The Gamble
Page 49
“I got the permit and I got the gun,” Kami went on, missing Mick’s movements. “It’s never been fired. It’s never even been loaded. It’s in a shoebox in my closet.” Then she leaned forward and repeated, “Mickey, you gotta know, no matter what went down, I’d never hurt Curt, never send death threats and I’d never, not ever, hurt Bitsy.” She bit her lip as her eyes got bright and she finished, repeating, “You gotta know. You know me and you gotta know.”
“All right, Kami,” Mick said gently. “Let us check this out, yeah?”
Kami sat back and turned her face away, nodding. Mick looked at me, rose and walked out of the room.
I turned to Kami. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes came to me and I noticed that Vulnerable Kami was gone, Bitchy Kami was back.
“No, I’m not okay,” she snapped. “I’m sittin’ in a Police Station being questioned as a suspect in a double homicide!”
“Mick’s just doing his job,” I told her. “He’ll check your story and you’ll be fine.”
“I know I’ll be fine. I didn’t do jack, not to Curt, not to Bitsy, hell, I wouldn’t do that shit to anyone. But people’ll know I was questioned.”
“It’s my understanding a lot of people were questioned. Mick even asked Max for his alibi.”
Bitchy Kami escalated to Uber Bitchy Kami and she hissed, “What?”
“The morning after the murder, Mick came to Max’s house, asked for his alibi.”
“That’s not even funny.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I agreed. “But since he had one, it doesn’t matter.”
She looked away, her face tight, her mouth muttering, “That’s just whacked, totally whacked, and Mick knows it.”
I was surprised at her defense of her brother but I wasn’t surprised at her reaction to his news. Everyone felt the same way. More evidence that Curt was in some way responsible for Anna Maxwell’s death and, in being so, the fact that Macho Mountain Man Max didn’t exact retribution then meant he was unlikely to do it now.
Before I could reply, the door opened and Max and Linda walked in.
“I’ll be givin’ Mick Shaughnessy a piece of my mind for this, make no mistake,” Linda declared upon entry.
“What happened?” Max asked me.
“Since Kami explained things to me before we let Mick interview her, obviously she explained things to Mick and answered all his queries. He just needs to check their validity and we can move on,” I told him.
“Thanks, Nina, for helpin’ out,” Linda expressed the gratitude Kami not surprisingly had not.
“Not a problem,” I murmured then offered, “Maybe Max and I can go get some coffees? Would you all like a coffee while we’re waiting?”
“That’d be nice, thanks,” Linda replied.
“Knock yourself out,” Kami muttered.
Max opened his mouth, possibly to protest at leaving his sister or to give Kami a piece of his mind for her attitude but I gave him a look, got up, shrugged on my coat, grabbed my purse and moved to the door. Max read my look and followed.
I waited until we were out of the Station and on the boarded sidewalk before I spoke.
“You should know something,” I whispered, squeezing his hand as he’d taken mine when we left the Station.
“I’m guessin’ this is somethin’ I should know that I won’t like,” Max remarked and I stopped and looked up at him.
Deciding to get it out, I did. “It was Shauna who talked Kami into buying that gun and it was Shauna who needed the money Kami borrowed on the house.”
He stared at me a minute, his jaw tense, his eyes hard then he looked away and muttered, “Fuck.”
I tugged at his hand until he looked back at me then I said, “Okay, now I’m getting into possible slander here but… what if Shauna knew that Curt had made changes to his will around the time she told him she was pregnant?”
“What?”
“She didn’t know that Curt knew he didn’t father her child. What she knew was that there was a possibility he didn’t since she wasn’t exactly faithful to him. Kami said that they’ve turned off her cable and she was close to having the utilities stopped at her house. She needed money, Max, badly, especially having no insurance and a baby on the way. If she knew that he changed the will, she could speculate he changed it in her favor. She was smug before the reading, she thought she’d come out on top. But also she knew if she had the baby and he demanded a DNA test, she would lose everything she worked for. Which would mean she’d need him dead to collect before the truth came out.”
“She doesn’t have any money, Duchess, how’s she gonna pay a contract killer?”
“She had twenty-five thousand dollars of Kami’s money, Max,” I reminded him. “And anyway, men do stupid stuff for women who are good with their mouths. We have no idea who she’s been associating with.”
Max, being a man, nodded curtly to the veracity of this statement then he pointed out, “She was in the house when Curt was killed.”
“She made the call after Curt was killed saying she was in the house when he was killed and time had elapsed between the killing and the call, she even admitted that.” Max just stared at me so I went on, “There’s a break in, you hear something, even if you’re with a man and he goes to check on it, wouldn’t you call the police?”
“Not if you don’t want anyone knowin’ you’re there,” Max pointed out.
I nodded for this was true but suggested, “She could have done what she needed to do with this PI guy then gone back to Curt’s knowing what was going to happen there, made the call and said she was there when she wasn’t. Or she could have set the whole thing up to happen when she was in the house, knowing what was happening with the PI. Either way, she was giving herself an alibi.”
“So who killed the PI?” Max asked.
“Someone else she scammed?” I proposed. “Or someone in on it, a partner.”
“So, you’re sayin’ she set Kami up?”
“How close are they?”
“For Kami, close. For Shauna, who knows? She’s never demonstrated she’s felt a genuine emotion since I’ve known her.”
“Then yes, I think it isn’t coincidence that on a girl’s weekend to Denver, Shauna talked Kami into buying a gun and then borrowed an extraordinary amount of money from her. To come current on utilities and credit cards, who needs twenty-five thousand dollars?”
“Shauna, like Kami, lives large.”
“From what Harry intimated at The Rooster, she’s also had help living large, fleecing Harry and maybe even Curtis and, who knows, maybe even that Robert guy she was with at the restaurant.”
Max stared at me again then he muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
“Max –”
Max cut me off. “What d’you think we should do with this shit?”
“I think you need to look out for your sister and let Mick find the trail of breadcrumbs.”
“That trail is leadin’ him to my sister.”
I got closer to him and advised, “You have to trust the truth will out. If not, you have to trust that I’ll do what I can to help your sister.”
“Babe –”
“Watch out for Kami, that’s it. Just look out for her, I’ll do the rest.”
I knew this was asking a lot of an action man to stand by and do nothing, I could tell by the internal struggle I saw him waging behind his eyes.
Finally, he said, “Let’s get my sister a coffee.”
I leaned up and kissed his jaw before I agreed, “All right.”
* * * * *
Coffees consumed, Kami was texting Shauna for the fiftieth time on her phone.
Shauna who, by her own report, was going to have a rough day due to her beloved Curtis being put in the earth and thus needed her friend at her side, had somehow disappeared in Kami’s hour of need if Kami’s unsuccessful attempts to contact her through fifty texts (maybe a slight exaggeration) and five phone calls (not an exaggeration) over the last hour.
“Don’t, Max, just… don’t,” Kami muttered, staring at the wall.
The door opened, Mick walked in, shutting it behind him and we all looked to him.
“Found your gun, Kami, right where you said it would be, never fired, not loaded,” Mick stated.
“Is that surprising?” Linda snapped, her eyes fierce on Mick’s face, her bearing proving true what she said that morning, a mother loves her children, maybe not the same way but the same amount. She was deep in Lioness Mode.
“No, Lins, it isn’t surprising,” Mick said to her and then looked back at Kami. “Though Shauna doesn’t have a deposit of twenty-five thousand in her account.”
We all straightened and Linda and Kami grew pale.
“What?” Kami asked.
Mick pressed his lips together then he went on, “Your bank reports that you made a check to a Robert Winston for twenty-five thousand dollars, your check was cashed the day you wrote it but not deposited in his account, nor was any money deposited in Shauna’s that day or since, except for a monthly deposit we’ve tracked to Dodd’s business account.”
“Holy crap,” Linda muttered.
“Wh… what?” Kami stammered, her hand flat on the table, her face bleached white.
I kept quiet as I processed the news that Curtis was giving Shauna money through his business account. Not good.
“You know Robert Winston?” Mick asked.
“He… he’s a… a friend of Shauna’s,” Kami answered instantly if stiltedly. “He lives in Chantelle, moved there, I don’t know, not long ago. He has a house in one of Curt’s developments. I think he’s been around three months, maybe four. Shauna knew him from Aspen. She didn’t want anyone to know about the money, you know, even the tellers talk, so she asked me to make it out to him, he was going to give it to her.”
“Unless she’s sittin’ on the cash or she blew it as cash, she never got it,” Mick told her, “least, not in a way that leaves a trail.”
Kami shook her head, visibly stunned at this news then she asked, “What about her bills?”
“Ain’t my place to tell you but I’m doin’ it all the same,” Mick said to Kami. “Shauna’s fully current on all her bills, never been in arrears. Far’s we can tell, for at least seven months, Harry’s been payin’ ‘em.”
“Holy crap,” Linda snapped on a near shout.
“He’s also been payin’ her doctor bills,” Mick went on.
She had Curt giving her money and Harry paying her bills. She was being kept by two men. Now she had none, except, perhaps, this Robert character.
I looked at Max and resisted the urge to run to him, tackle him to the ground and sit on him. He looked ready to explode.
“It’s worse,” Mick announced and the room, already tense, became suffocating.
“What?” Kami whispered.
“Not too long ago, Shauna sold her house. She closed about a month ago, paid rent to the new owners to stick around.”
“I don’t believe it,” Kami was still whispering.
“She’s closed her accounts,” Mick finished. “Closed ‘em yesterday. She’s also put orders in to shut down gas, water, electricity, phone and cable, startin’ first of May.”
Kami wasn’t letting this information sink in. “But, if she sold her house, she’d have hundreds of thousands of dollars. She owned it outright. Why would she ask me for money?”
“Maybe because she hired a contract killer?” Linda screeched and I changed my mind and decided I should probably tackle Linda first before she continued, “With my daughter’s money!”
“That’s… that’s crazy, Mom!” Kami shot back, deep in the pit of denial. “She’d never hurt Curt. He told her he loved her, he wanted to marry her, he was gonna leave Bitsy for her.”
“Yeah, she told you that like she told you I took her ring shoppin’,” Max clipped.
“But –” Kami said.
“I never took her ring shoppin’, Kami,” Max went on.
“But –” Kami repeated.
“Never fuckin’ entered my mind,” Max carried on.
“She said –”
“She lied, Kams, Jesus!” Max exploded. “We weren’t even exclusive, I made it clear she could go her own way when I was gone and I’d go my own. I had a woman on the job I was on and she knew it.”
My eyes got wide and my body grew still. That was news. Linda’s gaze slid to me and I tried to act casual but I found it extremely difficult.
Kami was shaking her head and Mick entered the conversation. “Sorry, Kami, but thought you should know.”
Kami just tipped her head back to stare at him and my heart went out to her. She looked beaten down by the betrayal. She might act like a bitch a lot of the time but, bottom line, she was a good friend.
Mick went on, “You’re free to go but I might need to ask you more questions so I want you to stick close to town.”
“Why?” Linda was back to snapping at Mick.
“Because we need to talk to this Robert Winston guy and we need to ask Shauna a few questions and we can’t find her. And, seein’ as this has all come to light, we might have a few more things to get clear with Kami,” Mick answered.
“What things?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet, just don’t want her leavin’ town,” Mick told me.
“You can see that Kami had nothing to do with this, her statement checks out,” I said to Mick.
“Yeah, but –”
“Did you find anything to place her at the construction site? Dirt on her shoes? Rocks?” I pushed.
“No, but –”
“Did you find roofies in her house?”
“No –”
“Do you have any known dealers who have admitted to supplying roofies to Kami?”
“Nina –”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“You have her gun in your possession and it hasn’t been loaded or fired; a warrant to search her house which has pulled up nothing or she wouldn’t be free to go; a cancelled check that proves what Kami told you she’d done with that money true, whether it was to a known acquaintance of Shauna’s or Shauna, that doesn’t change the fact the money was meant for Shauna. You have no physical evidence that places Kami at the construction site and no other evidence whatsoever to link Kami to either murder. All you have, as far as I can see, is the fact that Kami Maxwell was asleep between one and four the morning of the murders which, by the way, so was the vast majority of the residents of Gnaw Bone and the entire Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones.”
“Except we got the fact that Shauna Fontaine is on our suspect list, Robert Winston is now a person of interest and Kami gave him twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“And a jury will be made up of her peers and everyone knows Kami and Shauna have been close since grade school and friends help friends in a tight spot. It gets down to it, I’ll call Max, Brody and Mindy to the stand to testify that they heard Shauna announce to Max she was pregnant and needed money, thus corroborating Kami’s story if not Shauna’s lie. They’ll also all testify to the fact that Shauna was with a gentleman by the name of Robert, he was protective of her, as in overprotective considering he engaged in physical combat with Harry at The Rooster in front of dozens of witnesses in defense of Shauna.”
Mick tried to interrupt. “Nina –”
I cut him off. “Kami thought her friend was up to her eyeballs in debt, had no insurance and a baby on the way. Shauna asked for the transaction to be private, for her own ends but telling Kami it was to save face. We’ve all been there before, needing to save face or helping a friend who needs it. Every jury member will have faced that same scenario in their lives. But friends do what they can which is what Kami did and a jury will believe that too and you know it.”
“Shit Nina, you’re tryin’ the case in this room,” Mick mumbled.
�
��You wanted her to lawyer up, Mick, she’s lawyered up. You don’t want her to leave town, okay, where’s she going to go? But she isn’t leaving this room thinking this nightmare isn’t over for her. She’s got a life to live, Curtis Dodd meant something to her, his death is already taking its toll and she doesn’t need this hanging over her head.”
“I’m just askin’ her not to leave town,” Mick noted.
“Okay, she won’t leave town,” I assured him. “But I’ll remind you, on top of all that, there’s a good possibility that she’s just found out her friend took advantage of her so she’s dealing with enough. You need to question her, you call me and I’ll set it up. Yes?”
Mick turned beleaguered eyes to Max but he was barking up the wrong tree. I looked to Max and saw he was leaning with his shoulders against the wall, arms crossed on his chest, eyes on me and a huge grin on his face.
“Remind me never to do any more favors even if it’s for one of our own,” Mick muttered to no one.
“Are we done here?” I asked, standing and grabbing my coat.
“You movin’ to town?” Mick asked back and my head tilted with confusion at the somewhat nosy change of subject.
Even so, I answered, “More than likely, yes.”
“You gonna practice?” Mick went on.
“Of course,” I replied.
“Great,” Mick muttered, sounding aggrieved and I understood so I smiled.
“Don’t worry, Mick, if it isn’t a member of Max’s family or a friend, I’m a pussycat,” I assured him.
“Why don’t I believe you?” Mick queried.
“Don’t, she’s on one, she’s a tiger,” Max put in. He had pushed from the wall and had his hand on Linda’s arm, helping her from her seat.
“Yeah,” Mick mumbled.
I headed toward the door. “By the way, it’d be nice, anyone asks, you tell them Kami was assisting with the investigation and you might want to mention how cooperative she was.”
Mick looked at me, clearly shocked. “Now you’re askin’ a favor?”
“I did you one, I’m calling my marker. Anyway, it might be good, me moving to town and putting out a shingle, you start collecting them,” I advised as I grabbed my purse and Mick’s eyes again went to Max.