Double Shot

“I don’t think so,” Frances replied. “They may have given him a cash sum, but he squirreled it away somewhere, or spent it on his girlfriends, or whatever. A little birdie told me that for the down payment on your house, Dr. John Richard Korman borrowed fifty Gs from his old friend Dr. Ted Vikarios.”

“I don’t believe it,” I snapped. “Who’s the little birdie?”

“Actually,” she said with the tiniest shade of uncertainty, “that particular factoid came from an anonymous tip on my voice mail.”

“From a man or a woman?”

“Couldn’t tell. So are you going to confirm or deny?”

“Deny. Emphatically.” But still, I felt as if I’d been punched. Fifty thousand dollars? John Richard might have incurred a debt I’d never even heard of? To some people who were now bankrupt? Was this before or after he supposedly raped a teenager? Outside, Tom and Arch called to each other and shuffled their equipment out of the car and toward the house. Another wave of chills enveloped my body. “Did Ted Vikarios keep some documentation of this loan?”

“Nope,” Frances replied. “At least, not according to Holly Kerr.”

“Did Holly Kerr confirm the fact of the loan, Frances?”

“Well, actually,” Frances admitted, “she just said if there was a loan, it was a gentleman’s agreement.”

“You’re telling me Holly Kerr agreed to be interviewed by you?”

“Not exactly. But my Jeep made mincemeat of that driveway of hers, and I can camp out on somebody else’s porch as easily as I can camp out on yours.” She chuckled.

I shook my head. If I hadn’t been afraid it would get into the papers, I would have said, Frances, sometimes you can be a first-class bitch.

“All right,” Frances went on blithely, “think about this. The Vikarioses’ financial woes began at about the same time that your ex-husband started downhill, moneywise. And then of course he had those bothersome trips to jail. But all of a sudden, his sentence was commuted. And he had a big argument with Ted Vikarios, or at least a heated discussion, right before you and Korman went at it. Sort of puts that last conflict with your ex into better perspective, doesn’t it? Him flying off the handle at you all of a sudden…seems a bit odd, doesn’t it?”

Tom and Arch were punching the numbers on the deck-door security box and peering in. “No, Frances,” I replied. “It wasn’t a bit odd. In fact, him flying off the handle at me all of a sudden was the entire problem of John Richard’s and my relationship. In a nutshell.”

“Of course,” she said slyly, “maybe you did know about the loan and its lack of documentation. Then you’d have had even more reason to shoot—”

“Look, I need to go,” I lied. “If I find out anything, I’ll call you.”

While she was still squawking, I hung up. Her quid, in addition to being unsettling, hadn’t made much sense. Besides implying that I would have had further motive to kill John Richard, was she saying it was possible that Ted Vikarios, unable to extract fifty Gs on the spot from John Richard—after not seeing him for nigh on fifteen years— had driven over to his house and shot him? Whatever chance Ted Vikarios would have had of extracting cash from the Jerk would have been extinguished with those shots in the garage.

When Tom and Arch traipsed through the door, I immediately knew that something was wrong. Tom’s look was hooded. Arch’s hair was matted to his head; his face was flushed, streaked, and glossy with sweat.

Arch nodded and acknowledged me with a “Hi, Mom! How’re you doing?” that was way, way too enthusiastic. “Check it out! Tom bought me a new hockey stick I’ve been wanting! And a jersey, too!” He bounced past, mumbling something about needing a shower.

Wait a minute. Stick? Jersey? I glanced after him, but he was gone.

“Couldn’t get a tee time?” I said lightly to Tom, who was washing his hands at the sink.

“Oh, we got a tee time, all right,” Tom replied.

“But the two of you changed your minds?”

As if thinking over his answer, Tom said nothing. He began calmly fitting candles into crystal candlesticks for the table. Eventually he lowered himself, somewhat wearily, into a kitchen chair. Finally he gave me the full benefit of his sea-green eyes.

“I have news for you. Arch cannot play golf. He doesn’t even know how to hold a club.”

“But that can’t be,” I protested. “He’s been playing twice a week with John Richard for the last month. John Richard hired the pro to work with Arch—”

Tom’s look was even and steady. “I don’t think so. Your son didn’t tell me what he and his father were doing those two afternoons a week. But I can tell you this. Arch has never played golf in his life.”

My fragile relationship with Arch at that particular juncture, i.e., right after the violent death of his father, did not permit me to interrogate him on the subject of what, exactly, he and John Richard had been doing every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for the last month. When we came together at the candlelit dinner table at half-past seven, I thought I’d wait until we were all eating before posing any questions.

A sudden wind brought the temperature down twenty-five degrees, perfect Mediterranean- and Mexican-food weather. When I placed Trudy’s hot, juicy chicken platter next to the steaming enchilada pie, Arch and Tom dug in with enthusiasm. The chicken was succulent and not too spicy. The Mexican-pie melange of beef, garlic, onions, refried beans, and hot sauces also featured corn chips and enough melted cheese to smother Pancho Villa’s entire army. I’d set out a bowl of rice and dishes of sliced fresh tomatoes and avocados, chopped lettuce and scallions, and a mountain of snowy sour cream. If nothing else, ice hockey did have a way of cranking up the appetite.

“Arch,” I began, “I was wondering—”

But Tom warned me off immediately with one of his He’ll talk when he’s ready looks. Arch gave me a studiously blank stare. If he wanted to discuss his father, the funeral, or anything else, he gave no indication. When the plates were empty, I asked if anyone wanted strawberry-cream pie. Both Tom and Arch groaned and said that they were too full. And then Arch scraped back his chair and asked to be excused. When I acquiesced, he mumbled, “Thanks, Mom,” and took off for his room.

“I know he’s trying to be polite,” I commented to Tom as we cleared the table. “But not only is Arch withholding evidence, he’s going back into the infamous adolescent shell.”

Tom put down a pile of dishes and gathered me into a hug. “We talked a lot this afternoon. He’s torn up, all right.” He kissed my neck and held me tighter. “Miss G., I’m more worried about you. I pulled out the trash container, and saw it was filled with glass shards. What’s that about?”

“Rage. I have a lot to tell you.”

He let go of me. “Rage about what?”

I gave him the executive summary of the morning: the strip club, Lana, the bleeding bald man left on Marla’s car. Then I told him about the afternoon: seeing Holly, encountering the reporters, pie-slapping Mannis. Afterward, I’d broken a few jars in anger, yes. And then I’d read the notes from Cecelia Brisbane. Tom had listened this far without comment, but he held up a hand.

“Stop. Do you have these notes now?”

“You’ll be happy to know that I turned them over to Detective Blackridge. But I did make copies,” I added. I pulled out the copies I’d made of the notes, and again was thankful that Tom had given me a small photocopying machine for my birthday.

“Oh, my Lord,” Tom said, shaking his head. He put down the copies and gave me a hard look. “Do you think it’s true?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. Someone is or was trying to frame me for John Richard’s death. And now, all of a sudden, stories about him start surfacing.”

“Are there other stories!” Tom asked.

I told him that Frances Markasian might have unearthed an old debt, to the tune of fifty thou. According to an anonymous source who’d called Frances, Dr. Ted Vikarios had loaned the Jerk the down payment on this very house in which we now found ourselves. The same source said the Jerk had never paid it back. Ted and John Richard had argued outside the Roundhouse, Frances’s theory went, because the Jerk refused to cough up the funds. The