Sweet Smell of Sucrets Read online

  I smiled and slowly left, letting my eyes rove around the office. Next to her enclosed cubicle, a doorway led back to what I assumed were examination rooms. Basically nothing to see. I made a mental note to ask Cal about checking the doctor’s records for Trevor Welch. And maybe Gus and Mick, too, although without last names, I wasn’t hopeful of finding anything useful.

  The receptionist cleared her throat and I took that as my signal to leave. A dusting of snow now covered the streets and the cold hit me like a fist. If it kept up, rush hour would be a mess. Man, when were we going to get out of this arctic weather? I drove home with the heat on high and hurried up the stairs to my condo, glad to be inside where it was warm.

  I was just shrugging off of my coat when Bogie began talking. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. “Hey, did you pull an all-nighter?”

  “Huh?” Cal said.

  “You didn’t answer this morning. That usually means you were up all night.”

  “No, I had a meeting here in Denver.”

  “Really?” That puzzled me. Cal didn’t venture out of his house unless he absolutely had to, or if I begged him to help me.

  “I had to visit a client.”

  “They couldn’t come to your house?” Then I thought about that. It wasn’t that Cal’s house was dirty, per se, but it was definitely cluttered. And when he was hard at work, which was most of the time, he tended not to clean up his dishes. It wasn’t uncommon to find pizza or takeout boxes lying around, sometimes with food still in them. Although that probably would’ve bothered the client, not him.

  “I don’t want a stranger coming to my sanctuary,” he retorted.

  That was so true. One time, I’d needed to hide a client and some of her snooty friends, and I’d taken them to Cal’s. That was a challenging couple of days with all of them under one roof.

  “Do you have time to help or do you need to get back to your sanctuary?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I can help. I’m downtown so I can meet you at your place.”

  “Sure. But can you do the research here?”

  “I’ve got my laptop.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I got a surprised look from Cal when I opened the door.

  “What?” I asked, then remembered my face. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Come on in,” I said, gesturing for him to follow me. “I’ve made us some sandwiches.”

  Cal sat down at the kitchen table and pulled his laptop from his backpack. I got him a soda and put a plate with a ham and cheese sandwich down next to the laptop.

  “Thanks,” he said. He took a couple of bites of the sandwich. “I skipped breakfast so I’m famished.”

  It was a little after eleven and I’d had a late breakfast, but I found I was hungry too, so I dove into my own sandwich with gusto.

  “So,” he said while he waited for his laptop to boot up. “You need information about Trevor Welch.”

  “Yes.” I sat down next to him so I could see the monitor.

  His fingers flew over the keyboard as he began working.

  “Uh, do I need to be worried about the FBI or someone like that coming to my door?” I asked.

  He gave me a funny look. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because you’re hacking into websites. Can’t that be traced back to me through my IP address?” I wasn’t that computer savvy, but I knew that much, and since Cal broke into highly sensitive sites, like government agencies and banks, there was no way I wanted anyone to trace that back to him…or me.

  “Don’t worry,” he said with a grin. “I’ve set things up on my laptop to scramble where the internet signal is coming from, and I’ve got a few other slick things on it as well, so don’t worry.”

  I breathed a little easier. “Good. I’ve already got Detective Spillman on my tail, I don’t need anyone else.”

  He laughed, then concentrated on the computer. Web pages opened up and he scrolled through them at lightning speed. Data flew across the screen as he hummed.

  “Trevor Welch doesn’t have a criminal record,” he said after a minute. More windows popped up, one of them a large banking site. “He doesn’t have much in his checking or savings accounts.” More typing, more windows. “About fifty thousand in his 401k. Looks like he lost a lot during the recession.” More humming. “The guy’s clean,” he announced after a couple more minutes. “No financial red flags, other than a couple of late bills. No criminal record. Nothing.” He stopped and wolfed down the rest of his sandwich in two bites, then downed half his Coke.

  I stood up and began pacing. “Welch may have been hurt, and he might have visited Doctor McKenzie.”

  “How’d you get the doctor’s name?”

  “Ace followed Gus yesterday and Gus stopped there.”

  Cal jerked his head up. “Ace discovered that?”

  “Yeah, he tailed Gus for quite a while, but then he got spotted.” I told him about Ace’s surveillance and how I had to intercept Gus’s SUV. That brought more laughter.

  “But,” I said, returning to the problem at hand. “Can you check that doc’s records and see if Welch is a patient of his?”

  “Easy-peasy.” Cal set to work again, and in a flash he said, “Nope. Trevor Welch has no records with Doctor McKenzie. It looks like Welch has Kaiser Insurance, so he likely wouldn’t visit that doc anyway because it would be going out of network and it would cost him.”

  “What about Gus?”

  “What about him?” Cal asked.

  “Is he a patient of Doctor McKenzie?”

  Cal rolled his eyes at me. “With just Gus as a first name, it would like looking for a needle in a haystack. Gus could be short for something else, like Gustov, or even Angus, August, or Augustine. Or it could be a shortened version of his last name, like Gustafson.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I stopped pacing, leaned against the counter and sighed heavily. “Trevor Welch is a complete mystery.”

  “All you know is that Noel Farrell had a file on Welch and that Gus and Mick stole it.”

  “Yep, along with a page from Farrell’s desk calendar. And Farrell wanted to talk to me about something important.”

  “And now Farrell is dead, murdered with your gun.”

  “Yep.”

  We stared at each other, the gravity of the situation heavy in the room.

  “Where’s the desk calendar?” he asked after a long moment.

  “In my office,” I said. I got it and brought it back to the kitchen.

  “Kind of old-fashioned, don’t you think?” he said. He pinched a page by the corner, as if it might bite him. “I didn’t know people even used these anymore.”

  “Not everyone lives on the cutting edge of technology,” I replied.

  He flipped through pages. “Not much here, huh.”

  “No. Gus tore out some pages, that’s why I took it.”

  “Ah,” he said, nodding knowingly. “So there might be a clue.”

  I threw him a “no-shit, Sherlock” look. “Unfortunately, nothing is jumping out at me.”

  I sat down across from him again and we lapsed into another contemplative silence.

  “What else is there that might break a hole in this investigation?” Cal said after a long moment.

  “How about U.S. International Realty?” I said as I played with the pages of the calendar.

  “I thought I gave you that information.”

  “Just the basics. Can you find out who owns it?”

  “Sure.” He took a gulp of his Coke, then turned back to the computer. “It looks like there’s a few other offices, in L.A., New York City, and Boston, and…it’s registered to a corporation in the Cayman Islands.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “A cover for something?”

  “Maybe. But…” A long pause. “It’s going to take me a while to track it all down.” He checked the clock
on the stove. “I hate to do this to you, but I’ve got to get some preliminary work done for my new client, so how about I do this research tonight?”

  “Sure,” I said. “And I’ll plan my next move.”

  He frowned at me as he stood up. “I wish I could be of more help.”

  I shrugged. “I do, too.”

  He packed up his laptop and donned his coat. We agreed to talk later and he left.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I started thumbing through Farrell’s calendar as I mulled over my next move. Gus had torn out a few pages in the calendar, the date on one was a couple of days before Noel Farrell was killed, and another a couple of weeks before. I flipped to the day before the first missing page and stopped. Obviously Gus hadn’t wanted anyone to see appointments or notes written on those pages. I absentmindedly rubbed a page with my fingertips as I stared into space. Something suddenly nagged at my brain and I looked down at the calendar, then studied the page closely. Farrell had written “drm” on it. It didn’t mean anything to me, but it piqued my interest how hard he’d pressed down on the page when he wrote. I flipped to the next page and it had a couple of appointments on it, written in the same hard-pressed hand. I peeked at the page underneath. I ran my fingers over the page and felt the indentations, then turned back to the previous day with the “drm” appointment. I flipped forward again. The indentation matched the writing on the page before. Of course…could it be this simple?

  I flipped back to the day after the first page that Gus had taken and examined the page closely. Sure enough, I saw slight indentations on the page. I took the calendar into my office, dug in a desk drawer and pulled out a pencil, then lightly scribbled over the page. It was Private Investigator Tip 101, and darned if it didn’t work. As I covered the page in lead, a couple of names appeared. At noon was “Hank – lunch”, and at 4 PM, “Betsy L”.

  I sat down at my desk chair and pondered that. Neither name meant anything to me. I glanced at The Maltese Falcon poster. Humphrey Bogart stared at me with his cold dark eyes.

  “Come on, Bogie, how about some help?”

  He didn’t reply.

  Hank and Betsy. Why did Gus want to hide those appointments? I turned through the pages of the calendar to the second page Gus had ripped out and did the same pencil trick for the day after the missing page, the day before Noel Farrell was killed. There was another entry for “Betsy L”, but not for Hank. So Farrell had met with her at least twice. I repeated the name, then stopped. Where else had I seen her name? And how was she connected to Trevor Welch?

  Then it dawned on me. I booted up my computer, went back to a people search website, and found the record for the Trevor Welch who lived in Arvada. One of the people it listed who was connected to him was B. Ladner. Betsy L.? The site said she was fifty-seven, and Trevor was twenty-six. His mother? Or a much older sister? There was only one way to find out: I’d have to go talk to her. I clicked on her name and it listed an address in Parker, a suburb southeast of Denver. I glanced at the clock: just after 2 PM. If Betsy was there now, I could see if my theory was correct. If she worked, she might not be home and I’d have to wait for her to return. I didn’t relish waiting around for her, but I didn’t have much choice, so I left Willie a note and headed out the door.

  ***

  Betsy Ladner lived in a small ranch-style house off of Parker Road and East Main Street, just south of downtown Parker. The houses were built close together, most with evergreens in the yard, and a few with flower beds, although any remaining flowers were frozen stiff. At a little after 3 PM, I parked at the curb, walked up the driveway to a sidewalk that led up steps to a long concrete porch. I rang the doorbell and a low barking immediately ensued. It sounded like a big dog. When no one came to the door, I tried again for good measure, ignoring the barking, and then hurried back to the Subaru. I drove down the street and parked for a bit, then drove around the block and positioned the Subaru in a different place. Finally, an hour later, her garage door began sliding up and a blue Honda pulled into the driveway. I hopped out of the Subaru, stretched, and trotted up the driveway. By now the Honda had pulled into the garage.

  Thank goodness, I thought. I didn’t think I could’ve stood another minute of sitting in the cold.

  A moment later, the Honda turned off, a car door opened and then slammed shut and a woman with short, straw-colored hair appeared. She was about five-nine, thin and wiry, and she carried a briefcase and had a bulky purse slung over her shoulder.

  “Can I help you?” she asked cautiously. She stared at my face.

  Damn these black eyes, I thought, making me look like a hooligan.

  She had a hand stuck purposefully in the purse and I wondered if she was clutching some kind of weapon. Mace? Pepper spray? Car keys that she would wield at me? She also looked as if she were in good physical shape and could knock me out if she wanted to. She might’ve been bluffing, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I put my hands up, palms out, and introduced myself, this time using my real name.

  “Are you Betsy Ladner?”

  “I might be. Who wants to know?”

  “I’m a private investigator and I’d like to talk to you about Noel Farrell, if you have a minute.”

  “Oh, somebody else from the agency?” she blurted out.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just the other day two men…wait.” She stared at me. “You’re not with Farrell Investigations?”

  “No.” I took a business card from my wallet. An empty hand came out of her purse and she took the card. I relaxed slightly as she read it.

  “I’m investigating Farrell’s death.”

  “What?” She dropped the briefcase and a hand flew to her mouth. “What happened?”

  “He was shot.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  I picked up her briefcase and handed it to her. “I’d like to ask you some questions about Farrell and a case he was working on.”

  Fear suddenly loomed in her eyes. “This is about my son, isn’t it? Is Trevor okay?”

  That confirmed one thing, I thought, Trevor was indeed her son. Then I said, “It is about your son, but I haven’t spoken to him.”

  “Oh no, please let him be okay.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m sure he’s all right.” Just wounded and elusive. “But I need your help.”

  She seemed to calm down. The worry hadn’t completely gone, as if she lived with apprehension about her son every day. But she wasn’t going to break down, either. “Okay, let’s go inside. But I’m warning you, my husband will be home soon, and I also have an attack dog.”

  “I heard it,” I said.

  She waved me to the porch. “I’ll meet you at the front door.” Then she disappeared into the garage. A moment later the garage door closed. I crossed my arms against the biting cold and waited for her to open the front door. She stood there holding a German Shepherd by the collar.

  “Come in. The living room’s to the left.”

  The dog growled as I stepped inside and past her. The living room was warm and tasteful, decorated in shades of green, with a maple coffee table, a cream-colored couch and two wingback chairs that sat in front of a stone fireplace. She walked up to the fireplace, flicked a switch, and a fire suddenly appeared.

  “I love these gas fireplaces,” she said as she sat down in one of the chairs. “No fussing with wood and keeping the fire stoked.”

  I had to agree, and overall the room felt very cozy and inviting. Then the dog walked over and positioned itself next to her chair, sucking some of the coziness out of the room as it eyed me warily. It didn’t have to worry. I was as cautious of it as it was of me.

  She gestured at the couch. “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then she shocked me with a bombshell. “Did Trevor kill Farrell?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I was stunned, in part because she’d asked that, but also because I’d made a rookie mistake in not asking that myself. In truth,
it didn’t seem likely, because how would her son have got my gun? But since I couldn’t remember how I’d lost my Glock, I realized I had no way of knowing if Trevor killed Noel Farrell. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me.

  “That I don’t know,” I said, recovering quickly. “I only know that Noel Farrell was investigating Trevor, and I just discovered today that Farrell had met you on a couple of occasions, so here I am.”

  “I thought maybe Trevor thought Farrell was with some loan sharks and so he killed Farrell. I don’t think my son is a killer, but things lately have been…well…let me start at the beginning.” She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “As I suppose you’ve figured out, I hired Farrell because there have been some problems with my son.” She paused. “How much do you know about Trevor?”

  I gave her the basics that I had, how old he was and where he worked.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Let me back up. Trevor’s a good kid. He went to college, got his MBA, and he’s got a good job with a software company. Only…” She petted the dog for a moment. “Somewhere along the line, he’s gotten himself into trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Gambling.” She took a moment to gather her thoughts and continue. “I thought it was all harmless at first. When he was in college, he lived here during the summers and he had his poker buddies come over, and it all seemed harmless, as far as we could tell. We had no idea it was becoming a problem until he went to Vegas. He blew a big chunk of his student loan money and he came running to us for help. My husband – Trevor’s stepfather – went through the roof. He gave Trevor a stern lecture about the gambling and Trevor seemed to take it to heart.” She sighed. “In retrospect, I think he just got better at hiding the problem. Then when he graduated and started working, I heard his friends drop hints about him going up to Black Hawk on the weekends. We confronted him and he assured us the gambling wasn’t out of control. He was an adult, so we couldn’t do a whole lot, and we’d hear about the big scores he made. But he kept the losses from us. Then a few months ago, he came to me and asked for my help.”