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“No,” I said. “You set it up. You wanted Jim Pitts dead. You took his money with no intention of honoring your promise. You stole from him and now he was a liability. He might come looking for revenge for this father. For being ripped off. For what he knows about the Wolves from his father. All your dirt.”
“If I’d wanted him dead, I’d have killed him,” Pete said.
That had some truth to it, but I wasn’t buying the package.
“Why are you telling me this? You know I’ve got no leverage that can help you. You’re just jerking my chain.”
“I’m telling you this because I’m fucking tired of the suit people like Cash getting away with shit,” Pete said. “Cash Porter is a scumbag. He was a recreational user but now he’s heavy into coke since he has—had—a ready supply from me. And he’s got a gun, now.”
My ears perked up on that. “What kind of gun?”
“A nine millimeter,” Pete said.
Yeah, that’s what we needed, Cash Porter armed and stoned.
And after Liz.
“Why did he want the gun?”
“Because he’s getting paranoid as fuck,” Pete said. “And he should be. He’s playing a dangerous game.”
“If Cash was trying to get the money from Jim’s motorcycle, he didn’t,” I said. “It was still in there when we pulled the bike out of the ravine.”
“Cash is a fucking idiot and screwed it up,” Pete said.
I could envision Cash chasing Jim in a Vermillion truck, planning to pin him against the guard rail at the hairpin turn, but he’d hit Jim’s handlebar too soon. The momentum took Jim to his death. And there was no way Cash Porter was going to rappel into the ravine and get back up, even for two hundred thousand. Not in time to get away before someone investigated the accident.
“I still don’t buy it,” I said, trying to see how badly Pete hated Cash and entice him to say more. I found it a little odd that some of what Pete was saying could be used against him.
Before I could push further, Pete went on. “You know Jim and Mickey were hanging together after Mickey got out of prison, right? Family reunion. You know what that means? What else Jim had?”
“Thacker’s computer and cell phone,” I said.
“Bingo,” Pete said. “And Cash paid Mickey to kill Thacker to get them. But Mickey never gave them to Cash.”
“How do you know that?”
“Jim told me. The morning he died. He was asking me to set up a deal with Cash. Recoup the money he’d just given me by trading the computer and phone for the same amount. He’d been rethinking things.”
“You set him up to be killed.”
“Fuck you,” Pete said, but his heart wasn’t in it. His eyes were darting about exactly like what he was: a caged animal.
That meant Mickey had reneged on completing the deal with Cash. And that Pete had just lied to me. “I think you pushed Cash to do something about Jim Pitts. Not just the money. For leverage. Did Jim offer Thacker’s computer and phone? That’s the reason Cash paid Mickey to kill Thacker. A loose end that Cash needed to clean up. You told him that Jim had two hundred thousand but also the computer, right?” Except Jim hadn’t had the computer or phone on his bike. They were still out there.
“Does it matter?” Pete said.
“Why did Mickey try to burn down Porters garage?”
Pete didn’t really care. “Who the fuck knows? Cash probably paid him.” His eyes focused for a moment, and he looked into mine. “Take Cash Porter down.”
“Planning on it. You have any proof he went after Jim Pitts?”
“Several of my guys saw him take off out of here in that truck.”
“That’s not proof.”
“You’re the cop. Find more.”
