Domestic Animals (Hazard and Somerset: Arrows in the Hand Book 3) Page 2

  Together, the money orders added up to seven thousand dollars. Hazard checked for the security features: the watermark, the security thread, any signs of discoloration around the numbers.

  “I’ll need to verify these before we sign a contract,” Hazard said.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Why don’t you step out into the reception area? I’ll have my assistant start filling out the contract.”

  “I don’t have any ID,” Trapp blurted. “My wallet got stolen, so I don’t have any ID.”

  “I see.”

  “That’s why I bought the money orders.”

  Hazard nodded.

  “So you can trust me,” Trapp finished, a slight breathiness to the words.

  “As long as these funds are verified, I think we can do business.”

  Trapp’s relief almost melted him inside his anorak.

  “Nico,” Hazard called.

  When Nico opened the door, he looked back to normal—his eyes were clear, his smile was bright.

  “Get Mr. Trapp some coffee or tea, please, while I make a few phone calls. I also need you to fill out a standard contract. No ID is necessary for Mr. Trapp; his wallet was stolen.”

  Surprise showed in Nico’s face—he wasn’t much of an actor—but he nodded and said, “If you’ll come with me.”

  Trapp followed him out of the room.

  Hazard took out his phone. He texted Nico, Get a picture of his face.

  Then he texted immediately again: Discreetly.

  Next, Hazard called the verification phone number for the money orders. Each one turned out to be genuine. Seven thousand dollars to track down a Rolex and a wallet. Of course, that was assuming that Hazard worked enough hours to earn out the full retainer. The average Rolex cost somewhere around seven thousand dollars, which meant Trapp—or whatever his real name was—could have bought himself a new one rather than trying to track down this supposed thief. But a new Rolex wouldn’t be an identical replacement. Especially if the original had been a gift, as Trapp claimed. A gift from a loving wife—or, possibly, a loving husband. A spouse who would notice the substitution and ask difficult questions.

  As Hazard was finishing the call, his phone buzzed several times. He disconnected and checked his messages. Several excellent candids of Trapp had rolled in. His face was clearly visible in each of them. The lighting was good. He was looking at the camera.

  Hazard put his phone away. He locked the money orders in his desk and went out to the reception area.

  “But are you sure?” Nico sat at the desk. From where Hazard stood behind him, he could see Nico training the phone’s camera on Trapp. Nico played with his hair, pretending to study his reflection in the camera. “It’s awful. I’m going to chop it all off.”

  “No, no, it looks good,” Trapp said. The earnestness in his voice was painful.

  “You’re not even looking.”

  “I’m looking. I promise I’m looking.”

  While Hazard watched, Nico snapped several more photos of their new client.

  “Maybe it’s all right,” Nico said. “Barely.”

  “It looks very nice,” Trapp said.

  “I hate it, but I guess if you say so…” Nico glanced over at Hazard as though only now noticing him. “Oh, Emery, sorry.”

  “How about that contract?” Hazard asked.

  “Right here.” Nico handed him several sheets of paper. His voice took on a curious note as he said, “Mr. Trapp gave us a phone number, but he chose not to provide an address.”

  “I lost my ID,” Trapp said too loudly.

  Hazard looked up from the papers. “I heard you the first time.” He ran through the rest of the contract. Then he nodded. “I assume you’ll check in regularly for updates? I also submit written reports about my work; is there an email address where you’d like to receive those?”

  “Uh, yes. Let me—I’ll get you that email address tomorrow.”

  “We’re closed tomorrow.”

  Trapp flashed suburban-daddy teeth. “Monday.”

  “Right. Let me just sign this—” Hazard stopped to pull out his phone. He pretended to read something, and then he tapped out a message to Nico. Follow him. License plate. Out loud, he said, “Sorry about that. Nico, you’re going to be late for your date if you don’t get going.”

  “God damn,” Nico said, shooting up from his chair. He grabbed his coat and scarf and pitched toward the door. Then he stopped and made a vague, encompassing gesture. “You don’t mind—”

  “I’ll close up.”

  “Thank you,” Nico said with a flashbulb smile. Then he was gone, the door thumping shut behind him.

  As Hazard scrawled his signature at the bottom of the contract, Trapp said, “I thought maybe you and he—”

  “God, no.”

  “There’s something, though, right?”

  “You need to sign right here.”

  “The way he looks at you,” Trapp said as he made his mark. “That’s all right. Some guys don’t pick up on things like that.”

  “I’ll need that photo of the young man. You can text it here.”

  Trapp smirked at the deflection, but he looked at the number Hazard had indicated on the contract and then played with his phone. Hazard’s phone buzzed a moment later, and he checked and found that the image had come through.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me?” Hazard asked. “Anything he said or did that might help me identify him?”

  Trapp paused. He seemed to consider the question seriously, and for the first time since the man had walked into the office, he seemed to forget the act. “Confident. Cocky, I guess. The way he walked, the way he held himself. It’s all in the shoulders, you know? He didn’t say much, but he talked about living on his own, taking care of himself. Like it was a big deal. Or he wanted me to know.”

  The details were not what Hazard had expected, and they skewed the data that had been supporting his hypothesis so far. He nodded. “If you think of anything else…”

  Trapp gave a shrug, and Hazard walked him out of the office.

  He was powering down the computer when Nico burst through the door. His cheeks were flushed. The wind had spun out dark filaments of hair.

  “He almost saw me,” Nico said, “but then he didn’t, and then I got the license plate, and holy shit, that was a rush!”

  Hazard pushed in the chair.

  “It’s a perfect shot, Em.” Hazard’s phone buzzed, and he saw the photograph of the license plate. It was, as Nico had said, a perfect shot—a Missouri license plate, the number clearly visible. “And I swear to God he didn’t see me. He almost did because he started to turn around, but then I ducked inside the Magic Dragon.”

  “Good work.”

  “Em.”

  Hazard grabbed his coat.

  “Come on,” Nico said. “I’m sorry about earlier. I got upset, and I—I know I kind of took us down memory lane for a minute. I thought I’d grown out of that, and—I’m really sorry.”

  “Do you need anything from the fridge?”

  “Emery, please don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  But Hazard made the mistake of meeting Nico’s eyes, which were glossy now.

  “Chase touched my shoulder, and I broke his nose.”

  The shock of it pulled a laugh from Hazard. “What?”

  “He came up behind me. We were going to see this new play, only I had to work late that night, so we were meeting in the lobby, and he came up behind me and touched my shoulder. I spun around and hit him in the face. And then I really freaked out and ran. And then I tried to talk to him, but he wanted to know why I did it, and I just—I just couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t. And he won’t talk to me or answer my texts or anything, and he blocked me on Snapchat and TikTok and—” Nico wiped his eyes. “I’m not crying again.”

  “Ok.”

  “I’m not!” He grabbed a handful of tissues. He dabbed them around. “And then I blew up at you, and now you hate me, and you’re going to fire me, but we work so well together. Like tonight, right?”

  Hazard folded his coat over his arm. “I said you did good work.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “If you want more than that, you can wait for your annual review.”

  Nico was smiling now, the tissues crumpled in one hand.

  “Don’t fish for compliments.”

  Nico’s voice was very quiet when he said, “Thanks, Emery.”

  “And I noticed that you were committing more typographical errors on Monday than usual, which tells me you sprained some fingers when you threw that punch, which tells me you don’t know how to throw a punch.”

  “Yeah, they didn’t cover that in school. And when I was modeling, it was mostly about ripping off wigs.”

  “How have you stayed alive this long?”

  Nico grinned.

  “Basic self-defense, Nico. You’re going to learn. Starting with how to throw a punch.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Or you’re not doing any work outside this office. I shouldn’t have even sent you after Trapp, but I was in a bind.”

  Smile fading, Nico glanced at the dark glass and the bubbles of light out on Market Street. “Em, that whole thing felt weird. He was obviously lying.”

  “Of course he was lying.”

  “Then why did you take the job? We’re pretty busy; we don’t need the work right now.”

  “Because,” Hazard said, shrugging into his coat, “I’m fairly sure he’s involved in either child pornography, child prostitution, or both. So I’m going to figure out what he’s doing, and I’m going to nail him to the wall.”

  CHAPTER TWO

/>   FEBRUARY 7

  FRIDAY

  4:56 PM

  “HE SAID YOU’D be like this.”

  John-Henry Somerset sat in his office at the Wahredua police station. The door was closed. The air smelled faintly like sandalwood—a diffuser that Hazard had bought for him. He fought the urge to rub that spot in the center of his forehead. “Officer Keller—”

  “He came up to me in the Piggly Wiggly and got right up in my fucking face about it. Told me I’d be eating shit before his son paid that ticket. Because he’s your buddy, right? That’s what this is really about.”

  Less than a year. Somers had been chief less than a year, and this—apparently—was what people thought of him. “He’s sixteen—”

  “He’s got a driver’s license, which means he passed the test, which means he ought to know how to read a road sign.”

  “Chief,” Somers said quietly.

  “He ought to know how to read a road sign, Chief. Unless he was a special exception for that too.”

  Officer Dusty Keller was probably a hair under six feet—Somers guessed that he went tiptoe for official records—and must have weighed around two-twenty, maybe two-thirty. His belly pulled his shirt tight, the buttons straining. He was the kind of guy who lived for arm days. Biceps and triceps, bro.

  “How about this?” Somers said. “How about you walk out of my office, and when you’re ready to show some respect, you come back in here and try again?”

  Mouth twisting, Keller spun and threw open the door. He left the office so fast that the door was still wobbling back from the stop by the time he reached the bullpen. The sound of coffee overflowing, the sizzle of drops on the heating element, was like static in the background. Then someone—he thought it was Ruthie, the older woman who came in with donuts and coffee sometimes—let out a distressed noise, and the sizzling stopped.

  Somers considered getting to his feet and shutting the door. That felt like giving in, and he hadn’t made it through Evie’s toddler years without learning a few things. Instead, he picked up the phone and called Drew Klein.

  Drew answered on the second ring. “Hey, Somers, what’s the good word? I mean, Chief Somerset.” He laughed. “It’s going to take me a while to get used to that.”

  They’d grown up together. Gone to Mizzou together. Drew had been at Somers’s first wedding. He’d gotten so drunk that he’d fallen into one of the ponds in the conservatory, and it had taken two more friends—Donny Lamar and Terrance Cleary—to get him out again. He’d crashed two cars (that Somers knew of): a Camaro in 2001, and another Camaro in 2002. His sixteen-year-old son had apparently inherited his lead foot.

  “Drew, hey. Allen is going to have to—”

  “Before I forget, Katie and I want to have you and, uh, your family over. Katie does this thing, it’s like a chili bar. We’ll knock back a couple of beers, watch the game. I think she’s got one of those blooming onion things in the freezer.”

  Somers enjoyed a moment of imagining his, uh, family hearing about a chili bar. Hazard would roll his eyes if Colt didn’t beat him to it first. “Drew—”

  “It’s been forever, man. Really. Katie’s been talking my ear off about it.”

  “Drew, Allen’s going to have to pay that ticket.”

  The silence lasted about five seconds. “Well, sure, I mean, if that’s what you—I mean, we talked about this—he was doing five over, Somers. I mean, it’s not like he was breaking a record.”

  Just breaking the law, Somers thought. “There’s an attorney, Jalique Owens, who just does traffic tickets, that kind of thing. She can get it down to a non-moving violation. If you want her number—”

  “I just don’t understand,” Drew broke in. “I thought we talked about this.”

  “I said I’d see what I could do.” After three phone calls, Somers thought. After the sob story about Allen being upset because his girlfriend broke up with him. “And now I’m telling you, the ticket stands.”

  “It’s that guy who wrote the ticket, isn’t it? He’s the problem. That asshole scared the shit out of Allen. I should call the citizen oversight board. That’s what I should do.”

  “If that’s what you think is best.”

  Five more seconds of dead air. “Somers, man, it’s just a ticket. Why is this such a big deal?”

  “Like you said: it’s just a ticket.”

  The silence lasted longer, moments limping past.

  “All right,” Drew said. “Fine.”

  “It’s my job, Drew.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You know what? You were right: it would be nice to get together again. I can’t fix the ticket, but why don’t you and Katie and Allen come over for dinner? Emery’s a great cook.”

  “Yeah. I’ll talk to Katie.”

  “Let me know. Let’s pick a night soon.”

  “We’re pretty busy,” Drew said. “I’ll have to check with Katie.” Then he disconnected.

  Somers pocketed his phone. He stared at the computer, where he’d been drafting—God, who knew what? He stood, and the casters on his chair whispered against the anti-static mat. He walked to the door, rested a hand on it, and stopped again.

  It was one of the lulls between the uniformed officers’ shifts, and the station was quiet except for the tinny voices that echoed down the hall from the TV in the break room. In the bullpen, only one desk was in use. Yolanda Palomo had moved to Wahredua from Kansas City, where she had an exceptional record of closing cases, which was a good reason—in Somers’s mind—to hire her. Palomo’s own reasons for wanting to leave Cowtown, however, were less clear. She’d mentioned wanting a fresh start. Somers touched his phone in his pocket. Don’t we all, he thought.

  “Don’t tell me you left Detective Dulac in a ditch somewhere,” Somers said as he crossed the bullpen toward her. “If somebody finds him, it’s going to mean more paperwork for me.”

  Palomo didn’t look up from the report she was typing. She was stocky, almost blocky; today’s suit, with its windowpane pattern, pushed her in the wrong direction. Her dark hair was tied back. If she’d smiled since coming to Wahredua, Somers hadn’t seen it.

  “If I left him in a ditch, sir,” Palomo said over the click of the keys, “nobody would find him.”

  “Yikes,” Somers said. When Palomo didn’t respond, he asked, “Did he take off early and leave you with the work?”

  She shook her head.

  A printer whirred to life.

  Somers perched on the desk next to Palomo’s.

  She frowned and bent closer to the screen.

  “How are you settling in?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  “Your new place is all right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  All right, Somers thought. He didn’t mind a challenge. “How about your family? How are they doing with the change?”

  It was like spinning the dial on a combination lock; Palomo was a vault. Somers didn’t even know if she had a family. As far as he could tell, no one in the department did. Not even Dulac.

  Instead of cracking open, though, Palomo lifted her head and fixed Somers with a cool look. After a moment, his face heated.

  “I’d better finish this report, Chief.”

  “Right,” Somers said, sliding off the desk. “I’ll let you get back to work. But Detective Palomo, if I can do anything to help you feel more welcome or comfortable here—”

  “Thank you, Chief.”

  He was almost to the office when he heard Yarmark behind him: “Chief Somerset?”

  Somers tried not to groan; he wasn’t entirely sure he succeeded. As he turned around, he did his best to rearrange his face into a semblance of normalcy—something to cover, anyway, the mixture of dread and despair he was feeling.

  Yarmark had been with the department less than a year, and he was the only survivor from the previous chief’s spate of hires. Once Somers had knocked some of the stuffing out of him, his initial attitude—swagger and bluster and general thuggishness—had evolved into the raw materials of a man who might one day be a good cop.

  If, that was, Somers didn’t murder him first.

  Yarmark had worked the first shift, and he’d obviously gone home and showered and changed. He was in chinos and a baby blue polo; the collar was sticking up in back. His dark hair looked like it had been extra carefully spiked. His complexion looked better than it had in a long time; Somers attributed this—although he’d admit to being a touch paranoid—to bumping into Yarmark at Walmart one day, where Yarmark had taken a great deal of interest in the face wash Somers had in the cart.