Four Ways To Midnight (An Anthony Carrick Short Story Collection Book 1)

by Jason Blacker

  "He was proud of that. Prouder than winning the car really. He won that in a celebrity tournament at the final table against Larry Baines. Larry was very upset about it."

  "Where you there?"

  "No, but Marsden told me about it. He thought that Larry was going to punch him in the face afterwards. But you have to understand that Marsden wasn't the most gracious loser, or winner for that matter."

  "That's what we hear. Do you know of anyone who might have wanted him killed?"

  "Not really, though like I said, Larry Baines was quite upset but I suppose he could have just bought the ring back from Marsden, though that's probably unlikely. I don't think Marsden would have parted with it for all the gold at Fort Knox."

  "Anyone else you can think of?"

  "No, I'm afraid not, Captain. Sadly, Marsden and I had started to drift apart, especially a few months ago. Something happened and he just got more withdrawn and angry. We started getting hang up phone calls. Eventually he told me just to stop answering the phone. He thought they were probably just telemarketers but we never had that sort of thing before. But I didn't press him, it would have just made him madder. Then just this week I received notice from the management company that we're three months behind in rent and if we don't pay up in full by the end of the month we'll be evicted."

  Michelle teared up again and fought it back. She dabbed at her eyes and crumpled up the tissue in her lap when she was done. She pinched her lips together to stem the flow. I started squirming inside. The poor woman was about to become destitute and homeless and there wasn't a thing I could do. I was barely making rent myself.

  "And you don't know exactly what happened to him a few months ago that changed his behavior for the worse?"

  "No, I'm sorry. Marsden and I haven't really been communicating very well for a while. I was fearful that he was getting into trouble with his gambling habit. Do you think that might have happened?"

  "I can't say for certain, Michelle. That's certainly one option that we're looking into. Though interestingly nothing was stolen from your husband."

  "I've just had a thought," I said, blurting it out.

  They both looked at me with surprise as if they'd forgotten I was in the same room as them.

  "This isn't quite related to the murder, but I'd hate to see Michelle lose her home."

  Roberts nodded at me.

  "I was thinking. She'd get her husband's property once the case has been solved right?"

  Roberts nodded again.

  "That Larry Baines' ring has got to be worth at least fifty grand. If Larry turns out not to be the murderer, would you be willing to sell it back to him?"

  I looked at Michelle. She nodded and smiled more confidently.

  "That way everyone wins. Larry gets his ring back and Michelle gets to keep her home," I said. "Lawrence Taylor's ring sold at auction for almost a quarter of a mill. If Larry gets his ring back for fifty, he's made a deal."

  "And what if he doesn't want to pay that much?" asked Roberts.

  "Then you put it up for auction. If Taylor's can go for almost that much, I'm sure Baines' could fetch at least a hundred grand."

  Roberts looked at Michelle and she smiled at him.

  "I'd be happy to let him have it back for fifty thousand," she said, and for the first time that day I saw her smile genuinely.

  "Yes," said Roberts, "that's all well and good. But even if we get a quick conviction on this case, it'll be several months before the property is eligible to be released."

  "I've thought of that too. Michelle and Larry sign an agreement. Larry pays her now and she signs over the rights of release for the ring to him. Then LAPD releases the ring to Larry when the time comes."

  "I suppose that would work," said Roberts. "In the meantime, can we get back to solving the case?"

  I nodded and picked up a third cookie. I was feeling good about the progress of things now that I didn't have to worry about Michelle. Roberts looked at Michelle for a moment before he spoke.

  "I'm afraid I have to ask you a delicate question," he said. He paused further.

  "Do you think your husband might have been having an affair?"

  Michelle didn't flinch. She shrugged her shoulders.

  "I wouldn't be surprised. We hadn't been intimate for quite some time. But if he was he was being discreet. Did you find evidence to suggest it?"

  "Yes, we have," said Roberts emboldened by Michelle's lack of shyness. "It appears he might have been carrying on with one of the female staff at Rustler Casino."

  Michelle nodded and looked past Roberts and out across the street.

  "He wasn't the man I had fallen in love with twenty-five years ago," she said absentmindedly.

  All In: Chapter Six

  I was standing outside the Hartleys' apartment complex talking with Roberts. The sun was blistering sweat along my hairline and my shirt felt slightly sticky against my back.

  "I think I'm starting to get a feel for this," I offered Roberts.

  "How's that?"

  "I think Hartley was in to some loan shark for a chunk of change and that got him killed."

  Roberts shook his head.

  "That makes no sense to me," he said. "Why kill the guy if he owes you money, and then you don't even take what he has on him."

  I shrugged. Sometimes murder didn't need to be neat and tidy. I could think of a bunch of reasons why something like that might go south. None of which I wanted to share with Roberts. His phone rang as we stood there loitering. He hung up after just a few exchanges.

  "Baines is coming down the station, and they've picked up the Russian."

  "Your guys are worth their salt," I said.

  I followed Roberts back to the administration building. We parked outside and walked in. Up in homicide Roberts led me to an interview room. A large and reasonably well-kept Larry Baines was sitting with his lawyer waiting for us. We sat down opposite them.

  "Thank you for coming in Mr. Baines," said Roberts.

  Baines rubbed his right finger where his Super Bowl ring used to be. He smiled at us.

  "Always happy to help the LAPD."

  "I'm just going to get down to the facts," said Roberts. "I don't want to waste any more of your time than needed."

  "I appreciate that."

  "It's about Marsden Hartley," said Roberts.

  "What does that idiot want now?" asked Baines.

  Baines' lawyer laid his hand on his client's forearm, and gave him a look.

  "He was murdered."

  "Oh, I see," said Baines. "Was my ring taken?"

  "Tell me about that," said Roberts. "How did your ring end up on Hartley's finger."

  "He won it at a tournament. I got carried away, and instead of walking away I sold it to him for twenty five grand so I could get back in the game."

  "I didn't know you could get buy ins that late in a tournament," I said.

  Baines looked at his lawyer and his lawyer nodded at him.

  "It wasn't that kind of tournament. More like off the books."

  "What were you doing last night at between eleven and one in the morning?" asked Roberts.

  "I was home with my wife."

  Not the best alibi that I'd heard in my career, but it was better than nothing. And somehow he didn't strike me as a murderer.

  "So when I can get my ring back?" he asked.

  "Well, that's the problem," I said. "It's no longer your ring, you sold it. The rightful owner is now Mrs. Hartley. But she's in a spot and will sell it back to you."

  "I'll give her twenty five for it," he said.

  Baines was relaxed in the interview room. If he had killed Hartley he was most certainly a cool psychopath. But I didn't like him for it.

  "You're obviously not up on current commodity spot prices. I reckon a ring like yours could probably fetch close to a quarter mill. Just like Taylor's did recently."

  Baines was a poker player but his poker face was starting to slip.

  "I'm not gonna pa
y that kind of money to get my ring back. I'll give her fifty."

  He didn't take me for a haggler but I was feeling ornery. The edges of my headache were scratching at the outside of my skull.

  "I think a hundred would be a steal."

  "I didn't think I'd be getting robbed by LAPD homicide detectives."

  "I'm not with the LAPD," I said.

  "Fine, my last offer is seventy five."

  "Sold," I said. "But here's the thing. You pay Mrs. Hartley now and you get the ring back when this whole case is wound its way through court. Your lawyer can write up the agreement for Mrs. Hartley to sign."

  Baines looked at his lawyer who shrugged with his palms up.

  "Fine," he said.

  "I'm going to ask you directly if you killed Marsden Hartely, Mr. Baines," said Roberts.

  "No I didn't. I was with my wife when, I'm assuming, he was killed."

  "You know how this works," said Roberts, "I have to ask. We've heard from a witness that you got pretty upset when Hartley got to keep your ring."

  Baines looked at his lawyer again, and the puppet nodded his head.

  "I told him he'd better let me win my ring back, but we've never had the chance. He kept stalling on a rematch. I think he wanted to keep it."

  "So now that he's dead, that works out well for you," said Roberts.

  "Not really, it's cost me fifty grand to get it back. If I'd have killed him I'd have taken the ring off his finger."

  "I think we're done here, gentleman," said the lawyer in his banker's pin striped suit. "Unless you're going to arrest my client, we'll be leaving."

  The two of them got up and walked out of the room.

  "Thanks for coming in, Mr. Baines," said Roberts. Baines looked back at him and nodded. Then they disappeared through the door.

  "I don't think he did it," said Roberts.

  "I think you're a genius," I said to him, grinning.

  "Captain," said Detective Gray, coming up to us. "Alihan Aslakhanov is ready for an interview."

  Roberts nodded and we followed Gray down the hall to another interview room. We walked in and sat down. Aslakhanov was seated across from us. He didn't look happy, but that just might have been his beaten up face and sideways nose. Roberts opened up a folder that Gray had given him and scanned it quickly. He took a photo out of the folder. It was of Hartley before he was dead. Probably taken from the DMV. He pushed it towards Aslakhanov.

  "You know this man?" asked Roberts.

  Aslakhanov looked at it briefly and shook his head. His arms were crossed in front of himself.

  "Don't start off lying, because that's a quick trip to cells and a murder charge."

  Aslakhanov looked up at us a little more carefully now.

  "You're saying he's dead?" he asked. His accent was Russian but he enunciated well.

  "That's exactly what I'm saying. Do you want to come clean?"

  "Alright, alright," said Aslakhanov, "I know him, we played poker last night."

  Roberts nodded.

  "That's better. It says here," said Roberts, looking down at the folder in front of him, "that you boxed for the Russian army."

  Aslakhanov laughed out loud. I didn't follow what was so funny.

  "You Americans," he said. "You have no idea how the world works."

  "Then why don't you enlighten us."

  "I boxed in the Chechen army, and fought against the Russians."

  "However interesting that might be," said Roberts, "I'm not all that interested. You came here on a Russian passport in ninety-nine, and got citizenship the next year. That's the summary. But what I'm really interested in is why you killed this man here."

  Roberts pushed his index finger into Hartley's forehead where the bullet had gone.

  "I didn't kill him," said Aslakhanov.

  "You're going to have to do better than that," said Roberts. "Let me refresh your memory."

  Roberts pulled out a still we had obtained from Rustler Casino before we left. It showed an angry Aslakhanov practically launching himself across the poker table at Hartley. Roberts put this photo on top of the one of Hartley. Aslakhanov looked down at it.

  "This is just a misunderstanding," he said, shrugging his knotted shoulders and smiling at us.

  "Well," said Roberts, "you better start helping me understand it. I'm getting tired of your half-assed answers."

  Roberts looked at him and held his stare.

  "Okay, okay," said Aslakhanov. "This guy Marsden, he was an asshole. He kept baiting everyone at the table. If he won he rubbed it in your face. If he lost he told you what a loser you were. I had enough. He'd just taken all my chips, and he was laughing in my face. He said to me. He said 'you Russians are nothing but alcoholic losers who screw your own sisters'. So yes. He took my money and insulted me. You don't do that in Russia. I wanted to teach him a lesson. But security grabbed me before I could punch that smile off his face."

  "So you followed him back to the hotel and then waited until the woman he was with left. Then you got into his room and shot him."

  Aslakhanov leaned back and put his hands up as if to surrender.

  "No, I didn't. I mean, yes, I wanted to teach him a lesson. He won the game fair, but he insulted my sister. I wasn't going to let that stand. So I waited, and then later he came out with that whore he was with. But he had one of those security guys with him too. The security guy waited while they got into the car. Marsden was drunk. I don't know why they let him drive off. He was taking forever to get into his car. I was waiting. You see at first I just wanted to mess him up a bit in the parking lot, but the security guy was on him like a second coat. So I got into my car to wait. Then I see this other guy come out of the casino and get into his car. I don't like the look of him. He looks like trouble. He looks at me as if to say to back off. He's a small guy, but I can tell he'd sooner cut you as talk to you. This guy follows Marsden and the whore he's with and I decide I don't want to get involved in what's going on with that."

  "Can you describe this guy to us?" asked Roberts.

  "I can show you him," said Aslakhanov. "This is him here."

  Aslakhanov puts his dirty, oil stained finger on the photo of the poker table. When he lifts his finger off, we can see who he's been pointing at. I look at Roberts knowingly.

  "What was he driving?" I asked.

  "A black Chrysler 300 SRT."

  "What did you do after you decided Hartley wasn't worth your trouble?" asked Roberts.

  "I went to a bar close by and stayed until around two. You can check with the bartender."

  "What bar was this?"

  "Reggie's Sports Bar."

  Roberts nodded, and looked out the door to the officer who was standing out there. The uniform came into the room.

  "This officer will show you out. Don't go too far," said Roberts.

  Aslakhanov stood up and nodded and was led out of the room by the uniform. I turned to Roberts.

  "I told you Ruby wasn't on the up and up."

  Roberts didn't say anything to me. He stood up and we walked out. He went over to the desk where Villacorta and Gray were seated.

  "I want us to start moving more quickly on this. Check out Aslakhanov's alibi. He says he was at Reggie's Sports Bar until around two. That's up there on West Redondo by Van Ness. I want you to pick up a Germain Velázquez and bring him in. Look into Ruby Aponte. I want backgrounds on both of them. I also want to find out if Baines was at home with his wife like he says he was."

  Villacorta and Gray nod. They get up and head out. Roberts turns to me, and he's not smiling.

  "So what's your big idea?" he asked.

  "I was thinking of opening a tiki bar by the pier if I can get it past the red tape."

  "Smart ass," he said.

  "I don't have a big idea, John. I just know that batting-eyed Ruby's not been straight with us."

  "So you think she killed him?"

  I shook my head.

  "I didn't say that. I'm just saying there's more we
can squeeze out of her. And I want to know about her relationship with Germain."

  "I don't get it," said Roberts. "If they'd been in on it, why wasn't anything stolen from Hartley."

  "Those are the questions we need to get the answers to."

  All In: Chapter Seven

  I had left Roberts at headquarters and driven down to the pier where I spent the rest of my day watching the fat tourists get fatter and redder eating ice cream and flopped out on the beach like seals. I was trying to figure out the murder angle. Why kill a guy and not take his Super Bowl Ring or the grand in his wallet? Something was going on that I couldn't quite see.

  So I headed to a local pub and had a steak sandwich and a couple of beers. Scotch and I weren't on speaking terms. Though I was pretty sure I'd get over it.

  Ten the next morning I found myself back at police headquarters sitting across from Roberts. It felt just like old times.

  "I think we've gotta cast our net wider to find this fish," I said to him.

  We were waiting for Gray and Villacorta to get back. They were bringing in Germain and Ruby. I was drinking an extra strength Americano. I'd given Roberts a regular coffee.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I think we should look into Hartley's background. You see, I was out by the pier yesterday after I left, and I was watching these tourists get fat and red in the hot sun. I got to asking myself why are they here? What's so special about Santa Monica? And then it dawned on me. Maybe there's nothing special about Santa Monica. Maybe they ended up here not for surfing or for Hollywood. Hell, maybe they didn't come specifically to LA."

  Roberts was shaking his head at me and grinning. He took a sip of his coffee.

  "How much did you have to drink last night?"

  "Not enough, that's why I'm so clear headed and erudite," I said to him. "Seriously though, maybe these tourists have come here to visit family or friends. Or maybe they just came out here because it was the cheapest place for a holiday. Why they're here has nothing to do with LA or Santa Monica. What I'm saying is, maybe Hartley's murder has got nothing to do with gambling. Maybe we're looking up the wrong ladder."

  "Not a bad idea," Roberts said. "Let's see what falls from the tree after we've spoken with Ruby and Germain."