Bad Bones (Claire Morgan) (5 page)

“Maybe we’d be better off getting the names of his opponents. All of them probably have some issues with this Parker guy,” Claire said.

“The guy Parker beat over there at the Lake Inn? Name’s Frankie Velez, but he calls himself Pancho Villa, you know, after that Mexican guy who did somethin’ down in Mexico once upon a time. Don’t remember what. But Parker’s from down around here. They say he lives somewhere out around the lake.”

“Any address on him?”

“No, but it says he got his start at a fight club over around Lebanon. They called it the Knock Down Drag Out.”

Bud laughed. “Well, that’s highly appropriate. Pretty much nails what goes on in those places.”

“Okay, Bud, let’s go. Shaggy, you got a location for that place?”

“Highway 54, too. That’s all it says. Can I go, too, Claire? Maybe we could watch some of the guys spar? Get some autographs, stuff like that?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Okay, but if you see that Pancho dude anywhere, tell him that I’m a big fan of his. He just had a tough night, and the Punisher’s an all-out beast.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, can’t wait to meet him,” Claire said, letting her unenthusiastic tone do the talking.

Shaggy just grinned. “Want me to see what else I can pull up on those guys?”

“Sure, and print it out. That would help us big-time. Thanks.”

“No problem. I do love me that MMA stuff. I’ll e-mail you anything else I find, too.”

Buckeye said, “Well, first, you’re gonna finish processing this guy. Then you can play on the Internet.”

“No problem. Not much to process, except his DNA.”

And there lies the problem
, Claire thought, but at least they had some good leads now. Mixed martial arts was a new concept for her, new and alien and absurd, at least from her point of view. But to each his own. And Parker’s fighting connections matched the kind of wounds found on his body. It wasn’t going to be a slam dunk, but it was a start. So square one, here we come.

Afterward, they stood by, breathing masks in place, and reluctantly viewed the autopsy, and then they took off, fairly eager to get out of the morgue and away from the horrifically injured body and into the interviews. They were halfway out the door to the parking lot when Shaggy came running down the hall after them. “Hey, Bud, dude, wait up. I got something to tell you!”

They stopped, came back inside, and waited by the door for him. Shaggy skidded to a stop in front of them, but then started hemming and hawing around like he was big-time nervous or had forgotten what he was going to say. But that was Shaggy for you. Nobody ever knew what he was going to say next, even him.

“Bud, I’m just gonna have to say it, man. Brianna’s come back home. She wants to see you.”

Mightily startled by that little tidbit of news, Claire darted a quick glance at Bud. His face had blanched as white as their beaten and broken corpse, mouth open a little, if only by the pure shock. Nope, he had not been expecting that to come out of Shaggy’s mouth, either. Brianna Swensen was Shaggy’s sister, and an old girlfriend of Bud’s, one who had been involved in one of their homicide cases and had been terribly injured as a result. Bud never mentioned her anymore, but Claire was pretty sure he had never gotten over her, either.

“Bri’s here? At the lake?” he finally got out after a few seconds of stunned silence.

“Yeah, she’s stayin’ out at my house. She wasn’t sure you’d even want to see her, or nothin’.” Now Shaggy really looked uncomfortable. “You know, the way she just took off on ya, and all that crap.”

Awk-ward
, Claire thought. Then they stood there in a very uncomfortable silence and waited for Bud to say something. He didn’t. Still flabbergasted, she guessed. They waited some more.

Finally, at long last, Bud said, “Sure. I want to see her. Sure I do.”

Despite the double amount of
sures
, he didn’t sound the least bit overeager, oooh, no, not at all. It sounded more to her like Bud was dragging his feet or being overly polite or mumbling out something that he wouldn’t remember later. But it was enough for Shaggy to don a great big wide grin. “Awesome, man. I’ll tell her. Maybe she’ll give you a call. Or you can call her. You got my home number.”

Bud nodded, turned around, and headed out the door. He didn’t say a single word more, just climbed into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. Claire joined him, waiting for him to want to talk about it. He backed out and drove out of the parking lot in silence. Okay, he was mulling it over in his head and didn’t want to get chatty about his old love. Claire could relate. There were people she didn’t want to talk about, too. People she didn’t want to think about, either. A lot of them, in fact. Bud knew she was there any time he wanted to talk about anything. He was her rock at times, and vice versa. So they rode on in silence, Bud no doubt mulling over in his head all the ramifications of Brianna being back, meaning the good, the bad, and the ugly. Claire spent the quiet time thinking about Black and wishing they were back in that hot tub again with all that water sloshing over the sides.

In the bright afternoon sunshine, The Knock Down Drag Out looked as if more than a few people had been knocked down and dragged out, all right. Ramshackle, rusted, seedy, it definitely needed a caretaker or two by the looks of the four feet of snow on the sagging corrugated tin roof. There was a house trailer on the same lot, held up on concrete blocks and of equally squalid description. A car’s motor was hanging off a giant oak tree limb in the front of the trailer and a chicken-wire dog pen holding six snarling pit bulls, who all, to a dog, looked cold, miserable, and murderous. They started barking and salivating at the sight of Claire and Bud as soon as they climbed out of Bud’s Bronco. Probably thought they were lunch on the hoof.

Out on the shoulder of a two-lane highway running through Lebanon, four old beat-up pickup trucks sat unoccupied because the parking lot had not yet been cleared, even after two full days of heavy snowfall. A copper-colored Mercedes sat alone across the road, late model and shiny and expensive, all of which Claire found highly interesting. Hmm. Maybe a scruple-empty somebody was making beaucoup money off the young idiots who went inside a chain-link cage and beat each other to bloody meat each and every night. Maybe she wanted to talk to him.

Bud glanced over at the yapping, howling critters who probably considered both of them delicious-looking Whoppers with Cheese. “Well, these guys can’t be all bad. They’re dog lovers.”

“Or they run a dog fighting operation,” Claire said. “Hope so. There’s nothing I like to bust more than jerks who abuse animals.”

They slugged their way through knee-high drifts to the front of the building and stared at the dented front door. Maybe they used it as a battering ram for practicing their head butts. That wouldn’t surprise Claire. The snow had been shoveled slightly around the entrance, but only in a narrow path from the ersatz fight club to the seedy trailer and highly agitated dogs. So they climbed over some more impressive snowbanks until they reached the cleared-off part.

“This bites, all right, but not as much as standing out in intersections dodging out-of-control cars,” Bud said. “I hate winter. I love summer. I love Florida. I love the tropics.”

“Just think of the good things about winter, Bud. You know, Christmas and snowmen and sleigh bells and hot tubs.”

“Yeah, right. All that’s fine and dandy, but Christmas is long over, and we’re freezing our butts off day and night. And we don’t all have hot tubs in our living room.”

“You can use mine anytime you want. I told you that.”

“Yeah, that’ll be real cozy. You and me and Nick. I hate to think of what I’d have to witness.”

Claire laughed. She couldn’t imagine him being in the tub with them, either. Not after their little romp last night. “Okay, just remember what we’re here for. Somebody around here might’ve beaten that poor kid to death, possibly with various and sundry deadly weapons. The perpetrator could very well be inside. Don’t start anything. They’re bruisers and trained fighters, and we’re too cold to be on top of our game.”

Bud looked at her, highly incredulous. “Me, start things? Ha! You’re the one who usually throws the first punch.”

“C’mon, I only do that when I have to. And I can tell you right now. I’m not going to incite some ultimate fighters into a bout of fisticuffs. I’m not that dumb, and I don’t want to have to shoot anybody this early in the case.”

“Hey, I know. Just hit ’em with that big ring Nick gave you. That oughta put out their lights, if the glare doesn’t blind them first.” Bud laughed at his own cleverness. “Maybe we shoulda brought along a Brink’s truck to keep it safe.”

“Ha-ha. You’re just jealous, is all.” But Claire shouldn’t have worn it on her finger. That’s all she’d gotten all day long from her colleagues at the office, jokes about the size of her glaringly giant diamond solitaire engagement ring. She knew better, of course. She’d only put it on her finger that morning in order to please Black, who was surreptitiously watching to see where she’d wear it and all the while trying to hide his keen interest, but interested he had been. However, there were limits to how long she could endure being the butt of engagement ring jokes, even good-natured ones. She was quickly reaching hers. The hidden-on-a-chain-around-her-neck idea was sounding better all the time.

Unfortunately, Bud was not finished with his jabs, probably trying to get his mind off the beauteous and newly arrived Brianna. “Yeah, I guess all I need is a rich girlfriend. A female version of Nick, maybe. Now that’s a scenario I could go for. Bud Davis, adored by a filthy rich woman and loved to death in a hot tub. Do I ever like the sound of that, man alive, whoo-hoo.”

Well, that hit pretty damn close to home. “Very funny. And it’s not my money, if you recall. It’s Black’s money. I have to earn a paycheck, just like you do. Long hours, cold hours, cold-blooded murderers, the whole nine yards.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all that before. Hell, I could buy a brand-new house with that rock you’re wearing. Or a brand-new designer wardrobe. Something Italian maybe. Outta Milan. Oh, yeah, Milan duds. That’s what I’d buy first with it, if my rich lady gave me her credit card. And she would.”

“Would you just shut up about the damn ring already, or I’m gonna take it off.”

Bud laughed. “Better not. Nick’ll get mad and not shower you with cash anymore. He might even ban you from his private jet. Oooooh, how could you stand it?”

“Just shut it, would you?” Claire usually just ignored his friendly joshing, almost getting used to it by now. Down deep, though, she didn’t like those kinds of jokes. She usually didn’t like snooty, filthy rich people, either, avoided them like the plague, in fact. But Black was different, sort of. At least he was generous and not stingy and uppity like most of them, and he had earned every dime of the money he had. But she wasn’t rich or entitled or anything else remotely resembling it. She worked hard for a living, just like Bud and Shaggy and Buck and everybody else she knew. Black worked hard for his money, too, damn it.

Thankfully, Bud changed the subject back to work. “Something tells me this isn’t the primo address for the A-list cage fighters that we watch on TV.”

“No kidding.”

“Ever been in this kind of place?”

“Nope. Thank goodness.”

“Okay, take a real deep breath. I think you’re gonna need it once we walk in that door.”

As it turned out, he was dead on. It was steamy hot inside, which was the only good thing about it. It smelled bad, of sweat and testosterone and the two big bloodhounds lying on the floor beside the door. Something was cooking. Some kind of meat was frying in a skillet, smoky, unappetizing, at least to Claire. The club was comprised of one big room with two round cages inside, both with padded floors and plastic wire sides. Two morons were now inside, practicing their craft by pummeling the hell out of each other sans boxing gloves or shoes. Lord have mercy, and thank God she had been born with a brain.

“Hope I don’t get blood on my jacket,” Bud said. “I just got it dry cleaned. Twenty bucks and change.”

Bud worried about such eventualities because there was indeed a lot of blood flying around. Nobody seemed to notice that or the fact that two law enforcement officers had entered the building. All were merrily intent on the bloodletting. If this was practice, Claire would hate to see the real thing. She had a feeling that she was going to have to watch a lot of this stuff before they solved their case. Wonderful.

“These guys are crazy,” Bud said softly. “I wonder how many of them end up with brain damage. That’s what I’d worry about.”

“Yeah, you and me both.”

At one side of the room and behind a long bar made out of carpenter’s trestles and wide wood planks, a man was cooking something in an electric skillet. It smelled like beef steak, maybe, sizzling in serious amounts of lard. The chef was watching the sparring young men, too, incongruously turning the meat with a long fork while wearing an expensive three-piece black suit. He had a white towel over his arm à la the waiters at Two Cedars, the fancy-schmancy restaurant in Black’s Cedar Bend Lodge. When he noticed them, he stared at them a moment and then gave them a big smile. “These guys are always hungry for meat after they fight.”

Yeah, probably raw hamburger. She was surprised he was cooking it. She glanced at the cages, in one of which was a kid sitting on the other one’s chest, hitting him in the head. She frowned. “Yeah? If they have any teeth left to chew it with.”

The man laughed, unfortunately not offended. He looked to be around forty years old, graying at the temples with wavy salt-and-pepper locks that hung to his collar. He had a thick accent which indicated that he did not grow up within a thousand miles of mid Missouri. Oh, yeah, he definitely hailed from Brooklyn or the Bronx or Poland, maybe. He wasn’t that bad looking, except that both ears slightly resembled cauliflower blossoms, both in size and color, thus indicating a healthy knowledge of all things brutal. But he was pleasant enough when he said, “What can I do for you officers on this cold bright beautiful day?”

“How’d you know who we were?” Bud asked, always the curious detective.

“You got the look.”

Claire didn’t inquire further, because she didn’t give a damn. She pulled out the chain with her badge and held it up for him. “We’re Canton County Sheriff’s detectives. I’m Detective Morgan. This is Detective Davis.”

“That can’t be real,” he said and gave her an amused little smirk.

Claire frowned. She didn’t quite cotton to that remark. “The badges are real all right. We got real weapons, too, if you’d like to see them pointed at you.”

“I meant that ring you got on. God, it’s the size of a freakin’ Fig Newton. What’s a matter wit’ you, girl? Everybody’s gonna know right off that it’s a fake. It’s goddamn gaudy. You gotta tell your guy to get you somethin’ real instead of that glass trinket so you ain’t embarrassin’ yourself like this in front of people who know the real thing when they see it. Better for you if it’s real, I’m tellin’ you, even if it’s little bitty. You’re hookin’ up with a cheapskate, trust me. That thing must be twenty carats, at the very least, all fake and made outta glass and silver plate, probably.”

Bud barked out a genuine laugh and then cut it off and looked warily at Claire.

Claire fought the urge to pull her weapon on the smug, ring-appraising imbecile. Hell, she probably couldn’t get her Glock out without her cheap, Fig Newton-sized trinket obstructing her draw time. And Black had told her that it was only fifteen carats, anyway, which showed how much that moron knew about flawless white diamonds, and it sure as hell wasn’t as big as any Fig Newton, either. A Cheez-It, maybe, or a Frosted Miniwheat, or probably more like a Peanut M&M squared off some, but no cookie or cracker any bigger than that. And Black said it was set in platinum, not silver plate anything. So why did everybody she meet find it necessary to exaggerate about Black’s damn ring? It was getting downright ridiculous. With some effort having to be exerted, she restrained herself. She presented him with a tight rendition of a false smile. He was just stupid. She had to remember that. It was almost cute how stupid he was.

“We’re not really here to discuss your opinion of my jewelry, sir. We’re here concerning a homicide investigation.”

That obviously took him aback. “Homicide? Who got killed?”

“Is now a good time to ask you a few questions?”

“Like what?”

“Like what’s your name and your business here?”

He took plenty of time turning over another steak before answering. “Name’s Sonny Randazzo. Dazz, for short. And I own this place. Keep it running out here in the sticks so my scouts can find my fight company some raw talent to develop.”

Claire watched him fork up a huge sirloin steak and carefully transfer it to a paper towel covered plate. Behind her, one of the contestants in the ring screamed. It sounded rather painful, and she tried not to look, but couldn’t help herself. The fighter was writhing around on the mat, moaning and groaning and a good amount of blood gushing out of his nose. The other guy was being glad-handed by his handlers. High fives even. Sick, sick, and more sick, oh, yeah. But back to business.

“Well, Dazz, by the looks of that Mercedes outside, I’d say you can afford to buy your boys over there a pair of boxing gloves. Maybe even a face guard and mouthpiece, to boot. You know, just to cut down on broken bones and black eyes.”

“What are you, anyways, detective, a softie? Just like a girl to say somethin’ like that. My fighters are as tough as nails. Those kids don’t need a goddamn thing inside that ring except their hands and their feet. They got those four deadly weapons. Don’t need nothing else.”

“Wow, somehow the term
blatant exploitation
occurs to me.”

“Don’t kid yourself, lady. They beg me to let them fight.”

Claire narrowed her eyes. This guy was seriously chewing up her reserve of police politeness. She fought an urge to smash him in the face with Black’s gaudy, cheapo, embarrassing glass ring.

Bud said, “I wouldn’t provoke her like that, if I were you. She’s not as soft as you think she is.”

“Ha! What’s this sweet little lady gonna do, hit me with her big fake ring?”

Okay, that did it. The ring was going back on the chain and around her neck and hidden under her sweatshirt, as soon as they got back in the car. But hey, this guy was just asking for it. “Well, I tell you one thing this little lady’s gonna do to you, Dazz, she’s gonna run you in to the Canton County Sheriff’s Department so that you’ll cooperate in a homicide investigation or sit in a cell until you do.”

“Uh-oh, now I’m shakin’ in my Italian loafers. And unlike that ring, mine are the genuine article. Straight outta Rome, Italy.”

Bud jerked a look down to see if they really were real, no doubt, and then he looked at Claire and shook his head. “Those are cheap knockoffs, man. Somebody took you for a ride.”