Dead in the Rose City: A Dean Drake Mystery (21 page)

The name Michael Touchas caught my eye. It
was his trailer overloaded with chemicals that had nearly
incinerated me. According to the calendar, Sinclair had phoned
Touchas the night before the explosion. I felt knots turn inside
me.

Sinclair had tried to kill me!

He had used Touchas to lure me to the
trailer. Then Sinclair must have killed him—or had him killed—so he
couldn’t talk.

Suddenly things were beginning to fit
together and I didn’t like the configuration of the puzzle. If
Sinclair was out to get Jessie Wylson, why wouldn’t he also want me
out of the picture?

He would eliminate The Worm’s testimony
against him. And eliminate me, possibly causing the investigation
into Catherine Sinclair’s death to simply disappear like she
did.

Were Cornwell and Muncie on Sinclair’s
payroll? If they were, the same was probably true of Vincente and
his thugs.

That still left Catherine Sinclair’s death
and the mystery woman’s role in it unaccounted for.

I went through Sinclair’s desk looking for
something, though I didn’t know what.

Then
I found
it—maybe
.

In the bottom drawer between some papers was
the crumpled card of a P.I. named Tony Agnoski. He gave new meaning
to the words “sleaze” and “private investigator” when combined.

What business did Sinclair have with
Agnoski?

I had a feeling Tony Agnoski might be the key
to finding the woman I was looking for.

* * *

I found Tony Agnoski chomping on a chicken
sandwich in his dingy office. A radio was playing some big band era
music, as though I had stepped back in time. The stubby detective
was in his early fifties and wore his receding, dyed, black hair
combed back into a ponytail. He looked up at me while his tongue
gathered in mustard that was smeared on the corner of his
mouth.

“Yeah? What can I do you for?”

I came closer out of the shadows. “Long time
no see, Agnoski.” Probably the last time was when I was a cop.

His puffy dark eyes squinted. “Who the hell
are you?”

“Dean Drake.” I met his gaze. “You knew me as
Homicide Detective Drake—”

Familiarity crept into his chubby face.
“Drake, my man,” he perked up. “Didn’t recognize you. Thought you
were darker than that. You must not be spending enough time out in
the sun.”

I almost took that as a compliment. “Haven’t
you heard that the sun and too much exposure to it don’t mix very
well?”

“I try not to pay too much attention to that
stuff,” he said, and took another swipe at the sandwich. “My
philosophy is go for it if it makes you happy and is
legal
—or so’s you don’t get caught—and let the chips fall
where they may.”

My eyes scanned his cramped office before
resting on his face. “Doesn’t look like the chips have fallen your
way very often, Agnoski.”

He frowned. “I ain’t complainin’—” He drank
something dark from a paper cup. “Heard you became a private dick,
Drake. What happened? They throw you off the force?”

“I was looking for a sleazier way of life,” I
said sarcastically. “I think you know something about that.”

He curled his lip thoughtfully. “So what
brings you here?”

“Does the name Gregory Sinclair ring a
bell?”

His eyes betrayed such, but he said: “Should
it?”

I put Agnoski’s crumpled card in front of his
face. “I found this in Sinclair’s desk drawer.”

“So what?” He glanced at it like yesterday’s
news. “I give those out to anyone who’ll take ‘em. That don’t prove
nothin’—except maybe that
you’re
guilty of breaking and
entering.”

I fixed him with a straight gaze. “Did
Sinclair hire you?”

“I already told you—”

I grabbed him from behind his desk, knocking
the sandwich from his hands and spilling his drink. “You haven’t
told me what I want to know. To tell you the truth,” I said
dishonestly, “they kicked my ass off the force because of excessive
police brutality—” I released him. “Let’s try this again.
Did
you work for Sinclair?
”

“All right, all right,” he said, taking a
deep breath. “Sinclair hired me to spy on his wife.”

“Why?”

“He thought she was seeing another man.”

“Was she?”

“No.” He paused. “She was seeing a
woman—”

I stared at his red face. “Catherine Sinclair
was involved in a lesbian relationship?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Ain’t that something to wet
the palate?”

“And you told Sinclair?”

“Yeah, I told him. That’s what he paid me
for.”

“How did he react?”

Agnoski squirmed. “How would
you
react
if you found out your wife was carrying on with another broad? He
didn’t like it.”

“Enough to kill her?”

His eyes widened. “How would I know how far a
jealous husband is willing to go?”

I couldn’t tell how much he knew about
Sinclair, but suspected it was more than he was letting on.

“Did you know that Gregory Sinclair’s wife
was found beaten, raped, and strangled to death last month?” I
asked.

Agnoski looked at me innocently. “Hey, I
don’t read the papers or watch the news,” he said like it was
somehow commendable. “I’m sorry to hear about the wife, but I can’t
be responsible for what happens in the world. I collect evidence
and information—just like you—to make a living. The rest is outta
my hands.”

“It’s never out of your hands,” I growled,
“as long as there’s
blood
on them—”

He looked at his hands, as if to verify this.
“You got what you wanted, Drake. I wish you’d get the hell outta my
office!”

“Gladly. Just one other thing... What did the
woman Catherine Sinclair was having an affair with look like?”

He shrugged. “My memory ain’t what it used to
be.”

I slammed my palms onto his desk, causing him
to shiver. “Look, Agnoski, I’m in no mood for games. A lowlife
voyeur like you can’t help but have those two women making love
forever etched in your perverted memory.”

A lascivious glint came into his eyes. “All
right, I remember,” he confessed. “What do you want, a play by play
description?”

“Just a description of the other woman will
do,” I told him.

I expected Agnoski to describe the blonde
woman who had pretended to be Catherine Ashley Sinclair and made
love just as skillfully to men.

He did not, at least not as I remembered
her.

“She was only so tall,” he said. “Like barely
over five feet. Late thirties. Nice looking broad. Nice tits,
though a bit on the small side for me. Thin, green eyes, red
hair...”

“Do you have a picture of Catherine and this
woman?”

He began to perspire. “Sinclair wanted
all
the pictures and the negatives.”

“And you gave them to him,” I said pithily.
“Only you kept a copy of the photos for your own private lewd
viewing. Isn’t that right?” I leaned into his disgusting face.
“
Isn’t it
—?”

He lowered his head. “What he don’t know
won’t hurt him.”

“But
he did know
and he hurt his wife
in a way not even you can imagine!” My voice flattened out. “I need
to borrow the photos.”

“For how long?” he asked, as if he couldn’t
fathom the thought of departing with them.

“As long as it takes!” I roared. I suspected
it would be for as long as they were needed as circumstantial
evidence in the murder of Catherine Ashley Sinclair.

The pictures were explicit, detailed, and, in
all likelihood, had cost Catherine Sinclair her life. But it was
the
other
woman who most interested me, and confirmed my
second
choice as Catherine Sinclair’s lover.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The doorbell chimed outside the fashionable
home on Pickford Street. Someone looked at me through the peephole,
and then the door opened.

I gazed down into the tense green eyes of
Nancy Mackenzie.

“What do you want?” she clamored.

“Information,” I said succinctly.

“I told you everything I had to say at the
health club.”

“But you didn’t tell me
everything
you
know,” I said with a distinct edge to my voice. “Did you, Mrs.
Mackenzie?”

Her face colored. “I’m sure I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure you do,” I countered. “Try
Catherine Sinclair and you as lovers—”

She shook visibly and her knees buckled.

“Give me five minutes of your time,” I told
her, “and I’ll be out of your hair forever.”

But I couldn’t guarantee that the police
wouldn’t be in her hair like lice.

The inside of the house was just as nice as
the outside and seemed to epitomize the American dream:
upper-middle income, middle class values. Somewhere in the
equation, idealism had clashed with reality.

“My husband will be home soon—” Nancy
informed me nervously from the sunken living room, as if this
admission was cause for alarm.

I handed her the photos Agnoski had
taken.

They spoke for themselves.

“Where did you get these?” Nancy’s mouth
dropped in disbelief, embarrassment, perhaps even shame.

“From a private investigator Gregory Sinclair
hired to see if his wife was cheating.” She glanced at a photo of
her in bed with Catherine Sinclair. Both women were naked and
posing in a way that left nothing to the imagination and made it
clear they were not together in platonic camaraderie. “This was all
the proof he needed—”

Nancy dropped the photographs face down on
the coffee table, as if suddenly too hot to handle.

“I loved Catherine,” she admitted. “
She
loved me
. We were planning to live together.”

“So you were going to leave your
husband?”

“Yes,” she gulped. “We both were—”

“But someone beat, raped, and murdered
Catherine before that could happen,” I said sadly. “In my mind,
that someone boils down to either Gregory Sinclair or your
husband.” She suddenly looked very pale. “Did your husband know
about the affair with Catherine?”

“No,” Nancy insisted.

I wished I could be as certain. “If Sinclair
had the information, he could have easily given it to your
husband.”

Her eyes glazed over. “Roger couldn’t have
killed Catherine. He didn’t have it in him.”

“Maybe you don’t know your husband as well as
you think you do.” My eyes studied her face doubtfully. “In my
business, I’ve found people do things you wouldn’t believe when it
concerns matters of the heart. If your husband thought he was going
to lose you, he may have done
anything
to prevent it.”

She wept. “He doesn’t love
me
—”

I read into her words. “Are you saying your
husband is having an affair, too?”

She nodded painfully.

“With a tall, buxom blonde?” I was picturing
the cool, sexy, insatiable woman I had let into my bed.

Nancy raised her face and hesitated for a
moment. “My husband is gay and has been HIV-positive for three
years now,” she revealed quietly. “We haven’t slept together in
five years. I’ve stayed with him out of compassion and respect, but
not love. He understands that—”

She paused while I tried to hide my dejection
that once more I’d come up empty-handed where it concerned my
mystery two-timing blonde lover.

“So you see, he wouldn’t have killed
Catherine to hold onto me when he knows he hasn’t got that long to
live himself,” Nancy finished, her voice cracking.

That seemed plausible enough, even if the
rest sounded like a bad soap opera.

“You said that you and Catherine loved each
other.” I looked at her. “Does that mean you don’t believe
Catherine was seeing someone else at the time she was killed?”

Nancy stared at me as if in a trance. “The
man she was in bed with the night she died...” Her voice quaked.
“I’m not sure what to believe anymore—”

I sought to allay her fears and shed my own
sense of guilt in being indirectly made a pawn in her lover’s
death.

“I think we both know who that man was,” I
said woefully. “And, just for the record, I was set up. I didn’t
even know Catherine Sinclair, much less sleep with her—”

“I know,” she said, as if absolving me of any
culpability. “I knew from the beginning it was only made to look
that way. If there had been anyone else, I would have known about
it. That was the type of relationship we had. Neither of us had a
leash around the other’s neck.”

If they had, it would have to have been a
very long leash—and probably included a notch or two reserved for
Gregory Sinclair’s bed.

“Were you aware that Catherine was meeting
her husband at shady motels?” I had to ask. “And, believe me, they
weren’t in separate rooms.”

Nancy didn’t flinch. “It was all play acting
to please Gregory,” she stated knowingly, “and satisfy her own
sexual appetite. Even though they had separate bedrooms, Catherine
still made love to Gregory.
But she didn’t love him
,” she
stressed. “She enjoyed their clandestine meetings in unusual
locations. It was all part of her desire to be free of the mold she
felt trapped in.” Her mind seemed to wander before returning to the
tragic situation at hand. “We would have been happy together...I
know it.”

I wanted to comfort her, but something told
me it wasn’t
my
comfort she wanted.

After a moment of silence, I asked: “Did
Catherine tell Sinclair she was planning to leave him?”

“Yes.” She looked up at me. “About a week
before she was killed.”

“I take it he wasn’t exactly thrilled with
her plans?”

Nancy blinked back tears. “She said he
understood and wasn’t going to stand in her way.”

Had Catherine Sinclair really been so naive
as to believe Sinclair would let his meal ticket and drug money
laundress simply walk away with his blessing and her money?