Tracy Hayes, P.I. and Proud (P.I. Tracy Hayes 2)

by Susanna Shore

“I’ll have to arrange clearance from the New York Gaming Commission.”

  While she was on the phone, I leaned into Jackson. “You just blew your chances with her.”

  He smiled. “I’ll live.”

  “Really? She’s almost as hot as Moreira’s date yesterday.”

  “Was she hotter than Tessa?” He’d had a crush on my sister when they were still at school.

  “Much hotter.”

  He grinned, but Emily Hunter finished her call just then, ending our tête-à-tête. “I have the name and address.” She wrote something on a piece of paper, folded it, and handed it to Jackson. “I hope we don’t have to talk about this again.”

  Jackson shook his head. “If matters stand the way we fear they do, the police may be here about this sooner rather than later.”

  We exited the office before Jackson read the paper he had been given. “Here’s a surprise. Hannah Williams.” My heart skipped a beat. I’d been right to suspect her. Then he frowned. “But this is not the address we have for her.”

  “That’s a turn of events.”

  “So is this.” He showed me the bottom of the paper with a smug grin, where Ms. Hunter had written her name and phone number with the words ‘call me’ under them. “I guess you were wrong after all.”

  “I guess I was.”

  And that was a good thing, right?

  We went to talk with the casino workers, who remembered Hannah Williams well. “She played a lot. Preferred Carol’s table, so it wasn’t a total surprise when she was fired for misconduct,” the floor manager told us. “But it’s difficult to believe Carol would’ve been involved in it voluntarily.”

  Maybe she was being blackmailed? When Jackson brought up Larry, no one had seen him around Carol.

  “How the hell were the two of them acquainted?” I asked Jackson when we were back at the car.

  “Through Hannah, maybe.”

  “Would you give your keys to the person who’s involved you in a gambling scam?”

  “Probably not. But we have no proof she was involved in it. And if she was, she definitely didn’t profit from it.”

  That was certainly true. “We’d better find her, then.”

  But I had a nagging feeling we wouldn’t find her alive.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lunch was at Scott’s again, despite my protests, but Trevor had insisted. “This is close to the station. I can’t be bothered to go farther than this.”

  “You drove all the way from Gravesend for this,” I countered. “Besides, there are half a dozen eateries on this street alone you could choose from.”

  “Actually, I drove from home. I had to shower and change. I stank.” This made me smile. “And I like the food here. Besides, it’ll do you good to normalize your relationship with Scott.”

  That wiped the smile off my face. “I don’t need to normalize anything. He cheated on me. I shouldn’t have to even see him.”

  “Meanwhile, your hang-ups prevent you from moving on.”

  “I’m happy with my hang-ups, thank you very much,” I growled, but I lost the argument. Thankfully, Scott wasn’t behind the bar today either, so I could relax.

  The four of us, Trevor, Kelley, Jackson and I, shared a booth with tall walls that offered a semblance of privacy, if not actual privacy. While we waited for our orders, we went through what we had found. Which was nothing in Trevor’s and Kelley’s case—except for my butterfly hairclips I’d lost in the dumpster. They were only slightly dirty, but smelled so bad even through the evidence bag that I told Trevor to throw them away. I could always go to Brownsville and buy new ones.

  “There was no gun in the trash or in Sheila Rinaldi’s apartment. We’re waiting for a warrant to search the Williams’ place,” Detective Kelley told us.

  “That’s not the only place you need to search. The Aqueduct Racetrack had to bar Hannah Williams from gambling in their casino, and according to the New York State Gaming Commission, this is her address.” Jackson handed the paper with the address—without Emily Hunter’s phone number that he’d torn out, interestingly enough—to her. She read it and frowned.

  “This is in Park Slope.” I could understand her bafflement. I’d been amazed to find Hannah Williams allegedly lived in a very expensive neighborhood. “Is it her genuine address?”

  “That’s for you to find out. But if she posed as a high-roller, it could be the address is a fake.”

  “So what’s the story about her being barred, then?” Trevor asked.

  “Carol Marr, the woman Larry Williams was supposedly with on Saturday night, was a croupier at the racetrack casino. She was fired because her regular client, Hannah Williams, won more than she should have on blackjack,” I explained to him.

  The detectives blinked at us, not believing their ears. “So not only did Hannah Williams know Sheila Rinaldi, she knew Carol Marr as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “And her husband was having an affair with both women?”

  “Actually, I’m not sure about that,” I said, having thought about it. “There was no sign of Larry Williams in Carol Marr’s apartment.”

  “But the neighbor said he’d seen Larry around,” Jackson said. “And he had a key.”

  “Doesn’t mean they were having an affair. Perhaps he wanted to make sure she kept helping his wife to cheat at cards, or whatever. Or maybe he took the keys after disposing of her.”

  “Okay, back up,” Kelley said. “You’re saying Hannah and Larry Williams were both involved in some sort of gambling scam?”

  I shrugged, because I wasn’t entirely sure. “It would make more sense than if they both just happened to hang around the racetrack—he for his women, she for gambling—where she then spotted him having an affair or two, which resulted in the death of at least one of the women, maybe both.”

  Jackson nodded, picking up my thought experiment. “After two years in Vegas, they move here, allegedly because Larry Williams wants to be closer to his family. But could be Vegas had become too hot for them. They start their scam anew here, but things go south and people die.”

  “Okay,” said Travis, “but why would they live in a project if they can afford a townhouse in Park Slope?”

  “Well, we don’t yet know it’s their house, but if it is, the tenement apartment may be an attempt to fool the IRS.”

  “So not only a gambling scam, but a tax evasion scam too,” Kelley said. “Damn. We may have to bring the Feds into this.” She and Trevor didn’t look happy about the prospect, but I thought it sounded cool. Maybe I could get one of those vests they wear with the FBI logo on it, or a cap…

  “But let’s just concentrate on solving the murder first, and possibly finding out where Carol Marr has gone to,” Kelley continued. “We’ll search Williams’s apartment for the murder weapon and make a background check for the townhouse.”

  “We should try to make Larry Williams talk,” Trevor added. “With the new evidence, perhaps he’d be willing to throw his wife under the bus.”

  “Anything for us?” Jackson asked.

  “If you could contact Carol Marr’s mother,” Kelley said. Technically, we worked for Travis and the Defender Service, but our goal was the same: solving the murder. “And then I think you two should set up camp outside the townhouse. If Hannah Williams shows up there, I want to know immediately.”

  Our food arrived. My mind occupied with the case, I didn’t notice the danger that arrived with it until it was upon me—not Scott this time, the Barbie-doll he’d married. She was dressed in form-hugging green shorts, and a T-shirt with the bar’s logo and a plunging neckline that revealed impressive cleavage.

  I could totally have that cleavage too with a proper bra. And it would be all me. Well, except for the padding in the bra.

  “Here you go. I hope you enjoy your meal,” she chirped, placing our orders before us.

  She didn’t give me any special glances, which I took to indicate that she didn’t know who I was. There wasn’t a
woman so self-confident she wouldn’t want to measure up the ex-wife if she knew about her. I wondered why Scott hadn’t told her about me. Had he even told her he’d been married before?

  “Oh, we will,” Trevor said with an admiring smile that was both for the woman and the food. I stared at his plate, dismayed. Even the vegetables were deep-fried.

  “Meanwhile, if you ate somewhere else, you might actually avoid having triple bypass surgery before you’re forty.”

  The woman—fine, Nicole—frowned, offended. “It’s good, solid food.”

  “It’s a cardiac arrest waiting to happen,” I countered.

  “If it’s not good enough for you, perhaps you should eat elsewhere.”

  I smiled sweetly. “That’s what I’m trying to achieve here.”

  She swerved around in a huff and headed to the kitchen. She wouldn’t last as a waitress for long if she was this quick to take offence. All three of my companions leaned over to watch her go, eyes trained on her angrily-swinging backside.

  Okay, I checked it out too, but it was really difficult not to see it.

  “Really, Detective Kelley? You too?” I had to ask though.

  “I appreciate a fine female form just like the next gay woman.”

  “I would’ve thought you went for a more … intellectual type.”

  She gave me a slow, teasing smile. “You don’t know how intelligent she is.”

  “I have a pretty good idea.” Scott had never been one for smart women, which—come to think of it—didn’t really flatter me. Then again, I had been only nineteen when we met.

  As if things weren’t bad enough, a moment later the man himself emerged from the kitchen and came to our table. He was wearing jeans and the bar’s T-shirt, with an apron over them—and still managed to look sexy.

  “I understand there’s a problem with your food?”

  “Why? Did the crybaby come and whine?”

  “Tracy!” Trevor frowned.

  “What? All I said was that the food could be healthier.”

  Scott sneered at me, clearly believing I was having a jealous episode. I totally wasn’t. Okay, maybe a small one, but Trevor’s health was important to me too.

  “Other customers seem to like it just fine.”

  “Of course they do. Meanwhile, you could make two people out of most of them.”

  “That’s hardly our fault,” Scott huffed.

  “You’re not exactly helping either. But never mind, this doesn’t really concern you. It’s between me and my brother. Go away.”

  Scott clearly hadn’t expected to be dismissed; his expression was so baffled. But there was only so much of his company I could stand, and I needed to eat my meal—my non-deep-fried meal, thank you very much—without throwing up.

  “Are you trying to cause strife between me and Nicole?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I only break-up one couple a week and I’ve already filled my quota. And next week’s too, most likely.”

  He blinked. Then he nodded at my companions, ignoring me. “Well, I hope you enjoy your lunch,” he said, before returning to the kitchen.

  “Happy now?” Jackson asked me.

  “Ecstatic.”

  “So what’s this about breaking-up couples?” Detective Kelley asked, and before I could prevent them, Trevor and Jackson told her the whole story of my arrest the previous night.

  I did not come out great in their version.

  Chapter Eighteen

  An hour later, we had set up shop outside the townhouse that Hannah Williams had given as her address. It was on 6th Avenue, of all places, only three short blocks away from the agency.

  “That would explain why she chose us for trailing her unfaithful husband,” I noted to Jackson. “She probably sees the sign on our window when she goes to the subway.”

  “That still puzzles me. Why would she hire a private detective if she knew who the women were?”

  We were in his car that he’d parked so we could watch both the front entrance and the entrance to the garage behind the building on the adjoining street. Not that we knew what kind of car she drove, if she even had one, but she might slip out or in on foot through there just as well.

  “Maybe she genuinely didn’t know about Sheila before Thursday,” I mused. “She and Larry had a scheme going that involved Carol Marr. Perhaps she spent her days at the card table and Larry was a diversion, or he was there to help her count cards or whatever. And while her back was turned—figuratively or literally—he hooked up with Sheila. And then she finds out about it and hires us.”

  “Who killed Sheila, then?”

  “My money’s still on Hannah Williams. She’s much larger than Sheila and could easily throw her over the fire-escape rail, whereas Larry is a short man and might’ve had trouble with it.”

  “But how would she have located Sheila without our help? Or were we simply there to provide an alibi for her husband while she killed her?”

  “I don’t know. If it had been me, I’d have made sure the husband took the fall for it.”

  “Maybe some women are more forgiving of their cheating spouses,” he said with a small smile.

  Fools. “Then why kill Sheila?”

  “Maybe it was an accident. She went there to talk to her and the gun went off.”

  “At six on a Sunday morning? And why bring a gun in the first place? It’s not like Sheila was a great threat.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps this has nothing to do with her husband cheating on her and everything to do with their scam.”

  “Carol Marr was fired and Hannah was barred. There was no scam anymore.”

  “Maybe it was Sheila who alerted the authorities to the scam. She notices her husband paying attention to a high-roller, gets jealous, and gets rid of her by drawing attention to Hannah.”

  I nodded. “And Hannah wanted revenge and killed her. And they killed Carol Marr too so she couldn’t blab.”

  “Of all our theories, that one might actually make sense.” His phone beeped and he pulled it out and checked a message from Cheryl. “She’s found the owner of the townhouse.”

  “Who?”

  “Not Hannah Williams. A holding company owns it. They’ve converted it to apartments and they’ve rented them out, but not to her.”

  “So it could be she doesn’t even live here, that it’s a bogus address?” I found that disappointing.

  “Yes. But let’s check the holding company first.” He wrote a message to Cheryl about it. Then he Googled the names of the tenants. Two of them were a man in his late twenties and a woman in her early eighties. And the third: “Nothing. Not a trace of her online.”

  “That’s not even possible, is it?”

  “Nope. But I can’t make a thorough search with the phone.”

  “I’ll ask Jarod,” I suggested. “He knows how to find the most obscure things on the web.” He’d helped me before. The private security firm he worked for had a hundred-gigabyte broadband at their disposal, but better than the ultrafast connection was Jarod’s ability to access accounts he shouldn’t be able to.

  Jackson shook his head, exasperated. “Why do I have a feeling his searches aren’t exactly legal?”

  “Do you need it to hold in court?”

  “No.” I smiled and he smiled back. “Fine. Ask him.”

  I took out my phone and called my housemate. He answered at once but sounded distracted. “Are you at the college?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t called in the middle of a lecture. I wouldn’t put it past him to answer in the classroom.

  “Nah, at work. We had another emergency.”

  “The same cyber threat as this morning, or a different one?”

  “The same. Hacktivists are blocking the website of a food production company they say uses unethical products. Makes you wonder if you’re on the right side sometimes. But I’m almost done.”

  “Good. When you have a moment, could you check a name for me?”

  “Sure
.”

  “Alisa Strand. She should live on 6th Avenue and work for…” I checked the name from Jackson’s phone. “Miller-Hollis Holdings. We found no trace of her online.”

  “Well, now. That should be a challenge.” I could practically hear Jarod smile in anticipation.

  “If nothing comes up with those parameters, check her in relation to Hannah or Larry Williams and Las Vegas.”

  “Okay. I’m on it.” And he hung up.

  “How do you want to handle this?” I asked Jackson.

  “I think we should take turns watching this place. No need for both of us to be here.”

  “Okay.” But I was kind of disappointed. I liked stakeouts with Jackson. He didn’t talk much—he tended to retire to a special zone—but his company was pleasant. “As long as I can keep the car. I can’t exactly traipse along the street with my knee.”

  “Absolutely. And you can wait here while I go check the building.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “But what if Hannah’s there?”

  “We don’t know if she’s Alisa Strand or connected to her. But don’t worry. I’m not going into her apartment.”

  “Keep a line to my phone open just in case, so I can warn you if something happens.”

  He smiled. “Nothing will happen.” But he called my phone and then put his phone in the breast pocket of his jacket.

  He crossed the street to the front steps of the house we were keeping an eye on. The building was newer than the others on the long street and less pretty, with a bland brown façade and no trimmings. He took the steps to the front door, which was locked. Big surprise. Jackson didn’t hesitate but pressed the buzzer of the first floor apartment, the one belonging to Alisa Strand.

  “Are you insane?” I hissed into my phone, but if he heard me he didn’t react.

  The door didn’t open, so he pressed the next buzzer. This time there was an answer. “Yes?” It sounded like an old woman.

  “This is UPS. The resident in the first floor apartment isn’t home and I need to leave a package. Can you open the door, please?” He sounded like a UPS guy too, carefree and a bit bored, a marked difference to his usual self-assured tone. Who knew my boss was an actor.