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

corner and saw what I’d anticipated: One corner of the car cover on Phigg’s Mercedes had been lifted.
    “What the hell is it about this car?” I said.
    “I think you ought to leave.”
    “Tander Phigg hanged himself this morning,” I said.
    “I heard.”
    “What is it about this car?”
    Josh said nothing.
    “Look,” I said, sighing. “I need to talk with Ollie. Here, tonight. Let’s work it like this: You give me his number. I’ll bust a window around back, tell him I climbed in after you left. I’m guessing he used to pay for a security service, but not anymore. That sound right?”
    Josh nodded.
    “Must be twenty ways I could find his name and number without your help,” I said. “You’re just my shortcut.” I took a Sharpie from the bench, slid it and a dry shop towel toward Josh.
    He stared at me for twenty seconds. Then he wrote a number on the towel. “When you talk with Ollie, you won’t mention this,” he said, nodding toward Phigg’s car. “In fact, you’ll forget all about it now that Phigg’s dead.”
    I said nothing. It was easier than lying. Instead I tore off another paper towel and wrote my name, cell, and e-mail on it, shoved it to him.
    He eyeballed it. “What’s that for?”
    “This place is going to change, fast and soon,” I said. “It’s probably going to go away. Maybe you’ll need help finding your next job. I know a lot of guys in the business.”
    As his fingertips touched the paper towel, I put one of my own on it. “Or maybe you’ll just want to tell me more about Ollie,” I said. “About what the hell’s going on here. You thought it was a high-end restoration shop. Thought it’d be more fun than doing oil changes at the local Toyota store, huh? But it was something else.”
    Josh wanted to tell me. I could feel him tipping, the same way he nearly had in the garage yesterday. But he just reached a hooded Windbreaker from a hook and unclipped a huge key ring from his belt loop. “I’ll need to lock you out,” he said, flipping through keys. He looked at me. “Second window in on the back side is so sticky we can’t close it to lock it. Be easy to open it with a pry bar. Ollie would think you just got lucky and found the right window.”
    *   *   *
     
    Two minutes later I fired the F-150, watched Josh drive away in a rough old Audi 4000. It was a cult car, an all-wheel-drive sedan that came out back when that was rare. They were hard cars to keep running right, especially now that they were a quarter-century old.
    I sat in the truck and figured out how to work what I wanted to do next. The weak link was going to be a missing cop car. I needed to pressure Ollie, rush him, to get him to overlook that.
    I was going to get wet as hell, no way to avoid it. The thunder and lightning had moved past, but the rain was hard and steady. The upside was with the sky gray to begin with, it’d get dark earlier.
    I called Charlene at home. She was brisk, chopping something while we spoke. Sophie was fine. Work was fine. She hadn’t heard from Jesse. I wouldn’t make it for dinner tonight? Fine. Click.
    By eight o’clock it was dark enough. The rain wasn’t dramatic anymore, but it wasn’t letting up either. I cleared my throat, hit *67 to block Caller ID, and dialed the number Josh had written.
    Ollie took his time answering. I heard a TV as he said, “Yeah.”
    “Mr. Dufresne?” Said it Doo-FREZ-nee on purpose.
    He sighed. “Doo-FRAYNE. What?”
    “Sorry. Rourke PD, sir. We got a report of a lightning strike here at your shop. Looks like it holed your roof. Helluva lot of water coming in.”
    It worked. The TV clicked off. Ollie said, “Office or garage?”
    “Garage.”
    “ Fuck me. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    I was set to click off when he said, “Who is this? Scharf?”
    “Giarusso.”
    “You new?”
    “Been here almost eight months.” I tried to sound offended.
    “How come you show up as ‘Unknown Caller’?”
    “They’ve got