Drawing Dead (A Chase Adams FBI Thriller Book 3)

by Patrick Logan

  The locker beside Mike’s belonged to Kevin O’Hearn, and her thoughts turned to Stu Barnes and the drinks they had shared.

  What the fuck am I doing? Chase wondered.

  Without thinking, she started to pull Kevin’s locker open, intent on trying her trade with another dead body, when a shout from behind her drew her attention.

  Chase whipped around and saw the man who had let her into the morgue standing with his back to the glass door. He was holding his hands up, yelling at someone, telling them that they couldn’t go in there, that they weren’t authorized.

  Through gaps in the man’s gestures, she caught sight of the assailant.

  It was Ms. Hartman.

  “My son is in there! He’s rotting in there! I need to claim his body!”

  “I’m sorry, but his body hasn’t been released by the police yet. You’ll have to wait until the—”

  “Out of my way!” Ms. Hartman shouted. When she reached for the clerk’s arm, Chase hurried to the door and pulled it wide. The man all but stumbled inside, which ended up working in Chase’s favor. She easily slipped in front of him and confronted the grieving woman.

  “Ms. Hartman,” Chase said. “My name’s Chase Adams, and I’m with—”

  The woman scowled at her. She looked much worse than she had the day she stormed the police station. Then, her hair had been pulled into a tight ponytail and she looked decently put together. Now, however, Ms. Hartman wasn’t wearing any makeup, revealing mottled cheeks, and her hair was frizzy and unkempt.

  “I know who you are. You’re supposed to find the person who murdered my son and find his watch — I want his watch back. His dad gave him that watch, and that’s all he cared about in the world.”

  Chase sighed. She’d forgotten all about the watch, which was just another strange element to this case that just didn’t seem to fit.

  “We’re trying our—”

  “Yeah, your ‘best’. That’s what everyone tells me: ‘We’re doing our best to find your son’s killer’. I’ve heard all this crap before. ‘Oh, we’ll do an investigation into your husband’s death. You know what comes out of you people doing your ‘best?’ Nothing; absolutely, fucking nothing.”

  Chase offered a cautious glance over her shoulder to the cowering man behind her who was clearly terrified of Ms. Hartman.

  Then she was taken back to an earlier time, a time when she had visited Clarissa Smith. She recalled how irate the woman had been, how confused, that her husband had been murdered.

  Despite the obvious differences between the two, Chase sympathized with this woman as she had once Ms. Smith.

  “How about you and I go for a drink, Ms. Hartman? Just sit down, have a drink, and talk. What do you think about that?”

  The woman was taken aback by this and simply opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything.

  Chase stepped forward and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  “Come on, let’s go have a drink.”

  Chapter 37

  “We are most likely looking for a white male between the ages of 25 and 40, who was brought up in an abusive environment or is gay. Perhaps both,” Stitts began. “The fact that the bombing locations were targeted on off-peak hours, coupled with the fact that no one was hurt, suggests that this person is testing the waters. These are likely some of the very first crimes that he has committed, which were, in part—”

  “Will they progress?” Sgt. Theodore asked. “Become more dangerous? Will he target more highly populated areas?”

  Stitts frowned.

  “Please hold your questions until I’m done,” he said. “It is also likely that our unsub’s father either died recently or was incarcerated. Either way, this loss was a trigger for these recent acts. Given the specific targets, it is safe to assume that the unsub is seeking blame for what happened to his father. While statistics indicate that the unsub is working alone, it is highly likely that he’s receiving coaching from somebody, or is taking part in online groups that foster hatred for a wide range of liberal values, including, but not limited to, abortion, Black Lives Matter, and Islamaphobia. The unsub was probably part of the middle class, but his father’s situation likely affected his financial security. Moreover, the unsub has strong convictions, and yet—”

  Stitts paused for a second, his mind whirring.

  Even though he was providing a generic profile, one that he’d hastily put together on the fly, something about what he’d just said struck him as important.

  The man has strong convictions…

  Did he, though? He didn’t kill anyone, at least not yet. On the other hand, the man he was chasing had killed eleven people, stolen millions, and then vanished. Now that was a man with convictions.

  Stitts mulled this over for a moment, not caring that the men that packed the room were staring at him, waiting for him to continue.

  He found himself asking the same questions that Chase had posed a day ago. Only now he was considering them with more conviction.

  Why had their unsub killed the poker players? They would have posed no threat, especially after taking out the men from Luther’s Investments. Chase already implied that even though the sums were as gaudy as they were, it wasn’t even the poker players’ money.

  So why kill them all?

  For some reason, Stitts hadn’t bothered putting together a profile of the hotel room killer, mostly because there had been so many confusing facts and missing links. But now that he’d pieced together a profile of the bomber, as rudimentary as it was, it was clear that he should, and could, make one for their killer, as well.

  And something told Stitts that maybe, just maybe, he already had.

  “Agent Stitts? Is that all?”

  Stitts cleared his throat and blinked several times in rapid succession before continuing.

  “The unsub is likely active on these boards, but more as a passive observer and not someone who preaches their own doctrine. I suspect that, as you have suggested, Sgt. Theodore, our suspect will progress until people are injured. And as he becomes more brazen, he will gain confidence, which will be reflected in his social media activity. That’s all I can provide you with at this time.”

  Several hands shot in the air, but Stitts ignored them and hurried out of the room. He walked briskly, aware that Sgt. Theodore was calling after him, but paying it no heed.

  As he walked, Stitts pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and dialed Chase’s number.

  It was a robbery, certainly, but it was also personal. Very personal.

  Pick up the phone, Chase. Please, pick up the damn phone.

  Chapter 38

  Chase pulled a page out of Stitts’s book and just let the grieving mother talk. And Mrs. Hartman was more than willing.

  “After my husband died, Mikey was all I had left. And now that he’s gone…”

  Ms. Hartman sniffed and Chase passed her the small napkin that had come with her Scotch. She dabbed her eyes and then took a sip of her martini.

  Chase stared at her own drink and contemplated taking a sip. They’d arrived at the bar roughly ten minutes ago, and while during that time Ms. Hartman had polished off her first martini and was halfway through her second, Chase had yet to touch scotch.

  It wasn’t because she didn’t want to. Lord knows, she really wanted to. She also knew that if she took just one sip, it would likely vanquish the last vestiges of the headache that plagued her. But Chase also knew that it was a slippery slope that led to… well, being in bed with a 63-year-old man in the middle of the afternoon, for one.

  For the time being, Chase pushed her drink an inch or two toward the center of the table.

  “I told… I told Mike that he shouldn’t start at the casino, that that was what killed his father. But he wouldn’t listen. And with all of the shit that happened… the way the casino was refusing to pay out anything and then the insurance company… He was so angry, and when he saw the bills piling up, he had to get a second job. The Emerald at least let him
have that: a job. You see, with my sciatica, I can’t work. He was just trying to help up, and he ended up dead, just like his father.”

  The woman was rambling now, her fatigue amplified by the alcohol, and Chase was having a hard time keeping up. She tried to mentally unpack everything while Ms. Hartman took a sip of her martini and caught her breath.

  “Did your husband like his job, Ms. Hartman?”

  The woman shrugged.

  “At first. But then the smoke got to him. They say he died from a heart attack, but I know it was because of the smoke. Have you been in the casinos? Smoke is everywhere. Oh, they’ve made some areas non-smoking, but what does that matter? You can’t make half a room non-smoking. It goes everywhere. But the private games, they were even worse. That’s when they smoke cigars, cigarettes, marijuana, you name it. That’s why the insurance company wouldn’t pay out, by the way. The marijuana in his system. Harry told me that he put in a formal complaint, but The Emerald said there was no record of it. But I know Harry, he would never, and I mean never, smoke drugs.”

  Chase had to squint in order to keep her eyes from bulging from her head. There was nothing she could do to prevent her jaw from falling open.

  It was all there, sitting across from her in the form of a grieving widow: a motive. The complaint, the lack of insurance payout, the negligence on the part of the casino. What had Mike’s final Facebook post been?

  TRGR: The Rich Get Richer.

  Ms. Hartman wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “For 27 years Harry worked at The Emerald, first as a waiter then as a croupier — that’s the fancy French name for dealer. Eventually, he was a pit boss, but whenever they needed a guy to man the tables, he was there. Then one day, he goes to work and he just… he just died. Massive heart attack. Out of the blue. I mean, he wasn’t in the greatest shape, he might have drunk a little too much, and he could’ve lost a few pounds around the middle, but nobody expected this.”

  Chase sighed as the woman as she spoke, trying to put herself in the woman’s shoes.

  “And how long ago was this, Ms. Hartman?” Chase asked in a soft voice.

  Could she, could Ms. Hartman, be a suspect?

  But why would she kill her own son?

  “About six months ago. We—” the woman caught herself. “—I’m still hoping that my appeal comes through and the insurance pays out. Maybe… maybe there’s something you can do about that?”

  Chase nodded.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Ms. Hartman.”

  “Jess, please, just call me Jess.”

  “Okay, Jess. I just have one question for you: did your son, did Mike have any enemies?”

  Ms. Hartman’s face sagged. It was clear that speaking about her husband, for whom she’d had time to grieve, had distracted her from her newly deceased son.

  “No, he was a nice guy,” she sobbed. “Everyone liked him.”

  Chase slid out of the booth and went over to the woman. She laid a hand on her shoulder and Ms. Hartman immediately collapsed against her. For nearly a full minute, the woman sobbed into her shirt.

  If Ms. Hartman — for whatever warped reason — did this, she is one hell of an actor.

  Eventually, the woman pulled away.

  “I’m okay… I’ll be okay,” she said, wiping her eyes and nose. “But please, find whoever did this to him, okay? Please.”

  Chase’s eyes fell on the scotch glass.

  “Oh, I will. That much I can guarantee. I’ll find out whoever did this, and they’ll be brought to justice.”

  Her phone buzzed on the table, and she looked down at it.

  It was Stitts.

  “Ms. Hartman, just one more thing before I have to get back to finding your son’s killer.”

  “Yes?”

  “You said Mike had another job. What was it?”

  The woman sniffed hard.

  “Construction. He was working at the site for the new casino. You know, the one by the airport? The one where they’re just breaking ground?”

  Chase nodded. She did know the one; it was impossible to miss arriving by airplane, what with all the smoke and procession of dump trucks.

  Tomorrow, I’ll check it out, she decided. But right now, she had a poker game to prepare for.

  Chapter 39

  Stitts burst into Greg’s office, startling the man so much that his cane clattered to the floor.

  “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” the man said from behind his desk.

  “Sorry,” Stitts said quickly. “Have you heard from Chase?”

  The man’s gray eyebrows furrowed.

  “No… nor did I expect to?”

  Stitts shook his head.

  “Never mind,” he said, making his way over to the board. He started to rearrange the photographs as he spoke. “If you hear from her, please let me know.”

  “Okay…” Greg replied hesitantly.

  “I think… I think that Chase was right all along. This isn’t just a robbery, this is personal.”

  Stitts moved all the photos of the victims and everyone else involved in the investigation — including Shane and Peter — to one side. The only person he kept on the right was the photo of Mike Hartman from his casino ID and his mangled body beneath.

  “Well, if that’s true, I think I just found a motive.”

  Stitts whipped around.

  “What?”

  Greg held a single printed page in one hand, and Stitts took it from him.

  “My contact came through. Said that the complaint was logged about six months ago, but then was deleted a few days later. Said that he had to dig really deep to find a copy buried deep in the casino’s intranet. Like, really deep.”

  Stitts stared at the paper in his hand. It was a formal complaint issued by employee number 818990: Harry Hartman.

  “Speaking of which,” Greg continued. “My contact’s fee is suddenly blooming out of my pay grade, and considering I don’t really have access to the LVMPD petty cash…”

  “Chase will take care of it,” Stitts replied quickly, not taking his eyes off the paper.

  Harry Hartman’s complaint was simple and written in his own hand: Too much smoke during private poker game — cigarettes and weed. Chest hurts, heart palpitations.

  In the spot listing offending party, Harry had written Kevin O’Hearn and The Emerald.

  Stitts felt his own heart start to race, and when he saw who had signed off on the complaint, it broke into a gallop.

  Shane McDuff.

  “Shit,” he whispered under his breath. Stitts turned back to the board and moved Shane’s and Kevin’s images over to the same side as Mike’s and then hurried back to his desk.

  “Everything alright?” Greg asked, but Stitts ignored him.

  Rooting through his photos, he found one of the exterior of The Emerald and added it to the board beneath Shane, Kevin, and Mike.

  “These were the real targets,” he said. “The motive.”

  Greg groaned as he bent to grab his cane, then walked over to Stitts. He reached up and stuck a new picture at the top of the board.

  “Then this is our suspect,” he said, and both men took a step backward.

  Stitts stared up at the board, his upper lip curled. After a moment, he exhaled long and slow and shook his head.

  “It still doesn’t make sense,” he said. Stitts wanted Greg to interject, to tell him that it did make sense, that they were finally onto something, but the man let him down.

  “Agreed.”

  Stitts leaned forward and tapped the image of Ms. Hartman at the top of the board.

  “Even if we overlook the fact that the statistical likelihood of a woman involved in a shooting of this nature is effectively zero, why in the fuck would she kill and mutilate her own son?”

  Greg stayed mum.

  “Family strife, maybe? Couldn’t be an argument about money, because there was no insurance payout,” Stitts continued, thinking out loud now. “And Ms. Hartman was torn u
p about her son’s death, too. This. Just. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.”

  Stitts took out his cell phone and stared at it, hoping that Chase had returned his call.

  She hadn’t.

  Where the hell are you? I could really use your insight right about now.

  “My contact also got the video footage that you asked for,” Greg said, returning to his desk.