D is for Drunk (21 page)

Stark had the corner office, of course. The well-groomed icy blond who led them there glided more than walked. Sofia was trying to figure out how she did that. She had on regular shoes—gray, high-heeled and pricey, but they didn’t have wheels on the bottom or anything. Her peach-colored skirt was mid-thigh and tight. It was in her hips, but Sofia couldn’t see exactly what she was doing.

“Why are you ogling her ass?” Aidan hissed.

“She has an interesting walk,” Sofia whispered back. “And shut up.”

The blonde rapped four times on a gray wooden door. In fact, the whole office was done up in gray. Probably some kind of metaphor about justice. A few pops of color from modern art paintings kept the whole thing from being monotone. Sofia wasn’t sure what kind of message the paintings were supposed to send, besides expensive and ugly.

“Come in!” called John Stark.

The receptionist stepped in first. “From Maloney Investigations: Brendan Maloney, Aidan Maloney, and Sofia Salgado.”

“Got it. Thanks for showing them right back.”

She inclined her head in a regal gesture. Sofia wanted to watch her all day. She was so graceful and classy. There were a ton of useful mannerisms to pick up on that would come in handy if she ever needed to play a member of royalty, either for a movie or for an investigation.

But the woman glided away, and Sofia felt bereft.

“Sofia.” Aidan snapped his fingers in front of her face as if she were in some kind of a trance. Maybe she was.

She followed Brendan into the office. John Stark rose to shake their hands, quick and firm and ready to go. The man sitting in front of Stark’s desk didn’t budge. Sofia couldn’t really blame him. He looked terrible.

“Hi, Mr. Grigoryan,” Brendan said. “We came as soon as Mr. Stark called.”

Narek’s eyes had bruised up spectacularly. It was the kind of overdramatic that would get a makeup artist fired, because it didn’t look real. But she knew it was. Marcel knew how to throw a punch, she’d give him that.

Everyone sat down, Brendan on Narek’s right side, Aidan on his left, and Sofia next to Aidan. She shifted her chair a little as she sat so she’d be able to see everyone’s face so she’d get a better read on what happened during the meeting. Brendan hadn’t told them the reason for this last-minute meeting, but she doubted it was about anything good. Nothing about this case had been good, except for watching Aidan freak out at the key party. That had been fun.

“Thank you all for coming so quickly,” Stark said. “My assistant will be bringing a coffee tray.”

As if his words had called her into being, the sophisticated woman in the peach suit came through the doorway carrying a silver tray with a coffeepot, cups and saucers, a creamer, a sugar bowl, and tongs. There was even a plate of biscotti. She deposited the tray on Stark’s desk with her customary grace, poured out the coffee, distributed the cups, and left.

Sofia sipped. Excellent. Of course. She snagged a biscotti and nibbled on it. She’d had a healthy breakfast, so she’d totally earned this.

“As you may or may not know, the police recovered a drone at Befort’s Vineyard,” Stark said.

Aidan’s coffee went down the wrong way, and he coughed. Narek glared at him. Narek knew where the drone came from, since he’d seen them flying it on his front lawn. Blisffully unaware, Brendan thumped his son on the back.

“They were able to pull footage off it from the night of the murder,” Stark continued. “The footage is somewhat problematic.”

“Problematic how?” asked Aidan.

“It shows my client, Mr. Grigoryan, approaching the house on foot some time after the partygoers and the young blond woman went home.”

That was bad. Maybe Narek had killed Marcel. And Aidan had nailed him for it. Caught by a drone.

“Was there a time stamp on the footage?” asked Brendan.

That was the kind of question Aidan usually asked, but he obviously had to keep quiet about the whole thing. He was wearing his poker face, which was too grim to indicate anything but guilt.

“Unfortunately, there was not. It shows Mr. Grigoryan approaching the house and leaving some minutes later,” Stark said.

“What were you doing there?” Brendan asked Narek.

Narek tried to smile, but it clearly made his face hurt and he stopped. “I went to apologize for my behavior earlier in the evening.”

That sounded like a lie. Like how he’d told them the morning after that he hadn’t left his house at all that night.

“Did you apologize?” said Brendan.

“When I got there Marcel was face down in the horse trough. I could tell he was dead, and I knew the cops would blame me if I called them, so I turned around and went straight home.” Narek rubbed his forehead. “I wasn’t there for more than a few minutes.”

“I see,” said Brendan. Sofia didn’t see. It sounded like a made up story, and a lame one at that.

“And that brings us right around to why the drone was there in the first place,” said Narek.

“Let’s not go into that yet,” Stark said.

“I want to go into it right now.” Narek glared at Aidan. “Why was there a drone in that tree? One with a special spy camera attached? One with a long life battery that could keep filming for hours?”

Brendan looked over at Aidan now, too. Sofia wished she could think of a way to pull the focus away from him, but this had to come out. Narek knew whose drone it was and, even if he hadn’t already told the cops, they’d trace the drone back to Aidan eventually.

“Drones have serial numbers,” Sofia said. “A paparazzi used that information to claim his drone after he crashed it in Brandi Basher’s lawn.”

“Did she have to give him the drone back?” Narek asked.

“Yes, but it was badly damaged in the crash,” said Sofia. It had crashed into Brandi’s hammer. Several times. She’d given the guy his drone back in a garbage bag.

“It was my drone,” said Aidan.

“At Brandi Basher’s?” Brendan looked confused.

“At the Befort Vineyard,” Aidan said.

“You were spying on them?” Brendan was puffing up like a balloon getting ready to pop.

“Aidan was using the drone to do a property flyover to look for leaky pipes. It crashed into that tree.” Sofia put down her coffee cup. She didn’t want it to get broken if things got out of hand. “He didn’t mean for it to film anyone, just property, and that’s totally legal. The tree thing was an accident.”

“Accident or not, your drone may send me to prison,” said Narek.

She couldn’t really argue with that. But Aidan could.

“What were you doing going back there? We told you to stay away. The cop who was called to the scene of your fight with Mr. Befort told you to stay away. But you didn’t listen.”

“Now isn’t the time—” began Stark.

“I was trying to apologize,” Narek said. “To that puffed up French bastard who cuckolded me.”

Sofia had never heard the word cuckold used in a sentence before, but she didn’t have much time to think about it, because Narek pulled back his arm to pop Aidan, and Brendan grabbed him. Sofia pulled Aidan back, just in case. Good thing she’d put down her cup and had her hands free.

Narek and Aidan stood glaring at each other and breathing like a couple of bulls.

Stark stayed behind his desk. “It’s a question of timing. It was near sunrise when Mr. Grigoryan arrived, long after Mr. Befort’s official time of death.”

“Like you can trust a word out of his mouth,” said Aidan.

“He’s my client, and I do trust him,” said Stark.

“A time stamp would back up his story,” said Sofia.

“The footage wasn’t time stamped,” said Aidan. “Remember?”

“You can time it from when the blonde left,” said Stark. “She was the last one to leave, so if we know when she left, we can run the footage forward from then with a timer.”

“OK,” said Brendan. “When did she leave?”

Dead silence around the table.

Narek shook himself and stepped away from Brendan, so Sofia let go of Aidan’s arm. She figured he needed to be free to defend himself in case Narek got wild again. They’d both seen where Narek focused his attacks.

“And that’s the problem,” finished Stark. “We need to find the young woman and find out when she left.”

“We don’t need to find her,” said Sofia.

Stark raised an eyebrow. “Because?”

“Uber knows,” Sofia said.

“Did she take an Uber from Mr. Befort’s residence?” Stark leaned forward like a dog on s scent.

Now Sofia was in a bit of a pickle. She knew Bambi had taken an Uber, but she only knew about it because of Aidan’s illegal bug, and she didn’t dare admit that.

“She must have taken something.” Sofia was going to stick to the truth where she could, with just one teeny white lie. “Rick Pankhurst brought her in his truck, and he left with Annabelle in that truck, so Bambi didn’t have a way home. And she mentioned Uber to me.”

“You had a conversation with her?” Stark asked.

“I loaned her my sweatshirt because she lost her dress at the party.” Sofia didn’t want to get sidetracked. “Can we call Uber and see if they picked her up there and at what time?”

Aidan probably had contacts at Uber. He had contacts everywhere.

“I know someone who works there,” said, of all people, Brendan. “Give me a minute.”

He gave Narek a stern look, then stepped outside to use his phone.

Aidan’s phone buzzed. His expression when he looked at it said it wasn’t about a date. “I gotta go.”

He sprinted out of the office without another word. That couldn’t be good.

Brendan came back inside. “What was his hurry?”

Sofia shrugged. “He got a text and left.”

Brendan turned to Stark. “Sofia here was right. A woman was picked up at the vineyard at two a.m. She matched the description of this Bambi woman, and she was wearing nothing but a Nirvana Cove sweatshirt. The fee was paid through Marcel Befort’s account. The driver took her to a club called Emoji and left her there.”

“That’s where she met Rick,” Sofia said. “It’s probably where she left her car.”

Stark smiled so widely Narek looked suspicious. “What is it?”

“The police put the time of death at around three a.m., and the video shows you arriving three full hours after Bambi’s departure. That means you were there at five—two full hours after Marcel died.”

Narek slumped back in his chair.

“Good job thinking of Uber, Sofia,” Stark said.

Brendan’s phone rang. He glanced down at it. “I’m very sorry, but I have to take this.”

He went back out into the hall.

“Is there anything else?” Sofia asked Stark.

“Keep up the good work. If you can find the real murderer, that would help, but you’ve given me enough to work with for now.” Stark stood and Sofia stood, too. They shook again.

“I appreciate your help,” said Narek. “Even if you guys caused the problem in the first place.”

“But the timeline and the video evidence might be the only thing proving your innocence,” Sofia said. “So maybe it was a good thing.”

Narek grunted, which was as close to a ‘thank you’ as she imagined she’d ever hear.

Brendan stuck his head through the door. “We need to go.”

He didn’t say another word until they were in his Crown Vic with the doors closed.

“They’ve brought Aidan in for questioning about the drone. I want to check on him. Can you hold down the fort?” Brendan asked.

“I’ll get an Uber to the office,” Sofia said. “I know how that works.”

CHAPTER 35

S
he did know how Uber worked, but she didn’t really know how to hold down the fort. She checked the messages, returned a few routine calls, typed up some paperwork, but mostly she worried.

So, she did what she usually did when she was worried. But her neither Emily nor mother answered their phones, which might have been just as well because Sofia would have to explain that she wasn’t dating Aidan, they were on a case, and the Internet was wrong (again). And she’d have to do all that before she told them that Aidan was at the police station, and she was worried. Plus, she probably shouldn’t tell anyone about Aidan going in for questioning. That was the kind of news she was sure was bad for the agency.

So she read through all the case reports and didn’t turn up anything interesting, except for Aidan’s comment about Rick Pankhurst having something to hide. She’d already verified that his wife had died of natural causes, so he hadn’t been hiding a murder there. He’d been sleeping with Marcel Befort’s wife, but that didn’t really seem like much of a secret. What did that leave?

She walked over to Aidan’s computer. The office felt empty without Brendan and Aidan. Just her and the dying ficus tree. Maybe she ought to move the plant closer to the window. She told herself to focus, then pulled up the drone footage on Aidan’s computer. If Aidan really got in hot water for using his drone, the police might take that, too, and she wanted to study it before that happened.

The office phone rang, and she snatched it up. “Maloney Investigations!”

“He’s gone,” wailed a woman’s voice.

Sofia couldn’t place the voice. Wails, it turned out, sounded pretty similar. “I beg your pardon? Who’s gone?”

“My husband.” This was followed by a gigantic sniff.

It couldn’t be Annabelle. “Milena?”

“Of course!” Anger sharpened her tone, and Sofia recognized her.

Sofia sat down at Aidan’s desk. “Narek is gone?”

“That’s what I said. Let me speak to your boss. Maybe he’ll listen.”

Sofia drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s currently unavailable. But we did see Narek this morning. He was at his lawyer’s, John Stark.”

“He has a lawyer?” Milena sounded as if she wouldn’t have been more surprised if Sofia had told her he’d been kidnapped by aliens.

“John Stark. Let me get you his number.” Stark would know what to do.

She gave Milena the number, and Milena hung up without saying good-bye. That was in character. She must have been feeling better.

Aidan’s screensaver blinked. He’d set it to display some kind of cryptographic stuff that reminded her of
The Matrix
. When she nudged his mouse, the screensaver vanished, and she saw his login screen.