Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries)

by Heather Haven

  “Jesus, Richard. If you could save Tugger—” I broke off because I heard a noise. “What’s that?”

  “Victoria is back. She’s been doing this mega-sale at the Obsessive Chapeau. Speaking of Victoria, we’ve got some news…”

  Whatever Richard said got lost in the boarding call for the flight to Las Vegas. I interrupted him, even though I couldn’t hear a word.

  “Richard, the flight is boarding in about five minutes. Should I go or not? I don’t want to go to Vegas if Tugger and Baba are still in the Bay Area.”

  “It’s not scheduled to be within range for fourteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds. There’s nothing I can do before then, Lee.”

  I chewed this over. “Okay, we’re not scheduled to take off for twenty-five minutes. I’ll get on, but if you find something here, and I should not be heading for Vegas, I’ll get off, if I have to knock down the crew to do it.”

  I sat on the plane, listening to everyone board and watching the time. Late comers were still boarding when Richard called back.

  “Lee! I’ve got it! It works. I’ve got to fine tune it, so I can get a more detailed scope. I—”

  “You’ve found Tugger? And little Baba?” I broke in, so elated, my voice registered about an octave above a birdcall. “Where are they?”

  “I found the carrier,” he clarified. “Somewhere between here and Fresno, probably on I-5, heading south. As I said, I’ve got to fine tune the system.”

  “So we know she’s heading for Vegas for sure.” The steward came on over the loudspeaker telling us to buckle up and turn off all electrical apparatus.

  “Seems so. I alerted Frank to look for a yellow Mercedes. If they find it, do you want them to apprehend her?”

  I thought about this, weighing my options. “No. Let’s not do anything yet. I’ll stay on the plane. Richard, can you keep tabs on the carrier all the way to Vegas?” The plane began to taxi on the tarmac.

  “I can but try. Gotta go. Victoria needs me. But call back when you land. When is that? About an hour and twenty-five minutes?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Richard. Let’s hope this is one step closer to finding Tugger.”

  I turned the cellphone off and tried to close my eyes during the short flight for what lay ahead of me. I must have dropped off because the next voice I heard was the captain telling us to prepare for landing.

  The new night was crystal clear, hovering between twilight and darkness. The descent into Vegas was spectacular. Even in the fading light, I could see the glowing pyramid of the Luxor Hotel, which is so strong astronauts have commented on seeing it from space. The glowing lights of the Eiffel Tower of the Paris Hotel, a detailed, half size replica, and the rest of the dazzling, colored lights of the Strip became even brighter as daylight began to wane. It had been a couple of years since I’d been to Vegas, and I would have been more impressed if I hadn’t been so heartsick over the cats.

  Flint was meeting me at the airport. With his help, my plan was to flush out Nick and use him as leverage to get the pets back. The bigger job was to find out what he had to do with the deaths of the runners, but I could concentrate better once I had Tugger and Baba in my care. I’d even staved off my anger and outrage at being bamboozled by Kelli, who took me in like a pro. I needed to think clearly and not let my emotions run away with me.

  Flint had an extra gun waiting. I wasn’t sure what plane I’d be on, and firearms have to be left in baggage unless you’re working for the carrier. I hate borrowing and I don’t

  like guns—mine or anyone else’s—but I had a feeling this could get pretty messy, and I wanted to be prepared. Besides, whatever I had to do to get the cats back, I was going to do.

  The plane landed in an hour and fifteen, and the first thing I did was to check my messages. One from Flint said he had one of his best men watching Nick’s hotel, while he came to pick me up at the airport. Then I called Richard for an update, but his VM picked up. I didn’t panic. It usually means he has his proverbial nose to the grindstone and won’t allow himself to be distracted. I left a message, knowing he would call me back as soon as he could. By the time I walked outside to the arrivals pickup area, Flint was already waiting for me in his highly polished, black Jeep Wrangler.

  “Nicky Boy’s holed up and hasn’t moved,” Flint said, as he pulled out into heavy traffic. We’re about ten minutes from the hotel.” McCarran International Airport was built in 1948, when Las Vegas was a sandy blip on the radar. The city has grown around the airfield, and it’s one of the few in the country only minutes from a downtown area.

  “What did you bring me?” I asked.

  Vague though the question was, Flint knew what I meant. “A nine millimeter Glock. It’s under the seat.”

  I reached under, found a paper bag, and pulled it out. While I examined the Glock, larger than the one I’m used to, he went on. “I know you like your snub-nose detective thing because Nick and Nora Charles had one like that. Or was it Dick Tracy?”

  “I like the grip of the Colt, but this will do.” I checked to see if it was loaded; then twisted and turned the gun in an effort to get used to it. It was bottom heavy. The balance of the

  snub-nose special is mainly what makes the Colt work for me. It’s also easy to conceal, something I often have had to do in the skimpy, designer clothing Lila requires her agents to wear on the job. I shoved the Glock into the front zipper of my knapsack for easy access. “And Tracy used a Tommy Gun, smarty pants.”

  “He did? Well, no wonder he got his man.”

  “And anybody else within a two-block radius,” I added.

  “Yeah, those things cover a lot of ground.”

  We both laughed, me more out of nervousness than anything else. Flint glanced over at me from the corner of his eye. “I spoke to Richard. He told me he’s tracked the cat carrier to Bakersfield and on to 237. They should be here in a matter of hours. So what’s the plan?”

  “We pay a visit to Nick, and he tells us what the hell is going on.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “He will.”

  “Or what? You going to shoot him over a couple of cats?” We stopped at a red light on Las Vegas Boulevard, and Flint turned and stared at me. “What’s the game plan, Lee?”

  “Flint, seven people are dead that we know of. There may be more. I’m thinking Nick knows something about this, or he never would have called Stephen. And would I shoot him if it meant getting Tugger and Baba back? Probably.”

  “Good ‘nuff.” The light changed, and Flint depressed the gas pedal. We lunged forward.

  “Just wanted to know. From what I can tell, Nick Papadopoulos is the kind of man who gives the rest of us a bad name. If we have to shoot him, there’s no real loss there.”

  “Well, his mother might not agree, so let’s try not to do it.” I laughed, uncomfortable with all this chitchat about shooting someone, even Nick The Jerk.

  Minutes later, we pulled up to a narrow, seedy-looking hotel, wedged between a strip joint and a pawnshop. A peeling white and black painted sign hung over the door, announcing the Langford Hotel, which looked like it had seen better days, if only marginally.

  Flint flung open his car door and dropped his feet to the ground in one svelte move. His were easy moves for a man so large. Standing six feet four or five in his cowboy

  boots, he had an enormous chest, massive arms and legs, and a neck like a tree trunk. He probably weighed in at two-forty, if an ounce. Reminiscent of a Kodiak bear I’d once seen from the safety of an Alaskan train, Flint was used to going through life pretty much like one of them, with all living things stepping aside.

  Now he was standing up, I noticed the strap of a caramel-colored, buckskin leather pouch thrown over his neck, and crossing his mighty chest from left to right. Pinned to the strap, a glittering piece of metal caught my eye. Familiar, a flood of memories came back to me.

  “Flint! You’ve still got that thing?” I looked at the large, fake U.S. Marshal’s badge I’d found
in a thrift shop when I was nine-years old. I’d purchased the badge with my hard-earned allowance for fifteen dollars as a Christmas present for our family friend. Engraved on the thick brass were the words, ‘Nevada District U.S. Marshal.’ To the nine-year-old mind, it seemed like a perfect gift.

  “I’m never without it, Papoose. It’s my lucky charm. I wear it all the time when I’m working a case.”

  “And no one razzes you about it?”

  Flint gave me an incredulous look.

  “Right,” I said. “Lost my mind for a moment.”

  He reached for his ten-gallon hat on the backseat, plopped it on a head of straight black hair, with silver strands intermittently running throughout. A leather thong deftly wrapped around a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. Flint

  straightened out his deerskin-fringed jacket with a shake and realigned himself. A rugged, sincere-looking man with coarse features, Flint always wore an easy smile and brandished the scent of an expensive lemony cologne. A lot of women who were into the wild west look fell hard for this Native American, and most men considered him a man’s man.

  Leaning on a nearby parking meter, reading a paper, and chewing on a toothpick, a short, stocky middle-aged man

  looked up. He received a cursory nod from Flint, returned it, folded his paper and strolled away.

  “The only exit in the back is blocked by about sixteen boxes loaded with DVDs and other stuff. I think the manager has a sideline of selling stolen goods,” Flint said, as he walked toward the open door of the hotel.

  “Where is he?”

  “Room 310. He paid in cash, two days in advance.”

  “More of what a twenty will buy you?” I said, stepping over a cracked and filthy doorsill into an even filthier hallway. The smell of urine and rancid bacon assaulted my nostrils.

  “A ten-spot,” he responded. “I told you, this place is even seedier than the last.”

  I looked around at the crumbling, graffiti-covered dirty walls, once painted a color now unidentifiable, and felt a pang of pity for the humanity crossing this threshold. Some places should be razed to the ground, just on general principle.

  We passed a counter, also nasty looking and littered with used paper cups, booze bottles, and trash. An emaciated-looking man sat on a stool behind the counter watching a small black and white television, topped off with a wire clothes hanger instead of rabbit ears. The man saw us and grinned a cadaverous smile, a few missing teeth completing the picture.

  Flint threw another ten-dollar bill on the counter, bothering a nearby cockroach that scuttled away. The manager made a lunge for it, the bill not the roach, and

  winked at us. He went back to his television show, while we headed for a rickety staircase further back. I guess he thought Flint and I were planning to use one of the rooms on an hourly basis. As we started up the creaky staircase to the third floor, I turned to Flint.

  “Nick must really be scared to be hiding out in a place like this. It could make him dangerous. Let me handle him. Don’t say anything. Stay in the background. I want him to consider you the silent, but ever ready, plan B.”

  “We’re going to play good cop, bad cop?” Flint asked, with a lopsided grin. “I make a great bad cop.”

  “Okay, but let me lead the way.”

  At the top of the stairs, a small, twenty-five-watt bulb hung from a frayed electrical wire in the center of the narrow, dark and oppressive hallway. I felt something small scurry by my foot and was pretty sure it wasn’t someone’s Bichon Frise out for an evening stroll. I managed not to scream but stood on tippy toes the rest of the way down the hall. I remembered a small flashlight I keep on me and pulled it out. For the record, this is a part of an investigation that is sooo not me.

  Even with this pinpoint of light, what with the dark and so many door numbers broken or missing, it was hard to make out which room was which. We arrived at what I thought was room 310, and I looked at Flint with a shrug, hoping for some kind of reaffirmation. He shrugged back as un-reaffirmed as me. I decided to go for it and knocked on the door. The knock echoed through the silent and gloomy hallway like someone had hit a cymbal with a baseball bat.

  Nothing. I waited a few seconds and then knocked again. More nothing. I put my mouth to the crack, which I was loathe to do given what I’d seen loitering in the cracks around here.

  “Nick,” I whispered hoarsely. “Nick. It’s me, Lee. Let me in.”

  Just then, my cellphone rang out with the New York Philharmonic’s version of Beethoven’s Fifth. I really need to rethink that ringtone. While I struggled with my pants pocket to relieve it of the phone before it blasted us with yet another surge of bum, bum, bum, bum, I stumbled against the door. Nearby, Flint backed up into the shadows, swallowing laughter. The cellphone blasted again, and leaning against the door, I looked at the number.

  “Richard,” I squawked. “I’ll call you right back.”

  While fumbling to close the phone, the door opened, and I fell inside with a yelp. I sat on the floor and looked around. It was a tiny room, only able to hold a single, lumpy bed, a beat-up wooden chair, and a sagging chest of drawers, with no knobs and one missing drawer. A miniscule, chipped sink with a loud water drip hung on a battered wall next to a tiny, doorless room with a toilet, sans lid and seat. Charming.

  “Well, if it isn’t Liana Alvarez. And where she goes can the rest of the Alvarez clan be far behind?”

  From a shadowy corner, an older, thinner, and stressed out Nicholas Papadopoulos stepped forward. He still had the same thick, dark, curly hair, but now the hair was flecked at the temples with gray. His face wore a two or three-day stubble, also slightly flecked with gray, and one of his eyes—those dark, velvety brown eyes I used to find so irresistible—was recovering from a pretty bad bruise. Something looked different with his nose, too, but maybe I wasn’t remembering everything right. It had been at least four years since I’d seen him.

  Fear dominated his being, even though he tried to hide it. His whole demeanor was the same as when he’d relive some of those raids he went on in the Persian Gulf, where he knew he stood less than a fifty-fifty chance of coming back alive.

  I opened my mouth to say something and was stopped by Flint pushing his way into the room, more like a tsunami than a man.

  Terror tracked across Nick’s face. He backed up the full length of the small room, which was three steps more or less, and banged into the wall, where he froze.

  “Jesus Christ!” he said.

  “It’s all right, Nick. This is Flint. You may remember me mentioning him to you when we were married. He’s a friend of mine.”

  Flint grunted a greeting, something like a Kodiak bear would do right before it eats you, and folded his arms across his enormous chest, the fringes of his deerskin being the only movement in the room.

  “What do you want?” Nick stuttered. He looked at me and then at the glaring Flint. I think if he could have climbed up the wall to get away, he would have done it.

  “I want to know what’s going on, Nick.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Why did you call Stephen the night before he died, warning him not to run the race? What were you trying to warn him about?”

  “How did you find me?” Nick countered. “Go away. Go away.”

  “Not happening, Nicky Boy,” said Flint, his deep voice filling the room.

  “Go away and leave me alone, can’t you?” Nick visibly shrank next to the wall, looking around for an escape.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Nick, until you tell me why you’re here,” I said. “Why did you disappear on Kelli a week ago?”

  “Kelli?” he said, his voice became high pitched, filled with panic. “What do you know about Kelli? How do you know Kelli?” I’d said the wrong thing, apparently.

  Flint moved forward, and Nick slid to the floor, arms flailing to protect himself. My big friend bent over, grabbed Nick by his rumpled polo shirt and hauled him up.

&nb
sp; “Let me rough him up a bit, Lee, just a little bit.”

  Slack-jawed, Nick stared at me. I didn’t see anything of the former marine in him, which shocked me, but I tried not to show it.

  I put a hand on Flint’s arm drawing back in preparation for a punch. “No, no. Even though you could say he done me wrong, let’s not get rough.” I paused dramatically. “Not yet.”

  Flint let go, and Nick fell onto the unmade, crumpled bed, although how he could do that considering what might be sharing the space with him, I’ll never know.

  I stared down at Nick, who sat up and cupped his face in his hands, rocking back and forth. I had never seen him this scared, this pitiable. What had happened to the man I’d known and loved?

  I crouched down and put my hand on his knee, trying to look into his face. No matter which way I moved my face, he turned away. This was the time to be gentle, I knew instinctively, even though I wanted to kick him in the groin for somehow being involved in Stephen’s death.

  “Nick, you need to tell me what’s going on, and you need to do it fast. If we found you, whoever you’re afraid of will find you, too. It’s only a matter of time.”

  He looked at me with tear-filled eyes. “How do I know you’re not here to kill me?”

  I got angry. “That’s not my style, and you know it. Since when did I turn into a thug? But I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.” He shook his head and lowered it into his hands again, all hunkered down into himself.

  “Okay,” I said, exhaling and standing up. “Let’s go, Flint. If he won’t talk to us, he won’t talk to us.”

  “You mean, let those other guys have him?” Flint said with a straight face but a twinkle in his eye. “Sounds only fair. I got better things to do with my time than watch a grown man act like a scaredy cat.” We both turned for the door.

  “Wait a minute,” Nick said, looking up at us. Then he stood. “You’re just going to leave? Leave me like this?”

  I gazed at him for a moment. “That’s the plan.” I turned for the door.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you. But not here. What if Lou’s men come? You can’t fight them off. There’s too many of them.”