Leigh strode out the door without looking back.
“If she was the target, she probably still is,” Winter said. “When the shooter finds out he missed her, he might try again. She needs protection.”
“Forget it,” Brad said. “She’s in denial and as stubborn as a mule. But I’ll put a car out at the place, double the patrols on the roads out that way.”
Winter said, “I think she already suspected Sherry wasn’t the target before she came in here. I think she isn’t completely certain that her ex isn’t responsible.”
Brad said, “I can tell you from long experience with Leigh that she isn’t going to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“How long ago was it that you two dated?” Winter asked.
Brad’s startled look confirmed what Winter had suspected since he first saw Brad and Leigh Gardner interact at Six Oaks.
Bettye stuck her head into the office. “Sheriff, just got a call. There’s been a homicide at the Gold Key.”
22
The parking lot at the Gold Key motel was alive with flashing blue lights and several deputies stood on the balcony outside a room with the door open. Traffic on the highway was backed up as people rubbernecked to see what the excitement was about. Here and there, guests gathered in tight clumps.
Winter and Brad took the wide stairs two at a time. The deputies parted to allow Brad and Winter to enter the room. A man’s body was sprawled on the floor, a pool of blood under his head, his throat laid open. A second man wearing a V-neck sweater and khakis sat on the edge of the bed, his hands resting in his lap. A deputy in his fifties stood passively with his back to the bureau as Brad and Winter entered.
“What happened here, Roy?” Brad asked the deputy, who handed him a Nevada driver’s license with a picture of the young man who sat watching them silently.
“Roy Bishop, this is Winter Massey. He’s giving me a hand with the Adams homicide. Roy here is my chief deputy.” The chief deputy looked at Winter for a second and nodded.
“Beals?” Brad asked, moving to look at the dead man’s familiar features.
“Sure is. Mr. Scotoni here says somebody else came in and killed Beals, who happened to be in the process of drowning him in the tub. Scotoni called nine-one-one, we didn’t touch anything.”
Scotoni’s hair had dried into a grand mess, and his hands were shaking.
Winter looked down at the corpse wearing a flight jacket and winced as he spotted a red toothpick tucked behind the dead man’s ear. Brad’s eyes followed his.
“Okay, Mr. Scotoni, I need to know exactly what happened,” Brad said, sitting on the chair so their eyes were even.
“I was running a hot bath. That guy there came to the door, said he was a deputy sheriff, and showed me his badge. When I opened the door he knocked me down. He had a gun with a silencer on it. He said he was going to take the money I’d won from the casinos.”
“He was alone when he came in?”
“Yeah. He was enjoying himself. He was definitely going to kill me. He made me get into the tub and hit me on the back of my head and started holding me underwater. I couldn’t really fight back and I was…I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“I didn’t see a gun,” the deputy said. “I looked under the bed and everywhere else I could without touching anything.”
“The other guy must have taken it,” Scotoni said. “The one who saved my ass.”
“What did this other guy look like?” Brad asked.
“I didn’t actually see him. Like I said, that dead guy hit me in the back of my head,” he said, turning and pointing at the back of his head. “He had me underwater and I saw the shape of a man in dark clothes come in. He pulled that guy in here and by the time I got out of the tub and came in, the guy that killed him was already gone, so I called nine-one-one.”
Winter looked at Brad and nodded slowly.
“Can I get the hell out of here?” Scotoni asked.
“You can leave the room,” Brad told him. “You’ll have to give a statement at the station.”
“Can I take my stuff?”
“We’ll release it after we’ve cleared the scene,” Bishop said.
“What about just the money I won?”
“Where is it?” Brad asked.
“In that middle drawer. He never got around to it.”
Brad opened the dresser drawer and handed a paper bag heavy with banded stacks of currency to Scotoni.
“Where did you win this?”
“Gold Strike, Horse Shoe, Regency, and the Roundtable.”
“Which was the last place?”
“I only played the Roundtable today. The others were over the last two days.”
“With all the casinos in Reno and Vegas, why’d you come here?”
“I wanted to see Graceland,” Scotoni said, too quickly.
“You an Elvis fan?” Brad asked.
“Sure.”
“Young and skinny or old and fat?”
“Sorry?”
“‘Hound Dog’ or ‘Burning Love’ Elvis-era music?” Brad went on.
“‘Burning Love,’” Scotoni said. “I like that one.”
“That’s old fat Elvis,” Brad mused. “Deputy Bishop will take you to the hospital to get you checked out. You’ll need another room.”
“Does it have to be at this motel?”
“No. Just make sure we know where you are. Don’t leave town unless you clear it with me. And if I were you, I’d take that bag to the bank and get a cashier’s check,” Brad suggested.
“Why? I didn’t do anything.”
“Large sums of cash can attract attention. I don’t want to see you where Beals is,” Brad told him firmly. “We’ll have someone watch over you until you get to the bank.”
“Why?”
“Just in case this dead fellow had friends he was going to share your winnings with. We want you to leave our county a winner,” Brad said. “And it would be best all the way around if you didn’t ever come back here.”
“You don’t have to sweat that one,” the young man said.
23
After Brad cleared the room, Winter said, “Close-up skills. These doors lock when they close. Scotoni said Beals closed it when he came in. The guy who came in picked the lock.”
“Maybe Beals left it cracked open so a partner could come in behind him,” Brad suggested.
“I doubt that. The guy cut Beals’s throat. Then he left the toothpick, took the gun, and slipped off without looking for the cash, because either he didn’t know about it, or it wasn’t part of his plan. He knew Scotoni would call the cops.”
“Maybe the toothpick was Beals’s,” Brad said.
“I think the guy who killed him left it to make an obvious connection between Beals and Sherry Adams.” Winter was convinced that Styer had done this and he could read the message loud and clear: We’ll always have New Orleans.
“Why did the killer want Beals found fast? Usually it’s the opposite.”
“The killer knew I’d come here, and he wanted to make the connection obvious to me.”
“I wish he’d just leave notes,” Brad said. “His address and phone number.”
“You knew this Beals guy. How?” Winter asked.
“He was a deputy who went to work for the Roundtable casino after I won the election. Most people in the department seemed glad he was gone.”
“Why?”
“He was the kind of smartass who sets people against each other for his own entertainment. He made inappropriate comments to female deputies. There were lots of complaints about him. After the election, he told me a casino had offered him a better job and I told him to take the offer. Truth was, I didn’t want troublemakers around undermining me.”
“Maybe the casino sent Beals to get the money back,” Winter suggested.
“Maybe Beals targeted the kid because he won and took it in cash. No legit casino would send Beals here to get their money back. Winners draw in losers. If someone cheats, they call us to arrest them. They ask counters to leave.”
“But it’s possible that someone at the casino did send him after Scotoni to teach him a lesson.”
“Casinos don’t operate that way because it would result in the loss of their gaming license and criminal charges. There’s too much at stake. Losing future millions over some chump change is stupid.”