Don't Look Twice

by Andrew Gross

  He waved to her and smiled.

  “You have a few moments to talk?” Hauck asked, stepping out of the car with a manila folder tucked under his arm.

  “Sure…” Her reply was a little wary, sensing something.

  “Just watch out for the obstacle course.” A tricycle and a plastic hockey net were strewn on the lawn.

  Inside, Wendy offered some coffee, which he declined. But he followed her into the kitchen and asked how she was doing while she brewed herself a cup of tea.

  “I can barely even get back to the basic things yet.” She shrugged. “The wash, shopping…Haley’s been taking it all pretty hard. She and David always had this bond. Ethan…”

  She stopped, pulled out a bottle of honey, stood with her back to the counter. “He still doesn’t fully understand. How do I explain this to a six-year-old with Asperger’s? It’s his first day back at school today. It’s like, you try to get everything back to normal, but then there’s this huge, empty hole that just comes at you…”

  “I know,” Hauck said, “it’s gonna take some time. Listen, I came out here because there are a few things I need to ask you, Ms. Sanger. A couple of things have come up.”

  Wendy poured her tea, motioned Hauck over to an old farmhouse table in the breakfast nook overlooking the backyard. They sat down. “Okay…”

  Hauck opened the envelope. “Did you know someone named Keith Kramer, Ms. Sanger? He may have been a friend of your husband’s?”

  “Keith. Yes. I know him. A little.” She seemed surprised at the name. “He and David went to Wesleyan together. They kept up a bit, I suppose.”

  Hauck shifted. “Did you know that Mr. Kramer was killed, Ms. Sanger? Last week.”

  “What? Keith? No…” She put down her mug, clearly shocked. “Oh, my God, that’s terrible. What a horrible coincidence. I don’t think he and David had too much to do with each other lately. I think he worked for one of the casinos upstate. How?”

  “He was shot. In the back of the head. Up where he lived in Madison. His body was found strewn in the woods.”

  “Oh, God, how horrible, Lieutenant.” Wendy shot a hand to her mouth. “I think he had kids,” she said after a few seconds, “a little younger than ours…I think his wife was in the real estate business or something. Joan, I think…” Then Wendy looked up at him, her face suddenly darkening. “You’re not thinking this is a coincidence, are you, Lieutenant? David. Keith…That’s why you’re here.”

  Hauck asked her, “Do you mind telling me the last time you and your husband heard from Mr. Kramer, Ms. Sanger?”

  “You mean David, not me. We hadn’t socialized in years. I don’t know. Keith was sort of an easygoing guy. He never seemed to have to have a lot of ambition. He was sort of a math whiz, if I recall, back in school. But most of their friends, they’d gone on to something. Wall Street. Med school. Teaching. The past couple of years, I’m not sure he and David had that much to do with each other. We went to dinner with them and a few friends in Stamford…I don’t know, two or three years…”

  Hauck took out the folders Steve had prepared. He opened one and removed the stack of bound pages marked up with yellow lines. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said, “but these are your husband’s cell phone records, Ms. Sanger. This is all pretty routine stuff in a case involving an unsolved homicide.”

  Wendy wet her lips and took the pages onto her lap. She leafed through a few. “Okay…”

  “The yellow highlighting you’re seeing is all from the same cell phone number. Keith Kramer’s cell. As you can see, the calls go back over a period of several months.”

  Wendy stared.

  “You’d have to say they’d clearly been in touch a bit more than you suspected?”

  She picked up the records, eyes wide, as seemingly in shock at the dates and the frequency of the calls. Her gaze came back to Hauck, unsure. “I don’t understand.”

  “What can you tell me about Mr. Kramer, Ms. Sanger?”

  She shrugged. “Keith? I don’t know if I can tell you much of anything, Lieutenant. Like I said, he went to school with David—I think they were roommates at some point. But that was twenty years ago. He never really got going on the career track, was all I knew. He was one of those people who seemed to always go back to what it was like in college. You know, who never quite grew up. Still wanted to always get together. Watch the games, play cards. I mean, he was harmless, nice. He wouldn’t get involved in anything. What does any of this have to do with David?”

  “Did your husband ever talk about him?” Hauck asked. “Was there anything you can remember that would make them possibly be in touch?”

  “No. I mean, once in a while, David would say he and a couple of his old friends were getting together or playing cards. Maybe David went down there once or twice when he stayed up in Hartford. It’s possible once or twice he may have visited him at the casino. But that was all few and far between. We weren’t even friends. I don’t even know his kids’ names.” She shook her head and her eyes went back to the records. “You’re saying that what happened to David and Keith is somehow linked?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to alarm you right now. But you’d agree it’s pretty unusual your husband was in such frequent contact with this person and then kept it all from you?”

  “It is unusual,” Wendy said. “David didn’t hide things from me. But my husband’s death was an accident, Lieutenant. You said so yourself. What ever happened to that girl who was drowned…?”

  “I want you to look at something else, Ms. Sanger,” Hauck said, pulling out the copy of Sanger’s Bank of America account in Hartford.

  Wendy’s face turned white. She looked back at Hauck. “Where did you get this?”

  “Like I said, we’re dealing with an unsolved homicide, Ms. Sanger.”

  She put a hand to her brow and nodded. “I just saw this…For the first time. Just the other day. A couple of David’s colleagues from work brought down a bunch of stuff from his office.” She looked up, confused. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “You never knew about this account?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No. I don’t even know if I should be saying anything more to you, Lieutenant. I want to help, but I don’t know what’s going on here. My husband was a good man. He was a good husband and a caring dad, and he spent his life fighting for people, when other people he knew were just into making money or putting together deals. I don’t know where you’re going with this. I’m starting to feel like I should have some kind of lawyer…?”

  “Listen,” Hauck said. He noticed her hands fidgeting and he couldn’t help but reach out. “I’m not your enemy, Ms. Sanger. I want to find out what happened to your husband just as much as you, and the last thing I want to do is drag his name through anything untoward. I promise you that.”

  Wendy nodded.

  “But your husband was depositing sizable amounts of cash in an account that he kept secret from you. An account you’re not even a signee on. And that should worry you a bit. If this kind of thing got dug out by the press, or into the hands of someone else looking at this, such as the FBI, they’re not going to be nearly as friendly, and you just don’t know where that would lead. So I think you should talk to me, Ms. Sanger, if there’s anything you know. Anything you might be holding back from me. Do you have any idea where these sorts of funds might’ve come from?”

  “No!” Wendy’s eyes grew fearful. “I only found out about this two days ago. I don’t have a goddamn idea what it all means, Lieutenant. We didn’t keep things from each other.”

  Hauck shrugged. “I’m sorry, but that’s not the way it seems.”

  “I can see that’s not the way it seems, Lieutenant! And you can see how it’s making me feel.”

  Hauck nodded, shuffled the pages into a neat pile, and leaned forward, arms on knees. “I’m afraid there’s more.” He opened another folder and took out a fastened sheath of papers. “This is a MasterCard account your husba
nd kept, Ms. Sanger. Have you ever seen it before?”

  Wendy Sanger looked at it. She stared back glassily. “No.”

  “You see those charges? DealMeIn.com. Pokerbuff Online. Some of the charges run as high as five thousand dollars.”

  “I see that, Lieutenant!” Wendy Sanger nodded.

  “Listen, I know how hard this is. I know exactly what you’ve been through. But your husband’s friend, Kramer, he was executed, Ms. Sanger. He worked for the Pequot Woods Casino and your husband had been in touch with him several times over the weeks before they both died. I don’t know what was going on. I don’t know if he was advising him on some matter he wanted to keep quiet, in his capacity as an attorney—though these bank deposits and Internet charges don’t lend a lot of credence to that. But there’s something I’ve got to ask you and you’ve got to be truthful with me.”

  She nodded.

  “Did your husband have some kind of gambling problem, Ms. Sanger?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  As Hauck headed back to the office, his cell phone rang.

  It was Munoz. “You’re not gonna like this one, Lieutenant…You sitting down?”

  “I’m driving, Freddy. What do you got?”

  “Vega,” his detective said. “He’s been released from jail.”

  Hauck almost rammed the car in front of him. “What?”

  “You heard it. His case was thrown out. The evidence against him, a Glock 8 and a set of prints taken off the steering wheel, was ruled tampered with and corrupt. An FBI lab team out of the city seemed to lose sight of it for a day. A district judge in Bridgeport just came down with the decision.”

  Hauck pulled over to the side. He flashed back to Vega’s laugh. When I’m out, you come to me and I’ll teach you about two and two…

  His blood was boiling. “You say an FBI lab flubbed it?”

  “Starting to sound familiar, doesn’t it? You remember what I said about being covered up in shit…”

  “Yeah, Freddy, I remember. And I think I know just where to go to find the shovel.”

  Stan Taylor was at his desk grabbing a late sandwich when Hauck’s call came through. “Glad you called, Lieutenant. Just having a bite of a late lunch. What gives?”

  “The name Nelson Vega mean anything to you, Agent Taylor?”

  “Vega?” The agent continued chewing. “Isn’t he some gang-banger out of Bridgeport? Part of a drug search bust where he tried to shoot it out with a state cop?”

  “That’s the one. I just wanted to let you know, if you already didn’t—the case against him just got bounced. Evidence tampering. He was given a free pass out of jail.”

  The FBI man snorted in disgust. “Can’t say I like hearing that sort of thing any more than you, Lieutenant. The guy sounds like a total piece of shit. But what’s it got to do with me?”

  “Vega’s the head of DR-17. They were the ones who pulled off the drive-by at the Exxon station.”

  “Hmmph. Now that doesn’t help the home team, does it? You say he’s already out. Out from where?”

  “You ought to know, Special Agent. Your name was on the list of people who went to visit him in prison.”

  Taylor almost choked. He cleared his throat and it took a few seconds to recover. “Now before you let your little mind go crazy, Lieutenant, we were just pumping him for information, same as you.”

  “I can take being played, Agent Taylor. But not from you. The guy was looking at twenty years in federal lockup and he basically just laughed in our faces when we offered to help him out and told us to hit the road. You know what that tells me, Special Agent? It doesn’t exactly sit well with me that he farmed out this job to one of his soldiers and ten days later an FBI lab team bungles the evidence and he’s out free. Is Vega your man?”

  “Maybe he knew what was in the works,” the FBI man answered, tap dancing. “Lawyers have a funny way of sharing that kind of information with their clients, Lieutenant.”

  “This was a hit. He handled this job for someone, Taylor.” Hauck couldn’t conceal the anger in his voice. “All that stuff about Josephina Ruiz was just a cover. Sanger was the intended target all along.”

  For a moment, the FBI agent didn’t respond, Hauck’s accusation sinking in. “We’re talking about a U.S. attorney, Lieutenant. I hope to hell you’re not looking here.”

  “You didn’t answer me. Is Nelson Vega a CI? Is he your man?” Hauck knew as soon as the words escaped he had over-stepped his bounds. It was more of an accusation than a question.

  No doubt he’d be hearing it from Fitzpatrick before the end of the day.

  “I realize you didn’t call up for advice, Lieutenant,” the FBI man finally answered, “but let me give you a little anyway, just to keep things in a civil tone. You didn’t want us looking over your shoulder, so don’t swallow a brick if we work along parallel to you. I don’t know what the deal on Vega is, but your tone is starting to ruin my lunch, so I’m gonna sign off now, before you get yourself in some real shit. I’ll be sure to pass along your best to AC Sculley, Lieutenant.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  A return call from Joe Raines of the Pequot Woods Resort was waiting for Hauck when he got back. He went into his office and shut the door.

  “Mr. Raines. Thanks for calling me back.”

  “Just what is it I can do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m investigating the death of David Sanger.” Hauck hurried behind his desk and scrambled for a pad of his notes. “You may have heard, he was a United States attorney who was killed down here in a drive-by a couple of weeks back.”

  “Hard to miss all that,” Raines said. “How can I be of help?”

  “Chief Pecoric, from up in Madison, gave me your name. I know you have your own situation going on up there. I had a photo and some credit card information on Sanger sent up to you…”

  “Yes, I got them. And I’m familiar with the thing you’re talking about. Just how does it relate to us?”

  “Turns out,” Hauck said, “Keith Kramer and Sanger were acquainted.”

  “Now that’s a discouraging coincidence.” The security chief let out a disgruntled sigh.

  “If you take it as a coincidence at all. In fact, it turns out they were friends. The phone records indicate they’d both been in contact quite a bit over the past several months. I asked in my fax whether Sanger had been up to the casino recently.”

  “My impression was that you were dealing with a gang-connected killing down there, Lieutenant. Something about revenge…”

  “Seemed that way. But it’s starting to look as if there might be something else. That maybe some kind of gambling connection might have existed between the two of them, resulting in what’s happened.”

  “You want to map that out a little clearer?” Raines said. “You can imagine how that makes me feel. Our employees are strictly forbidden from any gambling activity at the casino, Lieutenant Hauck. Or outside. That’s a hard and fast rule. Unless you’re implying something else was going on between them here, Lieutenant…?”

  “Two people are dead, Mr. Raines. Two people who were systematically in touch. One, we’ve uncovered, might have had a gambling habit that he kept secret. The other worked as a table supervisor in your casino. You connect the dots.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s also possible Kramer might have been communicating with Sanger in Sanger’s capacity as a U.S. attorney. Perhaps about something he’d been working on or uncovered.”

  Raines paused. “Just what are you implying, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m not implying anything,” Hauck said. “But that’s why it’s important to me to find out if Mr. Sanger had recently been up there, Mr. Raines. Or anything you can tell me about Keith Kramer that would be helpful in putting this together.”

  “Alright. I’ll tell you just what I told Chief Pecoric, Lieutenant…Keith was a solid employee of the resort who never once drew any attention in the wrong way. Let’s see…His friends here seeme
d to suggest he’d been acting a bit nervous lately. Financial pressures. Apparently his wife wasn’t bringing in the bacon the way she had once been. Keith did always like to live a little big, Lieutenant, a bit more than others on a similar salary grade. He’d been pushing for an early review. Which was turned down. A month ago.”

  “Why?”

  “We run a sizable operation here, Lieutenant. There are some sixty-eight pit supervisors at the Pequot Woods. Everything’s handled at the scheduled time. I can pass you along to personnel if you like. But you mentioned a gambling connection?”

  “Like I said, I’m just trying to connect the dots.” There was something about Raines that seemed typically evasive. Standard-issue security. “Did they happen to connect on whether Sanger had ever been a guest at the resort?”

  Raines said, “I ran the credit cards you sent me. And I showed his photo around the front desk and the casino staff. We have him in our records as up here once. Last August. Over a year ago. I can send you the details, if you like, but the gist is, he stayed one night, basic accommodations, picked up a tab at the bar, nothing from the dining rooms. No record of him charging up any playing cash against his account. No special courtesies…”

  “Just once?” Hauck said, surprised.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, if that’s not what you’re looking to hear. He did order an in-room movie. We can check the kind of film it was, if that’s where your investigation is going.”

  “No.” Hauck let out a disappointed sigh.

  “Look, Lieutenant,” Raines said, easing up, “like you said, we are dealing with our own situation here. Truth is, I don’t know why Keith Kramer was killed. I don’t know whether he was robbed, if he owed someone money, if he was cheating on his wife, or if he had some kind of drug habit…I’m pretty satisfied that it had nothing to do with his work here.

  “But what I am keenly interested in is that this isn’t twisted or magnified in any way that—I think you know where I’m heading—affects the ongoing interests of the resort. We have our own way of handling things up here, with the tribal police, using whatever influence we have to keep this as quiet as possible. As you can imagine, stories and speculation of this kind do not serve our business at all. Especially ones backed up purely by supposition and innuendo. I figure you understand what I mean?”