Driven to Ink

Chapter 9

It took a few minutes to sink in. Sylvia and Bernie’s car? Abandoned? That wasn’t good. I thought about Jeff, on his mission to find them.

Flanigan was looking at me as if he could read my mind.

“Do you have another number where I could reach Mr. Coleman?” he asked, and from the way he said it, he knew I did.

“I might be able to find out,” I said.

Flanigan gave me a smile, as if I were a puppy that had passed obedience training. “Thank you.” And then he turned and went back into the office. In the second before he closed the door, I caught Joel’s eye and gave him a small smile. He smiled back, although I could see how nervous he was.

I ducked into the staff room and got my phone. I punched in Jeff’s number.

“What’s up, Kavanaugh?” he asked.

“Where are you?”

“Some little hole in the wall. No sign of them.”

“Well, the police found their car.”

Silence, then, “Where?”

I told him what Flanigan had said.

More silence.

“Jeff?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“He wants to talk to you.”

“I bet he does.”

“Listen, Jeff, now is not the time to be some sort of renegade. Your mother might be in trouble.”

“She might be.”

“So call Flanigan.”

“I’m not far from the canyon. I’ll get in touch with the rangers. They’ll tell me what’s going on.”

“Why don’t you want to talk to this cop?”

“Because he thinks my mother had something to do with that guy in your trunk.”

I suppressed a chuckle. “I doubt that.”

“He sure as hell indicated that when I talked to him before.”

“That’s his job.”

“Trust my instincts on this, Kavanaugh. I’ll be back tonight. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

And the call ended.

I heard a small cough.

Flanigan was standing in the doorway.

“Was that Mr. Coleman?”

I put my phone back in my bag. “Yes.”

“Is he going to take my call?”

“No.”

We stared each other down.

“There’s just so much I can do,” I finally said. “I told him you needed to talk to him. I told him about finding their car. He said he’s going to see the rangers at the canyon.”

“They won’t be able to help.” Flanigan started picking at imaginary lint on his suit. “The state police have already taken the car away.”

“Well, then he’ll find that out, and he’ll come home.”

“Did Mr. Coleman know Mr. Lucci?”

The question came out from left field.

“I-uh-I don’t know,” I sputtered.

“His mother knew him,” Flanigan said. “She requested he sing a solo at their wedding.”

“Maybe she just liked the way he sang.”

“She requested him by phone before she and Mr. Applebaum arrived. She requested him by name.”

I sighed. “So because of that, you suspect a little old lady who’s got to be pushing eighty of killing him and stuffing him in my trunk?”

“She had access to clip cords, too.”

True enough.

“What about the rat?” I asked, suddenly remembering it. “Why the rat?”

Flanigan’s eyebrows rose slightly. “We need to talk to her.”

“But she’s missing. Maybe whoever killed Lucci did something to her, too.” As I said it, I saw something cross his face, and I couldn’t breathe for a second. He thought that, too. He wasn’t trying to find Sylvia because he thought she and Bernie killed Lucci. He wanted to find them because he thought something had happened to them.

“You think they saw something, don’t you?” I asked softly. “You think they’re witnesses and that’s why they’re missing.”

From his expression, I could tell I was right.

“Mr. Sloane has identified a picture of Mr. Lucci as the person who posed as Dan Franklin,” Flanigan said. “And Miss Hendricks concurred. Miss Hendricks also gave me Mr. Franklin’s phone number. If you hear from Mr. Coleman again, I’d appreciate you emphasizing to him how important it is that he contact me.”

I nodded, and he stood there, staring at me.

“Is there something else?” I asked, his gaze unnerving me, as if he thought I was holding back on something. Which now, I really wasn’t.

“According to the time line you gave me yesterday, the Applebaums returned your car at three o’clock, and it was in the parking garage here until you left work. What time did you leave?”

We’d been over this, but I made a point to look at the appointment book so I could tell him the exact times of my clients and that I’d left an hour after my last one, at midnight.

“Were Miss Hendricks and Mr. Sloane still here?”

I’d cleaned up myself because they’d both left early. I told him so. “Ace left about half an hour before I did.”

“Ace?”

“Ace van Nes, my other tattooist.”

“And when you left, you took your car right home?”

I nodded.

“Can you show me where it was parked?”

I frowned. This seemed a bit odd. But who was I to tell the detective how to do his job? Bitsy was in the staff room, and I told her where I was going. She seemed curious, too, but didn’t say anything.

I usually parked on the sixth level, and that’s where Sylvia and Bernie left the car. Three spaces away from where I had parked the Jeep today.

“You’re sure about this location?” Flanigan asked, circling the Mercedes that was occupying the spot now.

I pointed to the row and level sign on the concrete post in front of the Mercedes. “This was it-I know from the sign,” I said.

Flanigan took out his little notebook and began to make notations. He stooped down, checked the ground, stuck his finger in a spot of oil, and then wiped it off on a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket.

“Does anyone else have a key to your car?” he asked as he went around the front of the Mercedes, inspecting the concrete barrier in front of it.

“My brother has one,” I said. “But no one else.”

Finally, he closed the notebook and stuck it in his jacket pocket. He stood, facing me. “I appreciate your time, Miss Kavanaugh.”

“Brett. You can call me Brett.”

“Thank you, Miss Kavanaugh.” So much for that. “I’ll be in touch.”

And he walked over to the elevator, which had just opened, got in, and disappeared as the doors closed on him. What was that all about?

Considering how the day had started, it ended on a quiet note. I tried Jeff again, but now he wasn’t answering my calls, either. Joel brought back a huge burger from Johnny Rockets and ate it sans bun. I let Bitsy go home early and closed up the shop at eleven. The rest of the mall was shutting down, too-the gates pulled down over the store entrances, the gondolas docked and rocking slowly on the canal.

I didn’t much like driving Tim’s Jeep. The gearshift was stiff, and I had to press all the way down on the brakes to stop. The air-conditioning wasn’t all that great, either, although tonight it was cool, and I hugged my jean jacket around me as I got out of the Jeep and scurried up the steps to the house.

It was dark; I didn’t see any sign of Tim’s Impala, so I figured he was off doing cop stuff. I wanted to pick his brain about Flanigan, but it would have to wait.

I stuck the key in the door and pushed it open. Tim had left the screen door open to the back porch and the air inside was cooler than out. I shed my jacket, threw it over one of the kitchen chairs, and opened the refrigerator, looking for some seltzer and maybe a late-night snack. The Johnny Rockets burger was hours ago now.

I leaned into the fridge to grab the seltzer off the bottom shelf. As I stood back up, a hand reached around me and shut the door, trapping me against the counter.