Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 02 - The Hustle (5 page)

A cold shot in my chest. Did I hear a corner peeling up?

“I told the cops back then, but they didn’t think it was a big deal. I didn’t either. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

His reticence set my teeth on edge, but I kept my cool. It was just a buzz I got when a case started to move—even a little budge—that killed my patience. “Go on.”

“A sticker.”

“A what?”

“A sticker. On my bedroom door. It was peeled off, left some of the backing behind and a sliver of the sticker itself.”

A sticker? From a kid’s bedroom door? Not exactly the clue of the century—or even the day. Still, a professional asks for every detail, no matter how utterly mundane. “What was the sticker of?”

He looked at the floor, hunched his shoulders. “A Guns N’ Roses sticker with art from the
Appetite for Destruction
album cover.”

I loved Guns N’ Roses, even all these years after high school. This was the first hint of any commonality between us. Not much, but enough to make Eddie Arndt feel a little less foreign to me. Unfortunately, the sticker didn’t seem to signify much else. “Where did you get it from?”

“A music store in North Hawthorne.”

“A music store. I remember when those existed. Back in the good ol’ cassette tape days.”

My levity didn’t reach Eddie’s side of the coffee table. He kept his head down and his shoulder nearly up to his ears. “Doesn’t help any, does it?”

I didn’t want to lie, so I didn’t bother answering his question. “There isn’t anything else you remember? Anything out of place? Sounds? Smells?”

“The smell. I remember that perfectly. I still smell it sometimes. I’ll catch a whiff while I’m driving or taking a walk outside. Once, I smelled it when I opened the fridge. I threw up for an hour afterward.”

I knew what smell he meant. The stink of death.

“The clock radio was on in my parents’ room. I even remember the song. ‘Heart Shaped Box.’”

Nirvana. A grim coincidence considering how Curt Cobain had exited this world with a shotgun in his mouth. Strange how music had tied a theme to that day for Eddie. The sticker. The music on the clock radio in his parents’ room…

Hold up a second. “You said Nirvana was playing on your parents’ radio?”

His Adam’s apple bulged for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, a little choked.

“Your mom or dad listen to alternative rock often?”

His brow creased. “No.” He looked up at me, eyes full of the wonder of a child who had witnessed a magic trick for the first time. “You think it means something?”

“I don’t know. It’s a weird inconsistency.”

“Like maybe the killer had left the radio tuned to that station.”

I held up a hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“But you’re right. They hated that kind of music. My mom forbid me to play anything like it in the house.” He snorted. “I just used headphones.”

“It’s odd, but so are the circumstances of your family’s murder. Who knows what was going through your father’s head—”

“See? You’re still assuming he did it. You won’t look at anything because you’ve already come to your decision.”

“I phrased it wrong.
If
your dad did it, he wouldn’t have been of sound mind. We can agree on that, right?”

His curled lip told me he didn’t want to go there. He didn’t exactly nod, but he jerked a hand as if telling me to get on with it.

“All I’m saying is, don’t pin your hopes on one little thing. It could mean nothing. Hell, maybe your dad secretly loved bands like Nirvana. You get me?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

Which meant, go to hell with your stupid theories, Ridley. I could deal with that. I got the same attitude from the folks who hired me to see if their spouses were cheating. When I showed evidence that they were, all of a sudden I was the bad guy for even suggesting such a thing. Never mind that they had hired me to find exactly what I had given them.

“I have one more question,” I said. The big one. The one I had obsessed over since I woke up that morning. “Why now?”

He started as if I’d shouted
Boo
! Not a good sign.

I waited him out. Nothing like an awkward silence to make someone start talking.

“I’ve always wondered,” he said. Then he stopped, as if that answered everything.

“You’re gonna have to give me more than that.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Same difference Liz made. And the sticker made. The radio. Maybe nothing. Maybe something.”

“There’s no special reason,” he said. “I heard you were a detective and I figured now would be a good time.”

“I’ve been licensed for two and a half years.” I leaned forward, planted my elbows on my knees. “You’re lying, Eddie.”

“So what if I am? Not everything in my life is your business.”

“What’s the big deal? Why can’t you tell me?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Which makes me think it’s that important for me to know. Do you want me to look into this or not?”

He clenched a fist. His pallor turned from sickly yellow to a mottled pink. “I just want to know the truth.”

“Then tell me the truth. Why now, Eddie?”

“Because,” he shouted. “Because he called me.”

His edginess had infected me again. My pumping heart made my breath come out in halted puffs. “Who called you?”

“The killer.”

Chapter 5

I was into my third gin and tonic, wondering where the hell Hal was, because I needed a good laugh. It wasn’t like him to miss a Friday night at the
High Note
, our busiest night of the week, where he could regal the locals with his ability to make up for his tone deafness with his amazing stage presence.

Besides Hal, the rest of the regulars—and a good amount of new faces—swarmed the place. The girls ran through their usual standards: “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Summer Loving” from
Grease
, and even “Baby Got Back.” For some reason the girls loved that song, despite its obvious misogyny. Guys, on the other hand, never selected that number. Karaoke is a strange land with some of the most alien terrain.

The guys picked their standards as well: “Just a Gigolo,” “Margaritaville,” “Achy Breaky Heart.” I hated most of these songs long before I had to hear them hundreds of times a month. Now, their lyrics lay scattered across the floor of my mind, impossible to clean up. I have no idea how my parents endured this for so long. Not just endured. Freaking loved every minute of it.

Ugh.

My only solace from the consistent off-key crooning broken occasionally (very occasionally) by real talent taking the stage was Eddie Arndt. The man with the worst luck I’d ever met. Who had dropped a serious bomb in my lap.

Because he called me.

Who called you?

The killer.

“You’re being conned,” I had said to him, not three seconds after his telling me this supposed killer had dialed him up on the phone.

He had given me a look like I had sneezed on his breakfast. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s funny. I got a similar phone call this morning. He claimed to be someone I’d very much like to meet…and throttle. But he’s a con man.”

Now he looked like he might eat his breakfast even after I sneezed on it. “Are you sure? Maybe this guy killed my parents and did…whatever happened to you.”

Desperation had a way of making the most absurd connections. I shook my head. “You ever hear of Occam’s razor?”

“I graduated from U of M. I’m not dumb.”

“Fine. Then you know the simplest answer is the most likely.”

“Most likely, but not for sure.”

“I can’t stop you from telling yourself that, but I think my theory’s better.”

He launched up from his folding chair. All that bundled nervous energy had finally overloaded his system. The pacing started. I noticed his path ran along a thinner section of the carpet. Must have been his pacing place.

“This is insane,” he said. “Insane. I’m going crazy.”

“Con men know how to manipulate hope. It’s their greatest power. Find out what a person wants more than anything, then charge them for the magic solution.”

He came to a halt, jammed his hands in his pockets. “He knew things.”

“So did my guy.”

“And you think they might be the same guy?”

“Same, or a partner maybe.”

His breath hissed out his nose like a pierced steam pipe. “How does he know this stuff about us?”

What felt like boiling swamp water rose in my throat. I had to force my words through my teeth. “A friend of my—former friend—got friendly with a grafter and let some things slip about me. If this is the same guy…”

I tried to remember last night, when Eddie showed up at the door. Who was sitting close by? Who might have been listening to the conversation? But, like most nights, all I could remember was the hacked up excuse for singing bellowing out the speakers. There weren’t that many in the place. I would have noticed anything strange. Except I wasn’t looking for it. Had no reason to.

“He might have overheard us at the bar. Maybe my guy was there to get more info about me and got lucky hearing your story.”

“Over all that music?”

If you wanted to call it that. “It’s the only thing I can think of right now.”

“What if my caller isn’t a con man? Maybe this is just a coincidence.”

“Occam’s Razor.”

He rolled his eyes and went back to pacing. With his hands stuffed in his pockets, he looked like a cartoon police detective worrying over an escaped evil doer. I hoped to God I never looked like that when I thought through a case.

He stopped, some light dawning in his eyes. “Our phones are bugged.”

“Have we ever discussed your case over the phone?”

His shoulders sagged. He hung his head and shook it. “No.”

“Could be this guy got your story from somewhere else. There’s still a whiff of coincidence there. A grifter hitting two guys in the same area that just happen to have—” I snapped my fingers. “When did your guy call?”

“Four days ago.”

Okay. I closed my eyes and tried to sort out the timeline. Eddie’s call came on Sunday. Mine came this morning, Friday. Sheila told me about her lover, Hersch Olin, this afternoon. But the way she made it sound, he came up from Florida—or called me from there?—to hit me up with the stuff he knew, spinning his sick little tale to flip my switches and make me vulnerable so I would give him money for whatever info he had. Had this guy really stopped to con Eddie before he got to me? Then how did he know about Eddie if he called him first?

Jesus, had Occam failed me? Was this really the biggest coincidence in world history?

“This doesn’t make sense.” I thought I’d said it in my head.

Eddie dropped back onto his chair and leaned forward like a greedy miser spying a Leprechaun’s treasure. “What? What are you thinking?”

I couldn’t tell him. My thoughts chased their tails, too fast for me to pin anyone single one down for long.

He waited, rubbing at the knuckles of one hand so hard his skin turned a raw red. “You look like you just swallowed a hairball…or an entire cat.”

I shot him a look, surprised. That was something I would say. Maybe I was rubbing off on Eddie. Poor soul. “I feel something like that, too.” I threw up my hands and eased back on the sofa. “It’s crazy, but I think it really is a coincidence.”

“Which means…” His voice cracked as if he had regressed back to puberty. He cleared his throat. “Which means my caller might really be the killer.”

I cut a hand through the air. “I didn’t say that. Most likely, yours is a con, too.”

“Even if he is, I still know my dad’s innocent.”

That morning’s headache came by for another visit. Why had I taken this case again? Oh, right. To distract myself from some dude calling me up, claiming he had my daughter.
How’s that working out for you, buddy-boy?

“I think we need to take a step back,” I said. “Let’s pretend I never got a call—”

“But you did.”

I held up my hands, palms out. “I said, ‘Let’s pretend.’”

He didn’t like the idea. He wanted the Grand Conspiracy. He wanted to tie loose ends of two different sweaters together and who cared if neither of them fit afterwards. I’m not a mind reader. But you didn’t have to be a detective either to see this written from his head to his pant legs.

He did concede, though. With a sigh and a nod, he folded his hands in his lap.

“Your caller is a con man.”

His folded hands broke apart. “We don’t know that.”

“Let me tell you how this works, Eddie. We run through possibilities. We talk it out. Get our thoughts out of our heads and in the air. So shut up and listen a second, will you?”

He did that thing with his mouth again. I started to see Eddie as a fish with crooked lips when he did that. His cheeks even puffed a bit.

“So, let’s
pretend
your caller’s a con man. What sort of things did he know about you and what happened with your family?”

“He knew where they…they were in the house. He knew about my dad’s gun, where he kept it. He said he had put the gun in Dad’s hand after killing them.”

“Let’s stick with what he knew, not what he claimed he did.”

Eddie swallowed, his throat clicking. “He said he knew I’d be at school. He knew exactly how they were killed, down to the number of shots fired and where…” He squeezed his eyes shut and one tear skated free down the side of his face. “He knew all of that.”

“So do I.”

He opened his eyes and glared at me. His breathing wheezed heavily through his nose.

“All of those things ended up in the papers. On TV. Anyone could have looked that information up.”

His face crumbled. He drooped forward until his head was almost between his knees, his hands curled into his hair. “I’m such an idiot.”

“No. You wanted to believe him. That’s how these guys operate.”

He straightened back up and looked at me with a new determination. “I still want to hire you. I want you to find this son of a bitch.”

I almost asked,
Then what?
But I could so easily put myself in his shoes, I had a pretty good idea what he’d like to do. And if I found the guy, I just might let him.