by Paul Carr
Dead Man’s Game
A Michael Dalton Mystery
Paul Carr
Copyright 2019 by Paul Carr
All rights reserved.
Cover Design: Judy Bullard
Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 1
Sheriff’s cruisers lined the winding driveway of the Key West estate. Michael Dalton held up his badge for a deputy standing guard at the street. When he got the nod, he double-parked near the marble steps of the Mediterranean portico. He spotted a security camera under the eave as he entered.
Life-sized statues of bathing nudes stood inside a gurgling fountain in the expansive entrance hall. A deputy glanced at his badge and said, “They’re in the bedroom, all the way down on the left.” Dalton stretched on vinyl gloves and booties from boxes waiting on a table next to the door.
The body of a man lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, his eyes staring at the far wall. Dalton glanced that way, in case there was something there worth seeing. There wasn’t. A red indention the size of a dime rested in the victim’s forehead, an inch or so above his right eye. Blood had soaked a spot in the carpet the size of a dinner plate, and spattered the bed and the wall behind it. No shell casing in sight. The killer had used a revolver or picked up the brass. The victim had shoulder-length blonde hair, and appeared not to have shaved in a couple of days, the beard a shade of red and speckled with gray. He had bruises and cuts on his cheek and lips. A man wearing a CSI vest photographed the scene, the muffled pop of the strobe the only noise in the room.
A dresser with a mirrored surface sat a few feet away. Atop it lay a heap of white powder, flanked by four cut rows and a gold inhaling straw. Somebody had interrupted a cocaine binge. Dalton glanced at the victim. A dust of the powder surrounded his nostrils. He wore a sneer on his face, maybe irked that he had enjoyed his last snort.
A deputy carrying a clipboard stepped over. His nametag read Rob Daniels. He said, “Who’re you?”
“Michael Dalton. I transferred in a few weeks ago.”
“Yeah, I heard about you. You’re the one who caught the killer of those four Islamorada men a few months ago.”
“That seems to follow me around.” The murders had been fallout from the heist of a crime lord’s $5 million cash hoard. Dalton’s name had been in the news a lot as the case progressed.
“Good. We need somebody who can close a case.” He grinned. “But don’t tell anybody I said that. Key West PD just left. The officer said this is outside their jurisdiction, which I already knew.”
“Any ID yet?” Dalton asked, nodding toward the man on the floor.
Daniels raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know who this is?”
“No. Should I?”
Shrugging, Daniels said, “He’s a Key West celebrity. Riley Gunn. Bad-boy vocalist for the rock group Redgunn.”
Dalton glanced at the dead man. “Huh. He lives here?”
“Yeah. He bought this place less than a year ago, and has already ticked off a bunch of people.”
“How so?”
“Wild parties, loud music, other stuff. Key Westers are pretty tolerant, but they do want some peace and quiet occasionally. He had a party last night, and we got a couple of calls about the noise.”
“Who found him?” Dalton asked.
“The housekeeper called it in. I told her to wait in the dining room ‘til we looked the place over.”
“You find a phone?”
“No. We looked for that first. The killer might’ve taken it with him.” He turned toward the hallway. “The ME is coming in now. Have you met him?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Okay, come on over and I’ll introduce you.”
A small man with thinning hair and a mustache stepped into the room. Two assistants followed behind him with a gurney.
“Dr. Bragg, this is Detective Dalton. He’s new, came in from Islamorada.”
Dalton nodded. The ME eyed him up and down without a word, pursed his lips, and then turned and eased over to the body. Daniels followed and told him what he knew about the victim as Dalton headed out the door.
The housekeeper sat in the dining room, her arms on the table, hands clenched together. She was young, no more than twenty five, and attractive. No uniform or apron. Tears trailed down the sides of her face, maybe because her boss had been killed, or her job had come to an end. Or maybe her relationship was more than that of a housekeeper.
“I’m Detective Dalton with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. I understand you found the body.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, that is right.” She had a slight accent.
He took out his notepad and sat down across the table from her. “Can I get your name?”
“Ana Kovich.”
“All right, Ana, tell me how you found him.”
She glanced in the direction of Gunn’s bedroom. “His door was closed. I thought he was sleeping. He asked me to wake him up at eight because he had a meeting in town at nine. I knocked on the door, but he didn’t answer, so I opened it and there he was on the floor.” She put her head in her hands and sobbed.
“I understand he had a party last night.”
After a few seconds, she dabbed her face with a tissue and nodded. “Yes, he did.”
“Were you there, at the party?”
Shaking her head, she said, “I left after fixing the drinks and food, about 9:00.”
“Who were the guests?”
“Mostly his band members and their guests.”
“Can you give me their names?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know them all.”
“All right, give me the ones you know.”
Ana went over the list and Dalton wrote them down. Two were band members, and she knew the names of two women who came with them. Another woman, mid-forties and blonde, also attended, but Ana didn’t know her name or anything about her. The two remaining guests, both men, were unknown to her. Dalton thought he might get the information from the other guests.
“You live here?” Dalton asked.
“No, I have my own place.”
“Can you think of a reason why any of the guests might’ve entered Mr. Gunn’s bedroom?”
Frowning, she said, “I don’t know. I didn’t see anybody go back there. They were all in the living room when I left.”
“Did you notice any sign of an argument or disagreement?”
“Noooo. They were all laughing and joking around.”
Dalton leaned back in his chair and stared for a moment. The partiers might have been having a good time, but something went wrong at some point. “Does Mr. Gunn keep any cash or valuables in the house?”
She pursed her lips, as if thinking, then said, “He has a safe. I don’t know what he keeps in it. It’s in his bedroom in the closet.” He made a mental note to check it out.
“Okay, do you know of anyone who might want Mr. Gunn dead?”
She glanced down at her hands and then dropped them to her lap. “Umm, no, I don’t think so.”
“You sure?”
After a pause, she said, “He could be abrasive, but most people liked him.”
“Did they like him, or like what he could do for them?”
Ana frowned again. “Maybe both.”
“How long have you worked for him?”
“Thirteen months. He hired me when he moved here.”
Dalton got a phone number and told her she could leave. He walked through the house, but didn’t see anything of interest. Four other bedrooms looked as if no one had ever used them. Maybe Gunn didn’t invite guests to stay over. No office. No security system, either. Maybe a company managed the camera he had seen out front.
As he returned to the master bedroom, the ME’s staff loaded the body onto the gurney. Deputy Daniels spotted him and stepped over. “The ME won’t know a time of death or the caliber of the weapon until later. I told him to send you the information.”
Nodding, Dalton said, “Which of the CSIs is in charge?”
The deputy pointed out the tall guy with the camera. “His name is Lucas Tarver.”
“Bring him over.”
The deputy did as he asked and Dalton said, “Several people attended a party here last night, and the killer could’ve been one of them. I want you to dust the living room and the bathrooms.” Tarver winced, but nodded. “I might need to come back later,” Dalton said to Daniels, “so seal this place up and post a deputy at the street to keep everybody out. That includes anybody from the news media.”
“Roger that.”
“Have your guys talk to the neighbors to see if they heard or saw anything suspicious, and if they have any security cameras that might shed any light on the shooting.”
When Daniels headed for the door, Dalton spotted an alcove in the corner and stepped over. He found a large closet inside. A safe sat on the floor against the back wall, its door ajar. Stooping, he swung it open and peered inside at the empty chamber.
****
Dalton shared a two-person cubicle with his partner, Buddy Crook, who met him as he entered. Crook, a tall thin man, had been a deputy for nearly thirty years. He wore his scraggly, dyed brown hair down over his collar.
“Hey, thanks for covering for me this morning,” Crook said.
“You bet.” Dalton had gotten the call from Lt. Springer as he went out the door of the cottage where he lived at his uncle’s marina. Springer said he couldn’t get in touch with Buddy.
“The LT caught me on the way in a half-hour ago,” Crook said, his voice pitched higher than normal. “He didn’t look too happy about me not being there to help you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Buddy. I got what we needed.”
The lieutenant had briefed him before assigning Crook as his partner: “Buddy’s a good guy, but he’s a little past his prime. He plays guitar in a band, and I get the impression he’s a lot more interested in that than in police work. He likes the computer, though, so you can use him for research.” Music to Dalton’s ears.
Dalton told him who got murdered.
“You gotta be kidding! Riley Gunn is dead?”
“Shot in the head. Had a pile of blow on his dresser.”
Buddy shook his head. “Sad. Dude stopped in at the club one night while we were playing a set. Him and two others. They looked drunk out of their minds, and they never gave us a second glance.”
“He had a party last night. Seven people were there, and one of them could’ve shot him.” Dalton tore the page of names from his notepad and handed it to him. “How about researching these? Also, find out who handles Gunn’s security system. He had a camera out front, but I didn’t notice any hardware in the house. I’m going in to brief Springer.” He started to leave, but turned back. “Oh, yeah. They didn’t find a phone. See if you can track down Gunn’s carrier and get his recent call history.”
Crook scribbled notes on a sheet of paper. “You got it, brother.”
Dalton stepped down the hall to get a cup of coffee from the break room. Lt. Springer came out as he headed in. “Just coming to tell you about the case,” Dalton said.
“Good,” Springer said. “The sheriff will be there in a couple of minutes. Kill two birds.”
A few minutes later, Dalton entered the lieutenant’s office and sat at a conference table with him and Sheriff Thomas Diaz. A former detective from Miami, Diaz had worked with Dalton on the Islamorada case. Upon his election as sheriff, he asked Dalton to transfer to the Key West station. Dalton welcomed the move, since it put him closer to where he lived on Little Torch Key.
Dalton went over his notes with them, and about half-way through, Deputy Daniels came in and dropped off his report. He raised his eyebrows before leaving, as if surprised at Dalton meeting face-to-face with the new sheriff.
When Dalton finished his brief, Diaz said, “This is a high profile case. Riley Gunn has been an aggravation in this community, but he’s also a celebrity. News of his murder will flood the airwaves. We need to find his killer yesterday.”
“Understood,” Dalton said. “We’ll get him.”
“I know you will, Detective. I’m counting on you.”
Back at his desk, Dalton phoned Daniels. “At the crime scene, you said something about Gunn angering people other than those who didn’t like his wild parties. What did you mean by that?”
“Well, this is just hearsay, but there could be something to it. Gunn recently filed a lawsuit against Raven Gardner, who owns the Key West Star Hotel and Golf Club. The property is worth over a hundred million, and the suit maintains that she cheated Gunn’s grandfather out of his half of the ownership.”
“Okay, so what’s the hearsay part?”
“Rumor has it that Raven had her lawyers pay Gunn a visit and explain why he should withdraw the suit.”
****
Riley Gunn’s mother lived on Big Pine Key. Buddy provided Dalton with the address and he headed out to inform her of her son’s death. She opened the door wearing a business suit and carrying a purse, as if about to leave for a meeting.
“Ms. Gunn?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Michael Dalton with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.” He displayed his badge.
“Oh, no. What has he done now?” A smile leaked away as she eyed the detectives face.
“Can we go inside?”
“Of course. Come in.”
She led him to the living room. When they were seated, he gave her the bad news. Her face contorted as tears streamed down her cheeks. After a minute or so, she pulled a tissue from her bag and mopped the tears. “Was it an overdose?”
“Has he overdosed before?”
“Once before, when he came off a long tour. We got him to the hospital in time.”
“I’m sorry. He died from a gunshot wound.”
“What? Why would anyone kill Riley? He was so sweet.” The waterworks started up again.
Mothers usually thought their sons were sweet. In this case, at least one person didn’t agree, either that or someone had a reason to silence him.
“Did your son have any enemies?”
“No, none. His fans and friends loved him.”
He gave her a moment, but she didn’t say any more. “We need someone to identify the body. Can you do that?”
She blew her nose and sighed. “Yes, I want to see my son.”
Dalton called the ME’s office and arranged an appointment for her to go in.
“Do you know if he had any life insurance?”
Mopping the last of the tears, she said, “Well, yes, as a matter of fact he did. He took out a policy about a month ago and named his three band members as beneficiaries.”
“Do you know the value of the policy?”
“I think it was three million, to be split equally among them. I don’t think anybody expected him to die, though.”
Gunn might have known something bad waited for him down the road. Knowledge of the policy by his beneficiaries could also have been the catalyst for his death.
“It’s come to our attention that your son recently sued the family that owns a big resort in Key West. Something about them cheating his grandfather out of his share of the property.”
&
nbsp; She sighed. “I warned him not to do that. Raven Gardner is mean. Do you think she killed him because of it?”
Ignoring the question, he said, “Do you know why he thought he had a chance with them in court?”
“His grandfather had been mounting a lawsuit to be compensated for his part of the property. When he died last year of a heart attack, his lawyers encouraged Riley to go forward with it. They seemed to think he had a good case.”
Dalton made notes, said, “Do you know who will inherit his estate?”
“I’m his only living relative. His father died years ago in a car accident.”
“So you think everything will go to you?”
“I’m afraid so, but he probably has more debt than assets. These last couple of years haven’t been kind to him.”
After a pause, he said, “All right. Please let me know if you think of anything that might help explain what happened.” He gave her his card.
****
Crook met him at the address of the first name on his list of party attendees. Colin Casey played bass for Redgunn and lived in a cottage on the beach. It was a nice place, but a far cry from Gunn’s estate. When Casey opened his door a crack, Dalton said, “Michael Dalton. I called a few minutes ago.” He held up his badge for Casey to see.
“Oh, yeah, okay. Hold on.” He stepped away, but returned a minute or so later and swung the door open. “Sorry, I was at a party last night,” he said, buttoning his shirt. “What’s this about?” He spoke with an Irish brogue. Tattoos extended from his wrists into his short shirtsleeves.
Dalton and Crook followed him inside.
The rocker’s longish hair looked as if he had stood in a wind tunnel. He had bags under his eyes and piercings in multiple places on his face.
“It’s about the party,” Dalton said, taking a seat in a cozy living room on a rattan sofa. Other than an empty beer bottle on an end table, the place appeared surprisingly neat.
“Uh, oh. We got a little carried away. Riley likes to crank up the amps. We probably all have hearing loss. Get you a drink? Coffee, or a beer.”
Dalton shook his head. “I’m fine, thanks.”
