Soft Case (Book 1 of the John Keegan Mystery Series) Page 19

sat on the couch, smoking a cigarette. I reached into my pocket for mine, but I only came up with an empty pack.

  “Have one of mine,” she said, opening the cedar box, which she had placed on the sofa next to her. I walked over and grabbed one. It was a Virginia Slim, about the size of a pencil. I don’t care how cool of a guy you are. You can’t make yourself look good smoking a Virginia Slim. You might as well have a dick hanging out of your mouth. But, I was desperate. For the cigarette I mean.

  “How are you?” I asked, after lighting the smoke.

  “Not good, Detective,” she said.

  I sat down in the chair. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you said you received phone calls. What sort of phone calls do you mean? Threatening ones?”

  “Yes. Well, I think they might be. From some man who said he works for Ron’s company. He told me he knows something about his death, but he won’t say anything over the phone. He wants me to meet him. I’m not so sure I should do that.”

  I decided not to tell her about my meeting later on in the evening. It might have scared her, or it might have supplied her with information that she didn’t need. But I was certainly going to say something to the informant about her, see if he was making the calls to her. I figured it was.

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “You don’t think it’s safe?” she asked. She looked good, wearing an orange sundress, showing off her perfectly shaped legs. They were shiny and smooth; the sort of legs I like. For a woman in her mid-thirties, she had it going good. Real good.

  “I’m not sure. But there are a lot of idiots out there who watch the news and then try and capitalize on victims. He didn’t give you his name, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Did you recognize the voice?” I asked.

  “Not at all.”

  “You have Caller ID?”

  “Yes, but the number came up anonymous.”

  “He probably has it blocked. It would take a while to find out who is calling. Do you want someone tracing your calls?” I asked. “That would give us the information faster.”

  “I don’t know. You think it’s that important?”

  “Could be. If you have some nut job pranking you after your husband’s death, it might be a good idea to pinch him, before he does something stupid, or does it to someone else.”

  She finished her cigarette, and stood up. She breathed a little heavy. Her chest heaved up and down nicely, and she caught me looking. It didn’t seem to bother her. Certainly didn’t bother me.

  “This is all too much for me. I mean, what if this man does know something? What if Ron didn’t commit suicide? What if he was murdered?”

  “That’s what we want to find out,” I said.

  “Have you found anything yet?” I wanted to play the role of stud detective and say, yes, I had, that I had nearly solved the case. But I didn’t lie well. Not to stunning blondes, at least. My sex life serves as proof of this.

  “Not anything out of the ordinary, no. But we are checking everything. If there was foul play involved, we’ll find out.”

  “Oh Jesus, this is just too much. Poor Ron. If he did commit suicide, why didn’t I see it coming? I’m his wife, was his wife. Shouldn’t I have seen it?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Of course she should have seen it, in my opinion. But, then again, I had never been involved with a suicide personally, and really couldn’t judge. I had to think that maybe this was all an act, that maybe she had something to do with her husband’s untimely death. But saying something to either effect wasn’t going to do any good. Plus, I didn’t want to make her feel bad.

  “Things like that are tough. It’s easy to look back now and say you should have seen the signs, because the signs are so much clearer in hindsight. But don’t do that to yourself. He was acting strangely, but people act strange all the time, and don’t commit suicide. You just never know.”

  “I should have known. Now, I have two kids without a father, at a time when they need him so badly. I have a company to decide what I want to do with, and I have the press lurking around everywhere. I just can’t handle it.” Sondra showed some distress, but again, I couldn’t tell if this was some sort of performance. She liked attention.

  “You have to try and relax. Is there anything I can do?” I asked, running a few scenarios through my mind of what I wanted to do.

  She gave me a look, one that appeared to be of interest. Like I could do something, but she wasn’t in the position to say it. Maybe I made it all up in my head. I did that a lot.

  Speaking of my head, my tooth started throbbing again, and I knew for sure that the side of my mouth was swelling up. My heart raced a little, which only made the pain throb more. I needed to get to my father as soon as possible.

  “No, I guess there is nothing you can do right now, other than finding out what happened to my husband. At least then I will have closure.”

  “I’ll do my best, I promise.”

  “I have the feeling you will.”

  “While I am here, I might as well ask you a few questions.”

  “About what?”

  “Did you see Harold Chapman’s press conference?”

  “No, but I saw the news, and they mentioned it. I saw a small clip. What about it?”

  “There were rumors about Ron being against the Onyx merger, did you know anything about that?” I asked.

  She looked out the window for a moment, then back at me. She prepared something to say. I wished I could trust her more, not so much in her guilt in her husband’s murder, but just in that what came out of her mouth was the truth.

  “They fought about it for a while. I know Ron was uncertain about Onyx, and he didn’t think they were a good match for Techdata.”

  “So, he was against it?”

  “I think he was initially, but Harold most likely talked him into that. Harold is a good talker.”

  I had seen evidence of that at the press conference. The guy had that smoothness you can’t generate. It comes naturally, and he surely had it.

  “You think this could have anything to do with your husband’s death?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. They started talking about Onyx almost two years ago, I think. Not too long after Ron told Harold that he wanted to leave.”

  “What do you know about Onyx?” I asked.

  “I just know that they are a communications company. High-speed access, if I remember correctly. Other than that, I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” I stood up, sensing the time to leave. Actually, I wondered why the hell I came out there. It was a worthless trip, but I also didn’t miss anything down at the station. We had nowhere to go. And besides, Sondra wasn’t too hard to look at, unlike the crew down at the station. I had made the right decision. I couldn’t remember the last time I had done that.

  “There’s something else, Detective Keegan,” Sondra said, turning to look at me.

  “You can call me John.” Cheesy line, I know.

  “I didn’t tell you this the first time we spoke because I was flustered, and worried.” She paused. “Ron and I were still having problems, and to be honest, we were going to get a divorce. We probably would have waited until his Senate run ended.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?” I asked. Everyone does something for a reason. I wanted to know her motivation here.

  “You would have found out eventually. Someone would have said something. And then you would have thought not to trust me.” Trust? What made her think I trusted her then? I wanted to bang her, but trust? That wasn’t even part of the equation. And I needed to know what she had to gain by all of a sudden being honest with me. She definitely was the calculating sort.

  “Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me?” I asked.

  “Nothing that I can think of.”

  I smiled. “Then don’t worry about it. I really can’t see how your marital problems have any bearing on this invest
igation.” That of course, was a complete lie. It had a ton of bearing. I just wanted her to continue her honesty. “But I appreciate you telling me, anyway.”

  I said goodbye, and walked toward the door.

  “Let me know of anything else, if it comes up.”

  She stood by the window, and looked like she wanted to tell me to stay. She looked scared. Sondra Mullins, from what I could tell, was a woman who needed a man around to take care of her. She needed the sense of security. Sure, she could handle herself, walk all over any man she wanted, but she needed things from a man.

  I was a man, a man who could take care of her. I’d take real good care of her too. I doubted she looked at me that way. I wished she did. And that’s all I could do. Wish.

  “I will,” she said.

  I walked out the front door, and Steve flipped me the keys to my car. I caught them somewhat awkwardly. My manhood took a hit. I could only hope Sondra didn’t see it.

  “Didn’t need to move it. Thanks,” he said.

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  I got in the car, and took a quick look around to see if anything was touched. Nothing was. My tooth erupted again, and I started the car, en route to dear old Dad’s.

  I was on the Southern State Parkway, almost in Queens, when Geiger came on the radio. Not the FM. The precinct radio, in case you wondered. He didn’t have the voice for regular radio.

  “Keegan,” he said.

  “Copy.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Southern State. Headed for an emergency appointment,” I said. I cringed, because I knew I’d get shit for it.

  “For what?”

  “Dentist.”

  “What?” He didn’t sound happy.

  “It’s an