by Lauren Carr
Thinking he couldn’t possibly be serious, Francine let out a nervous laugh.
“The police laughed just like that when I told them,” Carson said without humor. “Of course, I was only six years old at the time and I didn’t know which stall she had his body buried under. I assume his body’s still there.”
“Who was your birth father?” Helen asked. “Is he still around? Maybe he’d know something about your mother’s murder.”
“Doubt it,” Carson said. “He was a rapist. Picked my mother up one night when she was hitchhiking home from a bar. Drove her off into some field, raped her, strangled her, and left her for dead.” He grinned at their shocked expressions. “That’s right. When you heard my mother saying that my pappy was a good for nothin’ psychopath, she was tellin’ the truth.”
“Which is why we cut her out of our lives.” Mabel spun on her heels and headed for the kitchen.
With a slight grin, Carson shrugged his shoulders. “Wish I could help you, but like Mabel says, you have Mom’s DNA to put into your database. Personally, I don’t relish the idea of Big Brother having my DNA. There’s no telling what they’d end up doing with it.”
“Carson,” Mabel called to him upon realizing he wasn’t directly behind her.
“Coming, dear.”
Chris waited until they had exited the restaurant before saying, “I wonder if Carson knows he married his mother.”
“He wants you to hit him again,” Molly told the blackjack dealer, whose hand Sterling was patting with his paw.
“I know.” The dealer slipped a card from the top of the deck and tossed it on top of the three that rested in front of Sterling who was perched at the table on a tall stool. “The German has nineteen.”
Sterling placed his two front paws on top of his cards.
“He’s staying,” Molly said.
“We know, Molly,” Archie said with a grumble. “He’s obviously got a system.”
“I think he’s counting cards.” With his eyes narrowed to slits, the dealer tossed a nine of diamonds on top of his hand. “House has twenty-five. The German wins again.”
Molly and a crowd of spectators clapped their hands and chattered with excitement while the dealer added several chips to the impressive pile in front of Sterling.
“Isn’t it exciting, Archie? A dog playing blackjack.”
“I wish you hadn’t given him that chip to get him started, Molly.” Archie cursed when the dealer tossed a five of clubs onto his hand, pushing him one over twenty-one. With a look of sympathy, the dealer took the chips he had used to place his bet. “We’re probably going to need it.”
A low bark drew their attention to Sterling, who slid his paw in their direction. When he lifted it, they found several chips. When Archie looked into his face, he swore the dog winked at him.
“Look, Archie,” — Molly giggled while Sterling licked her ear — “he’s paying you back. What a nice dog.” She patted Sterling on the head as he lapped up his complimentary soda. “Good dog.”
“Place your bets!” The dealer used a towel to mop the soda that splashed out of Sterling’s glass.
Leaving the chips where the dealer had placed them to let the bet ride, Sterling tapped the dealer’s hand with his paw to request a card.
Chapter Fourteen
A cheer erupted from the casino as Francine led Chris and Helen to the elevators. The crowd was so enthusiastic that they craned their necks to peer inside, but couldn’t see through the throng of spectators cheering on one of the gamblers.
“Looks like someone is having a big winning streak at the blackjack table.” Francine added in a mutter, “Lucky dog.”
Chris grabbed the phone vibrating in his pocket. The caller ID read Regina Patterson. He pressed the button to accept the call and ducked into what he hoped to be a quiet corner.
“Any progress?” she asked him.
“As much as we can without giving away that we know Tommy Bukowski is dead.”
“Well, we may have caught a break. His girlfriend has reported him missing. According to her, Bukowski was going on a business trip for his boss—”
“Krawford?” Chris asked.
“That’s who Bukowski worked for,” Regina said. “And he was supposed to return home last night. But our records show that he checked out of the Stardust Monday morning.”
“Two days before his body was found,” Chris said.
“And he was killed thirty-six to forty-eight hours before that,” Regina said. “Oh, and we have a cause of death. Poison. Xylazine, horse tranquilizer—massive dose. Enough to knock out a horse—kill a human. He had a hairline fracture to the skull. If Tommy hadn’t been knocked out at the time of the murder, he was certainly dazed and confused.”
“After hitting him in the head, the murderer stuck him with a syringe full of horse tranquilizer,” Chris said.
“Our crime scene is a stable,” Regina said. “They found traces of horse manure on his clothes.”
“If we can get a DNA profile of the manure, then we can identify the horse which will tell us in which stall Tommy was killed.”
She laughed. “DNA analysis of horse manure? Do you have any idea how much that’ll cost?”
“If it will help solve Tommy’s murder to bring down the Krawfords and get you that promotion you want, it’ll be worth every penny.” Chris told her that he would call with a report after meeting with the casino’s security before hanging up.
“Was that your boss?” Helen asked when he rejoined them.
Chris waited for another round of cheers from inside the table games to quiet down before reporting that Tommy’s girlfriend had reported him missing and he’d been poisoned with a horse tranquilizer.
“Did this Tommy guy play the ponies?” Francine asked.
“No, he was into table games.”
Francine led them to the alcove which contained two sets of elevators. A huge sign announced a black-tie Valentine’s Day dinner dance to be held the next night, Friday the thirteenth. At a cost of five hundred dollars per person, the formal event benefited the local animal welfare league.
Silently, Francine nudged Chris and jerked her head in the direction of the sign. Upon getting his attention, she then rolled her eyes toward Helen. “A black-tie dinner dance for Valentine’s Day? Sounds romantic, doesn’t it?”
“This was Mom’s big idea,” Chris said. “She’s the chairperson for the welfare league.”
“Then you can get tickets.” Francine rolled her eyes and tossed her head in Helen’s direction. “Take your valentine to the dance and make her feel like Cinderella.”
Chris glanced at Helen, who was peering at Francine’s bobbing head and rolling eyes with curiosity. He was thankful that an elevator arrived behind them and the doors opened.
“No, we don’t want that one,” Francine told him when he stepped over to hold the door open for them to step on. “Those elevators,” –she gestured at the bank of three elevators against the wall— “only go to the guest floors.” She nodded at the elevators in front of her. “We want to go to the business and executive offices on the fourth and fifth floor. So we have to take one of these elevators.”
An elevator arrived and Chris held the door open for Francine and Helen to step onto the car.
“The killer must have some connection to the racetrack,” he told them. “They’re going to work up a DNA profile of the horse. If we find the horse, then that could lead us to the killer.”
“Who’s going to have the fun job of collecting DNA samples from all the horses at the track?” Francine pressed the fifth-floor button.
Chris and Helen exchanged glances followed by smiles.
“I have people who do that sort of thing,” Helen said as the doors opened. “Since the victim was found on your property, Chris, we’ll also need to collect DNA samples from your h
orses to eliminate your farm as the murder scene.”
“Send your folks out anytime.”
Chris held the doors open for them to step off into the business reception area. Helen unclipped her police shield from her belt and stepped up to the reception desk.
Upon seeing the police shield, the receptionist snatched the phone receiver, punched the intercom button, and cut off Helen’s introduction. “Judy, a lieutenant from the state police is here.”
After hanging up the phone, she said, “Ms. Davenport’s assistant will be here in just a minute.”
“Ms. Davenport?” Francine asked. “Is she any relation—”
“Mason Davenport’s daughter,” she said. “Peyton is the vice president in charge of security for both the casino and racetrack. All police inquiries must go through her.”
Before they had a chance to sit, a woman with curly artificially red hair arrived to lead them down a long corridor and through a pair of double doors to a suite of offices and cubicles. Everyone seemed to be hurrying from one computer terminal to another. As they passed one pair of glass doors, Chris saw numerous banks of surveillance monitors being scrutinized by a team of uniformed security agents.
Upon rounding a corner, they entered a different world. The outer office was notably more quiet and feminine. Next to the door, there was a table with a display made up of sand and pebbles and what appeared to be a small cactus plant.
“That’s a zen garden,” Francine told Chris when he stopped to puzzle over the circular designs in the sand.
“What’s zen?” Chris asked. “I’ve heard the word but what is it?”
“It’s Buddhism,” Helen said.
“Zen is the power of meditation,” a sultry voice announced behind him. “It creates an atmosphere of peace and harmony.”
Chris turned around to see a young slender woman with a headful of thick dark hair and alabaster skin. Her dark eyes zeroed in on him as she stuck out her hand to shake his. “Lieutenant Clarke, I’m Peyton Davenport, Stardust’s vice president in charge of security.”
Helen reached in front of Chris to grasp her hand. “I’m Lieutenant Helen Clarke, Ms. Davenport. This is Chris Matheson. He’s with the FBI. Thank you very much for seeing us.” She then introduced Francine while neglecting to specify her role in being there.
Peyton grinned—displaying a mouthful of straight white teeth. She kept her eyes locked on Chris’s. “I apologize, Mr. Matheson. You just have such an air of authority about you.”
Helen’s lip curled with disgust while Francine suppressed a giggle as Peyton led them into her office and closed the door.
A woman with long frizzy dishwater blond hair, approximately the same age as Peyton, quietly sat at a conference table in the corner of the office. Peyton’s only acknowledgement of her was an occasionally sidelong glance.
“How may I help you?” Peyton asked while taking a seat behind her enormous glass topped desk.
“We’re investigating the disappearance of—” Helen paused to make a show of referring to her notes — “Thomas Buk—” she struggled over the pronunciation until Chris interjected.
“Bukowski.”
“Whatever,” Helen said with an air of boredom. “His girlfriend reported him missing.” She flashed a grin. “You know how it is. We have to cover all the bases. According to his credit card statement, he stayed here through the weekend.”
“His girlfriend said it was a business trip.” Chris said.
“What interest does the FBI have in what sounds like a routine missing person’s case?” Peyton asked.
“Mr. Bukowski was from New Jersey,” Chris said. “Since this case is crossing state lines, the New Jersey state police requested that our office assist in the investigation.” Years of reciting the same explanation repeatedly in many such cases, made the words roll off his tongue as if it had been the truth.
With a glance at the blonde out of the corner of her eyes, Peyton paused before nodding her head to indicate that she understood.
Helen held out her phone with a portrait picture of Tommy Bukowski on the screen. “Do you recall seeing Mr. Bukowski when he was staying here?”
Peyton held out the picture to the blonde. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do remember him. We met with him on Friday.” She finally introduced her subordinate. “This is Rachel Pine, our director of cybersecurity here at the Stardust.”
They each shook hands with Rachel between her taking glances at Tommy’s picture.
“What was the meeting about?” Chris asked.
“Mr. Bukowski was investigating a ransomware attack,” Peyton said. “It seems his boss, Mr.…”
“Krawford. Boris Krawford.” Rachel handed the phone to Helen. “His system had been hit by a ransomware virus.”
“Do you know what that is?” Peyton asked.
“Yes,” Chris said. “It’s a virus that locks up your computer system so you can’t access anything, including your bank accounts. The hacker basically holds your system hostage until you pay a ransom for the key code to unlock it.”
“Mr. Krawford paid the ransom and got access to his accounts,” Peyton said. “Then he sent Mr. Bukowski to track down the hacker.”
“And he tracked the hacker to the Stardust?” Chris asked. “You have a very impressive online casino, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Peyton said, “and Boris Krawford is one of our regular players.”
“Whoever hacked him is not connected to the Stardust,” Rachel said. “Our cybersecurity is state-of-the-art.”
“I directed Rachel and her staff to cooperate with Mr. Bukowski’s investigation,” Peyton said. “We certainly can’t have our customers, especially those as powerful and influential as Boris Krawford, accusing the Stardust’s online casino of being a doorway for hackers.”
“I spent most of Saturday morning and afternoon with Mr. Bukowski,” Rachel said. “Gave him full access to our records from all of Mr. Krawford’s digital activities with the casino. He found nothing.”
“Mr. Bukowski emailed me on Monday morning stating that he’d found no evidence of the hacker accessing Mr. Krawford’s computer through our casino,” Peyton said. “He thanked me for assisting him on his investigation and that was the last contact we had with him.”
“Our information indicates that Mr. Bukowski checked out two days early,” Helen said.
Peyton shrugged her shoulders. “I’m assuming that’s because he was through with his investigation and he needed to get back to New Jersey to report to his boss.” She lifted the lid to her laptop. “Would you like to see the email he’d sent to me?”
“That would be helpful,” Helen said.
“It’s not very long.”
Francine and Chris studied Rachel, who chewed on a thumbnail while watching her boss.
Helen read the message on the screen of the laptop while Peyton sent it to print.
Peyton’s eyes lit up. “I just remembered something. I saw Mr. Bukowski down in the lounge on Sunday night. He was with a young woman. Short red hair. Very pretty.”
“Have you ever seen her before?” Chris asked.
Peyton paused to smile at him before answering. “We get so many people here at the Stardust. We get busloads of people from Washington, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and down in southern West Virginia. There’s no telling who she is or where she came from. She looked awfully friendly, and he wasn’t fighting her off,” — she shot a grin, with the corners of her mouth curling, in Chris’s direction — “if you know what I mean.”
Chris returned the smile. “I know exactly what you mean, Ms. Davenport.”
“Peyton.” She handed the printed copy of the email to Helen. “Could I do anything else for you?”
Helen tore her frosty gaze from Chris to respond, “Can we get a printout of Mr. Bukowski’s invoice and accounting for his stay while h
e was here?”
“Of course.” Peyton turned to Rachel. “Can you ask Judy to print up Mr. Bukowski’s records for Detective Clarke please?”
“It’s lieutenant,” Helen corrected her.
“Lieutenant.” Peyton licked her lips while casting a glance in Chris’s direction.
“Did Mr. Bukowski say anything to you about where he was going to look next in his search for the ransomware hacker?” Chris asked Rachel.
Her eyes grew wide while she gazed at Chris in silence.
“Didn’t you tell me, Rachel, that Bukowski had said something to you about a Russian import company that Mr. Krawford had been doing business with?” Peyton said.
“Yes,” Rachel said. “Russians. He told me that Mr. Krawford had been doing some business with Russians and since he’d cleared us, that it had to be them. The Russians.”
“Those Russians are so sneaky,” Peyton said.
“Can’t trust them for a minute,” Chris said with a wicked grin in her direction.
Helen gave her business card to Rachel and asked that she call her if she could think of anything that could prove helpful in their case.
“Please feel free to call me if you can think of anything that could helpful… or just to talk.” Chris handed his business card to Peyton. When she took it, he clasped her hand in a firm shake. “Thank you very much for your time, Peyton.” Aware of Helen watching them with a frown on her face, he kept a firm grasp on her hand.
“You can call me anytime, Chris.”
“How about tomorrow?” He shot back. “I noticed a poster advertising a benefit dinner dance.”
“It’s black tie and they have a band. There will be dancing. Do you dance, Chris?”
“I’m a tremendous dancer, Peyton.”
“It’s five hundred dollars a plate and you have to have tickets to get in.”
He winked at her. “I can get tickets—no problem.”
“Here’s my home address and private number.” She wrote a number on the back of a business card and held it out to him. “Pick me up at six o’clock tomorrow and we’ll see how good of a dancer you really are, Chris.”