Caruso 01 - Boom Town
Page 21
“You’ve got everything wrong,” she screamed at Tony. “I had nothing to do with Larry’s little game. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Save your breath,” Tony said.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit re-dial. This time the sheriff answered. “Where the hell are you?”
The sheriff huffed on the other end. “I’m coming through the gate.”
“How’d you find out?” Tony asked.
“Dawn Sanders called me,” the sheriff said.
“Well what took ya?”
“The roads are slippery,” the sheriff said.
“We’ll need an ambulance.”
“Gotcha.” He relayed that through his radio and then said, “We ran across Cliff Humphrey’s Mercedes in the ditch about a mile back.”
That explained his appearance. He must have run the mile in his business suit, slipping and sliding on the ice.
“Yeah, he’s here. He shot Larry Gibson. Self defense.” Tony looked at the man’s wounds. He had a bullet in his right shoulder and one had grazed his left mid-section. “But I think he’ll live.”
“Ambulance is on its way,” the sheriff said. “They just patched through a call from Beaver Jackson. Mentioned something about those two crooked cops. You run them over with that rig of yours?”
“Shhhhh.... My cell phone is losing its signal.” Tony clicked off his phone.
Tony went over to Cliff Humphrey and knelt alongside him.
“You should have let me handle this.”
He shook his head and caught his breath. “I found out why Larry wanted to sell his company so badly.”
Tony waited and listened as Humphrey sobbed.
Humphrey continued. “The San Francisco company wants to expand their operation here, bringing in hundreds of high-paying BOOM TOWN 213
jobs. The majority would buy housing at a discount at our new resort. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
It didn’t help that Tony knew this, but it gave the term ‘company town’ a whole new meaning.
Tony drifted away from Humphrey. Left him there in his pain as the sheriff’s deputies shuffled through securing the area.
On the way back to his condo, Tony slowed the truck when he saw a man dragging himself alongside the road. He slid past the man and then pulled over. Tony almost didn’t recognize him as he got out of the truck and stepped toward the guy.
Dressed in a suit and tie, no beard, was Don Sanders.
Glancing up from the ground, his face covered with fresh shaving cuts, Don said, “A little help here.” He rolled to his butt.
“Truck went off the road a ways back. Broke my leg.”
Tony helped him up and into the back of the truck, laying him onto the bed, while Panzer whined next to him.
“You take care of him, Panzer.”
Then Tony drove Don to the emergency room and dropped him off, before returning to the condo to see the other Dawn.
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By the time Tony got back to the condo, he didn’t know what he’d find there. There was only one light on, a night light over the stove. He went to the refrigerator and reached for a beer. There was a note on the last India Pale Ale. It read: “I hope you’re up for a few more chapters.”
Tony laughed as he opened the bottle. Then he pulled out some more ice and set it against his jaw. The swelling had gone down, but he didn’t want to look at it, even though he knew it was only bruised, not broken.
When he turned around, Dawn Sanders was standing in the gloom of the living room. She was wearing one of his sleeve-less T-shirts and nothing else. She stepped closer and quickened her pace when she saw his face.
“What happened?” she said.
“Had a little accident.”
“That’s not what I heard,” she said. She took the ice from him and gently set it against a point he didn’t even know hurt. Almost instantly the pain started to seep away.
“What did you hear?”
“That you kicked the crap out of some people again. I say we should go into business. Did you give them my card?”
“Right after I told them to have a nice day.”
She laughed, jamming the ice into his bruise, which made him wince in pain.
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Tony quickly told her his version of what had happened, mentioning her brother would need a ride back to his place from the hospital.
“It’ll take them a while to cast his leg,” she said, leading him back toward the bedroom. “Let’s see if we can’t move some of your blood around in your body from the top to about mid-section.”
How in the hell could he ever complain about that?
It had been a long evening. Later, Tony and Dawn had gone to the hospital to pick up her brother. His leg would take a good six weeks to heal. But, crawling along the side of the slippery road, his broken leg dragging behind him, Don had made up his mind to hold onto his land. He had even thought about getting another horse. Maybe two.
In the morning, Dawn Sanders and Tony were sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. Tony checked his e-mail on his laptop. There was one message from a woman in Coos Bay who wanted to hire him to find her husband. He had been missing for a couple of days. He fired back a reply saying if he didn’t show up in a few days, she could give him a call. He gave her his cell phone number and hit send.
“I suppose you’ll be going soon,” Dawn said.
“This? I don’t think so. Husband just decides to vanish. Wife says they weren’t fighting. The most stable guy in the world.
Probably out drinking beer with Frank Peroni. Besides, I have my photos showing at the Cascade Gallery downtown in a couple of days. I can’t disappoint my public. I think I’ll stick around here for a while. I think we have a lot more to learn.”
With that she came over to him and straddled his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. She kissed him on the lips and then along the edge of his good jaw.
He knew it would be hard to leave Central Oregon.
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CHAPTER 34
It took a lot of explaining over the next few days to convince Sheriff Green that everything was as Tony said it was. The two Portland detectives said he had ambushed them and tried their worst to get out of the mess they were in. Green wasn’t buying that. Especially after Captain Degaul had called from Portland, saying the detectives had been under investigation by internal affairs.
The two Einstein twins couldn’t give each other up fast enough. Seems they were both poking around Mrs. Ellison’s place, which was not difficult to understand. Same with Larry Gibson. Mrs. Ellison had copped for a lawyer faster than a Columbian drug lord. She had some hotshot from Atlanta on speed dial. She could even get off.
Tony would end up testifying on Cliff Humphrey’s behalf. He had shot second, trying to protect Tony. That’s his story and he was sticking with it.
Now, standing in the Cascades Gallery in downtown Bend, Tony sipped a glass of merlot as he watched people go from photo to photo, their appreciation evident to him.
“They’re beautiful, Tony,” Dawn said, moving closer to him and wrapping her arm around his waist.
“I think they’re all your friends.” Tony said. “You know everyone in town?”
“Lived here all my life.”
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Tony’s cell phone rang. He considered turning it off, but instead he answered it.
“Tony Caruso,” he said into the phone.
“The famous private dick?”
“Hey, Uncle Bruno. What’s up?” Tony shrugged to Dawn.
“Your aunt is making canoli. Your favorite.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“All ya had to say was canoli, Uncle Bruno. I’ll come to Duluth.”
“That’s a good boy, Tony.”
“Just a second.” Tony held his hand over the pho
ne and turned to Dawn. “You ever been to Minnesota in the winter?”
“No,” Dawn said.
“How would you like a road trip? My aunt is the best Italian cook.”
“I’d love to.”
Tony returned to the phone. “Bruno. Is it all right if I bring a friend.”
“That crazy black beast of yours?”
“Two friends,” Tony said. “Panzer and a woman I met here in Bend.”
There was silence on the other end. Finally, Bruno said, “Damn right, Tony. Your aunt will be so glad to hear that.”
“Great. See ya in a few days.”
Tony clicked off the phone and put his arm around Dawn.
Together they watched the patrons of Bend admire the faces of the world.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34