Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
CASEY
“Hey, Casey, what’s up?”
Smiling, Gordon MacDonald looked over Casey’s shoulder to where his Jeep was parked, probably wondering if he’d left Gabe in the car. Yet another Heartstone resident charmed by Gabriel Karne.
“Only me today, Gordon. I’d like to ask you some questions. Can I come in?” Casey did his best to sound friendly, not whatever it was that some people heard. And he and Gordon had always gotten along.
“Sure.” He stepped back so Casey could brush past him and enter the mobile home.
Gordon was still a bachelor, as far as Casey knew, but his place was tidy and there were lines in the carpet from a recent vacuum.
He wasn’t sure why that surprised him, but Gabe would say he needed to check his assumptions.
Especially since it was Gabe who did most of the housework—and seemed to genuinely enjoy it.
Casey had lived aboard a sailboat for reasons, and less crap to clean was one of them. Less people was the other.
“Something to drink?” Gordon asked, heading into the worn but sparkling kitchen area. His home was nearly identical to the one Gabe had lived in for a few months.
“I wouldn’t say no to a coffee.” After Kelly Perkins’s weak tea, he could use something with a little more caffeine.
“Awesome. So, what’s on your mind?” Gordon turned on the kitchen faucet and held a glass carafe underneath the stream.
Crossing his arms, Casey leaned back against the Formica countertop. On the drive over, Casey had debated the best approach to getting the information he wanted. By the time he’d parked, he’d decided that, when it came to Gordon, honesty would be best.
“I’m asking around about Calvin Perkins’s death. I’m sure you’re aware there aren’t any suspects so far?”
“Yeah. It’s weird to think he’s dead. Who would do that? I mean, he was an asshole, especially toward the end, but he wasn’t always like that. We were friends once. He wasn’t all bad.”
Casey didn’t point out that he and the brothers had never gotten along. Neither of them had ever liked Casey, but the street did go two ways, and Casey couldn’t claim he’d ever tried to befriend either of them.
“That’s one of the things I was wondering about.
What was Calvin like before he changed? Was he friends with anyone other than Dwayne?
Did he have places he hung out? We didn’t run in the same circles, and to be honest, we didn’t like each other much.
At all,” Casey amended. “So, my frame of reference is skewed.”
“Yeah, Calvin hated you,” Gordon said with a small grin. “He thought you were a stuck-up tight-ass.”
Calvin wouldn’t have been the only one on Heartstone who thought he was a bit tightly wound, but stuck up? Not that his feelings were hurt; he was merely surprised.
“What do I have to be stuck up about? No.” He held up his hand to stop whatever Gordon might have to say. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
He watched Gordon deftly pour water into his machine and set up the ground beans, almost as if he’d been taking lessons from Gabriel.
He looked good, healthy. Even the scar that marred his cheek was less red and angry looking.
After everything that had happened at the end of last fall, Casey had worried about Gordon free-falling, but he hadn’t so far.
“Kelly Perkins thought maybe he was part of a car club you tried to get going?”
“The car club.” Gordon shook his head regretfully. “He would’ve been if it had ever got off the ground. Maybe it was for the best in the end. I mean, I have buddies who like to work on cars, but this was gonna be different.”
“What happened?”
Gordon shrugged. “Dammed if I know. Probably both of us fucking up. Neither of us had any money, not enough to invest in a classic car and everything needed to fix one up, keep it running. Also, I ended up in jail, as you know.” He frowned.
“Before that happened, I thought maybe there was a girl and he just wasn’t interested anymore.
” He pulled a face. “When I decided to take the money my uncle left me and buy that land instead, he was pissed, though. I figure he was using drugs by then. Had to be, the way he reacted.”
“His mom also thought maybe he had a girlfriend,” said Casey.
It seemed to Casey that the land Gordon had bought brought him more trouble than not.
Maybe he should’ve stuck to the car club idea.
And why had Rizzi wanted harmless Gordon MacDonald in jail?
Setting him up for possession and intent to grow seemed like a lot of work to get a pretty innocuous person out of his way.
Had it been a message or had Rizzi needed Gordon elsewhere for a little while, long enough to move some bodies? That also seemed far-fetched.
Gordon brightened. “She did? Really? Good for Cal.”
And there it was, Gordon happy for a person who by the end of his life had done nothing but act mean and cruel toward him.
“But you weren’t so sure?”
“Sometimes I’m not the most observant person.
” Gordon shrugged and gave a quiet laugh.
“We played pool a lot, and there was always some girl attached to him. Sometimes maybe there’d be one that lasted a while, like she’d show up the next time we were knocking balls around, but that generally was it. ”
“Hmm. And he and Dwayne were both using?”
Dwayne’s body had tested positive for meth and Casey wouldn’t have been shocked to learn that Calvin’s did too.
Gordon looked down at his feet. “Yeah, I guess.”
Which meant that Gordon had been too.
“It’s nasty stuff, Gordon.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s how I got this scar. I’m not planning on going there again. Ever. I promised Elton, and Gabe.”
Of course he had. It made Casey proud of his partner and his old friend; that kind of loyalty was something special.
“That’s good. If you ever need to talk, you know Elton is there for you, right? And Gabriel too. Do you by chance know who the brothers got their supply from?”
Another shrug. “I don’t remember. Probably wasn’t just one dealer.”
The coffee maker beeped, and Gordon turned away to focus on finding clean mugs and filling them with freshly brewed joe.
He didn’t want Gordon to clam up on him. Regardless of his past questionable choices, Gordon was a good guy. “Can you think on it for a bit for me? Any other names, not necessarily a dealer, but someone new Calvin talked about?”
Nibbling at his lower lip, Gordon handed Casey a mug.
“Seems like he maybe mentioned a guy named Nick a couple times a while back? But Calvin never brought him around. If Dwayne didn’t like someone, Calvin would just cut ’em off. I figured that’s what happened.”
“You think Dwayne met this Nick guy and didn’t like him?”
“Yeah. Calvin was, uh, Calvin, and yeah, in the end, he wasn’t a very nice guy. But Dwayne was a whole other crazy level. Calvin was the only one who could handle him when he was in a mood. Or their mom.”
Nothing that Casey didn’t already know about the Perkins brothers. He took a sip of the hot, bitter brew, missing the fancy espresso machine he and Gabe had at home. Casey made a mental note to suggest Gabe help Gordon develop his skills.
“Did they only do jobs for Rizzi? Or was there someone else too?”
“Casey, the cops asked me all this back in November. Why are you asking again?”
“Sorry. I’m just frustrated and trying to learn more. There has to be something that fueled everything that’s been going on, but with Rizzi dead now, we might never learn what happened up at Snowcap.”
Gordon stopped staring into his coffee cup and looked at him. “I had another offer on my property up there.”
“Oh?” Now that was an interesting tidbit. “I didn’t know you’d had a first one.”
“Yeah, back when I was still in the hospital, some suits came around. I told them I needed time to think.”
It had slipped Casey’s mind that Gorden had spent time in the hospital recovering from his injuries after being kidnapped. He felt bad about not reaching out to him then, but Gabe had visited Gordon, and the younger man had been added to Gabe’s list of friends he regularly checked in on.
“I’m really sorry that all happened to you, but I’m glad to see you doing well.
” Casey set his half-empty cup down on the countertop.
“I should get going. I’m supposed to be working my real job today.
” Wasn’t happening, he had one more stop.
“Are you really thinking of selling? I thought that was your dream place, your getaway.”
“It is,” Gordon said. “I mean, it was, before everything went down. I think maybe I need to get up there this summer and rebuild the shed. Burn some sage, get rid of the ghosts before I figure out what to do next.”
“Sure, sure. I can understand that. Gabe’ll probably help out if you want some extra hands.” Casey leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, he hoped in a nonthreatening manner. “Who made you the offer?”
“Don’t know. The paperwork’s around here somewhere.”
Casey figured the offer came from one of those scam outfits that made low-ball offers on property.
Then again, Gordon’s parcel wasn’t exactly a gold mine for developers.
It was acres of Oregon grape, a bunch of stumps, plenty of mushrooms, and, as Casey had noted the day before, rare and endangered plants.
Setting his mug down next to a Classic Car of the Day calendar, Gordon bent to open a kitchen drawer stuffed with various types of correspondence. After flipping through a stack of papers, Gordon pulled out a legal-sized envelope and handed it over.
Casey opened the envelope and shook out a folded piece of paper. Flattening it out, he scanned the contents. He was no expert, but it appeared to be a legitimate offer. He didn’t recognize the real estate firm or the names listed on the form.
“Looks legit. Do you mind if I take a picture of it? I’m curious about who’s interested in your land.” Gordon nodded and Casey snapped a quick shot with his phone’s camera. “Thanks for talking to me. I’m sorry if I stirred up old dirt.”
“It’s okay with me. I do want to know who did it. You know, who offed Calvin. It’s not right, getting away with murder.”
Casey started to leave, but at the last second, he turned back to ask, “When you guys played pool, was it always at the same place, or did you move around?”
Gordon frowned. “Sometimes we’d go to The Straits in Westfort or The Lantern, but we mostly were at the Geoduck. Their tables are the best.”
“Thanks, Gordon,” Casey said. “Let me know if you think of anything else.”
“Hey,” Gordon said, “wish me luck. I have a job interview Friday. I don’t want to jinx it, but keep your fingers crossed?”
Casey grinned back at him. “Will do. Best of luck.”
Back on the road, Casey mulled over what Gordon had told him.
Not much he hadn’t already known, but the offers on Gordon’s property were interesting.
Someone wanted to buy the land directly next door to Snowcap Estates enough to make two offers.
What were the odds? Everything seemed to point to The Valley.
Which meant he was right to take another field trip up there.
“No time like the present,” Casey said, shoving thoughts of the office to the back of his mind.
Far above the trees lining the road and backlit by the early afternoon sunshine, a red-tailed hawk soared on the day’s slight wind, lazily circling, searching for that day’s lunch.
The bird of prey had almost disappeared over the treetops when it tucked in its wings and dove downward, aiming for the unsuspecting mouse or rabbit it had homed in on.
The sign for the valley road appeared, and Casey twisted the steering wheel to the right and started up the hill. Driving conditions were the same as they’d been the day before, bare and relatively dry.
“I’ll be back before midafternoon, no problem.”