toothpick in their mouth was a solidly built woman with fried blonde hair and garish makeup, seated at a slot machine, who would have looked perfectly at home elbowing her way around a roller derby track.
25
Albert White led Brad and Winter to the far end of the gaming floor and down a long hallway into a small and windowless office.
The only items of furniture in the office were an industrial steel desk, a legal pad, pen, and telephone on its surface, and three matching chairs. This was clearly a generic office, used only when necessary.
“When Beals was killed,” Brad said, “he was in the process of committing an armed assault on a patron of this casino. A man who won a great deal of money earlier this evening.”
“Armed assault?” White asked.
“He was in a motel room with a silenced handgun, in the process of drowning the young man in a bathtub.”
“So this
“I’m not alleging anything, Albert. He was here all right. The assault was interrupted by a third party, who cut Jack Beals’s throat. Beals used his old departmental badge to gain entry and informed the victim he was acting on behalf of the casino. Beals told him that the casino wanted their money back. By the casino, I assume he meant someone in management, and not the blackjack dealers’ union.”
“And you know this how?”
“It’s what the victim told me.”
“How do you know he was telling the truth about anything? If he’s committed a homicide, murderers don’t always tell the truth.” White smiled uneasily.
“Because the victim was semiconscious in the tub when Beals got killed.”
White leaned in and told Brad huffily, “We’re a legitimate business operation. We do not beat up our customers, and the idea that our management would condone any illegal activity, or order it done, is preposterous. This casino is not owned by the mafia, for Christ’s sake. If we discover a customer is not playing fairly, we take their picture, have them sign a statement admitting their guilt-and they view the tapes themselves as a matter of procedure-take down their names and addresses, and tell them never to return. We blacklist them. We have our reputation and our gaming license to think of. I was a law enforcement officer for thirty years. If Beals was dirty, it is a total surprise to me.”
“I haven’t accused you of anything, Albert,” Brad said.
“Was he on duty today?” Winter asked.
“He went off the clock at noon, I believe. I could check that, of course.”
“If he hung around after he got off,” Brad asked, “would you have him on videotape?”
“Our system is digital, but yes, we would have a record of it. But our employees are not allowed to hang around here after they clock out. They don’t gamble here, or in any other casinos, or we fire them.”
“If he was here after his shift, how would you know that for sure?”
“We have cameras everywhere and our people would have spotted him if he was in the building.”
“So if Beals was eating in one of your restaurants, you would have it on tape?”
“We monitor the entire operation constantly. If I know what time you are interested in, I could locate the corresponding images-although it would be a time-consuming enterprise for our people. But we would be happy to cooperate in any way we can.”
“If he targeted the victim during his shift and had robbery in mind, I’d like to know if he had a partner working with him. A partner may have killed Beals, or might tell us who did kill him.”
White digested this for several long seconds. “I’ll put in a request for my people to go over the captures and see if Beals turns up while the patron was here. This sort of thing is something we obviously have to discourage.”
“You should be able to look at the blackjack player who was assaulted and see who was around him, maybe watching him. Can you do that?”
“I’ll see that it’s done and you can review the images yourself. If that’s all?”
“That’ll do,” Brad said. “And if you can give me your contact numbers?”
“This has my office and cell,” White said as he pulled out a card and handed it to Brad. “I’ll show you out,” he said, standing. “Can I fax you Jack Beals’s next-of-kin information? The personnel office is run by a skeleton crew until eight A.M.”
“That would be fine,” Brad said.
After they left the casino, Brad said, “You pick up on that?”
“That he looked like he was going to pass a watermelon the entire time we were there? Or the fact that he offered to collect the images of our man at the blackjack table without us mentioning his name or describing what he looked like? I did.”
“If he furnishes the images of Scotoni without calling to ask the particulars, we can ask him how he knew who we were talking about, since he shouldn’t have been able to read our minds.”
“If he asked Beals to talk to Scotoni, it doesn’t mean he told him to do what he did to him,” Winter said, yawning. “But it could mean that White was working with Beals to rob winners.”
“It’s late. Let’s get some rest and go after this at first light,” Brad said, holding up White’s card. “By the way, the last number Beals called…”
“Is the cell number on that business card,” Winter said.
“We could go back in and ask him about that,” Brad said.
“He’d just say he didn’t talk to him or that Beals asked his boss a business-related question. He knows Beals called him, and he’ll begin to wonder why you didn’t ask him. Let him do some worrying. Sometimes it’s better just to let things percolate.”
26
Local current events, much like the time of day, rarely invaded the Roundtable’s upper offices. Gamblers didn’t bring the outside world in with them, and the staff was too busy collecting their money to care. Pierce had learned from his secretary when she’d come in that morning that a young woman had been killed at the Gardner cotton plantation. The news had opened the door to troubling questions.
After Pierce had asked Albert White to find out the particulars, White had called his contact in the sheriff’s office, a deputy with a gambling problem that had gotten her indebted to the casino for approximately her yearly salary. She told White that a babysitter on the Gardner place named Sherry Adams had been killed by an errant rifle shot. Whatever had happened, it was a very troubling complication in an already complex and delicate maneuver. But he had been told that his involvement was not required. How the death of the young girl fit in, or didn’t, was chewing on his guts.
When Tug knocked and opened the door to his office, Pierce Mulvane frowned. He knew by Tug’s demeanor that whatever he was about to tell him wasn’t going to lift his spirits. After Tug closed the door, Pierce locked his hands behind his neck and leaned back in his chair.
“The sheriff was just here,” Tug said. “He met with Albert.”
“Yes?” Pierce felt a pang of anticipation in his chest. “What was it about?”
“It was about Jack Beals.”
“Yes,” Pierce said, closing his eyes. “What about Beals?”
“He got clipped.”
“Clipped.” A white-hot poker in the eye would have hurt less than those words.
“The sheriff told Albert that Beals was drowning that blackjack-cheating kid out at the Gold Key and somebody killed him while he was doing it. Cut his throat. They’re thinking our security tapes might show Beals
