Violet Darger (Book 4): Bad Blood

by Vargus, L. T.

  The widow nodded, then led them past a dining room with heavy chairs upholstered in black leather. Beneath a monstrous glass chandelier, a collection of brightly colored bottles huddled on the table.

  In the kitchen, Darger caught a glimpse of a four-foot-tall statue of a chef lifting a spoon to his mouth. It was more than a little creepy. Darger imagined tripping out to the kitchen in the middle of the night for a glass of water and spying the figure out of the corner of her eye, lurking there in the dark like death on a cracker.

  Cherie Howard brought their procession to the living room, which was dominated by more black leather furniture and an abstract sculpture-thing on the wall. It looked like someone had run over a piece of sheet metal and wire fencing with a tractor, and then decided it’d make a nice piece of art.

  The two agents sat side-by-side on one of the leather couches. Cherie coiled herself into a chair and picked up a glass of what looked like some kind of cola. Diet, Darger thought. Just a hunch.

  “What can you tell us about your husband’s business? How did he get started?”

  “He started out doing real estate. This was back when we were in college. But eventually he moved on to construction. Residential at first, but he worked his way up to doing some small commercial work. The last few years he’d pivoted and started to focus on government contracts. That was when the money really started rolling in,” Cherie said with a proud grin.

  Then the smile faltered, her lips pursing into a sour pout.

  “Although it wasn’t all good. You can’t make that kind of money without attracting a bad crowd.”

  “What kind of bad crowd?”

  The woman sighed.

  “I suppose we might as well get this out of the way up front, because the cops couldn’t seem to get past it: That whole sexual harassment suit was a crock of shit.”

  This was punctuated with a clickety-clack sound that came when Mrs. Howard drummed her long fingernails against the side of the glass. They were long acrylics painted the same shade of salmon-pink as her sweater. Definitely a lady that spent quite a bit of time at the salon.

  “Are you saying you don’t think the lawsuit has anything to do with Dan’s murder?” Darger asked.

  She’d expected she’d have to dig to get to this, and now here the woman was, throwing it out there with no prompting whatsoever.

  “How should I know? It’s your job to figure out who and why. All I’m saying is that the complaint itself was a bunch of crap. Lies made up by a gold-digging little bitch, just trying to cash in. I have no sympathy for her. I mean, if Dan was going to make a pass at someone at work, it wouldn’t have been Erica Hadley. She has an awful complexion, and she’s flat as a board, both front and back. Literally no ass to speak of. Dan, he liked curves, you see.”

  Cherie Howard stuck her chest out a little, showing off an ample bustline that Darger suspected wasn’t entirely natural.

  “These were a gift for my 29th birthday,” Mrs. Howard said, setting the record straight once and for all.

  Luck stared at his feet, cheeks flushed. Darger wanted to laugh but held it in.

  “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like Dan was the picture of a faithful husband. He was a piece of trash, if I’m being totally honest. I’d find receipts for the titty bar in his pockets when I was doing his laundry. I know he cheated on me. I couldn’t ever find proof, but he definitely did. I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept with every woman in the office but Erica Hadley. That’s probably why she made up all that stuff. Jealous he wasn’t into her.”

  Darger stifled her internal judgments, tried to focus on the hard facts. Mrs. Howard might have valuable information, and she was grieving besides.

  “I don’t know how you put up with it,” Darger said, trying to sound sympathetic.

  “That makes two of us then. And of course I considered divorcing him. I’d have gotten half of everything.”

  Cherie shrugged and let out a short bitter laugh.

  “I guess I’m glad I didn’t, because now I get all of it.”

  Darger shot a quick glance at Luck, wondering if he was thinking the same thing she was. Mrs. Howard should thank her lucky stars they were already 99% certain her husband’s death was somehow tied to the mob, or she would have just laid out a perfect motive for herself.

  Again, Darger reminded herself that she wasn’t here to pass judgment on the widow.

  “I have to say, the picture you’re painting of your husband is quite a bit different than what I’ve read in the newspapers.”

  Cherie rolled her eyes.

  “No one wants to speak ill of the dead, do they? Except me, I guess. I don’t mind at all, apparently. Anyway, Dan did some good in the community. He wasn’t a bad person. Had some real generosity to him. He was just a shitty husband.”

  She paused, her green cat’s eyes flicking from one agent to the other.

  “You know if you really want dirt on Dan, you should talk to Gary.”

  Darger wasn’t sure who Gary was, but the name was apparently familiar to Luck.

  “That’d be your husband’s brother?”

  Cherie nodded.

  “They had a falling out a few years ago. A big one. You know, they started the construction business together, and Gary was actually the one with building experience. Twenty years they’d worked side-by-side, partners through it all, and suddenly Gary wants out? I never understood it. And Dan wouldn’t tell me what happened. I started to suspect something was up then.”

  The metal bracelets on Cherie’s wrist jangled when she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Actually, this was around the time he started picking up the government work. Then I heard a few whispers here and there that people were saying he was ‘connected.’ Not to my face, of course. The snobby bitches around here only get diarrhea of the gossip behind your back. To your face it’s all smiles and neighborly visits. No lie. The same ones talking shit are the ones knocking on my door now to drop off a casserole.”

  “Are you saying your husband had ties to organized crime? Through his business?”

  The woman nodded again, and Darger thought she detected the hint of a smile on the woman’s face.

  “That was the rumor. I didn’t even know what ‘connected’ really meant at first. But I figured it out eventually.”

  “Did you ever hear any names? Who he might have been connected to?”

  “No. Sorry. He barely told me anything when it came to business. I suppose he thought I was too stupid to understand any of it. Which is ironic, because Dan was dumb as a sack of bricks.”

  There was a pause, and the satisfied look she’d been wearing — the one that reminded Darger of a pleased housecat — wavered then.

  “Mrs. Howard?”

  “I… just thought of something. There was this man…” Her brow furrowed as she concentrated on the memory. “It was at the anniversary banquet. A party at Dan’s office the night of the.… There were a few shady-looking guys there.”

  “Shady-looking, how?”

  The woman shook her head from side to side.

  “I don’t know. Nothing specific I can think of. There was one particular man I kept noticing. He was big, with a real hard face. Sharp nose, strong jaw. Wore a sports jacket over a t-shirt. He caught my eye because he wasn’t eating or drinking or anything. He just stood there, staring.”

  “Staring at what?”

  “Well, at first I thought he was watching me. But eventually I realized that Dan was the one he had his eye on. The whole banquet, it was like… this cold presence that seemed to shadow Dan, flitting along the edges of things.”

  Darger couldn’t help but think of the description of the Striga she’d been reading. Goosebumps prickled over her arms. She wondered if Luck was thinking the same.

  “Did he seem angry?” Luck asked.

  “Not exactly. Just… cold.”

  “And you don’t know who he was?”

  Cherie frowned.

&n
bsp; “No. But I heard someone call him “the big Polack” behind his back.” She angled her head to one side, thinking. “Gary might know. If all that stuff was related to their falling out, anyhow. I figure he knows more than I do.”

  A phone in a rose gold case materialized in Cherie’s hand, and she rattled off a phone number that both Darger and Luck copied down.

  The woman traded the phone for a pack of cigarettes, and Darger did a double-take. She was always surprised whenever she saw that people still smoked.

  As if she could hear Darger’s thoughts, Cherie explained.

  “I quit. Almost ten years ago. Actually, we quit. Dan and me, both.”

  She lit the cigarette and took a drag.

  “But after all this…” she shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess it just seemed like, what’s the point? If you can go out like that at any minute, then I might as well enjoy myself while I can.”

  Chapter 8

  The turn signal clicked out a steady rhythm as the Lexus idled at the end of the Howards’ driveway. Luck maneuvered onto the road once traffic cleared.

  “Good job in there,” Luck said. “You nailed it.”

  “I’m not sure I deserve any credit. I barely did anything.”

  “Don’t be modest. We got exactly what we were looking for.”

  “Yeah, because Cherie Howard was practically dying to torpedo the legacy of her deceased husband. She wants everyone to know he was more philanderer than philanthropist.”

  “You sound kind of pissed off. Did it offend you that much? The guy was mobbed up.”

  Darger gazed at the greenery rushing by her window.

  “I guess I can’t really blame her for being bitter. Especially once he dies and all anyone wants to talk about is what a pillar of the community he was and all that. But she was so pleased about it. And then that crack about how she was glad she hadn’t divorced him because now she gets everything… It’s just kind of gross.”

  “Either way, we got something to work with now, right?”

  Darger blinked, still staring through the glass.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  As they waited at a stoplight, Darger’s phone rang. The little display on the screen read Loshak.

  Luck eyed her as she answered, raising his eyebrows.

  “I think we’ve got something here,” Loshak said. “An angle on the Howard murder, I should say. Digging through the public records and speaking to the clerk, it looks like he may have been involved in some crooked bids on city contracts.”

  Darger took a second to process this, her brow wrinkling.

  “What does that entail, exactly?” she said into the phone.

  Luck turned his palms up, a gesture asking, What is it?

  She ignored him.

  “Corruption, mainly,” Loshak said. “The gist is that the city routinely has multi-million dollar construction jobs. They open that up for bidding and businesses compete to offer the best combination of quality and price. Except there are a lot of ways to cheat it. Sometimes the businesses collude to run up the bidding. That nets a bunch of free government cash for them to split. According to Price, the mobsters around here have been setting this up for years, getting city councilman and business owners in their pocket and bilking millions in public money. They give everybody involved kickbacks — local politicians, union reps, and so forth to keep the scam going indefinitely.”

  “And you think Howard was mixed up in this?”

  “We think so. It looks like he submitted some inflated bids. And he won a big contract on a water main job. $20 million. That’s a lot of possible motive for a murder right? Problem is, bid collusion can be tricky to prove definitively. The city council people don’t know the construction market the way the business owners do, so they have no way of knowing what bids are reasonable or not. It requires a level of expertise and sophistication that would be tough for anyone working outside of those fields or markets to develop. Even those of us in law enforcement have to consult with numerous experts to get any idea.”

  “Well, it’s interesting you say all of this. We just talked to the widow, and she said the rumor was out there that he was connected. We’re on our way to talk to the brother now. He’s Howard’s former business partner, right? Could clear some of this up for us.”

  “What is it?” Luck whispered super fast, referring to the phone call. “Is that Price calling? Why would he call you instead of me?”

  He looked like a frightened child now.

  Darger lipped the words Shut up at him.

  “Roger that,” Loshak said, drawing her attention back to the phone. “Keep me in the loop.”

  His phrasing struck her as amusing, and she smiled a little.

  “Wilco,” she said, playing along. “Over and out, good buddy.”

  Chapter 9

  Gary Howard’s house was a beautifully restored Craftsman north of Auburn Hills. It wasn’t nearly as showy as his brother’s home, but Darger found the clean architectural lines and classic look much more appealing.

  Luck knocked at the door, but there was no answer. It wasn’t a shock. Darger had called en route, and the man warned her that he’d likely be working in the garden out back.

  She and Luck picked their way around a pair of copper rain barrels, following a stone path through creeping thyme and Irish moss.

  Gary Howard was a wiry man with streaks of gray at his temples. He stooped over a newly planted fruit tree, spreading mulch in a circle around the base of the tree.

  He removed the thick leather gardening gloves he wore while they introduced themselves, but after the formalities were complete, he put the gloves back on and continued his work.

  “Cherie told us you might be able to give us more information about the business side of things,” Darger said.

  “Nope. I’m out of the business. Have been for several years now. I’d have thought she would have told you that.”

  “She did. She also mentioned a falling out between you and your brother. She’s under the impression it related directly to the business.”

  “Look, we had our disagreements, but Dan was my brother. I’m not interested in digging up old skeletons.”

  “And we’re trying to find who murdered him,” Darger said. “We need the truth.”

  Gary Howard was clearly more loyal than his sister-in-law. The question was, would he stonewall a murder investigation just to protect the reputation of his dead brother? Considering their rocky relationship, Darger thought not.

  “I’ll just cut to the chase then. Did you know your brother was part of a cover bid scheme orchestrated by the Detroit Partnership?”

  The muscles in Gary Howard’s jaw clenched. He nodded, then bent down and picked up a hose.

  “How much did he get paid?”

  Water hissed and spit out of the end of the hose nozzle. Gary directed it at the base of the tree he’d just planted.

  “I don’t know. He told me what my cut would be.”

  Darger fixed him with an inquiring look.

  “$100K. When I turned him down, he offered to split it 50/50, but he never said what the new figure would be. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t interested.”

  Luck scoffed. “He wasn’t even going to split it equally with you? I thought you were partners.”

  “Yeah, I always thought that was kinda funny. I guess he figured since he was the one that found the connection, he was entitled to a bigger piece.”

  The man’s lips turned upward into a bitter smile, but it faded quickly. He scratched his jaw, then aimed the hose toward a patch of strawberries.

  “But like I said, I wasn’t interested in getting involved in all that, no matter how much he or they offered.”

  “Do you know who they are?” Darger asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Even if I did, I sure as shit wouldn’t tell you or anybody else for that matter. I’m not particularly interested in a violent death, myself. I could tell you I turned down that money for mo
ral and legal reasons, and that’s partly true. There was getting caught to be worried about. Ending up in prison. But even that wasn’t what truly scared me.”

  While he spoke, Gary knelt and adjusted the sprayer to a finer setting and turned it on a row of small tomato plants.

  “You get mixed up with those guys — the Partnership — it doesn’t end well. But I won’t say it wasn’t hard to watch my brother move into that big house and drive around town in that fancy car while I’m over here scrimping every penny.”

  Hands on hips, Luck gazed around the property. “I’d say it looks like you’re doing OK.”

  Gary shut off the water and began coiling the hose.

  “As soon as Dan agreed to enter the cover bid, I left the company. He bought me out for a quarter of what my share was worth, and I was happy to take it and be done. I used that money to pay off the house and put the rest in my daughter’s college fund. I try to count my blessings, agent, but do you know what my brother bought himself last year for his birthday?”

  He stowed the hose, then turned to face them.

  “Go on. Take a guess.”

  Luck shrugged. “A Mercedes E-Class?”

  The look of bitter amusement returned to the man’s face.

  “A goddamned helicopter. He couldn’t even fly the fucking thing. Had to sign up for lessons, but that’s what we’re talking about here. I don’t regret getting out. Not for a second, especially now seeing that things turned out exactly how I knew they would. I’m satisfied with my lot.”

  He sighed.

  “Twenty-two years I spent building something with my brother. Something I thought mattered. And it’s all gone now. I knew there was no turning back once he went down that road. This was how this story had to end. With him ruined or dead. Or both. Tried to explain it to him. It’s never a one-time deal, even if that’s what they tell you. And if I have any regrets, it’s that I couldn’t get him to see it for what it was. But he wouldn’t listen. He never really treated me like anything but his little brother.”

  Gary thrust his hands in his pockets and stared into a mound of marigolds.