Chapter Eight
The first thing that hit her in Hank’s apartment was the scent of cigar smoke. It lingered even though he’d quit smoking them some years ago. At work, he had taken up sucking on lemon drops. She’d often wondered if he’d done that for her because of how often she would end up at his office visiting with him about their cases.
Tears stung her eyes. She drew on her strength as she looked around the room. The door opened to a small kitchen and dining room. Past it was the living room, a dark curtain drawn over the only window. Beyond that was the bedroom and bath.
She’d only been here one other time. “I doubt there is anything here to find, but we can look.” She hated that she’d brought Boone. But if the McGraw kidnapping had gotten Hank killed...
“I would think this is the logical place for your partner to keep information he possibly didn’t want you or anyone else to see,” Boone said, stepping past her and deeper into the apartment. “I meant to ask you last night. He didn’t use a computer?”
“No.” She glanced toward the kitchen sink. One lone cup sat on the faded porcelain. An old-fashioned brew coffeepot sat on one of the four burners on the stove. A half-eaten loaf of bread perched on an ancient toaster.
She moved to the refrigerator and opened the door to peer inside. A plate with a quarter stick of butter sat next to a half-empty jar of peach jam, Hank’s favorite. The jam and butter shared space with two Great Falls Select cans of beer. Other than containers of mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise, there was a jar of dill pickles and one of green olives.
Closing the door, she felt Boone’s impatient gaze on her.
“What are you looking for? Don’t tell me you’re hungry again,” he said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach down to go through some magazines on the coffee table in front of the worn couch.
She didn’t answer as she checked the garbage. Empty except for a clean bag. The Hank she knew was far from neat. The other time she’d been here, the garbage had been near full and there’d been toast crumbs on the counter, the butter dish next to them. Was Boone right about Hank either just coming back from somewhere—or getting ready to go somewhere?
“I think you’d better come see this,” Boone called from the bedroom.
C.J. headed in that direction, half-afraid of what he’d found. When she looked through the door, she saw a beat-up brown suitcase open on the bed half-full of clothing. Stepping closer, she saw that Hank had packed two pairs of slacks and his best shirts.
She quickly glanced toward the closet, suddenly worried that he had planned to be gone longer than a few days. But most of his clothing was still hanging in the closet.
“What do you make of this?” Boone asked, eyeing her openly.
“He was either leaving or had just come back. His refrigerator is nearly empty and everything is cleaned up.”
“So what he told my family lawyer might be true. He’d gone somewhere. To visit family?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t have any family that I knew of.” On top of that, Hank had hated to travel. In all the time she’d known him he’d left Butte only a couple times a year and always on a case—or so he had led her to believe. That she doubted his honesty now made her feel sick to her stomach.
She stepped to the suitcase to run her fingers along the fabric of one of the shirts. It was a gray-and-white-striped one she’d bought him for Christmas last year. He only wore it for special occasions. So what was the special occasion?
And why had he kept it from her?
* * *
BOONE COULD SEE C.J.’s confusion and hurt. Whatever her partner had been up to, he hadn’t shared it with her. “I don’t see a phone and he’d had the one at his office disconnected. I can see living off the grid, but...”
C.J. seemed to stir. Before that, she’d been staring into the suitcase, her thoughts dark from the frown that marred her girl-next-door-adorable face. “He recently bought a cell phone.” Her frown deepened. “It wasn’t found on his body.”
Boone’s pulse kicked up. “Was it possible someone took it off his body?”
Her brown eyes widened. “You mean someone in the crowd that must have gathered outside the bar?”
“We should search the rest of the apartment,” Boone said, seeing how hard it was for her to keep her emotions at bay. He looked through drawers in the bedroom while she searched the bathroom and the living room.
“Something else is bothering me,” he said when he found her going through a pile of old mail. “How was he planning to travel? I went through the suitcase but there wasn’t a plane ticket in there. I suppose it could be an e-ticket on his phone.”
She shook her head. “Hank wouldn’t have flown. He always said that if God had wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings. He must have driven or been planning to.”
“Where’s his car?”
* * *
C.J. HAD BEEN so upset and busy with funeral arrangements and everything else that she hadn’t been thinking clearly. It explained why she hadn’t sent this cowboy packing. Like she’d told him last night, she didn’t need or want his help. At least the latter was true.
“I hadn’t even thought about his car. I just assumed that he’d walked down to the bar from here,” she said. “He was hit in front of the bar. Now that I think about it, I didn’t see his car parked where he usually leaves it.”
“I think we should find it. What does he drive?” Boone asked as they left the apartment via the fire escape and ended up in another alley. The wind had picked up and now blew between the buildings, icy cold. A weak December sun did little to chase away the chill.
“A ’77 Olds 88, blue with a white top.”
“So where is this bar?”
“Not far.” She thought of the bar owner and realized she should have gone to see him before this. Natty would be as upset by all this as her. But then Hank had had so many friends.
A few blocks later, they entered the rear of the bar and she braced herself. This had been Hank’s favorite bar. When he’d walk in the door, there would be a roar of greetings. Everyone had wanted to shake his hand and buy him a drink. But, never one to overindulge, he’d merely thank them and say he wasn’t staying long.
As she started toward the front of the bar, C.J. half expected to see Hank on one of the stools. She thought of his face lighting up when he saw her and had to swallow back the lump in her throat and surreptitiously wipe her tears.
* * *
BOONE CAUGHT THE smell of stale beer and floor cleaner—like every Montana bar he’d ever been in. He’d grown to love the feel of them in college, but had been too busy on the ranch to spend much time on a barstool.
They went down a short hallway that opened into a dark room with a pool table. Ahead of them, he spotted a row of mostly empty stools pulled up to a thick slab of a bar. Only a little light filtered in through a stained-glass window, illuminating a scarred linoleum floor and a half dozen tables with empty chairs pulled up to them.
Following the sound of clinking glasses and the drone of a television, they reached the bar.
“What do you have against front doors?” Boone asked as C.J. headed for the bearlike man washing glasses behind the bar. When the grizzly bartender saw her, he quickly dried his hands and hurried around to draw her into a hug.
“How ya doin’, sweetheart?” the man asked in a gravelly voice.
“Okay,” C.J. answered. “I do have some questions, though, Natty.”
The man called to one of the customers at the bar to hold down the fort and ushered them into an office down the hallway where they’d come in. Natty shot Boone a look, but C.J. didn’t introduce either of them. On the wall, though, was a liquor license in the name of Nathaniel Blake.
“Did you see what happened or did anyone else we know?” she asked.
The man shook his head. “We just heard it. A couple of fellas went out to see what was going on.” He looked as if he might cry. “I couldn’t believe it.”
“Did you talk to him before that?” she asked, her voice cracking a little. “I thought he might have mentioned where he was going.”
Natty nodded. “I was surprised he was leaving again. He’d just gotten back. But he said he’d be gone for a few days and I knew what to do.”
Boone saw her surprise and wondered at the man’s words—and I knew what to do.
“Natty, he didn’t tell me he’d left or that he was leaving again.” She sounded close to tears and he wasn’t the only one who heard it.
The big man put a hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t tell me anything about it. But he hadn’t looked happy about either trip. I wish I knew more. Whatever was going on with him, he wasn’t saying.”
She nodded. “You haven’t seen his car, have you?”
“Matter of fact, it was parked across the street. I didn’t think anything about it until I saw it being hauled off by the city. I would imagine it’s down at the yard. Sorry, I should have called you, but I figured you had your hands full as it was.”
She nodded. More sorry than the man could know, Boone thought. Everyone thought Hank’s hit-and-run had been an accident. Everyone but his partner.
“I knew it was just a matter of time before you came by.” He reached behind him, dug in a drawer for a moment and came out with an envelope. “I’ve been hanging on to this for you. Hank left it and said if anything should happen to him... I just thought it was because he was flying somewhere. You know how he felt about flying.”
So he’d taken a flight. Boone could see that the news had astonished C.J.
“This last time, he said he was leaving town for a while and didn’t know when he’d be back, but I got the feeling he didn’t think he was coming back. You think he knew?”
Knew that someone might try to kill him? Maybe, since he’d been in so much trouble that he hadn’t wanted to share it with his partner, Boone thought.
Natty handed her the envelope. Even from where he stood, Boone could see that all it seemed to hold was a key. She undid the flap and took out the key. He saw that her fingers were trembling. There was a number printed on the key. 1171. He felt his pulse jump. Was this where Hank had hidden the information Boone desperately needed?
“You have any idea what that key opens?” Boone asked, worried that she might not.
Actually she did know, as it turned out. “It’s to one of the lockers at the bus station.”
His cell phone rang. He saw it was his brother Cull calling. “I need to take this. You won’t—”
“I’ll wait for you,” she said, clearly upset from the news Natty had given her—and maybe the key, as well?
He stepped out of the office, but stayed where he could watch in case she tried to give him the slip. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her... Oh, who was he kidding?
“Hello?”
“I was hoping we’d hear from you by now,” his brother Cull said on the other end of the line.
“Afraid I haven’t had much to report. It’s been...interesting,” Boone said.
“I know you didn’t think much of Jim Waters’s tip—”
“Actually, I’m beginning to think that there was something to it.” He quickly told his brother about Hank Knight having been killed by a hit-and-run driver. “I’m hoping he left behind some information. It’s why I’m working with Hank’s partner to try to find it. What’s that noise in the background?”
“Tilly vacuuming,” Cull said, raising his voice to be heard. “Let me step into Dad’s office.”
“Tilly? I saw her the other day as I was leaving, but I thought she’d just come by to visit. Didn’t she quit when Patty was arrested?”
“Yep,” Cull said, the sound of the vacuum dying in the distance as his brother closed the office door. “Dad gave her a nice severance package for all the years she was our housekeeper, but apparently either it didn’t last or she missed us.”
“More than likely it’s the new house,” Boone said. “She always thought that the old one was haunted. I’m not surprised Dad took her back, though. I just hope she didn’t let her ex get hold of her severance money. He kept her broke all the time. It was one thing after another with that guy.”
“I doubt Tilly would want anything to do with him. When she needed him the most he ended up in the hospital after getting drunk and wrecking their car.”
“Poor Tilly. I hope you’re right about her being back because of the new ghost-less house.”
“No ghosts yet anyway,” Boone said under his breath.
“So what is this partner like? Does he think Hank’s death had something to do with the kidnapping and Jesse Rose?”
“Not exactly. She’s been skeptical at best but—”
“She?”
Just then C.J. came out of Natty’s office saying her goodbyes.
“Is that her? She sounds young.”
Boone wasn’t about to take the bait. “I’ll call you as soon as I know something.” He disconnected and followed C.J. out the back way of the bar again.
* * *
THEY WALKED THE few blocks to the bus station. A cold wind blew between the buildings. They passed a homeless man playing a pink kid’s guitar. C.J. dropped a few dollars into the man’s worn cowboy hat and he promised to play a song just for her.
After a few chords, they moved on, only to pass other homeless people who C.J. called by name. Each time, she gave them a few dollars and wished them well. Boone found himself enchanted with her generous spirit. Whitehorse didn’t have homeless. Sure, a few passed through, spending a night in one of the churches, being fed by locals, but then they were on the road again.
The bus station was empty. Not even any buses in the enclosed cavernous parking area. The lobby had a dozen empty chairs. Past it were the restrooms and finally a hallway filled with old metal lockers.
“Why would Hank leave something here for you?” Boone asked. She had recognized the key so she’d either been here before or—
“When I was a girl, it was a game we played,” she said as she pulled the key from her pocket. “He would hide things for me to find and give me clues. He said it was a good way for me to train if I really wanted to be a private investigator like him. I think he did it just to keep me busy and out of his hair and my mother’s.”
He watched her insert the key and turn it. The locker door groaned open. For a moment, he thought the space was empty. But C.J. reached into the very back and brought out another key, this one to a safety-deposit box.
Boone shook his head. “Are you sure he isn’t just keeping you busy again?”
She cupped the key in her hand, her fingers closing over it. “The bank is only a few blocks away,” she said, closing the locker and leaving the first key still in the door.
Back out in the fall sunlight, Boone took a breath. He was trying his best not to be irritated by all this cloak-and-dagger secrecy. He kept asking himself, what if Hank Knight’s death had been nothing more than an accident?
Inside the bank, they were led to the back. C.J. had to sign to get into Hank’s safety-deposit box. Apparently her name had always been on the list since they were quickly led into a room full of gold-fronted boxes. The bank clerk put her key into one, then took C.J.’s key and inserted it before she stepped away.
The moment they were alone, C.J. turned her key and pulled out the box. She carried it over to a table and simply stared at it.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” he asked.
“I have a bad feeling I don’t want to know what’s in there.”
“Want me to do it?”
She looked up at him with those big brown eyes and nodded.
He stepped closer and slowly lifted the lid, also worried that whatever was in there might devastate C.J. If Hank had been involved in the kidnapping in any way, he feared it would break her heart. Hank Knight was a saint in her eyes. What would happen if she learned he was just a man—a man with a possibly fatal flaw?