The Headstone Detective Agency, page 17
She smirked and shook her head, and for the first time, it felt like it used to between us. “At least you managed to get inside the building.”
The building had been switched to a keyless entry system. Gretchen had supplied the codes for the lobby door and the apartment when she called me in Palm Springs, but the truth of the matter was I’d had to throw myself on the mercy of the building super when I arrived.
“Not a problem,” I lied. “But speaking of remodeling, look at this place.” The suite had been gone over from stem to stern. It was lighter, brighter, and hopelessly mod. “And where’s Bonacker? Not in the private office with Chris?”
Gretchen slipped behind her chromium-and-glass desk and settled into her Aeron chair. She gestured for me to take the one in front of her desk. “Bonacker retired. It’s just been Chris and I the last three years.”
Ben Bonacker was the buffoon of an insurance agent I’d shared the space with. He told terrible jokes and hectored my clients with pitches for whole life, but having him in the office reduced my overhead considerably. “How did Chris cover the rent without him? And what about you? Most of the secretarial work came from Bonacker.”
“I wasn’t Chris’s secretary.”
“Sorry. Administrative assistant.”
“I wasn’t that either. I was a full partner.”
“A full partner in Duckworth Investigative Solutions?”
She nodded. “Chris wasn’t doing the kind of work you did, August. Most of his cases involved computers—cybersecurity, identity theft, and online reputation. He trained me to help him, and we rarely left the office. Keyboard and phone replaced shoe leather and muscle. And it was a lot more lucrative. The rent wasn’t a problem.”
I put my elbow on the ergonomic armrest of the Aeron chair and dropped my chin into my palm. To me, Chris had always been an overenthusiastic amateur. Half the assignments I gave him were simply to get him out of my hair. The idea that I was living in exile in the desert while he outearned and outclassed me in my own town was hard to swallow. “Why’d you call me, then? Why didn’t you just sit behind your keyboard and cyber-google him back when he went missing?”
Gretchen didn’t waste any time responding. She threw the box of tissues straight at my head. “You were the one who abandoned us—who left without a word. Whatever it was that drove you away, it had more to do with your demons than us. But we adapted. We learned what we were good at and made it the focus of the business. It wasn’t about showing you up. It was about getting on with life.”
I rubbed the place on my forehead where the corner of the tissue box had hit. “I deserved that.”
“And more.” She sat forward and clutched both her knees through the silky fabric of her pantsuit. “I don’t know what happened to Chris. But when you discover the details, when you find out how he came to be shot execution-style in a massage parlor in the middle of the night, I know it will be because of the things that made him what he was—his enthusiasm and love of adventure.”
She released her knees and looked up at me. “And when you do solve the mystery, when you catch and punish Chris’s killer, I know it will be because of the things that make you what you are—your loyalty and your relentless focus on finding answers.”
I held her eyes for a moment. It was the nicest thing she’d ever said to me, so naturally I had to ruin it. “Not my youthful looks and pleasant odor?”
She laughed. “Maybe if you learn to work the shower faucet.”
I shifted in my chair, somehow failing to find the webbed back and lack of upholstery to be all that comfortable. “Well, what can you tell me, then? Was he working a case that was less virtual and more dangerous back alley?”
“No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t working on anything as far as I knew. We finished a case a few weeks ago, and he said he wanted to take some time off. He stayed out longer than I expected, and when I tried to contact him to ask why, I struck out. All my phone calls when to voice mail, and he wasn’t at his apartment any of the times I went there.”
“Why’d he move from the Castro, anyway? Moving into the office I can see because you were here and it went with the business. But my old apartment is nothing special. It’s in a worse part of town far away from the neighborhood he loved.”
“He claimed that he did it because of the commute, but that wasn’t the real reason. You were his model, August, his hero. By slipping into your old life as completely as he could, he felt like he was donning your mantle.”
“Christ, I wasn’t Batman. I don’t know whether to be flattered or weirded out.”
“Some of both, I expect.”
“All right. What about the last case you worked? Anything about it that could have blown back on Chris or the firm? A disgruntled client, for instance?”
She pushed a manila folder across the desk toward me. “I figured you were going to ask, so I printed out the file. To answer your question, no, the client was happy with the resolution, and I really doubt she would be the sort to kill anyone, much less Chris.”
I reached over to snag the file and started flipping through the pages. The client was a coed at UC-Berkeley, and the assignment had to do with determining the identity of someone she met on a website called Looking for Daddy. “Is this site what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is?”
“A service to reunite adopted children with their biological fathers?”
“Please. It’s a sugar-daddy site. It matches wealthy older men with so-called sugar babies who want an arrangement.”
“Wealthy older married men?”
“Usually, but not always. In this case, the person our client was talking to was married.”
“Did she hire you to find that out?”
“Not really. The daddy acknowledged he was married in his profile. Our client—Ivy is her name—wanted to know more about his background and personality before getting involved with him. The site doesn’t use real names, of course, so finding the real-world identify of someone involves reverse-engineering it from the details they do reveal.”
“Huh.” I slumped back in my chair. What Gretchen had suggested earlier was right: I was a dinosaur from another era. I wouldn’t know the first thing about using the internet to find out that sort of thing. “The file says you identified him. May I ask how?”
“Chris figured it out. Daddy had a picture posted on his profile.”
“You pretty much have to, don’t you? How do you go from a random picture to a name?”
“He made the mistake of using a picture he had posted on social media before. One that he thought made him look athletic, I guess. Chris used an image-search program to find the photo on the guy’s page, then we had his name and a bunch of other stuff about him from his account.”
It was exactly the sort of clever trick Chris would come up with. In spite of myself, I felt a little sympathy for the daddy. He wasn’t the only one out of his league. “What did Ivy do with the information?”
“I don’t know. We gave her the report and she seemed happy, but she didn’t say if she was going to pursue the relationship.”
“So it’s possible she cut him off, daddy somehow found out that Chris was involved, and then he went looking for revenge.”
Gretchen made a face. “I suppose. But listening to you lay it out like that, it seems pretty far-fetched. The ratio of women to men on these sites is three to one. I think daddy would have just moved on.”
I closed the folder and set it back on the desk. “You’re probably right, but I’m going to look into it anyway. What about other cases? Any others stand out as having a possible connection?”
“I’ve started a search. I’m looking for anyone who complained about an outcome, failed to pay their bill or was involved with anything criminal.”
“Sounds about right. Can I help you dig through the files?”
She smiled. “You could, except Chris moved everything to the computer…”
“And I’m a Luddite.” I stood abruptly, sending the chair wheeling backward. “Okay, how about tossing his office for clues? That’s something we old-school detectives can really sink our teeth into.”
“I don’t think you’ll find it much of a meal.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you.” She retrieved some keys from her desk drawer and used them on the door leading to the suite’s private office—my old office. I had filled the space with furniture I bought at an auction when a grade school burned down and hung a couple of black-and-white photos of my favorite jazz bassists on the walls. All of that was gone. In its stead was a motorized standing desk, a motorized treadmill to walk on while you worked at the motorized standing desk, a sleek laptop connected to an enormous monitor, and several pop art prints by the guy who painted in a comic-book style. The famous one of a fighter pilot shooting down another plane with WHAM! written in bright yellow next to the exploding plane was behind the desk.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I walked over to the computer and ran my finger over the trackpad. A password screen flashed up. “You’ll include his computer in your search?”
Gretchen nodded.
I sighed and stepped onto the treadmill. If you weren’t expending shoe leather the old-fashioned way, I guess you needed another way to do it during your virtual investigations. I glanced back up at the colorful prints. “What’s with all the pop art? His apartment is full of it, too.”
“It wasn’t just pop art. He was on a whole sixties kick. He spent nearly every weekend shopping in retro clothing stores.”
“Men’s or women’s clothes?”
Gretchen laughed. “Both. But he looked better in the miniskirts than he did in the bell-bottoms.”
I looked over at her and thought about what she had said about Chris’s enthusiasm for life. We both teared up again, and I stepped off the treadmill to wrap her in another hug. “Relentless,” I said softly.
Click here to learn more about The Dead Beat Scroll by Mark Coggins.
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Here is a preview from Forgiveness Dies, the third Trevor Galloway thriller by J.J. Hensley.
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Prologue
Pittsburgh
There is no recovering from an amputated heart. There is no cure for total loss. You can replace what has been taken, attempt to fill the void, and mitigate your own culpability. The symptoms can be treated, the rage may be quelled, the sharp edges of the memories can be dulled with pills that slide down your throat with the gentlest push, but the underlying cavity in one’s being aches to be filled with what can never be returned. It’s been over three years, but my home is as it was when I left. When I was taken. When everything important to me was taken.
“I tried to keep things in decent order,” said Chase as he flicked on some lights.
I nodded and set my bag on the floor.
“You’ll need groceries,” he said. “We can order in tonight and then I’ll take you shopping in the morning.”
The air in the house wasn’t stagnant. He’d been inside recently and opened the windows. It occurred to me the lights coming on meant the utilities had been paid.
“Did you pay my bills?” I asked.
Chase hesitated and became visibly uncomfortable. He was handling me with kid gloves and I couldn’t blame him. The state said I could leave the institution, but that didn’t mean I was well. I wasn’t well. I couldn’t see well with a telescope.
He shrugged and said, “When I knew you weren’t coming back for a while, I had your utilities paid automatically from your bank account. I didn’t know for sure when you were getting out, so it didn’t make sense to shut them off in case the doctors suddenly signed off on your release.”
Something about what he said seemed familiar, but I wasn’t sure why.
I said, “I couldn’t have had enough in my account to keep up the payments.”
Chase watched me as if he wasn’t sure I was being serious. When an appropriate amount of time passed so that he understood my apparent lack of understanding was real, he said, “You had some money coming to you from your last case. Those funds covered your bills and then some. You still have some money in your checking account, but only enough to last you for a few months. Of course, you are still getting your disability pension from the department, but that’s not exactly lottery money.”
There it was again—the familiarity. Then, it hit me.
“We’ve discussed this, haven’t we?”
Chase broke off eye contact and looked at the floor.
“How many times?” I asked.
His eyes came up and he answered, “A few. We worked with the bank to set it all up.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Chase shook his head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I wish I could have done more for you.”
“You did plenty,” I told him.
“I’m a cop,” he said. “I should have…if I would have…”
“I killed people, Chase. I killed a lot of people.”
He squeezed his mammoth hands into the pockets of jeans and said, “You had every reason to do what you did. Besides, you weren’t in your right mind at the time. At least the court got that part right. I’m sure being locked away in a psych hospital was no picnic, but prison would have been worse.”
He was right. And he was wrong.
A long moment stretched out with neither of us speaking. At least, I think it was a long pause. Maybe the moment was only a second. While my treatment had helped me maintain a better grasp on what was real, I had become woefully inept when it came to gauging the passing of time. I glanced around the living room and saw my television, my bookshelf, and finally a turntable in the corner. The same record I’d been playing at the time of my arrest sat on the turntable, untouched as I knew it would be. My gaze settled on it and I wondered if the meds they gave me would continue to hold or if fantasy would creep back into reality.
“Is pizza okay?” he asked.
A certificate hung on the wall above the dusty record. Inside the frame was a commendation I’d received from the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police for outstanding work on a narcotics investigation. According to the document behind the glass, Detective Trevor Galloway had demonstrated outstanding valor in the performance of his duties and completed work instrumental to the disruption of illegal drug activities in Pittsburgh.
A lifetime ago.
A life before I’d been forced to battle my own addiction to heroin, then pills, and finally had to deal with an assortment of hallucinations. The meds I’d been prescribed had eliminated the hallucinations, but rendered me all but useless when it came to engaging in any activity requiring analytic ability. When properly medicated, I was fairly sane, but as insightful as a stapler. Throughout the time I’d worked as a private investigator—albeit unlicensed—I had a history of wandering off my meds long enough to work a case. Thus far, that strategy had not worked out particularly well.
“Trevor?”
“What?” I asked, turning back to Chase.
He frowned. “Is pizza okay?”
“Oh. Sure,” I replied while looking back toward the certificate.
“Hey.”
I looked at my friend and saw the concern on his face. Realizing what he must be thinking, I said, “I’m not seeing anybody. I’m just looking around the room.”
His expression was skeptical, but he pulled his cell phone out to order the pizza.
“I promise,” I said while he was dialing. “Go ahead and order for the three of us.”
He froze mid-dial and stared me down. With no effort, I was able to keep my serious expression chiseled in stone. It was a mannerism that had helped me acquire an unfortunate nickname that Chase loved to use. After a few beats, I decided to let him off the hook.
“I’m kidding,” I assured him.
He grimaced and took in a deep breath before speaking. “You’re a riot. The Tin Man has a funny bone. Who knew?”
I knew I wasn’t really funny. I also knew what was still lying underneath my stoicism and reassuring comments. I knew something I couldn’t tell anybody. Chase, like everyone else, thought I had suffered a psychological break when I had killed those men. How had he phrased it? I wasn’t in my right mind at the time.
My lawyer had spun the story and the shrinks had bought into the tale after a series of interviews and tests. But, I knew the truth. Regardless of what the legal system had determined, I had known what I was doing. Many things had gone off the rails that day, but my mind was not one of them.
In the three weeks since Chase had brought me home, I’d left my house exactly three times. Through the haze of my medications, I’d managed somehow to economize my outings in order to get my driver’s license renewed, get my car inspected and road ready, shop for groceries, and meet with my court-appointed therapist. I’d spent most of the other days watching television in my living room while battling the eternal drowsiness produced by the battery of pills that tethered me to reality and kept the volume of my suicidal thoughts to a minimal decibel level. Chase stopped by every few days and did his best to mask his concerns while prodding me to reenter a society that didn’t want me as a member. His efforts to push me forward would lose traction as he came to realize that neither of us had any idea what my reintroduction to the world would entail. My days as a cop were long gone. My attempts at being a private investigator had ended disastrously. Finding a potential employer that wouldn’t set fire to a resume that included being invited to leave the profession of law enforcement, having committed multiple homicides, while advertising a stunning absence of marketable skills, would be challenging. Aside from Chase, my best personal references were hallucinations I hadn’t seen in a while and even some of those hated me. Not an ideal situation.
