Deadly Gamble: The First Charlie Parker Mystery (9 page)

That decided, I spent the rest of the
afternoon catching up on my own work. Ron had left a crumpled pile
of travel expenses in the middle of my desk. I organized them by
category and filed them where I could find them again when the
credit card bills arrived. Accounting tends to pile up when I'm not
looking. One week everything is done. The next week, a new month
has begun and suddenly I'm behind again.

I usually bill clients on the first and
fifteenth, so I was already several days behind on that.
Fortunately, since Ron was out of town there weren't a lot of new
entries in his log book. That part of it only took an hour or so. I
posted the billing into the computer, reviewed the past due
accounts, and printed statements. Very few of our cases are as
clandestine as Stacy's with the client paying in cash. Most of the
work is done for law firms or insurance companies. Those people
like everything in writing and neatly organized. Ron isn't the most
organized person in the world so that's where I come in.

By four o'clock I had a neat stack of
envelopes on my desk ready to drop in the nearest mailbox. Tomorrow
I could post the expenses and run some preliminary month-end
figures. Then I'd have the tax returns to work on. I'd almost
forgotten them. Normally I'd have done them by mid-February, but my
computer had been in for repairs for two weeks, which had really
thrown a kink in things. Another reason I should have sent Stacy
away when she first showed up.

Rusty rode with me this time. First stop,
Tanoan Country Club. I hoped to arrive before the dinner crowd,
perhaps while the wait staff was setting up. For once, I got my
wish. The maitre d' I'd seen in action the other day was bustling
around, sans jacket and accent, barking orders at the waiters. I
hung to the side, not particularly wanting to attract his
attention. He wasn't the sort to talk about the clientele. No, I
wanted somebody with either vengeance or gossip on his mind. Within
three or four minutes the maitre d' had been called into the
kitchen on some emergency, and I spotted my chance. A young
waitress (probably called a server here) was laying out place
settings on a table for eight near me. She looked about twenty. Her
blond hair was pulled into a pony tail at the very top of her head,
where it spewed forth like a waterspout. Her head bobbed up and
down in time with some internal tune she hummed between chomps on a
huge wad of bubblegum.

"Excuse me," I whispered. "Could you come
here a minute?"

She glanced around to see who might be
watching. The boss safely out of sight, she sidestepped toward
me.

"Do you work here on Friday nights?"

She nodded, the gum popping again.

"Could I ask you a few questions,
privately?"

She checked out the room again, hesitating.
The other waitpersons seemed oblivious, each wrapped up in their
own tasks. The boss had not reappeared yet. Still, she seemed
nervous. I dug into the side pocket of my purse and came up with a
ten dollar bill. At the same time, I indicated a small alcove off
the entry. It was out of sight of the dining room.

"Okay," she agreed, "just a couple of minutes
though. Andre gets really ticked off if he catches us goofing
around."

I produced the photo of Gary Detweiller. "Do
you remember seeing this man at the Friday dinner dances a few
times?"

"Oh, yeah. For an old guy, he was real sexy.
He had this smile. . . you know. Well, I don't know how to explain
it, but it kinda made your heart go faster when he turned this
smile on you."

"Did he flirt a lot? Like with all the girls
here?"

"Look, you're not his wife are you?" She eyed
me suspiciously.

"Not hardly. Just tell me about him."

"He mostly flirted with the club members. I
mean, he'd flash that smile at us girls when he placed his order or
like when he wanted another drink. But he really poured it on with
the rich women. And sometimes when their husbands were sitting
right there."

"Anyone in particular?"

She glanced upward, thinking. "Not really.
Just about everyone. There was this one blond lady. She always wore
a black fur coat. Her husband's a big chubby guy who's always
obnoxious to the help. They're in here all the time but I'm not
sure what her name is. Want me to find out?"

"No, no. It's not that important." Great. All
I needed was for this chick to make the connection between
Detweiller and Stacy. "Any others?"

"A few, but I don't know their names either.
Oh, Ms. Delvecchio. I think he put the moves on her once. I'd gone
into the bar," she nodded toward a doorway behind us, "and was
coming back with a trayful of drinks. He had whispered something to
her, and she laughed about it. Then she, you know, kind of like
blushed." She raised her eyes upward again, thinking. "I can't
really remember any others."

"Well, thanks, you've been helpful. Look,
don't mention this to anyone, okay." I nodded toward the ten dollar
bill in her hand. "It's just between us."

She peered cautiously through a potted palm
before stepping back into the dining room. I didn't have much hope
that she'd really keep our conversation secret, but she didn't know
my name so how far could they trace me?

Downstairs, the offices beside the main
entrance were quiet, although a few lights remained on. Spotting a
computer monitor that was still on, I had a flash of inspiration.
It took me about two minutes to figure out the menus and find Carla
Delvecchio's address in the membership roster. I memorized it
quickly, just before I looked up to find a secretary approaching.
She was glaring right at me.

Chapter 9

"Who
are
you?" The secretary stood
directly in front of the desk with arms folded. If her blue power
suit and short masculine hairstyle were designed to intimidate,
they sure worked.

"This computer isn't down," I said, clicking
the few necessary keys to sign off.

"Excuse me?"

"You didn't place a service call to IBM?" I
stood, gathering my coat around me, slinging my purse's shoulder
strap into place.

"No, we did not." Her voice was pointed, and
not the least bit friendly.

"Well, then someone gave me wrong
information," I said, pretending to consult some paperwork in my
purse. "Sorry to have troubled you." I headed for the door.

"Wait, let me see that work order," she
said.

I pretended not to hear her. My feet didn't
slow down until I reached my car. My heart didn't slow down until I
was six blocks away.

The sun was low over the volcanoes by now.
There wouldn't be a fabulous sunset tonight though. This morning's
thin clouds had spread and the wind picked up. Tumbleweeds skipped
across the road, lodging against the white block Tanoan wall on my
right. I took Wyoming south to Lomas. The worst of the go-home
traffic had dissipated, but it still took nearly twenty-five
minutes to find Penguin's bar.

It was one of those small neighborhood
places, the kind with its own set of regulars who probably come by
for a beer every night of the week and stay late on Mondays for
football. The kind where a strange face sticks out like a bum at
the country club. I figured this out when no fewer than fourteen
heads turned to stare as I walked in the door. Ninety percent of
the crowd was male. In my wool slacks and sweater that had seemed
casual at Tanoan, I suddenly felt overdressed here.

Penguin's was one room, squarish. A third of
the space at the far end was filled by two pool tables. A lamp hung
over each, a poor plastic imitation of stained glass. Both tables
were in use, encircled by men in work clothes with patches over the
breast pocket disclosing their names. The bar was directly in front
of me, with the intervening space filled by a dozen or so square
Formica topped tables flanked by four chairs each.

Few tables were occupied, but the bar was
crowded. Since I wanted to talk to the bartender, I squeezed
through to the one empty stool.

"Yes, ma'am?" The bartender was
forty-something, medium height, skinny, with a dark hairline that
had receded in a large inverted W. His sharp facial features were
softened by age. There was a tiredness around eyes that had seen
too much, jowls that sagged from a lack of smiling.

"I'll have a white w....," I glanced down the
bar at the other patrons’ drinks. "Make that a Bud Light."

He shoved a large mug under the tap without a
word. Meanwhile, I felt other eyes upon me, and looked up at the
man beside me, a big guy in his mid-fifties wearing a blue work
shirt and pants. He turned to stare into his beer when I sent a
little smile his way. I planned to sip my beer slowly and hoped the
crowd would clear out a little so I could speak to the bartender
without twenty other sets of ears picking up the whole thing. Since
I'm not a beer drinker, this should not prove difficult.

Other conversations began to pick up again.
The TV set in the corner carried the news and I remembered that
football season was over. Within twenty minutes, several of the men
at the bar left. I took another sip and bided my time. By seven
o'clock there were only five or six people scattered around the
room. The man next to me hadn't budged.

"Shame about Gary Detweiller," I commented
after trying out some standard small-talk.

He sipped. "Yup. You knew Gary?"

"Friend of a friend," I said. "She's pretty
broken up about it."

"Lady friend, huh? Well, tell her not to get
too broke up. He had a bunch of 'em. And a wife."

"No kidding!" I feigned surprise as well as I
could. "Well, Linda always did know how to pick 'em." I took
another sip. The bartender had walked over to check our drinks,
which were still going fine. He wiped the bar, casually joining the
conversation.

"I heard Gary had a lot of friends, though,"
I said to either of them.

"Oh, yeah, Gary was a good ol' boy," my
drinking buddy said. "He was sure in here every night, wasn't he,
Pete?"

"Yeah, he sure was." Pete's voice sounded
tired, his enthusiasm underwhelming.

"I heard he carried a fair amount of action,
too. Bets, I mean," I hinted.

"Lotta guys in here sent their bets with
Gary. He sure loved those race tracks. When it wasn't racing
season, he'd bet on the games."

"Everybody like him pretty well?"

"I'd say so, wouldn't you, Pete? I don't know
nobody didn't like Gary. Why, he'd come in here sometimes after
he'd won big, and buy drinks for everybody. Ain't that right,
Pete?"

Pete finally cracked a smile. He should have
done it more often, he had nice teeth. "Yeah, that was always fun,"
he said. "The guys'd get real excited. And he was a real good
tipper, too."

My pal had finished his third beer by then.
He slapped some money down on the bar. "Gotta get on home. See ya
later, Pete." He walked toward the back of the room, acknowledging
two men at a table along the way. He stopped at a pay phone set
into a small alcove at the back.

I glanced around the room. It looked like the
early crowd had all gone and a few new ones now filled in. It was a
slack time, before the late crowd came, and Pete stood around, not
particularly busy. I was the only one left in this section of the
bar.

"Pete, who might have wanted Gary Detweiller
dead?" I asked.

"Why you asking so many questions? You're not
this nosy because some friend of yours had the hots for Gary, are
you?"

"I work for a private investigation agency.
One of our clients is concerned about being implicated. I'd like to
find out who really did it."

"Shoot, I don't know," he said. He'd relaxed
with me now, and I felt he was being truthful. "You heard Willie.
Most everybody here liked the guy."

"He had a lot of women though. You think one
of them might have been mad at him? Maybe he promised somebody more
than he planned to deliver."

"Maybe so. Look, I don't get a lot of last
names here. Debbie, Linda, Susan—that tell you anything? Gary
usually had somebody different with him every week or so. And they
weren't teenagers. They knew the score. Gary took 'em out, spent
money on 'em. Past that, I don't think they expected a lot from
him."

"What about the gambling? Anybody ever lose
big? Anybody with a grudge there?"

"Who knows? Maybe. But around here we never
heard about it. Gary had this image, you know. Like he always had
to be friendly and happy. Everybody's pal, he was."

Why was this so difficult? Wasn't there
anybody out there who would admit that they hated Gary Detweiller?
I left Pete a generous tip and a business card, asking him to let
me know if he thought of anything else.

It was pitch dark out by now and the wind had
picked up to a bitter whine. Sand from a neighboring vacant lot
whipped through the paved parking lot, leaving little drifts
against the concrete parking bumpers. I pulled my coat closer
around me and fished in my pocket for the keys. Then I noticed that
my Jeep was sitting crippled by a flat front tire. Shit.

I learned to change a tire once. It was in
driver education, and I didn't actually do it, we just had to sit
through a film on the procedure. I could probably manage if I had
to, but I didn't really want to. My head was a little stuffy from
drinking the beer, and I really wasn't dressed for getting down on
my hands and knees. Rusty sat up in the back seat, his ears cocked
toward me. Glancing around the parking lot I considered my options.
I could go inside and ask for volunteers. But I didn't really want
to do that. You never know what kind of payment men in bars expect
for their good deeds. I could use the phone inside and call Ron.
Unfortunately, I wasn't ready for the lecture I knew I'd get.
Already, he didn't want me on this case. And there was no way he'd
believe I'd just stopped in this cozy little spot for a brewsky
after work. Not my style.