Part 15 (1/2)
”Right. I spoke with your wife earlier.”
”So she said.” Ed Harrison fished into his pocket and came up with Nate's card. ”Betty said you got a rent application from my tenant who hasn't said nothin' to me about movin'.”
”He didn't tell me he was moving. Like I suggested to your wife, maybe he was expanding.” Nate walked toward the man.
Ed Harrison let out a low guffaw. ”He don't seem to be doin' no business at all. How could he be expandin'?”
Opportunity called to him as he handed Ed the release form. ”Mr. Camacho said it was okay to contact you. When did you talk to him last?”
That seemed to stop Ed in his tracks. He removed his baseball cap, scratched his thread-bare head and eyed the lease application/release form.
”Not for at least five months.” Betty Jean fired this response from behind the screen door, jerking both men's heads around in her direction.
”You sure about that?” asked her husband.
”You're the one said you bet he got arrested. Cop cars all over the place.”
”Oh, yeah.” This seemed to jog his memory.
”How did he pay his rent? I guess that's the bottom line, Mr. Harrison.”
”Paid each year in advance. In January,” replied Ed Harrison hesitantly, as if he were deliberating the suggestion that his tenant, whom he hadn't seen in over five months, might be expanding. ”Truth is, I thought he run out on the lease. But what do I care? He's paid up.”
”Ever have any problem with bounced checks, or”
”No checks. Paid cash. Every year for the last five years. One year in advance, every year.” Ed Harrison handed the release form back to him, and Nate was pretty sure that it hadn't been fully digested.
”Could I please ask another favor of you, Mr. Harrison?”
”What's that?”
”Could you let me have a copy of Mr. Camacho's application with you? To make sure that there are no inconsistencies.”
Betty Jean in the doorway again. ”Lemme see that release, Mr. Farris.”
He approached the door. Betty Jean opened it a crack and s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from him. He wondered what that had been about-her claiming her husband was the one to talk to. Deviousness was apparently not a commodity that he had cornered.
”Looks like his writing all right.” Betty Jean came out onto the front porch after a few minutes. ”I pulled the lease and his old application. Your office says you work there, so I guess it won't do no harm to give you this.”
Son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h. He didn't need to ask who she'd talked to. There were only two possibilities.
Betty Jean thrust some papers at him, and he was quick to take back the one he'd created.
”Thank you. Thank you both very much.” Nate retreated a bit too eagerly into his car. As he pulled away from the curb, he noted puzzled looks pa.s.sing between the Harrisons.
Back at his office, Nate closed the door. No Sam, no receptionist. Fredricka always left by five, but it was not unusual for Sam to be around until late. In fact, it would not be unusual for Sam to return after dinner, to put in more hours.
He read the doc.u.ments supplied by the Harrisons with a sense of urgency. Camacho had leased another shop on Thirty-eighth Avenue that he also listed as his home address at the time he applied to lease the Harrisons' property. Not unusual. Often those commercial properties had little houses in the back. Prior reference: Action Real Estate Management. That was a name he knew. The office manager, Ellie Myers, had a good set of t.i.ts on her-full-bodied, the way he liked his women. He'd often imagined that Ellie might be a source of action, but had never really gone down that road. Now he was glad. There was enough friendly business contact with Ellie that she might open up to him. He laughed at his own double entendre as his eyes roamed farther down the page.
Notify in emergency. Another spic name with an address and phone number. Hmm. Why not? After punching in the code for block caller, he entered the phone number from the form.
The call was answered before the second ring. He almost dropped the phone as he heard: ”Wheat Ridge Police Department.”
As Nate drove home, he rehashed what he had just learned. Camacho's next-of-kin worked in some capacity for Wheat Ridge P.D. Why didn't anybody working on the case jump on this? Because they had different last names? No-brainer: same mother, different fathers. Okay, but there were internet services that traced everything about a person down to their underwear. If he had access to these, the cops would have even better sources.
He'd never run a trace on Camacho because he didn't want the charge to show up on the Bayfield account. That would mean explaining what he was up to. Not yet. He preferred to present the fruits of his labor fully ripened.
And he was about to hand Morgan a real peach. As he coasted to a stop in the garage beside Morgan's Jag, he performed the new addition to his routine. As he exited his vehicle, he felt the hood of Morgan's. Garage temperature. Nate withdrew his hand from the Jag and then took the Harrisons' lease application from his jacket.
Cartons crowded the dining room table. Apparently Morgan had sent out for Chinese. Maid's night off? Then he remembered. This last one had quit after only three days.
He heard Morgan's voice and followed the sound to her bedroom. She was on the phone, dressed for a change, looking gorgeous in a honey-colored suit with a contrasting pale blue scarf at her neck.
She waved to him with a weak smile and then turned her attention back to the phone call. ”I'd like to see it before you do anything further. Yes, I can come there. It shouldn't be a problem.”
She must be picking out Kevin's casket.
”About eight,” continued Morgan after a short pause. Then she returned the cordless to its cradle.
His glance traveled quickly to his watch. Seven-thirty. Then he kissed his wife.
”You going somewhere?”
”The mortuary.”
They walked back to the dining room ”Aren't you afraid of the MSG?” he asked, with a nod toward the cartons from Yung Foo's. Everyone knew the MSG they put in Chinese was h.e.l.l on migraines.
”My headaches aren't food-related.”
Morgan's eyes pinned him. She was so hard to read when the black of her pupils melded with the dark irises.
He noticed something he'd missed on his first pa.s.s through the room: one place setting at the table. His dinner, not hers.
”You can't eat first?”
”I've got to go.”
”I'll go with you.”
”I need you to be here when Beth gets home. She and Josh are supposed to be watching a movie here tonight.”
”They need a chaperone?”
”As a matter of fact they do.” She sighed as if it was obvious, and he'd missed it. ”You're to make sure they watch the movie in the den-not in her bedroom.”
”Oh.”
Nate's attention wavered, drawn like a magnet back to what he'd just heard Morgan say on the phone. I'd like to see it before you do anything further. Not a casket. You don't do something to a casket. Wouldn't she be asking about Kevin? I'd like to see him would have been more appropriate. In the context of the mortuary, something was off. Dead folk don't lose their gender, now do they?