Grave Misgivings Page 8

  Ten-thirty finds me back on the interstate armed with the information that may help me find the eliminator. I pass Moira’s boutique on my way out of town. There’s an “Open” sign on the door and I see Moira and her assistant, obviously the talkative one from my phone call two days ago, working inside. My grandmother, my Nonna Rita, would have said that Moira Hollis is a lost soul and I guess that term might apply here. She is a woman who has tried to forget her unhappy past and make a new, better life for herself. I wish her well.

  I know Moira can’t see me but I lift my hand in a wave anyway and continue on my way. I am anxious to get home.

  Chapter 8

  THE INFORMATION FROM the office of Peter Karis is in my bag as I run up the stairs of Catherine Harlow, Private Investigations. It’s almost ten in the morning but the office is closed and dark. Where’s Myrtle? I think as I unlock the door. I can only hope that my usually on-time Myrtle is off getting some Timothy’s coffee and some bagels for the office.

  The message alarm on my phone pings just as I’m dumping everything on my desk. TRUST has left me some info about the Eliminator.

  Hey Harlow- last known appearance Duchovny last month around the 14th in Atlanta Georgia, √ police files, big shot male was offed there, looks like Duchovny’s work. Later - TRUST

  Atlanta, Georgia, let’s check and see what criminal activity happened in Atlanta last month. I call Will at the same time I turn on my computer and begin a search of crimes in Atlanta during the last four weeks.

  “You’re back,” says Will, “How was the trip?”

  “Fruitful and tiring. What’s new?”

  “Not much. Want to meet for lunch? I can get away around two.”

  “Sure, that would be good. Enzo’s?”

  “Yeah, call ahead though. I could use a good dish of gnocchi with Bolognese sauce today. But baby-girl, as much as I’d like to think you called because you miss me and you’re horny, I know you too well. What do you need?”

  I laugh. He does know me. “Well, can you find out some information for me about a murder that occurred last month in Atlanta?”

  “Atlanta? A little outside of your purview isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it can directly relate to my current case. Will you do it? Lunch will be on me.”

  “Really?” I hear Will give a sensual laugh. “That would be delicious.” Always thinking with his libido.

  “Funny, ha-ha. But I will pay for lunch if you can check police files about any murders in Atlanta last month. Deal?”

  “Deal. But I’d rather have lunch on you, babe.” He laughs again. “See you at two.”

  Myrtle comes in just as I’m hanging up the phone. She is as well-dressed and groomed as ever but in some way she looks awful.

  “How was Virginia?” she says, taking a container of coffee and a bagel out of a Timothy’s Gourmet Coffees bag and placing both on my desk. Then she goes to plug in the electric pot to make her tea.

  “I think I got what I needed. We’ll see. I have to go through some phone numbers and all later.” I open my coffee container and inhale. Heaven in a cup. “What’s new here?”

  “The check from the limo company arrived, a nice amount for a night’s work. By the way, the limo company owner said that one of the drivers you busted, for want of a better word, said you looked like a hooker. I think he meant it as a compliment.”

  “Great.”

  Myrtle raises an eyebrow then continues. “You have two potential new cases. The clients’ numbers are on your desk pad. First one is a Tiger Mom worried over her son’s whereabouts; wants him, Robbie is his name, followed this weekend. She thinks he’s meeting, as she so delicately stated, some ‘unrefined girl’ and said that she, the mother, is way too young to become a grandmother. She found a text message on his phone from this girl. Money here, Cate,

  GRAVE MISGIVINGS 43

  the young man in question goes to a prominent school, is a high-ranking scholar, and Tiger Mom

  doesn’t want anything to mess up his already-planned academic life. She mailed over a rather

  large retainer check for your services.”

  “Ah, the protective mother tiger! Okay, sounds easy. What’s the second case?”

  Myrtle pauses to add hot water to her tea bag. “Second case is a man who wants a background check on a several new employees; just routine.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Your friend Bo stopped me outside yesterday and said he misses you, which I took to mean he misses the twenty dollar bill you forgot to give him before you left. I gave him two tens out of petty cash.”

  “Thanks Myrtle. That all?”

  She takes a sip of her tea, “All? Hmmmmm. Let’s see. They’re waxing the stairs here over the weekend so if you come in to the office on Saturday, be careful not to fall. And, oh yes, I found a bottle of Cialis in Harry’s underwear drawer.”

  ๕๕๕

  “Would you ever take Cialis?” I ask Will over a hot lunch at Enzo’s trattoria.

  “Excuse me?” He almost chokes on his food.

  “I said, would you ever consider taking Cialis if you needed some help in getting and maintaining an erection.”

  “Jesus, Cate! I didn’t notice anything wrong in our recent encounters. Why this unexpected, and kind of inappropriate, dining conversation?”

  “Myrtle found a bottle of Cialis in Harry’s underwear drawer. So answer the question, would you consider taking it if it was ever needed?”

  Will looks at me for a few minutes while he spoons grated parmigiana cheese onto his gnocchi then surprises me with his answer. “Yes, I would take it if the time comes and I can’t get there on my own. Sure I would. Hey, listen, I don’t care what age a guy is, no one wants to give up one of the greatest natural experiences we humans have, even if we have to use some unnatural means to have it. So Harry is still interested in Myrtle and wants a sex life? Good for him. I say go for it and enjoy every minute of it. Tell that to Myrtle. I’m betting she can be a wild one.” He winks at me and I smile at the thought of a hot mama wild Myrtle.

  “Well she didn’t say any more about it and I was so surprised that she even mentioned it to me, you know how very proper she is, that I didn’t know what to say to her. I just kind of let it slide. She didn’t mention it again. Do you think I should, no pun intended here, bring it up again?”

  Will concentrates on his gnocchi. The man loves his food and doesn’t want anything to interfere with the pleasure of eating. Finally he says to drop it and not mention it. “If she wants to talk about it she’ll initiate the conversation.” He takes a long drink of water. “Anyway, my sweet Cate, let’s get off the whole subject of Harry’s investment in his and Myrtle’s sex life and tell me what you need from me.”

  “There was a murder in Atlanta, Georgia that might be traceable to my case,” I say. “I need you to check through Atlanta police files for murders committed there last month, most

  KRISTEN HOUGHTON 44

  specifically around the fourteenth.” I push my plate away and signal the waiter for two cups of

  cappuccino. “The search engines I can use don’t offer a whole lot of information and, as an

  NYPD detective, you are able to get me more specific details.”

  “Any particular type of murder victim? Male, female, prominent?”

  “Most definitely prominent male but also probably not well-known to the public. Maybe some business exec or power-broker.”

  Will takes in the everyday hustle of the passers-by on the street in front of him while he sits and relaxes with his cappuccino. “Okay. Shouldn’t take long. I’ll put one of the techs on it.”

  “How’s the studying for the Bar going?” I ask and see him visibly sigh.

  “Yeah, good, not too bad. Why, you want to help me hit the books?” His tone is a bit sarcastic but I let it go. The studying is hard for Will because he’s not all that committed to the idea that once he passes the Bar, he’ll have to make the decision to leave the
detective job he loves.

  “Sure,” I smile sweetly, “Hit the books and then hit the sheets.”

  He laughs and relaxes. “Now you’re talking! You free tonight?”

  I assure him that I will be home before seven, he promises me he’ll get me the info I want later today, and that he’ll be at my brownstone by seven-thirty. Then we sit back and just watch the familiar city scenes taking place in front of us.

  ๕๕๕

  On my way back to the office I get a call from the security company’s head man. “Cate Harlow,” I answer, making my way between people on the busy street.

  “Cate? This is Adrian at Sec.Co calling with an update on the Brooks-Warren surveillance. As far as we can tell, there’s no unwanted activity; no one’s tried to contact her, no suspicious people around her building and such. The only person who came there a few times is a business associate of Edward. Got Natalie shadowing her, going places where my men can’t go, like a women’s restroom. She sees nothing out of the ordinary. Tanya, one of my best field agents is similar in height and build to Ms. Brooks-Warren. We put her in a long haired wig and had her borrow one of Brooks-Warren’s coats. Dressed like her she went alone out for a walk a few times. This agent is sharp and on-target, says she wasn’t followed. This hit man? Must be one of the best. We’re seeing nothing on our end.”

  I thank him and tell him to keep surveillance in place for now.

  “Got it, will do, Cate.”

  I walk back to my office where the phone numbers from Peter Karis’s office are waiting for me.

  Chapter 9

  FIND THE RIGHT number and you’ll find who you’re looking for...if you’re lucky. The numbers from Karis’s desk drawer are displayed on my own desk and I’m keying them into my laptop. They appear to be from the Washington, D.C-Virginia-Maryland area but that’s not a certainty. Phone numbers, geography, and area codes no longer necessarily go together. While moving once meant new area codes, people now take their area codes with them courtesy of mobile phones, sort of like little memories of where they’ve been. There are people living in NYC who once lived in LA and still have their Los Angeles area code of 323 for their phones.

  The phone numbers came with notations that seem cryptic; they look like gibberish but I know it’s some type of a messaging system. It looks familiar. I know it from somewhere. It’s a linguistic code.

  I keep looking at the random letters in the notations and mentally going through the many courses in linguistics I took in college. My memory clicks in when I remember a course called Coding Shifts and Substitution Ciphers. Despite the rather dry and clinical title, taking the course was actually fun. There was the Acrostic Message Code where the first letter of each word in a series of sentences spells out a message. For instance if you wrote, “Hello! Everything is going fine. Lots of things to do! Please remember to feed my fish,” the first letters of the words used would spell H-E-L-P.

  What I am looking at now appears to be a code called The Caesar Shift. Julius Caesar, master general and statesman, is known to have created it. It is a code that is simple to use and understand, making it one of the fundamental code systems still studied today as the basis for more complex ones. In its time the code was sophisticated and very difficult for Caesar’s enemies to crack. Caesar was able to send messages to his generals without any problems.

  In the Caesar Shift, you shift the entire alphabet a certain number of places, usually three, in one direction. In other words, a shift of three spaces forward would replace the first letter of the alphabet, A, with D, the second letter, B, with E, etc. For example, if I used the basic Caesar Shift of three letters forward to spell my name Cate Harlow, it would look like this: FEWI KEUORZ. It seems that Mr. Karis was either a student of Roman history or someone had given him the basics for using the code.

  There are eight numbers all followed by a string of letters. Next to each phone number I write the letters. 301-555-9243 JLO EURFN followed by the word “main.” That’s a phone number for a person named Gil Brock and I’m assuming some type of mob maintenance. 301-555-6021 ORXLV NLULQ followed by “dep.” is a number for Louis Kirin. I’m assuming that dep. may be an abbreviation for deposit. Maybe a bank manager? I find that I am using the Caesar Shift easily; it is all coming back to me. There’s even a number for Moira’s father, 301-555-6623 GDOLDQ KROOLV, Damian Hollis. Next to his code is “lw.” for lawyer.

  Finally, on the sixth number, 443-555-0871, I hit pay dirt: PEUF FURIW aka Marc Croft. The word next to his jumbled letters is the ominous abbreviation “elim.” which I’m positive is short for eliminator. There’s also an asterisk with the number 5 next to it. I key in the number for Marc Croft and after two rings an automated voice informs me that I have dialed incorrectly and to please check the number and person I want to reach. It’s a burner phone. Looking at the number next to the asterisk, I wonder if 5 might mean that this number was the most recent one in a series used by Marc Croft. In the business my eliminator is in, he would have to keep

  GRAVE MISGIVINGS 46

  changing phone numbers very frequently. Two days ago when I was in Karis’s office this

  number was probably viable; now it’s most likely been discarded. The eliminator seems to be

  untraceable, at least through phone numbers. He is a ghost.

  ๕๕๕

  “Got some info on an Atlanta murder that might fit your case. Name and number of captain you can call at the police department there.”

  Will has just come through my front door carrying a small leather case with his nice compact notebook computer. It’s roughly the size of a five by seven picture frame, has all the nifty bells and whistles you can want, and was a gift from his mother, Francesca who is eager for her son to become a lawyer. “And why do you leave your front door unlocked?”

  I turn from popping some chicken parm that I picked up at Enzo’s on my way home in the oven. “I just unlocked the door two minutes ago. You said you’d be here by seven-thirty.”

  I’m still dressed in blue tennis shorts and a sleeveless top from my late afternoon match with Ani. My hair is piled on top of my head and I feel overheated. Maybe playing tennis in the late afternoon after my hectic day wasn’t such a good idea.

  Will comes over to me and kisses my ear then turns me around to face him. “What if I was late? Any whack job could have walked in, baby. Just be careful, okay?”

  I point to my gun lying in its place in a ceramic tray on the counter. Will just sighs, repeats his statement about being careful, then pulls me tightly against him. His hands begin a gentle massage up and down my body as his tongue licks my lips. As he’s sliding his hands down the back of my shorts he says, “Turn off the oven. Let’s have dessert first.”

  ๕๕๕

  Will stays overnight at my brownstone. I tried, I really did try, to quiz him on crucial questions for the Bar exam but it was a losing game. He had other, as he said, urgent matters that needed his attention. So much for a study date. We didn’t hit the books but we sure hit the sheets and pretty much never left them. Twelve o’clock midnight found us eating cold, but very delicious, leftover chicken parm in bed.

  The next morning I’m busy at my computer when I hear the bedroom door open. Good, Will’s up. I need to ask him about that info from Atlanta. He walks totally nude over to where I am and massages my neck.

  “Why’d you get dressed, baby? It’s not even seven yet. Come back to bed, okay?”

  As much as I would love to have a repeat performance of last night, I know that I can’t take the time. “No, I need to get to my office early. But first I need that info you told me you had pertaining to my case.”

  “Sure, no problem. Come take a shower with me, then…we’ll ...talk.”

  KRISTEN HOUGHTON 47

  “I already had a shower around four this morning. I woke up feeling achy from playing tennis yesterday afternoon with Ani. I needed a hot shower. Besides, to take another one I’d have to get undressed.”


  He grabs my hand, “That’s the whole point, Cate.”

  “No, seriously, Will! Go shower on your own; you’re a big boy. I’ll make more coffee, and then we will talk. I need that info.”

  “I’ll be out of town later today for that conference in Connecticut. I’ll be gone for three days. You’re missing a great chance to get back into bed with me,” he teases.

  “If I miss you, then getting together when you return will be even sweeter. Here,” I say grabbing his hand. “I’ll even give you the key to the brownstone so you can let yourself in if I’m not here.”

  Big sigh, a kiss on the back of my neck, and he’s off to the shower. I watch him walk away, thinking what a fantastic body my man has and that it’s all mine.

  ๕๕๕

  The captain’s name is Billy Gene Ramsay. Every sentence he utters seems to end with “Ya know what I mean?” His southern drawl reminds me of every movie I have ever seen where a police story was based in the south and one of the main characters was a southern sheriff. He keeps calling me “ma’am,” which is a little disconcerting for this northeast urban girl but I find it very charming nonetheless.

  “Yes, ma’am, we have had a possible murder of a prominent male which occurred in our city on the fourteenth. I say possible because it can still be described as an accident. I don’t think so myself, an accident, nope, no way. Got the cop feelin’ that this was some kinda hit, ya know what I mean?”

  I do; my gut instinct has never failed me. I go by what I feel and it always pans out. I ask him about the possible murder.