As readers of my last tale will testify, I’m a fan of the game of poker. It relies on multiple things: an understanding of the mathematical odds of the cards being dealt, a courage to risk everything you have, and the ability to tell when your opponent is bluffing.
There is one other thing. You have to know when and how to bluff with your own hand or lack thereof. Bluffing is an art unto itself. You can’t come across as too confident because then your opponent will see right through you. If you appear too weak, then your opponent will sense that something is up. It’s a delicate balance, which also depends on reading the other person’s personality and knowing how to go after them.
Unfortunately, I’d never met Oleen so I had nothing to base my approach on. There was also the inconvenient fact that I was working for Mele Akamu, something that I suspected Oleen already knew. It was highly unlikely that she’d be willing to tell us what we wanted to know, and it wasn’t like I could keep going around tying up people with extension cords, no matter how appealing that sounded to my darker side. Come on now, we all have those thoughts. Most of us are just too polite to express them.
Foxx eventually arrived and he parked his SUV behind my car. We both climbed out of our vehicles and met in the street.
“Sorry I’m late. Traffic was heavier than I expected,” he said.
“No problem.”
“How did your meeting with Bret Hardy go?”
I laughed.
“Would you believe me if I told you that I tied him to a column on his front porch and made him tell me what I wanted to know?”
“Hell no, I wouldn’t believe that. So, how did it really go?”
“I just told you. I had to tie him up.”
Foxx looked at me like I was crazy, which I understood.
“How do you want to play this next interview?” he asked.
“Let’s see what happens when we introduce ourselves.”
“I think we already know the answer to that.”
We walked up to her apartment building, which wasn’t that much larger than Daniel Davis’ complex in Paia. I knocked on the door. In the eight to ten seconds that we waited for her, a vague idea popped into my head.
Oleen opened the door. She looked at Foxx first. Then she turned to me.
“You look familiar,” she said.
“Hello, ma’am. We’re hoping we can speak with you for a few minutes. My name is–” I started to say before she cut me off.
“You’re that investigator working for Mele. Get the hell away from me. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
Oleen slammed the door in our faces. Foxx turned to me just as that vague idea I alluded to a moment ago took better shape. I knocked on the door again.
“We know all about Stan Cross. If you don’t open this door right now, we’re going straight to the police and telling them everything,” I said.
“We do?” Foxx whispered.
I shrugged my shoulders just as the door opened again.
“What do you know?” she asked.
“Really, Mrs. Akamu. Do you expect us to tell you everything now? We haven’t even had a chance to ask our questions first,” I said.
Oleen didn’t respond.
“We have just a few questions. No one wants to go to the police. We sure as hell don’t,” Foxx said.
Oleen hesitated a long moment. Then she stepped back.
“Come in,” she said.
We went into her apartment. There were a handful of cardboard boxes stacked against the wall by the door. There was a small, worn-looking sofa pressed against the opposite wall. What was more interesting, though, is what wasn’t there.
There was no television or a coffee table or even a lamp. No table in the kitchen nook. No pots and pans or even a coffee maker on the counter. It looked like Oleen had only started to move in. I suspected she’d taken whatever she could, and those few items were in the boxes. Everything else was probably still at her home with Tavii and she didn’t have the money to furnish the rest of the apartment.
“What do you know about Stan?” she asked again, and there was no masking the anxiety in her voice. As far as poker players went, she was a lousy one.
“We know you cut a deal with him, but judging by what I see now, it’s obvious he hasn’t paid you anything yet, maybe only enough for the deposit on this apartment,” I said.
Yes, it was a huge gamble to get so specific, but I still thought it was a solid, educated guess. I must have been correct for she didn’t tell me that I was wrong.
“Who approached who first?” I asked.
“You don’t know?”
“Our inside man didn’t hear,” Foxx said.
It was a good line and better than anything I could have come up with at that moment.
“It was Stan’s idea,” she said.
I studied her expression when she’d said it and I thought she was probably lying.
“How much did he offer you to tell the police that you saw Mele Akamu and Samson shoot Eric Ellis?” I asked.
Oleen didn’t respond.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” I continued. “Our man is going to contact the police and tell them about this little scheme you cooked up. You’re going to jail for perjury and making a false report to the police.”
“You can’t prove anything.”
“Can’t we? What do you think is going to happen when Stan Cross realizes the police are on to you? He’s going to cut you loose, and you’ll end
