Overturned Read online

  “Yeah?”

  “When they get here, do not mention the Carlinos.”

  “I … wasn’t planning on it.” If we agreed on that, we had to agree on something else. I couldn’t be boxed out anymore. “What’s really happening, Mom? Do you know who killed Dad?”

  She shrank some, withered, but gave me a straight answer for once. “The Poseidon Group. If not directly, then the ambition, and the betrayals, and everything else behind that godforsaken venture.”

  “So you’re saying Big Bert …”

  “No. I’m not saying that. You’re not either.”

  “You can’t keep doing this to me.”

  “I know. We talk to the police. When they leave, I’ll tell you the rest. Promise.”

  She stood with supreme effort. A loser’s stance. Time to pay up.

  We gave our statements in the offices downstairs, while the cops did their CSI thing up in our rooms. Not before Tomás helped me peel the taped photos from my windows, and Mom removed a thick envelope from the safe in her closet, smuggled it downstairs with us, then tucked it deep in her desk drawer.

  Detective Burrows was back, completing an eerie reenactment of our last time together.

  He asked his questions in his same disinterested tone. Mostly what I told was true. The description: a guy in black. He broke into my room and lay in wait. He pushed me onto the bed, but I distracted him and escaped. I didn’t mention our conversation.

  Burrows read messages off his phone, frowning. “The officers upstairs say the lock wasn’t jimmied. Any clue how he got in?”

  Sure. My key. A copy, anyway. I checked the hotel’s key management software and it said I opened my room door a half hour before I actually walked in. Yesterday at the Carlino residence, Delano had plenty of time to lift my key and duplicate it before returning my bag.

  But I told Burrows, “No idea.” Because Delano wouldn’t have done it on his own accord.

  More questions. Was anything missing? Could it be someone I knew? An angry boyfriend?

  Mom sneered. “I don’t think so,” I said.

  Burrows flipped his notebook shut. “Well, hotel room break-ins are one of the more common crimes we see. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt.”

  “This time,” Mom said.

  “Yes. This time. Mr. Garcia, did your team catch any footage on the guy?”

  Tomás said, “We’re still reviewing, but he might’ve slipped through.”

  Burrows shrugged. Hey, a grown man stalker accosts a young girl in her bedroom, whatcha gonna do? “I’ll call if we get any leads.”

  “We’ll be waiting by the phone with bated breath,” Mom said.

  Tomás escorted the cop onto the gaming floor. I watched through the office doorway as the investigators joined them, along with an extra person. Again, an agent from the Nevada Gaming Control Board made an appearance, chatting with Tomás and the police.

  “Why’s the NGCB here, Mom?”

  “Be patient. We’ll talk when they’re gone.”

  I stretched my thin patience waiting on the magical moment when all would be revealed. Tomás returned, finally, holding a fresh business card in his fingers. He took a seat and slid the card across the desk to Mom.

  It was the NGCB agent’s contact info, positioned beneath the organization’s seven-point star logo. It was a cheap print job, so the logo was blurred. Seeing it smudged like that reminded me of something I couldn’t get my head around.

  Mom said, “Nikki, close the door.”

  Time to talk. I did as told, the smudged logo sliding to the back of my mind.

  Mom opened a desk drawer, removed the fat envelope from it, and dropped it on the desktop. Prying open the brass fastener, she shook the contents out before us. Papers. A DVD in a scuffed and cloudy plastic case. She rotated her computer monitor so we could both see and slipped the DVD into the disk drive. Tomás sat at an angle that would prevent him from viewing whatever we were about to watch. He didn’t seem concerned, so he’d seen this already. That pissed me off a little.

  A few mouse clicks and overlit gray scale images filled the screen. I leaned forward, made sure I saw what I saw. It was our once-popular poker room, my table—the one in the basement—was center frame, packed with fuzzy pixelated players. The time stamp indicated a summer night. Six years ago.

  The night John Reedy died.

  “This doesn’t exist,” I said, tapping the space bar, freezing the footage in a silver still. I’d done my homework over the last week, knew the sticking points that sealed Dad’s courtroom doom. “All the articles and records say there’s no recording. You said there’s no recording on the witness stand, Mom.”

  “I know. That was a mistake. Keep watching.”

  Hesitant, the ominous directive injecting icy fear into my system, I tapped the space bar again. The video continued, silent, no sound recording on this particular system. Dad was center frame, his back to the camera. John Reedy was visible in profile a couple of seats over. Leaning on the wall, in an animated conversation on his cell phone, a bloated Bertram Carlino.

  The founding members of the Poseidon Group. Together for the last time.

  I didn’t recognize anyone else at the table. There were a couple of guys in sunglasses and hoodies, an older man in a suit with his necktie tugged loose, a younger dude in a T-shirt and baseball cap with the brim low, casting his pale face in a shadow smudge. A typical poker table motley crew.

  The game progressed dully. Watching security footage of a poker game was like watching security footage of a cornfield. I couldn’t see anyone’s hole cards, there was no ESPN-style commentary like you got during World Series of Poker broadcasts. Totally uneventful. That fateful time stamp the only clue something bad was coming.

  Players pushed their cards away, folding. One after the other until it was only Dad, John, and the guy in the ball cap. He showed first; whatever he had got Dad nodding respectfully. Then Reedy and …

  Suddenly, the brim on the one guy’s hat jerked that way. Players who’d folded earlier were on their feet. Something was wrong.

  Before Dad showed his cards, the old guy in the suit grabbed one of the hoodies by his collar and signaled for someone to flip his cards. The other hoodie guy bolted, never to be seen again.

  I knew this act too well. Thought of Chuck Pearl and broken glass.

  Hoodie redirected the angry energy toward John Reedy. Dad got into it then, grabbing fists full of Reedy’s shirt. Screaming in his face.

  Big Bert stomped into the fray, pulling Dad off Reedy. Tried to. The Carlino touch incited Dad more. He flung Big Bert’s meaty paw away and pummeled Reedy with quick punches. One, two, three.

  More guys joined Big Bert, finally prying Dad away. Reedy crab-walked backward, yelling things and wiping blood from his lips. He rose smirking, mouthing off.

  Dad broke free of those holding him back, pointed at John. Screamed at him. Though the video was mute, I knew what he said. It’s in articles and courtroom transcripts.

  “I’m so tired of cleaning up your mess, John. Don’t ever come back. Next time I see you, I’m gonna kill you. Guarantee.”

  Reedy scoffed. He talked trash all the way out of the frame.

  Spectators left, too. The remaining players followed. Dad’s posture was different, his arms wide. Welcoming. Pleading. There’s no way I could know exactly what he said. Probably anything to keep the game going, to assure them the trash was gone and Andromeda’s was still a haven for real cardplayers.

  Big Bert and the guy in the hat were last to go. Big Bert said something, but Dad shook his head and tossed back the rest of a drink that remained on the table. Big Bert stepped from view then. The player in the hat lingered, motioned at the cards scattered across the velvet. Dad waved him off. When the player turned, light caught his profile, and his jutting chin and clenched jaw tickled a memory. Then he was gone, and Dad kept drinking, finishing another glass that hadn’t belonged to him. Finally, he stepped from the frame, too.


  Mom stopped the footage, returned the disc to its case.

  “Why hide this?” I asked.

  “Bad advice,” Mom said. “The lawyer working your dad’s case at the time said it was best not to introduce the footage.”

  “What kind of lawyer tells you to lie like that?”

  “The kind paid for with dirty money.”

  I nearly asked why but realized what I’d never seen in my research. Mention of Big Bert Carlino’s presence that evening.

  “You found the paperwork yourself,” Mom said. “They were partners. John, Bert, and your dad. John had put together a cheating ring, and it threw shade on all their names. We know your father didn’t kill John. That leaves who?”

  Should have seen that one coming. “The lawyer told you to lie because Mr. Carlino wanted it that way.”

  “By the time we understood that it was too late, I’d already lied on the stand. Perjury.”

  My head jerked.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I would’ve still told the truth. I didn’t care if I got in trouble. It would’ve been better than a murder rap. But your dad, he wouldn’t give in. Never thought he’d be one of those stories.”

  Those stories. We all knew them. Black man railroaded by the justice system. Circumstance trumping reasonable doubt when it was supposed to be the other way around. All those were words from Dad’s letters, seared into my memory.

  Mom said, “No one was looking for more evidence, or even really looking at the evidence they had. Stands to reason it was in their best interest not to.”

  For a second I was back at the airport with Davis. Talking about how Big Bert paid Cardinal Graham to keep his son out of the legal system he despised so much. Did his money do the opposite with Dad? Did he buy my father’s murder conviction to cover his own tracks?

  “The prosecutor offered your father a deal. He wouldn’t take it. Believed right up until the end that a jury wouldn’t convict him of murdering his friend over a card game. That’s where his reputation worked against him. All those interviews, that competitive nature that made him famous, put him on death row. The jury didn’t even deliberate an hour.

  “Weeks after, I got a notice from a law firm I never heard of, terminating the partnership for Andromeda’s and giving me sole ownership. You know that’s not how business usually works, right? When a partner gives up his share, he needs to be bought out. Not this time. Big Bert Carlino gave our family a casino. He washed his hands of us. Do you know why?”

  I did. “Keep you quiet.”

  “That’s why I’m telling you. You gotta stop what you’re doing, baby. Making noise over this will only get somebody hurt.”

  “Somebody else, you mean? Reedy’s dead. Dad’s dead. Dan Harris is dead. And we’re supposed to take it.”

  “Bert owns police and judges and lawyers. Dan Harris worked for him.”

  That stopped me cold. “No. That’s not right. He got Dad out! Why would Mr. Carlino pay for a lawyer to get Dad’s case overturned if he’s responsible for the murder that put him in jail?”

  Tomás—I’d forgotten he was in the room—said, “We don’t understand it either. When your dad fired him and wouldn’t tell your mom why, she asked me to do some digging. I followed Harris to the Nysos, saw him get escorted upstairs by Carlino himself. After that, I had a friend who’s good with unearthing digital secrets look into paper trails. Dan Harris’s law practice has had the same primary client for the last three years. The Poseidon Group.”

  “You followed him, like you followed me? That was you at the Cosmo? El Potrillo?”

  Mom shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I asked him to do that. I wanted someone watching you while I worked on our arrangements.”

  “Selling the place.”

  “Protecting us.”

  Tomás reinserted himself, backed her up. “Nathan wasn’t just running around town that last week. He started something.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t know for sure. All we know is they’re involved.” He tapped the Nevada Gaming Control Board business card.

  Mom stared at the floor. “When we brought your father home, he couldn’t let it rest, not after Bert took so much from us. He was drunk and angry, and maybe I was a little mad, too. I told him if it bothered him so much, he should walk it off. The next time I saw him, he was so different. A man possessed.”

  I’d been blaming myself for the way I treated him. Mom had, too. I just didn’t see it until now. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  I wanted to. For her sake and mine. I nodded.

  “Thank you. But I’m not worried about fault anymore. Not after tonight.”

  Her fear, it felt oppressive. It was leading us somewhere I didn’t like.

  Tomás said, “Something’s changed with Carlino, what he was content to let lie now has a lot of blood spilling all over town. It’s like he’s erasing a trail. Your dad, Dan Harris. Anyone who’s too close to this thing. Anyone.”

  “He’s sick,” I said.

  A static charge crackled in the room, magnetizing the adults, drawing them closer to me.

  “You get that from Davis?” Tomás asked.

  “No. Mr. Carlino coughed up some blood right in front of me. I don’t think he noticed. He seemed used to it.”

  “His weight loss,” Mom said. “I thought he’d just gotten vain.”

  Tomás grabbed a notepad from Mom’s desk, scribbled rapidly. “That’s something. If it’s serious, maybe he’s trying to protect his business. Maintain investor confidence by keeping it quiet?”

  “The Gaming Control Board, though?” I said, refocusing us all. “What would they have to do with that? Those agents got here so fast tonight, and before.” I picked up the card, again stuck on that logo with its obscured, yet familiar edging. Gears ground in my head. I kept thinking of that old lady yelling “El Potrillo” when she spotted Tomás. Why?

  He exhaled, a loud defeated rasp. “I’ve spoken to the board. They don’t have answers. Only questions. Have we had any unusual fraudulent activity? Odd customers? Strange stuff for someone to come ask in person when a phone call would do.”

  My chest seized. Separate threads of thought slammed into each other, fused.

  El Potrillo. At the Cosmo. Right before I met, and chased, Freddy Spliff.

  “Baby?” Mom said.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  Tomás wasn’t wrong. Those questions from the NGCB were suspiciously plain, hiding the agency’s true intentions. What those were, I didn’t know. Freddy Spliff might.

  The logo on this card was the same one on the van that snatched him.

  The adults kept talking. Half of me heard them. The other half kept stitching information together. The Gaming Control Board—not the halfway house helpers he claimed—grabbed drunk Freddy. I’d bet it wasn’t because they liked his company. That flash drive he tried to give me, they wanted it as much as I did. More.

  “What if Dad did find a way to take Mr. Carlino down? What if we got our hands on the information he had? We could finish what he started.”

  “No, we can’t. It’s killing me inside, but the warning was clear,” Mom said. “We make too much noise, maybe we don’t see the next guy coming. Maybe we disappear to a part of the town that’s still desert. Do you understand?”

  I understood. “He wins.”

  “It’s not a simple thing,” Tomás said. “What happened to your dad and Dan Harris wouldn’t be something Carlino did himself. He doesn’t do the dirty work.”

  “But—”

  “Listen. There still haven’t been any hits on the DNA they pulled off Nathan. With nothing in the system and no witnesses, unless they find another murder weapon in some lowlife’s house, we don’t even have an assailant who ties to Carlino.”

  “It’s gotta be Delano. He’s the one who threatened me. He does the dirty work.”

  Tomás’s face tightened. “Not necessarily.�
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  “If we got some of his DNA, could they test it against what was under Dad’s fingernails?”

  “Maybe. But how would you—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mom interrupted. “We’re not talking about this anymore. Go upstairs and pack a bag.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Tomás has extra rooms. We’re going to stay with him.” The way she said it, no nonsense, and the way he braced, I knew they expected a fight. I didn’t have time for that anymore, not with what I’d just learned.

  “Okay.” When I stood, I slipped that disc off Mom’s desk with fingers made nimble by years of trick shuffles and slipped it into the waistband of my pants while they made plans for our retreat. “I’ll go get that bag now.”

  “I’ll have someone escort you.” Tomás fished his phone from his pocket to make arrangements for my safety, making it less and less possible to dislike him. I couldn’t have eyes on me now, though.

  “Can you send someone in like twenty minutes? I need a quick shower, and I don’t want any guys hanging around my room while I do. I just …” I let it hang, didn’t need to say more. I’d seen the work schedules for the week and knew the two female security personnel we employed were off tonight. He only had guys to send.

  Tomás didn’t take me at my word. He waited for Mom, who tried looking through me. I hugged myself for effect.

  Mom nodded. “Twenty minutes. Thank you for cooperating. I know it’s hard.”

  She shouldn’t thank me yet.

  I returned to my room, where only the light stirring of items indicated anyone had been there at all. As Mom asked, I packed a bag quick, and my mind worked quicker. I had to get this right the first time. Then I took the service elevator back down and avoided the Constellation Grill entirely. I sent texts on my way to my card room.

  Me: can you sneak out?

  Molly: i can, but SHOULD is the real question.

  Me: please. more important than anything. get gavin if you can. meet at the IHOP on the strip.

  Molly: yay, IHOP. can i tell gavin you’re treating? i guarantee he’ll come.

  Me: fine. whatever. be there in 20.