Caruso 01 - Boom Town (4 page)

She let out a slight chuckle. Then she raised a plate with white pastries on it.

“How about a scone?” she asked.

Reluctantly, he picked one up and took a bite out of it. It crum-bled slightly, dropping specks to the glass top and his pants.

Between bites, Tony asked, “What can you tell me about your former neighbors, Dan and Barb Humphrey?”

She hesitated long enough to pour herself a cup of tea and sip it delicately. Then she leaned back and crossed her shapely legs.

“They were a nice couple. Dan was quite the lady killer. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

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Her face turned completely red. He waited for her to recover.

“I meant,” she started again, picking her words more carefully,

“that he was handsome. Dark like you, but taller. Although his shoulders weren’t as broad as yours. He didn’t have your strong build.”

“What about Barb?” he asked. Then he shoved the rest of the scone into his mouth.

“She was beautiful. Smooth auburn hair. A milky complexion.

Had a body that any man would love to see, and any woman would kill to have.”

Cliff Humphrey had included the photos of Dan and Barb in the folder. He knew how they looked, but that didn’t tell him what he really needed to know.

He swallowed the last of the scone and then asked, “Were they a happy couple?”

She thought about that. “Dan killed her and then blew himself to pieces. How happy could they be?”

He decided to come from another angle. “Think back before this happened. What was your impression of them then?”

She gave it some heavy thought. Her soft blue eyes shifted about as if scanning back through her brain for a file. Finally she said, “I thought they had an interesting marriage. Not perfect. But surely not a violent one.”

He knew that this was the answer nearly every neighbor gave after a domestic murder suicide. It was as if the neighbors couldn’t have seen any problems or they would be partially to blame for not intervening. Yet, he didn’t think that’s how Mrs. Ellison was thinking. She believed what she was saying.

“You said interesting,” he said. “How so?”

Now she had a girlish grin. She moved forward slightly as if she were telling him a secret. “They had some wild parties over there.”

Wild. Both her and super captain had used that word. “Define wild.”

“Naked Jacuzzi parties. They didn’t think anyone would notice.

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Or they didn’t care. They’d walk around the side of their house with no clothes on. Even run through the golf course sprinklers at midnight like children. Screaming and giggling.”

She sighed heavily. He wasn’t sure if she had been disgusted by their actions, turned on, or jealous. Maybe all of the above.

“Did you ever attend any of them?” he asked her.

Before answering, she leaned back and crossed her legs again.

She took a sip of tea and then set the cup back in the saucer without a sound. “I went to one. That’s it.”

“What happened?”

“I’m a married woman. My husband is ten years my senior.

James was in Portland on business. Why am I telling you this?”

He shrugged and noticed the huge rock on her left ring finger for the first time.

She continued. “By the time I got there everyone was pretty inebriated or worse,” she said. “It was a smaller party. Perhaps ten people. Shortly after I got there people started taking their clothes off and settling into the Jacuzzi. Others were screwing right on the back yard.” She hesitated long enough to make sure he was looking directly at her eyes. “I’m not into the multiple partner thing.”

“And the Humphrey’s?”

“Anything went with them, I think.”

“Did they try to involve you?”

“I’m not a total prude. But I simply watched. Barb did it with at least two men at a time. Dan was with more than one woman that I saw. It didn’t seem to matter who was with whom. I left shortly after.”

Tony considered what she had told him. He was cursed with a near photographic memory. It saved on paper and having to take notes, but it didn’t serve him well when having to testify in court when he worked as a consultant for the police. He could never truthfully say he couldn’t remember something.

“Did you know anyone else at the party?” he asked.

She thought about that. “Dawn Sanders was there. She was
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always over there. I guess she was Barb’s best friend.”

He made a mental note of her name.

“Anyone else you knew?”

“I think Dan’s business partner was also there. Larry Gibson.”

Gibson was already on his list to visit.

“What can you tell me about the neighbors on the other side of the Humphrey’s place?”

She shook her head swiftly. “You won’t find anyone there. It’s owned by some young basketball player. He only lives there in the off season.”

She gave Tony the man’s name, but he didn’t recognize it. He hadn’t followed the team much in the last few years.

Tony thanked her for the info, and she showed him to the door.

Before she closed the door, he thought of something. “What does your husband do, Mrs. Ellison?”

“He’s a venture capitalist,” she said proudly.

A very successful one at that, he thought. Then he asked, “Were you home the night the Humphrey’s...died?”

“I was here watching television,” she said calmly. “Alone.”

“Didn’t see anything out of the ordinary?”

She smiled. “Well, a house doesn’t normally blow up like that, Mr. Caruso.”

Okay. He had that coming.

She let him out and he walked back toward his truck. He got up to the window on the Leer bed topper, coming nose to nose with his dog.

“What do you think, Panzer?”

The dog whined and licked the screen.

“That’s what I thought.”

Getting into the cab, Tony sat back in the seat; his ribs ached.

They were heavily bruised but not broken. He’d felt broken ribs in the Navy after an F-14 turned on the flight deck of his aircraft carrier and its exhaust bounced him ten feet down into a metal catwalk railing. Only the railing kept him from flying another seventy feet to the South China Sea. Would have been his second
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trip to the drink.

What had made those two rent-a-cops start whacking him? His Uncle Bruno always said that if a man punched him in the gut he should hit him twice in the mouth. Then go find his brother and do the same to him.

He took a drink of bottled water to wash down the remnants of the scone, and gazed at Mrs. Ellison’s house. She was in the upstairs window again, not even trying to hide this time.

Tony drove off and noticed the security captain’s truck parked down the road in the basketball player’s driveway.

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The offices of Deschutes Enterprises sat on a ridge overlooking the Deschutes River six blocks from the old downtown of Bend. A few years back the entire area was a field of sagebrush, lava rock and noxious weeds. Now there were new stone and brick and wood structures filled with high tech companies, hotels, and real estate agencies. Clean companies, unlike the old heritage of the city, which was built by the lumber industry hacking up the Cascades old growth forests. All that remained of that former time was three tall smoke stacks and a few converted warehouses that were now trendy shops and specialty coffee houses.

Being Saturday, only a few cars sat in the parking lot, the most distinguished being a dark blue metallic Audi TT, with the hard top, in a designated spot close to the front entrance. The car had vanity Oregon Salmon license plates that read, ‘Gibs.’ It looked like Tony was in luck.

Deschutes Enterprises was housed on the top floor of a three story structure in a leased space in a stone-brick building with tinted windows facing Mount Bachelor. Conceivably, with the proper optics, one could watch the skiers on a clear day some eighteen miles to the west.

Tony was ushered into the office of Larry Gibson by a pretty, young receptionist with a nose ring and a mini skirt highlighting legs that were, more than likely, honed to perfection by cross
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country skiing and mountain biking. Her silky brown hair hung straight down her back, stopping just above her thin waist.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked him, her smile sincere.

“Thanks, but I’ve had my morning limit.”

She nodded and left him alone in the office.

It was a nice space. Not elegant, but functional. A large white L-shaped desk sat in the corner window with a state-of-the-art computer, its screen saver flipping through various Star Trek scenes. Tony wasn’t sure how anyone could get work done with such a view of the river and mountain.

To the right of the desk sat a cherry credenza with a few trophies and plaques. On the wall behind that was a set of framed photographs. Tony noticed one with Dan and Barb Humphrey and another man, whom he assumed was Larry Gibson. They were at a Cascade lake standing in front of a sail boat. Barb was wearing a bikini, and Dan and Larry were on either side of her, their arms locked behind her head.

“How may I help you?” Gibson said, walking in and standing in the center of the room.

He was at least six-two with a slim tennis physique. Tan Dockers with brown deck shoes. A pink polo shirt was covered by a v-neck wool sweater. His thinning blond hair was cut short and he had the start of crow’s feet to the side of each blue eye, making him look slightly older than his thirty-two years.

“I work for an insurance interest,” Tony said. Hell, you start a lie, it’s best to stick with it.

They took seats in leather chairs, Gibson pulling his closer to Tony. Too close.

“What exactly does Deschutes Enterprises do?” Tony asked.

For people he didn’t know, he liked to ask a question or two for which he already knew the answer. Like a lie detector, he would get a baseline for a truthful facial expression. Then when he was fed crap he’d recognize it for what it was.

Gibson chewed on the question, along with a new wad of gum
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he had just shoved in his mouth. Finally he said, “We do a lot of things. We develop software programs for the entertainment industry. We build high end web sites, although not many. We’ve developed computer architecture for faster computing. Just got a patent on our newest design. We also have consultants who travel throughout the Pacific Northwest helping small businesses with their computing needs. We’re very diversified.”

“Sounds like it,” Tony said. He pulled out a small notebook and flipped through as if looking for something. Some people have a hard time believing in pure memory, so he indulged them with at least pretending to take notes.

“What exactly are you looking for, Mr. Caruso? Susie said something about insurance. I have all the insurance I need.”

Perfect opening. “Did you have a policy on Dan Humphrey?”

Gibson’s brows rose, and then he recovered with a slight smile, his gum smacking through an open mouth. “What are you getting at?”

“Do you always answer a question with a question?”

“What do you think?” Gibson laughed at himself.

Great. A fucking comedian. “I take it you were Dan Humphrey’s best friend,” Tony said, studying the man carefully.

“We were business partners,” he said. “We started this company out of my parent’s garage after graduating from OSU.”

“Regular Gates and Allen.”

“I wish,” he said wistfully, narrowing his eyes toward Tony.

Smack the gum.

“About the partnership,” Tony said. “When Dan died, you gained complete control of this company. I imagine that’s a lot of money.”

“I don’t understand.” He looked disturbed, shifting positions in the chair, and gulping down a spot of spit.

“Did you have partnership insurance on Dan?”

Gibson thought for a moment. “Are you with the police? If not, you can leave now.”

“I told you I represent an insurance interest,” Tony said. “If you
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don’t want to collect the policy Dan took out on himself...” Tony got up and started for the door.

Gibson followed him. “Just a minute. I’m sorry. It’s just that Dan’s death was very difficult for me. We were room mates in college. I was the best man at his wedding. It’s hard to believe he did what he did.” He hesitated, looking rather confused. “We took out a policy on each other, but it had a suicide clause. So I, this company, gets nothing from his death.”

“I see.” Tony realized he should have known everything about every insurance policy Dan and Barb Humphrey had ever taken out. Luckily he was good at playing catch up.

They took seats again.

Time to get more personal. “What about Barb?” Tony asked.

Before answering, Gibson spit his gum into a trash can at the side of his desk. “She was also an employee here, but we didn’t have a policy out on her.”

“What did she do?”

“She was our marketing director.”

“That’s quite a loss,” Tony said. “Losing your partner and your marketing director in one day.”

Gibson was rattled again. “They were my friends! I’ve hardly had time to consider how their deaths will affect the company.

I’ve been grieving for their loss.”

“I’m sorry. So you totally buy what the police are saying? You really think Dan shot his wife and then blew himself up in his five hundred thousand dollar house on the fifth green of Cascade Peaks Estates?”

He raised both hands and hunched his shoulders. “I guess so.

What else could it be?”

“Sure. I understand they were about to call it quits on the marriage. Is that right?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Finally, the crap meter spiked. “I heard they had an open marriage. If you know what I mean.” Tony gave him his best smirk.