Greywalker - Kat Richardson [73]
My native curiosity was now leavened with irritation. I went up to the records office and killed several hours looking for deeds and business licenses. They wouldn’t give me the names, but they’d give me a start on cracking TPM’s shell.
The corporation was privately held, so deep information on TPM was difficult to find, but I made phone calls and one of my contacts offered to fax me everything he had. Another came up with a list of newspaper articles that mentioned TPM. By the end of the day, I expected to be adrift in TPM-related paper.
While those bits of information dribbled in, I tried Philip Stakis’s number again.
A woman answered. “Hello?”
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Philip Stakis. Do I have the correct phone number?” I asked.
The woman gasped. “Oh, my God,” she shouted. “Can’t you just leave us alone?”
“Please don’t hang up!” I begged. “I’m not a solicitor or a lawyer or anything like that. I’m a private investigator and I’m just trying to find a piece of furniture.” What the hell . . . ?
“Furniture? Oh, yeah, right,” she snapped.
“No, really. My client is looking for an old parlor organ that Mr. Stakis bought from Chet Ingstrom of Seattle back in 1990.”
She was silent a moment, then said, “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Well, we don’t have it anymore,” she stated in a Long Island drawl.
I restrained my urge to swear. “What happened to it? Do you know, or should I ask Mr. Stakis?”
She laughed harshly. “You’ll have a hard time. Phil’s dead.”
EIGHTEEN
Dead?” I echoed. Another dead guy? “I don’t mean to pry, but could you tell me what happened?”
“To Phil?”
“Yes.”
“Lung cancer.” I sat back, relieved that it wasn’t something mysterious and sudden. Then she added, “Or pneumonia, really, but that’s what happens when you’re too sick to move after being a two-pack-a-day smoker. Died in the prison hospital a little over a month ago, sudden-like. And he’d been doing so good. Hadn’t been in trouble since the navy, hadn’t smoked in over a year. But he couldn’t care anymore.”
“What was Phil sent up for?” I asked.
She laughed her raw, barking laugh again. “Being a jackass. Grand theft—he stole a truck full of furniture, only he thought it was a truck full of TVs. Him and a couple of his jackass buddies from back in the day. So you can understand why I kind of flipped when you said furniture.”
“How long had Phil been in prison?” I asked.
“This time? About six months. It was just before the holidays he got convicted. Then he got sick just after New Year’s. Missed the Super Bowl and everything.”
“That’s terrible, Mrs. Stakis,” I said.
“Oh, I’m not Mrs. Stakis. My name’s Lenore Fabrette. I’m—was—Phil’s sister. My son and I moved out here to live with Phil when I got divorced. Phil was retired from the navy and he was all the family I had left except Josh, and now it’s just me and my boy.”
“Do you mind if I ask you just a couple more questions?”
“No. You seem OK, like you actually care, not like some of the creeps who’ve been calling.”
“Creeps?”
“Local jerks. Some reporter’s been trying to make a big deal out of the story, like it’s gonna win him a Pulitzer or something. Just a bunch of middle-aged farts being stupid. Phil’s criminal past is big news in Anacortes, though. He joined the navy back when we were kids so the court would seal his juvie record, but he got in more trouble in the navy and barely stayed in to retirement. I don’t know how they found out, but it was all over the local papers, and me and Josh have been hounded like we had something to do with it.”
“That’s rough. Umm . . . what happened to the organ?”
“Oh. Phil gave it away. He said it wasn’t worth much, but because it was an antique, taxes on it would be through the roof after he died, so he donated it to some historical society or museum or something like that. I don’t know which one, though.”
There was hope. “Do you have the tax records for the write-off ?”
“No. All that stuff’s with his tax guy.”
“Could you find out for me?