Jason Deas - Cameron Caldwell 01 - Private Eye Read online

  “My turn,” Claude said.

  “Your turn for what?” Billy asked.

  “My turn to whisper something in your ear, since we’re being all dramatic.” Billy leaned in toward Claude. Claude whispered in his ear. “I’ve been sleeping with Alice.”

  Billy popped back away from Claude.

  “Open the back!” he ordered.

  It was empty.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning Claude picked Cam up and drove him to his office. Cam wanted to retrieve the moonshine the night before, but Claude wouldn’t hear of him entering the area until he finished working. He planned to work through the night.

  Claude dropped him at the front door and drove away.

  Before he did, Cam asked, “Aren’t you going to come inside?”

  “No. I want you to experience it alone, and I need a nap.”

  The hint of fresh paint hung in the air as Cam walked into his newly designed space. He stopped just inside the door. The walls were covered with a color he categorized as slate. His old desk had been replaced by an antique. Although it was quite old, Cam thought it looked sturdy and manly. Everything looked—manly. A few old rifles hung around the room among Claude’s original paintings. The abstract canvases filled the room with color. A comfortable looking sitting area contained oversize chairs and ottomans. Cacti and other succulents were scattered throughout the room. Cam’s favorite part stretched along the room’s longest wall. A bar. The wall behind the bar held a massive mirror, which visually doubled the room’s size. The bar was stocked. On the bar top was a handwritten note from Claude that read, “Easy tiger. These are for your clients.”

  The phone rang.

  “You love it?” It was Claude.

  “I do.”

  “I mean it about the booze.”

  “OK. I don’t really even know what to say or how I’m going to pay you for this. And I’ll kill these plants.”

  “You owe me $423 and I made myself a key. I’ll take care of the plants.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Most of it’s on loan.”

  “You charged me the same for doing my house.”

  “I love symmetry,” he said, hanging up the phone.

  Before Cam had a chance to process the phone call, the door opened. Billy Prescott walked in. Under the cowboy hat stood a short, rotund man in his mid-fifties. Stark white hair poked from under the Stetson. A mustache the same color rode above his pouty lips. Cam took a quick look at his beady eyes and knew he was trouble.

  “Is this a night club or a detective agency?” Billy asked.

  “I want my clients to feel comfortable discussing their issues with me,” Cam tried.

  “Did that queer, Clyde, set this place up?”

  “Claude is not gay, sir.”

  “Tell it to somebody else and get me a scotch on the rocks.”

  “It’s not even ten o’clock.”

  “Are you a pansy too?”

  “Neither of us is,” Cam said, under his breath, walking behind the bar. He didn’t think there would be any ice, but, there it was, an ice cooler. I’ll be damned. He filled two glasses with ice, found the best bottle of scotch, and poured two drinks. He stayed on the opposite side of the bar, and handed Billy his drink. “Top of the morning,” he said, raising his glass.

  Billy grabbed his drink and echoed the sentiment as Cam looked him in the eye. His head jerked to the side and back. Although he had never seen Chief Lee, he knew it was her. She was in her kitchen when she heard the knock on the door. It was Billy. Billy entered with an apology and a knife. Before she could gather her senses, Billy stuck the blade in her gut. He didn’t stop there. He shoved her back, smashing her head against the microwave hanging above the stove. As her body slipped toward the floor he grabbed the mixer off the counter and spiked it into her forehead. Blood gushed from her abdomen and head. Billy wasn’t through with his assault. As Chief Lee slipped into unconsciousness, he took the boiling pot of water off the stovetop and poured it onto her face. Finally, he took the now empty pot and gave her one more final blow to the head.

  Cam’s head snapped back as Billy took his first drink.

  “This office is all right,” he said, with a wink.

  “Glad you like it. Now, what can I do for you?”

  “I know you witnessed the fiasco yesterday. I saw you standing in the doorway of Daphne’s diner.”

  “Late lunch. We have a little agreement worked out that I eat while she cleans. A neighborly kind of thing.” Cam didn’t want him to know he had gotten close to her personally.

  “Don’t get close to those people,” Billy said. “They’re trouble. Outlaws, really.”

  “Oh?”

  “That’s what I’m here for. Have they befriended you yet?”

  “No,” Cam lied. “I just eat there and paid her brother to fix the place up for me. I don’t know anybody in this town yet. Not so sure I’m gonna stay,” Cam lied again.

  “Good,” Billy said, taking a big gulp of his scotch. He walked over to where Claude had hung his picture in uniform. “Former cop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you believe in justice?”

  “Live for it.”

  “Good. Those scoundrels are running shine and I aim to stop it. I’m no fool, but I can’t seem to catch them.”

  “Why don’t you leave this to Officer Gomez?”

  “Good question. She doesn’t seem to see the importance of timeliness. I need this wrapped up yesterday. She wants the answers to come to her, and I need someone to go out there and get them.”

  Cam discussed his prices and shook hands. Billy finished his drink and left.

  As soon as Billy pulled away, the moonshine in the closet called Cam’s name. His curiosity was screaming. He walked to the closet and opened the door. The jug was gone.

  Damn. Probably a good thing, but damn.

  Cam called Blanca.

  “I need a cup of my free coffee,” he said, when he was finally able to get the officer at the desk to connect him.

  “I suspect you also need a ride over here?”

  “That’d be great.”

  “I’ll send someone over to get you. You only get one more this week.”

  “OK, but the ride back when I’m finished going over the files again doesn’t count.”

  “You’re pushing it.”

  At the station, Cam sat down in an unused office with the box filled with the papers from Chief Lee’s murder investigation. He dumped the box on the table. Looking through the photographs, he confirmed all of the things he already knew. The autopsy shots showed a knife wound to the abdomen. The photos of her face made him nauseated. The spot where the mixer had met her forehead left an indent. The rest of her face was just as revolting. Burns from the boiling water covered three-quarters of her profile. Cam surmised that she had turned her head seeing what was happening above her. The same side of her face revealed the final blow from the empty pot. Cam quickly flipped through the rest of the photos as he looked for something.

  He jumped up from his chair and walked to the office next door. Blanca was staring at her computer screen.

  “Where’s the knife?” Cam asked.

  She looked up. “We never found it.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “You’re the one starting the new investigation. What does it tell you?”

  “It tells me whoever did this didn’t get the knife at Chief Lee’s house. They brought their own.”

  “Yep. We didn’t find any of her knives missing. I hope I didn’t give away free coffee and two rides a week for something I already knew.” Blanca cracked an evil grin and turned back to her computer screen. Cam went back to the files.

  The list of suspects was short: Alice Prescott, Turner, and Hank.

  “Any more questions?” Blanca said a few minutes later, popping her head in the door. “I have to run.”

  “You can answer them on our way back to my office,”
Cam said, stuffing all the files back in the box.

  “I can?” Blanca gave him a look.

  “After you refill my coffee,” Cam answered, holding his cup out to her.

  “In your dreams. Put the box up and let’s go.”

  In the car, Cam said, “I’m curious about the list of suspects.”

  “Well, let’s see. Alice was the first as she suspected Chief Lee of having an affair with her husband. She had even accused him in front of a town hall meeting the previous week.”

  “Were they having an affair?”

  “No. Not as far as I know, anyway. I can’t see it. Chief Lee was too moral for that. She wouldn’t sleep with another woman’s husband.”

  “She wasn’t moral enough to overlook the moonshine business being run under her nose,” Cam jabbed.

  Blanca tightened and slowly pulled the car over to the side of the road. She put it in park as Cam waited for the eruption. She put a finger in his face and said through gritted teeth, “Don’t you ever speak of her negatively again. She was a good woman who didn’t deserve what she got. Yeah, maybe she had a tiny blind spot, but everybody does.”

  “Got it.”

  Blanca put the car back in drive, signaled, checked her mirrors, and pulled back onto the road.

  “Turner and Hank were also suspects because of their involvement in the illegal liquor business. Chief Lee had called them out at the same town meeting where Alice accused her of sleeping with her husband.”

  “Must have been quite a meeting. Sorry I missed it.”

  Cam laughed. Blanca didn’t.

  “If everybody knows, or thinks they know who’s involved in the trade of illegal liquor, why is it so hard to make arrests or stop it?”

  “Two reasons,” Blanca said, pulling the car in front of Cam’s business. “One, they have a lot of friends and people who cover for them. Two, and I hate to admit it, but they’re good at hiding it. Now get out.”

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Earn it,” she said, deadpan. “And do yourself a favor—if they try to sell you any of that liquor, stay away. It could make you go blind.”

  She drove away with a smirk on her face. Cam had an eerie feeling that she knew something about him he didn’t want her to know.

  Chapter Nine

  Cam walked into Daphne’s as the last customer was leaving.

  “You didn’t tell Blanca my secret did you?”

  “Are you kidding me? No!”

  “She said something cryptic to me like she knew.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t think you would, but it was just too weird.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She warned me against drinking moonshine. She said it would make me go blind. She said it with a twinkle in her eye, like she knew something.”

  “You’re just being paranoid,” Daphne said, wiping the bar top with a rag. She sprayed another section and continued wiping. “She is a good law woman, I’ll give her that, but she does like to act like she knows more than she does. It’s a trick that works well for her. She’s done it to me before. I had a bunch of jugs here ready for a delivery once when she stopped by. She acted as if she had a warrant in her pocket—scared the shit out of me, but I had the nerve to call her bluff. It was the only choice I had. She didn’t have one, but came back an hour later with one. I guess she saw the fear in my eyes. By then we’d moved it.”

  “She’s something,” Cam said, with a goofy grin on his face.

  “Oh God,” Daphne said, as she stopped wiping. “You’re falling for her?”

  “I am not. Really, I’m not,” he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender.

  “Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. And I don’t blame you. She is beautiful. Long dark hair, perfect skin, long legs, and a body any woman would kill for.”

  “Umm.”

  Daphne went back to cleaning the counter. “But she’s right about it making you blind. If moonshine’s made wrong, it could make you go blind. Or kill you for that matter.”

  “It might be a relief.”

  Daphne held the spray as if she were going to spray Cam in the eyes. “Then you’d never be able to see Blanca’s beautiful body again.” She turned and walked to the back with what Cam detected as a bit of jealousy.

  Claude walked in the front door.

  “Just the man I wanted to talk to,” Cam said.

  “It’s in the two Jimmy Buffett tequila bottles behind the bar. You can’t just leave that kind of thing sitting around.”

  “Jimmy Buffett makes tequila?”

  “I don’t think he personally makes it, but it does have his name on it.”

  “Thanks, smarty.”

  Claude smiled.

  “I’ll go by the bank tomorrow and get the money I owe you.”

  “Just put it toward my tab.”

  “What?”

  “Daphne told me earlier she hired you to find out if Billy Prescott killed our father.”

  “Yeah, she did, but I wasn’t going to take her money for that.”

  “Well, that makes two of us. I wasn’t going to take yours either.” Claude patted Cam on the back and laughed.

  “All right then.”

  Daphne came back to the front with two sandwiches and set them in front of them.

  “Specially made for my two favorite boys.” She cut her eyes at Cam and blushed. When she turned around, Claude kicked Cam playfully in the ankle and gave him a big grin. His teeth were filled with mayonnaise and Cam kicked him back a little harder than he intended.

  Claude swallowed and looked at Cam. “We’ve got a little problem I need your help with. Feel free to say no if you’re not comfortable with this.”

  “Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like this at all?”

  Claude put a hand drawn map on the counter and slid it toward Cam. “You’re so silly. I hear through the grapevine that you have a new client. Unfortunately, Billy Prescott is tightening the screws on us as the land deal my sister told you about comes closer and closer to falling through. He wants our land so bad I wouldn’t put it past him to frame us for something, just so he could get his hands on it.”

  “What’s the map for?”

  “Glad you asked. I need you to tell him you were having lunch at the diner and you saw me drop it. You, being the sly investigator you are, snatched it off the ground without anybody seeing and you are delivering it to him.”

  “Let me guess. This is the fake location of a still?”

  “You are one smart cookie. We were setting up a still earlier when Billy and some of his henchmen came uncomfortably close on four-wheelers this morning. They’re somehow on to us. We just need to buy a little time by sending them on a wild goose chase. Will you do it?” Claude gave him his best grin, once again with his teeth filled with mayonnaise.

  “On one condition.”

  Claude nodded.

  “Don’t ever do that again.”

  Daphne walked to the front of the restaurant again. “All finished for the day.”

  “Can I use your office to make a phone call?” Cam asked. “I don’t want the possibility of Billy hearing any background noise.” Daphne nodded and Cam headed toward her office.

  Inside it, Cam spotted a copy machine. He lifted the cover, set the map on the glass, and closed it. He pushed the green button on top and the machine flashed and hummed and spit out a copy. Cam folded it and stuck it in his pocket as Billy’s phone rang.

  “Who gave you this number?”

  “You did. It’s Cameron Caldwell.”

  “Of course.”

  “I have something I think you need to see immediately.”

  “What is it?”

  “I was having lunch at Daphne’s diner today and Claude was there. He dropped something out of his pocket and I picked it up without anybody seeing me. It’s a map.”

  “I’m on my way. Are you at your office?”

  “Yep.”

  Cam exited the office and found
Daphne and Claude laughing at the front of the restaurant.

  “How much longer are you going to be here?” he asked Daphne.

  “I’ll wait until your meeting is over and give you a ride home.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Thank you,” Claude said, as Cam left.

  Billy Prescott arrived fifteen minutes later decked out in camouflage. He had exchanged the Stetson for a camo ball cap. He had a compass and a knife on his belt.

  “You look different.”

  “Been working all day. More money than you ever seen in your life is at stake here, boy.”

  “Nice knife. I’m a collector, can I see it?”

  “No. I don’t have time for that. Time is money. Let me see what you got.”

  “Do you have time for a drink?”

  “Maybe a quick one.”

  Cam walked behind the bar and grabbed the same bottle of scotch they had enjoyed earlier. He filled two glasses with ice and poured. Cam set the drink in front of Billy.

  “Have you been hunting today?”

  “Sort of,” he said as he took a pull on the drink. “Been out on the four-wheelers all day looking for a still. I had a contact a few towns away let me know earlier in the day that someone matching Hank’s description had bought a truckload of corn. That only means one thing. They’re about to make a new batch.”

  Cam set the map Claude had given him on the bar in front of Billy. He only had to eye it for a second before his eyes lit up.

  “That son of a bitch. This is on my land! Those sneaky bastards. No wonder I haven’t been able to find their still, I’ve been looking on their land. They’re dirtier than I thought.”

  “Let me ask you a question,” Cam inquired as Billy looked up from the map. “Don’t you already have enough money without this new land deal? From what I hear, you’re one of the richest men in town.”

  “Not one of the richest, the richest. Let me tell you something that normal people don’t understand.”

  Cam observed that Billy didn’t even register he was talking down to him.

  “Money isn’t everything.” He took a drink and shook his empty glass at Cam who promptly refilled it.

  “The power that comes with money is better than the best sex you’ve ever had in your life, boy.”