Agnes and the Hitman Read online

  “Have a seat,” she said. “Shane’s in the basement with Detective Xavier, but I imagine he’ll be up shortly.”

  “Everything in its time.” He took a glass from her open shelf, sat down, and poured himself some milk.

  “Help yourself to the cakes and ham, too,” Agnes said, and put some speed on whisking the wet ingredients for the second batch of cakes as she spoke into the phone again. “Lisa Livia?”

  “Who’s this Mr. Carpenter? Did he steal your dog last night, too?”

  “You really have to come out here for the unabridged version,” Agnes said. “The big news is you have-”

  “How’s my little Agnes!” Joey said, breezing in from the front hall.

  “Joey!” Agnes cast a cautious glance at the rest of the crowd. “Xavier’s down in the basement!” And he thinks you did something horrible twenty-five years ago. What the hell’s going on?

  “Where’s Shane?”

  “He be in the basement with Detective Xavier,” Doyle said, sitting back with a cup of coffee, surveying the crowd with amusement now. “It be like a museum down there. Our Agnes should open it for the public. Get one of them fancy velvet ropes, put me in a uniform, let me decide who goes in and out.” He gestured to the door. “Step right this way, ladies and gents! See the historic basement!”

  Joey faltered for a moment, and Agnes couldn’t tell if it was Doyle’s basement humor or the sight of Carpenter and Garth eating pancakes and ham, but then he kept on going toward the basement door.

  “Pancakes?” Agnes said, trying to delay him as she mixed the wet ingredients into the dry with a lot less care than with the first batch. Speed, that was the ticket.

  “Later,” Joey said, and slid a huge package wrapped in butcher paper across the counter to her. “Ribs.”

  “Thank you,” Agnes said, hoping there were enough for everybody, since the thought of Carpenter and Garth in a smackdown over a rack of country ribs was not a pretty one. Carpenter had the edge over Garth on size and training, but Garth had youth and Thibault viciousness on his side. She shook her head and went back to the phone, turning her back on the rest of them. “Lisa Livia?”

  “What’s going on over there?”

  Agnes dropped her voice. “Breakfast. Now here’s the news: Your mama’s married. Taylor’s your stepfather.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll see you real soon,” Agnes said, and hung up to finish the next batch of pancakes, cut more ham, start the marinade for the ribs, and then begin today’s To Do List before moving on to write her damn column.

  “You be real careful down there in that museum, Joey,” Doyle called, and Joey gave him a funny look before he climbed down the ladder.

  “Excellent pancakes,” Carpenter said. “The ham is particularly fine.”

  “Is there more?” Garth said, holding out the empty platter, and Agnes took it back and filled it again while she thought about just what the hell was in Joey’s museum in the basement and when she should start the next batch of pancakes.

  “Joey the Gent,” Xavier said when Joey reached the basement floor. “Just the man I want to talk to.”

  The last half hour in the basement, Shane had kept his mouth shut as he watched Xavier use more equipment from his tackle box. Sophisticated the old detective wasn’t, but efficient he was. Shane had a feeling Xavier and Carpenter would get along quite well. Old school and new school, same brain.

  Xavier pointed to an aged stool between the bar and Venus. “Have a seat, old friend. I found something quite interesting here in Frankie Fortunato’s rec room.”

  “One of Frankie’s fine wines?” Joey asked, glancing at the wine rack, but he went to the stool and sat down.

  “Not wine,” Xavier said. “I found blood.”

  “Yeah, that bum kid-” Joey began, but Xavier cut him off.

  “Not from the Thibault kid. That you can clearly see. This was old blood that someone had tried to clean up. Only showed up with the luminol and the infrared light. It’s a blood trail. Leading from there, where the bottom of the stairs had been, around this bar, right up to that wine rack and ending at that wall behind the rack. Blood from a long time ago.”

  Joey’s eyes had that dead look, and he was staring at the detective. Shane had a feeling he was witnessing two old warriors picking up their swords once more.

  “I’m willing to bet,” Xavier said, “that blood is twenty-five years old. I’m willing to bet that it’s Frankie Fortunato’s blood type. And I’m willing to bet that when we knock down that wall right behind you, we find Frankie’s body.”

  “How much you got to bet?” Joey asked. “You want me to put some action on this? Give you some kind of odds? You know Keyes, Xavier. Lots of secrets, lots of strange things going on all the time. Lots of skeletons in closets. Sure you want to go poking around?”

  As denials went, Shane thought, it was pretty bad.

  “In your closet, Joey? Sure.”

  “This ain’t my house or my closet. How long is it going to take you to get that blood test done? I know about your little tackle box, Simon. CSI: Las Vegas you ain’t.”

  “The blood test won’t take long at all, and I’m good enough at what I do to get a warrant to find out what’s behind that wall.”

  Joey snorted. “You think so? Agnes’s got a wedding to put on here.

  And Jefferson and Evie Keyes aren’t going to like you fucking around with their only son’s wedding. Maybe Jefferson calls the sheriff and they put the brakes on your little one-man show. You’re right, you’re gonna need a warrant to get behind that wall. Which means you’re gonna need the judge to sign off on it. You know, the judge who golfs with Jefferson every week. Whose wife is best friends with Evie.”

  “And how are the Keyes going to know about this?” Xavier asked.

  Joey gave his shark smile. “It’s a small town, Simon.”

  Xavier shook his head. “I’ll find out what’s behind that wall. One way or another.” He climbed up the ladder.

  “Now I want some answers,” Shane said.

  “Everybody wants answers. I want breakfast,” Joey said, and went up the ladder right behind Xavier.

  Like that’s gonna work, Shane thought, and followed him up.

  When Agnes put the third platter of pancakes and the second plate of ham on the table, the atmosphere lightened considerably. There was something about being full enough to relax yet still hungry enough to enjoy food with plenty of it still on the table, that just mellowed the hell out of people.

  And there were a lot of people at her table, she thought happily.

  “So, Garth,” Carpenter said genially.

  “Is here to paint the house with Doyle,” Agnes said brightly. Carpenter smiled at her gently. “I was here last night, Agnes.”

  “Right,” Agnes said.

  “Who sent you, Garth?” Carpenter said. His voice was soft, but there was no denying it.

  “My grandpa. He found that newspaper picture on his window-shield, you know, the one with the dog in it? And he wanted me to get the necklace it had on it in the picture, except the dog don’t have no necklace on it.”

  Carpenter looked at Agnes, and she said, “I have no idea where the necklace went.”

  Doyle put up a hand. “That was my foolish doing. I found that piece of junk when I was clearing up around here, and I put it on Rhett as a joke.”

  “A joke,” Carpenter said. “And where is this joke necklace now?”

  “I pawned it,” Doyle said. “I asked Agnes if she wanted it, and she told me I could have anything I found cleaning up, so I took it to Atlanta and pawned it. Sorry.”

  “You pawned it?” Agnes said. “I thought it was junk.”

  “It was,” Doyle said. “I got five dollars for it. You want the five dollars? If I overstepped, I’m real sorry, lass.”

  He didn’t look sorry, and when Agnes thought about it, she couldn’t exactly remember telling him he could have anything he found, either. He probably co