Page 39 of Filthy Rich

He gave me another thoroughly weird look before opening the file on his desk. It contained the information he’d found since I’ll called him from the car, after I’d dropped Brooke at Harris & Goode this morning.

“Three hours isn’t enough time to get a whole lot, but I’ve got some baseline stuff for you and it’s a start. Brooke Ellen Casterley, twenty-three years old. Birthday, seventeenth May, when she will turn twenty-four. Born at King George Hospital, Essex, England to Susanna Casterley and Michael Harvey. Here’s her birth certificate.”

James slid it to me across the desk. “And the husband?”

“He was a bit more of a challenge, but I found his name on the public marriage record filed when he married Brooke. Marcus Kyle Patten, age twenty-nine at the time of the marriage, thirty years old at the time of his death. Born in Salem, Mass., died in Chatsworth, an affluent LA suburb, just seven months into the marriage. Here’s his birth certificate.”

He slid that one over as well. “How did she meet this guy do you think?”

“I think I can make a good guess there. They met at Suffolk University where she was an undergrad, and he was probablyjust finishing up law school. Patten passed the Massachusetts state bar exam two years ago in February. He married Brooke a little over a month later in April.”

“But they lived in California and Marcus died there. Why take the Massachusetts bar exam and not California’s?”

“I’m still working on that, but Brooke probably knows what she’s talking about if she said the family operated in criminal activity. I’m thinking they needed an inside man versed in the law. Like the mob always sends their brightest bulb in the box to law school. Best way to keep all that money out of the hands of the IRS.”

“The family is organized crime?” I asked.

“Looking that way. They own storage unit rentals. Hundreds of them all over the state. Could be a nice cover for smuggling: drugs, guns, anything that’s controlled, plus a legit business helps to hide the money laundering activities they need to do. Oh, and this Marcus Patten had some anger management issues while in law school, and sounds like maybe a drinking problem, too. An aggravated assault charge was filed for a bar fight that turned vicious, before it was then quietly dropped. The family probably paid off the victim—that and maybe he was fearful of losing the other eye. Marcus ripped into the guy’s face with a broken beer bottle and left him blind on the left side. He reads like one crazy motherfucker.”

“Jesus, this guy and his family sound likeSleeping With the EnemymeetsSons of Anarchy.”

“I know. It’s a miracle your girl made it out in one piece.”

She nearly didn’t.“While we’re on the topic of crazy people, how is Janice?”

“I wouldn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much. Besides I told you a few days later at lunch that I didn’t fuck her, I just let her into my apartment. Which was theworst, most-terrible idea ever. Why didn’t you come down there and save me from her, bro?”

“Hey, I warned you to the best of my ability, I even let you know about the picture she sent me.” I frowned at him. “How wasted were you?”

“On my fucking ass, apparently, because I don’t remember much about the preliminary activities that led to her showing up at my place.”

“I broke up with her after we came back from the American Cancer Society benefit and she went ballistic. By the time she left the penthouse, she’d given me the black eye and trashed my bathroom like something out of fuckingFatal Attraction.”

James dropped his head and shook it back and forth. “She told me about that, I remember now. She went to town on the bathroom, thinking of things to do to mess with your head. Like toothpaste on the walls, and towels in the toilet, and destroying a whole box of condoms. Which sucks, because the good ones are expensive.”

Destroyed condoms?“Janice didn’t mess with the condoms. I checked the cupboard where I keep them and the box hadn’t been touched.”

“Well, that’s good then…” He trailed off and tilted his head as if he was trying to remember. James had a really good memory, too, even while under the influence, so I tended to believe him when he said something important. And this was fucking important.

“James, what did Janice say?”

“She said she hated you, and that you would be sorry you ever fucked her over. Then she told me about trashing your bathroom and all the shit she did in there, and how much fun she had doing it. She said she wished she could see your face when you found out what she did to ruin your life.”

“She said that? Janice said she was ruining my life?” Something wasn’t right here with this story. “James, bro, you have to remember for me. A minute ago—why did you say she destroyed a box of condoms?”

James rubbed his head with the tips of his fingers. “Because—she said she did, Caleb. She told me about using a pin or a brooch from her dress and how she poked holes in them?—”

Oh, my God. That is exactly the kind of psycho shit Janice would do, too. The bitch put them back in the box all neat and tidy so I wouldn’t suspect.

I jumped up from the chair in his office and grabbed the copies. “Bro, I’m glad I stopped in here today, but I gotta go. Thanks for the intel on Patten so far. Keep digging.” I nodded to the file on his desk and left him sitting there still rubbing his head.

As I waved good-bye to Mrs. Kennedy, I remembered the wisdom in keeping up to date with one’s friends.

You never know what important news they might have to share with you. Jesus Christ.

Ihad Isaac drive me straight from my meeting with James back to the penthouse. Ann had already cleaned the bedroom, and the trash was long gone down into the bowels of the building’s incinerator most likely, so I couldn’t check the condoms I’d used last night. I went for the box and emptied it out onto the counter. The packages were black so it wasn’t easily noticeable, but when held to the light, there were holes dead center in about three-quarters of them. Not every condom had been pierced, but a lot of them had.

I started opening condoms and filling them with water from the sink. Drip, drip, drip, right through the tips of the ones that had been poked.Janice, you fiendish cunt.

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