Free Murder Mile High by Lora Roberts Page B

know what else to say. “But weren’t you his boss? How could he get that much power over you?”
    “You’re his wife. Didn’t you know?” For the first time he seemed to see me. “Oh, you might as well come in. I’ve got to leave in a little while—the realtor is showing the house. But you might as well have a drink.”
    I followed him down the hall; he staggered a little. The living room contained a couple of plastic lawn chairs with a brass-and-glass coffee table between them, and some nicely framed and matted photographs on the wall. “My wife took most of the furniture—my ex-wife,” he said, settling into one of the lawn chairs. “Yeah, now I remember. You shot Tony—tried to kill him a few years ago, right? He was on sick leave for a couple of months. So were you more successful this time?”
    “I wasn’t even in Denver, but the police think I was behind it somehow.” I sat in the other chair, uninvited. A huge bottle of Jack Daniels stood on the coffee table, next to a glass.
    Tobin poured himself a drink. He didn’t offer me one.
    “That Naylor. What a bastard.” He raised his glass in a salute, then drank half the whiskey.
    “I wondered where Tony had been working recently. Can you tell me? I gather he was fired from the brokerage.”
    “He was blackmailing me, you know.” Tobin looked at me earnestly, clutching his glass. “Just a little mistake—little bad margin call on my part. Had to cover myself. Dipped into a trust fund I was managing.” He took a morose sip. “Tony found out somehow. I was a VP by then. Couldn’t let them know.”
    “So what did he want?”
    “Money.” Tobin gave me a sharp look, the muzziness momentarily gone. “And immunity from his own depredations. I told him I couldn’t protect him forever, but he pushed. Got found out, and took me down with him, the bastard.” His hand clenched on the glass. “God, I hate him.” Then he focused on me again. “But I didn’t kill him. Didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. I had enough trouble on my own account.” He sloshed a little more whiskey into his glass.
    “Do you think Maud Riegert might know more? Were they still—friends?”
    He shrugged and tossed off his drink. “Good old Maudie. She moved on a few years ago. Dunno if she still saw Tony. Got a job in another firm.” He giggled a little. “She had a black eye once, you know. Said she got it in the shower. Then she left. Nice little ass that girl had.” He made a vague gesture in the air and reached for the bottle, but his hand groped without finding it. Then slowly, peacefully, his eyes closed. A breathy snore bubbled out of his mouth, followed, in a moment, by another.
    I pitied the real estate agent who was bringing a client over. And though I had gotten some information, it wasn’t the information I wanted.
    Tobin slumped farther in his chain. His sport coat fell open, revealing a small notebook in the inside pocket. As I looked at it, he snored again.
    He didn’t move when I stood beside him for a while. So I fished the notebook out. It was one of those little pocket daily calendars with an address section in the back. Maud Riegert’s address and phone number were written down under R. The phone number was the same one I had reached her at earlier. I copied the address, and then leafed through the book again. Kyle’s name was there, but I already had his location.
    Tony was in there, too—with several scratched-out addresses under his name. The last one, with a big angry X drawn through it, was the same as Kyle Baldridge’s. So Tony had moved in with Kyle at some point. Perhaps he had still lived there at the time of his death. I had looked at his driver’s license but I couldn’t remember now what had been written there, and I knew from my own experience that licenses weren’t always accurate.
    I needed to talk to Kyle, even if I had to drive to the Four Corners to do it.
    Leonard Tobin snored again. I tucked the notebook