Gotcha Detective Agency Mystery Box Set

by Jamie Lee Scott

  I stood up and headed for the door as Nick put money on the table. I watched out of the corner of my eye to see if he actually did take a picture with his phone. I breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t. I did turn and wink at the server as we walked out, though. She winked back. Then it occurred to me, she may have left that note for me. Now that was funny.

  Once out on the sidewalk, Nick said, “P.I., not homicide cop, remember?”

  Like I didn’t know. I hated that I had seen so many dead bodies in the last two years or so. Ever since Nick had come back into my life, on the night Esme was found dead in Lauren’s dining room, it seemed like we were butting heads over a new dead body every few months. I was so over it. I wanted to go back to my simple life of spying on cheating spouses, and being a decoy.

  “You don’t have to remind me. It’s not like I go looking for them. I’m a magnet for some ungodly reason. It sucks.”

  “Speaking of sucking…” Nick grinned wide.

  I blushed like a schoolgirl. “And a few other things I had in mind for tonight, so don’t get too distracted.”

  We kissed and went in different directions. I loved him, and I didn’t care what Jackie said, I wasn’t a cow. And Nick would buy the milk. Wouldn’t he?

  I headed to Skinner’s house to see what I could find out from his lovely wife.

  Speaking of cows.

  113

  Charles

  My day, like Mimi’s, is always made better by seeing Nick. I just like looking at him, and I appreciate his devious mind. We also have an appreciation for the finer things. The difference is that I can afford them, and Nick can’t. That part sucks, but I’m working on it. I’ve been giving Nick investment advice on the sly, and he’s a quick learner. He also learns, by osmosis, style. He’s been looking fine lately, but I liked him better in a suit.

  “I heard you had quite the commotion here earlier,” was how he’d let me know he was behind me.

  “Oh, that. Welcome to working with women all day. Don’t you wish you were so lucky?” I blew it off, because I was pretty sure all of them, with the possible exception of Uta, were on their period.

  “If only.” He laughed, then pulled up a chair beside my desk.

  “Did Uta announce my arrival?”

  I kept working on my project, not looking away from the screen, even though I could appreciate the vision in my peripheral. “Yep.”

  “Did I see the name Cox on your screen when I walked in?” He sounded curious and disappointed at the same time.

  “Maybe.” I wasn’t in the mood for another smack down.

  “What do you have so far?” He leaned in closer to my screen.

  I turned it away from him. “That depends. How pissed are you going to be?”

  “The wife is stonewalling us, so I can’t get into the house to get on Bucky’s computer. We’ve got a tech at City Hall working on his computer there, but not getting much.” Nick sat back.

  Uta walked into my office, handing Nick a glass with clear liquid and ice, then she handed me an iced mocha. Yeah, Mimi had us all hooked.

  Nick asked, “Monster?”

  Uta nodded.

  “You’re the best.”

  She said, “I know,” and blushed.

  When she was gone, I said, “As long as you aren’t going to flip a tit or arrest me, I’ll tell you what I’ve got. But I warn you, it’s not good.”

  Nick took a long sip of his drink and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, both hands on his now half empty glass. “Give it to me straight.”

  I turned the screen back toward him, even though he wouldn’t understand anything he saw on it. “I’m not going to tell you how I did it, but I was able to figure out his IP address, then hack in and get past his firewall. I’m telling you, this guy was a doozy. He was blackmailing the new mayor.”

  Nick nearly spilled the rest of his energy drink. “What are you talking about?”

  “Easy there.” I hit a few more keystrokes, bringing up some photos I’d found on Bucky’s computer.

  “You have to be joking here.” Nick ran his fingers through his hair.

  “I wish. So bring on one more suspect.” I had to chuckle. “Apparently our mayor likes them young. And he likes his seedy motels. Bucky somehow found out about the mayor’s fetish and started following him, I guess. Anyway, he got into a motel room at least once and took photos of him doing the dirty deed with an underage girl.”

  I enlarged the photo.

  Nick turned away. “I don’t want to see that shit.”

  “The thing is, she’s not really underage. I looked her up. She just looks young. So, don’t worry your pretty little head.” I waited for him to sneak a peek, but he didn’t. “All the same, he wasn’t blackmailing the mayor for money; he was blackmailing him for votes and support.”

  “So, no big deal. The mayor could throw his support behind him. What would it hurt? Not a motive for murder.” Nick defended Bucky for some unknown reason. Well, I guess the reason would be that he didn’t want yet another suspect.

  “There’s more.” I didn’t know how to tell Nick the next part. It was the worst part of all. So, instead of saying anything, I showed him a series of pictures.

  The first photo was the mayor and his fifteen-year-old daughter at a charity function. Then a photo of him and his wife, with their daughter. Next was a photo the mayor’s daughter with Bucky. Bucky led a horse the girl was riding. The next photo showed the mayor helping his daughter off the horse at Bucky’s ranch, but the mayor’s hand was on his daughter’s butt, and not in a helpful way.

  “I really don’t want to know this.” Nick put his glass on the floor and rubbed his eyes. “Print the photos, and I’ll turn this into family services.”

  “This goes beyond the blackmail. I don’t know if this is an unfortunate photo, or if there is more going on. But if the mayor likes the hookers young, what else does he like?” I hated to be the bearer of this kind of news.

  “I’m so glad I only investigate murders. If I had to investigate pedophiles and child porn, I’d have to be institutionalized. But I’ll make sure this gets to the proper authorities right away.”

  I printed the photos, and Nick folded the papers and put them in his pocket.

  “What else do you have on Bucky?” Nick sighed.

  “That’s all so far. But I was just getting ready to look into his finances. You want I should do that while you’re here?”

  While I was changing lanes on the information super highway, I told Nick about the visit I got from Max earlier in the day.

  “What do you make of it?” I asked.

  “I’m in homicide, and I’m not with the county, or Monterey, so I wouldn’t have heard anything about a sting operation going down over there, but I’d say don’t buy the damn car,” Nick said.

  He drank the last of his Monster, and was jiggling the ice, when Uta came in with another can and refilled his glass.

  “Damn, woman, you are going to be the death of me.” Nick gladly accepted the glass of death by caffeine.

  “I hope not, my bosses wouldn’t be very happy.” She crushed the can in one hand and looked to me. “You need anything, Charles?”

  “How is it that you knew Nick needed a refill, but you have to ask me?” I tried to act miffed.

  “I happened to be walking by and heard the ice clinking in his glass.”

  That made perfect sense. And what timing.

  “Sure,” I said, just to give her a hard time.

  She grasped me by the shoulder and gave a little shake before she left the room.

  “Gotta love that woman.” Nick took another long swig.

  “Dude, slow down with that, or you are going to have a heart attack.”

  “I’ve got this case, three others, and Mimi and I have a date tonight. I need all the energy I can get.” He chugged a bit more.

  “Rayna said they were selling everything off to help pay for Bucky’s campaign. But from the looks of i
t, Bucky has plenty of money.” I typed for a bit longer. “Okay, here it is. He also has a shitload of debt.”

  “What’s a shitload?”

  I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. “Holy schnickeys, I thought Rayna said she wouldn’t let Bucky take a second mortgage on that property?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I was investigating a body with a head that was bashed in.” Nick leaned over to see what I’d found. “I guess she lied.”

  “Or he did it without telling her.” I fished a little more.

  “How is that even possible if both of their names are on the property?”

  “Forgery?” I pointed to the documents. “Hold on.”

  It took me a few minutes to find something with Rayna’s signature on it, but when I did, I was able to prove that the signature on the mortgage papers wasn’t Rayna’s. Bucky had forged Rayna’s signature, and basically bet everything they had, including the farm, on his political career. What if he’d lost? How were they going to get that money back?

  Then it dawned on me. Mojo. Somehow this whole Mojo thing was a scam. How and why I didn’t know, but Bucky had figured out how to sell the horse, and use the money to pay off the second mortgage. I’d work that one out in my mind. But for now, I wanted to know who killed the S.O.B.

  “This points us straight back to Rayna,” I said. “This was the ultimate betrayal.”

  “Not so sure it’s a reason to kill someone.” Nick stood, and walked to the door and back. “What about life insurance policies?”

  He was one jump ahead of me. I was going there next. I looked through everything I could find in his paperwork, through his IP address, then in his files at City Hall, and found nothing.

  “I don’t see anything for him. He has mortality insurance on all of his horses. Mojo is insured for half a million, and the other horses in the barn are insured for anywhere from five grand to fifty grand, but nothing on him or Rayna.” I thought this was strange, especially since they traveled so much, and they participated in a dangerous sport.

  “They rodeo, so maybe there’s insurance built into their memberships with the rodeo associations.”

  “There’s a thought. I’ll have to check with Cortnie on that. If she doesn’t know, we can ask Rayna or Skinner.” Or we could call the association. I think it’s called the PRCA, Pro Rodeo Cowboy’s Association.

  “The problem here is that I can’t have any of this information, so I’ll have to pretend I don’t know any of this for the time being. I’ll get with Gabe and see that we get the affidavit signed, and go back to the Cox place with a warrant. Then we’ll be able to get all of this information on the up and up. Thanks for the heads up. It gives me some solid leads to follow, and at least some direction, or more directions.” He walked back to the door. “I have a headache.”

  I stood. I figured I’d walk out to the car with him. “I’m going to go on that test drive with Max tonight.”

  “You should. But aren’t you worried that he knows so much? I mean, not about the dealership, but about you?” Nick stopped at the back door to the house.

  “What’s to know? I worked for, and now own, the Gotcha Detective Agency. Before that, I was in the military and the Naval Postgraduate School.” I stood tall and proud, smiling like a schoolboy.

  “You and I both know that’s not all there is to it. And Max knows, too. He looked you up, Charles. He said as much. And there’s no way he’d have shared the information he did if he didn’t trust you implicitly.” He opened the door and walked down the stairs off the back porch.

  “It’s my charm.”

  “Barf.” Nick laughed.

  “Blow me.”

  “You wish.” He never looked back.

  “I do.” I couldn’t lie.

  Once he was at his car, he turned around, “Be careful. Use your background to check him out. I know you want to like him for who you think he is, and start on the right foot, but he looked into you. He looked deep, Charles. Look deep into him, too.”

  He got in his Crown Vic and drove away.

  He’d totally ruined my excitement about seeing Max that night.

  114

  Mimi

  Tracking down Skinner’s wife wasn’t as easy as I’d expected. I stopped by their place, expecting Skinner to live on a farm, same as Bucky. No, Skinner, and his wife, Naomi, lived in town. I wondered if they had horses anymore.

  I thought about what Skinner had said. He traded livestock, so he had to have property somewhere. He had to have horses if he was still roping, or what did he care about that stupid saddle for? I pulled the business card from my purse and looked at the address. San Juan Bautista, California. Great, I really had no desire to drive to San Juan Bautista. The memories that drive up toward San Juan Bautista, and general area off Highway 101 still made my heart hurt.

  I was a big girl. Besides, I wouldn’t have to drive past the fruit stand; I wouldn’t be going that far. It had been a long time since the shooting, and most of the buildings that had been there at the time no longer existed. Even so, I bet I could drive right by where the old fruit stand used to be and not even know I’d driven by. Oh, bullshit, who was I kidding? If I had to, I would have found an alternate route.

  I got back in the car after no one answered the door, and drove to the livestock yard in San Juan Bautista. On the drive there, I tried my best to keep my mind from going back. I had no desire to relive the bullet whizzing past my head, the dead body in front of me that I thought was my husband, and the conversations with the FBI. The tension in my body from the drive had worked its way into my neck and shoulders, and by the time I got out of the car, I had a massive headache.

  I stood and stretched, and rolled my head around, then rolled my shoulders. I took in the sights of the metal pipe corrals, and noticed they were made of the same pipe as the one that was used to kill Bucky. Coincidence? But then it was the same pipe being used out at Bucky’s place for some of the paddocks. Though I did remember that most of Bucky’s place was wood fencing.

  I walked up to the office, which was a metal building, like you see barns made of, but this one had windows and doors. I figured there were offices on one side, and maybe a workshop on the other.

  I entered the office side and saw there was one desk, and a plump woman of about fifty sat behind it. A mountain of paperwork on one side, and a flat screen computer on the other, the desk looked like the person working might need an assistant.

  When she looked up, I saw green eyes that had lost their sparkle. Her skin was smooth, except around her eyes, where the crows feet had dug in. I guessed it was from years of smiling, but she didn’t really look happy. Her mousy brown hair was streaked with gray, and her fat cheeks folded into the flesh of her neck.

  Without interest, she said, “What do you need?”

  “I’m looking for Skinner Mathis.”

  This seemed to irritate her, and she snapped, “He’s not in today.”

  I knew this, but it was an opening, of sorts. “Oh, well, then, do you know where I’d be able to find his wife, Naomi?”

  “Who are you?” Her face reddened.

  Ah, this was Naomi.

  “Naomi, I’m Mimi Capurro. I’m working with your husband, Skinner…”

  She stood, nearly knocking over the stack of papers as she did. “I don’t know who you are, or what you want, but we aren’t buying any. Didn’t you see the no soliciting sign when you came in?” She reached down with her right hand.

  I remembered what Skinner had said about her shooting skills, and was glad I’d remembered to put my 9mm in my waistband. I reached behind me as I spoke.

  “Naomi, before you do anything stupid, hear me out.” I had my gun in my hand now, and my finger ready to flip the safety.

  “We ain’t buying.” But her hand came up, away from whatever she’d been reaching for.

  I relaxed. I told her about Skinner coming to see me at the agency, about us taking the case, and she relaxed, but just a bit.
>
  I’ll be honest: I’d expected a woman more like Rayna, lithe and athletic. Someone with the ability to ride a horse, a rodeo queen. I’m not sure why. But Naomi stood in front of me in Wranglers and a white T-shirt, a big woman, thick, but not fat, even though her neck and cheeks made her look bigger than she really was. Naomi looked like a cowgirl, a working cowgirl.

  “Why would he spend money on a private detective? We’re so far in the red, we’re nearly bled dry.” She came out from behind the desk. “Do you know where he is?”

  Oh, boy, did I know where he was! Well, I didn’t really know where he was, but I knew where he wasn’t, and that was at work. He wasn’t where he said he needed to get to in such a hurry earlier today.

  “I just know that he was at Bucky Cox’s place earlier. He was talking about buying a horse.”

  I saw tears roll down Naomi’s cheeks as she shook her head. “That damn horse. Poor Mojo. I should never have sold him to begin with.”

  And the other shoe falls.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I never thought he’d end up with Rayna.” She rubbed her arms, going over the gooseflesh that had popped up. “I’d already lost my husband to Rayna, and then to lose the love of my life to her, too, it’s almost too much.” She came around the front of the desk and leaned against it.

  “Is there some place where we can sit and talk?” This was getting better and better.

  Naomi led me through another set of doors, and there was a well-appointed break room, decorated much like the office at Pam’s barn. The walls were light pine paneling, with a cement floor that had been stained hunter green, and stamped with a repeat molding. The furniture was plush chocolate brown with ropes, spurs, and other horse stuff on it. Naomi pointed to the chair, and she sat on the couch.