Shots in the Dark

by Allyson K. Abbott

Despite the reassurances we’d given him, I had a strong feeling John Harrington would disappear, just in case we reneged on our promise. Hopefully, with the information he’d just provided, we’d be able to find the proof we needed some other way.

  Chapter 27

  “I had no idea you could draw like that, Carter,” I said once we were outside.

  He shrugged. “I got myself through college by drawing portraits of people. At one time I thought I might try to make a living with my art, but I’m not very good at coming up with anything original. And my writing muse sang a more alluring song.”

  “You could get a job as a police sketch artist,” I said. “I’m sure it has to pay more than waiting tables.”

  “I looked into it, but the demand isn’t as great as you’d think, especially these days, when everything seems to be caught on camera and done with computers. Neither is the pay.” We had reached the end of the block, and he nodded to our right. “The car is just another block over. Want to wait while I get it, or can you make it okay?”

  “I’m good,” I said. “As long as I take it slow. The sidewalks here are relatively clear.”

  He nodded, and we waited for the light to change so we could cross the street.

  “I have to say, I’m impressed by all your hidden talents,” I said as we stood there.

  “All my hidden talents?” Carter said with a quizzical smile.

  “The way you handled Harrington back there. I thought you were blowing it a couple of times, but you psyched him out perfectly. You played the man right into our hands.”

  “Oh, that,” he said. The light changed, and we headed across the street. “You can thank Sam for that. I’ve picked up a lot of psych stuff helping him study over the years.” His mention of Sam reminded me of Tiffany’s paintings. I wanted to chat with Sam to see what he thought about them. “What was your take on the stuff Harrington told us?” Carter asked.

  “I think he was telling us the truth. I picked up on the lie about the money because it made the flavor of his voice change dramatically. And it changed again when he told us that he’d made everything up and none of it was true. So I think your picture is good to go. Now all we have to do is find out who really bought that gun.”

  “And just how are we going to do that?”

  “I think we need to dig a little deeper into Tiffany Gallagher’s life.”

  * * *

  We arrived back at the bar at 4:35 P.M., and I saw that Mal was seated at the bar. I sent Carter upstairs to the Capone Club room, telling him I’d join the group a bit later and claiming I had some bar business to tend to. In the meantime, he could share the information we’d gleaned from Harrington with the others.

  I walked over and said hi to Mal, who kissed me on the lips. It wasn’t a long or particularly romantic kiss, but it warmed me down to my toes, nonetheless. Maintaining this little subterfuge about the two of us dating was getting more dangerous with each passing day.

  I checked in at the bar—Billy and Teddy were both on duty—and things seemed to be moving along well. Then I invited Mal to join me in my office. He followed me there, and once I was inside, I took off my hat and coat and filled him in on our visit with Harrington. “Did you come up with anything?” I asked him when I was done.

  “I did. I got ahold of Ben’s attorney, and she was able to call the prison and talk to him. He told her that Tiffany had mentioned the dog thing once, saying how much it had upset her. The story she told him was the same one Sonja’s client relayed, that the dog was a family pet but had always favored Tiffany, and that for some reason, it bit her brother Rory one day. Then Colin shot and killed it.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Rory is a bit of a strange duck, so maybe he did something to provoke the dog.”

  “It’s an interesting bit of insight into the family’s dynamics, but I don’t see how it helps us.”

  “No, I don’t, either.” I glanced at my watch and saw that it was three minutes before five. “I need to disengage the alarm. Duncan will be here in a few minutes.” I walked over to the alarm control panel and flipped off the switch for the alley door. I looked back at Mal. “Can you do sentinel duty in the hallway for me while I let Duncan in?”

  “Sure.”

  We left the office and went down the hall toward both the back alley door and the entry to my apartment. The hallway was empty at that moment, so I unlocked the door to my apartment. I was about to open the alley door when two women entered the hallway from the other end, heading for the bathroom. Caught nearly red-handed, I knew I looked guilty. But Mal covered by stepping in front of me and effectively blocking the girls’ view.

  He placed both of his hands on the back door, leaned in close to me, and whispered, “Kiss me, or they might think we’re up to something.”

  He lowered his face to mine, and our lips met. I heard the tittering of the women down the hall, and a moment later I heard the bathroom door open. The receding sound of their voices accompanied the closing of the door.

  Mal pulled away quickly. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, a little more breathless than I liked. I peered past him down the hallway. It was empty. “Let’s do it.”

  I turned around and opened the alley door, hoping Duncan would be there waiting. He was, and as soon as the door was open, he stepped inside and sidled into the foyer area leading up to my apartment. He was wearing the same bulky parka he’d worn on a previous visit, and he also had on a fake beard, a mustache, and a wool cap that was pulled down low over his ears and forehead.

  Mal and I stepped into the foyer, and I locked the door behind us.

  “Good disguise,” Mal said to Duncan.

  “Thanks,” Duncan said. “But I may have to come up with a different one. This damned beard and mustache itch like crazy.”

  We made our way upstairs, the two men sandwiching me in the middle, with Duncan in the lead and Mal bringing up the rear. Once we reached the dining room, I pointed to the box.

  “There it is,” I said. “We handled it with gloves on the entire time, so if there are any prints on it, they won’t be ours.”

  Duncan shrugged his coat off and draped it over the back of one of the chairs. “I brought a fingerprint kit with me,” he said. “I’ll dust it before we do anything, and if there are any prints, I’ll take them in and get them run.”

  “With a cover story, I assume.”

  Duncan gave me a patient, somewhat patronizing smile. “Yes, with a cover story. The same one I used last time, that someone is stalking my sister.”

  “Can’t we open the box and get the letter out first so we can read it?” I asked. “The suspense is killing me, and if history holds true, there will be another deadline. Every minute counts.”

  Duncan looked at me and then at Mal, who shrugged.

  “As long as we wear gloves, it shouldn’t make a difference,” Mal said. “Besides, there probably aren’t any prints on the thing. So far this letter writer has been exquisitely careful not to leave any incriminating evidence behind.”

  I pointed to the boxes of gloves—two different sizes—sitting on the table. “They’re right there,” I said in a hopeful voice.

  “Okay. Fine,” Duncan said in good humor. I’d feared he might be annoyed, so I was pleasantly surprised by his rapid and agreeable capitulation.

  After we all donned gloves, Duncan opened the metal box and removed the envelope. He flipped it over, revealing a folding metal clasp on the other side. The edges of the envelope flap were raised slightly, indicating that it hadn’t been glued down. Duncan pried up the metal tabs and opened the flap. The piece of plain white paper was still on the table from earlier, and he carefully reached into the envelope and removed the contents, holding everything over the paper.

  Like many of the letters before it, this one was a single sheet of plain white paper folded in thirds. Duncan carefully unfolded it and held it up for all of us to see. It w
as written in a calligraphic style with black ink. The smell of it was essentially the same as that of the ink used in the other letters I’d received.

  Dear Ms. Dalton,

  If you are reading this, then you have succeeded once again in interpreting my clues. Kudos to you, though perhaps I made the last one too easy. Still, your success has ensured that your friends will all live to see another day. How lucky! I’d wager you are breathing a sigh of relief right now, though it will be short-lived.

  Are you enjoying our little game so far? I bet you are, though you probably won’t admit it. Life is better with a bit of risk in it, don’t you think? Consider our little game your final adventure in life, a way to experience an adrenaline rush. And remember the rules. You are not allowed to have any contact with, or get any help from, the police, particularly Detective Albright. If you do, I will consider it a foul, and I’ll come after you so fast, you’ll feel like you are in the middle of a buffalo stampede. You have until 9:00 p. m. on Wednesday, December 23, for this one.

  I hope you are as clever as you think you are, because you are allowed one more miss. After that, your friends will all be safe. You, however, won’t be.

  Sincerely,

  A skeptical fan

  “Damn it!” Duncan said when we’d finished reading the letter. “Now this bastard is threatening you.”

  Mal said, “This is getting to be a bit much. I think the writer is tiring of the game and Mack’s success with it.”

  Duncan nodded his agreement. He set the letter down on top of the sheet of blank paper, and we all stared at it in silence. “What does this one mean?” He looked over at me. “Mack? Do you sense anything?”

  I did sense something odd about it, something in the words themselves. “The ink used in this letter smells like the ink in the first letter . . . mostly, anyway. But there is some subtle difference, a hint of something else.”

  “Meaning what exactly?” Duncan asked.

  I kept staring at the letter, my vision blurring a little so that I was focused more on the overall look of the letter, as opposed to the individual words. Then I saw it . . . and smelled it. “Some of the lettering is a slightly different color,” I said. “It’s very subtle, just different shades of black, but it’s there.” I reached over and pointed to a word. “Some of the words are different, like this one. They’re a smidgen lighter in color.” I moved my finger and pointed at another word. “And this one.” I moved my finger again. “And these.” I pointed out several more words.

  Mal looked at Duncan, then at me with a big smile. “You just pointed out the words lucky, wager, game, bet, risk, and buffalo stampede.”

  “Gambling,” Duncan said. “Except for the buffalo stampede part, all those words imply gambling.”

  “The casino,” Mal said. “It must be the Potawatomi Casino.”

  “Maybe, but how do the words buffalo stampede play into it?” I asked.

  “Early Native Americans hunted buffalo,” Mal said. “And they own the casino.”

  I thought that made some sense, though it felt like a bit of a stretch. “If you’re right, what am I supposed to do once I get there? I’ve been to that casino before for conventions and meetings. It’s huge.”

  Duncan said, “Given the words you see as different—a difference I don’t see, by the way—I think it means you need to play a game of some sort.”

  “You mean I’m supposed to gamble? I’ve never done that. The only card games I know how to play are War, Hearts, Old Maid, and Go Fish, because I played them with my father when I was little.”

  “It may not be a card game,” Duncan said. “It could be bingo, craps, baccarat, roulette, or a slot machine.”

  “None of which I’ve ever done,” I said. “And how am I supposed to know which one I’m supposed to play?”

  The two men thought for a moment, and then Duncan said, “Look at the letter again. Are you sure the words you already pointed out are the only ones that are different?”

  I refocused on the letter, this time blurring out the individual words and focusing only on the letters. And I saw that there were other variations, but with individual letters, not entire words. I explained this to Duncan and Mal, and then added, “Maybe whoever wrote this made two batches of ink and went over some of the words and letters. Maybe I’m reading more into this than there is.”

  Mal shook his head. “It’s no coincidence that the only whole words that are different are all related to gambling or a casino.” He looked over at Duncan. “Do you carry a notebook?”

  “Of course.” Duncan reached into an inside pocket of his parka and removed a small flip notebook and a pen. He handed both to Mal, who flipped the notebook open and clicked the pen.

  “Give us the letters that look different,” Mal said.

  I looked at the page and read out each letter that was in the slightly lighter shade of black. “C, a, s, t, m, e, o, h, n, i, and l. That’s it.”

  Mal had scribbled the letters in Duncan’s notebook, and he set it on the table for the three of us to consider. “Maybe they spell something,” he said.

  As I stared at the letters, they began to assume colors, shifting and changing through the spectrum until four of the letters settled on blue and the rest were red. I motioned for Mal to hand me the pen, and beneath the letters he had written, I rewrote them, putting the c, a, m, e, h, n, and i on one line and s, t, o, and l on another.

  “Why did you divvy them up like that?” Duncan asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just the way my brain works. The letters all have colors, and the colors go together this way. I think it’s two words.” I mentally rearranged the four-letter word first, coming up with lost and lots initially. Then another word leaped out at me. Getting that word gave me the other one. “This is slot,” I said excitedly. “And this word is machine.”

  Duncan and Mal both looked at me like I had turned green and had four eyes and antennae sticking out of my head.

  “Remind me never to play Scrabble with you,” Mal said.

  My excitement ebbed quickly. “Still, even if we know what type of game I’m supposed to play, there must be a thousand slot machines in that place.”

  “Closer to three thousand,” Duncan muttered.

  “How am I going to figure out which one to play?”

  “Maybe you don’t have to play,” Mal said. He tapped the letter with a gloved finger. “Presumably, this is supposed to lead you to the next clue. It could be that an employee there will see you and give you something, or maybe there is an envelope taped beneath a machine somewhere.”

  I sighed, feeling irritated. “I’m tired of getting yanked around by this nut all the time. I’ve got more important things to do with my time.”

  “Not now you don’t,” Duncan said. “Until we can get a line on who’s behind this, you have to play the game. If you don’t, someone will die. And, as this letter makes clear, that someone might be you.”

  Chapter 28

  “So when do we go on a date to the casino?” Mal said with a smile.

  Duncan frowned at this, but then said, “I suppose that makes sense. So far, the letter writer hasn’t objected to your presence, assuming Mack is being watched.”

  Since this echoed my own feelings, I wasn’t about to object. But something else was bothering me. “Why is this letter writer so against you, Duncan?” I said. “I get why I’ve been singled out, but why you?”

  Duncan shrugged. “I imagine it’s because you and I were connected in the press, and this letter writer wants to test your abilities without any police investigatory aids.”

  “I’ve been out and about with other cops—Tyrese, mainly—while investigating the Capone Club’s cases, and so far the letter writer hasn’t called foul. It seems that you are as much of a target as I am.”

  Mal looked over at Duncan. “She has a point, man,” he said. “Granted, I’m operating undercover, but Mack has spent a fair amount of public time with other cops, just not
while she’s following up on the letter writer’s clues. If the motive behind these letters is to test Mack’s abilities and ensure she isn’t getting police help, how does the letter writer know Mack isn’t hitting Ty up for assistance? Who’s to say she hasn’t involved the whole police department and they’re not helping her on the sly?”

  Duncan looked perplexed.

  “Unless the letter writer somehow knows I haven’t,” I suggested, seeing an in for raising my concerns about Duncan’s partner, Jimmy. “What if it’s someone in the police department?”

  Both men looked skeptical at this, and I felt my hopes sink.

  “I think it’s more likely that it’s someone who is familiar with you and the bar, and possibly the Capone Club,” Duncan said.

  “Perhaps, but at least consider the possibility,” I said. “Maybe you could look into who at the PD has connections to the university.”

  Duncan nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. “I’ll see what I can dig up without seeming too obvious, but I think it’s a long shot.”

  “In the meantime,” Mal said, “when should we hit up the casino?”

  “We have until Wednesday, and I’ve got some things I want to look into on the Middleton case,” I said. “How about tomorrow?”

  “That works for me,” Mal said. “What time?”

  “Around noon? That will give me time to get the bar open and running and check in with the lunchtime Capone Club group.”

  “Sounds good. I think I’ll head out and give you guys some time alone.”

  Duncan held up a hand and said, “I can’t stay. I’m on call this evening, and as soon as I dust this stuff for prints, I need to get back to the station. Maybe you can help Mack with whatever she has going on with the Middleton case.” He looked at me then. “Do you still think this Middleton guy might be innocent?”

  “I do.” I then I told him about Carter’s and my rendezvous with John Harrington and what the man had confessed, along with the blood splatter evidence and other things we’d uncovered. “Without Harrington’s support, we won’t be able to prove anything yet, but I think we’ll get there.” Duncan looked doubtful and worried. “You don’t look very pleased about it,” I observed.