She must unintentionally have been conveying that fact somehow, because even though she had at least ten years on him, he was definitely hitting on her. “She’s okay,” he was saying of his boss Maya Townshend, “nice enough, but not as pretty, say, as you.”
Schiff did her best to ignore not just the comment but Bracco’s quick smirk. “But you haven’t really talked to her that often?” she asked.
“No. The longest conversation I had with her ever, really, was yesterday when she asked me if I would take over the place for a while until she could get a new manager. I told her I wanted to be the first to formally apply, and she said she appreciated that, she’d keep it in mind.”
“So she’s planning to keep the place open?” Bracco asked.
“I hope so. I haven’t heard not. Why? Have you?”
But Schiff the cop was there to ask questions, not answer them. “How would you characterize Mrs. Townshend’s relationship with Dylan?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how did they act together? Like friends? Or more like boss and employee?”
Eugenio scratched at the corner of his mouth, a smile playing around his lips. “Boss and employee, but maybe not the way you think.”
“We don’t think any way,” Bracco said. “That’s why we’re asking you.”
Schiff shot her partner an unappreciative glance and came back at the witness, softening the rebuke. “What are you trying to say, Eugenio?”
“Well, just that if you didn’t know and you saw them together, you wouldn’t think she was the boss.”
“You’d think he was?”
“Most people, I think, yeah.” A quick shrug. “When I started here, the first time I see her come in, she’s back in the office, doing some books or something and it’s cooking out here-I mean, we got a line out the door and everybody’s in high gear. So she comes to the office door and calls for Dylan and he’s taking the orders and doing his schtick and he just waves her off, he doesn’t have time. Makes a joke about accountants when we’re the actual bean counters-get it, coffee beans…”
“I get it,” Schiff replied deadpan.
“Yeah, so, anyway, the whole time she’s back there and then finally she just finishes up and leaves without saying anything to anybody else. And when it finally slows down, I ask, ‘So who was that, our accountant?’ and Dylan about busts a gut laughing. ‘That,’ he says, ‘is the owner. But I,’ he says in that Godfather voice he could do, ‘I’m the boss and don’t you forget it.’ But not really serious. That was the way he talked, that was all. He could be funny when he turned it on.”
“So he was a good boss?”
“Definitely.”
“Did you know he was selling marijuana out of here?”
Ruiz quickly looked from Schiff to Bracco and back. “Nope,” he said. “No clue.”
“Did you ever buy any from him?” Bracco asked.
“No way, man. I don’t do drugs.” A smile at Schiff. “Except caffeine, of course.”
Since Ruiz’s name did not appear in Vogler’s computer, Schiff was willing to let this answer pass. It might even be true. “Let’s get back to Dylan and Mrs. Townshend, if we can, all right? Did he always treat her as though he was the boss, and not vice versa?”
“Pretty much.”
“And she took it… how?”
“I think mostly… I mean, I don’t know for sure… but if you ask me, it’s why she didn’t come in too often. She was nervous, like. I don’t think they really liked each other.”
Schiff told him that Maya had told them she and Dylan had gotten along.
His eyes went to both inspectors in turn. “Well, I don’t want to get her in trouble. She seems like a nice enough lady. Maybe they saw each other out of work.”
“No,” Bracco said. “But she did tell us that with Dylan dead, now there was no reason for her to keep the shop open. You have any idea what she meant by that?”
The young man shook his head. “She didn’t tell me she was going to close it up. I don’t know why she’d do that. The business is great. That just doesn’t make any sense.”
In the passenger seat of their car just after the interview with Eugenio Ruiz, Bracco hung up his cell phone. “Well, that’s interesting.”
“What?”
“Guess who’s the registered owner of our purported murder weapon? I’ll give you a hint. By all accounts she’s not quite as pretty as some men find you.”
“You caught that, huh?”
“I’m a trained detective. Nothing escapes.”
“You want to go by again and say hello?”
“I was thinking maybe we should.”
Slammed by the admission of Wes Farrell that he was one of Dylan Vogler’s marijuana customers, and still worried sick about the Glitskys and the fate of Zachary, Hardy couldn’t make himself concentrate on his junior associates’ utilization figures. So he decided to leave work early and on the way home to seek an hour or so of solace in the company of his brother-in-law Moses McGuire, who would be behind the rail at the Little Shamrock, the bar they co-owned out on Lincoln near Ninth Avenue.
He’d just found a miraculous parking place around the corner on Tenth and pulled into it when his cell phone rang, his most recent client calling in a panic to tell him that the police had just shown up at her door again and she didn’t know what she should do. It was getting late and the kids were underfoot and Joel would be home soon too.
“Where are they now?” Hardy asked. “The cops?”
“Still out on the porch. I told them I had to talk to my attorney before I could let them come in and talk to me again, and Inspector Bracco said that that was fine but I should know that they’d identified what they think is the murder weapon and found out it was mine. I mean, registered to me.”
“Is that true?”
“I don’t know. It could be, I suppose. I had left a gun I bought a long time ago down at the shop, but I hadn’t seen it in years. I didn’t know it was there anymore, but I guess it was. Anyway, they said maybe I should talk to them here and now if I didn’t want to have to come downtown.”
“That’s a bluff,” Hardy said. “They can’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go without a warrant. And they can’t make you talk to them under any circumstances. Do they have a warrant?”
“I don’t think so. They didn’t say so.”
“Are they still out there?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s only been…” He heard her talking away from the phone. “That’s okay, honey, Mommy’s just…” He missed the rest of it, and then she was back with him. “I’m sorry, where were we?”
“Are Bracco and Schiff still there?”
“I think so.” A pause. “Yes, they’re just standing outside, talking.”
“Could you let me speak with Inspector Bracco, please?”
“Sure, if you think… just a second.”
“Darrel Bracco here. Who’s this?”
“Darrel, it’s Dismas Hardy. How are you doing?”
“Fine, maybe a little cold standing outside in the fog, but okay. Call me a mind reader, but Mrs. Townshend’s your client?”
“She is. I could be there in fifteen minutes. How does that sound?”
“Frankly, sir, it sounds like she’s got herself lawyered up.”
“Every citizen’s right, Darrel.”
“No question, sir, no question. Though as you know, it sometimes gives a cop pause.”
Hardy well knew. “Sometimes it should,” he said. “But I don’t think this is one of those times. Although I’ll tell you frankly I don’t know how much I’m going to let my client say to you until I’ve had a chance to talk to her a little more. Maybe not much.”
“Why am I not shocked?”
“Experience, Darrel. It’s a beautiful thing. Can I talk to Mrs. Townshend again?”
“Sounds like it’s your show. Here she is.”
“Maya,” Hardy said, “why don’t you ask the inspectors in and I’ll be there very shortly. But don’t answer questions until I get there. Is it really your gun?”