Caruso 01 - Boom Town (9 page)

A while later they rested with another glass of wine, mesmer-ized by the flames. Then he thought about Dan Humphrey. Why would he shoot his wife and then set the gas fireplace to explode.

What was his motive? Tony knew when it came to relationships it didn’t take much to set someone off. Maybe his wife Barb had crossed the line during one of their kinky trysts. But that would have been overkill.

“What are you thinking about?” Melanie asked.

“Barb and Dan. What made him do it?”

She took a long drink of wine. “I think I could have done that to my ex, Bob. Especially after walking in on him with his little nineteen-year-old bimbo.”

“He brought her here?”

“In our bed. I was supposed to be at an open house for two hours. So he knew he had the place to himself for that long, maybe longer. Usually I go back to the office after the event and get some paperwork done. Problem was, I got to the place we were going to show that day and it was trashed. The owners thought it was the following weekend. So I had to cancel. I was already pissed off by the time I got home. Then finding them there.” Her voice became pained and she turned her head away from him.

Over two years had passed from that day, Tony knew, and it still affected her that way. Maybe he was underestimating the power of passion. Maybe Dan had simply snapped. He put his arm around her.

“I was going to tell you about what I found out from the bartender,” Tony said.

She sniffled a little and wiped a tear from her eye. “I’m sorry.

What did Bradley say?”

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“You know him quite well?”

“A little. About the only good thing I can say about the guy is he never forgets a drink or a face.”

“That’s good to know. He gave me the name of the guy Barb and Dan picked up that night. I’ll check into him in the morning.”

“You think he might have been involved with their deaths in some way?”

“I don’t know. If nothing else, he was last seen with them two hours before their deaths. I’m guessing they took the guy home, had a little fun, then...” Tony shrugged. He had no idea what might have come next.

He hung out with Melanie for another bottle of wine before they drifted back to her bedroom for the bronc-riding competi-tion. The Bend Rodeo in full swing now.

♦

Sitting in his silver Mercedes a block down the street, Cliff Humphrey listened to a Vivaldi concerto on the CD player, his right hand moving with an invisible conductor’s baton. The closer Caruso got, the closer he would be to the truth, he thought. He was certain that this crude man would win out in the end. Why would he want to hire anyone who operated with impeccable tact? Who tiptoed around and handled everyone with kid gloves?

He might not like these tactics, but he respected the process and the results. And that, after all, was what this was all about.

Results. She was something else, though. He cringed thinking of her in his arms. What they might be doing at this moment.

Results. Remember that. Results. He smiled and drove away.

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In the morning Tony got up before the sun in the strange bed of the real estate broker, feeling uncertain about a lot of things. During the night the snow had turned to rain, and all that remained was a few damp spots on the road.

On his way back to the condo he took Panzer for a long-over-due run along the Deschutes River. When he got back to the condo he took a shower before checking his e-mail. He had one message from Cliff Humphrey seeing what he’d found out.

Sitting out on the deck drinking a cup of coffee, he watched a rather heavyset man searching for his lost golf ball in the bushes on the fringe of the condo’s grassy area. The guy looked around to see if anyone was looking, not bothering to gaze in Tony’s direction. Then he threw a ball out into the short fairway. After that he waddled out and took a couple of swings before sending the ball twenty yards farther down the course. At that rate, he’d finish the eighteen holes around Christmas. Now Tony knew why people bought condos on golf courses. It was great entertainment.

Tony went inside and logged onto his computer. He knew there wasn’t anything he couldn’t find out about a person, once he knew where to look. First, he checked into Dan and Barb Humphrey’s finances. Tony would be the first to admit he had an advantage with them, since Cliff had given him their Social Security numbers. Once he had that, the rest was easy.

After that, he did a search for information on Frank Peroni, the
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man Dan and Barb had picked up at the Riverfront. He got his address in Portland and his telephone number. He also checked into the lock company where Peroni worked. Pulled down their address and a few names to contact.

Now he needed to see Frank Peroni face-to-face. Check out his crap meter on him.

As he was about to leave the condo, his cell phone rang.

Reluctantly, he picked up.

“Caruso.”

“Hey, it’s your favorite uncle.”

“No shit? Uncle Carlo?”

“You fuckin’ putz. It’s Bruno. You’re gettin’ to be a bigger smartass after forty. You know that?”

“Age will do that to ya? What’s up, Uncle Bruno?”

“You comin’ home for Christmas?”

Tony hesitated. “I don’t know? I’m out here in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere. Flyin’s a pain in the ass this time of year.”

“One more fuckin’ excuse and I’ll send a couple of my boys out to drive ya back.”

Great, that’s all he needed. Piss off Uncle Bruno. “I’m sorry, Uncle Bruno. Let me think about it. I’m working this case right now. Seeing if this rich kid killed his supermodel wife, shot himself, and then blew the shit outta his house.”

“Jesus Christ, kid. Listen to yourself. How the fuck do ya shoot yourself and then blow your house up?”

Good point. “Well, the sequence of events are not clear. The locals here say it happened that way, with some kind of timer or short fuze, blowing the place all to hell. I’m still working out the details.”

Uncle Bruno laughed. “Yeah, the devil’s always in the details, Tony. Which is why I want you to come home for Christmas. I’m not gettin’ any younger, you know. We need to talk business.”

Okay. Now he was not only pulling the age thing, but his avun-cular responsibilities. Tony had lost his parents in a boating accident on Lake Superior between his sophomore and junior years
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of high school. He and his brother and sister had gone to stay with Uncle Bruno and his family for his junior and senior years before heading to the Navy. He owed his uncle, but he knew Uncle Bruno would never say so directly. Tony knew the man had never asked him for anything. He let out a deep sigh. “If I can get this thing figured out by then, I’ll try for a road trip. I’m not flying, though. Panzer would rip the shit outta his carton.”

“That’s a good boy, Tony. Your aunt will mix up a huge batch of ravioli.”

“I’m not promising anything, Uncle Bruno. I’ve gotta finish this case. In fact, I’m on my way to Portland right now. I’ve got to get going.”

“Sure. You take care.”

There was a click on the other end, so Tony hung up. He looked at the phone and decided to turn it off, shoving it into his coat pocket.

Portland was a hundred and sixty miles from Bend, with no good way to get there. All the roads were two lanes and crossed the Cascades. On a good day, without snow or rain or geriatric land yachts clogging the roads, it would take a good three hours to make the trip, Tony had heard. With the predicted snow, it would take perhaps five or six hours.

It took Tony seven hours, even in four-wheel-drive, which helped with traction but did nothing for visibility in a blinding snow storm. The real problem came when a man rolled his jacked up bronco, and then a semi turned over trying to avoid that, which blocked the entire road for hours.

When Tony finally got to Portland, it was raining like crazy.

Surprise.

Darkness had set in completely as he parked out front of Frank Peroni’s house in southwest Portland. It was an older neighborhood five or six blocks from the Willamette River, up the hill a ways with an unfortunate view of Interstate 5. Tony suspected,
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though, that on the rare clear day Peroni could see Mount Hood, which was some consolation.

He sat in the F250 for a moment, wondering how he wanted to handle Peroni. He had thought about simply calling him from Bend, but he wanted to see his face when he asked his first question. If there was any guilt, he’d know. Faces were his specialty.

There were a few lights on in the one-story house. It was one of those neighborhoods built in the late forties where all the houses looked the same, except for the paint job and landscaping.

As he walked up to the front door, he could tell that Peroni hadn’t spent a lot of time with a paint brush or with his green thumb.

He knocked and waited. Luckily, the rain that had been pound-ing his windshield just moments ago, had slowed some. Tony was only half drenched.

Finally, he heard someone coming, then saw an eye scanning him through the peep hole. Tony smiled.

The door opened a crack and he peeked through at a woman in her late twenties. Her dark hair was disheveled, hanging down over her round brown eyes. She wore a baggy Portland State sweatshirt and jeans with holes in the knees. Her tiny bare toes stuck out from the frayed pants bottom, curling into a gold shag carpet.

“Frank’s not here,” she said. She had a raspy voice, like a lounge singer in a smoky bar.

Tony laughed. “Maybe I’m looking for you,” he said.

“Yeah, right. Who are you, and what the fuck you want?”

“Okay. I’m Tony Caruso. I’m looking for Frank. Is he your husband?”

“He’s a bum!”

This was going nowhere fast. “May I come in?”

She gave him a quick look up and down; probably trying to assess any danger. He must have passed, because she opened the door for him and cocked her head to one side, telling him to go into the living room. She locked the door and followed him into the room.

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The room was highlighted by a reclining Lazy-boy pointing directly at a big screen T.V. There was a worn couch to the side of that. One of those blooper video shows was on the tube, showing how stupid people can be, and how they’ll do just about anything for money.

Tony took a seat on the sofa and she sat in the Lazy-boy, her eyes on the T.V. program. She lit a cigarette.

“Where’s Frank, Mrs. Peroni?” he asked.

Her eyes shifted sideways through the smoke at him. “If he owes you money, you won’t get it from me.”

“That’s not it.”

She turned her head toward him and let out a cloud of smoke in a tiny stream. “You work for Cascade Lock?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re too good looking for a cop.” She smiled for the first time. It was a nice set of teeth. She should have done it more often.

“I’m neither,” Tony said. “I’m just looking for Frank. Where is he?”

“I have no idea.”

That was the truth. In fact, he had a feeling this woman would give him the straight facts on almost anything he asked her. So he forged ahead. “Is he on the road for Cascade Lock?”

“Nope. They haven’t seen him either. They keep calling here asking for him. I keep telling them to fuck off, but some people just don’t get it. You know?” Her head was cocked to one side like a confused puppy.

Tony knew what she was talking about. In fact, he was probably one of those people. “When’s the last time you saw him?”

She thought about that, bringing her cigarette to a bright orange. “Two and a half weeks ago. Just before going to Bend.

He loved going there. I don’t know why. A bunch of fuckin’ yup-pies if you ask me.” She swung her arm around, pointing off into nowhere. “Same as those people in the Pearl District. Drive around in their BMWs. Sipping expensive coffee. Living on
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those golf courses. It’s like a mini-California over there. The only thing good I can say about the place is it doesn’t rain like here.”

“He didn’t come back from his trip to Bend?”

“Hell no! Haven’t you been listening to me?” She lit another cigarette from her first and then snubbed out the end of the old one.

“Did you notify the cops?”

She gave him a serious, critical glare, as if she were visualizing his head exploding. “He said he might be heading down to Medford for a few days. He does that from time to time. Makes the rounds. I didn’t expect him back right away.”

“But you did eventually talk with the Portland police?”

“A lot of good it did,” she said. Then she laughed at a video.

They showed the same thing again, a man getting hit in the nuts by his young son with a baseball bat. Hilarious.

“What’d they say?” Tony asked, even though he was pretty sure what the answer would be.

“Started asking me about our marriage. Wanted to know if we’d had a fight. Said he’d probably show up if he wanted to be found. Useless bastards. That’s why we pay taxes. To pay for idiot mother fuckers like that?”

Tony shrugged. “Is there any reason why he wouldn’t come home?”

“Fuck you!”

Sweetness. “I’m just wondering. What about work? Was everything going all right there?”

“Why are you asking all these questions about Frank?” She had a truly intrigued expression on her face. “Who do you work for?”

Damn. He thought he’d gotten away with that one. He decided to play it straight. “I’m looking into the death of a couple in Bend. Your husband knew them.”

“You’re a cop?” She looked disappointed.

“No. I’m private.”

Her eyes brightened. “And you think Frank had something to do with the deaths?”

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