Replaceable: An Alan Lamb Thriller (5 page)

“Is this your passive-aggressive way of inquiring about my love life?”

“I might have a vested interest,” Lucy said, smirking at him before changing the subject. “Were you serious about hiring a psychic?”

“No. I’m not
that
desperate. Not yet anyway.”

Lucy stopped. “This is me.”

Alan wasn’t surprised to find them standing in front of a battered ’79 Volkswagen Beetle. The bright yellow paintjob had seen better days. It appeared ancient compared to the other vehicles parked in the spaces surrounding it.

“It suits you,” Alan said.

“What that?”

Alan pointed at the Beetle. “Your car. It fits your personality.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“I was being serious. It was a compliment.”

“Well, thank you.”

Alan moved around to the driver’s side and opened the door for her. Lucy slid in behind the wheel. “Very chivalrous of you.” She turned the key in the ignition and the tired old engine whined to life. “I was serious, too. You need someone in your life. Someone to talk to. And I don’t just mean at work. You need to get out and do stuff. You aren’t your job, Alan.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Thanks for walking me to my car.”

Alan closed the car door. He walked back to the sidewalk and watched the Volkswagen pull out and merge into traffic.

Chapter 4

When Alan pulled
into his space in front of Room 154 at the Patriot Inn, he saw Guy Bernard sitting in a folding lawn chair on the upper level, the door behind him (Room 255) stood slightly ajar. Guy’s Belgian bull of a bodyguard, a bald-headed man composed entirely of muscle stacked atop muscle, was seated in a chair next to him. The only thing Alan knew about Guy’s bodyguard was that his first name was Bruno and that at one time in his life he had had a “roid” problem. Despite having gotten off the juice several years earlier, he still suffered from anger management issues.

Alan climbed the stairs to the second story walkway. The sweet smell of cigar smoke hit him as he reached the top and made his way over to Guy and Bruno. Guy struck Alan as more of a character out of a movie than an actual human being. For starters, Guy was always puffing on a cigar. It was almost cartoonish. A blue cloud of cigar smoke seemed to hover perpetually over his head.

Guy ran his own private investigation firm.
Other Guy Investigations
. Room 255 of the Patriot Inn served as his office space. It wasn’t the most likely place to hang a shingle, but according to Guy, he didn’t pay a dime for this so-called office space.

His arrangement with the motel entailed getting his room free of charge for services rendered. ‘Services rendered’ meant running background checks on prospective employees as well as performing certain ‘housekeeping’ duties on an
as needed
basis. In this instance,
housekeeping
meant that he and Bruno dealt with some of the motel’s shadier clientele, which included forcibly removing them from the premises when necessary. So, basically, they handled the taking out of the trash.

The Patriot Inn was in the process of getting a much needed facelift. For a time, living at the Patriot Inn had been akin to residing in a third world country. It was its own entity, a land of excess and decay. It had a reputation as being a haven for drug addicts and prostitutes. The management was trying to change all that. It had been one thing to sink money into repairs and improvements, but quite another to remove the criminal element. Without the latter, the former was no better than putting lipstick on a pig.

Which was where Guy came in. Guy was here to change all that.

“How’s it going this fine evening, Agent Lamb?” Guy asked, exhaling a cloud of cigar smoke.

“Not bad.”

“There’s another chair inside if you’d care to join us.”

“I think I’ll take a rain check,” Alan said. “I’m beat.” And that was the truth. He felt like he could have slept for a week if it hadn’t been for the two cases that had taken up residence in his mind.

“Suit yourself.”

“How’s business?”

“Business is thriving. As long as there are crack fiends, they will keep trying to congregate here, which means I will always have job security. Isn’t that right, Bruno?”

Bruno grunted and leaned forward in his chair, picking up a dumbbell that rested on the ground at his feet. He commenced doing bicep curls. His arms were a topographical map of bulging hills and winding veins.

“How are your anger management classes going?” Alan asked.

“I’m learning to meditate,” Bruno grunted between reps. “They’re teaching us to be at peace with ourselves.”

“As if,” Guy said.

Down below, the motel manager, Erik, walked by as he did his daily room checks. He waved up to them. Guy waved back, while under his breath he said, “Little poof.”

“Poof?”

“Yeah. Have you ever had occasion to talk to the man?”

“Sometimes he’ll stop by to shoot the breeze. Seems nice enough.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s nice enough all right. But he’s a total flamer. Always out basket shopping.”

“Basket shopping?”

“Checking out a man’s junk. Do you get a discount?”

“On what?”

“Your rent. Did he give you a discount?”

“Come to think of it, he did.”

“There you go. That’s how it starts. He’s just sizing you up now, but it’s only a matter of time before he drops the bombshell on you. That he’s as gay as a summer day is long. Once he’s confided in you, that’s all he talks about. Believe me, I know things I never wanted to know about. Like how his boyfriend, this plump little Mexican dude, is a big clean freak, and I don’t mean he likes to clean house. According to Erik, he has to douche before they have sex. Erik says it’s kind of a turn off because the little fruit can’t be spontaneous. Always in agony over whether his shit’s clean.
Literally
. Erik says he wishes he could get it dirty once in a while. Meaning he’s okay getting shit on his dick.”

“Damn.”

“Word of warning. Once he comes out to you, once you’re privy to his
condition
, he’ll start talking dirty to you. In fact, he won’t shut up about it. In his mind, there’s no such thing as a straight man. We’re all waiting to be turned. We’re all just hiding in the iron closet.”

In an effort to change the subject, Alan said, “How’s the wife?”

“Aloof. As usual.”

Guy and his wife, Darla, had separated several months ago. Guy had been trying to win her back ever since.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Speaking of which…” Guy pulled out his cell phone and brought up his text messages. “Looks like the old lady is at the No Frills on 72nd.”

“You have your wife under surveillance?”

“I call it killing two birds with one stone. I send new recruits out to keep an eye on her. If they can do that for an extended period of time without being made, there’s a good chance I’ll hire them. Darla’s the paranoid type. Always thinks she’s being watched.”

“I don’t know if it qualifies as paranoia if she’s actually being watched.”

“I don’t like to live under a rock, Alan. You know what my worst fear is? Being in the dark. Having my head in the sand. I don’t like to waste my time either. I’m committed to fixing this thing, but if she’s moved on, I wanna know about it. It’ll save us both a lot of trouble. And if she
has
hooked herself a new beau, I want the chance to show her I’m the bigger man. Send him a note of congratulations. Of course, I’ll have that note delivered in person. By Bruno.”

“Murky waters,” Alan said.

“Is there any other kind? The entire world is gray.”

“Not mine.”

“You say that, but I’m not sure you really believe it. Some men cling to their black and white version of things because they fear the other colors.”

Alan stared at him.

“Just an observation.”

Guy’s gaze settled on the manila folders tucked under Alan’s arm. “Bringing your work home with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything interesting?”

“More of a mysterious nature, really.”

“We’re always taking on new clients,” Guy said as he chewed on his cigar. “If I can ever be of service…”

“One day I might just take you up on that.”

“Friends get friend prices.”

Alan nodded. “I should get going.”

“If you aren’t busy later, swing by. We’ll have a beer and shoot the shit while we wax poetic about our respective cases.”

“I might just do that.”

“Take it from me, Agent Lamb. Get out once in a while. Observe your surroundings. Get to know the people. Sometimes you can have your head buried in the sand without even knowing it.”

Guy Bernard’s words of advice stayed with him that evening as he sat down at the small table next to the television stand and opened the case folders. The air conditioning unit housed next to the window rumbled to life. Strangely, Guy’s advice mirrored what Lucy had told him earlier that day.

Alan wondered if he should give any credence to their proffered wisdom. Was he a recluse? Did they know something that he didn’t? He had always considered himself normal, if not average, and he thought he got out as much as the next guy. Was throwing yourself into your work a sin these days?

He wasn’t in a relationship, wasn’t especially interested in trying to start one, and he didn’t have any hobbies. What else was a person to do?

He focused on his job. It was something he was good at; the one thing that made him stand out from the crowd. No different than being a professional athlete. Their sport was their life as much as their livelihood. They put their blood, sweat, and tears into it. They trained religiously. Alan, in his own way, was as serious about his chosen profession as any athlete, and devoted the necessary time to it.

Alan started from the beginning, consulting the incident reports as he played the details back in his mind.

In both cases, the perpetrators of the crimes had been employees. Both Howard Sitka and Susan Carville claimed to have been attacked. Sitka at his home; Carville in her car after she had stopped at an intersection. Each of them claimed that their assailants had been exact duplicates of themselves, and that after being subdued, they were left bound and gagged. Shortly thereafter, their respective places of employment had been robbed. By either them or their mysterious doubles.

Gant’s suggestion that the masterminds behind the robberies had used actors to play the roles of Sitka and Carville seemed ludicrous to Alan. It seemed too elaborate, too sophisticated. Not that he didn’t believe in the existence of highly intelligent and savvy criminals, but he still operated under the assumption that criminals obeyed the same law as electricity: they followed the path of least resistance. Hypothetically, using actors might seem like a good idea, a clever way to lower the level of suspicion. But it didn’t strike Alan as the least resistant path.

Finding actor’s that resembled the victims closely enough, especially when they would be in close proximity to people that worked with them every day, would be a difficult task.

Had they held a casting call? Had would-be actors auditioned for the part? And even if they had, why would the actors have agreed to it? It wasn’t just elaborate, it was on the verge of being preposterous. There were easier ways. An old-fashioned hold up would have been just as efficient, only less costly.

Alan recalled his conversation with Howard Sitka in the interrogation room at the Richmond County Sheriff’s Department. Sitka had maintained his innocence and Alan had believed him. The man had been nervous and flustered, but he hadn’t given off any overt signs of deception. There were great actors in the world in addition to competent liars, but Howard Sitka didn’t strike Alan as either of those things. If the man was lying, he had no idea that he was doing so, and Alan felt himself wishing that his intuition and gut feelings were wrong. It would have made things easier. If he had believed Sitka to be guilty, it would have been an open and shut case. He could have closed it and moved onto the next. Instead, he was stuck believing in a man who claimed to have been attacked by himself.

Worse, now there was a second case in which the details were nearly identical to the first.

The only thing Alan could say with any level of certainty was that the cases were related.

It was 9:30 and Alan was starting to doze off in the uncomfortable motel room chair when his phone rang. It was Detective Hodgens from the Peoria Police Department.

“Sorry to ring you so late,” Hodgens said, “but I figured you’d want to know sooner rather than later.”

“You assumed correctly, Detective. What do you have for me?”

Please let it be good,
Alan thought.

“We managed to get DNA on Carville from the crime scene. She also consented to a swab. It seems like double duty seeing as how it’s one and the same, but I try to refrain from questioning men who wear suits and carry fancy badges. It’s on its way up to your lab there. You should have it by first thing in the morning.”

Alan couldn’t help being disappointed. It wasn’t the breakthrough he had hoped for, but he tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice when he said, “I appreciate you following through on that, Detective Hodgens.”

“Happy to oblige. Have a good night, Agent.”

Alan glanced down at the open file folders. He shuffled the documents together, closed the folders, arranged them in a neat stack, and then closed his eyes as he tipped back in his chair.

He had worked difficult cases before. Cases that had gone stone cold before the investigation had even gotten underway. But there was a differentiating factor to those cases compared to the cases he was working now. In those cases (which he had eventually solved despite the difficulty involved), it had been a complete lack of forensic evidence that had made it hard to find a starting point; had made it difficult to uncover the trail. Regarding the Sitka and Carville cases, they had all the evidence they needed. They had suspects in custody. They had security camera footage that had committed the suspects to video during the commission of the crimes.

It should have been open and shut.

Unfortunately, none of it quite added up.