Deadly Gamble

by Linda Lael Miller

  I sat up straight. Chester gave me a look of reproach for almost dumping him to the floor. “Wait a second—”

  “No,” Nick told me quietly. “I haven’t seen your parents.”

  “Can you ask around a little?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not as if there’s an information booth,” he said.

  “You’re not a lot of help, Nick.”

  “And you’re deliberately being a bitch.”

  I smiled. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Nick said graciously. “I forgive you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  A ruckus broke out downstairs, in Bad-Ass Bert’s. Sounded as if somebody had upended a pool table, but I wasn’t alarmed. It was Friday night, and a good brawl was always on the weekend schedule.

  “How do you stand this place?” Nick asked.

  I remembered that I’d promised to take care of Russell so Bert and Sheila could go camping at Oak Creek Canyon. I hoped the dog wasn’t caught in the cross fire of flying fists, steel-toed boots and swinging pool cues.

  “I don’t have a choice, thanks to you and your mother,” I answered sweetly. “Besides, it’s not so bad. I guess you could say home is where the heart is.”

  “How would you know?” Nick fired back. “You don’t have a heart, as far as I can tell.”

  I remembered the nights I’d called all over town looking for my missing husband. The nights I’d cried myself to sleep. The day I finally figured out that Nick was never going to change, no matter how hard I tried to be the wife he wanted.

  And I didn’t give a damn if he could see those memories. Let him take a good look.

  “What about Chester?” I asked, when a little of the silent angst had receded. “You never told me how you found him.”

  “He found me,” Nick said.

  “How did you know he was my cat?”

  “I looked into his head, and he took a peek into mine. We discovered we had you in common.” Another smile, this one wan. I squinted, looking for the telltale glow. Were his batteries petering out?

  “I forgive you,” I said.

  “You have to mean it,” Nick answered.

  “I do mean it.”

  “I can read your mind, remember?” The noise downstairs reached a wicked crescendo. Nick frowned.

  I got a little quiver in the pit of my stomach. “What is it?”

  “You’d better call the cops,” Nick said. “Your friend Bert-the-bartender is in big trouble.”

  Chester disappeared.

  Nick evaporated.

  I bolted for the outside door.

  CHAPTER

  9

  C ars and bikes peeled out, in noisy contrast to the ominous silence from within the building, as I sprinted for the open doorway at the side.

  I rushed in. “Bertrand! Russell!”

  I heard a groan, from the direction of the pool tables, and ran toward it. Bert lay sprawled on his back underneath the one on the left, bleeding copiously into the sawdust on the floor.

  I dropped to my knees and crab-scrambled to his side.

  “Bert!”

  He looked at me for a long, terrible moment, and then his eyes rolled back into his head. I shoved up his muscle shirt, swabbed the hairy skin with one palm, and saw the knife wound.

  Nick’s words of advice came back to me. You’d better call the cops.

  I shimmied backward, out from under the pool table, soaked. It brought back some elemental memories, all of them sensory rather than specific, but I didn’t have time for introspection.

  I hurried to the wall phone behind the bar, grabbed the receiver, and punched the pertinent digits, leaving crimson fingerprints on the buttons.

  “Help,” I said, when the dispatcher answered.

  I looked down. Russell huddled between two boxes, gazing up at me with huge, despairing eyes.

  I crouched to run a hand over his broad back.

  “I’m at Bad-Ass Bert’s Biker Saloon in Cave Creek,” I told the operator. “A man’s been hurt.”

  “Your name?”

  I knew this was standard procedure, but it still set my teeth on edge. While we were chatting about vital statistics, Bert was probably bleeding to death. “Mojo Sheepshanks,” I answered. “I live upstairs, above the bar. Get somebody here, please—”

  “There are police and ambulance units on the way,” the woman answered calmly. “Are you injured in any way, Ms. Sheepshanks?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not sure about the dog, though.”

  Russell whimpered, and I gave him a quick once-over with my free hand and both eyeballs. Except for delayed-stress syndrome, he seemed to be all right.

  A siren screamed in the distance.

  “Stay on the line, please,” the operator said.

  “I’m here,” I answered. “But I’d like to go back to Bert. He’s under the pool table, and I don’t want him to think he’s alone.”

  “Is there anyone else on the premises?”

  Also standard procedure. Can’t have the cops and the EMTs rushing into a potentially dangerous situation.

  “Just Bert and the dog and me,” I answered. By then, I was queasy. The smell and feel of all that blood made me shift to my knees. I leaned forward and rested my forehead between Russell’s soft, floppy ears.

  The siren was getting closer, and I heard other sirens kick in behind it, farther away, a shrill, weaving braid of sound.

  “I need to find out if Bert’s still holding on,” I said. There was a cord on the phone, and it wouldn’t reach to the pool table. I was effectively pinned.

  “Render aid if necessary,” the dispatcher instructed. “But please do not break the connection.”

  I nodded, being in shock, and left the receiver to bounce back to the wall and then dangle.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I told Russell. “The cops are on their way. Just hang out right here, and everything will be all right.”

  Russell probably didn’t believe me. Hell, I didn’t even believe myself.

  I left him, grabbed a bar towel, and went back to Bert.

  I wadded the towel and pressed it to the wound in his chest, hoping to staunch the flow of blood.

  The nearest siren gave a blipping shriek, and blue-and-red lights flashed across the interior of the bar.

  They’re here, I thought. Thank God, they’re here.

  “This way—under the pool table!” I yelled.

  More sirens. More lights. Lots of flying gravel. Emergency vehicles, I thought, must go through tires like there’s no tomorrow.

  Maybe, for Bert, there wouldn’t be.

  Two guys in blue shirts dropped to their knees and joined the party. I backed out from under and held on to the edge of the table to hoist myself up.

  Cops and more medics streamed in through the door.

  Russell howled.

  I searched the arriving faces for Tucker’s, but he wasn’t there.

  “Freeze,” one of the cops ordered, when I started around the bar.

  I put my hands out from my sides and froze, trying to see things from his perspective. For all the cops knew, I was the one who’d stabbed Bert, and I could have been going for a gun.

  “The dog,” I said pitifully.

  Russell low-crawled from behind the bar, his gaze fixed on me, imploring, as if he’d fallen out of a boat into white water, and I was his only lifeline.

  I went to him, knelt, wrapped him in my arms.

  A gray-haired detective dropped to his haunches, on the other side of Russell, and he seemed kind. His eyes were gentle as he took us both in.

  “What happened here?” he asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “I live upstairs. I—heard something, and came down to see what was going on.” I nodded in the direction of the pool table. The EMTs had lifted Bert onto a stretcher, and they were sliding him out from under. “I found Bert—all bloody—”

  “Take it easy,” the detective said. “Did you see anyone else?�
�

  I did some deep breathing before I answered. Shook my head. “No.”

  “The place was empty? Was it closed for business?”

  I shook my head again, told him about the cars and bikes flinging gravel as I came down the back stairs.

  The EMTs snapped the ends of the gurney down and rolled by with Bert.

  Russell yelped and tried to follow.

  I held him, and cried.

  “Somebody should call Sheila,” I said. Words tumbled out of my mouth, and I was literally terrified that I’d never be able to stop talking. “Can I take the dog upstairs? He’s pretty shook up.”

  The detective brought me to a merciful halt by touching my shoulder, considered my request, then nodded. “In a minute.” Translation: as soon as the ambulance pulls away.

  Russell barked and struggled furiously to get free. He’d have scrambled into that ambulance with Bert if he’d been allowed to, stayed with him through whatever came.

  I cried harder, because there was no way to explain so the dog could understand.

  “Does he have a leash?” the detective asked quietly.

  I searched the old memory banks, neatly avoiding the ones marked No Admittance. I’d never seen Russell on a leash; he’d always arrived at the bar in the sidecar of Bert’s Harley. But he was wearing a collar.

  “Look behind the bar,” I said. “There’s a junk drawer, under the hot dog machine.”

  The cop nodded, got to his feet and left Russell and I to watch the milling uniforms and plainclothesmen. It made me dizzy, and I finally had to look away.

  The detective returned with a leash. Hooked it through the link on Russell’s collar. “Let’s go, fella,” he told Russell.

  The guy must have been in charge, because nobody questioned us when we left the scene of the crime, though he did pause briefly, just outside, to speak with a young woman pulling on rubber gloves. Upstairs, my door gaped open; I hadn’t taken the time to close it. Russell trundled inside, sniffing the air, and I wondered, momentarily distracted from the horror we’d just left, if he’d caught Chester’s scent.

  “I’d like to take a shower,” I said. I hadn’t planned on saying that, but it sounded reasonable, given that every stitch I was wearing was saturated.

  “Not yet,” replied my official escort. “Your clothes will have to be taken into evidence. A crime scene tech will be up here as soon as they can spare one downstairs.”

  I nodded glumly. “Am I a suspect?”

  The detective smiled. “A person of interest,” he clarified, as though there might be a difference. I’d read The Damn Fool’s Guide to Criminal Investigation, and I knew the drill. The next step after “Person of Interest” was “You have the right to remain silent.”

  He took out a pad, uncapped a pen. “Let’s start with your name, Miss—?”

  “Sheepshanks,” I said. “Mary Jo.”

  Mary Jo? Where the hell had that come from?

  “Everybody calls me Mojo,” I added.

  “Andy Crowley.” He handed me a card. I guess we were past the flash-the-badge stage.

  My landline jingled.

  I looked at Crowley, eyebrows raised.

  He nodded his permission. He also followed me into the kitchen.

  “Thank God you’re there,” a woman blurted.

  “Sheila?”

  Bert’s girlfriend gave a blubbery sob. “I’m in Phoenix,” she said. “Somebody just called on my cell and said the parking lot at Bert’s is swarming with cop cars, and they saw an ambulance, too. Mojo, is Bert all right?”

  I bit my lower lip, glanced down at Russell, who, like Crowley, had tailed me from the living room. The dog’s coat was smudged with blood where I’d touched him.

  “No,” I said gently. “Bert’s not okay, Sheila. Somebody stabbed him. He’s been taken to the hospital.” I looked questioningly at Crowley, wanting to tell her which hospital, where.

  “Either Scottsdale Healthcare or Paradise Valley General,” Crowley supplied.

  I raised my voice to repeat the information to Sheila, who was almost wailing by then.

  “God damn it!” she ranted. “I knew something like this was going to happen—”

  “Sheila,” I broke in, “is somebody with you? You shouldn’t drive when you’re this upset.”

  Crowley nodded with somber approval.

  Oh, yeah. I was on top of the vehicular safety issue.

  Too bad I was also a person of interest in a case of criminal assault that might just turn into murder any minute.

  “Russell!” Sheila cried. “What about Russell?”

  “He’s with me,” I said. “He’s safe.”

  Crowley strolled over to the coffeemaker, filled the carafe at the sink.

  “Bert’s been hurt,” I heard Sheila say, apparently addressing a companion. “Mojo’s got Russell. She says he’ll be taken to either Scottsdale Healthcare or Paradise Valley—will you call and find out?”

  There was a murmured reply, then Sheila addressed me again. “Ellie’s calling the hospitals,” she said. Ellie was her best friend; I’d met her at holiday gatherings in the bar. “She’ll drive me there as soon as we find out for sure where he is.”

  I nodded, tried not to think about the way my T-shirt was clinging to my upper body, stiffening as it dried. I broke out in gooseflesh, and wished I could strip to the bare essentials, right there in the kitchen. Anything to escape the feel of that bloody fabric against my skin. “Okay,” I replied. “Let me know how Bert is when you get a chance, will you?”

  Crowley found the coffee in the cupboard next to the sink, measured some into the basket and pushed the button. He wasn’t staring at me anymore, but I knew he was taking in everything I said, and how I said it.

  “Sure,” Sheila answered moistly. “Thanks for keeping Russell.”

  “No problem, Sheila. Try not to panic, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, without much hope of succeeding.

  We disconnected.

  “What’s your relationship to the victim?” Crowley asked, pulling back a chair for me at the table.

  I collapsed into it.

  “He’s my landlord,” I said. I looked down at Russell, lying in mournful silence at my feet. “And my friend.”

  “And you knew there was trouble because—”

  Because my dead husband told me.

  “There was a lot of noise.”

  “That’s unusual?” Crowley snooped through cupboards until he found the mugs, and set two on the counter, in front of the laboring coffeemaker. It was an ancient machine, and of roughly the same quality as my luggage.

  “No,” I said. “There was just something—”

  Crowley nodded encouragement, leaning against the counter now, arms folded. There were leather patches on the elbows of his lightweight tweed jacket.

  “Weird,” I finished.

  “No disputes over the rent, the air conditioning, anything like that?”

  I’d been in shock at first. Now, I was beginning to get pissed off. “I didn’t stab Bert,” I said, linking the words together like boxcars, each one with an inaudible clank.

  “How do you know he was stabbed?”

  My cheeks burned, and I felt sick at the memory, and the smell of blood rising from my sodden T-shirt. “I guess it was the three-inch slit in his chest,” I said tautly.

  The coffeemaker made a chuppa-whuppa sound, like a helicopter circling in for a landing.

  Crowley poured java for both of us, and joined me at the table.

  I considered adding a dollop of Christian Brothers to mine, but it didn’t seem like a good idea, given that I was trying to present myself as a solid citizen.

  “These questions are routine, Ms. Sheepshanks,” he said mildly, once he was settled. I kept the sugar and the powdered creamer in the middle of the table, along with a plastic spoon, so we doctored and stirred, in our turns. Crowley was a gentleman; he let me go first.

  “What’s next?” I was a little f
oggy on the details, but I didn’t want to jump up and consult a DF Guide. It might be considered suspicious behavior and, anyway, I was too dizzy.

  “A crime scene tech will collect your clothes. With your permission, she’ll take a few photographs, too. Then we’ll leave and you can take your shower.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. “What kind of photographs?”

  “Routine ones,” Crowley said.

  A rap sounded at the outside door.

  Russell lifted his head and gave a grunting woof, but he didn’t get up to investigate.

  “Come in,” Crowley called.

  The same woman I’d seen downstairs appeared in the kitchen doorway, with the handle of a backpack in one hand and a folded paper bag in the other.

  The promised crime scene tech had arrived.

  I signed a release, agreeing to let her take pictures. Legally, they couldn’t force me to pose, not without a lot of paperwork anyway, and it would take time, but I wanted to cooperate.

  “I’m Jennifer,” the tech said, snapping on a fresh pair of gloves.

  “That’s nice,” I replied.

  Jennifer and I trekked to the bathroom and, once inside, she watched clinically as I peeled off my clothes, dropping each garment into her evidence bag as I handed it to her. After that, she took pictures of my naked, blood-smudged body, from every possible angle. It was all very businesslike, but I still felt like a white rat on a lab table.

  When the ordeal ended, Jennifer excused herself and stepped out, and I tucked the shower curtain inside the tub, turned on the taps, and dived under the spray. I scrubbed and scoured, and when I got out, I dried hastily and shrugged into my bathrobe, tying the belt tightly at my waist.

  As expected, Crowley was still in the kitchen, drinking coffee.

  Jennifer was long gone.

  “Am I being watched?” I asked, emptying my mug in the sink and then refilling it from the carafe.

  Crowley pushed back his chair and stood. “Not anymore,” he said.

  He’d been keeping an eye on the suspect until the evidence could be collected, I realized.

  “Don’t leave the area without checking with me,” he told me, inclining his head toward the table, where his business card lay, face up. He’d had the good grace to replace the bloodstained one, at least. Or maybe he’d just wanted my fingerprints.