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“Yeah. When they opened their casino, Leopard wasn’t the original investor. There was a group of investors who pulled out at the last minute which is why Leopard decided to fund the casino startup himself.”
“Leopard told us that,” Miguel said. “The part about the startup, I mean. Are you saying that the Sanchez Cartel is connected to the casino?”
Cassidy and Mike nodded. “We think so, yeah. The connection is murky, but yes, we think so.” He glanced at Mike, and I could see the two detectives making a decision about what to tell us. Cassidy leaned toward us. “This is what Mike and I think.”
I nodded, desperately wanting to know what was going on.
“I’ll preface what we’re going to say with this. We think that our other case, the murder of the investigator, might have been a cartel hit also.”
“Dave Reynolds,” Miguel said.
“Right,” Cassidy replied. “We can’t confirm it because not only was no weapon found at the scene, but no bullet either. Our guys searched the entire area where the body was discovered but nada.”
“So…what makes his murder a cartel hit?” I asked.
“When we looked into Dave Reynolds, it turns out, the guy was pretty smart. He worked for Aston’s firm for many years, and when we interviewed all the other attorneys at the firm, they swore by his work. Our thinking is that he got himself killed by the cartel because he figured things out.”
“What things?” I asked.
“We think he figured out Gregory Aston was behind the theft of the ruby you guys were hired to recover. You said there were threatening letters delivered to Mr. Flores’ office.”
“Right,” Miguel said. “Aston told us Dave Reynolds checked them for prints, but they were a dead end.”
“So, maybe Aston lied about that. Maybe Reynolds confronted him when he figured out that the letters had been faked by Aston, so Aston had the cartel kill him.”
“Shit,” I said. “But what about the theft of the ruby? Who stole it, if it was ever really stolen at all?”
“Oh, we think it was stolen,” Mike said. “We think the robbery was carried out by Salvatore Mancuso. The police investigating the theft when Tawny reported it, looked hard at him. He was their main suspect but they weren’t able to prove it.”
“Why?”
“Because Mancuso’s got some training. He’s former military. He was hired by Benedict to be his personal bodyguard, possibly with Aston’s encouragement. Think about it. It conveniently put him in Benedict’s house at all hours. The original officers could never get enough evidence, though. They also looked at Tawny.”
“Well, that would only make sense. Like we told you before, we’ve always thought she faked the robbery, stole the ruby herself,” I said.
“We’re not so sure about Tawny’s involvement,” Mike said. “It makes more sense that Aston hatched the plot to steal the ruby all by himself.”
I opened my mouth but before I could ask about why Aston would want Mancuso there at all, Miguel beat me to it.
“Why would Aston encourage Flores to hire Mancuso, assuming he was the one who stole the gem?” Miguel asked. He was so logical. His mind worked in that linear way, while mine hopped all over the place.
“The investigating officers wondered about Tawny Flores insisting that no interior cameras would be allowed in the house. And that the ones already there, be removed so no one could piggyback on them to spy on her in the buff, or whatever.”
My eyes widened. “You think Aston put Mancuso in place to seduce Tawny and get at her fortune?”
“That’s what the original investigators thought, and we think it’s a good possibility. Also, I imagine being a casino boss might come with some risk,” Cassidy said, nodding slowly. “But that’s not why.”
“Because maybe Aston and Mancuso have ties to the Sanchez Cartel,” I blurted.
“Interesting,” Mike said. “We think so too.”
“You do?”
Cassidy smiled. “We do. Not only that. We think Gregory Aston encouraged Tawny to hire you two as a ruse when he had the ruby stolen by Mancuso, to throw her off the scent. He probably figured a little start-up company like Trackers with two guys trying to get the business off the ground wasn’t a threat. But then you guys turned out to not be the fuckups he’d hoped you’d be.”
I nodded as Miguel squeezed my hand.
“We think he planned on selling the ruby to a buyer at one of Rosina Cassanova’s private auctions. He fucked up, though, because he’d been told that the ruby was part of Benedict Flores’ estate, passed down through generations. When he figured out that it was part of a cache of stolen gems from the Middle East, he was stuck with a ruby he couldn’t sell at one of Cassanova’s little auctions.”