Brody & Hannigan 02 - Grand Theft Lotto Read online

  Hannigan slanted a quick look Brody's way before asking, "Did he mention what he did for lunch?"

  "Uh, some family thing, I think he said. I kinda wonder if he wasn't shining me on about that, though, 'cause he had this sort of smug look when he mentioned it, like he had a secret."

  A secret like jacking his cousin's winning lottery ticket? Brody wondered. He supposed it was possible that Dwayne was merely smug because he knew something Cooley didn't. It wasn't fair, in absence of evidence, to presume the man guilty of theft when he wasn't alive to defend himself. It also wasn't wise, as an investigator, to close the door on the case when the ticket still hadn't been found.

  "Was he with anyone else?" Hannigan asked.

  "Not in here. I didn't see his car, though." Cooley shook his head. "Dude, this is so messed up."

  Hannigan sucked in a deep, sharp breath and let it go slowly, looking pointedly at Brody. He nodded and stood, pulling a business card from his jacket pocket and handing it to the man. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Cooley. If we have any more questions, we'll let you know. And if you think of anything, or hear anything you think might interest us, give me a call at the number on that card."

  Outside, Hannigan waited for him to unlock the door of the department-issue Ford, her arms folded and her expression somewhere between thoughtful and frustrated. "You'd think if he stole the ticket, he'd have told his best friend."

  "So maybe he didn't steal it."

  "He was the most likely person on that list Mom gave us."

  "But there were other possibles, right?" He unlocked the door. Sliding behind the wheel, he grimaced at the built-up heat inside. They were already entering the latter part of September, but summer seemed determined to stick around in all its sultriness. He cranked the engine and turned the air up to high.

  Hannigan angled the passenger-side vents toward her. "I'll be glad when it starts feeling like fall."

  He eyed her neat cotton suit. "You could take off the jacket."

  She glanced his way. "You weren't kidding about wanting to see me naked, were you?" She said it lightly, but the words brought back memories of his sleepless night on her sofa.

  By the time she had gone to bed the previous evening, he'd been no closer to knowing whether she thought they could change the tenor of their relationship. She'd softened, yes, even kissing him as they'd cuddled on the sofa. But she'd kept things light. Kept the heat on low.

  And he'd let her, because she'd lost her cousin and she was clearly feeling unsettled. But how much longer did he plan to play the role of platonic lover?

  "Who's next on the list?" he asked as he eased into traffic.

  Hannigan consulted her list. "Jeff Bennington."

  "Related to you?"

  "Cousin. About twice removed. I think he's my grandmother's cousin's grandson."

  "You take the extended family thing pretty seriously in the Hannigan family."

  "You Brodys don't?"

  He didn't have a lot of cousins. His mother had only a brother and his father a sister. Each of them had two children. Two girls on his father's side and a boy and a girl on his mother's. "I have four cousins. Three women, one man. None of them particularly close."

  She gave him a mildly pitying look, though she smiled when she said, "No wonder you have money in your family. You haven't diluted the inheritance pool."

  He didn't tell her that, as the only male left in the direct lineage on his father's side, he was under subtle pressure to carry on the family name. He didn't want her to think his sudden sexual interest in her had procreative motives. Babies were the last thing he thought about when he looked at her these days.

  "What kind of rap sheet on Bennington?"

  "Minor stuff. Drunk and disorderly. Disturbing the peace. Shoplifting." She sighed. "I come from a lovely family."

  "You can't pick your relations."

  "Some of them are great people, really." She consulted her phone. "I don't have Jeff's contact information. I'll have to call someone." She dialed a number, had a brief conversation and jotted something on the back of the list her mother had given her. "He's on workman's comp. Tilly says there's some question as to whether he's milking it a bit."

  "What happened to him?"

  "Strained back. He works at a grocery store as a stocker. Been off for two weeks."

  "How did he and Dwayne get along?"

  "Sometimes they'd get along fine. Sometimes you had to break them apart with a fire hose."

  Relationships in his own extended family were less volatile, but it was hard to rouse any strong feelings for people you didn't see for years at a time. His cousins on his father's side all lived within an hour's drive, but he hadn't seen either of the girls in about three years. They were both married, both carrying on the gene pool if not the family name. His mother was fond of reminding him that both were younger than he was.

  On the whole, he found a certain attractiveness to the Hannigan style of family relationships, fisticuffs and all. At least they saw each other now and then. He couldn't even remember either of his cousins' married names.

  Hannigan directed him to a boxy apartment complex just across the railroad tracks from Marie Barlow's house. Maybe four flat blocks of only moderately busy side streets between Jeff Bennington's apartment and his cousin Dwayne's last place of residence. And less than a mile from the dark alley where Dwayne had breathed his last. Walking distance, Brody thought. Not exactly an indictment against Bennington, but interesting, nonetheless.

  He mentioned the proximity to Hannigan. "Your mother lives on this side of town, too."

  "Yeah. My parents were the first to come to Weatherford. Several of her cousins followed."

  "On purpose or just coincidence?"

  "Everyone claims the latter, but I suspect the former," she admitted. "My parents weren't rich, by any means. But they got by, somehow. They didn't have to beg or steal, which put them better off than most of my maternal relatives. I guess some of her cousins thought they could find a better life in a little bit bigger place, so they left the mountain and headed here. I remember when I was younger—" She stopped short, her brow furrowed.

  "You remember—?" he prodded.

  Her lips quirked, not quite forming a smile. "I remember when we were little, we had relatives drop in to stay for a few days at a time. Someone was always being evicted or couldn't pay the power bill or the water bill. And they'd come stay with us for a few days, until my dad had his fill and told them to go find somewhere else to stay."

  "Your mom's too softhearted for her own good?"

  "She likes you, after all." She pulled a face, making him smile.

  Jeff Bennington answered the door after several sharp raps, squinting as daylight hit his bloodshot eyes. He smelled like beer and old cigarettes, and he hadn't bothered to don any clothing, greeting them in sagging, formerly-white jockey shorts and a pair of white crew socks. He grimaced when he saw Hannigan. "God."

  "Nice outfit, Jeff. That how you greet all your visitors?"

  "I don't know who killed Dwayne."

  Hannigan glanced at Brody, then shifted her gaze back to her cousin's scrunched-up face. "Go get dressed. We'll wait in here." She pushed past Jeff, nearly knocking him over. He staggered off down a short, narrow hall while Hannigan surveyed the cluttered living room with a slight curl of her lip. The place was, to be generous, a pigsty, but she managed to clear off a couple of sofa cushions and took a seat.

  Brody stayed on his feet, looking out the grimy front window at the parking lot. "What does Jeff drive?"

  "No idea," Hannigan admitted.

  "Volkswagen Beetle," Jeff answered. "Why?"

  Brody turned. Jeff had donned faded jeans and a Harley Davidson T-shirt. He'd also run a comb through his wavy brown hair, though he still looked as if he'd been up all night drinking.

  "We're looking for a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle that was at the scene of Dwayne's murder," Hannigan answered.

  "My last motorcycle was one of thos
e cheap-ass Honda dirt bikes me and Jimmy bought together back in high school," Jeff said. If he was insulted by the implication that he was a suspect, he didn't show it. "Becky called last night to tell me about Dwayne. Sucks, man."

  "Where were you yesterday afternoon around two?"

  Jeff rolled his gaze toward Brody. "Look, I get you gotta ask these questions, but I didn't have nothin' against Dwayne. Didn't see a whole lot of him in the last few weeks, to tell the truth. He'd been hard to find. Seemed to be hangin' out with a different bunch."

  "Oh?" Hannigan nudged.

  "Yeah, some guy he met at the gym where he worked out."

  Brody glanced at Hannigan. Dwayne Barlow hadn't looked much like a man who spent any time working out at a gym. "What gym?"

  "Dunno." Jeff shrugged. "All I know is, every time I called him to see if he wanted to go to Bug Swallows or wherever, he always told me he was goin' somewhere with a guy from the gym."

  "You never did say where you were yesterday around two," Hannigan noted, her tone non-threatening.

  Jeff shot her a lopsided grin. "I was with a girl. Tammy DeMarco, over on Seventh Street. She works at the hardware store on Fifth—she's probably there now. She ain't supposed to get off until six tonight."

  Hannigan got up from the sofa, shooting another look at Brody. She moved toward the door and pulled out her phone.

  "Were you and Dwayne close?" Brody asked Jeff, distracting him.

  "Yeah, I guess. Before he joined that gym."

  "What was he into?"

  Jeff's eyes narrowed with confusion. "Into?"

  "You know. What did he do when he wasn't working?"

  Jeff laughed. "Working? Dwayne wasn't much for working."

  "How'd he afford a gym membership?"

  His brow furrowing, as if the question hadn't occurred to him, he shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe he made some sort of deal with the gym people."

  "What kind of deal?"

  Jeff didn't answer right away.

  "I'm a homicide detective, Jeff," Brody said. "I don't care about any other offenses. And now that Dwayne's gone, there's not much point in trying to protect him."

  "I don't know. Honest. He was kinda secretive this last little while."

  "What was he into before?" Hannigan asked. She shot a quick look at Brody, telling him without words that she'd verified Jeff's alibi with Tammy DeMarco. "Same as last time?"

  "I don't know," Jeff repeated. "But whatever it was, it must have been pretty big for him to hide it from me. He used to let me know what he was up to, in case I wanted in on it. Not that I ever did. Much."

  "Were you at the cousins' get-together last Wednesday?"

  Jeff grimaced. "Gawd, no."

  A quick call to Hannigan's mother when they returned to the car confirmed Jeff's answer. "He wasn't there," Hannigan told Brody as she hung up. "So, I wonder just what Dwayne was up to at the gym?"

  "Do you think there was a gym at all?" Brody asked. "Dwayne didn't exactly look like the kind of guy who pumped much iron."

  "Maybe one of the local gyms is a cover for something." Hannigan dialed another number, waited a second, then said, "Hey, Greg."

  Brody's stomach dipped. Greg? As in Greg Kowalski, the head of Vice.

  As in, Hannigan's ex?

  "What do you know about gyms that might be a front for a criminal enterprise?" Hannigan listened for a minute, then laughed. Brody grimaced, wondering what the Vice hotshot had said that was so bloody funny as to make his usually serious partner giggle like a girl.

  "Wow, that many, huh?"

  Brody tightened his grip on the steering wheel, backing out of the parking slip. He jerked out of Reverse into Drive, drawing a questioning look from Hannigan.

  "Okay, thanks Greg." As Brody looked her way again, she actually flushed pink. "Shut up, Greg." A hint of a smile curving her lips, she hung up and looked forward, not meeting Brody's gaze.

  He forced his eyes back to the road. "What did Kowalski say?"

  "There are three gyms they've been keeping an eye on. One of them, The Body Shop, is over on Silor Avenue."

  He arched his eyebrows. "That's three blocks from here. And two blocks from the alley."

  "He says they're keeping an eye on the place for possible fraud. Seems that Narcotics had raided the place, looking for illegal steroids, but what they found instead was a whole lot of saline solution in unmarked vials."

  "So they were shooting people up with saline, but selling it to them as steroids?"

  "Nobody admitted it, but yeah, that was the deal. But since they didn't catch anyone in the act, and there's no law against owning salt water—" She shrugged. "Wonder what Dwayne had to do with it?"

  "We don't know that this is the gym Dwayne was talking about," Brody pointed out. "And even if it was, Dwayne might not have been in on the scam. He could have been a dupe."

  "Only one way to find out," Hannigan said. "Let's go to the gym."

  Chapter Seven

  The Body Shop wasn't the high tech, shiny commercial gym that most urban consumers were used to. It was little more than a couple of boxing rings, a wall full of free weights, and about six well-worn weight benches equipped with barbells of varying sizes.

  Most of the action seemed to be concentrated on the boxing rings when Hannigan entered through the glass-front entryway. The sparring faltered slowly to a stop as the gym's occupants began to take notice of the new arrivals.

  Hannigan pulled her credentials from her jacket pocket. "Detectives Hannigan and Brody from the Weatherford Police Department. Who's in charge?"

  The gym-goers didn't meet their eyes, nor look in any particular direction. Finally, from next to one of the rings in the back of the room, a short, lean-muscled man with dark skin and a blond Fu Manchu mustache walked with a slightly bow-legged swagger to the front of the gym.

  "Can I help you, officers?"

  "Detectives," Hannigan corrected, her voice firm but not confrontational. "Are you the proprietor?"

  The man with the mustache grinned at the word choice. "I manage the place."

  "Do you own it?" Brody asked.

  The gym manager's brown eyes snapped up to Brody's face. "No."

  "Who does?"

  "I don't know," the man answered.

  Hannigan brought out her notebook. "Your name?"

  "Anton."

  "First or last?"

  "Anton Jones."

  Hannigan flashed a quick glance at Brody. His eyebrows twitched upward.

  "Do you have any identification?" she asked Anton Jones.

  "Is there something wrong, offi—detectives?"

  Brody pulled out a photograph of Dwayne Barlow that Marie had given them before they left her house the day before. "This man was a member."

  Anton shook his head.

  "He wasn't a member?" Hannigan pressed.

  "We don't have members," Anton answered with a smug grin, his gaze taking in Brody's expensive suit and silk tie. "Believe me, Poindexter, this ain't your daddy's gym."

  "People don't have to pay to use the equipment and facilities?" Brody pressed.

  Anton laughed aloud. "Facilities? You mean the rings and the benches? Yeah, people pay. Cover charge of two bucks, plus a dollar for each set of equipment used." He pointed toward the window behind them. "I believe you two owe me four bucks just for walking in here."

  Hannigan looked at the window and saw, painted in temporary window paint, "Two dollar cover charge. Don't come in without the cash."

  "Got it," Brody murmured, fishing four dollars from his wallet and handing it to Anton.

  "You never did show me any identification," Hannigan said.

  Anton shoved the four dollars into the pocket of his boxing shorts and looked at her, giving her a thorough visual once-over. "No, I didn't."

  "Reckon you could do it now?" she asked, letting her redneck accent come out to play a little. She saw Anton's eyes widen slightly at the twang.

  His lip curling in a half smile, he nodded his h
ead for them to follow him and head for a narrow door in the side of the main room. Through the door sat a small, cluttered office with a single desk, a phone and two banged-up metal file cabinets against the wall. Anton closed the door behind him and reached into the drawer of the desk and produced a worn, brown leather wallet. He plucked an Alabama driver's license from inside the fat wallet and handed it to Hannigan.

  "There you go, gorgeous."

  The driver's license did, indeed, give his name as Anton Jones. Hannigan handed the I.D. back to him. "Were you here when the police raided the place looking for steroids?"

  "No, I was not," Anton said firmly. "That was the previous manager. Which is why he's the previous manager."

  "Do you know a man named Dwayne Barlow?"

  Anton hesitated before answering. "I'm not great with names."

  Hannigan pulled the photo of her cousin from Brody's hand and showed it to Anton again. "This guy?"

  "Oh, him. Yeah, he comes around some. Not a lot. I think maybe he came around more before I was made manager." Anton shrugged and handed the photo back to her. "I got the feeling he wasn't much interested in body building."

  "Then why did he come here?" Brody asked.

  "I don't really know." Anton glanced over his shoulder, his brow furrowed as if he was contemplating something. The wrinkles in his forehead cleared, and he turned back to look at them. "You should talk to Sully. He's been coming to this gym for years. He might know more about your man Barlow."

  "Which one is Sully?" Hannigan asked.

  Anton nodded his head toward a tall, well-built man working a weight bag hanging from the ceiling near the back of the gym. "Cade Sullivan. Goes by Sully. Used to be a Golden Glove, back in the day. Teaches boxing to intermediate fighters. None of that kickboxing, girly shit. Hard-knuckle stuff." Anton's gaze slid over Hannigan, a faint smile twitching his lips. "He'll like you, sweetheart. He likes them small and tough."

  Hannigan shot Brody a look, taking a certain amount of feminine satisfaction from his scowling glare at Anton. She gave the sleeve of his jacket a tug and headed across the gym. Brody paused just long enough to pull out his business card and hand it to Anton. "If you come across any information regarding Dwayne Barlow, give me a call."