“Yes,” he said. “It was an Ontario plate, by the way.”
“I thought one of the men might be Canadian. So I’m not surprised. Did they trace the number yet?”
“I’m sure they have,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Maven about it?”
“I’ll do that. I’ll bring it up the next time we go out drinking together.”
“In any case, we lose both those men here. They probably just went over the bridge. I continue following the original driver. And here’s where I’ll start fast-forwarding a little bit. It’s just more of me following him.” He pushed the button and everything started flying past.
“You taped every second of you following him?”
“I didn’t want a break in the tape,” he said. “It’s a stronger document that way, in case it becomes evidence.”
I gave him a look. I had become absorbed in watching the tape, and had forgotten about the implications. Hearing the word ‘evidence’ brought it all back.
“Okay, here’s stop number two,” he said. “Recognize where we are?”
A huge building came into view, with a lot of lights and the distinctive triangular design on the roofline. “That’s the Kewadin Casino,” I said.
“Yes. We’re going to go to a private residence here, just a couple of blocks away.”
There was a street lined with houses, the Explorer turning into a driveway.
“I’m gonna pull up a few houses down, like I’m parking on the street. As you can see, the driver’s getting out to do something, but it won’t take long.”
It happened just as Leon said. The door opened, the driver got out, went to the side of the house, then returned to the vehicle and backed it out the driveway.
“You never got a good look at his face?” I said.
“Never did.”
“I don’t suppose I have to ask you whose house that was.”
“Gill LaMarche,” he said.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about what’s going to happen next.”
“I’ll fast-forward again,” he said. “This is a long haul, all the way out of town.”
“Just tell me, Leon. His next stop is Jackie’s?”
“That’s where he went next, yes. Do you want to see it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Keep going.”
We watched the whole trip in fast motion, out M-28 to M-123, all the way up to Paradise. He put it back to normal speed just as the Explorer hit town.
“What time was it at this point?” I said.
“Maybe midnight, or a little after.”
“So we’re still at Vargas’s house, talking to the police.”
The Explorer came to a stop in Jackie’s parking lot, over by the side where Jackie parks his own car. As the driver got out, he paused for a moment and looked around the place.
“You can almost see his face here,” I said. “Damn it, if there was only more light.”
“I think he’s getting a little spooked at this point,” Leon said. “It’s not easy to follow somebody all over Chippewa County.”
The man disappeared from view for a short time, maybe fifteen seconds. Then he was back in the vehicle and on his way.
“What did he just do there?” I said.
“It looks like he’s just dropping something off,” Leon said. “But that’s just what we’re assuming. We don’t actually see it happen.”
“If he did drop something off, he must have just left it on Jackie’s doorstep. He didn’t have time to go into the house.” Which didn’t seem to help Jackie too much, not if whatever was dropped off was found underneath his bed.
“I’m trying to be careful here,” he said, as both vehicles left Paradise and went back on the lonely stretch of road. “I don’t want to give myself away, so I’m staying back a little bit.”
“Where does Santa Claus go next?” I said.
“Well, a couple of things happen here. First of all, the tape runs out. Those little compact VHS tapes only hold so much. So we’re not going to see much of anything else here. In fact, right about now…”
The screen went blank.
“But you kept following him?”
“Yes, I did. But like I said, I gave him some more distance this time. A couple of other cars got between us. I lost him for a while, so I figured I’d go right back to O’Dell’s. When I got there, the Explorer was parked in the lot. But there was no sign of the driver.”
“The place was still open?”
“Yeah, I think it was around one-thirty.”
“Did you go inside and look around?”
“I did, yes. There might have been, I don’t know, ten or twelve men in there. But I had no idea who I was looking for.”
“Who was behind the bar? O’Dell’s wife? His son?”
“Both of them were. I knew it wasn’t either of them driving the car. It was definitely a man, for one thing. And O’Dell’s son is what, six foot six?”
“Thereabouts.”
“It wasn’t him.”
“So you gave this tape to Vargas when? Two days ago?”
“Yes. I told you-”
“It’s all right, Leon. You don’t have to give me the speech again. I understand, you did what you thought you had to do. You gave Vargas the tape, and I understand he asked you some questions about me.”
“You were on the list, Alex. You were there that night.”
“He thinks I was in on this,” I said. “He thinks I was the inside man. Did you know that?”
“That’s news to me,” he said. “I’ll have to persuade him otherwise.”
“While you’re persuading him, why don’t you persuade him that this whole thing was a setup? I’ll have to talk to Bennett about his vehicle, but I’m sure something’s not adding up there. And as for Jackie and Gill, hell, that guy could have just been planting evidence. Even if Jackie did take it into his house, so what? It’s an honest mistake. I still don’t even know what it was they found. That’ll be the first thing I ask him when I see him.”
“Who’d want to set them up like that?”
“Off the top of my head, how about Swanson? He knew about the safe, he knew Vargas would be there all night-hell, he’s already got his wife in a hotel room, why not make the evening complete? And because he’s not a complete fool, he makes it look like Bennett, Jackie, and Gill were behind it.”
“That seems a little far-fetched.”
“It’s less far-fetched than those three guys really doing it. What do you say we go talk to Swanson, and see how he reacts when we lay that on him? If he passes the test, we can try Kenny.”
“How are ‘we’ going to be doing anything, Alex?”
“I thought you might want to be my partner again,” I said. “Help me find out what really happened.”
“You mean, help undo the mess I’ve already made for your friends?”
I looked at him. “This isn’t about you, Leon. This is about Vargas. And about the police having the wrong guys in that jail.”
“Vargas is still my client, Alex.”
“Your client is probably a little pissed off that the police didn’t pick me up, too. I’m fighting back, Leon. Whose side are you gonna be on?”
“I want to get to the bottom of this, too,” he said. “I’m not on anybody’s side.”
“Meaning I’m on my own.”
“Hey, I showed you the tape, didn’t I?”
“Do one more thing,” I said. “Write down all the information you’ve got on Swanson and Kenny, will you? For God’s sake, what’s Kenny’s last name, anyway?”
“It’s Heiden.”
“I’m sure you’ve got their phone numbers. They’re on the master list of suspects, after all. Right under McKnight.”
“If you really want to talk to them, I can’t stop you.”
“And when you see your client today, give him a message for me, okay?”
“What’s that?”
“Tell him that whoever really ripped him off is laughing at all of us.”
Chapter Eleven
From Leon’s house, it was a twenty minute trip back to the City-County building in the Soo. I thought about him the whole way, what he had said, and not said. I had cost him his job once. Now that he had finally set himself up as a private investigator again, here I was asking him to dump his only paying customer. I suppose I couldn’t blame him for refusing to throw away his lifelong dream, even though I did feel like wringing his neck.