Your Chariot Awaits (15 page)

As I was getting into the SUV, I asked, “Has Matt ever been married?”

“He gave it a try back in his twenties. Lasted about a year, I think. He's forty now, but he seems to prefer his boat to the ladies.”

I nodded. “Figures.”

“Although his ol' Dad here doesn't necessarily feel the same way,” Fitz said and winked again.

Again, no clue as to why he was seeing a lawyer. As I pulled out of the parking lot, my imagination busily supplied every-thing from lady-friend complications to drinking-and-driving problems.

THE TRIP TO Sea-Tac turned out to be easier than I expected. Traffic was heavy, but there weren't any bad accidents or big snarls. I parked, followed Fitz's directions, and held up my sign. Three chattering couples rushed over. They retrieved their luggage while I went out to get the SUV, and then I picked them up right outside the door. They asked a lot of questions about the boat and the San Juan Islands, some of which I could answer. Their enthusiasm was catching, and I found myself wishing I were going along.

Back at the marina, I dropped them off, collected a generous check from Matt, and picked up my Toyota. Fitz wasn't around. I'd spend the afternoon getting that résumé whipped into shape, I decided.

But an unfamiliar car was parked at the end of my walkway when I got home, and an unfamiliar man stood at my front door.

14

H
e was stocky, brown haired, plain looking, wearing tan slacks, a pale blue knit shirt, and sunglasses. Nothing threatening look-ing about him, but considering all that happened lately, I felt wary. Rather than jumping out to meet him as I might have a few days ago, I cautiously rolled the window down partway.

“Are you looking for someone?” I called.

“Andi McConnell, I think. I'd like to talk to her.”

I was tempted to say, “She moved away,” and burn rubber getting out of there. But I didn't, of course. I may be paranoid, but I seem to be stuck with a built-in politeness to strangers. So I said warily, “I'm Andi McConnell.”

He took off his sunglasses as he walked up to the car. Without them I could see the fortyfiveish lines around his blue eyes. Studious looking. Crime investigator? Intellectual murderer?

“I hope you don't mind my coming here. I'm Ryan Norton, Jerry's brother.”

I peered at him in surprise as I rolled the window on down. “No, of course not. I . . . I'm so sorry about Jerry.”

“Could I talk to you for a minute? Ask a few questions?”

“How did you know to come here?”

He grimaced lightly. “The police haven't been eager to tell me much, but I did get out of them that this was where his body was found. In a limousine belonging to you?”

It came out a question rather than a statement, his doubt about the limousine obvious. His quick, surreptitious glance took in the non-limousine-status neighborhood. Moose was barking again, his black-on-white spots bouncing up and down behind the fence.

“Yes. In the trunk of my limousine. Long story about the limo and me,” I added, figuring he didn't need to know all about Uncle Ned.

I made a quick decision. Ryan Norton didn't look like this year's serial murderer. In fact, he looked tired and sad and harried. I wasn't trusting enough to invite him inside, but I said, “Would you like to sit over there on the bench in the shade? We can have some sodas or lemonade while we talk.”

“That's very nice of you. Thank you. It's been a difficult couple of days.”

I opened the door and slid out of the car. “Except there's one thing you should know—it may change your mind about talking to me. The police haven't arrested me yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm at the top of their suspect list. I was, though I hate to use the rather juvenile term, Jerry's girlfriend.”

I thought he'd be surprised. Fitz might consider my age “prime time,” but I doubted someone Ryan's age would.

Jerry, in one of his more playful moods, had once told me I could make it as the Playmate-Grandma-of-the-Month, but I figured then—and now—that he was just trying to flatter me into a more cooperative attitude. Looking back, I'd also decided he'd probably viewed my resistance to his masculine charms as a challenge. Maybe that was part of what had kept him interested in me. In any case, all irrelevant now.

But, for whatever reasons, Ryan apparently wasn't surprised by the nature of our relationship. “I assumed that.”

“Although neither were we—” I stopped, brought up short by the only word I could think of, which wasn't really a normal part of my vocabulary. Then I just braced myself and said it. “We were dating, but we weren't lovers. It wasn't that kind of relationship.” I don't know why, but it seemed important to me that he know this.

Ryan looked as embarrassed as I felt. The only way I could have been more embarrassed was if I'd had to admit we were lovers.

“They think you killed Jerry?”

“They have their reasons for thinking it. Pretty good ones,” I admitted. “But if you still want to talk . . .”

A smile crossed his plain face, and in it I saw a tiny hint of a brotherly connection to Jerry's roguish good looks. “The bench looks safe enough. I'm willing to take my chances.”

“Have you seen Jerry's Trans Am? There's a good-sized dent in the door. I put it there. With a shovel.”

“Perhaps that's one of the things I should ask questions about.” He sounded curious, but in a good-humored, nonhostile way.

Except that once we were sitting on the bench to talk, a Pepsi in his hand and a 7UP in mine, I asked the first question. “Where are you from?”

“Jerry never mentioned me?”

“Your name, and that you were a younger brother, but that's about all.”

“I guess I'm not surprised. We weren't exactly close. I live in Denver. Wife, Marilyn, and three kids, Cory, Jeff, and Kristin. I teach junior-high science. None of which Jerry ever mentioned either, I suppose.”

“No.”

“Somebody in the sheriff's department called me about his death, and I flew in on Sunday and rented the car.”

I glanced at the car parked out on the street. A Honda Civic, gray, the boring kind of vehicle Jerry wouldn't be caught dead in. Then I choked on my soda over that thought, the truth slamming me afresh. Jerry had been caught dead in a vehicle, my limousine.

“Are you staying in Jerry's condo?”

He looked surprised. “No, of course not. The police are still—You do know the condo was broken into, don't you?”

“No! I had no idea.”

“The police must be keeping it quiet. Maybe it's one of those situations you hear about where the police don't tell everything because they figure it will help them catch the perp.” He smiled self-consciously. “My son is big on crime shows. There's often a ‘perp.'”

I couldn't recall Ed Montrose ever talking about perps. “Was anything damaged or taken?”

“The place was ransacked. The police took me in for a few minutes just to look around. I couldn't touch anything. Jerry's computer and printer, everything was gone.”

Was that why Detective Sergeant Molino had snapped to attention when I mentioned Jerry's Web site–design business? They must already have known his computer was missing, but probably hadn't known about the business.

“What about his CDs? He had a lot of them he'd burned on the computer.”

“I don't know. I didn't see any. Even his filing cabinet and desk drawers had been emptied. And apparently the burglars did it all without arousing any neighbors in the building.”

“It's one of those places that's big on privacy,” I said, remembering the few times I'd been there. “How'd the burglars get in?”

“Either a key or a very clever lock picker. The door and lock didn't appear to be damaged. Although that's strictly an amateur assessment, of course.” He frowned, ridges wrinkling his high brow and slightly receding hairline. “What I can't figure out is why they wanted all the computer stuff. It was a lot more bulky to haul off, and certainly not as valuable as a pile of cash the police said they found hidden in a bag in the toilet tank.”

“Maybe the burglars didn't look there, so they just took what was available. His equipment was all expensive, top-of-the- line stuff.”

“Could be. Although I got the impression the police thought the computer equipment was the main target.”

I thought so too.

Tom Bolton was on his deck, making no secret that he was watching us through his binoculars. I resisted the impulse to stick out my tongue at him and waved instead. “My busybody neighbor,” I explained.

“I thought he was going to fall off his deck watching me when I arrived,” Ryan agreed. He lifted a hand and waved too.

Tom was not fazed. He kept right on watching.

“Anyway, maybe taking the computer had something to do with his Web site–design business,” I suggested. “I've been thinking Jerry may have been dealing with some rather shady characters. How was the break-in discovered?”

“According to the police, Jerry had a cleaning lady who came in once a week, usually on Wednesdays.”

“Right. Consuela. She could get more housecleaning done in a morning than I could in three days.”

“She had a key to the condo. She usually came on a week- day, but she'd been down with a stomach flu and came on Saturday instead. When she let herself in and saw what had happened, she called the police.”

“Saturday morning. And he was killed sometime late Friday night or very early Saturday morning,” I mused.

I was thinking, a bit guiltily, that a break-in at the condo had probably been fortunate for me. It might be the main rea-son I hadn't been arrested yet. Surely it was connected with the murder, and the police hadn't figured out how I could have broken in and hauled all the stuff off when I was lying out there unconscious by the limo.

“It must have been the killer who broke into the condo,” Ryan said, his words echoing my thoughts. “The timing surely wasn't just a coincidence.”

“Right. I wonder if he was killed first and the condo then broken into? Or if the condo was ransacked and the computer stuff taken
before
he was killed. And then he was killed because of something they found in the computer files.”

“I'm guessing he was killed first, and then they got into the condo. If they'd entered the condo first, it seems as if they'd have just stayed there and waited for him to come home and killed him then.”

“Sounds reasonable. The thing is, I've never been able to figure out why he was here
—
and here in the middle of the night—without my knowing it. So I've wondered if he was killed somewhere else, and his body then brought here and put in the limousine.”

“But why would the killer do that? If they wanted to get rid of his body, why not take it out in the woods somewhere? It looks as if there's plenty of wild country around here where it might not be found for years. Why risk coming here?”

“Unless they were trying to involve me some way.”

“Strange.” He twisted the can of Pepsi on the thigh of his tan pants and gave me a sideways glance. “You, uh, want to tell me about the dent you put in his car?”

So I did. Although I left out the part about Jerry's sleazy attempt at “closure” and just said we'd broken up, and I was encouraging him to leave.

Ryan smiled at “encouraging.”

“I e-mailed Jerry to tell him I'd pay for the damage, but I never heard back. But if you'll tell me what the repair bill is, I'll pay it or reimburse you.”

“The police still have the car. So, we'll see. Don't worry about it.”

“I keep telling the police, I really didn't intend to chase him with a shovel. I thought it was a broom. But I don't think they're convinced.”

Ryan smiled again. “I rather think quite a few women would have liked to chase my brother with a shovel, or perhaps something even larger and more deadly. I love Jerry, but loyalty and faithfulness and sensitive breakups were not his strong points.”

“Do you know anything about any other girlfriends?”

Ryan shook his head. “No. I didn't even know about the Web site business until you mentioned it. I hadn't talked to him in . . . oh, well over a year, I suppose.”

I gave him what skimpy information I had about the business and added, “Do
you
have any idea at all who might want to murder him?”

“Living so far apart . . .” He shook his head again, then lifted his left hand and massaged his temple. “And as I said, we weren't close.”

I was curious about that, but he didn't seem inclined to elaborate, and I felt uncomfortable probing into their relationship.

Although I was thinking, if I was going to get anywhere figuring out who the killer was, maybe I'd better try to cultivate more of Fitz's nosiness.

“Although, when the authorities told me on Monday that he'd definitely been murdered—before that, on the phone, they were just saying he'd died under ‘suspicious circumstances'—one thought did immediately come to mind.”

“What's that?”

“That it might have something to do with his gambling.”

“Gambling! Jerry was a gambler?”

“You didn't know?”

One more thing I hadn't known about Jerry. Definitely the tip-of-the-iceberg kind of situation, what I knew about Jerry. “No, I didn't know anything about that.”

“Well, maybe he'd kicked the habit. But a few years back, he was really into it. He wouldn't admit it was an addiction, but it was. Sports, horses, anything, he'd bet on it. And when I saw the Indian casinos around here . . .”

“They're very strictly operated. Nothing shady going on there.”

“Maybe I'm mistaken, then.”

And maybe he wasn't. If Jerry was into gambling outside the casinos, something illegal, there was no telling what kind of unscrupulous characters he'd gotten tangled up with. Could his computer have held incriminating gambling records and names? Could he have owed some big gambling debt? But that didn't seem compatible with the fact that he'd had money hidden in his toilet tank.