Well, he knew where Ramona would be at five o’clock this afternoon. Monica Sanchez had told him that’s when Percy’s memorial service was scheduled. He glanced into the squad room where Rico was sitting at his desk, seemingly deep in thought.
“Any luck reaching the guy on the business card?” Beau asked.
“Grant Mangle? Yeah. He answered. Claimed he didn’t remember any Percy Lukinger. Hung up before I had the chance to run the other aliases by him. It really felt like he was dodging me.”
“There’s an address on the card, right?”
Rico picked up the card and nodded.
“Okay then, let’s go.” Now this was what law enforcement should be like.
Grant Mangle Enterprises, Inc., occupied a corner slot in a strip center that also housed a satellite TV service, an insurance agency, and a small jewelry store. The latter reminded Beau of his other errand, and he patted his shirt pocket to be sure he’d carried the diamond with him. Nothing about the signage on Mangle’s office specifically stated the nature of his business, but small clues hinted that it had something to do with real estate. Through large windows, he saw two desks in the small room, which seemed to be the sum total of the operation; a man sat at one. His focus was on the computer screen in front of him. The other desk might have belonged to a receptionist, but he or she was not present.
“Grant Mangle?” Beau asked, as soon as he and Rico walked in.
The man was in his late forties with dark brown hair cut very short, blue eyes, and a deep crease between his thick eyebrows. He automatically nodded before looking up to realize who had asked. When he saw the uniforms, his hands fidgeted nervously over the items on his desk.
“My deputy here called awhile ago but he seemed to have gotten cut off. We thought you might remember things a little better if we dropped by.” It was said with a smile, but Beau knew the man received his message.
Mangle put on a salesman’s smile and stood to shake their hands. He stood almost six feet tall and was slim for his height. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
“Rico asked whether you know a Percy Lukinger.”
“No, I’m afraid that doesn’t ring a bell. I told you that, deputy.”
“What he didn’t get the chance to ask was if you might know a couple of other names.” From his folder, Beau pulled out the driver’s license photo of their victim.
“Well, you know how bad license pictures are. A person never really looks the same,” Mangle said with a weak little smile.
“Take a close look. Maybe John Lukinger is how you knew him? Or Percival Johns, or Johnny Luck?”
“John something. Yeah, I think that’s the one.” Mangle handed the photocopy back to Beau.
“He had your business card in his pocket. What’s the nature of your business anyway?”
“Oh. Well, we handle property rentals. I know the office seems small, but ninety-nine percent of what we do is online. All records are on computer, you know, so it doesn’t take a large staff to maintain the accounts. Independent contractors handle all the maintenance. We basically just receive and disburse rental income to the property owners.”
“And John Lukinger was a customer?”
Mangle glanced toward his computer, obviously knowing any such claim could be verified.
“No, not yet. He, uh … he wanted information about our services and such. We talked for a few minutes and I gave him my card. That’s all it was.”
“When was this?”
“Whew—maybe six months ago?”
“You must talk to a lot of people in the course of a month, and yet you remember this one. So, am I to assume he came back, talked to you some more? Was he interested in renting, or did he have a property he wanted you to manage for him?”
Again, a sideways glance toward the computer. A bunch of mental ping-pong as Mangle decided what his story would be.
“Okay, I gotta admit I really don’t remember him all that well. I swear, I’m sure he only came in the one time. Maybe twice at most. We never did any business.”
A lot of protesting. The sheen of sweat on the man’s upper lip told Beau there was more to the story.
“Okay, thanks, Mr. Mangle. We’ll be back in touch if we have any other questions. If you remember anything more, you can always call us.” Beau handed over one of his cards.
Outside in the chilly air, Beau and Rico stood in sight for a couple minutes.
“He’s totally full of it,” Rico said.
“Yeah. Let’s give him a little something to sweat about.” Beau stared at the plate glass windows fronting Mangle’s office. The man had not gone back to his seat. “Come on.”
He and Rico walked to the business next door, the satellite TV place, and he made a show of having Percy Lukinger’s photo in hand. The clerk at the front desk looked about nineteen and the eagerness with which he greeted them told Beau the young guy probably earned most of his pay through commissions. When he showed the photo of Lukinger, it drew a blank look.
“Sorry, I’ve only worked here a couple weeks, so I’m not really familiar with the customers yet.”
Beau hadn’t actually expected recognition. He spent a few more minutes asking about satellite dish plans, just enough time to really make the guy next door sweat if he had reason to. When the lawmen walked back out to the cruiser, he saw through the window that Mangle was on the phone at his desk, speaking rather intently to someone.
“I’m going to walk down to the little jewelry store at the corner,” he told Rico. “Watch Mangle and see if he makes any moves. I shouldn’t be long.”
He left Rico to the warmth of the vehicle and headed toward the small jewelry shop. A sign on the window said “Certified Gemologist” so he figured he could get a quick answer to his question. He pulled the small plastic evidence bag from his pocket. The man who greeted him was in his fifties, with a thick head of gray hair and mellow brown eyes.
“I’ve got this piece of evidence in a case,” Beau said. “Can you tell me if it’s a real diamond or one of those synthetic ones?”
“Sure. I’ll need to take it out of the plastic.”
Beau removed the stone and handed it over. The man polished it with a cloth then carried it over to a machine that looked like a huge microscope. Setting the stone carefully in place, he stared down through an eyepiece.
“Nope, it’s a cubic zirconia,” he said, without looking up. “Nice one though. Nicely shaped and it has good sparkle. I can see where it could fool your average consumer.”
He removed the stone from the clamps and handed it back to Beau.
“Sorry. I hope you haven’t bought it for your wife.”
“Nope. It’s just another piece of evidence in a case. Say, is there any way to tell the age of this stone or where it came from?”
The gemologist just gave him a look and a tiny shake of his head.
Okay, it’s probably a dead end, since we don’t even know whether Percy knew the stone was in his dresser drawer, but it was worth a shot. He thanked the jeweler and left.
Back at the cruiser, Rico reported that when Grant Mangle noticed him sitting out there he ended his phone call and went into another room at the back of the office, probably the restroom. Beau started the SUV and drove around the side of the building where there was a narrow alley with a trash dumpster for each of the units. Each business had a hardy-looking steel door to the alley, but there was no sign Mangle had left. A Cadillac SUV was parked there. Since he hadn’t locked his front door, most likely he was simply hiding out of sight until the officers went away.
“Let’s check in at the station,” Beau said. “I’ll leave you there to go through the rest of those pieces of evidence, while I run to the casino to find out what I can about Percy’s card. I’ll be back in time to change out of uniform and attend the memorial service. You should probably come along.”
The drive to the casino gave Beau a chance to touch base by phone with S
am. He invited her to go with him to the memorial service, but she begged off saying she had a lot going on at the chocolate factory. He didn’t blame her. Although she took an interest in his cases, had in fact been deputized to actively help him on a few, her business needed her full attention in recent months.
He made the angular turn off Highway 64, taking the road to Taos Pueblo, coming to the casino a little over a mile down. The unprepossessing adobe-styled building could have passed for a large restaurant or small inn—nothing like the establishments along the interstate, the tribes who brought in enough business to put up rambling five-story hotels and invest in flashy Vegas-style lighting. He pulled his cruiser under the portico, where simple red letters spelled out the fact this was a casino. Aside from the fabulous sunset, the most impressive thing about this one was the fact that it was a non-smoking facility.
Late afternoon looked like a busy time, he thought, as he walked through the main room, assaulted by the constant pinging and electronic clatter of the slot machines. George Stennis had told him to go to the cashier’s cage and he would come right down.
Beau expected someone with the look of ex-military or ex-mobster, a man with an intimidating air, but Mr. Stennis came across much more like a giant, bald teddy bear. Six feet tall, with a wide middle as if there was a basketball under his shirt. He wore the casino’s logo on the chest of his polo shirt, along with khaki pants and a pair of black Skechers.
They shook hands and Stennis motioned Beau to follow him into an alcove and through a doorway concealed by a poster for the headliner in the bar this week.
“Bet you thought I’d be armed,” Stennis said. Before Beau could respond, he continued. “Our guys on the casino floor are, and the men who usher the daily take to the armored cars. Me, I’m just a computer guy, a desk jockey.”
Beau had seen documentaries on the lengths to which casinos went to protect their business, which was ninety-nine percent cash and a prime target for cheaters and armed robbers. He pretty much knew what to expect when he walked into George Stennis’s darkened roomful of video monitors, but the security man was proud of their setup and wanted to show it off anyway. He flopped down into his chair and demonstrated how he could zoom a camera to a close-up of any particular table or area of slots.
“There’s hardly a blind spot in the whole place,” he bragged.
Beau had spotted one, but didn’t say anything. Critiquing the casino’s system wasn’t what he was here for.
“We had talked about your recorded video footage from December. Is that stored on the computer, or are there physical tapes?”
“We’re still a little old-school on that. We’ve got tapes.” Stennis got up with effort and went to the open doorway of a small side room. Squeezing sideways, he ran his fingers over the labels on boxes until he came up with what he wanted. “There’s one for every camera for every day. You can see why we can only keep them a short time. Just don’t have the space.”
Beau stifled his impatience. Casino management must be run by a team of ninety-year-olds to put up with this. He’d hoped they would have facial recognition software and the identification process would take a few minutes. He could see he was in for hours of staring at a monitor. Bizarre, considering they issued electronic cards and knew their customer’s gambling habits.
“You told me Percy—um, Johnny Luck—was here on New Year’s Eve. Can we start there and then just backtrack to the dates he came in?”
“Good idea. Gamblers are a superstitious bunch. If he got lucky at a machine, odds are good he went to it every time. We can narrow down the number of cameras we need to monitor.”
“Does the data from his player’s card show which machines he used?”
“It does. I’ll get that real quick and we’ll be in business.” Stennis moved to his computer once again and Beau recited the number he’d written in his notebook.
It still wasn’t going to be a quick process. While the security man fiddled with video tape and the machine, Beau reminded himself that nothing in law enforcement was instantaneous; it was a matter of finding clues and meticulously following them. Still, this was bordering on the ridiculous.
With the first tape rolling, the time stamp in the corner showed it was 12:01 a.m. Stennis checked his record again.
“Mr. Luck swiped his card at eight p.m. so we’ll fast-forward to that.”
Thank you!
They managed to get the right camera on the third try. There sat Percy Lukinger at a video poker machine, jabbing buttons for all he was worth. The video had no sound, but the lights on the machine were blinking like crazy.
“Okay, that’s our guy,” Beau said.
They watched for a while, fast forwarding so Percy’s movements took on a cartoon-like silliness. The man never took his eyes from the screen, never left his seat. This could end up being a complete dead end, Beau realized. Twenty minutes into it, by the time stamp, a woman approached Percy. She had red hair, cut in a pageboy, and wore a spangled dress and one of those silly Happy New Year headbands. She stood at his shoulder for a few minutes but the two didn’t interact. Beau couldn’t tell whether they actually spoke to each other. If Percy minded her watching him play, he didn’t indicate it. Beau sneaked a peek at his watch. 4:37. He needed to get out of here now, to be on time for the memorial.
He gave Stennis quick instructions to pull the tapes from each of the days and times Percy—Johnny Luck—had gambled. He would send a deputy by to pick them up first thing in the morning. He could already predict that tomorrow would be a long day, but he needed to know. Did Percy Lukinger meet up with someone in the casino who eventually killed him?
For the moment, he needed to get to the funeral home. He hit his lights and siren and got to the station in six minutes, dashed inside to change his shirt and jacket—after all, he hoped to blend into the group of mourners and get a look at the widow before she spotted him as a lawman. Five minutes later he and Rico were on Paseo del Pueblo Sur in Rico’s private car. They walked into Sanchez Mortuary at one minute to five. Things seemed a little too quiet.
No mourners, no sad music, no greeter at the door.
He found Monica Sanchez in her office.
“Sorry, Sheriff, the Lukinger service was cancelled.”
His surprise must have registered. Who ever heard of a funeral being cancelled?
“Mrs. Lukinger stopped by earlier today and picked up the cremains. She was quite upset, apparently because she felt no one would be here to mourn her husband. I assured her we often have very small services—it’s not about the crowd size but about remembering the deceased. She said she just wanted to take her husband home.”
“I was hoping to have a few words with her,” he said. “It’s strange, but we’ve never even met.”
“Oh, you would know her in a minute. She’s got long, beautiful black hair. This time she wore a black dress and veil. Classy, like Jackie Kennedy, you know.”
Beau thanked her but his patience was wearing very thin and the day had proven entirely frustrating. He felt like kicking something as he and Rico went back out to the car.
Chapter 21
“I guess I’m going to have to treat the widow as a suspect. She’s obviously dodging me,” Beau told Sam that evening at home. “She didn’t live in the same house as Percy—I mean, I never ran across a woman yet who didn’t own a bunch of clothes and makeup and stuff. The whole bare-bones house bugs me. Hardly anyone these days lives so minimally they can fit all their possessions into one suitcase.”
Sam was stirring chicken noodle soup in a large stockpot on the stove. “Maybe they were estranged and she has an apartment somewhere else. Or, she might have a job in another town. Most of her things would be there and she commuted to be with her husband on the weekends. You said there were two toothbrushes and a few women’s clothes, right?”
“Right. It could explain where the rest of his stuff is, too. I had Travis search for her locally, but she co
uld be living in Albuquerque or someplace else. Could even be out of state.” He pulled a beer from the fridge. “Tomorrow, I’ll put Travis on it. I have about a month’s worth of casino video to watch.”
“Did you bring the videos home? I could help you go through them,” Sam said. She pulled a sheet of biscuits from the oven.
“Nope. It’s been a long enough day already and I’m beat. That soup smells great, and I’m doing nothing more than having a good dinner with my wife and maybe watching the game on TV.”
Sam ladled soup into bowls and put four biscuits into a basket with a light cloth over them. They sat at the kitchen table and conversation dwindled. Beau found his thoughts drifting back to his case, despite his determination to leave work behind. By the time he’d settled in his favorite recliner to see how the Cowboys would play against the Patriots, his early-morning awakening had caught up with him. He jolted awake in mid-snore as the TV commentators went crazy over the game-changing touchdown he’d missed.
Sam looked up from her book and smiled at him. “We should just go to bed.” It was eight o’clock.
They climbed the stairs together slowly. Were they really becoming this old? He’d been in law enforcement more than twenty years. He shook off those thoughts. No way was he ready to sit with a fishing pole all day, and he couldn’t think of another career he could embrace with the enthusiasm he felt for his duties as sheriff. Nah—he was just tired because he’d awakened too early. A hot shower and a good night’s sleep would fix everything.
It did. He woke up at five-thirty with a new idea. Ramona Lukinger had missed her chance to come forward. He would take his search for connections in another direction. Sam wasn’t in bed and her pillow was cool to the touch. She was working too many hours, becoming stretched thin with responsibility, and he worried about that. He dressed quickly and rushed through his ranch chores while ideas for his Lukinger investigation raced through his head.
The squad room was quiet at 6:19 when Beau walked in. Just as well. He wanted some time to put his ideas in motion. He found fresh coffee; obviously the desk officer had started a new pot. He settled at his keyboard and began drafting a statement. Within thirty minutes, he’d prepared a public plea for information that could help the Taos County Sheriff’s Department in the unsolved death of Percy Lukinger. He actually included the word mystery, although it wasn’t really a law enforcement term. With luck, it would appeal to the audience he wanted to reach.
Sticky Sweet Page 10