“Ms. Dial, I know you’d prefer mineral water or juice, of course. Detective Stride, what about you? Brandy?”
Stride nodded.
“I have an excellent brandy I think you’ll like,” Boni told Stride. He retired to the bar to pour a glass, as well as three fingers of whiskey for himself.
Stride took a sip. It seemed to melt on his tongue.
“Good, huh?” Boni asked.
“Outstanding.”
“Where’s Claire?” Serena asked.
“I thought she needed a break,” Boni said. “These last few days have been stressful for her. I flew her down to St. Thomas. She’ll be back soon.”
“I’d like to talk with her,” Serena said.
“Of course. I’ll give you the number for the resort before you go. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”
Stride took another sip of brandy. He wondered how this game was played. Who would start? How would they dance? What it really came down to was who would say the name first. It was foolish to pretend they didn’t all know what this was about.
As it turned out, Boni moved the first pawn.
“There’s someone here who would like to meet you,” he told them. “I bet you’d like to meet him, too.”
Stride heard a swish of movement behind them, and when he turned, he saw the silver-haired governor of Nevada joining them from one of the interior rooms of the suite.
“Mickey,” Boni called. “Come on in here. Meet those detectives who saved my neck.”
Mike Durand was tall and imposing. He was heavily suntanned, but his aging skin was tight and unblemished. A face-lift, probably, with laser surgery to burn off the blotches of sixty-five years. Capped teeth, too, that gave him a huge alabaster smile. He was dressed in a black tuxedo that practically glowed, and he already had a whiskey in his hand, twice the size of Boni’s. Stride also noticed something that he hadn’t spotted before when he saw the man on television or in photographs. Durand had the meanest, most cutthroat eyes he had ever seen, worse than any hardened criminal’s. He could smile as he slit your throat. A perfect politician.
Durand extended his hand. Stride and Serena didn’t smile back or try to shake hands, and Stride could see a barely contained fury in the governor’s face.
No more pretenses.
“I don’t think they’re going to keep this quiet,” Durand told Boni, as if they were alone in the room. “I thought you said you had this under control.”
Stride watched Boni and realized to his surprise that the old man hated Mickey Durand. There was undisguised contempt in his stare, as if Mickey were a parasite that fed off him, but one that had wrapped itself around his entrails until he couldn’t tell anymore where one organism ended and the other began. Kill one, kill them both.
“They’re police, Mickey,” Boni replied calmly. “Police don’t stop until they know the truth. So you and I, we’re going to tell them the truth. Then we can all put this behind us.”
“They’ll talk. Hell, they could be wired.”
Boni shook his head. “Ihave scanners in the foyer. They aren’t wired. As for talking, don’t worry. I think we can come to an arrangement that keeps us all happy.” He took a slug of whiskey and nodded at Stride. “You already know about Mickey. I know you talked to Moose. What else do you want to know?”
Stride looked at Durand. “Amira,” he said. “Why did you do it? We both know Boni put you up to it. What did he have on you back then?”
Durand didn’t answer. Boni interrupted smoothly. “I saved Mickey’s mother from some problems she was having with the district attorney. She was one of my casino employees. She murdered her sister when she found her in bed with her husband, and I got the charges dropped. So there were debts to be paid, you see. I was already putting Mickey through law school. I saw the kind of potential he had.”
Durand shrugged. “He really didn’t have to convince me, you know. Have you seen what Amira looked like? I would have volunteered.”
“Were you supposed to kill her?” Serena asked.
“No,” Boni said sharply, with another glance at Durand that suggested how much he loathed the relationship between them. “It was just supposed to be a lesson in loyalty.”
“She was afighter,”Durand said. “It was an accident.”
“An accident?” Serena retorted cynically. “Crushing her skull?”
“These days I guess we would call it rough sex,” Durand said, laughing.
“These days we call it rape and murder,” Serena told him coldly.
Stride saw that Boni wasn’t laughing. “I’m amazed you didn’t kill him for what he did.”
Boni took a moment to rein in his temper. “I’m a businessman, Detective. Sometimes you make difficult choices for the greater gain. Amira was already dead to me, and Mickey was a prime investment.” He added, with a glance at Durand, “But don’t think it didn’t occur to me.”
“We’re blood brothers,” Durand said, seemingly unconcerned with the powder keg that stood near him. “Both climbing the heights of power. It’s been a hell of aride. Congressional aide, state assembly, speaker, then governor. Who knows, maybe the Senate in two years. I love DC. And they’re making noises about tighter gaming regulations, all those fucking preachers.”
“What about Claire?” Serena asked. “Was raping her an accident, too?”
For the first time, Stride saw nervousness in Durand’s cold eyes. “That was miscommunication,” he murmured. “We had both been drinking. Boni knows I would never deliberately hurt her.”
Stride didn’t think Boni knew that at all. He wondered how far it went, being a businessman. Making difficult choices for the greater gain. Durand was a psychotic, and Boni had the keys to the cage. Stride saw Boni struggling with it, as he must have struggled his whole life. Tolerating the intolerable. He didn’t think Boni had lied to Claire. He had loved Amira, and this man had killed her. Had raped his daughter. All for power.
“You know the truth now” Boni told them, his voice tight. “It’s time to walk away.”
Silence lingered in the room. One of the lightbulbs in a lamp on the nearest desk flickered. Somewhere outside, in the darkness over the valley, Stride saw the blinking of a plane climbing from the city.
“What if we don’t?” Stride asked.
Boni sighed. “Let’s not go there.”
“Hypothetically,” Serena said.
“You can’t prove anything,” Boni reminded them. “You have no evidence. Your superiors won’t investigate. The two of you are smart enough to know how power works in this city. Sometimes you’re the fly, and sometimes you’re the swatter’
“We might go to the press,” Stride suggested.
Boni shrugged. “Don’t make me spell it out for you. You’d be discredited. Your lives would be ruined. I really don’t want to do that. I mean that sincerely, Detective. I respect you both, but things would come out.”
“Things?” Serena asked.
“Such as your sleeping with my daughter, Detective. In the middle of an investigation? It wouldn’t look good.”
Serena didn’t bother asking how he knew that. “You wouldn’t do that to Claire,” she said.
“Like I said, difficult choices. There’s more. You’d lose your jobs. Probably go to prison, too. Obstruction of justice.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Stride asked.
“I imagine the Minnesota police would be interested in how you resolved your last case. The murder of Rachel Deese and what really happened to her. So you wouldn’t be the only one to suffer, would you, Detective?”
Stride couldn’t help it. His mouth fell open in disbelief. How did he know? Then it was obvious. Boni had bugged their town home. He had been listening in on everything. Their secrets. Their sex. The investigation.
“So really, it would be better for all of us if this just remained a story that the four of us know about and no one else. Okay? Because that would just be the beginning. That would be just the things that are true. Once the media sinks its teeth into you, they’ll believe anything, won’t they? You know how it works.” Boni spread his hands.