Bob Moats - Jim Richards 01-03- 3 for Murder Box Set (35 page)

I called Penny and asked how she was doing. She said, “Good. Maria and Buck are still playing kissy face. I’m going to hose them down soon. My producer has a number of offers for my show, and I haven’t had a kiss all day.” She chuckled.

“I better not hear you’ve had any kisses. I’ve had a busy day, too, listening to all kinds of confessions and lies. I’ll tell you about it later, after I kiss you a good number of times.” We smooched on the phone and then hung up.

I went back to the computer, opened a few more files, and found a couple of database files. I tried to open them but they were password encrypted. I remembered a few passwords Nick used in the past, so took a chance and tried some of them. I got the third one to open up the file. I sat and read it.

I called out to Lynn, and she came into the room. I showed her the file. It was an accounting for cash income from sources unknown, just amounts and days the cash was received. The totals for all the months listed ran into the millions. She said it was something to ask good old Nick about, maybe drug related. She asked where the safe was that I mentioned earlier, and I took her to the huge painting on the wall under the stairs. I slid the thing sideways, and it opened exposing a small room. The safe was still there. It stood about five feet high.

“You know the combination?” she asked.

“Hell, no. I don’t think anyone but Nick knows that.”

“If he doesn’t cooperate, we’ll just have to get someone who can open it.”

“May as well call that person. Nick won’t cooperate. It’s covered by the warrant, isn’t it?” She agreed, pulled out her phone and called their safe cracker in.

“He’s a reformed safe cracker, works for us now. We’ll know soon enough.” She smiled.

Deacon brought the planner back to us, and we sat in the workroom looking it over. There were a number of trips listed to Arizona made by Wallace. I said, Arizona is where Nick got this drug supplies, the place he sent Lisa to. There were a number of meetings scheduled with someone named Fritz, about four meetings this month alone, one a week. There were notes and appointments with PR people and interviews with radio shows. Nothing really ground shaking other than the Arizona connection.

Lynn’s phone rang. She answered, listened and hung up. “Well, CSI did a quick run on the baby’s DNA in their lab, and it’s not Nick’s. Damn, that kind of sucks.” She got her phone back out and called the lab again. She asked them to look up a case from a year ago, Lisa James, murdered by stabbing and also pregnant, see if they could dig up some DNA on her fetus. She listened and hung up.

“If it wasn’t Nick’s baby, then why did she tell the neighbor it was? Trying to impress her maybe?” she asked no one in particular. “We’ll keep this info on the QT. Need to know only. Let’s make him sweat a while. I’ll have a tech swab him for DNA when we get to the precinct, and any mention of our advance testing will just go away for now.” We all agreed.

Lynn’s safe cracker got there and laughed at the ancient safe before him. He said he could open it with a paper clip. Lynn asked him to just open it. He did. We all stood there and marveled at the stacks of money the safe held. Lynn had two officers stand guard while a third inventoried the contents. She pulled out a steel box that had papers in it including deeds to the house and his cars, life insurance policies and other important documents of a person’s life. The officer announced that there was just over two million dollars contained in the safe. The money was bagged and tagged, and Lynn put the officers personally responsible for it. In Vegas that was chump change, but it was still worth killing for.

The CSI had finished their investigating, said they would have some results by the following morning and departed. Lynn had the house locked up and sent everyone back to the precinct, along with the money which she said the IRS would be interested in. She called a friend of hers, a local IRS agent and explained the situation to him. He said he’d meet her at the station for more information tomorrow.

We got back to the precinct and into interrogation. We were told that Nick and his lawyer were fuming. Nick needed to go get ready for his show tonight. Lynn said we might as well let him stew for a bit and go question Wallace. Deacon and I took our place in observation as Lynn entered interrogation room two. Wallace was fidgeting in his seat. Lynn just sat looking at him.

“I didn’t do anything. I am expected to take care of Nick’s business and not to stick my nose in his private affairs, honestly!” he whimpered.

“Saturday night, who was Nick with?” she demanded.

“Nick left the theatre alone around 10:45 and said he had a date. If anyone asked, I was to say he was with a few friends. I don’t know who he hooked up with after. I closed up his dressing room and went home by myself. I don’t give a rat’s ass who he bangs as long as it doesn’t affect my paycheck.” He went silent for a minute. “I knew he was seeing Lori. She would be at his house in the morning when I got there to pick up his mail. Nick was supposed to be engaged to some dealer at the Golden Nugget, and I resented his treatment of women. But that’s all I know about Saturday night. I assumed he would be with Lori that night, but I can’t verify that.”

Lynn sat through his explanation without saying anything. Then she stood, thanked him for the info and told him to stay available for any further questions. She left the room, and Wallace sat there with a shocked look on his face. Lynn came into observation and said to us, let’s go fry the big fish.

*

Chapter Twelve

Deacon and I went back into observation as Lynn went into the interrogation room and sat across from Nick. He was scowling, and his lawyer was whispering in his ear.

Lynn sat for almost a full minute just staring at the two men. Nick was fidgeting and wiping his face with his hand. He finally said, “What?”

Lynn smiled and said, “You lied to me, Nick. You lied about being alone watching a movie with Deano. Why’d you do that, Nick?”

“I was protecting a woman. She’s married, and she doesn’t want her husband to know. Simple as that.” He smirked.

“What’s her name, Nick?”

“I’m trying to protect her. I’d rather not say,” he said defiantly.

“Does the name Shana Fredericks mean anything?” she said, playing her hand, then watched his face for signs.

“Yeah, she’s married to David Fredericks. They’re the opening act for my show this week.” He looked around the room nervously.

“Is she the woman you’re protecting?”

“If I admitted to that, I wouldn’t be doing a good job of protecting, would I?” He smiled.

“Were you with Shana Fredericks on Saturday night?”

“Nope,” he said quickly.

“OK, then, were you with Lori Davis Saturday night?” she asked changing direction.

“No, I wasn’t.” He leaned forward, smiling.

“Earlier, we showed a picture of Lori Davis to your man Deano. He says it looked like the woman you brought home that night.”

“What the hell does he know? He barely saw her.”

“It only takes a second to see a face, Nick. Look, we can assume you were with Lori just before she was murdered unless you want to establish your alibi and give us a name.”

“OK, as long as it stays here, I was with Shana.” He smirked.

“We can verify that with her?”

“I’d rather you didn’t, but, yes, you can if it will get you off my back. Just be discreet, please.” He frowned.

“Well, Nick, we will be real discreet. You can go play comedian now. Get out of my sight.” She got up and left the room.

“Is that all?” he roared. “I sat here for almost two hours for that? Mother…” Then he stopped, remembering the last time he swore at Lynn. He and his lawyer got up and left.

She joined us in observation and paced while mumbling something under her breath. I could see she didn’t like Nick. She stopped pacing and said, “Deano says the picture of Lori looked like the girl he brought home, but even he admits he barely saw her so he wasn’t really sure. Not good enough to hold Nick. We’ll check with Shana to see if she was with him.”

Wallace came in and announced that Mick Brennan from the IRS was there to see Lynn. She smiled widely and said, at last maybe some retribution, then went out. I looked at Deacon and told him my make-up was getting annoying on my face. He said there wasn’t much more to do there. We could go rescue Buck from Maria. We went out of the room and walked into Weber.

“Hey, Captain, how’s it going?” I smiled.

He looked, not knowing me in the make-up, said, “Good, thanks,” and walked on.

“I guess my disguise works.” I laughed.

Deacon tracked down Lynn and said we were leaving. She turned to him and said quietly that she wanted to see him tonight. He agreed. We went out to my SUV and drove to the convention center. I showed my exhibitor pass, went to Penny’s booth, and found Buck sitting with Maria on his lap. I stopped and told them to get a room. Deacon just snarled at Maria. I came up to Penny, and she latched onto me and was kissing me to beat hell. I told her she better hope it’s me under this make-up. She said, at that point she was so horny, she didn’t care. I laughed and said I was going to tell the make-up girls of my success and to get this stuff off my face.

About 3 p.m. Lynn came in, now dressed in plain clothes, and went straight for Deacon. She planted a kiss on him and turned to me. “Well, Nick is going to have a lot of explaining to do to the IRS. The two million was never claimed as income. They are also going to go to his show tonight to see about Nick selling photos and his claim to contributions for charity. They want receipts. He couldn’t be in more trouble if he had committed murder.”

I was overjoyed hearing that. I looked at Buck and asked if he could pull himself away from his duties and go with me on an errand. He agreed. I asked Deacon if he could keep an eye on Penny for a while, and he asked Lynn if she had plans for him. She said not till later, and he agreed.

Penny was a bit put out that I was leaving again. I gave her a big smooch that I hoped would last her till I got back. Buck and I headed out and were soon driving down Paradise Road, south of the convention center, and into the Pink Slipper parking lot. I hadn’t told Buck where we were going so he got a thrill when he saw the place.

“Jimmy, you devil you. Going to watch the boobies bounce again?” He grinned.

“No, I need to talk to Aaron again about my little adventure at the Stratosphere and his connection.” We got to the door, and the same bouncer was there. He remembered my I.D. and just grunted us through after I asked if Aaron was working with Wanda. He said Aaron was there but Wanda was off. I thanked him, and we went in.

I headed to the curtain where the girls went to the back room. This time there was no big guard at the opening. We went through the curtain and to the little room that housed Wanda, her snake, and Aaron. The door was open a crack, and I peeked in. Aaron was sitting at a computer and was busy typing. I quietly opened the door and yelled, “Hey.”

Aaron just about went out of his skin. He turned and saw me, flipped off the computer screen and said, “Shit, man, did you have to do that?”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Just want to ask you a few more questions about your buddies at the Stratosphere.” I moved into the room. Buck was still standing just outside the door watching the girls change clothes. They were giving him dirty looks. I sat on a chair in front of Aaron and could see he was stoned from the look in his eyes.

“Aaron, did you call your friends at the Stratosphere when I went up there the other day? Just after I talked to you?” I asked.

“Well, yes.” He paused. “I did call Bennie, the valet guy, about letting you know what he saw on the night Nick was there. I tried to call Ralph, but he didn’t answer his phone.” He seemed nervous now.

“I was just wondering, because someone tried to kill me by throwing me off the top of the building. No one but you knew I was going there.”