The Dangerous Edge of Things

CHAPTER 13

He was a big guy, stocky, with dark brown hair and a square jaw. He wore faded blue jogging shorts with roughed-up athletic shoes, and in addition to the toilet brush, he carried a can of Comet.

He scratched his forehead. “Look, this is a very bad time. If you’re here about an apartment—”

“Actually, no. But if you’ve got a minute, I’d like to ask you about Eliza Compton.”

He opened the door, and I stepped inside the reception area, which obviously doubled as a community room—matchy-matchy sofa and chairs around a fireplace, a small kitchen area. The lights were off, which gave it a staged and ominous feel, but I could see soda cans on the counter, a wastebasket overflowing with paper cups.

“Sorry about the mess,” the man said. “With Eliza gone, I’m pulling double duty around here.”

He switched on the overhead and stowed his cleaning materials under the sink, leaving me standing by the information desk. A photograph of the Beaumonts hung above the stacks of pamphlets and brochures. I examined it as I slipped some of the sales materials in my bag.

It wasn’t the typical display. In fact, it was decidedly unusual, a photograph of Charley and Mark shaking hands with a General Robert E. Lee look-alike in full dress grays. I recognized the figures flanking them too—Senator Adams, who was smiling in an official manner, and the guy with the toilet brush. Only this time he wasn’t wearing faded jogging shorts—he carried a musket and wore the butternut uniform of a Confederate infantryman.

I peered closer. I couldn’t read the tombstone, but I did recognize the statuary in the background, as any Southern tour guide worth her salt would—the Lion of Atlanta, guarding the tomb of the Confederate Unknown. Oakland Cemetery.

Trey joined me, hands on hips. He didn’t look angry; if anything, he seemed extremely calm. “This is inappropriate.”

“Five minutes.”

“No. We’re leaving now.”

I put my hands on my hips too. “You can’t make me.”

I saw it in his eyes—throw me over his shoulder, toss me in the car, slam the door while I kicked and screamed—and I didn’t doubt for a minute he could do it. He’d be sorry, and it wouldn’t be as easy as he imagined, but he could do it.

“This is police business,” he said.

“So?”

“So we’re not police.”

“So?”

He stared at me, then reached under his jacket. I froze. He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Marisa.”

“You do that.”

“And Garrity.”

“Fine by me.”

He moved just outside the door, scowling. While he tattled on me, I grabbed a Beau Elan memo pad from the information table and scribbled my name and number down. The man walked over, looking puzzled.

I held out the slip of paper. “This is my personal cell phone number. Please call me later, Mister…”

“Whitaker. Jake Whitaker. I’m the manager.” He accepted the information with two fingers and looked at it earnestly. “The cops have been here already. I let them into her apartment.” He lowered his voice. “They’re saying she was murdered.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“They know who did it yet? Or why?”

“That’s why we’re here, to try to find out.”

“So you’re an agent, huh? Like him?”

He was looking at Trey, who was still talking on the cell phone while he paced a six-foot strip, back and forth, tight turns at each end. I angled my body so that only Whitaker could see my face.

“Yes, like him. You know Trey?”

“A little. He works for Phoenix, and they’re out here a lot.”

“What about Eliza? How well did you know her?”

He shrugged. “She moved here about six months ago, right after she started the job. I live in the building opposite hers, so we were neighbors.”

“I’ve heard she had some creepy guy hanging around her. Buzz cut, goatee?”

“Sure, I was the one told the police about him.”

I didn’t tell him I already knew that. “Ever see what he drove?”

“No, I never paid attention. I didn’t have any trouble until Wednesday, when he parked on the street and walked past the gate. Then he was pounding on her door, and she was threatening to call the police. He left. And then the cops showed up here Thursday night.”

Wednesday. The morning Eliza had come to Eric’s place, only to be followed by the blue pick-up. The night she missed their dinner. The guy must have followed her from Eric’s back to her apartment. And then on Thursday…

At that moment, Trey came over and stood at my elbow. The chill was palpable, as if an iceberg had suddenly materialized on a clear horizon.

Jake kept talking. “She was a great girl, you know. Everybody’s going to miss her around here.”

“We’re leaving now,” Trey said. He turned on his heel and headed toward the parking lot.

I indicated the memo in Jake’s hand. “Just call me? Please?”

Jake nodded, and I hurried after Trey, who was not strolling anymore. I jogged into place beside him. “Sorry.”

He didn’t look at me. “You cannot interfere in an on-going investigation. There are procedures to be followed—”

“I wasn’t interfering! The cops had already talked to him!” I untied my jacket and slipped it back on. “I didn’t get much info anyway. All he said was that yes, he knew her, that she was perfectly nice blah blah blah. You ever notice how it’s always perfectly nice people who get killed, never nasty people, like on the soap operas.”

Trey unlocked the doors to the Ferrari. “He was lying about that last part, the nice part. Now get in.”

I almost grabbed his elbow, caught myself at the last second. “Lying? Are you sure?”

“Eighty-five percent sure. Now get in.”

***

We were barely ten minutes down the road when Garrity called me.

“The manager of Beau Elan asked about you at Phoenix,” he said. “Seemed to think you were some kind of investigator. Landon referred him to Ryan and Vance. They are not pleased.”

I mentally cursed Manager Guy. “Big deal. Trey said he’s just a big fat liar anyway.”

Trey shot me a look. “I did not.”

Garrity wasn’t interested in my explanation. “Do me a favor and leave the police work to the police, okay?”

“Oh, please, that’s such a cliché. If this were a movie, you’d be dead in the next scene, and your last thought would have been, I should’ve listened to that smart blonde.”

“Go to Trey’s. Stay put until I get there. No argument.”

“Fine.”

A pause. “Now I’m suspicious.”

“Look, I found a dead body yesterday, I get tailed this afternoon, I’ve been dragged downtown twice in two days. A bodyguard sounds like a fine idea, especially one with a nine-millimeter under his jacket.”

“Tailed?”

“Yeah, tailed. Trey didn’t tell you?”

“Put him on.”

I did. Trey kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. He explained things to Garrity rather succinctly, then said goodbye.

“So is this okay with you?” I ventured. “My staying at your place?”

“Of course.”

I felt a pique of curiosity. “You kept saying ‘I know.’ What is it that you know?”

“That you might try to sneak away, and that I shouldn’t let you, but since I probably can’t stop you without physically restraining you, it’s really a moot point. Trying to stop you, that is.”

“Were you supposed to tell me that?”

He considered. “Probably not. I guess that’s a moot point too.”

We turned left, heading back to the Buckhead area. As we turned off GA 400, I imagined I could smell the whiff of money, all flavors—old money, new money, dirty money. Trey didn’t head for the residential section where people like the Beaumonts live, nor to the Lenox Mall area where the Ritz-Carlton holds court, nor to the bar-choked party strip close to Midtown, where Peachtree Road changes to Peachtree Street. Instead, he took us down the Peachtree Road corridor, into the heart of the skyscrapers. They lined the road like steel gray dominoes, and I remembered Garrity’s words and wondered which one of these looming rectangles Trey called home.

“So Jake Whitaker lied?” I said.

Trey nodded. “Yes.”

“About her being such a great girl?”

“Yes.”

“So he’s covering up something.”

“That’s an assumption. All I can tell you is that he wasn’t being completely truthful.”

“I saw a photograph on the wall of him and the Beaumonts. Are they friends?”

“Not friends. He’s involved in many of the same causes as the Beaumonts, so he’s more of a…”

“Hanger-on?”

Trey nodded, but offered no further commentary. Obviously Jake Whitaker held little interest for him. Or maybe he was just pretending, pulling another one of his tight-lipped cover-ups. But then, from what Garrity said, he didn’t do cover-ups. He just kept his mouth shut until you asked the right question, like one of those magic cave doors in the Arabian nights.

He returned his attention to the road. I settled back in my seat and watched him drive. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture him and Garrity as partners. Garrity with his frank, easy-going diligence, his gruff professionalism. And Trey, he of the blank arctic stare, the flat appraisal, the perfectly-pressed trousers and monotone responses. The Ice Man.

I remembered Garrity’s words: “And then he was back, but it wasn’t him anymore.” Like who we were was little more than a chemical soup of neurons and nerve endings, that the slightest rearrangement of our brain cells turned us into different people.

I kept my eyes on him the whole way into Buckhead, and if Trey noticed, he didn’t seem to mind. He took off the sunglasses, and in profile I detected the first hint of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. It made him seem oddly vulnerable.

Screwed up, Garrity had said. Jeez, I thought, aren’t we all?