Caruso 01 - Boom Town (17 page)

So we started looking into it.”

“Yeah,” Shabato spoke up. “Turns out there’s something to the complaints. Peroni sells a high-end product to some of Portland’s best developers. People who specialize in million dollar homes.”

“Wouldn’t they have high-priced security systems?” Tony asked.

Reese took the question. “Usually. But Cascade Lock deals in those as well.”

“Let me guess,” Tony said. “You think Peroni is ripping these people off. He makes money selling the lock systems, and then he goes and wipes the place out once the people move in.”

Reese shook his head strong enough so his ponytail landed in front of his shoulder. “We don’t think he ripped them off himself.

He has an alibi for every break-in. We do think he gave someone the codes and the keys.”

Tony thought about that. One hell of a racket. Make money coming and going. “Why haven’t you made an arrest?”

Shabato laughed, his eyes closing to tiny slits. “We had the bastard set up in a sting when he disappeared.”

Something just occurred to Tony. The sheriff had told him about a rash of burglaries in the area. “Have you talked to the local sheriff? There’ve been a lot of burglaries in this area as well. Maybe Peroni’s been active here also.”

They both considered it. Reese said, “You might have some-BOOM TOWN 131

thing there.”

Tony got up and went to the door, stopped, and turned toward the two of them. “I have no idea if Peroni was involved with the Humphrey...” He wasn’t sure what to call it. “Incident. I do think he knows something about it, though. When you two find him, could you give me a call?” Tony handed Reese his card with his cell phone, e-mail and web address on it. Something he rarely gave out.

Reese shrugged. “Sure. If we find him.”

With that, Tony left them to continue bringing down the value of the condo. Funny. That’s probably what Melanie would be thinking.

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It was overcast the next morning. Tony could tell that the mountains were getting a fresh coat of powder, and he would have normally taken that as a sign to go snow shoeing, but he had questions that needed answering. Questions that wouldn’t go away. Questions he had been hired to find out, yet had somehow been distracted from. Like whether or not Dan actually killed his wife and then set his house to explode. Basic questions.

He decided to go back to the source. Cliff Humphrey. Tony caught him parking his Mercedes at the office.

“Jesus!” Humphrey said, stepping back a few paces. “You startled me.”

Humphrey wore a clone of the suit he had on the night he hired Tony. Same nice fabric, only this one was gray like the sky.

“Sorry to bother you,” Tony said. “But I have a few questions.”

Looking around, Humphrey seemed unsure if he should go inside. Finally, he said, “Let’s go into my office.”

They did just that. Humphrey led the way, unlocking the door, since he was the first one to show up. As they passed through the door, Tony couldn’t help noticing the lock. Cascade. They went into his office and Tony took a seat and waited for his current employer to do the same.

When Humphrey was comfortably in place behind his desk, Tony said, “Tell me about your relationship with Melanie Chadwick.”

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Visibly shaken by the question, Humphrey tried to cover up with a casual nod and shrug. “We’re old friends.”

“Just friends?”

“Now. We were more than that a while back. Why do you ask?”

“I like to know who I’m working for, and why.” Tony glared at him for a moment to let him know he wasn’t happy. “You had Melanie check me out first, after you got my name from my friend, Joe Pellagreno. Since she’s a broker, she can check into my background. Finances, employment, etc. What you might not have known, is that I could also find out who’s been asking about me.”

Humphrey look embarrassed. “Of course I’d have you checked out.”

“And?”

“And you wouldn’t be working for me if you weren’t a good guy. I leave nothing to chance, Mr. Caruso.”

Tony had a feeling that was the most truthful statement Cliff Humphrey would ever give him.

“You tell Melanie to fuck me also?”

“Hell no!” Humphrey’s breathing became labored.

Tony closed his eyes, feeling like a complete idiot. Then he said, “What does it matter if your son killed his wife?”

Humphrey jumped to his feet and slammed his hand on the desk. “He didn’t do it!”

Tony thought the man’s arteries in his neck would explode.

“Take it easy, Mr. Humphrey.”

In a few seconds Humphrey slowly settled back into his chair and tried to calm his breathing. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I was just wondering how the truth would change things. It won’t bring back your son.”

He tightened his jaw. “I know that. But it will bring back his good name. I could never rest until I did that for Dan.”

Maybe now wasn’t a good time to bring up the fact that Cliff Humphrey stood to make out quite nicely, to the tune of a million bucks, if Tony found out his son was actually murdered. He could
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have brought that up, but he had already pissed the man off.

Instead, he went in another direction.

“My reason for stopping by so early, is because I’d like to talk with the company vying for your son’s company. Would you authorize that expense?”

“Of course, of course,” Humphrey said. “Don’t even ask questions like that. Just do it. I’ll pay any and all expenses you sub-mit after the fact. I just want the truth.”

Tony had a feeling he’d say that, but he’d been burned in the past. Next, he changed his mind. Since Humphrey was already pissed off at him, he figured it couldn’t get much worse. “Where were you the night Dan and Barb...were killed?” Tony asked him.

The question should have been quite disturbing. Enough for Humphrey to have a coronary. And enough for the sheriff to charge Tony with facilitating his death. But Humphrey didn’t seem upset with the question.

“I expect questions like that from the sheriff,” he said, “but not from someone who works for me.” He hesitated. “However, since I’ve learned you pull no punches, I expected you to ask me that question the night I hired you. I was home. . .alone.”

“Bugging me more than anything,” Tony said, “is why your son would shoot his wife, then himself, and then set the gas fireplace to blow. That’s overkill. And what would be the point?”

“Exactly!”

“I mean. . .they’re dead. Why blow up the house?”

“Right. You believe me, then?”

It was hard not to believe him. Tony’s Uncle Bruno had smelled it out in an instant. Maybe Tony wasn’t cut out for this work.

Well, he could just buy a small house on the Oregon coast and shoot photos—place them for sale in those little galleries in Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, and Cannon Beach. Sounded good about now.

“Let me keep digging,” Tony said, and then left Humphrey in his office. As he was leaving, the receptionist and a few others were just arriving.

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Next, Tony drove across the river to Deschutes Enterprises. He hesitated in the reception area waiting for Susie to get off the phone.

“Hi,” she said, hanging the phone up. “Strange seeing you last night at Jamal’s place.”

“I have to talk with the neighbors when something tragic like that happens,” Tony said, playing insurance investigator again.

“Standard practice.”

She smiled at him.

Tony continued, “You must be pretty good friends with Jamal to watch after his place for him like that.”

“We met just a few days after he bought the place,” she said. “I gave him the kitten. He adores it.”

“How’d he hurt his ankle?”

“First time was a few weeks ago on a spinning jam. Came down wrong. He lost a week and a half. Then a few days ago some big guy landed on him during a rebound. Now he’ll be out for another week or so.”

“So, do you stay there all the time?”

She looked confused and disturbed at the same time. “I have my own place,” she said with an edge. “I go over to feed the kitten and water the plants when Jamal’s on the road. Are you here to see Mr. Gibson, or just to give me a hard time?” Her smile was somewhat strained.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry into your private life.” He was as sincere as he could get.

She shrugged and formed a smile again. “That’s okay.”

Tony changed the subject. “Have you been to see Jamal play?

I hear he’s good.”

“Yes, he is. I’ve been to a few games, but it’s hard to get away.

Who’d feed the cat?”

“Good point.”

“I can get tickets any time,” she said. “Maybe you’d like to go.”

Tony assured her that he would. He had gotten the information he wanted, yet he didn’t want her to know he had come there just
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to see her. So he asked to see Larry Gibson. Unfortunately he wasn’t available. Tony looked disappointed as he left.

When he got back to his truck, Panzer was jumping around in the bed. He let out a couple of quick barks, which was rare for him.

“What’s wrong with you? Need to take a piss?”

Tony went to the back end and opened the topper. Immediately, Panzer jumped from the back end and ran around the parking lot.

He stopped on a strip of grass between parking sections and lifted his leg on a tree. Then the schnauzer ran toward the front of the parking lot, jumped into the grass in the first row of cars, and posed with his head pointed forward. Moments later, he started back toward Tony, but stopped at an Audi TT, sniffed for a second, and then took a piss on the left door.

“Panzer,” Tony yelled quietly.

His dog’s ears rose quickly and then the dog made a hasty return, jumping into the back end.

“Damn, boy. What the hell you thinking?”

Tony shook his head and climbed into his truck. He thought about what Susie had just told him. He got onto the cell phone, called information, and then punched in the Portland Trail Blazer front office. After making up some bogus story about being a freelance journalist working a story on the fragile ankle, some PR

type finally came on and gave him the information he needed.

Most important of all was the date that Jamal Banks was injured the first time. Two days before Dan and Barb Humphrey died.

The PR person wouldn’t give him Jamal’s telephone number or address, referring him instead to the basketball player’s agent in California. Tony got a hold of his agent, told him a similar story, and, although he was a busy man and extremely skeptical, he told Tony what he needed to know. Jamal had gone to Central Oregon after his injury to recuperate. That’s all he’d said. Not Bend. No address. No telephone number. But what he didn’t know, was that Tony already had all that information.

Why in the hell did it matter when the basketball player hurt
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himself? That’s what Tony need to find out.

So Tony went out to Cascade Peaks Estates again. Parked in Jamal Banks’ driveway, he sat for a minute, trying to figure out his line of questioning. Satisfied, he got out and went to the basketball player’s front door.

This time he knocked and rang the door bell. Nothing.

When Tony heard a vehicle pull up, he turned and then shook his head realizing who it was. His two friends the MENSA brothers, playing dress-up as security guards. Tony walked back toward his truck to meet them, not in any mood to enter round three.

They got out, their hands on the ends of their nightsticks.

Looking closely, they both still had remnants of their last two encounters. Flattop’s nose was still larger and more crooked than normal, and Goatee’s jaw was puffed out on one side.

Goatee was the first to speak. “Haven’t you bothered these people enough, Caruso?”

“Not really. You see, when I wake up each morning I look at the calendar and a list of people. I make a note of those I haven’t fucked with in a while and go directly to see them.”

Neither of them said a word. No sense of humor. They would probably both die from stress-related heart attacks in their forties.

If they didn’t piss off somebody more dangerous and vindictive than Tony first.

Tony heard the front door to the house open. He backed up a few steps and turned to see the basketball player, Jamal Banks, standing there in his trunks, holding his kitten.

“What da fuck’s goin’ on out there?” he yelled at the three of them. When he saw Tony he smiled and waved his hand at him.

“Hey, Tony. How the hell’s it hangin’?”

“These two Bozos don’t want me talking to you,” Tony said, turning to glare at the two of them.

“Hey,” Jamal screeched. “You rent-a-fucks get da hell outta here and let me talk to my Tony.” He was waving his hand at the two of them like he would to swat away a couple of pesky gnats.

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Tony laughed as he watched the two of them, tails tucked between their legs, climb into their truck and back out. He went in to talk with Jamal.

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Ya want some coffee?” Jamal asked. He was stretched out on the leather sofa in the living room like a drunken cowboy who had mistakenly straddled a heifer.

Tony hesitated and then took a seat across a marble-topped table with a few copies of Architectural Digest magazine prominently displayed. “No, thanks, Jamal. I just stopped by because I forgot to ask you a few things last night.”

“Just a sec,” he said. He stretched across the sofa to a game controller and a remote. Then he clicked on the T.V. and switched over to a Playstation 2 car racing game. “Okay. Now I’m set.”