Caruso 01 - Boom Town (12 page)

“They’ve got a week in September available for five grand. Is that a good price?”

Humphrey shrugged. “It’s a steal. I know the guy who built that place. A week was fifteen grand a few years back. I’ll give him a call and have him hold it for you. You can check out the unit after you prove Dan didn’t do this.”

His words came out almost like a warning to Tony. Find in his way or else. “Listen,” Tony said, “I’m sure it must be very difficult for you. With your wife’s death this year. . .”

His expression filled with incertitude, Humphrey said, “You do your homework.”

“I like to know who I work for.”

Humphrey turned toward the northeast and lifted his chin as he said, “She died over near Prineville on a ranch. She was an excellent rider. Dressage. Western. Won enough ribbons and trophies to fill a huge mahogany case I had built for her.” His eyes seemed to tear up and his throat clamped down.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

After some hesitation, Humphrey turned to Tony and said,

“Don’t find yourself alone, Tony. Find a good woman and have children. This is painful, but you have to remember all the good times. This will pass with time. That’s why you have to find out the truth, Tony.” His watery eyes indicated nothing less.

90

TREVOR SCOTT

♦

Cliff Humphrey had just returned to his office and barely sat down when a side door opened and a woman dressed in Bend business attire, a white silk blouse, dress slacks, and cowboy boots, stepped in and took a seat across from him, her left leg tapping on the Navaho rug.

“What he find out?” Melanie Chadwick asked, her teeth biting down on her lower lip.

“Wanted to know about Frank Peroni,” Humphrey said.

“Where’d that come from?”

He shrugged. “Portland, I guess. He didn’t tell you why he was going there?”

She wrinkled her nose and said, “Hell, no. We’ve only known each other for a couple of days. What’s the problem? You always knew Peroni might pop up in his investigation.”

Humphrey sunk into his leather chair, his expression wavering from concern to indifference. He shook his head. “This is getting out of hand. Maybe I should call the whole thing off. Pull Caruso from the case.”

Melanie’s foot stopped tapping and she rose suddenly, her hands on her hips. “Bullshit! This development will go through.

That’s the plan. Stick with the plan.”

Humphrey tried to calm her with open hands lowering toward the seat. “Take it easy, Mel.” He smiled and let out a slight laugh.

“I lost my son, here. Not to mention my daughter-in-law and possible grandchildren. My whole legacy is lost.” With those words he rose and went to Melanie, placing a hand on each shoulder.

“Don’t, Cliff.”

He turned and went to the window, glancing down at the river.

This had to work, he thought. Or all of it would be for nothing.

He couldn’t let that happen.

BOOM TOWN 91

One of the problems with being single at Tony’s age was that it was easy to forget that someone else might be interested where he might have been for the past couple of days. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to concern himself with such triv-ial aspects of life. He was either dead or alive, he figured, and someone would eventually find out which were true, unless he ended up face down in the high desert with buzzards picking at his decaying ass.

In Tony’s case, under his current situation, he had called Melanie from his cell phone just after crossing the pass on his way back from Portland. She had sounded relieved, but tried to hide it with humor. She’d offered to have him over for dinner.

She was going to make a curry stir fry.

Tony got to her place around six p.m. He was worn out slightly from the drive and from racking his brain over this case. He knew where he wanted to go as the crow flew, but navigating the narrow roads below was frustrating.

She gave him a kiss on the cheek as he entered.

“The news said the snow was really bad on the passes yesterday,” she said. “Lots of accidents.”

He took a seat at the kitchen counter. Steam seeped out of a large pan on the stove, bringing the smell of ginger, curry and soy with it. “It took me seven hours to get to Portland. Some idiot flew past me and then crashed a few miles up the road.”

92

TREVOR SCOTT

She poured him a glass of Chianti and handed it to him.

“What were you up to in Portland?”

“Checking into the guy who went home with Dan and Barb the night they died.”

She nodded, went to the stove, and lifted the cover on two pans.

Then she dished up fried rice and chicken curry stir fry. They sat at the counter to eat, neither saying a word for a few minutes.

“Sold a house today,” she finally said.

“Big one?”

“Four hundred thousand.”

“That’ll be a nice commission.”

They finished eating and Tony excused myself to go to the bathroom. On the way back through the master suite, he sat on the bed to use the phone. He needed to check his messages. As he was listening to his messages, he noticed a small piece of paper on the nightstand with a number on it. He almost dismissed it, but the number looked familiar. When the last message went through, he pulled out the card Cliff Humphrey had given him. The number on Melanie’s nightstand was Cliff’s cell phone number.

As he was getting up from the bed to leave, he turned to find Melanie standing in the doorway.

She stared at him blankly. “What’s up?”

“I was just checking my messages,” Tony said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “Battery’s dead. By the way, I’d love to come to dinner.” He tried on a smile.

“You should check those more often.” She turned and left him there.

Tony was a little confused and tired, so he decided to get the hell out of there. He had a feeling she wanted an after dinner treat, but he wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

Driving back to the condo where he was staying, his mind wandered. On one count he should have asked Melanie why she had Cliff Humphrey’s cell phone number on her nightstand. More reasonably, though, it was none of his business. He was so pre-occupied, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary as he
BOOM TOWN 93

pulled up to the garage. At least not until the door wouldn’t open with the remote.

“Fuck!”

Tony got out in the darkness, leaving his truck door open, the headlights shining his way, and went to the door, giving it a tug.

Knowing anything about electric garage doors, which Tony did, he should have known that was a total waste of time. Even the Incredible Hulk couldn’t yank the door through an electric motor.

But he pulled on it anyway, just for the hell of it. Damn near ripped his arm out of the socket in the process.

He wasn’t sure what made him turn back toward the truck when he did. Maybe he heard a rustling in the bushes. Maybe he had some sixth sense telling him to turn. Maybe he was the luck-iest bastard in Oregon. Whatever it was, he turned just in time so the first bullet merely grazed the front of his shoulder. If he hadn’t turned it would have probably severed his spine, or at least lodged itself into it, since, based on the pop, it was a small caliber round.

But the flash and crack of the bullet in the night air gave him enough time to dive behind the front of his truck as the second and third rounds smashed into the garage door.

Again, Tony wished he had a gun. Two times in two days. But even if he did have a gun, it wouldn’t have helped him much in this situation, except maybe to scare off the shooter.

He crouched behind the front of the truck waiting, imagining whoever had shot the gun was watching his headlights for his shadow. He scanned the outer pines along the visitor parking area, the direction from which he had seen the muzzle flashes.

Nothing.

Then he heard it. A vehicle starting up and tires screeching.

He got to his cab and turned off his lights. Then he checked the back of his truck. Panzer was quiet and that bothered him.

“You all right, boy?” Tony asked, after lifting the topper door.

Panzer greeted him with a lick to his face.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

94

TREVOR SCOTT

It took the first Deschutes County sheriff’s deputy less than five minutes to get to the condominium complex. Not a bad response time. Must have passed the shooter along the road leading down from the golf community, Tony thought.

In fifteen minutes, there were four cars surrounding Tony’s area, their lights circling around the roofs. People from some of the other condos were out on their balconies gazing about, wondering what in the hell was going on.

Tony had wanted to avoid talking with the local cops until the time was right. Now he had no choice.

The first young deputy on the scene, not knowing the story, pulled his gun on Tony. He raised his left arm, since his right was in some pain from the bullet ripping flesh. When Tony said he had been shot, the deputy finally approached him cautiously and let him put his arm down.

Tony was keeping his mouth shut until someone with authority showed up. No use explaining himself more than once.

Finally, a man approached wearing blue jeans and a Blazers sweatshirt. He had just been talking with the first man on the scene. He was a tall beefy guy, his hair almost completely gray.

He had a Hitler-like mustache, the only type military personnel or cops were allowed to have, and which Tony had always found amusing. But the man’s most significant physical feature was his tremendous head. It gave him the impression of a bear that had been feeding at a nuclear waste dump.

“I’m Sheriff Bill Green,” he said, shaking Tony’s left hand.

Tony told him his name, nothing more. He figured if he told everyone he was a private investigator, how private could that be?

“What happened here?” The sheriff looked directly at Tony’s shoulder. “Is that all right?”

Tony looked at the blood, which had soaked into the sleeve of his Columbia jacket. “It hurts, but I’ll live.”

He was still waiting for Tony to tell his story.

“I was set up,” Tony said. He told him what happened with the
BOOM TOWN 95

door. How he got out to try to budge it. How he was standing right in his headlights. The only thing he didn’t tell the cop, was that he felt like an idiot.

“Why would someone want to shoot you, Mr. Caruso?” the sheriff asked.

“I don’t know. I’m basically a nice guy.”

He smiled. “These things are normally domestic,” he said. “Are you seeing anyone in town?”

Tony hesitated. “Melanie Chadwick.”

His brows shot up. “I know Melanie. She sold me my house.

She’s a great woman.”

He was beginning to think that everyone in town had bought their home from Melanie.

The sheriff continued, “She went through a nasty divorce. I’ll have my people check to see if that asshole of an ex-husband is back in town. Could you believe someone wanting to cheat on her.” The cop shook his head side to side.

Tony wanted to tell the sheriff he was pretty sure Melanie’s ex had nothing to do with it, but he decided to let him go off in that direction. Keep him busy.

An EMT came over and placed a bandage on Tony’s right shoulder. It wasn’t much of a wound. He’d probably bled more when he fell off his bike as a ten-year-old. The problem was it was a ripping cut through the flesh and would need six or seven stitches or he’d end up tearing it open every time he shifted his truck.

So the good sheriff ended up driving him to the emergency room. He had no intention of climbing into the back of an ambulance rig with that puny little scratch.

96

TREVOR SCOTT

On the ride to the hospital, Sheriff Green started with the questions again. He had a relaxed form of inquiry that was worth examining. It was like sitting down with the family priest and talking about the meaning of life, without the possibility of forbidden sex. Tony almost wanted to answer each question truthfully. If he hadn’t been on guard he might have actually done that.

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Caruso?”

“I’m semi-retired,” Tony said. It wasn’t a total lie, since he was collecting a Navy pension.

“Military?”

“How’d you guess?”

“I’m a detective.” He hesitated, while he navigated a sharp curve on the winding road down the mountain. “You walk with confidence. Thirty-one inch stride. You’re still relatively young.

And corporate America doesn’t give many pensions these days.

You wouldn’t have said semi-retired if you weren’t making some money from that retirement.”

They came to a stop sign and then continued on toward downtown Bend.

Tony hadn’t realized he’d given so much away with a simple phrase and his walk. But he was right. Anyone with any knowledge of the military could recognize another who had been there.

Especially if the person had been any good at it.

BOOM TOWN 97

“I’m guessing you were a Marine,” Tony said. It would have been a compliment for anyone but an Army soldier.

“Long time ago,” he said. “Recon.” He let the word hang in the air as if Tony should bow down to some unseen God.

They were in downtown Bend now, stopped at a light. There were two young men in their early twenties, wearing their best snowboarder grunge, walking in the crosswalk in front of them.

“Take those two,” the sheriff said. “There’s no discipline there.

They couldn’t find their ass with both hands. A couple of lost souls.”

Tony glanced at them, thinking they were probably millionaire partners who owned some computer software firm. A little farther to the west and south and they would have qualified for surfer dudes. But Bend had no surf, with the exception of ski slopes with snow boarders, and those were as plentiful as sagebrush.