Blaze’s eyes burned into her as he folded his hands and rested them on the table across from her.
He’s trying to intimidate me.
In the same seat Brad Hensen had been in that morning.
They’ve both been right in front of me, and yet I’m still not sure who killed Cory.
“Let’s start with an easy one. Did you know Cory Boyd?” Mac asked.
“I know a Cory Boyd,” Blaze said. “Yes.”
“How?”
“I was introduced to him at the casino. He was down on his luck, and I offered him some help.”
“Are you in the business of lending money?” Grace asked. He pursed his lips and turned to her with sparkling eyes.
Is he assessing me? Threatened by the question and fronting so he doesn’t seem taken off guard?
“Not a business, no,” he said, his calm tone unwavering.
“Did you consider him a friend?” Mac asked.
“No.”
“You were loaning money to an acquaintance?”
Blaze shrugged.
“Is this something you’ve done before?”
“I don’t see the relevance to the question, and I doubt my lawyer will when he arrives, so you might want to move on to something else in the interest of time.”
He thinks he’s smart. That this is a joke.
“Cory Boyd was murdered last week. Did you know that?” Mac asked.
Blaze nodded. “Heard it on the news.”
“Where were you that night?” Mac asked.
“I was playing poker with several friends of mine. All night. I have their names and numbers if you need to follow up on that.”
Pointless. He must have more people to lie for him than I have pairs of shoes. Facts are easy for men like Blaze, so we should make him a little less comfortable.
“How did it make you feel,” she asked, “when you heard Cory was dead, knowing you’d lent him money? Knowing you’d never get it back?”
He shrugged again. “Not good, Detective Sheppard. I’d like to know why I’m here?”
He says my name like he knows it. Mickey must have told him about us—about me specifically.
“Had Cory started paying you back at all?” Mac asked.
“No, he hadn’t, but he also wasn’t required to.”
“It was a gift?” Grace asked. “You yourself said it was a loan.”
“I never said such a thing.” His eyes sparkled as he looked from Mac back to Grace again.
He gets joy from deceiving us. Maybe this is a game to him. Maybe he’s amused.
His weakness is his ego. He’s self-involved. Thinks he is smart.
Maybe I’ll let him think he is.
Grace smiled and folded her hands in front of her. “No, I guess you didn’t outright say it,” she said, and without looking at him, she was sure he was pleased with himself. “So was it a gift?”
Blaze nodded.
“You’re a generous man, Blaze,” she said. “Or should I call you Geoff? Or Mr. Carling?”
“You can call me Blaze.” His eyes remained fixed on her, and when she looked up at him, she smiled.
Let him be the smart one.
“Okay, Blaze, tell me why you give away money to people you barely know.”
“I’m philanthropic, I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders, but the sparkle in his eyes disappeared.
“And what do they do for you?”
“No conditions.”
“You said you didn’t feel good when you heard about Cory’s murder,” she said. He nodded. “Was Cory Boyd a good man?”
Blaze looked at the table.
Is he preparing a wise ass comeback? Or might he really be reflecting on Cory?
“He seemed like it,” Blaze said, still staring off.
“He must have been grateful to you,” Grace said. “You giving him money when he had been gambling it all away. When he was most desperate for help.”
“What can I say?” He scratched his hairline by his temple. “I’m a nice guy.”
“So, you’ve made it a habit to give money to people. You like to be, as you said, philanthropic. People from the casino?”
Blaze looked up at her. “Some.”
“Any of them turn up dead?” she asked.
His eyes opened wider.
I caught him of guard. He doesn’t know we know about Ian Long.
Blaze let out a huff of laughter, opening his mouth.
A knock on the door interrupted them, and Rhonda let in a man in a suit with a briefcase.
“This is my lawyer,” Blaze said.
“And you can direct all questions to me,” he said. “Patrick Kinsley.” He took a seat beside Blaze and whispered something to him. Blaze nodded before pulling away.
“Did you give money to a man named Ian Long?” she asked.
The Amherst P.D. had sent over Ian’s case, and she had time to go over it once before Blaze arrived. Permission to search their financial records had been granted by Long’s wife, and the same account in Geoff Carling’s name had transferred money to the Long’s account.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Kinsley said, “or anything else they ask, for that matter.”
“He will,” Grace said, smiling with her eyes.
I’m counting on it.
“Is that right?” Blaze asked.
“Blaze here is a generous man. I’m sure he wants to help,” Grace said, raising her voice, “so please answer the question.”
“If it helps,” Blaze said, “yes. I gave him money.”
Good. Keep making the connections.
“And now he’s missing,” Mac said.
Kinsley leaned over toward Blaze, but he waved him away.
“And that’s unfortunate,” Blaze said, “but I had nothing to do with that either.”
“You’re the common link,” Mac said.
Blaze cleared his throat and turned to Mac. “Let me help you out, since you’re asking. Men like Cory Boyd and Ian Long were desperate.”
Were. Past tense for both.
“They’ve run out of options,” Blaze said in the same calm tone, “and are usually willing to do anything but give up gambling to make things right in their lives. Do you know what a man like that will do? I do. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They’ll beg, borrow, and steal.”
Did they do all three for you, Blaze?
“These men have a lot more in common than me,” he continued, “and it isn’t the people helping them you’ll want to investigate, but the people who’ve inevitably been screwed over by their desperation. By their willingness to hurt anyone within their proximity—anyone they love—in order to get their lives back.”
He’s suggesting the same thing Brad Hensen did. Look another way—anyone but me.
Cory hid things from Marie. It put a strain on their marriage that may have eventually ended it, but was he willing to do anything to get the money back for her?
What he told Kurt that morning, watching the sunrise on the hotel balcony in Vegas, made it seem like he was going to turn things around. In his note to the Bride and Groom, he’d seemed hopeful.
“That’s enough, Mr. Carling,” Kinsley muttered.
“That’s what they tell themselves,” Blaze said, shrugging, “but what they really want is to keep gambling. Sad, really.”
“No further questions will be answered,” Kinsley said.
“That’s fine, but we have the right to hold him,” Mac said, standing from his chair.
“Not for long,” Blaze said and smiled at Grace.
Mac knocked on the door, and Rhonda led Blaze and his lawyer back down the hall, toward the holding cell.
“What he said about the lengths Cory might have been willing to go to made me think about those pictures of Brad’s affair he had. He might have thought those would keep him in business… or that Brad would leave it all to him. He could have done a lot with those photos.”
With the way Brad’s wife acted, those pictures would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. She’s already at her wits end. Maybe she’s already threatened to leave him.
“Or Blaze is just trying to put us off his scent,” Mac said. “We need to come up with more on him and use this time… Grace?”
Maybe Brad was one of the desperate men Blaze was talking about. Maybe he was willing to do anything to protect his marriage and family, to keep them from going further in debt.
“Grace?”
“Yeah?”
“We need to look into Tom Portman further and check the connections—“
“Tom’s not connected to Cory at all, except through Blaze. I think he was playing with us. We’re going in the wrong direction with him…”
“Grace, what are you talking about? We have him right where we want him. We need to go hard—“
“I need to go see Brad Hensen’s wife.” She stepped out of the room and marched down the hallway to the front.
“What?” Mac’s voice echoed behind her.
“Brad knew Cory was stealing from him. He was threatening to sue just to detach himself from Cory before he bankrupted his family. If he knew about the photos, that’s a strong motive. To stop him from ruining his marriage—or rather his cash cow.” She stopped before the second set of doors near Rhonda’s desk.
“I don’t understand,” Mac rested his hands on his hips. “We have Blaze in here, a real connection to a missing man, who he referred to in past tense, and you want to question Brad’s wife? He won’t talk. What makes you think she would or that she knows anything?”
“Blaze said we should be looking into the people hurt by the desperate acts of others. Brad’s wife is clearly perturbed and—“
“So you’re basing this decision off something Blaze said?”
“No, I’m following an instinct.”
He shook his head and took a step away from her. “You want to go chase a lead we could focus on later…maybe…I don’t know, when we don’t have Blaze in custody?”
He doesn’t understand instincts or theories. If it’s not a fact, he doesn’t want to hear it.
This is my investigation. This will be my failure if I don’t do what I think I should.
“You look into Tom Portman and Blaze, and I’m going to see Brad’s wife,” she said. “Call me if you find anything.” Officer Vila stood with a cup of coffee, talking to Tarek at his computer as she passed by them.
“Yeah,” Mac said in a short tone.
I don’t have time to argue or explain my perspective. If he won’t support me, he can stay behind.
“Vila, please join me on a house call,” Grace called out behind her, and strode out the door into the rain.