No Safe House

Twenty-five

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” Heywood Duggan said, slipping into the all-night coffee shop booth across from Detective Rona Wedmore. He had to squeeze himself in. He wasn’t a fat man, but he was big, and there wasn’t any room between his stomach and the edge of the table.

“Sorry to call you so late,” Wedmore said. “And to be so mysterious.”

Heywood grinned, flashing his pearl white teeth. He still had that gap between the two top ones. Back when they were seeing each other, he’d talked about getting that fixed, but Rona had told him it gave him character.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, placing his meaty palms flat down on the table. “I don’t get called out to midnight meetings with beautiful women all that often.”

“Oh, shut up,” Wedmore said, slipping her own hands down to her lap, not wanting to give him the opportunity to reach out and hold hers, which she figured he might do at some point. Not that there wasn’t some part of her that didn’t long for his touch after all this time. “It’s good to see you, Heywood.”

He grinned. “You always used to call me Woody.”

She smiled. “I did.” She cocked her head. “And I wasn’t the only one.”

He flicked his hand, as if shooing away a fly, dismissing the comment. “You’re looking good.”

“I’ve put on a few since you saw me last,” she said.

“More to love,” he said.

She brought up her left hand not only to wave a finger at him, but to let him see her ring. “I’m spoken for,” she said.

“That was not a pass, just an observation.” He smiled warmly. “How are things with Lamont? I heard he had a rough go of it in Iraq.”

Rona nodded. “He’s good. It was hard for him over there. He saw things no one should have to see.”

“I heard he didn’t say a word for months.”

“Well, he’s talking now,” Wedmore said with a forced laugh. “And he’s got a job, with Costco. They’re good to him there.”

“I’m glad to hear that — I really am.” Heywood Duggan’s face fell. “I wondered, when you called, if, you know, maybe something had happened. Maybe the two of you were going through a rough patch. That maybe you needed someone to talk to.”

Wedmore’s eyes narrowed. “Or fall into the sack with.”

He raised his palms. “I did not say that.” Heywood shook his head. “You hurt me, Rona.”

“Oh, bullshit,” she said.

A waitress came by and they both ordered coffee.

He grinned. “You and I, we had a good run there, you have to admit.”

She tried to hide her smile. “When’d you quit being a trooper?”

“Eight, nine years ago,” he said.

“Why?”

He turned a simple shrug into a ten-second shoulder exercise. “You know. Different opportunities. Didn’t want to be with state police forever.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“And what’d you hear?”

“I heard some evidence — cash — went missing after a drug bust and not long after that you decided to take an early retirement rather than face an internal affairs investigation.”

Another wave of the hand. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”

“Is that when you started to go freelance?”

“I’ve done a bunch of things, private security — you know the drill. So why the hell did you ask me to meet you tonight? I’m starting to think this isn’t as personal as I was hoping it might be.”

“Eli Goemann,” Rona said.

“Eli what?”

“I hope, for your sake, that your hearing is the only thing you’ve lost since I saw you last.”

“I just didn’t catch the name.”

“Eli Goemann. Don’t be cute.”

“Eli Goemann, Eli Goemann.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know the name.”

“Then why did you go ask his former roommates where you could find him?” Wedmore asked.

He pushed himself back against the seat. The space was so tight, he suddenly looked trapped to Rona. The waitress put two mugs of coffee on the table in front of them and walked away.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

“I want you to tell me why you’ve been looking for Eli Goemann. I’m guessing someone hired you. Who wants you to find Eli and why?”

“Rona, come on, you know how this works. Clients expect confidentiality, and I can’t be bought for a cup of coffee.” He smiled slyly. “If you were offering something more substantial...”

“Stop acting like you’re twelve,” Rona said. “So you admit you’re looking for him.”

“Okay, yeah, I am. But it’s a private matter.”

“Not when there’s a homicide.”

His eyebrows went up. “Say again?”

“Goemann’s dead. His body was found at Silver Sands.”

Duggan grimaced. “Son of a bitch.”

“Help me out here.”

He put a hand over his mouth, rubbed his chin. “Shit.”

“I’d like to know who killed him, Heywood. And you’ve been asking around about him. Right now, you’re my best lead to finding out what happened.”

“They figure out how long he’s been dead?”

“So now you want me to answer your questions?” Wedmore said.

“Okay, look, I’ll have to talk to my client, clear it with him before I talk to you.”

“It’s not his call,” Wedmore said.

“Here’s what I can tell you. Goemann called my client, said he had something he believed my client would like to have returned to him.”

“Goemann stole something from him and was trying to get your client to buy it back?”

“Half right. He didn’t steal this item — at least that’s what he told my client — but had come into possession of it. And yes, he was willing to sell it back.”

“What’s the item?”

Heywood Duggan moved his head left and right half an inch. “Why don’t you tell me if he was found with anything of interest. If what you found is what he was flogging, I’ll tell you.”

“He wasn’t found with anything. And we haven’t figured out where he was residing.”

“Then all I can tell you is, it was a personal item. Not the sort of thing you’d assign a commercial value to. Well, only partly.”

“But it’s worth a lot to your client. How much was Eli asking?”

“He threw out a crazy number. A hundred thousand. I told him that wasn’t possible. My client is not a rich man.”

“Rich enough to hire you.”

He shrugged. “I come for a lot less than a hundred g’s.”

“So this Goemann character approaches your client, asks for a hundred grand to get this thing back, and then what happens?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“My client doesn’t hear from him again. He didn’t even know who it was who called him. He hires me, I get the number off his phone, find out it belongs to Goemann, then trace him through DMV to that house where he once lived with the other students, but he hasn’t lived there in a year or so. Sounds like he was bouncing around, sleeping on couches, working odd jobs the last twelve months or so, no fixed address. When he never called back with a counteroffer, to try and set something up, started to wonder whether he ever had anything to sell.”

“You still working it?”

Another shrug. “Client’s only got so much to spend. And I said to him, Look, this may have been a bluff. Maybe there’s nothing to this.”

Wedmore took a sip of her coffee. “Woody,” she said, and he smiled, “this is me you’re talking to. Off the record. What the hell was Goemann selling? What was your client trying to get back?”

“Basically, he was trying to get back what you were to me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“He was trying to get back the love of his life.”