Brass in Pocket (15 page)

Nick and Riley parked next to the van. Lights blazed inside the front office, so they went to the front door. It was stainless steel and glass and looked in on an empty reception area. It was also locked. Nick banged on it a couple of times, then Riley softly tapped a key against the glass, making a much sharper sound.

A minute passed before a big, dark bruiser swarmed into view through an interior doorway. His hair was short and spiked, and tattoos scrolled
up both suntanned arms, a snake on one side and a dragon on the other. Nick supposed they might well meet in the middle somewhere, under his stained red T-shirt. “We're closed!” the man shouted.

Nick and Riley held their badges to the glass. “Nothing lasts forever,” Riley said. “You're open again.”

The guy shrugged, said something to a person in the other room, and unlocked the door. “What?”

“What do you mean, what?” Nick walked in past the guy, Riley following. Behind a waist-high counter were a couple of desks. A glass-fronted display case held trophies, and the walls were covered with racing posters and framed photos of the racing team in action and enjoying victory celebrations. A faint scent of marijuana hung in the air. “Maybe we're racing fans.”

“Then you can watch on TV,” the big guy said. He scratched his ribs, or where his ribs should be, although layers of fat and muscle buried them.

Another man came into the reception area, this one Hispanic, short but muscular, with broad shoulders and tattoos of his own. His arms and chest strained his polo shirt to its breaking point. “What's goin' on?”

“They're cops,” the big man said.

“Actually, we're crime scene investigators,” Riley corrected. Nick wouldn't have minded letting these two thugs think they were regular cops for a few minutes longer. On the other hand, they might not understand the difference. A lot of people—especially people living on the wrong side of the law—never saw beyond the badge and gun.

“You got a warrant?” the shorter one asked.

“Easy,” Nick said, holding out his hands. “Slow down. We haven't even said anything to you yet. We're not here to search the joint. We just have a couple of questions. Is Mr. Blago here?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Come on, anybody who reads the sports page knows Emil Blago owns Supra Racing.”

“Maybe I only read the funnies.” The short one seemed like the spokesman—the big guy stood back now, watching. His expression never changed. Nick couldn't tell if he was smiling or tasting some bad fish he'd had for dinner.

“There's no reason to get all defensive,” Riley said. “We just wanted to talk to him if he's here. If not, no biggie. Do you know if his wife has been around lately? What's her name, Antoinette?”

The two men shared a glance. “You keep tabs on
your
boss's wife?” the short one asked.

“He's not married,” Nick said. He might have been by now, if Sara Sidle hadn't left town.

“Lemme tell you, if he was, you wouldn't. You'd keep your eyes on the ground and your nose outta their business.”

“You're probably right. We didn't mean anything by it—we just wanted to talk to her and figured if she was here that would make it easy.”

“She's not. Why would she be, this time of night?”

“I see what you're saying,” Riley said. “Nobody here but you two, right? And you don't know anything about anything?”

The big man finally spoke again. “That's about the size of it.”

“Maybe we'll just come back during regular business hours,” Riley said. “Maybe with some detectives along too, just for fun. And maybe a few drug-sniffing dogs. Does that work for you?”

“Whatever you gotta do, lady.”

“Hold on,” Nick said. His cell phone was letting him know he had a message. He flipped it open and found a text and photo, sent over by Wendy Simms. She had gotten a DNA hit off some of the hairs found in the motel room. They belonged to a man named Victor Whendt, who, according to the brief message, had a number of violent crimes on his sheet. The picture showed a white man with short brown hair, a broad face, and thick features, his small, deep-set eyes staring into the camera with undisguised contempt.
Works 4 Blago
, she had written.

“You want to text your girlfriend, do it somewhere else,” the short man said. “We got stuff to do.”

“I bet you do,” Nick said. He closed the phone and walked over to the wall with the most framed photographs hanging on it. Ignoring the glares of the two men, he studied them. He didn't see Victor Whendt until the fourth picture, in which Victor was spraying champagne on a winning driver and a couple of women who looked like strippers. “Hey, that's Vic Whendt, isn't it?” he asked. “He works with you guys, right?”

“Sometimes,” the big man said.

“You want to see our personnel records?” the short one asked. “Come back with a warrant.”

“I'm not asking for his Social Security number,”
Nick said. “I just was surprised to see him there. You know Vic?”

The short man glared at him, but didn't speak. That was answer enough for Nick. They both knew Victor Whendt. “Never mind,” Nick said. “Let's go.”

“Have a good night, boys,” Riley said on the way out. “Don't break any laws.”

The big guy locked the door behind them and stood there watching until they were back in the department SUV.

“What was that about?” Riley asked. “Who's Vic Whendt?”

“He works for Supra Racing,” Nick said. “But he seems to have other outside interests, too. He was in the motel room where Deke Freeson was murdered. And from which Antoinette Blago disappeared.”

“Interesting,” Riley said. “I guess Supra is worth taking a closer look at.”

“Probably. But during business hours seems to make more sense—I don't think these guys could tie their own shoes, much less manage a criminal enterprise.”

“Or a racing team?”

“Definitely not a racing team.”

Catherine knew she shouldn't go to Victor Whendt's house without a detective along. It was unprofessional. It wasn't safe. She would pitch a fit if one of her CSIs had made the same decision without consulting anyone.

But involving the LVPD might mean answering questions about the case that she wasn't comfortable
talking about yet. If Whendt was home, he might bring the conversation around to Brass. She wasn't ready to reveal her concerns about Brass to anyone outside of her immediate circle, and certainly not to any of the detectives on duty tonight. Since finding out what she had about the connection between Brass and Antoinette O'Brady, she was sorry that she had taken Sam Vega to Cliff Gorecki's place, because he would want to keep tabs on the investigation's progress.

So she took two uniformed cops, who wouldn't expect to be kept in the loop, to Whendt's condo near Decatur and Washington. She assigned one to watch the back and the other to cover her from in front, making sure the officer would stand back far enough that he wouldn't overhear any conversation.

There was nothing especially glitzy about Whendt's complex. It had been built sometime in the last decade and looked like about a million others in Las Vegas, with light brown stucco walls and red tile roofs. The desert landscaping incorporated palm trees, not native to the region, on the theory, she supposed, that one desert was pretty much like another. Outside the buildings were carports, most of their spaces full this time of night, but the one labeled “1219,” matching Whendt's unit, was empty. One of the four units had lights on inside, but not 1219 itself, which was an upstairs condo with a wide balcony facing out toward a pool. Moonlight sparkled on the water. She heard the steady hum of an air conditioner, the strident chirrup of crickets, and the sound of her own heels clacking on the sidewalk. Someone had been outside smoking
a cigar, but not for a while; the fragrance was an afterthought on the still night air.

Catherine rang the doorbell of 1219, standing on a mat emblazoned with pictures of daisies. The word
welcome
didn't appear on the mat, and considering the time of night, she doubted that it would be applied to her in person, either.

The second time she pushed the illuminated button, the door opened abruptly while her finger was still on it. The person opening it wasn't Vic Whendt, though, but a slender young woman with red hair and a deep tan, wearing a black tank top that showed off most of her stomach and low-rise cotton pajama bottoms. She wrinkled her forehead and studied the badge Catherine showed her.

“It's kinda late,” she said.

“I know it is,” Catherine said. “I'm sorry about the hour. I'm looking for Victor Whendt, is he here?”

The woman shook her head. “I'm Mrs. Whendt.”

She didn't offer a first name. Instead, she showed Catherine her left hand. A gold ring gleamed there, the metal still buffed to a high polish. It encompassed a rock easily four times the size of the one Eddie had bought Catherine, so many years ago. Not that diamonds were a girl's best friend in any but the most romantic of fantasies, or really meant a lot to Catherine. Still, a woman remembered these things.

“How long?”

“Seven weeks,” Mrs. Whendt said. Still new enough to make it fresh and exciting.

“Where's your husband?”

Mrs. Whendt shrugged, a motion that seemed to involve her entire body and not just her shoulders. She was willowy and toned, with a pretty, perky face anchored by deep brown eyes. Catherine could see what the attraction was, for Vic, at least. She had yet to find out what Mrs. Whendt saw in a husband who would let her live in such a bland condo while spending what must have been several months' worth of mortgage payments on the ring. “He's out. Working, probably. He works some funky hours.”

“Doing what?”

“He doesn't say, and I don't ask. He works for a racing team, that's all I know. And we get some awesome seats at the track. But it's noisy as all hell there, and it really doesn't smell great.”

Catherine sniffed the air wafting from inside, catching the scents of a pine-scented cleanser and maybe a peach-flavored candle. “Something like that's important to you?”

Mrs. Whendt touched the tip of her tiny nose. The gesture was so cute Catherine almost couldn't stand it. “Vic says I have a nose like a bloodhound.”

“Does he smoke cigars?”

“Never! God, no. Our downstairs neighbor does, but his wife won't let him smoke them in the house. He has to do it outside. I don't blame her, except that I wouldn't let him back in as long as he had that smell clinging to him.”

“When did you see Vic last?”

Another shrug, but this one was slightly less animated. “Lunchtime, I guess. He had a tuna sandwich. I made a roast for dinner, and rolls, but he couldn't make it home.”

“Does that happen often, Mrs. Whendt? That he doesn't come home when you expect him to?”

“Sometimes. Like I said, funky hours. He doesn't always know when the team's going to need him to do something.”

“Do you know Emil Blago?”

Mrs. Whendt's forehead wrinkled again. Catherine had known puppies that weren't as cute. “What's this all about, anyway?”

“It's about a police matter. If you don't know anything about his business, then maybe it doesn't concern you. But if you do…”

“I told you I don't. I'm not really into cars anyway. All I know is they have a shower at the shop, so he doesn't have to come home smelling like grease. And they pay him pretty well. He said he was probably in for a bonus this week.”

“Did he say for what?”

“Am I not making sense to you? I don't know. He doesn't tell me about his work. Sometimes he talks about the other guys on the team, but he doesn't tell me what they do. Changing carburetors or whatever… I wouldn't even understand what he was talking about. The only thing I know about cars is how to drive one, and I'm not so great at that, either.”

“Okay,” Catherine said. This was looking like a dead end. If she could bottle Mrs. Whendt's adorableness, she could retire from the lab, but otherwise she wasn't making any headway here. “Do you know when he'll be home?”

“All I know is, whenever he is, it won't be too soon for me!”

Catherine was afraid the new Mrs. Whendt would start jumping for joy at the mere prospect of his return. She thanked the young woman, and left her to steep in her own cuteness.

If Vic Whendt had actually killed Deke Freeson and went away for it, his next roommate wouldn't be nearly so appealing.

N
ICK AND
R
ILEY HAD
traveled less than a block from Supra Racing when a dark blue Mustang with racing stripes turned a corner and came toward them. Nick barely glanced its way until it passed beneath a streetlight, illuminating the driver for an instant. The man was talking on a cell phone, holding the wheel with his left hand and wearing a worried expression. He had short hair, deep eyes, and blunt features, and it took a second for them to register.

“That's him!” Nick shouted.

“Him who?” Riley asked.

Nick was already pulling the Yukon into a screeching U-turn. “Vic Whendt!”

“The guy in the pictures?”

“Yeah. The guy in the motel room with Deke Freeson.” His voice was tight. He muscled the SUV back into the lane. The Mustang was already accelerating, tearing past Supra Racing and continuing down the same road.

“I hope he's not one of the team's drivers,” Riley said.

“Didn't look like it in the pictures on the wall.” He didn't know for sure, though. He had never heard of the guy, but that didn't mean he hadn't had some racing experience, only that he wasn't Mario Andretti or Jeff Gordon.

Nick put his foot down on the gas and the Yukon bolted forward. Up ahead, approaching an intersection, the Mustang's brake lights flashed briefly. “Oh boy,” Nick muttered. The Mustang cut left, already accelerating halfway through the turn. “Hang on, Riley.”