Death Takes a Ride (The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #3): A Novel

by Lorena McCourtney

  “She’s probably asleep on my bed upstairs. When she realizes we have company, she’ll come around to check you out.” She took a sip of her drink. “So, about this letter Matt received. Was it sent from here in Salem? Is that why you’re investigating here?”

  “The envelope had a Eugene postmark, but, according to the police, the man who shot Kane was from here in Salem. The threatening letter sounds as if Mace Jackson was the hired hit man or part of a conspiracy that intended to kill Kane but didn’t get the job done.”

  “Yet.”

  “Yet,” Cate agreed.

  “And now they’re after Matt.” Candy took a sip of her drink. “Look, I’d like to help. I really would. I’m not such a bad person that I want to see Matt murdered. But, as I already told you, I never saw Mace Jackson before and I don’t know anything about him. Or anyone else who’d try to kill Kane or Matt.”

  “Some other information turned up today, possibly related. Kane may have been into some very high-stakes gambling. If he lost big, gambling creditors may have payback rules they enforce with guns.”

  Candy clunked the glass down hard on the counter as if she were about to argue. But then a light went on in her eyes. “That’s what he was doing all those weekends he was gone, isn’t it? Gambling in some casino over on the coast!”

  “Could be.” Cate suspected Candy was relieved to hear this and know it wasn’t another woman who’d captured Kane’s time and interest.

  Candy tapped glossy fingernails on the counter. “I know he’s been hurting for money.”

  “My understanding is that H&B here in Salem hasn’t been profitable lately. That’s why they were closing it. So he may have been short of money for that reason, in addition to gambling losses.”

  “Maybe a shortage of profits at H&B was why he was gambling. Because he needed money. As I told you, he did great with gambling on our honeymoon.”

  “Gambling isn’t exactly a sure-thing investment. You can lose everything you have in casino gambling, I suppose. But the casinos are well regulated and controlled. I don’t think they’re going to let you gamble with an IOU. You have to have the money up front.”

  “You’re saying Kane borrowed money from some loan shark? Or he was gambling somewhere outside the casinos and going in debt to do it? Something illegal? A bookie or someone like that?”

  “I don’t know much about illegal gambling or how you do it,” Cate admitted. Bookies were well outside her experience. All she had was a mental picture, no doubt from some old movie, of a heavyset guy wearing suspenders, smoking a cigar, and talking out the side of his mouth. Candy’s suggestion about a loan shark was something new. She hadn’t considered that before. Loan sharks were also noted for a nasty attitude about nonpayers.

  “But why kill him?” Candy demanded. “He was getting the money to pay them off.”

  Candy might be unhappy that Kane had sneaked around to gamble, but now she also sounded resentful that his gambling or loan creditors hadn’t been more patient. Cate expected Candy to demand to know where she’d acquired information about Kane’s gambling, but she was apparently so instantly convinced of his involvement that she didn’t need details.

  “Can you remember anything, maybe suspicious phone calls he made or received, anything that could have been contacts with a loan shark or some illegal gambling setup?”

  “I don’t remember anything from before we separated. And I wouldn’t know about phone calls to the apartment where he lives now.” Candy gave Cate a sideways glance. “But I have a key.”

  “To the apartment?”

  “Kane took Clancy with him almost everywhere, but once he flew down to a big antique car auction, Phoenix or somewhere, and he gave me a key so I could go in and feed Clancy. Actually, when I got there, poor Clancy was so lonely I brought him here. Kane never asked for the key back, so I still have it.”

  “So you’re saying … ?”

  Candy’s eyes flashed a blue glitter of excitement. “We could go over and see if we can find something helpful about this gambling stuff!”

  “Belmont Investigations doesn’t do anything illegal, even if it might aid an investigation.”

  Candy rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a wimp. There wouldn’t be anything illegal about this anyway. It isn’t as if we’d be breaking in. Kane gave me a key. I’ve used it a couple of times.”

  Cate was curious about why Candy had used the key and what she’d been doing in her ex-husband’s apartment.

  As if Candy recognized a pending question, she added flatly, “And no, I’m not telling you why I was there. C’mon. We’ll take the Lexus.”

  When Cate still sat there undecided, Candy dumped the remainder of her drink down the sink. “I’m going upstairs to change clothes. You think about it. If you want to find out who’s threatening Matt, this is the place to start looking.”

  But going into someone’s apartment … Cate was still mulling the idea after Candy went upstairs and the cell phone in her purse gave its guitar riff. She looked at the screen. Mitch? No, an unfamiliar number.

  “Hello.”

  “Cate, hi. This is Seth Erickson. You talked to me earlier, out in the shop at H&B?”

  “You thought of something more about Mr. Blakely or H&B?”

  “I tried. I really, really tried. But to be honest, I’m as blank as that blue screen of death on a computer.”

  “So you’re calling me because … ?”

  “I’m thinking, if you’re staying in Salem overnight, you have to eat dinner, right? So I’m also thinking we could have dinner together. Maybe a movie afterwards, to relax you from a hard day of private investigating.”

  Seth Erickson was asking her for a date? She considered the invitation briefly. No, she didn’t consider actually accepting it. She and Mitch had their differences about her being a PI, but they had something strong going between them. Neither of them dated anyone else.

  “That’s really thoughtful of you, Seth. I appreciate the invitation. But no, I don’t think so. I’m … involved.”

  “Oh. I should have guessed that, shouldn’t I? Beautiful private investigators no doubt have their pick of law officers, detectives, FBI men, etc.”

  “You don’t object to a woman being a private investigator?”

  “Object?” Seth sounded surprised. “Why would I?”

  “Sometimes dangerous situations are involved. Dangerous people. On my first case, two different people tried to kill me on the same day.”

  “Hey, awesome! I’d like to hear all about it.”

  Cate had to smile at the boyish eagerness that matched Seth’s boyish-looking face. “Again I appreciate the invitation. But no. It’s an important involvement.”

  “If you change your mind, just give me a call.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Seth. It was nice meeting you.”

  Cate was smiling when she slipped the phone back in her purse. No, she hadn’t been tempted to go out with Seth Erickson. But at the same time, it gave her something to think about. Not all guys were as opposed to the investigative business for a woman as Mitch was.

  She suddenly wanted to talk to Mitch again. Needed to talk to him. Right now. She clicked on his number.

  As often seemed to happen, technology did not cooperate. It sent her to voice mail. She dropped the phone back in her purse as Candy returned to the family room and twirled in front of Cate.

  “How do I look? Proper outfit for a PI … what’s the word? Caper! Am I properly dressed for a PI caper?”

  Skinny black jeans. Black turtleneck. Black scarf tied biker style to conceal her blonde hair. Stiletto-heeled black boots. Yeah, she looked ready for a PI caper. Or maybe a cat burglar jewel heist. Although those heels might be a liability. Then Cate remembered Candy’s ability to do that impressive 180 in heels. The woman could probably scale walls or do Tarzan swings in high-heeled boots.

  “Perfect,” Cate finally said. Good thing they weren’t headed out to investigate a strip club, or no telling what
suitable attire Candy might have chosen.

  20

  Candy had been there before and did not have to wander around to find Kane’s apartment. She drove straight to it and pulled around back to a cramped parking area. She pointed to a gray lump in a shadowy corner space.

  “That’s Kane’s SUV.”

  The vehicle surprised Cate. No flash here. The old SUV looked as if it should have cat tracks on the hood and a “My son was Student of the Month” sticker on the bumper.

  “But he’d rather drive one of the H&B restorations or his bike,” Candy added. “He really liked that Corvette he drove down to Eugene. His bike must be out at H&B.”

  The apartment was in an older house divided into separate units. Kane’s apartment, on the third floor, had an outside entrance reached by stairs that looked weather-beaten but solid. Even so, Cate stopped with one hand on the railing.

  “You’re not backing out now, are you?” Candy looked down from four steps above her.

  No, Cate wasn’t backing out now. Halliday’s life was on the line, and she needed to find out who was after him. Which still didn’t totally cancel the squeamishness she felt about prowling in someone’s private residence. At the landing at the top of the stairs, Cate half-expected “do not cross” police tape blocking the door, but there was only a spiderweb.

  Light spilled on the landing when Candy opened the door and reached inside to flick a switch. She stepped inside without hesitation, and Cate followed cautiously. The apartment smelled faintly musty, even though Kane hadn’t been away from it all that long. The scent was almost like a foreshadowing of emptiness and disuse to come, as if the apartment didn’t expect him back.

  Dump it, Ms. PI, Cate scolded herself. Get on with it. You’re an investigator; stop smelling and start investigating.

  Burgundy drapes covered a skimpy window. A cream leather sofa faced a flat-screen TV, much smaller than the one at Candy’s house. An L-shaped desk in a corner held a laptop. A two-drawer wooden file cabinet stood beside the desk. Pages of a local newspaper littered the floor, and papers and photos, some loose, some in wire baskets, covered the desk space around the laptop and the top of the file cabinet as well.

  Only a counter separated the living room and kitchen, and a short hallway led to what was probably a bedroom and bath area. The kitchen sink and counter displayed dirty dishes. A TV dinner container stuck out of the top of a trash container. Cate sniffed. Maybe that was what she smelled. Aging trash. Two cabinet doors stood open. Not totally a rat-magnet kitchen, but it wouldn’t win any housekeeping awards.

  Candy planted her hands on her hips. “Kane needs a wife,” she declared. “Where should we start?”

  “With finding him a wife or finding something here?”

  Candy rolled her eyes at the facetious question.

  “Okay, what are we looking for?” Cate asked.

  “You tell me. You’re the private investigator,” Candy snapped, as if this had all been Cate’s idea. “I’ll see if I can find anything back in the bedroom while you dig through stuff out here.”

  Cate approached the desk and started looking through the jumbled mess. She was tempted to organize and neaten the papers as she plowed through them, but she restrained herself from doing so. She didn’t want to leave evidence they’d been here even though the entry was surely legal enough with Candy’s key coming direct from Kane.

  After a few minutes, she realized there was nothing personal among the scattered papers and photos. Everything had to do with projects for H&B. Vehicles available for restoration, past restorations, specifications for work in progress. Nothing about gambling or loan sharking.

  Cate tried the file cabinet, but Kane didn’t have any helpful folders labeled “Gambling” or “Loan Shark.” A file labeled “Personal” held a disorganized collection of papers about the divorce from Candy, death certificate for Kane’s first wife, a rental agreement on the apartment, and some medical information. She closed the file quickly. She really didn’t want to know the details of Kane’s hemorrhoids or an itchy skin condition.

  He must have had considerable trouble with the SUV because there was a separate file labeled “Repair Shop,” with some yellow receipts. Why didn’t he just fix the vehicle himself, or have someone like Seth at H&B work on it? Lumps at the bottom of the file turned out to be a collection of crumbs, apparently fallen into the manila folder while Kane perused his car troubles.

  Yes, Kane definitely needed a wife. Or at least a housekeeper. She closed the file cabinet and eyed the laptop. If Kane kept any gambling records, that must be where they were.

  She turned the laptop on and at the same time heard clunks and clatters from the rear of the apartment. She found Candy going through the medicine chest in the bathroom, tossing everything on the counter as she went. Band-Aids, Pepto-Bismol, various over-the-counter sleeping pills, allergy medication. She was now frowning at a half-empty bottle of generic aspirin.

  “Kane never used aspirin. It upset his stomach. He always used acetaminophen or ibuprofen.”

  “So?” Cate asked, impatient with this triviality. “I doubt it has anything to do with his gambling or debts.”

  “It might mean someone else has been here with him.”

  Someone here in the apartment wolfing down aspirin and running a gambling operation? Unlikely. Then the truth dawned on her. Candy was thinking some other woman had been here in the apartment with Kane. Which was why she’d used the key to get in the apartment before. Then and now, she was snooping for signs of Kane and another woman. A definite ambivalence in her feelings about her ex-husband.

  “If someone was here, and she was guzzling aspirin, it doesn’t sound like the kind of relationship flaming romance novels are written about,” Cate said.

  “I’m not worried about Kane’s love life! I’m just—” Candy broke off. Her small smile held embarrassment, but it also hinted at relief. “But I guess a half-empty bottle of aspirin doesn’t suggest romantic interludes, does it?”

  “I’m not sure how long we should be in here. Maybe you could concentrate on looking for something to do with gambling or debts, something like that?”

  “Okay. Sure.” Candy’s tone went grumpy. “I was just looking in the medicine cabinet because, well, you never know where a man may hide something.”

  Candy flounced out and started thunking drawers in the bedroom. Cate went back to the laptop. And found, of course, exactly what she feared. Kane had the laptop set up to require a password. Why did the man need a password? He was the only one here to use the laptop.

  Unless, of course, there was some aspirin-gulping woman friend here. Or maybe he needed the laptop to work a complicated gambling system? And he wasn’t about to have some unauthorized user steal his system? She tried various password possibilities. Kane. Blakely. Kane and Blakely together. H&B. Candy. Clancy.

  “What’s Kane’s birth date?” she called to Candy.

  “Why?”

  “I’m trying to figure out a password on the laptop.”

  Candy came out of the bedroom and looked over Cate’s shoulder at the screen. She gave a September date, and Cate typed it in. The laptop was unimpressed.

  “Any other ideas?” Cate asked. “Maybe a password he used for something else? Some people stick with the same one for everything.”

  Candy shook her head. “It must be here somewhere. Kane didn’t have that good a memory. Maybe the file cabinet?”

  Cate had already been in the file. No passwords. What she needed was Mitch. Mitch and his computer expertise. He’d figure some way to do this.

  Cate tried a few more guess words and numbers she’d heard were common passwords, but she finally gave up. She turned the laptop off. There was a drawer below the computer that she hadn’t looked in yet. She opened it and poked around. Receipts, paper clips, stamps—hey, an address book.

  Cate skimmed through it. Friends? Clients? It was a long-used book apparently, because addresses and numbers had been crossed out and n
ew ones written in. Cate would like to make a copy of the pages, but Blakely hadn’t conveniently outfitted his home office with a copier.

  Candy came out of the bedroom, shaking dust off her hands and grumbling that all she’d found were boxes of old-car magazines under Kane’s bed and a full dirty-clothes hamper.

  “He must not have done laundry in a month,” Candy fussed. Cate couldn’t tell if she was disgusted or worried. Then she spotted the address book in Cate’s hands. “Let me see that!”

  Candy grabbed the address book and scrutinized it.

  “Hey, I know her.” She stabbed a name in the book. “Diane Reed. Has Kane been seeing her?”

  Cate reached to take the address book back, but Candy held it out of reach. “I’m taking this,” she declared.

  “Candy, you cannot take Kane’s personal, private address book out of his apartment. Even if you have a key.”

  “I can make a copy and bring it right back.”

  Cate had to admit to being momentarily tempted by that idea. She’d like to have a list of Blakely’s contacts. But she firmly nixed it. “No. Morally, ethically, legally wrong. We just came here to look, not to take anything.” She wrestled the book out of Candy’s hand and jammed it back in the drawer. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

  Cate thought Candy might argue, but she did her heel-spin and went to the door. They turned off the lights, locked the door, and tromped down to the Lexus. Cate remembered something she hadn’t seen in the apartment. A dog bed. Which no doubt meant Clancy sacked out on the sofa or the foot of Kane’s bed. The lump of vehicle in the shadows caught Cate’s eye again. An unexpected thought jumped out at her.

  “Is the SUV running?”

  “As far as I know. It’s kind of an old beater, and a little low profile for Kane’s taste, so he only uses it when he’s hauling something around. Why?”

  “There was a folder in his file cabinet for a repair shop. I thought it was about repairs for the SUV.”

  “I can’t imagine Kane taking a car to some repair shop. He’d do it himself or have someone at H&B do it.”