Deadly Intersections (18 page)

Ari disappeared into the office and went straight to the model. Her eyes focused on the intersection and the chosen location—the corner with the L-shaped strip mall. She studied the mini-version of Wertz’s dream carefully. It was a typical big box type store, one that would never have a secondary use if the Hometown City Center failed. A spec list sat next to the model, listing the square footage, amenities and projected date of completion—Christmas. She shook her head unable to believe that in less than ten months the entire corner would be transformed.

How could that be? The tenants didn’t even know they were losing their shops. There was something illegal about his deal. She grabbed her cell phone and snapped a few pictures of the model and the spec sheet.

She went to his desk and computer. His screensaver flashed neon colors and the Hometown logo. As she suspected he relied entirely on Candy, not even bothering to shut down his computer or lock his desk. She rifled through his drawers, not knowing what to look for and finding nothing but standard office supply items—and a vibrator. She was sure she knew who played with Stan and his little toy. She tapped on the mouse and the screen filled with his desktop icons, none of which looked suspicious. She clicked on his document folder and was told to enter a password. His E-mail was also protected and she didn’t have time to try to figure it out.

She clicked on his personal calendar and scrolled backward looking for anything that suggested a connection to Warren Edgington. She hoped for a specific reference such as
Meet Warren and kill him,
but there were no entries that mentioned him or the Hometown City Center property. A thud reverberated under her feet and she froze. She looked at the door, expecting Candy to burst into the room, but no one entered. Everything else in the office was in place except for a strange modern print that hung slightly askew as if someone had moved it recently. She pulled the painting from the wall to discover a safe. She halfheartedly flipped the metal handle certain that the lock was engaged. Her hunch was correct and the door didn’t budge.

She quickly replaced the painting and opened the office door slowly. Jane and Candy had disappeared but she found the source of the thud—a large crystal paperweight lay on its side in front of Candy’s desk making a deep impression in the plush carpet. She searched through the files and stacks of correspondence next to her computer and the pile of papers in her inbox. It seemed Wertz participated in every decision and micromanaged each of his stores.

She quickly scanned the desktop amongst the knickknacks and personal photos. A few memos with sticky notes awaited her attention, but they contained typical information about meat sales and freezers. There was no way to tell what was important.

Candy’s screensaver materialized—a picture of a convertible BMW. And how could she afford that? Perhaps it was just a dream or maybe a Beemer was Wertz’s way of buying her silence.

She checked Candy’s calendar which was incredibly organized. Her handwriting was impeccable and she annotated many of the entries with sticky notes, receipts or follow-up phone messages. Ari cracked a grin. She and Candy could be great friends.

She flipped back to Monday and her heart stopped. Candy had crossed out all of Monday afternoon and written
Dr. Murris.
There were no other notes, but she’d obviously expected to be gone for several hours—and wouldn’t know whether Stan had returned to the office at one o’clock as he’d told the police.

She flipped back a few more days, the sticky notes fluttering with each turn of the page. She’d reviewed nearly two weeks when a name on a receipt caught her eye, Drachman’s Fine Smokes. The notes indicated Candy had left early one afternoon and gone to the Smoke Shop to make a purchase. The receipt only listed a number and the price, thirty-five dollars.

She threw open the lid of Candy’s desktop copier and stuck the receipt on the glass. She heard laughter—Jane’s cue. Once the machine had spit out a copy of the receipt, Ari flipped Candy’s book to February first and copied the evidence that proved her absence.

Jane’s shrill laughter exploded into the room, and Ari heard a door open behind her. She quickly returned Candy’s book to her desk, grabbed an empty file folder and dropped onto the couch. She hoped she didn’t look totally out of breath as she stood to greet a smiling Candy and Jane, whose tongue was fastened to her earlobe.

“Now, baby, c’mon,” Candy coaxed. “Not in front of Ari. Did you find your folders?” Candy asked.

“Oh, yes. Thanks.”

Candy nodded and returned to her desk, her hand caressing Jane’s buttocks as she swept by.

“Thanks again, Candy. We need to go, Jane.”

Ari reached the elevators and waited for the car to arrive. When the doors slid open, Jane still had not appeared. She held the door for almost a minute before Jane marched down the hallway, Candy watching her departure from her desk.

“I hope you got what you needed,” Jane said. “That woman was an animal.”

“I’m sorry it was so painful,” she cracked. She pulled the copies from her pocket and showed them to her.

 “So maybe Candy killed her lover,” Jane said. “Wertz thinks she’s at the doctor’s and she’s really over in the garage using the flask she bought. Or she lied for her boss and he did it.”

“Or nobody did it and he really committed suicide,” Ari said with a sigh. She watched the blinking red numbers count down to the ground floor. “It’s probably nothing. I’m sorry I dragged you down here for nothing.”

“Nothing?” Jane snorted. “I had a much better time than you did.”

“I take it you saw the pink bra?”

In one quick gesture she pulled the bra from her purse, and waved it under her nose.

Molly was sure it was over. Ari had called repeatedly but never left a message. She remembered the look on her face during her drunken rage that morning. It was fear. She’d never let the box of jealousy fly open in Ari’s presence. She kept everything buried and only revealed what she wanted Ari to see—until now.

“Here,” Vicky said, dropping a scotch in front of her.

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to get stopped again. “No, I’m done. Bring me some coffee.”  

“You sure you want to turn down a free drink from a beautiful lady?”

Vicky motioned to an attractive blonde on the other side of the bar. Their eyes met and the blonde held up her shooter in salute and downed it, thrusting her significant cleavage out in the process. She slapped the shot glass down on the bar and smiled at her.

She smiled and sipped her drink. One more wouldn’t hurt.

The blonde left her stool and dropped next to her. “You look like you could use a little something.”

“Thanks for the drink. That was nice of you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and Molly could hear the thickness of her speech. “I’m on my last one. I’ve had a hell of a week, but after I finish this I’m going home.”

Molly pointed at the empty shot glass in front of her. “I guess you’ve already finished.”

The blonde eyed the shooter and laughed heartily. Her breath stank of tequila and Molly imagined she was way over the legal limit. There was no way she could drive.

“How are you getting home?” Molly asked.

A depraved smile crept across her face. “Are you tryin’ to pick me up?”

She shook her head. “No, I’ve got a girlfriend. I just don’t think you should drive. Is there someone you could call?”

The woman shook her finger as if to make a point. “Now see, that’s the problem.  I just broke up with the one person I could call. Isn’t that always how it goes? You break up and find yourself in a bar and the person you’d call is the reason you’re there in the first place.”

Molly chuckled. She was right. The woman was a natural beauty and her impulses stirred. She couldn’t help it. She bit her lip to remind herself that she was faithful to Ari. They sat in silence, stealing glances at each other.

“What’s your name?” Molly finally asked.

“Lola,” the woman replied, grinning in a way that told Molly she was lying. “And you’re Molly, the cop.”

“How’d you know?”

“I asked.” She nodded at Vicky. “And I’d like you to drive me home,” she added, in a suggestive tone.

So there it was, an opportunity. She could pour out her frustrations with a stranger and fill the void in her heart that Ari created. Lola’s long fingernails trailed down her thigh intensifying the heat between her legs.

“I couldn’t drive you home right now,” she croaked, practically unintelligibly. “I’m not sober myself.”

Lola’s cool expression read between the lines. “And what sort of citizen would I be if I didn’t help a member of the law enforcement community?”

Her nails pressed against Molly’s pants, leaving scratch marks on the fabric. She could only imagine what her thighs looked like, and she hoped she wasn’t bleeding. After her lecture to Ari about Biz, the last thing she needed was to be clawed like an animal.

Molly grasped her hand but didn’t let go. She needed to let go. She knew that. But the image of Biz’s name on the file folder, written in Ari’s careful, meticulous script, wouldn’t allow her to release the soft hand she now held.

“Come with me,” Lola said, sliding off the stool and heading for the back room.

She followed, her gaze darting around the bar until she was certain that Jane wasn’t there. They found a plush sofa in a dark corner. Lola pressed against her, and Molly inhaled her scent, so different from Ari’s. Lola wore heavy cologne that smelled like a bouquet of flowers, and her lips ravaged Molly’s neck, smothering her willpower.

She closed her eyes as Lola unbuttoned her shirt, exposing her flesh to the cool air conditioning of the back room. The purple nails wandered across the hills of her breasts, and she threw her eyes open in panic, picturing deep scratches that she couldn’t hide from Ari.

Lola grinned, obviously reading her mind. “Do you know why I keep my nails so long?”

“No,” Molly whispered.

“Because I never use my hands. That’s what my tongue’s for.”

Her eyes widened at the surprising response. She was too stunned to move and did nothing when Lola climbed on top of her and began rocking her hips.

“C’mon, Detective, let’s get to third base. Then you can drive me home.”

Ari yawned repeatedly as she headed for Biz’s office. She should’ve known that dinner with her father and Jane would be a five-hour affair, ending with a quick trip to the Ak-Chin Casino and Jack’s favorite game—blackjack. While he and Jane amassed a small fortune, she continually slipped outside and tried to reach Molly who never answered.

She returned her attention to Biz’s address and pulled into a small parking lot in front of a quaint old building. Her office was part of a converted farmhouse which included several businesses under one roof. She parked her SUV next to Biz’s Mustang and entered through the main door. A maze of hallways tunneled through the house. She only made one wrong turn before she found the door with a simple gold placard announcing,
Elizabeth Stone, Private Investigator
.

She opened the door to find Biz and a young woman in the midst of a passionate kiss. They quickly broke apart at the sight of her, the young woman blushing and reaching for her purse. She bolted out of the room as Ari offered an apology, but the woman’s face remained downward, unwilling to look at her.

When the door quickly slammed shut she turned to Biz. “I’m sorry. I
do
know how to knock.”

Biz smiled and shrugged, unembarrassed. “Not a big deal. That was Callie. She was just delivering my lunch.” She picked up a brown bag, the name of a local deli emblazoned across the side.

“Is that your girlfriend?”

“No.”

She raised a cynical eyebrow. “Really? That was quite a kiss.”

Biz motioned for her to sit on the couch and dropped into an old wooden chair, propping her cowboy boots up on the desk. “Thanks for the compliment, but that was just a fortunate moment.”

Her office had few furnishings—her desk, a filing cabinet, a back table stacked with papers and the couch Ari sat upon. No pictures or art adorned the tan walls, only a printed piece of paper that she’d tacked above her desk. It read simply,
It is what it is, you get what you get, and whatever happens, happens
.

“It’s good to see you,” she said cheerfully.

“I’m glad to see you, too,” Ari said. She so enjoyed her genuine friendliness. It was unusual and refreshing. “I’ve brought the contract, which is really a formality since you’re not negotiating the price and you’re dealing with a company.”

She moved from the clunky office chair to the sofa next to her. She listened attentively as Ari explained the details, and unlike many of her clients who merely nodded during her standard contract spiel, she asked several questions about the passages and clauses, often testing her broader knowledge of several topics. By the time she was ready to sign she’d given Ari a professional workout.

“There. It’s done,” Biz pronounced, holding out the pen and contract to her.

“Do you feel any different?”

“Poorer,” Biz laughed. “But this place is home, you know? I’m sure I won’t regret it.”