Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
“We’re here about Muggsy Ballard,” Harry told him and watched Stormy’s dark brows shoot together. “He worked for you, yeah?”
“Yeah. Worked for me, and he was a friend.”
“Tight?”
“Everyone who knew Muggsy was tight with him. He was that guy,” Stormy replied.
“He was working for you when he died,” Harry noted to confirm.
“Yeah,” Storm said.
“Good worker?”
“Absolutely. He’d do anything for you. Was in early. Would stay late. Pissed me off because he never wanted to let me down, so he came in once with a flu, then half my guys got the fuckin’ flu and called in sick for a week. But that was how Muggsy’s mind worked. First thought, don’t let a brother down. The rest of the thoughts didn’t occur to him.”
Harry glanced at Sean to give him a chance at the floor.
Sean took it.
“Close to his death, did he seem to have any issues?”
Storm shook his head. “I’m no psychologist, but Muggsy took a lot of falls in his life, most of them by his own design, but he always got up. Never knew a man who could dust off the seat of his pants and get on with it like Muggsy could.”
“We’re now aware that Muggsy didn’t commit suicide,” Harry told him.
For a beat, Stormy froze.
Then his irritability came back, tenfold.
“You are fucking kidding me,” he bit out.
“I wish I was.”
“Dern fucked that up?” Stormy demanded.
All Harry would say was, “We flagged his case in the audit. There were some inconsistencies. We’re treating it as a homicide now.”
“His ma know?”
That was the last stop they had made, and it went a lot better than Harry imagined it would, simply because she was beside herself someone was finally taking her concerns seriously.
“She knows,” Harry told him. “So, again, I’m going to reiterate Sean’s question. Was he having any issues when he died that you know of?”
“He was pretty certain he was gonna come into some big money, but then again, Muggsy was always certain he was going to come into some money.”
“You know what that deal was about?” Sean asked.
Stormy shook his head, but a ghost of a fond smile was on his mouth. “That was Muggsy. He was such a fucking goofball. He’d be all about these sweet deals he was convinced were so sweet, he never said dick to anybody about them, because he didn’t want anyone to horn him out of the action. Then nothing would come of them, or he’d lose his whole fuckin’ shirt, and his pants, shoes, and boxers. But nothing stopped him. He was the eternal optimist.”
“Do you know if Muggsy owned a gun?” Sean kept at it.
The gun was a thing, since Muggsy didn’t have one registered to him, and the one found at the scene had not been sufficiently processed, and making matters worse, they had no idea where it was.
“If he did, he’d have sold it,” Stormy said. “Man worked hard, but he was an idiot with money, so he always had money problems.”
“We’re cobbled by lost time, Storm,” Harry reminded him. “Anything you can remember, even if you don’t think it’s a big deal, anything that might give us a lead, you call me or Sean at the station. Yeah?”
Storm jerked up his chin. “I’ll think about it. Got some men who are still here that worked with him. I’ll pull them in, you can talk to them before you go.”
“We’d appreciate that,” Harry said, and he and Sean moved out of the way so Stormy could get to the door.
He stopped in it and looked at Harry. “Around the time he died, he was pretty pissed Cheryl had moved on.”
Cheryl had been Muggsy’s wife.
“Pissed? Not upset? Depressed?” Harry asked.
“Fuck no,” Stormy answered. “Totally not. She’d hooked up with a dude Muggs hated. Don’t think you were best buds with him either.”
Harry’s body twitched. “I know him?”
“You worked with him. He was a deputy. Karl Abernathy.”
Harry heard the crash of the shoe dropping, he just didn’t know what it meant.
What he knew was, he didn’t talk with men in Dern’s camp, mostly because they didn’t talk to him.
But Harry actively detested Karl Abernathy.
He wasn’t just a shit cop, he was a shit individual.
Harry kept his voice carefully modulated when he asked, “She was with Karl?”
“Not with him anymore, as far as I know, but she was then. As you know, as well as the rest of us, Karl was one of Dern’s goons. Got his jollies by fucking with people. Muggs wasn’t the only one who hated him. If they knew him or had the misfortune to run into him, pretty much everyone hated him.” Storm’s gaze thinned on Harry. “This pertinent?”
“Since we’re reopening an investigation seven years down the line, everything is pertinent,” Harry hedged.
Stormy kept staring at him. When Harry gave him no more, he left the office.