Let's Fake a Deal

by Sherry Harris

  I ordered a Cape Cod—cranberry juice and vodka—and Stella ordered a scotch on the rocks.

  Stella stood up.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To pick out a song.”

  “I was just using the whole karaoke thing as a guise. I didn’t mean we actually needed to sing.” My voice sounded a little desperate.

  “I told Awesome I was bringing you to karaoke to get your mind off everything that’s going on. You don’t want to make a liar of me, do you?” She grinned and waltzed off.

  “Ugh.”

  “Troubles?” It was the bartender with our drinks.

  I took a sip of my Cape Cod. “Not more than usual.” Way more than usual but he didn’t really care.

  “How about you?” I asked.

  “Can’t complain. I could, but what good would it do, right?” he said.

  “You must see and hear a lot of crazy stuff in here.” I hoped I was leading the witness. I took another drink. “This is great.”

  He smiled. “Thanks. Yeah, it can be pretty nuts some nights. An Air Force dude who was in here the other night was found dead in a car. The woman who killed him was in here that night, too.”

  Oh, no. He thinks Michelle is guilty. “I heard a body was found in the parking lot.” I had to admit that to him. He’d know everyone around here would have heard that. “But I didn’t realize they’d actually been in here. Did you serve them?”

  “I served the dead guy.” He crossed himself. “No disrespect to him.”

  “I’m sorry. That must seem creepy.”

  “Not as creepy as he was.”

  Carol had said he was creepy, too. “Really?”

  The bartender nodded.

  “How so?”

  “Hey, whadda you have to do to get a drink around here?” It was a man on the other side of the bar.

  “Oops. Duty calls.” The bartender winked as he hustled off.

  Stella slipped onto the stool next to me. “Did you find anything out? I saw you were deep in conversation, so I lingered over by the music lists.”

  “Not much. He just told me the major was creepy then some jerk wanted a drink and he took off.”

  “Imagine wanting a drink at a bar. The nerve,” Stella said.

  I laughed. “Did you pick out a song?”

  “A song? I had to linger over there so long that I picked out several. We are going to have fun tonight.” Stella knocked her glass against mine.

  “Why me?” I asked the ceiling.

  “Because you’re lucky,” Stella said bumping her shoulder against mine.

  A man got up on the small stage and launched into “Danny Boy.” It brought the mood of the room down, but everyone joined in. The next two singers, a young couple, caterwauled their way through what might have been a Beyoncé song.

  “We’re up next,” Stella said. She grabbed my hand and dragged me up to the stage.

  Stella had picked “I Gotta Feeling” by The Black Eyed Peas. It was a fun song and in a key I could sing. Pretty soon the whole crowd was on their feet singing about tonight being a good night. I smiled when I spotted Carol edging her way across the room. She joined us onstage. By the time we finished everyone was dancing. Stella, Carol, and I took an exaggerated bow at the end of the song.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Carol when we settled back at the bar.

  “Stella sent me a text. I decided I could use a girls’ night out.”

  “I’m happy you’re here,” I said.

  “So, what are we trying to find out?” Carol asked.

  I must be way more transparent than I realized. “Anything we can about Major Blade. The bartender said he was creepy, too. But then he had to go back to work, so I didn’t find out why he thought that.”

  A different bartender came by. We ordered another round of drinks. We chatted, laughed, and I kept an eye out for any of the other men who had been with Major Blade the night I’d been here with Michelle. I noticed the first bartender was chopping limes near us and turned to Carol.

  “So why didn’t you like Major Blade?” I asked her, already knowing the answer.

  “The creep hit on me at a party,” Carol said.

  The bartender looked up and gave Carol the once-over. “You’re his type.”

  “Tall and blond?” I asked. I left out the part about stacked.

  He pointed to Carol’s left hand. “No. Married.” He looked at Stella and me. “He wouldn’t have been interested in you two at all.”

  Stella, Carol, and I exchanged glances eyes wide.

  “Really?” I asked. “Married women?”

  The bartender nodded. “I’ve seen him doing it all the time, but he even bragged about it to me. Said women whose husbands were deployed were desperate for action. Easy targets.”

  Holy crap. The bartender went back to chopping his limes. Carol, Stella, and I huddled together.

  “If that’s true, and it seems like it is, then the list of suspects is miles long,” I said.

  “There’s more married people on base than single people,” Carol added.

  I swirled the tiny black straw in my drink around, mixing the cranberry juice and vodka. “I need to find out if the men who were with Blade that night were married. Maybe Blade had been overly friendly with one of their wives. And something horrible happened while they were all here. Something worth killing someone over.”

  Stella jerked her head toward the bartender. “He might know more or might have overheard something.”

  The guy in charge of karaoke called out. “Stella, you’re up next.”

  “Oh boy,” Stella said, “you’re never going to believe what song I picked for us.”

  “Us?” I said. “I’ve already been up there once.”

  But Carol and Stella poked and prodded me up to the stage. And then we all sang “Your Cheatin’ Heart” by Hank Williams. We couldn’t even look at each other. By the time the song was over I knew what I had to do next.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I sat across from Michelle Tuesday morning in her office. It was nine fifteen and she’d sponsored me on base. Her face looked paler than it had yesterday when she was at Luke’s house. Maybe he was good for her. I wished I’d stopped at Dunkin’s to get coffee and donuts. Something, anything to try and perk her up.

  Her office was spacious with a round conference table that sat four on one end and her large, impressive-looking desk with two guest chairs on the other. Dark drapes hung on either side of a window that overlooked the parade field and track. The office was an anomaly for the usual Air Force office. Most offices were much smaller. I never understood how spaces were allocated in the Air Force. “How are you holding up?” I asked.

  Michelle wiggled her hand back and forth, indicating so-so. “They had me in for another round of questioning yesterday afternoon after I saw you at Luke’s house.” She colored slightly. “I think they are hoping I’ll crack and confess so they can all go home. I don’t plan to make their lives that easy.”

  “Did you have a lawyer with you?” I asked.

  “Yes. Vincenzo DiNapoli. He’s amazing. Thank you for recommending him.”

  “You’re welcome.” I hesitated before bringing up an uncomfortable subject. “Did you tell them about your running shoes?”

  “No.” Michelle picked up a pen and tapped it furiously against the edge of her desk.

  “Did you at least tell Vincenzo?”

  Michelle looked down at her pen and set it down.

  “What if they get a search warrant?” I asked.

  “They won’t find them. I threw them in a dumpster over by the TLF.”

  The temporary lodging facility was basically a hotel for military people on base. Military families could stay there when they were moving, if they were here vacationing, or here on business. I wanted to thunk my head on the edge of her desk. Michelle must not know about the video the police had. I filled her in.

  “Michelle, we have to figure this out
. Someone is trying to set you up. They were desperate enough to break into your house, steal your shoes, and who knows what else, in an attempt to impersonate you on a late-night run.”

  “I’ve added some new locks and bolts to my doors and lower windows.”

  “Tossing the shoes means you don’t have DNA evidence the person might have left behind,” I said.

  Michelle rubbed her temples. “I’m an idiot.”

  “We can’t undo what’s done.” I struggled to find any further words of comfort and decided to tackle the issue of why I was here. “So tell me about the men who were at the bar the night we were there. Are any of them married?”

  “The colonel is. So is the captain and one of the butter bars.”

  “Have any of them been deployed recently?”

  “The captain just got back from a hundred-and-seventy-nine-day tour in Afghanistan.”

  They sent people back after 179 days because at 180 days they had to start paying them extra and it could be considered a PCS—permanent change of station.

  “What about the colonel?” I asked.

  “He was gone about a year ago for a while.”

  “And the butter bar?”

  “He’s been TDY a lot down to the Pentagon but not on a deployment. Why are you asking about this?”

  TDY stood for temporary duty, which was more or less like a business trip in the civilian world. I told her what the bartender told me last night.

  “That leaves most of the base as possible suspects,” Michelle said.

  “It does. But it seems more likely to me that something happened that night to make someone lash out. Maybe those guys weren’t as buddy-buddy as they seemed. Did they hang out together before that night?” It seemed unlikely to me. A colonel hanging out with butter bars could be risky. It could create chain-of-command issues. The military had a traditional hierarchy set up long ago, which at times even I didn’t understand.

  Michelle looked over my head at something behind me for a few moments, then back at me. “I think Major Blade golfed with the colonel sometimes. Maybe with the captain on occasion. But the colonel is a rule follower. He’d be very careful about who he spent time with and where. Office functions were one thing, but off duty was another.”

  “Do you know their wives?”

  “Not that well. I’ve seen them at social functions, but it’s not like I’m friends with any of them.”

  “Do you know their names?” If I had that information, I could check them out through the spouses’ network.

  “I’ll text them to you.” Michelle got out her phone, jotted some notes, and seconds later my phone bing ed, letting me know she’d hit send.

  I looked at the text. “I don’t know any of them. Although the colonel’s wife’s name sounds familiar.” The base was small as Air Force bases went. But it was big enough that I didn’t know everyone. My social circle had included our neighbors, people who volunteered at the thrift shop, who were in the Spouses’ Club, and the people in the squadron CJ had been in charge of. And since I’d moved off base almost two years ago, there’d been lots of personnel changes. So it wasn’t surprising that I didn’t know any of them.

  “Thanks for the information.” Now for the hard part. “I love my brother, but you have to remember he’s a freaking reporter.”

  Michelle laughed. I was flabbergasted. This was serious. Her career. Even worse, if things went badly, it could be her life.

  “It’s not funny,” I said. I sounded so prissy and uptight that I almost didn’t recognize myself.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just the expression you made.”

  “And please don’t tell me again about the ‘talking’ business. I can only take so much.”

  “When we realized we liked each other, beyond being buddies, we laid some ground rules.”

  I didn’t want to think about what they had laid.

  “We don’t talk about the murder. But I trust Luke. Even if we did talk about it, he wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt me.”

  Yeesh. She had it bad. “You barely know each other. I’m not sure I trust him completely, and he’s my brother.” Last spring I’d been afraid he’d committed a murder.

  “He’s a good man at heart. And he’s been through a lot.”

  “He told you about his past?” I asked. So early in their relationship ?

  “Yes. I was joking when I said we hadn’t talked that much.” She smiled again. “I wish you could have seen your face. We’ve talked for hours.”

  “But what about the police? If they think two people had to be working together, they might think it was you and Luke.”

  “Luke told me you were concerned about that. We don’t think it will be a problem.”

  Part of me wanted to grab Michelle and shake some sense into her. What could I say? They were both adults and knew the risks they were facing. “I guess that makes it none of my business.”

  “That’s where you are wrong. You care about us both. So it is your business.”

  That reminded me I had more questions than answers about Major Blade. I stood.

  “Thanks for stopping by.” Michelle tried a smile, but it looked more like a wince.

  “We’ll figure this out,” I said as I walked to her office door. I realized I had two more stops to make before I left base.

  * * *

  Special Agent Bristow’s office was a stark contrast to Michelle’s. Small, dark, filled with files and books. He had to move things so there was a chair clear for me to sit in. Battered venetian blinds blocked most of the sunlight from coming in.

  “How did you get on base?” he asked.

  “Michelle Diaz sponsored me on.” No sense in lying. He could easily call the visitors’ center to see who had.

  “And the pass included time to come over and see me?”

  “Yes.” The pass allowed me to be on base for two hours. Although it didn’t say I could wander around wherever I wanted to.

  Bristow let it go and didn’t press me on the topic anymore. In fact, he just leaned back in his chair and looked over his readers at me. I was used to this technique since CJ had been in law enforcement for years. It didn’t bother me, but I didn’t want to waste time, either.

  “I wondered if anything came of the message I sent you about the Greens possibly being in the military.”

  “You don’t have any proof that this would come under the OSI purview.”

  “I looked it up. I know you concentrate on felonies and terrorism—”

  “Among other things,” Bristow said.

  “But I read that you also investigate major burglaries. And if the Greens are military and moving from base to base stealing from SuiteSwapzs, then that surely would qualify.”

  “That’s a couple of big ifs. I’d like to help you out but with the murder of Major Blade and a few other ongoing cases, I don’t have time.”

  I stared at him with what I hoped was the lost puppy dog eyes the guy at the flea market said I had.

  “Do you have something in your eye? I have some drops,” Bristow said.

  So much for the lost puppy eyes. “I was at Gillganins last night, and the bartender told me something I thought you should know.”

  Bristow looked up toward the ceiling, more like the heavens, as if he could find some patience there. “We’ve interviewed the staff at Gillganins.”

  “So you know that Major Blade had a thing for married women? Especially women whose husbands were deployed?”

  Bristow didn’t say anything. I took that to mean that he didn’t know. “And of the four other men he was with at the bar that night, three were married and had been either deployed or traveling a lot.” I paused. “Now that is a motive for you.”

  Bristow stood up. “So is having an IG complaint filed against you.”

  I stood up, too. “Killing someone doesn’t make an IG complaint go away. It would only make it worse. Why would Michelle do that?”

  Bristow walked over and opened the door to his
office.

  “Have you interviewed the wives of those men?” I asked.

  “We haven’t. Thanks for coming by.” He paused. “And for the information.”

  I was pretty sure he wanted to tell me to butt out, but he was too polite. And probably having me feed him some of what I knew was better than not talking to me at all. At least that’s what I told myself. I knew I should leave base, but I had one more stop to make.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I parked my Suburban behind the thrift shop. Eleanor’s Mini Cooper was there. I thought she’d be a good starting point to find out about the wives of the officers at the bar Thursday night. The thrift shop wasn’t open to the public today, but there was always work to be done. I let myself in through the back door and found Eleanor with a dustrag in her hand by the section of glasses and dishware. Her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail.

  “Do you have another dustcloth?” I asked. “I can help.”

  “There’s a whole bucketful right there.” Eleanor pointed to a bucket near the book section. It also held a spray bottle of glass cleaner.

  The shelves were a jumble of dishes, all different types of glasses from water to champagne to kids’ juice cups. Usually it looked more organized. “What happened?”

  “We had such a crowd yesterday. The whole place looks like it was hit by a tornado.”

  I grabbed a dustcloth. “Then I’m glad I stopped by.”

  “Why did you stop by?”

  “This has to stay between us.” Eleanor nodded. I filled her in on what I’d heard from the bartender at Gillganins and described the men who were with Blade. “So I wanted to know if you knew any of their wives.” I separated out a section of glasses, dusted the shelf and the glasses as needed.

  “I know the colonel’s wife. She’s quiet. Doesn’t belong to the Spouses’ Club or volunteer here at the thrift shop. Both of their kids are off at college.”

  That sounded like a recipe for loneliness. “Maybe she volunteers someplace else on base.” There were plenty of other opportunities like the base chapel or the Airman’s Attic that provided furniture and household goods to enlisted troops who needed them. The Red Cross or base schools. There were more opportunities than not.