First Kill: An Eli Quinn Mystery Page 5

  “Get you a drink?”

  “No thanks.” It sounded good. The drink. But having one didn’t seem like a good idea at all. It was nine-thirty in the morning.

  Joanne Mack walked over to the bar, picked up a glass with half-melted ice in it, and poured herself what appeared to be a second scotch while I stood behind her and waited.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Quinn.”

  “Just Quinn.” I sat in a white club chair facing an oversized white couch.

  “If you were drinking, what would you have?”

  “Gin and tonic,” I said without hesitation. My mouth watered a little, thinking of the lime.

  She took a glass from a cabinet, put ice in it and poured a double shot of Tanqueray, opened a fresh bottle of tonic and topped it off, then cut and squeezed in a wedge of lime. Perfect.

  She walked across the room in no rush, her eyes on me. She leaned over and handed me the drink I didn’t want, lingered a moment so I could enjoy the view, this time the better part of both costly items. I kept my eyes on hers. They didn’t exactly twinkle, but they were active as hell.

  She settled on the couch. A glass coffee table separated us. Her robe returned to doing its job fairly well up top, but now it separated around her crossed legs to reveal most of one. I set the drink on the coffee table and returned my focus to her face. I sat on the edge of the club chair, elbows on knees. Didn’t plan to be here long. Trained detectives know danger when they see it.

  “Have you found my husband?” The enchanting voice still.

  “Not yet.”

  “Do you think you will?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Have any clues?”

  “A few,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask the questions now?”

  She smiled, nodded for me to go ahead.

  “When was the last time you saw your husband?”

  “When he left the house day before yesterday, around eight, to go to the conference.”

  “Anything unusual about him?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Nervousness. Rushing. Odd conversation or strange activity. Tea instead of coffee maybe? Fruit Loops instead of Corn Flakes?”

  She blew a little air out in a near-laugh, sipped her drink. “No. Nothing I noticed. He finished the pot of coffee before I was up, as usual, and I had to make my own. He was glued to his computer, as usual. Then he showered, dressed, and left.”

  “No kiss?”

  “Is that relevant?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Well, then, none of your business.” She took a swallow of scotch and switched to a bored-sounding tone. “But yes, we kissed, said goodbye, yada, yada.” She drank her drink, pointed at mine, which I hadn’t touched. “Join me, Quinn.”

  I glanced at the gin and tonic, beads of condensation on the outside of the glass, imagined the taste of it, something like a the smell of pine trees, then blinked to clear my head. “Did you talk to him after that?”

  She sighed. “I don’t remember. Maybe. I make a lot of calls every day. And by then I was distraught. Not thinking clearly. You understand.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Do you usually talk to your husband during weekdays?”

  “Sure, when there’s business to discuss.”

  “Maybe you talked to him a little before noon?”

  She paused, just briefly. Her eyes danced. “Yes. I told the sheriff that. But how would you know?”

  I pulled a business card from my pocket and put it on the coffee table. “Private investigator, like I said. We find stuff out.”

  She nodded with scrunched lips, took another drink.

  “What did you talk about?”

  “I just called to see how the conference was going,” she said.

  “And what’d he say?”

  “Fine. Everything fine.” Her voice was losing some of its lustiness. I was wearing her down. “I told him I loved him and we said goodbye.”

  “Did you try to call him later?”

  “Yes, of course. I was worried sick.”

  “How many times?”

  She pulled her robe closed, like a curtain coming down on a show. Her voice flat now, angry. “Mr. Quinn, I’m not sure I like where you’re going with this.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Do you suspect me of something?”

  “Should I?”

  “Of course not.” She finished her drink.

  “I’m just asking questions, trying to learn everything I can about what happened.”

  “Well, I’m fucking offended,” she said, hint of a slur. “My husband is missing. I don’t know why. It’s not like him to skip off, and I’m worried. Now you come in and accuse me of, of, of what?”

  “I didn’t accuse you of anything.”

  “Well, good.” She slammed her drink down on the glass end table. “Because I just want someone to find my husband.”

  “We share the same goal,” I said. “How many times?”

  “What?” Her forehead was a squiggle of confusion.

  “How many times did you try to call him?”

  “Oh, Christ, I don’t know.” She waved a hand in the air. “Three or four. Several. Into the night.”

  “And he didn’t call you? No texts?”

  “I haven’t heard from him at all.”

  “Can you think of anywhere he might have gone?”

  She shook her head. “No. No idea.”

  “Has anything been bothering him lately? Money, relationship issues?”

  “Mr. Quinn. I’ve had enough of this. My husband is missing. God knows what’s happened to him. I’m out of my mind with worry. The sheriff is looking into it. And you’re upsetting me. I think you should go.” She picked up her glass, took a drink but realized there was nothing but ice left, and got up to pour another.

  Chapter 10

  The receptionist told me Madison was with a client when I walked into Mack Realty a couple hours later. It was a sprawling operation for Pleasant, with a dozen cubicles and as many private offices.

  “She’ll see me,” I said. What wasn’t clear was whether she’d still be my client after this meeting.

  “Not if you don’t have an appointment.” The receptionist was in his late-twenties, neat hair with the front gelled back in a perfect wave, a light blue seersucker sport coat, Sperry Top Siders and a bow tie indicating he had plans to be something but wasn’t. “Nobody sees Madison unless I say.” He stuck his chin out. I gave him a chuckle.

  I called Madison’s cell. She picked up on the first ring. No hello. “What can you tell me?” she asked.

  “Your receptionist has terrible taste in suits.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Trying to get in to see you. Seersucker here says I need an appointment.”

  “Last door on the left,” she said. She clicked off. Her door opened and she walked out with an elderly man. They shook hands and he made his way out. Seersucker glared at me. I grinned at him and shrugged.

  Madison’s office was spacious and well furnished. She closed the door, perched on the front edge of a club chair and motioned me to a matching one. I stayed standing, arms folded.

  “Strike two,” I said.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You lied to me again.”

  “I most certainly did not.”

  “You must’ve known your parents are swingers.”

  She looked away. Her head dropped and her shoulders slumped forward. She took a deep breath and let it out. “I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t tell you.”

  “Same thing in my book.”

  “Look, Quinn. Being a Mack isn’t easy.” She looked up at me, most of her composure regained. “My dad is one of the most prominent businessmen in town. Everyone knows him. He is the business. The business is him. My mother is, well, you know…”

  “An alcoholic?”

  Madison sighed, let her gaze drift up to the ceiling fan that twirled lazily. “Yeah
, that too. How’d you know?”

  “I paid her a visit this morning.”

  “She was drunk already?”

  “By the time I left, yes.”

  “She hit on you?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “And?”

  “I resisted.”

  “Wise.”

  “Would’ve helped if you’d told me all this before,” I said.

  “I didn’t think it was relevant.”

  “It’s not your job to decide what’s relevant. I’m the detective.”

  “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “You withheld important information.”

  “Why is their lifestyle important?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said.

  “But you think it is.”

  “Everything I learn is important until it’s not.”

  “Look, Quinn.” Her green eyes were at their warmest, which for Madison Mack was still frosty. She stood, fidgeted with her blazer, folded her arms and looked around the room as if searching for something. Finally she returned her attention to me. “The last thing I need is for people to find out my parents are swingers. It could be the end of Mack Realty.”

  “Rumors are out there.”

  “Rumors aren’t facts,” she said.

  “In this case they are.”

  “But people don’t know that.”

  “Some do,” I said.

  “Still. You can see how precarious things are right now. And we haven’t even talked about the fact that my dad’s still missing.”

  “About that,” I said. “You think your mom could have something to do with this?”

  Madison jumped back, eyes wide. “Mother?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Holy shit. I didn’t… I never… I mean, we hate each other, and… but I wouldn’t have thought she’d ...” She sat back down on the club chair, slouched, closed her eyes and used one hand to hold her forehead up. “I can’t believe she would do something to him. They’ve been together since high school. Sure, they have their problems, but they still love each other.”

  “About that,” I said. “I had a hunch, looked into it.” It’s amazing what you can find in public records, in this case on the Maricopa County Superior Court site. “Did you know your mom filed for divorce a couple months ago?”

  Madison shuddered. She didn’t look up.

  “You didn’t know.”

  She shook her head.

  “Sorry to be the one to tell you.”

  She lifted her head. Her eyes were wet. Her lower lip twitched. “You really think Mother has done something.”

  “Maybe a stretch. But she’s on my list of suspects.”

  “There are others?”

  I nodded.

  “Who?”

  “Not ready to say. But this whole thing is looking ugly. And it’ll probably get uglier. To be honest, I didn’t want to take the case in the first place. I’m even less enthused about it now.”

  “You can’t stop,” she said, wiping an eye and pulling her shoulders back. “We have a deal.”

  It was my turn to look away. Eli Quinn, private detective. Doer of good. I wanted to help people. Madison needed help. She would pay me. And then I could help others. For a dollar, if necessary.

  “No more lies?”

  “No more lies,” she said.

  “Three strikes and I’m out,” I said.

  “I promise.”

  Chapter 11

  Three New York strip steaks sizzled in butter in the cast iron fry pan. I sprinkled diced garlic around the steaks and ground some black pepper onto them. Four minutes per side and they were done. Some people needed a recipe for everything, but some of the best meals were just that simple. I slipped two steaks onto plates along with fresh-from-the-garden zucchini, which I’d quartered lengthwise and broiled with a spritz of olive oil and light sprinklings of salt, garlic powder and chili powder.

  Sam poured two glasses of inexpensive merlot and waited while I cut the third steak in two pieces and took half of it out through the sliding door into the backyard. Solo followed me out, waited for the command, then devoured his steak in the time it took me to walk back to the kitchen.

  “So Eli Quinn went to a swinger party.”

  “As an observer only,” I said.

  I’d told her about my encounter with Jimmy Mendoza and Bo Rollins, and their wives, and about their reaction when asked about Joanne Mack. I left out the part about Aahna Chaudhari’s secretary and her latest beau, Donovan Fisk.

  “I’d heard rumors,” she said. “But it’s never been more than that.”

  “Interesting lifestyle,” I said.

  “Works for some.”

  “But not us.”

  “No, not us.”

  I ate some zucchini. I drank. Sam sipped. “How was the observing?”

  I cut into my steak. Took a bite to buy some think time. Finished it with wine. “Parts of it were interesting.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Sam said. She smiled, picked up a zucchini strip with her fingers and downed it, then went to work slicing her steak.

  “You’re not a bashful eater,” I said.

  She shook her head, chewing.

  “I like that,” I said.

  “I like your cooking.” She wiped some olive oil from her chin and dove into the steak.

  I explained my brief visit with Joanne Mack, the revealing bathrobe, the casual hair toweling. And the parts relevant to the case.

  “She wanted to do you,” Sam said, cutting her steak a little more vigorously.

  “Little question,” I said. “And I think she usually gets what she wants.”

  “Within moments of having met you.”

  “Seconds, I’d say.”

  “Bold,” she said.

  “I am rather irresistible.”

  “No argument there,” Sam said. “So what happened?”

  “I showed tremendous restraint.”

  “Was it difficult?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Because you have me.”

  “A no-brainer.”

  I told Sam about the divorce filing.

  “See? Jealousy, anger,” she said.

  “And maybe a little retribution on the side?”

  “Maybe. Does Joanne seem like the vindictive type?”

  “Aren’t most people?”

  “When they feel wronged,” Sam said. “Sure. Most. And a controlling, manipulative personality fits nicely with vindictiveness.”

  “Which is not the same as murderous.”

  “But could be,” Sam said.

  “I love it when you talk psychology.” Sam was the best investigative reporter I’d worked with. Better than me. Her stuff matched anything The New York Times did, if on a more local level. And her Master’s degree in psychology came in handy in her line of work. In turn, it helped me.

  I finished my glass and poured another. Sam had barely touched hers.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “All this is conjecture. There’s little I know for sure.”

  “You know Joanne Mack likes sex.”

  “A lot,” I said.

  “But that’s not unusual,” Sam said.

  “Unless it’s too much.”

  “How much is too much?”

  “You’re the psychologist,” I said.

  “I’m a reporter dabbling in psychology. But I do know that the professional thinking is fuzzy on what qualifies as over-sexed, and what to call it. We used to call such women nymphomaniacs. The modern term is hypersexuality. And of course men aren’t exempt, but our culture gives them a pass, doesn’t try to attach labels to the male behavior. Anyway, like many aspects of the human condition, there’s a continuum.”

  “No clear good or bad, just differences,” I said.

  “Right. And the labels aren’t always helpful.”

  “So there’s no such thing as too much sex?”

  “I think it’s like drinking,” Sam said. “If
it feels good and doesn’t hurt you or anyone else, then what the hell. If gets in the way of your life, or if it hurts other people, then it’s too much.”

  I was about to take another drink. I set the glass down. I had no trouble not drinking, until I had my first drink. Then the second, third and fourth came easily.

  We finished dinner. Sam helped clean up. I poured the rest of my wine into the sink and felt good about it, promised myself yet again I’d cut back. I went to the slider and let Solo in.

  Sam followed, put her arms around me.

  Then she kissed me. My lip was still tender and a little swollen, but she didn’t seem to mind. I certainly didn’t. For years I’d enjoyed the company of Samantha Marcos, as colleagues then friends. We’d danced around the inevitable for months. Those were the thoughts that flitted through my head, along with a brief image of Jess, and then my head was clearer than it had been in a long, long time.

  Chapter 12

  Half a block from the Mack house, I parked at the curb just as the last light of the hot day faded, settling in to see what Joanne Mack might do, if anything. I drove Jess’ Jeep Cherokee, which had sat in the garage since her death. I should have sold it, but for whatever reason I hadn’t. The Cherokee was white, looked like hundreds of other SUVs in Pleasant. My red Wrangler wasn’t so good when I wanted to be invisible.

  The lights were on but I couldn’t see anything stirring in or around the home. So I waited. Nothing happened, so I tried to think about the case while I waited. Instead, my brain was stuck on Sam.

  Our first kiss was one of those moments that resets everything, puts life on a different course. There was before the kiss, and now there was after. I didn’t know what was ahead, what we’d do or where it would take us. I just knew, with zero doubt, that we’d do it together. For now, while we’d both wanted more than a kiss, there was something else I had to do. Sam understood. She always understood.

  Only a couple minutes had gone by. Still nothing was happening. I turned the Jeep’s stereo on and played some Buddy Guy from my iPhone. Buddy Guy begged me to turn the volume up, but I kept it low, since I was on a stakeout.

  We were halfway through Buddy’s Born to Play Guitar album when the garage door went up and Joanne Mack’s white Mercedes backed out. I knew it was hers by the photo of her on the side, and the words Joanne Mack, Mack Realty. The windows were tinted and it was dark out, so I couldn’t see who was driving. I made an assumption it was Joanne Mack. Sometimes detective work isn’t so hard.