Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries) (37 page)

“I think it’s true,” I said. “He had a gun. Why not just shoot me, instead of messing with a microwave? I’ve been thinking about that actually. We’re not looking for someone like Mooting. He’s not good with firearms, but he’s been around.”
 

“What’s your point?”
 

“The microwave was last. If you were trying to kill me by hitting me in the head, wouldn’t you drop that first?”

Uncle Morty smiled broadly. “Now you’re cookin’.”
 

“What was first?” asked Detective Carey. “The radio?”
 

“And it was on,” I said.
 

He tilted his head. “You didn’t mention that last night.”
 

“I didn’t think about it. That microwave came pretty close. It buried the lede. The radio.”
 

Detective Carey dialed his phone and then told someone to check the electric razor to see if it was switched on. Then he hung up and shook his head. “They were trying to electrocute you.”
 

“Idiot,” said Uncle Morty.

“Victor Mooting may be a massive jerk, but I don’t think he would believe you could electrocute someone with a couple of Energizers,” I said.
 

“We’re looking for someone who’s stupid,” Detective Carey. “You’ve spent more time with these people than I have. Any candidates?”
 

“No. The bodyguards aren’t rocket scientists, but no.”
 

“How about naive?” asked Uncle Morty. “Got any of those?”
 

I laughed. “Connected with DBD? I don’t see how.”
 

“Fergus Borthwick,” said Detective Carey. “Have you looked into him?” He was asking Uncle Morty, not me.
 

“I have. He ain’t your guy. Not the snowboarder for one and he was with us when the fire was set.”
 

Detective Carey rubbed his eyes again. “Do you know how many people are staying at Copper on any one day? This is a nightmare.”
 

“Well, it has to be someone with access to Copper One,” I said.

“A master keycard was swiped from housekeeping. That’s how they got access to the condo over the hot tub.”
 

“Better change every keycard,” said Uncle Morty. “Your firebug could do some real damage.”
 

“We’re on it.” Detective Carey stood up and gave Wallace a scratch. She didn’t bite. She saved that for the special people. The tired detective left to go interrogate Victor Mooting and Fergus, while we watched Aaron trot out of the kitchen with a beautiful golden waffle. No syrup, but I wasn’t picky.
 

“Thank god. I’m starved,” I said.
 

“Wallace,” said Aaron.
 

“I’ll share.”
 

Maybe.

“Dog waffle.”
 

My mouth fell open. It seriously did. “You made a waffle, especially for this dog. The dog that bites me. Pees on me and barfed in my purse.”
 

“Your fault.” Aaron booked it back into the kitchen.
 

Bark.
 

“Quiet. I might eat your waffle anyway.” I poked it with my fork. Looked normal. What the heck made it a dog waffle? I cut out a bite just out of curiosity, I swear. The waffle was light and fluffy with carrots and peas and a small amount of what smelled like brisket. Yum. Brisket waffle. Aaron came out of the kitchen and pointed at me. “Wallace.”
 

I rolled my eyes and gave Wallace a bite. She scarfed it down and started wiggling and I mean wiggling so that I could barely keep a hold of her.
 

“Stop it, you nut.”
 

Bark. Bark. Bark.

Aaron had done it. He’d made super dog food.

I put Wallace on the floor and said, “I guess he’s your partner now. Don’t blame me when he gets started on chicken toenails and
Star Wars
. It’s no more than you deserve.” I cut up her waffle and fed her one tiny bite at a time as the whole place giggled at her crazed yipping and wiggling. Two little girls came and took over for me and when I looked back at Uncle Morty he was not amused. “Get back to looking.”
 

I groaned. I’d been on the scene in most of the pictures he had. Heck, I was in most of them, but I bent over and tried again. He moved in close and I could smell his dandruff shampoo and the distinct scent of Hostess cupcakes. Preservatives stink. I don’t care what anyone says.
 

“What are you looking at?” I asked.
 

“I’m waiting for you to freaking get it,” said Uncle Morty.
 

“Meaning you already have it and I’m dumb as a box of rocks.”
 

“Hell, no. I don’t know these people. I wasn’t on the scene. You were. You know. You just don’t know that you know, you know?”
 

I sighed. “You make me tired.”
 

“Stop your bellyaching and get to it.”
 

I examined the photos once again, going from face-to-face of all the DBD members and their people.The faces were consistent. Pretty much the same people surrounding the band members in all the shots. All except in one. When Nina was on the stretcher before getting into the ambulance, the bodyguards were working overtime, holding back the crowd, but two weren’t. Two weren’t doing anything at all. They stood beyond the crowd just watching. WTF.
 

“They aren’t bodyguards,” I said.
 

Chapter Twenty-Three

A fresh plate of waffles slid under my nose and I looked up at a very excited Aaron.
 

“Wallace doesn’t need anymore waffles. She weighs six pounds,” I said.
 

“For you.”
 

“Dog waffles for me. Gee, thanks.”
 

“Chicken and waffles waffles.” Aaron took off for the kitchen and I sniffed the stack of three fat waffles with streams of thick gooey syrup oozing down the sides. Smelled like chicken and waffles, only there was no chicken. Then the plate was yanked out from under my nose. Uncle Morty held it away from the table and gave me the stink eye.
 

“Hey,” I said.
 

“What about those bodyguards?” he asked.

“Give me my waffles and I’ll tell you.”
 

“Tell me and I’ll give you the waffles,” he said.
 

I blew a raspberry at him. “You’re going to hell. Withholding food from an almost murder victim.”
 

“I’ll risk it. Spill.”
 

I pushed the photo over to him and pointed to the guys I thought were bodyguards, two white guys the size of middle linebackers with dark sunglasses and matching expressions of disinterest. “They aren’t bodyguards.”
 

“You thought they were?”
 

“They’re always next to DBD,” I said.
 

“But never talking to them?”
 

“Never.” I looked through the photos again, paying particular attention to DBD in relation to these two characters and one thing became clear. Only one person in DBD was aware of their existence. Darren Echols. I pulled three shots and showed Uncle Morty. “Darren knows them. He’s looking at them here, here, and here. And it’s not friendly.”
 

“Darren’s being blackmailed,” said Uncle Morty.

“When were you going to tell me that?” I asked.
 

“After you saw what you needed to see. Darren’s been making huge cash withdrawals. He’s never lived cheap, but these withdrawals started about two years ago. He’s hurting. They got him down to his last thirty thousand. He needs this reunion monetarily. Everybody else is flush, including Victor.”
 

“Waffles.” I held out my hand and after a moment’s hesitation Uncle Morty gave them up.
 

I took one bite and I think my eyes rolled back in my head. They were chicken and waffles. The chicken was in the waffles in tiny little juicy tidbits. Aaron ran out of the kitchen with his chubby hands clasped and stood over me.
 

“I’m going to cry,” I said.

Aaron sucked in a breath.
 

“In a good way.”
 

“Good?” he asked.
 

“Yes, Captain Needy. You are the Napoleon of the culinary world,” I said. “There’s nothing you can’t conquer.”
 

“What about Russia?” asked Aaron, sounding surprisingly normal. It threw me off balance.
 

“Russia?” I asked.
 

“Napoleon didn’t conquer Russia.”
 

“I don’t know. Can you make borscht?” I asked.
 

Aaron ran from the room as fast as his short legs could take him.
 

“Now you’ve done it,” said Uncle Morty. “We’ll have to eat Russian tonight to prove that he can do it?”
 

I was too busy chewing to care about any complaints. Whatever Aaron made would be better than anything Nancy made. I just had to figure a way up to Uncle Morty’s condo at dinnertime.
 

I swallowed and said, “So you don’t know who the blackmailers are? You’re slipping. Dad will be so disappointed.” Nice to have Dad disappointed in someone other than me.

Uncle Morty growled. “All cash transactions and texts were made from an untraceable cell. They only say where to meet and how much.”
 

Bark.

Wallace was finished and staring up at the edge of my plate. The little girls were grinning and petting her so hard her wrinkles were getting stretched out.
 

“No human waffles for you,” I said.
 

Bark.

“No. They make you vomit.”
 

The little girls said, “Ewwww. Gross.”
 

Bark.
 

“No.”
 

Bark.
 

“Fine. Go ask Aaron,” I said with a wave and Wallace trotted out to the kitchen with the little girls in tow. “So this blackmailer thing isn’t all that helpful. We can tell Detective Carey and he can bring them in, but I doubt they’re the kind of guys that stab people with ski poles or are confused about basic electrical theory.”

Uncle Morty fingered the photo of Darren’s blackmailers. “I’m thinking a .22 to the back of the head is more their style.”
 

“So those two don’t have the oil. I can totally see Wade holding it ransom to force a deal out of Mickey. He wants the group back together in a huge way. But he wasn’t the snowboarder. Too big. He has an alibi for the fire. I don’t know about the hot tub thing.”
 

“Wade Cave ain’t the kind of guy that would do his own dirty work. He’d hire it out. The guy is loaded. He wouldn’t pay for this penny-ante bullshit. The question is why kill you in the first place. You ain’t a witness to nothing.” He gave me the stink eye.
 

I shook my head. “Not a witness, but Keegan’s oil was in Rory’s bag. It’s possible that his attacker thought I knew something. We did talk that night. There were texts on Rory’s phone between us. Rory walked out to the lift on his own. No drag marks. They would’ve talked. Rory may have said something to them.”
 

“He knew who you were?” asked Uncle Morty.
 

“You mean about Dad and the rest of it? Sure. He had a screenshot from that horrible website in his pocket. That’s how Carey connected me to him. That site has my bio on it and links to CNN stories about Honduras.”
 

“If I was going to be stabbed,” said Uncle Morty, “I’d tell ‘em that I had a famous detective in my pocket.”

“Me, too. Maybe that’s what happened,” I said and then finished up my waffle. “I don’t know. I get this feeling that it’s bigger than that. If it’s not Wade withholding Mickey’s oil, then who?”

Uncle Morty forked my last bite and then talked while chewing it. Gross.

“Somebody wants DBD to stay broken up. Permanently,” he said.
 

“But why would anyone care? What’s it to them?” I asked. “I can’t see how anyone gains. DBD was a huge moneymaker back in the day. Money’s a huge motivator for most people.”
 

“Then it ain’t about money. It’s personal.”
 

Personal. What’s more personal than money? Reputation. Love. Death.
 

Wallace scampered out of the kitchen with a waffle the size of her head in her mouth. She sat next to my chair and scarfed it down, spewing bits and drooling. “Nice. If you choke and die don’t blame me,” I told her.
 

“Nancy’ll blame you. That’s for sure,” said Uncle Morty.
 

Blame. Blame. Blame. Someone to blame.
 

“Cliff,” I said. “Did you get his autopsy report?”
 

“Yeah. It was ruled accidental, but it was suicide.”
 

Aaron trotted out of the kitchen with another plate of waffles and a small pitcher of syrup. He started back, but the parents of the little girls flagged him down, asking about the chicken waffles. He got so excited, he hopped up and down and ran back.
 

I smiled at the parents and shrugged. My partner defied explanation. When he fed them, they wouldn’t care how odd he was.
 

“Why are you so sure about the suicide?” I asked.
 

“Somebody brought that shit to him. Surveillance at his ranch showed he hadn’t left the house in over a week. Mickey and Nina had been there up until the day before and they said there wasn’t any drugs in the house. Nina searched the house and outbuildings. Mickey was in recovery and she wasn’t taking any chances. Mickey and Cliff had been in rehab together six weeks before it happened.”
 

“So how’d it get there?” I asked, cutting into the fresh stack of waffles.

“The morning it happened a black Tahoe with stolen plates drove onto the ranch and left thirty minutes later. Cops tried to find out who it was, but no dice.”