Toni Donovan Mysteries- Books 1-3

by Helen Gray

  “I’m scared,” he murmured, his body shivering involuntarily.

  “Why are you scared?” Toni asked, resisting the urge to comfort him. She wanted to keep him talking. He was a young adult who had gotten caught up in something that was going to force him to mature and face consequences. Rapidly.

  “Everything was working fine,” he said so low she could hardly hear him. “But then Coach was killed. Now Barry’s dead, too. I’m not sure what’s happening.”

  Toni listened closely, trying to absorb every nuance. “Can you tell me just what is going on? How did this thing get started?”

  Dean moved his head back and forth, as if bewildered. “Most kids play cards. It was four or five years ago, when I was in middle school and junior high, that it got more popular. A lot of parents go to Atlantic City and Vegas to play, and when they’re home they let us play in their houses where they can keep an eye on us. Some schools even have supervised gambling at their post prom school parties.”

  “How often do these games happen?” she asked before he could ramble off track.

  Dean shrugged. “Pretty much every night. It’s easy to find out where there’s a game and who’s playing. Even Coach…” His voice cracked. “Even Coach used to have games in his garage. Kids play in the lunchroom and the restroom, all kinds of places. But some of us aren’t that crazy about cards.”

  “So you started betting on sports,” Toni said when he didn’t continue.

  Dean straightened from his hunched position and leaned back against the bench behind them. “That and Internet gambling.”

  “What kind of stakes are kids wagering?”

  He hesitated before speaking. “It started out as quarter antes and two dollar bets. But it soon moved up to a dollar ante and five dollar bets. Then it kept growing. Some bet hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars on basketball and football games.”

  “What if they lose and can’t pay?”

  The boy’s eyes darkened, and he winced ever so slightly. “Bookie runners deliver messages and try to collect,” he said haltingly.

  “Are the messages threats? Is there physical violence?”

  Dean nodded. “Both. I heard that one kid was snatched and dropped off in the woods alone.”

  “So he would get lost?”

  He shook his head in misery. “It was punishment for a bad debt. But he found his way home.”

  “How did it get to this?”

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled brokenly. Then he cleared his throat. “It all started as fun and recreation, but then it started going bad. I don’t know when everything went out of control.”

  Some of the tension went out of Toni now that Dean seemed to be delivering truth. “How is the operation set up?” she asked, hoping he wouldn’t clam up at the question.

  His eyes squeezed shut, and then reopened. “I don’t know a lot of details. I’m just a flunky, one of the younger workers. There are kids from high schools and colleges all around here who work as bookies, collectors, runners, and things like that. Betting on sports is the big thing. It’s easy to play. You can bet over the phone with no money down. There’s an eight hundred number to get the odds on games. It changes every couple weeks or so, and there’s a special code.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Well, if you want to bet ten dollars, you say ‘give me two times’. For twenty-five dollars you say ‘give me five times’.”

  “What about the Internet?” John asked, joining the conversation. “Isn’t there a web site that you and your friends use?”

  Dean’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know that, too?”

  “We’ve seen it,” Toni said. “We think your classmate, Vince, is the webmaster.”

  “He is. It’s really coming apart, isn’t it?” Dean moved his head back and forth again as he grasped the gravity of the situation.

  “What was your role?” John asked. “Were you an enforcer?”

  Dean’s head jerked up, and his hands raised, palms forward. “Oh, no! I’m just a runner. All I’ve ever done is deliver messages or pick up things.”

  “Do you have any idea who killed your friends?” Toni asked. “Is there any chance they owed big gambling debts and were killed over it?”

  “That makes no sense,” he shot back. “Coach was the boss. He didn’t owe anybody. And Barry was his main man. Nobody could touch them.”

  “But they did,” Toni pointed out. “Do you know who all is involved?”

  “No way. My own school has over four thousand students, and some of the others have more. The ones involved come from all of them. They meet one another sometimes, but never in a big group. New ones are always showing up, and others move away or drop out.”

  “Do you know who’s in charge of the overall operation now?”

  Dean shook his head. “I can’t even guess.”

  Toni exchanged glances with John, silently asking if he could think of anything else to ask. He indicated with a head shake that he couldn’t.

  She turned back to Dean. “I have to tell the police about this talk, and I’m sure you’ll hear from them. I hope you’ll be totally honest and help in any way you can. It will go better for you if you do.”

  *

  Toni was haunted by the vision of Dean Patrick’s forlorn figure, still sitting on the bleachers, when they left the ball field. She shared his fear and felt a sense of helplessness. And rage. She had trouble sleeping that night.

  Monday morning she dressed in white slacks and a pink T-top, bolted a donut and glass of milk, and left for school while Quint slept.

  “Our final lecture will cover the urinary and reproductive systems,” she announced at the beginning of class, noting Nicole Warren just slipping into a seat. Her face was set in a distracted gaze, and a frown creased her forehead. Something was troubling the young woman.

  Forcing her attention from Nicole, Toni proceeded with the lecture. But she glanced back at the young woman every few minutes. Each time Nicole’s eyes were glued to her, almost trance-like. The two hour lab that followed kept Toni from watching the young woman closely, since she had to keep moving around the room.

  She wasn’t surprised when Nicole remained seated at the end of lab. Toni went to the door and saw the class out, issuing reminders of the next day’s unit exam. When they were gone, she closed the door and went to sit across the work table from Nicole. “What’s wrong? Are you worried about the exams?”

  Nicole nodded, and then shook her head back and forth. Her smile was forced. “I’m worried, but not about the exams.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” Toni apologized.

  Nicole extracted a piece of paper from her purse. “Here’s the doctor’s note I owe you.”

  “Good. Now you can make up the quiz you missed Thursday. Is that what was bothering you?”

  Toni opened the note and glanced at it. Then she looked closer. The required documentation indicated that Nicole’s three-year-old daughter, Morgan Sandoval, had been seen the previous Thursday in the office of Doctor Meyers.

  “Your daughter’s name is different from yours.”

  “Warren is my maiden name. I took it back after I divorced Mitch Sandoval. He’s why I’m worried,” she added nervously, lowering her gaze.

  Toni hesitated, unsure whether to probe into her student’s personal life. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked gently, hoping to put her at ease.

  “Be careful,” Nicole said, nearly strangling on the low words.

  Toni went on alert. “Why? What are you trying to tell me?”

  Nicole looked up. “Mitch is…can be mean.”

  “Did he abuse you?”

  Nicole nodded. “It started a few weeks after we got married. I was afraid to stay with him, and afraid to leave him. I was pregnant.”

  “I understand. But you finally did leave him. What changed?”

  “I stayed with him as long as I could. I had Morgan, and things got better. But then he started hitting he
r. He called it spanking. But it was more. I sold everything I had of any value and hired a good lawyer. I won custody of my baby. Not that he wanted her,” she added bitterly. “He didn’t want the responsibility.”

  Toni watched the way Nicole wet her lips with her tongue, sensing genuine fear in her.

  “I saw him watching this building after class last Thursday,” Nicole said after a long hesitation. “Then he was here again today.”

  “Why do you think he’s watching you? Is he stalking you?”

  “He’s not watching me,” Nicole said, raising her head. “He’s watching you.”

  Toni frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. I don’t even know him. You’re the one with reason to be afraid of him.”

  “I am afraid of him,” Nicole said forcefully. “But I watched him. He didn’t even see me arrive today. He was totally focused on you. That’s why I was almost late. When I spotted him, I ducked out of sight and waited for him to leave.”

  Toni was mystified.

  “He’s dangerous,” Nicole continued. “I just found out from a friend that he’s involved in the gambling operation you’re investigating. I think he’s some kind of enforcer.” Her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

  A clutch of fear made Toni go weak. “Do you think he’s connected to your former coach’s death? Or the one yesterday?”

  Nicole shuddered, but she didn’t ask what death Toni meant. That meant she knew about Barry Kuzman. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I think he’s capable of a lot. And I’m afraid for you. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I will,” Toni promised. “I’m staying with my brother this week, and he’s a local police officer. I’ll talk to him.”

  Nicole took a deep breath and gathered her books. “Good. I have to go to work.”

  Chapter 17

  As she drove back to Quint’s apartment, Toni kept an eye on her rear view mirror, alert for anyone following her. Seeing nothing suspicious, she chided herself for being paranoid. It was Nicole that her ex was watching, not a teacher he didn’t know. That had to be it. Just the same, she took a circuitous route, winding through a residential area, looping around to Route 65, and then to Battlefield and through more residential streets before getting on Ingram Mill Road. She checked her rear view mirror again, and looked every direction before pulling into the apartment complex.

  Quint lay sprawled on the sofa watching a ballgame when she entered. “You’re looking energetic,” she kidded him, forcing herself to not limp. If Quint knew she had injured another toe, he would tease her unmercifully.

  “I got up about eleven and went shopping,” he said. “Then I hurried back so I would be here when you got in. We have a few edibles in the place now.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to bring me up to date on the case?” she asked over her shoulder as she took her purse and book satchel to his guest bedroom.

  “It does,” he called after her.

  She returned and claimed his recliner where she could face him to talk—and he couldn’t hang up on her. “What kind of progress are you making?”

  “A lot of watching and checking without definitive results.” He pushed upright and placed an arm along the back of the sofa. “We’re finding that it’s a bigger operation than we imagined possible. The card playing is small in comparison to the sports betting. These kids are wagering big money.”

  “Which is attractive to organized crime,” Toni mused, wondering if they could possibly be connected to any crime family.

  “The operation does mirror adult organized crime,” Quint said. “We’re looking for any ties.”

  His head moved from side to side. “In urban America we find drugs. In suburban America, we find sports betting. Internet gambling is illegal, but that’s a generous interpretation of the law. I don’t know of any arrests that have been made for merely placing bets online, but this sports betting is bad for students. More kids get into gambling through sports than any other gambling activity. What doubly troubles me is finding out that athletes are nearly twice as likely to be problem gamblers as non-athletes.”

  Toni nodded. “I’ve been researching and reading some sad stories.”

  “We’ve talked to several school administrators in the area. None of them were aware of these activities. I guess I can’t blame them too much, since we didn’t know either.”

  “How cooperative are they being?”

  “They’re willing to work with us. One reason is because when student athletes place bets with a bookie, they not only break the law, but they jeopardize their eligibility. Once they do that, the bookie is in control. If a student athlete gets addicted and deep in debt, point shaving gets offered as a way out.”

  The mention of bookies brought Barry back to mind. “I guess I didn’t realize how big a role a bookie plays. I thought he was low in the pecking order.”

  “They use students or runners to collect debts and parlay sheets and give them a commission for it,” Quint explained. “Gamblers pay commissions for information related to sports teams—player injuries, game plans, discipline issues, stuff like that. Which brings us to the database we found in Jesse Campbell’s computer.”

  Toni’s interest ratcheted up another notch.

  “It’s a massive thing that would excite any statistician. It lists players from every school and will predict which players will guard each other, track tendencies of referees, and factors all kinds of things into forecasting game outcomes.”

  Toni’s mouth pursed, and she emitted a long whoosh of air. “That would be a valuable tool for the guy’s business. No wonder he was making money. He probably sold information as well as placing personal bets.”

  “We found a list of referees who work in the area, as well as some who work professional games. A few of the names had a small star by them.”

  “Sounds like Jesse had plans to move to bigger things,” Toni speculated.

  “We’re wondering if those marked refs are ones who will do things like take bribes for making calls that will affect the point spread in games, or ignore fouls and call make-up fouls to give additional foul shots to a particular team.”

  “I remember reading a story about a coach who was killed because he was going to come clean about illegal gambling and game-fixing,” Toni said thoughtfully. “Do you think that could be what happened to Jesse?”

  Quint considered for a moment. “I suppose it’s possible, but I seriously doubt it. I haven’t seen any record of contacts between him and anyone in law enforcement.”

  “I guess he was prospering too much to do anything like that,” Toni agreed. “Well, what about that website? I haven’t checked lately. Is it still active?”

  Quint nodded. “When Vince Harcourt was arrested, the detectives questioned him, but didn’t search his house and confiscate his computer. They want the site to stay up while they look for who is taking over control. Someone didn’t want Barry talking to us any more, and they’re hoping they can learn from the activity on the site.”

  “What else are they doing?”

  Now Quint grinned. “You’ll like this. They created an undercover identity and opened a betting account on the site.”

  She pumped a fist. “Yeah, that should get them some interesting facts.”

  Suddenly Quint sobered. “So what did you do last night? Where did you go?”

  Toni went silent, taken off guard by the question.

  “I called here not long after I reported to work and got no answer.”

  “John and I went to talk to Dean Patrick again,” she admitted, meeting his gaze. “Dean was the only person I could think of with ties to both Vince Harcourt and Jesse Campbell.”

  Quint leaned forward on his knees. “Tell me everything he said.”

  She did, beginning with the drive to Ozark, having to return to Springfield to find the boy, and then relating the conversation almost verbatim, amazed at her clarity of memory.

  “So you see,” she said when she finished, “ev
erything Dean told us matches the facts you just told me.”

  “Okay, all-knowing big sister, I guess you did all right. Is that all you did?”

  “That’s it. But another matter has come up.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Spit it out.”

  “You remember my telling you about Nicole Warren, the girl in my class who recognized that I was at the park when Jesse Campbell was found?”

  He thought a moment, and then bobbed his head. “You mean the one who was in Campbell’s class in Branson.”

  “That’s her. Well, she stayed after class today to warn me that she saw her ex-husband following me.”

  His gaze sharpened. “Does this ex have a name?”

  “Mitch Sandoval.”

  Quint’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment. “He has a history dating back to junior high that includes purse snatching, bullying, and other nice stuff. Why do you think he’s following you?”

  “I don’t know that he is. I kept my eyes open and came home by a route like a rat maze. I didn’t see anything that looked like I was being followed.”

  “What did this Nicole tell you about Mitch? Is he involved in the gambling ring? It sounds right up his alley.”

  “She said she thinks he’s some kind of enforcer.”

  “Fits him to a tee.”

  A frisson went up Toni’s spine as the vision of Mitch Sandoval hitting Nicole and her daughter flashed across her mind. She sucked in a deep breath of air.

  “Okay, I know I’m just your baby brother,” Quint said grimly. “But I’m telling you to be very careful. You’re obviously making someone so uneasy that they have a goon watching you. Don’t underestimate this guy, and don’t be traipsing around alone.”

  “I have to go to work,” she pointed out.

  “It’s only for three more days, thank goodness. I never thought I’d want to run you out of town, but right now I wish you were back home where you would be safer. I’ll follow you to school in the morning and meet you after class.”

  Toni shook her head. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll call John. He won’t mind coming by and following me to school. His class starts thirty minutes later than mine, and he won’t mind being a little early. He gets out later than I do, but I have to stay late tomorrow to set up for Wednesday’s lab final.”