Swift Edge (15 page)

“Charlie! I thought I saw you drive up. Guess what?”

Before I could make a disparaging comment about grade-school guessing games, she continued, “I found Kungfu!”

“Really?” Realizing that the incredulity in my voice might be interpreted as casting doubt on her investigative abilities, I cleared my throat and tried again. “Really.”

“Yes, really,” she squeaked. “Come see.” She beckoned with one hand and popped back through the door.

What, she had him stashed in the office? I followed her in and, not immediately spotting a homeless Asian teen, helped myself to a Pepsi from the fridge. “It looks like he’s invisible,” I said. “No wonder Dan thought he was missing.”

“He’s not here, silly,” Gigi said, not one whit disconcerted by my sarcasm. “He’s here.” She pointed to her computer monitor with a chubby forefinger tipped by a ruby-painted nail.

I crossed the room and peered over her shoulder. A photo filled the screen. A vaguely humanoid figure stood on something that could have been a van, a Dumpster, or a restaurant-sized refrigerator turned on its side. “You’re kidding.”

“That’s not the good one.” Gigi clicked the mouse, and a better-focused photo sprang up.

I could make out the man’s features in this one and positively identify the object he was standing on as a green Dumpster. He seemed to be emulating Peeping Tom.

“Look.” Gigi held the photo Dan had given us up close to the monitor and clicked a few keys. The face on the screen grew larger and clearer, and damned if it didn’t look a bit like Kungfu.

“Where’d you take these?” I asked, my eyes flitting from the group photo to the face on the monitor. The eyes were right, the slant of the brows was similar, the ears stuck out at the same angle …

“At Tattoo4U last evening,” Gigi said, beaming. “He was pretending to be a homeless drunk—he completely had me fooled. I’ll have to remember that trick when I do surveillance again—”

My mind boggled at the thought of Gigi swilling gin from a bottle swaddled in a paper bag. She’d probably substitute Evian. And which of her designer duds was best suited to an undercover op as a homeless person? The Juicy Couture sweats? The Burberry trench coat? The manicured nails, salon highlights, and expensive teeth might also make it hard to pass herself off as a street person.

“—because no one notices a bum. Anyway, he was spying on Graham and his visitor—”

“Graham?”

“The tattoo artist. They must have seen him or something, because all of a sudden he took off like a rabbit chased by a tick hound.”

Sometimes Gigi’s southern roots peeped out and made me wonder about her life before marrying Les Goldman. “Have you called Dan?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Why don’t you print a copy of that, and I’ll see if he agrees it’s Kungfu,” I said. “If so, it looks like there’s a bit more to Kungfu dropping out of sight than just a runaway moving on. Why would he be interested in the tattoo parlor? It’s not like there’d be anything worth stealing in there—the equipment would be hard to cart off and harder to fence.” I was thinking aloud, but Gigi answered.

“Listen to what I heard.” She read back the conversation from the tattoo shop, mangling Graham’s Australian accent.

“Sounds like a business deal gone bad,” I said. “Question is: What kind of business?” I finished my Pepsi and clanked the can into the trash as Kendall emerged from the bathroom and took her seat at the card table, her lower lip pouted out far enough for a pigeon to land on.

“You should recycle,” Gigi said reprovingly. “We could advertise ourselves as a ‘green’ business if—”

“Why don’t you call Dan.” I interrupted the familiar lecture. “You’re the one who made the discovery. You should tell him.”

“Really?” Her cheeks flushed with gratification. “Okay.”

She carried on a short conversation with Dan while I updated the Fane file. I needed to touch base with Montgomery … maybe his new best bud, Detective Radik, had passed along something useful from Estes Park. Besides, I owed him a real thank-you for bringing me home last night.

“He’s coming over,” Gigi announced as she hung up.

On the words, the door opened and a woman entered, looking around curiously. At least seventy, she had white hair, wore a lavender twinset and long gray skirt, and carried a small pink shopping bag with a bow tied around the handles. “Your sign says ‘Swift Investigations.’ Are you private investigators?” Her voice vibrated with interest.

“Yes,” Gigi and I said together. I figured her for a missing pet case—we got three or four calls a month from people wanting us to find their lost Muffy or Rover—and rehearsed how I would decline the case without seeming unsympathetic.

“That is fascinating.” She advanced into the office, eyeing Bernie the Bison interestedly.

“Can we help you?” I asked.

“Oh, no! I just came over to say hello and introduce myself. I’m Domenica. From next door?”

I stared at her. This was the proprietor of the sex toys shop? She looked more like a librarian or an aging Betty Crocker. “Nice to meet you, Domenica. I’m Charlie Swift, and this is Gigi Goldman.”

The woman lowered her voice to a whisper. “Oh, call me Carol. My parents didn’t christen me Domenica—I’m really Carol Maureen Tweedy—but Domenica sounds so much more … exotic, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.” Gigi bobbed her head in agreement.

“You sell dildos?” This, of course, from an incredulous Kendall, who had risen from her chair and advanced toward the newcomer.

The woman positively twinkled at her. “Among other things.” She held the shopping bag out in Gigi’s direction. “Here. This is for you. One for each of you.” She included me in her smile. “A little something from the shop, just to be neighborly.”

“How kind of you!” Gigi exclaimed, eyeing the bag uncertainly. “I was telling Charlie yesterday that I was going to bake cookies and bring them over.” Before she could take the bag, Kendall swooped down on it.

I watched with unholy amusement as Kendall untied the bow. Gigi’s voice betrayed her uneasiness as she said, “Kendall, I don’t think—”

When Kendall pulled a small bottle from the bag, Gigi and I let out a collective sigh of relief and disappointment. I’d been expecting a leather or metal-spiked garment of some kind, and I could tell Gigi had been afraid the bag would contain something that needed batteries. “What’s that, sugah?” Gigi asked.

“‘Sinsual Massage Oil in Musky Coconut,’” the girl read. She unscrewed the cap and sniffed. “Mmm.” She rubbed some along her arm. “Silky.”

Within seconds, the scent drifted to me, and I stifled a cough. It smelled like a herd of yaks stewed in Hawaiian Tropic. Kendall was welcome to it.

“It’s one of our most popular items,” Carol said, looking gratified. “Well, I’ve got to get back. Customers, you know! So lovely to meet you.”

“You, too,” we chorused as she exited.

Stowing the massage oil in her purse and handing me the gift bag with an identical bottle in it, Kendall made to follow her. “Gotta go, Mom. Dexter’ll be here in a sec.” She grabbed her jacket, flipped her blond hair over her shoulder, and left without waiting for a response. The scent lingered after she’d gone. I gave the bag I held to Gigi with a magnanimous “You can have this since Kendall took yours. Where’s she off to?”

“The Ice Hall reopened,” Gigi said. “She’s practicing. She’s worried about a couple of elements in her short program and wants to nail them down before Nationals.”

“You mean she’s competing at Nationals? Like Dara and Dmitri?”

“Of course.” Gigi looked puzzled by my surprise.

Despite knowing the girl was a competitive figure skater, I hadn’t put two and two together. Blame it on the concussion. “When do Nationals start?” I asked.

“Tuesday afternoon for the junior ladies short program. If she makes the cut, she’ll do the free skate Saturday morning. I’ll be taking some time off to watch,” she said. “Just a few hours.”

“I think I can manage,” I said drily. I filled Gigi in on my conversation with Sally Peterson.

“That poor girl,” she said when I finished. “We’ve got to find her.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Our job is still to find Fane. Only we’re working for Sally now, instead of Dara. Besides, the police are looking for Dara.” I didn’t tell her Montgomery considered the girl a suspect in the Bobrova incident. “That reminds me…”

Flipping through the Fane file, I found the number I wanted and called Detroit. No answer at Fane’s mother’s house. Why was I not surprised? I hoped Irena Fane was safely hidden away, like Dara, and not bleeding to death on an ice rink, à la Bobrova. Maybe Montgomery could have the local Detroit cops do a health and welfare check on her. I left a message.

I was about to phone him when Dan Allgood walked through the door. He wore a red plaid lumberjack’s shirt tucked into jeans showing white at the knees. He paused on the threshold, completely blocking the doorway with his bulk, and let his gaze travel around the office. “Nice buffalo,” he said with a smile, nodding at Bernie.

“Bison,” Gigi and I corrected simultaneously.

His smile grew wider. “You must be Gigi,” he said, shaking her hand.

“Georgia Goldman,” she confirmed, seeming a bit flustered by his size. “G. G. Get it?”

“So you’ve found Kungfu already? You’re a fast worker.”

I observed his interaction with Gigi with a slight smile on my face. He was such a nice man. It had taken him less than half a second to suss out Gigi’s insecurity and bolster her confidence. Maybe I should be more like that? Nah.

Gigi opened the Kungfu photo on her monitor, and he studied it.

“It sure looks like Kungfu,” he said. “What’s he up to?”

Gigi filled him in on her surveillance from the night before.

Dan looked thoughtful. His eyes met mine. “I knew there was something different about him.” he said. “He had a sense of purpose that was unusual, but damned if I know what he’s after.”

“Money? Drugs?” I named the obvious.

He shook his head. “There’s more to it than that.”

I cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Would he talk to you, do you think? If you have the time, you might hang out down there, make yourself accessible. Or put the word out that you’d like to talk to him, help him.”

Dan nodded slowly. “That might be the best course of action. I’ll spend some time down there this afternoon. Let’s keep this between us for now. If Kungfu’s up to something, I don’t want to spook him into splitting for good. And if someone’s after him…”

Gigi squirmed in her chair. “I already mentioned it to someone,” she confessed. “I didn’t think it would hurt. I—”

“Who?” Dan asked, his voice carefully nonaccusatory.

“Roger. Roger Nutt. From Dellert House? We were having dinner and—”

“You had a date?” I heard the yelp in my voice and moderated it. “I mean, that’s great.”

“He’s really nice.” She blushed. “We went to Jake and Telly’s. Anyway, since Kungfu was staying at Dellert House, I thought … I didn’t tell Roger about staking out Tattoo4U, or anything, or about Kungfu spying on the place. I said I’d seen him in the area and wondered whether he was back at Dellert House.” She repetitively squished one of the down-filled squares on her vest like a kid popping cells on bubble wrap.

“It’s fine, Gigi,” Dan reassured her. “Roger does good work with those boys. What did he say?”

“He seemed surprised. He said he hadn’t seen him.”

“No harm, no foul,” I said.

Dan said he was going to stroll through Old Colorado City, keeping an eye out for Kungfu or suspicious-looking drunks on the street. Gigi had summonses to deliver and I was wondering if another chat with Boyce Edgerton might yield anything when my phone rang.

“Miss Swift?”

Garbled noises in the background made it hard to hear the woman’s light soprano voice. “Yes?”

“This is Irena Fane. You called me.”

Dmitri’s mother. “Yes, thank you for calling back. It’s about Dmitri. He—”

“I am at the airport,” the woman interrupted, “about to board a plane for Colorado Springs. Pick me up there and we can talk.” She gave me her flight information and hung up.

I stared at the phone for a moment, then looked at my watch. I had three hours before Irena Fane’s plane would arrive. Enough time to interview Boyce Edgerton again and maybe scare him into giving up some details about Dmitri’s activities or other friends by playing up the cabin explosion. Maybe he could even tell me what was in the cabin that someone was so desperate to obliterate.

18

At Boyce’s apartment, I held the door for a woman backing a double stroller down the stairs, the twins inside crowing little laughs with every plunk down a step. “Thanks,” she said wearily. I imagined she did and said everything wearily with twins under two.

“Sure.” I took the stairs two at a time, not pausing to admire the old house’s woodwork and fittings this time around. I’d played good cop—well, good PI—last time I’d interviewed Boyce. This time, I was prepared to unleash my inner bad cop. Seven years with the air force’s Office of Special Investigations had taught me a little something about interrogation.

It would have been dramatic and satisfying, but also counterproductive and possibly injury inducing, to kick in Edgerton’s door. Kicking in doors is not as easy as they make it look in the movies. Trust me. I’d once spent a couple of weeks with a cane after kicking in a door to a child pornographer’s lair. It was enough to make me as grumpy as Dr. House. I contented myself with knocking.

The door inched open. Well, it did after I tried the knob. Unlocked. Colorado Springs is a safer city than most, but leaving your door unlocked was plain stupid. Asking for trouble. Hesitating on the threshold, I poked at the door with a stiff forefinger, and it swung inward six inches. “Edgerton?” I called. “Boyce?” No answer.

“I don’t think he’s home.”

The voice came from below, startling me. I turned and looked over the stair railing to see a woman in her seventies or early eighties peering up at me from the floor below. Wearing a turquoise velour sweatsuit with red Converse high-tops, she had improbably blond hair and glittered with enough costume jewelry to outfit the whole cast of one of those
Housewives
reality shows. The door to her apartment was open and emitted a tempting scent of warm cinnamon buns.