Death Plays Poker (37 page)

CLARE

“New York City.” Roberta looked blankly at the carburetor needle in her hand. “You excited?”

“No.”

“Why are you going?”

“Fine, so I’m a bit excited.” Clare took a sip of beer. It felt good to be openly drinking Bud again.

“Have you seen your parents yet?”

“I talked to my mom this morning. My dad’s off the transplant list, like you said, and they’re pretty sure he’s going to die soon. Am I being cold by moving so far from home?”

Roberta shook her head. A bunch of red hair came loose from its ponytail, and Clare thought she saw some gray in it for the first time. “Visit him. Tell him you love him. But go to New York. You’re living your life.”

“I do love him. That’s the stupid part. But every time I go up there, they both try to make me feel guilty.”

Roberta’s eyebrows lowered. “They’re unhappy. They don’t know how to be the people you want them to be.”

“So it’s my job to smile and make them think everything’s okay?”

“No. It’s your job to look after yourself. Because they won’t. And unfortunately, taking care of yourself includes sometimes visiting them.”

Clare breathed deeply. “What if I hate New York?”

“What if the moon turns blue? The
FBI
making you sign up for life?”

“No.” Clare felt herself smile.

“What if you love New York? Will we ever see you again?”

“Of course. I’ll be home for Dad’s funeral soon. God, that sounded terrible.”

“But true,” Roberta said. “How’s your mom?”

Clare wanted a cigarette, but there was, for obvious reasons, no smoking inside the shop. “I think she might be . . . you know . . . ready . . . for my dad to die.”

“She’ll never be ready.”

“She’s calling the disease by its name finally.”

“Emphysema? What was she calling it before?”

“Breathing trouble.” Clare rolled her eyes. “But I think you’re right. About seeing them for my sake. I have the weekend free. I’ll go up before I head south.”

“Can Noah go with you?”

Clare shook her head. “He’s going back to New York tomorrow. And it’s too soon to introduce him to my family.”

“You’re moving cities for a guy, and it’s too soon for him to know where you come from?” Roberta picked up a new-looking motorcycle battery from her workbench.

“He knows exactly where I come from. He was fascinated, actually — he made me describe the trailer park in detail until he said he felt like he could walk around it. It’s the depression I don’t want him exposed to. Maybe if I had a normal family I’d consider it.”

“Who has a normal family?” Roberta snorted. She opened the battery casing on the Virago and attached the battery to the bike.

“We’ve been dating for two weeks. One of which I thought his name was Nate.”

“But you’re moving to New York because of him.”

“I’m moving for the job. Toronto can’t even make my transfer to undercover official, and the
FBI
is handing me my dream job on a platter. I thought you said it wasn’t the battery.”

“It wasn’t,” Roberta said. “The old battery was weak, so it needed a new one. But that’s incidental. We’re about to find out if you were right about it being a starter solenoid.”

“You haven’t tested it?”

“I thought we could do that together.” Roberta turned the key. The light came on, and she grinned. “You want to press the start button?”

Clare walked over to the bike and pressed the electric start. The bike coughed a bit the first go, so Clare pressed it again. Success.

“I’m going to miss you.” Roberta’s eyes were glassy. She turned the bike off.

“You can visit,” Clare said. “It’s only an eight-hour drive.”

“If you drive like a maniac.”

“Which you do.”

Roberta grinned. “Maybe you’ll see Shauna and Lance on the weekend when you’re home.”

“Maybe the moon will turn blue.”

ELIZABETH

Hey, can I ask you something?” Elizabeth spoke into the phone, though Joe was only a few feet away.

“Shoot.” Joe wouldn’t meet her eye.

“Um . . . this may seem really shallow. With everything you’re going through. But . . . well . . . have you ever cheated on me?”

Joe looked up at her. Maybe he’d been expecting a tougher question. Through the plastic his eyes said less than ever. “Yes.”

“With who? Josie? Fiona?”

Joe nodded.

“Tiffany?”

Joe twisted his mouth into a grim smile. “Yes.”

“I guess that shouldn’t bother me.” Elizabeth frowned. “Did you like killing people?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

Same old fucking Joe.
“Right.”

Joe smiled.

“So can we play What If?” Elizabeth said.

“Yeah. I like that game.”

“You like all games.”

Joe shrugged.

“What if you killed someone?” Elizabeth said. “Do you think you would have liked it?”

“That’s hard to imagine, since I’ve never wanted to kill anyone. But okay, let’s suppose, for the sake of the game, that I did want someone dead enough to kill them.” Joe tilted his head to one side. His dark roots were starting to show — for some reason, combined with his blond dye and frosted tips, it made him look more cheeseball to Elizabeth than the guys in
Jersey Shore
. He probably wouldn’t be treated to a hair stylist in jail. “Yeah. I might have liked it.”

Elizabeth forced herself to keep looking at him. “What might you have liked?”

“It might feel really powerful.” Joe made a wringing motion with his hands. “One minute, life. One minute, death. All because of me.”

Elizabeth felt her arms begin to tremble. “Would you have — hypothetically — killed these people for no reason? Or would you have needed a motive?”

“Um . . . that’s a bit of a stretch, now. First you ask me to imagine I’m a murderer. Now you want me to imagine a motive?”

Elizabeth nodded, clenching her teeth inside closed lips.

“It would depend on who I killed, wouldn’t it?”

“Josie Carter.”

Joe pursed his lips and stared at the wall behind Elizabeth. “Josie talked a lot, didn’t she? I don’t remember her too well. But I guess that might annoy me.”

“Talked a lot in general?”

“Yeah, and specifically. You said she wanted you to cheat at cards.”

Elizabeth’s fists tightened. “Do you think the killer is also the Dealer?”

Joe laughed. “Of course the killer is the Dealer. Why else would the people who blew the system end up dead?”

“Um . . . the system?”

Joe rolled his eyes. “This is common knowledge, Lizzie. Personally, I think George is the man we should be after. I don’t understand why they let him out of jail. I know they think they have this evidence on me, but there’s more on him.”

Elizabeth gnawed on her lower lip. The pain felt good. “So Josie talked too much. Why did Jimmy Streets have to die?”

“You forgot to say What If. Someone listening might mistake this for a confession.”

It was like playing a game with a four-year-old. “What if you killed Jimmy Streets? Why would you have done that?”

“Well, I — like I said, I really think it’s George, but
if
it was me — I think Jimmy was sniffing too close around the scam’s mechanics. Jimmy wouldn’t have cheated — he was good at the game — but if his best friend T-Bone Jones was in on the action, Jimmy might have smelled a rat. He might have been close to finding the rat and holding it up for public scrutiny.”

Elizabeth’s toes curled at the thought of a dead rat being held up by its tail. “And Willard Oppal?”

“Oppal?” Joe snorted. “God, anyone would have killed Oppal. Who needs another cop on the scene?”

“Loni Mills?”

“Freeloading. Loni was — you know, allegedly — cheating for free on the back of her boyfriend.
And
talking. Maybe if I was a killer, I’d find a way to kill her twice.”

Elizabeth didn’t laugh along with Joe. “And Fiona? What if?”

“Fiona bolted. I’m sure the Dealer didn’t like that. It was his game; not hers. She should have let the Dealer keep control of the cards.”

Elizabeth wondered why Joe’s tone had changed so suddenly. Had he actually felt an emotion when killing Fiona? Or maybe it was simpler. “Wasn’t it her murder that got you caught?”

“Some cabs in B.C. and in Washington State have images of someone they think was me in their cameras. But that guy had long black dreads, and as you can see I have short hair with blond tips, so I’m not really sure what’s made them make that connection.” Joe shrugged. “Is it because we both have a scar on our cheek? The scar could be makeup. There’s way more evidence on George. Plus I was home at the casino playing poker. I was Snow White that night. It even says so on Twitter.”

“Snow White was Oliver for most of the night. Come on, Joe. No one’s convinced.”

“Come on, Liz,” Joe said. “No one’s convicted.”

“Okay, Joe. One more What If. What if you were the Dealer? Why would you have cheated when you’re so damn good at the game?”

“Ah,” Joe said. “Finally, an interesting question.”

Elizabeth waited.

“Poker has no guarantees. You can play like God and still get beaten.”

“So?” Elizabeth watched Joe’s face change, somehow, from the cold killer of a moment ago into the man she could picture herself crawling into bed with.

“You know how I grew up. I had nothing.”

“That’s why I don’t understand your materialism as an adult. You know you can survive on nothing. What do you care if you have a boat and a mansion?”

“I never want to depend on anyone again.”

Elizabeth didn’t comment on the irony of that, with a life in jail the most likely scenario ahead of Joe.

“
If
I was the Dealer, it would have nothing to do with materialism, and everything to do with never having to ask anyone for anything ever again.”

“But you had enough for that already. If you’d invested —”

“I have enough to invest and live a quiet, simple life. But that’s not me. I plan to soar, Lizzie. You’ll soar with me — when you stop believing I’m guilty, anyway. Look, this game is done. I’m not the killer. I’m not the Dealer. Just get me a fucking lawyer — a good one — so I can get out of this place.”

“I thought you had some super-fancy lawyer flying in from the States.”

“He’s not here yet. I want out.”

“Are other people even real to you?”

Joe looked blank.

“If you think of someone else being in pain, do you feel anything?”

Joe shrugged. “Should I?”

Elizabeth shook her head, trying to clear it.

“Seriously, Liz. Should I feel something? Because I’m pretty sure people are just making that crap up, when they say, ‘I feel your pain.’”

“What about the baby?”

“I felt that.” Joe went quiet.

“Thank god something can wipe that stupid grin off your face.”

“I mean I really felt it. I thought it was a new beginning.”

“You would have been bored of the baby as soon as it kept you awake all night crying. Hell, you might have killed it if it really pissed you off.”

“Elizabeth, stop it.” Joe was getting angry, something she couldn’t remember ever having seen. “That baby could have cried for twelve years. It was my chance to change — it’s already changed me — don’t you see?”

“No.”

Joe shrugged. “Not like it matters now. You’ve already killed it.”

“Have fun in jail, Joe.”