19. Saint
The sun was just starting to dip low in the sky, the air turning chilly, as they reached the job site. It was near deserted at this time of day, though a few men milled around in their vests and hard hats, some sitting on equipment, while others were chucking materials into a large dumpster-like container.
Saint’s nose twitched as the pungent scents had his head swimming a little. Sites like this always had a distinctive smell, like motor oil and diesel fumes. Something about it triggered memories he had no interest in reliving.
“What do we do?” Binnie asked, pulling him out of his head. “None of those guys look really chatty.”
Saint nodded towards a portable trailer that had clearly been put there strictly for the duration of the build. There was a light glowing from the windows and the shadow of a man leaning over something within.
They quietly made their way over, Saint rapping his knuckles on the door before someone barked out a terse, “Yeah?”
They exchanged looks, then shrugged. Saint pulled open the flimsy door, and the scent of burnt coffee smacked him in the face as they entered. A middle-aged man with thinning brown hair, jowls, and thin lips stood in front of a table that seemed to consist of two sawhorses and a large piece of plywood. He wore a button-down that had probably once been white and a pair of ill-fitting khakis. He leaned over blueprints that covered the majority of the surface.
Saint took in the rest of the space. A large, cheap desk sat at the farthest end of the trailer, covered in enough papers to hide the top entirely, with a leather chair someone had patched up with silver tape sat behind it. The coffee Saint had smelled when they entered came from a pot that sat on one of those white portable tables people saved for birthday parties and church socials.
The walls were covered with two white boards with barely legible scrawl about project timelines surrounded by electrical plans, site plans, surveys, plumbing and mechanical drawings, even landscaping plans someone had marked in several different shades of highlighters. On the desk was a name plate that read Jeremy Adamski, Project Manager.
“Who are you?” Adamski asked, his confusion obvious by the heavy knit of his brows.
Binnie nodded for Saint to take the lead. He fought not to roll his eyes. “I’m Saint, this is Binnie. We were hoping to ask you some questions about Dutch Maren’s death.”
Adamski stood up straight. “What about it? Nothing to do with me or the company. We’re a hundred percent compliant with OSHA.”
“Oh, no. We know that,” Binnie said quickly. “We know he seemingly died during an unfortunate road rage incident.”
Adamski narrowed his eyes at them. “Seemingly? If you know it’s got nothing to do with the job, why are you here? Who are you? Cops?”
Saint shook his head. There was no way this guy was going to answer questions if he thought they weren’t there on some kind of official business. But cops had badges. They did not. “No, sir. We’re private investigators. His son hired us to look into the incident since the police appear to have no leads.”
Adamski snorted. “And you think you can track down this shooter when the cops can’t?”
“We don’t think anything, sir,” Saint said. “We’re just doing our job.”
“Besides, we’re not bound to the same…restrictions as the police are,” Binnie offered, then, almost like an afterthought, asked, “Have the cops come to talk to you?”
The other man grunted out what sounded like a no.
Binnie looked at Saint then back to Adamski. “So…can we ask you a few questions about him?”
He heaved a sigh, turning away from them to cross to his desk, walking behind it and collapsing in his chair. “You can ask. Not sure what I can tell you.”
“How well did you know Dutch Maren?”
Adamski shrugged. “As well as I know any of my employees. He was a great foreman but a shit human.”
“We’ve heard the same. You didn’t have any issues with him on any of the jobs?” Saint asked.
Adamski shook his head. “We got into it once about three years ago when he showed up shit-faced on the job. He was suspended for a week without pay. It never happened again. He got into the occasional fight with a vendor or a sub-contractor but that happens pretty often in this line of work. Nothing that ever got physical.”
“Do you know of anyone in his personal life who might have had issues with him?”
“What do you mean? You think he knew the guy who shot him?”
This time, it was Binnie who shrugged. “Some people just think that the circumstances of the case warrant further investigation. Some feel it looks like the assailant may have been a…pro.”
The older man blinked at them. “Are you saying this may have been a hit?”
“We aren’t saying anything,” Saint assured him. “We’re just covering all bases. Do you know anyone in his personal life who may have wanted to cause him harm? Or maybe you may have heard others talking about him?”
Adamski huffed out a breath. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Was Dutch an asshole? Yeah, absolutely. He was a drinker. A gambler. He loved to argue. He was a bully. He intimidated others into doing things his way. He didn’t like pushback, even from me, and I was his boss.” He waved a hand vaguely. “But that’s nothing new in this line of work or in this neighborhood. But nobody around here could afford to hire a hitman. Not one who’s good enough to go undetected anyway.”
“Had he fought with anyone lately?” Binnie asked. “Either on the job or maybe even in his personal life?”
Adamski started to shake his head, then stopped, looking up at them. “What’s lately?”
“Say, the last couple of months,” Saint supplied, unsure of what a reasonable timeframe might be.
The man hesitated, like he wasn’t sure what he had to say was worth telling or not. “I didn’t see this myself, but a couple months back, I overheard the guys talking about Dutch getting into it with a couple of suits. The guys thought they were probably cops—detectives, maybe. But I don’t know the details.”
Saint’s heart beat a bit faster. “Do you remember which guys were talking?”
Adamski gave a nod. “Yeah, Mikey Demmings and J.J. Kroger.”
“Do you know where we can find these guys?” Binnie asked.
Adamski checked his watch. “At six-thirty on a weekday? Mikey will be drinking at the Legion hall with his military buddies. Kroger’s probably holding court at the bar across the street with some of the other guys.”
“Think Kroger will talk to us?”
“J.J.? Probably, yeah. The problem might be shutting him up. But if you don’t get there soon, he’s gonna be too shit-faced for you to get any real information out of him. He seems to be gunning for Dutch’s position as town drunk.”
Saint and Binnie exchanged looks once more before Binnie said, “Thanks for your help.”
“Yeah, sure thing.”
Once they were outside, Binnie said, “We’re gonna go talk to this Kroger guy, right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Luckily, there was only one bar across the street, which was squished between a vape shop and a laundromat. It had a sign with a picture of an overflowing beer and peeling letters on the front window in green that spelled out Fosters Too. Fosters Too? Not Fosters Two? That was weird. The minor detail scratched at Saint’s brain. It was a stupid name for a bar.
It had the usual weekday bar crowd. There were people in business casual at the bar as well as those wearing jerseys or t-shirts who were clearly there to watch the game on one of the ten or so televisions set up around the place. Spotting the construction workers was easy. Some still wore their orange vests, others had them next to them or on the table beside their drinks.
There were only about six men in all: four clustered around a table while two played darts. They paid no attention to Saint or Binnie as they approached, the occasional overly loud laugh piercing the air. When the men finally noticed them standing there, the four instantly grew hostile. Alphas. They wore scent blockers, but Saint didn’t need his nose to recognize four assholes guarding what they considered their territory.
Saint recognized three of the men from the memorial the night before. He really didn’t want to get into a public fight, but he could feel the agitation rolling off them in waves.
“One of you Kroger?” Saint asked, keeping his tone neutral but staring down the man who seemed to be their leader, letting him know he was fully prepared to take this outside if necessary. Binnie closed ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.
A tall, lanky man with a scraggly brown ponytail sneered at Saint. “Who’s asking?”
Saint pointed to himself. “I’m Saint. This is Binnie. We were hoping we could ask you a few questions.”
“What kind of name is Saint?” the guy with auburn hair and a ruddy complexion asked, words already slightly mushy, most likely from the almost empty beer in front of him.
Saint needed to deal with this before they closed ranks and iced him and Binnie out as outsiders. “A nickname. 10th Mountain Division. Two tours.”
The men gave him a look of begrudging respect, sitting up a bit, looking at each other like they were conferring silently.
“What do you wanna talk to J.J. about?” the older black man with a mole on his right cheek and patchy facial hair asked, gaze darting to another man in the corner.
The one who’d still yet to speak. He wore a backwards snapback and a wary expression, watching them closely.
“Dutch Maren.”
Ball cap scoffed. “Dutch is dead.”
Binnie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we know. His kid hired us to look into his death.”
Ball cap barked out a laugh. “Who? Ritchie Rich and his fancy pants girlfriend?”
Saint eyed him cautiously. “Kroger, I presume?”
The guy in the ball cap shrugged. “Yeah, that’s me.” He pointed to the auburn-haired man. “O’Donnell.” Then the man with the patchy facial hair. “Darnell.” Then the man with the ponytail. “Whitey.” When he met their gaze again, he said, “What do you want?”
“Who’s Ritchie Rich?” Saint asked, though both he and Binnie knew they could only be talking about one couple.
“Junior and his girlfriend with the rich daddy. He’s the only one who could afford to hire his own PIs. You are PIs, right? You’re definitely not cops.”
Saint had no idea what about them made them “definitely not cops” but he just nodded. “We were talking to your boss, Adamski, and he mentioned that you and Mikey had witnessed Dutch getting into it with a couple of guys in suits? Can you tell us about that?”
Kroger snorted, throwing back about two fingers worth of cheap whiskey in one go. Binnie winced beside him. “Why not just ask your client?”
Binnie frowned. “What do you mean?”
Kroger looked to O’Donnell and then nodded towards the bar, shaking his empty glass. The man hopped up, jogging away, presumably to refill his drink. “We weren’t close enough to hear anything. We just saw Dutch going at it with them. He said those suits came from Bas’s company.”
“From Veritas?” Binnie asked, struggling to keep his voice neutral.
Kroger nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
“What would they want with Dutch?” Saint asked, almost to himself.
Kroger shook his head. “No clue. At first, I thought maybe they were doing some kind of background check on the kid now that he has his fancy pants job title to match his fancy pants doctor girlfriend, but Dutch told us to mind our business. Which was weird ‘cause normally you couldn’t shut the asshole up.”
“Maybe he was a volunteer?” Whitey said. “Lots of people in the neighborhood make extra money volunteering for their research projects.”
Binnie and Saint exchanged looks once more. “What kind of research?”
Whitey shrugged. “Fuck if I know. I just know Dutch always had needle marks on his arms. At first, I thought he was a junkie, then I thought maybe he was sick. He just said he donated blood. But lots of people get money from Veritas and they have those same track marks from the injections.”
“Did he donate that blood to Bas’s company?” Binnie asked, trying to connect the dots in real time.
“I don’t think so. Those suit guys seemed real pissed when Dutch told them to fuck off. He was ranting about how Bas couldn’t even be bothered to come himself. How he’d sent some Men in Black types instead,” Kroger said.
O’Donnell returned, dropping another glass of whiskey in front of Kroger before doling out the beers in his other hand.
Saint looked at Whitey. “Do you know anyone who was a test subject at Veritas? Someone who might be willing to talk to us?”
“What does Veritas have to do with Dutch’s death? I don’t think refusing to participate in some kind of clinical trial or Bas’s background check would warrant a bullet to the face,” Kroger said, taking another heavy swallow.
“Dutch thought that girl was bad news,” O’Donnell volunteered. “I wouldn’t put anything past rich folk. He said Bas was a dumbass and a sell-out, said he was whipped for that broad he was marrying. That he wasn’t his kid anymore or some shit. But he was always disowning one of them or another. God knows he had plenty to spare.”
Saint let that marinate. Maybe it was a background check? He couldn’t imagine that, even if Win’s father accepted Bas, he was willing to risk his fortune somehow falling into the hands of someone like Dutch Maren. Maybe this was all nothing.
But it didn’t feel like nothing.
“Did he say anything else that might give us an idea of what they wanted?” Binnie asked, clearly also trying to follow the breadcrumbs.
“Don’t you work for the brat?” Kroger asked. “Just ask him.”
Saint shook his head. “No, we don’t. We work for one of his other sons.”
Kroger frowned. “One of his other sons? Which one? None of them would dare spend Dutch’s life insurance on some private dicks so they could investigate a random road rage attack. He’d roll over in his urn. He would have thought it was a waste of money.”
Saint wasn’t going to say who it was at first, but then he played a hunch. “It was his youngest. He’s paying out of pocket.”
That shocked the four men. Whitey seemed the most surprised. “Dekey? No shit. Last I heard, the kid was missing? Or had runaway. Dutch said he’d disappeared and blocked them all. Was real upset about it.”
“He was?” Binnie choked out, incredulous.
They all gave him weird looks.
“Mm,” Kroger said, looking at the others, who all bobbed their heads in agreement. “We were surprised, too. He had a weird relationship with the kid. He used to brag about him, just like he did Bas. But as he got older and went unpresented, he started calling him a pansy, saying he was useless. Made fun of him wearing makeup.”
“All that changed when Dekey took off, though,” Whitey said. “The longer he stayed away, the more worried Dutch got. He even sent the older boys looking for him, but he’d just…disappeared without a trace.”
Binnie frowned. “Dutch was worried… about Deke ?”
O’Donnell nodded. “He was…agitated when he didn’t come back. Got more and more pissed the longer he was gone. He wasn’t so much worried about his safety as he was his retirement fund.”
Binnie scowled. “His retirement fund?”
They all nodded.
“That’s what he called him. Not to his face, but, you know, to us,” Kroger confided.
“How would a twenty-two-year-old kid have his retirement fund?” Binnie asked.
Kroger took another sip, slumping back in the booth. “No idea. Just figured it was because the kid wanted to be an actor. Thought maybe he was banking on him being a success. But to be honest, that wasn’t really Dutch’s style.”
Saint and Binnie stood there as the men continued to drink. Finally, Binnie just said, “Can you think of any reason someone might want Dutch dead?”
They all shook their heads in unison. “The guy was a mean drunk but he was harmless, relatively speaking. No worse than half the other assholes hanging around here.”
“You talking about Dutch?”
They turned to see a heavy-set guy in a stained neon green t-shirt that clashed with his orange vest. He was bald and broad, built like a tank despite his rounded belly. Saint recognized him vaguely as the man who was tossing heavy concrete blocks onto a flatbed truck across the street.
“Yeah,” Saint said. “Did you know him?”
The man scoffed. “He was my boss off and on for, like, ten years. We weren’t braiding each other’s hair like these fuck wads,” he said, waving his hands at the four around the table, “but we talked.”
“Can you tell us anything?” Binnie asked.
The man snorted, giving a boisterous laugh. “Yeah, the guy was a kook.”
“Fuck off, Bristol,” Kroger sneered.
Saint ignored the other man, giving his full attention to Bristol. “A kook? Dutch?”
Dutch Maren didn’t seem like the kind of person one would call a kook. Crazy, sure. Psycho, even, maybe. But a kook implied a whole different type of mental illness.
Bristol looked at the other four men. “You didn’t tell them?” When they just glowered at him, he gave another laugh, then looked at Saint and Binnie. “Yeah, get a few drinks in him and he’d start rambling on about the supernatural. Myths and legends and all that shit.”
The hairs on the back of Saint’s neck stood on end. “What kind of legends?”
Bristol crossed his arms over his massive chest. “He used to ramble on about royal bloodlines and how his family was descended from an ancient line of shapeshifters or some shit.”
“Shapeshifters?” Binnie echoed dully.
Bristol nodded, his amusement obvious. “Yeah, he called it his genetic legacy.”
Genetic legacy? “What the fuck does that even mean?” Saint asked, not sure if he should be relieved or concerned when the others seemed just as lost.
“Not a clue, man. He was a drunk with a vivid imagination. He wasn’t the first dominant alpha who tried to claim some bizarre lineage that made them seem more important,” Bristol reasoned.
Saint gave a begrudging nod. He wasn’t wrong. Their murky origins had caused some to create elaborate tales of the first alphas and omegas to fill in the blanks. It was widely believed that, once upon a time, they could shift from animal form to human. Science backed them up, but there was still a lot they didn’t know as a society. That didn’t stop people from taking those stories and running with them. Werewolves. Skinwalkers. Hell, even things like sasquatch. All came from the idea that, long ago, their secondary gender allowed for them to be more than what they were now.
“We done here?” Kroger asked, waving to a group of girls who’d just entered the bar.
“Yeah,” Saint said. “Yeah, we’re done.”
He caught Binnie’s gaze and nodded towards the door.
“Hey,” Whitey called after they’d taken two steps. “You should talk to Bas. They were close before the kid started working for that fancy place. Dutch once said he’d warned the kid they were just using him, but Bas called him crazy and jealous.”
“When was this?” Binnie asked.
“Years ago. Before he hooked up with the doctor girl,” he said.
“Okay, thanks.”
Saint’s head was spinning as they left, replaying the conversation in his head. What the fuck did any of this mean?
They were waiting at the light when footsteps ran up on them from behind. They both whipped around, ready for a confrontation, but it was Darnell, who raised his hands in mock surrender, taking a couple of steps back.
“Sorry. Sorry. I just wanted to catch you before you took off.”
He stuffed something into Saint’s hand. A crumpled napkin. “What’s this?”
Saint opened it to find a number. “That’s my number. If you really want to talk to someone who’s been a research subject at Veritas, let me know. My sister…she, um, she participated in a few trials for them. I’m sure she’d be willing to talk…if you can promise to keep her name out of it.”
“Out of it?” Saint echoed.
He nodded. “Listen, they have a lot of money and they’re owned by some really powerful people. She’s signed papers. But she might be willing to talk. Especially if you could help her.”
“Help her?” Binnie asked, like he was having trouble following the conversation just as Saint was.
“Look, if you want to talk to her, just be prepared to pay and make sure nobody knows you talked to her. Ever. Got it?”
Binnie gave a stilted nod. “Yeah. Yeah, we got it.”
He gave a nod, then turned and jogged back into the bar, leaving Saint and Binnie reeling under the weight of this new offer.
“What the fuck is going on?” Binnie whispered.
“Wish I could tell you,” Saint said. “Let’s go home and tell the others.”
“Tell them what?” Binnie asked. “I feel more confused now than when we started.”
“So, what else is new?”