“Yes. Early this morning. I believe he was murdered. The police are investigating. You may be the only person in town besides me who knows and I need you to keep it that way until the word gets out. Can you do that for me, John?” I put on my best earnest look.
“Of course.”
I gave him the outline of the case – the drag queen gigs, the blackmail, the sex, the drugs. “I’m really looking for some kind of thread to pull, John. Something that will give me a lead on why he was killed. Because right now I got two conflicting narratives. In one, he’s being blackmailed for money. Okay, that makes a certain amount of sense. It’s the other I can’t figure. Why would anyone kill him?”
“Two conflicting narratives, you say?” John sat back and folded his hands under his chin. “Much of life can be boiled down to two dogs fighting over a bone. God and Satan, Cain and Abel, Moses and Pharaoh. Sin and righteousness.”
“Sin and more sin in this case, I think.”
“Fair enough. Someone wanted money. Perhaps the other party didn’t want the first to have it.”
I shrugged. “Or maybe the two are unrelated, except that Frank got himself too deep into something that killed him.”
John sighed. “Now I wish I had read more mystery novels, but I’m afraid those were never my forte. What else can I do?”
“Brother John, I came to you thinking you might be the kind of man that would inspire the crazies. That maybe someone with a simpleton’s understanding of your message saw Frank as a sinner than needed to be punished. I have to say, though, I don’t see you as that type of guy. Do you know anyone who is?”
“Milton.” The name seemed to escape from John’s lips involuntarily.
“Milton?”
“One of my flock. A homeless man I try to help.”
“Why Milton?”
John rubbed his neck and looked away. “Just a hunch. He threw a rock through the window of the sex shop I preached against, but I assure you I never incited any violence against them or anyone. Did it in broad daylight and stood there grinning afterward. Milton isn’t all there, though. Vietnam vet. Not usually violent. He didn’t even resist arrest. When I spoke with him later he said he was fighting against sin, so I guess in that sense I share responsibility.”
I grunted noncommittally. I believed John. At least, I believed in his good intentions, but you know where that paved road leads. Without hearing him speak I couldn’t really tell for sure if his words had crossed the line to incitement.
“Doesn’t sound like he has the mental or physical capacity to get into the City, knock Frank on the head and string him up, as well as planting drug paraphernalia on him.”
“Planting?”
“Planting,” I said firmly. I didn’t see any reason to ruin Frank’s reputation. His drug use might come out later, but I wouldn’t be the tattletale. Besides, those particular drugs had been planted, I was sure.
“Then, no. Milton doesn’t drive. He’s about sixty and has too many health problems. I don’t think he could do it.”
“Have you seen him today?”
John brightened. “Yes, I did. He slept here last night and left around seven this morning.”
“That settles it, then. It wasn’t him.”
“Thank God.”
“Still leaves me wondering who and why.”
The preacher spread his hands.
“John…what crimes do you know of or suspect in this town? Not sin. Criminal enterprises. Anything?”
The man pursed his lips and for a moment I could see a bit of hellfire and brimstone in his eyes. “Bikers. They deal drugs and run a protection racket, I think. I see them going in by twos and threes into all sorts of business, often one right after another. Making rounds.”
“Nomads? Huns?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I grabbed a piece of scratch paper and a pencil off his desk. “I’ve seen bikers from two clubs in this town. One is the Huns. I saw a couple of nomads – that means they’re full patch-wearing members, but aren’t affiliated with a chapter. They ride from place to place, hooking up with their own club members or others if they have arrangements, often committing crimes to earn road money.” I sketched the Hun patch for him.
John shook his head. “I’ve seen those Huns, but they aren’t the ones I’m talking about. The men I saw had a big ‘nine’ at the top of their colors.”
“Niners. Out of Placerville. From ‘Forty-Niners,’ like half of everything else up here near the gold country.” I thought about Laser and Pork Chop. “That’s very helpful, John.”
“My pleasure.” We stood as if that was a signal and I shook his hand as well as I could. John seemed like a guy I could suffer a little pain for. Kinda reminded me of my dad, the Catholic connection.
Once back in my nondescript rental I pulled away from the curb and wended my way slowly back toward the Old Mill, intending to talk to Kerry if the lunch rush had abated.
I had begun to connect up some dots. A protection racket was just blackmail by another name, one of the simplest and most effective around, a staple of low-level gangs and other organized crime for centuries. If John was right, the Niners might have tried to blackmail Frank. There were also the drugs – bikers dealing small amounts, probably to Kerry at the Old Mill, and then Kerry dealing even smaller to Frank. Two criminal threads.
I still didn’t understand the murder.
Chapter 9
The Old Mill parking lot had emptied out as people went back to work or wherever they go in the afternoons. I’d never had a nine-to five-job, so I didn’t feel it in my gut the way office workers seemed to, that as soon as one p.m. rolled around they ought to get back on the clock.
When I had a case, I was always on the clock. That’s why I set a ten hour per day limit for charging my clients. If I didn’t, I’d be charging them for fifteen or twenty. Even sleeping, my brain usually works on a case.
I was about to go inside the Old Mill when Kerry walked out. He strode right by with his phone pressed to his ear, his expression intense. Climbing into a late model silver Lexus, he pulled out of the lot and headed into town. Following him seemed like a no-brainer, so I did.
Kerry parked in a small public lot one street over from the main drag and hopped out, glancing around with veiled concern. I pulled my nondescript rental up to the curb along a side road and watched, realizing that whoever had slashed my tires may have done me a favor by giving me anonymity. After a moment, he sauntered across to the back of a small building that fronted on Central Avenue: the tattoo shop where I had encountered the four bikers.
As Kerry hadn’t sported any ink that I could see, he must be going in for some other purpose. He only stayed inside a couple of minutes before strolling back out, elaborately casual, his eyes shifting left and right.
Cash money said he’d just picked up his misdemeanor-level merchandise, whatever he expected to sell the rest of the day. Smart, in a dumb sort of way. Sale was still a felony, even if simple possession wasn’t, but his strategy made it harder to catch him and prove anything.
Feeling the ticking clock creeping up on me, I wanted to make something happen. I hoped I wasn’t stepping on Davis’ toes but I had to shake things loose soon or abandon any hope of figuring it out before word of the murder rolled in and the whole playing field shifted.
Rolling the rental smoothly forward, I turned into the lot and, as Kerry got into his Lexus I grazed his rear bumper with my car’s front.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I said as I leaped out to meet him. His expression of shock smoothed as he saw me, looked at the bumper and realized the damage was minimal.
“Oh, hey, no big deal.” Kerry leaned down to rub at the scrape. “An hour in the body shop and it’ll be good as new. Cally, isn’t it? You were in at the Mill yesterday, asking about the school.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said with a nervous smile, pushing my hair back behind my ear on the left side. I’ve been told it’s fetching when I
do that and it seemed to fetch Kerry. He’d come on to me yesterday and now I could almost see him drool. Not something I was used to, but maybe I was his type. Or maybe he was just another one of these small-town hound dogs when a new city girl showed up. I guess he wasn’t too interested in being faithful to Linda.
“Thanks for the info,” I went on. “I’m still looking around town.” I sniffed and rubbed my nose, and then did a three-sixty. “Hey, do you mind? I really don’t want the cops involved, okay?”
“Sure, sure, Cally. I mean, like I said, no big deal. Just a scratch.”
“Thanks, uh, Kerry, right?” I clutched at his arm and pecked him on the cheek. “Thanks.”
“Oh, you’re welcome,” he said with a smarmy grin, putting his other hand on mine where it rested on his arm and caressing it. Not subtle. “Hey, you look like you could use a drink or something.”
“Yeah, or something.” I lowered my head as if embarrassed, and then lifted my brows up to give him the puppy eyes. “Got anything? You know, to party with?” I rubbed my nose again and sniffed, mimicking the crackheads and nose-candy addicts I’d busted as a cop.
“Yeah, sure. I can take a couple hours.” He did another look-around as if concerned about someone watching him. “Just follow me to my place, okay?” Sliding back into his car, he made a call, I figured to the Old Mill to tell the staff of his change of schedule.
In the meantime I backed up and let him get out, and then drove in his wake. A mile or so later we pulled into Sycamore Pointe, the same high-end housing development where Jerry Conrad lived, though a block over. More modest than Conrad’s place, Kerry’s three-bedroom, two-car-garage house nevertheless showed he was doing well for himself running the Old Mill.
Running more than that. Even if he only picked up an extra hundred bucks a day dealing, that was a couple grand a month, tax free. Small-time hoodlum, and by his uptake on my implied offer probably valued the easy sex recreational drugs would get him more than the money itself, not to mention being a big fish in a small pond. I knew the type.
As he pulled his Lexus into the garage I deliberately parked on the street, farther away at the property line, and quickly opened my trunk to access the duffel bag within. I slipped a flat sap filled with birdshot into my left rear jeans pocket and made sure I still had my handcuffs on my belt in the small of my back. Then I locked the car after making sure my blazer was buttoned to hide the gun at my hip.
Kerry opened his front door, this time without taking that nervous look around. By that I figured he had no worries about his reputation from bringing a woman home. Then again, the community probably didn’t have the same expectations of a bartender as a schoolteacher.
I slipped in with a pleading look plastered all over my face and stood near his kitchen’s high countertop, both hands stuck into my back pockets.
Deadbolting his front door, he ambled by me with a sidelong predatory grin and opened the fridge. “Beer?”
“Sure,” I said with a toss of my hair. “For starters.”
“Hmm. Here you go.” Kerry twisted off the top of mine and handed it to me and did the same for his before sucking down the first swallow. I took a gulp and wiped my mouth with the back of my right hand that held the bottle, nearly spilling some. I could play street trash with the best of them.
“I already asked you if you were a cop, right?” he said suddenly.
“I’m not a cop,” putting a bit of a whine into my voice. “Swear to God.” If I had been a cop and denied it, any evidence I collected would be inadmissible. That was why criminals asked the question: in case of wires and recordings.
“Okay, just double checking. So…what’s your pleasure?” Kerry stepped toward me, crowding my personal space a bit.
“Coke or crank is cool. Nothing stronger.” I hadn’t had any indication he sold PCP or any of the weirder crap that was starting to show up on the street nowadays. Cagey guy like this wouldn’t want to deal that stuff anyway. Users could blow up, get violent, talk to the cops. No, he’d stick to drugs that just slowly rotted people’s lives while funneling their spare cash his way.
I decided I was going to let myself enjoy this next part.
“All right. I got a little bit. You know, for personal use.” He put his beer down on the counter and did that fingernail inspection again, playing too cool for school.
Someone had trained this guy well, I was starting to think. People that talked like this were usually connected to some kind of organization where knowledge of how to blunt the law’s sharp edges got passed around. I suspected he had a mentor of some kind.
Or maybe he’d been inside, soaking up all the free knowledge from cons with nothing to do but teach each other better ways to stick it to law-abiding citizens.
“That’s all I need,” I whined, putting my beer down on the counter next to his. “Enough to get well. We’ll party, all right, baby?” A little thick, sure, but he was eating it up like a Rottweiler with an unattended plate of chicken salad sandwiches.
That grin flashed again and he turned toward the open stairway that must lead up to the bedrooms and his stash of select recreational powders. As soon as he showed his back, I lifted my hand and slammed the flat heavy sap into the base of his skull, cushioning him awkwardly as he dropped boneless to the floor. Good thing he wasn’t a big guy.
I’d rather have done it upstairs, but an opportunity is an opportunity and I’m not stupid enough to think I can take a fit young man in a fair hand-to-hand struggle. Too much could go wrong. Instead, I dragged him into the kitchen, opened up the cabinet under the sink and handcuffed him to the metal drainpipe, both wrists.
I lifted his wallet and looked inside, finding out his last name was Lindquist. A fine Scandinavian fellow, then, like a lot of the old California settlers. Took his phone and his shoes, too.
Locating his stereo, I turned on talk radio loud enough to cover most of the interrogation in case anyone happened to knock on the door or be listening over the back fence. Finding the set of chef’s knives I knew must be somewhere in such a fancy kitchen, I removed a nasty slim filleting blade from the wooden holder along with the heavy sharpening steel, a thing like a metal baton with a handle. I placed these on the counter within easy reach.
Next, I pulled up a chair well out of range of his legs and picked up our beers. I took a good pull on mine to hydrate a mouth suddenly gone dry with adrenaline rush, and then set it back down next to my tools.
Kerry’s I dumped over his head.
After retreating to the chair, I watched coolly as he sputtered and groaned.
A sap is a weapon for a very specific purpose – to put someone down fast without long-term injury. Heavy, stiff, but flexible enough not to shatter bone, it was a favorite of bartenders everywhere. I chuckled internally at the irony. I bet Kerry had one at the Old Mill. But it still hurt like a son of a bitch on waking. I hoped that would make him more compliant.
“What the fuck?” were the first words out of his mouth.
“Tsk tsk. Language, Mister Lindquist.” I leaned forward on my elbows and played with the sap, slapping it into my palm. “I need some answers to a few questions and I think you’re just the guy to help me.” Hopefully, terror and a bit of painful convincing would give me what I wanted. I might play the torturer, but I’d never go through with anything serious.
At least I didn’t think so. Then again, I’d never had a really compelling reason.
His response was less than forthcoming, consisting of his fervent desire for me to perform a certain sex act on myself, crudely stated. I sighed, put the sap down and picked up the sharpening steel.
“Mister Lindquist, have you ever jammed your toe really hard? You know, in the dark in the middle of the night? Going to your bathroom to pee, when you catch the corner of your bed and, oh my, doesn’t that just get your attention?”
This time he didn’t swear at me, merely looked confused.
Without warning I leaned over and slammed the steel across th
e top of his toes.
Kerry roared and thrashed, trying to pull loose until I held the tool up again. “Mister Lindquist, that was just a very small taste of the pain I can inflict. Now you already know I’m not a cop so I don’t really have any limits on this sort of…persuasion.” Reaching over, I picked up the filleting knife. “If blunt instruments don’t suffice, I can always…sharpen my technique.”
“All right. All right! What do you want?” He’d drawn up his feet to his buttocks and twisted to the side trying to stay as far from me as possible, but I didn’t scoot closer. A well-placed kick from him could still ruin my day.
“Tell me about your drug dealing.”
“What’s to tell? I’m a bartender. I make things happen. Sell one hit at a time to drunks too stupid to care about the price. So what?”
“Where does the tattoo shop get their product?”
Kerry snorted. “Bikers, obviously. Is that what this is about? Everyone knows the bikers deal.”
“So how come they let you sell in the Old Mill? Why do they let you cut in on their profits?”
Eyes flicking up and to the left told me he was accessing the creative centers of his brain. At least, that’s what the experts had taught us in the police academy. Usually indicated lying or at least embellishing, spinning the truth. “We got an arrangement,” he said weakly.
“I don’t see it. They would make more by cutting you out. And, what about your protection money?”
“Protection money?” Kerry laughed. “I don’t pay those pricks anything. They know not to –” and then he trailed off, as if he realized he had just made an error.
“Not to mess with you? But you’re just a bartender, and young to be running the whole place. Or was that a lie?”
Kerry stayed silent, a stubborn look on his face, so I sighed theatrically and picked the steel up again in my left hand, the knife a threat in my right. I wanted to deter him from trying to kick me. “How many toes am I going to have to break before you tell me what I need to know?”
In a Bind Page 10