The Object of His Protection - Brenda Jackson [44]
“Right now I have a few more people to talk to,” Drey said, glancing down at his notepad. “I’m hitting a brick wall at the police station. I hate to say it but I think a few people down there are in on this too. I hope I’m wrong but I have a gut feeling about it. The one guy down at headquarters that I know I can trust—my former partner—is out of town but is scheduled to return this week. I’m hoping he’ll be able to check out some things and shed some light on a few inconsistencies I’ve found.”
“And what about that employee at Stewart Industries? The one Connor spoke with? Daiyu Longwei. She clammed up when Connor questioned her about Dad’s last phone call to her. Have you spoken to her at all?” Tyson asked.
Drey shook his head. “I’ve spoken with her, but she didn’t have any more to tell me either. I’ll keep working on it, though.”
Charlene didn’t say anything as she racked her brain trying to recall where she’d heard the name before. Daiyu Longwei…
“So, what’s next?” Malcolm was asking Drey.
“I plan to talk to the congressman’s associates to see if they recall him acting strangely during his last days. There had to be a reason for his unscheduled trip to D.C.”
“I suggest you start with Senator Ray Cayman and Judge Bruce Hanlon. They’ve known Dad for years and are two of his closest friends,” Tyson said.
Drey smiled. “I’ll certainly do that.”
After his meeting with the Braddocks, Drey dropped Charlene off at his place before proceeding to the apartment building where Joe Dennis had lived. He wanted to question the man’s neighbors about the night Joe Dennis died.
He spoke first with the elderly couple who lived across the hall, Fred and Eleanor Billings. Mr. Billings was eager to let him in, assuming he was a detective from the police department. When Drey informed the couple he was an investigator, the Billingses were surprised that after several calls to the police station, no one had come out to ask them questions about what they had heard that night. Drey was surprised as well.
According to Mr. and Mrs. Billings they had been trying to watch their favorite television show and couldn’t do so for all the loud noise coming from across the hall. Two men were yelling at each other at the top of their lungs. They had gotten so loud the Billingses had been tempted to call the police for disturbing the peace. In less than an hour the noise had stopped and the next day they had heard that Mr. Dennis—who they thought was a nice hardworking man—had died. Even though the recent news update indicated he had died of natural causes, the couple still questioned why no one wanted to hear what they had to say.
Drey visited several more of Joe Dennis’s neighbors, but each one said they hadn’t seen or heard a thing that night. One lady questioned why he was asking around when the papers said he’d died of natural causes. He had explained that he just wanted to collect all the facts.
It was getting late and he decided to put off contacting Senator Cayman and Judge Hanlon until tomorrow. What he wanted to do more than anything was to head home and mess around with Charlene some more. Memories of how they had spent their night and this morning caused his nerve endings to react. He loved her taste so much that he could bury his head between her legs and stay there. But then he also enjoyed being inside her, moving in and out and feeling her inner muscles clamp tight as they tried to squeeze everything out of him.
There were other things he enjoyed about her that weren’t related to sex. He liked the way she went tit-for-tat with him, how she could make some offhanded comment in a way that made him smile. And he appreciated her sense of humor. His face broke into a lopsided grin when he thought of introducing her to his mother. Daiyu would like her.
His mother.
He then remembered how his mother’s name had come up during their meeting with the Braddocks. Sooner or later he would have to tell them the truth, but that would be only after he discovered for himself why Harmon had been trying to reach his mother that night. Had