The Killing Game(31)

“Do you know anyone else on the street that was friends with them?” September asked.

“I wasn’t around all that much. You could talk to Mr. Bromward. He’s been there forever.”

“He’s at the far end of the cul-de-sac from the Singletons.”

“He’s got cats,” Tynan said, making a face.

“We’ve met with him,” Gretchen said.

“Can you think of anything else about the Singletons?” September tried, realizing they’d about tapped him out.

He stared down at his now empty mug and shook his head. “Hey, Tim, I’m dry,” he called to a bald, overweight man with a Humpty Dumpty look about him. Tim waddled over, picked up the mug, and thrust it under a spigot of Budweiser.

Back in the Jeep, Gretchen shot September a look as she turned out of the lot.

“Maple Grove Assisted Living?”

“Do you think it’ll do any good?”

“Nope.”

September grimaced. “Should we make another run at Bromward? At least he wanted to talk to us.”

“Yeah, because he’s lonely, and he didn’t know anything. And no shit about the cats.”

“Lots of cats,” September agreed.

“A hundred.”

“Twenty,” September corrected.

“Twenty’ll turn into a hundred real quick unless he gets rid of some of them and gets the others fixed.”

September made a face. “Let’s go see him. Next week we can talk to Grace Myles.”

“An exercise in futility.”

“Probably, but we’ve interviewed most of the people on the street. Tynan was about our last one. A couple more of the husbands, but they’re too young and new to the area for me to have much faith in them knowing an elderly couple who kept to themselves.”

“What about the Chinese people?”

“What about them?” September responded. “Their daughter says they don’t know anything. They haven’t been there long enough to matter either. Where we are now is to the previous homeowners. I’ve talked to a couple. You’ve talked to a couple.”

“I really don’t want to see Bromward again,” Gretchen admitted on a long-suffering sigh. “I’m allergic to cats.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Okay. Fine. I just don’t want to go.”

“You’d rather go to Maple Grove Assisted Living?”

“I’d rather go back to Tiny Tim’s and drink a beer with Tynan,” she said under her breath, “but Aurora Lane and Mr. Bromward’s cats it is.”

*

Ray Bolchoy opened the door to Luke, then settled back in his brown leather La-Z-Boy and to the glass of Jameson he was nursing. Luke sat down on the couch, which could have used a deep clean. Bolchoy, a confirmed bachelor, was an excellent investigator, but a housekeeper? Not so much.

“How’s the private side?” Bolchoy asked in his gravelly voice.

“Coming on. Greg Wren’s widow just hired me.” He told Bolchoy about Andi’s encounter with Brian Carrera. He didn’t tell his former partner of her pregnancy, but he did relate what she’d said about her brother-and sister-in-law. He finished with, “I’m meeting her tomorrow at the cabin she just bought on Schultz Lake.”

His answer to that was a grunt.

Luke added, “Glad the hearing went well.”

“Don’t have my job back, though.”

There was nothing to say to that. They both knew he’d pissed off the department enough over the years for a re-hirement to be unlikely.

Bolchoy lifted his glass toward Luke, silently asking if he wanted a drink. Luke shook his head. “The night before the hearing, Amberson, Yates, DeSantos, and I went out. Iris showed up, too.”

He shot Luke a look. “You back with her?”

“No.” Luke was firm.

“Bet she isn’t pleased about the hearing.” He offered up a thin smile. “Corkland wanted me to go down for this.”

“He didn’t have enough evidence.”

“Yeah, but he leans toward the Carreras.”

“The DA?”

“He doesn’t like going up against ’em. Knows they’re dirty, but he’s a chickenshit. If I’d managed to actually get something on ’em, he’d be in a real hard place.”

“Do they have something on Corkland?”

“Nah. Corkland just has no spine. Iris has more than he does, but she thinks sunshine beams shoot out of the guy’s ass. He can do no wrong.” He downed the rest of his drink. “But you came here for information on taking down the Carerras.”

“I’ve tried to contact Peg Bellows, but so far she hasn’t gotten back to me. Where did she land after everything? She and Ted were friends with the Carreras, or at least they thought so, initially.”

“That’s what she says,” Bolchoy agreed sourly.

Luke knew the story of Ted Bellows’s death, but he wanted to refresh his memory before he contacted Bellows’s widow. “Ted Bellows died on a fishing trip. The Carreras chartered a boat out of Tillamook Bay that was destroyed by a sudden squall. Coast Guard got to the wreckage and saved the captain and crew member, but one of the Carreras and Ted were on an inflatable, and when that turned up, only Carrera was on board.”