Dead Man's Game

by Paul Carr

  “How about another drink?” she asked.

  He glanced at his glass, which was empty, then to her smile. As attractive as this woman was, he had just learned that she had been lying to him. Granted, she was with law enforcement, but he still wasn’t sure he trusted her. She was coming on a little too strong, and had practically admitted that her DEA mission was more important to her than stopping a murderer.

  Someone knocked at the door. “Wonder who that is,” Marilyn said, seemingly thinking out loud. She got up, eased over to the door, and peered through the peep hole. “It’s my partner, Crandall Orr.” Opening the door a crack, she said, “What is it, Crandall?”

  Dalton heard mumbling, but couldn’t put words with it.

  “Okay,” she said to her partner, “you didn’t need to come by here. You could’ve called. Wait right there while I put on some clothes.” She started to close the door, but stopped. More mumbling from outside. “No, you need to wait out there,” she said and slammed the door.

  She rolled her eyes as she passed Dalton. “Sorry, I have to go. They need my statement on the guy we arrested. Don’t leave yet.” She disappeared down the hall.

  A couple of minutes later she returned fully clothed and Dalton stood from his chair. At the door, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist, pulled him close, and kissed him on the lips. As she lingered, Dalton realized his breathing had ceased and felt his heart thump in his chest.

  When she pulled away, she said, “I was hoping you could stay. Maybe another time?” Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door and headed out. He followed, and Orr gave him the once-over. He was handsome, about Dalton’s size, and looked as if he could handle himself in a fight.

  “Who’s he?” Orr said with a frown.

  Marilyn locked the door. “None of your business. I’ll follow you in my car.”

  “I could bring you back.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  The two agents drove away, and Dalton headed toward Little Torch Key and his cottage at his uncle’s marina. A few minutes after turning onto US-1, he saw a car pull out behind him and follow. A fast food place came up on the right, and he turned in and got in line for the drive thru. The car behind him also turned in, but pulled over to the side. Dalton reached the window and asked for a cup of coffee. After receiving his order and paying, he pulled over and parked next to the car that had followed. A man got out, and Dalton realized it was Jack Ringo. He waited as Ringo stepped around to the open driver’s window.

  “Can I help you with something?” Dalton asked.

  Ringo backed up a couple of feet. “Yeah, get out of the car.” He had a tire iron in his hand.

  Dalton took a sip of the coffee, which was surprisingly good for an evening purchase, and set the cup down. Ringo looked ready for a fight, and Dalton was willing to accommodate him. He exited the car keeping his eyes on the police detective’s hands.

  “You got a taillight out,” Ringo said, his breath reeking of alcohol.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, take a look.” Ringo stepped to the rear of the vehicle and swung the tire iron at the taillight cover. It burst, scattering shards of red plastic on the pavement. “Looks like you’ve been involved in an accident.”

  “You’re gonna pay for that,” Dalton said, stepping over to the shattered light.

  “Uh-oh, that sounds like a threat to me. You know something, partner? Throwing your weight around in Key West is a dangerous game.”

  “Yeah? How so?”

  “I been a detective here for a lot of years, and you’re a newcomer,” he said, slurring his words. “I can make life real difficult for you, accusing me of something without proof.”

  “I haven’t accused you of anything thing yet, but you’re helping me make up my mind.” He pulled out his phone.

  “What are you doing?” Ringo slapped the phone from his hand. “You’re not calling anybody. When I’m through with you, you’ll head back to where you came from.” The inebriated detective swung the tire iron, and Dalton lunged backward feeling wind from the makeshift weapon on his face. As Ringo completed the arc of his swing, Dalton kicked him in the stomach. He fell over backward, slamming against the concrete. He appeared stunned, but then roused and sat up.

  “I guess that didn’t work out like you planned,” Dalton said. He picked up his phone, which was still in one piece.

  “I’ll see that you go to jail for that, assaulting a police officer,” Ringo said.

  “The security camera inside will show something different.”

  The downed man started to get up, and Dalton said. “Stay down. I won’t be so easy on you the next time. You probably haven’t heard, but your friend William Chan is in hot water.”

  Ringo stared. “What are you talking about?”

  “Chan’s limo driver got busted a couple of hours ago smuggling in a cooler full of cocaine.”

  Something changed in Ringo’s eyes. The hate drained away, replaced with what appeared as fear. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I saw you talking to him and Vici today, and you three looked pretty chummy. If you’re involved in Chan’s activities, you’ll be going down, too.” Dalton touched a couple of buttons on his phone and put it to his ear.

  “Wait, who’re calling?”

  “Sheriff’s office, to get you hauled in.”

  “No, no. Hear me out first.”

  “It’s ringing, talk fast.”

  “Hang up, please. I’ll fix the taillight. I promise.”

  Dalton closed the call and dropped the phone to his side. “Okay, I’m listening. Tell me about you and Chan.”

  Ringo struggled to his feet, leaving the tire iron on the ground. He looked beaten. “There is no me and Chan. I hardly know the guy.”

  Shaking his head, Dalton said, “Didn’t look that way to me.”

  “Okay, so I went to see him. I admit that, but I don’t have any business with him. You have to believe me.”

  “It’s sounding pretty lame so far. Keep going.”

  “Vici called me a couple of times and asked me to do some things for Chan. They were nothing, and I knew Chan had a lot of juice, so I did what he asked.”

  “What things?”

  “I fixed a ticket for his limo driver. Two times. He’s a speeder, but I talked to the guy the second time and told him I wouldn’t do it again. Then a few days ago, Vici said Chan needed information on somebody.”

  “Who?”

  Ringo hesitated, then said, “He wanted details on you. I have a friend in administration with the state, and he sent me a copy of your personnel file.”

  Dalton didn’t care what info they had on him, but it rankled him that somebody was that easily bought. “Okay, that’s interesting, but it doesn’t explain why you were in Chan’s suite today.”

  “All right, I’m getting to that. Vici wanted the three of us to meet. He told me Chan wanted to hire me for his security team and the pay would be good.”

  “Let me guess: he said you could keep your job with the police department, too.” Ringo opened his mouth but no words came out, which was as good as a Yes. “So, what’s the first thing he wants you to do?”

  “I didn’t take the job. Told him I’d give him an answer tomorrow. Now I’m glad I didn’t, if he’s going to prison.”

  Dalton stared for a moment, not sure if he believed Ringo’s story or not, but his explanation sounded more plausible than the one he’d given earlier in the day over the phone. “Get out of here. Replace that taillight first thing in the morning, or expect deputies to show up at your office.”

  Ringo nodded, picked up the tire iron, and headed for his car. He seemed a lot more sober than when he’d hit the pavement. When he drove away, Dalton went inside and asked for the security footage for the last few minutes. The night manager pulled it up. As expected, it captured the altercation. “Make a copy of that and send it to my phone.” He gave the woman his number, and a few minutes later the video c
ame in with a text.

  ****

  The next morning, when he arrived at the office, Ringo waited in the parking lot. Dalton got out of the car and the detective said, “I got the part. I hope it fits.”

  “It better fit. I’ll need that car in a little while.”

  At his desk he checked emails and found one from Randy Teal, the tech working on the locked phone. Teal said he couldn’t get it open and asked if he should let the state lab give it a try.

  Dalton stepped outside to the picnic tables, took a seat in the shade, and placed a call on his phone. As it rang, he watched Jack Ringo stand up and wipe sweat from his forehead. He had a screwdriver in his hand. When he saw Dalton, he stepped over and said, “You need to pop the trunk lid for me.”

  Sam Mackenzie answered the call and Dalton said, “Sam, it’s Mick Dalton. Hold a second.” He pulled his key fob and punched the button to open the trunk. When Ringo stepped out of earshot, he said to Sam, “Okay, I’m back. How’s it going, buddy?”

  “Doing okay, how about you?”

  “Ah, problems, as usual. Goes with the job. I’d prefer diving for treasure. That was a good haul we made when you were down here.”

  “Yes it was. You need something?” Dalton had saved Sam’s life a few months before, and he seemed happy to repay the favor whenever he had the opportunity.

  “I hate to ask, after all the help you gave me in Islamorada, but I have a locked phone that might be critical to a murder investigation. The techs with the sheriff’s office are stumped, and I wondered if J.T. might take a look at it.” J.T. a computer whiz, was Sam’s friend, but he and Dalton had never hit it off very well.

  “I’ll give him a call. You know he has problems with law enforcement, so I won’t promise anything.”

  After thanking him, Dalton hung up and headed to the entrance. As he passed the car, Ringo was still struggling with the repair. Inside, he went to Teal’s desk and got the phone. If J.T. declined to help, he would try the DEA and see if they had any resources capable of unlocking the device. They might be interested in its contents, too.

  As he reached his desk, Marilyn Coe called. “I apologize again about last night. Crandall could’ve handled the statement himself. He and the others did the takedown.”

  “No big deal. I got the impression he just wanted to see you.”

  “Yeah, he hits on me every chance he gets, and I’m not interested.”

  When she didn’t add anything more, Dalton said, “You going to be able to tie Chan to the bust?”

  “We think so. Crandall said they have him in for questioning, and his lawyer showed up right after he did. So far he hasn’t said anything, but they’re also working on the driver at the same time, and might get him to flip on Chan.” After an awkward silence she said, “How’s the murder investigation going?”

  “Not so good. I have a few leads, but nothing that points to a particular suspect.”

  “I thought about your case after we left last night. Since we were targeting band members as potential dealers, we did workups on all of them. I can make them available if you think they would be beneficial to your case.”

  “Sure, that would be good. Did anything jump out at you?”

  “You might find it interesting that Colin Casey had a different name before leaving Ireland. He was linked with a radical group accused of killing a public official in the U.K. Casey, who was known in his homeland as Aidan Reid, never got charged with anything, but he left right after that and came to the U.S.”

  Chapter 12

  The fact that Colin Casey was a member of a group accused of murdering a public official didn’t automatically make him guilty. But entering the U.S. under an alias was suspicious. Marilyn, still on the phone, gave Dalton a link to the band members’ background files. He read Casey’s details first. Apparently, no one had ever gotten officially charged with the murder. It all happened about a year before Redgunn came into being.

  “I don’t see anything here on Aidan Reid, Casey’s name in Ireland,” Dalton said.

  “We didn’t look that far back. Interpol gave us information that isn’t included in the file. They tracked him to the U.S., but I don’t think they alerted immigration authorities. If they did, everybody must’ve forgot about him when he started a new life with the band. He was about twenty-five at the time and probably already had some musical experience to get Redgunn to take him on. He didn’t appear to have any drug connections, and we dropped it.”

  “I cleared him early on,” Dalton said, “because you were his alibi.”

  “Yeah, I was with him all night at his house when Riley got murdered. As I told you before, I slept on the sofa.”

  “Did you sleep the entire night?”

  “I woke up once about seven in the morning and went to the bathroom. I heard Colin snoring down the hall. I had a hangover, and went right back to sleep.”

  “What time did you go to bed?”

  “Must’ve been sometime around 3:30 or so.”

  “If you slept until seven, that gave him plenty of time to leave, do the murders and get back home.” He thought for a moment, then said, “You think he could’ve slipped you a mickey?”

  After a few seconds of silence, Dalton asked if she was still there.

  “Yeah, I was just trying to piece it together. He was pretty wasted, and I told him I wasn’t sleeping with him, so he insisted on us having a nightcap. I’d already had too much, but I agreed. It’s a little fuzzy after that. I think he passed out in the chair, and I fell asleep on the sofa. The next thing I knew, it was 7:00 a.m.”

  “So, what’re you saying?”

  She sighed. “I don’t think he gave me anything, but I guess it’s possible. I had enough to drink to put me to sleep at three in the morning and to explain my hangover.”

  A tall man with tattoos, Casey could’ve killed Gunn and Hess, and could have assisted in killing Blake Owen. But why would he kill Gunn? That meant the end of the band. Casey seemed strapped for cash and was about to spend more on a new home. Why would he cut off the head of the golden goose?

  “Thanks for the info,” Dalton said. “I’ll look over the rest of the files and see if any of it helps.”

  “You bet.” She paused, then said, “I wouldn’t turn down a drink or dinner sometime.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll call you.” When he hung up, he wished he’d said more. Such a beautiful woman, and there was plenty of chemistry, at least on his part, but he still wasn’t too sure about her.

  He perused the files on the other band members, but didn’t learn anything new.

  Crook stopped by and saw the phone inside the plastic bag. “That Hess’s phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “They find out what was on it?”

  Dalton shook his head. “No, but I have a call in to somebody who might be able to crack it.”

  “It’ll be too bad if it has evidence on our guy and we can’t get it open.”

  “Yeah, it will. Say, let’s go outside for a few minutes.”

  Crook gave him a questioning look, but said, “Yeah, okay. I could use a break.”

  Jack Ringo was gone when Dalton stepped out, and he walked around to the rear of his car to examine the taillight job. It looked like it did before Ringo shattered it. They took a picnic table in the shade of a cluster of palms, and Dalton told Crook about the DEA bust the night before and about Marilyn Coe working undercover at the bar. His partner whistled and said, “That’s a shocker, but it probably doesn’t help us any.”

  Dalton sighed. “No, but she gave me a link to some background they did on the band members that you might find interesting.” He told him about Colin Casey, AKA Aidan Reid.

  “Send me the link. I’ll look it over and see what I can dig up on Reid.”

  “Sounds good. It might be a dead end, but you never know.”

  When Dalton got back to his desk, CSI Tarver called. “I have some plaster impressions of those shoe prints around the drainage ditch behind
Blake Owen’s property.”

  “Can you tell what kind of shoe it is?”

  “There were two distinct prints. The larger one, a size eleven, is an athletic shoe, and I’ve narrowed it down to a brand. The other, a size seven, is probably a dress shoe, and it has a logo on the heel. It’s an Italian make, and probably expensive. I checked, and two stores close to Key West carry them.”

  “Can you send photos and the information to my mobile?”

  “Sure, I have your number.”

  The photos arrived a few minutes later and Dalton took a look. The larger one wouldn’t be of any use unless he zeroed in on a suspect, but the smaller one might. He phoned Marilyn, thinking she probably hadn’t gone in to work at the bar yet.

  When she answered, he said, “Can you tell me where you’re holding the guy you arrested last night?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “He’s a suspect in the murder of Blake Owen, the man who planned to testify against the owners of the Star Resort.”

  “The limo driver is a suspect?”

  “Yes. We have a witness that saw two men the night Owen was murdered. They were on the property that backs up to Owen’s place, and they made shoe prints in the soft ground next to a drainage ditch that separates the properties. I have plaster impressions of the prints. One of them might be your guy.”

  “Okay, I’ll have to clear it first. Give me a few minutes.”

  She hung up and called right back. “My boss said no dice, but if you send me photos our guys can see if they match his shoes.”

  He didn’t like it, but thought that might be the best he could expect at the present. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

  “I’ll ask them to do it right away.”