Caruso 01 - Boom Town (10 page)

“I don’t know what to think,” he said. That was the truth.

She sat for a moment, considering what he had just said. She flicked some ashes into a tray on an end table. By now the video blooper show had ended, so she flicked through the channels with the remote. When she couldn’t find anything she liked, she turned it off. Then she swiveled the chair toward him.

“Our marriage sucks,” she said. She pulled the hair back from her right temple, revealing a three inch scar. “The bastard cut me here. And here.” She hoisted her sweatshirt, exposing her bare left breast. It was small and sagged with a half-moon scar by the nipple. “Damn near took my nip off.”

“Did you report it?”

She covered herself. “That’s why the pricks won’t look for Frank. Because I did report it. They were pissed because I wouldn’t press charges. Hey, I said our marriage sucks, but Frank has his good points. Biggest cock I’ve ever had.” She smiled wistfully.

They talked for a while longer about what an asshole her husband was, but Tony could tell that she really missed the guy.

Sadly enough, she probably loved him too.

He was standing at the door about to leave when something occurred to him. “What about his car?” he asked.

“What about it?”

“Where is it?”

She shrugged. “Probably wherever he is.”

She told him it was a brown Ford Taurus, gave him the license plate number, and said it had a long crack in the windshield.

Before Tony left she gave him her husband’s credit card information and their bank account numbers. She assured him there wasn’t much in either. Nothing to steal. She also gave him a picture of Frank. He didn’t see any resemblance to himself. Maybe she was hoping he would help her find him.

“I’ll try to find him,” Tony said. Then he left and hurried through a light drizzle to his truck. Panzer was whining, so he let the dog out for a quick relief.

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Back in the truck and driving down the street, he didn’t know until two blocks down the road that the white Pontiac Bonneville that pulled out after him was a tail.

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Tony never had much of a reason to lose someone tailing him. He could have done something dramatic like in the movies and punched it, flying through Portland’s streets like a possessed maniac. Although that looked cool on T.V., he didn’t have some production company willing to pay for his F250 after he crashed it through a barrier and into the Willamette River. So he took a more subdued approach.

He just kept an eye on the car, making totally irrational turns, ensuring the car was in fact following him.

It was.

He didn’t normally carry a gun unless he was going hunting or target shooting. Since he became a private investigator, most of his jobs involved insurance fraud or missing persons. And the later were usually people who didn’t want to be found. Guys like Frank Peroni? Maybe.

Thinking about all the reasons he didn’t carry a gun, he wished at this moment he had found a single reason to carry one.

He looked into the rearview mirror. There were two men in the front seat. Not as big as the rent-a-cops. But close.

Driving slowly along residential streets, he thought about what he wanted to do. He had worked in Portland a few times with the police. The last time he was part of a task force seeking a unabomber wannabe ten months ago, just after retiring from the Navy. Instead of hanging out in some tiny cabin in Montana, their
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man lived in a squalid apartment along the Columbia River in the glide slope of Portland International. Turns out the guy was even more dangerous than the unabomber, because his bomb making techniques were as meticulous as a five-year-old putting together playdoe men. Half of the bombs would have never blown up, and those that did either blew the crap out of helpless mail, or fiz-zled like wet fireworks.

Tony did make a few contacts while in town for a month track-ing the guy down. So he picked up his cell phone and called a Portland Police Bureau captain he had spent some time with, drowning a few microbrews. He reached him at home and told him his current situation.

Driving north toward downtown Portland, Tony kept an eye on the Bonneville behind him.

Ten minutes later he pulled over to the curb in front of the administration building at Portland State University.

He just sat there, glancing at the car that had pulled over behind him, watching the two confused men.

Then Tony saw him. A man walking up the sidewalk, a huge German shepherd at his side. When the guy got alongside the Bonneville, he pulled a gun and aimed it at the head of the man in the passenger seat.

Tony took that as his sign to get out. Cautiously he walked up the sidewalk toward the car. By the time he got to the front of the vehicle, his friend, the police captain, had holstered his gun and was laughing.

Captain Al Degaul, wearing a black Nike sweat suit, reached his hand out as Tony approached. He hadn’t changed much. At forty-five, his black hair might have had a little more gray. He could have gained a few pounds, but it was hard to tell in the darkness. They shook hands and then Degaul turned toward the two men in the car.

“Tony,” Degaul said. “These are detectives Shabato and Reese.” His voice was harsh and gravelly like that of a college football coach. Reminded Tony of his Uncle Bruno.

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Now Tony felt like an idiot.

The two detectives, dressed more for a night out on the town than for official police business, got out and they all shook hands.

Shabato, the driver, was a good six feet, with droopy black eyes.

Reese was a few inches shorter than Shabato. His red hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Tony guessed they were both around thirty.

“Sorry for any misunderstanding, Mr. Caruso,” Shabato said.

“We were watching Frank Peroni’s house when you showed up.

At first we thought you might have been him. Then we thought you might have been involved with him.”

Degaul moved his hand and his dog sat, its tongue hanging out while it panted heavily. Its nose had a patch of gray giving away its age.

“Tony’s worked as an explosives consultant with the Seattle and Portland police,” Degaul said. “Worked the PDX bomber case. Before that he was a Navy ordnance officer.”

The two men nodded their head with respect. It was pretty much a given within the police community that only a crazy bastard would put himself next to a bomb to de-fuze it. It didn’t matter if the cop was the most macho guy on the force, it took someone with balls the size of watermelons to play with bombs. What they didn’t realize, though, was that the police had hired Tony to consult based on his military ordnance background. They needed him simply to rule out any bomber that might have been trained by the military.

“Why were you checking out Frank Peroni?” Tony asked.

The detectives glanced at each other and then to Captain Degaul.

“Well?” Degaul said.

Reese spoke up first. “His wife reported him missing a couple weeks ago. We were doing a follow up.”

Tony wasn’t buying that, and neither was Captain Degaul from the look on his face.

“There’s more to it than that,” Degaul said. “You wouldn’t be
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showing up on a Sunday evening to follow up.”

It was Shabato’s turn. He raised his dog-tired eyes and said,

“We’ve had Mrs. Peroni under surveillance since she reported her husband missing. Following up the day after she made her report, we went to Frank Peroni’s employer. A lock company. They said Peroni was supposed to go to Bend for a few days and then come back. They tried to contact him there at his hotel, but they couldn’t find him. We called the Deschutes County Sheriff’s office and had a deputy stop by his room. Nothing.”

“What about his car?” Tony asked.

“Can’t find it,” Reese chimed in.

Captain Degaul looked perplexed. “What his finances tell you?”

“That’s the point,” Shabato said. “That’s why we’ve been watching his wife. There have been cash advances taken four times in the past two weeks, all from Central Oregon cash machines.”

Captain Degaul scratched the stubble on his face. “Let me guess. All from different towns.”

“Yes, sir,” Reese said. “All of them in tourist locations in the middle of the day.”

Tony wasn’t sure what this was all about. There had to be more to this than the two detectives were saying.

The captain turned toward Tony. “How in the hell are you involved with all this, Tony?”

Damn. Tony thought he’d gotten away without having to answer that.

“Well?” the captain said.

“I’m looking into a murder suicide that took place in Bend two weeks ago.”

“Heard about that,” Degaul said. “You think Frank Peroni was involved with that?”

“I don’t know.” That was the honest truth. “He knew the two victims.” He was calling them victims now, without even knowing for sure if it was true, at least in the case of Dan Humphrey.

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“Yeah, but you’ve got a hunch, right?” Degaul said. Well he didn’t make captain by being stupid.

The two detectives were waiting impatiently for Tony to answer.

“Yeah. Dan and Barb Humphrey supposedly picked Frank Peroni up at the Riverfront Bar in Bend, took him back to their house, and Dan watched while Frank and Barb got it on.”

The two detectives smiled identically.

Captain Degaul raised his brows. “Kinky shit. Then what happened?”

“This is all speculation, since Dan and Barb are dead,” Tony said. “But the local cops say Dan shot his wife, Barb, and then set his gas fireplace to blow. The house blew up real good. Damn near burned to the ground. Left Dan and Barb looking like Kenny Rogers chicken.”

“Who hired you?” the captain asked.

“Can’t say.”

“Someone who thinks some nefarious shit is going on other than murder suicide,” Degaul said.

Tony shrugged.

They talked for a few more minutes. Then the two detectives handed Tony their cards, saying he should contact them if he found out anything else about Frank Peroni. The cops were holding back information. But what? And why? Probably just not trusting Tony.

When the detectives were gone, Tony stood out in the damp night air, gazing toward the city lights. There was something about the sparkle of city lights after a drenching rain. It was as if a layer of slime had been stripped away, making the city somehow more pure. If that were the case, Portland had too many layers, because it rained there a lot.

Captain Degaul asked him over to his place for a beer. How could he refuse that?

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They sat up late drinking beer and talking about the case they had worked together. Al Degaul had lost his wife to breast cancer right around the time they were working together on the crazy PDX bomber case. So for the past ten months he had lived only with memories and his fifteen-year-old German shepherd, Rex. His German Sheppard had been his partner on a K-9

unit, and, as is often the case, the dog had lost a step or two and was forced to retire.

Sounded like the story of Tony’s life.

Their dogs got along without a hitch, sleeping next to each other near the fireplace.

Tony slept on the sofa and woke with a tremendous headache and dry mouth. After he brewed up a pot of Sumatran coffee, Degaul finally dragged himself out of bed. Rex got up immediately and lumbered to the captain’s side.

“Jesus Christ,” Degaul said. “What the hell time is it?”

Tony was flipping sizzling bacon by now, about to throw some eggs into the pan. Without checking his watch, he said, “Little after eight.”

“Ah, damn!” Degaul picked up the phone and punched in a number. He mumbled a few things and then hung up.

“Someone going to miss the good captain on a Monday morning?”

“You’d think not,” he said. “But I got this new lieutenant work-BOOM TOWN 81

ing for me. Don’t want to send the wrong message coming in late.

She’s a real...she’s efficient.”

“She? Anything I should know?”

He shot Tony a critical glare and then poured himself a cup of coffee. “Strictly professional.”

Tony poured some mixed eggs into the pan, and they instantly solidified outward. “You been seeing anyone?”

“What the hell are you, my mother?” Degaul took a seat at the table and sipped his coffee. “Whoa...that’s some strong shit.”

“You know if you don’t use it, it gets smaller,” Tony said.

He laughed. “Then I’m gonna have a hard time finding it to take a piss.”

Fluffing the eggs into a perfect stack, Tony flipped them one last time before plopping them onto two plates. Then he added three pieces of bacon each. What the hell. You have to die of something, Tony thought. Besides, he only ate eggs once or twice a month.

They both ate without saying a word. When they were done and working on another cup of coffee, Tony noticed his friend staring at him.

“What?”

“You’ll make someone a fine wife some day,” he said.

“Fuck you!”

Degaul left a few scraps of bacon and eggs on his plate and then set it on the floor to his right, where Rex had waited patiently. The dog delicately lapped it up.

Tony’s dog sat quietly across the room, not even considering what the captain’s dog had just done.

Having slept really well, thanks to the vast quantity of beer, one question kept nagging at Tony ever since he woke up. Why in the hell were the two detectives really so interested in Frank Peroni?

“There’s something more to Frank Peroni you can’t tell me,”

Tony said.

Captain Degaul hesitated. “Is that a question?”