by Nora Kane
“The Boog?”
“No, some asshole who ended up on the wrong end of two guns and didn’t have the brains to surrender.”
“One of those guns yours?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you killed The Boog?”
“No, this jackass heavily implied he was a student of someone; he called them his ‘master.’ I think that might be Boog.”
“Boog is teaching classes?”
“Sounds crazy but yeah, that’s what it looks like. You ever heard about anything like that?”
“No, if I had, I’d remember it. That’s some next-level crazy shit.”
Just then, Harry’s driver brought the drinks. Margot stayed and enjoyed having a glass of whiskey with a mobster before she went home to a homicide detective. Detective Rick Radcliff was glad to see her. She didn’t mention she’d just been hired to undermine one of his cases.
Chapter 4
“Who’s this?” West asked as Margot sat down across from him.
“She’s a private detective. She’ll be looking into the case to see if we can find something to back your story,” Clauson told him.
“Harry hire her, too?”
“No, well, not exactly. He hired us, we hired her.”
“Are you the girl from that YouTube show?”
“Yeah.”
West nodded. It looked like he approved of her portrayal in Cassie Cole’s show. Margot didn’t take this to be a positive.
“Well, I hope you’re worth Harry Lee’s money,” West continued. “Despite all the hype, his high-priced legal team hasn’t even been able to get me bail.”
“I’m going to do my best, but to be honest with you, it’s not going to be easy.”
“It should be. I didn’t do it.”
“Which part?” Margot asked.
“What do you mean? All of it. The whole report is bullshit.”
“You didn’t get in a fight?”
“No.”
Margot pointed at his black eye. “You sure?”
“I got sucker punched. How is that a fight? It’s assault is what it is. I still don’t know why he hit me.”
“You sure you didn’t start it? Maybe you didn’t throw the first punch, but did you say something?”
“Not to the asshole who hit me.”
“So, you talked to someone else? A girl?”
“Yeah, the one behind the bar. I asked her nicely to pour me a drink. Which is what you say to a bartender.”
“You didn’t speak to anyone else?”
“Why would I? It wasn’t exactly my kind of place.”
“Then why were you there?”
“I was meeting someone. They picked it.”
“Where were they when you got punched?”
“I don’t know. They were late, but I got tossed and I haven’t been able to see if they showed up.”
“You said all that happened was you got sucker punched. Why’d they throw you out?”
“I don’t know. My guess is the asshole that hit me and his friend were regulars, probably friends with the staff. Like I said, it wasn’t my kind of place, so maybe I wasn’t their kind of customer.”
“The report has you making threats on the way out the door.”
“Yeah, that part is true. Like I said before, I was majorly pissed off. I said some things. I even meant them at the time.”
“What did you do next?”
“I went back to my place and got my gun.”
“The Glock 21 they found on your coffee table?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“What did you do next?”
“You know, it’s real easy to say you're going to pop a cap in some fool when it’s just talk, but standing there in my living room with a half-loaded gun in my hand, I started having second thoughts. The idea of killing a dude over a black eye started seeming ridiculous. He may have been a total dick, but that’s not a death penalty offense in my book. Hell, I’ve probably been a total dick myself a time or two.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Just what I told the cops when they came to my place and the detective when he asked me. I grabbed my bottle of Jameson and had a few drinks to take the edge off. I was thinking, if my apartment had only been a couple of blocks away, I might not have calmed down in time and murdered a man over what I was starting to think had to have been a misunderstanding. What else could it be? I’d never seen him before, and I never said a word to him. It freaked me out how close I came to murdering somebody. I drank more than I should have and ended up falling asleep on the couch.”
“That’s not a very good alibi.”
“I know, but it’s the truth.”
“The report makes it sound like you were drunk at the bar.”
“More bullshit. Find my bar tab. I hadn’t even finished my second beer when that dude hit me.”
“That doesn’t mean much. You could have had a few before you got there.”
“I was working. They would have noticed.”
“I’m going to ask them, so if you’re lying, save me some time and tell me the truth. I’m going to get there and if I’m spending time debunking your bullshit, then that’s time I don’t spend debunking the other side’s.”
“I understand, I really do. I’m being straight with you.”
Margot nodded. He was believable, but all the great liars were. If he did it, there wasn’t much to lose sticking to a bogus story. If it was bogus, however, he’d concocted a pretty lame alibi.
“You said you had a half-empty gun in your hand,” Margot pressed. “Why was it half-empty?”
“I got a little over-zealous at the range and almost used up all my bullets.”
“Would that have been a bad thing?”
“The gun’s not a lot of good without bullets. I didn’t buy it to be a paperweight. I take it out to shoot on weekends.”
“How many rounds did you have? That pistol holds what?”
“Twenty one, just like the name.”
“So you had ten or eleven?”
“Nah, half was a bit of an exaggeration. I had six. I remember thinking at the range that ought to be enough anyway. Most revolvers don’t hold more than six cartridges.”
“As you can see, that would have made it impossible for him to commit the crime. Mr. Tankerson was shot four times and Mr. Hatten three. Plus, they dug three slugs out of the wall. That’s four more rounds than he could have fired. In fact, they found eight shell casings on the floor of his car. The other two must have ejected onto the road. Even the eight on the floor would be two more than he had at the time.” Clauson explained.
“Assuming his count is correct,” Margot remarked.
“I know how many bullets I had. Those things aren’t exactly free, you know.”
“Okay, I believe you, but we can’t prove that.”
“What if we went to the range? I bet they have video.”
“Even if we prove you only had six bullets to your name leaving the range, you could have got more in between that and the shooting. Unless you went from the range to the bar and didn’t go home, where for all anyone knows, you could have had another box of shells.”
“It’d been a week.”
“So, it won’t matter in court.”
Anthony looked over at his lawyer who nodded and said, “She’s right.”
“So, it doesn’t matter?”
“It matters to me,” Margot said.
“So, you believe I didn’t do it?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“You want me to believe someone broke in and took your gun and your car, went and killed two people, and then returned both your car and gun without you knowing it?”
“I know. We already went over this. It’s lame, but I can’t help it if it’s the truth. Considering how out of it I was, someone could have pulled it off. I tossed my keys on the counter. Since I was initially planning to go back and start shooting, I don’t think I locked my do
or.”
“The police had to kick it in.”
“Whoever took my gun must have locked the door when he left.”
“Or you locked it and forgot you did.”
“I can’t say that’s impossible.”
“You ever have blackouts when you drink?”
“You think I could have done all that without knowing it?”
“Unlikely but not any more unlikely than you sleeping through the whole thing.”
“No, never.”
“What’s your connection to Harry Lee?”
West laughed without humor. “I’ve been getting asked that a lot. The answer is none. I don’t know why they think I know anything at all about that man.”
“Nothing? No connection at all?”
“I hear the man is into a lot of things so maybe I stumbled into something by accident at work.”
“What’s your work?”
“I’m a mechanic, high-end stuff. I suppose it’s possible we picked up some stuff from Lee, but if we bought some stolen goods from him, we didn’t know it.”
“So, you like engines, just like your dad.”
“Yeah.” It took West a beat to add, “How would you know that?”
“You want to change that answer about Harry Lee?”
West sighed. “My dad did business with him. Sure, my dad wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen for most of his life, but what does that have to do with me?”
“The O.C. task force and apparently the D.A. seems to think it has a lot to do with you.”
“As much as I appreciate all the help from Harry Lee, if putting him away was my get-out-of-jail-free card, I’d already be a free man.”
Clauson looked at Margot. “No one’s going to let a double homicide walk. There’s no get-out-of-jail-free card for that.”
“So, it’s the lack of a good deal that’s holding you back?”
“That, and I really don’t know anything. Dad didn’t talk about that stuff, to anybody, especially me.”
“Alright,” Margot told him. “That will do for now. It’ll give me something to start on.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Start checking stories from the bar and see if we can get someone to back up yours. It won’t prove your innocence, but it’s a start. It sounds like the police report is at least partially fictional so I’m going to find the truth if I can.”
“So, you believe me?”
Margot shrugged. “We’ll see.” She was at the door before she turned and asked, “Who were you supposed to meet?”
“A girl by the name of Sheila Graves.”
“Business or pleasure?”
“Tinder date. She picked the place. She picked everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she contacted me first, which is why I was so annoyed when she didn’t show up. It wasn’t like I did anything to make her mad between the time we made the date and the time we were supposed to meet.”
“So, she asked you out?”
“Pretty much.”
“You have contact information?”
“It’s on my phone, but they won’t let me have that.”
“I can get it,” Clauson said.
“Send it to me, it can’t hurt,” Margot told him. “Maybe if she did show up, she saw or heard why Tankerson decided to punch you in the face.”
Chapter 5
Margot was driving back to the office since Swifty’s, the bar where the crime took place, wouldn’t be open for several more hours when Gomes called her.
“You ready for tacos and Tequila tonight?”
“I am.”
“Good thing you’re doing this because you like me and realize how taco and Tequila deprived I’ve been and not because you needed a favor.”
“Nothing on the number?”
“Burner, pay-as-you-go.”
“Thanks, it was worth a try.”
“Of course, since we’re drinking top-shelf Tequila tonight, I could give you who bought the minutes with their credit card.”
“They did that?”
“Probably didn’t think you had a friend like me or were short of cash one time and really needed to make some calls.”
“Who is it?”
“Some bum named Dennis Diaz. Just got out of jail in time to buy a phone and call you. That sound familiar?”
“Nope. I don’t suppose you have an address?”
“I do, but you’d better be thinking Don Julio and not Jose Quervo if I’m going to give it to you.”
“Don it is.”
Gomes recited an address and Margot was headed in that direction when Clauson called.
“I’ve found Sheila Graves,” he said, “I have a phone number plus where she works if you want to brace her there.”
“Her employer is on her Tinder profile?”
“I looked up her Facebook page.”
“Alright, can you text it all to me so I don’t have to write it down?”
“Sure can.”
Margot found a place to park so she could check out the address and then plugged Sheila’s employer into the GPS.
Sheila worked at a body shop. Margot assumed she was the receptionist but decided that was being a little sexist and resolved to wait and see. It made sense a car guy like Anthony might be interested in a female with similar interests. She noticed as she made the turn to head towards Manny’s Paint and Body that on the corner was a little bar called Swifty’s, which happened to be the same place where Anthony got punched in the face and then later someone used his gun and his car to gun down two men.
It was within walking distance of Sheila’s work. It made some sense that she would pick this as a meeting place. There was a good chance she was a regular. Margot hoped it would be open soon enough so she could stop by after talking to Sheila.
When the guy at the desk told Margot Sheila was in the garage putting a new bumper on a pickup truck, Margot was glad she hadn’t assumed she was the receptionist.