Cafe Underground Presents
BINDS THAT TIE
Book 4 -- Chapter 1
The Detective Andi Wicksham Series, by RL Bell
Copyright © 1997 RL BELL
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....author RL Bell
Andi Wicksham's INVESTIGATORY SERVICES
Chapter 1
Andi Wicksham swept through the door into their Hawthorn District office, Lena Kovid, her office manager/partner swung from her computer, telephone to ear, trying vainly for eye contact, Andi swung toward the coffee maker pretending to be oblivious.
“You’re just in time. A guy needs help for a friend.” Lena smiled. A year ago she’d wrangled a full partner's share of profits; clerical engineering flowed effortlessly and contracts seemed to leap from her computer. More than simply efficient, she wrangled more than enough skip searches and employee backgrounds to pay the bills, pulled in a steady dribble of summons to serve and with a balancing act worthy of Solomon, dispensed support enough to keep Andi efficient and lip enough to keep her humble.
Andi rolled her eyes and veered from the well-worn path to coffee. “Wicksham here.” she used the Sam Spade tone new clients expected and sank gratefully into her chair.
“I got a friend in trouble.” the voice began.
“Don't we all?”
“Mine found a friend's body in his kitchen last night. The police want to pin it on him.”
Andi looked up to the ceiling--her cases came from people personally up to their ears or legal hired-help, not interested friends. “You're not his lawyer?” She swung around to look out the window. A fat, little squirrel scampered down an overhead wire and leapt up to a tree branch. Andi thought about the hazelnut latte and chocolate biscotti she didn’t stop for.
“He doesn't have one yet. I figured I'd call you for advice.”
“I advise you call a lawyer.” Just what she didn't need; a third-party client with a friend. “Try Janice Thompson.” she reached for her addresses and recited the number. “What's your friend's name?”
“Lamar Rasheed.”
“Are you involved?”
“Not directly.” the voice retained a casualness.
“How indirectly.” She looked over her shoulder to see if the squirrel was still doing its tightrope act.
“I know Lamar and Jimmy. Jimmy Tuft was in the kitchen.”
“Know how well?”
“We’ve been involved politically.”
“What politics?”
“Activist.” There were pauses before and after that terse statement, then, “Direct action, pranks on environmental bad guys. I was assured you'd be sympathetic.”
“Even illegal pranks with a dead guy while he was living isn’t involved.” Andi reassured categorically. “Were you there when he died?”
“No.”
“Were you there when he was found?”
“No.”
“Do you know the person that did it?”
“No, not actually.”
“So why do you think you're involved?” Andi shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing she'd gone for coffee instead of coming back to the office.
“I know why he was killed and that Lamar didn't do it.”
The silence on the line seemed to hush the traffic sounds. “OK. How’d you come to call me?”
“Your friend Francois told me about you.”
Andi chewed her lip. “I work for money.” She'd give almost anybody a few minutes free advice, but hand-holding was a service worth wages.
“I'm prepared for that.”
“Your friend Rasheed needs a lawyer, if you're involved, you’ll need one too.”
“I'm hoping to keep out of trouble.”
“If you need legal advice, talk to a lawyer.”
“I'll call your lawyer-friend for Lamar, but still need to talk with you. The situation's complicated.” He paused for a breath to collect himself, “I want to hire you for an investigation.”
Andi yielded, “I work by the day. What's your name?” She gave up the tough-guy voice and glanced at the back of her partner's bobbing head, a lock of wispy, and bangs was dyed red with the rest short, choppy street-kid look, but single, braided strand dangled behind her multi-ringed left ear.
“Armando DeVino.”
“That your given name?”
“Yes.”
She told him she wanted a five hundred-dollar retainer against a possible day and a half’s work. He agreed and gave numbers for home and a nonprofit we directed. His confidence in the face of a friend’s murder was out of place; she had a visceral sense that something was wrong, but couldn’t put her finger on it. “Phoned the police?”
“I wanted to go over that with you.”
Andi stared blankly up to the ceiling, his plausibility stretched like late-term maternity pants. “You tell them what you know, not some line. Why do I think this isn’t kosher?”
“It’s legit.”
“OK, I'll meet you...if you talk to the cops.” She tapped the eraser of her pencil on the page before her. “If you know anything that might help your friend or bust the killer, you need to spill it. The first forty-eight are crucial.”
“What we were doing was illegal.”
“More illegal than murder?”
“No.”
“Then you take the risk. They make a big deal about withholding evidence in felonies. Where you want to meet?”
“Here would be fine”
She looked down at his address; just north of Mount Tabor; an easy five minutes. “I'll be over soon as I leave a message for a friend.”
Andi didn't wait for a response, pushing the button and punching in numbers as she looked up to Lena, “Can you crank a standard contract?”
Andi punched Ramirez's number. It was a minor miracle that he answered on the second ring.
“Sergeant Ramirez.” his flat, cop-at-work voice barked in her ear. He worked plain-clothed in the homicide division out of the Southeast precinct and had been a friend since they were teens smoking pot in the parks.
“It's Andi. I got something you want.”
“About time you called. Tanya yearns for revenge at dominos.”
“There was a body found in a kitchen late last night...the resident found the body and is being held. I got a client saying he knows something about it.”
“Why doesn't he call himself?”
“Because he was doing something compromising and didn’t wanna get in trouble.”
“No doubt.” Ramirez mumbled dryly. “What does he know?”
“I'm going over now to talk and wanna get you together right after. Say a half-hour, forty minutes?”
“Where?”
“How’s Coffee People on Hawthorne?”
“A half-hour, Wicksham.”
“Sure amigo, thanks. Ciao.” Andi grabbed the contract and gave Lena a smile.
The new client handed her a check as she came to the door and pointed to a chair. Andi chose the couch and ran through a checklist; the curtains drawn against a beautiful day and instead of the smell of food, it was musty, smelling closed-in. There was a light haze of dust on the tables, a spare cobweb in a corner and a few cheap, light-toned Jackson Pollack prints in minimalist frames and no dirty clothes.
Armando was thin-faced, in his late thirties with the complexion, dark eyes and nose arguing the authenticity of his name. His maroon tie was loose under his conservative, light colored suit was decently cut of indifferent fabric. She sank into the gold sectional couch of questionable taste, he chose the chair across from her.
A radio in a back room lent a muffled homeyness and argued that someone might be listening. Forty watt bulbs lent the aura of a cheap motel room, no books or magazines in sight, no cup rings of dried coffee, the miss-matched, better-quality thrift store decor was bachelor-esthetic. Armando skimmed the contract like a speed reader--crossing-out three sections and scribbling notes in the margins as if copying from memory. “Here. You might give these some thought, vaguer language, no reports and makes the it piece work.”
“I don't know I want that sort of job.”
“The job's the same; it's yours, you run it how you want, this limits your liability.” He held out the page and met her eyes.
Andi nodded, he was paying well, contract or not. She took the paper, folded it once without reading and slipped it into her notebook, then flipped to a blank page.
“Where do you want to begin?”
Armando held her gaze and smiled easily. “Lamar Rasheed and I were painting graffiti. Adding ‘GET OUT AND VOTE’ to Nike ‘Just Do It’ billboards.”
“That's awfully tame.”
Armando shrugged. “Afterwards we went for a snack. I dropped him in front of his house about midnight, he went in and found Jimmy.”
“How do you know that if you weren't there?” Andi dropped the notebook to her lap and leaned back.
“He called 911, hung up and called me. My phone was ringing as I came in and we were still talking when he let the police in.”
“So, you can give him an alibi for the hours before Jimmy's body was found?” Andi's voice remained restrained and professional. “How come you haven’t been questioned?”
“Lamar wouldn’t have named me.”
“You can vouch for him...?”
“Eight-thirty to midnight.”
“Where’d you go for the snack?”
“Common Grounds. They’ve already asked the night staff questions.”
“When’d you last see the victim?”
“Jimmy? Yesterday afternoon about three-thirty. He left to video people going to a meeting at Riparian Industries.”
“Who's Riparian?” Andi's pencil hung poised over her notebook.
“A company with a poor record. Jimmy’s murderer.”
“On the phone you said you didn't know who killed him.”
“I don't know specifically. Riparian's the reason he was killed, probably somebody involved with them.”
Andi pursed her lips. “I assume there's a story behind that.”
“That's why I called.”
“There more you want to tell?” She waited for a response that didn't come, she tried again. “What you've said doesn't seem too bad. You'll talk to my friend Sergeant Ramirez.” She held his eye with a steely gaze. “He resents being steered, I suggest opening up more than you have to me, if you're reasonably honest he might say you and Lamar were doing an art project.” She shut the notebook with a slap and rose to her feet.
“Is this necessary?”
Andi nodded and gestured for him to get up, “We'll discuss your investigation tomorrow. Ten o'clock OK?”
He nodded, his jaw set and eyes dark, but didn't move from his chair.
“Come on. This is what you hired me for.” She watched him struggle to his feet. “Got a car? Follow me. Ramirez hates anybody being later than him.”
Ramirez took Armando's statement at an outside table wearing a look of professional disapproval. He took three pages of notes and dismissed Armando with a warning that someone would be in touch.
Armando rose from his chair and nodded, tight-lipped and defensive, his dark, long-lashed eyes giving Andi a salutary blink and mumbling. “Tomorrow.”
Ramirez wasn't impressed by Armando’s mentioning Riparian Industries three times without coming up with reasons why they'd hate Jimmy enough to kill him or Lamar enough to dump Jimmy on his floor. Ramirez watched Armando cross the street and drive away before turning to Andi. “The body was cold when the uniforms got there. Prelim guess is six or eight hours since he been handcuffed, beaten-up and shot. Lamar Rasheed’s not high on the list, he was at work when Jimmy died. Telling Max of the graffiti was probably a mistake, Max is using it as leverage and holding Rasheed because he pissed him off, but he can’t really press it, besides being misdemeanor, exhorting people to vote would get it laughed out of court.”
Andi idly kicked the table leg. “It was message.”
“But what’s important enough to send it? The two of ‘em know more than they're telling.”
Andi gave a noncommittal shrug with what she hoped was a disarming smile.
“Why’s Armando think he's involved?” Ramirez stared as if suspecting her of withholding.
Andi examined her fingernails nonchalantly. “If you believe him, he’s an interested friend.”
“Meet with him mañana?”
Andi nodded.
“What's the agenda?”
“Some investigation. Something environmental.”
“Not quite your thing, Wicksham. Watch your step. Don't stick your nose in, its Max's murder to investigate. Do I have to say more?”
She’d run afoul Lieutenant Max more than once--helping far more far more than he’d reason to expect and getting grief for her trouble.
Ramirez leaned forward and sipped his mocha as Lena strolled toward them. Andi gave welcoming smile and pushed the extra chair with her toe. “Que peso, Amiga, ca va?”
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Copyright © 1997 RL BELL.
Last Updated 10/30/98
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