The Death Dealer

Page 46

“Oh, hell, Raif, you know he’ll make bail, so you don’t really have him.”
“I do if you can come up with something by tomorrow morning.”
He didn’t have a prayer, Joe thought. No, he didn’t even have the ghost of a chance. Still…
“Thanks, Raif. I’m still down in Maryland, but we’re heading back as soon as we finish eating.” He looked at his watch. “Think you can fix it so I can talk to him tonight?”
“Sure. I can arrange that.”
When Joe returned to the table, he quickly explained the situation.
“But he’ll get out, won’t he?” Genevieve said.
“As soon as we get back, I’m going to talk to him and try to get him to trip himself up. And if I don’t, I’m going to write up all the circumstantial evidence we have, which hopefully will be enough for the D.A.’s office to get a search warrant for his place and maybe even hold him.” Joe looked around the table. “They found out that one of the Bigelows, using Jared’s credit card, rented a Poe costume in Richmond and again in New York.”
Genevieve let out her breath softly. “So Jared did do it. Oh, God. He dressed up like Poe and met Lori Star, and then…”
She wondered if she looked as sick as she felt. Probably.
Their waitress arrived with their food. They ate quickly, then returned to the car and hit the road.
Adam promised that as soon as they got back he would get on the computer and start trying to place the Bigelows in Baltimore when Bradley Hicks had met his untimely demise, and also find out if Bigelow’s credit card had been used to rent a Poe costume there, too.
When they reached the station and Joe got out, he paused and held Gen’s eyes for a long moment. “Genevieve—”
“I know,” she interrupted softly. “I’ll be careful.”
He nodded. “I have my cell,” he said. “Call if you need me. For anything.”
“I can’t believe this might really be over,” Genevieve breathed as Brent got behind the wheel and swung the car out into traffic.
“Maybe. We’ll have to see,” Brent said. He met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Want to come back to Adam’s place with us?”
She smiled. “Thank you, but no. I want to get home. Call my mom and talk for a bit. And no one has to babysit me, not tonight, anyway. Jared Bigelow is in jail.”
Adam frowned. “We think we’re on to the right man. We don’t know it yet. Genevieve—”
“I know,” she said firmly. “I’m just going to go home, talk to my mother and…reconcile myself, I guess.”
“To?” Nikki asked.
“Life—and death,” Genevieve told her.
Brent got the doorman to watch the car and carried her bag up, then went into the apartment with her, looked around to be sure it was safe, then smiled. “You going to be okay? I know it’s got to be tough, getting used to seeing a different world.”
“I’m going to be fine. But you and Nikki aren’t leaving right away, are you?”
“No. We’ll stay a few days.” He sobered. “We still have to make sure the case against Jared will stand up in court.”
“Right.”
He kissed her cheek. “If you need anything, just give us a call.”
“I’ll do that.”
A few minutes later, alone in her apartment, Genevieve made a cup of tea and then called Eileen. She didn’t tell her mother that she had started seeing ghosts. She simply told her that they might have found some solid evidence against Jared Bigelow.
“Jared!” Eileen said. Genevieve could imagine her mother’s stricken expression.
“Mom, you can’t say it’s a terrible shock, that he’s such a nice guy.”
“No, I suppose not. Does that mean I can go out with the other Ravens now? Maybe get a drink at O’Malley’s?” Eileen asked.
Genevieve hesitated. “Mom, they may not be able to keep Jared in jail past tonight.”
“All the more reason to head out now, then. Darling, I’m going stir-crazy.”
“Oh, Mom, I don’t know….”
“I’ll call for a car and have Henry walk me straight to it, and I’ll have it drop me off right at the door to O’Malley’s. I’ll even have it wait until I’m ready to go home, and get someone to walk me back to it, and I’ll call Henry and have him meet me when I come back. How’s that?”
“I suppose that will be all right.”
“Why don’t you join us?” Eileen asked.
“I don’t know. I think I’ll probably just hang out here.”
“All right. But you’re welcome to come if you change your mind.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Genevieve promised.
They bade each other good-night, and Genevieve hung up the phone and started unpacking. When the phone rang a few minutes later, she hurried to answer it, hoping it was Joe.
“Hello?”
“Genevieve?” It was a woman’s voice, but not one she recognized.
“Yes?”
“You wretched bitch!”
Stunned, she stared at the receiver, then hurriedly put the phone down. When it rang again, she didn’t answer it, just let her machine click on and waited.
“You stupid wretched bitch! You were jealous of me, and I know it. You made that friend of yours come after Jared.”
She realized that the caller had been drinking.
She also realized it was Mary Vincenzo.
She listened as the woman continued to rant into the phone until the built-in timer stopped Mary midvent.
The phone rang again. Determined to put Mary in her place, she started to pick it up, but the machine came on immediately. “I’m going to tear your hair out and cut your uppity rich little heart into pieces. You’re always flirting with him, now that you know who your mommy is. Well, you’re still just a bastard. A bastard she threw away at birth. And you should die. You deserve to die. And you know what? I’m coming to get you. I am!”
She walked over to the phone to pick it up to tell Mary what she should do with herself, but the phone clicked off.
A minute later it rang again. She picked up the receiver. “Look, Mary—”
“Um, it’s not Mary,” a shy, tentative voice interrupted her. “It’s Barbara. Barbara Hirshorn,” she said, as if afraid Genevieve might not remember her.
“Oh, Barbara. Sorry,” Genevieve said quickly.
“Lou and I are going to meet your mother at O’Malley’s. We were thinking you might want to join us.”
“I talked to my mother a little while ago and told her I thought I’d just stay home, but thanks for asking,” Genevieve said.
“Are you sure? We could swing by for you.”
Gen hesitated. She might as well go. Her mother wanted to see her, she wanted to see her mother, and she had no idea whether Joe would be coming by or not.
“You know, I think I will come. But you don’t need to pick me up. I’ll take my own car. I’ll see you all there in a little while.”
As soon as Barbara hung up, Gen dialed Joe’s cell. She didn’t expect to get him, and she didn’t, so she left a message. “Hey, Joe. It’s Gen. I’m going to be at O’Malley’s with my mother. Meet us there when you can. If you want to, I mean.”
That done, she brushed her hair, put on some lipstick and headed out. She took the elevator down to the garage, but she hadn’t taken two steps before she got the strange feeling that she was being followed. A ghost again? The ghost of Lori Star trying to reach her?
She felt the strongest temptation to run back to her apartment. All of a sudden she wanted to be anywhere but in the garage.
She heard a shuffling sound, followed by a breeze, like a whisper.
“Hey, Tim!” she called loudly. Surely he was here somewhere.
“Tim?”
There was no answer, and she could still feel the softness of the breeze against her face, warm and….
Urgent.
Almost imperceptibly at first, the air began to take shape, forming into something both there and not there. She could have sworn she was seeing Leslie MacIntyre, and she was speaking, desperately and in a whispered rush.
Go back, Genevieve. Go back to your apartment. Lock the door and call the police. Now! Quickly!
Without questioning why, Gen raced for the door, her key card out and ready.
And then she heard footsteps behind her. Real footsteps. Panicked, she turned…
And saw Edgar Allan Poe coming for her.
“Stop right there,” she snapped, at a loss for any other option.
And for a moment, it worked. The would-be Poe seemed to trip, even though there was nothing in his path.
Genevieve thought she heard Leslie’s voice again. Hurry!
She dropped her purse as she fumbled with the door. The damned thing wouldn’t open. She realized too late that it had been jammed somehow. She hurriedly reached down for her purse, groping for the canister of Mace she always carried. She found it and turned, but she didn’t get a chance to use it, because something hit her in the head so hard that she saw stars.
“Bitch!” she vaguely heard someone say.
She couldn’t pass out, she told herself. If she did, she would be lost.
Who the hell was it? Mary Vincenzo? Had she come to make good on her threats?
She realized the canister was still in her hand, and she managed to aim it in the direction of her attacker and hit the spray button. She was rewarded with a howl of pain, but it was too late. Something came down on her head again, and she crashed to the garage floor.
CHAPTER 19
Jared groaned when he saw Joe enter the private visitors’ room.
“Oh, great. The brilliant P. I. Okay, you got me. I didn’t pay my parking tickets.”
“But you did kill your father.”
Jared stared at him angrily. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I didn’t kill my father.”