Blood and Roses (Holly Jennings Thriller) (13 page)

“I assume you have a list of all of the investors who helped in building the Infinity,” Holly said.

“That’s private information, and I don’t see how it can help you find a serial killer,” Hodges replied.

Holly walked over closer to Hodges. She crossed her arms and lowered her voice. “I need that list. Either you give it to me, or I get a subpoena and go through your lovely home, possibly your offices if need be. I’m sure that would give your employees something to talk about around the water cooler, wondering what you might have to hide.”

Hodges glared at her. “I’ll be right back.”

“Whoa,” Chad said as Hodges left the room.

Holly smiled.

A few minutes later, Hodges came back with a document. “Here you go, Detective.”

“Thank you.” Chad and Amar glanced at each other and then looked at Holly. Something about this wasn’t sitting well with her. Amar’s words from that morning echoed in her head. Hadn’t Hodges just basically said the same thing to them, although in a major asshole way? Was she wasting time? “You know, Mr. Hodges, I think we may need to speak with you again.”

“I don’t see why you would need to do that.” He crossed his arms.

“Make certain we can reach you.” Holly didn’t bother to thank the man as she headed out. Chad and Amar followed her.

Outside, they all looked like they had been sucker punched.

Chad exclaimed, “What do you make of that?”

“That man is a jerk,” Amar replied.

Holly gave Amar a dirty look. She glanced over the investor list. She recognized a few of the twenty names, but not all of them. She handed the list to Amar. “Check each one of these folks out. I’m sure there isn’t anything there that could help us, but you never know.” She was still annoyed by Amar’s earlier remarks. “I don’t care what Hodges says, but I guarantee that when I run that conversation through my brain again, when I revisit this interview, I will find something. I will find something that will help us with this case.”

23

Joque didn’t quite get why Quentin had sent him to New York City first, before letting him head out to Saratoga. He’d insisted that Joque stay in Manhattan for two days. It had been hard for Joque to arrange that time away, but not impossible.

He was good at putting on the charm.

He was good at deception.

Quentin’s only explanation for wanting Joque in the city for those two days had been that he thought Joque deserved a few days off, some nights out on the town. Though Quentin couldn’t be with him, he had urged Joque to celebrate, to do it right, as if the two of them were together. He’d wired him plenty of cash, that was for sure. And Joque did what Quentin told him to do because the guy had saved his life. They were kindred spirits.

So, when Quentin told him to do things a certain way, Joque didn’t refuse. Not after everything that guy had done for him.

He didn’t even know his benefactor’s first name—Quentin told him that he liked to go by his last name only. What he did know is that they both had suffered. They had suffered at the hands of some of the same people. They also both loved the horses, and they were getting even, and in getting even they would bring down the entire industry that had not only ruined Joque but also ruined horses. In some ways it had ruined Quentin, too.

That night the year before when, seated in a bar just outside Tulsa, a few beers downed, Joque looked up to see his kindred soul walk in. He didn’t know it at the time. In fact, when the dude first sat down he seemed sort of arrogant.

He seemed rich.

Joque had been around plenty of wealthy people, and he did not think much of them. He had moved to Tulsa in an attempt to keep away from the wealthy he had grown up around. He knew he would have been shunned if he’d gone back to Lexington.

Quentin had sat down right next to Joque, who did not feel like making small talk with a stranger, especially one who dressed like money. The bar was dark and dingy—the way he liked it. He could disappear in a place like that bar, so he’d thought. His skin crawled when Quentin had said to him, “I know you.”

“No you don’t,” he replied.

“I do. I think we have something in common, my friend.”

“I doubt that.”

That was when Quentin handed him a newspaper from ten years before. The
Lexington Herald
to be exact. There it was.
The story
. “What the fuck?” He started to stand. He was gonna knock this guy from here to tomorrow.

Quentin grabbed his arm and then flashed several hundred-dollar bills in front of his face. “I believe you. I believed it then, Ted. I believe it now. Want to get even?”

That was when Ted Ivy, who now liked to call himself Joque, sat back down…

24

March 3, 2011

Quentin set the newspaper article on the bar and his man squirmed. Once he saw the money, though, things got easier.

Quentin had his story tightly planned out.

He bought Ted Ivy another drink.

“Here’s the thing, man, they did you real wrong, and I have my own reasons for wanting to get even,” Quentin said.

“What are they? Why?” Ivy asked.

“My wife and my daughter,” Quentin replied, making eye contact to draw Ivy in.

“I don’t understand.” Ivy ran his fingers over the burns on his hands.

Quentin placed another newspaper article on the bar—a manufactured article. He was taking a risk here. He knew that. But he’d weighed it and decided it was a calculated risk. Hell, just having this conversation with Ted Ivy was a calculated risk. “Marvin Tieg is a man of means as you well know, and my wife, Carol…” He could see the surprise in Ivy’s eyes. Naming his fictitious wife after Ivy’s dead one—another calculated risk. He cleared his throat. “She was driving our little girl Janie back from ballet lessons. Janie
was eight.” His eyes welled with tears, and he choked up emotion from his gut. “Read the article.”

The article told a sad story about how Carol and Janie were on a rainy road late one afternoon in California—six years ago. Tieg crashed into their car, killing them.

“What?” Ivy looked up from the article. “Why isn’t he in jail?”

“Good question. Money. Geremiah Laugherty was with him and two other witnesses claimed my wife ran a red light. I think Tieg and Laugherty had been drinking.”

“Then how would they get off?” Ivy asked, taking a swig of his beer.

“You aren’t serious, are you? How do you think they set you up?”

Ivy leaned back. “Money.”

“That’s right. Money.”

“Guess who else was involved?”

Ivy looked at him.

“Jim Gershon. He was one of the witnesses. He was pulling a horse trailer behind them. Isn’t that convenient?” Quentin knew this was a huge pile of bullshit and he hoped Ivy was too drunk and too pathetic to smell it.

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah.”

Ivy shook his head. “How did you find me?”

“After this happened, I about died myself. I even looked down the chamber of my gun one night and told myself to pull the trigger. But I stopped myself, because it made me sick to think these guys were going to get off scot-free. I decided to find out everything that I could about them. I’ve been learning about the lives of these three assholes for the last four years. I found your story, and I thought that we needed to be friends. So I got you out of jail.”

“What?”

Quentin nodded.

“How the hell…? Who are you?”

“I am a man who desires that justice be served. I think you are, too.”

“What are you thinking?” Ivy asked.

Quentin could see he’d set the hook. Ivy had bought the bullshit story. The tears had been a nice touch. “I am thinking murder, my friend. Slow, torturous murder.”

“Oh no, man. I spent eight years in prison. I ain’t going back.”

“You won’t. You are dead, my friend.”

“What?”

“I have some connections, and like Tieg, I have made some money in the past few years. I was able to get you out of jail. Didn’t you wonder why you had an early release?”

“Good behavior. That’s what I was told.”

“Yeah, well, good behavior and me. I also fixed it so that on paper, you’re dead.”

“Come on. No way. That shit don’t happen.”

Quentin grabbed the articles, put them back in his briefcase, and stood up.

“Where you going?” Ivy asked.

“I can see this isn’t going to work out.”

“What do you mean?”

Quentin leaned in and said, “Do you really think you’d be here without a little help from the outside? You’re free now. I won’t bother you anymore. I thought we might have something in common. A way to settle our scores.” Quentin turned and walked away.

What happened next played out just as he expected.

Quentin was a master manipulator and he knew there would come a moment of doubt from Ivy, and when that doubt filtered
into the man’s simple mind, that was when he got up and walked away.

All orchestrated.

And as planned, Ivy fell right in step.

And followed him out the door.

25

Sheikh Farooq left the Chanel store on West Fifty-Seventh Street with some nice gifts for his wife and daughter. They should be happy with his purchases. He bought them many things. However, Ayda was never happy with him. At twenty-eight years of age, the girl still acted like a child, and because he had no idea how to deal with her, he simply continued to buy her things. He was still surprised that she wanted to attend the Infinity with him.

One never knows how one’s children will turn out. He knew his son and daughter considered him neglectful, even though they had never been in need or want of anything. His wife agreed with the children, accusing him of spending his love on his horses. They were probably right. Horses he understood. Women and children he did not. Therefore, he bought the women in his life many things to keep them satisfied.

As for his son, Farooq was forced to do his bidding as well.

He tried hard to ignore the fact that the gifts for Ayda and his wife had been bought with dirty money. Money he had paid for with clean money to legitimize illegal dealings in another part of the world. The kind of dealings he did not believe in and did not want to have any part of, and it weighed heavily on his heart. But he was trapped, Waqqas held the key, and he wasn’t letting Farooq loose.

He ran through every scenario he could grab on to, hoping to find a way to expose the truth and escape the lies and those behind them. However, at the end of each stream of consciousness stood reality. The reality that if the truth—
his
truth—be known, the shame it would cause his family and himself would be unbearable. A door of danger would open that Farooq was certain he would not be able to close. The kind of danger that could easily lead him to his own demise, if his conscience did not do that first.

As he slipped in between the soft leather seats of the limousine, he glanced at a bottle of some dark alcohol and for the first time in many years considered taking a drink. He shook his head and leaned back, a long sigh escaping from his lips, catching the attention of the two bodyguards riding with him. Neither of them spoke.

But one of them knew a secret, too.

The bodyguard remained still and silent like his companion as they made their way back to the airport. They would be headed to the farm very soon where, if the sheikh knew what was going on daily in his colt’s stall, there would be more than soft, long sighs escaping from the great man’s lips. However, the bodyguard knew that he would not say anything to the sheikh until the timing was right.

26

“You seem troubled,” Brendan said, turning over the chicken he was barbecuing. They sat outside while Brendan fixed their dinner, Holly sipping a glass of wine. The two younger girls were in the house likely wreaking havoc, while Megan was due home soon from the mall.

“That noticeable?”

He walked over and sat down next to her. “I think I know you pretty well. The case?”

“Yes, the case.”

“Want to talk about it?” He refilled her wineglass.

“I don’t know. It’s heavy.”

“Aren’t they always heavy?”

“Yes.”

“Talk to me.”

She tensed for a moment, then began to talk. “This guy, this sicko is murdering people involved in horse racing.”

“The jockeys from last month?”

She nodded. “And now Marvin Tieg in Los Angeles, he looks to have been done in by the same guy.”

“What does your team think?”

“There are a lot of angles in this. It’s brutal, the things done to these folks. It’s as if this guy has some kind of bone to pick. I really
don’t know. I think that maybe it’s an animal rights activist gone overboard.”

“A lot of rotten things go on at the track. I know I work on only small animals, but I’ve had some exposure and have talked with other vets. If you have a killer who has the inside information about what goes on with some of these horses, then maybe you’re right.”

“I had no idea that the horses are shot full of crap, and are made to run at so young an age,” she said. “Then again, pretty much all I know about horses is that they’re big, and I think they’re pretty.”

Brendan laughed. “True. They are that. You will find differing opinions about how old a horse should be to race, and what is okay for them to have in their system and what isn’t. The thing that I doubt will change is that where money is involved in such large quantities, the animal—the living, breathing soul—is second to the power of money. And the sport of horse racing moves a lot of money.”

“Does it ever.” She picked up her wine. “What do you think of racing?”

“I’m not a fan. But I am a vet. Like you, I see the worst of what humans can be. I see them from the eyes of the animals. Just today I had a kitten brought in that had been stuffed in someone’s exhaust pipe. Poor thing may turn out blind and he has a broken leg, but I will do what I can for him.”

“Why? Why are humans so cruel?”

“I ask myself that question all the time, Holly. There is good, bad, and ugly in all human beings—maybe not good in all.” He paused. “But there is only good in you, baby.” He winked and gave her a hard kiss.