Chapter 6
Clay’s smile faded in a flash. He looked both surprised and wounded by my words. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I thought you’d be glad to learn those guys had been swayed over to your side.”
“Well, I’m not. You had no business sandbagging me like this or trying to act as some sort of mediator here. I was doing just fine on my own. The last thing I need right now are a couple of politically motivated muckety-mucks breathing down my neck.”
“No one is going to be breathing down your neck, Mack,” he said, eyeing me curiously. “What’s going on? There’s something you haven’t told me about, isn’t there? Something to do with Gary Gunderson’s death?”
My phone buzzed then, and when I took it out of my coat pocket, I saw there was a text from Mal. Holy crap! Those are some high-powered folks you’re meeting with. Have they reamed you a new one yet?
I sent him back a quick I’m fine and then pocketed the phone. “How do you know Holland?” I asked Clay. “You guys seem like more than business acquaintances.”
Clay conceded my statement with a nod. “Our families have known each other for years,” he said. “Chief Holland used to live next door to us when I was a kid. He and my father were good friends.”
“And how did he react to your skewering of him and the police department in the articles you wrote about me?”
Clay gave me a sheepish smile. “He wasn’t pleased. But we’ve always had an understanding that our friendship will not influence either of us when it comes to doing our jobs. That means I get to say what I want in the paper, and he won’t show me any favors if I break the law, whether it be parking tickets or something more serious. And so far, it’s worked.” He chuckled and added, “I have the parking tickets to prove it.”
“You could have told me about your relationship with him when I first invited you into the Capone Club.”
Clay shrugged. “I didn’t see any reason to. It wouldn’t have influenced my assessment of you or the group in any way. I remained objective. Besides, when it comes to revelations, I’m not the only one who held back, am I?”
I ignored his taunt. “Why the sudden desire to bring us together? What do you get out of it?”
“The satisfaction of seeing two dynamic forces come together to fight crime in our lovely city?”
“Come on, Clay. Quit reciting superhero rhetoric. There has to be something in this for you.”
He studied me for a moment, chewing on his lower lip. “Yeah, okay, there is something in it for me. What you can do is phenomenal, and it has the potential to lead to some killer stories—pun intended. And I want the exclusive on it all. I want to be part of what you do, to witness it, and write about it.”
“I don’t want to be in the news, Clay. I thought you’d figured that out by now.”
“I can tell you aren’t doing what you do for the notoriety or any type of recognition. But you have to realize that what you’re doing is groundbreaking and newsworthy.”
“No!” I said, a bit more harshly than I meant to. Clay narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s going on, Mack? I know there’s something else you’re involved with that you haven’t told me about. Why are you and Malachi so intent on visiting odd places around town? And why is Duncan Albright sneaking into your place at all hours of the day and night?”
I opened my mouth to deny this, but before I could utter a word, Clay held up a hand and said, “Don’t even try to deny it or to convince me that you and Mal are an item. You may be fond of Mal, but you’re not really dating him. You don’t look at him the right way or touch him as often as you should. It’s unfortunate for him, because I suspect his feelings for you are real and run deep. But clearly you and Duncan are still an item. I get why the two of you might have been carrying on a secretive affair in the beginning in order to hide it from his superiors. But clearly Holland is okay with the two of you at this point, so why the continued subterfuge?”
I stared at him, mouth agape. “Have you been spying on me?”
“I’ve been doing my job, Mack. I’m good at assessing situations and reading people. It’s crucial to what I do for a living. And when you invited me to become a part of your group, I wanted to know what I was getting into. I’m fairly good at sniffing things out myself, just not in the same way you do. And I knew from the get-go that you were hiding something from me, holding something back. It’s my job to get to the truth of the matter, to dig down past all the superficial stuff on the surface to the real dirt beneath. I haven’t found out what that dirt is with you yet, but I know it’s there. I figured out that you and Mal aren’t really a couple, and that you and Duncan still are. What I don’t get is the need for Mal. Given that he’s an undercover cop, I suspect he’s pretending to be your boyfriend so he can protect you. What I haven’t figured out is what he’s protecting you from or why Duncan can’t do it at this point. But I’m betting Gary Gunderson’s death has a place in this story.”
I glared at Clay, too angry to say anything, my mind spinning as I tried to figure out what to do next. Clearly, I’d underestimated the man. He was far smarter and more astute than I’d given him credit for. Up until that moment, he hadn’t given me a reason not to trust him, but discovering that he had been sneaking around behind my back didn’t exactly help his case. What was his endgame?
He must have sensed my suspicions because he next said, “Mack, look, I admit I was skeptical about you in the beginning. But I’ve been won over. I’m not your enemy. I think you could be instrumental in making some great things happen in this city if you work with Holland and Dixon. And I’m willing to help you out in any way I can to make that happen. But only if you’re honest with me. If you’re going to continue to lie and hide things from me, then I’m going to have to do things my own way and do whatever I need to do to get to the truth.”
“Are you threatening me?” I asked him angrily.
He sighed, and doing so made him wince and place a hand over his belly near where he’d been shot. “I suppose it does sound that way,” he said, rubbing his stomach. “That’s not my intent. But I need to get to the truth. I’m driven that way.” He flashed an apologetic smile. “I can’t stop myself from digging any more than you can stop your synesthetic reactions.”
Despite my irritation with him, I sensed from his voice that his concern for me and his desire to help were genuine. I also sensed that he was being truthful when he said he wouldn’t be able to control his impulse to dig. “If I tell you everything, what do you intend to do with it?” I asked him.
He gave it a moment’s thought and then shrugged. “I guess it would depend on what it is you tell me.”
My phone buzzed, and I took it out and saw another text from Mal. You okay? Need me to come in? Are there more visitors?
“Is that Mal?” Clay asked.
I nodded. “He’s waiting outside. He’s worried about what’s going on in here.”
“Bring him in,” Clay said, surprising me. “Let’s lay the options out before him, too, and see what he thinks you should do.”
I liked this idea. “Okay. I will.”
I hit the speed-dial number for Mal’s cell, and he answered before the first ring had finished. “You need me?” he said.
“I’m okay, but I would like you to come inside. Clay has something he wants to discuss, and I’d really like to get your input on it.”
“Be right there.”
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and then shrugged out of my coat. By the time I had it off, Mal was knocking at Clay’s front door.
“Come on in,” Clay yelled. The effort made him wince and rub his stomach again.
Mal opened the door and stepped inside.
“Have a seat,” Clay said, gesturing toward the one empty chair. “Mack and I were just discussing our future together and how it’s going to work.”
Mal settled into the empty chair, eyeing Clay cautiously. “That sounds a little ominous,” he said.
“In a way, it is,” I told him. “Clay knows a lot more than we realized about what’s going on. He knows that Duncan and I have continued to see one another on the sly, he knows that you and I are a front, and he suspects that your presence is so you can provide some degree of protection for me. He wants to know the whole story, and if I don’t share, he’s threatening to dig around and find it, and then do whatever he wants with the information.”
Mal frowned at Clay. “Not cool, man,” he said. “I appreciate the fact that you haven’t blown my cover, and up until now you’ve been playing like one of the team. Mack and the others have treated you well. Now you’re going to turn on them?”
Clay squirmed in his seat, though I wasn’t sure if it was discomfort over what Mal had said or discomfort from his stomach wound. “Look,” he said, “I have no desire to hurt Mack or any of the others.”
“Why were Chief Holland and Tony Dixon here?” Mal asked. “Are you trying to shut Mack down?”
“Quite the opposite,” Clay said. “I convinced the two of them that she is the real deal, and I talked them into taking her on as a consultant.”
Mal looked to me for confirmation, and I nodded. “Did you agree to it?” he asked.
“More or less. I didn’t tell them no. I told them I wanted some time to think about it. It has its pros and cons. I need to weigh it all out, particularly with regard to the Capone Club.” I summarized the discussion that had taken place. “Assuming we work that piece out, I don’t see a huge downside,” I concluded. “They’re going to pay me, and the extra income would be nice. Plus, it will let me continue doing what I’m doing without fear of repercussions and without having to sneak around.”
There was the tiniest flinch of muscle on Mal’s face, and I sensed it was because he realized that the end to sneaking around meant the end of our time together.
“My only big concern at this point,” I went on, “is the other thing.” I didn’t need to elaborate. Mal knew I was referring to the letter writer.
“I’m on your side, Mack, I swear,” Clay said. “But I need to know everything that’s going on. I can help.”
He had helped with our last case, so much so in fact that he was probably the key person who led me to the truth. And he had gotten shot for his efforts. That did show a certain degree of dedication, I supposed. Plus, he already knew too much. I had no doubt the man would manage to get to the whole truth soon enough on his own.
“You might as well tell him everything,” Mal said, no doubt following the same train of thought I’d followed. “He already knows enough to hurt us, and I suspect it won’t take him long to dig up the rest, even in his present condition.”
Clay breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. “It has something to do with Gary Gunderson’s murder, doesn’t it?” he said. I nodded. “And is the death of that male nurse a few weeks ago related, too?”
My heart skipped a beat. The fact that Clay had made that connection was scary. “It is,” I said. “That male nurse, as you called him, was named Lewis Carmichael, and he was a patron of my bar as well as a member of the Capone Club. How did you make the connection?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Clay said. “And you’ve had too many deaths associated with your bar lately. The death of your father and the woman he was dating were explained once the culprit was caught. What are the chances that two additional people with relatively close ties to your bar just happened to be murdered within a short time for some random reason and by some random killers? I’m not a gambling man, but I’m betting those odds are long ones. And why are you and Mal here scurrying about town getting mysterious packages from people?”
“Oh my God,” I said, my irritation surging again, “you have been following and spying on me.”
“Sorry,” Clay said, not sounding sorry at all, “but I sensed early on that something was afoot here, something more than what appeared on the surface. So I’ve been watching you to see what I could figure out. I confess, I haven’t come up with an answer yet, but I get the sense that it’s something very serious.”
“Yes, I’d say multiple murders are very serious,” I snapped.
“So what is it?” Clay asked. “Is there some nutcase out there who wants to challenge you and your crime-solving abilities by killing people and seeing if you can catch him?”
This was so close to the mark that I knew there was little sense in trying to keep it from him any longer. I slumped in my chair in defeat, sighed, and said, “Okay, Clay. You win. Here’s what’s going on.”