Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery by Steve Ulfelder Read Free Book Online

saved pennies until he could check into a nice hotel, something like that.” I shoved him the rest of my chips, balled up the sub wrappers, rose, threw them away.
    “Pretty thin gruel,” Randall said.
    “There’s more.” I told him about following Phigg, watching his meeting with the woman in the silver Jetta.
    “Well,” he said, “that ought to give the cops something to chase down.” Long pause. “You told them, right?”
    Longer pause.
    “ Con way,” Randall said. “For crying out loud. Why would you hold back on something like that?”
    I said nothing.
    “So you could nose around, that’s why,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What now?”
    “I need to call some Barnburners, get the telephone chain going for the memorial.”
    “What about me?”
    I leaned on the countertop. “You going to help me out with this?”
    Long pause.
    “It’s either that or start another expensive project around here,” he finally said. “Either way, your money burns while I have fun.”
    I leaned over, pulled Phigg’s address book from my boot, tossed it on the card table. “Have some fun with that.”
    *   *   *
     
    Randall set my laptop on the card table and began working his way through the address book. I didn’t know why he needed the PC—it’d be easier just to thumb through. But I’d learned that when you gave him a task, he was going to by God do it his way. If you tried to point him in a direction, he muled up.
    I stepped to the front porch. My first call was to Mary Giarusso, the Barnburners’ nerve center. She lives a couple blocks north of me, feeds my cats when I’m gone. She’s a gossip hound—folks call her Switchboard Mary behind her back. Her head just about hit her kitchen ceiling when I broke the news. I asked if she could call a few Barnburners to spread the word and set up a memorial. Could she? I asked if she would do a little digging, see if Phigg ever talked about his family. Would she? I told her not to sprain her finger dialing. She didn’t hear, had clicked off already.
    I squinted at the sky. Storm clouds. I hoped the rain wouldn’t hurt the deck’s fresh oil.
    Inside, Randall had set up a spreadsheet on my laptop and was entering info. I stood behind him, saw the address book open to the Bs.
    “You AA types are a pain in the ass,” Randall said. “It’s mostly first names and last initials. Ed A., Ginny B.”
    “You start with the Ps? Family?”
    He said nothing, but clicked on the spreadsheet’s P tab. The only name was Trey . Next to the name was a weird phone number, must be outside the U.S., and a Gmail address.
    I said, “Trey was under the Ps?”
    “Yup. A son, I’m guessing.”
    “Why?”
    Randall pointed at the e-mail address: [email protected]. He said, “Tander Phigg the Third? Born in ’seventy-two, maybe? Known as ‘Trey’?”
    “That’s either a good guess or a pile of horseshit.”
    “That narrows it down,” he said. “Also, your pal Phigg isn’t—wasn’t—a big Internet guy. This is the only e-mail address I saw when I skimmed the book.”
    “So?”
    “So this Trey was pretty special to Tander.”
    “Before you enter any more names and numbers, you want to Google him?”
    Randall’s shoulders tightened. “I’ll enter everything first,” he said. “Then I’ll Google.”
    His task, his way.
    I said, “I’m headed back to Rourke. Want to talk to the guy at Motorenwerk.”
    “The garage where you got cold-cocked? Are you nuts?”
    For starters, I was supposed to be the cold-cock er, not the cold-cock ee . Pride. But I couldn’t tell Randall that. He’s Mister Pragmatic. “I need to figure this deal out,” I said. “What’s going on with Phigg’s car, whether he’s entitled to money back, all that.”
    “Then let me come along,” he said, and waved at the address book. “We can do this later.”
    “I’ll go alone.”
    Long look. “Is that smart?”
    “I’ll bring my tire iron.”
    “Somewhat