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Not having seen Creighton Querry in a year, Adam had forgotten how much the man resembled a bear. The fist he was shaking at Adam was covered in thick, curly black hair from his knuckles all the way up to his forearms, matching his shaggy mane and beard. His arms were like strips of shag carpeting rolled up in tubes attached to the three hundred pounds of meat packed on his six-five torso. Adam doubted anyone gave this particular bouncer any guff.
After Adam let Cray’s tirade-of-a-greeting wind down to a dull roar, Cray growled. “What do you have to say to that, Adam?”
“I say we let bygones be bygones and that you lower your voice before you scare the children.”
A few wide-eyed tot faces stared in their direction, and he smiled at them and waved. Cray liked to meet Adam in odd places, but this was one of his favorites, the Geddy Ice Palace. Being a weekday morning, few skaters dotted the ice except for a group of preschoolers teetering around the rink, some holding onto the rails.
Adam tapped on Cray’s arm to point toward a stand of empty bleachers where they could sit. Adam was born on ice skates, so he loved the cold, but Cray was already grumbling about his frozen ass. The big baby.
“So, Cray,” Adam said.
“So, Dutton. Any money in this for yours truly?”
“I make a cop’s salary, and the department has started rationing pencils. What do you think?”
“Figures.”
“Besides, you said it would be worth it if we nailed Reggie Forsythe, right?”
“Can you promise that?”
“I never promise anybody anything.”
Cray squinted up at the rink’s overhead lights as if willing them to get brighter. And warmer. “S’good policy.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure what I’m working with here. Either Forsythe is the bad guy—a thief and his father’s murderer—or he’s an innocent victim. But there are too many turd pellets being dropped around by this rat, and it stinks to high heaven.”
“You looking for background, corroboration, or leads?”
“All of the above.”
“Uh-huh.” Cray scratched his hairy chin. “Okay, let’s start with the Gortran case you brought up. The one I wish now I’d never worked on.”
“What happened?”
“Started out innocent enough. Had this geezer, Kirk Gortran, who kicked the bucket, and his heirs were tidying up his estate. What they didn’t know was that said geezer had handed over two items to Forsythe’s shop to sell on consignment.”
“You mean, remit payment when they’re sold.”
“Usually, if you’re an honest dealer.”
“Forsythe sold them and didn’t tell anyone?”
Cray nodded. “Anyway, Gortran was estranged from his heirs but hadn’t changed his will and testament. The heirs were so thrilled to be rid of the guy and get the loot to boot, they didn’t notice the missing items at first, which weren’t listed in the will. Plus, they were from out of town, so they were in a rush to gobble up the goodies and scram.”
“How much money are we talking about?”
“Hard as it is for me to believe that people would shell out that much for a couple of pieces of furniture, around three hundred grand. Something about George the Third, marquetry, rosewood, tulipwood, the stuff that makes my eyes glaze over.”
“How in the world did the heirs figure it out?”
“His youngest grandkid, now in her 40s, had a childhood memory of hiding in this cabinet thingie, one of a pair—they call them commodes in the biz—and wondered where they’d gone to. When they found a note in Gortran’s papers about him making an appointment with somebody to sell the things for him, they got suspicious. That’s when they hired me to track them down.”
“Straight to Reggie Forsythe?”
“More of a crooked line, but yeah, it led to Forsythe.”
Adam rubbed his chin. “The newspaper article I read about the fiasco was sketchy. Lots of talk of lawyers and misunderstandings.”
“Forsythe and his lawyers were crafty. First, Forsythe claimed he’d never had any furniture of the kind and didn’t know any Gortran. Then, when I dug deeper and tracked down a company, Pierson’s, that moved the pieces from Gortran’s house to Forsythe’s shop, the shyster claimed it was a paperwork error. Then he blamed it on a green assistant and some new accounting software they’d recently installed.”
“Naturally. All nice and plausible.”
“Quite. The heirs were going to make a stink out of it, and they’re the ones that called the newspaper. But I got the impression somebody high up the chain of the conglomerate that owned the paper is palsy-walsy with Forsythe. Naturally, Forsythe comes smelling like a rose. Everybody feels sorry for him having his rep smeared over such an ‘innocent’ goof, and the heirs get their money.”
“And you were the guy caught in the middle. Did you at least get paid?” Adam was beginning to feel sorry for ole Cray. He was actually a top-notch private eye.
“With my usual retainer, hourly rate, and per diem, it came out to two grand, not two percent of their take.”
“Not bad, though.”
“Not bad? I figure the lost wages from the past fifteen months of nonexistent clients makes my fee for the Gortran fiasco more like minus a hundred dollars an hour.”
“About that—what makes you think Forsythe had a hand in your client load drying up? You sounded adamant over the phone it was his doing.”
“I had two other cases going on at the same time as the Gortrans’ case. When that article came out in the papers, both of them called me up and essentially fired me.”
“Maybe it was just the publicity.”
“One of them was a repeat client who knew me and my work well. He was apologetic, but he was vague about why he was cutting me out. The other one said something more interesting. Said he’d been warned about me. And that working with me might be bad for his health.”
“But no one mentioned the name of Reggie Forsythe?”
Cray blew on his hands to warm them up. “One of them let slip a name, sounded like Hendrick or Hatrick. I did some checking and couldn’t find a link between Forsythe and this lowlife, who turned out to be named Kannan Hendrick. But the more I dug, the more I realized Forsythe had his slimy tentacles under quite a few rocks with many other slimy lowlifes. What was I to do? Especially when I found out this Hendrick guy died under mysterious circumstances not long after. I do value my health.”
“That’s when you became a bouncer.”
“Earning half my former salary. But the perks are great. Yelling at drunks, washing vomit off my shoes.”
Adam watched a couple of the innocent tots on the ice, oblivious to the scuzzy drama unfolding in Cray’s story. Some of the kids were skating precision figure-eights like he did at about their age. Not bad. Might be a future Olympian or two out there. “You called Hendrick a lowlife. What was he into?”
“Drugs, primarily. Consuming, not dealing. Although possibly he ended up doing a little of both.”
“And the mysterious circumstances of his death?”
“You can look it up. Hope you’ll find more than I did. But I think he surprised a ‘burglar.’”
“I’ll do that. You said, drugs, right? Did you ever hear any rumors about either of the Forsythes doing drugs, say, heroin?”
“Smack? Do people still do smack? I heard it was all opioids nowadays.”
“Needle marks were found on Forsythe senior’s body.”
Cray frowned. “The newspaper accounts of Forsythe’s murder didn’t mention that. Thought it was another mysterious ‘burglary’ gone bad.”
“They wouldn’t, and you know why.”
“You police types didn’t tell ’em, natch. Maybe your mystery burglar was really a drug dealer.”
“The Hartford PD are working that angle, but no ties found so far. He seems clean, except for the marks.”
Cray shook his head. “You get all that money, and what do you waste it on? Drugs, hookers, dead-guy art, and pricey booze you piss out in an hour.”
Adam noticed Cray was shivering. Apparently, all that extra beefy insulation of his wasn’t helping. “Look, Cray, I can’t give you any money for your efforts, but if something good comes out of all of this, I’ll work your name into the papers. Only this time, it’ll be good PR.”
Cray snorted, and Adam nudged him out of his seat and toward the door. Fortunately for Cray, it was a tad above freezing outside the rink. Might be even close to fifty. Vermonters would be out in short pants washing their cars any minute.
As Cray drove off, Adam considered his next move. He’d found little on Beverly Laborde so far and hadn’t yet heard from his queries to Interpol about any overseas rap sheets.
He craved a little more insight into the story behind Guinevere Glas and her antiques store. Revenge for fraud that led to the death of Beverly’s beloved grandmother felt more like a genuine motive for murder than Reggie Forsythe’s bowl-theft revenge. And Adam believed he might know where he could mine for some nuggets of information about that very thing.
§ § §
Bradd Simrell may have retired from the antiques business years ago, but both he and his house were antiques in their own right. The early 1800s stone structure matched the stony expression on the man’s skeletal face. At first, he wasn’t going to let Adam inside until Adam flashed his badge.
Adam still didn’t know enough about antiques to tell whether the furnishings in Simrell’s house were real or reproductions, but he did notice the two very real dog cages in separate corners of the front room. Each held a hungry-looking Doberman.
Adam decided to stay standing near the door for now. “Thanks for speaking with me, Mr. Simrell. I won’t take too much of your valuable time. As a former antiques store owner in the area, I wondered if you’d heard of Guinevere Glas?”
Simrell replied, “Don’t know why you’d be asking now, but yes, I met her once. Had a cute little girl with her, a granddaughter, I believe. Shame what happened to Mrs. Glas’s store.”
“And what might that be?”
“Had to close it down. Heard she went into a nursing home and died shortly afterward.”
Had both Beverly and the hardware store proprietor who now owned Glas’s former building been wrong, and Forsythe wasn’t involved? Could be there was another side to this story. “You’re saying she closed it down due to health reasons?”
Simrell belched, which was followed by a cough. “Things happen, don’t they?”
“Just to be clear on this point. You’re saying unequivocally that Gras was sick before the store closed?”
“As I said, things happen.” Simrell had never once looked Adam directly, and his fingers kept curling and uncurling.
Adam’s lie detector had flipped to full-fib setting. He asked, “I don’t suppose these ‘things’ might be connected to the name Forsythe? Particularly one Reggie Forsythe?”
Simrell scratched his chin. “I think he may have been one of the people who bought out her shop, or part of it. Nothing wrong with that, now, is there? Good business practice.”
“Not especially good for Glas. More so if Forsythe shut her down under false pretenses.”
The finger curling and uncurling picked up speed. “That’s some incendiary talk right there, Detective Dutton. Better be careful what you say. Words have power. They can be weapons when used the wrong way.”
“And liberating when used for truth and justice.”
Simrell laughed. “A regular Captain America, you are. Well, Captain, I think I’ve said all I’m going to. And I wouldn’t hang around if I were you. The doors on the crates with my dogs over there are controlled by this.”
He grabbed a remote control from a nearby table. “It would be a shame if they accidentally got out while you were still here.”
“They look like nice puppies.” Adam thrust his hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a couple of dog treats, tossing one into each cage.
Simrell gaped at him, and Adam flashed him a phony smile. He didn’t tell the guy Adam had begun carrying the treats on field assignments after being attacked by dogs on another occasion.
“Thanks for your ‘help,’ Mr. Simrell. Oh, and if you should change your mind and want to discuss Reggie Forsythe . . .” Adam dropped one of his business cards on the table next to the doggy-remote and let himself out.
Back in his car, he stared at his briefcase on the passenger seat. He’d printed out his handiwork from earlier this morning when he was typing up the report to give to the chief about Beverly and Forsythe. Make that reports. One had her connection laid out in black and white, the other omitted it.
He just wasn’t sure yet which version he was going to hand over. Following strict protocol meant going one way and following his gut, another. Damn that Laborde woman. She had him so tied up in knots, he felt like a Macramé Man.
On the one hand, Beverly had likely lied to him about that theater ticket and not told him about her Forsythe family connections. On the other hand, from all accounts, Forsythe was a weasel wrapped in a barracuda suit. No arrests, sure, but enough rumors of fraud, theft, and other scandalous dealings to fill a dozen tell-all books. People connected to him died under somewhat mysterious circumstances, like Kannan Hendrick, or were afraid to even talk about him, like Simrell.
If Beverly Laborde’s background was outed in his report, she might be in danger from both sides of the law. Most likely, she’d go into hiding and disappear. It was better for her if she kept her profile low, which also gave Adam more of a chance to keep his eye on her and to slog through all of this.
He still believed—lived by—the words of the oath he’d repeated to Lehmann, “I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions.” But he’d never met trouble with a capital “T” like Beverly Laborde before. Whichever version of the report he gave to the chief, he had the strong feeling his career would never be the same again.
