Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1) (13 page)

“Chinatown. Uncle moved there to cut down on costs, I think.”

We drove north for a few silent moments.

“Any idea why he left it all to you?” I asked. Then I looked over at him, and I swear he flinched.

“Because we have the same name,” he said.

“You have the same name as your uncle, and that’s the reason he left you his business?”

“Yeah. He said I wouldn’t have to pay to have the sign changed. It could stay ‘Jimmy Lavall, Private Investigator’.” James’ voice got tight and a little high. He was readying himself for ridicule.

“Go ahead, laugh,” he said. “I know you want to.”

“No. No.” I shook my head vigourously. “Honestly. I’m not going to laugh. Really.” Then I laughed, a little. “Sorry. It’s just—”

“Yeah I know.”

“He must’ve been doing okay,” I said. “I mean, look at the car.”

“You’d think so, but he was living in his office. Does a guy that’s doing okay live in his office?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t think so. All he had was this car and that ratty little office.”

“And his name—your name—on the door.”

“Yeah. My name on the door.”

James ushered me into the darkened office with an apologetic grin on his face. “It doesn’t look great in here,” he said. “Uncle was always messy.”

I felt the smile freeze on my face as he turned on the lights.

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” I muttered, but it was. Messy? The place was a wreck.

I suppose if you cleared away the newspapers and magazines—and the old clothes, the ironing board and iron, the cot in the corner behind the desk, the hot plate and the many dirty and decaying containers of food sitting on and around the desk, it was probably a nice office. But really. It was supposed to be a place of business.

“No, this is terrible,” James said as he glanced around the office. “Maybe we should forget about this. I don’t even see his file cabinets.” He looked horrified. “How could he let it get this way? This is his business, for heaven’s sake.”

I was going to say something glib like “my words exactly” and then let him drive me home, but I didn’t. As bad as this place was, I wasn’t ready to face my empty apartment.

“If I give you a hand, it won’t take long to clean this place, and then I’ll type up the report for you. Really. Won’t take any time at all.”

“But—” he started, obviously trying to give me a way out. I ignored him, and after a few minutes, we were both hard at work.

Two hours later, we were still at it. James had found some decent scotch in the bottom drawer of the tiny desk, and we were sipping it as we cleaned, using two chipped glasses I found stuffed in the back of one of the other drawers. We’d packed away most of the garbage, leaving the myriad bags and boxes outside the door of the office, so we didn’t have to look at them anymore.

I found cleaning supplies stuffed under the cot, and went to town on the place. In a little while, it started to smell better and look less like a hoarder had lived there.

To be honest, I was beginning to think there was hope for the room. It was actually starting to look like a place of business. Except for the complete lack of office equipment, of course. Since I was the one that had to type up that report, I was the one to notice.

“Where’s the phone? And a computer? Or a typewriter? Or anything?”

“I don’t know.” James emerged from the pile of old man clothes he’d been trying to fit into a woefully inadequate box. “Maybe he sold everything. It doesn’t look he was doing much work here.” He rammed a couple more shirts into the box, and folded the lid shut. “What should I do with this stuff?”

“Put it outside with the rest of the junk.” I spoke without glancing up from the legs of the desk, which I was scrubbing. It felt good to do something, and be able to see the difference I’d made. It was also easier than trying to figure out how I was going to type a report on a nonexistent computer.

“This is good stuff,” James muttered. “I don’t think we should throw it away.”

“Hey, do what you want. Only, if it’s outside, we don’t have to look at it anymore.”

“Well, yeah. How about if I put it in there?” He gestured at the only other door in the room. We’d both avoided even looking at it up to that point. I assumed it was a closet. I know about closets and how much they can hold, and didn’t want to see what an old man, and a pack rat to boot, could do with one.

“Just put it outside.”

“No.” James shook his head. “It’ll be a good place to put the stuff we’re not going to throw away.”

“Hey, if there’s room, knock yourself out.” I went back to work on the desk legs. “If you get buried under a pile of garbage, I’m not helping you. Swear to God.”

He placed the box on the desk and walked over to the door. I nearly laughed when he squared his shoulders before putting his hand on the doorknob and giving it a quick turn. Nothing. “It’s locked.”

I lost interest. “Leave it alone then.”

“Why would he lock a closet?”

“I dunno. Are you getting hungry? I’m getting hungry. Is there a store around here, maybe we can buy a bag of chips or something?”

James didn’t say anything, and I could hear the jingle as he fished around in his pockets for the ring of keys that had come with the car.

“I’m going to check this out, and then we can order a pizza. I want more than chips.”

“Sounds good. What do you like?”

“I’m partial to cheese with fresh tomatoes,” he said. He held up the key ring triumphantly. I watched him choose the third key and place it gently in the lock. It was a perfect fit. He turned the key and gingerly pulled the door open.

“Oh my goodness,” he breathed.

“What?”

“Come here. You gotta see this, Marie.”

Obviously, the second door did not open onto a closet. Not even close to a closet. This was where James’ uncle really worked. Not the pathetic display in the other room. The only thing I can say is, he hid himself very well.

It was hard to describe the room beyond the outer office, because I had this vision of Dead Uncle Jimmy in my head, and I couldn’t reconcile that vision with anything I was seeing.

Book cases—not shelves, cases—that looked expensive and went floor to ceiling, held old books that soon had James the Living laughing with delight.

“He used to have all these in his apartment,” he said. “I thought he’d thrown them all away.”

There was an old fashioned looking desk, probably an actual antique, with a computer screen sitting on its glowing top. Seven file cabinets, gun metal grey, standing side by side against one wall. Three pictures on the walls, all abstracts, and they looked original. Nice colours, and though it’s not the type of art I like, I could appreciate what I was seeing. In fact, I could appreciate everything I was seeing.

It was a beautiful office, well used, and well kept, and it didn’t look like anything that the person who had lived in the other office would have had anything to do with.

I sat in the beautiful leather chair behind the desk, and played with every bit of office equipment there. James couldn’t keep in one place, going back and forth between the paintings and the books.

“There’s a message on voice mail,” I said, running my hands over the buttery soft leather chair. The old man really liked leather. “Should we listen to it?”

“Yeah.” James didn’t even glance over at me. He was back at the book cases, and he looked like a kid in a candy shop. “All right.”

I stood over the machine for a moment before I pressed anything, because it looked like it could send a man to the moon. Then I pressed a button, hoping for the best.

“Mr. Lavall, this is Helen Latterson. Can you give me a call? This
is
day two.” The machine then spouted off the date and time of the phone message. She’d phoned at 12:05 A.M. the night before. James stared at the machine as though the disembodied voice of his client was a voice from beyond the grave.

“What am I going to tell her?”

“Well, it’s only—” Then I glanced at the clock on the desk. “Oh, it’s 10:00 p.m. Do you want to call her this late?”

“I don’t know if I should.” James looked around like he suddenly needed a place to sit. “I mean, what do I have for her?”

“Actually, you have most of the information she needs. Call her up and tell her the report will be completed by tomorrow morning.” I shrugged. “It won’t take any time to type that up, now that I know where the computer is. Then we can eat.”

“All right.” James nodded his head. “I’ll do it.” He put his hand on the receiver, but did not pick it up.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have her phone number.” He grinned sheepishly. “It’s on my cell.”

“Well then, use your cell.” I was starting to feel impatient. Why was he acting so stupid? “What’s the problem?”

“Well, I left it at work—”

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” I snapped, and, using the call display, looked for her number. It was not there. “I’m out of ideas,” I said.

Then he snapped his fingers. “Uncle’s worked for her before. That’s how she had his number. I’ll go through the files and see what I can find.”

“Good enough.” Small sigh of relief from me. I didn’t want to think of James as an idiot, and chalked my feelings up to being hungry. Actually, ravenous would be a better description. “While you’re in there, see how much he normally charged for a job like this. I’ll make her an invoice.”

“Yeah, getting paid wouldn’t hurt, would it?”

“Not at all.”

He stepped over to the files, then stopped. “Hey, I’ll split this one with you, okay? After all, you found everything, and you’re actually typing the report, so it’s only fair—”

I almost said no, but thought of my mom, and my rent, and my overdue bills.

“Sure,” I said, and smiled. Every little bit helps. I didn’t think there’d be much. Even with all the nice stuff in this office, I didn’t think James’ uncle was living the good life, but I wasn’t about to turn down a little extra cash.

James nodded, then turned to the file cabinets and began to go through the newest looking one, closest to the door. After a short search, he pulled out three files, and handed two to me. One of them had a copy of a report for a client, and one had some billing information that I could use to calculate how much Mrs. Latterson owed. It looked like 1.5% of all monies recovered had been Uncle Jimmy’s standard, so I decided to use that number to calculate what James—and I—would be making on this deal, after I’d typed up the report.

As I worked, I listened to James on the phone. First he talked to Mrs. Latterson, who was not impressed that it had taken him so long to get back, but who seemed mollified when he told her he had information pertinent to her case, and it would be ready for her the next day. Then he called a pizza place and ordered a large, with everything but fish, exactly the way I liked it. I couldn’t remember telling him that, and wondered how he’d guessed. But I forgot about that, as I began calculating how much Helen Latterson would owe us for the information I had given James.

“Come and get it!” James caroled from the outer office twenty minutes later. I couldn’t answer him, because I was glued to the screen, pressing the occasional number and staring, then scratching the same numbers on a pad of paper by my hand and shaking my head, then going back to staring at the screen. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“Are you coming?” His voice was muffled, probably because his mouth was stuffed with pizza. “This is really good.”

“Don Latterson has more than five million dollars hidden away,” I whispered to the empty room. I hadn’t figured out a way to find out what he has in his security deposit boxes, and there were three of those that I knew about for sure. Most of the money I’d counted was in four different off-shore accounts. The rest was in the account under the name Rochelle Martin.

I was willing to bet that Rochelle Martin and Don Latterson were the same person, and this was where he kept his day to day, walking around money. Over one hundred thousand in walking around money. He was loaded.

“Holy crow.” I recalculated the numbers again. “James, get in here. You gotta see this.”

According to my calculations, we were going to make around $75,000.00. Seventy-five thousand dollars. For a second I thought it was seventy-five hundred, which would have been great, but I had the decimal in the wrong place, and we were going to make seventy-five thousand dollars on this deal!

“What?” James called, his mouth still stuffed with pizza. “What’s the matter, Marie?”

“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong at all! James, you have to see this!” I started to giggle. I couldn’t help myself. It was such a lot of money.

“So what’s so important you can’t feed yourself, first?” James asked, coming through the door. “What—?” Then he stopped talking, because he saw me whirling around in the executive style chair with its buttery soft leather and multitudes of controls, giggling like a stupid kid. “What’s going on?”

“We are going to be okay, James.” I kept whirling around, my eyes catching his with every rotation. “Latterson’s loaded, and we’re going to be okay.”