The Killing Game

by Nancy Bush

“Better’n I did. Lot better.”

  “Do you think she’d remember them?”

  Tynan gave September a long look. “She’s batty. Remembers stuff from years ago. Pops out with it. But it don’t make a lot of sense. No rhyme or reason, y’know? Just whatever floats across her dumb brain.”

  “In your expert opinion,” Gretchen said sardonically, “do you think it would be worth our while talking to her?”

  Her tone wasn’t lost on Tynan. He thought about taking offense, actually opened his mouth to snap back, but then thought better of it and clamped his lips shut tight for a few moments before adding, “Go on ahead. She’s at Maple Grove Assisted Living.”

  “Do you know anyone else on the street that was friends with them?” September asked.

  “I wasn’t around all that much. You could talk to Mr. Bromward. He’s been there forever.”

  “He’s at the far end of the cul-de-sac from the Singletons.”

  “He’s got cats,” Tynan said, making a face.

  “We’ve met with him,” Gretchen said.

  “Can you think of anything else about the Singletons?” September tried, realizing they’d about tapped him out.

  He stared down at his now empty mug and shook his head. “Hey, Tim, I’m dry,” he called to a bald, overweight man with a Humpty Dumpty look about him. Tim waddled over, picked up the mug, and thrust it under a spigot of Budweiser.

  Back in the Jeep, Gretchen shot September a look as she turned out of the lot.

  “Maple Grove Assisted Living?”

  “Do you think it’ll do any good?”

  “Nope.”

  September grimaced. “Should we make another run at Bromward? At least he wanted to talk to us.”

  “Yeah, because he’s lonely, and he didn’t know anything. And no shit about the cats.”

  “Lots of cats,” September agreed.

  “A hundred.”

  “Twenty,” September corrected.

  “Twenty’ll turn into a hundred real quick unless he gets rid of some of them and gets the others fixed.”

  September made a face. “Let’s go see him. Next week we can talk to Grace Myles.”

  “An exercise in futility.”

  “Probably, but we’ve interviewed most of the people on the street. Tynan was about our last one. A couple more of the husbands, but they’re too young and new to the area for me to have much faith in them knowing an elderly couple who kept to themselves.”

  “What about the Chinese people?”

  “What about them?” September responded. “Their daughter says they don’t know anything. They haven’t been there long enough to matter either. Where we are now is to the previous homeowners. I’ve talked to a couple. You’ve talked to a couple.”

  “I really don’t want to see Bromward again,” Gretchen admitted on a long-suffering sigh. “I’m allergic to cats.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Okay. Fine. I just don’t want to go.”

  “You’d rather go to Maple Grove Assisted Living?”

  “I’d rather go back to Tiny Tim’s and drink a beer with Tynan,” she said under her breath, “but Aurora Lane and Mr. Bromward’s cats it is.”

  * * *

  Ray Bolchoy opened the door to Luke, then settled back in his brown leather La-Z-Boy and to the glass of Jameson he was nursing. Luke sat down on the couch, which could have used a deep clean. Bolchoy, a confirmed bachelor, was an excellent investigator, but a housekeeper? Not so much.

  “How’s the private side?” Bolchoy asked in his gravelly voice.

  “Coming on. Greg Wren’s widow just hired me.” He told Bolchoy about Andi’s encounter with Brian Carrera. He didn’t tell his former partner of her pregnancy, but he did relate what she’d said about her brother- and sister-in-law. He finished with, “I’m meeting her tomorrow at the cabin she just bought on Schultz Lake.”

  His answer to that was a grunt.

  Luke added, “Glad the hearing went well.”

  “Don’t have my job back, though.”

  There was nothing to say to that. They both knew he’d pissed off the department enough over the years for a re-hirement to be unlikely.

  Bolchoy lifted his glass toward Luke, silently asking if he wanted a drink. Luke shook his head. “The night before the hearing, Amberson, Yates, DeSantos, and I went out. Iris showed up, too.”

  He shot Luke a look. “You back with her?”

  “No.” Luke was firm.

  “Bet she isn’t pleased about the hearing.” He offered up a thin smile. “Corkland wanted me to go down for this.”

  “He didn’t have enough evidence.”

  “Yeah, but he leans toward the Carreras.”

  “The DA?”

  “He doesn’t like going up against ’em. Knows they’re dirty, but he’s a chickenshit. If I’d managed to actually get something on ’em, he’d be in a real hard place.”

  “Do they have something on Corkland?”

  “Nah. Corkland just has no spine. Iris has more than he does, but she thinks sunshine beams shoot out of the guy’s ass. He can do no wrong.” He downed the rest of his drink. “But you came here for information on taking down the Carerras.”

  “I’ve tried to contact Peg Bellows, but so far she hasn’t gotten back to me. Where did she land after everything? She and Ted were friends with the Carreras, or at least they thought so, initially.”

  “That’s what she says,” Bolchoy agreed sourly.

  Luke knew the story of Ted Bellows’s death, but he wanted to refresh his memory before he contacted Bellows’s widow. “Ted Bellows died on a fishing trip. The Carreras chartered a boat out of Tillamook Bay that was destroyed by a sudden squall. Coast Guard got to the wreckage and saved the captain and crew member, but one of the Carreras and Ted were on an inflatable, and when that turned up, only Carrera was on board.”

  “Brian Carrera.” He harrumphed and settled himself deeper into his seat. “Bellows’s body floated up a day later. Whole thing ruled an accident. The truth is Brian Carrera’s an opportunist. My bet is he saw how to get rid of Bellows once and for all. The captain saw them in the inflatable together before his own fishing trawler broke apart. The ones who survived were lucky to be saved.”

  “Carrera didn’t have an explanation of what happened to Bellows?”

  “Oh, he said they’d tipped over and the boat was atop them. Brian managed to get the inflatable turned over and inside it, but by then Bellows was gone. Disappeared.”

  Luke knew Bolchoy had never believed Bellows’s death was anything short of homicide, but there had never been any proof. “You told Peg your suspicions.”

  “She wouldn’t believe me . . . at first. But then those documents turned up. The sale of their property with her signature, and she didn’t sign it. She had to go to court, you know. Actually prove it was a forgery. The Carreras insisted they knew nothing about it. Must’ve been Ted who put her name on the doc, was their defense. Maybe it was . . . hard to say because he was dead. Carrera brothers skated again, but after that, Peg wasn’t quite so fond of them.” He slid Luke a glimmering look. “Corkland said that’s where I got the idea to forge their confessions.”

  Luke wanted to ask him if Corkland was right, like he’d always wanted to but had been reluctant to ask. Now Bolchoy was staring him down, almost daring him to, but once the truth was out, there would be no putting it back. Cautiously, Luke said, “Rule number eight: Don’t ask questions if you don’t want to know the answers.”

  Bolchoy’s mouth settled into a hard smile. “That’s rule number six. Don’t forget it.”

  “I haven’t.”

  Bolchoy picked up his drink, though it was empty, then turned the glass in his hands. “At first Peg didn’t want to talk to me after Ted’s death. She’d had some medical issues. Cancer scare, I think. And anyway, she didn’t want to hear my theories about what happened on that inflatable.”

  “You told her you thought it was a homicide.”
>
  “She didn’t believe it. She defended those bastards until the document showed up. Even then, though, she shut the door in my face. I tried to contact her, but truthfully, she likes a prettier face.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He laughed shortly. “She liked the Carrera boys. Maybe even better than she liked her husband. I thought about using you back then, but well—” He shrugged. “Things went the way they went, and anyway, the lady wasn’t taking my calls. You want to know where she landed? Go see her in person. Knock on her door. She’ll take one look at you and you’ll be in.”

  * * *

  September walked through the door of the house she shared with her fiancé, a modified 1950s rambler, and dropped her messenger bag atop her grandmother’s quilt, which was tossed on the couch. She could smell the barbecue before she entered the kitchen. Jake was on the back patio outside the sliding glass door, which was cracked open a couple of inches. He was tending to a couple of rib eyes he’d flung on the grill as soon as September had texted him that she was on her way home from work.

  She lingered a moment in the kitchen while he still didn’t know she was there, her gaze skating over his lean form, the strong line of his jaw. She and Jake had been through a lot in the past year; both of them had spent time in a hospital recuperating from various injuries. When he’d asked her to marry him, September had said yes, then had suffered huge doubts about the possibility of wedded bliss . . . or wedded anything, for that matter. Her own family had its share of weirdnesses, and she’d suffered a low-grade panic attack, if there was such a thing, for months on end. But she’d come through that with a kind of what-the-hell’s-wrong-with-you moment. Jake Westerly was the only man she wanted and she was damn lucky he felt the same way about her.

  So, now they were making plans for a wedding. He didn’t care when, where, or how, he just wanted it to happen.

  “Hey, Nine,” he said when he saw her, a grin catching his lips. Most of the time he still called her by her nickname, the one her twin, August “Auggie” Rafferty had dubbed her with because she’d been born in the ninth month of the year . . . barely. Auggie’s birthday was August 31, while September had arrived a few minutes later, just after midnight, hence she was christened September. This was a strange quirk of their father’s, started before their births with their brother, March, and sisters July and May. September always wondered what her father would have done if they’d arrived in the same month, but Auggie always figured they’d be August and Augusta. . . . The sad part was, he was probably right.

  Jake put down his barbeque tools and bounded back inside, sweeping her into a bear hug that caused September to laugh in surprise.

  “You’re squeezing me to death!”

  “Ah, no. We can’t have that.” He slowly released her, then laid a big smacker on her. “Got a big account today.”

  Jake owned an investment business he’d toyed with selling, his desire to make people—rich people—money having waned over the years. He had a half-interest in his father’s winery—his brother, Colin, was his partner—and he’d thought about moving into the business more fully. But as soon as he decided to quit the investment world, suddenly everyone wanted him to be their financial adviser. So, he was keeping with it in the meantime, and he’d admitted to September that he had a new attitude since they’d become engaged. “I want to be married to you. Everything else is secondary.”

  The hell of it was that September didn’t feel quite the same. She loved Jake, didn’t want anyone else and wanted to be married to him. That was all true. But as far as the job went, she liked being a homicide detective, and after over a year on the job she wasn’t quite the newbie she’d been. Not that Jake was asking her to quit, but he did worry about the dangers.

  “Are the steaks burning?” she asked.

  “Nah. Just a char. I’ll leave the salad to you. Pour yourself a glass of wine.” He indicated the open bottle of red on the counter as he headed back outside.

  “It’s salad in a bag,” she said.

  “Of course.” He threw her a grin.

  Cooking wasn’t exactly her long suit.

  She poured a small amount of a red blend they both liked, looked at the glass, then added in another healthy dose. What the hell? It was Friday and she wasn’t working tomorrow, though today had been long. She and Gretchen had changed direction at the last moment and decided to meet with Grace Myles, which hadn’t worked. Grace was apparently having a bad day and the detectives were politely, firmly turned away. They’d been on their way to meet with Bromward, but Gretchen had decided she would rather call on the phone than face the man’s cats again. Back at the station, she’d phoned the garrulous older man, who’d proceeded to hang on the phone with the just-one-more-thing line long after Gretchen’s patience could handle. September’s partner had finally just clicked off while Bromward was in midthought, and after spewing a blistering string of swear words, Gretchen had said to September, “Bromward’s yours from here on out. I’m not talking to him anymore.”

  “That’s not how it works,” September said.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Now, September grabbed the bag of Caesar salad out of the refrigerator, cut it open, and dumped the hunks of romaine into a bowl. Then she cut open the inner bags of shredded parmesan, croutons, and the dressing. One of the things she loved about Jake was that he could swing from the most gourmet meal to pedestrian fare without comment.

  She set the bowl onto the table, scooped up her wine glass, and joined Jake outside. “Gretchen said the skeletons-in-the-closet investigation would be solved in a few days.”

  “Gretchen says a lot of things that aren’t true. You just noticed?”

  “Smart-ass.” She shook her head. “She dragged me back from vacation last summer because the case was heating up, but it just came to a grinding halt. We don’t have a DNA match and no one on Aurora seems to know who belongs to the extra bones. I’ve gone back through property records to previous homeowners, but no one wants to get back to me.”

  Jake pulled the steaks off the grill and slid them onto a plate, then picked up his own glass of red. They both walked back inside and sat down at the small kitchen table.

  September exhaled heavily and picked up her wineglass. “Gretchen and I connected with Tynan Myles at Tiny Tim’s today. He lives at the house catty-corner across the street from the Singletons, where we found the bones. He wasn’t a lot of help. His mother, Grace Myles, owned the house before she turned it over to Tynan. She was probably the Singletons’ closest friend, according to Carol Jenkins, Jan Singleton’s sister. But Grace is in assisted living now and suffers from dementia. We tried to see her, but she wasn’t at her best and the powers that be at Maple Grove Assisted Living suggested we come back another time.”

  “You said the bones are from an eighteen-year-old male?”

  “Who would be about thirty now, if he’d lived. Tynan’s son, Grace’s grandson, is probably closer in age, but he never lived on Aurora. He lived with his mother out of state. And his wife isn’t interested in having us talk to him.”

  “What about the other neighbors?”

  “There’s a Chinese family in the house directly across from the Singletons. They’ve been there about five years. They’re very polite, but when I ask them questions they just nod and smile. I don’t know how much they understand. They have a grown daughter who lives in Los Angeles who I’ve talked to and who basically interprets. She says they don’t know anything, and I believe her. They haven’t been there long enough.”

  “Any other houses?”

  “Lots of houses, but no one who really knows the Singletons except the guy on the opposite end of the street. Gretchen had an illuminating conversation with him about pretty much everything but the Singletons, so, now I’m going over the records of people who lived on Aurora before. One house has sold six times.”

  “Something’ll break.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” September grumbled. “Gretchen’s lo
sing interest. Even though she likes the weird ones, she’s about ready to jump ship.”

  Jake touched the rim of his glass to hers. “C’mon. Let’s eat. You’ll feel better.”

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday morning Luke drove to the Bellows’s cabin and was a little surprised to see how well-tended it was. The trees and bushes that lined the lane were trimmed back and there was fresh gravel along the lane that led to the small clearing by the lake, where a newly shingled two-story house had replaced the rustic abode Luke remembered from the pictures Bolchoy had in his file.

  Luke parked and stepped out, conscious of the earthy smell of the lake and the light breeze that filtered the heat of the sun. It was late September and there was no discernible change from August. If it hadn’t been that he was worried about Andi, it would have been a perfect day.

  He sprang up to the two steps to the front door, knocked loudly, and waited. Peg Bellows wouldn’t answer his phone message, but it might be harder to ignore him on her porch. He noticed the two window boxes with pink, purple, and yellow petunias bobbing their heads in the breeze. She’d put some time, effort, and money into the place, that was for certain. Maybe as a nose-thumbing to the Carreras? It was her property and she wasn’t selling.

  But Bolchoy had intimated that she’d been swayed by the good-looking brothers. Maybe she’d had a change of opinion after Ted’s death. It sure looked like it.

  He knocked again and waited, then moved to the front windows, peering inside. The place was clean and decorated with a more modern feel than the rustic furniture he’d expected. Was he remembering Bolchoy’s pictures, or was it merely his own expectation? Either way, this decor smelled like money . . . but if she’d sold out to the Carreras they would’ve razed the place in preparation for buying more and more land. Like the Wrens, they planned bigger, though the Wren’s lodge was bound to be more family friendly than whatever the Carreras would come up with.

  He knocked a third time, pretty sure no one was around. He was turning to leave when he heard the hum of a loud engine approaching. He waited, and a truck appeared pulling a small trailer with landscaping equipment. A man jumped down and looked over at Luke inquiringly.