Catch As Cat Can

14

Sunny struggled to keep her expression neutral even as her heart began to race. This was something Neil hadn’t told Will. Maybe a little needling will get some more out of him, she decided.

Curving her lips in a smile, she said, “I wouldn’t go telling everyone a story like that. You could wind up with a big, red check mark in the box marked ‘Motive’ next to your name.”

Neil made a disbelieving sound. “Come on, you know I’m not that kind of a guy. My big-time criminal career was basically doing market research on small-cap stocks, just like the guys I’d gone to school with. I think my research was better, and we were in a stronger position to push the market—”

By breaking the occasional head, Sunny thought.

“But in all the years I worked for Jimmy, I never even touched a gun, much less owned one,” Neil finished. Reluctantly, Sunny had to believe him. Her reporter’s antennae were scanning like mad, but Neil came across as rock-solidly telling the truth. He smiled. “When I had to solve a problem, I used money.”

“Fine,” Sunny said, “but you just told me you were broke. That makes it hard to pay blackmail.”

“I just had to come up with some earnest money, to keep playing along until I could get Treibholz’s investigation shut down.”

“So you were going to use Val Overton to do it?” Sunny watched Neil carefully and was surprised to see him shaking his head. “Only as a last resort. Yeah, Phil was probably breaking a bunch of federal laws tracking me down. But if Val thought my identity was compromised, she’d be yanking me out of here.”

“And you’ve come to love Kittery Harbor so much, you couldn’t bear to do that?” Sunny figured she managed to dust that with just the right tone of skepticism.

But Neil was surprisingly serious. “I couldn’t let this business just go down the pipes. I had too much invested in it.”

“Don’t you mean the Feds had too much invested in it?”

Neil laughed, not a happy sound. “You’re years out of date on that, Sunny. This isn’t the seventies, where a guy like Jimmy Fratianno could dig a million dollars out of witness protection. They’ve got it down to a science nowadays. Each week you get a modest stipend to keep you going while you find a job and get settled. And then they tell you to bank the Feds’ money and live off your paycheck.”

He shrugged. “I’ve used the payments to live on while trying to make a real profit here and earn my money back. The money I came here with.”

“You just told me you gave everything to your wife,” Sunny pointed out.

“Okay, not everything,” Neil admitted. “The restaurant, the savings and checking accounts, the portfolio. But I always tried to squirrel a little away, for a—I don’t know if it’s okay to talk about saving for a rainy day when L.A. has been living through a drought for years.”

His smile faded a little. “It would be nice to say I headed east with a suitcase full of bearer bonds. But it was more like a coffee can half-full of hundreds and fifties. Still, it sounds like a lot, until you start shelling out to get a business off the ground.” Neil jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Do you have any idea what that freezer system set me back?” Then he waved his hand. “Better not to ask. The problem is, these expenses soaked up all my ‘buzz off’ money.”

Sunny’s face must have shown her surprise at hearing such an old-fashioned term, because Neil laughed again. “I’m trying to be polite, Sunny. People usually refer to this kind of fund with two other one-syllable words, and not very nice ones. Besides, I thought that name worked—I didn’t know if I would be the one telling people to buzz off, or if I’d be buzzing off myself.”

Well, that’s the way it turned out, Sunny thought.

Neil tried to keep his tone light, but his face was dead serious as he spoke. “If I buzz off now, I’ll have nothing behind me. I can’t do that, Sunny. My whole life, I’ve been my own boss.”

“What about Jimmy DiCioppa?” Sunny asked.

“He was just a client, not a boss,” Neil replied.

Sunny nodded. “Things didn’t work out so well for you when Jimmy the Chopper started throwing his weight around.”

“You mean, when he decided he was my boss.” Neil frowned for a second. “I rest my case. But look at me, Sunny. Could you see me greeting folks at Big Box, Inc. or wearing an orange apron at Tools R Us? I need my own business, and to do that, I need money.”

“I hear there are these places called banks where you can get a business loan,” Sunny said.

“You try to get a loan recently?” Neil asked.

She shook her head. “Not with my credit rating.”

“It’s not just a credit rating. They want your life story, references, financials, everything but your DNA—and that might be coming. Val and her people did a good job of creating a backstory for me, but there’s only so far they can go.” He sighed. “And banks want to go a lot farther. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Sunny stood silent for a moment. “I appreciate that you’re trying to be honest with me, but you’re just making your motive for killing Phil Treibholz stronger and stronger. Claiming you’ve never touched a gun isn’t going to cut much ice when it comes to means. And you’ve got a big fat blank space on your schedule during the probable time when Treibholz got it. That’s opportunity. The storm gives you an alibi for Charlie Vane’s time of death, but you’re a strong suspect in the Treibholz case. Folks around here are going to demand some action, and the sheriff’s department may decide that half a loaf is better than none. They could make a case against you.”

Neil scowled, staring sightlessly down at the few fish displayed in his large, no doubt expensive case.

“Suppose I wasn’t in town that night,” he finally said.

Bingo! Sunny silently cheered, but she kept all trace of celebration out of her voice. “And whatever you were doing out of town was worse than being accused of murder?”

“If Val heard about it, I might get yanked—or maybe dumped out of the program,” Neil confessed. “You can’t tell her.”

“How do I know until you tell me?” Sunny said.

“Technically, I’m still on parole,” Neil said. “Which means I can’t hang around with criminal types. But I had to.”

“Had to?” Sunny repeated.

“If you can’t get money from banks, and nobody in the area knows you, the only place you can get money is from criminal types,” Neil explained. “Also known as loan sharks.”

“I know a little bit about them. Not from personal experience,” she hastily added. “But from working with Will.”

“I had to go across the river into Portsmouth to find somebody who could handle the amount I needed.” Neil shook his head. “I spun my case as best I could, but in the end they turned me down. Between the talking and the traveling, I was there a good part of the evening—the evening that Phil Treibholz was murdered.”

“So you do have an alibi, but the alibi will get you in trouble with the marshals and WitSec.” Sunny shrugged. “Will is looking at a murder, and he wants to eliminate you as a suspect. Maybe we can have a private chat with these loan sharks.”

Neil looked a little nervous. “I don’t think they’d like having any police looking into their business. And I don’t want this to blow back on me. One of them was as big as a house. The strong, silent type who could twist me into a pretzel.”

That sparked a memory for Sunny. “A foreign gentleman?” she asked.

“Ukrainian,” Neil said. “They have a reputation for playing rough. But the one who did the talking was fairly decent with me.”

“Dani.” It was a good year ago now, but it was hard to forget the Ukrainian loan sharks she’d met while trying to save a friend from getting arrested for murdering her former husband. “And Olek. Danilo Shostak and Olek Lipko.”

Neil stared at her with new respect. “I heard that you helped Will Price investigating crimes, and wrote about them for the paper. But you know these guys?”

Sunny shrugged. “You do that kind of stuff, you get around. Where did you meet them?” The last time she’d seen Dani and Olek, they were getting out of town because things had gotten a little too warm for them. Supposedly, they’d gone back to Montreal. Now it looked as though they’d returned to reestablish themselves in this territory.

“Shostak had me meet him in a little hole in the wall down in the artsy-fartsy part of town,” Neil said. “A place called the Cafe Ekaterina.”

Then that’s where I’ve got to go, Sunny thought. And the sooner the better. Problem is, how do I get out of here gracefully?

Neil must have seen the change in her expression, because he asked, “Now that you’ve wrung everything you can out of me, can I interest you in some skate wings?”

“Only if they’ll keep till tomorrow,” Sunny told him. “I’ll be in to get them then. This evening—well, I’ll be busy.”

She escaped from the fish store, got back to her office, and dealt with a few small-scale emergencies while also getting the address for the Cafe Ekaterina. Sunny closed down the office as early as possible, got aboard her Wrangler, and joined the slow stream of traffic to one of the bridges over the Piscataqua River. She crawled along through greater downtown Portsmouth to an area of old factories repurposed as artists’ studios.

Driving around through the neighborhood, she finally found the Cafe Ekaterina. It was in a dingy-looking brick building that had probably gone up in seventeen-something, with dim lighting that made it difficult to see through newer but still pretty old plate glass windows. Sunny pulled up by a fire hydrant across the street to check the place out. Obviously, the landlord hadn’t done much to maintain the place, saving his money for when the rush of gentrification drove the artists out and put tenants willing to pay big rents into the property. By then the Cafe Ekaterina would probably be pushed out by a Starbucks or some similar chain operation. For the present, it offered a whimsical sign with its name in mismatched letters.

Like a ransom demand. Sunny pushed that thought out of her head. She was spending way too much time with Will and his investigations.

The door to the cafe opened, and a figure stood silhouetted, blocking most of the doorway. Olek, the muscle end of the loan-sharking operation, had apparently shrunk in Sunny’s memory. Looking at him now, the big man seemed even more enormous. He stepped to the side, reaching into the pocket of a coat that looked like a tweed circus tent, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The brief burst of flame illuminated a face like a kid’s drawing, all squares and angles.

So, Olek keeps up his bad habits, Sunny thought. She’d originally managed to track down the Ukrainians because Olek smoked a brand of cigarettes from the old homeland, available only in one store in the area.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke, then abruptly dropped the butt, stubbing it out with his toe. Olek returned inside the cafe. A moment later, a smaller, slimmer figure appeared in the doorway, making a beckoning gesture. Dani. And from the way he was looking at her car, he knew she was there.

Looks as though I have to brush up on my surveillance techniques. Sunny lowered the passenger side window and waved an acknowledgment. Then she pulled out to find a legal parking spot.

Arriving shortly afterward in the cafe, she scanned a sparse crowd and spotted the Ukrainians sitting at a corner table where Olek had a clear view both of the front door and the entrance from the kitchen. Dani Shostak politely gestured toward a seat. Polite, but judging from the look on his face in the dim lighting, not delighted to see her.

Sunny sat. Like the letters on the sign outside, none of the chairs in the cafe matched one another, and this one wobbled alarmingly when she rested on it. The walls were exposed brick, and a designer might call the tables “distressed.” To Sunny’s eyes, they looked just plain worn.

“Miss Sunny Coolidge,” Dani said when she was seated. “Why you come to visit us? I don’t think it’s because you need money. I think it’s because you give something to Olek and me.” His face got cold. “Trouble.”

Sunny shook her head. “Actually, I’m trying to keep trouble away. Unless you want police coming around to ask you questions.”

Dani sat for a second, then said, “Then you are less trouble, Miss Sunny. What questions do you want to ask?”

“I want to ask about a customer.” She raised a hand as Dani began to shake his head. “A person you turned down.”

“The fish man,” Dani said. “I read about the body in his shop the day after he comes here. ‘Oho,’ I think, ‘he finds another way out of his trouble—by making worse for himself.’”

Sunny nodded. “The thing is, we do have a time of death. And Neil Garret told me he was here with you when the murder happened.”

Dani scowled down at his cup of cappuccino. “You get people to tell you the craziest things.”

“Believe me, he didn’t want to talk about it,” Sunny said. “But being charged with murder was worse trouble.”

Dani exhaled heavily. “All right, then. He comes to me Wednesday evening. Not last night, but a week ago. He asks for twenty thousand. I say no. He says how about ten. Again, I say no.”

“I thought you were in the business of lending money,” Sunny said.

“Lending, not losing,” Dani corrected. “If I lend money, I got to get it back—with interest. This fish man, he tells me he needs a bridge loan. He can pay me back when Lent comes. Business will pick up.”

He took a sip of coffee and made a face. “Do I look like idiot? How he is supposed to make back twenty or even ten in six, seven weeks? He goes out of business and leaves me holding the sack.”

“You could have taken over the business,” Sunny suggested. “I’ve seen you do that.”

Dani shook his head. “Best business to take over, dentist who makes too many bad sports bets. Lots of customers, lots of them pay cash. Lets us move other money through to clean it. But what do I know about fish?”

Olek rumbled something, and Dani shot him a look. “Yes, smoked fish is nice. Everything with you is smoke, smoke, smoke. I’m talking about store not even open for a year. If all of a sudden it makes a lot of money, people might notice. Then, trouble. Trouble I don’t need. I tell Mr. Fish Man just let his store close. ‘Cause if someone like Olek come and he got no money to pay, big, big trouble.”

“So when did Neil come?” Sunny asked.

Dani frowned. “Eight o’clock, maybe a little later. He spent a lot of time trying to convince me he was good businessman, just having bad luck. Me, I have nothing important to do that night, so I let him talk. He try very hard, tells me he needs some cash in his hand, but I say no. It was dinner time, so we eat. Food is pretty good here, coffee, not so much. He finish, I guess nine thirty, some later, and goes home.”

With the traffic, less than half an hour to get back to Kittery Harbor, Sunny thought. But that still covers the window for the time of death the medical examiner estimated.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Dani.”

Dani leaned across the little table. “I tell you this because I trust you. Don’t expect I go tell this in court.” He shook his head. “They might ask other questions I don’t want to answer.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Sunny said, silently adding, I’m the one who’ll have to answer unpleasant questions when Will finds out what I’ve been doing.

Dani must have been thinking the same thing, too, because when Sunny got up to leave, he sent Olek to accompany her to her car. “This is nice enough neighborhood,” he said, “but sometimes things happen. I don’t want your cop friend blaming me.”

Sunny nodded. “I know. No trouble.”

They walked the block to where Sunny had left her Wrangler. She thanked Olek, and the big man rumbled something in reply. Sunny noticed he stood there until she had the engine started and actually pulled into the street. Then he turned around, that enormous coat of his flapping in the breeze, and headed for the cafe.

Sunny’s cell phone rang, and she pulled over to answer. It was Mike.

“I tried the office and got the voice mail,” he said. “Wanted to catch you before you set off on a big shopping expedition. Helena just invited us to dinner—you, me, and Will, if he can make it. All she asks is that we don’t read the latest issue of the Courier before we come.” He paused for a second, trying to keep the curiosity out of his voice. “Did you?”

The delivery of the local weekly had been a bit late today, probably thanks to the ice storm, and Sunny had been too busy with other stuff to sit back and read it. “Nope, I missed it today,” she said. “I guess there must be something in there Mrs. M. wants to celebrate.”

Either that, or she wants to use up all the supplies she accumulated for the ice storm, that irrepressible voice in the back of Sunny’s head suggested.

Out loud, she asked, “Is there a time set for this dinner? I had an errand to run in Portsmouth.”

“I think you can make it all right,” Mike said. “You’ve got about an hour.”

Traffic was light enough that Sunny was able to get back, wash up, and put on some nicer clothes than her usual office wear. As she was putting on a little face paint, she heard the doorbell below.

That must be Will, she thought. She’d already decided not to discuss her conversation with Neil or her excursion to Portsmouth until after their visit with the Martinsons. If he decides to blow his top over Dani and Olek, at least the condemned will enjoy a hearty meal, Sunny thought.

She came downstairs to find Will hanging up his coat, chatting with Mike. Will turned to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You look nice. I came from work, so what you saw this morning is what you get.”

Sunny nodded. “You’re wearing the same tie you had on the last time we saw the Martinsons,” she said. “They’re going to think it’s the only one you own.”

He fingered the embroidered silk. “It’s the only one I like.”

Shadow made the usual wary approach he reserved for times when his humans departed from their normal schedule. Still, he came over to give Will’s ankles a good sniff.

Laughing, Will bent down, let Shadow sniff his hand, and then gently ran fingers through the fur on top of the cat’s head. “Don’t worry, little guy. We’ll be back soon.”

“Speaking of soon, I suppose we should get a move on,” Mike said. “What’s the condition of the sidewalks?”

“Looks to me like most people put some kind of ice melt down,” Will reported. “Worse comes to worst, we can detour into the street.”

They strolled the couple of blocks to the Martinson house without any slippery incidents, and Mike rang the doorbell. Mrs. M. must have been watching for them, because she opened the door almost immediately. Excited woofing rose in volume as Toby came nearer. Then they heard Abby say firmly, “Toby! Heel!”

Even the barking diminished as Helena Martinson led them inside. Toby stood beside Abby, looking up at her and wagging his tail, obviously eager to rush over and play with the newcomers. Abby reached down to take hold of the dog’s collar. “Toby, come.” She led the overgrown pup over to Mike, Sunny, and Will. Sunny could see Toby’s muscles bunching for a jump up to her waist, but Abby saw that, too. “Down, Toby.”

Astonishingly, Toby relaxed, just coming forward for a greeting sniff.

“Wow,” Sunny said. “You really are a dog whisperer.”

“I’m not.” Abby shook her head, but she was grinning at her success. “This is what I learned from being a dog walker when I first got out to the coast. It’s not something you put on your resume, but it left me with some useful skills. Then again, maybe I should have put it on my resume and tried for directing jobs. If I could get animals to behave, maybe I could do the same with actors.” She bent down to Toby. “What do you think, pooch? Aren’t you a happier dog now that you have some rules to live with?”

Mike took off his coat. “So, what’s in the new newspaper that we weren’t allowed to see?”

Abby turned to Helena, looking for a moment like a mortified teenager. “Mom, you didn’t invite them over for that?”

“I most certainly did.” Mrs. M.’s voice was full of pride as she held up a copy of the Harbor Courier and opened it up. There on the third page was a big photo of Abby with the headline,

FROM HOLLYWOOD BACK TO THE HARBOR.