Silenced by the Yams - By Karen Cantwell Page 0,46
the street. He set the box down on our table. “Guess that’s it. Time to find a new job.”
“Call me tomorrow at the station,” Guy offered. “I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll try to see if there are any openings you’d be qualified for.”
Clarence appeared grateful for the gesture. Meanwhile, Colt’s mental wheels had been turning, I could tell. Something Guy said about the Senator got him going. “Hey, kid,” Colt said. “How much do you think Jorge makes a year working for that place?”
“I don’t just think, I know. The office manager and I hit Happy Hour together and she talks a lot when she drinks. He makes ninety thousand and some change. Plus he gets a company car and a country club membership.”
“You know where he lives?”
“Has a house in Dupont Circle.”
I whistled. Houses in Dupont Circle were outrageously expensive.
Colt pressed on. “You mean an apartment?”
Clarence shook his head. “No, I mean a million-dollar house. He just renovated the whole thing. It’s quite a place, apparently. He talks about it all of the time, but never invites anyone over. I guess I know why now,” he laughed. “Poor Randolph Rutter—outed before he was ready.”
“That’s not a lot of salary for someone with such an extravagant lifestyle, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sure. We all say it. Dan, the other projectionist, says Jorge supplements his income by providing high profile celebs with prescription pain killers.” He winked. “But he waives the prescription requirement, if you catch my drift.”
I slugged his arm. “Why didn’t you tell us that before!” Suddenly, Jorge Borrego was on my list of suspects again. I didn’t care what he said about no stinkin’ ipecac.
“Hey!” Clarence rubbed his arm and gave me that sad puppy dog look again. “Why did you do that? What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that I’m pretty sure that Kurt Baugh was addicted to prescription pain killers. Sorry I hit you. The heat’s making me cranky.”
My iced tea was completely drained, so I pulled an ice cube out of the cup and rubbed it on the back of my neck. Then I relayed my interesting phone conversation with Judi Horner about Kurt Baugh’s documentary and her suspicions that he popped a pill or two himself. While I talked, Colt was busy tapping and scrolling on his smartphone.
“Bingo!” he shouted, holding it for everyone to see. Which really didn’t work so well since we were standing in blinding sunlight. The screen just reflected it back at us. “Benito Juarez—guess where he went to college?”
“Santa Fe U?” I guessed, although at this point, it wasn’t really a guess. I think Colt’s question was rhetorical.
“And the Baugh brothers?”
Someone entirely different answered that question. Evidently, while we were all burning our retinas trying to see the screen on Colt’s phone, Andy Baugh had wandered up behind us without anyone noticing.
“We called ourselves The Fantastic Five,” he said.
I cringed and he acknowledged my cringe with an understanding nod. “I know. Bad name. We were young, what can I say? And for the record, my brother was a recovering addict. The documentary was his way of giving back; educating people about the dangers of prescription pain killers. He could be a real dick, but he didn’t deserve to be murdered. Especially by someone he called a friend.”
The rest of us exchanged what-the-hell-just-happened glances. There were five of them. Remove Andy and Kurt from the equation, and the person he was referring to had to be one of the other three—Randolph, Jorge, or Juarez.
“Susan called me,” he said. “She told me about the syrup of ipecac.”
Now I was really confused. “But then you know it was just a prank gone wrong.”
“No. Now I know who framed your friend.”
“Who?”
“Only three people knew about Kurt’s condition. His doctor, me,” he looked across the street at the ACL building and his eyes narrowed, “and there’s the third man now.”
Jorge Borrego had slipped elegantly through the glass front door of the ACL building. He stopped, pulled a pair of sunglasses from his inside suit pocket and slid them onto his nose with the grace of an A-list movie star.
Andy moved toward the curb and was about to step into the street. I stood abruptly, knocking my chair over, and managed to grab his elbow. “You mean Jorge killed your brother because he knew about the drug dealing?”
He kept his eyes on Jorge. “Not the drugs. Kurt knew the depth of the Senator’s crimes and Jorge is Juarez’s henchman. I’m guessing he killed Kurt because