Page 33 of His Road Dog

Chapter 12

Priest

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CURLEY CARRIED THEphone to the table. Priest kicked the cord out of the way.

"Razor's on Nicole." Curley leaned over and planted his hands on the back of a chair. "Aaron and Wyatt are hanging out at the casino without any Tarkio colors, trying to blend in. So far, they haven't caught sight of Jones and Hamilton."

The two thugs that were the muscle for Coveck, the money-man behind the scenes at Blackfoot Casino Resort, were also the most likely suspects for killing Guthrie. Coveck had a reputation of lending money to desperate men addicted to gambling, knowing he could use their inability to pay him back to his advantage.

From word on the street, Coveck rarely committed his crimes. He had Jones and Hamilton do his dirty work.

It only took him half a day to hear Coveck's name linked with Guthrie.

Roy Guthrie had owned the biggest car lot in Missoula. From outside appearances, he had enough dough to keep him in a nice house on Main Street, drive brand new cars around town, and spend the majority of his time belly high to the Black Jack table.

With the police in town not making any headway on Guthrie's murder, he'd done his own checking the last several days. A conversation with Scotty, who worked part-time between Riverside Bar and Guthrie's car lot, he found out two vehicles had come up missing on the lot a few days before the murder. A Cadillac and a Lincoln Continental. Scotty joked that Guthrie probably gambled them away before he sobered and spilled about the employees worried about losing their job if Guthrie's estate closed the business.

"We need to find the missing cars." He hooked his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. "I've got a gut feeling if we follow the trail, we'll find Guthrie's killer."

"I don't know, Prez." Paco grimaced. "This ain't our fight. We have nothing on the dead man. Tarkio steps in on someone else's problem, it's going to bring trouble down on us in a time when deliveries are high, and all our side businesses are paying off."

He'd never brought Tarkio into his personal problems. But it bothered him that a murder happened in Nicole's motel room. It could've been her who was there or if she'd been a few minutes earlier, she could've walked into a killing and ended up dead.

Despite his concern for her safety, there was something about how the crime was handled that alerted him to something more. Guthrie was a prestigious man in the community. He donated to the school. He had a fundraiser every year for the summer youth programs. He was well respected by his employees.

Yet there was no talk going around town about a killer in the area. People mostly discussed how sad it was to lose a good man, too early. Usually, if someone ended up murdered in Missoula, the citizens became paranoid and suspicious of everyone. Rumors lit the town like wildfire.

Even the police had handled the crime on fast-track. Guthrie's family member was able to place him in the ground with no autopsy.

Something wasn't right, and because Nicole was involved with Guthrie, he had a feeling whatever happened surrounding the guy she was seeing, it wasn't over.

The only way someone could be that protected and the crime kept lowkey would be if the person behind the hit were high up the totem pole and had the cops under his control. He could only name a half a dozen people in Missoula who could pull rank against the law.

"For now, we keep someone on Nicole and two members on Hamilton and Jones in case they split up." He stood from the table. "I'm going to ride over to the motel now. I'll watch her tonight. Send someone over at eight o'clock in the morning."

"Are you telling Nicole we're watching her back?" said Curley.

"No. There's no reason to upset her routine." He checked his watch. "Throw me one of those cell phones."

Paco tossed him a phone registered to some random person not affiliated with the club. "I've got the number for that one."

"Let the others know where I'll be."

"Will do." Paco wrote on the paper in front of him.

He left the meeting room and walked through the clubhouse. Last contact with Razor, he'd found out Nicole went to the laundromat earlier in the day and had stopped at the post office before going back to the motel.

It was all the downtime she spent alone that left him wondering how she kept herself busy. He'd never had that need to know more about a woman, beyond sexually.

Club women were indispensable. They needed something from him as much as he needed to get his nut off. Their emotions were guarded and never shared. It wasn't his job to make sure they were physically and emotionally stable away from the clubhouse.

But Nicole wasn't a club girl.

She'd shown up on her own, probably looking for music, dancing, and drinks—the same damn thing she could've found over at Riverside Bar or the Casino.

Tarkio Motorcycle club paid attention to local murders when blood wasn't on their hands. They had too many enemies. Unfortunately, if shit went down in town, it was usually Tarkio who was involved, and his club was smart enough not to get caught.

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