Baby Daddy (13 page)

“What’s up?” Reno asked.

I slid the arson report toward him.  “It was a bomb,” I stated flatly.

Dallas picked up the report and glanced over it.

“No shit!” Tulsa exclaimed.

“I suspected it was,” Reno said.  “The way the explosion propelled pieces of metal and paper all the way across the warehouse and the pattern of the burn.”

“That’s pretty much what it says here,” Dallas confirmed.

“To summarize it, Captain Price told us it appeared to have been a package bomb, stored in the warehouse and remotely ignited with a cell phone.  The Arson Division is going to track down the components and hopefully, find out who did it,” Christopher told us.

“T
he captain said it looked like an amateur,” I added.

“Fuck!  I didn’t come on-board to be blown up by some psycho,” Tulsa exclaimed.

“Why would someone want to hurt us?” Reno asked.

“Not us…Scandals,” I explained.  “But there’s a bigger issue.”

“Bigger than blowing us into confetti?” Dallas scoffed.  “Not likely.”

“Christopher thinks Roger was murdered.”

They had the same reaction I had had, followed by a rush of questions.

“Why do you think
Roger didn’t kill himself?” Dallas asked.

“But he overdosed, didn’t he?”
Reno commented at the same time.

“Who would want Roger dead…other than countless women and illegitimate children?”
Tulsa’s tone, as usual, was bitter.

All eyes turn
ed on Christopher who had, so far, allowed me to advance the conversation.

He looked at each of us before stating,
“When I first came to work for Roger, he’d been off the road for about ten years.  Scandals was still small, but growing.  My mom was his first employee.  She answered the phone and handled the books, so even when I was younger, I used to hang out here.”

“Did he fuck your mom, too?” Tulsa asked bluntly.

“At first it was business, but they were good for each other.  I guess my dad’s death hit her hard, and the job came along at just the right time.  She and Roger got along great.  If they ever dated, they didn’t let on, but I wouldn’t have been upset if they had gotten married.”

Oh God!  I felt my eyes rolling at that thought.  Was every good looking guy in Austin related or almost related to me?

“Does she still work here?” Reno asked.

“Yes, she’ll be back as soon as the lobby is finished.  Right now, the phones are forward to her at home.”  Christopher opened a bottle of water and took a drink.  “Anyway,” he continued, “I got pretty close to Roger. 
He was definitely a father-figure for me.  I remember when he was struggling to stay sober and clean.  But six years ago, he blacked out and woke up in a jail in Nuevo Laredo.”

“Mexico?” Dallas inquired.

“Yeah, and apparently, Mexican jails can swallow you up forever.  It took a lot of greased palms and a Ferrari to get him back.  He didn’t even remember getting into his car that night, much less driving across the border and getting into a bar fight.  They found some coke and pot in the car, and with their kangaroo-court legal system, he got tried, convicted and sentenced to twenty years before noon the next day.

“Roger spent a little over a month there and when he got back, he was a changed man.  I think the fact that he’d blacked
out and driven almost 250 miles without remembering anything was more alarming than that he could have spent the next twenty years in prison.  He started going to AA meetings.  It wasn’t easy, but he quit it all, cold turkey.  He got his life together and started to hang with a different crowd…the pretty and the powerful, the connected people in Austin.  It was his money that built the Austin drug rehab facility and he paid for addicts’ treatment if they couldn’t.”

“So why did he overdos
e?” Dallas persisted.

“I don’t think he did.  He was proud of his sobriety.  He was enjoying his life and had no reason to relapse.”

“Does anyone really need a reason to relapse?” Reno frowned, probably thinking about his mom.

“
I guess not.”  Christopher drained the bottle, screwed the cap back on and tossed it across the room into a recycle basket. “I just don’t believe Roger did.”

“So
, you think he was behaving like a changed man…maybe outwardly…maybe not, and his life was cleaned up…but you weren’t with him that night in the club, were you?” Tulsa challenged, but Christopher interrupted abruptly.

“
No, I wasn’t.  But you didn’t see him on a Monday morning after spending his entire weekend mentoring addicts at the drug facility.  He knew their names, the names of their family members, friends or anyone who could help them kick the habit.  He dedicated himself to every person he came in contact with that needed help.  They looked up to him and he wouldn’t have let them down.”

“
Then why would someone kill him?” I asked.  “It sounds like he was doing a lot of good for a lot of people.”

“This business
sometimes creates winners and losers.  That means there’s a very happy person or group and a very unhappy person or group.  Unhappy people like to find someone to blame, other than themselves, for their misfortune.  Add to that addicts who aren’t always the kind of people you’d trust with your watch.”

“I read the police report,” Dallas told us, “and there was drug paraphernalia in the bathroom, a hose around his arm and a fresh puncture wound on his arm.  The autopsy was clear…death by heroin overdose.”

“Someone killed him and set the scene to look like an overdose,” Christopher stated positively.

“That’s kind of a stretch,” Reno suggested.

“No, it wouldn’t be difficult if they somehow set up a meeting at the bar, knocked Roger out, then pumped a needle full of poison into him, enough to kill a horse…check the tox report.  I know it seems far-fetched, but if you had known Roger, you’d agree…he was murdered.”

“Yeah…unfortunately, we
didn’t
know him,” Tulsa muttered.

Dallas shrugged.  “It wouldn’t hurt to look into it a little.”

“After all, we know some really excellent private investigators,” Reno pointed out.

“I’d like to know the truth, no matter what it is.” Tulsa commented.  “I, for one, am sick of the lies.”

“Okay, then, sounds like we’re all on-board. Why don’t we think about it tonight and talk again tomorrow?” I suggested.

“We should go visit Liberty,” Reno s
aid.

“I think I heard that John was making lasagna for dinner,”
Dallas told them.

“The crew left before I came in here, so let me check to make sure everything is turned off and locked up,” Reno said.

“I want to lock up the financials.”  Dallas stood and stretched.  “I’m done with that for today, anyway.”

“I’ll pull up the security videos tomorrow and see if I can find out where the package came from,” Tulsa offered.

“Sounds good.  Let me lock up the front.  We can go out through the warehouse,” Christopher said.

Liberty was practicing on her crutches when we got to the hospital.  Daisy was walking beside her with her hands out as if she expected to catch her daughter at any moment.

“Hey, guys.  Look at me,” Liberty crowed proudly.  “They had to get large child crutches for me.”

At only 5’2”, she was the tiniest one of us.  It made her appear even younger than her nineteen years.  Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and her face, as usual was scrubbed clean.  She could easily have passed for sixteen.

I gave her a hug and handed her a gift bag.  “I stopped by the store on the way to the office today and got you a nice nightgown.  I know how cheesy the hospital ones are.”

“Thanks so much,” she gushed.  “These are kind of
embarrassing.”  She had one gown on with the ties in the back and another one on top with the ties in the front so that no body parts were visible no matter which angle.

We followed her back to her room and visited with her and Daisy for about an hour.  Daisy had settled in and
had a fold-out cot set up for her to sleep on.  Even though she was glad to be reunited with her daughter, she seemed a little antsy.  I suspected the big city was making her feel a little claustrophobic.  But Liberty was in great spirits, chattering on and on about the wonderful new television shows she’d been watching, especially one called
Gilligan’s Island
.  None of us had the nerve to tell her the show was fifty years old.

We also didn’t think it was appropriate to tell her our suspicions about Roger’s death.  She needed to focus on her recovery and not be worrying about something we hadn’t even wrapped our own minds around yet.

“The doctor said I might be released on Thursday, depending on my crutch work,” she told them eagerly.

“That’s great news,” I told
Liberty.  “The office is looking pretty good.  Reno’s got it all under control.”

Liberty’s smile faded.  “What happened to Gypsy and her kittens?”

Christopher and Reno exchanged nervous looks.  “Gypsy and two of the kittens survived.  We haven’t seen the others.”

Tears rolled down Liberty’s cheeks and her mother gave us a disgusted frown. 
“I’m still trying to talk her into coming back with me,” Daisy informed them.

We all
hurriedly said our goodbyes and headed back down to the parking garage.  We had split into two cars with Tulsa riding in Christopher’s Mustang and Reno driving the silver Mercedes G63 with me and Dallas in it for the trip here.

“I need to go back to the office and pick up
my Mini,” I said.  I liked pretending the little car was mine.  It gave me a touch of independence.  It was quite a culture shock to go from being an only child and having lots of personal space to having four half-siblings and always traveling in a pack.

“I’ll take you,” Christopher offered.  “I left my phone in my office.”

This time the ride in his Mustang was much less stressful since I wasn’t in any danger of leaving chunks on the carpet.  Christopher didn’t talk, and I didn’t really want to get a lecture, so I didn’t initiate a conversation either.  I didn’t know why he was so critical of me, but it was really pissing me off.

I guess I kind of worked myself up by the time we arrived at the office.  Since there w
ould be no one around to hear us, it seemed like a good time to clear the air.

He opened the gate, drove into the back lot and closed the gate behind us.  I followed him silently through the warehouse, across the lobby and into his office.

“I guess you’ll probably need one of these,” he said, unlocking a file cabinet and taking out a key fob.  “This operates the gate.  Don’t lose it.”

“Lose it?  What kind of idiot do you think I am?” I asked incredulously.

“I know you’re not an idiot.  In fact, I know everything about you,” he said.  “I know about your step-father dying in a car accident and your mother lingering in the hospital for another week before passing on.  I know that you were homecoming queen in high school and that you’ve pitched five no-hitters and hit three grand-slams in your first two years of college.”  His eyes bored into mine with no evidence he was going to look away.  I seemed to have pushed his buttons, just as he had mine, releasing some unknown pent-up emotion.  “I know that you have a boyfriend named Brandon and you, for all practical purposes, have been living with him for the last six months.”

Did he know about the pregnancy?  He couldn’t, could he? 
“Your information is a little out of date,” I told him.  “Brandon is an ex and I’ve moved back into the dorm.”  Only a slight lie, but justified.  “And knowing everything about me…which is, by the way, pretty creepy…doesn’t give you the right to treat me like shit.  You don’t treat the others like that.  We’re all in this together.  Why do you have to be such a dick?”

“That’s the last thing I want to do to you.” 
He raked his fingers through his hair and shook his head.  “God, you’re killing me.”

That wasn’t what I expected him to say.

His nostrils flared as he struggled for control.  His eyes darkened, but there was no anger or hostility, just a hint of confusion.  His hand lifted as if it was moving on its own volition.  Tenderly he cupped my cheek, his fingers burrowing into my hair.  “I can’t be around you without wanting to touch you…and to taste you…and to hold you,” he admitted in frustration.