Closure: An Eli Quinn Mystery Page 7

  “They got nothing on Bobby G.”

  “Nothing but a hunch.”

  “They pay him a visit?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Figured it’s better to not let on they’re thinking about him. See if he tries another one, maybe trips himself up.”

  “They mind if I pay Bobby G a visit?”

  “I figured you’d ask, so I asked. Not a problem, as long as you don’t mention anything I’ve told you.”

  “Let’s just say, and I’m spitballing here, that Bobby G is our guy,” I said.

  “I’ll call that a long shot.”

  “Helluva,” I said. “But let’s just say.”

  “My guy doesn’t think so.”

  “Your guy have a name?”

  “Yep.” She smiled.

  I waited, pushed a little food around on my plate. She didn’t say anything else. “Your guy say the Feds looked into Bernstein’s murder?”

  “Nope. He hadn’t heard of it until I mentioned it. He said the stolen TV made it sound mildly interesting. But he said call back if we find there’s some art missing and any sort of interstate trafficking of it. Until then he’s not interested.”

  I scooped the last of the baba ghanoush with pita, chewed and swallowed. Finished the second beer. Leaned back. Sam finished the tabbouleh, put the napkin in front of her mouth and licked her teeth—the finely chopped parsley was notorious for getting stuck. She took a drink of water and surreptitiously swished it around her teeth before swallowing. Well, not so surreptitiously.

  “Well, we know more now than we knew yesterday,” I said.

  “But we don’t really know much.”

  “Not much.”

  “So what’s the next step? Call GE and see if they’re missing any trade secrets?”

  “My gut tells me I wouldn’t get very far with that line of questioning. I think I’ll keep that in my hip pocket in case all the other trails go cold.”

  “All the other trails,” she said.

  “You have some parsley in your teeth.”

  “Damn! Thanks a bunch.”

  “You want me to not tell you?”

  She took another drink, set the water glass down hard, swished and tried to force the water through the spaces in her teeth, didn’t try to hide the fact, swallowed. Then she showed me her teeth.

  “Gone,” I said. I flashed a grin, ever so slight. She glared at me, but I’m pretty sure it was a mock glare.

  “So, again,” she said. “What’s next?”

  “Yeah, well. I guess I’ll go see J.D. Fish this afternoon. Maybe visit Bobby G in the morning.”

  “Poke around. See if anyone gets nervous.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Sounds like a brilliant plan.”

  “You think of anything better?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Chapter 10

  The southeast part of Pleasant’s gridded streets was the dustiest, grimiest. The streets were tidy by urban standards, but less so than the rest of Pleasant. It was light industrial mixed with wholesale: an iron worker, a place that dealt in stone, gravel and giant slabs of granite for countertops. Tucked in between those two businesses was a tiny space with an overhead garage door and no sign. I looked at the business card, compared it to the address numbers tacked above the door: 6496.

  I rapped on the metal door. A minute later it swung up, the sounds of chains rattling. Cooler air rushed out of the dark space. Standing in the shadow was a man of average height, stocky but not fat, straight brown hair hanging halfway down his forehead and covering his ears. He wore a dirty, faded Arizona Cardinals baseball cap, a blue button-down work shirt, dirty white carpenter pants and yellow leather work boots.

  “What can I do for you?” the man said, stepping into the sun.

  “J.D. Fish?”

  “Yep, in the flesh,” the man said. “You want it, I build it.”

  “Catchy slogan.”

  J.D. Fish didn’t have an accent, exactly, but his speech was lazy, the way speech sometimes gets when someone spends a lifetime in a small town.

  He smiled. “Thanks. I made it up myself. Kept me busy fifteen years now. Call me J.D.” He extended a hand. I shook it.

  “Eli Quinn,” I said. “I’m looking into the murder of Tinker Bernstein. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

  A shadow crossed J.D. Fish’s face.

  “You a cop?”

  “Private detective.”

  “Who hired you?”

  “Delores Bernstein.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s holding up pretty well,” I said. “Wants to know who did this.”

  “I don’t got any ideas. I guess you know I done some work for Tinker. Good man. I read about the murder. Hell, everybody knows about it. I called Delores, asked if I could do anything. She said no, thanks. That’s all I know.”

  I looked around the shop space. Everything you would need to build a house with was in there: two-by-fours, roof tiles, metal flashing, windows of various sizes, a toilet. Stuff was stacked precariously high and, along the walls, on racks all the way to the ceiling. It looked like a dangerous place.

  “That your only truck?” I pointed at a white Chevy with a ladder and some lumber strapped to the top of a rack, tool boxes mounted on each side. Big blue letters on the door said J.D. Fish, Handyman. You want it, I build it. The phone number inside the outline of a fish, address below.

  “Yeah, just the one. Why? You think I had something to do with this? Hell, like I said, Tinker’s a nice guy. He kept me busy, paid well. Why would I kill him?”

  “I’m just asking questions, trying to figure out what happened. You’ve been there. You’ve seen all the art on his walls.”

  “Yeah, that crap? Tinker has a great house. But he’s got lousy taste in art. Hell, some of that stuff doesn’t even look like anything. Rest of it just looks old. All crap to me.”

  “What do you think of Delores Bernstein?”

  “Don’t know her very well. Tinker gimme the work, and he paid me. She always nice, though.”

  “When was the last time you were in the country club?”

  “Look, buddy. I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt here, since you say Delores Bernstein hired you. But I got nothin’ to hide, and I don’t like you askin’ me questions like I’m a criminal. If I had anything worth tellin’ you, I’d tell you. But I don’t. And I got a lot of work to do.”

  It was natural for someone who didn’t do it to say they didn’t do it when you hinted that he might’ve. It was also natural for someone who did it to say he didn’t do it. In sum, I had nothing much to go on with J.D. Fish. I thanked him and left.

  Chapter 11

  The sky was on fire in the west, as a bank of puffy clouds hovered over the setting sun. It turned Pinnacle Peak and everything else, even the backyard, into an eerie but beautiful orange.

  The air was still. There was a faint, distant hiss and rumble from the Loop 101, a short few miles away. Now and then the faraway throaty roar of a Harley dominated for a crackling moment. I heard a small jet taking off from Scottsdale airport.

  With the mesquite charcoal firing up on the barbecue and some potato wedges in the oven, I pick a salad from the raised bed along the back fence. Spinach and chives, two medium-sized carrots, a ripe tomato.

  Jeopardy was playing on the TV in the living room.

  “Constantinople,” I said to Alex Trebek’s answer, “Istanbul.” I never bothered to frame my response as a question. That gave me a split-second advantage over the contestants, one that didn’t feel like cheating even though technically it probably was. “Easy one,” I said.

  I washed them, grated the carrots and sliced the tomato, put it all in another bowl. I ground some pepper into the salad and set it aside. I unwrapped two New York strip steaks that had been sitting on the counter an hour to get them to room temperature. I left one plain, sprinkled garlic salt and ground a lot of black pepper on both
sides of the other. It was a total fallacy that you couldn’t salt a steak before or during cooking. Whoever came up with that rule had never tasted one of mine.

  Solo got up from his dog bed, turned a few circles, sniffed the air, laid back down.

  I wished Sam were here. I didn’t want to admit the wish, so I tried to concentrate on Jeopardy and on making dinner. The wish wouldn’t go away.

  Sam had caught me staring at her when she arrived at Café Amir for lunch. I expected it to feel wrong, because of Jess, but mostly it didn’t. Mostly it felt good. The memory of Jess hovered over that moment, and returned now. It was a circle of emotions I was starting to think I might have to work through, eventually. Sam had been a friend so long, I was used to pushing aside thoughts of us being more than that. I was pretty good at pushing them aside, I was lousy at preventing them from coming. I wondered if maybe I should stop avoiding the feelings, if I could ever feel them without the heavy weight that followed them into my mind.

  I opened a Guinness.

  Flames were a foot above the charcoal chimney, loud sparks climbed several feet into the darkening sky. I dumped the charcoal into the barbecue, flattened the pile, then lowered the grill onto the charcoal and scraped it down. One key to a good steak was to superheat the grill surface. It went without saying that charcoal was better than gas. I did a number on the beer while I waited for the charcoal to settle in a bit. Then I raised the grill to about four inches off the charcoal and set the steaks on. I set the timer on my iPhone to four minutes.

  I took the dirty plate back inside and rinsed it in the sink, finished the beer, and opened a bottle of Two Vines Merlot. I sipped the wine and said “ottoman” to Alex Trebek, providing the question to an answer regarding home décor pairings. I dressed the salad simply, with olive oil and balsamic, and put it on the breakfast bar behind the sink. When the iPhone chimed I flipped the steaks and reset it for four minutes.

  From the barbecue, I could see the TV. “The city in Ontario, Canada formed in 2001 by the combination of cities, towns and unincorporated areas around Sudbury,” Trebek said.

  “Who the hell would know that?” I asked out loud.

  “What is Greater Sudbury?” said one of the contestants, a short, thin, severe woman from North Dakota who I had initially picked to finish second but who was now $4,200 ahead with Double Jeopardy nearly over. I cheered her on silently. The stuffy professor from Cornell who I’d figured to win was in second place, and the aerospace engineer from Pasadena had answered only three questions correctly, but lost all of his earnings with a wrong answer on a Daily Double.

  I wondered if Jeopardy ever didn’t exist, if Alex Trebek was doing the show on radio before television was born. I wondered how many other people in Pleasant were watching Jeopardy on this Friday night, and how many of them were pondering the radio angle. I wondered what Sam was doing.

  I went back inside, turned the oven to broil to finish the potato wedges. Took a drink of wine.

  My iPhone chimed again. I went back out, took the medium-rare steaks off the grill. I pulled the potatoes from the oven and scraped them into a bowl. I cut the unseasoned steak in half, carried it outside, slid one half into Solo’s bowl. Solo had followed and sat near the bowl, quivering and looking at me. “Eat,” I said. Solo lost all control.

  I put the other half of Solo’s steak into the fridge. Didn’t bother to cover it. Jess would have put Saran Wrap over it. My eyes got wet. Didn’t feel like succumbing, so I battled against the tears. Thought of Sam. That didn’t feel right. Scratched the side of my head vigorously, trying to erase the thoughts, shifted my attention to the TV. I refilled the wine glass and sat down to eat and await Final Jeopardy.

  Chapter 12

  Much of Scottsdale was posh and expensive. Other areas were humble, with older, modest homes and tired suburban streets. Appearances suggested that Bobby Gonzalez—Bobby G as he liked to be called—had found a modest home that allowed him to live in one of the nation’s more expensive zip codes without paying the high rent most people did. It was a 1950s tract model, squat and compact, nearly identical to the one on either side. Poorly tended palm trees lined the street, which was in need of repaving. Four-foot Cyclone fences surrounded most of the yards. A few had brown lawns. Most were gravel and cacti.

  It was six o’clock Saturday morning. I picked the time because it was daylight but early, and I hoped to wake Bobby G without causing a stir in the neighborhood. And I knew from my reporting days, when you were asking tough questions, you wanted to catch people off guard. The more alert or prepared they were, the more effectively they could lie. Catch them drinking, sleeping, or otherwise unsuspecting, and you had a better chance of getting a raw reaction, a slip-up.

  I parked the red Wrangler at the curb, in front of the house, and hopped out. Solo sat in back, quivering with eagerness.

  “Stay,” I said. “But stay alert. If I need you, you’ll know.” I petted Solo’s head and gave him a couple good slaps on the shoulder. If Solo had nodded in acknowledgement, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  I went up the concrete walk. The front door was wood painted white, cracking and peeling near the bottom. There were three diamond-shaped windows of opaque, amber-colored glass at eye level. I knocked three times. Waited a minute. Nothing. There was a bell. I rang it, and I could hear it, an old-fashioned, two-tone chime. After another minute, a short, thin man in flannel pajama bottoms and a wife-beater shirt answered the door. He held it partway open with his left hand, so that only the right half of him was visible.

  “The fuck,” he said. “It’s six in the morning. Who the hell are you?”

  “Name’s Eli Quinn. I want to ask you some questions about the Bernstein murder up in Pleasant.”

  Bobby G looked at me coldly. His eyes were nothing but black, the kind that don’t look like they could ever contain or express warmth. Bobby G looked sleepy. His hair, long and black, was a mess. But he was suddenly awake and on guard, his eyes open a bit wider, the pupils dilated slightly. Solo growled, just enough to be heard. Bobby G looked over my shoulder at the dog.

  “Don’t know no fucking Bernstein,” he said. He looked back at me. His eyelids had drooped a little. He looked sleepy again, or he looked like he was trying to look sleepy again. “What, you a cop?”

  “Private detective.”

  “Then get the fuck off my property.” He slammed the door.

  I could’ve gotten a foot in the door. Could’ve forced my way in. Could’ve asked more questions. But that would have been risky. Bobby G wasn’t known for shooting people, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a gun on a table behind the door, or shoved into the back of his pajamas. Anyway, I’d done what I came to do. If Bobby G was involved, or if he knew who was, the hook had been set. I needed only wait and see what happened. If nothing happened, then maybe my impression was wrong and Bobby G wasn’t involved. Maybe J.D. Fish was the killer. I still hadn’t ruled out Delores Bernstein, or a possible Fish-Bernstein connection. And there were probably other possibilities. But if there was one common thread among bad guys, it was that they didn’t like anyone stirring things up. So if you stirred, something usually happened, and it felt like I’d just stirred up a hornet’s nest.

  I walked back to the Jeep, told Solo he was a good boy, and drove off.

  Chapter 13

  I got back to Pleasant before seven a.m., nosed the Jeep into one of the diagonal parking slots in front of Lulu’s Grind, next to a gaggle of Harleys all backed in neatly, two to a slot. The sun was behind the building, the air was warm and dry and the patio was all in shade. Outside, a few seniors, some alone and some couples, tied up most of the tables. I knew one couple and waved. A group of serious-looking cyclists in matching Spandex, already back from a morning ride, had pulled the remaining two tables together.

  Inside, the Harley riders, none in Spandex, had all three booths against the wall. I didn’t recognize any of them. There were three empty stools at the counter. Beach occupied the fou
rth. He was drinking coffee. I sat next to him.

  “Hey, Beach. What you doing up so early on a Saturday?”

  “You called me and said to meet you here. Otherwise I’d still be in bed, waiting for my honey bunch to wake up so I could try and get some nookie. Instead I’m down here competing for a seat. Someone’s at my table outside. I guess those bicyclists don’t know that’s an official Sheriff’s Posse member table.”

  “Those road bikers are tough guys. They probably knew and just wanted to push your buttons. Nookie?”

  “You kids would call it something dirty.”

  Thankfully Lulu ended the conversational thread, coming out of the kitchen and pouring me a cup of coffee. “You early too,” she said. “I thought you sleep in on Saturday.”

  “You know me, Lulu. I don’t sleep that much.”

  “Maybe you need ta get out more,” she said. “Find a girl finally. Have life again. Sex help you sleep, you know.” She nodded her head up and down and wagged a finger side to side.

  Beach laughed out loud. I gave Lulu a grin. Nobody ever said Lulu was shy. She was always giving advice, preaching optimism, move forward, live this life, you never know what tomorrow will bring so don’t wait for it. Her attitudes were so stark, so refreshing, I wondered what shaped her—if her life in Tanzania had been really good or perhaps really terrible. I’d asked about her past a few times, but she always sidestepped the questions. “Tanzania is the past,” she’d say. “My life here now.”

  “What you eat today?” she said.

  “The usual,” Beach said.

  “Denver omelet?”

  “Yup.”

  I asked, “Can I have the scrambled with sun-dried tomato?”

  “You have anything you want,” Lulu said. She smiled. I wondered if there was more meaning behind that comment than just breakfast. But I knew Lulu treated everyone special. I just thanked her and sipped my coffee. Enjoyed the place way too much to ruin it by trying to find out what Lulu really thought of me. Besides, she and Jess had been so close. They went to the gym together, jogged together, shopped together, and leaned on each other. I knew Jess had told Lulu about our fights, and probably also about the good things in our marriage. I figured Lulu probably knew more about me as a husband than anyone besides Jess. Used to bother me some, but now I found it somehow comforting. No way I could contemplate dating her. Not that I was ready to date. Not that she’d be interested. Anyway, there was Sam now, and I had to figure all that out. My head felt like eggs being scrambled.