“There are two cops to see you,” the neckless bouncer said to his boss as Harry and Cirba stepped into the office.
The strip club owner sighed and said: “Let me see the warrant.”
“No warrant, Mr Di Angelo,” Cirba said. “Just want to talk.”
Di Angelo shouted at the bouncer, “I told you nobody gets in here without a warrant.”
“He’s got one in his pocket,” neckless said.
Moments earlier, Harry and Cirba had knocked on the door of the Dew Drop Inn. As Cirba had introduced himself, he had reached into his inside jacket pocket and flashed a folded piece of paper.
“Oh, this,” Cirba said, taking the piece of paper from his pocket and showing it to the club owner. “This is just a shopping list my wife gave me.”
Di Angelo shook his head and dismissed the bouncer with the flick of his wrist.
“Maybe you should tell him to read the warrant.”
Di Angelo sat back in his chair and smiled. “I doubt he can read. What d’ya want?”
“I’d like to sit,” Cirba said.
“Sorry, we are very short of chairs.”
Cirba placed both of his hands flat on the club-owner’s desk and leaned in. “Last time we met I wasn’t prepared to haul you in for questioning – I’m prepared now.”
There was one of those test-of-will stares between the two men that couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds but seemed like five minutes.
Di Angelo blinked first. He picked up the phone and said: “Have Sandy bring some champagne to the VIP Room.” He stood. “Gentlemen, if you would follow me.”
* * *
The VIP Room didn’t look as if it expected many important people. Décor-wise it was the same as the rest of the club – late American polyurethane. The only difference was it had a door that closed.
“What goes on in here?” Cirba asked.
“Same as out there,” Di Angelo said, “’cept it costs more.”
A short blonde woman wearing curlers in her hair but nothing else from the waist up, came in carrying a tray with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and three glasses.
“I like the curlers,” Harry said. “Is this to cater for customers with a naughty housewife fantasy?”
“Ain’t yous funny,” the girl giggled. “I’m getting ready for tonight. I know curlers ain’t the sexiest thing to see so I decided to show you my titties so as you may not notice.”
“That was very considerate of you Ms… ?” Harry asked.
“Felicity,” Felicity said. “You’re a cute one. Ja ever have a private dance with a lady in curlers?”
“Ah, maybe later,” Harry said.
Felicity shrugged. As she walked out she said: “They won’t be in for much longer.”
Di Angelo popped the cork on the champagne, poured a glass and offered it to Cirba.
“No, thank you, we are on duty.”
“I’ll have one,” Harry said, taking a glass. “I have no rules about drinking on duty.”
“Serving champagne?” Cirba said. “I’m pretty sure you need a liquor license for that.”
“Now don’t be a pedant, trooper,” Di Angelo said. “This is my personal bottle and, for the record, I only give it to non-paying guests out of office hours. Sure you won’t have a glass?”
“What was your beef with Big Bill?”
“You’re not one for small talk, are you, trooper?”
“I didn’t come here for the champagne.”
“You know, I didn’t either, but this stuff is lovely.” Harry reached across Cirba, holding out his glass for more.
Cirba gave him a stern look and asked again. “Thomson: what did you have against him?”
“You think I killed Big Bill?”
“Actually, that’s not what he asked,” Harry said. “He was asking about the difficulties you and Bill had. But since you brought it up, I’ll ask.” Harry leaned in and demanded eye contact. “Did you kill Bill Thomson?”
Di Angelo didn’t flinch. “No.”
“Well, I’m convinced. Ed, shall we go?”
“I’d like to ask a few more questions – if you don’t mind?”
“No, feel free. Can I have some more champagne?”
Cirba glowered at Harry and turned his attention once more to Di Angelo.
“For the third time, and if I have to ask a fourth it’ll be at the station, why did you stick your bouncers on Thomson?”
“He was hassling one of my girls.”
“Harmony?”
“Yeah.”
“I was under the impression that Harmony and Bill were a couple. Are you saying that Bill’s advances weren’t welcome?”
“No,” Di Angelo said and leaned back in his chair. “Let me be clear about this. He wasn’t hassling Harmony – he was hassling Harmony’s customers. Look, I liked Bill. He used to come in every Monday night to watch the football game. He was a nice guy even if he wasn’t a great customer. He didn’t get private dances but he threw a buck tip around when he should’ve and he never bothered the girls. Now, I don’t condone my girls dating customers ’cause that kinda shit can get me in trouble, especially if money is changing hands, but Harmony fessed up and said that she and Bill had met by accident off premises and it was a real thing. So I was fine about it.”
“Until you weren’t?”
“Well, yeah. Recently Bill starts coming in and every time a customer touches Harmony’s ass or somethin’ he gets in their face. I don’t like it when customers go over the line with my girls, but my line was a lot further away than Billy’s was. I barred him. He didn’t like it, so I made my point with the bouncers. That’s what they’re for. There was a lot of shoutin’ and shovin’ but nobody got hurt.”
“Is Harmony here?”
“She called in sick.”
“What’s her full name?”
“Sara something.”
“You don’t know her name?” Cirba asked.
“No, sorry.”
“Well then look it up.”
“There’s nothin’ to look up. I don’t know it.”
“She’s your employee – you have to know her name.”
“She’s not my employee. She’s an independent contractor. Technically, I’m her employee.”
“What?” Cirba said.
“The girls pay to dance here. They give me twenty bucks a night and I let them keep all their tips. I don’t know her name.”
“You just let anybody dance here without paperwork?”
“I check their driver’s licenses to make sure they’re over 18 but that’s all.”
“Un-fucking believable.”
“That’s the business,” Di Angelo said. “No liquor license – no hassle.”
“Where were you Wednesday around 11 a.m.?”
“In bed, in my house in Hilltop. I don’t get up outta bed till at least two. I work nights, you see.”
“Alone?”
“’Fraid so. When you work with this many females it’s nice to get away from ’em. You know?”
“No,” Harry said. “How long have you run this club?”
“Six years.”
“And before that you were in garbage?”
Di Angelo smiled. “Waste management.”
“And you managed to get thrown in jail for illegal dumping.”
“I made mistakes. I did my time. I’m out of that biz.”
“But some of your old business associates are working nearby.”
“Are they? I hadn’t heard.”
“Matter of fact some of your old buddies are dealing with the wastewater from the fracking out at the old quarry.”
“You don’t say.”
“Did you hear that they might start fracking on the land right next to this club?” Harry asked.
“Yeah, I heard something about that,” Di Angelo said.
“Did you know that Big Bill owned that land?”
“No,” Di Angelo said slowly. “I did not know that.”
“Plenty of wastewater to be processed – that’s a lot of money.”
“I told you, I’m not in sanitation anymore but I wouldn’t mind having a bunch of gas rigs around. Lots of well drillers would be good for business.”
“Good enough to kill for?”
Di Angelo once again looked hard into Harry’s eyes. “I won’t say there ain’t never a reason to kill someone, but getting more punters to cough up for a lap dance ain’t one of ’em.”
* * *
On the way out Cirba and Harry knocked on the dancers’ dressing room and asked if they were decent before entering. They said yes, but none of them were. Women who get naked for a living aren’t shy about being seen half dressed. All but one of them was at least topless, and Harry wondered if they did it on purpose just to keep the two men off balance. Harry felt a bit wobbly. They got no extra information on Harmony/Sara. One of the strippers said: “She acted like she was better than us,” and most of the other girls agreed verbally like a pew full of churchgoers at a black revival meeting. No one knew her last name but one girl remembered that the reason she had chosen Harmony was because she lived at Lake Harmony, a resort about twenty miles away.
* * *
“What got into you in there?” Cirba asked when they were back in the squad car. “You were acting like a frat boy on spring break.”
“Sorry about that. I spotted right away that he was going to be a difficult man to read. I was trying to knock him off balance.”
“Well you knocked me off balance. Whatcha think of Di Angelo?”
“A real pillar of the community.”
“Yeah but was he telling us the truth?”
“No idea,” Harry said.
“What do you mean ‘no idea’? What am I paying you for?”
“He’s a sociopath.”
Cirba slammed on the breaks so he could look Harry in the eye. “He’s what?”
“A sociopath. I can’t read him.”
“I’ve got a sociopath running a strip club on my beat?”
“You probably have one running the grocery store too. Just because somebody’s a sociopath doesn’t mean he or she is a criminal.”
“Di Angelo is a criminal.”
“Yeah but he’s smart too. Sociopaths don’t have remorse or what you and I call a conscience. So, if he backs over your puppy with his car he’s not going to feel bad about it.”
“Nor will he feel bad about, say, shooting a guy in the back of the head.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean he did it. If he’s a functioning sociopath then he probably has above normal intelligence. Just because he wouldn’t feel bad about killing somebody, it doesn’t mean he’s unaware of the consequences of that action. He’d still need a pretty strong motive for murder. Losing a stripper to a boyfriend doesn’t seem good enough to me.”
“How about his old Mob bosses ordering him to make sure the fracking well gets dug so they can haul away the waste?”
Harry thought for a moment before saying: “Yeah, that might do it.”
“So, POI?”
“Yeah, person of interest.”
“How come you can’t read sociopaths?” Cirba asked.
“Most of the tells that give away a liar come from subconscious guilt. Sociopaths don’t feel guilt – consciously or unconsciously. I covered all of this at the Vegas conference. Didn’t you pay any attention to my talk?”
“No,” Cirba said with an embarrassed shrug. “I decided quickly that you were full of shit and played Angry Birds on my cell phone.”
“Why do you go to conferences if you’re not going to pay attention?”
“Other than a free trip to Vegas?”
“Never mind. I withdraw the question.”
* * *
Country Dreams Real Estate’s office was located in a mobile home on a slip road off of Route 80. Harry wondered about the image this gave off to prospective clients. If a guy you are hiring can’t find better offices than a large recycled beer can in a gravel lot then what kind of country dream could he be selling?
A front door under a tiny awning was ajar behind a screen door. Cirba knocked, got no answer and went in. The place was spartan. At the end of the long narrow room was a bare desk except for a green shaded accountant’s lamp. Behind it to the left was a photocopier and to the right stood a six-foot tower of newspaper-like brochures with listings and photos of houses and property. Two chairs were in front of the desk and a sofa lay up against the wall in the middle of the room. Other than that the place was empty.
“So he just leaves the place unlocked?” Harry said to Cirba but his question was answered by the man who opened the screen door.
“I carry my phone and laptop with me,” the mayor said, hurrying into the room, holding a briefcase and a cup of takeaway coffee. “The only thing worth stealing is the photocopier and that’s chained to the wall.” He slid past the men, went behind his desk, slid his aforementioned laptop out of his case and placed it on his desk and sat down. “Also, I have a theory that if a burglar finds a place unlocked then he will always be thinking that I just stepped out for a quick piss or something and would be too nervous to try anything.”
“I’m not sure, Charlie, that’s a solid theory,” Cirba said.
“Anybody ever steal anything?” Harry asked.
“Nope but I did find a homeless guy sleeping on my couch one morning. Took a couple o’ cans of Fabreze to clear that memory. I lock it at night now, most of the time.”
“Charlie, I’m here on official business,” Cirba said.
“Good, I thought I was going to have to deal with a blocked toilet at the lake house?”
“No, the toilets are fine.” Cirba looked to Harry to make sure that was true. Harry nodded. “Frank told us you were brokering a deal to sell the Thomson land to Keystone Drilling. Harry here said this came up in a conversation at the store and you said you couldn’t talk about it. You do realize, Charlie, if you have a confidentiality clause, it doesn’t pertain to me?”
“I spoke with Keystone today,” the mayor said. “The deal is off the table, so the clause is void: I can tell you anything you want.”
“Let’s start with the basics then. You offered Frank and Bill two million for their land?”
“No, it didn’t work like that. Keystone approached Frank about the mineral rights, and Frank came to me and asked what I thought. I looked into it and suggested that the land be sold outright.”
“Who did you suggest this to first?” Harry asked. “Keystone or Frank and Bill?”
“Keystone, then I brought it to Frank. I never told Billy.”
“Why not?” Harry asked.
“Firstly, I was working for Frank and didn’t have authority to speak to anyone else, and also I didn’t even know he was co-owner of the land at first. After that I left it to Frank to sort out the paperwork. I know from experience that Bill was not a fan of paperwork. Also, I didn’t think it was appropriate, me being his boss and landlord. Just thought I was too close to him to do that kind of deal. Truth is, when I found out he was on the deed I was torn. I knew if Billy got that kind of money he’d probably stop working for me, and I also worried that he might just blow it in a couple of months. I’ve seen how quick big money can make a man stupid.”
“You’d have gotten a pretty big commission on that deal, no?” Harry said.
“Yes.”
“Maybe fifty per cent?”
“No, absolutely not. I wasn’t out to rip off the boys.”
“But you would be making a million?” Harry said.
The mayor shrugged sheepishly. “Not quite, but close.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Cirba said.
The mayor nodded.
“Enough money to make you stupid?” Harry said.
“You mean stupid enough to kill Bill? Why would I do that? Bill’s death has screwed up the deal.”
“Yeah, but Bill didn’t want to sell,” Cirba said.
“Who told you that?”
“Frank.”
“I… I didn’t know that.”
“You didn’t know that Billy was against the deal?” Harry pressed.
“No. I only dealt with Frank, and it was early days. We only spoke on it a couple of times.”
“Where were you on Wednesday about 11 a.m.?” Cirba asked.
The mayor looked at both of them to see if they were serious and then swallowed hard. He manipulated the touchpad on his computer and said: “I was showing a house at Tamarack Lake.”
“What time?”
The mayor checked again and then thought. “It was supposed to be at eleven but he was late. We met up at eleven-thirty.”
“Does this he got a name?” Cirba asked and took the man’s name and number.
“Ice Lake to Tamarack Lake is what… forty-five minutes?” Cirba stated.
“Yeah, about that if you’re quick,” the mayor said.
“When was the last time you spoke to Bill?”
“I called him on the day about a cracked toilet seat that one of the renters had reported. He never fixed it.”
“There was no phone at his apartment.”
“I bought him one of those pay as you go phones so I could call him about stuff like the toilet seat.”
“Do you have the number?”
The mayor read it out, and Cirba wrote it down.
“Do you own a shotgun?” Cirba asked.
“No,” the mayor said, as if someone had just asked him a stupid question.
Harry leaned in and cleared his throat before he spoke. “Charlie, did you kill Bill Thomson?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Do you know anyone who wanted to harm him?”
“No,” the mayor said.
The investigators looked at each other, silently checking whether they were done, and stood.
“So what now? You gonna tell me not to leave town?” the mayor said with a forced chuckle.
Cirba said: “Charlie, you’ve got motive and, until your alibi checks out… yeah, don’t leave town.”
The mayor’s smile vanished. “I wouldn’t kill Billy. Ed, you gotta know that.”
Cirba, who had turned towards the door, stopped but didn’t look at the mayor. “For the time being, Charlie, I can’t think like that.”
* * *
Outside, Harry said: “Check that alibi.”
“I was planning to,” Cirba said. “Something in there send your spider sense tinglin’?”
“Just a little,” Harry said.