Shots in the Dark

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “I don’t suppose our gal called you last night,” he said as soon as we were under way.

  I shook my head. “I fear that’s a dead end. When we get back from the casino, I want to take those drawings Carter did last night and run them by Clay and Teddy, to see if either of them recognizes anyone.”

  Mal shot me a questioning look. “Why Teddy?”

  The burden of my promise to Kelly was a heavy one, and I desperately wanted someone to help me shoulder it. After giving it a millisecond of thought, I decided I could trust Mal to keep the secret along with me. I told him about Tiffany’s senior year, the pregnancy, and the mystery man. “I can’t help but wonder if whoever got her pregnant might have come back into her life around the time she was killed,” I concluded. “And if so, there’s a good chance he’s someone who hung with that social circle. Since Teddy knew the same group, I’m thinking it’s worth a shot to have him look at the pictures and see if he recognizes anyone.”

  “Wow. That poor girl had a time of it, didn’t she?” Mal said.

  “Yes, she did,” I agreed. “It makes me wonder if the reason she didn’t try to escape from the car was that she didn’t care if she died.”

  We fell silent for the rest of the trip, and I imagined Mal was thinking along the same lines as I was, about how tragic, lonely, and desperate Tiffany Gallagher’s life might have been. It made me grateful for what I had, and determined not to lose any of it.

  That was a good mind-set for our arrival at the casino, but as soon as we were inside, I felt myself resenting my synesthesia. We were surrounded by flashing lights of all types and colors; loud noises that roared, rang, banged, clanged, wheedled, and whistled; the smell of people, food, booze, and cigarette smoke. The place was a cavernous open room with a high raftered ceiling, and there were gaming tables and slot machines as far as the eye could see. My brain went into a synesthetic overload similar to what I often experienced when I went to a mall or to the Public Market, but this was ten times worse than anything I’d ever experienced. I couldn’t help but wonder if the letter writer had planned it that way in an attempt to throw me off.

  “I need a minute,” I told Mal. “This is overwhelming.”

  Mal nodded, and we stepped off to one side. I closed my eyes and focused on trying to shut down the synesthetic side of my brain, parsing through the things I could still smell and hear, relegating each one to real or synesthetic. As soon as I felt I had those senses under control, I opened my eyes and tried to do the same with the smells and sensations triggered by all the colorful flashing lights, which were everywhere I looked. When I felt as if I could function normally, I examined our surroundings more closely.

  “I have no idea where to even begin,” I told Mal. “This place is huge.”

  “Let’s just survey it for now, walk around it all. Maybe something will come to us.”

  We did so, meandering our way past large card tables and down aisles that ran between rows of slot machines. It was a busy place, which made maneuvering on my crutches that much more difficult.

  “I’m surprised this place is so packed,” I told Mal at one point. “You’d think with the holidays coming, people would have better things to do.”

  “Don’t underestimate the lure of Lady Luck,” he said.

  After traipsing up and down dozens of aisles without seeing anything that might be a clue, Mal stopped and said, “You have a picture of the last letter on your phone, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  He gestured toward a seating area and a coffee shop near the front entrance. “Let’s sit for a few minutes and take another look at it. Maybe there’s a clue in there that we overlooked.”

  We wandered into the coffee shop, ordered up some drinks, and settled in at a table. I took out my phone, pulled up the picture of the letter, and then set my phone on the table between us. We huddled together, both of us reading.

  “Tell me again which words were written in the different-colored ink,” Mal said after a few minutes.

  I didn’t need to look at the letter to answer him. “The key words were lucky, wager, game, bet, risk, and buffalo stampede.”

  Mal looked thoughtful for a moment, and then his face lit up. “All those words are general gambling terms except for the words buffalo stampede. I thought at first it was a reference to the Native American casino ownership, but what if it means something else?”

  “Like what?”

  He turned on his stool and studied our immediate surroundings. “Look at these slot machines,” he said. “They all have themes of some sort. What if buffalo stampede is the name of a particular game?”

  I considered this, and it made as much sense as our first interpretation. “Let’s give it a whirl.”

  We slid off our stools and continued our meandering, weaving between rows of slot machines and tables filled with card players. It was a constant and somewhat exhausting effort to shut out all the synesthetic reactions; there was a never-ending stream of sounds, tastes, smells, and visual manifestations. My head throbbed, and I wasn’t sure if it was a headache from the strain of trying to deal with all the sensory input, or a synesthetic reaction of some kind. Either way, I wished it would go away.

  After another fifteen minutes or so, we had made our way to the opposite end of the casino and an exit that led out onto Canal Street. My frustration level was through the roof, both from the irritating environment and my anger over our lack of success. My spirits tanked, and as I turned to ask Mal what he thought we should do next, I felt his hand grip my arm. He was staring off to my right, and when I looked that way, I saw what he saw: a bank of slot machines along the wall. There were ten machines all together, and six of them were called Buffalo Stampede. All of them had someone seated in front of them, playing.

  Mal and I walked over to the area and stood behind the players, scanning the machines for any envelopes or packages that were lying around. All I saw were plastic drink cups and several ashtrays crammed into the narrow spaces between the machines.

  “Do you think we need to play one of them?” I asked Mal.

  Mal leaned close to my ear and spoke in a low voice, though how anyone could overhear what we said amid all that clamor was beyond me. “I don’t think you can rig one of these machines that easily, and even if you could, how would the letter writer know when we’d be here or when we’d play it? There’s the same problem if it’s been set up so that someone who works here is supposed to look for you playing this machine. This place is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There would have to be several shifts of workers looking for you.” He paused and shook his head. “It makes no sense. I think we need to check out the area around the machines more thoroughly.”

  The slots sat atop a credenza-type structure that was flush with the carpeted floor. That eliminated anything getting stashed beneath them. There was a small amount of space between each machine—eight inches or so—but it was easy to see into each of these spaces all the way back to the wall. However, the Buffalo Stampede slots were made in such a way that the face of each machine extended out beyond the main body, creating a small hidden spot along the top and around the perimeter of each one, behind the bright neon edge. It wasn’t a large enough space to hide a full-size envelope, though, and since the main body of the machines was black, a white, gold, or manila envelope would be painfully obvious. Still, I sidled my way down the bank of players, scanning what I could see around and on top of each machine. I saw nothing and said as much to Mal.

  “I suppose there could be something taped beneath the seats,” he said, “though that would be risky since they can easily be moved.” He looked above us and then scanned the room. “This place is monitored all the time, so if there is something attached behind the face of any of these machines, it would have to be small and not easily seen.”

  Just then, a woman playing one of the Buffalo Stampede machines got up from her seat. Mal quickly moved in and motioned for me to sit down. He fished out his
wallet and handed me a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Here. Play it,” he said.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Stick the money in here.” He pointed to a slot, and I slid the twenty in until the machine sucked it up. “Now push this button labeled MAX BET.”

  “Max bet? Isn’t that a bit reckless?”

  “It’s a penny slot,” he said. “The max bet isn’t that much.”

  I put my finger on the button Mal had indicated and pushed it. Things on the screen in front of me spun and shifted, triggering a cacophony of synesthetic smells. The sounds of bells, whistles, snorting buffalo, and Lord knew what else made my mouth burst with fleeting tastes. I had no idea what I was doing, so I just kept hitting the button. Mal sidled up next to me on my right—it wasn’t easy, because the person at the next machine was mere inches away—and ran his hand around the back side of the front flange on my machine. Then he switched sides and did the same thing on my left. When that produced nothing, he turned his back to me and faked a stumble, using it as an excuse to run his hand around the back side of the flange of the machine to my left.

  I hit the button for the umpteenth time, and the machine started clanging away, triggering a metallic taste in my mouth. “What happened?” I said, staring at the screen. Strobes were flashing, highlighting card faces, cartoonish wolves and eagles, and lines that crisscrossed the screen.

  “You just won two hundred bucks, that’s what happened,” Mal said with a smile.

  The woman on my left glowered at my machine and muttered a cussword under her breath. Then she hit a button, took the paper receipt the machine spat out, and got up. “Come on, Fred,” she said to the man beside her. “These machines are a waste of time.” The man cashed out, as well, and followed her.

  Mal quickly moved in on the machines, settled in the farthest seat, and patted the one next to me. “Cash out and switch over here,” he said.

  “Cash out?” I stared at the machine’s flashing screen. Mal stood and hit a button in front of me. A paper receipt spat out.

  “Grab that and move over here to play. Slide it in the same slot where you put the twenty earlier.”

  I did what he said, and as soon as I was settled in front of the new machine, I slid my paper receipt in the appropriate slot and started hitting the MAX BET button Mal had shown me before. Mal, in the meantime, checked out the hidden space on the left side of my machine and on both sides of the one he sat at. I knew from the look on his face that he’d struck out. Now I was the one cursing under my breath. I’d hoped my little win on the other machine was a sign of good luck for us. Maybe it was, and I’d used it all up.

  Undaunted, Mal got up, turned to the woman on his left, and started chatting with her about how the machines were rigged and what terrible luck he had. As he talked, his hand ran around the back side of the flange on her machine. When I saw his hand stop near the top, I held my breath. A moment later he turned to me, his right hand cupped around something. He slid it into his pocket.

  “Let’s get out of here while you’re ahead,” he said. “Cash out.”

  I pushed the button I had watched him push when he cashed me out on the first machine, and a moment later the machine spat out a paper receipt. I glanced at it, shocked to see that it was for just over 230 dollars. I handed it to Mal and then followed him to a cash machine so we could redeem it. Ten minutes later I was standing out in front of the casino, propped on my crutches, waiting for Mal to bring the car around to pick me up. My curiosity was killing me. When he finally pulled up, I nearly leapt into the front seat and almost hit Mal with my crutches as I tried to toss them behind me.

  “Show me,” I said.

  He stuck his hand in his pocket, and when he pulled it out and opened it, I saw a small black envelope—the size a hotel keycard would come in—sitting in his palm. Its flap was sealed, and stuck to the outside of it was a small piece of Velcro.

  “It was stuck to another piece of Velcro, which was glued to the back side of the front flange on the machine,” he said. “I tried to peel that other piece off, thinking it might contain some DNA evidence, but it must have been applied using some sort of industrial-strength glue, rather than the adhesive these things typically come with, because it wouldn’t budge.”

  I eyed the tiny envelope and then gave Mal a questioning look.

  He smiled at me but shook his head. “We should take it back to your place to open it.” He ran his thumb over the top surface of it and added, “Though I can tell you there’s a key in it.”

  “A key? You mean like a house key or a car key?”

  “Smaller than that. We’ll get a better idea once we open it.” He raised his hand closer to his face and scrutinized the tiny envelope. “Smart,” he said. “I was thinking that a black envelope this small might be hard to find and therefore easy to trace. But the envelope was white to start with. It looks like it’s been colored over with a felt-tipped marker.”

  “Maybe not so smart,” I said, and Mal shot me a curious look. “Let’s get back to the bar and open this thing. Then I’ll tell you why you’re wrong.”

  Chapter 32

  I wasn’t going to wait on Duncan this time and told Mal so as we drove back to the bar.

  “Give him a call. See if he’s free. If not, we’ll go ahead and open it,” Mal said.

  I took out my cell phone and dialed Duncan’s number. It rang several times, and just when I thought the call was going to flip over to voice mail, he finally answered.

  “Yeah?” His voice sounded tired, and the chocolate taste I got was both fizzy from hearing it over the phone and diluted, like weak chocolate milk.

  “Duncan, it’s Mack. Did I wake you?”

  “Yeah, but that’s okay. I need to get up and moving, anyway. What’s up?”

  “Mal and I found another clue at the casino.” I described it for him—what it looked like, how we’d found it, and what Mal thought it contained. “I don’t want to wait to open it. We were wondering if you could meet us somewhere.”

  “I can spare an hour, give or take,” he said. “Give me fifteen minutes to get showered, and another fifteen to get to the bar. Can you have a cup of coffee ready for me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ll be at the back door, as usual. Three knocks, a pause, and then one knock.”

  “Got it.”

  I disconnected the call, glanced at my watch, and calculated the time of his arrival. It was nearly two thirty, which should put him at the bar around three, and I filled Mal in on the plan.

  “What? No packages?” Debra said when we arrived back at the bar ten minutes later.

  Thinking fast, I said, “I’m having some stuff wrapped. I have to go pick it up later.”

  The place was crowded with mid-afternoon, last-minute holiday shoppers. Every table in the main area was full, and shopping bags littered the floor.

  “You guys managing okay?” I asked.

  “We’re doing fine,” Debra said. “It got a little crazy an hour or so ago, but we got through it.”

  Mal and I headed for my office, where I took off my coat and gloves. Mal did the same. Then I walked over and turned off the alarm to the back door. By now, this process was old hat to us.

  “Tell me what I said that was wrong,” Mal said.

  “Let’s wait until Duncan gets here, so I can tell you both at the same time. I’m going to go upstairs and get a pot of coffee brewing. Would you mind staying down here and manning the door? I’ll leave the apartment entrance unlocked.”

  He nodded, and I headed upstairs. I started a pot of coffee brewing and then went into the bathroom to fix myself up a little. I was putting on a touch of mascara when I heard my cell phone ring. I reached into my pocket, fearing it would be Duncan calling to say he couldn’t make it, after all, but I never found out who the caller was. As I pulled the phone from my pocket, it fell out of my hand and landed in the toilet.

  I reached down and grabbed it, uttering a cussword o
r two. It had stopped ringing. As I looked at it, I realized it had stopped doing everything. The face of it was dark. I tried turning it on, but nothing happened.

  I heard male voices coming from beyond the bathroom door, so I grabbed a hand towel, wrapped the phone in it, gave my hands a quick washing, and headed out to greet them. I headed straight for Duncan, who was wearing the same bulky parka and knit cap pulled down low, but this time he had a scarf draped over his shoulders. I gave him a kiss. It wasn’t a long one—with Mal standing there watching the two of us, that would have been too awkward—but it was enough to get my innards sparking.

  “We can do this quick, and I can leave so you two can have some time alone,” Mal said.

  Duncan smiled at him. “Thanks, pal. I’d take you up on it if I could, but I can’t stay long. I have to get back to the station.” He looked at me then and added, “I can come back later tonight, though.”

  “That would be nice,” I said.

  “It might be kind of late. I’ll call you when I know.”

  That reminded me of what I held in my hand. “You might not be able to. I just dropped my phone in the toilet, and now it’s not working. Did either of you just try to call me?”

  They both shook their heads.

  Duncan said, “Stick it in a bowl with some uncooked rice and leave it there for a while. The rice will suck the moisture out of it. It might work after that, or it might not.”

  “In the meantime, I have a burner phone you can borrow,” Mal said. “I keep a couple in my car all the time. They come in handy with the undercover work.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “That would be helpful.”

  “I’ll run back to my car and grab it now, while you put that one on rice.”

  As Mal headed downstairs, Duncan slipped off his coat and hat, while I went into my kitchen and started rummaging through the cupboards in search of some rice. I found some and dumped the bag into a bowl. It was just enough for me to fit my phone in and cover it. As I scooped the rice over the phone, Duncan came up behind me, snaked an arm around my waist, and pulled me back against him.