Death Takes a Ride (The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #3): A Novel

by Lorena McCourtney

  Maybe Kane had found a stray sack of fifty-dollar bills or gotten a big income tax refund, but this sounded to Cate like a successful gambling weekend. Seth apparently interpreted it that way too.

  “Do the casinos allow unlimited bets?” Cate asked.

  “There are table limits, I think. But if Kane is really into gambling, he might be doing it outside the legal casinos. I hear those gambling syndicate guys can be pretty hard-nosed if someone runs up a gambling debt and doesn’t pay off. The kind of guys who’ll take you for a one-way boat ride down the river.”

  “But why would they be after the other partner too?” Cate asked.

  “I don’t think they care who they collect from. Just so they get their money. But look, like I said, I don’t want this to be anything against Kane. He’s a great guy.”

  Cate nodded, a little stunned by this new information. This lined up with what Candy had said about Kane spending weekends over on the coast without her. She’d suspected another woman—but maybe gambling, not other women, was Kane’s weakness.

  Kane’s involvement in some big-time, illegal gambling would explain his rush need for that $30,000 he was borrowing from Halliday. And apparently he’d specified he needed it in cash.

  Did Halliday know about his partner’s gambling and where this loan was headed? Boring, solid citizen Halliday would surely disapprove of his money going to pay off a gambling debt. But, out of loyalty to his partner and perhaps fear of the consequences for Kane if he didn’t pay up, Halliday would probably provide the money even if he knew and disapproved. So why was Kane shot if he was planning to pay up? Could the debt have been much larger than $30,000, and that amount was just a down payment? Which didn’t impress a hard-nosed gambling syndicate? Killing Kane in a robbery would have netted them $30,000 and sent a powerful message to other “customers” about what happened to gamblers who didn’t pay up.

  “I appreciate knowing this,” Cate said. “You have my card. If you think of anything else, would you give me a call?”

  “You’ll be here in Salem?”

  “I may stay overnight.” After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “I’ll put my cell phone number on the card, in case you think of something I should investigate while I’m here.”

  He handed her the card back, and she scribbled the number on it. She didn’t usually give out her cell phone number.

  “Thanks.” He looked at the card and then tucked it in a pocket of his coveralls. “I sure hope Kane comes out of this okay. Mr. Halliday too, of course.”

  “A couple more things. Do you know Kane’s ex-wife, Candy?”

  “I don’t know her personally, but she’s been around a few times. She and Kane got into some screaming battles right there in the office.” Seth put his hands over his ears, as if the memory were a noisy one. “We could hear her clear out here in the shop.”

  “Arguing about money?”

  He grinned. “How’d you know? You must be a great private investigator.”

  “Lucky guess. It’s what exes usually argue about.”

  “I don’t have one, so I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Do you know where I can reach the woman who worked in the office?”

  “Angie said she was going up to Seattle to stay with a cousin and see if she could find a job there. I don’t know how you’d get in touch with her.”

  One of those all-too-familiar dead ends. “Okay, thanks.”

  “I’ll call if I think of anything.”

  18

  Cate used her cell phone for directions to Candy’s address and was headed that way when the phone jingled its guitar riff. She peeked at the caller identification and pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot to answer.

  “Hey, Mitch. You got my message?”

  “That you were heading up to Salem? Yes.” He didn’t voice disapproval, but his tone equated this with an announcement that she was poised for a leap into a vat of boiling oil. “You’re in Salem now?”

  Cate briefly explained about Halliday’s anonymous message and how she was here to try to find out more about who may have been in with, or behind, Mace Jackson on the shooting. And also what she’d unexpectedly learned from Seth Erickson about Kane’s possible involvement with a gambling debt.

  “You plan to just drop in on some illegal gambling operation and start asking questions?” Mitch’s question was dry but not without snarkiness.

  “My plans were a little more mundane. Your idea sounds much more exciting. Could I get into their inner circle by placing a bet? I could probably come up with $1.98. Maybe even $2.98.”

  “Cate—”

  “Although I’m not sure how to locate a gambling syndicate. Is there an ‘illegal gambling’ section in the yellow pages? Or do I find a sleazy bar and whisper, ‘Hey, buddy, you know where I can find some action on the races?’”

  A small noise sounded like teeth grinding. Cate expected at least a mini-lecture from Mitch, both for her being here and for not treating the situation more seriously, but instead he said, “I think you’re kidding … aren’t you?”

  Cate considered that for a moment. “Probably. Anyway, at the moment, I’m on my way to see Kane’s ex-wife.”

  “I wish I were there to help.”

  The first words that came to Cate’s mind were a snappish, I don’t need a caretaker or a babysitter. Then she surprised herself by thinking about Mitch a moment more and agreeing with him. If he were here, he would help. “I wish you were here too.”

  Moment of silence while they both digested that exchange.

  “Are you thinking the ex-wife knows more about the guy who shot her ex-husband than she’s letting on?” Mitch asked.

  “That, and I also want to talk to her about Kane’s gambling.”

  “This isn’t any connection with the ex-wife or gambling, but didn’t you say earlier that you’d seen something in a newspaper article about Mace Jackson winning something in a bicycle race?” Mitch asked.

  “I didn’t find much on the internet about him, but I did find that.”

  “How about checking with bicycle shops, some places where they might be familiar with bicycle events and who participates?”

  “That hadn’t occurred to me,” Cate admitted. She also had to admit, “It’s a good idea. I’ll check it out. Thanks.”

  “Your message said you might stay overnight?”

  “Yeah, and now that you’ve suggested the bicycle shops thing, I’m sure I will.”

  “Me and my bright ideas,” Mitch muttered.

  “You think of things I don’t. I appreciate that.”

  “If you’re not going to be around, I’ll take Clancy over to Alton Baker Park after work for a run. So talk to me again later, okay? And be careful. Watch your back. Call me if you need anything.”

  “Like you could zoom in and do a white-knight rescue from seventy or eighty miles away?” she teased.

  “A trifling obstacle for a knight on a Purple Rocket,” he assured her. “We specialize in zooming.”

  Yeah, killer mortgage payments, Cate decided when she saw Candy’s house. Not a mogul mansion, but definitely not a cookie-cutter tract house. One of those bulky places with complicated roof lines, enough square footage for a Brady Bunch family, and garage space for anything up to and including an eighteen-wheeler. Maybe your average UFO as well. All on a professionally landscaped, oversized lot. No seven-foot walls with electronically controlled gate to keep unwanted visitors out, however.

  Cate parked at the curb and walked up to the main entrance. With volatile Candy, Cate braced herself for anything from earring attack to stomping by high-heeled boot.

  A Herculean-sized brass knocker was centered on the door, but it didn’t look as if it were actually meant to be used. She punched the doorbell off to the side of the door. No answer. A couple more punches with the same result. Had Candy gone back down to Eugene? Maybe. Cate checked her watch. But she could be here in town, just not yet home from her job with the husband/senator can
didate.

  Now she felt let down. She’d primed herself to be sweet and friendly or confrontational, whatever the situation called for, and all she had to work with was a closed door.

  Okay, no big deal. She’d hit some bicycle shops now and come back later.

  It was almost 6:00 when Cate parked in front of Candy Blakely’s house again. Visiting three bicycle shops had been a big bust. No one knew anything about Mace Jackson.

  This might be a big bust too, she decided wearily. No Lexus stood in the driveway. Although, hopefully, that might only mean Candy had put the car in the oversized cave of a garage. Cate started to get out of the car, then decided to check email with her phone first.

  Halliday had sent the list of unhappy clients. It did not look particularly helpful. A man who thought H&B did an unsatisfactory job with his upholstery. A couple who split up during the restoration of their 1961 Cadillac and dragged H&B into the battle over who got the car. Another mention about the man who objected to the charge for restoring his LaSalle. Nothing on any problems with customers here in Salem.

  Cate tucked the phone in her purse, but she hesitated a moment before opening the car door. She really did wish Mitch were here. But he wasn’t, and if the Computer Dudes sale went through, he might be off to who knew where, out of her life forever.

  Okay, Ms. Almost-fully-licensed-PI, just get on with it. Candy couldn’t do any more than slam the door in her face. Hopefully.

  She gave the doorbell a brisk punch, and it jerked open a moment later.

  The ex-wife gave her an unfriendly appraisal. “Well, if it isn’t the hotshot assistant private investigator, all bright and perky. Did Matt send you all the way up here to harass me?”

  Candy was still wearing what Cate assumed she’d worn to work that day, a navy blue suit with a nipped waist that emphasized her curvy figure. Her gold-spiral earrings ended in a point sharp enough to drill through concrete. Was there a jewelry shop that specialized in lethal earrings, and Candy was their best customer? But her feet were bare, the toenails a delicate pink, not some flamboyant color Cate would have expected. Candy saw Cate eying them.

  “So I have a bunion problem,” she said with a hint of what’s-it-to-you challenge.

  Cate started to say “My grandma had bunions” but snapped off the words before they escaped. Candy would probably not appreciate being equated with Cate’s grandma.

  “What do you want?” Candy demanded. “Why are you here? You are working for Matt, aren’t you?”

  Working for Matt obviously being on a level with door-to-door salesman of sleazy magazines.

  Cate pulled out a copy of the threatening letter Halliday had received and handed it to her. “It appears the person who shot Kane wasn’t working alone. And that person is after Mr. Halliday now. Is it you?”

  She didn’t expect a sudden confession, but she thought the blunt question might startle Candy into some giveaway reaction. No such luck.

  “I wouldn’t mind swatting Matt with a two-by-four,” Candy said. “But if I were going to do it, I wouldn’t send him a warning notice.”

  Candy’s grumpy statement echoed Cate’s own earlier thoughts. Candy was shifting back and forth on her feet now. Nervous? Or maybe that bunion really hurt.

  Candy handed the letter back. “And if I did send a threatening letter, I’d certainly do a better job with the spelling and punctuation than this person did.”

  “You sound as if you’re even more unhappy with Mr. Halliday than usual,” Cate suggested cautiously.

  “Yes, I am. Well, no, not really,” Candy corrected. Her shoulders lifted and drooped. “I guess it’s not Matt’s fault. What I mean is, well, I feel kind of, oh, guilty, I guess, saying anything nasty about Kane, the condition he’s in and all. I’d rather be mad at Matt. But Kane lied to me!”

  Cate wanted to ask “About what?” but she murmured a less intrusive, “That’s too bad,” instead.

  “Oh, you might as well come in,” Candy muttered. “I could use some company, even yours. It’s my own fault, I suppose, for not checking a long time ago.”

  Candy headed back into the foyer. She left the door open but didn’t look back to see if Cate followed.

  It wasn’t exactly a warm welcome, but Cate had already decided that, for a PI, anything other than a door slam in the face worked as an invitation.

  19

  Candy bypassed a formal living room and turned into a more lived-in looking family room. The seating arrangement of suede sofa, love seat, and upholstered chairs centered on an oversized flat-screen TV, but a lineup of well-tended plants flourished under a big picture window. A chandelier in wagon-wheel shape hung over a pool table behind the seating arrangement. A bar filled half the rear wall, and a piano and drums stood next to the bar.

  Candy dropped into the suede sofa. Cate was apparently free to sit wherever she liked. She chose the suede love seat, vaguely wondering how many cattle had given up their hides for all the suede in this room. Candy frowned at the coffee table, another wagon wheel topped with glass, and didn’t speak.

  Cate finally made a conversational thrust. She wiggled her fingers toward the piano and drums. “You play?”

  “No. I decided once that I wanted to learn piano, so Kane bought that for me, but I never got around to taking lessons. A long time ago, back in high school, Kane played drums in the school band, but he never had a set of his own. So he bought those. You know, middle-aged man fulfilling youthful fantasies.” She interrupted this rather dour account of the couple’s musical history to repeat, “He lied to me!”

  Cate let her lame attempt at small talk fizzle and waited for Candy to fill the empty space. After a few moments, she did.

  “Kane told me he had this big insurance policy, a half-million-dollar policy, through H&B.”

  “I believe we had an earlier discussion about insurance.”

  “I didn’t marry him because of the insurance.” Candy glanced up as if checking to see if Cate believed that. “I mean, you don’t marry someone for something that probably isn’t going to happen until way off in the future.”

  No, you marry him for his current assets and income. Cate added an addendum to that. Unless you have in mind a fatal catastrophe hurrying the event from future into the present. But all she said aloud was her frequently used, noncommittal “um.”

  Actually, although she hadn’t discarded suspicions entirely, she was more or less beyond thinking Candy had anything to do with Kane’s shooting.

  “But he’s a lot older and I could expect, statistically, you know, to outlive him. A woman has to think about these things and look out for herself.”

  “But there isn’t any insurance?”

  “Oh, there’s insurance, all right. I just don’t get any of it.”

  “Kane isn’t dead anyway,” Cate pointed out. Hey, hadn’t they also had this not-dead conversation before? Had Candy shrugged then? She did now, as if the non-death were an irrelevant road bump. “He changed his beneficiary so the insurance goes to his children?”

  “Not them either. It is, and always has been, a business thing with the partnership. It was set up when Kane and Matt started H&B. Both partners are insured, and if something happens to either of them, the insurance payoff goes into the business. I guess it’s a common type of arrangement. It’s intended to make sure the business doesn’t collapse if something happens to one of the partners.” She sounded momentarily reasonable, even understanding about that setup, but then she hit her mantra of outrage again. “Kane lied to me!”

  “It’s possible Kane didn’t know or understand the, oh, fine points about the insurance,” Cate suggested.

  Candy scowled but finally nodded. “Kane has never been much good with financial details. He’d rather spend money than keep track of it. Although I still wouldn’t put it past him to lie to me.”

  “How did you find out about this aspect of the insurance?”

  “Radine called. Sweet Radine. You could hear the glee in her voice w
hen she told me I wasn’t entitled to anything and why. Sometimes I think she has the hots for Matt.”

  “Matt asked her to call you?”

  “I suppose. He’d rather talk to an IRS agent or a two-headed alien than have a conversation with me.”

  Was it possible Halliday also hadn’t earlier realized the consequences of how the insurance was set up? Cate doubted that. If she were a betting woman, she’d bet Halliday knew every word, clause, comma, and semicolon in the insurance policy.

  Bottom line was that if Kane Blakely died, Halliday lost a friend and partner but he—because he was H&B if Kane died—gained a half million dollars.

  Did the police know that? Probably. As Matt had said, they didn’t work at warp speed, but Cate’s experience was that they usually covered all the bases.

  Another bottom line, however—what difference did it make? A few seconds more and the gunman would have finished Halliday off, and, if Kane lived, he’d be the survivor in line for the insurance bucks. He still could be, if the person sending that threatening note to Matt managed to make good on the threat.

  Candy stood up. “I need a drink. You want something?”

  “No thanks.”

  She followed Candy to the bar anyway and watched her clunk cubes from an ice maker into a stubby glass. Without any diluting additions, Candy covered the ice with an amber liquid from a shelf under a mirror on the back wall. She stood behind the bar, elbows on the counter, glass cupped in both hands, frown turning her mouth into a downward curve.

  The bar was done in a rugged, Western saloon style. Suede-covered stools, scarred counter, two “bullet holes” in the mirror. A colorful poster showed a barroom girl with upswept hair and revealing bodice swooped into a dip by a lanky cowboy. After a moment, Cate realized the poster was actually an enlargement of a photo from one of those fun photography places, and those were Candy’s and Kane’s faces. They looked happy. Which was not how Candy looked now.

  “Don’t you have a cat?” Cate asked. “I remember you mentioning a Persian.”