Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

their windowed upper halves, that they led out onto a long deck. Peering through, I spotted the yellow crime tape cordoning off one end of the deck and realized that it must mark the spot where Jack was supposed to have been shot.
    I tried to visualize the scene in my mind. Jack, leaning on the railing, smoking a cigarette and staring down into the lake, perhaps, someone pointing the gun at him and firing. The body slumps forward and the killer shoves it over the rail and into the lake below before making an escape. I noticed there appeared to be no exit from the deck other than into the casino. So the murderer had to have come back through this building. Unless he or she went down over the railing?
    Turning back to the room, I met the flat, impersonal eyes of the pit boss, watching me from the center of the nearest bank of blackjack tables. After a moment her gaze moved on, and I walked in that direction and sat down at an empty table.
    The dealer was a man in his twenties, clean-shaven, blond, wearing the uniform black suit and white shirt and smiling a meaningless smile as he took my money and exchanged it for chips. He shuffled and dealt; I got a jack and an ace-blackjack. I turned the cards over and he smiled, said, "Good job" with a slight Australian accent, and pushed my winnings at me.
    I let them ride and he dealt me a seven and a nine; I signaled for another card. It came up a five and I laughed.
    "Twenty-one it is." The dealer smiled his pleasant, professional smile again as he pushed more chips in my direction.
    I played several more hands and my luck held. I didn't hit twenty-one every time, but I continued to win. In ten minutes I had fifty extra dollars in front of me. Pushing a five-dollar chip toward the dealer as a tip, I asked him, "Did you see the man who was killed here last night?"
    Though my tone was casual, his eyes lost their bland expression and lifted to mine with some interest. "No, can't say that I did. But I wouldn't have, you know. We dealers rotate constantly, and we have to watch the play. I don't remember seeing him, anyway."
    "He was a friend of mine," I said. "I wondered if anybody saw him go out on the deck."
    "Not I.” He dealt me another hand, then offered, "You might ask the pit boss. The cops were talking to her about it-that's all I know."
    The pit boss had been in my mind ever since I saw her spot me at the door, and I asked the dealer, "Could you call her over?"
    "Sure." He took my bet-I'd lost this time-and spoke quietly, without removing his eyes from the table in front of him. "Cher."
    She appeared at his side instantly, her face wearing the same flat, impersonal, and alert expression it had when she saw me at the door. It was her job. To watch, to be aware.
    "Cher, this lady wants to know about the man who was killed last night."
    The woman's eyes shifted directly to my face as she sized me up. Cher seemed an inappropriate name. In her midforties, she was square of body and face, and her light brown suit had clearly been chosen for its conservative formality, rather than its ability to flatter. Her eyes were an opaque mud brown and she wore the sort of regulation makeup-matte foundation, medium rust-red lipstick-that implied she wasn't trying to improve her looks, merely appear conventional.
    "What's your interest?" she asked.
    "He was a friend of mine. Another friend of mine was with him, and the detectives are questioning her about it."
    "That the blonde?"
    "Yes."
    "What do you want to know?"
    "What you saw, I guess. Anything that might help explain how it happened."
    Cher regarded me quietly. It was her job to protect the house, and I supposed she was trying to decide if I was a threat. After a minute, she said, "The sheriff took my statement. I don't think it's any great secret. I didn't see the man go out on the deck. He could have gone out any of these doors"-she gestured at the three I'd noticed earlier-"and I probably wouldn't have noticed if he'd gone out the far one. I