Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) (28 page)

As I watched her eat, something about Tig’s message gnawed at me. Susan Gruber’s phone number looked familiar. Slowly I lifted Phillipa’s address book from my pocket, keeping it underneath my napkin, safe from prying eyes. I thumbed to the H section and read Henry’s number. It was the same one Tig had given me for Susan Gruber. We ate in silence until Jane returned.

“I was wondering why the ransom was only two and a half million,” Lorraine mused in between forkfuls of pizza. I stared at her for a second, not because of what she’d said, but because I’d never seen anyone eat pizza with a knife and fork.

“Sounds like a huge amount to me,” Cookie said. “That kind of money will never flow into or out of my hands.”

Lorraine shook her head. “As far as ransoms go, it’s small. A few years ago, the average ransom paid to Somali pirates was seventeen million.”

Denny gaped at his mother.

“Don’t kidnappers do an asset search to figure out just how much the traffic will bear?” Willoughby asked.

“And how would they do that?” Cookie asked.

“Anyone can find out a person’s net worth, at least get a ballpark,” Lorraine said. “Take Trisha Liam. She owns a townhouse on the Promenade; she’s a named partner in a boutique Manhattan law firm; she rides in a limo to and from work; she sends her child to a private school. Her net worth has to be way up there, but I’m getting off track.”

Jane nodded, her eyes glued to Lorraine.

“I think the amount of this ransom is significant to the kidnapper in a way I haven’t quite figured out.” Lorraine paused to cut her pizza. “And I’m not sure whether the kidnapper was hurt by Mitch or by Trisha Liam, but I suspect the latter.”

“We know that much,” Willoughby said.

“We do?” Jane asked.

Willoughby seemed to think. “Maybe not. But there are two of them, remember? A Swiss national and this Ben Small guy.”

“Ben Small is careless,” Lorraine said. “He left his fingerprints in the van. That tells me he’s not the mastermind—he’s a hired hand with access to drugs.”

“How do you know?” Willoughby asked.

Jane rolled her eyes.

“Here’s my problem. I looked at the wrongful death cases filed against Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey clients. All the claimants were asking for well over seventeen million in damages, but of course, I had access to recent data only. The firm’s digitized files go back five years, that’s all.”

Willoughby swiped crumbs from his tie. “But they never get what they ask for.”

“That’s not the point I was trying to make,” Lorraine said.

Jane did a double eye roll and took her fourth piece of pizza. “I think I like the Margherita the best.”

“You would,” Willoughby said.

Jane shot him a daggered look. “Back to Lorraine’s point.”

Lorraine put down her knife and fork. “I think the kidnapper may have been hurt by Trisha Liam or someone else in her law firm, whoever was the trial lawyer defending a doctor or a hospital in a wrongful death. I think he’s far more emotionally involved in this case than a mob hit man would be. Just a feeling I have, nothing more.”

“But there could be a mob connection,” I said.

“Of course. Ben Small,” Lorraine said.

I watched Jane’s face for an eruption, but there was none. Apparently she was willing to entertain whatever Lorraine offered.

“We don’t have the official results of her death yet, but chances are good that Phillipa was stuck with a needle, just like we can assume Mitch Liam was. And that doesn’t bode well for Brandy.”

We were quiet for a few moments, forgetting our food.

“I need to see older cases,” Lorraine said, “but I think the amount of the ransom mirrors a settlement figure.”

“If they settled, wouldn’t they have closure?” Willoughby asked.

“I’m thinking of cases where a settlement was rejected, and the claimant lost the ensuing trial.”

I thought Jane was going to kiss Lorraine. “I have authority to retain your services on the spot for far more than Fina can ever pay you.”

Lorraine smiled. “Not interested, but thank you.” She turned to me. “I need to dig into Liam, Trueblood & Wolsey’s cases, the sooner the better. Can you arrange it?”

I made a note to call Trisha and turned to Jane. “Did your team find out anything more about Brite?”

“Nothing we didn’t already know. Sloppy operation. I think they’re going out of business soon.”

“We stopped using Brite,” Lorraine said. “They charged us for deliveries we never ordered, and when we questioned them, they never could show us records proving otherwise.”

“Their messengers are old, too,” Cookie said.

“Aging workforce in every field,” Willoughby said, snapping his fingers again for the waiter.

“You’re disgusting.” Jane folded her napkin beside her plate.

“How do you know their messengers are old?” I asked Cookie. But before she could reply, I knew the answer. “You saw him.”

Jane sat up. “You saw the delivery of the ransom note?”

“Sort of. Don’t look at me like that. It all happened so fast. At the same time Phillipa was racing out of the house toward the Promenade, a guy was delivering something to Trisha Liam’s townhouse. Matter of fact, they talked to each other, Phillipa and the messenger. Or at least I remember the guy must have said something to her, because she pointed in the direction of the stoop.”

“Describe him.”

Cookie shrugged. “He had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder.”

“That’s it?”

“I don’t know. Tallish. Thin. Blondish hair. Maybe. He looked like a monk after a meal.”

“A monk?”

“He had a bald spot on the back of his head like a tonsure.”

“A monk after a meal?” I asked.

Cookie flipped through her notes. “He was rolling a toothpick around in his mouth.”

My heart rose to my throat. Something about that messenger. I looked at Jane and swallowed.

“Don’t even think of going there.”

Of course, I ignored her. “Can you give us a quick sketch?”

Cookie hesitated, looking into the distance. In a minute, she pulled out her notebook, drew the messenger’s likeness, and handed it to me.

Chapter 53

Fina. Afternoon Three, The Van Owner

The sun hung midway between the horizon and the top of the world as Jane and I drove westward. Any minute it would morph into a low-hanging orange ball. After a breakneck hurtle down the turnpike and east toward New Jersey’s shore, we’d made it to someplace in the center of the state, the township of Upper Freehold, heading in the direction of Susan Gruber’s last known address. I held it a fifty-fifty chance she’d be there, since she’d moved around quite a bit in the last few years, from New Jersey to Manhattan to Connecticut and back to New Jersey.

Jane didn’t say a word during most of the ride. She was miffed at me, no doubt, because of one of my many sins. I felt like telling her to get over it, but kept my mouth shut and drove. I’d crossed a line. I could feel the black spot like a clump of dirt rattling around my soul, but I didn’t think she was the type to hold it against me for too long. Anyway, her silence was burning a hole in my brain.

“Exit here,” Jane said, the first two words she’d spoken.

We slowed. I looked around. “Sorry about the book.” I hoped she could hear sincerity oozing out of my words because I wasn’t about to grovel any more than that.

From the edge of my eyes I saw her smile, and I knew we were okay again. I had to hand it to Jane. She’d climbed the ladder in a male world and still had it tough, so I didn’t blame her for her moods and lashes.

Soon we came upon a fairly new development looking like Santa’s Village stuck in the middle of a farmer’s field. We slowed at the guard shack. I asked directions to the address Tig gave me. In about five minutes, we pulled into the driveway.

I knocked, but there was no answer and no neighbors mowing lawns or peeking out of windows. I took a deep breath, marveling at the way the air smelled, not like the canned gunk they served up in Brooklyn most days. The sky was all sorts of colors, rose and gold and deep cerulean. I took great gulps of air, holding in the oxygen, hoping it would cleanse the decay of the morning.

I knocked again. Nothing.

“Did you hear that?” Jane asked.

“A horse.”

“I didn’t mean the neighing.”

We stood still, and I heard sound coming from the back of the house, like the sweep of a brush or the scrape of light metal on brick. Jane reached for her Glock and slipped it from her holster into her pocket. She led the way, inching along the side toward the back.

The noise grew louder. We stopped, and I realized we were sitting ducks in the middle of a vast green lawn flanking a cluster of homes with a horse farm in the distance. I smelled gasoline and cut grass.

“Anyone there?” I yelled.

“Me.” A female voice wafted from behind the shrubbery circling a patio. “Wait a minute. I’ll be with you just as soon as—”

I heard a small crash, then some mild swears. They peppered the area like surprises. This was going to be interesting.

A woman appeared brushing off her jeans. She was slight and wore clogs and a tee and one of those aprons serious gardeners use with a row of pockets. Her hair was as red as mine, maybe a shade or two deeper. But it was straight, and she kept it trimmed short. She wore black-rimmed glasses, the square, designer kind.

“Come about the mower? It’s on the patio. I’ll show you. It’s a good one, but I don’t need it anymore, which is why I’m selling it for cheap. They do the lawns here. Good thing, too—did you see all the grass? Acres of it, enough for a herd of cows. You’d think I’d just moved here. But no, the John Deere’s been sitting in the garage for a while, so you may have to buy new tires. Needed it at my last place. I rolled it outside and cleaned it up so you could take a good look—”

“That’s not why we’re here.” I flashed her my ID while Jane holstered her Glock with the grace of a pit bull.

“I hope that’s not what I think it is,” the woman said. “You’re too young to be playing with guns.”

“Are you Susan Gruber?” I asked.

“That’s me. Sure you can’t use a mower? It’s a real bargain. Runs good. I’m moving to Florida in three months and selling stuff I should have sold years ago.”

There wasn’t a smooth way to tell her why we were visiting, so I took the plunge. “You’re the owner of a van involved in a kidnapping, and your phone number was found in the address book of a woman who was murdered this morning.”

“You have a strange way of introducing yourselves, pulling out guns and talking about kidnapping and murder. And I assure you, I don’t now, nor have I ever, owned a van.”

“The dead woman’s name was Phillipa Olinski. Do you know her?

She shook her head. “Nice sounding name, but, no, I never heard of her. Did she live around here? Murdered, you say? Poor woman.” She stopped and crossed her arms, staring down at the antique bricks on her patio. “She had my phone number in her address book?”

“The ink was faded. When we tried it, a canned voice said the phone was no longer in service.” I read the number to her.

Susan Gruber gave a start, jerking her eyes to the right. “Geez, that’s from another life.”

For a second, I thought she was going to faint. Her hand slammed into her chest, her face drained of color, and she hung onto the patio table for support.

“To be fair,” Jane said, “your name wasn’t in the address book.”

“No, Henry was the name beside the number,” I said.

The woman’s eyes widened. “You’d better come inside,” she said, recovering enough to lead the way to her kitchen.

When we were seated, she excused herself and walked down a short hallway into another room.

I heard a faint ringing sound. “Molly?” Susan Gruber said into what I hoped was a telephone. The conversation continued, but her voice was low, insistent. Although I pride myself on my snoopiness, I couldn’t hear what she was saying. In a few minutes she returned.

“Can I get you something? Fruit juice, water, tea, coffee? I got a new refrigerator a few months ago when I was sprucing up the house to sell it, and it gives great water if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“I’ll take a water with one ice cube,” I said.

“I’ll have the same,” Jane said, “but lots of ice, please.”

She came back to the table balancing three glasses. “My memory’s returning. About the phone number, that is.” She sounded out of breath and, after setting down the water glasses, held one hand to her chest, continuing to stare at the ice cubes as if they understood life far better than humans. She hovered near the table. “I was married at the time I had that phone, to Henry.”

“Henry Gruber?” I asked.

She nodded. “Another life.”

She steadied herself on the edge of the table. I thought she was going to faint.

“Where?”

“About five or six miles away from here, as it happens.” She gave me an address in Ewing Township. “Outside Trenton’s city center. Great neighborhood overlooking the Delaware River, a perfect place to raise children.” Her eyes began to tear up. “I have no idea why he would have given my number to another woman. I assure you, I didn’t give it to her. It was an old cell phone, from at least ten years ago, probably more. But anyway, who remembers old cell phone numbers?”

She must have read my mind because she finished with, “And it’s a long story—about the other life and the marriage. Do I have to tell it?”

“Maybe. We believe the woman’s murder is connected to the abduction of a teen in Brooklyn Heights, and right now we have no other leads, except for your phone number written next to your husband’s name.”

“And the van, don’t forget,” Jane said.

“I don’t know anything about a van, and I don’t know anyone in …” She stopped. “What’s the girl’s name?”

“Brandy Liam.”

“No bells.” She sat. “I’ve called a friend. I’d like her to listen to what we have to say.”

Susan Gruber was no fool when it came to business. Polite, cheery, somewhat scatterbrained, but it was an act. I began to wonder if she was hiding something, and then it fell into place. She was trying to hide something from herself, something she’d buried long ago—her prior life. I pictured her shoveling dirt onto her soul.