As soon as I was back in my car, I did a search on my phone for George Abbott within the county. Since Noah didn’t have a record of missing work, he couldn’t have been driving too far away, unless he was simply placing his bets over the phone on horse races or something like that. I doubted he was gambling remotely, though, because Russ did say he’d gone somewhere to gamble the last time he slipped.
Either way, my search for George Abbott came up empty.
I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. This was so frustrating. All the books featuring private investigators and concerned citizens solving crimes made it sound simple. Gathering any sort of information without the help of the police was definitely harder than they made it seem.
“Stop whining,” I said into the middle of my steering wheel. “That’s not going to help Noah.”
I straightened up and rolled my shoulders. It made sense that a bookie wasn’t going to take out a Yellow Pages listing. His business was probably word of mouth, which meant that locals might know where to find him. The problem was, most of the locals I knew well enough to ask weren’t going to be inclined to tell me. I couldn’t ask Erik, and I knew Russ and Mark wouldn’t tell me even if they knew, for fear that I’d do exactly what I planned to do.
The only person I could think of who might know where to find George Abbott and who would be willing to tell me was Oliver. Hopefully he was still at the hospital.
The phone rang six times before anyone picked up.
At the sound of Oliver’s voice, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Sorry to bother you again, but I think I might have figured out who Noah owed money to. Does the name George Abbott sound familiar?”
“Not really, but like I said, Noah didn’t tell me who he was gambling with. I think he was trying to protect me from getting caught up like he did. He knew I wanted to be part of the police department, and if I’d gotten into anything like that, it’d be over for me.”
There was a hint of bitterness in his voice. He was no longer working at the police station because he made a mistake the night I came in after hitting a body in the road. Even though it wasn’t my fault that he’d lost his job, I still felt bad about it. Now wasn’t the right time to say how sorry I was, though. If I reminded him of the role I’d unwittingly played, he might not help me out anymore, regardless of the fact that I was trying to protect Noah.
“And you don’t know of any Abbotts who live around here?”
A static-filled tap came through the phone, like Oliver bounced a finger off the back of the phone while he thought. “I think the Sports Bar and Grill out on 96 might be owned by an Abbott.”
That sounded similar to the charges I’d seen on Noah’s credit card bill to a 96ers Bar & Grill. That could be the one Oliver meant.
I thanked him, hung up, and searched for the address. It wasn’t far from here, but it was also already the middle of the afternoon, and I should be back at Sugarwood. But if the sap started running again, who knew how long it would be before I could slip away again. It was now or never.
I put the address into my car’s GPS and followed its directions out of the police station parking lot.
After the third turn I took, the dark gray car that had been behind me at the first traffic light was still there. The anxious-panicky feeling I sometimes got slithered up from my stomach and into my throat.
Even though I was on my third turn, I’d passed multiple roads and businesses. What were the odds that someone else would be taking this exact route? It was the path to Interstate 96 and the best way to get to Grand Rapids, so it wasn’t impossible.
I still couldn’t convince the hair on my arms to lie flat, though. It was like I’d rubbed a balloon over my skin.
Pulling into the parking lot of the nearest business and going out the backside would cost me less than a minute, and my GPS would automatically recalculate my route. A slight detour was worth it for peace of mind.
I hit my turn signal and swung into the furniture store parking lot on my right. I wove my way around the building and out the rear exit onto a different street. The dark gray car would continue on its way because they hadn’t been following me, they’d lose me even though they had, or I’d know for sure that someone was tailing me.
I stopped at the stop sign at the end of the street and checked my rearview mirror. A dark gray car pulled slowly around the corner of the furniture store.
My hands clenched around the steering wheel, fingernails digging into the material. Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
The odds were way too long to be believed that the dark gray car had gone this way as well by coincidence. I needed to call 9-1-1 or call Erik. Which was the smarter option? Erik would send someone right away, whereas the 9-1-1 dispatcher would probably ask why I thought I was being followed, but calling Erik could put him in a bad spot again with the higher-ups who were questioning his every decision.
The car pulled out onto the road, and the sun reflected off the side. What looked like lettering glinted into view so quickly that if I’d blinked at the wrong time, I wouldn’t have seen it. The only vehicles I knew with stealth lettering were unmarked police cars, but why would a police officer be tailing me? Erik might have sent someone to tag along after me and keep an eye on me before, but there was no way he could allocate police resources that way now with an internal investigation under way.
Wait a second…I thunked my head backward into my headrest, the memory of Elise scowling at me in the police station fresh in my mind. The police weren’t tailing me. Elise Scott was. She must still think I’d had something to do with Noah’s condition.
Normally I would have been cheesed, but right now I could use it to my advantage. I didn’t relish heading off to talk to Noah’s potential bookie on my own. If Elise wanted to know what I was up to, I’d offer to let her join me. Hopefully she’d see it as an olive branch and a sign of my innocence rather than as me trying too hard to win her over.
I threw on my four-ways and pulled off to the side of the road. I rolled down my window, and as the dark gray car drew even with mine, I stuck out my arm and flagged them down.
For two full breaths, the car didn’t look like it was going to stop. It moved past me. Then the brake lights burst to life, and the car jerked to a stop. It backed up down the road until I was staring straight at the passenger’s side window.
It rolled down.
The person inside was hard to see clearly in the shadows, but Elise’s dark hair and tight bun seemed to be her trademark.
“How did you know?” she asked, her voice full of exasperation bordering on frustration.
I planted an elbow on the edge of my window. “I spotted the word Police in reflective paint.”
“I meant how did you know I was following you.”
“When you’re raised by two criminal defense attorneys who want you to follow in their footsteps, you’re drilled from the time you can talk to notice details, especially ones that seem out of the ordinary.” I shrugged. “That, and I’m paranoid.”
Elise huffed a sigh. “Would you tell me where you were headed if I asked?”
I gave her my best calling-a-truce smile. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you with me.”
Elise decided I should ride with her rather than the other way around, which wasn’t all that unexpected. Since she was convinced I’d whacked Noah in the head with something hard enough to crack his skull, she wasn’t likely to let me drive her out to who knew where. If I was riding with her in a police cruiser, she maintained a certain level of control and safety.
We left my car in the furniture store parking lot, and I gave her the name and address of where I’d been headed.
“Hot date with a new boyfriend now that Noah’s no use to you anymore?” Elise asked.
Her tone was ambiguous enough that, had I not known already how she felt about me, I wouldn’t have known whether to interpret it as biting or teasing.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek—hard. Just because she chose to be snarky didn’t mean I had to be. Had to remember that. “I’m actually hoping to find Noah’s bookie.”
The car swerved slightly and I grabbed the arm rest. Note to self: Don’t drop surprising information on someone who’s driving.
Before Elise could answer, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and pulled the car off onto the shoulder. Whoever was calling, she didn’t want to put it through the car. Were police cruisers even equipped with Bluetooth? Maybe I was reading too much into it.
“Hey, sweetie,” Elise said to whoever was on the other end, her voice measurably softer than when she’d spoken to me.
She tilted her shoulders away from me. “No, don’t worry. I promise the tooth fairy will still come even if you couldn’t find your tooth.”
Another pause as she must have been giving the child she was talking to a chance to reply.
“I’ll be home before bedtime, okay?” she said. “Now go wash your face, and Grammie will help you with your spelling.”
When she ended the call, she pulled back out onto the road, and at first, she refused to even look at me.
Finally she shot a hard look in my direction. “I don’t spend a lot of time talking to my kids while I’m at work. But I’m a single mom, and I don’t want them to worry I’ve taken off like their dad did.”
She wouldn’t get criticism from me, but I didn’t know how to tell her so in a way that wouldn’t sound patronizing.
“Why are you going to see Noah’s bookie?” Elise asked, officially closing the window on any conversation about her kids. Any surprise she’d felt before was gone from her face and posture.
I tucked my hands under my thighs to warm them up. I’d forgotten my gloves in my car. “Erik…Interim Chief Higgins said there’s nothing he could do to protect Noah from whoever might have hurt him until the situation is declared a crime. The only person I know of who’d want to hurt Noah is his bookie.” That wasn’t entirely true, but I wasn’t going to tell Elise about the pictures of the girl-woman when Erik hadn’t wanted to see them. “I figured that if I paid Noah’s debt, he’d be safe.”
“I see,” Elise said in a way that reminded me eerily of Mark when he didn’t know how to respond to whatever I’d just said.
Her lips thinned, and we rode the rest of the way to the Bar & Grill in an awkward silence. At least I found it awkward. I’d never enjoyed long silences to begin with, and certainly not with someone I barely knew. My instinct was to fill it with small talk, but Elise didn’t strike me as a small-talk kind of woman.
She pulled the cruiser into a parking space to the side of the Bar & Grill.
She sat still instead of immediately releasing her seat belt and reaching for the door handle. “Do you want me to wait in the car?”
I paused with my own hand on the button for my seat belt. I’d assumed she’d insist on coming in and listening to everything I said in case I’d hired George Abbott to “deal with” Noah for some infraction.
Elise swept a hand down the front of her uniform. “He might not admit to being Noah’s bookie if I’m with you.”
Oohhh. I saw what she meant now. She must be working the odds in her head, and she’d decided that if it wasn’t me who attacked Noah, the bookie was the next best option. She’d oblige me if it also helped her. “That might be for the best. I’ll tell you if he says anything that could help the case.”
I climbed from the car and went in the front door. Inside it smelled like French fries and beer, and the Bar & Grill was more crowded than I would have expected for a weekday afternoon. At least half the tables were filled, and ninety percent of the patrons were men.
Large-screen TVs lined all the walls, tuned in to different sporting events, from horse racing in what looked to be Florida to hockey. A couple of the stations even seemed to be playing foreign games, since I wasn’t sure what game it was where men ran around with sticks that had little nets on the end.
There was no sign saying whether patrons should wait to be seated or not. I catalogued that fact away. While a few hungry travelers might straggle in, I had a feeling that this place tended to be frequented by regulars or those invited along by regulars.
If I was right, I’d have to break the privacy barrier, and it didn’t bode well for being able to speak to George Abbott.
The bartender seemed to be around thirty-five or forty, close enough to my age that a little eyelash batting might help me out. Good thing I’d left Elise in the car. I certainly wouldn’t rise any higher in her opinion of me if she saw what I was about to do.
I slid out of my jacket, glad I’d worn my fitted blue sweater, and fluffed my hair, saying a mental thank-you to my hairdresser Liz for being a miracle worker when it came to hair.
I drew my shoulders back into my best mother-trained posture and strode over to the bar. When the bartended looked in my direction, I flashed him a smile that I’m sure would have gotten me accused of flirting had Mark been with me.
His return smile wasn’t exactly smarmy, but he wasn’t looking me in the eyes either. Other parts of my anatomy clearly interested him more. “What can I get you?”
Asking for a water or a soda was sure to shut the conversation down before it even started—he’d probably think I was a police officer—but I didn’t drink alcohol. My Uncle Stan’s drinking had destroyed his heart, and that, along with his lecture, put the fear into me early enough in life that I’d decided to stay away from it. And, really, I was clumsy and goofy enough without alcohol adding to it.
But it left me with a quandary now. Maybe I could use it to curry some good will. “Is this the kind of place where I can buy the house a drink instead?”
His mouth quirked up on one side. “I never turn one down.”
I slid a five dollar bill across the table and mentally crossed my fingers that would be enough. I had no idea what a drink would actually cost in a place like this.
He took it and poured himself a shot, then leaned a hip against the bar. “So you a narc? You’re wasting your time if you are. Everything we sell here is licensed and legal.”
And there went the subtle approach. Direct approach it was. I plopped my arms on the bar. “I’m not a cop. A friend of mine owes some money to George Abbott and I’m here to talk about clearing his debt.”
His smirk clearly said that he thought “talk” was a euphemism for something else. I finally understood what people meant when they used the expression I threw up a little bit in my mouth.
“Follow me,” he said.
I trailed behind him, suddenly glad I had Elise outside for backup if I needed her.
The bartender knocked on a door leading into a back room and a woman’s voice answered. He stepped inside. He was back out too quickly for me to lose my nerve and go running to Elise.
He held open the door for me into a smallish office. The only person in the room was a petite red-head in her late thirties sitting behind the desk. Her nails had tiny daisies painted on them.
I glanced back at the bartender and he gave my chest one final stare before closing the door.
I turned back to the woman behind the desk. Something was definitely not right here. “I was hoping to meet with George Abbott.”
The woman behind the desk rose to her feet. She was a good two inches shorter than I was and waif-thin. Even her button nose was tiny.
She held out a hand that I was almost afraid to shake for fear of snapping all her bird-like bones. “I’m Georgiana Abbott, and you are not who you claim to be. Anyone who actually owes me money knows that I’m a woman.”
My mouth drooped open before I could catch it. My parents would have been so disappointed that I couldn’t control my reaction better.
“So,” Georgiana Abbott picked up a cup of what smelled like chamomile tea from her desk and took a sip, “who are you really and why are you here?”
That tickle in my throat that always preceded a stutter when I’d have to speak in front of a jury feathered its way up my throat.
Pull it together, Nicole. This is no different from any other witness or suspect who wasn’t what you expected them to be.
My throat calmed down. I moved around her to the chair in front of her desk and sat without waiting for an invitation. “My name’s Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes”—I wagered that my hyphenated last name might actually help me this time— “and like I told your bartender, I’m here to pay the debt of a friend of mine.”
Georgiana’s eye roll clearly said sure you are. “I’m a very busy woman. Devin thinks you’re a cop and that I should have you thrown out.” She moved over to the window to the right of her desk and hooked a thumb toward it. Outside I could see part of a dark gray car. “But I think a cop wouldn’t show up in an unmarked police car to do surveillance on me. So unless you’re ready to tell me the real story, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
She might have been the politest, most well-spoken bookie I’d ever met. Not that I’d met any bookies before this, but based on what I’d seen on TV. Which probably wasn’t the most reliable resource.
Time to throw all my assumptions out the window and play it like I was as confident and cutthroat as she was.
I crossed my legs, folded my hands over my knee, and gave her my best imitation of my mom’s don’t-mess-with-me smile. “I’m a businesswoman as well, and earlier this week someone came onto my property and attacked one of my employees, a man by the name of Noah Miller. I think it was you, and so I’m here to settle Noah’s debt with you so that we can make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
A muscle next to her eye twitched. “Someone hurt Noah?”
If it hadn’t been for the twitch, I would have thought she was faking her shock. “You didn’t know?”
She put a finger to her lips like she used to be a nail biter and the temptation was still hard to resist when she was under stress.
“Noah’s one of my regulars.” She sank down into her chair. “Was one of my regulars, I should say. He got mixed up with some girl and wanted to ‘turn his life around.’ I’ve heard that enough times from men who are right back here the next week, but Noah asked me to cut him off. He was so far in the hole by that point anyway that extending more credit to him would have been a stupid business decision, so I did what he asked. A couple of times he managed to sneak into a poker game in the back room, but other than that, he’s been making regular payments ever since.”
All her body language said she was telling the truth. Even her hand movements matched up the way they should with her words. I’d try one more thing to rattle her, but if she held solid to her story, I was inclined to think she’d had nothing to do with Noah’s attack. “Why should I believe you that you didn’t order the attack on Noah?”
Her confident smile peeked out again. “You know why. I’m a businesswoman. A man who can’t work can’t pay his debts, and that’s bad business all around.” She rolled her chair sideways and typed something into the laptop on her desk. “You’re still welcome to pay his debt if you’d like, though. I never turn down a genuine offer of repayment.”
I’d come here fully intending to pay off however much it took to keep Noah safe, but if Georgiana hadn’t been behind the attack on Noah, I wasn’t inclined to put Sugarwood at risk by draining my finances. If it was a small amount, though, I’d do it simply for the peace of mind. “How much does he owe?”