Random Revenge (Detective Robert Winter Book 1)

by William Michaels

  “It still could be Ayers,” said Ryder. “I called the bed and breakfast where Ayers and Mance supposedly hooked up that night. They are very protective of the identity of their guests. We’ll need a subpoena, and right now I don’t see how we’d get one. I’m going to go back at Ayers, see who booked the room. Won’t tell us much, though, unless a witness will put Ayers there all night.”

  “You not buying his Suzanne Mance alibi?”

  “The test said Melanie slept with someone, right? Who says Ayers couldn’t have been with her before heading out to see Mance? He’d want to keep that one quiet, so it makes sense they’d meet up late, someplace out of the way.”

  “Busy guy.”

  “Lucky guy. I should have been an actor.”

  “You can still start,” said Winter. “Listen, you just gave me an idea. What if Ayers found out that someone had seen him with Mance? That might screw up his career. I bet Michael Stevens could make Ayers’s life miserable on the set. Not to mention ruining Ayers’s image with Ashley Hanna.”

  “A witness at the bed and breakfast?”

  “Maybe. Or—what if Gruse had a photo of Ayers with Mance? We know he took celebrity shots. He could have been following Ayers around and got it by accident. Or he found out about Mance being on the east coast, and was taking photos of her, and he caught a shot of Ayers.”

  Ryder said, “I didn’t see any photos of Suzanne Mance in Gruse’s stash.”

  “If they were special, he might have hid them. Gruse was into the whole celebrity scene. He’d know he had something good. He could have been blackmailing Ayers.”

  “You thought Gruse had a photo of Ayers assaulting Melanie. Now you think he might have a photo of Ayers with Mance. Which is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to prove a theory, I’m trying to find a motive. Blackmail is a good motive.”

  “It’s another stretch,” said Ryder, dismissively.

  “It won’t be if we can find some connection between Ayers and Gruse. And find out exactly what Ayers was doing at the time Gruse was killed.”

  Ryder picked up a stack of papers. “Gruse’s call logs.”

  Winter, looking over Ryder’s shoulder as he ran down the list, jabbed a finger at the page. “That’s the main number of the Hilton.”

  “You think if Gruse was blackmailing Ayers he’d call the main number?” Ryder sounded skeptical.

  “He probably wouldn’t have Ayers’s cell phone.” Winter had another thought. “Unless Melanie Upton gave it to him. Maybe she and Gruse were in on it together. Upton fakes an assault by Ayers, Gruse takes an incriminating photo to use as blackmail. That’s what they could have been arguing about. The Hilton bartender said Gruse was claiming she owed him something. Maybe his share of the payoff.”

  “First you think Gruse assaulted Upton, and now you think they are partners?”

  “I don’t think anything. Just looking for connections.”

  “Ayers didn’t sound like a guy being blackmailed.”

  “Although he was nervous about his relationship with Mance being outed.” Winter slapped Ryder on the back. “This is your big chance, you can follow up with Mance, dig into that alibi, and also see if she lets slip that Ayers was worried about anything. Some pillow talk.”

  “You think Logan will spring for a trip to California?” said Ryder, a hint of hopefulness.

  “Won’t hurt to ask,” said Winter, turning quickly to hide his laughter. Ryder had as much chance of Logan approving a trip to California as Winter did of winning the lottery. Which was zero, since he never played.

  Ryder hadn’t seen Logan all day, so he stopped at Gracie’s desk. “You expecting the Captain today?”

  “No. He’s in Boston at a conference on new crime technology, something about databases.”

  “Yeah?” Ryder wondered why Logan hadn’t mentioned it to him, since he was the only detective who knew anything about modern crime solving techniques. The conference was probably a boondoggle, a bunch of old school brass drinking on the public dime.

  “He’ll be back Monday,” said Gracie.

  Ryder wondered if he should call Logan, try to get approval for a trip. He could still catch a late flight if he hurried. He could interview Mance and have a weekend in California.

  Of course, he’d have to find out if Mance was even going to be there, which meant calling her, and then Logan would wonder why he didn’t just conduct the follow up interview on the phone.

  Ryder’s eyes drifted to a framed photo on Gracie’s desk. Gracie, a man he assumed was her husband, two teenage daughters. “Your kids?”

  “Trish and Janet. It’s a few years old, they are both in college now.”

  “You’ve been here a while, haven’t you?”

  “Sometimes it seems like forever. Why?”

  “Nothing, I just don’t know that many people yet. I see them in the station, but not much away from the job. I’m guessing a lot of the detectives have families.”

  “Captain Logan has four kids, all grown and married. O’Dowd has three. Leary and Owens are single—Owens is divorced. Winter is too, he has a daughter, but you must know that.”

  “I met her. She’s—different from him.”

  Gracie laughed. “Detective Winter is one of a kind.”

  “So everyone keeps telling me. I meant that his daughter—I wouldn’t have guessed they were related.”

  Gracie shrugged. “I’ve met her a few times, she seems pretty nice to me.”

  Nice, and smart, and elegant, and modern, thought Ryder. Everything that Winter wasn’t.

  Winter followed the signs for the Lakeview Apartments office. He’d been bothered by the discovery that Melanie had probably spent enough time at her sister’s apartment to have her own drawer in the bathroom. He’d read in Ryder’s notes that Gigi traveled often, and wondered if Upton used the Lakeview apartment when her sister was away. The two sisters were so different in personality that Winter couldn’t see them hanging out, although he couldn’t be sure. His sister Beth didn’t hang out with him growing up, but it might be different with women.

  The entire complex was professionally landscaped, upscale. Winter wasn’t one to obsess about where he lived, but given a choice, the Lakeview was certainly preferable to Upton’s walk up, especially before she had air conditioning.

  If Winter thought that way, so would Jason Ayers. More of a Four Seasons guy, he’d been told. Ayers on the Executive Floor of the Hilton, meeting Mance at a what was likely an expensive B&B. If Upton wanted to hook up with Ayers, he might not want to go to her dingy apartment, or even take the chance of her being seen in his room at the Hilton.

  But Winter bet Ayers would go to the Lakeview.

  Inside the office, a pretty woman greeted him warmly, her smile not fading even when she found out that Winter wasn’t there to rent an apartment. She was wearing a tailored suit that looked expensive, with small diamond stud earrings and a slim set of pearls. Her blond hair, showing just a trace of darker roots, was pulled back, not severely, a perfect representative for a high end building.

  “No trouble, I hope?” she said. “I’m Alison Little, the complex manager. I haven’t heard about a call to the police.”

  “No, not recently. Probably nothing to do with the complex. Just tracking down if a certain person might have been around here.”

  “We don’t have much trouble with crime.”

  “Still, would you mind if I showed you a few photos?” Winter pulled out the tablet, decided to start with Gruse.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen him. I hope you don’t have to go door to door.”

  “That shouldn’t be necessary. Although maybe you have some employees who are outside a lot? I doubt anyone I’m looking for would have come in the office.”

  “You could ask the groundskeepers.”

  “Have you had any reports of thefts? People noticing their gardens trampled? Strangers?”

  Little pulled a clipboard out of the desk d
rawer. “Here’s every report we get. I log it and transfer everything to a database once a week for the insurance company. Just in case.” She offered the clipboard to Winter. “You’re free to look. We haven’t had anything serious in four months, a car stolen from the lot. That was reported to the police, they never found the car. We set up additional security cameras on the lots, and since then nothing. Other than that, some kids left a few beer bottles in the service alley back in June.”

  Winter flipped through the pages. “What’s this? ‘Note to super about prowler.’” The notation was dated a few weeks ago.

  “The superintendent found a note in the overnight box about a prowler being spotted one night. It was typed and unsigned, without any specifics. Wait, I have it.” Little pulled a folder out of the desk drawer and handed Winter a single sheet of paper.

  It read: ‘I saw a man peeking in windows on the back side of the building and thought you should know in case he tries to break in.’

  “Anything come of this?” asked Winter.

  “The note is so vague. We have over two hundred units here, and without more to go on . . .”

  Winter filled in the rest. They didn’t want to upset the residents. “Could I see your security video if I needed to?”

  “Of course. We just have coverage of the public areas though. The main entrance, the parking areas.”

  Winter swiped to Ayers’s photo. “How about this man?”

  “That’s Jason Ayers, right? He’s been here.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “I saw him myself. I was showing a unit and he was standing in the parking lot talking on his cell phone. I was frankly hoping he was here to rent a unit. I read they are shooting his show locally and I thought he might want a place to stay. But he never came into the office. After I finished with the showing he was gone, so I just figured he was here to meet someone.”

  “Which part of the lot?”

  Little pointed. “Back on that side, near the corner.”

  Which was near Doyle’s apartment. “Was this recently?”

  “No, not at all.” Little stared into space. “A few months, at least. Back when all the news about Jason Ayers and his show was flying around. I’m not sure I would have recognized Ayers, except that his picture was all over the papers. So sometime around then.”

  Winter thanked her, got directions to where he might find the groundskeepers, and stepped back outside. So Jason Ayers was at the Lakeview, maybe hooking up with Melanie Upton. Ayers had probably lied about seeing her because he was afraid it would give credence to her story that they were still together, and even to her insinuation that he had assaulted her.

  Winter found two groundskeepers trimming bushes behind the office. Though it was warm, both wore long sleeved shirts and work pants. A portable radio was tuned to a Spanish broadcast.

  “Miss Little said you might be able to help me,” said Winter. Seeing a look of wariness in their eyes, so he added, “it’s not about you. Just wondering if you’ve seen this man.” He showed them the Ayers photo.

  Both men shook their heads. “I don’t think he lives here,” said one, in English.

  “No, he doesn’t. Maybe a visitor?” That only got Winter more head shakes. Winter pulled up Upton’s photo. “How about her?”

  “I’ve seen her quite a few times.”

  “Do you know who she was visiting?”

  “Miss Gigi, the nice one, in the corner apartment. She hires us on weekends in the spring to help with her garden.”

  “And you never saw the guy I showed you with her?”

  The two men exchanged a look. “No—but with other guys, sometimes. One of them had a bike, a motorcycle.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. He went into Miss Gigi’s in the middle of the day, and we talked about that since—since Miss Gigi never has men over. So when we saw the biker guy at her door, we kind of kept an eye out, you know? Making sure she was okay. But it was that woman,” the groundskeeper pointed at the Upton photo on the tablet, “who came to the door. She let him in, so we figured everything was good.”

  “Did you see him leave? Or notice anything about him?”

  “Not really. He had on a leather jacket. No colors. White guy, long hair. We just saw him from the back.”

  The other groundskeeper said something in Spanish, and Winter waited while they hashed it out. Then the guy who had done all the talking in English, said, “Rafael says he noticed the guy’s bike had a yellow flag on the back.” More Spanish. “Not a sticker flag, an actual flag.”

  The Marburg Rally Club was housed in the back of Harry’s Custom Wheels. Winter hadn’t been there, but he’d seen bikes around the city with different colored flags and had asked a uniform who was a bike nut what they meant. The uniform told Winter there was a local bike club that did rallies, a follow directions contest, and the bikers competing often used flags to identify their teams. That led Winter to the rally club, and Harry’s.

  The parking lot was jammed with cars, but many of them looked like they’d been there for a while; stickers on the windows, missing fenders. A half dozen stacks of rusty used rims were balanced precariously along the side wall. The lot continued toward the back, enclosed with a high chain link fence, the whine of a spinning air wrench splitting through the air.

  The front room was filled with enough chrome to blind him; it reminded Winter of those vintage cars with the big flashy bumpers, big Cadillacs . . . Gruse drove a Caddy, Winter had forgot to ask the groundskeepers about Gruse. Maybe he’d met Upton at the Lakeview. Weird, he’d asked everyone else, how had he forgotten that? That was a couple of times now something had slipped his mind, maybe Ryder was right, he did need more sleep. He didn’t feel old, but maybe he was getting old . . .

  Two guys were sitting on mismatched sofas in the corner, looking at car magazines. They glanced at Winter, then went back to their reading. At the counter, a clerk was talking to a customer about a detailing job, but the clerk’s eyes kept drifting to Winter. The clerk had longish dark blond hair and wore a leather vest over a plain white tee shirt. Winter half listened to the discussion, he didn’t have all day, but he didn’t want to hustle a paying customer out either.

  The shop was stuffy, uncomfortable enough to drive off customers. Hell of a way to run a business, thought Winter. He’d worn his hoodie to cover his gun, as usual. He slipped out of it, folding it haphazardly over his arm, more or less over his gun.

  Winter was shaking his head over the price of a set of Asanti’s when he heard the clerk say, “I’ll have to check with the boss about that.” Winter turned just in time to see the back of the leather vest as it disappeared through a door behind the counter. The customer, a little guy with tortoise shelled glasses, looked confused.

  “You scare him off?” asked Winter.

  “He said he had to go check on something, but I didn’t even ask him a question.”

  “Let me see if I can find out what’s up,” said Winter. The two magazine readers were looking at him. “You two work here?”

  “Just waiting for our wheels to be installed.”

  Winter half nodded, slipping behind the counter. He pushed on the door, it was not only closed but double locked, a thick steel job that seemed overkill for the shop. Winter fast walked back outside, tossed his hoodie on his car roof, and followed the lot around toward the back. The air wrench whined again, the compressor kicking in. Winter kept close to the building, warily eyeing the columns of used rims.

  The wrench cut off suddenly, but the compressor ran on. Winter waited a few seconds, not happy with the noise. It droned on far longer than it should have, another sound barely audible, a bike starting up . . .

  A sudden roar as the bike came around the corner from the back of the building, swerving to avoid Winter, a booted foot scraping the oily pavement for balance, and then blowing past. Winter caught a sight of a bearded face and dark hair as he jumped out of the way. Winter was reaching for his gun as he turned,
half expecting another bike, and sure enough one revved. Winter flatted himself against the fence, but no bike. He took three quick steps so he could see around the building.

  The back lot was a junkyard of cars and more rims, piled ten feet high. A large bay door was closed, the compressor banging away inside. Winter caught movement in the corner of the lot, a flash of brown, a large mixed breed dog on a chain, the dog focused on Winter, barking. Winter angled toward the garage door, one eye on the dog. The growl of the bike grew louder, coming from inside. The door started to move up, a chrome wheel poking out of the darkness.

  A rapid fire series of shots, immediately followed by loud pings behind Winter. He ducked instinctively, trying to look forward at the garage and behind him at the same time, just as he felt a searing pain along the side of his left calf. His gun was out, but there was no one to shoot at behind him, just the crush of cars and rims. Someone in a car?

  He didn’t have time to wonder, the door was all the way open, another series of shots, wild, the bike flying out, the rider flailing with a short rifle, spraying shots, glass breaking behind Winter, relentless pings off metal. Winter dove behind a pile of rims, the bullets ricocheting like angry bees.

  The compressor cut off with a gurgle as the bike screamed out the garage. Winter got off two quick shots, aiming low toward the tires, he couldn’t risk standing up, he’d be cut to shreds. The bike spun out, Winter’s face almost on the ground, seeing the rider fight to keep the bike up, the biker winning the battle, lining it up to run the gauntlet between Winter and the fence. Winter didn’t have another shot even if he dared stand up, a hundred rims between him and the biker, still firing in Winter’s direction.

  Winter shimmied up, squeezed between the wall and the rims, another shot whistling by his head. Winter could hear, but not see, the bike start its run to freedom. He leaned back into the wall, braced his feet against the tall pile of rims, and pushed.

  The heavy wheels tottered, and like a slow motion building collapse in an earthquake, crashed down onto the pavement. Winter slid to the next tower and pushed again, then the next, as fast as he could move.