Freddy located the dealer. He came into Hauck’s office carrying a faxed file.
His name was Paul Pacello. He had worked for the Pequot Woods since it first opened. Most of the staff was local—a key part of the casino’s original agreement with the state. But Pacello was a career croupier. He’d had stints in Tahoe and on the Gulf Coast. Twenty-eight years behind the tables.
Just a month ago, he had put in his notice and retired.
How had Raines phrased it when Hauck had asked about the dealer? We dealt with that situation privately.
Freddy placed a grainy faxed likeness in front of Hauck, who nodded without hesitation. “That’s him.”
The man in the video dealing to Sanger, using the false shuffle. Kramer’s supposed accomplice in the scam.
“Where do we find the guy, Freddy?”
Munoz had followed up with Personnel, but the gal there had gotten all nervous and told him they’d have to clear that through security before they gave out a forwarding address.
“I said, ‘No problem,’ Lieutenant. I saw his age.”
Pacello was over sixty, and Munoz had been able to pick up a social security number off the file. “I ran it by the local bureau in Connecticut where his checks were being cut.”
“Twenty-two twenty-seven Capps Harbor Road,” the detective read. “Brunswick, Maine.”
Hauck was familiar with it. A picturesque town on the coast where Bowdoin College was located. Hauck had gone to Colby, only an hour away. Pacello had likely retired up there. It was about a four-hour drive away.
“And that’s not all,” Munoz said.
Steve Chrisafoulis had been delving into the Pequot Woods, scratching for some kind of link between the casino, DR-17, and Nelson Vega.
He’d found one.
He came in carrying the DR-17 gang leader’s file. That same smug glint in his eye Hauck had seen before.
“Fire away.”
“Vega did a short stint in the army. In 2001 to 2002. He was with the 223rd out of Fort Hood, in New Jersey. Munitions.”
“I can’t believe they even let an asshole like that in the service.”
Chrisafoulis snorted. “Trust me, they caught on…” Steve opened the file on Hauck’s desk. “He got in trouble right from the start. Sexually harassing a female enlistee. Insubordination to his senior officer. A drunkenness charge. Fighting. He eventually got bounced. Doesn’t say exactly why, but it seems it involved some ordnance that went missing from the base’s weapons stock. Dishonorably discharged. May 10, 2002. No charges ever filed.”
Hauck picked up the paperwork.
“You see who his brigade captain is?”
Hauck scanned Vega’s release, squinting at the signature on the last page.
One of the signatures was faint, but as Hauck made it out, he looked up, a surge of triumph running through his veins.
Captain Joseph W. Raines.
“Raines was a brigade commander in the 223rd himself,” Steve said. “He left in 2002 and served as an instructor in the military police’s antiterrorism school. From there he left the service and went to Iraq as a consultant in some security outfit there. But he knew him. He signed the fucker’s release.”
“Who the hell is he protecting, Steve?” Hauck knew Raines was just a pawn. “Who runs these companies?”
Chrisafoulis tossed him a glitzy annual report. “The Pequot Woods.” Hauck flipped to the management page. A bunch of names and faces he’d never heard of. Professionals. Twenty members of the board. Plus a council of overseers.
A couple of names stood out. Senator Oren Casey. The guy who was caught in all that trouble—Richard Scayne.
“You know, if I were a good ol’ boy, I’d toss this over to Sculley and Taylor and wash our hands of it right now,” he said to Chrisafoulis.
“Or to Sanger’s boss at the DOJ. Or the state attorney general…” The detective shrugged.
“Yeah.” Hauck tossed the Pequot Woods report back. “Keep digging. If it’s not a gambling scam, I want to know what the hell it is. Me, I’m taking a drive up to Maine.”
“You know they know we know about him, Ty…” Steve looked concerned. “If I was looking to keep something quiet, that would be the place I’d start.”
“Yeah,” Hauck said, “me too.”