Denouement (16 page)

I nodded and walked to Hank’s desk. He was leaning back in his chair, his desk phone rested between his shoulder and head. He hung up when he noticed me walking over.

“Plans for the night?” I asked.

“Nope, I’m solo this evening. That was Karen. She’s heading over to play poker with the guys. I’m probably going to just veg out in front of the TV.”

“No, you’re not. We have to go to the Rock ’n’ Roll Casino. Terry and I just tracked the gun store owner’s cell phone there.”

Hank rolled his chair back from his desk. “Really?”

“Yeah, I’ll explain on the way.”

He stood. “Okay. Let’s go.”

We grabbed an unmarked cruiser from the station’s parking lot and headed out. I pulled the guy’s sheet in the cruiser. He was clean. Mr. Ekel had three cars registered under his name—a 2008 Dodge van, a 2010 Ford Pickup, and a 2012 Mustang. I was betting that if he was in Atlanta for a gun show, he was driving the van.

“Hank, call back to the station and have someone in patrol send this guy’s sheet, DL, and registered vehicles to your cell phone. We’ll need to ID him once we get inside.”

“I’m on it.” Hank took out his phone and made the call.

The seven-mile drive to the casino took us ten minutes. Bostok called me on the way. Someone from the Seminole tribe’s PD would meet us at the main entry. Hank and I pulled through the covered entryway and parked the cruiser along the curb behind a white stretch limo. We stepped out and headed for the front doors.

“Shit,” I said.

“What?” Hank asked.

“I should call Faust and let him know.”

Hank shrugged. “We need to clear every move we make now or something?”

“No. But if two of our guys were killed and Faust had something, I’d like to think he’d call me.”

Hank took a seat on the bench out front. I pulled my cell and dialed Faust. His voicemail picked up right away. I left a message saying the gun store owner was at the casino and we were making an attempt to pick him up. I slipped my phone back in my pocket.

“No answer?” Hank asked.

“Nah, let’s go. Professional courtesy complete.”

I spotted two uniformed officers to our right as soon as we stepped foot inside. The sounds from the casino floor filled my ears. We stepped toward the two officers, and I showed them my badge. “Lieutenant Carl Kane. This is Sergeant Hank Rawlings,” I said.

“Good evening, guys. I’m Officer James Swift. This is Officer Mark Young,” the one on the left said. He looked to be in his midfifties with a short gray buzz cut. “We got word you are looking to question someone in the facility.”

“That is correct. He could have aided and abetted a wanted murderer,” I said.

“Let’s see if he has a room for us to check before we start searching the casino floor. Follow us over to the reception desk,” said the one named Young. He was a little thinner, a little taller, and a few years younger than Officer Swift. A thick black mustache sat on his upper lip with a couple-days-old stubble covering his cheeks. He wore black-rimmed glasses.

Hank and I followed the pair to the hotel area front desk.

A woman looked up from behind the counter.

“We need to see if a man is staying at the casino here,” Swift said.

“Sure. What’s the name?” she asked.

“Erik Ekel,” I said.

“Spelling?”

“Erik with a
k
. Last name
e k e l
,” I said.

“Sure, just give me one second.”

We waited.

“Looks like he’s a guest in room eight oh two.”

“Thank you,” Swift said.

We stepped away from the counter.

“We’ll take you to the room,” Swift said. “If he’s not inside, we’ll then head to our security office and begin searching the video feeds.”

“Sure,” I said.

The two officers led Hank and me to a bank of elevators, and we rode to the eighth floor in silence. The doors spread, and we stepped off.

“Halfway down the hall here on our left,” Young said.

We continued.

Officer Swift stopped in the hall a few doors away. “What exactly are we dealing with here? I mean, is this guy dangerous?”

“I don’t know. All I know is he’s a firearms dealer and spoke with a known murderer this morning. He has a clean sheet, though. No priors,” I said.

He nodded.

We walked to the door.

Swift reached out and knocked. “Casino police!” he called. He placed his right hand on his service weapon, attached to his hip.

Young stood to the side of the door in the same fashion. Hank and I stayed a couple of feet back.

The door lock clicked, and the door swung open.

“Um, can I help you with something?” a man’s voice asked.

“In the hall, sir. Hands where we can see them.” Swift motioned the man out from the room.

He stepped out and looked over at Hank and me. He was under five foot eight and maybe a hundred fifty pounds. Wearing a red polo shirt and blue jeans, he had finger-length strawberry-blond hair with a bit of a patchy beard. His eyes were small and darted from side to side. “Um, what exactly is going on here?” he asked.

“Are you Erik Ekel?” I asked.

“I am. Is someone going to tell me what is going on?”

“Yes, we’d like you to answer a few questions,” I said.

“Questions? About what? I think you might have the wrong guy. I don’t even live in this state.”

“I bet you’re from Chicago,” Hank said.

“Yeah, I’m from Chicago. What is this about?”

“Aiding and abetting Andrei Azarov,” I said.

He was silent.

“You don’t deny it?” Hank asked.

Ekel said nothing. The look on his face said he was deep in thought.

“Look, we’d like you to come down to our headquarters and have a talk with us on the matter. It’s voluntary for now. If you’d rather not, I’ll ask these officers here to detain you on suspicion to aid and abet a fugitive while I get enough things together for a proper arrest warrant. While you’re detained, we’ll dig into your business paperwork to make sure everything is on the up-and-up as far as transferring firearms across state lines,” I said.

He shook his head and let out a breath. His shoulders sank. “I’ll answer whatever you guys want. Can I just grab my shoes and wallet?”

I motioned for Swift to watch the guy. Swift escorted him back into his room.

My cell phone rang. I pulled it out and answered. “Kane.”

“Hey, it’s Faust. I just got your message. So the gun store owner is in town?”

“Yeah, we’re in the process of picking him up now and taking him back to the—”

A boom echoed from inside Ekel’s room. The sound took a moment to register—it was a gunshot. I clicked off from the call and jammed my phone in my pocket. I ripped my service weapon from my shoulder holster. I looked at Hank, who was already armed and heading for the hotel-room door.

“Son of a bitch!” someone yelled from inside the room.

Hank and I rounded the doorway, weapons pointed in. The two officers were standing in the area between the beds and the television. Both had their weapons out, hanging from their hands against their legs. They both holstered their guns as we stepped into the room.

Swift stared down between the two beds. “He shot himself in the damn head,” he said.

Hank and I walked to the officers’ sides. Ekel lay facedown between the beds. A pool of blood grew beneath his head and soaked into the hotel room’s carpet. A pistol lay just a few feet from his hand. Blood and matter covered the bed that I assumed he’d been sitting on. More blood dripped from the ceiling above him. Swift stretched his leg out, put his foot on Ekel’s pistol, and slid it away from the body—though at that point, it wouldn’t matter. Ekel had a four-inch hole through the back of his skull.

“What the hell happened?” I asked.

“He sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over, putting on his shoes. After he got the second one on, he came back up with a pistol—must have had it in an ankle holster. He stuck it in his mouth and fired before we could disarm him.”

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes.

Swift looked at Officer Young. “Call this in. We’re going to need to get the guests off this floor and get the floor shut down.”

Officer Young made the call over his radio.

Swift stared at Ekel on the floor. “No warning, no nothing—just shot himself.”

I didn’t respond. I looked down at the body and then at Ekel’s cell phone on the nightstand.

“Okay, um, why don’t you guys step out into the hall,” Swift said.

We headed out while Swift remained inside.

“Well, now what?” Hank asked.

“I’m sure they’ll want some information from us. Then I guess they’ll go through their suicide procedure, whatever that may be. Either way, I’m betting we won’t get anywhere else tonight. It will be hours before Ed receives the body and we can acquire Ekel’s things.”

Hank leaned against the wall of the hallway. “One step forward and three back.”

“Yeah, I need to call Bostok to let him know what went down here, and I should probably call Faust back.”

“Sure,” Hank said.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed Faust first.

“Faust,” he answered.

“Yeah, it’s Kane.”

“What was that all about? You were saying something about the gun store owner and then the call dropped,” Faust said.

“He’s dead.”

“What?”

“He just shot himself.”

“Suicide?” Faust asked.

“Yeah, we found him at the casino in his room. We mentioned Azarov’s name. The guy was involved. I asked him to come back to the station to answer a few questions, to which he agreed. Well, the guy goes back into his room, under supervision from the local PD here, and I guess put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

“Shit,” Faust said.

“Yeah. So now we’ll be waiting, probably until morning, before we can get going on any of this guy’s things—vehicle and cell phone, mainly.”

Faust let out a puff of air. “Damn.” He paused. “Well, wait, you said you had traced his cell number to the casino? I couldn’t find a cell listed for him anywhere.”

“Well, I have it.”

“Give it to me. I’ll get my guys going on the call history from the cell-phone company. We might be able to get something before morning.”

I rattled off the number. Faust said he’d call me the second he had anything. I hung up and dialed the captain. The conversation was short. I clicked off when I saw Swift walking from the room toward Hank and me.

“I’m going to need you guys to leave us a statement of the events that took place outside of the room,” Swift said.

“That’s fine,” I said. “What are you guys going to be doing here?” I asked.

“Suicide. Body and belongings will go over to Hillsborough County after we document everything.”

“I’m sure he has a vehicle here. Where would that be going?” I asked.

“City impound.”

“Can you let me know when everything leaves here? I’m going to need to get warrants for his personal items and vehicle,” I said.

“I will.”

Ray sat staring at the fuzzy image on the television screen, his mind deep in thought. Erik’s fleeing from the motel was eating at Ray. He shook his head.

Erik wouldn’t go to the cops. He wouldn’t risk going to prison for anything. There would be no way he could get himself any kind of a deal that still didn’t involve doing time—the government wasn’t keen on illegal gun runners that supplied weapons to known murderers.

A tap came from the side door that led into the office, breaking Ray’s thoughts. Ray slid himself off the edge of the bed and walked over. He thumbed the deadbolt lock and swung the door open. The girl from the front counter stood on the other side, her long hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Hey,” she said.

Ray showed her a smile.

“I’m going to head over to that restaurant. Did you want to come or want me to grab you something to eat?” she asked.

Ray took her in again from feet to face. She smiled when his eyes landed on hers. She blew a bubble with the gum in her mouth and bit down to pop it.

“Sure, I’ll come along,” Ray said.

“Okay, did you want to just hop in with me? I’d say we could walk, but it’s looking like it might rain.”

“That’s fine. Let me just throw on a different shirt and grab my wallet.”

“No problem. I’ll get the car, lock up, and meet you in front in a second.”

“Okay,” Ray said. He closed the door and relocked it.

Ray changed quickly and heard the Porsche’s exhaust outside his room’s door a moment later. He stepped out, shoehorned his giant frame into the passenger side, and closed the door. She pulled from the lot and headed north.

“I’m Amy, by the way,” she said.

Ray tried to remember the name he’d written down on the sign-in form but came up blank.

“It’s Mark, right?” she asked.

“Yup,” Ray said. “Nice car.” He wanted to get off of the topic before she asked for a last name.

“Thanks. I wish it was mine, but it belongs to my father. He’s on vacation, which is why I’m watching over the motel.”

“I see,” Ray said.

“Yeah, he owns like twenty-some motels, but this was his first and the only one he works at. It doesn’t get much business, but I think it holds some kind of sentimental value to him or something. So what’s your story? Why did you stop at the motel?”

“I just needed a place to stay,” Ray said.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that.”

“What do you mean?” Ray asked.

“People don’t come to the motel unless they are trying to stay off the radar or doing something shady. And, well, I saw the guy with the van show up and drop off two big bags full of something to your room. It looked like he was in a hurry to get out of there after. Are you some kind of drug dealer or something?” she asked.

Ray chuckled. “No, nothing like that.”

“It’s fine if you are. I don’t care, really. It’s not like I’m going to call the cops or anything.”

“Trust me. I’m not a drug dealer.”

“Okay, fine,” Amy said. “I’m just kind of nosy by nature. You don’t have to tell me.”

“There’s really not much to tell.”

“Can I hear the not much?”