Death Plays Poker (34 page)

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth watched a gull circling over one spot in the river. It wasn’t squawking; it was too intent on its prey. George was in jail. Elizabeth should visit him, probably.

She was walking with her brother. Joe was in the poker room playing a few rounds before the game.

Elizabeth said, “I shouldn’t marry him, should I?”

Peter frowned. “What does your gut say?”

“It says no. But my heart says yes. I never knew they were two separate entities until today.”

“You thought your stomach pumped blood around your veins?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do those chemicals think?”

“They’ve been quiet.” It was true. Except for the Sun Chip incident, since she’d told Joe about the pregnancy, her internal poison had eased into a pleasingly sublime feeling, as if she’d taken melatonin and could fall asleep anytime. Even the Tiffany thing didn’t pack the same punch it had a few days before.

“Then congratulations.” Peter was sweet; of course he was going to take the positive perspective. “Go with it. There’s always divorce if things don’t work out. But — don’t take this wrong — I think you should stay home for a while. With Mom and Dad.”

“Why? I’m here with Joe. I’m safe.”

“There’s a killer on the scene.”

“George Bigelow was arrested. The scene is safe again. And come on — Mom and Dad’s house? I’d rather be strangled than suffocated.”

Peter cracked a grim smile. “You’re welcome on my couch.”

“That’s nice of you,” Elizabeth said. “But we’d get along for three days, then we’d be in each other’s space.”

“Your plan is to leave tomorrow, right?”

Elizabeth nodded. “We’re going to Maui. Staying in a hotel for a few days, maybe rent a house for a month, figure out something more permanent for when the baby is born. It was Joe’s suggestion. We’re taking a break from poker. At least I am. Joe will no doubt find a lucrative side game somewhere.”

“Why not just come home for tonight?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“Just stay close to Joe, or someone you trust, until you leave.”

“George is in jail,” Elizabeth said again. “Why don’t you think he’s the killer?”

Peter frowned. “It’s weird, right? I should think that, since the cops do, and what do I know about anyone in your world? Nothing. But I feel this funny instinct. Like you’re not safe. You have to admit — that’s the one thing Mom is good for.”

“What?”

“She taught us how to listen to our instincts.”

CLARE

Clare perched on the edge of Noah’s desk chair. She watched the third-floor ice machine at the River Rock Casino a few blocks away. Noah had rigged a tiny Internet camera so they could watch the room in real time.

It was a bit like watching a Russian film, only there was more at stake, so that kept things interesting. Kind of. The ice machine hadn’t moved in three hours.

Clare’s phone rang — relief from the tedium. The relief was short-lived, though: the caller was Amanda.

“Can this wait?” Clare asked. “I’m in the middle of something important.”

Amanda spoke quickly. “Can you talk? Are you alone?”

“I’m alone for a few minutes. I’m expecting Noah back anytime.” Clare kept her eye on the computer as she waited for Amanda to berate her for whatever she’d done wrong this time.

“I’ll be brief. You know that George Bigelow was arrested.”

“Yeah.”

“He gave his arresting officers a statement that discredits the alibi of Terrence Jones.”

“Who’s Terrence Jones?” A light flickered on the ice machine camera.

“Jones is a poker player. I’m surprised you haven’t encountered him. He’s been in both of the tournaments you’ve played, and he was dating Loni Mills when she was killed.”

“Ah, Terrence.” Clare raised her eyebrows. “The rest of the world calls him T-Bone.”

“Good. You know him. So Bigelow’s statement . . . let me find it here . . . right . . . he has Mickey Mills spotting Jones in the hallway outside Loni’s room about an hour before she was found — dead — by housekeeping.”

Clare frowned. “Wasn’t it T-Bone’s room, too? He may have gone there legitimately.”

“Jones’s official statement has him playing poker all morning. He’s adamant that he never left the casino floor once he started playing poker at seven a.m. If he’s innocent, why lie?”

“Fear?” Clare said. “And why are we taking George’s word about Mickey’s word? Could T-Bone be telling the truth?”

“Security cameras don’t think so. River Rock’s footage has a man who matches Jones’s description leaving the room at six forty-five a.m., returning to the room at eight fifteen a.m., and leaving again at eight thirty. No one else entered or left the room until housekeeping found the body at ten thirty.”

“Do we know housekeeping was the real deal?” Clare had seen all the Tarantino movies. “Someone could have dressed up like a cleaner and stolen someone’s cart.”

“Housekeeping was real. We have the statement from the poor woman who found Loni.”

“So are they bringing him in? Sounds like T-Bone was caught as red-handed as you can get him.”

“The
RCMP
is confident.”

“But you’re not.”

“I’m not sure,” Amanda said. “It’s the same black cowboy hat, the same gray ponytail. It probably is Terrence Jones in both cases. There’s just something in the walk . . . the man returning to the room looks more sprightly than the man who left it in the morning.”

Clare thought for a moment. “Maybe he had a heavier heart in the morning. He knew he had a problem — maybe Loni found out he was cheating — but he didn’t know what to do, didn’t want to kill her. Then later, once he realizes murder is his only option, his step is lighter. He knows what he has to do.”

Amanda laughed. “That actually makes a strange kind of sense.”

“Can you get the footage analyzed by a professional? I’m sure there are computers that could tell you if it’s the same guy.”

“I’ve sent off a copy. The results won’t be back for a few days.”

“They won’t work faster for a murder case?”

Amanda laughed bitterly. “I’m not running the case, and the superintendent doesn’t think it’s important enough to ask for priority.”

“How can this not be important enough?” Clare asked.

“It might contradict the truth as they’d like to see it. I don’t know.”

Clare chewed on her lower lip. “Are they going to arrest T-Bone?”

“Either that or bring him in for questioning.”

“Before or after the final table tomorrow morning?” Clare saw another flicker in the ice room. Someone should change that bulb.

“Possibly during. The inspector says now, but the superintendent wants it on camera.”

“That’s weird. You’d think that to make it that far up in the police ranks, you wouldn’t be about showboating anymore.”

“You’d think,” Amanda said. “But this call is being monitored, so let’s not insult our colleagues.”

Clare rolled her eyes. “What do you want from me?”

“I’d like you to look at the footage from the hotel hallway,” Amanda said. “You’ve been living with these men. I’d like you to tell me if you think it’s T-Bone in both instances.”

“Okay,” Clare said. “Like I said, I’m in the middle of something important right now, but I can come by your apartment later on.”

“I’d like your opinion sooner. I’ll email you the video file.”

“Why? No matter what I think, they’ll still arrest T-Bone. Or bring him in, or whatever.”

“Of course they will. But it will help me understand what risk you’re still in. They’ve pulled a lot of your security back since George Bigelow was arrested, which in my mind was a mistake.”

“You don’t think George is the killer either?” Clare saw a shadow move on the ice machine camera, but it was too small to be significant.

“I don’t know. I just know that while you’re on that scene, you need protection, and I’m not comfortable allowing security to pull all their men just because one suspect — soon to be two — has been removed.”

Clare hung up the phone and was reaching for her smokes when she saw a shadow on the screen. The ice room door was opening. She felt her muscles tense as she watched to see who came in.

“Aargh,” she said out loud when she saw it was just some fat guy filling up his ice bucket. She grabbed her smokes and lit one while the man bent over to collect his bucket, exposing his crack. She looked away and inhaled the nicotine, a familiar comfort coursing through her veins. It made her less annoyed with Amanda and the fat man.

She wondered if the plan would work. Noah was confident, but Clare worried that the Dealer was too smart to fall into their amateur trap. Or was it amateur? Clare reminded herself that someone, somewhere had confidence in her professionalism. Maybe she needed to have the same confidence in herself.

A few minutes later, the ice room door opened again.

Clare’s heart sank.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to care, but she liked Mickey. She didn’t want him to be guilty. She didn’t want him to be the one coming into the ice room.

He looked angry. He opened the ice machine door so hard that it slammed shut again. He opened it a second time, marginally more gently. He took the scoop and rummaged around inside. He frowned when he found nothing. He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and wedged it into the handle of the machine.

He shook his head, appeared to mutter something, and left.

Clare sent Noah a text.

Check machine.

When she didn’t get an answer — and when ten minutes had gone by and Noah hadn’t entered the ice machine room like he should have if he’d gotten the text — Clare became worried. Had Noah dropped his phone? Had someone intercepted her message?

She tried phoning. No answer.

“Shit,” Clare said out loud. She wondered if their bait had worked too well. Had the real Dealer found Noah, taken his phone, intercepted Clare’s text? “Fuck,” she said, also out loud. Whoever had Noah’s phone now knew that Clare — Tiffany — was in on this disinformation scam.

There was a knock at the door. Clare swore again, this time in her head. She threw the bolt on the door before looking out the peephole. No one was there.

She stood at the door for a full minute before deciding not to open it. She checked the peephole three more times before deciding she must have imagined the knock. She went back to the computer. On the screen, she saw someone pull the note Mickey had left in the ice machine. The someone wasn’t Noah.

The someone wore a black cowboy hat with a gray ponytail sticking out from the back. The angle of the camera was odd; T-Bone looked shorter and slimmer than he did in real life. Maybe Amanda was right.

Clare texted Noah again.

u ok?

GEORGE

George wasn’t sure how long he’d be staying here, in the oddly expansive concrete cell, and he didn’t care. It wasn’t a cabin by the lake, but at the moment he preferred it to the generic hotel rooms he’d been living in for the past ten years. He had his computer and a room of his own. It was pretty much a writer’s dream.

He stared at the screen. He still had the feeling from earlier, that he had the pieces to figure out who the killer was, but didn’t know how they fit. He started typing.

Mickey

Joe

T-Bone

Oliver

Elizabeth

Nate

He contemplated adding Tiffany’s name, but shook his head. He also contemplated Fiona’s name, and added it.

Mickey — Pretty sure you’re not the Dealer. Playing fair is too important to you. Important enough that you’d kill to keep the game honest? I don’t know.

Joe — Too good a player to cheat, unless you thought it was some really fun game and there was more in it for you than money. Capable of murder? Doubt it. Best guess: you might be playing along, you might even be the Dealer, but you are not the Choker.

T-Bone — Lousy fucking asshole, but again, too good a player to cheat. Your win rate went down when all those newcomers came on the scene, but I don’t think it dipped below positive. The Dealer role doesn’t suit you. The Choker I could see.

Oliver — No doubt cheating. Pulling strings? Maybe. The unempowered often seek power in weird ways. Murdering? Again, maybe. Dark and angry. Ax to grind with world.

Elizabeth — Good player, no recent spike in win rate. Angry — chemicals — possible brain imbalance — pregnancy doesn’t really explain that away. Unless the pregnancy is unhealthy . . . maybe toxins in your system. Still, probably not a killer; probably not a cheater.

Nate — New to the scene and starts winning right away. High candidate for cheating, Dealer, etc. Right body type for Mount Baker hitchhiker (could be wearing dreadlock wig). Murderer? Sure, if people get in your way.

Fiona — Not a fucking clue.

George looked over his page a few times. The more he looked, the clearer the answer became: it was Nate.

George had to get the message to Tiffany, who could well be spending the night with Nate. They hadn’t given George internet access — though he’d wanted it to maintain his blog, George knew when not to push his luck. But maybe if he asked a guard, they’d let him make a phone call.

“Excuse me!” George heard his voice scratch as he shouted for a guard. He hadn’t spoken aloud for several hours.

A guard at the end of the corridor turned and walked toward him. “What do you want?”

“Could I make a phone call? You have my cell phone somewhere. Or I can use the pay phone if I can have my credit card for a few minutes.”

The guard snorted. “Don’t ask for much, do you?”

“I’m sorry,” George said. “I know you’re making these concessions for me already. I . . .”

“I’ll be right back.”

George sat on the bench in his cell and waited. What would he say to Tiffany if he reached her?
Excuse me, I’m in jail for a murder that I think your boyfriend committed?
He almost laughed out loud.

A few minutes later, the guard returned and unlocked George’s cell door. “You can use the pay phone, but you’ll have to call collect. Come with me.”

George followed the guard down the concrete hall. He dialed Mickey and waited for him to accept the charges.

“Georgie!” Mickey sounded happy to hear from him. “They let you out? Thank god. What a fuck-up. How’d you finally convince the fuzz to listen to reason?”

“I’m still in jail. That’s why I’m calling collect. But listen, Mickey, I’m pretty sure the Dealer’s Nate. And he’s a good bet for the Choker, too. Is Tiffany still hanging out with him? Someone should warn her.”

“I tried,” Mickey said. “I got a note. Did you get one, too? It said
Introducing Nate Wilkes as your Dealer.
I wondered if it was from you at first, but then I heard you got arrested.”

“I got the same note; but that’s not what tipped the scales. Look, Mickey, I know it’s Nate. You think Tiffany will accept a collect call from me?”

“Sure. She’s a good kid.”

“Can you give me her number?”

Mickey took a minute or so to retrieve the information from his phone. “And hang on tight in there. I’m doing what I can to find the real killer before they lock you away somewhere worse than a holding cell.”

“Thanks.” George hung up and dialed Tiffany’s number.