It all matched up with the information Mike had. He smiled and thanked Hoffnagle, who looked a bit jarred by the whole memory now that it was all out in the open again. “You did good,” Mike told him.
Hoffnagle offered a strained smile and didn’t know where to look. Then he said, “Can I get you anything?”
Mike pulled a twenty from his wallet and plunked it down.
“Actually, you think you could get the guys in the kitchen to put together a couple of sandwiches?”
* * *
Back in the records room, Mike set down a paper bag and Lena peered inside. “Roast beef?”
“It’s from The Lodge. So: Dodd Caruthers.”
She checked her watch, leaned back in her chair, and folded her arms. “Okay.”
“He’s got this report against him, about leaving his kid in his car on a hot day, but comes back unfounded. But that’s not the end of it. Caruthers and his wife have got all sorts of drinking and drug problems, they get in trouble again the next year. Caruthers goes to jail on charges that include drug distribution and beating up his wife. She’s briefly in jail while the kids go into foster care. Their older son, Tommy, has an accident while he’s with a foster family – I don’t know what yet. Anyway, Caruthers was thirty-two at the time so he’d be forty-six right now. I bet he does his time, maybe he gets out, feels like his life is ruined because of what happened, losing his wife, his kids.”
Her face fell as she sorted through the file. “That’s one disturbed human being who has his abused children put in a safe place, his wife move on, and then blames the caseworkers for it.”
“Yeah,” Mike agreed, “but that’s what we’re looking for.”
“There’s a Caruthers, I think, right here in Lake Haven…”
Mike took out his phone and called BCI headquarters in Albany. “Need you to get me a full work-up on Dodd A. Caruthers,” he said to Stephanie. “Department of public safety, corrections, all that. Current and prior addresses, car, phone, whatever you can get. He might be local.”
“You got it,” Stephanie said. “Hey – listen, I was just going to call you.”
“What do you have?”
“So, Marlene Blackburn, right?”
“Yeah?”
“That was your potential witness? Alibi for Steven Pritchard?”
“Correct…”
“She’s the wife of a cop. Tribal police.”
“Oh boy,” he said, and Lena gave him a look. “Blackburn is married to a tribal cop,” he told her.
He said to Stephanie, “Email me everything you got, okay? Get me a photo of him, if you can. CC Overton on all of it.”
“Can do.”
He ended the call and stood up, watching Lena watch him. She said, “So?”
“Can you keep going with this while I check on this thing with Blackburn? I mean, we gotta know whether we can finally clear Pritchard from this or not.”
Lena dropped her gaze. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll ride out, see if I can talk to Blackburn, or at least find out what the deal is between her and Pritchard, then we’ll come back to Caruthers. Okay? I’ll be good, I promise.” He grabbed his sandwich.
“No gambling,” she said.
Seventeen
Mike raced back west on Route 3 again, almost to the motel where he’d spent the past night with Lena. He could feel himself getting hooked on her, everything from the way she smelled to the way she took notes. She was a good case manager, a multi-tasker unparalleled, whereas he seemed to not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
But the guilt was creeping up his spine. He didn’t understand it. Molly had been gone a decade, yet his back was hurting, his neck stiff with a tension he couldn’t break. It was the case, it was having to solve the first murder in almost two decades, it was the way the case seemed to have multiple personalities, but then it was this sense he’d betrayed his departed wife, even though he’d taken off the wedding ring six years ago.
He veered north, toward the Canadian border, sticking a CD into the console, letting the sounds of Don Covay overpower his restless mind.
He liked the old guys, like Covay, with his upbeat rhythm and blues. People didn’t know the extent of Covay’s influence on more popular artists like Aretha Franklin, groups like The Rolling Stones. Mike liked that – a guy behind the scenes, making it happen.
* * *
The casino resembled a Holiday Inn from the outside – a nine-story hotel attached to a sprawling, ground-level section. The surrounding land was flat, empty; just the casino, shimmering in the heat like a mirage. Mike put his gun in the glove box, locked the car, and walked inside.
The interior was an assault to the senses: hallucinogenic carpeting, a ceiling of glass panels with ornamental twists of fire suspended like billows of dragon breath. Rows of slot machines clanged and burbled; roulette wheels spun like the ruse of a hypnotist; gift shops broadcast pinkish light with shelves abounding in shiny souvenirs. There were two brightly decorated bars, a busy restaurant, everything interconnected and walkable, like being inside a massive pinball machine.
The scattered customers were mostly older, white, faces vapid at the slots or fixed in concentration where they sat belly-up to a green felt table, watching the cards come out. A security guard stood nearby, dressed in a dark blazer. Mike approached, keeping his badge in his pocket. “Hi, looking for a friend who works here – Marnie Blackburn?”
The security guard was beefy, had pockmarked skin, and wore his dark hair back in a thick braid. He shook his head. “Sorry, haven’t seen her today, don’t think she’s on. Can I help you?”
Mike watched an older man at a blackjack table as the cards came out.
“I was just in town,” Mike said. “Thought maybe I’d say hi. Guess I’ll play some cards while I’m here…”
“Would you like me to get a message to her?”
Mike flapped a hand. “That’s alright.”
The heavyset guard asked Mike his name and then scrutinized him. “And how does Marnie know you?”
“Oh well, long story.”
After the call from Stephanie, the picture had become instantly clearer: If the tribal police were dragging their feet, it was because Marlene’s husband, Cody Blackburn, was one of them. And if Marlene was shacking up with Steve Pritchard, it sounded like the marriage was on the rocks.
The guard continued to clock Mike then unclipped the two-way radio from his belt, held it up. “We’re in communication with the tribal police if it’s any kind of emergency.”
A cocktail waitress was scooping empty glasses onto a tray and seemed to take notice.
Mike put out both hands in a stop gesture. He took a half step closer to the guard and dropped his voice. “That’s not necessary.”
The guard stared at Mike then put away the radio. “Well, like I said, Marnie’s not here.” His tone was flat. “Enjoy your time at the casino.” He moved off.
Mike hoped the guard hadn’t inferred there was something scandalous about his relationship to Marlene Blackburn. He wasn’t here to start rumors, just fly under the radar, and he followed after the guard to straighten it out when he heard a voice.
“Hey.”
The cocktail waitress had moved closer, balancing the tray of glasses over her shoulder, eyes darting to the guard, who sank into the colorful, jangling chaos. Then she looked Mike up and down.
“You’re a friend of Marnie’s?”
“Yeah. You know her?”
“You look like a cop.”
Mike said nothing.
“What do you want to talk to her about?”
It was best to come clean. “Steve Pritchard.”
The cocktail waitress, who was Caucasian, short, and either twenty-five or forty, it was impossible to tell, said, “Meet me over at the bar in five minutes. Take one of the open tables.”
* * *
She showed up where he was sitting, watching as a senior woman in a peach blouse blew on a handful of dice at a nearby craps table. The cocktail waitress had a tray of fresh drinks; highball glasses quivering with red liquid and floating cherries. “You’ve got about thirty seconds. I can come back, but it’s got to be quick.”
She set a drink in front of him and offered a fake smile. Mike took a sip for show then asked, quickly, “You’re friends?”
“I know her. Marnie’s one of the event coordinators.”