Guilty (17 page)

“But he did
some
work there,” I say. “I was hoping you could tell me what it was.”

He sticks out his hand, and I give him the invoice again. He shakes his head.

“There's not much detail here,” he says. In fact, there's none. Nothing but a price.

The door behind him opens again, and a woman comes in.

“Charlie, that woman called—” She stops short when she sees me. “Oh. I didn't know there was anyone here with you.”

“It's okay, Mom.” He glances at the invoice again and then holds it out to her. “You know anything about this?” he asks her. To me he says, “Mom handles the books.”

She scans the paper and looks up in surprise.

“That's the second time someone has asked me about this.”

Charlie Althaus and I both stare at her.

“Someone else asked you about the same invoice?” Charlie asks.

“A woman. The wife of the man your father did the work for.”

“A blond?” I ask.

“Dad did work for The Siren?” Charlie says. “But our bid was rejected.”

“Yes, a blond,” Mrs. Althaus says. It was Tracie. My mother had chestnut hair. “And yes, that bid was rejected. But the club owner called your father. I think he felt badly that he was ill. He had a little job he needed done. It wasn't much, but I think your father was glad to be asked. It wasn't long after that that he was in the hospital.”

Charlie looks perplexed.

“How come I didn't know about that?”

Mrs. Althaus smiles. “Because you were on your honeymoon with Allison. I didn't even know much about it. It was a small job. You father went in and did it in a couple of days. He didn't talk about it. He was too exhausted when he came home at night. I didn't even remember it until that woman came in with this invoice.”

“What was the job?” I ask.

Mrs. Althaus crosses to the filing cabinet. Her knees pop as she bends down to pull out the bottom drawer. Her fingers walk over the tops of the file folders inside until she reaches one about halfway back. She pulls it out and struggles to straighten up again. Charlie has to take her by the hand and help her. She opens the file folder, pulls out a couple of sheets and hands them to Charlie. Charlie studies them and frowns.

“He was doing a whole renovation over there. Why didn't he ask one of those workmen to do this?”

“Do what?” I say.

He passes me the papers. I stare at them.

“Can I have these?” I say.

“I can make you copies, if you'd like,” Mrs. Althaus says. “But the originals stay here. I told that other woman the same thing.”

“You made copies for her?”

She nods.

I read the papers a couple of times before I finally fold them up and put them in my pocket. I go straight to the club.

I can tell right away that something is going on. Usually at this time of day, the staff is all there and they're getting ready to open. Today everyone is here. But they're standing around in little groups, talking.

Matthew Goodis spots me on my way through to the stairs that lead to my dad's office. He catches up to me.

“Your dad's not here,” he says. He looks upset and distracted.

“That's okay. I just wanted to drop something in his office.” I glance at the staff. “What's going on?”

“There was an accident.”

“Oh.” Then, since he's here, I ask him a question. “You know that renovation you did about ten years ago? Was anything done in my dad's office?”

“What?” He's been checking his watch, probably wanting to break up all the chit-chat and get everyone to work.

“Were any renovations done in my dad's office?”

He shakes his head. “We built up and out. It was a major project. But down where your dad is? No. Why?”

“Nothing at all?”

“Not that I know of. Why? What's up, Finn?”

“Do you remember the night my mom was killed?”

“I remember the phone call from your dad asking me to cut my vacation short.”

“You were on vacation?”

“That reno was tough. I put in eighteen-hour days around here. As soon as we reopened, your dad gave me six weeks off. I was four weeks in when he called me with the awful news.” He shakes his head again. “I guess you've been thinking about that, huh?”

“Yeah.” I change the subject. “I have to leave something for my dad. Is his office unlocked?”

Matthew digs in his pocket and pulls out some keys. He snaps one off and hands it to me.

“Return it on your way out,” he says.

I go downstairs and unlock the door to my father's office. I pull out the papers Mrs. Althaus gave me and try to figure them out. Then I go to the wall indicated. But there's nothing there except a couple of shelves and a few pictures.

I stare at the work order again. I start rapping on the wall.
Rap
,
rap
. Move over a little.
Rap
,
rap
. Move over a little.
Rap
,
rap
.

I freeze.

I rap again.

I'm not imagining things.

I look for a crack or a seam, anything. But there's nothing there.

I leave my father's office, locking the door behind me.

I check the room next door. It's a storeroom, with access to the main hall in the basement and to another, smaller, storeroom next door. I want to check that room, but it's locked.

I go upstairs and look for Matthew. He's on the phone. He hangs up just as I reach him and hand him the key.

“Have you talked to your dad in the past couple of hours?” he asks.

“No. Why?”

“I can't raise him on his cell. When you see him, tell him to call me. It's about Dodo.”

“Dodo? What's up with him? He didn't quit, did he?” Every now and then Dodo would get fed up with the mess in the bathrooms and threaten that he was through.

“He was the accident I mentioned. Looks like he took a nasty fall.”

“Is he okay?”

“Look, Finn…”

“Is Dodo okay, Matthew?”

“He's dead.”

Twenty-Nine

FINN

D
odo is dead? I can hardly believe it. He's been around the club forever. I'm pretty sure Dad hired him before I was born. Poor old guy. He was in a car accident awhile back. He almost died. He was in the hospital for months with a caved-in skull. Dad took him back but had to give him a different job. He couldn't be a bouncer anymore.

I'm so shaken up that it takes me a few moments to refocus.

I circle around to the back of the club and walk the length of the alley. I locate the small barred window to my father's office. I walk down the alley from there until I come to another door, which I'm pretty sure is the door to the second storeroom. I stare at it. I try to open it, but, no surprise, it's locked.

When I finally get back into the car, I pull out the papers that Lila left and read through them again. I stop at the one that says the gun was never found. They caught Lila's dad with my mom's jewelry, but they didn't find the gun. If Lila's right, if her dad was set up, then whoever killed my mom must have hidden it. So how did Lila's dad get his hands on it as soon as he got out of prison? There were only a couple of ways I could think of. One, Lila's dad wasn't framed after all; he was smart enough to get rid of the gun but stupid enough to get caught with the jewels. But that didn't make sense. How could one person be that smart about one thing and so spectacularly stupid about another? Two, when he got out of prison, he got the gun from whoever framed him. But who was that person? And why would that person give him the gun? Or had he taken it and killed that person, maybe for revenge? But if he had, wouldn't the cops have found the body by now, and wouldn't they have matched it to the same gun? If they had, they would have told us—wouldn't they?

Neither option made sense.

I flip through more articles. I stop at my grandfather's obituary and skim it again.

One day
. I stare at those two words. It says my mother would inherit a lot of money
one day.
Why was it worded that way? My mother was an only child. If her father died, wouldn't she inherit the money right away?

I shove the papers into the glove compartment and get out of the car. I head back into the club. Matthew has managed to get everyone to work. He starts toward me as soon as he sees me.

“Did you get ahold of your dad?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“Can I ask you something, Matthew?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“You've worked for my dad for a long time, right?”

“Since the beginning.”

“And you knew my mom.”

He smiles for a moment. Then his smile fades, and he searches my face. “Why? Are you okay, Finn?”

“I'm fine. Really. I was just wondering…She inherited a lot of money when her father died, didn't she?”

He doesn't answer.

“Didn't she, Matthew?”

“That's probably something you want to talk to your dad about, Finn.”

“So you don't know?”

More silence. He knows, all right. He just doesn't want to say.

“We've been having this debate in Social Studies,” I say. “About rich guys and what they plan to do with their money. You've read about all those billionaires who plan to give everything to charity and not to their kids, right?”

Matthew laughs. “Are you worried that's what your dad's going to do?”

“No. But I was just wondering…I know my grandfather was pretty well-off.”

“
Pretty
well-off? Try loaded. The man had more money than he knew what to do with.”

“Did my mom get it all when he died? Or was he one of those guys who thought that if he could make it on his own, his kids should be able to do the same?”

“Naw. He wasn't like that. He doted on your mother.”

“So she got everything?”

“I really think that's a question for your dad.”

“Come on, Matthew.” I sound like a kid trying to wheedle a chocolate bar out of a favorite uncle.

“The deal was she'd get it all when she turned thirty,” he says at last.

“She was only twenty-three when he died.”

“I guess your granddad thought she'd be better able to handle it when she was older.” He peers at me again. “Did someone say something to you? Is that it, Finn?”

I don't answer.

“Whoever it was, whatever they said, it's just talk,” he says angrily. “It was garbage when the cops started looking at him. They found that out soon enough. But people talk.” He shook his head in disgust. “They talk too much, if you ask me.”

“What do you mean, Matthew?”

Matthew is startled when he realizes he's said too much.

“Are you telling me the cops suspected my dad of killing my mom?” I say slowly.

“No. No, I didn't mean—”

“But that's what you said.”

“You know what cops are like. They suspect everyone. But they gave it up pretty fast. They had to. You were with your dad the whole time. There was no way he could have gone anywhere without you seeing him—assuming he'd do something so crazy in the first place.” He shakes his head again, angered by the memory. “If he hadn't hired that junkie, this never would have happened.”

“You mean if
you
hadn't hired him,” I say. Matthew does all the hiring. My dad just okays his decisions. That's why the article had referred to “we” deciding to give someone a second chance.

Again, Matthew looks startled. He opens his mouth to say something and then clamps it shut again.

I'm getting a weird feeling. I've known Matthew forever. I know when something's wrong.

“Yeah,” he says. “Look, Finn…”

“You did hire him, didn't you, Matthew?”

“Yeah,” he says again. But he sounds angry and maybe a little nervous. “I just said I did, didn't I? I have to get back to work.”

“Dad said you knew about him before you hired him,” I say.

Matthew tenses.

“Did you?” I press.

“Yeah,” he says. “Like your dad said.”

“Then why did you hire him?” I'm almost yelling, and I don't know why. What does it matter? It's in the past.

A cell phone trills. Matthew reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone and checks the display. “I have to take this, Finn. But, listen, talk to your dad, okay? He'll explain it all to you.”

I go back to the car and start the engine. Then I shut it off again. I don't know what to do or who to talk to. While I'm sitting there, Matthew comes out of the club. He doesn't see me. He gets into his car and roars away.

I take out my phone. After a few moments, I punch in Lila's number.

An automated voice tells me that that number is no longer in service. Has she left town already?

I decide to find out.