Graveyard Bay Page 16

“It’s eight and a half by eleven copier paper.”

  I looked down at it. It looked ordinary. “So?”

  He nodded toward my oversized bag, the strap hanging over my coat draped over the barstool. “What kind of paper do you have in your bag?”

  I looked at him, confused. Then I rummaged and pulled out my tiny reporter’s spiral notebook, holding it up for him to see. “This is all I’ve got. Why?”

  John smiled. “Exactly. You have the world’s biggest handbag and the only writing paper you have in it is your little journalist notebook. Who carries copy paper around with them?”

  I thought it through. “Someone who wants to leave a note?”

  “Someone who’s planning ahead of time to leave a note.” He placed his coffee cup back on the bar.

  “You think Merlin Finn was planning to leave a note all along? Why?”

  “Tell me about your meeting with Eric Decker.”

  I glanced around the restaurant. The young bartender was watching a television mounted over the bar. His attention was on ESPN. Lunchtime was winding down and the only other patrons were two couples. One couple was a man and a woman both in professional business attire. The other two people in the restaurant were women, dressed nicely but casually, most likely housewives or stay-at-home moms out for lunch and a glass of wine. They were all out of earshot.

  “He told me a lot of what you already know. He said that between having the FBI down their necks and their concern about the notebook being in the wrong hands, they’ve decided to go completely legit.”

  John frowned. “I still don’t believe that for a minute. They don’t have it in their DNA to go straight.”

  “They’ve changed the name of Wolfline Contracting to Wolfline Management.”

  “They can change it to the Wolfline Baptist Church, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting out of the business.”

  “Decker told me that Bogdan is missing.”

  His eyes narrowed. Clearly, his attention was piqued. “Tell me about that.”

  “Decker said that Bogdan was hunting for Merlin Finn. He disappeared. Nobody’s heard from him in two days.”

  He shrugged and eyed my vodka again. “Back when I was heavy into drinking I could go on a bender longer than that. Nobody would see me for days.”

  Me too.

  John continued. “And to answer your question about leaving notes, he’s intimidating you, baiting you. He wants to be scarier than he actually is.”

  I shuddered. “I saw the video of him killing the judge and Abby Tillis. He’s damned scary.”

  Damn it. For a second, I forgot that John had been married to Abby Tillis.

  He stared at the mirror behind the bar. “Have you ever heard the story about how the Tolbonovs got their start? When Valentin got into the diamond business, he was cheated out of a deal by a competitor. He and Bogdan kidnapped him and his family. Then they took them upstate somewhere, tied the guy to a tree, and made him watch while Bogdan slit the throats of the wife and two kids.”

  I held up my hand. “I’ve heard this, but when I was told the story, it was three kids. Then the Tolbonovs bury the competitor alive. Mike Dillon thinks it’s just an urban legend to keep their crew in line.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But the story pops up from time to time. If you’re in the business of intimidating people, it helps to be as scary as possible.”

  Because of his disapproving looks, I hesitated to take another sip of my drink.

  Fuck it.

  I took a healthy hit and put the glass on the countertop. “Where do we go from here?”

  John adjusted his glasses. “Depends on what you have planned for the rest of the day.”

  “Before I got the text from Decker, I was on my way to talk with the roommate of the kid who overdosed last night.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He sipped his coffee. “Follow you at a discreet distance.”

  Right that moment, those were the most reassuring words I’d heard in a long time. “I appreciate that. What about the project you’re working on for Nathaniel?”

  John glanced around the room. “It’s nearly done. The guy this company wants to hire as CEO has three pending lawsuits against him for sexual harassment. I just need to write up the report, and I can do that tonight after dinner.”

  Then he looked down at my drink, nearly gone.

  I upended the glass and finished it.

  “Are you having another?”

  What the hell is it to you?

  Then I recalled an innocuous, throwaway statement he’d made just a few minutes before. “You said you were a heavy drinker once?” I asked.

  John nodded. “Cost me Abby. She didn’t leave me because she found someone better than me. She left because she found someone less drunk than me.”

  Remembering the scotch he’d had the night before at Shana’s place, I asked, “Did you quit?”

  He sighed. “When Abby left and the NYPD decided I should find another line of work, I’d hit bottom. I quit cold turkey. Did AA and the whole nine yards.”

  I reached out and put my hand on his. “How about now?”

  “I have the occasional drink. I think I have it under control.” He glanced down at my empty glass again. “But do we ever?”

  “Shana said that, at one point, Abby was hoping to reconcile, trying to get back together with you. Shana said you couldn’t trust her again.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want to let her be in a position where I’d hurt her again. Sometimes it’s better to be just friends.”

  “But you loved her once.”

  “I never stopped loving her, even when I found out she was sleeping with someone else while we were still married. I was hurt, but I understood why she felt the need to do it. I loved her until the day Merlin Finn killed her.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Driving from South Sheffield to the north side of town, I was comforted every time I caught a glimpse of the black Mustang two or three cars behind me. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t see anyone else who might be following my Sebring.

  Eighty-one Bruckner Avenue was in a neighborhood undergoing a reformation. Much like the neighborhood where the Sheffield Meridian was going to be built, old homes had been purchased and knocked down. Except on the north side, in their place, luxury condominiums and apartment buildings had been constructed or were in the process of being built. Price tags for purchase or rental were outlandishly high.

  With one exception. The holdout was the complex called Crystal Garden Condominiums where Bryan Townsend had lived. Two brick buildings, both two stories high, side by side, faced a small parking area. The buildings were fronted by scruffy bushes, and each condo unit had its own doorway and tiny sidewalk to the parking lot. As I parked in front of Unit B3, I noted the wreaths tacked up on the doors and the Christmas trees in the front windows of neighboring condos.

  But much like my own home, there was nothing on the door or in the window of the unit that Bryan Townsend had called home.

  Getting out of my car, I glanced behind me and watched the black Mustang slide silently near where the parking lot emptied out onto Wolfpit Avenue. Then I walked up the steps and rang the doorbell.

  A few moments later, the door swung open, and a young man in his early twenties appeared. He was barefoot and wearing a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt that said, “Shout out to all stoners who smoke every day and still get their shit done.”

  “Help you?” he asked, his voice low and somber. His hair was cut fashionably short, and he had a full hipster beard that hid the lower half of his face and long neck. A diamond chip rested in his earlobe and a metal ring threaded through his lower lip. It looked painful, like a fish on a hook. His eyes were glassy.

  Oh, good, he’s high.
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br />   I smiled up at him. “I’m Genie Chase with the Sheffield Post. Do you mind if I come in and talk with you?”

  He appeared momentarily confused. “Uh, his parents already handled Bryan’s obituary.”

  “I’m not here about an obit. I’m a reporter. I’d like to talk to you about Bryan.”

  “The cops have already been here asking questions.”

  I took two fingers and crossed the front of my coat. “I promise to ask new ones.”

  Bet you can’t even remember what the cops asked you.

  He nodded his head in a vague manner. “Guess that’s okay.”

  Then we stood there for a few awkward moments, me in the cold, him half in and half out. “So, can I come in?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure.” He waved me in and then disappeared into the tiny living room.

  I entered and closed the door behind me. There was a laptop sitting on a sofa that had seen better days. The arms had rips in them and gray tufts of stuffing peeked out of the fabric on the sofa’s cushions.

  A second sofa, worn but in slightly better condition, was pushed against the wall to my left. Through an open doorway, I spotted a small kitchen complete with counter space crowded with dirty dishes, old boxes of Chinese food, a roll of paper towels, and a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. The house smelled vaguely of mildew, rotting fruit, and weed.

  I took off my coat. “Mind if I sit down?”

  He motioned to the couch without the laptop, and then he sat in the other. The illumination from the computer screen coated him in an odd silver color.

  I took my phone out and hit the recording app. “How about if we start by telling me your name?”

  He smiled. “I’m Paul Reed.”

  “Awesome. Have you and Bryan been roommates for very long?”

  The young man shook his head. “About four months.”

  “How well did you know him?”

  Paul shrugged. “He was a neat freak.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “Always bitching at me if I left something out in the kitchen. He kept his bedroom spotless. Ask me, I think he was wound way too tight.”

  “Did you guys ever hang out? Talk?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, he was a little too intense for me.”

  “How’s that?”

  Paul leaned forward in a conspiratorial way. “You know he was using drugs.”

  This guy is really fucked up. Of course, I know he was using. He died from an overdose.

  “What kind of drugs was he using?”

  His only answer was to look away from me.

  “Paul, Bryan is already dead. Anything you tell me isn’t going to hurt him.”

  Paul bit his lip and stayed silent.

  “Was he shooting heroin?”

  The young man nodded. “Pills too. Bad shit. Oxy, mostly.”

  “Was he selling?”

  Paul sniffled and ran his finger under his nose.

  You doing coke too, Paul?

  “Yeah, he was selling heroin. He’d cut it with fentanyl. I think that was the shit that did him in.”

  “Cops say they found his body in the men’s room at a gas station.”

  His mouth formed a perfect o. Then he quietly responded, “I know, right? How disgusting is that? An awful place to die.”

  “Was he freelancing, or was he selling for someone?”

  Paul leaned forward again. “Bryan told me once. He said that he was working for a syndicate called the Brothers or somethin’.”

  “Could it have been called the Brotherhood?”

  Paul snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “That’s it. The Brotherhood. Bryan said he was gonna work his way up the corporate ladder and become a crime boss. He said something about working a market some Russians left open. That’s what I mean; the guy was intense.”

  “He give a name? You know who he was working for?”

  Paul rubbed his eyebrows as he thought.

  Boy has burned through some brain cells.

  “A magician. Let’s see, it wasn’t David Copperfield. It wasn’t Penn or Teller.”

  “Was it Merlin?”

  He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Yeah, Merlin the magician.”

  The boy was thinking about Merlin the Arthurian wizard, but I didn’t feel like arguing the point. “Did he say the name Merlin Finn?”

  Paul nodded enthusiastically.

  “Did you tell this to the cops?”

  “No. The cop I was talking to, Keith somebody, wasn’t very nice. Kept sniffing at me, thinking I’d been smoking something. Hell, I was straight when they came askin’ questions.”

  Not like now.

  “Did they search Bryan’s room?”

  “Yeah, they didn’t find anything. Bryan kept his room really clean.”

  “Where did he keep his stash?”

  Paul glanced at the window again. “In the trunk of his Toyota.”

  The cops searched his car. There was nothing in it.

  “Can I look?”

  Paul was honest about Bryan’s room. As much of a roach-fest as the rest of the house was, the young man’s bedroom was tidy and well cared for. Not what I would have expected for a heroin addict.

  The twin-size bed was neatly made, a blue comforter folded at the foot. Framed photos were placed on the bureau—one of an older couple I guessed were his parents. The other was of a pretty girl, in her late teens or early twenties. She was laughing at the camera, her hair pinned up on the top of her head, wearing a sleeveless top and a tiny pair of Daisy Dukes.

  I pointed. “Is that Bryan’s girlfriend?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, tragic. She overdosed a couple of nights ago.”

  I felt a nasty twist in my stomach. “What’s her name?”

  “Holly.” He stopped and thought again. “Holly Dickenson. Yeah, they found her in the ladies’ room at Lando’s the other night. That tore Bryan up something awful.”

  Enough to commit suicide in the bathroom of a gas station?

  Paul leaned in and gave me a whisper. “I think she was selling for Merlin the magician too.”

  I walked to the closet and slid open the door. His clothes were all neatly hung. Shoes and sneakers lined up all in a row on the floor. The drawers to the bureau contained what was supposed to be there—clothes, socks, underwear. No drugs. Not even a half-empty bottle of Absolut.

  Bryan’s bathroom was spotless.

  What man keeps his bathroom this clean?

  The medicine cabinet held only shaving cream, aspirin, Band-Aids, and toothpaste. Paul had been watching me all the while I searched Bryan’s room. I asked, “Why did Bryan keep his room so clean?”

  He bobbed his head. “I think he was kind of a germophobe.”

  “You said he’d cut his heroin with fentanyl. Where’d he do that?”

  “Kitchen.”

  “Show me.”

  He led the way from Bryan’s bedroom into the narrow hall, which gave me a peek into Paul’s room. It was a sty. Rumpled blanket on an unmade bed. Piles of clothes on the floor. I didn’t want to think about what Paul’s bathroom looked like.

  The kitchen wasn’t much bigger than a walk-in closet. Four-burner stove, cheap refrigerator, microwave sitting on the counter along with dishes from last night and this morning. More dishes in the sink. Trash can overflowing.

  But the table was spotless. Not even a single ring from a wet glass or coffee cup.

  I motioned toward the table. “Is that where Bryan worked?”

  Paul opened the refrigerator, peering absently inside. “Yeah, made me nervous when he measured and bagged up his shit. Had a ton of pills too. A little grass around the house is no big deal. The kind of drugs he had, if the cops found it here, we’d do serious time.”

  “Where did Bryan get his merchandise?”
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  Paul opened the refrigerator and absently stared at the nearly empty shelves. “The hard stuff came from Merlin the magician’s guys. Bryan would get a text message, then he’d take off and come back with a new stash.”

  “What about the pills?”

  Unable to locate anything edible, Paul closed the refrigerator door. “When he needed more, he’d hop in his car and come back with a plastic shopping bag full of pill bottles. You know, like when you get a prescription. Those tiny, brown plastic bottles? He’d have a bag full of them.”

  “Where did he get those?”

  “Only thing he ever said was he was heading down to the candy shop. I didn’t ask where that was. I didn’t want to know. We about done? I think I’m going to do a Taco Bell run. I’m starving.”

  I glanced around the filthy kitchen one more time. I stopped when I got to the trash can. “You going to take that out?”

  He frowned at me. “Yeah, I’m gonna to take it out.” Paul’s tone was defensive.

  I recalled how the garbage had been strewn over the front lawn of the house where Holly Dickenson had lived.

  Someone wanted what was in that trash.

  I smiled. “I’ll take it out for you.”

  * * *

  I hustled down the concrete steps toward my car, popping the trunk remotely with my key fob. With one fluid movement, I heaved the heavy bag of trash into the trunk and closed it. Glancing across the parking lot, I was relieved to see the black Mustang.

  Then I stood and gazed around me.

  Is someone watching, waiting for Paul Reed to take out the trash?

  I didn’t see any sinister pickup trucks or SUVs. I opened my car door and was about to slide inside when something caught the corner of my eye.

  Movement. Something above me, in the sky?

  I looked up and squinted at the dull light of that afternoon, seeing nothing but stone-colored clouds.

  John must have become concerned, because he got out of his car, and hand held to his forehead, shielding out some of the light, he scanned the sky as well.

  Finally, we both looked at each other from across the parking lot and shrugged. An unspoken signal to get in our vehicles and get out of there.