Jason Deas - Cameron Caldwell 01 - Private Eye by Jason Deas Read Free Book Online

gesture.
    Cam heard the other door shut and watched as a pair of legs came around the other side of the truck. It was Turner.
    “Get out of here,” Turner ordered.
    “Why?”
    He pointed at Claude. “The maestro doesn’t like his clients to see his work until he’s finished.
    “I’m not really a client.”
    Turner pointed toward Daphne’s diner. “Get.”
    “Let me get my things,” Cam said. He walked inside, hid the gallon jug in a closet, and took his two remaining beers to the diner.
    “I’ve been kicked out of my office,” Cam announced to the seemingly empty diner. 
    “The maestro works!” Daphne called from the back. “Play some tunes on the jukebox and I’ll be out in a minute. I’m putting a few last things in the cooler.”
    Cam searched his pocket for a dollar and pulled a crisp one out. He opened a beer and studied the choices before him. Feeding the dollar bill into the machine, Cam marveled at the variety of musicians before him.
    The Eagles filled the empty room as he walked away from the music box. Cam looked back toward his office to see Turner and Claude unloading a couch.
    “Stop looking,” Daphne said, suddenly appearing behind him.
    Cam turned. He smiled. “You should see what he did to my house.”
    “Talented, isn’t he?”
    “Are you sure he’s not …”
    “Definitely not. Can I put your other beer in the cooler?”
    “It won’t have time to get cold.”
    “I thought so. You want to get a booth?”
    “Yeah. You were going to tell me something.”
    “Yeah. And I hear you might have something added to your list of need to know items?”
    “Like?”
    “I hear you saw Hank today.”
    “Oh that.”
    “Yeah, that.”
    “You don’t have to.”
    “But, I will. What would you like to hear about first?”
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    “Well, it all kind of goes together anyway.” Daphne paused, thinking of where to start. “The booze operation’s been going on for as long as I can remember. Hank and my daddy started it. When Daddy died, I guess Hank felt like Claude and I were owed our cut. He offered to buy us out or let us in. We decided to get in. Although we had a lot of land, we didn’t have a lot of money. The taxes way out here aren’t that much, but they were bigger than the money we had. And we wanted to keep the land. So, we worked it out. I won’t go into the details, but we all have our integral parts to the operation.”
    “What does all this have to do with Blanca and Chief Lee?”
    “A lot, really. Chief Lee was born and raised here in Miner’s Bluff. Officer Gomez was not. Both women were severe advocates of the law, following it to the letter. Blanca followed Chief Lee around like a puppy dog. She looked up to her like she was God or something. Now, like I said, Chief Lee was a ball-buster. She didn’t care who you were—if you broke the law—your ass was thrown in jail or you paid for it.”
    “But …” Cam said. “There’s always a but.”
    “But, being from Miner’s Bluff she had a blind spot for shine. It was a part of her upbringing. Truth be told, her parents put her through university with illegal liquor money. She was the kind of person who was so just, that she wouldn’t have been able to arrest you for something she did herself. Now, don’t get me wrong, she never ran it herself or took an immediate part in the operation, but she benefited from it and she knew it.”
    “And Blanca knew this?”
    “I don’t know. I do know that anytime Blanca wanted to bust somebody, Chief Lee found a reason to let them go, tip them off, or squash the idea. She tipped us off multiple times.”
    “And this got under Blanca’s skin.”
    “You bet it did. She didn’t understand. She thought it was dirty. Chief Lee just saw it as a way of life.”
    “And what does Billy Prescott have to do with all this?”
    “Billy Prescott is a money man. He wants to be the one with the most. He had a sense of what was going on. He wanted nothing more