Wink of an Eye (17 page)

Could they be using the ranch as a pipeline? I laid my head back against the chair and waited for the coming storm.

Rodney went inside and returned with two fresh bottles. He handed me one, then sat back down and leaned in close. “How do you think Claire's involved?”

“Two of the missing girls' fathers work at the K-Bar. Sophia Ortez is looking into how many others there might be.”

“They were working at the K-Bar when their daughters went missing?”

I slowly nodded. “But I don't know who hired them. I don't know how long Claire's been managing the ranch. Years ago, Sam Amos was the ranch foreman—he did all the hiring back then.”

Rodney settled his weight in the chair. “Okay … so the K-Bar hires these illegals and then their daughters go missing. There's got to be someone sending them the workers … someone who would know these men were, one, illegal, and two, had teenage daughters.”

I popped the top on the new bottle and downed half of it in one long swig. “Peterson and McCoy worked for the Border Patrol. Maybe there's someone there feeding them these poor bastards.”

“More likely a coyote they've hooked up with.”

I drank my beer. My heart ached for the missing girls. Maybe after I proved Ryce was murdered, I could dig a little deeper into the pipeline. And after that, I was going to have to find a paying job.

 

CHAPTER 15

“How's the nuts?” Gram asked. She slurped her oatmeal, leaving a trail of soggy oats dribbling from her wrinkled chin.

Nothing like discussing your private parts with your eighty-year-old grandmother over morning coffee. “Still working.” I looked at Rhonda and rolled my eyes.

“You know your grandpa got hit there once. Put him out of commission for a month. Thought I was goin' to have to take a lover.”

I hurriedly got up and topped off my coffee, anxious to nip that conversation in the bud.

“You need to finish your oatmeal, Gram,” Rhonda said. “We're going to the senior center today.”

I winked at Rhonda, a small gesture of appreciation for rescuing me.

“Oh joy, joy,” Gram said, not the least bit enthused about her field trip. Couldn't say that I really blamed her.

I took my coffee out on the deck and called Sophia.

“Good morning,” she said, obviously recognizing my number now on caller ID.

“Morning to you, too. I found a set of tire tracks at Ryce McCallen's yesterday.”

“Hmm. Interesting.”

“Does Odessa PD have a forensics lab?”

“Why do I get the feeling this is going to involve me?”

I wiped a stream of sweat from the back of my neck. “That's what I like about you, Sophia. You're one of the few women I know who doesn't want the world to revolve around them.”

I thought I detected a slight chuckle. “Yes, the Odessa Police Department has a crime lab. It's not state-of-the-art but it can probably handle matching tire tracks.”

“Can you get me in?”

There was a slight hesitation on her end. Finally, she asked, “When?”

“Either late this afternoon or in the morning.” I still had to get over to McCoy's and hopefully get some shots of his truck. I also had a lunch date with Claire.

“Let me make a call and I'll call you back.” She hung up like she usually did, without saying good-bye.

Rhonda stuck her head out the back door and looked more concerned than I was comfortable with. “Hey—there's a call for you. It's a Detective Chip Adams from Las Vegas.”

I forced myself to breathe, then followed Rhonda back inside. I stared at the phone a moment after she handed it to me. I took another deep breath then answered. “Chip?”

“Guess you made it down to Texas okay.”

“Long drive but I made it. What's up?”

“Gilleni was arrested two days ago. No bond.”

I let out the breath I'd been holding since leaving Vegas. “Murder one?”

“And conspiracy to commit.”

“Good. There should be enough evidence there to make it stick.” I had dropped off a nice, neat little package for Adams before leaving, tying Gilleni directly to Gina and her lover's murder. The best defense attorneys Gilleni's money could buy would have a hard time making this one go away.

“Gypsy—if we can't work a deal, you may have to come back to testify.”

I squeezed my eyes closed. That was not what I wanted to hear. Even if I took the Fifth, I'd never make it out of the courthouse alive. “If I have to testify, I might as well put a bullet through my own head and save him the trouble.”

Rhonda's eyes widened to the size of the mismatched saucers she had in the cabinet. I turned away and she grabbed my arm, staring at me with raw fear.

“Besides,” I said, “if I testify against a former client, I'll lose every ounce of credibility I ever had as an investigator. You know that, Chip.”

“I'll see what I can do. This a good number to reach you at?”

I gave him my new cell number. “You're the only one who has the house number and it doesn't exist, right?”

“What number? I'll be back in touch. And Gypsy … take care of yourself. It took some balls to do what you did. You're an all-right guy.”

I hung up and immediately met the wrath of Rhonda. “What do you mean,
put a bullet through your head
? Gypsy, what was that all about?”

My mouth was open but nothing was coming out. I didn't want to get into the whole sordid tale; I prayed for Sophia to call back and rescue me.

“Sounds likes your brother's in trouble,” Gram said. “That's what the hell it was all about.” She waddled over to the sink and dropped her empty oatmeal bowl into the dishpan.

Rhonda closed her eyes and let out a quick, short breath. “Gram, why don't you go get dressed? We'll be leaving in a few minutes.”

“Whatever. That boy was born in trouble if you ask me.” Gram shuffled down the hallway to her bedroom.

“No one asked you, Gram,” I shouted after her.

When she was out of earshot, Rhonda shoved me toward the table. “Sit. You're going to explain this whether you're ready to or not.”

“Don't you have to be leaving soon?” I asked, hoping for the best.

She bobbed her head toward the bedrooms. “It'll take her a good thirty minutes to get dressed. Now, tell me what's going on.”

I guessed she deserved to know. I
was
staying at her house. “A couple months ago, a guy named Frank Gilleni hired me to find out if his wife, Gina, was having an affair. Gilleni owns a couple of casinos and everyone suspected him of being tied to the mob but no one could prove it.”

“Was he?”

I laughed. “Is Jimmy Hoffa still missing?”

She looked at me with uncertain eyes. “Who's Jimmy Hoffa?”

God love her. If it didn't happen in Wink, it never happened. “Never mind, it's not important. Anyway—yes, he was very involved in organized crime.”

“And you agreed to work for him?”

I gawked at her. “At least he paid me. Very well, I might add.”

“How could you work for him if you knew he was involved with the mob?”

“Rhonda, you're missing the whole point here. He hired me to find out if his much younger wife was having an affair. And she was. With her high school sweetheart. They were planning on running away, changing their identities, and starting a new life together. I started kinda pulling for them, wanting them to make a break for it and live happily ever after. Anything to get away from Gilleni. He's a real sonofabitch. I mean
sonofabitch.
”

She shook her head. “Gypsy—you are such a sucker for stuff like that. Look at you and Claire. The woman's toxic but it's never stopped you from believing she's the love of your life.”

I glared at her. What the hell did Claire have to do with any of this? “Would you like for me to continue or are you going to bitch some more?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was just pointing out your weakness. You're a hopeless romantic. So what happened with the wife and her boyfriend?”

I continued. “Gilleni started bugging me about what I knew and when was I goin' to give him my report.”

“Couldn't you have just made something up?”

“I did. Apparently, he had gotten suspicious because it was taking so long so he had one of his men trail me. And I led them straight to her. Gina and her boyfriend had arranged to disappear the Fourth of July. Sometime around ten the evening before, Gilleni paid them a visit at the boyfriend's apartment. The maid found their bodies the next morning. He'd been shot in the head; her throat was cut ear to ear.”

Rhonda let it sink in before saying anything. “And you know it was Gilleni?”

I slowly nodded. Other than knowing how much I loved and hated Claire Kinley, I'd never been more sure of anything in my life. “I spent the next few weeks putting together a package of evidence of everything I knew against Gilleni and left it with Chip Adams.”

“The detective you just spoke with?”

I nodded again. “He'd been working Gilleni for years. Just never could get anything to stick.”

She gnawed the inside of her lip. “And you trust him?”

There were few people in the world I trusted. I was sitting at the table with one of them, and I had just hung up with another. “He's good people. We've worked together on several cases.”

She changed from gnawing on her lip to biting a fingernail. “But if he could track you down here…”

“I gave him the number before I left. I knew I'd have to get a new cell phone when I got here, so it was the only number I had to give him.”

She nodded. But I could tell her mind was still bouncing in a thousand different directions. “And you're sure this Gilleni guy doesn't know where you are?”

“Few people in Vegas know my real name. Fewer know where I'm from and I don't think Texas would be the first place they'd look. Rhonda, I never would have come here if I thought for even a second Gilleni could track me down. I wouldn't put you in that kind of danger.”

She nodded again, then sighed heavily. “I know that.”

Gram shuffled back into the kitchen wearing nothing but a raincoat. And it wasn't a pretty sight. “Gram! What do you think you're doing?” Rhonda leapt up and closed the raincoat.

“Hopefully giving Otis Dinkins a thrill. Besides, weatherman said we might finally get some rain this afternoon.”

“Otis Dinkins doesn't need a thrill. He has a pacemaker. And it's not going to rain, Gram. You go put some clothes on right now.”

I prayed for Sophia to call, and lo and behold, she did. I quickly took the call and turned away from my naked grandmother.

“Four o'clock. The lab's not at the police station. It's at the corner of Baylor and Fourth Street.”

“You got an exact address? My GPS doesn't do corner-ofs very well.”

“Five-sixteen Baylor. Meet me in the parking lot.”

“See you there.” I hung up first, beating her in the hang-up game. I grinned, imagining what she'd be wearing today. Now, that I'd like to see in nothing but a raincoat.

“So are you going to have to testify at Gilleni's trial?” Rhonda asked. She had an annoying way of slamming me back to reality.

I rubbed my hands over my face and decided I should probably shave sometime today. “I can't testify. I wouldn't make it out of the courthouse.”

Rhonda looked at me. The fear in her eyes broke my heart. “Then what are you going to do?”

“Pray Gilleni takes a plea deal.”

*   *   *

After a shower, I swung by Burke's and picked up Tatum. Since this particular assignment called for more photographs, I figured he might want to tag along.

“You know where Averitt McCoy lives?” I asked as he climbed into the van's passenger seat.

He gave me the address. He seemed quiet and reserved today. I wasn't sure if it was preteen moodiness or if he wasn't sure about seeing the truck that was used to help kill his father.

“You don't have to go if you don't want to.” I sat in the driveway a moment, giving him the opportunity to change his mind.

He looked at me as if he didn't understand. “No, I want to. I like taking pictures.”

“Okay. Just making sure.”

I keyed Averitt McCoy's address into my GPS and headed out. McCoy had been so far in debt, I was lucky his address was attached to a rental house and not a cardboard box. The rental was near Kermit, and it being a rental, I was banking on a dirt driveway. Not many landlords are going to pave a drive they don't use themselves.

We drove in silence for a while, then Tatum finally spoke. “Dad had scheduled a vacation day today. He was supposed to take me to the dentist this morning and then he was going to take me over to the sinkholes to take some pictures.”

My heart grabbed in my chest. I felt for the kid. My ol' man wasn't much for family vacations but he did take a day every now and then to take me camping. We'd head down to Big Bend and sleep out under the stars and fish the Rio Grande. Even when I got older and preferred to sleep under an air conditioner, I never begged out of a trip.

“How 'bout if I take you by the sinkholes one day when all this is over?”

He glanced at me and I saw a hint of a smile. “Would you?”

“Might even let you use one of my cameras.”

“Oh, man … that would be like, so cool. See, it's for my seventh grade science project and I was going to get an early start on it and—”

“You're doing your science project on sinkholes? During your summer vacation?”

“I wanted to get an early start. And sinkholes are pretty cool.”

I glanced over at him. “If you say so.”

I found Averitt McCoy's street and decided it was going to be a grand day indeed—the little house was the only house on a dead-end, unpaved street. No nosy neighbors wondering why some guy in a van was taking pictures of McCoy's driveway. There were a couple rotting barns and abandoned outbuildings scattered around the end of the road, but other than that, McCoy had the whole road to himself.