Allie’s latest rule for investigating a murder: Keep your fingers crossed that sleuthing is needed only during times with minimal distractions.
Searching for a murderer while the clock ticked down to my wedding meant I didn’t have few disturbances. I had gobs of them. With issues ranging from the plans for my upcoming bachelorette party to late changes to the guest list to getting fitted for my wedding tuxedo, preparing for the big day was practically a full-time job.
The Cobb Literary Agency needed to keep functioning, too. My authors were happy about the upcoming nuptials, but they had their own deadlines and expectations to meet. It was understood that Calypso would hold the fort from my wedding day through the end of the honeymoon. In the days leading up to the big day, my associate agent would do all she could, but I had to be ready to respond to client and editor needs like normal.
Such was the life of running a two-woman shop.
I wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Especially when I could kill three birds with one stone by making a visit to Big Al’s Diner, purveyor of the finest burgers on the planet. So it was that after spending my Thursday morning reviewing royalty statements, I hopped on my bike to pay Al Hammond a visit.
Just like the day before, the temperature had hit ninety before the familiar twelve gongs from the courthouse clock tower signaled it was noon. Even a leisurely five-minute ride to the diner left me covered in a sheen of sweat. As I removed my bike helmet, I laughed at the image in my handlebar-mounted mirror. My hair was an utter mess. Which was hard to do with a pixie cut as short as mine.
“Nice try, Mother Nature.” I picked at my short locks until things looked relatively even. “Allie wins this round against your oven-like conditions.”
With a spring in my step, I strode into the restaurant. The sudden twenty-degree drop in temperature made my skin break out in goose bumps. All of a sudden, dousing the back of my neck with ice water didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“There she is. The bride-to-be.” A booming voice came from behind the grill. Al and I exchanged a wave as a host guided me to the booth farthest from the entry. My favorite spot. “Be there in a few.”
While Al finished an order he was preparing, then dashed to his office to get his paperwork, I perused the menu. Over the past two months, I’d been ordering a lot more grilled chicken and salads. I didn’t consider myself vain, but I did want to look my best in my wedding attire.
I looked at my server and grinned. Given the current trying circumstances, I could allow myself one indulgent meal.
“I’ll have the patty melt, large fries, and a strawberry milkshake, please.”
A moment later, Al slid into the seat across from me. He laid out a few pieces of crumpled paper. A coffee ring was visible on one page. That was okay. It was the food that mattered, not the documents the order and instructions were on.
He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and nodded. There was an expectant look in his eyes.
“Oh, you want me to take the lead this time.”
“After our last meeting, I believe it’s best.” He winked. In an attempt to make things easy on me, he’d come to our last catering planning meeting with an agenda. We got through the first item, out of ten, before veering completely off course.
“If you’re going to be that way.” I stuck my tongue out at my old friend, which made him laugh. “I appreciated the agenda effort. Honest.”
Al Hammond didn’t mind handling large orders. He preferred to steer clear of event catering, though. I knew this when I asked him to cater the wedding reception. I loved his food and adored the man even more. It had been important to me to make the ask, even though I was totally prepared to have him turn me down.
To my utter surprise, he said yes.
Since he did, there was no way I was going to insult him by saying never mind. Instead, I’d been working with him over the past month to come up with a menu that would be both yummy and work well in a buffet setting.
The wedding wasn’t going to be a large affair. The guest list included only about one hundred souls. When Rachel and Matt got married, three hundred and fifty people were invited. By the time one included my family, Brent’s family, and the wedding party, I wanted catering for a hundred and twenty-five people. And two animals, Ursi and Sammy. They were going to be part of the wedding party.
Today, we were going to finalize the menu, once and for all.
Al cleared this throat. “Okay, for snacks I have tortilla chips and salsa, gluten-free pretzels, and mixed nuts. That’s a lot of savory. You sure you don’t want anything sweet?”
“Again?” Al and I had been going back and forth on this issue from day one. The fact that he kept insisting on something sweet was infuriating. He was right, though. Not everybody liked savory snacks, which I didn’t understand. I mean, what was better than chips and salsa? Nothing. But, whatever. The reception wasn’t about me. It was about celebrating good times with friends and family. That meant being inclusive, even down to the snacks.
“What about chilled mixed fruit? You know, like sliced bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. People are going to be hot after being outside during the ceremony. That could help folks cool off.”
“Good thought. Let’s go with that.” He made some notes next to a box he literally checked. “Now, I’ve thought a lot about it, but if you really want a burger bar for the buffet, I’ll do it. I still think it’s a bad idea, though.”
I patted his hand and checked my own notes. “And I appreciate the sage advice. That’s what I’d really like. Brent’s on board with it, too. Fifteen people have requested a vegetarian meal on their RSVP. How about we plan on two dozen veggie burger patties to go along with the beef patties and chicken breasts.”
“It’s your party.”
“Yes, it is. And you are to be among those celebrating, not working. You have a great staff. They can handle it. Besides, I am paying you enough to make it worthwhile, right? If not, let me know.”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. To be honest, I was paying him an insane amount. Enough to cover the losses incurred with closing for the day and to pay his employees the wages they were going to lose by not working. And then some. There was no way I was going to ask him to take a financial hit.
“You will not pay me another dime. We’re totally square on that end. I’ll do the usual variety of toppings, two types of cheese, and a dozen gluten-free buns, marked accordingly.”
“Perfect.” I gave him a big smile to make sure my previous comment wasn’t taken the wrong way. From there, we went over plans for drinks, desserts, and the wedding cake. Once we had everything wrapped up to our mutual satisfaction, I wrote him a check.
“This isn’t what we agreed on. It’s too much.” He pushed the check toward me.
“Look, Al, since Dad died, you’ve been an amazing surrogate father. You’ve done more for me than I can adequately express, and I deal with words every day.” I pushed the check back. “You’re going above and beyond to make my day extra special. Shoot, you do that all the time. Consider this a token of my appreciation.”
His eyes got watery. “Oh, now you had to bring him up. Fine, to Walter Cobb, a good man who raised great kids.”
We clinked glasses, then spent a few minutes sharing memories of my dad. It hurt that he wasn’t going to be there. At least, not in person. I knew he was going to be right by my side in spirit, though.
“Anything else for the good of the order?” Al straightened the papers and fastened them together with a paper clip.
“Actually, there is, but it’s not related to the wedding.” I took a deep breath. “I wanted to talk to you about Ollie Watson.”
“Detective Allie hot on the case. I know you don’t like the other name.” He cracked his knuckles. “The man did his job. I didn’t know him well enough to say much else about him.”
Wow. Al knew everybody and had less than positive things to say about people in exceedingly rare instances. Ollie spent an awful lot of his time at the Brown County Diner, though. Could that have been the reason for the terse answer?
Or did it have something to do with Willie?
“Not a fan of the guy, huh?”
“Let’s say that the jovial Officer Watson everyone knew and loved was only one side of the man.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Al looked toward the grill, and then around the rest of the place. There were only a few customers. His staff had things well in hand.
“Might as well.” He rubbed his hands together while he stared off into the distance. “Ollie was a legend for his fundraising efforts. Don’t get me wrong. The town’s better off, but have you wondered how one guy brought in so much money? Year after year?”
I shrugged. “Never thought about it. Figured he had a way to get people to say yes to him.”
“Typical.” He let out a little huff. “Let me ask you this. Back when you were poking into my brother’s affairs, what did you find out, exactly, about his alleged gambling connections?”
Alarm bells went off inside my head. Al was inviting me to discuss the very topic I was interested in. But why? It was no secret Al and Willie weren’t very close. Was he ready to rat his brother out?
Or was he about to reveal something else?
“Well.” I licked my lips to give me a moment to compose my thoughts. “He told me every year he ran a pool for the college basketball tournament. He also said he knew people if someone wanted to place a big wager on something, but that was about it.”
“My brother is no angel. We both know that. Did he mention his card games?”
“No. But I’ve had some conversations this week where Willie’s name has come up. Some people have hinted that Ollie interrupted those card games from time to time.”
“And became a hero because of it.” Al growled. “It’s amazing how happy some people are with only one side of a story.”
“One side?” I was getting drawn into Al’s tale like I did with a top-notch manuscript. “What’s the other?”
“This doesn’t go beyond these walls. Understood?” He tapped on the Formica tabletop with a meaty finger.
“Absolutely.”
“All right, then. I’ve known about my brother’s gambling operations for years. When we were young, he made a mint running an illegal casino in the basement of Hoosiers. I didn’t like it. It was asking for trouble.”
“Is that the real reason you and Willie split up?” Until that moment, I, like everyone else in town, thought Al and Willie went their separate business ways because of differences over things like menu items and restaurant theme.
“Yep.” He wiped his hands with a napkin, as if doing that would remove whatever stain he thought remained there from those days in business with his brother. “Water under the bridge now, I guess. Anyway, when the casinos came on the scene in the mid-nineties, most of Willie’s gambling operation dried up. Shoot, you can be at a casino in an hour.”
“You said most, not all.”
“Aye. Nothing gets past you. Anyway, Willie gave up on things like roulette and slots but not the card games. He was smart. Despite what you may have heard, there was never any drugs or anything else illegal. He kept the stakes reasonable, the house took its cut, and everyone went home happy.”
My heart rate picked up. I had an idea where Al was going. The destination didn’t look pretty.
“If I may hazard a guess, this is the point in the plot when Ollie shows up.”
Al laughed as he wagged a finger at me. The sound had no joy in it, though.
“This is where things get messy. Yes, Ollie started visiting the card games twenty years ago, give or take a year. The story goes that after a private talk, Ollie and Willie reached an agreement. Willie would keep the stakes low. Ollie would come by from time to time to make sure things weren’t getting out of hand but wouldn’t make any arrests. In exchange, Willie made a sizeable annual donation to the police charity.”
“That squares with what I’ve heard.”
“That’s why there’s nothing better than a good lie that’s close to the truth.” Wrinkles formed on Al’s forehead. It was like he was aging years with each minute that passed.
“The card games continued. Ollie kept visiting Willie’s games. Willie’s donations? They were made to Ollie, in cash.”
“Understandable. Given the situation, I wouldn’t want a record of the transactions.”
“Sure. Willie kept track of them, though. And it turned out the donation amounts that were made public were a lot smaller than what he paid Ollie.”
“Wait a minute.” I so wanted to write this information down, but I’d promised Al it would stay confidential. “Are you saying Ollie was taking his own personal cut?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Willie and I have been talking more the last six months, trying to mend fences. Based on what he’s told me, about half of what Willie gave him isn’t accounted for. Over the years, he gave Ollie forty-two grand in total. Only half of that ended up in police coffers. What happened to the rest? Nobody knows.”
I let out a low whistle. Accusing a police officer of theft wasn’t something Al would do on a whim. In the span of a few days, Ollie had gone from bumbling likeable cop to undercover hero to, now, criminal.
If what Al was telling me was true, I couldn’t help wondering if Ollie had used the same shakedown practices with other businesses in town. A new image of the deceased was forming. And it was an ugly one.
“So, the stories around town about your brother’s card games with six-figure pots?”
“Not true. They were more like four figures.”
“And the rumors about drugs and call girls being—”
“Another lie.” Al leaned forward. There was fire in his eyes. “Ollie made that stuff up so he could sound like a bigger man than he was.”
“If the stories weren’t true, why didn’t Willie deny them?”
“In the early days, he did. Who were people going to believe, though? A cop or someone with a sketchy reputation. After a while, Willie gave up the fight. There was too much to lose.”
“What do you mean? Couldn’t he go over Ollie’s head?”
“That’s a nice thought. What was he going to say, though? ‘Hey, I’ve been running an illegal gambling operation in the basement of my restaurant and your officer is taking a cut out of the protection money I’ve been paying him to let me keep doing this.’”
“I see your point.” Amid my bitter disappointment in the situation, I grasped at a ray of light. “So, you’re saying this was a one-man operation. Ollie was corrupt but the rest of the department is clean.”
“Now, it is. There were rumors that old Chief Roberson, your former brother-in-law’s dad, took his own cut, but that seems to have ended when he retired. I have no reason to believe Matt, or anyone else on the current roster, was involved in any way.”
“That’s a relief. But why not go to Matt after his dad was out of office?”
Al barked out a laugh. “I asked Willie that exact question. He said it was because he thought it was best not to ruffle any feathers. I guess there are a few prominent local businesspeople who’ve played a few hands over the years. And still do.”
Bile churned in my stomach. I wanted to barf. It seemed that whenever I tried to make one thing right in my town by investigating a murder, I always found out about a handful of other things that were wrong.
God, I hated keeping secrets. Especially because the damage that inevitably occurred after the secret was revealed was tenfold worse than the secret.
Still, I’d made a promise to find Ollie’s murderer. I wasn’t going to turn my back on that now. For a few seconds, I stewed over the information. Then the million-dollar question came to me.
“Why are you telling me this, Al? It sounds like you’re trying to implicate your brother.”
He shook his head. “Totally the opposite, actually. I hear people talk. I know my brother’s a suspect. Let me ask you this. If he was going to take Ollie’s life, why do it now? For argument’s sake, wouldn’t it have made more sense to do it years ago? And stop the extortion before he had to pay out thousands of dollars?”
The man had a point. And it was the exact one that applied to the gang members.
Why now instead of then?
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I won’t waste time looking into your brother. Promise.” I crossed my heart. “I’m at a bit of a standstill, though. What do you think of Zoe Watson and Jack Rogers?”
“I’ll be honest. If Zoe was injured and lying in a ditch and I came across her, I’d give serious thought to moving on. She was the lawyer for a vendor who sued me a while back. I won the case but had to spend a lot of money to do so. It’s one thing to advocate for your client. It’s another to fight purely with the intent of driving up my legal bills.”
Okay, then. Ollie’s widow was climbing in my ranking of suspects. As much as I hated to, I needed to get his thoughts about my 9/11 committee buddy. “And what about Jack?”
Al rubbed his chin. “I have a hard time seeing him as a murderer. As a teacher, he’s gotta have a lot of patience. The problem is I remember him threatening Ollie that he’d get back at him for what happened to his brother.”
“But murder? Really?”
“I know.” He put up his hands as if in self-defense. “I’m telling you what I remember. Do I think he could have done it? He’s skilled with a firearm and has motivation, so yes, he could have. Do I think he did it? Absolutely not.”
“Fair enough.” I massaged my temples to keep an oncoming headache at arm’s length.
A server called out to Al, letting him know he was needed at the grill.
“Thanks for everything.” I got up to go. Before heading out, I gave the bear of a man the tightest hug I could muster. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He gave me a gentle pat on the head. “Stay the course, Allie. I believe in you.”
I gave him a smile and made for the exit. My path was clear. Zoe Watson or Jack Rogers. Which one of them was Ollie’s murderer?