Joanne lifted the phone to her ear. “He’s gone for a few minutes.”
“So I called the local ATF office and talked to Rex Carr, the regional office manager, which isn't as whoop-de-doo as it sounds ‘cause he only oversees a dozen or so agents. Told him I worked as an investigator for the Clark County’s defenders office, and had interviewed a witness for a case who claimed an ATF agent and his arson dog named Maggie were in Vegas asking questions about Dita Randisi, and was ATF involved in that case? He was real quiet for a few moments, so obviously the news took him by surprise. Then he said, all official-like, that he never discusses ATF business without agency approval. And we ended the call.”
Joanne looked across the room at Mike Day, who sat at the bar, talking on the phone while watching a basketball game playing on a TV screen. He looked so relaxed, so easy-going, as if he hadn’t been lying through his teeth.
“From what little I could dredge up on the Internet about Mike Day,” Gloria continued, “he’s never been married, his father is some wealthy L.A. real-estate lawyer. I’m thinking Muscle Boy lied about his name ‘cause he’s here on personal business…and it has something to do with Dita.”
Joanne’s nerves wound tighter. “Did you find anything that ties him to Dita? Or the Timepiece Arsonist?“
“No, but I’ll keep looking.” She paused. “Want me to come to the restaurant? I could borrow my brother’s car, park in a back corner of Piero’s lot, then follow you home and make sure you’re safe.”
The waiter approached the table with their salads. “Okay,” she answered. “Gotta go.”
As Joanne slid the phone into her purse, Mike headed back to their table. She debated whether to tell him point-blank that she was onto his scam, but decided it was in her better interest to play it cool, see what else he divulged to “earn” her trust. Probably a good idea to make a story about who was on the phone so he wouldn’t wonder if it had to do with Dita.
As the waiter fussed over them—“Pepper for your salads? Another tea, signorina?”—she unfurled her napkin into her lap.
After he left, she said offhandedly, “That was my sister on the phone.”
He turned serious. “Is she all right?”
“Got pulled over for a DUI.” She put on her best sad-but-true face. “Second this week.” The story validated why she looked so serious during her conversation with Gloria.
“Is she in jail?”
“No. Her husband picked her up at the police station, took her home. He’s not happy, as you can imagine. Tore up all her credit cards.”
Her nerves were pushing her into information-over-share. She sucked in a breath and blew it out. What did Mike Day want from Dita? Maybe this had nothing to do with the Timepiece Arsonist case. Maybe he was tracking an Animal Freedom Party member, and thought Dita might have helpful information.
He frowned. “Because of her DUI?”
“What?”
“Your sister’s credit cards,” he prompted.
“Oh, right. She likes to shop when she’s drunk.”
“In stores?”
“Yes.”
“Most people drink and shop at home, on the Internet.”
“She has a thing for mortar and brick. How’s your salad?”
“Fine.” After staring at her, hard, for several long moments, which felt like five years, he said, “If you want to be with her, I can ask the waiter to wrap our dinner to go.”
Gloria wouldn’t be her for at least fifteen minutes. “Nothing I can do for my sister tonight. Pass the bread?”
She picked out a roll with seeds on it. As she dipped a knife into the butter, she heard a faint ring.
“Now I’m getting a call.” Mike pulled out his phone, his face going still as he checked the caller ID. "I should take this.”
“Of course.”
She didn’t offer to move, and being a gentleman, he didn’t ask her to, either. He did, however, turn his face slightly away as he answered his phone.
Buttering her roll, she listened carefully, hoping to learn what was going on in special agent Mike Day’s secretive world.
* * *
“What the hell are you up to, Mike?” barked a gruff voice on the other end of the call. “ATF has nuthin’ to do with this arson case...it’s local, in Vegas PD’s hands…if ATF were involved, my office would be in charge, so why’re you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?”
He fisted his hand and pounded it, once, on the table.
ATF had no reason to track him, but as a precaution he’d taken the GPS chip out of his phone before leaving L.A., yet somehow the Vegas ATF office knew he was here and asking about the Timepiece Arsonist case. He glanced at Joanne, nibbling on a buttered roll while staring at the bank of TV screens across the room.
“Why do you think I’m in Vegas?” he asked quietly.
“Excuse me, Agent Day, but I’m the one asking questions.”
Rex’s title—Resident Agent in Charge—was just a bump up from agent. But even if he was the Tsar of Borat, Mike could give a shit. Anyway, this call had nothing to do with status, and everything to do with old history and bad blood.
Fifteen years ago, Mike and Rex had been the two top recruits at ATF boot camp. Vying for the top spot fired their competitiveness, but they also had fun kidding and taunting each other…until an anonymous source reported Rex to higher-ups for unauthorized sales of handguns to other agents-in-training.
ATF commended an arduous investigation of Rex. He became a piranha among his peers because none of the recruits wanted the taint of being associated with him. After several weeks, ATF declared Rex not culpable, but the stress of the scrutiny undermined his performance and he nearly failed passing the recruitment requirements. On graduation day, Rex took him aside. You wanted that top spot so bad, Mike, you tried to destroy me. He denied being the anonymous source, said he’d never stoop that low, but Rex refused to believe him.
Over the years their paths had crossed in the course of ATF business. Although their interactions were brief and professional, Mike picked up on Rex’s resentment toward him.
“I know you’re in Vegas, Mike, because an investigator from the public defenders’ office told me. Did you know their head honcho, a guy named Ochs, is tight with the DA? Can you smell the smoke, Mike?”
Mike looked over at Joanne, still intensely focused on the TV screens.
“Doesn’t exist.”
“What doesn’t exist?”
“Who.”
After several beats, Rex snorted a laugh. “Oh, your alter-ego Steve McGill. Seems the investigator learned Maggie’s name and connected the dots back to you. After I got off the phone, I called Harley.”
A chill settled over Mike. That call could be the beginning of the end of his ATF career. His ego didn’t hang on being a special agent, but his dream to build a specialized dog training facility did. Needed to earn out his pension for that.
“Harley’s voicemail was full,” Rex continued, “so I’ll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’m ordering you to stop whatever the hell you’re up to.”
God bless Harley for letting voice messages fill up his mailbox. Gave Mike a chance to fix this mess.
“Rex, I was wrong to come here without talking it over with you first.”
He caught Joanne sneak a look at him before swerving her gaze back to the Kansas-Purdue college basketball game. As people at the bar cheered a three-pointer in the Kansas-Purdue game, she belatedly cheered with them.
Like you know squat about college basketball, Miss Missing Link to how Rex learned I was in town. Pretty obvious she told her investigator about Maggie, who used that to dig up his real ID. If he wasn’t pissed off, he’d be impressed.
“Damn right you were wrong,” Rex said. “You’re gonna be sorry you ever set foot on my turf.”
“Has nothing to do with ATF. This is personal.”
“Going rogue doesn’t make it okay, Mike. I’m ending this call—“
“She d
ied like Jackie.”
Hated bringing up Rex’s wife, who died tragically in a fire while visiting her sister several years back, but it conveyed the seriousness of his mission. Jackie’s sister, husband and their children escaped with minor injuries, but a collapsed ceiling blocked Jackie’s escape. Coroner later determined she was immediately knocked unconscious, a small blessing as she didn’t die a painful death. Unlike Paula, who Rex didn’t know.
For several moments, Mike listened to people whooping and clapping as Kansas made another basket.
“Who is she?” Rex finally asked.
“I’d prefer not to discuss that right now.”
“What do you want from me?”
“To talk, privately, before you make that second call.”
A muttered expletive, then, “Be here at nine sharp tomorrow morning. And Mike…”
“Yes?”
“I’m only doing this for Jackie. If I find out you’re screwing with me, I’ll make your life miserable.”
* * *
Joanne, mindlessly swiping the butter knife back and forth on her bread, surreptitiously watched Mike as he put away his phone. From what she overheard, Gloria’s call to Rex had some unpleasant repercussions.
Rex, I was wrong to come here without talking it over with you first.
Has nothing to do with ATF. This is personal.
She died like Jackie.
He leaned toward her and growled, “You and I need to talk.”
For a crazy moment his shadowed face in the flickering candlelight reminded her of John Wayne as Ringo Kid, the tough gunslinger and murderer in Stagecoach.
“It wasn’t your sister who called, but your investigator buddy—the one with the Firebird. Gloria Falco, right?”
She felt as if she’d swallowed an ice cube, its chill sliding down her esophagus, then dropping cold and hard to the pit of her stomach. That ATF manager—Rex something--who spoke to Gloria hadn’t wasted a minute getting in touch with Mike. Would be silly denying Gloria had called as Rex as he’d undoubtedly ID’d her.
“Yes,” she croaked.
The butter knife slipped from her fingers, dropping with a flomp onto the pristine white linen tablecloth. Mike coolly picked it up, set it on her bread plate with a clink that gave her a start.
“Gloria told you my real name is Michael Day, and that I’m an ATF arson investigator.” He handed her his linen napkin. “Your hand.”
She looked down, surprised to see Focaccia oozing between two fingers in her death-grip around the bread.
Accepting the napkin with her free hand, she wiped off the mess, wondering if he carried a gun, a silly thought because of course he did, probably strapped with duct tape to his muscled six-pack. But he wouldn’t shoot her in Piero’s, no, he’d wait until they were in the parking lot, or in that monster SUV rental.
Her heart pounded against her chest like one of those desperate femme fatales on a pulp cover. Lawyer Behind Bars – Her defense was her shame.
With trembling fingers, she put aside his napkin and counted to ten on her fingers, willing herself to relax as Sinatra crooned about strangers in the night.
Finally she turned to him, focusing on a spot near his upper lip, figuring the dim lighting masked her inability to make direct eye contact.
“I’ve always loved Sinatra’s music,” she said, an inane comment that bordered on a lie.
Maybe she wanted to test her ability to form a declarative sentence or show she was harmless…whatever, it bought her a few seconds of time during which she caught something she hadn’t noticed before. A light sandalwood-apple scent. Must have put it on while dropping off his dog.
Any guy who put on cologne for dinner was hardly in a killing mood, or at least didn’t felt that way starting out. Which gave her a boost of confidence. She smiled. For real this time.
“We seem to be spending a lot of time digging into each other’s pasts,” she said softly, “when we should be talking about an alliance.”
“I agree.”
“She…the woman who died…is why you’re here.”
He rubbed his forehead, a gesture that momentarily hid his eyes. “Coroner called it accidental, but it was murder.” He dropped his hand and met her gaze. “You, a defense lawyer, can understand this…finding the real killer will give peace to the living as well as the dead.”
From the grimness etching his features, she saw he needed that peace, too. Broke her heart a little, because she’d been where he was. More than once she’d wept hearing a not guilty verdict for a client falsely accused of murder. She had also encouraged several clients to admit their guilt to bring peace to the victim’s soul and their family.
Part of her felt guilty, too, for sic’ing Gloria on his trail as it led to the ATF learning about Mike’s investigations. Yes, by doing so, he’d abused his position as a federal agent by doing so. Should never have pretended his questions about Dita were part of an ATF investigation.
“You’ve made a nice mess for yourself,” she said simply.
“Got that right.”
“After ATF’s recent high-profile disasters, agents are undoubtedly held to a higher standard. Guessing you could lose your job over this.”
“Right again.”
She gave her head a shake. “Wish you’d told me this was about a cold case, in your estimation anyway, when you first showed up.”
His dark eyes gave a single blink. “I never make assumptions. Weeks after her death, I learned the coroner detected head trauma at her autopsy, credited to her lifting a ceramic base that fell on her right before the fire started. No fucking way, excuse my language. She suffered chronic back problems and never lifted heavy items...I reported this to the coroner and police and asked for her case to be reopened, but they said no. Insufficient reason to investigate a homicide. So I began digging through the burnt remains of her condo, eventually finding face of a men’s wind-up wristwatch, its hour and minute hands melded in such a way to indicate they triggered wires that ignited an accelerant.”
“Signature of the Timepiece Arsonist.”
“Exactly.”
Okay, he was cocky about his arson investigation expertise, but so what. The man knew his stuff. But why pursue this particular case? She intuited the answer before asking.
“She...meant a lot to you.”
After a moment, he said, “She died six months after our engagement ended.”
“Oh.”
Who ended it, she wondered. Was it grief…or guilt that propelled him to find the murderer? Motive could be discussed later. More critical was to know the situation with ATF.
“What is Rex, this regional ATF manager, doing?”
“Nothing. Yet, anyway. We’re meeting in the morning. There’s some bad blood between us—don’t know if I can fix it, but gotta try.” He spread open his hand as if he had nothing more to hide. “Look, you hold the cards in this game, Joanne. You get my expertise about arson investigations, and I get whatever crumbs you toss my way about Dita and her case. A questionable deal for me, a sure deal for you.”
“More like a sure deal for you...you get to decide how much to share about arson investigations and that crime scene.”
He quirked a smile. “Well, as some cowboy once said, ‘Courage is being scared to death…and saddling up anyway.’”
While she slathered on her make-up and conspired with Gloria to dig up dirt about his real identity, had he been in the other room accessing her laptop with some secret-agent device that let him view everything on the hard drive...case files, stash of old western films, the partially completed questionnaire for the online dating site You Deserve Love by Rebel Chick, AKA Amanda Bonner, who loved Benjamin Franklin, the Wild West, and anything with olives and wanted to meet a man who’d actually read the Constitution, liked Rottweilers and believed in fidelity. She’d added Rottweilers as a security measure.
But that was her paranoia surfacing because, according to Kimmie, their combo-bungalow was a mini-Fort Knox of
internet security...next-generation firewalls, data encryption, some kind of network-intrusion blocker...there was more, but Joanne’s brain had to take a mini-vacation during Kimmie’s exuberant description of a ransom-killer-hacker thing that made her want to call her parents before it was too late and tell them she loved them.
Bottom line: She seriously doubted James Bond could break into the bungalow-internet, much less Mike Day, Arson Investigator.
Joanne had one more question. “Since you think Dita might be the real Timepiece Arsonist, what connection did she have with Paula.”
He shook his head slowly. “I’ve given that a lot of thought...only logical reason is someone hired Dita.”
“As far as I know, Dita never ever lived in the L.A. area. Doesn’t make sense.”
“But she either lived a 5-hour drive away in Vegas, or she was in Vegas visiting her dad in prison...could be he told about the hired torch deal there. In code talk, of course.”
“That sounds like a bad TV plot.”
“You of all people should know that some crimes sound exactly like that.”
“I think you’re wrong, of course.”
“All the more reason to join the alliance.” He grinned.
She couldn’t help but smile back. Maybe his cowboy-saddling comment was purely kismet, or maybe a crazy sign from the universe that they were meant to forge an alliance. Their business-combo could be disastrous or triumphant, maybe both. Did she want to run away...or saddle up? What kind of role model did she want to be for her child?
She looked Mike square in the eye. “I’m in, cowboy.”
* * *
A short while later, the busboy whisked away their empty salad plates as their water swept in with plates of food scenting the air with garlic, lemon and a rich winey aroma. The sports fans at the bar had quieted down since the game ended, making it easier to hear the waiter’s effusive descriptions of the food, which Mike knew by heart anyway. After ensuring they needed nothing else, the waiter left.
Mistletoe and Murder in Las Vegas Page 13