Smoke & Mirrors

by John Ramsey Miller

  “So you’re not pursuing Alphonse Jefferson?”

  “We’ve ruled him out,” Brad told her.

  Leigh frowned at Brad. “How do you imagine anybody could confuse me—a forty-year-old blonde—with a nineteen-year-old black girl?”

  Winter said, “I was looking at the crime-scene pictures and something hit me. At a thousand yards in that early light, a dark-skinned babysitter wearing a hooded car coat and gloves, moving from the house to the garage, would look like a white woman doing the same thing. You’re a farmer and I suspect you keep farming hours. If the shooter didn’t know you were out of town, and was there to kill you, he might easily assume a woman close to your build heading out to the garage at daybreak would be you.”

  “Why me?”

  “Financial gain, so whoever gains if you were killed is a suspect. Since your kids didn’t have it done, we can move to the next most-likely suspect.”

  “Like who?” she asked. “Nobody would gain anything by my death,” Leigh said. Her eyes flickered with some inner thought, some recognition perhaps, but passed quickly. She shrugged. “No. Despite the size of my operation, I am not a wealthy woman. Maybe you should look at the agricultural conglomerates. They’re the only people who’d profit from my death, since my children would have to sell the place to pay the inheritance taxes.”

  “What about Jacob?” Brad asked.

  She laughed. “Please. If I died, he’d starve to death. He lives with his mother in a two-bedroom apartment in Memphis.”

  “Brad has to take a serious look at your ex-husband,” Winter said.

  Leigh stared at Winter for a few long seconds, her expression impossible to read. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed. “Alphonse Jefferson is your killer. If that’s all?”

  “I don’t think—” Brad started.

  “That’s the trouble, you don’t think. Anybody wants to shoot me, I’ll be the one working my ass off. Good-bye, boys. Six Oaks won’t run itself.”

  Leigh strode out the door without looking back.

  “If she was the target, she probably still is,” Winter said. “When the shooter finds out he missed her, he might try again. She needs protection.”

  “Forget it,” Brad said. “She’s in denial and as stubborn as a mule. But I’ll put a car out at the place, double the patrols on the roads out that way.”

  Winter said, “I think she already suspected Sherry wasn’t the target before she came in here. I think she isn’t completely certain that her ex isn’t responsible.”

  Brad said, “I can tell you from long experience with Leigh that she isn’t going to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

  “How long ago was it that you two dated?” Winter asked.

  Brad’s startled look confirmed what Winter had suspected since he first saw Brad and Leigh Gardner interact at Six Oaks.

  Bettye stuck her head into the office. “Sheriff, just got a call. There’s been a homicide at the Gold Key.”

  22

  THE PARKING LOT AT THE GOLD KEY MOTEL WAS alive with flashing blue lights and several deputies stood on the balcony outside a room with the door open. Traffic on the highway was backed up as people rubbernecked to see what the excitement was about. Here and there, guests gathered in tight clumps.

  Winter and Brad took the wide stairs two at a time. The deputies parted to allow Brad and Winter to enter the room. A man’s body was sprawled on the floor, a pool of blood under his head, his throat laid open. A second man wearing a V-neck sweater and khakis sat on the edge of the bed, his hands resting in his lap. A deputy in his fifties stood passively with his back to the bureau as Brad and Winter entered.

  “What happened here, Roy?” Brad asked the deputy, who handed him a Nevada driver’s license with a picture of the young man who sat watching them silently.

  “Roy Bishop, this is Winter Massey. He’s giving me a hand with the Adams homicide. Roy here is my chief deputy.” The chief deputy looked at Winter for a second and nodded.

  “Beals?” Brad asked, moving to look at the dead man’s familiar features.

  “Sure is. Mr. Scotoni here says somebody else came in and killed Beals, who happened to be in the process of drowning him in the tub. Scotoni called nine-one-one, we didn’t touch anything.”

  Scotoni’s hair had dried into a grand mess, and his hands were shaking.

  Winter looked down at the corpse wearing a flight jacket and winced as he spotted a red toothpick tucked behind the dead man’s ear. Brad’s eyes followed his.

  “Okay, Mr. Scotoni, I need to know exactly what happened,” Brad said, sitting on the chair so their eyes were even.

  “I was running a hot bath. That guy there came to the door, said he was a deputy sheriff, and showed me his badge. When I opened the door he knocked me down. He had a gun with a silencer on it. He said he was going to take the money I’d won from the casinos.”

  “He was alone when he came in?”

  “Yeah. He was enjoying himself. He was definitely going to kill me. He made me get into the tub and hit me on the back of my head and started holding me underwater. I couldn’t really fight back and I was…I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  “I didn’t see a gun,” the deputy said. “I looked under the bed and everywhere else I could without touching anything.”

  “The other guy must have taken it,” Scotoni said. “The one who saved my ass.”

  “What did this other guy look like?” Brad asked.

  “I didn’t actually see him. Like I said, that dead guy hit me in the back of my head,” he said, turning and pointing at the back of his head. “He had me underwater and I saw the shape of a man in dark clothes come in. He pulled that guy in here and by the time I got out of the tub and came in, the guy that killed him was already gone, so I called nine-one-one.”

  Winter looked at Brad and nodded slowly.

  “Can I get the hell out of here?” Scotoni asked.

  “You can leave the room,” Brad told him. “You’ll have to give a statement at the station.”

  “Can I take my stuff?”

  “We’ll release it after we’ve cleared the scene,” Bishop said.

  “What about just the money I won?”

  “Where is it?” Brad asked.

  “In that middle drawer. He never got around to it.”

  Brad opened the dresser drawer and handed a paper bag heavy with banded stacks of currency to Scotoni.

  “Where did you win this?”

  “Gold Strike, Horse Shoe, Regency, and the Roundtable.”

  “Which was the last place?”

  “I only played the Roundtable today. The others were over the last two days.”

  “With all the casinos in Reno and Vegas, why’d you come here?”

  “I wanted to see Graceland,” Scotoni said, too quickly.

  “You an Elvis fan?” Brad asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Young and skinny or old and fat?”

  “Sorry?”

  “‘Hound Dog’ or ‘Burning Love’ Elvis-era music?” Brad went on.

  “‘Burning Love,’” Scotoni said. “I like that one.”

  “That’s old fat Elvis,” Brad mused. “Deputy Bishop will take you to the hospital to get you checked out. You’ll need another room.”

  “Does it have to be at this motel?”

  “No. Just make sure we know where you are. Don’t leave town unless you clear it with me. And if I were you, I’d take that bag to the bank and get a cashier’s check,” Brad suggested.

  “Why? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Large sums of cash can attract attention. I don’t want to see you where Beals is,” Brad told him firmly. “We’ll have someone watch over you until you get to the bank.”

  “Why?”

  “Just in case this dead fellow had friends he was going to share your winnings with. We want you to leave our county a winner,” Brad said. “And it would be best all the way around if you didn’t ever come back here.�
�

  “You don’t have to sweat that one,” the young man said.

  23

  AFTER BRAD CLEARED THE ROOM, WINTER SAID, “Close-up skills. These doors lock when they close. Scotoni said Beals closed it when he came in. The guy who came in picked the lock.”

  “Maybe Beals left it cracked open so a partner could come in behind him,” Brad suggested.

  “I doubt that. The guy cut Beals’s throat. Then he left the toothpick, took the gun, and slipped off without looking for the cash, because either he didn’t know about it, or it wasn’t part of his plan. He knew Scotoni would call the cops.”

  “Maybe the toothpick was Beals’s,” Brad said.

  “I think the guy who killed him left it to make an obvious connection between Beals and Sherry Adams.” Winter was convinced that Styer had done this and he could read the message loud and clear: We’ll always have New Orleans.

  “Why did the killer want Beals found fast? Usually it’s the opposite.”

  “The killer knew I’d come here, and he wanted to make the connection obvious to me.”

  “I wish he’d just leave notes,” Brad said. “His address and phone number.”

  “You knew this Beals guy. How?” Winter asked.

  “He was a deputy who went to work for the Roundtable casino after I won the election. Most people in the department seemed glad he was gone.”

  “Why?”

  “He was the kind of smartass who sets people against each other for his own entertainment. He made inappropriate comments to female deputies. There were lots of complaints about him. After the election, he told me a casino had offered him a better job and I told him to take the offer. Truth was, I didn’t want troublemakers around undermining me.”

  “Maybe the casino sent Beals to get the money back,” Winter suggested.

  “Maybe Beals targeted the kid because he won and took it in cash. No legit casino would send Beals here to get their money back. Winners draw in losers. If someone cheats, they call us to arrest them. They ask counters to leave.”

  “But it’s possible that someone at the casino did send him after Scotoni to teach him a lesson.”

  “Casinos don’t operate that way because it would result in the loss of their gaming license and criminal charges. There’s too much at stake. Losing future millions over some chump change is stupid.”

  “It isn’t chump change to a guy like Beals,” Winter said.

  Brad slipped on surgical gloves, knelt, and gently rolled Beals’s body sideways. He retrieved a leather badge case from the corpse’s back pocket and flipped it open to reveal a Tunica County deputy sheriff badge and the ID. “Bastard kept his star.” Beals’s coat pockets yielded a large folding knife, a loaded .380 magazine, a cell phone, and three red toothpicks.

  “We can see who he’s been talking to,” Brad said. He looked at the numbers Beals had called. “Last call was made about an hour ago. Just a number, no name listed.”

  “My question is, if this is Styer’s work, how did he pick Beals out, and why Beals?” Winter said, realizing too late that he’d slipped up. “I wonder if my guy has a connection to the Roundtable or to Beals personally.”

  “Styer is your guy’s name?”

  “Yes, that’s his name. Let’s keep it to ourselves.”

  Winter figured that the casino was the direction Styer wanted him to head in. For the present, like it or not, all he could do was dance to the psychopath’s tune.

  24

  DAYLIGHT WAS FADING WHEN BRAD PARKED IN THE lot outside the Roundtable casino. The facade made the casino look more like a theme park for kids than a gambling hall for adults.

  “You don’t know what this Styer looks like?” Brad said, shaking his head.

  “Paulus Styer never looks the same way twice,” Winter said.

  “You going to tell me any more about him than his name?”

  “He’s the most dangerous son of a bitch I’ve ever encountered.”

  “That much I sort of picked up on.”

  “It pretty much sums him up and it’s the most important thing to never lose sight of.” Winter frowned and looked out at the casino.

  Despite the medieval theme, instead of the court jester outfits Brad said the doormen wore under the previous ownership, they now sported tuxedo jackets and red cummerbunds with matching bow ties. The Roundtable’s owners had left only as much of the old place’s ambience as was financially practical. Winter read a sign in the foyer that said CASH YOUR PAYCHECK HERE AND RECEIVE A $20.00 CREDIT TOWARD ANY GAME! He figured, with a rueful sigh, that it should have read WHY PAY YOUR RENT OR BUY GROCERIES WHEN YOU CAN GIVE US THE MONEY!

  The absence of windows, clocks, or any other indicators of time in a casino was a clear sign that the owners didn’t want their clients to play according to nature’s schedules. Winter remembered that he had once read that the denial of passing time was just one of a hundred tricks casinos employed to keep gamblers seated until their pockets were empty. The use of magnetic cards not only tracked the customers’ game preferences, and their wins and losses, but also stored their cash by way of Visa cards, so they had no sense of losing actual money. The more a patron gambled, the more perks they were entitled to receive. The house rigged things so nobody left the place of dream fulfillment empty-handed. Lesser gamblers got cheap liquor, free soft drinks, key chains, and mugs, while the big-fish gamblers were rewarded with free flights in and out, meals, rounds of golf, lodging, companionship, and tickets for big-name performers, all compliments of the house.

  A casino’s decor, chairs, music, and lighting were all carefully designed to make the customers feel safe and comfortable. Casinos were big supporters of the scientific community, and employed psychologists to increase their edge against the poor schmucks who wandered in through the doors—who were, in the end, hardly more than sheep lining up to be shorn.

  Winter mulled all this over as Brad said, “Albert White is head of security, formerly deputy chief of police in West Memphis. His main job is to keep order and running interference for the casino. With the security cameras trained on the lot, and the internal security communication system, we won’t have to look for him. Either he or one of his men usually meets me on the way in.”

  Brad and Winter strolled through the entrance, passing among the legions of comers and goers. Smiles on the faces of the exiting gamers were as scarce as talking monkeys. Just inside, a large man wearing a tentlike suit, carrying a walkie-talkie, and wearing a modified crew cut made his way across the crowded lobby to intercept the two men.

  “Sheriff Barnett, can I help you with something?” he asked. His pale blue eyes sparkled. He looked like a bloated razorback that had been dressed up in a cheap suit and taught to walk on his hind legs.

  “I hope so,” Brad said. “Deputy Massey, this is Albert White, head of casino security.”

  The man nodded in Winter’s direction, the motion compressing his chins. “Chief casino investigator,” he corrected, smiling artificially.

  “We’ve got a situation that concerns an employee of this casino.”

  “Which employee?” His small eyes blinked rapidly.

  “Jack Beals.”

  “He’s off tonight,” White said, nervously, Winter noted. He tapped the radio against his leg. “I can get you his home address and phone number from personnel.”

  “I already know where he is.”

  “What sort of situation are we talking about?” White asked, his eyes darting around the entrance area.

  “Dead-on-the-floor-in-a-motel-room situation,” Brad said.

  Winter saw surprise reflected in White’s eyes. “How’d he die?”

  “Suddenly.”

  “Heart attack?”

  “Loss of blood. Somebody cut his throat from ear to ear,” Brad said.

  “Who?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Brad said.

  White shook his head and frowned. “We need to take this to my office. I can get you n
ext-of-kin information from personnel.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Brad said. “We probably have it in our files, but yours are going to be more current.”

  By law a gambling enterprise had to float in a Federal waterway so the gaming wasn’t technically on Mississippi soil. So the water it floated on had to be Mississippi River water and the casino had to be floated into place from the river.

  So, although the casino’s gaming areas floated on massive pontoons to keep the structure suspended in a concrete pond, the room had no more sense of movement than you’d get standing in a chamber in the Great Pyramid. As Winter and Brad followed White through the middle of the casino, Winter scanned the crowd of busy gamblers for a man with any trace of familiarity. Styer would certainly have altered his appearance, but Winter might see something in the way he moved, or recognize his voice if he heard it. The only patron he saw with a toothpick in their mouth was a solidly built woman with fried blonde hair and garish makeup, seated at a slot machine, who would have looked perfectly at home elbowing her way around a roller derby track.

  25

  ALBERT WHITE LED BRAD AND WINTER TO THE FAR end of the gaming floor and down a long hallway into a small and windowless office.

  The only items of furniture in the office were an industrial steel desk, a legal pad, pen, and telephone on its surface, and three matching chairs. This was clearly a generic office, used only when necessary.

  “When Beals was killed,” Brad said, “he was in the process of committing an armed assault on a patron of this casino. A man who won a great deal of money earlier this evening.”

  “Armed assault?” White asked.

  “He was in a motel room with a silenced handgun, in the process of drowning the young man in a bathtub.”

  “So this alleged patron killed Beals?”

  “I’m not alleging anything, Albert. He was here all right. The assault was interrupted by a third party, who cut Jack Beals’s throat. Beals used his old departmental badge to gain entry and informed the victim he was acting on behalf of the casino. Beals told him that the casino wanted their money back. By the casino, I assume he meant someone in management, and not the blackjack dealers’ union.”