Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 02 - The Hustle (26 page)

I couldn’t take sitting there anymore. I took the gin back to the bar and handed it over to Paul. “I’m out,” I said.

He harrumphed, but left it at that.

“I’ll make it up to you.” Then I headed out.

I don’t know if I was seeking thrills to get my mind off of what I couldn’t deal with now, or if it was the gin corrupting my common sense. Either way, I had one of the dumbest ideas, and I actually went through with it.

Next thing I know, I’ve got one leg over a brick wall, saddled on it as if it were a horse. My head did a little gin and tonic tango, forcing me to brace myself before I fell off the wall and all the king’s horses and men couldn’t put me back together again.

I just hoped the esteemed Mr. O’Leary didn’t have attack dogs on his grounds.

I swung my other leg over the wall and sat a moment, looking down. The snow looked soft enough, even for the seven foot drop. I relaxed my body and slid off. On impact I rolled over my shoulder and used momentum to carry me to my feet. Some snow got under my coat collar and skated down under my shirt. I hunched up and shivered, pulled my shirt and coat away from my back, shook the snow out. Then I looked back at the wall I’d come down and admired my awesomeness. I forgot that this covert mission of mine was not only technically unnecessary, but ill conceived at best.

I stuck to the shadows lining the property under the naked poplar trees, getting as close to the servants’ quarters as I could while shunning any light. Then I faced a stretch of snow-covered lawn illuminated by flood lights stationed at the near corner of the building. I guess O’Leary was afraid someone might come by and steal a butler or maid.

Where there were floodlights there were probably security cameras. Faced with this obstacle in my path, I almost aborted the mission. Probably
should
have. Instead, I drew back further into the shadows and weighed my options. Sprint across and hope for the best? Stoll along like I belonged, hoping if there were security cameras, whoever was watching didn’t notice I was actually an intruder? Somehow cut the lights?

That last option sounded the best, but also the most…I don’t know…
impossible
?

I didn’t feel much like running. While I wasn’t drunk, per se, I did have a little twirl in my world. I could just see myself tripping over my own feet in my haste. That’s when they would release the guard dogs and they would chew me to bits.

So I strolled. Right through the light, right around the building, drawing tracks through the snow, and right to the entrance. I stepped up a small cement porch and knocked on the door like one of those kids hocking kitchen knives, just doing his job, one house at a time.

It didn’t take long for someone to answer. A woman in her mid-fifties swung open the door and shouted when she saw me, her hand smacked over her heart as if to keep it from leaping through her chest.

I had that second-head feeling again. This time I actually checked both shoulders, then gave the woman a smile. “Can Warren come out and play?”

Her initial surprise melted like candle wax off her face, leaving behind a pair of beady black eyes and a severe pointed chin carrying a look of near hate. “What on earth…”

“Warren Keats,” I said. “I need to speak with him.”

“This is…irregular. You shouldn’t be here.”

“You guys aren’t allowed visitors?”

“At this hour?”

“So you are allowed visitors? Just during visiting hours? Like a prison, right?”

“ I would hardly…” She caught herself playing into my sarcasm and would have none of it. “You’ll have to leave.”

“I have to talk to Warren. It’s important.”

“It’s nothing that can’t wait until morning.” She began to swing the door shut. (Oh, if I had a dime for every door slammed in my face.)

I threw out a hand and braced the door open. Then I tinkered with the truth. “A friend of his died. He doesn’t know yet.”

She pressed her lips together and studied me with her mouse eyes, probably looking for a lie. “Fine. I will fetch him for you.”

Fetch him.
I liked that.

Before she closed the door, I caught a glimpse of the inside. The door entered onto a large common room that looked like the Victorian version you’d find at a college dormitory. Bookshelves lined the walls between the Renaissance style paintings. A central square of fancy couches and wingchairs took up the center of the room. Other chairs were sprinkled about the periphery. A variety of men and women read or chatted. A woman’s boisterous laugh burst through the room, cut short when the door closed.

I stamped my feet and rubbed my arms to keep warm. I still felt a cold trickle on the back of my neck from the snow that got in there.
Come on, Warren. I’m going to turn into an ice sculpture on the porch here.

The puff of warm air that came through the door when Warren arrived felt like a breath from heaven. “About time. Let’s get inside.”

He blocked my way. “What are you doing here? Mary said it was an emergency.”

“I’m freezing out here and I need to ask you some more questions.”

“You’re unbelievable. You’re not supposed to even be here. I could get in some serious shit for this.”

“You could also get into some serious shit for killing Eddie Arndt.”

He staggered as if I’d punched him in the face like I had Shwineski. He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

He looked convincingly surprised. But killers could fool you. Stakes that high could make even the most honest person a perfect liar. “You can hide back here in your servants’’ quarters only so long, Eddie. Mr. O’Leary and his brick walls won’t keep the police out.”

“This is insane. Eddie’s dead?”

“Don’t fuck around. You know he’s dead because you killed him. You couldn’t let go of your grudge. He’d pissed you off so badly, you figured out a way to kill his family. You probably expected Eddie to be there, too.”

Warren kept shaking his head. “No. No. This is crazy.”

“Then you figured out killing Eddie’s loved ones was even better revenge. So you kept at it, until you’d all but run out of people to kill. So you finally took your last victim—Eddie himself.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Warren’s voice shook, the first sign of vulnerability. “It’s all a crazy theory. You think I’d waste my life killing Eddie’s family because he pushed me down some stairs.”

“I know about the cousin. How he beat you so badly you missed two weeks of school.”

He glanced over his shoulder. A few faces had turned our way. Someone out of my line of sight said, “Would you close the door. You’re letting in cold air.”

Warren’s mouth formed a line. He stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “I pissed blood for three days. When you’re a seventeen year-old pissing blood it scares the hell out of you.”

“I’ll bet,” I said. “Enough to make you want to pay back the person responsible.”

“You’re damn right.” He wasn’t wearing a coat, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold at all. “Doesn’t mean I killed anyone.”

“What did you do, then? To get even?”

“Doesn’t matter. It didn’t work out anyway.”

“Come on, Warren. If you can’t give me a reason not to, I’m going to push this. I’ll find something, I can guarantee that.”

He turned to gaze off toward the O’Leary mansion. “It was pretty fucking ingenious.”

I waited. I knew he wanted to tell me, to brag about his grand idea that never got off the ground.

“That psycho cousin of his? He wasn’t put together right. Halfway into the beating he gave me, I knew it really didn’t have anything to do with sticking up for Eddie. That was just an excuse to do something he liked to do…a lot.”

Eddie had already filled me in on Hunter’s instability, made even more apparent by his strange behavior the night Eddie had killed him. “What’s your point?”

“My point is, all this guy needed was a reason. So when I healed up, I gave him one. Three hundred bucks if he’d kick the crap out of his own cousin.” He faced me again, the smirk on his face worthy of the devil. “He took the money and said he’d do it.” He snorted and folded his arms. “Then the guy has to go and fall down the stairs and crack his skull open. Waste of fucking money.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. While still crazy, Warren’s story explained Hunter’s goal that night. He planned on carrying out the job Warren had paid him for, only Eddie had nixed that plan and good.

“You’re a sick fuck,” I said.

“Like I said. Pissing blood. And another broken leg. Had to have my jaw wired shut and ate through a straw.”

“You’re not making a very good case for yourself. If you were that angry, you’d still want to get at Eddie. You mean to tell me when your plan with Hunter didn’t pan out, you just let it go?”

“No. I had some ideas kicking around. Then that shit happened with his dad going wacko and I figured he’d suffered enough.” He shook, the first sign that the cold was getting to him. “Mental issues must run in that family.”

“I’m going to check this story,” I said. “I find anything out of place, I’ll be back. And I might just have a chat with the master of the house here and let him know what kind of person his little servant really is.”

Warren raised his chin and looked down his nose at me. “You don’t want to start a pissing match with me. Just ask Eddie.”

“I would,” I said, my voice like dry sand, “If I could.”

Chapter 27

Back at the bar, back in my booth, no further along on either of my investigations. I’d pushed Warren with accusations, playing bad cops without the benefit of a good. Running over his responses, I still felt like he was good for it. Warren was an angry and violently capable man. And he’d made it clear he still hated Eddie despite what he’d claimed during our previous meets.

The only thing missing for this theory? Evidence.

And I was out of places to look for it.

Only I wasn’t.

Bobby had said he was at Eddie’s around the time he was killed. He said he had a picture of the last person to come out of his apartment before I showed up. Someone I would recognize. Which meant someone I had already questioned during my investigation. Which meant Amanda or Warren as the likely suspects. No way it could be Amanda. That just didn’t jive.

Which left our buddy Warren. And the easiest piece of evidence I could find would be that picture. Okay, maybe not
easy
. Still, it would help. If I could get that pic and hand it over to Detective Shanks, we might have a chance to piece together a legitimate timeline that puts Warren at the scene. It wasn’t bullet proof by any means. But it might make a good tool to crack Warren.

So once again, two separate investigations merged into one. All I had to do was find Bobby and that would bring both to a close.

A couple in their forties took the stage and the bebop opening bars of “You’re the One That I Want” from the musical,
Grease
, jib-jabbed from the speakers. They started in, and while they didn’t come close to the likes of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, they could carry a tune, and they both sang it like they meant it.

Paul made an unexpected visit to my booth, even sat down across from me. “You’re not drinking.”

I shrugged. “The buzz wore off. Too much work to get it back.”

“Offer still stands. You need me for anything?”

“I need you to tend my bar. Last thing I want is for you to get into my kind of trouble.”

“I’ve dealt with trouble.”

“I know. All the more reason to keep you out of it.”

He hitched one shoulder. “Suit yourself.” He slid out of the booth and took up his station behind the bar once more.

I leaned back and tried to let the karaoke victims entertain me and take my mind off things until I could start fresh tomorrow. I barely heard any of them—probably a good thing. All I consciously noticed was our missing fixture. Hal. The
High Note
wasn’t the same without him.

“I found her.”

My gut twisted at the sound of Bobby’s voice. A tremor rolled through me. “Bullshit.”

“I’m looking at her right now. Want me to take a picture?”

“I don’t know why you’re doing this, Bobby, but you touch her, I will kill you.”