Deadly Web (22 page)

“They need to stop drilling,” Jurgen said. “They need to stop yesterday. It’s already too late.”

As a private detective, Jurgen found himself spending very long hours in his car, a 2012 blue Ford Fiesta. In fact, he frequently spent more time in his car than in his own home. Stakeouts were a long and uncomfortable ordeal. Even worse, they were lonely. When he’d been a cop, Jurgen could talk to his partner during the stakeout, and time generally flew by. But these days he had no partner for his long hours of stalking. Lately, he’d begun having one-sided conversations with his car, which he dubbed “Sharon.”

“The point that you don’t seem to grasp,” he told his car angrily, “is that we have enough oil to last us fifty years. We don’t need to drill for more oil. We have oil pouring out of our ears.”

He and Sharon were talking politics while they waited for Vivian Ramen to emerge from her home. Harris Ramen suspected his wife was having an affair. Jurgen had been hired for the exciting task of seeing if Harris’s suspicions were true. This was his third day of investigation and the political discussion, which had started off mild, was getting heated. Sharon, Jurgen suspected, was a staunch Republican, her main agenda being the desire for oil. Jurgen’s passionate speech about global warming was falling on deaf ears.

“Here’s an interesting statistic for you. If we used all that oil, the amount of pollution that would—”

His phone started ringing. He checked the number, and whistled in surprise.

“Well, we haven’t heard from him in a long time, have we, Sharon?” he said, and answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Jurgen?” the familiar voice from the other side asked.

“Tweegie!” Jurgen said. “How have you been, man?”

“Fine,” Bernard said, clearly annoyed at the nickname. “Listen, do you have a few minutes?”

“For you? All the time in the world.”

“Good. There’s this case we’re working on, and it looks like one of the suspects hired you—”

“Oh, I won’t be talking about my clients,” Jurgen said quickly. “Not unless you have a warrant.”

“This guy told us to talk to you,” Bernard said. “His name is Roland Tarp and—”

“Even if he did, I won’t talk about it over the phone,” Jurgen said, interrupting Bernard again. “We have to talk face to face.”

“Okay. Can you come to the station?”

“I’m in the middle of a tail; I can’t go anywhere,” Jurgen said, shuddering at the thought of entering that station again. “Why don’t you come over here?”

“Jurgen, it’s a murder case.”

“All the more reason for you to hurry up,” Jurgen said.

Bernard testily asked for directions, which Jurgen was more than happy to give him. He then called Roland Tarp and made sure he could talk freely to the cops. After that, he looked around the car. He and Sharon hadn’t had any visitors for a long time, and the interior could do with some cleaning. There was a bottle on the floor in the backseat, half-full of sloshing yellow liquid that was not lemonade, as well as a thermos which under no circumstances should ever be opened by anyone except Jurgen himself. Both his camera detection kit and his surveillance kit were scattered all over the car. There was a ridiculous amount of burger wrappers, empty Styrofoam cups, and napkins everywhere. Just looking at his own car, thinking that someone other than himself might see it, made Jurgen feel embarrassed. He tidied up a bit.

Fifteen minutes later, a Dodge Charger parked next to Sharon. Jurgen tried to ignore the fact that he recognized the Charger all too well. It was the same car he and Bernard had driven when they were partners.

Bernard and his current partner, Hannah, got out of the car and walked over to Sharon. Bernard got into the front passenger’s seat. Hannah sat in the backseat. She looked around her with clear distaste in her eyes. Jurgen’s cleaning skills weren’t enough for her.

“It’s great to see you, Tweegie!” Jurgen beamed at Bernard. Bernard grunted in response. He was still angry. Jurgen was not surprised. Bernard was not the most forgiving person on the planet. Then again, Jurgen never let bad tempers get in the way of a perfectly good conversation. “I see you and Hannah are still partners. That’s great!” He turned back toward Hannah and asked, “How are you Hannah? Still punching pedophiles?”

“That only happened once,” Hannah said, her face becoming a bit pink.

“That’s not what I heard,” Jurgen said.

“You’re one to talk!” she said sharply.

“Enough,” Bernard said, his voice steely.

Jurgen turned back to Bernard. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Roland Tarp. He hired you to follow someone, right?”

“Frank Gulliepe,” Jurgen said, nodding. “A real asshole.”

“Frank’s dead,” Bernard said.

Jurgen didn’t even blink. Tarp had already told him that on the phone. “Then the world is a better place,” he said.

“We wanted to ask some questions about—”

“Hang on,” Jurgen tensed and stared outside. A garage door opened thirty feet from them. A red Nissan Murano convertible pulled out of the garage and drove down the street. Jurgen started the engine and slowly stepped on the gas pedal. Sharon moved forward, her engine humming in satisfaction.

“Hey, wait a moment,” Hannah said. “You can’t—”

“I need to follow that car,” Jurgen said. “You want to talk to me? Fine. You’re coming with me.”

“Damn it, Jurgen, we don’t have time for—” Bernard began.

“Make time,” Jurgen snapped. “This is what pays my rent. I don’t have a cop’s salary, you know.”

“Well, whose fault is that?”

Jurgen ignored him. The Nissan was driving south at a leisurely pace. Jurgen drove even slower, letting the distance between the cars expand. After a few minutes, the Nissan turned right, and moved out of sight. He instantly accelerated, his passengers shouting in surprise and anger.

“Seat belts,” he said. “You should probably use them.”

Jurgen’s style of tailing a car was a bit erratic. When the car was in sight, he did his best to stay far behind, to avoid drawing any suspicion. But once his quarry disappeared from sight he panicked and accelerated to catch up. When he caught up, he instantly slowed down to a crawl, to let the distance grow again. He was sure there was a better way to do this, but he hadn’t found it yet. As a cop, he’d rarely had to follow a car on his own.

“You should probably start asking your questions,” he said cheerfully as he turned right. He noticed the red color of the Nissan ahead of him, and pressed the brakes instantly.

“Jesus!” Bernard said, jolting forward.

“You want to ask me about Jesus?”

“I want to ask you about Tarp!”

“Ask away.”

“When did Tarp hire you to follow Frank?”

“About two weeks ago. I’ll have to check my calendar to be exact.”

“Okay. Can you do that later and send me an exact time and date?”

“Sure!” The Nissan disappeared again, and Jurgen hit the gas, his heart rate climbing.
Where is it where is it where is it… there!
Brakes
.

“You’re awful at this,” Hannah said.

“I challenge you to do better,” Jurgen said angrily. “This isn’t a car chase! It’s a tail. I don’t have police helicopters or other patrol cars to help me.”

“The driver will notice you if you keep on driving like a madman,” Hannah pointed out.

“That… hardly ever happens,” Jurgen said.

“When did Tarp call off the tail on Frank?”

“Last Monday,” Jurgen said. “Said he had all he wanted.”

“Has he contacted you since?”

“Nope.”

“Have you seen Frank since?”

“Nope.” The Nissan accelerated onto the highway. Jurgen drove after it, taking the leftmost lane.

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary while you were tracking Frank?” Bernard asked.

“Define ordinary.”

“Don’t mess with me, Jurgen.”

“Well, he visited the Wexler Care Center by his apartment a lot,” Jurgen said. “He had a sister there.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’m a good detective.”

“Okay, what else? You’ve been following him for two weeks; you must’ve noticed something, Jurgen.”

“Look, the guy didn’t lead a very interesting life. He’d go to that boring job of his in the morning, come back in the afternoon, spend most of his time at home in front of the computer.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He went on a couple of dates with that girl, the one in the restaurant. But she wasn’t the only one he was sleeping with. I saw at least two others. One of them was a pro. Frank liked having sex with the light turned on, so it was easy to get some good photos. My client was happy with them. Maybe one of the women he was sleeping with killed him.”

“We need names, Jurgen,” Bernard said.

“Look, I have a file on him and I’ll send it over to you, but I don’t have anything exciting there. Just some work acquaintances, a friend or two and the women he was having sex with.”

“We know he was using drugs.”

“Yeah, but so what? Get your head out of your ass, Bernard. Half this city is using drugs.”

“It’s getting off,” Hannah said.

“Huh?” Jurgen asked, confused.

“Your red Nissan. It’s getting off the highway.”

“Shit!” Jurgen slammed the brakes and twisted the wheel. Sharon swerved aside, crossing traffic-packed lanes, the passengers screaming obscenities. A truck honked its horn as Jurgen’s car veered in front of him, the driver close enough to see, his face twisted in horror. The car and the truck missed each other by mere inches, and Sharon shot off after the Nissan, Jurgen slowing down to a crawl as they got closer to the red car in front of them.

“Damn it, Jurgen!” Bernard shouted. “You’re even a worse private detective than a cop!”

“Go to hell!” Jurgen said, gritting his teeth. “I was a good cop.”

Bernard snorted and stared out his window. Jurgen knew what he was thinking. Internal affairs hadn’t exposed the results of their investigation, but they’d had enough to get Jurgen to quit. He often wondered what would have happened if he had stayed. Would they have managed to implicate him in the crimes of bribery and misconduct?

Maybe. The dirt had been there to be found, Jurgen had never been the cleanest cop around. He had tried, though. He’d been a good detective, cracked many cases before the stench of corruption started reeking bad enough to get internal affairs poking around.

Whatever. Water under the bridge.

The red Nissan stopped, and Jurgen turned onto a side street and parked the car.

“Well?” Hannah asked, still breathing hard. “Is this where you’ll get your dirty pictures? Will your client be happy?”

“Doubt it,” Jurgen said tiredly. “This is where she takes Pilates lessons. The teacher is a sixty-year-old woman.”

“Well,” Hannah said, “this has been… anticlimactic.”

“Welcome to the fun life of the private detective,” Jurgen said.

“Our car is parked back where we met you,” Hannah said.

“Well, this woman is bound to return home eventually,” Jurgen said. “Though she tends to go shopping after Pilates. It would probably be more efficient if you got a cab to drive you back.”

The detectives got out of the car. For a second, Bernard looked as if he was about to say something, but then he shut the door and walked away.

Jurgen sighed. This had been more depressing than he had anticipated.

“Well, Sharon,” he said. “We have fifty minutes until the lesson ends. Where were we?”

The phone interview with Henry Konner was important enough to conduct in the police station. Jacob and Mitchell called from Jacob’s phone, the call recorded like all other calls on the department’s landlines.

“Henry?” Mitchell said. “It’s Detective Mitchell Lonnie. Can you talk now?”

“Yeah.”

“You should know we are recording this conversation.” Mitchell said.

“Okay.”

“Can you repeat what you told me when I called you earlier?”

“Yeah, sure. I said that Dona’s boyfriend, Blayze, killed her.”

“Can you tell us how you know that?”

“Yes. Me and Dona talked a lot. We were really close. Lately, she’s been telling me that her boyfriend was scaring her.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“She said he had hit her a couple of times, that he began drinking again. And that he needed money.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know why he needed the money. Maybe he was on drugs, or he was gambling it, I don’t know. But he kept asking her for money. She said that she only started looking for a job to get him more cash.”

“Do you know for a fact that she gave him money?”

“Yeah, she gave him money out of the allowance that her parents gave her, but that wasn’t enough.”

Jacob and Mitchell looked at each other.

“So what happened then?”

“Well, he started pressuring her into selling her Buffy collection. She had a lot of Buffy stuff, you know? Like… She had a signed poster. It was probably worth two hundred bucks. And a Spike plushie, you can’t get those anymore. She had a replica of Faith’s knife, that was also worth a lot, I guess… Anyway, she had a bunch of stuff. And Blayze wanted her to sell all that. She didn’t want to, and he got violent.”

“Violent how?”

“She said he swore at her, and hit her in the stomach…” Henry’s voice began to waver. “That bastard. I mean… she was such a wonderful human being.”

“That’s it?” Mitchell asked. “Did she say anything else?”

“Yeah,” Henry said after a second. “She said that Blayze was coming over two nights ago. She sounded really frightened. I told her she should call it off, tell him to go to hell, but she wouldn’t.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I guess she should have listened to me,” Henry whispered, and began sobbing.

Chapter Nineteen

Blayze did not look surprised when Mitchell and Jacob came to arrest him. He mostly seemed weary. As they walked him into the police station, his shoulders slumped, his feet began to shuffle, and Jacob could see the instant transformation: a free man becoming an incarcerated criminal again.