He opened his arm with a sweeping gesture, inviting me into his office, and I walked in quickly before he changed his mind.
“No Anessa tonight?”
“Not this time,” I said selecting a chair closest to his desk and sitting.
His office was uncharacteristically full of seating options. Normally Frankie had one or two chairs on the other side of his desk, but tonight six additional seating options were strung out in the large space.
“Is she still dating the GI Joe wannabe?” Frankie asked as he took a seat in his office chair.
Just like Frankie, he never got to the actual important point of why I’d stopped by to see him. Not once in our entire friendship had I stopped by to talk about Anessa.
I leaned back in the leather chair, getting comfortable. If he wanted to small talk first, then fine. “Yeah, she’s probably going to marry him.”
The chairs weren’t the only fresh addition to Frankie’s office this evening. He also had a brand-new crystal dish of butterscotch candies. We both looked to the dish, but while my brow furrowed in question, Frankie glanced away pretending it wasn’t the weirdest thing I’d ever seen in his house. Which, in the grand scheme of gangster, was disappointing.
I leaned forward and snatched one from the dish. I was jobless and not a woman to turn away any kind of sweet. “What are you, fifty now, Frankie?”
He laughed, not perturbed by my age joke. The man wasn’t a day over thirty-five. “I had an old friend from out-of-town visit. He called ahead, so I prepared for his meeting.” His sentence was punctuated with a particular look, which I chose to ignore.
“I’ve been busy. My Nanna died.”
It was a low blow to use the grandma card, but if I got Frank to answer my questions, I would try anything. Solving this murder would be close to avenging Nanna’s death. She hadn’t been killed, but I liked to think she’d be proud of me.
His face fell, and I felt guilty for using the death of someone. “I heard. I’m sorry about your loss. Of course, I heard about the arrest.”
The sweet butterscotch soured in my mouth. This stupid town.
Even if it annoyed me to no end that I had no secrets, at least I’d finally finagled our conversation to the topic at hand.
“That’s why I’m here.”
Frankie laughed. “I can get the charges against you dropped, but what about your cousin?”
“No,” there weren’t any charges to worry about in this case because the local police didn’t file any, and Chip wasn’t going to press charges either. “Dead guys can’t press charges so I’m in the clear. I’m here about something I saw in his house.”
Frankie’s eyes perked up too big. He normally had a perfect poker face, but in that moment it slipped. He knew more than he pretended. “What would that be?”
I settled back in my chair, excited to have the upper hand in the conversation again. It didn’t happen often with Frankie. “A check… from you.”
Frankie smiled and leaned back in his chair, looking even more comfortable than I did. It was annoying. “Yes, Chip Martal was an employee. I withhold Social Security tax as an honest and good business owner. We wouldn’t want the government to have any reason to search and seize my many assets.”
“What legal business did he do for you?” From the sounds of it and his dead body, Chip didn’t do Frankie’s taxes.
Frankie shrugged. “Brute strength. He handled materials from building projects I’m working on in Clearwater.”
“And what about the illegal activities he helped you with as part of his employment with you?” I asked, leaning forward. I’d made a ballsy move, but since I still had one of his butterscotches in my mouth, I felt relatively safe Frankie wouldn’t kick me out of his office.
He rolled his eyes and laughed. “I am not engaged in any illegal activities, Katy. That is nothing more than a rumor the old woman at the auxiliary make up when they don’t have enough news for a regular phone tree.”
“What about the fact you were involved in kidnapping one of my friends earlier this year?”
He scowled. I’d obviously hit a nerve.
“I resent that implication. Neither me nor any of my men were involved in the kidnapping. In fact, I talked the kidnappers into releasing your friend. If anything, I’m the hero in that story.”
Following a quick knock on the door, the big guy with his gun still swinging from his hip took half a step into the office. “Boss, your appointments are here.”
Frankie smiled as his eyes glanced past his bodyguard. “That’s time for you to go, Katy. I trust you’ll find your own way out the side door?”
