Deadline for Lenny Stern Peter Marabell (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📖

Cavendish put his right elbow on the desk, hand up, the index finger pointed in the air.

“A moment.” Not angry, not insistent. Like he’d hit the pause button.

The moment lasted no more than fifteen seconds. The office door opened. I stood and turned toward the door. In came a man, not quite six feet, lean, with an angular face anchored by dark-rimmed glasses.

“Mr. Russo,” Daniel said, “this is Walter Cavendish, our Director of Marketing and Production.”

Walter moved across the room effortlessly and economically. His handshake was firm.

“Mr. Russo,” Walter said, in a voice both sharper and less amiable than his brother’s.

“Shall we move to the conference table?” Daniel said, gesturing to the side of the room.

“I’m fine right here,” Walter said. His single-breasted black blazer over a gray silk T-shirt seemed more suited for downtown big city than main street northern Michigan.

“Daniel?” Walter said. That’s all he said, all he needed to say. Daniel was president of Cavendish Company, but it was clear who was in charge.

“Mr. Russo is a private investigator from Petoskey,” Daniel said.

Walter pulled back the sides of his blazer and put his hands on his hips. He listened silently as his brother filled him in. He remained silent once Daniel was finished, waiting to see what I had to say. He was used to being offered information, not offering it.

I didn’t care, I wasn’t interested in playing that game.

“That was your company truck in Harbor Springs,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

“What crime are you talking about?” Walter said, ignoring my comment. “That you think one of our people witnessed.”

“Street crime,” I said. “Two people were attacked in the middle of the day. Downtown. It was a company truck.”

“One of ours?”

Daniel, the amiable front man of Cavendish Company, had become irrelevant. Walter had simply taken over, ignoring his brother, making no effort to include him.

“We got the plate,” I said. “RC 44. It is yours.”

Walter nodded. “And you think that means what?”

That was the first empty thing Walter had said. He was stalling. Sooner rather than later was always a good time to push.

“The vanity plate,” I said. “What’s it mean?”

“Our late father,” Walter said. “Ramsey Cavendish, ‘RC.’ He ordered the plate a long time ago.”

Walter shot his brother a quick glance, but I caught it. Walter’s first indication that Daniel was not being completely ignored.

“After dad passed, we kept it,” Walter said. “Seemed like a good idea.”

“What about the 44?” I said.

“I have no idea,” Walter said.

Another glance his brother’s way. The first one could have been nothing more than the brothers remembering their father. The second one? A mistake.

I turned toward Daniel.

“Did you ever hear your father mention the plate?”

“Beg pardon?”

He had to be listening. It was a reach, but I hoped to catch him off-guard.

“Did your father … ?”

Daniel hesitated, shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “No … don’t think so. No. I’m sure … no.”

He didn’t sound all that sure to me, but before I could invent another question, brother Walter stepped in.

“A license plate, Mr. Russo? We’re really quite busy this afternoon — that is, if you have nothing better to be curious about.”

He had me there: curiosity was all I had left. For now.

“Well, I appreciate your time, gentlemen,” I said. “I’ll find my way out.”

Walter got to the door first, opened it and said, “Have a good day.”

I waved good-bye to Sally Peck and went outside into the afternoon heat.

I cranked up the A/C for a faster cool-down as I pulled onto Dickerson Road.

I didn’t bother replaying my time with the brothers Cavendish, hoping to remember some nugget of conversation. This time, only one thought ran around and around in my head.

Why did Walter Cavendish lie?

34

“So,” Henri said. “You’re still alive. How’d it go?”

I told him.

“See you in the morning,” Henri said, and drove away.

I took the back way, south of the airport to Alba Road, avoiding the late-afternoon congestion in downtown Gaylord. Once on US 131 to Mancelona and Kalkaska, I had little choice but to join the train of vehicles for the ride home. But it gave me time to think.

Walter Cavendish lied, that much was clear. Even “why” seemed clear. He wanted to throw me off the track. Who picked the vanity plate? Just dad having a bit of fun. Why did the company keep his license plate? Well, it was dear-old dad’s, after all.

I didn’t buy it. Maybe Walter assumed his folksy explanations would satisfy me. It was a simple task to check the death records. If a company driver did witness a crime, Walter had to worry the police would eventually come calling. Likely he knew the local cops and thought he could take care of it.

The ride to Petoskey seemed longer than usual, probably because I was in a hurry. I took the stairs two-at-a-time. Sandy was gone for the day. I knew that I rummaged around her desk at my own peril, but Lenny’s book was there someplace. He’d sent her a pre-publication copy, one with “not for sale” slapped on the front cover, “uncorrected proofs” on the back.

Luckily, Corruption on Trial was hiding in plain sight under yesterday’s copy of the Post Dispatch. I sat in Sandy’s chair and scanned the email summaries she sent about the book. Helpful stuff, but I needed more detail. I opened the book and dug in.

It was right there in Chapter 18. Ramsey Cavendish died in prison, beaten to death in his jail cell. No suspects.

I leaned back, carefully put my feet on Sandy’s desk and kept reading.

Ramsey’s widow, Sylvia, and her boys, Daniel (age 10) and Walter (age 9), sold the family home on Chicago’s Gold Coast and moved to northern Michigan. Sylvia bought a less-than-successful manufacturing firm in Gaylord. They lived quiet lives, as she, and later her sons, built the Cavendish Company into a successful business well-positioned to take advantage of online sales during a time of a rapidly expanding global economy and its demand for industrial supplies.

All of which