Torch Scene Read online

  “When was that?”

  “When, yeah,” he muttered to himself as he read his notes. “Once last week, and another time, maybe a week before that. He asked Nick about it, and Nick said that she was his ex-wife. I don’t think Nick liked her because Rusty said that Nick called her some names.”

  “Did Rusty see her with Nick the night of the fire?”

  “No.” He gazed up at me and gave me another knowing look. “I made sure to ask and he said no.”

  “Does he know the ex-wife’s name?”

  “Yes. Nadine.”

  “I’m glad Rusty was a nosy neighbor.” That went over Ace’s head as well. “What else you got?”

  He checked his notes again. “Most people weren’t home or they didn’t see anything, but Mr. Darmody next door said he was coming home from a church meeting and he said someone he didn’t recognize went into Willie’s house the night of the fire.”

  My ears perked up at that. “What time was that?”

  “Hm. Is that a ‘what’ or ‘when’?” Ace blushed and gnawed at his lower lip. “Uh, well, what happened was Mr. Darmody asked me how Willie was doing, and we talked about the fire, and I forgot to ask.”

  “It’s okay.” I suppressed a smile. “I’ll talk to Mr. Darmody. That was good work, Ace. You’re one heckuva sidekick.”

  He grinned. “Thanks. It gives me something to do while I’m waiting to get a job.”

  “How’s that going?” I asked as I opened my wallet and pulled out some bills.

  “Not bad. I got an interview at Home Depot next week.”

  I handed him the money.

  “No, I can’t take that,” he said.

  I pressed the bills into his hand. “Go have a few beers and play some pool, on me.”

  “I’ll take Deuce to B 52s,” he said, referring to the pool hall where we liked to hang out.

  I took the stairs two at a time. Willie was standing in front of the entertainment center.

  “Hey, this movie Sunset Boulevard is pretty good,” she said as she pointed the remote at the TV. “I just finished watching it. That Norma Desmond was craaaazy.”

  “It’s considered one of the best film noir.” I picked up a DVD case with that unforgettable picture of Gloria Swanson on it. “You raided my collection?”

  “I needed to take my mind off things.”

  “There might be hope for you yet,” I said. I put the DVD away and pulled her close to me.

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” she said. She leaned in and kissed me, then nuzzled my neck. Then, I almost fell over when she said, in her best Gloria-Swanson-as-Norma-Desmond voice, “All right, Mr. Ferguson, I’m ready for my close-up.”

  “Hm. Close up definitely works for me,” I said.

  We kissed again. Then I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. We’d only spent the one night apart, but it seemed like I hadn’t seen her in forever. And for a little while, all our troubles faded, and it was just the two of us. Afterward, I lay back and chuckled.

  “What?” She sat up.

  “Whoever ‘they’ are, they’re right.”

  “Huh?”

  I grinned. “Making up really is fun.”

  “Maybe we should fight more.” She cuddled up against me.

  “Did you know Nick was already divorced when he rented the apartment from you?” I asked.

  She cocked her head and gave me a ‘so-what’ look. “How long did it take you to find that out?”

  “Ha ha,” I said. “The point is Nick was saying he was newly divorced as a way to pull at your heartstrings. Darcy’, too, when in fact he’d been divorced for a while, and his finances had been a mess for some time, too.”

  “Okay, we could’ve guessed that. How does that further your investigation?”

  “As a matter of fact, it doesn’t,” I said, choosing to ignore her negativity.

  She got up and put on one of my shirts. “I’m going to get a snack.” I spied a grin as she strolled out of the bedroom.

  I got dressed and went into the office and did a people-search for Nadine O’Rourke. She lived in Greenwood Village, in the Tech Center. I wrote down the address and went back to the living room.

  Willie was back on the couch, eating an apple. “Are you leaving?”

  I nodded. “How much do you know about bookies?”

  “That’s where the investigation has led you?”

  “Uh huh. O’Rourke has…had…a gambling problem. I found out where he was placing bets and I want to find out more about the bookie.”

  “Why?”

  “I think Nick owed money to him, or loan sharks.”

  “Yeah, but they wouldn’t kill him if he owed them money, would they?”

  “I know,” I said. “But maybe Nick was getting in too far, or maybe they wanted to threaten him and they took their message too far. I want to talk to the bookie, see what I can find out.”

  “So what, you’ll just waltz in and place a bet?”

  “No, that didn’t work,” I murmured.

  “You already tried that?” She was incredulous.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, averting the worried tone I knew was coming.

  “For once I’m not so much worried as I am grateful you’re helping.” That was a switch. “But won’t they be suspicious when you show up again to place a bet?” Ah, there was the worry.

  “I’ll go later.”

  “Why?”

  I smiled. “Hopefully the guy in the yellow shirt will be gone.”

  She threw me a bemused look. “Who?”

  I explained what had happened.

  “If this guy in the yellow shirt isn’t there, there’ll be another thug in his place,” she said.

  “Yeah, but he won’t know me.” I picked up my keys.

  “You’re going there now?”

  “I’m going to talk to Nick’s ex-wife first.” I told her what Ace had discovered. “She was seen hanging around your house, so maybe she knows something, like how to club someone over the head and start a fire to cover it up.”

  Nothing. Not even the hint of a smile. I kissed her and headed out the door. “Don’t worry. I’m going to find out who did this and I’ll be careful doing it. After all, have I ever gotten myself into trouble?”

  I heard some snide remark, but I’d closed the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Nadine O’Rourke lived in a neighborhood west of Interstate 25, off of Orchard Road. The house, a large two-story that had a country feel to it, was situated on almost an acre of land that backed up to a golf course.

  I rang the bell, and almost instantaneously, a high-pitched yipping emanated from the other side of the door. It grew steadily louder, and then a sexy voice scolded the owner of the yip and the door opened.

  A tall, too-thin woman in a slinky blue dress stared at me. She had a too-perfect face, artfully made up, eyes that matched the dress, puckered lips and breasts that could only be described as ‘perky’. She reminded me of a Barbie doll, but I sensed a dangerous edge about her. She held off a Pomeranian with one foot, and the impatience in her voice told me she was already prepping to brush me off. “Yes?”

  “Are you Nadine O’Rourke?” I asked.

  “Who wants to know?” She gently pushed at the Pomeranian with her foot, then said, “Josie, sit.” And the dog did.

  I introduced myself. “I’m a private investigator and I’m –”

  She let out a sigh that carried all the weight of a bad marriage in it. “What kind of trouble is Nick in now?”

  Same response as Pommerville. O’Rourke had certainly built a consistent reputation – everyone hated him.

  “He’s dead,” I said and watched her response.

  “Oh.” Cool and collected. Nary a hint of surprise.

  “You don’t seem shocked by the news,” I said.

  She shook her head. “With Nick –” She left the sentence hanging. “How did it happen?”

  “Someone murdered him.”

 
Now she completed the sentence. “With him, it was only a matter of time.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and ran a hand through her blond hair, a sexy, distracting motion. “You don’t know much about Nick, do you?”

  “I’m learning more with each passing hour.”

  “Let me help fill in some blanks.” She paused to shoo at the Pomeranian again, and this time it scurried off down the hall. “By the time I divorced Nick, he’d completely ruined our finances. I found out later that he’d run his business into the ground and was being sued by his business partner. You make enemies, someone is going to come after you.”

  “You think his business partner would go after him?”

  “I’d start there.”

  “I already did.”

  “And?”

  I shrugged. “Stan Pommerville didn’t really strike me as the type to commit murder.”

  “But he certainly has a motive, at least if what I read in the papers was true.”

  “I’ll give you that.”

  The corners of her mouth curled into a small smile. “What else have you found out?”

  “That you’d been to see him a couple of times in the last few weeks.”

  The smile faded. “That’s not true.”

  “Oh, it is. Witnesses said that you got into a shouting match with Nick.”

  She eyed me carefully. “He had some nosy neighbors.”

  “I thought so, too,” I agreed.

  “Well, I guess I can’t deny it.” She gritted her teeth. “If you knew what my ex put me through. I had money in the bank when we got married, and he lost all that. I thought he was using it for the business, and that we’d get a big payout. By the time I figured out he was gambling it all away, it was too late.”

  “You didn’t realize he had a gambling problem?”

  “Not at first. We’d go to Vegas and he was a high roller, but I thought his business was going well, and I had a good job, so I wasn’t paying that much attention. When the gambling seemed to be getting bad and I’d mention it, he’d deny it, or get really mad at me, so I’d let it go.”

  “Ever been to Easy Street Café?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Did you ever see Nick make bets here in Denver?”

  She shook her head. “But I know he did.”

  “How?”

  “He slipped a couple of times when he was drunk and said he’d made a bet, or he was going to make a bet.”

  “Was he borrowing money from anyone? Was he hanging around any unsavory people?” I ticked off the questions.

  “You mean like loan sharks, that kind of thing?”

  I nodded.

  “I never actually saw him with anyone like that, but I overheard a few of his conversations that led me to believe he was in some trouble and owed someone big money. But before you ask, I don’t know who. By the end of our marriage, we hardly talked to each other. Then we separated and I don’t know what all he was doing.”

  I switched tactics. “Did you get alimony from Nick?”

  She sniffed, a short, spiteful sound. “Yeah, for all the good it did. He never had any money to give me, and the bastard left me with all the bills to pay because he didn’t have anything.”

  “What bills?”

  “Credit cards in both our names. A second mortgage on the house that I didn’t know about. He screwed me but good.” She used her head to indicate the house. “I’m still paying things off. I’m lucky I have a great job or I’d be in real trouble.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a marketing manager for a company downtown. I do pretty well, except for the damn debt.”

  “So if things were so bad between the two of you, why were you visiting him?” I asked.

  “He wouldn’t return my calls, so I had to visit him in person. And of course, we argued.”

  “What were you arguing about?”

  She hesitated, just for a second. “I’ve been fighting with some of our creditors, trying to get them to work with us and I wanted Nick to pay half of the debt. That would be fair, but he was fighting me on it.”

  “He wouldn’t give in,” I said, knowing the answer.

  “Yeah, why would he? I was stupid to try.”

  “And now it’s too late. Unless killing him benefits you.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “How was he killed?”

  “He was knocked out and then left to die in a fire.”

  “That house fire on the news? That was him? And you think I could’ve done it?”

  “Why not?”

  She raised her voice. “Do I look like I could knock someone out?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “Look, I hated Nick, but I didn’t kill him. And I don’t know the first thing about arson.”

  “And that’s supposed to convince me?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but a deep voice interrupted her.

  “Hey, honey, is there a problem?”

  A tall man with a body chiseled from daily visits to the gym walked up behind her. He was dressed in cycling garb, the padded black shorts, a red, white and blue jersey with ‘Army’ emblazoned on the front and short socks with the letters ‘AFD’ on them. He was holding the Pomeranian, petting its head. She turned and pecked him on the cheek.

  “It’s okay,” Nadine said. “This guy…I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

  “Reed Ferguson.”

  “I’m Ken.” He shifted the dog to his left arm, careful of a white bandage on his forearm, and we shook hands. He had perfectly coifed brown hair and oddly smooth skin. She was like Barbie, and he was Ken – literally. Only more muscular. Spooky.

  “My fiancé,” Nadine said. “Reed’s a private investigator. Nick’s dead.”

  “Oh?” Ken said.

  “Yes. Terrible, isn’t it?” There was no sorrow in her voice.

  “Huh.” He pet the dog and watched us.

  Her demeanor suddenly changed. “Obviously this is upsetting, and I think it’s time you go.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

  The door slammed shut before I’d made if off the porch.

  I walked back to the car, thinking about her. I was usually a sucker for the femme fatale, that seductive woman in the film noir I loved so much. But not this time. She had danger all about her, and I was wary.

  Something else occurred to me. Did Mattel make a femme fatale Barbie, complete with the sinful body and treacherous soul, who would deceive and then murder Ken with her accomplice and lover, G.I. Joe? I laughed out loud at the thought.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  As I drove out away from Nadine’s house, I mulled over the conversation. All roads pointed back to Nick and his betting. Or to people he owed money to. But as Willie pointed out, if he owed money to bookies or loan sharks, why would they kill him? A dead man can’t pay back money.

  I checked the time: just after seven. Would Yellow Shirt be gone from the café by now? I did some quick calculations. He was already there when I got to Easy Street at eleven this morning. A good eight hours had passed. Someone would’ve spelled him by now, right?

  Turns out I was wrong. When I entered Easy Street Café, there he was, still at his table in the back, still with a coffee cup. I wondered if by now he’d switched to something else a little harder.

  The place was much more crowded now, and when a waitress came up, I shook my head, indicating I didn’t want to sit down. She nodded casually, as if that happened a lot, and moved away. I took that as a good sign, no suspicion of me not wanting a table.

  I walked purposefully to the back and Yellow Shirt got up. A flicker or recognition crossed his face. “I thought I told you to get lost.”

  “I want to see Bob.” I tried to wipe the smug smile off my face, but I don’t think it worked.

  His eyes were hard and his jaw like stone. If he was trying to intimidate me, it was working. I w
ondered if Leena had set me up, and was I bracing myself for a good thumping from him when he reached around and grabbed the doorknob.

  I tipped my head at him, like Bogie might do, and stepped past him into the room.

  It was a small office, with out-of-date dark paneling on the walls, a flat-screen TV mounted in the corner, and a metal desk planted in the middle of the room with a couple of folding chairs across from it. Some boxes were stacked next to another door, which I presumed led to the alley. Behind the desk was a single window covered by a cheap shade. The window was cracked open and a slight breeze swayed the shade and cooled the room. A single lamp on the desk barely illuminated the space. The bookie was seated at the desk, his purple hat sitting rakishly on his small head. He was typing on a laptop and glancing at the TV. The door clicked behind me. Now that the thug was gone…was that breathing behind me?

  I put my finely honed detecting skills to use and listened for a second. Yep, that was breathing. Someone cleared his throat and it wasn’t me or the bookie. It was official. The thug had come into the room and shut the door, and he was standing right behind me. Why’d he do that? I thought. I discreetly wiped sweaty palms on my jeans.

  I wasn’t sure what to do from here. Leena had given me the code words to get in here, but that was it. What was I supposed to say?

  “I’d like to place a bet on the…” My mind went blank. I was a football fan! It was early April. There are no football games in April! Who was playing now? The Rockies baseball team? I was only a casual fan. Had the season begun yet, or were the Rockies still in spring training? Basketball! Yes, they were in the playoffs…wait, were they?

  “On what? The Lakers-Nuggets game tonight?” The bookie took me by surprise, both with his question and with his voice, which was high and laced with a lisp. Kind of like Mike Tyson.

  “Yeah, that game,” I said, cringing at the warble in my own voice. Oh, where had my Bogie coolness gone?

  The bookie leaned back in his chair and the front legs left the floor. He gazed down his nose at me. “Uh-huh. How’d you hear about us?”

  “From a friend.” I smiled. “Bob.”

  The thug behind me grunted. The bookie didn’t look amused.