Die Like an Eagle by Donna Andrews Page B

difficult to know whether to pay any attention to them or not.”
    â€œWhat were the complaints about?” I asked.
    â€œAt first, that Brown was cheating people,” the chief said. “The letters told us to look at his company’s books and see how badly he was cheating people.”
    â€œAnd was he?”
    â€œBlessed if I know,” the chief said. “Since a few anonymous hate mails didn’t exactly give me cause to demand to see Mr. Brown’s financial records. I talked to a few people who’d hired his company to do projects. None of them were falling over themselves to recommend him, but no one had any specific complaints. A little grumbling about how long everything took and how expensive it all was, but you get that with almost any contractor. Not much more I can do without him finding out I’m investigating him and complaining of harassment.”
    â€œThe letters don’t give any clues?” I asked.
    â€œApart from the fact that they were all mailed either here or in Clay County, no.”
    â€œWhat about people who work for Biff?” I asked. “Or even better, used to work for him?”
    â€œSo far everyone I’ve found still works for him, and is from Clay County to boot—which gives them two reasons not to talk to me, even if I wanted to tip my hand. And something like half of them seem to be related to him, which makes three reasons. Apparently he uses a lot of transient labor—immigrants, many of them; legal as far as I can tell, but even if I could track them down, they might not feel inclined to speak to law enforcement, so I didn’t try too hard. I’d done what I could and found nothing, so I put it aside.”
    â€œIn that part of your brain where you keep stuff that bothers you because right now you can’t do anything about it,” I suggested. “But there’s always hope for the future?”
    â€œYes,” the chief said, with a slight smile. “Nothing I can do without evidence, but I was definitely going to keep my eye on him. And I filled in Randall when all this first happened, about six or seven weeks ago, which might mean he took the accusations of cheating seriously enough to want your eagle eye on Mr. Brown.”
    â€œCould be,” I said. “Especially since if Randall accused him of cheating, Biff could try to pretend he was doing it to discredit a rival.”
    â€œWhereas you would be perceived as a more impartial witness.”
    â€œImpartial.” I shook my head at that. “I’m Randall’s friend and Randall’s employee, and last night I made it pretty clear how I feel about Biff’s management of the Summerball League. Not sure anyone will buy that I’m impartial.”
    â€œYou’d be surprised,” the chief said. “At any rate, after a few weeks our anonymous complainant switched tunes and began accusing Mr. Brown of using his business as a cover for running a drug trafficking enterprise.”
    â€œI’m not sure I see how a construction business makes a good cover for selling drugs,” I said.
    â€œHe also runs a scrap metal and used equipment parts business,” the chief said. “A glorified junkyard, really. And no more thriving than his construction business.”
    â€œBut I bet it’s mostly a cash business.”
    â€œAnd one that gives people a reason to go out to his premises,” the chief said.
    â€œStill,” I mused. “Does it really sound all that plausible, or does it just sound as if the anonymous letter writer is saying anything he can think of to cause problems for Biff?”
    â€œMost likely the latter,” the chief said. “And I think if Mr. Brown really were running a drug business here in Caerphilly, I’d have noticed by now. But at least this accusation was both more concrete and more capable of being proven—or disproven. So I have had my officers keeping a close eye