Double Strike (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book 3) (22 page)

TWENTY-THREE

“Dammit, Davis.”

My only sibling. And she talks to me this way all the time.

“I have company!” she whispered.

“Oh, the doctor! I heard about that. Are you sleeping with him? Did I call at a bad time? Meredith, you just met him! Hey,” I said, “send me a picture.”

“What, Davis, do you want?”

“Oh, right. You’ve got to go get Granny. She’s at DeSoto State Park. In the lodge. You should take towels.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ve been body painting.”

“Dammit, Davis, no. Why do I have to go get her? Eddie’s supposed to be with Granny. What’d he do now?”

It was nine o’clock. It felt like ninety o’clock. I was under the gold glass spiked murderous light fixture in Strike. The bartender under the golden glow was crazy hot—sleeves rolled up, messy hair, snapping a bar towel with a loud pop when he wasn’t mixing drinks—honestly, I might just marry him. When I sat down (more like fell down), he reached for my hand, gave it a squeeze, then pointed to the phone. At my ear. I whispered,
Meredith.
Bradley held up a wait-a-minute finger. He winked. He carefully mixed and poured me a martini, then gently pushed it along the granite. It was a chocolate milkshake in a martini glass.

“Eddie got caught up in a big mess of ours, Meredith.” My gorgeous bartender’s head jerked. “And Granny’s up there without a ride.”

“I wasn’t really ready to introduce Corey to everyone just yet, Davis. And I don’t really want to start with Granny and Cyril when I do. Did you say body paint?”

“Edible body paint, Meredith. Edible.”

My bartender laughed.

Debris was cleared from Interstate 59 between Gadsden and Fort Payne, and Richard Sanders rode shotgun with a state trooper to retrieve his rescued wife. He talked to No Hair for two minutes, then asked for me.

“Mr. Sanders?”

“Give it to me straight, Davis.”

I’d walked out of the observation room to the hallway. Missy Jennings, cuffed, led by a female officer and on her way to central booking, stepped into the hall. I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder and waved bye. Jazz hands.

“Davis?”

“Sorry.”

“Tell me now.”

I could hear the crackle of the trooper’s radio.

“She wasn’t involved, Mr. Sanders. Levi Newman truly thought he had me. I can look into it quietly for you, but I don’t think Bianca had a thing to do with it.”

“Not a word to anyone,” he said.

“Of course.”

I wonder if the day will come when her husband really trusted her. He loved her, of that there wasn’t much doubt, but he didn’t trust her. With good reason.

The holding cells were cleared at eight thirty. Everyone was transferred from the luxurious Bellissimo to the luxurious prisoner intake of the city jail. The Bellissimo Eclipse 550 took off from Gadsden at eight forty-five and would be back in Biloxi in less than an hour. I hoped they had Xanax or a two-by-four on that plane for Bianca.

Fantasy, No Hair, and I made our way to Strike for a few (dozen) hard-earned chocolate shake martinis. I poked my head in the IT door, where Bobby with the goatee was chain smoking, drinking straight from a bottle of Jack Daniels, and rolling a chair between terminals. “Hey.” He looked up. “Do any of you guys know anything about computers? Just anyone who can even hit enter who could help me?”

“No.”

“Damn.”

“At ten o’clock, I need you to switch the game over to tournament mode,” I said.

“I can’t do that by myself.”

“Find a way, Bobby, or you’ll be joining your buddies downtown.” I closed the door, and said to the Biloxi policeman who was babysitting, “Watch him. Don’t let him leave that room.”

I made my way to the bar. Bradley. And it was then I remembered the loose string that was my grandmother. Eddie had destroyed the RV, and it didn’t sound like he had any desire to leave Fort Payne Police Station until he’d exhausted everyone with his heroics. “Does he ever stop talking?” the chief asked me.

“No.”

The Strike Casino, on its last night of operation, was a happy place. It was beautiful, the gaming was extraordinary, and finally, it was operating by the book. It was packed, with only two empty gaming kiosks. And those two players were never coming back. No Hair stepped away, Scotch on the rocks in hand, to take a call from a Biloxi PD homicide detective. He returned ten minutes later and sat down beside me to tell me the police had received the forensics results from the feds. They’d recovered two different blood samples from the glass icicle murder weapon. One the victim’s, the other, scant and unknown, but surely the assailant’s. So our perp didn’t drive the stake into Elspeth’s heart without shedding a drop of their own, which was good news for us, if we could get blood samples from everyone who’d ever entered the Strike doors.

“And a partial latent print,” No Hair said, “but not enough to run.”

A latent fingerprint, different from a patent or impressed print, is made when body fluids or other substances transfer an image onto a surface. It’s dusted, photographed, then lifted, and can often point directly to the killer. Latent prints might show up in bacon drippings, buttercream frosting, or huckleberry-scented wax. If so, look at the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker. If they come back Triple Sec, gin, and draft beer, look at the bartender.

Wesley Shaefer.

“He’ll lawyer up, Davis.” No Hair had run out of Scotch. “We won’t get a blood sample from him for six months.” He rattled the ice in his glass. “But at least we know.”

“We already have a blood sample, No Hair. He punched the wall downstairs. We have his DNA all over the interview room.”

It would take time to know the details, but if I had to guess, I’d say Wesley Shaefer heard every word before he busted up mine and Elspeth’s special moment in the liquor closet and he killed her for it.

A sobering thought: If things had gone right for him, mine would have been the next name on his list.

I looked up to see Mr. Sanders, as crisp and fresh as if he’d just returned from vacation, step into Strike. With him, a pale smiling man who had a dark ponytail halfway down his back.

Walter Shaefer.

*     *     *

I took a deep breath before I stepped off the elevator. I can do this. I’ve been through worse.

“DAVID!”

Cue the dogs.

Bianca was freshly showered and wearing a floor-length, sheer, black gossamer robe. Very loosely belted.

Pass the battery acid.

I tried not to step on her little beasts, who were trying to kill me, as I fell into a white wingback chair. I was too tired to get chewed out by a naked woman while standing. Bianca parked herself opposite me, a table holding ivory candlesticks between us, should I need a weapon.

Bianca lit, then took a long drag from her old bad habit. Next, she had a coughing fit. She put out the cigarette, guzzled half a martini (not chocolate) (clear) (vodka), then patted her chest. She dabbed at her eyes with a lapel of the robe. I looked up; I looked down; I looked sideways.

Drumming her fingers on the arms of the chair, she started her speech. “I’ve been good to you, David.”

“It’s Davis.”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

Sorry.

“Richard has been good to you.”

I nodded.

“I realize,” she eyed the pack of cigarettes, thinking about giving them another try, changing her mind, “the casino business is difficult. I’ve grown up in it. You know that, right, David? My father
owns
the Las Vegas Strip. So I realize situations arise with no warning. And you are one of the people Richard and I count on to keep things running smoothly, and we count on you to
protect
us, and to protect our
son.
”

She was up now, and I got a clear shot of her backside on display thanks to her see-through robe. I thought of everyone downstairs at Strike, relaxing, listening to Walter stories, and me up here with Exhibitionist taking the blame for everything. She padded barefoot to a table, picked something up, padded back, and threw it at me.

“Explain this to me this minute, or I will have Richard fire you.”

It was an eight-by-ten glossy of me flying through the air, cannonball style, hair on fire.

*     *     *

We promised them a tournament and we gave them one.

“I can run it with my eyes closed,” Walter Shaefer said. “Point the way.”

“No, Walter.” No Hair was Not Sober. “You sthay right here.” He lobbed a big arm across Walter’s shoulders and almost crushed him to death. We booked Walter in Jay Leno’s suite upstairs, gave him free run of the place for as long as he wanted to stay, and offered him every delicacy the twelve Bellissimo restaurants had to offer. He asked if we minded him making a long-distance call to an old friend; he ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke.

Fantasy texted Mrs. No Hair to explain the Dewar’s White Label situation we had going on with her husband while I was upstairs getting my ass chewed out by Bianca, asking if she’d like to pick him up or if she’d rather us send him home in a Bellissimo limo. She said neither. She’d join us. Another thing that had happened while I was upstairs with Naked was a venue change. Our party had moved to the sunken-seating leather-chair area of Strike with a panoramic view of the gaming. Bradley had given up his bartending duties after four hundred dollars in tips, spilling from his every pocket like a stripper boy’s, and was at my side. Baylor had taken off his gold bowtie and cuffs, and had his gold cowboy boots up and crossed at the ankles on a million-dollar table.

At ten, the gaming went into tournament mode. The Strike player sweepstake points were reset to zero: everyone’s in, everyone has the same chance of winning the million, go! At eleven, the most points wins a million big ones.

“Davis.”

I stopped my chocolate shake midair. “Yes, sir?”

“I offered your ex-ex-husband a job.”

Everyone stopped their drinks midair and stared at Mr. Sanders.

“In Tunica.”

It was the sigh of relief heard round the world.

“You know what?” Richard Sanders loosened his tie. “We forgot the car. The Mercedes. We’re supposed to be giving it away too.”

“We replathed it, Richard.” No Hair tipped his glass. “We’re giving away a…” he thought long and hard, “something else.”

“A Porsche,” I supplied. “A gold Porsche.”

“Where’s the Mercedes?” Mr. Sanders asked.

“Special order thires,” No Hair said. “We couldn’t get replacement thires on it in time.”

“What happened to the original tires?”

No Hair unloaded gun fingers on Mr. Sanders.

Fantasy and I hid behind our drinks so we could laugh at Drunk No Hair.

“Who shot out the tires on the Mercedes?” Mr. Sanders asked. He didn’t wait for an answer before he turned to Walter. “Do you need a car, Walter?”

“Yes.” Walter grinned from ear-to-ear. “I want a hybrid. A Prius!”

I raised a finger. “I could use that Mercedes, Mr. Sanders.”

“Done,” he said to Walter, then to me, “done.”

“Are you giving up the Bug, Davis?” Fantasy asked.

“No. I’m sending that Mercedes to Pine Apple.”

Tammy Cotton, founder of the Cotton Animal Shelter in Geneva, Illinois, won the million. Second place, and a gold Porsche, went to Denise Horn, an Entomologist from Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The clock struck midnight. It was my wedding day.

*     *     *

We were married at five in the afternoon on Saturday, October twenty-second, in the white-wedding living room of the Sanders’s residence at the Bellissimo. My parents drove down, my sister brought a doctor date, and Bradley’s mother was picked up by limo at her front door and flown in by Bellissimo jet. She told my mother she was very afraid that her son would starve to death being married to me and asked my mother why she hadn’t taught me to cook. They were in opposite corners of the white room.

My father gave me away with a kiss to my forehead.

Bianca was bored out of her skull, and dressed in head-to-toe black. Her dogs wore black silk scarves.

Fantasy’s husband and three K children were chasing my niece Riley around, marring all the white.

No Hair was holding his hand out for Aleve every ten minutes. His wife Grace shook them into his open palm.

We sat around an enormous glass banquet table after the quick ceremony. There were toasts and there were tears, all mine. I honestly couldn’t stop leaking. Forks and knives clinked. I couldn’t taste a thing. Mr. Sanders was at the head of the table, No Hair on one elbow, Bradley on the other.

“Bradley,” our host said. “I need a new casino manager. You’re on my short list. In fact,” Mr. Sanders said, “yours is the only name on the list.”

#UhOh