Out for Blond Read online

  “Oh, I heard that too,” said Brigit. “He’s the millionaire, right?”

  “Right,” I said. He was the guy that Laura had told me about in the beginning when I’d taken the job. He’d inherited a lot of money, and he was a member of the Clayton Society, and he’d basically given all the money over to them to do with as they saw fit. Technically, I supposed, Archer Whitney was the one who was paying my salary. “But I’m kind of thinking that maybe Gunner only spends time with him because he’s money bags.”

  “That would make sense. If he’s the one who foots the bills around here, you could see why Gunner would want to stay friendly with him, especially since he runs the council or the society or whatever.”

  “Yeah, it’s hard to imagine a millionaire guy getting his hands dirty and helping Gunner kill Tess.”

  “So, should we bother talking to him?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “we probably should, just to cover our bases. Besides, he’s a pretty interesting character. Maybe he’ll be able to provide some insight into what goes on around here.”

  “So, we talk to him.”

  “We talk to him,” I said.

  * * *

  Unlike some of the other people on Clayton farm, Archer Whitney seemed to have a permanent residence in the main house, which was practically a mansion. The only other person that seemed to have that same status was Gunner himself. Most of the rooms in the mansion weren’t used for people on the farm. Instead, they were kept to rent out for seminars and other events that were hosted on the farm. The rest of the people on the farm lived in much smaller houses, which were scattered about over the rest of the land. Some of the houses were single-family-style, and they housed a couple and their children. Others were more like dormitories, full of bunk-lined bedrooms, where lots of people all lived together. These people seemed to have much more communal lifestyle, all sharing big meals together, unlike the people in the single-family homes, who seemed to live more traditionally. There was room for all kinds of lifestyles on the farm, it seemed, but it was more typical for newer members to be in the dormitories, while the people who’d grown up on the farm had more often grown up in their own houses with their own mothers and fathers.

  Whatever the case, all the people that we talked to seemed extremely happy. They all had that shiny, happy people look to them, like they were just pleased to be allowed to spend time on the farm. According to them, it was akin to paradise on earth or something.

  Archer Whitney didn’t have that same glow.

  He met us in his own private living room, and he shuffled away from the door as he let us in. He was wearing a bathrobe over pajamas, even though it was afternoon. “Sit down anywhere,” he said, waving his arm around.

  The living room looked quite clean, which was jarring compared to Archer’s appearance. He hadn’t tidied himself, but the room was spotless.

  Archer began sorting through drawers in the end tables as Brigit and I sat down on one of his couches. “Where the hell did she put that lighter?” he grumbled.

  I got out my notepad and pen, and Brigit took out her cell phone. I had noticed that she had taken to taking notes on the screen with a stylus. She had even suggested it to me as an option at one point, saying I could stop killing trees and that it would take up less space because I wouldn’t need to file the paper. I could see her point, but I was a creature of habit. I had a tiny bit of a superstition about my notepad. I knew rationally that writing in it wasn’t the key to solving my cases, but then I’d never solved a case without it, so I couldn’t really be sure, could I? And I wasn’t about to test the efficacy of the notebook on something as important as the Gunner Bray case. So, no phone note taking for me. Nope, it was the old fashioned way as far as I was concerned.

  Archer pulled out a lighter and an ash tray out of one of the end tables. He promptly lit a cigarette. “Sorry,” he said. “I can’t think without a cigarette. I tell her whenever she cleans to just leave the ash tray and the lighter out, but she always hides it away someplace where I can’t find it. Drives me nuts.”

  “Someone cleans your living room?” I said.

  “Oh, they take good care of me here,” he said. “They’ve got people cleaning my whole suite for me. For free, too. I don’t even have to pay them.”

  I didn’t say anything, but the way I saw it, Archer was probably paying for way more than a cleaning lady. He’d practically signed his entire fortune over to the Clayton Society.

  He settled on an easy chair opposite us. “So,” he said, turning bloodshot eyes towards us, “what can I do for you?”

  “We wanted to ask you a few questions,” I said.

  “Right, you’re that private detective lady. I heard about you.” He made a face. “I heard that you think Gunner did it.”

  “I’m trying to get to the truth,” I said. “People on the farm say that you and Gunner are very close. Would you say that’s accurate?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Archer. “Gunner’s one of my best friends. Like I said, they’re really nice to me here. Not like my family was, you know. My family never accepted me. They never liked anything that I did. They were just critical. My parents never cared about me at all. All they wanted was for me to act a certain way, and when I didn’t measure up to their standards, it was as if I didn’t even exist. I hated that. It’s much better here. The people at the Clayton Society are real friends.”

  “I see,” I said. “So, do you ever do favors for Gunner?”

  “Not really,” said Archer. “You know, they don’t ask me for a lot here.” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “I do pretty much whatever I want. I mean, I did give them all my money, so they’re kind of grateful for that. They bring me food, and they clean my rooms, and they get me cigarettes and booze and… you know, whatever I want, basically. It’s a pretty sweet little arrangement.” He grinned.

  “So, you never do anything to help out Gunner?”

  “Nah,” he said.

  “And you and Gunner don’t do things together?” I asked.

  “Sometimes we hang out here together, I guess, but that’s all.” He leaned forward. “Do you really think that he killed that woman? Because he seems like such a good guy, and if he’s really a murderer, well… I might have to try to get my money back. I don’t want to be bankrolling a murder cult, you know?”

  I cleared my throat. There weren’t words.

  * * *

  “He’s not very smart, is he?” said Brigit.

  We were in the car, driving back from the farm after talking to Archer.

  I gripped the steering wheel. “The mind boggles. The weird thing is that he seems to understand exactly how everything is working there. He knows that they’re only nice to him because he gave them all that money. And he doesn’t care.”

  “Yeah, that was totally weird,” said Brigit. “You’d think he’d have at least tried to lie to himself about it. You’d think it would hurt his feelings to think that they were just using him.”

  “Not even him. Just his money.”

  “But no. He doesn’t.” She shook her head. “So weird.”

  “Well, I got the impression he was strung out on something. When he said that they get him whatever he wants, I strongly suspect that means drugs.”

  “But I thought they didn’t do drugs out on the farm,” she said.

  “People aren’t supposed to smoke there either,” I said. “And yet, there he was, puffing away.”

  “Inside the house, no less.”

  We were both quiet for several seconds, just letting it all wash over us.

  I took a deep breath. “Maybe he’s not on drugs. I could be wrong about that. I don’t know how corrupt this Clayton place really is.”

  “Yeah, they seem on the up and up, but there’s just something creepy about all those happy people,” said Brigit. “People just aren’t that happy. It’s not natural.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, the place is weird all right.”

  “But all that said,
I don’t think Archer Whitney is the murderer. I can’t see him helping Gunner doing anything. I can’t even see him bothering to get dressed. He’s definitely out of the running.”

  “I agree,” I said. “He’s hardly capable.”

  “But where does that leave us now?” she said. “We’re out of leads, and we’re out of suspects. We know it wasn’t any of the loony loyalists. We think that Gunner could have done it, but he would have had help, and we don’t know who that could have been, except that it wasn’t Archer Whitney.”

  “Well, we need someone to talk to, if only to rack up some hours to bill Laura double for. What about… what’s her name? Stella’s friend?”

  “Adeline?” said Brigit.

  “Yeah. There’s probably no reason to talk to her,” I said. “But you never know. Maybe there’s something dark and horrible in Adeline’s past, and she’s actually the one person Gunner turned to help him carry out murder.”

  Brigit snorted.

  “Hey, it could happen,” I said. “Since Laura’s paying double my typical fee, so I don’t see how it could hurt to talk to her. You said that she was staying at the shelter in town?”

  “Yeah,” said Brigit. “You’re awful, really. Wasting money like that.”

  “It won’t be wasted. It’ll pay for my office and my apartment and a lot of High Lifes and your salary, I might add.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Besides, it’s a little weird that she’s living at the shelter, isn’t it? She’s probably the only person at the farm that didn’t like it there.”

  “Actually, I think there are a lot of teenagers that go in and out of that place,” said Brigit. “They’re runaways, you know, and they might try staying on the farm for a while, but they don’t all want to stay there forever. I think the lack of alcohol is a bit of a deterrent, too.”

  “Is that why Adeline left?”

  “Stella sort of hinted it was.”

  “Alcoholic teenage runaways,” I said. “That’s kind of horrible.”

  “Like you didn’t drink alcohol when you were a teenager.”

  “I did, of course,” I said. “But I didn’t have to run away and live on the street or in a weird cult.” My teenage years hadn’t been a picnic, of course. My parents had been killed, and I’d had to move in with my aunt. So, there was a lot of trauma there. Still, I was safe, which was more than I could say for this Adeline kid. I wondered if maybe she’d been reported missing somewhere. Maybe she had a loving family that she’d run from for some stupid adolescent reason. Maybe she wanted to go home. I made a mental note to check for Adeline with Pike when I got the chance. That is, if I didn’t die from embarrassment the next time I saw Pike. I remembered saying that I loved him and a chill of regret went through me. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

  “You think it’s a cult?” said Brigit.

  “Don’t you?” I said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You said they were creepy because they were too happy.”

  “Right, I know,” she said. “But maybe I’m being cynical. Maybe they really do have it all together on the farm. Maybe it is some kind of blissful existence.”

  I snorted. “We wouldn’t be on this case if it was blissful. Someone on that farm murdered a woman. Brutally, and in cold blood.”

  “Unless it wasn’t someone on the farm.”

  “I guess that’s possible,” I said. “It might not have been Gunner. It might not have been anyone on the farm at all. But I don’t think it’s likely.”

  * * *

  The youth shelter in Renmawr was located downtown in the old fire station. Years ago, a bigger station had been built when the firemen grew out of this one. This building was tall and brick, and it still had the sliding poles in it from the turn of the century. It was a perfect place for a youth center, and people in town didn’t even call it a shelter, in fact. They called it the Fire Station. Homeless kids who were looking for a place for the night would say they were trying to get into the Fire Station, not that they were going to the shelter. The only problem with the place was that it filled up fast.

  If you were a homeless kid, you had to make sure that you got to the Station by seven or eight at the latest, or all the beds would be spoken for. Once the place was full up, there was no guarantee of getting in later. And they didn’t hold beds for multiple nights either.

  I was familiar with the place from my days as a police officer. Before I had worked Homicide, I’d spend time on the street and dealt with kids who’d fallen hard times. Some of them turned to crime to take care of themselves. The Station was sometimes the savior for the kids, and sometimes the jumping off point for worse offenses. When they could get in, it saved them. But for a kid who’d managed a bed night after night at the Station who somehow missed it… well, there were pimps and drug dealers aplenty ready to take advantage of those kids.

  I wished there was something better. I hated working in Vice because so many of the people we arrested were badly influenced by their circumstances. Prostitution, for instance, was often a crime of desperation. The girls weren’t bad through and through.

  Murder on the other hand, that was another story. I was much more comfortable in Homicide, because I knew that murderers were bad guys. No matter how terrible a situation was, taking another human life was not an option. I’d become a police officer after my own parents’ murders, and I wanted to bring murderers to justice. Not lock up girls who I’d rather just give a big hug and a place to sleep for the night.

  At any rate, I was familiar with Beth Anthony, the woman who ran the Station. She didn’t remember me, however. I guess there were lots and lots of officers through here, and it had been years since I came in contact with Beth regularly. It was probably a blessing anyway, considering my reputation was such that it was. Beth might not have a great opinion of me if she knew what others at the police department said about me.

  When we arrived at the Station, I asked for Beth, and we were directed to her office. She remembered Adeline right away.

  “One of the Clayton kids,” she said. “Yeah, I know her. She’s been around here, but I haven’t seen her in about a week. We don’t have nearly the amount of space that we need to service the community here, so sometimes kids can’t get a bed when they need one.”

  “Right,” I said, “it’s first come, first served, yeah?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Do you have any idea why Adeline left Clayton, then?” said Brigit. “Seems like a better deal if she’s not even guaranteed a place to sleep out here.”

  Beth pressed her lips together. “It might be a nice ‘deal,’ I suppose, but it’s not a good place for kids. It’s a cult, and they brainwash anyone who ends up inside their walls. Adeline is better out of there, I know it.”

  “What makes you say it’s a cult?” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

  Okay, fair enough. After all, Brigit and I had called the place a cult too. “We don’t mean any disrespect to the work you do here, of course,” I said, trying to soothe her. “I know that there are more kids in need in Renmawr than there are people to take care of them. It’s tough to get the funding that you need to make a difference.”

  She sighed. “We’ve wanted to expand this place for years, but we can’t raise the additional funds we’d need. We’re funded entirely by grants and donations, and we’ve actually had to downsize this year, because we got less money from the government. It’s frustrating to say the least. I guess I can see why kids go to Clayton. Free food, a place to sleep, nice smiling people telling them all about the brotherhood of men. Sounds like paradise, I guess.” She sighed. “Heck, maybe it is. I’ve never been there. What exactly are you two investigating again?”

  I’d been a bit vague about that, and I hesitated.

  But Brigit plowed right out there. “The Tess Carver murder.”

  “But the leader did that. Wha
t’s his name? Gunner Bray? He was arrested and everything.”

  “Well, we know that the murderer didn’t act alone,” I said.

  Beth was taken aback. “You don’t think that it’s possible that Adeline was involved?”

  “We’re just trying to cover our bases,” I said. “It’s a possibility, and we want to make sure we look into it.”

  She chewed on her lip. “I’d say you’re probably barking up the wrong tree. These girls sometimes get mixed up with drugs or prostitution, but they’re rarely violent. In fact, they look out for each other.”

  “Well,” I said, “thanks for your time anyway.” We’d bill that for an hour.

  * * *

  Brigit propped her legs up on her desk and balanced her keyboard on her knees. “You really are bad.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard.

  “I’m not bad,” I said. “Bad would be to bill it for two hours or four or six. One is just… standard.”

  “Seriously,” she said, “all we’ve done today is waste time. We knew it wasn’t Archer. We knew it wasn’t Adeline.”

  “We don’t know anything,” I corrected. “There’s a formula to this, you know. Everyone’s a suspect, and the murderer is often someone you never expected.”

  “That’s the formula?” She laughed. “That’s crap. I thought formulas were supposed to make things easier—more predictable. Your formula is that there’s no way to predict things?”

  “Maybe formula is the wrong word,” I admitted. “Still, I’m just saying that there’s nothing wrong with checking everyone out. We’ve done our best here.”

  Brigit shook her head, turning her attention back to her computer screen. “Well, what if I knocked off early and told you to just pay me for the afternoon?”

  “That’s not the same thing,” I said. “I am not Laura Hopper, and I don’t work for the Clayton Society.”

  “So, it’s okay to take money from the Clayton Society, but not from you?”

  “Exactly.”

  She rolled her eyes. Then she leaned forward, plopping her feet back on the floor. “Holy shit.”