Page 34 of Parting Shot

“Of course he talked to the girlfriend.” Cohen rolled her eyes.

“Me too.” Jimmy elbowed Benoit. “I always hit up the hot women while Detective Stiel was in the dumpster.”

Cohen was grinning at me.

“Don’t talk to them like they’re people,” I warned my partner.

“Oh yeah, true,” he said, moving away from Benoit as if he were a leper.

I cleared my throat. “Okay, so Liz was pissed, and were they fighting?”

“Yeah.” Benoit nodded. “They were loud, and suddenly, Evan was screaming at her that he couldn’t keep up with her spending.”

“We have witnesses to that?”

“We do. And that corroborates Mr. McCall’s statement about Liz being dead weight.”

“Do we like this McCall for the murder?”

“No,” Cohen explained. “He left with some guy he’d picked up before midnight.”

“Okay.” I was piecing it together. “So, buddy Nick was gone, and Liz was …”

“Off with Artie,” Benoit reminded me.

“Got it,” I said, filing it away as I made notes in my logbook. “Now tell me about Rabbit Run.”

“It’s defunct,” Benoit answered me—apparently, this was the part he knew about. “According to the same friend of his, Nick McCall, last month, Evan sold the building Rabbit Run was in, along with all the studio and engineering equipment, and was in the midst of paying off his loans.”

“Which is smart,” I stated. “That way, hopefully, he doesn’t have to declare bankruptcy and he can start a new venture without that on his record.”

Benoit waggled his head. “No. Not legitimate loans, boss.”

“Oh.” I understood. “The kind of loans the bank doesn’t give out.”

“That’s what Mr. McCall said, yes.”

“Do we have names of people he owed?”

“No. McCall didn’t know, and neither did the girlfriend.”

I processed it all. Polley had needed money. What brought in the quickest payday of all? He was in a restroom in a club. Buying? Selling? But if the club had a strict no-drugs policy … which it did …

“So, he needed a big influx of cash to get square with whoever the fuck,” Jimmy threw out, pale blue eyes meeting mine. “Why would he be here, then, at one of the most expensive clubs in the city?”

“You know why.” I tipped my head toward him.

“Maybe he was networking?” Benoit chimed in. “Maybe he was looking for someone to help him out with another loan.”

“His buddy said his credit was so shot that no legitimate bank would touch him,” Cohen added. “If a bank wouldn’t take the risk, then we’re talking about somebody less on the up-and-up that he was trying to wrangle into helping him out last night.”

“No.” I shook my head because I already knew the answer. “Think about it. He would be trying to pay off his loan any way he knew how, not find someone new to hit up. And if he owed a bad guy a large chunk of cash, then he’d probably tapped out his friends and everyone else in his social circle. I bet there was nobody else to mooch from.”

Walking out of the stall, I crossed to where I saw faucets. There were no sinks, though, just a slanted marble slab. It was tilted downward in the back with a long trough behind it. Strange not to have sinks, but why did I care?

Sometimes, my brain worked backward. Trying to tell me something, make me think about something⁠—

“Deena,” I said, pivoting, leaning back, and crossing my arms as I gazed at her, “you won’t actually know cause of death until you get him back downtown on your table, right?”