Promissory Payback (5 page)

“Can't you get him a good deal on a car?”

“Sure! But that's what Joe wanted to do.”

“You book his hotel?”

“Of course.” She clicked a few keys on her keyboard to pull up Joe's travel itinerary. “He stayed at the Budget Inn right near the airport. It's just two blocks away. He probably walked it, knowing Joe.”

“To save his client money.”

“Exactly.”

Jane leaned against the desk. “God, if there were more people in this world like Joe, we'd have a better world, wouldn't we?”

“You have no idea, Detective,” Jacque murmured, scrolling through Joe's itinerary.

It was a statement that seemed extremely loaded to Jane. She waited for Jacque to embellish but the woman suddenly became uncharacteristically taciturn. Jane craned her neck to get a better view of Joe's page on the
computer screen. “Any idea when he checked in to that Budget hotel?”

Jacque clicked her fingers across the keypad with lightening speed. “His plane was quite late getting in.”

Jane played dumb. “Really? How come?”

“Well, it doesn't tell us on here. Could be weather or baggage issues.”

“Baggage issues?”

“Yeah. These smaller planes have extremely strict weight rules.”

“Right. Colorado Mountain Airlines. The el cheapo human transporter.”

Jacque forced an odd smile toward Jane. For some reason, the woman seemed insulted by Jane's sarcastic remark. She turned back to the computer screen. “What CMA lacks in stature they more than make up for in other ways.”

“What other ways?”

“Excuse me?”

Crazy how Jacque's hearing seemed to fluctuate. “How does CMA make up for it?”

She looked Jane straight in the eye. “Impeccable customer service.” This time her smile was genuine. She turned back to her computer screen. “They make travel happen just like I do!”

Jacque expressed a need to get back to booking a backlog of clients' tickets. Jane nodded and was about to make an exit when she spotted another photo of Travis on Jacque's desk. It was tucked close to her computer. There was the boy, looking much older, in a more recent shot, standing outside on what appeared to be an airport tarmac. He was wearing a dark blue jacket with a clear emblem on the left breast pocket. Jane easily recognized
the economical block lettering and half-ass illustration of a snowcapped mountain above the “M.” It seemed that Travis worked for Colorado Mountain Airlines. Ironic, Jane thought.
Fucking ironic
.

“Anything interesting on those security videos?” Jane asked one of the techies back at DH.

“Nothing so far. It's like watching a test pattern,” he lazily replied. “I have video of Handel leaving and coming home but that's it for action.”

Jane hated depending upon someone else to do follow-up. They usually never had the same interest or keen eye she possessed. “I want to check the tapes out later myself,” she stated, picking up the phone.

“How many hours you want cued up?”

Jane dialed. “Every last fucking minute.” She connected with the head desk at the Budget Inn where Joe Harvey spent the night. It was instantly clear to Jane that the voice on the other end was that of a brain-dead seat warmer who didn't have a clue. When she asked the guy if he recalled seeing Joe Harvey, he spent most of the time saying, “Ummm” and “Uhhh.” The most she could get out of the Mensa reject was that “his computer showed”
that Harvey checked in at 9:35 PM. Factoring the one-hour time difference between California and Colorado, that would make it 10:35 PM MST. Even with the flight delay, Harvey should have checked in at least two hours before that. Jane asked to talk to a manager, hoping to get a better bead on the situation. After an interminable time on hold listening to Barry Manilow sing, “I Write The Songs,” an older-sounding woman with a bad cough came on the line.

“Yeah, I remember him,” the woman said, expelling part of her lung. She described Joe to a T.

“Did he seem agitated?”

“Nah. If anything, he was quite relaxed. Real easy goin' kinda guy. Said he'd been across the street at the Airport Lounge gettin' some food and doin' some readin' and he lost track of the time. That's why he was late checkin' in. Said he was out here on business overnight and was glad to find a hotel so close to the airport. He complimented me on our lobby. Nice guy.”

Lots of volunteered information there.
Lots of it
. The same way Joe offered so much “chatter” info to Jane about his plane being late due to baggage issues. It's not that a person can't shoot the shit with a woman behind the counter of a budget hotel. That wasn't the point. The point was understanding the
type
of person who would naturally do that, and Joe Harvey, in Jane's mind, was not that type. People who are out to save the world have a single-minded purpose that prevents them from wasting their time or breath on chitchat that is not driven to their specific goals. They are far too focused on their self-important objectives. And referring to Joe as “relaxed”? Well, again, the intensity that colored him during Jane's interaction with him was not likely to be transformed into “relaxed,” especially
after a delayed flight and a nocturnal arrival walking to a budget hotel. No, if anything, irritation would be the key word.

It had to be an act, Jane deduced.
A carefully orchestrated act
just in case anyone like Jane followed up on his appearance at the hotel and asked about his behavior. He
had
to make his interaction with the woman at the front desk memorable for her, just in case.

Her mind drifted to the two photos on Joe's office wall that she felt held significance in this whole mess. Pissed-off investors, perhaps? Jane's clear photographic memory recalled Charley P. Hall, former P.O.W., and Raymond Honeycutt from a Denver diabetes support group associated with Denver Health Medical Center. After calling the V.A., it took Jane less than ten minutes to track down Hall. Without Jane being too specific about her visit, he agreed to talk to her that evening at the house he shared with his daughter in Montbello. Raymond Honeycutt was even easier to find, being that he was actually
in
Denver Health Medical Center as a patient. But she was informed that Honeycutt was under “massive sedation” due to “mitigating factors” and probably wouldn't be able to talk to her until the next day. Jane figured Honeycutt was either in the psych ward or dying. Either way, she wasn't looking forward to their visit. Tonight, she'd tackle the former P.O.W.

When Jane pulled her Mustang up to the ramshackle house that night, she made a point to secure her Glock a little tighter against her rib cage. This section of Montbello was no
Ozzie and Harriet
neighborhood, unless Ozzie was a drug dealer and Harriet was his mule. A child's bike lay across the front steps, along with stacks of old newspapers, garbage bags and pots with dead plants. Jane knocked on
the door and was about to put out her cigarette when Hall opened the door.

He was a giant of a man, towering around six feet eight inches tall and barrel-chested. A cigarette teetered precariously from his chapped lips, dropping embers onto his well-worn flannel shirt. She swore that one errant ember touched the back of his hand and singed the hair, but Hall never flinched an inch. This was the kind of guy who chewed ammo and bathed in napalm when he served in Vietnam. He still sported his military buzz cut and his blue eyes still spied the Vietcong around every dark corner.

“Mr. Hall. I'm Detective Jane Perry.” She started to extinguish her cigarette.

“You can smoke in here. I don't give a shit,” he said, ushering her inside.

This was going to be different, Jane mused. She walked into the low-ceilinged house, cluttered from end to end with junk. Between the claustrophobic environment and dim lighting, it felt like a bunker. Several empty bottles of Jack Daniels lay discarded on their side next to an easy chair that had well over two- dozen cigarette burns. Hall lowered his large frame into the chair, momentarily wincing with pain. He motioned for Jane to move a pile of dirty clothes off the couch and sit down.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Hall.”

“Well, it wasn't like I had anything planned. Just the usual.” He withdrew a bottle of Jack Daniels secured in the side of the chair's cushion. “I'm halfway through a fifth of Jack and a quarter of the way through my third flashback of the night.”

Jane's protective instincts kicked in. “I noticed the kid's bike outside. Is there a child in the house?”

“No. My seventeen-year-old grandson stole it from a six-year-old Down syndrome kid. He's trying to sell it on eBay. Said he's going to use the money to get his tongue split so he can look like a lizard. He's not here or I'd let you arrest his useless ass.” Hall took a generous swig. “My daughter's at work. She waits tables at a biker joint on Colfax. On the weekend, she works the pole at The Pussy Palace strip club. My sixteen-year-old granddaughter is at her Lamaze group. In three months, she'll deliver twins. We've haven't gotten the DNA results back on the four potential boys who might be the father. The fifth possible match won't get out of juvie until after the twins are born. So, life's a real adventure around here.”

He took another gulp of whiskey and Jane sucked a hit of nicotine. She knew the answer to her next question but she wanted to hear it anyway. “You move in with your daughter by choice?”

“Oh, yeah. Between the curb appeal and neighborhood potlucks, how could I turn her down?”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Nine months, seventeen days. But who's counting?” He knocked back another swig.

Jane leaned back and felt the stab of metal bite into her lower back. She turned and withdrew a single piercing in the shape of the sun.

Hall shook his head in disgust. “Oh, Jesus.” Jane handed it to him. “My daughter is always losing these damn things. Seem to keep falling off her nipples . . .”

Okay, this was obviously a bleak existence for Charley P. Hall, former P.O.W. The Vietcong never tortured Charley as much as his own trailer trash family. Jane took a hit of nicotine. “Why'd you lose your house, Mr. Hall?”

“Who said I lost it?” He was wily even though he was half in the bag.

“You don't live here by choice. Who caused you to lose your house?”

Hall eyed Jane with steely grit as he methodically lit a new cigarette off the ember of the one in his mouth. “
Who
? What do you mean ‘who?'”

Jane figured he had a knife in his boot and a gun tucked into his waistband, either one ready to put to use if he felt cornered. She casually unbuttoned her leather jacket to reveal her holstered Glock.

Hall leaned forward. “Your service weapon looks dusty. When was the last time you emptied a clip into a perp's head?”

Jane leaned forward, mirroring Hall's intimidating manner. “This morning. Right before breakfast. Haven't had a chance to clean it yet.”

He stared at her for a hard minute. Jane never moved a muscle. Thankfully, he couldn't hear her heart beating like a horse at full gallop. He slightly relaxed and sat back in the chair. “Want a drink?”

Even if Jane were still bending her elbow, she would have declined his offer. “No, thanks. I'm on the job.”

“And that job would be ... what?”

“Finding the individuals who invested in Carolyn Handel's scam.”

“What makes you think I'm one of them?”

“I saw your photo on the wall of Joe Harvey's office.”

“That's all? A photo? Why would that make you think I was an investor in some woman's scam?”

The alcohol was lowering Hall's ability to tell a lie. As far as Jane was concerned, the guilt of association was all over his face. “Call it intuition. You know what that's
about, right? Like when you were in ‘Nam and walking through a field and you just knew it was booby-trapped? You just
knew
. I looked at your photo on Joe's wall and I just knew.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “What if I did invest with her? What does it matter?”

“Well, for starters, she'd dead.”

Hall's face never changed. No surprise. No smirk. No sadness. Nothing. “Okay. And?”

“It wasn't from natural causes.”

“I still don't know why you're here—”

“I did a quick check with the County Clerk's office today. The house you lived in for over thirty years went into foreclosure ten months ago. You'd taken a second mortgage on it last year, and you weren't making regular payments.” She noted how Hall's eyes narrowed into a menacing glare. Jane calmly continued. “My theory—and it's just a theory of course—is that you mentioned this in passing to Joe Harvey, and he wanted to help you by hooking you up with his Aunt Carolyn who promised to make all your problems go away if you loaned her your last fifty thousand dollars—”

He jerked forward, slamming the Jack Daniels bottle on a soiled carpet. “Do I look like a guy who'd be that stupid?”

“I never said you were stupid, sir—”

“Well, that's what I'm hearing! You think if I had fifty grand, I'd hand it over to some goddamned woman without checking her out? You think I'm a fuckin' fool?!”

Jane studied his face. That's exactly what Charley Hall did. And he hated himself for it. He woke up with that regret, and it was the last thing on his mind before his tired head hit the pillow at night. He thought he was smarter
than that, but somehow the booze and PTSD had marred his judgment. But he was sure as hell not about to admit it to some female cop who had the gall to remind him of his desperate decision. Jane felt nothing but sorrow for the guy. He'd be dead in less than five years, she figured; either by eating his gun or the result of his rotting liver. But she also knew that the bile rising up into his throat was putrid enough to fuel the rage and possibly trigger the need to kill Carolyn Handel. Proving that, however, was another thing altogether.