Keegan 00 Soft Case (13 page)

I looked him over. He was being real friendly. I should have thought something of that, but my mind was on my aching tooth and my throbbing libido.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t turn on the lights or the siren. I promise.”

I threw him the keys, eager to get to Sondra.

She was waiting for me in the same room we spoke in the day before. She had certainly gotten herself together since the last time I saw her. Not to say that she looked bad the day before. I am sure I left no doubts about that.

Sondra was sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette. I reached into my pocket for mine, but I only came up with an empty pack.

“Have one of mine,” she said, opening the cedar box, which she had placed on the sofa next to her. I walked over and grabbed one. It was a Virginia Slim, about the size of a pencil. I don’t care how cool of a guy you are, you can’t make yourself looking good smoking a Virginia Slim. You might as well have a dick hanging out of your mouth. But, I was desperate. For the cigarette I mean. “How are you,” I said, after lighting the smoke.

“Not good, Detective.”

I sat down in the chair.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you said you are receiving phone calls.”

“Yes. From some man who said he works for Ron’s company. He told me he knows something about his death, but he won’t say anything over the phone. He wants me to meet him. I’m not so sure I should do that.”

I decided not to tell her about my meeting later on in the evening. It might have scared her, or it might have supplied her with information that she didn’t need. But I was certainly going to say something to the informant about her, see if he was making the calls to her. I figured it was.

“You shouldn’t.”

“You don’t think it’s safe?” she asked. She looked good, wearing an orange sundress, showing off her perfectly shaped legs. They were shiny and smooth, the sort of legs I like. For a woman in her mid-thirties, she had it going good. Real good.

“I’m not sure. But there are a lot of idiots out there who watch the news and then try and capitalize on victims. He didn’t give you his name, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“Not at all.”

“You have Caller ID?”

“Yes, but the number came up anonymous.”

“You want someone tracing your calls?”

“I don’t know. You think it’s that important?”

“Could be. If you have some nut job pranking you after your husband’s death, it might be a good idea to pinch him, before he does something stupid, or does it to someone else.”

She finished her cigarette, and stood up. She was breathing a little heavy. Her chest heaved up and down nicely, and she caught me looking. It didn’t seem to bother her. Certainly didn’t bother me.

“This is all too much for me. I mean, what if this man does know something? What if Ron didn’t commit suicide? What if he was murdered?”

“That’s what we are here to find out,” I said.

“Have you found anything yet?”

“Not anything out of the ordinary, no. But we are checking everything. If there was foul play involved, we’ll find out.”

“Oh Jesus, this is just too much. Poor Ron. If he did commit suicide, why didn’t I see it coming? I’m his wife, was his wife. Shouldn’t I have seen it?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Of course she should have seen it, in my opinion. But, then again, I had never been involved with a suicide personally, and really couldn’t judge. I had to think that maybe this was all an act, that maybe she had something to do with her husband’s untimely death. But saying something to either effect wasn’t going to do any good. Plus, I didn’t want to make her feel bad.

“Things like that are tough. It’s easy to look back now and say you should have seen the signs, because the signs are so much clearer in hindsight. But don’t do that to yourself. He was acting strangely, but people act strange all the time, and don’t commit suicide. You just never know.”

“I should have known. Now, I have two kids without a father, at a time when they need him so badly. I have a company to decide what I want to do with, and I have the press lurking around everywhere. I just can’t handle it.” Sondra showed some distress, but again, I couldn’t tell if this was some sort of performance. She liked attention.

“You have to try and relax. Is there anything I can do?” I asked, running a few scenarios through my mind of what I wanted to do.

She gave me a look, one that appeared to be of interest. Like I could do something, but she wasn’t in the position to say what that was. Maybe I was projecting all of this, making it up in my head. I did that a lot.

Speaking of my head, my tooth started throbbing again, and I knew for sure that the side of my mouth was swelling up. My heart raced a little, which only made the pain throb more. I needed to get to my father as soon as possible.

“No, I guess there is nothing you can do right now, other than finding out what happened to my husband. At least then I will have closure.”

“I’ll do my best, I promise.”

“I have the feeling you will.”

“While I am here, I might as well ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

“Did you see Harold Chapman’s press conference?”

“No, but I saw the news, and they mentioned it. I saw a small clip. What about it?”

“There were rumors about Ron being against the Onyx merger, did you know anything about that?” I asked.

She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then back at me. She prepared something to say. I wished I could trust her more, not so much in her guilt in her husband’s murder, but just in that what came out of her mouth was the truth.

“They fought about it for a while. I know Ron was uncertain about Onyx, and he didn’t think they were a good match for Techdata.”

“So, he was against it?”

“I think he was initially, but Harold most likely talked him into that. Harold is a good talker.”

I had seen evidence of that at the press conference. They guy had that smoothness you can’t generate. It comes naturally, and he surely had it.

“You think this could have anything to do with your husband’s death?”

“Oh, I don’t know. They started talking about Onyx almost two years ago, I think. Not too long after Ron told Harold that he wanted to leave.”

“What do you know about Onyx?” I asked.

“I just know that they are a communications company. High!speed access, if I remember correctly. Other than that, I don’t know.”

“Okay.” I stood up, sensing it was time to leave. Actually, I wondered why the Hell I came out there. It was a worthless trip, but I also wasn’t missing anything down at the station. We had nowhere to go. And besides, Sondra wasn’t too hard to look at, unlike the crew down at the station. I had made the right decision. I couldn’t remember the last time I had done that.

“There’s something else, Detective Keegan,” Sondra said, turning to look at me.

“You can call me John.” Cheesy line, I know.

“I didn’t tell you this the first time we spoke because I was flustered, and worried.” She paused. “Ron and I were still having problems, and to be honest, we were going to get a divorce. We probably would have waited until his Senate run was finished.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“You would have found out eventually. Someone would have said something. And then you would have thought not to trust me.” Trust? What made her think I trusted her then? I wanted to bang, her, but trust? That wasn’t even part of the equation.

“Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“Nothing that I can think of.”

I smiled. “Then don’t worry about it. I really can’t see how your marital problems have any bearing on this investigation. But I appreciate you telling me, anyway.” Of course it had bearing. A lot of it.

I said goodbye, and walked toward the door.

“Let me know of anything else, if it comes up.”

She stood by the window, and looked like she was going to tell me to stay. She looked scared. Sondra Mullins, from what I could tell, was a woman who needed a man around to take care of her. She needed the sense of security. Sure, she could handle herself, walk all over any man she wanted, but she needed things from a man.

I was a man, a man who could take care of her. I doubted she looked at me that way. I wished she did. And that’s all I could do.

“I will,” she said.

I walked out the front door, and Steve flipped me the keys to my car.

“Didn’t need to move it. Thanks,” he said.

“Yeah, no problem.”

I got in the car, and took a quick look around to see if anything was touched. Nothing was. My tooth erupted again, and I started the car, en route to dear old Dad’s.

I was on the Southern State Parkway, almost in Queens, when Geiger came on the radio.

“Keegan,” he said.

“Copy.”

“Where are you?”

“Southern State. Headed for an emergency appointment.”

“For what?”

“Dentist.”

“What?” He didn’t sound happy.

“It’s an emergency, trust me.”

“Jesus, first Calhill gets sick, and now you have a toothache.” “What’s the matter with Calhill?”

“Started throwing up. Had to send him home.”

“Great.” Just what I needed.

“Get back here as soon as you can.”

“I will.”

Maybe someone else, someone smarter, would have thought these events peculiar. I had other things on my mind, mainly my tooth. I didn’t have time to analyze such things.

I should have made the time.

I made it to Dad’s office before two. There were four people sitting in the waiting room, one of them a nine-year-old kid, who looked scared. Dad was pretty good with the kids, except maybe his own sometimes, but this kid probably had to go through his first drilling. It was a fearful experience, even for someone who had it done before, but this kid was going through the worst part. He could hear the drilling going on in the offices, knowing that he was heading for that soon. No fun.

Nancy was behind the window, on the phone. She sat at a desk cluttered with papers and file folders. Before she would leave, the entire desk would be clear and neat. She was one of the best, and that’s why Dad kept her for as long as he did. She smiled at me, and hung up the phone.

“Hello darling,” she said. “In a little pain?”

“A lot,” I said.

“Go into room two, he’ll be right with you.”

I walked through the hallway, and into the room. It hadn’t changed much since I was a kid, except for a new chair, and a new X-Ray machine, which was smaller than the huge contraption he originally had, which reminded me of some alien weapon. I started up the spit sink, took off my jacket, and sat down in the chair.

Even though I grew up around dentistry, I couldn’t get rid of the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the anticipation of pain, worse than any real pain you’ll experience. That’s why people hated dentists; there was a good chance you were going to be in pain, and the dentist was the one who was going to inflict it. My Dad was good at that, but I don’t know if he was better than anyone else, because I never went to another dentist. Dad was planning on retiring in a few years. I had no idea what I was going to do then.

Seated in the chair, I glanced around the room, at all the ads with smiling people and white teeth. They were ridiculous, but I always stared at them while I was getting drilled. It gave me something to do.

Dad walked in behind me. “Well, well, well.”

“Hey Dad,” I said, twisting my head to look at him.

“Nancy says you’re hurting quite a bit.”

“You could say that.”

He came around to look at me. Dad was a small man, 57”, and looked nothing like a dentist. He had huge forearms, like Popeye almost, a shiny scalp, and thick glasses. That was my future, genetically. I was reminded of that every time I looked at him. Needless to say, it didn’t make me happy. My genetic future was cloudy at best. At least Dad had a strong ticker, but from what I understand, my genetic blueprint comes from my grandparents, all of whom died of either cancer or heart problems. The good money was on me dying before fifty. No one would touch anything over that.

Dad grabbed one of those scraper things and told me to open my mouth. He pressed in the center of the tooth, which made me let him know it hurt.

“Ow,” I said.

“You been flossing?” Flossing is disgusting, and a waste of time, in my opinion. Dad had tried to instill in me the importance of such oral hygiene, but he had pretty much wasted his time.

“Sometimes.” Bullshit, of course.

“Bullshit. You could feed a small village with what you have wedged in between your teeth.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. It’s hard to talk with someone’s hand in your mouth.

“They mentioned your name on TV today.” Dad had a habit of repeating things he had said earlier to me.

I replied something that only he and I could understand.

“Got a big case, huh?”

I always wondered why he insisted on having conversations with people who were unable to respond. It was great if you wanted to get a point across without having to hear any flack, but it didn’t do much for two-way conversations.

“Yesh,” I said.

“Shame what happened to that Mullins guy. I have stock in Techdata.”

I wanted to tell him that he told me that already, and that my investigation most likely wasn’t going to affect the value of his portfolio, but, obviously, there was no way to do that.

“You think it was a suicide?”

I shrugged. He began scraping where my teeth met my gums, which sent a chill throughout my entire body.

“You think he was murdered?”

I shrugged again.

He took his hand out of my mouth. My tooth was still throbbing from that poking thing he did, and my gums were a little sore.

“Spit,” he said.

I did, and a good amount of blood came out.

“Thanks,” I said, sarcastically.

“I keep telling you to come for cleanings. Then you wouldn’t have to go through this every six months.”

“I know.”

“I won’t know for sure, until after I do your x-rays, but I think you need a root canal on that tooth. I told you that the filling was only temporary. Most of it has fallen out, and I think you rotted the tooth straight through.”