“Do you think you’ll catch him, Sheriff? I’d hate to think of him out there doing this to a lot of other old people.”
Beau assured her this man wouldn’t be taking anyone’s money again.
Travis had been hovering outside Beau’s office door, and he stepped inside as soon as Beau hung up the phone.
“Ramona Lukinger doesn’t have a New Mexico driver’s license,” he said. “She probably never updated it after moving here. Should I start searches in other states?”
“Yeah. Although it could take a while to get results, we’d better do it. We still don’t even know what she looks like or where they came from before moving here.” Beau drummed his pencil on the desktop. “You know what—run her name through NCIC and see if anything comes up.”
Beau wasn’t sure whether to be hopeful or not. The woman could have used any number of aliases, just as her husband did. Ramona, so far, had shown a tendency toward trying to con him—the mistaken phone number at first, the times she’d shown up to claim Percy’s body, and then his ashes, while neatly managing to dodge questions, the appointments to talk to authorities and then skipping the meetings. It wouldn’t be the first time a husband and wife teamed up to perpetrate their shady games.
Travis had gone back to his desk, and Beau returned to his list of complainant calls. The first three went almost identically to the call with Mrs. Baca—someone came to the door, had spotted something that needed repair, took money as a deposit and never came back. One was for a cracked concrete driveway, one house had damaged roofing shingles, and the other needed overgrown shrubbery trimmed. In each case, the man at the door quoted a price that seemed high and claimed it was standard to pay half up front. Two people couldn’t remember the exact date it had happened to them, but all were sure it was in the fall, October or November time frame, because the repairman made a point of how the work should be done right away because winter was coming soon.
A couple of the men ranted in anger, the sting of being gypped still very fresh. Beau might have considered them suspects in Percy’s death, but both had admitted to being over eighty years old. He had a hard time envisioning either of them in a physical confrontation with a man in his forties.
In no case had the victim seen the man’s vehicle, even when they walked outside with him so he could point out the repairs he wanted to make. On the fourth call the woman, a Helen Flagler, added a new wrinkle.
“There was a woman with the man,” she told Beau. “They were handing out religious tracts and I told them I already attend the church of my choice, but they wanted to leave their literature with me anyway. Then the woman apologized and said she really needed to use the bathroom, and since they’d left their car two blocks away while they walked door-to-door, could she use the facilities at my house? Well, I felt sorry for her and said yes.”
“And you discovered something was missing after they left.”
“Two bottles of my prescription medicines and a little necklace my granddaughter gave me for my birthday. I was embarrassed to call the police about it. At first I thought I’d probably misplaced them—I’m getting more forgetful all the time.”
“Can you describe the woman?”
“Well, let’s see. She had blonde hair that was kind of short …”
He’d been told Ramona’s was black, but one or both styles could be wigs. “Could you identify her from a photo, if I bring one by?”
“Hm … maybe. I didn’t spend much time with her. It was the man who talked to me the whole time. They left almost as soon as she came out of the bathroom.”
“Did you keep the religious tracts they left with you?”
“They’re probably here somewhere. I never got around to reading them, and my daughter teases me about not being able to throw anything away.”
“We’re working on finding a photo of the man’s wife. When I get one I’d like to bring it by for you to take a look. I’ll call first to be sure you’re home, if that’s okay. Meanwhile, if you locate the pamphlets they left, could you set them aside? Try not to touch them much.”
“Because you could get fingerprints off them, right?”
He would bet Helen Flagler was a big fan of Murder, She Wrote. They ended the call on a friendly note, and she said she had baked sugar cookies, in case he came by this afternoon.
Beau felt his pulse rise as he read over the notes he’d scribbled. This was their first lead that involved Ramona Lukinger in Percy’s crimes. If he could come up with a picture of her, it would help. If Ramona had touched the pamphlets and if she had a record, it might give them more ways to track her down.
He stood and stretched, working the crick out of his neck from holding the phone against his shoulder. Through his office window he could see Rico sitting in front of the video monitor, intent on casino footage. He walked into the squad room to check on progress.
“I’m less than halfway through the list,” Rico said, pointing to the printed page with dates and times of Percy’s casino visits. He had crossed through some of the entries. “Those are the times he sat alone and played one machine for a while. No contact with any other person, as far as I could tell.”
He paused the video as it fast-forwarded.
“Now these are cases where he spoke to someone or they spoke to him.” He indicated about a half-dozen lines where he’d made short notes. “W is where a waitress approached and offered him a drink. Each time it seemed to be a different girl, so I didn’t think they were significant. This one, marked RH was when a redheaded woman came up to him. They talked a bit, maybe two or three minutes, and she left. Something felt a little odd about it, but I’m not sure how to define my feeling. She seemed aware of the camera because she gave a quick glance upward as she walked up the aisle of machines toward Lukinger, then she turned and approached from another side and stood with her back toward the camera. I don’t know … I could be all wrong.”
“We can go back and review it,” Beau said. “Any others?”
“Yeah. My note here—GM. Remember Grant Mangle, the guy we talked to about Percy, the one who claimed he’d met Lukinger once and it was more than six months ago? Well, he seemed to know him well enough on January eighth—less than two weeks ago.”
“Show me that one.”
Rico put another tape into the machine. He had paused it at the point he wanted to show Beau. When he started it, the monitor showed Percy Lukinger at a video poker machine at the end of a row that was otherwise empty of players. The clock in the lower corner indicated it was a Thursday at eight a.m. No surprise the casino was virtually empty. And what a good time for a meeting between two people who didn’t want their conversation overheard in a setting where the encounter could appear completely random.
“Mr. Mangle comes into the picture right about here,” Rico said. Mangle walked into the frame from the left side, glanced over his shoulder and down the aisle where Percy’s machine was, then stepped in close to their subject.
“Can we zoom in closer to their faces?” Beau asked.
“Not on this tape. Unfortunately, controls like that are only available there at the casino while the video cameras are live. This is only a static recording.”
Mangle loomed over Percy, his stance firm and his body tense. At one point he shook his index finger in Percy’s face. Lukinger reacted with a laugh. Mangle reached inside his jacket and pulled something from a pocket. When he held it out to Percy, it looked like a small paper envelope, the kind that might hold a single key or perhaps a bank receipt. It was much too small to be a letter that could go through the mail.
“We never do find out what’s in it,” Rico said.
Sure enough, Percy squeezed the envelope so he could peer into it from one end, closed it again, and folded down the small flap. He slipped the tiny packet into his own pocket.
Percy smiled largely and reached to shake hands with Grant, but when the other man turned to leave, Percy’s smile morphed to a sneer and
he stared at the other man’s back until he was out of sight.
“Interesting,” Beau said. Another visit to Grant Mangle Enterprises seemed to be in order.
“Yeah. So much for the story he gave us.”
Chapter 24
Beau straightened the items on his desk, put the stack of reports from their recent phone calls into a manila folder, and grabbed his heavy coat. With luck, he would catch some of these older folks at home. He instructed Rico to stick with the tapes and keep making notes about any other contacts Percy Lukinger made. Clearly, their dead guy had used the casino as a meeting spot several times.
“Hey, boss,” Travis called out as Beau passed his desk. “Got something for you.”
Beau looked at the deputy’s computer screen and saw the name Ramona Lukinger on a list. His interest sharpened.
“Looks like she got a driver’s license in California eighteen months ago,” Travis said.
He clicked her name and up came an MVD record, including a photo. Beau studied the face. High forehead, dark brows, eyes half closed, mouth in a straight line. It was as if she didn’t care to impress the camera—for some reason most people tried for a friendly likeness of themselves on their license picture. According to the license data, Ramona was 150 pounds, 5’4” with brown eyes and brown hair. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t think why.
“Print that for me, would you?” he asked.
Travis hit a couple more keys and the printer across the room began to whir.
“Do another copy,” Beau said, “and give it to Rico. Maybe this is our redhead from the casino.”
Happy to get out of his chair for a stretch, Rico joined them beside Travis’s desk and looked at the photo on the screen. “I don’t know … hard to tell. I’ll go back to the tape of the redhead and compare. If it’s really his wife, maybe she comes back to the casino another time and I’ll get a better shot of her.”
Beau remembered how the woman in the casino had purposely avoided facing directly toward the camera. Positively identifying her could be a challenge. He folded the license photo and slipped his arms into the sleeves of his jacket.
“I’m off to interview a couple of witnesses. Travis, use the data from her driver’s license and run a full background check on her. Call me if there’s a sudden breakthrough,” he said with a grin.
Out in his cruiser, Beau decided to run by Helen Flagler’s house first. As the only witness who’d come forward who might have had contact with both Percy and Ramona, Helen might add information of value to the rest of their search. Her address was south of town in a neighborhood of older homes. A glance through the notes from the other callers showed they all lived in roughly the same area.
It made sense. Middle class homes, older people who would be home during the daytime, easy targets for the sorts of con games it seemed Percy was fond of. He probably worked a neighborhood, picking houses far enough apart that the victims wouldn’t necessarily know each other and start comparing notes. Use a different approach with each—the home repair scam about a new roof, a new fence, some landscaping repairs, and finally the ‘may I use your bathroom’ con—and then move along before any of them call the police. He thought of the scanty possessions in Percy’s home and the suitcase large enough to pack on a moment’s notice.
Helen Flagler was standing in the doorway when Beau stepped onto her sidewalk.
“Hi, Sheriff. You remembered those sugar cookies, didn’t you?” Her gaze took in his uniform and she smiled coquettishly.
He gave the kind of smile he thought an eighty-year-old flirt would want to see. “Yes, ma’am. I’d love a cookie. I brought something for you to look at.”
“Well, come on in first. It’s too cold to stand out on the porch.” She led him into an overly warm living room with green shag carpeting, a brown sofa and recliner set, and about four dozen knitted blankets in bright colors, the kind his grandmother used to make. The house smelled like coffee and sugar, and he realized how much she had been hoping for someone to stop by and spend a little time with her.
Beau tamped down the urge to simply ask his questions and move on to the next interview. Helen insisted he sit at the table and she’d moved to the kitchen already, where the coffee smell became stronger and he could see through the open doorway she’d already set out two cups. The plate of sugar cookies looked enticing, a reminder he’d not eaten lunch.
“Cream and sugar?” Helen called out.
“No, thanks, black is fine.” He pulled Ramona Lukinger’s license photo from the inner pocket of his jacket and set it on the table.
Helen returned, carrying a silver tray with two delicate china cups on saucers—another distinct reminder of his grandmother. The cups rattled slightly, and it was all he could do not to jump up and offer to take the tray. He moved the photo out of harm’s way as she chose that very spot to set down her burden.
“Here we go,” she said, taking her time about placing a cup in front of him and another at the second chair. “I hope you like Kona. I’ve been addicted, ever since my Max and I took a trip to the islands for our silver anniversary. That was a long time ago.”
Her wistful eyes told him Max had long since passed. She blinked twice and pointed to the cookie plate. “Help yourself, Sheriff.”
He thanked her and took a sip of the coffee, which, by far, beat the brew down at the station. The cookies were a little on the overdone side, but he finished one before getting down to business by holding out the license photo and asking if this was the woman who had come to the house.
Helen adjusted her glasses and stared at the picture closely. “I don’t know … Her hair isn’t the same at all. She’s not wearing glasses here. The woman who came in was wearing glasses with dark frames.”
“She may have been required to remove them for her license photo,” he said. “Can you imagine her with the glasses on? Could it be the same person?”
Helen’s head bobbed a little. “It could be … but she seems heavier here. If I saw her in person—it’s different, you know, when you can see someone move and talk—different than a stiff picture like this one.”
Beau felt let down, but reminded himself this was only one tiny cog in the wheel of the investigation. He was really trying to reconstruct Percy Lukinger’s life and recent movements. The whole goal was to find his victim’s killer.
“Well, that’s okay, Mrs. Flagler. If we are able to catch the woman who took your things, we’ll have her for you to identify in person.”
“Yes, that would be much easier.” Helen visibly relaxed.
Beau had finished his coffee while she’d studied the photo. It was time to move along and get out of the stifling warmth of the overheated house.
“Did you happen to find those religious tracts you told me about?” he asked.
“Oh! I sure did. Let me think where I set them.” Helen set her cup aside and stood. She glanced back and forth across the cluttered living room a couple of times until her gaze landed on a small table by the door. “I put them in a bag, just like you said.”
Beau met her where she stood and accepted the zippered plastic bag, which he saw contained a couple of brochures with ethereal-looking photos of clouds behind a haloed Jesus. He thanked her for her help, for the coffee, and complimented her on the cookies, but insisted he had to get on with several more interviews.
Outside, the January day gave a blast of fresh, frigid air and he breathed deeply. The shoulder mike on his jacket squawked at the moment he reached his cruiser.
“Yeah, Dixie,” he said.
“Sheriff, there’s a reported 10-31B at the pawn shop on Gallegos Road. The man reporting says he’s holding the perpetrator.”
“10-4. I’ll be right there.” He slid behind the wheel and tossed the Ziploc bag on the passenger seat beside him.
Beau remembered the pawn shop when he pulled into the parking lot. There had been an armed robbery here about three years ago. The old g
uy who owned the place back then had installed all new security systems, but the shock of being held at gunpoint in his own business had been too much and he’d decided to sell.
The new owner introduced himself as Robert Nieto. A teenage girl sat on a high stool in front of the counter, her hands clasped between her knees, a dried mascara trail running down each cheek.
“What happened here?” Beau asked Nieto. He watched the girl and saw a new batch of tears threaten to overflow her eyelids.
“Oh, she’s not the thief,” Nieto said. “This is Daisy Ruiz. She’s a friend of my little cousin.”
Beau waited patiently. There had to be more to this story.
“The thief is locked in the gun crib, handcuffed to an 18-gauge wire wall. Don’t worry—all the weapons are stored unloaded, and there’s no ammo on the premises.” From a back room somewhere came a metal-on-metal clatter.
“Do you know him?”
“It’s a her.”
“Better start at the beginning.”
Nieto patted Daisy on the shoulder. “About an hour ago, I’m here by myself working behind the counter and I see these two out front, talking with their heads together, staring at a small object in Daisy’s hand. I didn’t recognize her at first—it’s been a couple years. They come in, and Daisy hands over this ring and wants to know how much she can pawn it for.”
Daisy stared at the floor, drapes of her long hair obscuring her face.
“I tell them I’ll have to take a close look, so I get out my loupe. It’s a real diamond, all right, but while I’m looking through the loupe, the other lady decides to help herself to a nice emerald from the tray I’d been working with. I catch the motion from the corner of my eye and tell her to put it back. She hits the tray and sends the other rings flying to the floor, then makes a run for the door. But all I have to do is hit the switch that’s under the counter for the automatic door lock.”
By this time the teen girl was mopping tears from her chin.
“Look, Sheriff, I try not to be a hardnose. Kids try to take things. But this other lady is no kid, and she’s experienced at this game. I can tell. Soon as she knows I’m onto her, she slips the emerald ring into the hole on that guitar that’s on display and then tries to claim she has no idea what I’m talking about. C’mon—the ring is clattering around in there the second I take the guitar down from the wall.”
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