“Your house detective, as quickly as possible.”
“Of course, sir. If you’d like to have a seat.” She indicated a wing chair with Queen Anne legs.
“I don’t need a seat, I need your house detective. Right now!” He could be a real bastard when he needed to. This was one of those times.
She pulled a walkie-talkie from a drawer. “Chuck,” she called into it.
Sumner spent the next five minutes watching the door to the patio swing open and shut. The bar on the terrace was active, and dinner was already under way for the Saturday-night show on the outdoor ice rink. But all he saw was the world moving on without him.
The concierge caught him looking. “Scott Hamilton’s All-Stars,” she said, “best ice show of the summer. Would you like tickets?”
“No thank you,” he said, “just the house detective.” He didn’t want to make conversation. He checked his watch instead.
Chuck Webb filled out his navy blue sport coat to the point where it wouldn’t button. He had an agreeable face but a drinking man’s complexion.
Teddy Sumner passed him a hundred-dollar bill as the two shook hands. Webb gripped the bill but didn’t pocket it.
“There’s no need for that.” He pretended to hand it back, immediately cut short by Sumner’s raised hand.
“I have a seventeen-year-old daughter who thinks she’s twenty-six. She’s up in the suite, three twenty-seven. I wish I could say I trust her but I don’t. You have kids?”
“Two boys. A little younger than yours. We use an outfit called Super Sitters. The hotel, I’m talking about. Good people. Patricia can arrange it.” He looked back toward the concierge desk, a yard or two away.
“She’s supposed to join me at the wine auction,” Sumner said. “I’m betting otherwise. I need someone to keep an eye on her. If she leaves the room, I’d like to know about it. And if she doesn’t head over to the dinner, I need to know about that too.” He pursed his lips. “How about it?”
“I’m spread a little thin tonight,” Webb said. “I wish I could help out but-”
“You got cameras? If she doesn’t leave the room in the next fifteen minutes, I need to know. And if she does, then maybe you or one of your guys could just keep an eye on her long enough to make sure she’s headed to the dinner. Please?”
He fished for another bill but Webb stopped him.
“Room three twenty-seven,” Webb said. His left hand slid in his pant pocket and came back out empty.
“I appreciate it,” Sumner said.
“I’ll need a cell number.”
32
The Cherokee took the final turn, pulling past the golf shop and up to the entrance to the inn, where Walt stopped to collect himself.
The tent, set to seat six hundred for dinner, glowed like a giant white lightbulb fifty yards ahead of him. He viewed that distance as a gulf, an open and exposed area where he was a target.
The bottles were fakes. Remy’s best bet was to have them stolen prior to the auction and collect the insurance. Salvo and McGuiness were part of the team hired to steal them, Walt felt certain. But proving intent was impossible.
“You want to run that by me again?” Brandon said.
“Taking the lead guy into custody is more important than the bottles at this point.”
Brandon snorted. “Whatever you say, Sheriff.”
“I know that doesn’t feel right,” Walt said, “but the only way to link this back to Remy is to have George Clooney in custody. Arresting Salvo or McGuiness may not do it, but it would be a start. They probably don’t even know who Remy is, and it’s Remy we want.”
“But I don’t know how to be incompetent,” Brandon complained. “There’s no way these guys get these bottles.”
“We’ve got to make it look convincing. If they take the bottles, the bee will return to the hive.”
Walt had replaced the GPS device belonging to Branson Risk with his own. Branson’s was in the back of the Cherokee. The MC was tracking Walt’s, and he hoped to follow it to whoever was running the heist.
If there actually is a heist.
He waited for word from the MC that they had a good signal on the GPS. He was still trying to fit together the connection with the kid getting Tasered at the lumberyard in Bellevue. He couldn’t make sense of it but somehow believed it was connected to the heist.
“Here comes trouble,” Brandon said.
“Not now,” Walt said, spotting Gail storming toward the Cherokee. He knew that stride of hers, knew that look on her face. Was it for him or Brandon? He hoped like hell he hadn’t got the date wrong for the girls’ coming home.
“This is for me,” Brandon said.
“Well, send her packing. We don’t have time for this.”
Walt felt relieved. But he also understood the power Gail still wielded. How was that possible? How had he allowed such a thing to happen? For all his strengths, this woman’s reach was suddenly his glaring weakness. It just leaped out at him.
“You hear me?” Walt said.
“I get it, Sheriff,” Brandon snapped. His hand rested on the door handle, but he had not opened it.
Over the radio, the MC dispatcher said, “All set.”
Walt tripped the handset. “Roger that.”
“We’re rolling,” he said to Brandon. Gail was five feet from the car.
“Yes we are,” Brandon said.
Walt drove ahead. They both watched Gail in the rearview mirror as she threw her hands in the air and followed.
“I need you, Tommy. Don’t get caught up in this.”
“Ten-four,” Brandon replied hotly, his eyes never leaving the mirror.
Walt’s cell phone rang. The caller ID read CHUCK WEBB.
“I’ve got to take this,” Walt said, slowing the Cherokee to a stop, still a few yards from their destination alongside the tent.
“Shit!” Brandon snapped. He popped his door and climbed out. “Give me a second. I’ll handle this.”
Walt power-locked the car doors behind Brandon and answered the call, his eyes lighting on a dozen different locations. He felt absurdly vulnerable. The wine case, strapped in the backseat, suddenly felt like a bomb.
“Chuck?” Walt said into the phone.
“Listen, I know we’ve both got enough on our plates, but I’ve got a situation here.”
“Can it wait?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay.”
“It’s Kevin,” Webb said. “We’ve got a seventeen-year-old female guest who just left the hotel premises carrying a suitcase. She was picked up by Kevin, Walt. Your Kevin. His car, out back by the circle. Reason I know this is the girl’s father is over at the auction. He asked me to keep an eye on her. Considered her a flight risk. And now she’s flown. She’s a minor, pal, and that puts Kevin smack in the middle of aiding and abetting. And, beyond that, statutory-if you catch my drift. And this is one hot babe, so I doubt I’m really that far off.”
Blood pulsed so loudly in Walt’s ear, he switched the phone to the other side, thinking it might help. It didn’t. He could hardly hear.
Once again, he glanced at the attaché in the backseat.
“You there?” Webb asked.
“Yeah,” Walt answered.
Kevin would be nineteen in a few weeks. That was how the courts would see it. Webb was basically right.
“He drove off our property, or I’d offer to help,” Webb said.
“You have helped, Chuck, big-time. Thanks. I’ll get back to you.”
Walt ended the call. He caught sight of Brandon. Gail was tearing into him, one of her rants that could peel paint off the walls. Four of his deputies had formed a gauntlet into the tent.
He speed-dialed a number on his mobile phone. He waited. There was no answer.
He speed-dialed a second number, and was boiling mad by the time Myra answered.
“Myra? Goddamn it, Myra!”
“Walt, what is it?”
“What do you think it is, Myra? It’s Kevin. Again. He’s not answering his phone, and I need to speak to him.”