Chapter 9

 

I arrived at RJP Investigations around mid-morning, the late start being my little reward to myself for finishing the taxes yesterday. My plan today was to assemble file boxes for the year’s accumulation of receipts, bank statements and other yearly crap the IRS makes us keep. The storeroom would now give up the oldest box to the shredder and add this new one to the collection. Another of those dreary, drudgework tasks only a financial person can love.

Freckles had ridden with me today and she parked herself in the square of sunshine on the Oriental rug in my office. By the time I’d pulled a batch of folders from my desk drawer, the dog was stretched out in tummy-up bliss.

All that ended the moment a loud crash sounded downstairs. Sally screamed.

I pictured the front door flying open and banging against the potted rubber plant beside it. Was that a tinkle of broken glass, or did I imagine it?

Freckles ran to the top of the stairs, barking like twenty-five pounds of vicious wild killer.

“Who’s been talking to my wife?” demanded a booming male voice. Fee-fi-fo-fum.

Between barks from the dog I caught hints that Ron was on the phone in his office and Sally’s voice sounded cowed in a way I’d never heard her before. My first instinct was to reach under my desk for my purse and get my hands on my Beretta.

When I looked up, Ron had appeared in his doorway. I tucked my pistol into my waistband when I saw he was already armed.

“Well?” demanded the voice.

Sally stammered something, and I caught sight of my dog racing down the final few steps preparing to launch herself at the intruder.

“Freckles!” I shouted. But the dog was deaf to the sound of my voice and clueless about everything but her mission.

Ron pointed his Smith & Wesson toward the ceiling as he took the stairs one at a time. I was only a couple of treads behind him. We reached the bottom and got our first real look at the situation. Sally stood behind her desk, her normally tan complexion so white her freckles stood out like a constellation of brown stars across her nose. A large man faced her. When she glanced around him toward Ron, the man spun.

It was Bobby Lorrento.

Wow—he sure seemed a lot bigger in the confined space of our office than he had yesterday from a distance in the open air market. I made a grab for my dog’s collar but she eluded me.

“You! You been puttin’ ideas in my wife’s head.” Lorrento stared daggers at Ron.

A quick assessment showed the football player didn’t seem to be armed—well, with anything other than his two huge fists. Ron lowered his weapon but I noticed he kept both hands on it. His voice was cool and modulated as he went through the motions of getting Lorrento to introduce himself. As if we didn’t know.

Still, it was a good move on Ron’s part. The man calmed by about three notches on the anger scale.

“My wife, Marcie, she’s been talking to you,” he stated, his voice rising again.

Ron nodded. “I’ve spoken with her.”

“So, are you the s.o.b. who told her she ought to sell my Super Bowl rings?”

Ron’s gun hand fell limply at his side. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“The little bitch took my rings to a pawn shop! All three of ’em—I can’t believe it. My rings that I earned at the Super Bowl. Three winning games!”

Freckles was circling Lorrento’s legs with evil intent in her eye, and I figured the last thing we needed was a dog-bite charge leveled at us along with his other accusations. I edged past Ron, got the dog by her collar and led her upstairs where I sent her to her crate with a cookie for her bravery.

“Look, Mr. Lorrento,” Ron was saying when I came back downstairs. “I don’t know anything about your Super Bowl rings, other than the fact I enjoyed like hell watching those games and seeing you win.”

The belligerent manner dropped another two notches.

“Can we talk in here?” Ron asked, steering Lorrento toward the conference room.

Sally let out a shaky breath, although she didn’t take her eyes off the two men. “Should I call 911?” she whispered to me when I got close.

I gave a tiny shake of my head. Things seemed to have calmed down quite a bit. I edged closer to the open door where the men had gone.

“I’ll tell you Marcie hired us to find out if you were cheating on her,” Ron said.

I noticed his body language showed he was ready to run, if the response proved to be a negative one. Ron isn’t cowardly, but he’s no fool either, and now in his mid-forties he’s not looking to be taken down by a pro ballplayer.

“Marcie hired you?” Lorrento scratched his head. “Well, that’s just stupid. She knows I cheat. I’ve had girlfriends all along. We players travel … we got needs … The wives get treated pretty damn good with clothes and jewelry and great big old houses. Now she wants more?”

This guy could not be serious. I felt my jaw clench.

“Are you familiar with a company called Innocent Times?” Ron asked.

Lorrento shuffled a little, giving away the answer.

“Look, I don’t care what kind of arrangement you and your wife have, whether she agrees with your version of this story or not. I was hired to do a job and I started to look into it.”

The athlete tensed up again. “My rings …”

“You’re sure she pawned them? Do you know which shop?”

“Yeah, that’s how I found out. I found this ticket.” He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket.

“So … you go down there and retrieve them.”

Did it really take a rocket scientist to figure this out? I chafed at the conversation.

“Them things are worth, like …” I could see him trying to figure it out.

“Look,” Ron said, “just go down to the shop and see what they want for them. They probably gave Marcie a fraction of the real value. As far as your relationship, I can’t tell you what to do there. She was my client. She’ll have to decide what she wants to do.”

I noticed Ron said she was the client. Personally, I hoped it meant he intended to resign from the case and this particular dysfunctional couple.

With his ticket in hand, Bobby The Bomb headed toward our front door, which hung a little crookedly on its hinges. At least, thank goodness, the leaded glass insert hadn’t shattered.

I watched him walk away and get into a jacked-up truck with huge tires that sat at an angle in our driveway. It started with a rumble and was soon out of sight.

“Well, that went swimmingly,” I said with a grimace toward the door. “Do you now have a clue why I don’t like us taking these cases?”

Ron ignored me and walked over to examine the door frame. “Some longer screws ought to fix it.” He went toward the kitchen and I heard the back door open and close. He would get his toolbox from the shed out back and spend his afternoon fixing a problem that hadn’t needed to happen. Sally and I exchanged a look. Men.

Back upstairs, I boxed up last year’s files and labeled it with a thick black marker. I’d just stashed it in the storeroom when I heard voices at the front door. These were much more civil, and in a minute I heard light footsteps on the stairs.

Victoria, Ron’s wife, met me at the top.

“Hey there,” she said. “Looks like you guys had a little excitement this morning.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I’m on my way to take fabric swatches to a client in Old Town,” she said, “but thought I’d stop by on the way and invite you and Drake to our place Saturday evening. We’re grilling steaks and ribs. I’m guessing Ron didn’t already mention this?”

“He didn’t. He was a little busy.”

She laughed. As she left, I watched her stop beside the door and give Ron a kiss. I hope the big dodo appreciates her. With what happened on their wedding day a few months ago, we’re lucky we have her.

I spent another hour wrapping up my little organization project and then headed for home. Elsa was working on her front flowerbeds and she waved me over when I pulled into my driveway. I knew she was going to bring up the subject of the twins again—I swear, she’s become a dog with a bone on this subject.

“I went over there awhile ago,” she said. “I saw Clover leave, but since the red car is still home I figured that means Zayne is there. Well, if she is, she’s ignoring me completely. I rang the bell and called out, even walked around to their backyard. Something’s not right over there, I tell you.”

I opened my mouth to list a selection of logical reasons why a person might leave her car home while she’s somewhere else, but I saw the look in Elsa’s eyes.

“It’s just … young girls and the troubles they can get themselves into,” she said. “I cared for those two little ones and now I’m worried. Could you check into it? I mean you and Ron and your company?”

I gave a resigned nod, hoping my lack of enthusiasm didn’t show too greatly.

She seemed relieved. “What is it about girls when they hit their teens? They change so much.”

I thought back to my own teen years. My experience was clouded by loss and grief, but even before that I remembered the onset of puberty as possibly the worst time of my life. Pressures abounded everywhere—girls made snarky comments about your hair, your clothes, your looks. Although I’d never been one of the cool kids, popularity was paramount to so many of them. Boys—well, the sexual tension was always in the air. I’d dated Brad North nearly all my senior year and by the time we entered college we were talking marriage.

Yeah, and look how that turned out.