The Red Hot Fix (30 page)

Dunfield’s eyes glazed over. He licked his lips. “How about I leave the front door open for you?”

Lydia gave a throaty laugh. “Now, that’s a good boy.” She snapped the sash free from his robe with one quick jerk and dropped it to the floor. “Here’s hoping the two of you get a good night’s rest … because you’re both going to need it.”

“Thanks for coming in.” Mort pointed to a chair.

Barry Gardener took his time looking at the photos and commendations on Mort’s office wall. “Coach said you talked with him and LionEl yesterday. At the arena.”

Mort asked if he wanted coffee.

“No offense intended, Detective Grant. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d appreciate getting this done as quickly as possible. I got a date with my team.”

“Blowing off steam after last night?”

Gardener shook his head. “Practice. We took a beating we didn’t need to. That’s our house. L.A. came in and handed us our asses. We’ve got to work out the bricks weighing us down. Los Angeles has the M.O. and the next game’s on their turf.”

“Papers say the team’s in a fog after Vogel’s murder,” Mort said. “Grief’s a tough thing.”

Gardener’s jaw clenched. “The men on my team are pros. You don’t get to this level if you can’t compartmentalize. We have a series in danger.” Mort got a close-up of the game face famous for shutting down opponents. “And I won’t let us lose.”

“Your compartmentalizing strong enough to close off your involvement in a murder?” Mort watched the soft spot on the front on Gardener’s throat start to throb.

Gardener’s voice was low and steady. “Come again?”

“Vogel ran every aspect of the Wings. Sure, his wife had the title of CEO and Wilkerson’s the coach. But it’s common knowledge Vogel was boss. That must make his murder all the more painful for those who worked so closely with him.”

“That what you mean by ‘involvement’? Words are money. A person shouldn’t spend them casually.” Gardener sat and his legs splayed out in front of him as easily as if he were in a poolside chaise, but his throat’s soft spot continued its salsa. Mort decided to push.

“I was there the game Vogel made the call to put you in for LionEl. Start of a whole new role for you, right?”

“My role’s what it’s always been. Help my team win.”

“Still, you gotta admit you’re the new star of the Wings. If I was LionEl, I’d be looking over my shoulder.”

Gardener’s face revealed nothing. “I don’t speculate on what my teammates may or may not be doing over their shoulders. Now, you asked me here for a reason.”

Mort crossed to his window. He kept his back to his guest for what he hoped was long
enough to incubate some tension. When he finally turned, he saw Gardener in the exact pose he’d left him in.

“What’s your business at the No Fly Zone?”

Gardener’s face wrinkled. “Where’s that, now?” His voice climbed half a pitch.

“Dive bar down on the strip. Watered-down drinks, washed-out losers, and a pharmacy of bad-for-you’s available in the parking lot. Doesn’t seem like the place for
Sports Illustrated
’s cover boy.”

Gardener inhaled deeply and pulled himself taller. “Am I under some sort of watch, Detective? Last I checked, there’s no restrictions on where folks like me can go.”

Mort shook his head. “You wanna make this about that, Barry?”

The two men held stares until Gardener pulled his head back and laughed. “No, I guess I don’t. Call it core paranoia. Comes with being black in a town as pale as Seattle.”

“What’s your business at the No Fly Zone?”

Gardener shrugged. “Probably stopped in for a drink’s all.”

“When you’ve got L.A. in a few hours? I’m not buying it.” Mort stepped to his desk, flipped open a file, and tapped the top page. “Especially since you were there with Lyndon Baines Johnson. He’s LionEl’s agent.”

“I know who he is.” Gardener’s irritation was obvious. “And where I go and who I go with is nothing to you.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Reinhart Vogel.”

The hottest story in the NBA narrowed his eyes and leaned back. “You fishing? That what this is about? What yesterday at the arena was about?” He snorted in disgust. “You’re looking for my boss’s killer and you start with LionEl and Coach? You get nowhere with them, so you’re working your way down the roster? I can introduce you to Lucky if you want.”

“Lucky?”

Gardener nodded. “The guy who drives the floor Zamboni. Maybe after you’re done trying to pin Vogel’s murder on the team, you can move on to the custodial staff.”

Mort’s inner temperature spiked. He struggled to keep his voice level. “We’ve got Vogel’s killer in jail. I’m interested in your activities at the No Fly.”

Gardener laughed. “You think because I make my living putting balls through hoops, I rode the short bus to school?” He shook his head. “You’re a homicide dick. You don’t stake out bars unless there’s a body in the alley.”

“For all I know, you and Vogel hit the No Fly one night. Maybe that’s where he met Trixie.”

“Don’t play me. We both know your serial killer didn’t do Reinhart.”

“And you’re basing this on …?”

“I’ve been around Vogel nearly a year,” Gardener said. “No way he shops in the streets. Not that he’s above paying for play. Mr. Vogel likes pretty, shiny things. The kind who look good and keep their mouths shut. No way he brings a road whore into his penthouse.”

Mort watched him and said nothing.

“What you got is someone taking advantage of the headlines. Anyone with half a brain knows it.” Gardener stood and looked down at Mort. “You don’t strike me as the kind of cop who’s looking to pin this on anybody other than the real deal.”

“And that’s not you?” Mort shot back. “You didn’t make any introductions to guys who can make bad things happen? Maybe looked the other way when cash traded hands? You expect me to believe you and LBJ were down at the No Fly for the jukebox?”

Gardener’s eyes hardened. “Finding Vogel’s killer is your job.” He nodded to the door. “And unless you tell me I need a lawyer, I’m going to go do mine.”

Mort waited a moment before turning away. Gardener offered his goodbye without looking back.

Ingrid Stinson-Vogel sat in her wingback chair and focused on the tomb-like silence of her home. If she held her breath, she could hear the steady ticking of the clock her great-grandmother had brought from Sweden as a young bride. It sat on a sideboard in the dining room, more than a hundred feet away, yet she heard it clearly. There was nothing to compete with it. No humming from the kitchen as Hildy prepared special treats for the man of the house. No booming laughter from Reinhart’s off-color jokes to the gardener. No heavy footfalls signaling her husband’s approach. A pang of guilt stabbed as she recalled countless times she’d longed for a break from the constant flurry of sounds and motions that forever accompanied the whirling force she’d married. She closed her eyes and remembered her grandmother’s stories of heaven.

Where are you, Reinhart? Are you safe? Are you as sick about the end of our story as I am?

She thought about that last time on the plane. They were flying home from the Wings’ implausible two-game sweep against the Lakers. Reinhart was tender in a way he hadn’t been in years. A flush swept over her as she recalled their passionate arrival home.

Did you know, Reinhart? Did you know that would be our last time?

Ingrid wasn’t a woman for daydreams, yet the thought of returning to that last flight was appealing. To stay suspended above the cares and crises waiting on the ground. To float high in the clouds wrapped in her husband’s arms forever.

Ingrid shifted her attention to her son. Pierce stood across the room, his back to her, apparently surveying the activity on the sound. But the slouch in his shoulders and the weariness in his spine told her he was as busy burying memories as she was.

“Come sit with me, Pierce.” She asked him again several moments later. Finally he turned and trudged across the thick rug, assumed his place beside her, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

“Pierce dear, we’ve got to call an end to this.”

He opened his eyes. She wondered if they were bloodshot from crying or from lack of sleep.

“An end to what, Mother?” His voice was flat.

She detested this side of him. Weak and indecisive. He didn’t show it often, but each time he did she flashed back to the last conversation she’d had with his father. A man who’d been too scared to stand beside her as she told her parents she was pregnant. Who’d asked her to do it
alone and report back. To let him know he’d be safe. She’d learned at seventeen how much stronger women are than men. Most men, anyway. She’d made a vow that if she had a boy she’d raise him as a Stinson. Strong and certain. Like her father and grandfather.

Like Reinhart.

She cursed the genetic nature she’d been unable to nurture out of her son.

“We both miss Reinhart desperately. But what’s done is done. The time has come to put aside our mourning and attend to the present. To the future.”

He sat silently. She shifted her voice to pleasant anticipation.

“Tell me about Chicago. Have the plans been much delayed with … since …” She fumbled for words to characterize her husband’s death and its aftermath.

Pierce’s eyes narrowed. “Reinhart’s murder? Is that what you mean, Mother? The only father I’ve ever known is dead. We can pretend it was cancer or a heart attack in his sleep that took him, but we both know that isn’t the case.”

Ingrid set her face to stone and wielded her stare until he squirmed and looked away. She wished she’d given birth to a daughter. She never understood the cloying sentiment young women had with their first pregnancies, hoping they carried a boy to continue the family line. Did her gender make her any less a Stinson? It was wrong to wish for boys. Firstborns should always be women. Secure the strong child first. Weak men were tedious, unproductive, and dangerous. She assumed weak women were the same, but knew they were as rare as strong men. Reinhart was strong. But Ingrid had long ago resigned herself to the reality of a fragile son. He’d need her guidance and protection always. And as women had done for millennia, she’d take care of him.

An image gripped her. Reinhart on the floor. Alone. Without a wife’s comfort or protection. “Save that tone for your warehouse workers. Keep it out of my home.” She heard the anger in her voice and consciously shifted to a gentler attitude. “Tell me what you need to move past this. Time away? Medication?” She hesitated. “I suppose we could find a discreet therapist if you thought it would help.”

Pierce turned his ashen face toward her. “Reinhart is dead. I don’t know why I need to keep reminding you of that. He’s gone and he shouldn’t be. And you ask me about my plan for expanding the business? Are you that coldhearted?”

Ingrid kicked him hard in the knee. He yelped, leaned forward to cradle it, and she kicked him harder. He leaped up and stumbled several steps before collapsing onto the sofa.

“Don’t ever speak to me of my heart, Pierce. Cold or otherwise. We’re Stinsons. We do not have the luxury of wallowing in our emotions when a misfortune has befallen us.” Her voice was as smooth and strong as the black silk dress she wore. “Stinson Industries has over two thousand employees worldwide. Rainy Day has nearly three hundred. Millions of dollars ride on
the outcome of the Wings’ basketball series. These responsibilities are ours alone, Pierce. Shall we have our employees’ lives disrupted because we are so absorbed in grief we fail to attend to the enterprise that puts food on their tables and clothes on their children’s backs? Should I issue a memo telling them they’re all on their own in an effort to avoid my son’s accusations of a cold and callous heart?”

She took a shaky breath, smoothed her hair, and calmed herself. “Our family has grown these companies through rougher times than these. You were right to take Rainy Day into new markets—”

Pierce interrupted. “Reinhart didn’t want me to.”

She huffed out a short exhale. “And he was wrong. Trust your instincts. Your vision is larger than Reinhart’s. More like my father’s. Pull yourself out of this self-pity, and lead these companies into the future.”

“But the murder—”

It was Ingrid’s turn to interrupt. “The woman who murdered Reinhart Vogel is safe in a downtown jail. Say it as many times as you need to. Allow it some comfort. She’s on her way to a lifetime in prison. She can’t hurt us.”

“But …”

Ingrid made no effort to hide her anger. “But nothing, Pierce. She’s killed a dozen or more times. Reinhart was simply her last. She’s none of our concern. Our enterprises are. Put this behind you. This Trixie creature killed Reinhart. Tragic things happen. Even to us. Accept that, move on, and see to your responsibilities.”

She held her son’s gaze, remembering countless times past when he’d tried to demonstrate his will with an old-fashioned staring contest. Now they locked eyes until he looked away and fell into the sofa cushions, crying.

She shook her head, stood, and left him alone with his weakness in the lovely, quiet room.

“Trixie wants you.” Jimmy slid into Mort’s office like he was on a skateboard. “DA says get your sorry ass down there. Figures she’s ready to confess.”

“She’s playing,” Mort said. “Getting her laughs making us jump. Besides, we don’t need a confession. We got the physicals. It’s the DA’s job from here. I’m concentrating on Vogel’s murder.”

Jimmy leaned against the doorframe. Bruiser sat beside him. “A confession sure would make it easy. Besides, we can walk and chew gum, right?”

Mort looked at the whiteboard. Four photos from Reinhart Vogel’s crime scene flanked a list of people he’d interviewed. LionEl King. Lyndon Baines Johnson. Felicia Fatone. Allen Wilkerson. Barry Gardener. Ingrid Stinson-Vogel. Yet he was no closer to finding Vogel’s killer than when they first got the call. Maybe a little break would give him some perspective. He stood and grabbed his suit jacket.

“Let’s go see what’s on Trixie’s twisted little mind.”