“Nooo,” Dominic said, a drawn-out, overexaggerated expression of disbelief.
Levi’s nostrils flared, and he raised an eyebrow.
“So you need me to pinch hit for Martine. Play Easygoing Cop to your Uptight Cop.”
“You’re not a cop. But yes, essentially.”
“Cool.” Dominic gestured Levi toward the truck.
He had dropped Rebel off with Carlos on his way to the motel and Levi had gotten a ride with Martine, so they drove together to their first stop—Chapman’s house. Though his wife insisted she didn’t know where he was, she could be lying, or she could have information she didn’t even know was helpful.
Dominic considered the best plan of attack on the way. Chapman hadn’t used his credit card for several days, and according to Levi, he’d left his cell in his motel room. Finding him would mean exploiting his personal connections, starting with his wife and working outward.
Levi was right—this wasn’t in a cop’s wheelhouse. In the United States, anywhere from ten to thirty percent of defendants failed to appear in court, depending on the jurisdiction. Police officers just didn’t have the resources or manpower to track all those people down, which was why bail enforcement was such a thriving industry. Though Levi had solved dozens of crimes and participated in the occasional manhunt, he would be less familiar with the dogged pursuit of a single subject that was Dominic’s bread and butter.
Dominic was determined not to let him down.
Before his wife Tina had kicked him to the curb, Chapman had lived in Henderson. Levi hadn’t warned her they were coming, so she opened the front door with an expression of surprise.
“Ms. Chapman, I’m Detective Levi Abrams. We spoke on the phone earlier?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, shaking his hand. “I think we’ve actually met once or twice before.” She looked at Dominic in silent curiosity.
“This is—”
“Dominic Russo,” Dominic interrupted, extending his own hand. “I’m a friend of Keith’s, and I’m really worried about him. Do you think it would be okay if we came in?”
“Um, sure.”
Tina showed them into the living room, then went to check on her two kids, who were playing out of sight but within earshot. They sat side by side on the couch, Levi shooting Dominic an odd look but saying nothing. When she returned to sit in the armchair across from them, they both declined her offer of coffee, though Dominic could see it pained Levi to do so.
“Why are you so concerned about finding Keith?” Tina asked. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“I hope not,” Dominic said, before Levi had even opened his mouth. “But I haven’t been able to get in touch with him, and the last time we spoke, he was really messed up. I was afraid he might hurt himself, so I asked Detective Abrams to help me find him. I hope that’s not overstepping.”
As he’d intended, all of her suspicion melted away. “No, that’s sweet,” she said, much less guarded now. “Are you an officer too?”
“Evidence technician.”
Levi shifted and cleared his throat. “The last time you saw or spoke to Keith was on Wednesday?”
“Yes. It was the day the LVMPD told him he was being fired.” She looked down at her clasped hands. “He’d been behaving oddly for weeks, but that day was the worst I’d ever seen him—ranting and raving, totally out of control. I refused to let him in the house, and I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Is there anyone else he would go to while he’s upset? Someone who would be willing to help him?”
“His sister, maybe? She’s been helping out a lot since—since things started falling apart. His parents are out in Palm Springs, and I don’t think he’d go that far.”
“What about friends?” Dominic asked.
Instead of answering his question, Tina got suddenly defensive. “Look, I didn’t want to kick him out. But I have to think about the kids first. After he beat that man, Keith started becoming a different person—paranoid, erratic, having crazy mood swings. He would disappear for hours, sometimes days, then turn back up looking like death warmed over and refusing to tell me where he’d been. I was afraid he might be dangerous. I didn’t mean to turn my back on him.”
“Is that what his friends did?” Dominic said quietly.
“It’s not their fault. They tried to help at first, they really did. But . . .” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “He wouldn’t see reason. He didn’t want to be helped. There’s only so much you can put people through before they give up. Even his childhood friends had started pulling away.”
Coming to attention, Levi said, “Where did Keith grow up? I don’t remember him ever mentioning.”
“Boulder City.”
Dominic and Levi exchanged a quick glance. That was only thirty miles away.
They talked to Tina a bit longer, until it was clear she’d told them everything she knew. On their way out, Dominic asked, “Did Keith keep any of his high school yearbooks?”
“His yearbooks?” she repeated. “I think so. Why?”
“If we manage to track him down and he’s having a hard time, it might help to have a reminder of the good old days. Give him some happy memories to hold on to.”
She accepted this explanation with some bewilderment, and managed to turn up Chapman’s senior yearbook a few minutes later. Once Dominic and Levi were out in the driveway, Levi said, “You think you can use that yearbook to find old friends he might have sought out?”
“That, or some other kind of emotional anchor in his past, somewhere he’d feel safe. When people are in trouble, they tend to retreat to the comfortable and familiar.” Dominic tossed Levi his keys. “Do you mind driving? My shoulder is killing me.”
He paged through the yearbook while they drove to Chapman’s sister’s place. Chapman had been popular, appearing in plenty of the photos, and the book had been signed by a wide range of friends and acquaintances. Looked like he’d been a star baseball player.
Unlike Tina, Chapman’s sister Michelle was not amenable to either charm or sympathy. She tossed them out in less than five minutes with some choice harsh words, clearly not having bought their story about being concerned for Chapman’s welfare.
“I bet you ten bucks the first thing she does is try to call Keith to warn him we’re looking for him,” Levi muttered as they walked down the front path.
Dominic faltered, wondering if he should say something, but Levi was already turning toward him with one hand to his mouth and a dismayed look in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that, I just forgot—”
“It’s okay, Levi, chill out.” Dominic clapped him on the back. “It’s a common expression.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“Thanks,” Dominic said, smiling. He was touched by how genuinely upset Levi seemed. In his experience, people were more annoyed than anything else by having to watch their language around him.
They got back in the truck, and Levi called Martine, who confirmed that Michelle had just called Chapman’s cell phone—which was still in her possession. “Michelle will get really worried now that he’s not answering,” Levi said after he’d hung up. “Whoever she calls next could be the key to finding him. If we could just find out who that is—”
“Why can’t we?”
“I can’t just access whoever’s phone records I want any time I feel like it. I’d need a search warrant, and that means probable cause—”
“You know what I need?” Dominic caught and held his gaze. “Coffee. I think now would be a really good time for you to get us some coffee. While I wait here in the car.”
Levi looked torn, and Dominic could empathize. One the one hand, Levi was sworn to uphold the law, and the prospect of Dominic gaining information illegally had to be distasteful to him. But on the other hand, that was one of the reasons Levi had recruited him in the first place—even if he hadn’t spoken it aloud.
They drove to a ne
arby coffee shop, where Levi parked at the curb and went inside alone. Dominic reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the receiver to the bug he’d planted in Michelle’s apartment; he’d slipped it into a discreet, unused power outlet when she was distracted. The device was expensive, so with any luck, he’d figure out a way to retrieve it at some point.
The apartment was quiet at the moment, but the bug featured a voice-activated recorder. He rewound through the collected data until the point right after he and Levi had left. The first thing he heard, of course, was her panicked call to Chapman.
“Where the hell are you?” she was saying. “What did you do now? The cops are looking for you, you idiot. Call me back!”
Well, at least they had proof that she really didn’t know where Chapman had gone.
Her next call came less than twenty seconds later. “Marty? Hi, it’s Michelle Chapman. Any chance you’ve heard from Keith in the past couple of days?” She paused. “He’s really gone off the rails this time. I think he did something stupid, but I don’t know what. Give me a heads-up if he gets in touch with you, all right?”
After that, she placed a nearly identical call to a man named Jim. Then the recording went dead as her footsteps rushed out of the room where the bug had been placed.
Dominic stuffed the receiver back into his pocket and picked up the yearbook and his cell phone. Both those names had rung a bell . . .
Levi returned to the truck with two cups of coffee and handed one to Dominic, a frothy concoction topped with whipped cream.
“Hazelnut,” Dominic said with pleased surprise after he’d taken a sip. The coffee was sweet and milky, just the way he preferred it. “Thanks.”
“I don’t know how you can drink that,” Levi said, shuddering. “Did you get anything useful?”
“Yeah. After Michelle couldn’t get in touch with Chapman, she called two guys she referred to as Marty and Jim. I’m positive they’re Martin Tate and James Bowman.” He showed Levi their photos in the senior year section, then flipped to the back page where they’d both signed the book. “They were best friends with Chapman in high school, and they were all on the baseball team together.”
“You think Keith went to one of them?”
“No.” Dominic tapped his phone. “Tate lives in Michigan now, and Bowman is in Texas. But both of their messages refer to hanging out at a place they just call ‘Whalen’—and the same place is mentioned over and over again in a bunch of the other messages, plus in some of the senior quotes. ‘Remember the good times at Whalen,’ ‘drinking under the Whalen bleachers,’ that kind of thing. I looked it up, and Whalen is a community baseball field in Boulder City.”
“A baseball field?” Levi said dubiously as he started the car.
“If Keith knows we’re on to him, or even if you’re right and he’s just sick, he may have retreated somewhere he once felt safe and happy. I think we should start there, ask around, find out if anyone’s seen him in the area. I’ve found people with less to go on.”
“I trust your judgment,” said Levi. “Guess we’re going to Boulder City.”
On a Sunday afternoon in April, Whalen Baseball Field was predictably packed. A co-ed softball game was in its fourth inning, and the bleachers were crowded with people enjoying the sunshine. Whoops and hollers filled the air; kids rushed around chasing each other, adding their joyful shouts to the noise. The scent of fresh popcorn wafted on the breeze.
Levi and Dominic split up to cover more ground. Dominic headed for the concession stand first and bought three hot dogs, both to blend in and because he was starving. It was only as he was handing the cash over that it occurred to him to ask, “Do you know if these are beef or pork?” He knew Levi couldn’t be too strictly religious, because he worked on the Jewish Sabbath all the time. But he might have dietary restrictions Dominic wasn’t aware of.
“Beef,” said the teenaged cashier. “Couple of years ago, a bunch of people got sick off the cheap-ass brand we used to sell. Now we only use the good stuff.”
An all-beef hot dog was safe enough. Dominic boxed up two of them and started on the third, using the opportunity to casually question the employees about Chapman. Most had nothing to offer, but one woman recognized his photograph.
“Oh yeah, that weirdo,” she said. “I’ve seen him lurking around here a few times this week. Always looks like he’s tweaking—sweating all over the place, can’t stand still. Creepy guy.”
Dominic thanked her and moved on, polishing off his hot dog while he ambled around the field, scanning the crowd. He showed Chapman’s picture to a few more people with no luck.
He was working on his second hot dog when he hooked back up with Levi. “Keith has definitely been here,” Levi said. “I talked to a few people who recognized him. Don’t know if he’s here today, though.”
“Same here.” Dominic offered him the last hot dog in its little plastic box. “You hungry? It’s not pork— I wasn’t sure if that’s important to you.”
“It is.” Levi seemed taken aback as he accepted the box and popped off the lid. “Thank you.”
“I don’t know what you like on it either, so I just went with ketchup.”
Levi glanced up at him through his eyelashes, and Dominic caught a hint of vulnerability—it was in the slight softening of his sharp features, the unusual warmth in his gray eyes. Dominic was struck by the idea of being here with him under different circumstances. What if they had just come here to hang out and eat junk food and support a local softball team? What if he had the freedom to slip an arm around Levi’s waist, kiss his cheek, rub his tense neck until he finally relaxed?
Someone bumped into Dominic from the side as they ran past, jostling his injured shoulder and bringing him back to reality. He hissed in pain but raised a hand when Levi started toward him in concern.
“I’m okay. Let’s sit while we figure out what to do next.”
They found a bench and finished their lunch, discussing their plan. Levi wanted to canvass the neighborhood in case Chapman had visited any of the surrounding businesses. Dominic agreed.
“I don’t know how likely it is that he’d be out in a big crowd like this, anyway.” Dominic gathered up their trash and tossed it a nearby bin. “Maybe some place quieter, more private—”
He stopped there, flashing back to scrawled messages about secret teenage rendezvous, memories of illicit drinking and smoking and furtive hookups.
“I didn’t check under the bleachers,” he said. “Did you?”
Levi stiffened. “No.”
They jumped up and hurried to the other side of the field. The area underneath the bleachers was much deeper than Dominic had expected, and because it butted up against an outbuilding, it was also quite dark, creating a large, cavernous space. A profusion of cigarette butts, broken bottles, and condom wrappers scattered across the ground proved that it was still popular with teenagers.
One man stood alone in the shadows.
Dominic had heard both Levi and the concession employee describe Chapman’s current state, but he’d thought they were exaggerating. Now, he saw that wasn’t the case. Chapman was shaking all over, his shoulders rolling spasmodically and his head twitching from side to side. When the shafts of light that reached through the bleachers fell over his face, they revealed skin that was more gray than white and eyes so hollowed out it looked like he’d taken a couple of good punches. He was pacing back and forth, muttering to himself, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of a jacket that was far too heavy for the warm day.
Before Chapman noticed them, Levi pulled Dominic back around the corner and out of sight. “I have to call Boulder City PD before this goes any further,” he said, lifting his cell to his ear. “I don’t want to ruffle any feathers.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Dominic couldn’t resist saying, “Since when?”
Levi punched his good shoulder.
Once he’d requested backup from the locals, Levi said, “I don’t know if we
should wait for them to get here. Keith knows me; I may be able to talk him down.”
“Just be careful. I’ll watch your back.”
They stepped back into the gloom beneath the bleachers. “Keith,” Levi called softly.
Chapman reacted like he’d been struck by a live wire, jumping and whirling around, his head swinging wildly from side to side as he sought the source of the noise.
“It’s me.” Levi stepped forward, his hands raised, though Dominic couldn’t tell if it was a gesture of non-threat or self-defense. Probably both.
“Levi?” Chapman said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing here?”
As Levi advanced on Chapman, slowly and at an indirect angle, Dominic stayed where he was. He kept one hand on his stun gun just in case.
“I . . .” Though Dominic couldn’t see Chapman’s expression well in the dark, he sounded confused. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I got here.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“My phone rang.” Chapman’s breathing, already labored, sped up even more. “Bad things happen when the phone rings.”
Unease stirred in Dominic’s gut. One of the key elements of the Seven of Spades’s murders was that they were able to get in and out of the crime scenes without attracting any attention, and likely without raising their victims’ suspicions until it was too late. At the very least, they were able to control the encounters in a way that left the victims untouched prior to the killing stroke.
Nobody with a shred of common sense or natural human instinct would leave their guard down around Keith Chapman. This shaking, sweating, babbling mess of a man would never be able to catch someone by surprise. Unless this was all a show, put on to create the very doubts Dominic was feeling now?
“Keith, can you please take your hands out of your pockets?” Levi asked. He was only a couple of feet away.
Kill Game Page 23