Deadline for Lenny Stern by Peter Marabell (beautiful books to read TXT) 📕

hear from me, or if hearing from me made it harder to push away that feeling of dread.

I looked at the keypad and shook my head. I slid my phone into a pocket, said good-bye to Sandy, and walked out to the car.

I opened the driver’s door and waited for some of the heated air to rush out. I fired up the twin-turbo six and switched the A/C on high. I tapped in directions to the Dickerson Road address for Cavendish Company. There was only one reasonable route to Gaylord; happily, the nav system thought so, too.

I joined the endless line of cars and trucks on Mitchell, then motored past the hospital and Johan’s to US 131 South out of town.

Traffic was thick and steady, especially near Walloon Lake and through Boyne Falls. Not that I expected anything different at the busiest time of the summer. At some invisible place just south of Boyne Falls, US 131 added “Old Mackinaw Trail” to its name, staying that way when I turned east on M-32 for Gaylord.

Once Lenny connected a family business in Gaylord to his story of corruption and murder in Chicago, we were onto something solid for the first time since the threats started. But we still had a long way to go … rusty old trucks, vanity plates, teenage tough guys with tattoos, and a manufacturing company. It all added up to what?

By the time I passed the lush, green fairways of the Gaylord Country Club, traffic had slowed to a crawl all the way through town as visitors peeled off at Home Depot, Panera Bread, or Starbucks. When the nav system squawked at me, I turned on Dickerson Road at the Shell station. About a quarter mile past the end of the airport runway, I spotted a gaudy green-and-red sign that read simply, “Cavendish.”

The building was a large, flat-roofed cinderblock structure that stretched back off Dickerson Road for a hundred yards. The side of the building was lined with a long row of huge overhead doors. Several trailer trucks were being loaded at the doors.

The office section of Cavendish Company was an A-frame assemblage tacked onto cinderblocks in an effort to reflect the alpine theme of Gaylord’s buildings, adopted to make the town stand out from other northern Michigan resort communities. The shops and restaurants along Main Street did a better job of masquerading as chalets than the Cavendish building did.

I parked in the small lot at the front of the building, several spots down from Henri’s SUV. He slid the driver’s window down when I came up.

“Want me to come in?” he said.

“Sandy made an appointment for me. Let’s not scare them just yet.”

Henri nodded, and the window went back up.

I went through the double front doors into a large square room with a tile floor. On one side were four uncomfortable looking tubular chairs with orange seats; on the other side, an office-functional gray metal desk. The hum of the air conditioning tried unsuccessfully to blend with the raspy noise of the fluorescent lights.

“Hello,” said the woman at the desk. She was in her early twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair and soft eyes. “How can I help you?”

“Are you Sally Peck?” I said.

Her face lit up. “Yes, I am,” she said, emphatically and confidently.

“I’m Michael Russo. I have …”

“An appointment to see Mr. Cavendish,” she said.

“Right.”

Sally leaned forward a bit. “Are you really a private eye?”

I nodded. “I really am.”

“Could I see some ID?” She tried to sound serious, but her request came across as curiosity.

I pulled out my leather holder and showed her my license.

“Wow. Just like on TV.”

33

Sally Peck picked up the receiver of her museum-piece desk telephone and punched one of the plastic buttons at the bottom. The button lit up. I didn’t think they still made phones like that.

“Your appointment is here, Mr. Cavendish,” she said, and put down the receiver. The button’s light went out. Clever.

“Would you have a seat, Mr. Russo?”

I moved toward the other side of the room. I had just figured out how to make the uncomfortable chair work when a door opened and out came a pear-shaped man in his mid-thirties, with an oval face, round eyes, and a narrow widow’s peak at the front of his receding hairline.

“Mr. Russo. Daniel Cavendish,” he said, extending his hand. His ill-fitting black suit needed a tailor, or he needed more time at the health club.

We shook hands.

“Come on in,” he said cheerfully, and went into his office. “Have a seat,” he said, closing the door behind me.

Cavendish’s office was a slightly upscale version of Sally Peck’s. It was bigger, but without windows or fluorescent lights. His desk was some type of heavy, dark wood. A matching conference table sat to one side. It was large enough for six upholstered chairs. A banker’s lamp, complete with green shade, sat at each end of the table.

I sat in an upholstered client chair in front of his desk. Cavendish leaned on the desk, laced his fingers together, and smiled.

“Well, Mr. Russo, I have to admit I’m curious what brings a private investigator all the way over from Petoskey.”

Cavendish seemed almost as eager to chat as Sally Peck.

“Your name came up during an investigation.”

“My name?”

“Well, not you, personally, but Cavendish Company.”

“Really? In Petoskey?”

I nodded. “Emmet County.”

“How so?”

“The driver of one of your company trucks may have witnessed a crime in Harbor Springs.”

His eyebrows came together, his head tilting slightly.

“One of our trucks? You sure?”

“An old Ford Ranger, red. Sound familiar?”

Cavendish nodded slowly. “Could be someone else’s truck. Why would you think it’s ours?”

“It’s registered with a vanity plate, RC 44.”

Cavendish sat back in his chair. His right hand moved up and lightly scratched the side of his face. He wasn’t smiling.

“It’s your truck, right?” I said.

He leaned over, picked up a phone receiver just like Sally Peck’s, and punched a button. It lit up, too.

“My office,” he said. He paused. “Yes, now.” Not angry, insistent.

“The Ranger is one of your trucks?” I said