“Porter—”
He held up his hand, stopping her, his voice pained. “Don’t.”
Her mouth tightened but she nodded in understanding, her food sitting like a lump of lead in her stomach.
Fresh anger at Angelo washed over her in a wave. Even fifteen years later the man was still messing with her life. She followed Porter out and on the silent ride back to the clinic she cursed Angelo for returning, but mostly she cursed herself for not being able to move on.
Angelo and Grace returned to his grandfather’s place and, after setting up a portable printer to the laptop, spent the afternoon combing through pages of Byron Hicks’s personal life as it was laid out in the form of his financial transactions.
“I always feel bad for the sorry sap whenever I have to go through their bank accounts,” Grace admitted, leaning back to stretch after an hour of silent busy-work. “Makes me wonder what someone would think of me if they discovered I spent way too much money on antique tea sets. I mean, you can get a snapshot of a person’s habits but it only tells a fraction of the story.”
Angelo looked up. “Really? Tea sets?”
She shrugged defensively. “They remind me of my old aunt who lived in San Francisco in one of those big Victorians. She was nice to me. I have good memories. But you see, that’s what I mean. Unless someone knew me, they’d never understand why a person like me would collect something like that.”
Angelo chuckled. “I doubt someone would look twice at your penchant for collecting tea sets. I’d worry more about your cholesterol, seeing as you eat out more than anyone I know. Do you even know how to boil water?”
“I can rip open an MRE pretty handily,” Grace quipped with good humor. “Speaking of, I brought a few in case we got caught without a place to grab some grub. You want one? I have meatloaf with gravy or spaghetti with meat sauce.”
“As tempting as that offer is, I think I’ll pass. You know, most people stop eating those things when they no longer have to.”
“I like them. They’re fast, easy and nutritionally adequate. Plus, the cleanup is easy. What’s not to like?”
“Flavor?”
“Don’t knock it ’til you try it. You might be surprised.”
“I’m not hungry enough to brave the MRE. Thanks but no thanks.”
“Suit yourself. I think I’ll have the spaghetti. Be right back,” she said and hopped from her chair to go to the car.
Angelo returned to his papers, scanning and taking notes. He was starting on the third month of Hicks’s bank statement when his gaze snagged on something. He leaned forward and highlighted the charge, looking for similar charges.
Grace returned with a brown-packaged MRE in hand. She started to say something but then noted his body language. “You found something?” she asked, meal forgotten.
“Maybe.” He handed her a sheaf of papers. “A withdrawal of $300 and then a subsequent cash deposit of $1,000. A month or so later I found a similar withdrawal and a deposit of $700. But the next month he had two withdrawals of $500 and no deposits.”
“What are you thinking?” Grace asked, grabbing her highlighter and beginning to scan. “Gambling?”
“Looks like it. Do we have his credit card receipts?” he asked, flagging another suspicious withdrawal.
Grace stopped and fished through her papers. “Yeah, right here.”
“Check those, too,” he instructed. “A man with something to prove might harbor a need for other types of validation. If I were taking a guess, I’d say Byron wasn’t much of a successful gambler, judging by these withdrawals and the subsequent deposits. They certainly don’t match.”
They spent another four hours gleaning figures in the hope of putting together a profile of a dead man. Finally, they finished the task and both were ready to grind their eyeballs out from the strain, but they’d managed to tally up a year’s worth of withdrawals totaling approximately $25,000.
“That’s a lot of coin,” Grace said at the end, amazed and disgusted at the same time. He and Grace shared a low opinion of gamblers and neither saw the point of throwing away good money. “So do you think we have a man with a gambling addiction?”
“That’s what it looks like. Plenty of places to choose from with twenty-seven casinos in the state of Washington.”
“And your tribe had the colossal bad luck to put down roots in this square mile of nothing. Man, I bet you’re wishing your ancestors had been more discerning in their selection of the real estate,” Grace said dryly amid a yawn.
He grunted in answer, then grabbed a map, marking each Indian casino in the state. “The closest casinos to the area are in Neah Bay, Port Angeles and Sequim. My guess is Neah Bay.”
“So, going by the numbers we see here, he was in debt,” Grace surmised.
“Yeah, and people who are in debt up to their eyeballs usually do dumb stuff like borrow money from less-than-legit enterprises.”
“You think this was a hit because he owed money? I don’t know, loan sharks don’t usually kill the people who owe them money, makes it hard to get paid. They prefer to threaten the person’s loved ones or even chop off a finger.”
“Does that happen anywhere but the movies?” he asked. “I’ve never worked any cases like that before. You don’t see too much of it around this area, not like Vegas, I suppose.”
“I’ve seen it in a few cases, not here but in New York, sure. You tangle with the wrong person, you’re going to pay one way or another. But with all these Indian casinos springing up all over the place, I bet you start seeing more of that kind of element hanging around. Like moths to a flame.”
He could follow her logic, prompting him to suggest a road trip. “We could take a drive up to Neah Bay and check it out, see if any of the local players remember Hicks,” he said, cracking a yawn himself. “It’s the best lead we’ve had to go on since Hicks ended up dead.”
“Might as well.” Grace tossed her highlighter to the table and swung her leg over the chair seat as she stood with a long stretch. “My back feels permanently kinked. I’m hitting the sack. How about you?”
He didn’t relish another night tossing and turning, his dreams veering too close to Mya for true restful sleep, but exhaustion was starting to take its toll. The numbers were blurring before him anyway. “Yeah,” he finally agreed, rising and silently cursing the hard chair he’d been sitting on for the past three hours without a break. His papa had been a simple man with simple tastes. The chairs were Mission-style with only the padding of his rear to cushion his bones. And he was feeling it. He tried not to hobble. A man had his pride.
He needed to crash, but first he had to throw some food down his gullet. His stomach felt ready to digest itself. Grace chuckled and pointed to the remaining MRE on the counter in the kitchen. “Bon appétit.”
“Good God, have mercy,” he murmured with a healthy dose of apprehension, but he was starved and he hadn’t had the foresight to stop by the market before heading to his grandfather’s place. He opened the MRE and waited for the internal heater to do its thing, then stared at the food with a jaundiced eye.
“Don’t be such a puss. It’s good for you. Tastes better than nothing.”
“Remind me to hit the store tomorrow,” he said, right before shoveling a bite of the meatloaf with its brown gravy into his mouth. He chewed slowly. Eh, it wasn’t terrible. He took another bite and actually smiled around the hot stuff in his mouth. “My grandfather probably would’ve loved these things. He was proficient at a very small list of dinner items, most of which involved some kind of fish he hauled from the river. We ate a lot of crawdads,” he admitted.
Grace stared at him with the kind of deep speculation that usually made people nervous and said, “We’ve worked together for three years and in one trip I’ve realized I don’t know much about you. This whole chief thing is interesting, whether you believe it or not. I wish I had something so unique in my personal history. The most interesting thing in my family tree is that I’m a dist
ant cousin to the inventor of the hula hoop.”
He did a double take. “Really?”
“Yeah. So my mother says, but it’s not like it’s a real claim to fame, you know?”
“Neither is mine.” Angelo sighed and then shrugged. “It’s a simple and meaningless title. I don’t even get a good parking pass to anywhere,” he said, trying for lightness in his tone, but the lead in his stomach—or maybe that was the meatloaf—caused him to fail. He crumpled the wrapping from his MRE and tossed it in the trash.
“The Queen of England has a meaningless title too but she’s still pretty cool.”
“Not even the same,” he said, though Grace’s attempt at a parallel at the very least made him smile.
Grace grinned, but then sobered. “So, is that doc an Indian princess or something?”
“Mya? No. It doesn’t work that way.” Not that she didn’t have the regal bearing of a proud warrior princess, he thought with a smidge of pride he had no right to feel. He cleared his throat, saying in a tone that conveyed he was too tired to have this conversation, “We hit the road at 0700.”
“All right. I get it. Too painful. I know I ought to stop digging around, but I can’t seem to help myself. You’re a mystery man, Tucker,” she said with a wink before tucking herself into her bedroll, her shoes once again lined up neatly within easy grabbing distance. If there was ever a catastrophic disaster and the world devolved into the most primitive and aggressive behavior, he wanted Grace by his side. She was a smart investigator, but deep down she remained a soldier. He found that quality comforting. At least he knew what to expect with Grace.
Not so with Mya.
Damn, why’d he have to let his mind go there? The fatigue must’ve weakened his ability to stay focused. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to think about Mya tonight. And up until this moment, lying alone in his cold bed, he’d succeeded.
Over the years, he’d often thought of calling Mya, but when he’d played out the scenario in his head he couldn’t seem to find a favorable ending. The worst one in his imagination had Mya pulling out a shotgun and blowing a hole in his chest. Granted, that nightmare had been after a particularly morose drinking binge, but the image had stuck in his mind. After the way he’d left her, he supposed he deserved a bullet somewhere non-lethal but highly painful, like a kneecap or elbow. Of course, now there was too much animosity to drop by casually and say, “Hey, Mya, it’s been a long time…how’ve you been?”
It’s not like they could pretend the past didn’t happen—as evidenced by the stiff and brittle encounters they’d shared recently.
Was she dating? Married? He hadn’t seen a ring, not that he’d looked specifically, but he supposed he’d remember that detail if she were wearing one.
He rolled to his side and plumped the pillow into some semblance of comfort but it remained flat as an old, deflated inner tube and nearly as uncomfortable. “Mya,” he breathed on a soft sigh, wondering if she had a clue how seeing her again had thrown his carefully ordered world into chaos. Sure, he played it off well—it was his job to seem implacable—but he knew the truth of it. Mya made his insides a mess.
Get it together, he chastised himself, annoyed that he was wallowing in some strange nostalgic mindset. This too shall pass…God, please let it pass.
This kind of melancholy could drive a man to do something crazy.
Chapter 7
The drive to the Neah Bay casino was accompanied by a pounding rain that could soak a person within minutes if they stayed out in it. It didn’t serve to endear the area to Grace, and by the time they arrived at the casino her mutinous scowl seemed permanently etched onto her face.
They scrambled from the car to the front doors, handing the keys to the valet, and headed inside.
The perfect lighting, geared to make people want to stay and spend more money, filled the expansive slot room, and the sound of clanging, dinging and other racket was an assault to the ears. They went straight for the pit boss, knowing he or she would likely recognize Byron’s picture if he was winning or losing with any sort of regularity. A flash of their badges and the pit boss was friendly, amenable and ready to help; Angelo got the distinct impression that it was an act purely for their benefit.
“We have reason to believe this man frequented your establishment, losing a significant amount of money over the past year. He might’ve last been seen here a month ago,” Grace said, referencing the date of Hicks’s last cash withdrawal.
The pit boss, a woman with sharp eyes and a wide smile, accepted the photo and studied it without a flicker in her brown eyes. She returned the photo with a shake of her head. “We see a lot of people. It’s impossible to remember one man,” she said.
“This man is dead. Try a little harder to remember,” Grace said, thrusting the photo back at the woman, who reacted with a trace of irritation but otherwise did as Grace instructed. This time her memory seemed improved as she gestured toward one particular blackjack table.
“He appeared to enjoy Carolina’s table,” she said. “But he had a run of bad luck and expended his line of credit. So you say he’s deceased?” she inquired, the picture of solicitousness. “How unfortunate.”
“May we talk with Carolina?” Angelo asked.
“Of course.” She smiled. “This way.”
She led them to a pretty woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties and introduced them.
“Carolina, Special Agents Tucker and Kelly would like to ask you some questions about a patron who tragically died recently. Please give them your utmost cooperation.” With that and a nod of understanding between them, she left them with the dealer.
“He’s dead?” she asked, looking distressed.
“Yes,” Angelo said, watching her carefully. He imagined she had a lot of straight men who flocked to her table. Being opposite a pretty woman made losing a bit more palatable for some men. “He seemed to like your table, according to the pit boss.”
She nodded, almost guiltily. “He was nice. But a very bad blackjack player.”
He and Grace exchanged looks. “Your pit boss said his line of credit at the casino had been exhausted. Do you know of anyone around here who might be in the business of extending credit for those who run into those kinds of situations?”
“No, not that I know of,” Carolina said, but her eyes betrayed her and Grace pounced.
“We both know that there’s a lucrative side business for dealers who provide these types of people with contacts.”
She stiffened. “I’d never do that.”
“It’s hard to make an honest living these days. No one would fault you for needing a little something on the side,” Angelo countered with understanding, playing the good cop. She looked young, vulnerable, afraid of losing her job. “Listen, we’re not interested in you. We just need to find out what might have happened to our fellow agent.”
Carolina chewed her lip, visibly caught between spilling her guts and retreating for cover, but in the end, her conscience must’ve gotten the better of her because she started talking quickly and in a hushed tone. “Okay, I don’t know much but there is a guy who seems to provide a service to people who’ve shown a need for a little extra cash.”
“What’s this person’s name?” Grace asked.
“Well, he’s known as Mr. C, but I don’t actually know his name. Listen, this information didn’t come from me, okay? I’ve got kids at home who depend on me. If Mr. C finds out that it was me who gave him up, he’ll…”
“Is he violent? Has he threatened people before?” Angelo asked.
She offered a nervous shrug. “Well, he’s not a nice guy. People have said things…but I don’t know if they’re true. They might just be rumors, but I don’t want to be the one to test whether they’re real.”
“We don’t give up our sources. Where can we find this Mr. C?”
“You don’t find him, he finds you.”
Angelo wasn’t buying that. “How’d Byron Hicks get a hold of him?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Look, are we done here? I can’t spend all day talking to you two. No offense, but time is money, and besides, if Mr. C’s people see me talking to you they’ll know it was me, so please leave my station and go talk to someone else.”
Angelo motioned to Grace and they moved on, leaving Carolina alone as she’d asked. Once out of earshot, he said, “So, aside from the dealers, where else would a loan shark sniff around for desperate gamblers in need of more coin?”
“The business office, I’d wager,” she replied with a nod. “Let’s ask around.”
They made their rounds to the other tables but, as they’d expected, came up empty, which was okay. They’d gotten what they needed from Carolina and didn’t want to put her in any danger. They found the business office and, after flashing their credentials, noticed one of the clerks trying to silently slip out the side door. Angelo hauled the man back inside and shoved him against the wall while Grace cleared the room so they could handle this in private. “Leaving so soon? We haven’t even said our hellos yet,” he said.
The man’s eyes were twitchy, his skin clammy. Angelo grimaced and wiped his hand on his trousers. He stepped closer and peered into the man’s face. Then his lip curled. “Meth head,” he announced. “You’re high as a kite, aren’t you?” It was a rhetorical question. He could tell without having to put his finger on the man’s pulse that it was kicking faster than normal. “When was the last time you used?” he asked.
Cold Case Reunion Page 5