Witch House (29 page)

I did, and my jaw fell slack. “I don’t
believe it.”

“What, what?” Carlos looked again, his
reaction this time echoing Spinelli’s and mine. “I’ll be damned.”
He smiled as though someone had just tickled him. “That’s mister
toupee from the cafeteria.”

“Frank Tarkowski,” I said, “Landau’s parole
officer.”

“Spinelli asked, “What is he doing
there?”

“Good question. He told us he didn’t know
Stephanie Stiles personally.” I handed the photo back to Dominic.
“Listen, I want you to learn all you can about this guy. Find out
how long he has been a parole officer, if he knew Landau before his
parole papers landed on his desk, and especially if he has had
contact with Stiles prior to this week.”

“How am I going to find that out?”

“Ask around, check among your network of
spies.”

“Spies?” He dampened a nervous laugh. “I
don’t have spies.”

I referred to Carlos, who turned away as soon
as I looked at him. “All right, fine, I don’t mean spies, I mean
friends.” I did the quotation thing in the air with my fingers.
“Whatever. I know you have resources outside of E.I.N.I. Just find
out what you can.”

“What about the evidence room?”

“What about it?”

“You still want me to go down there and look
for D.N.A. samples from Davis?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“What?”

“Which do you want first, the D.N.A. or the
stuff on Tarkowski?”

“I want both.”

His face soured. “What are you two going to
do?”

I looked at Carlos, knowing he was going to
like this one. “We’re going to the Perc.”

“You’re going for breakfast?”

“No, for interviews,” said Carlos.

Spinelli nestled his hands on his hips.
“Yeah? Who are you going to interview?”

“People.”

“What people?”

He drew a blank. “Tony, tell him what
people.”

I pushed my chair away from the table and
stood. “We are not going to interview anyone,” I said. “We are
going for breakfast. Sorry, you can go next time. Call us when you
have something.” I turned and headed for the door. “Coming,
Carlos?”

He said nothing, but grabbed his coat and
followed.

We got lucky at the Percolator when our
favorite seats opened up just as we arrived. It was the booth in
the corner with window views of the front and side parking lot,
great for keeping an eye on who is coming and going. That used to
be more important in the old days when Carlos and I would sneak a
beer or two in with lunch. If the captain showed up, we would lose
the beers and start sipping on the iced teas that we kept handy
just in case. We don’t do beers at lunch any more, and certainly
not at breakfast, but the booth remains special to us for all the
times we sat there over the years, spinning theories and solving
cases. I hoped the old booth might inspire us again for this
case.

“They fixed the rip,” said Carlos, grinning
as he slid into his seat.

“What rip?”

“In the naugahyde.” He looked down at the
seat and thumped it twice with his palm.

I smiled back. “Hurray for little
victories.”

“Coffee?” said our server. I looked up. It
was Trish, or Patricia, or whatever she goes by these days. She had
come up from behind with two cups and a pot of coffee.

“Well, hello there,” I said. “Nice to see you
again.”

“Detective Marcella!” Her practiced waitress
smile seemed to yield to one more spontaneous and fresh. “I didn’t
recognize you from behind. How are you?”

“Fine, thank you.” I pointed to Carlos. “You
remember Detective Rodriquez?”

Like a chameleon, her waitress smiled
returned. “Sure, Detective?”

Carlos waved and trimmed his lips without
really smiling back. I said to her, “How is Adam holding up?”

“He seems fine,” she said, “if you didn’t
know him like I do.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he is trying to bury it; I mean not
just his dad, but this whole thing.”

“Does he need help? I can recommend some free
counseling—for both of you if you need it.”

She set the cups down and filled them, her
stare momentarily lost in the pour of coffee. “That’s sweet, thank
you, but Adam would never go for it. He deals with things in his
own way. He’s going fishing, you know.”

“Is he?”

“Up at the cabin—what’s left of it. I think
it will do him good.”

I nodded agreeably. “Sure, I remember
something in one of his father’s letters about a great fishing spot
up there.”

“Yeah, he’ll be okay.”

“And you? You going with him?”

She pulled the coffee pot back. “No, I’m
staying home alone.” She stretched across the table and snagged a
menu from its holder, her blouse spilling open as she reached,
affording me a view more diverting than anything out in the parking
lot. As she straightened up, her breast brushed my shoulder softly.
I wanted to think it was all innocent, but the look Carlos gave me
made me blush just the same. She handed me the menu. “Can I tempt
you, Detective?”

I blinked back my surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Our breakfast special: two eggs any way you
like`m, two sausage links, pancakes, toast and hash browns; only
three-ninety-five.”

I smiled wolfishly. “Yes, of course, that
sounds great. Easy-over, please.”

“You got it,” she said, and winked. “I’ll get
it up for you no problem.” She turned and started away, when Carlos
raised his hand.

“Ah-hum, pardon me? Invisible man here.”

She returned on a spin and a curtsied step
forward. “I’m sorry, Detective. What will you have, the usual?”

“Usual?”

“Three eggs scrambled; four bacon strips,
hash brown potatoes, rye toast and jam with orange juices and a
splash of catsup on the side?”

He looked at her, befogged. “Oh, sure, that
sounds okay I guess.”

She tapped her order pad with her pen.
“Coming right up.”

After she left, Carlos leaned across the
table and uttered low, “How did she do that?”

I laughed. “Carlos, it’s the same breakfast
you eat here every day. It’s hardly a secret.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that. She has
never served us breakfast before.”

I opened the menu and pointed to the
breakfast schedule. “It’s right here. It’s even named after you.
See, the Carlos Combo.”

He took the menu and recited line four under
breakfast specials. “Carlos Combo: three eggs scrambled; four bacon
strips, hash brown potatoes, rye toast and jam with orange juice
and a splash of catsup on the side.” He folded the menu and stuck
it back in its holder. “Damn, how long has that been there?”

I thought about it and answered, “I’m not
sure. When was Reagan president?”

He flopped back in his seat. “You know this
is just blowing my mind, and that girl. What is with her? Did you
see how she put the moves on you?”

“Nah.” I waved him off. “She brushed me
accidentally.”

“Accidentally? Tony, she laid her boobs out
on the table for you, and then she raked them across your shoulder
like a dragnet. The girl was hitting on you!”

“Okay, first of all, she was not hitting on
me. Secondly, young women do not have
boobs
. Old ladies have
boobs.”

“So what do you want to call them, tits?”

“No! Jesus, she’s a child. Show her some
respect.”

“Titties? I mean they were kind of small. I
guess you could call them titítas. In Cuba we—”

“No, Carlos, I don’t care about Cuba. I don’t
want to call them anything. I told you, she was not hitting on
me.”

“Tony, come on, look at you. You are not an
old man anymore. Has it been so long since a woman hit on you that
you don’t recognize it when it happens?”

“She was not hitting on me. Geez, Carlos, she
is engaged to be married, for God’s sake.”

“For God’s sake, no—for your sake, you better
not let Lilith smell her tatas on your shirt.”

“Carlos!”

“I mean it, Tony. Lilith will boil your head
in oil. She has the scent glands of a cat. I bet she can smell her
on you right now, you know?”

I turned my head and raised my shoulder to my
nose, and damn if he was not right. I could smell Trish’s perfume
lingering on my shirt. “I smell it,” I said.

He waved his hand as if throwing my words
back in my face. “Of course you can smell it. She was humping you
like a horny Chihuahua. And did you catch what she said about
helping you get it up, no problem? She was totally flirting with
you in a raunchy way.”

“Okay, that’s it! I don’t want to hear any
more. She was not humping me; she was not flirting, she simply
brushed against me innocently. Now I will hear nothing more of
it.”

“You will if Lilith—”

“Carlos, enough.”

“Fine.” He made a zipper gesture with his
fingers across his lips and then reached for his coffee. Of course,
he realized then that he could not drink his coffee with his lips
zippered shut. I waited for him to look up at me before giving him
the okay. He pinched an invisible key at the corner of his mouth
and opened it enough to sip. Later, when the food came, I let him
remove the zipper altogether. Afterward, we discussed Frank
Tarkowski and his involvement with Stephanie Stiles.

“I don’t get it why he lied to us,” I said.
“He could have told us he met Stiles without admitting
intimacy.”

“We don’t know if that’s true,” said Carlos,
shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. “He may not
have mutt stuffy fore weezawrim.”

I splayed my hand before me to shield his
spray. “Carlos, please, not while you are chewing.”

He apologized silently, and after swallowing,
said, “He may not have met Stephanie before we saw him.”

“You think he went to see her for the first
time after we spoke to him?”

“I do.”

“Then why hide in the bedroom? I would not
have thought twice about seeing him at Stephanie’s if he told us he
was there to close his case file on Landau. It is conceivable he
might have had a few questions for her.”

“Well, that is probably what he was doing
there.”

“You think?”

“Sure.” He snagged the last strip of bacon
and popped it into his mouth. “I would stake my reputation on it.
Tarkowski is a company man, no bullshit.”

I finished the last of my coffee and set the
cup upside down on the saucer. “I hope you’re right. The last thing
we need is another suspect.”

Carlos dabbed the corners of his mouth with
his napkin and tossed the wadded up linen onto his plate. “Of
course I am right. I would bet this breakfast on it.”

I reached for my phone without thinking.
“Yeah, we’ll see. Let me get this.”

He looked at me funny. “Get what.”

My phone rang. I flipped it open, and what
Carlos heard was this. “Yes Dominic, what do you have? Ah-huh.
Really? When? Interesting. All right. Any luck down in evidence?
Oh? Ah-huh. Okay, keep working on it. Let us know. Yo, and Dominic,
nice job.”

I tucked the phone back into my pocket,
smiling at Carlos as though I had just killed the proverbial
canary. He leaned in over the table on his elbows, his big Cuban
brows crowding the wrinkles on his forehead against his hairline.
“Well? What did he say?”

“He said you are buying breakfast.”

“What?”

“Tarkowski made a request that his supervisor
approve an immediate leave of absence. Seems he is getting
married.”

“No! To who?”

“To Stephanie Stiles.”

“Get out!”

“Yeah, but that is not the really interesting
part.”

“That wasn’t interesting?”

“It was, but so is this. It turns out that
Tarkowski is Paul Kemper’s nephew.”

“Kemper, the lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“Is that significant?”

“Don’t know. It certainly is convenient. This
means that Tarkowski may have been privy to everything about this
case right from the start.”

“I knew it,” Carlos said, dropping the heel
of his fist onto the table. “I never did trust that toupee-wearing
runt.”

“Don’t even think of it, Carlos.”

“Think of what?”

I slid out of my seat and pulled a five spot
from my wallet. “You are paying for breakfast. That was the deal” I
tossed the bill onto the table. “I’ll get the tip. See you
outside.”

Carlos and I caught Frank Tarkowski at his
office, packing out his desk and bookcases. He had his back turned
to us as we walked in, and upon hearing us enter, said, “And
remember that if anyone calls, tell them I’ll be back in a few
days.”

I shut the door quietly behind us. “Looks
like you are taking a lot of stuff for just a few days.”

He spun about on his heels, his hands locked
around a small stack of framed photos. “Detective Marcella,
Rodriquez, I thought you were—”

“Not going to find out about you leaving
until it was too late?”

He laughed nervously. “No, of course not.” He
set the pictures into a cardboard box on his desk. “I was going to
say that I thought you were someone else. How can I help you?”

“For starters you can answer a few questions
for us, if you don’t mind.”

“I thought I answered all your questions
Tuesday.”

“Yes, but we have more.” I pointed to the two
chairs opposite his desk. “May we sit?”

“Really, this is not a good time. As you can
see, I am getting ready to leave town for a while. Perhaps when I
return we can all sit down and—”

“May I ask where you’re going?”

He turned his back and continued collecting
photos off the bookshelf. “I would rather not say, Detective. It’s
personal.”

Carlos asked, “Are you getting married?”

He froze, his back still toward us. “Have you
been spying on me?”

“Is it true?”

He scooped up the last of the framed pictures
and turned with them clustered against his body. Carlos and I were
sitting now, though he seemed neither surprised nor agitated about
that. “It is true,” he said, and he dumped the photos into the
box.