Deadly Ruse

by E. Michael Helms

  She arched an eyebrow. “Is there a double entendre somewhere in there, McClellan?”

  There’s the old saying that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. I wasn’t certain we were dealing with an actual crime or criminal, but Frank had said our next step was to find Wes Harrison. If Harrison had been to O’Malley’s once, who’s to say he might not frequent the place now and then? What the hell, it was worth a shot.

  Dakota lived in a nice above-garage apartment on City Canal Place, named for the waterway that runs behind Gillman’s Marina and provides access to St. George Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It’s one of the ritzier neighborhoods in town, shared by a hundred or so full-time residents and a number of out-of-state part-timers. Most of the people living there have private docking on the canal, making boating and fishing about as convenient as you could ask for. Dakota’s landlord, a physician whose practice and main residence was in Montgomery, Alabama, had offered her barebones monthly rent for doubling as house and property watcher.

  Dakota was waiting in a lawn chair at the foot of her apartment’s outside stairs when I drove up at seven-thirty. She waved and hurried to the truck and climbed in before I could act the gentleman by getting out and opening the door for her.

  I was pleased to see Dakota wore no visible piercings other than earrings. She’d also dressed more conservatively than her usual garb, although the knee-length yellow and white sundress showed enough cleavage to grab any red-blooded male’s attention. But I chalked that up to nature’s blessings, not Dakota’s intent to flaunt her figure. “You look very nice.”

  She dropped the white purse that matched her sandals on the console between us and grabbed the seat belt. I glanced at the purse, wondering if the Glock was in there with the makeup and whatever else women carry in their purses.

  The seat belt clicked into place. “Thanks, McClellan, you look pretty hot yourself,” she said as she opened her purse.

  “No smoking in the truck, please.”

  Dakota glared at me with narrowed eyes and pulled out a tube of lip gloss. “Who said anything about smoking?”

  During the drive to Parkersville I tried to make small talk, but Dakota seemed more interested in the radio than talking. She was evasive when I asked about her studies and where she worked part-time while attending school. After a while she quit fiddling with the search button and glanced at me. “I make you nervous, don’t I?”

  “No. Well, maybe a little. I guess it’s the age thing. I don’t want people thinking I’m a cradle robber.”

  She snickered. “Jeez, you need to chill, McClellan. What the crap do you care what other people think?”

  Dakota had a point. She was legal and we were both single. Still, the fact that my daughter Megan was only a few months younger than my “date” still bothered me. “You’re right, I shouldn’t. But let’s just keep things platonic between us, okay?”

  She sighed and shook her head like I was pathetic. “Whatever.”

  Dakota seemed to enjoy the movie, although she thought the ending—where Jennifer, the beautiful witch, seals her father in a liquor bottle so he can’t meddle with her marriage to a human mortal—was a little on the hokey side. While Dakota visited the ladies’ room I waited in the lobby and people-watched as the audience filed out. All night I’d kept my eyes peeled for any sign of Wes Harrison or his redheaded companion, but no such luck despite the big Friday evening crowd.

  I held the door open for Dakota and an older couple as we were leaving the theater. As Dakota stepped outside and passed beneath the neon marquee, something caught my eye. I hurried down the sidewalk and reached for her arm.

  Dakota stopped, glanced at my hand on her forearm, and grinned. “Wow, McClellan, you’re actually touching me, and in public no less.”

  “Never mind that.” I motioned toward O’Malley’s entrance. “Do me a favor. Walk back under the marquee and stand there a minute.”

  Dakota stared at me like I had a few loose screws, but she turned and headed back. “Stop,” I said when she’d passed under the glow of the neon lights again. “Now, take a couple of steps back this way.”

  Dakota blew out a breath and rolled her eyes as she took exaggerated baby steps toward me.

  “Whoa, stay right there.”

  She huffed again, louder this time. “I’m not your friggin’ Irish setter, McClellan.”

  Ouch. That little remark brought on a few stares from people still filing out or milling around the theater. But Dakota was right. I’d been ordering her around like I was still a first sergeant in the Marines; I figured I’d better mend my ways, and quick. “I know, and I’m sorry. Okay, would you turn around real slow, pretty please?”

  She was now directly beneath the glow of the big O’Malley’s neon script that alternately flashed deep orange, white, and green. With every sequence of orange, Dakota’s dyed strawberry-blonde hair turned reddish—the same shade as the woman I’d bumped into the night Kate saw Wes Harrison.

  CHAPTER 16

  All that weekend the scene kept looping through my mind like an annoying video trailer that wouldn’t go away: Kate’s resurrected Wes Harrison coming into my peripheral vision. At the last second I sidestepped to avoid him and bumped headlong into a redhead with a knockout figure clutching his arm. Could it possibly have been Alice Spence outside O’Malley’s Theater that night?

  I wracked my brain trying again to remember even a glimpse of a face, but I struck out. I tried to recall how tall the woman was. Her breasts had pressed against my ribcage, putting us close enough to enjoy a great slow dance; that much I was sure of. Unless she’d been wearing some serious high heels, that would put her in the neighborhood of Alice’s height.

  Dakota wasn’t among my suspects, of course, but her height and figure were a good match to compare with Alice’s. Rachel Todd had natural red hair, but she was shorter and more petite than Alice, at least she had been when the beach photo of her posing with Kate, Wes, and Eric was taken. There was always the possibility of high heels and a boob job. If Harrison had been transformed under some whiz surgeon’s knife, why not Rachel? Or Eric Kohler, aka Travis Hurt, too?

  I remembered how startled Alice looked when she answered the door at her aunt’s house. She’d even taken a step back from me. Now, the more I thought about it, the flimsier her excuse about thinking I was the FedEx man became. She knew I was supposed to be there in a few minutes. Had she suddenly recognized me as the guy she’d run into under the marquee at O’Malley’s and failed to hide her surprise?

  And then there was the fact that she had admitted dating Wes Harrison during her frequent visits to the coast before the boating incident. Alice had also been quick to doubt Kate’s word that she’d seen Harrison in O’Malley’s lobby.

  I’d hated algebra in high school. It ranked right up there with chemistry as my all-time least-favorite subjects. But I did recall one thing I learned during the endless, boring hours I’d spent in algebra class: two negatives equal a positive.

  As much as I hated the math, things were starting to add up.

  Tuesday afternoon around four I was leaving Walmart in Parkersville, where I’d picked up a couple of boxes of .357 ammo and a few grocery items. As I turned onto the outside lane a black car sped past and whipped into my lane, nearly clipping my front fender.

  Damn idiot, probably yakking or texting on the phone, I thought, just as I noticed the decal centered near the bottom of the back window: Chipola College Indians, with a brave wearing a bandana and war paint snarling back at me. It was the BMW I’d seen parked at the beach house on 31st Street. Dakota attended Chipola part-time. I figured there must be a connection there somewhere.

  I sped up and closed the gap enough to see the reflection of a young woman in the BMW’s side-view mirror; the tinted windows kept me from seeing much else besides her shoulder-length hair. I decided to back off and follow for a while, even though the Beamer was heading west and away from St. George. What the hell, none of my grocerie
s were perishable and I had nothing on my plate for the rest of the day. With any luck I might just learn a thing or two that might be of interest to J.D.

  Just past the city-limit sign the BMW turned right onto Highway 75, one of several routes running north from the Panhandle coast to the Alabama and Georgia state lines. Highway 75 passed through the small crossroads town of Dobro, located in the northwestern corner of Palmetto County. For years it had been one of the most heavily traveled north-south roads in the area due to the greyhound dog track built in Dobro in the mid-1950s.

  Like Frank said, the Florida Panhandle is Bible Belt country, and I’d heard from Jerry and Donna Meadows that a sizeable number of the county’s residents had nearly rioted when the track was built. I could believe it, because last year, six decades after the track opened, the Palmetto Royale Casino & Resort was added to the complex. Plans were also in the works to four-lane the highway from the Georgia line to Dobro and then on to the coast. For months the controversial Royale topped the local news, and there was no end to the bitching and moaning from the Bible-thumping crowd.

  “Gambling is a sin against God, and Palmetto County will certainly feel His mighty wrath because of its evil ways!” I still remembered that proclamation from one of the holier-than-thou local reverends quoted on the front page of the Parkersville Independent one morning. Never mind that the casino/resort produced a couple hundred much-needed jobs and was projected to add hundreds of thousands in tax revenue per year to the county coffers during a struggling economy.

  My hackles started to rise thinking how some of those same hypocrite preachers probably held weekly bingo games in their churches. But my real beef with the Bible crowd dated back to Iraq. Since Fallujah I’d lost my taste for God and anyone who spouted off about him. Too many of my Marines bled and died in that cesspool of a city, and despite what the chaplains claimed, the Almighty was nowhere to be found. I was damned sick of hearing all the religious, flag-waving chicken hawks cheering our military on to victory while they sat at home on their sorry fat asses.

  The flashing of the BMW’s turn signal snapped me out of my road hypnosis. The car made a right into a corner convenience store parking lot. I passed by the store and turned right onto the adjacent road, continued on for another block or so, and pulled over onto the shoulder. I’d have to depend on my rearview or side-view mirrors to spot the Beamer when it left the store.

  Less than five minutes passed before I caught sight of the black car crossing the intersection heading north. I checked traffic, hung a U-turn and then a right back onto Highway 75. A red Ford Taurus had crossed before I made my turn and was now between the BMW and my pickup. That was fine with me. I could still easily follow the target car while the Taurus provided cover. Another PI tip I’d read about in Frank’s books.

  There were two men sitting in the front of the Ford, and for whatever reason the driver had pulled dangerously close to the back bumper of the BMW. Probably a couple of young horny toads trying to flirt with the girl, I figured. A few miles up the road a slender hand and bare forearm rose out of the driver’s side window of the Beamer. Something small and white went flying up and back, sparked off the Taurus, and scurried erratically in the road ahead. I slowed and straddled a half-smoked cigarette with a white filter.

  When I glanced up, the Taurus had pulled alongside the BMW, and from the wild gesturing going on inside both vehicles I figured the occupants weren’t have a social chat. An oncoming semi was closing fast. The Taurus driver laid on the horn and sped ahead as the slender hand appeared from the Beamer’s window again and flipped him off. The girl had attitude, that much was certain. Not much common sense, but mucho moxie.

  Since leaving Parkersville, billboards enticing visitors to the Dobro Greyhound Race Track and the new Palmetto Royale Casino & Resort dotted the roadside about every mile. Muzzled dogs chasing an ever-elusive rabbit; young ladies sporting tuxes dealing poker and blackjack; one-arm bandits flashing triple cherries, discount overnight packages, and free complimentary drinks—what wasn’t to like? There was even a supervised Magic Playland available twenty-four/seven for the kiddies while parents with dollar signs in their eyes hit the jackpot or gambled away their future. Now, only a couple of miles from the junction of Highway 75 and the east-west Highway 22, the billboards came every quarter mile, announcing that fun, games, relaxation, and entertainment were just ahead.

  I’d slowed down a little when the Taurus passed the BMW and let another car pass and run cover for me. At the intersection of 75 and 22 the Beamer turned left, and the cover car continued north toward the racetrack entrance just ahead. The light turned red before I could make my turn. I pulled forward enough to watch the BMW travel another eighth-mile or so, signal a right turn, and then disappear behind tall palm trees standing like an oasis in the midst of a forest of native pines. Welcome to the Palmetto Royale Casino & Resort.

  I cruised around the parking lot a couple of times but didn’t find the black BMW. There was a guard shack and gate at the head of a road leading to the resort area, but I wasn’t in the mood to try to bullshit my way past security. I decided to give up on finding the Beamer and snoop around the casino for a while.

  Inside, the Royale was pretty much like all the other casinos I’d seen, meaning the few I’d visited during a couple of weekend trips to Vegas while stationed at Camp Pendleton during my Corps career. Think bright, gaudy, posh, and you’ve got it nailed. Flashing lights, plenty of glass and mirrors, the clicking of dozens of slot machines, and a steady chorus of voices rising and falling at the tables along with the gamblers’ luck.

  I stopped by a cashier’s window, shelled out ten bucks for a roll of quarters, and headed for the slots. A young brunette decked out in black shorts and a white Hooter’s-style T-shirt with a royal flush spread across the front strutted over and took my complimentary “Welcome to the Royale!” drink order. I fed a machine a quarter and punched the spin button while I watched her head for the bar. Palmetto Royale Casino & Resort was spelled out in an arch across the upper back in red letters shadowed with gold, with The hottest game in town! written in fancy cursive below. My mind spun like the symbols in the slot’s window, and then I remembered the T-shirt draped over the lawn chair at the 31st Street beach house.

  One of the residents of the house Dakota wanted J.D. to keep an eye on probably worked here, most likely Beamer girl. But this was county territory, out of J.D.’s jurisdiction. Something must be going on at the house that wasn’t on the up-and-up, but how would Dakota know about—

  I stopped in mid-thought as I glanced across the room at a blackjack table and noticed the dealer, an attractive young woman with reddish-blonde hair. She was wearing a fancy ruffled white blouse, tight black pants complete with cummerbund and suspenders, and a bow tie. I blinked and looked again. I’m pretty damn sure my mouth fell open when I saw for certain it was Dakota.

  So this was the mysterious part-time job she was so hesitant to talk about. Without waiting for my complimentary drink I scooped up my quarters and headed Dakota’s way. I was still several yards away but close enough to hear her chatting and laughing with the few patrons sitting around her table when she spotted me. Her brow furrowed and her lips pressed together as she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

  I returned a slight nod and walked on by toward another row of slot machines lined against the wall about thirty feet behind Dakota’s table. Dakota’s reaction and my gut convinced me that this wasn’t the time or place for a casual social visit, but I was damned near as curious as the proverbial cat.

  I’d spent a few fruitless minutes feeding quarters to my current one-armed thief and scoping out the room for any sign of familiar faces or busty redheads when I heard a voice call out, “There you are!”

  I turned at the sound of the voice to see the cute brunette approaching, carrying a round tray filled with various cocktails and glasses of beer. She set the tray on the stool next to my machine and lifted a tumbler from the assortment
. “Dewar’s on the rocks,” she said, smiling as she carefully placed my drink and a Palmetto Royale coaster on a small table beside my bandit. “Are we having any luck?”

  “Yeah, all bad so far,” I said as I grabbed my wallet and handed her an Honest Abe for my “free” drink, which just about evened the score.

  She smiled and thanked me and slipped the bill in her shorts pocket. “You just keep on trying, honey, ’cause you look like a winner to me.” She patted my arm. “By the way, my name’s Brianna.” She pointed to a name tag pinned above the 10 of Hearts. Wonder how I’d missed that before? “You just holler if you need anything, anything at all.” Then she winked, picked up the tray, and sauntered off.

  Anything? Okay, Brianna, I’ve got a question for you. Just who the hell is Dakota? The ragamuffin, trash-talking beach brawler I first laid eyes on outside The Green Parrot; the sweet-talking tuxedoed charmer dealing cards at the blackjack table; or somebody else altogether?

  I sipped the Scotch, remembering one of my parents’ favorite TV programs—To Tell the Truth—that they used to watch religiously as a young married couple. I’d seen a few grainy black-and-white reruns from the 1950s and ’60s game show myself when I was a kid.

  As host Bud Collyer would say when the celebrity panelists had finished grilling the three contestants, and the audience was on the edge of their seats with anticipation, “Will the real Dakota Blaire Owens please stand up?”

  CHAPTER 17

  On the drive home my mind was in a flurry. A month and a half had passed since Kate claimed she saw Wes Harrison in the lobby at O’Malley’s. I’d learned a lot about the principals involved in the so-called boating disaster, but I was no closer to proving Wes Harrison was still among the living, or that he had any real motive to have staged the “accident,” either by himself or with the phony Eric Kohler. I didn’t think for a minute that Robert Ramey was in on any scheme. If my theory was correct, Ramey was the innocent victim here. He’d suspected that someone in his employ was dealing conflict diamonds and contacted the authorities with whatever suspicions or info he had. Somehow Harrison and Hurt got wind of it and made sure Ramey paid the ultimate price to cover their asses.