Lady Midnight (6 page)

A tiny wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows as she looked me over. I am a big black man with a scar on my face. My appearance here seemed to require an explanation, the wrinkle seemed to say. I am used to the look, but it still makes me testy.
 

“Can I help you, sir?”
 

“Yes. My name is Roland Longville. I’m a private investigator, here to see Mr. Grant.”
 

“Oh, of course. One moment, please.” My explanation had been accepted.
 

Although there was a phone on her desk, she disappeared with the staccato rap of expensive heels to the rear of the suite, to confer with Mr. Grant before allowing me entry. She came back after a minute with little brown commas of her eyebrows raised.
 

“Mr. Grant will see you, Mr. Longville. Right this way.”
 

She turned away, and I followed, I watched her ankle expertly down the hallway and listened to the tick-tock tapping of her razor sharp heels. When she approached a mahogany door, studiously adorned with another tasteful brass plate, she informed me that I was entering the inner sanctum of no less a personage that Private Investigator Paul Grant.
 

Grant met me at the door. “Roland Longville. It is indeed a pleasure to meet you in person. I’ve quite a bit of professional admiration for you.”
 

“What can I say; I’ve had my picture in the paper a few times.”
 

“Thank you, Ms. Oliver,” Grant said by way of dismissal, and the young woman left us.
 

Grant was a man in his late forties, with a full head of salt and pepper hair. He had a handsome face, a cleft in his chin, and soft, intelligent gray eyes. He also had a resonant voice, and he was wearing an impeccably tailored blue suit with a silver-gray tie. He reminded me of Bob Barker, from “The Price is Right.” All in all, he looked and sounded more like a top-notch lawyer than someone in my line of work. Or someone who played one on a daytime television show. Maybe that’s how they do it in Atlanta, I thought.
 

“So, Mr. Longville, what brings you to our fair city?”
 

“Mr. Grant, I came to ask you a few questions about the murder of your partner.”
 

“Artie.” Grant’s demeanor changed. The soft eyes became sullen, and the ebullient voice dropped to a murmur. It all seemed a little studied, like an act, but maybe that was the way Grant operated, I thought to myself. Some people just don’t come across as sincere.
 

“Come again?”
 

“Arthur Bowman. Artie. He was my partner in business, Mr. Longville, but he was also my friend. He was best man at my wedding. His death hit me pretty hard.”
 

“I’m sorry,” I said, though I was unable to detect any signs of real bereavement in the cool character Grant presented. “Can you think of any reason someone wanted him dead?”
 

“Not that I can think of. I’ve gone over his files. Artie and I both worked multiple cases, so I took a look, thinking something might be there that would give me an answer. But there was nothing.” He was giving me a repeat of what Broom had already gotten from him. Grant had already settled on what details he was going to reveal, it seemed. Maybe he was, after all, investigating his friend’s death, himself.
 

“Can you tell me what type of case Bowman was working on?” I ventured.
 

“I wouldn’t want to reveal any details.”
 

“Of course I understand. I’m not asking you to reveal anything sensitive. You see, I think Bowman—Artie’s— death might somehow be tied to a case I’m working on. Just how, I’m not sure, but I have a feeling there’s a tie-in.”
 

Grant seemed to weigh the gravity of revealing sensitive details against what he apparently knew about my reputation, until his face softened and he gave me the nod I was hoping for.
 

“Okay. If it will help us get closer to who might have done this to Artie, I’ll
 
bite. Artie was working on two cases, Mr. Longville. Neither of them had anything to do with Birmingham, however, as far as I can figure. Without getting into specifics, one was a dead-beat dad case. The court had judged against an absentee father, and instead of paying, the guy had skipped out and was living somewhere in the Carolinas, working for cash, so his wages couldn’t get garnished. I’m sure you’ve worked cases like that one.”
 

I nodded. “Plenty of them.”
 

“Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. The other was more of the same, I’m afraid. He was working a case in which a person was concerned about a sibling’s welfare. I think there had been a history of drug abuse, rehab, that sort of thing. The one party basically wanted Artie to check on the welfare of the other, you know, go over to the person’s house and make sure that they were staying off the drugs, without getting the police involved.” Grant smiled a grim little smile. “I’m sure that sort of case sounds familiar enough to you, as well.”
 

I nodded again. “I know the tune.”
 

“As you can see, though, Mr. Longville, neither of these cases are anything but the most mundane type work we get in our strange little profession. These were both, quite literally, cases that Artie should have been wrapping up. The one entailed no more than a drive up the coast, and the other no more than a drive across town. So I really have no idea at all what business he was pursuing in Birmingham. It really is a mystery, if you’ll excuse the expression.”
 

“Do you and Grant usually keep your cases secret from one another?” I asked.
 

Grant’s smile was a little less friendly now. I was fishing for something and he plainly knew it. “Mr. Longville, I know that you work alone. Many private detectives do. I worked without a partner for several years, myself. I’ve worked for other firms in which there were many partners. But as you doubtlessly know, unless we are working on a case together, there is absolutely no reason for one partner in a firm to share the details of his case with the other. Why, it wouldn’t be ethical, now would it?”
 

I shrugged. “So, no strange calls in the last few days? Messages, anything out of the ordinary?”
 

Grant shook his head. “None. I can absolutely assure you of that. Jeanette—that is, Ms. Oliver—is meticulous to a fault when it comes to managing this office, and that includes messages. There was no e-mail, no voice mail, no incoming office mail of any kind that offered any explanation for why Artie had gone to Birmingham. To be honest with you, I’ve wracked my brain about it, and I’ve come up with nothing.”
 

I drew a deep breath and stood. I put out my hand. “Well, then, Mr. Grant, thank you kindly. I’ll take up no more of your time.”
 

“Don’t mention it.” Grant shook my hand firmly. Here was a man who knew how to shake hands. “It was really a pleasure to meet you, and please let me know if you find anything out.”
 

“I’ll do that,” I said solemnly as Grant walked me out past the desk where Ms. Oliver sat. She smiled wanly and nodded to me agreeably as the two of us walked toward the door to the suite.
 

As the door closed quietly behind me, I turned and read the plaque again. Grant, Security Consultants and Private Detectives, Inc. A most impressive operation, I mused, and Mr. Grant was a most impressive man. He was an especially good liar, I decided, but he wasn’t the best I had ever seen. Grant knew damned well why Bowman had been in Birmingham that day, and I was willing to bet any sum of money that he was in his office right now, trying to exercise some damage control. Which was precisely what I wanted him to do.
 

If I was to get to the bottom of Bowman’s death, I was going to have to let the players know that I was in the game. I didn’t know if Grant had been involved in his partner’s death, but I was fairly certain that the man had some idea who was responsible. Maybe he was in danger from the same people. For some reason, he didn’t want anyone to know, including me.
 

There is nothing to do, once one has shaken the tree, but wait and see what falls out of it.

Chapter 7

Anthony Herron made his living playing in bands that specialized in performing in clubs that catered to the college and post-college crowd. In Atlanta, bands like that played around an area called Little Five Points. I decided to see if I could catch his scent there. I headed over to that part of town and drove around until I found a street with nightclubs lining either side.
 

I got out and walked along the street. The telephone poles were covered with multicolored fliers advertising bands and beer specials. Generations of rusty nails dating back to my own college days, and possibly even earlier, covered the surface of every wooden pole in sight, testifying to quite an active music culture in the area. I didn’t see any fliers that featured a band called No Luck. I finally decided that a casual canvas of the area wasn’t going to get me very far, and that I should take a different approach.
 

I asked around a few places that were just opening, but had no luck in any of them. If I wanted to find out about area bands, a young man in a Ramones T-Shirt told me, I needed to try Euclid Avenue, a couple of blocks over. “The Block,” the young man told me, was where the real music scene was happening. I thanked him and made my way over to Euclid, where the young man’s thousand brothers and sisters, all similarly attired, were gearing up for the evening. Young people in the costumes of three generations made up a mob of people, all trying to be different, and ending up all looking pretty much like one another. Nonetheless, they were all trying their hand at being cool.
 

Post-post punks and grown-up Emo kids shared the sidewalk with the grandsons of Grunge, all trying to convince themselves by their multiple tattoos and piercings that they were doing something different, something original. They no doubt thought themselves somehow cooler than all those who had come before them, and those who would come after them. Mostly, though, they had drinking and dancing on their minds, and that’s why the bars stayed open here, no matter what music was currently in vogue.
 

In the world of the drinker, the bartender is king, or queen, and I found the empress of this particular block behind the bar of a place with no sign on the outside. The chalkboard that served as menu behind the bar proclaimed that the name of the place was Joe Midnight’s, and that draft beer was a dollar a mug until 9:30 p.m.
 

“Ever hear of a guy named Anthony Herron?” I asked her. She was a tattooed young woman with several piercings in her face and red contact lens in her eyes. She chewed gum and looked me up and down until I added, “He’s a guitar player. I’m looking to hire a band.”
 

“Ah. They come and go around here, mister. You might want to just ask someone in a band. Most of them know each other.” She popped her gum and nodded past me. “Listen, if he played in a band, you might want to ask Jerrod over there. He’s played in half the bands in town.”
 

She pointed to the low stage, where a young man sat on an amplifier, fussing over an electric guitar. He wore an Iggy Pop t-shirt, tattered blue jeans, and sandals. I thanked her and walked over and stepped up onto the stage.
 

“Jerrod?”

The young man glanced up at me with an open, intelligent look. He blinked a couple of times at the apparition of a big black man, in his thirties, wearing a suit. The image probably didn’t add up with the other sensoria of Joe Midnight’s, but the kid remained relaxed, and his disposition friendly.
 

“Yeah, man, what’s up?”
 

“I’m looking for Anthony Herron. You ever heard of him?”
 

“What, you a cop or something?”
 

“I’m in the ‘or something’ category. I’m a private detective.”
 

“Oh, cool. I never met a real private eye before. He in some kind of trouble?”
 

“Not that I know of. I’m just trying to find him and his girlfriend. They dropped out of sight, and I’m just trying to make sure they’re okay.”
 

“Hmm.” Jerrod looked me over and shrugged slightly. “Well, I’ll tell you, I played in a band with a guy named Tony about six months back, I think his last name might have been something like Herron. Not sure, though.”
 

I brought out the picture that I had gotten from Patrick and Baucom, and handed it to Jerrod. The young man looked at the face in the picture intently.
 

“Ah. Yeah, hey, I think that
is
him. His hair was longer, but that’s the dude.” Jerrod gave a little ironic laugh, and swept his own long hair out of his eyes.
 

“Would you happen to know where Tony is now?”
 

“Not sure.”
 

“That’s too bad.” I turned to go.
 

Jerrod laughed again. “Hey wait. I said I’m not sure, man. I think I might be able to help you out, though.”