The Myron Bolitar Series 7-Book Bundle (163 page)

“No.”

“Dang, and me needing a date.” Want to needle a cop? Use gay humor. Myron had yet to meet one who wasn’t a complete homophobe.

Winters said, “We’re going to trash this place, funnyman.”

“Doubtful,” Myron countered.

“Oh?”

Myron stood, reached into the file cabinet behind him.

“Hey, you can’t touch anything in here.”

Myron ignored him, pulled out a small videocamera. “Just keeping a record of your doings, officer. In today’s climate of false police corruption charges, we wouldn’t want any misunderstandings”—Myron snapped on the camera and aimed the lens at the big guy—“would we?”

“No,” the big guy said, staring straight into the lens. “We wouldn’t want any misunderstandings.”

Myron kept his eye in the viewer. “The camera captures the real you, Detective. I bet if we played it back, we’d still smell your cologne.”

Head Lice hid a smile.

“Please get out of our way, Mr. Bolitar,” Winters said.

“Sure thing. Cooperation is my middle name.”

They began the search, which basically consisted of packing every document they could lay their hands on in crates and carrying them out. The gloved hands touched everything, and it felt to Myron like they were touching him. He tried to look innocent—whatever that looked like—but
he couldn’t help being nervous. Guilt was a funny thing. He knew that there was nothing amiss in any of the files, but he still felt oddly defensive.

Myron gave the video camera to Big Cyndi and started making calls to clients who had left MB. Most didn’t pick up. The few who did tried to defect. Myron played it soft, figuring that any overaggression would backfire. He merely told them that he was back and would like very much to speak with them at their earliest convenience. A lot of hemming and hawing from those who actually spoke to him. Not unexpected. If he were to regain their confidence, it would take time.

The cops finished up and left without so much as a good-bye. Manners. Big Cyndi and Myron watched the elevators close.

“This is going to be very difficult,” Myron said.

“What?”

“Working without any files.”

Big Cyndi opened her purse and showed him computer disks. “Everything is on these.”

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

“You backed up everything on these?”

“Yes.”

“Letters and correspondences, okay, but I need the contracts—”

“Everything,” she said. “I bought a scanner and ran every paper in the office through it. There’s a backup set in a safety-deposit box at Citibank. I update the disks every week. In case of fire or other emergency.”

When she smiled this time, Myron’s cringe was barely perceptible.

“Big Cyndi, you are a surprising woman.”

It was hard to tell under the melted Masque de Crayola, but it almost looked like she was blushing.

The intercom buzzed. Big Cyndi picked up the phone.

“Yes?” Pause. Then her voice grew grave.

“Yes, send her up.” She replaced the receiver.

“Who is it?”

“Bonnie Haid is here to see you.”

Big Cyndi showed the Widow Haid into his office. Myron stood behind his desk, not sure what to do. He waited for her to make the first move, but she didn’t. Bonnie Haid had let her hair grow out, and for a moment he was back at Duke. Clu and Bonnie were sitting on the couch in the basement of the frat house, another major kegger behind them, his arm draped over her shoulder, she wearing a gray sweatshirt, her legs tucked under her.

He swallowed and moved toward her. She took a step back and closed her eyes. She put a hand up to stop him as though she could not bear the pain of his intimacy. Myron stayed where he was.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Thank you.”

They both stood there, two dancers waiting for the music to begin.

“Can I sit down?” Bonnie asked.

“Of course.”

She sat. Myron hesitated and then chose to go back around his desk.

“When did you get back?” she asked.

“Last night,” he said. “I didn’t know about Clu before then. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

Bonnie cocked her head. “Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why are you sorry you weren’t here? What could you have done?”

Myron shrugged. “Help maybe.”

“Help how?”

He shrugged again, spread his arms. “I don’t know what to say, Bonnie. I’m flailing here.”

She looked at him a moment, challenging, then dropped her eyes. “I’m just lashing out at whoever’s in front of me,” she said. “Don’t pay any attention.”

“I don’t mind; lash away.”

Bonnie almost managed a smile. “You’re a good guy, Myron. You always were. Even at Duke there was something about you that was—I don’t know—noble, I guess.”

“Noble?”

“Sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

“Very,” he said. “How are the boys?”

She shrugged. “Timmy is only eighteen months old so he doesn’t have a clue. Charlie is four so he’s just pretty confused right now. My parents are taking care of them.”

“I don’t want to keep sounding like a bad cliché,” Myron said, “but if there’s anything at all I can do …”

“One thing.”

“Name it.”

“Tell me about the arrest.”

Myron cleared his throat. “What about it?”

“I’ve met Esperanza a few times over the years. I guess I find it hard to believe she’d kill Clu.”

“She didn’t do it.”

Bonnie squinted a bit. “What makes you so sure?”

“I know Esperanza.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “For now.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I can’t talk about specifics”—mostly because he didn’t know any; Myron was almost grateful that Esperanza had not told him anything—“but she didn’t do it.”

“What about all the evidence the police found?”

“I can’t answer that yet, Bonnie. But Esperanza is innocent. We’ll find the real killer.”

“You sound so sure.”

“I am.”

They fell into silence. Myron waited, mapping out an approach. There were questions that needed to be asked, but this woman had just lost her husband. One had to tread gently lest one trip an emotional land mine.

“I’m going to look into the murder,” Myron said.

She looked confused. “What do you mean, look into?”

“Investigate.”

“But you’re a sports agent.”

“I have some background in this.”

She studied his face. “Win too?”

“Yes.”

She nodded as if something suddenly made sense. “Win always scared the crap out of me.”

“That’s only because you’re sane.”

“And now you’re going to try to figure out who killed Clu?”

“Yes.”

“I see,” she said. She shifted in her chair. “Tell me something, Myron.”

“Anything.”

“What’s your priority here: finding the murderer or getting Esperanza off?”

“One and the same.”

“And if they’re not? If you learn Esperanza killed him?”

Time to lie. “Then she’ll be punished.”

Bonnie started smiling as though she could see the truth. “Good luck,” she said.

Myron put an ankle up on a knee.
Gentle now
, he thought. “Can I ask you something?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

Gently, gently. “I don’t mean any disrespect, Bonnie. I’m not asking this to be nosy—”

“Subtlety is not your strong suit, Myron; Just ask your question.”

“Were you and Clu having problems?”

A sad grin. “Weren’t we always?”

“I hear this was something more serious.”

Bonnie folded her arms below her chest. “My, my. Back less than a day and already you’ve learned so much. You work fast, Myron.”

“Clu mentioned it to Win.”

“So what do you want to know?”

“Were you suing him for divorce?”

“Yes.” No hesitation.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

In the distance the fax machine started its primordial screech. The phone continued beeping. Myron had no fear that they’d be interrupted. Big Cyndi had worked for years as a bouncer at an S&M bar; when the situation called for it, she could be as nasty as a rabid rhino with a bad case of piles. Er, even when the situation didn’t call for it.

“Why do you want to know?” Bonnie asked.

“Because Esperanza didn’t kill him.”

“That’s becoming something of a mantra for you, Myron. Say it often enough and you start to believe it, right?”

“I believe it.”

“So?”

“So if she didn’t kill him, someone else did.”

Bonnie looked up. “If she didn’t kill him, someone else did,” she repeated. Pause. “You weren’t just bragging before. You really do have a background in this.”

“I’m just trying to find out who killed him.”

“By asking about our marriage?”

“By asking about anything turbulent in his life.”

“Turbulent?” She let out a stab of a laugh. “This is Clu we’re talking about here, Myron. Everything was turbulent. The hard thing to find would be patches of calm.”

“How long were you two together?” Myron asked.

“You know the answer to that.”

He did. Junior year at Duke. Bonnie had come bopping down to the frat house basement dressed in a monogram sweater and pearls and, yep, ponytail. Myron and Clu had been working the keg. Myron liked working the keg because it kept him so busy he didn’t drink as much. Don’t get the wrong idea here. Myron drank. It was pretty much a college requirement in those days. But he wasn’t a very good drinker. He always seemed to miss that cusp of fun, that floaty buzz between sobriety and vomiting. It was almost nonexistent for him. Something in his ancestry, he assumed. It had actually helped him in recent months. Before running away with Terese, Myron had tried the old-fashioned approach of drowning one’s sorrows. But, put bluntly, he usually threw up before reaching oblivion.

Nice way to prevent alcohol abuse.

Anyway, Clu and Bonnie’s meeting was pretty simple. Bonnie walked in. Clu looked up from the keg and it was as if Captain Marvel had zapped him with a thunderbolt. “Wow,” Clu muttered, the beer overflowing onto a floor so coated with beer that rodents often got stuck on it and died. Then Clu leaped over the bar, staggered toward Bonnie, dropped to one knee, and proposed. Three years later they tied the knot for real.

“So after all these years what happened?”

Bonnie looked down. “It had nothing to do with his murder,” she said.

“That’s probably true, but I need to get the full picture of his life, travel down any possible avenue—”

“Bullshit, Myron. I said it had nothing to do with the murder, okay? Leave it at that.”

He licked his lips, folded his hands, put them on the desktop. “In the past you’ve thrown him out because of another woman.”

“Not woman. Women. Plural.”

“Is that what happened again this time?”

“He swore off women. He promised me that there’d be no more.”

“And he broke that promise?”

Bonnie didn’t answer.

“What was her name?”

Her voice was soft. “I never knew.”

“But there was someone else?”

Again she didn’t answer. No need. Myron tried to put on his attorney skin for a moment. Clu’s having an affair was a very good thing for Esperanza’s defense. The more motives you can find, the more reasonable doubt you can create. Did the girlfriend kill him because he still wanted to be with his wife? Did Bonnie do it out of jealousy? And then there was the missing money. Wouldn’t the girlfriend and/or Bonnie have known about it? Couldn’t that be an added motive for murder? Yep, Hester Crimstein would like this. Throw enough possibilities into a trial, muddy the waters enough, and an acquittal is almost inevitable. It was a simple equation: Confusion equals reasonable doubt equals a not-guilty verdict.

“He’s had affairs before, Bonnie. What was different this time?”

“Give it a rest, Myron, okay? Clu isn’t even in the ground yet.”

He pulled back. “I’m sorry.”

She looked away. Her chest rose and fell, her voice fighting to stay steady. “I know you’re just trying to help,” she said. “But the divorce stuff … it hurts too much right now.”

“I understand.”

“If you have other questions …”

“I heard Clu failed a drug test.” So much for backing off.

“I only know what I read in the papers.”

“Clu told Win it was a fix.”

“What?”

“Clu claimed he was clean. What do you think?”

“I think Clu was a marvelous screwup. We both know that.”

“So he was taking again?”

“I don’t know.” She swallowed and locked eyes with him. “I hadn’t seen him in weeks.”

“And before that?”

“He seemed clean, actually. But he was always good at hiding it. Remember that intervention we tried three years ago?”

Myron nodded.

“We all cried. We all begged him to stop. And finally Clu broke down too. He sobbed like a baby, said he was ready turn his life around. Two days later he paid off a guard and sneaked out of rehab.”

“So you think he was just masking the symptoms?”

“He could have been. He was good at that.” She hesitated. “But I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Wishful thinking, I guess, but I really
thought he was clean this time. In the past you could almost see he was going through the motions. He was playing a part for me or the kids. But this time he seemed more determined. Like he knew this trade was his last chance to start fresh. He worked at it like I’ve never seen him work at anything. I thought he was beating it too. But something must have pushed him back off.…”

Bonnie’s voice tailed off, and now her eyes filled. She was wondering, no doubt, if she had been that push, if Clu had indeed been clean and if she had thrown him out of their house and plunged him back into the world of his addictions. Myron almost told her not to blame herself, but good sense kept the grating cliché at bay.

“Clu always needed someone or something,” she went on. “He was the most dependent person I ever knew.”

Myron nodded, encouraging her.

“At first I found that attractive, that he needed me so much. But it got weary.” Bonnie looked at him. “How many times did someone pull his ass out of the fire?”