Driven to Ink

Chapter 14

I thought about my conversation with Dan Franklin. How he’d said he and Lucci didn’t get along.

“Franklin had an ID card in his wallet,” I said. “He’s some sort of lab-animal technician or something at UNLV.”

Jeff immediately caught on. “That rat. You think Franklin offed Lucci and stuck that rat in there for some reason?”

“Crossed my mind.”

“And now the guy’s in hiding.”

“Except that he did get Bitsy’s phone message, so he must be at home.”

“Or he has a cell phone. He could be anywhere.”

Right. Cell phone. “But why would he leave his wallet in his locker?” And then I had another thought. Maybe he killed Lucci, stuck him in my trunk, and then took off without getting his stuff. Because maybe someone saw him. Like Sylvia and Bernie. Maybe he went after them next.

My imagination was getting the better of me. This was stuff that made a bad TV movie. Except it made sense. It would explain everything.

But then again, it probably wasn’t that easy.

I could see Jeff’s brain was working overtime, too.

“Where does this Franklin live?”

I flashed back on the file folder with Franklin’s information. I remembered the address because it was only a couple of blocks away from my house in Henderson. I told Jeff as much.

“You want to go over there, don’t you?” I asked.

Jeff didn’t answer, but in seconds he was pulling into a parking lot and swerving around, putting the car in the opposite direction.

“We have no business going over there,” I said.

“The man hasn’t been to work. His wallet’s in his locker.”

“I talked to him yesterday, so he’s not dead, like Lucci,” I said.

“He wasn’t dead as of yesterday,” Jeff said. “Who knows about today?”

The Pontiac came to a stop at a light. A trail of Asian tourists following a man holding up a big orange flag moved across the intersection. A few heavyset couples wearing fanny packs got caught in the middle of the Asian group but managed to separate themselves on the other side.

Jeff shook his head sadly. “They’re like sheep, aren’t they?”

His question was rhetorical, and I merely nodded as the light changed and we started moving again.

The Strip was taking too long, so at the next block, Jeff hung a left and went down Koval. No scenery, only the backs of the resorts and casinos, but it moved faster.

“So did you get anything out of DellaRocco about Franklin?” I asked when we got onto 215 heading toward Henderson.

“I tried to find out if Lucci had any enemies, and that’s when Franklin came up. Apparently there was no love lost between them. DellaRocco was pretty vague about it, though. We didn’t get much further than that, because he got really suspicious as to why the water was running in the bathroom and you weren’t coming out.”

“So now it’s my fault?”

“Has to be someone’s,” he said.

I was regretting this little adventure more and more.

We were quiet until Jeff reached my street. “Where to from here?” he asked.

I directed him a couple of blocks up and over.

The neighborhood was similar to mine: rows of stucco houses, the occasional palm tree, banana yuccas. Some houses had lawns, real lawns that would need watering. Since Vegas was in the middle of a drought and Lake Mead was way lower than it should be, this upset me. We were in the desert, with beautiful desert flora that was perfectly fine as a yard. No need to drain the water system just because someone wanted to pretend he was living in another part of the country.

I opened my mouth to say something, but I guess I’d said it before because Jeff held up his hand and said, “I get it, Kavanaugh. Water shortage. You’re a broken record, you know?”

I was thinking about a smart retort when I spotted the address we had for Dan Franklin. I pointed. “That one, there.”

Jeff eased the Pontiac against the curb across the street and a couple of houses down. But it wasn’t exactly as if we were incognito. It was a bright gold car. Sort of like how Starsky and Hutch were driving around undercover in that bright red Gran Torino with the white stripe. Stick out much?

An old blue Ford Taurus sat in the driveway.

“Looks like someone’s home,” Jeff said, indicating the car.

“I don’t think so.” The house was closed up: shutters drawn; the mailbox hanging open, leaking envelopes and advertisements; three newspapers on the front step.

I climbed out of the car and walked up to the driveway and around the Taurus, peering into the windows. It was immaculate inside, no litter of any sort. There was a university parking sticker stuck to the back bumper.

“Kavanaugh,” Jeff hissed behind me. “What are you doing?”

I waved him off and went to the mailbox, reaching in and pulling out the mail. I leafed through it. Electric bill, a couple of credit card bills, junk mail. Jeff peered around my shoulder-I was a couple inches taller than him-and stuck out his hand, grabbing one of the envelopes.

“Hey,” I said, twirling around, trying to get it back.

Jeff grinned and waved it around. “What? You’re going to take the stolen mail from me?”

His words stopped me, and I realized what I was doing. Right. I was messing with the U.S. mail. I could get thrown in jail for this.

“Let’s leave it,” I said.

“Now you want to leave it,” Jeff said. “You wouldn’t want to if you saw what it was.”

Against my better judgment, he’d piqued my interest. “Okay, I’ll give. What is it?”

He stuffed it in his back pocket and took the rest of the mail from me, shoving it back into the mailbox. “This way,” he said, going up to the front steps and actually ringing the doorbell.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Just in case the neighbors are watching.”

Okay, that was a good idea.

We stood a few seconds, and Jeff punched at the doorbell a couple more times. He leaned around and tried to look in the windows, but the shutters were closed tight. “Let’s go around back,” he said.

I looked up and down the street, because now I worried we’d be perceived as burglars and the cops would show up any second. But nothing. Maybe the neighbors were all at work.

The back was as deserted as the front. A stone patio, a small grill perched at the corner, stuck off the back of the house as if it were unfinished. I thought about Dan Franklin, living alone and grilling his little piece of steak on it. And then I had a vision of myself doing the same thing. I shuddered as I checked out the steps that went up to a back door. A curtain hung over the window, but Jeff indicated a window to the left of it and just out of reach for him. “Can you see in there?” he asked me.

Nice to know he didn’t have any sort of Napoleon issues when it came to my height.

I got on the top step, stood on my tiptoes, leaned over, and looked into a kitchen. No dirty dishes, nothing out of place, like that car. “It seems fine,” I said.

“But what about this?”

Jeff was no longer standing right behind me. I spun around to see him bending over, picking something up.

When he stood and turned around to face me, I caught my breath.

He was holding what looked like an empty animal cage.