3:00 on the dot and a fancy foreign car pulled into the lot. Junkyard Jones stood right in front of the door of the restaurant knowing that the guise would soon be blown wide open. He just needed to ensnarl the man before he could leave.
A man in his mid 20s wearing a dark gray three piece suit stepped out of the expensive automobile and Jones gave him a quick .
"Mr. Hartmann?" Jones hardly looked like a restaurant manager. His attire was very casual and he had yet to shave today. It was never his intention to lie about his identity in person. "This is he," Luca had repeated the statement right from Jones'' mouth in the prior conversation. Luca paused for a brief moment and continued, "I am sensing that you are not a manager of this establishment."
"My attire?" replied Jones.
"Yes." retorted Luca Hartmann with a widening of his eyes. Strength in his character appeared for the briefest of moments. "Well you are correct. I am not a manager, but I still require a conversation with you about Claudia Wells."
Luca replied, thrown off his expectations suddenly became flimsier than ever, "Ok, but somewhere private." Upon the direction of the private eye, wishing to psychologically dominate the conversation, they moved to Jones'' car upon the direction of the private eye. The movement to the car was swift, but Jones picked up on Luca''s hand shaking, seemingly out of nerves.
Jones began the conversation, "I apologize for the bit of deception that I used before. I am going to level with you and you are going to level with me. Does that sound fair?" "Sure." replied Luca, now fully revealing his frayed nerves. There was no need to speculate now. Claudia''s death had affected this man greatly.
Jones was ready to throw caution to the wind, press the advantage while the iron was hot. There was no need to present a way for Luca to regain his strength through the discovery of Jones'' true identity. "Alright, I am a private eye hired by Claudia''s father to investigate her death. I suspect that she was murdered and I know you were meeting her regularly. I found receipts suggesting that she ate here with someone. The hostess corroborated this and gave the description of a man who looked just like you. Are you that man who met her?"
Luca ignored the question. The question itself became unnecessary given any continuation of the conversation was confirmation enough that the two were meeting. "Murder? I read in the paper she died of an accidental overdose. I just assumed it was a medication of some sort. What makes you say murder?"
"Did she ever use Heroin?"
"No, a druggie would never work at our country club. If anyone shows up unable to work at 100 percent, they are gone that very day. People are paid well enough for us to demand perfection. We have a reputation after all. No no, she would never do something like that. She would never insult our work like that." Luca was turning from a nervous wreck to a just a plain wreck. The fancy attire he had arrived with was not nearly a thick enough cover to hide his timorousness.
Jones returned to a question he already knew the answer to in order to maybe relax Luca some, "it was you that met with her, right?"
"Yes. We had a relationship that we kept secret. I am her manager and I usually am not allowed to really date."
"Who has such control over a grown man?" responsed Jones with a laugh.
"Work. I am paid rather handsomely, but the female guests expect my attention." The translation of expect to demand was unmistakable in all figurations except the word, or so Jones thought.
"You prostitute yourself?"
"I just give them my attention. Beyond being a manager of the staff, I am supposed to make sure our club is the best in town. My personality is just another feature our club can offer." A smile finally arrived to his face, however thin. That was at least until he looked down ashamed at himself..
By personality he meant his handsomeness. The debonair aire about him was not something easily replicated. A model would make a million dollars out of his sophistication. Even if this class was temporarily abated by the collapse of a person''s natural calmness .
"I was given this job contingent on upholding my promise to make this the best club in the area. I love my job…" Luca paused to perhaps contemplate the reasons why he still loved working there.
"I met Claudia there afterall and fell in love with her because of work funnily enough. She was the hardest worker around and was not afraid to expand her job description. I miss her. I really do." Death, let alone murder, exposes the frailty of people. Even if only involved tangentially, premature death exposes the necessity to reach a man''s greater purpose in life. Luca put both of his hands on his head. To Jones he appeared confused. Somewhere still Jones remained aware of the fact that this man might be good at feigning confusion.
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Jones gave Luca a moment to collect himself. His head tilting ever more down and into his chest. This move by Jones was tactical as much as something motivated by sympathy. He wanted to see where Luca would take the conversation. Luca was the first person Jones had met from The Lake House. To Jones, there was no reputation that proceeded the man. All impressions were made from a blank slate. Jones had no good way of determining whether he was being true to himself or not.
The only way to expose more of Luca was to get him to talk more. The torture of silence was inflicted effectively by Jones to achieve this very ambition. A whole minute passed before the shrunken man caved and could no longer bear to continue waiting for a response,
"How certain are you that she was murdered? Why are the police not doing anything about it?" asked Luca.
Jones was of the mind that a person who committed a crime murder, and too possessed a modicum of intelligence, would not dare to go down that line of questioning about the lack of involvement of the police. All attempts would be to divert. At that moment Jones began to treat Luca as a victim, and not a suspect.
"I am fairly confident at this point that she was murdered. As for the police, I cannot answer why they have chosen to handle this case so shoddily. I suspect the worst, but it remains only suspicion. I do know that their inaction, for whatever reason, cannot be good."
"I want to help," Luca said abruptly. "They might listen to me when I say that I have a suspicion that she was murdered and take a second look at things."
"The second look will be as good as the first. What I need is to access The Lake House. Only when I am trusted by her co-workers can I begin to investigate that angle." Jones knew that involving the police with murder was almost always the right thing to do. The danger of being mistaken as a murderer was slim, but the cost of such an error was grave.
In the case of incompetence, Jones would wish to involve the police in most crimes he was tasked to investigate. When matters were corrupt, however, it was another beast entirely. Jones could not get rid of his hunch that someone on the police force was being purposefully negligent. He was certain he needed Luca''s help to infiltrate The Lake House. His offer to help was Godsent.
"I can help with that, but, before we partner up, how do you intend to investigate the matter? I need to know that you are not some sort of incompetent investigator that got lucky in finding me."
"I intend to leave crumbs around and imply that I know more than I do. I think the person who murdered her was worried about any questions being asked at all. There is no avoiding the fact that this was a murder disguised as an accident. There had to be a degree of premeditation in this whole affair, but also a degree of insecurity is exposed by the disguise. In my experience this could either be a risk mitigation tactic on part of the criminal, or the cover up was the only way out for the person to simply disappear with no more questions being asked. I am hoping that it is the former."
"The plan sounds solid enough. It is better than nothing I guess." Luca let out with a sigh. The vague semblance of strength that Luca mustered in inquiring about the capabilities of Jones had disappeared as soon as it arrived. The sigh confused Jones for a moment. He eventually came to figure that Luca just wanted this all to be over more than anything. The sudden arrival of Jones meant things could not be over for Luca just yet. The guilt of not participating in the attempt to find Claudia''s killer would be too much to bear.
Luca continued, "I understand your lack of guarantee. Only begrudgingly as our members usually do not afford us that same understand." Luca exclaimed with a chuckle. The topic of his demanding job seemed to clear his head somewhat.
While still in the front seats of the car, the two worked out the final details of establishing Jones undercover in The Lake House. Luca had met Jones by chance at the police station when attempting to see if Claudia was in possession of any cash to pay off the bar tab. Jones would pose as her much older brother, and Luca would hire Jones to work for a week at The Lake House. He would work as a waiter given the need of a short term replacement.
He had decided to take on the name of Brian Wells when plotting how to integrate himself into The Lake House. Brian sounded about right to match the last name. Luca thought a name less orthodox would be better to explain the 10 year age gap. He reasoned that a back story was necessary to concoct. Luca''s story was that they were half siblings and his mother was a hipster of sorts. Jones nixed the idea immediately, pleading with him to never mention such a tale.
Luca was starting to overthink the whole ordeal. "K.I.S.S. every situation to death. Keep it simple stupid until the simpleness is obnoxious," the words Jones lived his life by desperately needed comprehension here. He repeated the maxim at least three times to Luca. Each time he could only hope that it would catch on. It appeared as if Luca and Jones were of incompatible minds.
There was still a chance even that if Jones were to be unsuccessful that the murderer would not be alerted to his sudden departure. All of this still hinged on the killer being someone she knew from work.
On the matter, Jones asked Luca one final question. "Did she do anything besides work?"
Luca responded with an aire of guilt, "Yes, she met with me sometimes. But other than that, no. I disliked it intensely. I was a young adult once too. She needed to live more." The comment felt out of place to Jones. Mr. Hartmann was hardly over the age of 25 and too seemed to be obsessed with his place of employ. Jones theorized that what Luca meant to say was that "she needs to be still living."
The meeting was over after a few more moment of deliberation. A shake of the hands occurred, but the private eye did not know for what cause. Jones made the trek back to his car and drove once more to his motel. Not shaving in the morning almost blew his interaction with Luca Hartmann. He could not afford to be sloppy any more.
All Jones needed to do now was shave and get ready for work. This final drive through town of the day was again quiet, more reminiscent of the early morning. Most people must be at work at this time. Like Drake''s the only other restaurant he could spot on the main street was closed.
Jones was to begin his work as a waiter with a 6:00 to midnight shift. Feelings of progress in the case came at the cost of worry that he would not be a sufficient waiter of a five star dining establishment. He had been ecstatic momentarily with his success at procuring a sufficient undercover role, but he had forgot that he had no experience waiting in his life.
Having arrived at his room once more, Jones was a bit apprehensive all things considered. He had never worked a normal job with any great success. A normal job to him was one that held routine expectations. The very defining feature of normalcy was that which kept him from finding labor fulfilling. A lack of success meant a lack of enjoyment to Jones. Only the brevity of the undercover assignment kept Jones sane.
Now with some time to kill and no firm leads to operate on. Jones began to reminisce. He thought that maybe his great aversion to prolonged routine labor began with his military career. Right after high school, Jones had enlisted in the army. Jones had joined the army to become a warrior, only to discover that he enjoyed the freedom vehicle repair afforded him. Having shown a knack for mechanical tasks, repairing trucks was the role assigned to him immediately after basic training. Compared to the responsibilities of other soldiers Jones was able to prolong the completion of orders to the length of a day rather than immediately. He lasted only four years in the military before he became a private investigator. After his four years were up, Jones left the military without a second thought. Despite the great luxury he lived in working around cars, he could no longer stand the expectation of being at work at 8 a.m. everyday
When he was just starting sometimes Jones would work the odd job to make ends meet. His skills as a car mechanic helped pay the bills once or twice, but whenever a regimented schedule was proposed by a satisfied employer he visibly recoiled. Some bosses would take offense and others understood that the man wanted nothing to do with routine.