Malice Times Page 21

  "Me and Rae were assigned to each other as freshmen."

  “Randomly?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Why?”

  “It just seems an odd coincidence that the estranged daughter of the district attorney of Malice Grove ends up roommates with the daughter of one of its most prominent businessmen.”

  “It was just a coincidence. They do happen sometimes.” Then she started to laugh so hard that tears started to stream down her cheeks.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking about the day our fathers met each other for the very first time, or so we thought. It was a parents’ weekend. I asked my father to come up. I had never done that before. We were not close. But he eagerly jumped at any opportunity to see me. So, Rae and I arranged to have dinner with each other. Her father got there first. My father was running a little late and said that he would meet us at the restaurant. So, there we were, I was facing the door, Rae was on my right and Mr. Dempsey had his back to the door, when in comes my father. Rae saw him first. Her eyes got really wide. When I got up to greet him, Rae’s mouth dropped open. I hugged him. Then, my father says, ‘It is such a pleasure to meet you.’ And Mr. Dempsey rises out of his seat and says, ‘It certainly is, Stephen.’ You could have knocked my father over and then they both just started laughing and laughing and they couldn’t stop. We had such a nice normal dinner. No one talked about Malice Grove. They made up some story about being business acquaintances and snickered about it and left it at that.”

  “It is a small world. I wonder if that is why Dempsey was so willing to help your father that night. If that dinner had never happened, if you and Rae weren’t such good friends, I wonder if Dempsey would have even bothered. It is possible that night might have saved your father’s life.”

  “I hadn’t even considered that. Do you think so?”

  “I’ve puzzled over why Dempsey would help Archer so willingly. Sure, there was some political gain out of it for him, but he could have accomplished the same and gotten even with Archer and my father by burying him and bringing in someone else as district attorney while my father was picking up the pieces. Tell me, did you and Rae get along right away?"

  "Oh, yes," she said. "We had a lot in common."

  "How so?" I asked.

  "We were both trying to get over our high school loves."

  "Oh," I said. "You must not have liked me very much."

  "No comment,” she said.

  “You don’t really have a very high opinion of me even now, do you?” I asked.

  “Whatever do you mean?” Regina took a sip of wine.

  “I’ve lost track of the number of times and the different ways you have questioned my intelligence.”

  “You’re like a bull running through the streets of Pamplona. You just keep chugging along and you don’t particularly care what’s in front of you, you just want to get to the end, so you just plow right through. You’re lucky to still be alive.”

  "Since I came back to Malice Grove, all I wanted was to get back out. So, I’ve pushed a little bit more than was probably safe, because I could feel myself drowning. I’ve never told anyone what happened the night I left. I didn’t just run away from my father because I couldn’t stand him. I mean ultimately that’s why.” Then, I told her the whole story, everything from beginning to end. I don’t know why. I just wanted to tell someone. I had wanted to tell Rae, but she didn’t want to listen. Telling Regina was the next best thing. As I finished, she daubed her tear-soaked cheeks with her cloth napkin.

  "That’s so very, very sad. You kept Brad's bomber jacket.” She started to cry again. She lifted the napkin to her face. When she continued it was through the cloth napkin. “Not something I would expect from you. Perhaps you were in love with him a little bit. Seems very much like something someone in love would do."

  “I did love him. He was the closest family I had. He was the father I wanted.”

  “I wonder if you would have stayed in Malice Grove if it had just been your brother. If when you got back here Brad was still alive and working alongside your father.”

  “What did you go to school for?” I asked.

  “I majored in psychology.”

  “So why are you working as a secretary and not a psychologist or psychiatrist?"

  "When I came to Malice Grove all those years back, I always intended to go on to graduate school and all of that, but things happen. I went to a temp agency and they placed me at The Malice Times and Patrick Bryant liked me so much he hired me on full time away from the agency. I spent time with my father. My mother had had the stroke a year earlier. I was struggling to pay the bills. Dad offered to pay them. I told him that I couldn’t let him do that. He said it was the very least he could do. I was in no position to say no. But I stayed and I tried to build a relationship with my father after all those years. Then Celia left, well died. Things were bad after that. I didn't know that he thought he had killed Celia and Brad. If I had, perhaps I could have helped him better, but he became more and more withdrawn. Rumors flew around town that he had murdered them, but I didn't believe them. I began to wonder why I was even there. No one except Rae and Dempsey knew that I was his daughter. Soon the rumors became that he had killed them for me. That we were lovers. It was sickening. I stopped seeing him altogether. There were moments I thought of going back to school, but I had no money and bills stacked to the ceiling. When it was over and I stopped talking to him I ended up fifteen thousand dollars in debt. And that was without my student loans. I’ve paid off those student loans now and have less than five thousand dollars debt. It was hard but I did it, and maybe I will go back to school finally. But then again it may be too late."

  "It's never too late to make things right,” I said. I didn’t really believe it, but just as she had to try, so did I.

  36

  Club Nemesis was closed when we got there the next day. That didn't surprise me. After all it was only one in the afternoon. The club sat on a corner. Red brick reached down both streets creating a giant triangle of a building. The building stood three stories. ‘Club Nemesis’ in red cursive writing sat above double wood doors that sprawled across the entire corner façade. A window hung on each side of the building high up like two gleaming eyes giving the effect that Club Nemesis was frowning.

  I opened the wood door on the right and entered. Before we got two feet inside the club, a big man, almost as big as Watkins, jumped from behind a bar and grabbed me by the arm. He was in a pair of blue jeans and a tight-fitting black t-shirt with the red cursive Nemesis written across the front.

  "The place doesn't open until eight," he said and turned me around. Regina just stood there, her mouth slightly open.

  "I need to talk to Mr. Regan," I said quickly.

  He hesitated and looked me over carefully. "Who are you? I've never seen you two before."

  "My name is Joe March and this is Regina Chapel," I said. "Tell him I need to ask him some questions regarding some old friends of his."

  "What old friends?"

  "Tom Watkins and Bruce Drake."

  "Drake?" he asked. "Wait here. I'll go ask the boss."

  He loosened his icy grip on my right bicep and walked around a corner to my right. We stood there for a moment not knowing exactly what to do. I wandered over to the corner the man had gone around and peeked. There was a long hallway. At the opposite end was a closed door. On the right were two doors, which probably led to restrooms and on the left there was an open archway, which I assumed led to the club itself.

  The small foyer that Regina and I waited in had a cigarette dispenser and a bar. There was no alcohol behind the bar. I figured that it must be used to collect a cover charge to get into the club. I peeked behind the bar. There was an open cash drawer back there. There was no cash in it and beside the drawer was a sawed-off shotgun. A nasty little piece of work that could blow someone’s head clean off.

  "What the hell are you doing?" I heard from behind me. The sharp gruff
voice startled me. I turned slowly to see along with the previous man, a much shorter man. The shorter man was built like a Sherman tank.

  "Don't worry," I said. "Nothing back there to steal, except that novelty shotgun."

  "It may be a novelty to you, but a sawed-off shotgun causes quite a mess and deters a lot of people from trying to steal from Mr. Regan."

  "Doesn’t the name Mr. Regan deter people from stealing from him," I said.

  "Yes, it does," shorty said. "That’s just to deter the brave drunk. Follow me."

  He led us down the hallway. On the right like I had assumed were the two restrooms. On the left was an archway. Through it I saw a big room with at least a hundred tables. Chairs were upturned and on top of the tables. A few of the club's employees walked around busily getting prepared for the evening.

  When we got to the end of the hallway, the short man took a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Behind the door was a flight of stairs leading up. At the top of the first flight of stairs was another door. Another flight of stairs reached upwards behind me and to the right. This one was unlocked and he simply turned the knob and the door swung open. He stood to one side and motioned us in past him.

  Once Regina and I were safely in the room he closed the door. A rather magnificent looking man behind a big oak desk stood and walked to us. When Regina saw him her jaw dropped a little. He had to have been a little over six feet tall, with short blonde hair and dark green eyes. His tanned face was a sharp contrast. He was wearing black slacks, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He wore no tie and the shirt was unbuttoned where tufts of blonde hair emerged. He wore no jewelry except for a black onyx ring with a diamond set in the center. He looked like he stepped right out of a cologne advertisement.

  "Joe March?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said. "And this is my assistant, Regina Chapel."

  "What do you want?" he asked.

  "I thought that maybe you could answer some questions for me."

  "I don't like answering questions. I like asking them." He walked back to his desk and sat down.

  "I assure you that none of the questions are really about you."

  “I doubt that’s true. Why should I even talk to you?"

  I gave him a little background about why I was there. I even made sure to throw in the names he might recognize. Especially the names I had mentioned to his henchman. When I was finished, he was grinning.

  “I know all of that,” he said. He stepped behind his desk and sat down. “Your name has come up in conversation recently. Please have a seat.”

  I didn’t like that my name had come up in a conversation with this man. We moved to a pair of chairs in front of his desk and sat down.

  "So, you know Tom Watkins?" he asked.

  "Not as well as you.”

  “This conversation will go better if you try not to annoy me,” he said. I looked at Regina and she gave me a severe glance. “So ask me a question.”

  “Well, since you brought up Tom Watkins, why don’t we start there?”

  "I have unfinished business with Tom." I decided this wasn't the man I wanted to have any unfinished business with.

  “What kind of unfinished business?” He just looked at me. “I was told that you were going to make a swap of personnel with my father, Watkins for Brad Graber.”

  “Brad Graber. That’s a name from the past. Isn’t he dead?”

  “That wasn’t very responsive to my question,” I said.

  “Like I said, I like to be the one asking the questions.”

  I was getting a little annoyed with the song and dance. He wasn’t going to talk to me, but I needed him to talk to me. I was almost there. I almost knew everything I needed to know, but he had the last bit of knowledge that I needed before I could start piecing everything together. “You know another name from the past. Brian Prater, also known as Don Webb.”

  He eyed me carefully, sizing me up like a boxer. “He is also dead.”

  “He was killed by Brad Graber.”

  “Perhaps I should be the one asking you questions. You seem to know all the answers. Brian Prater died a few years ago. Brad Graber showed up in this establishment, found him in one of the upstairs bedrooms and beat him to death with his bare hands.”

  “And you didn’t kill Brad?” I asked.

  “No, I did not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Perhaps I was afraid. He had just killed someone with his bare hands.”

  I laughed and shook my head. I skipped past that for a moment. “Yet, no one in this establishment got in his way. I walked into this place and I was grabbed up by the second biggest goon I have ever seen, but Brad Graber waltzes right in here, through a locked door, up two flights of steps right past your office to one of the who knows how many apartments you have upstairs, enters and beats him to death.”

  “Now, can you see why I was so afraid?”

  “My father had called you and told you what happened,” I said.

  “Again, you seem to know all of the answers. We can’t have people like that in our organization no matter the debt we owe.”

  “So if Brad hadn’t killed him, you would have?” I asked.

  He eyed me like a fox would eye a hound. There was a suspicious glint in my eye. I had hit on something with that question. I followed it up, “It seems awfully convenient that Prater was found blown to pieces in a house explosion. That takes some time to set up and do properly.”

  “What are you driving at?” he asked. He pulled his lower lip into his mouth and his tongue moved slowly across it. His eyes squinted in appraisal.

  “That had been put in place for him before he even got here,” I said. “You were planning on killing him the whole time.”

  A woman entered the room, then. She was in her late forties, maybe early fifties. She stood only about five foot five with brown hair and very deep blue eyes. I stared at those eyes and it gave me a shiver. I had seen those eyes before. I rose.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” Regan said as he rose and walked to her. He kissed her on the cheek. “These are my guests, Joe March and Regina. I’m sorry, I have forgotten your last name.”

  “Chappel,” Regina said.

  “This is my wife, Lizzy,” he said.

  I felt like I was looking at a ghost. My stomach turned as I stared into those eyes. I forced myself to walk over to her and proffer my hand. She enveloped it in mine. It was warm. She smiled at me. I smiled back.

  “Hello, Mrs. Regan,” I said.

  “Hello, Mr. March.” She released my hand and took Regina’s. “Ms. Chappel. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Thank you,” Regina said.

  “Paul, I will be needing a little cash. I’m going to be meeting Stephanie for a late lunch.”

  “Of course, darling.” Regan reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash big enough to choke a whale on and peeled off ten twenties and handed them to her. “Will I be seeing you later?”

  “Yes, we have the gala tonight. I hope you didn’t forget.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten,” he said. “It had just momentarily slipped my mind.”

  “I brought your tuxedo. It is upstairs in your private room. Please try to be ready when I get back.”

  “I will.” Regan kissed his wife and led her out. We all returned to our seats. Regan looked at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “You have a very lovely wife,” I said. “Where did you two meet?”

  “We met in Las Vegas way back in the day.”

  “How do you know Bruce Drake?” I asked.

  “We knew each other way back in the day, too.”

  “Tell me about Brian Prater.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  I had to tread very carefully. “I mean I know why he had to leave Las Vegas.”

  “Do you?” He had an amused look in his eye. “Why don’t we cut to the chase, Mr. March since you seem to know so very much. This little dance we’re d
oing has become boring.”

  “That seems like a very good idea, Mr. Regan. I think I might be able to be of some service to you.”

  “How could you possibly be of service to me?”

  I reached into my pocket and felt for the hard stone. I pulled it out and placed it on his desk. He looked down at the stone and then back up at me. His green eyes seemed to glow. A sudden fear shot through my body. Perhaps I had just made a colossal mistake.

  “Maybe you can be of some service to me,” he said. The pieces were starting to fall into place and the fog was beginning to lift.

  “More than Tom Watkins has I imagine,” I said.

  “Tom is on the hook to me for quite a bit of cash,” he said.

  “Is that why you called in your favor to my father to take Watkins under his care in Malice Grove?”

  “On the surface it would have seemed that Tom Watkins had my merchandise. I wanted your father to keep him there, make sure he didn’t go anywhere. I almost sent someone to take care of the problem, but then something very bizarre happened. Tom called me and told me that Brad was dead and that the money was gone. I wasn’t sure if I should believe him. On one hand, who else could have my merchandise? On the other, if he had the merchandise, why was he calling me? Why not just disappear? You can disappear pretty nicely with what he was supposed to have.”

  “You set up the diamond heist,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I want half. That was the deal I had with Graber. You keep the rest.”

  I couldn’t move. He had just offered me an untold fortune. I let the numbers tumble through my brain like a dream.

  “Did Watkins kill Graber?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It would appear that he did. And my money is gone. Tom’s time is almost up. I have been more than generous. I have been keeping a very close eye on him. I gave him a year. I am beginning to think that he does have them. That he has just been biding his time. Maybe instead of looking for my diamonds, he has been procuring buyers.”

  “How many diamonds are there?”

  “A lot,” he said.

  “You set this up,” I said. “You knew exactly how much in uncut diamonds were in that vault. You had Drake. He knew the layout of The Golden Seagull. He had managed it for years. But that’s not how you knew. You knew because you were the part of the pipeline that took the diamonds from wherever they got smuggled from into the United States and sent to Las Vegas to be sold. You waited and waited until you knew there was a vast fortune in those vaults and then you struck. So how much?”