Paper Bullets

by Reed, Annie

  “Lewis Richards,” Kyle said. “I busted him once for possession with intent.”

  “You arrested another cop?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know he was a cop at the time.”

  Kyle explained that the bust had happened when he was still a patrol cop. He and his partner had responded to a call about a woman being harassed in a local park. They’d arrived at the park to find the woman long gone and instead stumbled into a drug deal going down.

  Richards had been one of two adults in the park holding a reasonable amount of illegal drugs. The teenagers they’d been selling to faded away into the night, and the adults tried to flee on foot. Kyle and his partner had chased them down.

  “We got him back to the station, put him in an interrogation room by himself, and he told us he was a cop and to check with his captain. Long story short, his captain called our captain, and Richards walked after spending the night in a cell. The word came down that we weren’t to bust the guy again unless we got orders from higher up the food chain.”

  I stared at the white SUV. It didn’t look like the kind of car that belonged to an undercover cop. Then again, what I knew about undercover cops came from TV shows and movies.

  If Kyle had still been a patrol cop when he’d busted Richards, that would have been more than five years ago since I knew that’s how long Kyle had been a detective. A lot of things could change in five years.

  “Is he still working undercover?” I asked.

  I could almost hear Kyle’s shrug. “I saw him a few times on the street after that, but I haven’t heard a word about him in years, official or unofficial.”

  “Any way you can find out?”

  This time the momentary silence on the other end of the phone had a chill to it. “I thought all you wanted was a name, then you were off the case.”

  That had been before I knew someone who’d been involved in the drug scene was following my ex’s fiancé. This woman was a part of my daughter’s life. If she had anything to do with illegal drugs, anything at all that would make an undercover cop interested, I wanted to know.

  “What would you do if an undercover drug cop was following your ex’s new boyfriend?” I asked.

  “That’s different. I’m a cop. You’re—”

  “Not,” I finished. “I know. I also know my limits, but I can’t just walk away from this. Are you going to help me?”

  His sigh was audible over the speaker. “I’ll see what I can find out about Richards. Just promise me you’ll stay safe.”

  I knew he was worried about me. I’d given him good cause to be worried.

  Kyle had been one of the cops who’d broken into my home last December and found me, battered and with a dislocated shoulder, fending off a killer in my own bedroom with only a can of pepper spray. The last thing I wanted was a repeat performance of something like that.

  “I’ll stay safe,” I said.

  ***

  I stayed in my car for another fifteen minutes after Kyle’s witness arrived and he had to get off the phone. I spent that time warring with myself about what to do.

  Technically, Kyle was right. I only had to get the names of the man—or men—stalking Melody. I already had two names, plus I had a business card for Justin Sewell and more information than that on Lewis Richards.

  If it was Richards driving the SUV.

  Just because the car belonged to him didn’t mean he was driving it. Would an undercover cop loan his car to some druggie he was in a gang with? Or was he married, and this was his wife’s car? I’d never actually seen the person driving the car. All I really had to give Ryan was the license plate and the name of the registered owner of the car.

  What kind of an investigator would I be if I didn’t get him the information he really needed?

  Then there was the question of what to do about Melody.

  If it turned out it really was the cop following her, there had to be a reason. Would a cop, especially a cop who wanted to keep a low, undercover profile, do something as stupid as stalking?

  Okay, yeah, surveillance work was technically stalking, but I didn’t think buying flowers for the target of the surveillance was exactly in the How To Be A Good Undercover Cop handbook.

  So if the cop hadn’t sent her the flowers or the pictures, if he wasn’t the guy calling at all hours, that left Justin Sewell, Mr. Not So Subtle, as potential creepy stalker guy, and the cop as just a guy doing his job.

  Which, if he was a good undercover cop, meant he might have his own pictures of creepy stalker guy doing his thing.

  The first thing for me to do was figure out a way to find out if Lewis Richards had been driving the SUV. I hadn’t seen any movement in the SUV since I’d been here, but that didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t tell through the tinted windows if anyone was even in the SUV.

  I grabbed my purse and my sunglasses. I’d stashed my camera in my purse, but I didn’t need a camera for this part of the job.

  The SUV was parked a row over from my car in a space in between me and the entrance to the gym. I cut through the parked cars, angling through the lot so that I’d walk next to the passenger side of the SUV. It was a bright, sunny afternoon, and with the angle the SUV was parked, the sun shining on the driver’s side would show me a silhouette of anyone sitting inside the SUV, even if I couldn’t make out a face through the tinted windows.

  When I got close to the front of the SUV, I stopped and dug through my purse for my cell phone. Nobody had called me, but anyone in the SUV wouldn’t know that.

  I held my cell up to my ear and pretended to have a short conversation. The pretend conversation gave me an excuse to pause for a moment before walking by the side of the SUV.

  I needn’t have bothered with the charade. Unless they were stretched out flat on the floorboards, there was no one inside.

  Damn. Now what?

  I put my cell back in my purse. If anyone was watching, I’d look suspicious if I just turned around and went back to my car, and then sat inside without leaving.

  It looked like it was time for me to get closer to the woman whose watcher I was supposed to be watching. Maybe it would give me a chance to see what the hell she was up to.

  It was time for me to go to the gym.

  CHAPTER 8

  RIGHT TRACK FITNESS wasn’t like any gym I’d ever been in.

  Not that I’d been in a lot, but over the years I’d served a few subpoenas on bodybuilder types, and it was always easier to track them down at the gym. Those places had been little more than a huge room filled with exercise machines and weight benches surrounded by mirrored walls where sweaty guys focused on the reflections of their bulging muscles and strained expressions while chanting the kind of affirmations I wouldn’t want my daughter to hear.

  When I walked through the front doors of Melody’s gym, I thought I was in an upscale beauty salon and day spa.

  None of the workout areas were visible from the spacious foyer. A wall faced with river rock rose two stories behind a gently curving reception counter that would have dwarfed my living room. Decorator candles burned low in groupings of three arranged in tasteful spots along the gleaming black granite countertop. Lush green plants softened the hard-edged look of the counter and gave the room a forest glade feel. A fountain burbled off to one side, and New Age music played low in the background. Light came from globes hanging on long chains from the ceiling, but it was subdued lighting.

  Put a recliner in the middle of this room, give me a good book to read, and I’d be a happy camper.

  A woman who looked like she’d stepped out of a fashion magazine stood off to one side behind all that gleaming black granite. She smiled a professional smile when I walked in.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  I smiled back. “I’m not sure I have the right place,” I said. “But there’s a car in the parking lot with its lights on. If it belongs to one of your members, I wouldn’t want them to get done with their workout only to find a dead battery.�
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  The woman’s smile dimmed just a fraction. “Someone actually left their lights on?”

  I didn’t blame her for being skeptical. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but the headlights story was the best idea I could come up with. There was no way this woman would mistake me for someone who worked out at the gym, or even someone who’d want a day pass just to give the gym a try. I wasn’t out of shape exactly, but I got most of my exercise doing housework.

  “I know,” I said. “It seems silly to me, too, but maybe they were on the freeway and just forgot to turn them off when they got to town.”

  I-80 was only a couple of blocks away. It was feasible, right? Lots of people I knew drove with their headlights on whenever they got on the freeway, night or day.

  “Ah. You’re right,” the woman said. “I suppose I can have the instructors ask around. Did you get the license plate number?”

  I handed her the information for the white SUV I’d jotted down on a scrap of paper out in the parking lot. “Hope you find whoever it is,” I said.

  A door at the far side of the room opened about the same time I turned away from the front counter. Another fashion-model thin woman walked through, this one with a thin sheen of sweat on her face and a towel draped over one shoulder. She wore a black Lycra workout suit with hot pink accents that fit like a second skin and left pretty much nothing to the imagination.

  For a moment I thought Ms. Lycra was Melody and I figured I was busted, but then I realized I was hearing Melody’s voice through the open doorway.

  I glanced that way just in time to see her engaged in a rather intense conversation with a man in a white tank top and shoulder-length dirty-blond hair. I couldn’t see his face, but I caught enough of a look to know that the guy was no stranger to some sort of workout routine. His shoulder muscles weren’t exactly bulging, but he wasn’t a ninety-pound weakling either.

  I shouldn’t have lingered, but I’m curious by nature. Norton Greenburger says that’s what makes me such a good investigator. In another era, I might have been the neighborhood busybody. This particular investigation had taken an unexpected turn, and I wanted to find out as much as I could about Melody. So I stayed a moment too long, trying to listen in on what she and this man were talking about, and she spotted me.

  Crap.

  Well, the best defense is a good offense.

  “Hi!” I said, summoning up my best smile. “I didn’t realize you worked out here.”

  She gave an annoyed glance at the man, then put on a smile as fake as my own and followed Ms. Lycra into the foyer. The guy followed along, hanging back a few steps.

  “I work here,” she said. “Thinking about joining? I think we have a special right now for new members, don’t we, Stacy?”

  The fashion model I’d given the license plate number to shot Melody a surprised look, then recovered enough to smile at me. “We do,” she said. “But—”

  “I wasn’t thinking of joining,” I said. “I stopped off for gas and noticed someone had left their lights on in the parking lot.”

  Stacy held up my note. “She thought it might be one of our guests.”

  Melody gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me for a minute, but she took the note from Stacy. The note where I’d jotted the make, model, and color of the SUV along with the license plate.

  “Oh, look,” Melody said to the guy in the white tank top and the well-defined muscles. “Isn’t this your car?”

  Now that I had a good look at his face, I could see that Mr. Muscles was somewhere in his late thirties. He had a neat little beard the same color as his dirty-blond hair, and the edge of a tattoo peeked out from beneath the front of his tank top. He had more tribal tattoos wrapped around his upper arms.

  He might have been a handsome man at one time, but his face had a hard look, and it wasn’t just because he’d burned off all except maybe one percent of his body fat. I’d seen guys like him in every gym I’d ever been in, the guys who took body sculpture to a whole new level. His muscles might not be bulging, but he was just as serious as a Mr. Universe about keeping in shape. Could he possibly still be an undercover drug cop?

  Mr. Muscles looked at the note Melody still held, and then at me. His expression said he didn’t believe me either.

  “Yeah,” he said. “My car. Imagine that.”

  For a minute the three of us stood there not moving, then Mr. Muscles grumbled about needing his keys, and he disappeared through the door to the back.

  “Well, great!” I said to no one in particular. “I’m glad that all worked out.”

  Behind the desk, Stacy looked confused, like she knew something important had just happened, but she had no idea what. She shared a look with Ms. Lycra, who shrugged her shoulders.

  It was time for me to leave. I’d done enough damage. I didn’t have a name for the SUV’s driver, but at least I had a pretty good physical description. I could give that to Kyle, and he should be able to tell me whether Mr. Muscles was Lewis Richards.

  “Tell Ryan hello for me,” I said to Melody.

  She gave me a brittle smile in response. “One of many things I’ll be telling him.”

  I was sure of that.

  I beat feet out of the gym. I’d taken maybe half a dozen steps when I heard the door open behind me.

  “Want to tell me what that was all about?”

  Any semblance of a fake smile had left Melody’s face.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  “You’re not a very good liar.”

  Not something a private investigator wants to hear. I sighed. “Look, I’m here doing a job. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Sure, it doesn’t.” She had her arms folded across her ample chest. “Does Ryan have you checking up on me? Following me?”

  I could have pretended to be surprised that she’d even suspect Ryan would hire me to follow her, but genuine surprise a hard emotion to fake and she probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway. Time to go back on the offensive.

  “Why?” I asked. “Is there some reason he should hire a private detective to follow you around?” I crossed my own arms in front of my less than ample chest. “Are you keeping something from him?”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line. “None of your business,” she said from between clenched teeth.

  I’d hit a nerve, and that made me curious. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t my job to investigate her. Standing out in front of the gym arguing wouldn’t get me anywhere, and she was right. It wasn’t any of my business.

  “Look, if I upset you, I’m sorry.” I shrugged. “I’m on a job, that’s all.”

  I left her on the sidewalk in front of the gym and walked back to my car. I told myself I didn’t really feel her staring daggers into my back.

  Just to make the lie I’d told inside the gym look good, I got in line at the gas station.

  From where I sat waiting for the car in front of me to pull forward so I could get to a pump, I had a clear view of the front door of the gym.

  Melody had gone back inside, but Mr. Muscles came out carrying a gym bag in one hand. With the other, he held a cell phone up to one ear. I watched him scan the parking lot as he walked over to the white SUV.

  He stopped scanning when he saw my car.

  How did he know what I drove? My car was a nondescript silver sedan which I’d scrimped to finish paying for after the divorce was final. The shape and color were the second most common in Reno after the ever popular SUV.

  Melody might have told him, but I didn’t think that was likely. In fact, I wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen my car outside of the few times she’d been home when I’d dropped Samantha off for a weekend visit with Ryan.

  I wasn’t close enough to see the expression on Mr. Muscles’ face.

  I grabbed my camera from my purse and turned it on. Hell, if he was going to pose for me while he was staring at me, I might as well take advantage of the opportunity.

  I balanced t
he camera on my steering wheel and zoomed in so that his face filled the display on the back of the camera. I snapped off a couple of shots before I realized that he was no longer talking on his cell phone. He had it held up in front of him.

  He was taking my picture with the phone, and he wasn’t being any more subtle about it that Justin Sewell had been standing in front of the cafe taking pictures of Melody as she headed for her car.

  Only Mr. Muscles was doing something that Sewell hadn’t done.

  He was smiling.

  CHAPTER 9

  I COULDN’T REACH KYLE on his cell, and the desk clerk who answered the phone in the detective division told me that he wasn’t available. Either he was still meeting with his witness or he’d gone out on a call. I’d have to give him the details about Mr. Muscles later.

  I didn’t want to call Ryan until I had information from Kyle, but given my little argument with Melody in front of the gym, I didn’t want her to ambush him as soon as she could get him on the phone. Or, worse yet, pay an unannounced visit to his office and ambush him there.

  I hadn’t programmed Ryan’s office number into my phone’s auto dial. I’d told myself it was just one more snip of the ties that held us together. That was bull, of course. I knew the number by heart.

  I waited until I finished pumping the little bit of gas I actually didn’t need right then into my car. I drove out onto McCarran, found a McDonald’s a few blocks away, and pulled into the drive through for a large iced tea. While I waited, I called Ryan.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” I said. “Which do you want first?”

  Ryan sighed. “It’s been a bitch of a day. Give me the good news first.”

  “I’ve got two possible stalkers for you.”

  “Two?” Ryan asked.

  “Possibly. I’ll email you pictures when I get back to my office.”

  I gave him the information I had on Justin Sewell and the driver of the white SUV. I didn’t tell him yet that the driver might be an undercover cop. I wouldn’t pass that information along until I could confirm that fact with Kyle. For all I knew, Lewis Richards could have sold the SUV to someone else who hadn’t reregistered it yet.