Baptist DISTINCTIVE: An Adam Mykonos Mystery (The Adam Myknonos Mystries) (22 page)

I hopped out of the car and tossed my keys
to Buzz Cut

“You’re going to want to move my car around
back, the cops are right behind me and they will be taking up all the space in
the driveway.”
He Yelled. “What?” As I ignored him and rushed into the house.

Drake and Darren were in the forte. Drake
stepped forward. “What is this about?”

“Grant me indulgence mica.” I asked politely.

He jerked his head and I followed him into
his Father’s office. Kitty Prihor sat in the chair I had occupied on Saturday,
she look worn and upset.
 
It had been
several months since I last saw Kitty, I was reminded even with the worn look
on her face what a stunning woman she was. Her hair was deep black and her eyes
a sparkling brown. She wore a light gray dress that hug to her body showing curves
that no widow should have.

“Brother Adam.” She smiled as I came in.
“Do you have information on Dennis?”

Dorin Prihor stood and reached out his
hand. I shook it and as I did his eyes meet mind and I swear the old man knew.

“Sir, forgive me.”
“Done.”

I turned to Kitty. “Kit, your father owns
several radio stations in Jersey is that correct?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Did Dennis always take the same path when
he jogged?”

“What does that have to do with the radio
stations?”

“Please.” I insisted.

“Yes.”

“And you had been having an affair with Tim
Lafayette is that correct? And did it start before or after you decided to get
the Calvary Radio station for your father’s company?”

“Son of a…”

I cut Drake off before he could finish.

“Please Drake.”

“You have no right to accuse me of
anything!” Kitty screeched. She got up and started for the door. The old man
nodded his head and Darren gave her a not so gentle shove back into the chair.

“You gold digging trollop.” Said Prihor.
“My son found you begging for coke outside of the Stone Pony and this is how we
are repaid.”

“Ticia. Father.” She said pitifully. “You
can’t believe this.”

Prihor looked at me “I suppose being who
you are you informed the police on your way over here?”

I nodded.

“So I must let them deal with this tramp.”
He shook his head.

“Katherine” He said softly.

She was crying. “Yes.”

“Answer me and if you are honest, your time
away will be easier.”

She sat stone still.

I could hear the sirens as they raced up
the drive.

Prihor cleared his throat. “Two questions.
One did your Father know of this arrangement.”

“He knew that I was going to give him the
station.” Kitty answered.

Prihor nodded.

What a piece of work I thought she just
betrayed her own father

Prihor cleared his throat and then said
haltingly “And did you ever love my son?”

Welter, Shank and two other county Mounties
entered the room as she looked Prihor hard in the eye and said. “No.”

Twenty-Five

Shank and I watched Welter’s White
Washington County Sheriff’s Car drive off. Katherine “Kitty” Prihor who had not
spoken a word after telling her father-in-law she had never loved his son, sat
hand cuffed in the back, a county deputy on either side of her.
 

“We were on her.” Said Shank softly.

“I’m sure you were, I just moved up your
time table.”

He nodded.

“Still in all” He said to me “Not a bad
piece of detective work Mykonos.”

“I Stumbled into it. I’ve done nothing for
a week but stumble into things.”

Shank kicked the dirt by his black polished
boots “You know the drill a good part of police work is stumbling into things.”

“Yep.” I said flatly. “I got one big
problem though.”

“What’s that?”

“Not a single piece of my stumbling as
gotten me closer to who killed Josh and Mac.”

“Ivy.” The Cop said.

I shook my head “It doesn’t fit, and on
some level you know that. Sheriff Welter can convince himself that his men got
the right man or more to the point woman, but it doesn’t fit.”

The big black cop looked at me and shrugged.
“She was caught in the house gun in hand. Paraffin test says she fired.”

“She doesn’t deny she fired, says she
thought she saw someone in the kitchen. Fired at them in fear.”

“No footprints outside the house from what
I heard.”

I agreed. “No none, but there was a shot
fired into the kitchen, why do that?”

“Throw us off.”

“Christina and I think that the angel of
all three shots is different. Different size shooters.”

“Can you prove it?”

“My brother-in-law is running a computer
model should be ready by now.”

Shank kicked more dust, an affection I
thought like Christina’s puffing or my drinking coffee, everyone had habits.

“Might put some doubt in the juries mind,
but she still had the gun in her hand.”

“Yep.”

We stood for a moment, looking at the sun
as it beat down at us, we both had to squint yet for some reason we could not
turn away.

“These people.”
 
I said jerking my head back towards the Prihor
house. “They have been building something under your nose for a while.”

“Not so much under my nose. We knew.”

“Welter?”

“Not so much. County not always as aware as
city folk.”

 
He
laughed “Not that a New York Cop would think we be city folk.”

“Nor a New York con.”

“Fed con.”

“Someone did their research.”

Shank laughed. “You give me too much credit
it was not that hard.
 
You’re right
though that these people are building something.”

“They not the only ones.”

“Crypts moved in over by City Park that
means the Bloods like your friend Catfish are going to have problems. Not to
mention we have the Black Guerilla Family and of course Mara Salvatrucha”

“Carlton is no friend of mine.”

“He dates your daughter.”

“You do, do your research.”

“You said dodo.” He laughed loudly at his
own lame joke. I joined him.

He kicked more dirt. “So you are still
convinced Ivy is innocent?”

“As I said there is reason to doubt.”

“As I said doubt is for juries, cops look
for reasonable cause to arrest, you know that.”

“One of the reasons I’m not a cop anymore.”

It was my turn to kick dirt. He noticed and
grunted. “Problem?”

“I have a nagging feeling I am being
manipulated.
 
First Sinclair then the Prihor’s,
it’s like I am a horse being run down a track. I think I’m running because I
want to run…..”

“But really there’s a jockey on your back
whipping you along.” He finished my thought.

“Exactly.”

“You’ve been meeting all the power players.
You think that is coincidence?”

“I’m a Christian I don’t believe in
coincidence.”

“Amen brother. So then?”

“Then who. Not Sinclair, he’s too stupid.”

“And in jail.”

“Not the Prihor’s they were trying to hang
as much below the radar as they could. If anything I have made their life more
complicated.”

 
I
watched the cop’s eyes they were impassive but I could see the brain behind
them turning, I went on. “Not the Street gangs they don’t think long-term.”

“One of the things that makes them
dangerous.” Shank said

“Yep like terrorist you can’t threaten someone
who is unafraid to die.” I added.

Shank turned away from the sun to look at
me directly. “What about your friend Mathewson?”

I shrugged, “Seem like an upright guy. You seriously
think a man running a Christian Radio Company would have his hands this deep
into the local Hagerstown action?”

“He just purchased a controlling share in
the largest advertising and marketing agency in the area.”

I was beginning to hate this bomb dropping
stuff.

“What?”

“I am not saying the man is doing anything
dishonest but he is diversifying his portfolio and he seems to be concentrating
here in the area.”

“How do you know this stuff?”

“My sister is a reporter with the local
news outlet.”

“The one that is partially control by said
agency.” I said showing off my knowledge.

He made a gun with his finger and fired.

“But” I said “That does not give him motive
to manipulate me, or kill Josh and Mac.”

“Except of course that darn Calvary Radio
Station.”

I was lost and admitted it.

Shank kicked more dirt; this was getting
annoying and explained “Well the marketing agency is not exactly
ultra-conservative. So it may have been a problem for him to be linked to both.
And your friends the Prihor’s are also making moves into local media remember?”

“But why?” I asked “why is anyone
interested in this town?”

“And that my friend is our question.”

“No. That is your question. Mine is who
killed Mac and Josh.”

He smiled. “And who keeps leading you down
the bunny trial away from that.”

“Right. Sinclair, the Priors and I suspect
even Mathewson are all red herrings.”

Shank finally took a pair of sun glasses
out of his pocket and put them on, me I kept on squinting. “My Daddy use to
tell me that there never was a story that was worth telling that did not begin
with the words: ‘there was this girl’”.

I smiled “The Bible.”

Shank laughed “There was this girl named
Eve who ate an apple and gave it to her husband, they broke the one command
that God had given them, and because of the sin of this girl and this man death
entered the world and so because ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.’”

We both laughed.

“Okay then it is an affair of the heart.” I
said “But that leaves me without any real suspects. Expect the scorned ex-wife,
who I say didn’t do it. There has got to be something I am missing.” I glanced
at my watch it was about an hour past the time I had told Argon I would meet
him.

“I got to run.” I stuck out my hand. “Take
care.”

Shank returned my handshake “You as well.”

As I walked towards my car which Buzz Cut
had not moved Shank called out. “Hey, Mykonos, remember that sometimes the
answer is right in front of us. “

Great I thought tripe that was all I
needed. I gave a wane wave and drove off.

Chapter
Twenty-Six

 
Argon’s
offices over on Dual Highway required me to hop on I70 and then cruise back
west on 40 a block of so. I pulled into the parking area and bounded up the
steps.

The office is Spartan which fits my
brother-in-law’s personality to a tee. While my sister is, I suppose do to our
Irish half, loud and somewhat melodramatic, Argon is stable and plodding. He
was the most un-nerd like techie I had ever met, in fact even alone in his
office he dressed like a European banker. He was wearing a dark gray summer
suit, tight in the legs and cut in the Italian style. He had on a solid blue
shirt and a metallic gray tie of a darker hue then the suit.

His office was done in all wood and sedate
hues. If I did not think it would offend him I would have told him long ago it
looked like his father’s office in Tirana, but then of course I would also need
to explain why I had been in his father’s office in Tirana.

“C’kemi Planco” Argon said as I entered the
room, he moved from behind his desk and gave me a half hand-shake half hug.

“Hello, yourself Old Man.” I said switching
as easily as he did to Albanian.

“Leda wants you guys for dinner next week.”
“Leda would have us every week for dinner if she could.” I answered “My sister
loves to cook.”

He patted his growing stomach “And she is
good at it.”

I laughed patted my own stomach and stated
“In that respect as in many we are lucky men.”

He nodded and smiled. “Come around here let
me show you something.”

We walked behind his desk. He clicked a few
things with the mouse and as if by a magic that would have made my old Irish
grandmother cross herself, an animation appeared on the screen.

It was decent three-D representation of the
Daniels living room, on the floor there were two animated bodies with red
targets where the bullets hit. Argon clicked a button again and said: