Born Under a Blond Sign Read online

  Missy beamed. “Sure, I hope I was helpful.”

  We left her and went back to the car.

  “So,” said Brigit, sliding into the passenger side. “We drop the Charlene angle?”

  I sighed. “Looks like.”

  * * *

  When we got back to the office, Miles was there. He was leaning against the door, wearing jeans, with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. I was really not used to him looking so casual all the time.

  “Are you ever in your office?” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” I pushed him out of the way and unlocked the door.

  “Because I could count on my hand the number of times I’ve come here and the place has actually been open. Half the time, I’m standing around waiting for someone to show up.”

  “Well, you could call before you come,” I said.

  “What good would that do if you’re not in the office to get the call?”

  Brigit spoke up. “I reroute the phones to my cell so that I don’t miss anything.”

  “Oh,” he said, looking at her. “That’s smart.”

  “Yeah, I’m not an idiot.” She turned her back on him and headed for her desk.

  “I didn’t say you were,” he said.

  “Whatever,” Brigit said, not turning around. “I can tell you don’t like me.”

  Miles furrowed his brow. “What is she talking about?”

  “You tend to pretend she doesn’t exist when you’re around,” I said. “Is there some reason you’re here, or did you just come by to tell me in person how substandard of a person I am?”

  “When did I ever say you were a substandard person?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Last night on the phone? When you were attempting to ‘apologize’ and somehow ended up insulting me.”

  He pressed his lips together in a firm line. “If that’s what you think I said last night, then you’re delusional, because all I said was—”

  “Let’s not rehash it,” I said. “I assume there’s a reason you’re in my office.”

  “Actually, yes,” he said. “I brought you Gil’s computer and the data from his phone.”

  “Oh, great,” I said. “Finally.”

  “Finally?” He glared at me.

  “What?” I said. “I asked you for that computer quite some time ago.”

  “Yes, and you’re working for me, here, so maybe you should give me some respect, what do you think?”

  “I respect you, Miles. I don’t know what you’re whining about. Maybe you should stop letting our personal issues affect our working together.”

  “I should stop?”

  I shrugged.

  We squared off in the middle of the room, both of us stiff and angry. I couldn’t believe he’d come here and act like this. After everything he’d said to me the night before, well, he didn’t have the right.

  His jaw twitched. “You know what? I’m not giving you this computer until you give me an update on what you actually know about this case.”

  “Update?” I said. “What?”

  “I gave you those files that you wanted,” he said. “There’s some O’Shaunessy angle—”

  “Well, that’s probably dead,” said Brigit.

  “Oh.” He folded his arms over his chest. “So, do you know anything?”

  The anger was draining out of me. “Look, we have some theories, Miles, but we don’t have any proof yet. If we’re wrong, well, I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

  “Tell me your theories,” he said.

  I let out a breath. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to tell Miles this stuff or not. I was afraid that once he knew everything we were doing, he might laugh us off the stage, tell us we were barking up the wrong tree. I was afraid that he’d be angry, because we weren’t doing what we set out to do, we weren’t investigating where his brother’s head was at when he shot five people.

  But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t think that Gil had been the shooter.

  “Okay,” I said. “Well, the first thing you should know is that Gilbert woke up that morning and went and bought tickets for Keenefest. Which doesn’t sound like something that a person does who isn’t expecting to live out the day, you know?”

  Miles furrowed his brow.

  “The second thing,” I continued, “is that there was a drug dealer in that room. People saw him come in, but they didn’t see him come out. He claims he left before the shooting started, but I think he’s lying. I think that he took Gil’s gun, and I think they struggled over it. I think that’s how Gil shot himself. I think it was an accident that he pulled the trigger. And I think that the dealer shot the others.”

  Miles swallowed.

  “Now, I don’t know if he saw the gun and panicked, and this is the result, or if he was working for someone. Maybe he was sent there to kill a certain person, maybe Charlene Jarrett, and then he freaked out when he saw the gun and everything went crazy. I do know that it wasn’t typical for him to be making house calls. I don’t have anything concrete, though. It’s all speculation, and maybe it’s crazy. It’s only that everyone we talked to said that they couldn’t believe your brother would do something like this. No one had any idea why he would have done it. Everyone said that it hit them hard, that he wasn’t the sort of person to do it. No one thought he was depressed or angry or anything like that. It doesn’t make sense to them that he’d do it. So, I started thinking that maybe he didn’t. But if I can’t prove that, then I’ll have to let it go, and if I’m wrong, I didn’t want to tell you and have you think—”

  “No,” said Miles. “No, I’m glad you told me. It’s good that you told me.”

  “It is?”

  He passed a hand over his face. “I’m… Geez, I really hope you’re right, Ivy. It doesn’t make any sense for him to have done this, so if you could find some evidence about this dealer, well, that would be fantastic.”

  “Yeah, we’re doing our best,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I knew that it was a good idea to hire you. I knew it.” He gave me a small smile.

  I couldn’t help but smile back. I was so glad he was all right with this.

  * * *

  “Food’s here,” called Brigit.

  “Excellent,” I said, coming out of my office, toting lots of printouts, which I’d highlighted to death. Brigit and I had been going through Gilbert’s computer and the data from his phone all afternoon. I had told her that we would take a break to eat dinner and go over what we’d found. I’d managed to dig up some good stuff, but I’d also gone through a bunch of crap as well. Sorting through a person’s entire digital life is an exercise in banality.

  Actually, most of being a detective is dull. However, figuring stuff out is such a rush that it’s worth all the boring parts.

  Brigit had ordered food from the Thai place in town, and I wasn’t sure what she’d ordered me. This was because when she’d asked what kind of food I wanted, I’d been preoccupied, and I’d said, “Order from wherever you want, and don’t ask me any more questions.” When she had asked me what I wanted to order, I’d said, “Didn’t I tell you not to ask me any more questions!”

  So, I guess I deserved whatever I got. I just hoped it wasn’t disgusting. I didn’t think Thai people ate live octopuses or anything, but if they did, I wouldn’t put it past Brigit to order that for me just in revenge.

  “I got you pad thai,” she said, handing it over.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” I said. “I like pad thai. It’s delicious.”

  Brigit had some kind of curry. We assembled our food and settled down to eat and talk.

  “Okay,” I said, “so I found two things that seem interesting. One is that there’s some issue with the Tekes.”

  “The fraternity?” said Brigit.

  “Yeah,” I said. The Tau Kappa Epsilons or TKEs were somewhat infamous on the Keene campus, and they had been for decades. They had a reputation for being the most unruly fraternity around. Lots of
rowdy parties, lots of crazy drinking, lots of questionably consensual sexual partners.

  “Oh, those guys,” said Brigit, wrinkling up her nose. “They’re the worst.”

  “They were the worst even when I was going to school.” I took a bite of my pad thai. Ah, peanutty goodness.

  “So, what’s the issue?” said Brigit.

  “Well, I’m going off of a bunch of texts and emails that he got, and no one’s really spelling it out, but what I’m thinking happened is that Gilbert seems to have been caught with marijuana by the campus police. And when they asked him where he got it, he said that he got it from the Tekes.”

  “What? The Tekes are selling pot now?”

  “No, I think it was more like it was a joint or something. He was at a party there, and someone gave him a joint for later. At least, that’s how I’m reading it.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Brigit.

  “Anyway, apparently the Tekes have been caught with pot before, so this was the last straw, and they were kicked off campus. They took away their campus housing and everything.”

  “The Teke frat house isn’t the Teke frat house?” said Brigit. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, I checked on the Internet as well. There are some articles in the Keene paper about it and everything.”

  “Whoa. That’s crazy. That frat house is like an institution.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “So, as you can imagine, the fraternity was pretty angry with Gilbert. Angry enough to kill him? I don’t know.”

  “Wait, you don’t think the Tekes are somehow responsible…?”

  “I’m just throwing this out there,” I said. “But I’m not completely on board with that theory, because I found something else on the files that I had.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Oh, only that he was sleeping with Charlene Jarrett. There are jillion texts between the two of them, and some of them are kind of dirty.”

  “Oh, man. I saw that he was calling her all the time,” said Brigit. “So, the rich guy that Charlene was seeing was Gilbert?”

  “Seems that way,” I said. “Now, how that helps us, I don’t know. But it does seem to make it less likely that Gilbert shot up all the people. He’d want to protect his girlfriend.”

  “Unless he did it because he wanted to kill Charlene,” said Brigit. “If they were sleeping together, doesn’t that make him more likely to have a motive?”

  She was right. I made a face. “Yeah, maybe.”

  Brigit shoveled some curry into her mouth.

  I ate some rice noodles.

  “So,” I said, after I’d swallowed, “what did you find?”

  “Well, there is this number that he called all the time,” she said.

  “No name attached to it?”

  “Nope, just the number. I haven’t had the chance to really look into it, though, because I found something much more interesting.” She handed over a print out to me.

  “What’s this?” I said.

  “It’s an internal memo from Quikslim Incorporated,” she said. “It’s talking about covering up the fact that their new product line of energy shakes contains ephedra.”

  “Ephedra?” I said. “But that’s illegal. You can’t put it in dietary supplements anymore. It was killing people.” I scanned the memo. “Holy shit, you’re right.”

  “That was on his computer,” said Brigit, “and it was in a file folder with a letter that he had written to his dad. Obviously, he intended to send the letter to his father accompanying the memo. Basically, the letter said that he was ashamed of his family and his legacy and he wanted nothing to do with the family anymore. He said he was going to do whatever he had to do to stop the sales of that energy shake and to take down the entire Quikslim empire.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Holy shit.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “So, what are we saying here?” I said. “Are we saying that his father killed him?”

  “I’m not saying that,” said Brigit. “Well, maybe I am.”

  I got up, abandoning my unfinished Thai food. “Fuck, it all fits.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The gun?” I said. “That’s how the dealer had the gun. Because Gilbert’s father gave it to him.”

  “Oh whoa, I guess you’re right. That does make sense. So, do you think that the father wanted it to look like a school shooting? Do you think he framed his own son?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Does that make any sense? I mean, why would he want his family name besmirched?”

  “Well, if the news got out about the ephedra, his family name would be besmirched anyway. Maybe this was better,” she said.

  “Right,” I said. “Because this was the son who went wrong, who left the family. So this would illustrate what happened if you didn’t tow the party line and get on board with the family business.”

  “What do you mean? No one else knew that Gilbert was going to blow the whistle.”

  “No, I know that. I just mean that he could say that Gilbert brought this on himself. That cutting the family out of his life led him down the wrong path. That way, it wasn’t his fault that his son did what he did. Instead, Gilbert was a bad apple.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said. “Yeah, maybe.”

  I paced. “But a father murdering his own son…”

  “I know,” said Brigit. “That’s horrible. That’s too horrible. Isn’t it too horrible? Would anyone prize their company, their reputation, over their own child?”

  “Oh, lots of people,” I said bitterly. “The world is full of monsters, Brigit.”

  “Do you think he is a monster?” she said. “You met him. What was he like?”

  “He wasn’t a very nice person,” I said, “but of course, that doesn’t mean anything. But he did seem very cold and very concerned with appearances. He told Miles that he got the time for dinner wrong, and he was really upset about that. And when he found Miles at my apartment, he was horrified that Miles would be seen with me. I guess I’m not really the kind of person they want him to associate with.”

  “None of that proves anything,”

  “No.”

  “But it doesn’t sound good,” she said.

  “So, we should proceed?” I said. “We should dig into this further?”

  “We have to, don’t you think? This is the most solid lead we’ve found thus far. We need to know if Mr. Pike had his own son killed to save his business.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We have to know. So, we’ll need to find out more about his character. What he values, and how far he’d go for his reputation and money.”

  * * *

  “Ivy!” said Calloway Pike, grinning and holding out his hand to shake. “I have to admit that I was happy when I got the call from you. This might not be appropriate, but I gotta say that you are way too sexy to be dating my brother.”

  I shook his hand. I wasn’t sure how to take that greeting.

  He flinched. “Oh, I shouldn’t have led with that, huh?”

  “You’re fine,” I said, composing myself. “You’re very flattering.” I needed this to go smoothly. I’d used Cal to get into the building. Once I asked him a few questions about his father, I’d try to get an audience with Louis Pike himself.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, that’s all I’m saying,” he said. “And you’re talented and accomplished as well. I remember seeing the news that you took down that serial killer.”

  “Thanks, that’s very kind,” I said.

  “Anyway, sorry,” he said. “I’ve made it awkward.”

  “You haven’t,” I said, giving him my best smile. I was a detective, and I could handle people if I needed to. If Cal wanted to be flirty, I could be flirty. “Really, you’re fine. You’re not exactly a bad-looking man yourself, you know.”

  He laughed. “Well, thank you, Ivy.”

  I slid into his office, and he shut the door after both of us.

  “So, how can I help you today?” He gestured to a sea
t in front of his desk.

  I sat down, surveying both him and the office. It was large and modern, nicely decorated with tasteful accents—a potted palm in the corner, a framed photo of the beach on the wall. The back wall was made entirely of glass. It was an enormous window that overlooked the surrounding area. The light streamed in through the glass, surrounding him in brightness. He seemed warm and open, so different than his brother. He was probably the kind of man who was used to pouring on the charm when he spoke to women. I knew the type. He wasn’t serious about any of the things he said, and I shouldn’t be alarmed when he said them.

  “I’m just here to ask you a few questions,” I said.

  “Oh, it sounds like you’re here on business,” he said.

  “Well, yes. I think you’re a nice guy, Cal, but I wouldn’t be here for any other reason.” I winked at him.

  He settled down on the edge of his desk and leaned forward. “Please, don’t take offense. I shouldn’t have said what I said. Honestly, I’m not the kind of man who’d move in on his brother’s girl.”

  I chuckled. “Oh, I understand. You were just being friendly.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “But, you know, if you and Miles don’t work out, you’ve got my number, so just give me a call.”

  I feigned shock. “Cal!” I said in a teasing voice.

  He stood up. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t have said that either.” He gave me a mischievous grin.

  I grinned back, as if we were in on a little secret together.

  “So, it’s business, then. But what kind of business could you have with Quikslim?”

  “Oh, not the corporation itself,” I said. “Not really. Just something I’m working on for Miles. It’s about Gilbert.”

  Cal’s expression changed immediately. He sat down behind his desk, no longer playing games. “What about Gil?”

  “Miles just wants to know what happened. I’m trying to figure out why Gilbert would have done what he did. I wanted to ask about… your father.”

  “Oh,” said Cal, nodding. “Yeah… good old Dad.” He swung his chair around to look out the glass panes behind his desk. Even though I could only see his back, I could see that his demeanor had completely changed. He wasn’t happy and joking anymore.