Michael Koryta: Tonight I Said Goodbye

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

“I’m not. I’ve got a bad feeling we’re going to take the father’s money so we can stick our noses in this mess, and then the cops will hold a press conference a week or two from now and announce that they found the bodies of the wife and daughter where Weston dumped them. I hope that’s not true, but it’s hard not to think about it.”

“So why take the case?”

“If someone wants me to investigate something as bad as this old man does,” I said, “I’m damn well going to give it a try.”

She ran the tip of her tongue across her lips and frowned. “I can’t help wondering about it myself, just because of the line of work he’s in. The nature of the business makes the whole thing seem a little more sordid, doesn’t it?”

“A bit.” I leaned back and put my feet up on the desk.

“So,” she said, changing the subject, “how’s Angela ?”

“Why do you say her name like that?” I asked. “Like you’re laughing at me?”

She raised her eyebrows and tried to look innocent. “Laughing at you? Not at all. Don’t be so defensive. Now, what’s the deal with you two?”

“Angela and I have gone our separate ways.”

“Really? I’m sorry,” she said, but I could tell she wasn’t at all. “Might I ask why?”

“We were very different people,” I mumbled. “She was, ah, a bit-”

“Of a ditz,” Amy interjected.

I frowned. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Oops.” She grinned. “My mistake.”

“She wasn’t a ditz,” I said. “And you only met her once, so you’re hardly one to judge.”

“Once was enough, Lincoln.”

“And how’s your love life? Your sexy news-anchor boyfriend, Mr. Jacob Terry?” I said, dropping my voice to a deep baritone.

“We’re fine.”

I smiled. “What is it that most attracts you to him? The romantic musk of his cologne, or the gallon of hair oil he uses to shellac that striking mane into place for a windy live report?”

“Jealous,” she said, “that’s what you are.”

“Almost uncontrollably,” I said with a nod. “It’s hard to sleep at night.”

“Joke if you want to, Lincoln, but I know the real reason you and Angela didn’t work out. You can’t stop thinking about me.”

I pointed at the door. “Hit the road, Ace. I’ve got work to do.”

She smiled and got to her feet. “So do I. But I expect a phone call in the next few days to let me know what you’ve found out.”

“I’ll call.”

Joe returned half an hour later, and we left to visit John Weston. While he drove I filled him in on what I’d learned from the articles, which was basically nothing.

“I hope this old man’s not as loud and fiery as you say,” he told me. “I don’t deal well with those types.”

“You mean your peers?”

“Silence, boy.”

Weston greeted us at the door in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He shook Joe’s hand when I introduced them.

“I sure as hell hope you don’t drag your feet like your partner,” Weston said to him. Fond of me already.

“Neither of us will do any foot-dragging once we’ve agreed to take the case,” Joe said. “But he’s the one who had to talk me into it, sir. Not the other way around.”

“I don’t give a damn about that anymore. Just get started.”

He led us into the living room. I quickly headed for the recliner on the far wall, leaving Joe to struggle with the torture chair.

Weston returned to his position on the couch and held up a notebook. “I’ve been working on this since you left yesterday,” he said, nodding at me. “I’ve written down as much information about Wayne as I could think of. I tried to keep it focused on the recent stuff, of course, but I gave you some background, too. I figured it might all be useful.”

I looked at Joe, and I could tell he was seeing what I already knew. John Weston might be grieving, and he might be temperamental, but his focus was on resolving this investigation. In many situations it’s hard to get the victim’s family to put aside their emotions long enough to provide information. That wasn’t going to be a problem here.

“Go on, take a look and see if there’s anything I left out,” Weston said, waving the notebook at me.

I took it, and I was impressed. He’d filled nearly twenty pages with neat, precise printing, all capital letters. Each category had a title, such as “Business History,” “Acquaintances,” and so on. He’d even taped photographs on some of the pages, complete with captions identifying those pictured. It was exactly the type of report Joe and I had been hoping to put together ourselves after this interview.

“It’s very thorough,” I said. “We appreciate this, Mr. Weston. This is the type of information we need to have available if we’re going to get off to a fast start on the case.”

He lit a fresh cigarette. “I figured that. The cops have already asked me about most of it, so I knew what you’d probably be looking for. I figured I’d save some time by putting it together for you.”

I stopped turning pages when I saw a photograph of Wayne Weston in uniform.

“Your son was in the military?”

“That’s right. Eight years in the Marines. He was Force Recon,” Weston announced proudly. I knew the reason for that pride; Force Recon was the elite special operations unit of the Marine Corps, that branch’s equivalent to the Army’s Green Berets and the Navy’s SEALs.

“How old was he when he mustered out of the Corps?”

“Twenty-eight. He left the Marines and came back here, then signed up with the Pinkerton outfit. He thought the investigation business sounded interesting, and they weren’t going to turn down a Recon vet, that’s for damn sure,” Weston said. “He stayed with them for several years, and then he met Julie and got married. The Pinkertons had him doing a good bit of traveling, so he decided to cut out on his own.”

“How long was he working independently?” I asked.

“Nine years,” Weston said without pausing to think about it. “Making a hell of a good living at it, too. Beautiful house, fancy cars for both him and Julie, the works.” Beyond the haze of cigarette smoke, Weston’s brown eyes were somber.

“You told me you weren’t aware of any sort of problem,” I said. “No family quarrels, no financial problems, nothing of that nature.”

“That’s right. I talked to him at least once a week, and everything seemed to be fine. Well, almost fine. He’d seemed a little more serious in the past few months, you know, a little less quick with the jokes.” He puffed on his cigarette and then shrugged. “It was probably just the winter getting him down, though. You know how these damned Cleveland winters can wear at you.”

“Did he ever mention any business concerns?” Joe asked. “A tough case, tough client, anything like that?”

“Nope, not a thing.” He said it uneasily-not like he was lying, but like it made him uncomfortable not to have something to blame.

“He worked alone?”

“Yes.” Weston held up a finger and launched into a coughing fit that sounded like a sputtering diesel engine. He got it under control, swore, took a hearty pull on the cigarette, and returned to talking. “Early on he had a partner, but then that guy moved to Sandusky, and Wayne went back to being alone. I guess he had a-well, what would you call it-a research assistant, I suppose? Some graduate student he’d ask for help with research occasionally, when he was really swamped.”

“Do you know his name?” Joe asked.

“Her name,” Weston said. “Her name’s April Sortigan. I put it in the notebook.”

I stopped flipping through the notes and stared at the photographs Weston had included of his daughter-in-law, Julie, and his granddaughter, Elizabeth. I’d seen pictures of them on the news and in the papers, but those had been headshots, and John Weston had included snapshots of the two at various family activities. Julie Weston was beautiful, with dark, Italian features, the kind of body men dream about, and a smile so bright and genuine it made me want to look away from the picture.