Don't Look Twice (10 page)

K
eith Kramer walked out of the Pequot Woods Resort and Casino in Uncasville into the predawn darkness, not from under the shimmering forty-story glass teepee that towered above the lobby, but with a nod to the waving guard at the rear door marked
STAFF ONLY
and into the anonymity of the employee parking lot.

He'd just finished up his midnight-to-six-
A.M.
shift as a pit boss for the casino. It was his job to watch the tables, make sure the payouts were okay, and stay alert for a sign of any known card counters or professionals. Keep an eye on the dealers too.

Basically, Keith watched hundreds of thousands of dollars each night changing hands with only the clink of a few chips, his share of the tip pool that night falling into his.

All that was about to change.

Keith found his car—he had the Voyager tonight. Their Beemer was in the shop. The payments were getting hard on that one too. He had taken the job as a dealer ten years ago, just to hold them over when Keith's job in the accounting department of Swiss Re fell prey to a merger, and Judy, riding the bubble, got her real estate license. Then Cameron came along, numero uno, and the casino dangled this promotion in front of him—the
health plan, another twenty grand. Now, years later, he was still wearing the boxy navy jacket and black tie and going home wondering what had ever happened to his degree from Wesleyan and with the sour taste of a futureless career in his mouth.

He knew he was falling behind. His college friends were doing deals on Wall Street or had become partners in law practices—and he was living upstate in Madison, in a house Judy had found when the market was soaring, and utilizing math skills he had mastered in the seventh grade.

Now she hadn't sold a house in months. He still read the journals. Still devoured the chess column in the
Times.
He put aside dreams of going back to grad school or working in research for one of the medical companies nearby. Now they had three kids. Every night, he just stood there watching the tables, rolling around in his mind some foolproof way he could out-smart the house.

He started the car, removing a plastic soda cup belonging to one of the kids out of the divider.

He never noticed the headlights that pulled out after him.

Keith veered out of the casino onto the highway as he did every morning, straddling the point where opportunity collided with desperation, his mind a blurring roulette wheel of red and black. There were ways. Ways when no one was looking. When the cameras were off. So much money, it would never be noticed. The sky was just beginning to streak with light.

Cam had a peewee hockey game tonight and Ashleigh trumpet. He would catch them, help them with their homework, maybe catch the third period of the Bruins game on cable. Then it was a quick meal while Judy put them both to bed. Head back to work all over again.

He was running through his mind how at barely forty-one, you could feel this old.

It was all about probability. The probability of ever busting free from your life. Balanced against the risk. The risk of being caught.

Everything was always on the pass line. Until you rolled the dice.

As Keith merged onto 395 South, he felt a little drowsy. There was a Dunkin' Donuts franchise at the intersection. He stopped there every now and then for a wake-up coffee. He steered the Voyager onto the ramp and pulled in.

The Escalade pulled in behind.

He took the key out of the ignition and just sat there. His heavy head came to rest on the wheel. He was tired—tired of falling behind, tired of not doing something. But he knew he never would.
Right, Keith?
These were dreams, dreams he would never act on. Dreams he would roll around in his head every shift, watching the tables. While he waited for the housing market to click back in.

He went to open the door, but someone was standing there, blocking him.

He felt a constriction in his chest that something wasn't right.

But by then the passenger door had opened and a dark-skinned man in a hooded sweatshirt climbed onto the seat next to him.
“Yo, Keith…”

The man removed a strange-looking weapon from under his top and sent fifty thousand volts streaming into Keith's chest, immobilizing him, all his dreams suddenly blurring like a spinning roulette wheel. Red-black-red-black.

Red.

Black
.

Then just black.

T
his was Hector Morales's kind of party.

All it had taken was the right kind of wink to the fox at the bar, a wink that held the promise of free-flowing lines of blow, a bottle of Patrón to go along with it, and the lure of whatever came to mind afterward.

Now they were back in his room, clothes littered on the floor, her thick blanket of black hair bobbing up and down between his thighs, her tongue in an adroit rhythm only a seasoned pro could devise.

Hector leaned back with his hands behind his head. “You sure know how to do that, mama.”

She rose and crawled on top of him. Her breasts were everything he'd imagined when he'd pressed up to her at the bar, and her smooth ass slid easily over his muscular body, straddling him. “You just wait.”

He had been back in the DR for over a week. He knew he had to keep a low profile, maybe for a month or two. Maybe all winter. But if this was any indication of what a connection to the right people and throwing around a little cash could bring, it wouldn't be torture. He was a big man back here, the prodigal
son returned home stuffed with dollars, having carved out his mark in the States.

“Come on up here, mama.”

He would show her how it was done. He pulled her up by the shoulders, hands rubbing hard and possessively across her small yet perfect breasts.
See what's available for just a couple of lines?
They would do anything. Anything for the power it held.

He had seen it in his own mother. In all his life, he had known nothing else.

“What does this mean?” the woman asked, running her tongue along the strong, hard lines of his chest and the colorful tattoos that ran onto his neck.

“This, this is for bravery,” he said, pointing to the Komodo dragon. She kissed it. “This one's for secrecy,” he said, pointing to the ornate red and blue serpent. She kissed that too. “And this one is for you,” he said, drawing her hand to his taut erection.

She bent down and kissed that one too.

“I'll be back in a minute,” she said, climbing off, skipping into the bathroom. “Don't you go away.”

Hector grinned, conjuring up what was about to happen next. “Don't you worry about that, mama.” He closed his eyes. He had done so many bad things, it scared him every once in a while when he shut them. The dark. It was why he had to drown himself in tequila just to go to sleep at night.

He conjured an image of when he was a boy. In Quisqueya, just thirty minutes from here. He lived in a shack with six others in his family. They had no power. Only a water basin outside. They used to kick around a tightly wrapped bundle of paper as a football on a rutted field. From the time he was ten he carried a knife and was known by the police. At fourteen, he
learned to use a gun shooting at sparrows in the trees. Now he could buy any car he wanted, live like a king, dress in fancy clothes.

He heard her come out of the bathroom and felt her crawl on top of him again.

Have any girl.

He liked the feel of her warm body over his and kept his eyes closed. His hands traveled down her waist and found the curve of her smooth, hard ass. His prick sprang alive.

He felt her trace his lips. “So what is this one for, Hector?” He opened his eyes.

Pressed in his face was the barrel of a 9 mm gun.

Hector held back a laugh. Was this a turn-on? She must not know who he was. “You're kidding, right, mama?”

“Yeah.” She smiled back. “I'm kidding, asshole.”

She squeezed the trigger and Hector's head rocketed back against the wall, his mind hurtling back to times when he was not afraid of darkness, sparrows scattering.

B
renda buzzed in Hauck's office. “Lieutenant, call for you. Line one.”

They'd been looking at everyone over the past days. The bank accounts, credit cards, phone records of everyone involved. Airlines and immigration for Hector Morales. Requesting a list from the warden at Otisville for anyone who had visited Vega over the past three months.

They were growing frustrated. Coming up empty. They'd found no link to the gangs, nothing to tie to Josephina Ruiz. Nothing in David Sanger's caseload or Sunil's past. The news reports were saying everything had stalled. And they were pretty much right. Hauck was even thinking about giving in and reaching out to the FBI.

“See if someone else can take it, Brenda…”

“It's a Captain Pecoric, from up in Madison…”

Madison was a small, picturesque town up the Connecticut coast, maybe twenty miles north of New Haven. Rustic inns, boat builders. The captain's name didn't ring a bell.

“He says it has something to do with the case.”

Hauck picked up the flashing line. “Hauck here…”

“Thanks for taking the call. I'm Chief Pecoric, actually. I run the local PD up in Madison.”

“How can I help you, Chief?”

“I think it's more like how I can help
you
. We found the remains of someone up here yesterday. In the Hammonasset State Park. A couple of mushroom pickers stumbled onto it deep in the woods. Looks as if it's been dumped there a couple of days…”

“Okay…”

“Homicides aren't exactly the norm up in Madison, Lieutenant. Especially ones who have been shot in the back of the head at close range.
Twice
.”

Hauck arched up and removed the phone from the crook of his neck. “I'm listening…”

“The victim was a pit boss up at the Pequot Woods Casino. He and his family lived in town here. His name was Keith Kramer. The name mean anything to you?”

“No,” Hauck said, jotting it on a pad and underlining it three times. “You were saying it had something to do with my case…”

“Yeah. That guy who was shot down there, in that drive-by. The prosecutor…”

“David Sanger?”

“Sanger!”
the Madison chief exclaimed. “That's the one. Turns out my guy up here had a bit of a connection to him. We went to speak with the victim's wife. All upset, as you'd expect. Two kids. The guy had been missing for two days. Never came back from work. She muttered something about what a terrible coincidence this was. ‘First that other guy from downstate, Sanger…Now Keith.' Seems they knew each other…”

Hauck wheeled around and snapped for Munoz's attention
in the squad room. He pushed on the speakerphone as the young detective rushed in.

“Knew each other exactly how, Chief?” Hauck asked, feeling the lift when something that heretofore had been hidden and opaque now began to come clear.

“They were actually at school together—back at Wesleyan, in the early nineties. Apparently they kept in touch. According to the guy's wife, the two of them were even roommates for a while.”

It was Sanger.
Hauck suddenly saw it. David Sanger had been the target all along. Josephina Ruiz was merely a diversion. The red truck had pulled up as soon as he stepped in line. Hauck looked at Munoz.

Now he had to find out why.

W
endy Sanger shuffled into the kitchen and stared at the three large boxes from David's office in Hartford that two of his colleagues had driven down last Wednesday. His files, mementos, and tchotchkes that he'd kept in his office. Personal mail. They'd been sitting in the corner of the family room since then. She hadn't had the heart to go through them. Not just yet. She knew she should move them out of sight and into the basement, but it felt like burying him all over again.

She poured herself a cup of coffee.

The two weeks since her husband had been killed were like a blur to Wendy. One day they were getting ready to drive to Vermont and David was prepping for an important case. A week later she was faced with confronting the rest of her life alone. Her sister had left the day before, having to return home to New Hampshire, where her husband taught at Dartmouth and she had two kids of her own. When all the attention died down, the house was eerily quiet. Now there was just the long, dimensionless expanse of time that loomed in front of her, somehow learning to think of David in the past. She didn't know how she was going to handle it. Not to mention Ethan, who didn't understand much of what was going on.

Or Haley.

Her daughter had been so angry since it happened. Wendy couldn't blame her. David had always been her “guy,” a role Wendy could never fill. Imagine being jealous of your own daughter.

She had been hanging out with friends after school, not coming home until after dark, no matter how much Wendy scolded her.
Things don't change, Haley, just because of what's happened.
Not doing her homework, staying in her room by herself and playing music, saying she had eaten and not coming down to dinner.

It was just a phase, Wendy knew. Haley was always the closest to David. She had leaned on him a lot, in a way Wendy could not compete with. She knew her daughter always thought of her as weak, strict, always getting flustered over the littlest things. Always putting Ethan's well-being before hers.

Now who was going to be there for
her
?

Not to mention the financial situation. Wendy had always managed the bills. David was one of the smartest people she knew, but he didn't know an adjustable rate mortgage from the prime. They didn't have a lot of money. David was a government lawyer. He barely pulled in ninety grand. The house took most of it, living where they did, and now they were in contract on this new place. There was the insurance; her dad could chip in for a while. But it wasn't much.

If he'd just gone into private practice like so many of his friends, he'd have been worth ten times as much by now…

“Balloon!” She heard a shout from the TV room. Ethan. He had stayed home from school today. “Mommy, look,
balloon.
”

“Yes, Ethan…,” Wendy called wearily. He was watching a recording they had made of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. He loved it. The colors, the floats. He was having a diffi
cult time figuring out what was happening, why his father was gone. Death was a state his six-year-old, handicapped mind was having a hard time comprehending. “Daddy's on a trip,” he said. “He's coming home soon?”

“No, honey, no he's not,” she said.

She took another sip of coffee.
You're gonna get through this.
She sighed.

She felt so overwhelmed. She looked at the boxes.

Oh, David, how could you leave me alone…?

Empty, needing to feel close, Wendy stepped over to the cartons against the wall and sat down, pulling open the top of the box closest to her. She took out a photo. The four of them kneeling around a giant sea turtle they had come upon in Hawaii. It almost made her cry. Wendy remembered how she had given it to David on their anniversary.

Wendy buried her face in her hands. Would she ever have moments like that again? She reached back inside.

She pulled out a large, stuffed envelope. From Michelle, David's secretary up there, marked
RECENT MAIL
. Wendy unfastened it and slid out the contents.

Letters. Bills. Bundled with rubber bands. Some legal documents, publications he received at the office.

David's things.

She dropped the bundle on her lap. It was too overwhelming. She bunched her lips, fighting back tears. She just wasn't ready to do this…

Ethan yelled, “Mommy, Mommy, look,
Kermit
!”

“Yes, Ethan,
Kermit
!” she heard herself yell. Crossly. She wiped her eyes, knowing that she shouldn't take it out on him. “I'm coming,” she called back, stuffing the mail back in the envelope. “Mommy's coming.”

Something caught her eye. She pulled it out of the pile.

An envelope from Bank of America. In Hartford.

The envelope read,
STATEMENT ENCLOSED
.

They didn't have an account with Bank of America.

All their banking was through Fieldpoint in Greenwich. She pretty much managed everything. David had never spoken to her about another account up there.

That didn't make sense.

She slit it open, thinking maybe he had something put aside for the kids through work. An IRA. That would be just like him, Wendy thought. Not ever mentioning it.

She took another sip of coffee and unfolded the statement. The account was made out to David Sanger. Not in trust. No Minors Act. Wendy put the coffee down. Her eye scrolled to the balance.

She froze.

There was $427,000 in it.