Chilling Effect (10 page)

“Th at’s the door,” she said.

“I’ll get it.” He was already on his feet, pale and grim-faced.

She bet he’d stayed awake all night to watch over her. Th at was

the sort of thing Joe did.

“Do you think it’s Boom again?”

“It better not be. I mean, c’mon. Surely he has a telephone.” He

stomped toward the front of the house.

Aroostine raked her fi ngers through her tangled hair in an eff ort to achieve a semblance of presentability and then raced across the

cold fl oor on tiptoes, following him to the door.

He unlocked the door and yanked it, not bothering to hide his

annoyance.

Ruby Smith pushed her way past him and into the house. Her

fi sts were clenched, tendons bulged in her neck, and her jaw jut-

ted out.

71

MELISSA F. MILLER

“Who’d you tell?” she shouted at Aroostine, leaning in and put-

ting her face close to Aroostine’s.

Aroostine took a refl exive half step back.

“Whoa, hey. Who are you?” Joe demanded, moving to step

between the two of them.

“Hang on. Th is is Ruby Smith. Close the door, honey.” Aroos-

tine spoke in the softest, calmest voice she could manage. A voice

geared to soothing a wounded animal or calming a lost child. Mirac-

ulously, it seemed to also work on enraged cocktail waitresses—or,

at least, it worked on the one who mattered.

Joe shut the front door, and Ruby just sort of defl ated. All the

anger leaked out of her like air out of a balloon, and she sagged.

Aroostine reached out a hand, ready to catch the woman if she fell.

But she steadied herself and turned her face to Aroostine with fat

tears shining in her eyes.

“Who did you tell?” she asked again in a tight voice.

Aroostine led her by the elbow to the couch and piloted her to

a seated position. Th en she lowered herself to the spot beside her and took both the woman’s hands in hers. Th ey were ice cold. And

shaking.

“I didn’t tell anyone what you told me last night, Ruby. Only

Joe, my husband. And he hasn’t said a word.” She cut her eyes

toward Joe and gave him a meaningful look.

He hurried over to join them, crouching in front of the dis-

traught woman.

“Th at’s right,” he said, giving his words the weight of a promise.

Ruby hung her head. Tears fell to the fl oor.

“What happened?” Aroostine asked.

Th e woman cried silently for a long moment before she raised

her head to answer. “Someone broke into my house.”

Aroostine’s heart skipped.

“When?”

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CHILLING EFFECT

“I walked Lily to the bus stop this morning. I usually let her

go herself. It’s just two streets away. But I fi gured better safe than sorry—what with Isaac and all. So I walked her up to the stop

around seven o’clock and put her on the school bus. I didn’t come

straight back. A few parents were gossiping about the murder, so I

stuck around to see what they were saying—”

“What are people saying?” Aroostine interrupted to ask.

Ruby tossed her hair. It was an irritated gesture, as if Ruby

couldn’t believe the stories that were fl ying around the reservation.

“Mainly, folks are saying he had a drug problem and white

dealers from the city killed him because he owed money. Th ere’s no truth to that. None. I don’t know where that story’s coming from,

but I kept my mouth shut.”

Lee Buckmount.

Joe’s eyes met Aroostine’s over Ruby’s head. He was thinking

the same thing.

She turned back to Ruby. “Okay, so what happened next?”

Ruby exhaled shakily. “Well, I walked back home and stuck

my key in the lock to open the door, but it was already unlocked.

It swung open as soon as I touched it. It’s a piece of plywood crap, not like this one.” She jerked her head toward the solid oak door.

“You’re sure you locked it?” Aroostine knew the question would

set Ruby off , but she had to ask it.

As anticipated, Ruby stiff ened and her eyes blazed.

“Yes, I’m sure.” She spat out the words from between clenched

teeth.

“Does anyone else have a key?” Joe asked.

Ruby leaned forward as if she were going to explode again but

stopped herself.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice soft and uncertain.

Aroostine arched a brow. She didn’t know?

Ruby went on. “I didn’t give a key to anyone else—except Isaac.”

73

MELISSA F. MILLER

Th e room felt cold suddenly.

“So, anyone might have his key.” Joe fi nally put words to the

chilling thought that they all shared.

Ruby nodded wordlessly. Her hands began to shake again.

“Okay,” Aroostine soothed. “We’ll worry about that in a min-

ute. What happened when you opened the door?”

“I was scared. I knew I locked it before I left. I thought maybe I

shouldn’t go in—in case someone was in there. But I’d left my purse and phone on the counter. And I could see them from the doorway.

Th e house was quiet, so I fi gured I’d just run in, grab my stuff , then leave and call the police.”

“So that’s what you did?”

“No. I forced myself inside and got my purse and phone, but

then I ran back outside. I didn’t call the police.”

“Why not?”

Ruby dropped Aroostine’s hand and reached into the leather

shoulder bag she’d dropped at her feet when she’d sunk into the love seat. She rifl ed through it with trembling hands and came out with a sheet of lined paper that had been ripped out of a notebook. She

pushed it into Aroostine’s hands.

“Because of this. It was on the counter next to my purse.”

Someone had scrawled the words with a black marker:

If you want your daughter to live, keep your whore mouth shut.

Aroostine paced in a fast circuit around the bedroom listening to the Criminal Division’s recorded hold message exhorting her to report

any suspicious behavior she happened on when she was out and

about. Sid’s secretary came back on the line.

“Are you still there?”

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CHILLING EFFECT

“I’m here, Polly.” She tamped down her irritation at being put

on hold. She needed to stay on Polly’s good side.

“Sorry, Aroostine. He’s fi nishing up a meeting. He asked if you

wanted to hold another minute or two or if he should call you back?”

She walked to the door and pushed it ajar. Joe was leaning

against the kitchen counter, talking to Ruby, who was not in her line of sight. Judging by the big gestures he was making, he was continuing to reassure Ruby that they wouldn’t let anything happen to Lily.

“I’ll wait,” she said into the phone.

“Good. Th at’ll give me an excuse to buzz his offi ce again in

another minute to hurry him along. Poor Mitch Swope’s been in

there for darn near an hour now. I don’t know what Sid’s raking him over the coals about, but I’m sure he’d welcome the interruption.”

Aroostine nearly laughed despite her anxiety. Sid was a stern

taskmaster. But all of the AUSAs who worked for him knew what

they’d signed up for—and Mitch, more so than most, welcomed

Sid’s probing analyses and (sometimes constructive) criticisms.

“Okay, hon, I’m putting you back on hold now. Sorry about

the PSA. I can’t turn it off .”

“No worries, Polly. You better believe if I see something, I’ll say something.”

Th ey shared a chuckle at the dated slogan. And then the earnest

prerecorded voice resumed its spiel, midword. Aroostine returned

to her pacing and tuned out the voice.

“Higgins.” Sid’s voice jolted her back to attention.

“Hi, Sid.”

“What’s the status?”

“Th e status is this thing is spiraling out of control. Joe met some old guy in the woods who pointed the fi nger at the casino’s CFO. Th e CFO, a man named Lee Buckmount, is going around the reservation

insinuating that Palmer was killed by drug dealers from the city, and 75

MELISSA F. MILLER

a . . . casino employee says Palmer told her the embezzlement might be tied to some missing military drones. Are there military drones

missing
?!” She realized belatedly that she was shouting. “Sorry. On top of all of that, someone broke into my source’s home and left a

message threatening her little girl. Th is is . . . I think you need to turn this over to the FBI, Sid.”

He was silent for what seemed like a long time. When he spoke

it was slowly, in a deliberate tone.

“Get a hold of yourself, Higgins. Now, take a deep breath.” He

paused. “Did you take a deep breath?”

She inhaled then released her breath in a loud
whoosh.

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, let’s try this again. Where are you, back at your

resort?”

“No. We stayed on the reservation last night—it’s a long story.”

“Well, what would you tell a witness, Higgins?”

“Start at the beginning.”

“So start at the beginning. You found the body, called the local

authorities, and then hung around to see how they responded, right?”

“Right. Offi cer Hunt interviewed me. Th e only way to describe

the interview is cursory. He was clearly just checking boxes.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I told him I found the corpse of a large, adult

jackrabbit with a bullet hole through the center of its head, just like Isaac Palmer, in the fi eld directly across from Palmer’s house. He blew it off .”

Unfl appable Sid momentarily lost his composure. “Th at’s valu-

able forensic evidence, for crying out loud! Tell me it’s not just lying in the grass decomposing. Do I need to send out a team from Eugene?”

“Take it easy, Sid,” Aroostine said, relishing the turned tables.

“I pointed it out to the police chief when he fi nally roused himself to come to the scene.”

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CHILLING EFFECT

She waited while he mumbled a few of his favorite curses under

his breath.

“Th e police chief comped us dinner at the casino—”

“Us?”

“I called Joe to come meet me, Sid.”

“I realize this is some sort of recapture-the-romance trip, but I trust you’re keeping your husband at arm’s length from the investigation.”

She bit her lip and swallowed the response that came to mind.

Instead she said, “Of course. As I was saying, we had dinner at the casino—in part, because it had been a long day and, surprisingly, I was hungry and in part, because I wanted to get a better sense of the place.

Th at’s where the purported embezzlement is taking place, after all.”

“And?”

“And it seemed to be a well-run establishment. Th e parking

lot was mostly full, the casino fl oor was bustling, and the food was passable.”

“Anything else?”

“Th e decor was sort of over-the-top with the clichéd Indian

motif.”

“Th at’s not what I had in mind.”

“Oh, well, if you mean did I see anyone walk by with a big

burlap sack marked ‘pilfered funds,’ the answer is no.”

“Point taken. So what happened after dinner?”

Th ere was no way she was recounting the argument for Sid. She

glossed over the reason for the stop along the side of the road and said,

“Joe was taking a walk when he ran into a man on the tribe’s cultural board, a guy by the name of Cowslip—Matthew Cowslip, but he

goes by Boom. He mentioned to Joe that he thought Buckmount had

something to do with Palmer’s murder. He seemed to think the local

authorities were unlikely to look into the issue with any real vigor.”

Sid harrumphed in bitter agreement. Th en he said, “He’s no

doubt correct about that—especially if Buckmount is involved.”

77

MELISSA F. MILLER

“What do we have on Buckmount?”

Silence.

“Sid?”

“Not much. Th at’s part of the problem. Th ese Indian—er, Native

American—casinos are pretty much black boxes. Th ey’re not subject

to the same level of scrutiny and oversight as regular casinos. In fact, we have some concerns that organized crime is moving its focus away from Las Vegas and Atlantic City and trying to make inroads with

the reservation casinos for that very reason.”

“You think there’s a mob connection at White Springs?”

“I don’t know, but according to our friends in the Bureau, that’s

a good possibility.”

“So Isaac’s death could be a professional hit.”

“Could be.”

An image of Lily fl ashed in her mind.

“Well that’s a real problem, because there’s a seven-year-old girl

in danger.”

“Tell me about the girl.”

“She lives next door to Palmer. Her mother’s a cocktail waitress

at the casino. Mom claims Isaac had a crush on her and told her

about the missing money to impress her.”

“Great. Wonder who else he blabbed to?”

“According to her, no one. She told him he was playing with

fi re and, apparently, scared him. Th at’s probably why he went dark on us and stopped cooperating.”

“Hmm, maybe. He tell her anything else?”

“Yeah, he told her he thought the missing money was somehow

tied up with some drones that disappeared from the testing facility on the reservation. Do you know anything about that?”

“Missing drones? No. But I’ll poke around.” Sid’s tone was infu-

riatingly unconcerned.

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CHILLING EFFECT

“Do more than poke around, Sid. If there’s even one unmanned

military drone fl oating around out—”

“Simmer down, White Springs is a
civilian
testing facility. Th e drones aren’t armed. Th ey’re just annoying.”

“You knew about the drone testing?” she asked incredulously.