Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

“Nothing you could take to a judge. But if Mavis really is the second person in the video, I say we pay him a visit and see if we can’t learn a little more.”

“Do you really think he’d talk to us, after what happened the other day?”

“Trust me, if he saw his sister killed right in front of him, he’s going to want to talk to someone eventually. We’ve got your copy of the business card that Morris gave you, so I’m thinking we try his office. If we go to his house, he’ll probably set the dogs on us.” She took a quick look at her watch. “It’s still early. You wanna go now?”

“Good plan, except today is Sunday. What are the chances he’ll even be there?”

“Any entrepreneur worth his salt works weekends,” Jake replied. “You should know that. And if he’s not there . . . well, maybe it will give us a chance to poke around and find out a little more about how Morris and Mavis fit into this whole sorry mess. You think you can stand opening the store a little late?”

“The church crowd won’t be out in force until later, anyhow, and I’m the only one working today, so why not?”

They returned to the courtyard, made quick work of the rest of their breakfast, and then went back inside to do a quick map check online. “Only about twenty blocks to his office,” Jake said in satisfaction. “Easy walk.”

Darla stifled a groan—she never was going to get used to all this hoofing it about town—but only said, “Let me run upstairs and get a decent pair of walking shoes, and I’ll meet you out front.”

To Hamlet, who was lounging on the counter, his breakfast long since consumed, she said, “You’re the boss for the next couple of hours. Don’t let anyone into the store unless they have a credit card with no limit.”

Hamlet gave her a stony green glare—he knew patronizing humor when he heard it—and knocked the stack of free newspapers off the counter by way of response. Darla shook her head. The mess could wait until later. Right now, she was in Nancy Drew mode, with a possible killer to catch!

“HE’S NOT HERE . . . THAT, OR HE’S NOT ANSWERING.”

Darla and Jake had twice rung the intercom buzzer alongside the tiny brass nameplate frame bearing a handwritten label with Morris’s last name and suite number. So far, they’d had no response, and Darla was beginning to feel a bit conspicuous standing on the chilly stoop outside the three-story apartment building that matched the address Morris had written on the back of his business card. This neighborhood had a much seedier vibe than hers. While the place presumably housed Morris’s office, Darla had begun to wonder what sort of business he actually conducted there, given the condition of both the building and the surrounding area.

Unlike her own tidy digs, this building, stuck midway down a line of row houses, gave off a distinct air of neglect. The façade’s dun-colored brick was pockmarked, as if someone with a grudge had unloaded a few rounds of buckshot at the place. Here and there, the brick was more deeply scarred, as if someone else had followed later with a few judicious blows from a hammer. Above, two rows of three filthy, barred windows each gave a bird’s-eye view from the second and third stories . . . that was, if said bird was wearing a blindfold.

Centered between the two equally barred and grimy windows on the ground floor was what charitably could be called a portico, but was in actuality little more than an alcove large enough to shelter a single person. Even though it was morning, a fly-specked bulb glowed from the open iron fixture hanging overhead. Darla didn’t need that light to make out the wooden door’s peeling brown latex, which revealed a visual account of at least three previous paint jobs, all in similar muddy hues that showed a decided lack of decorating flair. As for the stoop on which they were standing, it looked positively leprous with chunks of concrete missing from the steps. The iron railing gave a definite wobble under hand that spoke of future lawsuits.

It was hardly the sort of place where she expected a man of Morris’s apparent money and good taste to conduct business. In fact, she suspected that anyone who worked in that building also lived there, for the other tenants were all listed by a surname and not a business moniker.

Darla gazed nervously around her in time to see a trio of young men sauntering down the sidewalk toward them. In defiance of the morning chill, they were dressed alike in hooded sweatshirts and pants so baggy that they required a hand clutching their crotch to keep their jeans from sliding off completely. All three challenged her and Jake with a look as they drew closer.

“Yo, what’s doin’, pretty ladies?” one of them demanded, the cold gleam in his eyes turning what might have been a flirtatious question into something far more threatening.

While Darla tugged her wool jacket more closely around her in a reflexively defensive gesture, Jake turned and gave the three her own icy look from behind her mirrored pair of aviators. Her patented don’t-even-think-of-jacking-with-me expression combined with her tough-girl outfit of a battered black leather jacket over the usual jeans, boots, and sweater apparently got the point across. That, or it was still too early on a Sunday for the youths to care to indulge in any real harassment.

Watching them keep on walking past, Darla decided that there were some distinct advantages to hanging with an almost six-foot-tall gal pal who also happened to be an ex-cop. Even better than owning a Doberman , she thought with a nervous giggle.

“What do we do now?” Darla asked. “We can’t get past the front door if there’s no one to ring us in.”

By way of answer, Jake gave her a pitying look. “Watch and learn, young grasshopper,” she intoned and pressed another buzzer, seemingly at random.

When nothing happened, she chose another. A woman’s raspy voice made even sharper by the intercom’s distortion asked, “Who’s there?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Yeah? Me who?”

“Deb.”

“Yeah, well I don’t know no Debs. Go to hell!”

Jake gave a philosophical shrug at the figurative door slamming in her face and tried another buzzer. This time, it was a man’s disembodied voice that demanded, “Whaddya want?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Yeah? Me who?”

“Deb.”

Darla waited for the next round of “Go to hell!” but instead she heard the distinctive click of the door unlocking. Jake gave it a quick push open and gestured her inside. Darla, meanwhile, gave her friend a questioning look. “Deb?”

“Just playing the odds, kid,” Jake answered with a shrug as she joined her in the darkened foyer. “Everyone knows five or six Debs. In a larger building, it’s even easier. Just punch all the buttons at one time and someone’s bound to buzz you in without all the Q and A.”

Darla nodded, blinking a little as she tried to accustom her eyes to the abrupt change in light. The inside of the building seemed surprisingly homey. Honey-colored wood on the floor and walls emitted a faint hint of beeswax and linseed oil, as if someone had polished there within recent memory. While the treads and risers of the narrow staircase were covered in ancient green linoleum, the trim and railings were painted a contrasting deep cream color for a look straight from a decorating magazine. Over the double row of brass mailboxes mounted on the far wall, someone had hung a series of flea-market prints featuring nineteenth-century New York City street scenes that completed the urban-vintage vibe.

While Darla was still processing this stark juxtaposition between interior and exterior, the male voice from the intercom demanded from above, “Hey, where the hell’s Deb?”