Luke Murphy - Dead Man's Hand

“Thanks, Mike. A strong defense beats a good offense every time.”

Just ask the Nebraska Cornhuskers .

They had a beer in the garage and broke for lunch. Rachel had left the men alone to sort out their details.

“So, Calvin, have you found out anything more about your situation?”

He took a drink. “Yeah, I’ve been doing some digging.” He brought Mike over to a terminal. “I’ve started updating and collecting everything I could find on Grant in my database, including all the articles I’ve collected and stored in my file. Check this out. Grant is twenty-eight years older than Linda.”

“Yeah, I remember the wedding. That’s all the city could talk about.” It was Mike’s turn to drink.

Calvin pointed to a picture of the bride and groom. “Anything unusual?”

“What about it?”

“The background.”

“Is that Grant’s son?”

“Yeah. Shawn Grant.”

“He doesn’t look too happy.”

“He looks pretty pissed off to me.”

“Angry at dad robbing the cradle?”

“It’s only a picture, but a good place to start.”

“What else you got?”

“I googled the words ‘Las Vegas casino owners’ and three names appeared frequently: Doug Grant, Shawn Grant and Ace Sanders.”

Mike shrugged. “Sounds about right.”

“So I tried to find out as much as I could about the men.”

“What did you find?”

“Shawn Grant is the youngest man in Las Vegas to be a part owner of a casino and it’s said that he’s ready to take over for his father. Sanders—”

“Sanders is a lowlife.”

Calvin smiled. “You and I know that, but from the public’s perspective, Sanders is popular and respected. He’s contributed a lot to the city and has supported other businesses. But we also know the rumors about the hatred between Doug Grant and Sanders. Sanders made consistent attempts to buy the Greek. He has a mean, quick temper. He’s a ruthless leader and womanizer—rumor is he’s banging Linda Grant. I have first-hand knowledge that he employed Pitt for dirty work he didn’t want to be involved in. The work was perfect for Pitt. Dirty knows how to handle dirty.”

“What did you find out about Doug Grant?”

“Not much yet. But despite what Pitt told me yesterday, I had never heard Grant’s name mentioned for any job during the years I’ve been collecting. Sanders had been Pitt’s biggest and most important client. And anyone who conducted business with Pitt is either crooked or greedy.”

“So Sanders has Grant’s wife and casino if he kills him?”

“I’m not so sure about the casino. Shawn Grant will be running things now and I doubt he’s in any hurry to sell to Sanders.”

“Do you think Sanders would actually go that far? Kill a man?”

Calvin shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. I checked to see if the three men had conducted business together but came up empty.”

The two men sat in silence for a while. Calvin got up. “Want another beer?”

“No, not until the job is done. Sit down, I’ve been thinking about your backup emergency plan. When I was outside, I had an idea.”

Calvin sat back down as Mike continued.

“I scoped the attic and think my idea is plausible. I’ll cut a hole in your roof and set a two-foot-wide board outside that leads across to the roof of the neighboring building. I’ll build a secret trap door that covers the hole. The board will be short enough to store in the attic, ready to be used when needed.”

Mike and Calvin took a swig of the canned brew.

“It’s perfect. Cops never look up when they’re surveying a house. We’ll set up a smoke screen for them. They’ll be so busy with the explosions that they won’t see you escaping. I’ll plant tiny detonation devices underneath the floorboards. If there ever comes a time when you need to evacuate in a hurry and you don’t want the cops nosing around in your equipment, the failsafe will protect your investment.”

He paused for a moment and then continued. “When the time is right—and you’ll know when that is—all you have to do is activate the program on your system and the timing device will give you an adequate countdown to escape before the massive explosion. Of course, because of the multiple-server backup system that I installed three years ago, all of your data will still be saved, but on a remote terminal where the cops won’t have access to it.”

Calvin liked it.

“There’s more. That’s the beauty of this system.” Mike said. “Not only is your system protected by a password, an intruder must also get past a retina scanner and fingerprint test. A lot more than you really need, but it’s all part of the package.”

Mike put Calvin and Rachel through the procedure of having their eyes and fingers scanned.

It was early evening by the time they were finished and everything was set up. Mike packed his tools into the van and slid the side door shut. He shook Calvin’s hand, accepted the rest of Calvin’s payment and jumped into the vehicle.

Before pulling out, he rolled down his widow. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Here.” Mike threw a package to Calvin. “Your new IDs.”

Calvin caught the package. “Thanks for everything, Mike. I owe you one.”

“You owe me nothing, Calvin. You’re a good friend and you took care of Andy.” Then Mike’s face turned grim. “I heard this morning about your boss. I can’t believe that he was killed only hours after we were talking about him.”

Crash!

Calvin turned to find Rachel standing behind, the broken beer bottle she had dropped scattered around her feet. She turned and ran into the house.

Calvin turned back to Mike. “Thanks, Mike. Take care and give Andy my best.”

“Did I say something?”

Calvin waved as the bar owner pulled out of the parking lot. He checked the neighborhood and pulled down the fortified garage door. Then he sprinted into the house.

He found Rachel sitting on the cot, her face buried in her hands, sobbing. He sat down next to her.

“Just tell me the truth, Calvin.” She sniffled.

He wrapped his massive arms around her and pulled Rachel close. Calvin, with the gentle hands of a Swedish masseuse, rubbed her back and shoulders.

“I didn’t tell you last night because it was late when I got home and you had enough to think about.”

“Did you do it?”

He stared hard into her eyes. “I swear I didn’t, Rachel.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. I did go to his office, just to talk to Pitt. To get some answers, find out what was going on. But when I got there I found him dead. And not just him, there was a woman with him.”

“A woman? Who?”

“I don’t know that either. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. I didn’t want to be caught there and get framed for that too.”

“You promise you didn’t do it?”

“Have I ever lied to you before?”

She shook her head.

“I promise. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” He got up from the cot but Rachel pulled him back down.

“Promise you’ll tell me everything.”

He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. “I promise. Let’s go.”

He led her to the computer room.

“It’s cold in here,” Rachel said, rubbing her bare arms.

“Has to be. There is enough processing power here to generate heat and risk damage.”

Calvin logged on. News of the Pitt murder was widespread, but because it had only happened last night, little was reported. He read the summaries and thought about the details.

The murders were linked to Grant by MO. Same killer?

“Who would do such a thing?” Rachel asked.