Casino Girl

by Leslie Wolfe

“Yes, exactly, but how did you know?”

  I avoided his glance. He drove me crazy with his questions, all coming at the most inappropriate times. “Doesn’t matter, Holt. I just knew, all right?”

  “It does matter, damn it,” he shouted. “You and I have to talk. You don’t trust me worth a damn,” he shouted over his shoulder, while grabbing Mrs. Bennett’s arm and supporting her as she climbed out of the helicopter. “That’s a serious problem we’re having, Baxter.”

  “Holt, please,” I said, but he’d already turned his back at me. Moments later, I heard his voice rushing through the Miranda rights.

  “Patricia Bennett, you’re under arrest for the murder of Crystal Tillman. You have the right—”

  “I want my lawyer,” the old woman said, standing proud and unfazed while being restrained by Holt.

  “Of course, you do,” he muttered, as he resumed Mirandizing her.

  As I watched him take her into the departure lounge, I had the strong feeling I was losing something important, something I couldn’t afford to let go.

  My partner.

  49

  Empathy

  Booking Mack Eggers and Patricia Bennett wasn’t routine, because nothing about Patricia Bennett was banal, or had ever been. When we arrived at the precinct, a fire-eating lawyer who’d identified himself as Salvatore Lucio, attorney at law representing Mrs. Bennett, met us on the doorstep, running his mouth on how we could’ve had the decency of not dragging such a respected pillar of the community in cuffs like a regular hoodlum. Yes, we could’ve, but we didn’t, and I, for one, couldn’t care less, after the old hag had potentially cost a good pilot his license, maybe his freedom.

  Instead of apologizing, which I really didn’t feel like doing, I grinned cynically at Lucio and told him, “Be thankful the media isn’t here yet. We could’ve also dragged our feet, so they could catch up with us and give us all our moment of fame.”

  That shut him up promptly, but by the look in his eyes he wasn’t done with me yet.

  However, Mr. Lucio had already started to put the wheels of justice in motion; he’d secured an appearance in front of a judge that same evening, even if it was seven-thirty and any other arrestees brought in that late would’ve looked at spending the night behind bars, waiting to be arraigned the next morning. Due to Lucio’s influence, the rotation judge was willing to hear the parties on bail within the hour.

  Gully appeared, out of breath and flustered, and stopped next to us, shooting Lucio side glances filled with worry. “Thanks for the heads-up,” he said to me, referring to the call I’d made the moment Holt snapped the cuffs on Mrs. Bennett. “I better not screw this up,” he added, apprehension seeping into his voice as his eyes veered to the left again, where the imposing Mr. Lucio stood by his client’s side.

  “If I may offer some advice?” I asked, and he nodded quickly. “Shoot for the stars and land on the moon with this one. No amount of bail will make her a safe bet, but, being who she is, she won’t be remanded either. Just point out to the judge that she tried to run from the police in her eight-million-dollar helicopter, one of the many resources at her disposal, in an attempt to flee to the Dominican Republic, a nonextradition country.”

  Gully smiled widely, a little embarrassed. “I owe you big on this one, Baxter. You too, Holt,” he said, and Holt showed him a thumbs up. “What’s with him?” he asked, pointing at Mack Eggers.

  I took a deep breath, hoping I was about to do the right thing. “This guy’s more a victim than a perp,” I said, and Holt shot me an inquisitive glance.

  “How come?” Gully asked. “Didn’t you have to shoot that helicopter to get him to comply?”

  I looked briefly at Holt, and he approached, his curiosity piqued.

  “Yes, and no,” I replied, hesitantly at first, then gaining momentum under Holt’s supportive look. “He seemed under duress from his employer, who was making threats at the time. The way I see it, a mere pilot can’t afford to make an enemy out of a person of this caliber of power and wealth. I know, in his shoes, I would’ve hesitated a little myself.”

  “So, you’re saying he shouldn’t be indicted?”

  I looked at Holt again, and the corner of his mouth flinched imperceptibly in the faintest hint of a smile.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I replied calmly, ignoring the pilot’s stunned stare. He was within earshot, and I’d done nothing to lower my voice to keep him from overhearing what I had to say. Later, my words might serve to get him out of his jam. “I’m saying he could’ve taken off five times already in the time it took us to get there and shoot the rotor. I’m saying Mrs. Bennett is the real villain here.”

  “Is that your perspective too, Holt?” Gully asked.

  “Word for word,” he replied without a trace of hesitation.

  Gully nodded a few times. “Noted. I’ll review the circumstances and decide if the state will prosecute.” He scratched his head and looked at Mrs. Bennett, then at Salvatore Lucio. Mrs. Bennett had been fingerprinted and processed, and now was waiting for the database searches to complete before proceeding to the arraignment. Lucio had negotiated for his client to wait in the Central Booking area, instead of a holding cell.

  I watched Mrs. Bennett closely, looking for any sign of emotion on the distinguished face I had, until mere hours ago, regarded with such admiration. She sat on a backless bench, holding her spine straight and her head high, as if she were there to discuss adding a new wing to the police department building. No trace of concern in her eyes, no worry, and no guilt.

  “By the way, the CSI report came back on Roxanne’s house,” Holt said, reading from his email. “Not a trace of poison was found at the house, but they found her fake ID right next to her real one. And guess what? She had hashish-laced, edible body gel. That’s possession.”

  “Did anyone collar her yet?” I asked, but no one answered because everyone was distracted by the drama unfolding before us. I was unable to take my eyes off the sophisticated Mrs. Bennett, impassible in the face of adversity like no other woman I’d ever seen.

  Gully drew near me, looking at her with the same intensity as I was, only with different thoughts on his mind.

  “She’s big fish, this one,” he muttered, careful not to be overheard by Lucio. The attorney was engulfed in a spirited conversation with one of his aides, standing only a few feet away from Mrs. Bennett, but with their backs turned toward her, shuffling through the papers in a file.

  “She’s a bloody blue whale,” I said. “How are you going to handle her?”

  He shrugged, letting a quick and raspy breath of air out of his lungs. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Why? This is an open-and-shut case, right?” I asked. “As soon as the search warrant is executed, and the poison is found, your case will be even tighter.”

  “Not really, no,” Gully replied, and Holt approached us, frowning. “We need strong evidence linking her to the poison, or a confession. Even if the poison is found in the house, we can’t tie her to it beyond a reasonable doubt. Tons of people are in that house every day.”

  “What about the TIME cover?” Holt asked. “That proves access, knowledge.”

  “That magazine cover is circumstantial at best. That shark over there will claim she didn’t even know what plants were growing in the background,” he said in a low tone of voice, shooting Lucio another worried look.

  “You know she did it, right?” I asked, looking first at Gully, then at Holt. “Well, I’m willing to bet my next paycheck they’ll find the poison hidden in one of her drawers.”

  “And if they don’t? Then what do we have, really?” Gully asked. “A harmless, old woman who wanted to take her annual trip to the Dominican, and you arrested her for no valid reason after destroying her property and endangering her life, because that’s how they’ll spin it. The mayor’s friend and the governor’s daughter’s godmother, a Fortune 500 personality without access to the victim, without any proof of premeditation. All i
n all, a bad arrest that we’ll be hearing about for the rest of our short careers. Did you know the DA wouldn’t hear of showing up tonight, and the Nevada Attorney General won’t take my calls?”

  But I’d moved away already, leaving Gully in Holt’s charge; my partner was a good listener for ADAs with thin career cases and cold feet.

  After making sure Mr. Lucio was still busy with his aide, I walked casually toward the bench where Mrs. Bennett was and sat next to her, maybe one foot away, not more. She gave me a long, cold stare, but didn’t say anything. After a few moments, I drew closer to her.

  “I understand, you know,” I said in a low voice. “I do, I completely understand.”

  She threw me an intrigued look, but still didn’t say anything. However, there was a glimmer in her eyes that told me I was welcome to carry on.

  I shook my head slowly, dramatically, drawing even closer to her. “Just the thought of having a stripper’s bastard stake claim to your father’s legacy, that must’ve driven you crazy. I know what it would’ve done to me.”

  She was silent, but words were fighting to come out, judging by her lips, pressed tightly together as if it took all her willpower to keep her mouth shut.

  “I’ll do my best to help you,” I added, lowering my voice even more. “We, decent women, have to have some measure of defense against these gold-digging harlots. Believe me when I say, I would’ve done the same.”

  I locked eyes with her and held her gaze without budging, trying to convey empathy, not judgment. I’d entered in character, and my script called for a mean, selfish, despicable woman who’d do anything to protect her fortune. It wasn’t all that difficult to act; all I had to do was emulate what I saw before my eyes.

  “There are ways I can help you, and you can count on me,” I added, knowing the truth was about to burst free from the prison of her mind. “I’ll speak with the DA and put the seed in his mind that you were under extreme duress.”

  “I had to,” she finally said, looking at her lawyer as if she were afraid he’d hear her talking to me and give her a hard time for that. “There was no way I was going to let that shame stain our family’s impeccable reputation,” she continued, clasping my hand with her bony fingers.

  “Why didn’t your daughter divorce the cheating bastard?”

  She slapped her hands against her thighs in a gesture of frustration. “Because my daughter was stupid, reckless, a complete fool.”

  “Ah, there was no prenup?” I asked, my voice filled with a warm understanding I was feigning quite well.

  “Not one that matters,” she replied bitterly. “It only excluded assets predating the marriage.” She bit her lip in an angry gesture. “When Celeste married Ellis, the company was worth under a billion dollars. Now it’s worth five!” She turned halfway to me, to look at me directly. “Now tell me that piece of scum and his whore are worth two billion dollars.”

  “But, I thought you owned most of the company,” I said, confused as to how all the assets were distributed in their family.

  “When Celeste’s father died I was sick for a long time, so I put most of it under my daughter’s name, for tax purposes. You know, in case I died prematurely. That was before she got married. But afterward the business grew like a weed.”

  “Oh, I see,” I replied, “then there wasn’t really anything you could’ve done.”

  “Can you believe it, this Ellis nobody ripping the company to shreds over a stripper?”

  The word never sounded so demeaning until that moment.

  “I understand, I really do,” I said, patting her gently on her hand while the tone of my voice changed, turning cold, unforgiving. “She was a dancer, that’s true, but she was also a daughter, a sister, a loyal friend, a woman in love, a young, soon-to-be mother.”

  Her jaw dropped, as she watched me take my phone out of my shirt pocket and stop the recording. Then I stood and bowed my head with mock respect. “Thank you for this,” I said, gesturing with the phone in my hand.

  “Mr. Lucio,” she called out in a loud, commanding voice.

  The attorney approached, his brow furrowed and his thinning, combed-over hair in disarray. He listened to what she whispered in his ear, then turned on me like a lion going after a gazelle.

  “I’ll have your badge for this,” he shouted. “You questioned my client without her attorney present, after she’d retained counsel. Whatever you think you have is inadmissible.”

  Huh, you and everyone else who wants my badge, I thought, unimpressed. “What do you mean?” I asked candidly. “You were present during our conversation. You were right there, inches away. Wait, aren’t you her counsel?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Yes, and you were present,” I interrupted him rudely, thankful my mother wasn’t there to hear me and slap me silly. “The fact that you became distracted and didn’t feel necessary to do your job doesn’t make the evidence inadmissible.”

  My phone chimed, and I briefly turned my attention to my inbox, seeing Anne’s name pop up on the screen. Her message was short; she’d found increased concentrations of the toxin in the skin samples taken from Crystal’s calves and feet. She confirmed that the poison had entered Crystal’s bloodstream through her skin. Then she’d tested the boots she’d kept in cold storage and could ascertain the killer had murdered Crystal by tainting the linings of her boots.

  Without a word, I showed the email to Holt, then he and I smiled. We had her dead to rights; Patricia Bennett had gained access to Crystal’s boots during her visit at the Bennett mansion. We still needed Patricia’s fingerprints found on the actual poison, or at least for her confession to be admissible in court, but, in any case, our job was mostly done.

  Satisfied, I turned to Gully, whose slightly gaping mouth gave him a comical appearance. Behind him, Holt smiled with a look of amazement on his face, the kind you give a child when she jumps out of a second-story window but manages to land on her feet without breaking a single bone.

  “The confession is in your inbox,” I told Gully. “I’m not sure you’re going to be able to use it, but at least now we all know where we stand, and Anne’s got the medico-legal report to back it.”

  He stared at me, then at Lucio who kept on spewing all sorts of threats and had started making phone calls to influential people who’d soon want my badge too.

  “So that’s how you did it,” he muttered, running both his hands through his hair in a gesture of despair.

  I looked him straight in the eye, thinking of TwoCent’s confession without skipping a beat. “Did what?”

  50

  One Question

  The heated banter had turned into an annoying ruckus, after Lucio’s threats had escalated to a unilateral shouting match that the ADA was taking unexpectedly well. Captain Morales had appeared in the meantime, summoned back to the precinct due to the unusual circumstances that we’d created.

  Morales had already debriefed us in his office, then dismissed us without showing much regard for the successful conclusion of our case; for him it was a political pitfall, and I could easily imagine he’d waited for us to close the door to speed dial the sheriff and ask for instructions on how to proceed with the hot potato making noise in Central Booking. Not even the fact that Fletcher had been able to track the money paid to Ronnie Sanford to an account in the Bahamas, paid at the exact time that Patricia Bennett was vacationing there had removed the deep ridges marking his brow.

  Thankfully, to defuse the situation and avoid other involvement from my part, he ordered us off the premises, pending an investigation into the way we’d handled the case. I was finished anyway; little did Morales know that, even if I survived said investigation, I wasn’t going to survive the IAB’s noose tightening around my neck. Because there was no way in hell I’d jam up Holt, even if I believed he’d done something less than kosher with that bloody brick of cocaine. The man had saved my life twice; I owed him that much.

  I felt a strange exhilaration at the thought of
leaving the precinct, now that the case was technically closed. I’d get a chance to eat, to enjoy a meal without rushing through it, without feeding myself stale, greasy food from paper wrappers in Holt’s speeding Interceptor. But there were two loose ends still gnawing at my mind, threatening to ruin the dinner I was planning to share with Holt.

  There had been something weighing on his mind over the past few days; gradually, he’d turned more and more distant, less engaged in our investigation, and there was a certain look in his eyes I needed to understand better.

  “Want to celebrate?” I asked my partner, flashing my megawatt smile.

  “What, being suspended?” he reacted, laughing quietly, but that laughter didn’t touch his eyes. “Sure, why not?”

  “Okay, you pick the place, I pick the tab,” I offered. “I got one more thing to take care of, all right?”

  “Make it quick,” he said, throwing a frowning glance toward the closed door to Morales’ office. Our boss had told us to leave; he wasn’t going to take it lightly if we disobeyed that order.

  I rushed back toward Central Booking and found Gully. He was still in the middle of a series of heated exchanges in thick legalese, out of which I didn’t understand anything other than the fact that I’d started it all and I deserved to be hanged for it. Unwilling to wait for Lucio to stop his verbal attack, I grabbed Gully’s sleeve and dragged him out of there.

  “He’ll be back in thirty seconds, I promise,” I said to Lucio, whose eyes threw darts at me while he muttered something I pretended I didn’t catch.

  “What’s up?” Gully asked in a low voice.

  “Hey, I need a favor,” I said. “Remember that five-hundred-thousand-dollar chip that Paul Steele had given to Crystal before she died?”

  “Yes, that’s locked in evidence. What about it?”

  “Crystal earned that money before she died, right?”

  “Technically, she—”