Deadly Interest (40 page)

Aunt Lena’s tone made it clear she was
none-too-pleased with me. “Lucy’s been waiting all morning for
you,” she said. “I called your house, and when you didn’t answer, I
sent Moose over there.”

My aunt hadn’t yet jumped on the cell phone
bandwagon, and she often forgot that I carried one. This didn’t
seem a good time to remind her she should have tried that number.
“I’m at the police station,” I said to hold off further rebuke.
“Barton Vicks is dead.”

“
Jesus,” she said in a
whisper. “First his mother, now him. What happened? Was it a heart
attack?”

“
He was killed,” I began,
then caught Lulinski’s wide-eyed warning. “I can’t talk about it
right now. But, please, tell Lucy I’ll make it up to her. I
promise.”

“
You can promise all you
like, honey,” she said, “but it won’t do much good anymore. Lucy’s
been staring out the window since you were due to pick her up. She
refuses to move.”

“
I couldn’t come,” I
said.

“
Well, I understand when
plans get cancelled, but your sister’s different. You know that.”
She sighed. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this right now, but Lucy
told me the other day that she thinks she’s not important to you.
She said she thought you wished she was back at school and out of
your life. Now, after this, she’s sure of it.”

For the second time today, I leaned my butt
against a nearby wall and stared at the floor, as my heart gave
out. I swallowed the hurt this time, feeling empty. I didn’t have
the words to fix this. I didn’t know how. When I finally spoke, my
voice cracked. “Just tell her how sorry I am.”

Just as I finished giving my statement, my
stomach let loose with a ferocious growl. Lulinski’s gray brows
shot up, gray gaze following. “Hungry?”

“
After all I saw this
morning, I can’t believe I am.”

“
Come on,” he said, “I
have to drive you back to your car anyway. I’ll buy you lunch. Let
me just make a couple of calls.”

I offered to walk out to
the coffee room to give him privacy, but he waved me back into my
chair. Since I had
de facto
permission, I eavesdropped on his two phone
conversations, one regarding an update on Laurence Grady, which
appeared to give him little information, but the man on the other
end of the line had such a booming voice that Lulinski held the
phone far away from his ear, and I could even hear his promise of
more information soon. The second call was a more personal one;
Lulinski spoke briefly to someone named Jenny, and promised to get
back to her soon.

We stopped at a storefront Chinese
restaurant, set up cafeteria-style where aproned Oriental men
smiled as they lumped rice and stir-fry onto Styrofoam plates.
Lulinski paid for our two trays and we chose a table near the back,
away from the rest of the hungry patrons.

“
Now that we’ve got the
official report taken care of,” he said, “tell me the rest of it.”
Shoveling beef and broccoli into his mouth, he watched me with wary
eyes.

“
There isn’t anything
else.” I pushed at my shrimp fried rice with the plastic fork. “I
still can’t believe Barton’s dead. I can’t believe I found him. My
God,” I said, yet again, “if I’d only seen the blood right away, he
might have survived.”

Lulinski shook his head. “No,” he said with
authority. “You were there what, about five minutes? Even ten,
fifteen minutes and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Those were
fatal shots he took.”

“
You’re sure?”

He nodded, head down, apparently
concentrating on his food. I was glad not to see his eyes. If he
was lying to me, I didn’t want to know.

We both ate in silence for a few moments
until I asked, “Who do you think did it?”

“
Good question,” he said.
“I’m having them run prints again. Fortunately we have yours on
file for elimination,” he said, heavy with sarcasm. “Look Alex, how
about you try not to be involved in any more murders, okay?” When I
shot him a conciliatory smile, he sighed. “But, that forty-two
hundred dollars you told me about wasn’t found in the
room.”

“
Somebody stole
it?”

“
Either that, or he
gambled it away last night.” Lulinski responded to my skeptical
look. “Yeah, I don’t think he did, either. I think whoever killed
him got away with his stash, too.”

“
You have any
ideas?”

His food almost gone, speed-eater Lulinski
seemed to weigh his decision to tell me. “Couple of thoughts. First
and foremost, Barton Vicks was a gambling man, and we both know he
was into his bookie pretty deep.”

“
You think this was a
hit?” I said, just a bit too loudly.

Lulinski’s eyes swept over the room before
returning to me. “Could be.”

“
Wow,” I said. “But if
he’s dead, then they never get a chance to recover that twenty-five
thousand he owed, right? Killing him doesn’t make
sense.”

He moved his head in a so-so motion.
“Depends. If they’ve been waiting a long time, with nothing coming
from Barton, then he’s toast.”

“
Wouldn’t the forty-two
hundred be good-faith money?”

Lulinski barked out a laugh, but I didn’t
have a clue as to what was funny.

His eyes took on a hard glint. “Not everyone
is ‘nice,’ Alex. There are bad people in this world. People who
will gun down a woman and her three toddlers for ten bucks because
drugs make them do it. They’re not fair, they don’t give a shit
about promises, or good-faith gestures. They’re cold. They want
their cash. That’s it. And if somebody is dead weight, and they
figure they won’t get any more out of him, maybe then he’s worth
more to them as a deadly example to their other lowlife
clients.”

I didn’t have any response.

Lulinski sighed. “There’s another
possibility.”

“
What’s that?”

“
If Laurence Grady killed
Evelyn Vicks, then chances are good he took Barton out
too.”

“
Why would he have killed
Mrs. Vicks? What’s in it for him?”

“
Barton was about to
inherit half of the estate. With him out of the way, Grady’s girl
Diana will get everything.”

“
One problem with that,” I
said. “I don’t think Diana knew she was related—or even knew
anything about the will. So it stands to reason that Grady didn’t
either.”

He pursed his lips, thinking. “You told me
he was accompanying Diana to Dr. Hooker’s, right?”

I nodded.

“
So, Diana may or may not
know that her landlady is her grandmother.”

I interjected. “I’m betting she didn’t
know.”

“
Okay. But, Evelyn Vicks
knew that Diana was her granddaughter, right? Over time, I’m sure
they’d developed a close relationship. How could they
not?”

The question seemed rhetorical, so I let him
continue.

“
Grady now has a window
into Mrs. Vicks life, through Diana. Whether she meant to or not,
Diana probably fed the loser enough information to let him know
about the woman’s finances, and her habits. Evelyn Vicks became an
easy mark.”

“
But . . . to kill
her?”

“
My guess is he didn’t
plan on that. Criminals get nervous, too. Often with tragic
results.”

I shook my head. “Very iffy. Then why kill
Barton?”

“
Even if Grady doesn’t
know the true relationship there, Barton is in the way. And maybe
he didn’t set out to kill him, either. Maybe, like Evelyn Vicks, it
was a robbery gone wrong.”

“
You really think
that?”

Lulinski guzzled down the remaining coffee
in his Styrofoam cup. “I’ve got three possibilities and I can’t
afford to dismiss any one of them until I have solid proof. Most
likely scenario has Grady killing Evelyn Vicks. He’s got the means,
he had the opportunity, and all we need now is a motive. Second
choice is a random act of violence. Thieves break into the victim’s
home and wind up killing her. And if that’s the case, then Barton’s
murder coming on the heels of his mother’s is just tragic
coincidence.”

He smiled, adding, “Of course, I don’t
believe in coincidences.”

“
So, what’s number three?
Owen Riordan?”

“
You got it.”

I’d about finished up my platter of Chinese
food, amazed that I’d been able to eat so much in so little time.
At the rate I was going, I might be able to race Lulinski next time
we lunched together. With any luck, I thought, we wouldn’t ever
have to. Two murders in two weeks were too many. I’d be content
never to have to deal with the good detective again—at least not in
an official capacity.

“
So you believe Maya and I
might be onto something?” I asked.

“
Could be,” he said. “But
I don’t like the idea of the two of you skulking around in the bank
by yourself at night.”

“
We’ll be fine,” I said,
with a gusto I didn’t feel. The specter of Bart’s body moving from
life to death before my eyes, still chilled me, down
deep.

“
You trust this Maya?” he
asked, not for the first time.

“
I do,” I said with
impatience.

“
There’s no way she can be
setting you up?”

“
Listen,” I said, “I went
to her with the information, not the other way around. And the
reason I did was because I know she’s okay.” It sounded lame, but I
knew I was right. “Okay?”

Lulinski made a face. “This kind of white
collar crime is hard to carry out without help. I’m thinking
there’s a good chance he’s working with at least one other person.
Someone who can cover his ass.”

My mind made the immediate connection. “Nina
Takami,” I said.

“
Come again?”

“
A woman who works for
him,” I said. “She was ready to haul off and deck me when I needed
Mrs. Vicks’ files.”

“
Give me her name
again.”

I did, spelling it from memory of the
placard on her desk, then added, “If Owen’s working with anyone, I
guarantee it’s her.”

He nodded. “If you come up with the kind of
information you’re talking about, we’ll have enough to investigate
Riordan, and this woman, too. Mostly, I want to see if his blood
samples and fingerprints match up to any of the ones we’ve found at
any of the crime scenes.” Holding up a finger, he looked like he
wanted to say something else, but changed his mind. “I can’t go in
with you,” he said. “Not without a warrant. But if you two find
information that you believe points to someone’s guilt, you have
every right to bring it to my attention.” He focused on a far
corner of the restaurant for a moment. “It’ll be best if you don’t
tell Maya that you plan to hand the information over to me. If she
goes in there, with that knowledge . . .” he waggled his head in a
so-so motion, “it could be construed that she acted as my agent.
That’d screw everything up.” Lasering his focus back to me, he
added, “But as soon as you’re out of there, I want to know. Make
sure you’re okay.”

“
What about Jenny?” I
asked, remembering his phone call earlier. “Didn’t I hear you
promise to be home soon, or something like that?”

“
Yeah,” he said. “My
daughter. She worried about me running out the house so fast this
morning.”

“
Your daughter?” That took
me by surprise. “How old is she?”

I expected him to say eleven or twelve.

“
Twenty-one. Graduating
college in May, summa cum laude.” The pride in his voice was
nothing compared to the sparkle in his eyes. “She’s home for spring
break from Notre Dame.”

“
Wow,” I said. “You don’t
look old enough to have a college grad daughter.”

“
Yeah, right,” he said,
but he grinned.

I was enjoying this glimpse into Lulinski’s
personal life. “Any other kids?”

“
Nah.” He shook his head,
looked away. “Jenny’s mom died real young,” he said quietly. “She’s
had it rough all these years with just me for a parent.”

Impulsively, I touched his hand. “Sounds
like you did pretty well.”

“
Thanks. She’s a good
kid.”

Leaning away again, I frowned at him. “You
ought to lay off the smokes. For her sake.”

He stood. “You women all like to nag, don’t
you?” Grinning, he cleaned up his dish and reached for mine,
tossing them both in the nearby wastebasket. “But, we’re not
talking about smoking now, we’re talking about you and this Maya
pulling your little detective stunt. I don’t like the idea of you
taking chances. Too much can go wrong.”

“
Nothing’s going to go
wrong,” I said, this time feeling a bit more confident. “Maya has
the keys, the codes, and the authority to be there any time she
wants. She told me she’s gone in on weekends before, so this isn’t
going to raise any eyebrows.”

“
What time you meeting
her?”

I glanced at my watch. Three o’clock
already. “I’m supposed to be at her house about an hour from now.
We better go.”

On the ride back to my car, still parked in
the Tuck Inn’s lot, I thought about Lucy. I was torn. I wanted to
call her, to apologize to her personally—but calling her now, when
I still couldn’t make time for her, seemed somehow worse than
waiting. After all, I reasoned, Aunt Lena had probably come up with
some diversion, and a call from me now would only serve to remind
Lucy of my absence. Unsure of how to handle the situation, I chose
to wait.