more stuff on these X Women.  I spent all night on this, and…”

I interrupted him.  “I - need - to - call - you - back, okay?”  I stretched out my words, emphasizing each word carefully.

He immediately sensed something wrong.  “Okay, call me when you get a chance.”  He hung up, and I listened for a second more.  I heard another click, just as I’d expected.  At least cell phones were difficult to tap.  They could still be overheard, so I was going to have to be careful.  Thanks to the FBI, I had few options.

I stepped into the outer office with a pad and pen, sat down on the couch and waited.  I made notes on the pad while David Byrne sang through “Swamp Thing”, one of my favorite Talking Heads songs.  Then I waited some more.  The stress of the last few days took over, and time seemed to sit still.  I felt myself drifting off.

*****

I was sitting with my feet propped up on a corner of the desk, smoking a cigarette in the dim light.  I heard the sound of heels clicking on the floor in the hallway.  I pulled my fedora hat low over my eyes as a silhouette appeared on the other side of the hazy glass door.  With a flourish, a sultry woman entered the room, danger following her even as she smiled with full red lips.

*****

I awoke with a start almost an hour later when the office door clanged open and Amanda strolled in.  She wore a light gray slack suit.  Her hair was perfectly coiffed, but her face had a strained look on it.  I bounced to my feet.

“Reed, what is…”  I waved my hands frantically, cutting her off.

“I’m glad you came over,” I said, at the same time handing her the pad with my notes.  “We need to talk about the case.”

“I see,” she said, reading the note.  On the pad I’d written: “FBI listening act normal.  I’ll explain.”

“I’ve had a chance to think things through, and I’m not going to pursue this anymore.”

Her eyes blinked in confusion.  I could tell she didn’t know what to believe.  “I need your help,” she said.  “Please don’t do this to me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, taking the pad back from her.  I scribbled on it “I’ll explain outside,” and handed it back to her.

“Reed, please,” she said, looking at the pad.  I jerked my head toward the door.

“Why don’t I walk you to the elevator?”  I touched her elbow, guiding her out.  “I need to return your retainer, minus my expenses.  I’ve got an itemized bill, and I wrote you a check for it.”

By now we were out the door.  I closed it loudly.

She spun on me.  “What the hell is going on?”

I placed a finger to my lips and pushed her down the hallway, talking fast as I moved her along.  “Look, the FBI knows all about you.  They’ve been following you, me, and who knows who else.  They’ve got my office bugged, and I’m sure they have your house bugged as well.  They told me to stop my investigation or they would prosecute me.  On top of that, last night the X Women paid me a visit.  They’ve threatened not only me, but my family and friends if I help you anymore.  I can’t risk that.”  She slowed down, but I kept steering her forward.  “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, and I can’t let the FBI know I did.”

She twisted away from me.  “Wait, Reed.  I’ve got to talk to you.  They’ve contacted me again.”

“The X Women?”

“Yes.  They want me to meet them in Castle Rock at a restaurant called The Snake Pit, tonight at seven.  They know something’s going on.  I have to go, or they’ll kill me.  I know they will.  But I’m scared.  What do they want from me?”  Tears welled up in her eyes.

I stared at her.  “I can’t help you.”

She nodded her head vigorously.  “Yes, you can.  You’re the only one who can.”  She gripped my arm tightly.

I hung my head for a second.  The current of this case was sucking me under.  “Call me in an hour at this number.”  I wrote my cell phone number down, ripped off the sheet, and handed it to her.  Pressing the elevator button, I said, “Call from a pay phone.  Go to the mall or somewhere where there are a lot of people.  Make it hard for the feds to keep their eyes on you.”  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

Amanda stepped onto it, holding her hand out to block the doors.  “You’ve got to help me.”

“You’re in a lot of trouble.  You know that, don’t you?  The feds know that you hired the X Women.  They’ll arrest you.”

Her lips quivered.  “That’s better than being killed.  And the FBI can’t keep me from getting killed.  You can.”  She took her hands away and the elevator doors slid shut.

“I doubt it,” I whispered to my reflection in the doors.

I returned to the office, grabbed my cell phone, and sprinted back into the hall.  No one was to be seen in either direction.  I passed by the elevators again and the windows that faced the street.  The sedan hadn’t moved.  At the end of a side hall, a large window opened onto a metal fire escape on one side of the building.  I pushed the window open and climbed onto the little platform, then dialed the number.  In the alley below, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  Only the sound of traffic on the streets nearby.  I chose a number from the cell phone memory and called Cal on his cell phone.

“Why this number?” he asked when I said hello.

“I’m hot,” I said.  “We’ve got company listening in at my office and probably at home.”

“Shit.”

“You said it.”  I quickly explained everything that had transpired.  “Those guys last night threatened to expose you if I don’t stay out of this thing, and I’m sure they can do it.”

“They’re threatening me, huh?”

“I’m sorry.”

Cal grunted.  “Bastards.  But I’m smarter than they are.”  I believed that, but still worried about him.

“She’s still in trouble,” I said.

“I figured that.”  A pause.  “So you bring her in and let the feds prosecute her.  Is that what you’re going to do?”

“Can I let her die?”

“You?  No.  You wouldn’t do that.”

I took a deep breath of the brisk morning air.

“You’re in big trouble, pal.  You sure you want to do this?” Cal asked.

“No.”

“What do you need from me?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll call you when I need you.”

“Watch your back.”

“You too,” I said and hung up.  I hurried back to the office and turned off the music.  I grabbed my coat and ran to my car.  I had a while before Amanda called, so I drove around, mulling over my situation and letting the FBI guys waste gas tailing me.  As I drove, a plan formed in my mind.  I was headed west, so I circled the block and drove to St. Joseph’s Hospital.  I parked in a metered space and dashed across the street, laughing because I’d taken the last available space.  The sedan passed me and turned the corner.

The emergency room doors slid open,  Star-Trek style, and Willie looked up from behind the admissions desk.  “What brings you here?” she said with a smile, her green eyes dancing.  “Do you have an emergency?”

I nodded, sat down, and explained what I needed from her.   Inside of five minutes, I was back in the 4-Runner.  The FBI vehicle was double-parked near mine.  I waved at the agents and peeled off.  They followed me to City Park, where I pulled into a space and waited for a phone call.  The sedan pulled in across the street, the agents clearly watching me.

My cell phone rang twenty minutes later.  I peeled out of my parking space, putting distance between the sedan and me.

“I’m at a pay phone at the Cherry Creek Mall,” Amanda said.

“Be ready at six,” I said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll come through the back yard.  Don’t say anything.  Leave some loud music on in your living room.”

“Music?”

“To help muffle any sounds.  And stay sober.”

“Reed,” she said.

“Just do it.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

I hung up and drove back to the office.  I suddenly had a lot of work to do.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“All right, I don’t see anyone.”  I was standing at the edge of Amanda Ghering’s back yard, scanning the perimeter of her property with night-vision goggles purchased earlier in the day from an Army surplus store.  I had no way of knowing if the feds had Amanda’s house surrounded or if they only had a car out front.  Or did they have someone watching at all?  I had come prepared.  But after a careful look around, I didn’t see anyone.  Just houses, trees, and an occasional fence, all neon green from the goggles.  “Let’s go,” I whispered.

“This is exciting,” Willie whispered back as she followed me.  She looked really cute in black slacks and sweater and a heavy navy blue jacket, her short blond hair tucked into a Rockies baseball cap.  “My life needed more adventure.”

“Shh,” I hissed.  We’d made it this far unseen, and I wanted to keep it that way.

A couple of hours earlier, I’d gone with the Goofball Brothers to B 52’s.  Thursday nights there are fairly crowded.  I started a game of pool with the brothers, then left them there and managed to lose my FBI tail by sneaking out the back, where Willie had been waiting with her car in the alley.  Forty minutes later, we had arrived at Amanda's house.

We ran in a crouch up to the back porch.  I took a quick look behind us, but didn’t notice anything.  No dogs barking, no people in their yards.  Music drifted out to us.  I tapped quietly on the rear door.  Nothing.  I rapped a little harder and the door opened.  Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony blared out.

I put my hand up to my lips.  Amanda, decked out in red designer jeans and white sweater, gestured for us to come in the house.  The back door led into a darkened kitchen, the white walls and cabinets glowing eerily from an overhead light in the front entryway.  On the gray granite countertop next to the sink were a blond wig and a long fur overcoat with a high collar.  Willie took off her cap and donned the wig, peeled off her own coat, then shrugged into Amanda’s fur coat.  I fixed the collar, pulling it up around her ears.  I turned her to the side, sizing up the disguise.

I mouthed “perfect” to her.  She smiled, kissed me lightly on the cheek, and took the car keys that Amanda offered her.  Amanda led the way to the garage, and Willie tiptoed out in the dark.  She got in the Lexus and waited for my signal.  Amanda strolled into the living room, shut off the stereo, slipped into a black leather jacket, and came back to join me.  I signaled to Willie.  As I shut the inner door, she opened the garage door.  Amidst the rumble from the automatic door opener, Amanda and I tiptoed out the back door.

We sidled up to the side of the house, just in time to see the Lexus turn out of the driveway.  Willie was doing her job well.  It was impossible to tell who was driving the car.  In a few seconds, a dark sedan drove down the street after Amanda’s Lexus.  The feds were watching, and they bought our ruse.  I turned around and gave Amanda a thumbs-up sign.

I took a moment to scan the yard with the field glasses.  All clear.  Amanda and I grabbed hands, bent low, and ran for the edge of the yard.  We reached a tall pine tree.  I pulled us around it and stopped.  We were both breathing hard.

“I think we fooled them,” I whispered.  “But we don’t have much time.”

“Where is she going?”

“I don’t know.  She’ll drive around, get a burger or something and head back.”

“I would never do that.  Especially just to get a burger.  Yuck!”  Amanda made a gagging motion with her finger in her mouth.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as she keeps the FBI away from us.”  I leaned close to her, smelling her breath.  “Have you been drinking?”

“I needed something to calm my nerves.”

I glared at her.  “I told you not to drink.  If one thing goes wrong…”  The sentence hung in the air.  If one thing did go wrong, I would be getting a lot of people in trouble.

“Come on.”  I climbed the waist-high chain-link fence, helped Amanda over, and ran off through her neighbor’s yard, over to the next street.  We ran two long blocks, past huge houses, heading east.

“Wait,” Amanda halted abruptly.

“What?” I said, gasping for breath.

“I have to pee.”  She looked miserable.

“What?”

“I’m nervous, and I have to go.”

I threw up my hands in exasperation.  “Hold it.”  I started running again.

“I can’t.”

“Well,” I smiled sweetly.  “You have plenty of choice trees and bushes.”

She gave me a withering look and stalked off between two houses.  I prayed no one would choose this moment to look out their windows.  In two minutes she was back, looking relieved.

“Come on!” I said.

“You don’t need to get so mad,” she said, dashing after me.

“We’re in a hurry.”  We ran for three more blocks.

“Wait,” she called out again.

“What?”  My patience was wearing thin.

“This running is hurting my feet.”

“You shouldn’t have worn heels,” I said, pointing at her spiked pumps.  “And what’s with the red?  When I called this afternoon I said to dress in dark clothes.”

“I have to look good for my meeting,” she said with a pout.

“Right, I’m sure it’s important to make a good impression now.”

She gave me another scornful look.  “That’s not funny.”

“Come on, we’re wasting time.”  One more block up I spied a beat-up Honda Civic.  I sprinted to it and opened the passenger door.  I flipped up the seat and clambered into the back.  “Get in,” I ordered Amanda, who stood looking at the car in surprise.

“I wondered how you were getting me to the restaurant,” she said as she sat down in the front seat.

“This is Cal,” I introduced him as he pulled away from the curb.

“Where to?” Cal asked, barely acknowledging Amanda.  I directed him to The Snake Pit, a restaurant in Castle Rock, where Amanda's rendezvous was taking place.

“So you’re Reed’s help?” Amanda said, placing well-manicured fingers on Cal’s arm.

If Cal knew she was flirting with him, he didn’t show it.  He kept his eyes on the road, and Amanda removed her hand and stared out the window.  She had no idea how I had to cajole Cal into helping me.  Unlike Willie, he wasn’t interested in the adventure, and even my undying friendship didn’t sway him.  This was a man who rarely ventured from his house, had his groceries delivered, and did most of his shopping over the Internet.  The outside world held no interest for him.  But when I mentioned the FBI, he changed his mind.  I don’t think he liked being threatened by them.

“So what’s with the Navy Seal look?” Cal asked, looking at me in the rear view mirror.  I had dressed completely in black: jeans, sweatshirt, socks, shoes, and knit cap pulled low over my ears.  At least I hadn’t painted my face black.

“I didn’t want anyone to see us,” I said, reaching around the seat and poking Amanda in the ribs.

“My jacket’s black, and so are my heels.”  She crossed her arms and tossed her hair at me.  I met Cal’s gaze in the mirror.  His brown eyes sparkled with humor.

We drove the rest of the way in silence.  I kept peering out the back window, but never saw a car tailing us.  Apparently we had given the FBI the slip.  That made twice for me.  And no one would pay attention to Cal's beat-up Honda.

At five minutes to seven Cal drove past The Snake Pit.  It was a small, family-run restaurant stuck in between a used bookstore and a liquor store.  Three big bay windows faced the street, with an entrance to the right of them.  Cal turned the corner and parked the Civic on a side street a block from the restaurant.

Amanda turned around.  “All right,” I said.  “Find out what they want.  Don’t do anything you wouldn’t normally do.  And don’t drink.”

“But that’s what I would normally do,” she said.

“True,” I acknowledged.  “But I need you sober so you can keep everything straight.  I want a detailed description of who meets you, what she, or he, says.  And what the X Women want.  Sit at a table near the windows if you can, so I can see who meets you.  Got it?”

She bobbed her head up and down.  “Where will you be?”

“I’ll see if I can watch from outside somewhere.  And I’ll meet you back here.”  She opened the door and got out.  I followed her, and waited while she walked to the corner.  Then she disappeared from view.

“If anything happens, meet me at that gas station,” I said and pointed to a Conoco down the road.  “I don’t know how long this’ll take.”

“Go,” Cal ordered as I slammed the door shut.

I jogged to the corner and stuck my head around the building.  Amanda had reached the restaurant, and a valet was holding the restaurant door for her.  I counted to sixty, but didn’t see anyone enter behind her.  I crossed the street and walked down the block, stopping at the street corner.  A couple came out of the restaurant and handed a ticket to the valet.  He dashed off down the street to retrieve their car, and I took the opportunity to walk back to a store directly across from The Snake Pit.  I stepped back into the shadows of the entrance and watched.

I couldn’t see Amanda in the restaurant.  I was disappointed to see that the three available window tables were occupied.  I checked my watch.  Five after seven.  The valet came back with the car and the couple drove off.  A group of four came from the direction where Cal was waiting.  They walked casually inside.  I leaned out to get a better view down the street and froze.

At the same corner I had just occupied was a woman in a long tan overcoat and dark hat whose floppy brim obscured her face.  She looked left and right, waited for a white minivan to pass, then crossed the street and entered the restaurant.  I didn’t think she’d seen me.  And I hadn’t seen her face, but I'd bet my Navy Seal cap she was an X Woman.

I didn’t think it’d be long now.  I looked at my watch again.  Seven ten.  I squinted but couldn’t see anything beyond  people dining at the tables near the windows.  Watching them eat was making me hungry.  My stomach growled.  I reached in my pocket for a Snickers bar and unwrapped it as quietly as I could.  I was probably breaking every rule of undercover work, but I’d been so nervous I hadn’t eaten since this morning.  I needed the extra energy, I told myself.

I bit off half the candy bar and almost moaned, it tasted so good right then.  I was so engrossed in my candy bar that I almost missed the woman in the tan overcoat coming back across the street.  I swallowed hard and nearly gagged on peanuts, nougat, and chocolate.

I stopped chewing and held my breath until she passed by.  I took a hesitant step forward and looked to the right.  She was gone.  I looked back at the The Snake Pit.  Amanda had just come out the door and was walking hurriedly back toward the car.  I followed on the other side of the street, guiltily finishing the Snickers.  Once Amanda turned down the side street where Cal was parked, I started running.  She swirled around when she was about ten feet from the car, her face tight with fear, then relief when she recognized me.

“They want another meeting,” she said as we slid into the car.

“That was quick,” Cal said.  He’d left the car running and without delay he made a u-turn and we started back to Amanda’s house.

“They want another meeting?” I repeated.  “What for?”

Amanda arched her eyebrows at me.  “How should I know?  They want to meet again in two days.  I’m supposed to call from a pay phone tomorrow morning at eleven-thirty to receive instructions.  That’s exactly what she said: receive instructions.  How silly can they make this?”  Amanda’s voice dripped derision.

“What else did she say?”

“How did you know it was a woman?”

“The X Women?” Cal said,.

“The woman in the tan overcoat and hat,” I said.  “It was her, right?”

“Yes.  She sat down at the table, ordered a white wine spritzer, and told me that I’d complicated things.  They needed my help to straighten everything out.  I asked about Peter, and she said someone would explain everything to me at the next meeting.  She said not to talk to anyone, and that they’ll inform me tomorrow about where the next meeting will be.  Then she left.”

“Before she had her drink?” Cal asked.  “How rude.”

I punched his arm.  “Quit it.”  I focused on Amanda.  “That’s it?  Nothing else?”  She shook her head.  “What’s the point of all this?” she said angrily.  “Why not tell me now instead of dragging me through all this?”

“Onion skins,” Cal said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I explained about Cal’s analogy of putting layers between each person in the organization, so no one person knows too much about what the other members are doing.

“What did she look like?” I asked Amanda.

She bit her lower lip while she thought.  “A little tall, although she did have on heels.  She had brown hair, cut in a bob.  It didn’t look good on her, either.  And she needed more makeup.  Her face isn’t attractive enough to skimp on that.  No earrings either.”

I caught Cal rolling his eyes in the rear view mirror.

“Amanda?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“Do you have anything more than fashion observations?”

“I’m just trying to tell you what I saw,” she said.  “She wasn’t very attractive.”

“What color were her eyes?  Did she look like she had a gun or anything?  Did she talk with an accent or do anything that would give away where she was from?”

“Blue, no, and no.”

“So she was an ordinary woman, maybe a little tall, with brown hair.”

“And unattractive,” Cal added.

Amanda agreed.  “I don’t see how this is helping anything.”

I sat back, right on my impulse to say something sarcastic.  I pulled my cell phone out and dialed Willie’s number.  By now we were back on I-25.

“Who’re you calling?” Amanda asked.

“Willie.  I need to tell her to head back to your house now.”

“Where is she?” Amanda asked.

I held up a hand for silence.  “Done,” I said into the phone.

“Half hour,” Willie said to me, then hung up.

I pocketed the cell phone.  “She’ll be there in a half hour.  She’ll let herself in and wait for us.  Her instructions are to turn the stereo back on again and wait in the kitchen.”

“You have this all planned out, don’t you?” Amanda said, reappraising me.

“It wasn’t easy.”  I thought back to the number of trips I took to the fire escape or the bathroom on the main floor of my building so I could call Willie or Cal on the cell phone.  And apparently no FBI types heard, because this was going off without a hitch.

“Here we are,” Cal interrupted us.  We were back on the same street where he’d picked us up.  Amanda and I got out.

“I’ll be back,” I said, in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.  I shut the door and Amanda and I ran down the street, retracing our steps from earlier in the evening.  The moon was out now, casting everything in shadows.

A sudden beep pierced the quiet.  I stopped cold and Amanda plowed into me.

“Oh, no.  We’re dead,” she gasped, holding a hand up to her neck.

I heard my heart beating in my ears, and then the beep again.  I shook my head.  “It’s only my cell phone.”  I extracted it with shaky hands from my coat pocket before it could beep again.  “What?” I murmured into the phone.  A second passed before I thrust the phone at Amanda.  “It’s Willie.  She set off the burglar alarm!  Quick!  Tell her what to do.”

“Oh, is that all?”  Amanda took the phone from me, told Willie how to turn off the alarm, then handed it back to me.  “See?  No big deal.”

“Are you trying to sabotage this?” I nearly exploded.  “I damn near shit my pants.”

“Well, I did, if it makes you happy.”  She put her hands defiantly on her hips.

I got in her face.  “Why the hell did you set the burglar alarm in the first place?”

“If you didn’t want me to, you should’ve asked.  You were standing right by the back door with me.  And keep your voice down.”

“I had a few other things on my mind.”  And I did now too, like maybe I should take her out myself and save the X Women the trouble.  “Hurry up.”

In ten minutes, we were back in Amanda’s kitchen, a rock station blaring from the stereo in the living room.  Willie reluctantly gave back the fur coat and put on her Rockies cap.  I wrote on a pad for Amanda to call me on my cell the next day at noon.  Then Willie and I slipped out into the darkness, leaving Amanda to her vodka and her bathroom facilities.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“They left you in the middle of nowhere?” Cal said, thumping his bottle of beer angrily on the table.  We’d dropped Willie off in the alley behind her apartment and watched her sneak through her back yard and in the back door.  Once she signaled that everything was okay, Cal and I went for a beer at The Punch Bowl, a small bar near my place.  We fought the late-night crowd and found a table at the back.  Once seated, I told Cal about my adventures the previous night, the first chance I’d had to talk without fear of the X Women or the FBI listening in.  “I thought that kind of stuff only happened in the movies.”

“Yeah, so did I.”  I took a long sip on my beer.  I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying.  I kept thinking about the rendezvous at the restaurant.  Amanda had the X Women worried.  They’d broken their own rules, meeting with her.  The X Women didn’t make contact after the wheels started into motion, that’s what Amanda and Maggie had both said.  More meetings exposed them to even greater risk.  But now they wanted another meeting.  I could see why Amanda was so scared.  The X Women meant to deal with her.  But how?  And what had happened to Peter?  Did his fate, whatever it was, somehow make her more of a liability, or less?

“Are you listening to me?”

“Sorry,” I said.  “This whole thing is a mess.  It doesn’t make sense.  And Peter’s probably dead.”

“Amanda doesn’t care about him.  You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded slowly.  “The X Women probably want to kill her, too.  That worries me.”

“Even though she nearly ruined it for you tonight with that burglar alarm?” Cal asked.

“Amanda can help us figure out what happened to Peter.”

“How?”

“By getting closer to the X Women.  She goes to the meeting, where she asks what happened to him.”

“Maybe they just want to kill her,” Cal voiced my concern.  “Do you know how easy it would be for the X Women to kidnap her?  They can eliminate her so fast the FBI, or you, would never even know it.”

I finished my beer.  “I can’t let that happen.  She deserves jail, but not death.”

“You’re probably the only detective who’s ever helped the guilty person.”  Cal raised his beer bottle in a toast.

“Just like the movies.”  I signaled to the waitress and ordered another beer.  “Humphrey Bogart helped some pretty shaky heroines.”

“You’re not Bogie.”

I forced a smile.  “No kidding.”

We talked for a while longer and then Cal took me home.

“You want me to drive back down the alley?” Cal asked as we turned near my neighborhood.

I started to nod my head.  “No, wait.  Drop me off in front.”

Cal turned his head.  “They’ll know you ditched them.”

“I know.  Serves them right for watching us.”

Cal turned down my street and pulled in front of my building, his headlights illuminating the FBI vehicle right in front of us.  I got out of Cal’s car and walked around the front.  Agent White’s eyes widened in surprise.  I waved at him.  He glowered back at me as he pulled out a cell phone.  I turned and grinned at Cal, who laughed as he drove off.  Tapping the hood of the sedan, I said, “Better luck next time.”  White yelled something at me as I climbed up the side stairs, but it didn’t bother me.  I crawled into bed and was asleep within ten minutes.

*****

At twenty minutes to twelve the next day, I took a walk into downtown Denver, presumably to visit the bank.  What I really needed was a noisy, crowded place where I could take Amanda’s call, someplace where it would be difficult for the feds to listen in.

One of the benefits of living in Colorado is the rapid temperature changes.  On any day, the weather can swing from freezing cold to sunny skies and soothing warmth.  This was such a day, and I walked in the spring-like weather, enjoying the bright blue skies and temperatures in the upper 50's.  People lucky enough to have Friday off left their coats and gloves behind as they strolled toward restaurants on the Sixteenth Street Mall for lunch.  Birds chirped from bare branches.  And now, two FBI agents tailed me.

Agent White, who seemed exceedingly unhappy when I greeted him, stayed in his car, crawling down the streets behind me.  His new partner, a tall, emaciated-looking fellow, kept pace with me, leaving about thirty feet between us as we walked.  At least if I got mugged I would have a witness or two, although I doubt Agent White or his partner would bother to help me.

At noon, I was standing in the lobby of Wells Fargo at 17th and Curtis, filling out a withdrawal slip, when my cell phone rang.  As I answered it, I glanced out the smoky glass windows onto 17th.  The black sedan was parked on the street, just outside the entrance to the building.  My walking companion stood outside the bank entrance, watching me through the glass doors.

“It’s me,” Amanda said.  “The message came through.”

“What’s the next move?”  I turned to face the teller windows, leaning away from the doors where the skinny agent watched me.

“I’m supposed to meet them at P.F. Chang's at Park Meadows Mall.  Monday night at seven.”

“Them?  There’s more than one?”

“That’s what they said.”

“They?  Who did you talk to?”

“It was a distorted voice, the same as before.  I don’t know if it was a him, her, or them, okay?”

She knew how to try a person’s patience.  “What happens then?” I asked.

“It,” she said caustically, “didn’t say.  I’m to ask for the reservation for M-O-R-T-E.”  She spelled it for me.

“Interesting,” I said.  I used the reflection in my sunglasses to keep an eye on the doors.  So far, the skinny guy didn’t seem overly interested in what I was doing.

“What do I do?”

“Meet them.”

“Reed,” Amanda said.  “What are you going to do?”

I stared at the deposit slip, my mind as blank as the balance on the paper.  “Sit tight.  I’ll work out a plan and call you when I’ve got something.”

“When?” she persisted.

“Give me twenty-four hours.  I’ll call you on your cell phone.”  I hung up and stood at the little table with the deposit and withdrawal forms, feeling I’d been deposited, right in a pile of shit.  I didn’t know much about the X Women, but this was weird.

To keep up pretenses, I finished filling out the form, visited a teller and withdrew some cash.  As I walked out of the bank I passed the gaunt agent who now leaned against the marble wall across from the entrance.  I winked at him.  He raised one eyebrow at me and waited until I was out on Seventeenth before he followed.

I basked in the sunshine as I strolled back home, pretending that there weren’t two feds tracking my every move.  I ate a turkey sandwich, and went to the garage for the 4-Runner.  I spent the remainder of the day scoping out P.F. Chang's at Park Meadows Mall.

Park Meadows is one of Denver’s ritzier shopping malls, a sprawling complex of buildings and restaurants at the junction of I-25 and C-470.  P.F. Chang's restaurant, a trendy place serving westernized Chinese food, is situated on the east side of the mall, between two other restaurants.

As I sat in my car, studying the lay of the land, I had to admit the X Women chose the place well.  The restaurant was crowded now, at the end of the lunch hour, and I’m sure it would be just as packed at seven tomorrow night.  If I planned to kidnap somebody, I would choose a crowded place like this.  The lines of parking lanes, stretching all the way back to the mall, would be perfect.  The X Women could walk Amanda outside and easily persuade her into a car.  There would be so many people, busy doing their own things, so no one would even notice.

I sketched a picture of the layout, then decided to go in for a light snack, leaving Agent White and his companion watching from their vehicle, parked one row from mine.  After a ten-minute wait, a frazzled hostess seated me at a table by windows facing south.  The atmosphere of the restaurant was very open, with  postmodern metal-legged tables and matching chairs.  With few walls, the sounds of voices and dishes rattling echoed noisily.  Again, a perfect choice.  Who would be able to overhear a conversation between a couple of women amidst all the other competing conversations?  I could barely hear myself think, and the lunch crowd was diminishing.

A pleasant waiter came over, and I ordered Mongolian beef, extra hot, and an iced tea.  I made notes of where the emergency exits were, as well as the restrooms and the kitchen.  I still didn’t have a plan of what to do, nor did I know if the X Women were going to kidnap Amanda, but having an escape route seemed to be prudent.  My Mongolian beef, full of red peppers, arrived.  I ate it all with an obscene pleasure and then left.

To make more work for my FBI tails, I decided to wander around the mall for a while.  Later in the afternoon, I drove to B-52’s, playing pool in an attempt to clear my mind.  The two FBI agents came in and had drinks at the bar, presumably soda water, while they surreptitiously watched me play.  I was beyond caring.  As I shot game after game, I couldn’t shake the fact that the X Women were putting themselves in a dangerous situation, and that there was much more to why they were changing their modus operandi.  It didn’t make sense.

*****

By eight o’clock I decided that no matter how much I practiced, I still couldn’t hit the two-rail kick shot, where the cue ball hits two rails before hitting the target ball, and I didn’t know any more about what the X Women were up to.  I won  a game playing against a couple of college students, then drove home with my spirits slightly bolstered.  As I came up the walk, Deuce bolted out the front door.  He stumbled off the porch stairs and did a 9.6 somersault into the lawn.

“Whoa,” I said, helping him to his feet.  “What’s up there, pardner?”

“Dude,” he said, out of breath.  “I’m in a hurry.”

“No kidding.  But you’ll end up on your ass again if you’re not careful.”

“Yeah, but I gotta get this movie back.  Ace will kill me if it’s late.”

“What’d you rent?”  He held out a DVD case, which I read.  The Big Sleep.  “So you guys finally rented it.  I could’ve loaned you my copy.”

Deuce bobbed his head up and down.  “Ace got it for free.  He works at the video store, you know.”

I nodded knowingly with him.  “What’d you think of the movie?”

He scrunched up his nose in distaste.  “I didn’t get it.  All these people get killed, but you don’t get to see it, ‘cause it all happened some other time.  Except at the end of the movie.  That guy, Marlowe, was that his name?  He fooled them, didn’t he?  You would think the other guy would know that Marlowe was going to get him.  The good guy always wins.  Even I know that.”

“Ah, that’s the best part,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.

I loved that part, my favorite hero, Bogie, outwits the bad guy, Eddie Mars.  Bogie sets him up, and then gets Mars to explain all the killings.  He causes Mars to be killed by his own gang members, all the loose ends are wrapped up nice and tidy, and Bogie gets the girl in the end.

“Why do you keep talking golf?”  He brushed a hand over his hair, seeming frustrated.

“Deuce, you’re right.  Bogie is a golf term, but it’s also the nickname of the actor.  Humphrey Bogart plays the main character, Philip Marlowe.”

“The guy with the hat.”

I nodded uncertainly.  After all, there were a lot of guys with hats on in those old movies.  I wasn’t entirely sure we were talking about the same guy.  “Yeah, Bogie wore a hat, and he was the detective.  The one who figures it all out.  Like me.”

“Huh?”  Deuce looked more baffled now, not an unusual occurrence.

“Forget it,” I said.  “Return the movie.  Sorry I got in your way.”  Deuce rolled his eyes at me and sprinted off.

He ran past a dark sedan, where Agent White’s replacement sat observing us, and disappeared around the corner.  I was my usual friendly self with the new agent, waving a greeting as I walked upstairs to my condo.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I didn’t sleep well that night.  I kept dreaming that I had to rescue Amanda, who resembled a very sexy Lauren Bacall, and I was not unlike Bogie.  We were at P.F. Chang's, and an X Woman who looked like Xena, the Warrior Princess, was trying to kidnap Amanda.  Right when I’d come in to rescue her, my father would show up and ask when I was going to get a real job, while my mother stood beside him asking if I was smoking marijuana.  I awoke with a start at dawn.  After ten minutes of staring at the ceiling, I decided to it was a good time for a run.

The morning was crisp and clear as I came down the steps and around the corner.  Ace was exiting his place, a steaming coffee mug in his hand.

“What’re you doing working so early on a Saturday?” I asked him.  I rarely saw Ace before nine or ten because he worked odd hours at the video store, usually late nights, not mornings.  And never this early.

“I told Bob I'd help him work on his truck,” Ace said.  I noticed now that the jeans he wore were torn and smudged with grease.

“I hear you didn’t like the movie.”  I was doing all I could to avoid my run.

He grimaced.  “Sorry, man.  I didn’t get it.  Trying to follow who killed who.  At least with Arnold Schwarzenegger you know who gets killed.  And didn’t that guy Mars know that the detective was going to get him in the end?  Mars should’ve known that.  The good guy always wins.  Arnold always wins.”

“I’ll be sure to tell Bogie that.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” I said, waving him off.  I noticed my FBI tail was there, with two bleary-eyed agents sitting in the front seat.  They looked desperate to get off duty.

I did some stretching on the front porch, cracked my neck, and retied my shoes.  After that I couldn’t find any more excuses, so I took off in a sprint, determined to run at least five miles.  Okay, maybe three.

As I ran, my mind wandered over things.  Carmen, the femme fatale in The Big Sleep, reminded me of Amanda.  Both were sneaky, seductive, and ultimately fallen.  I doubted Amanda would appreciate the comparison.  And it didn’t surprise me that the Brothers had a hard time following the movie.  There were seven murders, and most of them happened off-screen.  I thought the brothers might like the shootout at the end, though.  Bogie fools the crooks, and gets Mars to walk right into his own trap.

And then it hit me.  I couldn’t believe the Goofball Brothers saw it and I didn’t.  I stopped, turned around, and ran like Eddie Mars was after me, all the way home.

I took the porch steps two at a time and ran headlong  up the stairs.  I used my cell phone to call Cal to discuss my theory, thinking we could talk in some kind of code so my FBI listeners wouldn’t know what we were really saying.  But I got his answering machine, so I left a message to call me as soon as he could.  Since he rarely left his house, he had to be in the shower.  At least that's what I hoped.  He would call soon.

I hung up the phone and found my copy of The Big Sleep sitting on the shelf with my other favorite movies.  I pulled it out of the case as I walked into the living room.  I slid in the DVD and sat down on the edge of the couch with the remote control aimed like a gun at the player.

The Big Sleep.  The title referred to death, to villains doing evil deeds while the city sleeps and when some fool gets in the way, he's killed.  I watched Bogie and Bacall in their first scene together.  Did they ever create some intense chemistry.  It was just getting to the good stuff, Bacall at her seductive best, when the phone rang.

I paused the movie and grabbed the cordless phone sitting on the end table.  “It’s about time.”

“About time for what, dear?”

“Oh.  Hi Mom,” I said.

“Don’t sound so disappointed, dear,” she said.

“I’m kind of busy right now.”

“You should never be too busy for your mother, darling, and don’t get fresh with me.  You sound better than you did the other night.  I was worried about you, but your father said to leave you alone.  You’re a man now, and I needn’t worry myself over you, even if you do such silly things and put yourself in danger.  Were you in danger, dear?  It wasn’t drugs, was it?”  She was on a roll.  If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was the one on drugs.

“If you only knew,” I said in exasperation.

“Yes, we’re fine.  You sound funny.  What’re you doing?  Are you okay?”  She was off and running, asking me about the job, did I get the oranges, and telling me that I should choose a less dangerous profession.  I heard my father in the background, yelling something about me being an adult and making my own decisions, even if they weren’t the brightest.  “Anyway, dear,” Mom rushed to wrap up the conversation.  “I’m excited to see you.  You have all our flight information.”

I assured her I did.

“Okay, darling.  I must be going.”  I said I’d see her soon.  “Oh, and Reed?”  She rarely called me by my first name.  “Yes?” I was all ears.  “Do be careful.”  She paused.  “I love you, dear.”

So that was the heart of the call.  She was more than a little worried after our talk the other night.  I made a mental note to shield her from the dangerous aspects of my new profession.  And to tell her that I loved her, which I did.

I focused on the DVD again, trying to find the scene that I was searching for, where Marlowe, played by Bogie, kills the villain, Mars.  I thought this would answer the question about how the X Women wanted to deal with Amanda.  Just like Ace had mentioned, the bad guy can't outwit the good guy.

After scanning scenes for a bit, I found the part I wanted near the end, where Marlowe sets up Mars.  Marlowe has arranged a meeting with Mars, but Marlowe arrives much earlier than the appointed time.  Now he only has to wait.

Mars arrives at the meeting place early, planning to have his henchmen hide outside and ambush Marlowe.  But Mars, of course, has no idea that Marlowe is already there.

I sat back on the couch, watching the black-and-white scene unfold, the remote dangling in my hand.  The setup:  The X Women were playing with Amanda, making her run around in circles, confusing her, the same way Marlowe put one over on Mars in the movie.  The X Women were playing with Amanda, making her run around in circles, distracting her with instructions about the supposed rendezvous.  It reminded me of how Mars and Marlowe each tried to get the jump on the other one in the lead-up to that climactic scene in the movie.  Amanda would be so focused on the meeting tomorrow night that she, and her detective helper – me - wouldn’t be expecting anything between now and then.  The X Women would be way ahead of us.  I watched Bogie and Bacall, smoking in the dark as the movie ended, but my mind wasn't on them.

Amanda and I were in trouble.  The meeting tomorrow night was a decoy, I was sure of it.  Whatever was going to happen, would happen before then.  The X Women were setting us up, just like Mars planned to ambush Marlowe by striking before he expected it.  The question was, could Amanda and I beat them at their own “set-up” game the way Marlowe outwitted Mars?

I paced in the living room for a minute, not sure what to do.  Should I call Amanda and tell her, knowing the FBI was listening in?  What if I was wrong?  I’d look like an idiot, and I would’ve tipped my hand about the meeting tomorrow.  And I would anger Agent Forbes because I remained involved.  I didn’t want that.  But what if I was right?  I tried Cal again, wanting to use him as a sounding board.

I decided the first thing to do was to get out of my sweaty running clothes, so I peeled them off, showered and dressed in  jeans and black turtleneck.  By the time I’d finished, I had determined that I would talk to Amanda.  I would deal with the FBI consequences later.  I left another message for Cal to call me on my cell phone, grabbed my car keys and ran out of the house.  In ten minutes, I was fighting mid-morning traffic and road construction on my way to Amanda’s house.  I barely noticed Agent White trying to keep up with me as I sped around cars and semis, my concern for Amanda’s safety growing.  I needed to get to her before it was too late.

I turned off the highway, skidding on gravel.  I corrected the 4-Runner and careened around the winding roads to Amanda’s house.  I pulled into the driveway and ran up to the door.  I didn’t care if the FBI knew.  I needed to get Amanda out, and I didn’t care what it did to Agent Forbes’ investigation.  He’d probably wait until he had something to nail the X Women with before he did anything.  And I had a hunch that would probably be too late.

I punched the doorbell and heard the chimes ring hollowly inside.  I waited a few seconds, then jammed the button again.  Nothing.  I stepped off the porch and looked into the living room.  I tried to peek between the blinds, but couldn’t see anything.  I trotted back to the 4-Runner and looked at the house windows for any signs of life.  If Amanda was home, she was sleeping like the dead.  I hoped it wasn’t more than that.  I backed out of the driveway and drove on down the street, but didn’t notice any sign of her FBI tails.  So she wasn’t home.

I drove to the club vaguely aware that Agent White was not behind me anymore.  I must’ve lost him somewhere on the way to Amanda’s house.  I wondered if he was aware of Amanda’s lunch routine.  I passed by the valet and parked the car myself.

I hurried inside, ignoring the receptionist, who called after me as I ran down the hallway to the bar.  I saw Maggie Delacroix sitting in a booth by the entrance.  Her eyes widened in a hint of recognition and maybe surprise, before she casually resumed her lunch.  I walked past her and saw Amanda, who sat at a corner table in semi-darkness, her chin resting on her hands.  She was oblivious to anything going on around her.  She didn’t even notice me standing by her table.

“You need to come with me,” I said in a low voice.

She jumped.  “Oh, you startled me.”  She picked up her glass and tossed back the rest of the drink.  “Do you want something?”

I bent down and whispered in her ear.  “I think you’re being set up.  I don’t think tomorrow’s meeting is ever supposed to happen.  Whatever’s going to happen, it's going to happen before then.”

“Oh, Reed, don’t be absurd.”  Amanda shifted in her chair and trained unfocused eyes on me.  “Did you get this idea from one of your movies?  Or a how-to manual?”

“I’m trying to help you,” I said through gritted teeth.  “If you want, I’ll walk away and leave you to figure this out.”

“You have to admit that you’re a rank amateur,” Amanda said with a restrained laugh.

“You’re already drunk,” I said.

She wagged her head slowly.  “No, I’m just feeling really good.”  She worked hard to enunciate her words.  “I am not drunk.  But you,” she cocked a finger at me, “need to relax.  Get a drink, that’ll help.  Then we can talk about these silly X Women.  Come on, sit down now.  I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”  She patted the seat of the chair next to her.

“Amanda,” I hissed.  “Let’s get out of here.  We can talk about this somewhere else.  Somewhere safe.”

“I’m perfectly safe here.”  Amanda stood up.  “But I do need to go to the ladies room.”  She swayed momentarily as she stepped around me and began to walk purposefully out of the bar.  “This is a private club.  Nothing’s going to happen here,” she called a little too loudly over her shoulder.

I shrugged at the curious bartender and followed Amanda.  She stalked around the corner, down the hall and past the receptionist, who began her protestations about me again.  Amanda shooed her back to her desk and disappeared through the bathroom door.  I paced the hallway near the door, waiting for her.  A minute later a woman in a red dress walked down the hall toward the ladies room.  I started to say something to her, I don’t even know what, but she froze me with a steely gaze.

“Do you have a problem if I use the restroom?”  Her voice was husky, and her eyes flashed at me.

“No,” I murmured, turning away from the door.  I felt my ears  and face burning.  After a second I glanced over my shoulder.  The door was shutting.  I paced again, my impatience growing.  A few minutes later the door opened and the woman  emerged.  She gave me another icy glare and walked away.  I waited until she was gone and then I cracked the door open.

“Amanda?”

“Can’t a woman go to the bathroom in peace?” Amanda said as she came around a tiled wall.  “I’m finished, thank you.”

“I was worried,” I explained, holding the door open for her.

She bumped past me and turned toward the bar.  “Oh no.”  I steered her in the opposite direction.  “I’ve got to get you out of here.  You can drink somewhere else.”

“Reed,” she said, pulling away from me.  “This is absurd.”

“You wouldn’t think so if you were sober.  Come on.”

She looked at me with a hurt expression.  “You can be so mean.”  I concurred as I steered her away from the main entrance, continuing down the hall.  “Let’s find another way out of here,” I said soothingly.  She seemed to be walking better now, not quite so drunk.

“There’s an exit this way.  Out back.”  Amanda jerked her arm away from me, and stalked ahead of me.  “You had better have some good vodka where we’re going.”

I thought about taking her to a detox center, but I didn’t want to subject her to anyone else.  “You’re not making this easy,” I said.

“Whatever.”  By now we had turned a corner and come to an exit.  She pushed the door with her shoulder.  The door suddenly opened wide and Amanda stumbled forward.  The woman in the red dress stood in the opening, one hand on the door.  Another tall woman in blue jeans and checked blazer stood behind her.  Red Dress grabbed Amanda and pulled her toward Blazer Girl, who placed a white rag over Amanda’s nose and mouth.  Amanda flayed her arms for a second before going limp.  Another woman emerged from a blue van parked at the curb, and helped hustle Amanda into the back of the van.  That was all I noticed, because a fourth, surly-looking woman put her round mug into my face and wrapped me in a bear hug, pinning my arms to my sides.  Then Red Dress, who was much stronger than she looked, covered my face with a rag.  It smelled like chloroform.  I gurgled out a cry for help, but it came out a muffled “ugh”.  I was vaguely aware of Red Dress saying something to me before my vision blurred and I was shoved into the van.  Then I saw darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A piercing pain in my elbow brought me back to reality.  I felt cold on my right cheek.  I jerked up, banging my head on a seat.  I struggled into a sitting position, swaying with the motion of the van.  Amanda was slumped over on the seat near me.  She must’ve gotten a heavier dose of chloroform.  That, or she’d finally passed out from all the alcohol in her system.  Blazer Girl sat next to her with a look of total indifference on her face.  I reached up toward Amanda.

“Don’t move,” said a voice from the front seat.  I turned that way, and ended up staring right into the end of a  revolver.  “If you do, I’ll be forced to use this.”

I sat back into the cramped corner between the seat and the van wall.  Red Dress watched me over the gun.  I stared back.  The van hit a nasty bump and we were jostled around, but the gun did not waver.  “Where are you taking us?” I finally asked.

No one answered.  From my sitting position I could see very little, only the occasional telephone pole or the top of a building.  I noticed the sky turning cloudy, with hints of blue peeking out.  It was impossible to tell how long I’d been out, but judging by the light outside, not much time had passed.

The van made a right turn.  I sat up as much as I dared without Red Dress noticing and saw through her window what looked like an industrial park, with long rows of off-white stucco buildings.  We turned down an alley between two buildings, and a large garage door opened.  The van pulled in, plunging us into darkness.  As soon as the engine died, a flurry of activity ensued.

Red Dress and the driver got out.  The side door slid open and Blazer Girl hauled Amanda’s limp body out, dragging her roughly through a white door ten feet from the van.  Blazer Girl reappeared a moment later.  Red Dress gestured with the gun for me to get out.  I crawled out of the van and stood up.  The gun stayed trained on me.  The driver, a stocky woman in gray sweats, came up behind me and twisted my right arm up behind my back.  I gasped in a very un-detective-like fashion and writhed to keep the pressure off my shoulder socket.  It felt like my shoulder was about to pop right out of the socket.

Red Dress nodded and the brute behind me propelled me where Amanda had been taken.  I glanced around quickly as we walked.  I wasn’t able to see much, just that we were in a warehouse of sorts, with lots of boxes stacked on metal shelves.  Then I was shoved through the same door as Amanda was a moment before.  She lay sprawled on the cement floor and I stumbled over her, putting my hands out to break my fall.  I rolled over just as the door slammed.

I rubbed my skinned palms while I surveyed our situation.  We were trapped in an empty room with stark white walls.  Not a single piece of furniture, no pictures on the walls, no trash can or trash, no dust.  Nothing.  Except us.

Amanda stirred.

“Oh, my head,” she propped herself up on one elbow and rubbed her forehead with the other.  I’d bet the combination of alcohol and chloroform was wreaking havoc on her brain.  She lifted her head and saw me.  She blinked and her gaze wandered around the barren room, then came back to me.  “Where are we?”

I shrugged my shoulders.  “Beats me.”

“Did they knock you out?”

“Long enough to get me in the van.  I came to during the ride, but I couldn’t see anything.  We’re in some kind of industrial complex, that’s all I could see.”

She rolled over on her side and worked her way into a sitting position, leaning her back against the wall.  “Well.”  She examined herself for a moment.  “I guess I’m okay.  How do we get out of here?”

“I don’t know.  And I’m fine, too.  Thanks for asking,” I said.

She glared at me.  “You’re the detective.  Don’t you know how to get us out of here?  Isn’t that what I hired you to do?”

“No, you hired me to find your husband, who I might add, you tried to kill.  That’s what got us in this mess.”  If looks could kill, well, you know the rest.

“I suppose you’re going to add that if I wasn’t drunk, we wouldn’t be here.”  She crossed her arms defiantly.

I shook my head.  “No, they were too good.  They knew the layout of the country club, where the exits were, where they should be, where you would be.  They had this planned very well, and they executed it well.  I doubt anyone saw them take us.”

“So no one knows where we are.”

“Only if the FBI followed us.”

Amanda sighed.  “Then we’re dead.  You’ve said it yourself.  This group has been successfully dodging the FBI for years.”  She began to tremble uncontrollably.

I sank to the floor and as if I’d been punched in the stomach.  We were done for.  I leaned my head back and momentarily closed my eyes.  A real job sounded okay right about now, one my parents would approve of.  Without warning the single overhead light winked out, plunging the room into total darkness.

“Oh, no.  Reed, I don’t want to die.”  Amanda’s voice shook.  “I don’t want to die.  I’ll do anything, I’ll go to jail, but I don’t want to die.”  She began moaning softly.

I couldn’t see a thing.  The darkness became more sinister, enveloping us in its bleakness.  I didn’t know what to do.  I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, so I didn’t know how to even begin trying to find a way out.  I heard a click and looked at the door, which swung out, away from us.  A silhouette stood in the doorway, shadowed from the light behind her.  She beckoned to us.  I got up and helped Amanda to her feet.  She was shuddering from fear, barely able to keep herself upright.

We shuffled through the door.  I squinted against the sudden light.  The woman in the red dress stood observing us.  She aimed her gun right at my head.  Behind her, the van driver, her feet spread apart in a threatening stance, had a gun trained on Amanda.  And behind the driver stood two more women.

“Hold out your arms.”  Amanda and I did as we were told.  I wasn’t going to argue with a loaded gun, and Amanda didn’t seem conscious of what was going on.  “Cuff them.”  One of the women stepped forward and locked cuffs on our wrists.

“Search them.”  Feminine hands slid up and down our bodies, emptying our pockets of everything.  My cell phone rang just as one of the women took it from my belt.  She glanced at it, then hurled it forcefully into a metal trashcan.  I heard the hollow rattle as it broke apart.

“Bring them over here,” the woman in the red dress ordered.  Her voice could’ve been mistaken for a man’s, but the rest of her couldn’t.  She was tall, slender, and incredibly tan.  The fashionable dress conformed precisely to her contours.  I didn’t think the Glock suited the outfit, but then, I wasn’t in a position to argue.  She stood aside as her companions hustled Amanda and me through a maze of stacked boxes and shelves to an open area between rows of shelves.  Amanda shook so violently I could hear her teeth clanging together.

They shoved us forward unceremoniously.  Two chairs waited for us.

“Sit,” the woman in the red dress commanded.  We sat.  “Don’t try anything or I’ll use this.”  She trained the gun on me.  The other women formed a half circle around us.  Red Dress surveyed their handiwork, nodding with approval.

“Do something,” Amanda hissed.

“Like what?” I said out of the side of my mouth.

She looked imploringly at me.  I shrugged.

Red Dress barked something unintelligible at us.  “No talking,” she snapped.  My breathing became a bit more labored.  Amanda let out a squeak.

“You’ve really screwed things up, you know that?” Red Dress said.  I wasn’t sure who she was addressing, Amanda or me.  “You know that?” she repeated, raising her voice.  The corner of the woman’s eye began twitching and her face hardened.

Amanda blanched.  My mind was racing to figure a way out.

“And you should have stayed away, Mr. Ferguson,” she addressed me.

“So you know my name.  But who are you?”  Her eyes narrowed.  “You can tell me.  After all, you have the gun.  I’m cuffed.  I’d say you have the upper hand.”  I was stalling for time.

“You can call me Georgia,” she finally said.  She focused on Amanda.  “You have caused us a great deal of trouble, Mrs. Ghering.  And unfortunately for you, Mr. Ferguson, she has pulled you into the situation.  Regrettable, but we’re going to remedy the problem now.”

“But I don’t understand,” Amanda whimpered.  “So I lied to you.  Big deal.  It happens all the time.  So maybe Peter wasn’t as bad as I said he was.  He cheated on me.  Isn’t that bad enough?  Why should I have cared what happened to him?  I paid you good money, so why should you care either?”

“We’re not murderers for hire,” Georgia said.  I snorted at that.  “No, you misunderstand our true purpose.  We seek to rectify situations where justice was not done, and we’re very careful to make sure that a request is worthy of our particular brand of justice.”

“You’re hired guns,” I said derisively.  “You profit from murder.”

“No.  The money we make supports the organization, and anything left over is donated to causes that help unfortunate women.”

“Oh, right.  I forgot about that.  Of course it’s okay, then,” I said.

“You can mock me, Mr. Ferguson, but I assure you our purpose is noble.  And that’s why we couldn’t carry out the assignment Amanda asked of us.  It didn’t warrant our kind of services.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.  “I thought you researched all your cases before you took something on.  Why didn’t you know Amanda was lying before you took her on?”

“Because I broke my own rules.”  A woman stepped out of the shadows behind Georgia.  My jaw dropped.  Amanda gulped air.  And Georgia smiled knowingly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“I broke my own rules,” Maggie Delacroix repeated, coming forward.  She smiled warmly at us, as if she were inviting us into her home.  “It is a mistake I will not make again.”

“Maggie,” Amanda said breathlessly.  “You said you were helping me.”

“I took pity on you.  A mistake I won’t repeat, I assure you,” Maggie said.  “I believed your petty stories about Peter, how he abused you.  I set the wheels in motion before I checked out what you’d said.”  She clasped her hands together.  “As I said, it’s a mistake I won’t repeat.”

“How can you do this?” Amanda asked.  “You seem so,” she searched for the word, “helpless.”

“With the right resources and the determination, we can achieve anything.”  Maggie sounded like an ad for a Fortune 500 company.  She turned to Georgia.  “That was excellent work at the club.  I could not have asked for a more flawless execution of a plan.”

Georgia beamed.  “You planned well, and your description of the club was perfect.  We had no trouble at all.”

“No one was the wiser,” Maggie said.  “Things were as usual when I left the club.  No one will notice for quite some time that Amanda is gone.”

I recovered from my shock.  “You’re the leader of the X Women?”

“Leader and founder.”  A hint of pride crept into her tone.  “Don’t be so surprised.  I would not have chosen this line of work, but destiny is a funny thing.”

“How can you believe what you’re doing is right?”

“I am aware that many people would disagree,” Maggie said.  “But these women,” she gestured at her minions, “were more than willing to work for the cause.  And so are others.  They have had tragedy in their lives.  They know firsthand that our justice system is far from perfect, so they decided to make a difference.”

“But why did you talk to me about your group?  Weren’t you afraid I would find out about your involvement?”

“I really didn’t give you that much credit,” she said, hurling the insult at me.  “I did believe, however, that you would make good on your threat to go to the police if I didn’t speak with you.  I chose to try and throw you off.”

“But you pointed me right to you.”

“You already knew about the organization, thanks to Amanda.  The matter of Derek Jones was inconsequential in the bigger scheme of our operations, which is why I chose to tell you about it.”

I thought about our conversation at the club.  “You felt that justice wasn’t done for your daughter’s friend, so you took matters into your own hands.  You created the organization to have that boy killed, and you made it look like an accident.  You make all your killings look like accidents.  That fooled law enforcement for a long time.  But are you any better than those you seek to destroy?”

“Our legal system did nothing for me.  Something precious was taken away, and I wanted payment for that.  An eye for an eye.”

“So you set everything up to kill Derek Jones.  You didn’t hire anyone, did you?  You used your own group.”  My mind was battling against pieces that didn’t fit in the puzzle.  “But that was only five years ago.  The X Women have been around a lot longer than that.  How could you have started it then?”

“The death of Derek Jones was nothing more than an execution of our services.  That incident alone would never have prompted me to start the X Women.  It was merely a favor for a friend.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I had something far greater taken from me.  Eighteen years ago.”

I thought back to our previous conversation.  What had I missed?  “Who was taken from you, besides Elaine Richards?”

“Her daughter,” a male voice, not mine, interjected.  Maggie and the other X Women whirled around.  Amanda and I sat in stunned silence.  A tall man walked around some boxes, edging his way to the outskirts of our little semicircle.

Maggie recovered quickly, hiding her surprise.  “You are correct, Peter.”

Amanda sagged in her chair, her chin resting on her chest.  I stared at Peter Ghering.  He stood tall, but his tense jaw and dark circles under his eyes screamed of exhaustion.  He needed a shave, and his suit could’ve used some serious pressing, but other than that, he generally resembled the picture Amanda had shown me a week ago.

“How did you get here?” Amanda gasped.

Peter glared at Maggie.  “No, let's hear what Maggie has to say.  I'm as curious as you all are.”

I'd been thinking about what Peter said.  I turned to Maggie.  “Your daughter lives on the East Coast.  She works in Washington.”

“Her first daughter,” Peter said.  “Sally.  She was kidnapped and murdered eighteen years ago.  There was never a conviction.”

“You had another daughter?” I stared at Maggie.

“She sure did,” Peter said.  “From her first marriage.  Sally was eight years old, wasn’t she, Maggie?  Little Sally, taken from your front yard while she played.”

“Did you know this?” I spat at Amanda.

She shrugged.  “I think I remember some rumors about it at the club.  I really didn’t think it was important.”

“Not important?” I nearly screeched.

“My wife pays attention to little more than the brand of vodka she’s drinking,” Peter said, turning to Maggie.  “I, on the other hand, have golfed with Maggie’s current husband.  He’s spoken a time or two about her first marriage, and the tragedies from it.”

Maggie faced me, but her eyes focused someplace far away.  “She was just a child, so innocent.”  Her voice cracked.  “She was violated and then murdered, and her frail body thrown in the woods.”  She paused.  “And my husband, her father, couldn’t take it.  He killed himself, leaving me a sizable inheritance.  But my family was destroyed.  Sally’s murderer got away on a technicality.  He roamed free while I lived in a prison.  I tormented myself over what I could’ve done differently.  And then I had a realization that I was letting her murderer kill again.  My grief and anger were killing me, and it was because of Sally’s murderer.”  She fixed her gaze on Peter again, her jaw locked determinedly.  “I decided I wouldn’t let that happen again.  I had brains.  I had money.  And I wanted justice for my husband and daughter.  I hired someone to take care of Sally’s killer.  I felt released.  And I knew that others longed for justice the way I did.  I am fulfilling that need.”

Peter stood with his hands clenched at his sides, shaking.  “You thought I deserved the same as all those others?”

“No, Peter,” Maggie said.  “You don’t understand.  Amanda talked at the club.  She said you were abusive to her, that you beat her, manipulated her, controlled her.  She said she feared for her life.  I had little way of knowing what happened in the privacy of your home.  My husband inferred that you cheated on her, that you didn’t care.”  She shrugged.  “After hearing her complaints for a while, I relented and gave her a number to call.  I took pity on her, and acted before I thought about what I was doing.  But when the organization realized that she was lying, we contacted the women who had taken you.  I ordered them to abort the mission.”

Peter’s nostrils flared and his lips slid back in a snarl.  He looked like a rabid wolf as he listened to Maggie.  “Do you know what I’ve been through these last two weeks?” he yelled.

Amanda slowly raised her head, coming back to reality.  “Peter, what are you doing here?”  She looked completely baffled.

“What does it look like?  I found the people who were trying to kill me.  I didn’t know what to do at first, and I didn’t know who to trust.  I couldn’t trust you,” he said to Amanda with contempt.

“But how did you know I wanted to kill you?” Amanda asked.

“It wasn’t hard to figure out.  I was in an airport restaurant having breakfast, and I began to feel lightheaded.  I started for the bathroom and felt faint.  A lady,” he pointed at Georgia, “offered to help me.  The next thing I know I’m blindfolded, lying on the floor of a car.  I began to fight, and someone hit me over the head.  I lost consciousness again and woke up in a ditch outside of Philadelphia.  After they left me for dead, I found a phone and called you.  Do you remember what you said to me?”  Peter turned on Amanda.  “You said ‘Oh my god, you’re still alive.’  I knew right then you had tried to have me killed.”  Peter took a ragged breath.  “I didn’t know what to think.  I didn’t know who to trust, who was after me.  I didn’t know if I should go to the police, or if I should just show up at home.”  He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly.  “And then I decided to come after you.”

“And here you are,” I murmured.

Amanda shivered.

“This is all fascinating, but we have things to attend to,” Maggie interrupted.

“Don’t you want to know how I ended up here?” Peter taunted her, his face an angry mask.

Maggie studied him cautiously, seeming to sense the danger  in Peter’s coiled fury.  “Please indulge us,” she said politely.

“Your organization isn’t as careful as you might think.  You see all these boxes,” Peter pointed to the shelves around us.  “They’re paper boxes.  Quality Paper Products.  They're an office supply company.  When I was in the car, before they knocked me out, I heard one of the women mention something about paper – quality paper.  At first I didn’t know what they meant: why would they be talking about paper?  Then I realized they were talking about a business that your husband owns.”  He pointed to Maggie.  “I’ve even been here myself.  So I figured this company was a place to start, that it had some connection to the people who kidnapped me.  I didn’t know what or why, but I was going to find out.  I hitchhiked all the way back, staying in cheap motels the whole time.  Do you know what it feels like to bum money off of truckers and women?  That's what I did.  And I bought binoculars and have been down the street from here, watching this place for the past few days, so I could find out what was going on.  Today I’d about given up when, to my surprise, I see a van pull into the garage with Amanda in the back seat.  I had to know what was happening, so I snuck past the secretary out front.  And now I know all about you and your organization.”  He smiled triumphantly.

“I applaud you,” Maggie said.  “In other circumstances we could’ve used your resourcefulness.  As it is, we really must be moving along.  I’m afraid you do know too much now.  How unfortunate, when we tried to spare your life.  Come, ladies.  And bring our friends along.  We have work to do.”

Maggie turned her back on Peter, which was uncharacteristically stupid of her.  Peter, functioning at a near crazed level, roared and lunged at Maggie, dragging her to the ground.  The X Women around her stood frozen, shocked by Peter’s actions.  And then all hell broke loose.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Peter leaped on Maggie, cursing her as he pummeled her with his fists.  The van driver and two of the women jumped into the foray, trying to pull Peter off Maggie, and at the same time avoid coming into contact with his punches.  The driver’s gun, body parts, and curses were flying all over the place.

Georgia seemed mesmerized by the fight.  She stood unmoving, and I chose that second to hurl myself at Amanda, knocking both her and me to the ground.  I felt my chair slide sideways on two legs as I tipped her chair over.  It broke with a crack and we ended up in a heap of arms, legs, and chair parts.  I struggled to get up, my hands still cuffed in front of me, my feet entangled in pieces of the chair and Amanda’s legs.  The commotion of our fall jolted Georgia out of her trance, and she stepped toward us, gun held low.  Amanda crawled to her knees, yelling at me.

“You idiot,” she screamed.  She swung her handcuffed wrists back, clearly intent on maiming me.  And Georgia stepped right into her fists, catching the backward blow in the stomach.

“Oof,” Georgia groaned, buckling over.  I dove at them, laying Amanda flat on the floor, catching Georgia squarely on the knees with my shoulder.  She dropped her gun and yelled in pain as her legs bowed back in an unnatural way.  I finished the tackle, sending her into a fall.  Her head slammed on the hard cement floor with a sickening thud.

“Get off me!”  I heard Amanda shouting from under me.  I scrambled to retrieve Georgia’s gun, clutching at it as I scooted across the floor.  I grabbed the gun with both hands, rolled over into a sitting position, and pointed the gun toward the general melee before me.  I saw two of the X Women piled on the floor, bucking to and fro, Peter’s feet and arms protruding from under the heap.  Maggie stood a few feet away, her dress torn at one shoulder, her lip bleeding and one eye swelling up, her usually perfect hair flying in any number of directions.  Another X Woman used one hand to pull Maggie farther back from the pile.  The X Woman waved the other hand around, her gun pointing randomly at the pile, at Amanda, and at me.

I pointed my gun at her.  “Stop!” I yelled.

What happened next seemed like a movie playing frame by frame.  The van driver turned her head and looked at me, surprise crossing her face when she saw my gun aimed at her.  Maggie’s mouth opened slowly and she yelled “noooo...”.  The other woman raised her gun, her arm wavering slowly.  Then I was looking into that gaping black hole from where a bullet would emerge and kill me.  I gritted my teeth and pulled the trigger of my gun, my eyes closing involuntarily.  I heard an explosion, and at the same time I lurched to my right.  As I tumbled, I heard another explosion, and a stinging sensation on my backside.  I ended up on my elbows and knees, dropping the gun.  It skittered a few feet away.  I heard a third explosion, and screams.  I ducked my head, aware that my elbows and knees hurt.  Then the movie slipped into fast forward.

I opened my eyes and saw the woman sagging onto the floor.  Her gun slipped from her hand and she clutched at her left shoulder, where a red spot grew out of her white shirt.  Maggie bent over her, trying to see where the bullet had gone.  Amanda whimpered as she cowered behind the chair that hadn’t broken.  I scrambled over and retrieved the gun, giving Georgia a wide berth.  I didn’t need to; she lay unmoving where she’d fallen and struck her head.  As I stood up, my ass hurt, even though I’d fallen on my face.  I began to tremble as I leveled the gun with my cuffed hands at the X Women.

“Freeze!” I shouted, hoping my command would be more effective this time.

To my surprise, the movie paused.  Everyone stopped and stared at me.  The pile of X Women and Peter quit bucking, and even Amanda grew quiet.  The gun wavered in my hands.  Sweat trickled into my eyes and I heaved for breath.  I wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Everybody freeze!”  Everyone looked around in confusion.  I hadn’t said a word.  Then who…?

Agents Forbes and White came running around the corner, guns held high.  A small army of agents followed them, spreading out among us.  Some descended on the X Women, yanking the two off of Peter, while others subdued Maggie and the wounded X Woman, both of whom put up little protest.

“Are you all right?” Forbes asked me.  I stared at him.  “Reed, are you okay?” he asked again.  He eased my gun down and grasped me by the shoulders, studying me cautiously.

I took a second to realize who was talking to me.  “Yeah.  I’m okay.”

“Good,” Forbes said, letting me go.  “We thought we were too late.”  He turned to the action going on behind his back.

“Hey.  Where the hell were you five minutes ago?” I barked at him.  “Do you always wait until the work is done to show up?”

He turned around and gave me a stern look, but his eyes sparkled.  “We got here as soon as we could.  If you hadn’t been so intent on losing us, it would’ve been sooner.  As it was, we had to do some quick work.  We thought you all were taken to Maggie’s house, but when we didn’t find anyone there, we came right here.  We were talking with the front desk lady when we heard the shots and came running.”

Amanda peeked from around the chair.  “It’s about time someone came to my rescue.”  She stood up unsteadily.

“You might not think that after we book you,” Forbes said.

“What?”  The innocent look on her face didn’t fool anyone.

“At least you’re alive,” Agent White said.  “Isn’t that what you wanted?  You’ll face the music now.”  Amanda grimaced, but she couldn’t argue with her own words.

My body was screaming at me, sore in too many places to count.  “I feel lightheaded.”  I blinked hard at Forbes.

“Hey, buddy, you’re bleeding.”  White, who had been helping with the other X Women, pointed at me.

I began examining myself, but didn’t see anything.

“No, back there.”

I craned my neck around, exploring my backside with my hands.  “Oh, man!  She shot me in the ass?”  I couldn’t believe it, but it was true.  My rear end suddenly hurt like nobody’s business.

Agent Forbes tried to hide a smile.  And then I fainted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Everything was white.  Puffy white clouds surrounded me.  I had wings.  And a harp.  What?  Was this what it was like when you died?  But I’d only been shot in the ass.  That wasn’t life-threatening, was it?  I saw a tunnel and white light coming at me.  I opened my eyes.

Agent White had his prodigious face inches from me.  “So, you’re awake.”  He leaned down at me, and I smelled his onion breath.

I was lying on my side, facing away from the door.  My whole body ached, but especially a certain area underneath bandages and tape that I couldn’t see.  I swallowed and my throat felt like sandpaper.  I glanced around.  Everything was white.  White light shining through white curtains, white sheets on the bed.  And Agent White sitting there.  How appropriate.

“Yeah,” I croaked at White.  I was definitely awake.

“Good.  Maybe you can tell us why you ignored a specific order to stay away from Amanda Ghering.”  He took a seat on a wooden chair with a plastic seat cushion.  The chair squeaked under his bulk, the cushion hissing loudly.

I left his question unanswered, more concerned about my well-being.  I felt like shit, and I wasn’t sure how I got here, wherever here was.  I knew who I was, who the President was, and I thought I knew what day it was.  Did they ask anything else when they wanted to find out if you were oriented?  I began to check out my injuries.  An IV-tube ran from my left arm to a bag of clear liquid hanging from a metal pole.  I reached over with my other arm to a rolling table for a water pitcher the color of puke.  I managed to pour myself a glass, groaning from the exertion.  Agent White crossed his arms over his massive chest, apparently too disgusted with me to lend a helping hand.  My elbows were scraped and bruised, and as I moved my legs, I knew that my knees must be in the same condition.  I took a long gulp of tepid water, the sandy feeling in my throat subsiding.

“So?”

“What time is it?”

He didn’t bother looking at his watch.  “After five.  Why did you keep working on the case?”

I lay back on my side, with a pile of white pillows propped under my right shoulder and head.  “I wanted to finish it,” I said.

I heard the door open and shut, and Special Agent Forbes came around the bed and into my line of sight.  “You’ve had quite a day,” he said.  It didn’t sound friendly, but then it didn’t sound unfriendly either.  He leaned against the window ledge, put his hands in his pockets and examined me.  “How do you feel?”

I squinted at him.  “Like I got rear-ended by a truck,” I said.  “Muscles I didn’t even know I had are sore.”

“You’re lucky that bullet didn’t hit somewhere else, or you might be in more trouble.  As it is, you should be grateful you have as much muscle there as you do.”

“Don’t hold back,” I grimaced.  “You can tell me I have a fat ass.”

Forbes actually smiled at that.  “You’re going to be just fine.  They removed the bullet and patched you up, and that muscle will be sore for a while.  You lost some blood, too, but you’ll be back on your feet in no time.”  I stayed silent, waiting for the punchline.  “The doctors want to keep you overnight for observation.  They’re going to release you in the morning.”

He stopped talking.  I waited a moment, then said, “What?”

“I need you to come down to our offices, so we can wrap things up.”  He pulled out his wallet and extracted a business card, handing it to me.

I reached out a hand and took it.  I read the address on it and set it on the table.  I sucked in a breath and held it for a second.  I looked at White, who frowned at me, then at Forbes, who waited for me to speak.  “The suspense is killing me.  Why don’t you tell me now what kind of trouble I’m in?”

“Okay,” Forbes agreed.  “You realize you interfered with a federal investigation.”  It seemed a rhetorical question, so I remained silent.  “You could’ve ruined a lot of work for a lot of people.”

“That’s right,” White began.  Forbes held up a hand and White clamped his jaw shut.

“I’m sure we don’t need to discuss the details of your mistakes,” Forbes said, “or how dangerous it was to continue.  I think you’re sufficiently paying for that now.”  He distinctly did not look at my wound.  “And you did in fact help bring down the leader of the X Women.  That warrants special consideration.”

“Thank you very much,” I said, maybe with a bit too much sarcasm.

“Hey, we saved your ass,” White leaned closer to me, his index finger jabbing at me.

“Excuse me, but if you saved my ass, I wouldn’t be here,” I shot back at him.

“Gentlemen,” Forbes interrupted.  “Wayne,” he said to White.  “Maybe you should get yourself a cup of coffee.”  White composed himself, gave me a last severe glare, stood up, and left the room.

“I’d say he’s more upset with your actions than I am.”  Forbes came over by the bed.  “Listen, Reed.  You’re in trouble here.”  I started to protest, but he continued.  “Look, I’m not happy that you got in the way, but in the end you did help.  If you cooperate with us, tell us what you know, testify against these women if need be, maybe I can make sure that nothing happens to you.”

“What happened to the woman I shot?”

“She’s being treated, but she’ll be okay.  You managed to take her out of action, but leave her alive.  We couldn’t have trained someone better.  Lucky shot?” he asked with amusement.

“Something like that.”  I looked down and breathed with relief.  I didn’t want to have to live with killing someone.

“Having everyone alive makes things a lot less complicated.  My offer stands.”

“I walk away, no charges against me?” I asked.

He nodded.  “I’ll see what I can do.  Come down to my office tomorrow, and we’ll get a statement from you, and have you fill out some paperwork.  There’s always paperwork.”  He sighed.

“I’ll be there,” I said.  “By the way, what happened after I fainted?”

“I never saw anybody hit the ground so fast.”  He grinned.  “We arrested all the women.  Maggie, now there’s a woman of vengeance.  She’s not telling us a thing.  She’s asked for a lawyer and is already preparing her defense.”  His eyes narrowed in anger.  “We’re trying to get the others to talk, to turn on each other.  We’ve gotten a few leads from the warehouse, but it’ll take some time to track all the women down.  I’m sure a lot of them are already on the run.”

“And Peter?”

“Peter was treated for some bumps and bruises, and released.  We questioned him for quite a while, and that’s only the start.”  Forbes shook his head.  “He’s had one helluva week, scrounging around, hiding like a criminal himself.  If he would’ve called the police, or us, he could’ve avoided a lot.”

“He didn’t trust the police, or anyone else.”

Forbes shrugged.  “We’re not all bad.”  He paused.  “Peter will be okay.  He’ll have a great story to tell his grandkids.”

I snorted.  “Yeah, how his ex-wife tried to have him killed.  I’m sure that’ll replace Dr. Seuss.”

“Okay, he can tell it at the club.”

“And Amanda?”

“She is alive and well, and in custody.  She’ll face charges for conspiring to kill her husband, and any other charge we can come up with.  You got what you wanted on that one.”

“Excuse me?”

“You didn’t let her die, but she’ll spend a good long time behind bars.”

“Oh,” I said.  He seemed to have all my bugged conversations memorized.

Forbes stuck out his hand.  “You did well, my friend.  If I can return the favor...”

I awkwardly shook his hand, totally surprised.  “I figured you'd want to throw the book at me, since I interfered with your investigation.”

Forbes cocked his head.  “I’ll get over it.”  He winked at me and left the room.

I rolled back until my rear hit the pillows behind me and the pain stopped me.  It wasn’t that bad, really.  A pain in the ass, I thought wryly.

I chuckled to myself, closed my eyes, and drifted into a calm sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Monday morning came with a chill in the air, but bright sunshine.  After a day and a half in the hospital, I was ready to leave.  At nine, Ace and Bob showed up.  I had arranged the night before for Ace to pick me up because he had the day off, but I was surprised to see Bob tagging along.

“Hey, dude,” Ace said as he followed Bob into the room.  Okay, so Ace was tagging along.  He nervously played with the corner of his coat, his eyes darting around the room.  “Are you going to be okay?”

I had gotten up when the nurse brought in my breakfast tray.  After picking at some runny eggs and dry toast, I had showered carefully, taking extra caution with the scrapes on my elbows, knees, hands, and especially my bandaged rear end.  I dressed in a pair of sweats and a sweater that Deuce brought over the previous evening, and combed my wet hair into some semblance of order.

The doctor told me that with the exception of a scar in a place where few people would see it, I would recover just fine.  My release papers had been signed and I was sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed when Bob and Ace came for me.

“You don’t look too bad,” Bob said.  “Are you ready?”

I glanced at Ace, who was doing everything he could to pretend like he wasn’t in a hospital room, running a hand through his ponytail.  “Yeah, let’s go before your brother dies of fright.”

Bob smiled.  “He’ll be okay.  Ace, grab his bag.”  Ace picked up the brown paper bag that contained the clothes I’d worn when I was admitted.  The nurse had brought it to me this morning.  The crumpled pair of jeans was now suitable for the trash; the seat of the pants had a dark reddish brown stain on it, and a hole that I could put my thumb through.

A nurse entered the room, pushing a wheelchair.  “Your ride is here, Mr. Ferguson,” she greeted us cheerfully.

“Is that necessary?” I asked.  I was wounded, not crippled.

“Hospital rules.”  The smile on her face didn’t budge.

I shrugged and limped over to the wheelchair and sat down, putting all my weight on my right side.  She wheeled me out of the room to the elevator, and in five minutes, she deposited me on the passenger seat of Bob’s car.  Ace, decidedly calmer now that we were outside of the hospital, chattered the whole ride over to the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, where Agent Forbes had a temporary office.  Ace mostly wanted to know if the fight I was in was anything like the one at the end of The Big Sleep.  He seemed disappointed when I said it wasn’t.

I arranged to call Bob on his cell phone when I finished, and I walked as normally as I could manage into the building.  After two hours of being interviewed by Agent Forbes and his team, I was exhausted, but pleased that Forbes had kept his word.  I cooperated, and the FBI didn’t press charges against me.  Agent Forbes wanted another meeting, so we scheduled that, and then I called Bob.

When we arrived back at the condo, Bob and Ace were kind enough to help me upstairs and into my place.  They rearranged the furniture in the living room so that I could lie on my belly on the couch and see the television without craning my neck.  It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but it protected my sensitive derrière.  Ace fixed me a sandwich and a glass of Coke, completed with a straw for easy drinking.

“You need anything else?” Bob asked.

“A couple of aspirin.”  My rear hurt.

Ace scooted into the kitchen and returned with a bottle.  I took two greedily.

“Anything else?” Bob asked again.

“No, I’m fine now.  Thanks for everything.”

“Here’s the phone,” Ace said, putting the cordless down on the coffee table.  “You call if you need anything.  We’re right downstairs, so it’s easy to get here.”

Bob and I exchanged an amused look.  “Thanks, Ace.  That’s good to know.”

“We’ll check on you later,” Bob said.  “Don’t worry about anything.”

“I won’t.”

They left and I soon drifted off while the television played Ace’s favorite movie, The Terminator.  The phone rang, waking me.  “Hello,” I mumbled into the phone.  On the television screen, Arnold was doing some nasty surgery on his electronic eye.  Cool scene.

“Where have you been?” Cal asked, more than a little concern in his voice.  “I've been calling you since yesterday morning.  You’re not going to believe what I found out.”

“It’s been a helluva day or two,” I said.  “You won’t believe what I’ve been through.”

“Yeah?  Well, remember that list I gave you, with the accidental deaths?”  He didn’t wait for a response, but barreled on ahead.  “One of them related to a little girl named Sally Hanson.  Guess who that is?”

“The daughter of Maggie Delacroix,” I said.  I heard complete silence on the other end of the phone.

“How did you know that?” Cal demanded finally.

“Have I got a story for you,” I said, and proceeded to relate the events of the last twenty-four hours, complete with my theory of the setup, and its relation to The Big Sleep, and my not-so-detective-like wound in the ass.  Cal roared with laughter after I assured him that the wound was far from deadly, or even serious.

“I’m impressed, Reed.  You actually managed to solve your first case.  Successfully, I might add.  You put the pieces together just like Bogie.  Life imitating art.”

“Or something like that.  Now maybe I can convince my dad that I have a real job.”

“I doubt that,” Cal said.  “But you have my vote.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Hey, I didn’t do very much.  I’ll help anytime you want, as long as I can stay in my own home.”

“Always,” I laughed as I hung up.  What would I do without Cal?  I turned my attention back to the movie, but quickly drifted off again.  I was dreaming of Arnold and Bogie when the doorbell rang.  The television illuminated the room in pastel blue.  I’d been asleep for a while this time.

“Door's open,” I hollered, wondering why Ace didn't let himself in.

“How are you feeling?” Willie's soft voice drifted through the dimness.

“Hey,” I said, trying to sit up.

“No, stay there.”  Willie came into the room and sat on the edge of the coffee table.  “You doing okay?”

Much better since you're here, I thought.  “Where's your boyfriend?”

“I'm not sure.  I think he and I are finished.  But it's okay.”  She smiled at me.  “Do you need anything?”

“No,” I said.  “But the company's nice.”

“Are you okay?  I mean, with the boyfriend thing?”

“Uh huh.”  She smiled again.  “Really, I am.”

“Okay.”  She did seem fine, so I let it go.

Willie picked up The Big Sleep DVD. “This one looks interesting.  Want to watch it?”

“Sure.”  I was just glad she wanted to stay.  And I was impressed that she wanted to watch an old detective story.  Maybe this recuperation wouldn't be as bad as I had thought.

She slid off the coffee table and inserted the DVD into the player.  Right then the phone rang.

“You want me to leave?” Willie asked.

I shook my head.  Willie watched the movie as I picked up the phone.

“Hello, dear.  It’s Mother.”

“Hi, Mom.”  I yawned.  “How are you?”

“I’m fine, dear.  I just wanted to remind you about our flight.  I don’t want you to forget.  Are you okay?  It sounds like you were asleep.  Were you taking a nap?  And in the middle of the day.  I thought you were working.  You know your father didn’t think you could make a go of this detective thing.”

“I’m still working, Mom.  I’m still a detective.”  I felt groggy.  I turned gingerly on my side, careful of my wounded butt.  I rolled my eyes at Willie, wishing I could hang up on my mother.

My mother harrumphed at me.  “That’s nice, dear.  I just want you to be happy.  I only wish you would pick something a little less dangerous.  Goodness, what if someone tries to shoot you?  I don’t know what I would do then.  You know that the shows, like that Murder, She Wrote, aren’t at all realistic.  That Angela Lansbury always comes out smelling like a rose.  Really.”

I made a quick decision: now was definitely not the time to tell her about getting shot in the ass.  I could tell her about finishing my first case, and my not-so-near brush with death, when they visited for the holidays.  When she could see for herself that I was perfectly fine.

“You really sound terrible, dear,” she continued, barely taking a breath.  “Are you sure you’re okay?  You sound funny, like you did the other day.  You’re not doing drugs, are you?”

I chuckled.  “No, Mother.”

Reel Estate Rip-off

CHAPTER ONE

“Arnold Schwarzenegger is the greatest actor ever!”

Ace Smith stood just inside the doorway of my office, glaring at his brother, Deuce.  The opening shot of a long-standing argument between the Goofball Brothers had been delivered.

“Dude, Sly is way better.”  Deuce’s lips curled in a half-grin at his older brother.  Then Deuce gestured for me to hurry up.

“Bruce Willis is better than Sly.”  Ace grabbed a pen from my desk and began waving it like a sword.  He had a triumphant look on his baby face.

“He doesn’t even do action movies,” Deuce said, rolling his eyes.

“Hello!  Can you say Die Hard?  One of the best pictures ever,” Ace said.

“Better than The Terminator?  No way!”  Deuce advanced into the room, snatched a pencil off the desk, and held it up.

“Hold on.”  Ace spread his arms like a referee keeping two boxers, or in this case, jousters, apart.  “Let’s ask Reed.  He’s knows movies.  And he’s a detective.”

I turned my head in surprise.  It was true.  I was a movie buff.  And a detective.  But I had been sitting at my desk, trying to ignore the interchange while listening to a voice mail message.  I didn’t want to get involved.

“Yeah, Reed.  What do you think?” Deuce asked.

No one ever won this argument, which was why it still continued.  I hung up the phone, and shrugged my shoulders to indicate my indifference.  I didn’t care.  “You know what my vote is.”

“Oh yeah.  Henry Bogart,” Ace said, pointing the pen at me.  “All that film now stuff.  That Bogart guy is dead, you know, so that doesn’t count.”

“It’s Humphrey Bogart and film noir,” I corrected him with a laugh, pointing at a framed Bogart movie poster of The Big Sleep on the wall.  “And Bogie can act circles around any of your guys.”  I pocketed my keys and led them out to the small waiting room.

“Talking golf again,” Deuce joked.  They both laughed.  It was a hot, dry Friday afternoon in August.  The temperature in downtown Denver was hovering in the mid-90’s, perfect conditions for a few cold ones during happy hour.  I had decided to call it a day early and had phoned the brothers, who were available at that time of day because they were ending a week of vacation.  Now we were heading over to B 52’s, a local pool hall, and I was heading into the weekend.  No work until Monday.  Actually, I’d wrapped up a case a week ago, and hadn’t done much since.  Famous last words.

I shooed the brothers out the door and was locking it behind me when I heard another voice, distinctly un-Goofball-like.

“Reed Ferguson?”  Each word was enunciated carefully, a clipped tone.

I turned.  The ghost of Burt Lancaster gazed back at me.  “Swede?”

“Excuse me?”  A confused expression spread across the man's face.  Okay, not slick on my part, but he was the spitting image of Lancaster in his film debut as Swede Andersen in The Killers, a classic noir film.  Same face, same perfectly coiffed dark hair with the wavy curls, same dark, chilling eyes.  Except that Swede Andersen wouldn’t be wearing a three-piece suit and Gucci loafers.  And right now the eyes were dimmed by a look of sadness.

“Has anyone ever told you you look like Burt Lancaster?”

The confused look on his face vanished, replaced by annoyance.  “A time or two,” he said, his jaw tightening.

“Never mind,” I said.  Behind him, the Goofball Brothers stared at me impatiently, shifting around like two little boys who needed to pee really badly.  “I’m Reed.”

He shook my hand firmly, all business.  “Jack Healy.  I’ve caught you at a bad time,” he said by way of an apology, though I detected no hint of sorrow in his voice.

I gestured toward the guys.  “We were heading out, but I can spare you a few minutes.”  Behind Jack Healy, Ace started waving his hands in a “no way” gesture, while Deuce looked crestfallen.  They had already been antsy to leave.  Was I going to have the nerve to ask them to wait longer?

“Why don’t you guys go on, and I’ll catch up with you later.”  I may be crazy, but I wasn’t stupid.  If I had the brothers wait in my office, within two minutes they’d be arguing and fighting like ten-year-olds.  That would make a good impression on a prospective client.

They both relaxed visibly, goofy smiles on their goofy faces.  “We’ll see you there,” Ace called as they hurried off down the hall.

“Thank you,” Jack said, throwing a hesitant look at the retreating brothers.

I opened the door and escorted Jack into the inner office.  He took a seat across from my desk and waited until I had settled into a chair, my elbows leaning on the desk, giving him the best attention I could muster for a Friday afternoon right before happy hour.

“I’m sorry to bother you right before the weekend,” he began.  And again, I didn’t think he sounded sorry at all.  He looked more irritated, like he thought I shouldn’t be leaving my office before five o’clock.  If he only knew the erratic hours I kept.  Ah, the life of a detective.  “I took off work early to swing by your office, so I really wanted to be sure I saw you today,” Jack continued.  “I can’t afford to take the time at all, but it seems necessary.”  He hesitated, glanced at his watch, then back at me.  “I want to hire you.”

Obviously, considering he was here, I chose to think.

Jack paused to gather his thoughts.  Then he leaned forward in the chair.  “I want to hire you to find my brother’s killer.  Or killers.”

I stared back at him.  “You’ve got my attention.”

His gaze seemed to say, “About time.”  “I suppose I should start at the beginning,” was what he did say.

“That would be good.”

And so he did, loosening his tie as he talked.  “My brother Ned was killed a month ago.  He fell while cycling in the mountains.  We think he lost control of his bike and ended up over the side of a cliff.”  I vaguely remembered seeing something about that on the news, but kept silent.  Jack sighed.  “He broke his neck in the fall and was killed instantly.”  A pained look crossed his face, and he stopped.

I waited a beat before saying, “I don’t understand.  How could there be a killer or killers if your brother fell?  It sounds more like a terrible accident.”

“I don’t believe it happened that way.”  Jack glared at me with grim determination.  “The police ruled it an accident.  The autopsy indicated that Ned was drunk and on barbiturates and didn’t know what he was doing, but I know better.”

“How?”

“First of all, Ned didn’t drink much, and he didn’t do drugs.  And he never went cycling.  He hated being in the mountains, hated driving on the winding roads.  He wouldn’t have gone up there, and certainly not when he was drunk.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Outside of Buena Vista.  There’s a trail that runs near Mount Princeton.  They found his car parked at a trail head.  He died on a Saturday but his body wasn’t found for three days.  There’s no way anyone will convince me that he went there alone, or willingly.  Not Ned.”

I contemplated Jack’s straightforward gaze.  He seemed sure about what he was saying.  “How can you be so certain that your brother wouldn’t go cycling, or that he could fall while doing it?  That could happen to any of us.”

“Ned was afraid of heights.  Pathologically afraid.  He never went cycling, hiking, climbing, or anything like that in the mountains.  He wouldn’t even sit by a window in a high-rise building.”

This piqued my interest.  “The police checked into this, right?”

He nodded, chewing at his lower lip.  “Sure.  But everything pointed to it being ruled exactly like they said.  There wasn’t a shred of evidence to make them think differently.”

“Did you tell them your suspicions?”

“Yes.  But with the evidence they had, they said they concluded that accidents happen.”  He picked at the perfect crease in his trousers as he talked.  “They dropped it.  But I know it couldn’t have happened that way.  If I have to pay someone myself to find out the truth, I’ll do it.”  He stopped with the pant leg and looked up at me.  “Are you willing to find out what happened to my brother?”

I did a quick mental inventory of my schedule in my head.  Nothing coming up.  Last case finished a week ago.  I’d spent more time playing pool in the last seven days than I had in months, and my game still wasn’t very good.  I’d never solve the Best Actor argument with the Goofball Brothers.  “I’ll take it,” I said.

“Sounds good.”  Sounding just like Burt Lancaster.

CHAPTER TWO

The goldfish looked hungry.

That was the first thing I thought as I followed Jack Healy into the living room of his brother Ned’s house in Commerce City.  Maybe it was the way the little guy was gaping at me, with his big black eyes, and his mouth puffing out like he wanted someone to put something in it.  He swam around the rectangular tank, gazed at me with big, sad eyes, swam, then turned back to me.  What a life.

Ned had been in dire financial straits.

That was the second thing I thought as I turned from the fish tank to survey the rest of the room.  There were exactly two pieces of furniture in the room.  The fish tank, sitting on a stack of cinder blocks, if you could call that furniture, and opposite the tank, a threadbare couch that literally leaned on three legs.

Jack had signed a standard contract and paid my retainer fee last night, but by that time he was already late for a dinner appointment, so we decided to meet at Ned’s house today.  I needed more than Jack’s gut feeling to determine if Ned had really been murdered.  Maybe Ned’s house would tell me something.

“The house is exactly as Ned left it?” I asked.  Maybe Ned killed himself because he didn’t have anything, like furniture and decorations, I thought wryly.

Jack nodded.  “I’ve been through his bills, that’s it.”

My eyes darted around the bare room and blank walls.  “Why would someone want to kill your brother?” I asked, avoiding the couch as if it might have fleas.

Jack shrugged his shoulders as he focused on the fish, tapping out a generous serving of food from a tiny canister on the tank stand.  “I’ve racked my brain trying to answer that one.  That’s another reason why the police don’t think Ned was murdered: there’s no motive.”  The fish gulped at the food with a vengeance.

“Did he have any enemies?  Any trouble with the law?”

“No and no.”  Jack screwed the lid back on the fish food, and turned back to face me.  “Ned was just an ordinary guy.  I’ve looked over his financial statements, checked his bills and mail.  Nothing stands out.”

I gestured around the room.  “By the looks of it, he didn’t have much money.”

Jack sighed.  “That wasn’t always the case.  Ned was a realtor, he sold houses.  He did quite well for himself.”

“What happened?  This isn’t the home of a wealthy man.”

“He made a lot from the huge boom in housing sales and values,” Jack said.  Denver was on the A-list for many people in the latter part of the 1990’s, which helped cause a huge rise in the housing market.  “Ned had a great life.  At least until recently.”  Jack rubbed a hand over his face, as if trying to wipe away bad memories.  “Everything seemed to be going fine.  He had a beautiful wife, a big house, not like this old place.  He had nice cars, took great vacations.  He had the dream life.  Then it all went south.”

That explained the house we were in.  “What happened?”

Jack moved as if he was going to sit on the couch, but thought better of it.  He motioned for me to follow him into the kitchen.  It was tiny, with barely enough room for one person.  The cabinets were stained a seventies dark brown, and the appliances carried on the theme, all of which was once fashionably called gold.  The walls were grayish white.  Nothing hung on them, but you could make out lighter spots where decorations had once hung.  Jack crossed to a miniscule table in the corner of the room and sat down on a rolling chair next to it.

“I’m not sure what happened,” Jack began.  “No, that’s not true.  I know what happened, he lost it all.  I just don’t know all the whys.  Ned and I didn’t talk a lot about our work.”

I opened the refrigerator door.  A can of Pepsi, an opened box of Arm & Hammer baking soda, and a jug of water.  “Did you clean this out?”

Jack shook his head.  “That’s all there was.  There are a few frozen dinners in the freezer.  I need to go through the house and clean it out, but I haven’t felt like it.”

“What do you do?”  I checked the cabinets while he talked, but other than a few dry goods and some mismatched dishes, they were bare.

“I own a computer consulting firm.  We do all kinds of programming, all over the United States.”  He crossed his hands, resting them on the table.  “It has very little to do with real estate, so there wasn’t a lot of common ground between Ned and me.  And we didn’t talk as much anymore.”

“What about things not related to work?”  I sat down on a chair opposite him.  “Did you talk about other stuff?”

“No, and I’ll regret that until the day I die.”  Jack stared at his hands for a moment.  “We used to be closer.”

“Then how can you be sure that he wouldn’t have gone cycling?”

He planted a firm gaze on me.  “I may not have known everything that happened in his life, but I know Ned wouldn’t go cycling in the mountains.  That would’ve meant Ned conquered his fear of heights, and I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t mention that.”

“Why weren’t you close?”

“He married Samantha.”  Jack said her name like it was a four-letter-word.  “We, my wife and I, were never fond of Samantha.”  The same vile sound to the name.  “Fond” was definitely an understatement.

“How long were they married?”

“Two years.”  Jack exhaled noisily.  “Two years too long.”

“What’s Samantha like?” I asked, bracing myself for the negative vibes.

“She wasn’t nice, I can tell you that.  Samantha is the most self-absorbed, possessive, ruthless, and greedy person I’ve ever met.  She set her sights on Ned and wouldn’t be denied.  When he met her, he was making money hand over fist, and she decided she was going to partake of it.  By the time she got her hooks out of him, she’d taken every dime from him.”

I scooted my chair back a bit, away from his intensity.  “Ned didn’t notice that she was bad news?”

Jack stood up and stared out the sliding glass doors onto a weed-choked lawn the size of a cardboard box.  “He was in love.  Or lust.”  He emitted a rasping laugh.  “That was my take on it.  Samantha was a looker, no doubt.  It wasn’t like she was a model or anything.  But Ned fell for her.”  He whirled away from the window.  “Let me show you a picture of her.”

I followed Jack down a short hallway to a room that was designed to be a small bedroom, but had been converted into an office.  A paint-splattered, worn oak desk sat against one wall, with an older model Dell computer and monitor on it.  A beat-up metal file cabinet stood to the left of the desk.  Jack opened the bottom file drawer and pulled out a snapshot.

“I don’t know why he kept it, but I found it when I was going through his bills.”  He handed the photo to me.

Samantha was pretty, but not quite perfect enough to be considered beautiful.  Her brown eyes seemed just a bit cold, her long blond hair was cut a little too plain, and her nose was maybe just a bit too big.  But she had full lips that pursed into just the right kind of sexy pout.  She had her arms crossed over large breasts, and gold jewelry glinted from her wrists.  A huge diamond ring rested on her left ring finger.  “She is a looker,” I repeated Jack’s description.

“Don’t let that fool you,” Jack said, putting the picture back.  “She was nothing short of a bitch.”  At least he was honest.

“Maybe she wanted him dead,” I said, reaching for a motive.

“Maybe,” Jack agreed.  “By the time they divorced, she hated him, and she was mean enough to want him dead.”

“Did Ned owe her any money?”

“Not that I know of.  She gets his inheritance, but that isn’t much.”

“Why didn’t he change his will?  Why let her inherit?”

Jack shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

“How much will she inherit?”  Never underestimate the power of money.  What seems like a little to one person is a fortune for another.

“A few thousand dollars is all.”  Scratch that motive, I thought.  Jack grimaced.  “She had more to gain with Ned alive, believe me.  Samantha was getting hefty alimony checks.  That’s part of what finally broke Ned, having to pay her each month.”

“But that alone couldn’t have left him with nothing.  What else led to his financial downfall?” I asked.

“Ned didn’t tell me a lot, but I know that he bought a lot of real estate in some other states, speculating that the values would rise like they have here in Colorado.  It didn’t turn out that way, though, and Ned wasn’t able to pay some of his creditors.  He had to file for bankruptcy, and then his house sales tumbled.  I thought he had things under control, but apparently not.  Once he was headed toward financial ruin, Samantha left him.  But that didn’t stop her from gouging him.  She got the house in the divorce settlement, and alimony.”  Jack waved his hand in the air.  “Ned could barely afford this.”  He paused, contemplating the sparse surroundings.  “Ned was a smart guy, and I just don’t understand how he could let all this happen to him.”

I could see how his bewilderment would make him want to find a reason for Ned’s death.  But I wasn’t finding much to convince me that Ned had been murdered.  “Mind if I glance through his records?” I asked.

“Help yourself.”  Jack stepped aside and stood leaning against the wall while I perused Ned’s files.  With the exception of his real estate files, his records were as bare as the house.  The top two drawers were crammed with real estate contracts and other paperwork, going back a number of years.

“Why doesn’t Ned keep all this on the computer?” I asked.

Jack shrugged.  “He was working in that direction, but he was a bit old-school and liked to have hard copies as well.”

After glancing at a few of them I moved to the bottom drawer, where Jack had retrieved the picture of Samantha.  I found a few credit card statements, all close to maxed out, an electric bill that was two months behind, and a phone bill, also past due.  And the picture of Samantha.

“He was in a lot of debt,” I said.

“Like I said, it was tough for him lately.”

“Anything in the closet?” I pointed at folding doors on the opposite wall.

“It’s empty,” Jack said as I opened it.  Not a thing in it – except dust.

“How about the rest of the house?”

“Come with me.”  Jack led the way into the only other bedroom in the house.  It was slightly bigger than the office, with a tiny bathroom with a shower stall off one side.  I opened the medicine cabinet over the sink.  It contained a number of toiletries, but no prescription drugs of any kind.  I didn’t see any indication of drugs in the rest of the bathroom either.

I searched the bedroom next.  A mattress on a box spring was centered on one wall under a window, with threadbare blue sheets covering it.  By their rumpled appearance, I assumed that making the bed had not been a priority for Ned.  A phone and a small brass lamp stood on the floor beside the bed.  Stacks of T-shirts, blue jeans, socks, and underwear lay against the wall by the door to the bathroom.  I noticed nothing unusual, unless you categorized not having a dresser as odd.  But what did catch my eye was a poster on the wall above the clothes.

I took a good look.  “Ned liked old movies?” I asked.

The poster was an advertisement from the movie The Maltese Falcon, with Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor.  A classic movie, one of my favorites, with my favorite actor.  Bogie – the man, the detective.  On my better days, I liked to think I was as good as he was.  It rarely happened, which says something of my amateur skills.

The poster wasn’t in great shape, somewhat faded with some wrinkles on the paper, and a few small tears in it.  But for a movie buff like me, it was like gazing at a Picasso.

“I don’t think so,” Jack said, barely giving it attention.

“You know, an original can cost a fortune these days, depending on how rare the poster is and what condition it’s in.  There’s a huge market in old Hollywood memorabilia.”

Jack nodded, but based off the bored look on his face he’d already lost interest in what I was saying.  “Maybe he was trying for a new style after his divorce.”  He headed for the door.  “That certainly wasn’t Samantha’s taste.”

“It’s good taste,” I said, showing my bias.  I had a similar poster hanging in my office.  An original.  And it was expensive, upwards of ten thousand dollars.  I hadn’t paid that much for it, but enough that it was an extravagance.  I had to buy it – it was Bogie.

“You might as well see the rest of the house, although I don’t know what you’ll find.”  Jack stalked back down the hallway.  I took one last longing look at the poster before I dashed after him.

The remainder of the house consisted of a pint-sized unfinished basement, and a one-car garage, with a beat-up Honda Civic parked in the available space.  Two hooks penetrated the cross beams above the hood of the car, where a bike would’ve been stored.  I pointed to them.

“Are you sure Ned didn’t ride?”

Jack studied them.  “I guess he could’ve.  I’ve never heard him talk about it.  But he probably would've owned a road bike, not a mountain bike.”

“Did they find a road bike with his body?”

Jack scowled.  “It was a mountain bike.”  He kept looking at the hooks.  “I don’t understand.  Ned never said anything about taking up cycling, either road or mountain riding.”

“People change,” I said.

While Jack continued to muse about Ned, I carefully rummaged through the ten-gallon trashcan in the corner and found some old newspapers and more than a dozen frozen dinner boxes.  And plenty of Pepsi cans.  I guess Ned didn’t believe in recycling.  But if he was a drinker, or if he used drugs, I didn’t find any evidence in his house.  And I also found absolutely nothing that would indicate that he had met his end through foul play, and I told Jack this.

“My money’s good,” he said, determination etched in his tense jaw lines.  “I may not have been close to Ned recently, but I’m still his brother, and I know he wouldn’t go riding in the mountains like that, alone or with someone.  Even if that's there.”  He jabbed a finger at the hooks.  “I need to know what really happened.  Otherwise I’ll always have questions.”  A guilty tone crept into his voice, and I wondered what brought it out.  The lost connection with his brother, or something else?

“Where does Samantha live?”  Maybe Ned’s former wife could shed some light on his untimely death.  “I’ll have a talk with her.”

“In Highlands Ranch,” Jack said, naming a sprawling community of newer homes in south-suburban Denver.  “She still lives in the house they bought after they were married.”  We traipsed back through the tiny kitchen and into the living room.  “Watch yourself.  She’s brutal.  Samantha took everything from Ned.”

Not everything, I thought ruefully, as I eyed the little goldfish swimming contentedly in his tank.

CHAPTER THREE

Samantha Healy lived in one of the newer neighborhoods in suburban Highlands Ranch.  I wasn’t particularly fond of the area – too many houses that followed a few basic floor plans.  The homes were all two-story with three-car garages and vaulted roofs, each at least three thousand square feet, and every house was painted a neutral shade of tan with off-white trim.  Where was the originality?  As I drove along a wide street I couldn’t help but feel that the area lacked the kind of charm that older neighborhoods have.

After getting Samantha Healy’s phone number from Jack, I had spent the entire weekend trying to get in touch with her.  I got an answering machine each time I called, and concluded, as a shrewd detective would, that she was either screening her calls, or she wasn’t home.  So on Monday morning, I decided to visit her personally.

I pulled the 4-runner up in front of a house with a number of windows in the front, and a porch just large enough to display a green Welcome mat at the door.  I rang the bell and waited, peeking in through the beveled glass window beside the door.  After a moment, I heard the sharp click of heels and a shadow approached.  Then the door opened.

I was speechless for a moment.  The person before me was Samantha, but at the same time it wasn’t.  This woman had the same face, the same build, the same breasts, but angry lines spread around eyes that stared at me with an intense fury.  Her lips turned down into a scowl and I prepared for her to bite at me.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Samantha?” I asked, taken aback.  Perhaps she’d forgotten about the Welcome sign I was standing on.

“Yes?  What do you want?” she repeated, clearly irate.

I introduced myself.  “I’d like to speak to you about Ned Healy.”

If she was trying to look even angrier, she succeeded.  I didn’t know eyebrows could actually join together until I saw hers do just that.  Then she slammed the door shut.  And I did what every detective in every pulp novel or movie did.  I stuck my size-ten Reebok in the entryway to block the door from closing.  And I damn near screamed as the heavy wood crushed my foot into the doorjamb.  Those fictional detectives who managed this trick in so smooth and suave a manner must never have actually tried it.

“Argh,” I grunted, putting my hands on the door and pushing back.  Maybe if I wore a Fedora like Bogie I’d look tough enough that I wouldn’t have to go through this.  I pushed harder.

I swear Samantha snarled as she pushed with equal force on the other side of the door, surprising me with her strength.  I heaved my shoulder into the door and shoved.  “Look,” I gasped.  “I just need a few moments of your time.  I’m not the police.”

She suddenly stepped back and I catapulted into the entryway, stumbling and then catching myself on a half-table across from the door.  I righted myself and turned around.  I felt just like a cat that, misjudging a jump and falling ungracefully to the floor, looks at you like “I meant to do that.”

“Are you always this nice to visitors?” I asked, resisting an urge to take my shoe off and rub my wounded foot.

“You’re not a visitor,” she said, snipping off each word as if she were breaking twigs.  “More like an intruder.”  She crossed her arms and glared at me.  “You have one minute to explain yourself, or I’m calling the police.”  To emphasize her threat, she pulled a tiny cell phone from her jeans pocket and prepared to dial.

“I was hired by Jack Healy.  He doesn’t believe that Ned’s death was an accident.”

“Oh, brother,” Samantha said, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated manner.  “Now I’ve heard it all.  I should call the psych ward, not the police.”

“Why do you say that?”  I took a more imposing position with both feet firmly planted on the floor.  She’d need a crane to move me.  Or the cops.

“It was an accident, you idiot.  The police said so.  He ran his bike off the trail.”

“Did Ned like to ride when you were married?”

"Ride what?" she snapped.

"A bicycle."

She hesitated.  “No, but maybe he’d taken it up in the last year.  The man needed something cheap to do, that’s for sure.  But my money says he set this whole thing up himself.”

“What do you mean?”

Samantha leaned forward as if she was telling me a secret.  “If you want my opinion, Ned committed suicide and made it look like an accident.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Ned was not a sensible man.”

“How can you be so certain he committed suicide?”

“Have you seen where he lives?  The car he drives?”  Samantha threw her hands up.  “The man doesn’t have anything.  A few pieces of furniture and bare walls that a stupid movie poster won’t help.  He screwed up and lost everything.  And he couldn’t live with that.”

Wow.  The words “amicable divorce” definitely did not apply.

“Did he ever seem suicidal when you were still married?  Or depressed?”

“Are you listening to me?  He was depressed all the time.  He hated his life, what he turned into.  The fact that he’d lost everything.”

“Why make it look like an accident unless someone was going to benefit?”

“You mean insurance money?”

I nodded.  “But who would get the insurance money?  You?”

Samantha briefly considered this.  “Of course not.  Maybe he was thinking about his brother.”  The silence stretched out.  “You’re the detective,” she said at last, unable to defend her theory.  “You figure it out.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” I hit back.  “Did he drink a lot or do any drugs?”

“Ned never took any drugs, and he only drank a little.  Although the last time we talked, he sounded drunk.”

“When was that?”

She screwed up her face, thinking.  It was not a becoming look for her.  “I think it was a couple of weeks before he died.  He kept talking about how things were going to turn around, that I’d see a different Ned.  Like I haven’t heard that before.  The man didn’t have a dime, so how was he going to turn things around?”

“What about the alimony he paid you?”

“What about it?”

“Might that have something to do with his having no money?”

For a second I thought she might smack me, but instead she chose to bore a hole into me with her eyes.  “I gave up a promising career when I married Ned.  He at least owed me for that.”

“And what career was that?” I asked.

“I’m an actress,” she said, tossing her hair in a not-too-subtle eye-catching way.  I tried to keep the corners of my mouth from moving up, but she must’ve seen something in my expression.  “It’s true.”  Now she pulled some hair behind her ears.  “I’ve done some theater, and commercials.  And I was in line for a new Steven Spielberg movie, but then Ned swept me off my feet.”

This version definitely didn’t fit with what Jack had told me.  “Really?”  I wasn’t sure what else to say.

“It’s true.”  She flicked her hair again.  “As you can see, I would’ve made a lot of money if I had continued my career.  I felt Ned owed me for that.  Once I got some good acting jobs, I was going to revisit the alimony.”

“What are you going to do now?”

She started to answer, then stopped.  “I can’t see that that’s any of your business.  And I said I’d give you a minute, which I did.  Your time’s up.”

I wondered what had made her end the conversation so abruptly.  “Here’s my card.”  I pulled one out of my wallet.  “If you can think of anything that might be helpful, please call me.”

“Anything helpful about a suicide?” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm, taking my card and dropping it unceremoniously on the half-table.

“If it was suicide.”  I stepped cautiously by her and out the door.  It slammed with a thunk behind me.

CHAPTER FOUR

I left Samantha’s house and drove back downtown, mulling over my not-so-pleasant conversation with her.  Either Samantha had changed after Ned divorced her, or he had definitely been blinded by love because I couldn’t see how Samantha’s personality would woo anyone.

I spent the remainder of the day preparing a file for the Jack Healy case, paying some bills, working out, and practicing at the gun range.  Last Christmas, while working on my first case, I’d been shot in the rear.  The embarrassing incident made me acutely aware of how vulnerable I’d been, so I felt it would be prudent if I bought a gun.  Bogie had a gun, I rationalized.  Having bought one, I felt it would be even better if I knew how to use it.

When I finished at the practice range, I took the gun back to my office and placed it back in a locked box on a high shelf in the closet.  Hey, I didn’t say I was ready to actually carry it around yet.  My errands done, I decided to head home.

I own a third-story condo in the Uptown neighborhood east of downtown.  Since the Goofball Brothers, who were anything but party animals, lived below me and we were the only tenants in the newly constructed building, living here was peaceful.

I parked in the alley garage and walked around the side of the house to the stairs that led up to my place.

“Hey, stranger,” I heard a sultry voice call out.

“Hey, yourself.”  I turned to see Willie Rhoden walking over to me.

“You’re just getting home?”  I nodded.  “Have you eaten?  We could order a pizza or Chinese.”

I smiled.  Willie, real name Wilhelmina, was my neighbor, and I’d had a crush on her since she moved into the building across the street a year ago.  She had recently broken up with her longtime boyfriend, Alan, and I had tried more than once to get Willie to go out on a date with me, only to be politely rebuffed.  I assumed that she needed time to get over Alan.

“Dinner sounds great,” I said.  “My treat?”  Willie was an emergency room admissions nurse at nearby St. Joseph’s hospital, and I was so enamored of her that I thought her petite frame looked great in her medical smock.  Even her sturdy walking shoes gave her just the right amount of boost to her height.  She tucked her short blond hair behind her ears, her mischievous green eyes twinkling.

“No, we split the cost.”  Willie linked her arm in mine and I could smell jasmine in her hair.  “That way things don’t get complicated.”

“How is my paying for dinner complicated?” I asked as we strolled across the street to her building.

“Are you working on a new case?” she changed the subject.

“Just started something.  I’m not sure where this one is going yet.”

“I hope you’ll be careful.  I’d hate to see you get shot again.”

I laughed, but her emerald eyes sliced through me.  “I’m sure this isn’t as dangerous.”

Willie stopped at the door.  “Reed, I like you.  A lot.  Even before I broke up with Alan, I was tempted to go out with you.  But you want to know why I won’t?”

“Because you need time to get over Alan?”

She shook her head.  “That’s only part of the reason.  I don’t want to get involved with you and then find out that you’ve been hurt or killed.”

If she’d thrown ice water in my face, I wouldn’t have been more surprised.  I forced another laugh.  “C’mon.  I got shot in the rear as I was diving to the floor.  An inch higher and the bullet would’ve gone right over me.”  An inch in another direction, and I might not be able to have kids, but I didn’t think Willie would appreciate the humor, so I left it unsaid.

“But it could’ve gone any number of ways,” Willie pointed out.  “I’ve seen it happen before.  You were lucky it was only your ass.”

“And what a cute ass it is.”  I grinned at her.

Willie stared at me, her cute lips turning into a frown.

“You also were attacked right here on the street,” she said, referring to the same case, in which a bat-wielding female vigilante assaulted me on the sidewalk outside my building.

“And I lived through it.”  I beamed at her.  “Besides, you even helped me out on that case.  Why did you do that if you’re so concerned about me?”  Willie had helped with a deception by pretending to be my client and luring the FBI after her so my client and I could get to a rendezvous undetected.

“I thought that it would be fun.  And it was.  But it never seemed dangerous.”  She paused, biting her lip.  “I know that sounds naïve, but it seemed harmless at the time.  Then when you got shot, the reality of what you do for a living hit me.”

We lapsed into silence.

“Look,” I finally broke the tension between us.  “I’ll be careful.  You’ll see.  Besides, you can’t resist me.”

She resisted, but then smiled.  “How about that pizza?” she said, changing the subject again.

*****

The next morning I was up by seven, early for me.  I hadn’t slept very well after leaving Willie’s place.  I had no idea that she felt the way she did.  We had been playing a flirting game for some time, but I really never thought that I’d been making any headway.  Not only was I wrong about that, it never occurred to me that if she did like me, she wouldn’t want to date me because of what I did for a living.  I thought only my parents hated my being a detective.

I pondered the previous evening while I went for a jog.  Things had gone okay.  We had decided on Chinese instead of pizza, and had a local restaurant deliver Moo-Shu chicken and garlic pork.  We added an inexpensive white wine, and dined by candlelight on her back balcony while we watched the sun disappear behind the downtown high-rises.  I told her a little bit about my latest case, she told me some of her hospital stories.  But we never touched on what she shared earlier.  It was like an emotional wall had been erected, and neither of us was sure how to break it down.

As I ran, my frustration built, and not just on a physical level.  I enjoyed spending time with Willie, and as I inched ever closer to my mid-thirties, I was becoming more conscious of wanting to share my life with someone.  And when the one woman who cranked my chain finally came along, my job was getting in the way.

I went five miles, and by the time I rounded the corner of my block, my legs were burning.  I slowed to a walk, cooling down.  Maybe Willie would cool down a bit, too, and I could make her see what she was missing.  What could be more appealing than a financially secure, recently-employed-as-a-detective male?

I took the stairs two at a time up to my condo, ate a quick breakfast, and showered.  I threw on a pair of jeans and a white Izod shirt and drove to the office.  I tackled a few mundane work things, like checking through my mail, mostly bills, returning phone calls to two potential clients, watering the two hanging vines in the front reception area, and responding to emails.

In every batch of emails that I received, I could count on one from my parents.  My mother, retired in Florida with my father, loves the usefulness of email.  She’s quite the typist, having spent a number of summers working as a secretary in a huge law firm before she met my father, who took her from average Jane to wealthy Jill.  Since those long-ago workdays as a transcriber, her skills are used to email friends and relatives.  And I am one of the lucky few who receives at least a weekly update from her, long diatribes on her every moment since the last time she either wrote or called on the phone.  I love my mother dearly, but I wish she could only type a few words per minute.  Then maybe I wouldn’t have to read about each card game with the Smiths and Joneses, their close retiree friends, or about my father’s health issues, which always amount to nothing more than a slight case of gas or indigestion.

Just as sure as ice cream melts in the Florida sun, there was an email from Mom.  I wrote a quick note back to her, lamenting with her about Dad’s pending visit to the doctor for his yearly exam, assuring her that everything would be fine, telling her that my job was indeed going well, and that I was working on a new case.  My parents had not been enthused when I launched my detective business.  Dad thought it didn’t qualify as real work unless you worked with a Fortune 500 company and earned a steady paycheck, and Mom worried constantly that I would get hurt.  She and Willie would have to battle for the rights to that, I thought, as I typed her assurances that I was safe and sound.

Once that was done, I searched the Internet to see what I could find out about Ned Healy’s death.  One article gave me the facts of the discovery of Ned’s body, and another two follow-up reports shed light on the investigation into his death.

Ned Healy’s body had been found outside of Buena Vista, off County Road 162 where the Mount Princeton to Raspberry Gulch ride begins.  A pair of riders first reported his abandoned car at the trail head.  It had been parked overnight on the side of the road.  Three days later, a different set of riders on the trail spotted Ned’s bruised and torn body, along with his dented mountain bike, at the bottom of a thirty-foot ravine.  He hadn’t been wearing a helmet, and his shirt and shorts were not specifically designed for mountain biking.  An autopsy performed on the body determined that Ned had trace amounts of Seconal, a barbiturate, in his bloodstream, and he had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit.  The official cause of death was a broken neck caused by his fall.  With the help of witnesses who remembered when the car appeared at the trail head, authorities believed that Ned was riding late in the evening while very intoxicated, and that he lost control of his bike and went over the ledge, falling to his death.  Ned’s death was ruled an accident.

I had never ridden that trail, but had heard of others who had.  It wasn’t a very difficult trail, overall, but there were a couple of more technical areas to traverse.  A novice rider could get off and walk through those parts with no danger of personal injury.  But anyone on a mountain trail could succumb to an accident – that was one of the risks in the sport.  Ned’s death may have been nothing more than an inexperienced rider trying to tackle too difficult a trail.

I found another article discussing potential risks of mountain biking, which referenced Ned, and obituary listings.  That was all.  Nothing suspicious.  I sat back and stared at the poster from The Big Sleep.  Bogie looked so tough in that poster, so sure of himself.  He had it so easy, though – the plots already had an ending, and Bogie always won.

My phone rang, breaking me out of my reverie.  It was Jack Healy.

“Reed, I’m glad you’re there.  Do you think you could meet me at Ned’s house?”  His voice sounded like a tuning fork, ringing with apprehension.  Or fear.

“Sure,” I said, glancing at the clock.  “What’s going on?”

“I stopped by Ned’s house on my lunch hour, and it looks like the place has been broken into.”

“I’ll be right over.”

I hung up the phone, grabbed my keys and rushed out the door.  I had just found something suspicious.

CHAPTER FIVE

I assumed Jack must take an early lunch because when I drove up to Ned’s house in, it was barely after eleven and Jack was here instead of at work.  I stepped out of my nice air-conditioned 4-runner and the summer heat hit me like a dry wave.  As I walked up the drive past a blue Volvo, I took a good look at Ned’s house – it had neglect written all over it.  Due to water restrictions in the metro area, most of the neighborhood lawns could’ve used a little more water, but Ned’s was like wheat bread, with just a few green patches that needed to be cut.  It seemed even more rundown than the first time I was here.  A few newspapers were strewn on the porch, and some flyers were stuck in the front screen door.  The exterior desperately needed a coat of paint, a drainpipe was torn away from the house, the windows needed a washing, and dried-out rose bushes with wilted buds screamed for water.  Jack opened the door as I approached.

“Come on in.”  He gathered up the newspapers and tossed them inside the door onto a growing stack.  More neglect for Ned’s house.  “Thanks for coming,” Jack said as I closed the door behind me.

“Sure.”  I stepped into the living room after Jack.  A stale smell hit me, and the heat engulfed me like a stifling blanket as I glanced around.  The house was so sparsely furnished I couldn’t tell if anything was disturbed.  “Have you called the police?”

He shook his head.  “I wanted you to see things first.”

“But what about prints, stuff like that?” I asked, even though I didn’t believe any would be found.

“I don’t think they’re going to find anything,” Jack echoed my thoughts.  “A back window was jimmied open.  Nothing seems to have been taken, but someone rifled through his records.  The file cabinet door was left open, and I’m positive I closed it when we left the other night.”

“You’re sure nothing was taken?”

“I think so.  I guess I didn’t look that closely.  I doubt if I’d notice a file or two missing anyway.”

“Let’s call the police and report this,” I said.  “No sense in messing up a potential crime scene.”

Jack agreed and used his cell phone to report the break-in, then called his work to say he would be later than he first thought.  When a police officer arrived, Jack explained that the house belonged to his deceased brother.  The officer was not enthusiastic about finding a burglar, but he took a report, and asked if anything appeared to be missing.  When Jack said he didn’t believe so, the officer said Jack shouldn’t keep his hopes up.  With that, the officer left.

“Now that I can touch things without contaminating a crime scene,” Jack said with light sarcasm, “let me open some windows.”  He threw back the blinds of the living room window, and in seconds a slight breeze blew in, just enough that the fresher air from outside rejuvenated the inside air.

“Where’s the goldfish?” I asked, noticing the empty spot where the tank once sat.

“I took him home to my daughter.  She’ll take good care of him.”

I nodded, secretly pleased that the little guy had a home.  He and I’d had a connection.

“Let’s take a better look at Ned’s files, and make sure you don’t notice anything missing,” I said.  “If someone wanted to see the files bad enough to break in, there might be something gone.”

We headed down the narrow hall to the office.  The tiny bedroom was just as stuffy as the rest of the house, so I took Jack’s lead and opened the window first thing.  It helped a little.

“Have you really checked all his real estate files?” I asked.

“I started to.  I examined the first few carefully, then thumbed through the rest, but it’s all just legalese to me.”

I wasn’t sure it would be any different for me.  I grabbed the handle of the top cabinet drawer.  “Aren’t these files confidential?”

Jack shrugged his shoulders.  “You’re a detective.  Can’t you bend the rules?”

“Bend, yes.  Break, no,” I said.  If I don’t know what the rules are, is that breaking them? I thought.  A philosopher in my own mind.

Jack stared at me.

“Oh hell.”  I yanked open the drawer and perused the files, all neatly gathered in manila folders.  Ned had alphabetized the files, so “Anderson” was the first in line.  With as much enthusiasm as I could muster, I took the folder and sat down at the desk.  The file was an inch thick, filled with all kinds of paperwork, forms for inspections, notices, and every other kind of documentation possible for the purchase of a house.  My whole life didn’t have this much paperwork associated with it.

“Why don’t I start at the end,” Jack said, grabbing a folder from the back of the drawer.  He sat down on the floor and rested the paperwork on his lap.

I rummaged in the desk drawers for a pad and paper, having left my standard, Hollywood detective-issued notepad at the office.  I found a spiral notebook in the middle drawer with a bunch of pens, so now I was set.

“Did you talk to Samantha?” Jack asked after a few minutes.

“Uh- huh,” I said.  “I got exactly nothing from her.”

“She was a bitch, right?” he said.  “I’ll bet she slammed the door on you.”

“How did you guess?”

The corners of his mouth twitched up as he tried to hide a smile.  “She did it to me when I showed up to tell her about Ned.  His death didn’t even faze her.”

“No?”  I looked up.  “She wasn’t sad at all?”

“No.  She got mad at me, then ordered me to get off her property.  Like I said, she hated Ned and she hates me.”

I mulled that over, then turned back to the records I’d been reading.  After ten minutes I was bored and having trouble focusing on the papers.  I kept hearing a nearby dog bark with every passing car.  A sprinkler started in a yard somewhere.  I shifted in the chair.  It squeaked loudly.  I tried to concentrate.  Five more minutes and the only thing written on the pad were some notes that Ned had written.

I glanced at them, at first thinking I was reading a description of a sculpture of some kind, but then I realized that the notes described of all things an Oscar statuette, the famous Hollywood Academy Award:

2- Karat bronze statue, gold-plated

13” tall

Weight: 6 ¾ lbs

Base made of marble

Statue stands on an 8-slotted movie reel

What the heck were those notes doing along with his real estate notes?  “Did Ned like the Oscars?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Jack said.  “He liked seeing movies, so maybe.”

“Huh,” I tried to wrap my fingers around a sense of who Ned Healy was.  All around his notes were doodles, numbers, an address, and, a bit oddly, I thought, a list of colors: blue, gray, white, yellow.  Whenever he’d written that stuff he’d been as bored as I was right now.  Or maybe he was playing some kind of trivia game.

“I don’t have any idea what to look for,” Jack broke the silence.

“I don’t know.  A pattern.  Numbers that don’t add up.”  I couldn’t help feeling like I was wasting my time.  A beer and a few games of pool sounded so much better.

We managed the task for just over an hour.  At that point, I’d been through more than a dozen files, and I felt like I would see real estate data in my dreams.

“This is nuts,” I said, pushing paperwork across the desk.  “We’ll never find anything this way.”

Jack sighed.  “You’re probably right.  But what do we do?”

I was tempted to say, “Maybe there’s a secret compartment, and if we push the right book on the shelf, a door will magically appear.  Inside we’ll find what we’re looking for.”  I resisted though, raking my hands through my hair in frustration.  “If somebody did take a file, we wouldn’t know it.”

“What if they just wanted information?”

“We could spend all night looking at these files and not see what's missing, or incorrect,” I said, my frustration palpable.  “I’ve got a better idea.”  I turned to the computer and switched it on.

“As long as Ned didn’t password protect anything, we can access the electronic files.”

“How does that help us?”

“I have a friend who might be able to tell if any of the files don’t look right.”  The computer sang a jingle at us, and the desktop appeared.  I didn’t notice anything that might be real-estate related, so I hit the start button.  Under “Programs” I found what I was looking for.  HousePro was in the list, the only one with a real estate reference in its name.  I opened the program.  A window opened with a list of documents.  At the end were folders, labeled by year.  Ned was more organized here than in his file cabinet.

“There!”  Jack leaned over and pointed at the screen.  I glanced at him, wondering if he always pointed out the obvious.

There were about twenty files.  I opened one and saw that it was a standard contract, just like many of the ones we’d been reading.  I still didn’t see anything fishy, but Cal might.

Cal Whitmore was my best friend.  He was also the Holmes to my Watson.  Cal rarely left his home in the foothills west of Denver, preferring to work within the confines of his home office.  He was the ultra computer geek, as well as an all-around genius.  He’d know more about these files than I ever would.

“I wonder if Ned’s Internet access is still working,” I muttered.

“I haven’t cut the phone or cable or anything,” Jack said hopefully.

“He must have cable or DSL.  Something.”  I didn’t care what, as long as I could email the files to Cal.

I hit the icon for the Internet and sure enough, I found I was able to access the World Wide Web without any problems.  In a couple of minutes, I had connected to my own email account.

"I'm glad he didn't password protect this," I said.

The safety freaks were death to detectives like me.  Ah, the things that Bogie didn’t have to deal with.

I pulled out my cell phone and hit a button, which automatically dialed Cal.

“Yeah,” he said after two rings.

“You have time to help me with something?” I asked.

“What’s up?”  Cal didn’t waste time with words.

I explained what I needed.

“Aren’t those files confidential?”

“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to discuss my rationale.  “That’s never stopped you before.”

He chuckled.  “I guess I deserved that one.”  The term hacker could’ve been invented for Cal, and I knew better than to ask what all he did on his computer.  “Send the stuff over.  You don’t know if the files are on the up-and-up or not?”

“They probably are,” I said.  “I’m stabbing in the dark.”

“Okay.  I’ve got some work to finish this afternoon before I can get to it.  Give me until the morning.”  I knew he’d spend all night if he had to.  I didn't know how Cal managed to operate on so little sleep, let alone how he managed to figure out the things he did.

“Thanks,” I said and hung up.

“Who was that?” Jack asked.

“A friend of mine.  He’s a modern-day Sherlock Holmes.  He knows everything about everything.”

“I wish I could retain stuff like that,” Jack said.

I nodded agreement while I set up the email and attached half of the files, and sent them off.  No use taking the blame for Cal’s lack of sleep by making him look at all the files.  If he was successful, I could send the rest of the files over.  “He’ll take a look at them and see if anything looks fishy,” I said to Jack.

He leaned on the edge of the desk.  “Think he’ll find anything?”

“You’d know better,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”  Burt Lancaster’s Swede couldn’t have said it better.

CHAPTER SIX

Cal let me down.  It was actually early the next afternoon before he called me at my office.

“I’m not sure what you wanted me to find,” he said when I answered the phone.

“Nothing?” I asked.  I honestly didn’t think he would unearth anything, but I was holding onto a sliver of hope.  I was surprised at my disappointment.

“Not nothing.  But not much either.”  I could hear the tapping sound of Cal typing on the keyboard.  I pictured him, sitting at one of his many monitors in a room cramped with computers and computer equipment, discarded takeout boxes and trash lying around, a film of dust on everything but the precious electronic equipment.  And since Cal was practically a computer himself, he fit right in.  “Most of the files you sent were standard real estate files.  I didn’t notice anything fishy with any of them.”

“You said most.”

“Right.  There were two that struck me as a little weird.  Not illegal, just odd.”

“Odd how?”

“One of the buyers had an unusually short time to back out of the deal.  Typically, you build into a contract a clause where you’re able to back out, or cover yourself if you can’t sell your home first.  And if you really want the new house, you make sure there’s plenty of time for you to sell off your old one first.  Or you put in a contingency that says you have to sell your old home before you purchase the new one.  One of the contracts doesn’t seem to do that.”

“But that’s not illegal, right?” I asked.

“No, just unusual.”

“Which one?”

“Wilson,” he said.

“And the other unusual one?”

“Owens.”  I heard more tapping sounds.  “On this one, everything looks fine, but there’s a whole list of items the buyer wanted changed after the house inspection.  You usually don’t ask for too much, even in a buyer’s market.  If you do, the seller can say no to the changes, and the contract is dead.  Then, you wait until someone else is willing to pay more, or wants fewer changes.  There’s more profit that way.”

“So Ned’s buyer asked for too much, and the seller didn’t want to do that.  Is that in the contract?”

“Yeah.  There’s a form voiding the contract because of the inspection.  I’m emailing you both files now.  On the Wilson contract, look at the time frame.  It shows a period of only a couple of weeks for the sale.  Pretty short, but again, not illegal.”

“Why would someone do that?” I said, “other than to get out of the contract?”

“Exactly.  You need anything else, let me know.”  Cal knew his role as my right-hand man, and that I’d probably be calling on him again.

I checked my email, and the two files that he sent were waiting to be opened.  Once I saved them on my hard drive, I opened the first one, for Bert and Amy Wilson.

Bert and Amy – sounded like something out of Sesame Street, I thought with a chuckle.

If Jack had read this file before, he apparently didn’t notice what Cal had.  Not that I thought Jack would’ve, since he knew about as much about hokey real estate deals as a drunk knew about virgin drinks: they were out there, but you’d never seen them.

I went to the page that Cal had said looked fishy and read through the text.  He was right.  I thought back to when I bought my condo, and how much time I wanted to get everything done.  If I’d had a place to sell first, I would’ve needed that done before I bought the condo, and that could’ve taken a while.  The time frame on the Wilson contract seemed a bit short, but that didn't make it illegal.  So why do that?

I found the name of the seller’s real estate agent: Eric Townsend.  I looked up the name and called him.  I got voice mail that said to leave a message, or if I wanted I could try Eric on his cell phone.  Lest he miss a potential customer, I thought.  I jotted down the number and dialed it.

Two rings and he picked up.  “This is Eric.”  I could hear static and road sounds in the background, indicating he was driving somewhere.

“Eric, this is Sam Spade,” I said.  One of Humphrey Bogart’s most famous roles was also my favorite nom de plume when I didn’t want to be me.  “I was a friend of Ned Healy’s.  I don’t know if you heard about him.”

“Yes, that was unfortunate,” Eric said, although his tone didn’t match the sentiment.  “I’ve worked with him on a deal or two.”

“That’s what I’m calling about,” I said.  “Trying to wrap up a few things with his estate, you know.”  Eric uh-huhed on the other end like he was commiserating with me.  “I was looking at the Wilson file.  Bert and Amy?”

“I know the one.  That deal fell through.”  Eric spoke in a high, squeaky voice, like an angry mouse.

“I see that.  I noticed that the time frame for them to sell their house was less than a month.  Isn’t that a bit short?”

The connection broke in and out, then I heard him say, “…can’t say what happened.”

“What’s that?” I asked.  “You don’t know what happened?”

There was a long pause, filled with static hiss.  “Who did you say you were?”

“I’m a friend of Ned’s.”  He was being cautious now.  I knew I was losing him, and not just because of a bad connection.  “I’m just trying to close out the Wilson file.  Ned had a note on it, wanting to make sure the Wilsons were okay with how things turned out.”

“Oh, is that all?”  The edge left his voice.  “I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but the Wilsons had changed their minds.  They didn’t want to sell their home after all, so they left the time frame short.”  Static cackled through the line.

“You were breaking up,” I said.  “You said the Wilsons didn’t want to sell their house?”

“Right.  They realized they’d made a mistake, that they didn’t want to sell their house and move, but they already had a contract on it.  That contract included a clause that made the sale contingent on their being able to close on a new house.  So they put a contract on another house, but made sure that that contract would fall through by including a really short closing date.  Once that happened, they could back out of the contract with the buyer of their house.”  What a trusting guy, to tell me so much.  But, most people will say way more than they should just because they like to hear themselves talk.

“I see their predicament,” I said.  Sympathy can get you almost anything, too.

“I assure you that’s not how things normally happen,” Eric responded quickly.  “But what could I do?”  He began the job of CYA.  “I didn’t know what they were thinking until things started to unravel.”

“I understand,” I said.

“The Wilsons are happy, and so was the buyer of the home that the Wilsons originally wanted.  I know their realtor, and she worked everything out.”

“All’s well that ends well.”

“Exactly,” he said.

I hung up, sat back, and stared up at Bogie on the wall.  The problem with the world is everyone is a few drinks behind, he seemed to say.

I pretended to raise a glass to him.  “I’m behind,” I said.  He silently concurred.

I looked up the name of the real estate agent listed on the Owens file, the second contract that Cal thought was unusual.  That agent, Fred Gallegos, didn’t answer, nor did he have voice mail or a cell phone number.  I thought all real estate agents had about ten numbers to try, but I guess Fred valued his privacy more than the others.

I found the number for Garrett Owens in the file and dialed it.  After four rings, a machine picked up.  Duh, I thought, looking at the clock.  It was just after one o’clock.  Owens was probably still at work.  I perused the file again and found a work number.  This time I got a real person.

“Garrett here,” a deep voice said.

Again I introduced myself as Sam Spade, and said I was a friend of Ned’s.

“That bastard,” Owens spat out.  “You tell him for me that I hope he rots in hell.”

I paused.  “I can’t do that,” I finally said.

“Why?”

“Because he’s dead.”  I gave him the Reader’s Digest version of how Ned died, leaving out Jack’s suspicions that Ned had been murdered.

“Oh,” Owens said when I’d finished.  “That is too bad, but I can’t say that I’m sorry.”

“Why is that?”

“Ned screwed me over.  He was supposed to be my real estate agent,” he emphasized the words harshly.  “I’d never bought any property before, and he was supposed to be working for me.  That’s why you hire them, right?  But not Ned.  He helped me find this really sweet deal on a house, but then he messed it all up for me.”

“How’d he do that?”  I was curious now.

I heard a sigh that carried all Owens’s disgust and disappointment with Ned.  “Look, I’m only thirty, and it’s harder than hell for someone my age to get ahead.  I want to invest in some property while the prices are down.  We found this great old house in Cherry Creek,” he said, referring to an area of expensive homes just southeast of downtown Denver.  “It was a bit of a fixer-upper.  At one time it must’ve been a great home, and expensive, but compared to what they’re building there now, or renovating, it needed some work.  Anyway, it was perfect for me.  I’m pretty handy, and I could see putting some time and money into it, and I’d have a nice profit on my hands.  Or I thought I might just sit on it for a while, and sell it to a developer.”

“What happened?”

“That bastard Ned screwed things up for me, and the deal fell through.”

“How’d he do that?”

“The place needed work, like I said.  But after the inspection, Ned told me I should ask to have a bunch of the stuff fixed up as a part of the contract.  He said there were things that I shouldn’t have to worry about, things that every buyer asks to have fixed.  And I listened to him.  I had a whole list of things that I requested the seller fix, and if she didn’t, I would back out of the contract.  Hold on a second.”  I could tell Owens had covered up the phone, and I heard a muffled conversation in the background.  “I’ll get that to you,” he told someone else, then “Sorry about that,” to me.

“No problem,” I said.  “So you lost the house.”

“Yeah,” he said, regret replacing anger.

“But why are you mad at Ned?  He could’ve been giving you what he thought was the best advice.”

“Because he had a back-up buyer,” Owens said, the bass voice getting louder and angrier again.  “He had someone else lined up with an offer that was above the seller’s asking price.  That meant a bigger commission for Ned, but he had to get me out of the way first.  That’s why he told me to ask for all the repairs.”

“Isn’t that unethical?”

“Damn straight.  I was so mad at the guy I never wanted to see him again.”

“How’d you find out all that?”

“I contacted another agent, and she did some digging.  I don’t think she was supposed to tell me anything about the new contract, but I think she knew how angry I was.  And I won’t tell you who she was, so don’t ask.  Ned was pissed off that I knew anything, and he went to her about it.  The whole thing turned into a real mess.”

“You talked to Ned about all this?”

“Yeah, but he said his hands were tied.  He denied making any suggestions to me at all, and said that it was all my doing to ask for the improvements, even though he was the one pushing me into asking for all the changes.”

“Do you know who was buying the house after you?”

“Beats me,” he said.  “Why don’t you ask Ned?  Oh, uh,” he stopped.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay.  Was the seller’s agent...” I flipped through the file, “Anthony Wolinski?”

“Yeah, that sounds right.  Look, that’s all I know.  I washed my hands of the deal and Ned Healy.  If I see him on the streets, I’ll—.”  He paused again, realizing again that unless Ned had figured out a way to cross over from the other side, he would never be walking the earth again.  Owens definitely had a case of foot-in-mouth disease.  “Never mind.”

I thanked him and hung up.

Ned Healy did not seem to be a very popular person, I thought as I sat at my desk, mulling over the conversation I’d had with Garrett Owens.  Owens seemed to have the same kind of volcanic anger that Samantha Healy had toward her ex-husband.  I wondered if Jack was aware of how others perceived his brother.

Did Ned screw over more clients in addition to Owens?  I wondered now if I’d stumbled upon a motive.  Did Ned have back-up buyers on other homes so that he could make more in commission?  Or was the house Garrett Owens lost the only one with a back-up buyer?  And if that was the case, what did Ned hope to accomplish?  Based off of his monetary records, he certainly didn’t have the cash to invest in a house that needed renovation.  Was Ned helping someone else, and benefiting in some way from that?  I didn’t know a lot about the houses in Cherry Creek, but I knew that real estate values in that area had been skyrocketing for a number of years.  Someone could stand to make a lot of money on a house, or the lot, just like Garrett Owens had planned on doing.  Was Ned in on a deal with someone?

Another thought pinged my brain.  Would Garrett Owens kill out of anger?  Let’s face it, I knew nothing of the man, only that he had an incredibly deep voice, and he was incredibly angry with Ned.

I needed to investigate this further.  I grabbed my car keys and headed out the door.

CHAPTER SEVEN

210 Madison Avenue was a scant mile from the posh Cherry Creek Mall, with its high-end department stores, expensive boutiques, movie theater, and plenty of restaurants.  The surrounding neighborhoods were filled with mid-20th-century homes that had become a beacon for the upper-middle class, although many of the smaller homes in the area were quickly being demolished and replaced with huge monstrosities that touted all the latest amenities but held none of the charm of the older homes they replaced.

The summer sun sat in a cloudless blue sky as I parked my 4-Runner a few car lengths down from the house that Garrett Owens had lost in the contract snafu.  I grabbed the Owens file and walked along a cracked sidewalk to an appealing red brick bungalow with a long covered front porch.  The separate garage was located behind the house and was accessed from the alley.  The house would’ve been considered good-sized by the standards of its day but was now dwarfed by brand-new two-story homes on either side.

A lawnmower engine hummed far off, but Madison Avenue was empty of people.  A real estate sign plastered with a “Sold” banner stood in the yard, and I jotted down the realtor's number.  I climbed the three steps to the door and could see why Garrett Owens thought Ned had duped him.

On the outside, the house didn’t look like a “fixer-upper”.  The trim had a new coat of light brown paint, the windows were double-pained, clean, and in good shape.  The front door was solid, made of sturdy oak.  However, Owens’ contract had asked for new windows and had noted that the exterior of the house was “in need of new paint.”  I tried peeking through the slats in the window blinds, wishing I could see more of the inside.  The green AstroTurf on the porch seemed the worst thing on the exterior of the house, but the contract didn’t include that in its list of requested repairs.

I walked around the side of the house, examining it as I went.  The rest of the windows along the way did not appear damaged in any way, the gutters showed no rust or holes, and I didn’t notice any structural damage of any kind, no visible cracks in the foundation or on the sides of the house.  However, Owens had noted a concern about the structure, speculating about issues due to the new construction on either side of the house.  If he wanted to renovate the house, the concern would be valid, but if he had been thinking of just reselling the house to a developer, I wouldn’t have thought that structural soundness would be an issue.  I made a mental note to call Garrett Owens and ask him that.

A six-foot wooden fence surrounded the back yard.  I spied an unlatched gate, so I opened it and continued on around.  The yard was large, plenty big enough to raze the house and build a newer, bigger one, if someone chose to do so.  I sat down on a plastic lawn chair and reread the contract.  The other requested repairs were to the inside of the house.  Old pipes and hot water heater.  Cracks in the bricks of a basement fireplace.  Worn paint.  Things that most people would never ask to have fixed prior to purchase.  I wished again that I could get a peek inside to check those things out.

I stood up and tried the back door.  Locked, of course.  But it didn’t hurt to try.  Maybe if I tried a secret, magic word, it would open.  “Allakazaam, ohiogazima, shazaam!” I chanted.

And the door opened.  I froze in disbelief.  My chant had actually worked?  Then I saw the rear end and a pair of baggy jeans backing out the door.

“Shit!”  The man’s face turned the color of his bleached-blond hair, his brown eyes widened.  The mover’s box he was carrying nearly slipped from his hands.  “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”

“I was just looking around,” I said, trying not to stammer.  “I heard that the house was for sale.”

“It’s sold.  Or didn’t you see the sign?”  The man, somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, seemed to have recovered, his surprise turning to impatience.  He shifted the box, freeing one hand.  “You really shouldn’t be here.”

“I saw the sign, but I was just looking around.”  I pointed at the door.  “I really wish I could see the inside.”

“I’m sorry, you can’t,” he said, pulling the door shut behind him.  I had no doubt it was still locked.

“Are you a realtor?” I asked, trying for an Oscar as “the interested buyer”.

He shook his head.  “I was hired.”  I waited for him to explain, which he reluctantly did.  “To inspect the foundation.  I was just heading out.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, hoping I sounded exceedingly disappointed.  “There isn’t any way you'd let me go inside, take a quick look around?”

“No, there isn’t.”  He pushed past me, forcing me to take a step back.  “You need to leave now.”

I pursed my lips, stalling for time.  “Are you…”  That’s as far as I got before I rethought my tactics.  He sighed and stared at me.  “Okay,” I finally said.  “Thanks for your time.”

He didn’t respond, but watched until I left through the side gate.  I heard the gate latch slide into place.  I was tempted to dash back and spy on him through the cracks in the fence, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I could see his shadow on the other side, peering at me.  So much for that idea.

I walked slowly back to my car, turned it on, and cranked the A/C.  I waited to see if the guy would emerge and go to a car, but after five minutes and two songs by The Police I still hadn’t seen him.  He must’ve been parked somewhere in the alley, so he was long gone.

I contemplated going back to the house to see if I could find a way in when an old man in faded overalls emerged from a ranch-style house across the street.  He stepped off his porch, knelt down, and started digging around rose bushes.  Judging by the bags of compost and box of tools at his disposal, as well as his dawdling pace, he was going to be at it a while.  Scratch searching for an illegal entry.

But I was curious.  Were the problems Owens listed that bad?  Either he was lying to me to cover up something, or Ned had found a first-class sucker to manipulate.  But why would Ned risk possible ramifications from an irate client for a bit more in commission?  It was time to look at the file for the back-up buyer that had bought the house.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I should make you a key,” Jack Healy said as he unlocked the door to Ned’s house.  “That way you wouldn’t have to wait until I get off work.”  He smiled broadly as he held the door open for me, and I swear he was Burt Lancaster.  Spooky.

“Thanks.”  After leaving the house on 210 Madison, I had again arranged to meet Jack at Ned’s house so I could have another go-round with the real estate files.  The back-up buyer’s file for 210 Madison, if I could find it, seemed to hold the key.

“Man, it gets hot in here,” Jack said, loosening his tie and rolling up his sleeves.  “I take it your coming back here means you found something.”

“I don’t know,” I said, going straight to the file cabinet in Ned’s office.  The office didn’t seem as stuffy as the last time, but Jack cranked open the sole window in the room, then went to the other rooms in the house, opening windows.  I immediately felt a soothing cross-breeze.

I dove into the files, searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack.  “What are you looking for?” Jack asked when he returned.

“There should be another file for 210 Madison,” I said.  “If Ned kept it, that is.”

“Let me help.”  Jack knelt down, opened the bottom drawer and started examining files.  It was a faster process than the last time we were here, since we now only needed to check the address lines for 210 Madison.

Just as I yanked open the second drawer, Jack stood up, banging his head on the underside of the drawer.  He cursed, rubbing his head with the file folder he was holding.  “Here it is: 210 Madison.”

I took the folder and sat down at the desk.

“What’s in it?” Jack asked, continuing to rub his head.

“Don’t know,” I mumbled, scanning the pages.  I noticed the new selling price first.  It was only ten thousand more than Garrett Owens’ offer.  That meant Ned would've only made a few hundred dollars more in commission.  If that was his reason for sabotaging Owens’ contract, it was negligible.  However, given Ned’s apparent financial situation, a few hundred might have seemed more than paltry.  If he did this kind of thing a lot, the money would add up.

I pulled out my cell phone and called Cal.  “You didn’t find multiple contracts for the same house?” I asked, explaining what I’d discovered with 210 Madison Avenue.

“No, but you didn’t send me all the files either.”

“I’ll send the rest that were on Ned’s computer.  He has more files here, too, so I’ll still have to go through those.”

“Oooh, more paperwork.  Yuck.”

I hung up and sent an email to Cal with the information.  Then I turned to Jack.  “I need to go through the files again and see if there are any with more than one contract for the same address.  It might take some time.”

“I’ll help.”  He pulled open a drawer and grabbed a bunch of files.  “You continue with that file, and I’ll do these.  I’ve got a good memory, so it shouldn’t take that long to check them.”  Having something to do seemed to bolster Jack’s mood.

I kept reading through paperwork on 210 Madison until I found the new buyer’s name: Dominic Saunders.  I flipped a few more pages until I found his contact information.  He lived in an apartment in Northglenn.  A home phone was listed, but no work or cell phone numbers.

“Here’s the new buyer for 210 Madison,” I said, picking up my cell phone again.

Jack glanced up at me from the floor where he was thumbing through stacks of file folders.  “What’s this guy going to tell you?”

“I don’t know.”  I could tell that the mundane aspects of detective work did not appeal to Jack.  If he knew how often I chased my own tail…but we won’t get into that.  Let’s just say it’s not all excitement and danger.

I dialed the number for Dominic Saunders.  After one ring I heard a recorded message stating that the number had been disconnected.  I hit the end button.

“What?”

“Disconnected,” I said.  “How was Ned supposed to contact this guy to complete the sale?”

“Is there another number?”

I checked the file thoroughly, but found no other address or phone number.  “Wait a minute.”  I checked the dates on the file.  “Closing was supposed to take place two weeks ago.”

“But Ned was gone by then.”  Jack stood up and returned the folders to the file cabinet, taking out more and setting them on the floor.

“Who took over the real estate deals that Ned was working on?”

“There were only two pending deals that I was aware of,” Jack said.  “I contacted the clients and they were going to get new agents.”

“But what about this Saunders file?”

Jack examined the papers more carefully before shrugging his shoulders.  “It never came up.”

I scratched my head.  “That leaves a couple of possibilities.  Either Dominic Saunders went with another real estate agent and he didn’t bother to tell you, or his contract was voided, just like Garrett Owens.”

“You’re not going to blame Ned again.”  Jack’s voice rose defensively.

“No, but if Saunders is out of the picture, and there’s now a third buyer, I need to find out who it is.  Saunders should be able to clear some of this up.”

Jack was quickly scanning files while we talked.  “What are you going to do?”

“I guess I’ll be going to Northglenn.”  I got up and returned to the file cabinet.  “What’s left here?”

“Just those last few.”  Jack motioned to the top drawer.  “I better finish, since I’ve looked through all the others.”  I handed him the last few files and he perused them.  “It’s easy once you know where to find the address information.”  After a minute, he closed the last folder and handed the stack of files to me.  “I didn’t see any duplicate addresses.”

“So,” I said as I shut the cabinet drawers, “that eliminates any here.  I’ll see what Cal finds, but it’s appears that 210 Madison was the only property that had a back-up buyer.”  I rested my arms against the top of the cabinet, mulling over my conversation with Garrett Owens.  “If there were more duplicate contracts, I could see Ned scamming people to make extra commission.  But since there aren’t more duplicates, I’m not seeing how Ned would benefit by sabotaging the Owens contract.”

“Maybe you’re missing something.”

I stared at Jack.  “Obviously.”

He threw me a sour look, crossed to the window, and closed it before leaving the room.  “Maybe this Saunders guy can fill you in on what’s going on.  But I have to tell you, what you’re describing doesn’t sound like Ned.  He was always an honest guy.  I can’t see him trying to wheel and deal for more commission, or for anything else.”

I snatched up the files for 210 Madison and followed him into the master bedroom.  “Maybe so, but this real estate stuff is the only thing I can find that doesn’t seem to add up.  And I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if I were you.  It’s probably nothing.”

“I’m not,” Jack said as he cranked the handle on the window and shut it.  “If you come up with nothing, I can live with that.  As long as my concerns are answered.  Excuse me.”  Jack went into the bathroom and shut the door.

I didn’t know if I could ever answer his concerns, I thought.  I didn’t know if anyone could.  I stood and stared at the framed The Maltese Falcon poster while I waited for Jack.  The poster was a very nice reproduction, the version where Bogie has a gun pointed toward you and he looks so suave.  What made this particular poster even more interesting was that his haircut was different than it was in the movie – by the time the poster was produced, Bogie was sporting his shorter haircut from High Sierra.  The poster was in great shape.  It looked so similar to The Big Sleep poster I had, so film noir, so classic.  So my taste.  I tried not to drool over it.

I gestured at the poster when Jack returned.  “You don’t have any idea where Ned got this?”

“No.  Some poster store or eBay, I would imagine.”  He took it off the wall with both hands and studied it.  “Just a cheap poster, if you ask me.  You want it?”  He held it out to me.

“Sure,” I said, downplaying my enthusiasm.  Not just everyone appreciated film noir as I did.  I tucked the poster under my arm, grabbed the folders for 210 Madison Avenue and followed Jack out of the room.

“Keep me posted,” was the last thing he said to me before leaving the house.  I doubt he caught the pun in his words.

*****

Forty minutes later I was at the Mountain View Apartments in Northglenn.  Located in an out-of-the-way neighborhood dominated by huge pine and aspen trees, the complex of five buildings had an appealing feel of seclusion.  Dominic Saunders’ address listed in the file was on the second floor of Building 3, Apartment 2D.  I rapped on the door twice and studied the parking lot as I waited.  The parking space for 2D was empty.

I knocked again, then glanced at my watch.  It was now almost eight o’clock, and the sun was just dipping below the horizon, golden rays filtering through the tree branches to the west of the building.

I looked all around and saw no one, so I cupped my hands and peered into the window near the door.  The blinds were drawn, but I thought I could see in just enough to tell the living room was empty of furniture.  I tried the door, but it was locked.  I knocked once more, but had lost hope of anyone being home.  It appeared likely that Dominic Saunders no longer lived there.

I spent a few minutes trying to find a rental office.  I finally located it in a separate building across a small courtyard, but it had been closed since five o’clock.

I strolled back to Building 3 and tried the neighbor in 2C.  No one was home.  The whole complex was as quiet as a cemetery.  It took me another minute to find the bank of mailboxes near the office.  Most had nameplates on them, but 2D’s was blank.  Imagine that.

I turned around to go back to my car just as a Jeep 4X4 pulled up.  A young man in faded jeans and Oxford shirt got out, digging keys from his pocket.

“You wouldn’t happen to know if the guy in 2D moved?” I asked him.

He barely noticed me as he opened his mailbox.  “No, I don’t.  I’m in building 4.”

“Do you know anyone in building 3?”  As I asked the question, I stared at the guy.  I knew I'd never met him before, but something about him.  I couldn't place it.

“Yeah, but she works evenings.  You might try the rental office tomorrow.”

I stared at him.  “Do I know you?”

“Don’t think so.”  He retrieved his mail and hopped back in the Jeep, tires screeching as he drove off.

I walked slowly back to my car, picturing his face, hearing his voice.  Then it hit me.

I raced back to the 4-Rrunner, unlocked it, and grabbed the files for 210 Madison.  I found it in the file for Garrett Owens.  It was right there and I hadn’t even noticed it.  Owens lived at the Mountain View Apartments, Building 4, Apartment 3A.

I snatched up the files, locked the car, and jogged over to Building 4.  I took the steps two at a time up to the third floor.  3A was at the tops of the stairs.  A stereo was playing inside.  Jimi Hendrix sang about being a voodoo child as I pounded on the door.  A few seconds later, the volume dropped and then the door opened.

Garrett Owens had changed from jeans and Oxford shirt into a pair of black cycling shorts and a light blue jersey.  He was pulling on riding gloves and I could see a road bicycle leaning against the wall behind him.

“Oh, it’s you again.”  He reached for a blue and white cycling helmet on a coffee table.  “I told you I didn’t know whoever you were looking for.”

How could I have missed that deep voice?

“You’re Garrett Owens,” I said.

“Yeah?”  He raised his eyebrows in surprise.  “How do you know me?”

“I’m, uh,” I had to reach back to recall what name I’d used.  “Sam Spade.  I talked to you earlier about the house on 210 Madison.”

He had the helmet on, tugging on the dangling straps.  “The guy on the phone.  I told you everything I know about Ned Healy.”  He was pulling so hard on the straps, I thought he might break them.  “How did you find me?”

I held up the file.  “It wasn’t that hard.”  I didn’t want to tell him that it was his voice and not my skill at detection that led me to his door.

“That’s my real estate file?  Is that what you’re telling me?”  He crossed his arms and glared at me.  “Isn’t that private information?  How did you get that?”

Oops.  “I’m a friend of Ned’s.  I’m trying to wrap up his business affairs, which would include his real estate records.”  I held up the folders as proof, of what I wasn’t sure, but it felt good to do it.  “After I talked to you, I read through the new contract on the house.”

“And that buyer lives here?”  Garrett appeared genuinely stunned.  Or he was pulling off an incredible acting job.  “You’re kidding me.”

“No.”  I leaned against the doorjamb.  Jimi finished singing, replaced by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  “You want me to believe that you both put a bid on that house, but that you didn’t know each other?  Yet you both live in the same apartment complex?”

“Yeah, because that’s the truth.”  He tried to stare me down.  “What else could it be?” he finally said.

I didn’t say anything.

“You don’t think losing the deal was my fault, do you?  Why would I do that?”  He took a step forward, pointing a finger at me.  “I don’t know who you are, mister, but that contract fell through because Ned Healy told me a pack of lies.  Yeah, I was dumb enough to believe him, but being a dumb ass doesn’t mean I did anything wrong.  And just who the hell do you think you are coming here and bugging me?”

“Where were you on the night of June 6th?” I asked, sounding just like a bad television cop show.  I couldn’t believe I’d just said that.

“What?”  He choked back a snort.  “I haven’t a clue.  Riding, probably.”

I backed up.  “You and the other buyer both living here is just a coincidence?”

“Yeah, it is.  Now leave me alone.”  He slammed the door shut, and this time, I didn’t try to stop it with my foot.  Fool me once…you know the rest.

CHAPTER NINE

I was up early the next morning, my sleep restless and filled with dreams about missing keys, Jack Healy as The Swede in The Killers, waiting in a dim apartment waiting for his murderers, and Humphrey Bogart helping me find the Maltese falcon that was buried in Ned Healy’s backyard.  Maybe it was the pepperoni and onion pizza I ate with the Goofball Brothers when I returned home the previous night.

I showered and dressed casually in Dockers and a polo shirt, ate a quick breakfast of orange juice and a bagel, and drove to the office, carting along the Bogart poster that Jack had given me.  I had decided on the ride home from the Mountain View Apartments that I would hang it in my office alongside my other film noir poster.

First thing on my list was to call the seller’s agent for 210 Madison Avenue.  I leaned the Bogart poster up against the wall, under the framed poster of The Big Sleep.  I contemplated where to hang it as I dialed the number.  After two rings, he answered.

“I’m Franklin Hardy,” I began, elated that I had actually reached a person and not voice mail.  “I’m interested in 210 Madison Avenue, and was hoping I could see the property.”

“210 Madison?”  I heard papers rustling in the background.  “That’s under contract right now.”

“Yes, I'm aware of that, but I’d like to see the house anyway.”

“I’m sorry, Mr., er, what was your name?”

“Hardy.  Franklin Hardy.”  Unless he was a reader of the Hardy Boy mystery series, I didn’t think the name of the duo’s detective father would ring a bell.

“I hate to tell you this, Mr. Hardy, but the house is unavailable.”  He didn’t sound like he hated telling me that; he sounded gleeful.  “I’ve got a solid contract on it now, and we’re just waiting for the closing date, so there’s really no point in seeing the place.”

“I’d love to look around the house anyway.  The designs of those old homes are fantastic.”

“I really can’t allow that.”  I detected a note of irritation in his voice.

“Who’s the buyer?  Maybe I could talk to him or her about that?”

“I can’t divulge that information, Mr. Hardy.  Is there anything else I can do?  Show you another home?  I’m listing some other nice properties in that area.”

“Let me give that some thought, and I’ll get back to you.”  I disconnected before he could get his sales pitch into gear.

I perused the files for 210 Madison Avenue and found the number for the owner, Edna Mills.  An answering machine responded on the fourth ring, but I hung up before the techno-voice finished speaking.  I noticed her current address was in Evergreen, a mountain community west of Denver.  I mused on some ideas and formulated a plan.

I picked up the phone again and dialed.  “I’ll be there at ten,” I said without fanfare, “and we’re going for a bike ride.”

“No,” Cal whined before I’d finished.  “It’ll take us almost two hours to get there, and I’ve got too much to do.”

“You’ll have it done before I can say Dick Tracy, genius.  You said you’d do this, so no more excuses.”

“All right.”  I heard a creative string of obscenities as I hung up the phone.

*****

“Do you know how tempting it is to run you right off the trail?” Cal huffed at me.

“You have to catch me first.”  I pumped hard, my legs burning as I rode up a steep incline.  On either side of the trail, aspen and evergreen trees towered over us, branches intertwined like locked fingers.  At the base of the trees, parched bushes and other scrub brush created thick, dry foliage, a firefighter’s worst nightmare.  Fifteen feet behind me, Cal was pedaling furiously and losing ground fast.

“I should never have let you talk me into this.”  Cal had agreed that he would put aside his disdain for the outside world and go cycling with me at least once a week throughout the summer.  This was our second trip and I had my doubts that we’d make it a third.  I didn’t know how much of his grumbling I could take.  But when I glanced back a time or two, I almost saw a smile crease his sweaty face.  Underneath all his grumbling, I think he was beginning to enjoy himself.

For a while the only sound came from our bikes and our lungs.  The air smelled fresh and clean, and a slight breeze carried the scent of pine.  I pushed the pace until I found the spot I was searching for.

“Here it is,” I said, coming to a stop at a rock outcropping.  We were on Mount Princeton trail, at the same spot where Ned Healy had fallen to his death.  The trail traversed partially buried boulders that made a wavy, washboard pattern before joining the dirt path on the other side.  The exposed rock surface was about three feet from side to side, with a sharp drop-off on one side, and a cluster of trees on the other.  Someone had tied a red ribbon head-high on a tall pine tree.  I wondered if it was a reminder of Ned’s death or another accident.

“Whoa,” Cal said, screeching to a halt behind me.  “You’re crazy if you think I’m going over that.”

“It’s not too bad, if you stay close to the trees,” I said.

Cal craned his neck to look out over the ravine.  He couldn’t have gotten much of a look from his vantage point by the trees.  “Is this where Ned died?”

“Yes.”  I got off the bike, leaned it against an aspen tree, and walked along the trail, my eyes roving around.  I stared down at where Ned had fallen.  If someone rode too close to the edge, a slip of the tires or a bad turn of the wheel could send them over.  I shuddered.

“What do you do if you don’t want to ride over this?” Cal asked.

“You get off and walk.”  With exaggerated movements, I showed him how easily I was walking over the rocks.  The guy was a computer genius, but take him out of his element…

Cal nodded, but he stayed put, balancing on the bike with one foot on the ground.

“If two people were riding this, it wouldn’t take much for one person to shove another person over,” I observed.  “Stick out your foot and nudge them.  It could easily be made to look like an accident.”

“If it’s that easy, why do they let people come through here?”

“They don’t.  Remember that turn we took back there?  This is an old part of the trail that isn’t generally used anymore.  But in the woods like this, you can’t do much to stop people.”

Cal nodded again, but still didn’t move.

I walked back to my bike.  “Ready to go?”

“I’m not going over that.”

He gripped the handlebars, his knuckles turning white.  The look on his face told me I’d have better luck trying to move the mountain than to move him across the trail.

“All right.  Let’s head back to the car.”  I turned my bike around and mounted.

“Now you’re talking.”  Cal whipped his bike around, but before he could get going, I was already ahead of him.  I kept a steady pace as we pedaled back over the trail.

“Just a little farther,” I hollered after a bit.

We rode in silence for a few more minutes, and I let him catch up.  “I need another favor.”

“Being your cycling partner isn’t enough?” Cal wheezed, standing up on his bike as we bounced over a rocky part of the trail.  “Dragging me to a place like that?”

“This is fun.”  I leaned forward, working hard.

“Yeah, tell that to my legs.”  Cal huffed for a moment.  “Don’t you even want to know about the other files you sent, or was finding that place on the trail your only mission?”

“I was going to ask what you found out, but since you can’t wait...”

“It’s really not that exciting.  I didn’t notice duplicate addresses in any of the files.”  He sucked in a few breaths.  “The one on 210 Madison is the only one that Ned had two contracts for.”

I eased back as we headed down a slope, braking carefully so my tires didn’t slide.  “I didn’t find any on the hard copies either.  That shoots my theory that Ned was scamming buyers for extra commission.”

“What else did you need?”

“I want everything you can find on Garrett Owens and Dominic Saunders.  And see if you can find where Dominic moved to.”  Although the Internet was full of sites claiming to do background checks on people, using Cal was almost like having access to an FBI database: if there was something to find on someone, Cal would unearth it.  I didn’t ask how, but it was easier than me trying to do it.  And Cal didn’t charge me anything for his services.

“And see what information you can get me on 210 Madison Avenue.  Old real estate records, liens, anything unusual about the house,” I said.

“That shouldn’t take very long.”  Cal may not be athletic, but on the computer he was Michael Jordan, John Elway, and Wayne Gretsky all rolled in one.  I could spend days searching for the information that he would have a slam-dunk-hat-trick before the first quarter was up.  “What’s so important about those guys?”  Cal’s breathing had slowed enough that he could almost carry on a conversation without wheezing.

I explained my visit to the Mountain View Apartments, and bumping into Garrett Owens.  “I still don’t get why Ned would try to lose the deal for Garrett, but it sure seems like more than coincidence that Ned had a back-up buyer who lived in the same complex as Garrett.”

“Maybe Garrett talked to Dominic about it.”

“Only two more miles back to the car,” I yelled over my shoulder, pushing for a burst of speed.

Cal kept pace with me as we rode down the trail and back to my 4-Runner.

“You owe me,” he said, gulping for air as he skidded to a stop.

“Your heart thanks you, and cedes any payments I might owe.”

Cal arched his eyebrows.  “Does your mother know what you’re doing to me?”

“Oh, that’s cold,” I said.

Cal chuckled as he helped me load the bikes onto the rack on the back of the car.

“Why would Garrett talk to someone in his apartment complex about buying a house?” I mused, thinking about what Cal had said.

Cal held up a hand as he caught his breath, then wiped the sweat off his face and neck as he talked.  “Maybe the two were chatting while they got their mail or something, and Garrett says too much about this great house he’s buying.  Dominic sees dollar signs and then decides to put his own bid on the house.”

“Could be,” I said, pulling my car keys from my jersey pocket.  “But that doesn’t explain Ned’s involvement with both of them.  And Garrett is still pretty angry about the whole thing.”

“Angry enough to kill Ned?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, you figure it out, Sherlock.”  Cal chuckled as we piled into the car.  “How are your parents?”

Cal and I had been friends since we were little kids and played on the same soccer team, and he was like family.  Cal was quite familiar with my mother’s fear that I wouldn’t meet a nice lady, settle down, marry, and have a few kids.  Producing grandchildren was her sole goal in life.  That and getting me out of the detection business.  Since I’d been shot in the rear, on my first case, nothing could’ve pleased my mother more than if I’d give up my profession and find a more respectable and less dangerous job.

*****

I showered, cleaned up and changed clothes at Cal’s house, then left him to his research while I drove down Highway 285 to Highway 73.  I took a left at the shopping center, a well-known landmark for people traveling from Denver to the Evergreen and Conifer areas.  I followed the road for a couple of miles until I came to a section of houses on the left, each built on at least an acre or two of land.

I slowed down and watched for numbers on mailboxes until I found the address for Edna Mills.  She lived in a quaint log style home up a long driveway, with a wide front deck and an awesome view of the mountains.

I drove around a circular drive and was just getting out when a light blue Lexus drove past me and pulled into the garage.  I heard a door open, then slam shut as I approached.

“Ms. Mills?” I asked as a plump woman in her sixties emerged from the garage with a couple of bags of groceries in her arms.  She was smartly dressed, with gray curly hair, dangling gold earrings, and pink lipstick that matched her dress.

“Yes, I’m Edna.  How can I help you?”

I introduced myself as Philip Marlowe, not wanting to overuse Sam Spade.  “I’m interested in the house on 210 Madison Avenue.  It’s such a good price.”

“Oh, that’s already been sold.  Didn’t your realtor tell you that?”  She had a low voice, just a bit gravelly, but her smile was soft and pleasant.  “We listed it low so that it would be sure to sell, you see.  We had such trouble the last time we put it on the market.”

“When was that?”

“A couple of years ago.  My father owned it.  But he had such trouble because it’s an older home.  No one wanted a fixer-upper, you see, so he finally gave up the idea.  This time around, my husband said we should just list it so low no one could resist buying it.  And we sold it.”  She beamed at me.

“Yes, I heard that, but I was hoping to get a look inside.  I’m interested in the architecture of those old homes.”

“There’s nothing unusual about that home.  My parents bought the house when they moved from New York, and Dad lived there until he passed away.  That’s why we’re selling it, you see.”  She shifted the groceries in her arms.  “What did you say your name was?”

“Philip.  Can I help you with that?”

“No, let me just set them down.”  She placed the bags on the front deck.  “Why are you interested in that house?”

“I’m studying architecture.  So many of the homes in that area are being torn down and I wanted to take some pictures of the remaining ones,” I said, “before they get demolished.”

“That’s nice.”  Edna pursed her lips.  “I’m afraid there’s not much to see in that old house.  Dad wasn’t able to keep it up in his last few years.”

“I’m sorry about your father.  It’s tough.”

“Oh, thank you, but it was months ago, and we knew it was coming.  Cancer, you see, so we had a lot of time to prepare.”  Edna seemed to let her guard down.  “And it took months to get all his records together, and to take care of the will.  Then my husband Peter threw out his back, so it just took ages before we were finally able to clear the house out and prepare to put it on the market.  And then with all the contracts falling through, it’s a wonder we ever got it sold.”

“How many contracts have fallen through?”

“Oh, just two,” she said with a rusty laugh.  “We’re on the third now, so let’s hope it’s the charm.”

“Why didn’t the other buyers work out?”  She was making this so easy for me.  I wondered if she’d be so trusting if I resembled Al Capone.

“The first one asked for so many changes.  Peter and I didn’t feel we needed to spend that much on the place.  We were selling it at a great price, after all.  We would’ve made a few repairs, you see, but he wanted so many, and most of the things were not just minor changes.  I know the house could’ve used some spit and polish, but we didn’t feel like that was something we should have to do before we put it on the market.  But structural concerns, walls sagging, the furnace?”  She let out a heavy sigh.  “The second buyer's financing fell through, you see.”

“The financing fell through?”

She nodded sadly.  “Yes, and so soon after his realtor passed away.  The realtor committed suicide and then his buyer had to find a new realtor, and then the buyer couldn’t get a loan.  It all happened so fast.”

“What was the new realtor’s name?”

“Oh, I’m not sure.”  Edna put a finger to her lips, tapping as she thought.  “I can’t remember, and I don’t believe I have it written down anywhere.”  She shrugged.  “Now this third buyer seems right, a nice couple with a baby on the way.  He works at a bank downtown and she’s a teacher.  They’re so nice, you see, cute as can be.”

I interrupted before she could tell me more about the couple.  “Do you think they would mind if I saw the home?  You could let me in.”

“Oh, I don’t think I could ask them that.”

“But they seem like such a nice couple.”  Like I really knew anything about them, but Edna seemed sure.

She pursed her lips.  “I don’t think I should ask.  It wouldn’t be proper, you see.  Why don’t you wait until they move in, and then you could drop by and ask them yourself?”

I did see.  I gave her my number in case she remembered the name of the second buyer’s new realtor, thanked her, and left.  Maybe it was because she sounded so much like my own grandmother, but I just couldn’t make myself push her more.

CHAPTER TEN

On my way down from Evergreen, I mulled over the case.  Three buyers had been interested in the Madison house: Garrett Owens, Dominic Saunders, and now a new couple, who were actually buying the house.  A house that Edna Mills said needed some work, but not huge structural changes that Owens had asked for.  I needed to see the inside of the house, and since all my attempts at getting in had so far been rebuffed, I thought it might be time to do something different.

I turned onto 1st Street and was soon driving down Madison Avenue, slowing as I passed 210.  Dusk had set in, creating long shadows from the tall trees growing on either side of the street.  I didn’t see the neighbor across from 210, but his rose bushes and rhododendrons bloomed with gusto.  I continued to the end of the block and parked around the corner, behind a white van.

I got out of the 4-Runner, snatched the realty file off the passenger seat and locked the car.  I sauntered down the alley, scanning the backsides of the houses until I reached 210 Madison.  The one story home was easy to peg among all the newer, bigger homes.  I glanced around and saw no one, so I tried the alley-access gate.  Since it wasn’t latched, I darted through and shut the gate behind me.  I crossed the lawn to the back door of the house.  Locked.  I expected as much.

I stood there for a moment, thinking.  I wondered if there was a lock-box on the front door.  I slipped around the side of the house, through a gate and into the front.  I quickly strode to the porch.  Bingo.  A little box dangled from the doorknob.

If I could somehow get the code, I’d be in.  But how would I get the code?  The new realtor had most likely changed the combination, but what if he or she hadn’t?  If Ned had it written down somewhere, I could at least try the combination and see if it worked.  I quickly checked the file, but didn’t see anything that looked like a combination.  I made a mental note to go back to Ned’s other files and check for any lock-box information that he might have written down.  I made another mental note to ask Jack for a key to Ned’s house so I wouldn’t have to bother him again.

I hurried around to the back again and examined the lock and the deadbolt on the back door.  Just in case I couldn’t find the lock box code.  I had very little experience in breaking-and-entering – okay, none – so I didn’t have a clue as to how easy or difficult it would be to pick the lock.  Mental note number three: ask Cal what he knows about this.  Or more accurately, see how I could bribe him into coming down to Denver to help me, if it came to that.  I was sure he knew how to pick a lock – he knew everything.  Except how to leave his house on a normal basis.

To the left of the door was a large square window facing the back lawn.  Dusk had given way to darkness, and I couldn’t see into the house.  I planted my face against the window, cupping my hands to the glass to shut out the glare.  A face stared right back at me.

I yelped in surprise and fell against the side of the house, my heart pounding in my chest.

The back door opened.  “What the hell are you doing here?”

I stared at the face of the same inspector I ran into the other day.

“Didn’t I tell you the house sold?” the inspector snarled.

I nodded mutely.

“Well?”

I found my voice.  “I was in the neighborhood.  Thought I’d get another look.”

“I told you before, you can’t.  Have you ever heard of trespassing?”

“Hey.”  I held up a hand.  “There’s no need to threaten me.  I’m going.”

But if I could find a key, I’d be back.

“Wait, I’ll walk you to your car.”

“No need for that.”  I started to back off the porch, but he disappeared in the house, emerging a moment later with a small box and a long tube, one that might hold pictures, posters, or anything else you might want to roll up instead of fold.  Like architectural plans.

“Are those plans for the house?” I pointed at the tube.

“Huh?”  He fumbled with the door before pulling it shut behind him.  “Yeah, for the inspection.”

“Can I see them?  That would give me an idea of the layout of the house.”

“No.”  With that abrupt response, he jerked his head at me, indicating I should get moving.  We walked through the back gate and out into the moonlit alley.

“Where are you parked?” he grunted at me.

“Over there.”  I gestured down the alley, hoping that would be enough, but he followed me all the way back to my car and watched as I got in and drove off.  As I turned the corner I could see him in the glow of a streetlight, still staring at my car.

“Curses.  Foiled again,” I said aloud as I turned on the CD player.  The Smiths, one of my favorite 80’s bands, sang tongue-in-cheek about being miserable as I drove around the block.  I kept my eyes open for the inspector, but I didn’t see him.  He was long gone.  That left me miserable with Morrissey and The Smiths.

It was almost nine o’clock, but I swung by the office.  I wanted to check the Wilson file, the one where the sellers ended up not selling.  In my experience, it seems that people tended to use the same passwords or locker combination numbers more than once – it cut down on having to memorize too many.  If I could find a combination to the lock-box, which I hoped might be written in that file, I could go back to 210 Madison right now, when I knew the inspector wasn’t there.  Not ideal to go in the dark, but it would work.

I pulled out my after-hours pass key and slid it over the magnetic detector, waited until the light turned green, and yanked the door open.  I passed the elevators and took the stairs up to the second floor.  It was deathly quiet and dark as I walked down the hall and into my office.  The windows near the elevator let in a haze of moonlight, making the ficus plants in the hallway appear to jump out at me.  As I unlocked my office door, I caught a shadow out of the corner of my eyes.  “Bogie wasn’t scared of the dark,” I whispered to myself.  Ignoring the shivers that ran down my back, I flipped on the lights and grabbed the mail on my way into the inner office.

I tossed the envelopes on the desk and opened the Wilson file.  I checked every piece of paper in it, front and back, and all the sticky notes tacked to various pages, searching for the combination to the lock box.  Nothing.  I wondered again if I might find something at Ned’s house, somewhere in the real estate records where he might have jotted down a combination.  The thought of reading through his files a third time nearly gave me a headache.  And would it be worth it?  If a new realtor had changed the combination, I couldn’t get in anyway.

I glanced at my watch.  9:15.  I was fresh out of ideas, so it was time to call it a night.  I locked up and drove home.

*****

As I started to climb the steps up to my condo, I noticed Willie drive up and park across the street.  I hopped off the stairs and sauntered over.

“Just getting home?” she asked me as I waited for her to get out of the car.

“Working hard,” I said.  “Wanna help?”  I smiled, trying to gauge her mood.

“With what?”  Curiosity was a good sign.

“You could spy on a house for me,” I said as we strolled up her front porch steps.  I’d been pondering how to get into 210 Madison, but I’d also need to know when people were coming and going.  I could do it myself, but surveillance was the most boring part of detective work.

“No way,” Willie said as she unlocked her front door.  “That’s the most boring part of detective work.”

I had to give her that.  “What if we did it together?”  I leaned on the doorjamb and cocked an eyebrow at her.

“You are incorrigible,” she said, pulling me into the living room.  “Besides, I have a job.”

“It was just a thought.”

“Come on in.  I could use a beer.”  She headed toward the kitchen.  “Want one too?”

Hmm.  Go home alone, or spend some time with Willie and a beer?

I stepped into the room and closed the door.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I awoke the next morning with birds chirping, angels singing and news of world peace.  Okay, nothing that big, but I’d been at Willie’s until the wee hours of the morning.  I was in my bed alone, but by the time I’d left Willie’s house, after three beers and a lot of light chatter, I knew I was making some headway with her.  My Wheaties had never tasted so good.

Once I was showered, I dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt and headed down to my neighbors.  It was close to nine, so Ace was already at work, but Deuce might still be at home.  Since he worked as an assistant manager at a local video store, he kept odd hours.

I knocked on the door twice and was about to give up when Deuce answered.

“Dude,” he said with an ear-to-ear grin.  “How ya doin’?”  He stood there in jockey shorts and a faded gray T-shirt, and he rubbed sleep out of his eyes as he talked.

“Sorry to bother you so early,” I said.

“It’s okay,” he said with a lion-sized yawn.  “I had to close the store last night, but I should be getting up.  You want a cup of coffee?”

I declined, but followed him through his cluttered living room and into the kitchen, where he poured himself a cup of sludge that had probably been on the warmer since his brother left hours earlier.

“I have a favor to ask,” I said, taking a seat at a ’50’s-style chrome table.  “Are you free today?”

“It’s my day off, so shoot.”  Deuce sat down and poured a healthy dose of sugar into his cup.

“Would you be interested in watching a house for me?”

Deuce looked up from his methodical stirring.  “Watch a house?  You mean like on TV or something?”  He seemed bewildered.

I shook my head.  “No.  Spy on a real house, watch to see who comes and goes.  You keep saying you want to help me.  This would be a big favor.”  And it would keep me from getting bored.

Deuce took a slurp of his java-like drink, then drew his hand across his lips to catch the excess liquid.  “Sounds kinda boring.”

I wasn’t going to be able to give this part of the job away.  “Okay,” I let out a sigh.  “I know it’s not that exciting, but you said you wanted to know what I do, and this is part of it.  I can pay you – ”

“No, no,” Deuce interrupted.  “You don’t have to pay me.  That’s what friends are for, right?  I’ll do it, at least when I’m not working.  And I’ll get Ace to help when he gets home.  Besides,” he shrugged his shoulders.  “Maybe it’ll be fun.  Like Sylvester Stallone in Cobra, or Clint Eastwood doing Dirty Harry.  Do I get to carry a gun?”  The more he chattered about it, the more excited he became.  Deuce as a detective – like Colombo and Forrest Gump rolled into one.  Scary.

“Sorry, no go on the gun,” I said.  He looked deflated.  “But maybe down the road I could have you follow someone.”  His expression brightened.  “Here’s what I need you to do.”  I grabbed a pad and pen off the counter and wrote down directions to 210 Madison Avenue.  “I want you to keep tabs on who comes and goes.  It’s going to be tricky because you’ll have to try to watch the alley as well as the front, but you might be able to hear someone going inside even if you don’t see them.  Get a description of who it is and what time.  Got it?”

Deuce nodded seriously.  “Yep.  I can be there all day.”  He lowered his voice.  “Except if I have to go to the bathroom or get lunch.”

“That’s fine,” I said conspiratorially.  I had no great vision that I would get a totally accurate idea of what all happened at the house, but the Goofball Brothers might see enough to let me know if and when people went in and out of the house.  If they could help for a day or two, I might be able to establish a pattern of activity, and then I could make my own move on the house.

“Do you have a cell phone?”  He nodded.

“What’s the number and I’ll call it?” I asked as I pulled out my phone.  “That way we have each other’s numbers.”

Deuced rattled off the number and I dialed it.  I heard his phone chirp in the other room.

“But how will I know it’s your number?” Deuce asked.

“It’ll be on the phone,” I said.  “Under ‘missed calls’.”

“But,” Deuce said slowly.  “What if someone else calls me?”

I sighed.  “Here’s my number.”  I jotted down my cell phone number.  “If you have any questions, or need anything, you call me.  Okay?”

“Got it.”  He grabbed the piece of paper and stared at it.  “I’ll memorize it, so in case anyone captures me, they won't find anything that would point back to you.”

I managed to keep a straight face, barely.  “You don’t need to worry about that.  When can you go over there?”

“Now.”  Deuce leaped to his feet and snatched a set of car keys off a hook by the refrigerator.

I pointed to the boxers.  “You might want to get dressed first.”

He turned red.  “Oh yeah.”

“Good.  I’ll call later on to see how you’re doing.”

Deuce saluted and dashed off.

*****

I left the not-so-efficient-but-available Deuce to his task, and drove to the office.  Once I prepared a more palatable cup of java than what Deuce had offered earlier, I called Cal.

“Yeah?”

That Cal, all charm.

Once we’d dispensed with pleasantries, which consisted of him complaining about how sore his legs and butt were from our ride yesterday, I asked, “Did you find anything on Owens or Sanders?”

“Let me see.”  I heard the usual clacking on the computer keyboard.  “First of all, I didn’t find much on Dominic Saunders.  He’s twenty-eight years old, went to high school in California, and attended UCLA for a semester before dropping out.”

“How did you get all that?  I really wanted a check on a possible criminal record.”

“I’m getting to that,” Cal chuckled.  “Saunders has worked at a variety of trade jobs – construction, plumbing, electrician, both in California and here.  He moved here five years ago, by the way.  He has no criminal record, a few speeding tickets, last one two years ago, but that’s it.  I found an address prior to the one at Mountain View Apartments, but nothing since then.  My guess is he moved out of the Mountain View Apartments recently because I tried tapping into phone, cable TV, and electronic records, but I didn’t find any new listing for him.  Either his new phone and electric billing information hasn’t kicked in yet, or he’s staying with friends or relatives somewhere.  Or he might’ve moved out of state – I only checked Colorado records.  I didn’t take the time to search his financial records, but I could.”  I knew what Cal wasn’t saying – that kind of research could mean some serious hacking – more than he’d already done.

“No, that’s okay.  If I need it, I’ll let you know.”  I rarely asked him to go to that level because it was both difficult and dangerous for him.  I once asked him to check financial records for me, and the FBI eventually found that out – but that’s another story.

“Garrett Owens, on the other hand…” he began.

“What?”

“He has a more colorful past.  Owens is thirty years old – ”

“I knew that,” I interrupted, remembering my phone conversation with Owens.

“You want me to finish or what?” he laughed.

“Sorry.”

“He grew up around here, graduated from the CU in Boulder with a computer science degree, and has worked a few different jobs in the computer industry.  I actually found his picture on his company’s website.  Do you want me to email a copy of it to you?”

“No, I’ve met him, remember?”

“Oh yeah.  Anyway, Owens has been jailed twice – once for disturbing the peace and once for a domestic disturbance.  He’s been cited twice for playing his stereo too loud, and has had numerous speeding tickets over the years.”

“Do you know the details of the two arrests?”

“He was arrested for disturbing the peace after he was thrown out of a Boulder bar.  Apparently he started a fight with some other guys.  He was twenty-one, so it was probably a stupid thing that happens when you’re in college.”  I mumbled agreement.  Cal and I attended Harvard together, and we’d pulled more than our share of dumb stunts.  Only we never got caught.  “The domestic disturbance occurred two years ago.  He and his girlfriend, who was living with him at the time, got into an argument.  The neighbors called the police because they heard the two yelling, and with Colorado domestic violence laws that require one person in the dispute to be removed, Owens was taken to jail.  He was put on probation for a year, had to attend court-ordered anger management classes, and pay court costs, and fines.  He hasn’t been in trouble since then.  At least nothing that’s documented.”

“So Owens has a problem with his anger,” I said.  “Interesting.”

“Uh-huh.  He’s lived at the Mountain View Apartments for three years, and before that he jumped around some.  He pays his bills on time and has good credit.  He shouldn’t have any problems buying a house.”

“Would he resort to revenge because of what Ned did to him?” I processed out loud.

“It’s a possibility,” Cal said.

“What did you find out about 210 Madison Avenue?”

I heard him typing again.  “That house was built in 1942, along with most of the other original houses in that neighborhood.  It’s had four owners: David Meyers was there for four years, then it was sold to Horace Armstrong.  He owned it for five years before selling to Eric and Alfreda Wainwright.  They were there for sixteen years, then sold it to R. F. Gray.  He’s owned it since 1967.”

“And now his daughter inherited it and is selling it.”

“Yep.”

“Doesn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary,” I said.  “Did you find any records to indicate that the property is a bad buy, or that the area has soil problems or other issues that would cause structural damage?”

“Nothing.  The way real estate values are in that area, it looks to me like it would be a great investment, especially since it’s listed a bit below market value.  Owens got screwed out of a good deal.  He could’ve made thousands just in land value alone.  Why is it listed so low?”

“Mrs. Mills said her father tried to sell it a couple of years ago, but no one wanted a fixer-upper.  So this time around, they wanted it to sell fast with no hassles.”

“I would think it would sell fast, at the price they’re asking.”

I had to agree.  “Did you find anything on the latest buyer?”

“No.  That stuff isn’t official record until the closing, so there’s not much I can get my hands on.”

I hung up disappointed.  I really wanted to get inside that house and see why Owens thought there were so many problems that he jeopardized his contract and lost the house.  And if Ned really was the impetus for Owens losing the house, what did Ned gain?  I couldn’t figure that piece out, but I had a clearer picture of Owens.  He had a track record of anger problems.  Would he resort to murder because he was mad at Ned?  It seemed more and more likely.

I still didn’t have any way of contacting Dominic Saunders, I thought, while staring at the Bogart posters.  If I could talk to Saunders, he might shed some light on all this.  Or was there anything special about the house at all?  Maybe it had nothing to do with Ned’s death.

“Aw hell,” I said to Bogie.

I decided to give my brain a break, so I focused on another important matter – where to hang my new Bogart poster.  I picked up the poster of The Maltese Falcon and held it up next to The Big Sleep poster.  Darned if they didn’t look good together.  Both had an aged quality to them, and Bogie looked spectacular, the quintessential detective.  But the more I admired the posters, the more I didn’t like the frame on The Maltese Falcon.  It was made out of light wood, ash or pine, and it didn’t look right next to The Big Sleep poster, which was in a black metal frame.

I set The Maltese Falcon poster down, rummaged around in my desk for a screwdriver, and went to work on the frame.  In a matter of minutes, I had carefully extracted the poster from the frame.  As I laid the poster on the floor, I noticed its pristine condition, and yet it still had the faded quality of old paper.  I knelt down and scrutinized it some more.  And I smelled the paper.  Yes, I know that sounds funny, but something was nagging me.  I stopped what I was doing and gingerly put the poster back in the frame.

I rummaged around in my desk drawer until I found a familiar business card.  My hands shook as I dialed the number.  If my hunch was correct, I needed help.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Leaving traffic sounds and threatening black clouds outside and entering the imaginary world of movies, I stepped into Classic Hollywood Memorabilia.  The shop was located in a long, narrow space stuck between two larger antique stores on south Broadway in the heart of Denver’s “Antique Row”, a section known for its multitude of stores and specialty shops that dealt exclusively in antiques.

As my eyes adjusted to the controlled lighting in the store, I saw a diminutive man at the back stand up and adjust his tie and pinstripe suit.  He ran a hand over his white hair and tugged at the ponytail that touched his coat collar before he recognized me.  Then a smile spread across his wrinkled face.

“’Allo, Reed.  How are you?”  Henri Benoit limped around the counter and shook my hand vigorously.  “You have the poster, yes?”

Henri, a World War II veteran who injured his leg in the Battle of France in the spring of 1940, was a transplant straight from Paris.  He had been a well-known and respected antiques dealer in France, but had also become an expert in Hollywood memorabilia, moving to the U.S. years ago to further that interest.  Henri loved anything related to the movies, but had a special appreciation for the Golden Age of Hollywood, the 1930’s and ’40’s.  An avid collector himself, Henri turned his love of classic movies into a thriving business, buying and selling vintage posters, placards, props, autographs, and anything else related to the cinema.  He was also a noted appraiser, and his expertise was highly valued in the collector’s arena.  His keen eye missed nothing, and for this he charged high fees, which weeded out both the novice collectors and the swindlers.  “Would you like some tea?” he asked, finally letting go of my hand.

“No, thanks,” I said.  “Here’s the poster I told you about.”

When I purchased my Bogart poster, Henri had appraised it to make sure it was authentic.  I knew I could count on him to check my suspicions of The Maltese Falcon poster that Jack Healy had given to me.  After my tentative look at the poster this morning at the office, I had called Henri, but he wasn’t available until after lunch.  I came to the shop at two, barely containing my collector’s excitement.

“Ah, what have we here?”  Even though Henri had been in the states for years, he still spoke with a stereotypical French accent, and with a penchant to end all sentences with a question.  He gingerly took the poster from me and went behind the counter to the back of the store, where he used a dime-sized side room as a work area.  “Where did you get this?” he called back to me as he laid the poster on a wooden table.

My eyes had been wandering around the small store, gazing enviously at all the wonderful memorabilia for sale.  There were posters from a variety of old movies, autographed 8x10’s of dozens of famous Hollywood actors from Bing Crosby and John Wayne to Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, props, and clothing worn by actors.  It was like walking into a Planet Hollywood restaurant that specialized in the golden age of movies, only all the memorabilia was for sale.  I leaned on the counter and could see him studying the poster.  “A friend gave that to me.”

“Come, come.”  He beckoned me to join him.  “Let’s get a closer look, eh?”  He donned a set of bifocals and set to work on the frame, treating the poster like priceless artwork from a museum.  “Ah, another Bogie movie.  I’ll bet you’re drooling over it now, eh?”  I laughed.  Henri knew how fond I was of Bogart movies.  He finished removing the poster and set the frame aside.  We stared down at the piece of paper, appreciating it.

“Let’s do a couple of simple tests,” Henri said.  He bent down and sniffed at the paper, then had me do the same.  “What do you smell?”

“It’s musty,” I said.  “That’s one of the things that got me wondering about its age.”  Recent posters have a new smell to them, but old books, papers, and documents sometimes have a different smell, a stale, old smell like walking into an unfinished cellar.  Smelling the paper wasn’t a foolproof method of authentication, but it’s a start.

Just then a bell above the store entrance jingled, indicating a customer.  “Excuse me a moment,” Henri said.  He paused to straighten his tie before leaving the room.

I glanced over my shoulder and got a brief glimpse of the man who had come in, but I didn’t want to be nosy about Henri’s customers, so I occupied myself by calling Deuce.

“Hello?” he answered in a hushed voice.

“It’s me,” I said, talking in a low voice so I wouldn’t disturb Henri.  “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” he whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” I whispered back.

“I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

“Who’s there?”

“No one.”

“Oh.”  I said, resuming a more normal voice level.  “I’m sure you don’t have to worry about that.  Have you seen anybody going in the house?”

“Yes,” Deuce hissed.  “I saw a man go in the back door at 12:40.  I wrote it down because you said to do that.  He had a small cardboard box with him.  He was inside for fifteen minutes, and he came back out with the same box.”

“What’d he look like?  Was he an inspector?”

“How should I know?  He was just a guy.”

If you don’t ask a Goofball Brother for specifics, you won’t get specifics from him.  I should have known.  “What else?”

“That’s all.  Except – ”  He stopped abruptly.

“I, uh…  A neighbor saw me, Reed.  An old man across the street.  He asked me what I was doing hanging around.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“That I was waiting for my realtor to let me in.”  I was impressed with his smooth thinking, and I told him so.  “I saw the ‘for sale’ sign out front,” Deuce said, with a touch of pride.  “That’s how I thought of it.  I went around to the back of the house after that.”

“Good job.”

“You should talk to the old man, though.”

“Why?”

“He says the house is haunted.  He was giving me the creeps, talking about lights being on and stuff.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  I don’t want to be here at night, okay?  In the daytime’s fine, but not after dark.”

“No problem,” I said.  I could hear Henri wrapping up in the other room.  “I’ve got to go.  Can you watch the house until six and then meet me at B 52’s?”  I knew that both Ace and Deuce should be home from work by then.  “And see if you can get Ace to take over for you and watch the house when you leave.”

“All right.  I’ll see you tonight.”

While Henri worked out some details for appraisals, I put away my cell phone and looked closer at The Maltese Falcon poster.  The quality of the paper seemed similar to my other poster.  Almost all new posters use a heavier paper, but old ones were advertisements, not meant to have any long-term purposes, so they were printed on cheap paper.

Henri finished with his customer and came back into the room, and I told him what I had been thinking.  “Yes,” he said, tipping his head thoughtfully.  “I noticed the same thing.  Let’s check one more thing.”  He scrutinized the entire poster, his eyes running along the edges and back and forth across the paper.

“Hmm,” he mused.  “The paper looks intact, no evidence that the edges have been tampered with.”  If a poster was a reprint, the name of a reprinting company might be printed on the edges.  People often trimmed such things off the edges of a poster in order to make it pass for an original advertisement.  He concentrated on the center, where Humphrey Bogart looked stern and Mary Astor looked stunning.

“Ah, yes,” he finally said.  “See?”

I looked where his finger was pointing, at a letter “B” in one corner of the poster.  “Studios often included release information for a film, and also marked advertising posters with letters to indicate that it was part of a series of posters.  The “B” would indicate that it was the second in a series of prints for the movie.  I don’t see an “R” anywhere on the paper, which would tell me that this was a re-released poster.”

I felt my palms getting sweaty.  “Are you telling me that this is an original advertising poster from 1941?”  It couldn’t be.  Ned Healy didn’t have any money to buy such a thing.  Or had he bought it long ago, and Samantha and Jack didn’t know he had it?

Henri pulled his glasses off.  “Maybe.  It could be a very good replica.  I need to examine it much more closely before I can say for certain.”

“Okay,” I said.  I stared at the poster again.  Maybe I was getting excited for nothing.  That had to be it.  “There’s no hurry.  Let me know when you find out if it’s a reproduction or not.”

“Yes, I think I can fit it in.  Business has been very good lately.  This other gentleman that just came in, I’ve been working with him on some wonderful memorabilia.  His collection is truly amazing, some very valuable pieces, but he is parting with some of it.”  He gestured at the poster.  “But for you, I can make some time.  I’ll call you in a few days, maybe a week?”

“That’ll be fine,” I said.

“While you’re here, you want a nice picture of Bacall?” he asked me with a sly smile.  “She’s very sexy, yes?”  He took every opportunity to tease me about my adoration of Lauren Bacall.

“No, Henri,” I said with a laugh.  “Not today.”  A beeping interrupted us.  My cell phone.

Jack Healy was on the other end.  “I need to talk to you,” he said before I could finish saying “hello.”  He sounded angry.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s Samantha,” he said, spitting out the words.  “I should have known it was her.  She’s as greedy as he ever was.  If ever there was evil incarnate – ”

“Jack,” I said, discreetly turning away from Henri.  “What about Samantha?”

“That bitch,” he almost screamed.  “She’s getting a half-million dollar life insurance payoff.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jack Healy worked in one of the many lackluster-designed office buildings in the Inverness Business Park, south of downtown.

As I turned off County Line Road, a typical Colorado afternoon thunderstorm began, dumping gallons of rain in seconds and slowing traffic.  I drove east until I came to Jack’s building, a silver three-story sprawling complex on the south side of the road.  I pulled into visitor parking, got out and dashed through the downpour.  By the time I skidded through the sliding glass doors to the reception area, my shirt stuck to me like another layer of skin.  As I made an attempt to appear more presentable, I asked for Jack Healy.  A petite brunette who sat behind a large, curved desk pointed to the elevators, saying I should get off on the third floor, where a receptionist would escort me to Jack’s office.

“Thanks for coming,” Jack said when I entered his spacious office.  He stood up and leaned over a long oak desk to shake my hand.  The receptionist pulled the door shut behind me without saying a word.  “Have a seat.”

I plopped into a soft chair with green cushions and stared back at Jack.  Behind him was a huge set of bookcases filled with large black binders and a few knick knacks.  Jack looked diminutive sitting amongst the furniture.

“How did you hear about the life insurance policy?” I asked.  Jack had been so upset when he called that I thought I’d better go talk to him in person before he decided to go confront Samantha himself.

“Right, the beginning,” Jack said, heaving a deep sigh.  He ran his hands over his face, then got up and began pacing in front of a wall-to-wall window that had an expansive view of the Front Range, now obscured by the torrential rainstorm.

“I came back from lunch and there was a message to call my lawyer.”  Jack waved his hands around as he talked, emphasizing his words.  “No big deal, right?  I get calls from him all the time.  But this time, when I call him he says that he just got news of a life insurance policy that Ned took out after he and Samantha were first married, and did I know about it.”

“Did you?”

Jack glared at me.  “No.  This was news to me, and that’s what I told John, my lawyer.  So I said give me the details.  It’s a $500,000 policy with Samantha Healy as the beneficiary if Ned died by accident or natural causes, but the policy is null and void if he commits suicide.”

“That’s standard.”

“I know.  But what I want to know is why Samantha’s name was still on the policy.  They’ve been divorced for over a year, so why would Ned still have her as the beneficiary?”

“He probably didn’t get around to changing the name on the policy.”

Jack crossed his arms and leaned on the window ledge.  “That’s what John said.  He also said he looked at the policy and it’s correct.  There’s nothing wrong with it, so Samantha will get the payoff.  The insurance company contacted him about the specifics of paying her.  That’s when he called me.”  His eyes narrowed as he looked at me.  “Don’t you get it?”

I gazed at him thoughtfully.  “I know where you’re going with this.  If Samantha knew about the policy, she could’ve killed Ned, made it look like an accident, and then she gets the money.  One of the oldest stories in the book.”  I thought of Double Indemnity and other movies and novels with an insurance scam in the plot.  Bogie would’ve loved this.

Jack’s head nodded in agreement.  “Yes!  It fits.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Jack.  Ned’s death was ruled an accident, and at this point Samantha is innocent.”

“But it makes sense.  Ned once said that Samantha never seemed to have enough money, so the insurance would get her that.  And she refuses to get a real job.  Did she tell you about her acting career?”

“Uh-huh.  Missed an opportunity to work with Spielberg,” I said.  Jack snorted his disgust.

“Now she’ll have plenty of money.”  Jack’s anger fizzled out and he stared at his shoes.  “At Ned’s expense.”

I sat in silence for a moment before saying, “I’ll go talk to Samantha.  But she may not have done anything to Ned.  She’s not guilty of anything yet,” I reiterated.

Jack looked up at me.  “Yet.”

*****

I fought Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic and rain as I headed west on C-470 to Samantha’s home, but by the time I pulled into her driveway, the thunderstorm had moved further east, replaced by bright sunshine and a hazy rainbow arching over Denver.

The air conditioner in the car had nearly dried my clothes, but I took a moment to comb my hair before I went to the front door.  It was almost five o’clock.  Since Samantha didn’t have a regular job, I was counting on her being home.

I rang the bell and waited.  The air smelled crisp and clean, with a pleasant touch of moisture.  I hummed one chorus of the Jeopardy! song before I heard footsteps approach.  My last encounter with Samantha was still fresh in my mind, so I prepared to put my shoulder in the doorway.

“Oh, it’s you,” was all Samantha said when she opened the door and saw me.  No slamming it shut, no cursing, just “It’s you.”  Probably the worst reaction a man could get from a pretty woman.

She wore a skin-tight scarlet dress that was pulled down over her shoulders, and black heels that added six inches to her height.  The dress was cut mid-thigh, exposing her long legs.  She wore a generous amount of makeup, making her brown eyes bigger and her rosy lips more sensual, and her aura seemed less angry than the first time I met her.  She was, in a word, hot.

“I need to ask you a few more questions,” I said, getting right to the point.  I didn’t know how long her good mood would last.

“Okay,” Samantha said as she put on a gold necklace.  “But you have to make it quick.  I’m expecting company.”

“A boyfriend?”

She placed a hand on the doorknob.  “If you want to ask about my personal life, you’re wasting your time.”

I raised a supplicating hand.  “Just curious.  What I really want is information about Ned’s life insurance policy.”

“So you’ve heard.”

“Jack called me.”

“What about it?”

“Did you know about the policy?”

“Sure.  I felt it was important that our future was protected, in case something happened to Ned.”

“Your future was protected, not his.”

“If you say so.”  Her lips turned down in a pout.

“Why did Ned leave you as the beneficiary of the policy after you divorced?”

She met my gaze and held it.  “I don’t know.  Perhaps you should ask Ned.”

I was not amused.  “Since we both know that’s impossible,” I said evenly, “I’m trying to ask those close to him why he would do that.”

“I wasn’t close to Ned.  That’s why I divorced him.”

“And since he died, accidentally, you stand to get a tidy sum of money.”  She didn’t say a word.  “It would seem that he still felt close to you, so he left your name on the policy, or he just forgot to make a change.”  More silence.  “I’d guess the latter.”

“That’s all you’re doing – guessing.”  She spoke with a cool assurance.

My eye twitched in anger, so I counted silently to five.  “Where were you when Ned died?”

“It’s come to this?  You think I killed Ned?  Somehow I would’ve expected more from you,” she said with a disappointed wag of her head.  “I haven’t seen him in almost a year, so how could I have killed him?”  I waited.  She drew in a long breath.  “I was at my acting class until almost eleven.  Not that it’s any business of yours, but after class I came back here with a friend of mine.  He was with me all night.  I told the police that already.”

“What acting class?”

“Higher-level method acting.”  It sounded like some kind of new age class to me.

“What school?”

“Denver Alternative College.”  I’d never heard of it.

“And the name of your friend?”

Her eyes became slits.  “That’s none of your business.”

“Maybe your friend helped you.”

“With what?”

“Killing Ned.  You get Ned drunk, stoned on pills, then take him up into the mountains and run him off the side of a cliff.  Neat and tidy.  You have an alibi, and now you get the insurance money.  Although you would have to split it with your friend.  But that’s the breaks, I guess.”

Samantha stared at me, but said nothing.  Just then a forest-green Lexus pulled into the driveway next to my car.  A tall, sturdy man with reddish-blond hair got out and strolled over.

“Hello, Sam,” he said to her, throwing me a tentative smile.  He had the weary look of someone who had just come from work, with bags under his eyes and a tired expression on his face.  He wore a gray three-piece business suit tailored to show off his sleek physique and bulky arms, and a silk tie loosened at the collar.

“Why don’t you ask Alan yourself,” she said to me.

“Ask me what?”  His eyes darted from her to me and back to her again, lingering on her dress.

“Nothing, honey.”  She opened the door and Alan stepped cautiously past me and into the house.  Once inside, he pecked Samantha on the cheek, then gave me a cursory glance, noting the silence between us.  “Are you ready to go?” he finally asked her as he went on down the hall, obviously familiar with the house.

“Just a second,” she called to him.  She leaned towards me, whispering.  “Alan and I killed Ned for the insurance money – right.  You should write screenplays.  That’s a perfect plot out of some B-grade mystery movie.”

Or the classic Double Indemnity, I wisely chose not to say.

She stepped even closer, pulling the door partway closed.  “This is the last time I’m going to say this.  I don’t know why Ned kept my name on the policy, but he did, and I’m not going to turn down half a million dollars.  Not for you, and certainly not for that brother of Ned’s.  For the second time, I have been more than patient with you and your silly questions.  If you bother me again, I’m going to get the police involved.”

“If you change your mind, and there’s something you want to tell me,” I said, pointing to my business card, which I noticed was still lying on the half-table behind her, “you know how to reach me.”

She whirled around, and in one swift motion, she plucked the card off the table and ripped it in half.  “Leave me alone,” she said, letting the torn pieces drop to the floor like snowflakes.  By the force with which she slammed the door, I knew I succeeded in making her mad.

I stood on the porch a moment.  So her apparent boyfriend’s name was Alan.  She let that one slip out.  Alan who?  And did my theory have even a hint of reality to it?  Did Samantha know that Ned hadn’t changed the name on the policy, and did she kill Ned, or have Alan help her kill Ned?  She was right about one thing, I thought as I sauntered back to my car.  It did sound like the plot from a B-grade movie.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I stopped to grab a fast-food burger, and by the time I finished and drove from Samantha’s to B 52’s in downtown Denver, it was close to seven.  I was well past the time that I’d asked Deuce to meet me, but I knew that the pool tables would keep him from missing me.  It was Friday, but I was lucky enough to find a parking space in a lot kitty-corner from B 52’s, and I walked the half block down, past happy-hour people enjoying the start of the weekend.

Inside B 52’s the sound of ’80’s music, U2 singing about Martin Luther King Jr., blared from hidden speakers.  The hostess at the door recognized me and directed me to the back where Deuce was in the middle of a game of pool with Ace.

“Hey Reed,” Deuce said after he sunk the 9-ball in a corner pocket.  He lined up his next shot but missed.

“I got you a beer.”  Deuce handed me a Fat Tire with condensation dripping down the side.  “Ace is watching the house right now.  He said he wasn’t scared of any ghosts, but that he didn’t want to stay past ten because he’s got to get up early for work.  He said to call him and he’ll give you a report.”

“That’s great,” I said, taking a sip of the beer.

“And he says you owe him a game of pool because he’s missing out.”

I smiled.  “I can do that, too.”

“Bob’s meeting us here.”

“Oh yeah?”  Bob was the older brother to the Goofballs.  I hadn’t even known of his existence until he moved from the East Coast back to Denver a year ago.  He had apparently taken the best of the Smith gene pool in the first round, leaving his two younger brothers to sort through the leftovers.  Bob was an EMT and operated with a full deck – more than could be said of his siblings.  But Bob had felt a first-born’s concern to keep an eye out for his brothers, which prompted his cross-country move.

“We’re trying to teach Bob how to play pool,” Deuce said.  The Goofball Brothers may not have gotten much from the gene pool, but they definitely had ownership of billiards talent.  I’d seen Bob play a time or two, and he was horrendous.

“I win,” Deuce said as he sunk the 8 ball in a side pocket.  “How about a game?”

I picked up a cue, waited for Deuce to rack the balls, and then I broke them with a loud crack.  It felt good, like letting the business of the day shoot across the green tabletop.  As we played, I chewed on the events of the day: Cal’s research on Garrett Owens and Dominic Saunders, my visit to Henri’s shop, Jack learning about the insurance policy, and my conversation with Samantha.  I couldn’t shake a feeling like I’d missed something.

I wasn’t concentrating, so Deuce beat me easily, and I suckered for another game.  Deuce emerged the victor and had just challenged me to yet another game when his pupil arrived.

Bob Smith was a carbon copy of his brothers – or, since he was the oldest, I suppose the brothers were copies of him.  Tall and slim, with soft gray eyes, Bob had an engaging smile and a gentle demeanor.

“Bob,” Deuce said, clapping his brother on the back.  He chattered excitedly, telling Bob about how he had helped me out.

“Trey,” I said, shaking Bob’s hand.  He always smiled when I called him by the nickname I’d given him when I first met him and mistook him for a third and youngest Goofball Brother.

“Spying on a house,” Bob said to Deuce as he returned my handshake.  “Nothing dangerous?” he asked me, although there was a gleam in his eyes.  He knew I would never do anything to harm the brothers, and that involving them in an investigation gave them a sense of importance.

“No,” I said, explaining that I was curious about who was coming and going from a house that was for sale.

“That sounds more fun than pool,” Bob said.  Deuce grimaced, horrified.

“No way,” Deuce said.  To the Goofball Brothers, mocking pool and billiards was like blaspheming to a churchgoer.  Deuce grabbed a cue stick and gave it to Bob.  “You have no idea what you’re missing out on.  This is way better than detective work.”

Bob grinned at me.  “What’s this latest case about?” he asked while listening to Deuce explain the finer points of handling the cue stick.

I explained what I had so far, which wasn’t much.  “So I’ve got an angry ex-client who thinks Ned cheated him, and an angry ex-wife who gets to cash in on a life insurance policy,” I concluded.

“My bet’s on the insurance money,” Bob said.  He rested the cue lightly on one hand, and attempted to aim at the cue ball.  “So why is Ace still watching that house?”  He pushed the cue forward and watched it glance off the ball.  It rolled harmlessly past the remaining balls on the table.  Deuce snickered.

“Try this,” I said, adjusting the way Bob was holding the stick.  “I don’t know that there’s anything going on at the house.  I was curious about all the activity, but it might mean nothing.  The ex-wife could be perfectly innocent, too.  For all I know, Ned’s death was an accident, just like the police deduced.”

Bob hit the cue ball and it inched its way to a solid ball, barely nudging it.  “Let me watch you guys.”  Bob stepped back and let his brothers play.  “So where do you go from here?” he asked me.

I shrugged.  “Research what I can on insurance policies,” I said.  “And check on Samantha’s alibi.”

“It’s like one of your old Bogart movies,” Deuce said.  “Always chasing after the wrong thing.”

“Yeah,” I said glumly.  Just like a movie, but with a critical piece of the plot missing.

I was perched on a bar stool, watching the brothers play when my cell phone buzzed.

“Reed, it’s Henri.”  I had a hard time hearing the Frenchman because of the din of rock music in the background.

“Henri, hold on a minute.”  I ran outside and stood under the porch eave near the front entrance.

“I haven’t been able to look at the poster in great detail,” Henri said, “but I did some research on the availability of that particular print, as well as some pricing for an original, eh?  I have quite a bit of research here, many notes on old posters.  I thought you might like to see it all, so I left a message at the office, but I did not hear from you.  I hate to bother you on your cell phone…”

“I haven’t been back to the office since I left your store.”  I put a finger in my other ear to drown out the noise of people laughing and drinking out on the patio.

“My wife and I are going for a bite to eat, and I will be near your office.  I could drop the notes off, eh?  You could look and see what a find you might have.”

A sense of exhilaration surged through me.  His excited tone meant that Henri thought I might have an original advertising poster.

“That would be great,” I said.  I glanced at my watch – 7:30.  “The front doors of my office building should be open until nine.  Would that give you enough time?  You could slip the notes under the door.”

“Yes, that will do.  I will finish with this other collector’s memorabilia this week, and I will devote my full attention to your poster, eh?”

“Wonderful,” I said.

I hung up, sauntered back into the bar and shared the news with Deuce and Bob.  But even as we toasted my possible good fortune, I wondered why Ned Healy had the poster in the first place.  Add it to the other answers that Ned had taken to his grave.

After chatting with the brothers for another hour, I left for the office to get Henri’s notes.  I was dying to know more about the poster and how much it might be worth.

*****

The headlights of the 4-Runner cut through the darkness as I pulled into the lot on the south side of my building, illuminating numerous parking spaces.  My office was close to the restaurants and bars that littered the surrounding streets, including the 16th Street Mall, a pedestrian mall in central downtown.  Parking spaces in the evenings were usually at a premium.  But this was a private lot, so I pulled into a slot near a BMW and a Lexus, the only other cars parked there.  I got out and locked the door and, after shoving a few bills into the self-pay kiosk, I walked around to the front of the building, passing a lone couple who were headed in the direction of the mall.

I took my after-hours pass key out before I noticed that the green light on the magnetic display pad was on.  That meant the doors were unlocked.  I stepped up to the glass doors.  The right one wasn’t quite shut.

Weird.

The latch was stuck in place.  I couldn’t free the lock mechanism, even after poking at it with my keys, so I left it alone.  I’d alert the building supervisor about the problem tomorrow.

Most of the lights in the building were off, but at intervals a few fluorescent lights down the hallways glowed eerily, barely illuminating the gloomy lobby.  I usually took the stairs to my office, but as I walked in the gray light toward the stairwell door, I had a sudden sensation that I was in some horror movie.  The killer is behind the door, and even though you’re screaming at the actor not to open the door, he does it anyway, only to meet a gory death from a crazed madman wielding an ax.  I hesitated, then turned and strode across the lobby to the elevators.

“Stupid,” I mumbled to myself as I punched the button for the third floor.  I got on the empty car, and the big silver doors slid closed.  With a soft humming sound, the elevator ascended.

I stepped out and walked slowly down the hall to my office, resisting the urge to glance surreptitiously over my shoulder.  Paranoid about nothing, I thought.  Isn’t the human psyche amazing?  All it takes is a little darkness and silence to set off waves of fear.

I chuckled as I unlocked the door and let myself into the outer room, stooping to pick up a couple of pieces of paper that were stapled together.  I checked up and down the hall, but saw no one.  Still, I bolted the door behind me.  Just in case the bogeyman was out there.

I crossed to the inner room and flipped on the desk lamp.  I sat down and perused the notes Henri had slid under the door.

The first page was a color printout of my poster, along with some website addresses that Henri recommended I go to for more information about vintage Hollywood posters.  On the next page, Henri estimated that, if it were an original, The Maltese Falcon poster would be worth more than $12,000, depending on the market.  Since collectibles were the rage right now, Henri thought his price was on the conservative side.  The particular print I had was one of the rarer prints for the movie, with very few good copies available.  Henri ended his notes with a paragraph stating that he would still need to do some sophisticated testing before he could determine if the poster was real and not a forgery.

My curiosity was piqued, so I turned on the computer, peering out the window while I waited for it to boot up.  People walking down below looked like phantoms, featureless figures moving along the sidewalk.  A couple passed under the streetlight, faces glowing.

I typed in one of the addresses that Henri had provided and within seconds, I was hooked.  Two hours passed as I perused websites, reading about the golden age of Hollywood and the world of movie poster collecting.

At midnight I finally pulled myself away, shutting down the computer and inserting Henri’s notes into a folder to take it with me.  I hurried back into the waiting room, hit the light switch and locked the hall door.

As I walked back to the elevator, my jeans made a swishing sound.  Whoosh.  Whoosh.  Whoosh.  In the stillness, it sounded like a chainsaw being revved up.

I hit the elevator button and the doors slid open.  I was about the get on when I stopped.  Was I going to let a little paranoia scare me out of my usual routine of taking the stairs?  You bet.

I got in and rode down to the first floor, laughing at myself for being such a weenie.  Some detective I am.  Maybe if I carried my gun instead of just practicing with it, I would feel better.

The doors eased open and I stepped out.

A faint whistling sound broke the stillness and then my brain exploded.  A million stars created a hazy colored pattern in my vision.  My legs buckled, and I dropped the folder.  I went down with twin thoughts circling in my head.  One: Duck before the next blow comes.  And two: This couldn’t be happening to me again.

My knees hit the floor and I tucked and rolled, sprawling into the lobby.  A piece of 2x4 slammed down with a crack, narrowly missing my head.  Wood chips flew past my cheeks.

I ended up on all fours, but quickly got my feet under me.  My attacker had on dark clothes, gloves, and a black ski mask.  He raised the wood again, holding it over his head like a pick axe.  I launched myself upward, my right shoulder hitting him squarely in the stomach.

“Ugh,” a low voice gasped.  The 2x4 fell to the floor with a clatter.

We collapsed like two bowling pins, kicking and tumbling over each other.  I ended up on top of him, using my torso to pin him under me.  He squirmed, but I was able to land a glancing strike off the side of his face.  At the same time, his fists flayed out, darting around my face and upper body.  A punch connected squarely on my chin.  My teeth clanked together, jolting me all the way in my toes.  The colored stars returned as I fell off of him, landing on my back with my legs twisted beneath me.

The attacker pounced on me and pummeled me with vicious blows.  It was all I could do to ward him off.  In a desperate attempt to stop him, I thrust my hands out.  I grabbed his throat and squeezed for all I was worth.  The pounding stopped and he grabbed my wrists, yanking my hands from his neck.

Agile as a monkey, he bounced to his feet.  I rolled to one side, sucking wind.  A black boot with a steel tip kicked me in the ribs.  A searing pain ripped through me, like I’d been stabbed.  I gasped for breath, couldn’t get any.  Before I could move, he grabbed the 2x4 and whacked me in the back.  If I thought I couldn’t get breath before, it was worse now.

I desperately tried to get oxygen as the man hefted the board again.  My ribs and back screamed in pain and I barely managed to lift an arm to ward off another blow.  My attacker clutched the board like a baseball bat and was about to use me as the ball when he hesitated.  He stared out the front doors, then suddenly whirled around.  He stooped to the floor and grabbed my file.  Just like that, he disappeared around the corner.

I lay helplessly on the floor, my breathing ragged.  After an eternity I pulled myself into a ball, scooting on my butt until I could lean back against the wall.  Each breath caused a firestorm on my right side.  I huddled on the floor, too tired and too hurt to move.  I didn’t know where my attacker was, and at that moment, I didn’t care.  If he came back to finish the job, at least the pain would stop.

After a bit, I acclimated to the sharp jabs in my side, panting in little breaths so my ribs didn’t expand too much.  My head throbbed, and the left side of my scalp felt wet.  I touched my cheek and stared at my hand.  Blood.  It looked like chocolate syrup in the darkness.  I touched my head and found a gash above my left ear.  It was oozing blood through my hair and down the left side of my face.

As I gazed at my hand, at the blood – my blood – anger rose in me like bile.  So did my desire to live.  I didn’t know what had scared my attacker away, but I wouldn’t be here if he came back.  I slowly pushed myself up the wall until I was standing.  I tested my legs.  They supported my weight.  My ribs and head I wasn’t so sure of.

I took a tentative step and felt woozy, but I cautiously made my way to the building entrance, bent over like Quasimodo.  I favored my right side as I shambled outside and down the sidewalk to the parking lot.  I fully expected to run into someone, but thankfully no one saw me.  I rounded the corner and snuck between the cars to the second row.

The 4-Runner sat near the end and even in my foggy state I could see that something was amiss.  As I approached my car, I saw glass sprinkled around the front end.  Someone, gee I wonder who, had bashed both headlights to smithereens.  I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was.

I stared at the place where a light bulb should have been, wheezing, trying to ignore the stinging in my side.  Laughter drifted toward me from the street, interrupting my reverie.  I lifted my eyes to the front windshield.  A crackling pattern covered the passenger side window.

I cursed as I dug my keys out of my pocket.  I traipsed around the side of the 4-Runner, checking for further damage.  The taillights had received the same treatment as the headlights.  Red pieces of plastic floated in a muddy puddle.  I stepped over the puddle and tripped, landing in a heap beside the car next to mine.  A thousand pieces of light shimmered across my vision as a thousand tiny volts of pain hit me from various points in my body.

“Hey mister, are you okay?”

I wasn’t sure the voice was real.  I shakily stood up and fought a wave of nausea as I angrily scanned the ground and saw what had tripped me.  A piece of 2x4 approximately three feet long lay half in the puddle.  I picked it up.  Amongst the dirt and rainwater on the wood, I saw flecks of blood.  I unlocked the car and hurled the two-by-four onto the back seat.  Not that I would find any fingerprints or anything on it.  As evidence, it was useless.  As motivation, it was priceless.

“Oh my gosh, Mark!  He’s hurt.”

I turned from the car and stared at a middle-aged man and who I assumed was his wife.  They stared back at me, their faces a mix of concern and horror.  Mark slowly moved towards me, his wife clinging to his elbow.

“Did someone attack you?” Mark asked.  His voice sounded far off.

I nodded mutely.  I didn’t want to say so, but Mark and his wife didn’t look so good.  They were both out of focus, hazy at the edges.  I grabbed Mark’s arm.  “You look terrible,” I said.  He frowned at me.

“Call an ambulance,” Mark said.

Good idea.  He needed one.

The wife pulled a cell phone from her purse.

“No,” I mumbled, shakier with each movement.  “I’ll be fine.  I just need to sit down.”

Mark’s face twisted into a Picasso painting.  Suddenly I was on the ground, not sure how I got there.  The voices faded and I blacked out.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The bright lights hurt my eyes.  The sight of Willie Rhoden did not.

“What happened to you?” she asked, concern etched on her face.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, not knowing where ‘here’ was.  I turned my head to one side, instantly regretting the movement.  A dull throb pulsed behind my eyes.  An oxygen tube poked up under my nostrils, and something warmed on my brow.  “Where is here?” I asked, scrunching my eyes shut.

“You’re at Denver Health,” Willie said, laying a gloved hand on my forehead.  “An ambulance brought you in a while ago.  Seems like a nice couple saw you pass out and they called for help.”

That explained how I ended up at the hospital.

“What time is it?”  Wasn’t it night?  I gazed at Willie.  “What are you doing here?” I repeated.  She usually worked at Saint Joseph’s Hospital, at the front desk.

“I’m moonlighting here.”  She pursed her lips as she daubed a piece of gauze on my head.  “Reed, what happened to you?  You’ve got a gash the size of Texas over your ear, and your face looks like a bruised banana.”

A fog surrounded my brain.  I shut my eyes, but I couldn’t remember what had happened.

“I went to the office,” I said.  “But I don’t remember why.  I remember seeing stars.  Pretty ones, blue, green, orange.  A man skiing, you know, with a black mask that covered his whole face.  And the parking lot.  I remember the parking lot,” I said triumphantly.

Willie looked at me like I’d lost more than a little blood.  “You probably have a concussion.  That can affect your short-term memory.”

“Someone assaulted me,” I concluded, as any great detective would.  As I talked, I became aware of my side hurting.

She gave me a no-shit-Sherlock look.  “Who?”

I opened my eyes, squinting at Willie.  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

She worked on the side of my head, cleaning out the cut.  I gritted my teeth and focused on something other than my body hurting.  My attacker was male.  Either that or a very masculine female, a la the 1970’s East German athletes.  The last thing I remembered clearly was playing pool with the Goofball Brothers.  That was it.

“They need to take some X-rays,” Willie said, breaking me away from my thoughts.

For the next hour I endured a series of tests that determined that I indeed had a concussion, along with two broken ribs and a bruised back, but no damage to my lungs or kidneys.  I received eight stitches on my scalp, complete with the obligatory shave around the wound area.  The rest of my hair wasn’t long enough to cover the wound, so that part of my anatomy looked akin to the Frankenstein monster’s head.  I had a black smudge under my left eye, a couple of other small bruises on my cheeks, and a tiny cut on my chin that required nothing more than a Band-Aid.  Now I just wanted a lollipop and my own home.

“Here’s your insurance forms,” Willie said.  I leaned on the bed in one of the emergency room cubicles.  As Willie helped me ease back into my shirt, she did a first-class job of avoiding eye contact.  “They need you to sign a release form out front.  I called a taxi for you.”

“Hey, what’s wrong?  I’m the one who’s hurt.”

Willie stared at the floor.  I tilted her chin up and gazed into wet emeralds as tears formed at the corners of her eyes.

“What?”

“This is exactly what I was talking about,” she said, her lower lip quivering.  “What if we started going out and something happens to you?  Something worse than this?”

“I could get hit by a bus, too.  We take risks every time we go out our front doors.  As a matter of fact, our own homes are more dangerous than a lot of places.”

She sniffled.  “You’re not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

She jerked her head away, and grabbed a clipboard off the end of the bed.  “My father was a cop, Reed.  When I was little, I worried what might happen to him.  Every day he left for work, I didn’t know if he would come home.  It’s a terrible way to live, the not knowing.”

Without turning around, she squared her shoulders and scurried out of the room.

*****

Something squawked.  I rolled over and immediately regretted it.  A gray filter of light oozed in between the cracks in the blinds.  Rain pattered lightly on the roof.

Damn birds, I thought.  Don’t they know only Gene Kelly sings in the rain?

The squawk sounded again, only shriller.  This time I diagnosed the noise correctly.

“Hello?” I said, picking up the phone from the nightstand.

“Hello, dear.”  My mother’s high-pitched voice carried over the phone lines like a parrot on cocaine.  “You sound groggy.  Why is it every time I call, you’re asleep?  Does this have something to do with that detective work?  Are you on drugs?  Paul,” she yelled away from the phone, “your son’s on drugs, I just know it.”

My mother’s worst fear, other than the fact that I might not marry and produce offspring, was that I was secretly doing drugs.  It didn’t help that I’d never had a history of drug or alcohol problems, nor that my worst experience with illicit chemicals occurred more than ten years ago in college, when Cal and I bought a package of tortillas smothered in flour and wrapped in foil from a man on the street, thinking we’d purchased a brick of Columbia’s finest.  And how she always managed to call right after I’d had some kind of mishap, I’ll never know.

“I’m not on drugs, Mother.”  Except for some pain medication, and that came from the emergency room doctor.  I had left Saint Jo’s in a taxi with enough pain pills to last until I could get a prescription filled.  Once I got home, I woke up the Goofball Brothers, explaining my predicament – I had a concussion and needed to be monitored.  After some haggling, they decided that Deuce would stay with me through the night, and then Ace would check on me in the morning, and then both would periodically come by to see me, as their schedules permitted.  I dozed on the couch and Ace woke me every two hours throughout the remainder of the night, following the instructions I was given for treating the concussion.  The next morning, Deuce filled my prescription once the pharmacy opened.  Each brother checked on me a couple of times, both in person and over the phone.  The last time, when Deuce came, we decided that I was doing better, and I crawled gratefully into bed and let sleep take me.  Until the phone rang.

“What time is it?” I mumbled to my mother.

“It’s six o’clock.  I called you yesterday at the office, and again last night at home.  Deuce answered and said you were taking a nap.  He’s such a nice boy.  All of the Smith boys are nice, now that you mention it.”  I hadn’t mentioned it, but didn’t bother to say so.  “Deuce said he would leave you a note.  I think it’s terribly rude of you to not call me back, Reed.  I didn’t raise you to act that way…”

“What time is it?” I asked again.  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up, immediately aware of dull pain throughout my body.

“I told you, it’s six o’clock, dear.”

That meant it was four o’clock in Colorado.  “What day?”

“What?”  She huffed into the phone.  “Why, it’s Sunday.  Reed, what is going on?”

I stared at my toes.  I’d been asleep, or out of it, for more than a day.  And I still felt groggy.

“Reed?” my mother chirped.  “Paul, find out what’s wrong.”

“Wait, Mom…” I said into the receiver, but was too late.  My father’s gruff voice came on.

“Son, look what you’ve done.  Your mother’s in a panic now, and you know I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I’m fine, Dad,” I said, and proceeded to explain that I’d encountered some minor trouble with the case I was working on.  I left out my meeting with a man in a ski mask and the trip to the hospital.

“Don’t know why you can’t get a decent job,” he said.  I pictured him in his khaki shorts and polo shirt, sitting on the deck of their ritzy south Florida condo, overlooking the ocean, with his neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair gelled into place, and his gold jewelry and Rolex watch glinting in the late afternoon sun.  The model of respectability and wealth.  And here I was, tarnishing the family name and money in my quest for independence.

I sighed heavily and gingerly put a hand to my side.  Little breaths, I told myself.

“I like what I’m doing,” I said.  “It beats going to work in a suit and tie every day.”

“I know, son.  As long as you’re happy,” he said halfheartedly.  I’d been doing the detective gig for over a year, and I knew my father secretly hoped that it was a passing fancy, like many of the other jobs I’d had since college.  But since my grandparents left me some money, I could be choosy about what I did and how much money I needed to make.

We did the small-talk routine for a couple of minutes.  “Tell Mom I’m okay, and I’ll call her in a few days,” I said when I could tell that he’d covered all his bases.

I hung up the phone and cautiously stood up.  Once the stars subsided, I plodded to the bathroom where I surveyed myself in the mirror.  My left eye was purple with a tinge of yellow around the edges, and the other bruises on my face looked like smudges of charcoal.  My hair stuck out in all directions, and the stitches looked like a black ladder running along my head.  The band-aid on my chin appeared the least threatening.

I shuffled into the kitchen and made a PB&J, poured a cold glass of milk and took them to the living room.  I ate slowly while I checked my phone messages.  Three were from the Goofball Brothers, checking in and wondering how I could sleep so soundly.  One from Cal, asking me to call him, no reason.  One from Bob, inquiring if I was okay, and that he was available if I needed anything.  A message from Jack was next, asking about progress in the case.  Then Willie, wondering how I was doing, and that she was sorry she’d gotten upset with me the other night, but that she hoped I would understand her feelings.  And finally Henri Benoit, asking me if I’d gotten the notes he had left at the office.

What notes?  I had to think back until I remembered that I had talked to Henri the other night.  I was at B 52’s and he said he would leave notes about The Maltese Falcon poster under the door.  I looked around the room but didn’t see anything.  I wondered if I had left them at the office.

I put the phone down and finished my sandwich.  I’d lost a day on an investigation that was going nowhere, I’d scared Willie off, and I’d gotten my ass kicked.  I finished off the glass of milk and leaned back, dozing.

Who was I threatening?  That question popped into my brain as I awoke with a start.  The empty milk glass lay on the carpet, where I had dropped it.

I set the glass on the coffee table and picked up a pen and paper to jot down some of my thoughts when I spied the note.

“Dude,” it read.  “We watched the house like you asked.  Deuce saw a man go in with a black bag yesterday around lunchtime.  I didn’t see anyone last night, but maybe there was a light on in the back window.  I got scared and left.  Sorry.  Bob says to call us when you get up.”  Deuce’s scrawled signature was at the bottom of the page.  Underneath that: “P. S. – We got your car yesterday and took it to the shop.  It should be ready in a day or two.”  For a Goofball Brother, this was practically a novel.

I sat back and shut my eyes.  On top of everything else, the 4-Runner had been vandalized.  I’d forgotten that piece, but I must’ve told the Brothers about it.  They were doing a good job of watching over me.  I owed them plenty.

I read through the note again.  There was a lot of activity at the house on Madison Avenue.  I wondered if the owners were doing some remodeling before it sold.  But didn’t Edna Mills tell me that she just wanted to be rid of the place?  Maybe she had to repair a few things in order for that to happen.

My files for the house on 210 Madison were at the office, but I got lucky and found Edna’s number online.  The clock on the wall said it was 5:30.  I hoped that Edna was enjoying a Sunday evening at home.

She picked up on the third ring.

“Oh, the man interested in the architecture of the house,” she said after I identified myself.

We exchanged a few pleasantries, and then I asked her about repairs to the house.

“We’re taking care of some stuff,” she answered.  “Even though our price was so low, there were a few things this couple asked to be changed, and they weren’t all the big items like that young man wanted.  My husband said we should turn them down and wait for the next buyer and we wouldn’t have to hassle with contractors and whatnot, but the buyers are such a nice couple, you see.  I couldn’t bring myself to do that to them.  And I didn’t want to go through finding another buyer, after all.  We do want to finish all this and move on.”

I thanked her for her time and hung up.  That explained the activity at the house.  And it meant I was barking up the wrong tree.  But I was closing in on someone, or I wouldn’t have been assaulted.

I grabbed the phone again and hit autodial.  Ace picked up on the third ring.

“Reed, how’s it going?”

“Better,” I said, even though I didn’t really believe it.

“Did you get our note?  Bob said not to worry about your car.  He’ll make sure it gets fixed, and let you know when it’s ready.”

“Thanks.  I appreciate his help.  And you guys, too.”

“No problem.  Hey, you want to have dinner with us?”

“I just ate, but thanks.”

“You still want someone watching that house?”

“No.  You guys did a great job, but I don’t need you there anymore.”

“Okay.”  Ace sounded relieved.  “That place is spooky.”

“It’s probably just someone doing repairs.  Thanks for your help.”

“Deuce wants to know when he can carry a gun.”

“Tell him when he gets his detective license, we’ll talk.”  You didn’t need a license to be a detective in Colorado, but I knew Deuce would never discover this.  He’d worry that he would have to take a test to get a license, and that would be enough to deter him.

Ace hollered my answer to Deuce as I hung up.

Next, I called Willie but she wasn’t home or wasn’t answering the phone.  I left a message, thanking her for her kind treatment at the hospital – leaving out any snide remarks about walking out on me – and I let her know that I was home and recuperating okay.  I said if she wanted, she could come over for a while.

I got up and looked around the house but didn’t find any notes from Henri.  His notes were either at the office, or I must have dropped them during the attack.  I couldn’t remember anything right before or after I was assaulted.  The emergency room doctor had informed me that this was a common occurrence after sustaining a concussion, but it didn’t help the frustration I felt of not knowing what happened.

I didn’t have any energy left so I eased back onto the couch and watched part of The Killers, an apt choice given my investigation.  The 1946 movie was based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway.  It had plenty of deception, dark characters, and a femme fatale, but even with all that I fell asleep halfway through.  At midnight I awoke just long enough to realize that Willie never called.  In a semi-stupor, I turned off the television and sprawled into bed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Try the burritos,” I said.  “They’re to die for.”

Cal took my suggestion and ordered one, along with a Sprite.

It was noon on Monday, and Cal and I were having lunch at Josephina’s, a hip hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant a few blocks from my condo.

The waitress, an attractive brunette with piercing brown eyes, threw me a funny look when she saw my black eye.  In the three days since the attack, the flesh around my left eye had morphed into a lovely shade of deep purple, and the other bruises that showed resembled an old banana.  She barely made eye contact as she took my order, but smiled seductively at Cal as she jotted down his order.  She followed the smile with a wink before sauntering away.

“She’s flirting with you,” I said.

“Huh?”  Cal swiveled in his seat, eyeing the waitress as she disappeared into the kitchen.  “You think so?”  He turned back around and shrugged at me.

I rolled my eyes at him.  Clueless.  “I want everything you can get on Samantha Healy,” I said, changing the subject.  “I called Jack Healy earlier to give him a status report, and I found out her maiden name is Simpson.”

Cal, the man who rarely leaves his house, had made an exception for his wounded friend.  Since my 4-Runner wouldn’t be fixed until late in the day, and because I was still feeling stiff and sore, Cal had offered to take me to lunch, then over to Henri’s shop to get a new set of notes about The Maltese Falcon poster.

Earlier that morning, I returned several phone calls.  Jack had been surprised and concerned that I’d been assaulted.  The maintenance crew of my office building hadn’t known about the door lock mechanism being jammed until yesterday.  They had fixed it, explaining that a nail had been shoved into the slot, disabling the lock and the door.  No one had turned in any paperwork from Henri Benoit.  Then I had called Henri.  After explaining what had happened and enduring a torrent of sympathies in French, we’d arranged to meet at his office after lunch.

“Samantha’s the ex-wife?” Cal asked.

“Right.  And the logical person to kill Ned.”

The waitress returned with our drinks.  She took extra care to eye Cal again.  He remained unbelievably clueless.  I took a big gulp of soda.

“Why didn’t the police suspect Samantha?” Cal asked.

“There was no reason to,” I said.  “I called the insurance company earlier today, and they said that the policy should have been taken care of, but because Ned moved, they had some clerical errors, and it wasn’t until recently that they even knew he had died.  At that point they had to fulfill the policy.”

“Who informed the insurance company that he died?”

“An anonymous phone call.  From a woman.”

Cal cocked one eyebrow.  “An anonymous woman?  That’s what the insurance people said?”

“Scout’s honor.”  I held up three fingers in the Boy Scout salute.  “If Samantha knew about the policy, she could’ve called and got the ball rolling.”

“But why wait to kill him?  It could’ve given Ned time to change the name on the policy, or cancel it.”

“I don’t know.  Maybe she just found out that her name was still on the policy, so that’s when she acted.”

“Here you go, sport,” the waitress said as she set Cal’s plate down.  Being called ‘sport’ would’ve turned me off, but it didn’t do a thing for Cal.  A hint of disappointment crossed her face as she laid my plate down.  I smiled as she flounced off.

I devoured my burrito.  It was the best meal I’d had in days, given that I’d been laid up since Friday.  Now if my ribs would quit hurting and I could get rid of the headache, I’d be fine.

“How would Samantha find out that her name was still on the policy?” Cal asked.

“I don’t know,” I said as I loaded up a tortilla chip with salsa.  “Maybe Ned said something.  Samantha said she talked to Ned before he died, and that he told her things would be different.  Maybe he mentioned the policy then.  Or she could’ve checked on her own by calling the insurance company.”

“Why would Ned tell her that?  If he did.”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you for help.”  Cal shrugged off my jab at him.  “There’s something about Samantha that I can’t place,” I said, sliding back on the vinyl seat.  “Something doesn’t fit.”

Cal finished his lunch and pushed his plate away.  “And I won’t ask what, because then you wouldn’t need me.”

“Very funny,” I smirked.

“Who mugged you the other night?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t remember much right before or after I got hit.  But Samantha could’ve set me up.  She could’ve been following me, and planned the whole thing.”

“What about her alibi for the night Ned was killed?”

“I haven’t had a chance to check anything out, but I’ll see what I can find out after we see Henri.”

“Speaking of Henri…”  Cal looked at his watch.  “We should get going.”

I dropped some bills on the table as we left.  Our waitress was nowhere in sight, saving Cal from one last flirtatious run-in with her.  Not that he was aware of any of it.

*****

The drizzly rain of yesterday had swept further east, and the sun was beating down on the city again.  As we drove down Broadway I was thankful for the bright rays, as it gave me an excuse to wear dark sunglasses without looking funny.  I would be exceedingly glad when my black eye went away, along with the stares.  Cal parked on a side street and we walked down a block to Classic Hollywood Memorabilia.

As we stepped inside, a bell over the door chimed.  Henri Benoit limped over to greet us.

“Ah, Reed, let me get a look at you,” he said, pursing his lips and nodding his head in sympathy.  “This is just terrible, eh?  Why would someone do this to you?”

I was tempted to show Henri my side, where I’d been kicked in the ribs.  The bruise there was the size of a football with similar coloration.  I had another nice bruise along my back, too, but I didn’t think Henri would want to see that one either.

“And look at your head.”  Henri situated his bifocals on the tip of his nose and peered up at my scalp, where the hair around the black stitches had grown to the length of peach fuzz.  I wanted to wear a hat, but when I attempted to put one on, the brim of the cap rested right over the stitches, irritating them, so I chose to go bareheaded and endure the stares.  I planned on a trip to the barber soon, to even out the hair above both ears, but in the meantime I could only hope the wound made me look tough, because I wasn’t getting any other payoff from my injuries.

“He’s a charmer,” Cal said with a lopsided grin.

I introduced Cal to Henri as we followed Henri to the back of the shop.

“I have the notes I gave you saved on the computer,” Henri said, limping around the counter.  He perched on the edge of a stool and manipulated the mouse, and in seconds, a printer next to the monitor spat out some paper.

“Here you go,” Henri handed them to me.

“What’s the big deal with this stuff?” Cal asked.  His eyes roved around the store, scanning all the items for sale.

“You are not a collector, eh?”

Cal shook his head.

“Ah, that is too bad.”  Henri moved around the counter to a display case containing small props from a variety of movies.  “There is much history in all this stuff.”  He pointed to a tiny set of white gloves on a shelf.  “You see these?  Vivian Leigh wore those gloves during the shooting of Gone with the Wind.  And this pair of boots,” he tapped on the glass.  “They belonged to John Wayne.”

Cal leaned down and studied the memorabilia.  “Okay.”

“Okay.”  Henri threw up his hands at me.  “What is this, ‘okay’?”  Henri turned to me.  “Your friend does not have a passion for art, eh?  No sense of history?”

Cal reddened.  “I know history, just not about Hollywood.”

Henri patted Cal on the arm.  “It is okay, as you say.  We all place our passions in different areas, eh?”

Cal eyed the price tag on an autographed picture of Frank Sinatra.  “So people really pay big money for this stuff?”

Henri waggled his head enthusiastically.  “Of course.  Many collectors spend millions on their collections.”

“Millions?” Cal asked.  “What could sell for that much?”

“Not all things are that expensive, but take Reed’s poster for instance.  If it is real, it could be worth twelve to fifteen thousand dollars.”

“For a piece of paper?”

Henri shook his head in despair – his pupil was not getting it.  I stood back and watched the show.

“It is part of history, part of our culture, yes?  So many films have influenced our lives, and the actors did, too.  Films gave people a way of escape during the Great Depression.  Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, they made people laugh; John Wayne defined the macho male.  Mae West, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis charmed men, and helped establish fashion trends, just like the actors of today do.  Many of those actors helped the war effort during the ’40’s.  Look at Mickey Mouse and the whole Disney phenomena, how that mouse became a part of our culture.  The list is endless.  These posters are a part of our past, just like the costumes, the props, and all the other stuff, as you call it.”

Cal’s face was blank.  If it wasn’t about computers, he probably wasn’t interested.  I, on the other hand, I could appreciate.  I was practically drooling with every word Henri said.

“But even if you pay ten thousand for something,” Cal said, “you’d have to buy an awful lot of posters to hit the million mark.”

“Ah, but it isn’t just posters.  It's autographs, props, clothing worn by the actors.  And the rarer something is, the more valuable it becomes.  In the early days of film, many studios produced their own posters, as well as window and lobby cards, for their movies, then distributed these with the films.  The same posters and cards would be reused from theater to theater, leaving the posters worn.  Because of that, many films do not have associated posters or cards anymore.”

“Wait a minute,” Cal said.  “I remember seeing something on TV about a house in the Midwest.  The owners were renovating and they tore down some walls, and a bunch of posters had been used in the walls as insulation.”

“I remember hearing about that,” I said.

“Ah, yes,” Henri smiled.  “I believe they found a lobby card from a Bette Davis movie, the only one in existence.  How do you put a price on that?”

Cal shrugged, but he was interested.

“That’s a fun story, yes?  But it shows you how a rare item can become worth so much.  There have been more than a few cases of people finding posters in their walls, or in old frames.  The Bette Davis lobby card was produced in the thirties, when the studios still produced the cards.  After 1940, the National Screen Service was formed, taking on the responsibility of numbering posters, and creating more quantities for theaters.  Which is why a pre-1940 poster is usually a much rarer find.”

“Too bad my poster wasn’t made before then,” I said.

“If it is an original,” Henri said.

Cal’s eyes widened.  “If it looks old, why wouldn’t it be an original?”

“Ah, there are many forgers who are crafty about making a poster appear old, much like an original.”

“And they do that because collecting is big business,” Cal said to Henri, who beamed.  His student was catching on.

“Don’t Academy Awards sell for a lot?” I asked.

“Ah, the Oscar,” Henri said with a thoughtful nod.  “This is true.  Technically the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has the right to buy an Oscar back, but they are auctioned off anyway.  Steven Spielberg has bought two Oscars at auction.  He paid over $500,000 for Clark Gable’s Oscar for It Happened One Night, and more than that for Bette Davis’ Oscar from Jezebel, and then he returned them both to the Academy.  But many private collectors own Oscars.  Did you know Michael Jackson bought producer David O. Selznick’s Best Picture Oscar for Gone with the Wind?”  Cal shook his head, but I nodded assent.  This was all right up my alley.  “An Oscar is a prized piece for a collector,” Henri finished.

“But expensive,” I said.

“And now you know why millions can be spent on a collection,” Henri said to Cal.  “There was one collector I met when I had a shop in New York, Frank Gray, who had a beautiful collection of memorabilia.  He spent years amassing all kinds of items.  He owned at least a couple of Oscar statuettes.  Now, he had bought his items years ago, when the prices weren’t as high, and people were not collecting like they are now.  And Frank was rumored to have a very exceptional piece.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You’ve heard of Barry Fitzgerald?  The actor?”

“Sure.”  I nodded.  “He won a Best Supporting Oscar for Going My Way in 1944.”

“Right, but do you know why that Oscar was unique?”

“Barry beheaded it while playing golf in his house.”

“Correct.”

“How could you damage an Oscar like that?” Cal asked.  “Aren’t they made of metal?”

Henri launched into a description of wartime Oscars.  “Because of the need for precious metals during World War II, the statuettes during that time were made of plaster.”

“And after the war, Oscar winners turned the plaster ones in and got the traditional bronze with gold-plate replacements,” I said.

Henri’s smile got even brighter at my knowledge of Oscar trivia.

“But since Barry had damaged his plaster one, the Academy issued a replacement for it,” I continued.  “Then after the war, he turned in the plaster statuette and got a gold one.”

“And what happened to the beheaded statuette?” Henri asked.

“I assume it was destroyed,” I said.

He smiled.  “And that’s where the rumors start, eh?”

I waited for him to continue.  Cal was hooked.  He was staring intently at Henri.

“For many years, people heard that Barry Fitzgerald’s original Oscar, the beheaded one, was not destroyed, but kept by a member of the Academy.  Over time it was lost but Frank was rumored to have found it in an antique store in Hollywood.”

“Something that rare and unique must be worth a fortune,” Cal said.

Henri nodded.  “If the rumor were true, then yes.”

“It’s not true?” Cal and I both asked at once.

Henri smiled.  “The award may not have been destroyed, that I cannot say.  But I can say for certain that Frank owned only a replica of the beheaded Oscar, not the original headless statuette.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me himself how his wife had hired an artist to make a headless statuette for him as a joke.  However, the artist made one small mistake in replicating the statue.”

“What mistake?”

Henri smiled.  “Oscar statues stand on a movie reel.  But the artist intentionally changed the design of the reel.”  Henri looked at me and winked.  “You would know the difference.  But it still gave Frank a lot of pleasure to have the replica in his collection.”

The chimes above the door rang.  We looked up as a heavyset woman entered the store.

“Ah, it is fun to digress, but now it is time to work.”  Henri stripped off his glasses and bowed his head slightly.  “Reed, I will analyze your poster soon, and we shall see if it is indeed more than “stuff”.”

Cal smiled at the joke.  “I’m sure Reed hopes it’s an original.”

“Absolutely,” I said, grinning.  “I’ll take a look at these.”  I held up Henri’s notes.

“Good,” Henri said, leaving us to help his customer.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“How ya feeling?” Cal asked me.

It was later in the evening, and Cal was sitting at a small mahogany desk in my home office, my favorite place in the condo.  I am an incurable collector, and I love to work in the office surrounded by all the collections I have painstakingly acquired.  Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on one wall hold some of my favorite books, mostly murder mysteries, some great pictures from a memorable trip to Europe, and a collection of rare first-edition detective novels.  A storage case is filled with my favorite detective movies, along with a collection of Alfred Hitchcock classics.  But the thing I like best about the room is the glass display case in the corner of the room that has a first edition of A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Alfred Conan Doyle.

I was stretched out on a brown leather loveseat, which was a new addition to the room.

“I’m fine,” I said as I stared up at the ceiling.  “Just tired.”

As the sun set, a weak purple light filtered through the window, and the room became a series of dim shadows.  My eyelids began to sag as I struggled to stay awake.

“This shouldn’t take too long,” Cal said.

I squinted at him.  Brilliant white light from the computer monitor made his 5 o’clock shadow seem eerie, as if his jaw was covered in silt, but he was more at ease in front of the computer than he’d been all day helping me run errands.

We had stopped at a barber and I endured the stares while a young woman barely out of her teens evened out my hair around the stitches.  She cropped my hair on the sides and left a dollop of curly hair on top.  I looked like a Marine. I couldn’t wait for next week, when I would get the stitches out – at least people would stop looking at my head.  Cal had ribbed me relentlessly about my haircut as we stopped by my office to check messages and get the mail.  Finally, at close to six, I was able to pick up the 4-Runner.  The manager of the shop was close friends with Bob Smith, so the shop fixed the car in record time.

Throughout the day, Cal had been doing such a good job of mingling amongst the human race that I didn’t hear a complaint from him until we arrived back at my condo.  A tenacious elderly lady whose car was blocking my street finally sent him over the edge.  He honked the horn loudly at her, then glared in her direction as she finally maneuvered her car on down the street.

Safely back in my condo, we had ordered a pizza, and after devouring it, we’d begun the research on Samantha Healy.  To be accurate, Cal was researching.  I hadn’t lifted a finger, and I didn’t intend to.  I wanted to sleep.  But Cal couldn’t keep away from the computer, settling comfortably back into his virtual world.

I closed my eyes, checking my eyelids for holes.  None so far.

“Ah-ha!”

“What?”  I turned on my side and faced the desk, tucking my arms under my head.

“I found Samantha’s acting class.”

“Duh.  I gave you the name of the school and the class.  It couldn’t have been that hard.”

Cal threw a pencil at me.  “Denver Alternative College.  A good place to know when you’re on the go.”

“What’s that, their slogan?”

“You got it.  Man, this is like the community college’s community college.  Where the nobodies go.”  Cal’s bad one-liners continued as the mouse clicked.

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“I’m just kidding.  Let’s see,” he mumbled to himself.  “Acting classes, here we go.”  Click.

“So are these acting classes for the off-off-off-off Broadway actors?”

Cal chuckled.  “The class Samantha was enrolled in finished at the end of June, but there’s another class going on now with the same instructor.  She might be able to verify Samantha’s alibi.”

“Uh-huh.”  I didn’t have the energy to move.

“And lucky you, the class meets tomorrow night.”

I shut my eyes.

“Let me write this down for you.”  Papers shuffling.  “What’s this?”

I cracked one eye open.  Cal was peering at a notepad on the table.  “Doing some research on the Internet?  Taking my job away?”

I tilted my head up.  “That was Ned Healy’s.  I used it when I went to his house.  Those must be his notes.”

“The great detective misses nothing,” Cal said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“Yeah, how his client was able to use the Internet.”  I yawned and closed my eyes.  Cal’s laughter sounded like it was filtered through a tunnel, and I was vaguely aware of him leaving the room before I fell asleep.

*****

The next morning, I noticed that the soreness was ebbing slightly.  That, combined with having my car back from the mechanic’s rather than relying on Cal, had me in a jubilant mood.  Cal was my best friend, but a little of him went a long way.

The smell of cheap Mexican food and wet wood assaulted me as I walked into Denver Alternative College, a two-story cinder-block building on East Colfax Avenue, a mile down the road from the gold-domed State Capitol.  Yellow brick walls down the main entryway made me feel like I was walking through a tunnel painted honey gold.  A few students roamed the halls.  Most were dressed in business casual, presumably because they’d just come from their day jobs and were now ready to improve themselves through night classes.

I glanced at the notepad with the course information that Cal had written down last night.  “The Art of Acting” was being held in room 103-A at seven o’clock.  I was a half-hour early, and I hoped to find the instructor before the students arrived.

I made my way past a bulletin board covered in a kaleidoscope of papers and post-it notes advertising everything from job openings to party announcements.  At the end of the hall, I descended six stairs down to a lower level, and, at the end of a short corridor, found 103-A.

I peeked through a thin rectangle window into an auditorium classroom with a large stage and ten rows of wooden chairs perched on an easy slope toward the back of the room.  The auditorium was empty.

I eased the door open and slipped in, letting my eyes adjust to soft lighting coming from somewhere offstage.  The rest of the room remained in deep shadows.

I was about to walk down an aisle on the left when the door opened behind me.  I heard a loud click and bright lights immediately illuminated the room.  I turned to see a shriveled woman in baggy turquoise pants, a flowing cream-colored silk shirt, stiletto heels a hideous shade of aqua, and an embarrassing amount of makeup.

“May I help you?” she asked, her voice like an electric razor.

“I’m looking for Xania Diviny,” I said, pronouncing the name “Zania”.  I stared at her eyelashes, which seemed as long as my pinky fingers.

“Ex-ZAY-nee-ah.”  She corrected.  She held up a wrinkled and age-spotted hand, palm down, as if she wanted me to bow and kiss it.  “Di-VIN-i-tee.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Divinity.  Xania Divinity.”  That’s what I get for relying on Cal’s scribbled notes.  “What can I do for you?”

I took her hand and shook it, giving her my best smile.  She ran her eyes over me, then let her hand drop disappointedly to her side.

“You don’t look like an actor.  You have poor posture, your eyes are too hard, your haircut is hideous, and your smile is nothing short of goofy.”  So much for my charm.  “I couldn’t possibly work with so little.”

“That’s good,” I said, “since I’m not interested in acting classes.”

“Oh?”  She took a step back, hand now on her chest, still surveying me.  “I’m glad you see the futility of this.”

I stepped back too, leaning on the back of the wooden theater seats.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about a student of yours.”

“And who might that be?”

“Samantha Healy.”

“What do you want to know about her?”

I pulled out a business card from my wallet and handed it to her.  Xania jerked as if I’d struck her.  She now put her hand to her throat in what I could only guess was intended as a melodramatic pose, but the numerous silver and turquoise bracelets dangling from her wrist robbed the gesture of any real meaning.

“You’re a detective, Mr. – ”  She glanced at the card.  “Mr.…Reed.”  I guess Ferguson was too hard to read, or pronounce.  “Is Samantha in some kind of trouble?”

“Samantha said she was in your class, Actors and Acting, last semester,” I said, ignoring the question.

“Yes, that’s true.  She has been a student of mine for a few years.”

“I noticed that the school catalog shows the class is three hours long.”

Xania pursed her lips, then sucked a breath in through a slit and let it slowly out.  “When you have so little to work with, you need a lot of time.”

“Samantha isn’t a good actress?”

“Most of my students have a lot of learning to do.  That’s why they’re here.  Samantha makes progress, but it will be some time before she will be cast in the student audition play.”

“The what?”

“The student audition play.”  Xania frowned at me, and her rouge cracked into tiny red wrinkle lines.  “At the end of each semester, our more experienced students audition for roles in a play that we perform in front of the rest of the theater students.  It gives the best of our actors a chance to refine their skills, and we invite local theater directors to the plays.  This way the actors get exposure and the directors get a chance to informally audition new talent.”

I feigned interest.  “That sounds terrific.”

“We have had great success with this.  In all my years of instructing, I have had many pupils go on to great careers.  You’ve heard of John Sayers?”  I shook my head.  “Anna Fredricks?”  I shook my head again.  “Darren Joyden?”  I didn’t bother this time.  I figured the blank look on my face would be enough.

Xania clucked at my ignorance.  “These actors were nothing, but I molded them so they were able to go on to grand things.”  Like what – billboards, underwear ads in the local papers, commercials on late-night cable?

“But Samantha isn’t one of those,” I said.

“If she keeps working with me, her acting will improve.”

“Samantha said she was here on June 6th.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked, surprised that anyone could remember a seemingly random date pulled out of the air.

“We performed the student audition play for last semester that night.”  Xania put a gnarled hand on my elbow and guided me to a series of posters scotch-taped to the back wall.  She pointed to a red poster with black letters, advertising the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“Shakespeare,” I said.

“We must all bow to the Bard if we want to ascend to greatness,” Xania spoke with reverence.

Under the title was a list of actors, and then the line “One night only!”  The date for the performance was June 6th, at 7:00 in the evening.

“But Samantha’s name isn’t here,” I said.  “Was she in some minor role?”

“She was not in the play, Reed,” she said, her friendliness making me uncomfortable.  “She is not at the level of these actors.”

“Then…”

“Because,” Xania interrupted me.  “All enrolled students are required to attend the plays.  It is an important part of an actor’s development to study the performance of others.”  She pulled away from me and stood in a practiced pose.  “This is why I teach.  So others can learn from me, so they can benefit from my experience in theater and film.”

In what, B-grade horror movies from the ’50’s?

“You remember seeing Samantha that night?”

“Of course.”  She gestured around the room.  “The lights are on before the play starts.  You can see everything, and I make it a point to note if a student misses my class.  A lack of dedication is the ruin of any actor.”

Before Xania could share more of her vast knowledge of herself, the rear door of the auditorium opened and a couple of students walked in, laughing and talking.  When they saw Xania, they immediately straightened their postures and began whispering.  They moved quietly to the front row and sat down, staring at the empty stage.

“Was the theater full for the performance?”

“Yes.  We had a very talented group in the play, and the auditorium was full.  We even had to bring in some extra chairs,” she said proudly.

The door opened and more students shuffled in.

“As you can see, my class is about to begin.”  Xania surveyed me again.  “Perhaps I have misjudged you.  You have strong bones.  Would you like to stay for a while and watch?  We’re rehearsing for our next play, Romeo and Juliet.  You might find that you would want to work with me.”

I accepted, but not because of Xania’s flirting.  I was dying to see how the class performed Shakespeare’s classic.

At seven o’clock sharp, Xania began her class.  I counted a total of twelve students, mostly young, and all in awe of Xania Divinity.  Maybe she was a better actress and teacher than she was a dresser.

I slipped into a seat in the back row and watched Xania instruct the students in some techniques.  She was actually quite good, her self-aggrandizing manner disappearing as she demonstrated various acting techniques.

After ten minutes, some of the actors assumed positions center stage, and the others sat in the front row seats.  Xania settled into an end seat and stared up at the stage.  Someone turned off the lights, plunging all but center stage into obscurity.  Sitting nine rows back, I could barely make out the students in the front row.

I watched the first few lines of Act II, Scene 2, Romeo’s speech to Juliet, in which he compares her to the sun.  The acting wasn’t bad, but when Juliet got to “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo”, I grimaced.  Juliet needed some work.  If Samantha was worse than this, it was no wonder that she hadn’t yet made it into a Spielberg movie.  I stood up to go, eyeing Xania.  She was intently watching the actors on stage, mouthing the lines as they spoke them.  At least she knew her Shakespeare.

I tiptoed to the rear door and paused, turning back toward the stage.  No one had noticed that I’d gotten up to leave, especially Xania.  Her attention was riveted to the stage and the actors.  The play had her full attention.

I eased out the door, watching to see if anyone noticed my leaving.  All eyes were on Romeo and Juliet.  No one turned when a sliver of light from the hallway penetrated the darkness.

As I walked up the stairs to the main hallway, I realized a few things.  I’d never heard of Xania Divinity, but since I wasn’t into B-grade horror movies, that probably explained this.  I hoped I would never have to sit through a play that Xania directed.  And, Samantha Healy could have easily shown up for her class, then slipped out once the play began, and no one would’ve known.  Least of all Xania Divinity.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Wednesday dawned warm and I decided to get out of the city.  I enjoyed a beautiful drive as I headed southwest into the foothills to Cal’s house to find out what he’d learned about Samantha Healy.

Cal’s home office couldn't be more dissimilar from mine.  Where I have books, videos, pictures, and other valuable items, and one computer, Cal has nothing in his office but computers – four to be exact – and other computer-related stuff.  To be fair, there is a ratty loveseat to sit on at your own risk, and a chair that Cal wheels from monitor to monitor across the hardwood floors.  But it isn’t hard to grasp what is important to the man, and it isn’t anything aesthetic.

Stacks of books, manuals, and boxes of computer parts cover most of the available floor area, and a plethora of dirty dishes growing science projects were strewn about the long tables where the computers were set up.  This was where Cal lived, where he was truly at home.  He even watched DVD’s on a 30-inch computer monitor.  If he could’ve fit his twin bed in the office, I’m sure he would sleep here, too.

“You checked out Denver Alternative College last night?” Cal asked once we were settled in his office.

“Uh-huh.”  I sprawled out on the loveseat, ignoring the stale air and dust I created when I upset the cushions.  I shaded my eyes against the bright sunlight coming into the room from a small window over the couch.

By the time I finished relating my encounter with Xania Divinity, Cal was on the floor.

“Stop,” he gasped, his whole body shaking with laughter.  “Man, that’s priceless.”

“As is Xania.  Talk about a legend in her own mind,” I chuckled.  “I did look up her name online, though.  She has some acting credits, mostly some minor television roles in the late ’60’s and ’70’s, and some off-Broadway plays, so I guess she knows something about the theater.”

“Hoo boy.”  Cal wiped tears from his eyes, crawled back into his chair, and became serious.  “You doubt Samantha’s alibi?”

I nodded.  “I don’t think Xania has the first clue if Samantha stayed the whole time or not.  I’ll have to interview each student in all the acting classes to find out if Samantha left early or not, and who knows if any of them would remember.”

“What’d you find out about Ned’s insurance policy?” Cal asked.

I turned on my left side, which eased some of the discomfort from my broken ribs.  I was breathing normally but still experienced a bit of pain when I moved in just the right way.

“I called Jack and got the information about the company, and gave them a call.” I said.  “The agent I talked to wouldn’t reveal who it was that called him.  He kept saying it was an anonymous person, but he slipped more than once and said ‘her’ or ‘she’.”

“Samantha.”

“That’s what I think,” I said.  “Ned’s policy has been sitting there since his death, but it’s at the instigation of the deceased’s relatives or the beneficiary to get the ball rolling.  In the case of Ned Healy, this anonymous phone call did that.  The agent has to receive a death certificate, and then the insurance company will make the claim.  A little bit of paperwork, and they release the money to Samantha.  I called the county coroner, and it’s not that hard to get a death certificate either.”

“Huh.”  Cal twisted up his face, thinking.  “Any reasons why the insurance company wouldn’t release the money?”

“The usual – suicide.  But Ned’s death was officially ruled as an accident.  It’s nice and tidy for Samantha.”

“So we have motive.”

“Right.  Money – one million big ones.  And we have the means.  Samantha could’ve left her class and gotten Ned to go with her up into the mountains for a bike ride, and then she pushes him off the trail.”

“How would she get home?”

“She either rides back, or she has an accomplice pick her up somewhere, maybe at the trail head, and they drive back to Denver.”

“But Ned hated the mountains, right?”

“He hated heights.  Jack said that he didn’t like cycling, or the mountains.  But we only have Jack’s word that Ned was afraid of heights.  Maybe Ned went to therapy and worked on that.  And who better to talk Ned into going up on that trail than his ex-wife?”

Cal mulled that over.  “It’s possible.  I don’t like going riding, but you got me to do it.”

“Exactly.”  I stared at the tiny dots in the popcorn ceiling.  “I wish I could get into Samantha’s house, find out if she has any barbiturates, or if she could easily get her hands on some pills that she could’ve slipped in Ned’s drink or something.”

“Sounds like you’ve been watching too much late-night television.”

“Sometimes the means and motive are so obvious you gloss right over them.”

“I might be able to shed some light on Samantha’s ability to get the drugs,” Cal said, grabbing some papers from the table.

“Oh yeah?”

“Samantha Healy,” Cal said, propelling his chair next to the couch.  “Formerly known as Samantha Simpson.  Do you want her vital statistics?”

“Not unless it has a direct bearing on this case.”

Something crinkling underneath me, so I reached down between the couch pillows and pulled out a half full bag of potato chips, now mangled to crumbs.

“Lovely,” I said, holding the bag up.

Cal tossed the bag into the corner, onto a pile of papers and other stuff I didn’t want to imagine.

“You don’t want to know her age.  Okay.”  He paused.  “Do you want to know that she’s thirty?”

“You just told me.”

“She’s five-foot eight, a hundred and thirty pounds.”

“What does this have to do with the price of rice in China?”

“Nothing.  It was part of my research.”  Cal shot me a pious look.

I sat up and rubbed my neck, trying to ward off a headache.

“Okay, I’m focusing.  You said you had something about Samantha getting drugs.”

“Right.”  Cal waved a paper in front of my face.  “Samantha has a criminal past.”

“What?”  I snatched the paper from him.  “When?  What for?”

“Samantha Simpson was busted for possession eight years ago.”  I did some quick math.  “That was four years before she married Ned.”

“What’d they find on her?” I asked, scanning the notes.  Cal had printed out all the related offenses Samantha had been charged with.

“Samantha was stopped for erratic driving, was combative, and was subsequently taken to jail.  When she was searched, lo and behold, she had a number of Seconal pills in her purse.”

“Not very bright,” I said.

“She was in college,” Cal said.  We both knew how stupid young people could be – the remembrance of our infamous flour tortilla drug purchase was enough for us to look on Samantha’s actions with a certain tempered sympathy.

“The police report said that Samantha claimed she didn’t know how the drugs got there, but who would say ‘Yes, the drugs are mine’ when they’re being arrested?”

“And she had enough on her to get charged with possession with intent to sell.  Because it was her first offense, she got probation and community service,” I said, finishing the report.  I gave the paper back to Cal.  “Samantha obviously knew how to get her hands on the stuff.”

“If she did then, she could now,” Cal said.

“And she’s familiar with the effects.  She would know that Seconal would make Ned drowsy, if not put him to sleep.  Easier for her to get him in the car and up into the mountains.”

“But how would she get him on a bike?”

“She wouldn’t have to drug him that much, just enough to make him a little loopy.  Then he’s more easily manipulated.”

“True.”

“And it can’t be that hard for her to get her hands on the drugs.  I’d bet there’s at least a few students in her class that use something.”

“She drops a pill or two in a drink she gives Ned, then takes him for a ride, they go around that bend, and he’s gone.”

“That was my theory,” I said.

“I’m coming on board.”

“Oh.”  I reached for the phone.  “I’m hungry.  Let’s get some lunch.”

“Yeah, detective work really takes it out of you.”  Cal shot me a goofy grin.

I ordered us a pepperoni and mushroom pizza, and while we waited for the delivery, we worked on a crossword puzzle.  Let me correct – Cal worked on the puzzle, a tough New York Times one, and I mostly watched, adding one answer about Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film – Blackmail, made in 1929, in case you wanted to know.  We were halfway through when the doorbell clanged.

Cal left to pay the pizza guy, and my cell phone rang.

“Hello, is that you Reed?”  Henri Benoit’s accent cut in and out like a bad television signal.

“Yes.  Henri, I can hardly hear you.”

I stood up and moved around the room, trying to get a better connection.

“There is…”  The line crackled.  “You should…”  I tried the hallway.

“Henri, I can’t hear you.”

The line suddenly cleared, and Henri’s breathing blared through the phone.  In the background, the bell in his shop chimed.

“Why are you yelling?” Henri asked.  “I don’t understand this business with the cell phones.  You think if you cannot hear someone, it will help if you yell into the phone.  I can hear you just fine.”

“I can hear you now,” I said.  I didn’t tell him that I was standing on the toilet in Cal’s bathroom.  Must be the porcelain making a better connection.

“I have to talk to you,” Henri continued.

“Okay, shoot.”

“No, not over the phone.  I want to show you something.”

“About the poster?”  A burst of excitement sizzled through me and I dropped the phone.  It hit the tile floor with a clunk.  Henri’s disembodied voice crackled up at me.

“Henri, wait Henri.  I can’t hear you.”  I shouted again as I snatch up the phone.  Now the connection was really bad.

“What do you think of that?”

“What?  I dropped the phone, Henri.  I didn’t hear what you said.”

The phone buzzed and hummed at me.  “Why…wait…come down…until six.”

“I’ll come down to the shop,” I interpreted the sounds.

“Ah, yes…stop shouting…can’t be possible.”

The line went dead.

“Damn it,” I said, then used the tried and true way of fixing any gadget that was giving me a problem.  I banged the phone on the counter top, then put it to my ear.  Nothing.

“That’ll solve the problem,” Cal said from the doorway.  He had the pizza box in one hand, some papers towels in the other, and an amused look on his face.

“It’s worked before,” I mumbled as I followed him back into the office.  It didn’t matter.  Now I had an excuse to go back to Henri’s shop and marvel at all the collectibles.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

After our late lunch and some time playing computer games, I left Cal’s house and drove down the twisting dirt road to Highway 285.

I cranked the air conditioner, turned left, and headed back toward Denver.  It was four o’clock, but I was moving against the flow of commuters heading home to the mountains, and even with the endless construction traffic on 285, I had plenty of time to get to Henri’s shop before it closed.  A gang of construction workers sweated under the intense heat of the sun, and I was thankful that I was sitting in the 4-Runner with cool air blasting on me.  I didn’t envy them a bit.

I pulled into a space on Broadway a little before 5:00, locked the car, and strolled to Henri’s shop.  The chimes above the door announced my entry into Classic Hollywood Memorabilia, and a wave of cool air hit me as I shut the door.  I took off my sunglasses and looked around, but didn’t see Henri or anyone else.

“Hello?” I called out, thinking I heard a door at the back of the shop close.  Henri sometimes exited through a rear exit to the alley where he parked his car and where the trash dumpsters were located.  Since it was the end of the day, maybe he was taking the trash out.

I called his name again, louder this time.

Nothing.

I meandered around a locked display case full of autographed pictures, letting my eyes linger on the various items as I made my way to the back counter.  Among the objects were a number of Charlie Chaplin pieces.  There was an autographed picture of Charlie Chaplin in his tramp garb.  I remembered reading in a collector’s book that photos of The Tramp signed by Chaplin were rare.  This one was in pristine condition, with a price of $12,000, a bargain for a Chaplin collector.  Next to it was Chaplin’s book, My Trip Abroad, written in 1921.  I wondered how Henri acquired such a rare find.  I didn’t see a price tag on it, but a signed picture of Edna Purviance, Chaplin’s leading lady in many of his early silent films, had a price of $300.  I lingered for a moment, wondering about the actors and their lives.  What was going on in Charlie’s life when he signed the photo?  Why did Edna Purviance’s career falter after she quit working with Chaplin?  Okay, I’m weird like that.

I glanced up from the display case.  “Henri?” I called again.

I studied a couple of posters on the wall before I moved over to the counter.  Sean Connery stared down at me, the dashing secret agent holding the Walter PPK up near his face.  Next to that were nice copies of the first two James Bond movies, Dr. No and Goldfinger.  I could only hope my Bogart poster would look as good as the ones Henri had hanging on the walls.  I leaned my elbows on the counter and waited for Henri to return.

After a moment, I pushed aside a stack of papers, bored.  Some of the bold lettering in Henri’s sloping handwriting on the top paper caught my attention: “Academy Award”.

“Interesting,” I said to no one as I turned the page so I could read it better.

Henri had written a list and jotted notes beside some of the points:

Statuette weight: 6 ¾ lbs

Height: 13 1/2”

Plaster molding

“A little bit of research?” I again talked as if Henri were in the room listening to me.  “Statuette base: solid black marble.” I continued to read:  “The statue sits on a canister of film, with 8 cutouts in the reel.”

Little bits of trivia I didn’t know, but it made for captivating reading, at least if you had any curiosity about the Academy Awards.  I did know that the Academy Award was officially named the Academy Award of Merit, that it was nicknamed “Oscar” but the origins of the nickname are under some dispute, and that the number of awards and categories have been in flux since the Academy first started giving out the awards at a banquet in 1929.  And I knew that an Oscar was worth over $10,000 brand new.

I read on, pausing occasionally to decipher Henri’s writing.  I was thoroughly engrossed in Henri’s notes when I heard a car starting up outside.  I stopped reading, cocked my head like a dog, and listened.

After a moment, I heard the noise again, and this time it sounded distinctly human.

“Henri?” I said loudly, my eyes roving around the store.

I heard the noise a third time, and it sounded like a groan.

“Is that you?”  I stepped around the counter and poked my head into the back room.    Nothing but a wood table, and an organizer box containing scissors, knives, other tools, and pens.

And Henri Benoit lying in a crumpled mess on the floor, his legs tucked underneath him at an awkward angle, his bifocals broken on the floor near him.  A pool of blood had formed underneath his head.  In a cursory glance I couldn’t see where he was wounded, but his white ponytail was turning a dark shade of crimson.

“Henri!” I shouted, dropping on my knees beside him.  I gently touched his shoulder and looked into his eyes.  They had a glassy sheen to them.

“Oh no!”  My hands shook as I placed a finger to his neck.  A faint pulse beat against my skin.  Henri was alive, but just barely.

I had to try three times before I could get my cell phone out of my pocket, and I chided myself to calm down as I dialed 911.  The operator spoke in a gravelly voice as she took down the address.  She said she was sending an ambulance, and told me not to touch Henri.  She tried to keep me on the phone, but I hung up.

“What happened?” I asked Henri.

His near lifeless form didn’t move, but his eyelids flickered, reminding me, strangely enough, of an old movie reel in slow motion.  I watched his chest.  It rose a millimeter, then sank again.  Over and over.

“Come on, Henri.  Hang on.”  I sat back on my haunches, feeling totally helpless, and waited.

Finally, faint sounds of sirens permeated the silence.

“They’re coming,” I murmured to Henri.  His face was pale, and it seemed that his breathing grew even shallower.

The sirens’ blare grew louder, and then the floor vibrated as trucks rumbled slowly to a stop out on Broadway.  I left Henri and ran out to the front of the store.

“He’s in here!” I bellowed, frantically waving my arms toward the store entrance.  As the rescue workers hopped out of the ambulance, a police car screeched to a stop in front of the fire truck.

I guided two firemen, a trio of paramedics, and two police officers to the back of the store.  Two paramedics rolled a stretcher covered with white sheets between them.  On it they had piled a couple of boxes of supplies.  They hurried around the display cases to the back room, leaving the stretcher by the counter.

“Step back here, sir,” said one of the firemen, an ox of a man with thick arms and a large square jaw, as he pushed me back.

“What happened to him?” one of the paramedics asked me.

“I don’t know.  I came in and heard him back here.”

I stood just outside the door and watched as the paramedics set to work on Henri.  One put a pressure cuff on his arm, and another carefully lifted one of Henri’s eyelids, shining a flashlight in his eyes.

“Do you know him?”  The third one, a woman, glanced up at me as she prepared an oxygen mask to put over Henri's nose and mouth.  The other two talked to each other in clipped tones.

I nodded mutely.

“Do you know his health history?  Is he allergic to any medications?”

“No,” I said, my voice faltering.  “I don’t know.”  I knew very little of that kind of information.

“Do you know what happened here?” one of the officers asked me, oblivious to the conversation I’d just had.  I had to look up to answer because he was so tall and thin.

“No,” I muttered, my attention riveted to Henri and the rescue work.

I was vaguely aware of the officer talking to his partner while I watched the paramedics.  After a minute of hurried but efficient work, the woman spoke into a small, square mike attached to her shoulder.  She waited for a response before placing a towel under Henri’s head.  She barked a couple of orders, and the other two assembled a makeshift carrier underneath Henri.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.

One paramedic, so young I wondered if he was still in high school, turned to me as they lifted Henri with the makeshift gurney and settled him onto the stretcher.

Instead of answering my question, the paramedic said, “What’s his name?”

“Henri Benoit.”

“Are you a family member?  His son?” the female paramedic asked.  Her bright red hair belied her calm, bedside tone.

“No.  I’m a friend,” I said.  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked again.

“At the very least he’s sustained a head injury.  We won’t know the extent until we can get him to the hospital for tests.”  The woman held back as the other two paramedics started rolling the stretcher out of the store.  “We’re taking him to St. Anthony’s Central,” she said as she followed them.  “You know where that is?”

“Yes,” I said as I followed them, keeping vigil until Henri was safely installed in the back of the rescue vehicle.  The fire truck and rescue vehicles blocked one lane of traffic, and people gawked as they slowly drove past.

The engine started up, and the rear doors of the ambulance slammed shut.  I stared into the back window.  Henri lay with the oxygen mask over his face.  The paramedics continued to attend to him as the truck pulled away, engine grumbling and sirens wailing.  The fire truck took off, and I stood in the street until the hoses and ladder disappeared from view.

“I’m Officer Hammer,” the tall one said as he pulled me back to the sidewalk.

“Officer Grossman,” the second officer said to me.  “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”  He was in his late forties, with chubby cheeks and a spare tire around his waist.  Tufts of gray hair fell in a mish-mash way as he scratched his head.  He held out a meaty hand, indicating that I should accompany him back to the shop.

“Did you know him?”

“Yes,” I said, coming out of my shock.  I gave him as much detail as I could about Henri.

“What happened?”

I launched into an explanation as Officer Hammer came in.  While Officer Grossman and I talked, he tramped to the back of the store.

“Henri was expecting me,” I said.  “We were going to talk about a poster he was appraising.  When I came in, I thought the shop was empty, so I waited.  After a few minutes, I heard Henri.  I found him on the floor like that, and called for help.”

“Where did you think he was?”

“Outside in back.  That’s where he parks.”

If the explanation satisfied Officer Grossman, he didn’t show it.  He jotted down my answers in a tiny notebook.

“Place is clean,” Hammer said.  “No sign of forced entry, no sign of a weapon, and the cash box under the counter’s got a wad of cash and a few checks in it.”

“They could’ve taken some memorabilia,” I said.

Hammer shrugged.  “We won’t know that until the victim…” he paused and cleared his throat, “until Mister Ben…” he stumbled over the name, “until your friend can do a thorough inventory.”

“Do you have any information about his family?” Roberts asked me.

“His wife’s name is Evaline.”

“We’ll need to get in touch with her,” Hammer said.

“I’ll call her,” I said.  “It’ll be much easier to hear this from me.”

“Do you know Mr. Benoit that well?” Roberts continued.  He pronounced the name perfectly and received a glare from Hammer for his efforts.

“We’re friends,” I said, stretching the truth.

“Okay,” Roberts hesitated, but both he and Hammer looked relieved.  Better for me to deliver the news about Henri than them.

“Can you lock up here?”  This from Roberts.

“Sure.  I’ll take care of everything.”

“We’ll wait.”  Roberts took a relaxed stance and crossed his arms.  They obviously weren’t going to leave me here alone.  I couldn’t blame them.  Hammer asked for my personal information, and didn’t seem impressed when I handed him my business card.

“Doing a little snooping?”  Hammer tucked my card in his pocket.

“I was here on business,” I said.

“How about an ID?” Hammer asked.

I dug out my wallet and handed him my license.  He wrote down everything and handed it back.  “You’ll stay in town, right?”  He said as if he were speaking to an imbecile.

“Of course.”  I was getting irritated, knowing full well they thought of me as a suspect.

They spent a few more minutes in the back of the shop while I tried to find Henri’s home phone number, but I could feel Hammer’s eyes on me as I went to the counter and found a Rolodex.  Silently thanking Henri for holding on to some old-fashioned ways, I spun the wheel until I found the “B’s”, and in seconds I was dialing Henri’s phone.

“Allo?” a light and airy voice asked.

“Mrs. Benoit?”

“Yes?”

I identified myself.  Although I had never met Henri’s wife, she obviously knew who I was, because she immediately began discussing how much Henri liked talking old movies with me.  I had to interrupt her to tell her about Henri.

“My Henri!  Is he okay?”  Her accent was not as thick as Henri’s, but her fear and concern sizzled through the phone lines.

I explained what I knew and told her where the paramedics had taken Henri.  I said that I would close the shop and meet her there as soon as I could, and hung up.

For the first time since I found Henri, I let my nerves settle.  I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.  Focus, I thought to myself.

I tiptoed into the back office, watching the officers.  Hammer was speaking into a radio, probably getting a background check on me, and Roberts was examining the back door.

I stood near the spot where Henri had fallen and let my eyes wander around the room.  I didn’t see anything out of place, at least from what I remembered of the room.  I didn’t see my poster, but Henri could’ve had it stored somewhere, awaiting my arrival.  The pens and paper that he kept on a shelf above the table appeared undisturbed.  The trashcan on the floor was tipped over and a few crumpled papers were strewn out, but nothing else seemed wrong.

Except for the spot of blood soaking into the carpet.  I shook my head in dismay.  Who would do such a thing to someone like Henri?  A robber?

I eased out of the office and made my way through the rest of the store, but I didn’t see anything missing from the display cases.  But there were so many items.  How could I know if something was stolen?

I felt helpless, and hoped Henri would be all right.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Time to go, buddy.”  Hammer emerged from the office.  “Let’s lock this place up.”

“I don’t have a set of keys,” I said.  “For the deadbolt,” I explained.

Roberts poked his head out.  “Do the best you can.”

I pulled down the shades in the front windows and on the door, flipped the sign hanging in the window from “Open” to “Closed”, and locked the doorknob.  I then went to the back, where a series of switches controlled the lighting throughout the shop.  I flipped them off, watching the room grow dark from front to back.

Since Henri’s burglar alarm system was easy to activate, I turned it on, Hammer watching my every move.  I had to hope that Evaline would know the code if someone had to get in before Henri became conscious, but Henri had way too many valuable things in the store that needed to be protected.

“That’s it,” I said.  Hammer and Roberts waited for me to exit, then followed me out the door.

The beeping of the alarm signaled, and I let myself out the back door and walked around the building to my car.  The officers waited until I pulled out into traffic before they returned to their car.  I needed to find out what happened here, if for no other reason than to clear my own name.

*****

“A friend of mine was brought in a while ago,” I said to the emergency room nurse at St. Anthony’s Central a half hour later.  “His name is Henri Benoit.”

“Oh, are you Reed Ferguson?” an accented voice behind me said.

I turned and gazed into the tear-filled mocha eyes of Evaline Benoit.  She was a petite woman not much taller than five feet.  Her long silvery hair was pulled into a bun with an expensive mother-of-pearl hairpiece holding it in place, and dangling from her ears were round blue earrings that matched her dress.

“Yes.”  I bent down and Evaline rose up on her toes to plant a light kiss on both my cheeks in European fashion.

“They don’t tell me anything about my Henri,” she said, holding a small white handkerchief to her lips, muffling a sob.

I murmured assurances while she wept into the hanky, then guided her to a couch in the waiting area.  After a few moments she composed herself, drying her eyes and blowing her nose.

“They say that Henri must have tests.  They need to see what has happened to his head.”

“Someone hit him on the back of the head,” I said.  She nodded, the hanky halfway to her face.

“Were there any other injuries?”

“They do not think so.  But they don’t tell me.”  Her body shook.

“Let me see what I can find out.”

She thanked me profusely.  I went to the desk and spoke briefly with the nurse.

“They’re completing tests right now,” I said when I returned.  I sat down next to Evaline.  “We should know something soon.”

“You are such a nice boy,” Evaline said.  I tried not to blush.  “Henri, he likes you very much, and I can see why.”

I thanked her, but she was already lost in her concerns, staring with unseeing eyes at the wall.  We waited in silence until a doctor came out to tell us that Henri was in the ICU.

“Your husband has sustained a head injury.  X-rays showed a hairline fracture above the left temporal lobe, and right now he’s in a coma.  We won’t know the extent of brain damage, if any, until he wakes up.”

Tears rolled down Evaline’s cheeks.  “Brain damage?”

“We don’t know anything yet,” the doctor stressed.  “He may be just fine.  We’ll be monitoring him, but right now all we can do is wait.”

“Can I see him?” Evaline asked.

“Certainly.”

We stood up as the doctor left to talk to the admitting nurse.

“I’ll leave you with Henri,” I said.  “I’ll come by here tomorrow to check on you.”

“Thank you.”  Evaline stretched out an arm and patted my face.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

She shook her head.  “No.  I have called our daughter.  She lives in New York, but she will come out now.”

“Good,” I said.  The doctor escorted her to an intensive care area, and then I left.

*****

Halfway home my cell phone rang.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” Jack Healy said when I answered.  “Do you ever go to your office?”

“I’ve had a busy day,” I said, not wanting to explain the events of the last few hours.  It was after nine, but weariness was setting in, and it felt like the middle of the night.

“Have you found out anything more?”

“I checked on Samantha’s alibi.  I doubt it would stand up in court.”

“She could’ve killed Ned,” Jack said, an edge in his voice.

“It’s possible.  Or she could’ve set him up.  But I don’t have any proof of that.”  I kept my answers short.  With everything that had happened to Henri, I wasn’t prepared to give him an update just yet.  But I had to admit that Samantha made a likely candidate.  And I couldn’t brush aside a feeling that I’d missed some piece of information, something that didn’t set right.

“What more do you need?”

“More than I’ve got, Jack.  This is all speculation.  You can’t charge her with a crime if you don’t have proof.”

“It’s not like she’s going to come out and tell you she killed Ned,” he snorted.

“Look, I’m running down a few things now,” I said.  “Give me a few more days, and I’ll be able to give you a point-by-point account.”

“You’re making progress?”

“Yes,” I hedged a bit.  I was making progress, but wasn’t sure in what direction just yet.

“Fine.”

Jack didn’t sound fine, but what else could he say?  He was smart enough to know I was right, but desperate enough to want to hang Ned’s death on the first likely candidate.  Not a good combination.

The moon shone brightly in the night sky as I pulled into my alley garage.  I walked through the backyard to the front porch, where metal stairs led up to my condo.

I checked the mailbox by the Goofball Brothers’ door and was starting upstairs when I heard their door open.

“Dude, how’s it going?”  Deuce came out on the porch, wearing nothing but a pair of cut-off jeans.  “We’re going to go play some pool.  You want to come?”

“I’m tired and it’s late,” I said.  “But thanks.”

“It’s only nine-thirty.”  Deuce looked at an imaginary watch on his wrist.  “It’s not that late.”

“Thanks, but I’ve had a long day.  You might want to get dressed first.”  I smiled at him.

“Yeah, I will.”  Deuce stared at me for a second.  “Are you okay?”  He took a step closer to me, squinting.  Then his eyes widened in surprise.

“Hey, man.  You’re hurt!”  He pointed at my side.

I gazed down and saw a spot on my shirt.  I hadn’t noticed it before.  I tugged at the fabric, examining the reddish-brown stain, and with a sudden pang of sadness, realized it was Henri’s blood.  I had no idea how it got there.  I didn’t remember touching him, or the pool of blood on the carpet, but I must’ve.

“I’m fine,” I reassured Deuce.  “A friend of mine was hurt today.”

“Is he all right?”

“I'm not sure.”

Ace came out onto the porch, holding an empty glass.  “Who’s fine?” he asked, wiping a milk mustache off his face.

“He is,” Deuce said, jabbing a finger at me.  “But his friend’s not.”

“Not what?”

“Fine.”

“Okay, don’t tell me,” Ace said, punching Deuce on the arm.

“Hey, why’d you do that?”

“Because you didn’t answer me.”

“I did too!”

“Fine.”

“Fine who?”

“What?”

With a shake of my head, I left the brothers to their impromptu spin-off of “Who’s On First,” and wearily climbed the stairs to my condo, where I showered and tumbled into a dark and restless sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Denver Alternative College is a lot busier during the day than it is in the evening.  I found this out when I walked through the main entrance to the school around lunchtime on Thursday and had to dodge a moving mass of people on my way to a food court.

After a brief visit to the hospital to check on Henri, I made some phone calls to the DAC registrar’s office.  With some slick bending of the truth, I got a list of students that were enrolled in Samantha’s acting class.  The youthful-sounding man in the enrollment office was more than happy to provide the information when I said I was a producer for a major Hollywood firm, and we were looking for prospects for a new movie that would be filming in Denver in the fall.

A number of Samantha’s fellow students in the “Actors and Acting” class were also enrolled in a course at one o’clock, entitled “The Essence of Acting,” taught by the inimitable Xania Divinity.  These students might be able to tell me something about Samantha’s character.  I hoped that some of them might know if she was a drug user, and what her relationship with Ned was like.  And, if any student remembered seeing Samantha leave class before the student play finished, I’d have something to confront her with.

The first person on the class list was Erin Abel.  I contacted her, and with more twisting of the truth, I explained to her that I was interested in meeting actors for a potential part in a movie.  She took the bait, and we arranged to meet in the student lounge.  I told her that I’d probably be the only person in the cafeteria wearing a Colorado Rockies baseball cap over a bad haircut.

Erin Abel had agreed to meet me for a few minutes before her class, so I sat in a crowded lounge at a corner table and waited.

At exactly 12:45, a brunette who couldn’t have been of legal drinking age came up to the table.

“Are you Archie Goodwin?” she asked, letting a backpack fall from her shoulder onto the table.

I nodded.  Erin apparently had never read Rex Stout mysteries and didn’t recognize the name of super-heavy, super-sleuth Nero Wolfe's famous sidekick.

Erin apparently didn’t get the memo that it was close to a hundred degrees outside, either.  She wore black jeans, a black blouse, and black heels.  Her eyes were rimmed with heavy black liner, and her complexion was so pale I knew she had to be using powder on her face, but to give some color to her ensemble, she had silver bracelets and earrings.

Modeling an elegant Goth look, we have Erin Abel, I thought.

“Erin?”  I stood up and shook her cold and clammy hand.  Not what I expected in this heat.

“You weren’t kidding about the haircut,” she said.

“Car accident,” I replied, lifting my cap to let her see the stitches.

“Ouch.”  Erin plopped into a plastic chair across from me.  “So you're looking for actors for your next movie?”  She pulled out a package of cigarettes and started to light one, then stopped abruptly.  “Damn.  I keep forgetting we can’t smoke in here.”

I suppressed a smile.

“What kind of work have you done?” I asked.  I couldn't just blurt out questions about Samantha; I would have to play it a little cagier.

“I’ve done some local theater, and I was in some of my high school plays.”  Erin listed her credits with a starving actor’s enthusiasm.  My guilt grew as she spouted off her range of abilities, even speaking in a number of credible accents.

“You’re quite good,” I said.  “We may have a small part for you, especially if you can work on your Scottish accent.”

Erin’s face lit up.  I should’ve gone to jail for buttering her up like I did, but I needed information.  And if I said I was a detective, I probably wouldn’t get any.  Not only that, Samantha would learn that I was asking about her.

“This would be in the fall?” Erin asked.  She stuffed the unused cigarette back in the package.

I nodded.  “Would you be willing to change your appearance for the role?”

“Uh-huh.  This is no big deal, really,” she said, toying with an earring as she talked.  “I played a punk rocker in a play and sort of kept the look.  But I’ll do what I need to for the part.”

“You’ll probably have to submit to a drug test.  For insurance purposes.”

“I’m clean.”  Erin frowned as if I had offended her.

“Just part of the process,” I said.  I tapped my fingers on the table and tried to look pensive.  “I need another actor, a woman.  Someone tall and thin, maybe five-eight or so, with blond hair.”

“You just described half the women in the school.”

“Yes, but I believe I saw someone here before.  Sandra, Sally.  With a last name like Hedley, or Henry.  Something like that.”

“Samantha Healy?”

I snapped my fingers.  “That’s it.  I saw Samantha in the student audition play last month.  She was quite good.”

“She wasn’t in the play.”

Oops.

“Are you sure?  I know I’ve heard that name somewhere.  She’s tall and blond, with brown eyes and a big smile.  I remember the smile.”  I hoped I wasn’t overdoing it.

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“If she wasn’t in the play, maybe I saw her in the crowd.”

“Maybe.”

“Was she there?”

Erin scowled.  “Yeah, she was there, but I think she left early.”

“Are you sure?”  I feigned disinterest, but my nerves surged with excitement.

“The play was so bad, a lot of people left,” she said with a disgusted grunt.  “They didn’t cast the better actors.”

“Like you.”

“Yeah, like me.”  There wasn’t a hint of arrogance in her tone, just a cool assurance.

“Do you know Samantha?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Would she be interested in a role in the movie?”

“You’re looking to fill more than one role,” she said flatly, like she didn’t believe I had a part for her.

“Of course.  I’ve got a lot of roles to fill, and I’m looking for new talent.  There are plenty of parts to go around, for you, and for Samantha.  If she fits the role right, and she passes the drug test.  Just like you.”

She chewed at the side of her cheek.

“What?”

“I’ve got a friend, Carrie Lutz.  She has the physical build you’re looking for, and she might fit the role better.”

“Hmm.  Maybe, but Samantha did catch my eye.”

Erin leaned on the table.  “Look, mister.  I don’t want to ruin her chances, but Samantha might not be your best bet.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She’s not a very good actor, and she’s hard to work with.  She doesn’t remember her lines well, and she’s seems spacey sometimes.  And she dropped her purse one time, and prescriptions bottles fell out.  She’s not stable, if you know what I mean.”

I played the part of disappointed movie producer, but I really wanted to question her more.

“Hey, I have to go to class now, but you really should meet my friend Carrie.  She’s what you’re looking for.”  Hence the slandering of Samantha Healy.

“I’ll think about that,” I said.  We strolled out of the student lounge, and I said I would be in contact with the school in the fall.  The words tasted like garbage as I said them.  It was probably the puppy-dog desperation in the kid’s eyes that did it.

*****

I left the school with a ravenous appetite.  As I walked to the parking lot, the heat of the day created translucent waves that shimmered off the hot pavement.  I donned sunglasses to ward off the glare of the sunlight, and was about to get in my car when I heard a shout behind me.

“You asshole!”

Erin Abel came running up to me, her eyes fiery, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“What?” I said.

“You’re not a movie producer!”

“Of course I am.”

“You are not!”  Erin was pissed.  “Xania saw us leave and she asked me why I was talking to you.  She told me you’re a detective.  That’s why you were asking all those questions.”

“It’s not what you think,” I said.

“Really?”

I floundered around, but couldn’t keep up the lie.  I finally hung my head.  “Erin, I’m sorry.  I didn’t think you’d talk to me if you knew who I was.”

“That was a shitty thing to do.”  Her dark makeup ran down her face.  “Do you know how hard it is to find work?  Especially when you’re judged so much by the way you look?”

I wanted to tell her that if she was worried about her appearance not being right she was in the wrong profession, but I kept my jaw locked.

“I want to work in the movies.  I don’t care doing what.  I’m just following a dream.  But you could care less.”

“That’s not true.”  I could relate to following dreams more than she’d know.

“Don’t bother coming around here.  I’ll make sure everyone knows you’re after Samantha,” she spat at me.

“I wouldn’t tell her I was asking around,” I said.  It sounded lame as I said it.

“Yeah, try to stop me.”

Erin stepped back and crossed her arms, acting tough.  “Does she think you’re an asshole, too?”

Probably, I thought as I got into the 4-Runner and drove away.

*****

My appetite had not-so-mysteriously disappeared, so I put my guilt and shame into a hard workout at the gym.  Unfortunately, it didn’t help.  I was a nice guy.  Or I was supposed to be.  I didn’t like myself at that moment.

I had told Evaline I would check Henri’s store so she could stay at the hospital, so that was my next stop.  Fortunately, everything was still closed up and the place appeared just as I had left it.

I drove to the hospital with my mind still on Erin Abel.  Poor kid, I thought.  It’s difficult to be young and trying to find your niche in the world, but it’s worse when someone takes advantage of you.  I’d have to see if I could work out a mea culpa with her.  If she’d even talk to me again.

I arrived to the hospital just as a front of ominous clouds darkened the skies.  A brisk wind swirled around me as I hurried inside to the intensive care unit.  Evaline was there, keeping vigil over Henri.

“How’s he doing?” I whispered, taking a seat next to her.  She was leaning an arm on the bed, holding Henri’s hand.

“He sleeps and mumbles.  Sometimes he wakes and looks at me.  But the doctors say this is a good sign.”  Evaline stroked his hand affectionately.  “He will be all right, my Henri.  You wait and see.”

We sat in companionable silence for a bit, listening to the beeps of heart monitors, the occasional cough from other patients, and conversations in hushed tones.  I fought against a sense of doom.  Hospitals did that to me.  The sickness, the decay, all masked in an antiseptic, artificially clean smell that was even worse here in the ICU.

I watched Henri.  He seemed to be breathing okay, and his face was peaceful.

“Would you stay with my Henri for a while?” Evaline asked after a bit.  “I need to use the ladies’ room.”

“Sure,” I said, scooting my chair closer to the bed.

Evaline stood up and leaned over the bed.  She gently straightened Henri’s hair and pecked him on the cheek.

I watched her tiptoe away.  I sat back in the chair and was fighting drowsiness when Henri began mumbling.

“Henri, you’re okay,” I said, trying to come up with soothing words and phrases.

His eyes flickered open.

“Henri, it’s me.  Reed.”  I smiled at him, but wished Evaline would come back.  She needed to talk to him more than I.

“He had it,” Henri murmured, his eyes focusing somewhere over my head.  “He…”

“What?  Who had what?”  I glanced over my shoulder, but no one was there.

Henri rolled his head from side to side.

“You have it.”  His eyes closed.

“Have what?” I whispered.  I didn’t know if Henri even realized I was there, I just figured it was good to get him talking.

“Your poster.”  Henri startled me.  He was staring right at me, eyes wide open.

“Yes, you have my poster.  Is it a valuable poster?”

“The poster.  He checked…”  Henri heaved a sigh.

I waited.

“His stuff,” Henri mumbled.

I patted his arm.  “Okay, Henri.  It’s okay.”

Henri smiled at me, then drifted off.  Since Henri and I were supposed to meet when he was attacked, I wondered if seeing my face was triggering his memory.

Evaline came back, interrupting my thoughts.

“How is he?”

“He seemed to be talking to me a second ago, but now he’s asleep.”

Evaline sat down and took up her position of holding his hand.  “He sees you.  That is good.  If he doesn’t know what he is saying, that is okay.”

“I need to go, but I’ll come by again tomorrow.”  I stood up.

Evaline touched my arm.  “Thank you.  You’re such a nice boy.”

Huh.  I wondered what Erin Abel would say about that.

I nodded and left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Do you ever have one of those days where you wish you could hit a rewind button and start over?  Not only had I bungled my detective work, making myself look like Inspector Clouseau instead of Nero Wolfe, but I had lied to and offended a young woman who had done nothing to me, and ruined any chance of talking to Samantha’s fellow actors.  I also likely put Samantha onto my trail, turning the tables on myself.  And to top it off, Henri was in the hospital.

I wanted to crawl into a cave and hibernate.

I holed up in my condo instead.  A thunderous storm had drenched the city, then quickly rolled eastward, leaving a pleasant touch of moisture in the cool evening air but it didn’t refresh me.  I changed from my pseudo-Hollywood producer slacks and dress shirt to a T-shirt and shorts.  I grabbed a beer and sat watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island.  After three episodes, I wondered what so many other astute people have wondered over the years: If the Professor could make a radio out of a coconut, why couldn’t he fix a hole in the boat and get them off the island?

I flipped through the channels until I found a classic film noir, Sweet Smell of Success, considered by many to be the best film noir movie ever.  It played in the background while I grabbed some chips, salsa, and another beer.

Sweet Smell of Success switched to Mildred Pierce, with Joan Crawford.  Another classic film, but I wasn’t in the mood for Joan’s onscreen tragedies.  I searched around but couldn’t find the remote.  But I did see the note Deuce had written me the night they brought me home from the hospital.  It was still attached to the notepad.

I smiled as I reread it.  That was a few days ago.  Now, the cut on my head itched like a bad sunburn.  But the stitches were about to come out, and my ribs were feeling slightly better, so I thought I might as well sever all reminders of that ghastly night.  I tore the page off the notepad, crumpled it, and tossed it on the coffee table.

On the next page of the pad were more scribbled notes.  I didn’t recognize the handwriting at first, but as I read a bit, I realized that this was the notepad I’d taken from Ned’s house and this must be Ned’s writing.  I flipped through the pages until I came to my own notes concerning Ned’s real estate transactions.

On the top of that sheet was a handwritten list of websites.  Hmm, I hadn’t noticed seeing them before.  They all seemed related to movies.  With a curiosity born of frustration with my lack of progress, I went into my home office and booted up the computer.  After a few clicks, I was on the Internet.  I typed in the address of the first website on the list.

A colorful page sprung up, displaying all kinds of information about films of the 1940’s.  I read with enthusiasm, clicking from page to page, and actor to actor.  Once I’d exhausted the information from the website, I typed in another address, and this time, the website was all about movie posters.

Humphrey Bogart movies were among the listed items, and I found The Maltese Falcon poster that Ned had owned and that was now at Henri’s store.  It was among four styles originally printed and was thought to be fairly rare.

Ned had obviously been doing some research and must have found a copy of the poster this way.  I wondered how much he’d had to pay for it.

I visited a few more websites that were listed on the notepad, reading more on classic movies and old posters.  A couple of sites dedicated to Oscar trivia caught my eye as well.  I took the quizzes and did fairly well.  Too bad having a brain full of Hollywood trivia didn’t pay the bills.

The movie on television ended, and I glanced at the computer clock.  It was almost midnight.  I had completely lost track of the time.

I shut down the computer and tumbled into bed, hoping that tomorrow I could salvage the pieces of my investigation.

*****

I was in the shower the next morning, fantasizing that I’d won the Best Actor Oscar for my performance as The Great Detective, and in the middle of thanking everyone from Humphrey Bogart’s spirit to my non-existent agent, it hit me.  I’d missed it last night when I was on the computer, but I was almost positive about it now.

I hopped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my waist, and hurried to the phone, dripping water all over the carpet as I went.

I dialed Henri’s cell phone and hoped that Evaline would pick up.  I chided myself for forgetting Henri's notes when I left his shop.  After four rings, I was sent to voice mail.

“Damn it!”  I tossed the phone down and threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt.

I didn’t bother with breakfast, but flew out the door, down the stairs and to the garage.  In fifteen minutes, I was sprinting into the ICU, where Evaline was perched by Henri’s bed, a Bible in her hands.  She was quietly reading from the Psalms.

“It keeps him calm,” she said, looking up from the book.  “It keeps me calm, too.”

I pulled up a chair beside her and surveyed Henri.  He didn’t seem as pale, but he’d taken on a grizzled look with his stubbly jaw and matted hair.  He did seem peaceful however, with his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

“Evaline, I need to get into the store,” I said.  “Henri has something there that I need.  I think he was going to give it to me the other day, but by the time I showed up at the shop, he’d already been attacked.”

Evaline closed the Bible and swiveled in the chair so she was facing me directly.  “But I cannot leave my Henri.  What if he wakes up?  He will need me.”

I reached out and grasped her hand.  “I know.  That’s very important, and I wouldn’t be asking if this weren’t important as well.  It won’t take very long.”

She searched my eyes.  “Okay.  If it means that much to you, we will go to the shop.”

“Thank you,” I murmured.

Evaline gathered up a purse the size of a grocery sack, laid the Bible on a small nightstand by the bed, and followed me to my car.  I drove us from St. Anthony’s to the shop and parked around back by the alley entrance.

“I set the alarm,” I said.  "Do you know the code?"

“I think so,” Evaline nodded as we walked to the back door.

I hoped she did know the code because I didn't want to see any police at the store again.

“Let me find the right key,” Evaline paused by the back door.  She dug around in her purse.  I thought she’d be able to find Texas in that bag by the time she extracted a set of keys.  She fanned them out, and finally selected one.

“Here it is,” she said as she inserted it into the lock.

The door opened with a squeak and we stepped through a tiny hallway and into the back workroom area.  The room was hot and stuffy, and I immediately began to sweat.  Loud beeps pierced the silence.  Evaline rushed to the alarm, pressed a few buttons, and the beeping stopped.

“Oh, my Henri loves this place,” she mused, her eyes brimming with tears.

I hadn’t been aware of the toll this was taking on her.  Her eyes seemed more concave, and weary lines etched the soft skin on her face.

“Everything will be fine.”  I put my arm around her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

After a small moment of tears, Evaline pulled a handkerchief from her purse – she found this right away – dabbed her eyes, and pushed me into the store.

“I’m fine.  Go.  Find what you need.”

I rushed to the counter and found Henri’s notes.  I perused them quickly and found exactly what I thought I would find: Information about the Oscar statuette, its weight, the reel of film with 8 slots, and details about an award for Luise Rainer.  Best Supporting Actress, 1937.  The very same description for the same Oscar had been in Ned's scribbled notes.

“Bingo,” I said, grabbing the notes.

“Just that?”  Evaline came around behind me.  “Take them.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded her head vigorously.  “It will be fine.  You can return it when Henri is better.”

“Thank you.”  I leaned down and planted a kiss on her cheek.  She blushed as shyly as a teenager.

“Let’s lock up,” she said.  “I must get back to my Henri.”

*****

I drove Evaline back to the hospital and sat with her for a while, but my mind was on the folder that sat on the back seat of the 4-Runner.  I was sure I was onto something, but a piece or two were missing.

When it seemed like a polite amount of time had passed, I thanked Evaline for her time, and left.

I nearly ran to the car, jumped in, and defied all traffic laws for speeding as I raced home.  I parked on the street and ran up the front porch steps just as Deuce came out of his condo.

“Hey, where’s the fire?” he asked.  He had on slacks and a nice shirt, a sure sign that he was on his way to work.

“What?” I asked him.

“That’s what Bob says whenever I’m in a hurry.”

“Oh, yeah.”  I chuckled.  “I finally got a break on the case.  That’s what I’m going to check on.”

“Cool.”  Deuce pulled the hood of his coat over his head.  “It’s gray out here.”

I was headed up the stairs, but I stopped with one foot in midair.

“What?”

“It’s gray.”  Deuce pointed at the sky, which had turned overcast in the last hour.  “It might rain.”

“Yeah, it might.”

I waved goodbye and continued up the stairs to my place.

I let myself in, grabbed a soda from the refrigerator, and plopped down at the kitchen table.  I spread out Henri’s notes and read through them carefully.  When I was finished, one more brick in the proverbial wall of this case was in place.

Elbows on the table, I stared out the small, square kitchen window that overlooked the backyard.  If what I was thinking was true, another question remained.  How had Ned gotten the poster?

It all seemed too crazy to be believed.

Menacing clouds formed in the sky.  They rolled around, as if they were mulling over the decision whether to rain or not.  A bolt of lightning flashed in the distance.  The wind was picking up and the branches on the big oak trees in the yard were swaying.

Deuce was right.  It was definitely gray out.

I sat up.

Some tidbit of a clue hovered around in my brain, just out of grasp of my conscious retrieval.  It was right there, so close I could almost touch it.  What had I missed?

I went to the living room and again looked at the notepad that I’d taken from Ned’s house.  I flipped through his notes until I found it.

A list of colors.  Including “gray”, with a circle around it.

I grabbed Ned’s real estate files and my notes.  The connection hit me like a bullet.  I rushed into the other room, searched the Internet for a number, picked up the phone and dialed.

“Edna?  It’s...” I paused.  “Philip Marlowe,” I said, hoping that was the same name I’d used when I’d met her in Conifer.  When she didn’t react, I said, “I met you at your place and we talked about your father’s house.”

“Oh, yes.  You’re the young man who was interested in architecture.  How are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks.  I was doing some research about the neighborhood around 210 Madison, and I have a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“What was your father’s name?”

“Gray.  Robert Gray.  But he went by Frank.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

210 Madison Avenue looked the same as it did the last time I saw it.  Quiet and unoccupied.  The red brick burned adobe red beneath the hot sun, and even with the rain, the yard was succumbing to the heat, showing more brown patches.  The For Sale sign had a “Sold” placard pasted across it.

I stood across the street, watching the house, waiting for any signs of life, such as realtors or inspectors.  No cars were parked in front, but I knew from experience that someone could still be inside.  I stared at the notes I held, specifically the ones with Cal’s research about the house.  The last owner was R. F. Gray, Edna Mills’ father, who was also, apparently, known as Frank Gray.  Who was Henri’s client.

Before coming over, I had researched R. F. Gray on the Internet.  I wanted to know more about this collector that Henri knew.  Gray was a well-known name in the Hollywood memorabilia community because of his extensive collection of pre-World War II items.  Known to have lived modestly, Gray spent most of his resources on his family and his collection.  He had amassed numerous rare posters and props from the movies, and had hundreds of signed pieces – pictures, stills, letters, postcards, and other things.  After the death of his wife in 1994, Gray quit purchasing any more collectibles, and a year later sold off what he had.  His collected works garnered millions at a New York auction.  He died peacefully in his sleep, right here in Denver.

“What’re you doing there?”

I whirled around to see the old, gardening neighbor shamble around from the side of his house.  He wheeled a cart piled with tools, peat moss, and a case of flowers in front of him.

“I’m interested in that house,” I said, gesturing at 210 Madison Avenue.

He pushed the cart up to a beautiful rose bush and unloaded the bag of dirt as if it were feathers, showing strength that seemed impossible for a man of his fragile appearance.  His face was wrinkled with a texture like old parchment.  I would’ve sworn he was born at the beginning of the century – the last century.

“It’s sold,” he said, matter-of-factly, tipping a tattered straw hat at me.

“I know, but I like it.”  I shaded my eyes against the glare of the sun.

“Huh,” he said, his lips protruding out.  His faded denim overalls were at least three sizes too big, and his scrawny arms protruded from a threadbare cotton shirt he wore with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.  “It’s just a house.”

“Did you know the owner?”

“Frank?”  The gums worked, moving his jaws forward and back.  “Sure.  What a character he was.  We used to go fishing together, back in the day.  Never did cotton to the movies like he did.  Waste of time, if you ask me.  I don’t even have a television.”

“Did you ever see Frank’s memorabilia collection?”

“Had the stuff all over the house.  But he sold it all.”

“I see,” I said.

The old man picked up a hand shovel, knelt down, and dug into the peat moss, throwing some of it around the base of the rose bush.

“Thanks for your time,” I said, starting back to my car parked around the corner.

“That place is haunted,” he said, catching me by surprise.  It came out “hanted”, like he was from the South.  I hadn’t detected an accent before, but the longer he talked, the more I distinguished one.

“You don’t say,” I murmured back at him.

“Ay.”  He dropped the shovel down and grabbed a pair of pruning shears, and set to work on the bushes.  After a moment, when he was sure he had an audience, he scrutinized me with beady eyes.  “Yep.  Been all kinds of noises there.”  I took a couple of steps down the front walk.  “Mostly at night,” he continued with a knowing nod of his head.

“What ghost ever traipsed around in the daytime?” I thought, but only smiled at him.

“And lights,” he said.  “Lights going on and off.”

Great, now we were heading into the UFO arena.

“You best watch for the screams, son.”

Now that stopped me.  Don’t get me wrong, I like a good scary movie, but this was going a little far.

“Screams?”

“One night, I heard ’em.”  The wrinkles on his face moved as he spoke.  “I let Penelope out to do her business.”  I hoped Penelope was a four-legged critter.  “I waited for her on the porch, watching the stars while she ran about the yard.  And I heard it.”  It came out as “heared”.

“A scream?”

He nodded.

“Just one?”

“No, wasn’t just one.  More like two or three.  Last one sounded funny.  Like the person started to scream, but then it seemed like it got cut in half.”

Now he was really giving me the creeps.

“This happened just once?”

“Screaming only happened once.”  He stopped pruning, set the sheers down, and pulled a blue handkerchief from his pocket, wiping the sweat off his face as he talked.  “The lights I’ve seen a lot.”

I pondered what he was telling me.  “You wouldn’t happen to remember when this was?”

“Why dontcha just ask me, son?  ‘Course I remember.  Been happening for a month now.  Couple of times a week.”

He bobbed his head up and down thoughtfully.

“Couple of times a week,” I repeated, nodding in the same slow manner as the old man.  He was rubbing off on me.

“Ay.  You best think twice about buying that house.”

“It’s sold,” I said.

“That it is,” he mused.  “That it is.”

*****

The moon hung behind clouds and any illumination from streetlights was too far away to make a dent in the dark alley behind Frank Gray’s former residence.  The closed garages, trash cans, dumpsters, trees and bushes melded into the framework of the darkness, and the alley seemed alive with spooks.

“Why exactly do you need me?” Cal asked as we got out of Cal's car.

“I can’t do it myself.”

“I could’ve shown you.”

“What else do you have to do on a Friday night?”

Cal rolled his eyes at me.

“Come on.”  I eased down the alley, with Cal right behind me, so close his black boots nearly clipped my heels with every footfall.

“Are you going to complain all night?” I retorted in a whisper.

“Maybe.”

We walked in silence for a few moments.  Our shoes made a crunching noise on the rocky pavement.  A car drove by one block over, but since it was almost midnight, we heard little else but the sound of our breathing and our clothes rustling like leaves in a breeze.

“This is crazy,” Cal whispered.

“Maybe,” I murmured over my shoulder.

“I’m hotter than hell.”

He wore black jeans, a long sleeve black T-shirt, and a dark wool hat, what he called the “Navy Seal” look, inspired by an outfit I’d worn on a previous case.

“Why’d you dress for winter?”  I had on black khaki pants and a black short sleeve shirt.  Much more comfortable.  I was sweating, but I doubt as much as Cal.

“I wanted to blend in.”

That would make a good excuse for the Neighborhood Watch committee.  But really, I always wear wool in July.

We passed a high wooden fence.

“ARF. ARF. ARF.”  The deep, heavy barking of a big dog split the stillness, accompanied by snarls, low and menacing.

Cal and I emitted curses at the same time.  All thoughts of stealth left us, and simultaneously, our legs propelled us quickly down the alley until we halted directly behind 210 Madison Avenue.  I peeked through the slits in the wooden fence to make sure I’d found the right house.

“Oh, I’m going to die,” Cal wheezed, holding a hand over his heart.  “Please God, just take me now.”

“Shut up,” I gasped, crouching down.  “It was just a dog.”

“Man, the police are going to come for sure.  What will I tell my mother?”

I reached out and grabbed Cal’s sleeve and yanked for all I was worth.  He stumbled and fell to his knees half on top of me.

“Will you be quiet?” I hissed into his ear.  “We haven’t broken any laws, you idiot.”

With a querulous jerk of his arm, Cal extracted himself from me, and sat back on his haunches.  But he was mute.

Down the alley, the dog continued to bark.

I eased partway to my feet and peered in the direction we’d come.  I couldn’t see anything in the gloom.

After five minutes of waiting and watching, the dog finally stopped his barking.  I peered into the darkness.  The only thing I could see, other than shadows, was Cal frowning at me.

“Are you all right?” I asked in a low voice.

“Do I look all right?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, giving me his best “I’m disgusted” glare.

“You look okay.  Like a dog just scared the crap out of you, but okay.”

The line of his lips quivered, and then Cal broke into a smile.

“Why do I let you talk me into this stuff?” he asked softly.

“Admit it, you love it.”

I glanced up and down the alley once more before grabbing the handle on the gate.  I pulled it back and the gate swung open with a low creak of the hinges.  I darted into the backyard with Cal so close I could smell the pepperoni pizza he’d had for dinner.

We waited a second, and didn’t hear anything.

“Let’s go.”

We made a mad dash through the grass to the back porch of the house.  Once there, we checked for signs of life, but the yard and surrounding houses were as still as tombstones.

“You’re on,” I said, holding the back screen door open.

Cal stepped around me and stooped down to examine the lock on the back door.

“This doesn’t look hard.”

He pulled a tiny set of tools from the pocket of his jeans, extracted a couple of thin pieces of metal, and inserted them into the lock mechanism.

“One of these days I need to teach you how to do this,” Cal muttered.

“Fine, but not tonight.”

“I must be crazy to be doing this.”

Cal fiddled with the tools for less than thirty seconds.  I kept my eyes peeled on the backyard, but nothing moved.

“There,” he grunted.  The back door opened.  I braced myself for the screeching of an alarm, but nothing happened.

We both stood in the doorway, unsure of our next move.

“Okay, Sherlock,” Cal finally whispered.  “Lead the way.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Cal stepped aside.  I flipped on a tiny flashlight and tiptoed into the small kitchen.  Cal followed, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Lock it,” I said, speaking in a low voice.  “No use having someone surprise us.”

“Good idea.”  Cal turned the lock on the knob.

“Now.”  He mimicked my hushed tone.  “What exactly are we looking for?”

I flashed the light around the kitchen.  The room was large, with a long laminate counter against the back wall and a shallow stainless steel sink.  Over the sink a small window overlooked the backyard.  The cupboards were the flat, pine style of the late ’50’s, with brass handles, and the wallpaper reminded me of something out of the ’70’s.  The beam of light picked up faded spots on the walls where pictures once hung.

“We’re looking for any signs of Frank Gray’s memorabilia collection.”

I hurried to the window and lowered a set of blinds so no one could see in.  There was nothing in the house to absorb the sound, so our voices echoed off the walls as we talked.

“But the collection was sold.”

“True, but I think there may be more hidden here,” I said.

“Why?”  Cal started opening the cupboards.

“I doubt anyone would’ve missed anything so obvious,” I said as I watched him check the empty cabinets.

“I’m thirsty,” Cal retorted.  “I’m looking for a glass.”  He pawed inside a cabinet.

“Okay, Einstein, and if you find a glass, what are you going to drink?”

Cal eyed me as if I were stupid.  “Water,” he said, pointing at the sink.

“The house has been empty for a long time.  I doubt the water’s even on.”

“Oh.”

“Come on.”

I smothered a laugh and walked into the living room.  Nothing but bare white walls and well-worn tan carpet.  A cursory examination of the rest of the main floor proved the same.  Cal followed me around like a puppy, nervously biting his lip as he watched me.

“There has to be more memorabilia here,” I said, strolling down a narrow hall from the bedrooms.

“If you aren’t going to find stuff in the kitchen cabinets, what makes you think you’ll find it in the bedrooms?” Cal asked sarcastically.

“I’m looking for a place to hide it, like behind a false door or something,” I said.

“Why would it be in the house at all?”

“Ned Healy’s notes about the Oscars matched with Henri’s notes.”

“What?”

“When I was at Ned’s house, I found a notepad in his office that had some random Oscar information scribbled on it,” I said as I opened the closet door in a small bedroom.  “You know, just trivia things about the statuette, how much it weighs and stuff like that.  I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but later I found the same Oscar description on some notes I saw at Henri’s shop.”

“But what does that prove, other than that both men had researched how the Academy Award was made?”

“Their descriptions both included the same errors!”  I stopped and turned the light on him.  “I didn’t even notice at first, but then I compared their descriptions to the official design of the Oscar.  Ned and Henri’s descriptions of the Oscar design aren't correct.”

“Maybe they both checked the same website for the information.”  Cal held a hand up to block the light shining in his face.

“I could see Ned doing that, but not Henri.  This is his business, remember?  Henri would know exactly how an Oscar statuette is designed.”

Cal shrugged.

“Don’t you see?”  I couldn’t contain my excitement.  “Henri said the fake Oscar that Frank Gray owned, the replica created to look like Barry Fitzgerald’s headless Oscar, had one small thing wrong with it.  How could it be that both Ned and Henri had notes about an Oscar statuette with one item wrong in the design, and both of their notes describe the exact same anomaly?  Because they were both looking at the same statue,” I said with emphasis.  “And how did Ned even get his hands on it?  Because he got it from Frank Gray’s collection.”

“How?”

“Everything points to this house.  It’s too coincidental that Ned Healy, who seemingly had no interest in the movies and no money to buy expensive memorabilia, had what I think is an original Maltese Falcon poster, had notes about a fake Oscar in his office, and was also the real estate agent with a contract on a house that just happened to be owned by one of the premier collectors of Hollywood memorabilia.”

For the first time I detected a knowing look on Cal’s face.  What I’d been saying was finally making sense.

I continued.  “More stuff has to be here someplace, and I think that’s why Ned was killed.  He found part of the collection in the house, and told someone else about it – someone who didn’t want to share the wealth with Ned.”

“But why didn’t the family find the collection when Gray died?”

“I called Edna Mills, Gray’s daughter, and she said her dad sold off everything before he died, and she doesn’t remember a headless Oscar being sold, or any Humphrey Bogart posters.  But she admitted she didn’t know what all her dad had.  If I’m right, there’s got to be more stuff around here somewhere that the family didn’t find when they cleared out the house.”

“And you think the headless replica given to Gray is the same statue with the anomaly that Ned and Henri described?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But if Ned had the Oscar, how did Henri know about it?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe Ned showed it to Henri and then brought it back here.  Maybe he didn’t take it from the house, but someone else did.  Maybe he told Samantha about the stuff and she stole items from the collection.  But I’ll never know if I’m right unless I can find out if there’s more of the collection here.”

Cal stared at me for the longest time, then said, “You’re crazy.”

“Uh-huh.”

I stalked into the hallway and aimed the flashlight at the ceiling.  “There’s an attic.  Help me get up there.”

Cal stooped down and locked his fingers together, forming a loop.  I stepped into his cupped hands and he boosted me up with a grunt.

“Hurry up,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I am.”

I used one arm and balanced against the wall, and with the other popped the attic cover back.  I clenched the light between my teeth and grabbed the framework with both hands.  I hoisted myself up and Cal seized my legs, pushing me further up.  Once my head and shoulders cleared the opening, I shined the light into the attic.  I didn’t see anything but insulation and cobwebs.

“Nothing,” I said, again holding onto the framework.  Cal let go of my legs and I dropped to the floor.

“Why not ask Edna to let you in?”

I brushed dirt off my hands.  “I tried that.  I finally ’fessed up to who I was, but she didn’t believe me.”

“The ace detective is foiled again,” Cal said.  “Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion.”

I glared at him.  “She believed me when I said I was a detective.  She just didn’t believe that there was more to her dad’s collection, and she wouldn’t agree to let me in the house.”

“So you decided to throw caution out the door, ignore the law, and break into the house yourself.”

“If Jack Healy could see me now,” I said.

“Why?”

“I told him I wasn’t too hip on bending the law.”

“No, but you’re okay with breaking it,” Cal chuckled.  “But what if you don’t find anything?”

“I don’t know.”  A sinking feeling hit me in the gut.  What if I was wrong?  I dismissed the thought.  “Let’s take a look downstairs.”

I’d seen a door off the kitchen when we came in, so we traipsed back through the house and took the creaky wooden steps down to the basement.  My pencil-thin flashlight created a tunnel of illumination in front of us, but outside its range was total blackness.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Cal said.

The longer we were in the house, the more I had to agree.  The silence was overpowering.

At the bottom of the stairs, I turned left into a large family room.  A built-in bookcase lined one wall, empty and coated with a layer of dust.  As I panned the light around the room, I saw indentations in the carpet where a couch and a television stand had been.

“Let’s see what else is here.”  I started for a hallway at the end of the room.

“What was that?” Cal suddenly whispered.

I stopped short.  “What?”

“I thought I heard something.”

We stood motionless, the flashlight cutting a swatch of light between us.  I could barely make out Cal’s face.  His eyes were open wide, and his lips were drawn in a tight line.

“The flashlight!” Cal hissed.

I switched it off.  Darkness enveloped us.

“I don’t hear anything,” I said after a minute, turning the flashlight back on.  “It must’ve been a car.”

Cal shrugged.  “Must’ve been.”

I moved down the hall.  Cal shuffled along behind me, his breathing ragged.

“Nothing but a laundry room and storage,” I said.  I searched everywhere, but couldn’t find anything that seemed like a hiding place.

A tinny melody suddenly interrupted the silence.

“What the…” I leaped backward, slamming into an old washing machine.  It clanked with a loud, hollow sound.

“A phone,” Cal said, a second ring coming from inside his pants pocket.

I shined the beam in his face.  “Who the hell is calling you at this hour?”

“How do you know it’s my cell phone?” he asked, oblivious to the ringing.

“Because my ringer’s on mute,” I nearly yelled.

“Oh.”  He used one hand to block the light and checked the phone with the other.  “Just a hacker buddy,” he said lightly, punching buttons.  “I’ll shut it off for now.”

“Good idea.”  I glared at him.

“Reed, let’s get out of here.”  Cal edged back into the main room.  “We’ve been here too long.”

“Okay, I’m coming.”  I wasn’t ready to give up.  “The stuff has to be here someplace.”

“Maybe you’re wrong.”

We stood in the family room, watching as the flashlight illuminated bleak cement walls that had been painted white.  In desperation I shined the light on the ceiling.

“You know, there’s nothing wrong with the foundation.  At least not that I can see,” I mused.

“What?”

“Garrett Owens was right.  He got talked into making claims for needless repairs.”  I gestured with the flashlight where the walls met the ceiling.  “There aren’t any cracks in the foundation, or anywhere else.”

Cal was over by the stairs, ready to go up.  “Come on.”

I moved the light around.  “Wait a second.”

“Reed.”

“Hold on.”  I approached the bookcases and paced back along the floor to the opposite wall.

“What are you doing?”

I turned around and surveyed the room.  “It doesn’t add up.”  Cal came back into the room.  “The front of the house goes further than this.”  I walked the space again.  “This room is too narrow.”

“A crawl space?” Cal hypothesized.

I stared at him in the gloom.  We both turned our attention to the wall with the bookcases.

“It looks solid.”  I tugged at the shelves.

“Here, do this.”  Cal began tapping on the wood.  “See if it sounds hollow.”

I watched him work the length of the wall, knocking every foot or so.  Each tap sounded the same to me.

“Well?” I asked when he finished.

“I can’t tell,” he said sheepishly.

“Keep looking.”

We started at one end of the wall and meticulously surveyed every inch of the bookcases, searching for signs of hinges, a door, or a hidden latch, anything that would indicate there was a room on the other side.

“Guess nothing’s there,” Cal said.

“I must be wrong,” I finally admitted defeat.  “It’s just that everything seemed to make sense.”

Cal placed a hand on my shoulder.  “Don’t give up, buddy.  Maybe your theory’s right, but the stuff is somewhere else.”

“Maybe.”  I stared down at the floor.

“Let’s get out of here.”

I turned to follow Cal and tripped on a piece of the carpet that lay unevenly.  I landed on my knees and the flashlight went skittering across the floor.  “Wow.  Someone needs to stretch this better,” I grunted.  I crawled to where the light lay in the corner.  “Garrett Owens should’ve asked for a carpet allowance.”

I picked up the flashlight and noticed that the edge of the carpet, right in the corner, was not tacked down well.

“Wait a second.”

I tugged at the carpet, pulling it back.  Cal held it and I aimed the beam on the floor.  The pool of light exposed a trap door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Bingo,” I said.

Cal grinned.  “Help me with this carpet,” he wheezed.  “It’s getting heavy.”

I set the flashlight down and we pulled the carpet away from the trap door.

“It was well hidden,” I said, again shining the light on the door.  An iron handle shaped like a ring, and large hinges, were both sunk into the wood so no indentation was created in the carpet.  Unless you knew what to look for, or tripped on the carpet like I’d just done, you might never find the door.

“Wonder what’s in there?” Cal mused.  “Maybe a food cellar, with canned peaches and stuff like that.  My grandmother had a cellar like that.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“Don’t want you to get your hopes up,” Cal explained.

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

I fiddled with the handle until I could grasp it.  I lifted the door, straining under its weight.  “The whole thing must be made of iron,” I said with a gasp.  I finally hoisted the door up.  It fell open with a thud.  I pointed the light into the opening and saw a wooden ladder.  I stuck my head down.  A short tunnel led to a dark door.

“Spooky,” Cal said, peering over my shoulders.  “You go down.  I'll stay here.”

“Right.”  I swung a leg around and started gingerly down the ladder.  “You wait here in the dark.”

Cal's face turned pale.  “On second thought, I’ll come with you.”

“I thought you might,” I called up as I reached the bottom.  I shined the light up so Cal could see.  In less than five seconds, he was beside me.

The tiny passageway, covered in pine planks, was barely wide enough for us to pass through.  The temperature had dropped a few degrees, and a slight shift in the air indicated some kind of venting system.  A heavy layer of dust covered the floor, but I could easily make out footprints.

“Someone’s been in here recently,” I said, motioning at the disturbed area.

I crossed to the door and pushed.  It swung inward with a sigh, like it hated to be imposed upon.

I stepped into the room and stopped in amazement.

The room was the size of small bedroom, with all four walls and ceiling covered in light wood siding.  Metals shelves leaned against two of the walls, and a third wall had a few wooden crates stacked on each other.  A framed poster hung on the fourth wall.

“Wow,” Cal said as he edged around me and gazed at the poster.  Charlie Chaplin stared back at him, from City Lights, his feature length movie from 1931.  “This is in beautiful shape.”

I wasn’t looking at the poster.  I was gawking at the shelves.  Specifically at two gold statues that gleamed in the eerie glow of the flashlight.

I picked one up and studied it.

“Luise Rainer,” Cal read over my shoulder.  “Best actress in a supporting role, 1937.”

He gently lifted the other statue and blew dust off of it.  “Man, these are heavy.”

“Almost seven pounds,” I said.  I stared at the Oscar.  My mind whirled with all it was seeing.

“Ray Milland.  Best Actor in a lead role, 1945,” Cal said.  He turned the statue around, examining every detail of it.  “I can’t believe I’m touching an Oscar.”

I set down the statue I held, drawn to boxes on the shelves.  I popped the lid off one.  Inside was a stack of 8x10 publicity stills for a number of actors.  Each was in a protective cover, and most were signed.  There was Greta Garbo, John Wayne, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra.  The list went on and on.

I pulled my camera from my pocket and began videoing the room.  “No one will believe this.”

I opened another box that had smaller lobby cards with everything from Judy Garland’s The Wizard of Oz to Public Enemy with James Cagney.  A third box contained tins of movie reels.  I read the label.  In The Park.

“If this is an original copy of the film, it’s priceless,” I gasped.

“In The Park,” Cal said.  “Never heard of it.”

“It’s one of Charlie Chaplin’s early movies, when he worked at Essaney Studios.  It’s not like there are tons of copies lying around.”

Cal cocked an eyebrow.  “I see what you mean about it being priceless.”

I lifted the lids off two other boxes.  They were empty.

“This is incredible,” I said.  “There must be hundreds of items here.”

Cal nodded.

I filmed items on the other shelves.  A number of screenplays sat in binders.  I flipped open It Happened One Night.  “This has notes in the margin.  I wonder if it’s Clark Gable or Claudette Colbert’s handwriting?”

“And they would be?”  Cal looked at me to complete the sentence.

‘They starred in the movie.”

“Oh.”

“Wait.”  I found a piece of paper inside that had a description of the script.  “It says the writing is by Frank Capra, that it was his personal script.”

“And he would be?”

“The director.”

“How do you know all that?”  Cal, who knew almost everything about almost everything, didn’t know much about the movies.

“Remember who you’re talking to,” I said.

“Oh yeah.  The movie buff.  How has this stuff stayed in such good shape?” Cal asked.  He stood back while I continued to flip through binders.

“I don’t know.  There must be some way that Gray kept this room temperature-controlled, although that film should be protected better than this.  Who knows how long Frank had this stuff stashed away.”  Some sort of environmental control would explain why the room didn’t have a dank, musty smell I would’ve expected from a sub-basement.

“I’ll bet you’re right,” Cal said.  “Ned found this little treasure trove and saw a way out of his financial troubles.  But who else knew about it?”

“I don’t know.  Samantha, another friend, a realtor associate?  Someone who got Ned out of the way, and has been coming in here and taking the stuff, then getting Henri to appraise and sell it.”  I couldn’t believe the number of screenplays that were sitting on the shelves, many of them with scrawled notes by an actor or director.  Frank Gray must’ve collected them for years, because I found scripts for movies from the ’30’s through the ’80’s.

“Uh Reed…” Cal’s voice had a quiver in it.

“No wait, I’m on a roll here.”  I rummaged through more stuff.  “So the guy, or woman, whoever, comes in here at odd times, that’s why the neighbor saw lights and heard noises.   Whoever knew about this had to get things cleared out in a hurry because the house is on the market to sell.  Once the new owners move in, there’s no chance of getting to the stuff.  Not without a lot more hassle.”

“Reed.”

“I've got more work to do, though.  I have to find out who Ned told about the collection…” I turned around and froze.

Cal was standing with his arms over his head, the classical “I’m being held up” stance.  Even in the muted light I could see the fear etched on his face.  Behind him was the house inspector that I’d seen leaving by the back door a few days earlier.  I couldn’t see a gun, but I knew he had one rammed into Cal’s back.

“Well, well, well.”  The inspector pushed Cal toward me.  “Looks like the cat is out of the bag.”

Cal stumbled into me.  As I caught him, I set the camera onto a shelf.  Cal shook uncontrollably.

“Give me the flashlight.”  The inspector held out his hand.  “Slowly.  You don’t want to make me nervous.”

I carefully gave it to him.  I waited for him to ask about the camera, but he didn't.  In the dimness, he must not have seen me holding it.  I hoped it was still recording, but I didn't want to glance at it to find out.

“I told you we should’ve left,” Cal whispered.

“You think you’re pretty smart, figuring this all out,” the guy sneered, shining the light in our faces.  He had done something to his hair.  It was darker.  I squinted against the glare, aware of his cold brown eyes.

“A little late to be doing inspections, don’t you think?” I asked in an even tone.

“Inspections?”  A puzzled expression formed on his hard features.  “Oh yeah, the other day.”  He shrugged.  “You assumed I was an inspector when I left the house, so I went along with it.  You know, if you act like you belong, no one will question you.”

I’d aspired to that philosophy many a time myself, but it had never bit me in the butt like it was now – my ass seems to get a lot of the brunt of my detective work.

“Okay, you’re not an inspector.  Then who are you?”  He swung the gun toward me.  I swallowed what felt like a sock in my throat.

“You don’t have this all figured out?  You were on a roll there, explaining everything to your pal, I might as well let you finish the story.  I’ll just wait for the ending.  Your ending.”

Cal shuddered.  “Where’s your gun?” he hissed to me.

The man tensed.

“At the office, locked in the closet,” I whispered back.

The guy relaxed and a smile crept across his face.  He snickered.

“Good place for it,” Cal said, still talking in an undertone.

“Well,” I shrugged.  Now was not the time to get into my lack of gun prowess.

“I should never have let you talk me into this,” Cal muttered.  “I like staying in my house.  I don’t need to go anywhere.  I’m not like you.  I don’t need adventure in my life.”

“Shut up,” the fake inspector said, raising the gun higher.  Still pointed at me.

“I can work, do everything in the safety of my own home,” Cal continued, oblivious to the warning.  His voice rose.  “But no-o-o-o-!  You had to have help, had to have me come down here.  Now look at us.”

“Shut up!” the inspector and I yelled at the same time.

Cal blanched, then opened his mouth.  Nothing came out, so he clamped his jaw shut, crossed his arms, and alternated between glaring at me and our captor.

“Let me handle this,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.  I silently cursed the fact that we’d broken into the house.  If the police came – and how would they since neither Cal nor I were in a position to call them – how would we explain being down here in the first place?

“Uh- huh,” Cal murmured back.  “You’re handling it really well.”

Little veins were popping out of our captor’s forehead, and he barely controlled his rage.  “I told you to be quiet.”  He spoke each word carefully, taking a step forward and waving the gun at Cal, who began sweating profusely.

“You’re a friend of Ned’s, right?” I asked, trying to diffuse some of the guy’s anger.

He stared at Cal, daring a confrontation, but Cal was too smart, or scared, to move.

“Finishing the story?” he finally said to me.  The gun dropped a little, still menacingly aimed at us, but not as aggressively.  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Okay, I’ll play along.  I knew Ned.”

“You’re…” I said, scrambling to find the name, “Dominic Saunders.  The second buyer for this house.”

The surprised look told me I was right.

“It's Dom,” he said.  “How’d you figure that out?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” I said.  “You’re the only one, other than Ned, who stands to benefit from Garrett Owens losing the contract on this house.”

“Who?”  He genuinely appeared to not to know the name.

“Garrett Owens,” I said.  “He lives in the same apartment complex that you did, Mountain View Apartments, and he was the first buyer for this house.”

“Never heard of him,” Dom said.

“It was just coincidence that two buyers for the same house lived in the same apartment complex?”

Dom shrugged.  “Guess so.”  But we both knew he was lying.  He locked eyes with me.  “You know, you’re smarter than you look.”

Cal made a sound between a cough and a laugh.

“Thanks,” I said automatically, not sure if Dom meant to compliment or insult me.

“I should’ve finished you off when I had the chance.”

I didn’t like the edge in his voice.  My hands grew damp with sweat.  “At the office,” I said, realization dawning on me.  “You’re the one who attacked me.”

“You were getting too close.  I couldn’t have you screwing things up.”  He paused.  “Like you are.”

“How did you know who I was, or where to find me?”

“Do you remember when you were at that movie shop the other day?  I saw you in the back.”

It had only been a little over a week ago, but it seemed like forever.

“I came in with some stuff I took from here, and I went to the old man to appraise it.  While we were talking, I saw the poster you were looking at.  The Maltese Falcon.  Hell, I didn’t even know about the movie before I saw this stuff, but Ned researched all that crap.  And I could tell by the old wooden frame that Ned had stolen it from here, because it's like all the others from the collection.  I’d told Ned to leave everything here until we got ready to sell it, but he wouldn’t listen.  And then here’s this guy,” he gestured with the gun at me, “you – the same guy I’d caught snooping around this house, with Ned’s poster at that shop.  I had to know how you got your hands on the thing.  At first I told myself you might be someone who knew about Frank Gray.  No big deal.  But that didn’t explain how you got the poster.  You had to be connected with Ned somehow.  So I followed you.”  He let out a gruff laugh.  “Man, was I surprised when I found out you were a detective.  Just my luck.  I saw Ned's brother with you, so I figured you were looking into Ned’s death.  Once I saw you around here, I knew I had to get rid of you before you ruined things.”

“You attacked Henri,” I guessed again.

“The old French guy?  He called me and accused me of having a stolen Oscar,” Dom said, clearly irritated.  “I thought since it was damaged, it would be worthless.  How the nutty old guy knew I’d stolen the thing…” his voice trailed off.

“So you tried to get rid of him.”  I felt fury competing with my fright.

Dom nodded.  “He was going to call the police.  Too bad.  He really knew his stuff.”

“And you killed Ned, too.”  Cal spoke with an anger I hadn’t heard before.  Fear was doing some strange things to the man.

“Getting rid of Ned was easy,” Dom grunted.  “He was such a wimp.  Whining about how much his life sucked.  How he missed that bitch of an ex-wife.  Why someone would weep and moan about a selfish little tramp like that?”

“You’ve known Ned for a long time,” I said, trying to piece everything together, at the same time trying to find something in the room that might help us escape.

“A few years.  Long enough to know that he was better off without Samantha.”  Dom smirked.  “C’mon, if she would sleep with me while she was married to him, what kind of a wife was she?”

“What kind of a friend were you?” Cal spat out.

“I never said I was Ned’s friend,” Dom said, eerily calm.  “I said I knew him.  I knew Samantha better.”  He leered at some passionate memory of Samantha.  “Man, she was easy.  Problem was, she thought she’d fallen in love with me.  Yeah, right.  Way too high maintenance for me, always going on about how Ned screwed her over, how he still had stuff of hers, stuff that meant something.  Man, I got tired of that.”

“How did you meet Ned?” I asked.

“He’d called me for electrical work, originally on his house – that’s how I met Samantha – then he referred others to me.  Then he had me work at some of the houses he had for sale, like this one.  And man, did he brag about this place.  He couldn’t keep his mouth shut about all this memorabilia.”  Dom chewed on his lip thoughtfully.  “You know, I wondered why he would tell me about this.  I think he knew about Samantha and me, because he kept saying that she’d soon see things differently, that he had a way to make some big bucks.  I kept asking Ned what he'd found, and he finally showed me this room.  Said he discovered it, but not until after he had a buyer for the home.  He needed to get the buyer out of the way, and he offered to share the memorabilia with me if I'd help him.”

“Why not steal the stuff yourself?  Why bother working with Ned?” I asked.  Keep him talking.

“Ned steal?  You’re joking.”  A crooked smile spread across Dom’s face.  “Ned wasn’t about to go that far.  No, he figured he could fudge things and get the buyer to lose the contract, and then I could buy the place.  Once I owned it, we could clear out this room, and then put the house back on the market.  He said he would’ve bought it himself, but he didn’t have the money, and it would look suspicious.”

“That’s a lot of work.”

The smile widened.  He waved his arm in an arc.  “This is a lot of stuff.  And worth a lot of money.”

“But you didn’t plan on your contract falling through,” I said.

His brown eyes narrowed.  “No, I didn’t.  Neither did Ned.  We talked about what to do, and I said I was going to steal the stuff out of the house, the hell with his plan.  I had the combination to the lock box, so I let myself in.  But he came by and found me here. We fought.”  Dom shook his head in disgust.   “Ned yelled and hollered at me.”  I thought about the old man across the street hearing the screams.  “I backed off and let him think he’d won.  The idiot wanted to try and find another buyer who would go along.  Like we could chance that.  Besides, then we’d have to split things three ways.”

“And since you weren’t really Ned’s friend, he was expendable,” I continued to prod him, buying time until I could formulate a plan of escape.  Given our circumstances, I was going to need a lot of time.

“You think I’m so stupid I would let him get more people involved?  Ned was a fool for telling me about all this.”

“How’d you do it?” I asked.  I was fighting a feeling of despair because I didn’t see any way out.  Dom blocked the doorway, and there was no other exit.  Our goose was cooked.

“He came over to discuss yet another plan to steal this stuff and I got him drunk.  Spiked a few drinks with some Seconal.  I used his car and drove us up into the mountains.  He slept the whole way up to the trail head.  I talked him into the ride, but he was so wasted I don’t think he really knew where he was.”  Dom stopped as if remembering.  “The hardest part was helping him keep his balance.  He must’ve fallen a dozen times.  But I got him to that side trail and pushed him, right over the edge.”

It was not a pretty thought.  Cal shuddered.  I winced.

“I rode on back to the city.  Took a while, but I like to ride.”

“And it cleared the way for you to steal all this memorabilia,” I said.

Dominic beamed at his resourcefulness.  “Well, enough story time,” he said, now all business.  “It’s time to take care of you two, and get the rest of this stuff out of here.”

“What are you going to do to us?”

“An accident.”  Dom thought about this.  “Two guys find this great hiding place, but get trapped down here.  Buried alive.”

I heard Cal swallow.  Or maybe I heard myself.

Dom yanked some rope from his back pocket.  “What I want to know is how you figured it out,” he said to me.

“The Oscar,” I said.  “Let me show you what I mean.”  I carefully moved to the shelf where the two treasured statuettes sat, waiting for the sound of Dom’s gun to explode with each step I took.  “Right here,” I said, picking up the Best Supporting Oscar.  “You see that?”  I held the Oscar up, taking a few steps toward Dom.  He moved over and peered down where my finger was resting on the base of the statue.

“What?”

“This.”

I held it up to show Dom something, but instead swung the little gold man squarely at his face.  It happened so fast, and unexpectedly, that Dom didn’t have time to move.  The marble base caught him right on the bridge of his nose.

His eyes widened in surprise and pain.  The gun exploded, and the room filled with the echo of the blast.  At the same time I heard a scream that I wasn’t sure came from Dom, Cal, or me.  It might have been all of us.

The room reeled in eerie shadows as the flashlight hit the floor with a metallic clunk.  The room went completely dark.

“Reed!”  Cal shouted from my left.

Close to my feet I heard moaning and cursing.  “You broke my nose,” Dom groaned nearby.

I fell to my knees, pawing around on the floor, searching for the flashlight and the gun.  At the same time I was aware of my sore ribs screaming at me.

A cool piece of metal suddenly connected with my cheek.  I heard a click.

“Move and I’ll kill you,” Dom hissed at me.

I froze, knowing that his anger and pain mixed into a dangerous cocktail.

“Tell your friend to find the flashlight, and if he does anything crazy, you get a bullet right in the face.”

I had an absurdly comical urge to ask why I should tell Cal something that he had just heard Dom say, but resisted.  Fear was doing funny things to me.

Something like the sound of a whip disturbed the air.

Thunk!

In a split instance, I realized a number of things.  The cool touch of the metal left my face.  At the same time, a thump broke the quiet, and I presumed that Dom had fallen to the floor.  Then I comprehended that one side of my face, not Dom’s, was on the floor, and that the left side of my head felt like a hammer had pounded on it.

I heard the same funny whistling noise in the air and another thump.

“Ugh,” Dom moaned.  Another thump.

Then silence.

“Reed?” Cal whispered.

“Where are you?”  I was still immobile.

“Hold on.”

Cal scooted around, making shuffling noises as he scoured his hands across the floor.

“Here we go,” he said.

A burst of light sprang out of the darkness, wobbling crazily.  I let my eyes adjust.

Cal was on his knees by the door, the flashlight in one shaky hand, and a broken gold statue in the other.  Dom was lying on the floor between us, face down, a tiny rivulet of blood running down his right temple.

“Is he dead?” Cal murmured.

“I don’t know.”  I pulled myself up and frantically scanned the room.  The gun was half-under one of the metal shelves.  I snatched it up and aimed it at Dom’s inert body.

“Check him,” I said.

“You check him,” Cal retorted.

“I’ve got to keep him covered.  Unless you want the gun.”  I touched my head while we talked.  A large lump had formed above my ear.  Beaned on the head twice in one case.

Cal muttered threats at me under his breath, but eased forward and touched a finger to Dom’s neck.  “There’s a pulse.”  He sat back and sighed.  “Guess I knocked him out cold.”

“Take that rope and tie him up,” I ordered.

This time Cal worked feverishly.  He tossed me the flashlight and set to work with Dom’s own rope, trussing him up before he regained consciousness.

“That was a good shot,” I said after Cal finished.  I picked up the damaged Oscar.  “Let me ask you, how did you know who you were hitting?  I mean, since you couldn’t see anything.”

“It was dark,” Cal said slowly.

“Uh-huh,” I prompted him to continue.

“I heard his voice.”

“Yes?”

“And I swung at it.”

“And hit me.”

“I swung again and hit him.”

“I see,” I said.  “But how did you know that, even if you did hit him first, that his finger wouldn’t accidentally pull the trigger?”

Cal shrugged.  “I, uh…”

“I could’ve been killed!”

“I thought you were him.”

“Do I sound like him?”

Cal stared at me.  “If I didn’t do it, we probably both would’ve been killed.”

I burst into laughter, feeling the adrenaline waste out of my body.  “Touché.  A headache is worth it.”

“We’d better call the police.”  Cal grabbed his cell phone.

“Uh,” I hesitated.  “First, how are you going to get a signal down here?  Second, if you call the police, Watson, how are you going to explain why we’re here?”

Cal groaned.  “So what do we do?”

I contemplated the still form at our feet.  “Let’s get out of here, and we’ll call the police later and tell them about Dom.”

“An anonymous phone call.”

I nodded.  “Not that creative, but it’ll do.”

“But then no one knows that he killed Ned Healy.”

I pointed at the camera.  “It's been recording the whole time.  At least I think it has.”  I grabbed it off the shelf and pushed a button.  “It never shut off.”  I breathed a relieved sigh as I hit a couple more buttons.  Cal and I then watched as the video showed Dom standing in the dim room pointing a gun.  Sometimes he moved out of the camera's eye, but it didn't matter.  The audio was perfect, capturing his confession for all to hear.  “It’s all recorded.  Jack can take that to the police.”

“Will that work?”

“It’s the best we can do, given the circumstances.”  I pursed my lips.  “Unless we want to explain being here.”

Cal shook his head vigorously.  “Oh no.  And don’t use ‘we’ like that.  This was your idea.”

“Okay, okay.”  I held up a hand.  “C’mon, we’d better get out of here.”

“It really is a shame,” Cal said sadly.

“What?”

“The Oscar.”  Cal picked up the little gold statue from the floor.  It was the one he’d used to hit Dom and me.  It was missing its head and upper body, the edges of the remains jagged as broken glass.  “I ruined a valuable piece of Hollywood memorabilia.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Huh?”

I took the damaged Oscar and turned it on its side.  “This one is fake, just like the Barry Fitzgerald replica.”  I pointed to the base of the statue.  “Remember the description in the notes?  How the base is made of marble, and looks like a reel of film?  After 1928, the reel had five slots, for the five original branches of the Academy.  It remained the same until the ’40’s when they added more slots to the reel.  See this Oscar?  It’s supposedly from 1936, so the base should have only five slots, but it has more slots than that.  It’s a fake.”

“So that’s what you meant.”

I smiled.  “There’s actually one more thing that tells me this Oscar is a fake.”

“And that would be?”

“Look at the inscription.”

“Luise Rainer.  Best Supporting Actress, 1937,” Cal read.  He looked up at me.  “So?”

“Up until 1943, they gave supporting actors a plaque, not a statuette.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Can I mark that down?”  I grinned.  “Something Cal didn’t know.”

“Ha, ha.  But why would Frank Gray have fake Oscars in his collection?  Why not go after real ones?”

“Maybe it was another joke by his wife,” I said, and reminded Cal about the joke Gray’s wife had pulled on him.  I made a mental note to ask Henri if he knew about a second fake Oscar.  “And unless I miss the mark, that other Oscar on the shelf is real.”

Cal let out a whistle.  “Wow.  This guy had a truly amazing collection.”

“Think of all the stuff he already sold.”

“Who would’ve thought.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Once Cal and I let ourselves out of 210 Madison Avenue, we snuck back to the 4-Runner and called the police from a pay phone at a nearby gas station.  Again, not very creative, but it did the trick.  We waited a block down from the house until we saw a police cruiser stop and park out front.  Cal, who made the call, had thoughtfully told the 911 operator that the back door of the house was unlocked, and when the officers made their way around to the back yard, we drove back to my place.  I dropped Cal off at his car and parked the 4-Runner in the garage.  I slowly made my way upstairs to my condo, popped a couple of aspirin to ward off the headache I had, and got ready for bed.  The alarm clock read 3:10 when I finally slipped under the covers.

*****

The alarm on the nightstand in my bedroom buzzed at ten, but it seemed like my head had just hit the pillow.  I didn’t even think I’d had time to make a dent in it.

I shut the alarm off, dragged myself into the bathroom and took a long cool shower.  I gingerly washed my hair, the bump that Cal had given me throbbing like it had a heartbeat of its own.  Once I’d dressed, I plodded into the kitchen and took a couple more aspirin, then prepared a strong batch of coffee.

While I waited for the java to brew I called Jack and asked him to meet me at my office at 12:30, which would give me just enough time to wake up.  From the tone in his voice, I could tell Jack was puzzled that I wanted to meet on a Saturday, but he was agreeable.

Two cups of coffee, and then I donned sunglasses and headed outside.  A dry heat indicated that the mercury was already high and climbing higher.

On the way to the office, I stopped for a bagel and munched on it as I downloaded the video I’d recorded in the sub-basement.

“…that you did, Mountain View Apartments, and he was the first buyer for this house,” I heard myself say.  The quality of the recording was decent.

“Never heard of him.  You know, you’re smarter than you look.”  Dom said next.  Then I heard Cal snorting at the comment.  I remembered this part of the conversation – I had just asked Dom if he knew Garrett Owens.

I listened to the entire conversation, right up until Cal and I argued about whom he’d attempted to bean with the Oscar.  The camera had shut off when I dropped to the floor after Cal hit me.  I breathed a sigh of relief, glad the recording hadn’t stopped earlier.  Dom’s confession sounded crystal clear.

Just at noon, Jack poked his head through the doorway.

“Right on time.  Have a seat,” I waved him over.  I finished typing an email and sent it before turning to Jack.  “I’m just taking care of a few things here.”

“I hope this meeting means you have some news,” Jack said, settling into a seat across from my desk.  He crossed one leg over the other, then ran a hand through his hair.  His stark white shirt had circles of sweat under the armpits, but otherwise he looked crisp and clean.

I turned the computer monitor around so he could see it.  “Listen to this.”  I clicked on the video and pressed play.  Hissing blared out of the speakers, then my voice.

“What’s this?” Jack said, staring at me.

“Hold on,” I shushed him.

Jack folded his arms and listened.  At first he seemed irritated, but as the recording progressed, anger turned to disbelief.  When Dom got around to how he had killed Ned, Jack bolted upright in the chair.

“The man talking to us is Dominic Saunders,” I said after the video finished.  “This happened last night – well, this morning, early.”

“How did you get that?” Jack sputtered.

I explained the events of the last evening, concluding with how Cal and I didn’t want to face charges ourselves, so we’d left Dom in the basement and called the police anonymously.

“Incredible,” Jack said, shaking his head.  “But you were the guy who didn’t want to break the law.”

I felt my cheeks getting hot.  “And see what happened when I did.  I boxed myself into a corner.  I'll send you the video.”

“What do I do with this?”

“Show it to the police.  It may not be sexy, but it’ll get the ball rolling.”

“And when they ask about the others on the tape?  The voices with Dominic?”

I smiled.  “You can tell them you don’t know.”

“Bend the law.”  He raised his eyebrows.  I fought off a bigger smile.

Jack smiled back, then his face clouded over.  “What about the memorabilia?”

I shrugged.  “Once the police get involved, I’m sure they’ll work with Gray’s daughter, Edna, and maybe an insurance company, to catalogue the collection.  They’ll have to talk to Henri about what he sold, to see if they can recover any of it.”  I pursed my lips.  “Since the house was sold, there might be a fight between Edna and the new owners as to who owns the collection.”

“That could get interesting,” Jack said.

I glanced at the wall.  “I may have to give The Maltese Falcon poster back.”

“That would be too bad,” Jack smiled ruefully.  “I think you earned it.

“Thanks,” I said.

“The thanks goes to you.  You found out the truth about Ned’s death.”  A weary sadness settled across Jack’s face.  He again was the spitting image of Burt Lancaster in The Killers.  “I knew I was right about Ned.  I just wish it made me feel better.”

“I know,” I said.

He stood up and thanked me.  We shook hands.  Jack stared at the computer monitor, with Dom frozen on the screen.  It was all the validation he needed, with none of the peace he wanted.  He shrugged his shoulders, then left.

*****

Soon afterward, I headed to the hospital.  Henri’s room was quiet, with only the sounds of voices speaking in French breaking through the other noises in a busy building.  The good news was that Henri was awake.

“Oh, Reed,” Evaline beamed at me as I scooted up a chair and sat down next to her.  Henri was propped up in bed, a stack of pillows behind his back.

“You look tired, eh?” Henri said.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I said.  The three of us chatted for a few minutes about Henri’s health – improving dramatically, a few problems with his vision, but they expected to send him home soon; the weather – too hot for Evaline, but she would survive; and how much we all hated hospital food – especially the green Jell-O.

“Do you remember what happened?  Who attacked you?”  I asked the questions as soon as I could politely fit them in.

“I don’t remember,” Henri said, while Evaline shook her head dejectedly.  “I was in the back office, working.  Then I wake up here.”  He seemed disappointed with himself.

“The doctors say a head injury can cause him not to remember,” Evaline explained.

“It’s okay,” I said.  “I’m sure the police will find who did this to you.”  I thought about the taped confession.  I had no doubt they would learn the truth.

Evaline excused herself, ostensibly to use the restroom, but I think she knew I wanted to discuss business with Henri.  “Henri,” I asked, “Do you remember why you called me the other day?  When my cell phone wasn’t working.”

“Ah, yes.  I wanted to tell you about the Oscar that man brought into the store.  It was the fake one, just like Frank Gray’s wife gave him.  I called that man about it.  I wanted to know how he got it.”  His face clouded.  “Evaline tells me the Oscar was stolen from the shop.”

“I’m sure it’ll turn up.”  I paused.  “Was that fake Oscar the only one created?  Couldn’t there be more of them?”

Henri smiled slyly.  “Not like those.”

“Those?”  I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Ah.  I told you Gray had one fake Oscar, yes?”  He leaned toward me conspiratorially.  “He had two.  His wife asked my help in making another.  She wanted to know which actor it should be for.”  His eyes sparkled with mischief.  “I suggested she have one made for Luise Rainer, best supporting actress in 1937.”

“Knowing there weren’t supporting actor statuettes back then.”

“I knew I couldn’t fool you.”  Henri clapped his hands in delight.  “And it didn’t fool Gray either.  But he thought it was great fun, eh?  Fake Oscars intermingled with his real Oscars.  What a collection.”

Evaline came back in the room.  “What is so funny?” she asked.  Henri explained, laughing some more.  As the saying goes, it was music to my ears.

After a bit more chatting, I stood up to leave.  “Thank you for your help, Reed,” Henri said.

“My pleasure.”

Evaline looked at me with tears in her eyes.  “You’re a good boy.”  She patted my cheek.

“You take care of him,” I pretended to scold her.

“You must go, yes?” Henri said.

“I’ve got some other errands.  When you’re back at the shop, you let me know, and I’ll stop by.”

Henri smiled weakly.  “That’s good.  We have a Bogart poster for you.”

“I can’t wait.”  I gave Evaline's shoulder a squeeze, shook Henri’s scrawny hand, and left.

*****

When I returned home that evening, I made a call to Samantha Healy.  She didn’t return my call until Monday morning.  I arranged to meet her at a Starbucks near her house.  I arrived early, ordered a drink, and waited.

Samantha strolled through the door like a queen coming to court.  She slid her sunglasses off her face, tossed her hair back seductively, and surveyed the room, well aware of the many eyes that were on her.  She looked comfortable in khaki shorts and a denim blouse tied in a knot at her waist, exposing her flat, tanned stomach.  She spotted me at a small round table and strolled over.

“What’s this all about?”  The legs of a chair screeched as she pulled it out and sat down across from me.  More eyes turned our way.  “Why’d you need to see me?”

“Coffee?” I asked, holding up my mocha.

She shook her head.  “I really don’t have time for this.”

“But you came anyway.  Must be my charm.”

“You threatened me,” she said, leaning her elbows on the table.

I sat back in mock horror.  “I merely said I had some information about Dominic Saunders that you might like to know.”

At the name Samantha paled.  “So you mentioned on the phone.”  She spoke through a slit in her mouth.

I let a long moment hang between us, building the suspense.  “It was you who broke into Ned’s house, after he died,” I said when the tension was just right.

Samantha’s jaw dropped.  “What?  How did…  What are you talking about?” she stammered.

“You’re not a good liar.”

Her cheeks flushed red.  She took a couple of deep breaths.  “What makes you think I broke into Ned’s house?  Why would I want to do that?”

“To get something that belonged to you.”  I resisted a smile.

“How do you know about that?”  A few people turned and looked our way.

“Unless you want your dirty laundry aired in public, I’d suggest you keep your voice down,” I said softly.

She scooted her chair closer.  “Tell me!” she hissed, elbows planted halfway across the table.

“Remember when I came to the house?”  She nodded.  “You mentioned that Ned didn’t have much of anything in the house, just a stupid poster.”

“So?”

“You couldn’t have known about the poster unless you’d been in Ned’s house recently, because he’d just acquired it.  That one statement has been eating at me, and then when Dominic told me about your little affair, it came together.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Now she was really lying badly.

“You know Dominic.  The electrical guy that Ned hired.  You were all over him, at least that’s the way Dominic tells it.  And he said that you were angry because Ned still had some things of yours.”

“My grandmother’s brooch.  Ned still had it,” she said softly.

“And once he was dead, you could get it without any trouble.”

“Yes.”

“Did you also call the insurance company?”

Samantha’s face twisted into an ugly sort of mask.  “You’ve done your research,” she said finally.  “So what do you want?”

I sat back.  “I only wanted to confirm that I was correct.  I don’t plan on doing anything with the information, but I thought you might like to know that Dominic killed Ned.”

“What?”  For the first time Samantha was something other than self-absorbed or angry.  “Why?”

“I can’t reveal that, but you could call Jack.”

Samantha stared at me, saying nothing.  Then she slumped back in her chair, deflated.  “When we divorced, I couldn’t stand Ned,” she whispered.  “But I never wanted him to die.”

I gazed back at her.  She seemed like a lost puppy, and I actually came close to feeling sorry for her.

I tossed off the last of my mocha latte and stood up.  “I hope you find what you’re really looking for,” I said and walked away.  I could feel her eyes boring into my back as I walked out the door.

*****

She looked so different I hardly recognized her.  The spiked hair was gone, as was the black makeup, except for a bit of mascara around the eyes.  She wore white shorts, a blue blouse, and sandals.  Even her posture seemed more cultured.

Erin Abel strolled to a table in the corner and sat down, her book bag thumping loudly as it hit an empty chair near her.  She hadn’t noticed me sitting off in a corner, watching her come in.

I stood up and made my way through the maze of tables, stopping in front of her.  She had her nose in a book.  I cleared my throat and she glanced up.

“Oh, the asshole,” she said, her voice flat and unimaginative.

“That’s right,” I said.

“What do you want?”

“May I sit down?”

Erin narrowed her eyes, staring me down.  I held the gaze until she finally used her foot under the table to shove an empty chair backwards.  I sat down across from her and folded my hands in front of me.

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she spat.

“I owe you an apology,” I said.

“Damn straight you do,” she threw back at me.

“I shouldn’t have lied to you,” I continued.  “But I’d like to make it up to you.”

Erin sat up in her chair, wary.  “How?”

I pulled a note from my pocket and set it in front of her.  She stared at the paper for a second, then stretched her hand out and took it cautiously, as if it might burn her.

“Who’s this?” she asked after reading it.

“He’s a producer.  Mostly commercials, but he’s done a few documentaries.  He’s a friend of mine.  I called him earlier today and asked him if he would have any work for a newcomer.”

“He owes you one,” Erin said bluntly.

I nodded.  “Yeah, but he’s a good guy.  He said he could use some extra help, behind the cameras to start, but maybe more later.  It’s worth giving him a call.”

Erin gazed at the paper, crinkling the edges with her thumb and forefinger.  I was about to get up and leave when she spoke again.  “Why are you doing this?”

“I owe you one,” I said.  “I shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up the way I did.”  I pushed my chair back and got up.  “I hope you make it big.”

For the first time, she smiled, and her face was radiant.  Well worth the price of admission.  I told her so.

“Thanks,” she said, blushing.  “And thanks for this,” she held up the note.

I smiled back.  There were tears in her eyes.  Happy tears.  It made my Monday.

*****

“Hey Reed, how ya doing?” Deuce said to me when I returned home late that afternoon.  He was slouched back in a lounge chair on the porch, a can of Pepsi in his hand.  His front door was open and the groovy sounds of reggae wafted out to us.  “I’m waiting for Ace to get home.  Hot enough for ya?”

“Yep.”  I sat down on the steps and stretched my legs out.

“You finished work for the day?”

I nodded.

“You want a Pepsi?”

“Sure.”

He went inside and returned shortly with a cold soda.

“We’re gonna play pool later tonight.  You interested?”

“Maybe,” I said.  “I’m kind of tired.”

“You need any more help on the case?”

“No, I wrapped things up today.”

A funny look crossed his face, a mix of happiness and disappointment.  “Does that mean I don’t get to help out anymore?  Or carry a gun?”

“Not this time, pal.  But there’ll be other cases.”

He brightened up.  “Yeah, then I can quit working at the video store.”

Willie Rhoden’s car pulled up, rescuing me from saying anything about the frightening idea of Deuce wielding a weapon.

“Hi Reed.  Hi Deuce,” she waved as she got out and locked the car door.

“Hey, Willie,” Deuce hollered.  “You want a Pepsi?”

She strode up the walk, looking fine even in her scrubs.  “Sure.  I’ll take a Pepsi.”

Deuce darted into the house.

“You know he has a crush on you,” I said quietly.

“Uh-huh.  It’s cute,” she said, sitting down close to me.  “How are you?”

“Case closed, and I’m all in one piece,” I said with a smile.

I heard the phone ring inside Deuce’s place, then him talking to someone.

“Listen, about the other night,” Willie said.  “I got scared.”

I put an arm around her, and she didn’t resist.  “So you still like me.”

She pinched me.  “I never said I didn’t.  I just don’t want to complicate things.”

“Dinner and drinks.  That’s not complicated.”

“You know what I mean.”

Deuce came back outside.  “That was Bob.  He’s coming over for dinner, and asked if you guys would like to join us.  Barbecued ribs.  He makes them really good.”

I raised an eyebrow at Willie.  She nodded.  “That sounds wonderful, Deuce.”

Deuce beamed at Willie, and she beamed at me.

By the way she smiled at me, I could tell that things were looking up.

The Maltese Felon

CHAPTER ONE

“Hello! Is this the Reed Ferguson Detective Agency?”

The 40-ish woman with strawberry blonde hair rushed down the hall toward me.

“It is,” I said. I unlocked the office door, feeling her impatience ooze out of her.

“And you’re Reed Ferguson?” she asked as she pushed past me and stood in the small waiting room. She yanked off her coat and threw it onto a couch against the wall.

“I am,” I said as I followed her in and shut the door. “And you are?”

“Gail Saunders.” She whirled around to face me. “I need your help! Someone kidnapped my dog and I need you to get him back.”

I stared at her for a moment. Words, Reed, use your words, I thought to myself.

I finally found my voice. “You want to hire me for what?”

“To find my dog,” she snapped. “He’s been stolen.”

“So,” I paused. “A dognapping.”

“Yes!” she said. “I can’t find anyone that will help me. Oh, I’ve got to get Fuji back!”

“Uh, why don’t you come sit down?” I escorted her into the inner office.

“Thank you.” She slumped into a wingback chair sitting across from my desk. “I’ve been to a number of detective agencies and none of them will help me.”

I blinked. Was this some kind of joke? I glanced up at my prized vintage posters of The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon and at my cinematic hero, Humphrey Bogart, who stared down at me from the wall. I loved film noir and detective fiction, especially the classics by Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett. I’d turned that love into a career as a private eye and I’d even solved a few cases. I dreamed of being like Bogart, so cool, so suave. My gaze settled on Gail. “How did I end up like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective?” I silently asked Bogie.

“I’m not sure I can help you,” I began as I moved around the desk and sat down. I laid my hands on the surface and tried for a serious pose. “A missing dog –”

“No, you don’t understand,” Gail interrupted me. “Fuji isn’t just any dog. He’s a prize-winning Maltese. A show dog. He won Best of Breed at the Rocky Mountain Cluster Show.”

“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue about dog shows.

“The Rocky Mountain Cluster Show is the big show in Colorado. It’s held every year in February.” Gail contemplated me for a second. “How much do you know about show dogs?”

Was I that obvious? I cleared my throat. “Not much,” I conceded.

“Competitive dog showing is quite a sport,” Gail said.

Okay, my knowledge wasn’t not much, it was nothing. I had no idea that showing dogs was considered a sport.

“It’s really quite exhilarating,” Gail continued. “There’s the thrill of competition and the fun of seeing such beautiful and amazing dogs.”

“I see,” I murmured again, even though I didn’t. I sighed. It was Tuesday, so why was it feeling so much like a Monday?

“Fuji’s phenomenal.” Gail choked up. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

“What happened?”

“He was in the backyard. It was a nice day so I let him play outside. I usually stay with him but the phone rang. I ran inside to get it.” Gail wrung her hands  “I was only on the phone for a minute and I didn’t think anything of it. I’ve left him outside like that before, for just a minute or two and nothing’s ever happened. When I hung up, I went back outside and he was gone. I looked all over, thinking maybe he was hiding in the bushes or in the garden, but I couldn’t find him.”

“Did you hear him bark?”

“No, but he’s a friendly dog and he doesn’t bark much.”

“Could he have gotten out of the back yard somehow?”

Gail shook her head. “No way. Because he’s a show dog and he’s valuable, we have our yard fenced, so there’s no way he could escape.”

“No holes in the fence?”

She shook her head again.

“Excuse my ignorance,” I said. “But is it really worth hiring me to find your dog? How valuable is he?”

Gail pursed her lips for a second before answering. “Fuji is worth over $200,000.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You heard me right,” Gail said.

“What makes a show dog so valuable?” I asked. “Breeding rights?”

“Exactly.”

I mentally patted myself on the back. The detective figures something out.

“But it’s not just about that,” Gail continued. “Fuji is like family. We’re all devastated. My daughter cries herself to sleep at night. My husband can’t believe someone stole our dog.”

“So how did the kid – er, dognappers take Fuji?” I mused. “Could they have come through the back gate?”

“No. We have a lock on the gate and it’s bolted from the inside.”

“Is there barbed wire on the fence?” I asked. “Anything to prevent a thief from hopping over the fence to snatch your dog?”

“If I did that, I’d be advertising that I have something to protect,” Gail said. “And my homeowners association would never allow that.”

“How high is the fence?”

She shrugged. “About six feet, I guess.”

“So the dognappers would’ve had to climb over the fence to get your dog.”

“That’s what I think,” Gail said.

I looked at Bogie on the wall and thought for a moment. “You’d likely need two people.”

“Why?”

“Picture it,” I said. “The dognapper gets into the yard and takes the dog. Then what? How does he get himself and the dog safely back over the fence? If someone were waiting, he can hand the dog off, then climb the fence. They’d be in and out in less than a minute, and if they had a car right there, they’d be gone before anyone knew the difference.”

Gail nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

“Unless someone spotted them,” I said. “None of your neighbors saw anything?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Did you talk to them?”

Gail sighed. “A few of them. Some work, so they wouldn’t have been home. We’re close to the neighbors next door and the couple across the street. But none of them were home when Fuji disappeared.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Yes, of course.” She grew angry again. “That went nowhere.”

“Why? Someone still committed a crime,” I said.

“Oh, that’s true,” Gail replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Since Fuji is worth so much, the crime is actually a felony. The department assigned a detective to the case, but we don’t have a suspect and there isn’t any evidence to speak of, so the detective said there isn’t anything they can do. Oh, I was so mad.”

“Wouldn’t the people who took your dog need the registration papers if they were going to breed your dog?” I asked.

“That’s correct. But that’s not the only reason to steal a dog. The detective said that dognappings are on the rise, especially with the economy being so bad. He said that thieves are taking dogs and then returning them for the reward money. Because of that, he advised us not to pay any money, but we had to try something to get Fuji back. So we posted flyers around the neighborhood offering a reward of a thousand dollars. We didn’t hear anything for a couple of days. And then we got this.”

She pulled a note from her handbag and handed it across the desk.

I read it. It was a stereotypical ransom note:

Buy a new black Under Armour PTH Victory Team Duffle Bag from Sports Authority. Put $10,000 in unmarked twenties in it. Go to South Valley Park near C-470 on Wednesday. Leave the bag behind the rock outcropping on the west side of Coyote Song Trail at 9 PM and leave. We get the money, you get instructions to get your dog back. No cops or you don’t get your dog back.

Wednesday. That was tomorrow night.

I looked up at her. “When did you get this?”

“Yesterday.”

“Did you tell the detective about this?”

“Of course,” Gail said. “But I’d already opened the note, so there was no way to get fingerprints, and the department doesn’t have the resources to do much beyond taking a report. My husband and I talked about what we should do, and we decided to come to hire a detective.”

“How did you know about me?” It wasn’t like my detective agency was advertised all over town.

“I’ve been all over,” Gail said. “I can’t find anyone who’ll help me. I heard about you from the Smiths. My parents know the Smiths and the Smiths know you.”

Ah, the friend of a friend referral. The Smiths were friends with my parents and two of the Smiths’ sons lived in a condo below me.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I don’t have the resources that the police do. I don’t know how I could find the dognappers.”

“But you could go with my husband and me to the ransom drop. Follow the dognappers and see if you can find out who stole Fuji. And help us get him back.” Her voice got louder and more exasperated with each sentence. “The Rocky Mountain Cluster Show is this weekend and we’re supposed to show Fuji. On top of everything else, if we can’t show him…” her voice trailed off.

I leaned back in my chair. Go to the ransom drop. That seemed simple enough.

“Obviously, we’ll be paying you for your time,” she said.

I hesitated. Investigate a dognapping? Oh, my mother would be so proud…

“Please, you’ve got to help us. You’re a good detective, aren’t you?”

“I like to think I am,” I said.

“I’d like to think so, too,” Gail glared at me. “This should be an easy job. I don’t know why all those other detectives had reservations.”

I couldn’t blame them. Investigating a dognapping would not be good for my image or my résumé. But other images cropped up, such as bills piling up on my desk. And my reservations disappeared.

“I’ll take the case,” I said.

This time I didn’t even look at Bogie. I was afraid he’d be shaking his head at me, or snickering. Or both.

CHAPTER TWO

Cold air assaulted me as I got out of my car. Not surprising since a storm was expected later in the evening and the temperature was hovering in the twenties. I had parked the 4-Runner up the road from the north end of South Valley Park, a 900-acre open space in the foothills west of Denver. Two parking lots flanked the north and south sides of the hiking trail that made a loop through the park.

Yesterday Gail had signed a contract and I’d gone to her house to check out her back yard. I found nothing exciting, and no way that I could see for Fuji to escape through a hole in the fence. I tried to talk to some of the neighbors, but ringing bells and banging on doors got me nothing but bruised knuckles. No one was home.

That left me to assist with the ransom drop, which was why I was here. I traipsed down South Valley Road and into the north parking lot of the park. Dusk was settling over the foothills and the lot was empty. Nobody wanted to hike in the cold February air with darkness looming. I spotted a building that housed restrooms and nearby a shelter held maps of the park.

The hiking trail consisted of a loop running north and south. The ransom drop instructions told the Saunders to buy a black canvas tote bag from Sports Authority. The dognappers had specified the exact model, which was kind of strange, but maybe they knew what size bag would hold $10,000 in unmarked $20’s. Knowing the exact model might also help them to know if we’d hidden a tracing device in the bag. The Saunders were to park at the south end of the trail and access the trail from there. They were to leave the bag behind a large rock outcropping a little less than a mile up from the parking lot on Coyote Song Trail, the east trail of the loop. They would know the site by the large pine tree with a broken stump that was across the trail from the rock outcropping.

I strolled up to the shelter and studied the map. I had hiked the trail this morning, scoping out the terrain. I found the rock outcropping, but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. My plan was to spy on the drop site and intercept the dognappers as they retrieved the money. My finger traced around the loop of the trail. Another trail traversed a ridge to the east and intersected Coyote Song Trail north of the drop site, but I couldn’t imagine anyone trying to hike over the ridge in the dark, and in winter. That left getting to the rock outcropping from either of the parking lots.

I checked my watch. Almost six o’clock. The Saunders were to deliver the money at nine. Once the dognappers safely retrieved the money, the Saunders would receive further instructions on where Fuji would be. I had talked my friend, Cal Whitmore, into watching the south parking lot, in case the dognappers parked there. Cal often played Watson to my Holmes, and he was in for another round. If he saw anyone hike the trail after the Saunders drove away, he would call me on my cell phone. I’d be north of the drop site, so I’d know if the dognappers came from that direction. Bases covered…now I needed to see how it played out.

A breeze stirred dead leaves in the grass and chilled the air even more. I was wearing my ninja outfit: black jeans, black T-shirt, black coat and a black wool cap pulled down over my ears. I donned a pair of gloves, black of course, and tucked my head down into my coat. I strolled up the trail, past an imposing red rock formation on the north side of the trail loop.

“They sure picked a great spot,” I murmured to myself as I huffed through a patch of snow to the top of a short hill. I turned right onto Coyote Song Trail.

The sun vanished behind the foothills, leaving the western sky an orange glow. I started down a long hill with open fields on either side. Across the west fields, cars sped along South Valley Road. A pack of coyotes yapped in the distance. I paused and shivered, not just from the cold.

Even though the park stayed open until an hour after dusk, I ran into no one. The trail took a slight jaunt and became more wooded. Ice and snow now covered parts of the trail where foliage and rocks blocked the sun’s rays. I traversed these areas carefully so I wouldn’t fall. A critter scampered off the path ahead of me and made me jump.

“Be still my beating heart,” I whispered. My palms grew sweaty in my gloves. A few more minutes and I came to a short, open stretch of trail. Up ahead I spied the rock and the pine tree. Clumps of oak shrubs stood on both sides of the trail, their bare branches sticking out like skeletons in the dim light.

I stopped and listened but heard only the breeze humming through the trees. I waited a few minutes and watched to make sure no one was around. Then I slowly advanced down the trail. I walked up to the rock outcropping and glanced around. No one. More tall oak shrubs grew near the rock, so I walked around to the back side of the rock, giving the brush a wide berth. I was trying to be as quiet as possible, but in the silence I sounded like a herd of deer thrashing through the foliage. My nerves were taut. If someone was hiding near the rock, I’d be a sitting duck.

I trekked all the way around the rock but didn’t see the dognappers. I returned to the trail and hiked past the rock again until I came to the clump of trees on the opposite side of the trail. Earlier in the day, I had cleared out a spot behind the trees by removing the dead leaves. In the daytime, I’d be spotted in a second, but in the growing darkness it would be impossible to spot me unless someone flashed a light right at me. I sat down and waited.

The sky morphed into a deep dark blue, then black. The cold crept into my bones. Something rustled in the dead leaves nearby.

“Bogie wouldn’t be scared,” I thought to myself. “Be cool. It’s only an animal. A small one that doesn’t want to eat you.”

I thought about Bogart. And dogs. And Bogart and dogs. A stray dog befriends Bogie in the classic film noir High Sierra. But the dog is a bad omen, bringing his owner bad luck. I hoped this canine investigation wasn’t a bad omen for me.

Stars emerged and the moon, three-quarters full, crept across the night sky. I shifted periodically to keep my legs and butt from falling asleep. Time ticked by but no one appeared. My stomach growled, a roar in the stillness. I stuffed my icy hands in my coat pockets. I battled boredom. Bogie never had to do this, I thought ruefully. This is the part they cut from the films.

I checked my watch in the moonlight too many times. Finally 8:45 arrived. Not long now.

My toes were numb now. I gingerly got to my feet and stretched.

Then I saw it. A light bobbing in the darkness. A tall man appeared over the rise from the south. He clutched a small canvas bag in his hand. I knew from the dark coat, baseball cap, and the bag that it was Gavin Saunders, Gail’s husband. He made no attempt to disguise his approach, but clomped right up to the rock formation. He shined his flashlight at the rock. Then he aimed the light all around him. I ducked down but the beam was not strong enough to illuminate me. Gavin paused, then pushed through the barren bushes and around to the back side of the rock. Leaves crackled loudly in the stillness. Then he emerged without the bag.

The light bobbed away and complete darkness settled upon me again. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath and I finally exhaled slowly. I rose back to my full height and watched the rock. Nothing.

I wondered how long I’d been waiting when a sound stopped me short. Had another animal darted through the underbrush?

I squinted at the rock outcropping. Everything was still, but I was certain I’d heard something. Then the branches moved slightly and a block of a man materialized out of the shrubs, holding the bag. He must’ve been pretty nimble on his feet, because he’d made little noise in the foliage.

The man peered to the left, in the direction where Gavin had gone. The man paused a second, then gingerly crept onto the trail. He looked all around, assuring himself that Gavin had indeed left. Then he trudged headed north down the trail. As he passed by me, sounds of his heavy breathing cut through the silence. I held my own breath, praying he wouldn’t see me. But he wasn’t using a flashlight and his focus was on the trail and his gait cautious so he wouldn’t stumble.

I let him get a little ways ahead and I fell in behind him. The dirt on the trail was soft, and I hoped the sounds of his walking would drown out any noise my footfalls might make.

Then it happened. I hit a patch of ice and slipped, landing hard on my ass.

“Oof!” My breath escaped in a loud rush.

I froze for a second and then lifted my head. The man had spun around and was staring back toward me. Then he bolted.

I scrambled to my feet and ran after him, all surreptitious pretenses gone. I raced along, watching him disappear through a clump of trees and shrubs. I hurried on and rounded a bend. The trail opened into the clear space. The man was at least thirty yards ahead of me. My side screamed as I continued the chase. He stumbled but it didn’t delay him enough. I charged up the hill. The man stopped at the top of the rise, a large silhouette against a silvery black skyline. Then he vanished. I dashed to the top of the slope and veered to the left, toward the parking lot.

I ran pell-mell, falling headlong in a patch of snow. I shoved myself up and left the trail. Up ahead, in the parking lot, an engine roared to life. The man hurled himself into the passenger side of a dark-colored truck. The truck lurched forward, careening up the hill. It bore down on me and I leaped off to the side, sliding in more snow and ice. The truck swerved just before it reached me, peeling up clods of dirt and snow as the tires fought for traction. Then the truck made a 180, shot back onto the asphalt and tore out of the parking lot. Its headlights came on as it turned right onto South Valley Road. I cut across the parking lot, hoping I could intercept the truck as it drove along the road past the lot. I sprinted by the restroom building and tripped again. I stood up, cursing, and ran smack into another man.

“Hey!” he yelled.

“Out of my way.” I pushed him down.

“Reed, stop! It’s me!”

The truck’s red taillights disappeared in the distance. I turned and stared at Cal, who was getting to his feet.

“What the hell are you doing?” I wheezed at him. I bent over to catch my breath.

“What are you doing?” he countered.

I waved a hand into the darkness. “I was chasing the dognappers. If I could’ve got close enough, I might’ve got a license plate number.”

“Oh.” Cal gazed down at me for a second, then shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry.”

I straightened up. “What are you doing up here? Why aren’t you watching the south lot?”

“I had to go to the bathroom,” Cal murmured sheepishly. “I didn’t want to use the port-a-potty at night, so I drove over here. But the building isn’t open. I was about to go back to my car when I saw the truck pull into the lot. I hid behind the building.”

“Could you get a license plate number?”

Cal shook his head. “I was trying to figure out how I could get it without being spotted when I saw someone run up to the truck and hop in. Then I saw you, only I didn’t know it was you.”

“So you hid again.”

“Yes,” Cal said. “I heard the truck tear out of the parking lot, and I recognized your voice so I came out.”

“So we have nothing.”

“It was a black truck,” Cal offered.

“Okay, one clue.” I stared at a rip in one of my gloves. “Did you see anyone at the south lot?”

“Nobody, other than the Saunders.”

I sighed. “It doesn’t matter, since the dognappers came up this way.”

“They parked up here then,” Cal said.

“No, the guy couldn’t have come from this direction because I didn’t see him ’til he came out from behind the rock with the money. He must’ve been dropped off somewhere along South Valley Road between the park entrances and hiked across the field to the rock.”

“What do we do now?” Cal asked.

“Meet up with the Saunders,” I said. “The dognappers got their money, so they should be returning Fuji.”

I had barely spoken those words when my phone rang.

“What did you do?” Gail shouted hysterically at me through the phone.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I followed the dognappers and –”

“They say they’re going to kill Fuji,” Gail interrupted. “They say we didn’t follow instructions and so Fuji dies.”

“Where are you?”

“At the Albertsons on Kipling,” she wailed.

“I’ll be right there,” I said and closed my cell phone.

“Come on,” I said to Cal.

“What?”

“The dognappers are threatening to kill Fuji because of me.”

*****

“They’re not going to hurt Fuji,” Gavin Saunders comforted Gail. “It’ll be all right.”

Cal had driven me to my car and then followed me from South Valley Park to our rendezvous point in a grocery store parking lot near the park. Cal dashed off to the store restroom, while I talked with the Saunders.

“They got their money. Why would they want to kill Fuji?” Gail blubbered. She paced around their Honda, wringing her hands.

I looked at Gavin. His face was all sharp features and a razor-thin mustache. He was tall, gangly, and his arms flailed around like wet noodles as he paced and talked. “Tell me everything from the time you arrived at the park until now,” I said to him.

Gavin paused, then draped an arm around Gail. “We parked in the south lot and I hiked to the spot I was supposed to. I left the money behind the rock just like the note said and I hiked back down the trail. Gail stayed in the car. We left right away and drove here to wait for you. About an hour after we left, they called Gail. They were furious that someone had followed them.”

“He was yelling at me,” Gail sobbed. “The note said ‘No cops’. That’s what he yelled. He said we weren’t supposed to involve anyone else. I told him that he got his money so he should return Fuji and he said that he should kill the damn dog for what we did.”

“So he didn’t say that he was actually going to kill Fuji,” I said.

“No,” Gail huffed at me. “But he might as well have. They’re really mad now. They could do anything.”

“We have to stay positive,” Gavin said. “They have the money. Surely they’ll return Fuji.”

“Gavin’s right,” I said. “Give me the number they called from.”

“They wouldn’t be stupid enough to use their own cell phone,” Gavin snorted.

“It’s probably some kind of prepaid phone, but we have to check.” I glanced at Cal, who had returned from the bathroom, looking relieved. He was a super techo-genius, so if there was any way to find information associated with the phone number, he’d get it.

Gail read the number to me and I jotted it down. She was putting her phone away when it rang.

“I don’t know this number,” she said, her hand shaking as she answered.

“Yes.” She paused. “Yes! That’s our dog. We’ll be right there.”

“What?” Gavin bellowed as she hung up.

“Someone at the Chili’s near Southwest Plaza found Fuji tied up in the parking lot,” Gail blurted. “Come on!”

We raced to our cars and followed Gavin and Gail the few minutes to Southwest Plaza. As we pulled into the parking lot near the Chili’s, I spotted an elderly couple standing near a Lexus. The woman was holding Fuji, stroking his head.

Gail jumped out of the car before Gavin had even stopped. As she ran up to the couple, Fuji hopped into her arms.

“Oh, my sweet boy,” she cooed at him.

“Where did you find him?” I asked the couple.

The man pointed to a row of trees on the south side of an access road in the mall parking lot. “He was tied to one of the trees. Poor guy was scared, yipping like crazy.”

“Why would someone leave him here?” the woman said. “Thank goodness the rope was short, otherwise someone might have run over him.”

“Thank you!” Gail said to the couple. She hugged the woman while Fuji squirmed between them.

“It’s nothing,” the lady said. “I’m just glad your number was on his tag.”

“So am I,” Gavin said. He shook the man’s hand.

“Did you see anyone leave him?” I asked.

The couple looked at each other and shook their heads. “When we came out of the restaurant, we heard him barking, so we walked over and saw him,” the man said. “No one was around.”

The Saunders thanked the couple again.

“Glad to help.” The man smiled as he opened the car door for his wife, then he got in and they drove off.

“I’m going to see if anyone in the restaurant noticed anything,” Cal said and walked across the road to the Chili’s.

I surveyed the area. With the exception of a few cars parked in the Chili’s lot, no other cars were anywhere close to where we stood by the trees. The trees blocked the view of the restaurant parking lot. It would’ve been easy to pull up behind the trees, tie up the dog and leave without being spotted by anyone.

Cal returned. “No one had any idea what I was talking about.”

“A dead end,” I said. “We can check the phone number, but I doubt we’ll get anywhere with that.”

“I would love to find those jerks,” Gail said. “But right now I’m just glad Fuji’s back. And believe me, we’ll be watching him like a hawk from now on.”

Gavin turned to me. “Let us know if you find out anything about the phone number. I want these guys caught.”

Cal and I waved as the Saunders drove off.

“We’re not going to find anything with that number,” Cal said.

I nodded. “You’re right, but check it anyway.”

“Can I go home now?” he asked. Cal preferred being in his own home, safe with the computers he understood so well.

“Yeah, thanks for helping,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Cal grinned as he got in his car. “All’s well that ends well,” he said.

Or so we thought.

CHAPTER THREE

The sun shone brightly Thursday morning, but it did little to dent the frigid air. I arrived at the office at ten, and I stopped short.

Three ladies stood in my waiting room, whispering to each other. One gripped the leash of a huge Mastiff, one of the few dog breeds I recognized. She was tall and thin, but had an athletic grace about her. She’d have to in order to handle her dog. The second woman was Gail, with Fuji tucked in her arms. Next to her was a plump woman who clutched a tissue that she used to dab her wide brown eyes.

“Oh, dear Lord,” I murmured.

“Reed, we need your help,” Gail said.

“What’s going on?” I gestured for the women to follow me into my office. I pulled a couple of fold-up chairs from a closet and set them up next to the wingback chair. “Have a seat, or seats, ladies.”

They each settled into chairs. The mastiff slowly slid to the floor where he promptly fell asleep. The two ladies glanced at Gail, and she stared at me.

“Another dognapping?” I asked, my eyes darting to the woman with the tissue.

“Yes,” Gail said.

Boy, was I sharp. I leaned back in my chair, feeling a bit like the great detective Nero Wolfe. It seemed like old Wolfe always had a gaggle of people in his office while he pieced together clues and solved crimes.

I pointed to the woman with the tissue. “You are?”

“Belinda,” she said, sniffling. “My dog, Rosie, was taken from my yard last night. I received a ransom note this morning. They want $20,000 for her safe return.”

I bit my lower lip. The ransom amount had doubled. The dognappers were getting bolder.

I pulled a pad and pen from a desk drawer. “Let’s get some details,” I said. “What kind of dog do you have?”

“She’s a Shih Tzu,” Belinda said.

I wrote down the breed, spelling it as best I could, and mentally noting that Rosie was a small dog. That was the extent of what I knew about Shih Tzus.

“How valuable is she?” I continued.

“$150,000,” Belinda said.

“Another valuable dog,” I said. “What time did she go missing?”

“Around 5 p.m.,” Belinda said. “I came home from work and let her outside, like I always do. She usually runs around for a bit, and then I go out and get her, or sometimes she’ll bark at the back door when she wants back in.” Belinda swallowed hard. “But she never did. The phone rang and I got it. I figured she’d be wanting back in when I finished the call. She wasn’t barking so I went out to look for her. Then I panicked. I drove around the neighborhood searching for her, but I couldn’t find her.”

“Do you always come home from work at the same time?” I asked.

Belinda nodded. “Rosie’s in her kennel all day so I come home right after work to let her out.”

“It sounds like the dognappers knew your routine.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Belinda frowned.

“One more thing,” I said. “You said the phone rang?”

“Yes, right when I let Rosie out.”

“I received a phone call too,” Gail said. “Right after I’d let Fuji out.”

“It sounds like that’s how the dognappers distracted you,” I said. “Gail, in your case, they could’ve been watching the yard, waiting until they saw you let the dog out. Then they called you on the phone and you ran back inside.” I pointed to Belinda. “In your situation, they knew your routine and they called just as you let Rosie out. Either way, the dogs were left unattended.”

“I know,” Belinda said, her lip trembling.

“Who was on the phone?” I asked.

“It was a woman asking if I’d complete a survey. I wasn’t going to but it was about dog food, so I did. I like organic dog food and I figured I’d let her know about how great it is.”

“Sort of turning the tables on the surveyor,” Gail said.

“Exactly.” Belinda looked at me. “I chatted with her for a few minutes.”

“Which is what she wanted,” I said. “Keep you on the phone and away from the back yard and your dog.”

Belinda blushed.

“It’s okay,” I said. “So after you looked around the neighborhood, what’d you do?”

“I was frantic, so I called Lisa.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

The woman with the Mastiff raised her hand. “I’m Lisa…Halston. Belinda and I are friends. We met at a dog show a few years back. Anyway, she called me last night and told me about Rosie running away and I was immediately suspicious.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Lisa and I are also friends,” Gail piped up. “And Lisa knew that Fuji was missing and that we’d received a ransom note.”

“Hold on,” I said. Too many connections to keep track of, I thought. I wrote down Belinda knows Lisa, Lisa knows Gail on my notepad.

Lisa bobbed her head emphatically. “I knew it couldn’t be coincidence. Two show dogs going missing so close to each other? No way.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Belinda took up her story again. “After talking with Lisa, I was so worried.”

“Did you call the police?” I asked.

“No.” Belinda shrugged. “I figured since the police weren’t able to do anything for Gail, why even bother. And I figured if it was the same people taking the dogs, I’d be receiving a ransom note soon and if that happened, I’d tell the police then. I barely slept at all. When I left the house this morning, I noticed an envelope stuck to the front door. Sure enough, it was a ransom note. I called in sick to work and then phoned Lisa.”

“And after we talked, I called Gail,” Lisa said. “She told me about what happened last night, with you and the ransom money.”

“And I suggested we come to you for help,” Gail said as she stroked Fuji’s back. He rested his head on her lap, oblivious to the tension thick in the room.

“I see.” I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “You do realize I didn’t succeed in catching the dognappers?”

“The police won’t do anything,” Gail said. “You’re still our best hope of stopping whoever’s doing this.”

“Not a resounding endorsement,” I thought.

“We want you to help Belinda get her dog back,” Lisa said.

“Whoever did this is going to be more careful with the money exchange,” Belinda said. “I’m going to need your help.”

“And we also want you to catch whoever’s doing this,” Gail said.

“It’s obvious there’s a dognapping ring operating, and they’re targeting show dogs,” Belinda sniffled.

“We don’t want to see any more dogs stolen,” Gail said.

“Of course,” I said.

“We’ve pooled our resources and we’ve got your retainer,” Gail said as she not so subtly slid a check across the desk.

I contemplated them for a moment. Three sets of eyes all begging me to help them. Throw in little Fuji staring at me with his puppy-dog eyes and I didn’t stand a chance. How could I turn them down?

I took the check and folded it up. “Okay, let’s get started.”

The ladies started chattering, each with an idea of where we should start the investigation. I held up a hand for silence.

I turned to Belinda. “Do you have the ransom note with you?”

“Yes.” She pulled a piece of paper from her purse and gave it to me.

It was similar to the one that Gail had received.

“It’s stock paper,” I said. “Could’ve come from any printer.”

“I didn’t think about fingerprints,” Belinda blushed. “I tore open the envelope when I got it, and we’ve all handled it.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I doubt there were any prints on it that we could use.”

I read the note. This time, the kidnappers wanted the money dropped in an alley behind a strip mall on Federal Boulevard. And based on the last sentence, they were mad. If ANYONE besides you shows up with the money, your dog is dead. I glanced up. Now those three sets of eyes worriedly stared at me.

“How can you help without putting Rosie at risk?” Gail asked.

“I’ll have to think about that. In the meantime, I’d like to visit your house,” I said to Belinda. “Would any of your neighbors be home?”

“Shirley Baker lives across the street from me. She’s a stay-at-home mom. She’s got a daughter in kindergarten and a sixteen-month-old boy,” she said. “She might be home.”

“Good,” I said. “Let’s start there.”

“What do we do?” Lisa asked.

“I’d call any other show dog owners you know and tell them to keep an eye on their dogs and watch for any suspicious people around their houses.”

“I’ve already called a few people I know,” Gail said. “And we have a meeting with the president of the kennel club.”

“Gail and I are meeting with her in an hour,” Lisa said. “The club needs to alert dog owners.”

“Good.” I mentally chewed over things for a moment. “When does that dog show begin?”

“It starts tomorrow afternoon,” Lisa said, “And it runs through the weekend.”

“How can I get in behind the scenes?” I asked. “The dognappers might be there, looking for the next dog to take.”

“You can come with me,” Gail said. “But if the dognappers are there, how will you spot them?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Sometimes detective work is poking around and hoping that a little luck falls your way.”

“Oh,” Gail said. Belinda’s lips twisted pensively while Lisa furrowed her brows at me. I certainly wasn’t wowing them with my private eye skills.

I stood up. “Belinda, I’ll follow you to your house.”

“Sounds good.” She stood up. “I just want to get Rosie back safely.”

“That’s what we’re going to do,” I said with more conviction that I felt.

The mastiff stood up and stretched. “Come on, King,” Lisa said.

I patted him on the head. “That’s a fitting name.”

“His full name is Perrydale Conqueror King,” Lisa said.

“That’s a mouthful,” I replied.

“Show dogs are named after the kennel where the dog was born, and sometimes the name of the dogs that sired the pups. In this case, Conqueror was his father’s name,” Lisa explained. “We added King, which is what we call him most of the time.”

A curious thought popped into my head. “Why did you bring him with you?”

“I didn’t want anyone to take him!” Lisa said. “These people are getting more desperate. Who knows if they would decide to break into my house or yard to take King. He’s really sweet and gullible…he’d probably offer them a beer, and then they could walk him right out of the house.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a dognapper would be foolish to take such a big animal. Not only would they be easier to spot leaving her yard, it would cost the dognappers a ‘king’s ransom’, so to speak, to keep King in food.

“Time to find a dognapper,” I said as we traipsed out of my office.

CHAPTER FOUR

I pulled into traffic, following Belinda’s Honda Civic as she headed west out of downtown Denver to Lakewood, the suburb where she lived.  I turned down the music, grabbed my cell phone and called Cal.

“Yo,” he answered.  “I’ll bet you want to know about that phone number.”

“You got it,” I said.  I glanced in my rear view mirror.  Lisa’s Suburban was behind me and I saw King’s massive head sticking out the back window.  I wondered if he startled other drivers.

“Negative on that,” Cal said.  “The number was just activated and I can’t trace it back to anyone.  It’s probably one of those cheap, pre-pay phones where you don’t have to give any information about your identity.”

“I’d have been surprised if it was a good lead,” I said.

“I did a search on dognappings, too.  I found a couple of articles about expensive dogs that have gone missing, but the owners never received ransom notes.”

“Were the dogs returned?” I asked.

“No,” Cal said.

“That’s interesting,” I said.  “Maybe the dognappers were going to leave a ransom note, but they decided to keep the dogs.”

“Sorry I couldn’t help anymore.”

“Not so fast,” I said.  “There’s another reason I called you.”

“What?” Cal said slowly, reacting to my tone of voice.

“Another dog’s been taken.”

“What happened?”

I explained the situation, and ended with, “I need your help again.”

“Help as in, help me look up something on the computer, or help as in, come with me somewhere?”

“The second,” I said.

“No way.  Last night was plenty of action to last me quite a while, thank you.”

“Come on,” I cajoled.

“Nope, no way.  I was your driver on your very first case.  That was fun.  But then you almost got me killed,” he said, referring to my latest case.  “That was not fun.  I was relatively safe last night as I watched the parking lot, which is saying a lot when I’m helping you.  But not again.”

It was true.  I had gotten us into a dicey situation on my last case.  And it was also true that last night had been more excitement than Cal sees in months.  Getting him to help me with the Saunders’ dog had been a minor miracle.  I wasn’t going to get that lucky again.

“Would it help if I said I’d bring you pizza?” I tried.

“Nope,” Cal said.  “You’re my best friend, and I’ll hack into any computer you want, but I don’t want anything to do with danger.”  Then he hung up.

I held the phone for a second.  Hacking into computer systems wasn’t dangerous, but going with me to a doggie ransom drop was.  Go figure.

****

Belinda’s ranch-style home sat on a quiet street of custom-built homes.  I parked at the curb in front of her house and took a moment to survey the street.  A car was parked in a driveway down the block, and a woman got out and went into the house, but otherwise the neighborhood was quiet, with no one about.

I got out and was strolling up the walk when Belinda opened the front door.

“Have you lived here long?” I asked as she let me in.

“Yes,” Belinda said.  “It’s a nice area.  Why?”

“Are any of your neighbors mad at you?”

“Mad enough to take my dog?” she said, surprised.

I shrugged.  “It’s possible.”

Belinda face crinkled up.  “I don’t think anybody would do that.”

“Just a thought,” I said as I glanced around.

I stood in an entryway that opened into a small living room decorated in off-white furniture and flowery wallpaper.  Pictures of a dog sat on a piano in the corner.  Then I noticed another dog picture on a little half-moon table in the entryway.

“That’s Rosie,” Belinda said.

I picked up the picture and studied it.  Rosie was sitting posed on a chair, gazing with big friendly eyes at the camera.  She had a coat of long brown-and-white fur and a blue bow tied on her head.

“She’s a sweet dog,” Belinda said.

“I’m sure she is,” I said.  I put the picture back down.  “Do you live alone?

“Yes.  I’m divorced.”

“So you’ll have to go drop the ransom money yourself.”

Belinda chewed her lip nervously.  “Yes.”  She hesitated.  “Will I be safe?”

“You’ll be fine.  They don’t want you, they want your money.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Your neighbor Shirley might be home?” I asked.  “Which house is hers?”

“That one.”  Belinda pointed to the house directly across the street.

I nodded.  “I want to talk with her and see if she saw anything.”

“Can I get you anything?” Belinda offered.

“No, thanks,” I said.  “Let me take a look at the back yard and then I’ll see if Shirley’s home.”  I checked my watch.  It was just past noon.  If Shirley’s daughter was in kindergarten, it would mean Shirley was probably picking her up from school about now.  I hoped she would come home right after that, otherwise I’d have to wait to talk to her.

Belinda led me through her kitchen and out back.  The yard was big, with enough room for rose bushes along one fence, a couple of big apple trees along the back, and a shed in the corner.  A tall cedar fence enclosed it.

“The whole yard is fenced,” Belinda said, pointing out the obvious.

“Where’s the gate?”

“Over here.”  Belinda headed around to the side of the house.  The gate locked with a typical latch.  I examined it closely, not sure what I was looking for.

“It would be easy for someone to come in and grab Rosie,” I said.

“Yes,” Belinda’s voice cracked.

“We’ll get her back.”  I tried to sound reassuring.

I opened the gate and went through.  “I’m going to see if Shirley is home.  I’ll knock on the front door when I’m finished.”

Belinda nodded and strolled back through the yard.

I walked across the street to Shirley’s house.  I rang the bell and waited just a moment before the door opened.  A girl about three feet tall stood looking up at me.

“Hello,” I said.  “You must be Shirley’s little girl.”

“I’m Molly,” she said, still clutching the door handle.  “Who are you?”

A cute blond woman hurried up to the door, wiping her hands on a towel.  She was in tan slacks and a striped blouse, and I guessed she was in her early thirties.

“Molly, I keep telling you to let me get the door,” she scolded her daughter.  She threw me a hesitant smile.  “Can I help you?”

I introduced myself and explained about Belinda’s dog.

Shirley’s face turned white.  “That’s awful!” she said, covering her mouth with the towel.  “Belinda must be devastated.  I’ll have to go over there.”

“She’s pretty upset, as you can imagine,” I said.

“Of course,” Shirley nodded.  “Rosie’s a great dog.  I…I feel terrible.”

“Did you know Rosie was a show dog?”

“Belinda’s mentioned it, but I didn’t pay much attention.  I hardly ever see Rosie.”

“Mom,” Molly said.

“Hang on, honey,” Shirley said to her.  “Why don’t you go play?”  She turned back to me.  “Sorry.”

“No problem,” I said.  “It looks like someone stole Rosie sometime after Belinda came home from work.  Around five or so.  Were you home last evening?”

“I was, but I was getting dinner ready.  I’m afraid I didn’t see anything.”

“There was a blue car,” Molly said.  She’d started playing with a doll on the floor nearby, but she was listening in.

I turned to look at Molly.  “Where was the car?”

She got up, came to the door and pointed two houses down from Belinda’s.  “Over there.  It looked like Kelli’s car.”

I glanced at Shirley.  “Who’s Kelli?” I asked.

“My cousin.”  Shirley blinked a few times, confused.  Then she shrugged her shoulders.  “Maybe the car was the same make as Kelli’s.”

“What kind of car does Kelli have?”

“I have no idea,” Shirley laughed.  “It’s a 4-door car, a Mazda.  I think.”

I stared up the street.  Did a car parked down the street have anything to do with the dognapping?  If so, a blue Mazda didn’t narrow things down.

“You’re sure you didn’t see it?”

“No, I didn’t,” Shirley said.  “I’m sorry, but we just got home and I need to get lunch ready.  I wish I could be more helpful.”

“Sure.  Just one more thing,” I said, channeling Peter Falk’s Columbo.  He always had just one more thing.  I pointed to the house down the street, where Molly said the Mazda had been parked.  “Do you know if the owners of that house have a blue car?”

Shirley shook her head.  “I don’t think so.  Maybe it was someone visiting them.”

“That’s certainly a possibility,” I said and sighed.  “I’ll check with your other neighbors.  Maybe they saw something.”

“I wish I could be more helpful.”  She put her hands over Molly’s ears.  “Who knows what she saw.  You’re probably wasting your time.”

“It’s part of the job.”  I pulled a card from my wallet and handed it to her.  “If anything comes to mind, give me a call.”

“I’ll do that.”  As Shirley closed the door, Molly waved at me.

“Bye,” Molly said.  I waved at her.  Cute kid.

I walked slowly back to Belinda’s house, replaying the conversation.  Molly saw a car parked down the street around the same time that Belinda’s dog went missing.  Unless someone saw the license plate, I had no way of tracing the car.  And I was getting way ahead of myself because I didn’t even know if the car belonged to the dognappers.  What if it belonged to the neighbor?  Or someone else?  It could belong to anyone.  And it would be a dead end, Reed, you idiot, I thought.

“Only one way to find out,” I said to myself and walked down the street.

As I approached the house the garage door opened.  A car backed out, but it wasn’t blue.  It was a black Mercedes.  It backed on into the street, then drove toward me.  I waved it down.

The driver rolled down the window and a distinguished-looking man in his 60’s poked his head out.

I introduced myself, then said, “I’m looking for Belinda’s dog Rosie.  Rosie was stolen last night.”

The man grimaced and hesitated.  “Well, I’m sorry for Belinda, but I can’t say I’m sorry that dog is gone.”

“Excuse me?”

“That dog was a yipping annoyance.  Barking all the time.  Just because the stupid dog is a show dog doesn’t mean Belinda should let it get away with everything.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said.  “Do you own a blue car?”

“No, I don’t,” he said brusquely.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for an appointment.”  Without another word, he rolled up the window and sped off.

I stood for a moment, staring as the Mercedes stopped at the end of the street and turned the corner.  There was some tension between the neighbors around the dog, or at least with that neighbor.  Enough for him to snatch the dog?

I walked back to Belinda’s house and tapped lightly on the door.

“Did Shirley see anything?” Belinda asked as we sat down in the living room.

“No, but Molly saw a car.”  I briefed her on my visit to Shirley’s, ending with my encounter with the man down the street.

“That’s Earl,” she said.  “And before you think I’m a terrible dog owner, he’s not talking about Rosie.  The neighbor behind me has a terrier that barks constantly.  I’ve told them their dog is bothering the neighbors, but they don’t listen.  I also told Earl it’s not my dog, but he doesn’t believe me.”

“Would he take your dog to get back at you?”

Belinda frowned.  “I don’t know Earl very well, but he doesn’t strike me as the type.  Besides, where would he hide Rosie?”

“I admit, dognapping and ransom demands seems farfetched for a disgruntled neighbor,” I said, “But anything’s possible.”

“What do you do now?”

I thought for a moment, then said in my most professional-sounding voice, “I’ve got to get ready for tonight’s ransom drop.  I’m going to assemble a team to help me.  That way, we may be able to catch these guys in the act of taking the money.”

“Who’s going to help you?” Belinda asked.

That was a great question.  Since Cal refused to be my sidekick, I was going to have to rely on some other buddies.  And that meant things could get interesting.

CHAPTER FIVE

“You want us to do what?” a confused Ace Smith asked me.

My condo was in the Uptown neighborhood, just east of downtown Denver. Ace and Deuce Smith were my downstairs neighbors. I had affectionately and privately dubbed them the Goofball Brothers because they, well, let’s just say they weren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. Ace worked at Blockbuster and Deuce in construction, but their parents helped them financially, so that they could afford to live in such a nice neighborhood. Their older brother, Bob, looked after his younger, intelligence-impaired brothers, making sure they stayed out of trouble. Apparently their father had discovered his love of poker after Bob was born, thus their goofy names.

I was sitting in the Goofball Brothers’ kitchen and had just explained to them that I needed their assistance with the ransom drop. By their blank stares, I could tell that I needed to explain again.

“I’m working on a dognapping case,” I said for the second time. “My client has to deliver ransom money tonight and I need your help trying to catch the dognappers when they come for the money.”

“So we’ll be like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective?” Ace grinned.

Really? I thought. I had hoped no one else would have made that connection. “This is more serious than that.”

“Do I get to carry a gun?” Deuce asked. Deuce always wanted to carry a gun. In his mind, that would make him a real detective. If he only knew…

“No,” I said. “No gun.”

Deuce frowned, a hint of anger in his gray eyes. “If I’m going to be your sidekick, I should get to carry a gun,” he said stubbornly.

“Not when I have to answer to Bob,” I retorted. “He’d take your gun and kill me with it.”

“That’s true,” Ace laughed. He looked almost the same as Deuce, with the same gray eyes and dirty blond hair. And naiveté. “That would be funny.”

It was my turn to frown. “Anyway,” I continued. “Here’s what I need you to do.”

“What if it’s dangerous? I might need a gun then.” Deuce wouldn’t let go of his dream.

“It’s not going to be dangerous,” I reiterated. I wanted to say it would be more treacherous to let Deuce have a gun, but I kept my mouth shut.

Deuce sighed. “What do you need us to do?”

“The ransom drop is in an alley behind a strip mall. I need you two to watch both entrances to the alley. I’m going to give each of you a camera with a zoom lens. You take pictures of any vehicles or people you see coming and going.”

“That’s it?” Ace sounded disappointed. “Where’s the danger?”

“I told you, no danger.”

“Bummer,” Deuce said.

I shook my head.

“Come upstairs with me and I’ll show you how to use the cameras,” I said.

The brothers traipsed after me as we went outside and up the stairs to my condo. I took them into my home office, where I had my camera and a camera I had borrowed from Cal.

“You have a lot of stuff,” Deuce said as he looked around the office. It’s a cozy room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on one wall where I keep my most prized possessions. There’s a DVD case full of my favorite film noir and detective movies, along with a collection of Alfred Hitchcock classics. The bookshelves are packed with books, mostly murder mysteries, and a collection of rare first edition detective novels.

“Okay, here are they are.” I retrieved the cameras from a closet and proceeded into a crash course on using the zoom lenses on each camera. They practiced for a few minutes. Once I knew they were comfortable using the cameras, I sat them down at my desk.

“Here’s the layout for the mall,” I said. After leaving Belinda’s, I had stopped by the mall for a little reconnaissance. “There’s a Home Depot over here.” I drew a box on a piece of paper. Perpendicular to that, I drew a long rectangle and pointed to it. “Over here is the strip mall. My client is instructed to park in front of the strip mall and walk around behind it, where she’ll leave the money next to a dumpster.”

Ace clapped his hands together. “But you’re going to do it for them, right? You know, dress up in disguise?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “My client is a woman, so I don’t think that would work.” Not that the idea hadn’t crossed my mind. I wasn’t worried that I could pull off impersonating a woman, but the instructions were for Belinda to drop the money off and leave. I was sure they’d be watching to make sure she left the alley and I needed to be around back when the dognappers came for the money.

“So where will we be?” Deuce asked.

“Deuce, I want you to stay here.” I marked an ‘X’ near the Home Depot and then I drew another line on the paper. “This is the street running in front of the mall. Ace, you can park your car here, in the McDonald’s parking lot across the street. You should be able to zoom in and take pictures from there. It’s going to be late, so there won’t be a lot of traffic to block you.”

“Why can’t I park in front of the strip mall?” Ace asked.

“I don’t want the dognappers to get suspicious. Deuce will be fine parked over by the Home Depot, but a car too close to the strip mall will draw attention. If you’re at the McDonald’s, you’ll be close enough to get pictures, but the dognappers won’t notice you.”

“Okay. I’ll commit this to memory.” Aced studied the paper with deliberation. Then he glanced up at me. “What are you going to be doing?”

“I’ll be waiting behind the alley. There’s a bunch of crates stacked near the dumpster. I’m going to hide there and watch. The last time the dognappers walked to the ransom drop. I suspect they’ll be driving this time.”

“Why?” This from Deuce.

“Because I almost caught them the last time. They’re not going to take any chances now. They’ll want to get back there, grab the money, and take off before anyone can stop them.”

“Oh,” both brothers said at the same time.

“I’ve got a camera too,” I said. “At least one of the three of us should get a shot of the dognappers, their car, or both. With that, I hope I can figure out who they are.”

“Won’t it be too dark?” Deuce asked.

“There are lights in the lot,” I said. “I’m hoping it’ll be enough. Cal and I can enhance the photos and we might get a license plate number on the truck or be able to identify the dognappers.”

“Why can’t you arrest them before they take the money?” Ace asked.

“I can’t arrest them because I’m not a cop,” I said. “Besides, it’s not a crime until they take the money. And I don’t want them to harm the dog, so I need to let them take the money.”

“Oh, right.” Ace stared at me quizzically. “Then what can you do?”

“If I can figure out who they are, I can turn them in to the police after they’ve returned the dog to my client.”

Deuce puckered his brow. “What if this doesn’t work?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

****

I heard Belinda before I saw her. Her footfalls echoed loudly in the silence behind the mall. Then her flashlight illuminated a beam of light down the alley. After working out my plan with the Goofball Brothers, I had called her and filled her in. I had instructed her not to look for me at all. She needed to act as if no one was there. I wasn’t sure if the dognappers were watching the alley itself or just waiting for her to reappear in front of the strip mall before they made their move. Either way, the dognappers were going to be more dangerous than the last time, and I didn’t want anything tipping our hand.

Belinda performed her job perfectly. She hurried down the alley right past me, her fear palpable. She set the bag of money down next to the dumpster and continued down the alley, the flashlight beam bouncing around from her anxious energy. After a few moments, she broke into a jog. Moments later she rounded the corner and was gone.

“Not much longer now,” I thought.

A car started, Belinda’s I presumed, the sound of the engine faint. Then nothing.

My hands shook, and not just from the cold. Nerves, I thought. I was feeling the pressure of this case. I had to get these guys, but I was worried because I had so little information to work with. My stomach roiled. Before walking over here I’d decided to slam down a Big Mac. That was a mistake. I burped a couple of times but it didn’t help. The silence seemed like a roar in my ears. I took a couple of deep breaths.

Then I heard it. Shuffling feet coming from the direction where Belinda had disappeared. Then the sound of a body hitting the pavement, an exhalation of breath, and then a curse. What kind of dognappers were these?

My answer appeared in the moonlight. A disheveled man of indeterminate age ambled toward me. He was bundled up in tattered blankets and worn jeans. He stopped at the dumpster, reached up and lifted the lid. He peered inside, mumbling to himself.

“Whatcha got for me tonight?” he murmured, his words slurred.

Great, a drunk guy. My eyes darted to him, then to the bag of money sitting nearby. What if he saw it?

“What’s this?” he said, glancing down.

Damn me and my telepathic wave signals.

The man lowered the dumpster lid carefully, as if knowing not to draw attention to himself. He bent down and was about to grasp the bag when I stepped out from behind the crates.

“You need to get out of here,” I hissed at him.

He bolted upright and swore. Then he said, “Who in the hell is that?” He held a hand to his chest. “Is my heart still working?”

“Beat it,” I said in a low voice.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “I have a right to be here, and anything that’s in a trash can is fair game. A cop told me that,” he added self-righteously.

“I don’t care,” I said. “That bag belongs to me.” Technically a lie, but now was not the time to split hairs.

“If it’s your bag, why was it sitting there?”

“I left it there.” I moved toward him. “Now I’m back and I want the bag.”

“It’s mine,” he said, snatching up the bag.

“Trust me, you don’t want to be here,” I said.

“This is my alley, and now this is my bag,” he clutched the bag hard.

“It is not.” Why in the world was I arguing with a drunk? I needed to get him out of here before the dognappers came for the money.

“Give it to me,” I said, reaching out for the bag.

“No.” He pulled away from me. “It’s mine.”

“It’s mine,” I said.

“It’s mine,” a third voice interrupted us.

The drunk and I whirled around. A large, shadowy man stood before us. He had on jeans, a dark coat and a ski mask, so I couldn’t see his features, but one thing I clearly noticed was the gun in his hand.

“Hey man, what in the hell is that?” the drunk whined.

“That bag belongs to me.” The man waved the gun. “Put it down.”

The drunk growled. “A man can’t catch a break.” He dropped the bag and it hit the ground with a thud. “Oops. I hope there wasn’t nothin’ breakable in there.”

The man ignored him. “Now take ten steps back. Both of you.”

The drunk and I backpedaled away from the bag. I kept my eye on the gun. It didn’t waver from us as the man stepped forward, bent at the knees and picked up the bag.

“You’re quite an annoyance,” the man said.

“What in the hell did I do?” the drunk said.

“Not you,” the man snapped. He pointed the gun at me. “You.”

I shrugged.

“I told that lady no one should interfere,” the man said.

“She just wants her dog back,” I said.

Through the mouth hole in the mask the man grimaced. “We’ll see about that.”

“You’ve got the money,” I said. “Now what?”

My answer came in the form of a rumble. A black truck turned the corner, its headlights so bright in nearly blinded me. Unless I missed my guess, it was the same truck that I’d seen at South Valley Park. The diesel engine echoed loudly in the alley. The man stepped away from the building and the truck drove by him. The passenger door swung open and the truck slowed just enough for the man to dive in.

“Don’t let me see you again,” he yelled.

The truck shot toward the drunk and me. As it flew by I noticed that it had no license plates. We both dove behind the dumpster as the truck careened past. Body odor and stale booze assaulted me. My stomach turned.

“What in the hell was that all about?” the drunk asked. I’d only known him for five minutes and already I knew ‘what in the hell’ was his favorite expression.

I hauled myself to my feet but the drunk stayed on the ground.

“I told you you didn’t want to be here,” I said. I brushed myself off and then kicked a stray can. If the drunk hadn’t been here, I could’ve taken pictures of the dognapper. And I’d have gotten close-up shots of the truck.

He got to his knees. “What is this? Some kind of drug deal?”

“You don’t want to know.” I stared at him. “Get out of here.”

“Okay.” He stood up, holding out his palms in a surrender gesture. “I’m goin’.” He rubbed a hand over his face as he took a couple of steps back. “I just wanna drink and some food, man. I wasn’t doin’ nothing’.”

I took one slow step toward him.

“I’m goin’.” He pulled the blankets tight around his chest and shambled off, cursing under his breath.

My cell phone rang.

“Reed, I saw a truck drive into the alley!” Ace’s excited voice exclaimed when I answered. “Did you get them?”

“No,” I said. “Call Deuce and tell him to meet me around the front.”

“Okay. What should I do?”

I sighed. “Meet me around front.”

“Oh, okay,” Ace said. “Over and out.”

I hurried back around the alley. That was twice I’d ended up on my ass, and I didn’t have a thing to show for it. Except that now I was pissed. Someone was making me look like a fool and a novice detective, and I didn’t like that.

When I reached the parking lot, Deuce had just pulled up in his old Chevy pickup. A moment later, Ace drove up in his Subaru. Both brothers hopped out and began peppering me with comments and questions.

“I got pictures,” Deuce chattered. “It’s a truck. Will these help you catch them?”

“I got some pictures, too,” Ace said. “You want to see them?”

“I’ve already seen them,” I growled. “Did you get pictures of anyone in the truck?” Not that it mattered. I’d missed seeing anyone in the cab of the truck because of the headlights in my eyes, but I’d bet my film noir collection that the driver had been wearing a mask.

“I dunno.” Ace looked blank. “You said to take pictures of any vehicles we saw. That truck was the only one.”

“We did like you told us,” Deuce said. He shoved the camera at me.  “Here, look for yourself.”

“It’ll be too hard to see anything on the screen,” I said. “It’s too small.”

“Yeah, but I got them,” he said. “Look, you can push this button and it will show you the pictures.”

“I know,” I said through gritted teeth, my patience on short supply. “I showed you how to do that this afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Deuce scratched his head. “Are you mad at us? We just did what you told us to do.”

It was time to take a deep breath and refocus. So I did, while the Goofball Brothers scrutinized me carefully. They did, in fact, do exactly as I’d asked them. It wasn’t their fault a drunk ruined my plans.

“You both did just fine,” I finally said. “I’ll take the cameras and transfer the pictures onto my computer. I can enlarge them and see if I can tell who was driving the truck or if the license plate number is readable.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ace said. Deuce nodded his head, a hard-fought knowing expression on his face.

“You both earned your first stripes as detectives.”

“Cool,” Ace said with awe in his voice. “What do we get to do with the stripes?”

“And now we get guns, right?” Deuce said.

“Oh, Bogie, if you only knew what I endured,” I thought.

CHAPTER SIX

I took the cameras from the brothers and stuffed them in a backpack that Deuce had in his truck.

“What now?” Ace asked.

“We’re done here,” I said. “I’m going to call my client and tell her what happened. They got the money so hopefully they’ll return her dog.”

“What if they don’t?” Deuce frowned.

“I don’t know.” I bit my lip. “I hope they don’t hurt her.” I patted Deuce’s shoulder. “Thanks for your help.”

“No problem.” Deuce got in his truck. “Why don’t you come down to B 52’s and shoot some pool with us?” B 52’s was a converted warehouse that was now a pool hall decorated with old airplane propellers and advertisements from World War II. The bar was near our condo and the Goofball Brothers loved to hang out there and shoot pool.

“Yeah, you can take your mind off the case,” Ace said.

A beer did sound good. Maybe I could erase some of my professional failure. “I’ll meet you guys down there in a while,” I said and waved as they drove off.

I studied the strip mall for a few seconds. The dognappers had been very careful to hide their identities. Good for them, bad for me. I shook my head and then walked across the street to the McDonald’s, got in the 4-Runner and called Belinda.

“What happened?” she asked breathlessly.

“They got the money,” I said, “But it didn’t go as planned.”

“Oh no!”

I told her what happened. “You haven’t heard from the dognappers?”

“No,” she moaned. “They can’t hurt Rosie. They just can’t.”

I inhaled and let it out slowly. “Sit tight. I’m sure they won’t do anything to Rosie, but they probably want you to think they will.”

“You get them,” Belinda said vehemently.

“I will,” I promised. “You let me know the second you get Rosie back.”

“Okay,” she said, and we hung up.

I drove home to drop off the cameras and type up a few notes. As I came around the side of the building, I saw a petite blonde in sweats, gloves and ear muffs walking down the street.

“Hey, Willie,” I waved. Willie Rhoden, real name Wilhelmina, was my neighbor, and I’d been trying to woo her, with limited success, ever since she’s broken up with her boyfriend a while back. My career choice kept her from taking me too seriously, though. She’d seen me beaten up, bruised, and shot, and she worried for my safety. But still I tried.

“Hi, Reed.” Willie strolled across the street and up to me. She pointed at the cameras, then eyed my slightly disheveled appearance. “How’s the detective business? Chasing down bad guys?”

I shrugged. “Trying to.”

“Cheating husbands? Real estate shenanigans?” she threw me a playful smile, referring to some of my previous cases.

“Kidnapped dogs.”

“Aw.” She scrunched up her face. “In that case, go get ’em, Sherlock.”

“I was going to put these away and then go shoot some pool with Ace and Deuce. Care to join me?”

She winked. “That sounds more fun than watching a movie alone. I just finished my walk, so let me take a quick shower and change clothes. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“I need to do the same, so take your time,” I said.

Willie disappeared into her house and then I went upstairs. I put the cameras in my office and was about to get in the shower when the phone rang.

“Reed, dear, how are you?” my mother said the second I put the phone to my ear.

“Hi, Mom, how are you?”

“I’m fine. You sound tired. I hope you’re taking care of yourself. Your detecting business is more than I can handle. What kind of danger are you in now? Oh, I don’t know why you don’t meet someone nice, get a good career, and settle down.”

“I’m perfectly safe, Mom.” I didn’t see the need to tell her I’d almost been run over a truck not once, but twice.

My dear mother’s greatest fear was that I would never marry, and thus never give her grandchildren. Running a close second was her fear that I was doing drugs, because she seemed to have a knack for calling me when I was tired or slightly addled under the influence of painkillers I’d taken after an on-the-job injury. And finally, she feared that I would die a horrible death while detecting. Mom and Dad wished I’d chosen another career, but a small inheritance left me financially well off, and so I could be a private investigator, even though the money wasn’t great.

“What’s new with you?” I asked, knowing that, besides checking on me, there was a purpose to her call.

“We’re getting a dog, dear. Isn’t that fantastic?”

“Oh dear Lord,” I said.

“What’s that? Well, never mind,” she said. “Your father and I are so excited.”

I heard a muffled voice in the background. That would be my father. I’m sure he was out on the deck of their south Florida beachfront condo, groaning because he wasn’t that excited to get a dog.

“We’re getting a teacup poodle. They’re so cute, just as tiny as can be.”

“I’m surrounded by dogs,” I murmured.

“You’re what?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m happy for you.” I paused. “It’s really late there. What are you doing up?”

“We just got back from playing bridge. That’s where we found out about the dog. Some friends of ours are moving and they can’t take Bitsy with them, so I said we’d be delighted to take her.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Thank you, dear,” she said. “You know, if you don’t want a girlfriend, maybe you should get a dog to keep you company.”

I decided to leave that one alone. “You don’t need to worry about me,” I said. “I have an active social life.” I didn’t want to mention Willie just yet, or my mother would be calling me every day for an update, wondering when the wedding would be.

“Just as long as you’re not doing drugs.”

There it was. What would the conversation be without her worrying about that?

“I’m not doing drugs, but I do need to get going. I’m meeting Ace and Deuce to play some pool.”

“Oh, I’ll let you go then,” she said. “Tell the boys ‘hi’, and Reed, honey, take care.”

“I will, Mom.”

I hung up and rushed to change and clean up before Willie came over.

It was a little longer before Willie arrived, but well worth the wait. Her black jeans and low-cut blouse showed off her runners’ figure quite nicely.

“You look great,” I said when I answered the door. “Let me get my keys.”

As we walked to the garage, the sweet scent of her flowery perfume wafted through the air. I closed my eyes for a split second, enjoying it.

“What?” she asked, noticing my expression.

“Nothing,” I shrugged.

She punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t get any fresh ideas. I told you, I’m not sure I want to date someone whose life is in constant danger.”

“It’s not constant,” I said. “It’s mostly boring. The danger part is just every once in a while.”

“Uh-huh.”

My cell phone rang. “Hang on,” I said.

“Reed, it’s Belinda. I’m getting Rosie back!”

“That’s great!” I said. “Where was she?”

“They tied her up outside a Denny’s near my house. Someone noticed her and called the number on the tag. I’m driving there right now.”

“What’s the address?” I asked.

She gave me the cross streets.

“I’ll stop by,” I said. “But I doubt we’ll find anything useful.”

“I’ll see you there,” Belinda said.

I hung up and turned to Willie. “Care to make a quick detour?”

“What happened?”

“My client got her dog back, and I want to see where the dognappers left the dog.”

“So you need to go look for clues,” Willie said.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Willie sighed. “Since you’re trying to find dognappers, I can’t say no. What do you think you’ll find?”

“Probably nothing,” I said as we climbed in the 4-Runner.

Turns out I was right. The dognappers had tied Rosie up outside the restaurant, away from the parking lot, where no one would see them leaving her. I walked around the lot but couldn’t see anything that might be construed as a clue. Belinda was overjoyed to have Rosie back, but just as adamant that I find and stop the dognappers. As I patted Rosie on the head, I assured Belinda that I would continue to investigate.

Willie and I left and headed to B 52’s. We spent a pleasant evening playing pool with Ace and Deuce, but my mind was still puzzling over the case. I was glad that Rosie hadn’t been harmed, but I wasn’t so sure what might happen the next time. That was twice that I’d interfered with the dognappers’ ransom plans. They would be much more careful now. I needed to catch them in the act. And that meant I had to figure out how they picked their victims.

It was time to visit a dog show and scare up a dognapper.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gail was true to her word and Friday I was with her at the Rocky Mountain Cluster Show. The only way I was going to catch the crooks was if they tried to nab another dog. And where would dognappers find valuable show dogs? At a dog show.

“The pictures you took last night in the alley weren’t helpful?” Gail asked as she got out of her car.

I had parked my 4-Runner next to Gail’s Honda at the National Western Complex, a large arena directly north of downtown Denver, and was helping her gather her things for the show. She didn’t show Fuji until later in the day, but I wanted time to walk around and see if I spotted anything that struck me as suspicious.

“No,” I said. “Both men wore ski masks, and they’d removed the license plates on the truck, so I don’t have any way to track them down.”

Gail picked up Fuji from the back seat and put him in a steel dog crate. “Wouldn’t the police stop the truck if it didn’t have license plates?”

“They probably stopped near the shopping mall and reattached the plates.”

“What do you hope to find here?” Gail asked as I followed her into the complex.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Anything unusual. It’s entirely possible that these dognappers are scoping out the shows, searching for the next dog to steal.”

Since the moment Gail had hired me, I’d been mulling over how these dognappers would know where to find show dogs to steal. I could come up with two ways. Someone either knew Gail and Belinda, and new about the value of their dogs. Another possibility was it someone who worked with the Rocky Mountain Cluster Show and had access to lists of competing or registered dogs, or it was someone who came to dog shows and somehow figured out where the pet owners lived. If it was the first option, I had little way of finding this person. If it was the second, I could poke around a show and hope to see the dognappers in action. Either option called for a lot of luck, but sometimes detective work is stirring the pot to see what rises, and hope that some luck falls your way.

“You can look around while you’re here,” Gail said. Her pink suit and high heels looked way too dressy for lugging a dog around in the crate. She’d instructed me to dress up, too, so I’d worn my best black slacks, a white shirt that was both clean and pressed, and my favorite wingtips. “We’ll be in a grooming area first.” That explained the large bag that she’s asked me to carry for her.

Gail checked in and received an identifier with a number on it. She wrapped the paper on her upper left arm and then trekked toward a huge open room. As I tagged along behind her, I felt like I was backstage at a beauty pageant. Men and women and dogs of all shapes and sizes rushed around, heading from one area of the complex to another. And everyone was dressed up, including the dogs. Most of the men wore business suits, and the women had on dresses or pant suits. I didn’t spot anyone in jeans. And the dogs! I’d never seen so many dogs with fur so shiny and sleek, and teased and bowed. And these dogs didn’t just walk, they strutted throughout the complex as if they knew that they were the center of attention.

“Here we are,” Gail said. She took Fuji out of his crate and put him on a leash. “Time to show him off a bit.”

We passed through the larger room and entered the grooming area. Rows and rows of dog crates of varying sizes crowded the space. Dogs of all breeds sat in or around their crates. A buzz of conversation filled the air as dog owners primped their pooches for competition.

A miniature Schnauzer pulled on his owner’s leash, trying to sniff Fuji’s rear end. Fuji then returned the greeting.

“Sorry,” Gail said to the dog’s owner, a stocky man with a Fu Manchu mustache. “That’s one habit I wish Fuji didn’t have.”

The Schnauzer’s owner smiled. “They run out of business cards so quickly.”

I cracked up. Gail blushed and said under her breath, “It wasn’t that funny.”

“Yeah it was,” I said.

I followed Gail between rows of crates until she found an open area. She set Fuji’s crate down and took the bag from me. She pulled a couple of blankets from the bag, folded them in half, and arranged them on top of the crate.

“This is where we get our dogs ready for showing,” she explained as she picked up Fuji and stood him on the blankets. She retrieved a comb from the bag and set to work on his fur.

I surveyed the room. Combs and brushes stroked fur, here and there the sounds of blow dryers cut through the conversation. Paws were checked and nails clipped. Eyelashes and eyebrows were curled or trimmed. Owners that had completed their grooming laughed and played with their dogs. Here and there an owner appeared very serious, nervous for what was to come. No one acted strangely, or more strange given the circumstances, or in a way that made me suspicious.

I had been prepared for a distinct dog odor in the room, but instead it smelled like shampoo with a hint of leather.

Like their human counterparts, the dogs ran the gamut of emotions. Some sat on top of their crates, excited expressions on their furry faces. Some gazed around the room in boredom. Many slept in blanket-covered crates, thus insulated from the chaos around them. There was a surprisingly lack of barking, given the number dogs in the room.

A moment later, Gail wrapped tissue paper around Fuji’s fur, up near his eyes. “What’s that for?” I asked.

“It’s to keep her teardrops and saliva from staining his fur.”

I shook my head. Who knew?

“You can walk around now,” Gail said. “I need to stay here with Fuji.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

I wandered off, leaving Gail chatting with a woman nearby.

An amazing variety of sizes and shapes of dogs were being walked through their paces; some were docile and obedient, others full of nervous energy. In the stadium, where I’d taken a seat, everyone appeared about the same. No one seemed like a dognapper, but then, I didn’t really know what that would look like. Later, in the Hall of Education, during a “Meet the Breeds” demonstration, owners paraded basset hounds around the room. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, so I moved on. It was fascinating to be at a dog show, but I wasn't accomplishing a thing as far as locating any suspicious dognapping types. So, after an uneventful stroll through a sea of dog-supply vendors, I finally returned to the grooming area. Gail perched on Fuji’s crate. Fuji slept in her lap.

“Notice anything?” she asked.

“No.”

“Maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree,” she grinned at me.

“Oh, very clever,” I shot back. “How about some lunch?”

Gail laughed. “I’ll take a hot dog.”

“Will the puns ever end?” I asked as I walked away.

I returned later with hot dogs and sodas, and we chatted while we ate. I learned more than I ever wanted to about show dogs and dog shows. And I still didn’t see anyone who looked like a dognapper.

“Time for a final once-over,” Gail announced after a while. She set Fuji on top of his crate and fussed with his fur again. She eyed him critically, adjusted his collar, took off the tissue paper, and nodded. “He’s as ready as he’ll ever be.” She fluffed his hair a bit while he watched me with uninterested eyes. Gail glanced at her watch every few seconds.

“All right, here we go,” she finally announced. She pulled a leash from her bag, attached it to Fuji’s collar, and headed down the aisle between crates. Fuji pranced beside her. “You can watch from the ring entrance or wait back here,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

“I’ll watch,” I said, catching up to her. “What’s ‘the ring’?”

“The dogs are shown in the ring. We take the dogs in there, walk them around the ring, and a judge evaluates us all.”

“Got it,” I said.

Gail reached the entrance and followed the other show dogs and owners into the ring. Applause rang out. Dogs and owners all walked to assigned places and waited. A rotund man, the judge, strolled around the ring carefully, eyeing all the dogs. Then he pointed at one. The owner ran the dog around the ring as the judge watched. Gail was fourth, so she had to wait while the first three dogs were taken through the motions.

While I waited for her turn, I glanced back into the grooming room. It seemed to be a hurry up and wait mentality. A lot of action to get your dog ready to show, then a lot of waiting for your turn. A tall bald man in a brown leather jacket slowly walked up one aisle and then down another. He meandered through the sea of dogs, people and crates, his head moving back and forth, as if he were looking for something. He didn’t have a dog with him, nor did he have an armband identifier indicating he was showing a dog. Who was he with?

He reached the end of one aisle and started down another, his head swaying back and forth. Was he security? He paused near a smaller unoccupied crate.

Now curious, I headed down the aisle next to his. Partway down I stopped. A Rottweiler and his owner blocked my path.

“I’m sorry,” the dog’s heavyset owner said as he fiddled with the dog’s collar.

“No problem,” I said, wishing he’d hurry so I could get nearer to the man in the leather jacket. I turned and searched for another way through the throng of people and dogs.

Across the sea of crates and carriers I spotted the man again. He had moved on, and was leaning against one of the large crates. Then he reached down to a smaller crate next to him and fiddled with something. He stopped and glanced all around, as if making sure no one was watching him. I turned my head, but kept him in the corner of my eye.

Satisfied that no one had seen him, he put his arm down again.

I edged in his direction. He pulled a pen and paper from his jacket and jotted down something. He stuffed the pen and paper back in his pocket, waited a second and then casually strolled away.

I stayed out of his vision as I made my way over to the crate. Some paperwork rested on top of it, and in plain sight I read a dog’s name, his breed, and an address.

That’s how they were doing it! Find some paperwork associated with the dog that had an address on it and there you go. I looked around but the man was gone. I frantically scanned the room and spotted him as he neared the entrance to the ring. I checked the paperwork again and memorized the address. Then I dodged my way down the aisle and toward the man. I halted a few feet away and leaned against the wall. I peered past the man and into the ring.

After a few minutes, a stocky man wearing an old suit and bolo tie walked up to my guy.

“What took you so long, Jack?” the man in the bolo tie said.

“Trying to find the right one,” Jack said.

“A dog’s a dog. Let’s just pick one and go.”

They were talking softly. I strained to hear them.

“Marv, how many times do I have to tell you, we’re not cross-breeding.”

So, the man with the bolo tie was Marv. I memorized his face: dark features and a lip that curled in a permanent sneer. And the bald man was Jack.

“Whatever,” Marv snorted.

“I had to find a Parson Russell Terriers,” Jack said.

“Did you get the paperwork?” Marv said as he tugged at his bolo tie.

Jack shook his head. “Too many people around.”

“It’s okay,” Marv said. “We can forge them if we need to. When are we taking it?”

“Tonight,” Jack said. “I don’t want to make another trip here.”

They were going to steal the dog tonight! My mind raced. Should I follow them or stay with the dog they were after?

Jack glanced over his shoulder and eyed me suspiciously. I backed away as Marv turned and threw me a hard look as well.

I hurried back to Fuji’s crate but I kept checking back, not looking directly at them, so they wouldn’t sense my eyes on them. They watched the action in the ring for a few minutes and then proceeded back through the grooming area.

I made a quick decision to follow them. They hurried out of the complex and into the parking lot. I stayed back, keeping a row of vehicles between us. They strolled to a dark blue 4-door Dodge Ram truck at the far end of the lot. It sure looked like the one that had tried to run me over…twice. Except, I thought, wasn’t the truck black? It was dark, so I must’ve been wrong.

I raced back to my 4-Runner and waited. The distinct rumble of the truck’s diesel engine announced their approach. Jack was driving. Marv drank from a coffee mug. I sunk down in my seat until they passed by. Then I pulled in behind them.

A bit of luck had come my way. Now I needed to catch the thieves in the act of stealing the dog and I could turn them in.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The truck drove out of the parking lot and onto 46th Avenue. The information I’d memorized said the dog they were after was a male named Aesop. His owners, Matt and Leslie Johnson, lived in the Stapleton neighborhood, northeast of downtown Denver. As I followed the truck, I punched the address into the GPS on my phone. The Johnsons lived off Quebec Street, which meant Jack and Marv should head east on I-70. Sure enough, that’s exactly what they did. I let a car slip in front of me and then I merged onto the three-lane interstate. I let in a couple more cars between the truck and me, keeping me a safe distance behind the truck. If they were watching for a tail, it would be harder to notice me.

Traffic moved sluggishly so I had a little time to think. I couldn’t afford to let these guys slip through my hands again. If I could get pictures of them actually stealing Aesop, I’d have concrete evidence to take to the police. After two failures, I had to make this time count.

We continued east for a couple more miles and the truck exited onto Quebec, but the men threw me a curve because they turned north.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I muttered. “The Johnson’s house should be somewhere south of here.”

I turned and stayed with the truck. I was closing the gap between us when the traffic light ahead changed to yellow, then red. The truck shot forward and ran through the red light. I was two cars back and had to slam on my brakes so I wouldn’t rear-end the car in front of me.

“Damn it!” I yelled.

The truck vanished in the mass of cars up the road. I fumed as cross traffic crawled through the intersection. The light finally turned green. I zipped around the car in front of me and floored the gas pedal. But it was useless. The truck was nowhere in sight.

I punched the steering wheel as I pulled into a gas station. Since I’d lost the truck, the only thing I could think to do was find the Johnson house and see if Jack and Marv showed up.

I reset the GPS and waited for the disembodied female voice to give me instructions. I got back onto Quebec, drove south, and was soon in the Stapleton neighborhood. It was a relatively new area, with both single-family homes and huge McMansions. The GPS voice directed me to Dayton Street. The Johnsons lived in a two-story, brick-and-siding house that backed up to the 80-acre Central Park. I passed the house, swung a U-turn and parked down the street. I grabbed binoculars from my glove box and surveyed the Johnson home.

A long front porch, second story balcony, and a three-car garage were all I could see – nothing out of the ordinary. A few recently-planted trees stretched their barren limbs to the darkening sky. I put the binoculars away and got out of the 4-Runner. I crossed the street and walked down the empty block. Directly across from the Johnsons, I stopped, bent down and pretended to tie my shoe as I scanned the place.

A six foot high wood fence ran between the houses on each side of the Johnson house. The south side fence had a gate to the backyard.

A Mercedes drove by. I waited until it turned into a driveway at the end of the block and disappeared into the garage. Then I stood up and jogged across the street.

I was debating what to do when the drone of a diesel engine cut through the silence. I had no doubt it was Jack’s truck. I dashed across the lawn and dove behind some evergreen bushes that grew alongside the house next door to the Johnsons. The blue truck stopped a few houses up the street. Jack’s bald dome shone through the windshield.

Jack and Marv watched the house for a moment, then pulled wrapped food out of bags. That explained the detour. They’d gone to get dinner. My stomach growled and I wished I’d had time to do the same.

I reached for my camera and stopped. Damn! What a rookie mistake, I thought. Now I needed to get back to my car and get my camera. But how? It wouldn’t be prudent to stroll out from behind the bushes and wave at Marv and Jack. I turned and eyed the fence. It seemed my only option.

I slid along the side of the house and up to the fence. A space between it and the house offered a tiny foothold. I stared at the truck. The men were occupied with their dinner. It was now or never. I stood up, grabbed the top of the fence, shoved my shoe in the foothold space and heaved myself upward. I grunted while perched atop the fence for a second and then my momentum carried me over. I landed in a heap on the other side. I rolled into a crouch, then scrambled back to the fence, where I squinted at the truck through a crack in the fence. The men continued to eat, still oblivious to my presence.

I stood up, brushed myself off, and ran through the back yard, where there was another fence to get into the adjacent yard. Once over it, I hurried past the backside of the house. Apparently no one was home, or they weren’t looking into their back yard, because I wasn’t spotted. A gate on the side of the house beckoned. I pumped a fist as I quietly let myself out the gate, but my elation turned to chagrin. In my haste, I had miscounted houses. The 4-Runner was parked down one more house from where I was. Should I risk going through another back yard, where I might be seen? Or run for the 4-Runner? I cursed silently.

Then a large Cadillac Escalade drove up the road. I waited until it blocked the view of Jack’s truck and I ran for all I was worth across the front yard. I ducked behind the 4-Runner and peered around the back end. Apparently Jack and his companion weren’t concerned about anything but their food for they still hadn’t noticed me.

I unlocked the back window of the 4-Runner and opened it just enough to slip inside. I crawled into the back seat, careful to keep my head below the dash level. Darkness was falling so I knew they wouldn’t see me. My camera bag sat on the passenger seat. I propped myself between the front seats, took my camera from the bag and zoomed in on the truck. While there was still a semblance of light, I clicked a couple of nice clear shots of the truck’s license plate.

Jack and Marv had finished their take-out and were hunkered down in their seats so they wouldn’t be spotted. It was almost six p.m. when a white Chevy Tahoe pulled into the Johnsons’ driveway and parked. A tiny woman in a red dress – Leslie Johnson I assumed – emerged from the passenger side, opened the back door and then a small dog with long, silky white fur hopped out, wagging his tail. A really tall man, who I assumed was Matt Johnson, got out of the driver’s side. He reached for Leslie’s hand and they strolled through the garage and into the house, little Aesop leading the way.

The dognappers didn’t wait long. They must’ve turned off the dome light on the truck because I didn’t notice it at all, just the sudden shadow of Marv moving past the front of the truck. He trotted across the street and right to the back gate. I zoomed in with the camera and snapped pictures of him waiting at the gate. The light was fading fast but I could still see what Marv was doing.

I kept shooting as Marv opened the gate and bent down, holding something in his hand.

“A treat,” I muttered. “What dog can resist?”

Sure enough, a couple of seconds later, Marv reached out with both hands and grabbed the terrier. The dog let out a yip and then Marv grabbed his muzzle.

It made perfect sense. What do most dog owners do when they first bring their dog home? Let it outside to pee. Like clockwork, Aesop must have been put outside to do his business. And the dognappers were waiting.

I snapped more shots of Marv clutching the dog, holding his muzzle shut, and racing back to the truck. The pictures weren’t illuminated enough to show Marv’s face, but definitely clear enough to show what he’d done and to capture the license plate. He opened the back door and threw the dog in. Then he hopped in the front. The pictures ought to be enough to get them in big trouble.

Jack already had the truck started, but he was smart. He didn’t peel out and draw attention to himself. Instead, he pulled forward and drove slowly away from the house with his headlights off.

I ducked down as they passed me. I set the camera on the passenger seat, scrambled up front and started the car. I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the truck turn at the corner. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure the pictures would be enough evidence. And what if the dognappers switched license plates? There would be no way to find them. I made a quick decision to follow them. I whipped a U-turn, and copying Jack, left my headlights off.

The truck was up ahead on MLK Boulevard. I let cars slip in and out in front of me so as not to be noticed, but was able to keep the truck in sight. And so far, I hadn’t gotten caught at a red light.

The truck turned north on Havana and soon came to I-70, where it headed east. As I drove, I congratulated myself on my good fortune. I had pictures of the dognappers committing their crime, and soon I’d know where they lived. A quick call to the police to report who had stolen the Johnson’s dog and it would be case closed.

But this wasn’t Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, with a happy ending. It was Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra, where the dog’s a bad omen.

A really bad omen.

CHAPTER NINE

We passed Peña Boulevard and E-470. Then, we neared a road that I was all-too familiar with and a sense of déjà vu flittered through me. On my very first case, a sinister group had brought me out here into the eastern plains, threatened me, and then left me stranded. I’d had to trek back to the highway and hitch a ride to a gas station where I phoned the Goofball Brothers for a ride.

My cell phone rang and I jumped.

“What happened to you?” Gail asked. “I came back from the competition and you were gone. Fuji won!”

“That’s great, Gail,” I said. “But I need you to do me a favor.”

“What’s wrong?” She’d gone from elated to concerned in half a second.

“I’m following the dognappers now –”

“What? How’d you find them?” she interrupted.

“They found an address on some paperwork on one of the dog crates. I followed them and actually got pictures of them stealing a dog.”

“Reed! Why didn’t you call the police before they took the dog?”

“The police can’t do anything before the crime occurs,” I said. “I’m a little worried that the photos won’t be clear enough so I’m following them home. Once I know where they live, I’ll call the police.”

“But that poor dog,” Gail said.

“I need you to call the owners and let them know what’s going on. I’ve got their name and address. You’ll have to look up the phone number.”

“Wait, let me get a piece of paper.” I counted a beat. “Okay,” Gail said.

I rattled off the information. “Tell the Johnsons I’ll get their dog back,” I said.

“I will. Reed, be careful.”

“I will. I’ll call you later and let you know what happens.”

I hung up and focused on the road. The truck stayed at a steady 75, its two red tail lights in the distance. I plugged in a CD and listened to The Smiths’ “Shoplifters of the World Unite”. Appropriate since I was pursuing thieves. We continued east through the town of Watkins.

“Where in the hell are we headed?” I said aloud, mimicking the drunk from the strip mall. The miles flew by. We passed through Strasburg, Byers, and Peoria. I glanced down at the gas gauge. It hovered near ‘E’.

“We better get somewhere soon,” I grumbled. My stomach growled.

“Jack,” I said to the truck. “I’ll bet you stopped for food and gas. I should’ve done the same.”

Amidst my complaining, the gas gauge inched even lower. I saw a sign saying Deer Trail was five miles ahead. And then it happened. The 4-Runner died. The power steering quit working and I cranked hard on the wheel, edging the car to the side of the highway.

“No, no no!” I yelled.

The 4-Runner rolled to a stop on the shoulder as I watched the truck’s tail lights vanish. I elbowed the car door in anger, then cursed the pain in my elbow. I stared into the darkness, fuming.

“Well,” I finally sighed. “I guess I’ll get some exercise.”

I continued to curse my luck as I donned gloves and zipped up my coat. I hid the camera bag on the floor of the backseat, got out of the 4-Runner, locked it, and trudged down the highway.

Cars and semis zoomed by, whipping up the frigid February air. I tucked my chin into my coat and began jogging. I ran for what I estimated to be a mile before my feet began to hurt. I longed for a good pair of sneakers, rather than my wingtips. I walked on and raised a thumb but no one stopped.

A little over an hour later, Deer Trail came into view. I spotted a Phillips 66 sign from a distance, so I headed there. I trudged down the exit ramp, under the highway and onto Cedar Street. I felt a bit like I’d been transported to a ghost town. A few dilapidated and abandoned buildings lined the street and I didn’t run into a soul. I walked a block farther and around the corner onto 7th Avenue. After that long trek, I finally entered the Phillips 66 convenience store, my mind on food. I made a beeline for the back where I spied grilled hotdogs. Good, food that was hot. And quick.

As I was reaching in for a hot dog, I heard the front door open. I glanced over my shoulder and froze as Jack and Marv entered the store.

“Hey Ben, how ya doin’?” Jack said to the clerk behind the counter.

“Not bad,” Ben said.

I ducked down and listened.

“We been over at the Brick Oven eatin’ some pizza,” Marv said.

“And a beer I’ll bet.” I detected the grin in Ben’s tone of voice.

“You going to help us out tomorrow?” Jack asked Ben.

“Sure,” Ben said. “I work in the morning, but I can come over later.”

I tiptoed to the end of an aisle and looked out the window. Jack’s truck was parked right next to the store. Jack and Marv were still chatting with Ben. I looked around. A hallway led to restrooms, so I darted down the hall. At the end of the hall was another door. I stole up to it and eased the door open. Inside was small office with a metal desk, a rolling chair, boxes stacked on one another, and, very conveniently, a back door. I crossed the office in two strides, left through the door and emerged into a small parking lot. I hustled past a dumpster and along the side of the store. At the corner, I stopped and checked around the front. The truck sat about twenty feet away, parallel with the building, its rear end to me. It was empty.

I was cold and tired, and I’d gotten more than I bargained for. I made a quick decision. It was time to get the dog and go home. I’d turn in the pictures and let the police handle things from there.

Then another thought occurred to me. If I could get Aesop from the truck, Jack and Marv would obviously notice she was missing. Could I stay hidden and keep the dog quiet until I could call for help? It was a chance I would have to take.

On the other side of the truck were the pumps. A woman stood by a Lexus, filling up the car, so I needed to stay on this side, closest to the store. Dashing to the back end of the truck, I looked through the store window. Marv was still up at the counter, talking to Ben. But where was Jack? I suddenly spied him as he strolled down the back aisle of the store. His head was down, studying the assortment of chips. Then his head started up. In a second or two he would be gazing through the window right at me.

I grabbed the side of the truck and hauled myself into the truck bed. Oh dear Lord, I thought. Now what?

“We’ll see you tomorrow then,” Marv called out as he exited the store.

I pressed myself against the side wall of the truck bed and held my breath.

“He can help clean things up,” Jack said.

“Uh-huh,” Marv mumbled.

The truck rocked as the men got into it. The diesel engine rumbled to life. The truck drove through the lot and turned right onto 7th Avenue. I tried to watch for street signs so I could keep track of where we were going. Otherwise I didn’t know how I could find my way back. The wind whipped around me, cutting right through my coat.

Seventh Avenue curved to the north. We turned onto a dirt road. I wasn’t sure but I thought it said 34.  We probably drove for only a few miles but in the frigid cold it seemed like a lot longer. I wasn’t sure what my plan would be once we stopped, but I hoped it would be soon, as I had done just about enough walking for one night.

I carefully raised my head and looked over the side of the truck bed. Barren fields flashed by on either side of us, the moonlight shimmering off patches of snow and ice. The few lights of Deer Trail shrunk in the distance, the Phillips 66 sign a lone beacon in the blackness.

I stared grimly out into the distance, shivering, and more than a little uncomfortable with the situation I was in. No one knew where I was. It might be time to let someone know my predicament, just in case I ran into some real trouble. I fished my cell phone out of my pocket so I could text Cal. I cupped a hand over the screen and pressed a button. The screen lit up. I started to type when the truck veered. I put a hand down to keep from rolling across the truck bed. The phone screen shone brightly in the darkness.  A shout came from the cab. The truck slowed down and Marv yelled something to Jack. Probably, “Hey, there’s an idiot in the back of the truck.”

The next few seconds seemed like a slow motion movie sequence, except not nearly as glamorous. I scrambled to my knees and peered over the side of the truck. We were flying down the road. I got into a crouch, my stomach a knot. At this speed, I did not want to jump from the truck. Then Jack slammed on the brakes. The truck suddenly slowed and my momentum changed. My hands flailed into the air. My phone flew up and away as I stumbled backward. I fell hard into the tailgate, lost my balance, and flipped right over it. I crashed onto the dirt road and did exactly what you’re supposed to do on those odd occasions when you fall from the back of a truck: tuck and roll. It didn’t help much. But I didn’t have time to worry about my newfound aches and pains.

Up ahead, the truck careened on the dirt road, swerving to a stop with a cloud of dust.

I bear-crawled to the side of the road and threw myself into a ditch. Behind me, Jack and Marv piled out of the truck.

“Where is he?” Jack hollered.

I put my head up. About fifty feet down the road, Jack stood near the tailgate, his head darting all around. Marv had his hand on the open passenger door. The truck’s headlights cut a brilliant path in the road ahead of them. Behind them, the moon’s glow did little to dent the darkness.

“You got a flashlight?” Marv asked.

“No,” Jack said as he walked to the edge of the road. “I can hardly see a thing.”

Marv slammed the door shut. “Who was that?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said.

“He fell off this way.” Marv pointed to the side of the road where I hid.

I crawled away from them as quickly and quietly as I could, glancing over my shoulder to see what they were doing.

Jack walked a few feet and gazed down into the ditch.  Then he gazed across the field. “You think he took off toward town? Or maybe he’s in the ditch.”

I froze.

“Turn the truck around and shine the lights behind us,” Marv said. “I’ll look along the side of the road.”

I swore under my breath. A car door opened and shut, then the groan of the diesel engine broke the silence. Now was the time to run because they wouldn’t hear me over the din of the engine.

I rose to a crouch and took a step forward. Then I winced at the throbbing in my left foot. I had at the very least sprained my ankle in the fall from the truck. I checked over my shoulder again. Jack was turning the truck around. The headlights fanned over the field. I gritted my teeth and ran forward. My leg wobbled and I grimaced in pain. I limped in a crouch-crawl as the truck completed its turn. I was making little progress. Then I spotted a drainage ditch. I blocked out the pain in my ankle and hurtled toward it.

“Drive along the edge of the road,” Marv called out to Jack.

The concrete drainage ditch was about three feet wide and two feet high. Bramble and dead weeds surrounded the opening. I pushed them aside and crawled in. Frozen mud and ice covered the bottom. I pulled myself far inside and stretched out.

The drone of the diesel engine grew closer.

“I don’t see anything,” Marv hollered.

“Check there.” Jack’s faint voice said.

The engine growled right above me.

“I can’t see anything.”

I held my breath and froze. Marv’s voice echoed into the ditch. He was looking into the entrance!

“Aw, this is useless.” Marv’s voice was further away now. “Whoever it was, he’s gone. Let’s go home.”

I couldn’t make out what Jack said. Then I slowly let out my breath.

“Whoever he is, he doesn’t know where we’re going.”

I silently agreed and fervently wished they would stop their search. Jack must’ve thought the same thing because a door slammed shut, the engine roared and then died away.

I began to shiver as I crept to the entrance of the ditch but waited at the opening and listened. I worried that they were trying to trick me, making me think they’d driven away, while Marv actually stayed behind while Jack drove the truck down the road and waited. After a long time, I was sure that they had indeed left. So I inched past the brambles and stood up. Darkness surrounded me. I had no idea how far I was from Deer Trail. In the faint haze of moonlight, I surveyed myself.

My pants were a mess of dirt and mud. One knee was torn. I wiggled a finger inside the rip and winced. My knee was scraped and bleeding. My right shoulder ached and my head pounded. My hands suffered scrapes and bruises as well. I sighed. No broken bones but every inch of me ached. The worst was my ankle.

I put some weight on it and flinched. I reached into my pocket for my phone so I could call for help. Then realization hit me. I’d dropped my phone when I fell from the truck. I stared up the road. It could be anywhere.

“Unbelievable” I said to no one.

There was no way I’d find the phone in the dark. I took another step and grimaced. It hurt to walk on the ankle but I didn’t have a choice.

I limped into the road, cursing my wingtips, and headed back to Deer Trail.

CHAPTER TEN

I wasn’t sure what time it was now. I’d first walked into Deer Trail about eight. It couldn’t be much more than an hour later. I was hurrying as fast as I could, but my progress was still painfully slow because of my ankle. A breeze blew up around me, chilling me more than I already was. I yanked the collar of my coat up around my ears and stuffed my hands in my pockets. But the cold still crept through the layers of clothing and sank into my bones.

I sunk into a trance-like state, thinking about my favorite film noir movies. Double Indemnity with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck was an outstanding flick. Many people nowadays might vaguely remember Stanwyck from the television series, The Big Valley. And she once starred in an Elvis movie, Roustabout. But she was at her best as the femme fatale, duping MacMurray. The Killers with Burt Lancaster was good. Next to Bogie, he was one of my favorite actors. Right now I was a little like Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly, stranded on a country road. Only I wasn’t driving, or picking up a woman who’d escaped from a psych ward. I was so zoned out that I didn’t at first notice the rumble. Then I stopped as the sickening, distinctive sound of a diesel engine edged into my muddled state.

I whirled around. Headlights dotted the darkness, their halo growing ever brighter. I hop-trotted to the ditch, sunk down and pressed myself into the dirt with my head down. A moment later a truck flew by. I had no idea if it was Jack and Marv. Once the engine noise faded in the distance, I heaved myself out of the ditch and hobbled on.

I didn’t see the truck again. Or any other cars. I wished for my running shoes. A long while later I saw the few lights of Deer Trail and the Phillips 66 sign. I couldn’t stop shivering as I left the dirt road and staggered onto 7th Avenue. A few minutes later I limped into the Phillips convenience store.

Ben’s head bobbed up, back down, then quickly back up at me.

“You all right, man?” he asked.

I nodded. “You still have hot dogs?”

“Sure.” He hesitated, then gestured at the machine. “Help yourself.”

I shambled over and reached for a hot dog, then saw the dirt all over my hands. I gazed back at Ben. “Bathroom?”

He pointed toward the hallway. That’s right, I thought to myself. I’d forgotten I’d passed by the bathroom earlier.

I went in, bent over the sink and turned on the tap. The hot water stung my hands. I made fists and then opened them, stretching my fingers under the water. Eventually my hands thawed out. I stared into the mirror. I had a cut on my forehead, grime all over my face, and a bruise under my left eye. No wonder Ben reacted as he did when I walked in.

I splashed water over my face and scrubbed the filth off with a paper towel. Then I ran a hand over my head, patting down the stray hairs. Feeling slightly better, I hobbled back to the hot dog machine. I fixed one and wolfed it down, then ate another more slowly. Ben eyed me warily.

“I’ll pay for them,” I said through a mouthful.

“No problem,” he said, quickly turning back to the cash register.

I finished the second dog, grabbed a Coke from the refrigerator, and picked up a bag of Doritos.

“Ace bandages?” I asked. I was so tired, I couldn’t even form complete sentences.

“Over there.”

I found the bandages and limped to the counter.

“How much?” I asked, pulling out my wallet. Thank goodness I hadn’t lost it along with my phone.

Ben rang up my purchase and I paid.

I opened the Coke and slugged down half of it, then put the cap back on the bottle. “Is there a motel in town?” There was no way I was going to deal with the 4-Runner right now. I wanted a shower, ice for my ankle, and a bed. If the 4-Runner was stolen during the night, so be it.  I’d deal with it in the morning.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Go south on Cedar to 4th Street. It’s halfway down the block.” He bagged the chips and bandages.

“Thanks.”

I threw the soda in with the other stuff, took the bag off the counter and headed out the door. In the reflection from the window, I could see Ben shaking his head. I was too exhausted to care what he thought.

I was grateful that 4th Avenue was only a short walk away. As Ben said, the Sunnyside Inn was midway down the block and I easily spotted the glowing ‘Vacancy’ sign when I reached 4th Street. A wave of relief washed over me. It would’ve been just my luck that they didn’t have any rooms available, but somehow, I doubted that the Sunnyside was full very often. My ankle burned as I staggered into the tiny motel lobby. An older man with a shock of gray hair sticking out from under a baseball cap sat at a chair behind a short counter.

“Can I help you?” he asked, standing up. His nametag read, ‘Chuck’.

“I need a room for the night,” I said.

“You bet.” He pulled a card from a box of files and slid it across the counter. He eyed my bruised face and hands. “You get in a fight or something?”

I shook my head. “I ran out of gas down the highway.”

He squinted at me.

I tucked the bag in my coat pocket and filled out my name and address on the card, feeling his eyes on me the whole time. Then I pulled out my wallet. “I fell a couple of times as I walked into town,” I said as I handed him my credit card.

He ran the card, got a key from a bunch of rings hanging on the wall behind him, and handed both to me. “You’re in number eight. Down the hall and at the end.”

“Thanks.” I turned to go, then stopped. “Is there a machine with ice?”

“Yeah, it’s in the hallway near your room. You’ll pass by it.”

“Thanks,” I said again.

“You have a good night,” he smiled.

I waved and walked away. I stopped at the machine and loaded a bucket with ice and then let myself into room eight. It wasn’t the Ritz but I couldn’t care less. A double bed sat against one wall, with a nightstand on one side of it. A small wood desk and chair were tucked in the corner. At the end of the bed, on the opposite wall, an old TV sat on a rickety stand.

I shut and locked the door, and slid the chain into place. Then I leaned back, worn out. After a moment, I pushed myself into the room. I plopped on the bed and ate the chips. A phone and an old alarm clock sat on the nightstand. I picked up the phone but couldn’t get a dial tone. Just as well. It would cost me a fortune to make a call from the motel phone.

I kicked off my wingtips. They had so much dust on them, they looked tan instead of black. I trudged in the bathroom, stripped, and took a long hot shower. Then I filled the tub and soaked for a while, keeping my ankle elevated. The pain in my shoulders and legs eased a bit. The water turned lukewarm so I got out and toweled off.

I started shivering again as I cleaned up my pants in the sink, washing as much of the grime off of them as I could. My ankle hurt so I hopped on one foot back into the room, dragged the desk chair close to a heater in the corner, and laid the pants on the seat of the chair. I hoped they would be dry enough to wear in the morning. I draped my shirt over the back of the chair and sat on the bed. I piled the extra pillows at the end of the bed and rested my ankle on them. I wrapped ice in a hand towel and laid it on my ankle. I winced as I laid down. I pulled the comforter over my upper body and eventually I warmed up.

I stared up at the ceiling, lamenting my predicament. How did I go from taking pictures of these Bozos to being stranded out in the middle of nowhere?

I took a sip of soda and stared at the bottle. I managed a wry smile. Bogie would’ve had booze. A beer sounded great right now, but Coke would have to suffice. No way was I going out to find a liquor store or a bar.

I must have dozed off because I suddenly jerked awake. The light was still on. I took the towel off my foot, wrapped the ankle in the bandage to keep the swelling down, and crawled under the covers. I set the alarm for seven, turned off the light, and in moments I was asleep.

****

My eyes suddenly opened. Darkness surrounded me. I glanced over at the clock: 3:45. I yawned and rolled on my side, still half asleep. Then I heard it.

A faint muffled sound at the door. The knob rattled slightly.

I was wide awake now. I slid down to the end of the bed and stared at the door. A slit of light penetrated through the crack under the door. Then a shadow momentarily blocked the light.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my nerves tingling. Someone was trying to break in. Jack and his buddy Marv, I was sure.

I quietly stood up and winced with the pain in my ankle. It felt a bit better but it still ached. I limped to the tiny closet by the bathroom and picked up a wooden clothes hanger, which was a really pathetic weapon, but all I could find. Then I stood next to the door and waited.

The knob rattled again. I raised the hanger above my head, ready to strike.

“What are you doing?” a low voice hissed.

I jumped and nearly fell over.  The voice seemed to have scared whoever was on the other side of the door too, because I heard whispered swearing.

“We gotta get this guy before he turns us in.” I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Marv’s voice.

“Are you crazy? What if someone sees you?”

The second voice seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. The voices faded away.

I leaned against the wall, my blood pressure ringing loud in my ears. I waited, muscles tensed. I glanced down but didn’t see any shadows in the light under the door. Finally, after I was sure the men were gone, I double-checked the lock and chain on the door and crawled back into bed. I set the hanger on the floor next to me. Sleep wouldn’t come so I used the last of the ice in the bucket on my ankle. I stared into the darkness, anxiously wondering if or when Jack and Marv to return.

These guys were, apparently, desperate to stop me. It seemed like overkill for dognappers, unless they were stealing lots of dogs. When money is at stake, who knows what people will do.

I wondered how they’d found me. I thought back to the truck that had passed by me as I walked back into Deer Trail. Maybe they’d seen me come into the motel. More questions than answers.

I hoped they wouldn’t do anything to Aesop. The Johnsons must be worried sick. And Gail had to be wondering why I hadn’t called her. I’d be back in Denver soon enough, and I’d get in touch with her. And then I’d figure out where Jack and Marv lived. And then what?

Just before dawn I dozed off.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The blaring alarm jolted me awake. I sat up and my sore muscles screamed. I checked my ankle. The swelling was down but it was still tender.

I limped into the bathroom and examined my face in the mirror. The bruise under my left eye had turned a deep bluish-black and the scrape on my forehead looked as if a cat had scratched me. I took a long hot shower, ran my hands through my hair to comb it, and then plodded back in the bedroom. My pants were dry but I found more rips in them than I’d noticed the night before. My shirt was winkled but clean. I got dressed, wiped the dust off my shoes and put them on. My left foot fit tightly in the shoe. I grabbed my coat and lumbered down the hall, across the lobby and into a small restaurant.

This must’ve been the place to be in Deer Trail on a Saturday morning. The only table available was a two-seater in the corner by a window, and every eye in the place stared at me as I hobbled over to it. I eased into the wooden chair and a middle-aged woman in a yellow dress strolled up to the table.

“Hon, you look like you could use coffee,” she said, holding up a cup and half-full coffee pot.

“That sounds great.” I leaned back and stretched. Joints popped loudly.

“Here’s a menu,” she said, taking a laminated sheet from under her arm and handing it to me. “I’ll be back in a minute to take your order.”

“Thanks.” I took the menu and perused it. I hadn’t eaten a meal since lunch yesterday, so I decided on the Rancher’s Plate: eggs, steak, hash browns, toast and fruit.

“Tough night?”

I looked up. Two men in jeans, plaid shirts and baseball caps were gazing curiously at me.

“Yeah,” I said. I sipped my coffee.

“What’s the other guy look like?” said the one closest to me as he scratched his blond beard.

I sighed. “It’s a long story.”

“What the short version?” the other one asked. He was a hefty guy with a huge nose and dark eyes, and he wasn’t what I wanted to look at this early in the morning.

“I ran out of gas,” I said.

They both nodded slowly, as if sympathizing with me.

“How far?” This from the one with the big nose.

“A few miles west of town,” I said.

He rubbed his nose. “What kind of car is it?”

“A 4-Runner.”

“Ah,” the bearded guy nodded. “I passed it on the way here.”

“I’m glad it’s still there,” I managed a rueful smile.

“No one’s going to do anything to it,” the other one chuckled. “Not out here.”

“Tell you what,” the bearded guy said. “Eat your breakfast and when you’re done, I’ll run you to get some gas and take you back to your car.”

I smiled and said, “That’d be great. I’m not sure my ankle would get me there otherwise.”

The waitress came and took my order. The service was fast and I was soon wolfing down what seemed like the best meal I’d had in days. When I finished, the bearded guy stood up and extended his hand.

“I’m Alan.”

I reached out and shook his hand. “Thanks for your help.”

“See you, Fred,” Alan said to his friend.

I followed Alan out to his truck.

“I’ve got a gas can in back,” he said as he got in the cab. “We’ll get it filled and get you on your way.”

And that’s exactly what we did. I wondered if I might see Jack or Marv around town, but I didn’t. Alan drove to the Phillips 66, the only place in town to get gas. We filled up the gas can, I paid, and we headed west on I-70.

“You know someone out here?” Alan asked after a bit of silence.

“I was going to look at some property in Limon,” I lied, referring to a town farther east on I-70.

“Shoot, there’s not much out here, other than farms.” He let out a short laugh. “And maybe the occasional meth lab.”

‘You know where meth labs are?” I asked, a tinge of surprise in my voice.

“Naw,” Alan shook his head. “Those boys into that stuff camouflage what they do. Looking for meth labs out here is like trying to find a mouse in a barn. There’s way too many places for them to hide.”

I yawned and Alan stopped talking. He turned on the radio and hummed along with The Rolling Stones. Ten minutes later we had reached the 4-Runner. I sighed with relief that it was still where I’d left it. We were traveling on the opposite side of the divided highway, heading west, so Alan had to go to the next exit, miles down the road. He looped around and onto east I-70. A few minutes later, he stopped in front of the 4-Runner. I retrieved the gas can and dumped gas into the 4-Runner tank, thanked Alan and waved as he drove off. I got inside and checked to make sure everything was still there, most importantly my camera. It was on the floor of the back seat where I’d hidden it. I started the car and drove myself back into Deer Trail, filled up, bought a soda and started back to Denver.

I made a mental list of things to do as I drove. Get a new cell phone. Contact Gail and let her know what was going on. Find out where Jack and Marv took the dog. Once I got home, I could call Cal. Since I’d take pictures of Jack’s truck, I had the license plate number. Cal could then look up the plate number and I would have Jack’s address. I was desperate for some quality sleep, although I wasn’t sure when I could fit that in. After I found Aesop, I told myself.

****

I arrived in Denver just before eleven. The growling in my stomach let me know it was almost lunchtime. I parked the 4-Runner in the garage, grabbed my camera bag, and wearily trudged around the side of the building. I gingerly climbed the porch steps and halted. The front door to the Goofball Brothers apartment was cracked open and I noticed Deuce sitting on the edge of his couch. Willie was hovering over him, holding a rag up to his face.

I pushed open the door. “What’s going on?”

Willie turned around. “Good Lord! What happened to you?”

“It’s a long story,” I said for the second time that morning. “Will someone tell me what happened?”

I glanced around the living room. A recliner lay overturned and the coffee table was pushed aside. Mocha-colored liquid pooled on the hardwood floor near the door. An overturned Starbucks glass lay nearby.

“What’s going on?” I asked again. “Deuce, are you okay?”

“Where were you?” Willie asked, her voice tight.

“I’ll tell you later,” I murmured to her.

“I went to get coffee,” Deuce said, oblivious to our exchange. “When I came home, a man had broken in. He wanted to know where you were. I told him I didn’t know. He didn’t believe me. He knocked my coffee out of my hand and it spilled.”

Willie lowered her hand and I saw Deuce’s face. He had a reddish welt on his jaw. He twisted up his face as he eyed the mess around him.

“He thought you lived here,” Deuce continued. “When I told him you lived upstairs, he said ‘Give him a message for me’, and then he slugged me. Hard.”

Deuce’s lip trembled and Willie patted his shoulder.

I sighed. “Then what happened?”

“He said you were putting your nose where it doesn’t belong and if you didn’t stop, you’d be sorry. Then he hit me again.”

Deuce lightly ran a hand over his jaw.

I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands. I stared into Deuce’s fearful, innocent eyes. It was one thing for them to come after me; after all, I was the one messing with Jack and Marv. But to hurt my friends, especially the Goofball Brothers, who were naïve and tenderhearted, that I couldn’t stand.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said. I stepped past the spilt coffee and came into the room. I righted the recliner and sat down.

“I’ll take care of this, but first, tell me what this guy looked like,” I said.

“I don’t know Reed,” Deuce cleared his throat. “He was just a guy.”

“Think like a detective, Deuce,” I said. “Was the man tall?”

Deuce sat up straighter. “No,” he said.

“Was he shorter, and kind of stocky?”

Deuce nodded, gazing back at me seriously. He closed his eyes and thought for second. “His voice was kind of low,” he said, opening his eyes. “Like Johnny Cash. And he kind of sneered at me.”

Marv, I thought.

“That’s good, Deuce,” I said. “That will help me find him.”

“We should call the police,” Willie said.

I shook my head. “I know who did this and they don’t live in Denver. It’ll be a waste of time to report this.”

“I want to help, Reed,” Deuce said. “We can get this guy, right?”

“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “You take care of that jaw.”

Willie sat on the couch next to Deuce. She crossed her arms and glared at me angrily, but I detected worry as well. Before I could deal with her ire, older brother Bob burst through the front door.

“What’s going on?” he said, his eyes darting frantically between us all. He rushed over to Deuce and bent down. “You okay, buddy?”

“Yeah,” Deuce said. “After I called you, I called Willie,” Deuce explained to me. “She came over and helped me.”

“His jaw is going to be a little sore,” Willie said. “But nothing’s broken.”

“That’s good.” Bob breathed a sigh of relief.

“Now we have to get the bad guys, right Reed?” Deuce said. “And since I got hurt, maybe now I should get to carry a gun.”

I rolled me eyes. The morning was going from bad to worse. “Uh, we’ll have to discuss it.”

Bob’s jaw dropped. He cocked an eyebrow at me and then jerked his head. “Can I speak to you in the kitchen?”

“Sure.” I limped after him.

Bob leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “You’re getting him a gun?”

I held up a hand. “Of course not.”

“Thank goodness for that.” He noticed my ripped pants and bruised face. “You look like hell.”

“I fell out of a truck.” I sat down at the small kitchen table to take the weight off my ankle.

“Tough case?”

“You could say that,” I said.

Bob paused for a moment. “Listen, I understand wanting a job that gives you an adrenaline rush.” That was true. Bob was an EMT…talk about a job with a rush. He gestured at my appearance. “And you obviously get yourself into some danger. But this is hitting a little too close to home.”

Deuce and Willie came into the kitchen.

“It’s okay,” Deuce said, overhearing Bob. “It wasn’t Reed’s fault that guy got the wrong place. And Reed is a great detective. He’ll get this guy.”

I appreciated his faith in me, however ill-conceived it might have been right at that moment.

“You know who did this?” Bob asked.

I nodded. “He lives somewhere east of Deer Trail. I’m going to find him and then I can turn him in.”

“That’s good,” Bob said. “I just don’t like the idea of my brothers being in danger.”

“We’re fine,” Deuce said. “You worry about us too much. Besides, Ace and I like helping Reed and you can’t tell us what to do.”

Bob opened his mouth to protest but no words came out. “I have to answer to Mom and Dad,” he finally said. “They won’t like hearing that you got hurt.”

“Then don’t tell them,” Deuce said. “And Reed should be more concerned about his mom finding out he got hurt.” He grinned. “It’ll just make her madder that he’s a detective.”

Now that was a low blow. True, but low.

Bob chuckled, then winked at Deuce.

I heaved myself out of the chair.

“You want me to look at your ankle?” Bob asked.

“I’ll take care of him,” Willie said.

All the better, I thought.

We left Bob and Deuce in the kitchen. Willie followed me upstairs to my condo. I sat down on the couch and she checked my ankle.

“Does this hurt?” she asked, pressing just above my heel.

I winced. “Not really.”

She cocked her head. “That was convincing.” She sat down next to me. “You need to take it easy. You should ice your foot and keep it elevated.”

“I’ll do that while I call Cal.”

“Reed, you look horrible,” Willie said. “Get some rest.”

I got up and gazed at her. “I feel horrible. But someone’s serious enough about stopping me that he came after my friend. I’ve got to find him before he comes back.”

Willie stood up. She chewed at her lip and then surprised me with a hug. “I hate what you do, you know that?”

I put my chin on top of her head and enjoyed this new closeness. “Yeah, at times like this, I hate it, too.”

“So get another job.”

I pushed her back and stared at her. “Can you help me with something?”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject.” She paused. I waited. “Fine,” she said. “What do you need?”

“Can you get me a new cell phone? I need to work on some stuff here and it would really help me out.”

Willie held out her hand. “Give me your credit card. And what kind of phone do you want?”

She may have hated what I did, but she still liked me. How else could I explain her willingness to help me?

CHAPTER TWELVE

After Willie left, I rummaged in the refrigerator. While I prepared a couple of sandwiches, I mulled over how Marv had found where I lived. Maybe I was too tired, but I couldn’t come up with an answer. I fixed a bag of ice, and carried the sandwiches, and a Coke, into my office. I rested my foot on a spare chair, and carefully placed the ice bag over my ankle. I logged onto my computer and quickly ate the sandwiches. Then I dialed my cell phone number, entered a password, and retrieved the stored messages.

Gail had called three times last night. In the first message, her voice held mild concern, asking why I hadn’t phoned her. She also said that the Johnsons were frantic and that they hadn’t heard from the dognappers about a ransom. Her tone in the next message was more frantic, again wondering why I hadn’t contacted her and questioning if I was okay. If she only knew. In the third, left at midnight, worry laced her voice. She pleaded with me to call her and let her know what was going on. She had called again this morning, again asking for me to get in touch with her as soon as possible.

I opened the Coke and drank half of it as I dialed her number.

“Reed! I’ve been trying to reach you,” Gail blurted into the phone before I had a chance to say anything.

“I got your messages,” I said. “It’s been a long night.”

“Where is the Johnsons’ dog? What happened?” She fired off the questions. “The Johnsons having been calling me non-stop. They’re just sick over all this.”

I briefly explained what had happened since I’d last talked to her.

“That’s horrible,” she blurted out as I finished.

I decided not to tell her about Deuce getting beat up. No need to worry her more.

“Have the Johnsons received a ransom note?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

Marv must’ve decided to threaten me first, then drop off a ransom note.

“I’ll bet the Johnsons hear from them soon,” I said. “I’ve got the license plate of their truck. I should be able to figure out where the dognappers live.”

“Can you look up that kind of information?” Gail asked. “Is it public record?”

“If I can’t, Cal can,” I thought. “I’ll figure it out,” I said. “Call the Johnsons and tell them what’s going on.”

“Should they call the police?”

“They can,” I said. “But I don’t know what good it will do. Just like the other times, the police will file a report and that’ll be it.”

“But you witnessed the dognapping!”

“I’ll find the dog, and then I’ll call the police.” I paused. “Let me know when the Johnsons get a ransom note.”

“Fine,” Gail said, her tone indicating she didn’t think it was fine. “You keep me posted, too, okay?”

I gulped some more Coke. “I’m getting a new cell phone as we speak. I’ll call you later on tonight when I find the dog.”

I hung up and opened my camera bag. I took the camera out and plugged it into the USB port. In moments, I had the pictures I’d taken last night at the Johnsons’ house downloaded onto my computer.

“Here we go,” I muttered as I began scrolling through them. I quickly found one where I could clearly read the license plate. “Bingo.”

I picked up the phone again and dialed Cal. He rarely left his house, so I was pretty sure he’d be available. The phone rang twice.

“What’s up?” he said, right on cue.

“Can you get me an address if I give you a license plate number?” I asked.

“No ‘hello, how are you’,” he laughed.

“Cal, not right now.”

“Okay.” He grew serious. “Are you okay?”

“Maybe I should tape this,” I said, then explained for the third time what had happened in the last sixteen hours.

“Wow,” he said. “All this over a dog?”

“I think there’s more to this,” I said as I downed the last of the Coke. “Maybe it’s like that guy Alan said, and I’m messing with drug dealers.”

“Who also masquerade as dognappers.”

“That’s what I hope to find out,” I said. “Can you help with the address?”

“Sure, fire away.”

I read the plate number from the picture. Clattering of Cal’s fingers hitting the keyboard sang through the phone while I grabbed a pad and pen. “Okay,” he said slowly. “That’s an address in Arvada.”

I tapped my pen on the paper. “That doesn’t make sense. I think they live in Deer Trail.”

“You sure you read the plate correctly?”

I stared at the monitor. “DDD-589.”

“That’s what I typed,” Cal said.

I studied a couple of other pictures and enlarged them on the screen. “Wait,” I said.

I leaned forward, scrutinizing the plate number. It appeared as if the top of the eight had a tiny tail. I enlarged the picture more, but that made it unreadable. “Instead of an eight, try a six,” I said. “I think maybe they used some black tape to alter the six…”

“…making it an eight. Slick.” Cal paused. “Nope, there isn’t an address for that plate number at all.”

I pored over the picture again. “Hmm, the nine seems funny. Try DDD-587.”

“It’s an address in Deer Trail.”

“That’s it!” I shouted. “What is it?”

He rattled off the address and I wrote it down.

“Jack and Connie Porter live there,” Cal said. “You want any other information on them?”

“No. Let’s keep the illegalities to a minimum.”

Cal chuckled. “If you change your mind, I can get whatever you need.”

I stared at the computer. “Jack Porter,” I said in my best Bogie imitation. “I’m coming to get you.”

Mapquest helped me find the address on a map. Jack’s place was farther down Road 34 from where I’d fallen from his truck. “I know roughly where that is.”

“What’s your plan?” Cal asked.

I glanced at the computer clock. It was just after one. If Willie returned soon with the phone, I could drive out to Deer Trail before it got dark. “I’m going back out there,” I finally said. “I’ve got to get the dog back.”

“Why don’t you just wait for the next ransom drop?”

“Because the last two went so well?” I responded to the touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Gail’s supposed to call me and let me know when the Johnsons receive a ransom note. But I don’t want to wait on that.”

“I would’ve thought Marv would be headed there after he left here,” Cal said.

“I know. They don’t seem like they’re in much of a hurry. That’s why I think it’s better if I can stop this now.”

“Maybe Marv got some lunch first,” Cal said, referring to my losing Jack and Marv the previous evening when they’d gone for dinner.

“Not funny,” I said.

“It kind of was,” Cal laughed, but stopped when I didn’t join him. “Maybe it’s time to involve the police,” he suggested.

“Maybe I should,” I said, feeling a little like I was admitting defeat. I got onto the Internet and searched for the sheriff’s office nearest to Deer Trail. “I can go to the sheriff in Strasburg.”

“How far is that from Deer Trail?”

“It’s about twenty miles west.” I thought for a moment. “I’ll show the sheriff the pictures. That ought to convince them to go out to Jack’s place and at least talk to them.”

“And if they don’t do anything?” Cal asked.

“I’ll go get the dog myself.”

“I figured you’d say that. You want help?” Cal offered.

I thought about Deuce. “No,” I said, not wanting anyone else to get hurt because of my profession. “I’ll be fine.”

“Suits me,” Cal said. “You’re the detective, not me.”

“Right,” I said and we hung up.

I spent a few minutes printing the best pictures of the dognapping. I put them in a manila envelope and then printed the directions to the sheriff’s office in Strasburg. I packed up the camera and then dragged myself into the bedroom and changed clothes, fighting exhaustion. Once I’d dressed, I took a small box from a shelf in the closet. In it was my Glock pistol. After my first investigation, when I’d been shot in the ass, I decided it was time to buy a gun. Up to this point, all I’d done was shoot it at the firing range. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to use it, it was that I preferred TV detective Jim Rockford’s reason for not carrying a gun: “Because I don’t want to shoot anybody.” But right now, I also didn’t relish going up against Jack and Marv without some protection. I got the camera bag and the envelope and headed out to the living room.

Knuckles rapped on the door and Willie let herself in.

“Here’s the phone,” she said, holding up a bag.

I put my hand with the gun behind my back, but it was too late.

“I hope you –” she stopped as she spied the gun. “Reed?”

“It’s no big deal,” I said, setting the gun and camera bag down. “After what’s happened, I want to be careful. Can I see the phone?”

Willie handed me the bag. Her eyes flashed a mix of annoyance and concern.

I sat down on the couch and fiddled with the phone. “This is great, thanks. Looks like it needs to be charged. I can do that in the car.”

“Reed.”

I looked up. “What?”

“Why don’t you let the police handle this?”

“I am. I’m going to visit the sheriff in Strasburg and show them the pictures.”

“Then why the gun?”

I shrugged.

Willie threw up her hands. “If they don’t help, you’re going to go it on your own, aren’t you?”

I stood up, threw on my coat, shoved the gun in a pocket, and snatched up the camera bag.

“It’s my job.”

Willie bit her lip. “Great. I’m falling for a guy who’s going to get himself killed.”

All I heard was that she was falling for me. That made my day. Clint Eastwood couldn’t have said it better. I limped toward the door.

“You need to stay off that ankle,” Willie said.

“I will, soon enough.” I kissed her on the cheek. “Nothing’s going to happen. I’ll go out there, report them, and get the dog back.”

“Just take the pictures to the police,” Willie said. She made a motion like she was wiping her hands. “Leave it at that. Case closed.”

“I’ll consider it.”

I opened the door, waiting for Willie.

“Fine, don’t take my advice.” She stomped out past me. “Don’t call me when you get into trouble again.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I murmured as I followed her down the stairs.

She stormed across the street to her place and I hurried around back to the garage, wishing she weren’t mad at me. But I didn’t have time to think about that now. If everything went according to plan, I’d be home safe in a few hours, and Willie would realize she’d been anxious for nothing. I hoped the sheriff’s office would let me bring Aesop back to the Johnsons. That would be a nice ending to the case.

Too bad it didn’t turn out like that.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

About forty-five minutes later I exited off I-70 onto Wagner Street in Strasburg. I followed the directions I’d printed out and turned east on Colfax and then north on Monroe Street. From there it didn’t take long before I spotted the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. I parked, grabbed the manila envelope with the dognapping pictures and hurried in the building.

A uniformed officer sat at a desk behind a counter. When I entered, he stared up at me and his eyes narrowed. Not the reception I wanted, but I’m sure the fact that I looked like I’d been in a bar fight didn’t help. I tried not to limp as I strolled up to the counter.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a gruff voice. He was built like a boxer, with a thick chest and large hands. The buttons of his shirt threatened to pop off. His nameplate said, “E. Myers.”

“I’m Reed Ferguson,” I introduced myself. “I’m a private investigator from Denver. I was hired to find stolen show dogs. In the course of my investigation, I followed some dognappers and I’ve got pictures of these men stealing a dog.”

“You…what?” Myers struggled to keep a straight face.

I shook my head wearily. Of course, with that introduction I sounded like a crackpot. “Good move, Reed,” I thought. Where was Bogie when I needed him? No cop would question Bogie.

Myers glanced into the cracked door of an inner office. I wondered if whoever was in that room was laughing at me.

I pulled the pictures from the envelope. “I’ve got pictures of these men stealing a dog. Look.”

I spread the pictures on the counter. Myers picked one up in his beefy hand and gazed at it. “He’s got a dog but who’s to say that isn’t his dog?”

“It’s not,” I said. “You can check with the couple who own the dog. The owner of that truck is named Jack Porter. He lives outside of Deer Trail. That dog belongs to Matt and Leslie Johnson who live in Denver.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. He still wasn’t taking me seriously.

A small radio fastened to his left shoulder clicked, emitting voices covered in static.

“Hold on,” he held up a hand and listened.

I tapped my fingers on the counter, waiting.

Myers pressed a button on the radio and spoke in a low voice.

“I’ve got to handle this,” he said when he’d finished. He set the picture down. “If you want to wait, I’ll fill out a report when I’m through.”

“How long will that be?”

“I don’t know,” he said, brushing me off. “Have a seat.”

“For how long?” I asked again.

His radio squawked again, something about a crash out on I-70.

“I’ll get to you,” he said more forcefully. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Thanks,” I said, reluctant to leave. He glared at me and I realized I didn’t have a choice. I sat down in a hard plastic chair near the door and waited. And waited.

I finally called Gail.

“Have the Johnsons heard anything?” I asked when she answered.

“No. They’re worried sick.”

“I wonder if the dognappers are purposely waiting a long time so the Johnsons will pay anything to get their dog back.”

“That’s terrible,” Gail said.

“Tell them I’m working on it,” I said. “And make sure you call me when they hear something.”

I hung up and glanced over the counter. Myers was on the phone.

What if I couldn’t get him to take me seriously? What if Marv and Jack sped things up and tried to get the ransom money tonight? If they returned Aesop before the sheriff showed up, it’d be hard to prove Marv and Jack broke the law, especially since Myers didn’t seem to believe me. I decided there was only one thing for me to do.

I left.

I hobbled back to the 4-Runner, ignoring the soreness in my ankle, and drove to Deer Trail. I flew past the Phillips 66 and, in short order, I turned east on 34, my gut tightening at the memory of last night’s debacle.

It wouldn’t be hard to find Jack’s place because he lived right on 34, four miles from Deer Trail. My palms grew sweaty as I thought about confronting Jack. To calm myself down, I hummed along with Echo And The Bunnymen as they sang Lips Like Sugar, a favorite song of mine. A few miles later, I slowed as a small farmhouse on the north side of the road came into view. A locked red iron gate blocked the entrance to the property. An old tan Lincoln Town Car was parked in front of the house. About a hundred feet behind the house sat a weathered old barn. Jack’s blue Ram truck was parked in a covered space next to the house.

I continued down the road until the house disappeared. Then I flipped a U-turn and stopped on the side of the road. What to do?

The sun sat low in the western sky. It would soon be dark. If I was going to be able to see anything, I’d better go now.

I got out, stuffed my camera in my coat pocket, tucked my gun in the small of my back, and locked the 4-Runner. It was chilly, but not nearly as cold as the night before. I trudged along the side of the road, prepared to duck into the ditch if anyone came along. No one did.

A few minutes later I approached Jack’s house. A hundred feet from the house I paused behind a leafless tree and watched the property. I pulled out the camera and zoomed in on the house. Through a side window I spotted the figure of a woman moving around. Then Jack passed by the window.

“Where’s the dog?” I muttered.

I panned around the house but didn’t see any evidence of dogs. I had to know where Aesop was being kept. That meant getting closer to the house.

I shoved the camera back in my coat pocket, crouched down and trekked through a field toward the east side of the house. On the other side of a barb-wire fence a wide lane led to the barn. Beyond that were a large yard and the house. I couldn’t see anyone in the window. I glanced around, then stepped on one wire, pulled up another, and ducked through. Then I dashed across the lane, through the yard, and up to the side of the house.

I pressed myself against the wall and listened. No one ran out of the house with guns trained on me. Conclusion: I hadn’t been spotted. I slid along the wall to the back side of the house. I peered around. A few rickety chairs sat around a picnic table and a huge iron smoke grill stood out in the open between the house and barn. I hoped that Aesop might be tied up outside, but I didn’t see him.

The front door opened and the hum of voices broke the stillness. I hit the ground and crawled around the corner of the house. I pulled myself into a crouch and peeked back toward the front of the house.

“You drive,” Jack was saying.

Marv was walking to the Lincoln, followed by Jack and a tall reed-thin woman with long dark hair.

“I want to go to Longhorn’s,” the woman said as she slid into the passenger side.

“I ain’t driving to Byers, Connie,” Marv said, getting into the driver’s seat. “We’re eating at Brick Oven in town.”

“Whatever,” the woman’s irritated voice drifted out of the car.

“Jack, you gotta get the gate,” Marv said.

That would be good, I thought. Once I found Aesop, I could go back and get the car, and retrieve him. That would save me having to carry the dog back to my car.

Jack strolled to the red gate, unlocked it and swung it open. Marv drove through and waited for Jack to close and lock the gate. Then Jack hopped into the back, and the car peeled out onto 34. So much for being able to drive through the gate.

But I was still elated. I figured I had at least an hour before they returned from dinner. Three quick steps and I was at the back door. I listened but heard nothing. I tried the handle and it turned. I breathed a sigh of relief and stepped into the kitchen.

A miniscule round table with four chairs sat in one corner. Old metal cupboards dominated part of one wall, a sink, more cupboards and a refrigerator sat against another wall. I didn’t see any dog dishes or other indications that Aesop might be around. I noticed a tall pantry door by the refrigerator. I opened it but saw no dog and no dog food.

I shut the pantry door and hurried through the rest of the house. The living room had a worn white couch and love seat against the walls, a large flat screen TV across from them, and a fake oak coffee table. Down a hallway were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The master bedroom was a mess, with an unmade bed and clothes strewn about. The other room consisted of office furniture and boxes. If they kept Aesop in here, I saw no evidence of it.

Maybe Aesop was in the barn. I hurried back through the kitchen and let myself out. The sound of car tires on the driveway split the air. I froze. Were they back already?

I flattened myself against the side of the house.

A horn beeped, then a car door opened. “Jack? Connie? You there?” a low voice called.

“Leave it on the steps,” another male voice said. “They’ll get it when they come home.”

“Maybe I should take it around back.”

I looked around frantically. Where could I go?

“It’s just the supplies,” the second voice said. “Leave it and let’s go.”

“Okay.” A crinkling of paper drifted through the air, then a car door slammed. A second later, the car drove away.

I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it out slowly. I hurried around to the front and opened the bag that they’d left on the porch. Some dog brushes, unmarked bottles with liquid in them, and some syringes. Whoever that was, they’d left dog supplies. But what were Jack and Marv doing to the dogs they stole? I shrugged. Regardless, I was definitely in the right place. Now if I could just find the damn dog and get out of here.

I ran to the back of the house and through the yard, past the smoke grill and to the barn. As I pushed open the heavy door, it creaked loudly. Inside was a beat-up Chevy truck, a tractor, and other farm equipment thrown in the stalls. I saw no livestock. Then, in one of the stalls I found stacks of cheap dog food. But still no sign of Aesop.

“Where the hell is he?” I asked myself. “Think, Reed. Think!”

I didn’t like the feel of this. Why hide one dog so carefully? There was more to this. But what? And where were they keeping Aesop?

I eased back out of the barn and closed the door. I looked toward the other side of the house, but didn’t see a dog house or any other place where a dog might be, so I walked around behind the barn. A stark field ran as far as I could see. I gazed west and squinted into the setting sun. I had about thirty minutes of light.

Where to look? I chewed my lower lip, thinking. Then Alan’s words came to me, when he’d given me a lift in his truck. “Those old boys know how to camouflage themselves.”

I took out my camera and trained it out into the fields, zooming in. I carefully fanned from left to right. There! I looked over the camera, then back into the lens. Off in the distance was a rise in the ground. Thick undergrowth appeared to be blocking something, but I couldn’t tell what.

I put the camera back and traipsed across the field, stepping carefully so I wouldn’t twist my already injured foot. Fifty yards out I neared the clump of shrubs and now I could see what they were blocking. A long structure on stilts about five feet high and twenty feet long sat tucked into the rise in the hill. Heavy tarps covered the sides and dirt was strewn on top of the structure.

I stepped around the brush and pulled back one of the tarps. My jaw dropped. Dozens of small dogs sat locked in small cages. These looked nothing like the pampered show dogs I’d seen just a day ago. Among the breeds I recognized were Shih Tzu and terriers. A powerful urine smell almost overwhelmed me. I took a couple of hesitant steps, my mind not processing the horror I was seeing. Many of the dogs were filthy, with matted hair and sickly eyes. Most shook with the cold. Some were pregnant. None made any noise.

“Oh my…” I lost my voice. One poor dog gazed at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.

So this is why Jack and Marv were so intent on stopping me. I didn’t know a lot about puppy mills, but I wasn’t immune to the fact that there was huge money to be made breeding and selling puppy-mill dogs to pet stores.

My eyes scanned the cages. I saw a couple of Parson Russell Terriers with unkempt fur, and then I spotted Aesop. He stuck out amongst the others because he was cleaned and well-groomed. “That wouldn’t last long,” I thought.

I strode over to his cage. He cowered in the back corner.

“Hey, boy,” I whispered to him. He hesitated, his little body quaking. Then he took a few uncertain steps to the edge of the cage. I stuck my finger between the cage wires and petted him.

“I’ll get you out,” I said. I glanced at the other dogs. “I’ll get you all out.”

A silver padlock secured the cage door. I’d have to find a key. I searched all around but didn’t see any hanging nearby. They were probably in the house, or maybe the barn.

I reached back in Aesop’s cage and patted him on the head. “I’ll be back.”

I stepped back, took out my camera, and snapped a bunch of shots of the cages. The camera’s flash lit up the enclosed space, capturing the wretched conditions the dogs lived in. I shook my head in disgust as I crept back through the shrubs.

The sun had set, leaving everything in a gray haze. I started across the field, my eyes trying to adjust to the dimness. I fell once, twisting my ankle. “Damn it,” I groaned, clutching my leg. I stood up and hurried on.

I was about twenty feet from the barn when Marv’s car turned onto the property. I ducked down, not sure if they could see me walking in the field. I stayed in a squat and moved to my right, using the barn as a shield. I waited a moment to see if anyone came running. When no one did, I stood up and ran to the barn, gritting my teeth against the pain in my ankle. I reached the barn and paused, then peeked around the side. Lights blinked on in the house but I didn’t see anyone through the back windows. A bluish winking hue told me the television had been turned on.

I ducked down and hurried to the barn door. I winced as the hinges creaked. I slipped inside and slowly pulled the door closed, trying to minimize the noise. I could barely see a thing. How was I going to search for a key? A door slamming stopped me cold. I eased the barn door open a crack, praying it wouldn’t squeak, and looked through. Marv stood near the picnic table, staring out into the field. He held a flashlight, which he flicked on as he started walking out toward the puppy mill. Did they suspect something? Or was he just checking on the dogs? Either way, I needed to make my escape. I wouldn’t be able to rescue Aesop right now, but I could go back to the sheriff’s office and insist they send someone out here. I waited until the sound of Marv’s footsteps faded, and then I slipped out through the door.

Something stirred the air. I half-turned around and saw a chunk of firewood flying at my head. I ducked but not in time. The wood clunked me behind my ear. Stars danced in my vision as I slumped to the ground, dazed.

Footsteps approached.

“Come on, get him in here,” Jack said.

Hands grabbed me roughly and dragged me into the barn. Bright light suddenly blinded me. I moaned and kicked out, but my legs were like rubber. The hands dropped me and my head thumped on the barn floor with a crack. I tried to sit up but a booted foot pressed me back down. A hand pulled my gun from where it was tucked in my jeans.

“You won’t need this,” Marv said.

I reached for it, but he slapped my hand away.

“Tie him up,” Marv said.

I cocked my head and Jack’s face came into my vision. Then he sidled around behind me and yanked my arms up. He taped my hands together with duct tape, then wrapped more tape around my ankles. The pressure on my sprained ankle was excruciating. Once Jack finished, they rolled me over. Marv searched my pockets, taking my keys, camera, cell phone, and wallet.

“Taking pictures.” Jack shook his head.

I glared at him.

Marv turned on the camera and fiddled with it. “You better look at this Jack.” He held the camera out. They both squinted as they perused the shots I’d taken.

“He’s got it all,” Marv said. “There’s me taking that stupid dog last night. And your truck.” He put his face up close to the camera. “I’ll bet those pictures have your license plate number. That’s how he found your place.”

“This is not good,” Jack muttered.

Marv began pacing. “What are we going to do?” He threw up his hands.

Jack stared down at me. “Is Marv right?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I said.

Jack opened my wallet. “Reed Ferguson,” he read from my license. He tapped the card on his hand. “What’s a guy from Denver doing out here?”

I clamped my mouth shut.

Marv kicked me in the side. “Answer him,” he sneered.

I sucked in a breath, trying to ignore the shooting pain in my side.

Marv glowered at me, fire in his eyes. He kicked me again and I grunted.

“Stop it,” Jack ordered.

Marv backed up and paced again.

Jack continued tapping my license on his hand. “What do we do with him?” he finally asked.

Marv shrugged. “Kill him.”

Jack shook his head in disgust. “Be serious.”

“We need to talk to Chuck,” Marv suggested.

“He’s in Denver visiting his girl, remember?” Jack said. “He won’t be back until tomorrow.”

Marv ran a hand over his jaw. “We can’t leave him here.”

“Why not?” Jack waved a hand around. “Who’s going to find him?”

“What if he told someone else where he is?” Marv asked. “And they come looking for him.”

Jack thought about that. So did I. I’d told Cal I was going to visit the sheriff in Strasburg and if that didn’t work, I’d come out here. But Cal wouldn’t be expecting me to call him until tomorrow or maybe the day after. No one else knew where I was. I cursed myself. Why didn’t I tell anyone else I was coming out here? Nooo, Reed, that would’ve made too much sense.

“We’ll drug him,” Jack finally said. “Put him in a stall until morning. When Chuck’s back, we’ll see what he says. The whole puppy mill thing was his idea.”

“That’ll work.” Marv headed for the door. “I’ll get Connie. She’s got something for the dogs that ought to work on him.”

After Marv left, Jack dragged me into a stall.

“You won’t get away with this,” I said.

“We’ve gotten away with this for a while now,” Jack snorted. He leaned me against the back of the stall. “We’ve had trespassers before. We can handle you.”

“Sounds like you’re not too sure,” I said. “Since you have to wait for Chuck to tell you what to do.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Shut up.” Then he kicked my leg.

I tried to get more comfortable as Marv returned with Connie.

“Geez, Jack!” Connie yelled when she saw me. “What the hell are you two doing?”

“Just drug him,” Jack said. “Give him something you give to the dogs. We need him quiet until Chuck comes back tomorrow. He’ll know what to do.”

Connie cursed under her breath and walked away.

“You two are too stupid to handle things on your own,” I said, stalling for time. Although pissing them off might not be the best strategy. I wasn’t thinking too clearly.

Marv made a fist and leaned in close to my face. “He won’t quit talking. But I can take care of that.”

“Don’t,” Jack said. “I’ll shut him up.” He found the duct tape, tore off a piece and slapped it across my mouth.

Jack stepped back and surveyed his work. “That’s an improvement.”

Connie returned, holding one of the bottles I’d seen in the bag and a syringe. She prepped the syringe, and a tiny stream of liquid squirted from the needle.

“Roll him over,” she ordered. I thrashed as they grabbed me, but it was two-against-one. I lost. As Jack and Marv held me still, Connie knelt down next to me. She pulled up my coat sleeve, then my shirtsleeve. I squirmed but it was useless. I felt a pinprick on my arm.

“Okay, let him go,” she said.

They let go of me and jumped away. I swept my legs out, trying to trip them, but they were out of range.

“That’ll keep him quiet until morning,” Connie said. She glared at Jack. “I hope to hell you know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t worry, hon,” Jack said to her. “Go back in the house. We’ll be there in a minute.”

Connie stormed off.

I gazed up at Jack and Marv. They shimmered in and out of focus. Then everything turned black.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I startled awake. Light streamed through a crack in the wall. Lying on my side, I shivered and coughed, struggling for oxygen. And then I began to panic, which made breathing even harder.

Calm down, I thought. I worked to settle myself. I was finally able to suck enough air through my nose to breathe okay. And then I could think clearly.

What time was it? Morning? Where was I? Memory slowly returned. I was trying to rescue Aesop. Jack and Marv caught me. They mentioned Chuck. It was his operation, so he probably lived around Deer Trail somewhere. Where had I heard that name recently?

The motel clerk! His name was Chuck. If I could’ve snapped my fingers, I would’ve. That’s how Marv knew where I lived. I’d filled out a form at the motel and I’d put my address on it. So Chuck was involved in the puppy mill as well.

I looked around. A couple of thin blankets had been thrown over me. “How nice of them,” I thought sarcastically. Jack and Marv didn’t want me to freeze to death before Chuck arrived and gave them orders to kill me. I pushed myself into a sitting position, silently yelping at the pain and stiffness in my muscles and joints.

I had to get away, or at least, let someone know I was here. Cal knew where to find me, but it was too early for him to worry. If I could get my cell phone out of my pocket, I could call him…I shouted through tape that covered my mouth. No, wait – they’d taken my phone. Damn! That was a brand new phone, too.

My entire body ached and I was freezing. I moved my lips behind the tape. Maybe if I could get the tape off, I could yell for help. But the barn was solidly built and I was in the middle of nowhere, so who would hear me?

Footsteps approached and the barn door creaked opened. A shaft of light suddenly illuminated the room. A moment later Jack appeared in front of me.

“You’re awake,” he grunted. He bent down, threw off the blankets and jostled me, checking to make sure I was still securely tied. I was.

“Connie and I are going to breakfast,” he said. He patted me on the cheek. “You just stay here. We’ll be back with Chuck. And we’ll deal with you then.” He slapped me hard, once. “I don’t want to drug you again and have you passed out all day, but in case you get any ideas that you’re going to get up and walk out of here, think twice. I’m putting a padlock on the door.” He stood up, chuckled, and left.

As he shut the barn door, darkness enveloped me. I sat for a second, not sure what to do. I heard the rev of the truck’s diesel engine, and then the sound faded away.

I squirmed around, trying to pull my wrists free, but the tape stuck. I tried to separate my arms and stretch the tape but to no avail. It just hurt my arms and shoulders. Even with the cold, sweat rolled down my cheek. I slid my back down the side of the stall until I was lying prone. I felt along the wood with my hands. If I could find the end of a nail, or a jagged edge of wood, maybe I could cut the tape. Then I’d deal with the locked door.

My fingers skimmed as far as I could reach, which wasn’t much. I slithered a little farther and felt again. Still nothing. My shoulders ached.

My frustration grew and I silently cursed. I had to escape. My breathing came in ragged gasps as I struggled.

I was so focused I didn’t hear it at first. But then I heard a rattling at the door, as if someone was fiddling with the padlock. Had Jack come back? A moment later a loud thump echoed in the barn. It sounded like someone was trying to break the door down. Two more thumps resounded through the dark and then the barn door creaked open. I squinted into the shadows.

Quiets steps moved around the barn. I froze. I figured it wasn’t Marv or Jack because they would come right to me. Who? Chuck? I gulped.

Then a face materialized above me.

“Cal!” I shouted. Since my mouth was taped, it came out a muffled mess.

“Reed!” he hissed, dropping to his knees. “Am I glad I found you!”

“Mfft,” I said back.

“What?” He ripped the tape off my face and I yelped at the pain.

“And I’m glad to see you!” I managed to say.

“Come on, we’ve got to get you out of here,” Cal hissed.

“How’d you break the lock on the door?” I croaked. My mouth was dry and I felt like I had swallowed paste.

“It was a cheap lock,” he said. “I used a piece of firewood to loosen the hasp from the wood. A couple of good whacks and the screws pulled out and I yanked the whole thing off.”

“Good thinking,” I said. “Help me get this tape off my arms and legs,”

“I’m trying,” he said. “It’d be better if I had a knife.”

“Why’d you come out here now? I didn’t think you’d –”

“Be worried,” he finished. He huffed as he tried to tear the tape. “I’d like to stay out of your detective work, at least the dangerous stuff, but when I couldn’t get ahold of you last night or this morning, I figured you’d gotten yourself into some kind of trouble again. So I drove out here.” He sat back on his haunches. “This isn’t working. Let me see if I can find a knife or something to cut that tape.”

“Hurry,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Jack and his wife went for breakfast. They’ll be coming back with Marv and Chuck.”

“I know,” Cal’s faraway voice said. “I was watching the house and I saw them leave. Who’s Chuck?”

“He’s the mastermind of their operation,” I muttered. Every square inch of my being ached and I was desperate to be freed.

“What operation?” Cal called from across the barn.

“A puppy mill.”

“A puppy mill? That’s awful.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Here we go.” Cal returned with a hacksaw. “This should work.”

Cal cut through the tape, careful to avoid my wrists. My arms broke free.

“Argh,” I groaned as I flexed my shoulders and arms. They were completely stiff and numb.

Cal hacked through the tape wrapped around my ankles and then he helped me stand up.

“Can you walk?”

I leaned against him as my legs wobbled. “I need your help.”

We staggered to the barn door and Cal cautiously gazed out. “We’re good. Let’s head straight to the fence. My car’s parked down the road.”

“To the west?”

“Yes.” Cal searched my face. “What?”

“They would’ve seen it when they drove into town.”

He shook his head. “I pulled onto a side road so no one can see it from the main road. It’s a bit of a walk, but…”

“My car’s closer,” I said, pointing in the opposite direction. “We can get it and then pick up yours.”

“Good idea.”

We struck off to the north, through the back yard. I scowled in pain but hurried as fast as my sore legs would carry me. With each step my limbs began to stretch out, but our progress was slow. We crossed the lane and reached the fence. Cal made a space in the barbed wire and I ducked through. Then I held the wire for him. He stooped and jumped through the gap, but his coat snagged on a barb.

“Dang it,” he halted. “I love this coat.”

“Hold on.” I plucked at the fabric. My fingers were like jelly and they didn’t want to work.

“Hurry!” he said.

The rumbling of a truck split the air.

“They’re coming back,” Cal whispered.

I nodded. “They must’ve skipped breakfast.”

“Come on!” Cal pushed forward.

“Got it!” I said.

Cal stumbled forward and stood up. I put my arm around his shoulder and we rushed through the field.

“It’ll only take them a second to see that the barn’s been broken into and they’ll know I’m gone,” I wheezed.

“Where’s your car?”

“Not too much farther.”

We turned toward the road and soon arrived at the 4-Runner.

Cal leaned me against the passenger door.  “Where are the keys?”

“They took mine,” I said. “But there’s a spare in the wheel well on the other side. The rear tire.”

“Isn’t that creative?” he said as he ran around the car.

“It might be cliché but it’s saving out asses,” I replied.

“Got it,” he hollered. The car shook as he hopped in and unlocked the doors.

I piled in. “Go!”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Cal started the car and floored the gas. We shot into the road. A minute later we neared Jack’s house. His blue truck was just turning onto the road.

“What’s he doing?” Cal hollered.

“Going for help, I guess.”

Cal eased off the gas.

“Don’t stop!” I shouted. “Go around him!”

Cal jerked the wheel and the 4-Runner veered to the left. I ducked down, but not soon enough. Jack spotted me anyway. As we zoomed by, Jack’s face was visible through the windshield. He was yelling something at us.

Cal glanced in the rearview mirror. “He’s chasing us,” he said, his voice shaking.

“Floor it,” I said. “We’ve got to get to Strasburg, to the sheriff.”

“Call 911,” Cal said. His white knuckles clutched the steering wheel hard.

“They took my phone.”

“Here’s mine.” Cal let go with one hand and the car careened toward the ditch.

“You’re going to get us killed! Just drive,” I ordered.

We hurtled down the road. I turned around and looked through the rear window. The truck was gaining on us.

“Can’t you go any faster?” I yelled.

“I can’t.”

We drove in silence and I watched the truck edge closer.

“There’s the main road up ahead,” Cal said.

He slowed down for the turn. I glanced ahead, then back again. The truck’s big front end came dangerously close to us.  Cal cranked the wheel and we lurched onto the paved road with a squeal of tires. Up ahead an old red Toyota 4x4 raced straight toward us.

“What the hell!” Cal shouted.

“That’s Chuck,” I said, recognizing the shock of gray hair and baseball cap.

The Toyota swerved into our lane. Cal cranked the wheel and we zipped by the truck, clipping its front end. The 4-Runner slid to the side, jostling us. Cal frantically worked to keep us from spinning out of control. We looped around and Cal hit the brakes. The 4-Runner jerked to a stop, facing the opposite direction. Ahead of us, the Toyota screeched to a halt just before it slammed into Jack’s truck. Jack was waving his hands and yelling as he backed up his truck.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Cal backed up and made a U-turn, then slammed on the gas again. We shot around the curve, past the Phillips 66.

I checked behind us. Jack and Chuck were nowhere in sight.

“I don’t think they’re following us,” Cal said.

“Just get us to Strasburg before they decide to catch up to us.”

Cal shook all over. “I’m not a detective, Reed,” he muttered, his knuckles white as he clutched the wheel. “I like my quiet existence in the mountains.”

I glanced over at him. “I owe you, big time.”

Cal remained silent as he turned onto the interstate entrance.

I glanced behind us. “Maybe they’ve given up,” I said. I sat back and let my muscles relax. I longed for a drink of water but didn’t want to stop.

Cal glanced over at me. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” But I wasn’t sure.

“You got more than you bargained for.”

“Uh-huh.” I sighed. “But I found the dog.”

“All’s well that ends well,” Cal said.

I wished he would quit saying that because it seemed like that was never true.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

We flew west along I-70, passing cars and semis as we put distance between us and Deer Trail. I chided Cal to go faster and he grumbled that he was. We both looked behind every few seconds to see if Jack and Chuck were following. My breath caught in my throat every time I saw a vehicle that looked remotely like a dark blue truck or a red Toyota. Cal tried to ask me questions about my ordeal but I was so tired and so worried about Jack catching us that I answered only in monosyllables. After what seemed like days, we finally arrived at Strasburg.

“I don’t think they followed us,” I said. “Stop at a gas station so I can get something to drink.”

We stopped briefly at a Texaco on Colfax. Cal hurried inside and I watched for Jack and Chuck.

Cal came back outside, hopped in and said, “This should tide you over for now.” He tossed water and some doughnuts at me. We got back onto Colfax.

“Turn there,” I instructed Cal as I gulped down half the bottle. I ate a donut in three bites.

He hung a left onto Monroe Street and we headed straight to the sheriff’s office. Cal parked the car and heaved a sigh. “I do not want to do something like this again,” he said as he peeled his fingers off the steering wheel.

“Come on,” I said, easing out of the car. My whole body had stiffened up while sitting in the car.

We crossed the empty lot and entered the building. Myers was sitting at his desk, talking on the phone. He glanced up, signaled us to wait, and continued his conversation.

“Well, if it isn’t the pet detective,” he said when he’d wrapped up his call. Then his brow furrowed when he noticed my appearance. “What happened to you?”

“That stolen dog I was telling you about?” I said. “I found it. And a puppy mill. Then the owners of the puppy mill found me. They tied me up and kept me in a barn overnight. If it wasn’t for my friend here, I’d still be there.”

“Don’t forget to tell him they chased us,” Cal murmured to me.

Myers gazed at us, speechless.

I raised an eyebrow at Myers. “And they chased us.” Cal nodded. “We even played chicken on the road with them. My car’s dinged up and the other guy, Chuck, has some damage to his Toyota, too.”

“I was going to take a report,” Myers grumbled. “But you left.”

“I didn’t think you were going to do anything,” I fired back.

“I certainly will now.” Myers heaved his bulk out of his chair. “Where did you say this was?”

“Outside of Deer Trail,” I said. “Jack Porter’s house.”

“Never heard of him,” Myers said. He poked his head into an inner office and spoke to someone for a moment. Then he grabbed his hat off the desk. “Show me.”

We marched out of the building and Myers followed behind us in his service vehicle. Cal kept to the speed limit on the drive back to Deer Trail.

“Can’t you go any faster?” I asked.

“I got a sheriff on my tail,” Cal said, shrugging.

“I’m sure he won’t care,” I said.

“What are you worried about?”

“I don’t want Jack and Chuck to clear out everything before we get there.”

Cal shook his head. “They won’t have time.”

He was right, but I was still antsy to get back. We didn’t see Jack, Chuck, or Marv as we drove through Deer Trail and onto 34. As we neared Jack’s house, I spotted Chuck’s Toyota parked in front.

“They’re probably trying to hide the dogs now,” I said.

“It’ll take them too long,” Cal replied. “It’s going to be okay.”

Cal stopped on the side of the road across from Jack’s property. We got out as Myers pulled up next to us. He rolled down the window.

“That’s the place,” I said. “The dogs are on the other side of the house, to the north. There’s a structure with a whole bunch of cages, and it’s covered with heavy tarps. It’s hidden behind some undergrowth about fifty yards back.”

“Okay, stay here while I go check out things,” Myers said.

“Can I get the stolen dog back?” I asked.

“Sit tight,” Myers said. “If what you say is true, I’m going to have to get a search warrant and get animal control out here.”

We watched him drive onto the property. Before Myers had a chance to get out of his vehicle, Jack burst out of the house. He approached Myers, waving and pointing. Myers held up a hand, as if trying to calm Jack. Connie stood in the doorway, staring out at us. Even from where we were, I could see the hateful gleam in her eyes. After seeing those poor dogs suffering in their cages, I could not have cared less.

****

Another officer joined Myers a short while later. After taking care of legalities, Myers and the other officer were able to search the property and they found the puppy mill right where I said it would be.

The next few hours passed by slowly. Myers later told us that he found Chuck releasing the dogs into the field, but many of the dogs were so scared they were just cowering near their cages. When Myers approached, Chuck tried to run, but gave up when Myers drew his gun. Jack and Connie were handcuffed and driven away. Someone was dispatched to arrest Marv. Animal control showed up and the dogs were rounded up to be taken to an animal shelter in Denver. Some would be rehabilitated and put up for adoption. The ones in poor health or who were deemed unfit for adoption would have to be euthanized. I asked if I could take Aesop with me so I could return him to the Johnsons, but animal control wouldn’t allow it. Aesop was carted away with the rest of the dogs and the Johnsons would have to pick him up at the shelter. I wrote down the shelter’s information and called Gail. She gushed with delight at the news that I’d found Aesop and said she’d make sure the Johnsons were able to get him safely home. I decided not to tell her about the puppy mill at the moment, not wanting to ruin her joy.

There was nothing more for Cal and me to do. Cal drove back to where he’d stashed his car down the road from the Porter house. I had only eaten a doughnut in the last twenty-four hours, so we stopped for a bite to eat in Deer Trail. I ordered lunch and then went into the bathroom, where I was finally able to clean up a bit.

When I looked in the mirror, I was pleased that I didn’t look quite as disheveled as the night I’d fallen from Jack’s truck. I did have a knot on my forehead and a few more scrapes and bruises. But I was alive and free, and that’s what I cared about.

I washed up as much as I could and joined Cal at a booth. He peppered me with questions about my kidnapping experience.

“You are one lucky detective,” he said, shaking his head.

“I’m just glad you showed up,” I said. “I don’t know what might’ve happened otherwise.”

As we finished our lunch I struggled to keep my eyes open.

“Are you going to be okay?” Cal asked as he contemplated me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “The caffeine in the Coke is helping.”

“Just to be safe, I’m following you home,” he said as he left a twenty on the table to cover our bill. “I got you this far, I’m not losing you on the way home.”

I laughed. “I’ll keep the music on loud and that’ll keep me awake.”

And that’s exactly what happened.

****

“Are you going to be okay?” Cal asked again as I finally eased myself down on the couch in my living room.

A knock on the door precluded me from answering. The door opened and Willie poked her head in. “Hey Cal,” she said. Then she spotted me. “Reed!” She rushed over to me, worry flickering in her green eyes. “What happened?”

“Reed discovered a puppy mill,” Cal said. “The dognappers ambushed him, tied him up and drugged him.”

Willie stared at me in disbelief. “How did you get away?” she finally asked.

“I helped,” Cal beamed, and explained his involvement. He finished with, “That puppy mill is out of business.”

“That’s good. Anybody who does that to poor, defenseless animals…” Willie’s voice trailed off. Then she surveyed me. “You look terrible.” She pushed my hair back, examining the welt on my forehead.

“I’m all right,” I said. “I need a shower and some sleep and I’ll be fine.”

“You better ice that ankle again,” Cal said.

“I’ll help him,” Willie said.

Cal knew about my crush on Willie. He winked at me. “You’re in good hands.”

I waved as he left.

“Come on.” Willie grabbed my hand and pulled me off the couch. “Let’s get you cleaned up and into bed.”

“You wanna join me?” I smiled.

She rolled her eyes. “You wish.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

I was so tired, my feet wobbled under me. I plodded into the bathroom, peeled off my clothes and stepped into the shower. The hot water pummeled my sore muscles and I almost dozed off.

Willie’s voice startled me. “I’ve put out clean clothes.”

“Thanks,” I said. I finished my shower and toweled off. Willie had placed boxers and a tee shirt on the toilet for me. I put them on and went into the bedroom.

Willie had the sheets turned down. She sat on the edge of the bed, an ice pack in one hand.

“Lie down,” she instructed.

I crawled under the covers.

“You know you like me,” I yawned. I closed my eyes.

“Uh-huh.” Willie began caring for me, putting the ice on my ankle. But I didn’t notice. I’d fallen asleep.

****

Willie called first thing the next morning.

“How are you feeling?”

“A little sore,” I said as I stretched and rolled out of bed. “You didn’t want to spend the night?”

“With a zombie? I don’t think so.”

“I would’ve stayed awake,” I laughed.

“It snowed last night,” Willie changed the subject. “Be careful walking around. The last thing you need to do is slip on snow and ice and make your ankle worse.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go today, and I think I deserve a day off,” I said. “How about dinner tonight? We can go somewhere close by.”

“I’d like that.”

“Great,” I said. “Come over after work. Italian sound good?”

“That’s great,” Willie said. “I’ll see you then.”

I hung up. “Yes!” I said. “She still likes me.” Even with all the perilous situations I’d been in the last couple of days, she hadn’t written me off. That was saying something.

I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and I did a double take at my own appearance. The scrapes looked redder than before and the bruise under my left eye had an ugly yellowish tint around the edges.

“I look like a hardened detective,” I said to myself. “Bogie would be proud.”

I strolled into the kitchen, pleased that my ankle didn’t hurt very much. But my euphoria didn’t last. I had just poured a bowl of cereal when my phone rang again.

“Hi, Gail,” I said, recognizing the number. “Did the Johnsons get Aesop back?”

“Yes, they did, but I have bad news.”

“What?” I said, sinking into a chair.

“Another dog’s been taken.”

“What?” I nearly shouted.

“It’s true,” Gail said. “It’s a retired couple I’ve seen at some of the dog shows, the Kirbys. Their dog was taken from their yard last night. They called the police and reported it.  They didn’t participate in the show over the weekend so I’ve haven’t seen them in a while, and they didn’t know about Fuji or the other dogs being stolen until this morning when they talked to Belinda. The minute Belinda got off the phone with them, she called me.”

“Can you get the Kirbys to my office, say in an hour?”

“We’ll be there.”

I hung up, puzzled and angry. There wasn’t any way that Jack, Marv, and Chuck could have been released from jail already and had gone after another dog. But if not them, then who?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Gail was as shocked when she saw me as Willie had been.

“Good Lord, what happened to you?” she asked as she flew into my office. She flung off a heavy coat, rearranged hair that was wet with snowflakes, and sat down.

“There’s a bit more to the story,” I said as I got a couple more chairs out and set them in front of my desk. “The people that took Aesop were operating a puppy mill.”

“That’s horrible!” Gail fumed. “It makes me so mad that people would do something like that.”

“Being arrested ought to stop the group I found,” I said. “But there’s so much money to be made, it wouldn’t surprise me if they moved their operation somewhere else and started all over.”

We discussed the atrocities of puppy mills and what I’d been through since I’d seen her last, until a knock on the outer door interrupted us.

“Hello?” a curly-haired man in jeans and ski jacket poked his head into my office. As everyone seemed to be doing lately, he hesitated as he eyed the cuts and bruises on my face.

“Come on in,” I said.

He stepped aside and let his wife enter. She was plump, with gray hair to match his, and sad blue eyes. She was bundled up in a plaid coat with a hood.

“Oh, hi,” she said, noticing Gail sitting across from my desk.

“Reed, this is Louise and Wayne Kirby,” Gail introduced us.

Once everyone had their coats off and were seated, the Kirbys told me what happened. I’d heard the story so many times now, I knew it by heart. The Kirbys had come home from dinner and let their dog Spice outside in the back yard. After a while, they wondered why she didn’t want back in the house. They went looking for her but she was gone.

“There’s no way she could’ve gotten out on her own,” Wayne said. “The yard is fenced and the gate was securely locked.”

“I believe you,” I said. “You haven’t received a ransom note yet?”

Wayne shook his head.

“I’ll bet they get one today,” Gail said.

Just then Belinda came rushing through the door.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly. “The snow’s starting to stick on the roads so it took me longer than I thought to get here.”

Gail glanced at me. “She wanted to join us.”

“No problem,” I said.

“I took the day off,” Belinda explained. “I thought maybe I could help in some way.”

“Thank you,” Wayne said gratefully.

“Reed, I thought you’d gotten to the bottom of this,” Belinda said. She scrutinized me but didn’t say anything. I hoped it was because of my bruises and not because it appeared that I hadn’t solved the case.

“I did, too,” I sighed. If she only knew. I got a third chair from the closet and set it up.

“You’ve got to catch whoever’s doing this,” Belinda said as she sat down.

“I don’t have much to go on,” I said. I sat back, thinking. I was back to square one. No clues, and no way of knowing how the dognappers were targeting which dogs to steal.

“So we have Gail, Belinda, and now the Kirbys. If we don’t count the Johnsons’ dog, that’s three dogs stolen in less than a week,” I said. The statement was met with a chorus of nods. “We’re dealing with someone who needs money quickly. But what puzzles me is how the dognappers know what dogs to take. They aren’t stealing just any old dogs. They know the ones they’re taking are show dogs, and that the dogs are valuable enough that the owners will pay big money to get their dogs back.”

“Would they be doing the same things that those men operating the puppy mill did?” Gail asked.

“Another group who watches at the shows like Jack and Marv did? I guess,” I said.

“Who?” Wayne and Louise exchanged confused looks.

“What’s this about a puppy mill?” Belinda asked.

Before I could say a word, Gail jumped in and told the story about my discovering the puppy mill. Listening to her tell the tale, I felt like I’d been put on the same playing field as Bogie. Only he solved all of his cases.

“I thought I had put a stop to this,” I said when Gail finished. Then I pointed at the Kirbys. “Until I heard about your dog.”

“Reed does bring up an interesting point,” Louise said. “How would someone know that our dog is more valuable than the average dog? Other than the usual people like our friends and relatives who know Spice is a show dog. But none of our friends or relatives would do something like this.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“Of course,” Louise said. Wayne nodded vigorously.

“Is there a connection between all of you?” I asked. “Other than that you all know each other from the dog shows.”

“We all belong to a puppy play group,” Gail said.

I cocked an eyebrow. “A what?”

“It’s like mothers who have play dates with their little kids, only this is for our dogs,” Gail said. “We’ve got a group who gets together with our dogs. We work with the dogs on training, and we let them play and socialize together.”

I nodded slowly. Maybe someone saw them all together. But how would that person know where all the dog owners lived? Did they follow an owner? But then they’d have to know the times of the play dates. That would mean an inside job. I stared at all of them. Could one of them be stealing the dogs?

“You think puppy play dates are weird, don’t you?” Gail said.

“No,” I said, even though that wasn’t true.

“It sounds funny,” Louise said, her eyes momentarily dancing with humor. “But the dogs love it.”

“They sure do,” Belinda said. “But people who don’t understand dogs and dog behavior tease us about it.”

“That’s true,” Gail smiled. “Belinda, what was it your neighbor Shirley said about us?”

“That we had too much time on our hands,” Belinda said. “And that we should try having play dates with kids instead. I can see her point. She has her hands full with Molly and a new baby. But she was just joking.”

“I should hope so,” Louise said. “After all, she came over when we had some play dates at your house.”

Belinda laughed. “Molly likes to play with the dogs.”

“And your neighbor down the street,” Gail said. “What’s his name?”

“Earl,” Belinda said. “What a grouchy old man.”

“He’s not that old,” Wayne piped up.

“Oh, but he hates it if we have the play dates at Belinda’s house,” Gail said. “He complains even though the dogs are generally quiet.”

“Uh-huh,” Louise said. “That man makes such a fuss over the dogs.”

“He hates dogs,” Belinda said.

“Uh, ladies,” I said, trying to get them to focus. I glanced at Wayne. He rolled his eyes.

“Right,” Gail said, looking back at me. “What were you saying?”

“Do you really think Earl is doing this?” I asked. “Because whoever is doing this has to know where you all live.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Gail said.

I turned to Belinda. “Would Earl know where everyone in your group lives?”

“I don’t see how,” Belinda said.

“Didn’t you lose your phone a while back?” Gail asked Belinda.

“Yes.” Belinda threw Gail a questioning look.

“It has all of our phone numbers in it,” Gail continued.

“And your last names.” Belinda frowned. “Maybe Earl stole my phone and that’s how he knows what dogs to take.”

“Wait a minute.” I held up a hand. “No one’s saying Earl’s taken any dogs.”

“Yes, but he’s seen us all together,” Louise said.

“And he hates dogs,” Belinda repeated.

“I understand that, but hating dogs isn’t a crime,” I said.

“Couldn’t you at least talk to him again?” Gail asked.

“I will,” I said. “I’ll go over this afternoon and talk to him, if he’s home. But don’t get your hopes up.”

“Do you want to come by our house and take a look around?” Wayne asked.

I shrugged. “I guess. I don’t think I’ll find anything, especially since the snow is covering everything.”

“Would you like to come for lunch?” Louise offered.

“Sure,” I said. “Let me take care of a few things here and then I’ll head over.”

I got their address and then I saw everyone out.

After they left I sat at my desk, mulling over all that had transpired. I couldn’t come up with anything. And I didn’t have a clue, literally, about how to catch the dognappers, with no clues. I thought about the ladies wanting to pin the thefts on Earl. Since he hated dogs, he made a convenient target, but that didn’t make him guilty.

I went over our conversation, wondering if anyone said something that could help me. And then it hit me.

I’d been lied to. And I’d bet money that I’d just figured out who my dognapper was.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Shirley Baker’s eyes widened when she opened the door and saw me.

“It’s Reed, uh, right?” she hesitated. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Her daughter Molly scampered up. “Hi,” she said with a shy smile.

I forced a smile. If my suspicions were correct, Molly’s mom was going to be in a lot of trouble.

“May I come in?” I asked.

“Um, okay.” Shirley tucked her hair behind her ear. She glanced out past me, then stepped aside. “It’s stopped snowing.”

“For the moment.” I strolled past her into the living room and took a seat on a leather couch. Shirley stood in the entry, leaning against the door jamb. Molly tugged at Shirley’s arm.

“Honey, go play in the other room,” Shirley said.

“Mom,” Molly whined. “I want my lunch.”

“Go!” Shirley said.

Molly sniffled and ran off down the hall.

I glanced around the room. It was comfortable, with walls painted a soft yellow and bookshelves on either side of a brick fireplace. A plush armchair sat in the corner and family pictures hung on the wall across from me. I waited, wanting to keep Shirley puzzled as to why I was here.

“Is there some reason you’re here?” Shirley finally asked.

I stared hard at her. “Did you know another dog was stolen?”

Fear flashed in her eyes and she gulped, but she recovered quickly, making her face a blank slate. “I haven’t talked to Belinda in a few days, so I didn’t know.”

“Really?” I said. “You sure you want to stick with that story?”

“What do you mean?” Shirley kept trying to act cool, but the warble in her voice betrayed her.

“You lied to me,” I said. “When I first met you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She reached out for the armchair and sank into it.

“Let me refresh your memory.” I leaned forward, trying to meet her gaze, but her eyes roamed around the room. “When I first came to talk to you, you said you knew that Belinda had a show dog, but you didn’t know anything else about her dog or any other dogs.”

Shirley finally met my gaze and the fear was back in her eyes. “So?”

“But,” I said. “I was talking with Belinda this morning. She said that you came at least a couple of times to their doggy play dates.”

Shirley clamped her jaw shut.

I waited a moment and then continued. “Belinda also mentioned that she’d lost her cell phone a while back. I have a funny suspicion that you stole her phone so you could get the addresses of the other dog owners. You knew the dogs were valuable, and if you had the addresses, you could steal the dogs.”

Shirley’s lip began to tremble. Her hands were in her lap and she played with the edges of her blouse. I had her rattled.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” I pushed. “It’s pretty heartless, taking your neighbor’s dog.”

“That wasn’t my idea!” she snapped. Her face turned deep red.

I expelled a breath, waiting. “Want to tell me about it?”

Her whole body began to shake and she broke down. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t steal the dogs.”

“Then who?”

“My cousin Kelli and her husband. They’re the ones stealing the dogs.”

“But you helped,” I said. “Right?”

A tear rolled down her cheek. Then she hung her head and the words tumbled out. “Yes, I helped. But I didn’t want to.”

“Sure you didn’t,” I said.

“It’s true,” she flared up. “But Kelli’s husband Darren threatened me. He’s such a jerk and I was scared of him.”

“Why didn’t you tell your husband?”

“I told you, Darren threatened me. He said if I told my husband or anyone else about what we were doing, he’d…” her voice cracked. “He’d tell my husband about an affair I’d had. My husband and I are finally doing better, so I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Why’d you decide to take the dogs in the first place? I asked.

Shirley looked up at me. “I had gone to one of Belinda’s puppy play dates so Molly could play with the dogs. I had no idea those dogs were so valuable until I heard Belinda and the others talking. Later that night Kelli came over and I was telling her about the play date and the dogs. Kelli said she and Darren were having money trouble. She said we should take a dog and ransom it back to the owners. I thought she was joking at first and I laughed it off. But she kept pushing me. Every time we’d get together she’d ask me how we could figure out where the owners lived. Then Darren started in on me. When I said he was crazy, he said if I didn’t help him figure out how to steal the dogs he would tell my husband about my affair. I didn’t even know that Darren knew, but I guess Kelli told him. Darren assured me everything would be all right, that they wouldn’t hurt any of the dogs and he’d make it worth my while.”

“How?”

“He offered me ten percent of whatever ransom money they got.” Shirley’s face twisted up. “I finally figured, what could it hurt? My husband’s worried about losing his job and I thought I could build a little extra, just in case. And it would get Darren off my back.”

“So you caved in.”

Shirley nodded. “Oh, I wish I hadn’t. It was just supposed to be a dog or two, that’s all Kelli said.”

“You made a tidy sum,” I said. “How’d you know where the dog owners lived? Am I right that you took Belinda’s cell phone?”

“Yes. I’d seen Belinda put people’s contact information into her phone so Kelli and I figured we could get the addresses that way. One time when I was over at Belinda’s house, I pocketed the phone. Once I had that, we were able to find an address of one of the owners.”

“Gail Saunders,” I said.

Shirley shook her head. “The first one was a terrier, someone listed in Belinda’s phone as a show dog owner, but that dog didn’t belong to the puppy play group.”

I sat back, astonished. “Gail’s wasn’t the first?”

“No, it was another dog.”

“I didn’t know about that one,” I said.

“It would’ve been better if none of the dogs belonged to the play group, but I couldn’t find any others in her phone,” Shirley said. “Darren was getting impatient so he decided to take Gail’s dog, and I thought that would be it.”

I thought about the first time I’d met Shirley. “You were genuinely surprised when I came over here and told you Belinda’s dog was stolen.”

“I sure as hell was.” Shirley scowled. “I told Kelli and Darren that we couldn’t do anything to Belinda’s dog, that Rosie was off limits. They agreed, so I was shocked when you came to my door and told me Rosie was gone. And I was even more surprised that Gail had hired a private investigator to find the dogs.”

“Yeah, that was too bad,” I deadpanned.

Shirley glared at me. “It was just a dog, and we didn’t hurt any of them.”

“It’s illegal,” I said. “And it was a stupid thing to do.”

“Yes, it was,” Shirley agreed. “And it was even more stupid for Darren to take Rosie.”

“Why did they take Rosie?”

“Darren was getting desperate. Kelli finally told me they had a lot more debt than they’d originally told me. They’re bankrupt and behind on their mortgage. If they don’t get cash fast, they’re going to lose their house. They were trying for other dogs first, but every time they’d show up at a house, the dog wouldn’t be around. So they finally took Rosie. After that, I told them I was out. I didn’t care about their debt or anything else, I was out.”

“But they took a dog named Spice last night,” I said.

Shirley’s lips drew into a thin, angry line. “So you told me, but I had nothing to do with it. I’m telling you, Darren is desperate. I tried to put a stop to it. You have to believe me.”

“I believe you,” I said as I stood up. “And it’s time to stop this. Where’s Spice now?”

“I guess at Kelli’s house.”

I motioned for her to get up. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“To Kelli’s. This ends now.”

Shirley stood up. “What about the kids? I can’t leave them here.”

I glanced out the window and across the street. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket.

“Does Belinda ever babysit for you?” I asked.

“Sure, sometimes,” Shirley said. “But she’s not home now, she’s working.”

“Ah, the detective knows the truth,” I thought. “She took the day off so she could come to my office while I talked with the Kirbys.” I found Belinda’s number and dialed. I asked her to come over the Shirley’s. She seemed perplexed, but she agreed.

“She’s coming over and we’ll ask her to watch the kids,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to help out. And then you’re going to take us to Kelli and Darren’s house.”

“I can give you directions to Kelli’s house.” Shirley nervously plucked at her shirt. “You can go get the dog.”

And, I thought, let you call Darren and Kelli and warn them I’m coming? No way. I gestured with my hand. “Time to get ready.”

Shirley glared at me, then stomped into the kitchen. I followed her, watching her warily. She had to be thinking about all the trouble she was going to be in and I didn’t trust her.

“I have to run an errand,” Shirley said to Molly. “Miss Belinda’s coming over for a while. She’ll get some lunch for you.”

“Okay, Mommy,” Molly said. She was occupied watching television and didn’t seem to care.

The doorbell rang and I let Belinda in.

“Hi, Reed,” Belinda said when she came into the living room. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain later,” I said. “Shirley and I have an errand to run. Can you watch the kids for a while?”

“Oh, okay.” Belinda threw me a puzzled look.

“Yes, uh, the kids should be fine,” Shirley said. “Charles is napping. Molly’s watching TV but she does want lunch. Could you fix her a PB&J?”

“Sure,” Belinda said. She shrugged. “What’s going on?”

“All in good time,” I said. “We have a few things to resolve first.”

Shirley glanced unhappily at Belinda as we traipsed outside to my car. I could see my breath in the frosty air. Shirley shivered, but I’m sure it wasn’t just from the cold.

“Where’s your cell phone?” I asked as we headed down the street.

“In my purse,” Shirley said.

“Keep it there.”

“You don’t trust me?”

I glanced at her, thinking about all the femme fatales in all the film noir movies I loved. I chuckled wryly. “No, I don’t trust you.”

We remained silent for the rest of the drive.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Kelli and Darren lived a ten minute drive north of Shirley’s house. It wasn’t snowing but dark clouds hung low in the sky, threatening more moisture. Shirley directed me to turn onto a side street. I half-expected her to leap out of the car, but she stayed put.

“Kelli’s house is down the block,” Shirley pointed with a shaky finger down the block.

“Where?” I asked, slowing down. The 4-Runner skidded a bit, then caught traction again. By rush hour tonight the roads would be a sheet of ice.

“It’s that one,” she said, nodding at a pale green tri-level house with a long wooden front porch.

I looked where she indicated and saw a blue truck parked in the driveway. Snow partially covered it.

“That looks like the truck I saw at the ransom drops,” I said.

“It’s Darren’s truck. He was behind on the payments but…” she didn’t continue.

“The ransom money helped him catch up on it,” I finished.

As we approached the house, the garage door opened. A man in black jeans and a blue flannel shirt came out. He was tall, but thick in the chest. He hollered something over his shoulder as he tramped through the snow to the truck. He unlocked it, took out a brush, and started wiping snow off the windshield.

“That’s Darren,” Shirley said.

A woman in dark slacks and a heavy coat emerged from the garage. The breeze whipped her straight black hair over her face. She clutched a dog carrier as she tiptoed through the snow.

“And that’s Kelli, right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And they’re leaving with the dog,” I said.

I gunned the engine. The 4-Runner skidded for purchase and then jumped forward and slid to a halt in their driveway just as Darren got into the truck and started it. Kelli pushed her hair out of her eyes and stared at us, recognition dawning on her face. She dropped the carrier and ran into the garage.

“Stay here!” I hissed at Shirley.

I grabbed the car keys, just in case Shirley decided the better choice was to leave me stranded, and jumped out of the car. Darren’s door flew open and he hopped out. He opened his mouth to yell at me, then his eyes widened as he realized who I was. He bolted toward the garage.

“Hey!” I shouted.

Darren sprinted across the garage and disappeared inside the house. I dashed after him, slipping on the snow. I felt fire in my sprained ankle. I stumbled into the garage and toward the kitchen door just as it was closing. I threw myself at the door before Darren could lock it, but apparently that hadn’t been on his mind, because I hit the door and it crashed inward with no resistance. I ended up in a heap on the floor.

I stood up carefully and stopped to listen. In front of me a dark stairwell opened to the basement. To the right was the kitchen. Off to the left was a family room with a sliding glass door that led into the back yard. It was halfway open and the wind whipped the long plastic blinds.

“Great,” I muttered. I hurried over and looked out, but didn’t see anyone. “No fence-hopping today,” I said to myself as I searched for footprints in the snow.

I was about to step outside when I heard a thump coming from somewhere in the house. I spun around. Another doorway led to the front door and a hallway to bedrooms. I crossed the room and tiptoed down the hallway, my ears alert.

I poked my head into the first room, raising an arm to brace myself against a blow to the head. Nothing happened. I strode to the closet and flung the door open, searching inside. It was empty. I heard another muffled sound.

I ran out of the room and down the hall toward the sound. At the end of the hall was a closed door. I twisted the handle and threw the door open but I held back. A lamp whizzed through the air, barely missing my face. I grabbed an arm as the lamp hit the floor. Kelli held the lamp with both hands.

“Let it go,” I said, pushing her arm down.

“No,” Kelli huffed.

We struggled for a moment and then she dropped the lamp. She pummeled me with her fists until I was finally able grab her wrists. She cursed at me as she struggled to free herself.

“It’s over,” I said. “I know everything.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she huffed.

“Gail told me,” I said firmly.

Kelli shoved at me but then she suddenly stopped. I let go of her wrists and she fell back against the wall. “We needed money,” she whispered as she slumped to the floor. “We were going to lose everything.”

“Where’s Darren?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Were you with Darren at the ransom drops?”

“Yes,” she said. “I drove the truck.”

“You tried to run me over.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I –”

A car horn blared from the front yard, interrupting her. The horn continued, a monotonous high-pitched wail that reverberated throughout the house.

“Shirley,” I said.

“Darren!” Kelli cried. She launched herself at me, her shoulder hitting me square in the chest. I tumbled back onto the bed and she ran out of the room.

She ran down the hall and I followed, hollering for her to stop. She ignored me as she raced through the kitchen, out the door and into the garage. She stopped in the middle of the garage and I almost ran her over.

Darren was standing near the truck. He held Spice under one arm. In the other he brandished a large kitchen knife. Over the blare of the car horn he was yelling at Shirley.

“I’m not going to jail!” he shouted. “You put that phone down or I’m going to kill this damn dog!”

The horn kept up its racket.

Kelli screamed and Darren whirled around.

“Get back!” he snarled when he saw us.

“Okay.” I held up my hands. “Take it easy.”

“Shut that damn horn off!” Darren waved at Shirley.

I took a couple of steps and Darren put the knife to the dog’s throat. “Don’t take another step.”

“I’m just going to tell Shirley to stop,” I said.

Darren glared at me. “Fine,” he finally said. “Then get her to move the car.”

“I have the keys,” I said.

I moved to the other side of the garage where Shirley could see me and I waved my arms at her. “Stop,” I motioned.

The sound of the horn died. The sudden silence seemed just as menacing.

“Shirley, you open your door,” Darren yelled.

Shirley did as he said and the passenger door of the 4-Runner opened.

Darren turned to me. “Now, throw your keys over here.”

I pulled my keys out of my pocket and threw them at his feet. He kept his eyes on me as he bent down. He felt around in the snow for the keys and picked them up.

“Now, I’m going to give the keys to Shirley and she’s going to back the car out of the driveway. Then I’m getting in my truck and I’m outta here. If anyone tries to follow, I’m throwing the dog out the window. The little mutt won’t survive.”

Spice whimpered. Kelli, who’d been silent up to this point, suddenly burst into tears.

“Enough!” she screamed. “Darren, you bastard, you are not going to hurt that dog.”

“Shut up, Kelli,” Darren swore at her. “You stay out of this.”

“No,” she said, sobbing. “I went along with this, but it’s gone too far. We said all along that nobody was going to get hurt. Well, that includes the dogs. So you put that dog down. You are not going to hurt it.”

Darren’s nostrils flared as he glared at Kelli.

The distant wail of a police siren pierced the stillness, then grew louder as it neared. The police car appeared down the street. It screeched to a halt behind the 4-Runner.

“Someone called 911,” I said.

Two officers got out of the car. They noticed Darren holding the knife and the dog.

“What’s going on here?” one officer said as he took a couple of wary steps forward, his hand on the butt of his gun.

“It’s over,” I said to Darren. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Darren’s eyes darted from me to the officers and back to me. Then the knife slowly lowered.

“Why don’t you drop that knife and take a couple of steps back,” the officer said.

Darren hesitated, then let go of the knife. It dropped into the snow. Darren stepped back, still clutching Spice. Kelli ran up to him, yelling as she snatched the dog out of his hands. Darren’s shoulders sank as his bravado failed him.

“I’m sorry,” he said as the officers rushed over. They handcuffed him and swiftly put him in the backseat of the police car.

Another police car showed up and in seconds, Kelli had been arrested as well. An officer began questioning Shirley while another, Officer Schmidt, cornered me in the garage and I told him what was going on. I was freezing by the time we finished.

“And this is the latest victim,” Officer Schmidt said. He bent down to look into the dog carrier, where the other officers had put Spice after they’d arrested Kelli. Officer Schmidt opened the door and let Spice out.

“Who does the dog belong to?”

“The Kirbys.” I bent down and scooped Spice into my hands. She trembled violently.

“I’ll need to get a statement from them, and they’ll be able to press charges if they want to,” Officer Schmidt said.

“Can I take Spice with me?”

Officer Schmidt shook his head. “I wish I could let you, but I’ll have to call animal control. The Kirbys can get her from there.”

I waited with Spice until animal control arrived.

“It’s okay, girl,” I said as I turned her over to a burly officer. “You’ll go home soon.”

“You know the owners?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll let them know they can pick her up at the shelter.”

“Good.” He gave me a card with the shelter address on it.

I grabbed Spice’s dog carrier and walked slowly to my car. The Kirbys would get their dog back. Shirley, Kelli and Darren were in custody. It was finally over.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Isn’t she a beautiful dog? Oh my sweet girl,” Louise cooed at Spice. Spice wagged her rear end excitedly and licked her face. Wayne beamed as he petted Spice’s head.

I was at my office with Gail and the Kirbys. I’d called Gail after I left Darren and Kelli’s house and had her call the Kirbys. The Kirbys picked up Spice from the shelter and then stopped by the office.

Louise continued to fuss over Spice and the dog ate it up. It was hard to tell who was more excited.

“Thank you,” Wayne said, shaking my hand.

I smiled wearily, glad that I’d finally found the dognappers.

“We can’t thank you enough,” Gail said.

It wasn’t quite four o’clock, but it had been a long, difficult day. I was about to sit down when another couple walked through the door. He was so tall his head almost hit the door jamb, and she was barely half his height. I knew them from somewhere. Then it dawned on me. The last time I’d seen them, they were walking into their garage with their dog Aesop.

“Mrs. Johnson,” I said as I introduced myself.

“Please, call me Leslie,” she said. “We are in your debt.”

“We can’t thank you enough,” Matt Johnson said. I had to look up at him as he talked.

“Gail’s told us about everything,” Leslie said. “We were so happy you found Aesop, but then Gail said another dog had gone missing.”

“And we were just devastated,” Matt said. “It’s such a horrible thing.”

“We had so wanted to see you today,” Leslie went on. “But with another dog missing, we thought that wouldn’t work.”

“And then Gail called again and said you’d found the dog,” Matt finished. “Incredible.”

“It was a lucky break,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” Gail piped up. “All the dogs are back, and you caught the dognappers.”

“Here.” Matt handed me something.

It was a check. I took it and stared at the amount. It was enough to keep me in business a lot longer.

“I can’t take this,” I said.

“Nonsense,” Matt smiled. “We would’ve had to pay more to those crooks. Belinda and the Kirbys contributed as well.”

“Please take it,” Wayne and Louise said at the same time.

“Well thank you. Thank you very much,” I said. I sounded like Elvis. I felt my face get hot.

Gail glanced at The Big Sleep poster on the wall. “I think you’re giving Humphrey Bogart a run for his money.”

My face grew hotter. I smiled. The ladies hugged me and the men shook my hand, and they all left.

I sat down at my desk, reveling in the silence. I swiveled my chair around and gazed out the window. It had started snowing again and a soft blanket of winter white covered the street. I saw my reflection grinning in the window glass.

Gail had compared me to Bogie. Not bad. And not Bogie in High Sierra the dog’s a bad omen and Bogie dies at the end. I was Bogie the detective. I’d solved the case.

****

The streets were slick as I drove home. I showered and changed clothes and soon after I finished, Willie showed up for our date. She looked sexy in black slacks and a low-cut blouse.

“You look fantastic,” I said, admiring her.

She smiled and turned around. “Better than my smocks, right?”

I laughed. “You look great in the smocks, too.”

She laughed. “Where are we going?”

“We said Italian, right? How about DaVinci’s?” I suggested a little place on 18th Street, just up the road from my condo. “That way we don’t have to drive far in the snow.”

“That’ll work.”

My cell phone rang.

“Hold on,” I said. I looked at the number. “It’s my mom. If I don’t take this, she’s liable to bother us all night.”

“Sure thing,” Willie smiled.

I punched a button on the phone. “Hi, Mom,” I said.

“Hello, dear, how are you?”

“Just fine,” I said.

“No, you’re not,” Willie said.

I covered the phone. “Sh!” I didn’t see the need to worry my mother with explanations of my harrowing last couple of days.

“What was that, dear?” my mother said.

“I was talking to someone else,” I said, pretending to glare at Willie.

“Who?”

I should’ve known my mother would want to know.

“It’s my neighbor Willie,” I said. “We were just going to dinner.”

“Willie? Do I know him?”

“Her.”

“Her?” There was a long pause while my mother processed the information. “Am I finally going to get some grandchildren?”

“Let’s slow things down, mother,” I said. “Did you need something?”

“I was going to tell you about Bitsy. She is just adorable.”

“Maybe I could call you tomorrow,” I said. “I’m going to be late for my dinner reservation.”

“Oh, silly me. Of course, you enjoy your date sweetheart,” she said. “I want to hear about it tomorrow, okay?”

“We’ll see.”

“Reed, don’t be so secretive.”

“Bye, Mom,” I said.

“DaVinci’s doesn’t take reservations,” Willie said when I got off the phone.

“I know, but if I hadn’t said that, I might have been on the phone with her all night.”

Willie shook her head. “You are incorrigible.”

I snatched up my car keys, opened the door, and nearly had a heart attack. Deuce was standing in the doorway, arm raised, about to knock.

“Ugh!” I said, placing a hand over my heart. “You trying to kill me?”

“Huh?” Deuce gazed dully at me. “I’m not trying to kill you. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”

“I’m fine,” I smiled. “Just a little bruised up.”

Deuce leaned closer, squinted his eyes and studied me. “Yeah, I guess you look okay.”

“Hey, Deuce,” Willie poked her head up under my arm. “How are you?”

Deuce threw her a shy smile. “Hi, Willie.” He waved even though she was right in front of him. “I was checking on Reed and then I was going to get some dinner.”

“Oh, we were just going to DaVinci’s now,” Willie said.

“You sure you want to go out in the snow?” Deuce asked. “I was going to go play pool at B 52’s, but it’s too snowy to drive there.”

“The restaurant’s just down the street so we’ll be fine,” I said. I put a hand on Willie’s shoulder, trying to scoot her out the door.

“I love Italian,” Deuce said.

“Order a pizza,” I said.

“I guess I could do that.” Deuce shifted back and forth. “I’m kinda bored. You wanna hang out?”

I leaned in closer to Deuce. “Buddy, we’re on a date,” I whispered.

Deuce stared at me.

“So we want to be alone,” I murmured.

It took a minute, but Deuce finally got it.

“Oooooh.” He winked dramatically. “I understand.”

Willie held a hand up to her mouth, covering a smile.

“Since you can’t go to B 52’s, why don’t you get Ace to bring a movie home?” I said, guiding Willie out the door.

“Okay,” Deuce said.

“Tell him to get High Sierra,” I suggested. “It’s great.”

Deuce’s nose crinkled up. “What? Is that some film now thing?”

“It’s film noir, Deuce. Film noir, remember?” I said, emphasizing the words carefully. “And yes, it’s a great movie. Bogie plays Mad Dog Roy Earle, and he gets involved in a heist that goes wrong.”

Willie linked a hand in mine and we slipped past Deuce.

“I dunno about film no-ar,” Deuce mimicked me. “How about something with action?”

“High Sierra has action. There’s lots of guns and car chases.”

Willie and I started down the stairs.

“Nah,” Deuce hurried after us. “Action! You know, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

“Good,” Willie called over her shoulder. “Get an Arnold movie.”

“Okay,” Deuce said. “You guys can stop by after your dinner, if you want.”

“Thanks,” Willie said.

“I can think of a lot of things I’d rather do after dinner,” I whispered.

Willie raised an eyebrow at me.

Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying…

ELVIS AND THE SPORTS CARD CHEAT

Elvis is alive, I thought when he walked through the door. I must be dreaming.

“Can I help you?” I asked. I assumed the Elvis-like figure in front of me needed the services of a detective. After all, he had just walked through a door that said, Reed Ferguson Detective Agency.

“I need you to help me find something,” he said. He didn’t sound like Elvis, and there was no Southern drawl.

“Have a seat,” I said, indicating a chair across from my desk. I perched my butt on the edge of the desk and contemplated him. His hair and sideburns were a dead ringer for the king during the 70s, but he wasn’t dressed like Elvis, the way the 70s Elvis looked with the flashy sequined jumpsuits - except for the same kind of big sunglasses that Elvis wore. “What’s going on?”

“My name is Perry Rawlings. I’m an Elvis impersonator.”

Ah. That answered one question.

“I work at the Tip Top Lounge. We have an act of a few old impersonators. Elvis, Bobby Darin, The Supremes,” he ticked the names off on a finger adorned with a huge gold ring. “We’re the big names. There are a few others.”

I nodded.

“I have - had - a valuable baseball card,” Perry said. “But it was stolen.”

“What card?” I liked baseball, but I had no idea what baseball memorabilia was worth. Now, Hollywood memorabilia, or first edition books, that I knew a little about. Not that it would help me now.

“A 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t mean much to you, I can see,” Perry said. “People mistake this card for Mantle’s rookie card, but it was actually his second year card. The 1952 Mantle card is one of the most collectible post-war cards around.”

“How’d you get it?”

“My dad bought it in the early 80s. He remembered having one when he was a kid, but his mom threw all of his cards out after he joined the navy.”

“I’ll bet she regretted that later,” I said.

Perry nodded. “Yeah, I can’t imagine what cards Dad had. Anyway, he bought some of his favorite players, Mantle being one of them. I forget what he paid for it.”

“What’s it worth now?” I asked.

“Depends on the market, but somewhere around ten thousand dollars. How the card is graded for condition would factor in, so I don’t know for sure.”

I whistled.

Perry smiled. “Yeah, it’s amazing what some things are worth.”

“When did the card disappear?”

“About a week ago. I left it in a locked safe in my dressing room. While I was out onstage, someone took it.”

“You’re sure it was in the safe when you left the dressing room?” I reached across the desk and grabbed a notepad and pen.

“Yes. I never take it with me.”

“Why keep it at the club? Wouldn’t it be safe somewhere else?”

Perry waved a hand, shooing away my comment. “It doesn’t matter. I need to get it back.”

“Sure,” I said. I posed my pen officiously on the notepad. “Who has access to your dressing room?”

“Dean, the owner of the Tip Top, has a key to the dressing rooms. No one else does.”

“And you’re sure your dressing room was locked when you went onstage that night?”

Perry blushed. “To be honest, I never lock the door. It’s kind of casual around there. Everyone likes each other, and sometimes the other singers might need makeup or something, so they would just go in my room and get it.”

I frowned. “So anyone could go and take the card.”

“It was locked up in a safe. The thief would’ve had to break the lock.”

“Is it a combo lock or do you have a key?”

“It’s a combination lock.”

“Anyone know the combination?”

Perry shrugged. “I never told anyone.”

I stared at my notepad, mulling over the facts - what little there was.

“Will you help me?” Perry asked.

“Sure,” I said. How could I turn down Elvis?

***

Perry and I filled out some standard paperwork, and I arranged to meet him later in the day at the Tip Top Lounge so I could check out his dressing room. After Perry left, I called my best friend Cal.

“I need some help,” I said when he picked up the phone.

“Shoot.” I could hear Cal tapping on his keyboard in the background. Cal is a genius, and his computer prowess knows no bounds. Literally. He can crack just about any system to find information for me. This time I didn’t need that kind of help.

“I want you to come with me to the Tip Top Lounge tonight,” I said.

“What?” Cal rarely leaves his home in the foothills west of Denver.

“Trust me; you won’t want to miss this one.”

Cal groaned, but finally agreed to come along.

“My office, five o’clock,” I said and hung up before he could protest more.

I glanced at a clock on the wall. It was three now, so I had two hours to find out all I could about baseball cards. I nodded at the framed poster of The Maltese Falcon, one of my favorite movies, starring my hero, Humphrey Bogart.

“Let’s solve some crime,” I said to Bogie as I logged onto my computer and got onto the Internet.

Two hours later, I knew a lot about baseball cards, and how they were graded for condition. I had no idea if that would help me find Perry’s card, but it had kept me busy.

“Hey.” A dark-haired man with brown eyes stood in the doorway. My friend Cal. “What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Researching baseball cards. What does PSA mean?”

“In baseball card collecting, it’s ‘Professional Sports Authenticator’. It’s someone who gives a card a grade, like a numbering system, based on the card’s condition, and also verifies the card isn’t a fake.”

“Do you know everything?” I huffed at him. Cal was in fact a genius, and he did know everything about everything. But he lacked common sense, too.

“I learned some of that when I was researching information for you about Hollywood memorabilia,” Cal said. “So what are we doing that I can’t miss out on?”

“We’re going to see impersonators.”

Cal’s eyebrows rose up.

“You heard me right,” I said as I stood up. “Elvis, Bobby Darin, the Supremes, and more. Come on, I’ll explain in the car.”

“Oh boy,” Cal said as he followed me out of the office. “What have I let you talk me into?”

***

“Thanks for coming to see the show,” Perry said as he escorted Cal and I into his diminutive dressing room. He wore a light blue sequined jumpsuit, and his black hair was coiffed just like the king’s was back in the seventies.

“Thanks for the invite.” I glanced around. “This is where you keep the baseball card?”

“Yes. Here’s the safe.” Perry gestured at a tiny wardrobe closet. He opened the door, yanked sequined jumpsuits aside, and tapped a small black box with his foot. “You can’t even see it there unless you push the clothes aside.”

“Why keep it here?” Cal asked. “Even if it’s in a safe.”

“I, uh, want it near me,” Perry said. “Does that matter? The card’s gone.”

Cal shrugged.

I knelt down and examined the safe. It was just a square metal box, about a foot in diameter, with a dial on the door. I couldn’t see where it had been tampered with in any way.

“No chance for fingerprints from that dial, even if I knew how to get prints,” I said.

“I’ve opened it a number of times since the card was stolen.” Perry sat down at a chair in front of his dressing table.

I stood up and looked around the room. My gaze settled on Cal. He stared at me and held up his hands.

“Can we talk to the manager?” I said to Perry.

“Sure. My set is about to start. Do you want to watch it and then talk to him?”

“That’ll work,” I said.

Cal and I followed Perry out into the hallway. A dark-haired man wearing a sixties-style black suit approached us.

“Guys, this is Barney Whitman,” Perry introduced us. “Barney’s in the show.”

Barney smiled, took a step back, and struck a pose. “Guess who I am? Think late-fifties, early sixties.”

Cal pursed his lips, thinking. Images of long-ago singers raced through my mind. None of them resembled this guy.

“Bobby Darin,” Barney said. “You know, ‘Mack the Knife’?” He sang a few lines.

“Ooooh.” I smiled. “Sorry, I don’t listen to a lot of oldies.”

“Reed is a private investigator,” Perry interjected as he noticed the hurt expression on Barney’s face. “He’s trying to find out who stole my baseball card.”

Barney’s lips twisted up. “Good luck with that.”

“You were here when the card was stolen, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. If I remember correctly, I came in that night a little before Perry went on. I grabbed a quick drink from the bar and then came back to my dressing room to change.”

“That sounds right,” Perry said. “I talked to everyone that was here that night. No one seemed to know anything.”

“I’d like to talk to them all again,” I said.

“How about after the show?” Perry said. “I go on now. After that, maybe you can talk to Dean, the owner.”

I nodded. “So Barney, did anyone see you in your dressing room?”

Barney shrugged. “Sure. Sondra, Elaine, and Trish saw me. We sort of share the same room. It’s got a partition to separate male and female areas,” he said quickly.

“It’s much bigger than my dressing room,” Perry added.

“So you have an alibi for the whole time Perry was out on stage?” I eyed Barney.

Barney snorted. “Not the whole time. But I didn’t take the card.”

“Sure,” I said.

“I’ve to go onstage,” Perry said. “You guys have a table on the left, near the stage. Tell Dean who you are, and he’ll seat you. He’s blond, wearing a black shirt. He’ll be by the bar.” Perry punched me lightly on the arm. “Enjoy the show.”

“You should watch the whole show,” Barney said. “It’s really good. Bobby Darin had a lot of hits.”

“I know who you remind me of,” Cal interrupted. “Don Adams.”

Barney and I stared at him. “You know,” Cal said. “Get Smart. That sixties show where Don Adams was Maxwell Smart.”

“Aaah,” I said, studying Barney. “You’re right.”

“Ha ha,” Barney said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Just watch me perform. You won’t be thinking about anybody else but Bobby Darin.”

“Okay,” Cal said as Barney stormed off. “He does look like Don Adams.” He hummed the intro the Get Smart.

“Come on,” I laughed. “Let’s go watch the show.”

The Tip Top Club was an old warehouse that had been converted into a club, with tables all around a stage that seated at least a hundred people. Tonight the place was packed.

“I didn’t know this many people liked impersonators,” Cal spoke up to be heard over the house music.

“Me either.”

We found Dean standing by the bar, as Perry said he would be. Dean showed us to our seats after agreeing to meet with us after Perry’s set.

The theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey began, then the drums banged out a rhythm and Perry strode onstage. He quickly launched into ‘Hound Dog’. As far as I was concerned, he was Elvis. Perry had the mannerisms, the look, and the voice. And judging from the screaming women, they believed he was the king, too.

“Thank you, darlin’,” Perry drawled to a woman as she gave him a red rose. He tossed a scarf at another woman, and she squealed when she caught it. By the time he finished, I was half-convinced that somehow Elvis had inhabited Perry’s body.

“He’s awesome,” Cal applauded as Perry bowed and left the stage.

“I think I just became an Elvis fan.” I stood up and headed to the back with Cal on my heels.

“I can only give you a few minutes,” Dean said as he escorted us into an office near the bar. He waved at a couple of leather chairs that sat in front of a large mahogany desk. He lowered himself into a leather swivel chair. He let out a slow breath. “At my age, it’s nice to give the old feet a break.” He put his elbows on the armrests, and made a steeple of his hands. “We’ve got a full house and I like to keep tabs on things.”

“You know that someone stole Perry’s baseball card,” I said as Cal and I sat down.

“Yes. I told Perry he shouldn’t keep the card here.” Dean wagged his head in disgust. “He was courting trouble.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You knew about the card?”

“Everyone did,” Dean said. “The performers are constantly going in and out of each others’ dressing rooms. I just don’t know who could’ve broken into the safe. Unless Perry forgot to put the card back in the safe, and someone snatched it from the room.”

“He says he’s certain he put the card in the safe before he went onstage,” I said.

Dean shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone was sure they did something, when actually they didn’t.”

“Good point,” Cal murmured.

I leaned back in my chair. “Do you know of any reason why someone might steal the card?”

Dean shook his head.

“No one with a grudge?” Head shake. “A huge card collector?” Head shake. “Money issues?”

“Someone’s having financial problems?” I asked.

“Well,” Dean said slowly. “Trish, she’s Diana Ross in The Supremes act...”

“What?” I nudged.

Dean hesitated. “She’s asked for an advance on her salary a few times in the last couple of months. The way I heard it, her husband lost his job and things are tight for them right now.”

Cal and I exchanged a glance.

Dean raised a hand in protest. “She’s a sweetheart. I can’t imagine that she’d steal anything from anyone.”

“You don’t mind if we talk to her after the show?” I asked.

“It’s up to her.” Dean stood up. “I need to get back out there. I don’t mind if you ask the performers some questions, but if they want you to leave, then you leave.”

“Fair enough,” I agreed.

We traipsed back past the bar and along the edge of the audience, heading backstage. Barney was   onstage, crooning ‘Dream Lover’. Okay, so I know a few Bobby Darin songs.

“He’s good,” Cal said. “I recognize that song.”

Barney ended the song and started conversing with a woman seated at a table right in front of the stage.

“Do you like card tricks?” he asked, pulling a deck of cards from his pocket. “How about a memory trick?”

“Singer and magician,” Cal said.

“He’s got to compete with the king,” I grinned.

We slipped through a curtain to the left of the stage as Barney continued his act.

“What’d you think?” Perry asked as he let us in to his dressing room.

“Fantastic,” Cal said, and I concurred.

Perry beamed as he sat down at his dressing table. “It’s fun being the king. Did you talk to Dean?” He started wiping makeup off his face with tissues. “I sweat so much; I have to reapply between sets.”

“Yes,” I said. “He said you all are in and out of these rooms the whole time you’re here. Anyone could’ve come in here.”

“But who knew the combination to the safe?” Perry had finished cleaning up his face. He reached for some base makeup and dabbed it on his nose.

“I don’t know.” I rubbed a hand over my jaw. “I want to talk to The Supremes and see if they can shed any light on this. Dean said that Trish is having some financial troubles. Maybe she took the card to help with that.”

“Trish?” Perry swiveled around in his chair. “That doesn’t sound like her. She’s too sweet to do something like that.”

“I don’t have anything else to go on,” I said. “I’ll push her a little. If she did steal the card, maybe she’ll break down and admit it.”

“That’s kind of thin,” Cal said.

I threw Cal a ‘help me out here’ kind of look.

“Sorry,” Cal mouthed at me.

Perry scowled. “I guess you’re right. The Supremes go on after Barney. When they wrap up, I go back on for a bit, then Barney and I do this cheesy duet, and I end the evening. Barney’s almost done, so they’ll be going on.” He glanced at his watch. “Should be about a half hour.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “Cal and I will watch their set.”

And we did. And The Supremes were good. Afterward, we ran into the women as they were walking to their dressing room. All three were decked out in tight dresses and heels. And all three were gorgeous.

“You’re that guy Perry hired,” Sondra, aka Florence Ballard, said, after I introduced Cal and myself.

“That’s correct,” Cal said, shaking her hand with a slight bow.

I stared at Cal. He was smitten with her!

“Aren’t you the polite one?” Sondra winked at Cal.

“I hate to bother you,” Cal said, more formal than I had ever heard him. “But I do have to ask where you were the night the baseball card was stolen.”

My jaw dropped.

“Honey, as we told Perry, we weren’t in his dressing room that night,” Elaine, a dead ringer for the third Supreme, Mary Wilson, patted Cal’s face. “Anybody could’ve taken that card.”

She sashayed on down the hall and disappeared into her dressing room.

“She’s right.” Sondra gently extracted her hand from Cal’s. “You are sweet, but I’m taken. You boys have a nice night.” She strutted after Elaine.

“What about you?” I said to Trish. Her black hair was cut short; the way Diana Ross wore it in the mid-sixties.

“I don’t know anything, either.” Trish started to step past me.

“I hear you could use the money.” I leaned against the wall, giving her room, but she stopped and confronted me.

“Who told you that?” Her eyes blazed. “Perry?”

I remained silent.

“I didn’t take the card. You have no way to prove it.”

“I can check around, see what financial problems you have. It’s easy to find out if you suddenly have money to burn. It would be quite a coincidence, so soon after the card went missing.”

Trish leaned in close. “You listen to me,” she said. “I’ve got some troubles, but I didn’t steal that baseball card. Perry got us this gig, so there’s no way I would ever do anything to hurt him.”

I tipped my head toward her. Our noses were inches apart. “Money makes people do funny things, especially if they’re desperate.”

Trish sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. Minty. “Leave me alone, or I’ll tell Dean you’re hassling me.”

“What’s going on?” Barney hurried up to us. He put a hand on Trish’s shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

“This jerk thinks I took Perry’s card. That’s a laugh.” Trish stalked off.

“Trish is a gem,” Barney said. “There’s no way she took that card.”

“How do you know?” I pointed toward Perry’s dressing room. “It seems like just about anybody could’ve gone in there. If someone figured out the combination, or if Perry forgot to lock up the card, it would be easy to steal.”

“She didn’t do it.” Barney hurried after Trish.

I grimaced. “I don’t know how Bogie did it. He could be brutal to the women he interrogated.”

“He hit them,” Cal said matter-of-factly. “Something you would never do.”

“I can barely make myself be mean to Trish.” I shuddered. “Let’s go wait for Perry.”

We went to Perry’s dressing room. A few minutes later Barney hurried by. He glanced in and glared at us.

“He’s not happy with you,” Cal said.

I sighed. “Not much I can do about that.”

A few minutes later we heard Perry and Barney singing together, and then Perry singing ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’, Elvis’ signature closing song.

“Cue the king,” Cal said.

Sure enough, a moment later, Perry entered the room.

“Ah, what a show,” he said, plopping into his chair. He toweled off his face. “I love this stuff.”

“Perry, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you,” I said.

Perry’s face fell. “No luck?”

I shook my head. “Trish didn’t admit to anything. For that matter, no one did. Anybody could’ve come in here. They all say that. I don’t know how someone could crack the combination, but there’s virtually no way I can prove anything.”

Perry played with his long sideburns for a second. “I guess you’re right. I just hoped to get the card back, since it was my dad’s.”

I pulled out the check that he’d given me earlier as a retainer. “Here. I can’t take your money.”

“No.” Perry raised a hand at me. “You came here and asked around.”

“We got paid.” I jerked my head toward the door. “You all put on a great show. That’s payment enough.”

Perry slowly reached out and took the check. “Fair enough.”

And that was that. Or so I thought.

***

A week later, Perry called me again.

“You’re never going to believe this.”

“What?” I said.

“The card’s back.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Perry said. “As I was getting ready today, I went to the safe to get some rings I have, and the card was there.”

“Are you sure it’s not a fake?”

A long pause ensued. “Why would someone put a fake in there?”

“If the card’s back, you stop trying to figure out who stole it,” I said. “The thief can sell the original without you being the wiser.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Let me take the card. I might know someone who can authenticate the card for us.”

“Sure,” Perry said. “Come by tomorrow. I’ll be here at two for rehearsals.”

***

The next day Cal was with me as we got the card from Perry.

“You wanted to come along because you’ve been doing research on baseball cards?” I said as we left the club.

“Uh huh.” Cal stared at me. “I was curious.”

“Like you need to be an expert on anything else,” I laughed.

Cal studied the card as I drove down south Broadway, a street filled with antique and collectible stores. He carefully took the card out of its plastic box. “I wonder if this card is real,” he said.

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

I pulled my Forerunner into a metered parking spot in front of Classic Hollywood Memorabilia, a store run by my friend, Henri Benoit. He was a World War II vet who was born in France, but had lived in the United States for years.

“Ah, Reed,” Henri said when he saw us. “My friend, I owe you so much.”

I had saved Henri’s life while working on a case [author’s note - see This Doesn’t Happen In The Movies], and he never let me forget it.

“It was nothing,” I assured him.

“Are you here about a poster?” Henri was an expert of Hollywood memorabilia, and knew of my love of Humphrey Bogart and film noir.

“Not this time,” I said, setting the baseball card down on the counter. “I’d like you to take a look at this card.”

“That’s funny,” Henri said, pulling at his long white ponytail. “I saw this exact same card just the other day.”

“What?” Cal and I said in unison.

“Did a woman bring it in? Tall and thin, looked kind of like Diana Ross?”

Henri laughed. “No, it was a man. He wanted me to authenticate the card.”

“Did you?” I asked.

“No.” Henri shrugged. “I know about movie memorabilia, not baseball cards. I took a look at the card but I couldn’t tell if it was a fake or not. I referred him to my friend, Jack. He owns an antique store a mile up the road. He’ll be able to authenticate the card, or he’ll call someone in who can.”

“What did this guy look like?” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice.

“He was shorter, like me,” Henri said. He stood a good four inches shorter than my six feet. “The whole time I was talking to him, I kept thinking he reminded me of someone else.”

“Did he look like Bobby Darin?” Cal asked.

“No,” Henri stroked the ponytail. “But now that you mention it, he sounded like Bobby Darin.”

“Don Adams?” I said. “From that show, Get Smart?”

“Yes!” Henri smacked his forehead. “That’s been bugging me. That was a silly show.”

“Sounds like Barney took the real card,” Cal said.

“Did you just figure that out?” I rolled my eyes at him.

“Ah, you are on a case, yes?” Henri said, his eyes twinkling.

“Yup,” Cal said.

I turned to Henri. “What’s the name of that antique store?”

“In The Old Days.” Henri walked us to the door. “It’s just up the road, on the east side of the street.”

We thanked Henri and left.

“I wonder how Barney stole the card from Perry,” Cal said as I pulled the Forerunner onto Broadway.

“If he did it.” I donned my sunglasses to help with the bright Colorado sunshine.

“How many other guys that look surprisingly like Don Adams, but sound like Bobby Darin, do you know, that would just happen to have a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card?” It was Cal’s turn to roll his eyes at me.

“Just trying to give him the benefit of doubt.”

I found a parking space on the street and pulled in. After slipping a quarter in the meter, Cal and I walked down the block to In The Old Days Antiques.

“Man, there’s a lot of stuff here,” Cal whispered as we entered the store.

“No kidding.” My eyes roved around the place. Dishes and other glass items loaded the shelves, along with nic nacs of all sorts. Old posters hung from the walls, but I didn’t see any of the classic noir films. A series of glass cases lined the back part of the store, full of old antiques: coins, jewelry, baseball cards and signed balls.

A huge man stepped out of a hidden room at the back, pausing behind the display cases.

“Can I help you?” he squeaked like Minnie Mouse.

“You think he got bullied in school?” Cal murmured.

“Shut up,” I muttered back. The man may have sounded like a mouse but he was built like a bull, and I didn’t want to get gored by him. I strode over to him. “Are you Jack?”

“Yes.” Jack put immense hands on the edge of the counter and leaned toward me. “Who are you?”

“I’m Reed Ferguson. Henri at Classic Hollywood Memorabilia said that you might be able to help us.”

Jack relaxed slightly. “Henri’s a good man. He knows his movie memorabilia.”

“And he said you would know baseball memorabilia.” I set the baseball card box on the display case. “Could you take a look at this and tell me if it’s an authentic card?”

Jack picked up the box and gazed at the card. Then his eyes fell on me. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Cal sidled up next to me. “Why do you ask?”

Jack turned his attention on Cal. “Because I’ve seen this card before. Or one like it. Two identical cards don’t waltz through the door within a week of each other without something being fishy.”

“I think this card is a fake,” Cal said. “The coloring doesn’t seem right.”

Jack opened the box and let the card fall gently onto the glass display top. He pulled an eyepiece from his pocket, squeezed it in one eye, and leaned down over the card. “Hmm,” he said. “The border isn’t right at all, is it?”

“No,” Cal concurred.

Jack popped into the back office and returned with a black light. He turned it on and held it over the card.

“See how the edges kind of glow? It shouldn’t do that. My guess is someone touched up this card. It could be a real Mantle card, but it’s been restored.”

Cal bent down and got as close as he could to the card. “I hadn’t noticed that.” Those were rare words from Cal.

Jack picked the card up by the edges. “Whoever did this spent some time on it.” He flipped the card over and studied it some more. Then he dropped it back into its box. “But it’ll never get a grade that would authenticate it.”

“Just like I thought,” Cal said.

I shot him a sidelong glance.

“So it would never have the value of an original,” I said, thinking back to my research on baseball cards.

“Yes,” Jack replied. “A restored card could still be worth some money, but nothing like a true original.”

“Someone’s trying to put one over on Perry,” Cal said.

“So, which one of you is going to tell me what’s going on?” Jack squeaked.

Since I was the detective, I took the lead, much to Cal’s chagrin. The sleuthing seemed to be growing on him. “The one you looked at the other day was real?”

Jack nodded. “It sure was. I told the guy he had a beauty on his hands. I offered him five thousand for it, but he wanted to try listing it on EBay. I told him that any buyers would want it authenticated and he might have some trouble selling it without that.”

“What’d he say to that?” I asked.

“That he might be back.” Jack pointed at the card. “Where’d you get that card?”

“I think the same man who visited you used this one to fool the original owner,” I said.

“So he stole the card he showed me.” Jack grimaced. “That’s not cool.”

“No, it’s not,” Cal edged into the conversation. “How would you like to help us get the card back to the original owner?”

Jack and I both stared at Cal.

“What do you have in mind?” Jack asked.

I turned to Cal, all ears. What was my sidekick conjuring up?

“Is there any way you can get a hold of that guy again?”

“Sure,” Jack smiled. “When we were dickering over price, he asked if I would let him know if I had someone interested in buying the card. He said if he could get a solid buyer, that he’d come down on his price.”

“Call him,” I said, seeing where Cal was going with this. “Get him down here.”

“Should we call the police?” Jack asked.

“I don’t want to scare him off,” I said. “Contact him and see when he can come back down with the card. Cal and I will handle it from there.”

“I can do that,” Jack said. “Give me a minute.” He disappeared into the back room.

“Not bad,” I glanced at Cal. “You’re starting to enjoy this detective work, aren’t you?”

“As long as I’m out of the house, I’ll make the best of it,” Cal shrugged.

Jack returned, smiling. “I told him I have a buyer interested in the card, so he said he’d come right down. You sure you don’t want the police here?”

“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” I said. I looked all around the store, forming a plan in my mind. “Okay, this is what we’ll do.”

***

An hour later, Barney Whitman sauntered into the store.

“He’s here,” Jack whispered, poking his head in the back room, where Cal and I were quietly waiting.

Cal nodded at me and dashed through a back door that led out to the alley. I edged up to the inner door. Jack was talking to Barney.

“It is a nice card,” he was saying.

“Yeah,” Barney replied in his Bobby Darin voice. “So you can pay me cash, right?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “It’s easier than messing with EBay.”

“You got that right,” Barney said.

“Where’d you get this card?” Jack asked. That was my cue.

“I’ve had it around for-” Barney stopped when he saw me step into the room.

“You’ve had it around?” I repeated. “Or you stole it?”

“What are you doing here?” Barney snarled.

“He knows you?” Jack’s eyes widened.

“Uh huh.” I moved toward the display case, where Barney’s, or more correctly, Perry’s original card, lay in a clear plastic box. “How’d you steal it?”

Barney snatched the box and whirled around, ready to bolt out the front door. But at that moment Cal opened the door. He stood with arms crossed, blocking the entrance. Barney took a step back and I grabbed the box out of his hand.

Barney cursed at me.

“Want to go to jail?” I held up the card. “Time to spill the beans or I call the cops.”

Barney sighed and his shoulders drooped. “No cops, please.”

“Start talking,” Jack squeaked. Whoa, what a threat, coming from Minnie Mouse.

“Perry talks about that stupid card all the time. It was like his good-luck charm. Elvis and baseball, that’s what he loves. Before he went onstage, Perry would sing that Elvis song, ‘Good Luck Charm’ while holding the card. It was stupid, but Perry said it helped him to put on a stellar show.”

Now I knew why Perry didn’t want to tell me why he kept the card at the club instead of safe at his house.

Jack’s eyes darted between Barney and me, confused. “Who’s Perry’s?”

“He’s an Elvis impersonator,” I said.

“How did he know about the card?” Jack gestured at Barney.

“Barney sings with Perry.” I turned back to Barney. “So you saw Perry get the card out of the safe.”

Barney nodded.

My mind raced back to the night we saw him perform. “The card tricks.” I paused. “You’re some kind of memory expert, right? You saw Perry dial the combination on the safe, didn’t you? And you memorized it.”

“Photographic memory,” Barney said. “Perry should be more careful. All I had to do was wait until he went onstage, and I walked right into his room. If someone saw me, I could just say that I needed to borrow makeup or something.”

“But no one saw you. And with Trish’s financial problems, it was easy to let her take the heat.”

“Wait,” Barney held up a hand. “I felt bad that you thought she took the card, so I put it back.”

“You put a fake card back,” I pointed out.

Barney sighed. “Well, sure. The original was worth so much. I couldn’t pass up that kind of money.”

“And Perry made it so easy for you. You pop in there, steal the card, sell it, and no one’s the wiser.”

“I took the card to piss Perry off,” Barney said. “I never even knew it was worth anything until after I stole it. When Perry said it was worth thousands, I decided to sell it.”

“Yeah, I’m buying that,” I said.

“You can think what you want,” Barney snapped. “I was just trying to get back at him.”

“For what?”

“Perry took my girl,” Barney said, his lower lip quivering.

“That’s it?” I cocked my head at him in disbelief.

“It’s true,” Barney whined. “I had the most beautiful woman in the world. I was going to ask her to marry me, and then she fell for Perry. Just because he looks like Elvis.”

“That’s it!” Jack snapped his fingers. “You look like that guy, um...”

“Bobby Darin,” Barney said.

“No.” Jack pursed his lips.

“Don Adams from Get Smart,” I said.

“Yes!” Jack pointed at Barney. “You could be his double.”

“I’m Bobby Darin,” Barney growled. He took a couple of steps back, held up his arms, and started crooning ‘Mack the Knife’. “See?” he said when he’d finished.

Jack clapped lightly, courtesy applause. “Yeah, you sound like Bobby Darin, but you don’t look like him.”

“I’m leaving now.” Barney stared to me. “What are you going to tell Perry?”

“I’ll tell him what you did,” I said. “The two of you can decide how to handle it. I’ve got just one more question. Where’d you get the fake card?”

“On EBay,” Barney said. “It was so good it cost me a couple thousand. It was a real card that was touched up so it would look better, that’s why it was so expensive. I figured Perry would never know the difference.”

“You’d get Trish out of trouble, and still make a tidy profit when you sold the original card.”

Barney nodded.

“Now you’re just out a couple grand,” Jack said.

“Poetic justice,” I agreed.

“Yeah, you got the card back, so leave me be.” Barney edged toward the front door. “I’ll take care of things with Perry.”

“Hey Barney,” I called after him.

“What?” he stopped.

“How far does Perry take his Elvis impersonation?” I said.

“When he’s onstage, he’s the king himself. Why?”

“Elvis knew karate.” I grinned. “Better watch your back.”

Barney paled. Without another word, he jostled past Cal and out the door.

“What a character,” Jack shook his head.

I tossed the plastic box to Cal. “Let’s return that to Perry.”

***

“I can’t believe that little turd stole it.” Perry gazed at his baseball card. Cal and I were in his dressing room, and had just told him what had transpired.

I sat down on a tiny couch across from his dressing table. “He says he did it because you stole his girl.”

“Melinda?” Perry snorted. “She said he was clingy and needy, and she finally got tired of it.”

“Go figure,” Cal muttered.

“You might want to keep better tabs on that card,” I said. “You made it way too easy for Barney to get it.”

Perry nodded. “Yeah, that was dumb of me.”

The dressing room door opened a crack. “Can I come in, honey?” a sultry voice asked.

“Sure, darlin’.” Perry got up as a woman with huge breasts sauntered into the room. I admit, Cal and I stared. Store-bought, was all I could think.

“Fellas, this is Melinda,” Perry introduced her.

“You dated Barney?” Cal blurted.

Melinda ran her hand through Perry’s hair. “I just love entertainers,” she said through puckered lips.

Old, dead entertainers, I thought.

“Uh huh,” Cal said. He glanced at me. I shrugged.

“We better be going,” I said. Cal and I stood up. “Put that card in a safe place.”

“I’ll do that.” Perry reached out and handed me a check. “You earned this.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much,” I said.

It slipped out, I swear.

To read other exciting adventures in the Reed Ferguson Mystery Series, or for information on Renée's other books, contests, and freebies, visit her website – www.reneepawlish.com.

Biography

Renée Pawlish is the award-winning author of the bestselling Nephilim Genesis of Evil, the first in the Nephilim trilogy, the Reed Ferguson mystery series (This Doesn't Happen In The Movies and Reel Estate Rip-off), The Noah Winters YA Adventure series (The Emerald Quest), Take Five, a short story collection, and The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within, a nonfiction account of a haunted house investigation.

Renée has been called “a promising new voice to the comic murder/mystery genre” and “a powerful storyteller”.  Nephilim Genesis of Evil has been compared to Stephen King and Frank Peretti.

Renée was born in California, but has lived most of her life in Colorado. When she's not hiking, cycling, or chasing ballplayers for autographs, she is writing mysteries, thrillers and horror. She loves to travel and has visited numerous countries around the world. She has also spent many summer days at her parents' cabin in the hills outside of Boulder, which was the inspiration for the setting of Taylor Crossing in her novel Nephilim: Genesis of Evil.

Visit Renée at www.reneepawlish.com.

The Reed Ferguson Mystery Series

This Doesn’t Happen In The Movies available at Amazon.

Reel Estate Rip-off available at Amazon.
The Maltese Felon

The Nephilim Trilogy

Nephilim Genesis of Evil available at Amazon.

Books Two and Three soon to be released.

The Noah Winter Adventure Series

The Emerald Quest available at Amazon.

Take Five

A Short Story Collection available at Amazon.

The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within

Non-fiction account of a haunted house investigation in Kansas.

Available at Amazon.

Table of Contents

- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT