THERE WERE NO ATTACKS in the middle of the night. No ninjas sneaking in through the windows. No zombies slouching in through the front door. No creatures from outer space. Not even a rabid dog. It was a quiet night. Except for occasional sounds of snoring from the couch.
Yuri and I were both up before anyone else. He was making coffee when I dragged myself into the kitchen, checking my phone messages on the way.
“Anything from Denny yet?” Yuri asked.
“No, nothing.”
“Okay, let’s drink a cup of coffee and get going.”
“Shouldn’t we let Connolly check out Denny?”
“You want to call him and see if they’ve done it yet, and, if so, what they’ve found out?”
I made a face and reached for coffee.
“My guess is that, unless he’s a suspect, the whereabouts of a friend of a dead man won’t be a priority.”
Even as doubts washed over me as unsettling as a rogue wave, I prepared a cup of coffee to go. It was asking too much of us to sit around and wait without knowing what was going on. “You have his address?” I asked.
“Yeah, I got Adele to look it up for me.” He gestured toward my travel mug. “Don’t have a spare one of those do you?”
I pointed at a cupboard to his left. Just then Jason stumbled into the kitchen. “What’s up?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“You can go back to bed, Jason. It’s early.”
“Mom. I know that.”
“Yuri and I are going to be leaving for a while, but we won’t be long. Will you stay inside until we return?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m asking you nicely. And because…” I was trying to think of some reward when he finished my sentence for me.
“…you’ll let me choose whatever I want for dinner and stay up late and…” His young mind was struggling to come up with as many requests as he could think of that I would say “yes” to without argument. “And you’ll let me have a puppy,” he concluded.
“Don’t push your luck,” I said. “Just stay inside with Mara until we return, and you can be the king of the house for 24 hours.”
That seemed to satisfy him. He headed back to his room, undoubtedly thinking about what a king could reasonably expect as concessions and rewards from his dowager mother. I gulped down the rest of my coffee and went to put on some shoes. Five minutes later we were on our way. I called Mom and woke her up to tell her about being gone for about an hour and about my deal with Jason. She muttered something about needing her rest before agreeing to make sure the kids ate breakfast if they got up before we returned. Not that they needed a reminder; I just wanted to make sure someone kept an eye on them so they wouldn’t go out on their own.
“I think I told you that I promised Laney Knight I would call her today, after talking with you about her situation.”
“That can wait, can’t it?”
“I suppose.” Since we hadn’t come up with anything, I still didn’t know what I was going to say. Putting off making the call wasn’t a hard decision. “But remind me later to call her, okay?”
With little traffic at that hour, it didn’t take us long to drive to Denny’s rundown apartment building on a side street at the foot of a hill on the north end of the University. It was two stories with tiny windows looking out onto the street. There was an arrow indicating that the main entrances were around back on the alley that divided the block in half, with apartments on one side and a row of small businesses on the other. We managed to find a parking space on the street just beyond the building and were headed back toward the apartments when we saw someone in dark clothes and a hoody hurrying around the side of the building. We automatically picked up the pace.
As we rounded the corner, we saw the dark figure on the second-floor landing. It looked like he was stopping near where I estimated Denny’s apartment would be. I was already running when Yuri said, “Let’s hustle.”
The man glanced at us as he pushed open the door of the apartment and disappeared inside. The door clicked shut just as we arrived. It was Denny’s apartment. Yuri knocked, but there was no answer. “Call him,” he said. I was already dialing the number. Moments later I could hear a ringtone from inside.
“Hello?” The voice was low, tentative. Caller ID can be a disadvantage when you’re an anonymous caller.
“Hi, I’m Cameron Chandler. My colleague, Yuri Webster, and I are standing outside of your apartment. We are the investigators Jim talked with. Could you come to the door, please?”
“What do you want?”
“We want to verify that you are okay and that you are taking precautions.”
The door inched open. “Precautions?” Denny peeked out through the crack. “Do you have some ID?”
Yuri got out his ID and held it up. “Didn’t Jim mention talking with us?”
“Yeah, he did. But what are you doing here so early?”
“I left you several messages,” I explained. “When you didn’t answer, we got worried.”
“Worried? About me? Why would you worry about me?”
Yuri and I looked at each other. It didn’t sound like he knew about Jim. “Ah, have you by any chance been out of town for a few days?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Why do you ask?”
“For one thing, you haven’t been answering your phone.”
“Well, I didn’t pick up any messages because I left my cell here. I thought it was in my pocket when I left. But it wasn’t.”
“Then we need to talk. Do you want to let us in or come out here?”
He seemed reluctant to let us in, but he finally opened the door. The interior of his apartment was sparsely furnished and uncluttered. It had the look of someone who didn’t spend much time at home. I took a seat on a very large overstuffed couch in tired burgundy velvet. The velvet had been worn down in places, creating shiny lily pad shaped spots. The couch didn’t match anything else in the room. It looked like something left behind by previous tenants because it was too much trouble to move. Yuri sat down beside me and Denny took a chair across from us.
“So, what’s this about?” Denny asked.
Yuri nodded for me to tell him. Thanks a lot. “We assume you haven’t heard about Jim,” I began, waiting for him to acknowledge my assumption.
“What about Jim?”
“There isn’t any easy way to tell you,” I began again. He was starting to look worried. Before he could ask whether Jim had been in an accident, I blurted out the fact that we had found Jim’s body early yesterday evening and that he had been murdered. “We think it had something to do with the information Brian Norcross was compiling, but we don’t know for sure.”
“Murdered? Jim was murdered?”
Perhaps I’d once again been too abrupt. But no matter how you sugarcoat the message, the end result is the same. “We’re sorry to be the ones to tell you,” I said. “We know you were friends.”
“Jim’s my best friend,” Denny said. He sounded confused. “What do you mean by ‘murdered’?”
Before I could explain, he suddenly slouched down in his chair, his face rapidly losing color. “Stay here,” I said, standing up. “I’ll get you some water.” I nodded at Yuri to take over.
“Look, Denny, I know this is tough. It’s never easy to lose someone close to you. Especially under circumstances like this.”
“What happened?” His voice was barely audible.
“All we know is that Jim is dead, and the police are investigating.”
“But you two found him?”
“Yes, we had an appointment with him. To talk about Brian’s research.”
I handed Denny a glass of water and sat down again. He looked at the glass a few moments as if not recognizing what it was for before finally taking a sip. “Thank you.”
“We know this is not a good time,” Yuri continued, “but we need to ask you some questions.”
“Why?” he asked. “You aren’t police, are you?”
“No, we’re private investigators. We aren’t looking into the murder. We’re here to see if you can tell us anything about Brian’s research. And because we think you may be in danger.”
He sat there not saying anything, as if trying to make sense of what we just told him. We waited, feeling uncomfortable with the silence and our reasons for being there.
“Why would I be in danger?” he asked finally.
“Do you have a copy of Brian’s research?” Yuri asked.
“No.”
“Do you know if Jim did?”
“He didn’t say anything to me about having anything like that.”
“Do you know what’s in the research?”
“No, not really. Brian was going to share it with Jim and me, but, he hadn’t yet.”
“Has anyone tried to contact you in the last few days, someone whose name you didn’t recognize?”
He took out his cell. “I haven’t checked for messages,” he said.
“Would you?”
He checked for texts and messages. “Just you,” he said. “No one else.”
“That’s probably good news,” Yuri said. “They may not know that Jim was a close friend of yours.”
Denny looked suddenly concerned. “Ah, did I mention that my door was unlocked?” he asked. “Just now, I mean. I don’t remember leaving it unlocked, but it was.”
Yuri glanced around at the sparsely furnished room. “Can you tell if someone searched your place while you were away?” Denny and I surveyed the room from our seats while Yuri got up and started looking more closely at everything.
Finally Denny stood up. “Let me check the other room.” He came back moments later. “My laptop is gone.” He seemed surprised, as if he hadn’t quite accepted the fact that someone could consider him a target.
“I wonder why they didn’t take your cell?” Yuri said. “That seems strange.”
“Maybe they didn’t see it. It was under some gloves on the shelf above the coat rack. That’s why I forgot it.”
“Do you mind if I ask where you were?” Yuri said.
“My girlfriend’s. I went over there Sunday night. Her roommate went out of town. It’s a nice place. They aren’t students; they both have jobs. But I had to come back. I have a chem test this afternoon.”
We asked a few more questions but didn’t learn anything. Whatever Jim had been up to, it didn’t appear to be something he’d shared with Denny. Unless Denny was an incredibly good liar, which didn’t seem likely to me. I gave him Connolly’s number and urged him to get in touch. Then we suggested that he get out of his apartment as soon as possible and stay with a friend for a while. Yuri and I both gave him a card and told him to feel free to call us any time.
We were about to leave when there was a knock on the door. “Police,” a voice called. “Open up.” Yuri and I instinctively moved off to the left of the door, just out of sight.
“Ask to see some ID,” Yuri whispered as Denny approached the door. Denny opened it a crack and asked to see the man’s ID.
We could see Denny leaning down to check out the ID, but it didn’t seem like he had enough time to actually take it in before the man outside pulled his ID back and asked to come in. Well, more like he demanded that Denny let him in.
“Hey,” Yuri said suddenly, “I know that voice.” He motioned Denny aside and opened the door. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.
“Why, Yuri Webster, I could ask you the same thing.”
“Come in.” Yuri stepped aside. “It’s not the police,” Yuri said to Denny and me. “It’s Dick Devine, sleaziest dick on the block.”
Dick came in and looked around. He was a short man with a husky build that wasn’t quite the right shape for his off-the-rack jacket from some discount store. “You sneaked past me,” he said to Denny. “I didn’t see you come home.”
“You were probably busy peeing into a bottle,” Yuri sniped.
Dick gave him a finger and asked, “So, who’s your client?”
“I could ask you the same,” Yuri countered.
“Why don’t you two cut it out and sit down,” I said. “This is serious.”
Neither man looked particularly embarrassed by their behavior, but they obediently went into the living room and sat down. Yuri joined me on the couch and Dick took a seat on a wobbly wood chair with a thin Victorian print cover.
“What’s going on? Denny asked the group before looking directly at Dick. “Why are you spying on me?”
“I’m not spying. I was just looking for the right opportunity to talk with you. You are a hard man to find.”
“You’re here about the research, aren’t you?” Yuri asked.
“What research?” Dick said, unconvincingly.
“You do know someone was murdered for that information, don’t you? I asked. “Maybe even two people.”
Dick scoffed. “Murdered? Someone was murdered?”
“Yes, Brian Norcross a few days ago, and Jim Gossett yesterday,” I said.
Dick looked surprised. “Jim Gossett was murdered?”
“Yes, you know him?”
“Damned inconvenient,” he said.
“That’s one way to put it.”
“I was supposed to talk to him next.”
“About the research?”
Dick seemed to consider the question, then asked, “What’s your story?” He looked from me to Yuri.
“We’re looking for the research,” Yuri admitted. Before he could say any more, there was a knock on the door. “Police,” a voice called. This time I, too, recognized the voice.