Hot Button (20 page)

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Josie. Nobody suspected.”

“But we should have.” I was so sure of this that a muscle jumped at the base of my jaw. “He was a cartoon. The dusty cowboy boots and the hat and those embroidered shirts. He
was an actor portraying a button collector. The only question is, why?”

Nev looked at me hard and that made the pieces click.

I nodded. “The money. Sure. Of course. The forty thousand dollars you found. Brad Wyant killed his brother and took his place so he could come to the conference and sell whatever it was he was selling. Then Thad Wyant…” A new thought struck, and my shoulders slumped. “I really have made a mess of this conference. Here I thought getting Thad Wyant to come and give our keynote address was a coup. But Thad never agreed to it at all. It must have been Brad who answered my letters. Which explains…” Just thinking about it made me cringe. “I wrote to Thad Wyant more than a year ago,” I explained. “I invited him to the conference. And when I didn’t hear in a couple months, I wrote again. Just in case he hadn’t gotten the first letter. And again, I didn’t hear. Not for months and months, anyway. Then a few months ago, just when I’d pretty much lost all hope, that’s when he responded. And the fact that I invited Thad…” I pressed a hand to my stomach. “It’s my fault Thad is dead. If I’d never invited him—”

“Oh, no!” Before I could say another word, Nev pulled me into his arms. “I’m not going to let you talk like that,” he said, his mouth close to my ear. “It’s not your fault, understand?” His hands on my shoulders, he pushed me just far enough away to look into my eyes. “You’re not responsible. Not for what Brad Wyant did. He’s the only one who has to answer for that. And he did. Somehow, this crazy charade of his resulted in his murder. It has everything to do with him and nothing to do with you. You get that, don’t you?”

I did. At least I think I did. It would have been easier to figure out if I wasn’t feeling a little dazed and confused by that hug. I reminded myself this wasn’t the time or the place
and got back on track. But then, that wasn’t so hard. A new thought struck, and I sucked in a breath.

“Then on the cruise, when Beth Howell confronted the man she thought was Thad—”

“She was really talking to his brother. And he actually might have been telling the truth when he said he didn’t know who she was or what she was angry about.”

“Which means if she’s our killer…” I hated when the universe thumbed its nose at us mere mortals. Especially when a big dose of irony was involved. “She was angry at Thad, and she may have killed the wrong man.”

“But not an innocent man,” Nev reminded me. “Don’t start feeling sorry for Brad Wyant. There’s Thad’s body in the freezer, remember.”

Like I could ever forget?

“So…” This close to Nev, it was impossible to not think about that hug and lose my train of thought, so I stepped back closer to the ice maker, and realizing it, I sidestepped to stand in front of the vending machine. “Maybe, somehow, Beth really did know Thad. I mean, the real Thad. Maybe she knew him years ago, and maybe Brad fooled even her.”

“Just like he fooled everyone else.”

“I wonder.” I flipped through my mental Rolodex, remembering the last few days and the button collectors who’d had run-ins with Brad Wyant. “Langston had never met Thad Wyant before,” I said. “If he had, he would have noticed the differences between Thad and Brad for sure. Langston is a details kind of guy. And Helen… She’s been around for years, but she’s never been interested in Western buttons. Even if she had crossed paths with Thad, it would have been years ago, and as you said, the brothers looked an awful lot alike.”

“That leaves Beth Howell.” Nev pushed away from the
wall, and I knew what that meant. Although the cops had been looking for Beth all this time, he was about to initiate a full-court press.

“And Chase Cadell,” I added. “Let’s not forget him. He and Thad have been rivals for years.” Again, I felt like giving myself a good swift kick in the pants for missing out on the clues. “The man we thought was Thad didn’t blink an eye when he cut in line in front of Chase on Navy Pier before the cruise. They hated each other. You think he would have reacted somehow. And Chase… He and Thad must have met each other in person somewhere along the line. He had plenty of opportunities to see Thad… er, Brad… at this conference. If he noticed anything was off—”

“Then he might have figured out that the Thad who showed up for the conference wasn’t the person he was supposed to be.”

“And he might have confronted him and—”

I was getting way ahead of myself. I knew it, and of course, Nev did, too. Again, he put a hand on my arm, this time to stop my imagination from running away with me. “That still doesn’t explain all that money,” he reminded me.

“I know. I know.” I marched out toward the lobby and the conference rooms beyond, already scanning the groups of people leaving this hour’s scheduled panels, looking for Chase Cadell. “But it might give us a lead, right? Thad and Chase weren’t what anybody would call old friends. In fact, they were more like old enemies. And something tells me one old enemy might know a whole lot about the other one. A whole lot he might not want to talk about.”

I
HAD NO
luck finding Chase at any of the panels scheduled in the next hour, or at lunch, either, and by the time our
luncheon crowd was breaking up to head into the afternoon sessions and I’d already called Chase’s room three times and gotten no answer, I was desperate. I was about to pick up the house phone and try his room one more time when Kaz breezed by. He was dressed in those black pants with the crisp crease in them and a killer black-and-gray houndstooth jacket. White shirt. Black tie. Heck, he looked more like the chair of the conference than I did. But then, he didn’t have black smudges of sleeplessness under his eyes, and I did.

Kaz was pushing the wheelchair of Betty Cartwright, a lovely woman and longtime button collector from Colorado, and he excused himself, asked a nearby conference attendee to take over the Betty duties, and zipped over.

“What’s up?”

I hated to think that he knew something was wrong just by looking at me, so I answered noncommittally. “Nothing. Why would you think something is up?”

“That little crease. Right there.” He tapped his index finger to the spot squarely between my eyes. “I always know when you’re worried about something because that crease shows up. It’s cute.”

“Being worried is not cute.” He should have known this, since three years of living with Kaz had left me plenty worried plenty of times. I would bet not one of those times was cute by anybody’s definition.

“Then there’s that little crease. Right there.” This time, he touched his finger to my bottom lip and left it there just long enough for me to taste a hint of the sugar-coated shortbread cookies that had been served after lunch. “Another telltale sign that you’re thinking about something and that whatever it is, you’re not happy about it.”

I shoved away from the alcove where the house phones
were located. “It’s Chase Cadell,” I admitted. “I need to talk to him, and I’ve looked all over the place and he’s not answering his phone and—”

“That’s because he’s at Cowboy Bob’s.”

This sort of out-of-left-field comment might have thrown me for a loop coming from anyone else. From Kaz, I knew better than to dismiss it out of hand. “Explain,” I said.

“Chase and I talked. Last night. He said he was looking for a place he could hang out and relax. You know, a place with a sort of Western atmosphere. I remembered Cowboy Bob’s, north of the city. It’s a great little country-and-western place, and when I saw Chase this morning, I mentioned it, and he said that’s where he was going. You know, to get away from the conference for a while and chill.”

“And this Cowboy Bob’s is where?”

Kaz’s face lit with a grin. “No need to ask, little lady,” he said, bowing and sounding a little too much like the fake Thad Wyant for my liking. “I’ll just mosey on over there with you.”

A
PPARENTLY
, C
OWBOY
B
OB’S
had risen from the same imagination that spawned Brad Wyant’s skewed stereotypical view of the West. Lots of cowboy paraphernalia (like chaps and spurs and hats) hanging on the walls and from the ceiling fans that spun in slow motion overhead. Hardwood floors coated with a sprinkle of sawdust. Dance floor. Bar along the far wall, complete with bartenders wearing cowboy hats, waitresses in dance-hall-girl getups, and country music wailing from the sound system.

Oh yeah, it was a little slice of the Old West in Illinois, all right. Or at least a slice of the Old West as people like to imagine it.

As it happened, though, there was more to Cowboy Bob’s than met the eye. Turns out Kaz was more than willing to mosey on over there with me because in addition to being the mother of all corny honky-tonks, the place featured offtrack betting on horse races, greyhound racing, and jai alai from around the country.

Let’s be kind and just say I was less than pleased when Kaz went right into the betting room the moment we were in the front door.

I bit my tongue.

It was one way to get my mind off the way my stomach suddenly soured.

And a not-so-gentle reminder that what Kaz did was none of my business. And definitely not my problem.

Not anymore.

Chase Cadell, on the other hand, and what he might—or might not—know about the real Thad Wyant, was.

Steeling myself against the hair-raising high notes of the woman howling a song about her lost love and the rent money he’d taken with him, I squared my shoulders and did my own moseying—right up to the far end of the bar, where Chase was seated on a stool, one hand wrapped around a glass of amber liquid.

He looked up when I slid onto the stool next to him. “Fancy seeing you here. You come to apologize?”

When the bartender approached, I signaled that I wasn’t interested in anything at the moment. “Apologize?” I asked Chase.

“For invitin’ Wyant to be your guest of honor instead of me.” Chase laughed, the sound like sandpaper on gravel. “At least I woulda lived long enough to give your banquet speech.”

“You’re not upset that Thad’s dead.” Understatement.
Yeah, I got that. But sometimes people need to hear the obvious, just to nudge them toward telling the truth.

Chase was dressed in jeans and a yellow golf shirt with blue embroidery over the heart that said “Pike’s Peak Mini-Golf.” So much for the cowboy motif. “Come on, Josie. You know I couldn’t stand the guy.” He sipped his drink, glancing at me over the rim of his glass. “Now you gonna ask me if I killed him?”

“Did you?”

“I wish.” He chuckled and coughed and pounded a hand against his chest, and when he was done gagging, he took another drink. “Can’t imagine the whole, entire button world wouldn’t erect a monument in my honor. You know what I mean? Wyant was lower than a snake’s belly and as nasty as a coyote with a migraine. I won’t miss him, that’s for sure.”

It was early in the afternoon, and the bar was less than crowded. The bartender came by again and, feeling guilty for taking up space and contributing nothing to his wages, I ordered an iced tea. “When was the last time you saw Thad Wyant?” I asked Chase.

He sucked on his bottom lip for a while; then, done thinking, he propped his elbows on the bar. “You mean before this conference? Dang if I can remember. Twenty, thirty years ago, maybe. It was the first time we met. The last time, too. We was at a button conference in Boise and me, being the charming sort I am…” He gave me a sparkling smile that hinted at the fact that this might actually be true if the subject wasn’t Thad Wyant. “I went up and introduced myself. Wyant was a legend, after all. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to cultivate his friendship and maybe learn a thing or two from him.”

“And Thad… ?”

“Blew me off.” Chase harrumphed. “Told me there was no use me even getting into Western collecting because he had a corner on all the good buttons and there was nothing left for an amateur like me to buy. Told me he had a Geronimo button, and you can just imagine the way he said it. I…” Chase sat up and raised his chin, putting on a pretty good fake Thad Wyant accent. “I am the owner of the one, the only, the original Geeronimo button, my friend. Ain’t another one like it in all the world. Not one anybody can authenticate, anyway. You’re just wastin’ your time trying to come up with anything half as interestin’.” Finished with his Thad impersonation, Chase grumbled and took another drink.

“And is that what he sounded like?” I asked.

“Thad, you mean? Sounded? You heard him yourself, Josie.”

“I did. I know. But thirty years ago when you met him, was he as—”

“Rude and obnoxious?” Chase finished the sentence for me. “He was certainly no prize. But…” Thinking, he squeezed his eyes shut. “Bah!” His eyes popped open, and he brushed away my concerns. “The man was some kind of nutcase. Seems obvious, don’t it, the way he got himself killed?” Thad leaned near enough for me to catch the whiff of whiskey on his breath. “You know anything about that?”

I did. But it wasn’t like I was going to spill the beans, so I guess it was just as well that Kaz came racing out of the betting room, zoomed over, grabbed my hand, and yanked me off the bar stool.

“We gotta go,” he said, and when I hesitated, he gave me a tug. “Now, Josie. Come on.”

“I’m not done talking to Chase,” I said, my teeth clenched in a way that should have told Kaz I wasn’t happy.

“Doesn’t matter.” He gave Chase a quick smile by way of apology, and I managed to drag out a couple dollars to pay for the iced tea I’d never been served and wouldn’t have a chance to drink and slap them on the bar before Kaz said, “We’re leaving. Now.”

I may have been caught off guard, but honestly, as we zipped past the betting room, I realized I wasn’t surprised. Outside, I untangled myself from Kaz’s grasp. “Let me guess, you met somebody you owe money to.”

“Worse than that.” Before I had time to get settled, he propelled me along the sidewalk and toward the parking lot. “Apparently, there’s a few things about Amber I never knew.”

“Like—?”