Tina Whittle_Tai Randall Mystery 01 (8 page)

Chapter 13

He was a big guy, stocky, with dark brown hair and a square jaw. He wore faded blue jogging shorts with roughed-up athletic shoes, and in addition to the toilet brush, he carried a can of Comet.

He scratched his forehead. “Look, this is a very bad time. If you’re here about an apartment—”

“Actually, no. But if you’ve got a minute, I’d like to ask you about Eliza Compton.”

He opened the door, and I stepped inside the reception area, which obviously doubled as a community room—matchy-matchy sofa and chairs around a fireplace, a small kitchen area. The lights were off, which gave it a staged and ominous feel, but I could see soda cans on the counter, a wastebasket overflowing with paper cups.

“Sorry about the mess,” the man said. “With Eliza gone, I’m pulling double duty around here.”

He switched on the overhead and stowed his cleaning materials under the sink, leaving me standing by the information desk. A photograph of the Beaumonts hung above the stacks of pamphlets and brochures. I examined it as I slipped some of the sales materials in my bag.

It wasn’t the typical display. In fact, it was decidedly unusual, a photograph of Charley and Mark shaking hands with a General Robert E. Lee look-alike in full dress grays. I recognized the figures flanking them too—Senator Adams, who was smiling in an official manner, and the guy with the toilet brush. Only this time he wasn’t wearing faded jogging shorts—he carried a musket and wore the butternut uniform of a Confederate infantryman.

I peered closer. I couldn’t read the tombstone, but I did recognize the statuary in the background, as any Southern tour guide worth her salt would—the Lion of Atlanta, guarding the tomb of the Confederate Unknown. Oakland Cemetery.

Trey joined me, hands on hips. He didn’t look angry; if anything, he seemed extremely calm. “This is inappropriate.”

“Five minutes.”

“No. We’re leaving now.”

I put my hands on my hips too. “You can’t make me.”

I saw it in his eyes—throw me over his shoulder, toss me in the car, slam the door while I kicked and screamed—and I didn’t doubt for a minute he could do it. He’d be sorry, and it wouldn’t be as easy as he imagined, but he could do it.

“This is police business,” he said.

“So?”

“So we’re not police.”

“So?”

He stared at me, then reached under his jacket. I froze. He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Marisa.”

“You do that.”

“And Garrity.”

“Fine by me.”

He moved just outside the door, scowling. While he tattled on me, I grabbed a Beau Elan memo pad from the information table and scribbled my name and number down. The man walked over, looking puzzled.

I held out the slip of paper. “This is my personal cell phone number. Please call me later, Mister…”

“Whitaker. Jake Whitaker. I’m the manager.” He accepted the information with two fingers and looked at it earnestly. “The cops have been here already. I let them into her apartment.” He lowered his voice. “They’re saying she was murdered.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“They know who did it yet? Or why?”

“That’s why we’re here, to try to find out.”

“So you’re an agent, huh? Like him?”

He was looking at Trey, who was still talking on the cell phone while he paced a six-foot strip, back and forth, tight turns at each end. I angled my body so that only Whitaker could see my face.

“Yes, like him. You know Trey?”

“A little. He works for Phoenix, and they’re out here a lot.”

“What about Eliza? How well did you know her?”

He shrugged. “She moved here about six months ago, right after she started the job. I live in the building opposite hers, so we were neighbors.”

“I’ve heard she had some creepy guy hanging around her. Buzz cut, goatee?”

“Sure, I was the one told the police about him.”

I didn’t tell him I already knew that. “Ever see what he drove?”

“No, I never paid attention. I didn’t have any trouble until Wednesday, when he parked on the street and walked past the gate. Then he was pounding on her door, and she was threatening to call the police. He left. And then the cops showed up here Thursday night.”

Wednesday. The morning Eliza had come to Eric’s place, only to be followed by the blue pick-up. The night she missed their dinner. The guy must have followed her from Eric’s back to her apartment. And then on Thursday…

At that moment, Trey came over and stood at my elbow. The chill was palpable, as if an iceberg had suddenly materialized on a clear horizon.

Jake kept talking. “She was a great girl, you know. Everybody’s going to miss her around here.”

“We’re leaving now,” Trey said. He turned on his heel and headed toward the parking lot.

I indicated the memo in Jake’s hand. “Just call me? Please?”

Jake nodded, and I hurried after Trey, who was not strolling anymore. I jogged into place beside him. “Sorry.”

He didn’t look at me. “You cannot interfere in an on-going investigation. There are procedures to be followed—”

“I wasn’t interfering! The cops had already talked to him!” I untied my jacket and slipped it back on. “I didn’t get much info anyway. All he said was that yes, he knew her, that she was perfectly nice blah blah blah. You ever notice how it’s always perfectly nice people who get killed, never nasty people, like on the soap operas.”

Trey unlocked the doors to the Ferrari. “He was lying about that last part, the nice part. Now get in.”

I almost grabbed his elbow, caught myself at the last second. “Lying? Are you sure?”

“Eighty-five percent sure. Now get in.”

***

We were barely ten minutes down the road when Garrity called me.

“The manager of Beau Elan asked about you at Phoenix,” he said. “Seemed to think you were some kind of investigator. Landon referred him to Ryan and Vance. They are not pleased.”

I mentally cursed Manager Guy. “Big deal. Trey said he’s just a big fat liar anyway.”

Trey shot me a look. “I did not.”

Garrity wasn’t interested in my explanation. “Do me a favor and leave the police work to the police, okay?”

“Oh, please, that’s such a cliché. If this were a movie, you’d be dead in the next scene, and your last thought would have been, I should’ve listened to that smart blonde.”

“Go to Trey’s. Stay put until I get there. No argument.”

“Fine.”

A pause. “Now I’m suspicious.”

“Look, I found a dead body yesterday, I get tailed this afternoon, I’ve been dragged downtown twice in two days. A bodyguard sounds like a fine idea, especially one with a nine-millimeter under his jacket.”

“Tailed?”

“Yeah, tailed. Trey didn’t tell you?”

“Put him on.”

I did. Trey kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. He explained things to Garrity rather succinctly, then said goodbye.

“So is this okay with you?” I ventured. “My staying at your place?”

“Of course.”

I felt a pique of curiosity. “You kept saying ‘I know.’ What is it that you know?”

“That you might try to sneak away, and that I shouldn’t let you, but since I probably can’t stop you without physically restraining you, it’s really a moot point. Trying to stop you, that is.”

“Were you supposed to tell me that?”

He considered. “Probably not. I guess that’s a moot point too.”

We turned left, heading back to the Buckhead area. As we turned off GA 400, I imagined I could smell the whiff of money, all flavors—old money, new money, dirty money. Trey didn’t head for the residential section where people like the Beaumonts live, nor to the Lenox Mall area where the Ritz-Carlton holds court, nor to the bar-choked party strip close to Midtown, where Peachtree Road changes to Peachtree Street. Instead, he took us down the Peachtree Road corridor, into the heart of the skyscrapers. They lined the road like steel gray dominoes, and I remembered Garrity’s words and wondered which one of these looming rectangles Trey called home.

“So Jake Whitaker lied?” I said.

Trey nodded. “Yes.”

“About her being such a great girl?”

“Yes.”

“So he’s covering up something.”

“That’s an assumption. All I can tell you is that he wasn’t being completely truthful.”

“I saw a photograph on the wall of him and the Beaumonts. Are they friends?”

“Not friends. He’s involved in many of the same causes as the Beaumonts, so he’s more of a…”

“Hanger-on?”

Trey nodded, but offered no further commentary. Obviously Jake Whitaker held little interest for him. Or maybe he was just pretending, pulling another one of his tight-lipped cover-ups. But then, from what Garrity said, he didn’t do cover-ups. He just kept his mouth shut until you asked the right question, like one of those magic cave doors in the Arabian nights.

He returned his attention to the road. I settled back in my seat and watched him drive. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture him and Garrity as partners. Garrity with his frank, easy-going diligence, his gruff professionalism. And Trey, he of the blank arctic stare, the flat appraisal, the perfectly-pressed trousers and monotone responses. The Ice Man.

I remembered Garrity’s words: “And then he was back, but it wasn’t him anymore.” Like who we were was little more than a chemical soup of neurons and nerve endings, that the slightest rearrangement of our brain cells turned us into different people.

I kept my eyes on him the whole way into Buckhead, and if Trey noticed, he didn’t seem to mind. He took off the sunglasses, and in profile I detected the first hint of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. It made him seem oddly vulnerable.

Screwed up, Garrity had said. Jeez, I thought, aren’t we all?

Chapter 14

He thinks in black and white.
I hadn’t taken Garrity’s words literally until I saw Trey’s apartment.

It was an open layout, all one room except for the bedrooms. Ebony hardwood floors gleamed darkly, bounded by matte white walls. No artwork marred the bland expanse, not even a clock, and there was little furniture, just an oversize black leather sofa and a low coffee table.

Trey turned on a floor lamp and opened the French doors leading to a wrap-around terrace, letting in the cool smell of night. Beyond him, the Midtown skyline sparkled, like someone had thrown rhinestones at the horizon. We were on the thirty-fifth floor, the streets below us a snaking dazzle of brake lights.

He loosened his tie. “Can I get you anything?”

“A pizza would be nice.”

He got a phone book instead. I ordered a meat lover’s special with extra mushrooms while he changed clothes. He didn’t shut the door to the bedroom, and from what I could see, it was as dichromatic as the rest of the apartment. I heard the closet door open, followed by the scrape of hangers.

Next to his desk, a bookshelf held rows of hardcovers. I ran my finger along the spines, noting a veritable library of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and behavior modification therapy. A series of triathlon training manuals completed the collection. Not one sentimental novel, not one trashy beach read.

I checked over my shoulder. Trey was still in the bedroom, out of sight. Keeping my eyes on the doorway, I tried the top desk drawer. It slid open easily, revealing another set of neatly labeled folders, another bottle of medicine. Also a bottle of valerian root capsules and a
GQ
magazine, the Italian style issue. In addition—inexplicably, incongruously—he had a tarot deck. I picked it up, splayed the cards. The Fool grinned at me, his eyes bright as he took the step that would send him tumbling down a cliff.

The phone rang, and I dropped the deck. “Shit!”

I got on hands and knees and snatched at cards. I remembered then my promise—no more snooping—and felt ill. To my relief, Trey picked up the bedroom extension instead of coming back in the living room. His first words were unclear, but then, just as I got the deck back in the drawer, I caught his end of the conversation.

“No,” he said. “Not tonight. I have a guest.”

My fingers itched, and not from nicotine withdrawal. I moved my hand to the phone. I’d done it a thousand times with my last boyfriend—pick up the receiver, press a hand over the mouthpiece, listen for a discreet interval. But then, my last boyfriend hadn’t been some super-elite secret agent likely to kick my ass for snooping on his private calls.

“Yes, that’s her,” Trey said. “The blonde.”

I bit my lip and laid one finger on the receiver.

“No, everything’s fine,” he said. “Goodnight, Gabriella.”

Gabriella. The redhead in the photo. Garrity said she wasn’t connected, but I was willing to bet she was. I’d seen the telltale glitter in Charley’s eyes, and the expression on Trey’s face. And now here she was calling Trey.

But before I could wrap my curiosity around the possibilities, Trey returned. He appeared as silently and suddenly as a ghost, and I froze, hands behind my back, guilty fingers still wrapped around the drawer pull. He’d exchanged the suit for a white t-shirt and black sweatpants and he carried two items—a set of keys in his right hand, his Heckler and Koch in his left. His expression was as blank as a piece of paper.

He walked over, moving closer and closer until he was standing right in front of me. I felt the edge of the desk digging into my back.

“Looking for something?” he said.

I held his gaze. “A pen?”

He cocked his head, and I felt it again, the psychic unzipping, especially when his eyes moved to my mouth.

He reached around me and opened the bottom drawer—it contained a black metal gun case. He placed the handgun inside, the magazine too. Locked that. Then he tucked the ammo into a separate box. Locked that too. Then, and only then, did he reach around my other side, pull open the top drawer, and hand me a fountain pen. The inside of his wrist brushed my hipbone.

The pen was black. And fancy. Trey turned and headed for the kitchen, leaving me backed up against the desk, holding a pen I didn’t need but wasn’t about to turn down.

“I’m making tea,” he said. “Oolong. Would you like some?”

***

He brought it to me in a delicate ivory cup with a saucer. It smelled of herb and caramel and had not one speck of sugar in it. I drank it anyway, chased it with a piece of nicotine gum. Then I dumped my tote bag on the floor and sat cross-legged in the middle of the mess. Trey sat at his desk, a spreadsheet pulled up on his laptop. He had a ruler and a calculator out, and two mechanical pencils, one in hand, the other stuck behind his ear.

I pulled out one of the Beau Elan trifolds I’d picked up while talking to Jake Whitaker. Despite the economic downturn, even a studio seemed out of a receptionist’s price range. It boasted cutting edge security features, however—gated entrance, passcard entry, surveillance cameras—all of which must have been worth the expense to a young woman with a stalker-ish ex-boyfriend. Especially considering that Phoenix Incorporated was right next door.

“Did the Beaumonts put this complex so close to Phoenix for a reason?” I ran down the list of features, remembering the ones that Trey had pointed out. “Jeez, you’d think this was Quantico, not fancy apartments in Dunwoody.”

Trey got out a highlighter. “Managers like obvious security features. They make good sales tools.”

He had a point. Beau Elan’s prospective tenants valued themselves pretty highly, and they appreciated people who did the same. Mark Beaumont effectively translated that attitude into brick and mortar. I’d also picked up a brochure for Beaumont Waterway, their new resort at Lake Oconee and the location for the upcoming reception for Senator Adams. Slick, sleek, saturated with color, luxury practically dripped off the page.

This was starting to sound like a financial
ménage à trois
—the Beaumonts, Senator Adams, Phoenix. Throw my brother in the mix, and you had an orgy. I wondered how Trey fit into all of it. He didn’t seem interested in politics or social climbing. And despite his multiple quirks and weird complexities, he inspired a visceral trust that I couldn’t explain any more than I could explain why he had a tarot deck in his desk.

A small voice poked at me:
if you trust him so much, why are you always going through his things?

I batted the small voice away. Trey worked diligently at his spreadsheet. Black and white choices, no emotional demands, everything compartmentalized, both literally and figuratively. But how long could a former SWAT warrior push paper before snapping and going Krav Maga on someone?

I put down my brochures. “Are you still on the clock? Being my bodyguard?”

He kept his eyes on the computer. “Personal protection. Yes, I am.”

“So you agree with Marisa, that I’m in danger?”

“I don’t know. But I think we should err on the side of caution. Considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Your connection to the crime, your current situation.” He took a sip of his tea, then lowered his cup. “Your pizza’s here.”

The doorbell rang.

I looked at the door, back at him. “All right, how did you do that?”

“I’ll get it,” he said. And he padded off to fetch my dinner, taking his oolong with him.

But it wasn’t a delivery boy who held my dinner—it was Garrity, looking tired and rumpled and very cop-like. He handed the pizza box to Trey and pointed right at me.

“You. In the kitchen. Now.”