Chapter Twenty-Seven

Perry’s Pool Hall was in the heart of what locals called Alibi Alley, which was every bit as shady as it sounded. The actual street name, Alene Avenue, had once been a bright spot in the small coastal town—a row of quaint restaurants, bars, and music venues that attracted tourists from all over the Lone Star State. In its heyday, Alene Avenue had fed the town with visitors, and with them came spending money. But once a certain crime element decided to make Alene Avenue its home base, the thriving block of bars and restaurants had quickly crumbled under the weight of new management.

So Alene Avenue had morphed into her seedier sibling, nicknamed Alibi Alley, for the gathering of characters who needed to prove they had been anywhere other than where the cops, disgruntled spouses, and jealous boyfriends claimed. Fifty bucks could easily get a round of drinks and verification that someone was at Alibi Alley for any stretch of hours deemed necessary. It drove the local cops nuts.

It was also the perfect place to meet Ritchie. Being anonymous was expected as soon as one passed through Perry’s doors. No one saw anything there. Ever.

Jamie found a parking place toward the back half of the alley, tucked behind a nondescript Ford F150, close to Perry’s Pool Hall. Perry was a criminal, but he had personality. In short, Perry possessed a powerful mix of glee and crazy, and it was best to avoid him at all costs.

Jamie kept her attention on the street ahead, dimly lit with one streetlight on each side. She was, however, close enough to spot faces and could identify anyone who darkened Perry’s Pool Hall’s door. Cookie straightened up in his seat when a red Camaro pulled up into the side parking lot. They watched as the car disappeared from view. A man then emerged from the parking lot into Jamie’s line of sight, walking around the corner of the building to the front door.

“That’s Bob Baxter,” Cookie observed. “I didn’t know he was out.”

“Maybe he got out early for good behavior.”

Cookie snickered. “That guy would pick a fight with his own shadow. I doubt he runs with the likes of Ritchie.” He reached over to take a swig from his gigantic Dr. Pepper. Jamie wondered how many of those he drank in a day. She pointed to it. “You know that’s the cardinal sin of surveillance, right? You’re going to piss like a racehorse later.”

Cookie shrugged off her comment. “My bladder’s bigger than yours. And besides, we aren’t doing long surveillance. We need to go inside because Ritchie doesn’t know what we look like. I just told him I was the big one with the Hawaiian shirt.”

Jamie sat for a few minutes, spotting several familiar faces coming in and out of Perry’s. They were mostly small-time crooks who were known for stealing cars, stealing money, or stealing girlfriends—a collection of guys with friends in low places.

Jamie glanced at her watch. “Okay, let’s go inside so Ritchie can find us.”

Cookie nodded and opened the car door. Jamie did the same on her side, and the pair slammed doors in unison.

“We really do spend too much time together,” Jamie joked.

Cookie led the way, and Jamie was happy to not be first in the door. It was a natural inclination for heads to turn each time someone walked into a place, even if that place was Perry’s. She thought it best to let the colorful shirt go first. Besides, Cookie always made a better entrance.

The sign for Perry’s Pool Hall was a sad sight to behold. It looked as though it was at least twenty years old, weather-worn, with a dirty, hazy backlight that didn’t do much to announce the name of the place. The blue letters were peeling at each end, and it would take just one or two more storms to knock the whole thing over. The truth was that the sign didn’t matter. Perry’s had no interest in picking up tourist traffic.

Cookie reached for the glass door. The metal bar was dull and gritty, the window tint bubbling from top to bottom. He held the door behind him for his partner, and she slipped in behind him. Once inside, they walked straight to the bar with casual purpose, as if they belonged there. Standing by the front door and surveying the area would have been a rookie mistake.

Unlike many other establishments in Port Alene, Perry’s Pool Hall didn’t greet guests with a blast of cold air. Perry kept most things in the place running on the cheap. It was cooler inside than out, but not by much, and cigarette smoke hung in the air over the pool tables like a cloud of suspicion. The bar was busy, crowded really, almost exclusively with men well past forty.

They sat on their perches with buddies wedged between seats to claim a sliver of wooden bar rail. Their presence made getting a beer a small obstacle. Fortunately, Cookie’s size and presence usually parted bodies.

He moved in closely behind a man dressed in a black concert T-shirt promoting a band name so obscure, it had to be local. His black hair was long and in desperate need of a comb but had likely not seen one since Clinton’s first term.

“Excuse me,” Cookie said. The man tipped his head to survey Cookie then nodded and leaned to the side to make room. Cookie got that response on the regular, and he knew how to use it. “Two Dos Equis on draft, por favor,” Cookie said to the bartender, who nodded.

Jamie had her back to her friend, glancing around the room without letting her gaze fall on any one person too long. “I don’t think I see him yet.” She turned her head so she could speak close to Cookie’s ear. “Let’s grab a seat in the back. See if there’s a table open.”

Cookie dropped a ten on the bar and took the two draft beers from the surface, returning a slight nod to the guy on the barstool. Jamie and Cookie walked past the bar to the back room, which showcased over a half dozen pool tables. They appeared to be the best-kept furniture in the entire place. The tables and chairs that lined the walls around the back room looked as though they had survived too many bar fights to count, the wood weathered from the hard living of the patrons who spent their nights there.

Jamie spotted a round table with two chairs crammed in the back corner with no one sitting immediately close by. She gestured to it, a discreet point in the general direction, and Cookie walked over to claim the space. As he placed the glasses on the table, Jamie took the two ashtrays filled with cigarette butts—all the same label, indicating that one guy had smoked an entire pack in a sitting, if that was possible without coughing up a lung on the way out—and moved them to a nearby wall rail.

The two said nothing but, instead, studied the men and women playing pool on the closest tables. Most seemed to have solid shooting skills, with only one couple appearing well on their way to full-blown drunkenness, consistently mishitting the cue ball or popping a target over the side cushion.

Cookie glanced toward a man with a clean-shaven face, dressed in a shiny-patterned black button-down shirt and black pants. “I think that might be our guy.” The man seemed more Miami than Port Alene, shorter than average height for a man, maybe five foot eight with a lift. He had a thick head of black, wavy hair, and his green eyes distributed a cool, almost disinterested stare. He carried a draft beer in one hand and reached for a nearby chair with the other then carried it to Jamie and Cookie’s table and sat down.

“So,” he said to Cookie, ignoring Jamie’s presence entirely, “I’m here. What do you want?”

Cookie took a sip from his beer, taking his time, his eyes on Ritchie. “It’s in your best interest to be here, Ritchie, because you’re the last person to see Kristen alive, and some people already think you killed her.”

Jamie closed her eyes when the words “killed her” left Cookie’s lips. Hearing it out loud still made her flinch.

Ritchie noticed but didn’t acknowledge her reaction. “Sometimes people think I did things I didn’t, which doesn’t bother me because it helps my reputation without having to do the actual work.” His tone wasn’t boastful, exactly, but listening to him quickly revealed that he was the kind to take credit whenever he could get it.

Jamie left her beer untouched, her finger tracing a small circle around the base of the glass. “What happened, Ritchie?” Her tone simple, non-accusing. “Kristen was my niece, and I’m not going to stop until we find out what happened. I don’t have any interest in pinning it on you—or if you want credit, whatever—but for me, I need to know.”

Jamie’s approach was to not play games, to appeal to Ritchie’s humanity, if he had any. Kristen seemed to care for him, and although Jamie couldn’t see why, there had to be something redeeming.

Ritchie appeared to study her face, his demeanor softening only a fraction, his expression transitioning from proud to something more thoughtful. It was strange to witness, but Jamie had seen it before. Sometimes the guys with the most peacock feathers flaring were the ones covering something deeper, their demeanor a hopeful distraction. Cracking this kind was in Jamie’s wheelhouse. Cookie had his charm, and Jamie had the ability to read people and sit with silence.

Ritchie drank from his glass, the foam disappearing from the top as he tipped it to his lips then placed it back down. “I thought Kristen and I had something.”

“And now you think you didn’t?”

He shrugged. “No, I think we did. I think we started out using each other, but it turned into something different toward the end.” He took another drink from his beer. “I couldn’t hurt her. I can let other people think that, but I didn’t do it.”

Cookie tended to his own drink and took turns glancing at the pool patrons, letting Jamie continue to take the lead in the conversation. She was making progress, and he knew to keep quiet at those moments.

“When did you last see her?” Jamie asked.

Ritchie leaned in closer to the center of the table. “I dropped her off at that foreclosed house—the one they found her in. She’d been living there for a couple of weeks, keeping it quiet. She liked being alone sometimes.”

Jamie checked the people around her, making sure no one was too close. “So you knew about the journals? The ones she was keeping on the Deltones?”

Ritchie couldn’t hide his surprise. He sat back in his chair, rubbing his eyes with his right hand, as if he were wiping away the shock. “You know about that?”

Jamie nodded. “Yeah, I know about it. Pretty sure that’s what got her in trouble.”

Ritchie reached for his glass and took a substantial drink. “Those journals caused a lot of problems, especially for me. Makes it look like I’m giving her information she shouldn’t have, you know? She told me about them one night after we were… you know… and she said her father had pushed her to do it. He had made a deal with some guy he wants to work with, but she had changed her mind about it. She was going to give them to me, but…”

“Someone got to her first.”

He shrugged, his posture casual, his eyes more serious. “Kristen and I got on pretty good. I liked her. She was fun, lots of energy, real interested in the business.” He then added, “Too interested in the business.”

Jamie glanced at the pool table. A middle-aged man wearing a plaid button-down and dirty jeans came into their space but stopped at the next table, reaching for pool chalk. He nodded, palmed the chalk, and returned to his table. Jamie waited for him to be out of earshot before continuing the conversation.

“Ritchie, who was this friend of her dad’s? Did she say?”

He reached for his beer and finished the remaining amber liquid. “Yeah, something like Boxman?”

“Boxer?”

His face registered recognition. “That’s it. Boxer. You know him?”

Jamie and Cookie locked eyes. “Yeah, we know him.”

Ritchie straightened up in his seat. “Well, the guy sounds like bad news from what I’ve heard from… some of my people. Got his eye on Deltone territory, and if it looks like I helped them get in, even if it was just blabbing my mouth to a lady friend, that’s bad—bad for business and bad for me. And I’m not letting that happen.”

Jamie patted the table. “Boxer’s pretty good at making people look bad.”

“No offense,” he said, “but you don’t seem like the type who runs with the rough crowd.”

She pointed to Cookie, who said, “That’s what I’m for.” He winked. “And she’s way meaner than she looks. Trust me.”

Ritchie stood up and took one last glance around. “You better be, because I may have a reputation, but I’m actually one of the nice ones. It’s what got me in trouble in the first place.”

“Thanks for telling me what you know,” Jamie replied.

He tapped the table with his hand. “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”

Ritchie departed, leaving Jamie and Cookie at their corner table, quietly sitting with the knowledge Kristen’s confidante had shared. They watched barflies play pool, swig cheap beer, and discuss whether or not the Cowboys had a shot at the playoffs this year. Jamie wished she could return to a time when small talk and divorce cases had dominated her time. She couldn’t believe she wished for such a thing, but she did. The weight of Kristen’s death, and the fact that she couldn’t have done anything to prevent it, followed her, a reminder of yet another family failure.

“You okay?” Cookie reached over and touched her forearm. “I know this is hard for you.”

The wheels turned in her mind, her thoughts bouncing between Cookie’s concern and what she needed to do next. She reached for her glass and realized it offered no comfort since it was empty.

“That was one of the strangest encounters I’ve had with anyone. He cared about Kristen, so he says, but he wants to take credit for her death.” She shook her head. “The worst thing? I can live with it because I think he’s telling the truth. What the hell is wrong with me?”

“We’re after the truth, J. You know that how we get there isn’t usually very pretty, and we see lots of bad stuff on the way. This hurts more because it’s family.”

“You realize that Ritchie put Boxer and Brian together? This means not only did Brian know about the journals, he’s the reason she began keeping them in the first place.”

“I guess I know what happens next.”

She reached underneath the table and pulled her phone from her bag. She pulled up Brian’s contact information. “I need to make sure he answers me this time.”

She opened her text messages.

I have information about the journals. Need to see you ASAP.

She held it up for Cookie to review, and after he nodded his approval, she hit send.

“You think he’ll bite?” he asked.

“Oh yeah. That greedy bastard won’t be able to help himself.”

Her phone pinged.

Where?

Jamie showed the text response to Cookie. “It’s time to get some answers.”