Chapter Fifteen

Fifteen

The incoming call was from Trevor the Chemist. "I have to take this," I said, looking back up at Susan.

She nodded, her features settling into their usual placidity.

I ducked into the waiting room. There was another patient in there—a Harvard professor type, his face buried in a library edition of Of Human Bondage.

I figured I should answer Dylan's phone where no one could overhear me, and so I pushed open the front door, hurried down the short flight of stairs, and stepped outside. A cold wind bit through my sweater. My teeth chattered. I wished I'd thought to grab my coat. "Trevor?"

"Who is this?" The voice was deep and strangely familiar.

"My name is Sunny Randall," I said. "I'm a private investigator."

There was a long pause. Then, finally, laughter. "No way."

I frowned. "Trevor? Do I know you?"

Another pause. I could hear voices in the background. The crackle of a radio. "This is Lee Farrell, Sunny," he said.

"Oh, God," I said. "Really?"

Lee Farrell. One of the best cops I knew. The best-dressed by far, even if that wasn't saying much. Happy as I usually was to talk to Lee, though, I wasn't thrilled at the moment. "You're calling me from Trevor's phone because you found it," I said, the situation dawning on me.

"Yes."

"Where?" I asked. Though from the tone of his voice, combined with the background noises, I already knew what he was going to say.

"Trevor's dead," he said. "We found the phone on his body. This was the last number he texted."

"Great," I said. "Just great."

"Did you know him?"

"Trevor? No," I said. "But I really wanted to talk to him. He was my strongest lead."

"Who are you looking for?"

"Dylan Welch," I said.

"CEO of Gonzo?"

I was surprised Lee knew who he was. "One and the same," I said. "His mother hired me today. He's been incommunicado for two weeks and she's worried."

"He obviously didn't take his phone with him."

"Nope," I said. "Strange, right?"

"Not if he didn't want to be tracked."

"True."

"Why do you have the phone?"

"He left it in his desk before he went missing," I said. "I took it into my possession. To aid in the investigation."

"You stole it?"

"You obviously aren't familiar with the principle of finders keepers."

He laughed. Typically Lee was a serious, by-the-books, Eliot Ness kind of guy—as though being a gay male cop precluded him from cracking a smile. But I'd always prided myself on my ability to make Lee Farrell break character. "I don't know, though," I said. "I don't think I'm getting paid enough to look at some of these saved photos , if you know what I mean…I should have probably disinfected this thing before I borrowed it."

Lee laughed again.

"Straight men, am I right?" I said. And he laughed more. As ever, it felt like a triumph.

"Can you meet me here at the crime scene?" he said.

"Yeah of course," I said. "I just have to grab my coat."

He gave me an address that he explained was in Southie's industrial area, on the waterfront. Then we hung up. I pushed the town house door open again, found my coat, and apologized to Susan. "It's the police," I said. "I need to go. It has to do with my job."

"I understand," she said. "And I'm willing to wager that if Richie were here, he'd understand, too."

I wasn't sure about that. In fact, if I'd been low on cash, I'd have taken her up on that wager and doubled it. But Susan meant well. And I had a crime scene to get to. So I just thanked her and left.