That would be Neptune Brady’s bailiwick. He knew the ins and outs of the ranch better than my parents. Fuckhead! How the hell did this happen? He’s the one you should be questioning, not me.”
Decker said, “He’s on our radar. So far, he’s been cooperative.”
Grant became agitated. “Where the fuck is that doctor? I want to see my brother!”
“Let me go check on it,” Marge said.
“Good idea.” Decker turned to the men. “Thank you both for being so forthright at this very difficult time.”
“Fucking nightmare!” Grant tried to pace, but there wasn’t much floor space. Talking business had seemed to calm him down, giving him something else to think about. The minute he was brought back into his current tragedy, he was perched on the edge of an explosion. And who could blame him?
Decker said, “Do you think that the Greenridge Project will go through in the wake of this tragedy?”
“Absolutely,” Mace said stiffly. “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”
“It’s just that Guy was the CEO, and a project of that magnitude is a mammoth enterprise. It sounds like the biggest shopping mall that Kaffey has developed.”
Grant said, “It’ll be difficult, but we can carry out Greenridge without Dad as long as Gil can take care of the rest of Kaffey.” He shook his head. “God, that’s a huge load.”
Mace said, “It’ll be hard to handle anything without Guy, but we can manage if we work together. We’re not just business associates, we’re family.”
Decker regarded Guy’s younger brother. His pep talk sounded forced—maybe trying to convince himself he was up to the job. Marge came back into the room. “Dr. Rain is just out of surgery. He’ll see you both in his office as soon as he’s cleaned up. Nurse Edderly will be happy to take you to his office.”
Grant punched a fist into his palm. “I don’t want anything to do with that bitch!”
“I’ll be happy to take you,” Marge said.
“Thank you,” Mace said. “Are you staying with us?”
“We need to get back to the ranch.” To the crime scene, Decker thought. “I also want to check out these two men you mentioned—Paul Pritchard and Milfred Connors.”
“Connors was a low-level con man,” Grant said. “He’s a nothing.”
“Sometimes it’s the nothings who get pissed off,” Mace told him.
“Exactly,” Decker said. “Here are some business cards, gentlemen. Call me anytime.”
“And here’s my card,” Grant countered. “That’s a business number. You can call it anytime. If it’s important, you can leave your number and I’ll be paged.”
“Thank you,” Decker said. “Uh…just one last question. Do either of you know Spanish?”
“What?” Mace said.
“What’s that about?” Grant asked.
“A lot of people who work at the ranch are Hispanic. In California, Hispanics do a lot of construction work. Just wondering if you and your dad and your brother can communicate with them directly.”
“Of course we visit the job sites, but we don’t talk directly to the men,” Mace told him.
“Why would we do that?” Grant asked. “That’s why we employ foremen.”
ONCE BEHIND THE wheel, Marge got comfortable in her seat and spoke while adjusting the mirrors. “I’d love to see the company’s financials on Greenridge, especially in this current climate. Sounds like something that was born in real estate boomland and is currently moribund in bustville.”
“Maybe they already had the financing for the project.”
“Something that big, including a hotel? That’s a cool billion, right?”
“Too many zeroes and I get confused.” Decker opened a bottle of water and chugged half of it. “Even if I had the financials, I wouldn’t even begin to know how to interpret something that complicated.”
Marge started the motor and drove out of the underground lot. “Do you think that the project might have something to do with the murders?”
“It’s worth checking out, but I don’t expect anything.” Decker closed the cap. “Let’s concentrate on what we do know.”
“We have murdered guards and we have missing guards. Sounds like an inside job.”
“Two things come to mind,” Decker said. “An inside robbery job that was botched or an inside job where the guards were used in a murder for hire.”
“In which case, we need to look deeper into the family.”
Decker said, “What did you think of Grant?”
“Intense. He did most of the talking for his uncle.”
“What do you think about Mace?”
“Not as much intense. We didn’t know Guy Kaffey, but from today’s conversation snippets, I’d say that younger brother Mace grew up under the shadow of Guy.”
Decker said, “Grant’s also the younger brother and you just described him as intense.”
“Yeah, he’s aggressive. But maybe Gil is even more aggressive. All I’m saying is that if Guy and Mace clashed, we both know who’d come out ahead. I wonder if Guy Kaffey was as enthusiastic on the Greenridge Project as Mace and Grant are.”
“Guy was about to pull the plug and the two New Yorkers weren’t happy with his decision?”
“My thoughts exactly,” Marge said. “But even if that were the case, would that generate enough anger and hostility in Grant for him to kill his parents?”
Decker said, “We don’t really know how Grant feels about his parents. There could have been a lot of playacting going on.”
“True that,” Marge said. “Interesting that you didn’t ask if there was enough anger and hostility for Mace to kill a brother.”
“Cain and Abel,” Decker said. “The very first chapter. There are four recorded people on the newly minted universe and bam, one brother shoots the other because of jealousy. What does that say about the human race?”
“Doesn’t say too much for us or for the Big Cheese in the sky,” Marge noted. “Any police chief who ran a major city with a 25 percent homicide rate would get his ass canned in an eye blink.”
THE MAN CALLED into the witness box was Hispanic.
No surprise there.
The entire afternoon had been a parade of Hispanics from the plaintiff—a beefy guy with tattoos—to the defendant—another beefy guy with tattoos. Rina could sum up the assortment of alleged assaults and batteries in one word.
Alcohol.
All the participants had been drunk at the time, both the ladies as well as the gents. Normally the melee would have been forgotten about the next day, but the police happened to be cruising by when the slugfest had been in full force. The cops managed to arrest whoever didn’t scatter fast with the unlucky remaining souls blaming each one for starting the incident. Witnesses had suddenly come down with bad memories caused by cold feet.
The current participant in the witness box proved to be no exception.
At least,