Thicker than Water (12 page)

My heart stopped as I came to a photograph of a little girl. I rummaged through my drawers for my magnifying glass. I found it, placed the picture as close to my desk lamp as possible, and looked at it under the magnifier.

It was the same little girl whose face had been haunting me for the past few weeks.

I flipped the photograph over with my eyes shut, hoping there would be a name on the back of it. When I opened my eyes, sure enough, written in somebody's loopy penmanship were the words
Millie O'Shaughnessy
.

There was no year given, but she looked to be about a year younger than she was in the train-station postcard photograph. That would make it 1920s or early '30s.

“So, little Millie O'Shaughnessy. Who
are
you?”

Just then my phone rang. The caller ID read
WALKER, MICHAEL
J.

Fifteen

“Hello?”

“May I speak to Torie O'Shea?” the voice said.

“This is she,” I said.

“This is Mike Walker. You left a message for me.”

“Mr. Walker, I'd like to hire your services,” I said.

“I charge twenty dollars an hour, plus expenses,” he said.

“Fine.” Boy, he didn't mess around. He got right down to business.

“Can I meet with you?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.

“When is convenient for you?”

I looked at the clock on my desk. Eight-forty. “If you're not too far from me I can meet you this evening,” I said.

“This isn't a cheating husband case, is it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Because those suck. I always get depressed when I do those.”

“No, it's not a cheating husband case,” I said.

“All right,” he said. “I live in Crestwood. Know where that is?”

“Yes,” I said. “It'll take me forty-five minutes to get there.”

“Well, then, how about we meet somewhere central?” he said. “You pick.”

“Meet me at Frailey's Bar and Grill on Butler Hill in South County,” I said.

“That right there at 55, by the Schnucks?”

“Yes,” I said.

“All right,” he said. “I'll be there in about twenty minutes.”

I put on a pair of good jeans instead of the holey ones I had been wearing, pulled my hair up in a ponytail, grabbed my purse, and ran down the stairs. Rudy and his mother were both snoring in front of the television, which they both would deny later.

I tapped Rudy on the shoulder, and he jerked awake. “What? Where are you going?”

“I've got my phone with me,” I said. “I'm going up to Frailey's in South County.”

“Why?”

“I'm going to meet … a client.”

“A what?” He rubbed his eyes.

“I'll be back in about an hour,” I said and headed for the door.

“Who the hell wants their family tree traced at this hour?” he asked.

I just smiled and shut the door.

I drove up Highway 55 with the radio on, wondering exactly what it was I would say to Mr. Walker. I hadn't expected him to call tonight, so I hadn't rehearsed my speech. After about ten minutes on the road, I passed the exits for Imperial, Richardson Road, and Highway 141 in Arnold—with that ugly green water tower—then got into the right-hand lane, because my exit was coming up. Meramec Bottom Road passed, and I put my blinker on as the sign for Butler Hill came up over the road. I made a left and crossed back under the highway to the plaza with the giant Schnucks supermarket and Frailey's Bar and Grill. I had made it in twenty-five minutes. I jogged up to the front door.

Having eaten here, I can tell you it is the food that sets Frailey's apart from the other sports bars, not the décor. The inside of Frailey's is like every other sports bar in the Midwest. Sports paraphernalia hung from the walls. What looked like ten televisions hung from the ceiling, all with different sports events on. Poor Rudy. Stuck at home watching sitcoms. The hostess greeted me, and I told her I was meeting somebody.

“Will you need a table?” she asked. That translated into “We're getting ready to close the kitchen.”

“No, we'll sit at the bar,” I said.

Her face brightened a bit at that. I didn't blame her; who wanted to be stuck at work because of one customer who came in ten minutes before the kitchen closed and then took two hours to eat?

“I'm just going to stand here and wait for someone,” I said.

“Sure,” she said.

Within two minutes a man walked in. He looked to be about thirty and was wearing a Rams sweatshirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. “Hey!” he said. “Are you Torie? I'm Mike Walker.” He stuck his hand out for me to shake, which I did. He seemed very … young. A worn and disgusting toothpick hung out of his mouth as he smiled a bright, winning smile.

“Yes, I'm Torie,” I said.

“Come on, I'll buy you a beer,” he offered.

“No thanks,” I said. “I'm driving.”

“Oh.” He looked totally rejected.

“You can buy me a Dr Pepper,” I said.

“Well, all right,” he said and waved his hand in the direction of the bar.

We sat down and he ordered a beer for himself and a Dr Pepper for me. He paid the bartender, handed me my soda, and smiled. “So, what can I do for you and how did you hear of me?”

“Sylvia Pershing,” I said.

He choked on his beer and sputtered a bit. I really had to learn not to speak when people were drinking. One of these days, somebody was going to choke and die and it would be all my fault.

“Ms. Pershing recommended me?” he asked.

“You could say that,” I said.

“Well … I wasn't aware the old bat liked my services well enough to recommend me to anybody,” he said.

“Really?” I asked and took a drink of my soda. Fountain Dr Pepper just wasn't the same as canned Dr Pepper. But it was better than water.

“She didn't tell you that she fired me?” he asked.

“She … she fired you?” I couldn't hide my surprise, unfortunately.

“Yes,” he said.

“No, she didn't tell me that. How long ago did she fire you?” I asked.

“About six weeks ago.”

“What was her reason for letting you go?” I asked.

“I'm not entirely sure,” he said. “Let me see if I can get this right. I'm a … spoiled, lazy mama's boy who couldn't find my own hand if it was inserted in my—”

“I get the picture,” I said and held a hand up. Well, he certainly had met and worked for Sylvia. There was no way he could have nailed her that well without having met her. I cleared my throat. “What exactly was it you failed to find for her?”

He took a drink of his beer and eyed me cautiously. “I'm not sure I should discuss that with you.”

“Well, here's the deal, Mr. Walker—”

“Call me Mike.”

“Mike,” I said. “Sylvia is dead.”

He choked on his beer yet again. I was beginning to develop a complex about it. “D-dead? As in, she's…”

“The opposite of living,” I said. “That's right. Not breathing. In the ground.”

“Well, isn't that something?” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I don't discuss my clients.”

“Well, I'm your client now,” I said. “And what I'm hiring you for is to tell me everything Sylvia hired you for.”

“Sheez,” he said and laughed. Then he caught the expression on my face and stopped short. “You're serious.”

“Totally,” I said.

“Aw, man,” he said. “I just don't think it's right. You know, client confidentiality and all that.”

“You're not a priest or a doctor,” I said. “And I'm paying you.”

He stared at the clock on the wall.

“In advance.”

His eyes cut around, and the rest of his face eventually followed. “How much up front?”

“Four hundred dollars,” I said.

“Make it five and I'll tell you what you want to know. I mean, she is dead, after all.”

Nice to know he had scruples. “Five it is.”

“I'm going to need another beer,” he said and raised his hand to the bartender. Once his beer had arrived he set about telling me what I wanted to know. He somehow managed to speak and drink and still keep the toothpick safely in his mouth. “All right, about a year ago I get this phone call from this lady, this older-than-the-hills lady, and she says she needs a PI. I tell her my fees and she says she'll call me back. I figured I'd never hear from her again. But about a week later I got another phone call and I knew it was her, because, you know, she
sounded
older than anybody on the planet. She said she wanted me to come down to her place, so I went. It was big old ugly brick building in that depressed little area down in Granite County.”

“It is not depressed,” I said.

“Whatever,” he said and shrugged. “So I go down there, and sure enough, Methuselah's wife answered the door. She took me out on the back porch because she didn't want her assistant to hear the conversation. Evidently, her assistant was this real nosy type that gets her panties in a wad over everything, and so I went out on the porch and had
tea
with this old lady.”

“And?” I said. I tried very hard not to let it register on my face that I was the assistant he was referring to.

“She told me she thought somebody was trying to kill her and she wanted me to find out who it was,” he said. “I told her, ‘Look, why would anybody want to kill somebody as old as you? They only have to wait a few years and you'll be gone anyway.' I thought she'd get real offended by that. Sometimes I just say things without thinking, and that was one of those times, but you know, she didn't get upset. She agreed with me that she was very old and that she would probably be dead soon anyway, but she couldn't help feeling like somebody was trying to kill her. And the funny thing was that she didn't really seem to be scared or worried about it. She just wanted to know who it was.”

He took a drink of his beer. “Now why do you suppose that was?”

I sat back in my chair and took a deep breath. Sylvia
had
suspected somebody was trying to hurt her. I had been right.

“Because I just came right out and told her that I wasn't a bodyguard and that I couldn't save her or help her in that respect, and she said she didn't want anybody to protect her or save her, she just wanted to know who it was that was trying to kill her.”

After I found my voice I spoke. “And I'm assuming you never found out who it was, hence the reference to your lost hand.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I suggested the video surveillance equipment, which she did install. I followed some dead ends that she gave me, but really I found nothing significant.”

“Did she say why she thought somebody was trying to kill her?”

“She said that there were some things she'd done in her life that some people might still hold a grudge about.”

“That was it?” I asked. “Nothing more?”

He shrugged.

“Did she give you any names?”

“No.”

“Did she ever mention anybody named Millie O'Shaughnessy?”

“No,” he said.

“Well, had something happened to make her think somebody was after her? I mean, other than that stuff about grudges?”

“Said she'd heard people in the house.”

“People? Plural?”

“Or a person, I'm not sure now. Evidently one night she woke up and saw somebody at the foot of her bed.”

Shivers danced down my spine. “What?”

“She didn't give me details on what happened. Just that somebody was at the foot of her bed. So she hired me.”

“Did she have any idea of who the person at the foot of the bed was? I mean, when was this?”

“I don't know,” he said. “But I think her sister had just died at that point when she saw the person in her room. So she would have been living alone.”

“Oh,” I said.

“She seemed real concerned about that assistant of hers, though.”

“She did?” I asked. I fought the lump that rose in my throat.

“Yeah, told me that if I ran into her I was supposed to tell her I was the plumber or something because she'd get her nose to sniffing around and get into a heap of trouble,” he said. “In fact, she made it sound like her assistant could have figured the whole thing out for her, but she didn't want the assistant getting involved.”

A big fat tear rolled right out of my eye before I could stop it. I swiped at it and then played with my eyelashes as if they were malfunctioning. “New mascara,” I said.

His expression owed as much to disbelief as to curiosity. “So what do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I want you to give me a report of every single person who goes in and out of the Gaheimer House—which is the house you met her at—for the next few weeks. I want to know exactly what time they went in and what time they left, and I want to know every little detail down to the color of their shoelaces. Can you do that?”

He nodded. “I can take pictures, too.”

“I don't care how you do it, just do it. But I'll tell you, it's a small town with people in it who are praying for something to gossip about, and by golly, you'd be the perfect candidate. So you have to make yourself invisible.”

“I can do that,” he said. “Believe it or not.”

“Stay away from the sheriff. Stay away from the mayor.”

The expression on his face suddenly dropped. “Oh, hey, this isn't going to be trouble, is it? I don't like getting mixed up with the local authorities.”

“I've been mixed up with the local authorities before. It's not that bad,” I said. “Just stay invisible and you won't have a problem. If the sheriff finds you snooping around, he might try to make you leave, but his bark is worse than his bite, and you're not really doing anything wrong. So just steer clear. You do that for a few weeks and it's easy money for you.”