Whiskey’s Gone (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 3) (29 page)

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said, gently shaking my shoulders.

How could I ever begin to tell her what I knew? I couldn’t put it into words, but every fiber screamed at me: something happened to Whiskey and to Arthur after the Sovereign Bank withdrawal. I was on the brink of knowing what it was, but couldn’t quite grasp it. And I would never, ever believe that Whiskey Parnell would leave her child. Or her career—she enjoyed being a key player in Trisha Liam’s law firm too much. I said goodnight to Jane Templeton, leaning on Denny and watching them tow my poor, sweet Beretta away.

Pressing the End Button

It was late, but Trisha Liam deserved to know what was happening, so I called and told her what I knew about the latest events surrounding Whiskey’s disappearance. I emphasized the fact that they found Finn Trueblood’s prints all over the conference room and Whiskey’s purse. She scoffed at the information, saying of course they’d find his prints.

“The top floor is his. He brings his clients up there, has nothing to do with the rest of us, never uses office support. He’s in a world of his own, but he makes the lion’s share of the income. I don’t like him. He’s mean, exacting, but I need him.”

“And his clients?”

“Corporations for the most part. Large hospitals, Fortune Five Hundreds, the top institutions, I’d say. They’re the ones with the money, and Finn goes gaga for deep pockets. But he deals with the occasional small holding company, I think. Lately I’ve seen a few ne’er-do-wells heading for his office. I hadn’t really thought about it until now. I’d have to look at his files. He keeps them separate from the rest, locked in his desk.”

“Not electronically?”

“He won’t have anything to do with our filing system or the rest of the staff. Does it make any difference who his clients are?”

“His clients? You mean he doesn’t invoice using law office stationery?”

“You know what I mean. He’s a partner, an entrepreneur, same as Seymour and me. We can be very protective of our own clients, the competitive spirit and all that.”

There was white noise between us for a couple of seconds.

“I have an idea,” I said, thinking of Lucy’s and its great potential for a thorough snoop. I told her I couldn’t get past Whiskey’s purse being in the conference room.

“That bag again?” I heard her breathe in.

“It’s important, very important, and there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Why would I hold back?”

“That’s it. You are, aren’t you? You’re holding back telling me something. Nothing substantial, not facts. Suspicions. You suspect Finn Trueblood, don’t you?”

I could almost hear her tremble. I thought of the question Gran kept asking and wondered which was a more compelling motive for murder, love or lucre. I was surprised when Trisha Liam hesitated for more than a minute, but in the end she agreed to my plan. I’d have Lucy’s do some heavy spring cleaning that evening, mainly in Finn Trueblood’s office. When Trisha Liam offered to help, I told her it wouldn’t be necessary.

“One more thing. I’m sorry about your mother’s Beretta.”

Trisha knew how to shake me, all right. Once again I felt a fist ramming my throat. I maybe made a choking noise.

While Trisha talked to cover her embarrassment or whatever it was she was feeling, I kept reminding myself that Brandy’s ordeal had changed the lawyer, she’d grown into a full-blown feeling adult whom I had come to like, even admire and try to emulate. And another thing: she must have friends in high places, like halfway to God if she already knew about my car. I let the moment linger long enough to give her time. Sure enough, she confessed to having conversed with Jane’s chief.

I told her about looking for Huey’s waste management plant and not finding it at the address on his business card. I asked for her help locating him. She said she’d talk to Rhoda in the morning, and I reminded her about her hotline, asking her to call her chief but she refused—too much like telling him how to run his business, she told me. Trying to uncork her resistance, I shared my skepticism about Smith being his last name. Was Huey the Berringer mentioned in Whiskey’s journals?

“You’ve stretched yourself like a taut rubber band trying to tie things up,” she said.

My feet were cold. “A woman’s life is at stake.” Still, I said with a lump in my throat, “Whiskey’s alive. I feel it, abducted, hidden in plain sight, where, I don’t know—I’m too blind to see it. She’s with the painter or with that Huey character, but close by someplace.”

I gave her time to digest my words. “I hope you’re right.”

“But if you’re implying that I’m pushing to reach the finish line, it’s far from over, and I’m not the one doing the reaching—the events themselves are beginning to coalesce. In the end, they always do. We have Mitch Liam’s death, Whiskey Parnell’s disappearance, Arthur McGirdle’s death, his wife’s disappearance, Keegan Berringer’s death, Huey’s bogus business, the BMW’s slashed tires, and the Beretta’s demise. They have one thing in common.”

Not for the first time I heard the lawyer’s mind whirring. Presently she asked, her voice flat. “What’s that?”

“Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey,” I said. That ought to give her something to ponder.

You see, I couldn’t help it. I kept seeing two images side by side—Mitch Liam’s head free-falling into the cottage cheese two years ago, the victim of a fatal prick of potassium chloride, stuck in the heart by a hit man himself now dead. In my mind, his body lay next to the contents of Whiskey’s bag, strewn around the top floor of Trisha Liam’s law office. The two images had to be related, the two events connected, but how? I was betting the missing link was locked inside Finn Trueblood’s desk.

I told her to meet me in ten minutes in front of her law firm right before I pressed the end button.

Hit List

On the way to Finn Trueblood’s office on the third floor, I heard scuttling noises. I don’t mind saying it, I was spooked.

Trisha Liam had insisted on going with me to see for herself what “cleaning Finn Trueblood’s office” would entail. Her fear was normal, I suppose, but something about the woman’s resolve also reminded me of her courage. After all, I was going to search through a partner’s desk, someone who wrote the bulk of the billing. What would happen to Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey if it was discovered there were Mafia ties?

Best case, there’d be a practice audit, Lorraine had explained to me when I’d called her earlier and posed the question, telling her I’d be ferreting through Finn Trueblood’s office drawers. “He’s a slippery one,” she’d said. She went on to tell me he was ill-regarded by the Brooklyn legal community. There were rumors of his mingling with the wrong sort of clients. “Business on the shady side, you might say.”

I didn’t share Lorraine’s remarks with Trisha Liam, but as we climbed the stairs to the third floor, I felt the lawyer trembling beside me.

I turned on my flashlight. As I fumbled with the key in the lock to Finn’s office, I thought of Mitch Liam and Whiskey Parnell and what they must have known. The image of Finn Trueblood’s purple eyes and slicked-back hair creeped me out. Other pictures flashed through my mind—Brighton Beach and Coney Island, Arthur’s elbow, his trashed apartment, the mysterious remains of Huey’s waste management, and Mom’s Beretta. I pictured the Wonder Wheel, dark and silent and cold, ready to spin once more on the southern tip of Brooklyn.

The sounds of furry creatures reminded me of Arthur’s apartment, where I’d last heard them. The skin on the back of my neck prickled. I shot a look at Trisha Liam, who held her breath on the edge of my vision, her flashlight shaking in her hand.

Shivering, I tried to focus and sat in Finn Trueblood’s chair for a while, just to get a feel for him. Trisha Liam sat in a chair opposite, wordless. I stared at the computer screen, waiting for the system to boot up, hoping for a little luck, but we were unable to crack the password. Trisha assured me he was barely computer literate, making notes during meetings, she told me, laboriously typing his own cases on a Remington. What’s more, he didn’t own a smartphone. If I could find a physical scrap of something, anything, perhaps it would be enough to warrant an official search.

There was a sharp noise outside the office, and we both stood up, my heart in my mouth.

“What was that?” Trisha Liam whispered, hiking up her slacks.

We were frozen for what seemed like hours, waiting, but the sound was not repeated.

I opened each desk drawer, all of them unlocked, except for one. Unfortunately, Trisha Liam did not have the key.

The others were crammed with files. At first I found nothing of consequence. As I suspected, Finn Trueblood was Mr. Neat—no candy bar wrappers in this man’s life.

“Briefs,” Trisha Liam said, opening folders. “Case notes. Our top clients. I told you, there’s nothing here. Let’s go.”

I made no reply.

There was that major sound again, like a radiator knocking. “Heater?” I asked.

Trisha Liam shook her head. “Not turned on until mid-October. Hurry, we’ve got to go.”

“You said that.”

In the back of a bottom drawer, my fingers hit upon a large notebook crammed with names and phone numbers. There wasn’t a date on the front cover, no dates inside that I could see, but some of the pages looked brown, the ink faded. I judged the book to be pretty old. It probably contained the man’s thoughts taken over a career spanning twenty or thirty years.

As I thumbed through it, Trisha Liam held a shaky flashlight over the pages. They were filled with words, the script neat, legible, most of it random thoughts on cases. Skimming the book, I realized they were the private notes of a very secretive man and didn’t make much sense to me.

But toward the back of the book, I found what looked like a list. It ran down several pages. Each line held two capital letters, each entry written in different-colored inks, some in pencil, but all made by the same hand. Swell, it would take months to go through this thing.

Some of the initials were crossed out; others had a check mark next to them or a phrase. Without a doubt, the letters stood for people, the pencil marks, maybe an indication of their relationship to Finn Trueblood or the action taken by him.

In the middle of the list I found the letters, M. L. There was a thin, pencil line running through them. Mitch Liam, I figured, the scratch through his initials made after his death.

My eye lingered on the last four entries—A.M., H.S., S.N., W.P. They were circled and the phrase, “Got to go” was scratched next to them with that same ominous pencil line through the letters, A.M.—Arthur McGirdle, no doubt about it. I held my breath as it dawned on me: I was staring at a hit list.

I could hear Denny telling me my conclusions were built on sand, based on nothing but a notebook locked in someone’s desk, and I was invading his privacy. No matter, I told myself, I had to find Whiskey Parnell. I could be staring at a shopping list for all I knew, but I shook my head, rejecting this notion. I was sure of it—Finn Trueblood was not who he appeared to be. A senior partner at Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey was his cover. I was convinced he was someone significant in organized crime, this was a hit list, and Arthur McGirdle, Huey Smith, Star Newcomb, and Whiskey Parnell were on that list for reasons I didn’t understand. Not yet.

Whiskey Parnell probably found out too much and confronted Finn. For all I knew, she overheard a conversation or came across something or saw someone leaving his office. Maybe Arthur or Star told her something about the man. She was no dummy, I thought. My skin began to crawl.

I was missing a lot. I could see Arthur getting himself mixed up in the mob, but not Star Newcomb. He was an enigma. I felt a rumbling in my stomach and asked Trisha Liam what she thought about the list.

She shrugged. “Client contacts, and he needs to keep in touch with them, I’d guess. He’s a senior partner.” She shook her head, staring at the list, but I could tell she wasn’t saying what was on her mind.

“Those are Mitch’s initials, aren’t they?”

“Finn might have known Mitch, worked with him on a case, although they wouldn’t be friends. And how many lawyers have the initials M. L.?”

I shook my head. “Look at the last four sets of initials. They stand for Arthur McGirdle, Huey Smith, Star Newcomb, and Whiskey Parnell.”

“Another coincidence.”

“There’s no such thing as coincidence.” I looked straight at her and saw a tremor around her mouth.

“I haven’t kept up with what Finn’s doing. Life gets in the way, I guess, and I have my own caseload. With Seymour, it’s different. He tells me more than I ever want to know, but Finn keeps to himself, always has done. That’s his style. We have weekly meetings, but lately we’ve been going through the motions. As long as Finn Trueblood brings in his share, and it’s usually much more than that, who has time to question?”

She didn’t have to explain, not to me, I assured her, and slapped myself for making the remark. She’d have plenty of explaining to do if it got out that a named partner of Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey was up to no good. I thought of Zizi Carmalucci and wondered how long Trisha Liam could shut up the likes of her, even if Trisha had friends in high places. A bad apple at the top of a law firm could spell its demise.

I pictured Huey Smith and Arthur McGirdle together. It worked. They were both out of the same brown paper bag. But the one that didn’t fit for me was Star Newcomb. What was he doing on the list? He was an outsider, an artist, a painter. He knew Whiskey Parnell, but that was all. Or was it? Then I remembered his sad story, his remorse at not having rescued Whiskey Parnell when he saw her the other night. I pictured him standing near Sovereign Bank’s ATM, watching as Arthur McGirdle held a gun to Whiskey’s head, waiting while she withdrew money. In the CCTV clip, there was a shapeless figure in the foreground. Who was it? What was Star Newcomb not telling me?

I watched the wheels of Trisha Liam’s mind turning in the darkened office as she gripped the address book.

Suddenly there were noises below, a distinct opening of the door, a shuffling of feet, steps walking, the murmur of voices. We both jumped.