Carter Peterson Mystery Series (Volume 1)

by Al Boudreau

  And the Iaconas. They’d left me with more questions than answers. I’d pegged Jay as being smart enough to avoid hiring a private investigator if he had any inside involvement with the bank job. But his silence, since revealing he’d been having an affair with one of our prime suspects, was deafening. Maybe his lawyer had convinced him to clam up. And Nelda was probably just sick of playing second fiddle to her husband’s mistress, though she didn’t appear to have a clue to who that woman was.

  * * *

  “Oh, now I know who you were talking about,” Allie Jensen said to Detective James as Sarah and I entered the conference room. “All you had to say is, like, the old cowboy.”

  Sarah picked up on what was going on before I did. “I beg your pardon, young lady,” Sarah said. “I strongly suggest you show some respect.”

  Jensen turned away and stared at the door, probably wishing she’d declined James’s request to come in. “Sorry,” she said without shifting focus, “I didn’t mean to insult either of you.”

  Sarah offered her hand. “Apology accepted. Let’s start over. My name’s Sarah Woods.” She walked behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. “And you remember Tex, of course.”

  James tried to keep a straight face as long as he could while the young woman attempted to figure out what was going on. I was first to crack, the look on Jensen’s face too priceless to endure. Everyone else began laughing, with Jensen finally catching on that she’d been a victim of Sarah’s unpredictable sense of humor.

  “Good one,” she said. “Not to whine, or anything, but … can we get through this. I’m supposed to be, like, at the beach with my girls right now.”

  “Sure,” Sarah said, “we understand it’s a holiday, Allie. And we appreciate you coming in to talk to us.”

  “Sure. No big deal,” she responded. “Even though the cops kept me from living my life for, like, three hours yesterday afternoon. I’ve never had anyone ask me the same questions over and over and over. It’s not like I’m one of those Magic 8-Balls. You’re going to get the same answer every time. I mean, duh.”

  I looked at Sarah and could tell she was doing her best to keep from cracking up again. She shook her head, pulled out a photo of Ryan Iacona, and handed it to Allie. “Do you know who this young man is?”

  Jensen covered her mouth and began to giggle uncontrollably. She took a breather and said, “Oh yeah. Me and the girls know little Ry-Ry, all righty,” then let her head hang back and laughed out loud.

  “What is it about this kid you find so comical?” I asked.

  “You mean, other than the fact he’s a little whore-dog?” she asked.

  Sarah furrowed her eyebrows. “So, one of you has…” Sarah cleared her throat. “Are you saying that one of you has been intimate with Ryan Iacona?”

  “One of us?” She laughed before continuing. “All of us is more like it,” she replied, apparently unaware she’d just confessed to having committed statutory rape. Not to mention selling her friends down the river as well. I noticed James was busy writing her admission down in his file.

  “Guess you’re not up on the law,” James said. “What you did is a serious crime in all fifty states.”

  “Oh, you mean, like, statuary raping?” she asked, then waved his comment off as if she were swatting away a pesky mosquito. “As if any girls our age would get in trouble for having sex with a young kid like Ry-Ry.”

  I fought the urge to laugh out loud at her butchery of the English language then thought about the point she was trying to make. Unfortunately, she was right. It was one of the many unwritten double standards that existed within our legal system, and in society in general.

  “Allie, do you realize that I could put you in handcuffs right this very second, place you under arrest, and that you might ultimately face ten to twenty years in prison?” James asked.

  Her mouth hung open. “You … you’re not going to, like, do that to me, are you?”

  “I really don’t have much of a choice,” James said as he glanced at Sarah and me.

  Her eyes started welling up with tears. “But … he said he wanted to. Even offered to pay us money.”

  James shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. What you girls did to that poor young boy is still a crime.”

  The tears began falling hard as Allie sniffled, her world sent into an instant tailspin.

  “There may be a solution, Allie,” James said, “but you’re probably not going to like it.”

  “What? What is it? Just tell me, and I’ll, like, do it right now,” she said.

  “Here’s the deal. I need you to forget about the beach, and hanging out with your friends today. Instead, you’re going to sit here with us and answer every question we ask you. Do we have an agreement?”

  She nodded her head at one hundred miles an hour, wiping her tears away as quickly as possible. “Yes. I will. I’ll do it. Anything you want to know.”

  I winked at Sarah, impressed with how quickly James had spun the tables.

  “Fine,” James said as he nodded at me. “Let’s get started.”

  “Allie, would you consider Ryan Iacona a friend?” I asked.

  “Um … yeah, like, definitely,” she replied. “I mean, he’s a little young, but he’s sooo mature for his age.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “In what ways do you consider Ryan to be mature for his age?”

  “Well, he’s, like, super responsible. They had him doing all these different jobs at the casino. And I heard he’s the youngest employee ever.”

  “Allie, the man you had the disagreement with yesterday, Anthony Turner, Tonedeaf, have you ever seen him talking to Ryan?”

  “Definitely. Like, every time they were both there.”

  “How about this woman?” I asked and showed her a picture of Shauna Eastman.

  “Shauna’s so awesome. She’s, like, older, but totally one of us,” Allie said.

  “In what way?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know. She’s just fun to hang out with. And, like, totally into all the stuff we’re into.”

  “Like the dark web?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. Totally.”

  “Allie, it’s my understanding you recruited one of your friend’s brothers to be a player in the game Sixteen-Sixteen,” I said. “Tell us a little about that.”

  A frown appeared on her face and she stared at the table. “Um … what do you want to know?”

  “We want to know everything,” James said.

  “One night me and my girls were at the casino celebrating my birthday, and Shauna came over to our table. She bought us a round.”

  “When was your birthday?” James asked.

  “April twenty-fifth.”

  “Had you ever spoken to Shauna before that night?” Sarah asked.

  “No.”

  “Did she talk to you about recruiting for Sixteen-Sixteen that night?” Sarah asked.

  “Nope. Shauna never talked about Sixteen-Sixteen with me at all. That was mostly Tonedeaf.”

  “Are Tonedeaf and Shauna friends?” I asked.

  Allie shook her head. “I don’t think so. Neither of them ever mentioned, like, the other’s name. And I never saw them talking or hanging out together.”

  “What did you and Shauna talk about concerning the dark web?” I asked.

  “Anything. Everything.”

  “So you’d never been on the dark web before meeting Shauna Eastman?” James asked.

  “Oh, we all had surfed it up a little bit,” she admitted. Like, everyone has a Tor browser these days. But we were just hitting the onions soft-core, until a few months ago. Now we’re all over it. I never go on the B-dub anymore.”

  “B-dub?” Sarah repeated.

  “Yeah, you know, the boring web.”

  “How and when did Tonedeaf introduce you to Sixteen-Sixteen?” I asked.

  “He didn’t,” she said matter-of-factly. “Ry-Ry did.”

  We all looked at one another as if Allie had risen up and flow
n around the room.

  She continued, “Ry-Ry turned us on to it, then Tonedeaf started harping on it. I recruited my girlfriend’s little brother just so Tonedeaf would lay off. But that was a big mistake.” She pursed her lips. “Thanks to me, my friend’s brother ended up in juvenile court. And even though I’ve been telling Tonedeaf to go screw himself since then, he’s still riding me constantly about recruiting for him.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Think back for a minute. Ryan, Shauna, and Tonedeaf. Who did you know first, who was next, and who was last?”

  “That’s easy,” Allie said with no hesitation. “We met Ryan first. Then Shauna. Then Tonedeaf.”

  I was jotting down notes like a man possessed. “Did Ryan Iacona introduce you to Sixteen-Sixteen before, or after, you met Shauna?”

  Allie stopped to think for a beat. “After. Definitely after.”

  “How about Tonedeaf? Were you introduced to Sixteen-Sixteen after you met him, too?” I asked.

  “Nope. Before,” she said.

  “And you’re sure of it?” James asked.

  She nodded. “Totally sure.”

  “How can you be certain?” Sarah asked.

  It was obvious by the look on her face that Allie was tiring of our doubts. “Simple. Sixteen-Sixteen is the reason Ry-Ry introduced us to Tonedeaf in the first place.”

  James and Sarah both looked at me as if they’d been hit by a stun gun.

  “One last question, Allie,” James said. “How would you best describe Ryan Iacona? Would you say he’s a good kid?”

  The smile disappeared from her face. “Uh, no. No way. He’s majorly sheisty. That’s why he’s, like, so awesome.”

  James shook his head. “Not sure I understand.”

  “Well, it’s like this,” Allie said. “Me and my girls snuck Ry-Ry into my old bedroom a couple of times. You know, while I was staying at my parent’s place not too long ago. My parents caught on, found out he was in the house, and started asking him a bunch of questions. They were, like, not impressed in the least. Ended up totally hating on the kid. Isn’t that the best? I mean, like, why else would we let a sixteen-year-old hang out?”

  Chapter 17

  “That was enlightening,” Sarah said after Detective James left with Allie Jensen to walk her out to her car.

  I nodded as I wrote down some notes to help me understand the ones I’d just taken. “Yeah, sounds like Ryan is no angel.”

  “Maybe not,” Sarah said, “but I’m not ready to condemn him based on a twenty-one-year-old girl’s assessment.”

  “I hear you, but if what she told us is true, then Ryan Iacona has a lot of explaining to do. His alleged involvement in Sixteen-Sixteen tells me he may well be a young hood in the making. That being said, I’m anxious to get James’s take on what we just heard.” I decided to read through my notes again while waiting for him to return. I didn’t get far, stopping at the part about Ryan and the girls. “You believe what Allie Jensen told us about her and her friends having relations with the kid?”

  “I do, unfortunately,” Sarah replied. “If I knew a twenty-one-year-old girl had sex with Brian when he was sixteen, I swear I’d probably deck her.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. Where in the world is James?” I asked. “Did he take her to lunch or something?”

  Sarah got up and headed down the hall, only to return a minute later. “James is at his desk, on the phone with someone. Judging by the topic of conversation, I think it might be Courtney Briggs.”

  “You were eavesdropping on the detective?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah,” Sarah said, making no bones about it. “No reason to get shaken up. We’re all just one big happy family here.”

  “You’ve been watching too many bad movies lately,” I said.

  Sarah opened her mouth to respond when James returned. “Sorry. I was on the phone with Courtney Briggs.”

  “Any news?” Sarah asked.

  “Better sit down,” James said, “because this might be a game-changer. Sounds to me like Briggs and her team caught a real break, here. Her lawyer managed to contact and petition a member of the House of Representatives in the Philippines. Apparently, this female politician was able to apply pressure in just the right places to ferret out which junket operator accepted the money in Quezon City. Said the cash remained in the Solara Casino and Resort just long enough to kill the electronic fingerprints this type of transaction generally leaves behind. This is a really big deal. Without this politician’s help, Briggs said they would have been dead in the water.”

  “Wow. Too bad we all can’t have friends in high places. Bet it’s still going to cost Briggs some serious savings, though. Politicians don’t do favors unless they’re getting something in return,” I said.

  “You’re probably right,” James said. “But the way I understand it, Briggs may have had no choice.”

  “What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

  “Steele & Company’s insurer is refusing to cover the theft because a bank employee authorized the funds to be sent overseas. Courtney Briggs is on the hook for the full value of the transfer. A cool mil.”

  “What?” Sarah cried. “Why not Iacona?”

  “Steele & Company structured their banking regs so that whoever is last to give authorization for an overseas transfer is responsible for the whole shebang. Only, she wasn’t aware of that fact until early this morning.”

  “You can bet dollars to doughnuts Jay Iacona knew it when he begged her to make that transfer, though,” I said.

  Sarah scowled. “Ooo, that makes me so angry.”

  “I get why you’re mad,” James said, “but Iacona didn’t write the rules. It’s all just part and parcel of the corporate culture. The important thing here is that Courtney and her team were able to ID the specific junket operator in Quezon City who had the money.”

  “Had?” I asked.

  “Had,” James repeated. “Seems one of the Filipino operator’s junket managers arranged for a small group of high stakes gamblers to play overseas. Any guess as to where that international junket was scheduled to take place?”

  “Vegas?” I asked.

  “We have a winner,” James shouted. “Give that man a lollipop.”

  “They know this for a fact?” Sarah asked.

  James smiled. “These crooks have a sense of humor. Briggs’s forensics gal has time-stamped transfer confirmation paperwork showing the funds hitting a Vegas casino this morning, 7 a.m. local time. Bonus lollipops if one of you can give me the correct Vegas property.”

  Sarah and I stared at one another as if the answer would magically appear between us. After a few seconds I said, “I give up.”

  “New York, New York. City where JR Moorehouse Steele & Company’s world headquarters are located.”

  “Oh, that’s fresh,” Sarah said. “That can’t be a coincidence. These guys are straight-up slick.”

  “Wait, it gets better,” James said. “These clowns are truly as brazen as they come. At approximately nine-thirty this morning a member of New York, New York’s cleaning staff entered one of the suites booked via our Filipino junket operator. Now, bear in mind, our criminal friends actually had the Philippine’s junket operator sponsor legitimate gamblers---we’re talking English-speaking Filipino high rollers---to gamble at the Vegas property. Then, as soon as these three unsuspecting whales settled into their posh digs with their three quarters of a million dollars in chips, guess what happened?”

  Sarah raised her hand as if she were on television. “Uh, Alex, I’ll go with they each got robbed for 250.”

  “Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Winner,” James shouted. “The cleaning staff found all three whales hog-tied, totally naked, face down on their beds. Unharmed, thankfully. Once security cut them loose, each told a similar story. A woman seduced them, gained access to their suite, threatened them with a concealed weapon, and escorted them down to the cashier’s booth to exchange their chips for good old fashioned US Federal Reserv
e notes.”

  I shook my head. “I can almost hear this woman now as she’s walking into New York, New York, mumbling to herself, I’d like to make three withdrawals for two-fifty each, please.”

  “Where does this turn of events leave Courtney Briggs,” Sarah asked.

  “Well, so far the Vegas PD hasn’t determined who this woman at the casino was, but if anyone can figure it out, they can. I told Ms. Briggs I’d forward copies of everything we have on Shauna Eastman, Anthony Turner, and their known associates.”

  “Meanwhile, where’s Ryan Iacona?” Sarah asked. “We haven’t heard so much as a peep from the perps, and no reports of him turning up harmed somewhere. Even his parents have gone silent, for crying out loud.”

  “No one else has said it, so I’m just going to throw it out there,” I said. “What if this little schmuck is in on it?”

  “I have to admit, Allie Jensen’s comments at the end of our little chat got me thinking the same way,” James replied.

  We both looked at Sarah. “What?” She tossed her hands in the air and shrugged. “It’s not like my opinion is going to make it so.”

  “No,” I said, “but you must have an inkling. You know, female intuition and all that.”

  “Yeah, well…” Sarah began shuffling some of James’s paperwork around. I could tell she was stalling. “The thought had entered my mind, but …” Sarah slid her chair out, stood up, and began pacing like a defense attorney trying to convince a jury her client was innocent. “Let’s not lose sight of the fact this kid is barely sixteen years old. I can’t help but think of Brian when he was sixteen. Let’s face it, boys at that age are still kids.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but kids commit crimes, too.”

  “Carter’s right, Sarah. I’ve—”

  “I know he’s right, Detective,” Sarah snapped. “I just don’t want to believe it.”

  “We don’t have the luxury of letting what we want to believe cloud the facts or skew the evidence,” I said, less than pleased Sarah had reacted the way she did. “Let’s lay it out. Ryan Iacona’s father has admitted he didn’t want kids, so there’s a good chance he feels animosity toward his old man. His mother thinks Jay is pining for his assistant manager. Kids aren’t stupid, so Ryan may well have some pent-up resentment there, too.”