Death on the Rocks (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 1) Page 6

  “No.”

  “No other women? Or young girls?”

  “Honest to God, no.”

  “Who do you know with the initials LR?”

  “LR? No one. I mean, I can’t think of anyone.”

  “I may want to talk to you again, Alex.” I snapped the matchbook under his nose. Early Richard Widmark. “If this is bullshit, I will definitely talk to you again.”

  “Hey, I swear—”

  I walked back toward my car.

  I met Boog halfway. He looked at me with spite. And something else. Respect? Certainly not fear.

  I gave him back his knife.

  He took it without a word.

  CHAPTER 11

  I DROVE HOME AND climbed the stairs.

  My muscles were already stiff. I administered whiskey, neat. It helped.

  My sport coat and pants were spotted with Boog’s blood. I hoped the cleaners could get it out. My shirt was bloody and ripped. I threw it away.

  Clarence DeWitt had assured me that my investigation would be clean and easy. More manners than muscle, he’d said. So far, I’d been in two fights and watched his client rape a little girl. So much for legal counsel.

  I dug out Alex Dunne’s matchbook. I wondered if Cassandra O’Day was one of the women on the tape. Probably not. From Dunne’s description she was neither a young girl nor a burned-out whore. She was a new piece, so to speak, in the puzzle.

  I poured more medicine and dialed the number on the matchbook.

  “Hello.” A woman’s voice.

  “Is this Cassandra?”

  “This is Miss O’Day’s answering service. Would you care to leave your name and number?”

  “What’s her address, please?”

  “We’re not allowed to give out that information, sir.”

  I left my office number. It had a downtown exchange. Maybe Cassandra would think I had a real job and money to spread.

  Then again, she might not care. She might not call. If she didn’t, it would be harder to find her. Not impossible, just harder. I’d had enough hard for a while.

  The next morning I slogged through the Sunday paper and six cups of coffee. My body was stiff and sore. I wondered how Boog felt.

  I got dressed and drove to the office. No messages on the answering machine. Maybe Cassandra O’Day took Sundays off. Or maybe Alex Dunne had gotten to her first.

  When I got to Ship Tavern, Dunne didn’t look too glad to see me.

  “What do you want?”

  “Is that any way to talk to a customer? Give me an Irish coffee.”

  He fixed it and set it in front of me.

  “Can you remember anyone with the initials LR?”

  “No. And I told you all I know about Phillip Townsend.”

  “Did I say there was a connection between LR and Townsend?”

  “No, look, I just assumed …”

  I drank the coffee. Not bad. Alex Dunne moved away to wait on two guys down the bar. He was jittery. He dropped a glass. When he was through cleaning up the mess, I ordered another coffee.

  “Lomax, what do you want from me?”

  “I want you to tell me about Townsend.”

  “I swear to God I told you everything. He came in here a lot. We talked about this and that. He wasn’t happy at home. I told him about Cassandra and I gave him her number. That’s it. Okay, so he gave me a hundred bucks for it.”

  “Have you talked to her since yesterday?”

  “I haven’t talked to her for months. Since before Townsend called her.”

  “How often were they together?”

  “Often, I guess. I already told you.”

  “What did he say about her?”

  “He liked her. She was nice to him.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah. Look, like I said, he didn’t give me the details.”

  He moved away to wait on the two guys. I finished my coffee. There was nothing more for me there.

  I left.

  I felt like going places and doing things, but I didn’t know where or what, so I went home. God, I hate Sundays.

  I opened a beer and got out the chess set and played through a few openings and put it away and worked on a crossword and got another beer and turned on the TV and turned it off and paced the floor and got out my running gear and put it away and got another beer and went out on the balcony.

  The backyard was empty. So was the pool across the alley. The sky was deep blue turning purple. The air was cooling. It was very quiet. I saw Mrs. Finch’s black-and-white tomcat walk steadily away from the house. He stopped and looked sharply to his left. Then he passed through the hedge like smoke.

  God, I hate Sundays.

  The next morning I drove to the office.

  There were two messages. The first was a wrong number. The guy apologized to my machine. The second was a machine telling my machine about how to achieve spiritual release from all earthly pain and sorrow by simply. By simply what I’d never know, because the thirty-second message time ended.

  Nothing from Cassandra O’Day.

  I phoned her answering service and again requested that she call.

  For the next four hours I hung around and waited for the phone to ring. Then I went out and got a burger and fries and a Coke and brought them back to the office. No messages on the machine. The mailman came with a handful of junk. I threw it away. Then I took the wastebasket down the back stairs and emptied it in the dumpster in the alley. There were no messages waiting for me when I got back. I paced the floor. I stared out the window.

  When the phone finally rang I nearly knocked it off the desk.

  It wasn’t Cassandra O’Day.

  It was Norman Sturgis. He said he had to talk to me, but not over the phone. Twenty minutes later I was seated in his office. Sturgis’s pale, scrawny bird-hands skittered across his desk.

  “I’ve gone over Mr. Townsend’s books, as you requested.”

  He seemed reluctant to say more.

  “You found something,” I prompted.

  “Yes.”

  I waited. I watched Sturgis’s hands. They pecked around their desk-coop like a pair of tiny albino chickens.

  “It was a mutual fund,” he said, finally.

  “Mutual fund.”

  “Yes. A Dreyfus tax-exempt bond fund, to be specific. Moderately sized. Mr. Townsend liquidated it on April seventeenth. On the eighteenth the money was wired directly to his personal account at Colorado National Bank. I received notice of liquidation on the twenty-second.”

  “You said moderately sized.”

  “Yes.”

  “How much?”

  “Eighty-seven thousand dollars.”

  This was not my idea of moderate. “If you were notified nearly three months ago, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Because by itself, the liquidation was not unusual. I assumed at the time that Mr. Townsend would simply reinvest the money. At the end of April, I received a bank statement showing a check written for eight-seven thousand. Again, I assumed it was for a stock purchase or reinvestment in another fund.”

  “And it wasn’t?”

  “No. This morning I rechecked my records for a notice of a purchase that would account for the fund money. I could find none. So I went to the bank to get a copy of the check.”

  He handed it to me.

  It was a good copy on slick paper. Townsend’s signature at the bottom was precise and easy to read. The rest of it had been typed in.

  “Pay to the Order of PHILLIP TOWNSEND—Eighty-Seven Thousand Dollars And No Cents.”

  “He cashed it,” Sturgis said. “Literally.”

  “You’re saying he walked out of there with eighty-seven grand in cash?”

  Sturgis’s chicken-hands had dug up a paper clip and were attacking it with abandon.

  “Yes. It’s most unusual. This morning I spoke to Mr. Teal, one of the vice-presidents at Colorado National. He’d handled the transaction. He said he’d been more than a
little surprised by Mr. Townsend’s request for cash. He’d complied, of course. There is certainly nothing illegal about cash.”

  “Even so, didn’t Teal question it?”

  “Yes, he inquired as to Mr. Townsend’s intentions. Mr. Townsend was vague. He said he was going to surprise his wife on her birthday.”

  “With a briefcase full of money?”

  “Mr. Teal was not in a position to question him further. He could only urge Mr. Townsend to return the cash as quickly as possible.”

  “And Townsend never did.”

  “No. I can find no record of the money. I can only assume, well, the worst.”

  “Which is …?”

  “He gambled away the money.”

  “I see.” What I saw was a possible blackmail payment. “Have you spoken to Mrs. Townsend about this?”

  “No.” His face lit up. “Do you suppose Mr. Townsend actually gave her the cash and she still has it?”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “Why don’t you let me talk to her?”

  “Yes. Yes, that would be best. I wouldn’t know quite what to say.”

  “For now, say nothing.”

  Sturgis’s chickens dropped the mutilated paper clip and pounced upon a hapless pencil. They worried it to distraction.

  “Is there something else bothering you?”

  “Indeed. It could be disastrous.”

  “What?”

  “My budget reports,” he said. “What will this do to my budget reports?”

  I left him with his birds eating shards of yellow paint.

  CHAPTER 12

  WHEN I GOT HOME I phoned Maryanne Townsend.

  Rosa answered.

  “The Missus is not home yet from Colorado Springs. She was spending the weekend at the Broadmoor.”

  “How nice.” And expensive. “Did she go alone?”

  “No. With Miss Jennifer and Mr. Krisp.”

  “Sounds like fun.” Jenny and Benny and the merry widow.

  “Would you want to leave a message?”

  “No message.”

  After I hung up, I got the videotape out of the safe and double-checked the postmark on the envelope. April 10. One week before Townsend liquidated the mutual fund.

  The question was, were the two events connected? I put it all in chronological order.

  In December or January Townsend meets and begins seeing a prostitute. Not long after that he performs sexual high jinks with two whores and a young girl. In mid-April he receives a videotape of same. A week later he withdraws eighty-seven grand in cash. Two months after that, in June, he agrees to meet with a mystery person, LR. Three hours after the meeting was scheduled, he spills his cranial contents down the side of a mountain.

  I needed to fill the gaps. And Cassandra O’Day could probably help me do it.

  I put the videocassette back in the safe and drove to the office.

  No messages. If O’Day didn’t call soon, I’d have to find her through her uncooperative answering service. Which meant going into debt to a certain cop and probably being asked a lot of questions I wasn’t prepared to answer and maybe being forced to pay off later in ways I might not like. Even then, the most I’d probably get would be a post office box where the service sent O’Day’s bills.

  The phone rang.

  “Is this Jacob Lomax?” A woman’s voice, one I’d not heard before.

  “Yes?”

  “Have you prepared for your death?”

  “What?”

  “Have you made arrangements for the final resting place of your earthly remains? If not, we at Crown Hill Memorial Park can offer you—”

  I slammed down the phone. It rang again almost at once.

  “What.” I was ready to tell her where to shove her earthly remains.

  “Jacob Lomax?”

  “Right.”

  “This is Cassandra O’Day.”

  “Oh, yes, hello.” I sat back in my swivel chair.

  “Did I catch you at a bad time? You sounded angry.”

  “Sorry. I’d just had an obscene phone call.”

  “Oh?”

  “Actually, I’m really glad to hear from you. I was beginning to wonder if you’d call.”

  “I received your messages only today, or I would have phoned sooner.” She had a throaty voice that some men find alluring. I was one of them. “You mentioned Alex Dunne. Are you a friend of his?”

  “Not a friend, exactly. I’ve been to Ship Tavern on occasion and Alex served me drinks. We talked about one thing and another. Your name came up.”

  “Favorably, I hope.” Her voice had a smile in it.

  “Very much so.”

  “I’m flattered. Alex knows some interesting people. Oilmen, and so on.”

  “Count me in.”

  “You have interests in oil, Mr. Lomax?”

  “You bet I do.” The only oil that interested me was in the street under my Olds. “Perhaps we could meet someplace and talk about it.”

  “Now?”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a bit early for dinner.”

  “A drink, then.”

  “That would be fine,” she said. “Do you know Besant’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you get an outside table and I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  I locked up the office and went home to put on a tie. Apparently, Cassandra O’Day still liked oilmen. The least I could do was try to look the part.

  I’d been to Besant’s once or twice. It wasn’t my favorite place, featuring as it did pasta salad and yuppies. It was the current hangout for local TV headline readers. Another point against it. It was on Eleventh and Lincoln, not far from my apartment. I drove anyway. It was too damn hot to walk.

  The place was nearly deserted. Empty tables, misted ferns, and pretty waitresses. It would fill up later when the nearby office buildings released their five o’clock hordes. I walked around the end of the oak-and-brass bar into the courtyard. I had my pick of twelve empty tables under Cinzano umbrellas. I chose one in the middle. A waitress brought me a Moosehead and a tall frosty mug. I was content.

  The courtyard was enclosed on three sides by high walls and a fence with thick vegetation that did a good job of keeping out traffic sounds, to say nothing of the riffraff. The fourth side of the courtyard was the restaurant proper, mostly window. I saw my reflection. I saluted myself and drank beer.

  It occurred to me that anyone sitting at the bar could watch me unobserved. I wondered if Cassandra O’Day was doing so now. Maybe this was how she screened potential clients. If she didn’t like what she saw, she could leave without a word.

  I finished my beer and ordered another. Cassandra O’Day was twenty minutes late. I was beginning to think I had failed her inspection.

  Then she walked into the courtyard.

  Alex Dunne had been right. She had class. And beauty. And an air about her that was disturbingly familiar.

  She was tall and slim, with fine blond hair and wide-set blue eyes. She could have been a model, except she was a bit too busty. What the hell, there are enough models in the world. She wore a peach-colored summer dress and an easy, open smile. She strode confidently to my table.

  “Hello, Jacob,” she said.

  I rose to greet her. We shook hands. Hers was firm and warm and dry. I hoped mine was.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “No problem.”

  The waitress brought her a Perrier, then left us alone, two old friends sharing an intimate table.

  “You don’t look like an oilman,” she said.

  “No?”

  There was playfulness in her eyes. She was really quite beautiful and I knew I’d have a tough time lying to her. It was difficult for me to lie to beautiful women. Not that I often got the chance.

  “No. You look like an ex-football player. Or a cop.”

  “My oilman disguise didn’t fool you?”

  She laughed with her chin up. She had a fine throat. And a go
od laugh.

  “Maybe if I’d worn a pinstripe suit and carried a briefcase?”

  “Not even then.” She sipped her imported water. “You are a cop, aren’t you?”

  “Used to be. Now I’m private. Am I that obvious?”

  “Let’s just say that I know people. And that I phoned Alex Dunne.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Not much. He said you seemed okay. But he sounded nervous. I knew something wasn’t quite right.”

  “Is it all right now?”

  “So far.”

  “You don’t mind drinking with a private cop?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Your profession isn’t exactly condoned by the legal community.”

  She put her fingertips above her left breast.

  “Lordy, Lordy, what would Mama say?”

  I smiled.

  Two young businessmen, the first of the after-work crowd, came into the courtyard. They stared openly at Cassandra and sat a few tables away. I had an unexpected feeling of jealousy or protectiveness or some damn thing. Perhaps because she reminded me of someone I knew. Had known.

  “If you were suspicious, why did you come here?” I asked her.

  “Mostly curiosity. I admit I studied you for a few minutes before I came outside. You looked … interesting.”

  “Thanks, I suppose.”

  “Now it’s my turn to ask. Why did you want to meet me? Assuming that you don’t condone my profession.”

  “I need information.”

  “Information about what?” Her smile began to fade.

  “One of your, ah, ex-clients. Phillip Townsend.”

  “My relationships with gentlemen are confidential.”

  “I’m prepared to pay.”

  “It’s not a question of money.” Her smile was gone and her voice was firm. “It’s a question of principles.”

  “Since when do whores have principles?” I said and regretted it at once.

  “I misjudged you, Mr. Lomax,” she said tightly.

  “I’m sorry. I had no right to say that.”

  “Thank you for the drink.”

  She started to get up. I put my hand on hers.

  “I apologize. Really. Stay a few minutes.”

  “I think not.”

  She pulled away, getting out of her chair. I stood and grabbed her wrist. Gently, but firmly.

  “Let go.”