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Driving back to the casino after the best evening she’d had in a long time, Dela couldn’t stop smiling. Mugshot had licked her hand when she asked him if he liked the name. Then she’d scratched his ears and told him all about where they were going to live. Molly had remembered how much Dela liked fry bread and had made a batch to go with the stew. After the meal, the three of them, Dela, Molly, and Travis sat down and mapped out the list of things that had to be done for Dela and Mugshot to move into the house and the list of things to be done afterward. They had all decided the backyard fence was first and Travis said he and a couple friends would build it for half the price the local fencing installer would charge.
All that was left for her to do was go by the real estate office in the morning and sign the papers. After that, she would open an account at the local lumber store with Travis on the account.
It was nine o’clock as she parked and walked into the casino. Sunday night. Her favorite night to work. Everyone was moving slow, there were few people at the machines and even fewer at the gaming tables. Tonight and tomorrow were the lull before the wave of gamblers started filing in for Bingo on Wednesday and gambling the rest of the week.
It was rare she crossed the casino floor without checking everything out. Tonight was no exception. She’d learned in the army to always be on the alert for something that seemed off. Right now, she had a feeling something was wrong. Everything around her appeared normal but something... The speakers were buzzing not playing the canned music.
Hurrying to the security door, she had a near miss of the door as it flew open.
“Fisk, what’s wrong?” Dela asked, grabbing the man around her age by the shoulders.
“Jerry can’t stop the damn buzzing.” He put his hands over his ears. Fisk, like her was a veteran. He suffered from PTSD, but up until now, hadn’t had a problem as a security guard.
“Go to the surveillance room. There shouldn’t be any buzzing in there.” She shoved him along the wall toward surveillance and hurried into the security office.
Oliver was at the podium. “Fisk can’t do his job with the buzzing.”
Dela glanced over at the man who worked the podium in the office on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. He’d retired and did this to supplement. “Who is looking into the speakers?”
“Someone from tech. Don’t know his name.” Oliver pushed the button on the mic. “Who is working on the sound system?”
“Poppy,” came the voice over the radio.
Dela spoke into her mic. “What’s her location?”
“Sound room.”
“If Special Agent Pierce arrives, tell him I’ll be right back.” Dela walked to the back of the security offices and out the door. She followed the hall to the room behind the tech department. In the small room that housed the speaker system for the casino, she found Poppy, Marty, and one of the swing shift maintenance people crammed in the small room.
“Can you just turn the whole thing off?” she asked, causing them all to swing around.
“I’m trying, but it looks like the only way to do that is to cut the power.” Poppy pointed a thumb at the maintenance person. “He’s trying to figure out if it will cut power to anything else.”
Dela nodded for Marty to follow her out into the hallway. When the head of security did, she asked in a low voice. “Does this feel like a hiccup in the system or something premeditated?’
He stared at her. “You think someone did this on purpose?”
She shrugged. “Lately, I’m suspicious of everything that goes on here.”
“And with good reason. I’ll go check video of the sound room and see who might have entered it and messed with things.” He glanced at the room. “I’m no help in there. Only taking up space.”
“Thanks.” Dela entered the room as Poppy did a happy dance. “Did you get it turned off?”
“Yeah. We went around the main and turned off the power to the speakers.” The woman smiled.
“Good. That sound was annoying.” Dela peered at Poppy and the maintenance guy. “Now can you see what caused the problem?”
“We’ll get right on it,” the man said, pulling out a device with small prods and wires.
“Thank you.” Dela walked back to the security office.
Quinn walked through the opposite door as she walked in the back door. “How come there’s no music playing?” he asked.
“Glitch in the sound system.” Dela stood with the door open. “You want to go get Van or have him brought to us?”
“Let’s go see him. He’ll feel more comfortable in his own environment.” Quinn crossed the room and followed her out into the back hallway. “Does the sound system go down often?”
“Never since I’ve worked here.” She wondered if he thought it suspicious as well.
“There seem to be a lot of different things happening here lately.”
She spun on her good foot and faced him. “That was my thought as well. But why would someone mess with the sound system?”
Her radio crackled. “Dela?”
“Copy. This is Dela.”
“Hey, it’s Poppy. From what we can figure there is something somewhere in the system that is shorting things. Ray suggests he and his crew check out all the speakers. I can disconnect the sound so they are all getting juice and they can test them.”
“Then that’s what needs to be done.” Dela dropped her hand from her mic. “What could cause a short?”
“Something interfering with the electrical connection.” Quinn walked by her. “We need to talk to Van before he gets pulled out to check the speakers.”
She hurried after him to the maintenance department. They stepped into the room at the same time.
Everyone was putting on tool belts and grabbing ladders.
Dela scanned the room. She didn’t see Van. But she did see the shift supervisor. “Sam, do you know what time Van Branson usually gets here for his shift?”
The man in his fifties walked over and stood in front of her. “He shows up about fifteen minutes early.” He glanced at his watch. “So should be here any time.”
“Thanks.” She faced Quinn. “Wait here?”
“No. We’ll just be in the way. Let’s go back to security.”
They walked down the hall and her phone rang. She glanced at the name. Why would Marty call on the phone?
“Hey Marty, why didn’t you use the radio?” she answered.
“I found something interesting. And too many people listen to the radio.”
This intrigued and angered her. She’d had an inkling someone in security or surveillance had been helping whoever killed Tristan but this made her sure of it.
“We’ll be right there.” She tucked her phone in her pocket and picked up the pace. “Marty has something.”
They didn’t say anymore as they walked through the security offices, out to the casino floor, and over to the surveillance door.
Walking through the room full of monitors, she took in who was working. They crossed to Marty’s office and walked in.
“What did you discover?” Dela asked, pulling up a chair beside the head of surveillance and propping her prosthetic on the box under his table.
“I’m getting tired of finding blank video when I want to look at an area that has suspicious activity.” He had the view of the hallway outside the sound room on a monitor. She watched and saw a slight flicker, then the time stamp jumped ahead half an hour.
“You and me both.” Frustration bubbled deep in her gut. She held down the growl that wanted to crawl up her throat.
“What are you both talking about?” Quinn stared at the video while Marty explained someone tampered with the sound system.
Dela’s mind was racing. “What about the camera in the other hall? How did they get to that area?”
Marty started tapping keys. The four monitors above his table came to life with video from all the directions a person could have used to get to the sound room. There wasn’t a skip in time on any of them. And it didn’t show anyone going toward the area.
“I don’t understand? If no one went to that area, why is there a skip in the time on the video outside the door?” Dela glanced at Marty and then Quinn.
“Who had access to this video feed?” Quinn asked.
Marty typed on the keyboard and up popped gibberish to Dela.
“It looks like Verna Pyle.” Marty’s forehead wrinkled. “Every video you’ve asked me to look up about this murder, she’s been the person whose monitored the cameras.”
Dela exchanged a glance with Quinn.
“Is she still here?” Dela asked.
“No, she went home right after the buzzing started. She said the sound was triggering a migraine.” Marty said the last with skepticism.
“I’ll have Shaffer go pick her up and take her to the office in Pendleton.” Quinn pulled out his phone and walked over to the corner.
“Have you seen Verna and Tristan ever conversing?” Dela asked.
Marty shook his head. “She never went down to the deli or any other place to eat during her shifts. She always stayed up here, eating food from home.” He stared at the gibberish on the main monitor. “I was training her to take over for me. Do you really think she could have murdered someone?”
“From what she’s shown us, I would have told you no. But considering what we are finding out, that timid mouse persona may only be that.” Dela thought of how torture had been used on Mattie. Could the woman she’d talked with, who nervously wrung her hands, have tortured a woman close to her same age? It didn’t make sense.
Quinn returned to the conversation. “Shaffer will pick her up and call us. He also said that the blood samples found in the supply room were too compromised to tell if it was the victim’s blood.”
“Paula could have slipped out of the robe, killed Tristan, shoved him in the chute, then washed off, and walked back to eight-thirty-four and put her clothes on, leaving, again, before the camera started working.” Dela snapped her fingers. “Did you ever get Paula’s phone records? She would have had to call whoever was manning the cameras to tell them when to turn them off and back on.”
“Unless they had made it to where they went off when she left the room and came back on when she appeared dressed in another part of the casino.” Quinn knocked a hole in what Dela thought was a good way to connect Paula with her accomplice.
“I can pull up video of Paula that night and see where she showed up on the camera that was being watched by Verna. She had to have turned the camera off after Paula walked out of the room.” Marty began typing on the keyboard. “If the camera came back on when Verna saw Paula in one of the other cameras, then we know they were working together.”
“It’s after ten, let’s go have our chat with Van. By then Marty will have answers and we can go talk to Verna.” Quinn walked over to the door.
Dela couldn’t shake the feeling either Verna was a cold-blooded killer who was a good actress, or she had been set up.