That Touch of Ink (18 page)

TWENTY-NINE

Tex jumped to his feet and reached for his service weapon. Grant held out his gun with his fingers splayed, then set it down on the corner of my desk. I stood up and backed away from the two of them until I was pressed up against the wall behind me. Grant held his jacket open and pulled a small black leather item from inside. He flipped it open with his thumb, displaying a star-shaped badge and an identification card.

“I’m Secret Service.” He held the badge holder out to Tex, who inspected it closely. “I’ve been tracking these guys, trying to get a handle on their counterfeiting operation for a while now.”

“Why were you at the bank? They’re counterfeiting bills that are out of circulation. I don’t think they’re planning to pass them,” I said.

“Counterfeiting is my area of expertise. Working at a bank is standard cover.”

“Why did you use a different name?” I asked.

“I wanted to establish a reasonable connection with you. I knew Turlington was here, and I knew he knew me from Philadelphia. I couldn’t risk you using my name and blowing my cover.”

“You’ve been undercover for two years? They just showed up a couple days ago.”

He didn’t answer. I suspected this man wasn’t going to be as forthcoming with information as I would like, but I pressed on.

“Why ‘Archie Leach?’ Why that name?”

“You have a movie still from
That Touch of Mink
on the wall of your office.” He stopped talking for a second, as if weighing how much he should tell me. “Archie Leach is Cary Grant’s real name.”

“I know that. But there’s a real Art Leach, at Turtle Creek Luxury Apartments.”

“That’s probably why the name was stuck in my head. He’s legit, aside from his income tax situation, and that’s not my problem.”

“Why did you charge me at the bank?”

“I wanted to get you somewhere where I could talk to you. I had to figure out what you knew so I could figure out damage control.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Sit down, Ms. Night.”

I wasn’t particularly fond of his tone of voice, but my knee had been throbbing for the past half hour, and I was even less fond of the feeling that I was the least informed person in the room.

I dropped into one of the Barcelonas. Tex sat in my chair. Grant leaned back against my cork wall of inspiration. A photo of the kitchen from
The Glass Bottom Boat
fell from the wall and floated to the floor by the corner of the desk. Grant looked at it but didn’t pick it up.

“I understand you watched a piece of film that Mr. Turlington hid in your car.”

“Yes.”

“That piece of film gave us a solid lead on these guys. The men Mr. Turlington indicated on the film strip had been running a counterfeit operation in Pennsylvania. I’m not at liberty to discuss that case with you, Ms. Night. What I can tell you is that Mr. Turlington disappeared for a couple of years. He turned up in Dallas and a man involved in that case turned up on his heels. That man is now dead.”

“Philip Shayne?” I asked.

“You know more than you should. I’m not sure I would have made the same decision to let you view that bit of footage.”

“The footage was intended for me,” I said. “Lt. Allen made the right decision. I had every right to see it.”

Grant turned to Tex. “You shouldn’t have let her get this involved.”

Tex’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing. 

Grant looked at me. “Do you have any coffee?”

“In the cabinet next to the desk. I’ll get it.”

“Not necessary, Ms. Night. Tell Lt. Allen where it is, and we’ll take it from here.”

Heat crawled from the base of my neck up into my hairline. I was being dismissed from my own office. I fought the urge to snap or say something I might regret. Regardless of the number of things wrong with the way Grant addressed me, I knew this was a battle I wouldn’t win.

I pointed to an electric Scandia coffee pot, a white plug-in-and-pour model most people forgot ever existed. I had bought it from a vendor in Canton who used it to hold plastic floral arrangements. She’d kept the plug and the internal components in a closet, never used.

“The coffee is in a canister on the first shelf. I’m sure you can figure out how to work it.”

I left the office and sat in a round white ball chair I picked up a couple of months ago. I pulled my legs into the ball and spun the chair so Tex and Grant couldn’t see me.

I didn’t need them. I needed time to think. I had to process the pieces of the puzzle.

I once likened the skills of a detective to those I used when designing a room. Look at what was there. Figure out what doesn’t fit and take it away. Determine what’s missing. Unlike the drama used in a makeover show where decorators clear a room and start from scratch, I like to learn a client’s personality by looking at how they live first. They might want me to redo a room that holds one lamp that they love, and that lamp might be the key to everything.

I had to find that lamp and turn it on. I had to figure out the key to everything.

The scent of coffee perked me up. The men were managing to do things on their own, which was fine by me. I was missing something.

I leaned back and closed my eyes and thought about what I’d been through in the past week since Brad had shown up. That had been the beginning of a rollercoaster ride that I seemed unable to stop. I’d found a body. I’d been chased from the restaurant. I’d been confronted in the parking lot outside of my building. And who had done those things? An anonymous person. A man in a mask. Someone who wanted to fly under the radar.

It didn’t help that Brad didn’t know the identity of the masked man either. It was almost too convenient. If Brad had admitted to knowing that other person, it would negate the entirety of his explanation of events.

Or…

Brad? Could he have been the man in the mask?

My eyes popped open. Did it fit, or did I just want it to fit?

Brad could have followed me from the restaurant because he had been with me at the restaurant. If he heard me leave the apartment, he could easily have pulled on a ski mask and slipped out the front, driven the brown sedan to the lot, and taken the briefcase out of the car. It was his car. He could have done anything with it he’d wanted to. The only reason I hadn’t suspected him was because of the masked man decorating my apartment. That couldn’t have been Brad. So Brad was working with someone else. Who? And why hadn’t I realized this before now?

Had I been blind all along? Was it because deep, deep down, in a place I hadn’t looked in a long time, I wanted to forgive him and believe the fairytale he offered me?

No. Tex was right when he said the person he knew, the Madison I was now, had been born the day Brad lied to me. The moment I turned away from him and skied down that mountain at Jack Frost ski resort in the Poconos, I’d established my independence. And the truth—the real truth? Despite my vintage wardrobe and mid-century modern business, I wasn’t willing to go back in time.

I’d been wrong when I thought this all started when Brad sent me the five thousand dollar bill. This had all started before that, when I was still in Pennsylvania. And it wouldn’t be over until I ended things.

I went back to the office where Tex and Grant were comparing notes. Grant stopped talking when he saw me.

“Lt. Allen, can I talk to you?” I asked.

“Ma’am, this is a confidential conversation. I think it’s best we keep you out of this from here on out,” said Grant.

I looked at Tex, then at Grant, then back at Tex. He and I had been through this before and I thought he’d back me up. He didn’t.

“I need to borrow your car,” I said to Tex, ignoring Grant. “My car was totaled. I have an animal in need of food and attention. If my help is not needed here, then it certainly is needed there.”

Tex studied my face for a few seconds and narrowed his eyes. I knew what he was thinking. He didn’t trust me. He was right not to trust me, but I didn’t want him to know that. I held his stare.

“All I’m asking is to borrow your car so I can pick up Rocky and take him to my apartment. If you want me to bring your car back here when I’m done, I can.”

“Give her the keys, Allen. We have my car now. Ms. Night, we’ll take it from here,” Grant said.

Tex tossed his keys to me. I caught them easily with one hand.

“I don’t know your exact title, Mr. Bonneville, but you wouldn’t have half the leads you do if it wasn’t for me, so good luck ‘taking it from here,’” I said. 

My eyes jumped to Tex’s face for a second. I forced myself to look away before he had a chance to read the secondary agenda in my own expression.

I unhooked the keys to the studio from my own key ring and set them on my desk. “Lock up when you leave.” Before they could stop me, I was out the door.

I drove Tex’s Jeep back to the bank. The brown sedan was parked in the lot. The trunk was open and empty. Hudson’s ring of keys was on the corner of the floor mat, half hidden by torn envelopes and rent checks. The scattered hundred dollar bills and the box to Brad’s watch were gone.

A piece of paper titled Referrals, with names and phone numbers, jutted out from under the pile of checks. A ball of wrapping paper rested by the center console, and a painting lay on the passenger-side seat.

I picked up the painting. It was a representation of a five thousand dollar bill with my image in the center where a president’s image might have been. My name was lettered below it. I turned the painting over. Above Hudson’s signature was one word: Priceless.

Someone had torn the wrapping paper from the painting and left the painting behind. In my opinion, he’d left the most valuable thing in the car.

I put the keys, referrals, and rent checks into my handbag and carried the painting with me back to Tex’s Jeep. I didn’t know where Brad went after the shooting with Grant. He might try to skip town. He might disappear again. He might do a lot of things to make it seem like we were over, just like last time.

Only this time, I didn’t feel like it was over. This time, I knew it wasn’t.

I drove the Jeep to Thelma Johnson’s house and collected Rocky. He squirmed in my arms and licked my cheek. I drove home and went directly to Effie’s apartment.

The door next to hers opened up after the second round of knocking. Mrs. Young peered into the hall. She wore an oversized Texas Tech sweatshirt and jeans. A piece of clear plastic imprinted with an XL was stuck to the side of her sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and a smudge of paint was on her nose.

“I’m sorry to disturb you. I was hoping Effie could watch Rocky for a few hours. I have to go back out for a bit.”

She stepped into the hallway and pulled her door shut behind her. “I’ve been wondering about you.”

“Wondering, how?” I asked. I backed away from her and tripped over Rocky’s leash.

“I’ve been wondering about why you’re never here. It seems to be a waste of rent money, if you ask me. And you have that beautifully renovated apartment too. It doesn’t make sense.”

Mrs. Young had been more inquisitive than my other tenants. She’d picked up on the attraction between Hudson and me, and now she was telling me she kept track of my hours. Something about her was off. I wish I’d looked at her file, at the background check Hudson had mentioned. Clean as a whistle, he’d said.

“Tech?” I asked, nodding at her sweatshirt.

“Years ago, yes. I found this when I unpacked. I’d forgotten how comfortable it was.”

I mustered up the closest facsimile to a smile that I could dig out of my arsenal of fake facial expressions. That sweatshirt wasn’t old. The size sticker indicated as much. And if she was lying to me about something as minor as a sweatshirt, she must have been trying to hide secrets far more dangerous.

“I really do need to be getting home. Like you said, I haven’t been here much lately, and I’m starting to forget what the place looks like. Busy with clients, which is a good problem to have. Sometimes I end up working late. You probably haven’t heard me return because you’re asleep when I get here.” I coiled Rocky’s leash around my right hand.

“No, I don’t think that’s it at all. I think you’ve been staying somewhere else, somewhere you don’t want anybody to know. Avoiding someone. I have a pretty good idea why,” she said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.” She reached a hand out and put it on my forearm. Effie bounded up the stairs and Rocky strained his leash to get to her.

“Effie, remember Lt. Allen? He specifically asked if you would be available to watch Rocky tonight. Can you do that?” I asked.

Effie’s eyes grew wide, in the way a college student who believes that a favor for a cop might pay off someday.

“Lt. Allen asked? Um, sure, I guess so. Are you helping him with another case?”

“Thank you. He and I are…” I paused, unsure if Mrs. Young was still in the hallway listening to me. I suspected, even if she wasn’t there, that her door was cracked and her ear was pressed to the opening. “… we’re going on a date tonight.”

“Is he coming here to pick you up?” she asked. “What are you going to wear?”

“I’m meeting him at the restaurant.” I flipped through my keys until I found the one that unlocked my apartment. “I really have to run, Effie, I don’t have a lot of time to get ready. Thank you, you’re a lifesaver.”

I headed into my apartment and dumped the bag of rent checks on the floor. I found the folder with Mrs. Young’s application and opened it up. I scanned past her last known apartment, past her work history, to her education. And there it was: Oklahoma University.