Chapter Five
C.J. closed her apartment door and leaned against it for a moment. Tonight, being in Hank’s office, she’d felt him as if he was there watching her, urging her on.
Tell me who killed you! she’d wanted to scream.
She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he’d left behind a clue. Some lead for her to follow that even whoever had ransacked the office wouldn’t get, but she would because she and Hank had been so close they could almost read each other’s mind.
Until recently. Lately he’d been secretive.
But did it have something to do with the McGraw kidnapping? Just because she’d found the file in Hank’s hiding place, it didn’t mean it was the last case he was working on. While she and Boone had found a couple of recent case files, neither of them had seemed like something that could get Hank killed. Then again, like Boone had said, any case could turn violent.
She’d tossed the three file folders from fairly recent cases of Hank’s on the kitchen table as she’d come into the apartment. Now she moved to them. Other than the McGraw file, there was one labeled Mabel Cross. Inside, she found a quick abbreviated version of Mabel’s problem. The woman suspected that her niece had taken an antique brooch of hers. But she also thought her daughter’s husband might have taken it. She had wanted Hank to find it and get it back.
The second file folder was labeled Fred Hanson. His pickup had been vandalized. He was pretty sure it was one of his neighbors since they’d been in a disagreement. He wanted to know which one of them was guilty.
The third case, Susan Roth Turner, suspected her husband might be having an affair.
C.J. sighed. None of those seemed likely to have gotten Hank killed. But she knew better than to rule them out since other than the McGraw file, they were his most recent cases and three of his last ones before he was to retire.
Moving to the refrigerator, she poured herself a glass of red wine and headed for the couch. This was the hardest part of her day. As long as she was busy taking care of all the arrangements for Hank’s funeral, tying up loose ends with their business dealings and looking for his killer, she could keep the grief away.
But it was moments like this that it hit her like a tidal wave, drowning her in the pain and regret. Hank had taught her everything about the private eye business from the time she was old enough to see over the top of his big desk. Her mother had worked in the building back in those days and C.J. used to wander the halls, always ending up in Hank’s office.
He’d pretended that her visits were a bother, but she’d known he hadn’t meant it. He’d started bringing her a treat, an apple, a banana or an orange, saying she should have something healthy. He’d always join her, pushing aside a case file to sit down and talk with her. Even extinguishing his cigar so the smoke didn’t bother her.
From the time she was little, she loved listening to him talk about the cases he was working on. He never mentioned names. But he loved discussing them with her. She had seen how much he loved his job, how much he loved helping people. He’d hooked her on the PI business. All she’d ever wanted was to be just like him.
Hank had loved it all, especially solving mysteries that seemed impossible to solve. He was good at his job and often worked for little or nothing, depending on how much his clients could afford.
Sometimes we’re all a person has, he used to tell her. They need help and everyone else has turned them down.
So how was it that he’d gotten himself killed?
Exhausted, still grief stricken and feeling as if she was in over her head, she wandered into the bedroom to drop onto the bed. She desperately needed sleep, but she picked up her laptop because she had a feeling she hadn’t seen the last of Boone McGraw.
Within minutes she was caught up on the latest information that had been released to the press about the twenty-five-year-old kidnapping as well as what she could find out about Boone. The more she read about the kidnapping, the more she worried that he was right and Hank had discovered something about the case that had gotten him killed.
She didn’t want to believe it. What could he have found out that had put him in such danger? She recalled something Boone had said and dug her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans.
“Can’t sleep?” Boone said in answer to her call.
“You said something earlier about this Vance Elliot turning out not to be Oakley McGraw. He must have had some kind of proof to make you think he was the missing son.”
“He had my little brother’s stuffed horse.”
She lay back on the bed. “What made you think it was the same horse?”
“It had a blue ribbon tied around it and some of the stitching was missing. Oakley never slept without it in his crib.”
“So how did he just happen to have this horse, if he wasn’t the real Oakley McGraw?”
“It’s a long story, but basically, someone had picked up the horse as a souvenir at the crime scene and later decided to use it to get money out of my father.”
“So you have no idea who in the house helped the kidnapper take the twins? What about the nanny who became your stepmother? She seems the perfect suspect. I just read that she might be released from jail until her trial for attempted murder.”
“Suspect, yes. But for trying to kill my father, not for the kidnapping.”
Exhaustion pulled at her. She could hardly keep her eyes open. “So they were fraternal twins, right? Six months old.” She was thinking of what Hank had written in the file. “I’m assuming your sister also had a stuffed horse toy in her crib that was taken that night? One with a pink ribbon.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes, seeing the yellow lined paper and the words pink ribbon written in Hank’s even script. Pink grosgrain ribbon. “Was there anything about the ribbon around its neck released to the media?”
“No. There was nothing about it being a pink grosgrain ribbon.”
“That’s the kind that has the ridges, right? The lawyer must have mentioned it to Hank—”
“I’m sure he provided information about the kidnapping to Knight Investigations, but not that,” Boone said. “Hank knew something before he made the call. Otherwise why would he have contacted our family lawyer with questions about Jesse Rose?”
Good question. Unfortunately, C.J. had no idea. But her gut instinct told her that Boone was right. Hank had already known all about the kidnapping twenty-five years ago. For some reason, he had followed the case closely all these years.
But if he’d kept anything in writing, she hadn’t found it. Yet.
“I’m going to the police station in the morning to find out more about Hank’s death,” Boone said.
“Good luck with that.” She hung up and rolled over, too tired to get undressed. And yet her thoughts refused to let her sleep.
Was there more information Hank had hidden somewhere? Why wasn’t the information in the file? Because he knew enough to know he was in danger?
If this was about the McGraw kidnapping, had Hank gotten too close to the truth? But wouldn’t that mean that he had inside knowledge? Wasn’t the fear that Hank had inside information and that was what had her running scared now?
She rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling, her mind racing. Had Hank already known about the pink ribbon? Or had the attorney told him? Either way, Hank had written it down. He’d also told the attorney that he had to go out of town. But he hadn’t. Or had he?
She thought of Boone McGraw. He’d seen the words pink grosgrain ribbon in Hank’s scrawl. He’d known then that Hank knew more than he had told the lawyer. Why hadn’t the cowboy said something then?
Because he was holding out on her. Just like she was on him.
She felt a shiver and pulled the quilt over her. If Hank had known where to find Jesse Rose, then he would have told the McGraw lawyer, she told herself. Unless...unless he had something to hide.
Her eyes felt as if someone had kicked sand into them. She closed them and dropped like a stone into a bottomless well of dark, troubled sleep.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, Boone stopped by the police station and after waiting twenty minutes, was led to a Detective Branson’s desk. The man sitting behind it could have been a banker. He wore a suit, tie and wire-rimmed glasses. He looked nothing like a cop, let alone a detective.
As Boone took a seat, he said, “I’m Boone—”
“McGraw. Son of Travers McGraw. I know. You told my desk clerk. That’s why you’re sitting where you are when I’m so busy.”
He was used to his father’s name opening doors. “I’m inquiring about a private investigator by the name of—”
“Hank Knight. He’s dead.” He looked back at the stack of papers on his desk, then up again. He seemed surprised Boone was still sitting there.
“Can you tell me under what circumstance—”
“Hit-and-run. Given the time of night, not that surprising, and in front of a bar.” The cop shrugged as if it happened all the time.
Boone could see why C.J. hadn’t been happy after talking to the cops. “So you think it was an accident?”
Branson leaned back in his chair, his expression one of tired impatience even this early in the morning. “What else?”
“Murder.”
The detective laughed. “Obviously you didn’t know Hank or you wouldn’t even ask that question. Hit-and-run accident. Case closed.”
“Surely you’re investigating it.”
“Of course,” Branson said. “Right along with all the other crimes that go on in this city. Why the interest?”
Boone could see that the hit-and-run was low priority. He thought about mentioning the kidnapping case. For twenty-five years anyone who heard the name would instantly tie it to the kidnapping. It had been a noose around his neck from the age of five.
“His partner believes it was murder.”
“C.J. West?” He sneered as if that also answered his earlier question. The detective thought this was about him and the private eye?
“She has reason to believe it wasn’t an accident,” he said.
“PIs,” Branson said and shook his head. “They just want to be cops. Trust me, it was an accident. So unless you know different, I have to be in court in twenty minutes...”
The detective went back to his paperwork. Boone rose. On his way out the door, he called C.J. on the number she’d called him from last night. “You were right about the cops.”
“You doubted me?”
“My mistake.” He could hear traffic sounds in the background on her end of the line.
“Think you can find the Greasy Spoon Café around the corner from the cop shop?” she asked.