Deadly Ruse

by E. Michael Helms

  “Yeah, Chief Tolliver says a rolling stone gathers no moss, whatever that means. There’s something that doesn’t make much sense though, Mac. About two hours ago FHP found Caitlin Medlin’s BMW just inside the woods on the west side of Highway 75 about ten miles south of the casino. It wasn’t locked and the keys were still in the ignition. The county’s towing it in.”

  That put the old brain cells into motion. “Maybe somebody stopped her car and killed her there, and then planted the body in the dunes.”

  “I thought about that, but there was a whole bunch of blood around the body. The coroner said she bled to death at the scene.”

  “Okay, what if they knocked her unconscious along the highway and then moved the body to the dunes and killed her there?”

  “I reckon that’s possible. I’ll ask the chief about it.”

  “You do that, J.D. Where are they holding Dakota?”

  “The county jail in Parkersville. Sheriff Pickron was the arresting officer.”

  That was strange. I knew the sheriff’s department had a couple of deputies patrolling the northern part of Palmetto County at all times since the casino opened. Why would Bo Pickron drive all the way out to Dobro to make the arrest? The sheriff had a touch of glory-hog in him, but this seemed a little over the top even for Bocephus. A question that had been bugging me for quite a while kept running through my mind, and I intended to get the answer ASAP.

  “Thanks, J.D. Keep me posted.”

  CHAPTER 27

  “What is it now, McClellan?” Sheriff Bo Pickron didn’t bother to get up from behind his desk, or extend a friendly hand, for that matter. He did motion to one of the chairs on either side of his messy desk. I pulled one toward the middle and took a seat.

  “You’re like a festering boil on my ass,” he said.

  Good analogy; I’m the boil, he’s the ass. “I heard you made an arrest at the casino this morning.”

  “From Sergeant J.D. Owens, I’d wager.”

  “Maybe.”

  Pickron’s two hundred and fifty pounds made the plush swivel chair groan as he rocked back and took a swig from a bottle of Diet Coke. He swallowed, and a smirk crawled across his bulldoggish mug. “And what business is that of yours?”

  “Dakota is J.D.’s cousin, but I guess you already know that. I’m a friend of hers.”

  “And that’s supposed to impress me... why?”

  “You know Dakota didn’t have a damn thing to do with killing Caitlin Medlin.”

  A wry grin replaced the smirk. “Dakota’s knife was found at the murder scene, and she and the Medlin girl have a history of bad blood between them. I talked to several employees at the casino who’ll swear to it. That’s plenty enough evidence for a murder charge.”

  “Did you bother to look into the fact that Miss Medlin’s car was found in the woods along the highway heading south from the casino? Or that Whit Coleman has been missing for over a week? Where is he? They were shacked up together, you know.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m aware of all that.”

  “Look, Sheriff, did you ever consider the possibility that somebody might’ve accosted the girl on the highway and knocked her senseless, then moved her to the dunes where they did the butcher job and left her to bleed out and die? Or are you too damn hardheaded to look past the fact that Dakota’s pocketknife was found at the scene? Where’s the blunt object? And why would she be so careless as to leave her knife near the body? Sounds like a plant job to me.”

  Pickron’s grin morphed into a frown. He sat up and rested his beefy forearms on the desk and pointed a finger at me. “That still doesn’t let the Owens girl off the hook. She could’ve pulled off exactly what you just said. From what I hear she’s a pretty tough character. And how many times do I have to tell you to keep your nose out of county business, McClellan? If you want to tell me how to do my job, I suggest you run for sheriff next election.”

  I felt like jerking the big SOB over the table and pounding the crap out of him, but sanity prevailed. “Maybe I’ll do just that.” There was no sense in beating my head against a brick wall any longer. I got up to leave, but then the thought my mind had been haggling over stopped me in my tracks. I turned and pointed a finger at him. “You look me straight in the eye and answer one question for me, Pickron. And I want you to swear on Maddie’s memory that it’ll be the truth.”

  Pickron looked flustered when I mentioned his late niece’s name, and then his face lost all expression. “I don’t owe you a damn thing, McClellan, remember that. But because you turned up Maddie’s killer, I’ll be straight with you.”

  “I appreciate that.” I locked eyes with his and tried to see through them into his soul, assuming he had one. “Man-to-man—is Dakota Owens working undercover with your department?”

  Pickron clenched his jaw and flushed a deep shade of red, and for a split-second I thought he was going to come out of that chair and pound me to a pulp. Then he remembered to breathe and relaxed a little. “Yes.”

  Dakota’s third-floor cell was at the far end of a corridor with several empty cells between her and the rest of the female prisoners being housed in the county slammer. Dakota was curled into the fetal position on one of the lower bunks with her face to the wall. She was in typical prison garb: loose-fitting orange shirt and pants and white ankle socks. The Adidas running shoes I’d seen her wearing before were under the bunk. The gruff, stocky woman jailer turned the key and slid the barred door open. “Sheriff says ya got ten minutes, startin’ now,” she grunted out, pointing at the watch strapped to her thick wrist. Miss Congeniality, in the flesh.

  The watch must’ve been digital. I couldn’t imagine her possessing the IQ necessary to figure out what Mickey’s pointing hands meant. I thanked Attila the Hunness as she slammed the door shut and locked it. What a class act. Bocephus should consider promoting her to his personal secretary to replace the twenty-something model manning the desk outside his office.

  There was a groan as Dakota slowly rolled over and sat up. She was bent at the waist and staring down at the concrete floor, both hands gripping the edge of the bunk for support. Her hair covered her face and looked like it could stand a good brushing. “What the hell are you doing here, McClellan? Rob a bank or something?”

  Her voice sounded different, more a forced mumble than her usual sharp and lively tongue. When Dakota slowly lifted her head to look at me I saw why. “Christ, looks like Caitlin Medlin put up one hell of a fight while you were killing her.” There was a stitched inch-and-a-half-long cut on top of a big eggplant lump above Dakota’s right eye. Her lower lip was split and also stitched. The left side of her jaw was bruised and swollen. Somebody had done a bang-up job of pounding the crap out of her, and I’d bet my next three retirement checks it wasn’t the late drug czaress.

  Dakota forced her battered lips into what I took for a smile. “Yeah, she’s one badass bitch all right.” She coughed and grabbed her rib cage. That was enough for me. I stepped to the bunk and took hold of the bottom hem of her shirt. She slapped my hand away. “Get your paws off me, McClellan. You already had your chance.”

  “Please, let me take a look,” I said in the kindest, most fatherly voice I could muster.

  Dakota winced as she flashed her Elvis snarl, and then sighed and let me lift the blouse up to just below her breasts. Her rib cage was heavily taped. I gently lowered the orange top to her lap. “Broken?”

  “Couple cracked is all.”

  I was pissed. “Who the hell did this?”

  “A doctor.”

  I couldn’t hold back a quick laugh. Dakota was one tough cookie. You could beat the crap out of her, but not her spirit or sense of humor. “Very funny. Who beat you?”

  Another snarl, followed by a shake of the head. “None of your friggin’ business.”

  I dropped to a knee so Dakota wouldn’t have to keep looking up at me. Before I could ask my next question, she said, “Jeez, McClellan, are you fixing to propose?”

  I laughed
again. Dakota did too and grabbed her ribs as payment. I reached out and gently put my fingertips under her chin until she was looking into my eyes. “Maybe, if I was fifteen years younger. Look, let’s drop the tough girl act, okay? I know you’re a deputy and that you’ve been working undercover.”

  She turned her face away. “That’s a real hoot. You always into the Scotch this early?”

  “I just came from Sheriff Pickron’s office. He told me.”

  Dakota kept her head turned for a minute. When she finally looked back and faced me, there was a trace of moisture in her eyes. “Well, I guess that makes us kindred spirits of a sort, doesn’t it, McClellan?”

  “How so?”

  “Last summer. Sheriff Pickron deputized you, and you worked undercover for him on Maddie Harper’s case.”

  “So, you know about that.”

  “Yeah, I was already with the department, part time until I finished my training. Pickron let me in on it because I was trying to get info on Brett’s customers.”

  “Then you also know he wound up firing me.”

  “Good thing. You’re too friggin’ hotheaded to be a cop.”

  My mind kick-started into motion. “Why did you come on to me the way you did?”

  Dakota gave that throaty growling sound I’d first heard outside The Green Parrot. “Don’t flatter yourself. It was all part of the job.”

  “You always go around trying to seduce people as part of your job?”

  She gave a half-hearted smile. “Well, you’re not all that hard to look at, McClellan. I figured a few perks while doing my duty wouldn’t hurt.”

  I grinned. “Thanks, I think.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So, the job at the casino was a cover for an investigation.”

  “You’re sharp as a scalpel, McClellan.”

  “What led you there?”

  Dakota ran her fingers along her swollen jaw like she was testing for loose teeth. “Remember the night I asked you to keep an eye out for J.D.?”

  I nodded.

  “J.D.’s a good cop, but he gets careless sometimes. I was at his house having supper one night and found some printouts he’d left out on the counter in an envelope that had your name on it. I recognized the guy you call Wes Harrison. I’d seen him around the pool a couple of times. Do the math.”

  “But why were you working at the casino in the first place?” Heavy clomping echoed from the corridor, growing louder with each step. My ten minutes had flown by way too fast, especially since my watch showed I had two left. But who’s counting? “Attila’s coming.”

  “Somebody working at the resort made an anonymous call to the department a while back, something about drugs being pushed.”

  Dillon flashed through my mind.

  “Sheriff Pickron needed somebody there who would fit in. I had the background, so I was it.”

  Just then the lock clinked. The door slid open, and Attila growled, “Time’s up.”

  I leaned in close and whispered, “Who beat you?”

  Dakota shook her head. “Later. Be careful, they’re on to you.”

  As soon as I left Dakota’s cell I headed straight for Pickron’s office. The good sheriff wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me again so soon, but when I left after a heated twenty-minute visit I had most of the answers I was after.

  Returning home around midnight from her shift at the casino, Dakota had been jumped from behind outside her apartment. The assailants (she thought there were two) quickly pulled a laundry bag or something similar over her head and shoulders and proceeded to pummel the shit out of her. Being a black belt in karate probably saved her life. She fought back and got off a few lucky kicks and was finally able to work free of the hood. Fortunately, just before losing consciousness she managed to draw the Glock from its hidden holster tucked in her waistband, and the assailants beat feet. She passed out and woke up a little before dawn and called the sheriff’s department for help. A deputy patrolling the unincorporated area outside of St. George quickly arrived on the scene, with the sheriff himself not far behind.

  They transported Dakota to the emergency room at Parkersville Memorial. After a thorough examination and x-rays, a doctor stitched her cuts and wrapped her ribs. She was battered and bruised but otherwise in no danger physically.

  After being treated at the hospital, Dakota told the sheriff that someone had opened the combination lock on her locker at the casino during her shift. When she opened her purse to get her car keys, she noticed the purse had been messed with. Her pocketknife, which she always placed next to her wallet as an alarm, was missing. It didn’t take an Einstein to figure out somebody had used the knife to set her up for the murder.

  If Dakota had been found beaten to death and the murder of Caitlin Medlin was pinned on her, the authorities might’ve figured it was a revenge killing. Dakota, with her tough-girl reputation and history of run-ins with Medlin, would’ve taken the heat. The cops would’ve been looking for someone in Medlin’s circle of friends who figured an eye for an eye. Her live-in boyfriend—the missing Whit Coleman—in particular.

  Dakota agreed to gut it out and show up for her nine o’clock shift wearing sunglasses and a hat and makeup to hide her face as much as possible. Pickron was waiting when she arrived at the casino and made a big show of arresting her just outside the casino’s entrance. Dakota was handcuffed, read her rights, and placed in the back of a deputy’s car. She was then transported to the county jail where she was being held in protective custody safely away from the other inmates or another try on her life.

  Meanwhile, Sheriff Pickron interviewed several employees of the Palmetto Royale, asking all the right questions and conveniently letting it slip more than once that Dakota had been charged with the murder of Caitlin Medlin.

  Driving back to the Palmetto Royale, Dakota’s whispered warning kept running through my mind: “Be careful, they’re on to you.” Just who the hell were the “they” Dakota meant? The goons who hammered her? Alice Spence and Wes Harrison, or David Garrett? The drug pushers? I scratched the latter off my list, since somebody had already snuffed out Ms. Medlin, and most likely Whit Coleman, too. The others involved in Caitlin’s enterprise were most likely running scared or hiding.

  I was tired and beginning to lose focus on the case, and mentally tried to tie some loose ends together as I turned onto Highway 75 and headed north. I had to assume that Wes Harrison was alive and well and somehow hooked up with Alice Spence. There was fairly hard evidence attesting to that. Harrison had been one of the principals fencing the illegal diamonds that Rachel Todd smuggled into the country, and he and Alice had a history.

  Robert Ramey was long dead, I was convinced of that. And there was no real evidence I’d uncovered that showed Rachel Todd or Travis Hurt, aka Eric Kohler, were still in the picture. Sacred Word Missions, with Dr. Lawrence Garrett designated as trustee, had inherited Rachel’s money after her supposed death in the jungles of South America. Garrett’s nephew David was a current partner in the ownership of the casino and resort. What could be clearer? I needed Watson, IBM’s supercomputer Jeopardy champion, to unscramble this mess.

  Then again, maybe not. Maybe I was trying to overcomplicate things with too many parameters. Maybe it was time to trim away all the fat and get down to the lean. Somebody had rigged Kate’s car to crash, and somebody had tried to kill me in a drive-by shooting. None of this had begun until the night Kate and I exited O’Malley’s Theater after watching Dead Man Walking. There, Kate had seen Wes Harrison, a ghost from her past, and I had bumped headlong into the woman with him, a woman with a knockout body and reddish hair, like Alice Spence. Throw in Alice’s look of surprise when I showed up at her Buckhead mansion that day, and the theory of Alice being Harrison’s date at O’Malley’s that night wasn’t such a long shot at all.

  The mysterious Mr. Weston had been seen with Ms. Spence at the Palmetto Royale by an eyewitness, namely Dillon. Dakota had also seen the two there, though not together.
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  That had to be it. All roads led to “they” being none other than Wes Harrison and Alice Spence. For the moment, anyway, Watson could relax.

  CHAPTER 28

  Dakota’s warning gave me reservations about returning to the Palmetto Royale, but I couldn’t leave my stuff there. I parked the rental and made sure my revolver was tucked safely in the back of my Dockers as I headed back to my room. There was no one in the hallway. I drew the .357 and slid the key card through the slot, then threw the door open in case someone was hiding behind it. It bounced off the stop, and I caught it with my free hand as it came back at me.

  I eased the door shut, turned the deadbolt to cover my back, and did a quick but thorough search of my room, including the outside balcony. It reminded me of clearing buildings in Iraq, only this place was much swankier and I had no backup. When I knew all was clear, the adrenaline rush slowed and I breathed easier. For a moment I considered packing and leaving, but what the hell, the room was paid for, so I figured I might as well stay the night.

  It was only a few minutes past three, but I was on vacation, so I grabbed a beer from a six-pack I had stored in the fridge. I stepped out to the balcony with the Smith & Wesson tucked inside my waistband, just in case. There was an older couple sitting out a few balconies away to my left, and I returned their friendly wave. The pool area was crowded, and from what I could see the tiki bar was doing a brisk business on this sunny Saturday afternoon. I wondered if Dillon was on duty. For some reason I missed her company.

  Frank says any PI worth his salt would never be caught without having a good pair of binoculars handy, and when I saw a woman with reddish-blonde hair wearing a tight green dress saunter past the tiki bar and into the mall, I felt like kicking myself in the butt. I was pretty damn sure it was Alice Spence, and she’d been accompanied by a big man with thick whitish hair. David Garrett, maybe, but I wasn’t sure. I was tossing around the idea of following them when my cell phone rang. I hurried inside to answer it so the neighbors wouldn’t hear.