The Alchemical Detective (Riga Hayworth) (18 page)

“I’m not but it should keep Pen busy.  A town this old has got to have some stories.”  Riga stopped in front of a historic marker dedicated to the “601.”  It read:

Truckee’s vigilance committee, known as the “601”, was born in response to the rise in crime and “undesirables” which plagued the young railroad town.  In late 1874 and early 1875, the 601 carried out a campaign to intimidate and rid the town of those elements.  After accidentally shooting one of their own members, the 601 disbanded until August 1889 when they reassembled for one last time. Though their goals were never fully achieved, the 601 did bring a semblance of law and order through their vigilance.

“Vigilantes,” Cesar said.  “Hard to believe.”

Riga moved off, down the wood plank sidewalk.  “People crave stability.  If the authorities can’t bring order, others will step into the breach.”

They paused before a display of cowboy wear, mannequins with lariats, and holsters at their hips.

“Mr. Mosse told me you’re not a bad shot,” Cesar said.  “Are you carrying?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should think about it.”

Riga stopped in front of a stairwell tucked between two dress stores.  She double checked the address with one in her black notebook. Lynn Chen’s office was up the stairs.  “Mind loitering behind me?  I’m going to check out Lynn Chen’s office.”

“When you say ‘check out,’ I hope you don’t mean B&E.”

“Breaking and entering?  No.  I mean talk to her neighbors.”

“I’ll loiter.”

At the top of the stairs stretched a long corridor, with brightly lit shops along each side.  Their large windows ran waist high to the ceiling, fronting the hallway. 

Riga peered through Lynn’s window; the office hadn’t been ransacked.  Unfortunately, she couldn’t sneak in without everyone on the floor seeing.  Riga slowly walked past Lynn’s windows, checking her office from various angles.  A pile of mail lay beneath the slot in the door.  It was an open, airy space, and Riga saw bamboo plants in water – was it possible to kill bamboo, Riga wondered?  A screen sheltered a desk and chair – a consultation corner, perhaps.  A bookcase with a shelf full of Feng Shui themed items for sale stood against the far wall.  Well, what had she expected to find?  A note from the killer jammed beneath the door?  She checked, hopeful.  Nope, nothing. 

An apothecary shop stood opposite Lynn’s office and Riga went inside. A bell tinkled to announce her entrance; another angel had earned its wings. 

A woman behind the counter looked up at the sound and smiled broadly.  She wore a name tag that said: Jan.  “Hi!  Can I help you?” she asked.

Riga looked around before answering.  The owner had played up Truckee’s old west theme and lined shelves with antique-looking hand labeled glass jars and bottles.  A mortar and pestle sat on the counter, beside a lit candle in a rough ceramic jar.  Riga leaned forward, inhaling.  It smelled of sugar cookies.

“Do you like it?” Jan said.  “It’s soy and one hundred percent natural.  Here, dip your finger in it.  You can use the melted soy as moisturizer.”

Riga took off her gloves and immersed the tip of one finger in the melting pool on top.  It was soothingly warm, silkily decadent. 

When Jan named the price, Riga blinked.  It was a lot for a candle and she couldn’t afford to be frivolous.  On the other hand, the TV show was paying her well, so maybe she could.  Besides, she needed to build some goodwill with the storekeeper.  In that light, it was practically a business expense.  “I’ll take two,” Riga said.

Jan wrapped the candles in butcher’s paper.  “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“I hope so,” Riga said.  She pulled a business card out of her wallet.  “I’m investigating the murder of your neighbor, Lynn Chen.”

Jan’s hands froze, then slid across the paper.  She blinked rapidly.  “Oh!”  She turned away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.  “Sorry.” She cleared her throat.  “I just wasn’t expecting…  You’re a detective?”

“I’m a licensed private investigator in California,” Riga said.

Jan picked up the card, looked at it.  “Metaphysical?” Doubt crept into her voice.

“Lynn and I had that in common.”  Riga drew her P.I. license from her wallet and offered it to Jan, who examined it curiously.

“I’ve never heard of a metaphysical detective before.  What do you want to know?”

Riga returned the license to her wallet.  “Anything you can tell me about Lynn.  When was the last time you saw her?”

“I don’t remember exactly, but she stopped opening her office three weeks ago.  She was great.  We used to pick up coffees for each other, gossip when things were slow.”

“What sort of gossip?”

Jan picked up a candle and wrapped butcher paper around it.  “The usual stuff.   Who was getting married, divorced, how business was doing.”

“How was her business doing?”

“Okay, as far as I could see.  She never complained.  She didn’t have a constant stream of clients, but there seemed to be at least four or five a day there.”

“Was she seeing anyone?”  Riga knew the answer but wondered if it was widely known.

Jan carefully taped the paper around the candle shut.  “I don’t know.  She didn’t say, but there was this guy at the bank.  He seemed to hang around her a lot.”

“Was there any vandalism at her store?”

Jan looked up, startled.  “How did you know?  Someone splashed white paint across her windows.  I got here early and saw it, then called her.  I helped her clean it up.”

So Lynn was being harassed as well.  The theory that the two were linked seemed more and more likely.  “Did Lynn seem upset by it?”

Jan placed the wrapped candles in an elegant black paper bag and slid it across the counter towards Riga.  “Not really.  It was just a splash of paint – nothing personal.  I wanted her to report it to the police but she said it was probably just kids.  Does it have something to do with her murder?”

Riga just shook her head.  If only she knew.

Chapter 19:Coagulation

She stepped out of the office building, Cesar joining her on the wood-plank walk.

“Learn anything interesting?” he asked.

“The two victims were being harassed before they were killed – broken windows, graffiti, that sort of thing.  But it doesn’t make much sense to me.  Why would a killer give his victims warning?”

“Stalkers do that shit all the time.  They might not plan to kill, but things escalate.”

“I suppose.  I don’t think this is the normal crazed stalker though.  He transfers his affections awfully quickly.” She gazed across the street at a brick bank.  “There’s someone I need to see at the bank,” Riga said, starting across the street.

Cesar followed.  “I’ll wait for you outside.”

Puddles formed beneath Riga’s boots as she crossed the threshold.  The bank’s fans blasted stifling waves of heat. She sniffed inelegantly, and dug through her bag for a tissue, surveying the building.  At the teller desk, an elderly woman with blue tinted hair filled out a deposit slip.  Two men in cowboy hats waited patiently in line behind her. 

She walked toward the two desks opposite the teller area, and came to a halt in front of the second desk.  The name plate atop it read:  “James Yacinski, Financial Advisor.” 

The man behind the desk looked up at her through round glasses and smiled.  He was nice looking in a wholesome sort of way, with freckles, sandy colored hair, a little bit of a gut and a lopsided green tie.  Riga guessed he was in his early thirties, depressingly young to run around on his wife.  A photo on his desk, angled so visitors could admire it, showed a smiling woman and two gap-toothed children. 

“Hello,” he said, standing.  “How can I help you?”

Riga sat down in the chair opposite him.  She sunk low into the cushions, and steepled her fingers.  Since she had no appointment, Riga had already decided on the blitzkrieg approach.  It was a rough way to conduct an interview, but James was a salesman and if he was any good at it, he’d control the conversation unless she derailed him up front.

“I’m a private investigator and I’d like to ask you about Lynn Chen.  I understand the two of you had a relationship?”

A quick paling of the skin, a blink, a polite smile.  “No, I’m sorry,” he said.  “You must be mistaken.”

“I must be?  You say that as if you’re not sure.”

“I’m sure,” James said.  “You’re mistaken.  I don’t know of any Lynn Chen.”

“I’m sure, too, and I’m not mistaken.  We could talk about your affair here or we could speak somewhere more private.”  Riga rose to her feet.  “Perhaps one of the bank’s conference rooms?”

He sagged, crumpling in on himself, and for a moment, Riga felt sorry for him.  Then he stood and silently motioned for her to follow.  He led her into a small, windowed conference room.  A round wooden table stood in the center and a whiteboard hung on one wall.  He closed the door behind them and she took a chair.  After a brief hesitation, he drew the blinds and sat across the polished table from her.

He rolled a ballpoint pen in one hand.  Clicked it on, off.  “Okay.  I knew Lynn.  But it isn’t like you think.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She was warm, vibrant, exciting.  Lynn was so alive.”  He looked down, cleared his throat, and continued, “She’d inherited some money from one of her grandparents and came to me for investment advice.  Her business was struggling.  She was paying the bills but not much more and she wanted to grow the money somewhere safe.”

“And you discovered you had things in common.”

“No.”  He laughed, a harsh, barking sound.  “We had nothing in common!  I’m tied to my job, my family.  Lynn was a free spirit.  She went where the wind took her.  One day she blew into Truckee and she could leave just as easily.  When she disappeared, that’s what I thought she’d done, just chucked it all.”

Riga said nothing, waited.

He clicked the pen.  “We started meeting for lunch, coffee.  She worked right across the street, it was easy.  She was someone I could talk to.”

Riga felt a flicker of irritation.  She’d heard this story before.  Next, he’d tell her that his wife didn’t understand him.

Click.  “Look,” he said, fiddling with the pen, “my wife and I were high school sweethearts.  We’ve grown up, and apart.  Ever since we had kids, things have changed, she’s changed.  We’re just going through the motions and she knows it.  But we have kids, so it’s difficult.  I love my family, of course–”

Riga cut him off.  “I didn’t come here to counsel you.  Your relationship with your wife is your business.  When was the last time you saw Lynn?”

“Three weeks ago.  She stopped by the bank to make a deposit.”

“Do you know if she was afraid of anyone?”

He clinched his jaw.  “No, though maybe she should have been.  She was getting threatening phone calls.”

“How threatening?”

“A man would call and then when Lynn picked up, he wouldn’t say anything.  It happened a lot and it freaked her out.”

“If the caller didn’t speak, how do you know it was a man?”

“Well, come on.  Of course it was a man.”

“Why not your wife?”

“My wife?”  He blinked owlishly. 

“If she knew you were having an affair, she had a motive to harass Lynn.”

“She didn’t know about Lynn.”  Click.  Click. 

“I found out about you and Lynn.  This is a small town.  Did you really think you can keep something like that a secret?”

James took his glasses off, polished them.  “Are you going to tell my wife?”

“I thought you two had grown apart.  Why do you care?”

He brought his hand down upon the table.  “Because she’s my wife!  I have kids!”

Riga rose from her chair and looked down at him.  “How badly did you want to keep this from your wife?   Lynn was blabbing all over the place about you two.  You must have wanted to shut her up.”

“I didn’t…”  He breathed heavily.  “I didn’t know she’d told anyone.” James glared at her.  “And I’m having a hard time believing she did.”

She shrugged.  “Well, like you said, she was happy go lucky.  Free spirits aren’t always concerned about how their actions affect others.  Or maybe she wasn’t as happy go lucky as she seemed.  Maybe she wanted more from the relationship.”

He frowned.  “Lynn wasn’t like that.”  His voice was uncertain.

“She ratted you out for some reason, James.  Maybe she felt lonely and had to talk to someone.  Maybe it was hard for her to keep a secret.  Or maybe she just didn’t care.”  A part of her enjoyed pushing him, a part she didn’t like very much.  She knew why he had gotten under her skin. 

She put her hand on the doorknob to go, paused, and turned.  “Tell the cops about the phone calls, James.  They may have bearing on the case.”

His chest contracted abruptly – a short, derisive laugh.  “They already know.  Lynn made a complaint.  I saw a cop at her office once and asked Lynn about it.  Think they did anything?  The cops just told her to get better locks, not to talk about the calls.  If the caller was someone she knew, he’d know he was getting to her.  They were useless.”  Click went the pen.

*****

Ice had gathered in the laces of Cesar’s boots when she emerged from the bank.   

“What did you think of the banker?” he asked, walking beside her, his boots crunching in the snow. 

“That guy couldn’t kill time,” Riga said.

He smirked.  “So what now?”

“I’ll check out Lynn Chen’s house.”

“The murdered girl?” He gazed at her steadily.  “The police will have her place locked tight.  Interview the neighbors again?” 

She grimaced.  No, this time she was going in and she couldn’t drag Cesar into it.  He’d feel he had no choice; he was tasked with protecting her, after all.  And if they were caught, they’d both be in trouble.  Not that she was planning on getting caught.  “Cesar, I’m going to have to let you go.  Just until tomorrow.”

“You can’t fire me.  If something happened to you, Mr. Mosse would have my balls for breakfast.”

“He did tell you this wasn’t a normal bodyguarding assignment.  I’m a big girl Cesar, and I need you to go find Pen.”

Cesar hesitated, then nodded.  “You’re the boss.”