“Mr. Torres, thanks for meeting with us,” said Max.
“How did you find me?”
“Anne’s nursing supervisor had your number, but the name was ‘Hammer.’”
The man smiled. “That’s a nickname. My wife hates it, but the guys in my bike club use it. Annie knew me by that name.” The man leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “God. That was a long time ago. I was a handyman—hence the name Hammer—not as dramatic as you probably thought. I did a lot of work helping Annie’s dad fix up his home. Annie and I grew up here.”
“You dated her?” asked Joy.
“She ran away with me. See, her father thought I was good enough to do his carpentry work but not good enough for his pretty white daughter. He said she was made for better things than the likes of me. Her old man lived in a pre-fab in a trailer park, but he told me that with her looks, she could live in a mansion. But Annie chose me. As soon as she finished nursing school, we rented a place in town, and she commuted to Wine Valley. Her dad said he wouldn’t speak to her as long as she was with me.”
“Sounds like you were both very happy,” said Joy.
“We were. Annie pushed me to take night classes to get my contractor’s license. She had patience with me. She’d spend hours explaining the math. We’d laugh about it. But she never made me feel dumb. It took several years, but I got my license, and I started my own company. Sometime that last semester, she met that doctor dude.”
“Dr. Grant?” asked Max.
“If I had a night class, Annie sometimes stopped at a local 50s diner and had dinner at the counter before coming home. Grant saw her there one night and swooped in. He bought her dinner, found out she worked at the hospital. Sent her flowers. He just couldn’t leave her alone, leave us alone. We had plans. We were on a walk one day, and Annie spotted this run-down little house. I promised her I’d buy it for us and fix it up. And I did, but not for her. ‘Bout a month before graduation, I asked Annie to marry me. I told her we could start a family. She said to wait until I graduated. But she was just waiting for the right time to leave.” Nico leaned forward. “Did you meet with Dr. Grant?”
“Yes,” said Max.
“Did he tell you he was the one who got Annie into gambling?”
Max and Joy eyed one another.
“I thought not.” Nico’s eyes conveyed sheer hatred. His voice rose a notch. “Grant flashed money before her eyes, took her to the casino. Taught her how to play poker, Black Jack, Roulette. Annie took to it like a duck to water. When I found out about it, I tried to put a stop to it, but I couldn’t compete with his flashy cars and houses. She left me. He bought that small house by the creek for her—but he never put it in her name. I went there to try to bring her home, but he intervened, said the same thing as her father, said she deserved better than what I could give her. Maybe Annie finally believed her father.” Nico grinned. “Before I left, though, I clocked him hard. And I don’t regret it.”
“Did you keep in touch with Anne after that?” asked Max.
“Nope. Not at all. I didn’t hear from her until last December. She and Grant got into a fight. Annie said he grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm. She had a bruised face too, like he’d hit her. She begged me to help her. My wife and kids had taken off for Mexico to visit with her family over the Christmas holidays, but I had a big job, so I couldn’t go. Annie drove up here. When she saw that I’d gotten the house and fixed it up, she didn’t even make it to the front door. She sank to her knees in the dirt and she cried and cried. I’ve seen some broken people in my time, but man, Annie...she couldn’t stop talking. It was like she’d kept so many secrets for so long, they all came tumbling out. I mean, it had been a decade. She told me how Grant had introduced her to gambling. How she’d gambled away what her father had left her. Taken drugs from the hospital—but she couldn’t stomach it, so she stopped. I couldn’t believe my ears. That wasn’t the Annie I knew.”
“Why did she go to you? It had been a long time,” asked Joy.
“I think her friends didn’t know much about her life, and she wanted to keep it that way. Grant had cut her off financially. Even told her that if she left him, she had to start paying rent. He was like that. Kept her needing him. Annie owed the casino money too. Grant wanted to marry her—go figure. Annie said he was jealous, possessive.” Nico shook his head.
“She still loved you?” asked Joy.
“I don’t know. I think she called me because she remembered better times. She said she never should have left me. Said it was the worst mistake of her life. She got all nostalgic and made a pass at me, said we could start over. I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back real gentle, because she had her arm in a sling. I told her the truth—I didn’t want to go back. I told her I loved my wife, not her. I love my kids. I told her to leave the doctor, pay off the debt, get help, and find a good man. She’d only been here a couple of days, but I asked her to leave. I never should have let her come in the first place. If my wife found out, she’d kick my ass from here to the Chile.”
“Did she ask you for money?” asked Joy.
Nico hesitated. “Not exactly, but I handed her some. Five hundred.” She kissed me on the cheek, got in her car, and left. I never heard from her after that. Then I see on the news that she’s dead. I think Grant did it.”
“Why didn’t you call us?” asked Max.
“She was here for two days in December. I didn’t know what her life was like. I couldn’t add any information that would help, at least, that’s what I thought.”
Joy asked, “Did you ask her if she’d stopped gambling?”
Nico nodded. “I did. But she said she had it under control. She said she only gambled a little, because she still believed she could win enough to start over. An alcoholic can’t drink a little, a drug addict can’t take a small hit, and I knew Annie’s answer meant she still had a problem.”
On the way back, Max saw Anne from a new perspective, an image forged by her father, a man with bigoted beliefs that had pushed his daughter into the arms of a man that would please him—handsome, rich and white—and that would be her ruin. That shove set Anne on a downward spiral that ended in her death. Had his telling her that she deserved more nudged her to leave Hammer and run to Grant? Or had the cash and cars tempted Anne with promises of a rich life? Or maybe she ran to Grant for some kind of desperate need for security, because she had grown up poor? No wonder she set money on the table, hoping to hit it big. Compulsive gamblers hoped to beat the odds—and the odds were always against them. The house wins.
Max imagined Anne’s life had she made another choice. He could visualize Hammer and Anne living in the colorful little house. Anne would still be a nurse helping people. Hammer would remodel homes, and they’d take walks and motorcycle rides, raise kids, and laugh. On the other hand, Anne’s dark side was there all along. Impulsivity. The cravings. She’d gambled on Hammer when she ran away with him, but she gambled again when she let Grant into her life.
“Let’s get Grant inside the station, surrounded by cops, and in the line of fire. It might shake him up enough to get at the truth. He’s been holding back.”
“I totally agree,” said Joy. “We know his Achilles heel. Let’s stop by Belle’s first.”
Max seemed surprised.
“Hey, she makes a killer shake and she’s adorable.”
“That she is,” said Max. “She works that place six days a week, makes the BBQ sauce from scratch. It wouldn’t surprise me if she could aim a Glock.”
“No, Max. She’s a rifle girl. I’d bet lunch on it.”
“I’m not dumb enough to bet against a profiler’s daughter.”
20
By early afternoon, Max and Joy escorted Dr. Grant to an interrogation room. The new smells of carpet and paint and the new technology—the one-way glass, the TV screen on a wall mount in the upper corner, and the modern TV cameras—reminded suspects and witnesses of the modern-day methods by which the police capt
ured evidence. In this business, intimidation helped.
“Can I smoke?” asked Grant.
Max nodded. Keeping the doctor strung out in nicotine withdrawal wouldn’t help. He needed his acute attention.
“Why am I here?” Grant took a drag from his cigarette.
“Did you and Anne have a fight, one that led to injury, in December?”
Grant took a long drag. “Yes, we fought. She’d just gotten cut off from the casino, and she wanted me to front her money so she could win it back.”
“You broke her wrist?” asked Joy.
“It was an accident.” Dr. Grant stuck his cigarette between his lips and gesticulated. “She reached for my wallet. I grabbed her like this. She slapped me. I reacted. I slapped her, harder than I realized, and she fell backwards. She landed with her arm under her. I was trying to get her to listen to reason. She was out of control.”
“She was out of control?” asked Joy.
The doctor leaned back and took another drag on his cigarette, as if to compose his thoughts. He shot forward. “Look. I didn’t kill her. I loved her.”
“You hit her and she broke her wrist.” Max looked at Joy. “Funny way to show love.”
Joy leaned in and used that soft, melodic voice that could charm a snake. “It must have been difficult for you to try to stop her gambling.”
“You have no idea!”
“But,” said Max, “I heard that you taught Anne how to gamble.”
Grant’s face imploded: he ran his hands over the top of his head. His chest heaved. He struggled to gain composure and stymie the guilt and anger and emotions that threatened to spill over.
“It’s true, then,” said Joy.
Grant jumped to his feet and rubbed his eyes. He took one more drag from his cigarette and put it out. “I still can’t kick these filthy things.” He sucked in a deep breath. “I didn’t see it coming. We laughed and had fun at the casino. We danced, drank, ate good food.” He let out a deep breath, as if only now facing the torment he’d felt for a decade. “Do you have any idea how guilty I feel, an addict giving an addiction to another human being?” Grant shrugged. “How about that for luck and love? I used women right and left, but I finally fall in love, and it all falls apart. Anne was a small-town girl. So sweet. But she liked the lights, the money. Two addicts. We never stood a chance.”
Joy offered him some peace. “Sit down, Dr. Grant.”
Grant dropped into the chair, a broken man. “She’s gone. I’ll never see her again.”
Joy continued. “We all make bets. We buy a lotto ticket or enter a raffle or we bet a friend who will win a game. Gambling addicts either struggle with severe financial problems and they see gambling as their only solution, or they get high from taking risks. Anne had some component within her that triggered the addiction. We can’t escape our DNA.”
Max wondered if Joy spoke about Grant, Anne, or herself. It was time to press Grant. “Anne disappeared after the fight. She went home to her old boyfriend.”
“Hammer?” asked Grant. “He broke my nose. I deserved it, though. I’d have done the same.”
Max leaned across the table. “Anne told him everything. How you cut her off financially. She told him you are possessive, jealous. He told her to leave you and find a good man.”
“No wonder she borrowed money from a loan shark. You made her desperate,” said Joy.
Grant slammed his fist on the table. “Addiction makes you desperate! I was trying to help her, damn it! A loan shark? Jesus, Anne!”
Max had control. Grant had to face him.
Grant’s shoulders sagged. “I loved her. I would have married her. Paid her debt and gone to meetings with her. But when she came back, she said I had ruined her life—she blamed me! She said she was done with me. I thought it was just a ploy to get me to pay her debt. For once, I didn’t give in. I’d bailed her out so many times before.”
“Is that why you killed her, Dr. Grant?” accused Max.
“I didn’t kill her!”
“Because she dumped you!” Max kept up the attack.
“She didn’t dump me!”
“She flirted with others. Slept with—” Joy interjected.
“No! She was confused. That’s all.”
“You kept her confused,” argued Max, “but she started to see clearly, and she saw that you were the problem!”
“That’s not true. I helped her!”
“Did you kill her for walking away?” asked Joy.
“No!”
“For going to see her old boyfriend and throwing herself at him?” asked Max.
“I didn’t kill her!”
“For using you, like you used her?” asked Joy.
“I didn’t use her!”
“But she used you! Didn’t she?” asked Max.
“She loved me.”
“She left you!” said Joy.
“She loved me!”
“Did you kill her?” asked Max.
Dr. Grant folded his arms, dropped his head down on them, and wept. “I’m sorry, Anne. I’m sorry I ever set cards in your hands. I’m so sorry!”
Max and Joy could do nothing but wait.
“Kenneth,” said Joy, but he didn’t respond. “Kenneth,” she prodded again.
When Grant looked up, Max said, “You can go.”
Grant stood to leave. “You know, I’ve had time to think about Anne sleeping with Eugene. Maybe I did push her too hard; maybe I wasn’t helping her at all but driving her deeper; maybe she just realized I’m an ass. No matter what: if she loved Eugene enough to stop gambling, enough to start a new life, then I would have been happy for her.”
Joy added, “Nice sentiment, but you don’t know how to let go, or you would have done it. You’re still an addict, Dr. Grant. Anne was your addiction.”
“Find who killed her. That fiend didn’t just take her away from me. He took her away from a lot of people who cared for her.”
“We intend to,” said Max. “No matter where it leads us.”
After they showed Grant out, Max returned to his desk and Joy sat opposite him.
“He’s doesn’t like to lose,” said Max. “He seems like a natural born liar to me. I’m not buying his love story.”
Joy put on her Wednesday voice. “I do. Most batterers say they love their spouse. He loved Anne, but he also needed to control her. It’s why he used women. But Anne got under his skin. He fell for her, but he couldn’t control her gambling.”
“Let’s review what we know.” Max rubbed his face as if to clear his mind and write on a new slate. “The chief, Deon, Anne, Grant, Shane, and Lee all played poker. Anne snuck back to be with Eugene. Who’s connected?”
“Deon is connected to Anne and the hospital. We don’t know if he is connected to A-gamer.”
Max leaned forward. “Hmmm. Sure, but what is his connection to Shane?”
“Shane’s a pharmacist. Shane, Grant, Deon, and A-gamer all have a connection to drugs.”
“Grant and Eugene have their body-snatching business,” added Max.
“Which Shane wanted in on, so greed rather than love might have motivated him.”
Max added, “But even if that’s true, why kill him—for asking Cynthia to marry him. She could say no.”
“Cynthia didn’t like Anne or Mayleen, but it sounds like she had good reason to be protective of her father, given what we know about Mayleen’s drug history and Anne’s history with Grant.”
“The Chens own a flower shop. They have a business relationship with Eugene, and their daughter also dated Eugene. But who had a grudge against the chief?”
“Maybe that’s where we should start.” Joy tapped her fingers on the desk. “A-gamer had a grudge against Anne and the chief. But what is the A-gamer and Shane connection?”
“I don’t know.” Max shrugged his shoulders. “Except he’s a pharmacist and had access to drugs.”
“Maybe the chief wasn’t targeted because anyone had a vendetta against him. M
aybe the chief was simply a convenient scapegoat. He lives alone, so he most likely wouldn’t have an alibi after the game. The killer just needed to know his habits. The Chens, as well as Eugene and Cynthia, reside with someone.”
“Grant lives alone too. Why not frame him?” asked Max. “Or Deon?”
“True, especially given Grant’s temper. Unless it was Grant—then he’d frame the chief.”
Max’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Or—and we cannot overlook it—it was the chief. Grant lives alone, but he’s a wild card; his patterns are less predictable. Deon was a new player. The question is would the chief have framed himself to throw us off the track?”
“You know him better than I do, Max. Is he that clever?”
Max pondered the question. “He knows procedure. And he doesn’t exactly like me—nor does he necessarily think I can figure this out. He might be playing us.”
“But it’s risky. If he killed Anne to protect himself from the A-gamer story getting out, and if he killed Shane because he knew about it, the chief might just end up putting himself in jail.”
“No,” said Max. “It’s circumstantial evidence. It’s brilliant. He can say he’s being framed.”
Max’s cell phone rang. “King.” Max listened. His eyes lit up. “We’re on the way.” He hung up. “Deon just showed up at The Stinky Mule.”
21
By the time Max and Joy arrived, the surveillance team had wired Reed Steele, a scrappy, undercover officer with long, dark brown hair, a mustache, and a day’s worth of stubble. His hazel eyes projected mental toughness, as did his square jaw. He dressed in scruffy jeans, a T-shirt that hugged his muscular shoulders, and a biker vest.
“Who’s your new partner?” asked Steele, eyeing Joy.
“Dr. Joy Burton,” said Max. “Joy, this is Reed Steele.” Max refrained from mentioning his self-proclaimed nickname, “Reed the Steed.”
“Doctor?” said Steele. “I think I’m feeling ill.”
Joy kept her flat Wednesday tone. “If you’re sick in the head, I can help.”
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