Storm Front

Or, I could work on Monica Sells’s missing husband case. I thought I had that one pretty well pegged down, but it wouldn’t hurt to get it fleshed out fully. I could spend time working on it, fill out the hours on the retainer, maybe even get a few more added on. That appealed to me a lot more than trying to work out some black magic.

So, I could follow up on the lead Toot-toot had given me. There’d been pizza delivered out to the Lake Providence home that night. Time to talk to the deliveryman, if possible.

I left the cafe, went out to the pay phones, and dialed directory assistance. There was only one place near the Lake Providence address that delivered pizza. I got the number and dialed through.

"Pizza ‘Spress," someone with his mouth full said. "What’ll it be tonight?"

"Hey there," I said. "I wonder if you can help me out. I’m looking for the driver who took an order out to an address on Wednesday night." I told him the address, and asked if I could speak to the driver.

"Another one," he snorted. "Sure, hang on. Jack just got in from a run." The voice on the other end of the line called out to someone, and a minute later the high baritone of a young man spoke tentatively into my ear.

"H-hello?"

"Hello," I answered. "Are you the driver who took pizza to – "

"Look," he said, his voice exasperated and nervous. "I said I was sorry already. It won’t happen again."

I blinked for a minute, off balance. "Sorry for what?"

"Jeezus," he said. I heard him move across a room, with a lot of music and loud talk in the background, and then the background noise cut off, as though he had stepped into another room and shut the door behind him. "Look," he said in a half whine. "I told you I’m not gonna say anything to anyone. I was only looking. You can’t blame me, right? No one answered the door, what was I supposed to do?" His voice cracked in the middle of his sentences. "Hell of a party, but hey. That’s your business. Right?"

I struggled to keep up with the kid. "What, exactly, did you see, Jack?" I asked him.

"No one’s face," he assured me, his voice growing more nervous. He gave a jittery little laugh and tried to joke. "Better things to look at than faces, right? I mean, I don’t give a damn what you do in your own house. Or your friends, or whoever. Don’t worry about me. Never going to say a thing. Next time I’ll just leave the pizza and run a tab, right?"

Friends, plural. Interesting. The kid was awfully nervous. He must have gotten an eyeful. But I had a gut instinct that he was hiding something else, keeping it back.

"What else?" I asked him. I kept my voice calm and neutral. "You saw something else. What was it?"

"None of my business," he said, instantly. "None of my business. Look, I gotta get off this line. We have to keep it open for orders. It’s Friday night, we’re busy as hell."

"What," I said, separating my words, keeping them clipped, "else?"

"Oh, shit," he breathed, his voice shaking. "Look, I wasn’t with that guy. Didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t tell him you were having an orgy out there. Honest. Jeezus, mister, I don’t want any trouble."

Victor Sells seemed to have a real good idea of how to party – and of how to frighten teenagers. "One more question, and I’ll let this go," I told him. "Who was it you saw? Tell me about him."

"I don’t know. I don’t know him, didn’t recognize him. Some guy, with a camera, that’s all. I went around the back of the house to try the back door, got up on your deck, and just saw inside. I didn’t keep on looking. But he was up there, all in black, with this camera, taking pictures." He paused as someone pounded on the door he had closed earlier. "Oh, God, I have to go, mister. I don’t know you. I don’t know nothing." And then there was a scrambling of feet, and he hung up the phone.

I hung up the phone myself and ambled back to George’s loaner. I worked out the details I had just learned on the way back to my apartment.

Someone else had called Pizza ‘Spress, evidently just before I had. Someone else had gone asking after the pizza boy. Who?

Why, Victor Sells, of course. Tracing down people who might have information about him, his possible presence in the lake house. Victor Sells, who had been having some sort of get-together out there that night. Maybe he’d been drunk, or one of his guests had, and ordered the pizza – and now Victor was trying to cover his tracks.

Which implied that Victor knew someone was looking for him. Hell, as far as I knew, he’d been in the house when I’d gone out there last night. This made things a lot more interesting. A missing man who doesn’t want to be found could get dangerous if someone came snooping after him.

And a photographer? Someone lurking around outside of windows and taking pictures? I rummaged in my duster pocket and felt the round plastic film canister. That explained where the canister had come from, at any rate. But why would someone be out there at the house, taking pictures of Victor and his friends? Maybe because Monica had hired someone else, a PI, without telling me. Maybe just a neighbor with the hots for taking dirty pictures. No way to tell, really. More mysteries.

I pulled the Studebaker into my drive and killed the engine. I tallied the score for the evening. Enigmas: lots. Harry: zero.

My investigation for Monica Sells had netted me one husband throwing wild parties in his beach house after losing his job, and working hard not to be found. Probably an advanced case of male menopause. Monica didn’t seem to be the kind of woman who would take such a thing with good grace – more like the kind who would close her eyes and call me a liar if I told her the truth. But at least it merited a little more looking into – I could log a few more hours in on the case, maybe earn some more money out of it before I gave her the bill. But I still didn’t really know anything.

The angle with Bianca had come to a dead end at Linda Randall. All I had were more questions for Miss Randall, and she was as closed as a bank on Sunday. I didn’t have anything solid enough to hand to Murphy to let her pursue the matter. Dammit. I was going to have to do that research after all. Maybe it would turn up something helpful, some kind of clue to help lead me and the police to the murderer.

And maybe dragons would fly out my butt. But I had to try.

So I got out of the car to go inside and get to work.

He was waiting for me behind the trash cans that stood next to the stairs leading down to my front door. The baseball bat he swung at me took me behind the ear and pitched me to the bottom of the stairs in a near-senseless heap. I could hear his footsteps, but couldn’t quite move, as he came down the stairs toward me.