Annie Seymour 01-Sacred Cows (20 page)

“This is the voice mail for Vincent DeLucia, Private Investigations. I am unable to take your call, so please leave your name, number, and a detailed message and I will get back to you as soon as possible.”

“Where the fuck are you?” I said into the phone and hung up. Still no response.

I saw Vinny had scribbled his home number on the back of the card. Maybe he overslept.

“I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

“Vinny? Are you there? It’s me, Annie. I’m at your office and you’re not here.”

He didn’t pick up.

Footsteps behind me made me freeze, memories of being jumped from behind still too fresh.

“Hello?” The man had a narrow, long face, like a horse, with big teeth, also like a horse. He carried an armful of manila envelopes.

“I’m looking for Vinny.”

He shook his head. “Too early for Vinny. I’m Cobb Doyle.”

“He said I should meet him here.”

Cobb Doyle frowned and stuck his keys in the door. “You can come in if you want, but Vinny never comes in early. Sometimes he never comes in at all.”

An interesting tidbit to sometime throw back in his face, but at the moment I was actually getting worried.

“Hmm, that’s funny,” Cobb Doyle murmured as I followed him into the dark hall.

I saw an open door farther down the hall.

“That’s Vinny’s office,” Cobb Doyle said, two steps ahead of me.

The office was in a shambles, papers strewn on the floor, file cabinet drawers open; the computer was on, but the monitor was blank. I stepped over the mess and moved the mouse. A photo of Humphrey Bogart in
The Maltese Falcon
popped up as his screen saver. How unoriginal, I thought.

“Don’t touch that!” Cobb Doyle barked.

“What?”

“This obviously is a crime scene. Look at this place. We have to call the police.” As he moved out of the room, he suddenly stopped. “By the way, who are you?”

“I’m Annie Seymour, with the
Herald.
Vinny wanted me to meet him here, he said he had a flight out of Bradley at ten.”

Cobb Doyle nodded, his head bobbing like one of those stupid dogs in the back of some vintage vehicles. “He said something about the airport.”

“Where was he going? I didn’t get a chance to ask him. Do you know?”

“He said he was working on something. That’s all. Maybe all this”—he swept his arm around to indicate the paper trail—“is somehow connected.”

Okay, so he went to law school. He wasn’t stupid.

“How could someone get in here if the door’s locked?” I asked.

Cobb Doyle ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe he came through the back.”

I followed him farther down the hall and into a little alcove that looked out over the back parking lot. The door was ajar and one of the windowpanes was broken.

“Don’t you have a security system or something?” I asked.

Cobb looked decidedly uncomfortable. “We’ve been trying to get the landlord to do something about that.”

We started back toward Vinny’s office, and Cobb veered off to the left into another office. He unlocked the door and turned the lights on. It was sparse, with a big desk that could’ve come from any of those office stores. Several file cabinets lined the back wall; a tall bookshelf stood sentry across from the desk. A pile of old law journals spilled along the floor in the corner, but that must have been the way he left it because he sighed deeply. “Thank God no one got in here.”

I didn’t think whoever had broken in was looking for Cobb Doyle’s files. But I didn’t want to burst his bubble.

I went back down the hall to Vinny’s office, pulling my phone out of my purse again and dialing a familiar number.

“Hello?” My mother is always up at the crack of dawn, first her exercises, then a cup of coffee and a bagel to start her day.

“Where was Vinny DeLucia going this morning?”

“And hello to you, too, dear.”

“Listen, Mother, I think Vinny’s in trouble. His office is trashed and I don’t know where he is. I was supposed to meet him here.”

“Oh, my, you are getting close to him, aren’t you?”

I wasn’t in the mood for her this early. “Do you know where he was going today or not?” I couldn’t keep the edge of out my voice.

She must have heard it. “He said he had a lead, but he didn’t say what it was. Do you really think he’s in trouble? I think he seems fairly capable.”

“I don’t know. All I know is, something’s up and I could try him at the airport if I knew which airline he was flying.”

“You’ve got me there. I didn’t know he was flying. Did you call the police?”

“Not yet.” I could hear Cobb Doyle talking in his office and I assumed he was taking over that job. Too bad Madame Shara wasn’t here yet, maybe she could channel herself into some other world and locate Vinny for us. Maybe a cow had fallen on him somewhere in the city and he was the first human victim of this silly parade.

But that wouldn’t explain the mess.

My mother was saying something as I checked out Vinny’s desk. Whoever had done this probably found what he or she was looking for, but you never know. I took a pencil off the floor and pushed some of the folders around.

“So you don’t know what he was up to?” I asked again.

“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said.”

No shit. “The cops’ll be here soon. I’m going to call the airport and just ask them to page him. Maybe he’s there. It’s worth a shot.” I hung up. She was useless again. Why did I keep trying?

I heard the police arrive. Cobb was greeting them.

“Who are you? You have to get out of here,” the uniformed officer growled at me. I stepped aside, my eyes still scanning the room. But there wasn’t anything that caught my attention. It was just a big mess. I didn’t have a clue.

“I’m Annie Seymour. I was supposed to meet Mr. DeLucia here. We had an appointment this morning. I tried his home number, but he doesn’t seem to be there, either.”

“You’re that reporter.” It was an accusation.

I nodded, trying to ignore the tone of his voice. “But I’m not here as a reporter. As I said, I had an appointment . . .”

“You’d better wait outside.”

I was used to being shunned, pushed out of crime scenes. It was all part of the job. But this time it was different. I was part of this story.
I’d
discovered this.
I
was a witness, for Christ’s sake. It felt very odd.

It dawned on me that the cops might be able to track Vinny down better than I could. I went back into the office, and I could tell by the scowls that I wasn’t welcome. But I didn’t really give a shit.

“I was supposed to meet Mr. DeLucia here,” I said for what felt like the umpteenth time. “I know he had a flight out of Bradley at ten. I was hoping maybe you guys could track him down and let him know what’s gone on here.”

More scowls. Okay, so it’s not good form to tell the cops how to do their job. But if they didn’t know about the flight, they should know, so I told them. So there.

“You have to leave,” they said again. It was getting old.

“Could you at least let me know if you find him? I’m a little worried,” I said, handing my card to the tall cop with the bad teeth. He took it, much to my surprise.

“Okay, but do you want me to tell the detective about this?”

His question caught me off guard. I thought they all knew me just because I worked for the
Herald.
But it was Tom.

I frowned. “You can tell him whatever you want,” I said curtly and finally left. But once on the sidewalk, I realized Tom might wonder what I was doing at Vinny’s office at 7:00
A.M.
I shrugged the thought away. I wasn’t at Vinny’s apartment. Which led to my next thought: Where did Vinny live and was his apartment trashed, too?

I drove to the paper, which was pretty empty because no one in his right mind would come to work this early. I located a recent phone book and looked up DeLucia. I found his parents on Wooster Street. But no Vincent DeLucia, which figured. A private investigator wouldn’t exactly advertise in the phone book where he lived. I glanced at the clock. It was almost eight. Parents were always up early. Or so I told myself.

The voice was a little groggy, or maybe she just hadn’t had her coffee yet.

“Hello, Mrs. DeLucia. I’m Anne Seymour, an old friend of Vinny’s. It’s very important that I find him and was wondering if you could give me his address.”

As I spoke, I realized I sounded like a complete nut. I wouldn’t give me his address, and she agreed with me.

“How do I know you’re a friend of my son’s? If you were a friend, you would know where to find him yourself.”

The dial tone rang in my ear. He probably was at the airport, waiting for his flight, maybe I’d misunderstood when I was supposed to meet him.

No. I didn’t. Vinny obviously was on to something, and something had happened to him because of what he knew. I dialed again. She must have had some coffee since I’d talked to her a minute ago.

“I really hate to bother you, Mrs. DeLucia, but I’m afraid something has happened. Vinny’s office was ransacked, and I haven’t been able to get him on his phone. That’s why I was wondering if you could help me out here.” I put a little pleading into my voice, but not too much so she would think I was a whiner. I also didn’t want to emphasize that I thought something bad happened. But I guess I did anyway.

“Ransacked?” The panic rose in her voice.

“I was supposed to meet him at his office an hour ago, but he wasn’t there and his office had been trashed. I’m sure he’s fine, but I just want to make sure.”

“Come to the restaurant and I’ll go with you.”

“The restaurant?”

“DeLucia’s Pizzeria.”

It was on Wooster Street, right around the corner from my apartment. “I’ll be right over.”

She was a tiny woman with big eyes. Vinny must look like his father. She jangled some keys at her side. “It’s not too far,” she said, and I had a hard time keeping up with her as she moved down the street. Much to my surprise, she brought me to a brownstone just catty-corner to my own building on Wooster Square. Vinny was my neighbor. Go figure. No wonder he’d been around so much, especially the night I got jumped.

“What happened to your face?” Mrs. DeLucia asked as we moved up the stairwell.

“I had a little accident.” I didn’t want to tell her any more, but she turned around and glared at me. Since my father’s Italian, I recognized my grandmother in Mrs. DeLucia’s eyes. She knew I’d been up to no good, and it was no use lying to her. But I kept mum. She could think what she wanted for the moment.

“You’re Joey Giametti’s daughter,” she said matter-of-factly.

I nodded, hoping that was a good thing.

Mrs. DeLucia nodded back, but didn’t say anything else. She stopped at a door and knocked. “He might be home,” she explained, as if I was leading her on a wild goose chase. But when we waited a little too long, she finally put the key in the lock and swung the door open.

It was neat. Really neat. Obsessively neat. Not a thing out of place, not a dust bunny to be seen. It was creepy.

“There doesn’t seem to be a problem here,” Mrs. DeLucia said accusingly. Okay, okay, so I’d gotten her worried for no reason. I was a troublemaker. I was the first to admit it. But Vinny was still missing.

“I’d like to just take a quick look around, just in case,” I said apologetically. I started moving around the apartment, which was set up kind of like mine. I peered around the kitchen and went down the hall and looked in the bedroom. The bed was neatly made. Either he’d made it up this morning or he hadn’t gone to bed last night. A picture of a very pretty brunette sat on the night table next to the bed, and I admit I had to look. I was holding the picture, studying the woman’s face, when Mrs. DeLucia caught me.

“I thought you were looking for Vinny, not snooping around his private things.”

“Who is this?” I asked.

“That’s Vinny’s fiancée, Rosie.”

Fiancée? Did I hear that right? And I thought he was coming on to me all this time. Was I so wrong? Were my antennae that out of whack? Couldn’t be. Could it?

“When is the wedding?” I tried to keep the curiosity from leaping from my throat.

“May twenty-second.”

Next spring. A springtime wedding. This was really bothering me for some reason. I had to snap out of it.

“He never mentioned her,” I explained.

Mrs. DeLucia frowned. “They’ve been together five years.” She paused. “Have you seen what you need to see?”

I put the picture down and glanced around the room. Nothing. Not a paper out of place. The red light was flashing on his answering machine. I pushed the button, even though I was getting the evil eye from his mother. “I’ve got something you might want. Come to Edgerton Park, the entrance off Whitney, at seven
A.M.
” I couldn’t make out the voice, but it sounded vaguely familiar.

Seven
A.M.
That’s when I was supposed to meet him. He was probably at the park when I showed up at his door. It wasn’t too far from his office. He could be back at his office right now.

And then I heard my own voice asking if he was home, and I was glad I swore on his office phone and not on this one.

I dialed the number at Vinny’s office, ignoring Mrs. DeLucia’s raised eyebrows.

The cops answered.

“This is Anne Seymour. I’ve discovered that Mr. DeLucia had a meeting at Edgerton Park this morning.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Listen, he might still be there. At the park. You might want to send someone over there.” Here I was, telling them what to do again.

“Yeah, right, thanks.” A dial tone. I was getting hung up on a lot and it was pissing me off.

“I’m going over there,” I told Mrs. DeLucia.

“Where?”

“The park. To see if he’s there.” I followed her out of the apartment and back down to the street. Then the lightbulb went off in my head. I turned to Mrs. DeLucia. “Could he be with his fiancée?”

She smiled, a smile that said, I know why you’re asking, and it’s not just that you’re worried about him. Okay, so maybe she was right. But I didn’t want to think about it at the moment. “No. Rosie is in California on business for a few days.”