D
etective Nichols looked at my statement and then asked me. “Are you sure this is all you want to say?”
“What do you mean? It’s everything that happened, from the phone call to the ambulance arrival.”
“But you can’t describe your assailant any better?”
“Like I said, my attention was on the club. If I could describe him any better, believe me, I would.”
“And no one in the group has told you who they think attacked you?”
“No. Is there a reason why you think I wouldn’t tell you if someone mentioned a name to me?”
“Misplaced loyalty, fear, maybe you want to take care of your attacker by yourself.”
“Trust me, that’s everything I can remember about last night, and no one has given me the slightest hint that they know who attacked me.”
“So be it. West, do I need to remind you that you’re not in New Mexico? The police run the investigations here. If you hear anything, you need to let us know immediately.”
I should have mentioned something about the dispute Eric and Bob had with Doug the year before, but Nichols had irritated me. Upon leaving Nichols small office, I noticed two South Carolina State Policemen waiting outside his office with Detective Young. Both looked at me with interest as I walked by.
Back at the hotel, I showered and took a nap before the afternoon meeting, hoping to shake a lingering headache. After the meeting, I would try to get Bob to talk to me about the business fallout with Doug. I found it interesting that Eric had adamantly claimed he didn’t kill Doug, but he didn’t defend Bob.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to approach Bob, he came up to me as the meeting ended and asked if he could talk to me privately.
“Sure. Where?” I asked.
“Across the street at Starbucks in fifteen minutes. Is that good?”
“I’ll be there.”
Bob left the room, while I stayed and talked to Mike, Frank, and Tom about dinner plans.
“Dick and LG want to join us tonight and suggested Mexican. You know that place we usually go to,” Tom said.
I didn’t know the restaurant, but the rest did and agreed. They set a time to leave the hotel, giving me forty minutes to talk to Bob and get back.
Walking back to our room, Tom said, “More bodyguards for you this way.”
“What do you mean?”
“We all talked. Pete, too, but he had to make a phone call after the meeting. We think someone needs to be with you from now on. Whoever it was may want to finish the job.”
“I appreciate it, but it’s not necessary. Right now, I need to go talk to Bishop. He asked me to meet him at Starbucks. He wanted me to come alone.”
“Bob? I bet it’s on that fallout from last year. I can’t see him doing it. He’s never really struck me as being very brave. Keep that between the two of us, but he’s awful timid.”
“Still, I need to go.”
“Okay, I can watch Starbucks from here. It’s daylight, so as long as you don’t go out the back door, I can see you going and coming.”
I grinned. They were going to take this seriously. “Fine. I won’t be long.”
He took the up elevator, and I went down. Crossing the street, I arrived a few minutes early but found Bob already there. I hadn’t considered him as being meek, but looking at him, I could see how someone might. Slender with hair already thinning, he did kind of look like the exact opposite of Whip. Yet I knew that enough anger and a weapon could overcome “meekness”.
I remembered a situation where a petite mother, described by everyone as shy and very nice, defended her eleven-year-old son and herself from three older, bigger, teenage boys. They were trying to take her son’s backpack, and when he resisted, they began hitting and kicking him. She flew out of the house grabbing a plastic baseball ball bat and proceeded to go through the teenagers like Attila went through the Romans.
Of course, she was a mother defending her son, and Bob had nothing similar to drive him into attacking me.
“Here,” Bob called when he saw me.
“Hey, Bob, what’s up?”
“Want something?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“No, I’m good, but thanks.”
He looked around for a minute like he wanted to make sure no one could hear him. The place didn’t have any other customers.
“Eric said he talked to you.”
“Yes, he did.”
“What did he say?”
“He briefly told me about how you and he felt like Doug had cheated you.”
“We didn’t just feel like it, he did cheat us. I’ve gone over everything a million times, and we should have received at least five times the amount we got. Probably ten times, if you want to know the truth.”
“Okay. You confronted him last year.”
“Yes, but we had already been in touch with him. Between emails and phone calls, I made my point several times before the golf trip.”
“Yet he still came.”
“Yes. Doug is a smooth talker. Everyone likes him, but I finally saw him for what he was. A snake, a slithery bastard of a snake. How can eighty percent of the gross profits get eaten up by expenses? It’s not possible. The guy was shrewd, and he screwed us.”
“What happened last year?”
“He came with all this paperwork. He wanted to show it to everyone, not just us, to prove his innocence. If I was going to kill him, it would have been last year. I didn’t do it, and I certainly had no reason to attack you. By the way, how are you?”
“I’m good, only a bruised forehead and some stitches. I even played my best game of golf so far this week.”
He grinned. “That’s crazy how that works, but you need to know I didn’t kill Doug, and I’m sure Eric didn’t either.”
“I believe you,” I said to mollify him. “Who do you think did it?”
“No idea, but you ought to talk to the guys who fly AirExpress with him. Rumors have it that Doug may have had an affair in Brazil.”
“How could his having an affair get him killed?”
Bob looked at me, and for a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Maybe he wasn’t the only one. I don’t want to say any more about it, but you might find a better motive there.”
“Ok,” I said, already tired of this cryptic conversation. “You know this business stuff will be discovered by the police, if it hasn’t already. Apparently, everyone knew about it.”
“I’m kind of surprised they haven’t asked me about it yet.”
“I’m sure they will. LG is with AirExpress. Who else is?”
“Streelman. Don’t tell him I told you, but everyone knows anyway. He hasn’t been with them long, maybe a year or a little more. Maybe two years, I can’t remember anything anymore.”
“I still don’t see how having an affair can cause his death unless you’re telling me Doug’s wife hired someone.”
“That may be what happened, but you need to talk to those two. You know, I can’t see any of us doing it.”
“Why?”
“Because we are all friends. We served together. You know, we’re like brothers-in-arms, all that stuff. We would die for each other. Why would we kill each other?”
“The attack on me would tend to indicate otherwise. I can’t explain that away.”
“I can’t see it. Even after what he did to me and Eric, I can’t see it. You got attacked by some mugger. Had nothing to do with Doug’s death. Had to be.”
I actually admired his attitude, if he was being truthful. Yet I knew, whether he wanted to believe it or not, that servicemen and women do kill each other. Not at the rate as those outside the service, I thought, but they still did. Petty jealousies, envy, and greed existed. Then there were those who were just plain evil.
“I gotta run. Sorry about your head,” Bob said, standing up and walking out the Starbucks.
I sat there for a few seconds after he left. What a strange discussion, I thought, wondering if he knew more, or if he was trying to take the focus off him by telling me about affairs in South America. I’d have to ask Tom about it later, but first there was a Mexican dinner to enjoy.
Of course, Tom didn’t let me wait to tell him what happened. Even before we reached his car for the short drive to the restaurant, he was grilling me.
“So, what happened? What did he say?”
“The same as Eric. He didn’t kill Doug, but he was still mad at him for cheating him out of his fair share. He said Doug brought paperwork with him last year to show everyone.”
“He did, but I didn’t look at it. I didn’t want to take sides. These guys are all friends of mine. Last year no one died, and if someone had cheated another, then that was between them. This year is different. This golf trip won’t happen again if the killer isn’t caught. Some of the guys are talking about going home early this week. One or two might’ve left already if it wasn’t for the police telling them they had to stick around.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Do you think Bob could’ve done it? He’s a skinny little guy. Hits the ball a long way, though.”
“In my mind the guy who attacked me was bigger,” I said.
“Yeah, it won’t do your secret agent image any good to be taken out by a skinny little guy like Bob.”