Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 02 - The Hustle (11 page)

“Why not? People change.”

“No they don’t. They just sometimes show you a different side you never seen before.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Wow, that’s deep.”

He tossed up a hand. “You see? I’ve always been a philosopher. You just didn’t know it.” He crossed his arms and leaned back. “After all these years, why the heck would you want to see me?”

“Eddie Arndt.” I left it at that.

He squinted while his signature smirk stuck to his face. “That kid whose dad went crazy with a gun? What about him?”

“You two have issues back in the day?”

“Issues?” He shot air out the side of his mouth. “I had issues with everyone back then.”

I remembered. That’s why he ended up in detention so often. Warren had liked to pick fights. “So nothing special with Eddie?”

He looked around at the bar. “You know I used to use a fake ID to get in here?” He jerked his chin toward the bar. “Think that same guy served me at least a dozen shots before I got busted.”

“I never saw you around.”

“I never saw you around neither.”

Valid point. I tried to avoid the
High Note
as much as possible back then. Once I hit my teen years, my parents found it a lot harder to dress me up and force me on stage to impress their friends and the occasional celebrity musician that stopped by on their way from Detroit to Chicago.

“Places looks different now,” he said. “I read about the fire in the paper.”

Nice of him to say
fire
instead of
explosion.
“My fifteen minutes of fame.”

“It true you’re a detective now or something?”

“Yep,” I said and realized he had slyly driven the conversation down a different road than the one I had started on. “Which brings us back to Eddie.”

Warren rolled his shoulders. His back cracked. He let out a contented sigh. “All right. Let’s get it over with.”

“You know why I want to talk to you?”

“No. But I figure it’s about some trouble you think I caused. I got a good job, takes care of the room and board and gives me enough money for beers and an occasional trip to the antique bookstore.” He pointed at me again. “There’s another side you didn’t know about. In fact, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. That includes the fact I stay out of trouble these days. Everybody still makes assumptions, though.”

“I don’t assume anything,” I said. “I just want to ask some questions.”

“About Eddie Arndt. I guy I haven’t seen or heard about since high school.”

“You sure about that?”

His smirk gave way to a sneer, but only for a second. “Thought you weren’t assuming.”

“Eddie tells me you two had problems back in the day, thinks you might still be holding a grudge.”

“He thinks that, huh?” He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. “You tell Eddie, if I’m holding a grudge, he’d fucking
know
it, not think it.”

The edge in his voice tweaked my defensive instincts. While for the most part he could hide it well, Warren was dangerous. I had no doubt. “I guess you’re right. People don’t change.”

“What’s Eddie think I did?”

“Who says he thinks you did anything?”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on. Obviously he hired you because someone hurt his feelings or some shit, and so you’re going around grilling anyone who might not have liked him.”

“You still haven’t told me what happened between you two in high school.”

“Didn’t
he
tell you?”

“I want to hear your side.”

He rested his head against the seatback and puffed his cheeks as he exhaled. “I decked his books or something. No big deal. Next day, the little fucker sneaks up behind me and pushes me down the stairs on my way to the lunchroom. Broke my arm and sprained my ankle.”

“He pushed you down the stairs?” Eddie had told me he had pushed him. He left out the part about the stairs.

“I was out of school for a week, which wasn’t so bad. But I hurt like a mother.”

“What happened to Eddie?”

“You mean, did he get suspended or something? Nah. I said I slipped. That way, after I healed up, I could kick the crap out of him.”

That part, Eddie had shared. Including how Warren had bent back Eddie’s arm until it snapped. “And broke his arm in return.”

“Damn right. He got off easy. I didn’t touch his ankle.”

I’d never heard anything about this. But outside of detention, I didn’t run in either Warren’s or Eddie’s circles, so that wasn’t very surprising. What did surprise me was the venom in Warren’s eyes even after all these years. But did that make him a killer? I couldn’t picture a high schooler—even one as bitter as Warren—pulling off a triple murder and so masterfully covering it up.

“You have any more run ins with Eddie after that?”

He seemed to think about it, as if he couldn’t remember. “No. He got the message. Stayed away from me. And I forgot all about him.”

I decided to throw out one more from left field. “You ever been to the Grand Canyon?”

“I never been rich like you people from the north side. Couldn’t never afford vacations.”

On my way to Detroit the following morning, I replayed my conversation with Warren. The guy was full of contradictions. I wondered if he hadn’t been toying with me, throwing out lies just to prove I didn’t know him. The antique book shopping felt like a stretch. Who knows?

Still, it seemed ludicrous to imagine Warren tracking Eddie throughout his lifetime, killing off relatives, all in the name of revenge over a twisted ankle and a broken arm.

Amanda Lanski, formerly Warbler, had an equally innocuous confrontation with Eddie about a week before his family tragedy. Apparently, they were dating. According to Eddie, during a make out session in her parents’ basement, he got a little too hot for her tastes. She scratched him across the face when his hands got too friendly. They broke up and that was that.

After talking to Warren, though, I had a feeling Eddie had left out some key details like he had about the whole pushing Warren down some stairs. I did not, however, expect the drastic difference in their stories about that night in the basement.

“He raped me.”

We sat at her kitchen table, half of a decimated birthday cake between us. In the next room, the squalls from a dozen six and seven year-olds playing pin the tail on the donkey nearly vibrated the walls, and were loud enough to make me question that I’d heard Amanda right.

“Eddie did?”

She looked at me like I had licked the frosting off the cake right there in front of her. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

A collective squeal of record decibels cut through the wall separating the kitchen from the neighboring room. The other adult at the party, presumably one of the partier’s mothers, hushed them with little effect.

I cringed, not at the ruckus, but because I had interrupted the birthday party for Amanda’s son so that she could dredge up the kind of memories best left alone. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“He didn’t tell you, did he?”

“He said he got pushy, but…no.”

“Pushy. Right.”

“You never reported it?”

She hooked her lower lip against her teeth. Shook her head. “We were dating. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

I didn’t know how to go on. If what she said was true, I had a whole new spin on Eddie Arndt to deal with, including the question of whether I would continue working for him. I had to admit, though, that Amanda’s motives to torture Eddie with the murder of his loved ones had more oomph than Warren’s. It still seemed unrealistic, though.

“Can you tell me anything about what happened?”

“What more is there to tell? He raped me, got me pregnant, which meant I had to get an abortion so my parents wouldn’t kill me.” She gazed at the birthday cake as if looking upon a dead loved one. “He wrecked my life. It took me a long time to get back on track.”

“That explain the troubles with the law?”

Her gaze lifted from the cake, back to me. “You know about that?”

“It’s public record.”

A round of giggling erupted from the other room. Amanda cringed as if the sound hurt her. In the context of our conversation, it probably did. “That’s all behind me now.”

I poked at different questions with a mental stick to see which one might not explode in my face when I asked it. I didn’t want to make her feel like I was sticking up for Eddie, or discounting her experience with him. But in the name of following through on the case, I couldn’t let it go as is.

“I imagine you still hate Eddie,” I said.

She shook her head slowly as if daydreaming about another time. “I loved Eddie. I never expected him to do something like that to me. He was so gentle.” She pulled her lips in. Her eyes tightened, trying to hold back tears. “It was almost like he was a different person. Possessed.”

Her gaze floated across the table, from the cake to the stack of brightly wrapped presents, to the Thomas the Tank Engine balloon with “Have a puff-erfect Birthday” lettered above Thomas like a puff of steam from his funnel. The balloon twisted slowly on its ribbon tied to one of the chairs at the table.

I tried to gently prod her, sensing she had something important to say. “Do you think something was bothering him? Made him irrational?”

Her gaze snapped back to me. “Why? So you can make excuses for him?”

Not gently enough. “I’m not making excuses for him. What he did to you…it’s unforgivable.”

“No it’s not. I forgave him a long time ago. You asked me if I still hated Eddie. I never hated him. That’s what hurt the most. Even after what he did, I still loved him.” She took a deep breath. “Which made me think there must be something wrong with me. My life went downhill from there. I believed I was a bad person, so I acted like one.”

“How did you pull yourself out?”

“I met James. He…believe it or not, he was a client, a John. He had a sense of humor I never noticed with any of the other guys. Most men who use prostitutes come off as desperate and depressed. Like they know they’re doing something wrong, but can’t help themselves.” She smiled. “Not my Jimmy. He picked me up on a dare from some college buddies. I’d never laughed so hard on the job.”

“He’s your husband?”

She nodded. “The day I met Jimmy is the day my whole life changed.”

“And you’ve since forgiven Eddie? Honestly?”

“If I hadn’t, his memory would have poisoned all that I’ve gained.” She laughed. “Can you tell I went through therapy?”

She sounded sincere. I couldn’t pick up any sense that she was putting up a front to cover a simmering hatred for Eddie that could fuel a lifetime’s worth of vengeance. Besides, if I were Amanda and I wanted revenge against the man who had raped me, I would go straight to the source and end it with him. That didn’t mean she couldn’t still help with the case.

“I really appreciate you letting me talk with you, and I’m sorry for interrupting your party. Can I ask just a few more questions?”

“I remember you from school. That’s why I let you in. Before I got together with Eddie, I had a crush on you.” Her face flushed. “I went to all the musicals you were in just so I could listen to you sing.”

A nice little ego stroke. I tried not to let it inflate my head too much. “Thanks.”

“My curiosity got you in the door. Now it’s keeping you here. So you have to answer some of my questions before I answer any more of yours.”

“Fair enough.”

“Why all the questions about Eddie?”

“I’m working for him.”

Her brow creased. “Working how?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“I thought you were—”

“A singer. I get that a lot. I haven’t sung professionally in a long time.”

She bit her lower lip again and gave me a concentrated stare. “What does your investigation have to do with me?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “And I can’t get into details.”

“Okay.” She stood. “Nice seeing you again, Ridley. I guess.”

“You won’t let me ask a few more?”

“Not if you won’t answer mine.”

I rapped my fingertips on the table. How to do this without making it sound like I suspected her of killing off a bunch of Eddie’s relatives? “He wants me to look into what happened with his family.”