Deadly Gamble: The First Charlie Parker Mystery (3 page)

Back in my own office, I finished up a few
odds and ends. Rusty waited patiently, stretched out on a small
Oriental rug near the bay window. He hadn't budged during Stacy's
visit, probably thinking he'd rack up some good behavior points
that way. I know the mutt. He was probably hoping for a trip to
McDonalds at lunchtime. No such luck.

I worked until one, then made him stay behind
when I left for my appointment with Kent Taylor. APD's headquarters
is downtown, only a few blocks from our office. Getting there takes
maybe ten minutes, finding a parking place, another twenty. Even
so, I'd allowed myself enough time to stop along the way and
indulge in a fast hamburger and Coke. In a burst of health
consciousness, I skipped the fries.

Kent Taylor's office is accessed through a
rabbit-warren of cubbyhole-sized spaces separated by carpet-covered
dividers. Each housed a desk, chair, and wastebasket. I'd been here
once before with Ron, but doubted I could find my way through the
maze again. I didn't need to. I asked for Taylor at the front desk,
and he came up.

Kent is a forty-ish man, dark hair thinning
on top, a thick roll of extra weight around the middle. The
well-fed, cared-for look of a married man with a stay-at-home wife.
His pale blue shirt was neatly pressed, no spots on his tie, slacks
had probably been picked up from the cleaners yesterday afternoon.
I followed him back through the labyrinth to his office.

A glass wall separated his eight-by-ten space
from the main room. I hadn't given much thought as to how I was
going to approach him, and suddenly felt a little nervous.

"How's Ron these days?" he asked, giving me a
little time to work into my story.

"Fine. He's at a firearms show right
now."

"The big one in Dallas?"

I nodded. I'm uneasy about guns. Ron knows
better than to push the subject with me. The gun control issue is
one on which we have an ongoing debate.

The conversation with Kent was dwindling
fast. If I didn't jump right in with my real question, I was going
to be escorted out the door with a "nice to see you."

"What can I do for you, Charlie?" he
asked.

My stomach fluttered a little. "It's about
the Gary Detweiller murder. I saw the article in this morning's
paper."

"Yes?"

"Well, a friend of mine knew him. He's
wondering if you have any leads in the case." I don't lie easily,
and I half expected Taylor to tell me so. Surely he could see the
little words "Liar, Liar" popping out on my forehead.

"We have a few leads," he said. He leaned
back in his chair, his fingers drumming on the arm of it. "You know
how it goes, an apparently senseless killing, guy has no known
enemies. But there's always a motive. Always more to the picture
than the eye first sees." He fixed a direct look at me. "Why? What
do you know about it?"

"Nothing, Kent. Really. I just had this
friend who was concerned. Thought I'd see what I could find
out."

The look of skepticism on his face stung.
"Charlie, don't get involved with this. If you have a client, let
Ron handle it. If your client is directly involved in this case,
you better let me know all about it."

I stood up. "No, this person isn't involved
with any murder," I said staunchly. I hoped it was true.

Walking the four blocks back to my Jeep, I
kicked myself in the butt all the way. That had been a foolish
move. All I'd accomplished was to make Kent Taylor suspicious of
me. I hadn't found out a single fact about the case. And I'd come
off as a meek little twit, trying to stick her nose in where it
didn't belong. I felt like calling Stacy and telling her to count
me out. After all, I didn't owe her a thing. She and Brad North
could rot, for all I cared.

Then I remembered the look on her face, the
fear that had been palpable in my office this morning. Back in our
high school and college days together, Stacy and I had been close.
The best of friends. We'd slept over at each other's houses almost
every weekend, setting each other's hair, listening to Three Dog
Night albums, giggling over boys. She'd been the only person I'd
told when I lost my virginity. I'd been staying at her house the
weekend my parents had flown to Denver, the weekend they never
returned. Stacy's parents had been the ones to break the news of
the plane crash to us. They'd held me close and taken me into their
home for those first confusing weeks until my life took on some
order again. The friendship with Stacy was probably what kept me
from going off the deep end.

I'd been angry with her for ten years now.
Losing one's fiancé to one's best friend is, if nothing else,
humiliating. It was interesting, though, that in her time of need
Stacy had turned to me. I wanted some time to sort this all out,
but didn't have that luxury. Stacy's fear was immediate. The least
I could do was try to find a few answers for her.

The past would have to be shoved into a back
compartment somewhere until I could work on it. For now, I had to
decide on a course of action and follow it—a more prudent course
than I'd taken so far. This much intense thought called for a hot
fudge sundae.

Chapter 3

Thick gray clouds hung low over the Sandia
Mountains. The air felt chill and smelled of moisture. Yesterday
had been sunny with a sky of lapis. I was glad for my thick down
jacket as I walked back to the car. A favorite memory from my high
school years is hot fudge sundaes at Big Boy. With the past
crowding suddenly back into my psyche today, the old craving came
back. I turned east on Central Avenue.

Remodeling has changed the building somewhat,
but the sundaes are the same as ever. I took a corner booth and put
my feet up on the opposite seat. A few minutes later, my sundae
arrived. I spooned whipped cream with a sprinkling of almonds into
my mouth. I pulled my notebook out of my purse and made a few
doodles in the corner. There would be something therapeutic about
letting all my old feelings about Stacy and Brad flow onto the
paper along with the ink from my pen but I wasn't ready for that
yet. My mother had always cautioned me never to write down anything
I wouldn't want to see in the newspaper. Consequently, I've never
been a diary keeper. I still harbor resistance to pouring my soul
out on paper. I decided to confine my notes to the murder case.
Perhaps writing a plan down would help solidify a course of action
for me.

Gary Detweiller. Seducer. Hangs out at
country club. Wife and son. Poor neighborhood. Steals Rolex. Needs
money. ???? The notes covered my small page.

I had to believe that Stacy wasn't the first
woman Detweiller had seduced, probably wasn't the first he'd stolen
from. His approach sounded pretty smooth, his routine well
rehearsed. Except for the time Stacy had surprised him at home.
Maybe his home would be a good starting place.

I scraped the last of the fudge from the
bottom of the cold metal parfait cup, left too large a tip, and
stepped out into the biting wind. Trotting out to the Jeep, I
pulled my jacket together in front with one hand and fumbled in the
pocket for my keys with the other. The clouds spat a few crumbs of
snow over the hood as I started the engine. I rehearsed my story as
I drove up Central, looking for the turn.

Detweiller's house was no more inviting this
time, despite the addition of two cars in the driveway. A pale blue
Honda held the anchor position in front of the single car garage
door. The car was probably eight or nine years old, and the sun had
faded the paint on the hood to near-white. Obviously, the garage
held something other than the car. The second vehicle, a muscle car
from the seventies, had been left primer gray with chrome pipes
showing at the sides, and windows tinted so dark they were surely
illegal. Stickers with illegible words drawn in sharp diagonals
decorated the back window.

I pressed the doorbell, but it felt mushy and
dead. When I got no response to it, I tried knocking on the screen
door frame. It wobbled ineffectually, so I opened it wide enough to
get my hand through, and pounded on the wooden front door. Paint
flakes drifted downward.

A tired-looking woman opened the door. She
was probably in her late thirties, but the eyes were aged to
forty-something. Her medium brown hair was wound haphazardly around
pink sponge curlers, and she clutched a limp pink robe together in
front. She kept herself mostly behind the door, which she had
allowed to open only about six inches.

"Mrs. Detweiller? I'm Charlie Parker. I
wonder if I might speak to you about your husband."

"He's dead." So was her voice.

"I know. I'm very sorry. I just have a few
questions for the investigation." The half truths were beginning to
slip out more easily.

"You'd better come in," she said impatiently.
"You're freezing me out, here."

She stepped back, pulling the door a bit
wider. I opened the screen and stepped into the gloom. She quickly
closed the door behind me. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that
she wasn't wearing anything under the robe, which hung from her
thin frame like a sack.

"I had just stepped out of the shower," she
said. "Can you give me a minute to get dressed?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned
away. Picking up a lit cigarette from an ashtray on an end table,
she disappeared into a dark hallway leaving me the perfect
opportunity to check the place out.

The interior of the small house was about
what I'd expected, given the looks of the exterior and what Stacy
had told me about her one and only visit here. The living room
where I stood was boxlike and stuffy. A tweed couch with saggy
cushions, a peeling vinyl recliner, and a console stereo with a
nineteen inch TV on top seemed to fill the room excessively.
Decorator items were minimal—a framed print showing a dirt road
winding away into the woods hung over the couch. A lump of wadded
laundry, presumably clean, covered about a third of the couch.
Newspapers, magazines and unopened mail were stacked on the seat of
the recliner, while a couple of coats were draped over its back.
One of the jackets was a man's sports coat. Hmmm...

Tentatively, I patted the pockets. A wallet
sized lump rewarded my little feel-up. My heart rate picked up as I
realized what I was about to do. I am not, by nature, a sneaky
person. Well, maybe sneaky but I'm not dishonest. Somehow this felt
dishonest.

I could hear Jean Detweiller in the bedroom.
She wasn't a particularly quiet dresser. I only had a few moments,
and I could think of no plausible explanation should she walk in
and catch me with her husband's wallet in my hands. My stomach felt
a little watery as my thumb and forefinger reached toward the
pocket.

Picking through someone's wallet was better
than interviewing any day. The first thing I did was to memorize
Detweiller's driver's license and social security numbers. Ron had
at least taught me that much about investigation. Then it was on to
the good stuff. There was about thirty-five dollars cash and a
condom in the money section. My, how responsible. A little sheaf of
plastic windows held an insurance card, expired six months ago, a
picture of a teenage boy, presumably Joshua, a coupon for a free
sandwich at Subway, and some lined pages from a tiny spiral
notebook, covered with angular black writing and folded in half.
Somehow those leaped from the wallet to my coat pocket. In the
hidden away-from-wife's-eyes section I found a small wad of four or
five hundred dollar bills, neatly folded. It would have probably
been better politics on Gary's part to keep the money in the money
section and put the condom here. It didn't matter now, anyway.

A noise in the hallway startled me. I dropped
the wallet back into the pocket, patted it shut, leaped the six
feet or so to stand beside the stereo, and picked up the first
newspaper my hand came to. I was casually glancing over it when
Jean Detweiller walked back into the room. My hands were hardly
shaking at all.

"There, that's better," she said. She wore a
pink and gray waitress uniform, the kind from the fifties where the
dress is one color and the cuffs, pocket, and collar are the other.
A perky handkerchief, folded to a point, stuck out of the pocket on
her left breast. She'd brushed out her hair and teased and coaxed
it into some kind of modified bubble. She looked ready to report to
the set of "Happy Days." She glanced at her wristwatch.

"I've gotta be at work at four," she
explained. "Now, who did you say you are?" She continued to bustle
as she talked, apparently realizing what a trash heap the place
was.

"Charlie Parker." I avoided the real
question, figuring it was better not to tell her that I was here at
the request of her husband's latest fling. "I was sorry to hear
about your husband's death. Were you home at the time?"

"Nope. I work six nights a week, four to
midnight, at Archie's Diner." She gathered the heap of clean
laundry into her arms and headed back to the bedroom.

"Archie wouldn't let you have a few days off?
I mean, considering what's happened?" I raised my voice as she left
my sight.

"Oh, he would have. But what's the point?"
She came back into the living room, eyeing the stack of mail and
papers. "What good would it do me to sit around here for a few
days?" Her voice was flat, resigned.

She picked up the mail, flipping through part
of it. Apparently it was all junk, because she carried it away,
presumably to the kitchen, where I heard it thunk into a trash can.
I glanced at the paper I'd picked up. It was a racing form from the
track down near El Paso. Quite a few entries were circled.

"Gary had been out of town, hadn't he?"

"Yeah, I think so. I didn't keep tabs on the
man," she said wearily. "I tried that in the early years, but it's
just too, you know, too draining. Gary gambled, he drank, he
cheated. Nothin' I said or did was gonna change that."