Playtime (10 page)

So he gets in from the beach and Todd has picked up
some sandwiches from Jollo's, the best sandwiches on the island, has roast beef
or turkey stacked in the box for him and they spread them out on the coffee
table and get a game plan going.   

 Blaine wants to go out to the club and talk to
that blonde and the bartender, and after a brief hesitation, Todd agrees. 

 "No confrontations, though, right?"
Todd says, his mouth half-full of sandwich. "We go, we look around, maybe
ask a few questions, get out of there. Sound good?" 

 "Yeah, sure," Blaine says. "I'm
not looking for any trouble. I'd like to see that big guy, though." 

 "If you see him, that probably means he
didn't have anything to do with it," Todd says. "If he did, he
wouldn't be hanging out in there." 

 "I don't know," Blaine says, "the
arrogance I saw on this guy's face, he would be the type to come back and hang
around." 

 "Got some
cojones
on him if he
does," his brother says. 

 "He's got no cojones if he killed a woman
like that." 

 His brother raises the hand that is not holding
sandwich, "You know what I mean, Blaine. He's some kind of chickenshit
coward: we both know that, or some kind of pervert." 

 "The cops said she wasn't raped." 

 "That doesn't mean this guy wasn't getting
off to all that some way," his brother says. "What I wonder is how he
got her out there on the beach. She wouldn't have gone willingly, unless she
knew him." 

 "Hell no. I can't imagine her doing
that." If she had somehow gone willingly, then the things Blaine has been
thinking about their relationship and the turn it had taken could be mistaken.
He doesn't even want to think about that. He wonders what type of defensive
wounds she had. Had she been surprised? They don't even know exactly how he
strangled her. The cops had said strangled, but that could mean with hands or
with a rope or some sort of material. It wasn't clear. He couldn't see how it
could not have been a surprise; otherwise there would be all kinds of defensive
wounds, and DNA under her nails, and some kind of trace of the killer on her.
From the way the cops had acted that wasn't true. Or maybe they just didn't
have results from the tests yet. From all he has read, tests like that take
some time to process. 

 So, for whatever reason, he is thinking, maybe
she did go out there willingly with the killer. Or maybe she had been drugged,
but the cops hadn't mentioned that either, so probably not. Though he is not
sure the cops would mention much of anything to him. He is on the menu as a
possible suspect, maybe the prime suspect. She might have had some purpose
going out to the beach he didn't know about, though he had no idea what that
might be. Or been tricked somehow. It didn't necessarily mean they were having a
lovers' tryst. Could be something else entirely.   

 He thinks about the mentality of a guy like that,
a guy who would kill a woman like that, and a chill runs through him. Gun or
not, the guy would have an advantage against him or Todd or whoever. Because he
has crossed some type of invisible line and killed, whatever his reason had
been. It would change him, Blaine thinks, from what he had been,
if
it
was his first time. Whatever he was prior, he has the taste of blood now, and
would probably be much less hesitant to take life than they are. Blaine would
have that slight hesitation in a situation facing somebody like that, the desire
to confirm the guilt or badness. This guy would likely have no hesitation at
all. So he would be quicker off the mark. 

 Todd is finishing his sandwich, has the remote
and flips through the channels: movies, golf, tennis, news, weather, more golf,
reality show, animal show. He wipes his mouth with a napkin and then picks up
his phone in the hand not holding the remote, checking his mail. Got his iPad
on the table, too, for the big-gun apps. Still mustard on his chin. 

 They shower and head to the club. The blonde with
the hard eyes is hanging out at the cocktail waitress station when they come in.
It is early yet, and not many people are around. She sees Blaine and Todd then
cuts her eyes away from them. Blaine tells Todd to grab them a table and order some
beers, and walks over to her. She is wearing a short, simple, black dress that
shows off her legs. She looks more attractive tonight, probably because Renee
is not standing next to her for comparison. His jaw tightens. He's thinking she
doesn't look very happy to see him. Or maybe that's the way she always looks.
She doesn't seem that happy in general. 

 "Hi," he says. "I'm sorry: I
didn't catch your name the other night."   

 "Tina," she says after a second. 

 "I wanted to ask you a couple of questions
about Renee," Blaine says. "Do you have a minute?" 

 She looks around at the nearly empty bar.
"Yeah, I guess I do." 

 "Did you notice anything unusual after my
brother and I left that night? Anybody hanging around Renee?" 

 "There were always guys hanging around
Renee," she says. "Me, too, for that matter. Getting hit on is part
of the deal out here." 

 "Yeah, I know," he says. "So
nothing odd or unusual?" 

 "No," she says. "Just another
night in paradise." She looks down, and Blaine thinks she must be scared,
a girl right next to her one day and then plucked away the next. Even if they
weren't great friends. It takes some nerve to do what they do, face the drunken
crowd night after night: deal with who knows what next. 

 "Did you notice if she left with
anybody?"   

 "No," she says. "I didn't. It was
late. It was my turn to clean things up so she got out of here before me. There
were still people all over the place trying to get one more drink, slobbering
on the bar. I think she left alone, but I really didn't see her walk out the
door. I was busy." 

 "Did you notice a big guy, blonde-whitish
hair, hanging around the cocktail station?" 

 "There were always guys hanging
around," she says again, but no, she had not noticed anyone in particular.
Outside of Blaine. 

 So Blaine thanks her and asks if the manager is
around. She seems relieved to be done with him, and points him at the guy, a
big guy with a ducktail who knows nothing either. Blaine tells him who he is. They
don't always tell me goodnight, the big guy explains to him. They had a set
routine down pretty well and left when they were done. Sometimes one of the
girls would ask him to walk them to the lot, and he was always happy to do
that, he says, looking a touch defensive. Or the bouncer or the cop would. But
neither had done so that night. They had other things going on, and she hadn't
asked. But no, he actually hadn't seen her go. The guy doesn't seem that happy either,
and Blaine wishes again he had gotten Renee out of here. Maybe it was all about
the money most places, but it seemed even more so here. He walks over to the
table where Todd and his beer, which is half warm by now, are waiting. Reports
his progress, or lack of, and they sit there and sip their brews, watching the
bar begin to come to life. A band will be playing later tonight, and a decent
crowd begins to fill the room. They sit and have another round, Blaine
wondering if there is anybody else he could talk to. He has never seen the girl
that is serving them now. She says she has just started, when he asks, and he
guesses that makes her Renee's replacement. He is watching the crowd for the
big man but doesn't see him. He knows more than he knew before, that's for
sure. He wishes he had the resources available to the cops. Could make things
happen. Wonders what they know that they're not saying. Probably a lot. He and
Todd nurse another round while he eyeballs the place for the big man, but he
never shows. Finally they head home.   

He feels frustrated when he wakes. They have done
the obvious things, talked to the obvious people, and have come up empty. Todd,
the night before, had told him that it seemed like they were spinning their
wheels, and even though he knew Blaine felt terrible about the whole thing,
maybe letting the cops handle all this was the best path. They had no expertise
at any of this. The closest they came to that was watching some crime drama on
TV. 

 Then he remembers that Mandy and Doug had been
sitting in the bar. Maybe they had seen something. So he shuffles down the
street to Mandy's house and knocks. She comes to the door looking a bit worse
for wear and he thinks: lucky Dougie. But it turns out Doug isn't there. She
invites Blaine in for coffee at the same table. The painting and the easel are
gone. He describes the big man to her, asks if she saw him. 

 "I didn't notice any guy like that,"
she says. "Why?" 

 He hesitates, can't think of an unalarming way to
say it. Finally just flat tells her what the cops had told him: that his girl
has been murdered. 

 He can't remember much seeing anybody gasp in
real life, but she gasps when he tells her. Then draws in looking at him,
apprehensive all of a sudden, probably remembering she doesn't know him that
well. 

 
Jesus
, he thinks.
She killed me and now
she is wondering what kind of guy I am? Really
? He is trying to keep it as
low-key as possible but he knows the strain must be showing on his face. She pulls
the hair back from her face, sips the coffee.   

 "Your girl was the pretty one?" she
says, and his face tightens some more at the use of the past tense, but he nods
and says that's right. "She was nice," she says. "I noticed her,
but I didn't see any big guy with whitish hair." 

 "How about Doug? Is he around, by any
chance?" 

 "No," she says. "He went to
work." 

 "Well, maybe I can run down and catch him at
Bilke's," Blaine says. He hopes he's not scaring her. He is trying to be
as casual as possible but he is feeling like falling apart again right here.
She looks puzzled for a minute then her face brightens. 

 "No, he's not at Bilke's," she says.
"He just fills in down there when they need him. He's at Dandylions."
She makes a face. "He says he had to take inventory." She sniffs.
"That better be what it is." Blaine takes that in. Somehow, she
doesn't seem as sharp as she did the other day. Hangover? Or maybe something
more? He can't really tell.   

 "What does he do at Dandylions?" he
asks. The strip club on the highway does seem like a fitting place for Dougie. As
happy as a pig in slop, probably. 

 "He runs it," she says. "Bounces,
whatever they need." She plays with a strand of hair at the side of her
head, slurps her coffee with an appetite that seems more need than desire.
Sniffs again. Blaine is no judge, but back in his younger days he had been
around a few people who did a lot of sniffing like that. People putting stuff
up their noses. He wonders if Dougie is introducing her to some of the finer
things in life.   

 "He says I could really make some good money
working out there," she says. "But I don't know. Taking off your
clothes for a bunch of drunk rednecks on payday doesn't sound real
appealing." She gazes up at one of the paintings hanging on her wall,
sniffs again. Blaine thinks if she keeps on with that sniffing, it is gonna
start sounding a lot
more
appealing. He stops thinking about his own
troubles for a second and wonders if Dougie is setting Mandy up. That would be
just the sort of deal that asshole would pull. Feed some good-looking girl
stuff up her nose till she's got the habit then put her to work. He gets a
chill down his spine thinking about it. But he's reassessing Mandy. Maybe she
is not as bright as he had thought earlier. Spending time with Doug is one good
indicator.   

 She walks him to the door and he makes his
farewells again, but he has a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach now. He
thinks back to their younger days when he and his brother and their friends
would go out to Dandylions and watch the girls, some of them even get laid if
they had the cash, though Blaine never had. Tiny hideaway rooms all over that
place, places where the girls could make a bit of money on the side. Nobody
seemed to care, and it all felt harmless, just red-blooded boys out having some
fun and girls who needed and wanted it making some money, but he had never
really thought about it that much in those days. He wonders now how many of
those girls had drug habits, had been lured into the business. Looking at it
that way took all the harmlessness out of it. He walks down the street
squinting in the sun, thinking, but after a few moments he shrugs and his
thoughts go back to Renee. That is what he needs to focus on. 

 He decides to go see Detective Nielson. The
police know stuff they aren't giving out, and maybe he will tell him some
things. What can it hurt to ask?   

 He has to think before deciding where to go. Used
to be a substation in his part of town, up on 53
^rd
and S, but he
doesn't believe it is active any longer. He searches around on the dresser and
finds the card the detective had left. Downtown on Ball. OK. 

 It is a two story building, fairly modern,
nothing very unusual in the architecture: white brick and rectangular
functional look, and he fumbles around the corridors for a while before he
finds the office number. Nielson is in there in the same suit and tie, or
another just like it, with glasses on, hunched over some paperwork, when Blaine
taps on the door. 

 He looks up quizzically over the glasses when he
hears the noise; then rises, shakes Blaine's hand, points him to a wooden chair
on the other side of the desk. The office is tiny, and when Blaine sits down
his back is almost to the wall. 

 "What can I do for you, Mr. Hadrock?"
he says. 

 "I was wondering if you could give me a few
more details on Renee's death," Blaine says. 

 "Be happy to help you if I can,"
Nielson says. He has taken the reading glasses off and is holding them in one
hand up by his face, the end piece that fits over your ear in the corner of his
mouth. "What did you want to know?" 

 "Well, did she have any defensive wounds,
you know, like she was fighting the guy?" 

 "Yes, she did, Mr. Hadrock. She must have
struggled very hard," Nielson says, as if that would be a comfort to him,
and in some strange fashion it is. 

 "Did he strangle her with his bare
hands?" Blaine says, gulping a touch to get that out. 

 "No," says Nielson. "He used some
type of cloth object, maybe a tie, maybe something else." 

 "What about DNA?" Blaine says. "If
she struggled hard she probably had some of this guy's DNA left on her." 

 "She had traces of DNA under her nails,
where she had apparently scratched her attacker, yes," Nielson says. He
has kicked back in the chair now, studying Blaine, rocking, the chair creaking. 

 "I don't understand," Blaine says.
"If she had DNA under her nails, then wouldn't you guys ask me for a
sample, if for nothing else than to clear me?" 

 "Would you give us a sample if we
asked?" 

 "Sure," Blaine says. "I'm just curious
why you didn't ask me before this. I'm not very smart about this kind of thing,
but it seems to me that would be the first thing you would do." 

 Nielson sighs. In the era of TV crime shows, and
especially CSI, every citizen must be trying to tell him how to do his job.
"When we came by the other morning," he says, "what were you
wearing?" 

 "Shorts and a T-shirt," Blaine says. 

 "That's right," says Nielson. "No
scratches on your face, your arms, your legs. I even saw your stomach when you
got up from the chair. I suppose the attacker could have been scratched on just
the upper trunk of the body, but the odds are incredibly against it. Plus we
had nothing else on you. So right off the jump, I decided not to put you
through that just yet, make you think you were a suspect, until we had investigated
this thing further. Though," he says, eyeing Blaine over the glasses,
"we always hold that right in reserve."   

 "I don't mind letting you test my DNA,"
says Blaine. "I have nothing to hide." He lifts his T-shirt all the
way up, rotates each way. No scratches there either. 

 "We can do that if it makes you feel
better," Nielson says, looking at him, and picks up his phone and says a
few words, and in a few minutes a black, uniformed policewoman comes in, nods
at Nielson, tilts her head at Blaine, slips on some gloves, has him open his
mouth and rubs a swab around. She puts the swab in an evidence bag of some sort
and has him spell out his name, glancing at Nielson for confirmation.  

 Nielson looks fairly content with all that, and Blaine
guesses that his judgment call may have been closer, less clear-cut than he has
made out. It is probably more circumspect to rule Blaine out. He may believe in
his instincts but it doesn't hurt to cover his ass. Blaine hopes it isn't a
sign of general sloppiness in the way they handle this case. 

 "The other thing, Mr. Hadrock, is that we
had heard from you that you had some manner of argument with Renee that night,
and we wanted to confirm that it had not been anything physical, that you
didn't strike her, or she you, or anything like that. And you confirmed that,
correct?" 

 "Yes," Blaine says. "It wasn't a
physical argument at all. I was upset about the big guy at the bar, and she
just wanted me to know that she could handle it herself. I wasn't mad at her. I
was mad at him." 

 "That's right," says Nielson, rocking
in his chair. "The big guy. Unfortunately for us, the bar was packed that
night, packed to the gills is my understanding, barely room to move, and nobody
else that we talked to remembers the big guy." He pulls that small notepad
from his pocket, flips a few pages. "Big, blonde hair, rather big nose,
dressed in a suit. Hair medium long." He has put the glasses back on to
read his notes and now looks over them at Blaine. "That all correct?
Anything else you've remembered about him since then?" 

 "No," says Blaine. "That's about
it. His hair was whitish. How about a sketch of him? Have you guys considered
that?" 

 Nielson sighs again. "Mr. Hadrock, it might
seem like we are not doing everything possible on this case, but let me just
say that these investigations follow a timeline of their own that is not always
apparent to the general public. We are pursuing a number of different directions
right now, some of which I am not at liberty to talk about. Our sketch artist
will not be back in until Monday, and if at that time we still think it
necessary, we would love to have you help us with that, okay?" 

 Blaine nods, looking at him. It seems to him they
are dragging their feet somewhat on this whole deal. What are they not telling
him? 

 "What else
can
you tell me about how
the investigation is going?" he asks, leaning forward in the chair, elbows
on his knees. He is thinking that maybe his DNA would not mean that much if
found on Renee. After all he is her boyfriend. Was, he corrects silently,
looking out the window in the corner of the small office. It is only about a
foot wide, runs from the floor to ceiling. He can't seem to wrap his mind around
was
.   

 "That is about it at this time,"
Nielson says and looks at the gold watch on his wrist. Suddenly he rises and
comes around the desk, arm extended to Blaine. "I'm sorry," he says.
"I have another appointment in just a couple minutes. Please drop by again
if you'd like, and we will let you know any major developments."   

 They shake hands, and he ushers Blaine out and
shuts the office door behind them, gives him a half-wave, and is gone down the
corridor. 

 Blaine is not sure what to think of all this.
They apparently do not think he is a real suspect or would have tested him
sooner. It is odd to him that they don't want a sketch as soon as possible. It
confirms to him that they have another direction in which they have taken
things. A suspect. Someone they are looking at. And if that is true, then they
definitely know something he does not. Is it a guy that Renee had been seeing
while they were split up? She had admitted to several. Said they had all been
over with for a while. Maybe she had just said that because she didn't want him
to know. He had asked the people at the bar about that night, but he hadn't
even considered asking if she had someone else who had visited her out there.
Maybe the casual flings she had admitted to had been more than casual. Maybe
the big guy in the bar had nothing to do with this. Or maybe he had more to do
with Renee than she had let on. His head is full of jumbled thoughts as he
walks down to the old Dodge and cranks her up, heads for the beach.