“Did Chelsey know who you were?” Stride asked.
“You mean did she know about my... relationship... with Gavin? No. Then again, I’m not exactly one of his typical clients, am I?” Broadway slipped a phone from inside his suit coat pocket, scrolled through a few text messages, and then replaced it. When he was done, he gave Stride another dimpled smile. “Anyway, you asked for this meeting, Jonathan. What would you like to talk about? I’ll help if I can.”
“Hink Miller,” Stride said.
“Yes, Gavin told me that he may have had a hand in the abduction. That’s very disturbing.”
“Did he work for you at the poker games?”
“Hink was in my employ for a while as an independent contractor,” Broadway replied carefully. “But I terminated him some time ago.”
“Why?”
“I believe I mentioned that a criminal record is typically disqualifying for working with me. I run a clean ship. Hink was arrested for assault last year. I believe you know about that incident. Gavin helped put the legal issues to bed, but I grew uncomfortable with Hink remaining in my employ.”
“Is it possible he held a grudge?” Stride asked. “Against you or against Gavin?”
“Anything’s possible, but Hink walked away with a sizable separation bonus. I find that keeps ex-employees in line.”
“Did Hink know about Gavin’s inheritance?”
“I have no idea. However, Gavin’s financial turnaround happened very recently, as you know. Hink was long gone by then.”
“How did you happen to hire him? Who sent him to you?”
“He came via a mutual friend of ours,” Broadway replied with a smile.
Stride rolled his eyes. “Curt Dickes?”
“Precisely.”
“If you employ Curt, then you’re not so religious about turning away people with criminal records.”
“I don’t employ Curt. He’s more of a consultant. A headhunter, if you will.”
“Supplying girls?” Stride asked. “If your games include prostitution, you’re not going to like how this all turns out for you.”
“I assure you, I’m not involved in prostitution in any way,” Broadway replied, looking mildly offended at the idea. “That doesn’t mean I don’t dress up my parties with attractive people. I do. But those are two very different things.”
Stride sighed. Broadway was like sand slipping through fingers. “Can you tell me anything more about Hink? Do you know whether he has ties to anyone else in your... enterprise? Obviously, someone murdered him and his mother, so we want to know if he had an accomplice.”
“I understand. And no, I have no names for you right now, but I’ll keep looking. I told you I would audit my people, and I’m serious about that. However, it takes time to find connections. Now, can I help in any other way?”
“The ransom,” Stride said.
“What about it?”
“You were helpful in telling us about the hundred-dollar bills. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” Broadway replied.
“But now I need to know, did you really give Gavin one hundred thousand dollars in cash? Because we only found a fraction of that amount at Hink’s place. I need to know if Gavin lied to us.”
Broadway tapped the steering wheel as if he were counting off the seconds on a clock. “May we speak off the record again?”
“For now,” Stride agreed.
“All right. The truth. Gavin didn’t lie to you. He came to me saying he needed ransom money, and I gave him one hundred thousand dollars in cash. All in hundred-dollar bills. In return for an appropriate fee, of course.”
“When?” Stride asked.
“What?”
“When did he come to you for the money?”
“I believe it was close to midnight last Tuesday.”
“And not before?”
“No.” Broadway gave Stride a knowing look. “That doesn’t sound like the answer you wanted.”
“We’ve heard that Gavin had hundreds in his wallet a couple of days before the ransom demand,” Stride said. “So we wondered...”
“Whether the kidnapping was staged? Well, I can’t tell you anything about that, Jonathan. Gavin is a smart man, so if anyone could pull off something like this, he could. Although again, I really don’t know why he would. Inherited assets aren’t marital property, as you know. But the hundreds in his possession are no mystery. He had one of his rare winning streaks at the games on Friday.” Broadway added again, “Off the record.”
Stride frowned.
They were done; there was nothing more to ask. He got out of the car, shut the door, and heard the Mercedes’s engine purr to life. As Broadway drove away, Stride stood in the parking lot and let the afternoon rain pour over his head. Now that he was back on the job, he couldn’t escape that old frustration. Sometimes the more he dug into a case, the further he got from the truth.
He’d thought that he had finally found a flaw in the kidnapping scheme.
He’d thought that he finally had Gavin Webster on the ropes, but the man had managed to slip away again. Every question had an answer.
They still had no way of proving he’d killed his wife.
Unless he was what he said he was. Innocent.
28
Serena pulled off the highway near the railroad tracks in Proctor. Not far away, a freight train rattled northwest out of town, its cars piled high with taconite. Graffiti was scrawled on the metal walls. A stiff, cold breeze blew rain across her windshield, and the rust-colored ground near the tracks was thick with mud and pools of water. Power lines drooped overhead. Almost a hundred yards away, a group of three teenagers hiked between the tracks.
From where she was, Serena had a clear vantage on Ben Larsen’s auto repair shop. It wasn’t a large business, just a white garage with a set of three oversized doors, all of which were open. Cars, rusted trailers, and empty semitrucks were parked around the lot. With a pair of binoculars, Serena could see Ben and another mechanic working inside the garage underneath a dark-green sedan. She’d bought a sandwich in town, and she ate her lunch and waited.
Shortly after two o’clock, she saw Ben take a phone call. A couple of minutes later, he climbed behind the wheel of his F-150. He had a flatbed trailer hitched behind it. As he drove out to the highway, Serena ducked down in the Mustang so that he wouldn’t see her. When the truck was out of sight, she jogged across the street, then hiked up the dirt lot toward the garage. She didn’t know how much time she had before Ben returned.
When she’d first investigated Nikki’s death, she’d been certain that Delaney was keeping things from her. Now she felt the same way about Ben Larsen.
She strolled into the open garage through a curtain of rain pouring from the roof. A handsome black man, probably in his midtwenties, worked below the green Dodge that was elevated by the car lift. He was dressed in blue coveralls and had earbuds in his ears. His head bobbed rhythmically as he worked, and he didn’t hear Serena call out to him. She had to touch his shoulder to get his attention, and when she did, he jumped in surprise.
He popped the earbuds out of his ears and let them dangle down his shirt. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”