Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

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Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) Page 7

by Gary Earl Ross


  “CitiQuest used to do VIP coverage before they went out of business a while back,” Bart Novak said. “They were even contracted for some of our bank branches. We use North Forest Solutions now. Who else has picked up the private security slack?”

  The mayor glanced at me. Undermined by a murder it had not anticipated, CitiQuest was a casualty of its own attempt to derail her re-election campaign. We shared responsibility for revealing the scandal that led to its demise, but now was no time to say so.

  “Donatello does a lot of it,” Randall Torrance said. “But how many of our speakers get serious threats, not just garden variety internet babble?” He looked around the room but no one answered. “I’m sure Donatello can do something to give those few extra protection.”

  “We can work something out,” Matt said. “Some of our temps worked at CitiQuest.”

  I raised my hand.

  “Mr. Rimes.” Rory looked surprised.

  Once again all eyes were on me.

  “Your keynote speaker already survived a murder attempt,” I said. “Drea Wingard. She watched her husband die and named the killers in her book on white supremacy. They haven’t been caught yet. She still gets death threats regularly.” I let that hang in the air for a few seconds. “She’ll be here before and after the conference, for public appearances away from the hotel.”

  “She’s speaking at the Central Library the morning before the conference,” Ann Marie Marciniak said, black glasses low on her nose and a red nail tapping the table. “Can you keep her safe there?”

  Rawboned, gray-haired, and wearing wire rims, bookstore owner Will Johannes raised his hand. “She’s doing a signing at Talking Leaves that afternoon. She’s also scheduled to sign books at three vendor tables during the conference, ours, Dog Ears from South Buffalo, and Zawadi from the East Side. Will she have bodyguards for all that?”

  Buffalo State VP Ramirez and Professor Downey of the UB Law School reminded everyone they were co-sponsoring Drea’s post-conference talk at the Fine Arts Center on the North Campus. The UB police would offer supplemental security there.

  Rory looked confused. “I thought her publisher was handling security.”

  “I’ve already talked with her publisher,” I said. “They provide door-to-door coverage, pick-up and drop-off, which leaves her protected outside but vulnerable in her hotel room.”

  Randall Torrance leaned past his father and looked at Rory Gramm. “Our card entry security system is second to none. You need a room card to access the hotel at night, to use the parking ramp day or night, to choose your floor on the elevators, to get into any of the meeting rooms. There’s a special slot for it in the plastic ID badge cover.”

  James Torrance leaned forward as his son sat back. “There’s no re-entry to guest room floors from the stairwell without a card for that floor. Keypads secure staff areas.”

  I waited a second or two to be sure they had finished. “Not enough. Even if your cards couldn’t be duplicated and your keypads hacked—and I know someone who could do both faster than you can eat a Snickers—your main lobby entrance is always open. Ms. Wingard is high profile. Imagine someone who wants to kill her dressing up for dinner at one of your public restaurants. No cards for those, right? Or for restaurant parking?”

  Randall Torrance drew in a breath. “Valet parking gives us control of restaurant access. You need to get the ticket stamped just to get—”

  James Torrance stopped his son by placing two fingers on his wrist as if taking a pulse. Randall’s nod was barely discernible.

  “So he sees her with a crowd at the elevator,” I said. “This man who wants her dead. The elevator is where polite people hold doors. He gets on with the crowd, follows her off…” I leveled my eyes at the Torrances. “Even worse, maybe the people who want to kill her have already paid for their conference registration.” I waited for a response, maybe for James or Randall Torrance to say something dismissive. But no one spoke as those at the table looked at each other. “Ms. Wingard has a cousin who lives here,” I continued. “He’s already hired my company, Driftglass Investigations, for round-the-clock protection. The door-to-door detail is from a local outfit subcontracted through the publisher’s security company in New York. The publisher couldn’t replace them without breaking a contract.”

  “Which local company,” Ophelia asked.

  “Weisskopf.”

  Bart Novak snorted. “Aren’t they, like, museum guards, unarmed?”

  “Which is why they’ll be taking orders from me,” I said. I looked from Novak to Rory to Ophelia, letting my gaze come to rest on the Torrances. “She’s going to need at least adjoining rooms but preferably a suite for my people and equipment. At some point, I’ll need to inspect your hotel.”

  The boardroom was quiet as James Torrance stared at me with an annoyance mirrored by his son Randall and their bodyguard Matt in the corner. “Is that all?”

  “For now,” I said. “I wasn’t going to talk about this today, but since you mentioned security I figured it was as good a time as any to let you know.”

  Heads nodded. There were coughs, whispers, murmurs of assent. Judge Vassi smiled at me. “Jim, something tells me this lady will be in good hands.”

  9

  Near the end of May, Detective Sergeant Pete Kim retired after twenty-five years with the Buffalo Police Department. Kim made sure I was invited to the party hosted by the Homicide Squad, a buffet dinner in the back room of Chef’s Restaurant on Swan Street.

  I had met Kim when a missing persons case I was working on uncovered information about a drug-related murder. I did my civic duty by sharing it with homicide detectives Terry Chalmers and Rafael Piñero. During the inter-squad operation that followed, Kim and I had been pinned down with Chalmers and Piñero in a gunfight that left Chalmers wounded and a major drug dealer-turned-sniper dead in a bell tower fire. Having made it outside together before the SWAT team breached and something ignited old papers in the tower, Kim and I shared a ride back to police headquarters when everything was over. Apart from my name not appearing in the newspaper—which would have given Eli Aronson more fuel for his cross-examination—the best thing that happened that night was the start of a friendship. A casual, non-demanding friendship that would deepen over time. Kim and I met occasionally for beer and darts and sometimes only to talk. It was our conversations that mattered most.

  Korean-American—“Inscrutable,” he sometimes joked—Pete was known as a loner in the department, well-liked but with few real friends. Perhaps it was his self-deprecating humor others didn’t get. Or maybe it was the habitual slouch that made him look tired and shorter than he was. The only child of immigrant doctors—an oncologist and a cardiologist, both still living—he said he felt like an underachiever, especially when newbies to HQ thought he was the IT guy. But he was patient, laid back, insightful—a solid detective with a strong eye for detail and an impressive close rate.

  He had never been married but had a six-year on-again, off-again relationship with a widow named Betty Park. A small, amiable woman with short black hair, a generous smile, copious curiosity, and oversized glasses, Betty taught in the university’s School of Pharmacy. She had got on well with Phoenix the few times we dined together. According to Pete, they were on shaky ground because, tenured Korean-American pharmacy professor or not, she had been too old when he met her to give his parents the grandchild they wanted. That Betty was a grandmother herself, courtesy of her Silicon Valley software engineer son, only deepened Dr. and Dr. Kim’s disapproval.

  Apparently, they were on again for the party. Just inside the doorway, looking lost and wearing a simple green dress, Betty stood beside Pete as he talked with two men. The top of her head just reached the biceps to which she clung. When she spotted us coming down the carpeted corridor to join the line of well-wishers waiting to enter the back room, she let go of his arm and rushed out to embrace Phoenix. “At last!” she said softly so only we could hear. “Somebody I know, somebody I lik
e.”

  Phoenix laughed. “How have you been, Betty?”

  “Just fine. Now that Peter’s retiring, I’ll put in my own papers next month, after I finish grading and wrap up all my committee work for the year.”

  “You don’t look old enough to retire,” I said, my lips brushing her cheek.

  “Thank you, Gideon.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Still a flatterer, I see. Last time you said I wasn’t old enough to be a grandmother when I am. I’m a year older than Peter.”

  “But you look ten years younger,” I said. “No wrinkles, no gray hair, smooth skin.”

  Phoenix elbowed me. “Quit trying so hard. She already likes you.”

  “I do,” Betty said. “But honey-talk me all you want. It’ll keep me in good spirits until I qualify for social security.”

  “Pete’s a lucky guy,” I said.

  “Not a lot of honey in his words but he’s a good man.” Betty glanced back at him. “We’ve come so far in the past few months, talking and planning. We still have a lot to do, but this is a new beginning for us. In July, I’ll visit my grandchildren in San Francisco while Peter gets his parents moved into a Canterbury Woods apartment and puts their old house on the market. When I get back we’ll start looking for a small place together. Then in August…” She clasped her hands and offered us a smile brimming with delight.

  “What?” Phoenix said.

  “Our first annual dream trip! We’re taking a cruise to Alaska. The Inside Passage.”

  “Definitely a dream trip,” I said.

  “I hear it’s beautiful there,” Phoenix added.

  “With a shade of blue in the ice you can’t see anywhere else. I went once before with my son and his family.” Betty sighed dreamily. “This time, no babysitting. I look forward to lounging in the hot tub on deck with an appletini in my hand, watching a glacier calve.”

  “Glacier calving sounds pretty racy to me,” I said, appreciating a side of Betty I hadn’t seen before. “But I’d pay real money to see Pete slip into a hot tub.”

  “He doesn’t have to join me there, where it’s warm and the massage jets make you tingle all over.” She arched her eyebrows. “If he wants to stay in dry dock, he’s on his own.”

  I bit back a smile as Phoenix’s eyes widened. This was a new Betty for her too.

  I looked past Betty at the five men gathered around Pete, all cops. Three wore plainclothes—one in a sports jacket and slacks, another in a military-style jacket and jeans, and the last in a blue sweater over khakis. The remaining two were in uniform—one in a standard patrol outfit and the other a VIP in full dress regalia with four stars on each shoulder epaulet. Though I could see only his back, I recognized Commissioner Cochrane’s wavy silver mane.

  I turned back to Betty. “How’s he doing with all the attention?”

  “You know how shy he is,” she said. “He’s embarrassed and just wants it all to end. We’ve only been here fifteen minutes.” She rolled her eyes. “Best of all, though, his parents are at a corner table, where they get to see everybody fussing over their disappointing son.” She smiled, pleased to have gained a stronger footing in his life.

  At the doorway, as we waited to shake Pete’s hand, I scanned the room. Most of the fifty or so people there were cops, both unis and detectives. I knew nine or ten, including Chalmers and Piñero, and noticed Moss and McKelvey, the officers who had arrested Joey Snell. A handful of spouses were present also. I recognized two.

  I spotted Eileen Becker first. Some years ago she had persuaded me to violate my personal rule against matrimonial work. She already knew her husband Gordy, who worked out of E-District, was having an affair. She knew the name of the woman he saw two nights a week and for whom he planned to leave her. What she needed from me was evidence the woman was cheating on him. Now middle-aged Eileen, laughing and clad in a festive spring dress, was seated at a round table for ten. Wearing a black sports jacket with brass buttons, Gordy Becker had one arm draped over the back of his wife’s chair. I had never met Becker. Assuming Eileen never told him where she got the photos and audio recordings that linked Lila Carson to two other men, I expected no introduction tonight.

  The other spouse was Bianca Dawkins, an elegant copper-skinned woman who managed Hunnicutt Jewelers in the Walden Galleria. I had met her while investigating the disappearance of her best friend, Keisha Simpkins. Bianca’s wife, Sergeant Jennifer Spina, had helped me protect Keisha from drug dealers who wanted her dead and had kept my name out of the paper after the case’s violent ending—another moment I was grateful Eli Aronson knew nothing about. The only cop on the scene that night, the coolly professional Jen had earned a detective shield. Now I saw them near the buffet table. Bianca was in a stylish black dress and wore a necklace that glittered across the room. Unadorned, the dark-haired Jen wore a tan jacket large enough to cover the Glock on her hip. I had come to know and like them as a couple who complemented each other in the countless subtle ways that suggested a strong bond. They had not yet looked my way, but I knew I would speak with them before the evening ended.

  “Glad you guys made it,” Pete said when we reached him. I shook his hand.

  “You’re the one who made it,” Phoenix said, hugging him. “The real American lottery is retirement. Not everybody gets to cash in. Now you both do at the same time.”

  Betty slipped her arm into Phoenix’s, forming a tableau of contrasts—Phoenix a head taller, her black hair longer and fuller, the black of her dress starker beside the green of Betty’s. “Honey, I’m gonna take Phoenix to claim a spot near the head table while you talk to Gideon.”

  “How’s your godfather?” Pete asked when Phoenix and Betty moved off.

  “Coming along,” I said. “But we can talk later. There are people in line behind me.”

  Pete glanced over my shoulder. “One of the guys back there used to call me Charlie Chan,” he whispered. “Swanson can wait, and so can the asshole behind him. He used to call me Mr. Moto. Illiterate, geographically challenged bastards.”

  “What?”

  Pete smiled, ever tired eyes twinkling. The hand he clamped on my shoulder kept me from turning to peek. “Charlie Chan was a Chinese detective. Mr. Moto was a Japanese secret agent. Duh! But both were created by white writers.” His expression took on a mock seriousness. “My folks came from Korea, which neither idiot could pick out on a map.”

  “In old movies, Mr. Moto was a detective too. But both were played by white actors.”

  “Which is where Swanson learned the broken English he thought was so funny when he asked where Number One Son was or what cat tasted like.” Pete removed his hand. “G, if we weren’t real, a melanin-challenged hack would have to invent us. Two cultured men of color rising above noble savagery. One savage to another, later I want your opinion on my next move after the summer. PI license or part-time investigator for the DA? Think about it.”

  “Okay. Meanwhile, I could use help on a bodyguard gig next month. Interested?”

  “If you’re organizing it, sure. We can talk about that later too.”

  I found Rafael Piñero talking to a late-thirtyish woman with large, bright eyes, mocha skin, short dreads, and a badge clipped to the wide belt she wore with her black jeans. On her other hip, beneath her cinched charcoal blazer, was a service pistol in a cross-draw holster.

  A lover of nice suits, Rafael held his small snack plate at an angle that would keep chip dip from dropping onto his pale gray jacket. “I knew you had to be here somewhere,” he said when I stepped into his line of sight, “because I saw your much better half with Kim’s girl. Still don’t get what she sees in you.” He set down his plate. “Maxine Travis, meet sometime pain in the ass Gideon Rimes, a PI with delusions of grandeur.”

  “My friends call me Max,” Travis said as she took my hand. Her nails were very short but well-manicured and lacquered in gold-flecked dark burgundy. “I’ve heard of you.”

  “Don’t believe a word of it if it comes from Raf,” I said.
“My friends call me G.”

  “No, it was…” She cocked her head. “Did you stop a couple of muggers with a baton?”

  “Three,” Rafael said. “But hearing me say it will make his head too big to fit through the door.” He grinned. “Max is new to Homicide. Came over from SOS. With Kim leaving and Terry moving up, she’s partnering with me while we reshuffle.”

  I’d heard Jen Spina was assigned to the Sex Offense Squad. Maybe she’d taken Travis’s spot. “Despite what he says about me, Raf’s one of the best homicide cops in town. He’ll—”

  “She doesn’t need a teacher, G,” Rafael said. “She’s new to homicide here.”

  “I worked murders in Syracuse for nine years,” Travis said.

  “Including two high profile serials,” Rafael said. “The Boyer estate boneyard case and Robert Farley Gilmer. She’s a superstar.”

  “That was you?”

  “I investigated after the Boyer graves were found and I was on the Gilmer task force.”

  “Still, all respect is due,” I said. “What brings you to Buffalo?”

  “Last fall my husband became head of trauma surgery at General, so I applied to BPD. The SOS opening let me get my foot in the door.”

  “She can teach me,” Rafael said. “Syracuse does high tech right. Networked cameras in high crime areas, thermal imaging drones, anti-terrorist stuff. They even got ShotSpotter, the high tech gunfire locator.”

  “Thermal imaging is only for the fire department,” Travis said. “With so many companies around Syracuse manufacturing and testing UAVs, politicians and the public both worry about privacy. Non-emergency cop drones are still a long way off. As for ShotSpotter, it’s part of the overall surveillance system. It adds mikes and other sensors to the mix.”

  “Does it work?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “It can, but nothing beats old-fashioned police work for closing cases.”

  “I like her,” I said to Rafael. “She’ll fit right in, so be nice.”

  Waving as I passed Terry Chalmers, in conversation with the commissioner and two other men, I made my way to where Jen and Bianca were seated. Each woman hugged me, but I declined their invitation to sit. Pete was moving to the head table, and Phoenix was signaling me to join her.

 

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