A Gambling Man by David Baldacci (ebook audio reader .txt) 📕

car clanked to a stop and he got off. He looked back to see Earl leaning out of the car and watching him like Archer was about to combust and the man didn’t want to miss the spectacle.

Connie Morrison looked up from her desk as Archer walked into the office of Willie Dash, Very Private Investigations.

“Hey, sorry I’m late, Connie, I—”

She interrupted. “Willie is in his office. He wants to see you. Right now.”

Her tone was a bit severe and her tight hair bun pulled her eyes back to such a degree that Archer wasn’t sure if she was glaring at him or merely reacting to the pressure on her hair.

“Everything okay?” said Archer.

“Just go see him, Archer.”

Archer hooked his hat on the wall peg, buttoned his suit jacket, and rapped on Dash’s door.

“Come,” said the voice.

He opened the door and walked in.

Dash was behind his desk, his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His black toupee lay next to him, its wisps of hair sticking up like the man’s finger had met a light socket while he was wearing it.

He took off his steel-rimmed spectacles and eyed Archer.

“Grab a seat, Archer, and let me finish this letter for Connie to get out.”

Archer sat and waited patiently while Dash’s ballpoint skated in cursive across the paper. Done, Dash rose, left the room with the paper, and came back a minute later without it. He was in his socks. Archer looked around the room for the bottle of Beam but didn’t see it. The wall bed was nestled all snug up in the wall. He looked at Dash’s eyes and saw not a trace of drunken red.

Dash sat down and eyed Archer right back.

“No, I did not sleep here, and no, I have not been hitting the bottle. And, yes, I know my toupee looks like a Sherman tank ran over it. Fact is, it blew off and landed in a ditch where a squirrel decided it was his new best friend.”

“Keen eye, Willie. Sherlock Holmes has nothing on you.”

Dash adjusted his plastic suspenders, smoothed down his shirt, and glanced at his watch. “You have a funny idea of a workday.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But I was out really late doing some sleuthing.” He paused and then let loose with his changeup pitch. “Ruby Fraser is dead.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

Archer looked deflated. “Okay.”

“And you and your friend were at Midnight Moods last night?”

“How’d you hear about that?”

“I hear lots of things, Archer. What were you doing there?”

“My friend was auditioning for a job, which she got. And I went there to talk to Ruby again. I planned to have a second go at her. And when I got back here yesterday, Connie had my ticket ready and said I was to basically have at it, that you trusted me. Was she selling me a line or what?”

“Connie doesn’t sell lines. So just drop the hurt-feelings crap, compose yourself, and tell me what you did after we parted ways yesterday.”

Archer went through the whole gambit, from A to Z. Going to see Sheen and getting the list of names from him. Driving to Midnight Moods with Callahan. And then Archer got around to telling Dash about finding Fraser.

“So you walked in and there she was, dead?”

“And then I phoned the cops from the lobby, without identifying myself.”

“You might have put you, me, and this agency in jeopardy, Archer.”

“So you would have volunteered your name to the cops?”

“No, I’m not saying that. But did anyone see you and the lady go in or out? Because if they did, you two might be looking down the barrel of a murder charge, or at the very least intent to obstruct a police investigation.”

“I don’t see how I obstructed anything. But for me, they would’ve found Fraser a lot later than they did.”

Dash stroked his chin. “What you say makes perfect sense, only some coppers have never quite grasped that concept. So you found Fraser dead, but no sign of anyone having been in her place.”

“Right.”

“Okay, you called the cops. Then what?”

“I went back to the boardinghouse where I’m staying.”

“And then?”

“I went to sleep.”

“I thought you said you had a late night. Hell, when I was your age, late to me was the next morning. But you got up and came here in the afternoon? So that was what, about thirteen hours’ worth of shut-eye?”

Dash stopped talking and eyeballed him in a way that was making Archer wish he’d driven through Bay Town and kept going right into the ocean.

“Before you say anything, Archer, keep in mind that if you lie to me, and I’ll know if you are, you’re fired.”

“I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk and ended up at a diner, where I saw Mrs. Kemper.”

“What time was this?”

“Around three in the morning.”

“What was Beth Kemper doing at a diner at three a.m.?”

“Having a cup of coffee and a cigarette. She said she has a place to stay in town, had it before she was married. So I don’t think she went back up the mountain last night.”

“How did you get home? Walk?”

“She gave me a lift. Let me check my notes.” He pulled out his pad and consulted the pages, while Dash watched him with grudging approval.

“She said her old man told her about Ruby. I told her she might be a suspect, since Fraser might have been sleeping with her husband and they might assume she knew about it. But she said she had an alibi.”

“What was it?” asked Dash sharply.

“She was at dinner with friends from five to midnight. She wouldn’t tell me who with. She doesn’t know where her husband was during that time. When I went over to his office to get the list, I don’t think he was there.”

“You found Ruby’s body when exactly?”

“Ten minutes to twelve. I looked at my watch. One more thing—Ruby died from someone almost cutting her head off. But there was no blood around the body.”

“Meaning she was killed