Tell Me True (Call Me Cat Trilogy #3)(11)

"Did he behave differently than normal?" Ash asked. "Did he seem distracted or… just anything unusual?"

Mr. Lemony shook his head. "He seemed relaxed and happy to me."

"Did he say why he needed so much money?" I asked.

"No," Mr. Lemony said. "And we make it a point to respect our customer's privacy. Though with all that's happened I wished I'd asked."

I noticed Miss Trindle drop her head to look at her shoes, and I turned to speak to her. "Is there something else? Please, if there's anything you can remember, no matter how small, we need to know. It could be important. It could help us figure out who killed him."

"Well, it's just that, during the cake, he seemed a bit… standoffish. Usually he's a bit of a flirt, especially with the younger tellers, and we… they all just really like him, you know? He's cute and charming and funny. But, on that day, he was polite and nice, but not as social as normal, so I walked over to him and asked if anything was wrong." She twirled a silky strand of brown hair at her neck and tried not to make eye contact with anyone as she talked. "I knew he'd withdrawn a lot of money and that kind of money in cash, well, who would need it if something wasn't wrong, right? So I asked him and he got this look on his face, like, I don't know, kind of sad but also a little happy, and said that sometimes fate changes course and we have to be willing to ride it in a new direction, or something like that. But I didn't know what he meant, so I was going to ask him when he got another text and then set down his cake half-eaten and said he had to go. He looked in a hurry so I didn't stop him."

We left the bank with more questions than answers.

Jim handed Ash a file. "This isn't going to answer much either, but it's interesting. Found it when I searched his room."

In the file were two first class tickets to Croatia and a flyer for a boxing gym in town.

"Why on earth would he be going to Croatia?" Ash asked.

I took the tickets and studied them, as if they would reveal Jon's secrets. "He wanted to live there," I said, remembering.

Jim lit a cigarette and inhaled. "They don't have extradition in Croatia. Could be your brother was involved in something he didn't want to get caught in. Maybe he had gambling debts? That could explain the money and the tickets."

Ash shook his head. "I've never known him to have any addictions, least of all gambling. Surely we would have seen that sooner. We'll go check out this boxing place." He held up the flyer. "Jim, you keep poking around, see what you can find."

***

Bear's Boxing Club looked a little too seedy for the likes of Jon. The sign had a bear claw on it made into a fist and sat crookedly above the door, a few letters missing so it looked like B ar's Box g C ub. The windows hadn't been washed since probably the Reagan administration and some kids had thought it funny to write vulgar words they couldn't spell into the grime. A chime dinged above us as we walked in and an older man who looked hard as nails, with a nose showing signs of multiple breaks and a few scars giving him a patched-together look, walked toward us as he took off his boxing gloves. "Help you folks?"

Ash handed him the flyer. "My brother had this in his room. We need to know if he trained here."

The man studied us with the dark eyes of a hunter, letting the silence linger longer than was comfortable. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

I squeezed Ash's hand. "He's dead. Murdered. Did you know Jon Davenport?"

Some people show every emotion on their face. Not this man. But I thought I detected a flicker of something when we said Jon's name. "You knew him, didn't you?" I asked.

"I did. He trained here a few months. Came in daily, worked hard, showed promise for an amateur."

"Really?" Ash asked. "He finally decided to learn?" He frowned, biting his lip. I wondered what connections he was making. I had my own suspicions regarding why Jon took up fighting.

The man shrugged. "A man should know how to fight." He eyed Ash up and down. "You look like a man who knows how to do more than just defend himself." Ash didn't respond to the challenging undertones. They stared at each other for a few heartbeats until the man smiled, a mirthless smile that revealed yellowed, crooked teeth. "Your brother, he was a prep boy, but he could have gone far with more training. He didn't seem interested in fighting for sport, though. No, he wanted to learn how to do serious injury to someone. But he never told me why and I didn't ask. Ain't none of my business. But I got the sense he was messed up in something big. No one trains like he did out of the blue unless they got problems. And now he's dead, so I guess he did."

Ash sighed. "Yeah, I guess he did."

***

I promised Ash I'd be safe as he kissed me goodbye and left me at Harvard for a few hours while he checked in on his investment firm. His role required minimal involvement from him while still making him a fortune, but he'd neglected that recently and I encouraged him to go check on things. "I'll be fine," I'd told him. "Besides, I need to talk with Professor Cavin about next year."

My first year of law school hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped. With everything that had happened, my final grades had suffered, jeopardizing my internship and career opportunities when I graduated. I was determined to turn that around for the next year, even while getting married and now dealing with Jon's death.