The Competition - [57]

“Yeah. Didn’t even bother to call.” Isaiah shook his head. “Hate to lose him though. He in some kind of trouble?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Was he a good worker?” It’d be a surprise if he was, given what we’d heard about him.

Isaiah shrugged. “Not the most energetic guy. But he spoke English, so I could use him to fill in for me on the phone. Take orders and such. The rest of my crew”-he jerked a thumb toward the workers outside-“are good guys, but they’re strictly Spanish-speaking.”

“Did Shane ever have any visitors here?” I asked.

Isaiah rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I guess you could call her that. A girl used to come around a lot, but I haven’t seen her lately.”

“Was that girl the only one?” Isaiah nodded. “Did you get her name?” I asked.

Isaiah looked down at the cluttered desk and drummed his fingers on it. I couldn’t imagine how staring at that mess could help him remember anything except that a cleaning was overdue. Finally, he squinted at me. “Nancy. Nancy Findley. She called here about a hundred times.”

Isaiah’s disapproving expression made me smile. “So she was a fan of Shane’s,” I said.

“More like a stalker. Though why she was so hooked on him I have no idea. You ask me, the guy was a real case of arrested development.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“Had a hard time doing what he was told. Didn’t matter what I asked him to do-even just to get here on time-he’d give me major-league attitude.”

“Then you’d say he had issues with authority?”

“Big-time. But I kept him around because, well, you know…” He gestured to the office.

But Shane hadn’t had those issues with Lock, the gun range owner. I suspected tree cutting didn’t have the same allure as the gun range. Go figure.

“Did he ever talk to you about guns?” Bailey asked.

Isaiah gave a short bark of a laugh. “Ho, yeah. Nonstop. Kept wanting to take me out to the range where he worked. And he was always trying to sell me one.”

Sell? I leaned forward. “What kind of guns was he trying to sell?”

“Handguns mostly. Thirty-eights, forty-fours. He did mention a rifle once, I think.”

“What kind of rifle?” Bailey asked.

Isaiah began drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Remington? Yeah, I believe that’s right.”

“So not an assault rifle?” I asked.

“No. They’re illegal, aren’t they?” I nodded. “Well, even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t let him sell those things to anyone around here. You ask me, they don’t belong in civilian hands.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Are you into guns?”

“Not at all.”

Why would he be? He didn’t need a gun. He could just pick you up and throw you out the window. “So you don’t know whether the deals he offered were any good,” I said.

“No. But Pedro might.” Isaiah stood up and walked over to the window. He cranked it open and yelled, “Hey, Pedro.”

Pedro, a middle-aged Hispanic man in a denim jacket and cowboy boots, came in. Isaiah asked in fairly decent Spanish what Shane had offered him. He translated for us, though I pretty much got the gist of what Pedro had said. “Shane offered him a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight special. Pedro says it was like new-for two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“He showed Pedro the gun?” I asked.

Pedro nodded and said, “Sí.”

“And it was in good shape?” I asked.

Pedro said in Spanish that it looked brand-new.

Isaiah nodded. “He said it looked-”

I held up my hand. “Got it. Did Pedro buy it?”

Isaiah translated, and Pedro shook his head.

“Did Shane offer to sell guns to anyone else?” I asked.

Isaiah translated, and Pedro replied in Spanish. Isaiah turned to me. “Pedro says he tried to sell to all the other guys, but he doesn’t think anyone bought a gun from him. Too much money, and they weren’t sure how legal it was.”

But just to make sure, we had Isaiah bring in all the other workers, one by one. Pedro was right. No one had bought a gun, though others had seen the one Pedro described and all agreed it looked new. When we finished with them, we thanked Isaiah for his help, said we’d be in touch, and warned him that at some point the media might come after him for a statement. He chuckled. “Don’t worry, they won’t get anything out of me, ladies.” Ladies. Again. Oh, well.

But I wasn’t worried about him.

The reporters who messed with him-them, I worried about.

35

“Do you realize how much a new Smith and Wesson thirty-eight special costs?” I asked, when we got back into Bailey’s car.

“No, but I’m guessing you do.”

“Over seven hundred bucks. If that gun Shane was trying to sell to Pedro really was new, his price was ridiculously low. Looks like Shane had a little business going on the side.”

“Selling hot guns?” Bailey said. I nodded. “Pretty risky. If anyone ever ratted him out he’d do some serious time.”

“He doesn’t seem like the type who’d play out those consequences. Like Isaiah said, he’s got authority issues.”

“Assuming Paul Bunyan back there sussed him out right.”

“So you saw it too?” I grinned at Bailey. “He was actually kind of dreamy, don’t you think?”

“To me? No. But I noticed you got a little fluttery.”

“Fluttery.” I gave her a look. “Me. Are you high?”