Whiskey Beach, Page 44

  interesting form of seeking knowledge and self-awareness.”

  “It’s cards.” He opened the center door and stepped into a skinny lobby and steps leading up.

  “I’m definitely doing a reading for you. Your mind’s too closed off to possibilities, especially for a writer.”

  “As a lawyer, I defended an alleged psychic a few years back for bilking clients out of a considerable amount of money.”

  “People who bilk other people don’t have a real gift or calling. Did you win?”

  “Yeah, only because her clients were wide open to possibilities, and deeply stupid.”

  She gave him a light elbow jab, but she laughed.

  On the second level, frosted glass doors advertised BAXTER TREMAINE, ATTORNEY AT LAW, something called QUIKEE LOANS, another outfit called ALLIED ANSWERING SERVICE, and KIRBY DUNCAN, PRIVATE INVESTIGATION.

  Police tape crossed over Duncan’s frosted glass.

  “I’d hoped we could go in, look around.”

  “Open murder case.” Eli shrugged. “They want to keep the scene of the break-in secure. Wolfe would be part of this. He doesn’t let go easily.”

  “We can go down and talk to the psychic, see if Madam Carlotta has any insight.”

  He spared her a glance then walked to the lawyer’s door.

  In the broom-closet space of reception a woman on the slippery end of forty pecked industriously at a keyboard.

  She paused, pulled the gold cheaters from her face so they dangled by the braided chain around her neck.

  “Good morning. Can I help you?”

  “We’re looking for information on Kirby Duncan.”

  Though her law office smile stayed in place, she eyed both of them through cynical eyes. “You’re not cops.”

  “No, ma’am. We’d hoped to consult with Mr. Duncan on a . . . personal matter while we’re in Boston. We just came by hoping he could squeeze us in, then saw the police tape over his door. Was there a break-in?”

  Her eyes remained cynical, but she swiveled her chair around to face them more directly. “Yes. The police haven’t cleared the scene yet.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “And another reason not to live in the city,” Abra put in with the faintest of southern drawls. Eli merely patted her arm.

  “Is Mr. Duncan working out of another office? I should’ve called him, but I couldn’t find his card. I remembered where the office was. Maybe you could direct us to where he’s working now, or maybe you have his number so we can call him?”

  “It won’t do you any good. Mr. Duncan was shot and killed a few weeks ago.”

  “Oh my God!” Abra gripped Eli’s arm. “I want to go. I really just want to go home.”

  “Not here,” the receptionist qualified, and added with a thin smile, “And not in the city. He was working up north, a place called Whiskey Beach.”

  “This is terrible. Just terrible. Mr. Duncan helped me with a . . .”

  “Personal problem,” the receptionist supplied.

  “Yes, a couple of years ago. He was a nice guy. I’m really sorry. I guess you knew him.”

  “Sure. Kirby did some work for my boss from time to time, and for the loan company across the hall.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Eli repeated. “Thanks for your help.” He took a step back, stopped. “But . . . you said he was up north, but there was a break-in here. I don’t understand.”

  “The cops are working on that. It looks like whoever killed him came looking for something here. All I know is he told the boss he’d be in the field for a few days. The next thing I know there’s police tape on the door, and the cops are asking if I saw anything or anyone suspicious. I didn’t, though you can get some of that here with people looking for help with personal problems.”

  “I guess.”

  “The way I hear it, it happened the same night he was killed, or most likely. So there wouldn’t have been anyone around to see anything. So . . . I can give you a referral to another investigator.”

  “I just want to go.” Abra tugged at Eli’s hand. “Can we just go home, deal with this there?”

  “Yeah. All right. Thanks anyway. It’s a real shame.”

  When they stepped out Eli considered trying one of the other two offices, but he didn’t see the point. Abra stayed quiet until they headed down the stairs.

  “You’re really good at that.”

  “At what?”

  “Lying.”

  “Prevaricating.”

  “Is that what lawyers call it?”

  “No, we call it lying.”

  She laughed, bumped shoulders with him. “I don’t know what I expected to find out coming here. The break-in happened either really late at night or early in the morning. No one would’ve seen anything.”

  “I got something out of it.”

  “Share,” she insisted as they got back in the car.

  “If we go with the theory Suskind hired Duncan, you’ve got an upper-middle-class type. A suit type, family-in-a-big-house-in-the-pretty-burbs type. Status is important to him. But when he hires an investigator he goes down-market.”

  “Maybe someone recommended him.”

  “I doubt it. I think he didn’t want high-end with high rates for two reasons. One, he didn’t want anyone who might have done work for anyone in his own circle. Two, and I think more telling, he’d be hit with a lot of expenses.”

  “He bought a beach house,” Abra began.

  “An investment toward the jackpot. And he attempts, at least, to hide his ownership.”

  “Because he knows he’s headed for a divorce. The man’s a worm,” Abra stated. “On the karma wheel, he’ll come back as a slug next.”

  “I’m open to that possibility,” Eli decided. “In his current slot on the karma wheel, he’s going to have legal fees—and he’ll go high-end there—child support, marital settlement. I’m thinking he paid Duncan in cash, to keep it off the books. No record of the outlay when he has to show his finances to the lawyers.”

  “He still had to break in, search, because an investigator’s going to keep records of clients, even cash transactions.”

  “Files, electronic or paper, copies of cash receipts, a logbook, client list,” Eli agreed. “He wouldn’t want to be connected as a client of an investigator hired to shadow me, who’d ended up dead. Very sticky.”

  “Very.” She considered. “He probably never came here, did he, to the office?”

  “Probably not. He’d want to meet somewhere like a coffee shop or bar. Not in his area or Duncan’s.” Eli pulled up at another building—steel and block.

  “This is where he lived?”

  “Second floor. Dicey area.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “That Duncan felt he could handle himself, wasn’t worried about his car getting stripped, his neighbors screwing with him. Tough guy maybe, or just one who figured he knew the score and how to play the game. Someone like that wouldn’t think twice about meeting a client alone.”

  “Do you want to go in, talk to some of the neighbors?”

  “No point. The cops would have already. Suskind wouldn’t have come here other than to go through the apartment. Not only because he wouldn’t have a reason to meet Duncan here, but because this area would scare him. South Boston’s not his turf.”

  “It’s not yours either, whiskey baron.”

  “That’s my father, or my sister the baroness. Anyway, I’ve done some pro bono work out of Southie. Not my turf, no, but not uncharted territory. Well, I guess we hit the highlights, or more like the lowlights.”

  “He was just doing his job,” Abra said. “I didn’t like him, or didn’t like the way he was doing his job the time he talked to me, but he didn’t deserve to die for doing his job.”

  “No, he didn’t. But you could consider he’s getting another spin on the karma wheel.”

  “I know pandering when I hear it, but well done. And I’ll do just that.”

&nbs
p; “There you go. Let’s go see how Gran’s doing before we head back.”

  “Would you drive me by the house where you lived with Lindsay?”

  “Why?”

  “So I can get a sense of who you were.”

  He hesitated, then thought, Why not? Why not do the full circle? “Okay.”

  It felt odd to travel those roads, to head in that direction. He hadn’t been by the house in the Back Bay since he’d been allowed to clear out what he wanted. Once he had, he’d hired a company to sell the rest, then he’d put the house on the market.

  He’d thought cutting those ties would help, but he couldn’t say it had. He passed shops and restaurants that had once been part of his routine. The bar where he’d often had drinks with friends, the day spa Lindsay had favored, the Chinese place with its incredible kung pao chicken and grinning delivery boy. The pretty trees and trim yards of what had once been his neighborhood.

  When he pulled up in front of the house, he said nothing.

  The new owners had added an ornamental tree to the front, something with weeping branches just starting to bloom in delicate pink. He saw a tricycle on the front walk, bright red and cheerful.

  The rest looked the same, didn’t it? The same peaks and angles, the same glinting windows and wide front door.

  So why did it seem so foreign?

  “It doesn’t look like you,” Abra said beside him.

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No, it doesn’t. It’s too ordinary. It’s big, and beautiful in its way. Beautiful like a stylish coat, but the coat doesn’t fit you, at least it doesn’t fit you now. Maybe it fit the you with the Hermès tie and Italian suit and lawyerly briefcase who stopped in the local coffee shop for an overpriced specialty coffee while he answered texts on his phone. But that’s not you.”

  She turned to him. “Was it?”

  “I guess it was. Or that was the road I was on, whether or not the coat fit.”

  “How about now?”

  “I don’t want the coat back.” He studied her. “When the house finally sold a few months ago, it was a relief. Like shedding a layer of skin that had gotten too tight. Is that why you wanted to come by here? So I’d admit that, or see that?”

  “It’s a nice side benefit, but primarily, I was nosy. I had a coat not that different once. It felt good to give it to someone it suited more. Let’s go see Hester.”

  Another familiar route, from one home to another. As the distance increased from the Back Bay, the tension in his shoulders eased. Automatically he stopped at the florist near his family home.

  “I like to get her something.”

  “The good grandson.” Pleased, she got out with him. “If I’d been thinking, we could’ve gotten something in Whiskey Beach. She’d have gotten a kick out of that.”

  “Next time.”

  Abra smiled as they went in. “Next time.”

  Abra wandered, leaving the selection to him. She wanted to see what he’d choose, and how he’d go about it. She hoped he didn’t go for the roses, however beautiful. Too expected, too usual.

  It pleased her when he went for the blue iris and mated them with some pink Asiatic lilies.

  “That’s perfect. It says spring, and boldly. Very, very Hester.”

  “I want her home before the end of summer.”

  Abra leaned her head against his shoulder while the florist wrapped and rang. “So do I.”

  “It’s good to see you, Mr. Landon.” The florist offered Eli a pen to sign the receipt. “Give our best to your family.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  “Why do you look so surprised?” Abra asked as they started out.

  “I got used to people I knew in my other life . . . we’ll say, either pretending not to know me or just walking away.”

  She rose on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Not everyone’s an asshole,” she said.

  And they walked out to where Wolfe stood by Eli’s car. For a moment, past and present overlapped.

  “Nice flowers.”

  “And legal,” Abra said cheerfully. “They have more nice ones inside if you’re in the mood.”

  “You’ve got business in Boston?” he asked, keeping his eyes on Eli.

  “As a matter of fact.” He started to step around Wolfe to open the car door for Abra.

  “Why don’t you explain what business you had in Duncan’s office building, asking questions?”

  “That’s legal, too.” Eli handed the flowers to Abra to free his hands.

  “Some people can’t resist going back to the scene of the crime.”

  “And some can’t resist beating a dead horse. Is there anything else, Detective?”

  “Just that I’m going to keep on digging. The horse isn’t buried yet.”

  “Oh, that’s just enough!” Incensed, Abra shoved the flowers back at Eli, then dug into her bag. “Here, take a look. This is the man who’s been breaking into Bluff House.”

  “Abra—”

  “No.” She rounded on Eli. “Enough. This is the man I saw in the bar that night, and the man who most likely grabbed me when I was in Bluff House. This is the man who almost certainly killed Duncan Kirby—someone you knew—and then planted the gun in my house before making that anonymous call to you. And if you’d stop being ridiculous you’d ask yourself why Justin Suskind bought a house in Whiskey Beach, why he hired Duncan, why he killed him. Maybe he didn’t kill Lindsay, but maybe he did. Maybe he knows something because he’s a criminal. So be a cop and do something about it.”

  She grabbed the flowers back, wrenched open the door herself. “Enough,” she repeated, and slammed it shut.

  “Your girlfriend’s got a temper.”

  “You push buttons, Detective. I’m going to visit my grandmother, then I’m going back to Whiskey Beach. I’m going to live my life. You do whatever you have to do.”

  He got in the car, yanked on his seat belt and drove away.

  “I’m sorry.” Leaning her head back, Abra closed her eyes a moment, tried to find her center again. “I’m sorry, I probably made it worse.”

  “No, you didn’t. You surprised him. And the sketch of Suskind surprised him. I don’t know what he’ll do about it, but you caught him off guard.”

  “Small consolation. I don’t like him, and nothing he does or doesn’t do is going to change that. Now . . .” She let out a couple of long, deep breaths. “Clear the air, settle the mind. I don’t want Hester to see I’m upset.”

  “I thought it was mad.”

  “Not that different.”

  “It is when you do it.”

  She thought that over as he turned the last corner to the Beacon Hill house.

  And this, she decided, was more Eli. Maybe because the house exuded, to her, the sense of history and generational family. She liked the feel of it, the lines, the landscape so long established, colored now with early spring bloomers.

  She put the flowers back in his hand as they walked to the door. “The good grandson.”

  And they went in to see Hester.

  They found her in her sitting room with a sketchbook, a glass of cold tea and a small plate of cookies. Setting the sketchbook