Closure: An Eli Quinn Mystery Page 9

  “I don’t squeal. Now get da damn dog off me. I go.”

  Primal brain signals told me, in an instant, that one more kick could finish this guy. I could shoot him if I wanted to. I could unleash Solo. Those were the instinctual reactions you needed in a fight. But none of those scenarios would be pretty. And killing the Slav wouldn’t help me figure out who killed Tinker Bernstein. As the rational thoughts supplanted the instinctual ones, my heart rate began to drop.

  “Solo, heel,” I said. He did. But he kept growling. I knew what I needed to know, and it would be to my advantage if whoever sent the Slav didn’t know I knew who was behind it. Solo was a second slow in reacting, but he did as commanded. He backed up, sat next to me, put his teeth away, but kept a good growl going.

  I pocketed the .38, then reached out a hand, helped the Slav to his feet.

  “You used to box,” I said.

  “Fuck you. You broke nose. Finger, too, I think.”

  “Don’t feel bad. You did your best. You OK to drive?” The immediate danger had passed. I’d won this round. No reason not to be civil. It was my tournament experience—you go a few rounds, then you bow, maybe bump fists, no hard feelings. I wondered if it was a healthy tactic in the present situation.

  “Fuck you,” the Slav said. He was a man of letters. Just not many. He headed to his car. As he opened the door, he said, “This not over.” Solo growled some more. I just waved.

  Chapter 16

  Rubén González tinkled piano keys, from Cuba across time to Pandora through an iPhone into a crisp-sounding Bluetooth speaker half the size of a shoebox on the kitchen counter. Soup simmered, a creamed potato-spinach concoction I made up because all the recipes for creamed spinach included cream or corn starch. If you whipped potatoes in the blender with a little water, you could get the effect needed for a creamed soup base, and it’d be slightly less bad for you.

  I tore arugula into pieces, dropped them into two salad bowls. Sliced a ripe pear thinly and added the slices to each bowl, then sprinkled some crumbled feta on top.

  I opened a bottle of Horse Heaven Hills Merlot. Didn’t know much about wine, but for the price, this was a really good one.

  “This is robust, smoky. That work for you?”

  “Those are the two qualities in wine I admire most,” Sam said.

  After the big Slav drove off and I’d put the groceries away, I called Sam to tell her what was going on. She insisted on coming over. I didn’t resist. Some company would be good, and anyway, I wanted to tell her what I’d learned today.

  I poured two glasses. Set one in front of her. She sat at the breakfast counter behind the sink, her back to the small living room and the large sliding doors at the back of the house. Solo sat next to her, his head leaning against her hip. She rubbed his head and I swear he smiled. It was late for dinner, but she said she hadn’t eaten. I was beyond hungry.

  I put a bowl of baba ghanoush and some pita in front of her. She scooped some and ate it.

  “Not bad,” she said. “This yours?”

  “Made it earlier today. Eggplant is from the garden—first ones of the season. Here’s the olive oil I was telling you about.” I showed her a rectangular bottle. “It’s fresh, dated. Makes all the difference in taste.”

  “I think Amir might still have a secret ingredient he’s not telling you about, but this is very good.”

  Sam, always honest. I smiled.

  I got the half a piece of steak out of the fridge from the night before and took it out back and dropped it into Solo’s bowl. Solo waited for the command and devoured it.

  “You feed him steak every night?”

  “When I have one, he gets half of one. Then I give him the other half the next night. It’s why he loves me.”

  “I thought you’re not supposed to feed dogs real meat.”

  “Nothing wrong with real meat. Raw meat isn’t a great idea. And bones can be bad. And they need more than just meat. He gets regular dog food every morning. But I think some meat is good for him. Keeps him strong, healthy and looking good.”

  “I think Solo is one of the best looking detectives I know,” she said.

  I raised an eyebrow theatrically.

  “So start from the beginning,” she said. “What did you learn about that contractor, Fish?”

  “Nothing interesting, but he didn’t seem particularly evasive. Beach checked him out, says other than a couple traffic tickets and one drunk and disorderly, his record is clean.”

  “Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”

  “Nope. But he’s not looking like a prime suspect.”

  “And what did you learn from Bobby G?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “So he’s not our guy?”

  “I think he is.”

  Sam wrinkled her forehead, sipped her wine. I continued.

  “I’ve seen it before. I told him I wanted to ask some questions about the Bernstein murder.”

  “You subtle devil you.”

  “That’s me. Always a clever turn of phrase. So it’s six a.m. and he’s all sleepy. He got gruff, slammed the door. But I saw that thing I’ve seen before when you surprise someone, strike a nerve, and push them into a corner that forces a lie. His eyes got wide. Just for an instant. Only a trained detective would have seen it.”

  “Or an upstart private eye.”

  “Or one of those.” I swirled the wine in my glass, to see if it had legs. I wasn’t sure what exactly to look for, so I took a drink. The calming effect was surprisingly instant. I hadn’t realized, but adrenaline had been coursing through me at an elevated level much of the day. I took a second drink, and consciously pulled my shoulders back and down a notch. “So I’m pretty sure things are stirred up. I asked Beach to watch Delores. If she’s not the murderer, she could be in danger.”

  “Good call. Thank you.”

  I turned on the gas burner, put a small pan on and let it get hot. Poured in some olive oil, then added a handful of pine nuts to brown. I stirred them around. I got out two soup bowls, filled them, and put them on the counter.

  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I piss off Bobby G this morning and the muscle is waiting for me tonight.” I explained how the Slav had approached me, the clumsy punch, how I broke his nose, and how Solo put an end to the fight, while I got a jar out of the cupboard, measured in three tablespoons of olive oil, two of agave, two of balsamic vinegar, added a half teaspoon each of powdered ginger, salt and pepper. I screwed the lid on and shook it up. I left out the part about breaking a finger. I didn’t want Sam to think I was the brute.

  “So Solo saved your ass.” Solo wagged his tail, done eating and happy to be part of the conversation.

  “We’re a good team. But this guy was all muscle, no brains. It wasn’t much of a fight. I could have killed him easily.”

  “Listen to yourself, Quinn.” She sat up straight, put her hands on her hips, mocked being very impressed.

  I stood holding the jar of salad dressing. We locked eyes for a moment. I looked away first. “I didn’t want to. Don’t ever want to. But it’s not like I’ve been jumped by a hoodlum before. I wasn’t sure how it would all go down, but my mind took over. Everything was on autopilot. I guess being attacked kind of pissed me off.” I drank some more wine. It was a good wine, and I recognized two or three distinct flavors as I swallowed. I didn’t try to put names to them.

  “I think that’s an appropriate response,” she said. “This isn’t grade school where you’re supposed to avoid a fight with a bully who punches you, otherwise they’ll suspend you both. This is real life. A real bad guy. Eye for an eye, or something close to it.”

  “I had to stop myself though. My body was moving on to the next move, which would’ve put him in the hospital for a long time, at least, and my mind and body fought for an instant. Thing is, he’s lying on the ground, defenseless. It was all just an instant, before Solo got there.”

  “And that scared you. Your potential.”

&nbs
p; “Not then. But later. When I called you, I noticed my hands were shaking. That’s only happened to me one other time.”

  “After you collared Jess’ killer.”

  “And didn’t kill him.”

  “But wanted to.”

  “Yeah, with him, I wanted to. Only thing that stopped me was I’d never been in a situation like that, and something nagged at the back of my mind, something I couldn’t put a finger on, and I got confused, and so I didn’t do it.”

  “But this time was different?”

  I stirred the pine nuts as they browned. Had a sip of wine.

  “Yeah. I didn’t want to kill this guy.” I told my story to the ceiling, to the dark wood cabinets, to the dark granite counters, to the travertine floor. I didn’t look at Sam. “After I visited Bobby G this morning, I prepared myself mentally for the possibility that someone would try to scare me today or tomorrow. I thought about it, knew that to get to the bottom of all this, I needed to defend myself but not escalate the situation by killing someone.”

  “You kill somebody, the sheriff is back on the case, you’re probably out.”

  “Right. Especially since I don’t have a license. Not sure you know that, but you’ve pushed me into operating illegally.”

  “You can fix that.”

  “Yeah, I’ll deal with it after this is over. So anyway, I knew I just needed to let them know I’m not a wimp. I ran scenarios through my head all day. Visualized. Prepared. Then when it actually happened, the instincts took over. It’s amazing how calm I was. A bit like a machine. Afterward, thinking about that, it scared me.”

  “I think that’s all normal. You’ve trained for this since you were a teenager. Your body knows what to do. Your muscle memory gets it done. But you’re a good person, Quinn. You’re not a killer.”

  “But I think I could be if I had to.” I finished the glass of wine. Sam sipped hers. We looked at each other directly again.

  “I think you could be too,” she said. “It wasn’t necessary this time. He struck first, and he got what he deserved. Solo helped. You got the gun away from him. Your self control kicked in.”

  I poured myself a second glass of wine. Sam’s wasn’t ready for a refill.

  “Solo was right on the edge, too. I told him to back off and he did, but reluctantly. Otherwise he was mostly by the book. He got an A on responsiveness, and an A for position. A-plus on the baring of the teeth. But he flunked the bark. Only one, as usual. And like I said, he was a little slow to take his paws off the guy. I didn’t mind that though. It was like his instincts and his self control had the same struggle for balance as mine.”

  “The Dynamic Duo.”

  “What are Batman and Robin?”

  “Ha,” Sam said. “You watched Jeopardy last night.”

  “Category: Famous Pairs.” I had no idea Sam was a Jeopardy fan.

  “We missed it tonight,” she said.

  “It was a busy night.”

  “And you and Solo did well.”

  I dressed the salads and put the salad bowls next to the soups. The pine nuts were browned. I spooned half of them onto each salad. The salad dressing sizzled. I put the pan in the sink, came around the counter and sat down next to her.

  “Solo, in your place,” I said. Solo went to his corner of the living room, curled up on his dog bed. “Eat the salad before the pine nuts cool,” I said.

  She forked a bite, careful to get some pine nuts and feta, a slice of pear and a bunch of arugula. “Jesus Christ,” she said with her mouth still half full. “This is delicious.”

  “Maybe I should share the recipe with Amir,” I said.

  “Just leave something out,” she said. “Payback.” She took another bite. “Damn. Mmm.”

  I took out my iPhone, opened the camera app and showed Sam the picture of the Slav’s face. “Look familiar?”

  “Yeah, that’s, um … Yuri. Yuri something. It’ll come to me. Bouncer, muscleman, all-around tough guy. In and out of jail a few times. I ran across him when I was doing that series on the Ukrainian mob. They’re not very organized here, but they make their share of trouble. Never seen him look scared like this, but that’s definitely him.”

  “You recognized the scar.”

  “Yep, can’t miss it. Is that Solo’s muzzle?”

  I looked at the photo again. A fuzzy brown patch in the lower right of the photo was out of focus. “Looks like it.”

  “Boiko,” she said. “Yuri Boiko.”

  “He a shooter?”

  “Not known for it. Mostly muscle. Shooters have to be smart, or they end up in jail for life. Boiko’s not so smart, so he gets a lot of tough guy roles. If people back down, no shooter needed. He gets busted, he just says there was a misunderstanding, the other guy threw the first punch, we were arguing over a girl, whatever.”

  “That keeps him out of trouble?”

  “Sometimes. Not always.”

  My wine glass was empty again. My salad was almost gone. I hadn’t started on the soup. Sam had barely touched her wine. Or her food.

  “Eat,” I said. Solo’s ears perked up. Sam ate. Solo dozed off. I poured myself another glass of wine. Hers was close enough to empty that I refilled it just so I wouldn’t drain the bottle without sharing. We ate for a while in silence. It felt good to have Sam here, a foot away. The wine made me want to lean over, touch shoulders. I didn’t dare. My right shoulder felt like a magnetic pole, and her left shoulder was the opposite, and if they touched, it would be really hard to pry them apart.

  ***

  Sam rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher while I lit the gas fireplace in the back yard. It was a warm evening, no need for a fire. But I liked the fire.

  The slider was open and I walked back in. “Leave those,” I said. “I’ve got more to tell you. And a theory.”

  Sam ignored me, finished loading the dishwasher. I opened another bottle, this an Argentinian Malbec—cheaper but good enough—and filled my glass. Hers wasn’t empty so I took the bottle outside, sat down at one of the four cushioned iron chairs around the flagstone fireplace. Flames danced lazily on golf-ball-sized lava rock. Sam took the chair next to me. We were close enough to hold hands, but I steeled myself against that option. I was glad she sat next to me. I wouldn’t have to make eye contact. We both looked at the fire.

  “I had an interesting chat with one of the other guys who works the country club gate,” I said. “Guy named Martinson. Nice kid. Seems straight up. Turns out he’s a big fan of Tinker Bernstein, who was more talkative than Delores realizes. The kid—well, he’s in his twenties, married, has a son—anyway, he’s building a gaming computer and Bernstein’s been giving him advice. Apparently if you got Bernstein talking about his passions, he opened up. So I asked him to look up who was working the gate the night of the murder. Earl Johnson.”

  “He’s the pig we saw that day?”

  “Filthy dirty. And very interested in you, as I recall.”

  “Or interested in parts of me.”

  The wine fed some responses into my brain. I suppressed them. “It didn’t mean much until the kid tells me Earl Johnson and Tinker Bernstein were chatty, too. Earl’s into 3D printing. Martinson overheard them discussing it one day.”

  “What’s any of this got to do with art theft?”

  “We’ve been thinking of art in terms of paintings,” I said. “What about sculpture?”

  “Sculpture and 3D printing.”

  “And a stolen PC.”

  “So what are you thinking? They stole some 3D printing files, plan to make copies and sell the fakes?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure there’d be a lot of money in sculpture replicas. And how would you sell a bunch of them without drawing attention to yourself? But it’s one possibility, I guess.”

  “Is there another?”

  I stared into the fire. Took another drink. “I don’t know. But it’s interesting that the PC was stolen, and Tinker Bernstein doesn’t notice anything else missing, does
n’t have any tips for the sheriff, doesn’t seem nervous or distracted. Then three days later he’s killed. What happened during those three days? What’s the connection?”

  We both watched the flames flicker gently. My eyes were getting heavy. I let them close.

  “I better go,” Sam said.

  I opened my eyes. Wanted to stop her. Didn’t try.

  “You OK to drive?” I asked.

  “I had less than a glass. You drank the rest. You OK to be alone?”

  I searched the fire for an answer. Couldn’t find one. Didn’t look at her. Put my glass down. Pushed myself up.

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  Chapter 17

  I woke up groggy from the wine. Sun bounced off ripples on the swimming pool and tossed frantic baubles of light on the ceiling through the bedroom window. I looked at the alarm clock, which said 8:27. I hadn’t slept that late in weeks, maybe months.

  I hauled myself out of bed, showered and brushed my teeth. I put on jeans and a gray t-shirt and my trail running shoes—loafers weren’t the right shoes when you were fighting off bad guys. Breakfast was two eggs scrambled into some fried scallions and half a red bell pepper, finely chopped, with some cilantro thrown in at the last minute and a good amount of black pepper ground on top.

  I had two cups of coffee before dialing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. I didn’t know where else to start. I hoped to talk to a curator. After some runaround, I got through to Sally McKann, Senior Vice President, Programs, Marketing, & Business Development. I was surprised to get someone so high up on a Sunday.

  “Sally McKann,” she said. Not gruff, but businesslike.

  I introduced myself, said I was a private detective, explained I was looking into the bust of Ben Franklin, the one done by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon back in 1778.

  “Houdon,” she said, correcting my pronunciation.

  “Right,” I said. “Not Houdini.” Sally McKann didn’t laugh. Thought she should have. Maybe she’d heard that one before. Or maybe she wasn’t happy about working on a Sunday.