“Why?” Nathan asked curiously.
“Because a person’s life revolves around his social security number, that’s why. It better be the right one, too,” the youngest brother said with a snarl in his voice.
Both Lizzie and Nathan complied. “I have a copy machine in my bedroom. I’d like to make a copy for us, too. I’ll be right back.” The brothers nodded agreement. When Nathan returned with the copies, Daniel and Donald sighed, one after the other.
Both brothers reread the paper and nodded at the same time. “It’s all yours, Detective. You aren’t very smart, mister. I saw that video camera the minute we walked into this room. You taped us without our permission. Stay right where you are while my brother takes the tape. See, that’s why we wanted this receipt. We can’t trust you.”
“Listen up, you two. This is not fun and games here. You want to protect yourselves, and so do we. On top of that, you’re leaving us your brother. Where’s the trust you are so big on?” Lizzie growled. “You guys just dumped a major problem in my lap. I’m not even on duty.”
“Good-bye,” Daniel said.
When the door closed behind the brothers, Nathan and Lizzie looked at one another. “I don’t want that guy’s ashes in my apartment. I don’t want this money in my apartment either. You better start thinking fast, Lizzie.”
Lizzie continued to rub at her temples. “I wish I could think. I need some more aspirin. They said there were papers in one of the bags. I think we should look at those. We can take…old Will to the nearest crematorium and pay them to keep him. We can use some of this money to…to pay for his upkeep.”
Nathan started to pace the room. “They just burn them, they don’t showcase them. My paper did an article on crematoriums not too long ago. Seems you can’t trust them. Let’s not go there right now. You have to take him to some kind of cemetery where they have drawers or vaults to keep them. You know, so you can visit with flowers. That kind of thing.”
“I’m not going to be visiting Will Fargo, Nathan. At least not in this lifetime. I shouldn’t have to be doing this. That man had something to do with Tom Madsen’s death and Aggie and Gus’s near deaths. Why should I care what happens to his ashes?”
“Because you are who you are, and it’s the right thing to do, that’s why, Lizzie. Now, let’s look at those papers and count this damn money. Until you know what you want to do with it, let’s rent a storage locker and keep it there. How much do you think they kept?”
Aggie laughed, then wished she hadn’t. Her head continued to pound. “It’s just a guess, but I’d say half a million. They probably took everything after they stopped counting. Enough for them to go far away so they can make new lives for themselves. They’re going to be afraid for the rest of their lives, and they don’t even know it. A month from now, they’ll probably bring the rest back. That’s usually the way it goes.”
“You are so smart, Lizzie,” Nathan said in awe.
Lizzie continued to massage her throbbing temples. “I read a lot,” she said by way of explanation. “I have to call the girls. Some hostess I am. They could have packed up and left for home for all the attention I’ve paid to them. Hand me the phone, Nathan.”
Noreen’s cheerful voice made Lizzie’s eyes water. “Listen, friend, I am so sorry all this is happening. I feel terrible that I’ve left you all to fend for yourselves. I’ll make it up to you. What do you mean I would just be in the way if I was there? You’re playing house with the guys. US-huh. So, what you’re saying is you don’t want me to come home. Okay. I can stay here with Nathan. If it’s not too much trouble, could you throw some stuff in a bag and put it on the front porch? I have to go to a retirement party this evening. Throw in some jeans and shirts, too. I’ll whiz by and pick it up at some point today. I’ll make sure I don’t disturb you and the guys. What makes you think I’m mad? No, I just have a…a hangover. I guess I’ll see you when I see you. You’re thinking of extending your visit? Of course I don’t mind. Yes, I’ll thank Nathan for the introduction. Don’t forget to pack up my stuff. How many times did he call? All right, I’ll call him. Bye.”
Lizzie sighed. “My friends want me to thank you for introducing them to your gentlemen friends, who are now enamored with my friends. They don’t want me to go home because I would be in the way. I guess I have to stay here in this sterile atmosphere until they say I can go home. I am welcome, am I not?”
“Stay as long as you like. I told you if those girls cooked for the guys, they’d be eating out of their hands within minutes. Wipe that look off your face. They’re great guys. In this town, if you have a job, you are ahead of the game. Let’s not worry about them. Let’s worry about this mess,” Nathan said, pointing to the lawn bags and the piles of money in the middle of the floor.
Lizzie leaned back and closed her eyes. “Nathan, other than the tattoo on my ass, what else gave my identity away?”
Nathan wiggled closer and reached for her hand. “Aggie really thought being a cop would help her wipe out the bad guys. She liked what she did. It was written all over her. You were different. Attitude, I guess. Yeah, attitude. I don’t think anyone else will pick up on it, so don’t worry about it.”
“I’m a born worrier.” Lizzie pointed to the stacks of money. “This is a problem. How did they, and there is a they, get so much. This must just be Will’s share. Stop and think about it, Nathan. One guy couldn’t do all this. By this, I mean making it all work for them. There are so many safeguards in place at the department. Then there’s Internal Affairs. Those guys are like bloodhounds. I’m thinking a ring of cops. Yeah, that blue wall everyone talks about.
“It happens all the time in Vegas. Some gang spends years trying to figure out how to rip off the casinos. It takes a lot of people, working closely together, to plan something like that. Nine times out of ten, they don’t get away with it. There’s always a weak link somewhere. We read about it in the papers, after the fact. I’m thinking this is the same kind of thing. They start off small, maybe one or two cops, another cop finds out, they cut him in, which means they have to expand a little, another cop gets nosy, they cut him in, and on and on it goes until it’s a big operation. Threats and intimidation are pretty powerful in a police department. You need to depend on your partner and the other guys. If they aren’t there for you, it’s all over. What other choice do they have? At least, I’m thinking that’s the way they view it. You never, ever, rat on your fellow officers.
“I’m also thinking Tom Madsen found out, and he didn’t want to go along with it. The next thing you know, Tom’s dead. Did he tell Aggie? They aren’t sure. Better to be safe than sorry, so they try to kill her, too. They have to lie low after something like that. To go at her again could bring in the big guns. Will, now, I can’t quite figure that out. Maybe it was a legitimate accident. One they didn’t count on. The brothers show up. Where is Will’s stash? They’ve got to be scurrying around. They tried to scare me with threatening phone calls. When that didn’t work, they had to do something physical by trying to kill me. How am I doing so far?”
“Your thinking is the same as mine, Lizzie. I think it’s the whole damn department.” Nathan sighed. “If you could be anywhere else in the world right now, where would you want to be?”
“That’s easy—the Costa del Sol. Sunning myself on some lovely nude beach so I don’t get any tan marks. How about you?”
“Either some cottage in the mountains where I could fish all day, and the air is clean and pure, or a shack on the beach where it’s always warm and sunny.”
“Okay, let’s check out the paperwork.” Sheets of paper torn from a loose-leaf notebook slid out of the last lawn bag as Lizzie upended it. “It’s just pages of numbers and initials. I know it means something. Codes of some sort that Will probably made up and only he understood. Let’s take all these papers out to the kitchen. Get some paper and pencils and make some more coffee. You have a laptop, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Nathan got to his feet, reache
d out a hand to pull Lizzie to her feet. She swayed forward until she was in his arms. She sighed when her breasts met his chest. He felt warm and strong. She felt safe. It was inevitable that he would kiss her. And when he did she felt the promise of untold wonders.
Lizzie was the first to break away. “None of that right now. We have work to do. Hey, you made my headache go away!”
“At least I’m good for something,” Nathan grumbled. Lizzie laughed.
“Tonight is Zack’s retirement party. I’m taking you as my guest. If we can figure some of this out, we can throw out some bait tonight. The whole department will be there. The old gold watch presentation.”
“I’ll be glued to your side, Lizzie.”
“That makes me feel really good, Nathan.”
• • •
Nathan threw his pencil across the kitchen. “We’ve been at this three hours and we’re no further along than when we started. Like you said, all we have are numbers and initials. Try calling Aggie again. She might have some insight. We’re just making ourselves crazy. It’s well past lunchtime. How about I go out and pick up a pizza while you call Aggie? My stomach is feeling a lot better. How’s yours?”
“Much better. I actually feel hungry. Pizza sounds good to me. Do you have any big suitcases?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Soft-sided. I think both of them are big enough to handle all that money. I’ll get them for you before I leave. Will you be okay here by yourself?”
Lizzie pointed to her purse which contained her gun. “I’ll be fine. Lock the door, though.”
“Do you think Chief Shay is in on this?”
“I don’t know, Nathan. Aggie’s not sure either. Bring some ginger ale back with you. My stomach can’t handle any more coffee.”
Nathan bowed low, his eyes twinkling. “Your wish is my command.”
There was a smile on Lizzie’s face when she dialed Aggie’s cell phone. Her sister clicked on after the third ring. “It’s me, Aggie. I need your help. Listen carefully.”
Ten minutes later, Aggie said, “Okay, enough is enough. I’m coming home. This is getting out of hand. I thought it was just a few of the guys, Dutch, Joe, and Will. It sounds to me like it’s the whole damn department. If there are as many numbers and initials as you say there are, maybe they’re doing a shakedown on store owners for protection, that kind of thing. I’m just guessing here, Lizzie. You could go cruising and check out storefronts and match them up to initials. It’s a lot of work, but that’s basically what police work is, leg work. As to Chief Shay, I don’t think he’s one of them. Think about it, Lizzie, why would he have assigned you to the evidence room if he was in on it? Then he said he was available off site to talk if you wanted. Still, I can’t be sure. I’ll pack up and be home by tomorrow.”
“What about the organic carrots? No, Aggie. I’m okay with it all. Nathan is here with me, or I should say, I’m here with him. Like I said, we’ll throw out the bait tonight at Zack’s retirement party. I’ll call you in the morning, and if it looks like things are going to blow up, I’ll be in touch. Stay where you are for now. Besides, there’s no room at your house. Don’t ask, Aggie. I’m staying at Nathan’s. Well, of course, Nathan is one of the reasons I’m not in a hurry to head back to Vegas.
“Listen to me, Aggie. We talked about Plan B before. Let’s firm it up, okay. You understand it will be an instantaneous thing. There won’t be time to think or plan or try to change it. You have your backpack ready to go. You go for it. Right that minute. Tell me you agree. I know I can do it but, Aggie, I haven’t really walked in your shoes. There won’t be any turning back. I want to hear you say the words, Aggie.”
“I’m okay with it, Lizzie. You can count on me. What about Nathan?”
“Nathan can’t possibly belong to Plan B. Maybe I should ask you about Alex.”
“Alex can’t possibly belong to Plan B. Don’t worry about me. Did you take care of my bank accounts, Lizzie?”
“Yeah, I did, Aggie. I left you six hundred dollars in your checking account. That’s it. You have enough cash to see you through, don’t you? Cut up all your old credit cards right now if you haven’t done it already. How are the organic carrots doing?”
“With all this sun, they’re over an inch high. They look beautiful.”
“That’s great. Aggie, one more thing before we hang up. How do they dispose of all the confiscated drugs they take in on busts?”
“I don’t know, Lizzie. I don’t know why I say this, but I think they hold them for a long period of time. I probably got that from Tom. I’m almost certain they burn the drugs at some point. It wasn’t exactly dinner table conversation or pillow talk, if you know what I mean. Although, now that I think about it, I don’t know why Tom would tell me something like that. By the way, I gained six more pounds. All Alex and I do is eat. We really spruced this place up good. I guess we’re going to have to sell it one of these days. Too bad. If we ever get married and have kids, it would be a great place for them to spend their summers.” Her voice choked up when she said, “Keep me posted, Lizzie, and be careful.”
Lizzie’s eyes were misty when she hung up the phone. She looked down at the sheet of paper in front of her. She now had a whole page of names that she could match against the initials on Will Fargo’s papers. Aggie thought the numbers meant either the days the initials worked or the dates of the busts or possibly payoff dates and maybe even shakedown deals. It was mind-boggling. She decided to leave it all until Nathan returned. Like he said, two heads were better than one.
Lizzie walked into the living room. She dropped to her knees beside the two large empty suitcases and unzipped them. She stared at the bundles of money. It looked just like the bundles of money she’d seen in the casinos. Drug money. Gambling money. They looked exactly the same. Small bills. Big bills. The bundles were so tightly packed they looked like they had been ironed flat. She sucked in her breath as she started to line the bottom of one of the suitcases with the packets of money. Always good with numbers, Lizzie kept a running total in her head until she got to the bundles of thousand-dollar bills. Most people she knew would probably never see a thousand-dollar bill in their lifetime. She saw them all the time in the high-stakes poker games she participated in and also at the casinos.
Drug money. She hated touching it, knowing people were corrupted and died because of what it bought. Suddenly, she wanted to cry. She was wiping her eyes on her sleeve when Nathan walked into the apartment.
Nathan set the pizza and six-pack of ginger ale on the coffee table. “Lizzie, what’s wrong?” He sat down next to her before he took her in his arms.
“I don’t know. I was sitting here thinking this money looks the same as gambling money. It just looks like plain old money. People do drugs, they pay for them. This is that money. Tom Madsen died. So did Will Fargo. Aggie and Gus almost died. This damn money had something to do with it. There for a minute, it just got to me.
“I talked to Aggie, and she wanted to come back. I talked her out of it. Let me wash my hands before we eat the pizza. I can’t believe I’m hungry.”
“I’ll get the plates and napkins. Did you find out anything new from talking to Aggie?” he called over his shoulder.
“Yes and no. Aggie doesn’t know how the drugs in the evidence room are disposed of or who’s in charge of disposing of them. She thinks the drugs are burned at some point. She also thinks some of those numbers and initials mean a shakedown of store owners for protection. I’m wondering, Nathan,” Lizzie said as she squatted on the floor, “what’s really in those bags of confiscated drugs. I’m going to work tomorrow. I’m going to check it out. Who had a perfect opportunity to substitute, say, sugar or flour?”
“Will Fargo, of course. Don’t most cops have snitches?”
“Of course. Aggie and Tom had one named Pippy. Aggie told me when I first got here that Pippy was the one who gave Tom the tip the night he got killed. Why?”
“Maybe you should wave some of this mone
y under his nose,” Tom said, pointing to the bundles of money on the floor. “How do you get in touch with him?”
“Aggie said she used to put a note on the bulletin board in a Laundromat, then he’d call her and they’d set up a meeting at some fast-food joint. She said he was a weasel, but he was reliable. She also said Tom hated him.”
Nathan tossed the crust to his pizza into the lid of the box. He reached for another slice. “Does Aggie agree with our assessment that it’s a big operation?”
Her mouth full, Lizzie pointed to the stacks of money on the floor and in the suitcase. “There’s a lot of money here. Multiply this by twenty or thirty cops, maybe more, and it adds up to big-time. But Aggie suspects that the operation was run entirely by Will, Dutch, and Joe. Just little things Tom said in passing. I don’t know if that’s enough to go on.”
“Aggie’s a good cop. She has good instincts. She knows how to add two plus two. If she got four, that’s good enough for me. It should be good enough for you, too, Lizzie.”
Trading Places Page 18
