Death Takes a Ride (The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #3): A Novel (19 page)

Cate didn’t see anything like the “dumb” bets Candy mentioned, but not all the betting was on college games. Some of the initials suggested professional teams. And he’d bet $1,000 on something called Dingbat. With a slash through it. The name of a horse in a race? A slow horse with an appropriate name, apparently.

Candy had been looking over Cate’s shoulder, and finally she said, “You’re thinking Kane was placing bets at this Pete’s place?”

Cate didn’t answer with an instant yes. It was possible the receipts for vehicle repairs and the betting weren’t connected. Kane’s messy filing system might put actual repair receipts in with his peculiar form of record keeping on his bets, and they were separate matters entirely.

“Although I guess a car repair place would be a good front for an illegal gambling setup, wouldn’t it?” Candy said thoughtfully.

“One way to find out,” Cate said.

Candy turned a yellow receipt over so they could both see the address. She pushed up the sleeve of her black turtleneck to look at her watch. “It’s close to nine o’clock. A repair shop wouldn’t be open this time of evening.”

But if it
wasn’t
just a repair shop . . .

Cate repeated what she’d just said. “Only one way to find out.”

21

Cate used her cell phone to find the exact location of the street. Candy drove that direction as if her gas-pedal foot had suddenly developed a debilitating affliction.

“You think this is a good idea, just the two of us going out to this place alone?” Candy asked as they turned a corner at tricycle speed.

“What did you have in mind? Asking your next-senator friend to go along?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Agreed. Which didn’t keep Cate from again wishing Mitch were here to go along.

Pete’s Econo-Rite Parts and Repairs, the name painted in red on a wooden sign across the front of a nondescript concrete block building, was in a commercial area of similar businesses. A tire shop stood on one side, and a tavern blinked a purple sign in the shape of a bubbling cocktail on the other. Parking areas separated the buildings, no sidewalks.

Two roll-up doors on Pete’s Econo-Rite building were large enough for truck-sized vehicles. Cartoonish vehicles painted on the front windows blocked out all but a few chinks of
light. Nothing indicated the business was open for customers, but several vehicles occupied the parking spots along the side of the building. Candy pulled into a smaller parking area up front.

“Well, here we are.” Candy’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, a protective clutch that suggested she feared some wrench-wielding mechanic might rush out and start removing parts from her Lexus. In spite of her snazzy spy outfit, her enthusiasm for investigation appeared to have fizzled. “Be careful.”

“You don’t want to go in with me?”

“I don’t know anything about this kind of thing. I might say something that would mess things up.” Candy’s fingers flexed on the wheel as she smoothly rationalized what she didn’t want to do. “I’ll keep the engine running in case you need to make a quick getaway.”

Cate suspected that if a quick getaway were needed, she’d find herself smelling burned rubber while Candy spun out on her own.

Cate slid out of the car and approached the door. The knob turned in her hand. She hesitated. What was her game plan here? She couldn’t just start throwing out incriminating questions about gambling. Okay, this was, supposedly anyway, a car-parts store. She needed a part for her car.

Inside, her quick glance took in a counter, cash register, shelves of air filters, oil filters, various brands of oil, spark plugs, and windshield wipers. All normal looking for a car-parts store. A fiftyish man in jeans, plaid shirt, and heavy boots clomped through an open door to a back room. Cate heard voices and laughter, but she couldn’t tell if they came from actual people or a TV.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m lucky to find you open! Most car parts places are closed by now.”

“We try to accommodate our customers. And you need . . . ?”

Nerves suddenly jumbled Cate’s thinking. Maybe this was exactly what it looked like. A not-too-prosperous parts store and repair shop, and her suspicions were foolish. But then, maybe it was all a staged setting, phony as a cavalry-and-Indians chase in a Hollywood Western. And outsiders who got too nosy might find themselves migrating to the top of a hit list?

She eyed the shelves again. “A spark plug,” she said brightly. “I need a spark plug.”

“
One
spark plug?”

“No, I need, um, spark
plugs
. However many it takes for a car.”

“What kind of car?”

A semi-panicky blankness emptied her head. She should have asked for something more generic. Windshield washer stuff. Car polish. Too late. She was already into spark plugs. “Honda, four-door sedan.” She named a year.

“Four or six cylinder?”

She surprised herself by actually knowing the answer to that. A smidgen of confidence returned. “Four.”

The man reached up high in the spark plug area. He returned with four spark plugs and rang up the sale. She paid and received change. The man put the spark plugs in a plastic bag with the store name and motto on it. She’d probably need spark plugs someday, she decided philosophically, so it wasn’t wasted money.

“Anything else?” he inquired.

Cate stood by the counter, trying to think where to go with this, when he surprised her with a tentative-sounding question.

“Did someone . . . recommend us?”

Her interior antennae pricked to attention. Was he asking if someone had recommended them for car parts and repair work—or for something else?

“Yes, a terrific recommendation!” Cate put all the watts she could gather into a smile. “He said you had great repairs and parts. And sometimes offered, you know, games? Entertainment? For while a customer was waiting?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. We used to have some video game machines, but I took them out a while back.”

“I was thinking maybe something . . . more profitable?”

His eyes squinted, as if he were assessing
profitable
. “Sometimes we get a poker game going. A few of the guys got a game going right now.” He jerked a thumb toward the open door, then gave her a conspiratorial grin. “But don’t tell my wife. She thinks we play pinochle.”

“You’re Pete?” When he nodded, Cate took a little gamble herself. “You could make bets on pinochle too, couldn’t you?”

“Yeah, but pinochle’s a women’s afternoon game. You know, bunch of old ladies get together and have tea and crumpets and gossip. Men like poker. Of course, we don’t bet much. Five-dollar limit.”

“Women like to gamble too,” Cate said, “On poker. Or . . . you know . . . sports events? Races? Something with a little more excitement?” She felt as if they were in a verbal ping-pong match, cautiously batting words back and forth to feel each other out. Feeling as if she were tossing out bait, maybe dangerous bait, she added, “But I’d like to bet more than five dollars.”

“Yeah?” He looked her up and down now as if assessing the extent of her assets. And probably doubting, correctly, that she had any. “What kind of poker you like?”

There were different kinds of poker? Uh-oh. In over her head. She’d never played any kind of poker. The further she got into the PI business, the more subjects seemed to turn up that she knew nothing about. “Oh, all kinds,” she faked airily.

“You don’t look like a poker player.”

Cate could see him now assessing her red hair and the sprinkle of freckles across her nose. She should have added some makeup, something that said “this is a real poker playing, gambling woman.”

He laughed. “But with our luck, you’d turn up a royal flush and we’d all lose our socks.”

Royal flush. Somehow she doubted he was talking about a blushing queen of England. She decided she’d better try to back out of this gracefully before he knew she was bluffing about gambling and was actually snooping for information.

“Who is this person who recommended us?” Pete asked with a sudden edge to his friendly banter.

Probably she should make up a name, something totally fictitious. But this was what she’d come to find out. Cautiously she said, “I think his name was Mace something. A big guy, ponytail, tattoos of skulls on his knuckles.” She made a fingertip movement across the front of her own hand.

“I have no idea who Mace Something is, but he doesn’t sound like anyone I’d want to get into a friendly poker game with.”

Pete could be lying, of course, faking a relaxed answer, even if he knew exactly who Mace Jackson was. But Cate’s sometimes-working inner PI told her Mace Jackson really wasn’t in Pete’s memory bank and the name
had
relaxed him.

“Enjoy your spark plugs,” he added cheerfully.

Quick, hoping his guard was down, she threw out another name.

“If it wasn’t Mace, then it must have been someone else. Maybe Kane Blakely?”

If she hadn’t been looking directly at him, she wouldn’t have seen the reaction. Because it wasn’t much. Just a momentary flicker in his eyes, a minuscule tightening of mouth.

He shook his head, which told her that even if he recognized the name, and she was certain he did, the name had closed, not opened, doors.

“Hey, would you look at the time?” He glanced at a plain round clock on a side wall. A red second hand moved in quick jerks. “I should have closed up a long time ago.”

He didn’t touch her, but he definitely herded her toward the door. It burst open before they reached it.

“Hey, Pete, am I too late to put fifty on—”

“Wes, don’t tell me that old Chevy is giving you trouble again?”

The guy stopped short, his expression puzzled, but then he glanced at Cate and some light apparently went on in his head. He smiled at Pete.

“Yeah, the ol’ clunker sounds like a load of ball bearings going through a washin’ machine. I keep you in business buying parts for it, don’t I?”

“My favorite customer,” Pete agreed. To Cate he said politely, “Have a nice day.” Then, “A little piece of advice?”

“Uh . . . okay.”

The smile was gone now. “I know kids your age go looking for fun and excitement. Maybe your friends heard something and elected you to come in and check us out here. But looking for some big betting action is a bad idea. A really lousy idea. You could get in real trouble. Hanging around with some guy with skulls tattooed on his knuckles is bad news too. And find yourself a guy your own age, not someone like—”

Cate was almost certain he’d started to say “like Kane Blakely,” but he changed it to, “Not someone way older than you.”

In a rough kind of way, the advice sounded almost fatherly. Like Beer Can Man at Andy Timmons’s apartment, Pete thought she was younger than she was. Younger and foolishly looking for excitement and fun. Which meant he had no idea she was a private investigator working on a case. Relief zapped through her. “Oh. Well, uh, thanks.”

Cate went back out to the Lexus. She wasn’t running. In fact, her movements felt as jerky as the second hand on that clock. But she’d no more than slid into the car than Candy shot out of the parking area like a bullet on wheels. Nothing wrong with her foot action now.

They were a mile away before Candy finally slowed and Cate could ask, “What was
that
for?”

“You had this funny look on your face. An I’ve-just-seen-a-ghost look.”

“I didn’t see any ghosts.”

“So?”

Cate held up her plastic sack. “So I bought some spark plugs.”

“That’s it?” Now that they were safely away from the danger zone, Candy’s attitude turned incredulous. And scornful. “That’s all Matt’s hotshot assistant private investigator can come up with, spark plugs? Oh, wow. Let’s party.”

Cate managed not to throw said spark plugs at Candy. Candy was, after all, driving. “I mentioned Kane’s name. I’m pretty sure the guy recognized it. And that guy who came in as I was leaving? He was there to place a bet. They tried to make me think otherwise, but I’m sure of it.”

“I wonder how these things operate. I mean, do they pay off
a big win with their own money? Or is this part of something bigger, like a gambling syndicate thing?”

“I don’t know. Bigger, I think.”

Bigger and meaner, and willing to use a gun to protect their territory from deadbeats who didn’t pay their gambling debts.

They drove a few more blocks before Candy said, “What about Mace Jackson? Did you try his name?”

“I did, but I don’t think his name or my description of him meant anything to the guy I talked to. Except he advised me I shouldn’t be hanging out with that type of person.”

“How sweet of him.”

“He also told me I shouldn’t be going around looking for fun in all the wrong places. And to find a guy my own age. I think he was referring to Kane.”

“You must bring out some dormant protective-male instinct.” The statement did not sound complimentary, although Candy finally added, “I suppose that could be useful as a PI.”

Cate ignored the comments and considered the past few minutes. She was reasonably certain some kind of illegal gambling was happening at Pete’s Econo-Rite Parts and Repairs, something more than backroom poker. But would a guy who seemed honestly concerned about a young woman’s welfare also sic a killer on someone who owed a gambling debt?

“I don’t think he hired Mace Jackson to kill Kane.”

“So now what?”

Yeah, now what? Cate could go to the police and tell them she thought an illegal gambling operation was going on at Pete’s Econo-Rite Parts and Repairs. She could picture the reaction.