Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (21 page)

“Hey!”

Truman and Jackie turned around. A short bald man dressed in pastel-yellow Bermuda shorts and matching knit golf shirt had a handful of cash in one hand and a large lit cigar in the other.

“You people having a prayer meeting here or something? Let’s get going, okay?”

“Hold your horses, Al,” Marion said. “They were just leaving.

“Sorry,” she said in a low voice. “That’s another of my regulars. He’s a good tipper. I can’t afford to piss him off.”

“That’s okay,” Truman said. He paused, took a dollar bill out of his pocket, and pushed it across the window toward her. “For your trouble,” he said.

“No problem,” she said.

“One more thing,” Jackie said. “Did you tell the police about seeing Rosie that night?”

“I left early that night,” Marion said. “Had a fierce migraine. After I read about what happened in the paper, I called the cops.” She rolled her eyes. “Big deal. They switched me from one line to another. Finally I got the homicide detective’s office, one of those voice-mail systems. I finally just hung up.”

“Nobody ever called you back?” Truman asked.

“Come on, come on,” A1 said. He pushed up to the counter and started counting out bills.

“Never heard from nobody,” Marion said. “Sorry. I gotta work now.”

They had to rap on the glass doors of the Derby Club to get someone to let them in. Finally a red-jacketed waiter appeared at the door. “We don’t open till six,” he said, starting to walk away.

“Wait,” Truman called. “I need to ask you something.”

The waiter came back and unlocked the door, holding it ajar.

“We’re trying to find out something about the young woman who was killed here last week. Rosie Figueroa. She was a tout, worked the entrances all the time. Maybe you knew her?”

The waiter shook his head. He was middle-aged, thin, with a thick mustache and mutton-chop sideburns. “I saw the girl’s picture in the Times, but no, I didn’t know her.”

“Could she have been up here in the restaurant last Saturday night?” Jackleen asked.

He shrugged. “If she was, I didn’t notice her. That was Snowbird Special night: four thousand tourists, all of them wanting the eight ninety-nine early-bird special. What a nightmare!”

“I can imagine,” Truman said.

“Besides that, the only thing out of the ordinary was that security got called to drag some suspicious character out of here. Somebody said the guy had a gun.”

“A guy with a gun?” Truman asked. “What was he doing?”

“Just standing there glaring, like a tough guy,” the waiter said.

“What did he look like?” Jackleen wanted to know.

“Big guy. Maybe six three, two forty, two fifty. Muscular-looking. He wasn’t dressed to come in here— our customers have to wear a coat and tie—so he stood outside by the elevator.”

“But he didn’t pull the gun or threaten anybody?”

“Nah. Nothing like that.”

Truman took the key out of his pocket and showed it to the waiter. “Does this look like the key to anything around here?”

“Why?”

“We’re detectives,” Jackie said. “We think it might have something to do with the murder.”

“It looks kind of familiar,” he allowed. “But I don’t know why.”

“Would it fit anything up here?” she asked, looking around the deserted three-tiered dining area.

“Take a look,” the waiter offered. Truman and Jackie followed him across the room to a service bar. The waiter bent down behind the counter. “Can I try it?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Truman handed it over. A second later the waiter stood up and handed it back. “Sorry. No good.”

With Jackie and Truman following behind, the waiter tried the key in the kitchen meat locker, a storage room where extra glassware and linens were kept, the mop closet, and the employee rest rooms.

The waiter seemed disappointed at his failure.

“Seems like I’ve seen a key like it. But I can’t think where.”

“Thanks anyway,” Truman said.

On the club level, business had started to pick up. All the seats at the curving bar were filled, and another dozen or more people sat at tables. It was dark in the bar. Ceiling-mounted televisions and red-shaded candle lamps at the tables provided most of the light.

“Let’s ask the bartender,” Truman suggested.

“Never seen it before,” she said, glancing up from the lemons she was slicing.

“Are you sure?” Jackie pressed.

“I’ve got three keys for this bar,” she assured them. “None of them look like the one you got.”

By the time they got down to the grandstand area, people were streaming through the turnstiles.

“You know what?” Jackie said. “We forgot to show the key to Marion.”

“You’re right,” Truman said. They walked back over toward the cashier’s line. At least twenty people were in Marion’s line.

“She must be everybody’s lucky teller,” Truman said.

“Let’s come back later to talk to her,” Jackie suggested. “I want to look for that cop friend of yours.”

“My daughter’s,” he reminded her.

They found Bobby Roberts down by the bleachers. He stood with his back to the crowd, scanning the rows of benches for something or someone.

“Bobby?”

Roberts whirled around, smiled broadly when he saw who was standing there.

“Hey, Mr. Kicklighter. How you doing? You gonna win some loot tonight?”

“Haven’t even doped out my picks yet,” Truman said, suddenly realizing the truth of the statement.

Bobby leaned in closer, putting an arm around the older man’s shoulder. “Put a little something on the three-six-eight in the fourth,” he said. “I was talking to some people today, say it’s a sure thing.”

Truman pulled his change purse out and extracted two bills. “I’ll do just that,” he said. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Say, if you’re not betting, what are you doing here?”

Truman saw he was looking pointedly at Jackleen.

“Bobby, this is my friend Jackleen. She works in the restaurant at my hotel. She was with me and Mel last week.”

“Doing a little sleuthing, eh? Return to the scene of the crime?”

“Sort of,” Truman admitted. “We were wondering, do you know anything about a woman, a blond woman who could have been mixed up in this thing with Wade Hardeson and that computer disk?”

“A blonde? No. Why?”

“We went over to the tourist court where Rosie Figueroa lived today. A kid told us he saw Wade going into the cabin this afternoon. And while he was inside, this woman, she drives a Firebird, she comes up and she’s peeking in the windows, watching him.”

“That right? The kid see anything else?”

“Nothing important,” Jackleen said. “We were wondering something else too. Rosie’s car has been parked at that place all week. It hasn’t been disturbed. We were wondering how she got here.”

“Carl, one of the guys at the valet parking, saw her getting off a city bus about six-thirty, something like that.”

“Half an hour before post time,” Jackie said thoughtfully. “Plenty of time to hide something.”

“Whoa now, folks,” Bobby said sternly. “I understand you wanting to clear your friend’s name. But you can’t go around messing with evidence. You do that and you’ll hurt your friend more than help.”

“All right,” Jackie said. “I guess we sort of got carried away.”

“No problem,” Bobby said, relaxing. “Say, Mr. Kicklighter, did Cheryl tell you I looked her up? We had dinner the other night. Heck of a nice kid, that grandson of yours.”

“What?” Truman’s mind was somewhere else. “Oh, uh, no, I haven’t talked to her. That’s nice.”

Bobby’s eyes flicked toward something behind Truman.

“Whoa. Gotta go. There’s a couple of high school kids at that hot-dog stand over there, buying beer. Fake ID probably. Lemme go explain the law to them. See you folks later.”

Jackie’s face was glum. “Oh well. No sense hanging around here, right? You got any other ideas?”

“Yeah,” Truman said, holding up the two dollar bills he was still clutching. “I got an idea. Let’s go play that tip Bobby gave us. At Marion’s window. Then we go down to that loading area where they found the girl’s body; see if we see any locked doors down that way.”

“But that cop just said—”

“The hell with him,” Truman said, waving his hand dismissively. “That’s what’s wrong with this generation of yours. You never learned to question authority.”

There was a new gate, chain metal six feet tall with a heavy-duty padlock blocking off the ramp-way to the area where they had found Mel, sitting beside Rosie’s body.

“This gate wasn’t here last week,” Jackleen said. She tried to put the key in, but it stuck, and she had to wrestle to pull it back out.

“Is there another way down there?” Truman wondered.

“Beats me. I know there was a fence around the area where the dogs were locked in their trucks, and that led out into the parking lot,” Jackleen said. “I guess we could go outside the track, walk around till we see it.”

“We’ll check it on the way out,” Truman said. “But I’ll bet the outside gate’ll be locked and double-locked now.”

“Let’s try to talk to Marion,” Jackleen suggested.

The redheaded woman smiled when she saw them. “You folks still here?” She was breaking up a roll of quarters, putting them in her cash drawer.

Jackie held up the key. “We found this and we’re thinking maybe she got killed for it. Does it look familiar to you?”

Marion took the key and looked at it.

“Hey,” a voice behind them said. “You people mind? It’s only a couple minutes to post time and I got bets to put down here.”

Marion handed the key back. “Looks like any other key,” she said. “I can’t talk. My supervisor’s standing over there, watching me.”

Reluctantly, Jackie and Truman moved away from the windows.

“Can we eat now?” Jackie asked. “We’ve been on the run all day. I’m really, really hungry.”

“Okay,” Truman said. “Let’s get a hot dog down there on the mainline, watch a couple of races. Then we can start looking again.”

Mr. K’s energy was a marvel to Jackie. Here he was, what, sixty-some years old, and he never seemed to tire out. Her own sorry behind was dragging and here it was barely nine o’clock.

“No. I want to sit down and eat. Get me a cold beer,” she said. She added quickly, “My treat.”

He started to refuse, but she insisted. “You drove,” she said.

“Just a sandwich then,” he said, relenting.

They found a table in the fourth-floor lounge, ordered club sandwiches and two beers, and sat back to watch the third race.

Jackleen produced a racing program from her purse and began studying it.

“Where’d that come from?” Truman demanded.

“I found it on the counter in the ladies’ room,” Jackleen said. “I guess somebody got fed up and went home early. Look. Somebody had all their bets planned out.”

“If they went home this early, they were losing,” Truman said. “I played the race that cop told me about and lost. I’ll watch, but I’m not playing any more tonight.” He crossed his arms over his chest to demonstrate his resolve.

Jackie dug down in her pocketbook and brought out a small zippered change purse. She counted out the crumpled ones and the quarters, nickels, and dimes. “Sixteen dollars,” she announced.

Their sandwiches arrived and Jackleen nibbled at hers while poring over the program, her pen poised on the race form.

Truman ate half his sandwich in five quick bites. He was hungrier than he’d realized.

Bored, he began looking around the room. For a lounge, it was well lit—so people could study their programs, he assumed.

The crowd was a mixed bag but ran heavily to casually dressed retirees like himself. Here and there were tables with younger couples and there were some college kids too, down for spring break. Sitting at the bar were the serious players, hunched over their programs and drinks, a blue haze of cigarette smoke swirling above their heads.

“Okay,” Jackie said, slapping her hand on the tabletop. “Quinella box, seven-four-five. Here goes nothing.”

“You’re nuts,” Truman said. “Why don’t you take that money and flush it down the toilet instead?”

Jackie was up and moving toward the betting windows.

When she came back she fanned the betting slips in front of Truman’s face with a flourish. “Marion said it’s a long shot, but she likes it.” Then she held the tickets to her lips and kissed them lightly. “That’s for luck,” she said.

The bell rang and the mechanical rabbit took off with eight greyhounds in hot pursuit.

“Seven-four-five,” Jackie chanted, squeezing her eyes shut and crossing her fingers on both hands. “Come on, seven-four-five.”

A moment later Truman was standing up, shouting at the television screen. “Seven-four-five, seven-four-five! Yes!”