by Dan Ames
It seemed almost a shame to ruin Herb’s obvious man-crush, but I had to ask. “Know anyone who would want to harm him?”
Herb’s face went slack. He was absolutely plastered and I wondered if this was an everyday activity, or if something else was going on.
“Not here in this town, no way. He’s like a local treasure.”
“Did you see anything two days ago? He was last seen fishing from the pier.”
“Nope.”
It was bullshit. Herb was lying and I had no idea why.
“Why are you lying?”
He nearly spit out his juice. Instead, it was like some kind of wet spluttering sound.
“The hell did you just say?” he asked.
In all of the years of interrogation, I’d pissed off plenty of people. But this old, drunk guy wasn’t going to be any kind of match. I could push him and he would topple over.
“I just don’t think you’re being honest, Herb. I also don’t think you’re sick. So why didn’t you want to go to work today? Did something happen at the pier? Something at the marina involving Billy Dawkins that you don’t want anything to do with?”
I had pretty much nailed it because Herb looked like a balloon in a rapid state of deflation.
He kind of staggered to his feet. I could see the indecision in his face. Tell me the truth, or tell me to get the hell out of his house.
“Get the hell out of my house,” he said.
“The truth is going to come out eventually, Herb,” I said. “It’s really for the best if you tell me what you saw and what you know. Believe me, if any harm has come to Dynamite Dawkins, you’ll want to be on the side of the good guys.”
I idly wondered if Herb had a gun. Maybe a deer rifle of some sort he could stagger down the hallway and retrieve, come back and try to shoot me.
Something told me his aim wouldn’t be very impressive.
“What the goddamned heck do you mean the side of the good guys?” he slobbered at me. “I am a good guy!”
He was bellowing now, like a drunk in a bar at two a.m., pissed off the bartender was closing up shop.
“Prove it, then,” I said. “Tell me what you saw.”
Suddenly, Herb’s face caved in and I thought the man might start crying.
But he didn’t.
He started spilling.
“Okay, look,” he said. “I never saw Dynamite. My boss told me to stay away from him.”
“Why?”
Herb got up, made no pretense of what he was doing, went into the kitchen and returned with a gin bottle. He poured it into his juice glass.
“You’re going to kill yourself if you drink that much,” I said. “Why don’t you have a glass of water instead?”
Herb ignored me.
“I used to bug Billy when he was fishing,” Herb said. “He never complained, in fact, I think he kinda liked me. But it would piss my boss off when he saw me out on the pier yakking with Billy when I was supposed to be in the marina office. But do you know how boring that can get?”
He took a drink of his juice.
“Jesus Chee-rist! Nothing happens there some days. Can you blame me?”
I shook my head.
“Anyway, Wednesday, I saw Billy leaving the pier after he was done fishing,” Herb said. “Or at least, I saw his Ford Bronco leaving.”
Herb looked out of the corner of his eye at the living room. As if someone was sneaking up to steal his 1970s recliner.
“Only Billy wasn’t driving,” he added.
“Who was?”
“I don’t know,” Herb said again. But his voice had changed. It was his dishonest mode.
“Yes you do,” I said.
“I don’t know!” he said, shouting at me. “It was a guy, that’s all I know. With a ball cap pulled down way over his face. But it wasn’t Billy! Now get the hell out of my house before I call the cops.”
Since I already felt half-drunk from the fumes, I decided to cut my losses. Or cut bait, as they say up north.
I gave Herb one of my business cards.
“When you’re done with your orange juice binge, and remember more of the truth, give me a call.”
Herb waved me away and I went to the front door.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “Get out of here.”
Chapter Twelve
“How is the parent thing going?” I asked Ellen on the phone.
“I’m doing exactly what you do: watching Anna take care of everyone and everything,” Ellen answered. “She’s quite good at this. You should have her give you some pointers.”
“It’s a tough gig, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know how you do it.”
“Listen,” I said. “I just got done chatting with an old guy who works in the marina office. You and he have the exact same living room furniture set, by the way.”
“I can only imagine,” Ellen said.
“Anyway, he claims he saw someone else driving Dynamite’s Bronco away from the fishing pier.”
“We already knew that. Lindsey’s secret friend told her that. A guy in a greasy baseball cap and a beard, right?”
“My old drunk friend confirmed the baseball cap but he didn’t mention the beard. Still, I think he and Lindsey’s source saw the same guy.”
“Maybe the old guy is Lindsey’s witness.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, trying to imagine beautiful Lindsey Nordegren in Herb Watters’s house.
“Probably doesn’t matter,” Ellen said. “Still, it would be nice if Lindsey told us who her witness was.”
“Lotta secrets in this little town,” I pointed out.
“Everyone’s got ‘em.”
“So how do you feel about going to check out Billy Dawkins’s house with me? Can you break away from your foster parenting gig?”
“Again, I’ll emulate you and ask Anna for permission to leave the house,” Ellen said.
Boy, she could sure get snarky.
There was a pause and then Ellen came back on the line.
“Swing by the resort’s parking lot and pick me up. Anna gave me the okay.”
One nice thing about Good Isle was its size. Driving “across town” took about five minutes.
I pulled up to the entrance of the resort and Ellen hopped in.
“You look like a real badass private investigator in your minivan,” she observed. “I’m sure it strikes fear into the hearts of bad guys everywhere.”
“It seats seven bad guys comfortably,” I said. “For the long drive to the big house.”
She sighed and looked out the window.
“Today’s the day of the committee meeting,” she said. “I figure I have about a 50-50 shot.”
“How many women are on the board?” I asked.
“Less than half,” she said. “If they vote along gender lines, it won’t go my way.”
“Maybe one of the guys will flip. I’m sure you already have Beau’s vote.”
“True.”
We left the resort parking lot and buzzed right into the heart of downtown Good Isle.
“This is a beautiful place,” I said. “Even in winter it’s probably gorgeous. You’ll have to learn how to ski.”
“I know how to ski,” Ellen said. “Both downhill and cross country.”
“Get out of here,” I said. “When did you learn how to ski?”
She shook her head. “John, you really need to do a better job of keeping up with your only sibling.”
We branched off from main street into a tree-lined street of picture-perfect old homes. The kind you see renovated on This Old House. They were colonials, most of them, but here and there were some stunning Victorians as well as the occasional bungalow.
The majority were immaculate and the ones that weren’t seemed to be in the process of getting there.
“My kind of neighborhood,” Ellen said.
I pulled up in front of a stunning house that wasn’t full-on Victorian, but had some of that style’s touches
, like an ornate wraparound porch, fish scale siding, and a really cool turret.
“Very nice,” Ellen observed. “I’m way more excited to go inside than I should be. Especially as we don’t have permission from the owner.”
“Well, his secret lover gave us permission so I don’t have a problem with it,” I said. ”Then again, I’m a rebel.”
“Rebel with a minivan,” Ellen added.
I fished out the key Lindsey Nordegren had given me, locked up the minivan and stepped up onto the porch.
It was painted a light blue, and the railing was painted white. All of it fresh, and perfectly done.
Billy Dawkins was a man who liked nice things, and it appeared he had a passion for keeping them looking nice.
Not wanting to linger in full view of the neighbors, I put the key into the front door’s lock. The door itself was a beauty. Solid, dark wood, with old-fashioned thick glass. The lock slid open soundlessly and I pushed it open. Ellen followed me inside and I closed the door quickly, locking it behind us.
“Oh my God,” Ellen said.
Chapter Thirteen
“This is so nice,” Ellen said. She looked at the hardwood floors, the perfectly refinished wood moldings, the leaded glass and was stunned. It was just about as perfect an old house as you could find.
“He is a meticulous man,” John added.
Once through the small entrance, the house opened up into a central area with a staircase offset to the left, a hallway leading straight back, and two sets of French doors on either side. The glass in the French doors was breathtaking, at least an inch thick, beveled and in mint condition. They didn’t make French doors like that anymore, Ellen knew from firsthand experience.
She opened the door to the right and walked into a parlor room, with a sitting area and a small fireplace surrounded by an elaborate, hand-carved wood mantle.
It was almost so pristine that she wondered if anyone lived here, let alone a man. So far, it almost felt like a museum.
Into the kitchen, which clearly wasn’t original. Ellen knew most homes from the period had small kitchens, unlike the giant monstrosities most new construction featured. Nowadays, the huge, expansive kitchen that opened out into a family room was what everyone wanted.
This one was large, but not grotesquely so. There was a small eat-in space with a simple wooden table and four chairs. An original oil painting of a boxer hung to the right of the bay window that looked out into the backyard.
The counters were granite, the cabinets white and all of the appliances were stainless steel except for the fridge, which was faced with white that matched the cabinetry.
John entered from the other side of Ellen and she peeked out through that entrance. It was a formal dining room, with an elaborate Victorian dining set.
“This is the last kind of place I would expect a former boxer to own,” John said. “There’s gotta be a man cave downstairs or something, this doesn’t even look like anyone lives here.”
“Maybe he spent all of his time at his girlfriend’s house,” Ellen said. “Her husband was gone all the time, right?”
“Here, follow me,” John said. He had found the door to the basement and she went down with him.
“Okay, this is more like it,” he said.
The basement was divided in half. On one side was a full gym with free weights, weight machines and a heavy punching bag as well as a speed bag. Various jump ropes, training gloves and other exercise gear were all placed along one wall.
On the other side of the basement were all the mechanicals. The boiler, air conditioner and laundry area.
“Let’s check out the upstairs,” Ellen said.
She led the way to the staircase and up they went to a wide landing, with four doors spread out on either side of them.
“Four bedrooms?” John said, with surprise in his voice.
“Probably three and a bathroom,” Ellen answered.
But she was wrong, too. It was three bedrooms and a library.
They saved the library for last.
The main bedroom definitely had seen use, and it was clearly a man’s bedroom. Men’s clothes were all hung neatly in the closet, and the bathroom was simple and clean. Ellen noted shaving cream and a razor on a small shelf next to the sink.
Like the downstairs, everything upstairs was showroom neat.
“Aha,” John said.
Ellen joined him in the den.
“Yeah, this is more like it,” she said.
Clearly, Billy “Dynamite” Dawkins had picked one room to be his own, and this was it. There was an empty glass next to a whiskey decanter, sitting on the wide wooden desk. A large, flat-screen television was in one corner and an expensive, brown leather couch with matching chairs faced the screen. On the table in front of the couch was a collection of sports magazines.
The walls were adorned with fight posters, all for some of Dynamite’s biggest fights. Ellen recognized the names from the article she’d read on her iPad.
There were also several pairs of autographed boxing gloves hung on the wall.
Ellen went behind the desk and studied the papers there.
A letter caught her eye.
It was sitting to the right of the main pile of paper, as if Dynamite had just read it and set it aside.
The letterhead belonged to a law firm with an address in Detroit.
Ellen skimmed the letter until she got to the middle paragraph:
“…your decision to continue to ignore the repeated communications regarding this financial issue will lead to serious consequences on your behalf. You are in breach of contract with Motor City Boxing Promotions, LLC and at this time felony charges of obstruction of justice, delinquency and perhaps embezzlement are all within the realm of possibility. We urge you to remit the outstanding balance to this firm immediately. Failure to do so will result in criminal charges and most likely jail time…”
The letter went on to provide payment details. Ellen took out her phone and snapped a quick photo of the letter, which John had also read over her shoulder.
“Sounds serious,” he said. “Serious enough for someone to want to grab him.”
“Maybe,” Ellen said. “But what do they get out of grabbing him? Unless he has the money on him and it didn’t sound like he did. Just a bunch of fishing gear and a restored Ford Bronco. Doesn’t sound like these guys would be happy with just that.”
“I wonder how much the outstanding balance is,” John said.
Ellen had speculated on that, too.
“Well, if this house is any indication,” she said, “Billy “Dynamite” Dawkins is doing just fine for himself.”
Chapter Fourteen
Billy Dawkins knew it was going to be bad.
It felt criminal to even refer to the motley group of rednecks before him as a crowd. They looked more like a bunch of genetic rejects forced to wear filthy clothing and live in the woods.
Oh, Dawkins had nothing against country folks. He’d been raised in the city, but plenty of people he’d gotten to know over the years were simple people who had turned out to be big fans of his.
But this element here was not a group of friendly, good-natured people.
They were like a wild pack of mongrels.
“Where is this bitch?” one of the men yelled and the group laughed.
Dawkins tried to take in his surroundings. He was even deeper into the woods than the last place. The trees here were thicker, packed more tightly together and a lot less light filtered in. It was near the end of the day, but inside the thick stand of forest, it already seemed dark.
What Dawkins also saw was a corrugated metal shed surrounded by at least two dozen vehicles, most of them pickup trucks or some sort of 4x4. There were quite a few all-terrain vehicles and a motorcycle or two.
The group was exclusively male, as far as Billy could tell. A lot of camo clothing, ball caps, and people smoking cigarettes. There was also beer everywhere, guys chugging from cans and bottles.
Country music played in the background.
“Looks like your fan club is ready,” Darnell said, shoving him forward.
Dawkins walked into the center of the clearing, spotted the door of the corrugated shed standing wide open. Inside, he could see a makeshift boxing ring.
“Let’s get a good look at this sumbitch,” one of them said. The eager ones sauntered up, beer cans in hand, and one of them spit a stream of chewing tobacco juice near his feet.
“This is it?” a guy with a T-shirt that said Get-r-done on the front scoffed at him. “You brought this weak-ass bitch up here to fight? I bet my old lady’s got more kick than this mule hat’s ready for the glue factory. Total lame-o.”
Dawkins smiled. “Lame-o?”
Behind him, Troy gave him an extra sharp jab in the kidney with the end of the rifle.
“Shut up and keep walking.”
The crowd parted way and Dawkins walked past them into the glorified storage shed. Immediately, what little light from the sun was blocked out, and someone flicked on an overhead light that was bright and more than a little harsh.
The whole place smelled like animals.
How appropriate, Dawkins thought.
Once inside, he got a good look at the ring, such as it was. There was one single line of rope, strung roughly into the shape of a square thanks to four metal fence posts pounded half-assed into the dirt floor.
One of the corners wasn’t quite closed and Troy directed him through it.
The men from outside poured in, and Billy heard fresh beers being cracked, as well as bets being made.
Billy turned to face Troy and Darnell.
Darnell pulled out a big revolver. Stainless steel, with a huge barrel.
“Overcompensate much?” Dawkins asked him.
“Shut up,” Darnell answered. “Unlock his cuffs.”
Troy handed the rifle to a man next to him, who brought the butt up to his shoulder and aimed it directly at Billy’s chest. Darnell backed up a step, and took careful aim at Dawkins’s face.
“We’re going to take those off, but you’re here to fight,” Darnell said. “You try to escape. You try to get one of us. You’ll get shot and buried out here in the woods so no one will find what’s left of your sorry ass.”