Harold Mortime struggled with his umbrella as the chilly rain whipped around him. Only two more blocks to home. Couldn’t find a cab, damn it. His raincoat was drenched and his socks were soaked. Only two more blocks.
Thunder rumbled. Mortime paused to pull his hat down on his forehead. A burst of lightning flashed overhead. He blinked, eyes twitching. He tried to remember the equation for figuring how close lightning struck after thunder boomed. Whatever. That had been close.
A car zoomed by, splashing his leg. Goddamn it. One more block. Just one more block. Then dry slippers, a warm sweater, a drink—
The roar of thunder pounded his face like a boxing glove. White light seared his eyes in the same instant like a light bulb bursting in his eyes. Electric shock stabbed at his skin like a shower of needles in the rain.
For a single, endless moment Harold Mortime was weightless, his body floating in space. The umbrella fell from his numb fingers. He felt his head hit the wet sidewalk. The clouds convulsed over his head, black like a dark sea coming to drown him as the icy rain pounded his face.
Oh god, he found it, Mortime thought for one last fleeting moment. How did he—
Then the lightning flashed again, and everything went black.
I sipped some coffee, checked my email, and started on a report of a surveillance from the night before. Being a private detective can something be boring work. And wet.
It had been raining in Chicago for a week and a half, like monsoon season in southeast Asia. I’d tailed a subject named Alan Lavoy fourteen blocks through cold pouring rain last night until he’d ducked into a house in Wicker Park, then waited two hours under a bus stop shelter down the street, watching and waiting. When he came out, he got into a Lyft and vanished in the rain.
Why couldn’t he do that in the first place? But then I wouldn’t have been able to tail him, so it worked out, even though I was soaking wet by the time I found a cab. Rachel was watching Doom Patrol when I got home, so I changed into dry sweats and watched the next episode with her until I fell asleep on the sofa.
Rachel has short red hair and hazelnut eyes, and psychic powers that help me out when a case takes a supernatural turn, which it does all too often. We share an office in our apartment.
She walked into the office at 9:15. Instead of her usual morning work look—sneakers and jeans—she was barefoot, in a black T-shirt and panties.
I raised an eyebrow. “Good morning.”
“Don’t gawk. You’re not a teenager.” She sank into her chair with a yawn. “I’ve got a Zoom meeting at 11, I don’t want to sit here in my good suit for two hours until then and get coffee on it. I’ll get dressed later.” But she gave me a wink. “Plus, it’s fun to give you a thrill sometimes.”
“Good thing my ten o’clock is phone only or you’d give my client a thrill. She’s female, but you never know.”
“That’s what backgrounds are for, you know?” She sipped her coffee. “Okay, I’m working now. Don’t bother me. Don’t leer at me. Too much.” She swung to her computer.
I refilled my coffee at 9:55 and waited for my call—a report on last night’s surveillance. The client, Lenore Grayson, was a lawyer representing a woman in a divorce case. They were trying to get a handle on the husband’s assets. The wife was sure he owned property around the city he’d never told her about, aside from a chain of coffeeshops he owned. So I was supposed to tail him a few nights a week to see where if he had any secret lairs the wife didn’t know about.
My phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Hi, Tom.” It was Grayson. “The morning has gone crazy. Julie Lavoy’s boyfriend Warren died last night.”
“Oh my god.” Julie Lavoy was the woman getting the divorce. Her ex was Alan Lavoy. “What happened?”
“He was struck by lightning.” Grayson sighed. “Crazy, right? Just getting out of his car to meet her for dinner. Julie’s, uh, not in any shape to talk about things right now.”
“Can’t blame her.” At least it hadn’t been a drive-by shooting, but that probably wasn’t any consolation. “Anyway, Lavoy walked around to all his stores in the pouring rain, and then he ended up in a house in Wicker Park, stayed there two hours, then took a Lyft home. Meanwhile, I got soaked. Can I expense a new raincoat? Not that I’m complaining—”
“You get paid rain or shine, gumshoe.” Grayson chuckled.
“I’m just saying. Anyway, the house is owned by a guy Harold Mortime, according to tax records. I’m looking into him just for the heck of it, but it doesn’t sound like we can add it to Lavoy’s assets for the case.”
“Okay. Maybe they’re partners in one of his shops. Keep checking those out. Julie wants to take him for everything she can, after catching herpes from him. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to mention that.”
“Is that why the barista is suing him?” I’d done a pretty through check on Lavoy.
“Can’t tell you. But Julie’s got texts showing cheating, so, you decide.” She chuckled again. “Okay, let’s both get back to work. Ciao.”
We hung up. In addition to Lavoy, I was also looking into investors and partners in his coffeeshop chain—Redburn, from a Herman Melville novel, obviously chosen to duplicate the success of Starbucks from Moby-Dick—and anything else I could find.
I tried not to glance over at Rachel too much, and then I found something that pulled my attention away from her—for a moment. “That’s weird.”
“What? Is it my butt?” She whirled around in her chair. “Stop looking at me!”
“Not your butt.” I leaned back and pointed at my screen. “The lawyer’s client, her boyfriend? Got struck by lightning and killed last night.”
“So what? I mean, that’s sad, but—”
“No, what’s weird is that I tailed her soon-to-be-ex-husband to a house in Wicker Park last night in that thunderstorm, and the guy who owned the house? He was killed by lightning last week.”
“Whoa.” Her eyebrows rose. “That’s kind of weird. Anything to do with the divorce case?”
“I don’t know. Yet.” I turned back to my computer.
“Okay.” Rachel stood up. “I have to go dress.”
“Need some help?”
“Don’t follow me!” She punched my shoulder on the way out. I watched her leave, sighed, and went back to work.
Harold Mortime was a retired professor of meteorology, which seemed ironic. Divorced, 67, he’d had a blog and podcast about weather. The only connection I could find was that Lavoy had attended the same university—U of Illinois—but he’d majored in business. I emailed Grayson to ask Julie about it when she had a chance. Then I went onto other leads.
Rachel came back in a white blouse and blue blazer for her meeting. She twirled around. “This okay? Professional enough?” She was in snug jeans. “I thought about not wearing pants. But I might have to stand up.”
“Darn.” I turned and tried to focus on work.
I found two other businesses Lavoy was involved with, through partners in his Redburn shops. One was a Mexican restaurant, and the other some sort of IT consultancy. I didn’t know how this might affect the outcome of the divorce, but Grayson could sort the assets out.
Two hours later I was ready for lunch and Rachel was finishing up her meeting when my phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Mr. Jurgen? This is Julie Lavoy. Do you have a minute?”
I hadn’t spoken to her directly before—my client was Lenore Grayson. But I couldn’t see anything wrong with talking. “Of course. I’m sorry for—about your—loss.” Considering how often I talk to grieving husbands, wives, and parents, I should have said it better, but condolences are always awkward.
“Thank you.” Her voice was calm and controlled. “It’s about—Lenore told me about Harold Mortime. I remember the name. Alan talked about him, and he and his friend Marcus, I guess they took some classes from him in college. I don’t know anything about him. But I remembered today that a few months ago I got a call from Marcus—Marcus Diego. They were best friends in college. I only knew him a little bit when we were dating and got married, and then I didn’t see him around for a long time. He was asking about Alan. Like he hadn’t heard from him in a while, and he didn’t know about—about the divorce. And he sounded—worried? Nervous? I don’t know. Anyway, I gave him Alan’s new number, and that was it.”
She paused for breath. “But this thing about Mortime got me wondering. All I have is a phone number, and he didn’t answer when I called him today. Maybe you could find out where he is? If he’s all right? I don’t—I mean, he’s Alan’s friend, but I liked him too.”
She’d been talking fast. I said, “Well, I should check with Lenore. This isn’t directly connected to what I’ve been hired for, but—”
“That’s fine. I can pay you myself, if it’s a problem.”
“All right. Tell me a little more about Marcus?” I reached for my notebook and a pen.
“They were roommates for two years. I met him before we were married. He’s nice. Smokes a lot of weed. It didn’t—they argued sometimes, when he came over or when we went out together. Then it was like they had a falling out six or seven months ago, right around the time—when we were splitting up. And then I was busy getting divorced. And I met Warren. Just a second.” She paused, and I heard a swallow. “Water. And now Warren’s . . .” Her voice trailed off.
I changed the subject. “What about Harold Mortime?”
“They talked about him a lot for a while. I guess he was a prof at U of I when they were there. I don’t know how they got together, but they were hanging out sometimes when we were dating. I don’t think I ever met him, or if I did I don’t remember. Alan said his name one time or two when he was arguing with Marcus on the phone.”
“What did they talk about? About Mortime.”
“They were trying to find out where he was. I guess he dropped out of sight after he retired. Then they were trying to get him to talk to them. I don’t know what they wanted. Alan never explained it to me. He, uh, kept a lot of secrets. Obviously.” Her voice turned bitter. Then she sighed. “That’s all I know. I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s fine. This gives me something to work with. So you basically just want me to find Marcus and put him in touch with you?”
“Yeah. I just—I have a funny feeling about this. I know that doesn’t make sense—”
“My girlfriend has feelings like that all the time. She’s psychic.”
That didn’t faze her. “All right. Thank you.”
I got a few more details, and then we hung up.
Rachel finished her meeting and swung around in her chair. “That’s over.” She stood up, shrugged out of her blazer, and started unbuttoning her blouse. “Lunch?”
“Sure. Got a new angle on the divorce case.”
“Tell me later.” She headed past me to the door, then turned, her blouse open. “You coming or what?”
I jumped up. “On my way.”
No comments:
Post a Comment